Thursday, June 11, 2009

WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic

WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic
WHO declares flu pandemic
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By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century on Thursday, urging countries to shore up defenses against the virus which is "not stoppable" but has proved mainly mild so far.
The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.
"No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely, in real time, right at the very beginning," WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said. "The world can now reap the benefits of investments, over the last five years, in pandemic preparedness."
Acting on the recommendation of flu experts, the WHO reiterated its advice to its 193 member countries not to close borders or impose travel restrictions to halt the movement of people, goods and services, a call echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The move to phase 6 reflects the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, was spreading geographically, but does not indicate how virulent it is.
Widespread transmission of the virus in Victoria, Australia, signaling that it is entrenched in another region besides North America, was one of the key triggers for moving to phase 6.
NO SURPRISE
"This is not a surprise," Dr Thomas Frieden, new director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference. "It is expected based on the data."
A unanimous experts' decision was based on an overall assessment in the eight most heavily hit countries -- Australia, Britain, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Spain and the United States -- that the virus is spreading in a sustained way in communities, according to Chan.
"Collectively, looking at that, we are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and it is not stoppable," she said.
"Moving to pandemic phase six level does not imply we will see an increase in the number of deaths or very severe cases.
"Quite on the contrary. Many people are having mild disease, they recover without medicines in some cases and it is good news," she said.
And measuring the impact of the disease as it develops and spreads is difficult.
"It is very hard to get a sense of how many people are really dying from something like pandemic flu," acting Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's top flu expert, said.
Chan said the WHO global assessment of the pandemic was that it was moderate, but at the national level the picture could be different. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iraq warns attacks will intensify before election

Iraq warns attacks will intensify before election
By Waleed Ibrahim and Daniel Wallis
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government said on Thursday that violence would increase before a parliamentary election due in January, a day after a car bomb killed at least 33 people at a marketplace in the country's south.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a meeting of security chiefs in Baghdad that the blast in Al-Bathaa, a small town west of Nassiriya that had seen little violence, was "a criminal operation with a political message."
Such attacks cast doubt on the ability of Iraqi security forces to stand alone after U.S. troops who invaded in 2003 withdraw from urban centers by the end of this month.
"These operations will intensify...to try to make the elections fail, but they will not succeed, God willing," Maliki said.
The bloodshed had been orchestrated by those who wanted to see Iraq descend back into sectarian killing, he said.
"The population realizes that there cannot be a return to sectarianism and fighting," he said.
Violence has fallen sharply across Iraq since its peak in 2006-07. But insurgents, including Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, continue to launch suicide and car bomb attacks like the one that ripped through Al-Bathaa in the Shi'ite Muslim south.
The parliamentary poll scheduled for January is likely to be a flashpoint, pitting Shi'ite parties against each other as well as against once dominant Sunnis and minority Kurds.
Iraqi security forces are confronting attacks on their own as U.S. soldiers quit towns and cities during June, as agreed in a pact between Baghdad and Washington. U.S. troops are due to end combat operations by the end of August 2010.
The security agreement came into effect at the start of this year but is supposed to be approved by a referendum before the end of July. Maliki's government wants to hold the referendum on the same day as the parliamentary vote next January.
"The referendum is a part of law and discussions are ongoing among the ministers and the council of representatives," Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told reporters after a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill.
Bolani said Iraqi forces had arrested several people behind a string of bombings that rocked the capital in the last three months, as well as suspects in the Al-Bathaa explosion.
"The region where the attack took place is very modest with very modest people, poor people, who are very deprived, so I can call it cowardly," he said. "Our forces' reaction was immediate in detaining and arresting the ones who caused this attack."
(Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Michael Christie and Angus MacSwan)

Source: Reuters

Sudan letting back renamed aid groups: U.N. official

By Claudia Parsons
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Four aid groups expelled from Sudan in March have been authorized by Khartoum to send new teams under new names and new logos back into the country, the top U.N. humanitarian official said on Thursday.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ordered 13 foreign aid agencies to leave north Sudan in March after the International Criminal Court indicted him for war crimes in the western Darfur region.
Khartoum had accused aid groups of giving the ICC information about alleged atrocities in Darfur, where the United Nations says six years of conflict has killed up to 300,000 people and uprooted more than 2.7 million. Khartoum says 10,000 people have died.
Briefing the U.N. Security Council, undersecretary-general John Holmes said the expulsions were unjustified but the Sudanese government had since made progress in improving cooperation with the United Nations over humanitarian access.
He said the government had made clear it would welcome existing and new international non-governmental agencies (NGOs), including NGOs with new names and logos.
"That possibility is there for all the organizations that were expelled and some of them have already taken advantage of that, and have got very recently new registrations, and will be restarting their operations," Holmes told reporters.
"Four have already applied for new registration under their slightly changed new names and they have been accepted. I think the same possibility is open to others," he said.
He identified the four expelled groups as Oregon-based Mercy Corps, U.S.-based CARE International, Save the Children U.S. and PADCO, a humanitarian contractor that had been involved in rebuilding war-ravaged areas.
Mercy Corps said earlier this week it was discussing sending in new teams under the flag of Mercy Corps Scotland, an affiliated Edinburgh-based charity.
Holmes said it was unclear how soon they would be able to restart operations since local staff may have found other jobs and the aid groups' equipment and assets may have been lost.
Other expelled non-governmental organizations include Britain's Oxfam and the French and Dutch arms of Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders.
Before March, the United Nations and aid groups were running the world's largest humanitarian operation in Darfur. The expelled agencies carried out 40 percent of humanitarian work in the region, which is roughly the size of France.
U.N. agencies have said they could not fill the gap left by their NGO partners, which distributed food aid and provided clean water and healthcare across Darfur.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: Reuters

Life in Iran under the Shah and now

Life in Iran under the Shah and now
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians vote on Friday in the 10th presidential election since the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.
Three decades after the revolution, Reuters invited some older Iranians who witnessed the Shah's overthrow to look back at the changes they have lived through.
Here are some of their views:
LIVING COSTS
"Before the revolution, most Iranians could afford to buy a flat, but now even rents are not affordable for people like me," said Mahmoud Sardari, a retired government employee who earns $400 a month.
"I had a 150 square meter apartment then and I could afford to travel abroad with my two daughters and my wife. But now with this high inflation I feel poorer every passing day."
Sardari, 62, has little patience for hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic populism, but said reformers offer little alternative since all candidates promise to redistribute oil wealth, rather than restructure the economy.
With official inflation at 15 percent "every month my purchasing power drops and I am preoccupied with daily livelihood," he said.
Under the Shah, the middle class constituted a majority of Iran's population, said Sardari. "But now Iranians are mainly lower income people."
Architect Alireza Naghshband, 67, disagrees.
"Since 1979, we weathered international sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s," he said. "Still, people like me have much better living standards than before the revolution.
"Under the Shah most Iranians were poor except those linked to the royal family. But since 1979 Iran has become the land of opportunities for all Iranians."
TRAVEL AND RESPECT
Retired teacher Mahin Hamedani, 72, has not seen her U.S.-based children and grandchildren since 2004. "I have tried unsuccessfully to get a U.S. visa. I miss my children and grandchildren so much," she said.
"Before the revolution, Iranians could get a (U.S.) visa from the American embassy in Tehran easily." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Reformists hope Iran vote will unseat Ahmadinejad

Reformists hope Iran vote will unseat Ahmadinejad
Countdown to Iran vote
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By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's presidential candidates ended a hard-fought and bitter campaign on Thursday, the eve of an election which reformists hope will prevent hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad winning a second term.
The campaign has seen unprecedented political mudslinging and large rallies in Tehran by supporters of moderate former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi, who a senior Revolutionary Guard officer accused of attempting a "velvet revolution."
Friday's highly charged election could set the tone for Iran's relations with the West, concerned over its nuclear ambitions, and analysts say a victory for Mousavi could increase the prospect for Western investment in the Islamic Republic.
But for Iranians it is a chance to judge Ahmadinejad's economic record and his austere Islamist social agenda.
"I think it's a neck-and-neck race (between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi)," said one Tehran analyst who asked not to be named. "It's difficult to think either of the two candidates will get above 50 percent tomorrow."
If none of the four candidates wins an outright majority on Friday the two leading candidates will go into a June 19 run-off, which the analyst said Mousavi had a good chance of winning.
But others predict a victory for the incumbent, based on his popularity among the rural poor. "Ahmadinejad has a lot of support throughout the country," said Hamid Najafi, editor-in-chief of the conservative Kayhan International.
Mousavi supporters, wearing his bright green campaign colors, have poured onto the capital's streets for festive, nightly rallies unseen since the election 12 years ago of reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami.
Ahmadinejad supporters have held huge demonstrations of their own, expressing support for a leader who has handed petrodollars to the poor and defied Western pressure to suspend Iran's nuclear program.
The vibrant and largely good-natured rallies have contrasted with bitter political exchanges.
Ahmadinejad's opponents accused him of lying about Iran's economy, hit by rising prices and unemployment, while Ahmadinejad has enraged the powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- a Mousavi supporter -- by accusing him of corruption.
Rafsanjani wrote a public letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urging him to rein in Ahmadinejad, and met Khamenei on Tuesday to express fears the election will be rigged, a leading moderate politician told Reuters.
"Rafsanjani urged the leader to use his authority to make sure the election was a clean and healthy one," he said.
STREET DANCING
Mousavi, 67, an architect who has been out of the political spotlight for two decades, is backed by reformists and conservatives disenchanted with Ahmadinejad. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. skeptical Netanyahu will back down: diplomats

U.S. skeptical Netanyahu will back down: diplomats
By Adam Entous
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States doubts a policy speech Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to deliver next week will satisfy President Barack Obama's peacemaking demands, Western diplomats said on Thursday.
Netanyahu's refusal to commit to a building freeze in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and to endorse the goal of establishing a Palestinian state -- both set out in a 2003 peace "road map" -- has opened a rare rift in U.S.-Israeli relations.
Signaling the direction Netanyahu could take when he delivers his policy speech on Sunday, Israeli President Shimon Peres raised in a meeting with a European envoy the possibility of an interim Palestinian state with provisional borders.
That option, which has been rejected by the Palestinians, is part of the road map, a plan backed by Washington.
Briefing their counterparts in the Quartet of Middle East mediators after talks with Netanyahu, U.S. officials voiced skepticism he would make the clear, far-reaching and tangible commitments on settlements or statehood that Obama has sought, participants said on condition of anonymity.
"The Americans are not satisfied with what they have been told," a senior Western diplomat said.
Netanyahu wants to negotiate a compromise whereby Washington would permit at least some "natural growth," or construction within existing settlements to accommodate growing families, but, so far, Obama has refused to back down, diplomats said.
"They are saying things like, 'adding a room in a house is not natural growth,'" another Western diplomat said of Netanyahu's exchanges with Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Jerusalem this week.
ROAD MAP
Israeli officials said Netanyahu had not finalized his speech but it would focus on the road map, which envisages creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. They said he would urge Arab countries to talk peace with Israel.
Israeli officials and several Western diplomats said it was unclear whether Netanyahu would use the address to endorse explicitly the U.S.-backed goal of statehood.
A senior Western diplomat said Netanyahu was likely to stop short of backing the creation of a state and promise instead to work toward a vague goal of Palestinian self-government.
To sidestep the issue, Netanyahu could implicitly accept a two-state solution by stressing his government's acceptance of the road map as part of its pledge to honor diplomatic agreements signed by previous Israeli administrations.
But diplomats said this would not satisfy Washington.
Under the road map, a provisional Palestinian state would have temporary borders and "attributes of sovereignty ... as a way station to a permanent status settlement." Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. says North Korea unlikely to take military action

U.S. says North Korea unlikely to take military action
UN turns up pressure on North Korea
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By Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - North Korea is unlikely to respond militarily to planned U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test, although the possibility should not be completely dismissed, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.
The draft U.N. Security Council resolution, written by the United States and endorsed by the four other permanent members plus Japan and South Korea, aims to hit the North's meager overseas finances and could be voted on by as early as Friday.
"I don't think that there has been a commensurate change in the posture of the North Korean military that would suggest an attempt to undertake operations," Gates told reporters as he arrived in Brussels for a meeting of NATO Defense ministers.
But he said Pyongyang was so unpredictable that it was probably "not wise" to dismiss out of hand North Korean threats of military action.
A Russian foreign ministry source, quoted by Itar-Tass news agency, took a similar line, stating: "The resolution is being adopted in order to solve the problem, and not to whip up the situation.
"We don't expect any actions to follow, including from North Korea, that would lead to an escalation of tension.
But some analysts believe the resolution, if adopted, would draw sharp rebuke from the prickly North, which threatened to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the Security Council apologizes for punishing it for an April rocket launch widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.
"This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite, and bite in a meaningful way," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, told reporters.
North Korea has been subjected to sanctions for years for military moves condemned by regional powers. Analysts are not sure if new measures will have much impact on the impoverished state, whose economy has only grown weaker since leader Kim Jong-il took over in 1994.
The U.N. draft "condemns in the strongest terms" North Korea's nuclear test last month and "demands that (it) not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology".
COMPROMISES
The end result reflected compromises to satisfy Chinese and Russian objections. Beijing and Moscow had opposed language in earlier drafts requiring all countries to inspect North Korean ships carrying suspicious cargo that might violate a partial U.N. trade and arms embargo.
In the latest version, the Security Council "calls upon" states to inspect suspicious sea, air and land cargoes, but does not demand it. Arms sales are one of North Korea's few sources of hard cash.
Beijing, the closest Pyongyang can claim as a major ally, is reluctant to accept any new sanctions that would significantly undercut its economic ties to North Korea or push an already weak economy into collapse.
"China feels in no position to push back hard, because North Korea has offered it nothing to fall back on. Nothing," said Shi Yinhong, an international security expert at China's Renmin University, in explaining why Beijing appears to be on board. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Gaddafi complains not "rewarded" for renouncing WMD

Gaddafi complains not rewarded for renouncing WMD
By Stephen Brown and Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi faced protests by students on Thursday during his first visit to former colonial power Italy, where he said the world had not rewarded Libya for giving up its ambitions to have weapons of mass destruction.
"We cannot accept living in the shadow of intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons, which is why we decided to change route," the Libyan leader told Italian senators.
"We had hoped Libya would be an example to other countries," said Gaddafi. "But we have not been rewarded by the world."
The North African nation, once a pariah accused of sponsoring terrorism, has seen a thaw in its relations with the West since Gaddafi promised to give up the search for weapons of mass destruction. International sanctions were lifted in 2003.
Italy, which last year apologized for Italian atrocities during its 1911-1943 colonial rule, is at the forefront of the diplomatic thaw and now gets a quarter of its oil from Libya, and more recently Libyan capital injections into Italian firms.
But Gaddafi retains a defiant tone, arriving in Italy on Wednesday with a picture pinned to his uniform of Omar al-Mukhtar, a resistance hero hanged by Italian occupiers in 1931.
Italian television screens on Thursday "Lion of the Desert," a 1981 film about al-Mukhtar, banned in Italy until now.
Gaddafi, who as current chairman of the Africa Union will attend a G8 summit in Italy next month with U.S. President Barack Obama, also voiced criticism of the U.S-led war in Iraq.
"REGIMES OF ALL KINDS"
"Iraq was a fortress against terrorism, with Saddam Hussein al Qaeda could not get in, but now thanks to the United States it is an open arena and this benefits al Qaeda," said Gaddafi in his speech to the Italian senate.
He also compared the U.S. air strike on Tripoli in 1986, in which one of his daughters was killed, to an al Qaeda attack.
"What difference is there between the American attack on our homes in 1986 and bin Laden's terrorist actions?" he asked. "If bin Laden has no state and is an outlaw, America is a state with international rules."
Arguing that the world should have room for "regimes of all kinds" including "revolutionary" Libya, he asked: "What's wrong with North Korea wanting to be communist? Or Afghanistan being in the hands of the mullahs? Is not the Vatican a respectable theocratic state with embassies all over the world?"
On Wednesday, at a news conference with his host, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Gaddafi said Italy was "the only former colonial state today ... that we cannot reprimand any more" because of its decision to "clean up" its colonial past.
Berlusconi said Libya agreed to supply more oil to Italy, while the head of Libya's sovereign wealth fund said he was eyeing investments in Italian electricity and infrastructure companies and joint ventures with Italy in Libya. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Afghans urge Europeans to share burden with U.S.

Afghans urge Europeans to share burden with U.S.
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Afghanistan's defense minister urged European governments Thursday to step up their military and other efforts for his country to share the burden equally with the United States.
"I hope there will be additional support for the mission in Afghanistan," Abdul Rahim Wardak said before a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels that will discuss the struggling international effort against Islamist militancy in Afghanistan.
"The burden should be shared equitably," he said, when asked if he wanted European countries to do more after big increases in the U.S. military and financial commitment to the country.
Wardak said the focus should be on helping Afghans build up their own security forces and said he wanted NATO countries to contribute more to a trust fund set up to finance the training and day-to-day running of the Afghan armed forces.
The fund has currently received only about 24 million euros in contributions and another 221 million euros pledged for running costs of the Afghan security forces -- well short of the $2 billion a year that will be needed.
The United States and its NATO allies are aiming to boost the size of the Afghan army to 134,000 and the Afghan police force to 86,000 by 2010, which will require stepped up training missions and funding.
The project is still short of trainers and NATO hopes ministers will pledge at least 13 more military training teams and deploy paramilitary police trainers promised by EU states.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged European allies on Wednesday to remain engaged even as Washington boosts its troop numbers by more than 30,000 this year.
NO EXCUSE
A senior U.S. official said it was time for European states to deliver on pledges they had made at a NATO summit in April and to be prepared to do more. "There's really no excuse not to be able to participate in this mission," he said.
"The United States will put more troops, it will deploy more trainers, it will have more money in the trust fund, it will increase the civilian surge and it will provide economic assistance," he said.
"If a country cannot offer to send more troops then it ought to send more trainers. A country that can't send more trainers ought to pay more for the trust fund and the country that doesn't have money for the trust ought to pay more for economic assistance or send more diplomats or agricultural specialists."
For years, Washington has urged its allies to contribute more troops, civilian reconstruction experts and aid to the fight against the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
Many have been reluctant, however, to make major new commitments, saying their forces are overstretched and citing public opposition to greater involvement in the war.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said it was important for the alliance to avoid a perception that Afghanistan was too much of an American operation. Continued...
Source: Reuters

NATO backs Kosovo force cut, studies more

NATO backs Kosovo force cut, studies more
By Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO's top operational commander has proposed cutting the alliance's peacekeeping force in Kosovo to just 2,500 from around 14,000 if security conditions allow, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.
Kosovo defied Serbia last year by declaring independence from Belgrade and was backed by many Western powers. NATO armies, stretched by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, have since then been looking to wind down their presence in Kosovo.
NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels were due to discuss a first scaling down of the force to 10,000 by January. The U.S. official said the plan by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe John Craddock envisaged further cuts to 6,500 and 2,500.
"We want to do this orderly, we want to do it in a way that is stabilizing. There's no timeline, this is a conditions-based approach," said the official, who requested anonymity.
Separately, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters there was broad support within NATO for reducing the NATO Kosovo force to what he called a "deterrent presence" but cautioned that it should not leave existing troops exposed.
"My concern is that we do this in an organized and coherent fashion as an alliance, and not countries leaving unilaterally," he told reporters on board a plane from the Dutch city of Maastricht to the NATO meeting.
Asked whether any troop withdrawals in Kosovo would free up troops for the alliance's battle against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, he said: "I would certainly hope so."
But he added: "I'm not going to bet the ranch on it."
IMPROVEMENT IN SECURITY
KFOR has been in Kosovo since 1999 under a United Nations mandate after a NATO bombing campaign to drive out Serb forces.
It can have up to 15,000 troops in Kosovo at any time but the level now is around 14,000, NATO officials said.
There had been wide fears in the West that Kosovo's move toward independence in January 2008 could increase tensions and fuel violence between its ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority, or reignite dormant tensions in the wider Balkans.
Those fears have largely proved unfounded and a mission review conducted for NATO found the security situation had improved enough for the initial reduction to 10,000.
"All steps after that will have to be evaluated at a political level," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, whose country has some 2,200 troops in the NATO force, told reporters as he arrived for the meeting.
Support within the 28-nation alliance for a reduction in Kosovo troop numbers seemed strong. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Dutch far right MP snubs EU, refuses to take seat

Dutch far right MP snubs EU, refuses to take seat
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders won enough preference votes for a seat in the European Parliament, but has refused to take up the position, his party said Thursday.
Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), had campaigned on an anti-European Union platform and had said before last week's election he would not take up a seat in the parliament in protest against an institution he said needed change.
He says he objects to EU influence in Dutch matters, arguing the Netherlands should keep a veto right over issues such as immigration laws. He is also against Dutch taxpayer money being paid to the union and Turkey's entry into the bloc.
The Dutch Electoral Council said Wilders had won almost 335,000 preference votes, guaranteeing him a seat. Wilders had not been expected to win a seat because he was listed at number 10 on his party's candidate list.
Barry Madlener, who topped the PVV's candidate list, confirmed Wilders would not take up his seat. "We would miss him here too much," he told news agency ANP.
In the Netherlands, voters can vote for any candidate despite a low ranking on a party's list. A candidate can win a seat with enough preference votes or based on the party's total number of votes.
The PVV won four seats out of 25 available, making the PVV the second-largest Dutch party represented in the European legislature. EU leaders had said they hoped far-right parties would not make gains.
The Dutch electoral council also said Thursday the Netherlands would gain an extra seat in the parliament if the Treaty of Lisbon comes into force. Under current plans, the PVV would most probably be awarded the 26th seat, lifting its tally to five, the council said.
(Reporting by Gilbert Kreijger; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Source: Reuters

Global fighter aircraft market heats up

Global fighter aircraft market heats up
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the game-changing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in early production stages, rival manufacturers are racing against time.
The F-35 may be regarded almost as much as an industrial and coalition-building policy as a warplane made by Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales and the world's largest aerospace company.
It is a projected trillion-dollar enterprise designed to dominate the lucrative global fighter market for decades while plugging its buyers into U.S.-built defense architecture and cementing U.S.-led alliances.
Unlike Lockheed's premier F-22 fighter, which flies faster, and higher and can range further, the radar-evading F-35 was intended for export from the get-go. It will be the first radar-evading, "stealth" U.S. warplane to be exported. And it is the costliest planned acquisition in Defense Department history.
The United States alone plans to spend nearly $300 billion for a total of 2,443 F-35s in three models to be delivered over 28 years. All are derived from a common design and would use the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide.
"The plan has firmed up" with no defections among foreign development partners, says Richard Aboulafia, a fighter-market expert at Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy in Fairfax, Virginia.
The F-35 is co-financed by the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway. All the U.S. partners appear to be largely sticking to plans to buy a combined 750 F-35s, at least for now.
F-35 competitors include the Saab AB Gripen, the Dassault Aviation SA' Rafale, Russia's MiG-35 and Sukhoi Su-35, and the Eurofighter Typhoon made by a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies.
Dassault has been pitching its Rafale to the United Arab Emirates in what would be the first overseas sale of the aircraft.
Brazil has short-listed the Rafale, Gripen and Boeing Co F-18E/F Super Hornet as finalists in a competition that could involve the purchase of more than 100 aircraft.
Next month, India is due to start year-long flight evaluations for the purchase of 126 multi-role fighters worth up to $10.4 billion, the biggest such market in decades. Indonesia and Malaysia are weighing Russian-made Sukhois. Switzerland is looking at the Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale. Greece is evaluating the Eurofighter and the Super Hornet.
In India, Boeing is pitting its Super Hornet against Lockheed's F-16, Dassault's Rafale, Saab's Gripen, Russia's MiG-35 and the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Of the Swiss and Indian fighter competitions, Stefan Zoller, chief executive of EADS' defense and security division, told Reuters: "Both campaigns are hot; both campaigns are running exactly on schedule".
Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier by sales and the top U.S. exporter, says it sees big opportunities for its F-15 and F/A-18 fighters before Lockheed works out kinks in the F-35, production ramps up and the price goes down.
"It's a great time to be in the fighter business," Bob Gower, the head of Boeing's F/A-18 program, told a briefing ahead of the Paris Air show next week. Continued...
Source: Reuters

North Korea sanctions won't escalate tension: Russia source

North Korea sanctions won't escalate tension: Russia source
UN turns up pressure on North Korea
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By Jack Kim and Amie Ferris-Rotman
SEOUL/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not expect North Korea to respond to U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test with moves that would further ratchet up tension, Itar-Tass news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying on Thursday.
The draft U.N. Security Council resolution, written by the United States and endorsed by the four other permanent members plus Japan and South Korea, aims to hit the North's meager overseas finances and could be voted on by as early as Friday.
"The resolution is being adopted in order to solve the problem, and not to whip up the situation," the Russian foreign ministry source told Itar-Tass. "We don't expect any actions to follow, including from North Korea, that would lead to an escalation of tension.
But some analysts believe the resolution, if adopted, would draw sharp rebuke from the prickly North, which threatened to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the Security Council apologizes for punishing it for an April rocket launch widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.
"This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite, and bite in a meaningful way," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, told reporters.
North Korea has been subjected to sanctions for years for military moves condemned by regional powers. Analysts are not sure if new measures will have much impact on the impoverished state, whose economy has only grown weaker since leader Kim Jong-il took over in 1994.
The U.N. draft "condemns in the strongest terms" North Korea's nuclear test last month and "demands that (it) not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology."
COMPROMISES
The end result reflected compromises to satisfy Chinese and Russian objections. Beijing and Moscow had opposed language in earlier drafts requiring all countries to inspect North Korean ships carrying suspicious cargo that might violate a partial U.N. trade and arms embargo.
In the latest version, the Security Council "calls upon" states to inspect suspicious sea, air and land cargoes, but does not demand it. Arms sales are one of North Korea's few sources of hard cash.
Beijing, the closest Pyongyang can claim as a major ally, is reluctant to accept any new sanctions that would significantly undercut its economic ties to North Korea or push an already weak economy into collapse.
"China feels in no position to push back hard, because North Korea has offered it nothing to fall back on. Nothing," said Shi Yinhong, an international security expert at China's Renmin University, in explaining why Beijing appears to be on board.
North Korea has angered the region and countries beyond in the past few weeks with missile launches, threats to attack the South and a nuclear test, prompting U.S. and South Korean forces to raise a military alert on the peninsula to one of its highest since the 1950-53 Korean War.
JOINT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
The North has been able to obtain a steady flow of foreign currency from South Korean companies using cheap North Korean labor and land to make goods at the Kaesong industrial enclave, located just within the communist state. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Pakistan kills scores of Taliban in new combat zones

Pakistan kills scores of Taliban in new combat zones
Cameras record deadly Pakistan bomb
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By Adil Khan
BANNU, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan unleashed helicopter gunships and artillery to kill scores of Taliban fighters, officials said on Thursday, after opening a second front against militants near their stronghold in the Waziristan tribal region.
Already in the final stages of an operation to clear Islamist fighters from the Swat valley, far to the northwest and closer to Islamabad, the military went on the offensive on Tuesday in Bannu district after up to 800 militants infiltrated from Waziristan.
U.S. officials, worried that the Taliban could drive nuclear-armed Pakistan into chaos, have welcomed the Swat offensive and there has been talk that Waziristan, a hub of Taliban and al Qaeda activity, would be the army's next target.
Standing at the gateway to Waziristan, Bannu is 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where a suicide truck bomb attack on a luxury hotel killed at least nine people on Tuesday.
A military statement said on Thursday that during the last 24 hours 66 militants had been killed in fighting mostly in Bannu and South Waziristan, but also Swat.
In Bannu alone, more than 130 militants have been killed since the army swung into action two days ago, according to military officers and a senior civilian official in the area. Independent casualty estimates were unavailable.
"The operation is going on very well. Helicopter gunships, artillery, everything is being used," Kamran Zeb, the top administrator in Bannu, told Reuters.
In South Waziristan, the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, around 400 militants attacked two forts in Jandola and Siplatoi. They killed three soldiers but lost 22 of their own men, the military statement said.
Adding to catalog of violence, gunmen wounded a provincial minister in the Darra Adam Khel tribal region just outside Peshawar. Three people were killed in the attack, but Mian Nisar Gul, NWFP minister for jails, was in a stable condition, according to a fellow minister who spoke with him in hospital.
AID CRUNCH
Pakistan's decision to opt for military action in Swat has been helped by a shift in public opinion. That support might ebb if the welfare of some 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict in the northwest is mishandled.
Nine aid agencies said on Thursday in London they would be forced to stop or cut back supplies of aid unless a funding crisis was resolved.
The United Nations has appealed for $543 million, but has received only $138 million so far.
The United Nations is heavily involved in relief efforts, and five U.N. workers, including two foreigners, were among those killed in the suicide attack on Peshawar's Pearl Continental hotel.
HEAVY BOMBING Continued...
Source: Reuters

Berlusconi's wife: my reputation has been "muddied"

Berlusconi's wife: my reputation has been muddied
ROME (Reuters) - The wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday that her reputation had been "muddied" by the media after her public demand for a divorce on grounds of infidelity plunged her husband into a major scandal.
Veronica Berlusconi unleashed a storm of public criticism over her billionaire husband's private life last month when she accused him of "frequenting minors," after he was photographed at the 18th birthday party of an aspiring model in Naples.
Some media, including outlets controlled by 72-year-old Berlusconi's Mediaset group, responded with stories about the private life of Veronica, a former actress and his second wife.
"In these weeks I have watched in silence, without responding in the media, the brutal muddying of my person, my dignity and my marital history," Veronica said in a letter to Italy's best-selling Corriere della Sera newspaper.
She said Italian media had not even touched on the reality of her relationship with Berlusconi, or asked why she had been forced to announce her frustration with their relationship through the media.
"What is certain is that I have always loved him and I have arranged my life around my marriage and my family," she said.
Berlusconi, whose center-right party did less well than expected in last weekend's European elections but still emerged as Italy's strongest force, has been quoted as saying that his wife had been his most effective opponent in the campaign.
Her allegations prompted media scrutiny of a New Year's Eve party in Berlusconi's Sardinian villa to which he reportedly invited dozens of young women and accusations that he had used state aircraft to fly his party guests to Sardinia.

Source: Reuters

N.Korea sanctions won't escalate tension: Russia source

N.Korea sanctions won't escalate tension: Russia source
UN turns up pressure on North Korea
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By Jack Kim and Amie Ferris-Rotman
SEOUL/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not expect North Korea to respond to U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test with moves that would further ratchet up tension, Itar-Tass news agency quoted a diplomatic source as saying on Thursday.
The draft U.N. Security Council resolution, written by the United States and endorsed by the four other permanent members plus Japan and South Korea, aims to hit the North's meager overseas finances and could be voted on by as early as Friday.
"The resolution is being adopted in order to solve the problem, and not to whip up the situation," the Russian foreign ministry source told Itar-Tass. "We don't expect any actions to follow, including from North Korea, that would lead to an escalation of tension.
But some analysts believe the resolution, if adopted, would draw sharp rebuke from the prickly North, which threatened to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the Security Council apologizes for punishing it for an April rocket launch widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.
"This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite, and bite in a meaningful way," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, told reporters.
North Korea has been subjected to sanctions for years for military moves condemned by regional powers. Analysts are not sure if new measures will have much impact on the impoverished state, whose economy has only grown weaker since leader Kim Jong-il took over in 1994.
The U.N. draft "condemns in the strongest terms" North Korea's nuclear test last month and "demands that (it) not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology."
COMPROMISES
The end result reflected compromises to satisfy Chinese and Russian objections. Beijing and Moscow had opposed language in earlier drafts requiring all countries to inspect North Korean ships carrying suspicious cargo that might violate a partial U.N. trade and arms embargo.
In the latest version, the Security Council "calls upon" states to inspect suspicious sea, air and land cargoes, but does not demand it. Arms sales are one of North Korea's few sources of hard cash.
Beijing, the closest Pyongyang can claim as a major ally, is reluctant to accept any new sanctions that would significantly undercut its economic ties to North Korea or push an already weak economy into collapse.
"China feels in no position to push back hard, because North Korea has offered it nothing to fall back on. Nothing," said Shi Yinhong, an international security expert at China's Renmin University, in explaining why Beijing appears to be on board.
North Korea has angered the region and countries beyond in the past few weeks with missile launches, threats to attack the South and a nuclear test, prompting U.S. and South Korean forces to raise a military alert on the peninsula to one of its highest since the 1950-53 Korean War.
JOINT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
The North has been able to obtain a steady flow of foreign currency from South Korean companies using cheap North Korean labor and land to make goods at the Kaesong industrial enclave, located just within the communist state. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Air France chief questions sensor role in crash

PARIS (Reuters) - Air France is not yet convinced that faulty speed sensors were to blame for the loss of one of its planes over the Atlantic, but it is replacing old sensors as a precaution, the airline's chief executive said on Thursday.
Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told reporters that Air France was in a state of shock over the disaster and said he expected to have more information about what went wrong within a week.
An Air France Airbus 330 crashed into the sea on June 1 enroute from Brazil to Paris, killing all 228 aboard.
Air accident investigators have said the Airbus registered inconsistent speed readings just before contact was lost, raising speculation that the pilots might inadvertently have flown at the wrong speed and precipitated the disaster.
Air France subsequently reported it noticed temporary loss of air speed data on previous Airbus flights due to icing up of the sensors and said it was speeding up a pre-planned replacement program.
"As circumstances would have it, the first replacements arrived practically on the eve of the accident, on the Friday," Gourgeon told a news briefing, adding, "I am not convinced that speed sensors were the cause of crash."
The French air accident agency has said it is too early to pinpoint any possible cause for the crash, saying there were only two certainties -- that the plane had hit stormy weather before the crash and that the speed readings were incoherent.
Airbus denied a French newspaper report on Wednesday that it was considering grounding its fleet of A330 and A340 planes in the wake of the disaster, saying they were safe to fly.
Air France said at the weekend it had noticed the icing problems on the speed sensors in May 2008 and had asked Airbus for a solution to reduce or overcome the difficulty. Gourgeon said these "incidents" had not been deemed catastrophic.
Airbus responded by reaffirming existing operating procedures, according to Air France in a statement on Saturday.
Air France said tests had later convinced it that probes developed for another model would be more efficient and that it had decided to go ahead and start fitting them from April 27 without waiting for further testing proposed by the planemaker.
The speed sensors on the Air France A330 were supplied by France's Thales, which has produced two versions of the so-called pitot tube for Airbus aircraft.
The crashed plane had the earlier Thales model and Air France is swapping them out for the more recent model.

Source: Reuters

Pakistan targets Taliban in new combat zone, kill scores

Pakistan targets Taliban in new combat zone, kill scores
Cameras record deadly Pakistan bomb
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By Adil Khan
BANNU,Pakistan (Reuters) - The Pakistani army attacked an area bordering a militant stronghold near the Waziristan tribal region on Thursday, killing scores of Taliban fighters with helicopter gunships and artillery shelling, officials said.
Already in the final stages of an operation to clear Islamist fighters from the Swat valley, far to the northwest and closer to Islamabad, the military said it went on the offensive in Bannu district after up to 800 militants infiltrated from Waziristan.
U.S. officials, who have been worried that nuclear-armed Pakistan could slide into chaos unless the Taliban's advance weren't stopped, have welcomed the offensive in Swat.
There has been speculation that once that was over the focus would switch to Waziristan, long regarded as a hub of Taliban and al Qaeda activity.
According to local military officials and a senior civilian official in Bannu well over 100 militants have been killed since the army swung into action on Wednesday.
"The operation is going on very well. Helicopter gunships, artillery, everything is being used," Kamran Zeb, the top administrator in Bannu, told Reuters.
"Yesterday, around 100 militants were killed in the operation," Zeb said, adding that there had been more killed on Thursday.
Lying just outside the tribal areas, Bannu is the gateway to Waziristan and is 150 km (94 miles) southwest of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, where a suicide truck bomb attack on a luxury hotel killed at least 9 people on Tuesday.
Speaking in Washington on Wednesday, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he saw a dramatic shift in the Pakistani government's attitude because of public outrage over the Taliban's actions, including the attack on the hotel.
"What I saw in Pakistan on this trip was a slow emergence of a consensus behind the government's actions," Holbrooke said in Washington, reporting back on his trip last week.
AID CRUNCH
Pakistan's decision to opt for military action in Swat has been helped by a shift in public opinion. That support might ebb if the welfare of some 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict in the northwest is mishandled.
Nine aid agencies said on Thursday in London they would be forced to stop or cut back supplies of aid unless a funding crisis was resolved.
The United Nations has appealed for $543 million, but has received only $138 million -- a quarter of that so far.
The United Nations is heavily involved in relief efforts, and 5 U.N. workers, including two foreigners, were among those killed in the suicide attack on Peshawar's Pearl Continental hotel. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Solana sees chance for reviving Mideast peace talks

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Recent events in the Middle East could revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sets the right tone in a speech on Sunday, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.
"A lot of important things are taking place," Solana told reporters on Thursday in Jerusalem, the first stop on a diplomatic trip for talks with Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese and Egyptian leaders.
He cited U.S. President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo a week ago addressed to the Arab and Muslim world, in which he spoke of the urgent need for a Middle East peace settlement.
Solana also cited this month's election result in Lebanon which Western powers took as a promising development since Iranian-backed Hezbollah failed to score a breakthrough.
He looked forward to Friday's election in Iran, where hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces a challenge from moderate Mirhossein Mousavi.
This could be a good moment, Solana said, to "see how we can bring back the situation to something that can be moving in the right direction," after a year of no progress in the peace process, and an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
It would be helpful if Netanyahu in his policy speech made a commitment to the "two-state solution" and to a freeze on Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the top EU diplomat said. "That's what we expect to hear and I am sure something of that nature will happen."
He declined to speculate on how the EU might react if Netanyahu, who heads a right-leaning coalition including parties opposed to any halt to settlements, continues to dodge endorsement of a peace agreement based on Palestinian statehood.
Western powers and previous Israeli governments endorse the principle of two states as the only viable solution.
Obama's speech was well received in the Arab world, Solana said. "If we continue working in that direction and we have an impulse on the part of prime minister Netanyahu we may be able to begin talks."
(Writing by Douglas Hamilton, editing by Diana Abdallah)

Source: Reuters

Ahmadinejad's economic record may sway Iran vote

Ahmadinejad's economic record may sway Iran vote
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - If Iranian voters deny President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-election on Friday, it may be more a verdict on his economic performance than on his fierce rhetoric against the United States and Israel, his defense of Iran's nuclear policy or his persistent questioning of the Holocaust.
Ahmadinejad, 53, grabbed 62 percent of the vote in the 2005 presidential poll, upsetting widespread predictions of victory for the seasoned former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
He swept to power with the backing of Iran's devout poor, especially those in rural areas, who felt neglected by past governments and liked his promise to put oil wealth on the table of every family in a nation of over 70 million people.
Ahmadinejad has distributed loans, money and other help for local needs on his frequent provincial tours, but critics say his free-spending policies have fueled inflation and squandered windfall petrodollars without reducing unemployment.
Since he took power, prices of food, fuel and other basics have soared, hitting more than 15 million Iranian families who live on less than $600 a month, according to official figures.
Ahmadinejad, who blames inflation on a global surge in food and fuel prices that peaked last year, has pursued unorthodox economic policies such as trying to curb prices while setting interest rates well below inflation, now less than 18 percent.
Born a blacksmith's son in the farming village of Aradan, 100 km (62 miles) southeast of Tehran, his family moved to the capital in his early childhood. He studied engineering and has alternated between teaching and administrative posts.
Ahmadinejad, a small man who wears open-necked shirts and windbreakers, plays on his modest origins and lifestyle. After the 1979 revolution, he joined the elite Revolutionary Guard.
His rise to power appeared to signal a return to the stern revolutionary roots of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after hardliners snuffed out the reformist challenge when Mohammad Khatami was president from 1997 to 2005.
Ahmadinejad often denounces Western "hegemony" as well as the U.N. and U.S. sanctions that have raised trade costs and deterred Western investment in Iran's oil and gas sector.
During his term, the U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which the West suspects has military aims, not merely civilian ones as Tehran insists. Ahmadinejad's moderate rivals say his fiery anti-Western talk has helped isolate Iran diplomatically.
The incumbent is basking in support from Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called on Iranians to vote for an anti-Western candidate. However, this apparent endorsement could provoke a backlash from voters who stayed at home in 2005 but might relish a chance to say 'no' to Khamenei.
The supreme leader ultimately calls the shots in Iran, where the president can only influence policy, not decide it.
It would be rash to assume that Iran's nuclear policy or its decision on how to respond to diplomatic overtures by U.S. President Barack Obama will change, even if a moderate candidate defeats Ahmadinejad in June, analysts say.
His challengers are Mirhossein Mousavi, prime minister during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaie. All three advocate a less abrasive foreign policy. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. checks civilian death reports in Afghan strike

By Sharafuddin Sharafyar
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An insurgent commander targeted by a U.S. air strike in western Afghanistan may have survived, but the U.S. military is checking reports that civilians were among the dead, the military said on Thursday.
The U.S. military said on Wednesday Mullah Mustafa and 16 fighters had been killed in a targeted air strike in Ghor province, describing the commander as a "warlord" reported to have links with both Iran and the Taliban.
It said he had been struck after being observed meeting with armed men at a remote location where no civilians were present.
But on Thursday, the military issued an updated statement, which said "credible reports surfaced that Mustafa survived the attack" and "unsubstantiated reports of civilian casualties emerged." It said it was checking the reports of civilian deaths.
Ghor's deputy governor, Keramuddin Rezazada, told Reuters he was not able to confirm whether Mustafa had been killed, and villagers had reported that 10 civilians as well as 12 armed men were killed in the strike.
Provincial authorities had sent a team to investigate, he said.
Civilian casualties from U.S. air strikes have become a major source of friction between Washington and the Afghan government and have caused widespread anger within Afghanistan.
The newly-named commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who is expected to take up his post this month, has said strikes that kill civilians are a threat to U.S. success in the war.
The issue became especially fraught after an air strike last month in western Farah province, in which the Afghan government says 140 civilians died. The U.S. military has acknowledged procedures were not fully obeyed in those strikes, and says 20-35 civilians and a larger number of fighters were killed.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan rely on air strikes to protect U.S., NATO and Afghan troops under fire, and also in "intelligence-driven operations" aimed at killing suspected militant commanders.
They say they have tightened procedures over the past year for both types of strikes, requiring additional checks to ensure that civilians are not hurt.
(Additional reporting and writing by Peter Graff in KABUL; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

Source: Reuters

G8 off track on increased aid to Africa: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Group of Eight industrial nations are collectively off course in delivering on a 2005 pact to more than double aid to Africa through 2010, with France and Italy falling far short of their commitments, according to a new report released on Thursday.
The annual report by the ONE anti-poverty campaign charts progress by the G8 in meeting their aid promises made at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005 to more than double aid to Africa to reach $25 billion a year by 2010.
By the end of 2008 the G8 nations had made good on one-third of their aid commitments and by the end of this year, they are expected to meet just half of their Gleneagles targets, the report said.
The majority of the shortfall -- about 80 percent -- will be because of declines in aid to Africa by Italy and France, it added.
"Certain members of the G8 are meeting and even beating the targets they set for themselves. Others, most notably Italy and France, have made exceptionally poor progress and are damaging the G8's collective credibility," the report said.
"Given how far some G8 countries have drifted from their promises, it will be challenging for the group to get back on track to keep their commitments," it added.
Many countries in the G8 have spent billions of dollars of their budgets on fiscal stimulus to spur global recovery, affecting their ability to increase foreign assistance.
GLOBAL ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN
The report comes as G8 finance ministers prepare to meet in Italy this weekend to discuss the state of the world economy. African countries are being hit by the global economic slowdown and financial crisis that threatens to undo more than a decade of progress in reducing poverty and spurring high economic growth.
The report said the failure by the G8 powers to fully deliver on their aid pledges was particularly troubling given the impact on Africa from the global crisis that was not its fault.
Still, on a country-by-country basis, Canada, the United States and Japan have exceeded their Gleneagles commitments, the ONE campaign said.
In addition, the report said that while Germany and Britain are currently off track in meeting their aid goals, both are making progress to meet their commitments that were more ambitious than the United States, Canada or Japan.
But the report said France's development assistance to Africa fell from 2007 to 2008 and it has delivered only 7 percent of what it promised at Gleneagles.
The report said last year, Germany became a bigger donor to Africa than France, which has traditionally played a major role in its former colonies mainly in West Africa.
Meanwhile, Italy has so far delivered only 3 percent of what it promised at Gleneagles and has cut aid to Africa since the 2005 summit and is planning further cuts in 2009, the report said.
"Italy must urgently reverse its course if it is not to be embarrassed at the forthcoming G8 summit," the report added. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Suu Kyi says junta's charges are political: lawyer

By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi believes her trial is an attempt by the country's ruling generals to prevent her from running in multi-party elections next year, her lawyer said.
The Nobel laureate, who faces three to five years in prison if found guilty of breaching the terms of her house arrest, has urged her lawyers to "explore all legal avenues" to win the widely-condemned case.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told us the trial and the charges against her were politically motivated," Nyan Win said late on Wednesday after defense lawyers were allowed to meet the 63-year-old at her prison guesthouse.
"She instructed us to explore all legal avenues to take appropriate legal action," he said.
A conviction is widely expected in the former Burma, where the courts have often bent the law to suit the military, which has ruled for nearly half a century.
A Yangon court on Tuesday upheld a ban on two of Suu Kyi's defense witnesses but agreed to allow Khin Moe Moe, a legal expert, to give testimony.
Nyan Win said a second appeal to have the bans overturned would be lodged with a higher court later on Thursday.
"SABOTAGE"
The initial barring of the three witnesses outraged Suu Kyi's supporters, who accused the junta of trying to sabotage her defense.
Suu Kyi is charged under Section 22 of an internal security law to protect the state from "subversive elements" after American John Yettaw swam across the Inya lake to her home on May 4, where he stayed for two days.
Yettaw told the court he was sent by God to protect Suu Kyi from "terrorists" seeking to kill her. He and two of Suu Kyi's housemaids are also charged under the security law.
Suu Kyi's next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, although her lawyers expect the case to be adjourned.
The pro-democracy icon has been detained for 13 of the last 19 years, mostly at her lakeside home. Her latest stint of house arrest was lifted on May 26.
Western governments and Myanmar's regional neighbors have expressed outrage at the trial, which critics say is aimed at keeping the charismatic National League for Democracy (NLD) leader out of elections next year.
Nyan Win said Suu Kyi was especially irked by the junta's refusal to allow her to have her house cleaned during the trial. Continued...
Source: Reuters

China Internet filter challenged in rights uproar

China Internet filter challenged in rights uproar
China PC software raises e-fears
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BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese lawyer has demanded a public hearing to reconsider a government demand that all new personal computers carry Internet filtering software, adding to uproar over a plan critics say is ineffective and intrusive.
Li Fangping, a Beijing human rights advocate who often embraces controversial causes, has asked the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to allow hearings on the "lawfulness and reasonableness" of the demand, which takes effect from July 1 and was publicized only this week.
"This administrative action lacks a legal basis," Li wrote in a submission to the ministry that was sent to reporters by email on Thursday.
"Designating that the same software must be installed in all computers affects citizens' rights to choose."
Li's demand, and denunciations of the plan from Chinese rights groups, have expanded a public battle over the "Green Dam" filtering software, despite a state media effort to promote the software as a welcome way to prevent children being exposed to pornography.
Many citizens worry such software and other measures are being imposed to deter discussion of sensitive political topics, especially in this year of controversial anniversaries, Li told Reuters.
"Above all, we're concerned about freedom of speech and the right to know," he said. "We know that citizens have been prosecuted because of their private emails, and we're worried about more such cases."
Chinese human rights and gay advocacy groups have demanded the software plan be immediately quashed.
A statement from five groups sent by email said the software threatened to cripple access to many of the gay community websites that have flourished in recent years.
The software works by judging whether website pages may show large amounts of exposed flesh.
Wan Yanhai, a leader of the Beijing-based Aizhixing organization, which works on AIDS and gay rights, said he was preparing a mass petition to mobilize opposition to the software.
"We need to demand not just the lifting of this software decree, but also an end to restrictions on gay publications," Wan told Reuters. "This is about opposing censorship."
Chinese state media have promoted the compulsory installation plan as an effective way to staunch the flow of pornography, which is banned in China but widely available.
"If you have children or are expecting a child you could understand the concerns of the parents over unhealthy online content," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters on Tuesday.
State television news said the software can be shut off and erased if users choose, and does not collect personal information.
China is one of the world's fastest-growing PC markets, and has hundreds of millions of Internet users. Research firm Gartner forecasts total PC shipments will climb by about 3 percent this year to more than 42 million units. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.N. moves to punish Pyongyang as rival Koreas meet

U.N. moves to punish Pyongyang as rival Koreas meet
UN turns up pressure on North Korea
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By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - World powers moved closer to punishing North Korea with new sanctions for its nuclear test while envoys from the reclusive communist state held talks with South Koreans on Thursday over a troubled joint factory park.
The draft U.N. Security Council resolution, written by the United States and endorsed by the four other permanent members plus Japan and South Korea, aims to hit the North's meager overseas finances and could be voted on by as early as Friday.
The resolution, if adopted, is likely to draw sharp rebuke from the prickly North, which threatened to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile unless the Security Council apologizes for punishing it for an April rocket launch widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.
"This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite, and bite in a meaningful way," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, told reporters.
North Korea has been subject to sanctions for years for military moves condemned by regional powers. Analysts are not sure if new measures will have much impact on the impoverished state, whose economy has only grown weaker since leader Kim Jong-il took over in 1994.
The U.N. draft "condemns in the strongest terms" North Korea's nuclear test last month and "demands that (it) not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology."
COMPROMISES
The end result reflected compromises to satisfy Chinese and Russian objections. Beijing and Moscow had opposed language in earlier drafts requiring all countries to inspect North Korean ships carrying suspicious cargo that might violate a partial U.N. trade and arms embargo.
In the latest version, the Security Council "calls upon" states to inspect suspicious sea, air and land cargoes, but does not demand it. Arms sales are one of North Korea's few sources of hard cash.
Beijing, the closest Pyongyang can claim as a major ally, is reluctant to accept any new sanctions that would significantly undercut its economic ties to North Korea or push an already weak economy into collapse.
"China has faced immense pressure on this, so it's had to make concessions," said Shi Yinhong, an international security expert at China's Renmin University, in explaining why Beijing appears to be on board.
"China feels in no position to push back hard, because North Korea has offered it nothing to fall back on. Nothing."
North Korea has angered the region and countries beyond in the past few weeks with missile launches, threats to attack the South and a nuclear test, prompting U.S. and South Korean forces to raise a military alert on the peninsula to one of its highest since the 1950-53 Korean War.
The North has been able to obtain a steady flow of foreign currency from the South Korean companies using cheap North Korean labor and land to make goods at the Kaesong industrial enclave, located just within the communist state.
The two Koreas opened talks on the Kaseong park that come about a month after the North said it was revoking all deals on wages, rent and fees paid there. Analysts said this was likely a bargaining ploy to squeeze more money out of the South. Continued...
Source: Reuters

WITNESS: Third time lucky in crime-ridden Johannesburg

WITNESS: Third time lucky in crime-ridden Johannesburg
Serena Chaudhry, Johannesburg correspondent for Reuters, moved to South Africa from Britain in 1995 and joined Reuters full-time in 2008 to report on companies in Africa's biggest economy. In the following story, slugged WITNESS/SAFRICA-CRIME and headlined 'Third time lucky in crime-ridden Johannesburg' Serena writes about her experiences in one of the world's most dangerous cities.
By Serena Chaudhry
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - When the white sports utility vehicle pulled up as we backed out of our driveway, I thought it was the delivery man my mother was waiting for.
Until one of the passengers jumped out, pulled a bright orange mask over his head and ran toward our car: in seconds he stood in front of us with his finger on the trigger of an AK-47 rifle, pointing it directly at me.
It was just days before the election and African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma was telling millions of South Africans the party had accomplished many things, including its fight against crime and how it would make the streets safe before hosting the 2010 World Cup.
"Oh no," I said to my father, who first thought it was some kind of practical joke. I froze. It was only when the man trained his weapon at my father that I ducked. The thought of watching my father getting shot through the windshield was too much.
Zuma has promised stepped-up efforts against crime, particularly organized crime and offences against women and children. So far little has changed since 2000, when two men appeared outside our house with pistols as we waited for the electronic gate to open.
My mother, her friend and her daughter and I managed to run into the house just after the barrier slid open, but they stole the car, our handbags and a goldfish in a plastic bag filled with water which was supposed to be a pet for my younger brother.
There are very few people I know in South Africa who have not fallen victim to crime. Over the years, I have heard many stories about murders, rapes, robberies and car jackings. The country has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, with 18,487 murders, 36,190 rapes, and 14,201 reported carjackings in 2007-8, according to police.
About 50 people are murdered a day -- slightly more than the rate in the United States, which has six times South Africa's 50 million population.
I wonder if my relatives from London, or millions of other tourists for that matter, will be safe when they attend the World Cup. It's not just the crime: it's how brazen the criminals are.
BROAD DAYLIGHT
In the most recent incident, my father reversed out of the driveway and sped off, beeping the horn, as the gunman and three others, including a woman driver, pursued us in broad daylight.
Another time, we woke up to gunshots from policemen firing on armed men who had broken into our kitchen.
I try to stay calm when I am on assignment, although covering company news is not nearly as stressful as the slightest bark from my dog at night, which makes me jolt up, wondering if this time my luck might run out.
I may be overreacting -- after all, crimes are far more frequent in poor black areas. There is something called township justice -- when criminals are attacked by residents who don't want the added burden of crime in their poverty-stricken life. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Irish abuse victims march, church repentant

Irish abuse victims march, church repentant
By Andras Gergely
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish bishops said they were "ashamed, humbled and repentant" about widespread abuse of children at Catholic-run schools after victims marched silently to the Irish parliament Wednesday to demand justice.
Disclosures of floggings, slave labor and gang rape in Ireland's now defunct system of industrial and reform schools have shamed Irish people, particularly older ones who did not confront what a report last month described as endemic abuse.
"Heinous crimes were perpetrated against the most innocent and vulnerable, and vile acts with life-lasting effects were carried out under the guise of the mission of Jesus Christ," the Irish Bishops' Conference said in a statement.
The leaders of the Catholic Church in Ireland met Pope Benedict Friday and he told them to make sure justice was done for all, "to bring healing to the survivors of abuse" and to prevent abuse from happening again, the bishops said.
The statement came hours after hundreds of victims of abuse, carrying children's shoes and wearing white ribbons symbolizing their lost youth, marched to parliament accompanied by thousands of other protestors.
"It was as if you were inside prison and when you come out you don't talk about it," said Marina Permaul, 66, who was brought up "military style" by nuns in the western county of Galway.
"You don't talk about it even to your children," said Permaul, who arrived from London to attend the march. "You're too ashamed of it all, and in any case would they believe you? You didn't dare speak out against a religious order."
COMPENSATION
Organizers of the march, held to coincide with a parliamentary debate on the report, have expressed anger that the debate was postponed to allow parliament to deal with a motion of confidence in the government.
"It really emphasizes again that the state hasn't actually understood one iota of what it was like for 165,000 children who went through 216 institutions," said victim Christine Buckley.
The inquiry, chaired by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, criticized religious authorities for covering up the crimes and the Department of Education for colluding in the silence. It noted children were also preyed upon by foster parents, volunteer workers and employers.
The report did not identify abusers after a successful legal challenge by the Christian Brothers, which was the largest provider of residential care for boys in Ireland.
A series of scandals involving predatory priests has dislodged the Roman Catholic Church from its once pre-eminent position in Irish society but there is anger that many have avoided jail.
Religious orders identified in the report have come under pressure to pay more compensation to victims. A 2002 deal capped their contribution to a redress fund at 127 million euros ($177 million). The total bill is expected to top 1 billion euros.
Buckley said the fund was a failure and she has called for its awards to be reviewed and a trust fund set up instead. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Gaddafi hails Italy for overcoming colonial past

Gaddafi hails Italy for overcoming colonial past
Gaddafi welcomed in Italy
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By Philip Pullella and Deepa Babington
ROME (Reuters) - Libya's Muammar Gaddafi began his first visit to former colonial power Italy on Wednesday, brazenly wearing a picture of a legendary resistance hero whom Italian occupiers hanged in 1931.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi welcomed Gaddafi on a trip Rome hopes will close a painful chapter in the two countries' past.
The visit by Gaddafi, his first to Italy since taking power in a 1969 coup, is one of the few in the West since economic sanctions were lifted after Libya vowed to stop sponsoring terrorism.
Rome has pulled out all the stops for Gaddafi, whose North African country supplies a quarter of Italy's oil and is a source of much-needed capital for Italian companies amid the global financial crisis.
A $5 billion reparations deal last year paved the way for the visit.
But, to the chagrin of some of the Italian hosts, Gaddafi arrived with a picture pinned to his chest that was a stark reminder of Italy's past as a repressive colonial power.
To the right of a battery of multi-colored insignia on his military jacket was a picture of Libyan resistance hero Omar Al-Mukhtar in chains alongside his Italian captors.
And just for good measure Gaddafi brought along al-Mukhtar's son, now an elderly man who had to be helped off the plane by a bevy of security men and who later sat in a wheelchair on the tarmac while national anthems were played.
"A long, painful chapter with Libya has been closed," Berlusconi told reporters at the airport before Gaddafi, who carried a black baton under his left shoulder, went to a state lunch with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
"I praise this generation of Italians for having resolved the issues of the past with great courage," Gaddafi told reporters.
A DARK COLONIAL PAST
Italy ruled Libya from 1911 to 1943 in a hugely expensive exercise without ever being able to control the country fully. Gaddafi has repeatedly lambasted Italy over colonial rule, but the two nations have long maintained close business ties.
Libya has been increasingly flexing its financial and political muscle on the world stage since international sanctions were lifted in 2003.
Gaddafi is also set to address Italy's business community, which is looking for signs that Libya will continue to funnel its petrodollars into Italian companies after high-profile stake purchases in UniCredit and Eni last year.
While Italy's political and business community are expected to fawn over Gaddafi and his entourage with the hopes of sealing more business deals, he will also face protests. Continued...
Source: Reuters
 

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