Month: January 2015

The just-concluded India visit of US President Barack Obama is not only a significant step in furthering relations between the world’s oldest and the largest democracies, but also heralds a new era for India in global affairs, an influential Jewish American organisation has said.

“President Obama’s visit opens a new chapter in US-India relations, and a new era for India in global affairs,” said Jason Isaacson from the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in a statement yesterday as Obama concluded his three-day trip to New Delhi.

A Brazilian police raid to recover stolen cars and cargo came up with a more interesting find: two war tanks.

Police in Brazil’s biggest city said yesterday that the engineless tanks were found inside a warehouse in Sacoma, a low-income district in Sao Paulo. Police also confiscated 500 television sets, car body parts and a recently stolen semitrailer truck.

“It is unusual, to say the least, that police officers searching for stolen goods and cars, instead find two tanks,” Police Lt. Andrei do Carmo told the Globo TV network.

A senior Democratic senator’s complaints today, and noisy protesters, underscored the Obama administration’s challenge in seeking congressional approval for enhanced powers to reach trade deals with Japan, India and many other countries.

Sen Charles Schumer said he worries that new trade deals will not help middle class incomes.

He also said the United States must do more to prevent China from keeping its currency’s value artificially low, which enhances Chinese exports and dampens imports.

Mexico’s attorney general says that confessions and forensic evidence show that all 43 students who disappeared at the hands of local police in September were killed and then incinerated at a garbage dump in the southern state of Guerrero, a conclusion that relatives of the victims have resisted.

Jesus Murillo Karam today laid out details of the investigation that he said has proved that the fire was hot enough to incinerate 43 people beyond recognition.

The United States welcomed today former Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s belated response to the thaw in ties between the Cold War foes as a sign that change is underway in Havana.

“We take his reference of ‘international norms and principles’ as a positive sign,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, after Castro’s letter was released.

Psaki said Washington now looked forward “to the Cuban government implementing those international norms and principles for a democratic, prosperous and stable Cuba.”

The South African-Indian community has a critical role to play in the growth of the small business sector in the country’s economic hub, Gauteng province, according to its Premier David Makhura.

“I have no doubt with what I know about Indian business people, especially your small business enterprises, that you can play a very important role in this new economy,” Makhura said at a function hosted by the Tamil Federation of Gauteng (TFG) here.

Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa.

Large numbers of foreign fighters are among the jihadists killed in the battle for the Syrian town of Kobane, a senior US official said today, saying the concerted campaign was halting the militants’ march.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) announced the “liberation” of Kobane yesterday, depriving the Islamic State group (IS) of a strategic prize to add to its territory in Syria and Iraq.

The United States says Kurdish fighters are now in control of about 90 per cent of the town on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Pope Francis has met a Spanish transsexual and his fiancee at the Vatican, opening his doors to a man dubbed “the devil’s daughter” by a local priest, media reports said today.

Diego Neria Lejarraga met the pontiff on Saturday after writing to him in December to complain he was being treated as an outcast in his parish in Plasencia in western Spain, according to the Spanish daily Hoy.

The 48-year old, who has undergone sexual reassignment surgery, told Francis in the letter that he was treated poorly by parishioners and one priest had even called him “the devil’s daughter.”

The United Nations has secured the release of 3,000 child soldiers, of which 280 were freed today, from the South Sudan Democratic Army (SSDA).

“UNICEF and partners have secured the release of approximately 3,000 children from an armed group in South Sudan — one of the largest ever demobilisations of children, said UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac.

Of the more than 3,000 children recruited by SSDA’s Cobra Faction insurgents led by David Yau Yau, 280 were released today at the village of Gumuruk in Jonglei State, eastern South Sudan.