February, 2016

• 20 February

  No plans to call snap poll or delay tax hike: Abe

  

  Tokyo / Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he’s not considering a snap general election this summer to coincide with a scheduled upper house poll, and that he has no intention of delaying a planned increase in the nation’s consumption tax. Speaking in an interview on Nippon Hoso radio, Abe said he would raise the levy to 10 ...

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• 20 February

  Republicans face off in South Carolina, Dems battle in Nevada

  

  Columbia / AP After a week of bitter attacks, Republicans face off in South Carolina’s presidential primary, a contest that could determine Donald Trump’s strength as a front-runner and help clarify whether a more mainstream politician will ever emerge to challenge him. Democrats are holding a caucus on Saturday in Nevada, the first test for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders ...

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• 20 February

  Obama joins Scalia mourners at Supreme Court

  

  Washington / Bloomberg President Barack Obama and thousands of other mourners paid respects to the late Justice Antonin Scalia as his flag-draped casket lay in the US Supreme Court’s ceremonial hallway. Pallbearers carried Scalia’s casket up the court’s marble staircase into the building as his somber, and in some cases tearful, former colleagues waited along with family members, former law ...

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• 20 February

  Republicans ‘voting map’ rejected

  Bloomberg The US Supreme Court cleared the way for a new congressional voting map in North Carolina this year, rejecting a Republican bid to reinstate district lines thrown out by a lower court. The order was one of the high court’s first since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. It came without published dissent. A three-judge panel said Feb. 5 ...

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• 20 February

  Mugabe: Rivals within party must ‘shut up’

  Bloomberg Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe warned that rivals within his ruling party must “shut up” and stop sowing internal divisions or face punishment. “Those who are saying we belong to this faction or that faction, I say to them shut up. You belong to Zimbabwe first and foremost whatever you might say,” Mugabe said in a televised national address, flanked ...

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• 20 February

  North conducted artillery drill near sea border: South Korea

  

  Seoul / AP Sounds of explosions caused South Korean residents of a front-line island to prepare to evacuate early Saturday, but it was later determined the noise came from a North Korean artillery drill across the rivals’ disputed maritime border, officials said. The false alarm was indicative of the high anxiety between the Koreas in the wake of the North’s ...

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• 20 February

  US embassy raises alarm at fighting in northern Myanmar

  

  Yangon / AFP The US embassy in Yangon said it was “deeply concerned” over clashes involving ethnic armed groups and the military in northern Myanmar that have displaced thousands of people, warning that the violence threatened to unravel the country’s delicate peace process. Heavy bouts of fighting broke out last week in Shan state between two ethnic rebel groups in ...

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• 20 February

  Russia fails in UN bid to rein in Turkey over Syria

  

  United States / AFP Western powers rejected a Russian bid at the United Nations to halt Turkey’s military actions in Syria, as France warned of a dangerous escalation in the nearly five-year conflict. The emergency Security Council meeting came as US Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned there was “a lot more work to do” for a ceasefire to take ...

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• 20 February

  IS, Iraq tribesmen fights in Fallujah enter second day

  

  Baghdad / AFP Sunni Arab tribesmen battled militants of the IS group in their Fallujah stronghold for a second day on Saturday in a major blow to the extremists in Iraq, officials said. Fallujah is one of two Iraqi cities still controlled by IS, but residents—said to number in the tens of thousands—vastly outnumber the estimated 300 to 400 extremists ...

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• 20 February

  Monitors to spur launch of S Sudan govt

  

  United Nations / AP The head of an international group monitoring South Sudan’s peace process said he will propose security arrangements to spur the return of rebel leader Riek Machar as vice president, a critical step to launching a national unity government that must urgently tackle escalating violence and the country’s “humanitarian catastrophe.” Festus Mogae told the UN Security Council ...

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