IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • Sony Rejects Loeb’s Proposal to Spin off Entertainment Unit

    {{Japan’s Sony Corp on Tuesday rejected a proposal from activist shareholder Daniel Loeb to partially spin off its entertainment business but the billionaire investor vowed to keep talking with the company and to explore other options.}}

    Sony said it could still squeeze synergies from its decades-old marriage of content and hardware and promised more disclosure in its entertainment operations.

    Loeb’s Third Point LLC hedge fund has waged a three-month campaign to convince the company to sell as much as one-fifth of its money-making entertainment arm – movies, TV and music – to free up cash to revive the electronics business.

    “Sony’s board of directors has unanimously concluded that continuing to own 100 percent of our entertainment business is the best path forward and is integral to Sony’s strategy,” Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai said in a letter to Loeb, which was released by the company.

    Loeb had cast his proposal for a public offering of part of Sony’s entertainment business as consistent with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to boost economic growth through structural reform in Japan.

    But a source familiar with the discussions said Sony’s decision reflected worries about listing a subsidiary, not resistance to corporate reform in Japan.

    The company did not need the cash from a subsidiary IPO, which would have created possible conflicts and cumbersome requirements from such a listing, he added.

    “I can’t believe this is a statement on Japanese companies not being willing to be flexible,” said the source.

    {reuters}

  • Inter Milan beat Juventus on penalties in friendly

    {{Inter Milan edged Italian rivals Juventus 9-8 on penalties Tuesday after playing to a 1-1 draw in a friendly at Sun Life stadium.}}

    Second-half substitute goalkeeper Juan Pablo Carrizo blocked Mauricio Isla’s penalty then converted an attempt of his own to lift Inter to the victory in the eight-club International Champions Cup friendly tournament.

    Argentina’s Ricardo Alvarez in the 28th minute for Inter and Chile’s Arturo Vidal with a penalty in the 44th for Juventus accounted for the regular-time goals.

    On target in the shoot-out for Inter were Andrea Ranocchia, Alvarez, Mauro Icardi, Ishak Belfodil, Patrick Olsen, Marco Andreolli, Alvaro Pereira, Jonathan and Carrizo.

    For Juventus, Claudio Marcchisio, Carlos Tevez, Andrea Pirlo, Vidal, Angelo Ogbonna, Martin Caceres, Giorgio Chiellini and Paolo De Ceglie scored from the spot.

    After the match ended 1-1, both Carrizo and counterpart Marco Storari made stops to begin the penalty shootout.

    Juventus and Inter matched each other over the next eight rounds until Carrizo went to his right and thwarted Isla.

    Carrizo turned around to take the shot for Inter, sending a blast high down the middle while Storari went right, giving Inter the win.

    It was the second time in three Stateside matches that Juventus lost on penalties. They fell to Everton in a shootout after a 1-1 draw.

    In the 28th, Palacio found space and raced down the left side. He sent a low ball to the top of the area, and Guarin fired a volley that Buffon blocked. The rebound came to Alvarez, who put a left-footed shot inside the right post.

    Juventus equalised a minute before halftime after Mirko Vucinic won a dubious penalty, dropping easily when Juan Jesus spun toward him.

    Referee Hilario Grajeda pointed to the spot amid protests from Inter and Vidal converted.

    The second half saw few quality chances, with shots from a distance rarely testing either keeper.

    In the second match of a double-header at the home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, which drew a crowd of 38,513, Michel Herrero scored in the 52nd minute to lift Spanish side Valencia to a 1-0 victory over English Premier League club Everton.

    Both sides seemed to be affected by the heat and humidity, and perhaps by the fatigue of several games in a short time.

    Valencia were coming off a 4-0 victory over Inter in New York on Sunday, while Everton were playing their third match in seven days, including their 2-1 loss to Spanish giants Real Madrid on Saturday in Los Angeles.

    The pre-season tournament will end on Wednesday, when Real Madrid take on Chelsea in a match that gives Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho a chance to make a point against his old club just three months after his acrimonious departure from the Spanish capital.

    france24

  • North Korea says to Reopen Kaesong Factory Park

    {{North Korea said on Wednesday it was reopening the shuttered Kaesong industrial zone run jointly with the South to South Korean businesses and proposed new talks on normalizing the troubled project to be held next week.}}

    The North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which handles Pyongyang’s ties with Seoul, said the safety of South Koreans visiting the factory park will also be guaranteed in a statement carried by KCNA news agency.

    The statement came about 90 minutes after South Korea announced steps to compensate its firms that operate factories in Kaesong for losses due to the suspension, a step widely seen as a move towards shutting down the rivals’ last symbol of cooperation.

  • African rock Python Kills 2 boys in Canada

    {{A four-meter (13-foot) African rock python which strangled two young Canadian boys as they slept has been euthanized, and police said on Tuesday they have launched a criminal probe into the deaths.}}

    Noah and Connor Barthe, aged 4 and 6, died after the snake escaped from its glass cage through a ceiling-level ventilation shaft, slithered through ductwork and crashed through the ceiling into the room where they were sleeping.

    “It’s a criminal investigation because two young boys lost their lives,” Alain Tremblay, a sergeant with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told a news conference.

    “It’s very serious,” he said, adding that it would take time to gather the necessary evidence to present to the prosecutor.

    The boys were at a sleepover at the apartment, above the Reptile Ocean exotic pet store in Campbellton, a city of about 7,500 in Canada’s Maritime province of New Brunswick.

    In a brief statement carried live on Canadian television, Dave Rose, the two boys’ great uncle, appealed for privacy to give the family time to mourn.

    “They were two typical children. They enjoyed life to a maximum,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

    Police said they were performing autopsies on both the snake and the boys, who Rose said had spent the day before they died at a garden barbecue and then playing at a family farm.

    An expert said African rock pythons do not normally view humans as food, and said the snake must have been confused when it encountered the boys.

    “A defensive attack, it would just be strike and release. They normally don’t constrict what they’re not going to eat,” said Bry Loyst, curator of the Indian River Reptile Zoo near Peterborough, Ontario, which has an African rock python on display.

    {agencies}

  • Fonterra apologises for tainted milk scare

    {{Fonterra, the New Zealand based company at the centre of a contaminated milk scare, has apologised to its customers, saying it is doing everything it can to rectify the situation.}}

    The world’s biggest dairy exporter said on Monday that it had found bacteria in some products that could cause botulism.

    China, company’s largest customer, has banned imports of milk powder from New Zealand over fears of botulism.

    The company said contaminated whey protein concentrate had been exported to China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Saudi Arabia and used in products including infant milk powder and sports drinks.

    At a media briefing in Beijing Fonterra’s chief executive, Theo Spierings, said food safety was the company’s top priority.

    “We really regret the distress and anxiety which this issue could have caused,” he said.

    “We totally understand there is concern by parents and other consumers around the world. Parents have the right to know that infant nutrition and other dairy products are harmless and safe.”

    Aljazeera

  • 3 Hungarian men jailed over Roma killings

    {{Four Hungarian men have been sentenced to jail after they were found guilty of killing six Roma, including a five-year-old child, in a wave of racially-motivated attacks between 2008 and 2009.}}

    A Budapest court on Tuesday handed down life sentences to Arpad Kiss, Istvan Kiss and Zsolt Peto. Fourth defendant, Istvan Csontos, who served as a driver to his accomplices, was sentenced to 13-year prison.

    The four convicted men, aged between 28 and 42 at the time of the crimes, are expected to appeal the verdict.

    During a year-long spree of violence, six people were killed and five seriously injured, all of them ethnic Roma, a community that makes up between five to eight percent of Hungary’s 10 million population.

    In one of the most gruesome attacks, a Roma father and his five-year-old son were gunned down as they tried to flee their house, which the gang had set on fire.

    Prosecutors said the four defendants, all hard-core fans of the Debrecen football club in northeastern Hungary with neo-Nazi links, had had run-ins with Roma in the past.

    wirestory

  • Australia PM Rudd criticizes Rupert Murdoch role in election race

    {{Global media mogul Rupert Murdoch has waded into Australia’s election race, calling a key ruling party platform unaffordable and drawing accusations from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that he was trying to oust his struggling government.}}

    Murdoch, whose News Corp controls about 70 percent of Australia’s newspaper market, questioned in a Twitter message how an ambitious $34 billion super broadband being built by Rudd’s Labor was affordable in a slowing economy.

    “Oz politics! We all like ideal of NBN, especially perfect for Foxtel. But first how can it be financed in present situation?” tweeted the Australian-born Murdoch, whose global media empire is now based in the United States.

    NBN is the national broadband network, a plan to provide an internet connection to every home. But the opposition has promised to spend less on the network and scale back its capability, reflecting tighter financial conditions with economic growth forecast to slow to 2.5 percent this fiscal year.

    Murdoch, who owns 50 percent of pay-TV operator Foxtel, as strongly criticized on the opening day of the election campaign on Monday when his best-selling Daily Telegraph newspaper ran a front-page headline “Kick This Mob Out” over a picture of Rudd.

    Rudd, who has claimed underdog status ahead of a September 7 general election, told reporters on Tuesday there was no doubt the Australia-born Murdoch was determined to engineer election defeat for Labor after six years in power.

    “I think he’s made it fairly clear … that he doesn’t really like us, and would like to give us the old heave-ho,” said Rudd, whose minority government trails the conservative opposition 48 percent to 52 percent in the latest opinion polls.

    Rudd said Murdoch’s views on the election campaign largely mirrored those of conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott, who has promised to downsize the planned broadband network.

    “Does he sense it represents a commercial challenge to Foxtel, to the major cash-cow for his company, or not?” asked Rudd, referring to the planned broadband network.

    “It’s a free country, he’s entitled to those views. I’m sure he sees it with crystal clear clarity all the way from the United States.”

    But Rudd denied his criticism hinted at plans to challenge Murdoch’s domination of Australia’s newspaper market should Labor be returned to power, by changing media laws.

    {agencies}

  • Indian Soldiers Killed at Pakistan Border

    {{Five Indian soldiers were killed in an ambush along the disputed border with Pakistan in Kashmir on Tuesday, India said, a clash that threatens to derail renewed efforts to resume peace talks between the nuclear-armed rivals.}}

    The attack, one of the worst since the South Asian neighbours signed a ceasefire in 2003, puts the Indian government under pressure to respond aggressively as it heads into a tough election next year.

    “The peace talks were in any case quite tentative, and they have now certainly suffered a serious blow,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research think tank in New Delhi.

    India summoned Pakistan’s deputy envoy to New Delhi and lodged a protest over the killings near the Line of Control (LoC) dividing the region, a government source said.

    A Pakistani security official denied there had been any exchange of fire on the border. “There has been no incident whatsoever,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

    Indian army sources said the attack took place in the early hours of Tuesday about 450 metres (500 yards) inside Indian territory, where six soldiers were on patrol. One soldier survived.

    “The ambush was carried out by approximately 20 heavily armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms,” Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a statement to parliament.

    “I assure the house that our army is fully ready to take all necessary steps to uphold the sanctity of the LoC.”

    The raid took place near an outpost of 21 Bihar Regiment in the Poonch sector in the south of Jammu and Kashmir state, officials said.

    It came just as India was considering dates proposed by Pakistan to resume talks that were suspended in January after two Indian soldiers were killed, including one who decapitated, in a clash on the border.

    Islamabad has also been pushing for a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – who made better ties with India a theme in his election campaign in May – and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September, Indian officials said.

    “It would be fruitless at this point to negotiate with the PMLN (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz),” said K.C. Singh, a former Indian ambassador. “We don’t know whether they are incapable or unwilling to handle the jihadi (militant groups) and the military, which have, in concert in the past decade, time and time again undermined the dialogue process with India.”

    New Delhi has sought to engage Pakistan’s civilian leadership and support its peace initiatives while demanding that Pakistan’s powerful military cut ties to militant groups that have carried out attacks in Kashmir and elsewhere in India.

    Both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan claim Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated region.

    In Pakistan, the military largely calls the shots on relations with neighbours and internal security, in addition to defence.

    The border incident comes after a botched suicide attack on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan at the weekend. Chellaney said the attacks underlined the threat to efforts to seek peace between the two neighbours, who are competing for influence in Afghanistan as Western troops prepare to withdraw in 2014.

    {reuters}

  • U.S. tells citizens in Yemen to leave immediately

    The United States told its citizens in Yemen on Tuesday to leave immediately and ordered the evacuation of non-essential U.S. government staff because of the threat of terrorist attacks.

    The State Department announcement was the latest warning since Washington issued a worldwide travel alert on Friday that prompted the closure of several Western embassies in Yemen and U.S. missions across the Middle East and Africa.

    Based on intelligence including intercepted communication between al Qaeda leaders, Washington has warned of possible attacks in the region.

    Some officials pinpointed Yemen, home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the most active affiliates of the network established by Osama bin Laden and where the United States uses drones to hunt militants.

    On Tuesday, its latest sortie killed four.

    “The Department urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Yemen and those U.S. citizens currently living in Yemen to depart immediately,” the statement posted on its website said.

    “On August 6, 2013, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from Yemen due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks,” it added.

    Britain said on Tuesday it had withdrawn all staff from its embassy in the capital Sanaa, adding there was “a very high threat of kidnap from armed tribes, criminal and terrorists”.

    Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi criticized the measures but said they would not affect relations with the United States.

    “Unfortunately, these measures, although they are taken to protect their citizens, in reality they serve the goals that the terrorist elements are seeking to achieve,” Qirbi told Reuters.

    “Yemen had taken these threats seriously and had taken all the necessary measures to protect all the foreign missions in the country,” he added.

    Restoring stability in Yemen has become a priority for the United States and its Gulf allies, concerned about al Qaeda militants operating in a country that adjoins top oil export Saudi Arabia and overlooks major shipping lanes.

    Reuters

  • Uruguay starts marrying gay couples

    {{Same sex couples will be allowed to apply to marry in Uruguay from Monday, nearly four months after a bill was approved by the country’s Congress.}}

    President Jose Mujica signed the legislation in May but it was only due to enter into effect 90 days later.

    About half a dozen couples should apply for dates at civil registry offices in the coming days, activists say.

    Following Argentina in 2010, Uruguay became the second South American nation to pass same-sex marriage legislation.

    Across Latin America, the number of countries allowing gay unions or marriages is growing.

    In Brazil, the council that oversees the country’s judiciary said offices could not deny the issue of civil union documents when gay couples wanted full marriage certificates.

    However, the issue still requires a bill to be approved by the Congress.

    BBC