Tag: Newsweek

REFUGEE TENSIONS DEEPEN AS GREECE PULLS AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR


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Greece has withdrawn its ambassador to Austria, in a move which deepens the political fallout from Europe’s refugee crisis.

The move was taken after Greece objected to its lack of inclusion in a summit on migration held in Austria with representatives from Balkan states.

Austria also this month took the decision to impose quotas on refugees aimed at slowing the number it takes in.

In a statement, Greece’s foreign ministry said: “Unilateral initiatives for resolving the refugee crisis, along with violations of international law and the European acquis by member states of the EU, are practices that can undermine the foundations and process of European integration.

“It is clear that the major problems of the European Union cannot be confronted via thoughts, attitudes and extra-institutional initiatives that have their roots in the 19th century,” it added.

Greece has been repeatedly criticized by Brussels and by other EU states for not doing enough to stem the flow of migrants and refugees into Europe, many of whom first set foot on Greek soil. It has in turn called for more solidarity among EU nations.

But Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted on Wednesday that “The #RefugeeCrisis is an [international] problem and must be addressed  as such by EU.”

An EU scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy to other EU states has enjoyed only limited success, with Kirk Day of the International Rescue Committee scathingly suggesting on Wednesday that the process would take “100 years” if current rates continue.

Despite the low impact of the scheme, Hungary on Wednesday announced it would hold a referendum on whether to continue to participate in it, with Brussels saying on Thursday it had been puzzled by the announcement.

http://www.newsweek.com/greece-austria-ambassador-refugee-crisis-430324

AFTER SURGE, RUBIO STUMBLES AT FINAL DEBATE BEFORE NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTING


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Marco Rubio’s ascendent presidential campaign hit a rough patch Saturday night in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Florida senator took incoming fire from all angles at the party’s last debate before New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary Tuesday, and it put him on his heels.

In one of the most devastating moments, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie attacked Rubio as a glib politician only capable of speaking in memorized talking points. Rubio’s response: repeating, virtually verbatim, the same talking points two more times. As the debate stretched into its third hour, Rubio was visibly sweating.

And mystifyingly, Rubio returned to the same point several additional times, repeatedly alleging that President Obama “is trying to change this country” to be more like the rest of the world. It’s part of the 44-year-old senator’s counter to accusations that he would be a Republican version of the president, who was a similarly youthful politician with just a few years in the U.S. Senate under his belt when he was elected to the White House. But his opponents weren’t buying it. “Do you think Barack Obama knows what he’s doing? I don’t,” Christie said.

http://www.newsweek.com/rubio-stumbles-debate-new-hampshire-423861

132 PEOPLE SAID TRAPPED AFTER TAIWAN EARTHQUAKE


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A total of 132 people are still trapped beneath the rubble of a Taiwan apartment tower that collapsed in a powerful earthquake on Saturday morning, a local government official said on Sunday.

The total is much higher than authorities had first estimated when rescuers began combing the wreckage of the 17-story building in the southern city of Tainan with sniffer dogs and acoustic equipment, looking for signs of life.

Rescue crews believed 29 of those still trapped could be reached more easily than the rest who were buried deeper in the rubble, said the official from the Tainan city government.

http://www.newsweek.com/132-trapped-taiwan-earthquake-423855

EGYPT’S MYTH OF STABILITY: GROSS ABUSES DON’T DELIVER SECURITY


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Five years ago, human rights defender Ahmed Abdullah was among thousands of Egyptians who took to the streets for 18 days of mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, eventually forcing then-President Hosni Mubarak to step down and the security forces to retreat.

Today, Ahmed is on the run. He dodged arrest by the thinnest of margins on January 9, after plainclothes police in Cairo raided his regular coffee shop. The NGO which he chairs, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, had recently exposed a surge in enforced disappearances, which has seen hundreds vanish at the hands of state security forces over the last year alone.

 He is not the only one whose activism has put him at risk. In recent weeks, security forces have been rounding up activists linked to protests and journalists critical of the government’s record.

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:K-8TPTHjgxEJ:www.newsweek.com/egypt-stability-abuses-security-revolution-arab-spring-418573+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Nurofen Admits to Selling Misleading Painkillers


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Drugs company Reckitt Benckiser, owner of Nurofen, has admitted to selling pain-specific tablets that were actually identical to each other, the Guardian reported on Monday.

The company’s admission follows an Australian federal court’s ruling that the U.K.-based manufacturer misled the public and must remove a number of their products from shelves in Australia.

In a statement on its website, the Australian Competition Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it found that certain products that claim to target specific types pain—such as migraines or back pain—and often sell at double the price of regular painkillers, all contained the same amount of the active ingredient ibuprofen lysine. Each pain-specific product was “no more effective at treating the type of pain described on its packaging” than normal Nurofen, the statement said.

http://www.newsweek.com/nurofen-admit-selling-misleading-painkillers-404652

Cecil the Lion Graces the Empire State Building


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Sky-gazers roaming around New York City may have noticed some unusual visitors at the Empire State Building on Saturday night: huge projections of manta rays, tigers, snow leopards, bears and even the recently fallen Cecil, the lion slayed by an American dentist, on the skyscraper’s southern facade.

Created by the artists Travis Threlkel and Louie Psihoyos, the eight-minute long video series “Projecting Change on the Empire State Building” is the first to be beamed onto one of the United States’s most distinctive architectural landmarks.

http://www.newsweek.com/cecil-lion-graces-empire-state-building-359127