Tag: InternationalNews

{{World leaders meeting for the final day of the G20 summit in Russia remain divided over military action in Syria.}}

Italian PM Enrico Letta said the splits in opinion were confirmed at Thursday’s working dinner in St Petersburg.

A spokesman for the Russian presidency said a US military strike on Syria would “drive another nail into the coffin of international law”.

At the UN, the US ambassador accused Russia of holding the Security Council hostage by blocking resolutions.

Samantha Power said the Security Council was no longer a “viable path” for holding Syria accountable for war crimes.

The US government accuses President Bashar al-Assad’s forces of killing 1,429 people in a poison-gas attack in the Damascus suburbs on 21 August.

The UK says scientists at the Porton Down research laboratories have found traces of sarin gas on cloth and soil samples.

But Mr Assad has blamed rebels for the attack. China and Russia, which have refused to agree to a Security Council resolution against Syria, insist any action without the UN would be illegal.

The US and France are the only nations at the G20 summit to commit to using force in Syria.

The United Nations says it needs another $3.3bn (£2bn) to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis up to the end of this year.

BBC

{{A European Union court ruled on Friday that the EU should lift sanctions it imposed against seven Iranian companies, dealing a new blow to Europe’s efforts to use economic pressure to rein in Tehran’s disputed nuclear work.}}

The ruling, which can be appealed, follows similar decisions earlier this year against sanctions imposed on two of Iran’s biggest banks.

It covers: Post Bank Iran, Iran Insurance Company, Good Luck Shipping, Export Development Bank of Iran, Persia International Bank, Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Co and Bank Refah Kargaran.

Governments in Europe and the United States are hoping sanctions against such companies will make it more difficult for Tehran to fund its nuclear program, which they fear is designed to give Iran the capability to build bombs.

Iran denies having such intentions and says it needs nuclear power for energy generation and medical research.

The General Court, Europe’s second-highest, said however that the EU had failed to produce sufficient evidence the listed companies were involved in the atom work.

{wirestory}

{{The Group of 20, which united in response to global crisis in 2009, now faces a U.S. economy picking up, Europe lagging and developing economies facing blowback from the looming ‘taper’ of the Federal Reserve’s monetary stimulus.}}

“Our main task is returning the global economy towards steady and balanced growth. This task has unfortunately not been resolved,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told leaders as they met at an annual summit in St. Petersburg.

Leaders signed off on a jobs and growth initiative, as well as steps to combat international tax evasion and tighten financial regulation. But concerns persisted that renewed market turbulence could hit developing economies hardest.

“Systemic risks, the conditions for an acute crisis relapse, persist,” Putin said.

The summit was overshadowed by great-power tensions over the Syria crisis, with leaders addressing security matters over dinner after their traditional debate on a world economy that is doing slightly better than a year ago.

Departing from his prepared remarks, Putin avoided explicitly referring to risks arising from U.S. monetary policy. But the message from the BRICS caucus of emerging markets, which met earlier, was unmistakably aimed at Washington.

The BRICS announced they would commit $100 billion to a currency reserve pool that could help defend against a balance of payments crisis, although the mechanism will take some time yet to set up.

“The eventual normalization of monetary policies needs to be effectively and carefully calibrated and clearly communicated,” Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa said in a joint statement.

That language reflected the text agreed by G20 finance ministers in Moscow in July. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said a passage on so-called “spillovers” would be unchanged in the closing summit communiqué.

A Japanese government official said that at finance ministers’ talks over dinner, no countries were explicitly critical of the Fed although it was discussed at length.

Even among emerging powers there were sharp messages.

China and Russia said vulnerable countries, including G20 member India, will need to take steps to rebalance their economies, ruling out bailouts for countries that have hit trouble.

Washington, while playing up its contribution to growth, said emerging economies would have to do their homework as it dials back its expansive policy settings.

“Emerging economies, increasingly … will have to look within their own borders for demand,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said.

{agencies}

{{ Reports from UK indicate that Dozens of people have been injured as more than 130 vehicles were involved in a series of crashes in thick fog on the A249 Sheppey crossing in Kent.}}

Eight of those hurt in the collisions, which took place at about 07:15 BST, have serious injuries.

Early reports said 200 people had been hurt, but police later revised the figure.

Firefighters said they had freed five people from their vehicles on the southbound carriageway.

One witness said visibility had been very poor at the time of the crash but drivers were approaching the crossing with no lights.

Others at the scene described a mass of tangled cars, lorries, and a car transporter. Some reports said the crash went on for 10 minutes as cars continuously collided with each other.

Driver Martin Stammers said the scene was “horrendous” and described seeing cars under lorries and people lying on the floor.

agencies

{{German President Joachim Gauck has become the first senior dignitary from his country to visit Oradour-sur-Glane in France, where 642 people were killed by Nazi troops in June 1944.}}

The ruins of the village are preserved just as they were after the massacre.
President Gauck said that he had accepted a French invitation to visit the site with “gratitude and humility”.

More than 200 children were among the victims of the World War II atrocity that left deep scars in France.

After the war Gen Charles de Gaulle – who later became France’s president – ordered the village not to be rebuilt but instead remain a memorial to the evils of Nazi
occupation. A new village was built nearby.

{{‘Symbol of reconciliation’}}

“I want to reach out to the victims and tell them: I am at your side,” President Gauck told Europe 1 radio ahead of the visit.

“I am 73-years-old, I was born during the war, I was steeped in the discussion of our guilt… I will tell the victims and their families: ‘We know what was done.’”

Mr Gauck said on Tuesday that he would not refrain from making the point to others during his visit that “the Germany that I have the honour of representing is a different Germany from the one that haunts their memories”.

He was joined in Oradour-sur-Glane by his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, and together they visited the village square, where residents were rounded up by Nazi troops ostensibly to have their identity papers checked.

They also walked around a church where women and children were incarcerated before it was set on fire. The village’s men were taken to a barn where they were shot with machine-guns.

The two presidents were accompanied by two of the three living survivors, including 88-year-old Robert Hebras.

He was 19 at the time of the massacre, and survived because he was buried under the bodies of other men who had been shot.

“I was consumed by hatred and vengeance for a long time,” he said.

BBC

{{Furious about a report that the U.S. government spied on her private communications, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff may cancel a planned White House visit and downgrade commercial ties unless she receives a public apology, a senior Brazilian official said on Wednesday.}}

A Brazilian news program reported on Sunday that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on emails, phone calls and text messages of Rousseff and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The report by Globo TV was based on documents leaked by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Rousseff is due to make a formal state visit to Washington next month to meet U.S. President Barack Obama and discuss a possible $4 billion jet-fighter deal, cooperation on oil and biofuels technology, as well as other commercial agreements.

The visit, which is the only such invitation extended by Obama this year, was meant to highlight a recent improvement in relations between the two biggest economies in the Americas, as well as Brazil’s emergence over the past decade as a vibrant economy and regional power.

But the official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the episode, said Rousseff feels “patronized” by the U.S. response so far to the Globo report. She is prepared to cancel the visit as well as take punitive action, including ruling out the purchase of F-18 Super Hornet fighters from Chicago-based Boeing Co, the official said.

“She is completely furious,” the official said.

“This is a major, major crisis …. There needs to be an apology. It needs to be public. Without that, it’s basically impossible for her to go to Washington in October,” the official said.

Obama and Rousseff are scheduled to attend a Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russiathis week. However, as of Wednesday afternoon, the two leaders had no bilateral meeting scheduled, the official said.

Rousseff is a moderate leftist but comes from a party with roots in trade unions and a historic mistrust of the United States.

Local analysts have said it would be politically difficult for her to participate in the pomp of a state visit, which includes a black-tie dinner at the White House, so soon after allegations that Washington was spying on her.

On Monday, Rousseff’s foreign minister demanded a written response to the Globo report from the U.S. government by the end of this week. A foreign ministry official told Reuters there had been no response by Wednesday afternoon.

Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo, one of Rousseff’s most trusted aides, told reporters late on Tuesday that the spying was “more serious than it seemed upon first impressions,” which may help explain why Brazil is now seeking an apology in addition to the written explanation.

{reuters}

{{A divided U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday approved a resolution authorizing the use of military force in Syria by a vote of 10-7, with one senator merely voting “present.”}}

The panel’s action clears the way for a vote on the resolution in the full Democratic-controlled Senate, likely next week. The Republican-led House of Representatives must also pass a version of the measure before it can be sent to President Barack Obama for his signature.

Obama is asking Congress to back his call for limited U.S. strikes on Syria to punish President Bashar al-Assad for his suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Before approving the measure, the senators voted for amendments to more clearly define the military activity being authorized. The measure approved by the panel is narrower than a proposed version that Obama sent to Congress for its approval.

The vote was not along party lines. Two Democrats, Tom Udall and Chris Murphy, joined Republicans Marco Rubio, John Barrasso, James Risch, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul in voting against the measure.

Udall said he was “horrified” by Assad’s attacks on his own people, but said he did not want the United States becoming embroiled in Syria’s war.

“I’m voting ‘no’ because this policy moves the United States toward greater involvement in the Syria civil war,” he said after the vote.

Three Republicans – Bob Corker, the top Republican on the panel, as well as John McCain and Jeff Flake – voted “yes” along with seven Democrats – panel chairman Robert Menendez, Barbara Boxer, Ben Cardin, Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons, Dick Durbin and Tim Kaine.

Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat, voted “present.”

reuters