The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Japan PM Shinzo Abe on track for hefty election win - polls
- Thousands protest Zimmerman verdict
- Detained Iranian diplomat released on bail after four months
| Japan PM Shinzo Abe on track for hefty election win - polls Posted: TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc remains on track for a big win in Sunday's upper house election, final surveys before the vote showed on Monday, a victory that would likely help end six years of parliamentary deadlock. The surveys showed support for Abe's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) far outstrips other parties, buoyed by hopes that his hyper-easy monetary policy, public spending and structural reform will bolster growth and jolt Japan out of years of stagnation. Voter preference polls taken on Saturday and Sunday and published by the Asahi and Mainichi dailies showed that 37 to 43 percent of voters wanted to vote for the LDP. Such support meant that, along with coalition partner the New Komeito, the LDP would likely win a majority in the upper house. It would also spell an end to the "twisted parliament" in which the opposition controls the upper house, hampering policy implementation, even if Abe's commitment to growth-generating and potentially painful reforms such as deregulation remains in doubt. Monday's surveys showed 8 percent of respondents wanted to vote for the New Komeito, ahead of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) with 7 percent. Around a third of those surveyed did not support any party, and voter turn-out was expected to be low. Japan has suffered parliamentary gridlock ever since Abe led the LDP to a massive defeat in a 2007 upper house vote. He quit abruptly two months later due to the deadlock, plummeting support and ill health. The DPJ faced a similar headache after sweeping to power in 2009, only to lose a 2010 upper house election. The hawkish Abe, 58, returned to power in December for a rare second term after the LDP-led bloc handsomely won a December election for parliament's powerful lower house. The coalition, however, has since lacked a majority in the upper chamber, which can block legislation. (Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Paul Tait) |
| Thousands protest Zimmerman verdict Posted: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators demanding "Justice for Trayvon" marched in major cities across the United States on Sunday to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. While a jury of six women absolved Zimmerman of any crime with their not-guilty verdict, civil rights leaders decried the decision, and demonstrators took to the streets in New York, Boston, San Francisco and other cities. U.S. President Barack Obama called for a peaceful response to the case that has polarized the U.S. public over the past 16 months. In general, the demonstrations were peaceful, though the New York march became disorderly at times. Defence lawyers argued that Martin, 17, attacked Zimmerman, who shot the teen in self-defence. Prosecutors said Zimmerman, 29, who is white and Hispanic, wrongly suspected Martin, 17, of being a criminal because he was black. Zimmerman called police to report a suspicious looking person, then left his car with a fully loaded Kel Tec 9mm pistol concealed in his waistband. A fight ensued in which Zimmerman suffered a bloody nose and head injuries, and Zimmerman shot Martin once in the heart, killing him. "Trayvon was profiled, pursued and ultimately killed because of the colour of his skin," said Angela Tovar, 33, an urban planner from Brooklyn. About 1,000 to 2,000 of the demonstrators abandoned the protest site at Union Square to march in the streets toward Times Square, slowing or stopping traffic. Police attempted to funnel the crowd into controlled lanes but were unable to. Later they halted the march about eight blocks short of Times Square, but the demonstrators made their way around the officers. About 1,000 people sat in Times Square, drawing curious looks from the tourists who packed the so-called Crossroads of the World. The protest was lively, led by several men on bullhorns. In Boston, about 500 racially mixed protesters left their demonstration site in the Roxbury neighbourhood and started marching in the streets alongside police escorts on motorcycle and on foot. Police called the march "very orderly." "Morally it cannot be right, that a child cannot go about his business and go to the store," said Maura Twomey, 57, an acupuncturist. "Racism is not just an issue for the black community. It's for all of us." Demonstrators raised signs saying "We Demand Justice," "Stop Racial Profiling" and "Never Forget. Never Again. Justice for Trayvon." Roughly 500 people rallied on the streets of San Francisco, some carrying yellow signs with Martin's photo. About a dozen police motorcycles and vans trailed the tidy group of marchers, who banged on drums as they walked and continuously chanted, "Justice for Trayvon Martin." "I feel a moral obligation to be in the street and object to this kind of racist policy," said Naomi White, 69, a retired teacher from San Francisco. "George Zimmerman got away with murder." (Additional reporting by Adrees Latif in New York, Ross Kerber in Boston and; Editing by Daniel Trotta) |
| Detained Iranian diplomat released on bail after four months Posted: UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A senior Iranian diplomat linked to Iran's reformists was released from a Tehran prison on bail on Sunday after four months in detention, sources familiar with the case said. Bagher Asadi, who has been a senior diplomat at Iran's U.N. mission in New York and was recently a director at the secretariat of the so-called D8 group of developing nations in Istanbul, was arrested in mid-March in the Iranian capital, the sources told Reuters in April. The same sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that an Iranian media report published on Sunday about Asadi's release was accurate. They said it remained unclear why he was arrested in the first place and what the status is of the case against him. The sources said they doubted Asadi's release from prison represented a move by Iranian authorities to relax what analysts and Western diplomats have described as a crackdown on dissidents in Iran ahead of the June presidential election. Tehran's U.N. mission responded to a request for comment by referring Reuters to a report on Asadi's release by Iran's ISNA student news agency. The 61-year-old diplomat was held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison in solitary confinement for months and without access to a lawyer for his entire detention, the sources told Reuters. Iran's reformists were sidelined after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the conservative former mayor of Tehran, won the presidential election in 2005, replacing reformist Mohammad Khatami. The sources said Asadi's arrest may have been linked to the pre-election crackdown on dissidents. Ahmadinejad will step down soon. Hassan Rohani, a pragmatic conservative widely seen as a relative moderate, won last month's vote. In January 2004, Asadi wrote an opinion piece that ran in The New York Times in which he made clear his affinities with the reformist philosophy of Khatami, who was president at the time. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Asadi in 2003 to a panel of eminent persons on U.N. relations with civil society. |
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