8 August 2013 Last updated at 08:43 GMT
Shinzo Abe promises 'firm measures' after nuclear plant operator Tepco admits radioactive water is escaping
The construction of a huge mine in the middle of the Gobi Desert was supposed to catapult Mongolia toward rapid economic growth. But an ongoing conflict over profits from the gold and copper mined there threatens to capsize the young democracy.
British-Australian mining corporation Rio Tinto employs 71,000 people in more than 40 countries and is worth about $60 billion.
Generals in civilian clothes are finally coming to the party.
Nicaragua’s political opposition on Tuesday filed a Supreme Court challenge to the Sandinista government’s hastily approved canal law, arguing that the generous concession granted to an unknown Chinese firm violates 15 articles of the constitution, including national sovereignty.
The opposition claims the concession – which will convert a giant swath of the country into a privatized canal zone, owned and operated for 50 years by Chinese businessman Wang Jing – violates constitutional guarantees to private property, natural resources, and indigenous lands. Liberal Party congressman Luis Callejas says his party fears the canal will carve up Nicaragua and “leave our national sovereignty in pieces.”
First international flights after Nairobi airport fire
Some international flights have landed at Nairobi's international airport a day after fire gutted the arrivals hall, causing serious disruption.
A plane from London was the first to land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 06:30 local time (03:30 GMT), Kenyan airport authorities said.
Other planes from Bangkok and Kilimanjaro also arrived.
The cause of the fire is not yet known. Kenyan authorities say no serious injuries were reported.
The Nairobi airport is a regional hub serving more than 16,000 passengers daily and its closure caused widespread disruption.
International flights into the city had been diverted to other airports in Eldoret and the coastal city of Mombasa.
Fukushima leaks: Japan PM steps in
Shinzo Abe promises 'firm measures' after nuclear plant operator Tepco admits radioactive water is escaping
Japan's prime minister has promised "firm measures" to combat leaks of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant after its operator, Tepco, was criticised for a lack of action.
"There is heightened concern among the public, particularly about the contaminated water problem," Shinzo Abe said during a government nuclear disaster response meeting at his office. "This is an urgent matter that needs to be addressed. The government will step in to take firm measures." Such measures might include funding a costly containment project.
Saga of German publisher stranger than fiction
Publisher of Joyce and Beckett, loved for its iconic spines, is fighting for its life
Derek Scally
For generations of Germans the rainbow of Suhrkamp paperback spines were as evocative as the orange Penguin for English readers. But yesterday the colour drained away when a Berlin court opened insolvency proceedings against the German publisher of Joyce and Beckett.
The court case is the latest twist in a complicated corporate saga that is stranger than most of the fiction Suhrkamp has published in its six-decade history.
Established by Peter Suhrkamp in 1950, the company was soon home for Germany’s literary leading lights: Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht and Hermann Hesse. After Suhrkamp’s death in 1952 co-publisher Siegfried Unseld built up the company’s stable of pedigree German authors and satisfied readers’ appetite for foreign authors in translation from Proust, Pound, Sartre and Lorca.
Mining the Gobi: The Battle for Mongolia's Resources
The construction of a huge mine in the middle of the Gobi Desert was supposed to catapult Mongolia toward rapid economic growth. But an ongoing conflict over profits from the gold and copper mined there threatens to capsize the young democracy.
Mongolia is over four times the size of Germany, with nearly 3 million inhabitants and a GDP of $10 billion (€7.5 billion) in 2012.
These two unequal partners -- a poor, potentially rich nation and the second largest mining corporation in the world -- have joined together to mine one of the globe's largest deposits of copper and gold. But will they be capable of distributing this wealth fairly?
A democracy still waiting to flower
August 8, 2013Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
Generals in civilian clothes are finally coming to the party.
After 26 years of bizarre rule by xenophobic generals and their numerologists and soothsayers, Aung Zaw believed Burma's oppression had finally come to an end as 3 million people poured onto the streets of Rangoon, one of the largest demonstrations in recorded history.
''As a student at that time, I can clearly remember the exhilaration of knowing that the entire nation was behind us, that we could not possibly lose,'' he says. ''But we were wrong.''
The ageing and superstitious dictator Ne Win ordered troops to shoot to kill on a supposedly auspicious day, August 8, 1988, prompting a wave of repression, torture, jailing and killings that rivalled China's Tiananmen Square crackdown the following year.
Nicaragua's canal controversy builds
The proposal was agreed to in record time. Now Nicaragua's opposition is saying 'wait just a minute.'
Nicaragua’s political opposition on Tuesday filed a Supreme Court challenge to the Sandinista government’s hastily approved canal law, arguing that the generous concession granted to an unknown Chinese firm violates 15 articles of the constitution, including national sovereignty.The opposition claims the concession – which will convert a giant swath of the country into a privatized canal zone, owned and operated for 50 years by Chinese businessman Wang Jing – violates constitutional guarantees to private property, natural resources, and indigenous lands. Liberal Party congressman Luis Callejas says his party fears the canal will carve up Nicaragua and “leave our national sovereignty in pieces.”
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