Indigenous group asks Brazil to say no to mega-projects

  AP A group representing Amazon indigenous people has urged Brazil’s National Development Bank to stop financing projects that cause environmental damage. After meeting with bank representatives, leaders of the Ecuador-based group known as the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin said in a statement that they also asked the bank to adopt policies that safeguard the rights ...

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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