Fiestas exclusivas para celebrar un lujoso fin de año en Punta del Este
Como pronosticó el empresario español Alejandro Agag, la ciudad costera de Punta del Este en Uruguay se perfila como “el Montecarlo de América del Sur” y como tal despide hoy el 2014 con ostentosas fiestas exclusivas que atraen a empresarios, multimillonarios y famosos del continente.
Solo las lluvias, iniciadas esta mañana, empañarán el fastuoso inicio del 2015 en la ciudad de Punta del Este que, emplazada a 130 kilómetros de Montevideo, se consolida como capital suramericana del turismo de lujo.
Fiestas exclusivas para celebrar un lujoso fin de año en Punta del Este
Muerte de una madre por disparo de su hijo de dos años devasta a su familia
La familia de la mujer que falleció por un disparo de su hijo de dos años manifestó este miércoles su conmoción por el “terrible” accidente, que hizo resurgir el debate sobre las medidas para proteger a los menores de las armas en Estados Unidos.
Veronica J. Rutledge, una investigadora de física nuclear de 29 años, recibió el impacto de bala el martes cuando estaba comprando junto a su hijo y tres sobrinas en un supermercado de la cadena Walmart en la localidad de Hayden, en Idaho (noroeste).
Muerte de una madre por disparo de su hijo de dos años devasta a su familia
TRINIDAD-MEDIA-TTPBA condemns government over payment of per diem to journalists
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Dec 31, CMC – The Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association (TTPBA) has condemned the decision by the coalition People’s Partnership government to pay TT$15,000 (One TT dollar = US$0.37 cents) in per diem to journalists who accompanied Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar on a visit to China earlier this year.
At least two of the journalists have publicly said they did not accept the money and the TTPBA said that over the decades there have been reports of alleged bribery or “gifts of token” in exchange for favours within the newsrooms of media houses.
“This is a matter that the owners and managers of media have been grappling with over the years, especially when there are rumours but no proof. In some of these instances where reporters or newsroom personnel have been confronted, there is denial. In other cases it is untrue.
“The recent issue is of grave concern since it undermines the foundation of journalistic integrity. Internal investigations are being done by the media houses where the newsroom staff members are employed and the necessary corrective action will be taken,” the TTPBA said.
The TTBPA said it was reminding newsroom personnel of their first oath as reporters, “which is to present the truth, to be fair and to be accurate in reporting and to serve in the best interest of all citizens.
“The recent turn of events means that senior management at media houses may have to implement new methods of ensuring that the integrity of our newsrooms is upheld,” the TTBPA added.
It said that the government should have stated clearly that the $15,000 per diem was to be offered to journalists ahead of the visit of the prime minister to Beijing.
“If this had been originally stated then the current unfortunate circumstance would not have appeared to have ulterior motives. We urge Government and other State bodies to examine their processes with regard to media relations in the interest of proper ethics and good governance,” the TTPBA said.
The Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) has also condemned the payment of the per diem.
TRINIDAD-MEDIA-TTPBA condemns government over payment of per diem to journalists
Abbas signs onto International Criminal Court after U.N. loss
(Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed on to 20 international agreements on Wednesday, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a day after a bid for independence by 2017 failed at the United Nations Security Council.
The move, which angered Israel and the United States, paves the way for the court to take jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestinian lands and investigate the conduct of Israeli and Palestinian leaders over more than a decade of bloody conflict.
“They attack us and our land every day, to whom are we to complain? The Security Council let us down – where are we to go?” Abbas told a gathering of Palestinian leaders in remarks broadcast on official television.
In the months leading up to Tuesday’s failed U.N. bid, Sweden recognized Palestinian statehood and the parliaments of France, Britain and Ireland passed non-binding motions urging their governments to do the same.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Abbas’s action would expose the Palestinians to prosecution over support for what he called the terrorist Hamas Islamist group, and vowed to take steps to rebuff any potential moves against Israel.
Israel and Hamas fought a July-August war in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, 67Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed.
“We will take steps in response and defend Israel’s soldiers,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
The U.S. said it objected to actions by both parties “that undermine and create doubts about their commitment to a negotiated peace.”
“We strongly oppose Palestinian action at the ICC,” a statement from the State Department said. “It would be counter-productive and would do nothing to further the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign and independent state.”
Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem – lands Israel captures in the 1967 Middle East War.
Momentum to recognize a Palestine has built up since Abbas succeeded in a bid for de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly in 2012, which made Palestinians eligible to join the ICC.
U.S. OBJECTIONS
Palestinian officials said on Tuesday American opposition made inevitable the defeat of a Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017 after no more than a year of peace negotiations.
The United States and Australia voted against the bid, while eight countries voted yes and another five abstained. The Palestinians were unable to achieve a hoped-for nine votes which would have forced the U.S. to exercise its veto as one of the council’s five permanent members.
Peace talks mediated by the United States collapsed in April in a dispute over Israeli settlement-building and a prisoner release deal, as well as Abbas’s decision to sign on to over a dozen previous international texts Israel saw as a unilateral move the contravened the negotiations.
“We’ve been playing Mr. Nice Guy with negotiations since 1991, meanwhile the possibility of a two-state solution erodes,” Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian diplomat, told Reuters.
She added that there were no immediate plans to lodge a formal complaint at the ICC, but that Abbas’s move is “a clear signal to Israel and the international community that Israelmust cease and desist its war crimes, especially settlements.”
Other agreements approved by Abbas included several articles on the court’s jurisdiction, commitments against banned weapons and cluster munitions along with less controversial pledges on the political rights of women, navigation and the environment.
Abbas signs onto International Criminal Court after U.N. loss
U.S. confirms drone strike killed al Shabaab leader in Somalia
(Reuters) – An unmanned U.S. aircraft that unleashed Hellfire missiles at a vehicle in Somalia earlier this week killed a leader of the al Shabaab militant group, dealing a setback to its ability to carry out anti-government attacks, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a note on Twitter the department could now “confirm that Tahliil Abdishakur, chief of al Shabaab’s intelligence and security wing, was killed in a U.S. air strike in Somalia on 29 December.”
The Pentagon said in a statement that Abdishakur was responsible for the group’s external operations and “his death will significantly impact al Shabaab’s ability to conduct attacks against the government of the Federal Republic of Somalia, the Somali people and U.S. allies and interests.”
The strike took place on Monday in the vicinity of Saakow, Somalia, by U.S. forces using an unmanned aircraft that fired several Hellfire missiles at a vehicle carrying the al Shabaab leader, the statement said.
U.S. and Somali officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed Abdishakur’s death on Tuesday but the Pentagon had said it was still examining the evidence.
The statement on Wednesday was the first official confirmation of the killing from the Pentagon and offered the first details on the nature of the strike.
Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said on Tuesday that Abdishakur was head of al Shabaab’s Amniyat unit, which was believed to be responsible for several suicide attacks in Mogadishu.
Officials have said Abdishakur and another al Shabaab militant were killed in the attack. They have said there were no civilian casualties in the air strike.
The strike was the latest in an ongoing campaign against al Shabaab, whose leadership is affiliated with al Qaeda. In September, a U.S. drone strike killed the group’s main leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.
On Saturday, Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi, an al Shabaab leader with a $3 million bounty on his head, surrendered, according to a Somali government source and local media.
A U.S. security official described Abdishakur as a “key operational figure” and a “senior leader” whose death would be a significant blow to the group. But the official said it was difficult to estimate what the long-term impact would be.
Another U.S. official noted that despite several deaths among al Shabaab’s leadership, the group has remained “resilient.”
U.S. confirms drone strike killed al Shabaab leader in Somalia
Bodies from crashed AirAsia plane arrive in Indonesian city
(Reuters) – The first two bodies from the Air Asia plane that crashed off the coast of Borneo arrived on Wednesday in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, where relatives have gathered to await news of their loved ones.
Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the sea floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters near where debris and bodies were found on the surface.
Ships and planes had been scouring the Java Sea for Flight QZ8501 since Sunday, when it lost contact during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from Surabaya to Singapore.
Seven bodies have been recovered from the sea, some fully clothed, which could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water. That would support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall.
Tatang Zaenudin, an official with Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, said earlier that one of the bodies had been found wearing a life jacket.
But he later said no victim had been recovered with a life jacket on.
“We found a body at 8.20 a.m. and a life jacket at 10.32 a.m. so there was a time difference. This is the latest information we have,” he told Reuters.
Two bodies, in coffins bedecked with flowers and marked 001 and 002, arrived by an air force plane in Surabaya.
Most of the 162 people on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.
HUNT FOR “BLACK BOX”
Hernanto, of the search and rescue agency in Surabaya, said rescuers believed they had found the plane on the sea bed with a sonar scan in water 30-50 meters (100-165 feet) deep.
The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder have yet to be found.
Authorities in Surabaya were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives.
“We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly,” Hernanto said.
Strong wind and waves hampered the search and with visibility at less than a kilometer (half a mile), the air operation was called off in the afternoon.
“The weather today was really challenging in the field, with waves up to 5 meters high, wind reaching 40 km per hour (and) heavy rain, especially in the search area,” Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, the head of the search and rescue agency, told reporters in Surabaya.
He added that the plane’s whereabouts had not yet been confirmed and so the search for it would continue.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies.
Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first grim television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis center at Surabaya airport.
“UNBELIEVABLY” STEEP CLIMB
The plane was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.
The pilots did not issue a distress signal.
A source close to the probe into what happened said radar data appeared to show that the aircraft made an “unbelievably” steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320’s limits.
“So far, the numbers taken by the radar are unbelievably high. This rate of climb is very high, too high. It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft,” he said.
The source, who declined to be named, added that more information was needed to come to a firm conclusion.
Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.
The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.
Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country’s aviation industry and spooked travelers.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline’s Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.
The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
Bodies from crashed AirAsia plane arrive in Indonesian city
Es preciso servir a los débiles en vez de servirse de ellos, dice el papa Francisco
El papa Francisco abogó este miércoles, el último día del año, por situar en “el centro de nuestras preocupaciones” a los más desfavorecidos y llamó a “servir a los débiles” en vez de “servirse” de ellos.
“Es necesario un gran acto de libertad cristiana para tener el coraje de proclamar, en nuestra ciudad, que urge defender a los pobres y no defenderse de los pobres. Es preciso servir a los débiles y no servirse de los débiles”, defendió el papa durante su homilía en la basílica de San Pedro.
Es preciso servir a los débiles en vez de servirse de ellos, dice el papa Francisco
Reino Unido revisará sus controles de ébola en los aeropuertos
Tras la entrada a Reino Unido de una enfermera infectada con el virus del ébola, el país anunció este miércoles una revisión de los controles para viajeros con riesgo de sufrir ébola, mientras la paciente, que se encuentra internada en Londres, evoluciona bien y es tratada con un medicamento experimental.
Reino Unido revisará sus controles de ébola en los aeropuertos
Uber se despide temporalmente de España
La plataforma de transporte compartido Uber anunció este miércoles la suspensión temporal de su actividad en España después de nueve meses de funcionamiento, un periodo caracterizado por la polémica con numerosas movilizaciones, huelgas de taxistas y multas a los conductores y a la empresa.
De esta manera, Uber cumple con una orden del juzgado de lo mercantil que responde a una denuncia de la Asociación Madrileña del Taxi por competencia desleal y que le ordena el cese de sus actividades en todo el territorio nacional.
Uber se despide temporalmente de España
Estados Unidos envía a cinco presos de Guantánamo a Kazajstán
Estados Unidos envió a cinco presos del campo de detención de Guantánamo, en Cuba, a Kazajstán, informó este miércoles el Departamento de Defensa.
Tras una investigación interna se concluyó que los prisioneros ya no constituyen peligro alguno para la seguridad de Estados Unidos, según se dijo sin ofrecer detalles.
Con ello, 127 prisioneros continúan en Guantánamo, la mayoría de ellos desde hace muchos años y sin acusación en su contra. A principios de diciembre, Uruguay recibió a seis de estos detenidos.
Estados Unidos envía a cinco presos de Guantánamo a Kazajstán
noticias 