Canadian wildfire grows tenfold, forces more evacuations

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-05-06

A catastrophic wildfire that has forced all 88,000 residents to flee Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada exploded tenfold in size on Thursday, cutting off evacuees in camps north of the city and putting communities to the south in extreme danger.

The out-of-control blaze has burned down whole neighbourhoods of Fort McMurray in Canada’s energy heartland and forced a precautionary shutdown of some oil production, driving up global oil prices.

Three days after the residents were ordered to leave Fort McMurray, firefighters were still battling to protect homes, businesses and other structures from the flames.

More than 1,600 structures, including hundreds of homes, have been destroyed.

“The damage to the community of Fort McMurray is extensive and the city is not safe for residents,” said Alberta Premier Rachel Notley in a press briefing late Thursday, as those left stranded to the north of the city clamoured for answers. “It is simply not possible, nor is it responsible to speculate on a time when citizens will be able to return. We do know that it will not be a matter of days,” she added.

Officials warned that the communities of Anzac and Gregoire Lake Estates about 50 km (31 miles) south of Fort McMurray were “under extreme threat,” late on Thursday, as the flames spread to the southeast.

Fire has intermittently blocked the only route south toward major cities, so thousands of evacuees fled north toward oil camps and a few small settlements. On Thursday, frustration for those stranded up north was growing, with some venting on social media sites, demanding answers.

One twitter user posted a message saying, “NO ONE IS TELLING US ANYTHING!! We’re just sitting in a camp praying to get out!! Give us answers!!! Please.”

A government airlift of those cut off to the north began from oil facility airstrips. The premier said some 4,000 people had already been airlifted to the cities of Edmonton and Calgary as of late Thursday.

Officials said with the fire moving to the south east, they are also hoping to be able to begin a ground evacuation from the north on Friday morning.

Although the cause of the fire was unknown, officials said tinder-dry brush, low humidity and hot, gusting winds left crews unable to stop the massive conflagration.

The blaze, which erupted on Sunday, grew from 7,500 hectares on Wednesday to some 85,000 hectares on Thursday, an area roughly 10 times the size of Manhattan.

Ghost town

Hundreds filled a community centre on Thursday morning in Lac La Biche, a community about 290 km south of Fort McMurray.

Many were second-round evacuees who were ordered to relocate from temporary refuges closer to Fort McMurray on Wednesday night as the flames grew.

Other people bunked down in a Lac La Biche high school, its gym converted to a used-clothing station for the evacuees.

Kirby Abo, who came from Fort McMurray with his wife and three children, said he worried that his job in a recycling depot may no longer exist when he returns home. “I think it’s going to be a ghost town for quite a while,” he said.

Fort McMurray’s mayor, who is stranded to the north, said in a television interview the city faces a long road to recovery and “what comes next is absolutely daunting, but not insurmountable.”

The winds gave the city a brief reprieve on Thursday by driving the fire to the southeast, away from populated areas. But officials warned that the unpredictable weather could quickly shift again.

At least 680,000 barrels per day of crude output is offline, according to Reuters calculations, or roughly 20 percent of Canada’s crude production.

The outage is expected to climb as major players in the region cut production.

Authorities said there had been no known casualties from the blaze itself, but fatalities were reported in at least one vehicle crash along the evacuation route.

Notley said a water tanker plane slid off the runway in another part of the province. Police said the two pilots survived, but were taken to hospital as a precaution.

(REUTERS)

US House speaker not ready to back Trump as Republican nominee

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-05-06

US House Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, said Thursday he was not ready to support Donald Trump as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee in November’s general election.

“To be perfectly candid with you, I’m not ready to do that yet,” Ryan told CNN in a bombshell interview that heightened concerns about whether conservatives will be able to rally around Trump in his expected matchup against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012, stressed that he hoped he would be able to support Trump in the future, provided the brash billionaire is able to show leadership in unifying the party.

“He’s got some work to do,” Ryan said, noting that the burden was on Trump to begin the healing process after a brutal primary campaign and Trump’s long string of insulting remarks.

Ryan has expressed criticism of Trump before. But Thursday’s comments were all the more startling because Trump has now emerged as the party’s standard bearer and Ryan, as speaker of the House of Representatives, will oversee the Republican presidential nominating convention in July.

“I think that he needs to do more to unify the party... then to go forward and appeal to all Americans from every walk of life and background, and a majority of independents,” Ryan said.

He insisted, however, that no Republicans should support Clinton—as several have pledged to do after Trump’s rivals dropped out.

“To be the party and climb the final hill and win, we need a standardbearer that can unify all—all conservatives and the wings of the party—and then go to the country with an appealing agenda,” he said. “The nominee has to lead in that effort.”

Both Bush presidents—George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush—have signalled they will not endorse Trump in 2016, while Mitt Romney, the 2012 nominee on the ticket with Ryan, is reportedly not going to attend the Republican convention.

(AFP)

sarkozy denies French expats electronic vote in conservative primary

Text by FRANCE 24

Latest update : 2016-05-06

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the conservative Les Républicains party, ordered Tuesday that French citizens living abroad could not vote electronically for the 2017 presidential primary.

In a meeting that was not attended by the other presidential hopefuls, Sarkozy ordered that French expatriates could only vote by a paper ballot, just like citizens in mainland France.

While expats may still be able to vote at consulates and embassies in their countries of residence, the independent authority in charge of the vote has warned that organising this in such a short time frame may not be possible.

“How can it be that someone living in the [rural] Somme region should have to drive 40 kilometres to cast his vote, yet a golden boy in New York just has to press a button?” Sarkozy told French daily L’Opinion.

The authority in charge of regulating the primary said on Wednesday it was contesting the decision, warning of “the difficulties inherent in organising” overseas voting for the two-round election being held on November 22 and 29 – both Sundays.

“The provision of diplomatic and consular posts for the establishment of polling stations does not seem possible,” it said in a statement.

‘Incomprehensible and unacceptable’

Polls show that Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé is the favourite among French voters to win the 2017 election, and is Sarkozy’s closest rival to take the right-wing nomination.

Sarkozy will also be battling other heavyweights like former prime minister François Fillon and former agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire, among others.

Sarkozy’s bid to deny the estimated 1.2 million registered French citizens living abroad (seen as largely pro-Juppé) their chance to vote was met with consternation by the other candidates.

Many called for the independent governing authority to block Sarkozy’s decision.

“It is as incomprehensible as it is unacceptable,” Juppé’s campaign spokesman told AFP.

Bruno Le Maire declared that “the only way French citizens abroad can vote is electronically” and called on the governing authority to annul Sarkozy’s decision.

François Fillon added: “No modification of the rules can be allowed without the consultation of the governing authority, and I will defend to the last the right of all French citizens to participate in this democratic exercise.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Air strike on northern Syria refugee camp 'kills 28'

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-05-06

Air strikes reportedly killed at least 28 civilians Thursday in a camp for the displaced in northern Syria near the Turkish border, as a 48-hour ceasefire took hold in Aleppo.

The truce came after fierce violence in and around Aleppo and was made possible as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and rebel forces gave in to mounting diplomatic pressure for a pause.

But as relieved civilians went out onto the streets after two weeks of heavy fighting in the divided city, a key battleground in Syria’s five-year civil war, others were attacked further west.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes struck the camp for internally displaced people near Sarmada, in Idlib province, which is controlled by Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said women and children were among 28 civilians killed while 50 others were wounded.

Mamun al-Khatib, director of the Aleppo-based pro-rebel Shahba Press news agency, said “regime aircraft” fired missiles on the camp in the village of Al-Kammouna.

“Two missiles fell near the camp causing people to panic and two more fell inside where a dozen tents caught fire,” he said.

Online images showed emergency workers putting out fires among damaged blue and white tents.

The US said it has not confirmed if the strikes were carried out by regime forces, but described them “totally in keeping” with its past operations.

“There’s absolutely no justification for attacks on civilians in Syria, but especially on what appears to have been a refugee camp,” said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

The European Union called the bombardment “unacceptable”, while the United Nations’ top aid official demanded an immediate investigation.

“If this obscene attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of a civilian structure, it could amount to a war crime,” said Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs.

US, Russia monitoring

The February 27 ceasefire brokered by the United States and Syrian ally Russia called for an end to fighting between regime forces and rebels nationwide but did not include jihadist-held areas.

Fierce violence in and around Aleppo, which has claimed the lives of more than 280 civilians since April 22, sparked an intense diplomatic push by Washington and Moscow to salvage peace efforts.

Late Wednesday the Syrian army said it had agreed to calls from Russia and the US for a two-day truce in Aleppo that would begin from 1:00 am on Thursday (2200 GMT Wednesday).

An AFP correspondent in Aleppo said Thursday there had been no signs of fresh air raids.

Residents who had cowered indoors for days emerged and some set up tables and chairs on the streets to enjoy the sunshine, drink tea and smoke cigarettes, the correspondent said.

Shopkeepers also reopened their doors while fruit and vegetable markets—one of which was struck in an April 24 raid that left 12 dead—were running again.

The local council dispatched bulldozers to remove rubble in stricken areas where water and electrical supplies were also restored, the AFP correspondent said.

After a whirlwind of talks involving diplomats from top world powers and the UN, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the truce had taken effect and that violence had already fallen off.

He said US officials in Geneva were coordinating with their Russian colleagues on “enhanced monitoring efforts for this renewed cessation”.

The Russian defence ministry said its ceasefire monitors had agreed with their US counterparts to oversee this truce until midnight on May 6.

In Aleppo, the head of the local branch of the powerful Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel force, Ahmad Sanada, told AFP the group would respect the truce.

The head of Syria’s opposition High Negotiations Committee Riad Hijab meanwhile urged the international community to impose “robust measures” to ensure respect for the ceasefire.

Palmyra concert

Diplomats are hoping a nationwide ceasefire can underpin efforts to resolve Syria’s five-year war that has already killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions out of their homes.

Mediators hope that UN-backed peace talks could resume later this month in Geneva, although previous rounds have failed to make any major breakthrough with the regime rejecting the opposition’s demand that Assad step aside as part of a political transition.

On Thursday, a suicide attack and a car bombing in central Homs province killed at least 12 civilians, the Observatory and state television said.

The twin bombings came amid recent fighting in the area between Islamic State group fighters and regime troops.

IS claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

The area is near Palmyra where on Thursday Russian maestro Valery Gergiev led Saint Petersburg’s celebrated Mariinsky orchestra in front of a crowd of Russian soldiers, government ministers and journalists.

Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site, was retaken from IS on March 27 with Russian support.

(AFP)

Brazil court suspends key Rousseff rival Cunha

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-05-06

Brazil’s Supreme Court Thursday suspended a powerful lawmaker at the center of efforts to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, on grounds he tried to obstruct a probe into his alleged corruption.

Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress, is the architect of the impeachment drive that is expected to force Rousseff to step aside from office on Wednesday.

He said his suspension, the latest in a whirlpool of corruption scandals, was retaliation for his campaign against Rousseff.

Her supporters argued it was grounds for the impeachment drive now to be dropped, though it was not expected to spare her now that her case is in the hands of the Senate.

Despite facing criminal charges including bribery and hiding money in Swiss bank accounts, Cunha has survived months of attempts by prosecutors and a congressional ethics committee to see him brought to justice.

A master backroom political operator, he is widely seen as the key figure in getting the impeachment proceedings green-lighted by the lower house in April. The Senate will vote Wednesday on whether to open a trial and suspend Rousseff.

But the man Brazilians refer to as a real-life Frank Underwood—the corrupt US politician in the hit Netflix series “House of Cards”—appeared finally to have been brought down by the high court.

Justice Teori Zavaski slapped the suspension on Cunha Thursday morning, and the full court ratified it later in the day.

Zavaski said that Cunha had obstructed justice “to prevent the success of investigations against him.”

With Rousseff likely to be suspended and replaced by her vice president, Michel Temer, next week, Cunha would have moved up to first on the presidential succession list.

Zavaski said Cunha was not fit for that job.

‘Retaliation’

Rousseff ruefully welcomed her enemy’s fate.

“Better late than never,” she said. “The only thing I regret... is that he was able to sit there stone-faced and preside over these shameful (impeachment) proceedings in the lower house.”

Cunha told reporters there was “no chance” he would resign.

“I will not give up anything,” he said.

“I am suffering political retaliation for the impeachment process.”

The government’s top lawyer Jose Eduardo Cardozo said the suspension “shows that Mr Cunha abused his office.” He called for the impeachment process to be abandoned.

Bribes

Rousseff is accused of manipulating government budget accounts with illegal loans, a charge which she describes as technical and not worthy of impeachment.

If she is suspended she will be put on half pay pending the outcome of the trial, which could take several months.

Cunha is accused of taking bribes as part of the massive corruption scheme centered on Petrobras, the huge state oil company. He rejects the charges.

He is also being investigated by the congressional ethics committee over allegedly lying to Congress about possessing secret Swiss bank accounts.

The congressional deputy next in line to replace Cunha as speaker, Waldir Maranhao Cardoso, is himself being investigated for alleged Petrobras-related crimes, including money-laundering.

Meanwhile, Temer, who has been named by cooperating witnesses as involved in the Petrobras scheme but is not being formally investigated, faced a new legal problem of his own Thursday.

After being found guilty earlier this week by an electoral court of breaking campaign finance rules, he risks being barred from seeking elected office for eight years, a spokesman for the court told AFP.

The ban however does not affect his current position—or his likely rise to become acting president next week.

‘Gridlock’

A conservative member of Brazilian politics’ growing Evangelical wing, Cunha belongs to the center-right PMDB party. It used to be the key partner in Rousseff’s ruling coalition, but broke away and backed impeachment.

Brazil is suffering its deepest recession in decades. On Thursday, Fitch followed other ratings agencies in downgrading Brazil’s credit score.

It was already classed as speculative or “junk” grade and on Thursday Fitch shifted the rating down to BB from BB+.

The downgrade “reflects the deeper-than-anticipated economic contraction, failure of the government to stabilize the outlook for public finances and the sustained legislative gridlock and elevated political uncertainty,” Fitch said.

(AFP)

North Korea stages once-in-a-generation party congress

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-05-06

North Korea raised the curtain on Friday on its biggest political show for a generation, aimed at cementing the absolute rule of leader Kim Jong-Un and shadowed by the possibility of an imminent nuclear test.

The first ruling party congress for nearly 40 years drew thousands of selected delegates from across the country to Pyongyang for what, in theory at least, was a gathering of North Korea’s top decision-making body.

The 33-year-old Kim, who was not even born when the last Workers’ Party Congress was held in 1980, was expected to deliver a keynote address which will be minutely scrutinised for any policy shift or personnel changes in the governing elite.

The 1980 event was staged to crown Kim’s father Kim Jong-Il as heir apparent to his own father, the North’s founding leader Kim Il-Sung.

While the agenda—and even the duration—of the event is still unknown, its main objective is widely seen as confirming Kim Jong-Un’s status as legitimate inheritor of the Kim family’s dynastic rule which spans almost seven decades.

The congress is also expected to confirm as party doctrine Kim’s “byungjin” policy of pursuing nuclear weapons in tandem with economic development.

Propaganda party

Ahead of the gathering, national and Workers’ Party flags lined the broad, rainswept streets of Pyongyang, while banners carried slogans such as “Great comrades Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il will always be with us”.

Another slogan stretched across the street defiantly proclaimed: “Defend the headquarters of the Korean revolution at the cost of our lives.”

Since Kim took power after the death of his father in December 2011, North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests and two successful space rocket launches that were widely seen as disguised ballistic missile tests.

Even as the international community responded with condemnation and sanctions, Kim pressed ahead with a single-minded drive for a credible nuclear deterrent with additional missile and technical tests.

There has been widespread speculation about the North preparing another nuclear test to coincide with the congress, as a defiant gesture of strength and intent.

Nuclear state

Just hours before the party congress opened, the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea issued a statement underlining the country’s status as a genuine, and unapologetic, nuclear power.

“Regardless of whether someone recognises it or not, our status as a nuclear state that is armed with H-bombs cannot change,” the statement said.

Analysing the most recent satellite pictures of the North’s test site at Punggye-ri, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University on Thursday said there was no clear evidence one way or the other of whether an underground test was imminent.

South Korean government officials believe the North is ready to conduct a test as soon as the order is given, and say a decision might have been taken to test during the congress, which the world’s media have been invited to cover.

Officials in Seoul say they expect the event to last four days, with the opening day devoted to Kim’s speech and a lengthy report on the party’s achievements.

State television set the tone with its first broadcast Friday morning, with an announcer voicing the people’s “deepest gratitude” to Kim Jong-Un for preparing this “grand political festival”.

Some analysts predict significant personnel changes as Kim brings in a younger generation of leaders, picked for their loyalty to him.

Preparing for the congress involved mobilising the entire country in a 70-day campaign that New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced as a mass exercise in forced labour.

(AFP)

Scottish nationalists claim ‘historic’ victory as UK votes in local polls

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2016-05-06

Early results Friday from British local and regional elections seen as a key test for opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn showed strong gains for Scottish nationalists, as London looked set to elect its first Muslim mayor.

Initial results showed the Scottish National Party winning what their leader called a "historic" victory in Scotland, as it seeks a mandate to move towards a second independence referendum.

Some counts were expected to stretch into the weekend as 45 million eligible voters were asked to cast their ballots in contests across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The results of local elections were already emerging early Friday, while the outcome of the vote for a new mayor of London to replace Conservative Boris Johnson was expected later in the day.

Labour lawmaker Sadiq Khan, a former government minister and son of a bus driver from Pakistan, is tipped to beat Conservative multimillionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith in the race to run the British capital.

The voting day dubbed "Super Thursday" came after a bitter few weeks of political sniping between the Conservative party of Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour.

Corbyn set up an inquiry into anti-Semitism and racism in Labour after former London mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from the party for claiming Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler supported Zionism.

Several other Labour politicians were also suspended.

With results in from 78 out of 124 councils in England, Labour has suffered losses though they were not as bad as expected, damping down talk of a potential leadership challenge to Corbyn.

Of the two main parties, Labour held 40 councils, down one, and 768 seats, down 7 and the Conservatives had 19 councils and 467 seats, up 9.

Cameron is also grappling with deep splits in his party ahead of the June 23 referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union.

Retired head teacher Mary White, 66, said that for her the biggest issues in the London mayoral election were "housing and transport".

"I don't think that any of the candidates have a magic solution so it's incredibly difficult to chose between them," White said as she voted in London.

Divisive campaign

The mayoral campaign has been ugly, with Khan forced to deny support for Islamic extremists and Goldsmith rejecting claims of playing on voters' religious prejudices.

But many Londoners were more concerned with concrete issues such as health and wages.

"Muslim or non-Muslim, it doesn't... matter for the community," said 57-year-old Koyruz Zoman, a Muslim cook from Whitechapel in the ethnically diverse East End.

"Whoever comes in, we want what they've promised."

Twelve candidates are standing for mayor of London but polls point to a straight fight between Khan and Goldsmith, with the former between 12 and 14 points ahead.

If the polls are correct, Khan would become the first Muslim mayor of an EU capital.

The two men come from very different backgrounds. Khan, 45, grew up in social housing and worked as a human rights lawyer before entering politics, while Goldsmith, 41, is the son of the late tycoon financier James Goldsmith.

Khan has dismissed attempts to link him with Islamic extremists as "desperate stuff", but Cameron repeated the claims in angry clashes with Corbyn in parliament on Wednesday.

Cameron said Khan had shown a "pattern of behaviour" in appearing publicly alongside people such as Sajeel Shahid, "the man who trained the ringleader of the 7/7 attacks (in London)."

Scottish split?

In Scotland, SNP chief and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "What is now beyond doubt is that the SNP has won a third consecutive Scottish Parliament election."

She added: "We have tonight made history."

After early counting Friday, the SNP had won 58 seats. A total of 65 are needed to win a majority in the 129-seat parliament and at the last election in 2011, the SNP had 69.

Sturgeon has said June's referendum on Britain's EU membership could fuel calls for another independence vote if Britain as a whole elects to leave the EU but Scotland votes to stay in.

Scotland rejected independence at a referendum in 2014.

The Conservatives look set to become the main opposition party in Scotland, a major victory in a country where they have been deeply unpopular since Margaret Thatcher's premiership in the 1980s.

In Wales, polls put Labour on course to retain its dominance in the Welsh Assembly, with the Conservatives and nationalists Plaid Cymru vying for second place.

In Northern Ireland, the delicate balance in the power-sharing executive set up after decades of sectarian violence also looks set to continue.

(AFP)