Military authorities in Myanmar have reportedly signed an order for the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Detained for 15 of the past 21years, the Nobel peace prize laureate’s latest spell of house arrest expires tomorrow.According to a source in her National League for Democracy, the green light has been given for her liberation.
Suu Kyi voiced opposition to Myanmar’s first election in 20 years,
held last Sunday, and easily won, as expected, by a party set up by the military.
Demonstration: Russian protest over media attacks
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Moscow’s Pushkin Square to denounce a spate of attacks on journalists.
They brandished banners saying “Stop the Terror” and “We are not
afraid”. And many included a photo of the latest victim, Oleg Kashin,
who has just come out of a five-day induced coma after an assault so
savage it is being treated as attempted murder.
Rally organiser Anatoly Globa-Mikhailenko said: “It’s very good that
the investigation is now under the special control [of Russian
President Dimitry Medvedev] and that the president is not indifferent to
what is going on in our country. But how can it help? This is the
question.”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists estimates there
have been 19 unsolved murders of reporters since 2000, and ranks Russia
as the eighth most dangerous country to work in.
G20: Seoul searching for G20 leaders
World leaders meeting in Seoul managed to put on a show of unity for
the traditional family photo – but behind the smiles there have been
fractious talks and a heated debate over currencies according to
sources.
The G20 leaders are expected to announce nothing more than a vague
set of “indicative guidelines” for measuring global imbalances, and will
hammer out the details next year in what has been described as a
“timeout” to let tempers cool. According to one analyst, it is indicative of the huge differences
between the various nations gathered in the South Korean capital.
“Well, they definitely had different views, different national
interests,” said Alan Alexandroff from Munk School, University of
Toronto.
“You’ve got surplus countries, you’ve got deficit countries, fast
growing countries, particularly India, China, Brazil, slow-growing
countries like Europe and the United States and it creates differences
in how to deal with the going forward on growing their economies.”
What is clear is that while the global recession may have been
synchronised, the speed at which countries are emerging from it is
anything but.
Terrorism: Fatal bomb attack on Karachi CID complex
A deadly bomb attack on a police complex in Pakistan’s largest city,
Karachi, has left at least 20 people dead and more than 100 injured.
Authorities say more than a dozen militants opened fire on the
Criminal Investigation Department building before ramming the outer wall
with a truck, laden with explosives.
The shootout lasted some 15 minutes before the vehicle exploded, leaving death, destruction and panic in its wake.
“The explosion was huge, so big that it felled a two-storey
building. Most of the people are still trapped under the rubble. So I am
certain that many CID officers have been killed,” said one eye-witness.
The carnage comes a day after the CID unit arrested a number of militants in the city, believed to be members of the notorious Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group.
Worryingly for the authorities the attack took place in the city’s
high-security area close to government buildings and the Sheraton Hotel.
Disease: Haiti's deadly cholera toll rockets
Haiti’s cholera crisis is showing all the signs of surging out of
control as the latest death toll in the Caribbean nation climbed to 800.
More than 11,000 cases have been confirmed since the start of the
deadly outbreak some three weeks ago. But, with nearly 100 people dying
in just 24 hours, the infection has rocketed at a frightening pace.
The situation is now being described as threatening national
security with a risk too of transmission to the US and other countries
in the region.
Aid agencies continue to distribute supplies. But Haiti’s hospitals
are completely overrun with reports of doctors having to make choices
over who to treat.
Contagion in Port-au-Prince is the other worry. More and more cases
are being reported in the capital, home to some three million earthquake
survivors, most of whom live in squalid, makeshift camps.
Iraq: Iraqi parliament approves key national government posts
Iraq has a new national government. The question now is, will it last?
The latest power-sharing deal ends eight months of deadlock and
gives each of the country’s three main factions a piece of the political
pie.
Iraq’s Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, retains the presidency. He
was re-elected despite a walkout by two thirds of the Sunni led
alliance.
Talibani’s re-appointment in turn paved the way for Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to keep his job,
The newly elected president swore in Iraq’s incumbent prime minister
for another four-year term shortly after his own confirmation.
The final piece of the political jigsaw sees the Sunni-backed
Iraqiya alliance get their man in the parliamentary speakers chair. That
goes to Osama Nujaifi.
Many Sunni politicians, however, remain unhappy al-Maliki has been
able to hold on to his post and the large walkout by the group’s MPs
hints at the fragile nature of the fledgling government.
Nevertheless, the pact brings together all of Iraq’s ethnic factions
and with it the hope that the country may finally emerge from sectarian
bloodshed.
From: Euronews
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