Relations with US More Important than Snowden Dispute
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow's relations with the United States are more important than a dispute over fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
Putin's comments Wednesday come a day after Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia. The former National Security Agency contractor has been holed up in the transit zone of a Moscow airport since June 23.
The U.S. wants Russia to send him home to face charges of espionage related to the release of classified information on U.S. intelligence programs.
Putin did not say whether Russia would grant Snowden's request. But he said bilateral relations are "far more important than squabbles surrounding the work of security services."
He also reiterated his stance that Snowden is welcome to stay in Russia, but only if he stops leaking information that is damaging to the United States.
Mother charged for failing to report her daughter was raped
A 32-year-old woman appeared in court yesterday in San Juan Trinidad, charged with three offences arising out of her daughter’s rape.
The woman, is charged with preventing her daughter from giving a statement to the police in relation to her rape on a date unknown between March 1, 2009 and April 16, 2012.
The mother of four is also charged with failing to report her daughter’s rape to the police. She pleaded not guilty to both offences as they were laid summarily.
If found guilty the mother faces a $20,000 fine and imprisonment for a term of ten years for deterring her daughter from reporting and a fine of $15,000 or imprisonment for a term of seven years or to both such fine and imprisonment for failing to report the rape.
The mother is also charged with unlawfully supplying a pill to her daughter to procure a miscarriage, contrary to Section 57 of the Offences Against the Person Act, on September 7, 2009.
This offence carries a punishment of two years’ imprisonment. The woman, was granted $40,000 bail.
The matter has been adjourned to July 22nd 2013.
Twenty agents fired for failing polygraph test in DR
President of the National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) in the Dominican Repblic Julio Souffront on Tuesday revealed that 20 agents were fired for failing a polygraph test, and ordered back to their military branches.
He said a lie detector measures physiological responses and changes in blood pressure, heart, and respiratory rates and responses on the skin, which question the veracity of the answers from the subjected to the test.
The head of the DNCD also announced changes in its commands Tuesday afternoon, including division and departmental chiefs, among other units, which Souffront called “routine.”
Opposition walks out of Parliament in Barbados
The Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) walked out of Parliament last night, citing unfair treatment from Speaker of the House, Michael Carrington.
Opposition Leader Mia Mottley packed up her bags at exactly 7:04 p.m., and her 12 colleagues followed in unison and in protest, after an adamant Carrington refused to provide Mottley with a copy of the House’s official record so as to clarify a previous statement.
Moments before, Carrington had told Mottley to take her seat, ruling that her comments be struck off the record in the process. After the walk-out, the 13 Opposition members proceeded to Parliament’s West Wing, where an impromptu special meeting was held in the Opposition’s office.
Minister of Finance Chris Sincker spent the final 29 minutes of the evening session wrapping up the debate on the National Insurance and Social Security Amendment Bill, speaking to his Democratic Labour Party colleagues and a host of empty chairs on the other side.
“We will not literally stand and conspire with the Government to create a circus of distraction from people’s real problems in this country,” Mottley told the MIDWEEK NATION after the half-hour meeting with her BLP colleagues.
Glee star died from alcohol and heroin
Cory Monteith, star of the hit TV musical comedy Glee, died from a heroin and alcohol overdose, a coroner in British Columbia has announced.
The 31-year-old Canadian actor, who played Finn Hudson in the Fox TV hit, was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room on Saturday.
Monteith, who had been in the musical comedy since its 2009 start, was treated for drug addiction in April.
Fox TV officials had described Monteith as "an exceptional talent".
In a statement, the coroner's office said: "There is no evidence to suggest Mr Monteith's death was anything other than a most tragic accident."
It said a post-mortem examination had determined "a mixed-drug toxicity involving heroin and alcohol" was the cause of death.
Monteith is thought to have been alone when he died because video footage and other evidence suggested he had returned to his room at the city centre Pacific Rim Hotel by himself after spending time with other people.
The alarm was raised when he failed to check out at midday on 13 July. He had been staying at the hotel for a week.
--BBC
Syria refugee crisis worst since Rwanda says UN
The conflict in Syria has caused the world's worst refugee crisis for 20 years, with an average of 6,000 people fleeing every day in 2013, the UN says.
UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said refugee numbers had not risen "at such a frightening rate" since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
He was speaking to the UN Security Council, which also heard that 5,000 people are being killed each month.
UN aid chief Valerie Amos said at least 6.8 million Syrians needed urgent help.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are locked in a fierce battle with opposition fighters for control of the country.
There has been deadlock at the UN Security Council over the crisis, with Russia and China refusing to back action against Mr Assad proposed by the other veto powers, the US, Britain and France.
Mr Guterres said two-thirds of the nearly 1.8 million refugees registered with the UN had fled Syria since the beginning of the year - an average of 6,000 a day.
"We have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide almost 20 years ago," he told a rare public briefing to the Security Council.
Mr Guterres said the impact of the refugee crisis on neighbouring countries was "crushing", but said the acceptance of Syrians by countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq was "saving hundreds of thousands of lives".
And he said the "danger that the Syrian conflict could ignite the whole region" was "not an empty warning".
The UN last month said nearly 93,000 people had been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.
The UN's assistant secretary general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, told the meeting that some 5,000 lives were being claimed each month, demonstrating "a drastic deterioration of the conflict".
"In Syria today, serious human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes against humanity are the rule," he said.
Ms Amos said $3.1bn was still needed to provide aid in and around Syria for the rest of the year, and she accused both sides in Syria of "systematically and in many cases deliberately" failing in their obligation to protect civilians.
"We are not only watching the destruction of a country but also of its people," she said.
Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja'afari, said his government was doing "everything possible... to meet the humanitarian needs and basic needs of its citizens".
UN says Syria refugee crisis worst since Rwanda
The conflict in Syria has caused the world's worst refugee crisis for 20 years, with an average of 6,000 people fleeing every day in 2013, the UN says.
UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said refugee numbers had not risen "at such a frightening rate" since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
He was speaking to the UN Security Council, which also heard that 5,000 people are being killed each month.
UN aid chief Valerie Amos said at least 6.8 million Syrians needed urgent help.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are locked in a fierce battle with opposition fighters for control of the country.
There has been deadlock at the UN Security Council over the crisis, with Russia and China refusing to back action against Mr Assad proposed by the other veto powers, the US, Britain and France.
Mr Guterres said two-thirds of the nearly 1.8 million refugees registered with the UN had fled Syria since the beginning of the year - an average of 6,000 a day.
"We have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide almost 20 years ago," he told a rare public briefing to the Security Council.
Mr Guterres said the impact of the refugee crisis on neighbouring countries was "crushing", but said the acceptance of Syrians by countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq was "saving hundreds of thousands of lives".
And he said the "danger that the Syrian conflict could ignite the whole region" was "not an empty warning".
The UN last month said nearly 93,000 people had been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.
The UN's assistant secretary general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, told the meeting that some 5,000 lives were being claimed each month, demonstrating "a drastic deterioration of the conflict".
"In Syria today, serious human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes against humanity are the rule," he said.
Ms Amos said $3.1bn was still needed to provide aid in and around Syria for the rest of the year, and she accused both sides in Syria of "systematically and in many cases deliberately" failing in their obligation to protect civilians.
"We are not only watching the destruction of a country but also of its people," she said.
Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja'afari, said his government was doing "everything possible... to meet the humanitarian needs and basic needs of its citizens".
--BBC
US Lawsuits Contest Legality of Government Surveillance
An unusual coalition of U.S. political advocacy and religious groups has filed suit contesting the legality of the government's surveillance of Americans' telephone records.
The coalition, represented by a digital rights advocacy group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation the, filed the lawsuit Tuesday. It claims the spying by the country's clandestine National Security Agency is "an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance."
The lawsuit is the sixth filed against the government seeking to end its vast collection of telephone and Internet records in the aftermath of former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaking details of two secret NSA surveillance programs last month. The NSA collects what it calls "metadata" about the phone calls - the phone numbers Americans are calling and the length of the calls.
The 30-year-old Snowden fled first to Hong Kong, and then, after the United States accused him of espionage, flew to Russia. He is now encamped for a fourth week in a transit zone of a Moscow airport.
Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said Snowden applied Tuesday for temporary asylum in Russia, even though he still wants to eventually travel to Latin America, where leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him asylum. But Snowden is blocked from leaving Moscow as the U.S. has revoked his passport.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he does not know how the fugitive's case will play out. He said the U.S. "frightened other countries" into not accepting Snowden.
Putin said Snowden's case is "in limbo right now," but that he expects he will leave for another country "as soon as he has an opportunity to move elsewhere."
The Russian leader has rejected the U.S. request to extradite Snowden to stand trial on the espionage charges. But with Snowden seeking Russian asylum, Washington renewed its bid for his return.
The White House said Snowden is not a human rights activist or dissident, and that he is accused in the "leaking of classified information."
Pakistan Denies Local Taliban Has Sent Hundreds of Fighters to Syria
Pakistan's Foreign Office has denied reports suggesting that Pakistani Taliban fighters have gone to Syria to fight alongside Sunni rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Also on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Pakistan's Interior Minister said that Pakistani intelligence and police officials have not confirmed that any Taliban fighters have left for Syria.
Pakistani Taliban commanders are claiming to have set up camps in Syria and sent hundreds of men to fight alongside Sunni rebels there. Senior commanders of the Pakistan-based Tehrik-e-Taliban referred to the Syrian rebels this week as the Taliban's "Muslim brothers" and "Arab friends." One commander vowed to issue videos of the Pakistani Taliban's victories in Syria.
The news is not the first report of foreign Sunni fighters flocking to Syria to join what they see as a holy war against Shi'ite Muslims. The influx of foreign fighters further complicates U.S. efforts to help the rebels, especially as Washington considers arming Syrians fighting against the Assad government.
However, at least one Pakistani Taliban commander has denied the reports of setting up camps in Syria. He told the French News agency that only a few militants have left to fight in Syria, and those were mostly Arab and Central Asian fighters.
Greeks Strike Against Public Sector Cuts
Greek workers are striking to protest government plans to fire thousands of civil servants.
Tuesday's strike disrupted public services and slowed down most hospitals. Rail and plane schedules are also being affected.
Tourists hoping to see the ancient Acropolis Hill in Athens were turned away. Some tourists sympathized with the Greeks on strike, while others there left frustrated.
"It is so disappointing. Very terrible.''
"I am very upset because we are two to three days up in Athens, and it's impossible to see the archaeology and the Acropolis. So it's...I don't understand why.''
Athens must reform and shrink its civil service to receive more bailout funds from foreign lenders, but the latest job cuts plan has sparked uproar among Greeks.
The debt-wracked country has enacted a string of austerity measures recently in return for multi-billion euro international bailouts to avoid default.