Tag: Six In The Morning

Japan election: Abe set to win key upper house vote

21 July 2013 Last updated at 06:47 GMT

The BBC

Voters in Japan are casting ballots in upper house elections expected to deliver a win for PM Shinzo Abe.

Half of the 242 seats in the chamber are being contested.

Polls show Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its allies could secure a majority, meaning a ruling party would control both houses of parliament for the first time in six years.

The deadlock in parliament has been seen as a key factor in Japan’s recent “revolving door” of prime ministers.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 (22:00 GMT Saturday) and will close at 20:00 (11:00 GMT).

Syrian business owners who fled to Egypt give up on going back

Many Syrian industrialists and factory owners have relocated their businesses to Egypt, part of the economic and brain drain Syria’s civil war is causing.

By Raja Abdulrahim

REHAB, Egypt – As fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo intensified last fall, Khalid Sabbagh decided it was time to move his business abroad.

He and his family had already fled months earlier to the safety of this palm-tree-lined Cairo suburb. But as Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, descended further into the warfare that has ravaged much of his nation, Sabbagh finally decided to move his upholstery factory to Egypt and start anew.

Since antigovernment activists began their struggle to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011, more than 1.6 million Syrians have fled the fighting, many to neighboring countries where they wait to return to their homes.

Seconds before crash, passengers knew they were too low

By Holly Yan and Greg Botelho, CNN

July 7, 2013 — Updated 0822 GMT

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was seconds away from landing when the passengers sensed something horribly amiss.

The plane was approaching San Francisco International Airport under a beautifully clear sky, but it was flying low. Dangerously low.

Benjamin Levy looked out the window from seat 30K and could see the water of the San Francisco Bay about 10 feet below.

“I don’t see any runway, I just see water,” Levy recalled.

Further back in the Boeing 777, Xu Das had the same realization.

The Boeing 777-200LR has been in service since March 2006

The airline was voted Airline of the Year by Global Traveler in 2011

In 1993, Asiana Airlines Boeing 737 crashed killing 68 people

“Looking through window, it looked on level of the (sea)wall along the runway,” he posted on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

It pays to use slave labour, says watchdog

Gangmasters Licensing Authority is dismayed at tiny fines levied on unscrupulous employers

EMILY DUGAN    SUNDAY 23 JUNE 2013

Sentences for criminal bosses who use forced labour are “unduly lenient” and do not deter modern slavery, the head of Britain’s worker exploitation watchdog believes.

Sentences for criminal bosses who use forced labour are “unduly lenient” and do not deter modern slavery, the head of Britain’s worker exploitation watchdog has told The Independent on Sunday.

The fines for agencies and farmers exploiting staff are so small that they are seen as a “hazard of the job” and not a deterrent, Paul Broadbent, chief executive of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority said in an interview.

World exclusive: Iran will send 4,000 troops to aid Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria

US urges Britain and France to join in supplying arms to Syrian rebels as MPs fear that UK will be drawn into growing Sunni-Shia conflict

ROBERT FISK    SUNDAY 16 JUNE 2013

Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.

For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.

Obama and Xi end ‘constructive’ summit

The BBC

US President Barack Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have ended a two-day summit described by a US official as “unique, positive and constructive”.

US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said Mr Obama had warned Mr Xi that cyber-crime could be an “inhibitor” in US-China relations.

He also said that both countries had agreed that North Korea had to denuclearise.

The talks in California also touched on economic and environmental issues.

The two leaders spent nearly six hours together on Friday and another three hours on Saturday morning at the sprawling Sunnylands retreat in California.

Syria conflict: Red Cross ‘alarmed’ over Qusair

2 June 2013 Last updated at 06:50 GMT

The BBC

The Red Cross has expressed alarm over the situation in the besieged Syrian town of Qusair, and has appealed for immediate access to deliver aid.

Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in the town, which lies close to the border with Lebanon.

The battle for control between pro-government forces and rebel fighters has made medical supplies, food and water scarce, the Red Cross says.

Russia has also reportedly blocked a UN “declaration of alarm” on Qusair.

The draft Security Council declaration, which was circulated by Britain, voiced “grave concern about the situation in Qusair, and in particular the impact on civilians of the ongoing fighting”.

Bangladeshi garment factory owners on defensive, fear losing ‘lifeline’

By Sohel Uddin and John Newland, NBC News

As many of the world’s largest clothing labels signed a pact earlier this month to try to bring safer working conditions to the Bangladeshi garment industry, factory owners in the country were on the defensive, saying they were already struggling to comply with the labor standards Western companies demand while keeping prices at a level they will tolerate.

“Look, we make a particular brand of polo shirt, which they pay us $15 to make and they sell for $150. We only make five percent on that by the time we pay the bank, the workers and compliance costs,” said Adnan Bhuiyan, who along with his father owns the major manufacturer MIB near Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital.

His comments came in the wake of the Apr. 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza, a complex housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka, collapsed and killed more than 1,100 people. Six months ago, a fire killed 112 people at Tazreen Fashions, also in the city’s garment district.

Will China mediate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?

By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

BEIJING – An official visit to Beijing by Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week has prompted speculation that China may finally be ready to claim its place as a world power by trying to negotiate an end to one of world’s most caustic conflicts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Chinese President Xi Jinping within days of each other in Beijing – the two Middle Eastern leaders having arrived in the country within hours of each other.

“China’s hosting of the two emphasized its active involvement in Mideast affairs and highlighted its role as a responsible power,” declared an editorial by China’s state news agency, Xinhua.

Sharif ‘set for Pakistan poll win’

12 May 2013 Last updated at 07:14 GMT

Former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif is celebrating with his supporters, amid early signs that his party will be the largest after parliamentary elections.

Media projections based on partial results suggest a big lead for Mr Sharif’s Muslim League, and he has already claimed victory.

The election should lead to the country’s first transition from one elected government to another.

The turnout was huge but the poll was marred by violence.

In Karachi, the Pakistan Taliban said they planted a bomb which killed 11 people and wounded 40 others.