Sunday 23 November 2014

News round-up - 11/22/2014

Strong quake strikes central Japan's Nagano city



A strong earthquake late Saturday struck a mountainous area of central Japan that hosted the 1998 winter Olympics, knocking down at least 10 homes in a ski resort town and injuring more than 20 people, officials said.

The magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck near Nagano city shortly after 10 p.m. (1300 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake's magnitude at 6.2. Since the quake occurred inland, there was no possibility of a tsunami.

About 15 people were treated for injuries at a public hospital in the city of Omachi, three of whom were seriously injured, hospital officials told Japan's Kyodo news agency. The National Police Agency told Kyodo that at least six people were injured in Nagano city and the Hakuba ski resort.

Two dead in China earthquake
Magnitude-5.9 quake strikes lightly populated area of western China, killing at least two people and injuring 54

Residents stand on a street to stay away from buildings after the earthquake hit Kangding county, Sichuan province.
Residents stand on a street to stay away from buildings after the earthquake hit Kangding county, Sichuan province. Photograph: CHINA STRINGER NETWORK/REUTERS


A strong earthquake struck a lightly populated, mountainous area of western China, killing at least two people, injuring 54 others and collapsing homes, officials said on Sunday.

The US Geological Survey said the magnitude-5.9 quake hit Saturday about 20 miles from the town of Kangding in Sichuan province. China’s seismological agency put the magnitude at 6.3.


The Sichuan provincial government information office said on its microblog Sunday that the death toll had risen to two with 54 injured.


US, Canada & Ukraine vote against Russia’s anti-Nazism resolution at UN


Azov battalion soldiers take an oath of allegiance to Ukraine in Kiev's Sophia Square before being sent to the Donbass region. (RIA Novosti / Alexandr Maksimenko)

UN General Assembly’s Third Committee passed a Russia-proposed resolution condemning attempts to glorify Nazism ideology and denial of German Nazi war crimes. The US, Canada and Ukraine were the only countries to vote against it.

The resolution was passed on Friday by the committee, which is tasked with tackling social and humanitarian issues and human rights abuses, by 115 votes against three, with 55 nations abstaining, Tass news agency reported.

The document voiced concern over the rise of racism-driven crimes around the world and the influence that parties with extremist agendas are gaining.

It called for a universal adoption of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Many nations including the US, the UK, China and India, signed the convention but did not recognize a mechanism resolving individual complaints it establishes, which makes the convention unenforceable in their jurisdictions.

The resolution also decried attempts to whitewash Nazi collaborators by depicting them as fighters of nationalist resistance movements and honoring them as such.

It condemned any form of denial of Nazi war crimes, including the Jewish Holocaust.....

Police pepper sprays protest in Germany as activists storm new EU central bank HQ


German police used pepper spray and clashed with anti-EU protesters, who stormed and vandalized the new European Central Bank building, which is under construction now in central Frankfurt.

Calling themselves Blockupy, thousands of activists gathered in the city center on Saturday and marched to the goal of their protest, the new ECB office, which is to be inaugurated next March.



The cost of the new office is almost 1.3 billion euros and this fact has caused a lot of criticism while the policy of austerity is applied all over Europe.

Посмотреть изображение в ТвиттереПосмотреть изображение в ТвиттереПосмотреть изображение в Твиттере
demo inaugurates the new ECB building with a colorful "welcome"


Western sanctions are aimed at regime change in Russia – Lavrov

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (RIA Novosti / Ramil Sitdikov)



Western nations is to stir public protests and oust the government, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Western leaders publicly state that the sanctions must hurt [Russia's] economy and stir up public protests. The West doesn’t want to change Russia’s policies. They want a regime change. Practically nobody denies that,” he told a leading think-tank in Moscow.

Lavrov said that the tensions between Russia and the West had been brewing for years before the Ukrainian crisis, adding that now the Europeans had decided to go for all-or-nothing and play chicken with Russia. But at least the positions have been made clear, Lavrov said.

1,000 times stronger than Chelyabinsk meteorite: New asteroid may threaten Earth


Reuters/NASA



Moscow University’s robotic telescope has discovered a massive asteroid that could potentially hit Earth in the future. If such a collision happens, the explosion would be 1,000 more powerful the Chelyabinsk meteorite explosion in 2013.

An automatic telescope installed in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains, near the city of Kislovodsk, first spotted the newly discovered space rock, dubbed 2014 UR116. The asteroid is estimated to be 370 meters in diameter, which is bigger than the size of the notorious Apophis asteroid......

Kiev intends to privatize all coalmining enterprises in Ukraine by late 2016
All mines that will not go private in 2015-2016 will have to be liquidated or conserved
http://en.tass.ru/economy/761106

The Kiev authorities are planning to privatize all coal mining enterprises in Ukraine in 2015-2016, the text of a coalition agreement signed by the leaders of parties who have joined parliamentary coalition at Ukraine’s Verkhovnaya rada (parliament) says.

Australian coal for fuel-hungry Ukraine reaches Mariupol port
The document which Ukraine’s Samopomoshch party published on its website says that all mines that will not go private in 2015-2016 will have to be liquidated or conserved.

The Ugol Ukrainy state enterprise will also go into liquidation. It was set up by Ukraine’s Ministry of Fuel and Coal Industry for concluding coal delivery agreements. Ukrainian politicians are also planning a transition to direct contracts for selling coal.

In 2020, Ukrainian politicians are planning to make coal production self-sustaining, reduce state support for the industry to the minimum and stop financing modernization and technical retooling of the already existing mines and give up the construction of new ones.

Australian coal for fuel-hungry Ukraine reaches Mariupol port
Ukraine is facing deficit of certain types of coal as a result of warfare in Donbass, where coal was produced

KIEV, November 21. /TASS/. A total of 36,000 tonnes of coal from Australia have reached the port city of Mariupol in Ukraine’s embattled Donetsk region, the press service of the city council reports on Thursday.

The Hebei Tangshan bulk cargo ship has delivered 36,000 tonnes of coking coal for local metallurgical plants, the report said.

Ukraine is facing deficit of certain types of coal as a result of warfare in Donbass (the Donetsk and Luhansk regions), where coal of these brands was produced and where there is about 2 million metric tonnes of such coal at state mine depots. According to the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry, the import requirements for these brands total 1 million tonnes a month.

At the moment, Ukraine is buying coal from South Africa at the price of 86 dollars per tonne, but when coal reaches Ukraine the price grows to about 110 dollars per tonne due to transport and other costs.

Last week, Ukrainian Minister for Energy and Coal Industry Yuri Prodan said Ukraine had no other choice at the moment but to buy coal from Russia or in Donbass, where militias control the situation.

He said South Africa had refused to make further coal supplies to Ukraine and it would take at least a month-and-a-half to sign a new contract. “The situation with coal supplies is menacing. The energy security of the country is at threat. We have no other choice but to resort to Russian suppliers and buy coal there,” the minister said.

Aging coal-fired power plants, fed in the past by fuel from Ukraine's coal-rich but now battle-torn Donetsk region, may need massive investment to burn fuel arriving from different sources - at a higher cost, Russian coal industry experts warned earlier.

China against declaration of independence at referendums
This does not apply to the referendum in Crimea, as it has had very special features, the acting director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s European-Central Asian Affairs department said

BEIJING, November 21. /TASS/. China is against the declaration of independence by any ethnic groups through referendums, but this does not apply to Crimea, the acting director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s European-Central Asian Affairs department, Gui Congyou, told Russian media on Friday.

We should take a very careful and well-considered attitude to tackling nationalities’ issues. We are against any nationality gaining independence through referendums. As far as Crimea is concerned, it has very special features. We know well the history of Crimea’s affiliation,” the diplomat said.

On the whole, the nationalities' problems in some countries stem from double standard policies by certain states, which, proceeding from their own selfish interests, support one ethnic group and push it towards holding an independence referendum. This is a manifestation of double standards serving the interests of the United States. In a bid to achieve its aims, the US resorts to intervention in the internal affairs of other states by using force without UN Security Council authorization. China is firmly against this approach,” Gui said.

In his opinion, “such actions trigger aggravations of inter-ethnic contradictions and result in armed conflicts."

China supports Russia’s stance on settling the crisis in Ukraine, Gui Congyou stressed.

US wants to drive wedge in Russia-China ties — Chinese official

China reacts with full understanding to the challenges and threats Russia has faced in connection with the Ukrainian issue and supports Moscow’s approach to its settlement. We are not interested in an armed conflict on the Ukrainian territory and wish to see the issue settled by political means. We are against external intervention in Ukraine’s internal affairs through government coups.”

As for the causes of the Ukrainian crisis, in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin the Chinese leader, Xi Jingping said that ‘there is no smoke without fire’,” Gui dded.

Personally, I believe that some states and blocs stick to the Cold War mentality and are involved in geopolitical games with the aim to infringe on the geopolitical interests of Russia. China is strongly against anyone harming the security of other countries for the purpose of protecting one’s ‘absolute security'," he noted.


UKIP Victory in UK by-election


Via Facebook

Nigel Farage's Independence Party UKIP, which want that United Kingdom should leave the EU and cooperate with Vladimir Putin, took a big victory over the Conservative Tories and social-democratic labor in the parliamentary by-elections in Rochester and Stroud District. The UKIP candidate Mark Reckless got 42 % of the votes and was elected and the UKIP Party-leader Nigel Farage has said UKIP can become a major force in the British Parliament at next year's election.

Mr. Farage has even a good chance to become Prime Minister. He would certainly change the British policy towards EU and Russia. He said earlier this year that Mr. Putin is the statesman he most admires.

In a debate in September at the EU Parliament Mr. Farage said that EU is responsible for the Ukrainian crisis. He said that European states had “directly encouraged” the Kiev uprising, that “led in turn to Vladimir Putin reacting” and as a result there is a civil war.

Farage is sharply EU critical and has said that the West must stop opposing Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine and join forces with the Russian leader in the fight against Islamic extremists. Western countries must stop "playing war games in Ukraine and poking the “Russian bear with a stick” because Mr. Putin is “on our side” in the war against Islamic extremism.

Demonstrations in Mexico City



Right now, Mexico City's central plaza is packed full of people protesting the government-sponsored massacre of 43 students. Protesters are burning President Enrique Peña Nieto in effigy and demanding his resignation, alleging his involvement with drug cartels in the kidnapping and killing of the student

'Hypocritical' Aussie FM at UN Ebola meeting warns against discrimination



The Aussie FM has slammed discrimination against nationals of Ebola-hit W. African countries while chairing the UN Security Council. Her statement has prompted accusations of hypocrisy as Australia has imposed travel bans on these states.

The Security Council expresses its continued concern about the detrimental effect of the isolation of the affected countries as a result of trade and travel restrictions imposed on and to the affected countries,” said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who read a statement from the UN Security Council in New York.

Australia assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council for November 2014 and Bishop became the first Aussie FM to preside at the meeting.

Bishop added that UN also expresses its concern over the “acts of discrimination against the nationals of Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone, including Ebola survivors and their families or those infected with the disease.”

View image on Twitter
Foreign Minister @JulieBishopMP presides at meeting meeting on

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