The Malaysian Insider :: world

Brother of blind Chinese activist goes missing: Lawyer

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:09:38 GMT

BEIJING, May 26 – The brother of blind activist Chen Guangcheng has gone missing, a lawyer said today, days after he fled his village in northeastern China to seek help for his son who has been detained in a case that has become a rallying point among rights activists. Chen Guangfu, the eldest brother of Chen Guangcheng, fled his home in Shandong ...

Astronauts float inside SpaceX Dragon capsule

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:00:46 GMT

CAPE CANAVERAL, May 26 – Astronauts aboard the International Space Station opened the hatch and floated inside a Space Exploration Technologies’ Dragon capsule today, the first privately owned spaceship to reach the orbital outpost, NASA said. Running ahead of schedule, station commander Oleg Kononenko and flight engineer Don Pettit opened the ...

Rooftop gunman kills two in Finland

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:26:52 GMT

HELSINKI, May 26 – A gunman opened fire from a rooftop in a Finnish town centre in the early hours today, killing two people and wounding several others, police said. An 18-year-old man wearing camouflage clothing was arrested after the shooting in Hyvinkaa, a small town 56km north of the capital Helsinki. The motive for the shooting was unclear. ...

Iran has enough uranium for 5 bombs: Expert

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:02:18 GMT

VIENNA, May 26 – Iran has significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear weapons if refined much further, a US security institute said. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think-tank which closely tracks Iran’s nuclear ...

UN inspectors find high-grade uranium traces in Iran

Sat, 26 May 2012 04:19:33 GMT

VIENNA, May 26 — United Nations nuclear inspectors have found uranium particles refined to a higher-than-expected level at an underground site where Iran has installed more than 50 per cent more enrichment centrifuges, a UN watchdog report said yesterday. It said Tehran had told the UN agency that the presence of traces of highly refined uranium — ...

Muslim Brotherhood seeks unity ahead of Egypt runoff

Sat, 26 May 2012 01:47:16 GMT

CAIRO, May 26 — The Muslim Brotherhood is reaching out to rivals including politicians knocked out of the presidential race in an attempt to rally support around its candidate, who faces a runoff against Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. Warning of “determined efforts to recreate the old regime”, the Brotherhood said parties that ...

Lebanese Syria hostage release delayed, massacre claimed

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:29:45 GMT

BEIRUT, May 26 — Lebanon said yesterday that a group of Lebanese Shi’ites kidnapped in Syria had been freed and were safe in Turkey, but produced no sign of the hostages at the centre of a kidnap drama heightening tensions over the conflict in neighbouring Syria. The twist in a hostage drama that has inflamed political tensions in a country ...

China leadership rules Bo case isolated, limits purge say sources

Fri, 25 May 2012 14:01:28 GMT

BEIJING, May 25 — Chinese President Hu Jintao has demanded senior Communist Party officials stifle tensions over the ousting of ambitious politician Bo Xilai and show unity as they prepare for a change of leadership, sources briefed on recent meetings said. Hu urged the party to close ranks at a meeting of about 200 officials early this month at a ...

Lebanese hostages in Syria to be released ‘within hours’, says cleric

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:47:53 GMT

BEIRUT, May 25 — Lebanese hostages kidnapped in Syria will be set free "within hours", an Islamist cleric who is brokering their release said today. "The process is in its final stages, they will be released within hours God willing," Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zoaby told Reuters. A dozen Lebanese Shi'ite men were among a group of pilgrims returning to ...

Pakistani interrogator says bin Laden wives gave little away

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:26:16 GMT

ISLAMABAD, May 25 — Osama bin Laden's three wives were fiercely loyal to him and gave little away when they were interrogated after the al Qaeda chief was killed in a US raid over a year ago, a Pakistani intelligence agent who questioned them said. The three women were arrested by Pakistani security forces after the Navy SEAL raid on bin Laden's ...

Egypt to pick Islamist or military man as president

Fri, 25 May 2012 09:49:26 GMT

CAIRO, May 25 — The Muslim Brotherhood said on Friday its candidate in Egypt's first free presidential vote had won through to a run-off next month against ex-air force chief Ahmed Shafiq, who was deposed leader Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister. This week's first-round vote has polarised Egyptians between those determined to avoid handing the ...

Myanmar protests an opportunity to show more reform

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:02:11 GMT

YANGON, May 25 — Five days of street protests over chronic power shortages present Myanmar’s reformist government with a headache and an opportunity. Police forcibly dispersed protesters in the central Myanmar town of Pyi yesterday, a heavy-handed response reminiscent of the previous military junta that could fuel grievances among an impoverished ...

Scots’ push for Britain breakup begins in earnest

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:22:26 GMT

EDINBURGH, May 25 — Supporters of independence for Scotland will today launch what they say is the biggest grassroots campaign in Scottish history, a move that could result in the demise of a 305-year-old union with England and the breakup of Britain. Seeking to tap into a cocktail of historical rivalry, opposing political tastes, and a perception ...

Suspect confesses to killing New York boy in 1979, says police

Fri, 25 May 2012 02:15:41 GMT

NEW YORK, May 25 — Police yesterday arrested a New Jersey man who they said had confessed to the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz in a case that drew national attention to the plight of missing children and had frustrated law enforcement officials for more than three decades. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Pedro Hernandez, 51, ...

Brotherhood makes claims as Egypt polls close

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:37:37 GMT

CAIRO, May 25 — Millions of Egyptians, choosing their leader freely for the first time in their history, voted yesterday, with the Muslim Brotherhood saying their candidate had an early lead over fellow Islamists and rivals who served ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Counting started after polls closed at 9pm with no reliable exit polls ...

Iran, big powers agree to hold more nuclear talks in June

Thu, 24 May 2012 23:33:47 GMT

BAGHDAD, May 25 — Iran and world powers agreed to meet again in Moscow next month for more talks to try to end the long-running dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but there was scant progress to resolve the main sticking points between the two sides. At the heart of the dispute is Iran’s insistence that it has the right to enrich uranium and ...

US hails Arab Spring but warns of instability

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:36:51 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 24 — The United States hailed on Thursday last year's "Arab Spring" popular revolutions in the Middle East but said instability and violence often precede greater respect for human rights. In its annual survey of human rights around the world, the State Department praised Myanmar for having freed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi ...

Why are Greek and Italian politicians so bad?

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:25:01 GMT

ROME, May 24 — In Greece, conservative leader Antonio Samaras insisted on calling an election earlier this month that slashed his own party's share of the vote and set the country down a path that could see it crashing out of the euro. In Italy, politicians led by scandal-plagued premier Silvio Berlusconi were forced to admit they could not handle ...

Bounty hunter on the trail of Arab Spring loot

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:54:35 GMT

GENEVA, May 24 — Growing up in Africa, he used to hunt buffalo, a passion that still serves Geneva-based lawyer Enrico Monfrini well. His dogged pursuit of ill-gotten assets has made him the scourge of many of the world's dictators and kleptocrats. An affable man with a sharp wit and a ready smile, the 67-year-old blends easily into a city of ...

Countries doing too little on warming

Thu, 24 May 2012 11:08:36 GMT

BONN, Germany, May 24 — Greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 could rise to nine billion tonnes above what is needed to limit global warming as some countries look set to miss their emissions cut targets, a report by three climate research groups said yesterday. Countries have agreed that deep emissions cuts are needed to limit an increase in global ...

Iran talks with world powers hit snag over sanctions

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:20:54 GMT

BAGHDAD, May 24 — Iran accused world powers yesterday of creating “a difficult atmosphere” that hindered talks on its atomic energy programme, signalling a snag in diplomacy to defuse fears of a covert Iranian bid to develop nuclear bombs. The nub of the dispute was not immediately clear as the Baghdad talks entered a second day. But Iran had ...

Myanmar police move against spreading power protests

Thu, 24 May 2012 08:45:34 GMT

YANGON, May 24 — Myanmar police broke up a protest against power cuts by several hundred people in the town of Pyi today and five members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party were taken in for questioning, a senior party official said. Members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party were also briefly detained for questioning in ...

Myanmar police move agains spreading power protests

Thu, 24 May 2012 08:45:04 GMT

YANGON, May 24 - Myanmar police broke up a protest against power cuts by several hundred people in the town of Pyi today and five members ofAung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party were taken in for questioning, a senior party official said. Members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party were also briefly detained for questioning in the ...

US drone strike kills 10 in northwest Pakistan

Thu, 24 May 2012 08:07:53 GMT

MIRANSHAH, May 24 — A US drone strike on suspected Islamist militants in northwest Pakistan killed 10 people today, Pakistani intelligence officials said, an attack likely to raise tensions in a standoff with Washington over NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The pilotless drone aircraft attacked a compound in a village in North Waziristan, a day ...

Brother of blind China activist flees village

Thu, 24 May 2012 07:54:46 GMT

BEIJING, May 24 — The brother of blind activist Chen Guangcheng has fled his village in northeastern China, evading a security clampdown to seek help from lawyers for his son who has been detained in a case that has become a rallying point among rights activists. Chen Guangfu, the eldest brother of Chen Guangcheng, told Reuters that he walked out ...

Suu Kyi to make first trip out of Myanmar in 24 years

Thu, 24 May 2012 05:17:24 GMT

YANGON, May 24 — Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will travel outside Myanmar for the first time in 24 years next week to deliver a speech at an international forum in Thailand, her party said today. Her decision to venture outside the country she had only expected to return to temporarily in 1988 comes after a year of ...

Asians are best educated Americans, survey shows

Thu, 24 May 2012 04:06:37 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 24 — Asians are the most highly educated group of Americans, with more than half with a bachelor’s degrees or higher, the Census Bureau reported today. Among groups of Asian Americans 25 and older, 74 per cent of Taiwanese and 71 per cent of Indians had at least a bachelor’s degree, the agency said as part of its release of ...

Chinese couple bury woman alive, sparking outrage

Thu, 24 May 2012 03:39:37 GMT

BEIJING, May 24 — Chinese police have arrested a young couple who buried an old woman alive believing she was dead after their car hit the 68-year-old, newspapers said today, in a case which has sparked outrage over declining public morality. The couple had been at an all-night karaoke session when they hit the woman while driving in the early ...

Detailed, ‘engaged’ Iran nuclear talks enter Day 2

Thu, 24 May 2012 02:07:52 GMT

BAGHDAD, May 24 — Talks between Iran and world powers to defuse a dispute about Iran’s nuclear goals go into a second day today with Washington cautiously hopeful of progress towards an agreed framework for addressing concerns that Tehran wants to build an atom bomb. “I believe we have the beginning of a negotiation,” a senior US official said of ...

Piers Morgan ‘showed journalist how to hack phone’

Thu, 24 May 2012 01:11:21 GMT

LONDON, May 24 — One of Britain’s most respected journalists said yesterday that former tabloid newspaper editor Piers Morgan showed him how to hack into phones 10 years ago, the latest twist in a scandal that has so far centred on Rupert Murdoch. Morgan, now a CNN talk-show host in the United States, has consistently denied authorizing phone ...

Russia tests new missile, in warning over US shield

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:19:16 GMT

MOSCOW, May 24 — Russia tested a new long-range missile yesterday that should improve its ability to penetrate missile defence systems, the military said, in Moscow’s latest warning to Washington over deployment of a missile shield in Europe. The Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) was successfully launched from the Plesetsk facility in ...

Syria violence shakes Lebanon’s fragile stability

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:14:02 GMT

BEIRUT, May 24 — Gunmen clash in deadly street battles, protesters block roads with burning tyres and opposition politicians demand the prime minister’s downfall, denouncing the army as an agent of a foreign power. Fragile Lebanon’s sectarian tensions, which festered for two decades since the end of its ruinous civil war, have been re-ignited by ...

Amnesty accuses UN council of ‘failed leadership’

Wed, 23 May 2012 15:16:02 GMT

LONDON, May 23 — Rights group Amnesty International lambasted the United Nations Security Council early this evening as “tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose”. In its annual report, Amnesty said the failure of world powers to take stronger action on Syria was evidence that a sclerotic security council was hamstrung by vested ...

Yemen army retakes part of rebel-held southern city

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:46:47 GMT

ADEN, May 23 — Yemeni government troops today recaptured parts of the strategic city of Zinjibar from al-Qaeda-allied militants, the main target of a US-backed offensive against the insurgents in the south, officials and residents said. Seven militants were killed and one soldier was wounded in gunbattles as the troops won control of Zinjibar's ...

With Mubarak gone, Egyptians vote freely for leader

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:19:12 GMT

CAIRO, May 23 — Egyptians relished their first free leadership vote today, with Islamists pitted against secular figures in a contest unthinkable before a popular revolt swept President Hosni Mubarak from power 15 months ago. With no reliable opinion polls, no one knows who will win the presidency, but Egyptians enjoyed the uncertainty after the ...

Pakistani doctor jailed for helping CIA find bin Laden

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:13:07 GMT

PESHAWAR, May 23 — Pakistani authorities have sentenced a doctor accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden to 33 years in jail on charges of treason, officials said, a move almost certain to further strain ties between Washington and Islamabad. Shakil Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA ...

Big powers, Iran meet in Baghdad to ease nuclear standoff

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:45:02 GMT

NEW YORK, May 23 — World powers began talks with Iran today to test its readiness under pressure of sanctions to scale back its nuclear programme, seeking to ease a decade-old standoff and avert the threat of a Middle East war. The stakes could hardly be higher: global oil markets are edgy over sanctions on Iran’s vital crude exports and the ...

Russia says Iran ready to discuss nuclear steps

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:02:19 GMT

MOSCOW, May 23 — Iran appears ready for serious discussion of concrete steps to resolve the international standoff over its nuclear programme, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today. Speaking in Moscow shortly before talks between Iran and six global powers were to start in Baghdad, Lavrov also said that potential new sanctions approved ...

Iran says Western pressure at talks will be futile

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:22:00 GMT

DUBAI, May 23 — Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said today that any efforts by Western powers to put pressure on Iran at talks in Baghdad over its nuclear programme would be futile. “Their policies of pressure and intimidation are futile. They have to adopt policies to show goodwill to solve this issue,” Salehi told a news conference in ...

Greek exit ‘unavoidable’ if reform stops

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:06:53 GMT

BERLIN, May 23 — Greece’s exit from the euro will be “unavoidable” if anti-austerity radicals win a June 17 election and halt painful economic reforms, a leading German conservative was quoted today as saying. Alexander Dobrindt, deputy leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), one of three parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right ...

As Myanmar opens, protesters test boundaries

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:45:10 GMT

YANGON, May 23 — As long-isolated Myanmar opens up, its people are flexing their newly democratic muscles and testing the boundaries of freedom in a series of protests over chronic power outages. Yesterday evening, several hundred people in the commercial capital Yangon marched at Sule Pagoda, the focal point of demonstrations in 2007 and 1988 ...

Support for Merkel’s party slides in new opinion poll

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:22:19 GMT

BERLIN, May 23 — Support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives has slid to its lowest level in over half a year following their drubbing in an important regional election, according to a new opinion poll published today. The survey by Forsa for Stern magazine is the second this week to show a substantial narrowing of the gap between ...

Egyptians vote to pick president for first time

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:17:45 GMT

CAIRO, May 23 — Egyptians began voting freely today for the first time to pick their president in a wide open election that pits Islamists against men who served under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak. The contest is a novelty for a nation where elections during the 30-year rule of a man some called “Pharaoh” were thinly attended rigmaroles in which ...

Chicago police erase 1968 stain at last with NATO summit

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:34:26 GMT

CHICAGO, May 23 — The NATO summit ended without major violence between police and protesters, winning praise for Chicago Police Chief Garry McCarthy and helping erase bad memories of the bloody street battles here during the 1968 Democratic convention. Ever since anti-Vietnam protesters were beaten in what a commission later called a “police riot” ...

Syria rebels kidnap 13 Lebanese Shi’ites

Wed, 23 May 2012 01:59:38 GMT

BEIRUT, May 23 — Syrian rebels kidnapped 13 Lebanese Shi’ites in the northern province of Aleppo yesterday as they returned home from a pilgrimage, triggering protests in Beirut in the latest unrest to spill over from Syria’s 14-month-old uprising. The abductions follow street fighting in the Lebanese capital sparked by the killing of a Lebanese ...

Strauss-Kahn accuser adds new claim to lawsuit

Wed, 23 May 2012 01:41:00 GMT

NEW YORK, May 23 — Lawyers for the hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault added another claim to her civil lawsuit against him yesterday, taking advantage of a little-used New York City law that applies to “gender-motivated violence”. In the amended lawsuit, Nafissatou Diallo claims the former International Monetary Fund ...

US Air jet diverts after passenger claims to have ‘device’

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:56:11 GMT

WASHINGTON, May 23 — A passenger who claimed to have a surgically implanted device prompted a US Airways jetliner to divert to Maine yesterday in a security scare that followed a recently foiled bomb plot targeting US-bound aircraft, government officials said. Flight 787, from Paris to Charlotte, North Carolina, with 188 people aboard, landed ...

OECD sees euro crisis threatening world recovery

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:16:17 GMT

PARIS, May 23 — The United States and Japan are leading a fragile economic recovery among developed countries that could yet be blown off course if the euro zone fails to contain its flaring growth crisis, the OECD said yesterday. In its twice-yearly economic outlook, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forecast ...

N.Korea to boost nuclear deterrent after US pressure

Tue, 22 May 2012 14:05:45 GMT

SEOUL, May 22 — North Korea intensified its war of words against the United States today , vowing to strengthen its nuclear deterrent after Washington warned Pyongyang of further sanctions if it did not abandon its atomic programme. Last week, world leaders meeting in the United States said North Korea needed to adhere to international norms on ...

Bulgarian capital shaken by 5.6 magnitude quake

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:16:42 GMT

SOFIA, May 22 — A 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook Bulgaria’s capital Sofia early today, causing residents to rush into the streets, the civil defence office said. The quake, which occurred at 3am local time, shook apartment buildings and rattled windows but caused no casualties or damage, Nikolay Nikolov, an official from the office was quoted as ...