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 United States said it will hold hold human rights talks with China in Beijing next week, amid a Chinese crackdown on government critics that has drawn US condemnation. The “discussions will focus on human rights developments, including the recent negative trend of forced disappearances, extralegal detentions, and arrests and convictions,” the State Department said in a statement on Friday. Assistant Secretary for Democracy,... [more]
Police were questioning 22 people removed from an Australian detention centre that was set ablaze, as the government came under renewed pressure to overhaul its asylum seeker policy. Riots erupted at the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney on Wednesday night, involving an estimated 100 people as nine buildings were torched and firefighters pelted with tiles and other objects. A number of detainees remained on a roof Friday but the night... [more]
Japanese police sealed off roads leading into an evacuation zone around a radiation-spewing nuclear power plant Friday to enforce an order meant to keep residents from sneaking back to their homes. Road blocks with large flashing “Off Limits” signs were set up along major streets leading into the 12-mile (20-kilometer ) zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors, where nearly 80,000 people were hurriedly evacuated after... [more]
Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple Inc. about why iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting location data on users — records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to disgorge. It’s not clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information on their users. And this week’s revelation that the Apple devices do wasn’t even new — some security experts... [more]
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday declared the 20-kilometre (12-mile) evacuation area around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant a legal no-entry zone. The move, due to come into effect at midnight local time (1500 GMT), came after police found more than 60 families still living inside the zone around the plant that was hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami. The plant, where reactor cooling systems were knocked out, has... [more]
Greek authorities were saying that Swedish women were out to cash in on fake rape claims as early as 2002. Another Swedish woman has come forward telling the story of how she was mistreated after reporting a rape on the island of Kos in 2002. Last week the case of ‘Anna’, who was told she was trying to cash in on a special Swedish ‘rape insurance’ after reporting a rape in 2008, kicked off a media storm in Sweden. The second woman,... [more]
Spanish police said on Wednesday they had arrested Sicilian mafia fugitive Claudio Adriano Giusto after 13 years on the run for murder and robbery. Giusto, who had been sentenced to 28 years in Italy for shooting dead a man in 1998, was arrested in the northeastern Spanish town of Alcarras by police working with their Italian colleagues and Interpol. “After a search of more than 13 years he was arrested in the Lerida town of Alcarras... [more]
American internet giant Google has been intercepting private information in the Netherlands via people’s insecure wireless networks, says the Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP). Google has destroyed the information: the company was threatened with damages imposed on a daily basis in case of non-compliance. The privacy watchdog says Google vehicles, which were taking photographs of Dutch streets for its Street View service, collected... [more]
Fire erupted Tuesday in a suspected arson attack on Barcelona’s historic Sagrada Familia church, forcing 1,500 tourists to evacuate, officials said. Firefighters extinguished the fire in the sacristry before it could consume the stonework of Antoni Gaudi’s world-renowned masterpiece, but some furnishings were damaged, they said. Ambulances ferried away four men working on the church who had inhaled smoke belching out from the... [more]
European and IMF officials went into tough talks with Portugal Monday on the terms and conditions of a bailout as a Finnish anti-EU party’s election success cast doubt on its viability. Negotiations on a deal expected to be worth up to 80 billion euros ($115 billion) follow a technical mission last week to Lisbon by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The government of Prime Minister... [more]
