Tag: InternationalNews

{{Russian ties with Venezuela will not remain as close as under the late President Hugo Chavez, but the Kremlin will be able to protect its interests even if the opposition wins, analysts and government officials said.}}

Russia raised the profile of its delegation sent for Chavez’s funeral, signaling that it wants to maintain strong ties with the country’s new leadership.

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, who was the most senior Russian representative, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were included in the delegation at the last minute, Russian media reported, citing government sources.

The members also included Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, who was previously expected to head the delegation, Russian Technologies CEO Sergei Chemezov and Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov.

Matviyenko, a former Young Communist League official, said in a televised speech Friday that Chavez had been “fighting for the bright future of his country,” a popular Soviet-era phrase featured in the obituaries of foreign communist leaders.

Local officials also contributed to this mood, comparing Chavez to Vladimir Lenin, the founder of Soviet Russia.

In a fashion similar to communist leaders and Egyptian pharaohs, Chavez will be embalmed and preserved in a special tomb, acting President Nicolas Maduro said last week.

Analysts said Russian embalming experts might advise Venezuelan medics on the issue, because the country has vast experience in the matter.

Chavez’s body will remain on display for over a week before the embalming procedures begin.

Moscowtimes

{{President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are inaugurating a controversial gas pipeline linking the two neighbours.}}

The US has warned that the project could incur sanctions connected with Iran’s nuclear programme.

The long-delayed pipeline is seen in Pakistan as a way of alleviating the country’s chronic energy shortages.

The work on the Iranian side is almost complete. Monday marks the start of construction in Pakistan.

A total of 780km (485 miles) of pipeline is due to be built in the country over the next two years.

Talks on the project began in 1994 and the pipeline was initially intended to carry gas on to India, but Delhi withdrew from negotiations in 2009.

The US says the project would enable Iran to sell more of its gas, undermining efforts to step up pressure over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Washington has also argued that there are other ways to ease Pakistan’s energy crisis.

But power shortages have become a major issue there, and the Pakistani government insists it will not bow to pressure.

BBC

{{India Police said a man on trial for the gang rape and fatal beating of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus has committed suicide in an Indian jail, but his lawyer and family allege he was killed.}}

Ram Singh, who was accused of driving the bus on which the 23-year-old student was raped by a group of six men in December, was under suicide watch at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail when he hanged himself on Monday with his own clothes at about 5:30 am, police officials said.

His death is raising further questions about a criminal justice system already being criticised for failing to protect the nation’s women.

Singh and his four fellow defendants were facing the death penalty if convicted of the attack, which horrified Indians and set off national protests. A sixth accused is being tried and jailed separately because he is a juvenile.

India’s deputy home minister, R P N Singh, said an inquiry had been ordered into the suicide, according to the Press Trust of India.

Ram Singh’s family and lawyer alleged foul play in his death.

“There were no circumstances which could have led to Ram Singh committing suicide. There was no mental stress. He was very happy,” his lawyer VK Anand said.

Lawyers for the defendants had previously accused police of beating confessions out of the men.

Ram Singh’s father, Mangelal Singh, said his son had been raped in prison by other inmates and had been repeatedly threatened by inmates and guards.

Nevertheless, he said he visited his son four days ago and the man appeared fine and gave no hint of the despair that could drive him to take his own life.

Ram Singh, 34, also had a badly injured hand and would have been unable to orchestrate a suicide, his father said, speaking from outside his small home in a New Delhi slum.

“Somebody has killed him,” he said, insisting he would push for a top level investigation into the death.

Mangelal Singh said he feared for the safety of another son who is also on trial in the rape case.

{Aljazeera}

{{North and South Korea staged dueling war games Monday as threatening rhetoric from the rivals rose to the highest level since North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island in 2010.}}

Enraged over the South’s joint military drills with the United States and recent U.N. sanctions, Pyongyang has piled threat on top of threat, including vows to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. and to scrap the nearly 60-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War.

Seoul has responded with tough talk of its own and has placed its troops on high alert.

North Korea’s main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that the armistice was nullified Monday as Pyongyang had previously announced.

The North followed through on another promise Monday, shutting down a Red Cross hotline that the North and South used for general communication and to discuss aid shipments and separated families’ reunions.

The 11-day military drills that started Monday involve 10,000 South Korean and about 3,000 American troops. Those coincide with two months of separate U.S.-South Korean field exercises that began March 1.

Also continuing are large-scale North Korean drills that Seoul says involve the army, navy and air force.

The South Korean defense ministry said there have been no military activities it considers suspicious.

Despite the heightened tension, there were signs of business as usual Monday.

The two Koreas continue to have at least two working channels of communication between their militaries and aviation authorities.

AP

{{A recently appointed tourism minister in Mexico’s western Jalisco state has been assassinated, authorities have said.}}

Jose de Jesus Gallegos Alvarez was shot on Saturday during a chase as he drove his car in Zapopan, outside the country’s second-largest city Guadalajara, state officials said.

State Government General Secretary Arturo Zamora said a preliminary investigations indicated the attack was not related to Gallegos’ work promoting tourism in Jalisco.

The attack may have had to do with his private business dealings, Zamora said.

“We are working to resolve this case to the ultimate consequences,” he said. “The state will not allow such acts.”

According to profile material, Gallegos, an engineer, was founder and president of Jegal Project and Construction Management, a key developer of the Mayan Resorts and several condominium towers in Guadalajara and resort cities.

Jalisco attracts many tourists as the birthplace of popular Mexican traditions, including mariachi music and tequila production.

Local political and police officials are often targets of assassinations in Mexico, but rarely tourism officials.

President Enrique Pena Nieto has condemned the attack in his Twitter account and says he has ordered a thorough investigation.

{Agencies}

{{Twenty-one United Nations peacekeepers held by rebels for three days in southern Syria crossed into Jordan on Saturday, after an ordeal which highlighted how Syria’s civil war is ratcheting up tensions on its volatile borders.}}

The Filipino peacekeepers – part of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) that has been monitoring a ceasefire line between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights since 1974 – were seized by the Martyrs of Yarmouk rebel brigade on Wednesday.

They were taken by the rebels on Saturday to the Jordanian border, about 10 km (6 miles) south of the village of Jamla where they had been held since being captured.

“They are all on the Jordanian side now and they are in good health,” said Abu Mahmoud, a rebel who said he had crossed over into Jordan with them.

In the Syrian capital, Mokhtar Lamani, who heads the Damascus office of U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, confirmed that the men had crossed into Jordan.

Jordan appeared surprised by the arrival of the peacekeepers – who had been expected to be retrieved instead by a U.N. convoy inside Syria and possibly taken to Damascus – and Syria expressed dismay at how they were spirited across the border.

{Agencies}

{{A Saudi newspaper says a ministerial committee is looking into formally dropping public beheadings as a method of execution in the oil-rich kingdom.}}

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where a death sentence results in beheading in a public square.

The authoritative daily Al-Watan says in its Sunday edition that the ministerial committee is considering fatal shootings as an alternative.

There have been calls in the kingdom for replacing public beheadings with lethal injections carried out in prisons.

The kingdom executes anyone convicted of murder, armed robbery, rape and trafficking in drugs.

It has executed 15 people so far this year, 76 last year and 79 in 2011.

There was no official confirmation immediately available of the newspaper’s report.

{wirestory}