Archive for category World News
North Korea officially names Kim Jong Eun supreme commander of its 1.2 million-strong military
Posted by admin in World News on December 31st, 2011
Dec. 31, 2011 1:28 AM
Associated Press
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea announced Saturday that Kim Jong Eun has been officially named supreme commander of the military, further strengthening his authority after the death of his father, longtime North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Officials and state media have bestowed on Kim Jong Eun, who is in his late 20s, a string of titles as North Korea’s elite rally around him in the wake of his father’s death this month after 17 years in power.
But the title Supreme Commander — and its formal proclamation by the powerful Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party — is a clear sign that Kim Jong Eun is fast consolidating power over North Korea. It’s also the latest step in a burgeoning personality cult around him.
Kim Jong Eun’s age and inexperience have raised questions outside North Korea about his leadership of a nation engaged in delicate negotiations over its nuclear program and grappling with decades of economic hardship and chronic food shortages.
But the North has moved quickly to show the world a unified face.
Kim Jong Eun should be “the only center of unity, cohesion and leadership” of the Workers’ Party, North Korea’s state media said, and the 1.2 million-strong military should uphold the “songun,” or military-first, politics laid down by Kim Jong Il.
The party said the country should unite around Kim Jong Eun and strengthen “the monolithic leadership system of the dear respected Comrade Kim Jong Eun throughout the party and society.”
An unannounced Workers’ Party meeting Friday proclaimed that the younger Kim “assumed supreme commandership of the Korean People’s Army” according to a will made by Kim Jong Il on Oct. 8, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement early Saturday morning.
The meeting of the North’s ruling party came one day after the official mourning period for Kim Jong Il ended and senior military and political officials publicly declared Kim Jong Eun leader of the party, military and people at a massive memorial for his father.
Titles are an important part of North Korea’s efforts to link Kim Jong Eun to the myth-building surrounding the Kim family legacy.
Kim Il Sung, the country’s first and only president, retains the title Eternal President even after his death.
Kim Jong Il held three main positions: chairman of the National Defense Commission, general secretary of the Workers’ Party and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army. According to the constitution, his position as chairman of the National Defense Commission made him Supreme Leader of North Korea.
Kim Jong Eun was made a four-star general last year and appointed a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party. Since his father’s death, he has picked up major titles from officials and state media: Great Successor, Supreme Leader and Great Leader. And now he has officially been named Supreme Commander.
Analysts said the moves show the power transition has been smooth and faster than anticipated.
“The proclamation is something that has been expected, but it is notable that it happened so quickly,” said Kim Yeon-su, a North Korea expert at Korea National Defense University. He said North Korea was showing the world that its system was stable and “the elite remain united.”
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Osama Bin Laden: Dead!
Posted by admin in World News on May 1st, 2011
May. 1, 2011
The Hollywood Gossip – By Free Britney
Osama bin Laden is dead. This is not a hoax. The world’s most notorious terrorist has been killed by U.S. military forces, according to breaking news reports.
The mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the leader of Al Qaeda was reportedly shot in the head in Afghanistan and his body is in U.S. hands.
Bin Laden is believed to have been taken down by U.S. assets in a mansion outside Islamabad, Pakistan, along with other members of his family, officials say.
Already a notorious fugitive before the 9/11 attacks that killed over 3,000 people, capturing Osama had been a key national security priority for a decade.
Few additional details have been confirmed about bin Laden’s death at this time, but President Barack Obama will address the nation shortly to provide them.
The administration is still gathering intelligence and will be briefing congressional officials in advance of the President’s address to America tonight.
Obama will deliver the news to the nation in an address from the White House, almost 10 years after the catastrophic attacks bin Laden orchestrated.
Story developing …
What Basel means for banks
Posted by admin in Financial Market, World News on September 14th, 2010
By Harry Wilson – Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 5:52AM BST 14 Sep 2010
Basel III is just a beginning is going to require a lot more work before it becomes a meaningful worldwide standard for banks.
Twenty-two years after the first set of global capital rules for banks were set, very few people seem to have any idea why they were fixed where they were.
Stories vary, but in the end it is hard to avoid the impression that the rules now known as Basel I, despite six years of preparation, were the result of anything more than some very illustrious hands plucking figures from the air.
Step forward to 2010, and this weekend, again in the Swiss city of Basel, a small group of the world’s most important central bankers and regulators sat down to agree the first changes to the capital ratios for banks since Basel I 1988.
Sunday’s announcement of the Basel III capital ratios for the banking industry caused few surprises, with leaks on what would be agreed appearing daily in the week leading up to the meeting.
Despite the ratcheting up of core Tier 1 ratios from 2pc to 7pc, the large increase was met with a sense of relief by the markets.
That a more than trebling in the level of the main loss buffers of banks could be met with relative equanimity says much for the widespread fears that had pervaded the markets of much tougher rules.
The response also pointed to the fact that many banks already maintain capital ratios far in excess of the old minimum requirement and well-above the new levels.
Take Britain’s largest banks, none of which at the end of the first half of this year had a core Tier 1 ratio below 9pc, which according to some estimates suggests UK banks have about £17bn of excess capital.
For equity analysts, who in recent months had been playing a guessing game of how much extra money banks would need to raise to meet Basel III, the figures were greeted as a chance to speculate about possible share buybacks.
Morgan Stanley analysts suggested banks from Switzerland to the US might move quickly to begin returning surplus funds to investors.
Credit analysts, by nature more pessimistic people than their equity counterparts, dismissed as ludicrous the idea that banks that only two years ago were on deaths door returning large sums of money to shareholders.
“There is still a lot of uncertainty about how the regulations will be implemented,” said Simon Adamson, a banks analyst at CreditSights.
“There seems little likelihood regulators would want to see banks handing large amounts of money to their investors.”
Mr Adamson’s views are echoed by others, who say that until the final rules are agreed at the November meeting of the G20 in Seoul there is still much that is unknown.
Take the ‘too big too fail’ banks, or “systemically important” institutions as the Basel communique describes them.
Large domestic and international banks could still be subject to an additional capital charge that could add as much as 4pc to the capital ratios they are required to maintain.
Add to this the still to be set liquidity targets for banks and the future treatment of junior and more exotic forms of debt issued by banks and you have a recipe for more uncertainty with major changes ahead in the ways banks structure their balance sheets and fund themselves.
China on the Defensive After Obama’s Climate Speech
Posted by admin in Political Mix, World News on December 19th, 2009
Market Mix Up
by Kent Garber – Dec. 18, 2009
USNews.com
COPENHAGEN—As international climate talks drag into the night, the United States is publicly and privately pressuring China to share more information about its carbon emissions. And that is putting China on the defensive.
Both President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao addressed world leaders this morning, in what was supposed to be the final days of talks. But they struck sharply different tones in their speeches, and it now appears that Wen was offended by Obama’s words.
Obama met with Wen this afternoon and, according to reports, sought a second meeting this evening after the premier walked away from negotiations.
The immediate source of conflict appears to have been part of Obama’s speech. Speaking deliberately, with long pauses, Obama told leaders to stop squabbling over a deal or risk having “the same stale arguments, month after month, year after year, perhaps decade after decade.”
He seemed annoyed, even accusatory, at times, admonishing some leaders for naively insisting on getting a perfect treaty and refusing to compromise. “We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years,” he said. “We have very little to show for it.”
And in what was probably the most inflammatory part, at least from China’s view, Obama said, “I don’t know how you have an international agreement where we are all not sharing information . . . . That doesn’t make sense. It would be a hollow victory.”
Even before Obama spoke, Wen appeared defensive, as if compelled to address the charge that China is impeding an agreement. For several minutes he ticked off China’s progress on green energy. From 2005 to 2008, he said, “China has enjoyed the fastest growth of renewable energy” in the world. China, he added, now ranks first in the world in terms of installed hydropower and nuclear plants under construction.
Wen reminded leaders there is general acceptance that China, as a developing country, should not be held to the same emissions standards as the developed world. “China has a 1.3 billion population,” he said. “According to U.N. standards, we still have 150 million people living below the poverty line. We therefore face the arduous task of developing the economy and improving people’s lives.”
In general, the United States agrees with that assessment. But Obama said China must beef up its emissions monitoring and reporting, calling it a necessary step for a credible accord on greenhouse gas emissions. (Obama’s call also has a political dimension, because Senate Democrats say they will struggle to pass a climate bill without verifiable assurances that China is serious about curbing emissions.)
The Countries Most Known for Corruption
Posted by admin in Mixed Economy, World News on December 6th, 2009
by Phyllis Korkki – Dec. 5, 2009
The New York Times
When a business or individual can skirt the law by paying bribes to corrupt officials, the playing field becomes uneven, making the economy vulnerable. According to the newest Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International, perceived levels of corruption are highest in countries where government infrastructure is lacking.
Defining corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain,” Transparency International ranked 180 countries by interviewing experts and business people both inside and outside each country.
“Fragile, unstable states that are scarred by war and ongoing conflict linger at the bottom of the index,” Transparency International says. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is seen as the least corrupt, Somalia comes in dead last with a score of 1.1. Afghanistan and Myanmar rank almost as low.
And the country perceived as being the least likely to foster corruption, at least according to the index, is New Zealand, followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden.
Fellow Iraqi turns tables on Bush shoe-thrower
Posted by admin in Political Mix, World News on December 3rd, 2009
by Sophie Hardach – Dec. 2, 2009 3:44 PM est
Reuters.com
PARIS (Reuters) – An Iraqi reporter imprisoned for throwing his shoes at President George W. Bush found himself on the receiving end of a similar footwear attack in Paris Tuesday.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, whose flare-up against Bush last December turned into a symbol of Iraqi anger, was speaking at a news conference to promote his campaign for victims of the war in Iraq when a man in the audience hurled a shoe at him.
It hit the wall next to his head and a scuffle ensued in the audience, television footage showed.
French media said the attacker was an exiled Iraqi journalist who spoke in defense of U.S. policy, accusing Zaidi of siding with a dictatorship, before throwing his shoe.
Zaidi’s own outburst summed up the feelings of many Iraqis about the U.S. military invasion of their country and the ensuing bloodshed and sectarian killing.
Millions of people around the world saw images of him shouting “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” during a news conference by the former U.S. leader, before throwing his shoes at him.
Zaidi, a television reporter, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for assaulting a head of state. This was later reduced to one year and he was released in September.
He has alleged that he was tortured by guards after his arrest.
(Reporting by Sophie Hardach; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
From troops, mixed reaction to plan
Posted by admin in Mix Up TV, Political Mix, World News on December 2nd, 2009
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