Tag: InternationalNews

{{US Congress passed an 11th-hour deal Wednesday night to bring an end to a two-week government shutdown and avert a debt default in a bipartisan deal that left Republicans little to show for the epic political drama that threatened to rattle the world economy.}}

The Senate voted 81-18 to send the bill to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which passed it late Wednesday night 285-144. President Barack Obama signed the legislation shortly after midnight Thursday.

Congress had faced a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Thursday to raise the government’s borrowing authority or risk a default on its obligations.

The bill reopens the government until January 15 and permits the Treasury to borrow normally up to February 7. It includes nothing for Republicans demanding to eradicate or scale back Obama’s signature health care overhaul.

“We fought the good fight. We just didn’t win,” conceded House Speaker John Boehner as lawmakers lined up to vote on the bill.

Taking the podium in the White House briefing room after the Senate vote and just before the House took up the measure, Obama said that with final congressional passage, “We can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty and unease from our businesses and from the American people”.

“Hopefully next time it won’t be in the 11th hour,” Obama said. “We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis.”

Less than an hour later, as debate began in the House, Republican Rep. Harold Rogers said: “After two long weeks, it is time to end this government shutdown. It’s time to take the threat of default off the table. It’s time to restore some sanity to this place.”

agencies

{{A Norwegian neo-Nazi musician arrested by French authorities in July on suspicion of planning a terrorist act is due to go on trial in Paris.}}

Kristian “Varg” Vikernes was detained after his wife, a licensed gun holder, bought shotguns and other weapons.

Authorities later conceded there was no specific plot and they were released.

Instead Mr Vikernes is now being tried for inciting racial hatred and glorifying war crimes in some of his writings on the internet.

He is a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi who was once in touch with his compatriot Anders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right militant who killed 77 people in attacks in Norway in 2011.

In May 1994 Mr Vikernes received a prison sentence for murdering the guitarist of a rival black metal band and setting fire to churches in Norway.

After his release in 2009 he moved to France with his wife and children.

French authorities placed him under surveillance. On 16 July they arrested the couple in the southern region of Correze after the wife began buying shotguns.

Officials later said she had a valid firearms permit and released the pair.

Mr Vikernes has vowed to sue the French authorities for arresting him with “no good reason” and “in the most brutal way possible”.

He says officials have not returned his firearms or his ceremonial weaponry, including his swords, spears, and helmets.

Since coming to France, Vikernes has continued releasing music and writing.

He will be tried on incitement charges related to postings on his blog which prosecutors say were “anti-Semitic and xenophobic”.

Through his writings he promotes what he calls “Odalism”, an ideology based on the idea that White Europeans should re-adopt “native European values”.

{agencies}

{{The Chancellor, George Osborne, has announced that the UK will allow Chinese companies to take a stake in British nuclear power plants.}}

The decision could lead to China taking a future majority stake in the development of the next generation of British nuclear power.

Mr Osborne made the announcement on the last day of a trade visit to China.

The first China deal could be as early as next week, with the go ahead for a new £14bn plant at the Hinkley C site.

Also on Thursday, a report commissioned for the prime minister warned of a growing risk of power shortages over the next few years.

The Royal Academy of Engineering said the closure of older power plants and the slow progress in building news ones was likely to stretch the system “close to its limits”.

Supply is expected to come under strain in the winter of 2014-15.

BBC

{{High-stakes nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers adjourned on an upbeat note Wednesday, with the European Union’s top diplomat calling them ‘’very important.” }}

Iran’s foreign minister spoke of a possible ‘’new phase” that would ease a decade of tensions over fears that his country wanted a nuclear bomb.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton did not go into details on the substance of the talks. But she read a statement endorsed by both Iran and the six countries, calling the talks ‘’substantive and forward looking.”

Confirming Iranian media reports, the statement said the two sides will meet again in Geneva on Nov. 7-8.

Ashton, who convened the talks, spoke of a ‘’very intensive and I think a very important meeting.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who headed the Iranian side, said he hoped the results achieved over two days of talks ending Wednesday “will hopefully be the beginning of a new phase” in relations between Iran and the six powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

‘’We have reached a serious stage in the talks,” he told reporters.

The lack of immediate details on what was achieved, however, made it

difficult to evaluate the amount of progress made in what has been a decade of deadlocked negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran says it’s not interested in having nuclear weapons. Its proposal Tuesday to the six powers focused on their demands that Iran’s uranium enrichment program and other activities that could be used to make nuclear arms be stopped or reduced.

Iran wants painful international sanctions to be lifted in exchange for possible concessions it had been previously unwilling to consider.

Those could be increased international monitoring of its nuclear program and the scaling back of its uranium enrichment plans – a potential pathway to nuclear arms and the centerpiece of its impasse with the West.

Tehran insists it has no interest in weapons production. Still, it has resisted both enticements and sanctions from world powers designed to force it into ending uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.

But negotiations now appear to be driven by the new wind generated since reformist President Hassan Rouhani was elected in June.

{wirestory}

At least four people have been killed and three injured in a gas explosion in the central Mexican state of Puebla, officials say.

It is not yet clear what caused the blast at the natural gas storage plant at the Chachapa industrial park.

The explosion set off a fire which engulfed much of the area.

The main highway linking Mexico City and Veracruz was closed for more than four hours as firefighters brought the blaze under control.

Businesses and homes were evacuated in a 3km-radius (2 miles).

The blast occurred at 18:30 local time (23:30 GMT) at the plant owned by Tomza Gas. Local officials said most of the workers had already finished their shift, keeping the number of casualties relatively low.

It is not yet clear whether the victims were employed by Tomza or worked at nearby businesses in the industrial park.

Tomza sells and install gas tanks and cylinders for household, commercial and industrial use.

There have been a series of gas-related accidents in Mexico. More than 20 people were killed when a lorry carrying gas tanks exploded on a highway on the outskirts of Mexico City in May.

And in September 2012, 26 people died in a fire at a gas plant owned by the state oil company Pemex in the city of Reynosa.

agencies

The coffin of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke has been taken to a military airport near Rome after a funeral was halted following angry protests.

Italian officials said contacts had been made with Germany, amid media reports that Priebke’s body could be flown there.

Priebke died under house arrest last week. He had been jailed for life over the killing of more than 300 civilians.

A funeral in Albano Laziale, south of Rome, was called off on Tuesday.

A senior official in the Rome province, Giuseppe Pecoraro, said it was hoped the situation would be resolved on Wednesday.

“We have initiated contacts with Germany,” he was quoted as saying by Italian news agency Ansa.

“It’s not in my remit to decide on a cremation or a place of burial, but we are working to resolve the situation according to what is most suitable.”

Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino said Italian authorities were in touch with the German ambassador.

Both Argentina – where Priebke lived for nearly 50 years before being extradited to Italy – and Priebke’s hometown in Germany have previously refused to take the body.

Priebke died on Friday, aged 100.

wirestory

After claiming his innocence for over two decades, William Happ finally confessed to murder as he was put to death by lethal injection in the US state of Florida.

News reports said Happ took over 15 minutes to die, as his body repeatedly made convulsive movements, as the state corrections system used a new lethal chemical for the first time.

He was pronounced dead at 6:16 pm Tuesday (2016 GMT,) said Misty Cash, a spokeswoman for the state prison system.

Happ, 51, had spent 24 years on death row for the murder of a young woman named Angela Crowley in 1986.

Happ, who had drug and alcohol problems, met Crowley in a parking lot. The woman was strangled and raped, and her body found in a canal.

He was initially arrested for an unrelated crime, and the murder probe led to him because of a footprint of his that was found by investigators.

In a statement expressing his last words as he lay on the table, Happ confessed.

“For 27 years, the horrible murder of Angela Crowley has been clouded by circumstantial evidence and uncertainty. For the sake of her family, loved ones and all concerned, it is to my agonizing shame that I must confess to this terrible crime,” Happ wrote.

He added: “I wish to offer my most sincere and heartfelt apologies not only to those concerned for Angela Crowley but also to those I deceived and allowed to believe in my innocence”.

It was the 80th execution in Florida since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976. It was the 31st this year in the country.

As stocks of the usual lethal injection drug dwindle, most US states that carry out executions are turning to new drugs. This is sparking lawsuits from death row prisoners that the changes will cause undue suffering.

wirestory

A Russian court has overturned a sentence for opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, handing him a suspended sentence instead of five years in prison.

Navalny was convicted on embezzlement charges and sentenced to five years in prison on July 18, but was released from prison the next day in what some considered a ploy to make the Moscow mayoral race, where he was registered as a candidate, look as competitive as possible.

Navalny garnered an unexpected 27 percent against the Kremlin-backed incumbent. His growing public profile has made it increasingly risky for the Kremlin to put him behind bars.

A judge in the court in Kirov, 760 kilometers (460 miles) east of Moscow, read out the decision on Wednesday.

(AP)

Any easing by Washington of sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran taking steps to scale back its nuclear program is likely to be fleeting and symbolic, with any moves for bigger concessions likely to be blocked by Congress.

At talks in Geneva on the nuclear program with six world powers on Tuesday, Iran’s negotiators presented a proposal on defusing a decade-old standoff. But both sides said it was too early to talk of a breakthrough.

Even if Iran promises to take serious steps, it is unlikely to satisfy key members of the U.S. Congress, which generally takes a harder line on Iran than President Barack Obama’s administration.

Lawmakers including Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have signaled they want Tehran to stop even low-level enrichment of uranium used in generating power before they would take steps to wind down existing sanctions, or even agree not to put through tougher ones.

“Sanctions relief is easier said than done,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, an organization that seeks to prevent and resolve conflict.

“Without a fundamental reorientation of Iran’s approach, a significant relaxation in sanctions is not in the cards.”

The sanctions Washington would likely wind down first are morsels such as easing restrictions on medical supplies, travel and the sale of spare airplane parts and service for U.S.-built aircraft in Iran.

“Many of these are low impact, they are not going to turn Iran’s economy around,” said Greg Theilmann, a fellow at the Arms Control Association, and a former top intelligence official at the State Department.

“But it’s important to at least know there are a number of things that can be done to show U.S. bona fides if the Iranians show that they are willing to take significant steps in the direction of what the U.S. and other parties say they have to do,” he said.

Deadly crashes of aging aircraft owned by Iranian airlines have become common and Iranian officials say their inability to buy new Western-built planes and parts have led to more than 1,700 deaths since those sanctions began in 1995.

Allowing access to U.S. aircraft parts could help improve relations between the two countries as negotiators work on more difficult sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy.

reuters