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/ 20 February 2009
Switzerland was feeling the heat on banking secrecy on Friday after the US stepped up its high-stakes tax probe against the biggest Swiss bank, UBS.
Western governments lashed out at the extension of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, but the outrage at Burma’s generals was tempered by concern over disrupting aid flows to desperate cyclone victims. Burma has been promised millions of dollars in Western aid after Cyclone Nargis, but this cut no ice with the junta regarding the opposition leader.
Gaza’s population has been reduced to a ”subhuman existence” where basic humanitarian needs are going unmet in the face of rapidly deteriorating conditions, according to a senior United Nations official. An Israeli economic blockade on the Gaza Strip has produced shortages of fuel and basic supplies and has closed most private businesses and pushed up poverty rates.
In its half-century history, the European Union has absorbed wave upon wave of immigrants. Now, according to the EU’s two senior foreign policy officials, Europe needs to brace itself for a new wave of migration with a very different cause — global warming.
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/ 30 October 2007
Israel’s attorney general (AG) told the government on Monday it could not cut electrical power to the Gaza Strip as part of its sanctions against the Hamas controlled territory, although he did approve other measures. Israel began implementing economic sanctions on Sunday in what it said was a response to Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns.