Russia’s Khodorkovsky sentenced, West concerned

Russia’s Khodorkovsky sentenced, West concerned

Russia’s Khodorkovsky sentenced, West concerned

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:52 AM PST

MOSCOW, Dec 31 — Former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's jail term was extended until 2017 yesterday when he was convicted of theft and money-laundering in a trial condemned in the West as politically motivated. With Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev watching from a glass-walled courtroom cage at the close of their trial, the judge said ...


Israel’s ex-president Moshe Katsav guilty of rape

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:31 AM PST

TEL AVIV, Dec 31 — Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was found guilty of rape and other sex crimes yesterday, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a sad day for the Jewish state. Katsav, who could now face years in prison, had denied charges he twice raped an aide when he was a cabinet minister in the late 1990s, and molested or ...


British ambassador in 1980 said Israel ready to use bomb

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:13 AM PST

LONDON, Dec 31 — A British ambassador to Israel warned as early as 1980 that Israel would detonate a nuclear bomb in case of a new war with the Arabs, according to previously secret state documents released yesterday. "If they (Israelis) are to be destroyed, they will go down fighting this time. They will be ready to use their atomic weapon," ...


Turkish police detain 10 al Qaeda suspects - report

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:46 AM PST

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained 10 suspected al Qaeda militants who they believe were planning an attack ahead of New Year, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

Floods cover vast area of Australia's northeast

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:11 AM PST

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Floodwater rose across a vast area in Australia's northeast on Friday, inundating 22 towns, forcing 200,000 residents out of their homes, and closing a major sugar export ports.

More repairs ordered for space shuttle fuel tank

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:11 AM PST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA ordered additional repairs to space shuttle Discovery after more cracks were discovered in the ship's fuel tank, but the flight remains targeted for early February, officials said.

China's top leaders try to ease concerns over soaring prices

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:25 AM PST

BEIJING, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- China's central bank chief vowed Friday to keep prices stable in 2011, joining other Communist Party leaders in a major charm offensive to ease consumer concerns over soaring food and property costs.

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The migrants held hostage in the desert

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:33 PM PST

As European borders become harder to breach, migrants find themselves crossing from Africa into Israel.


MSJIT completes final meeting

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:49 PM PST

The Malaysia and Singapore Joint Implementation Team (MSJIT) has completed its sixth and final meeting in the island republic, a Foreign Ministry statement said today.

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Rice noodles prompt latest China food scare

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:41 PM PST

BEIJING, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- Large amounts of rice noodles made with rotten grain and potentially carcinogenic additives are being sold in south China, state press said Friday, in the country's latest food safety scare.

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UN warns Gbagbo against attack on Ivory Coast peacekeepers

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 02:38 PM PST

By Dave Clark

ABIDJAN: The United Nations sternly warned Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo yesterday not to allow an attack on the hotel where its peacekeepers are defending Alassane Ouattara's shadow government.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned UN troops would resist any assault, which he said could trigger civil war in the fragile West African state, after Gbagbo's most notorious lieutenant vowed to storm his rival's base.

In a statement, a "deeply concerned" Ban said UNOCI force would "use all necessary means to protect its personnel, as well as the government officials and other civilians at these premises of the hotel".

Also in New York, the UN envoy for the prevention of genocide, Francis Deng, said reports that the Abidjan homes of Gbagbo opponents "had been marked to identify their ethnicity were extremely worrying".

Gbagbo's notorious "Street General", Minister for Youth Charles Ble Goude, on Wednesday urged Ivorian youths to rise up after the New Year to seize control of Ouattara's headquarters in the waterfront Golf Hotel resort.

"From Jan 1, I, Charles Ble Goude and the youth of Ivory Coast are going to liberate the Golf Hotel with our bare hands," the political showman turned minister declared on Wednesday, to a cheering crowd of hardline supporters.

The call came as the United Nations' chief peacekeeper accused Gbagbo's state media of "inciting hatred" against UN troops and as West African leaders promised to try once more to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the crisis.

"This is only the latest provocation from Gbagbo's camp," Ouattara's spokeswoman Anne Ouluto told AFP by telephone from the hotel, where Ivory Coast's internationally-recognised leader is effectively cornered.

"It's a false pretext to attack United Nations forces and create a genuine incident," she said, of Ble Goude's declaration.

The once-plush resort is protected by a small contingent of lightly-armed former rebel fighters known as the "New Forces" and 800 United Nations troops equipped with armoured vehicles and re-supplied by helicopter.

It is surrounded by Gbagbo's well-armed regulars, the Ivory Coast Defence and Security Forces (FDS), but Ouattara's camp is more concerned about Ble Goude's threat to send thousands of unarmed youths to storm the hotel.

Large-scale massacre

Ouloto claimed that Ble Goude aimed to "replay the scenario of 2004", when his "Young Patriot" supporters marched on a hotel defended by French troops and provoked clashes in which at least 50 demonstrators were killed.

"They know that the United Nations will have no choice but to protect the president and to protect the president's election victory, so it's provocation. It's a pretext to create an incident," Ouluto said.

Ouattara's camp fears Gbagbo is plotting a large-scale massacre of his opponents in order to cling on to power and that he wants to tarnish the reputation of UN troops by forcing them to employ deadly force.

Gbagbo insists that he is the legitimate leader of Ivory Coast, and accuses France, the United States and the United Nations' UNOCI peacekeeping mission of conspiring with Ouattara to falsify the election results.

Gbagbo warned yesterday he would not leave power voluntarily and said international pressure for him to quit threatened to push the country to civil war.

"I do not believe at all in a civil war. But obviously, if the pressures continue as they have, they will push towards war, confrontation," he said in an interview with TV channel Euronews.

Gbagbo ruled out standing down voluntarily, saying that his departure did not provide "a guarantee that it would bring peace".

Supporters like Ble Goude have branded the Golf Hotel a rebel base, and both FDS troops and civilian protesters have begun to harass UN patrols in Abidjan, which is still firmly under the control of Gbagbo's forces.

Against this background, Ouattara's New Year's message to the country was downbeat, noting that "2010 ends in sadness and dismay", but he urged his followers to remain patient and minimise any further loss in human life.

"We must act quickly. We must learn from everything that has happened. It is time to act and get out of this situation," Ouattara told West African leaders, through an interview with reporters after his speech.

Both Gbagbo and Ouattara claim to have won last month's Ivorian election, but only the latter has been recognised as president by the world community, including the ECOWAS regional group and the United Nations.

Hopes for a negotiated settlement have come to rest on the west African leaders represented by ECOWAS, who have voted to authorise military intervention if Gbagbo refuses to step aside for Ouattara.

A delegation of three West African presidents came to Abidjan on Tuesday to deliver their ultimatum, but left without a clear result, and have since said they are still pressing for a peaceful solution.

In the latest sign of cold feet, Ivory Coast's neighbour Ghana said it was not planning to contribute any troops to an ECOWAS mission.

The head of the United Nations human rights team in Ivory Coast said the number of killings linked to the crisis had plunged to six over the past week against 176 the week before, but said tension remained.

- AFP

 

Tycoon ruling confirms Putin's dominance over Russia

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 02:37 PM PST

By Dmitry Zaks

ANALYSIS MOSCOW: The tough sentence handed to former Russian tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky has confirmed Vladimir Putin's dominance over Russia even as it seeks to modernise, analysts said.

The country's most famous inmate was ordered yesterday to spend another six years in prison after being convicted on fraud charges that Western governments have called "selective" and rights groups simply absurd.

Putin's arch-nemesis was found guilty of stealing all the oil produced by his Yukos firm over a five year period – in essence one-fifth of all of Russia's crude – and then laundering the US$23.5 billion in proceeds.

The charges left even Khodorkovsky smiling and shaking his head in court.

The presiding judge threw out the testimony of a former prime minister and central bank chairman who testified for the defence and then interpreted Khodorkovsky's own words at the trial as further confirmation of his guilt.

All this followed an unexpected delay in the process that allowed the court to hear a national television appearance by Putin in which Russia's de-facto leader noted with passion that a "thief must be in prison".

Kremlin critics said those words effectively buried Khodorkovsky's last hope.

"This confirms that Putin continues to rule Russia and that the liberal words of (President Dmitry) Medvedev do not mean a thing," said Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Another respected analyst said the trial proved Putin to be a "very vengeful and vindictive man".

"This sentence is motivated by nothing but politics," said Institute of Strategic Assessments president Alexander Konovalov.

Medvedev took over from Putin in 2008 and immediately embarked on an ambitious project of modernisation to intensify Russia's economic relationship with the West and cut down on corruption.

Crony capitalism

But it remains uncertain if Medvedev will stand to continue his project in 2012 presidential polls or if Putin will seek to return to the Kremlin.

Putin's personal spokesman notably issued only a brief "no comment" when asked about Russia's most famous trial since the Soviet era.

Khodorkovsky's troubles began the day he showed up to a 2003 Kremlin meeting chaired by then president Putin to complain about government corruption.

The Yukos oil chief was in the process of becoming Russia's richest man and selling a chunk of his company to a US major – a deal that would have raised his profile to international proportions.

Putin quietly listened his political rival's message and then made a simple comment that raised few eyebrows at the time: businessmen should pay their taxes before criticising the state.

What then followed was Khodorkovsky's quick arrest on tax evasion charges and a two-year trial that left Russia's ex-richest man sitting in prison and his highly-praised oil company parcelled off for pennies to the state.

But Khodorkovsky made a nuisance of himself for Putin even from prison.

He penned frequent articles for both the Russian and US papers pillorying Putin for overseeing "crony capitalism" under which state assets were divided between security officials who knew the president-turned-premier since his days as a spy.

Some were surprised to see the new charges brought under Medvedev – a lawyer by training who has no personal history with Khodorkovsky and who has instead vowed to diversify the economy and clean up the state.

The fate of Khodorkovsky has always been seen as a measure of the balance of power between Russia's ruling "tandem".

Medvedev even recently berated officials for "expressing their positions" about the case -- comments that seemed aimed directly at Putin himself.

But analysts said any battle between Putin and Medvedev could only produce one winner: the man who has really been running Russia since New Year's Day 2000.

"Putin has shown that all the talk about court independence is nothing but noise and that Medvedev is just a piece of furniture that can always be stuck in a corner," said independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.

- AFP

Haiti cholera death toll soars past 3,000

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 02:34 PM PST

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti's cholera death toll has soared in recent days with 3,333 people dead, official figures showed yesterday, including a one-day record high for the daily number of fatalities since the outbreak erupted in mid-October.

The new data up to Dec 26 of 432 more recorded deaths compared with previous Haitian health ministry data marked a major jump in fatalities, although it was unclear exactly when they occurred.

The number of confirmed cholera deaths on Dec 19 alone was just over 100, the new data showed, far higher than previous peaks around 80 in mid-November.

More recently, the death tolls have returned to previous averages of around 50 new reported deaths each day.

The total number of infections soared towards 150,000 in Haiti and authorities in neighboring Dominican Republic said yesterday there have been 139 cases there, none of them fatal.

Haiti's first cholera outbreak in more than a century has poured further misery on a poor and politically dysfunctional country trying to recover from a devastating January earthquake that killed some 250,000 people.

The epidemic, which began in October, spawned deadly anti-UN riots last month as some turned their anger on peacekeepers from Nepal accused of bringing the disease into the country.

Experts say the outbreak was likely sparked by a human source from outside the region and the United Nations has promised a thorough investigation into the origin of the epidemic.

Angry mobs in the deeply superstitious nation have stoned or hacked to death at least 45 people – most of them voodoo priests – accusing them of spreading the water-borne bacterial infection.

Cholera, which causes potentially deadly cases of diarrhea, often strikes in poor countries where there is a high danger of an epidemic due to inadequate sanitation and limited access to clean water.

The Pan-American Health Organization in early December estimated Haiti could see up to 400,000 cholera cases over the next 12 months, half of them within three months alone.

The epidemic comes against the backdrop of deep political uncertainty.

Flawed first round elections November 28 to find a successor to President Rene Preval are to be the subject of a recount monitored by international observers.

- AFP

14 bombs target Christian homes in Baghdad

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:40 PM PST

BAGHDAD, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- A total of 14 bombs were set against different Christian homes in Baghdad late on Thursday, with 10 going off and killing two Christians and wounding 16 others, an interior ministry official said Friday.

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Global New Year party to banish extreme snow, heat, floods

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:02 PM PST

SYDNEY, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- Billions of New Year revellers will welcome 2011 in a global blaze of fireworks and parties Friday, temporarily banishing the misery of extreme weather which has struck countries across the world.

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Most US Internet users have paid for content: survey

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 11:00 PM PST

WASHINGTON, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- Nearly two-thirds of US Internet users have paid to download or access online content such as music, movies or news articles, a survey showed Thursday.

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Hong Kongers want fair and corruption-free society: survey

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 10:59 PM PST

HONG KONG, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- Hong Konger's want their society to be fair and corruption-free society more than they want it to be prosperous, a survey has shown.

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Forced evacuations as thousands flee Australian floods

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 10:58 PM PST

BUNDABERG, Friday 31 December 2010 (AFP) -- Australia Friday started forced evacuations of the coastal city of Rockhampton as floods which have already affected 200,000 people swamped more communities in the stricken northeast.

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Malaysian scientist a green trailblazer

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 10:54 PM PST

MELBOURNE, Friday 31 December 2010 (Bernama) -- When it comes to saving the world's forests, Malaysian scientist Tan Sri Dr Salleh Mohd Nor has probably done more than any other University of Adelaide graduate in the past 50 years, the university's alumni magazine "Lumen" says in an article to mark the 2011 International Year of Forests.

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Australia floods cover area size of France/Germany

Posted: 30 Dec 2010 10:05 PM PST

SYDNEY, Dec 31 — Flood waters rose across Australia's northeast today, covering an area bigger than France and Germany combined, inundating 22 towns and stranding 200,000 people, and closing one of the country's major sugar export ports. Flooding has already shut major coal mines in Queensland state and its biggest coal export port, forcing a long ...


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