Wednesday, September 19, 2012

China clamps down on anti-Japan protests

China clamps down on anti-Japan protests

China clamps down on anti-Japan protests

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:27 AM PDT

Policemen stand guard outside the main entrance of the Japanese embassy in BeijingBEIJING (Reuters) - China moved quickly on Wednesday to snuff out anti-Japan protests after days of angry demonstrations over a territorial dispute forced Japanese businesses to shut their doors and threatened an economic backlash. Relations between Asia's two biggest economies have faltered badly, hitting their lowest point in decades on Tuesday when China marked the highly charged anniversary of Japan's 1931 occupation of its giant neighbor. ...

Rebels tear down Syrian flag at border post with Turkey

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 12:44 AM PDT

AKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) - Rebels tore down a Syrian flag at a border gate on the Turkish frontier on Wednesday as they battled to seize control of the crossing, and schools on the Turkish side shut down as bullets flew into the northern neighbor's soil. Television footage showed Syrian rebels taking down the Syrian flag on top of a government building at the Tel Abyad border gate. The sound of sporadic gunfire could be heard and black smoke rose from parts of the building, which appeared to be a customs office. ...

Analysis: Chinese leaders may come to regret anti-Japan protests

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 12:59 AM PDT

A demonstrator scuffles with policemen during a protest near the Japanese consulate on the 81st anniversary of Japan's invasion of China, in ShanghaiBEIJING (Reuters) - China's decision to open its streets to a wave of anti-Japan protests could end up rebounding on Beijing, which has emerged from days of fervent nationalism with eroded authority at home and fewer options in dealing with Tokyo. The mass protests, ignited by a renewed territorial dispute, contained some criticism of Beijing as being too soft on its traditional Asian rival, creating pressures that could help push China's incoming new leadership deeper into a diplomatic corner. ...

French weekly publishes Mohammad cartoons

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:38 AM PDT

PARIS (Reuters) - French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday, a move criticized by the French authorities which sent riot police to protect the magazine's offices. Issues of the magazine hit newsstands with a front cover showing an Orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned figure in a wheelchair with several caricatures of the Prophet on its inside pages, including some of him naked. ...

World Bank warns of deepening Palestinian fiscal crisis

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 02:07 AM PDT

Palestinians hold flags and placards during a protest against the rising cost of living in RamallahRAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A fiscal crisis in the aid-dependent Palestinian economy will worsen unless foreign funding increases and Israel eases its restrictions in the occupied West Bank, the World Bank said on Wednesday. "Donors do need to act urgently in the face of a serious fiscal crisis facing the PA (Palestinian Authority) in the short term," Mariam Sherman, the World Bank's country director for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said in a statement. In a report issued ahead of a conference on Palestinian aid in New York next week, the World Bank forecast a $1. ...

Germany's big worry: China, not Greece

Posted: 18 Sep 2012 10:04 PM PDT

German Chancellor Merkel addresses news conference at Bundespressekonferenz in BerlinBERLIN (Reuters) - Berlin, not Brussels, will decide the future of the ailing eurozone because Germany's economic power and its status as the European Union's main paymaster give it an effective veto over key decisions. So it comes as a surprise to find that in Berlin's corridors of power, the main worry is not whether Greece sticks to its reform pledges or Spain demands an EU bailout. ...

Russia says U.S. aid mission tried to influence elections

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:52 AM PDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of using its aid mission in Moscow to try to influence Russian politics and the outcome of elections, one day after Washington announced Moscow had ordered the mission's closure. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had also been worried by the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in regions including the North Caucasus, where Moscow faces an Islamist insurgency. ...

China's Xi meets Panetta, wants better military ties with U.S

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 12:53 AM PDT

U.S. Secretary of Defense Panetta sits with China's Vice President Xi at the Great Hall of the People in BeijingBEIJING (Reuters) - China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping held on Wednesday his first talks with a foreign official since vanishing from the public eye nearly two weeks ago, telling U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta he wanted to advance ties with the United States. Vice-President Xi's disappearance had prompted widespread rumors that he was ill or worse ahead of this year's five-yearly Communist Party Congress when he is expected to be named party chief. ...

Lonmin deal pressures other South Africa mining firms

Posted: 18 Sep 2012 11:57 PM PDT

Striking miners dance and cheer after they were informed of a wage increase offer outside Lonmin's Marikana mineJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A violent six-week strike at world No. 3 platinum producer Lonmin has come to an end with a hefty wage settlement that could stir more strife in South Africa's restive mining sector. Lonmin's 11-to-22 percent pay hike deal with striking workers may be a red rag for others in an industry riven by income disparities laid bare by a wave of violent industrial action in which 45 people died last month. As Lonmin's miners prepare to don their helmets and head back down the shafts, others are eyeing their gains greedily. "We want management to meet us as well now. ...

South Korean software mogul to stand for presidency

Posted: 18 Sep 2012 11:36 PM PDT

Cheol-Soo leaves after casting his ballot at a polling station in SeoulSEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean software millionaire and philanthropist Ahn Cheol-soo finally announced he would run for the presidency, ending a year-long wait and throwing wide open a race that had looked to be a coronation for the conservatives' Park Geun-hye. Vowing to tighten up on big business, which he has accused of treating employees like caged animals in a zoo, the youthful-looking 50-year old said on Wednesday he would create jobs for young people and share wealth and opportunities in the world's 13th largest economy. ...

Secondhand clothes from West flood Nigeria markets

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:55 AM PDT

In this photo taken Monday, June. 18, 2012. A woman alters secondhand clothes at Katangua market in Lagos, Nigeria. Shipping container after shipping container arrives to this market in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, filled to the brim with plastic-wrapped bales of secondhand clothes from the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Traders scour, barter, hem and haw over T-shirts, bras, pants and shoes sent to help clothe a nation of more than 160 million people where the textile industry largely collapsed years ago. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)At Nigeria's Katangua Market, that castaway from the West means big money.

Syrian rebels seize control of a border crossing

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:27 AM PDT

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, left, speaks to reporters, as UNHCR representative to Jordan, Andrew Harper, right, listens during his visit to the Zaatari Refugees Camp for Syrians who fled the civil war in their country in Mafraq, Jordan, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)Rebels seized control of a border crossing on the frontier with Turkey on Wednesday, pulling down the Syrian flag and sending a stream of jubilant people pouring across the border into Turkey.

Israel military holds largest snap drill in years

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 02:04 AM PDT

Israeli defense officials say the military is conducting its largest snap drill in years. The exercise comes against the backdrop of tensions with Iran and the civil war in Syria.

Afghan leader urges peace day after suicide blast

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:56 AM PDT

Afghan university students burn a U.S. flag in Surkhrod district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Sept 19, 2012. Hundreds of Afghans, some shouting "Death to America", held a protest against an anti-Islam film in the eastern city of Jalalabad. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)The Afghan president on Wednesday urged his nation to rally behind the push for peace despite persistent violence, evoking the memory of former leader who was assassinated while trying to broker negotiations with the Taliban.

Storms dampen hopes for bountiful NKorea harvest

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 12:17 AM PDT

In this Sept. 12, 2012 photo, ears of field corn lay in piles along a roadside during the autumn corn harvest on a farm on the edge of Kaesong, North Korea. It has been a tough year for North Korea's farmers, who grappled with an extended dry spell in the spring, followed by heavy rains from a series of summer storms and typhoon. The U.N. is launching a field mission across North Korea to gauge the state of the food situation. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)First came an extended dry spell in the spring, followed by a summer of flash floods and typhoons.

EU-Iran nuclear talks 'useful and constructive'

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:31 AM PDT

The European Union says a meeting between its foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili aimed at restarting formal talks over Tehran's nuclear program was "useful and constructive."

Japan gets cold feet on total nuclear phase-out

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 02:25 AM PDT

Japan's Cabinet on Wednesday stopped short of committing to phase out nuclear power by 2040, backtracking from an advisory panel's recommendations in the face of opposition from pro-nuclear businesses and groups.

France to ban new prophet film protest

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:42 AM PDT

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, right, greets French Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)France's leadership is barring a planned protest by people angry over a film produced in the United States that insults the Prophet Muhammad, but are defending a newspaper's right to publish caricatures of the prophet.

Nationalism may rise under Japan's next gov't

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:30 AM PDT

FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2012 file photo, Japan's opposition Liberal Democratic Party presidential candidate Nobuteru Ishihara delivers his policy speech during an official announcement for the race at the party headquarters in Tokyo. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party chooses a leader Sept. 26. The winner may become prime minister if the LDP wins elections that the prime minister has said he will call soon. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa, File)One is a former prime minister known for his nationalistic views. A second is a hawkish former defense chief. And a third is the son of Tokyo's outspoken governor whose proposal to buy and develop a cluster of uninhabited islands claimed by both China and Japan has set off a territorial furor between the two countries.

China cleans up after angry anti-Japan protests

Posted: 18 Sep 2012 11:17 PM PDT

Chinese cleaners wash the barricade outside the entrance to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. People across China have engaged in days of furious protests over some East China Sea islands, claimed by Beijing and Tokyo, that Japan purchased last week from a private owner. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)China was returning to normalcy Wednesday after angry protests over Japan's wartime occupation and Tokyo's recent purchase of islands also claimed by Beijing.

China: dañan vehículo de embajador de EEUU

Posted: 18 Sep 2012 09:52 PM PDT

Manifestantes chinos sostienen imágenes del fallecido líder comunista Mao Tse Tung y banderas de China en una marcha afuera de la embajada japonesa en Beijing, el martes 18 de septiembre de 2012. El aniversario 81 de la invasión japonesa y el dominio de unas islas que se disputan ambos países desataron una nueva ola de protestas. (Foto AP/Alexander F. Yuan)Un vehículo que transportaba al embajador de Estados Unidos en China resultó con daños menores después de volverse blanco de los bulliciosos manifestantes que protestaban contra Japón y que expresaban su enfado por una disputa territorial.
Posted by Harshad at 2:38 AM

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