China offers loans to Latin America, Caribbean

All members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States can apply for commercial loans from China, which were initially proposed by President Xi Jinping on a visit to Brazil last year, a senior diplomat said on Monday.

The remarks by Zhu Qingqiao, Director-General of the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs under the Foreign Ministry, suggested CELAC members without diplomatic ties with China can also have access to the loans.

Around a dozen CELAC members, including Paraguay and Haiti, have no formal diplomatic relationships with Beijing.

China and the CELAC will map out an overall plan guiding China-CELAC cooperation, including in the financial sector, during the first China-CELAC ministerial forum, which is set to be held in Beijing on Thursday and Friday, Zhu said at a press conference in Beijing.

More than 40 ministerial-level delegates, including 20 foreign ministers from the CELAC countries, have confirmed their attendance at the meeting, Zhu said.

The forum was established in July, 2014 after a meeting between Xi and leaders from China, Latin America and the Caribbean in Brasilia. It was the first collective meeting of China's president and leaders of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

In Brasilia, Xi proposed the creation of a $20 billion fund to finance infrastructure projects in Latin American and the Caribbean, and offered to extend a credit line of up to $10 billion to nations of CELAC via the Bank of China.

Su Zhenxing, a senior research fellow on Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said countries without diplomatic relationships with Beijing are not excluded as they have maintained trade links with China for a long period, albeit small in size, and China is fostering cooperation with the whole CELAC.

CELAC, established in December 2011, is the largest regional political cooperation in the Western Hemisphere and consist of 33 countries except the United States and Canada.

The forum in Beijing showed the group’s willingness to strengthen cooperation with China, especially in the economic sector, said Su.

The meeting is expected to formulate operational rules for the forum and provide guidance in cooperation areas, he added.

China is the second largest trading partner and third largest investment source for Latin America. Trade between Latin America, the Caribbean and China has seen a significant increase in recent years, reaching $261.6 billion in 2013.

Xi is scheduled to attend the forum’s opening ceremony on Thursday morning, along with Costa Rica President Luis Guillermo Solis, Ecuador President Rafael Correa Delgado, Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie and Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro Moros.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Controversy erupts after college blames victims

A screenshot of the website of Modern College of Northwest University shows a notice that says the Shanghai tragedy proves its holiday policies are "absolutely correct".

BEIJING - A college in Northwest China has been lambasted for issuing a controversial statement about the fatal New Year's Eve stampede in Shanghai, which left 36 people dead.

The Modern College of Northwest University in Xi'an City, capital of Shaanxi province, said on Friday that the tragedy proved that its holiday policies were "utterly correct".

In late December, the college reportedly banned its students from celebrating Christmas and instead on Christmas Eve made them watch traditional cultural films, which invited a storm of criticism.

Its official microblog account said that Chinese traditional festivals and culture were fading away as more people embraced Western traditions.

In an editorial titled "Shanghai stampede tragedy proves our holiday management utterly correct", posted on its website, the college said that if such a stampede occurred on Christmas Eve in Xi'an, the value of the college's holiday management would be "more self-evident".

It continued to bash public holidays by saying that the youth had become "overly infatuated" with Western holidays after decades of westernization in China, and that the stampede was a result of loose in college and university management.

The post has become a hot topic on the Internet, with some angry netizens calling the college "shameless" for justifying its value through the tragedy.

"It looks to me that the college is taking pleasure in others' misfortune," read one comment.

"In their logic, 2014 saw many plane crashes and I never took a flight, so that proves me 'utterly correct'?" said another netizen.

Others are more tolerant, saying that even though the wording might be a little rough, in essence the article made sense.

The college, perhaps in reaction to the media frenzy over its post, changed the title to "Deeply grieving the loss of our compatriots in the Shanghai stampede tragedy", but the content of the post remains unchanged.

Tan Kejian, a research fellow with the School of Sociology under the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences, said the college's attitude toward holiday celebrations was negative and should not be adopted.

"You should not stop eating because of having hiccups," Tan said, quoting an old Chinese saying.

Instead of banning celebrations, authorities should ramp up preventive measures to avoid similar disasters, he added.

Tens of thousands of people assembled in Shanghai's historic riverfront walk, in the Pudong financial area, on Wednesday night to ring in the New Year. Most of those that lost their lives were young people.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

Ferguson: mass arrests at protest in California despite relative calm in Missouri

In Los Angeles and Oakland, demonstrators took to the streets for a third night to show solidarity with the family of Michael Brown.

A relative calm fell on Ferguson, Missouri, on Wednesday following two nights of violent protests after a grand jury declined to bring charges against a white police officer in the shooting death of unarmed, black teen Michael Brown, but in California tensions remained high as nearly 200 protesters were arrested.

In Los Angeles and Oakland, demonstrators took to the streets for a third night since the grand jury decision in a show of solidarity with the family of the dead Missouri teen. Protesters blocked roads and even clashed with police, the LA Times reported.

During the demonstrations in Los Angeles on Wednesday, nearly 150 people were arrested in connection to the Ferguson shooting protest for failure to disperse, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) commander Andrew Smith told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. This is up from 130 arrests reported earlier.

“When they will no longer comply with our requests and when it becomes dangerous, when they start running in and out of cars and put the public at risk, then we have to take action,” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said, according to the LA Times. Police arrested about 145 people; they face misdemeanor charges and $500 bail, Beck told the paper.

The arrests were precipitated by several hours of marching through LA in the afternoon and early evening. A crowd of between 200 and 300 people marched for hours through the city streets, blocking traffic as they crossed intersections and occasionally pounding on cars. They were stopped by a phalanx of police in riot gear near the Central Library in downtown LA. Officers corralled a group of demonstrators who refused to disperse and made a mass arrest.

In northern California, demonstrations in Oakland devolved into unrest and vandalism for a third night.

Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said 33 demonstrators were arrested after a march by about 100 people through the city streets, blocking traffic. She said that later, small groups began moving through the streets, with some smashed windows and vandalized property.

By midnight, most of the protesters had dispersed save for a very small group that police were monitoring, Watson said.

Since the grand jury decision on Monday, the LAPD and California Highway Patrol have made more than 330 arrests over the past three nights of protests. Demonstrations held in other California cities on Wednesday remained peaceful.

In Chicago, three demonstrators were arrested during a protest organized by a group called the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Chicago Tribune reported. During the protest, demonstrators chanted and carried signs that read, Justice for Mike Brown. They also called for the a boycott of Black Friday, and asked the public to instead, recognize the day as “Black lives Matter” Friday.

In Ferguson, just two arrests were made on Wednesday evening, down from 44 the night before and 80 arrests in the immediate aftermath of the grand jury decision was announced, a spokesman for St Louis County police said. A small group of protesters gathered outside the Ferguson Police Department, as snow fell on the city.

Solidarity protests continued for a third night in other cities, including Atlanta, Denver and San Diego, though they remained largely calm and peaceful.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/

Why Cuba move will help America

(CNN) -- In opposing President Barack Obama's opening to Cuba, Florida's Republican senator, Marco Rubio, explained, "This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people." Rubio has correctly touched on the core issue. But theory, logic and history suggest that he's wrong in his conclusions.
I would recommend to Rubio one of the classics of conservative thought, Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom." He doesn't have to spend too much time on it. The first chapter outlines the "relation between economic freedom and political freedom."
The point Friedman makes in the book is one that America's founding fathers well understood. Drawing on the political philosopher John Locke, they believed that the freedom to buy, sell, own and trade were core elements of human freedom and individual autonomy. As they expand, liberty expands.
fareed zakaria in studio
fareed zakaria in studio
Behind the Cuba policy deal Obama discusses Cuba relations Many Cubans welcome closer ties with U.S.
This is not just theory, of course. Over the last two centuries, the countries that embraced "more commerce and access to money and goods" in Rubio's phrase -- Britain, America, then Western Europe and East Asia -- have moved toward greater prosperity, but also political freedom. If you exclude oil-rich countries, where money is not earned but dug from the ground, almost every country that has used free markets and free trade to grow is also a democracy.
Yes there are a few exceptions: Singapore and China (though the latter is still not quite a developed economy.) But on the whole, there has been a remarkably strong connection between economic freedom and political freedom.
In Latin America itself, the line has been clear. Augusto Pinochet's regime opened up its economy in the 1970s. Chile began to grow, but that growth then produced a stronger civil society that over time clamored for the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. (The same pattern could be seen in Taiwan, South Korea, Spain and Portugal.) In Latin America today, democracy and markets have acted to reinforce each other, transforming the continent, which 30 years ago was almost entirely ruled by dictatorships to one that is today almost entirely ruled by democracies.
Cuba is an outlier, one of the last regimes in Latin America that has embraced neither markets nor ballots. The Obama administration is acting on the theory that more commerce, capitalism, contact, travel and trade will empower the people of Cuba and thus give them a greater voice in their political future. And so the first point to make is that it will help Cubans economically -- it will raise their incomes, their standard of living, and boost access to technology. These are all good things in and of themselves.

But easing the embargo will also help Americans, who will benefit from being able to trade with a neighbor. This is the reason that conservatives have long understood that free trade is not a gift bestowed on someone. It helps both countries and in particular, helps the United States.
That's why the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- bastion of conservative thought -- has been an advocate on lifting the trade embargo against Cuba, which is a far larger step than Obama's normalization.
So, did it support Obama's opening? Of course not. It turns out that he has done it in the wrong way. It is difficult not to think that the problem here is not the policy, but who the president is. Had George W. Bush announced this initiative, I have a feeling that the Wall Street Journal would be hailing it -- and Rubio would be quoting Milton Friedman to us all.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com

Pakistani military kills over 60 militants after school massacre

PAKISTANI jets and ground forces have killed 67 militants in a north-western tribal region near the Afghan border, officials say, days after Taliban fighters killed 148 people most of them children in a school massacre.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani prosecutor said the government will try to cancel the bail granted to the main suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks a decision that outraged neighbouring India and called into question Pakistan’s commitment to fighting militancy.
The violence at a school in Pakistan’s northwest earlier this week stunned the country and brought cries for retribution. In the wake of the mass killing the military has struck targets in the Khyber tribal region and approved the death penalty for six convicted terrorists.

PAKISTAN MOURNS AFTER SCHOOL MASSACRE

The military said its ground forces late on Thursday killed 10 militants while jets killed another 17, including an Uzbek commander. Another 32 alleged terrorists were killed by security forces in an ambush in Tirah valley in Khyber on Friday as they headed toward the Afghan border, the military said.

Khyber agency is one of two main areas in the northwest where the military has been trying to root out militants in recent months. Khyber borders Peshawar, where the school massacre happened, and militants have traditionally attacked the city before fleeing into the tribal region where police can’t chase them.

The other area is North Waziristan, where the military launched a massive operation in June.

In the southern province of Baluchistan, Pakistani security forces killed a senior Pakistani Taliban leader along with seven of his associates in three separate pre-dawn raids, said a tribal police officer, Ali Ahmed.

Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif late on Thursday signed death warrants of six “hard core terrorists” convicted and sentenced to death by military courts, the army said.

It was unclear when the military planned to hang the six men, but authorities generally move quickly once death warrants are signed. Such executions are usually carried out at prisons under the supervision of army officers and then the bodies are handed over to relatives for burial.

There was no information on the men or the crimes for which they were convicted.

The news comes after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday announced that he would lift a moratorium on executions in terrorism-related cases. The government has not yet carried out any executions.

The lifting of the moratorium was aimed at demonstrating the government’s resolve. But the decision by an anti-terrorism court Thursday to grant bail to the main suspect in the Mumbai attack, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, called into question that commitment.

Lakhvi is one of seven people on trial in Pakistan for the assault, but the trial has produced no results so far. It has been closed to the media.

India reacted with outrage to news of Lakhvi’s pending release.

Special public prosecutor Abu Zar Peerzada said he would appeal to the High Court to cancel the bail and said Lakhvi had not yet been released.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/

Leading Venezuelan opposition figure charged over alleged plot to kill president

Maria Corina Machado told she will face criminal charges for her alleged involvement in a supposed plot to kill Nicolas Maduro.

A leading figure in the Venezuelan opposition has been told she will face criminal charges for alleged involvement in a purported plot to kill President Nicolas Maduro, a move she called an attempt to silence her and other critics of Venezuela’s government.

Maria Corina Machado, a former member of the National Assembly, left a private meeting with prosecutors at the Ministry of Justice after authorities informed her that she would be charged with conspiracy. The charge carries a maximum of 16 years in prison.

Her case will now be assigned to a judge so Machado can be formally charged.

“All the accusations and the supposed evidence are false,” she told reporters outside the ministry.

Machado has repeatedly said she has no knowledge of any plot against Maduro and portrays the allegations as political persecution.

“I have not committed any crime,” she said before the meeting with prosecutors. “This is the price I have to pay for speaking the truth in Venezuela.”

The attorney general’s office opened its investigation in March after officials claimed a plot was being formed against Maduro and others in the government involving Machado and several other opposition figures. Authorities have not provided any evidence publicly beyond some allegedly incriminating emails. The government has prohibited Machado from leaving the country since June.

Tomas Arias, one of her lead attorneys, said the defense had asked for more specific proof of any link between Machado and what he called the “supposed plot” against the president. Authorities have provided nothing in response, he said.

Prosecutors have issued arrest orders for several other opposition figures for their alleged roles in the supposed plot, several of whom have left Venezuela.

Since narrowly winning election last year to succeed his mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez, Maduro has claimed there have been five assassination attempts against him and more than a dozen acts of sabotage and conspiracy.

The investigation of Machado comes as oil-dependent Venezuela comes under increasing financial strain because of plunging world oil prices, forcing the government to cut spending amid widespread shortages and the world’s highest inflation.

Source: Associated Press in Caracas
theguardian.com, Wednesday 3 December 2014 22.50 GMT