EU triples aid for refugees fleeing Libya
The EU has announced a trebling of aid for refugees fleeing Libya to 10 million euros.
The extra cash follows a UN call for an international response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation on the Libyan-Tunisian border.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Borroso made it clear he wants Gaddafi’s crumbling regime to go: “We must do everything so that the current regime leaves the country and stops its actions against the Libyan people.”
The EU plans a crisis summit next week to discuss the border situation and the chaos within Libya itself.
Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, said: “In the Benghazi area, we have humanitarian teams already on the ground, and they report that there is a need for medical assistance. Because the Libyan health system had foreigners at its heart and they have left, leaving behind a huge void, which has to be filled.”
Brussels has also made 25 million euros available to help process asylum seekers and boost border checks at EU frontiers.
Brazil great Ronaldo hangs up his boots
Brazilian star Ronaldo has announced he is retiring from football at the age of 34.
He is one of only two players – the other being Zinedine Zidane – to be named FIFA world player of the year three times. In a glittering goal-filled career, Ronaldo Lu?�s Naz??rio de Lima was a member of two World Cup-winning sides in 1994 and 2002.
He told a packed press conference in Sao Paulo that injuries had forced him to put an end to his career.
“I came here to say today that I’m ending my career as a professional player…Four years ago at Milan I discovered I was suffering from a complaint called hypothyroidism, which slows down your metabolism and to control it I would have to take some hormones that are not permitted in football because of anti-doping.”
He added that “it has been a beautiful, emotional, marvellous career.”?�
He had been expected to retire at the end of this season but with his club, Corinthians, making an early exit from the Copa Libertadores, he decided that now was the time to call it a day.
Ronaldo’s glittering career began at Cruzeiro in his native Brazil where a dazzling goalscoring streak brought the teenager to the attention of some of Europe’s biggest clubs.?�Later that season, he was named as non-playing member of his country’s 1994 World Cup squad.?�Ronaldo joined PSV Eindhoven after the competition. In two seasons in Dutch football, he hit 54 goals in just 57 games. ?�That rich vein of form alerted Spanish giants Barcelona, who were coached by Englishman Bobby Robson at the time.?�Robson only coached Ronaldo for one season but he once referred to him as “the best player I have ever worked with.”?�Robson said: “Ronaldo was lean, mean, as quick as an Olympic sprinter and some of the goals he scored had me shaking my head in disbelief.”?�Ronaldo stayed just one season at the Camp Nou where he netted 47 goals in 49 matches ??� a return which saw him named the youngest ever winner of the FIFA World Player of The Year at the age of just 20.?�After one season with Barca, Inter Milan snapped him up for a world record fee and Ronaldo went on to score 59 goals in 99 appearances for the Italian giants.?�But it was with the Nerazzuri that injuries began to hamper Ronaldo’s career. He damaged his knee in 1999 and then again during his comeback in February 2000, which kept him out of the game for another two years.?�Nevertheless, Real Madrid were willing to part with 39 million euros in 2002 to secure Ronaldo’s signature. He paid them back with 98 goals in 164 games and a record number of replica shirts sold with his name. Four seasons later, he was back at the San Siro, this time with AC Milan. He played just 20 matches there, scoring nine goals, before moving back to Brazil to play with Corinthians.
He also made a huge impact on the international stage and holds the record for the number of goals scored in World Cups, with 15.
In 97 international matches, he scored 62 times for Brazil.
Tackling tuberculosis in children
Tuberculosis remains a threat to children’s health all around Europe. Child TB is hard to diagnose and difficult to cure. Why is it so challenging, and what needs to be done to stop the illness from spreading?
It is much harder to diagnose TB in a child than in an adult. Children generally do not have much sputum (saliva) with enough bacteria present for a conclusive analysis. To make the correct diagnosis, paediatricians have to put together a large jigsaw puzzle of various clues.
Child tuberculosis seems to have become so rare in certain countries that many paediatricians fail to consider it – unless the patient comes from a risk group.
We talk to the mother of a young boy with TB, Dr Beate Kampmann from Imperial College London, a leading specialist in the field, Davide Manissero, TB Programme Coordinator, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and Monica Lascu, Head of Pediatric TB Section, at the Pneumophtisiology Hospital in Brasov, Romania.
Eventual elimination of tuberculosis in Europe and elsewhere may only become possible with a range of international efforts – not just medical: the disadvantaged social and economic situations of some of the most TB vulnerable children is a key aspect as well.
For more information, visit
www.ecdc.europa.eu
Iceland backs a new Icesave deal
Iceland’s parliament has backed a new plan to repay four billion euros to the governments of the UK and the Netherlands.
The money will reimburse them both for bailing out 400,000 of their own citizens who lost savings in the Icesave bank collapse.
The deal replaces an earlier one which Icelanders rejected in a referendum.
Icelandic Finance Minister Steingrimur J. Sigfusson said: “Parliament has really answered both questions: yes, we want to solve this on a basis of this agreement, and that parliament is going to deal with it on its own, and there is not going to be a referendum.”
Under the new terms Iceland will have longer to repay the money, until 2046 and at a lower 3.3% rate of interest.
But Sigmundir David Gunnlaugsson of the Progressive Party was not happy.
“Well naturally I’m disappointed because this means that Iceland is being forced to accept terms that other countries, for example the UK and the Netherlands, would never have accepted if they were in the same position.”
Icesave’s parent, Landsbanki went under in 2008 along with other main banks. The government compensated its savers, but not those overseas.
The UK and the Netherlands stepped in but extracted an unpopular deal from Iceland’s government. People power rejected it then but not this time.
Egyptians celebrate a week without Mubarak
Celebrations have gone on through the night in Cairo, as hundreds of thousands turned out for what has been dubbed a victory march.
The event came exactly a week after the popular revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
One man said: “All we want is for Egypt to be Egypt again … a president that is aware, a country that’s aware, and a good government that takes the people into consideration and takes the poor into consideration.”
A woman said: “I’m very proud to be Egyptian. And when I travel abroad I can now tell people that I’m Egyptian and not be embarrassed. All of them will respect me because I’m Egyptian and I took part in this revolution.”
Amid the celebration, however, Egypt’s ruling military council has warned it will not allow any further strikes that harm the economy and what it calls national security.
Yen up, stocks down, fear high
Fear continues to drive trading in Japan’s financial markets. An unfolding nuclear threat has investors dumping shares and trying to guess what the full financial and economic impact of the disaster would be.
The yen hit a record high against the dollar on Thursday in the belief that Japanese firms would have to repatriate billions from overseas to pay for reconstruction.
As the benchmark Nikkei went into free fall after the earthquake and tsunami, the value of the Japanese currency against the US dollar spiked.
Japan’s Economics Minister says he “doesn’t think the stock and currency markets are in a state of turmoil.”
Kaoru Yosano blamed the yen’s rise on buying by speculators.
He said that Japan’s Financial Services Agency and the country’s central bank have confirmed that insurance companies are not buying Japanese yen by selling overseas assets in order to raise money to pay for reconstruction from the quake and tsunami.
He added “They have ample cash, deposits and other liquid assets.”
Yosano spoke out against the speculators and called them “utterly thoughtless.”
The higher yen hits the profits of companies like Toyota – the world’s top carmaker – making it more difficult for Japan’s export dependent economy to recover.
Though for the moment Toyota and other major exporters are producing nothing. The carmaker has said its 12 main plants will stay shut until at least 22 March.
Nissan, Mazda, Honda, Hitachi, NEC, Fujitsu and Sony have also closed multiple factories.
Spain’s dole queues lengthen in February
The number of people out of work in Spain rose in February to its highest level in 15 years.
An additional 68,260 people registering for unemployment benefits compared to January, the Labour Ministry in Madrid said.
That brings the jobless total to 4.3 million, continuing the steady increase of the last few months. It means more than a fifth of Spain’s workforce is now out of work.
The ministry does not give a percentage unemployment rate, but statistics institute data at the end of January showed 20.3 percent of the country’s workers without jobs. This week the EU said it was 20.4 percent.
That is the highest unemployment rate in Europe, more than double the EU average of 9.9 percent.
Worst effected in February was Spain’s services sector, which accounts for around 70 percent of the country’s economy. It lost 40,000 jobs.
Civil war, civil wounded, Somalia
Civilians in Somalia’s 20-year war are wounded every day. The crossfire between government forces and insurgents destroys ordinary people’s lives. Reporter takes you inside Medina hospital in Mogadishu.
Suicide Room shown at Berlin Film Festival
Suicide Room is Polish director Jan Komasa’s debut feature length film and has screened at the Berlinale as part of the Panorama selection.
Teachers strike in Bahrain’s revolution
Anti-government demonstrators camped in the centre of Bahrain’s capital Manama have been joined by 1,500 striking teachers, all calling for the downfall of the regime.
There is little sign of the revolt letting up, but the atmosphere has eased considerably after the deaths of seven people in the past week.
One of the teachers, Yasser Abd Hussein, said: “We have left the schools and declared a general strike. We’ll stay here until the departure of this regime.”
Another protester, Madeen Ali Ahmed, said: “The massacre led us to increase our demands, from reshuffling the government to its complete removal.”
Bahrain’s King has asked his son the Crown Prince to start talks with all parties but the opposition are reluctant to enter into dialogue after the bloodshed of recent days.
Their demands include a true constitutional monarchy that would give Bahrainis a greater role in a directly elected government.
Seventy per cent of the population are Shi-ite Muslims but they are a minority in the parliament.
The Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa royal family, who have ruled Bahrain for 200 years, dominate the cabinet.
