March, 2016

• 10 March

  Putin’s ex-PM warns of election crackdown, faces death threats

  

  Bloomberg The Kremlin is putting “unprecedented” pressure on opposition activists as President Vladimir Putin prepares for his toughest electoral test amid Russia’s longest recession in two decades, according to his former prime minister. “The authorities understand that 2016 will be decisive because the economic and political situation is acute,” Mikhail Kasyanov, who was premier from 2000 to 2004 and is ...

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• 10 March

  Outrage as rights group, journalists attacked in Russia

  Moscow / AFP Armed men attacked the office of a prominent human rights organisation in the volatile Russian region of Ingushetia, the group said on Thursday, hours after an assault on journalists in the same area sparked international outrage. Footage of the attack posted on Twitter by Dmitry Utukin, a lawyer for the Committee to Prevent Torture, appeared to show ...

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• 10 March

  Ukrainian pilot starts drinking water, continues hunger strike

  

  Moscow / AFP Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko, on trial in Russia over the killing of two journalists, has started drinking water but will continue her week-long hunger strike until the verdict, her lawyer said on Thursday. “Nadezhda halted only a ‘dry’ hunger strike,” lawyer Mark Feigin said. “She will be fasting until the verdict is announced,” he said, using ...

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• 10 March

  5 yrs after tsunami, Japan still searching for missing

  

  RIKUZENTAKATA / AP The Japanese coast guard resumed underwater searches this week for some of the more than 2,500 people still missing from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country’s northeast coast. Six divers entered Hirota Bay in near-freezing temperatures on Thursday at the behest of surviving families in the city of Rikuzentakata. As reconstruction of the disaster-hit ...

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• 10 March

  Suu Kyi nominates close aide for Myanmar president

  

  Naypyidaw / AFP Aung San Suu Kyi was on Thursday finally ruled out of the running to become Myanmar’s next president, as her party nominated one of her most loyal aides to rule the formerly junta-run nation as her proxy. Suu Kyi has vowed to rule “above” the president, despite being barred from top office by the army-scripted constitution, as ...

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• 10 March

  Netherlands: Turkey-EU refugee deal ‘temporary’

  Brussels / AFP A proposed EU-Turkey deal to swap Syrian refugees one-for-one will be only “temporary” and a longer-term resettlement arrangement will be necessary, the Netherlands warned on Thursday. European Union interior ministers meeting in Brussels were debating a proposal made by Ankara at a leaders’ summit on Monday for a wide-ranging deal to curb the migration crisis. Under the ...

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• 10 March

  Turkey denies taking back migrants on Greek islands

  Ankara / AfP Turkey will not take back migrants already on Greek islands under a deal proposed to European Union leaders at a crunch summit this week, Ankara’s EU affairs minister said on Thursday. Volkan Bozkir was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying Turkey would take back “tens of thousands” of migrants, “not hundreds of thousands or millions”, ...

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• 10 March

  New blow to Lula as prosecutors charge him over ‘assets hiding’

  

  Bloomberg Brazilian prosecutors dealt another blow to former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, accusing him of hiding assets from authorities just days after a separate probe unleashed a new round of political turmoil in the country. The Sao Paulo state prosecutor’s press office confirmed the charges, declining to provide additional details. Newspaper O Globo reported they are for money ...

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• 10 March

  N Korea fires missiles, liquidates South assets

  

  Seoul/ AFP North Korea looked to ratchet up already elevated tensions on the Korean peninsula still further on Thursday, firing a pair of short-range missiles and announcing the liquidation of all remaining South Korean assets on its territory. The moves were a direct response to unilateral sanctions announced by South Korea on Tuesday to punish the North for its January ...

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• 10 March

  What happened to the $3 trillion?

  

  Is the American economy stronger than we think? Perhaps. A persisting puzzle about its recent performance is the stark contrast between growth of jobs (which has been unexpectedly robust) and the growth of the economy’s output (which has been unexpectedly weak). How could a struggling economy produce so many jobs? The puzzle would disappear if the economy’s output is consistently ...

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