Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Japan firm offers 'apology' for 9-cent ice lolly price hike

Posted by Unknown, on 06:49
Akagi Nyugyo increased the price of its lollies on Friday for the first time in a quarter century following years of deflation and falling prices in Japan
Sombre-looking executives at a Japanese frozen dessert maker have appeared in a national television advert to apologise for raising the cost of a popular ice cream -- by 9 cents.
Akagi Nyugyo, a brand popular with millions of schoolchildren, increased the price of its GariGarikun lollies on Friday for the first time in a quarter century following years of deflation and falling prices in Japan.
Fearing a backlash, the firm took the pre-emptive step of apologising in a 60-second advertisement that ran on nationwide TV channels on Friday and Saturday. It has been watched more than 900,000 times on YouTube.
The clip begins with a close up of Akagi Nyugyo's executives staring into the camera, arms folded, as they stand in front of the company's headquarters about 75 kilometres (46 miles) northwest of Tokyo.The camera pans out to reveal around 100 distressed-looking employees standing in formation. Music by a popular folk singer, lamenting price hikes, plays in the background.
A group bow -- a common act of contrition in Japan -- follows, and text appears on the screen that reads: "We held on for 25 years but...", followed by "60→70".
The latter is a reference to the rise in price of the GariGarikun bars to 70 yen (63 US cents) from 60 yen (54 cents). The company said the increase was due to rising costs.
It was the first price hike for the bars since 1991, when the company took out a newspaper advertisement to apologise for a 10-yen increase.
Public apologies are not uncommon among Japanese firms, but this week's video was among the more unusual ways a company has asked for forgiveness.
"It was beyond our imagination that the video would be watched so many times," a company spokeswoman said.
The commercial can be seen at:  AFP

ICC to rule on bid to throw out Kenya Ruto case

Posted by Unknown, on 06:47

Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto will learn Tuesday if war crimes judges will set legal precedent and throw out a case against him for his alleged role in post-election turmoil.
The judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) were to file a written decision before 1500 GMT to a plea from Ruto and his co-accused radio boss Joshua arap Sang to dismiss the charges arising out of the violence sparked by disputed December 2007 polls.
Ruto, 49, and Sang, 40, both deny three charges of crimes against humanity -- namely murder, forcible deportation and persecution.
Prosecutors say more than 1,300 people died and some 600,000 others were left homeless in Kenya's worst wave of violence since independence from Britain in 1963, and concluded their case in September 2015.
But in a first before the ICC, Ruto's defence team filed a motion calling for the charges to be dismissed, arguing prosecutors had failed to prove he was involved in the post-polls violence.Sang's team has also maintained that there is "no case to answer."
"It's very difficult to evaluate the possible scenarios, because there are different legal possibilities," ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah told AFP.
He said the judges had various options. Among other possibilities, they could dismiss the plea, acquit Ruto, or call for the case to be suspended while the charges are amended or for some other reason.
The case is being keenly watched in Kenya, which has led a high-profile campaign against the ICC among African nations, accusing the tribunal of bias against the continent.
Several African nations have threatened to walk out of the court, set up in 2002 to try to the world's worst crimes.
The Kenyan government has long argued the charges should be dismissed following a similar case against Ruto's erstwhile bitter rival and now Kenyan President Uhuru KenyattaIn a major setback for the ICC, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda abandoned the case against Kenyatta in late 2014.
- 'Witness intimidation' -
Ruto's lawyers have argued there was no proof he was behind the bloodshed that rocked the powerful east African nation once seen as a regional beacon of stability.
The case was "in tatters," the defence team maintained in January.
In an early victory for the two men, judges barred the prosecution in February from applying amended ICC rules and using recanted testimonies in their case.
Sixteen out of the 42 witnesses have changed their stories or refused point blank to testify, which the prosecutors have alleged is due to intimidation, bribery or fear of reprisals.The prosecution had argued the recanted testimonies were key evidence to their case.
A decision on Tuesday to throw out the case would be a heavy blow for the ICC, especially after the charges were dropped against Kenyatta.
Whatever the outcome the decision "will create a precedent which will be upheld or not in any eventual appeal," said El Abdallah, confirming that both sides had the right to appeal.
Violence broke out in late 2007 after Kenyan opposition chief Raila Odinga from the Luo ethnic group accused then president Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, of rigging his way to re-election.
What began as political riots quickly turned into ethnic killings of the Kikuyu people, who in turn launched reprisal attacks.
Ruto was accused of holding meetings of his Kalenjin tribe in his Rift Valley home to allegedly plan attacks on Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe.  AFP



Syria Qaeda downs regime plane, captures pilot

Posted by Unknown, on 06:43

Al-Qaeda shot down a government warplane over the town of Al-Eis in northern Syria on Tuesday and captured one crew member alive, a rebel source and a monitoring group said.
The rebel source said it was "likely that (Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate) Al-Nusra Front shot down the plane and took the pilot," adding that the plane had been hit by heavy machinegun fire.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al-Nusra downed the plane, which it said was likely being flown by a Syrian air force pilot.
The Al-Qaeda affiliate is not party to the ceasefire between government forces and non-jihadist rebels brokered by the United States and Russia that has been in place since February 27.
On Friday, Al-Nusra and its allies pushed regime loyalists out of Al-Eis, a strategic town in Aleppo province.In video footage circulated on social media purporting to show the scene where the plane came down, a dozen men crowd around a man lying in the dirt.
Some of them cry: "He's Syrian, he's Syrian!" and others yell: "Get his weapons off him!"
AFP could not confirm the authenticity of the footage.
Last month, Islamist rebels shot down a regime warplane over the village of Kafr Nabuda in the central province of Hama.  AFP

China warns 'powerful forces' behind Panama Papers

Posted by Unknown, on 06:41

Hostile Western forces are behind the "Panama Papers", a state-run Chinese newspaper alleged Tuesday, as media avoided reporting revelations about Communist leaders and it emerged that the law firm involved has eight offices in the country.
The scandal erupted on Sunday when media groups began revealing the results of a year-long investigation into a trove of 11.5 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in creating offshore shell companies.
At least eight current or former members of China's Politburo Standing Committee, the ruling party's most powerful body, have been implicated, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which co-ordinated the reports.
Mossack Fonseca has offices in eight Chinese cities including Hong Kong, its website showed Tuesday, more than any other country.Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has launched a much-publicised anti-corruption drive but has not instituted systemic reforms such as public declarations of assets.
Among those named in the Panama Papers are close associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and President Xi's brother-in-law, who was previously identified in a New York Times investigation into the wealth accumulated by Xi's family.
Chinese media have largely avoided reporting on the leaks and social media have been scrubbed of references to them, with foreign news broadcasters such as the BBC blacked out when they report on the issue.
As well as Xi Jinping's brother-in-law, the documents also contained the names of family members of two current Politburo Standing Committee members, Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yunshan, reported the BBC, which took part in the investigation.
Chinese journalists were ordered to delete "all content related to the 'Panama Papers' leak case", according to instructions seen by AFP.
Users on microblogging web site Weibo tried to circumvent restrictions by circulating pictures of Chinese-language articles describing the allegations.
In an editorial the Global Times, a newspaper with close links to the ruling Communist Party, implied the leaks were part of a "disinformation" campaign by Western forces.
It did not mention any of the Chinese revelations, focusing instead on the allegations involving Putin -- as did the Shanghai Daily, which is linked to the government of the commercial hub.
"The documents revealed do have basic political targets," the Global Times said, adding that "Washington has demonstrated particular influence" in previous leaks of sensitive information to the media.
- 'Strike a blow' -Such actions were "a new means for the ideology-allied Western nations to strike a blow to non-Western political elites and key organisations", it added.
Asked whether China would investigate those named in the reports, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said: "For such groundless accusations, I have no comment."
Corrupt Chinese officials have moved more than $120 billion overseas, according to a 2011 report by the People's Bank of China.
Offshore companies are not illegal and can be used for legitimate business needs. But they commonly feature in corruption cases, when they are used to secretly move ill-gotten gains abroad.
Britain's Guardian newspaper said an internal Mossack Fonseca survey found the biggest proportion of its offshore company owners came from mainland China, followed by Hong Kong.Hong Kong also housed the greatest number of intermediaries, banks and law firms, among others, that set up offshore corporations on clients' behalf.
Mossack Fonseca's office locations in China include the major financial centres of Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as port cities Qingdao and Dalian, and lesser-known provincial capitals such as Shandong's Jinan and Hangzhou in Zhejiang, along with Ningbo, also in the eastern province.
Fallen political star Bo Xilai was once the mayor of Dalian, and at least 48 officials from Shandong have been caught up in Beijing's anti-graft campaign according to information maintained by the Asia Society on its Chinafile website.
The Panama Papers document trove was anonymously leaked to German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with more than 100 media groups by ICIJ.In a statement, Mossack Fonseca denied any wrongdoing and said it has always complied with relevant laws and regulations. AFP

Turkey 'arrests two would-be IS suicide bombers'

Posted by Unknown, on 06:34

Authorities in southern Turkey have arrested two men suspected of preparing to carry out suicide bombings for the Islamic State (IS) group, which has staged two attacks in Istanbul this year, reports said Tuesday.
The men were arrested in the southern province of Gaziantep, which borders Syria, the local governor's office said in a statement carried by the Dogan news agency.
One of them was named as Mehmet Mustafa Cevik, described as a member of IS and one of its Turkish affiliates, the Dokumacilar Group.
The Dokumacilar Group, named after its wanted founder Mustafa Dokumaci, is the suicide bomber unit suspected of being behind the October 2015 attack that killed 103 people at an Ankara peace rally in Turkey's bloodiest-ever attack.
The cell has also been linked to the killing of 34 people in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border in July 2015.
The other jihadist arrested was Ercan Capkin, the brother of Erkan Capkin, one of the suspected suicide bombers behind the March 19 attack on a famous Istanbul shopping thoroughfare that left four people dead.
A dozen German tourists were also killed in January when a suicide bomber linked to IS detonated his charge in the heart of Istanbul's historic centre.
Both suspects were ordered by a court in Gaziantep to be held in jail ahead of trial, the report said.
The Turkish interior ministry now has 23 suspected IS militants on its most wanted list with a total bounty of 42 million lira ($15 million) on their heads, the Hurriyet daily reported Tuesday.
Three suspected IS militants are on its urgently-wanted red list including Mustafa Dokumaci, the alleged leader of IS in Gaziantep, Ilhami Bali and Yunus Durmaz who is said to have planned the March 19 attack.
Turkey has been for several months on a state of high alert due to a series of attacks blamed both on IS and Kurdish militants amid the resumption of a conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The attack in Istanbul came less than a week after a car bomb exploded in central Ankara killing 35 people which was claimed by a radical Kurdish faction that split from the PKK.  AFP

Sunday, 3 April 2016

Mature student: Swedish centenarian is offered place in nursery school

Posted by Unknown, on 09:01
A Swedish school invited a 104-year-old woman to take up a place in her local creche, which usually admits children aged between one and six, after authorities made a computer error

Four years after celebrating her centenary, a woman in a town in western Sweden has been offered a place in the local kindergarten.
"It's fantastic! I must be the only 104-year-old in Hylte to be offered a place in a creche," local paper Hallands Nyheter quoted Maja Bergstrom as saying.
Her amused response came after the local authorities wrote to her daughter Birgitta, 78, who was wrongly thought to be the mother of a tot rather than the daughter of a centenarian.
Stigert Pettersson, the official in charge of local school registrations, explained that letters should have gone out offering places in the local creche for children born in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
"Apparently, the computer made a mistake and people born 100 years earlier were contacted. It's embarrassing -- but also a little charming," said Pettersson.
Swedish nursery schools admit children aged between the ages of one and six prior to the entry to elementary school. AFP

Syrian government forces recapture town west of Palmyra - TV

Posted by Unknown, on 08:57
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army took control of the town of al-Qaryatain after driving out Islamic State militants on Sunday, Syrian state television said.
It said the army and its allies "fully restored security and stability to the town after killing the last remaining groups of Daesh terrorists" in the town, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
The town is 100 km (60 miles) west of Palmyra, which government forces recaptured from Islamic State last Sunday.REUTERS
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )