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Myanmar to free prisoners
- The fate of the estimated 2,000 political prisoners, who include pro-democracy campaigners, journalists, monks and lawyers, has long been a top demand of Western nations that have imposed sanctions on Myanmar.
- More than 6,300 elderly, sick, disabled or well-behaved prisoners will be pardoned from Wednesday “on humanitarian grounds”
- It said freeing detenus would allow them “to become nationals who can help to build a new nation”.
An exonerated boxer to realise dream after 26 years
- When Hollywood producers cast about for an inspirational story of the human spirit triumphing against impossible odds, they will not only consider Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' extraordinary life but also that of a less-famous 52-year-old boxer from New York, Dewey Bozella.
- On Saturday, he will take on current light-heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (46) in Los Angeles. Whether or not he wins, it will mark the crowning glory of his never-say-die attitude, and lend credence to the belief that a person's true mettle is only revealed in times of adversity.
- when Mr. Bozella was held at New York's Sing Sing prison, he kept his spirits up, earning not only bachelor's and master's degrees from the Theological Seminary there but also continuing to box and gaining the title of Sing Sing's light-heavyweight champion.
- Mr. Bozella contacted the Innocence Project, a legal charity committed to overturning wrongful convictions.
- Mr. Bozella was cleared of all wrongdoing and walked out a free man in October 2009.
Ukraine jails Tymoshenko for seven years
- A Ukrainian court on Tuesday jailed the former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, for seven years over a 2009 gas deal with Russia, threatening its ambition to agree a first step to joining the European Union.
- Tymoshenko was guilty of exceeding her authority to force the state gas company to sign a 10-year contract for gas imports from Russia.
- The judge said Ms. Tymoshenko sustained a loss to state gas firm Naftogaz of 1.5 billion hryvnia ($190 million) by agreeing the 10-year contract at terms overly advantageous to Moscow and ordered her to pay back the money in full herself.
Pakistani firm to add value to low-cost tablet
- A Pakistani software company and its mobile applications subsidiary have offered to add value to the low-cost PC tablet, ‘Aakash', launched by India last week in the spirit of “friendship and cooperation in South Asia” that would make the device more useful and effective for end users.
- FiveRivers Technologies and Pepper.pk — both Lahore-based companies
- Though the Indian response is unclear, the website of FiveRivers Technologies offers a link titled “Aakaash Tablet'' that includes an audio-visual capsule dedicated to this offer of cross-border collaboration.
No problems at all with China: Putin
- China and Russia on Tuesday appeared to move closer towards narrowing long-persisting differences on a landmark gas deal, even as both countries inked a number of trade agreements and hailed a never-before-seen level of closeness on economic and global issues.
- “Those who sell always want to sell at a higher price, while those who buy, want to buy at a lower price,” he said. “We need to reach a compromise which will satisfy both sides.”
- Mr. Sechin said the two countries also settled another dispute over oil supplies, agreeing in-principle on overdue debt payments from Chinese companies and a price formula.
- a $1-billion investment by the China Investment Corporation (CIC) sovereign wealth fund into a joint Russia-China Investment fund.
Counter-terrorism cooperation figures high in India-Turkey talks
- India and Turkey on Tuesday agreed that greater international cooperation was needed to counter the scourge of terrorism that is affecting both countries during bilateral talks that also reviewed regional and international developments including the upcoming Istanbul conference on Afghanistan.
- The Indian vote on Syria in the U.N. Security Council also figured prominently during the meetings as Turkey shares open borders with the country.
- National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon is scheduled to visit Turkey early next year.
- The Turkish side also evinced keen interest in the electronic voting machines being used in India.
Ansari re-lives his great granduncle's visit to Turkey
- Nearly a century after his great granduncle Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari led a medical mission to Turkey, Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Tuesday relived the historical visit leafing through a set of documents gleaned from the State Archives.
- The medical mission under Dr, Ansari also finds mention in Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India on its impact on Indian minorities before the outbreak of World War I.
New trading rules in offing for US banks
- The outlines of the Volcker Rule, one of the flagship provisions of the sweeping financial regulatory overhaul passed last year, will begin to take shape this week, as regulators propose rules to limit the ability of most banks and Wall Street firms, to use their own funds to buy and sell stocks, corporate bonds and derivatives.
- But most trades that Wall Street firms now make with their own money — betting on an individual stock or a basket of shares, for example, or trading complex derivatives and swaps — would be prohibited.
- The draft, which was dated September 30, and published by the American Banker last week, might be significantly different from what is officially released later this month by the four agencies that are working on the rules: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
- The most fundamental of those disagreements is likely to be where the line should be drawn between bona fide market-making activity, where a bank's traders offer to buy and sell a security to meet the trading desires of customers, and short-term trading with the bank acting as a principal in transactions, solely for its own benefit.
- That could be a particular problem in the corporate bond market, analysts say.
- Moody's said on Monday that if the draft that surfaced last week wasn't significantly changed before it became final, it would probably “diminish the flexibility and profitability of banks' valuable market-making operations and place them at a competitive disadvantage to firms not constrained by the rule.”
