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World News
TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
September 22 - 28, 2012
Nick Clegg apologises for ‘breaking pledge’ over tuition fees increase NICK Clegg has apologised for the Lib Dems breaking their pledge to oppose an increase in student tuition fees. In a party political broadcast to be aired next week, the Lib Dem leader says he is sorry the party “did not stick” to its pre-election promise. “When you have made a mistake you should apologise,” he adds. Labour said Mr Clegg had broken a key election pledge and it was not good enough to “just brush that promise aside”. The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson said Mr Clegg had resisted making such a “clear and direct” apology for nearly two years. Mr Clegg believed the decision to break his word by first signing then breaking a pledge to vote against fee rises had become a weight around his and his party’s ankles, Nick Robinson added. However, Mr Clegg does not apologise for backing the decision to raise fees. He continues to argue it was the right move in the circumstances and the package offered by the coalition - in which no fees are paid upfront - was fairer for students than the previous system of university finance. MPs approved plans in 2010 to allow universities in England and Wales to charge annual tuition fees
Nigg Clegg said that his party was sorry it “did not stick” to its pre-election promise.
of up to £9,000, nearly three times the previous £3,200 limit. ‘NOT EASY’ Before the 2010 election, all Lib Dems had said they would oppose any rise in fees. More than 21 Lib Dem MPs voted against the proposals at the time, including former leaders Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, while a further eight abstained or did not vote. Mr Clegg was among 27 Lib Dems to support the proposals. In next week’s broadcast, filmed
in Mr Clegg’s home, the deputy prime minister returns to an issue which has been the source of the biggest division in the party since it came to power in May 2010. “There’s no easy way to say this: we made a pledge, we didn’t stick to it - and for that I am sorry,” he says. “When you’ve made a mistake you should apologise. But more importantly - most important of all - you’ve got to learn from your mistakes. And that’s what we will do. “I will never again make a pledge unless as a party we are absolutely clear about how we can keep it.” Speaking to the BBC in 2010, Mr Clegg said he was “not going to apologise for this for one minute”, adding that “to govern is to choose particularly when there is not very much money”. Harriet Harman, deputy leader of Labour, said: “This was not just the small print of his manifesto, this was Nick Clegg’s key election promise when he asked people to vote for his party. It is not good enough for him to just brush that promise aside. “Instead of crying crocodile tears he should vote with Labour to bring these tuition fees down. If Nick Clegg does not back his words with action he is just weak and spineless.” The development comes ahead of the start of the Lib Dems autumn conference on Saturday. (BBC)
Xi Jinping warns Japan over East China Sea dispute CHINA’S leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, has said that Japan should “rein in its behaviour” and stop undermining Chinese sovereignty, state media have reported. His comments follow days of sometimes violent anti-Japanese protests in China over a chain of disputed islands in the East China Sea. Mr Xi said that Tokyo’s purchase of the islands from private owners last week was a “farce”, Xinhua reported. The move triggered a wave of protests across China. In some cities on Tuesday, Japanese shops and businesses were attacked amid heightened tension on the anniversary of an incident in 1931 which led to Japan’s invasion of north-east China. Thousands of protesters chanted slogans outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing as riot police lined the streets. The islands - known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China - are claimed by both countries and have long been
a point of contention. More recently there have been fears of naval conflict between the two countries. TERRITORIAL DISPUTE Mr Xi, expected to become China’s next leader, made the remarks during a meeting with US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta who is currently in Beijing as part of a regional tour. The talks marked Mr Xi’s first official meeting since he went missing two weeks ago without further explanation. His disappearance fuelled widespread rumours over his health and a political struggle. But Mr Panetta told the BBC that Mr Xi appeared “in good shape”. “I found him not only to be healthy, but very much engaged in the issues that were before us,” Mr Panetta said, adding that the meeting lasted half an hour longer than planned. Chinese officials have called on the US to remain neutral in their ongoing territorial dispute with Tokyo.
Mr Panetta sought to reassure Beijing on Wednesday that his country’s strategic shift towards the Pacific was not an attempt to curb Chinese power. “Our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region... is an attempt to engage China and expand its role in the Pacific,” he said. “It’s about creating a new model in the relationship of our two Pacific powers,” he told cadets at an armoured force engineering academy. The defence secretary said that as the world’s two biggest economies, the two countries must forge stronger ties between their armies to avoid potential crises. “Our goal is to make sure that no dispute or misunderstanding escalates into unwanted tensions or a conflict,” Mr Panetta said. Correspondents say that his remarks are the latest effort by Washington to bolster military relations with the People’s Liberation Army, which has in the past been reluctant to promote contacts with the US top brass. (BBC)
David Viens is on trial for the murder of wife Dawn, who has been missing since 2009.
California chef on trial for slowcooking his wife for four days A CALIFORNIA chef told police he slow-cooked his wife’s body for four days after accidentally killing her, the Los Angeles Times reported. The grisly detail emerged Tuesday during the second week of the murder trial of David Viens, accused in the death of 39-year-old Dawn Viens in October 2009. In two March 2011 interviews with authorities that were played for the jury on Tuesday, David Viens recounted how he caused the death of his wife and disposed of her remains. The interviews were conducted in a hospital because Viens had jumped off an 80-foot cliff when suspected by police in his wife’s disappearance. David Viens, 49, said on the night of Oct. 18, 2009, he taped his wife’s mouth and bound her hands and feet to prevent her from “driving around wasted, whacked out on coke and drinking,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “For some reason I just got violent,” Viens said, according to the paper.
He said he panicked when he woke up the next morning and found his wife dead. Viens told investigators he placed her body into a large drum of boiling water and used weights to keep it submerged, the newspaper reported. “I just slowly cooked it and I ended up cooking her for four days,” he said, according to the paper. “You cooked on Dawn’s body for four days?” responded Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Garcia. “Before it was done,” Viens said. He didn’t say where he cooked the body, but Viens owned the Thyme Contemporary Cafe in Lomita, Calif., at the time. The defendant did say he kept his wife’s skull. “That’s the only thing I didn’t want to get rid of in case I wanted to leave it somewhere,” he admitted, according to the Los Angeles Times. He told police that the skull was in his mother’s attic in Torrance, but they did not find it there.
Gay marriage bill is rejected by Australian parliament
AUSTRALIAN members of parliament have overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have legalised gay marriages after days of heated debate. The House of Representatives voted 98 to 42 against the bill, with one MP resigning a key post after making controversial comments against it. Australia does not permit gay marriage, though some states allow civil unions. Gay rights activists called the decision a “slap on the face,” ABC News reported. The majority Labor MPs were allowed to vote on the bill based on their beliefs rather than on party lines, while the opposition voted against it. Both Prime Minister Julia
Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbot voted against the bill. Labor MP Anthony Albanese, who voted for the bill, remained optimistic despite its defeat. “I think at some future time our parliament will catch up with community opinion, just as it has on other issues,” he said. “When marriage equality occurs, people will wonder what the fuss was about.” The debate on the bill saw the resignation of Liberal MP Cory Bernardi from his parliamentary secretary post after linking gay marriage to bestiality. He had also questioned whether the passage of the bill would lead to broader definitions of who could legally get married. (BBC)