Category: Rubrique

{{Prime Minister David Cameron has little hope of persuading other European Union states to return significant powers to Britain before a promised referendum on whether to stay in the bloc, a senior member of his pro-EU coalition partners said on Monday.}}

Business Secretary Vince Cable, one of the leading figures in the Europhile Liberal Democrats, said Cameron’s attempts to negotiate a new role for Britain would probably be blocked by other members of the 28-nation alliance.

Speaking at a debate on Britain’s future in Europe, Cable said Cameron would be better off working with other EU states to reform the bloc as a whole rather than seeking special treatment for London.

Cameron said in January he would agree a “new settlement” with the EU and hold an in/out referendum before the end of 2017, providing he wins the 2015 election.

That pledge helped appease anti-EU rebels in his Conservative Party who were challenging his authority and delivered a shot across the bows of the rising UK Independence Party, which wants to leave the bloc after 40 years.

But it upset some European partners, who warned Britain against “cherry picking” from EU rules, and prompted the United States, Japan and Australia to caution Britain about leaving.

“Fundamental renegotiation is very, very unlikely to produce any significant change,” Cable told an audience in the City of London’s Guildhall, an imposing medieval hall, surrounded by statues of British war heroes, including Winston Churchill and Admiral Nelson. “We should stay in and improve the system.”

Pressed if Germany, France and others would end up offering some concessions to Britain to hold on to one of its biggest members, Cable said: “I’m not certain they would.”

Pulling out of Europe would damage the economy, deter investors and undermine Britain’s standing, he added. It is the world’s sixth largest economy and has Europe’s biggest financial center.

Eurosceptics think Britain will cope outside the EU, a body they see as a wasteful and meddling threat to Britain’s sovereignty. They want to create a looser relationship based on trade or leave the bloc altogether.

Conservative lawmaker Jesse Norman said London’s finance industry could still prosper outside the EU due to its size, time zone and use of the English language. Britain could also improve trade with emerging markets, he added.

A poll suggested the “out” campaign has a narrow lead. Asked how they would vote in a referendum by researchers TNS BMRB, 43% said they would opt to leave and 39% wanted to stay.

{reuters}

{{Kremlin-backed candidate Sergei Sobyanin has won the election for mayor of Moscow, Russian election officials have announced.}}

Mr Sobyanin secured 51.3% – just above the 50% threshold needed to avoid a second-round ballot.

His main rival, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, polled 27.2%.

Mr Navalny called for a run-off and refused to recognise the results, saying they had been “deliberately falsified”.

Mr Navalny said he had won enough votes to force a second round and that the count had been marred by “many serious violations”.

But Moscow’s electoral commission said there had been no serious violations and a run-off would not take place.

With all the votes counted, the commission said turnout in the Moscow vote was a low 32%. The Communist candidate, Ivan Melnikov, came third with 10.7%.

Mr Sobyanin, once President Putin’s chief of staff, told supporters earlier the election had been transparent.

“We have something to be proud of,” he said at a late-night rally in Bolotnaya Square. “We have organised the most honest and open elections in the history of Moscow.”

wirestory

{{A senior Australian lawmaker in the ruling Labor Party says her party has lost Australia’s election.}}

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television after 13 percent of the votes were counted Saturday that her government’s loss was no longer in doubt.

She said: “I am a cautious person by nature, but I think that it’s pretty clear it’s a matter of the size of the victory” for the conservative Liberal Party-led coalition.

Plibersek’s concession backs all analysts and means a coalition victory is almost certain. Opinion polls and an early exit poll all predicted a resounding Liberal win.

A coalition victory would mean an end to six years of center-left Labor Party rule. The party has been marred by relentless infighting that left the public frustrated and disillusioned.

(AP)

{{Australian election frontrunner Tony Abbott Wednesday said Asia will be his top foreign policy priority if he wins office as the influential Fairfax Media turned on incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.}}

The conservative Abbott, whose diplomatic credentials came under fire this week after he said the Syria conflict was “baddies versus baddies”, is on track to win Saturday’s poll.

His first travel priorities would be Indonesia, China, Japan and South Korea, he said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, rather than Australia’s traditional and long-standing allies the United States and Britain.

”Only after our regional and trading partners have been suitably attended to would I make the traditional trips to Washington and London,” he said, adding that “in the end your focus has got to be on the relationships that need the most attention”.

”Decisions which impact on our national interests will be made in Jakarta, in Beijing, in Tokyo, in Seoul, as much as they will be made in Washington.

“There’s a sense in which we kind of know what the decisions in Washington or London will be. We can be less certain about decisions that might be made in Jakarta and Beijing.”

Abbott said his first trip would be to Indonesia.

“By virtue of its size, proximity, its developing power, overall it’s the most important country to Australia,” he said.

Abbott’s foreign policy credentials have been criticised during the election campaign, culminating this week when he said the escalating Syria conflict “is not goodies versus baddies, it is baddies versus baddies”.

Rudd, a former foreign minister, said the simplistic language trivialised the matter and demonstrated “that he is not competent and not comfortable with national security and foreign policy”.

Competent or not, it appears that Abbott is destined for high office with recent opinion polls putting his conservative coalition comfortably ahead of Labor.

Rudd’s task of hanging onto power has been made harder by the dominant media group, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, running a campaign against him, and the other major player Fairfax Media appeared to join their rival Wednesday.

In an interview with broadcaster ABC, Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett accused Rudd, who ousted Julia Gillard in a party room coup in June, of destabilising and damaging Labor.

“In my view, Kevin Rudd is a leader that has been really discredited by his own conduct,” he said.

“Here’s a man that has really done the Labor Party enormous damage, destabilised it and is now wishing to present himself to the Australian people as a prime minister… and as the incoming prime minister.

“I don’t think the Australian people will cop that, to be quite honest, and I think that’s very sad for the Labor Party.”

AFP

{{German Chancellor Angela Merkel and centre-left election rival Peer Steinbrueck are due to take part in their only televised election debate.}}

The event is seen as the Social Democrat (SPD) leader’s biggest chance to claw back Mrs Merkel’s lead in the opinion polls before this month’s vote.

Although the chancellor’s conservative bloc is expected to win, her coalition partners are faring poorly.

The 90-minute debate starts at 18:30 GMT and will be aired on main channels.

With three weeks to go before the 22 September vote, the two candidates will be grilled by four journalists before an estimated TV audience of up to 20 million.

Peer Steinbrueck will face the first question and Angela Merkel will have the final answer, with each answer limited to 90 seconds.

So far, there have been few campaign issues that have exposed major policy differences between the two figures and the parties have focused on their personalities.

Mr Steinbrueck is often witty but prone to gaffes, while Mrs Merkel often seems less than comfortable in the cut and thrust of live debatelocal media reports.

{agencies}