Wednesday, February 10, 2016

SIx In The Morning Wednesday February 10


Netanyahu plans fence around Israel to protect it from 'wild beasts'

Israeli PM says proposed barrier would also solve problem of Hamas tunnels from Gaza, but plan already has critics in his own cabinet

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has announced his intention to “surround all of Israel with a fence” to protect the country from infiltration by both Palestinians and the citizens of surrounding Arab states, whom he described as “wild beasts”.
Netanyahu unveiled the proposal during a tour of the Jordan border area in Israel’s south, adding that the project – which would cost billions of shekels – would also be aimed at solving the problem of Hamas infiltration tunnels from Gaza, a recent source of renewed concern.
Netanyahu called the border project a part of a “multi-year plan to surround Israel with security fences to protect ourselves in the current and projected Middle East”.





'Let them stay': backlash in Australia over plans to send asylum seekers to island detention camps


Government wins court challenge to its offshore policy, but protests mount at move to send 267 people – including 37 babies – to Pacific island of Nauru



Australia’s famously hardline refugee policies – in particular its practice of sending asylum seekers to remote foreign islands for processing and resettlement – are facing unprecedented pressure from widespread public protests and fracturing political support.

Thirty-seven babies born in Australia to asylum-seeker parents will be sent with their families to the Pacific island of Nauru as “illegal maritime arrivals”, the government has said, resolutely defending the offshore processing policy that it insists saves lives at sea.
The long-running debate has been brought to renewed prominence by a ruling in the high courtthat upheld the government’s constitutional right to build, fund and run offshore detention centres in foreign countries.

Ezubo scam: Popular online peer-to-peer lender leaves 900,000 Chinese investors £5.2m out of pocket

The company, which appeared to be endorsed by the state, has been revealed as a Ponzi scheme being billed as China’s largest-ever online scam. Emily Rauhala reports from Beijing on who is to blame

Emily Rauhala Beijing

Kang Weiwei considers herself cautious. When China’s stock market took off, she stood on the sidelines and steered clear of financial products that she couldn’t really understand.
But the 32-year-old Beijinger needed somewhere to park the £52,000 that her family received from selling a flat under a government relocation programme. What, she wondered, could beat inflation but still keep their money safe?
The answer came just before the main evening news. An advertisement on Chinese state television, CCTV, touted a peer-to-peer lending company, Ezubo, which said it matched borrowers and lenders online, potentially making credit available to more people and businesses.



S.African scrutiny over Zuma's ties to Indian family

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) 
Political scandals, huge economic deals and even extravagant wedding party controversies -- an immigrant family that is one of South Africa's wealthiest is accused by critics of wielding immense power behind the scenes.
The Guptas, an Indian family that moved to the country in the 1990s, are alleged to exert a magnetic pull over President Jacob Zuma, and their influence has increasingly become the target of government's fiercest critics.
To outsiders they may seem an industrious immigrant family that has made it big in their adopted country, but now their reputation is a key battleground in opposition efforts to oust Zuma from power.
The family has built a string of South African companies controlled by brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh with interests in computers, mining, media and engineering.


Syria vows to recapture Aleppo from rebels, risking 300,000 lives

Tom Perry and Laila Bassam


Damascus: A top adviser to President Bashar al-Assad says Syria won't stop Aleppo offensive until it secures the border with Turkey, potentially cutting off 300,000 people from humanitarian aid.
Bouthaina Shaaban, a top adviser to Mr Assad said on Tuesday the regime hoped "the operation will continue in the north until we control the borders and stop the terrorists who Turkey has since the start of the crisis worked to send to Syria".
In an interview in her Damascus office, Ms Shaaban held out little hope for diplomatic efforts to end the five-year civil war.

She did not expect success for peace talks, saying the problem remained one of foreign support for militants in Syria and if there had been "a real international desire" to end the problem, the crisis would been resolved years ago.


No 'bullying' in the South China Sea, US warns

President Obama to deliver tough message during ASEAN summit that territorial disputes must be resolved peacefully.


 | South China SeaBarack ObamaChinaUS

US President Barack Obama will deliver a tough message to China during a summit with Southeast Asian countries that disputes in the South China Sea must be resolved peacefully and not with a big nation "bullying" smaller neighbours.
Obama hosts the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in California on Monday and Tuesday.
Though China will not be represented, Obama's aides made clear that Beijing's actions in the South China Sea - where it has proceeded with island building that US officials suspect could be turned to military use - will be one of the focal points of the summit.
"The president will call on all claimants to halt land reclamation, construction of new facilities and to carry out no militarisation of outposts in the South China Sea," Dan Kritenbrink, Obama's top Asia adviser, told reporters.



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