Six In The Morning

Iraq PM bids to end vice president and deputy PM roles

  Haider al-Abbadi proposes decree cancelling the roles as he also announces reforms to tackle corruption and cut costs.

09 Aug 2015 07:23 GMT

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi has issued a decree proposing the cancellation of the country’s vice president positions and deputy PM role.

A statement on Sunday on the PM’s Facebook page said that Abbadi will also investigate corruption, reappoint all senior officials based on professional rather than sectarian standards, and reduce the number of security personnel protecting senior officials in order to cut down on waste.

Abbadi held a meeting on Friday evening with a number of experts and advisers to discuss the administrative and financial reforms in his new bid to tackle corruption in the country.

  Nagasaki bombing remembered with calls for Japan to stay off path of war

 Survivor and city mayor at anniversary of 1945 nuclear attack warn prime minister Shinzo Abe about the dangers of his plan to lift constraints on military

Associated Press in Nagasaki Sunday 9 August 2015 05.19 BST

The city of Nagasaki has marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing with calls to abolish nuclear weapons and halt the Japanese government’s push to loosen restrictions on what its military can do.

With the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in the audience, a representative of Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors told an annual ceremony that security legislation introduced by Abe’s government went against the wishes of the survivors and “will lead to war”.

“We cannot accept this,” said 86-year-old Sumiteru Taniguchi after describing in graphic detail his traumatic injuries and how others died in the 9 August 1945 attack on Nagasaki.

 Muhammadu Buhari: Nigeria’s new president promises to rid country of terrorists, but corruption and falling oil revenues hold him back  

 Boko Haram is only getting stronger and will not wait for him to be ready – Buhari can’t afford to carry on going as slowly as he is

Alistair Dawber Sunday 9 August 2015

Like many politicians before him, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s new president, is finding that promises made during a campaign are easy to announce, but more difficult to keep. A former army major-general who briefly seized power in Africa’s most populous state in the 1980s, Mr Buhari swept to power in April promising not only to tackle Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has wreaked havoc and bloodshed in Nigeria, but to defeat it.

“What I can pledge, with absolute certainty,” he wrote in The New York Times in April, a month before taking office, “is that from the first day of my administration, Boko Haram will know the strength of our collective will and commitment to rid this nation of terror, and bring back peace and normalcy to all the affected areas.”

 Plugging Leaks: Merkel’s War on Germany’s Press and Parliament

     In recent months, Germany’s government and intelligence agencies have gone after journalists and parliamentarians in an effort to keep classified information secret. Now, their efforts have resulted in a bona fide scandal for Berlin.

 By SPIEGEL Staff

When former German Federal Prosecutor Harald Range greeted SPIEGEL journalists for an interview at the end of July, he seemed combative. The 67-year-old recalled his oath of office as a young public prosecutor in the university town of Göttingen, to investigate “independent of a person’s standing.”

He also said he refused to allow his position to be influenced by politics in any way, adding that he “had so far” not been given any orders by the government. “I am free in my decisions,” he said. But did he already suspect at that point that an investigation into two journalists would soon rock both his office and the government in Berlin?

Haitians prepare to vote in long-overdue elections

  Parliamentary polls being held on Sunday, but many people are more concerned about poverty and high unemployment.

 09 Aug 2015 01:33 GMT

Port-au-Prince, Haiti – At the Scoop FM talk-radio station in Port-au-Prince, it’s all politics all the time.

In a country so poor that televisions are a luxury and more than half of adults can’t read or write, radio is the best way for political candidates to reach out to potential voters.

On the day Al Jazeera visited, candidates packed the ramshackle halls and waiting rooms at the station, waiting their turn to go on air and be interviewed.

Among them was a distinguished looking man named Fred Brutus, who is running for president under the banner of the Parti Federaliste Haiti.

With Summer Olympics a year away, Brazil wonders if it’s ready

 

By Vinod Sreeharsha McClatchy Foreign Staff

RIO DE JANEIRO

Let the countdown begin.

With slightly less than a year to go before the opening of next year’s Summer Olympic Games, preparations are entering their most critical phase. With 10,500 athlete from 205 countries, expected officials are proclaiming that everything is looking wonderful.

Athletes, including rowers and swimmers, have started testing sporting venues, including waters considered highly polluted and possibly unsafe. Reporters from around the globe have arrived. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach met with Brazilian President Dilma Roussef and radiated optimism that the games will be a roaring success, despite previous IOC criticism of the slow pace of preparations.

“Brazilians will show the entire world your unique combination of passion and efficiency,” he said during a speech, the latter word almost never associated with this country.