The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Greece approves scheme to fire thousands of public workers
- Families of Newtown shooting victims to each receive $281,000 in donated funds
- Panama calls in U.N. to inspect North Korean arms ship
| Greece approves scheme to fire thousands of public workers Posted: ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's shaky coalition government scraped through a vote on Wednesday on a bill to sack public sector workers as thousands chanting anti-austerity slogans protested outside parliament. The vote was the first major test for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's two-party coalition since losing an ally over the abrupt shutdown of the state broadcaster last month, which left it with a scant five-seat majority in the 300-seat parliament. After midnight on Wednesday, 153 lawmakers out of the 293 present voted in favour of the bill, whose passage was required to unlock nearly 7 billion euros (6 billion pounds) in aid from European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders. The bill includes deeply divisive plans for a transfer and layoff scheme for 25,000 public workers - mainly teachers and municipal police - that had triggered a week of almost daily marches, rallies and strikes in protest. About 5,000 Greeks flooded the street outside parliament as the vote neared, with some chanting: "We will not succumb, the only option is to resist" and holding aloft black balloons - though turnout was much smaller than in protests last year. "After 12 years on the job, they fire us in one night," Patra Hatziharalampous, a 52-year-old school guard in uniform said between sobs. "If they have any guts, they should say no to the bailout and take some of the bill's articles back." The reforms were passed hours before German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble - Europe's leading proponent of austerity blamed by many Greeks for their woes - arrives in Athens for his first visit to Greece since the debt crisis began in 2009. Before the vote, Samaras announced Greece's first tax cut since its crisis began nearly four years ago, in a bid to placate protests and an increasingly restive public mood. "We will not relax," Samaras said in a surprise television address to announce that value-added tax (VAT) in restaurants would be cut to 13 percent from 23 percent starting August 1. "We will continue climbing up the hill, we will reach the top, which is not far, and better days will come for our people." In a clip that became an instant hit on social media site Twitter, television stations accidentally showed Samaras fumbling at an initial attempt to read the statement and swearing "Damn my head, ******" as he walked off the podium. "DRAWING BLOOD" The government had made a show of arguing for the restaurant VAT cut during its latest talks with lenders, and analysts said the move was a symbolic attempt to show austerity-hit Greeks that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Samaras said the cut would help curb tax evasion, a major problem in the country and one of the reasons it slid into a debt crisis in 2009, but warned that if evasion persisted VAT would revert to 23 percent. "The crucial thing is that it was announced now and not after the summer," said Thomas Gerakis, head of Marc Pollsters. "How it will benefit consumers remains to be seen." Athens has been limping along on two bailouts worth over 240 billion euros ($315 billion) since 2010, which it has secured at the price of wage cuts and tax rises that have triggered a six-year recession and sent unemployment to 27 percent. The latest bill agreed with lenders includes a luxury tax on houses with swimming pools and owners of high performance cars. But the move that has drawn the most anger is the plan to place 25,000 workers into the layoff scheme by the end of 2013, giving them eight months to find another position or get laid off. Greece's public sector is widely seen as oversized, inefficient and filled with patronage hires, but many Greeks believe society can no longer go tolerate cuts or tax hikes. Uniformed municipal police, garbage collectors in orange vests and hundreds of other public sector workers have taken to the streets of Athens almost daily on motorbikes in over a week of protests, blowing whistles, honking horns and blaring sirens. (Additional reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Karolina Tagaris; Writing by Deepa Babington; Editing by Michael Roddy) |
| Families of Newtown shooting victims to each receive $281,000 in donated funds Posted: MILFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - Families of 20 children and six adults killed in the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school each will receive $281,000 (184,860 pounds) from the $11.4 million in donations, an oversight board said on Wednesday. The Newtown Sandy Hook Foundation, which oversees the donations, also decided that the families of 12 children who witnessed and survived the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December each will get $20,000 and two teachers who were injured will split $150,000. Of the total $11.4 million in donations raised with the help of the United Way charity, $7.7 million was set aside for the victims of what was one of the worst mass school shootings in U.S. history. The remaining $3.7 million was dedicated to a long-term community fund, a decision by the foundation board that has been criticized by some victims' families and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy. "You really have to ask the foundation board why it decided not to distribute all the donated funds to the families," said Kenneth Feinberg, who advised the distribution committee and also oversaw compensation for victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the theatre shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and the Boston Marathon bombing. Dr. Charles Herrick, chairman of the foundation board, pointed out "the board decided to distribute 95 percent of the funds directly to the families, but there are many, many victims - including 400 students at the school that day and all the first responders. "We wanted to ensure there are some funds left for the future needs of people in the community who are going to need help," said Herrick, a Newtown resident and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of the Western Connecticut Health Network, which oversees Danbury and New Milford Hospitals. "This is a balancing act and there are other victims we have to think about too," he said. "This is a marathon, not a sprint and there's no way to know what problems will arise over the next 10 years." In a letter to the board, Malloy insisted that an independent third party from outside of Newtown be chosen to oversee any remaining funds. Herrick said the board would press ahead with its plan to appoint another local distribution committee by mid-September to oversee the money. |
| Panama calls in U.N. to inspect North Korean arms ship Posted: PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Panama said on Wednesday it had called on the U.N. Security Council to investigate a North Korean ship caught smuggling arms from Cuba, piling more pressure on Pyongyang over a possible breach of U.N. sanctions. Panama stopped the ship last week and seized its cargo after a stand-off with the North Korean crew in which the captain tried to slit his own throat. Authorities discovered missile equipment, MiG fighter jets and other arms aboard that Cuba said were "obsolete" Soviet-era weapons being sent to North Korea for repair. "It's going to be transferred to the U.N. Security Council. They will decide what to do," Panamanian Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino said in Panama City. Five U.N. investigators, including one from the Security Council, are expected to arrive around the beginning of August once the ship, the Chong Chon Gang, has been unloaded, Panamanian government officials said. The North Korean government urged Panama to release the ship and its crew, who were detained and are in the process of being charged for failing to declare the arms on board. "This cargo is nothing but aging weapons, which are to send back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency. The incident has not derailed U.S.-Cuban talks on migration, which went ahead as scheduled on Wednesday, but U.S. officials said Washington would raise the issue of the ship with Cuba very soon. One senior U.S. lawmaker called the matter a "grave violation of international treaties. The United Nations has imposed various sanctions on Pyongyang, including strict regulations on arms shipments, for flouting measures aimed at curbing its nuclear weapons program. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Panama on Wednesday for seizing the vessel, adding that the U.N. sanctions committee would take up the issue promptly. About 350 police and border patrol officials were combing through the ship, which has a dead weight of some 14,000 tonnes. Before their arrest, the ship's crew burned the electrical system to disable it, which slowed the process of unloading it, a Panamanian Foreign Ministry spokesman said. As a result, it could take up to 10 days to unload the ship, he added. "This ship was loaded so you can't unload it," security minister Mulino said on his Twitter account. Two more containers with suspected arms have been found on the ship in addition to the two already discovered. Access points to the ship's storage areas were all "completely blocked" in breach of international regulations, when Panamanian officials boarded it, Mulino said. Britain's U.N. Ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, said the ship appeared to have violated the U.N. arms embargo. Britain is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. An eight-member panel of experts appointed by Ban Ki-moon monitors the Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea. The experts are mandated to "gather, examine and analyze information from States, relevant United Nations bodies and other interested parties" on allegations of sanctions violations and report back to the 15-member Security Council. CREW TIGHT-LIPPED Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said Panama had asked the United States for technical assistance on the matter, which would be provided. She said Washington would be talking to Cuba "very soon" about the ship. A State Department official said the scheduled migration talks with Havana went ahead on Wednesday as even though the United States believes Cuba broke U.N. sanctions, the issues were deemed to be "apples and oranges." According to Cuba, the weapons on the ship included two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MiG-21 fighter jets, and 15 MiG-21 engines, all Soviet-era military weaponry built in the middle of the last century. Servicing of weapons would also be in breach of the arms embargo imposed on North Korea sanctions. A U.N. resolution adopted in 2009 says the embargo applies to "all arms and related materiel, as well as to financial transactions, technical training, advice, services or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of such arms, except for small arms and light weapons." U.S. Democratic lawmaker Robert Menendez, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement condemning Cuba, saying it needed very careful monitoring. "The shipment ... is a grave violation of international treaties," he said. "Weapons transfers from one communist regime to another hidden under sacks of sugar are not accidental ... and reinforces the necessity that Cuba remain on the State Department's list of countries that sponsor state terrorism." Hal Klepak, a history professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, said Cuba was "using weapons and equipment of staggeringly old vintage" and that the Pentagon had long since written off the island as a military threat. Since Cuba's military doctrine was designed to deter any attack, it needs to maintain the arms it has, he added. "Cuba cannot afford to buy anything newer and does not have repair facilities of its own for such needs. Thus if it is not to scrap, for example, the aircraft entirely, it must repair and potentially update them in some areas," Klepak said. Panama's Foreign Minister Nunez said his country had no problem with Cuba but had been under a U.N. obligation to stop the North Korean vessel and inspect its contents. Javier Caraballo, Panama's top anti-drugs prosecutor, said 33 of the 35 crew members had so far been charged with crimes against Panama's internal security for trafficking undeclared arms. All 33 members had invoked their right to remain silent, he added. The government said it aims to charge all the crew. Separately, IHS Fairplay, which monitors the movement of ships, said it had found another North Korean-flagged vessel made a similar journey to Chong Chon Gang last year. The O Un Chong Nyon Ho docked in Havana during May 2012, IHS said. (Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Louis Charbonneau, David Adams, Paul Eckert, Marc Frank and Michelle Nichols and Ju-min Park; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Claudia Parsons, David Brunnstrom and Stacey Joyce) |
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