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Tag: InternationalNews

  • Russia wants the BRICS More Involved in Geopolitics

    {{Russia wants the BRICS group of major emerging economies to broaden its role and get more involved in geopolitics, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview last week.}}

    Putin, who has frequently criticized European and U.S. activities and has teamed up with fellow BRICS nation China to counter Western clout, spoke before this week’s summit of the group, which also includes Brazil, India and South Africa.

    He told news agency Itar-Tass that the BRICS members were working on joint declarations on the conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear program, the situation in the Middle East and other issues.

    “We invite our partners to gradually transform BRICS from a dialogue forum that coordinates approaches to a limited number of issues into a full-scale strategic cooperation mechanism that will allow us to look for solutions to key issues of global politics together,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript of the interview.

    BRICS leaders are expected to use the March 26-27 meeting in Durban, South Africa, to discuss a report prepared by working groups led by Brazil on a proposed reserves pool and another by India and South Africa on the creation of an infrastructure bank.

    The reserves pool of central bank money would be available to emerging economies facing balance-of-payments difficulties or could be tapped to stabilize economies during periods of global financial crises, according to documents outlining the plan.

    “There are still some differences among the countries, but we believe that the BRICS will give the green light to both projects,” said a senior Brazilian government official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the matters publicly.

    He also said the proposed contingency reserve arrangement would initially hold between $90 billion and $120 billion, although a figure was unlikely to be included in a final statement by the leaders.

    Another senior emerging-market official said the BRICS were also considering injecting an initial $50 billion into the new infrastructure bank. Details on the scale, location and structure of the bank will be discussed, but not agreed upon at the summit, the official added.

    The bank would support the ever-growing financing needs in emerging and developing nations for roads, modern-day port facilities, and reliable power and rail services.

    “It is too early to reach formal agreements on the bank and on the reserves fund, but both topics are on the agenda,” said Paulo Nogueira Batista, the IMF’s executive director for Brazil and 10 other countries.

    Putin, who wants more foreign investment to bolster Russia’s economy, said Russia plans to announce the creation of a BRICS Business Council to promote trade and investment within the group and help launch multilateral business projects.

    {The Moscow Times}

  • Asian Markets Rise as Cyprus Bailout Deal signed

    {{Asian stocks and the euro have risen after officials agreed a bailout deal for Cyprus, easing fears that its banking system problems may spread.}}

    Cyprus will now get a 10bn euro ($13bn; £8.5bn) cash injection to keep its banking system running and prevent it from crashing out of the eurozone.

    Investors had feared that its exit from the bloc may escalate the region’s debt crisis and derail a global recovery.

    Shares in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia rose on the news.

    “The news was what markets were waiting for, some kind of an agreement,” said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 1.7%, South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.5%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.6% and Australia’s ASX200 was up 0.5%.

    BBC

  • S. Korea, US sign Military Plan Against North Korea

    {{South Korea has signed a new military plan with the US to counter what officials call North Korean “provocations”.}}

    The plan provides for a joint response between both countries in the event of a limited attack from the North, officials say.

    Help from the US – which has 28,000 troops in South Korea – has until now been optional in minor skirmishes.

    Regional tension remains high after the North’s third nuclear test last month.

    The US already offers South Korea a “nuclear umbrella”, but Cold War experts have pointed out that while nuclear deterrence may address the possibility of all-out war, it does not deter low-level incidents.

    Under the new plan, South Korea will be able to call on US assistance should Pyongyang follow through with its recent threats, for example to attack remote South Korean islands, says the BBC’s Lucy Williamson in Seoul.

    “This allows both nations to jointly respond to the North’s local provocations, with the South taking the lead and the US in support,” South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said on Monday.

    “It will have the effect of preventing the North from daring to provoke us,” he added of the deal, which was signed on Friday.

    The “provocative” acts that the plan seeks to address include incursions on the border and by low-flying aircraft, and attacks on border islands, says the Agence-France Presse news agency.

    The new plan was conceived in 2010, after North Korea shelled a border island. A South Korean warship also sank that year, leaving 46 sailors dead. South Korea said North Korea torpedoed the ship, but Pyongyang denied this.

    Last month the United Nations imposed fresh sanctions against North Korea following its nuclear test on 12 February.

    Pyongyang has responded with escalating rhetoric both to this and US-South Korea joint military drills which it bitterly opposes.

    It says it has scrapped the Korean War armistice and ended non-aggression pacts with Seoul.

    South Korea says North Korea cannot unilaterally dissolve the armistice and has called on Pyongyang to tone down its language.

  • Syrian Forces Accused of firing Chemical Weapons at Rebels

    {{Syrian opposition campaigners said on Monday Syrian forces fired what they said were chemical weapons from multiple rocket launchers at rebels surrounding an army base in the town of Adra on the outskirts of Damascus, killing two fighters and wounding 23.}}

    “Doctors are describing the chemical weapon used as phosphorus that hits the nervous system and causes imbalance and loss of consciousness. The two fighters were very close to where the rockets exploded and they died swiftly.

    The rest are being treated with Atropine,” said Mohammad al-Doumani, an activist in the nearby town of Douma, where the wounded were transported.

    There was no independent confirmation of the attack, which follows the death of 26 people in a rocket attack near the city of Aleppo last week.

    The authorities and rebels accused each other of firing a missile carrying chemicals there.

    {Wirestory}

  • UN Study: More people Have Access to Phones than Toilets

    {{United Nations study has found that more people around the world have access to a cellphone than to a working toilet.}}

    The study’s numbers claim that of the world’s estimated 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to mobile phones. However, only 4.5 billion have access to a toilet.

    At a press conference announcing the report, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson announced the organization is launching an effort to halve the number of those without access by the end of 2015.

    “Let’s face it—this is a problem that people do not like to talk about.

    But it goes to the heart of ensuring good health, a clean environment and fundamental human dignity for billions of people,” Eliasson said at the press conference.

    In August 2012, the Bill Gates Foundation began its own effort to “reinvent the toilet” as a way to help curb the number of people around the world without access to sanitary waste disposal.

    Interestingly, the report states that India alone is responsible for 60 percent of the world’s population that does not use a toilet, an estimated 626 million individuals. Yet, at the same time, there are an estimated 1 billion cellphones in India.

    Conversely, in the world’s most highly populated country, China, only 14 million people do not have access to a toilet. However, there are also fewer cellphones in China, 986 million, according to the Daily Mail.

    Driving the point home, more than 750,000 people die each year from diarrhea and one of its primary causes is from unsanitary conditions created in communities without access to toilets.

    And there are other benefits of installing more modern sanitation options that don’t immediately come to mind.

    “This can also improve the safety of women and girls, who are often targeted when they are alone outdoors,” said Martin Mogwanja, deputy executive director of the U.N. Children’s Fund.

    “And providing safe and private toilets may also help girls to stay in school, which we know can increase their future earnings and help break the cycle of poverty.”

  • Pope opens Holy Week on Palm Sunday

    {{Pope Francis celebrated his first Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, encouraging people to be humble and young at heart, as tens of thousands joyfully waved olive branches and palm fronds.}}

    The square overflowed with some 250,000 pilgrims, tourists and Romans eager to join the new pope at the start of solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter, Christianity’s most important day.

    Keeping with his spontaneous style, the first pope from Latin America broke away several times from the text of his prepared homily to encourage the faithful to lead simple lives.

    Palm Sunday recalls Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem but its Gospel also recounts how he was betrayed by one of his apostles and ultimately sentenced to death on a cross.

    Recalling the triumphant welcome into Jerusalem, Francis said Jesus “awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don’t matter in the eyes of the world.”

    Francis then told an off-the-cuff story from his childhood in Argentina.

    “My grandmother used to say, ‘children, burial shrouds don’t have’ pockets’” the pope said, in a variation of “you can’t take it with you.”
    Since his election on March 13, Francis has put the downtrodden and poor at the center of his mission as pope, keeping with the priorities of his Jesuit tradition.

    His name – the first time a pope has called himself ‘Francis’ – is inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, who renounced a life of high-living for austere poverty and simplicity to preach Jesus’ message to the poor.

    Francis wore bright red robes over a white cassock as he presided over the Mass at an altar sheltered by a white canopy on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica.

    Agencies

  • Musharraf Returns to Pakistan Amid Death Threats

    {{Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ended more than four years in self-exile Sunday with a flight to his homeland, seeking a possible political comeback in defiance of judicial probes and death threats from Taliban militants.}}

    The journey from exile in Dubai to the Pakistani port city of Karachi is intended as the first step in his goal of rebuilding his image after years on the political margins.

    Since the former general was forced from power, Pakistan’s civilian leadership has struggled with a sinking economy, resilient Islamic extremist factions and tensions with Washington over drone strikes and the secret raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

    Musharraf represents a polarizing force that could further complicate Pakistan’s attempt to hold parliamentary elections in May and stage its first transition from one civilian government to another.

    He is viewed as an enemy by many Islamic militants and others for his decision to side with America in the response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On Saturday, the Pakistan Taliban vowed to mobilize death squads to send Musharraf “to hell” if he returns.

    His supporters, including elements of the military and members of Pakistan’s influential expatriate communities, consider him a strong leader whose voice — even just in parliament — could help stabilize the country.

    Musharraf also faces legal charges, including some originating from the probe of the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who also spent time in self-imposed exile in Dubai before returning.

    The flight from Dubai came after several failed promises to return in recent years. Musharraf announced in early March that he would lead his party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, in May elections.

    Musharraf met briefly with reporters in Dubai before heading to the airport wearing a white shalwar kameez — the traditional loose-fitting outfit in Pakistan — and sandals from the country’s Peshawar region near the Afghan border.

    Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup and was forced to step down in 2008 amid growing discontent over his rule. He has since lived in Dubai and London.

    wirestory

  • Kerry in Iraq to Push on Iran Flights to Syria

    {{U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Iraq on an unannounced visit to urge Iraqi leaders to stop Iranian overflights of arms and fighters heading to Syria and to overcome sectarian differences that still threaten Iraqi stability 10 years after the American-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.}}

    Kerry flew into Baghdad on Sunday from Amman after accompanying President Barack Obama to Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.

    Officials traveling with him said Kerry would press Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior officials on democratic reforms and directly urge them to stop overflights of Iranian aircraft carrying military personnel and equipment to support the Syrian government as it battles rebels.

    Iran and Iraq both say the flights are laden with humanitarian supplies, but the U.S. and others believe they are filled with weapons and fighters to help the Assad regime.

    The overflights have long been a source of contention between the U.S. and Iraq and Kerry will tell the Iraqis that allowing them to continue will make the situation in Syria worse and ultimately threaten Iraq’s stability.

    A senior U.S. official said the sheer number of overflights, which occur “close to daily,” as well as overland shipments to Syria through Iraq from Iran, was inconsistent with claims they are only carrying humanitarian supplies.

    The official said it was in Iraq’s interest to prevent the situation in Syria from deteriorating further, particularly as there are fears that al-Qaida-linked extremists may gain a foothold in the country as the Assad regime falters.

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to publicly preview Kerry’s meetings, said there are clear links between al-Qaida linked extremists operating in Syria and militants who are carrying out terrorist attacks in Iraqi territory with increasing regularity.

    A group of fighters in Syria known as Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for most of the deadliest suicide bombings against regime and military facilities and, as a result, has gained popularity among some rebels.

  • Experts Say NKorea Training ‘cyber warriors’

    {{Investigators have yet to pinpoint the culprit behind a synchronized cyberattack in South Korea last week. But in Seoul, the focus remains fixed on North Korea, where South Korean security experts say Pyongyang has been training a team of computer-savvy “cyber warriors” as cyberspace becomes a fertile battleground in the standoff between the two Koreas.}}

    Malware shut down 32,000 computers and servers at three major South Korean TV networks and three banks last Wednesday, disrupting communications and banking businesses, officials said.

    The investigation into who planted the malware could take weeks or even months.

    South Korean investigators have produced no proof yet that North Korea was behind the cyberattack, and on Friday said the malware was traced to a Seoul computer.

    But South Korea has pointed the finger at Pyongyang in six cyberattacks since 2009, even creating a cyber security command center in Seoul to protect the Internet-dependent country from hackers from the North.

    It may seem unlikely that impoverished North Korea, with one of the most restrictive Internet policies in the world, would have the ability to threaten affluent South Korea, a country considered a global leader in telecommunications.

    The average yearly income in North Korea was just $1,190 per person in 2011 — just a fraction of the average yearly income of $22,200 for South Koreans that same year, according to the Bank of Korea in Seoul.

    But over the past several years, North Korea has poured money and resources into science and technology. In December, scientists succeeded in launching a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket from its own soil.

    And in February, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, its third.

    “IT” has become a buzzword in North Korea, which has developed its own operating system called Red Star. The regime also encouraged a passion for gadgets among its elite, introducing a Chinese-made tablet computer for the North Korean market. Teams of developers came up with software for everything from composing music to learning how to cook.

    But South Korea and the U.S. believe North Korea also has thousands of hackers trained by the state to carry its warfare into cyberspace, and that their cyber offensive skills are as good as or better than their counterparts in China and South Korea.

    “The newest addition to the North Korean asymmetric arsenal is a growing cyber warfare capability,” James Thurman, commander of the U.S. forces in South Korea, told U.S. legislators in March 2012.

    “North Korea employs sophisticated computer hackers trained to launch cyber-infiltration and cyber-attacks” against South Korea and the U.S.

    In 2010, Won Sei-hoon, then chief of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, put the number of professional hackers in North Korea’s cyber warfare unit at 1,000.

    North Korean students are recruited to the nation’s top science schools to become “cyber warriors,” said Kim Heung-kwang, who said he trained future hackers at a university in the industrial North Korean city of Hamhung for two decades before defecting in 2003.

    He said future hackers also are sent to study abroad in China and Russia.

    In 2009, then-leader Kim Jong Il ordered Pyongyang’s “cyber command” expanded to 3,000 hackers, he said, citing a North Korean government document that he said he obtained that year. The veracity of the document could not be independently confirmed.

    Kim Heung-kwang, who has lived in Seoul since 2004, speculated that more have been recruited since then, and said some are based in China to infiltrate networks abroad.

    What is clear is that “North Korea has a capacity to send malware to personal computers, servers or networks and to launch DDOS-type attacks,” he said. “Their targets are the United States and South Korea.”

    Expanding its warfare into cyberspace by developing malicious computer codes is cheaper and faster for North Korean than building nuclear devices or other weapons of mass destructions.

    The online world allows for anonymity because it is easy to fabricate IP addresses and destroy the evidence leading back to the hackers, according to C. Matthew Curtin, founder of Interhack Corp.

    Thurman said cyberattacks are “ideal” for North Korea because they can take place relatively anonymously. He said cyberattacks have been waged against military, governmental, educational and commercial institutions.

    North Korean officials have not acknowledged allegations that computer experts are trained as hackers, and have refuted many of the cyberattack accusations. Pyongyang has not commented on the most recent widespread attack in South Korea.

    In June 2012, a seven-month investigation into a hacking incident that disabled news production system at the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo led to North Korea’s government telecommunications center, South Korean officials said.

    In South Korea, the economy, commerce and every aspect of daily life is deeply dependent on the Internet, making it ripe grounds for a disruptive cyberattack.

    In North Korea, in contrast, is just now getting online. Businesses are starting to use online banking services and debit cards have grown in popularity.

    But only a sliver of the population has access to the global Internet, meaning an Internet outage last week — which Pyongyang blamed on hackers from Seoul and Washington — had little bearing on most North Koreans.

    “North Korea has nothing to lose in a cyber battle,” said Kim Seeongjoo, a professor at Seoul-based Korea University’s Department of Cyber Defense. “Even if North Korea turns out to be the attacker behind the broadcasters’ hacking, there is no target for South Korean retaliation.”

    Associated Press

  • Venezuela Suspends Communication with US

    {{Venezuela’s foreign minister says the South American country has cut off all diplomatic contact with the United States because Washington is meddling in its domestic affairs.}}

    Elias Jaua said Wednesday that “any type of contact has been postponed” until officials in Washington respect Venezuela’s sovereignty and stop commenting on its internal matters.

    Venezuela’s government expelled two military attaches earlier this month for allegedly talking to members of the country’s armed forces.

    Washington responded by expelling two Venezuelan diplomats, who were honored by Jaua Wednesday.

    The two countries already don’t have ambassadors in each other’s countries.

    Acting leader Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly accused former U.S. officials of plotting to kill an opposition presidential candidate seeking to replace the late President Hugo Chavez.

    AP