Category: Foreign

France’s EU commissioner candidate, Thierry Breton, is due to be grilled by EU lawmakers on Thursday about his fitness for the role after they rejected the first nominee proposed by Paris.

Breton, was a former tech industry executive.

To be confirmed, Breton will need a two-thirds majority from the EU lawmakers attending Thursday’s hearing, a hurdle that could be hard to clear.

European Commission president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, has had a tough time assembling her top team, which should include one official from each of the European Union’s member states.

The setbacks forced her to delay her planned Nov. 1, start date.

Lawmakers from several political groups have raised questions about possible conflicts between Breton’s former role as head of technology giant Atos and the responsibility he would have to oversee the sector, as future EU internal market commissioner.

The veteran German politician now hopes to secure the European Parliament’s approval for her full commission line-up in time for her to take office on Dec 1.

Besides France, Hungary and Romania had to propose new commissioners after the parliament rejected their initial nominees due to conflicts of interest.

Breton, along with Hungary’s Oliver Varhelyi and Adina Valean of Romania passed the first hurdle on Tuesday, when the parliament’s legal affairs committee narrowly cleared all three of any financial conflicts of interest.

French President Emmanuel Macron nominated Breton after his first choice, former EU lawmaker Sylvie Goulard, was rejected by the parliament.

She came under fire for an EU anti-fraud inquiry and lucrative consulting work during her time in office. (dpa/NAN)

India on Thursday celebrated the 130^th birthday of its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Born on Nov. 14, 1889, Nehru remained as Indian prime minister for nearly 17 years from August 1947, until his death in May 1964.

His birthday is celebrated as Children’s Day every year, as he had a special bonding with the children.

Remembering Nehru on the occasion, current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Tributes to our former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on his birth anniversary’’.

Nehru belonged to the INC, the longest serving political party in India. (Xinhua/NAN)

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) The Vatican said the head of its financial regulator would leave, weeks after unprecedented police raids on his organisation and another key arm of the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy.

Rene Bruelhart, a 47-year-old Swiss lawyer, told Reuters he had resigned from the top job at the Financial Information Authority (AIF), but did not go into further detail.

Vatican police entered the offices of the AIF and of the Secretariat of State — the administrative heart of the Catholic Church — on October 1, as part of an investigation into an investment the Secretariat had made in London real estate.

The officers, operating under a search warrant secured by the Vatican’s own prosecutor, seized documents and computers.The head of the Secretariat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, last month acknowledged that the property deal had not been transparent and promised to shed light on it.The AIF board, headed by Bruelhart, has said the regulator did nothing wrong when it looked over the property investment.

A Vatican statement said Bruelhart would leave at the end of his five-year term on Tuesday and a successor would be named after Pope Francis returns from a trip to Asia on November 26.

“I resigned,” Bruelhart told Reuters by phone shortly after the announcement was made.

Five Vatican employees were suspended immediately after the October 1 raids, including AIF director Tommaso di Ruzza.

Two weeks later, Domenico Giani, the Vatican’s longtime security chief and the pope’s personal bodyguard, resigned over the leak of a document related to the investigation.

Vatican prosecutor Gian Piero Milano is looking into possible crimes such as embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and money laundering connected to the purchase of the building by the Secretariat of State, according to people familiar with his search warrant.

The Secretariat of State spent about US$200 million (RM830 million) in 2014 for a minority stake in a complex plan to buy the building in London’s Chelsea district and convert it into luxury apartments.

The personnel changes at the AIF come as the Vatican is preparing for a new evaluation by Moneyval, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, which has given Vatican financial reforms mostly positive reviews in its most recent evaluations.

Moneyval executive secretary Matthias Kloth told Reuters last month after the police raids that the organisation was “following developments closely.” He said Moneyval’s onsite visit will go ahead as scheduled next spring ahead of a new evaluation in December.

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) At least 15 people were killed and over 50 others injured in a head-on collision between two trains in Brahmanbaria district in east-central Bangladesh on Tuesday, according to media reports.

Chittagong-bound Udayan Express from Sylhet and Dhaka-bound Turna Nishita collided near Mondobhag Railway Station in the district around 3:30am on Tuesday, Hayat-ud-Dowla Khan, Brahmanbaria Deputy Commissioner was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune.

Khan said that the accident occured ..

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(FLOWERBUDNEWS)   US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will change his permanent residence from New York to Palm Beach, Florida, claiming he had been “treated very badly” in his native city.

“My family and I will be making Palm Beach, Florida, our Permanent Residence,” the president tweeted.

“I cherish New York, and the people of New York, and always will, but unfortunately, despite the fact that I pay millions of dollars in city, state and local taxes each year, I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state,” he wrote, adding that “few have been treated worse.”

According to a report from The New York Times, Trump — who is a native New Yorker — and his wife Melania filed individual declarations of domicile in September changing their primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach.

The New York Times also wrote that White House officials declined to say why Trump changed his primary residence but cited a source close to the president as saying it was primarily for tax purposes.

Other than the White House, the Trumps’ main residence will now be their Mar-a-Lago resort, where Trump has spent 99 days since becoming president — compared to just 20 at his previous primary residence in Trump Tower, according to the Times.

“I hated having to make this decision, but in the end it will be best for all concerned,” Trump tweeted.

New York “will always have a special place in my heart!”

But New York has not always loved Trump back: Demonstrations outside Trump Tower are common, and Trump has butted heads with the city and state multiple times.

The most recent instance was in the beginning of the month, when a federal judge for the Southern District of New York dismissed the president’s bid to block access to years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

New York leadership appeared to agree that Trump had made the right call, with Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeting, “Good riddance.”

“It’s not like @realDonaldTrump paid taxes here anyway,” he wrote.

“He’s all yours, Florida.”

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) At least 62 people were killed and over two dozen injured when a fire broke out Thursday morning on a passenger train in northeast Pakistan, an official confirmed.

The fire started when a gas cylinder exploded in a carriage of a train carrying members of Tablighi Jamat — a non-political global Islamic missionary movement — near the Rahimyar Khan district in the Punjab province, city police chief Amir Taimoor Khan told reporters.

At least 30 people were injured and more than a dozen of them were in critical condition, Taimoor said, saying he feared the death toll would rise.

Railway Minister Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad told reporters the blast occurred after some of the Tablighi members lit a stove connected to a gas cylinder to prepare breakfast.

The fire swept through two other carriages, forcing many passengers to jump off the moving train, which led to many of the deaths and injuries, he said.

Footage aired on local broadcaster Geo News showed rescue workers struggling to put out the fire as giant plumes of fire and smoke wafted upward.

To assist civil administration, army troops including doctors and paramedics moved to the incident site for rescue and relief operation. Army aviation helicopter flew from Multan to the incident site to evacuate the critically injured.

Pakistan has had a long history of train accidents, mainly due to lack of safety measures.

This July some 21 passengers were killed and over 80 injured after two trains collided in the nearby Sadiqabad district.

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) Donald Trump has formally started the process of pulling the US out of the landmark Paris Agreement, three years after the deal came into force.

Announcing the withdrawal on Monday, secretary of state Mike Pompeo reiterated the administration’s view that the deal entered into by Barack Obama gave an advantage to developing countries, in particular China.

“President Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement because of the unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers by US pledges made under the agreement,” said Pompeo.

The move further isolates the US administration as the only national government in the world that officially turned its back on global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise “well below” 2C.

Four years ago, the US played a critical role in brokering the deal it is now exiting by bringing China on side.

Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, said the move was “cruel to future generations, leaving the world less safe and productive”.

He also countered the idea that the Paris deal was unfair to American workers. “It also fails people in the United States, who will lose out on clean energy jobs, as other nations grab the competitive and technological advantages that the low-carbon future offers.”

Trump first announced his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris deal in June 2017, but Monday – three years after the deal entered into force – was the earliest opportunity for the administration to legally notify of its withdrawal.

Executive secretary of UN Climate Change Patricia Espinosa marked that anniversary by tweeting a video of diplomats and negotiators celebrating the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

“Let’s keep up crucial momentum for global climate action,” Espinosa said.

But even outside the agreement, the US will continue to take part in the climate talks.

The withdrawal procedures will take a year to complete meaning the US will officially leave the Paris deal on the 4 November 2020, one day after the US election on 3 November.

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