Wednesday 1 November 2017


Czech,ANO party to form minority govt

The winners of the Czech election, the ANO party, will attempt to form a minority government after being shunned by other parties in coalition talks, Reuters reports. The party’s head, Andrej Babis, said on Tuesday after a meeting with the president that he hoped to have a new government by the Christmas holiday towards the end of the year. President Milos Zeman also said he would give Babis a second attempt at forming a government if his first attempt failed in a confidence vote in the lower house.

Leaders meet to fight against terrorism,drug trafficking

Russian, Azerbaijani and Iranian presidents will discuss joint efforts to combat terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking and transnational crime during a summit in Tehran on November 1, the Kremlin press service said Tuesday. The parties are also seeking “to pursue a coordinated policy in the global hydrocarbon markets,” TASS said, citing the statement. The countries have maintained active cooperation within the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, where Russia and Iran are the organization’s members, while Azerbaijan is an observer.

Clean Water, Sanitation Vast Challenges Bangladesh

Cox’s Bazar – Since 25 August, over 607,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar.
Although the number of new arrivals is now slowing, people continue to arrive in the makeshift settlements of Cox’s Bazar every day, bringing the total Rohingya population of the district to over 820,000.
The settlements are dangerously congested and overcrowded and the pressure on sources of clean drinking water and basic sanitation are enormous. Having walked for days without water and food, the refugees arrive to the settlements exhausted and thirsty. Many are ill.
“All of the spontaneous and makeshift sites where the Rohingya have sought shelter are in urgent need of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) support to prevent diseases and to restore basic human dignity,” says IOM WASH expert Antonio Torres. “Existing WASH facilities are not yet sufficient to cope with this number of people,” he notes.
The Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), which coordinates the work of aid agencies in Cox’s Bazar and is hosted by IOM, estimates that of 750,000 people initially targeted for WASH assistance, some 530,000 have now been reached. The UN Humanitarian Response Plan estimates that over the next six months, some 1.166 million people in the Cox’s Bazar settlements and host communities will need WASH assistance.
IOM, the UN Migration Agency, is providing vital WASH services to both the Rohingya and the communities hosting them, while scaling up its work to meet the needs of new arrivals.
In total, some 100,000 people already directly benefit from IOM’s WASH activities in the makeshift settlements. Since early September, it has constructed around 785 latrines for the refugees. It has also constructed 14 wells with hand pumps providing over 14,000 people with clean drinking water. It also puts in place systems to manage and maintain the facilities.
Before the crisis, IOM installed a total of 241 hand pump wells and 1,882 latrines in the settlements. All the wells have to be drilled by hand as the terrain is too inaccessible to bring in machinery. The wells have to be drilled to depths of over 150 meters to reach aquifers free of contamination.
IOM also operates and maintains water treatment and supply systems that provide the refugees with over 240,000 liters of safe drinking water every day. It has also trucked in over 741,000 liters of drinking water to remote settlements.
In addition it has built small dams and reservoirs to ensure that sites with limited access to groundwater have enough clean water to make it through the upcoming dry season.
Although, many thousands of refugees now have access to water and sanitation, far more remains to be done to prevent disease outbreaks. Poor road access and insufficient drainage in the displacement sites also make it difficult to reach new arrivals with the urgent support and services they need, including WASH.
For more information, please contact Olivia Headon at IOM Cox’s Bazar, Tel: +8801733335221, Email: oheadon@iom.int

Taliban increases control in Afghanistan

Taliban has increased the amount of territory it has influence in or controls in Afghanistan in the past six months, a US watchdog agency said on Tuesday. As of August 2017, 13 percent of the 407 districts in Afghanistan were under Taliban control or influence, compared with 11 percent in February, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, said in a report. That means an additional 700,000 people now live in districts where the Taliban at least has some influence, Reuters said. The security situation in the country remains precarious even as the US has committed several thousand more troops.

Suicide bomber attack killed four in Kabul

A suicide bombing in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, has killed at least 4 people and injured 13 others.
The Afghan interior ministry says a young man blew himself up on Tuesday evening in the heavily fortified diplomatic quarter known as the Green Zone.
The explosion took place near the Australian Embassy, but police say the mission suffered no damage.
Back in May, more than 150 people died in the same area when a truck loaded with a huge amount of explosives blew up.
The Amaq news agency, which has links with the Islamic State militant group, claims that the group carried out the attack.
The group has lost its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, but its regional organization in Afghanistan has been active in carrying out terrorist attacks.

Robust global economy helps Japanese corporates

The strong performance owes generally to a solid global economy, three factors played particularly significant roles. One is worldwide demand for chips as the expanding “internet of things” pushes demand for memory at data centers and elsewhere.
Shin-Etsu Chemical’s net profit for the half climbed 27% to an all-time high of 110.7 billion yen. The supply-demand balance for silicon wafers used in chip production “has been extremely tight since January, and it got even tighter after summer,” Senior Managing Director Masahiko Todoroki said.
Sony reported Tuesday a net profit of 211.7 billion yen ($1.86 billion) for the half through September, eight times the figure from the same period last year and its first record high for the half in a decade. “The demand for semiconductors and television sets surpassed our expectations,” said Executive Deputy President Kenichiro Yoshida. Brisk sales of image sensors contributed as well.
Japan Airlines enjoyed a 9% year-on-year net profit increase to 77.9 billion yen, with the favorable global economy spurring travel and transport.
As Infrastructure and capital spending  started to pick up  this led to help Mitsubishi Electric post a record net profit of 131.1 billion yen, a 48% increase.
Inputs :asia.nikkei

Spanish judge summons Catalan ministers

The deposed Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, along with over a dozen members of his government, have been ordered to appear in Spain’s National Court in Madrid for interrogation, AP reports. The politicians from Catalonia’s regional parliament, dismissed by the central government following a declaration of independence, have been summoned to testify later this week, as Spain’s chief prosecutor is asking that charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement be brought against them. Puigdemont is currently in Brussels, seeking “freedom and 

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