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 ...
The Japanese and U.S. militaries launched another all-out search for the bodies of earthquake and tsunami victims Sunday along Japan’s ravaged northeast coast. About 22,000 Japanese troops, along with 110 from the U.S., searched by land, air and sea. Television news footage showed them using heavy equipment to lift a boat washed inland by the tsunami so they could search a crushed car underneath. No one was inside the car. The troops... [more]
Russia on Friday revealed newly declassified documents on Yuri Gagarin’s mysterious death in a plane crash, saying he was likely killed as his jet manoeuvred sharply to avoid a weather balloon. Top Kremlin archives official Alexander Stepanov told a news conference that a Soviet-era commission — whose conclusions had until now been classified — has concluded that this was the most likely cause of his death. “The conclusions... [more]
Six months after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, Norway is still feeling Beijing’s fury, though a series of retaliatory moves has largely spared flourishing bilateral trade. In December, China blocked Liu from attending the prize ceremony in the Norwegian capital Oslo, where an empty chair on the podium marked his absence. Liu, a former professor who was at the forefront of the 1989 Tiananmen Square... [more]
Japanese police raced Thursday to find thousands of missing bodies before they completely decompose along a stretch of tsunami-pummeled coast that has been largely off-limits because of a radiation-leaking nuclear plant. Nearly a month after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake generated the tsunami along Japan’s northeastern coast, more than 15,000 people are still missing. Many of those may have been washed out to sea and will never be found. In... [more]
North Korea has intensified submarine drills near the tense Yellow Sea border with South Korea, putting Seoul defence officials on alert, a report said Thursday. JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing a Seoul military source, said the North had been staging exercises involving five or six submarines at the Bipagot submarine base on its west coast since last month. They feature the signature 325-tonne submarines as well as the new and bigger Shark-class... [more]
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai deplored the burning of the Koran by a fundamentalist U.S. pastor in an hour-long video teleconference on Wednesday and condemned deadly violence sparked by the incident, the White House said. Karzai and Obama discussed a range of topics in the call, including the gradual handover of security in Afghanistan from U.S. and NATO troops to Afghan control. “The two leaders agreed... [more]
A Jordanian prosecutor says a Yemeni man has been charged with disturbing public safety by threatening to blow himself up at an Islamist party office with what turned out to be a fake explosive belt. If convicted, 61-year-old Abdul Wahab Abdul Ghani faces three years in prison. Abdul Ghani on Monday walked into the headquarters of Jordan’s largest opposition group, the Islamic Action Front, displaying the belt and saying he would set... [more]
A year after a public spat with Beijing over censorship, Google Inc. says its business with Chinese advertisers is growing even as the Internet giant’s share of online searches in China plunges. A major Chinese portal announced last week it would no longer use Google for search, compounding its rapid loss of market share since March last year when it closed its local search engine. The future of a Google map service that is a key part... [more]
When a boiling summer hits power-starved Tokyo, even Japan’s culture of self-restraint will hit its limit. The March 11 tsunami that smashed into Japan’s northeast coast, killing as many as 25,000 people and knocking out nuclear power generation, has transformed this usually bright, bustling metropolis into a dark, humbler version of itself. Running on eco-mode in the cool spring invites few complaints as citizens bundle up,... [more]
Engineers failed to seal a crack where highly radioactive water was spilling into the Pacific from a Japanese nuclear power plant incapacitated by last month’s earthquake-spawned tsunami but said a search of the site found no other leaks Sunday. The wave has carved a path of destruction up and down the coast and is believed to have killed 25,000 people. The first deaths at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant itself, though, were confirmed... [more]
