People dressed as zombies wander through the streets of Tokyo on Easter Sunday for a parade of the undead. While over 150 willing participants showed up to the event, only the first 40 people were allowed to take part due to permit restrictions in Japan. The zombie gathering lasted about 45 minutes as the slow-moving living dead made their way along the parade route
We examine the BRICS, the deals, the critics and whether China can shape a new world order.
It was 599 years ago that Admiral Zheng - in a show of Chinese power - sailed down the east coast of Africa. The year was 1414, and he took home with him - a giraffe.
Today, China is more interested in oil and gas off the cost of Mozambique and Tanzania, and it has been welcomed with open arms as it lavishes its wealth across the continent.
China's new president, Xi Jinping, went on an eight-day visit to Africa, including the BRICS meeting of the rising powers Brazil, Russia, Indian, China, and South Africa in Durban.
Xi started in Tanzania and also went on to the Republic of Congo. In Dar es Salaam, he signed agreements to build a major port and industrial zone worth $10bn.
Libya's south teeters toward chaos — and militant extremists
Libya's long-neglected, isolated southern region has grown more lawless since the fall of Moammar Kadafi. Only ill-trained tribal militias hold Islamist extremists at bay.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times SABHA, Libya — Their fatigues don't match and their pickup has no windshield. Their antiaircraft gun, clogged with grit, is perched between a refugee camp and ripped market tents scattered over an ancient caravan route. But the tribesmen keep their rifles cocked and eyes fixed on a terrain of scouring light where the oasis succumbs to desert.
"If we leave this outpost the Islamist militants will come and use Libya as a base. We can't let that happen," said Zakaria Ali Krayem, the oldest among the Tabu warriors. "But the government hasn't paid us in 14 months. They won't even give us money to buy needles to mend our uniforms."
Krayem is battling smugglers, illegal migrants bound for Europe and armed extremists who stream across a swath of the Sahara near the porous intersection of southern Libya,Chad, Niger and Algeria.
Savage terms for Cyprus depositors
Some savers may face losses of up to 60 per cent in deal designed to avert bankruptcy
Large depositors at Cyprus' largest bank may be forced to accept losses of up to 60 per cent, far more than initially feared, under the European rescue package to save the country from bankruptcy, officials said yesterday.
Those with deposits of more than €100,000 at the Bank of Cyprus would lose 37.5 per cent in money that would be converted into bank shares, according to a finance ministry decree obtained by the Associated Press. In a second raid on these accounts, depositors also could lose up to 22.5 per cent more, depending on what experts determine is needed to prop up the bank's reserves.
NORTH KOREA
China weighs up opposing North Korea policies
China has become more open than ever about its policy regarding North Korea. While some want a change of course as China seeks to keep instability from its door, others think the status quo should be preserved.
"North Korea's third nuclear test is a good moment for China to re-evaluate its longstanding alliance with the Kim dynasty," demanded Deng Yuwen, a guest columnist in the Financial Times newspaper. Deng, as deputy editor of the China's Study Times journal, published by the Beijing's Central Party School, called on China to "abandon North Korea."
Such comments represent a challenge to the decades-long friendship between the two Communist neighbors. Bilateral relations have reached a low point since the end of last year. Not only did North Korea provoke the world with its latest test in February this year, it also launched its Unha-3 rocket to successfully place a satellite in orbit around the Earth.
Egyptian comic arrested for insulting president
March 31, 2013 - 10:47AM
CAIRO: Egypt's public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of popular satirist Bassem Youssef over alleged insults to Islam and to President Mohamed Mursi, in the latest clampdown on critical media.
Judicial sources said several complaints had been filed against Youssef, whose razor-sharp humour – delivered on his weekly television program Albernameg (The Show) – has spared few public figures.
He is accused of offending Islam through "making fun of the prayer ritual" on his show, and of insulting Dr Mursi by "making fun of his international standing", the sources said.
New CAR leader, facing isolation, says no reprisals
Central African Republic's new leader Michel Djotodia said he would not take reprisals against rivals and called on those who fled abroad to return.
The United States said on Saturday it did not recognise Djotodia, who toppled President François Bozizé on March 24 after leading thousands of his Seleka rebels into the mineral-rich nation's capital Bangui, triggering days of looting.
"I make a patriotic and brotherly appeal for our countrymen, who have chosen the path of exile, to return," the former civil servant turned self-declared president told several thousand cheering supporters near the presidential palace.
"There will be no witch hunt, because we must establish tolerance, dialogue and forgiveness," he said.
Anger Over Plan to Sell Site of Wounded Knee Massacre
By JOHN ELIGON WOUNDED KNEE, S.D. — Ever since American soldiers massacredmen, women and children here more than a century ago in the last major bloodshed of the American Indian wars, this haunted patch of rolling hills and ponderosa pines has embodied the combustible relationship between Indians and the United States government. It was here that a group of Indian activists aired their grievances against the government with a forcefultakeover in 1973 that resulted in protests, a bloody standoff with federal agents and deep divisions among the Indian people.
That's right the Pillsbury Doughboy who runs North Korea has decided that they are in a state of severe temper tantrum because no one will listen to him and let him set at the adults table.
Because of that he has concluded that threatening everybody and their cat with nuclear destruction in addition to screaming he's going to burn down America and its puppet allie South Korea. Or, at least send them to bed without any dinner.
Official news agency continues stiff rhetoric with announcement that nation is entering state of war with neighbour
North Korea said on Saturday that it was entering a "state of war" withSouth Korea in a continuing escalation of tough rhetoric against Seoul and Washington after coming under international sanctions for its nuclear test. "From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly," a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency said. KCNA said the statement was issued jointly by the North's government, ruling party and other organisations.
To sum up: If junior Kim doesn't get what he wants he'll hold his breath until he turns blue and stamp his feet.
North Korea has threatened attacks almost daily after it was sanctioned for a third nuclear test in February.
However, few think the North would risk full-blown conflict, and the two sides have technically been at war since 1953 as no peace treaty has been signed.
An armistice at the end of the Korean War was never turned into a full treaty.
'Taking threats seriously'
WAR CRIMES
'Monster of Grbavica' handed maximum sentence
A Sarajevo court has sentenced a former commander of a Serb paramilitary group to 45 years in jail for a series of crimes committed during the Bosnian War. It was the longest-ever sentence handed down by the court.
Presiding judge Zoran Bozic told the court on Friday that 43-year-old Veselin Vlahovic had been found guilty of "horrid, cruel and manifold criminal acts" committed between May and July of 1992 in the Serb-controlled Sarajevo districts of Grbavica and Vraca.
"During systematic repression against the non-Serb population he participated in expulsion of his victims, he committed murders, he tortured, raped and imprisoned his victims," Bozic said.
Imprisoned, Tortured, Killed: Human Trafficking Thrives on Sinai Peninsula
By Nicola Abé in North Sinai
The Sinai Peninsula has become a prison and grave for thousands of African refugees. They are kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured to death even after their families have paid hefty ransoms. But Egypt refuses to act.
Five people fled at night under the cover of heavy wind. Gusts were whipping fiercely against the hut they had been chained in. Their guard seemed to be sleeping, and the storm raged so loudly that they were able to use a rock to smash their chains without waking him. One by one, they slithered on their sides through a gap in the wall and out to freedom. "We wanted to either escape or die," says Zeae, a 27-year-old man from Eritrea.
The five of them were barefoot and had only a few scraps of clothing on their emaciated bodies, which were covered with burns and scars. "We saw lights in the distance," Zeae says. But two of the men were too weak to walk. They stayed behind, lying there in the desert, because the others were too weak to help them. It was hard enough just dragging their own bodies forward.
Despite the risks of the long, slow boat trip to Australia - made starkly evident by the Christmas Island disaster this week when two asylum seekers drowned - hundreds of ethnic Hazaras in Pakistan are planning the same trip.
Facing what they have described as a ''systematic genocide'' in Pakistan, more and more Hazaras are trying to leave by any means possible.
Fairfax Media understands the 95 asylum seekers on board the fishing boat that capsized off Christmas Island were all Pakistanis, some Hazara and others Pashtun. A boy aged four or five and a woman in her 30s died.
Curvy or slender? Beauty wars break out in Côte d’Ivoire
A war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.
"African" curves or an "international" silhouette? On the airwaves and the catwalks of Côte d’Ivoire, a war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.
The young Ivorian singer Princesse Amour is hoping for a hit with her song celebrating "lalas", the name she has given to slender, small-breasted women.
Dressed in ultra-tight skinny jeans, she sings over a pounding beat, her lyrics encouraging women to embrace their "little lemons".
Chile: Students aim to put better schools and fairer access at top of election agenda
Chile's high rate of university attendance makes it a model in the region, but students say profit-driven schools and limited opportunities for the poor make the system inadequate.
Chile’s education system has drawn global attention in recent years. On the one hand, the country’s high rate of university attendance makes it a model in the region. But beneath those statistics, students say profit-driven schools and limited opportunities for the poor make the system inadequate for turning Chile into a developed nation.
Protests over profiteering and student loans paralyzed the country for much of 2011, helping inspire movements from Spain’s indignados to Occupy Wall Street.
The protests unveiled shocking problems. Last year, the Universidad del Mar made headlines for a corruption scandal where the school had paid consulting fees to a member of the national accreditation body.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen North Korea has decided that going the full Hulk will solve all of its problems with the Wizard of Oz. What else can explain the arming of its rockets and misslies because its time to "Make America Pay." Pay for what? A trip to Tokyo Disneyland or maybe Universal Studios Japan. Whatever it is America is going to pay.
It's apparent that the leadership has hit the crack pipe one to many times what else explains the delusional world in which they live.
Kim Jong-un gives order and blasts Washington with angry rhetoric after US stealth bombers flown over South Korea.
North Korea's leader has responded to America's use of nuclear-capable B-2 bombers in joint South Korean military
drills with more angry rhetoric, saying his rocket forces are ready to attack US positions.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) news agency said on Friday that Kim signed off on the orders at a midnight meeting of top generals and "judged the time has come to settle accounts with the US imperialists in view of the prevailing situation".
In the event of any "reckless" US provocation, North Korean forces should "mercilessly strike the US mainland... military bases in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea", he was quoted as saying.
North Korea's leader responded Friday to America's use of nuclear-capable B-2 bombers in joint South Korean military drills with more angry rhetoric, saying his rocket forces are ready “to settle accounts with the U.S.”
The threats, while not an indication of imminent war, are most likely aimed at coercing South Korea into softening its policies, to win direct talks and aid from Washington, and to strengthen young leader Kim Jong Un's credentials at home.
Kim “convened an urgent operation meeting” with his senior generals early Friday, signed a rocket preparation plan and ordered his forces on standby to strike the U.S. mainland, South Korea, Guam and Hawaii, state media reported.
Bersani fails to form new Italian government
Centre-left leader cites unacceptable conditions demanded for formation of coalition
Italy’s ongoing government – or indeed no-government – crisis appeared to deepen last night when centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, after a week of broad consultations with all the major social partners and political parties, reported to President Giorgio Napolitano that he was not in a position to form a new government.
As a result, the ball is yet again back in the court of the president, who in a statement last night indicated he would intervene personally “without delay” in an attempt to identify “possible future developments”.
Even though the context is different, it would appear the clock has been turned back to November 2011, when the president played a critical role in forming the technocrat government of current prime minister Mario Monti, urgently appointed as Italy stood on the brink of financial collapse.
ARMS EXPORTS
Iran, North Korea, Syria block UN Arms Trade Treaty
A proposal to regulate the global weapons trade has failed to win unanimous support at the UN, opposed by Iran, Syria and North Korea. Diplomats hope the bill could still pass via a General Assembly vote.
The three countries rejected the UN's Arms Trade Treaty on Thursday, complaining that the document was flawed and failed to prevent the sale of weapons to rebel groups. Iran, North Korea and Syria are all currently under some form of UN arms sanctions. Several other countries had cited concerns and secured ammendments to the draft during a difficult negotiating period, but they agreed to accept the final text.
"There is no consensus for the adoption of this text," said Australian Ambassador Peter Woolcott, who chaired the talks in New York.
By now much of the dust has settled around the battle which waged for roughly 13 hours a few kilometres outside Bangui at checkpoint PK12
There is a lot of finger-pointing and many questions around why the hell we were there in the first place. Before larger allegations of uranium and oil deals emerge between South Africa, CAR, France, and god knows who else, we should take stock of three important points that can be learned regardless of how the forthcoming weeks proceed.
Our soldiers fought well
There is a longstanding misconception that our soldiers cannot fight: that they’re all HIV-positive layabouts incapable of doing any actual soldiering. Naturally this might be true for certain portions of the military, as it would be for virtually any defence force around the world, but Saturday’s fire fight proved, above everything else, that our soldiers are not only capable of defending themselves, they are able to fight back with a tempo that rivals most international forces of the same calibre.
Venezuela's precampaign season off to a roaring start
Venezuela's presidential campaigning doesn't officially begin until April, but both candidates have gotten a head start. Interim President Nicolás Maduro has a leg up with his access to state media.
Let’s recap of the first seven days of non-campaigncampaigning, or in criollo doublespeak: pre-campaña. Technically, you see, the official campaign only starts on April 1 and lasts a mere 10 days. Obviously neither candidate has taken the [electoral commission] CNE campaign schedule particularly seriously.
[Opposition candidate Henrique] Capriles began a nation-wide stump tour, hitting two states per day, holding mass outdoor rallies that follow, more or less, the same format. His Asambleas Populares, as they’re called, kick off with four or five speakers who articulate their grievances – campaign sources confirm the testimonials always center on five key issues:
Middle East
Iranian people caught in crossfire of duel
By Farideh Farhi
HONOLULU - Since Barack Obama became president of the United States, messages marking the Iranian New Year - Norouz - celebrated at the onset of spring have become yearly affairs. So have responses given by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from the city of Mashhad where he makes a yearly pilgrimage to visit the shrine of Shi'ite Islam's eighth imam, Imam Reza.
This year, like the first year of Obama's presidency, the two leaders' public messages had added significance because of the positive signals broadcast by both sides after Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany met in Almaty, Kazakhstan in March. The second meeting is slotted to occur April 6.
Considering that the exchanged messages came in the midst of ongoing talks, a degree of softened language and the
There is one simple truth no matter how many Crystal ball's, magic 8 ball's or voodoo priests one consults you can not predict how they the wingnut's of North Korea will react to any provocation. It doesn't matter if you threaten them with a potato gun or a m-16 they will react. Just how, is another story.
Use of aircraft, which are capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional payloads, is likely to further enrage the North Korea regime
The United States has flown two nuclear capable B-2 stealth bombers over South Korea as part of a military exercise.
After weeks of bluster and aggression from North Korea the US decision to use the B-2 bombers, which dropped munitions on a South Korean island, will be seen as a deliberate show of strength.
The announcement that the aircraft, which are capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional payloads, have been involved in exercises is likely to further enrage the North Korea regime.
Pyongyang has issued increasingly belligerent statements over the last few months after being sanctioned by the UN for its February missile test.
The sabre-rattling has increased in intensity in recent weeks with the secretive regime threatening to attack US bases on mainland America, Hawaii and Guam.
BEIJING — Life for the almighty Chinese government official has come to this: car pools, domestically made wristwatches and self-serve lunch buffets. In the four months since he was anointed China’s paramount leader and tastemaker-in-chief, President Xi Jinping has imposed a form of austerity on the nation’s famously free-spending civil servants, military brass and provincial party bosses. Warning that graft and gluttony threaten to bring down the ruling Communists, Mr. Xi has ordered an end to boozy, taxpayer-financed banquets and the bribery that often takes the form of a gift-wrapped Louis Vuitton bag.
Ben Fogle accused of fronting propaganda ignoring Sarawak 'environmental destruction and exploitation'
The BBC presenter says he now has 'serious questions' over the Malaysian state
The television presenter Ben Fogle has been accused of taking part in an environmental propaganda campaign for a regime with one of the world’s worst records in deforestation. Fogle, known to millions of BBC viewers as a face of travel documentaries, has become the poster boy for tourism to the controversial state of Sarawak in Borneo, where vast amounts of industrial logging have left only five per cent of forests that have not been either logged or converted to palm oil plantations.
The presenter has made a series of films for the Sarawak Tourism Board under the title “Ben Fogle’s Sarawak Adventures” in which he is pictured playing with orang-utans and swimming in waterfalls. Fogle wrote about his trip to Sarawak, which is part of Malaysia, in his “Ben Fogle, The Adventurer” column for the Daily Telegraph and in a large article in Hello!
Cyprus unveils radical capital control measures
Move geared towards stemming capital flight ahead of troubled banks reopening
Cyprus yesterday unveiled radical capital-control measures ahead of banks re-opening today, the first time a euro zone country has restricted movement of the single currency.
Under the rules, which are designed to curb the exit of deposits out of the country when banks re-open this morning, the use of credit and debit cards overseas will be restricted to €5,000 per month, while individuals will be permitted to take a maximum of €3,000 in cash out of the country.
The new rules will also severely affect businesses. Companies who buy products from abroad will have to provide official written documentation to access the cash needed.
ARMS EXPORTS
UN seeks Arms Trade Treaty in tough talks
Delegates have one day to seal a treaty somewhat controlling the global arms trade. Most UN members want a deal but differ on the particulars. Even if a treaty is signed, it's likely to lack firepower.
UN members were presented on Wednesday with a final draft on a proposed Arms Trade Treaty, an attempt to instill some level of control into a largely unregulated industry. After nine days of touchy talks, the president of the negotiating conference, Australian diplomat Peter Woolcott, laid down his final attempt at compromise.
"I will not consider any further amendments. It is take it or leave," Woolcott told the conference at the UN's New York headquarters.
A coal-mining venture in western Zimbabwe, allowed by a special presidential grant, could cause trouble with the country's neighbours.
Zimbabwe faces a possible row with neighbours Botswana and Mozambique after it emerged that planned mining activities in the Matabeleland North region could disturb wildlife and contaminate the Zambezi River, according to a conservation group.
Zimbabwe, through a special presidential grant, has allowed China Africa Sunlight Energy to mine coal in the Gwayi valley.
But a conservation group is up in arms, saying the project may damage relations with regional partners, degrade the environment and affect the tourism sector adversely.
China denies damaging Vietnamese boat
March 28, 2013 - 2:29PM
William Wan
Beijing: After a week of acrimonious accusations between China and Vietnam, the Chinese military has admitted that one of its ships fired at a Vietnamese fishing boat, although it insisted that only flares were shot and that Vietnam's claims of fire damage to the fishing boat were a "sheer fabrication".
The altercation and angry rhetoric is just the latest in a string of maritime clashes over territory between China and many of its neighbours. But at their worst, such run-ins have consisted of boats ramming each other, the use of water cannons and the arrests of fishermen, and they have rarely escalated to the firing of shots. The clash and the prolonged trading of barbs for days afterward point to a worsening rift between the communist countries.
Communist state also announces it is cutting all direct military contact with South Korea.
Last Modified: 27 Mar 2013 08:12
North Korea has again threatened war against South Korea and the United States, saying conditions "for a simmering nuclear war" have been created on the peninsula.
The communist state's foreign ministry said it will inform the UN Security Council of the latest situation, as tensions continue to simmer on Wednesday.
"Upon authorisation of the Foreign Ministry, the DPRK openly informs the UN Security Council that the Korean Peninsula now has the conditions for a simmering nuclear war," the statement said. "This is because of provocation moves by the US and South Korean puppets".
As this developed, the North announced it was cutting a military hotline with the South, meaning that all direct inter-government and military contact has been suspended after it previously cut a Red Cross link.
"From now, the North-South military communications will be cut off," the North Korean state news agency quoted a military official as saying.
South Sudan's Red Army comes of age
In a landmark transition from warfare to welfare, former child soldiers in the Red Army are establishing a foundation aimed at addressing social problems in South Sudan
In the early 1980s, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) recruited and began training boys as young as 12 to fight in its battle for independence from Sudan. The child soldiers were called the Red Army. According to a 1994 Human Rights Watch report (pdf), some of the children fought alongside the SPLA.
"In the first few years, the Red Army fought and was always massacred," one military officer told the human rights organisation. Participants say that, at its height, the Red Army numbered in the tens of thousands.
Adam Jaafer Manoah did not need to be recruited. When he was 13, he trekked for nine months from his home in Yirol, in what is now centralSouth Sudan, to a military training camp in neighbouring Ethiopia.
Cypriots panic as rumours swirl of more bank closures after €10bn bailout
Anger at a deal aimed at saving Cyprus from bankruptcy spilled into the streets today with thousands of students and finance workers demanding answers after the government said banks would remain shut for two more days and details of strict capital control measures emerged.
The central bank governor, Panicos Demetriades, stressed that “superhuman” efforts were being made to open Cypriot banks on Thursday as he sought to quell fears that the nation’s largest lender, the Bank of Cyprus, was about to be shut down. Today its chairman offered to quit and hundreds of its employees marched to the central bank building to protest against potential job losses. The chairman’s offer was later rejected by the bank’s board.
Spy in Cell 15: The Real Story Behind Israel's 'Prisoner X'
Mossad agent Ben Zygier was found hanged in his cell and his case made headlines around the world. New information shows that Zygier, once a passionate Zionist, had become a turncoat who delivered sensitive information to Hezbollah. By SPIEGEL Staff
The guards found the Mossad agent at 8:19 p.m., his lifeless body hanging from a moist sheet. The sheet was tied to the window above the toilet in his prison cell.
The cell in which Ben Zygier died was divided into two sections, one containing a bed, a seating area and a kitchenette, and a separate shower room with a toilet. There were three cameras monitoring the prisoner, but none of the security officers noticed that there had been no signs of life from Zygier in more than an hour. When the guards found him in the shower room, his body had already begun cooling. It was an undignified death for a Zionist who had set out to defend Israel's future. "Our job was to isolate him, not to keep him alive," one of the guards later said.
'Brutal' violence erupts in Myanmar
March 27, 2013 - 7:49AM
Muslim homes have been targeted with "brutal efficiency" in deadly new unrest in Myanmar, a UN envoy who has just been to the troubled country says.
Envoy Vijay Nambiar said "incendiary propaganda" had been used to stir unrest between Buddhist and Muslim communities which has erupted again in recent days.
Mr Nambiar has just been on a visit to Myanmar during which he met President Thein Sein and was taken to Meiktila, where mosques were burned and charred bodies left in the streets in violence that started last Wednesday.
Can Mexico's vigilante militias trade ski masks for police badges?
Guerrero state Gov. Aguirre announced he would submit a bill to the local legislature to create a legal framework for the militias.
Some townspeople in southern Mexico who have taken up arms in the name of self-defense may be given a chance to trade in their masks for official uniforms.
Bucking the federal government’s statements decrying impromptu militias, the governor of Guerrero has proposed legitimizing the armed groups in the tradition of the state’s autonomous community police forces. It’s a controversial proposal that could create friction as authorities wrestle with the emergence of armed groups whose origins are not always clear. The move could influence how officials respond to similar movements in neighboring states.
Organized crime and drug trafficking have hit far-flung rural towns especially hard, where official security forces are often weak, ineffectual, or co-opted by criminals.
