IGIHE

Tag: InternationalNews

  • Italy’s ex-premier Giulio Andreotti dies at 94

    {{Giulio Andreotti personified the nation he helped shape, the good and the bad.

    One of Italy’s most important postwar figures, he helped draft the country’s constitution after World War II, served seven times as premier and spent 60 years in Parliament.}}

    But the Christian Democrat who was friends with popes and cardinals was also a controversial figure who survived corruption scandals and allegations of aiding the Mafia: Andreotti was accused of exchanging a “kiss of honor” with the mob’s longtime No. 1 boss and was indicted in what was called “the trial of the century” in Palermo.
    He was eventually cleared, but his legacy was forever marred.

    Still clinging to his last official title, senator-for-life, Andreotti died Monday at age 94 after an extended period of poor health that included a hospitalization for a heart ailment.

    Andreotti grew more stooped with age, and infirmity kept him from what few official duties remained, such as opening the inaugural session of the new Senate in March, a privilege reserved for the eldest-serving member that fell this time to the next-in-line.

    Andreotti, a key player in the now-defunct Christian Democratic Party that dominated politics for nearly half a century, helped bring prosperity to what was once one of Europe’s poorest countries.

    When a corruption scandal flushed out the old political guard in the 1990s, marking the end of the first Italian Republic, he survived.

    {agencies}

  • Russia Plans to Maintain Weaponry Supplies in India

    {{In the wake of several lost tenders India’s No. 1 weapons supplier, Russia, is likely to change tactics in its efforts to compete, a senior official in New Delhi said.}}

    Moscow is “livid” and quite concerned about losing several big ticket Indian defense contracts recently, the official said in an interview, on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

    Russian officials have said they will change their strategy and focus mainly on government-to-government defense purchase contracts that do not involve competitive bidding, rather than continue to be outmaneuvered in deals on the Indian defense market which are increasingly taking the form of highly competitive global tenders, according to the Indian source, who is close to bilateral discussions on the topic.

    By leveraging the considerable political and diplomatic clout that Moscow has with New Delhi, Russia believes it will be better able to get a large share of some of the sizable contracts awarded directly by the government, as opposed to those resulting from competitive tenders issued by major Indian defense firms, the source said.

    Commenting in an interview with Kommersant last week on Russia’s options as a defense industry supplier, Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid said, “There are strategic spheres in which intergovernmental agreements are still important.

    But in open societies, such as ours, it is important that there be transparency and public scrutiny, provided for by tenders.”

    However, India is likely to sign an intergovernmental contract with Russia for three more Talwar class frigates after next month’s expected delivery of the frigate Trikand — the final ship to be delivered under a contract signed in 2006 to build three frigates for $ 1.6 billion. The new deal for the frigates is estimated to cost more than $2 billion.

    Another bilateral deal signed in December 2012 will see Russia sell India 71 MI-17 V-5 military helicopters worth $1.3 billion and $1.6 billion worth of kits so India can assemble 42 Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighter aircraft.

    The Russians have cited the example of the United States’ approach to arms sales in India. Moscow believes that much of the current U.S. portfolio of $20 billion of orders in India is because of the very close strategic ties between those two countries.

    The Americans have sold defense equipment to India worth around $8 billion in the past five years alone.

    All these contracts have been under Washington’s foreign military sales program — which is effectively a government-to-government route.

    Russian officials have told their Indian counterparts that they are taking a lesson from the results of the past two years in doing business with the burgeoning Indian defense industry.

    Israeli, American and European companies have won out over Russian bids in many big-ticket Indian defense deals.

    In several cases, Russian companies did not even manage to be among the top three international companies shortlisted. In some instances the Russians were knocked out of the competition in the preliminary stage.

    One case involved the Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft, or MMRCA deal, whose total value is expected to be around $ 20 billion. Russia’s Mikoyan MiG 35 was one of the six aircraft that participated in the MMRCA tender but did not make the shortlist, which contained the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale. The latter won the deal.

    Russia is also miffed that a small country like Israel has become India’s second largest defense supplier, the Indian official said.

    The Israelis have managed to bag orders worth $10 billion from the Indians in past decade — many of these through the government-to-government route.

    Both Israel and No. 3 weapons supplier the United States are breathing down the necks of the Russians and may soon dislodge Moscow from the pole position if more big deals go awry for the Russians.

    {The Moscow Times }

  • India & China Withdraw Troops From Himalayan face off

    {{India and China simultaneously withdrew troops from camps a few meters apart in a Himalayan desert on Sunday, apparently ending a three-week standoff on a freezing plateau where the border is disputed and the Asian giants fought a war 50 years ago.}}

    India says Chinese troops intruded into its territory on the western rim of the Himalayas on April 15. Some officials and experts believe the incursion signaled Chinese concern about increased Indian military activity in the area.

    A group of about 30 Chinese soldiers, backed by helicopters, had pitched several tents near a 16th century Silk Road campsite called Daulat Beg Oldi, close to an air strip New Delhi uses to support troops on the Siachen glacier.

    The two sides stood down after reaching an agreement during a meeting between border commanders, an Indian army official said after the tension threatened to overshadow a planned visit by India’s foreign minister to Beijing on Thursday.

    But it was not immediately clear how far China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers had withdrawn – Delhi had claimed they were 19 km (12 miles) beyond the point it understands to be the border with China, a vaguely defined de facto line called the Line of Actual Control, which neither side agrees on.

    Defence and foreign ministry spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    “Our troops have moved one kilometer backwards from the position they were on since April 16,” said the officer, from the Indian army’s Northern Command, which oversees the disputed region on the fringes of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.

    “Chinese troops have also moved away from their position they were holding on since April 15 when they intruded in Indian territory. It is not clear yet how (far) the PLA moved back.”

    India considered it the worst border incursion for years.

    New Delhi often appears insecure about relations with its powerful neighbor, despite slowly warming relations between Asia’s largest countries. China is India’s top trade partner, but the unresolved border sours the friendship.

    India’s opposition and much of the media has been critical of the government’s handling of the standoff, drawing parallels with a 1962 war which ended in its humiliating defeat.

    On Friday, parliament was adjourned after members shouted “Get China out, save the country”.

    {Agencies}

  • Leftists Protest Hollande’s 1st Year

    Tens of thousands of supporters of leftist parties marched through central Paris on Sunday to express disappointment with President Francois Hollande’s first year in power, criticizing the leader for reneging on his promises to rein in the world of finance and enact economic stimulus.

    Hollande, a Socialist, rose to the presidency last May, promising to spare France the austerity measures imposed elsewhere in Europe.

    And the French government has largely avoided the deep spending cuts, big tax hikes and the wide-ranging reforms of many of its neighbors.

    Instead, it has nibbled around the edges of its deficit, cutting 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in spending and increasing taxes, largely on the rich, by 20 billion euros.

    That’s relatively little for a country with 2 trillion euro economy of which 57% is government spending.

    Still, France’s economy has continued to deteriorate, with growth stagnating and unemployment rising above 10%.

    Leftists who took the streets on Sunday — largely from parties to the left of Hollande’s mainstream Socialist Party — rejected the notion that Hollande had spared France a worse fate.

    “Salaries are frozen. They continue to reduce hiring in the public sector,” said Brigitte Blang, a 64-year-old teacher from eastern France. “We’re waiting for true leftist policies. There’s money in the coffers!”

    Paris police said 30,000 people showed up, although protest organizers said there were 180,000.

    After speeches, the crowd marched to another Paris square.
    Several protesters acknowledged that they voted for Hollande a year ago — either simply to ensure the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat or because they had hope for his leadership.

    Hollande’s failure to keep the support of those on the far left protesting in Paris on Sunday while also angering the right —who think his economic reforms and budget cuts haven’t gone far enough — has made him one the least popular presidents in modern French history.

    In a sign of how he is being squeezed from both sides, police said 15,000 people — largely right-leaning — gathered in another part of Paris on Sunday to protest the recent passage of a law legalizing gay marriage.

    Hollande and his ministers have pleaded for more time to allow their policies to take hold.

    {agencies}

  • Uncle Arranging Boston Bomber’s Burial

    {{The uncle of slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived in Massachusetts to arrange for his nephew’s burial, while the funeral director struggled to find a cemetery in the state willing to take the body.}}

    Ruslan Tsarni arrived Sunday with three of his friends and prepared to wash and shroud his nephew’s body according to Muslim tradition. The 26-year-old died after a gun battle with police on April 19.

    Tsarni, of Maryland, said he understands that “no one wants to associate their names with such evil events.”

    Funeral director Peter Stefan said he hasn’t been able to find a cemetery in Massachusetts willing to take the body.

    He said he plans to ask the city of Cambridge, where Tsarnaev lived, to provide a burial plot, and if Cambridge turns him down, he will seek help from state officials.

    Cambridge city manager Robert Healy said in a statement that there has been no formal application for a burial permit or purchase of a cemetery plot. He said he was urging Tsarnaev’s family and the funeral director who has the body not to request a burial permit for the city-owned Cambridge Cemetery.

    Healy said the city “would be adversely impacted by the turmoil, protests, and wide spread media presence at such an interment.” He said the families who have loved ones interred at the cemetery also deserve to have their deceased family members rest in peace.

    Healey said other federal agencies should take the lead in the burial.

    Tsarni told reporters that he is arranging for Tsarnaev’s burial because religion and tradition call for his nephew to be buried. He would like him buried in Massachusetts because he’s lived in the state for the last decade, he said.

    “I’m dealing with logistics. A dead person must be buried,” he said.

    He said he was grateful to Stefan for agreeing to arrange the burial and to his friends for accompanying him to Massachusetts to aid with the funeral.

    “These are my friends who feel for me … as I do understand no one wants to associate their names with such evil events,” he said.

    Tsarnaev died days after the April 15 bombing at the marathon finish line, which killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. His 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, was captured.

    Stefan said he has received calls from people criticizing him and calling him “un-American” for being willing to handle Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s funeral.

    “We take an oath to do this. Can I pick and choose? No. Can I separate the sins from the sinners? No,” he said. “We are burying a dead body. That’s what we do.”

    A half dozen protesters gathered outside the funeral home Sunday holding signs and American flags and chanting “U.S.A.!” One sign read: “Do not bury him on U.S. soil.” Several people drove by the funeral home earlier Sunday and yelled, including one man who shouted, “Throw him off a boat like Osama bin Laden!” The al-Qaida leader was buried at sea after Navy SEALs killed him in a raid on his compound in Pakistan.

    The state medical examiner ruled that Tsarnaev died from gunshot wounds and blunt trauma to his head and torso, and authorities have said his brother ran him over in a chaotic getaway attempt.

    Stefan said the family won’t request that an independent medical examiner perform a second autopsy, but representatives from the family’s legal team might photograph Tsarnaev’s body before it’s washed.

    Tsarni has denounced the acts his nephews are accused of committing and has said they brought shame to the family and the entire Chechen community.

    The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the U.S. about a decade ago with their parents. Both parents returned to Dagestan last year.

    Tsarni said Sunday that he hopes to eventually see Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is in a prison hospital and faces a potential death sentence if convicted of the terrorism plot.

    “This is another person left all to himself,” he said.

    {The Moscow Times }

  • Venezuela President Labels Obama ‘Grand Chief of Devils’

    {{Venezuela brushed off criticism from U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday and maintained its accusation that an American detainee in Caracas is a spy pretending to be a filmmaker.}}

    During his visit to Latin America, Obama said on Saturday the allegations against Tim Tracy, 35, were “ridiculous.”

    But Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres insisted that intelligence agents tracking Tracy since late 2012 had uncovered ample evidence he was plotting with militant anti-government factions to destabilize Venezuela with violence.

    “When you want to do intelligence work in another country, all those big powers who do this type of spying, they often use the facade of a filmmaker, documentary-maker, photographer or journalist,” he told state TV.

    “Because with that facade, they can go anywhere, penetrate any place.”

    Obama’s comments about Tracy, and others questioning socialist leader Nicolas Maduro’s democratic credentials after last month’s disputed presidential vote, have infuriated the government and revived accusations of “imperialist meddling.”

    Late on Saturday, Maduro’s government issued a formal protest note. In a remark reminiscent of his mentor and late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s tirades against U.S. leaders, Maduro even labeled Obama “the grand chief of devils.”

    Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver who rose to be Chavez’s foreign minister and vice president, has alternately railed against Washington in the same terms as Chavez and fanned prospects of a rapprochement by offering dialogue.

    “I think he actually wants to improve relations with the North, but because he’s vulnerable domestically right now, he needs to revive the old blood-and-thunder rhetoric to shore up support,” said a Western diplomat in Caracas.

    The Tracy case is a crucial test of Maduro’s intentions toward a country that remains the main export market for the OPEC member’s oil despite years of political hostility.

    {reuters}

  • Colombia’s FARC Rebels Hopeful for Peace Deal

    {{Colombian government and the FARC rebel group have been holding talks for the last six months, but government negotiators say little progress has been made.}}

    The FARC rebels have rejected the idea of legal prosecution for their actions in the country’s 60-year war, in which thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced.

    The rebels say the peace talks will take time, and the government’s push for a quick deal is aimed at upcoming elections.

    {wirestory}

  • Alaska Volcano Erupts

    A remote but long-restless Alaska volcano rumbled to life on Saturday with three explosions and started emitting a continuous plume of ash, steam and gas in an area important to air traffic, scientists said.

    The low-level explosions at Cleveland Volcano, which lies below a major air-traffic route between North America and Asia, were not severe enough to cause a significant threat to planes, said experts.

    But the incident did prompt federal aviation authorities to divert some traffic north of the volcano as a precaution, said Rick Wessels, a U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

    “Based on the signals we can see, we think it’s continuously in an eruption right now,” Wessels said of the volcano, located 940 miles southwest of Anchorage.

    Cleveland Volcano, which has been restless since mid-2011, is on an uninhabited island in one of the most sparsely populated regions of the world, although major eruptions could cause potential aviation threats.

    The 5,676-foot volcano began oozing lava in the summer of 2011, causing lava domes to form at the crater and allowing pressure to build inside the peak. There have since been 20 to 25 explosions at sporadic intervals.

    {reuters}

  • Malaysians Votes to decide fate of world’s Longest-ruling Coalition

    {{Malaysians began voting on Sunday in an election that could weaken or even end the rule of one of the world’s longest-lived coalitions, which faces a stiff challenge from an opposition pledging to clean up politics and end race-based policies.}}

    Led by former finance minister Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition is aiming to build on startling electoral gains in 2008, when the Barisan Nasional, or National Front, ruling coalition lost its customary two-thirds parliamentary majority.

    The result signaled a breakdown in traditional politics as minority ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians, as well as many majority Malays, rejected the National Front’s brand of race-based patronage that has ensured stability in the Southeast Asian nation but led to corruption and widening inequality.

    Hundreds of people lined up outside polling stations across the country, many of them first-time voters concerned about the rising living costs, higher crime and corruption in a government that has been in power for 56 years.

    The campaigning had heated up in recent days with Anwar accusing the coalition of flying up to 40,000 “dubious” voters across the country to vote in close races. The government says it was merely helping voters to return to their hometowns.

    {Agencies}

  • German Do-17 Bomber to be Lifted from English Channel

    {{Work to salvage the sole surviving German Dornier Do-17 bomber plane flown in the Battle of Britain in World War Two began on Friday, more than 70 years after it crashed into the English Channel.}}

    Project managers said the plane, lying 16 metres (52 feet) deep, remains in surprisingly good condition and will be raised using a purpose-built cradle later this month in the biggest recovery of its kind in British waters.

    It was first noticed when a fisherman caught his net in the aircraft almost 10 years ago and it was identified as a bomber by divers in 2008.

    The plane will be packed in gel and plastic sheeting to shield it from the air before it can be transported to hydration tunnels where the crust created by 70 years underwater will be washed away over the next two years.

    Eventually, the bomber will be exhibited in the Royal Air Force Museum in London, the city Adolf Hitler had hoped to bring to its knees, said Peter Dye, the director general of the museum, which is leading the project.

    These aircraft were nicknamed the Luftwaffe’s “flying pencil” bombers because of their narrow fuselage.

    Research by the museum showed the plane was shot down on August 26 1940 during a series of air attacks by the Germans known as the Battle of Britain, the first major campaign fought entirely by air forces.

    “Britain remained a focus of defiance when all seemed lost,” said Peter Devitt, historian and curator at the RAF museum.

    “It won this extraordinary, very narrow victory at the Battle of Britain and from there could be used as a springboard to defeat the German forces and liberate Europe.”

    The cost of saving the Dornier Do-17 could reach 600,000 pounds, Devitt said, adding the museum is confident of raising the necessary funds.

    European defence giant EADS sponsored part of the project but the biggest donation came from the UK National Heritage Memorial Fund which donated 345,000 pounds.

    The museum’s research found it was unclear whether the plane was brought down by British or stray German fire and efforts to reach relatives of the four German soldiers in their early twenties flying the plane have been fruitless.

    {reuters}