International news digest 5 September 2008

Friday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso could be in line to be the next prime minister, after announcing he will run for his party's presidency. CNN
• Asif Ali Zardari, The widower of Benazir Bhutto, former head of Pakistan, is expected to be elected president on Saturday, despite being shadowed by past unproven charges of corruption and little experience in political leadership. International Herald Tribune
• Condoleezza Rice begins a tour of North Africa Friday with a "historic" visit to Libya, the first by an American secretary of state since 1953, agreed to following Libya's promise to move hundreds of millions of dollars into a humanitarian account, compensation money for the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie airplane bombing. The money has not yet been paid. BBC
• Moscow has had to "shore up the rouble" by intervening heavily, reports the Financial Times, in the wake of what analysts say is $21 billion in foreign capital taken out of the country to support the fight in Georgia.
• US lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced to an additional four years on corruption charges, to be served at the same time as the six years behind bars he is already doing. He is credited with helping the Republicans lose control of Congress in a far-reaching scandal. Reuters

International news digest, 4 September 2008

Thursday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• Sarah Palin's first public speech as John McCain's choice for vice-president wowed the Republican convention crowd in St Paul, Minnesota, almost overshadowing the fact that McCain was voted the Republican's official candidate for president. CNN, International Herald Tribune
• The US is close to filing a case at the World Trade Organisation against China for export restrictions on steel; the European Union already has three investigations underway against China for dumping. Financial Times
• Tropical storm Hanna is heading for the Bahamas, where it could hit Haiti very hard, a country that has already been badly battered this year, with three major storms in 21 days killing 170 people, leaving thousands homeless in a situation the president says is a "catastrophe." BBC
• Serena Williams beat her sister Venus in a "heart-stopping" game, writes Reuters, in "the greatest duel yet" between the sisters: 7-6 7-6.

International news digest 3 September 2008

Wednesday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• International tennis: Roger Federer made it through his game at the US Open in New York, USA, in a "thrilling game" where both his strength as a player and his recent frailty were on display (BBC), while Rafael Nadal and the Williams sisters are expected to put on a real show Wednesday, Reuters writes.
• US Republicans: Palin continues to lead the Republican convention news, with a New York Times article on her odd start in politics, the Huffington Post carrying numerous blogs sounding off on the pregnant daughter subject and other Palin matters, and Reuters pointing out that her appearance at the convention Wednesday will give most Americans their first opportunity to see the Alaska governor. CBS is checking out the rumours that she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, saying it looks like maybe it was her husband, not the governor, who belonged to the separatist group. The Guardian in the UK kindly lifted the focus from the pregnant teenage daughter to Governor Palin's husband's arrest 20 years ago for drunk under the influence of alcohol, at age 22.
• US forces appear to have been involved in an attack that killed 15 people in Pakistan, just over the border from Afghanistan. BBC
• India is starting a major rescue and aid operation in the face of major flooding, as criticism of its slow and too-weak response continues at home and abroad. CNN
• Coca-cola is offering $2.5 million for a Chinese juice company, the largest-ever foreign buyout of a Chinese firm, if it goes ahead. Beijing-based Huiyuan had 2007 sales of $380 million and owning it would give the US beverage multinational a strong footing in China. International Herald Tribune
• A man was arrested in Washington state, not far from the Canadian border, after a shooting spree that killed six people and injured two others. Reuters
• [Reuters video] Chopsticks in pure gold for $7,000: what more could you want? If you live in China, one Japanese company figures, quite a lot. They've manufactured a $1 million 13-piece dining set, all gold, aimed mainly at the very wealthy in China, the world's largest gold producer.

International news digest 2 September 2008

Updated 17:00  Tuesday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• A CCTV security camera in the home of Christopher Foster, a financially troubled businessman in Shropshire, England, caught him with a rifle, "leaving his burning stable block," reports the Telegraph in the UK. The bodies of Foster's wife and presumably of his 15-year-old daughter (not yet officially identified), both shot, were found in the ruins of their mansion. Foster's body has also been identified.
• Vaud, Switzerland tennis player Stanislaus Wawrinka lost to a strong-playing Andy Murray in the US Open 6-1 6-3 6-3, "guaranteeing [Murray's] highest ever world ranking of No5," reports the Guardian, UK.
• Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of Thailand has announced emergency measures with protestors still occupying his official compound: no public gatherings are allowed and no media reports that undermine public security - but a curfew for Bangkok is not part of it. Reuters
• Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's primer minister, abruptly resigned Monday night after a year in office, repeating the action of his predecessor Shinzo Abe, who also surprised the world with his resignation, and plunging Japan "into further political confusion. International Herald Tribune
• The pound is weakening on poor economic news, falling to a new low against the euro, at £0.8139 and slipping under the $1.80 bar against the US dollar, to $1.7996. Financial Times
• Google's new open source web browser, called Chrome, is set to compete with Firefox and Internet Explorer and is designed to be light and quick but especially good with the growing number of web applications like Google's own map products. The beta version launches Tuesday. BBC

International news digest 1 September 2008

Updated, 18:45  Monday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• Manchester City football club looks likely to pass from the hands of owner Thaksin  Shinawatra, former prime minister of Thailand who is currently facing corruption charges, to Abu Dhabi United Group. International Herald Tribune
• Hurricane Gustav has residents of New Orleans holding their breath, waiting for its expected midday landing, and the Republicans at the convention further north in Minnesota are cutting back on first day activities. CNN
• India is struggling to cope with 1.2 million people left homeless and hungry by massive flooding in the northeast of the country. BBC and BBC video
• Uncertainty clouds the handover announced for October, by the US government to the Shi-ite-led Iraqi government, of the mainly Sunni "Awakening Councils," unofficial forces that have helped keep order in parts of the country.  Reuters
• Commerzbank in Germany is buying Dresdner Bank for €9 billion from Allianz, in what the Financial Times refers to as "a deal that will re-shape the German banking industry." The new entity combines Germany's second and third largest banks and creates a serious rival for Deutsche Bank, the country's largest.
• [Reuters video] The body of Jill Foster, wife of missing businessman Christopher Foster and mother of missing Kirstie Foster, age 15, has been identified in the burned out ruins of a mansion in Shropshire, England. A man's body has been found but not yet identified. Jill Foster was shot before the mansion, reportedly "barricaded" from the inside, was set on fire. Her husband's company had recently gone into liquidation. Times, UK and Reuters video
• [Reuters video] A mass march with "tens of thousands" of people took place in Taipei, Taiwan, to protest President Ma Ying-Jeou's moves to improve ties with China, saying he should concentrate on improving the economy. 

International news digest 29 August 2008

Friday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• Tropical Storm Gustav is building into a hurrican that could hit New Orleans and oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico next week, but it is already being blamed for 68 deaths in the Caribbean, reports Reuters.
• Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the US of sparking the conflict in Georgia, saying that the naval buildup by the US off the Georgian coast aims to heighten tensions, and he linked the situation to the US presidential contest saying that someone wanted to create "a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of U.S. president." AFP, CNN (which interviewed Putin), Reuters
• "America, we are better than this," Barack Obama said in a clear reference to the policies of George W Bush for the past eight years. He told his audience Thursday night during his acceptance speech as presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in the US that Republican John McCain would simply be more of the same. New York Times
• Some three million of people on the Nepal-India border have been displaced by "extreme flooding" after a river burst its banks in some of the heaviest monsoon rains in decades. CNN

International news digest 28 August 2008

Thursday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• A human touch on the assembly line has the iPhone world charmed and chatting, after a woman in China who was testing an iPhone smiled into the camera and left her picture there. It ended up in the hands of a UK buyer but so far only one such phone has surfaced. Reuters
• Russia has failed to get the support it sought from fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for its actions in Georgia when "when China and other Asian nations expressed concern about mounting tensions in the region." CNN
• Barack Obama has been nominated as its US presidential candidate by the Democratic Party. by acclamation, making him the first African-American to be a major party candidate. Obama, born in Hawaii, is the son of a Kenyan father and Kansas mother. New York Times
• Libyan authorities say two hijackers surrendered and released all passengers without any violence, after failing in their demand to take the Sudanese airplane they commandeered in Darfur to Paris. AFP
• A new study in German is impressing scientists in various fields with what appears to be clear evidence, using a survey of 8,500 cows spotted in 300 fields on Google Earth, that cows face north or south when at rest or grazing, showing that they sense the Earth's magnetic field. NPR
• Eight survivors have told authorities in Malta that 71 other people, all illegal migrants, drowned when their boat sank in the Mediterranean. BBC
• The Dalai Lama has cancelled trips for the next three weeks, with his doctors saying the 73-year-old spiritual Tibetan leader is suffering from exhaustion. CNN
• Del Martin, a pioneer for gay rights in the US, has died of natural causes, age 87, just two months after marrying her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyon, age 84, under California's new laws recognizing same-sex marriages. Reuters
• [Reuters video] Israel is "transfixed" by the case of a missing girl, Rose, whose grandfather married her French mother and is now accused of murdering the six-year-old, whose body has not been found.

International news digest 27 August 20008

Wednesday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• [BBC video] Thai police are trying to end a "standoff," reports the BBC, with anti-government protestors who surrounded the prime minister's residence Tuesday evening.
• Hilary Clinton received a standing ovation at the US Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado before throwing her support strongly behind Barack Obama for president. CNN
• Europe will begin its "long foreseen demographic decline in just seven years' time - the point at which deaths exceed births," writes the International Herald Tribune, citing a report published Tuesday by the European Union. Britain and France will overtake Europe's most populous nation, Germany, by 2050 and 2060, respectively.
• The euro fell to a six-month low against the dollar, mainly thanks to nervousness about the German economy and a gloomy outlook - the worst in 15 years - on the part of German business leaders. Financial Times
• Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former US presidential candidate John Edwards, is getting little sympathy following the public acknowledgement that he had an affair and lied about it. "It seems an odd way to treat a woman with incurable cancer wronged by a cheating husband, the latest in a series of deep hardships in life that includes the death of a teenage son," notes CNN

International news digest 26 August 2008

Updated 11:15 / Tuesday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• The Russian parliament has voted in favour of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, amid warnings from other countries about Georgia's territorial integrity. International Herald Tribune
• Pakistan's split coalition is prompting concerns about who the next president of the country will be, described by Reuters as a "nuclear-armed US ally." Security concerns are growing, with the latest incident a blast at a rally in southwestern Pakistan killing three people.
• Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says that the US government has agreed to withdraw all troops by the end of 2011, a date the US is not confirming. Reuters refers to the date as "the most explicit statement yet that the increasingly assertive Iraqi government expects the US presence to end in three years."
• Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe will open Parliament today with his Zanu PDF party in a minority for the first time since he came to power in 1981. Monday, Lovemore Moyo, a member of the opposition MDC, was elected speaker of the house and said that the parliament will no longer rubberstamp Mugabe's policies. BBC
• The Democrats' convention in Denver Colorado, warming up to officially nominate Barack Obama as their candidate, had a two-act show Monday evening, with Senator Edward Kennedy, senior party member who is fighting brain cancer, and Michelle Obama, wife of Barack, putting in appearances. International Herald Tribune
• The Rev Antonio Rubbi, an Italian priest, is organizing an online beauty contest for Catholic nuns, starting in September, saying they are "Nuns are a bit excluded." The public will be able to vote for those they consider models. CNN
• Monkeys experience the joy of giving, new research shows. Reuters

International news digest 25 August 2008

Monday news gathered by GenevaLunch from sources around the world

• The Beijing Olympics appears to be breaking several television viewing records, with Reuters reporting that it is "the most-watched US television event of all time" and that virtually all of China's 1.3 billion people watched the final day on TV.
• Barack Obama's Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado, US, is starting to show the cracks in his presidential election strategy, writes John Ibbitson in an analysis in Canada's The Globe & Mail
• Twenty-five people of the 90 people on board survived when a Boeing 747 crashed in a field shortly after takeoff in Bishkek, Kyrgystan. Xinhua
• Israel is freeing 200 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture just hours before a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. CNN
• The births have not been easy, reports Xinhua, but 19 panda cubs have been born in captivity since the Sichuan earthquake, which severely damaged the animals' habitat.