Tag: InternationalNews

{{Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said he did not bring any of the documents he took from the agency with him to Russia, the New York Times reported on Thursday.}}

Snowden told the newspaper he gave all the documents to journalists he met in Hong Kong before flying to Moscow and said he did not keep copies for himself. Taking the files to Russia “wouldn’t serve the public interest,” Snowden said in an interview with the newspaper.

Snowden, who worked for a contractor as a systems administrator at an NSA facility in Hawaii, was the source of disclosures that included details about programs under which the government collects vast amounts of information such as telephone and Internet records.

He has polarized opinion in the United States, where many have been outraged by the extent of government snooping.

But others have labeled him a traitor for stealing information from the NSA after vowing to respect its secrecy policies and fleeing first to China and then to Russia with classified U.S. data.

Russia has granted Snowden a year’s asylum. U.S. authorities want him to return to the United States to face espionage charges.

The former contractor, 30, also told the Times he believed he was able to protect the documents from Chinese spy agencies because he was familiar with Beijing’s intelligence capabilities.

He said he feels he has boosted U.S. national security by prompting a public debate about the scope of U.S. data collection.

An NSA spokeswoman did not respond to the New York Times’ request for comment on Snowden’s assertions.

reuters

{{The European Union and Canada agreed a multibillion-dollar trade pact on Friday that will integrate two of the world’s largest economies and pave the way for Europe to clinch an even bigger deal with the United States.}}

The deal will make Canada the only G8 country to have preferential access to the world’s two largest markets, the EU and the United States, home to a total of 800 million people.

“This is the biggest deal our country has ever made,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in Brussels, adding that it outstripped the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Talks between the two sides launched in May 2009 but stalled for months over quotas for Canadian beef and EU cheese.

Harper and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso met in Brussels to resolve outstanding issues and seal the deal.

In a cheeky touch, chefs served Italian gorgonzola and Greek feta cheese at a four-course lunch laid on for the two leaders to celebrate the deal, which EU trade chief Karel De Gucht called a “template” for negotiations with the United States.

{agencies}

China’s economic growth picked up pace in the July-to-September period, the first rise in three quarters.

The world’s second-biggest economy grew 7.8% from a year earlier, up from 7.5% expansion in the previous quarter.

The official figures also showed growth in industrial output, retail sales and fixed asset investment.

After years of blistering growth, China has seen its pace of expansion slow recently and there have been fears that growth may slow further.

China has set a growth target of 7.5% for the year. Analysts said the latest numbers indicated that it was likely that Beijing would meet this.

“This is an indication that China’s economic growth is holding up in a range which is within the comfort zone of both the Chinese policymakers as well as global watchers,” said Song Seng Wun, a senior economist with CIMB Research .

{{‘Keep it going’}}

Over the past few decades China has relied heavily on its exports and manufacturing sectors as well as government-led infrastructure spending to help boost growth.

However, a slowdown in key markets such as the US and Europe has hurt demand for its exports.

As a result, it has been trying to spur domestic demand to offset the decline in foreign sales and also to rebalance its growth.

Earlier this year, it unveiled fresh measures to help boost the economy.

From 1 August, China has suspend value-added tax (VAT) and turnover tax for small businesses with monthly sales of less than 20,000 yuan ($3,257; £2,125).

The cabinet said the move would benefit more than six million small companies and boost employment and income for millions of people.

Policymakers said they would also implement measures to simplify customs clearance procedures, cut operational fees and facilitate the exports of small and medium-sized private enterprises.

The cabinet also announced plans to completely open China’s railway construction market to private investors to develop the sector further.

It said it would set up a railway development fund, with the initial money coming from the government.

Analysts said the moves were starting to have an impact on the growth numbers.

{agencies}

{{Police in India say they have arrested the crew of a US-owned ship accused of illegally entering Indian waters with a huge cache of weapons.}}

MV Seaman Guard Ohio was detained on 12 October by the Indian Coast Guard and is anchored at Tuticorin port in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Its 35-member crew include Indians, Britons, Ukrainians and Estonians.

The vessel, owned by a private US-based security firm, is registered in Sierra Leone, officials say.

The US embassy in the capital, Delhi, told the media they had “no comment” to make on the reports.

A police official in Tuticorin said that the crew have been taken to the Motiapuram police station where they are being questioned.

Since February last year, India and Italy have been embroiled in a bitter diplomatic row after India arrested two Italian marines for killing two Indian fishermen.

The marines – who are being prosecuted in India – were accused of shooting the fishermen off the Kerala coast.

They were guarding an Italian oil tanker and said they mistook the fishermen for pirates.

In recent years piracy has emerged as a major threat to merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, with Somali pirates hijacking ships and their crews for ransom.

But there have been fewer attacks recently, partly because more armed guards are now deployed on board ships.

{agencies}

{{One of Brazil’s largest criminal gangs has threatened to unleash a wave of terrorist attacks during next year’s FIFA World Cup and presidential elections if authorities transfer jailed bosses to a solitary confinement unit in the state of Sao Paulo, according to a Brazilian daily.}}

The First Command of the Capital gang, better known in Brazil by the Portuguese acronym PCC, also plan to organise prison strikes and target police officers, according to mobile telephone conversations intercepted by intelligence units and leaked to the Estado de Sao Paulo daily.

The threat to spread fear during next year’s international football tournament comes a week after an extensive report by prosecutors on the PCC’s activities was revealed by the same newspaper. The report confirmed that the gang’s leaders continued to run crime operations from inside prisons via mobile phones.

The PCC’s “World Cup of Terror” warning came after Brazil’s press reported that cartel bosses would be moved to the maximum security Presidente Bernardes Prison, located near Sao Paulo’s isolated western border, and that new equipment blocking mobile telephone signals would be installed at penitentiaries.

The state’s top cop, Benedito Roberto Meira, said he had ordered his troops to be on high alert. Over 100 state police officers were murdered in 2012 after the PCC ordered attacks on security forces.

agencies

{{Taiwan is set to receive the first batch of attack helicopters ordered from the United States next month, after the US government ended its two-week shutdown, a report said Friday.}}

The $6.5 billion arms deal, including a fleet of 30 advanced Apache Longbow helicopters, was announced in 2008, causing anger in China which claims sovereignty over Taiwan and opposes arms sales to the island.

The first six Apache AH-64Es, the latest variant of one of the world’s most powerful attack helicopters, are expected to be delivered to the southern port of Kaohsiung as early as November 4, the state Central News agency said, citing unnamed military sources.

The Taiwanese army will become the first force outside the US to introduce the variant, the report said.

Delivery for the choppers was originally set for October but has been delayed by the US government shutdown, it added.

The US government reopened for business Thursday after President Barack Obama signed a bill ending the two-week shutdown and extending the Treasury’s borrowing authority.

The second batch of Apache AH-64Es are scheduled to arrive in December while the remaining choppers will be delivered by the end of 2014, the report said without elaborating.

Taiwan’s defence officials declined to comment on the report.

Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war. However, Beijing still regards the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, prompting Taipei to seek more weaponry mainly from the United States.

Tensions between the two sides have eased markedly since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan’s president in 2008 on a China-friendly platform.

But Ma has stressed that Taiwan needs to maintain sufficient self-defence and will continue to acquire arms from the United States.

{wirestory}

{{France’s top court will rule Friday if the country’s mayors should be given the right to opt out of performing same-sex marriages.}}

Five months after France passed a controversial law legalising gay marriage, a group of mayors and registrars opposed to the legislation have brought their case before France’s Constitutional Council – the country’s highest legal authority.

They argue that the same-sex marriage bill, which came into force in May, should include a “freedom of conscience” clause, giving officiators the right not to carry out same-sex marriages if it conflicts with their personal religious or moral beliefs.

The lack of such a clause in the bill goes against the French constitution, they claim.

“The Constitutional Council has a big decision to make,” Geoffroy de Vries, the lawyer representing the group of mayors, told reporters. “It could open the door to an exception for those opposed to gay marriage.”

Didier Maus, a professor of constitutional law, said it was “difficult to know” how the Council would view the case but noted that mayors already have the option not to officiate at a marriage.

“If they are not available, they can delegate this task to their assistants or even a councilor,” he said.

The Council is due to announce its decision on the case at 10:00 local time (08:00GMT).

However, the mayors have already stated that they intend to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights if the French court rules against them.

france24