IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • Gasoline fuels comeback for China’s electric car maker BYD

    {{BYD Co Ltd (1211.HK) (002594.SZ), the Warren Buffett-backed company best known for electric cars, is in the midst of a revival thanks to traditional gasoline-fueled vehicles.}}

    Its car sales jumped 25 percent to more than 250,000 units in the first six months of this year, outpacing China’s overall auto market growth rate of 11 percent. The vast majority of those were gasoline-powered, not electric.

    The recovery in gasoline car sales, which account for half of BYD’s revenues, has raised investors’ hopes that the company is once again starting to live up to the promise that attracted big-name backers such as Buffett.

    Profits from those gasoline cars, as well as from selling batteries for mobile phones and other handheld devices, can be funneled into expensive research and development of electric cars, solar panels and other futuristic green technologies.

    Shenzhen-based BYD said on Sunday its first-half net profit rose to 426.9 million yuan ($69.74 million), well ahead of the 16.3 million yuan it earned in the same period a year earlier, helped by strong auto sales and an improvement in its solar cell business.

    To be sure, it is too early to tell if the latest results mark the start of a sustained recovery.

    But BYD shares have more than doubled in the past year on investor enthusiasm over the company’s improving profitability and hopes that BYD could one day become China’s answer to Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O), the popular California electric vehicle marker whose shares have quadrupled this year.

    BYD’s fortunes took a turn for the worse in 2010, when its car sales began tanking amid a series of quality issues and a slowing economy. Last year, a much-publicized deadly fire involving one of its electric taxis hurt its share price, although an investigation found BYD’s battery was not at fault.

    Wang responded to the sales slump by slowing expansion and restructuring the company, including streamlining its distribution system and slashing the number of dealers by a third to 800.

    “In the past, BYD made almost everything by itself, include windshield wipers and paint. That was the root of many quality issues,” said Yang Zao, analyst at KGI Securities.

    “Now, BYD has started to outsource and buy auto parts from suppliers, while focusing instead on making key components such as engines.”

    {wirestory}

  • Japan may dip into budget reserves to fight Fukushima toxic water

    {{Japan may use emergency reserve funds from this year’s budget to help Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, deal with escalating radioactive water problems at the site.}}

    Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, acknowledged last week that hundreds of tonnes (1.1023 ton) of highly radioactive water had leaked from a tank, one of around 350 assembled quickly after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered nuclear meltdowns at the site.

    The tanks are used to store water pumped through the reactors to keep fuel in the melted cores from overheating.

    The latest revelation is the most serious problem in a series of recent mishaps, including power outages, contaminated workers and other leaks.

    Tepco also said last month – after repeated denials – that the Fukushima plant was leaking contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean from trenches between the reactor buildings and the shoreline.

    “It’s deplorable,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference on Monday. “It is necessary for the country to step forward and offer support to solve the problem as well as prevent a recurrence.”

    Suga said trade and industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi had been instructed to come up with measures, including the possible use of reserve funds from the state budget for the year ending March 2014.

    Japan put aside a total of 350 billion yen ($3.55 billion) in reserves for natural disasters and other emergencies in the budget.

    Motegi and Tepco President Naomi Hirose will visit the Fukushima site later on Monday.

    Japan is under increasing pressure to contain the toxic water problem at the plant. The new crisis comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pitching the country’s nuclear technology abroad to countries like Turkey, promising that its nuclear reactor makers have learned vital safety lessons from the disaster.

    Tepco shares fell as much as 10 percent on Monday to their lowest in 12 weeks.

    {reuters}

  • North Korea Angry at Swiss Ban on Ski Lift Sale

    {{North Korea has reacted angrily to a decision by Switzerland to block a deal to sell ski lifts to the secretive communist country.}}

    The equipment – which included chair lifts and cable cars – was for the Masik ski resort project which is currently under construction.

    But the Swiss government said last week the equipment constituted luxury goods and so was subject to UN sanctions.

    North Korea’s Skiers’ Association said such equipment should not be banned.

    The resort, it said in a statement, was aimed at giving North Koreans “highly civilised and happy living conditions and make them enjoy all blessings.

    “Cableway equipment for the ski resort do not produce any rocket or nuclear weapon,” it added.

    {{‘Prestigious propaganda project’}}

    The Masik ski resort site was believed to be a pet project of leader Kim Jong-un, who reportedly skied when he attended secondary school in Bern under an assumed name.

    It is also being viewed as a response to South Korea hosting the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

    Work on the site had been delayed by heavy rains and landslides, but Kim Jong-un wanted the resort to be finished by the end of the year.

    The North Korean leader has repeatedly visited the site and promoted it as an attempt to enhance the lifestyle of the nation’s citizens.

    But Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) labelled the resort a “prestigious propaganda project for the regime”.

    “It is inconceivable that this resort will be used by the general public,” Seco spokeswoman Marie Avet said.

    The ski lift deal with Swiss company Bartholet Maschinenbau, valued at more than $7m (£4.46m; 5.2m euros), is reportedly the third to fall through due to sanctions.

    Austrian and French manufacturers also turned down deals, citing political reasons.

    Source: BBC

  • Greece launches new state-run broadcaster

    Greece has launched a new public television channel, EDT, more than two months after the abrupt closure of the state broadcaster ERT.

    Some of the 2,700 fired staff have been continuing to produce programmes from their old offices. Europe’s association of public broadcasters pulled the plug on Wednesday on transmissions by the sacked workers.

    The Geneva-based European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said it will stop relaying their programmes to viewers, leaving ERT only available online.

    Greece’s conservative-led government cited the need to cut costs due to the country’s severe financial crisis for its decision to abruptly close ERT on June 11.

    The ensuing international outcry led to a severe political crisis that saw a small left-wing party withdrawing from the country’s fragile three-party governing coalition, leaving the government with a tiny majority in Parliament.

    The fired workers have been producing round-the-clock programming for more than two months from ERT’s headquarters, which they have taken over, in defiance of the government shutdown.

    {aljazeera}

  • India Gang Rape: Five Suspects Arrested

    {{All five men wanted over the gang rape of a 22-year-old photo journalist in the Indian city of Mumbai on Thursday have been arrested.}}

    The last suspect was arrested in the capital, Delhi, on Sunday, and is being brought back to Mumbai, police said.

    The woman was attacked at an abandoned textile mill in the centre of the city, where she was on a photo assignment with a male colleague at the time.

    The case has renewed public outrage over sexual violence in India.

    A 19-year-old unemployed man from south Mumbai was first arrested on Friday, and police made another two arrests on Saturday.

    The female victim, who is in hospital with multiple injuries, has said she is anxious to return to work after the attack.

    “Rape is not the end of life. I want the strictest punishment for all the accused,” she said.

    An intern with a Mumbai-based English magazine, she had gone to the Shakti Mills – a former textile mill that now lies abandoned and in ruins – with a male colleague for a photo shoot when the attack happened.

    Her colleague was beaten during the assault.

    There were nationwide protests last December following the gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in the capital, Delhi. She later died from her injuries.

    The case led to the introduction of tougher laws against sexual violence, but many are asking whether these have had any effect.

    {agencies}

  • Macedonian PM threatens early election over political deadlock

    {{Macedonia’s prime minister threatened on Saturday to call a snap election unless the main opposition party did more to resolve a political deadlock that is damaging its European Union membership prospects.}}

    Nikola Gruevski said the prospect of opening EU entry talks could be withdrawn if the conservative government and the centre-left Social Democrats failed to produce an agreed report on an incident last December when opposition legislators were thrown out for brawling.

    A joint government-opposition commission, formed under EU pressure, said on Friday it was unable to agree on what had happened in the incident, when police evicted journalists and opposition deputies during parliament’s budget debate.

    Gruevski told the Social Democrats that if they did not help by Sunday to adopt the report requested by the EU, he would call a snap election to try to maintain Macedonia’s standing in Brussels.

    “The second option is to convene parliament on Monday and vote to disband it and call an early election for October,” he told a news conference. He said he had enough support in parliament to win the vote.

    EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said in February that failure to resolve the dispute was putting at risk an opportunity for Macedonia to clinch the start of membership talks.

    {wirestory}

  • Obama Studies Options After Syria Gas Attack, Consults UK’s Cameron

    {{President Barack Obama and his top military and national security advisers hashed out options on Saturday for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria amid “increasing signs” that the government used poison gas against civilians.}}

    Obama spoke with British Prime Minister David Cameron, a top U.S. ally, and agreed that chemical weapon use by Syrian President Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces would merit a “serious response,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said in a statement.

    Syrian opposition accounts that between 500 and well over 1,000 civilians were killed this week by gas in munitions fired by pro-government forces, and video footage of victims’ bodies, have stoked demands abroad for a robust, U.S.-led response after 2 1/2 years of international inaction on Syria’s conflict.

    Syria sought to avert blame by saying its soldiers had found chemical weapons in rebel tunnels. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Syrian counterpart on Thursday to chide the government for not allowing U.N. inspectors access to the site.

    Obama has been reluctant to intervene in Syria’s civil war, but reports of the killings near Damascus have put pressure on the White House to make good on the president’s comment a year ago that chemical weapons would be a “red line” for the United States.

    The United States is repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean to give Obama the option for an armed strike.

    “President Obama has asked the Defense Department to prepare options for all contingencies,” U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters in Malaysia as he began a week-long trip to Asia.

    “We have done that and we are prepared to exercise whatever option – if he decides to employ one of those options.”

    The White House declined to list what options were discussed on Saturday and said Washington was still gathering details about the attack.

    “In coordination with international partners and mindful of the dozens of contemporaneous witness accounts and record of the symptoms of those killed, the U.S. intelligence community continues to gather facts to ascertain what occurred,” it said in a statement.

    American and European security sources have said U.S. and allied intelligence agencies made a preliminary assessment that chemical weapons were used by Syrian forces in the attack. The United Nations has requested access to the site.

    {agencies}

  • Fast Moving Snails Spread Deadly Dog Disease

    {{Despite their lethargic reputations, snails can travel at a relatively speedy one metre per hour, say researchers.}}

    By attaching multicoloured LED lights, the scientists were able to track their movements over a 24-hour period.

    The gastropods were fast enough to explore the length of an average UK garden in a single night.

    But scientists are worried that the fast-moving snails are spreading a parasite that is deadly for dogs.

    Over the past few years the wet summers enjoyed across the UK have proved the ideal breeding grounds for snails.

    According to the Royal Horticultural Society, their numbers increased by 50% last year.

    As well as being a pest for gardeners, snails can also spread a parasite called Angiostrongylus vasorum.

    This lungworm is a particular threat to dogs, which can become infected by accidentally eating slugs or snails which they come across in the garden or on dog toys.

    {{Painted snails}}

    Researchers at the University of Exeter were commissioned to look into the scale of the threat by the Be Lungworm Aware campaign, which was set up and funded by Bayer Animal Health.

    The scientists attempted to track the movements of snails in garden situations.

    To do this they attached tiny, multicoloured LED lights to the backs of about 450 snails and used UV paint to track their movements.

    The researchers found that the snails could cover distances up to 25m in a 24-hour period.

    “They are so slow that people don’t even think about them moving, but it turns out they do, and they can go a long way in a night,” said Dr Dave Hodgson, who led this study and was also involved in a BBC amateur science experiment in 2010 that sought to discover if snails had a homing instinct.

    The researchers say their new work indicates that snails pose a growing threat to pets.

    “They are not just lettuce munchers, they are carriers of parasites that can kill your dogs,” said Dr Hodgson,

    A recent survey of veterinary surgeons indicated that the lungworm parasite was now endemic across the UK, where once it was mainly found in the south.

    “It is becoming a real problem not just in the south of England, it is moving north to Scotland,” said Dr Hodgson.

    “It is a national problem and we all have to pay attention to the interactions between dogs and snails,” he said.

    {{Happy trails}}

    In the new work, the scientists were surprised to see so many snails followed the slimy trails laid by others. Dr Hodgson says it is all about conserving energy.

    “We know that snails use about 40% of their energy budget producing slime.

    “Given a chance, a snail will prefer to follow a trail that has been laid by another, it is a form of cheating like slipstreaming,” he said.

    As to what pet owners should do, the scientists suggested they should regularly check the nooks and crannies in their gardens for snails and try to reduce exposure to the species.

    “I wouldn’t be too happy suggesting that there should be a snail apocalypse and everyone should get rid of them,” said Dr Hodgson.

    “I think awareness is a better idea, people need to understand the wildlife in their gardens and that no organism is totally harmless.”

    source:BBC

  • 2 Pakistani Soldiers Killed in Kashmir Gun Fire

    {{Two Pakistani soldiers have been killed and three others wounded after exchange of fire at two different places across the de-facto border with India in the disputed region of Kashmir, the Pakistani military says.}}

    The first incident occurred in the Rakhchakri sector, near Rawalakot, on Thursday in which a soldier was killed and another wounded.

    The Pakistani military said that the Indian shelling was “unprovoked”, and took place in an area about 130km away from the capital, Islamabad.

    Another Pakistani soldier was killed and two others injured in Indian firing at Tata Pani area, or the Hot Springs, along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. Pakistani troops said they responded to the firing with its own guns.

    A day earlier, Pakistan said an army officer was killed and a soldier wounded due to unprovoked Indian shelling at Shakma sector near Skardu in Gigit Baltistan province on the LoC.

    According to Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, the first firing incident happened as the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was chairing a high-level meeting to discuss the escalation in ceasefire violations across the LoC.

    A series of clashes that began this month has undermined a push by Pakistan’s new civilian government to improve ties with India.

    The violence came two weeks after the killing of five Indian soldiers along the LoC that separates the two sides in the Himalayan region.

    India said they were killed by Pakistani forces, but Pakistan denied involvement.

    The nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Both control a part of the Muslim-majority region but claim it in full.

    A truce along their Kashmir border has held for nearly a decade, even though it has been broken every now and then by tit-for-tat artillery fire and an occasional cross-border ambush.

    India has faced an insurgency in its part of Kashmir since 1989 and has long accused Pakistan of supporting the gunmen fighting Indian rule.

    Pakistan denies arming the fighters, saying it only offers moral support to the Muslim people of Kashmir, who are living under what Pakistan characterises as harsh Indian rule.

    {agencies}

  • Mexico City Mass Grave Bodies Identified

    {{Thirteen bodies have been recovered from a mass grave near Mexico City, five of which are remains of young people kidnapped in the capital in May, officials said.}}

    “The remains of 13 people were recovered,” federal prosecutor Renato Sales told reporters on Friday, adding that forensics tests revealed the identities of five of the victims.

    Officials said DNA tests would continue to identify the eight other “badly decomposed” bodies.

    The grave was discovered on Thursday on a rural ranch in Tlalmanalco, east of the capital.

    The five are among 12 young people who were kidnapped from a downtown bar three months ago in a case that has shocked the capital and marred its image as an oasis from drug cartel violence.

    There was no immediate explanation about how the 13th body was related to the kidnapped youths.

    Officials had earlier reported the discovery of seven bodies on a ranch adjacent to a park 30km southeast of Mexico City.

    aljazeera