Politics

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 02:55 UTC

  Cuban political prisoners’ controversy backfires on Lula da Silva

  

  One of the most influential Senators from Brazil’s ruling Workers Party remembered President Lula da Silva that world figures such as India’s Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King appealed to hunger strikes as part of their peaceful struggle for the rights of their peoples.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 02:32 UTC

  Lehman Brothers had been using “accounting gimmicks” for years

  

  Former bosses at Lehman Brothers have been accused of using an “accounting gimmick” to hide billions in losses which helped bring about its collapse. The technique, called “Repo 105”, was used to temporarily remove 50 billion US dollars of assets from the US investment bank's balance sheet in 2008, according to a one-year investigation.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 02:23 UTC

  China calls on US not to make the Yuan de facto dollar peg “a political issue”

  

  The United States should not make a political issue out of the Yuan, a Chinese central banker said as the long running friction between the world’s two leading economies approaches a critical deadline.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 01:56 UTC

  Google will “pay the consequences” if it does not comply with China’s filtering

  

  China's top internet official has warned that Google will “pay the consequences” if it continues to go against Chinese law. Google announced in January that it would no longer comply with China's internet censorship laws.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 01:04 UTC

  US military have no evidence of Venezuela, FARC and ETA links

  

  The chief of the US military's Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser, said during a hearing before the US Senate that he had no evidence of links between Venezuela, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Colombian guerrilla group and the Basque separatist group ETA.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 00:57 UTC

  Colombia’s congressional election Sunday, a test for May’s presidential vote

  

  Colombian congressional elections this weekend may signal how much backing former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos will have as he seeks to capitalize on the success of Alvaro Uribe’s “democratic security” politics to succeed him as president.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 00:55 UTC

  To be a good journalist, first you must be a good Marxist, says Beijing

  

  Chinese journalist must take tests on Marxist theory and the Chinese Communist Party is the last of Beijing’s drive to improve standards and ensure closer adherence to government media policies, reports said this week.

• Saturday, March 13th 2010 - 00:09 UTC

  Brussels approves Uruguayan fish industry sanitary standards

  

  The European Commission (EC) has ruled that the controls carried out by Uruguayan sanitary authorities guarantee the “adequate standards” demanded by Community norms for imported seafood products.

• Friday, March 12th 2010 - 23:27 UTC

  Cuba accuses Europe of “fabricating patriots out of criminals”

  

  The Cuban government again on Friday blasted the European Parliament for fabricating “patriots among mercenaries and criminals” and for supporting “subversion”, as the regime of the Fidel and Raul Castro brothers calls dissidents.

• Friday, March 12th 2010 - 23:25 UTC

  German Left leader warns on “extreme presidentialism” in Socialist Latinamerica

  

  Gregor Gysi the leader of Germany’s Left considers a serious problem the extreme “presidentialism” of the new left wing governments in Latinamerica and said Cuba was on the wrong track if it believes social justice demands sacrificing liberties.