Source : Vesti Kavkaza
Mitsubishi (Japan) has won the tender to build a nuclear power plant for Turkey in the Sinopa District. Canada, China and South Korea were its competitors in the tender, Trend reports.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Turkey this week to sign the construction contract. Mitsubishi will build the facility in consortium with France for $20-22 billion.
Construction is planned to start in 2017 and be completed in 2023.
Source : LBCI News
A bomb blast near the office of an election independent candidate killed on Sunday at least five people and injuring dozens in Kohat, police sources reported, adding that the injured people were immediately taken to nearby hospitals.
The blast went out near the office of Syed Noor Akbar, a National Assembly’s candidate from Orakzai tribal region, resulting in several material damages. The office is located in Kohat district at the outskirts of the tribal area
Source : RIA Novosti
MOSCOW, April 27 (RIA Novosti) - Four members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) were killed on Saturday when a plane went down in southern Afghanistan, NATO said.
The Associated Press reported NATO as saying there was no enemy activity in the area at the time, but coalition personnel had secured the site and the cause of the crash was being investigated
The NATO statement did not identify the nationalities of the victims, or say where the plane went down.
However, Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, deputy governor of the southern province of Zabul, said an aircraft belonging to foreign forces crashed Saturday afternoon in Shah Joy district. He said the site had been surrounded by international forces, AP reported
Source : SouthWeb Org
The British embassy has stopped work in Libya until further notice, following the bombing of the French embassy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli earlier on Tuesday.
The mission will stay closed for the coming days, Xinhua quoted an embassy staff requesting anonymity as saying.
The bomb tore through the exterior wall of the embassy and ruined part of the building leaving at least two people injured and wrecking two vehicles parked nearby.
Other foreign embassies in Tripoli are reportedly working but the British have good reasons to think that the blast could next target them.
The French and the British forces spearheaded the US-backed military intervention in Libya that toppled former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Last year, the US consulate in Benghazi in eastern Libya was attacked, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and two of his guards.
AMR/HE
Source : Vesti Kavkaza
Major-General Askar Buldeshev, Deputy Commander of the Kazakh Air Forces, has been detained yesterday, suspected of fraud in repairing military aircraft, RIA Novosti cites Commander of the Air Forces Alexander Sorokin.
Major-General Almaz Asenov, was detained in late January for receiving a bribe of $200,000. Two officials of Ukrspetsexport (Ukraine) were detained for corruption.
Investigators say that the bribe was handed for contracts on repairing An-72 planes, signed by the Kazakh military and Ukrainian partners. Investigations started in December after a crash of an An-27 in Chimkent. 27 people died in the accident, including Col. T. Stambekov, head of the Border Guards Service, and his assistants.
Source : RIA Novosti
MOSCOW, April 21 (RIA Novosti) – An Iranian US-made fighter jet F-5 has crashed in western Iran, killing two pilots, Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.
The fighter jet crashed into Mount Filman near the town of Abdanan, some 450 km (280 miles) southwest of the capital Tehran. The bodies of both pilots were found at the crash site, Mehr said, citing regional governor Morad Nasseri.
Investigators are currently working at the crash site, the governor said.
The jet fighter belonged to the Dezful airbase in the Khuzestan province.
Iran’s Air Force employs US-made combat aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and also Russia-made Sukhoi and MIG aircraft.
Source : Shanghai Daily
CHINESE authorities have deployed more than 6,000 military and armed police soldiers and several aircraft to the area hit by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan Province to help with rescue and relief efforts.
About 2,000 soldiers from Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) were rushing to the epicenter, while two helicopters were tasked with finding out more about the situation on the ground.
Another rescue team with about 220 soldiers from a PLA Air Force unit in Sichuan have also been dispatched to the quake-hit area.
About 800 soldiers with 120 professional rescue vehicles have arrived in the quake-hit area, and a unit of 50 soldiers with six excavating vehicles has arrived in Lushan county, epicenter of the quake.
According to local government, another unit of about 50 military reserve members has arrived at Longmen town, a mountainous region in Lushan county seriously jolted by the quake.
China's People's Armed Police Force (PAPF) has dispatched 3,900 officers and soldiers from its contingent stationed in Sichuan Province, and so far 2,600 of them have arrived at six towns in the quake-hit area to carry out rescue and relief work.
The Air Force Commander General Ma Xiaotian, who was overseeing the Air Force's units in the southwest, suspended his official trip and has set up an Air Force headquarter for quake relief in Sichuan's Qionglai county.
The Air Force Command also scrambled two reconnaissance aircraft from Beijing at 10:08 a.m. and 11:42 a.m. Saturday to take aerial photographs over the quake-hit area in Sichuan.
A transport aircraft was scrambled to Kunming of southwest Yunnan Province from where it will take a national rescue and relief team and transport it to the quake-hit area.
The Chengdu MAC has already set up a quake relief and rescue headquarters and the MAC's air force troops are ready to dispatch quake-relief teams to the epicenter.
The MAC has also set up medical aid, transport and engineering teams to assist in the quake-hit region.
Source : StratRisks
BEIJING: A day after asking Japan to stop encroaching its territory, Chinese military on Wednesday for the first time deployed its naval ships to patrol the islands disputed with Tokyo in the East China Sea.
This is the first time in recent months China deployed its naval vessels for patrols in the islands waters replacing the marine surveillance vessels, even though some naval ships were seen in the waters earlier.
A two-vessel fleet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy patrolled the territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu islands this morning, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China calls the islands Diaoyu while Japan refers to them Senkakus, which were administered by Tokyo till last September after which China started challenging the Japanese hold on the islets.
Significantly they also conducted open-sea offencive and defencive training as well as exercises of intercepting and searching illegal vessels in the western Pacific Ocean on Sunday and Monday, it said.
Missile destroyer Lanzhou and missile frigate Hengshui, both from the Navy’s Nanhai Fleet, entered the sea area via the Miyako Strait on Tuesday night, the report said.
Today’s patrol by the Nanhai fleet ships came after vessels from the PLA Navy’s Beihai Fleet and Donghai Fleet had previously patrolled the Diaoyu Islands waters.
Yesterday Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun asked Japan to stop encroaching the country’s territory asserting it has the capability and determination to safeguard them.
“What is important now is for Japan to stop activities that undermine China’s territorial sovereignty and take actions to ensure the issue resolved,” he said while release a white paper on the Chinese military.
The paper named Japan as “trouble maker” while accusing US of making situation “tenser” by forging alliances in Asia.
Source : RIA Novosti
MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - Seven people were killed and 61 injured in protests that sparked up across Venezuela following the presidential election over the weekend, FoxNews.com reported citing the country’s chief prosecutor.
Prosecutor Luisa Ortega did not give the details on the causes of deaths, but said that the killed belonged to the working class.
Nicolas Maduro, the handpicked successor of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was declared winner of Sunday’s elections early on Tuesday Moscow time.
According to the Associated Press, Maduro accused the United States of financing and organizing protests in Venezuela following the election.
According to the latest official information, Maduro won by a tiny margin, gaining over 50 percent of the vote, while his election rival Henrique Capriles received almost 49 percent.
Capriles refused to accept the results, saying the polls were plagued by numerous voting irregularities, and called for his supporters to rally in peaceful protest.
Source : The Voice of Russia
Russia and the United States are poised to revive their off-and-on missile dialogue, Defense Ministry’s Anatoly Antonov has told Itar-tass news agency.
Russia, US, European Security, missile defense, missile shield
US, Russian deputy defense ministers to talk ABM in Brussels
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Antonov said he was going to meet with his American counterpart in Brussels on April 30 to discuss upcoming changes in US missile shield plans, including Washington’s initiative to scrap the fourth phase of European deployment.
Voice of Russia, TASS
Source : thenews.com.pk
PARIS: One of France's most dangerous gangsters, known for brazen attacks on cash-in-transit vehicles, on Saturday blasted his way out of jail after briefly taking several wardens hostage, officials said.
Redoine Faid, who risked a heavy sentence over the 2010 death of a policewoman,used explosives to blast through five prison doors and break free in the northern town of Sequedin.
Police and helicopters were trying to track the 40-year-old, who set fire to his getaway car in the south of the city of Lille before getting into a second vehicle.
State Prosecutor Frederic Fevre said Faid, who had already been France's most wanted a few years ago, was a "particularly dangerous prisoner" and was still armed and in possession of explosives.
France's Justice Minister Christiane Taubira said Interpol had been called in to help track Faid and added that a Europe-wide warrant had been issued.
"The hunt will initially focus on Belgium of course because we share a border but also extend to the entire Schengen area and beyond," she told reporters from Sequedin.
Fevre said Faid had four hostages with him during the jailbreak. One was released just outside the prison, another a few hundred metres away and then the final two were left along a highway.
Wardens unions described the prison break as "an act of war" and also argued that the Sequedin jail was inadequate for such dangerous convicts.
"This escape and hostage-taking were methodically prepared," the CGT union said, complaining that searches on detainees were not thorough enough.
A woman who was visiting her imprisoned son described the chaos caused by Faid's spectacular escape.
"I thought my last hour had come. Suddenly, everything started blowing up. The walls started shaking, as did the windows and the doors. I was really scared," Rose Lafont said.
Prison union leader Etienne Dobremetz said Faid had received a visit from his wife earlier on Saturday morning.
Contacted by AFP, her lawyer vehemently denied any suspicion of involvement in her husband's escape.
"It happened very quickly, it was clearly very well organised, we are still busy putting the facts together," a local administrative official said.
Faid is also known for co-authoring two books after a decade in prison for robbery, about his delinquent youth and rise as a criminal in Paris' impoverished crime- ridden suburbs.
He said his life of crime was inspired by American films such as "Scarface" and "Heat" -- where Robert De Niro's armoured car heist has been cited as the model for real life attacks in South Africa, Colombia and other countries.
"Movies for me were like a user's guide for armed robbery," he told the LCI news channel when his autobiography was released in 2010 relating his rise from petty thieving in his native northern Paris suburb to gangster stardom.
After his first robbery, Faid, of Algerian extraction, fled to Israel where he wore the Jewish skullcap and picked up Hebrew to blend in.
Despite vowing he had turned his back on crime Faid was in 2010 suspected of being the mastermind of an armed robbery in which a young policewoman was killed in a shootout.
Faid, nicknamed "The writer", landed back in prison in 2011 for failing to comply with his parole conditions and was due to serve the remaining eight years of his original sentence.
He faced 30 more years over the policewoman's death however.
"I wasn't surprised when I heard about his escape although there were no signs that anything was in the works," his lawyer Jean-Louis Pelletier told AFP.
He described his client as an extremely intelligent and well connected person. ( Recommend Be the first of your friends to recommend this.
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Source : Shanghai Daily
THE US Treasury Department announced yesterday that the fifth round of the US- China Strategic and Economic Dialogue will be held in Washington, DC during the week of July 8-12.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Secretary of State John Kerry will join the dialogue with respective Chinese co- chairs and members of the Chinese delegation, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
Source : POLITICO.com
Violence broke out at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center for terrorism suspects early Saturday, after the commander there ordered prisoners moved from communal living areas into single-person cells, a military statement said.
"Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired," Joint Task Force Guantanamo announced Saturday afternoon. "There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees."
The statement said the Guantanamo commander ordered the change to single-prisoner cells in response to detainees covering windows and surveillance cameras, preventing continuous surveillance of the communal-living area known as Camp 6.
The unrest comes as at least several dozen detainees have embarked on a hunger strike to protest their treatment and the dim prospects for release. Some of the prisoners are being force fed to maintain their health.
Previously, a prisoner told his lawyer that the hunger strike that began Feb. 6 had grown to involve 130 men. A prison spokesman said at that time the strike involved 39 prisoners
Source : Tehran Times
TEHRAN – An Iranian Foreign Ministry official has described the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syria’s foreign- sponsored militants a “great concern for the international community” and called on the United Nations to send a team to Syria to investigate the matter.
Mohammad-Mehdi Akhondzadeh, the Iranian deputy foreign minister, made the remarks during a meeting with the chairman of the third Review Conference of the States Parties of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in The Hague on Monday.
The Syrian government had accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons against civilians in the village of Khan al-Assal in the northern province of Aleppo on March 19. Syrian media outlets reported that at least 25 people were killed and over 100 injured in the attack.
On April 8, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking in The Hague, said that an advance team was in Cyprus, ready to go to Syria within 24 hours to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons there.
However, on Monday the Syrian government rejected the UN inspection mission, saying, “Syria cannot accept such maneuvers on the part of the UN secretariat general, bearing in mind the negative role that it played in Iraq… which cleared the way to the American invasion” of that country in 2003.
It said the UN wants “additional investigations which might allow the UN mission to spread all over the Syrian territories, and this contradicts the Syrian request from the UN and indicates to the presence of hidden intentions at the states which have sought to add those investigations as this constitutes a violation of the Syrian sovereignty”.
The Syrian government “regretted” that the UN chief had “given in to pressure from states known for their support of the bloodshed” in Syria.
Deadline missed on destroying chemical weapons
Akhondzadeh also expressed regret over the fact that many countries that possess chemical weapons have not met the deadline, designated in the Chemical Weapons Convention, to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles.
Elsewhere in his remarks, he emphasized the necessity of implementing a mechanism in regard to those countries that create obstacles in the way of transferring chemical technology meant for peaceful purposes.
MT/GJ
Source : Fars News
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted its foreign travel ban on the Italian ambassador following Rome's recent decision to send two marines back to New Delhi where they face trial over the killing of two fishermen last year, a lawyer said.
The court barred Italian Ambassador Daniele Mancini from leaving India last month because of Rome's refusal at the time to return the two marines, who had been allowed to go home temporarily to vote in national elections, CNN reported.
Diljeet Titus, a lawyer representing the Italian side, said the Supreme Court had lifted its travel restrictions on Mancini after the two sailors -- Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone -- subsequently arrived back in India.
Rome's initial decision not to return the marines angered Indian government officials and Supreme Court justices, who noted that the Italian ambassador had given assurances to the court that they would come back to India after the elections.
The two sides appeared locked in an impasse, with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying Italy's actions were "not acceptable" and warning of "consequences" for the two countries' relations.
But Rome backed down, announcing on March 21 that it would send Latorre and Girone back after receiving written assurances from the Indian government that the two men's "fundamental rights" would be protected.
The two sailors agreed to the decision, it said. But the move created some dissent in the ranks of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti's government: Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi resigned March 26 over the matter.
Italy has argued that the February 2012 shooting involving its marines happened in international waters and was therefore outside of Indian jurisdiction. Latorre and Girone say they mistook the Indian fishermen for pirates.
On Tuesday, the Indian Supreme court scheduled a hearing for April 16 to seek the Indian government's response on plans to set up a special court for trying the two Italian men, Titus said.