NEWS,13.07.2013

Morales says US hacked Bolivian e-mails

Bolivia's leftist president Evo Morales on Saturday accused US intelligence of hacking into the e-mail accounts of top Bolivian officials, saying he had shut his own account down.
Latin American leaders have lashed out at Washington over recent revelations of vast surveillance programs, some of which allegedly targeted regional allies and adversaries alike.
Bolivia has joined Venezuela and Nicaragua in offering asylum to Edward Snowden, the former IT contractor for the US National Security Agency who publicized details of the programs and is now on the run from espionage charges.
Morales said that he learned about the alleged US e-mail snooping at the Mercosur regional summit in Montevideo earlier this week.
"Those US intelligence agents have accessed the e-mails of our most senior authorities in Bolivia, Morales said in a speech.
"It was recommended to me that I not use e-mail, and I've followed suit and shut it down," he said.
Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman told the same summit that more than 100 of his country's officials were under electronic surveillance from a nation he did not name.
Bolivia's Morales, who has long had a thorny relationship with the United States, speculated that Washington hoped to use the information in the e-mails to plan a future "invasion" of his country.
His allegations followed a diplomatic dust-up last week when, during a flight home from Moscow, European authorties diverted Morales's plane to Austria and searched it after rumours that he had Snowden on board.
Morales renewed his offer of asylum to Snowden on Saturday, saying La Paz would follow all "diplomatic norms and international accords" in the case.
The 30-year-old intelligence leaker has been stranded in an airport transit zone in the Russian capital since 23 June.
Snowden is seeking to avoid US espionage charges for revealing vast surveillance programs to collect phone and internet data.
US authorities say the revelations threatened national security, insisting the secret programs are fully legal and have helped foil dozens of terrorist attacks.

Russia: No asylum application from Snowden

Russian immigration officials say they have not received an application from Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency leaker who wants to get asylum in Russia.

Snowden came to Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport on 23 June from Hong Kong, apparently intending to board a flight to Cuba. But he did not get on that flight and is believed to have spent the last three weeks marooned in the airport's transit zone.

On Friday, he met there with human rights activists and said he would seek Russian asylum, at least as a temporary measure before going to Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicaragua, all of which have offered him asylum.

But the Interfax news agency quoted Russian migration service head Konstantin Romodanovsky as saying no asylum request had been received as of Saturday.

US Homeland Security chief resigns

US Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano said on Friday she was resigning to take up a job in academia, opening up a surprise vacancy in President Barack Obama's cabinet.
Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, said she was being nominated as the president of the University of California, and had served as Homeland Security secretary since Obama took office in 2009.
"I thank President Obama for the chance to serve our nation during this important chapter in our history," Napolitano said in a statement.
"I know the Department of Homeland Security will continue to perform its important duties with the honour and focus that the American public expects."
Napolitano leaves at a crucial moment with a bid to reform the US immigration system under discussion in Congress.
The Homeland Security department plays a key role enforcing US border security, as well as protecting the United States from terrorist threats.
Obama said in a statement that Napolitano had met some of the "toughest challenges" facing the United States.
"The American people are safer and more secure thanks to Janet's leadership in protecting our homeland against terrorist attacks," he said.

Belfast Riots Injure 32 Police Officers

Hundreds of police reinforcements from Britain were deployed on Belfast's rubble-strewn streets Saturday after Protestant riots over a blocked march left 32 officers, a senior lawmaker and at least eight rioters wounded.
Northern Ireland's police commander, Chief Constable Matt Baggott, blamed leaders of the Orange Order brotherhood for inciting six hours of running street battles in two parts of Belfast that subsided early Saturday. He derided their leadership as reckless and said they had no plan for controlling crowds they had summoned.
The anti-Catholic fraternity's annual July 12 marches always raise tensions with the Irish Catholic minority. Over each of the previous four years, Irish republican militants in Ardoyne have attacked police after an Orange parade passed by that Catholic district in north Belfast, the most bitterly divided part of the capital.
This year British authorities ordered Orangemen to avoid the stretch of road nearest Ardoyne, an order that police enforced by blocking their parade route with seven armored vehicles. Orange leaders took that as a challenge and rallied thousands of supporters to the spot, where some attacked the vehicles and the lines of heavily armored officers behind them.
Baggott said the Orange leaders behaved recklessly and should not duck responsibility for the mayhem.
"Having called thousands of people to protest, they had no plan and no control," said Baggott, an Englishman who has commanded the Police Service of Northern Ireland since 2009.
Orange leaders insisted the blockade decision was the problem, not the alcohol-fueled fury of their own members. But they backed off their original threat to mount indefinite street protests across Northern Ireland and ordered a suspension of protests early Saturday. The order's leaders declined requests for interviews.
That climb-down came too late for north Belfast's Protestant member of British Parliament, Nigel Dodds. An Orangeman himself, Dodds had gone to the riot's front line to appeal for calm and ended up getting knocked unconscious by a brick that fell short of police lines. He was released from the hospital Saturday.
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said it ferried eight wounded civilians from the riots. But other rioters undoubtedly nursed their wounds away from hospitals, because those admitted for riot-related injuries can be identified and arrested by police.
Britain's Cabinet minister for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, said it was "vitally important for the Orange Order to make clear now that their protests have come to an end. It would be disastrous if we were to see a recurrence of last night's violence over the next few days."
On Saturday, Baggott received 400 more officers from England, Scotland and Wales to boost his force's overall strength on the streets above 5,000, including more than 600 officers already imported from Britain.
This is the first time police from other parts of the United Kingdom have been deployed against Northern Ireland rioters. The approach stems from Northern Ireland's recent peaceful hosting of the Group of Eight summit, when officers from Britain received anti-riot training before that brief, uneventful assignment here last month.
But the sudden need for reinforcements also suggests that the Northern Ireland police, though riot-savvy and heavily armed, lack sufficient numbers to cope with their homeland's seasonal flare-ups of mob violence.
Since the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998, Northern Ireland police numbers have been cut nearly in half and, since 2007, British troops have stopped providing backup as part of wider efforts to make the country seem normal. Reform of the once-overwhelmingly Protestant force has, within a decade, produced an organization with 30 percent Catholic officers today.
Such rapid change has rattled Protestants and influenced their rising alienation from the police, most vividly demonstrated during widespread street blockades throughout December and January. The trigger then was a surprise decision by Catholic members of Belfast City Council to sharply reduce the flying of the British flag outside City Hall. As with the increasing restrictions on Orange parade routes, Protestants saw the public space for their British identity being challenged as never before.
During Friday's street fighting, rioters shouted anti-Catholic and anti-Irish epithets at officers and mocked their allegiance by draping their vehicles in the green, white and orange flags of the Republic of Ireland.
The Orange Order, founded in 1795 at a time of rising economic competition with Catholics, long served as an essential umbrella for politicians to unite Protestants from many bickering denominations into one powerful force. Without the order, Northern Ireland might have lacked the organizational muscle necessary for the territory's creation in 1921, months before the mostly Catholic rest of Ireland won independence from Britain.
Their July 12 parades officially commemorate a 17th-century battlefield victory over Catholics. But in practical terms, the mass military-themed mobilizations including 550 on Friday alone provide a graphic annual test of whether Protestants still wield control in a land where the government and police for decades were almost exclusively Protestant.
These days, most of Belfast has a growing Catholic majority and Protestant communities must hold their ground with high walls of brick, steel and barbed wire called "peace lines." The Northern Ireland unity government forged by the 1998 peace deal is half Catholic by design, with a former Irish Republican Army commander as co-leader. And a British-appointed Parades Commission, stubbornly boycotted by Orange leaders, wields the power to impose restrictions that police must enforce.

Spain's Running Of The Bulls: 23 Injured During Stampede

The penultimate bull run of Spain's San Fermin festival left at least 23 people injured Saturday, when thrill-seekers fleeing the beasts were crushed at the narrow entrance to the bullring, officials said. Two of the injuries were gorings.
As the huge animals thundered into the entrance of the tunnel, they were blocked by a mound of dozens of people who had fallen and were piled on top of one other.
One bull that had fallen before the entrance got up and charged into the clogged passageway. Two steers jumped over the pile of people as they began to get up and flee.
A gate normally used to let regional police into ringside positions was pushed wide open by a flood of runners, causing an obstruction for others trying to enter the main arena, Interior Ministry regional spokesman Javier Morras said.
"We all know that alley is a funnel and a critically dangerous point at the entrance to the ring," Morras said. "Pileups there are one of the biggest risks that can occur in the running of the bulls," he said.
The blockage ended after attendants managed to let the beasts escape through a side door normally reserved for matadors.
Javier Sesma, a health spokesman for Navarra province, said two of the 23 injured people were gored by bulls and that the others were hurt in the stampede.
Sesma said one runner, a 19-year-old Spaniard from Vitoria city, was seriously injured when his thorax was crushed at the bull ring entrance. An Irish citizen also suffered asphyxia.
"His situation remains very grave, but he appears to be evolving favorably," Sesma said of the Spaniard. "We are hopeful. His life was at risk, but he is now more stable."
One person was gored in his buttock and another in an armpit during the 928-yard (850-meter) dash through Pamplona's narrow streets, the official said. Neither injury was serious, said the Navarra government, which organizes the annual festivities. One of those gored had received treatment in one of the two operating rooms at the bullring, Sesma said.
The rest of the injured sustained cuts and bruises.
Sesma said one spectator had a heart attack while watching the stampede. By early afternoon, nine of the injured had been discharged from hospitalization, Sesma said.
On Friday, the festival drew widespread attention when an American college student and two Spaniards were gored, and videos and photos of the attacks were seen around the world. Sesma said the American patient was "evolving favorably" in a hospital Saturday.
The number of revelers attending the festival tends to swell at weekends, causing the narrow streets of Pamplona to be thronged with runners, increasing the risk of pileups and injuries.
The festival in this northern city dates back to the late 16th century and also is known for its all-night street parties.
The runs, eight in all, are the highlight of a nine-day street festival to honor Pamplona's patron saint, San Fermin.
Each morning, six fighting bulls and six bell-tinkling steers that try to keep the beasts together head from stables to the ring where matadors will star in late afternoon bullfights.
The festivities, which end Sunday, were made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."
The fiesta attracts tens of thousands of young people, many from abroad, eager to mix alcohol with the adrenaline of running alongside the massive bulls at 8 o'clock every morning.
Dozens of people are injured each year, with gorings often producing the most dramatic injuries.
The last fatal goring happened in 2009.

Singapore Suicide Rate Hit Record High In 2012

Suicides in Singapore hit an all-time high of 487 in 2012 as more young people bogged down by stress and relationship woes took their own lives, a charity group dealing with the problem said Friday.
The tally, a 29 percent increase from the 2011 total, was boosted by an 80 percent rise in the 20-29 age bracket, the Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) said in a statement.
"Common problems presented by this group of people involved stressful life events, and interpersonal relationship issues," said SOS, which aims to prevent suicides by providing emotional support through private counselling and a 24-hour telephone hotline.
"These include unemployment, stress with studies or work, financial worries, family life, and struggles with social interactions and feelings of loneliness."
Christine Wong, executive director of SOS, said young people under stress "tend to hide their pain behind a facade, not knowing where, how or who they can approach for help".
"People around them may not be aware of their distress and are hence unable to provide the support needed," she said in the statement.
Wong added that the community should play an important role in "de-stigmatising" suicide by encouraging those under stress to talk about their struggles and suicidal feelings.
SOS received 39,994 calls on its telephone hotline in 2012, down from 40,025 in 2011.
Suicides cases have consistently hovered around two percent of total deaths in Singapore, an affluent city-state of 5.3 million residents known for its pressure-laden school system.
Despite a virtually full employment rate, Singapore also has a highly competitive work environment.
Suicide is an offence in the compact island-state, and anyone who survives an attempt faces a jail term of up to a year, a fine or both.
The World Health Organisation last year said one million people commit suicide every year worldwide, accounting for more deaths than wars and murders put together.
The number of suicide attempts is five times higher, it said, with five percent of the people in the world having tried to kill themselves at least once during their lifetime.

NEWS,06.07.2013

Two Koreas hold talks on joint zone

North and South Korea started rare talks Saturday on re-opening a joint industrial zone seen as the last remaining symbol of cross-border reconciliation.
The talks delayed by nearly two hours - follow months of friction and threats of war by Pyongyang after its February nuclear test attracted tougher UN sanctions, further squeezing its struggling economy.
Kaesong was the most high-profile casualty of the elevated tensions on the Korean peninsula but neither side has declared the complex officially closed, instead referring to a temporary shut down.
Both nations say they want to reopen the Seoul-funded industrial zone on the North Korean side of the border but blame each other for its suspension.
"We will do our best to have this meeting result in greater trust and co-operation between the two sides", South Korea's chief delegate, Suh Ho, told reporters in Seoul early Saturday before leaving for Panmunjom.
"Three months have passed since Kaesong came to a halt and damages and difficulties facing businesses are growing", the senior unification ministry official said.
Pyongyang, citing military tensions and the South's hostility toward the North, in April withdrew its 53 000 workers from the 123 Seoul-owned factories at the Kaesong park.
Until then the industrial park a valuable source of hard currency for the impoverished North  had proved remarkably resilient to the regular upheavals in inter-Korean relations.
Technical problems delayed the start of the talks at the border truce village of Panmunjom on Saturday as telephone lines to the South needed repairs, the unification ministry in Seoul said.
Want to work
Seoul is expected to call for a written guarantee aimed at preventing a recurrence of the unilateral shut down, a demand which the North would find it hard to accept as it would amount to Pyongyang swallowing its pride and accepting full responsibility for the suspension.
On the agenda are issues of checking on mothballed factory facilities and equipment, moving finished products and raw materials held up at Kaesong to the South and the reopening of the zone.
At an access road to Panmunjom, Suh encountered a group of businessmen with plants in Kaesong. They carried banners expressing hope that the talks would be successful. One read: "We want to work again. Restart Kaesong."
The meeting comes after a surprise move on Wednesday from North Korea, which restored a cross-border hotline and promised to let South Korean businessmen visit the estate and check on their closed factories.
Representatives of the South Korean companies in the zone have repeatedly urged the two sides to open talks to revive the moribund industrial park. The South wants its businessmen to be able to bring back finished goods and raw materials.
But some firms have threatened to withdraw from Kaesong, complaining they have fallen victim to political bickering between the two rivals.
The South's unification ministry responded cautiously by saying it would try to seek internationally accepted safeguards to develop Kaesong as a politically neutral zone.
"We have clarified our position many times that Kaesong must be developed as an area that follows international standards and where common sense prevails," unification ministry spokesperson Kim Hyung-Suk said.
Opposition parties in Seoul urged South Korean negotiators to exercise flexibility in Saturday's talks.
After repeatedly threatening Seoul and Washington with conventional and nuclear attack, Pyongyang has appeared in recent weeks to want to move towards dialogue.
Analysts say North Korea is mindful of a US demand that it improve ties with Seoul before there can be any talks with Washington.
After plans for high-level talks last month on the future of the Kaesong estate collapsed over a protocol dispute, Pyongyang proposed direct, high-level dialogue with the US.

Nicaragua, Venezuela OK Snowden asylum

The presidents of Nicaragua and Venezuela offered Friday to grant asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, one day after leftist South American leaders gathered to denounce the rerouting of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane over Europe amid reports that the American was aboard.

Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua made their offers during separate speeches in their home countries Friday afternoon. Snowden, who is being sought by the United States, has asked for asylum in numerous countries, including Nicaragua and Venezuela.
"As head of state, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden so that he can live in the homeland" of independence leader Simon Bolivar and the late President Hugo Chavez without "persecution from the empire," Maduro said, referring to the United States.
Chavez often engaged in similar defiance, criticizing US-style capitalism and policies. In a 2006 speech to the UN General Assembly of world leaders, Chavez called President George W Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulphur after the US president's address. He also accused Washington of plotting against him, expelled several diplomats and drug-enforcement agents and threatened to stop sending oil to the US.
Maduro made the offer during a speech marking the anniversary of Venezuela's independence. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions to Venezuela's offer. He added that several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of "dignity".
But his critics said Maduro's decision is nothing but an attempt to veil the current undignified conditions of Venezuela, including one of the world's highest inflation rates and a shortage of basic products like toilet paper.
"The asylum doesn't fix the economic disaster, the record inflation, an upcoming devaluation [of the currency], and the rising crime rate," Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said in his Twitter account. Maduro beat Capriles in April's presidential election, but Capriles has not recognised defeat and has called it an electoral fraud.
Asked earlier this week about the possibility that any countries in the region would offer Snowden asylum, Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank, said that he thought Ortega would be careful not to damage his country's relationship with the US.
"Ortega has been tremendously successful at exploiting both the Alba relationship and the US relationship," Thale said, referring to the Alba leftist trade bloc that provides Nicaragua with petroleum subsidies. Although Ortega is publicly seen as anti-American, "Nicaragua and the US cooperate very closely on drug interdiction and the US and Nicaraguan militaries work very closely, too," Thale said before the asylum offer was made.
If circumstances allow
Ortega said Friday he was willing to make Maduro's same offer "if circumstances allow it," although he didn't say what the right circumstances would be when he spoke during a speech in Managua.
He said the Nicaraguan embassy in Moscow received Snowden's application for asylum and that it is studying the request.
"We have the sovereign right to help a person who felt remorse after finding out how the United States was using technology to spy on the whole world, and especially its European allies," Ortega said.
The offers came one day after Maduro joined other leftist South American presidents Thursday in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to rally behind Morales and denounce the incident involving the plane.
Spain on Friday said it had been warned along with other European countries that Snowden, a former US intelligence worker, was aboard the Bolivian presidential plane, an acknowledgement that the manhunt for the fugitive leaker had something to do with the plane's unexpected diversion to Austria.
It is unclear whether the United States warned Madrid about the Bolivian president's plane. U.S. officials will not detail their conversations with European countries, except to say that they have stated the U.S.'s general position that it wants Snowden back.
President Barack Obama has publicly displayed a relaxed attitude toward Snowden's movements, saying last month that he wouldn't be "scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker."
But the drama surrounding the flight of Morales, whose plane was abruptly rerouted to Vienna after apparently being denied permission to fly over France, suggests that pressure is being applied behind the scenes.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told Spanish National Television that "they told us that the information was clear, that he was inside."
He did not identify who "they" were and declined to say whether he had been in contact with the U.S. But he said that European countries' decisions were based on the tip. France has since sent a letter of apology to the Bolivian government.
Meanwhile, secret-spilling website WikiLeaks said that Snowden, who is still believed to be stuck in a Moscow airport's transit area, had put in asylum applications to six new countries. He had already sought asylum from more than 20 countries. Many have turned him down.
Wikileaks said in a message posted to Twitter on Friday that it wouldn't be identifying the countries involved "due to attempted US interference."
Icelandic lawmakers introduced a proposal in Parliament on Thursday to grant immediate citizenship to Snowden, but the idea received minimal support.
Galeano reported from Managua, Nicaragua. 

US stocks rise on solid jobs report

\US stocks Friday opened higher following a better-than-expected US jobs report, even as US Treasury yields spiked.
Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 73.57 (0.49%) to 15 062.12.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 7.61 (0.47%) to 1 623.02, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 16.81 (0.49%) to 3 460.48.
Analysts expected low volumes Friday with many investors off for the long July 4 Independence Day holiday. US markets were closed Thursday.
Friday's gains came after the Labor Department reported that 195 000 jobs were added in June, above the 166 000 analyst estimate. The unemployment rate held steady at 7.6%.
Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare called the jobs report "stronger than expected, but not undeniably strong." He cited some less propitious details in the report, such as a rise in the number of discouraged workers compared with a year ago.
The rise also came in the wake of Thursday's strong gains in European markets after European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi said that ECB monetary policy would remain accommodative for "as long as necessary."
Despite the gains, spiking US Treasury yields were a source of concern. The 10-year Treasury rose to 2.70% compared with 2.50% Wednesday. The yield on the 30-year bond rose to 3.65% from 3.50%.

 

Oil dips as supply concerns ease

Oil slipped from a two-week high above $106 a barrel on Thursday after Egypt's armed forces toppled its president, easing concerns over the threat of supply disruption in the Middle East.
The Suez canal, a vital waterway for oil shipments, was not affected by the unrest, but analysts said real and threatened supply disruptions in the Middle East, which pumps a third of the world's oil, and in other regions would support prices.
"It is too early to say that the situation has calmed down, but the safe operation of the Suez, which is in the interest of both Persian Gulf countries and oil-consuming nations, seems to be guaranteed," Tamas Varga, an analyst at oil brokers PVM, said.
Brent crude fell 82c to $104.94 a barrel by lunchtime on Thursday after rising as high as $106.03 on Wednesday.
US crude slipped 48c to $100.76, falling from a 14-month peak of $102.18 earlier.
Besides the perceived risks to Middle East supply due to tension in Egypt, disruption to exports in Libya and Iraq and relatively scarce supply of Russian crude into the Mediterranean have tightened physical oil flows.
"It is still too early to sound the all-clear," said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.
"Supply risks are likely to lend continued support to oil prices."
In addition to concerns about Middle East supplies, the US benchmark received a boost when a weekly inventory report showed stockpiles fell by more than 10 million barrels, the biggest drop for the time of year since 2000.