lunedì 31 marzo 2014

North, South Korea trade artillery rounds into the sea

North Korea fired more than 100 artillery rounds into South Korean waters as part of a drill on Monday, prompting the South to fire back, officials in Seoul said, but the exercise appeared to be more saber rattling from Pyongyang rather than the start of a military standoff. The North had flagged its intentions to conduct the exercise in response to U.N. condemnation of last week's missile launches by Pyongyang and against what it says are threatening military drills in the South by U.S. forces. North Korea also accused the South of "gangster-like" behavior at the weekend by "abducting" one of its fishing boats and threatened to retaliate. The South said it had sent the boat back after it drifted into its waters. More than 100 North Korean shells out of 500 or so fired landed in South Korean waters, prompting marines from the South to fire back with more than 300 rounds in the North's waters, defense officials in Seoul said. Seoul also scrambled F-15s on its side of the maritime border, they said. "We believe the North's maritime firing is a planned provocation and an attempt to test our military's determination to defend the Northern Limit Line and to get an upper hand in South-North relations," South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. The Northern Limit Line, a maritime border that wraps itself round a part of the North's coastline, has been the scene of frequent clashes and in 2010, four people were killed when North Korea shelled the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. "It's up to the two militaries either to recognize or reject their own claimed line, and challenge the other's - this goes back and forth, so this is probably another episode of that," said Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group. Earlier in 2010, a South Korean naval vessel was sunk close to the line by what an international commission said was a North Korean torpedo, although the North denies involvement. The line was drawn up at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War and North Korea does not recognize it. The two sides are still technically at war as the conflict ended in a mere truce, not a treaty. The residents of Baengnyeong island, one of the remote islands close to the firing area, were evacuated to bomb shelters as a precaution, a government official said by telephone. North Korea has ratcheted up its rhetoric in recent weeks and conducted a series of missile launches, mostly short range, in response to what it sees as the threat posed by a series of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills that are held annually. The current drill called Foal Eagle ends on April 18. "At a time that South Korea and the United States are conducting military exercises using sophisticated equipment, the North is unlikely to be reckless enough to do anything that will lead to a sharp worsening of situation," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "There is an element of trying to show displeasure at the South Korea-U.S. drills and to pressure the South, but it doesn't seem the North wants this to blow up into something bigger." China, which hosted several rounds of now-defunct multilateral talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program, nevertheless said it was concerned at the exchange of fire and called for restraint from both sides. "The temperature is rising at present on the Korean peninsula, and this worries us," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing. He added that China was also concerned by the North's threat to carry out more nuclear tests. North Korea threatened nuclear strikes against the South and the United States last year after the United Nations tightened sanctions against it for conducting its third nuclear test. Financial markets in South Korea were unmoved by the latest developments with the stock market's benchmark KOSPI turning higher from early losses to finish up 0.2 percent and the won extending gains to end onshore trade up 0.4 percent against the dollar.

domenica 30 marzo 2014

Black Box Detector Joining Malaysia Plane Search

Australian authorities say a navy warship with a sophisticated U.S. black box locator heads out Sunday to join the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. It will take a few days for the Ocean Shield and its flight recorder detector to arrive at the location officials say the Boeing 777 may have gone down. Authorities say 10 ships and 10 aircraft are involved in the search Sunday in a vast area of the Indian Ocean far off the coast of the western Australian city of Perth. Newly arrived Chinese relatives of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 shouts slogans as they speak to reporters at a hotel in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, Sunday March 30, 2014. Newly arrived Chinese relatives of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 shouts slogans as they speak to reporters at a hotel in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, Sunday March 30, 2014. Meanwhile, dozens of angry Chinese relatives of missing passengers arrived in Kuala Lumpur Sunday, demanding more information about what happened to the aircraft, accusing Malaysian officials of withholding vital information. Most of the people on board the jet were Chinese. On Saturday, Chinese planes spotted objects in the Indian Ocean bearing the same colors as the missing jet. However, investigators said those objects and others that have been pulled from the water cannot be confirmed as debris from the airliner. The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is now into its fourth week. The search shifted more than 1,000 kilometers northeast Friday when investigators determined the plane flew faster and burned fuel more quickly than previously estimated. This means the jet did not fly as far as believed. The Boeing 777 disappeared March 8, thousands of kilometers west of its intended flight path. The jet took off from Kuala Lumpur and was headed to Beijing. Officials believe the aircraft crashed into the southern Indian Ocean far from land. They have not ruled out any cause, including terrorism or a hijacking.

sabato 29 marzo 2014

Magnitude-5.1 earthquake shakes Los Angeles area

A magnitude-5.1 earthquake shook the Los Angeles area and surrounding counties Friday night, authorities said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at about 9:11 p.m. and was centered near Brea in Orange County -- about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It was felt as far south as San Diego and as far north as Ventura County, according to citizen responses collected online by the USGS. About an hour earlier, a 3.6 quake hit nearby in the city of La Habra. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it was looking for signs of damage or injuries. Callers to KNX-AM reported seeing a brick wall collapse, water sloshing in a swimming pool, and wires and trees swaying back and forth. The Los Angeles Times reported that residents in La Habra posted pictures on social media showing broken vases, topped furniture and other items scattered in their homes. Power outages were reported in some neighborhoods near the epicenter, according to the report. Broken glass, gas leaks, a water main break and a rockslide were reported near the epicenter, according to Twitter updates from local authorities. Minor injuries were reported as a result of a rockslide that caused a vehicle rollover and closed a portion of Carbon Canyon Road in Brea, authorities said. "A lot of the glass in the place shook like crazy," he said. "It started like a roll and then it started shaking like crazy. Everybody ran outside, hugging each other in the streets." A helicopter news reporter from KNBC-TV reported from above that rides at Disneyland in Anaheim -- several miles from the epicenter -- were stopped as a precaution. Tom Connolly, a Boeing employee who lives in La Mirada, the next town over from La Habra, said the 5.1 quake lasted about 30 seconds. "We felt a really good jolt. It was a long rumble and it just didn't feel like it would end," he told The Associated Press by phone. "Right in the beginning it shook really hard, so it was a little unnerving. People got quiet and started bracing themselves by holding on to each other. It was a little scary." Friday's quake hit a week after a pre-dawn magnitude-4.4 quake centered in the San Fernando Valley rattled a swath of Southern California. That jolt shook buildings and rattled nerves, but did not cause significant damage. Southern California has not experienced a damaging earthquake since the 1994 magnitude-6.7 Northridge quake killed several dozen people and caused $25 billion in damage.

venerdì 28 marzo 2014

Judge Postpones Oscar Pistorius Defense Hearings

PRETORIA, South Africa — The trial of Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee track star, was adjourned until April 7 on Friday after one of the two judicial assessors was taken ill, the judge said. The announcement came shortly after Mr. Pistorius arrived at the courthouse for the first day of his defense on murder charges and after more than three weeks of prosecution testimony depicting him as spoiled, irascible, jealous and trigger-happy. Mr. Pistorius, 27, has said that he killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, by mistake, shooting her with a handgun in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, but he has denied the charge of premeditated murder, which carries a minimum 25-year jail term. He has said that he shot her through a locked bathroom door believing her to be an intruder at his upscale home in a gated complex in Pretoria. As court officials, lawyers, journalists and Mr. Pistorius gathered in the courtroom on Friday, Judge Thokozile Masipa said the trial would be postponed until April 7 because one of the two assessors sitting with her was sick. There is no jury trial in South Africa and assessors routinely advise judges. Mr. Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had both legs amputated below the knee in his infancy. Wearing the scythe-like prostheses that inspired his nickname, the Blade Runner, he competed in both the Paralympic Games and against able-bodied athletes in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, cementing his reputation as an emblem of human triumph over adversity. While dating Ms. Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, he also became a well-known figure on South Africa’s celebrity circuit. But after four gunshots echoed around the complex where he lived, his life — and his public image — changed. The prosecution rested its case in the trial on Tuesday after introducing into evidence text messages between Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp designed to bolster its case that the couple had a volatile relationship. At one point, for instance, Ms. Steenkamp told Mr. Pistorius in a text message that his behavior at an engagement party for a friend of hers — in which he accused her of flirting with another man and demanded that they leave early — had been perplexing and upsetting. She also accused him of micromanaging her behavior, criticizing her and holding her to a double standard in which he could talk about past romances but she could not. But in cross-examination, the defense established that of more than 1,000 text messages between the couple, only four had been negative, and that many had been extremely warm and affectionate.

giovedì 27 marzo 2014

Test new

Barack Obama: US and EU will coordinate deeper sanctions against Russia

EU and US leaders met at a summit to coordinate their steps on imposing harsher sanctions on Russia. "What we're now doing is coordinating around the potential for additional, deeper sanctions, should Russia move forward and engage in further incursions into Ukraine," said Barack Obama, US President. The President also stressed the importance of "collective defence" during a meeting with NATO's Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "We've already made a series of decisions to help underscore the importance of NATO and collective defence in the wake of what has happened in Ukraine. "There will be a ministerial summit coming up in which I have asked the United States delegation to work cooperatively with the Secretary-General's office and evaluate all the additional steps that we might take in order to bolster that confidence among all NATO members."

mercoledì 26 marzo 2014

Mudslide kills 24, nearly 200 feared missing or unaccounted for in Washington

Rescuers found 10 more bodies in the debris of a Washington state mudslide on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the devastating slide to 24, authorities said during an evening press conference. Two bodies were recovered and eight were more located amid the wreckage, Snohomish County Fire District Chief Travis Hots said. More than 200 local, state and federal responders have gathered in rural Oso, north of Seattle, to dig through Saturday's slide, which destroyed 30 homes and left scores still missing. Authorities spoke Tuesday of a slow day of searching - with no signs of life - as rain poured down. At least 176 were unaccounted for, but that number has likely dropped because of repeated reports of the same missing person and updates that other people were safe. Despite some diminishing hope, authorities still called the search a rescue - and recovery - mission for any possible survivors. Survivors recounted terror during the natural disaster that struck Saturday. First there was a “whoosh.” Elaine Young said she thought it might be a chimney fire, a rush of air that lasted about 45 seconds. But when she stepped outside there was ominous silence. Something felt very, very wrong. And then she saw it. Behind the house, a suffocating wall of heavy mud had crashed through the neighborhood. Dark and sticky, the mile-long flow Saturday heaved houses off their foundations, toppled trees and left a gaping cavity on what had been a tree-covered hillside. In the frantic rescue, searchers spotted mud-covered survivors by the whites of their waving palms. Now, days into the search, the scale of the mudslide’s devastation in a rural village north of Seattle is becoming apparent. “We found a guy right here,” shouted a rescuer Monday afternoon behind Young’s home, after a golden retriever search dog found a corpse pinned under a pile of fallen trees. Searchers put a bag over the body, tied an orange ribbon on a branch to mark the site, and the crew moved on. It had been stormy for weeks, but warm sunshine offered a false sense of peace Saturday morning as weekend visitors settled into their vacation homes and locals slept in. Then came “a giant slump,” said David Montgomery, an earth and space sciences professor at the University of Washington, describing the deep-seated slide resulting from long-term, heavy rainfall. A scientist who documented the landslide conditions on the hillside that buckled had warned in a 1999 report filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of “the potential for a large catastrophic failure,” The Seattle Times reported late Monday.

martedì 25 marzo 2014

NSA

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is poised to endorse a proposal that would end the National Security Agency’s collection of a huge amount of data on U.S. phone calls to search for evidence of terrorist plots, swapping that system for one in which telephone companies retain the data, administration officials said late Monday. The new program would do away with the database the NSA currently uses to store information on five years’ worth of phone calls made to, from and within the U.S. and have the telecommunications firms store call data for 18 months in line with current federal regulations, said a person who was briefed on the plan and asked not to be named. The White House had no official comment on the report, but a senior official said the administration was on the verge of laying out a public plan to reconfigure the telephone metadata program. ”As the President made clear in his speech on these issues in January, he directed his administration to explore all options available for ending the government’s role in holding this metadata while still maintaining as many capabilities of the program as possible,” said the official, who also asked not to be named. “The President considered those options and in the coming days, after concluding ongoing consultations with Congress, including the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, will put forward a sound approach to ensuring the government no longer collects or holds this data, but still ensures that the government has access to the information it needs to meet the national security needs his team has identified,” the Obama aide added.

lunedì 24 marzo 2014

Upstarts Kentucky, Stanford advance to Sweet 16

After knocking off Kansas State and then ending Wichita State’s pursuit of perfection, the eighth-seeded Wildcats are marching on in the NCAA tournament. They’ll play No. 4 seed Louisville, their bitter rival, on Friday in the Midwest Regional semifinals in Indianapolis. “I told them after the game, ‘I’ve been hard on you, like I’ve been on every team,’” Calipari said after a thrilling 78-76 win over the top-seeded Shockers on Sunday, a game that wasn’t over until Wichita State guard Fred VanVleet missed a 3-pointer at the final buzzer. “It’s just been a long process with these guys,” Calipari said, “but at the end of the day, they’re understanding what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable.” Also advancing to the Sweet 16 out of St. Louis was No. 10 seed Stanford, which held on through a tense final few seconds to beat second-seeded Kansas 60-57 on a rough day for fans from the Sunflower State. The Cardinal will play No. 10 seed Dayton on Thursday in the South Regional semifinals in Memphis, Tenn.

domenica 23 marzo 2014

People cry for help from underneath rubble after 3 die in Washington landslide

A devastating landslide in Washington state killed three people Saturday and sent rescuers desperately digging for people crying for help underneath debris, authorities in Washington state said. The landslide cut off a small town and a river and prompted an evacuation notice for fear of a potentially "catastrophic flood event," authorities said. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said, in addition to those dead, seven adults and a 6-month-old boy were rescued and sent to local hospitals. Harborview Medical Center in Seattle reported that five patients had been airlifted there and were in its care. Three of those -- including the baby, a 58-year-old man and an 81-year-old man -- were in critical condition Saturday night, according to spokeswoman Susan Gregg. People were crying out for help from underneath debris early Sunday, said City of Arlington fire Capt. Brandon Asher. Rescuers are trying to forge through the wreckage to get to them. At least six houses were destroyed in the landslide and possibly 16 were damaged, the sheriff's department reported. The first reports of the landslide came in around 10:45 a.m. (1:45 p.m. ET) along State Road 530, the sheriff's office said. Photos provided by the Washington State Patrol show floodwaters and sprawling debris covering a rural patch of that two-lane road, framed by woodlands and snow-capped mountains. CNN first learned of the landslide via Twitter. Groundwater saturation tied to heavy rainfall in the area over the past month was blamed for the landslide, which authorities say measured at least 45 yards wide. Because it blocked SR 530, the landslide cut off Darrington, a town of about 1,350 people located 75 miles northeast of Seattle and within close proximity to Round Mountain, Whitehorse Mountain and White Chuck Mountain. Part of the Stillaguamish River also was blocked. Residents got reverse 911 calls warning them of "flooding upstream from the slide, as well as the possibility of a downstream flooding should there be a catastrophic breach by the river," said Shari Ireton, a sheriff's spokeswoman. The county later said "we strongly recommend" that those living in the north fork of the Stillaguamish River flood plain, from Oso to Stanwood, to "evacuate your home immediately." "We are working on establishing shelters for those who have nowhere to go," county spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said in a statement. "Until then, people should get to higher ground as soon as possible. "Nightfall is approaching, and we do not want to take any chances."

sabato 22 marzo 2014

Turkey's Twitter ban condemned

A Turkish government ban on Twitter has provoked widespread fury in Turkey, and condemnation around the world, with the country's own president taking to the social media website to condemn Ankara's actions. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who blames social media for fueling anti-government rhetoric, threatened to "eradicate" Twitter at a campaign rally in the city of Bursa on Thursday. Within hours Turkish Internet users were reporting widespread disruptions to the service, and hashtags including #TwitterisblockedinTurkey and #DictatorErdogan were trending worldwide. Freedom of expression campaign group Index on Censorship said the ban, which it called "censorship of which the worst authoritarian regimes would be proud" was "emblematic of the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan." Millions of Twitter users from across Turkey quickly found ways to circumvent the blockade -- with help from Twitter itself -- and voice their anger and frustration at the government's move.

venerdì 21 marzo 2014

Michelle Obama visits China

With a game of table-tennis, a calligraphy lesson and a walk through Beijing's famous Forbidden City, first lady Michelle Obama kicked off a week of gentle diplomacy Friday, in the company of her Chinese counterpart, plus Obama's mother and two daughters. Focused on education and youth empowerment, and steering well clear of sensitive topics such as human rights, the three-city tour marks only the third time the U.S. first lady has made an overseas trip without President Obama since the family moved into the White House. Strong Chinese interest in her visit reflects not only China's fascination with America, but also the unusually high profile of Obama's host, Peng Liyuan, the stylish wife of China's Communist Party leader, and president, Xi Jinping. Unlike previous leaders' wives, who stayed mostly hidden, Peng, formerly a popular singer, has taken on a public role akin to that of her U.S. counterpart. Pictures of the Obama family's arrival dominated most front pages here Friday, pushing aside coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, which carried 153 Chinese passengers. Media have poured over trip details including the eye-watering $8,400 per night rate at the Presidential Suite in the 5-star Westin Hotel, close to the U.S. Embassy, which they are occupying.

mercoledì 19 marzo 2014

Mega Millions: Two winners in $400 million jackpot

The good news: The owners of two winning Mega Millions tickets will share a massive payout. The bad news: Neither ticket was sold in Massachusetts. The winners were sold in Maryland and Florida, lottery officials told the Associated Press: Florida lottery officials say their winning ticket was sold at a Sunoco convenience store in Merritt Island. Information about the Maryland ticket wasn't immediately available. Check your numbers, though. You may have won some cash by matching fewer than all six numbers. The winning numbers were: 11-19-24-33-51, Mega Ball: 7.

martedì 18 marzo 2014

Australia Scours Area

Australia is scouring an area in the southern Indian Ocean that’s about 1 1/2 times the size of California for missing Malaysian Air Flight 370, as the U.S. was asked to use its satellites to help in the search. An AP-3C Orion plane was sent to comb 600,000 square kilometers (230,000 square miles) of ocean, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Malaysia’s Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he spoke with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about the search, which has become the longest in modern commercial aviation. Malaysia is leading a multination search that spans 2.24 million square nautical miles, he said. “A needle in a haystack remains a good analogy,” John Young, the authority’s general manager for emergency response, said at a briefing today. “It’s a large area with aircraft that are towards the end of their operating limits. So they get a short period of time in the search area, and that dictates this is going to take quite a long time.” Five more aircraft, including one each from the U.S. and New Zealand, will tomorrow also begin scanning an area that’s about 1,500 nautical miles southwest of Perth in Western Australia. Malaysia had drawn up a northern corridor and a southern zone to search for Flight 370. China and Kazakhstan have agreed to lead the search areas closest to their countries in the northern zone. The U.S. has the best ability to assist in the southern corridor, the minister said.

lunedì 17 marzo 2014

26 nations involved for Malaysian jet

Twenty-six countries are involved in the massive international search for the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that disappeared on March 8 with 239 people aboard. They include not just military assets on land, at sea and in the air, but also investigators and the specific support and assistance requested by Malaysia, such as radar and satellite information. Kelvin Chan MAR 16 Analysts say the e-commerce giant could raise up to $15 billion through the stock offering. Outdated government computers vulnerable to hackers Outdated government computers vulnerable to hackers Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima MAR 16 Microsoft is withdrawing support for Windows XP and many agencies haven’t switched to new systems. Capital Buzz: Rubenstein sets his sights on Bezos Capital Buzz: Rubenstein sets his sights on Bezos Thomas Heath MAR 16 The president of the Economic Club of Washington hopes to land Amazon founder for an interview More business news MALAYSIA Malaysia, which is coordinating the search, has deployed about 18 aircraft and 27 ships, including the submarine support vessel MV Mega Bakti, which can detect objects at a depth of up to 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). AUSTRALIA Australia has sent two AP-3C Orion aircraft, one of which is searching the waters to the north and west of the Cocos Islands. Australia’s defense department is refusing to say whether Malaysia has asked Australia to divulge any radar information, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday that all Australian agencies are “are scouring their data to see if there’s anything they can add to the understanding of this mystery.” CHINA An official with the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority says the missing plane did not enter Chinese airspace. The Chinese Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to questions on radar information. China has deployed nine navy ships and civilian patrol vessels and a variety of fixed wing and rotary aircraft, along with a team of experts dispatched to Malaysia. UNITED STATES A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, has been searching in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Navy also has deployed the destroyer USS Kidd with two MH-60R helicopters. INDONESIA Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto says military radars on Sumatra island found no trace of the jetliner and that data requested by the Malaysian government had been handed over. He says that search efforts have shifted from the Malacca Strait to the corridor stretching from northern Sumatra to the Indian Ocean. PAKISTAN The director general of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, Muhammed Yousaf, says radar recordings shared with Malaysia found no sign of the jetliner. INDIA India put its search operations in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal on hold this weekend and continues to coordinate with Malaysia about possible new search areas. THAILAND Royal Thai Air Force spokesman Montol Suchookorn says the Thai military gave its radar data to Malaysia on March 10 and has not received any additional requests. The Royal Thai Navy suspended its search mission in the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea on Saturday.

domenica 16 marzo 2014

Ukraine crisis: Crimea votes

Beyond the question of Crimea's future status, the vote will likely influence future international relations in the region and beyond -- having put the United States and Russia on the kind of collision course not seen since the end of the Cold War. Preliminary results could come as soon as Sunday night local time. The United States, which says the vote is illegal, has already said it expects the Black Sea peninsula's majority ethnic Russian population to vote in favor of joining Russia. Moscow has strongly backed the referendum. Kicking off the polling in a prerecorded statement, Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov called on the residents of Crimea to cast their vote "independent of nationalism and disintegration." 'Russia is an opportunity' Another voter in Perevalnoye, Viktor Savchenko, said he would never vote for the government in Kiev. "I want us to join Russia, and live like Russians, with all their rights," he said. Victoria Khudyakova said she also had voted to join Russia, which she sees as being "spiritually close" to Crimea. "This is deciding the fate of Crimea. So I came, because I think that as a Crimean it is very important. I'm raising a son, so it is my destiny," she said. "For me, Russia is an opportunity for our Crimea to develop, to bloom. And I believe that it will be so." As of 3 p.m. (9 a.m. ET), voter turnout for all of Crimea stood at 63.9% of eligible voters, with 979,019 votes cast so far, Mikhail Malyshev, the head of the Crimean Election Commission, told reporters in the regional capital, Simferopol. But Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, speaking in Kiev, dismissed the referendum as illegitimate under Ukrainian and international law, and improperly run. He said Ukrainian authorities had information from Crimea about voting irregularities, including people who are not Crimean citizens casting ballots, absence of proper monitoring and the presence of armed men. Malyshev said there was no evidence that people with foreign passports were voting in the referendum. He also said no "provocations" had been reported at polling stations. Kerry: We won't recognize referendum Russian artillery deployed around Crimea Crimea's place in Russian history Double voting? In Simferopol, voters filed into a polling place, picked up white and yellow ballots and headed to private booths to fill them out before d

sabato 15 marzo 2014

Renzi in Francia

Francia e Italia hanno «le stesse priorità», tra cui «la necessità di un’Europa più politica, più semplice, più chiara, che concentri la sua azioni» su alcuni punti fondamentali come «crescita e occupazione»: è quanto si legge nel documento diffuso dall’Eliseo a margine dell’incontro tra Matteo Renzi e Francois Hollande a Parigi. 

Se il presidente del Consiglio Matteo Renzi «auspica di far emergere un’altra Europa», il presidente della Repubblica francese Francois Hollande «lavora da due anni al suo riorientamento, impegno che ha già permesso di stabilizzare l’eurozona, di stabilire dei meccanismi permanenti di solidarietà per far fronte alle crisi, di controllare le banche attraverso l’Unione bancaria e di creare le condizioni della crescita». In occasioni analoghe (con i premier Monti e Letta, che si sono succeduti a Palazzo Chigi da quando Hollande è all’Eliseo) il servizio stampa del presidente francese non aveva mai elaborato nessuna nota scritta, mentre quello di oggi è un libretto di 12 pagine in cui si illustrano le caratteristiche delle relazioni bilaterali fra i due Paesi nei vari settori, si sottolinea la «totale convergenza di vedute» emersa riguardo alla situazione in Ucraina e si dedica una pagina al curriculum del nuovo premier italiano e un’altra all’elenco dei ministri del suo governo. 

Il presidente del Consiglio, Matteo Renzi, è giunto stamane all’Eliseo, dove ha inaugurato il suo tour europeo incontrando il presidente della Repubblica francese, Francois Hollande.Lunedì Renzi andrà a Berlino per un incontro con la Cancelliera, Angela Merkel, prima che la sua settimana europea si concluda con il vertice dei Capi di Stato e di governo Ue di giovedì e venerdì a Bruxelles.