Author: WHES
Administration planning $1 billion debt relief for Egypt
The Obama administration has decided to provide about $1 billion in debt relief for Egypt, a senior official said Saturday, in the boldest U.S. effort yet to shore up a key Middle East ally as it attempts a democratic transition.
The aid would be part of a major economic aid package that also includes trade and investment incentives, officials said. It is intended to help stabilize Egypt after demonstrations forced out longtime President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.
While the Obama administration has been preoccupied of late with the war in Libya and protests in Syria, it sees Egypt as even more critical for U.S. interests. Washington has long regarded Egypt as a moderating influence in the Middle East. With one-quarter of the world’s Arabs, Egypt could emerge as a democratic model in the region — or, if its revolution fails, a locus of instability or extremism.
More deaths on Syria’s ‘day of defiance’
Activists claim that up to 30 people have been killed in Syria where thousands have taken to the streets for another day of anti-government rallies, dubbed a “day of defiance”.
North Korea, after a famine that killed nearly one million people in the 1990s, now nears the brink of a second food disaster with 3.5 million people severely malnourished and at risk of starvation, World Food Program says
Over the past weeks, thousands of people across Turkey have protested against the planned construction of a gold mine in Cerattepe, close to the town of Artvin in the northeast of the country. Protesters fear that the mine will cause irreparable damage to the unique natural environment of the region.
Commodity prices fall sharply as investors sell
Oil prices were down 10% at one stage, with US light, sweet crude ending the day below $100 a barrel.
Food prices driven up by global warming, study shows. Scientists warn that farming practices must be adapted to a warmer world and rises in global population.
Global warming has already harmed the world’s food production and has driven up food prices by as much as 20% over recent decades, new research has revealed.
US aid plan for Pakistan is floundering
KHAJURI KACH, Pakistan — A multibillion-dollar aid plan that the Obama administration hoped would win over Pakistanis and buttress the weak civilian government is foundering because Washington’s fears of Pakistani corruption and incompetence has slowed disbursal of the money, undermining a fundamental goal of the United States in Pakistan, officials from both nations say.
businessman becomes magnet for anger and dissent
BEIRUT, Lebanon — When protests erupted in March in the forlorn Syrian border town of Dara’a, demonstrators burned the president’s portraits, then set ablaze an unlikely target: the local office of the country’s largest mobile phone company, Syriatel, whose owner sits at the nexus of anger and power in a restive country.
Uganda: Riots break out in Kampala after three weeks of protests against higher food prices, arrrest of opposition leader
After weeks of demonstrations against the rising cost of living in Uganda, the situation in the capital, Kampala, deteriorated on 29 April, with riots breaking out in the city centre in protest at the brutal arrest of an opposition leader a day earlier.
Syria’s crackdown on protesters becomes dramatically more brutal. Tanks and troops enter towns and villages for the first time as scores of people are reportedly killed across Syria.
The Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations has escalated dramatically, with tanks rolling on to the streets for the first time and troops reported to have opened fire in several towns and villages across the country.
