EU investigates controversial Hungary tax
EU investigates controversial Hungary tax
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20110103/tts-hungary-eu-competition-509a08e.html
(AFP) – – The European Commission on Monday said it was investigating whether a Hungarian “crisis” tax upsetting major European firms was in compliance with rules set by the bloc — currently chaired by Budapest.
The Commission, which has been asked by 13 leading European firms to sanction Hungary over the tax, launched an inquiry on the matter on December 20, its spokesman Olivier Bailly said.
“As soon as we’ve reached conclusions, which is far from being the case … we will take a decision,” the Commission spokesman added.
Hungary on October 18 passed additional taxes on the telecommunications, energy and retail sectors for a three-year period as a way of helping replenish state coffers and bring down the public deficit.
The taxes, which represent a levy on a company’s annual revenues, are expected to raise 582 million euros (797 million dollars) each year.
But in a five-page letter sent on December 15 to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, the heads of 13 European firms accused Hungary, which on January 1 took over the EU rotating presidency, of imposing exceptional taxes.
Award kept for controversial ‘corpse photo’
August 30, 2010 Filed under Debate
By Chu Meng
The controversial news photo “Holding onto a Corpse and Demanding Money,” which won China’s top news photography prize last week, has been deemed authentic by authorities despite claims to the contrary.
The photo, taken by Zhang Yi, shows a boatman holding a rope connected to the body of a drowned university student, who remains in the water. The caption originally claimed the boatman, Wang Shouhai, demanded 36,000 yuan in payment for bringing the body to shore.
The body belonged to one of the three college students in Jingzhou, Hubei Province who drowned while trying to save two children who had fallen into the Yangtze River on October 24, 2009.
The image attracted nationwide attention when it appeared in the Shanxi-based China Business Review, and Wang suffered beatings because of it. But when the picture was awarded the silver medal at the 23rd National Photographic Art Exhibition on August 5, Yangtze University press director Li Yuquan said the photographer fabricated the photo caption and misled the public.
Li wrote on his blog that Wang was actually gesturing to people on the bank to help him pull out the corpse.
Zhang, 25, who has since resigned from his newspaper, stands by his picture. On August 18, Zhang won the Golden Lens Award – China’s top prize for photojournalists – and this past Monday the Golden Lens Award organizing committee confirmed the photo’s accuracy.
Judge blocks key parts of Arizona immigration law
A federal judge Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's new immigration law which would have given police the power to check the immigration status of anyone stopped on suspicion of any crime.
(AFP) – A federal judge Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s new immigration law which would have given police the power to check the immigration status of anyone stopped on suspicion of any crime.
The ruling came hours before the law had been due to go into effect, handing temporary victory to the Obama administration which has challenged the legislation, and rights groups that said it would lead to ethnic profiling.
Judge Susan Bolton said parts of the law requiring police to check the immigration status of suspects “would likely burden legal resident aliens.”
And she found there was also a “substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens” due to complex deportation laws which are enforced by federal courts.
Opponents say the law is xenophobic and will lead to people being stopped on the streets simply because of the way they look.
But officials in Arizona, which borders Mexico, have argued the US administration has failed to secure the frontiers, and they are overrun by illegal immigrants.
They maintain that a lucrative people-smuggling trade across the border from Latin American countries has triggered a spiraling crime rate fed by simultaneous trafficking in drugs and guns.
Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the legislation into law in April, vowed to lodge a swift appeal, saying she would battle as far as the US Supreme Court.
“This fight is far from over. In fact, it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens,” Brewer said in a statement.
But civil rights groups welcomed the ruling.
World Cup 2010: Echoes of ‘66 – but it’s all over for England’s golden generation
The German goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer, watches as Frank Lampard’s shot bounces behind the line. Photograph: Joern Pollex/Getty Images Photograph: Gero Breloer/AP
(Guardian)-One of the most controversial moments of England’s football history came back to bite the players of the present generation tonight as they were eliminated from the 2010 World Cup after losing 4-1 to Germany in the second round.
Trailing by two goals to one towards the end of the first half, a chance to draw level was denied when Frank Lampard’s shot cannoned down off the underside of the German crossbar and landed a couple of feet behind the goal-line before bouncing back up, hitting the bar again and spinning into the goalkeeper’s arms. The linesman, Mauricio Espinosa of Uruguay, gave no sign that the ball had crossed the line, and play was waved on by the referee, his compatriot Jorge Larrionda.
Forty-four years ago, when England and Germany were still level at 2-2 in extra time in a World Cup final, Geoff Hurst was awarded a goal for a similar effort. The Germans have always claimed that the whole of the ball was not over the line, as the game’s laws stipulate, and generations of scientific advances – including satellite technology – have been annexed in an attempt to clarify the matter, which has never been definitively settled.
That fateful decision, which prefaced England’s 4-2 victory, was taken by a linesman from Azerbaijan, one Tofik Bakhramov, a distinguished official who died in 1993 and whose statue stands today in Baku. If Germany go on to win this tournament, there may one day be a statue of Espinosa in Berlin. After the England fans in today’s 40,510 crowd had seen a replay of the incident on the stadium’s large screens, the incessant blare of the vuvuzelas was drowned by a familiar and unflattering Anglo-Saxon chant directed at the referee.
New study fails to bridge Japan, China history divide
New study fails to bridge Japan, China history divide
(AFP) – – Japanese and Chinese scholars published the results of a three-year joint study Sunday which showed they could not resolve differences on controversial modern events including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.
In a government-backed project aimed at soothing strained ties, 10 historians from each country have reviewed the history of China-Japan relations over 2,000 years.
The 549-page report showed both sides agreed that the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War was an “act of aggression” waged by Japan.
But it noted differing views on the number of Chinese killed by the imperial Japanese army after it seized Nanjing, then China’s capital and known as Nanking.
The Chinese side, citing a ruling of the 1947 Nanjing war crimes tribunal, said more than 300,000 were massacred in the atrocity when Japanese troops embarked on an orgy of destruction, pillage, rape and murder.
The Japanese side pointed to “various estimates” such as 20,000 and 40,000 and up to 200,000.
The study was launched in 2006, when then prime minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao tried to mend ties that worsened under Abe’s predecessor Junichiro Koizumi whose visits to a Tokyo war shrine angered China.
The Japanese government has apologised for atrocities during its occupation of China without putting an estimate on the number of victims in Nanjing.
The report did not disclose the outcome of discussions on post-World War II history at the request of the Chinese side.
Why Ahmadinejad might keep his distance from Hugo Chávez
If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants his Latin America tour this week to deflect attention away from political repression at home, he should probably reconsider giving Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a warm embrace when they meet in Caracas Tuesday.
The two controversial leaders have been extolling each other’s virtues for years as both have sought to vilify what they call the American-dominated world order – and to extend their influence. But recently, Mr. Chávez has been singing the praises of such globally-recognized despots as Robert Mugabe and Idi Amin – and clubbing Mr. Ahmadinejad with them.
In a speech in Caracas Friday, Chávez compared the three leaders to the convicted Cold-War-era terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Venezuelan Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) whom he called a “revolutionary fighter” and “dear compatriot.”
Ahmadinejad set out on his current world tour, first to Africa and now to South America, to demonstrate that Iran’s domestic political situation – after the unrest from June’s disputed elections – is sufficiently under control to allow him to resume efforts to extend Iran’s influence, analysts say.
Another goal is to assert Iran’s right to a purportedly-peaceful nuclear program to receptive audiences, even as it faces pressure from global powers to suspend its nuclear program.
But Ahmadinejad has faced questions even from sympathetic quarters on the Iranian regime’s crackdown on demonstrations following the Iranian elections. In that context, Ahmadinejad might not want to encourage comparisons with Mr. Amin and Mr. Mugabe.
The Iranian president’s visit Monday with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – the first visit to Brazil of an Iranian head of state since 1965 – seemed less problematic. President Lula affirmed Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program but also publicly advised his visitor to negotiate a settlement with the international community.
Lula, in hosting the controversial leader, intended to underscore Brazil’s ambitions to become a global player and something of a bridge between the developed and developing worlds. “There’s no point in leaving Iran isolated,” Lula said in a radio address before receiving Ahmadinejad Monday. “It’s important that someone sits down with Iran, talks with Iran and tries to establish some balance so that the Middle East can return to a certain sense of normalcy.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently spoke out against Iran’s growing influence in South America. But State Department diplomats don’t appear to be too worried about Ahmadinejad visit to Brazil. They note that President Obama has praised Lula’s handling of his country’s rise to the international stage.
They also say that other left-leaning leaders in South America – most notably in Argentina – will not engage with the Iranian leader because of the alleged Iranian involvement in terrorist attacks in those countries.
But Venezuela’s Chávez is another story. Although his country’s economic and political weight is dwarfed by Brazil, his tirades against America – like those of Ahmadinejad – continue to grate.
