RSS chief favours Kalam for president - Hindustan Times
"It will be good if he (Kalam) is elected as President. The comman man thinks that he is a nice man. While rest of the people have a political background, he does not. We can only give our opinion. But only lawmakers can elect the president,” Bhagwat told reporters in Haridwar.
Bhagwat's remarks came on a day the NDA deferred its decision on whether or not to contest the Presidential election as it was divided over opposing UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee.
While Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has rooted for Kalam, the former President is yet to announce whether he will contest.
Van der Vaart Huntelaar start for Holland - Football
Published: 17 Jun 2012 - 19:17:47
The Netherlands have opted to start with Rafael van der Vaart and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar against Portugal as they chase the two-goal win they need to reach the quarter-finals.
Van der Vaart took a starting place and the captain's armband from Mark van Bommel, who was relegated to the bench, while Huntelaar came into the side in place of winger Ibrahim Afellay.
Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk made one other change to his starting line-up, with Ron Vlaar coming into the team at centre-back in place of John Heitinga.
Portugal's Paulo Bento has kept faith with the team that beat Denmark 3-2 on Wednesday, with Helder Postiga flanked by Nani and skipper Cristiano Ronaldo in the attacking trident of a 4-3-3 system.
Related Netherlands News
Radiohead drum tech killed in Toronto stage collapse - CBC
A British drum technician has been identified as the man killed in the stage collapse at Toronto’s Downsview Park, which occurred just hours before the start of a sold-out Radiohead concert.
Investigators from the Ministry of Labour and Toronto police are on the scene at Downsview Park on Sunday, trying to piece together what caused the deadly stage collapse before a scheduled Radiohead concert on Saturday night. (Nil Koksal/CBC)On Sunday, a British High Commission spokesperson said Scott Johnson, a British citizen, died.
Johnson was a crew member for Radiohead, the hugely popular British band that was due to play a Saturday night show for 40,000 fans.
The show was called off after the collapse, just an hour before the gates were set to officially open.
Toronto police and Ministry of Labour investigators remained at the venue on Sunday, trying to piece together what caused the collapse.
Ministry of Labour spokesperson Matt Blajer told The Canadian Press that investigators are trying to determine whether safety regulations and standards were followed and if staff were properly trained.
Blajer said the investigation is “fairly complex” and could take time to determine exactly what happened.
Collapse kills 1, sends 1 to hospital
Calls came in to emergency crews around 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, and at least one ambulance was already on site. Police said a man in his 30s was declared dead at the scene, and a 45-year-old man was transported to Sunnybrook Hospital with a serious but non-life threatening head injury. Two others had minor injuries and were released without treatment.
The Radiohead concert was cancelled, with the band advising its fans not to make their way to the venue.
Toronto police and Ministry of Labour investigators remain at the scene on Sunday. (Natalie Kalata/CBC)As of Sunday morning, the members of Radiohead had boarded a plane and were travelling back to the United Kingdom. They are expected to release a statement later in the day.
Caribou, the Polaris Prize-winning Canadian band that was set to open for Radiohead, issued the following statement on the stage collapse:
"We are profoundly saddened by what happened at Downsview Park today. All our sympathy is with the band and crew and the families of those affected."
The weather in Toronto at the time of the collapse was calm, with temperatures in the high 20s and the forecast calling for light winds.
Several stage accidents
The stage collapse is one of several high-profile accidents at concert sites throughout North America in recent years — though the others happened during inclement weather and with fans nearby.
In August 2009, the collapse of a stage at Alberta's Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, Alta., killed a 35-year-old woman when a storm blew in.
In July 2011, a stage at Ottawa Bluesfest fell in a storm just moments after the band Cheap Trick had left the stage. No one was killed, but several people were treated for injuries.
On Aug. 13, 2011, a wind gust toppled the main stage at the Indiana State Fair, killing five people and injuring 45 other as they were waiting for the band Sugarland to perform. A study determined the stage was poorly designed.
With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian PressModi needs to review style of working: RSS mouthpiece - in.news.yahoo.com
New Delhi, June 2 (IANS) In an apparent disapproval by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's style of working, an article in the organisation's mouthpiece has indicated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has several prime ministerial candidates.
It also disapproved of Modi's reported insistence on resignation of Sanjay Joshi from the BJP's national executive last week.
The article, which figures in the latest issue of Panchjanaya, said it was being felt that Modi needed to do a rethink about organisational capabilities.
"It seems Narendra Modi needs to review his style of working and organisational ability," it said.
The article assumes significance because its author Devendra Swaroop is a former editor of Panchjanaya and has access to views of the RSS insiders.
"The role of Narendra Modi in the Sanjay Joshi episode at BJP's national executive meeting in Mumbai is worth considering...why despite having faith in the Sangh, Modi could not control his unhappiness towards a fellow RSS functionary is a mystery. He made Joshi's presence a prestige issue and allowed the media to attack the BJP and the Sangh," the article said.
It also attacked Modi over media reports about Joshi changing his travel plans and boarding a plane instead of going by train after the Mumbai meeting as the train would have touched places in Gujarat.
"It allowed opponents of the BJP to speak against Modi," it said.
Modi apparently insisted that he would attend the conclave only if his bete noire Joshi resigned from the party's national executive and the party bowed to his demand.
In a dig at Modi's prime ministerial ambitions, it said that the BJP had several chief ministers and central leaders who were capable of being its prime ministerial candidates. But it said that the decision should be taken by the the parliamentary party after the party won the Lok Sabha election.
The article in the RSS mouthpiece slamming Modi's action at the BJP executive close to veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani launching an attack on party president Nitin Gadkari, saying "the mood within the party is not upbeat".
Advani said in his blog that people were angry with the Congress-led government but they were upset with the BJP too.
UPDATE 2-Wall St Wk Ahead:Likely win for Greek pro-bailout parties may bring respite - Reuters UK
(Updates with early Greek election results)
By Caroline Valetkevitch and Edward Krudy
NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - Early results from Greece's elections on Sunday showed pro-bailout parties are on course to win a slim majority, which may give markets some respite, bu t any coalition's majority looks set to be nar row and may lack the stability needed to push through painful reforms.
Whatever the outcome, Europe's problems are far from over as the debt crisis threatens to further engulf the larger economies of Spain and Italy.
Any sign of stresses in markets on Monday morning and investors will be looking for action from the world's central banks who, according to officials, stand ready to intervene if trading becomes turbulent.
At stake in Greece's election, as investors see it, may be the country's future in the euro zone and possibly the future of the currency bloc itself.
The Greek conservative New Democracy party and Socialist PASOK, who broadly back an EU/IMF bailout package keeping Greece from bankruptcy, looked set to jointly secure a slim majority in parliament. SYRIZA, the leading leftist party that pledged to tear up the terms of the bailout package, conceded defeat.
"Most probably they will try to form coalitions and the real question is, with the horse trading how stable is it?" said Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at Channel Capital Research.com in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. "But right now it's more like kicking the can down the road. Either way you're not talking about a stable situation."
An official vote projection showed New Democracy taking 29.5 percent of the vote, with SYRIZA in second place with 27.1 percent and PASOK third with 12.3 percent.
Because of a 50-seat bonus given to the party that comes in first, the result translates into 128 seats for New Democracy and 33 seats for PASOK in the 300-seat parliament.
Roberts said whether or not central banks intervene will depend on markets next week. "If the markets start heading south I think they will be forced to," he said.
In one of the few markets trading shortly after the official election projections in Greece, the euro hit a three-week high against the U.S. dollar in early Australasian trade, rising to around $1.2730 according to Reuters data from around $1.2655 late in New York on Friday.
But markets have had a tendency to react positively to political developments late Sunday and early Monday only to quickly reverse. That was the case last weekend after the EU announced a 100 billion euro bailout for Spanish banks.
Weeks of worry over the potential outcome of the Greek election have prompted a number of central banks to prepare for market problems.
Central banks from major economies are ready to take steps to calm markets should the outcome of the Greek elections create a market storm, officials from the Group of 20 told Reuters.
Among them, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the ECB was ready to step in and fund any viable euro zone bank that gets in trouble. The Bank of England on Thursday announced a $155 billion (100 billion pound) offer of loans to banks.
Group of 20 leaders kick off a two-day summit in Mexico on Monday and the rest of the week is not likely to be any quieter.
The Federal Reserve is due to release a policy statement on Wednesday at the end of its two-day meeting, and the steady flow of sovereign debt warnings and downgrades is likely to continue.
In another sign of investor nervousness, the CBOE Volatility index, Wall Street's fear gauge, was up for much of Friday even as stocks rose, although the VIX closed lower. Stocks and the VIX typically have an inverse relationship.
Many investors have been trying to prepare for the worst.
"People have been hedging their positions aggressively over the past two weeks heading into this weekend," said Alec Levine, a derivatives strategist at Newedge Group SA in New York.
"No matter what happens (this) week, we will return to a massive game of chicken between the newly elected Greek government, whoever that may be, and the EU, specifically Germany."
THE FED AHEAD
Despite the fears, stocks ended the week on a positive note, marking a second straight week of gains. The benchmark Standard & Poor's index is now up 6.8 percent for 2012, though still well off its highest levels of the year.
Part of what has spurred optimism for stock investors in recent weeks has been the hope that the Fed and other central banks would act to provide more economic stimulus. There has been continuing speculation over whether the Fed will engage in a third round of quantitative easing.
"We do think that expectations of QE3 will drive the market one way or the other," said Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer for equities at Charles Schwab Corp, in San Francisco.
But the fact that the Fed has made no recent changes to policy could mean the economic data policymakers are seeing is "not as bad as everyone thinks," Aguilar said.
Also ahead of the vote, Russell Indexes said certain events in Greece could mean changes in its indexes through implementation of its "financial crisis" rule. Its indexes include the Russell Global Index.
ON RATINGS WATCH
Adding to investor nervousness has been a slew of recent ratings cuts.
Among the most recent, Fitch Ratings on Friday downgraded Egypt's sovereign credit rating deeper into junk status. On Thursday, Egan-Jones cut France's sovereign credit rating.
Many investors see that trend continuing as agencies try to gauge the impact of the euro zone and other problems on the global economy.
"We're probably going to see more of it," Peterson said. (Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Chizu Nomiyama)
ECOWAS has Mali force troop pledge, still lacks backing - Reuters
ABIDJAN |
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - West African military chiefs have secured troop commitments from three nations for their planned Mali intervention force, despite the mission still lacking an invitation from authorities in Bamako and backing from the United Nations.
Nigeria, Niger and Senegal will provide the core of a 3,270-strong force whose mission would initially be bolstering Mali's fragmented army and stabilizing political institutions, and then tackling the rebel-held north if talks fail, officials said after military chiefs met in Ivory Coast.
Mali plunged into crisis after a March coup ousted the president. Separatist and Islamist rebels took advantage of the instability to seize the northern two-thirds of the country, creating a void that regional countries say an outside force may have to fill.
African leaders have warned of an "African Afghanistan" due to the presence of al Qaeda cells and foreign fighters but U.N. Security Council diplomats say the council is not yet ready to agree the African Union's request to back military intervention.
Weeks after West African regional bloc ECOWAS said the standby force was ready, General Soumaila Bakayoko, head of Ivory Coast's army, said some officers would travel to Mali to work out more detailed planning in the coming days.
"The hope is that we will be welcomed as brothers in arms," he said late on Saturday, underscoring potential problems with Mali's military, which wants outside help to fight rebels but has reacted angrily to ECOWAS criticism and sanctions imposed after its power grab.
Diplomats say the U.N.'s reticence to swiftly back the force is due to the lack of a clear plan to tackle the crises in both the capital and the north.
Mali's interim president has not returned since seeking medical treatment in Paris after he was beaten up by a mob that broke into his office. After security forces failed to prevent the attack, some diplomats say President Dioncounda Traore is reluctant to return until a regional force is in place.
The complex web of heavily armed groups in the north includes al Qaeda's North African wing, AQIM, and some fighters from Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, complicating the picture for possible political talks with rebels.
"The aim of this force will be to secure the official institutions of the country and allow talks in the north to take place in good conditions," Bakayoko said.
"Force will be the last resort," he added.
However, the president of Niger, which borders Mali, reiterated his position that force was already necessary.
"We can and we must save Mali. What is happening is a serious threat to our country," Mahamadou Issoufou said in an interview with France's Le Journal du Dimanche.
(Additional reporting and writing by David Lewis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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