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 ...
Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to meet representatives of Facebook to ask why it does not have a ‘panic button’ for children worried about paedophiles. It follows the case of teenager Ashleigh Hall, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a serial sex offender she met on the social networking site. Paul Chapman killed the 17 year old from from Darlington after posing as a teenager himself and arranging a date with her. Chapman,... [more]
A Holocaust survivor claims in a new book that Anne Frank distracted younger children from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by telling them fairy tales — an account disputed by at least one Frank authority and a childhood friend of the diarist. The story by Berthe Meijer, now 71, of being a 6-year-old inmate ofBergen Belsen crafts a touching portrait of Anne in the final weeks of her life in the German camp, struggling to... [more]
The US may be barking up the wrong tree by trying to force China to revalue its currency as it could fuel a rise in prices of favorite American products such as the iPhone and even plunge the Asian giant into social unrest, some analysts warned Wednesday. The debate over charges that Beijing was securing an unfair edge in trade by keeping its yuan currency artificially low flared anew when US senators introduced legislation Tuesday that... [more]
Officials in the impoverished Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan say the United States plans to build a $5 millionmilitary base for training local troops to assist in the fight against international terrorism. Kyrgyzstan already hosts a U.S. military base in Manas, outside the capital Bishkek, used by Washington as a regional hub for the U.S.-led war in nearby Afghanistan. A Kyrgyz Defense Ministry statement released Wednesday says... [more]
Yahoo! made a play for more sports fans on Wednesday with the purchase of Citizen Sports, a startup that makes sports-related applications for Facebook and Apple’s iPhone. Yahoo! announced the acquisition in a statement but did not disclose financial terms. Technology blog All Things Digital estimated the value of CitizenSports.com at between 40 million dollars and 50 million dollars. According to Yahoo!, Citizen Sports has millions... [more]
A ransom for a five-year-old British boy kidnapped in Pakistan and freed this week was paid in Paris, Spain’s interior ministry said Wednesday, adding five people have been detained. Authorities detained three people in Spain and two in France, the ministry said in a statement, which came a day after the boy was recovered in good condition after being left in a field in Pakistan. Two of those arrested in Spain, in Tarragona in the... [more]
The European Union accused its major powers on Wednesday of running away from bulging government deficits, after Germany warned that repeat eurozone offenders deserve expulsion from the bloc. EU budgetary watchdogs attacked overly “optimistic” growth assumptions masking bloated national budgets, with Britain firmly in the firing line over “uncertainty” in its spending plans. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain... [more]
Today is Wednesday, March 17, the 76th day of 2010. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day. Today’s Highlight in History: On March 17, A.D. 461 (or A.D. 493, depending on sources), St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, died in Saul. On this date: In 1776, British forces evacuated Boston during the Revolutionary War. In 1860, the Kanrin Maru became the first official Japanese ship to reach U.S. soil... [more]
A New Zealand inventor has put a bizarre floating machine that can also take to the skies up for sale. Mechanic Rudy Heeman took the model of a hovercraft to create the WIG or “wing in ground effective vehicle”. It rides like a normal hovercraft but, once it reaches a speed of 70km an hour, it becomes airborne. It took Mr Heeman more than a decade to complete the machine. Over those years, he taught himself to laminate fibreglass,... [more]
Ellie Goulding feels she has been so hyped up that some people don’t want to like her music. The 23-year-old singer-songwriter topped the BBC Sound Of 2010 poll and won the Critics Choice Award at the 2010 Brits, but claims it hasn’t necessarily been the advantage it sounds. Ellie said: “People want to not like me because I’ve been so hyped up.” She explained: “A journalist came to a gig a few weeks ago... [more]
