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June 22 (Reuters) – Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM) has extended gas supply cuts to Belarus to 30 percent on Tuesday from 15 percent on Monday, Gazprom’s chief executive Alexei Miller told state television Vesti-24.
Energy
Russia imposed cuts from Monday pressing its neighbour to pay a $192 million debt for deliveries and raising the possibility of a reduction in flows to Europe. [ID:nLDE65K031] (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Editing by Alfred Kueppers)
June 22 (Reuters) – Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM) has extended gas supply cuts to Belarus to 30 percent on Tuesday from 15 percent on Monday, Gazprom’s chief executive Alexei Miller told state television Vesti-24.
Energy
Russia imposed cuts from Monday pressing its neighbour to pay a $192 million debt for deliveries and raising the possibility of a reduction in flows to Europe. [ID:nLDE65K031]
(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Editing by Alfred Kueppers)
June 20 (Reuters) – Belarus said it was sending a delegation to Moscow on Sunday for emergency talks with Russian gas giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) after the two failed to resolve a price row that has raised the spectre for European gas cuts. Russia has said it will cut 85 percent of gas supplies to transit country Belarus if its ex-Soviet neighbour fails to pay $192 million in debt to Gazprom, which Minsk denies it owns.
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“The delegation leaves tonight for talks on Monday…the issue of debt will be discussed,” Belarussian Deputy Energy Minister Eduard Tovpenets told Reuters.
A source in the Belarussian government, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said European gas deliveries could be affected. (Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman)
London, Jun 4 (ANI): Ryder Cup captain and golf superstar Colin Montgomerie is fighting to save his marriage after confessing that he had been having a secret affair with his ex-lover Joanne Baldwin.
Montgomerie’s two-year marriage is in trouble though he has ended his affair so that his wife Gaynor stays with him, The Mirror reports.
“I have put my marriage under considerable strain, but we are working through these problems. I am very sorry for the hurt I have caused to the ones I love so much.
“I would ask that my family and I are given the space and privacy to continue trying to resolve the issues. I will be making no further comment,” Montgomerie said in a statement.
The golf superstar first fell for former neighbour Joanne, 50, after his marriage to Eimear Wilson broke down in 2004, The Mirror reports.
The romance with Joanne finally collapsed in April 2006 after the golfer was spotted sharing romantic dinner dates with Scottish TV presenter Alison Walker.
Soon afterwards Montgomerie met Gaynor, who inherited 20 million pounds in 2003 when her first husband, furniture tycoon George Knowles, died while on holiday in Mallorca.
They wed in April 2008. The couple has seven children between them and lives in a nine-bed Perthshire mansion.
A source close to Joanne said: “She kept in touch after they split up and made it clear she would always be there for Colin.”
Joanne told The Mirror: “I’m very sorry if his marriage is in trouble, but it’s nothing to do with me.” (ANI)
Colombo, May 26 — The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) might be militarily decimated in Sri Lanka but big neighbour India is not taking any chance. It recently extended the ban against LTTE as an “unlawful association” capable even now of jeopardising “VVIP security” and compromising India’s “territorial integrity.” The notification’s mention of LTTE’s goal of creating a “Tamil homeland” is interesting. “And, Whereas, the LTTE’s objective for a separate homeland (Tamil Eelam) for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, and amounts to cession and secession of a part of the territory of India from the Union,” the gazette notification said. So, it means that the LTTE’s larger goal – at least according to the Indian government which once trained and nurtured the LTTE – was to carve out a separate country for Tamils comprising members of the community from across the shallow waters of the Palk Strait. Intriguingly, it added that while the LTTE remnants look upon the Sri Lankan government as “enemies” they look upon the Indian government as “traitors” – or those who were once trusted but have betrayed that trust.
A political scientist in Colombo said India’s “very specific” fears were not surprising and the extension of the ban was expected.
Seoul, May 27 (DPA) The South Korean navy Thursday began manoeuvres on submarine defence off its western coast amid tensions with North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship.
The exercises were conducted far from the disputed sea border with North Korea in the Yellow Sea, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing military officials.
The Cheonan corvette was sunk March 26 near that border. South Korea and an international team of investigators blamed North Korea for sinking the ship with a submarine-fired torpedo, killing 46 sailors.
The one-day drill off Taenan, about 150 km south-west of Seoul, involve 10 warships, including a 3,000-tonne destroyer, Yonhap said.
Depth charges and ship-mounted guns were to be tested in the exercises, it said.
Last week’s release of the findings of the Cheonan’s sinking have caused tensions on the Korean Peninsula to rise substantially. South Korea banned trade with its neighbour and said it would take the sinking to the UN Security Council while announcing a resumption of propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers at the inter-Korean border.
North Korea, which has denied involvement in the sinking, cut off all ties with the South and has toughened its language toward Seoul, threatening that if its neighbour undertakes any retaliation, it would respond with tough measures that could include war.
New York, May 26 (ANI): Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has vented her fury on Facebook regarding author Joe McGinniss becoming her neighbour so he can write an exposé about her.
Palin, 46, made the discovery May 24 after she asked her husband, Todd, to “introduce himself to the stranger who was peering in” from her neighbour’s deck in Wasilla, Alaska.
“He’s rented the place for the next five months or so,” the New York Daily News quoted Palin as writing on Facebook on May 25.
“He moved up all the way from Massachusetts to live right next to us – while he writes a book about me.
“Wonder what kind of material he’ll gather while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden and the family’s swimming hole?” she stated.
Piper Palin is the former GOP vice presidential nominee’s 9-year-old daughter.
McGinniss, 67, would not comment, but his publisher, Broadway Books, said the author “will be highly respectful of his subject’s privacy as he investigates her public activities”.
McGinniss, who wrote “Fatal Vision” and “The Selling of the President”, has tried to get up close and personal with the former Alaska governor before.
Last year, he offered to pay 59,999 dollars to dine with Palin at a charity auction but was outbid.
Palin says she might try to sweeten up McGinniss with some “homemade blueberry pie so he’ll know how friendly Alaskans are”, and if that did not work out she would go to plan B.
“You know what they say about ‘Fences make for good neighbours?’ Well, we’ll get started on that tall fence tomorrow,” she added. (ANI)
Melbourne, May 19 (ANI): Four male teenagers in Melbourne have been charged with 68 counts of rape after they allegedly attacked a girl in a suburban public toilet block.
According to the police, three of the four youths followed the 15-year-old girl from a railway station through the streets of Sunshine and St Albans before snatching her dropped school bag and forcing her into the toilet block, reports the Age.
The youths, two aged 15 and two aged 16, each face 17 charges of rape and one of false imprisonment over the alleged attack on May 5.
A Melbourne Children”s Court was told on May 18 that the girl”s parents had reported their daughter to police as a missing person when she did not return home from school.
But she was later found crying at a neighbour”s house about 8pm.
The youths, who are of African origin, cannot be identified because of their age.
A detective from the sexual crimes squad testified that the girl, who is also of African origin, was known to some of the youths through a homework club at a local library.
He said that three followed her through Sunshine, on and off a bus, through the train station and on to the train she was catching to St Albans to return home.
The court was told the girl was uncomfortable when the three sat close to her in the same group of seats. When she left the train, the youths followed her along Main Road East as she walked home.
She later began to run, and turned down a side street, but when she dropped her school bag, one of the teenagers seized it and refused to return it.
By this stage, the fourth youth had joined the others and they ran away with her bag – she followed, asking for its return because it had valuable items in it.
The detective told the court that the teenagers stopped at a public toilet block at the rear of the St Paul”s Church in St Albans, where she was forced into a cubicle.
One boy told her to remove her clothing and raped her, while the three co-accused kept watch.
The first youth left the toilet after allegedly raping the girl three times, the court heard. The detective said he was wearing a condom but removed it.
After he left, the three co-accused entered one at a time and raped the girl at least twice each, the detective said.
After the fourth youth left the toilet, the first re-entered the cubicle and the initial order of the four entering and raping was repeated, the court was told.
Between each of the teenagers allegedly raping her, the girl repeatedly asked to have her bag returned and that she be able to go home, but they refused.
The detective said the girl reported the matter that night to her parents, and then to police, and was taken to the Royal Children”s Hospital.
The detective said the teenagers could also face stalking charges.
Police have opposed bail for the four teenagers, alleging they would be an unacceptable risk of re-offending and of interfering with witnesses.
One of the teenagers” mothers told the court her son told her when he returned home that night he had been with friends at the library.
The court heard the parents and families of the teenagers were supportive and respectful of the police and the investigation.
An assistant principal of the Catholic school that two of the youths attend said there would be discussions about whether they would remain there.
Three of the teenagers have been in custody since May 14, while the fourth was remanded on May 17.
The bail application will resume on May 21. (ANI)
London, May 18 (ANI): Star Wars actor Mark Hamill is aiming to make a new live action film, which will be adapted from his own comic.
The 58-year-old, who played Luke Skywalker in three of George Lucas”s movies, is to bring to life his comic book mini-series ‘The Black Pearl’.
The announcement of the 5-million-pound project was made at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hamill, who is known for TV roles and voiceovers since his Star Wars days, originally planned to release the story as a movie, but ended up publishing it as a comic book.
An ardent comic fan, he has also made a documentary Comic Book: The Movie, as well as voicing comic characters such as The Joker in computer games.
In Black Pearl, a loner raised on violent films and comics takes justice into his own hands after a neighbour is kidnapped.
“It”s a dark and raw suspense thriller, a prowling de-glamorisation of the usual mega-budget Hollywood revenge fantasy with an edgy, real-world documentary style,” The Mirror quoted him as saying. (ANI)
New York, May 18 (ANI): Tyra Banks might be a hit among her viewers, but the same might not hold true for her future neighbours at Riverhouse in Battery Park City.
The model-cum-TV host bought four apartments there for 10 million dollars last year.
And Banks has undertaken extensive renovations as she combines them into a single home.
This has driven other building residents mad, so much that they called police to complain about the noise, reports the New York Post.
However, the only neighbour who stayed out of the mayhem was Leonardo DiCaprio. (ANI)
Washington, May 15 (IANS) The United States would be watching closely Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna’s visit to Iran over the weekend, but does not expect Tehran to change course on its nuclear programme.
So ‘We believe that it is time to apply more pressure to Iran and that, we think, is the best way to get them to engage more seriously,’ State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters Friday.
Asked if the US had reached out to India at any level on the issue as it did with the visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague ‘on the need to send a strong and united signal about Iran’s nuclear programme,’ he said ‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘I mean, Iran did come up in the context of the discussion that we had this week with (Afghan) President (Hamid) Karzai since, obviously, Afghanistan is a neighbour of Iran. I mean, we are touching in a wide range of discussions with a wide range of countries,’ Crowley said.
‘And we’ll be watching closely to meetings that occur in Tehran this weekend,’ he said when asked to comment on Krishna’s visit to Tehran. ‘But as the Secretary (of State Hillary Clinton) said, we are sceptical that Iran is going to change course.’
Clinton, he recalled, had also said… ‘we believe that it is time to apply more pressure to Iran and that, we think, is the best way to get them to engage more seriously.’
London, May 13 (ANI): A couple, whose domestic feuds disturbed their neighbours for three years, has been given Anti-Social Behaviour Order to stop them from fighting.
On many occasions, the neighbours had called cops when Dean Jones and his wife Jeanette Lloyd swore and fought with each other.
Apparently, the people living next doors could not sit in gardens “enjoying sunshine, barbecues or paddling pools”.
“Some people detailed almost daily occurrences of shouting and screaming matches lasting an hour or more, with vile abuse and threats,” the Sun quoted prosecutor Jonathan Barrett, as saying.
Barrett added: “Neighbours were unable to sleep. The stress led them to fear for their own well-being and safety.”
Now, the pair has been put under two-year ASBOs by JPs at Rhondda court, South Wales.
If they clash again they can be arrested.
One neighbour said: “We hope they”ll just calm down now – and shut up.”
However, Jones, of Tonypandy, said the case was “a fuss over nothing”.
He said: “What we do in the privacy of our own house is up to us. I don”t think we”re louder than anyone else. We love each other really.”
Jones and Lloyd have three daughters together. (ANI)
Washington, May 13 (ANI): A team of astronomers has discovered a young cluster, born just 2.8 billion years after the Big Bang, that appears very similar to the much older present-day galaxy clusters.
“We were looking for clusters of galaxies when the Universe was still very young,” says Carnegie’s Ivelina Momcheva, who did the spectroscopic analysis that led to the discovery of the cluster.
“One might think that the clusters we find would look young as well. However, in this cluster we found a number of surprisingly ancient-looking galaxies. This cluster resembles modern-day clusters, which are nearly 10 billion years older.”
“It is like we dug an archaeological site in Rome and found pieces of modern Rome in amongst the ruins,” adds lead author Casey Papovich of Texas A&M University.
The cluster is called CLG J02182-05102 and contains approximately 60 galaxies, including several enormous red galaxies at its centre holding 10 times as many stars as the Milky Way.
Unable to find using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope if its galaxies are indeed gravitationally bound, the team used an advanced spectrograph.
Post analysis, they found that the cluster now looks the way it looked 9.6 billion years ago and since then, has moved away as the universe expanded. Today, it stands at a distance of 15 billion light years.
The new discovery will help researchers understand how galaxies evolve and form clusters. CLG J02182-05102’s large red galaxies are unexpected because most galaxies at that time were still rapidly forming stars, and, as a result, appear smaller and their emitted light bluer.
“We are witnessing the youth of truly massive cluster of galaxies,” says Momcheva. “ClG J02182-05102 will continue growing, accreting more galaxies and slowly aging. By the present day it has probably grown to be a large metropolis of a cluster like our neighbour, the Coma cluster.” (ANI)
Melbourne, May 6 (ANI): Reading porn magazines, joining the mile-high club solo and emptying a colostomy bag are just some of the grossest things plane passengers do.
According to a list compiled by travel website ‘Jaunted’, passengers perform some absolutely revolting activities in flights like using the neighbour’s blanket to wipe hands and mouth after a meal, dumping chicken bones onto the floor after eating and even clipping toenails.
“I once witnessed a man use the hot cloths passed around to refresh hands and faces as an underarm rag,” news.com.au quoted Terra Lynne Walker, a passenger, as saying.
But the one incident that tops this ‘sick list’ belonged to Kweena, who posted about her experience sitting next to an elderly passenger.
“I was on a plane next to a sweet looking elderly woman, who asked me if I had a pin. I was young, it was the ”90s, I had some flair on my purse, so I took off a button and gave it to her, wondering why she needed it,” Kweena wrote.
“Well, she said that her colostomy bag was filling with gas and she needed to release the pressure before the bag burst. She released it all right, and the most horrific stench filled the plane. Everyone thought it was coming from me.”
The website says that flights warn passengers against reading ‘adult’ magazines, changing nappies or joining the mile-high club solo on board the flight. (ANI)
Melbourne, April 29 (IANS) Golfer Tiger Woods has confessed to cheating on his wife Elin Nordegren with as many as 120 women during their five-year marriage, says a report.
Woods was said to have listed all the women he has had an affair with as part of his treatment for sex addiction at the Gentle Path rehab centre in Mississippi, reports news.com.au.
Nordegren decided to divorce him after learning about his alleged affair with 21-year-old neighbour Raychel Coudriet. Woods has denied having a relationship with Coudriet.
Islamabad, Apr.20 (ANI): Pushing for playing a ‘greater’ role in Afghanistan, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that Islamabad can play a pivotal role in stabilising the war torn neighbouring country.
In an interview with French daily Le Figaro, Gilani stressed that a stable and peaceful Afghanistan was in Pakistan’s own interest.
He said Pakistan cannot be sidelined while charting out a solution for the Afghan issue, and underlined that the leadership of both countries wanted a ‘homemade’ solution to the impending issues.
Gilani also clarified that Islamabad doesn’t want to interfere in Kabul’s internal issues, rather it wants to help its troubled neighbour.
“Pakistan did not interfere in President Karzai’s elections,” he said.
Responding to a question over the notion regarding the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban, Gilani made it clear that no such gradations can be made.
“The terrorists have no religion, they are enemies of the humanity and we are against them,” Gilani said.
He also denounced reports that said Pakistan was not doing enough to crush militants flourishing on its soil, and claimed that the military operations in Swat, Malakand and South Waziristan were a huge success.
When asked about Pakistan-US’ objectives in the war against terrorism,Gilani said: “We have common objectives, terrorism and extremism, and we want to work together with the US.”
Commenting on Pakistan’s long-standing demand of unmanned armed aircraft and concerns regarding drone strikes in country’s ungoverned tribal areas, he said Pakistan had conveyed its concerns to the US, and the latter was looking into the issue.
“Our discussion is still going on but at the moment we are just discussing it and there is nothing concrete,” Gilani said while responding to a question over Islamabad’s consistent demand of a civil nuclear deal with Washington. (ANI)
Five teenagers have been arrested over car break-ins at Burton in Adelaide’s north.
Police say they were called by a neighbour who saw several people trying to break into a car in Castle Drive at about 12:30am.
They got a further phone call about trouble at Paralowie just after 1:00am.
A cordon was set up and five teenagers were eventually found in a park.
Police allege they also found a car with stolen property inside.
The five accused will appear in court later.
Adelaide police say two men who assaulted another at a house at Parafield Gardens were looking for drugs.
They say a man had gone to the door of the house in Blackie Avenue when someone knocked late on Wednesday night.
Police say the attackers, in their 20s, were armed.
The victim is in the Royal Adelaide Hospital with injuries to his head and arms.
Neighbours said they heard screams.
“We heard this shuffling and yelling and screaming, you know, yelling of voices and then we actually saw the shadows of people running,” said a neighbour, Shirley.
Chief Inspector Tony Crameri says no drugs were found at the property and the man may be the victim of mistaken identity.
Afghanistan has made progress encouraging insurgents to lay down their weapons, an official in charge of peace talks in the war-torn country said on Wednesday but that help from neighbour Pakistan remains crucial.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made reconciling with insurgents a priority of his second term and plans are afoot for a large assembly — or peace jirga — involving different factions of Afghan society, for late April or early May.
Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai is in charge of a plan to reintegrate low-level cadres of the insurgency into society and also leads preparations for the peace jirga. He said there were signs that some insurgents were responding positively to both policies.
“Some delegations are coming from different provinces, they are meeting with the leadership of the government and they are indicating their willingness to join this process and on that front there is a lot of contact ongoing,” Stanekzai told Reuters.
“The representatives of one of those groups have come to Kabul … all these are indications that the people of Afghanistan are tired of the war and they want to find a way out of this current situation.”
That was a reference to the militant group Hizb-e-Islami, which last month sent a delegation to Kabul for talks with government officials.
Stanekzai said a programme to encourage fighters to give up weapons in return for jobs, training and protection from other militants, was also gradually bearing fruit.
“There are people who are joining with laying down their weapons and with this reintegration process,” Stanekzai said. There were initial indications, he said, that insurgents in the provinces of Baghlan, Herat and Kunduz wanted to join the reintegration programme.
Washington has exerted pressure on Kabul to take greater responsibility for security in Afghanistan by setting a July 2011 deadline for U.S. troops to start withdrawing from the country, but has said it is premature to expect the Taliban to talk.
“This is a jirga of the Afghan people. We will not draw the line that who is the opposition or who is the insurgent on the other side,” Stanekzai said. Community leaders who attend could include Taliban sympathisers, he said.
There are three main insurgent factions in Afghanistan: the Taliban, loosely led by the Quetta Shura in Pakistan, Hizb-e-Islami, and the Haqqani network, which is thought to lead attacks in the east and southeast of Afghanistan.
None has formally agreed to attend the peace jirga and the Taliban has dismissed Kabul’s reintegration efforts.
Stanekzai said on an individual level he believed there was support for the peace jirga among the Taliban but “when it comes to the formal responses, it’s very difficult to find out who is their real spokesman.”
PAKISTAN CRUCIAL
The insurgency in Afghanistan is at its deadliest since the war started in 2001, and critics have blamed the resurgence of groups like the Taliban on insufficient oversight of the war by Washington and NATO, and a weak Afghan government.
Stanekzai said Pakistan’s support was necessary to make reconciliation a success. If Pakistan’s recent arrest of Taliban commander Mullah Baradar was intended to prevent the spreading the insurgency in Afghanistan, he said, then he welcomed it.
“(But) if they are replaced with others who continue with the same kind of operation, and those who are willing to join the peace process … are then arrested, then it will not be welcome,” Stanekzai said.
The Afghan government has asked Islamabad to repatriate Baradar to his native Afghanistan. Last month, the former top U.N. envoy to Afghanistan said talks he was involved in with top Taliban leaders were scuppered by Baradar’s arrest.
“We are formally hearing from the officials from Pakistan, they are supportive of these initiatives, but at the same time we need to see a fundamental change in their policy to Afghanistan and both countries need to genuinely cooperate,” Stanekzai said.
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
A former Victorian magistrate who pleaded guilty to offences related to a neighbourhood dispute has been spared jail but has not escaped a criminal conviction and a fine.
Raffaele Barberio was a serving magistrate when he became involved in a dispute with a neighbour in Brighton last year, after refusing to pick up his dog’s droppings.
Barberio was charged with assault for trying to punch his neighbour through an open car window.
Several months later when Barberio learned he would be charged over the assault, he used a key to scratch the same neighbour’s car, causing $9,000 damage.
Robert Richter QC for Barberio told the court up until those incidents his client had a spotless record.
He urged the court not to impose a conviction, pointing out Barberio had put in years of service to the community and was grieving the loss of his mother when the first incident occurred.
New South Wales Magistrate Paul Cloran came to the Moorabbin Magistrates Court to hear the case.
He convicted Barberio of intentionally causing damage and put him on a two-year good behaviour bond.
Barberio was also ordered to pay $7,500 in damages to the court fund.
Mr Cloran said the same leniency would not be shown to Barberio if he fronted the court again.
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