Philip Morris sues Australian government over tobacco laws
Tobacco company takes legal action against legislation forcing cigarettes to be sold in drab plain packaging
Tobacco company Philip Morris has launched legal action againstAustralian laws forcing tobacco products to be sold in drab, plain packaging from late next year.
Australia's parliament has passed laws compelling cigarettes, pipe tobacco and cigars to be sold in plain olive packs from December 2012.
While tobacco exporting countries including Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Ukraine have warned they may challenge the law under world trade rules, tobacco companies including British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco have said they may take action in Australia's high court.
Philip Morris said it's lawsuit could trigger compensation claims worth billions of dollars.
irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Monday, November 21, 2011, 06:32
Syria calls for changes to monitors
The Arab League rejected a request by Damascus to amend plans for a 500-strong monitoring mission to Syria, and president Bashar al-Assad said he would not bow to international pressure to stop a crackdown against protesters.
Within hours of Dr Assad ignoring a deadline to halt the bloody crackdown, residents said two rocket-propelled grenades hit a major ruling party building in Damascus yesterday, the first such reported attack by insurgents inside the capital.
Confronted since March by street demonstrations against 41 years of rule by his family, Dr Assad said he had no choice but to pursue his crackdown on unrest because his foes were armed.
"The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue. Syria will not bow down," he told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.
Battered Pacific nation looks to new solutions
Alana Rosenbaum
November 21, 2011
Rick Daoe is a big man on the Pacific island of Nauru – in status and in largesse. If you ever want to find him of an evening, chances are he'll be buying rounds of Victoria Bitter at his bar at the Menen Hotel, or holding court at the longest table at the, island's newest and most expensive restaurant - The Bay.
Mr Daoe likes to include a few of his "boys" at dinner, the men who staff his business, Nauru Island Security. They stand outside the bar at the Menen Hotel, at the hospital, and at the power station. In all there are about 100 of them, and they make the largest private security on the island. “I saw the opportunity here in places and knew that with hard work and determination, I'd get somewhere.”
Libya's tug-of-war over al-Islam a test for new government
ALASTAIR MACDONALD TRIPOLI, LIBYA - Nov 21 2011
The arrest of the last survivor of the old regime who is wanted at The Hague for crimes against humanity crowned a momentous couple of days for a new government that is still in the process of formation and also posed immediate tests of its authority -- both over powerful militias and with world powers.
In a sign of the strain that the prime minister-designate is under to reconcile the interests of rival militia groups that control the ground in Libya, officials said Abdurrahim El-Keib had asked for another couple of days to complete a Cabinet that he had previously hoped to announce on Sunday.
In a sign of the strain that the prime minister-designate is under to reconcile the interests of rival militia groups that control the ground in Libya, officials said Abdurrahim El-Keib had asked for another couple of days to complete a Cabinet that he had previously hoped to announce on Sunday.
Debt supercommittee members brace for failure
By Paul Kane,
The congressional “supercommittee” stumbled its way toward failure Sunday, with final staff-level discussions focusing mostly on how the panel should publicly admit that lawmakers could not meet their mandate of shaving $1.2 trillion from the federal debt.
Rather than making a final effort at compromise, members of the special deficit-reduction committee spent their final hours casting blame and pointing fingers, bracing for the reaction from financial markets that are already jittery over the European debt crisis.
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