iWorld News
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NAIROBI KENYA: PIRACY IS RIFE: The head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program says Somali pirates have hijacked an American-owned tugboat with 16 crew in the Gulf of Aden. Andrew Mwangura says maritime industry sources told him that the Italian-flagged boat was towing two barges.
Mwangura’s report could not immediately be confirmed with U.S., Italian or other government officials. Mwangura says it was unclear if the attack took place off Somalia or further north near Yemen. He says he did not know what was on the barges.Mwangura says the attack was launched around 11 a.m. today. An American captain who thwarted the takeover of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama by giving himself up as a hostage was still being held Saturday on a lifeboat being watched by two U.S. warships. source: AP news
NAIROBI KENYA: Adrift with his captors in sight of U.S. warships, the American sea captain being held for ransom by Somali pirates briefly escaped their lifeboat by jumping overboard, a U.S. official said Friday, but was recaptured and brought back. The U.S. military said Richard Phillips, who was taken by the pirates from the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama on Wednesday, appeared unharmed after the escape attempt. The military, which has been maintaining real-time video surveillance via a drone aircraft, observed him moving around on the lifeboat after he was recaptured. But another hostage drama off the coast of Somalia turned bloody. French naval forces attacked pirates holding a yacht 40 miles offshore. One hostage and two pirates were killed, the French government said. The yacht, which was carrying a French couple, their small child and two friends, was seized this month. It was one of more than a dozen vessels being held by pirates operating out of ports in the chaotic Horn of Africa country, which has not had an effective government since 1991. The pirates typically move the hijacked vessels close to shore and then open negotiations for a ransom.During 2008, the pirates are believed to have collected more than $50 million. source: AP news.
VIETNAM: Vietnam suffers as China claws production back during global recession. Companies scale back as they confront limitations in Vietnam’s workforce and other issues. Reporting from Ho Chi Minh City — Just a couple of years ago, this city was among the hottest investment zones in Asia. Multinationals as large as chip maker Intel Corp. and smaller firms such as Ampac Packaging, a Cincinnati-based maker of shopping bags for Gap and Target, flocked here and to other parts of Vietnam. They set up plants to complement or, in some cases, replace facilities in China that were becoming increasingly expensive to operate. “China plus one,” they called it. China’s corporate business dollar has been heavily hit along with the rest of the world. Like Vietnam, Taiwan is also feeling the effects of the shrunken Chinese economy. source: AP News Wire
UKRAINE: Corrupt prime minister, being bought to justice: A U.S. appeals court lets stand eight of 14 laundering and conspiracy charges against Pavlo Lazarenko, who fled Ukraine in 1999. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko’s conviction on money-laundering and conspiracy charges was upheld by a federal appeals court Friday, a judgment that will keep the long-incarcerated politician in U.S. prisons for at least several more years.Lazarenko, 56, was head of the Ukrainian government from May 1996 to June 1997, during which, prosecutors said, he siphoned at least $200 million from the nation’s coffers through elaborate schemes of extortion, cronyism and kickbacks. Ukrainian authorities have also sought his extradition to face charges of complicity in the killings of several political opponents in the 1990s. Source: AP News
IRAQ: SUICIDE BOMBER kills 5 US Troops and three Iraqis are also slain in the attack at a police headquarters in the volatile city of Mosul. The strike is the deadliest against American forces in Iraq in 13 months. Reporting from Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq — A suicide truck bomber attacked a police headquarters Friday in the tense northern city of Mosul, killing five U.S. soldiers in the deadliest strike against American forces in Iraq in 13 months. The bomber got around several concrete barriers and detonated his truck loaded with explosives at the entrance to the local headquarters of Iraq’s national police.
SOUT KOREA: Foreign journalists and economists whose writings run counter to the official line on government action in Seoul career are almost being censored. Reporting from Seoul — In South Korea, image and perception are paramount — especially when it comes to how the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration is dealing with the global financial crisis. In an apparent effort to restore confidence among international investors, officials here are waging a not-so-subtle propaganda campaign against foreign journalists and economic experts who publish articles or reports that are contrary to authorities’ view of events. source: AP News
NORTH KOREA: Kim names in-law to a key position: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has promoted a trusted in-law, the clearest sign yet he is making preparations for a successor, analysts said. Kim appointed brother-in-law Jang Song Taek to the all-powerful National Defense Commission, providing analysts with clues about what the future may hold for the nation. The appointment shows that Kim is trying to prepare for his eventual departure and pave the way to hand power to one of his sons, analysts said, just as he inherited the mantle from his late father and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. source: times news wire
BOLIVIA: Morales sticks to hunger strike: President Evo Morales entered the second day of a hunger strike to pressure lawmakers to pass a controversial electoral law that was only partially approved a day earlier. Opposition lawmakers have sought to block the election law, which is seen as likely to help him in the December general election by assigning more seats to poor, rural areas where he is widely popular. ”It’s impossible to end the hunger strike. First they have to follow the people’s will,” Morales said, speaking of the opposition, after he and several indigenous and labor leaders spent the night on mattresses on the floor of the presidential palace. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, has not eaten anything for more than 24 hours but is drinking water, a spokesperson said. source: times news wire
INDIA: 23 dead in blaze at fireworks plant: A blaze at a fireworks factory has killed at least 23 workers and injured 48 in western India, news reports said. The Press Trust of India news agency quoted Yogesh Pawar, a medical officer, as saying that the injured were being treated at a hospital near Jalgaon, a town in western Maharashtra state. Pawar put the death toll at 23. sources: times news wire.
CONGO: At least 90 women have been raped and 180 villagers killed in the last two months by rebels as well as government forces in volatile eastern Congo, according to Human Rights Watch. The group said it documented the rapes, killings and burning of dozens of villages by the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. The mainly Rwandan force fled into Congo after orchestrating the 1994 genocide of an estimated 800,000 people. Their presence has been a major problem and in January, Congo allowed Rwandan troops to enter the country in a joint effort to root out the rebels. source: times news wire
CHINA: Scandal officials get new posts: Two officials who were disciplined after tainted milk sickened tens of thousands of children in China have been reappointed to new posts, a state-run newspaper reported. The contamination, revealed in September, was one of China’s worst food safety scandals. Dozens of officials, dairy executives and farmers have been punished as China’s embarrassed leadership tries to restore consumer confidence. Six children died and nearly 300,000 were sickened by baby formula tainted with melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure. According to the Beijing News, Bao Junkai, formerly a deputy department director at the state’s product quality watchdog, is now the Communist Party secretary and director of an equivalent agency in Anhui province. Liu Daqun, ex-director of the agricultural department in Hebei province, where the dairy at the center of the contamination was based, is now the mayor and deputy party secretary of Xingtai, in Hebei, the paper said. source: times news wire
FIJI: President axes constitution: The president assumed control and fired the judges who a day earlier had declared the South Pacific island’s military government illegal.President Ratu Josefa Iloilo announced in a nationally broadcast radio address that he had abolished the constitution, assumed all governing power and revoked all judicial appointments. “I hereby confirm I have abrogated the 1997 constitution and appointed myself as head of state in the new order,” he said. source: times news wire
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