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Tag: InternationalNews

  • U.S. Increases Pressure Over Snowden

    {{Placing new pressure on the Kremlin in the case of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, the White House said it was considering canceling a summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and two U.S. senators urged Obama to consider recommending a new site for a separate Group of 20 summit in St. Petersburg.}}

    The White House is dangling that summit cancellation option over the Russians as Moscow considers a temporary asylum petition from Snowden, the American accused of leaking information about classified U.S. intelligence programs.

    But officials have privately signaled that scrapping the bilateral talks would also be retaliation for other areas of disagreement with Russia, including its continued support for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s attacks against civilians.

    Regardless of what happens with Snowden, the White House says Obama will still attend the G20 summit in St. Petersburg. But officials have gone out of their way in recent days to avoid publicly committing to the meetings in Moscow.

    “The president intends to travel to Russia for the G20 summit,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said late last week. “And I have no further announcements to make beyond what we’ve said in the past about the president’s travel to Russia in the fall.”

    By simply considering cancellation of the trip, the Obama administration is indicating its concern that the Kremlin will allow Snowden to take refuge in Russia. The White House has called on Russia to return the 30-year-old former government contractor to the U.S., where he is facing espionage charges.

    Snowden, in a temporary asylum request submitted by his lawyer Tuesday, claimed that he faced persecution from the U.S. government and could face torture or death.

    Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the White House’s cancellation threat could be effective leverage over Putin, who likely wants to avoid an embarrassment on the world stage.

    “When the spotlight of the world is on him and Russia, he doesn’t want that spotlight to reveal a lot of negative things which are going to be distractions,” Kuchins said.

    Canceling the U.S.-Russia talks would deepen the tensions between the two leaders. And it would likely make it even more difficult for the two countries to find common ground on areas of disagreement that plague the relationship.

    The U.S. accuses Russia of providing military support to Assad that has allowed him to cling to power during more than two years of clashes with rebels seeking to overthrow his government.

    The U.S. deeply angered Russia earlier this year when it announced sanctions against 18 Russians as part of a law named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230 million in tax rebates.

    Within days of the Treasury Department announcement, Russia announced that it was banning U.S. adoptions of Russian children.

    Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Friday that the U.S. had not informed Russia of any plan by Obama to pull out of the summit with Putin in Moscow in September.

    Meanwhile, two U.S. senators urged Obama on Friday to consider recommending a new site for the G20 summit if Moscow continues to allow Snowden to remain in Russia.

    Senators Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, introduced a resolution that said the president “should consider options, including recommending a different location for the September 2013 G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, should the Russian Federation continue to allow shelter for Mr. Snowden.”

    “On multiple fronts, Russia is becoming one of the bad actors in the world,” Graham said in a statement. “Russia continues to provide cover to the Iranian nuclear program and sell sophisticated weapons to the Assad regime in Syria to butcher tens of thousands of its own citizens. For Russia to grant temporary asylum to Mr. Snowden on top of all this would do serious damage to our relationship.”

    Earlier in the week, Graham suggested that the U.S. consider a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi in February if Russia grants asylum to Snowden.

    Meanwhile, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said Friday that it would be “stupid” to let Moscow’s refusal to extradite Snowden interfere with the Sochi Games.

    Sports should be separate from politics, Vitaly Mutko said, warning against a repeat of the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow by the U.S. — a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

    Also Friday, Putin’s spokesman Peskov said he was unaware of any plans by Snowden to seek Russian citizenship.

    “Citizenship? This is the first I’ve heard of it. It’s news to me,” Peskov told reporters in the town of Novogorsk outside Moscow where Putin was meeting athletes.

    The Moscow Times

  • Explosion hits Beijing airport

    {{An explosion occurred on Saturday evening at the Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport, police said.}}

    A wheelchair-bound man, identified as Ji Zhongxing from east China’s Shandong province, set off a home-made explosive device outside the arrivals exit of the Terminal 3 at around 6:24pm, an initial police investigation showed.

    Ji himself suffered arm injuries and is currently under treatment.

    The explosion caused no other injuries.

    The device, like fireworks, was detonated after the 34-year-old was stopped from handing out leaflets to get attention to his complaints, according to the probe.

    Ji once worked in the southern province of Guangdong and has been petitioning for more than 10 years over alleged unjust treatment which resulted in his paralysis, police investigation showed.

    The police cordon at the arrivals exit has been removed, and the airport has begun to resume normal order.

    The operations at the airport have not been affected as the airport opened new exits for passengers, the airport said.

    Aviation industry experts urged people not to take extreme measures to vent their anger as such moves could disrupt public order.

    Police authorities are further investigating the case.

    {wirestory}

  • G20 Ministers Focus on Tax Evasion, Stimulus Measures

    {{The fight against tax evasion by multinational corporations and measures to ensure recovery amid the global economic turbulence came into the limelight at the two-day meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers that finished in Moscow on Saturday.}}

    Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s 20 biggest economies agreed to focus on boosting employment and economic growth and continue the policy of monetary support where needed, according to the closing communique from the meeting.

    “The global economy remains too weak and its recovery is still fragile and uneven. Unemployment remains excessively high in many countries,” the communique said. “Strengthening growth and creating jobs remain our priority, and we are fully committed to taking decisive actions to return to a robust, job-rich growth path”.

    To make that growth possible, the officials agreed to develop an action plan to be presented at the summit of the G20 leaders in September. The plan will include “a comprehensive series of structural reforms that will increase productivity, labor force participation and employment,” the communique said.

    Among such reforms is a major tax move proposed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and aimed at increasing the transparency of taxation systems globally.

    At the request of the G20 finance ministers, the OECD developed a plan that the organization said marks a “turning point in the history of international tax co-operation” and is expected to benefit countries like Russia, which impose relatively high taxes.

    The initiative, presented by OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria on Friday, won high praise from G20 financial officials and will be submitted to G20 leaders for approval in September.

    “It’s a specific action plan that our countries should implement to minimize the scale of tax evasion by major taxpayers,” Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told a news conference Friday.

    In an extensive plan to be enforced within the next two years, the OECD outlined 15 specific steps to prevent tax evasion by big international companies. “International tax rules, many of them dating from the 1920s, ensure that businesses don’t pay taxes in two countries — double taxation. This is laudable, but unfortunately these rules are now being abused to permit double non-taxation,” Gurria said in a statement.

    He pointed out that the OECD’s plan aims to ensure that multinational corporations “pay their fair share of taxes.”

    Among the steps envisaged by the plan are requiring multinationals with operations abroad — like Google, Starbucks and Apple — to pay local taxes on any profit they get from sales in an overseas country and provide tax authorities with a breakdown of profit, sales and taxes in every country of presence.

    The plan also calls for a more effective mechanism of dispute resolution and tougher legislation regulating the activities of companies’ offshore subsidiaries, which often accumulate the entire profit with no taxes being levied on it.

    The measures were revealed just a day after Google faced accusations of long-standing tax evasion in Russia. Federation Council member Ruslan Gattarov claimed last week that the Internet giant violated the country’s tax law by carrying out financial transactions with some local entities bypassing its Russian subsidiary. The company denied the allegations, Itar-Tass reported.

    In its plan, the OECD proposed to develop international tax rules “to address the gaps between different countries’ tax systems.”

    The recommendations outlined in the plan are aimed at supporting countries offering high tax regimes, like Germany or Russia, which are likely to benefit from implementing the initiative, said Mikhail Filinov, a partner responsible for international tax structuring services at PwC in Russia.

    At the same time, they put pressure on countries with low tax regimes, like Cyprus and Luxembourg, which contribute to unfair tax distribution globally, Filinov said.

    The Finance Ministry and Federal Tax Service could take into account the OECD’s recommendations and include them into the guidelines of the country’s tax policy for 2014, he added.

    “Great plan,” Siluanov said. He added, however, that its implementation in each specific country remained at issue. He called for the initiative to be enforced globally since its implementation in one country or a small group of countries was unlikely to yield results.

    To make the effort efficient, the countries might sign multilateral agreements on preventing double taxation rather than amending existing bilateral documents, Siluanov said.

    Gurria pointed out that there are a total of 4,000 bilateral agreements on the subject at the moment. “The question is how long it will take to review all those agreements,” he added, Itar-Tass reported. He said the OECD might draft an international convention to avoid amending thousands of bilateral deals.

    If the OECD plans are realized, there will be a major change in international tax planning both for taxpayers and tax professionals, Filinov said.

    “For the first time, countries agreed on a joint plan to track tax regulation issues beyond their own borders and take into account the peculiarities of other tax systems while setting their own regulations,” he said.

    The other key issue that was in focus at the meeting of the G20 finance ministers was the quantitative easing policy, which is being pursued by the countries’ central banks to stimulate economic recovery.

    Siluanov pointed out that wrapping up monetary stimulus measures amid economic stagnation would be premature. The quantitive easing policy involves purchases of government securities by central banks to increase the money supply.

    “Quantitative easing is justified amid economic stagnation, it doesn’t even lead to higher inflation,” Siluanov said.

    His comments appeared after indications by the U.S. financial authorities that the country might soon start wrapping up its quantitative easing program triggered a sell-off on emerging markets.

    The G20 financial ministers pointed out in the communique that they “remain mindful of the risks and unintended negative side effects of extended periods of monetary easing.”

    “Future changes to monetary policy settings will continue to be carefully calibrated and clearly communicated,” the document said.

    Meanwhile, Siluanov made it clear that a possible wrap-up of the monetary stimulus program was not on the agenda at the moment. “There’s no recipe for wrapping it up tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or easing it a bit. Everything will depend on the situation”.

    The Moscow Times

  • EU weighs sanctions against military wing of Hezbollah

    {{European Union governments could decide to blacklist the military wing of Hezbollah on Monday, in a major policy reversal fuelled by concerns over the Lebanese militant movement’s activities in Europe.}}

    Britain has sought to persuade its EU peers since May to put the Shi’ite Muslim group’s military wing on the bloc’s terrorism list, citing evidence that it was behind a deadly bus bombing in Bulgaria last year.

    Until now, the EU has resisted pressure from Washington and Israel to blacklist Hezbollah, arguing that it could fuel instability in Lebanon, where the group is part of the government, and add to tensions in the Middle East.

    Diplomats say the opposition to such a move is fading.

    “There are still reservations, but we are moving towards what could be a decision on the possible listing,” a senior EU official said.

    “The number of member states which have difficulties with a possible decision has been slowly diminishing.”

    EU foreign ministers will discuss the issue on Monday in Brussels.

    Blacklisting the military wing would mean the freezing of any assets it may hold in the 28-nation bloc, though officials say there is scant information on the extent of Hezbollah’s presence in Europe or on its assets.

    Britain, backed by France and the Netherlands among others, has argued that Hezbollah’s growing involvement in the Syrian war means Lebanon is already in a fragile situation and that the EU must weigh the possibility of future attacks in Europe.

    {Agencies}

  • Britain: Pregnant Duchess taken to Hospital

    {{The Duchess of Cambridge has been admitted to hospital and is in the early stages of labour, Kensington Palace has said.}}

    She travelled by car from the palace to St Mary’s in Paddington, west London, with her husband the Duke of Cambridge.

    The couple do not know the gender of their first child, who will be third in line to the throne.

    The world’s press have been camped outside St Mary’s for days in anticipation of the birth. The due date had never been officially announced but had widely been expected to be mid-July.

    The Duke of Cambridge has been with his wife on annual leave and will have two weeks’ paternity leave.

    Catherine’s final public appearance before the birth was at the Trooping the Colour ceremony in June.

    Under new laws to succession the baby will remain third in line to the throne regardless of gender.

    The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were married at Westminster Abbey in April 2011, watched on television by millions of people around the world.

    -BBC

  • Suicide bomber attacks Iraq army convoy, killing 10

    {{A suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi army convoy in the northern city of Mosul early on Monday, killing at least eight soldiers and two passers-by, police said.}}

    The bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to a military convoy in the eastern Kokchali district of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, before blowing himself and his car up.

    “A suicide bomber was following the convoy and when it stopped in the middle of road, he detonated his vehicle right behind it,” said a policeman at the scene who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

    A further 18 people, most of them soldiers, were also wounded in the blast.

    It was not clear who was behind the blast, but suicide bombings are the hallmark of al Qaeda.

    The attacks are the latest in a campaign of violence across Iraq that has raised fears of a return to full-blown conflict in a country where Kurds, Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable way of sharing power.

    {wirestory}

  • Brazil World Cup ticket prices revealed by Fifa

    {{Ticket prices for international fans attending the football World Cup in Brazil will start at $90 (£59, 69 euros) for initial group matches.}}

    Football’s governing body Fifa announced that the cheapest ticket for overseas fans for the final on 13 July was $440 (£288) and the most expensive $990 (£650).

    The tournament starts on 12 June next year, with the first game being played in Sao Paulo.

    Tickets will go on sale from 20 August.

    Fans have until 10 October to apply and a ballot will be held to decide which of these applications are successful.

    Only later will tickets be sold on a first come, first served basis.

    In total about three million tickets will be available for fans.

    {{‘No surprises’}}

    For Brazilian nationals the cheapest tickets start at $15. These are only available for students, those aged over 60 and people on social welfare programmes. For other Brazilians tickets start at $30.

    The lowest price paid for a ticket in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was $20, also for group stage matches in the special category set aside exclusively for residents.

    The governing body had previously said that tickets in Brazil would be the “cheapest ever”.

    The Fifa ticket website will include a map of the ground that shows the location of different categories of tickets.

    {agencies}

  • Trayvon Martin’s parents lead rallies in US

    {{Trayvon Martin’s parents have been joined by celebrities, civil rights activists and other protesters as they led rallies in New York and Florida to show their anger at the acquittal of the neighbourhood watch volunteer who shot and killed their unarmed teenage son.}}

    Sybrina Fulton led a protest of more than 1,000 people in New York, along with veteran civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton, where she told the crowd that the picture painted of her son, Trayvon, during the trial depicted a man she did not recognise.

    “He was a child,” she said during her speech to the hundreds-strong crowd.

    “We have moved on from the verdict. Of course we’re hurting of course we’re shocked and disappointed, but that just means we have to roll up our sleeves and continue to fight.”

    Singers Jay Z and Beyonce also came out to the New York rally.

    In Miami, a crowd of hundreds singing the protest song “We Shall Overcome” joined Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, to demand that George Zimmerman, acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter exactly a week ago, face civil charges.
    Al Jazeera’s Cath Turner, reporting from New York, said that the Martins and other organisers had continually called for the protests to remain peaceful.

    “There is still a lot of emotion one week after the sentence was handed down. The purpose of these rallies is to pressure the Department of Justice in to bringing civil charges against George Zimmerman,” our correspondent said.

    {{Racial debate}}

    Zimmerman has always maintained he shot Trayvon in self defence.

    Critics contend Zimmerman, who is white and Hispanic, wrongly suspected Martin, 17, of being a criminal because he was black.

    Zimmerman called police to report Martin, then left his car with a loaded handgun concealed in his waistband.

    A fight ensued in which Zimmerman suffered a bloody nose and head injuries before he shot Martin once in the heart.

    Marches, under the banner of “Justice for Trayvon”, also took place at federal courthouses in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and dozens of other cities.

    Violence at protests earlier this week led to arrests in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

    ‘Insult to injury’

    Speaking at the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama cautioned against violence, as he urged all Americans to try to understand the Martin case from the perspective of African-Americans.

    “There is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws,” he said.

    “A lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush … If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario … both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”

    Beverly Bond from the mentoring group Black Girls Rock told Al Jazeera that the black community wanted people to know that this was not an isolated incident.

    “This is an injustice we have seen in our community over and over and over again. It is amazing to me that people don’t know why we’re upset,” she said.

    “The trial added insult to injury because it was like he was being put on trial for his own murder.”

    aljazeera

  • Chinese Economy set to Turn Around, no Hard Landing: Finance Minister

    {{China’s finance minister denied that the world’s second-largest economy was entering a crisis period, adding that he believed growth could even accelerate, as quoted by the official Xinhua news service in an interview.}}

    The report quoted Lou Jiwei, speaking on the sidelines of the G20 conference on Saturday, saying he expected China’s economic growth to end the year at 7.5 percent, the official target rate.

    A Xinhua report on July 12 that quoted him saying he expected growth to come in at 7 percent caused brief market confusion, but Xinhua later changed the report to quote him as saying 7.5 percent.

    “We see domestic power generation and electricity consumption increased by 4 percent, and the service industry’s usage of electricity increased 8 percent,” Lou said, arguing that the increases showed efforts to shift China’s economy towards services from manufacturing were bearing fruit.

    “None of my fellow delegates think China is going to have a hard landing.”

    The interview was published late on Saturday, a day after Beijing announced it would remove the floor under bank lending rates in a move to free up interest rates, which planners hope will put China’s economy on a more sustainable growth path.

    Lou said China would continue tax reforms to promote growth, in particular by converting sales taxes to value-added taxes (VAT), while cutting down on paperwork and application requirements for Chinese businesses.

    His views were more mixed on the country’s real estate industry, which regulators and economists fear is distorted by speculation and fuels inflation.

    The industry should play a “normal” role in economic development, he said, adding that its place in China’s urbanization project required further study.

    Lou said that people talked about rising housing prices, but the industry faced other issues, including surplus housing in some cities and insufficient land supply in others.

    “Many developers lack confidence and many buyers are holding back,” he added. “Therefore the State Council needs to continue to research the long-term mechanism of real estate development,” he said in a reference to China’s cabinet.

    Lou also warned the United States against exiting from its monetary easing program without considering the impact of the move on the economies of other countries.

    {agencies}

  • EU pushes plan to bar aid to Israelis in West Bank

    {{The European Union, over Israeli protests, said on Friday it was pushing ahead with plans to bar EU financial aid to Israeli organizations operating in the occupied territories, but insisted the decision would not affect peace efforts.}}

    New European Commission guidelines on EU financial support were published in the EU’s Official Journal as planned, despite intense lobbying by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has denounced them as meddling in Israel’s relations with the Palestinians.

    Under the guidelines, Israeli “entities” operating in the occupied territories will not be eligible for EU grants, prizes or loans starting next year.

    The Israeli government discussed its concerns over the EU rules with the British and French ambassadors and the German deputy ambassador on Thursday, an Israeli official said.

    “This was an invitation, not a summons, to exchange views on the EU directive. We expressed our censure of the move – not least because it was a violation of the express assurance we had from the EU that Israel would first be consulted about it,” the official told Reuters.

    The Israeli government kept up its criticism of the EU move, with Finance Minister Yair Lapid saying it would bolster Palestinians who balk at direct peacemaking with Israel.

    “This isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s also stupidity … They (the EU) came along and did a service for the most extremist forces in Palestinian society,” he told Israel’s Channel Two TV.

    The EU guidelines will apply to Israeli companies, universities or other bodies operating in areas occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East War, including the Golan Heights, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

    The move was intended to underline EU opposition to Israeli settlement-building and its stance that it will not recognize any changes to Israel’s pre-1967 borders, except those agreed to by both Israelis and Palestinians in peace talks.

    {wirestory}