The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- U.S. charges Uzbek man with threatening Obama's life
- Japan nuclear compensation bill passes key hurdle
- World Bank warns of economic slowdown if China fails to tackle chronic diseases
| U.S. charges Uzbek man with threatening Obama's life Posted: 26 Jul 2011 09:40 PM PDT ATLANTA (Reuters) - An Uzbek national illegally residing in the United States was charged on Tuesday with threatening the life of President Barack Obama and possessing unlawful firearms, U.S. officials said. A federal grand jury in Birmingham, Alabama, indicted Ulugbek Kodirov, 21, on four counts of threatening Obama on four separate occasions this month, according to a statement by Joyce White Vance, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. The statement gave no details of the alleged threats. "Federal and local law enforcement effectively coordinated to investigate a threat, which resulted in the arrest of Kodirov, who was charged ... with repeatedly threatening to kill the President of the United States and with possessing grenades and an M15 machine gun," Vance said in a statement. Kodirov was arrested on July 13 at a motel in Leeds, Alabama, after buying the gun from an undercover agent, said the statement, which was co-signed by other law enforcement authorities. Kodirov came to the United States in 2009, but his student visa was revoked in April 2010 after he failed to enroll in school. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on each count of threatening Obama and 10 years on each of the weapons counts, the statement said. (Writing by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Paul Simao) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Japan nuclear compensation bill passes key hurdle Posted: 26 Jul 2011 09:40 PM PDT TOKYO (Reuters) - A lower house committee of Japan's parliament on Tuesday passed a bill to help Tokyo Electric Power pay billions of dollars in compensation to those hurt by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, ensuring a law will soon be in place to guarantee the utility's survival and get aid to victims.
The bill, now set for passage in a lower house plenary session as early as this week and to go into law soon thereafter, will establish a fund backed by taxpayer money and contributions from other utilities to handle compensation, which analysts have estimated could cost up to $130 billion. But the bill, a product of more than a month of wrangling between ruling party and opposition lawmakers following the initial announcement of a draft in May, leaves several key issues unresolved. Lawmakers agreed to a future review of the bailout scheme, including how costs would be shared among the government, Tokyo Electric and other utilities, as well as whether shareholders should be asked to shoulder some of the burden. "Overall, it's a positive development. The passage of the bill is the biggest point to watch for Tokyo Electric's credit risk. It will help stem a worsening of its credit status," said Mana Nakazora, chief credit analyst at BNP Paribas Securities. "But details remain unclear, including how much of a stake the government will take in Tokyo Electric, how to ensure the company's cash flow and how much other power utilities have to contribute to the fund." The crisis at Tokyo Electric has destabilised Japan's entire $860 billion corporate bond market. The utility, commonly known as Tepco, is the biggest bond issuer accounting for 8 percent of the market. Since the disaster, ratings agency Standard and Poor's has slashed Tepco's rating deep into junk territory. The company's stock price tumbled by as much as 90 percent at one point, forcing Dai-ichi Life and other shareholders to book special losses. Rising expectations that the bill would pass triggered a sharp rebound in Tepco's stock over the past few weeks to a four-month high of 643 yen on Friday. Investors have since taken profits, knocking it back to 512 yen as of Tuesday's close. It remains to be seen whether Tepco's lenders will be asked by the government to make concessions. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and two other leading banks held about $27 billion in outstanding loans to Tepco as of the end of March. "Under the scheme, creditor banks will not be asked to forgive debts, although there remains a possibility that they might be asked to ease some lending conditions," said Yoshinobu Yamada, senior analyst at Deutsche Securities. "We expect Tokyo Electric to formulate a major restructuring plan about a month after the passage of the bill. As early as the beginning of September, the Tokyo Electric matter might not be a factor affecting bank shares anymore." Graphic on nuclear plants: http://link.reuters.com/jeq72s SHARING THE PAIN A 9.0 magnitude earthquake and deadly tsunami on March 11 crippled Tepco's Fukushima atomic power plant, causing fuel meltdowns and radiation leaks in the world's worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. The incident has forced about 80,000 people to evacuate from the area around the plant and severely affected sales of farm produce after radiation levels exceeding safety standards were detected in beef, vegetables and tea. The compensation bill was drafted by the ruling Democratic Party of Japan but was revised following talks with the opposition to clearly establish the government's responsibility for compensation and dealing with the effects of the disaster. But with Tepco still struggling to bring the plant's reactors under control, it is difficult to estimate how high the total compensation cost will climb. The bill also fails to make clear how Tepco and other utilities would share the costs. It says the total annual amount of contributions and how it would be split among the operators would be decided by a steering committee in the future. That adds to the uncertainty faced by Kansai Electric Power and other utilities, which are already struggling with higher fuel costs to make up for the loss of power from idled nuclear plants. Utilities are now operating 16 out of 54 nuclear reactors that had been available before the March 11 earthquake and all of those could be shut down by next May if public concerns about safety continue to stall restarts of reactors taken offline for routine maintenance. "Strong uncertainty remains over the government's nuclear policy. A large increase in fuel costs is inevitable if utilities try to replace nuclear power with thermal," said Hiroki Shibata, analyst at Standard & Poor's. "It would be critical that they can pass it on to electricity bills but that has not been discussed yet. We have to carefully study the development but the situation is negative for utilities." ($1 = 78.365 Japanese Yen) (Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto and Yoko Kubota; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Nathan Layne) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| World Bank warns of economic slowdown if China fails to tackle chronic diseases Posted: 26 Jul 2011 09:40 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - The World Bank on Tuesday urged China to step up efforts to fight chronic diseases, the main cause of death in the country, warning of rising health expenditure and an economic slowdown if rapid action is not taken.
Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) -- such as lung cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes -- account for over 80 percent of all deaths in the world's most populous nation, the World Bank said in a report on non-communicable diseases in China. The report warned that "a reduced ratio of healthy workers to sicker, older dependents will certainly increase the odds of a future economic slowdown and pose a significant social challenge" in the world's second-largest economy. "The issue that should concern all of us is with the growing epidemic of non-communicable diseases, that will imply more people using expensive and costly hospital care for long periods of time," said Patricio Marquez, a World Bank lead health specialist and co-author of the report at a news conference in Beijing. "The key issue facing society as a whole is how to control the escalation of healthcare costs," he said. "One could say that if unchecked, this would make the current reforms unsustainable." China launched a $125 billion healthcare reform plan in 2009 to try and extend health insurance and basic health care to all of its people. Out-of-pocket payments, which represent 37 percent of total health expenditure, will continue to rise, said Shiyong Wang, a World Bank senior health specialist and co-author of the report. Richard Yeh, a healthcare analyst with Citigroup in Hong Kong, said the rising healthcare costs will have broader implications for the Chinese government, which is aiming to reduce the economy's dependence on export earnings. "Part of the reason that people don't want to spend is because the healthcare system is not taking care of the entire healthcare bill for the people," he said. "If there's no strong national healthcare supporting system, people will continue to have a high savings rate. That will definitely ... hold up national consumption." The World Bank report said China's "healthcare system is not responding effectively" to tackle non-communicable diseases, which is why the country's deaths from those diseases are higher than other leading G20 countries. For example, China's mortality rate for strokes is four to six times higher than that in Japan and the United States. A rapidly ageing population and more sedentary lifestyles, with bad diets and lack of exercise, were also factors contributing to the increasing rates of the diseases, the report said. The World Bank report said that the economic benefit of reducing cardiovascular diseases by one percent per year from 2010-2040 could generate more than $10.7 trillion, equivalent to 68 percent of China's real GDP in 2010. The World Bank estimates that without action, China will lose $550 billion in national income between 2005 and 2015 due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. INCREASE TAXES Fifty percent of the risk factors of non-communicable diseases can be prevented by the adoption of certain measures, which would cost the Chinese government $220 per capita per year, Marquez said. One way was to increase taxes on tobacco to create "an economic disincentive for people to smoke", he said. Excise taxes on cigarettes in China are less than 30 percent, far lower than Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, where they hover around 65-80 percent, he said. China has the world's largest number of smokers, with more than 300 million smokers. It is also the world's largest cigarette producer and has embarked on years of half-hearted campaigns to stub out the habit in some cities. China's health ministry said it will ban smoking at all indoor public venues from May. Restricting access to alcohol, introducing taxes on unhealthy food and cutting salt in food would also prevent non-communicable diseases, the report said. (Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Sugita Katyal) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: World Updates To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan