Sunday, November 28, 2010

Egyptian parliamentary elections today

Egyptians are voting today (voting started at 10.30AM IST) to elect a new parliament in the country. According to Head of the Higher Election Commission El-Sayyed Abdel-Aziz Omar, four thousand six hundred and 86 (4686) candidates are contesting for the 508 seats in which 64 seats have been allocated to women. Security forces are on high alert after violent clashes erupted throughout the Nile Delta and in the south of the country. Egyptian parliamentary elections of 2010 will be held in Egypt on 28 November 2010 and the second round of the elections will be held on the 5 December 2010. The scheduled three-stage elections for determining its lower house membership. The elections formed the Eighth Assembly since the adoption of the 1971 Constitution.
Political outfits are National Democratic Party having - 311 seats and New Wafd Party - 6 along with Progressive National Unionist Party - 2 but the two outfits Arab Democratic Nasserist Party - 0 Liberal Party (Hizb al-Ahrar) - 0 in last parliament election 2005: The Independents - did won 24 and other Independents (Muslim Brotherhood - al-ikhwān al-muslimūn) - rested 88 seats but many independents switched their political affiliation back to NDP giving it its soaring majority.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Karzai government accused manipulate election

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government came under withering attack on Friday, accused of trying to manipulate parliamentary election results by the political opposition and a senior vote official.

The accusations threaten to ignite nationwide anger over the second Afghan parliamentary election since the 2001 US-led invasion evicted the Taliban and to drag Karzai's administration into further controversy linked to corruption.They come after attorney general Mohammad Ishaq Alko, a key Karzai aide, opened a criminal probe into final results announced this week, arrested nine people and summoned election officials to answer accusations of fraud.

"The government wanted to nullify the election and since that failed it's using the attorney general's office to pressure the election commissions," Afghanistan's emerging opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah said.

"It's another effort by them to have everything the way they want it... it's basically a propaganda war by the government against the election," he said, branding the top prosecutor's office neither independent nor trustworthy.
Abdullah was the chief rival to Karzai in last year's presidential election that was also marred with massive fraud.
Election officials threw out a quarter of votes cast in the 18th September parliamentary poll and disqualified 24 early winners, including Karzai allies, after processing more than 5,000 allegations of corruption.

Afghan political analysts say the September election appears to have dealt Karzai dwindling support in parliament at a key juncture in efforts by 140,000 US-led NATO troops to defeat a nine-year Taliban insurgency.Pashtuns, Karzai's traditional allies, are thought to have around 88 seats. His main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, claims to control more than 90 seats.

Friday, November 26, 2010

UAE and Britain signed nuclear cooperation agreement

UAE and Britain have signed a nuclear cooperation agreement, it was announced Thursday.
UAE Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and British Foreign Secretary William Hague signed the agreement at the Emirates Palace hotel here.

Sheikh Abdullah and Hague also signed two memorandums of understanding on consular matters and on mutual exemption of visa for holders of diplomatic or private passports.
2010 Abu Dhabi Declaration, reaffirming the 1971 Treaty of Friendship was signed at the ceremony to affirm that the UAE and Britain consult in times of need on matters of mutual interest and promote scientific, educational and cultural cooperation and recognize close trade relations.

Turkish PM Warns Israel

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan left Lebanon on Thursday completing a two-day visit.Erdoğan’s trip to Lebanon came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to the Lebanese capital and days before Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is scheduled to travel to Tehran.

Lebanon and Turkey signed an agreement to establish a free trade zone between the two countries and announced the creation of the High Level Strategic Cooperation and Coordination Committee between the two countries.

“Turkey doesn’t have any direct interest in Lebanon other than economic. But Turkey is just starting its good relations with the Arab world. It doesn’t yet have local powers that will support it,” he said. “If Erdoğan is trying to match the roles of Saudi Arabia and Syria, he will not make it.”

Turkish prime minister’s two-day visit to Lebanon, during which he inaugurated a burn treatment center in Sidon, a major southern coastal city. South Lebanon was badly hit during the Hezbollah militia's deadly war with Israel in 2006.
Ankara is in a position to fill, in part, the power vacuum left by Washington’s waning popularity, Salem said. “There is nothing serious about neo-Ottomanism except that Turkey is remembering that it had a massive empire and now is saying, 'Why not take advantage of it?' There's a lot to be gained from this. Turkey is a global player, so it is looking after its backyard,” he said.

“What struck me about Ahmadinejad's visit was that he was sounding more like Erdoğan,” said Paul Salem, director at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
Prime Minister also called on the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to pressure Israel over its nuclear program in the same way that the international community has been dealing with Iran.

Amal Saad Ghorayeb,research at Qatar-based think tank the Doha Institute, said Erdoğan’s presence in Lebanon after Ahmadinejad’s exhibits a key policy shift. “It’s an important detail because it indicates that there are not two contradictory messages behind these visits,” she told the media. “Turkey is moving closer to the so-called ‘resistance axis.’ It is edging toward a definitively anti-Israeli stance.”

Turkish prime minister said Thursday that his country would not remain silent if Israel attacked Lebanon or the Gaza Strip, as ties between the long-time allies remain at an all-time low. "We will not be silent and we will support justice by all means available to us," the Turkish prime minister said.In a speech at a village in northern Lebanon inhabited by Turkmen families, Erdoğan called on Israel to apologize for its regional mistakes. He also inspected Turkish troops serving with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon at the Israeli border who are stationed in the area.His remarks echoed, albeit less stridently, sentiments expressed by Ahmadinejad during speeches he delivered during his Lebanon trip.“What struck me about Ahmadinejad's visit was that he was sounding more like Erdoğan,” said Paul Salem, director at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. He said the visits of both leaders sought to avert sectarian strife in a country teetering on the brink of political disintegration over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

“Erdoğan represents a major Sunni power,” Salem told the media “Some [in Lebanon] have encouraged the Turks to play more of a role in the face of Persian and Shiite Iran, but Turkey definitely doesn't want to get into that game. They respect [Sunni Prime Minister Saad] al-Hariri, but are not falling into a Sunni-Shiite conflict.”

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Dilma Rousseff first woman president of Brazil

Nksagar - Sagar Media Inc -

Brazilian President-elect Dilma Rousseff, election campaign on extending the legacy of President Lula da Silva, won her first election on Sunday as Brazilians voted overwhelmingly for continuity. Rousseff, an economist is a former Marxist guerrilla who was jailed and tortured for three years in the early 1970s for fighting against Brazil’s dictatorship. She served as Silva’s chief of staff before Lula handpicked her as his successor.

Rousseff chose a seven-member transition team that draws heavily from the moderate wing of her left-leaning Workers' Party.The prominent among them is


Antonio Palocci, a well-regarded former finance minister under Lula da Silva who is popular with Wall Street and is likely to take a prominent post in Rousseff's administration, potentially chief of staff.

Others members include Jose Eduardo Dutra, the president of the Workers' Party and a former chief executive of state oil giant Petrobras; Fernando Pimentel, a former mayor of Belo Horizonte; and Marco Aurelio Garcia, Lula da Silva's foreign policy adviser.

Rousseff spent most of Monday meeting with advisers and talking to foreign heads of state by telephone at her home in Brasilia.The headline in Monday's O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper was simply: “Lula's victory.”

At Lula da Silva's suggestion, Rousseff will travel with the president to the G20 summit in South Korea on November 10-12, where the leaders of the world's top economies will discuss currency tensions that are high on the agenda in Brazil.One of Rousseff's first challenges when she takes office on New Year's day will be to address Brazil's hard-charging currency, which is trading near a two-year high and damaging exporters.

Brazil's Bovespa stock index rose more than 1%.

Her life sketch drawn by various agencies - Dilma Rousseff has served at many government posts at the provincial and federal levels, but never ran in an election or took a party post. Given her lack of public visibility, the critical factor in Rousseff’s win was her full support of Lula, who enjoyed an approval rating of more than 80 percent despite the imminent end of his term in office. It is fair to call Rousseff’s victory Lula’s victory.

Lula, who built his career through the labor movement, won the presidential election in October 2002. At the time, investment guru George Soros predicted that Brazil could suffer bankruptcy with Lula in office. Lula, pursued a pragmatic policy in which he encouraged investment by domestic and foreign companies while caring for the socially underprivileged. The Brazilian economy, which had been derided as a “chicken that could not fly,” grew an annual average of 5 percent from 2003 to 2008. The country is expected to post annual growth at the 7-percent level this year, the highest in 24 years. Brazil became the world’s 12th-largest economy in 2005 in overtaking Korea and now ranks eighth. Proactive diplomacy in the international stage under Lula, including successful bids to host the 2012 World Cup soccer finals and the 2016 Summer Olympics, have also elevated the national pride of the Brazilian people. Even a left-leaning politician deserves acclaim if he or she can perform as well as Lula.
Media agencies

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