Brazil to ask Russia for permission to question Edward Snowden
By ,
BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s Federal Police and a Senate investigative panel said Tuesday they want to question National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden to learn more about the spying program that targeted Latin America’s biggest country.
According to information leaked by Snowden, President Dilma Rousseff’s communications with aides were intercepted, the computer network of state-run oil company Petrobras was hacked and data on billions of emails and telephone calls flowing through Brazil were monitored by the NSA.
“For our investigation, questioning Snowden is a top priority,” said Jose Alberto Freitas, the head of the intelligence sector of Brazil’s Federal Police, before a Senate committee investigating the NSA spy program. “He could provide technical details that will help our investigation advance.”Dutch to refund bills sent to Jews while they were in WWII concentration camps
Families of those deported to camps will get back rent charged in absence
Peter Cluskey
The families of Jewish Amsterdammers who were charged ground rent for their homes and business premises during the years they spent in concentration camps or in hiding during the second World War are to have the money they paid refunded by the city, with interest.
Sixty-eight years after the end of the war, the decision is another indication that theNetherlands has not yet come to terms with the fact that it arguably failed to protect its Jewish population, which fell from 139,717 – the majority of them in Amsterdam – in 1941 to just 35,000 in 1945.
Westerbork transit camp
Most of those Jews were sent to Westerbork transit camp – many Jews still insist on referring to it as the Netherlands’ own “concentration camp” – in the northeast of the country, before being sent by rail to Auschwitz and other concentration camps in Germany.
Laboratory of Violence: Egypt Struggles for Control of Sinai
The Sinai Peninsula is both a vacation paradise and a haven for jihadists and gangs of thugs. The military and the police are trying to regain control over the region. But a new class of haughty warlords and a resentful public mean the state's chances are remote.
On the day of his departure, warehouse manager Hussein Gilbana packed his five best shirts and pairs of pants into a black suitcase, together with books and photos. He embraced his wife and kissed his five-year-old son, Omar, and his little boy, Assar.
Angola hints at Portugal trade cuts amid corruption spat
Angola has suggested that trade between it and its former coloniser could be at risk after it emerged that Portugal was investigating its officials.
Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos on Tuesday hinted that tensions with Portugal endangered preferential trade ties between the two countries.
"With Portugal, unfortunately things are not going well," said Dos Santos in a State of the Nation address delivered in Parliament.
"There have been misunderstandings at the highest level of the state and the current political climate does not encourage the implementation of the previously announced strategic partnerships," said Dos Santos.
Portugal and its former colony in south-west Africa were mulling their first bilateral summit next year after announcing plans to bolster trade relations.
But sentiments soured between the two in the uproar that followed Portugal's Foreign Minister Rui Machete's September interview with Angolan radio in which he apologised for his country's probe into Angolan government officials.
Chile mine rescue: 3 years later, Piñera tries to recapture the political magic
Chilean President Piñera returned to the mine where 33 trapped men were dramatically rescued in 2010. He may be trying to capitalize on that moment as next month's elections draw near.
President Sebastian Piñera returned to the shuttered San José mine to remember the spectacular rescue of 33 trapped workers that marked the high point of his presidency. On the third anniversary of the rescue, he opened a museum on the site and said the rescue changed the meaning of “the Chilean way.”
“Before, the Chilean way meant something half-baked and improvised. It transformed into doing something with faith, unity, and hope,” President Piñera told a crowd of 300 on Sunday, including 13 of the miners who spent 70 days a half-mile below the surface.
With just months left in his term, Piñera sought to recapture some of the magic of 2010, when government-backed teams saved the miners and demonstrated Chile’s toughness, dedication, and technical competence.
With presidential elections just a month off, Piñera is consolidating his own legacy and that of his conservative ideals in a country that has long distrusted the political right.
Southeast Asia
Oct 16, '13
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MYANMAR'S BLACK HOLE
Evolution of a mafia state in Myanmar
By Maung Zarni
This is the first article in a three-part series.
Despite being in power for over half a century, Myanmar's military, both its despotic leadership and institutional instruments, namely the Tatmadaw, or armed forces, remains an enigma. It is the black hole of understanding in the literature, research and reporting produced about a country that suddenly finds itself in the limelight after decades of international isolation.
The world is well-acquainted with opposition leader and pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi - her political beliefs, her inspiring personal tale, and her pedigree as the daughter of
Myanmar's independence hero, General Aung San. Even her aesthetic tastes are well-publicized, as are the abuses and acts of persecution she has endured at the hands of the military.
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