IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • 3 Senegal Women Freed After Rebel Kidnapping

    {{Three Senegalese women who work for a South African organization that cleared land mines and were kidnapped by separatist rebels in Senegal this month were handed over to authorities in neighbouring Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday.}}

    Twelve employees of demining firm Mechem were kidnapped by a faction of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance, which has waged a 31-year struggle for independence in Senegal’s southern border with Guinea-Bissau.

    A witness said the women were handed over to the government in Bissau by Mao Ku Mao, a local organization that had secured their release.

    “We convinced the rebels that freeing the hostages would be a sign that they want peace and are ready to move forward in talks with the Senegalese authorities,” said Bigna Na Fantchamna, Mao Ku Mao’s coordinator.

    Nine other male employees are still being held.

    The Casamance conflict is largely dormant, but there are sporadic flare-ups between rebels and Senegal’s army and banditry and drug trafficking are common in the isolated region, which was once a major tourist destination.

    Mediators are seeking to kick-start new talks between the two sides, but the rebels warned in March against demining in the region.

    Senegal has an otherwise enviable reputation for stability in a region that has been crippled by wars and coups.

    {reuters}

  • Chinese media rejects accusation of pressure on EU in solar row

    {{Chinese state media rejected on Thursday European accusations that China was pressuring the European Union to drop plans to impose import duties on Chinese solar panels, adding EU member states had a right to disagree with the tariff.}}

    The EU’s trade chief, Karel De Gucht, bluntly told China this week it was wasting its time trying to put pressure on him to drop the duties plans.

    But in a statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency and posted on the Chinese government’s main website (www.gov.cn), China’s mission to the EU denied it was doing that.

    “It’s been reported that certain EU member states have expressed differing opinions on the duties the European Commission wants to put on exports of solar panels to Europe,” the mission cited an unidentified spokeswoman as saying.

    “I’m certain that this is a rational judgment made by them after conscientiously weighing up the pros and cons. There is no such thing as exerting pressure,” the spokeswoman added.

    The European Commission, the EU’s executive, accuses China of flooding Europe with cheap solar panels sold at below the cost of production, and intends to impose duties.

    That has prompted energetic lobbying from China against the move and divisions have emerged in Europe on the issue, foreshadowing a bruising internal battle over how to respond to China’s trade practices.

    The European business community in China, which has long complained the government favors their home-grown competition, expressed concern China would retaliate.

    “The European Chamber is against dumping and subsidies that are against WTO rules, and which cause harm,” said Davide Cucino, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China. “That being said, the Chamber encourages dialog first. None of you have ever heard the words ‘trade war’ from me.”

    Asked if European companies operating in China were worried about repercussions, Cucino asked: “Who would not be concerned?”

    De Gucht, who met Chinese Vice-Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan in Brussels on Monday, has confirmed there was widespread resistance among member states to the duties, but said governments were clearly being lent on by Beijing.

    The split between the Commission and EU member countries, as well as division among the bloc’s 27 governments, sets the European Union up for a potentially debilitating dispute over how to deal with China, its second largest trade partner.

    Reuters spoke to 21 of the EU’s 27 countries and confirmed that 15 opposed the duties, while six supported them. The other six either declined to say or could not be contacted.

    France and Italy support De Gucht and say China’s rapid rise in solar panel production – to more than total global demand – could not have happened without illegal state support. They blame Chinese overproduction for the loss of thousands of EU jobs in the sector.

    The duties will deal a blow to Chinese solar companies such as Trina Solar Ltd, Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. and Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd., and can be expected to drive up the price of their panels in Europe.

    But countries such as Germany, Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands do not want duties on Chinese solar panels because they are worried about retaliation from China and being shut out of its lucrative markets.

    {reuters}

  • International Crew Takes Short Cut to Space Station

    {{A Russian spaceship took a shortcut to the international space station on Wednesday, delivering a veteran cosmonaut, a rookie Italian astronaut and an American mother on her second flight to the outpost in less than six hours.}}

    The capsule slipped into its berthing port early Wednesday about 400 kilometers above the south Pacific Ocean.

    “Everything went very well,” NASA mission commentator Kelly Humphries said during a televised broadcast of the docking.

    Typically, the journey takes two days, but Russian engineers have developed new flight procedures that tweak the steering maneuvers and expedite the trip.

    One other crew capsule and several cargo ships previously have taken the fast route to the station.

    The express ride to the station began when a Soyuz rocket soared off its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and deposited the crew’s capsule into orbit. The spaceship circled around the planet less than four times before catching up to the station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations.

    Overseeing operations from aboard the capsule was veteran cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, 54, who will be living aboard the station for the third time. The former commander also flew on NASA’s now-retired space shuttle.

    He was joined on the Soyuz by first-time astronaut Luca Parmitano, 36, a major in the Italian air force. Parmitano, who initially studied political science and international law at the University of Naples, is the first Italian to be assigned to a long-duration mission aboard the station, which is a laboratory for biomedical, materials science and other research.

    “This is very momentous,” Parmitano said in a preflight NASA interview.

    NASA gave the crew slot to the Italian Space Agency as part of a barter agreement for Italian-made cargo haulers used during the shuttle program.

    Rounding out the crew is U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg, a 43-year-old mechanical engineer who has one previous spaceflight on her resume, a two-week shuttle mission. Back on Earth, her astronaut husband, Doug Hurley, is looking after their 3-year-old son, Jack.

    Nyberg, an avid quilter, said she was bringing along sewing supplies, a sketch book and pencils.
    “I’m really hoping to spend some of my free time drawing,” Nyberg said in a preflight interview. “I used to mostly draw portraits, and gave them to friends, but I haven’t done it in a long time.”

    Awaiting their arrival were Russian station commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineers Alexander Misurkin, also a Russian, and Chris Cassidy, an American. The men are two months into a planned six-month mission.

    The combined crews will oversee more than 100 research experiments and technology tests under way aboard the station. They also plan to conduct five spacewalks over the next three months, most of which are needed to prepare the station for a new Russian laboratory module due to arrive in December.

    {The Moscow Times }

  • UN rights council to debate Syria

    An emergency debate on Syria is due to be held at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.

    Member states will consider a resolution condemning the presence of foreign fighters in Qusair, as fighting around the strategic town intensifies.

    Foreign powers have been in dispute over the question of arming the warring parties in Syria.

    The row has overshadowed a US-Russian effort to arrange a conference to seek an end to the two-year conflict.

    The drive is also being undermined by the failure so far of Syrian rebels to agree who should represent them at any such conference.

    The UN’s top rights body will on Wednesday debate a draft resolution condemning the Syrian government’s use of “foreign combatants” in the besieged town of Qusair.

    UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has warned that the violence has reached “horrific dimensions”, and the resolution before member states calls for immediate access for UN aid agencies.

    The fact that Qatar – along with the US and Turkey – drafted the resolution reflects the deep divisions over Syria, says the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva.

    The “foreign combatants” are implied to be Hezbollah from Lebanon, who support the Syrian government – while Qatar is widely believed to be supporting opposition forces, some of them also foreign.

    If there is one thing the Human Rights Council hopes to achieve, our correspondent says, it is a pause in the fighting around Qusair, where thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped.

    But the council’s decisions are not binding – only the UN Security Council can order sanctions or peacekeepers, and those options look as far away as ever, she adds.

    Separately, representatives from 40 countries as well as some “special guests” are expected to attend a Friends of Syria meeting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, Iranian officials were quoted as saying in local media.

    {BBC}

  • China army to Conduct first “Digital” Exercise

    China will next month conduct its first “digital” technology military exercise, state media said on Wednesday, against growing concern in Washington and elsewhere about Chinese hacking attacks.

    A brief report by the official Xinhua news agency said the exercise, in north China’s remote Inner Mongolia region, will “test new types of combat forces including units using digital technology amid efforts to adjust to informationalized war”.

    “It will be the first time a People’s Liberation Army exercise has focused on combat forces including digitalized units, special operations forces, army aviation and electronic counter forces,” the brief English-language report added.

    President Barack Obama will discuss cyber security with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting in California next week, as Washington becomes increasingly worried about Chinese hacking of U.S. military networks.

    The Pentagon underscored its concerns in a report to Congress earlier this month, accusing China of using cyber espionage to modernize its military. It said the U.S. government has been the target of hacking that appeared to be “attributable directly to the Chinese government and military”.

    In Australia this week, a report by Australia’s ABC Television said hackers linked to China stole the floor plans of a new A$630 million headquarters for the Australia Security Intelligence Organization, the country’s domestic spy agency.

    The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any involvement in hacking attacks, even as it steps up defense spending and develops new technologies such as aircraft carriers and stealth fighters.

    {wirestory}

  • UK, France say can arm Syria rebels

    Britain and France said on Tuesday they did not have to wait until August 1 to arm rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, contradicting European Union officials, but both countries stressed they had no plans to do so yet.

    EU governments failed to renew an EU arms embargo on Monday due to differences in opinion, opening the way for Britain and France to supply weapons. But EU officials said the two countries had made a commitment not to do so before August 1.

    “I must correct one thing of concern. I know there has been some discussion of some sort of August deadline. That is not the case,” Foreign Secretary William Hague told mediaadding that Britain was not “excluded” from acting before then, but that it would not act alone if it chose to do so.

    French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said Paris also reserved the right to send arms immediately to Syrian rebels but had no plans to do so.

    He said France hoped there would be a breakthrough in finding a political solution over the next two months, but that the EU decision was a political declaration with no legal basis.

    When he was asked on Tuesday whether France could also deliver weapons before August 1, he simply said: “Yes”.

    {reuters}

  • Murdoch Aims to Defy Naysayers with New News Corp

    {{Rupert Murdoch tried to convince Wall Street on Tuesday that there is still money to be made in newspapers, reminding investors that he had defied skeptics over the past 60 years to build one of the world’s biggest media empires.}}

    As News Corp prepares to separate its publishing business from its entertainment assets, Murdoch said that while some brands face individual challenges, as a whole the publishing portfolio is “undervalued and underdeveloped.”

    “I am not saying I didn’t make many mistakes along the way —even some spectacular ones,” Murdoch said at a meeting in Manhattan to sell investors on the new publishing company.

    “You may be wondering why I want to do it all over again,” the 82-year-old media mogul said. “The simple answer is: there is opportunity everywhere.”

    The new publishing company, which will retain the News Corp name, officially kicks off on June 28 with properties such as: The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, The Times of London, Australian pay-TV services, book publisher HarperCollins and fledgling education unit, Amplify.

    The spin-off comes as newspapers face plunging advertising revenue and readers who increasingly prefer to get news for free on their smartphones and tablets. Shares of newspaper companies – once considered blue-chip investments – have tumbled over the past decade as investors fear a permanent drain in ad sales.

    Against this backdrop, the publishing company’s new chief executive, Robert Thomson, said there will be “relentless” cost cuts in store for the business. He gave no specifics.

    News Corp executives took pains to note almost half of the publishing company’s revenue comes from sources other than advertising.

    One revenue source is Dow Jones, which sells news and information to financial institutions and competes with Thomson Reuters Corp and Bloomberg LP.

    Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick highlighted the introduction of a new platform, code-named DJ X. He emphasized one product, one price and one standard contract.

    “If we can take a little more of institutional spend with DJ X – if we deliver that product with real value, there’s a real opportunity to increase our market share,” he said.

    Fenwick also said Dow Jones is working on a messaging platform to compete with Bloomberg’s vaunted product.

    {reuters}

  • Russia says end of EU arms ban is blow to Syria peace

    {{Russia said on Tuesday the European Union’s failure to renew an arms embargo on Syria would undermine the chances for peace talks that Moscow and Washington are trying to organize.}}

    “This does direct damage to the prospects for convening the international conference,” Russian news agency Itar-Tass quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying of the EU move, which will allow EU nations to supply arms to Syrian rebels.

    EU governments failed to bridge their differences on Monday, but decided to allow a ban on arming the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to expire.

    Britain and France, which opposed renewing the embargo, have made clear they will not deliver arms “at this stage”, but EU officials said the commitment effectively expires on August 1.

    Russia and the United States announced on May 7 that they would try to bring Assad’s government and its opponents to a conference to seek an end to the 26-month-old conflict in which more than 80,000 people have been killed.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met again in Paris late on Monday to discuss the proposed conference but did not announce any specific plans.

  • Argentina’s YPF loses Arbitration over Natgas Exports to Brazil

    {{Argentina’s state-controlled energy company, YPF, has lost a potential multimillion-dollar international arbitration case over the suspension of natural gas exports to Brazil, the company said on Monday.}}

    Plaintiffs are reported to be seeking well over $1 billion in compensation for YPF’s suspension of gas exports starting in 2004 and its rescission of the contracts with AES Uruguaiana (AESU) y Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur in 2009.

    At the time, YPF was controlled by Spain’s Repsol (REP.MC). The center-left government of President Cristina Fernandez seized Repsol’s majority stake in the country’s biggest energy producer last year.

    “This ruling only determines the responsibility of the parties. The determination of whatever damages that might exist is subject to a new arbitration process before the same tribunal,” YPF said in a statement to the Buenos Aires stock exchange.

    “YPF is analyzing the grounds of this arbitration ruling and will energetically defend its interests and those of its shareholders,” the company said.

    The case was brought before an arbitration panel at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper said in November that the companies – including a third one that was not mentioned in the YPF statement – were seeking $1.633 billion in compensation.

    An industry source familiar with the case said the figure was closer to $1.4 billion. The source said the third company cited by La Nacion – Companhia de Gas do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (Sulgas), which is part-owned by Brazil’s Petrobras (PETR4.SA) – sued alongside AESU and was included in the ruling.

    Officials at YPF declined to comment, as did the spokeswoman for Petrobras. No one was immediately available at the other companies that won the arbitration case to provide details.

    YPF’s shares closed down 3.61% at 114.70 pesos per share in Buenos Aires (YPFD.BA).

    Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur operates an Argentine pipeline that runs up to the border with Brazil. Its shareholders include Argentina’s Tecpetrol, France’s Total (TOTF.PA), Malaysia’s Petronas and U.S.-based CMS Energy (CMS.N).

    AESU belongs to power utility AES Brasil, which is the Brazilian unit of U.S. energy giant AES Corp (AES.N).

    {reuters}

  • World Bank unfolds strategies to end poverty

    {{The World Bank has raised alarm over the threat to human existence of poverty and ill health, even as it gave recipes on how to end poverty by 2030.}}

    Group President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, in his speech at the ongoing 66th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland on ‘Poverty, Health and the Human Future’ said to end poverty and boost shared prosperity, countries need robust, inclusive economic growth.

    And to drive growth, they need to build human capital through investments in health, education and social protection for all their citizens.

    The World Bank President said by current best estimates, worldwide, out-of-pocket health spending forces 100 million people into extreme poverty every year, and inflicts severe financial hardship on another 150 million.

    To free the world from absolute poverty by 2030, countries must ensure that all of their citizens have access to quality and affordable health services; and that countries can end the injustice of out-of-pocket health spending forces by introducing equitable models of health financing along with social protection measures such as cash transfers for vulnerable households.

    Last month, the World Bank Group, committed to work with countries to end absolute poverty worldwide by 2030. For the first time, the organisation set an expiration date for extreme poverty.

    Kim said the World Bank Group has adopted five specific ways to support countries in their drive towards universal health coverage.

    These include: continue to ramp up our analytic work and support for health systems; support countries in an all-out effort to reach Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5, on maternal mortality and child mortality; with WHO and other partners, the World Bank Group will strengthen their measurement work in areas relevant to universal health coverage; will deepen work on the science of delivery; and will continue to step up work on improving health through action in other sectors, because policies in areas such as agriculture, clean energy, education, sanitation, and women’s empowerment all greatly affect whether people lead healthy lives.

    Kim explained: “This means that, today as never before, we have the opportunity to unite global health and the fight against poverty through action that is focused on clear goals.

    “Countries will take different paths towards universal health coverage. There is no single formula. However, today, an emerging field of global health delivery science is generating evidence and tools that offer promising options for countries.”

    He said every country in the world can improve the performance of its health system in the three dimensions of universal coverage: access, quality, and affordability.

    “Priorities, strategies and implementation plans will differ greatly from one country to another. In all cases, countries need to tie their plans to tough, relevant metrics. And international partners must be ready to support you.

    All of us together must prevent ‘universal coverage’ from ending up as a toothless slogan that doesn’t challenge us, force us to change, force us to get better every day,” Kim said.

    The World Bank President said today the world has resources, tools and data that our predecessors could only dream of and his heightens countries’ responsibility and strips them of excuses.

    “Today we can and must connect the values expressed at Alma-Ata to strategy and systems analysis; to what I have been calling a ‘science of delivery’; and to rigorous measurement. And we must actually build healthier societies.”

    He said the setting for this work is the growing movement for universal health coverage and that the aims of universal coverage are to ensure that all people can access quality health services, to safeguard all people from public health risks, and to protect all people from impoverishment due to illness: whether from out-of-pocket payments for health care or loss of income when a household member falls sick.

    {wirestory}