Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Tuesday he is resolved to settle a longstanding territorial dispute with Russia at an annual rally calling for the return of all four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido in northern Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported. "We'll continue to make steady and determined efforts to move ahead with negotiations," Noda said, stressing the need to sign a peace treaty with Russia. The four islands - which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories - has been the subject of a territorial dispute between the two nations since the end of World War ...
Amanda Knox's Italian lawyer has filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy, a Knox family spokesman inSeattle said Monday. In October, an Italian appeals court overturned the young Seattle woman's murder conviction in the 2007 death of her British roommate in Perugia. But the same court upheld Knox's conviction for slander — for falsely accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of involvement in the slaying. Lumumba was freed after two weeks in prison for lack of evidence. Knox later said she was "manipulated" during her lengthy police interrogation. An appeal of the slander conviction was filed Monday, Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott confirmed. He doesn't know when the Italian ...
The Dutch railway will remain 'vulnerable' during wintry weather but Dutch Rail (NS) and track operator ProRail did not help matters during the current cold snap by the late introduction of schedule adjustments to cope with the conditions, transport minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen told parliament in a briefing on Tuesday. The NS and ProRail assumed on Thursday of last week that there would be three to five centimetres of snow. When the forecast was increased on Friday morning to between 10 and 15 centimetres, it was too late to change the timetables automatically, Schultz van Haegen told parliament. Drivers and conductors ...
Greece can leave the eurozone without damaging monetary union, European digital affairs commissioner Neelie Kroes says in an interview with the Volkskrant on Tuesday. Kroes, a member of the Dutch ruling right-wing Liberal party VVD, is not a supporter of Greece exchanging the euro for the drachma, but says: 'It is absolutely not a case of man overboard if someone leaves the eurozone.' The commissioner is very critical of the new Greek government and says they are not fulfilling their promises. 'Too few spending cuts, too little restructuring,' she says. She says the Greeks should follow the example of Italy where the new ...
Mitt Romney hopes his presidential campaign hasn't ignored Rick Santorum's aggressive attacks for too long, as caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota on Tuesday could reshuffle the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum largely bypassed Florida and Nevada to blanket the two caucus states with criticism of Romney and lay the groundwork among conservatives who have great sway in the process. RivalNewt Gingrich praised Santorum's strategy as shrewd even as he signaled he had no interest in exiting the four-way race, which also includes Ron Paul. "I think that Santorum's going to have a pretty good day," Gingrich told reporters on the eve of the caucuses. "He targeted differently than I ...
Glencore and Xstrata agreed an all-share merger worth $90 billion (56 billion pounds) on Tuesday in the industry's largest ever deal, creating a commodities powerhouse spanning mining, agriculture and trading. Glencore, the world's largest diversified commodities tradinghouse, will issue 2.8 new shares for each Xstrata share in a deal they said was a "merger of equals." The ratio is a 15.2 percent premium to Xstrata shareholders compared with its share price last Wednesday before word leaked out about the merger talks, a joint statement said. "A merger between Glencore and Xstrata offers a unique opportunity to create a new business model in our industry to respond to ...
US White House hopeful Mitt Romney aims for another big caucus win in Colorado on Tuesday, as his well-oiled campaign machine works to cement his position as the Republican front runner in the US presidential race. Polls suggest he should triumph easily in the western US state -- where he scored 60 percent in 2008 -- although there is a tighter race in Minnesota, where last-placed Rick Santorum is hoping to snatch a win. Romney's main rival, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, is battling to stay in the race after two heavy losses in a row to the former Massachusetts governor, who ...
As President Christian Wulff remains mired in allegations of impropriety, anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI) has called for politicians to use the case as a chance to open up German politics. “We are very concerned that people seem to be starting to think that all politicians behave like Wulff, and that would be fatal,” Christian Humborg, TI Germany’s managing director told The Local. “I think the Wulff affair is a wonderful opportunity for German politicians to react to the cynical attitude that this is normal, and improve things,” he said. He said the fact that the authorities were investigating whether Wulff and his ...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel threw her weight behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy in his tough re-election battle on Monday, saying the two right-wingers were from the same "political family". Despite accusations in both countries of interference, Merkel used a visit to Paris for a joint Franco-German cabinet session to make clear her support for Sarkozy, who has increasingly cited Germany as a model for France. "We belong to the same political family. He supported me and it is natural that I support him in his campaign," Merkel said during a joint television interview with Sarkozy to be broadcast later on French and ...
Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt thinks that Swedes need to be prepared to work a lot longer than they do today in order to keep the same living standard as when they were working. “The pensions scheme isn’t based on magic. It is a welfare ambition based on large-scale re-distribution and citizens’ own work. If people think that we can live longer and shorten our work life, then pensions will get lower,” Reinfeldt said in interview with daily Dagens Nyheter (DN). According to Reinfeldt, the expectation to retire at 65 is a problem in Sweden today. He thinks that Swedes may have to ...
Today is Sunday, Jan. 24, the 24th day of 2010. There are 341 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of ’49. On this date: In 1742, Charles VII was elected Holy Roman Emperor during the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1908, the Boy Scouts movement began in England under... [more]
Britain has banned the export of a hand-held machine marketed as a bomb-detection device in Iraq and Afghanistan because of allegations that it does not work. The Department for Business Innovation and Skills halted the export of the ADE651 after a BBC Newsnight investigation Friday challenged the claims of the company, ATSC. The broadcaster took key components of the bomb detector to a laboratory, which concluded that a key component... [more]
Japanese ruling party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa denied on Saturday any wrongdoing in a funding scandal that is dimming his party’s mid-year election prospects, and vowed to stay on in his key position. Prosecutors questioned Ozawa, seen as the most powerful politician in the ruling Democratic Party, for four hours on Saturday over the scandal, in which three of his aides were arrested on suspicion of misreporting political donations. The... [more]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti’s government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the country’s devastating earthquake over, the United Nations said Saturday. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 132 people were pulled from the rubble alive by international search and rescue teams. Humanitarian relief efforts are still being scaled up in the capital Port-au-Prince, Jacmel,... [more]
BEIJING (AFP) – Two Chinese pop stars have become the first victims of a ban on the use of lip-syncing in concerts introduced last year following controversy over the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Starlets Yin Youcan and Fang Ziyuan resorted to miming during a concert they gave in September in the southwest province of Sichuan, the Beijing News reported Saturday. It was the first case brought against lip-syncing performers since... [more]
Today is Saturday, Jan. 23, the 23rd day of 2010. There are 342 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 23, 1960, the Swiss-Italian-made bathyscaphe (BATH’-ih-skahf) Trieste, owned and operated by the U.S. Navy, carried two men to the deepest known point in the Pacific Ocean, reaching a depth of more than 35,000 feet inside the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. On this date: In 1789, Georgetown... [more]
General Electric Co’s (GE.N) quarterly earnings topped Wall Street expectations on Friday, as it kept costs in line despite sluggish demand for jet engines, railroad locomotives and other heavy equipment. The results showed the largest U.S. conglomerate’s efforts to stabilize itself after two brutal years seemed to be paying off, investors said. Its shares rose 4.6 percent in premarket trading. The 19-percent drop in profit... [more]
People with early lung cancer who quit smoking could double their chances of surviving, a new study says. Until now, there has been little proof that quitting smoking after developing lung cancer makes any difference to survival. British researchers analyzed previous data from 10 studies examining how long smokers survived after being diagnosed with lung cancer. People with lung cancer who continued smoking had a 29 to 33 percent chance... [more]
A Russian cargo ship with a 30-member crew was stranded Friday in the icy Sea of Okhotsk, emergency officials said. The Smolninsky refrigerated vessel was being battered by side winds and listing dangerously to its port side, said Gusman Rafikov, a duty officer for a search and rescue center on Russia’s far eastern Sakhalin Island. Ice had formed on the ship and the crew was trying to chip it off, he said. The Smolninsky’s... [more]
LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles judge will hear arguments Friday to determine if Roman Polanski could be sentenced in absentia for his decades-old sex case. Polanski’s attorneys have said the 76-year-old film director should be sentenced in absentia to time served after pleading guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. Prosecutors have insisted Polanski must appear in a Los Angeles courtroom. Polanski,... [more]
