Monday, December 17, 2012
Nurse’s death left ‘unfillable void’
World leaders express shock over US shooting
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Thai PM joins India’s national day celebrations
India: Thailand's premier was guest of honour on Thursday at India's 63rd Republic Day celebrations, an annual display of the country's military might held amid tight security.
Yingluck Shinawatra, who flew to New Delhi on Monday, is making her first official visit to the country to promote trade, which the Asian partners hope to double to $14 billion by 2014 from its 2010 level.
Shinawatra, who became Thailand's first female prime minister in August, was seated with Pratibha Patil, India's first woman president and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as marching bands and military hardware filed past.
On Wednesday, Thailand and India agreed to speed up talks to achieve a bilateral free trade agreement by July.
Patil in an address on the eve of the celebrations said rampant poverty in India was a concern despite the country's robust economic growth, echoing recent comments from the prime minister.
“We are witness to the increasing influence of India and its steady economic growth, but there are many significant tasks that are yet to be accomplished, in particular the pledge to empower the poor and the marginalised sections,” she said.
During the ceremony, India put on display for the first time its Agni-IV missile which can carry a one-tonne nuclear warhead to a target some 3,500 kilometres (2,170 miles) away.
The two-stage Agni-IV, last tested in November 2011 is part of an Indian programme to build an array of weapons including nuclear-tipped inter-continental ballistic missiles.
The national ceremony later culminated in flypasts by US-built C-130J Super Hercules planes, Russian-supplied Sukhoi-30s, MiG-29 fighter jets, British-made Jaguar bomber aircraft and military helicopters.
India is upgrading its million-plus military with hardware worth tens of billions of dollars because of its long-standing tensions with regional rivals China and Pakistan.
Some 25,000 policemen, commandos and soldiers guarded the capital against possible attacks from militant groups while its skies were a no-fly zone for the duration of the celebrations, officials said.
Last September, 12 people died and nearly 80 others were wounded when a powerful bomb went off at the fortified Delhi High Court in the heart of the Indian capital. Troops were also out in strength on the streets of Indian-administered Kashmir to try to thwart anti-government protests by separatist groups who usually use the occasion to denounce rule by New Delhi.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Global business elite confronts crisis of Western capitalism
Over four decades, the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos has become an emblem of the triumphant market but this year delegates admitted that state capitalism on the Chinese model is in the ascendant.
Even political leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also said it was time for a rethink among European policy-makers.
Four days of public debate and private networking kicked off with a stark warning from a panel of experts that the historic motors of the 20th century global economy will have to reform or die.
“I think we have three to four years in the West to improve the economic model that we have, and if we don't do that soon I think we've lost the game,” warned David Rubenstein, managing director of the Carlyle investment fund.
The 62-year-old billionaire has done very well out of financial capitalism, the US firm paid him a $134 million annual bonus this month, but he warned that the West needs to get its deficits under control and return to growth.
“If we don't do that soon, when we are here in three to four years ... the game will be over for the type of capitalism that many of us have lived through and thought was the best type of capitalism,” Rubenstein said.
Global labour leader Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, urged corporations and governments to work with workers to develop a new economic model -- and warned of a backlash. “Let's get a seat at the table for the real economy. Will the real economy please stand up, because the financial markets are killing you,” she said. “No-one will like the social unrest that will follow.” But on the same panel, Professor Raghuram Rajan of University of Chicago, warned the 20th century strength of the western economy had already failed to live up to its promises to rich world workers. “Governments made a ton of promises in the 1960s, when growth was very high. We had the welfare state across the industrial world. And then growth started falling off in the 70s, in the 80s,” he said.
“Some countries, the UK and the US, tried to revive it through deregulation and managed for a while, but in general growth is too slow in the industrial world relative to the promises we have made,” he saidBritish TV star fights for life after caesarean section
One said: “It has been a really terrible time since the birth and Amanda’s been in a really bad way. It was touch and go at one point.
“She has only just begun to recover and so work and everything else is of no concern. We just want her to get better and to spend some time with Hollie.” It is believed she lost a lot of blood due to complications from a pre-existing condition. The baby’s birth was kept secret by Amanda’s family while she was so ill.
One source close to the stage and TV star said: “She has been brave and only began to show signs of recovery yesterday afternoon. Her condition is no longer critical but stable.” Amanda Holden arriving for the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women Awards
Amanda, who has had two miscarriages in two years, revealed after the birth of her first daughter Lexi that she suffered from placenta previa – a condition in which a low-lying placenta blocks the birth canal.
She is still in hospital and is expected to need weeks of rest to recover from her ordeal. It means she may miss the rest of the Britain’s Got Talent auditions, which end on February 19 in Birmingham. But she could make a triumphant return when the show’s live finals return in April.
A statement on behalf of Amanda and husband Chris Hughes confirmed that Hollie Rose was doing fine and that Amanda is expected to make a full recovery “very soon”.Wednesday, January 25, 2012
London’s Big Ben leaning, parliament sinking
UK: The landmark clock tower containing Big Ben at Britain's Palace of Westminster, is tilting, while media reports Monday said the mother of all parliaments was slipping into the River Thames, raising fears over its future. The House of Commons commission, which is responsible for the upkeep of the 19th century neo-Gothic parliamentary estate popular with tourist photographs, was due to meet Monday.
Media reports said it would discuss a surveyor's report which could recommend lawmakers move out for repairs costing up to one billion pounds, while the Daily Telegraph said another proposal might be to sell to Russian or Chinese developers for about 500 million pounds ($779.7 million). But a commission spokesman said there was no surveyor's report, and members were only meeting to discuss setting up a group to look at general long-term renovation of the grade 1-listed building designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin.
“I think there's been twos and twos added together and come up with we are selling to the Russians, but they won't be talking about anything like that,” the spokesman said.
The 96-metre tall clock tower, which houses the bell originally nicknamed Big Ben, leans about 46 cm to the left of its peak. A construction expert who worked on the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy and a multi-storey carpark under the houses of parliament in central London, said there was nothing to worry about, and it would take 10,000 years to reach an angle of concern.
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Floods in Australia
Australia: Thousands of Australians were evacuated yesterday, with dozens being rescued, as monsoonal rains sparked flash flooding and landslides and a cyclone threatened to form in the Pacific Ocean.
Emergency authorities ordered 4,200 residents of five towns in New South Wales to abandon their homes as a huge storm lashed northeast Australia, causing rivers to break their banks.
“Do not delay your evacuation. Roads will be congested or closed. You could become trapped and need rescue,” the NSW State Emergency Service saidWednesday, August 3, 2011
Top US officer in Iraq to push for troop decision
Iraq: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki voiced hope that a deal on the future of US troop presence in Iraq could be reached Tuesday as the top American military officer arrived to push for a quick decision.
The visit by Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes with months to go before a year-end deadline for the withdrawal of the 47,000-odd American soldiers currently stationed in Iraq.
"The point is we're at a deadline, and we need an answer," Mullen told accompanying journalists, according to the Pentagon.
Mullen arrived Monday at a US base on the outskirts of the northern city of Mosul before heading to Baghdad.
US officials have pressed their Iraqi counterparts to decide quickly whether they want US troops to remain in Iraq beyond the year-end deadline, including during a visit in July by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.
Proposals for a training mission are gaining traction among Iraqi leaders, although nothing yet has been agreed.
Egypt army attacks protesters in Cairo
EGYPT: At least 200 protesters have been injured as violent clashes erupted between Egyptian security forces and demonstrators camped out in the capital's landmark Liberation Square.
The clashes erupted when security forces entered the square to disperse protesters who have stayed there for over three weeks.
Dozens of troops entered the square with military vehicles and managed to open the square to traffic.
Witnesses say the troops fired into air and used live ammunitions in a bid to break up the demonstrations. Some reports say at least 200 protesters have been injured. Some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.
The protesters have been calling for an end to the military rule.The protesters are calling for swift change and the ouster of military rulers who have replaced the former dictator Hosni Mubarak. One of their key demands is the swift trial of former regime members involved in the killing of protesters during the revolution.
They are also calling on de facto president and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to step down.
Egypt army attacks protesters in Cairo
EGYPT: At least 200 protesters have been injured as violent clashes erupted between Egyptian security forces and demonstrators camped out in the capital's landmark Liberation Square.
The clashes erupted when security forces entered the square to disperse protesters who have stayed there for over three weeks.
Dozens of troops entered the square with military vehicles and managed to open the square to traffic.
Witnesses say the troops fired into air and used live ammunitions in a bid to break up the demonstrations. Some reports say at least 200 protesters have been injured. Some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.
The protesters have been calling for an end to the military rule.The protesters are calling for swift change and the ouster of military rulers who have replaced the former dictator Hosni Mubarak. One of their key demands is the swift trial of former regime members involved in the killing of protesters during the revolution.
They are also calling on de facto president and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to step down.
Bill passed to prevent US debt default
US: The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed bitterly fought, compromise debt-limit legislation Monday night that would prevent a U.S. default on its obligations but at a cost of deep cuts in government spending. The measure still must gain approval in the Senate before it goes to the White House where President Barack Obama has promised to sign it into law. It passed the House 269-161.
Passage in the Senate was seen as nearly certain. The upper chamber was slated to vote on it at noon Tuesday, just hours before the midnight deadline for lifting the $14.3 trillion cap U.S. borrowing.
First Read: CBO scores deficit reduction plan Other political news of note Debt deal puts off major changes to the future
A tentative deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending by trillions of dollars over the next decade could have a significant impact on Americans’ lives — sometime down the road. House passes debt ceiling bill Giffords returns to DC for debt deal vote Analysis: Debt deal sets up tax fight First Read: CBO scores deficit reduction plan In the minutes before the legislation won approval, applause rang out through the lower chamber as Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords made a dramatic appearance on the House floor, her first since she was shot during a meeting with constituents at a Tucson, Arizona, shopping center in January.
World warned of Africa crisis before -UN
UN: The United Nations says it has been warning the world for a year about the possibility of famine and a massive humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. It was less than two weeks ago that UN officials were alerting world bodies about famine in two areas of Somalia and the critical situation of Somali refugees, who fled to neighboring Kenya, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.
The situation is slipping further into chaos with 12.4 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti in dire need of help, according to UN statistics. “Our early warning system worked and we sounded the alarm last year when we appealed for 1.6 billion dollars to tackle the situation,” said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Valerie Amos.
Droughts in the Horn of Africa are not uncommon, but decades of power struggle among Somali warlords, an Ethiopian invasion and US actions and alliances against the al-Shabaab group have destabilized the area to the point of extreme vulnerability.
Karachi violence kills 35
At least 35 people were killed in 24 hours in Karachi, officials said Tuesday. Authorities have struggled to end nightly gunbattles raging across the country’s financial capital, with political, ethnic and criminal rivalries leaving more than 200 people dead last month.
Much of the fighting has been blamed on supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), based among the Urdu-speaking majority, and the rival Awami National Party (ANP), which represents ethnic Pashtun migrants.
Hundreds of extra police and paramilitary troops have been deployed on the streets of Karachi, a diverse and congested port city of about 17 million people, but the cycle of civil strife has worsened in recent weeks.
“Our figures show that during the last 24 hours, 35 people have died in the violence, many of whom died in shootings overnight,” provincial home department official Sharfuddin Memon told AFP on Tuesday.
Interior minister Rehman Malik said aerial surveillance would start over the city’s most troubled neighbourhoods.
“We have ordered surveillance planes to be brought to Karachi for locating and weeding out the killers, who have let loose a reign of terror and bloodshed in the city,” Malik said in a statement on Tuesday.
Memon said gunfire could be heard on Tuesday in one of the worst-affected districts, the Surjani neighbourhood, which is a stronghold of criminal gangs.
“The criminals want to destabilise the efforts for a permanent peace in the city,” he said.
A security official confirmed the latest death toll.
Police officers said dozens of motorcycles were set alight inside a factory and a roadside restaurant and several vehicles were also torched.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in a recent report described Karachi as being in the grip of political, ethnic and sectarian “polarisation”.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Schoolgirl bullied over appearance wins modelling contract
UK: A schoolgirl who took up modelling after she was bullied about her appearance has landed a modelling contract.
Ellie Burton, 14, was persuaded to take up modelling by her mother after a group of cruel school bullies left her with low self-esteem.
The teenager signed up with a local modelling agency and was stunned when she was invited to take part in a casting for Marks & Spencer.
Ellie beat hundreds of other youngsters and impressed judges so much that she was invited to model the department store’s Back To School range.
Norway police to interview gunman on new leads
NORWAY: Norwegian police said they will question Anders Behring Breivik again on Friday as new information emerged about his killing spree and prosecutors said he would not go on trial before 2012.
This will be the second time that police interrogate the far-right extremist since Saturday, the morning after his shooting rampage on Utoeya island and the bomb blast in downtown Oslo that killed 76 people altogether. Police official Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said officers will question Behring Breivik on "information received over the last few days - which is a lot," although he did not elaborate.
European counter-terrorism experts met in Brussels to look at lessons that can be drawn from the attacks, and an Oslo gun club said Behring Breivik had been a member since 2005.
China protests US spy flights
CHINA: China has called on the United States to stop flying its spy planes near the Chinese coast, saying the move has severely damaged the trust between Beijing and Washington. “We demand that the US respect China’s sovereignty and security interests and take concrete measures to boost a healthy and stable development of military relations,” the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, AFP reported. The comments came after reports said two Chinese fighter jets attempted to scare off an American spy plane over the Taiwan Strait in late June.
The report said the American plane was collecting intelligence on China.
Relations between China and the US have become strained over a number of issues.
China has already reduced its military cooperation with the Pentagon over the USD 6.4-billion US arms sales to Taiwan, which China considers as part of its territory.
Beijing has in response imposed unspecified sanctions on US firms selling weapons to Taiwan.
Meanwhile, China is reportedly developing game-changing stealth aircrafts and advanced naval missiles that can pave the way for ending the US dominance at sea.
A powerful military could also revolutionize China’s role in the Pacific balance of power and would make it risky for the US to intervene in any potential dispute over Taiwan or North Korea.
‘Iran fully monitors cyberspace’
IRAN: Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi says Iran fully monitors cyberspace in order to counter soft war attacks against the Islamic Republic. Iran is well prepared, from a technical standpoint, to counter the enemy’s soft warfare against the Islamic Republic in the cyberspace, Moslehi told reporters, IRIB reported Thursday.
He went on to say US President Barack Obama has admitted that the cyber war against Iran has not been successful. Obama made the remark in a US Congress session questioning him on Washington’s cyber performance, as well as on a number of other occasions.
Obama personally introduced the cyber war plan against Iran, but the Islamic Republic monitors the US measures in this regard and has developed countermeasures, the Iranian minister said.
Moslehi noted that the global arrogance has also plotted anti-Iran schemes in the field of social networks, has sent individuals to the Islamic Republic in this regard, and even intends to use Iran’s neighboring countries in forming social networks.
Such activities are, however, closely monitored by Iran’s intelligence forces, Moslehi pointed out.
The remarks come as the United States is actively developing a secret cyber project, a device labeled “Internet in a suitcase.”
“Internet in a suitcase” could be smuggled across a border and contains all the necessary hardware and networking devices to promptly establish a wireless network over a large area that can connect to the global Internet.
American media reports claimed the US State Department has allocated USD 2 million to the project. Deputy Head of Iran’s Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said in June that Iran plans to establish its first cyber command for the country’s Armed Forces in order to counter ‘soft warfare’ against the country.
Jazayeri said that comprehensive studies on the cyber command have already been carried out and the results will soon be rendered to the Iranian Armed Forces.
Panetta worked closely with Israeli intelligence when he was in charge of the CIA.
Pakistan foreign minister prays at Indian shrine
INDIA: Pakistan’s foreign minister visited a revered shrine in India on Thursday where she reportedly prayed to further improve ties in nuclear-armed South Asia. The 34-year-old Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s first female and youngest top diplomat, spent 25 minutes at the mosque in the town of Ajmer in India’s Rajasthan state.
“I prayed for peace and harmony between India and Pakistan,” local media reported Khar as saying after leaving the shrine in Ajmer, some 230 kilometres (140 miles) from Jodhpur, also in Rajasthan.
“I came to try and strengthen relations between India and Pakistan and there is a need for more efforts to reinforce these ties,” Khar said, a day after she held peace talks in New Delhi.
Khar and her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna on Wednesday insisted that vexed relations between the countries were back on track that underlined a “new era” of cooperation.
It was the first meeting of the rivals’ foreign ministers for a year, and followed the formal resumption in February of the comprehensive peace dialogue suspended by India after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, which remains a hurdle in any future peace deal.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Suspect detained in laser attacks at Russian airport
Russia: A suspect has been detained on suspicion of blinding pilots of passenger airplanes with laser beams near the Rostov-on-Don airport, police spokesman Alexei Polyansky said Monday. Polyansky did not identify the suspect, but Interfax said he was 22 and had denied blinding anyone. He was released shortly after his detention Sunday, and the case remains under investigation, Interfax said.
The police received a tip from residents who saw the man shining a laser beam toward the Rostov-on-Don airport, the report said.
Five laser attacks, one of which targeted a police helicopter, have been registered in Rostov-on-Don this month, with the last two occurring Thursday night, Polyansky said by telephone.
Polyansky said punishment in these types of cases depended on the motive. He could not say exactly what kind of punishment would await anyone who blinded pilots on purpose, adding that a court would have to decide that.
Since January, the number of registered incidents across Russia has reached 45, compared with the five reports in 2010, Federal Air Transportation Agency spokesman Sergei Izvolsky said by telephone.
Most of the incidents occurred in Rostov-on-Don and Moscow’s Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports. Though none of the reported incidents ended badly, the growing trend of laser beam attacks, which are familiar to the airports in the United States and Europe, has been a growing concern for the Federal Air Transportation Agency.
Troops join massive S Korea clean-up after 44 die
S.Korea: Tens of thousands of South Korean troops joined a massive clean-up Thursday after record-breaking rainfall killed at least 44 people, flooded hundreds of homes and turned main roads into muddy rivers. Some 40,000 soldiers with heavy equipment have joined more than 4,000 police in recovery efforts, the defence ministry said.
“Since this is such a big disaster... we will deploy as many as possible as long as it does not hamper normal military operations,” a spokesman told AFP.
The capital Seoul, where some 10 million people live, was hit by 473.5 millimetres (nearly 19 inches) of rain on Tuesday, Wednesday and early Thursday.
Wednesday’s deluge of 301.5 mm was the highest July daily figure since records began and turned main roads in Seoul into rivers of churning, muddy water dotted with the roofs of submerged cars. Drivers abandoned vehicles to run to safety.
Sixteen people were killed in southern Seoul after landslides from Mount Umyeon hit nearby leafy residential areas, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said.
Thirteen people including 10 student volunteers died in the Chuncheon area, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital, early Wednesday after mudslides from a nearby mountain hit an inn and several homes.
Landslides and a swollen river killed 15 people in Gyeonggi province, which surrounds the capital.
Five people were still missing in Seoul and nearby regions, NEMA said. About 1,370 homes and 645 hectares (1,593 acres) of farmland were inundated, forcing more than 4,900 people to flee their homes. More than 1,000 of them spent Wednesday night in schools and churches.
Most roads were reopened Thursday as the deluge turned to drizzle. But 32 roads and bridges in and around Seoul were still closed as the clean-up began.
Mechanical diggers clawed away at a mass of fallen branches and mud while soldiers and others hauled debris away, TV pictures showed.
The defence ministry said it was still searching for about 10 land mines that had been planted to protect an air defence artillery unit on Mount Umyeon, but which were dislodged by the landslide.
