Category: Foreign

(FLOWERBUDNEWS)  Zimbabwean civil servants have on Wednesday, accepted a 76 per cent salary adjustment offered by the government with effect from Aug. 1.

The state media reported that negotiations for higher wages are still on.

The Herald newspaper reported that the least-paid worker will now earn 1,023 Zimbabwean dollars (about 102 U.S. dollars or 37,000 naira) per month, up from 582 Zimbabwean dollars per month.

The decision to accept the government offer followed a meeting between the civil servants’ umbrella representative body, the Apex Council, and government representatives.

The civil servants umbrella body was led by the Secretary for Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare Simon Masanga at a National Joint Negotiating Council meeting on Tuesday.

Apex Council chairperson Cecilia Alexander said that a cost of living adjustment of the total package would be implemented from beginning of August.

Alexander said they had provisionally agreed to the offer while they continued with negotiations.

“It must be reiterated that this is a provisional agreement meant first and foremost to allow the government to cushion its impoverished civil servants.

“Our substantive demand of 4,750 dollars, which is benchmarked against the interbank rate, still stands and negotiations still continue towards that end,” she said.

The government had offered the 76 per cent cost of living adjustment which the Apex Council neither rejected nor accepted.

The council, however, went back to consult with its members and on Tuesday gave the feedback that sealed the deal.

However, teachers on Monday rejected the offer, insisting that the employer paid them nothing more than 4,600 Zimbabwe dollars per month, which the government said it could not afford. (Xinhua/NAN)

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s main challenger in September’s election has said he is ready to abandon his bid for power for the sake of peace.

This had rising more questions about prospects for an election the Taliban have vowed to block.

The twice-delayed presidential election comes as the U.S. and the Taliban are trying to seal an agreement under which U.S. forces will withdraw in exchange for a Taliban security guarantee and a promise of power-sharing talks with Ghani’s government.

The Taliban have denounced the election as a sham and vowed to attack rallies. Ghani is insisting an election he looks set to win should go ahead.

Ghani’s main challenger, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, told a campaign rally on Wednesday he would drop out of the race if that could help secure peace.

“My team is ready to quit elections for the sake of peace,” Abdullah said, according to his office.

The Taliban want the election canceled as a condition for so-called intra-Afghan dialogue – talks after the agreement with the U.S. is struck on how power can be shared and the country organised – and a ceasefire.

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, was Ghani’s main challenger in the last election, in 2014.
That vote was marred by extensive fraud and Ghani became president after U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, brokered a deal creating the post of chief executive for Abdullah.

Ghani has rejected a suggestion put forward by Western allies to postpone the election and form an interim government, perhaps with Taliban representative, after the militants strike their deal with the U.S.

Ghani has said the people must be allowed to choose their leader and peace can only be secured under a democratic system.

But the departure of his main challenger could undermine the legitimacy of the election.

This month, another main contender, Hanif Atmar, a former interior minister, who also served as Ghani’s national security adviser, suspended his campaign, citing the level of violence in the country.

The campaign opened in July with an insurgent attack on the Kabul office of Ghani’s running mate, Amrullah Saleh. At least 20 people were killed and 50 wounded.

“With Atmar out of the race and Abdullah now giving preference to the peace deal instead of elections, it is quite clear that Ghani will have to realign his stance,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul.

Opposition party sources said many of the 17 candidates in the race were considering a boycott because they believed Ghani was using state apparatus to help him win.

With both the Taliban and U.S. negotiators reporting progress in their talks in recent weeks, and raising the prospect of an end to the 18-year war, the election has yet to capture much attention from the public.

The U.S. special representative for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been leading the talks with the Taliban since 2018, is scheduled to travel from Doha to Kabul this week for a meeting with Ghani.

Two sources with knowledge of the talks, said the U.S. will press Ghani to agree to postpone the election.

U.S. researchers have developed a fast-acting skin patch that could deliver medications to fight cancer, according to a study released recently.

The study showed that the new skin patch could efficiently deliver medication in one minute to attack cells of melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer.

Using chicken ovalbumin as a model antigen, the researchers vaccinated mice with their pain-free microneedle patches, and compared the results with intramuscular and subcutaneous injections.

The microneedle treatment produced nine times the antibody level compared to intramuscular injections and 160 times the antibody level compared to subcutaneous injections, the study said.

The researchers also saw efficient immune activation in surgical samples of human skin, it said.

The device is an advance toward developing a vaccine to treat melanoma and has widespread applications for other vaccines, it said.

The study was presented at the American Chemical Society Fall 2019 National Meeting and Exposition by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“Our patch has a unique chemical coating and mode of action that allows it to be applied and removed from the skin in just a minute while still delivering a therapeutic dose of drugs,’’ Yanpu He, an MIT PhD student, who helped develop the device, said.

“Our patches elicit a robust antibody response in living mice and show promise in eliciting a strong immune response in human skin,” he said.

“Our patch technology could be used to deliver vaccines to combat different infectious diseases,” Paula Hammond, head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and leader of the research team, said.

“We are excited by the possibility that the patch is another tool in the oncologists’ arsenal against cancer, specifically melanoma,” she said.

Hammond said the technology will be tested on mice and primates before going to clinic trails. The device is expected to be approved and get on the market in three to five years

Japan will try to help ease tension in the Middle East, Foreign Minister, Taro Kono, said on Tuesday as he began a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Zarif.

Zarif said he looked forward to discussions with Kono as both countries had special interests in the security of the energy market and stability in the Gulf.

“We are worried about tension in the Middle East and we hope to make some diplomatic effort to ease the tension,’’ Kono told reporters as he stood with Zarif.

“We wanted to have a direct and frank conversation with you today,’’ he said to Zarif.

The two smiled and shook hands before sitting down for talks as the media were ushered out.

Japan has historically had friendly ties with Iran and is also a close U.S. ally.

The tension between Iran and the U.S. has risen since President Donald Trump’s administration in 2018 quit an international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and began to ratchet up sanctions.

Iranian officials have denounced the new penalties as “economic warfare”.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened an avenue towards a diplomatic solution to the U.S.-Iran standoff at a Group of Seven (G7) summit at the weekend.

Macron added that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had told him he was open to a meeting with Trump.

Trump told a news conference it was realistic to envisage a meeting with the Iranian head of government in the coming weeks.

Both leaders are scheduled to attend the UN General Assembly in September.

But on Tuesday, Rouhani said Iran would not talk to the U.S. until all sanctions were lifted.

(FLOWERBUD NEWS) 20,000 people have joined a rally in support of an inclusive society and against xenophobia and racism on Saturday in the eastern German city of Dresden.

The demonstration is organised by the group Unteilbar (Indivisible), which staged a similar protest in the capital Berlin last year, drawing 250,000 people.

The group was due to give a more exact estimate of turnout later in the afternoon.

Among the attendees were Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz, and the leaders of the far-left Die Linke party, Bernd Riexinger and Katja Kipping.

The Unteilbar demonstration was taking place, one week before state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, in which the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is expected to make significant gains.

The AfD is campaigning on an anti-immigration platform.

“Unteilbar stands for an open and free society.

“The alliance stands against any form of group-based misanthropy and anti-feminism, against limiting basic free rights, against social decline and poverty – for society, in which all people can live free from fear,’’ the organisers said in a statement on Wednesday. (dpa/NAN)

(FLOWERBUD NEWS) The G7 summit in France heads into its final day on Monday, with the leaders of the key democratic, major economies expected to tackle some of the thornier issues on their agenda.

The schedule includes a discussion about climate change, which could be contentious given disagreements among the group, notably U.S. President Donald Trump’s aversion to multilateral deals on environmental issues, fearing they could restrain the U.S. economy.

The leaders are also due to talk about the digital economy.

Here, the U.S. has already clashed with France over a digital tax Paris plans to implement which Washington worries will hurt U.S. tech giants.

One of the most important bilateral discussions of the day will be between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

So far, Trump and host French President Emmanuel Macron have tried to present friendly relations and, wherever possible, a unified Western front.

On Sunday, a surprise visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on the sidelines of the G7 raised concerns of causing tension on the U.S. side, but the diplomat from Tehran met Macron and other French officials without any problems.

Trump held a series of bilateral meetings on Sunday, including his first with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as they discussed a post-Brexit trade deal.

The G7 is set to close in the afternoon, after which the various leaders are expected to make remarks to the press.

Eyes will be on how Trump views the summit upon conclusion and whether Macron managed to organise an event of the Western alliance in the current era of power shifts without a major blow-up. (dpa/NAN)

(FLOWERBUD NEWS) Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday announced the relocation of the new national capital to replace sinking and traffic-clogged Jakarta.

Widodo said the country’s new administrative centre will be built in a forested area that straddles the border between the districts of Kutai Katanegara and North Penajam Paser in East Kalimantan province near the city of Balikpapan.

“The location is strategic because it’s in the centre of Indonesia,’’ he said.

Risks of disasters such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are minimal, he added.

He said a draft law on the new capital would be submitted to the legislature on Tuesday.

The president said Jakarta was bursting at its seams because of its status as the administrative and commercial centre of the country and Java Island.

The government wants to start moving to a new capital by 2024, at the end of Widodo’s second five-year term in office.

Officials said the move is expected to cost up to $33 billion.

Funding will involve allowing developers to manage government-owned property in Jakarta in return for helping build the new city, the government said.

A study by the Bandung Institute of Technology found that as much as 36 per cent of Jakarta could be lost underwater by 2050.

Mass extraction of groundwater by office buildings, shopping, apartment complexes and residents are to blame, experts say.

About 630 million cubic metres of water are pumped from the ground each year, according to the city government.

The government has said economic losses caused by the city’s traffic jams are estimated at 100 trillion rupiahs ($7 billion) a year.

Some environmental activists have criticised the planned move, warning that building a new city in the middle of a forest could harm the environment. (dpa/NAN)

(FLOWERBUD NEWS) Gov. Gavin Newsom says California will join other states in filing a new lawsuit as early as next week to block the Trump administration’s efforts to indefinitely detain immigrant minors and families with children.

Newsom made this known in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“It’s an assault on the Flores decision,.

“Clearly, I think it will be rejected by the courts, and the answer to your question is California will once again assert itself in the court of law,” the governor said of the administration’s new regulations.

The Department of Homeland Security announced plans this week for new regulations that would roll back protections for migrant children.

Trump officials are taking aim at the 1997 Flores settlement that set minimum standards of care for youths in U.S. custody.

The government is generally prohibited from detaining children, who traveled to the U.S. alone or with their families for longer than 20 days.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan blamed the Flores settlement for an influx of Central American families coming to the U.S. border and said that the administration’s new regulations would deter migration.

President Donald Trump also inaccurately claimed that former President Barack Obama started separating immigrant families.

The regulations, which federal officials expect to publish Friday, add to an ongoing battle over the Trump administration’s ability to hold migrant families and the conditions that immigrants endure in detention centers.

“Seven young children have died since Trump was inaugurated as president, not one died over eight years under President Obama’s stewardship.

“Family separations happen under this administration,” Newsom said during his interview with CNN.

Nathan Click, a spokesman for the governor, declined to offer any additional information about the timing of the lawsuit or its contents.

The office of Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose attorneys represent the state in court, also declined to comment.

As of last week, California had filed some 56 lawsuits against the Trump administration on a variety of issues, including health care, immigration and the environment.