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Effect of sanctions 'like war' says Iran's Ahmadinejad

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:19:41 GMT

Iran

Sources [edit]

Marc Burleigh. "Iran has 'problems' selling oil: Ahmadinejad" — Agence France-Presse, September 4, 2012
Nasser Karimi. "Iran: West launches sanctions war against Iran" — Associated Press, September 4, 2012
"Tuvalu backs down over Iran ships" — TVNZ One News, August 22, 2012
Howard Berman. "Howard Berman Statement on Tuvalu’s Decision to Deregister Vessels Owned by Iran, Ending Reflagging Effort" — United States House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats, August 21, 2012
Ayesha Rascoe. "US should stop Tuvalu reflagging Iranian ships-US lawmaker" — Reuters, August 14, 2012

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Anti-ACTA activists protest across Europe

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:20:02 GMT

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Internet

Sources [edit]

"Anti-ACTA day: Angry crowds take action" — RT (TV network), February 12, 2012
Dave Lee. "Acta protests: Thousands take to streets across Europe" — BBC News Online, February 11, 2012
Josie Le Blond. "ACTA ignites concerns about threat to Internet freedom" — USA Today, February 11, 2012

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Azerbaijan win 2011 Eurovision Song Contest

Sun, 15 May 2011 13:57:51 GMT

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Eurovision Song Contest

Sources [edit]

"Eurovision Song Contest 2011 Final" — Eurovision, May 14, 2011
"Azerbaijan wins the Eurovision Song Contest" — BBC News Online, May 15, 2011
"Winner's Press Conference: "We want to bring Europe together"" — Eurovision.tv, May 15, 2011
"Eurovision 2011: Semifinals results revealed" — ESC Today, May 15, 2011

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Kenyan court jails seven pirates for 2009 attempted hijack of Maltese ship

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 23:26:55 GMT

Kenya

Sources [edit]

"Somali pirates sentenced to five years in Kenya" — BBC News Online, September 24, 2010
Sarah McGregor. "Kenya Convicts Seven Somali Pirates for Attempted Hijacking of Cargo Ship" — Bloomberg, September 24, 2010

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Libya and Switzerland to meet about visa bans

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:07:10 GMT

Thursday, February 18, 2010

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Libya and Switzerland have reportedly agreed to meet in an effort to resolve a diplomatic row about travel visas.

Micheline Calmy-Rey of Switzerland and Moussa Koussa of Libya will meet in the presence of Miguel Ángel Moratinos of Spain. All three are the heads of foreign relations for their respective countries. The meeting comes at the urging of Malta and Italy.

Libya announced on Tuesday that it has suspended and/or revoked visas given to citizens of the Schengen Area of Europe. Four Italian citizens have been detained at the Tripoli International Airport pending deportation, as their visas have been revoked.

Confirming the situation, a Libyan official told Reuters: "This is right. This decision has been taken. No visas for Europeans, except Britain."

Malta has had eight citizens turned back. One of these told The Times of Malta, "They treated us like hostages, not even allowing us out of the room to stretch our legs."

The European Commission released a statement saying it "deplores the unilateral and disproportionate" action by Libya and that affected nations will consider an "appropriate reaction."

"The Commission also regrets that travellers who legally obtained visas before the suspension measure were refused entry when arriving in Libya," said EU commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström.

Libya and Switzerland have been in a diplomatic row for many months. In July 2008, the Swiss for two days detained Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi's son, Hannibal, after hotel staff in Geneva complained of being assaulted. Hannibal was given a suspended sentence and released.

Since then, Libya has withdrawn more than US$5 billion (€3.6 billlion) from Swiss banks and cut of oil exports to Switzerland. Libya then detained two Swiss businessmen and sentenced one to 16 months of prison on visa violation charges.

In November, 2009, Switzerland asked Schengen nations to restrict Libyan visas. Subsequently, Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi and other officials have been denied Schengen visas.

Italy came down on Switzerland, saying the Swiss must "resolve this bi-lateral issue ... but not at the expense of everyone else."

Sawsan Chebli, a senior German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) said that, "The EU is Libya’s greatest trade and export partner. This is a leverage the EU could use. However, Italy and other EU member states with close relations with Libya in the past have shown that they are not interested to spoil their relations with Libya whatever Gaddafi’s action may be. That is not likely to change. And the problem is that Gaddafi knows that he is able to divide the EU."

"The Italians care very little about the EU or other states when it comes to business relations," Chebli added.

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Sources [edit]

Agence France-Presse. "Swiss, Libyan foreign ministers to hold talks on travel ban row" — Google News, February 18, 2010
Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "Swiss say no changes to Libya policy, despite Italian ire" — ArabNews, February 18, 2010
Nick Amies. "Europe's unity with Swiss in Libya visa row tested by business links" — Deutsche Welle, February 16, 2010
Jerrold Colten. "Four Italians Detained in Libya Visa Dispute, Repubblica Reports" — Bloomberg BusinessWeek, February 16, 2010
Ali Shuaib. "Libya suspends issuing visas to Europeans" — Reuters, February 16, 2010
"EU deplores Libya visa ban for Europeans" — BBC News Online, February 16, 2010

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Suspected hijackers of Arctic Sea detained by Russian Navy

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:26:36 GMT

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Cape Verde

Sources [edit]

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

MV Arctic Sea

"Russia detains ship 'hijackers'" — BBC News Online, August 18, 2009
"Eight Arrested Over Arctic Sea Hijacking" — Sky News Online, August 18, 2009
"Russia finds missing cargo ship" — BBC News Online, August 17, 2009
"Estonian Security Police investigates the Arctic Sea hijacking" — Postimees, August 18, 2009

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Cargo ship Arctic Sea may be found

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:23:49 GMT

Saturday, August 15, 2009

A cargo ship spotted off the African island nation of Cape Verde could be the missing MV Arctic Sea.

The Maltese flagged MV Arctic Sea disappeared off the French coast sometime after July 29. Owned by the Russian Arctic Sea company she was operated by the Finnish Solchart Management company and had a Russian crew.

French intelligence sources have found a ship matching the Arctic Sea's description about 400 Nautical miles north of São Vicente.

The Arctic Sea was on a scheduled route from the Finnish seaport of Pietarsaari to the Algerian seaport of Béjaïa with a cargo of timber when it was boarded in Swedish waters between the islands Öland and Gotland on the night of July 24. The alleged boarders left the ship the same day according to its crew and the ship continued her voyage although it would have been expected to anchor at the nearest port.

The last official contact with the ship was with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Britain on July 28. Viktor Matveyev, the director of Solchart Management says the ship radioed that it was off the coast of Portugal on July 31. The 98-meter-long ship has so far not reached the Straits of Gibraltar and is now being sought by the Portuguese Navy and Russian Navy.

If proven this could be the first case of piracy in Europe in the modern era. There is speculation as to the reason for the ship's hijacking, as its cargo of wood, valued at 1.3 million euros, is not especially valuable. Suggestions include possible contraband, and the possibility of a commercial dispute between the crew or some other party and the ship's owners.

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Sources [edit]

"Mystery remains over cargo vessel" — BBC Online, August 15, 2009
Michael Schwirtz. "Russian Navy Joins Search for Missing Ship" — The New York Times, August 12, 2009
"Hunt on for 'hijacked cargo ship'" — BBC News Online, August 12, 2009
Tommi Nieminen. "Where are you, Arctic Sea?" — Helsingin Sanomat, August 9, 2009

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Europeans go to the polls to elect Members of the European Parliament

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:07:15 GMT

Monday, June 8, 2009

European Parliament logo

Over the course of the last four days, people across the European Union went to the polls to elect Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) as part of the European Parliament election, 2009. Voting began on Thursday in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and parts of Ireland. It continued on Friday across the rest of Ireland and parts of the Czech Republic. On Saturday the countries of Cyprus, France (for part of Outre-mer), Italy (day 1), Latvia, Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all voted. On Sunday, the final day of polling, the remaing countries of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy (day 2), Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden voted. Votes were released last night and will continue to be released over the course of today with the exception of Netherlands, which has broken rules and partialy released them on Friday.

The current President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering

The European Parliament is divided into constituencies, which have a group of representatives (the MEPs). Each constituency elects them proportionaly. The amount of MEPs representing a political party depends on the percentage of votes they gain. For example, if 50% of the electorate of a constituency vote for the x party then 50% of the MEPs in that constituency will be from the x party. In total there are 736 MEPs up for election by approximately 500,000,000 Europeans across 27 member states making it the largest transnational election in history.

The elections didn't quite go to plan across the Netherlands, as the European Commission have asked that Dutch officials give an explanation to results they released. As countries across Europe vote on different days, the results of the election can only be released on the last day (Sunday), so that the results in other countries will not influence the decission made by people in countries that are still voting. Despite this, the Netherlands released some of their results on Friday: 92% of the votes have currently been counted. Further controversy arose from the results themselves. Results so far show that far-right Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders's party the Party for Freedom (PVV), appears to have come second behind the Christian Democratic Appeal. Wilders is facing prosecution in the Netherlands for an anti Islamic statement and was refused entry to the United Kingdom on grounds of the intent to incite hatred.

It had initially been foreseen that the Treaty of Lisbon would have entered into force by the time of these elections, making them the first to be held under its provisions. However, primarily because of the failure of the referendum in Ireland, the framework established by the Treaty of Nice will be used again. Amongst other differences, the number of MEPs to be returned depends upon which rules are in effect: while 736 MEPs will be elected under the Nice rules, this number would have increased to 751 if the Lisbon Treaty were in force. A further change that Lisbon would have brought was an increase to the powers of Parliament, including powers over the appointment of the President of the European Commission.

In the previous election, German Hans-Gert Pöttering of the centre-right EPP-ED won with 34% and Martin Schulz of the Socialists came second with 26%. Despite this, during the last term the two leaders shared, each serving approximately two years in office.

European Parliament election, 2004 - Final results at 20 July 2004
Group		Description	Chaired by	MEPs
	EPP-ED	Conservatives and Christian Democrats	Hans-Gert Pöttering	268
	PES	Social Democrats	Martin Schulz	200
	ALDE	Liberals and Liberal Democrats	Graham Watson	88
	G–EFA	Greens and Regionalists	Daniel Cohn-Bendit Monica Frassoni	42
	EUL– NGL	Communists and the Far Left	Francis Wurtz	41
	ID	Eurosceptics	Jens-Peter Bonde Nigel Farage	37
	UEN	National Conservatives	Brian Crowley Cristiana Muscardini	27
	NI	Independents	none	29	Total: 732	Sources: [1][2][3][4][5]

Europeans have also been voting in local elections of County Councils in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

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Related news [edit]

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

European Parliament election, 2009

"United Kingdom elects first British National Party members of European Parliament" — Wikinews, June 8, 2009

Sources [edit]

"Dutch far right in poll triumph" — BBC News Online, June 5, 2009
"Final round of marathon EU vote" — BBC News Online, June 7, 2009
"Voting in 19 EU states for Parliament" — RTÉ, June 7, 2009

External links [edit]

European Election results

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Eurovision '09 competitor Chiara talks about her current song "What If We" and her past accolades

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:19:00 GMT

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Chiara on her initial success after Eurovision '98: "Everything came like rain in my life, from one thing to the other, and before I knew it I became Chiara of Malta. I loved it, but I didn't have much time to think about it."
Photo: The Foto Grafer/Television Malta

The small archipelago of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea takes the Eurovision Song Contest very seriously. Leading a fight to remove a cap on the number of competing countries brought them back to the Contest in 1991 after a 16-year absence, and ever since the nation has had perfect attendance.

Since then, Malta's dependable "shining star" has been Chiara Siracusa, who goes by her first name in her music career. First competing in 1998 at the age of 21, she was pushed to the brink of victory until the votes from the final country that evening leveled her placement to third. Her rendition of the song "The One That I Love," and the recognition she received not only for herself, but for her country, made her a star in Malta overnight, and helped her launch a singing career in Europe.

She would later return to the Contest in 2005 with "Angel," an anthem she penned herself, and achieved second place. Now, in 2009, she will be going back to Eurovision for a third try, hoping for the "3-2-1" charm and a victory — something that has eluded her thus far. Her entry, the ballad "What If We," has special memories for Chiara; it is dedicated to her father, who is recently deceased.

What if Chiara could take home the gold in Moscow; for Malta, for her father, and for herself? Only time will tell. Chiara took time out of her Eurovision promotional schedule to answer some questions from Wikinews' Mike Halterman about her past performances, and most importantly, her upcoming one.

This is the fourth in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May's next contest in Moscow.

Eurovision Song Contest

Source

This exclusive interview features first-hand journalism by a Wikinews reporter. See the collaboration page for more details.

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