IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • Russia to Sell at Least 10 MiG Fighters to Syria

    {{The Russian MiG aircraft maker said it plans to sign a new agreement to ship at least 10 fighter jets to Syria, a move that comes amid international criticism of earlier Russian weapons deals with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.}}

    MiG’s director general, Sergei Korotkov, said a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss the details of a new contract for the delivery of MiG-29 M/M2 fighters.

    In remarks carried by Russian news agencies, he said Syria wanted to buy “more than 10” such fighters, but would not give the exact number.

    Russia has said it is only providing Assad with weapons intended to protect Syria from a foreign invasion, such as air defense missile systems.

    It has claimed it is not delivering weapons that could be used in Syria’s two-year civil war, which has killed more than 70,000 people and sent millions fleeing the country.

    But the delivery of MiGs would contradict that claim and expose Russia to global criticism, so the Kremlin might think twice before giving the go-ahead.

    A MiG spokesman would not comment on Korotkov’s statement, and the MiG chief could be referring to a deal the company previously negotiated with Syria that apparently has been put on hold amid the civil war.

    Moscow has shipped billions of dollars’ worth of missiles, combat jets, tanks, artillery and other military gear to Syria over more than four decades.

    Syria now is Russia’s last remaining ally in the Middle East and hosts the only naval base Moscow has outside the former Soviet Union.

    Russia has shielded Assad from U.N. sanctions and has continued to provide his regime with weapons despite the uprising against him that began in March 2011.

    U.N. diplomat said sunday that Russia had blocked a Security Council declaration that would have criticized the Syrian regime’s offensive against the town of Qusair.

    The Security Council diplomat said Russia blocked the declaration because the council made no statement when rebels seized the town.

    Syria’s political opposition cited the dire situation in Qusair as one of the reasons for not attending peace talks with the regime in Geneva.

    Russian media reports say Syria placed an order a few years ago for 12 MiG-29 M/M2 fighters with an option of buying another 12.

    The Stockholm Peace Research Institute also has reported that Russia planned to provide Syria with 24 of the aircraft.

    The MiG-29 M/M2 is an advanced version of the MiG-29 twin-engine fighter jet, which has been a mainstay of the Soviet and Russian air force since mid-1980s.

    Syria had about 20 fighters of the original make among scores of other Soviet- and Russian-built aircraft.

    {The Moscow Times }

  • Man Pleads Guilty to Threat to Kill Prince Harry

    {{British police say a homeless man has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Prince Harry.}}

    The Metropolitan Police said Sunday that 30-year-old Ashraf Islam, of no fixed address, was charged May 25 with threatening to kill the prince “contrary to Section 16 of the Offences against the Person Act.”

    He pleaded guilty at London’s Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court and is in custody awaiting sentence.

    Police said Islam was arrested after walking into a police station and making threats, a day after a British soldier was killed in London street on May 22.

    He was investigated by counter-terrorist police but was not charged with any terrorist offenses.

    The 28-year-old prince is a captain in the Army Air Corps and has served twice in Afghanistan.

    {agencies}

  • President Abbas Appoints new Prime Minister

    {{Palestinian president on Sunday picked a little-known academic as his new prime minister, according to the official government news agency, following the resignation of his chief rival.}}

    Mahmoud Abbas appointed Rami Hamdallah to replace Salam Fayyad, a respected U.S.-educated economist. Fayyad frequently clashed with Abbas and was seen as being too independent.

    Appointing Hamdallah is likely to shore up the president’s power, because he is seen as being more pliant. The new prime minister was tasked with forming a new government of technocrats, not politicians.

    Hamdallah is a member of the Fatah Party led by Abbas. He has no prior political or government experience.

    Like Fayyad, Hamdallah is widely respected.

    He is a British-educated English professor and has been dean of the Palestinian al-Najah University in the West Bank for the past 15 years.

    He has served as the secretary general of the Palestinian central elections commission since 2002. He has also held a series of prominent roles in university associations, according to his curriculum vitae.

    It was not clear how the move would affect the international standing of Abbas. Fayyad enjoyed wide support of the international community, particularly the United States, for moving to clean up the Palestinians’ unwieldy bureaucracy and clamping down on corruption during his six years in power.

    The move comes as the U.S. tries to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry congratulated Hamdallah in a statement Sunday night and said that his appointment comes at a challenging time but that it created an opportunity.

    wirestory

  • World Cup 2014: Brazialian Stadium Investiments

    The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be the 20th FIFA World Cup, an international football tournament that is scheduled to take place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014.

    This is the second time Brazil has hosted the competition, the first being the 1950 FIFA World Cup.

    Brazil is scheduled to become the fifth country to have hosted the FIFA World Cup twice, after Mexico, Italy, France and Germany.

    It is scheduled to be the first World Cup to be held in South America since the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina, the first time two consecutive World Cups are staged outside Europe and the first time two consecutive World Cups are staged in the Southern Hemisphere (the 2010 FIFA World Cup was held in South Africa).

    It will also be the first FIFA World Cup to use goal-line technology.

  • Merkel says EU Commission should not get more powers

    {{German Chancellor Angela Merkel is opposed to handing more powers to the European Commission and agrees with France that European Union governments should work more closely on economic policy, she said in an interview published on Sunday.}}

    Berlin has traditionally backed a stronger Commission but the EU’s Brussels-based executive has seen its influence wane during the euro zone debt crisis, while Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, has increasingly steered decision-making.

    “I see no need in the next few years to give up more powers to the Commission in Brussels,” Merkel told the weekly Spiegel magazine, adding that she agreed with French President Francois Hollande on EU member states cooperating more on economic issues.

    “We are thinking for example of the labour and pension markets but also of tax and social policy. Economic policy coordination in Europe is far too weak, it must be strengthened and this is rather different to giving more competences to Brussels,” she said.

    During talks in Paris last Thursday, Merkel and Hollande backed closer economic coordination between euro zone member states.

    They will send a joint paper on future euro zone governance to fellow leaders ahead of a June EU summit.

    Hollande also took a swipe at the EU executive over its detailed proposals last week on how to overhaul France’s ailing economy, saying the Commission could not “dictate” reforms to member states.

    His nationalist tone upset not only Brussels but also some members of Merkel’s center-right coalition.

    Merkel’s comments on the Commission may stir unease among smaller EU member states that see the supranational executive as the defender of their interests in a Europe that may otherwise fall even more under the sway of the larger countries.

    The interview comes just days after Germany and several other EU states came out against imposing hefty duties on solar panel imports from China, undermining efforts by Brussels to pressure Beijing on its trade practices.

    {reuters}

  • Jailed Pussy Riot Member ends Hunger Strike

    {{In Russia, a jailed member of the punk group Pussy Riot has ended her 11-day hunger strike Saturday after prison authorities met her demands, an activist said.}}

    Maria Alekhina had complained that officials at her prison colony in the Ural Mountains attempted to turn fellow inmates against her with a security crackdown.

    Inmates, who could previously enter and leave their workplace freely, had to wait for up to an hour for prison guards to escort them.

    Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of Alekhina’s jailed band mate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said that Alekhina called Saturday to say she has ended her action after prison officials restored the normal security regime.

    Verzilov said authorities took Alekhina, who was hospitalized Tuesday, on a tour across the prison colony, so that she sees that all extra security measures were removed.

    The extra security meant that inmates were denied prompt medical care when they sustained injuries during their work sewing uniforms.

    “It looks improbable, it’s not in the tradition of the prison system here to make any concessions,” Verzilov said. “There must have been a political decision.”

    Alekhina’s lawyer, Irina Khrunova, confirmed to the AP that she ended the hunger strike, but gave no further details.

    Alekhina and Tolokonnikova are serving two-year sentences over an irreverent punk protest against Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral.

    The third band member convicted alongside them, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was later released on appeal.

    Courts have denied parole to Alekhina and Tolokonnikova, who are serving their sentence in different prison colonies.

    Alekhina earlier spent five months in solitary confinement after claiming that officials deliberately lodged her with hardened criminals, including a convicted murderer, and encouraged them to intimidate her.

    In a complaint filed in January, Khrunova wrote that officials did nothing after seeing criminals threaten Alekhina with violence.

    The lawyer said officials also wrote false psychiatric reports and pushed Alekhina into violating colony rules.

    {Wirestory}

  • Iran President Survives Helicopter ‘Accident’

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s helicopter had to make an emergency landing in the northeast on Sunday after an unspecified “accident,” the presidency reported, adding that he was unhurt.

    “The helicopter carrying Dr Ahmadinejad and a number of officials on Sunday had an accident, but the pilot managed to land the aircraft safely,” the website president.ir reported.

    He had been en route to inaugurate a local project in a mountainous region of northeast Iran when the incident happened.

    “With God’s help the president and the officials accompanying him were not hurt. After the landing the president inaugurated the project and returned to Tehran by car.”

    {wirestory}

  • Scuffles in UK Amid Rival Soldier Death Protests

    {{Far-right groups and antifascists scuffled Saturday during rival demonstrations to mark the killing of British soldier Lee Rigby more than a week ago.}}

    Police kept about 150 British National Party supporters carrying anti-Islam placards apart from a larger group of anti-racist demonstrators outside Parliament in London after the two sides traded insults and occasional blows.

    Police said several people were arrested after the antifascists refused to move to let the other group pass.

    Smaller right-wing protests were held in other British cities, but the turnout fell far short of the show of strength organizers had hoped for.

    Police had earlier rejected a plan by the BNP — which claims to be anti-extremist but which opponents say is racist and anti-Islam — to march from the site of the killing in southeast London to a nearby Islamic center.

    Police, politicians and activists have reported a rise in anti-Muslim incidents since Rigby was hacked to death on May 22 by two men espousing militant Islam.

    {wirestory}

  • Caribbean Diplomat to Lead UN Mission in Haiti

    {{A career diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago with extensive experience on Haiti issues will soon head the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Caribbean nation.}}

    U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday announced that Sandra Honoré will serve as his next special representative and head of the mission known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH. She is expected to begin her duties on July 15.

    The mission is currently being headed by interim head Nigel Fisher of Canada, who replaced Chilean ambassador Mariano Fernández Amunátegui earlier this year.

    Honoré has served as special assistant to the chief of the Organization of American States Electoral Mission to Haiti from 1995 to 1996.

    She also served as chief of staff to the Office of the Assistant Secretary General at the OAS during one of Haiti’s most turbulent political periods from 2000 to 2005.

    Her resume also includes several diplomatic assignments including as Trinidad’s ambassador to Costa Rica.

    {Miami Herald}

  • Oil Falls Below $92 on High Supplies

    {{The price of oil fell 2% to its lowest level in a month after OPEC stuck to its current production target despite ample supplies of crude.}}

    U.S. crude oil futures fell $1.64 to close at $91.97 Friday in New York. Brent crude, a benchmark for pricing oil used by many U.S. refineries to make gasoline, fell $1.80 to close at $100.39 in London.

    The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. slipped less than a penny to $3.61 per gallon.

    Prices rose 10 cents during May, or 3%, mainly due to refinery problems in the Midwest.

    Still, May prices averaged less this year than they did in either of the last two years, according to AAA.

    The automobile association expects the average price of gasoline to continue to slide, and fall below $3.50 a gallon in June.

    The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Friday it would keep its official output target of 30 million barrels a day — one third of the world’s daily consumption — even though world oil supplies are abundant and some regions, including the majority of the European Union, are in recession.

    At the end of a meeting at its headquarters in Vienna, OPEC said that steady prices in recent months showed that the market was “adequately supplied” and that no action was needed.

    Oil prices have traded in a range between $88 and $98 per barrel through the first five months of the year. The average for the year is $94.01 per barrel, just 13 cents less than the 2012 average.

    OPEC has been producing more oil than members agreed to, helping to boost global supplies. Analysts say that could lead to lower prices in the coming months.

    “In view of the current oversupply and in the absence of any positive surprises from OPEC, oil prices are likely to remain under pressure,” said analysts at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

    Prices are also being pressured by weak economic outlooks around the world. When economies slow, drivers, shippers and travelers use less gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

    Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro rose to a record 12.2% in April, according to data released Friday.

    The region is mired in its longest recession since the shared currency was introduced in 1999.

    The U.S. economy, meanwhile, grew at a modest 2.4% annual rate from January through March, slightly slower than initially estimated.

    That, teamed with higher oil production and the use of more fuel-efficient vehicles, has sent the nation’s oil supplies soaring.

    The U.S. Energy Department said the nation’s supply of oil rose last week by 3 million barrels to 397.6 million barrels, the highest level since the government started collecting the data in 1978.

    {AP}