CAIRO, March 29 -- Alaa Abdel Fattah, a leading pro-democracy activist in Egypt, has been released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for inciting and taking part in protests, according to his family and lawyer. The influential blogger and software engineer was a leading voice amongst the young Egyptians who initially led the 2011 uprising that ended the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. "Alaa got out," his sister, Mona Seif, wrote on Facebook and Twitter on Friday. His other sister, Sanaa Seif, posted a video on Facebook of Abdel Fattah playing with a dog. His lawyer, Khaled Ali, confirmed the release by posting on Facebook: "Thanks God, Alaa Abdel-Fattah at home." Facebook pages set up in support of Abdel Fattah posted videos of him grinning, hugging and shaking hands with friends as he walked out of a police station in Cairo. In the background, women were ululating. His release from the notorious Tora prison will not bring him complete freedom. As part of his parole, Abdel Fattah must sleep every night at a local police station for the next five years and will be under police surveillance.
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BAHREIN, March 29 -- There is a glimmer of good news for Williams with the legendary Sir Patrick Head returning to the team as a consultant. Williams have been in turmoil right from the word ‘go’ this season, arriving and setting up late in Barcelona for pre-season and creating another car which has some fundamental problems which need to be addressed. The uncertainity continued with chief technical officer Paddy Lowe placed on leave for ‘personal reasons’ and very unlikely to return to his position. Williams, who remain comfortably the slowest on the Formula 1 grid, could do with a wise old head and some guidance in tough times. Step forward Sir Patrick. Head co-founded the Williams team with Sir Frank Williams in 1976 and has remained a shareholder ever since.Head also played an integral role as technical director and later director of engineering in helping Williams collect seven Drivers’ Championships and nine Constructors’ titles before stepping away from the frontline in 2011. Williams confirmed in a short statement: “We can confirm that Sir Patrick Head is currently offering some support to our engineering team on a short-term consultancy basis.” THE HAGUE, March 28 -- Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has filed an appeal against the verdict made by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals on March 20, tightening his sentence from 40 years behind bars to life imprisonment. The appeal was made public by the Mechanism’s press service on Thursday. The document lists eight grounds for filing an appeal and contains the demand to invalidate the previous court decision. "The Majority erred in law by violating President Karadzic’s right to appeal when itself imposing a life sentence, rather than remanding the issue of the appropriate sentence to the Trial Chamber." "Each error of law invalidated the decision to impose a life sentence and occasioned a miscarriage of justice. The relief sought is an order vacating the life sentence and remanding the matter to a Trial Chamber for re-sentencing," the document states. Karadzic trialKaradzic, the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, spent 13 years as a fugitive before being captured by Serbian intelligence services in a Belgrade suburb in July 2008. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) launched a trial against him in October 2009. In March 2016, Karadzic was found guilty on 10 out of 11 counts, particularly concerning the Srebrenica massacre, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Karadzic’s defense earlier requested that his 40-year prison sentence be overturned and the case be reviewed. In response to the appeal, the court has increased Karadzic’s sentence to life in prison on March 20. "China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms" Even as it engages with U.N. human rights institutions, China has worked consistently and often aggressively to silence criticism of its human rights record before U.N. bodies and has taken actions aimed at weakening some of the central mechanisms available in those institutions to advance rights. Because of China’s growing international influence, the stakes of such interventions go beyond how China’s own human rights record is addressed at the U.N. and pose a longer-term challenge to the integrity of the system as a whole.
DEN HAAG, March 28 -- The United States has got cart blanche from The Netherlands to use the Curacao island (which is part of the kingdom) as a springboard for aggressive intervention in Venezuela, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday. "We’ve taken note of the agreement signed between the Netherlands and the United States on using the infrastructures of the Curacao island for humanitarian supplies to Venezuela," she said. "At first sight this agreement merely opens access for US officials to Curacao’s infrastructures exclusively for providing humanitarian aid, but, as it has turned out, this deal does not rule out the possibility of using not only civilian but other means of delivery. Of what type? Clearly, military ones." "In the context of the current realities The Hague has in fact given the Americans a free hand to use its former colony as a springboard for aggressive intervention in Venezuela’s affairs under the cover of humanitarian slogans," Zakharova stated. "We hope that the Curacao authorities will not allow the island’s territory to be used as a springboard for another Western adventure capable of destabilizing the situation in the region." MALTA, March 28 -- Malta deployed patrol boats and a helicopter to capture a migrant-packed Turkish tanker after it was hijacked by asylum seekers rescued by the crew near Libyan shores. The hijacked ship was seized by the Maltese special operations unit on Thursday morning. It was escorted to Malta’s capital, Valletta where all the migrants are due to be handed over to the police. Several patrol boats and a helicopter participated in the operation to intercept and capture the vessel. The migrants hijacked the Palau-flagged Turkish tanker ‘El Hiblu 1’ around 5pm local time on Wednesday after its crew had rescued them off the coast of Libya. The ship was then making its way to the Libyan port of Tripoli, apparently aiming to drop the migrants off there, but suddenly turned around just six nautical miles (11 km) from the shore and headed north, towards Malta. The Maltese authorities confirmed the hijacking and put the nation’s armed forces on standby to confront “the pirated ship.” There are believed to be 108 migrants on board, around 77 of which are adult men, the Times of Malta reported, citing government sources. Other reports suggested that the number of migrants may be as high as 120. It is unclear how many asylum seekers participated in the hijacking. Malta wasn’t the only Mediterranean nation to put its forces on alert. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said that Rome was prepared to intercept the tanker if it sailed to the island of Lampedusa or the country’s mainland. He reiterated that nation’s ports remain closed to the ship just like they have been to NGO rescue vessels. BEIJING, March 28 -- China added 194 million tonnes of coal mining capacity in 2018, data from the energy bureau showed on Tuesday, despite vows to eliminate excess capacity in the sector and to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Total coal mining capacity in the country was at 3.53 billion tonnes per year by the end of 2018, according to a statement from the National Energy Administration (NEA). That compares to 3.34 billion tonnes at the end of 2017. The NEA said that excludes 1.03 billion tonnes per year of approved coal capacity currently under construction and 370 million tonnes per year under trial operation. Additionally, the NEA has approved another seven coal mining projects with a combined capacity of 22.5 million tonnes per year since the beginning of 2019. However, the total amount of coal mines in China declined to 3,373 in 2018 from 3,907 in 2017, the NEA said in the statement, as Beijing has been phasing out small and ineffective coal mines in eastern regions and expanding capacity in the west. The increasing coal capacity has stirred concerns it will undermine efforts to cut the share of coal in total energy use, and that China will be unable to keep its commitment of capping climate-warming carbon emissions by around 2030. China produced 3.55 billion tonnes of coal in 2018, up 5.2 percent from a year ago, while generating 4.979 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity from coal-fired power plants, up 6 percent from the 2017 level, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. WASHINGTON, March 28 -- US President Donald Trump has called on Russia to pull its troops from Venezuela and warned "all options" were open to making that happen. The arrival of two Russian air force planes carrying nearly 100 Russian troops outside Caracas on Saturday has escalated the political crisis in Venezuela. Russia and China have backed President Nicolas Maduro, while the United States and most Western countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido. In January, Guaido invoked the constitution to declare himself interim president, arguing Maduro's 2018 re-election was illegitimate. The US government says the Russian troops include special forces and cybersecurity personnel. "They've got a lot of pressure right now. They have no money, they have no oil, they have no nothing. They've got plenty of pressure right now. They have no electricity," Trump said. "Other than military, you can't get any more pressure than they have... All options are open," he added. Russia has bilateral relations and agreements with Venezuela, which it plans to honour, Russian Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said, in response to Trump's comments. "It's not up to US to decide actions and fate of other countries. It's only up to the people of Venezuela and its only legitimate President Nicolas Maduro," Polyanskiy said on Twitter. Maduro also said a high-profile Venezuelan-Russian intergovernmental meeting will be held in April, adding the sides plan to sign nearly 20 agreements in the spheres of economy, energy, trade and education. The president also announced that Caracas awaits another delivery of humanitarian aid from Moscow. On February 22, the Latin American country received 7.5 tonnes of humanitarian cargo from Russia, including medicine, medical equipment and consumables. LONDON, March 27 -- Prime Minister Theresa May has told fellow Tory MPs that she will quit once the Brexit deal has been delivered. MP James Cartlidge said as he left a meeting of the 1922 Committee in Westminster that Mrs May said she "would not remain in post for the next phase of the negotiations”. Number 10 believes that the promise of a Brexiteer PM leading the negotiations for a future deal with the EU, will help get the deal over the line. It came after the government indicated that they could bring back the meaningful vote a third time on Friday, reports the Mirror Online. However, it remains unclear whether the Speaker will allow that after he said the deal needs major changes before it can be put before MPs again. Earlier this month he would not accept another meaningful vote being brought forward without substantial changes, which he indicated should include a negotiated change with the EU. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told MPs a motion to enable the Commons to sit on Friday is to be tabled by the Government as it bids to secure approval for the deal. Mr Barclay said: "In order to maximise our ability to secure that approval the Government will, later today, table a motion for the House to sit this Friday." Mr Bercow earlier told MPs: "I understand the Government may be thinking about bringing a third meaningful vote before the House either tomorrow or even on Friday, if the House opts to sit that day. "Therefore, in order there should be no misunderstanding, I wish to make clear that I do expect the Government to meet the test of change." They should not seek to circumvent my ruling by means of tabling either a notwithstanding or a paving motion - the tabling office has been instructed no such motion would be accepted." Responding to Mr Bercow's statement, a Government source said the Speaker was "making it up as he goes along". FRANKFURT, March 27 -- Renewables were responsible for 40.4% of Germany’s net electricity production on the public grid last year and ranked as the second largest power generation source, a new report shows. According to analysis compiled by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Germany’s renewable power plants had a combined output of about 219 TWh in 2018, or 4.3% more than in the previous year. Generation from coal and gas, meanwhile, dropped, as did hydropower due to the extremely dry summer season. From April through August 2018, solar power generation per month exceed that of hard coal power plants. The table shows where public power supply in Germany came from in the past year. TOKYO -- The world remembers 1989 as a year of era-defining events. Pro-democracy rallies were crushed in China's Tiananmen Square that June, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November heralded the end of the Cold War. But in Japan, 1989 is permanently imprinted on the national consciousness for another reason: It was the year that the Showa era ended. Emperor Hirohito's death on Jan. 7, 1989 stopped the clock on the 64-year Showa era, a tumultuous period that included the Second World War and the postwar boom that followed. A new era, Heisei, began a day later when his son Akihito became Japan's 125th emperor. The change from Showa to Heisei had a practical impact on the everyday lives of Japanese people. On wall calendars and official documents all over the country, Jan. 8, 1989 became the first day of Heisei 1 on the Imperial calendar, which is used alongside the Gregorian calendar. But these Imperial eras also serve as unofficial markers of the spirit of the times, similar to the way decades come to reflect the zeitgeist of a period. The "Roaring '20s" are remembered as a decade of gin-soaked parties, jazz and extravagance. The 1950s are defined by Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, while the 1960s are associated with the Beatles and youthful protest. Now, as Japan prepares for the end of the Heisei era on April 30, when Emperor Akihito abdicates the throne, the country is taking stock of the complicated 30-year period -- and looking anxiously toward the as-yet-unnamed new Imperial age. SHANGHAI, March 27 -- China's bookstore chain brand Fang Suo Commune clinched the Bookstore of the Year Award at The London Book Fair International Excellence Awards, the fair announced Tuesday. It beat BOA Bookstore of Vietnam and Unity Books Wellington of New Zealand, both on the shortlist to win. Located at Taikoo Hui, one of the high-end shopping malls in the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou, Fang Suo Commune is an innovative bookstore nestled among luxury shops. "This award goes from strength to strength and the entries were exceptionally strong this year," LBF judges said. "Fang Suo is ...breathtaking in scale and conception. (There is) A vast range of activities and events ...that gives you a glimpse of what bookstores of the future will be." Opened in 2011, Fang Suo Commune Guangzhou has bookshelves covering its walls, from floor to ceiling. The 1,800-square-meter store boasts a coffee bar, a boutique and a handicrafts shop, and welcomes more than 2 million visitors through her doors every year. Fang Suo Commune Bookstore regularly hosts art exhibitions, lectures and book launches about art, culture and lifestyle, turning it into a center for the city's book lovers. The brand, now with branches in China's southwestern cities of Chengdu and Chongqing, and northeastern city of Qingdao, Shandong Province, aims at creating a new system for the Chinese aesthetics of life and exploring the possibilities of becoming an urban cultural complex, according to its official website. Other winners of the LBF International Excellence Awards included Finland's Espoo City Library, which won the Library of the Year Award, and Ukraine's Book Arsenal Literary Festival, which took home the Literary Festival Award. The Audiobook Publisher of the Year Award went to Booklava from the United Arab Emirates. LONDON, March 27 -- The UK Government said in a statement it would not request the European Union to abort the procedure of the country’s withdrawal and would keep its work on Brexit. The statement came as a response to a petition, headlined "Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU" and signed by almost 5.8 million of UK residents. "This Government will not revoke Article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with Parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union," reads the statement, prepared by the Brexit ministry. "The Government acknowledges the considerable number of people who have signed this petition. However, close to three quarters of the electorate took part in the 2016 referendum, trusting that the result would be respected," the document continues. "This Government wrote to every household prior to the referendum, promising that the outcome of the referendum would be implemented. 17.4 million people then voted to leave the European Union, providing the biggest democratic mandate for any course of action ever directed at UK Government." According to the statement, revoking Article 50 would break the promises made to the British people, disrespect the clear instruction from a democratic vote, and in turn, reduce confidence in democracy. According to the Petitions Committee at the House of Commons, the document had the highest volume of sign-ups on record. It was registered on February 20 and gathered 10,000 signatures by March 18, 100,000 signatures by March 20, but then went viral, with the number of signatures topping 2 million on the following day. Under the UK procedures, any petition that has collected more than 10,000 signatures, requires an official response of the government, and should be considered in the parliament after reaching the benchmark of 100,000. The heads of 27 states and governments unanimously agreed last Thursday to delay Brexit. The UK’s withdrawal from the EU will be postponed either until May 22 if the British parliament endorses by the end of March a Brexit deal with Brussels, or until April 12 in case the deal is not backed. The deal on Brexit conditions had been earlier twice rejected by the UK parliament on January 15 and March 12. So far, eurosceptics in the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland that supports May’s government in the parliament, said their stance was unchanged and they would not vote on the deal with the EU in its current form. So, the chances that the House of Commons will approve the deal next week are very slim. The vote is also in question since earlier this week John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, warned that he would not let the government initiate it for the third time until significant changes were introduced. ROTTERDAM, March 27 -- IKEA Transport & Logistics Services, CMA CGM, The GoodShipping Program and the Port of Rotterdam are pleased to announce the successful refuelling on Saturday March 23rd of the CMA CGM WHITE SHARK with sustainable marine bio-fuel oil. The test, which represents a major step for the decarbonisation of ocean freight, saw the companies work together in a first-of-its-kind partnership for the shipping industry. The CMA CGM White Shark, a 5,095 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) container vessel, was refuelled with the bio-fuel oil on Saturday while calling at Rotterdam. Results from the trial will give the maritime sector a vital demonstration into the scalability, sustainability and technical compliance of sustainable marine bio-fuel oil. This will benefit all industry stakeholders in their environmental strategies, in line with the impending International Maritime Organisation (IMO) decarbonisation pathway. The sustainable marine bio-fuel oil was developed by GoodFuels, the leading provider of sustainable marine biofuels to the global commercial shipping fleet, after undergoing three years of intensive testing with marine engine manufacturers. The second-generation bio-fuel oil is completely derived from forest residues and waste cooking oil products, is expected to deliver 80-90% well-to-propeller CO2 reduction versus fossil equivalents, and virtually eliminates sulphur oxide (SOx) emissions – all without any requirement for engine modifications. The trial was facilitated by The GoodShipping Program, a sustainable initiative dedicated to decarbonising ocean freight. BANGKOK , March 27 -- Thailand's Pheu Thai Party, which was ousted in a 2014 coup by the military junta, on Wednesday announced that it formed a seven-party coalition, claiming that it won a majority of Lower House seats in the March 25 General elections. The Pheu Thai Party-led coalition claimed the right to form the government, saying it has got 255 seats in the 500-seat House of Representatives, pipping pro-military Palang Pracharath Party, The Straits Times reported. At a press conference here, leaders of Future Forward Party, Pheu Chart Party, Prachachart Party, Seri Ruam Thai Party and Thai People Power Party joined the Pheu Thai Party and signed a joint statement as a symbolic protest against the ruling junta. However, a seventh party, the New Economics Party, did not make it to the presser. However, the Pheu Thai Party said that the party had agreed to be a part of the alliance. While junta-backed Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha won the most votes in the polls, Pheu Thai Party bagged the highest number of Lower House seats winning 57, according to unofficial results. The Palang Pracharath Party garnered 97 seats, as per the unofficial results. The official results of the elections will not be out until May 9. The results, which is Thailand's first since the military took over by dislodging the Yingluck Shinawatra-led Pheu Thai Party in a coup in 2014, remains uncertain after the country's election commission postponed the announcement without any reason, leading to allegations of vote rigging. Voter turnout for the Thai House of Representatives elections stood at 65.96 per cent, while about 52 million people were registered to vote for the March 25 elections. Out of them, seven million people were first-time voters. There are 500 parliamentary seats - 350 constituency wards and 150 party list seats - for which elections were held after numerous delays. The 500 MPs and the 250 junta-appointed senators will each have a vote on who becomes the prime minister. |
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