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 European Financial Stability Facility staged Tuesday a landmark five-year bond auction worth five billion euros ($6.8 billion) to raise funds for Ireland and help calm financial markets. Asian bidders snapped up more than one third of the total in what EFSF head Klaus Regling said demonstrated market confidence in the 17-nation eurozone, after the turmoil of massive bailouts for Greece and Ireland last year. “This must be seen... [more]
Under pressure from German privacy watchdogs, Facebook has agreed to beef up privacy protections in its Friend Finder feature, the data protection supervisor in Hamburg said this week. The supervisor, Johannes Caspar, said Monday that Facebook has agreed to inform its members that it had obtained email addresses from their accounts and to give them the option of forbidding their usage. The Friend Finder feature allows Facebook to search... [more]
Egypt’s antiquities chief said Monday that Cairo has demanded that Germany return the 3,400 year-old bust of fabled Queen Nefertiti, 98 years after it was uncovered on the banks of the Nile. Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities head, Zahi Hawass, announced an “official request” backed by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Culture Minister Faruq Hosni for the relic to be handed back. The demand was sent in a letter... [more]
Germany’s ruling coalition has agreed new regulations for open-ended real estate funds, which have suffered from volatile investor behaviour, financial experts involved in talks told Reuters on Monday. From 2013, the cancellation period for investors will be 12 months and new investors will be subjected to a holding period of a minimum of two years, the sources said. Up to now, there had been no regulation on holding and cancellation... [more]
Three major newspapers in northern Europe will join forces with a Norwegian paper to comb through about 250,000 cables originally exclusively handled by WikiLeaks’ media partners, newspaper Svenska Dagbladet told AFP on Sunday. Norwegian daily Aftenposten will share its findings with three major media outlets in Denmark, Germany and Sweden, Martin Jönsson, the executive director of Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, said on Sunday.... [more]
The scandal over treatment of cadets on the Gorch Fock navy training ship widened Monday when the father of a young woman sailor who drowned after falling from the ship in 2008 was demanding a fresh inquiry. The father of Jenny Böken, 18, who mysteriously fell overboard from the now notorious ship and drowned, told daily Bild he believed his daughter may have been sexually harassed. “I think it is absolutely possible that Jenny was harassed... [more]
Victims of sex abuse at Jesuit schools are finally being offered concrete compensation payouts one year after the abuse scandal broke, a Catholic official said Monday. Klaus Mertes, rector of Canisius College, the elite Jesuit school in Berlin at which the first allegations surfaced, told daily Berliner Zeitung’s Monday edition that the 205 known victims would share about €1 million in damages payments, meaning each will receive roughly... [more]
EU Agriculture Commissioner Bacian Ciolos said Saturday that Brussels was ready to step in to aid pork farmers hit by a slump in prices sparked by a German contamination scare. “If in the next few days the pork market continues in the same direction, we must be ready to take the measures available to us to avoid a fall in prices,” he said at Berlin agriculture fair. The discovery of high levels of toxic dioxin in pork from German... [more]
A grenade found in a parcel sent to the Croatian embassy in Berlin was sent as a warning to the Croatian and Serbian presidents who advocate good ties between the former foes, the Balkan nation’s media reported Tuesday. “This little grenade is a warning to (Croatian president) Ivo Josipovic and (Serbian president) Boris Tadic” the influential Vecernji List daily said, quoting a threatening letter that allegedly accompanied... [more]
Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner on Tuesday urged state officials to implement a federal action plan that aims to prevent future food contamination ahead of special government summit on the dioxin animal feed scandal. “I expect that the states will stand behind this plan and do their part to increase quality and monitoring, and improve inspection practices,” Aigner told dailyHamburger Abendblatt. The minister said she was confident... [more]
