Taiwan snubs Japan's request to expand air zone

Taiwan snubs Japan's request to expand air zone

Taiwan snubs Japan's request to expand air zone

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:48 AM PDT

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan rejected on Saturday Japan's request to use its airspace, putting another strain on relations that have become more lukewarm over territorial issues and Taipei's stronger ties with China.


Nigeria president urges electoral reform by year-end

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:48 AM PDT

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday vowed to ensure elections due by next April were free and fair and called for the passage of electoral reforms by the end of the year.


INTERVIEW - Kenyan prime minister blasts judges over ruling

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:48 AM PDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has attacked the country's judiciary as an obstacle to reform after a court ruled it would be discriminatory to entrench Muslim courts in Kenya's constitution.


Stop making wild allegations: PM

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:11 AM PDT

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has reminded leaders and members of Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties to refrain from making wild allegations as it could affect the strength of the coalition.

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90-day deadline for Myanmar parties to meet membership requirement for polls

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:08 AM PDT

The Myanmar Union Election Commission has sets a 90-day deadline for registered political parties to submit a list of their prescribed number of members to the commission before the election date is announced.

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Thailand ends night curfew in Bangkok, nearby provinces

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:25 AM PDT

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand has cancelled an overnight curfew in Bangkok and several provinces, imposed after last week's riots and arson attacks, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Saturday.


Jamaican forces defend drug raids

Posted: 29 May 2010 12:03 AM PDT

Jamaican security forces have defended their actions following a four-day anti-drugs offensive in the capital, Kingston, which left 73 dead.


Protesters urge 'quitting Facebook'

Posted: 28 May 2010 09:38 PM PDT

More than 23,000 disgruntled web users have joined a campaign to call on Facebook to tidy up its privacy settings.


Thailand ends night curfew in Bangkok

Posted: 28 May 2010 11:38 PM PDT

BANGKOK, May 29 — Thailand has cancelled an overnight curfew in Bangkok and several provinces, imposed after last week's riots and arson attacks, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said today. "We will not have to extend it. The situation is under control now," he told reporters. The curfew was put in place on May 19 after Bangkok suffered the worst ...


Gulf oil spill hits Day 40 with no end in sight

Posted: 28 May 2010 11:20 PM PDT

NEW ORLEANS, May 29 — The worst oil spill in US history hits its 40th day today with Gulf residents clinging to one tenuous hope: that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will plug the gushing well. Beleaguered Louisiana residents heard from President Barack Obama and BP CEO Tony Hayward on separate visits to the Gulf coast yesterday as they ...


Pakistan, Iran finalise gas pipeline deal - ministry

Posted: 28 May 2010 11:52 PM PDT

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan and Iran have finalised a deal for the construction of a much-delayed pipeline to pump Iranian natural gas to the energy-starved South Asian country, the Pakistan petroleum ministry said.


EU financial crisis causing jitters in Turkish auto industry

Posted: 28 May 2010 10:37 PM PDT

The current financial crisis in the European Union (EU) is causing jitters in the Turkish automotive industry as the nation is heavily dependent on European exports.

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Google crowns Facebook king of Internet visits

Posted: 28 May 2010 02:43 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO: Google yesterday released web traffic data indicating that Facebook is king when it comes to online visitors despite criticism about privacy at the social-networking service.

Facebook.com is visited monthly by 540 million people, or slightly more than 35% of the Internet population, according to Google Ad Planner worldwide data gathered using recently-acquired Double Click.

About 570 billion pages are viewed monthly at Facebook.com, more than eight times as many pages as are viewed each month at second-place Yahoo.com which gets 490 million visitors, according to Google.

The figures support word from Facebook that it has not been abandoned by members despite carping by politicians, consumer groups and privacy advocates that want tighter safeguards on personal information at the website.

Only 23,515 people had signed up as of yesterday at a "We're Quitting Facebook" website as "committed" to dump the social-networking service as part of a campaign to stage a mass protest on May 31.

That number represents less than .006% of Facebook's more than 400 million members.

Facebook is overhauling privacy controls in the face of a barrage of criticism that it is betraying the trust which has made it the world's biggest social network.

Single control

Facebook redesigned its privacy settings page to provide a single control for content and "significantly reduce" the amount of information that is always visible to everyone.

Facebook also said it is giving users more control over how outside applications or websites access information at the service.

"This is a pretty big overhaul to the system we already have," Zuckerberg said while outlining the changes during a Wednesday press briefing at the social network's headquarters in the California city of Palo Alto.

"Now we are making it so there is less information that has to be public. People want a simple way to control the way information is shared with third parties, so that is what we are doing," he said.

The revamped privacy controls began rolling out on Wednesday.

Facebook last month sparked criticism from privacy and consumer groups, US lawmakers and the European Union by adding the ability for partner websites to incorporate data regarding members of the social-networking service.

Critics continue to call for Facebook to make all user information private by default and then let people designate what they want to share case-by-case in an "opt-in" model.

Facebook has rejected such a model, saying the service is based on a premise that people want to connect and share with friends and people around them.

- AFP

 

Thousands flee Ecuador, Guatemala volcanos

Posted: 28 May 2010 02:39 PM PDT

By Edgar Calderon

GUATEMALA CITY: Thousands of people were evacuated and airports were closed as two volcanos erupted in Guatemala and Ecuador yesterday, choking major cities with ash, and leaving two dead, officials said.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a 15-day state of emergency around the Pacaya volcano, 50km south of the capital.

The volcano erupted again yesterday after first bursting back to life on Wednesday, killing two people, including a television reporter covering the event.

In Ecuador, the Tungurahua volcano exploded into action yesterday, forcing the evacuation of at least seven villages and closing down the airport and public schools in Guayaquil, the country's largest and most populated city.

As the 2,552-metre Pacaya volcano exploded anew yesterday, with billowing clouds of ash and dust, Colom said La Aurora International Airport, in Guatemala City, would remain closed until today "because we've got to clean the runways and surrounding areas" of ash.

The airport closures were reminiscent of the massive blanket of ash Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano spewed out last month causing the biggest aerial shutdown in Europe since World War II, affecting more than 100,000 flights and eight million passengers.

Colom said the eruptions of Pacaya since Wednesday had killed two people, injured 59, left three children missing and destroyed 100 homes.

The Emergency Management Coordinator said between 1,700 and 1,900 people have been evacuated from their homes to nearby shelters in three departments affected by the emergency decree.

The Education Ministry also suspended classes in the emergency area.

Yesterday, the volcano was rocked by constant explosions and spewed bright-colored plumes into the air.

Most active volcano

Guatemala City was covered in a blanket of ash and dust, as people evacuated from the danger zone wandered the streets darkened by the ash cloud and the city's two million inhabitants tried to cope with the catastrophe.

The head of the national seismological institute warned more eruptions could take place "in the coming days" at the most active volcano in Central America.

The Pacaya volcano has been active for 49 years and has experienced six large eruptions.

The head of the national seismological institute Eddy Sanchez said the volcano had accumulated a lot of energy over several years. "Like a pressure cooker, it will release the pressure violently," he told reporters.

He warned that lava would continue to spew out at high altitudes.

The charred body of television journalist Anibal Archila was found near the volcano by a colleague, who said the victim could not escape the raining rocks and other projectiles thrown out when the volcano exploded late Thursday.

"We decided to stay a few minutes longer taking more photographs. Suddenly, we heard rumblings and rocks began falling all around so we had to get out running," a driver for one of the reporters covering the scene with Archila told the Nuestro Diario newspaper.

The second eruption-related fatality was that of a 22-year-old man who fell to his death as he cleaned volcano ash from the roof of a school.

Colom vowed government action to clean up the gray mess.

"The people must feel confident that the state is responding," the president said as he announced he would travel to the most affected municipalities to work with emergency committees.

Within a 100-km radius of the volcano, locals armed with brooms and shovels scrambled to remove sand and ash from the roofs and courtyards of their homes.

In Ecuador, meanwhile, the Tungurahua volcano experienced one of its biggest eruptions yesterday, spewing columns of ash and rock prompting evacuations of at least seven surrounding villages.

- AFP

Jamaica leader under fire as bodies pile up

Posted: 28 May 2010 02:35 PM PDT

By Shaun Tandon

KINGSTON: Jamaica's leader faced growing criticism yesterday over a nearly week-long assault on a slum to capture a powerful drug don as decomposing bodies of civilians lay unclaimed for days.

The operation has left 73 civilians dead by official count and has divided the island, with many Jamaicans hailing what they see as a chance to fight rampant crime but some alarmed at the heavy humanitarian price.

An overpowering stench of death hung over a cemetery in the capital Kingston, where more than a dozen bodies were left in simple wooden coffins. Flies hovered over one, from which an exposed leg stuck out.

Faced with rising allegations of abuse, the military and police went on the offensive, portraying residents of the destitute Tivoli Gardens area almost as an insurgent force that had hidden explosives and girded for heavy combat.

The military and police descended into the district seeking gang leader Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who is wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges but is hailed by many residents as a Robin Hood figure who offers security and small-time jobs on some of the world's toughest streets.

Jamaica's police chief, Owen Ellington, pledged a thorough investigation of all allegations but vowed to find Coke.

"Five days ago, there were concerns in this country as to whether the security forces have the capacity or the will to go inside Tivoli Gardens and disrupt Christopher Coke," Ellington said.

"Today, he is on the run. And we will catch him."

But with no sign of Coke, rumours have floated around Jamaica on his whereabouts with some convinced he fled and others suspecting he was negotiating a surrender.

Health hazard

Ellington said he believed Coke was in Jamaica. In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States had no "knowledge about what Coke is thinking or even where he is".

Ellington said bodies had been left outside for post-mortems, following accusations the police were trying to secretly dispose of corpses to hide the death toll, but that they could be a public health hazard if left inside.

But many of Coke's sympathisers inside the barricaded area accused troops of firing indiscriminately.

Sonia, 42, who fled from Tivoli Gardens, said she did not know if Coke was even still in Jamaica.

"Who said he here? Is that a reason to destroy our place?" she said angrily. "Nobody knows where he is. We all just here, mourning our dead."

The slum dwellers received support from former prime minister Edward Seaga, who used to represent Tivoli Gardens in Parliament and is considered by some to be the architect of Jamaican politicians' close ties with the underworld.

Seaga estimated that the real death toll was up to 150. He called for the resignation of incumbent Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who succeeded Seaga as the ruling Jamaica Labour Party's MP representing Tivoli Gardens.

"I cannot think of any reason to cause the government to continue with this very, very wicked act," Seaga, a close ally of former US president Ronald Reagan, said in a televised interview.

"What kind of country have we become? This is what happened with Pinochet in Chile, it happens in Africa. It does not happen here."

Amnesty International also called for a thorough investigation of the unrest, saying that Jamaican police had a "dire" track record on human rights.

It pointed to the small number of weapons seized compared with the death toll. As of yesterday, the police said they had captured a few dozen firearms or explosives.

However, many Jamaicans have hailed the crackdown as a way to battle endemic crime.

Joseph Matalon, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, an umbrella group of businesses, welcomed efforts to fight violence and "the incestuous links that exist between our political actors and the criminal underworld".

- AFP

Death toll rises to 90 in India train wreck

Posted: 28 May 2010 02:25 PM PDT

SARDINA: The death toll from a train wreck in eastern India blamed on Maoist saboteurs rose to 90 today, with rescuers saying more bodies remained trapped in the mangled carriages.

"So far, 90 bodies have been recovered," West Bengal police inspector general Surajit Kar Purakayastha said.

"But that's going to rise as two of the carriages that crashed into the freight train are yet to be fully searched," he said.

More than 30 hours after the Mumbai-bound high-speed passenger train careened off the tracks in a remote part of West Bengal, emergency teams were still trying to cut their way into crushed compartments.

The precise cause of the derailment was still unclear, with Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee saying Maoists had blown up the track with explosives, while police pointed to evidence that a section of rail had been manually removed.

Thirteen carriages jumped the tracks and most of the casualties were in four that collided with an oncoming goods train.

- AFP

Gulf oil spill hits Day 40 with no end in sight

Posted: 28 May 2010 10:38 PM PDT

NEW ORLEANS/VENICE, La. (Reuters) - The worst oil spill in U.S. history hits its 40th day on Saturday with Gulf residents clinging to one tenuous hope: that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will plug the gushing well.


Oil slick spreads to Singapore's northeastern coastline

Posted: 28 May 2010 10:02 PM PDT

SINGAPORE, Saturday 29 May 2010 (AFP) -- An oil slick from a damaged tanker has spread from beaches on Singapore's southeastern coastline to a marine nature reserve and other beaches, environment officials said Saturday.

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China faces pressure to act over N.Korea at summit

Posted: 28 May 2010 10:01 PM PDT

SEOUL, Saturday 29 May 2010 (AFP) -- China was due to face renewed pressure from Seoul at a three-way summit with Japan starting Saturday to sign up to global efforts to punish North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship.

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90 dead in India train wreck

Posted: 28 May 2010 09:59 PM PDT

SARDINA, Saturday 29 May 2010 (AFP) -- The death toll from a train wreck in eastern India blamed on Maoist saboteurs rose to 90 on Saturday, with rescuers saying more bodies remained trapped in the mangled carriages.

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