Tag: InternationalNews

{{North Korea’s continuing development of nuclear technology and long-range ballistic missiles will move it closer to its stated goal of being able to hit the United States with an atomic weapon, a new Pentagon report to Congress said on Thursday.}}

The report, the first version of an annual Pentagon assessment required by law, said Pyongyang’s Taepodong-2 missile, with continued development, might ultimately be able to reach parts of the United States carrying a nuclear payload if configured as an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea launched a multi-stage rocket that delivered a satellite into orbit in December, an advance that “contributes heavily” to the country’s development of a long-range ballistic missile capability, the report said.

It is also continuing to refine its atomic weapons capability, including with a nuclear detonation in February, and is capable of conducting “additional nuclear tests at any time,” the report said.

“These advances in ballistic-missile delivery systems, coupled with developments in nuclear technology … are in line with North Korea’s stated objective of being able to strike the U.S. homeland,” the report said.

“North Korea will move closer to this goal, as well as increase the threat it poses to U.S. forces and allies in the region, if it continues testing and devoting scarce regime resources to these programs,” it said.

The document characterized North Korea as one of the biggest U.S. security challenges in the region because of its effort to develop nuclear arms and missiles, its record of selling weapons technology to other countries and its willingness to “undertake provocative and destabilizing behavior.”

{{North Korea says it has sentenced a US citizen to 15 years of hard labour.}}

The announcement, from state news agency KCNA, said Pae Jun-ho, known in the US as Kenneth Bae, was tried on 30 April.

He was held last year after entering North Korea as a tourist. Pyongyang said he was accused of anti-government crimes.

The move comes amid high tensions between North Korea and the US, after Pyongyang’s third nuclear test.

North Korean media said last week that Mr Pae had admitted charges of crimes against North Korea, including attempting to overthrow the government.

“The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labour for this crime,” KCNA said.

Mr Pae, 44, was arrested in November as he entered the northeastern port city of Rason, a special economic zone near North Korea’s border with China.

He is believed to be a tour operator of Korean descent. The Associated Press news agency also reports that he is described by friends as a devout Christian.

South Korean activists say Mr Pae may have been arrested for taking photos of starving children in North Korea.

“We call on the DPRK [North Korea] to release Kenneth Bae immediately on humanitarian grounds,” US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said on Monday.

Diplomats from Sweden, which represents the US in North Korea in the absence of diplomatic ties, had been providing counsel to Mr Pae, reports said. The US State Department was working with the Swedish embassy to confirm the report of the sentencing.

{BBC}

{{The final moments of the flight of the cargo plane that crashed Monday in Afghanistan, killing all seven crew members, appear to have been captured on a dashboard camera.}}

The approximately 3-minute video shows what appears to be the Boeing 747-400 jet climbing shortly after takeoff, at 11:20 a.m., from Bagram Airbase.

But some 12 seconds into the video, the jet appears to stall, rolls from side to side, and drops.

At 23 seconds, the plane crashes, nose first, into the ground off the side of the road, erupting into a ball of orange flame and black smoke.

There is no immediate reaction from inside the vehicle. After the driver brings the vehicle equipped with the webcam to a halt, at 1:15 in the video, someone says, “Oh, f***!”

At 1:33, as the camera shows the vehicle moving once again, a noise can be heard — possibly from a dog. Someone says, “All right, come here. Shh! Shh! Shh!” The yelping stops; the vehicle stops.

At 2:13 in the video, the vehicle approaches the crash site and stops, the camera once again capturing thick black smoke. The video ends.

“That’s one dramatic fall out of the sky,” said Arthur Rosenberg, a pilot, engineer and partner with the New York-based law firm Soberman & Rosenberg, which specializes in litigation stemming from plane crashes. “It could have been a rock.”

He added, “The plane just flat-out stalled. There’s absolutely no question about that.”
He said too much cargo in the rear of the plane is one of several possible causes.

“It looks to me like the plane pitched up; the most likely cause would be too much load in the rear,” he said in a telephone interview.

“The plane dropped below minimum controllable airspeed and started to roll.”

But, he added, “It’s way too early to tell.”

Watch Full Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKzodfMt9dw

{CNN}

{{The first visit of Japan’s prime minister to Russia in over a decade on Monday, leaders of the two countries expressed “firm determination to conclude a peace treaty” after 67 years of largely futile attempts to resolve the territorial row over the Kuril Islands.}}

The four islands, with a total size five times the territory of Moscow, prevented Russia and Japan from concluding a peace treaty following World War II.

Japan called for the disputed archipelago, which had been seized by the Soviet Union in 1945, to be returned, but Russia stayed firm in its sovereignty claims over the territory.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to “build new momentum” and “set a future course” for Russia-Japan relations.

“I feel that we have established personal and trusting relations,” Abe said at a news conference after his talks with Putin, Interfax reported. “We came to the shared opinion that we should intensify contacts between our two countries’ leaders in the future.”

Leaders of Russia and Japan had stalled discussions over a possible peace treaty and the Kuril Islands amid mushrooming irritants in recent years, including then-President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2010 visit to the islands and repeated allegations that Russia invaded Japanese airspace.

Just last Saturday morning, Japan’s Defense Ministry said it scrambled fighter jets when two Russian Tu-142 planes flew close to its national border.

Russia has denied violating Japan’s airspace.

{The Moscow Times}

{{Demonstrations are taking place across the world as protesters gather to mark May Day, the traditional date for demanding better workers’ rights.}}

Protests first began in Asia, with tens of thousands of workers in Jakarta calling for improved conditions and mobilising against government plans to cut fuel subsidies.

Reports from Jarakata show that Everywhere I look I see demonstrating workers; this is the biggest rally I’ve seen here.

The president [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono], announced yesterday that the fuel price will go up as it is heavily subsidesed.

A recent increase in the minimum wage would simply disappear with the fuel price increase.

Vaessen estimated that 150,000 people could flood the capital by the day’s end.

The president has said the fuel price measures will not be implemented until parliament approves compensation for those likely to be affected.

{{Istanbul clashes}}

With 80 countries around marking May 1 as a public holiday, Istanbul’s Taksim Square was in lockdown on Wednesday, after the Turkish government banned May Day protests there.

The square is the site of a 1977 May Day massacre in which dozens of people died under disputed circumstances.

media reports indicate “There have been scuffles, particularly in areas that lead to Taksim Square, which has been sealed off.

“Protestors say they should be given access to celebrate May 1 in a place of symbolic importance; they want to honour the memory of those who were killed here. There is a tug of war under way between the government and people.”

Earlier images showed police spraying water at protestors who threw objects at their vehicles.

{{Cambodia workers}}

In Phnom Pehn, the Cambodian capital, garment factory workers demanded higher wages and better working conditions.

Organisers said about 5,000 demonstrators, including union workers, gathered for the rally, chanting slogans and holding banners.

Protesters came from 16 unions and associations in Cambodia to mark International Labour Day and urge whoever wins the general election in July to meet their demands.

“I demand that my pay is increased to $150 per month,” said garment worker Neang Leakena, from the Chinese-owned Deum Por garment factory.

In the Philippines, thousands of contract workers marched through the streets of the capital, Manila.

Banned from forming labour unions, the workers demanded the government strengthen their rights.

{{European protests}}

In Athens, Greece’s capital, the main public and private sector unions called a 24-hour strike to protest against the government’s austerity policies.

Greece has had to enforce tax rises and spending cuts as part of deals with the International Monetary Fund and its eurozone partners to overcome a crippling debt crisis.

On Sunday, parliament approved a bill which will leave 15,000 civil servants out of work by the end of next year.

In Moscow, the Russian capital, authorities sanctioned 16 separate rallies, including one led by Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party.

Other groups, including the Communist Party, are holding gatherings of their own. Up to 90,000 people are expected.

{aljazeera}

{{Ukraine’s jailing of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a politically motivated violation of her rights, Europe’s human rights court ruled on Tuesday, dealing a harsh blow to President Viktor Yanukovych who has insisted that the case against his top opponent was not political.}}

The prosecution of Tymoshenko, the country’s most vocal opposition leader, has strained the former Soviet state’s ties with the European Union and the United States.

Tuesday’s ruling put fresh pressure of Yanukovych to ensure Tymoshenko’s release if he wants to sign a key cooperation agreement with Brussels later this year.

There was no immediate comment from the government, other than a promise to closely analyze the ruling.

Tymoshenko, a heroine of Ukraine’s 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution who was instantly recognizable her blond braid wrapped around her head like a crown, was sentenced to seven years in prison in October 2011 after being convicted of exceeding her powers as premier while negotiating a gas contract with Russia.

The West has condemned Tymoshenko’s jailing and other legal cases against her as politically motivated and insisted on her release.

Tymoshenko has accused Yanukovych of masterminding the legal campaign against her to keep her out politics. She insists her rights were violated when she was first jailed in August 2011 during her trial on charges of contempt of court.

The Strasbourg-based court agreed unanimously that her jailing was “for other reasons” than those permissible by law.

In Kiev, Tymoshenko’s defense team called on Yanukovych to honor the ruling and free her from jail soon. Her daughter Eugenia said that the ruling will be like the “first ray of sunlight” for her mother who is undergoing treatment for a spinal condition in a hospital ward where windows are shut and draped.

“The European court has recognized my mom as a political prisoner and now the authorities in Ukraine will no longer be able to deny this and deny the fact that she must be freed in the coming days or weeks,” a triumphant Eugenia Tymoshenko told reporters.

“Today is the first step toward her complete political rehabilitation and she will be freed soon. Soon she will be completely cleared of all the false and absurd accusations.”

The Ukrainian government’s response to the ruling was muted. In Strasbourg, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Mykola Tochytskyi, stormed out of the courthouse after the ruling was read out.

In Kiev, the Foreign Ministry said it is not ready to comment until It scrutinizes the ruling, while a government representative with the Court told the Interfax news agency that the government may appeal. Both sides have three months to do so.

Yanukovych has left Kiev on a short vacation and his spokeswoman could not be reached for comment on the prospects of the president releasing Tymoshenko.

In the past Yanukovych has insisted that the Tymoshenko case is not political, that Ukrainian courts are independent and that he cannot interfere in the legal proceedings.

He has also resisted calls to pardon Tymoshenko on humanitarian grounds.

Yanukovych has said that he will consider pardoning her after all the other legal proceedings against her are over.

Tymoshenko has been charged with embezzlement, tax evasion and organizing the murder of a politician and businessman 17 years ago — charges she denies.

The European court ruling leaves Kieve to decide how to implement it. Last summer the European Court of Human Rights passed a similar ruling regarding a top Tymoshenko ally, former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko, whose jailing was also condemned as politically motivated by the West.

The court ruled that the initial arrest of Lutsenko, who was then sentenced to four years in prison on charges of abuse of office and embezzlement, was also unlawful.

While the Ukrainian government paid Lutsenko €15,000 in compensation, as per the court ruling, he was released only in April after Yanukovych pardoned him on humanitarian grounds, not based on the Strasbourg ruling.

Kiev-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said that Tuesday’s ruling was not legally binding for Kiev, because it concerns the conditions of Tymoshenko’s two-month-long arrest before her conviction and sentencing.

Today, Tymoshenko is no longer under arrest and is serving out her seven-year-sentence, which she is also appealing with the European Court of Human Rights. It is unclear when a decision on that is expected.

“He will not free her now,” Fesenko said of Yanukovych, adding that Ukraine may offer Tymoshenko monetary compensation but will contest the finding of political motives behind her arrest. “The legal marathon will continue.”

Olga Shumylo-Tapiola, a Ukraine scholar at Carnegie Europe, also said that the decision, although unpleasant for the Ukrainian government, was not mandatory.

Moscow prosecutors told Russia’s oldest human rights group on Tuesday that it must register as a “foreign agent” under a new law that critics say is a move by President Vladimir Putin to silence dissent.

Memorial opened in 1987 to document the Soviet Union’s totalitarian past but has also spoken out against the detention of Russians held after an anti-Putin protest last year that turned violent.

“We don’t aim to register, we aim to appeal against this,” Memorial’s head, Aleksander Cherkasov, told media. Much of Memorial’s funding comes from abroad, particularly Sweden, Norway, Holland and the European Commission.

Memorial was among the hundreds of groups whose offices have been searched over recent weeks under the new law.

It said the searches were meant to scare them into registering under the rules that demand non-governmental organizations that receive foreign funding and engage in “political activity” register as “foreign agents”, a term which carries overtones of treason.

“They say we are engaged in so-called political activity because we defend political prisoners, people sentenced on political grounds, and tracking detentions during street protests,” Cherkasov said.

“(The law) is aimed at leaving in place only those organizations that get government financing.”

It was not clear what would happen to the many groups that plan to refused the Moscow prosecutor’s office to register within a month.

Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, another rights group that does not intend to register, said that 24 groups, including an independent election watchdog and global anti-corruption network Transparency International, were now considered “foreign agents”.

Putin had said the inspections of organizations’ premises were “routine” and that the law was needed to prevent groups that get financing from abroad from spying for foreign capitals.

Since returning to the Kremlin, Putin has approved several laws that critics say are meant to clamp down on dissent.

{wirestory}