- SPO2SportsBerdych upsets del Potro in Tokyo, win for WozniackiTokyo, Oct 5 DPA Tomas Berdych downed Juan Martin del Potro 6-1, 6-4 to capture his fourth ATP title at the Japan Open tennis championships Sunday. The Czech number nine seed overcame the on-form Argentinian, seeded fifth and playing in his fifth final in his past six ATP tournaments, in 1 hour 17 minutes. It was Berdych's fourth ATP Tour title and his first since winning on grass in Halle, Germany last year. He collects 135,000 dollars for the win while 20-year-old Del Potro, who had won 29 of his previous 30 matches, has boosted his hopes of a place at the season-ending Masters Cup. He will now rise to ninth in the ATP world rankings and ninth in the race for next month's eight-man Masters in Shanghai. The women's event was won by Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki, who captured her third WTA Tour singles title of the season with a three-sets victory over Estonia's Kaia Kanepi. The top-seeded Wozniacki became the sixth player to win at least three tournaments in 2008 by securing a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 win in two hours over her fifth-seeded opponent. Wozniacki, 18, added to her titles at Stockholm and New Haven.--DPAav/dg221 Words05101407
2008-10-05 07:03:07
- AFP - Sir Alex Ferguson has vowed to take Champions League minnows Aalborg seriously in Tuesday's Group E clash in Denmark after admitting he is still scarred by the memories of Manchester United&...
2008-09-30 03:10:29
- Man Utd manager Sir Alex Ferguson will play all his big-name stars in Tuesday's Champions League clash with AaB Aalborg....
2008-09-30 00:31:08
- INT4International/Diplomacy/Law/CrimeEU to probe 'fake marriage' immigration loopholeBrussels, Sep 26 DPA The European Commission Thursday agreed to address concerns that scores of illegal immigrants may be marrying European Union EU citizens with the sole intention of achieving EU residence permits. But the EU's top justice official ruled out any changes to the bloc's freedom of movement directive, as requested by Denmark and a number of other member states. "This directive is one of the linchpins of the union," said Jacques Barrot. "We need to think twice before we should consider changing it." Instead, the EU executive will take a close look at the EU's existing rules and see whether new guidelines aimed at avoiding abuses might be needed, Barrot said. Growing concerns about so-called marriages of convenience stem from a July ruling by the European Court of Justice. The Metock case pitted the Irish government against four couples, all involving third-country males who had married British, German or Polish women living in Ireland. Ireland had wanted to deport the four men on the grounds that they did not hold resident permits in any other EU country prior to their marriages. But the court ruled against Ireland, saying it could not avoid granting them resident permits. Opposition to the Metock ruling has been particularly strong in Denmark, where the ruling centre-right government coalition has to rely on the anti-immigration Danish People's Party to hold a parliamentary majority. The Danish government had called on the commission to change the freedom of movement directive so as to mitigate the effects of the case. It says it enjoys the support of other countries that enforce strict immigration rules - among them Austria, Britain, Ireland and Germany. "Everybody agrees that it is a significant problem and that we should discuss the unfortunate consequences of the Metock ruling," said Danish Integration Minister Birthe Ronn Hornbech. Her British colleague, Liam Byrne, said "a wide range of member states" had expressed "extremely strong views" about the implications of the ruling during Thursday's meeting of interior ministers in Brussels. Among them Austria, whose interior minister said prior to the meeting that the ruling fatally undermined her country's residency rules. While Denmark and Britain carry out face-to-face interviews with suspect couples in order to ensure that they are not trying to exploit EU residency rules, many other member states take a much more lax approach to marriages involving third-country nationals. According to Irish officials, 15 percent of the 4,600 applications for residency they received since 2006 involved failed asylum-seekers. They have also been pointing their fingers at an unusually high number of Latvians who marry Pakistanis. Women in Poland and Bulgaria have been known to be offering to marry immigrants for as little as 800 euros $1,175. Dutch officials said governments should crack down on such marriages of convenience rather than seek to limit people's freedom of movement.--DPAsnb530 Words26090245
2008-09-26 05:04:08
- INT49International/SocietyQatar tops Middle East, North Africa in corruption rankingsDubai, Sep 24 IANS Qatar led the Middle East and North Africa MENA region in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index CPI 2008 released by the Berlin-based NGO Transparency International TI.Qatar topped the region with a rank of 28th and scoring 6.5 on a scale ranging from zero highly corrupt to 10 highly clean.It shared the position with Spain, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.Other Gulf states to follow Qatar are the United Arab Emirates UAE at 35th position 5.9 points, Oman at 41st 5.5 and Bahrain at 43rd 5.4.While Oman shared its rank with Mauritius, Bahrain was at the same level as Macau.The other two Gulf Cooperation Council GCC countries, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, were ranked 65th 4.3 and 80th 3.5, respectively.While Kuwait shared the rank with Cuba, corruption levels in Saudi Arabia were seen at the same level as in Brazil, Thailand and Burkina Fasso.Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden shared this year's top spot with the highest score of 9.3, followed by Singapore at 9.2. At the bottom is Somalia at 1.0, slightly trailing Iraq and Myanmar at 1.3 and Haiti at 1.4.The list covered 180 countries across the world.In a statement, Johann Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau, who carries out the CPI survey for TI, underscored the disastrous effects of corruption and gains from fighting it. "Evidence suggests that an improvement in the CPI by one point on a 10-point scale increases capital inflows by 0.5 percent of a country's gross domestic product and average incomes by as much as four percent," he said.The TI report named Qatar, Oman and Bahrain along with Albania, Benin, Cyprus, Dominica, Georgia, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nigeria, Poland, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, South Korea, Tonga and Turkey as the countries showing significant improvements in rankings from last year.Bulgaria, Burundi, Finland, France, Italy, Macao, Maldives, Norway, Portugal, Somalia, Timor-Leste and Britain were named as noteworthy examples of deterioration from last year.TI, in its report, also warned that in low-income countries, rampant corruption jeopardised the global fight against poverty, threatening to derail the UN Millennium Development Goals MDGs. "According to TI's 2008 Global Corruption Report, unchecked levels of corruption would add $50 billion - or nearly half of annual global aid outlays - to the cost of achieving the MDG on water and sanitation," it said."Not only does this call for a redoubling of efforts in low-income countries, where the welfare of significant portions of the population hangs in the balance, it also calls for a more focussed and coordinated approach by the global donor community to ensure development assistance is designed to strengthen institutions of governance and oversight in recipient countries, and that aid flows themselves are fortified against abuse and graft," it added.TI said this is the message it would take to the ongoing 63rd UN General Assembly session where member states would meet Sep 25 to take stock on progress in reaching the MDGs, and ahead of the UN conference on financing for development to be held in Doha, Qatar.Meanwhile, following the release of the CPI 2008, the Bahrain Transparency Society BTS has attributed that country's rise from 46th position in 2007 to 43rd this year to announcements made by the Bahrain's Tender Board and the publication of oil prices on the National Oil and Gas Authority's website.In a statement to the official Bahrain News Agency, BTS president Abdulnabi Alekry expressed the hope that Bahrain would achieve a more advanced ranking and better CPI score.He also revealed that BTS was currently preparing a national transparency report to be presented at the Athens Transparency Conference in November this year. He said that the society has been in contact with reporters, auditors and economists to compile this report. --Indo-Asian News Serviceab/sh/dg703 Words24091541
2008-09-24 06:04:09
- The Federal Reserve makes $30bn available to central banks in Australia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, to ease money markets....
2008-09-24 02:41:13
- INT25International/Politics/CrimeBangladesh among most corrupt despite anti-graft driveDhaka, Sep 24 IANS Twenty months of an anti-graft drive by the military-backed caretaker government has made only a marginal difference to the perception about corruption prevailing in Bangladesh, which has been ranked among the top 10 corrupt nations in a global index. Transparency International Bangladesh TIB said the shift in position bears almost no significance in terms of reining in corruption and added that it was rather the result of a decline in other countries' status.Bangladesh has jumped up three positions to 147 with 2.1 points in the annual global corruption perception index CPI of the Transparency International with a mere 0.1-point increase. Kenya, Russia and Syria have scored the same.The anti-graft drive by the government of Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed led to the detention of two former prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, over 200 former ministers, lawmakers, officials and businessmen. Most of them have been released on bail by courts that have questioned the government's rules and procedures. There is also a political reason as the country prepares for the parliamentary polls in December. The international anti-corruption watchdog's Bangladesh officials blamed three factors for the country's poor score - absence of administrative reforms, influence on the judiciary, and insecurity and uncertainty in business and investment, The Daily Star newspaper reported."Point-one increase is not at all statistically significant," Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of TIB board of trustees, told media Tuesday. Pointing to an apparent failure in maintaining the integrity of the legal process, TIB executive director Iftekharuzzaman said: "If the oversight institutions could work properly, for example, if the judiciary were not influenced, Bangladesh's position could have been better in the index."He said that at one point of the anti-corruption drive, no graft accused got bail although they were expected to. "But in a completely opposite scene later, we saw the accused being freed from jail on bail as if it was a procession," he added.Somalia remains at the bottom of the list as the most corrupt country like last year, jointly followed by Myanmar and Iraq. Haiti is in third position while Afghanistan is fourth from the bottom.Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden have jointly ranked as the least corrupt countries with 9.3 points. Singapore followed them with 9.2 points, and Finland and Switzerland with 9 points.The only other Asian country among the top 20 least corrupt countries is Hong Kong, which ranked 12th with 8.1 points.Among the other South Asian countries, Pakistan ranked 14th from the bottom, Nepal 16th, the Maldives 17th, Sri Lanka 21st, India 22nd and Bhutan 36th. --Indo-Asian News Serviceved/mv/jg481 Words24091045
2008-09-24 01:00:00
- INT10International/Diplomacy/DefenceRussia to set new border line in ArcticBy Maxim KransMoscow, Sep 24 RIA Novosti Recent discussions about national geopolitical concerns and spheres of interest have predictably reached the issue of Russia's northern border. President Dmitry Medvedev set the task of formalizing Russia's right to a considerable part of the Arctic shelf at the Sep 17 meeting of the country's Security Council. This will "turn the Arctic into Russia's resource base of the 21st century", he said at the meeting held to discuss protection of Russia's national interests in the Arctic.According to experts, that part of the Arctic Ocean, which Russia has always considered within its national territory, contains about 25 percent of the world's shelf hydrocarbon resources. Huge offshore deposits of natural gas have been discovered in the Barents and Kara seas.Russia reels in one-sixth of its fishing output there, and the region also has the Northern Sea Route, the shortest way from Europe to America and Asia, including for the transportation of oil and gas from Arctic deposits.That region and the adjacent northern territories have enough resources to maintain humankind for decades.It is therefore not surprising that many countries have laid claim to its wealth.Russia has always considered the vast triangle of 1.2 million sq km between the North Pole at its top and Russia's shoreline between the Kola Peninsula and Chukotka at its bottom as its own.But the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was adopted in December 1982 and came into force in November 1996, ruled that the five Arctic Circle countries - the US, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia - will each have a 322-km economic zone in the Arctic Ocean.To regain its loss, Russia needs to prove that its continental shelf, or more precisely the Lomonosov Ridge, is the direct continuation of the Siberian continental crust. Several Russian expeditions have been sent there to prove the point in the last two years.A Russian flag was planted on the seabed during an expedition to the North Pole in August 2007 at the initiative of Artur Chilingarov, a Russian lawmaker who headed the symbolic dive beneath the North Pole last August.The mission did not provide any additional scientific arguments in favour of Russia's claim, but it has increased interest in the Arctic shelf's resources and sparked off numerous international discussions.These expeditions also encouraged the interest of other claimants in the Arctic pie.Canada has long laid claim to the North Pole and the resource-rich Lomonosov Ridge that lies beneath. Denmark says the disputed ridge - a 1,500-km undersea mountain range that runs past the pole between Siberia and North America - is a geological extension of the northern coast of Greenland.The United States, Norway and other countries have also joined the fray. Everyone wants a piece of the Arctic pie, the larger the better.Protecting its right to the ridge is a matter of principle for Russia, for the country which gets the bulk of the Arctic shelf hydrocarbon resources will play the dominant role in the world for the next several decades.However, the political aspect of developing undersea territories is no less important than the economic reasons, as deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov said at a meeting of Russia's Naval Board last April."Legalization of Russia's right to its continental shelf will increase the national territory," he said.The political and defence aspects of the problem were also discussed at the meeting of Russia's Security Council held Sep 12 at Russia's northernmost border station on Franz-Josef Land.The meeting later continued in Moscow, where President Medvedev said: "This region is of strategic importance for the country. We must reliably ensure Russia's national interests in the Arctic for a long term."To do this, the country should focus on the development of its Arctic territories and the economic revival of the Extreme North, which has been regarded as a burden on the budget since the 1980s.The government only sent there what meagre funds had been left after all other regions and sectors received their due. As a result, its infrastructure has become dilapidated, depreciation of equipment has reached a critical point, and standards of living are inadmissibly low - with the exception of a few "oases" prospering on hydrocarbon revenues.Left without the financial assistance of the state, Russia's fleet, including icebreakers, has degenerated so much that foreign shipping companies may soon take over control of the Northern Sea Route. Many countries have already expressed their intention to do so.The northern territories and the Northern Sea route are crucial for Russia's expansion in the Arctic. The country must revive them, and do it soon.During the Security Council meeting, President Medvedev instructed the government to draft the fundamentals of Russian state policy in the Arctic.Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said the policy would also include delineating the country's new northern border.Marking borders on a map is easily done, but getting international recognition for them is quite another matter.Russia may have a chance to do so only after it files a new claim to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.--RIA Novostidkg/jg927 Words24090722
2008-09-24 00:00:00
- NAT60National/HealthNow, a sperm bank in MumbaiMumbai, Sep 22 IANS Thousands of couples facing the infertility problem may now take heart! A Denmark headquartered company Monday set up a sperm bank in Mumbai that is expected to provide viable alternatives to start a family.“Clinical data estimates that almost 12 percent of Indian couples suffer from some form of infertility, and quality sperm banks can provide safe and viable alternative for them to start a family”, said Pushpa Mitra Bhargava, member of the Committee on Assisted Reproduction Clinics of Indian Council of Medical Research ICMR, after inaugurating the bank.Cryos International India will offer its expertise in donor semen, patient deposits and other semen related clinical products at its state-of-the-art facility in Mulund.Ole Schou, Founder of the Cryos International, Denmark, said: “Globally, sperm banking is no longer a solution only for the infertile couples. Couples or individual men choose to freeze their sperms for various reasons that could be related to their lifestyle, medical conditions or simply a matter of choice.” Managing Director of Cryos International India Dilip Patil said there is growing awareness and acceptability of Assisted Reproduction Techniques ART and the demand for independent, quality sperm and egg banks in India is also growing.Officials said the new bank adheres to both national and international standards. India has already a couple of sperm banks including one from the Apollo Hospitals group.Cryos is currently present in 60 countries across the world.--Indo-Asian News Servicepkn/qn/ak/dg259 Words22091845
2008-09-22 09:00:08
- Six people are convicted in Denmark of raising funds for extremist groups by selling T-shirts with their logos on....
2008-09-18 10:43:11
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