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Kaieteur News
Sunday June 07, 2015
EU’s Juncker snubs Greek PM Don’t be afraid of Russia, Putin tells West after ‘absurd’ debt deal rebuff Moscow (AFP) - Russia is not a threat to the West, President Vladimir Putin insisted in an interview published on Saturday, saying he was still committed to a Ukraine peace deal after a fresh flare-up in the country’s east. “I would like to say there’s no need to be afraid of Russia,” Putin told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published Saturday, ruling out a major conflict between Russia and NATO member countries. “The world has changed so much that people in their right mind cannot imagine such a large-scale military conflict today.” “We have other things to do, I can assure you,” the Russian president said. “Only a sick person — and even then only in his sleep — can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO.” The Russian president spoke ahead of his visit to Italy next week that will include a meeting with Pope Francis. Putin’s interview was released by the Kremlin just as Group of Seven leaders are gearing up to meet in the Bavarian Alps for a summit this weekend without Russia. In the interview, Putin stressed that Russia merely sought to defend itself from outside threats. He pointed out that NATO members have defence expenditures that are 10 times Russia’s military spending,
adding that the US military budget was the biggest in the world. To ensure a strategic balance, Russia will develop “systems to overpower antimissile defences”, Putin said. “We have made significant progress in this direction,” he added, without providing further details. Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year has jangled nerves in Europe, with Baltic and Nordic countries reporting an uptick in Russian military activity over the past year. Pentagon officials said on Friday that the United States was considering a range of moves to beef up security, including bolstering missile defences or even deploying land-based missiles in Europe. Speaking about the Ukraine crisis, Putin accused Kiev authorities of being unwilling to implement a European-brokered peace deal agreed in February in Minsk and enter into dialogue with pro-Moscow rebels. “The problem is that representatives of the current Kiev authorities do not even want to sit down to talks with them,” Putin said. “And there is nothing we can do about it,” he added, urging the West to prod Kiev into negotiating with the rebels. “We would like these agreements to be implemented,” Putin said, stressing that Kiev should ensure autonomy for rebelheld territories and implement
a law on municipal elections and on amnesty. “The leaders of the selfproclaimed republics have publicly said that under certain conditions — that is the implementation of these Minsk agreements — they are ready to consider the possibility of considering themselves part of Ukraine.” “I believe this position should be considered as a serious, good preliminary condition to start serious negotiations,” he said, urging the European Union to provide “greater financial assistance” to Kiev. Ties between Russia and the West have plunged to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War, with Moscow being accused of inciting a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. -’NO MISTRESS’Putin said Moscow was ready to build an equal partnership with the EU and accused Brussels of pursuing relations based solely “on material interests”. “We never treated Europe like a mistress,” he said, using a metaphor suggested by an Italian journalist. “I speak absolutely seriously now. We always offered a serious relationship.” He accused the EU of rupturing Russia’s economic ties with fellow exSoviet nations, saying if Baltic nations joined the EU power grid, Moscow would have to fork out up to 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to build new transmission lines.
Caribbean tourism records 17th straight quarter of growth NEW YORK, United States - Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) chairman Richard Sealy says the Caribbean has “bolted out of the gates” with a six per cent increase in visitor arrivals in the first quarter of the year, and predictions are that while some countries will do better than others the region will continue to perform well overall and surpass its 2014 performance. The Caribbean recorded a 17th straight quarter of growth and the fifth consecutive year of increased arrivals during the first quarter, with 7.9 million visitors between January and March. At a press conference at Caribbean Week New York yesterday, Sealy, who is Barbados’ Minister of Tourism, said the region continues its rapid growth rate from 2014 when arrivals grew by 5.3 per cent to 26.3 million visitors. “We’ve bolted out of the gates with a six per cent increase in arrivals over the first quarter of 2014, so I think it’s fair to say that we are well into recovery mode,” he said. The United States market continues to be the most productive, with arrivals increasing by 5.6 per cent. The Canadian market grew an equally impressive 5.4 per cent, with Cuba and
Dominican Republic among the destinations recording higher levels of arrivals. In the accommodation sector, performance indicators were positive. There was a modest increase of 1.3 per cent in the number room available in the first quarter, the largest increase for this quarter in the last seven years. Historical first quarters highs were also recorded for room occupancy (77.8 per cent), average daily rate (US$239.84) and revenue per available room (US$188.25). However, cruise passenger arrivals slowed in the first quarter. The Caribbean registered a 3.4 per cent rise, compared to a 4.3 per cent growth in 2014 over 2013. An estimated 8.6 million cruise passengers visited the region in the first quarter. The best performing destinations were Martinique (34.2 per cent), Puerto Rico (26.2 per cent), Antigua & Barbuda (18.6 per cent) and Jamaica (15.9 per cent). Sealy said the outlook for the remainder of the year is positive. Although growth is expected to be moderate and uneven among Caribbean countries, overall tourist arrivals are now anticipated to rise at least six per cent over 2014.
The European Union’s chief executive declined to speak to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday after the leftist leader rejected as “absurd” international creditors’ terms for a cash-for-reform deal to keep his country from default. An EU official said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has tried to bridge the gap between Athens and its lenders, refused to take a telephone call from the Greek premier since there was nothing new to discuss. A Greek government official denied the report and said Tsipras held a conference call on the debt crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. The unresolved debt impasse, which is weighing on financial markets and could hit the global economic recovery, will hang over a Group of Seven leaders’ summit that Merkel will chair in southern Germany from Sunday. A German spokesman said Tsipras was not invited. With time running out for a debt deal and Greece struggling to meet its payment obligations, relations between Athens and its European and IMF lenders have turned increasingly raw. A European Commission spokeswoman said in a text message: “I can confirm that there was a request for a call. President Juncker and PM Tsipras will certainly stay in contact in the coming days, as was said in the statement on Wednesday night.” Tsipras had been due to return to Brussels for more talks on Friday but, faced with a backlash inside his Syriza party, went to the Greek parliament instead and denounced the creditors’ conditions as a “very bad negotiating trick”. “The Greek prime minister requested a phone call for 1100 CET on Saturday, but Juncker declined because there has been no progress in the discussions, and proposals that the Greek side promised on Wednesday night to deliver on Thursday have not arrived,” the EU official told Reuters. “There have been no new developments so there was nothing to discuss,” the official said. European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who has been supportive of Greece’s cause, also voiced exasperation, telling the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper: “The stubbornness of the Greek government is
infuriating.” German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat more sympathetic to Athens than his conservative coalition partners, warned in a newspaper interview that the mood in Germany was now for letting Greece leave the euro zone. Asked if he saw a deal soon, Gabriel said: “That depends solely on the Greek government. Europe has gone to its limits.” Greece postponed a payment to the International Monetary Fund due on Friday until the end of June, highlighting its precarious cash position and spooking markets. The move gave it a few extra days to negotiate a deal it wants linked to future debt relief. An EU diplomat said Tsipras would fly to Brussels on Tuesday before a two-day EULatin America summit, and that would be an opportunity for political talks on a solution, while experts from Greece and the EU/IMF lenders work on detail in parallel technical negotiations. EXASPERATED Brussels officials still believe Tsipras wants a deal but they are exasperated with Greek rhetoric and brinkmanship. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis kept up that barrage on Saturday, saying that the proposal handed to Tsipras on Wednesday was “almost offensive”. “I cannot imagine they really meant this to be the basis for an agreement, it was meant as an aggressive move, to terrorise the Greek government. Without realising that this government cannot be terrorised,” he told Sunday’s Proto Thema newspaper. By focusing anger on two of the lenders’ key demands, the scrapping of an income supplement for the poorest pensioners and the hiking of value-added tax on electricity, Tsipras left open possible alternatives to those measures to clinch an agreement. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told Reuters the creditors’ plan was negotiable, not an ultimatum, and urged Athens to offer an alternative to the pension benefits cut, to which he said Greek objections were “not without legitimacy”. Officials have said mid-June is the final deadline for a deal to secure ministerial approval and parliamentary backing for disbursement before Greece’s 240 billion euro ($267 billion) bailout expires at the end of the month.
More than 2,000 migrants rescued in Mediterranean, operations ongoing More than 2,000 migrants were rescued from five wooden boats in the Mediterranean on Saturday and as many as seven other vessels have been reported at sea, the privately funded Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) and Italy’s coastguard said. “MOAS coordinated the rescue of over 2,000 people together with Italian, Irish and Germany ships,” the group tweeted. The migrants were packed onto wooden fishing boats in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Italy’s coastguard, which coordinates sea rescue efforts in from Rome, could not confirm the number of migrants who had been saved so far, but said about a dozen different migrant boats had been reported and rescue operations were ongoing. “We have several assets at work,” a coastguard spokesman said. During the first five months of the year, there were 46,500 sea arrivals in Italy, a 12
percent increase on the same period of last year, the UN refugee agency said. Italy’s government projects 200,000 will come this year, up from 170,000 in 2014. The summer months are usually the busiest period for departures because the calm seas make the crossing easier. This year growing anarchy in Libya - the last point on one of the main transit routes to Europe - is giving free hand to people smugglers who make an average of 80,000 euros ($89,000) from each boatload, according to an ongoing investigation by an Italian court. MOAS, which is operating a privately funded rescue operation with Doctors without Borders, said its Phoenix ship plucked 372 mostly Eritreans from one boat. The Italian navy said one of its ships was still trying to remove about 560 from a wooden boat, while another navy ship has finished rescuing 316 from yet another.