IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • Colombian Novelist Marquez Dies Age 87

    Colombian Novelist Marquez Dies Age 87

    {{Garcia Marquez a Colombian author died at his home in Mexico City, where he had returned from hospital last week after a bout of pneumonia.}}

    Marquez was a prolific writer who started out as a newspaper reporter, Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece was “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” a dream-like, dynastic epic that helped him win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

    Known affectionately to friends and fans as “Gabo,” Garcia Marquez was Latin America’s best-known and most beloved author and his books have sold in the tens of millions.

    Although he produced stories, essays and several short novels such as “Leaf Storm” and “No One Writes to the Colonel” early in his career, he struggled for years to find his voice as a novelist.

    He then found it in dramatic fashion with “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” an instant success on publication in 1967. Mexican author Carlos Fuentes dubbed it “Latin America’s Don Quixote” and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda also compared it to Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th century tour de force.

    Garcia Marquez’s novel tells the story of seven generations of the Buendia family in the fictional village of Macondo, based on the languid town of Aracataca close to Colombia’s Caribbean coast where he was born on March 6, 1927, and raised by his maternal grandparents.

    In it, Garcia Marquez combines miraculous and supernatural events with the details of everyday life and the political realities of Latin America. The characters are visited by ghosts, a plague of insomnia envelops Macondo, swarms of yellow butterflies mark the arrival of a woman’s lover, a child is born with a pig’s tail and a priest levitates above the ground.

    At times comical and bawdy, and at others tragic, it sold over 30 million copies, was published in dozens of languages and helped fuel a boom in Latin American fiction.

    A stocky man with a quick smile, thick mustache and curly hair, Garcia Marquez said he found inspiration for the novel by drawing on childhood memories of his grandmother’s stories – laced with folklore and superstition but delivered with the straightest of faces.

    “She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness,” he said in a 1981 interview. “I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself, and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face.”

    Although “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was his most popular creation, other classics from Garcia Marquez included “Autumn of the Patriarch”, “Love in the Time of Cholera” and “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”.

    Tributes poured in following his death.

    “The world has lost one of its greatest visionary writers – and one of my favorites from the time I was young,” said U.S. President Barack Obama.

    “Your life, dear Gabo, will be remembered by all of us as a unique and singular gift, and as the most original story of all,” Colombian pop star Shakira wrote on her website alongside a photograph of her hugging Garcia Marquez.

    In Aracataca, a lone trumpet played on Thursday night as residents held a candlelight vigil for the man who made the town famous.

    additional reporting Reuters

  • Real Madrid Beat Barcelona to Lift Copa del Rey

    Real Madrid Beat Barcelona to Lift Copa del Rey

    {{Welshman Gareth Bale scored a stunning winner as Real Madrid beat old foes Barcelona 2-1 in the final of Spain’s Copa del Rey on Wednesday.}}

    A trademark Bale gallop and goal sealed a 19th Copa del Rey title for Real Madrid at Valencia’s Mestalla stadium.

    The Welshman filled the void left by the injured Cristiano Ronaldo to score his first goal in three “Classicos” against Barcelona, and thereby claim his first career trophy.

    Madrid led for most of the game thanks to Angel Di Maria’s 11th-minute goal, but Marc Bartra headed Barcelona level in the 67th.

    Barcelona star Neymar thought he had brought it back to 2-2 as the match drew to a close but his shot came back off the post and into the hands of Madrid keeper Iker Casillas.

    The loss is a blow for Barcelona, with the Catalan club eliminated from the Champions League and its domestic league title defence in danger.

    Real on the other hand are still in the Champions League — they play holders Bayern Munich in the semi-finals next week — and are second in La Liga, three points behind city rivals Atletico Madrid.

    {france24}

  • China President to Replace Corrupt Officials with Loyalists

    China President to Replace Corrupt Officials with Loyalists

    {{Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to use a purge of senior officials suspected of corruption to put his own men and reform-minded bureaucrats into key positions across the Communist Party, the government and the military, sources said.}}

    Xi hopes that removing corrupt officials and those resisting change will allow him to consolidate his grip on power and implement difficult economic, judicial and military reforms that he believes are vital to perpetuate one-party rule, said the sources, who have ties to the leadership.

    In the most far-reaching example of his intentions, Xi plans to promote about 200 progressive officials from the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, where he served as party boss from 2002 to 2007, to senior positions across the spectrum in the years ahead, two of them said.

    “The anti-corruption (drive) is a means to an end. The goal is to promote his own men and like-minded officials to key positions to push through reforms,” said one source.

    To be sure, Xi is also tackling endemic corruption to try to restore public faith in the party, other sources said.

    The seven sources interviewed for this article sought anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics.

    The biggest investigation Xi has ordered so far revolves around retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is under virtual house arrest.

    Reuters reported on March 30 that more than 300 of Zhou’s allies, proteges, staff and relatives had been taken into custody or questioned since late last year as part of China’s biggest graft scandal in six decades.

    The government has yet to make any statement about Zhou, who retired in late 2012 from the Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China, or the case against him. It has also not been possible to contact Zhou, his family, associates or staff for comment. It is not clear if any of them have lawyers.

    Another source who met Xi in private this year quoted him as saying implementing reforms had been “very difficult” due to opposition from state-owned enterprises along with influential party elders and their children, known as “princelings”.

    State-owned firms and princelings in business enjoy many privileges and virtually monopolize certain sectors, something at odds with China’s efforts to steer its economy away from a reliance on heavy industry and investment to one driven more by consumption and innovation.

    On the judicial front, Xi has overseen reforms that limit the ability of the party to interfere in most court cases – apart from politically sensitive ones – but more still needs to be done to deal with frequent miscarriages of justice that outrage the public, legal experts said.

    While Xi appears set on driving reform on many fronts, human rights activists have said major political change was not on his agenda. For example, authorities have increased controls over the local media and prominent bloggers in the past year.

    {reuters}

  • EU’s first Sentinel satellite images Earth

    EU’s first Sentinel satellite images Earth

    {Sentinel-1a radar satellite }

    {{The European Union’s new Sentinel-1a radar satellite has returned its first images of Earth.}}

    Launched on 3 April, the spacecraft is part of a fleet of orbiting sensors that will go up over the next few years to monitor the state of the planet.

    Its maiden pictures depict Brussels, flooding in Namibia and one of the mightiest ice features on Earth – Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.

    The images give a flavour of the sort of work Sentinel-1a will be doing.

    Radar data is particularly useful for urban planning purposes, for making maps following natural disasters, and for monitoring remote locations such as polar ice fields.

    The sample of images released by the European Space Agency (Esa) is just a taster. The satellite’s imager will require further calibration before full operational service can begin in about three months’ time.

    “It’s going fine; the satellite is performing really well – as you can tell from the new images,” confirmed Ian Shurmer, who leads the team that is operating the Sentinel from Esa’s “mission control” in Darmstadt, Germany.

    “We took the very first image just three days after launch, but that was just a functional test. We’re now operating the Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument on a daily basis, with the input of [the mission planners].”

    One task requiring attention is a refinement of the Sentinel’s near-700km-high orbit.

    It is a few kilometres lower than perfect in its semi-major axis, but Shurmer’s team can easily fix this with a sequence of firings on the spacecraft’s thrusters.

    And in what is a sign of the times, the engineers have already had to manoeuvre Sentinel-1a to avoid the possibility of a collision with a defunct American satellite.

    Space debris is a growing problem, and Esa’s operations teams have to be alert to other objects moving through their orbits.

    “Maybe once or twice a year, you have to give yourself a little nudge to get out of the way of something,” explained Shurmer. “We just pushed Sentinel-1a down by about 50m to make sure nothing happened.”

    {wirestory}

  • President Putin Hosts Marathon Call-In on Russian Television

    President Putin Hosts Marathon Call-In on Russian Television

    {{Ukraine and high housing bills are expected to be among the top issues on President Vladimir Putin’s live call-in show Thursday when he answers questions from across Russia and perhaps as far afield as Alaska. }}

    12:48 p.m. – Putin is asked whether Russia would consider strengthening its relations with China with a political union. He expresses his doubts on the creation of a new political bloc, but says the countries are neighbors and allies.

    12:44 p.m. – Putin says he resents the fact Yanukovych fled Kiev following mass protests.

    12:40 p.m. – Putin said Berkut fulfilled its professional obligations in an honorable manner and Ukraine is wrong in its treatment of these “professionals.”

    12:38 p.m. – A former member of Ukraine’s Berkut, the riot police force which was disbanded after the ouster of Yanukovych, asks Putin whether Yanukovych has “always been a traitor.”

    12:36 p.m. – The commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Alexander Vitko, asks Putin whether Russia will develop a training program for the military in Crimea.

    12:36 p.m. – Putin says that Russian soldiers in Crimea conducted themselves in a “professional” manner. He also repeats that the peninsula’s referendum on joining Russia was legitimate and transparent.

    12:29 p.m. – Putin says Crimea is a place for “tourism” but has large potential to prosper in other economic sectors as well.

    12:25 p.m. – Putin refers to the Ukrainian authorities as “our Ukrainian partners.” He also says Crimeans’ pensions will be raised “step by step.” Putin says he hopes Crimeans will feel the material benefits of having joined Russia.

    12:23 p.m. – A man from Sevastopol thanks Putin for having returned Crimeans to the “Motherland.” The crowd in the background chants: “Thank you, thank you!”

    12:19 p.m. – An elderly woman tells Putin that the situation in Ukraine has created new political divisions, as well as division within families. Putin says Russia was always close to Ukraine in the past and will maintain close ties to the country in the future.

    12:17 p.m. – Question three: A citizen of Sevastopol asks Putin what will happen with funding for the Black Sea Fleet. Putin says some of Novorossyisk’s fleet would be moved to the city.

    12:15 p.m. – The broadcast takes an elaborate video question from Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Hundreds of people gathered on the waterfront say that they voted in favor of joining Russia.

    12:12 p.m. – Putin says Russian action in Ukraine was not planned. He says Russia’s actions stemmed from the necessity to respond to a “security” situation. Putin says that he waited for the results of the Crimean referendum to conclude the “will” of the people was to be part of Russia.

    12:11 p.m. – The threat to the Russian-speaking population was real, Putin says. Putin says the threat was the basis for Crimeans’ desire to join Russia. “We wanted our Russians to live in comfortable political circumstances, where they are not under threat.”

    12:08 p.m. – “We need to talk to the people, to speak with legitimate representatives,” Putin says. Putin says dialogue and democratic procedures are the only way out of the conflict. Question two: What is your reaction to allegations that there are Russian agitators in eastern Ukraine? “Nonsense,” Putin says. “There are no Russian operatives in Ukraine.”

    12:06 p.m. – Putin enumerates the reasons for discontent in Ukraine, including the new Ukrainian government’s withdrawal of the law on minority language. “We need to think how we can get out of this situation,” Putin says.

    12:05 p.m. – Putin calls the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych “unconstitutional.”

    12:04 p.m. – Putin says that the signing of an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU would have undermined Ukraine’s economic and political position.

    12:03 p.m. – Putin gets asked his first question: What is your assessment of the situation in eastern Ukraine?

    12.02 p.m. – More than 2 million questions have been submitted, one of the moderators says.

    12.01 .p.m. – President Vladimir Putin walks onto the stage, shakes hands with the show’s moderators. The studio audience greets him with polite applause.

    12.00 p.m. – In Sevastopol, people are lining up to watch together

    Ukraine and Crimea dominate the 10 most popular questions published on the call-in show’s official website. People are asking Putin how he will deal with “further worsening of the crisis in Ukraine,” how he can help residents of Crimea obtain Russian passports, and — in a jab at the West — how he is “able to keep a clear head amid an incoming barrage of lies and unjustified accusations.”

    On domestic issues, people are more worried about housing than the weakening ruble, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

    “Housing is the scourge of all Russia,” Peskov said on Rossia 24 state television on Wednesday night. “People from different regions are dissatisfied with how much they have to pay for housing and utilities and what they have to pay.”

    He said people were less worried about the ruble, which has lost 8.7 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since January.

    Putin will be accepting questions submitted by the official website, as well as by text message, telephone, a special cell phone app, and a live video link from Sevastopol, the Black Sea port in Crimea that Russia annexed last month. The Kremlin also has sought questions from politicians and regular people in the U.S. state of Alaska, according to Canadian news site Eye on the Arctic.

    After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which the Kremlin said corrected a “historical mistake,” some in Russia would like to see the divide with Alaska eliminated by having Russia stake a new claim on the territory, which Tsar Alexander II sold to the U.S. for $7.2 million in 1867.

  • Argentina Girl Kept For 9 Years in Garage Rescued

    Argentina Girl Kept For 9 Years in Garage Rescued

    {{Police in Argentina say they have rescued a 15-year-old girl who had been starved, beaten and kept in a garage for nine years by her foster parents.}}

    The girl weighed only 20 kilos (44 pounds), and said she had been fed only bread and water in her captivity.

    Her only company had been that of a dog and a monkey, and she said she was beaten with a belt if she tried to eat the leftover food thrown to the pets.

    Her carers have been arrested and charged with slavery and abuse.

    The teenager was found in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, by one of her biological sisters, who had lost track of her.

    The girl, who has been hospitalised, said she had been out of the garage only twice in nine years.

    According to officials, her foster parents took the girl into care provisionally in 2001 after a court found that her biological parents, who had seven more children, were financially unable to look after her.

    At first, the two families kept in contact, but it is unclear what happened after 2005 and why her biological family reportedly lost track of the girl.

    Her foster parents were waiting for the girl’s adoption papers to be finalised.

  • US Airways Tweets Porn Photo,Apologises

    US Airways Tweets Porn Photo,Apologises

    {{US Airways has apologised after an explicit photo was sent from its official Twitter account in response to a customer complaint.}}

    It said in a statement that it was trying to flag the image as inappropriate but instead mistakenly included it in a message.

    The tweet was deleted after approximately an hour but not before it had been retweeted hundreds of times.

    The airline said it regretted the error and was reviewing its processes.

    The image, which featured a naked woman and a toy plane, had originally been sent to the company’s Twitter account by another user, it said.

    It was then attached to a tweet that was sent to a US Airways customer who had taken to the social network to express her frustration that her flight was delayed.

    Once the mistake had been realised US Airways deleted the offending tweet and issued an apology.

    “We apologise for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating,” it said on its Twitter feed.

    The company has more than 420,000 followers on its Twitter account and has not tweeted since.

    BBC

  • EU Blacklist to Stop Spread of Alien Species

    EU Blacklist to Stop Spread of Alien Species

    {{The European Parliament is voting on a bill to draw up a blacklist to fight invasive alien species such as killer shrimp and Japanese knotweed spreading.}}

    There will be a ban on the possession, transport, selling or growing of species deemed as of “Union Concern”.

    The list was going to be restricted to 50, but will now have no limit. It is not clear which species will be banned.

    A deal between EU member states effectively means the bill will pass and become law within a few months.

    This comes as MPs slam current government policy on controlling alien species as “not fit for purpose”.

    {{Biodiversity loss}}

    The economic and ecological damage caused by non-native species such as the so-called killer shrimp and demon shrimp originally from the Black Sea, the Asian Harlequin ladybird or Japanese knotweed are estimated to cost Europe some 12bn euros every year.

    In the UK the bill is at least £1.7bn.

    Experts say such insects, plants and animals are one of the major causes of biodiversity loss and species extinction.

    They can also spread disease and cause health problems such as asthma, dermatitis and allergies.

    The new law will require member states to analyse how troublesome species enter the country and to improve surveillance systems.

    Official checks at EU borders will be stepped up. Action plans on how to manage established invasive species also have to be developed.

    MEP Pavel Poc, who is guiding the legislation through the European Parliament, said: “Efforts are very often not effective simply because those species do not respect geographical boundaries. Co-operation between member states is therefore crucial.”

    BBC

  • Injured Ronaldo Out of Cup Final

    Injured Ronaldo Out of Cup Final

    {{Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo will miss his side’s Copa del Rey final against rivals Barcelona on Wednesday.

    Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti confirmed that Ronaldo, 29, would not play in Valencia because of a hamstring injury.}}

    “Cristiano is not available because we don’t want to take risks and we have other very important games to come this season,” said Ancelotti.

    Madrid face holders Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Wednesday, 23 April.

    Ronaldo has missed Real’s last three games with the injury but Ancelotti believes his side will be able to cope in the final, having lost just one of the 10 games the World Player of the Year has missed this season.

    “We are going to lose a player with an incredible quality, but his absence has provided motivation for the team to run more and play more as a team,” added Ancelotti.

    Madrid have lost twice to Barcelona in their league meetings this season but those results have been high points in a disappointing campaign for the Catalans.

    Barcelona are third in La Liga – behind Real and leaders Atletico Madrid – following a shock defeat by Granada last weekend and last week went out of the Champions League to Atletico.

    That was the first time in seven seasons Barcelona, who have also been hit by a transfer ban by Fifa, had failed to reach the Champions League semi-finals but midfielder Andres Iniesta is hoping to to add to their record tally of 26 Copa del Rey wins.

    “We would all like to live in a world of roses where everything is wonderful, but reality is not like that,” said the Spain international.

    “This is a title, it is something for the fans and us to cheer.”

    Barcelona coach Gerardo Martino has defensive problems with Gerard Pique, Marc Bartra and Carles Puyol all serious doubts.

    As well as Ronaldo, Madrid are likely to be without Brazilian full-back Marcelo but central defender Sergio Ramos is expected to play after recovering from a neck injury.

    {sportsnews}

  • Euro Zone Inflation Stuck in ‘Danger Zone’

    Euro Zone Inflation Stuck in ‘Danger Zone’

    {{A shock drop in March euro zone inflation to its lowest level since November 2009 was confirmed on Wednesday, keeping pressure on the European Central Bank to intervene should prices not rebound.}}

    The year-on-year inflation rate in the 18 countries sharing the euro was 0.5 percent in March against 0.7 percent in February, the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said.

    The biggest rise in prices was observed for tobacco, restaurants and bars as well as milk, cheese and eggs, while lower prices were recorded for heating oil, telecommunications and fuel.

    There was a stark disparity across the euro zone with countries such as Greece (-1.5 pct) and Cyprus (-0.9 pct) seeing their prices fall compared to last year.

    Inflation rates in Austria (+1.4 pct), Malta (+1.4 pct) and Germany (+0.9 pct) were nearer to the ECB’s target of close to but below 2 percent.

    Inflation has now been in the ECB’s “danger zone” of below 1 percent for six consecutive months, fuelling speculation that the ECB will need to take further action.

    ECB policy makers said the bank stood ready to deploy unconventional measures to ensure that inflation did not stay low for too long.

    ECB’s President Mario Draghi expressed concerns at the euro’s strength on Saturday in Washington, trying to talk down the currency, which influences domestic prices.

    The strength of the single currency against the dollar makes imports cheaper and pushes down the prices Europeans pay for goods and services.

    While this can give households more purchasing power in the short run, the ECB wants to avoid a drop in inflation expectations.