Tag: InternationalNews

{{European Union citizens travelling to another member state do not automatically have a right to social welfare benefits there, a lawyer at the EU’s top court said Tuesday.}}

Taking up a German complaint about what has become a hot button issue in European Parliament elections next weekend, the lawyer at the European Court of Justice was careful to stress that freedom of movement remains a core EU right.

A person and their family have the right to stay in another EU state for up to three months “as long as they do not become an unreasonable burden on the social welfare system of the host country,” Advocate General Melchior Wathelet wrote in an opinion.

“If such people wish to stay more than three months, they must have sufficient resources” to manage on their own, Wathelet said.

Commenting on the case of a Jobcentre in the east German city of Leipzig which had rejected a benefits request by a Romanian woman and her son, who was born in Germany, Wathelet said the authorities had the right to refuse.

“It is a matter of preventing abuse and a certain type of ‘social tourism,’” the lawyer said, using a phrase which has become politically highly charged in countries such as Britain, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, where resentment has grown against some EU immigrants seeking welfare payments.

Lumped together with benefit fraud, eurosceptic and parties to the right have made the issue a rallying call in the current election campaign.

Wathelet’s opinion is not binding on the ECJ but in about 80 percent of cases, the court will follow an Advocate General’s reasoning in the subsequent ruling.

wirestory

Thailand’s army declared martial law nationwide on Tuesday to restore order after six months of street protests that have left the country without a proper functioning government, but insisted the surprise intervention was not a military coup.

While troops patrolled parts of Bangkok and army spokesmen took to the airwaves, the caretaker government led by supporters of self-exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra said it was still running the country.

Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha said the military had stepped in to restore order and build investor confidence, and warned that troops would take action against anyone who used weapons and harmed civilians.

“We ask all sides to come and talk to find a way out for the country,” Prayuth told reporters after meeting directors of government agencies and other high-ranking officials.

Military officials said they were not interfering with the caretaker government, but ministers were not informed of the army’s plan before an announcement on television at 3 a.m. (2000 GMT on Monday) and Prayuth said martial law would be maintained until peace and order had been restored.

Twenty-eight people have been killed and 700 injured since the anti-government protests began in November last year.

The crisis is the latest installment of a near-decade-long power struggle between former telecoms tycoon Thaksin and the royalist establishment that has brought the country to the brink of recession and even raised fears of civil war.

agencies

{{Russia’s President Putin orders troops near Ukraine border to return “immediately” to their permanent bases}}

More to follow.

{{Police in southern New Zealand were left scratching their heads after a cat in the city of Dunedin deposited a five-gram bag of cannabis at its owner’s house, a local newspaper reported on Monday.}}

Dunedin Police Sergeant Reece Munro said a local woman had phoned the police station on Sunday evening to report that her cat had left a “bag of drugs” on the doorstep, according to the Otago Daily Times.

“You hear of cats bringing dead birds and rats home, but I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he told the newspaper.

Sergeant Munro said the origins of the cannabis, which had a street value of about $86, remained a mystery and investigations were continuing.

On the possibility of adding a feline drug-detecting division to the police force, Sergeant Munro said “this might be something police could explore in the future.”

– SAPA

{ Israel’s prime minister has distanced himself from a closed-door meeting that took place last week between Israel’s chief peace negotiator and the Palestinian president following the collapse of peace talks, an Israeli official said Sunday.}

The official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told negotiator Tzipi Livni she could only represent herself in the meeting, not the Israeli government. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

Israel suspended U.S.-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians last month after the Palestinian president reached a unity deal with his rival faction, the Islamic militant group Hamas.

The official said Netanyahu stressed to Livni that “Israel’s position as decided unanimously by the Cabinet is that the Israeli government will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, a terror organization committed to Israel’s destruction.”

The Palestinian split goes back to 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip after expelling the rival forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, dominated by his Fatah movement, now governs parts of the West Bank. After repeated attempts at reconciliation, the rival governments signed a pact last month calling for the two sides to form a unity government in June, and then hold new elections around year’s end.

A Palestinian official said Abbas met with Livni in London on Thursday, but would not disclose the content of the meeting. A spokeswoman for Livni could not be immediately reached.

Amram Mitzna, a lawmaker from Livni’s political party, told Army Radio that Livni had met with Abbas to discuss whether to renew peace talks. He said Livni had met U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in London before meeting Abbas.

Hawkish Israeli lawmakers on Sunday criticized Livni’s meeting.

“The gaps between the Israelis and the Palestinians are too big,” said Ayelet Shaked, a hard-line lawmaker in the governing coalition, on Army Radio. “A peace agreement won’t happen in the coming years.”

AP