Category: News

{{ The International Monetary Fund expects to decide within weeks on issuing the second tranche of a $17-billion bailout to Ukraine, whose economy is likely to contract by 6.5 percent this year, its Kiev mission chief said on Friday.}}

Ukraine, which is fighting a pro-Russian separatist rebellion in the east, received $3.2 billion in May as the first tranche of the two-year aid package intended to shore up depleted foreign currency reserves and support the state budget.

“The mission has reached an understanding with the Ukrainian authorities on the policies necessary for the completion of the first review under the standby agreement… We expect this process to be completed within few weeks,” said mission chief Nikolay Gueorguiev.

He said the tranche could total $1.4 billion although his forecast that the Ukrainian economy would contract by 6.5 percent this year was a larger fall than the previously estimated 5-percent decline.

Ukraine’s economy stagnated in 2013. Economists have said its economy will slide deeper into recession this year, despite an IMF aid deal, as a pro-Russian rebellion cripples activity in the industrial east and scares off foreign investors.

The IMF approved its bailout for Ukraine in April to help the country’s economy recover after months of upheaval, unlocking further credits from other donors of about $15 billion.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on July 9 he expected Kiev to receive the second tranche because it was fulfilling all the criteria.

{{Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko chairs a meeting in Kiev July 17, 2014.}}
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{{Bolivia has lowered the legal working age to allow children to work from the age of 10 as long as they also attend school and are self-employed.}}

The law also permits 12-year-olds to be contracted to work for others. But they need parental authorisation.

Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera said the new legislation reflects the needs of Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in South America.

It also sets harsher punishment for violence against children.

The law sets a sentence of 30 years in jail for child homicide.

The measure, approved by Congress earlier this month, was signed into law by Mr Garcia in the absence of President Evo Morales, who was travelling to Brazil.

“President Evo [Morales] intervened to make sure we found a balance between the reality and the law, between rights and international treaties,” added Mr Garcia.

{{‘Other needs’}}

More than 500,000 children already work to supplement the family income in Bolivia according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

{{The Philippines is pushing for a meeting among four Southeast Asian nations with conflicting claims to waters in the South China Sea so that they can hammer out a common stand in dealings with China, Manila’s foreign minister said on Friday.}}

Manila is waging a territorial dispute with China over the Spratlys and the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, an area believed to be rich in oil and natural gas deposits as well as fisheries resources.

Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims in the sea, which is traversed each year by ship-borne trade worth about $5 trillion (£2.92 trillion).

Albert del Rosario said the Philippines wanted to hold talks with Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam before foreign ministers from regional grouping the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet for an annual conference in Myanmar next month.

“We are working towards having a possibility of claimants meeting before the ASEAN ministerial meetings,” Del Rosario told reporters after talks with Thailand’s acting foreign minister, Sihasak Phuangketkeow.

“We don’t have any dates yet and it’s a work in progress.”

Del Rosario also visited Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam early this month to drum up support for the meeting. Jakarta had a separate proposal for an ASEAN-China dialogue to defuse tension after Beijing placed an oil rig in a disputed waters in May.

China’s May 2 deployment of the rig in waters claimed by Vietnam set off deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam, followed by numerous ship collisions after scores of vessels from both countries regularly squared off around the platform.

China removed the oil rig this week after completing three months of exploration work. The rig’s departure was welcomed by Washington, which had decried its initial deployment as a “provocative” act.

{{At least 5,576 Iraqi civilians have been killed this year in violence, the United Nations said on Friday in the most detailed account yet of the impact of months of unrest culminating in an assault by Sunni militants through the north of the country.}}

At least 11,665 have been wounded since January, when Sunni insurgents led by al Qaeda offshoot now known as the Islamic State overran the city of Falluja in the western province of Anbar, the U.N. said in a report.

Last month, the insurgents seized swathes of northern Iraq, including the area’s largest city Mosul. Of the 2,400 people killed in June, 1,531 were civilians, the U.N. said earlier this month.

The report documents what it calls “systematic and egregious violations” of international law by the group now calling itself the Islamic State.

The U.N found the group had executed civilians, committed sexual violence against women and girls, carried out kidnappings and targeted assassinations of political, community, and religious leaders and killed children, among other violations.

The report also details violations committed by government forces and affiliated groups, citing “summary executions/extrajudicial killings of prisoners and detainees”,

which it said may constitute a war crime.

The U.N. noted that the “deteriorating security situation” had limited its ability to directly monitor and verify incidents.

More than 1.2 million people had been displaced since violence escalated last month, according to the report.

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