World News Thread & Breaking News!!

The world's richest city
With the rising cost of living, locals are starting to struggle to keep up, so is the party set to end?


China may soon be the birthplace to half the world’s billionaires but Singapore - the world’s richest city - is where they go to play.
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Some of the rich and famous who have moved to the tiny Southeast Asian island republic include Indian telecom tycoon Bhupendra Kumar Modi, Chinese movie superstars Gong Li and Jet Li, New Zealand billionaire Richard Chandler, and famed US investor Jim Rogers.

One in six households in Singapore have a net worth of $1m, reflecting the flow of wealth eastwards as the centre of global economic activity shifts to Asia.

With low taxes, a reliable, corruption-free government and protective private banking laws, the world’s ultra-rich are flocking to make Singapore home, giving it the highest percentage of millionaire households in the world.

While the rich have fun, locals are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Statistics show the wages of Singapore’s bottom 20 percent have fallen by about 10 percent in real terms in the last ten years, while incomes for the top 20 percent have grown by about 30 percent.

Cries for a larger social security net for the poor are getting louder but this will mean increasing taxes. So, can Singapore, the economic miracle, sustain the ultra-rich’s attention for long? Or will the party end soon?

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ABC78 said:

The problems are all the same around the world even in Singapore



Link below to watch the video

[video]http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2013/04/2013430122726453458.html[/video]

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no_name said:

^^^ It's the Philippines, not Thailand.

I don't not know why they would open fire on an unarmed boat unless they had approval from superior. Manila hasn't offered explanations yet so that does not help.

Wondering if the fishing boat is flying any flags.

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bd popeye said:

This is big news in the US..

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Woman pulled alive from rubble of Bangladesh factory

9:23am EDT
By Rafiqur Rahman
SAVAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Rescuers pulled a woman on Friday from the rubble of a Bangladesh garment factory 17 days after it collapsed, astonishing workmen who had been searching for bodies of victims of a disaster that has killed more than 1,000 people.
Hundreds of onlookers burst into cheers as army engineers pulled the woman from the basement of the building after a workman helping to clear the wreckage reported hearing her faint cries of "Save me, save me" from beneath the ruins.
Pale, drawn and seemingly unable to walk, the woman, identified by Bangladeshi media only as Reshma, was hoisted out of the rubble on a stretcher, then loaded into an ambulance in scenes broadcast live on television.
Mohammad Rubel Rana, a workman who had been cutting iron rods, said he had alerted rescue crews after hearing a feeble voice.
"I heard a faint voice saying 'Save me, Save me'," Rana told Reuters television. "She was given water, biscuits and oxygen."
"She has been rescued and taken to a military hospital," said Bangladesh's army spokesman Shahinul Islam.
Rescuers speculated that she may have survived by drinking water that had pooled in the site when firemen doused a fire that had broken out earlier in the rescue effort.
It was not clear if she was one of the thousands of garment workers who had been working in the eight-storey building, which collapsed on April 24, a day after its owner assured factory owners and news crews it would stand for "a century".
The woman was found hours after the death toll from the world's worst industrial accident since the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India climbed above 1,000 as rescuers struggled to end the salvage operation.
SPOTLIGHT ON RETAILERS
Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex, and on Friday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 1,045.
A series of deadly incidents at factories have focused global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry. Eight people were killed in a fire at a factory this week, which an industry association said on Friday may have been started deliberately.
About 2,500 people were rescued from Rana Plaza, in the industrial suburb of Savar, 20 miles northwest of Dhaka, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.
The disaster, believed to have been triggered when generators were started up during a blackout, has put the spotlight on Western retailers who use the impoverished South Asian nation as a source of cheap goods.
Nine people have been arrested in connection with the disaster, including the building's owner and bosses of the factories it housed.
Hundreds of relatives remained at the site, some holding up photographs of family members. Rescue workers have found it increasingly difficult to identify decomposing bodies and are using ID cards found on them or their mobile phones to do so.
"A total of 156 unidentified victims have been buried," said Dhaka District Administrator Mohammad Yousuf Harun, adding that DNA samples taken from the bodies had been preserved so tests could be done if relatives come forward later.
The government has accused the owners and builders of the complex of using shoddy construction materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and failing to obtain the necessary clearances.
Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of its exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.
(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Matthew Green and Alex Richardson)

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Tests show Ariel Castro father of Cleveland girl born in captivity

11:04am EDT
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The Ohio attorney general said on Friday that DNA tests showed Cleveland kidnapping and rape suspect Ariel Castro is the father of the six-year-old born while he allegedly held the girl's mother and two other women captive for nearly a decade.
Attorney General Mike DeWine said in a statement that "forensic scientists worked throughout the night to confirm that Castro is the father of the six-year-old girl born in captivity to one of the kidnapping victims."
He added that the tests also found Castro's DNA did not match any other Ohio cases, although the FBI is still checking the sample against national cases.
(Reporting by Kim Palmer, Editing by Paul Thomasch and Scott Malone)

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Heading to G7, U.S. tells Japan to stick to currency rules

11:06am EDT
By David Milliken and Leika Kihara
AYLESBURY, England (Reuters) - The United States told Japan on Friday to stick to the rules when it came to the value of its currency, setting the stage for a potentially frank meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers outside London.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Japan had "growth issues" that needed to be dealt with but that its attempts to stimulate its economy needed to stay within the bounds of international agreements to avoid competitive devaluations.
"I'm just going to refer back to the ground rules and the fact that we've made clear that we'll keep an eye on that," Lew told the CNBC news channel.
The yen hit a four-year low against the dollar earlier on Friday, beyond the psychologically important 100 yen mark. It also trades at a three-year low against the euro.
The moves were driven in part by Japanese investors shifting into foreign bonds, a move that has been expected since the Bank of Japan unveiled a massive stimulus plan.
Tokyo insisted its tumbling yen would not be a hot topic at the meeting of finance chiefs, despite revived rhetoric about a currency war.
"The Bank of Japan isn't targeting currency rates, which are determined by the markets," the bank's governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, said.
Policymakers are concerned that Japan is engineering an export-led recovery that could hinder other regions' ability to grow.
But having urged Tokyo for years to do something to revive its economy, other world powers are not in a strong position to complain now that it is. Then there is the fact that central banks such as the Federal Reserve and Bank of England have printed money in the way the Bank of Japan is.
"It is important that in line with the previous decisions at the G20 and IMF that there is no talk about currency wars," EU economics chief Olli Rehn told reporters as he arrived at the summit. "There is discussion about how better to coordinate our economic policies."
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said foreign exchange rates would be on the agenda and that Japan had promised to take a cautious approach to the currency issue.
Participants welcomed the return to an informal G7 with no official communiqué. That could mean more robust debate than is generally aired at meetings of the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy, France and Canada, or at the broader G20 group.
"There are no taboo subjects as we are in an informal setting," International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde Lagarde said.
GROWTH DEBATE
UK finance minister George Osborne, host of the two-day meeting in a stately home set in rolling countryside 40 miles outside London, is keen for his peers to focus on what more central banks can do to help growth at a time when most governments are trying to cut spending and bloated debts.
"(This is) an opportunity to consider what more monetary activism can do to support the recovery, while ensuring medium-term inflation expectations remain anchored," he said.
Osborne has tasked the next UK central bank governor, Mark Carney, with finding new ways to boost growth when he succeeds Mervyn King in July.
Debate is also heating up about the need to ease up on austerity, something that Germany, Britain and Canada view as a mistake but Washington, Paris and Rome are in favor of.
"For a global recovery ... it cannot be led by the United States alone ... There are countries in Europe that have more fiscal space to create a bit more economic demand," Lew said.
Rehn said there was room for a "smoother path of fiscal adjustment" in Europe as long as structural reforms intensified.
Britain's finance ministry said the talks over Friday and Saturday at the 17th-century country house were also likely to focus on bank regulation, tax avoidance and free trade.
The emergency rescue of Cyprus in March acted as a reminder of the need to finish an overhaul of the banking sector, five years after the world financial crisis began.
As at last month's IMF meeting, Germany may come under pressure to give more support to a banking union in the euro zone. The plan could help strengthen the single currency area, but Berlin worries it may pay too much for future bank bailouts.
"Banking union is an important project that should be based on two pillars: one, common supervision, and two a resolution mechanism. We shall discuss both," German central bank chief Jens Weidmann said.
While the first step - to create a single bank supervisor under the ECB - looks set to be in place by mid-2014, a second pillar, a 'resolution' fund to close failed banks, is in doubt. And there is little prospect that a single deposit guarantee scheme, will ever see the light of day.
Osborne will nonetheless push his fellow G7 ministers to set up mechanisms to shut down failing banks, which would otherwise be considered "too big to fail".
Some of the officials said they did not know why Britain had called the meeting so soon after the IMF discussions in Washington. But Osborne said there was value in talks that were more informal than larger meetings of the world's major economies which form the Group of 20.
No formal decisions are expected at the meeting, which will help prepare the way for a G20 leaders' summit in Russia in September.
(Additional reporting by William Schomberg and Christina Fincher. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt/Mike Peacock)

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Libyan police stations bombed, British embassy cuts staff

10:50am EDT
By Jessica Donati and Carolyn Cohn
TRIPOLI/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Bombs exploded outside two police stations in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi on Thursday and Britain temporarily cut staff at its embassy in Tripoli because of security fears.
The blasts, which caused damage but no casualties, were the latest signs of insecurity in Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The government has also struggled to keep order in the capital Tripoli, where the French embassy was bombed less than three weeks ago. Armed groups seized control of two government ministries a few days later to press demands on parliament and have refused to leave until the prime minister steps down.
"Given the security implications of the ongoing political uncertainty, the British Embassy is temporarily withdrawing a small number of staff," an embassy statement said, adding that the mission would continue to operate as usual.
A British embassy source said the decision was prompted by the ministry sieges, along with concerns that rival armed groups could clash at demonstrations organized in the capital.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued a new travel warning for Libya and said it had ordered a number of U.S. government personnel to leave Tripoli for security reason.
The State Department said it "strongly advises against all but essential travel to Tripoli and all travel to Benghazi, Bani Walid, and southern Libya, including border areas and the regions of Sabha and Kufra".
More than two years after Gaddafi was slain, armed groups that helped topple him are still more powerful than the state in large swathes of the oil-producing North African desert country.
France, the United States and Britain, in an unusual joint statement on Wednesday, said Libyan institutions and elected representatives must be able to work free of armed intimidation.
"We call on all Libyans to refrain from armed protest and violence during this difficult time in the democratic transition," the three Western nations said.
The government turned to Europe's development bank on Friday for help in building institutions to fill the administrative vacuum left by more than four decades of Gaddafi's one-man rule.
For the time being, Libya is seeking only technical cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development - a relatively low-level relationship with the bank.
But countries such as Egypt have gone on from this status to become full-scale recipients of investment from the bank - originally set up to help Europe's ex-communist states.
Libya is not short of cash, but lacks the institutions and processes for spending the vast oil wealth it has accumulated.
"The central bank governor said they have $130 billion in reserves but no state institutions," said a source close to Libya's discussions with the EBRD bank.
(Additional reporting by Ghaith Shennib; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

The best of Humanity.

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