Weekend 05-17-14

Suspected Boko Haram Militants Attack Chinese Workers In Cameroon

YAOUNDE, May 17 (Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram rebels from Nigeria attacked a Chinese work site in northern Cameroon on Friday and at least 10 people are believed to have been kidnapped, the regional governor said on Saturday.

The Chinese embassy in Yaounde confirmed the attack at a site near the town on Waza, 20 km (12 miles) from the Nigerian border close to the Sambisa forest, a Boko Haram stronghold.

The Islamist group kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school on the Nigerian side of the border last month and Nigerian troops backed by foreign units are searching the area around the forest for them.

Friday's incident began when power was cut in the evening. A five-hour gunfight followed, a guard at the Waza National Park told Reuters.

"Some of us decided to hide in the forest with the animals," the guard said, requesting anonymity.

The governor of Far North Region, Augustine Fonka Awa, said he believed Boko Haram had carried out the attack. Authorities are investigating reports that at least one Cameroon soldier was killed and 10 people were abducted, he said.

The Chinese state new agency Xinhua quoted Chinese officials as saying one person was injured.

The Chinese embassy suspended visits to the area.

Lao defense chief, 4 others killed in plane crash

BANGKOK –  A plane carrying senior Lao government officials crashed Saturday in a forested area of the Southeast Asian country, killing the defense minister and at least four other people, officials said.
About 20 people were believed to be on board the air force plane that left Vientiane, Laos' capital, early Saturday morning to bring the group to an official ceremony in the northeastern province of Xiangkhoung, about 290 miles away, said Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee.

The Russian-made Antonov AN-7KTK300 crashed in the Pek district of Xiangkhoung province, where authorities were "helping to rescue the survivors," according to Lao news agency KPL, which cited an announcement from the Prime Minister's Office. The report did not say how many people died in the crash or survived.
Among those confirmed killed were Defense Minister Douangchay Phichit and his wife, said Nipat Thonglek, the Thai defense ministry's permanent secretary.
Douangchay was also one of the country's deputy prime ministers and a high-ranking member of Laos' Politburo, the main decision-making body for the authoritarian nation's ruling Communist Party.
Other fatalities included the governor of Vientiane, Sukhan Mahalad, and two other senior officials, Nipat said. He said he was given the information by authorities in neighboring Laos who did not immediately release details of the other passengers.

India Election 2014: Opposition Candidate Narendra Modi Will Be The Next Prime Minister

NEW DELHI, May 16 (Reuters) - Opposition candidate Narendra Modi thundered to victory on Friday in India's election, with partial results showing that the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party trounced the ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in a seismic political shift.

Modi's landslide, the most resounding election victory India has seen in 30 years, was welcomed with a blistering rally on India's stock markets and raucous celebrations at offices across the country of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), where supporters danced, exploded fireworks and gave out sweets.

The BJP looked certain of a parliamentary majority, giving the 63-year-old former tea-seller ample room to advance economic reforms which were started 23 years ago by current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but stalled in recent years.

Singh's Congress party suffered its worst ever wipeout, a big boost to Modi's goal of ending the dominance of the Nehru-Gandhi family that has governed for most of the 67 years of independent India.

Singh, whose party looked set to win less than 50 of the 543 parliamentary seats at stake, congratulated Modi with a telephone call.

Crowds surged around Modi's car after he visited his mother's home in the western state of Gujarat, where he has been chief minister since 2001.

Turkey mine disaster: police use riot tactics at protests about mine safety

Teargas and plastic bullets used on protesters at scene of worst industrial accident amid anger at PM's offhand remarks towards victims

Turkish police used teargas, plastic bullets and water cannon to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who gathered on Friday at the scene of the country's worst industrial accident to protest the country's dismal work safety record, and the prime minister's apparently offhand attitude towards victims of the catastrophe.
After Tuesday's explosion and fire at the mine in Soma, western Turkey, 284 people are confirmed dead. Taner Yildiz, the energy minister, said 18 miners were still missing.
The deaths in the Soma coal mine have stirred up fresh antipathy toward prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was criticised for last summer's crackdown on protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square and his increasingly intolerant stance toward any kind of dissent. The prime minister's comments that "this is what happens in coal mining" prompted a furious reaction in Soma, where he was confronted by angry protestors on Wednesday.
On FridayAbout 1,500 protesters gathered in the city on Friday, chanting anti-government slogans, before they were dispersed by riot police. Some of the demonstrators carried banners reading "It was not an accident, it was murder".
Opposition parties, unions and human rights groups have called for an investigation into the cause of the accident and for those responsible to be held accountable.
Erdogan's ruling party has asked the parliament to set up an inquiry into the disaster but accepted no responsibility.

Bombing at an outdoor market north of capital, Baghdad, kills 5 people in Iraq

BAGHDAD –  Authorities in Iraq say a bombing at an outdoor market north of the capital, Baghdad, has killed five people.
Police officials say the attack took place Saturday when the bomb exploded at the market in the town of Tarmiyha, killing five shoppers and wounding 14.

Tarmiyah is 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Baghdad. Police say the blast damaged several shops.
A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to release the information.
Iraq has seen a spike in violence since April 2013, with the death toll climbing to its highest levels since the worst of the country's sectarian bloodletting in 2006-2008. The United Nations says violence killed 8,868 people in 2013.

Bombings at Nairobi market kill 10, wound 70

Two bombs killed 10 people and wounded 70 others Friday, tossing bodies into the air at a market in Kenya’s capital, while hundreds of British tourists were evacuated from the coastal resort of Mombasa after warnings of an impending attack by Islamic extremists.
The U.S. ambassador has requested additional security and is reducing the number of people stationed at the embassy in Nairobi amid an increase in threats.
No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, which went off minutes apart in the Gikomba market near downtown Nairobi.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, appearing at a previously planned news conference shortly after the bombings, offered his condolences.
But he dismissed the tourism warnings from the U.S. and Britain that led to the evacuations, saying that terrorism is a common problem and not unique to Kenya.
As ambulances and security forces responded to the market bombing, witnesses described a chaotic scene.
“I heard the first blast, then another one,” said Gikomba market trader Judy Njeri, who described crouching and crawling on hands and knees after the explosions that wounded some of her colleagues.
“I saw bodies being tossed in the air,” she added. “The whole place was thrown into darkness and a lot of dust.”
Police Chief Benson Kibue announced the casualty figures.
U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden condemned the bombing as “the latest in a series of cowardly attacks on innocent civilians in Kenya, from the capital to the coast.”
Security concerns are high in Kenya because of its proximity to Somalia and the al-Qaeda-linked group, al-Shabab, which operates there. In September, four al-Shabab gunmen attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people.

Record Balkan floods claim at least 20 lives, Serbia, Bosnia brace for new wave of floods

BELGRADE, Serbia –  Authorities in Serbia and Bosnia say at least 20 people have died in the two nations from the record flooding that has hit the Balkans this week.
In the eastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina, some 10,000 people were being evacuated Saturday after the rain-swollen Sava River surged through flood defenses.

In Serbia, emergency crews and soldiers used boats and helicopters to rescue thousands more who had been trapped in the town of Obrenovac, near Belgrade. The overflowing waters there are now threatening Serbia's biggest power plant.
Meteorologists say the flooding is the worst since records began. Officials say they expect more casualties after the waters begin receding in the next few days.
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Lapid ally says US failed to bridge gaps between Israel, Palestinians 

Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelach told a town hall meeting in Tel Aviv on Saturday that the Palestinians were no less guilty than Israel in the breakdown of the negotiations.

The lack of trust between Israel and Palestinians is what caused the peace talks to fail, Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelach said on Saturday during a town hall discussion at Habima National Theater in Tel Aviv.

He said that the US wasn't able to close the gaps between the two sides, and that both sides are to blame for the collapse of negotiations.

The MK also discussed Yesh Atid's future in the current collation given the failure of the talks. "The coalition has an agenda, not connected to the peace talks. We made progress with the draft equality bill and we are fighting for gay and non-religious marriages in this country."

"If the peace talks were to restart, it would be because Yesh Atid agreed to stay in the coalition," said Shelach, a former journalist who has authored books on Israel's defense establishment and the military. "If we leave, will someone better come along?"

Yesh Atid had demanded that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu install Shelach as the head of the prestigious Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Netanyahu balked at the idea, instead demanding that Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi take up the post.

The disagreement led to an impasse which dragged on for six months before Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid relented, agreeing to Netanyahu's proposal in which two Likud lawmakers would rotate the chairmanship of the panel - Yariv Levin and Ze'ev Elkin.

Troops step in to quell World Cup protests

Brazilian troops have been drafted in to reinforce security in a World Cup host city after a military police went on strike less than a month before the tournament.
Seven murders were reported in seven hours during the industrial action by police in Recife, Pernambuco, which will host five games including the US's group match against Germany.
The strike was the most serious of a series of walkouts that took place this week as workers in key services threatened to down tools during the World Cup in protest at levels of public spending on the competition.
On Friday, the army and National Guard remained in place on the streets of Recife even after 20,000 police officers returned to work after demonstrating over pay.
"We will work in cooperation with the reinforcements, together with the Brazilian Army and the National Guard," Colonel Carlos Pereira, a military police commander, said.
A series of protests have shaken Brazil ahead of the month-long tournament that will begin June 12.
Demonstrations in support of striking teachers, street cleaners and bus drivers took place in 50 cities across Brazil this week.
Late on Friday, protesters in Sao Paulo clashed with police, throwing fireworks and torching at least two vehicles near Sao Paulo’s airport, which has just opened a new international terminal ahead of the World Cup.
Police responded with stun grenades to disperse the estimated 50 protesters who demonstrated in the Sao Paulo suburb of Guarulhos to demand better living conditions, according to media reports.

China sentences 24 in baby trafficking case
 
BEIJING: A Chinese news agency says the leader of a baby trafficking gang that brought at least 23 boys or pregnant women from Vietnam to China has been sentenced to death.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 23 other members of the gang were given sentences Friday by a court in the southern region of Guangxi ranging up to life in prison.

A Vietnamese woman who was among those sentenced also was ordered expelled to her home country.

The report said the trafficking ring operated in 2010 and 2011 and sold the babies for adoption in China. Police broke up the ring in 2011.
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VA official out over vet deaths scandal – but is it more 'damage control'?

The Obama administration, battling to tamp down yet another scandal, announced the resignation Friday afternoon of a top Veterans Affairs official amid mounting questions over patient deaths possibly tied to delayed care. 
But as with prior controversies, the administration's response, critics say, is not nearly aggressive enough. The official said to be resigning already was planning to retire. And once again, the president is being accused of relying on political allies to lead internal reviews, without directly firing anyone. 

The department initially placed a few officials on leave after reports emerged that up to 40 patients died waiting for care at a Phoenix facility. On Friday, as pressure mounted, the administration announced the resignation of the top VA health official, Under Secretary for Health Robert Petzel -- a day after that official testified alongside VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. 
"I am committed to strengthening veterans' trust and confidence in their VA healthcare system," Shinseki said in a statement. 
But Petzel, according to a VA press release last year, already was planning to retire in 2014 -- and Obama already had nominated a successor days earlier.

Hillary Clinton Touts Need For Economic Upward Mobility

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton pointed to the 1990s as a time of broad-based prosperity under her husband, former President Bill Clinton, contrasting it Friday with policies under Republicans that she said promoted tax cuts for the wealthy and the emergence of "an entire shadow banking system."
The potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate offered her most extensive remarks on the economy since departing the State Department as the nation's top diplomat, portraying her husband's two terms in the White House as a period of steady job growth and opportunity for many Americans.
Clinton's speech to the New America Foundation came as President Barack Obama has pushed policies to address economic inequality and make higher wages a key issue for Democrats in the fall midterm elections. It also came as some liberal Democrats have backed a brand of economic populism espoused by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and questioned whether the former first lady is too close to Wall Street.
Republicans have signaled that they would make a generational argument against Clinton if she runs for president, arguing that she represents the past. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in New Hampshire recently that Democrats were "threatening to nominate someone now who wants to take us to the past — to an era that's gone and never coming back."
But Clinton's speech showed that Democrats could try to portray that era as a model.
Offering a brief history lesson, Clinton touted the creation of nearly 23 million jobs during her husband's administration along with measures to raise the minimum wage and provide health insurance for children — "all with a balanced budget that resulted in surpluses as far as the eye could see."

Interest Rates Are Falling. Thank Vladimir Putin.

If there was one thing that market analysts thought they could agree upon at the start of the year, it was that interest rates were set to rise. The economy was improving. The Federal Reserve was pulling away from its program of pumping money into bond markets. The era of cheap money seemed to be coming to an end after all these years.

Never mind.

Longer-term interest rates have been falling this year, including hitting a new six-month low on Wednesday. Ten-year U.S. Treasury bonds yielded 3.03 percent at the end of 2013 — and 2.54 percent on Wednesday. They continued to decline on Thursday morning. Lower borrowing costs filter through to homebuyers, as well; the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.17 percent on Wednesday, according to Bankrate.com, down from 4.54 percent at the end of last year.

What’s going on? Part of it is that, while the economy has held up fine so far this year, it has showed few signs of the kind of sharp acceleration that might prompt an end to easy money policies out of the Fed. The 3 percent 10-year rates of late last year may have been premised on sharper improvement than has materialized.

Who got $$ from Brunei's Islamic law government? The Clinton Foundation

As Hollywood hotshots protest the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel over its ownership by Brunei's sultan -- and his recent full-fledged embrace of Islamic law -- it turns out the Brunei government has financial connections to another American institution: The Clinton Foundation. 
The nonprofit foundation lists Brunei alongside Kuwait, Oman and Qatar as donors that gave between $1 million and $5 million through last year. The foundation confirmed the donation from Brunei was made in 2002, in connection with the construction of the Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas. 

"The Clinton Foundation's impact would not be possible without the generous support of our donors," the foundation's website reads. "Their contributions have made a difference in the lives of tens of millions across the world."
The contribution could prove an uncomfortable detail in the foundation's financial records, particularly as Hillary Clinton weighs a possible presidential run. Though The Clinton Foundation has thus far avoided any major controversy over the matter, a Brunei connection has caused headaches for the Beverly Hills Hotel on the other side of the country.
Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has come under heavy criticism since the ultra-wealthy leader, who has been in power for decades, embraced a harsh Islamic penal code for his southeast Asian nation of roughly 408,000 residents. The change would make adultery, abortion and same-sex relationships offenses punishable by ancient methods -- flogging, or even stoning.

Russian business elite excluded from Canada's sanctions list

Despite Canada's aggressive tone with Russia amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, it appears the federal government is not putting all of its money where its mouth is — at least, not when it comes to sanctions. 
Canada has generally been in lockstep with the United States and European Union when it comes to exacting punishments on those deemed responsible for fomenting the unrest in Ukraine. In that regard, the federal government has imposed sanctions on nearly 100 Russian and Ukrainian individuals and businesses since the crisis erupted. 

But at least three Russian businessmen with close ties to President Vladimir Putin have curiously been excluded from  Canada's sanctions list, calling into question the government's tough stance over Ukraine.
While the United States has sanctioned Sergey Chemezov, who runs industrial and military corporation Rostec, and Igor Sechin, CEO of oil company Rosneft, the two have not been banned from travelling to Canada or had their assets frozen. Both, reportedly, have significant business ties to Canada. 
Thomson Reuters reported earlier that Rostec has an aircraft assembly joint venture lined up with Bombardier Inc., while Rosneft owns about 30 per cent of an Exxon Mobil Corp. oil field in Alberta.
CBC News has also learned that Canadian and American sanctions are not in sync with regards to Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways and one of the most powerful men in Russia. While Yakunin has been blacklisted by the U.S., Canada has not made any moves against him.
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