Month: January 2010

Lima, January 30: Eighteen people were killed and 22 seriously injured when the bus in which they were travelling veered off the road and fell into into a deep gorge in southern Peru.

The accident took place on the highway between Acobamba town and Huancayo city Thursday afternoon, the La Republica daily said Friday.

Heavy rains have been lashing southern Peru for past few days, making it dangerous to drive on the roads. Bad roads have also added to the problem.

–IANS–

New York, January 30: US stocks fell Friday, capping the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s worst month in nearly a year, despite government figures showing the economy grew at its fastest pace in six years last quarter.

The markets did begin the day higher after the Commerce Department said gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009, beating economists’ forecast of a 4.7-percent gain.

Madrid, January 30: The Spanish government has approved a draft bill that will increase the retirement age from 65 to 67 years. The move is strongly opposed by the country’s labour unions.

Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega after a weekly Cabinet meeting told reporters Friday, the new retirement age would be introduced in phases beginning in 2013 and becoming fully effective in 2025.

The announcement came hours after the National Statistics Institute said Spain’s unemployment rate last month reached 18.83 percent, which represents more than 4.3 million people.

Port-of-Spain, January 30: A mobile temple with a seven-foot tall idol of Lord Hanuman is travelling through Trinidad and Tobago as part of a religious procession being taken out by the Hindu community in these islands.

The procession began Thursday and runs for seven days and nights. Scores of devotees form part of the procession that stays at Hindu homes at nights as they trek across the country, 44 percent of whose 1.3 million population is of Indian descent, a large number of whom are Hindus.

New York, January 30: Indian-born celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to dozens of new charges that he sexually assaulted nine women and underage girls.

Already convicted of raping women in California, Jon, 36, was extradited to New York to face charges he preyed on 15 to 26 year old wannabe models between 2002 and 2006.

Wearing a white shirt and tan drawstring pants, dark-rimmed glasses and handcuffs, the one-time rising design star said nothing but “not guilty” as he was arraigned Friday in a Manhattan court.

Cairo, January 29: The typical Egyptian family spends six percent of its monthly income on tobacco, according to a survey released on Thursday that was carried out in coordination with the World Health Organisation.

“Six percent of the family income is spent on tobacco, perhaps more than on health and education,” said Ahmad Abdellatif, the WHO representative for Egypt, calling it a “heavy economic burden” for the Arab world’s most populated state.

Khartoum, January 29: The new chief of the UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur, Ibrahim Gambari, on Thursday expressed fears the peace process for Sudan’s troubled western region could drag on like that of the Middle East.

“We are actors in the supportive role. We want to do more than that but we are not the drivers of this process,” said the Nigerian who is taking over as African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) head from Rodolphe Adada of the Republic of Congo.

Wapsaw, January 29: Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi said Thursday he currently saw no hope for the creation of a Palestinian state, as he paid an official Thursday visit to the Polish capital Warsaw.

“We see no ray of hope for a Palestinian state today,” he said at a joint press conference with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk.

“Of course, Arabs definitively accept Israel, but on the condition there is a Palestinian state.

“Today there is just one state, Israel, and the oppressed Palestinian people who suffer repression,” he added.

Washington, January 29: The US Senate voted Thursday to slap tough new sanctions on Iran, targeting its thirst for gasoline imports over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The sweeping measure, which passed by voice vote, must now be blended with a similar bill in the House of Representatives to forge a compromise measure for both sides to approve and send to President Barack Obama.

Tripoli, January 29: Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi said on Thursday the concept of civil society has no place in his country.

In a televised address to the General People’s Congress (GPC), Gathafi said the idea of a civil society “is a bourgeois culture and an imitation of the West that has no place here.”

In the West, a distinction is made between “an official govermental society and a civil society (made up of) non governmental institutions,” he said, while in Libya society is “entirely civil.”

London, January 29: Former prime minister Tony Blair said Friday there had been no “covert” deal with then US president George W. Bush to invade Iraq in 2003, and robustly defended his decision to take Britain to war.

Giving eagerly awaited evidence to a public inquiry into the conflict, he insisted he had backed war because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had flouted UN resolutions, not because he wanted “regime change”.

Davos, January 29: Spain said it will adopt austerity measures to achieve its annual budget deficit target of 3 percent by 2013 as mandated by the European Union’s pact on financial stability.

Spain is a “reliable” country which will reduce its budget deficit by 2013 in accord with the European Union’s agreement, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said at the World Economic Forum here on Thursday.