April, 2016

• 17 April

  Oi claims Aurelius can’t stop it from borrowing

    Bloomberg Struggling Brazilian telephone company Oi SA is arguing that its Dutch unit is free to use borrowed funds to lend to the parent company, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. In a response to a creditor lawsuit, Oi said that individual lenders don’t have the right to question the uses of the money they lent ...

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• 17 April

  Argentina to borrow cash again, 15 years after default

  

    Bloomberg Argentina seeks to end 15 years of financial isolation on Monday when it sets out to borrow cash on international credit markets for the first time since a 2001 default. The country is looking to boost its struggling economy and settle a 15-year lawsuit by US investment funds which its ex-president Cristina Kirchner branded “vultures.” This week’s debt ...

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• 17 April

  Syrian oppn rejects ‘Assad stays during transitional period’ offer

  

  GENEVA / AP Two figures from the main Syrian opposition team to the peace talks in Geneva said that they have rejected a suggestion that was put forward by the UN special envoy to Syria in which President Bashar Assad would stay in power during a transitional period and the opposition would choose three vice presidents. The UN envoy to ...

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• 17 April

  UN:Conditions ‘desperate’ in Damascus neighbourhood

    BEIRUT / AP A UN agency says around 10,000 civilians are trapped in “desperate” humanitarian conditions in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, where fighting has raged for days between IS militants and other extremists. The UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, says residents of the Yarmouk camp have gone without food or water for more than a week. UNRWA ...

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• 17 April

  Afghan child casualties soar as urban warfare escalates

    Kabul / AP Child casualties have soared in Afghanistan this year as the Taliban stepped up attacks in urban areas, the United Nations said on Sunday, branding the figures “appalling”. Between January and March, 161 children were killed and 449 others injured—a 29 percent increase from a year earlier—the UN’s mission in Afghanistan said in a report. Danielle Bell, the ...

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• 17 April

  Hundreds rally in Baghdad backing Sadr ‘deadline’

    BAGHDAD / Reuters Hundreds rallied in central Baghdad in support of powerful Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada Al Sadr who has threatened to call mass protests if the prime minister fails to name a new cabinet to fight corruption by Tuesday. People in Tahrir Square on Sunday said many more would join them if Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi did ...

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• 17 April

  Iran unveils S-300 missile system parts

  

    Tehran / AFP Iran used its annual Army Day parade on Sunday to showcase parts of a long-awaited air defence system ordered from Russia, a move likely to irk critics of the arms deal. The S-300 system has been on order since 2007 but Russia postponed the sale three years later after the UN Security Council passed a resolution ...

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• 17 April

  Armedmen from S Sudan kill 140 in raid in Ethiopia

    Addis Ababa/ AFP Armed men from South Sudan have killed around 140 people and kidnapped a number of others in a cross-border raid into Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government said on Sunday. Ethnic Murle gunmen “attacked near Gambella and killed close to 140 people. They also abducted some of them,” Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Tewolde Muluteg said. The Murle, a ...

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• 17 April

  Boko Haram ‘leader’ arrest boosts anti-terror ops

  

  Kano / AFP Nigeria’s security services have hailed the arrest of the leader of the Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru, Khalid Al Barnawi, saying it will lead to them to other senior commanders. “The arrest of Barnawi is a huge success and will have a profound effect on counter-terrorism operations in Nigeria and beyond,” one security source said. “He is ...

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• 17 April

  Should President barack Obama visit Hiroshima?

  

    Now that Secretary of State John Kerry has become the highest-ranking American official to visit Hiroshima, the door has been opened for U.S. President Barack Obama to make a far more momentous decision to visit the site of the American atomic bombing during his visit to Japan next month. The president came close to such a visit in his ...

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