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HK awaits talks between students, city government
Nigeria conquers deadly virus Ebola
Indonesia’s Widodo takes top office
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Lensman who captured Che, Corbusier dies Suicide, car bombings in Iraq kill 43 Mountain-sized comet whizzes past Mars
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HK awaits talks between students, city government
Hong Kong, October 20 Student-led protesters are calling for free elections in the former British trading post, but China insists on screening candidates first. Hong Kong's Beijing-backed leader, Leung Chun-ying, has said the city's government was unwilling to compromise on China's restrictions. The talks between student representatives and senior city government officials, scheduled for Tuesday evening, may yield small confidence-building measures and an agreement to continue the dialogue, but are unlikely to bridge the chasm between the two sides or end the demonstrations. "I don't expect much from tomorrow's meeting, but I still hold some hope for the talks," said protester Woody Wong, a 21-year-old student who camped overnight on Nathan Road, the main thoroughfare in the densely populated Mong Kok district. "I will keep doing this until the government listens." Dozens of people were injured in two nights of clashes over the weekend in Mong Kok, including 22 police, media and police said. Four people were arrested for assault, police said. Tuesday's talks, which will be broadcast live, offer a rare opportunity to try to ease the worst political crisis in Hong Kong since Britain handed the free-wheeling city back to China in 1997. The government called off talks scheduled earlier this month after the students called for the protests to expand. "So far we've seen no hope that they will reach some agreement in the coming week because both sides have different expectations of the dialogue," said James Sung, a political analyst at City University of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is ruled under a "one country, two systems" formula that allows it wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal. But Beijing is wary about copycat demands for reform on the mainland. Leung appears hamstrung, unable to compromise because of the message that would send to people on the mainland, while using more force would likely only galvanise the protests. — Reuters Top court bans protesters from blocking roads
The Supreme Court of Hong Kong on Monday enacted a preliminary injunction to ban demonstrators from occupying roads in Mong Kok. The move was made after groups of mini-buses and taxi operators filed for an injunction that would reopen the paralysed roads in Mong Kok occupied by protesters for the last 23 days. Mong Kok is an offshoot protest site across the Victoria Harbour from the main demonstration area in Admiralty where the government headquarters is located. Today’s schedule
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Nigeria conquers deadly virus Ebola
Abuja/Lagos, October 20 Caught unawares when a diplomat arrived with the disease from Liberia, authorities were alerted by Doctor Ameyo Adadevoh, who kept him in her hospital despite protests from him and his government, and later herself died from the disease. They then set about trying to contain it in an overcrowded city of 21 million where it could easily have turned a doomsday scenario if about 300 people who had been in direct or indirect contact with him not been traced and isolated. "This is a spectacular success story," Rui Gama Vaz from the World Health Organization (WHO) told a news conference in the capital Abuja, where officials broke into applause when he announced that Nigeria had shaken off the disease. "It shows that Ebola can be contained, but we must be clear that we have only won a battle, the war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola." This year's outbreak of the highly infectious haemorrhagic fever thought to have originated in forest bats is the worst on record. It has killed 4,546 people across the three most-affected countries, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and travellers have from the region have infected two people in Texas and one in Madrid. It was imported to Nigeria when Liberian-American diplomat Patrick Sawyer collapsed at the main international airport in Lagos on July 20. Airport staff were unprepared and the government had not set up any hospital isolation unit, so he was able to infect several people, including health workers in the hospital where he was taken, some of whom had to restrain him to keep him there. — Reuters
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Indonesia’s Widodo takes top office
Jakarta, October 20 After the inauguration, Widodo capped his remarkable rise from an upbringing in a riverside slum by travelling through the streets of the capital Jakarta in a horse-drawn carriage, with tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters cheering and shouting his name. Widodo, a 53-year-old former furniture exporter known by his nickname Jokowi, won the presidency in July after a close race against controversial ex-general Prabowo Subianto. The former Jakarta governor, who won legions of fans with his man-of-the-people image, is the country's first leader since the end of Suharto's three decades of dictatorship in 1998 to have no major links to that era. Hopes are high for a new style of leadership in the world's third-biggest democracy, but there are also fears an opposition-dominated parliament could make it hard for Widodo to enact reforms to revive the G20 economy and help society's poorest. After taking the oath in parliament at a ceremony attended by dignitaries including US Secretary of State John Kerry and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, he called for unity following the most bitterly fought election in Indonesian history. — AFP
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Brazil’s Rousseff gains momentum as poll nears
Rio de Janeiro, October 20 Rousseff had 45.5 per cent of voter support versus 44.5 per cent for Neves, according to the survey by polling firm MDA, its first since the election's first-round vote on October 5. The difference between the two is statistically insignificant because it is within the poll's margin of error. Excluding undecided voters, spoiled and blank survey responses, Rousseff has 50.5 percent against 49.5 percent for Rousseff. Recent surveys by the more closely watched Datafolha and the Ibope pollsters showed Neves slightly ahead of Rousseff, but within the surveys' margin of error. Still Monday's poll echoed indications in the last Datafolha survey that Rousseff, a leftist, could pull ahead because the rejection rate of Neves, who is from a business-friendly centrist party, is climbing. Brazil's stocks and currency added to losses after the poll showed Neves, a market favourite, losing momentum as Rousseff seeks to clinch a second term and a fourth consecutive administration for the ruling Workers' Party. — Reuters |
Japan PM loses 2 women ministers to cash scandals
Hindus in Pakistan demand holiday on Diwali Century-old temple is Singapore's national monument
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Monday ahead of talks aimed at defusing more than three weeks of pro-democracy protests that have blocked traffic around the Chinese-controlled city, but expectations of a breakthrough were low.
Rene Burri, a Swiss photographer who captured iconic B&W images of Communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and painter Pablo Picasso, has died. He was 81.
Magnum Photos, the agency he joined in 1955, confirmed Burri died today of cancer. Burri was 13 years old when he photographed British PM Winston Churchill in 1946.
In 1963, he traveled to Cuba and shot his famous picture of a cigar-chomping Che. Burri frequently photographed artists, including sculptor Alberto Giacometti and architect Le Corbusier. — AP
