Tag: InternationalNews

{ Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi accused the left today of attempting a coup d’etat, as he prepares for a Senate vote this week which will likely see him ousted following his conviction for tax fraud.
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“Wednesday the Senate will vote to do away with the head of the centre-right, after 20 years of failed attempts. This move is called a coup d’etat,” he told the youth branch of his Forza Italia (“Go Italy”) party.

“The left should know I am not afraid, I have nothing to ask forgiveness for. I am completely innocent and am the emblem of my people,” he added.

The 77-year-old media magnate and his allies have been trying to delay the moment the political guillotine will fall on a man who has dominated the Italian political scene since he entered it in the early 1990s.

So far attempts to buy time have failed. The vote is expected to go ahead as scheduled and, with Berlusconi’s supporters in the minority, his ouster under a law banning convicted criminals from parliament looks set.

The ex-premier said he was organising a protest rally for Wednesday in Rome.

A combative Berlusconi said Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano should pardon him to spare him the embarrassment of doing a year’s community service.

“The president should not hesitate even for a moment to prevent the disgrace of community service, even without me asking him to,” he said, describing the idea of him doing service as “a humiliation for me, and also for the country”.

The president’s office has repeatedly said that any such pardon could only be granted once a formal request for one has been made.

The billionaire was given a 12-month jail sentence in August by the supreme court, but asked to serve it in the form of community service instead.

The punishment — not likely to be meted out before next year — could see him working in an old people’s home, stacking shelves or cleaning up graffiti.

AFP

{Germany is set to introduce a national minimum wage, conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, giving in to a key demand by her likely centre-left governing partners.}

“The Social Democrats will not conclude negotiations without a universal legal minimum wage,” she said about ongoing talks to form a ‘grand coalition’ government since a September election.

She stressed that her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party does not agree with the step and added that she and her party would “try everything to prevent the loss of jobs through this measure”.

Merkel won September 22 elections but fell narrowly short of a governing majority, forcing her CDU and its Bavarian partners the CSU to enter into tough coalition talks with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

In the talks, SPD chief Sigmar Gabriel, Merkel’s likely future vice chancellor, has insisted on the party’s core demand of a nationwide minimum wage of at least 8.50 euros ($11.40) per hour to help Germany’s growing army of working poor.

The SPD has promised to put any coalition deal up for a vote to its sceptical party base of almost half a million members, many of whom do not want their blue-collar party to govern in Merkel’s shadow, but whose consent would be needed.

Merkel’s party favours separate pay deals by industrial sector and region, arguing that a national minimum wage would harm many small and medium-sized businesses and could force them to lay off workers.

A patchwork of existing pay deals has set minimum wages for a dozen industrial and service sectors, including cleaners, electricians and security guards.

Minimum wage levels are often higher in western states than in the economically weaker states of the former communist East Germany. Caregivers, for example, earn nine euros an hour in the west but only eight euros in the east.

Both Germany’s major parties aim to end their talks, which have been split into separate working groups, next week, with the aim of forming a government before the end of the year.

However, negotiators have said as many as 100 issues remained unresolved so far.

Merkel, meanwhile, insisted on her own party’s red-line issue of not raising taxes and stressed she wanted a halt to new debt by 2015.

She argued that balanced budgets help maintain investor confidence and global competitiveness and added that “Europe’s problem is that we’ve promised almost everything so far and have kept very little of it”.

Addressing a Berlin business forum organised by Munich newspaper publisher Sueddeutsche Zeitung, she said a grand coalition was “not the heart’s desire of politicians” but had resulted from the election outcome.

She said, as the talks have dragged on, that “we are not making it easy for ourselves — you can marvel at that every day”.

She said that “I too will have to consent to measures which I do not innately agree with,” mentioning the minimum wage as an example.

“The voters have neither given an absolute majority to the business wing of the CDU, nor the left wing of the SPD. Only both of us together will have the ability to govern.”

(AFP)

{A car bomb ripped through a packed food market north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 27 people, as Iraq’s death toll for 2013 from a surge in violence nationwide capped 5,800.}

The attack occurred on Thursday in Sadiya, 65km northeast of Baghdad, a town in ethnically mixed Diyala province.

The bomb went off at about noon, in a neighbourhood populated mostly by Faylis, or Shia Kurds, the officials said.

Two police officers said witnesses told them that a man parked the truck containing the bomb in the market and asked workers to unload the vegetables before leaving the vehicle. The officers said at least 48 people were also wounded in the attack.

Two medical officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release information to the media.

{{ Spate of bombings}}

The blast in Sadiya struck a day after violence across Iraq, including a spate of bombings in Baghdad , killed 59 people and left more than 100 wounded, the latest in a protracted surge in violence nationwide.

Aljazeera

{Australian visitors urged to avoid protests and remain extremely vigilant as anger over phone-tapping claims boils over. }

About 200 people marched on Thursday to the heavily fortified Australian embassy in Jakarta to demand an apology over the alleged spying, which prompted Yudhoyono to downgrade diplomatic relations with Canberra a day earlier.

“We are ready for war with Australia,” stated one of many banners carried by protesters.

Other protesters in the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta burned Australian flags in a show of anger, but the demonstrations were peaceful and smaller than police expected.

Australia earlier updated its travel advisory for Indonesia, the country’s second most popular tourist destination after New Zealand, urging citizens in the Southeast Asian country to avoid protests and “maintain high levels of vigilance”.

Yudhoyono appeared on national television on Wednesday to announce a freeze on military and intelligence cooperation, including over the controversial issue of asylum seekers.

Stirring the Indonesian outrage were reports quoting documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor, suggesting Australia tried to monitor the phones of top Indonesian officials in 2009.

Regret expressed

Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, has not confirmed the spying or apologised, although he has expressed regret for the embarrassment the media reports caused to Yudhoyono and his family.

In a statement to parliament on Thursday, Abbott said he had received an official letter from Yudhoyono seeking an explanation for the spying reports and would respond “swiftly, fully and courteously”.

Hatta Rajasa, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for economic affairs, said the dispute had caused little economic impact.

“In the area of economy and business, our cooperation is continuing,” he said.

Gita Wirjawan, trade minister, said Indonesia was reviewing its trade ties with Australia, worth more than $11bn last year.

Indonesia is a major importer of Australian agricultural products, such as live cattle, while Australia is Indonesia’s 10th biggest export market.

Source:
Reuters and Aljazeera

{The American ambassador to China said Wednesday he will step down from his post early next year to rejoin his family in Seattle.}

Gary Locke said he informed President Barack Obama of his decision when they met earlier this month.

Locke, who is married with three children, took up the post in August 2011 and was the first Chinese-American to hold it. His father was born in China.

Locke said in a statement that he was proud of what the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China have accomplished, including increasing U.S. exports to China, promoting Chinese investment in the U.S. and reducing waiting times for a visa to three to five from highs of 70-100 days, which has “significantly increased” Chinese business and tourism travel there.

He said that during his tenure embassy officials advanced American values by meeting with religious leaders and human rights lawyers and visiting Tibetan and Uighur ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.

As a former U.S. commerce secretary and two-term governor of Washington state, boosting trade and maintaining smooth relations between Washington and its biggest foreign creditor were seen as his priorities when he became ambassador.

Yet less than a year into his tenure, he was earning respect from the human rights lobby for his role in the drama over blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, who escaped from house arrest, sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and later moved to New York. At one point, Locke was photographed holding Chen’s hand as they entered a hospital.

He was popular among ordinary Chinese from day one, with a photo of him wearing a backpack and trying to use a coupon to buy coffee at Seattle airport widely posted on the Chinese Internet. It contrasted with Chinese bureaucrats, who have aides attend to such minor tasks.

He attracted overflowing audiences to his speeches at Chinese universities, and huge crowds showed up when he visited his ancestral home in the southeastern province of Guangdong.

Locke said U.S.-China relations continue to grow stronger despite a complex relationship. “I remain confident in the ability of our leaders to manage differences and increase cooperation in areas of mutual concern to the benefit of not just our two great peoples, but the entire world,” he said.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Washington Post

{Two explosions struck Tuesday near the Iranian Embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing at least 10 people, wounding scores and causing wide damage to the mission and nearby buildings.}

The mid-morning blasts hit Beirut’s upscale neighborhood of Janah, a Hezbollah stronghold. One explosion blew out the large black main gate of the Iranian mission, damaging the three-story facility. It was not known if anyone inside was hurt.

Debris was scattered on the street and cars were on fire as people ran away from the chaotic scene. The second blast was meters (yards) away from the embassy building.

The explosions killed 10 and wounded more than 30, said a Lebanese security official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. An Associated Press photographer counted at least five bodies after the blasts in south Beirut.

AP video showed firefighters extinguishing flames from vehicles, blood-spattered streets and bodies covered with sheets on the ground. A charred motorcycle stood outside the embassy gate.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the blasts, and reports varied. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said one of the blasts was carried out by a suicide attacker on foot while the second was a car bomb.

An armed guard of the Iranian embassy told AP that the first blast was believed to have been carried out by a suicide attacker who rode a motorcycle and blew himself up outside the gate. The other explosion, which caused much more damage, was a car bomb, the guard said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

Heazbollah’s Al-Manar TV said 17 people were killed while Iran’s Press TV put the death toll at 15.

There have been several attacks the past few months, including with rockets and car bombs, against Shiite strongholds in Lebanon in what Syrian rebels say is retaliation for the militant Hezbollah group’s open involvement on the side of President Bashar Assad’s forces in the civil war in neighboring Syria.

“We tell those who carried out the attack, you will not be able to break us,” Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Mikdad told Al-Mayadeen TV. “We got the message and we know who sent it and we know how to retaliate.”

Hezbollah’s Al-Rasoul al-Azam hospital called on people to donate blood, saying they need all blood types.

Iran has been one of Assad’s strongest supporters, supplying him with money and weapons since the Syrian crisis began in March 2011.

An Aug. 15 car bombing in a Shiite stronghold of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut killed 27 people and wounded more than 300. A less powerful car bomb targeted the same area on July 9, wounding more than 50.

{{AP}}

{A diplomatic row between Australia and Indonesia has deepened, with both sides refusing to back down after allegations emerged that Australian intelligence services had spied on the Indonesian president.}

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono accused newly elected Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott of dismissing his country’s concerns in a statement on Twitter on Tuesday.

Abbott, in office since September, rejected calls for an explanation, describing surveillance by Australian governments as “reasonable intelligence operations”.

The latest flare-up followed Australian media reports, quoting documents leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, that Australian spy agencies had tried to tap the mobile phones of Yudhoyono, his wife and senior officials in August 2009.

Reports last month said Australia’s Jakarta embassy had been part of a US-led surveillance network to spy on Indonesia.

“I … regret the statement of Australian Prime Minister that belittled this tapping matter on Indonesia, without any remorse,” Yudhoyono wrote on Twitter. He did not say to which statement by Abbott he was referring.

“These US & Australian actions have certainly damaged the strategic partnerships with Indonesia, as fellow democracies,” he added.

Indonesia, he wrote, “demands an official response, one that can be understood by the public”.

The statements came a day after the recall of Indonesia’s ambassador to Australia.

Aljazeera

{Al Qaeda members may be among thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean by boat from Africa to Europe, posing a potential security risk for the European Union, Italy’s Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said on Monday.}

Italy is seeking more help from its EU partners to tackle a crisis that has seen thousands of African migrants arrive in Sicily this year and hundreds of deaths en route.

“We … have suspicions that among the immigrants there are jihadist elements and members of al Qaeda,” Bonino told a news conference during an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels which discussed the issue.

She said that at the moment she would not talk about a terrorism threat, but rather “a security threat” posed by the jihadists.

Italy wants the EU to launch a mission against human trafficking and organized crime in the Mediterranean under the bloc’s common security policy.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said foreign ministers had discussed the security implications for the 28-nation EU of illegal migration.

Italy has increased patrols in the seas between Libya, Tunisia and Italy since more than 360 mainly Eritrean migrants drowned in early October when their boat capsized off Lampedusa. A second boat sank a week later, leaving an estimated 200 people missing.

The island’s reception center has struggled to deal with a deluge of migrants fleeing civil war and unrest in Syria, Egypt and other Arab and African countries, which has swelled numbers making the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean sea, often on rickety and ill-equipped boats.

More than 32,000 migrants from Africa and the Middle East have arrived in Italy and Malta so far this year, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with many leaving from the lawless ports of Libya.

The EU is expected to take decisions in December on what to do to help southern European states deal with mass migration from Africa.

Reuters

{Jordan has applied for a two-year term on the UN Security Council, the information minister said on Monday, after Saudi Arabia won a seat and then turned it down.}

“Jordan has officially applied for a non-permanent seat on the UN security Council. The kingdom is interested in this seat and realises its political and diplomatic responsiblities,” Mohammad Momonai told AFP.

“The country hopes to receive international support for this application, which comes as a result of Jordan’s balanced and rational policies.”

Earlier this month, diplomats said Amman had been reluctant to take up the Asia-Pacific seat on the 15-nation Security Council but had been persuaded to do so by Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia won a UN General Assembly vote on October 17 for a two-year term on the council.

But it then shocked other nations by announcing the following day that it would not take up the seat in protest at the council’s failure to act on the Syria conflict.

{{France 24}}