Tag: InternationalNews

{{A senior UN humanitarian official said on Thursday that over a million people in Haiti are facing food insecurity as a result of the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy.}}

Hurricane Sandy ploughed through the Caribbean nation before wreaking havoc along the east coast of the United States earlier this week.

The head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) operation in Haiti, Johan Peleman, said that relief workers are still consolidating data of the destruction caused by the storm and a full picture of the situation will take some time.

Meanwhile, he noted, between 15,000 and 20,000 people have seen their houses completely destroyed, damaged or flooded as a result of the storm.

OCHA is particularly concerned because Haiti had been hit by a long period of drought this year as well as by another hurricane, Isaac, which hit the impoverished country in August.

“Now with this new tropical storm, we fear that a great deal of the harvest which was ongoing in the south of the country may have been destroyed completely,” Peleman said in an interview with UN Radio.

“Already, the drought and the previous storm had hit the northern part of the country very badly and we had seen the levels of food insecurity rise there.”

He added. “With the south being hit now, we are going to face in the next couple of months very serious problems of malnutrition and food insecurity.”

{{The US dollar tumbled against the euro in Asian forex trade after President Barack Obama won a second term following a nail-biter White House race.}}

The euro bought $1.2869 in Tokyo, up from $1.2788 earlier Wednesday and $1.2814 in New York late Tuesday. The greenback was also weaker against the yen, at 80.03 yen compared with 80.34 yen in New York.

An Obama victory was seen among traders as a dollar-selling cue as it may suggest further easing measures by the US Federal Reserve, after the central bank ushered in a $40 billion monthly bond-buying programme to spur the world’s biggest economy.

“Investors have been factoring in his win and adjusting their positions likewise,” said Kengo Suzuki, forex strategist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo.

“The issue now is the uncertainty surrounding the US fiscal cliff, and how a divided Congress will deal with the issue,” he added.

The so-called fiscal cliff, which will see the government sharply cut spending and hike taxes, is due to take effect on January 1 unless politicians find a compromise on reducing budget deficits.

However, Takumi Nomura, a senior dealer at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, said the dollar may get some support, with an incumbent Obama seen as better able to address the issue more quickly than a newly-elected leader.

{{India and Canada have finalised the terms for their nuclear deal, paving the way for Canadian firms to export uranium to India.}}

Once implemented, the deal is likely to provide a boost to India’s plans to increase its nuclear capacity to meet growing energy demands.

The deal was agreed in 2010, but there had been differences over supervision of the use of uranium in India.

Canada has banned the trade of nuclear materials with India since 1976.

“Canada with its large and high quality reserves of uranium could become an important supplier to the Indian nuclear power programme,” India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper said in a joint statement.

{{Seven Syrian army generals defected to Turkey on Tuesday, Turkish media reported.}}

The generals were allowed to enter Turkey through the southern Hatay province under tight security measures, the Anadolu Agency said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost a stream of high-level government and military officials in recent months as his forces continue battling rebels seeking an end to four decades of al-Assad family rule.

Manaf Tlass, a brigadier general and a former close friend of the president, left Syria’s Republican Guard in July. Prime Minister Riyad Hijab has also defected.

{{At least 10 people drowned in the Mediterranean when a ship sank between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa Sunday, according to Italy’s official news agency.}}

Seventy people, including 62 men and eight women, were rescued, ANSA reported. One of the women is pregnant, it said.

The search by Italy’s Navy and Coast Guard is underway for any other survivors, but the report did not say how many people were still missing.
The report referred to the ship’s passengers as migrants, suggesting they are from North Africa.

A boat carrying about 100 migrants from Tunisia ran into trouble in the same area two months ago, triggering a rescue effort by the Italians and NATO ships.

Lampedusa, the closest Italian island to Africa, has become a destination for tens of thousands of refugees seeking to enter European Union countries.

{{South Korea’s elderly suicide rate is the highest among member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).}}

Data showed Tuesday, prompted the country to come up with measures to counter the rise of suicides among economically strapped senior citizens.

According to the data compiled by the OECD, 81.8 per 100,000 South Korean elderly citizens under 74 years of age committed suicide in 2010, while 160 out of 100,000 people took their own lives among those aged 75 and above, the highest among the 34 member countries of the OECD.

The number is five to six times higher than that of the United States and even Japan, known to have one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

In 2005, South Korea’s elderly suicide rate also ranked first among OECD members.

“Those who were unable to prepare for a financially stable life after retirement seem to be turning to extreme measures after suffering from physical and mental problems without any support from others,” said Choi Bong-seon, who works at a specialized institution for the elderly in North Chungcheong Province.

With the number of those living alone while suffering from economic hardships or illnesses on the rise, elderly people committing suicide has emerged as a major social issue in the country in recent years.

According to Statistics Korea, almost one in five senior citizens in the country were living alone in 2010, and the protracted global economic slump has left more and more of them struggling without any means of support.

In October, a 65-year-old man living on his own was found dead in his home in Cheongju, 137 kilometers south of Seoul, according to the police. He had supposedly taken his own life after trying to make ends meet as a day laborer.

In order to reduce the significantly high rate of elderly suicides, local governments are drawing up preventive measures such as providing services including treatment and counseling to those suffering from depression.

“It is urgent for the government as well as the regional communities to pay more attention to help and protect the elderly,” Choi said.

{{A ferocious leopard may have killed 15 people in Nepal in a 15-month span, its latest victim a 4-year-old boy that the creature dragged away into the jungle to eat.}}

The head of boy was found in the forest a kilometer from his home Saturday morning, said Kamal Prasad Kharel, the police chief of the Baitadi district, an area about 600 kilometers (373 miles) west of Kathmandu.

The grisly discovery, which came after teams of people searched for the child, marks the 15th victim in the past 15 months in that remote district in western Nepal.

The police chief suspects that a single man-eating leopard is responsible for the deaths. If not, there are at most two of the man-eating creatures around, he believes.

Maheshwor Dhakal, an ecologist at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation in Kathmandu, agreed that it is unusual to find more than one or two man-eating animals in one area. Most leopards live on wild prey.

More human victims could also be expected if there were more than one or two man-eaters around, he said.

“Since human blood has more salt than animal blood, once wild animals get the taste of salty blood they do not like other animals like deer,” Dhakal said.

Kharel said he feared the actual number of people killed by the leopard could be higher than 15, because others have lost their life to leopard attacks in Uttarkhand state in northern India, which borders Baitadi district.

“It could be the same leopard,” he said.

Of the 15 victims in Nepal so far, two-thirds are children below the age of 10. The others are older children and a 29-year-old woman who had gone to collect fodder for domestic animals in the nearby forest, a common practice in Nepal.

“No adult male has been killed,” Kharel said.

All the victims are from villages bordering the dense forests in the district, he said.

After killing its victim, the leopard takes the body away into the forest to eat.

“In the case of the children it just leaves behind the head, eating everything, but some parts of the adult body are left behind because it cannot finish it,” Kharel added.

The district administration has announced a Rs. 25,000 (about $300) reward to anyone who captures or kills the leopard.

CNN

{{Argentinian lawmakers passed a new measure Wednesday lowering the nation’s voting age to 16.}}

Representatives in the South American country’s lower house overwhelmingly voted in favor of the law Wednesday. A majority of senators approved it last week.

The move to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 comes a year before a key mid-term election in Argentina, and some critics have said it’s an attempt by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her party to garner more votes.

But supporters of the measure say it will give young people more opportunities to participate in politics.

“I think it’s important that the law reflects reality,” said Rep. Hector Recalde of the Victory Front party.

“Reality indicates that the participation of young people is increasing in our country. It’s good that it’s this way.”

Rep. Eduardo Amadeo of the Peronist Front party offered a more cynical take on the nation’s youth.

“If you ask me what is the worst social problem in Argentina, it is the youth. Education is worse. The consumption of drugs is worse.

Employment is worse. Things like teen pregnancy, they are much worse than they were at the beginning of this government, and now the government has discovered them and they say, we are going to vote,” he said.

Nahuel Armando, a student in Buenos Aires, said lowering the voting age would be a positive move.