The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Muslim rebels take hostages in raid on Philippine southern city
- Thai Airways Airbus 330 skids off Bangkok runway, 14 injured
- Mexico dilutes fiscal reform as plan dodges sales tax
| Muslim rebels take hostages in raid on Philippine southern city Posted: MANILA (Reuters) - Muslim rebels took 30 civilian hostages in the southern Philippines on Monday and held security forces in a standoff as part of a drive to derail peace talks, officials said. Police commandos cordoned off parts of Zamboanga City on the island of Mindanao after a rogue faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) took hostages and tried to march to the city hall to raise their flag, an army commander said. "They want to hoist their flag, we will not allow that," Colonel Andrelino Colina told a local radio station, saying dozens of armed MNLF landed in two coastal villages at dawn and clashed with security forces. Three people were killed and 10 wounded as the rebels forced their way to the city centre. "We condemned the attack on Zamboanga City in the strongest possible terms," Edwin Lacierda, the president's spokesman said in a statement. "The ongoing attack of armed individuals in Zamboanga City, including initial reports of the possible use of civilians as human shields is a cause for great concern." The gunmen belong to a Muslim rebel group that entered into a peace agreement with government in 1996 and was allowed to run a Muslim autonomous region. Five years later, the group took up arms again, claiming the government did not fully implement the peace agreement. In Kuala Lumpur, the government and the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), are preparing for peace talks to conclude a deal on power-sharing and the establishment of a larger autonomous Muslim region by 2015. "They are trying to spoil the peace process," Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief peace negotiator, told Reuters by phone. An official from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Joe Lorena, said the attack could have been triggered by rumours that talks in Kuala Lumpur might result in the termination of an earlier deal with the gunmen's group. (Reporting By Manuel Mogato; Editing by Jeremy Laurence) |
| Thai Airways Airbus 330 skids off Bangkok runway, 14 injured Posted: BANGKOK (Reuters) - An Airbus 330-300 operated by Thai Airways skidded off the runway at Bangkok's main international airport after the nose wheel collapsed on landing late Sunday night, injuring 14 passengers, the airline said. The flight from Guangzhou, China, was carrying 288 passengers and 14 crew members. Passengers were evacuated using emergency slides and the 14 injured were sent to a Bangkok hospital, Thai Airways said. "Thai Airways International Flight TG 679 from Guangzhou was scheduled to arrive at Suvarnabhumi Airport at 23:00 hours local time. The nose gear failed as the plane touched the runway causing the plane to skid," the airline said in an emailed statement. "Sparks were noticed from the vicinity of the right landing gear near the engine; the matter is under investigation" by Thai civil aviation officials, it said. Bangkok's futuristic Suvarnabhumi airport opened seven years ago and has since become one of the busiest airports in Asia. Built to handle 45 million passengers a year, Suvarnabhumi Airport is already seeing 53 million passengers annually. The airport is expanding a new passenger terminal and adding more parking bays and a new runway to enable it to handing 60 million fliers by 2017, according to the Airports of Thailand Public Company Ltd. (Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Chris Gallagher) |
| Mexico dilutes fiscal reform as plan dodges sales tax Posted: MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's government on Sunday proposed raising taxes for higher earners, putting a levy on stock market gains and boosting social programs to help the poor, but it shied away from widening a controversial sales tax amid an economic slowdown. The planned fiscal reform includes a universal pension and unemployment insurance in a country where half the population lives in poverty, as well as emergency spending that will bring on a budget deficit this year and next. Applying the sales tax to food and medicine is a political hot potato in Mexico, and its omission will dilute the potential impact of the reforms because it was seen as one of the most effective ways of raising more revenue. Avoiding that tax, which senior figures in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had until recently said looked almost certain, should help blunt street protests by leftists who say it would be unfair on the millions of poor. Much of the social burden for the reform appears to fall on the middle class, with the top rate of tax rising to 32 percent from 30 percent for those who earn more than 500,000 pesos (24,165 pounds) a year, the plan presented to Congress showed. It also closes some tax loopholes and ends some exemptions. "The reform puts an end to tax privileges that shouldn't exist," President Enrique Pena Nieto said in a speech at the presidential residence as he unveiled his reform proposals. "The aim is that all taxpayers without exception ... contribute to the country as far as their means will allow." Details of the plan sparked prompt criticism from some members of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), which the centrist Pena Nieto has relied on to help push his economic policies in Congress because his PRI lacks a majority. "To put this rate on those earning 500,000 pesos is an attack on the middle class," said PAN Senator Francisco Dominguez, who sits on the Senate's finance committee. By contrast, the plan, which also includes measures to tax soft drinks and impose a carbon charge on polluters, won some early applause from Mexico's main leftist opposition party. The reform aims to increase Mexico's weak tax revenues by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2018 - less than the 4 percent of GDP several senior officials in the PRI had said the government was originally targeting. Pena Nieto also backed off from imposing much higher income tax rates on Mexico's richest, including Carlos Slim, who started this year as the world's richest man. Instead, following a surprise contraction in the economy during the April-June period, the government plans to deliver a short-term boost to growth with "emergency" spending which will cause a budget deficit this year and next. The bill proposes a "transitory" deficit of 0.4 percent of GDP for 2013, and 1.5 percent of GDP in 2014. STOCK MARKET TAX Fiscal reform is one of the key planks of Pena Nieto's economic agenda, which aims to improve years of sluggish growth in Latin America's No. 2 economy. The reform proposes imposing a 10 percent tax on stock market gains and dividends and eliminating some two-thirds of special tax breaks and exemptions. The shared border area with the United States will no longer enjoy a lower sales tax that was originally introduced to help spur trade. Pena Nieto has pledged to lift growth to around 6 percent a year - up from an average of barely 2 percent since 2000 - by also opening up the oil sector to foreign capital, fomenting competition in major industries and improving education. The plan aims to ease the tax burden on state oil monopoly Pemex, though Pena Nieto did not detail by how much. A draft of the plan foresaw the burden eventually falling to below 60 percent from 79 percent. That interlocks with a separate energy reform Pena Nieto has presented which seeks to lure foreign investment into the industry to help reverse a slide in crude production. Mexico wants to wean itself off dependence on Pemex, whose revenues fund about a third of the federal budget. Easing its tax burden should help it to compete better internationally, although it has also been hurt by inefficiencies. Mexico has the lowest tax revenue in the 34-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), crimping its ability to spend on health, infrastructure and social programs vital to boosting living standards and growth. Excluding revenues from Pemex, the total of taxes raised by the government was only 9.7 percent of GDP in 2012. ECONOMIC WOES The government slashed its 2013 growth outlook to 1.8 percent last month after the economy shrank by 0.7 percent in the April-June period. That increased pressure on policymakers to hold back from any measures that could crimp demand. The government also aims to levy so-called health taxes, including levies on fuels and soda pop, to combat obesity. It also plans to continue to erase fuel subsidies, with gasoline prices rising in line with inflation from 2014. Shortly after taking office in December, Pena Nieto forged a pact with the opposition to push for a range of reforms. It has helped him push major legislation to increase competition in the telecoms sector and improve education standards. Pena Nieto is already grappling with protests by teachers opposed to tougher standards, causing friction between the PRI and the leftist Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD), whose leader Jesus Zambrano also signed the so-called Pact for Mexico. Zambrano welcomed details of the tax reform on Sunday. "It seems this would be a big step forward in re-directing the economic policy of Pena Nieto's government," he told Reuters. "It would mean paying heed to a fundamental part of the agreements contained within the Pact for Mexico." The PRD is opposed to Pena Nieto's energy overhaul, arguing it plans to give away Mexico's oil wealth. But agreement on the tax plan could bring the two sides closer together, possibly smoothing the passage of the energy bill through Congress. Still, Mexico's most well-known leftist, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the runner-up to Pena Nieto in last year's election, has vowed protests against the reforms. Thousands gathered at a rally led by Lopez Obrador in central Mexico City on Sunday, though the atmosphere was peaceful. In 2006, his protests over alleged electoral fraud paralyzed parts of Mexico City for weeks. (With reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez, Anahi Rama, Ana Isabel Martinez, Simon gardner, Michael O'Boyle and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Kieran Murray) |
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