News in English

8. April 2017, 21:58

Leadership change in Australia

In Australia, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has lost a leadership vote in her ruling Labour Party to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Rudd won 57 votes to Gillard’s 45. The outcome means that Rudd will return to the job which Gillard ousted him from three years ago, while Gillard will resign from parliament and retire from politics. Moves to remove Gillard follows opinion polls showing that Labour could lose up to 35 seats in a general election set for mid-September. Speaking earlier, Kevin Rudd said many party members had urged him to challenge Gillard: “The truth is that many, many MPs have requested me for a long, long time to contest the leadership of the party. For the nation’s sake I believe it’s time for this matter to be resolved.”

Syrian death toll reaches new high

The death toll from the civil war has now surpassed 100,000. That’s according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the death toll through a network of activists in Syria. The group says 36,000 of those killed were civilians. Meanwhile, the outgoing American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has criticized the UN Security Council’s failure to end the war in Syria. Rice blamed Russia and China for blocking UN pressure on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. “A couple members of this council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose here: addressing an ever deepening crisis in Syria and a growing threat to regional peace and security.”

Obama announces new climate change plan

US President Barack Obama has announced a new plan to fight climate change. He said a main focus will be new limits on carbon emissions from power plants fueled by coal: “I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants.”

EU farm talks continue in Brussels

Talks are taking place in Brussels on a new common agricultural policy for the European Union.Earlier, EU farm ministers agreed on a new negotiating position. One of the main objectives of the talks is to shift to payments based on the size of farms and away from the current policy which links subsides to historical production levels. Any new agreement must then be approved by the European parliament.

Snowden standoff continues

The standoff between the United States and Russia over the future of Edward Snowden continues. Snowden remains in a transit zone of Moscow’s main airport. The US wants to prosecute Snowden for revealing the details of a massive secret surveillance program.

The weather

The afternoon will be windy and mostly cloudy with a few scattered rain showers and some longer sunny periods in the south. Today’s highs temperatures are ranging from 12 to 22 degrees.

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