Tag: InternationalNews

{{Iran and six world powers are starting the first round of talks on a long-term agreement on Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.}}

The talks in Vienna aim to build on November’s interim deal, in which Iran agreed to curb uranium enrichment in return for partial sanctions relief.

Ahead of the meeting, both Iran and the US downplayed hopes of a quick breakthrough.

The West suspects Iran of trying to build nuclear arms. Tehran denies this.

{{‘No opposition’}}

The talks between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US are due to open at 11:00 (10:00 GMT) in the Austrian capital.

The West wants Iran to sharply scale back its sensitive nuclear activities to ensure that it cannot quickly assemble an atomic bomb.

But Tehran says its nuclear work is purely peaceful and will continue. It also wants an end to the sanctions that have battered its economy.

It took months of very hard bargaining for the two sides to agree to negotiate a final deal.

She adds that the talk will be a first test of that resolve.

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Vienna talks “will not lead anywhere”, in a statement posted on his website.

But he added: “What our officials started will continue. We will not renege. I have no opposition.”

Meanwhile, a senior US administration official also acknowledged that it would be a “complicated, difficult and lengthy process”, Reuters reports.

The two sides have until 19 July to find a comprehensive solution.

BBC

{{Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro announced on Sunday that he had ordered the expulsion of three US consular officials who he accused of conspiring against his government.}}

Maduro did not identify the officials, but said the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry would give more details later.

“Go and do your (coup) plotting in Washington!” the president roared in a televised address, charging that the US diplomats had met with students involved in anti-government protests.

“It’s a group of US functionaries who are in the universities. We’ve been watching them having meetings in the private universities for two months. They work in visas,” Maduro said in a nationally televised broadcast.

Venezuela also accuses the United States of backing anti-government protesters who have marched against the leftist leader for two weeks and show no signs of backing down.

The demonstrations have developed into the biggest challenge to the country’s socialist rulers since the death of its longtime leader Hugo Chavez from cancer last year.

During a failed two-day coup against Maduro’s predecessor in 2002, the United States voiced support for a non-elected interim leader and not the elected president at the time, staunch US critic Chavez.

That move has deeply undermined Washington’s credibility in Latin America to this day.

France24

{{Nepalese police on Monday discovered the wreckage of a plane carrying 18 people that had gone missing one day earlier in the country’s mountainous west, but no survivors have been found, an official said.}}

The Nepal Airlines plane with 15 passengers and three crew crashed into a forested hill in Arghakhanchi district, 226 kilometres (140 miles) west of the capital, with aircraft pieces found in a nearby village, an aviation official told reporters.

“The plane crashed into a hill, police have found its wreckage in a village, but no survivors,” Bimlesh Lal Karna, chief air traffic controller at the country’s largest airport in Kathmandu, told reporters.

“Most of the plane is completely broken into small pieces, no one could have survived the accident,” he added.

The plane, carrying locals and one passenger from Denmark, lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after taking off from the popular tourist town of Pokhara on Sunday afternoon.

The aircraft from the state-run carrier encountered heavy rain en route from Pokhara to the town of Jumla, 353 kilometres west of Kathmandu.

The downpour hampered Sunday’s efforts to locate the plane, with two helicopters forced to turn back because of bad weather.

Police resumed their search at first light on Monday, finally spotting scattered pieces of the wreckage during an aerial search of Arghakhanchi.

Steep terrain prevented the helicopter from landing in the forested area, prompting police to be dropped to the ground instead, aviation official Karna said.

The passengers included Manab Sejuwal, a local politician from the ruling Nepali Congress party.

{{- Police trace passengers’ phones -}}

More than 150 Nepalese soldiers and police had fanned out across the hilly region from Sunday afternoon, trekking uphill and using mobile phone signals to try to locate the aircraft, officials said.

“Some of the passengers’ mobiles are still on, so we used the help of phone companies to get a rough idea of the area where the planes might have crashed,” Karna said.

The incident again raises concerns about the Himalayan nation’s aviation sector, which has come under fire from international authorities after a series of fatal accidents.

The European Union in December banned all the country’s airlines from flying to the EU.

Nepal, which counts tourism as a major contributor to its economy, has suffered a number of air crashes in recent years, which have usually been attributed to inexperienced pilots, poor management and inadequate maintenance.

A Chinese tourist and a local pilot were killed when an ultra-light aircraft crashed into a hill in Pokhara last October.

Last May, 21 people including eight Japanese tourists were hurt when a small plane skidded off an airport runway in northern Nepal and plunged into a river.

Fifteen people were killed at the same airport in May 2012 when a plane carrying Indian pilgrims crashed into a mountain.

In September 2012, 19 people, including seven Britons and four Chinese, were killed after an Everest-bound plane crashed minutes after taking off from Kathmandu in an accident which the government blamed on a “panic-stricken” pilot.

At the time of the blacklisting last year, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said the country’s safety record “does not leave us any other choice”.

Government officials said the ban was “unfortunate” and came after months spent on upgrading safety and monitoring aircraft.

AFP

{{Eleven men who became trapped in an illegal gold mine in South Africa were rescued on Sunday, but an unknown number remained underground fearing arrest.}}

The men, who were all uninjured, were immediately handed over to police. Rescue officials said many others were now able to leave the mine but had refused to come out while officials were present.

“We managed to retrieve 11 young men. We believe they are South Africans, they have been treated and handed over to the police,” municipal emergency and rescue services official Rogger Mamaila told media.

“Yes, there is a possibility that there could be more, but we don’t know and we are not going to send any of our rescuers down there.”

The number of people still down there remains unclear — around 30 miners who were trapped at a shallow level had earlier told rescuers from a private operator ER24 that there were 200 others stuck at a level underneath them.

That was never confirmed, however, with local municipal officials insisting there were only around 30 people trapped.

{{European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” for an independent Scotland to join the European Union.}}

Speaking to reporters he said an independent Scotland would have to apply for membership and get the approval of all current member states.

Scotland’s Finance Minister described his comments as “pretty preposterous”.

John Swinney said Mr Barroso’s view was based on a false comparison.

The referendum on Scottish independence will be held on 18 September, with voters being asked the Yes/No question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

{{New state}}

In his interview with Andrew Marr, Mr Barroso said: “In case there is a new country, a new state, coming out of a current member state it will have to apply.”

He said it was important that “accession to the European Union will have to be approved by all other member states of the European Union.”

He went on: “Of course it will be extremely difficult to get the approval of all the other member states to have a new member coming from one member state.”

Mr Barroso cited the example of the Spanish not recognising Kosovo.

He said: “We have seen Spain has been opposing even the recognition of Kosovo, for instance. So it is to some extent a similar case because it’s a new country and so I believe it’s going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, a new member state coming out of our countries getting the agreement of the others.”

However, Mr Barroso made clear that it was up to the people of Scotland to decide their future, and he said he did not want to interfere in that process.

BBC