Hong Kong Governo pede a manifestantes para dispersarem pacificamente

11:57 - 02 de Outubro de 2014

Hong Kong Governo pede a manifestantes para dispersarem pacificamente

O governo da Região Administrativa Especial de Hong Kong pediu hoje aos manifestantes para "dispersarem pacificamente o mais rápido possível", enquanto a polícia foi vista a transportar caixas com balas de borracha.

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O anúncio do governo de Hong Kong seguiu-se aos momentos de confronto entre manifestantes pró-democracia e a polícia frente aos escritórios do executivo de Hong Kong.

De acordo com a agência France Presse, o governo disse também que os protestos estão a ter um "sério impacto" na vida da cidade.
A agitação em Hong Kong subiu para um nível sem precedentes a 22 de setembro, num boicote de uma semana às aulas por milhares de estudantes de mais de 25 universidades e institutos, ao qual se juntaram, dias depois, cerca de mil estudantes do ensino secundário local.
O protesto surgiu uma semana depois de mais de 1.500 ativistas terem marchado pelas ruas de Hong Kong vestidos de preto, com enormes faixas e cartazes, por um sufrágio universal genuíno, no primeiro grande protesto desde que a Assembleia Nacional Popular decidiu, a 31 de agosto, que os aspirantes ao cargo vão precisar do apoio de mais de 50% de um comité de nomeação para concorrer à eleição e que apenas dois ou três serão selecionados.
Pequim prometeu deixar os residentes de Hong Kong escolherem o seu próximo líder em 2017 por voto direto - metodologia que colocaria fim ao atual sistema de eleição do chefe do executivo, assente no tal comité eleitoral de 1.200 pessoas - mas com a condição de que os candidatos sejam aprovados por um comité de nomeação, algo que os pró-democratas contestam, alegando que assim só os candidatos pró-Pequim terão luz verde.
Ou seja, a população de Hong Kong exercerá o seu direito de voto mas só depois daquilo a que os democratas chamam 'triagem'.
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Comissão Barroso apela a países para aprovarem Orçamento da UE

12:37 - 02 de Outubro de 2014

O presidente da Comissão Europeia, Durão Barroso, enviou hoje uma carta à presidência italiana da UE a apelar aos países para que aprovem, sem cortes, a proposta do Orçamento para 2015 e um retificativo para 2014 para evitar o risco de incumprimento de pagamentos.

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Segundo Durão Barroso, as propostas da Comissão Europeia para o Orçamento de 2015 e que altera ainda o orçamento de 2014 "refletem uma abordagem responsável e realista" dos meios financeiros necessários de que precisam Comissão Europeia, Parlamento Europeu e Conselho da União Europeia para cumprir as suas obrigações.

"A menos que haja uma decisão política de alto nível para voltar ao que foi acordado, as negociações sobre o orçamento deste ano vão resultar em níveis de financiamento que estão abaixo do que foi acordado em dezembro de 2013. Como consequência significaria que a UE não seria capaz de honrar os seus compromissos passados dentro dos prazos acordados", disse Durão Barroso, na carta hoje conhecida, afirmando que a Comissão também não poderia fazer face a crises em regiões vizinhas da União Europeia.
A Comissão propôs, segundo Durão Barroso, um aumento de 4,7 mil milhões de euros no orçamento retificativo de 2014 para fazer face a falhas de pagamento e responder a circunstâncias imprevistas. Algumas, explicou o presidente da Comissão Europeia, têm a ver com acontecimentos negativos como a instabilidade em regiões vizinhas da Europa, mas também há outras positivas, como o maior ritmo de execução da política de coesão.
"A Comissão não está a ir buscar "dinheiro para Bruxelas" - todo o dinheiro será gasto nos Estados-membros ou, em menor grau, em países parceiros", sublinhou.
Não é a primeira vez que o orçamento comunitário se revela insuficiente antes de acabar o seu exercício. Já em 2012 e 2013 tiveram de ser aprovados retificativos antes do fim do ano.
Para cada linha do orçamento comunitário, há dois tipos de dotações, as autorizações e pagamentos: as primeiras referem-se a quanto a UE pode comprometer-se a gastar (por exemplo, assinar um contrato ou iniciar um procedimento de concurso) num determinado ano, enquanto os níveis de pagamento regulamentam os pagamentos reais feitos naquele ano.
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Abubakar Shekau Líder do grupo Boko Haram nega anúncio da sua morte

11:50 - 02 de Outubro de 2014

Abubakar Shekau Líder do grupo Boko Haram nega anúncio da sua morte

O líder do movimento radical islâmico Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, garantiu estar vivo num vídeo obtido hoje pela agência France Presse, uma semana depois do exército nigeriano ter anunciado a sua morte.

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"Eis-me, vivo. Só morrerei quando Alá me tirar a respiração", declara Shekau no vídeo de 36 minutos, no qual afirma também ter estabelecido um califado nas cidades sob o controlo do movimento, onde são aplicadas as punições previstas na 'sharia' (lei islâmica).

O exército nigeriano afirmou na semana passada que Shekau estava morto e que o homem que se fazia passar por ele nos vídeos divulgados pelo grupo islamita também tinha sido morto em confrontos com soldados no nordeste da Nigéria.
A credibilidade da alegação dos militares foi questionada por analistas de segurança dos Estados Unidos.
O novo vídeo mostra Shekau em uniforme de combate e a disparar uma arma antiaérea, ladeado por quatro homens com a cara tapada. O líder do Boko Haram fala 16 minutos em árabe e em hausa, a língua largamente falada no norte da Nigéria.
Não há indicação sobre onde ou quando o vídeo foi gravado.
"Nada me matará até que os meus dias cheguem ao fim... Continuo vivo. Algumas pessoas perguntam-vos se Shekau tem duas almas. Não, só tenho uma alma, por Alá", disse, parecendo ler um texto.
Classificando de propaganda o anúncio da sua morte feito a semana passada pelos militares, o homem barbudo declara: "Sou o estudante islâmico cujo seminário vocês queimaram... Não estou morto".
Shekau referir-se-á à destruição da mesquita do Boko Haram na capital do estado de Borno, Maiduguri, em 2009.
Houve dois anteriores anúncios por parte das forças de segurança da Nigéria de que Shekau estava morto, o primeiro em 2009, depois de distúrbios em Maiduguri, e o segundo em 2013.
Após cada um dos anúncios, o Boko Haram divulgou mensagens vídeos negando as alegações.
copiado http://www.noticiasaominuto.com/

Bósnia Defesa diz que Radovan não sabia do massacre de Srebrenica

11:35 - 02 de Outubro de 2014

Bósnia Defesa diz que Radovan não sabia do massacre de Srebrenica

A defesa do ex-líder dos sérvios da Bósnia afirmou hoje que Radovan Karadzic não teve conhecimento do massacre de Srebrenica, em julho de 1995, no seu julgamento no Tribunal Penal Internacional para a ex-Jugoslávia.

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"Não há qualquer evidência de que o senhor Karadzic planeou ou ordenou a execução de prisioneiros, ou mesmo que tivesse conhecimento", assegurou o advogado Peter Robinson, conselheiro jurídico de Karadzic, nas alegações finais do julgamento no qual Kardzic responde por genocídio.

"Na verdade, estes (acontecimentos) foram escondidos", acrescentou Robinson, concluindo que o ex-líder sérvio-bósnio "não é culpado de genocídio".
Radovan Karadzic, de 69 anos, é acusado do massacre de quase 8.000 homens e jovens muçulmanos pelas forças sérvias da Bósnia em Srebrenica, em julho de 1995, o pior crime desta natureza na Europa após a II Guerra Mundial.
Segundo a acusação, o massacre fazia parte do plano de limpeza étnica realizada em grande parte da Bósnia, planeado por Radovan Karadzic com o general Ratko Mladic e o ex-presidente jugoslavo, Slobodan Milosevic, na sequência do desmantelamento da Jugoslávia em 1991.
O objetivo era matar muçulmanos, croatas e outros não-sérvios para criar nesta zona um Estado sérvio etnicamente puro, segundo a procuradoria.
Karadzic deverá responder por 11 acusações de genocídio, crimes contra a humanidade e crimes de guerra, alegadamente cometidos durante a guerra da Bósnia, que fez cerca de 100.000 mortos e 2,2 milhões de deslocados entre 1992 e 1995.
Uma decisão final do tribunal não é esperada antes de outubro de 2015. A acusação pediu a prisão perpétua para Karadzic, que se declarou inocente e está a conduzir a própria defesa com a ajuda do seu conselheiro jurídico.
Na quarta-feira, no primeiro dia da alegações finais, Radovan Karadzic - que esteve foragido durante 13 anos - assegurou ser "um verdadeiro amigo dos muçulmanos".
No início do seu julgamento, em 2010, afirmou que o massacre de Srebrenica é um mito.
copiado http://www.noticiasaominuto.com/

EUA Doente de Ébola já tinha ido ao hospital mas foi mandado embora

UA Doente de Ébola já tinha ido ao hospital mas foi mandado embora

12:22 - 02 de Outubro de 2014

O primeiro doente com Ébola registado nos Estados Unidos tinha ido ao hospital dois dias antes de ser colocado em isolamento, mas foi mandado para casa com antibióticos, de acordo com a NBC News.

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Doente de Ébola já tinha ido ao hospital mas foi mandado embora

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Thomas Eric Duncan, o primeiro caso de Ébola registado nos Estados Unidos, dirigiu-se ao hospital na passada sexta-feira, procurando ajuda médica, e indicou que vinha da Libéria. Mas esta informação não chegou à equipa que o atendeu e acabou por ser mandado para casa com um antibiótico, de acordo com declarações do sobrinho à NBC News.

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O liberiano encontra-se nos Estados Unidos pela primeira vez para visitar a família e quando começou a sentir dores abdominais e febre, no dia 26, dirigiu-se ao hospital Texas Health Presbyterian, em Dallas, onde voltou, já de ambulância, dois dias depois.
Thomas Eric Duncan encontra-se em isolamento desde domingo, altura em que os sintomas pioraram.
Rick Perry, governador do Texas, avançou que pelo menos cinco crianças tinham entrado em contacto com o homem, mas nenhuma delas apresenta ainda qualquer sintoma.
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Seguro viagem internacional tem novas regras

29 de Setembro de 2014 às 17:50

Da Agência Brasil
O Diário Oficial da União publicou hoje (29) resolução que dispõe sobre novas regras e critérios para operação do seguro viagem internacional. As normas publicadas nesta segunda-feira têm por objetivo garantir aos segurados ou seus beneficiários indenização em caso de ocorrência de riscos relacionados à viagem.
A indenização é limitada ao valor do capital segurado contratado, na forma de pagamento do valor contratado ou de reembolso, ou, ainda, de prestação de serviços, no caso da ocorrência de riscos cobertos, desde que relacionados à viagem, durante período previamente determinado, nos termos estabelecidos nas condições contratuais.
Pelo texto, os serviços que devem compor as coberturas básicas e adicionais a serem oferecidas pelas seguradoras, incluem, entre outros, despesas médicas, hospitalares ou odontológicas em viagem ao exterior. A indenização é limitada ao valor do capital segurado contratado, das despesas médicas, hospitalares e odontológicas feitas pelo segurado para seu tratamento, sob orientação médica, ocasionado por acidente pessoal ou enfermidade súbita e aguda ocorrida durante viagem ao exterior e uma vez constatada a sua saída do país de domicílio.
A norma trata ainda do traslado do corpo de segurado morto durante viagem ao exterior. Nesse caso, a indenização é limitada ao valor do capital segurado contratado, das despesas com a liberação e transporte do corpo do segurado do local da ocorrência do evento coberto até o domicílio ou local do sepultamento, incluindo-se nestas despesas todos os procedimentos e objetos imprescindíveis ao traslado.
As coberturas adicionais, que poderão ser ofertadas facultativamente pelos planos, incluem cobertura para bagagem, funeral, cancelamento de viagem, e regresso antecipado.
De acordo com a Superintendência de Seguros Privados (Susep), as empresas seguradoras têm até 365 dias para se adequar às novas regras, mas as que quiserem se antecipar à adoção das medidas podem fazer.
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Saúde Crianças infetadas com vírus raro suscitam preocupação nos EUA

15:56 - 01 de Outubro de 2014

Saúde Crianças infetadas com vírus raro suscitam preocupação nos EUA

Centenas de crianças infetadas com uma estripe rara de um enterovírus foram admitidas nos serviços de urgência norte-americanos durante as últimas semanas, apresentando dificuldades respiratórias e, em certos casos, cansaço muscular.

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Estes casos estão a suscitar grande preocupação junto das entidades de saúde norte-americanas.

Os Centros para o controlo e prevenção de doenças (CDC) identificaram entre meados de agosto e 30 de setembro em 41 Estados norte-americanos, incluindo na capital federal Washington, 472 casos de infeções respiratórias causadas pelo enterovírus EV-D68, identificado pela primeira vez em 1962 na Califórnia. A incidência deste enterovírus, que se encontra no sistema digestivo, é bastante rara.
Nenhuma morte foi registada até à data, precisaram os centros.
Os primeiros casos foram observados em agosto último na região centro-oeste dos Estados Unidos (Middle West, na designação em inglês), mas a infeção rapidamente se propagou a grande parte do país, atingindo mesmo o Canadá.
Num único hospital do Colorado (oeste), mais de 900 crianças que apresentavam dificuldades respiratórias foram tratadas entre 18 de agosto e os primeiros dias de setembro.
"A maioria das crianças ficou doente com a infeção causada pelo EV-D68. Em Missouri e Illinois, por exemplo, tinham dificuldade em respirar e produziam ruídos devido a infeção nas vias respiratórias", referiu Susan Gerber, epidemiologista do CDC de Atlanta.
A mesma especialista indicou que "um grande número de crianças sofria de asma".
A 26 de setembro, os CDC analisaram no Colorado um grupo de 10 crianças, com uma idade média a rondar os oito anos, em que vários tinham sido infetados pela rara estripe do EV-D68. Alguns apresentaram sintomas neurológicos com um cansaço muscular, registando uma espécie de paralisia.
De acordo com um hospital local, estes sintomas não estão provavelmente relacionados com a poliomielite (doença infeciosa que ataca as células da medula espinhal, e leva, por vezes, à paralisia, também conhecida por paralisia infantil), uma vez que oito dos dez tinham sido vacinados.
O enterovírus EV-D68 é da mesma família do vírus responsável pela poliomielite, mas geralmente não provoca os sintomas da doença.
Um enterovírus é designação genérica dada a um grande grupo de vírus da família Picarnaviridae, possuidores de ácido ribonucleico, e que se podem encontrar no tubo digestivo do homem e de outros mamíferos. Alguns enterovírus podem provocar infeções respiratórias e digestivas nervosas centrais.
copiado http://www.noticiasaominuto.com/

Vaticano Conservadores pedem a Papa que continue intransigente na defesa do casamento

15:50 - 01 de Outubro de 2014

Vaticano Conservadores pedem a Papa que continue intransigente na defesa do casamento

Católicos conservadores norte-americanos divulgaram hoje uma carta aberta ao papa Francisco, a poucos dias do início do sínodo da família, apelando para que se mantenha intransigente na defesa do casamento.

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Na carta, divulgada no sítio na internet católico Crux, 48 personalidades manifestam as suas preocupações relativamente à família, particularmente nos Estados Unidos, onde a taxa de divórcios ultrapassa os 40 por cento.

O sínodo extraordinário dos bispos sobre a família, convocado pelo papa para 05 a 19 de outubro, deverá debater, entre outros temas, o lugar que a Igreja reserva aos católicos divorciados e recasados, debate que está a ser encarado por alguns setores católicos como um abandono da doutrina da Igreja sobre o casamento.
Os casais "esperam desesperadamente ouvir a verdade [...]sobre o motivo por que Cristo e a Igreja desejam que permaneçam fiéis durante toda a vida", escrevem os signatários da carta.
"Quando o casamento se tornar difícil - como é o caso para a maioria dos casais - a Igreja tem que ser uma fonte de apoio, não apenas para os cônjuges individualmente, como para o próprio casamento", acrescentam.
Os autores da carta, entre os quais se conta a antiga embaixadora norte-americana na Santa Sé Mary Ann Glendon, não falam diretamente do sensível dossier dos divorciados recasados, mas mostram-se preocupados com o impacto do divórcio e da pornografia nos Estados Unidos.
A carta é divulgada no mesmo dia em que chega às bancas um livro de cinco cardeais que defende a posição atual da Igreja sobre este tema e vem engrossar a oposição ao cardeal alemão Walter Kasper, próximo do papa Francisco, que defende a procura de soluções para os divorciados e recasados, atualmente impedidos de aceder a sacramentos como a confissão e a comunhão.
Entre estes cardeais está o ultraconservador norte-americano Raymond Leo Burke, que hoje acusou o cardeal Kasper de falar em nome do papa, afirmando: "E contudo o papa não sofre de laringite".
O campo dos conservadores contra outros pesos-pesados, como o cardeal australiano George Pell, que dirige o novo secretariado de Economia, ou o cardeal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefeito para a Congregação da Doutrina da Fé.
É na igreja norte-americana que se encontram os principais opositores à linha de abertura do papa Francisco.
Os católicos norte-americanos lamentam que o pontífice não os apoie mais vezes nas suas posições contra o aborto e a contraceção.
A situação dos casais divorciados e recasados na Igreja tornou-se no principal debate a poucos dias do início da assembleia geral extraordinária dos bispos sobre a família, onde esta questão deverá concentrar as atenções.
copiado http://www.noticiasaominuto.com/

Stoltenberg "Crise na Ucrânia e Estado Islâmico mostram razão de ser da NATO"

15:42 - 01 de Outubro de 2014

Stoltenberg "Crise na Ucrânia e Estado Islâmico mostram razão de ser da NATO"

O novo secretário-geral da NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, disse hoje em Bruxelas, no seu primeiro dia no cargo, que a crise da Ucrânia e as ações terroristas do Estado Islâmico mostram que a Aliança Atlântica continua a ser necessária.

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Crise na Ucrânia e Estado Islâmico mostram razão de ser da NATO

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Numa conferência de imprensa no quartel-geral da NATO, em Bruxelas, por ocasião da sua tomada de posse, Stoltenberg considerou que assume "um cargo exigente em tempos exigentes", apontando como principais desafios da atualidade a crise entre Ucrânia e Rússia, e o combate ao Estado Islâmico.

"Estes desafios tornam claro por que precisamos da NATO", disse o antigo primeiro-ministro norueguês.
Relativamente à situação na Ucrânia, garantiu que a Aliança Atlântica "não procura confrontação", mas apontou que a Rússia continua a violar a lei internacional, pelo que pretender ver "uma mudança nas ações da Rússia que demonstrem que estão a respeitar as suas responsabilidades e obrigações internacionais".
"Não vejo contradição entre uma NATO forte e o nosso contínuo esforço para desenvolvermos uma relação construtiva com a Rússia", disse por mais de uma vez.
Relativamente à luta contra o Estado Islâmico, apontou que a coligação internacional conta com vários aliados, além de parceiros regionais, e sublinhou a importância de fortalecer as capacidades do Iraque para se defender.
Stoltenberg, 55 anos, sucede ao dinamarquês Anders Fogh Rasmussen à frente da NATO.
copiado http://www.noticiasaominuto.com/

Insight - An environmentalist's calculated push towards Brazil's presidency

Insight - An environmentalist's calculated push towards Brazil's presidency 2:56pm BST
Insight - An environmentalist's calculated push towards Brazil's presidency

By Paulo Prada
RIO DE JANEIRO Wed Oct 1, 2014 2:56pm BST

1 of 10. Presidential candidate Marina Silva of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) speaks during a ceremony to launch her campaign platform in Sao Paulo in this August 29, 2014 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Paulo Whitaker/Files

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(Reuters) - In March 2003, three months into her tenure as Brazil's environment minister, Marina Silva gathered a half-dozen aides at the modernist ministry building in Brasilia, the capital.
She told them the new government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was about to embark on a pharaonic infrastructure project for Brazil's arid Northeast.
The project, a still-ongoing effort to reroute water from one of Brazil's biggest rivers, had previously been opposed by environmentalists, including Silva herself.
Rather than explain how she would thwart the plan, however, the former activist said she would work to make it as sustainable as possible.
"I was shocked," says Marijane Lisboa, a former Greenpeace director and Silva's secretary of environmental quality then. "Instead of fighting, she was merely trying to mitigate."
Lisboa would not be the last person surprised by Silva, a former rubber tapper and maid and now a frontrunner in Brazil's presidential election race.
Once considered a leftist radical, the pioneer of Amazon conservation and icon of the global environmental movement has over the years marched steadily to the political centre.
A 56-year-old-mother of four and evangelical Christian, Silva barely trails President Dilma Rousseff in forecasts for an expected runoff three weeks after a first round of voting on Sunday.
She is buoyed by discontent over corruption, political horse-trading, a stagnant economy and poor public services that last year sparked mass protests across Brazil.
But Silva is also a pragmatic, calculating and deal-making politician who defies efforts by rivals to cast her as inexperienced, or worse, erratic.
After moving across three parties in recent years, Silva now represents the second-tier Brazilian Socialist Party and vows to expand popular social welfare programs even as she slashes government spending.
She would pursue renewable energy programs, like biomass and solar power, but promises to keep developing the "one-time harvest" of offshore oil.
"Why does one activity have to come at the expense of another?" she said during a recent interview with Reuters in Rio de Janeiro. "A strong economy is diversified."
Silva's shift outrages some militant former followers and former colleagues in the ruling Workers' Party.
But it attracts disparate others - fellow evangelicals, São Paulo financiers, youth sick of the status quo.
If elected, her biggest struggle could be weaving the sundry strands of support into a manageable harness for Brazil's rambunctious multi-party democracy.
FROM ACTIVISM TO PRAGMATISM
In interviews, more than a dozen of those who know Silva describe a thoughtful politician firm enough to lead but pliant enough to bend when an opposing argument prevails. They say her five years as minister, and political comeback since a high-profile resignation in 2008, show her ability to set priorities, pursue goals and compromise.
"Call her anything but dumb," says Roberto Rodrigues, a former agriculture minister who clashed with Silva in the Lula administration over genetically modified crops and forestry laws. "She knows a militant cannot be president."
Silva's remarkable rise from illness and illiteracy in the rainforest to the Senate and beyond is already political lore. But her evolution from activist to possible president still puzzles many who thought her incapable of the give-and-take needed at the highest levels of politics.
In 2002, Brazilians elected Lula, a fiery former union leader. After naming a market-friendly finance minister, who soothed fears the president would be fiscally reckless, Lula made Silva his second cabinet appointment, garnering praise from conservationists worldwide.
Upon taking office in January 2003, Silva told department heads to plot priorities for the four-year term. The previous administration, of centrist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, had been too busy taming Brazil's volatile economy to pay much attention to environmental issues.
Silva held big meetings and fielded proposals for waste policies, watershed management and parkland.
But she had one overriding concern: soaring deforestation. Loggers and ranchers were pushing so quickly into the Amazon that an area the size of Belgium was being destroyed annually.
Silva proposed setting targets for curbing the rate of deforestation. She told a committee to map out a plan to reach them and rebuffed aides who suggested such targets could doom her politically if unmet.
"I'll deserve political failure if we don't reach them," she said, recalls former forestry secretary João Paulo Capobianco, still one of her closest advisors. "Whatever we do in other areas, deforestation is the measure by which we will be judged."
Some aides complained she paid little mind to anything else.
When it came to rerouting the São Francisco river, she offered sparse resistance, settling for a commitment that long-polluted parts of the river be cleaned up during the project. "If it was outside the Amazon, it was not a priority," says Gilney Viana, secretary for sustainable development then.
Soon, political conflicts intruded on her agenda.
Big meetings gave way to individual discussions with aides able to help her negotiate with the rest of the administration. "She spent more time courting Lula and other ministers than running the ministry," recalls one aide, who asked not to be identified because of continued ties to the government.
POWERFUL OPPONENTS
The agriculture ministry, a powerful force in one of the world's largest exporters of crops, was particularly problematic.
Early on, it sought to convince Lula that genetically modified soybeans growing in southern Brazil be allowed for sale. So-called "Maradona seeds," smuggled from Argentina, were still illegal in Brazil but farmers planted them anyway.
Silva lobbied against their sale. She also sought to ensure that her ministry control a new government body to regulate genetically modified crops.
She lost on both counts.
Already, environmentalists pushed her to resign in protest.
Instead, she secured a legal change forcing manufacturers to label foods containing genetically modified ingredients. "She knew how to negotiate," says Beto Albuquerque, a former congressman from the state where the soy was planted.
Once an antagonist, Albuquerque is now Silva's running mate.
Meanwhile, Silva progressed against deforestation.
Whereas the ministry had once battled alone, she convinced 12 other federal agencies, from the army to the justice ministry, to help. The science ministry, headed by a promising young politician named Eduardo Campos, ceded government satellites to track clearings.
In 2006, deforestation plunged to half the rate in 2004.
The following year, soaring demand for Brazil's commodity exports was fuelling an economic boom. With re-election in sight, a group of ministers convinced Lula to dust off a series of long-proposed infrastructure projects, including hydroelectric dams on Amazon tributaries.
Some ministers, including Rousseff, Lula's chief of staff, pushed for speedy licensing. Silva resisted, angering Rousseff and the large builders who help finance Workers' Party coffers.
When Lula was re-elected, Silva was the last existing minister re-appointed.
In late 2007, gains against deforestation stalled, in part because of speculation on rainforest near proposed infrastructure sites. Silva convinced Lula to double down, introducing measures to block credit for those caught buying or selling goods from illegally cleared woodland.
When farmers complained, Lula considered revoking the measures.
In May 2008, Silva resigned. "I may lose my head," she said, "but I haven't lost my judgement."
Where some saw defeat, supporters saw wile.
"Lula could drop the measures and take the blame when deforestation worsened," says Tasso Azevedo, a forestry engineer who still advises Silva, "or he could keep them and take the credit for improvement."
Lula left them intact. The pace of deforestation during his two terms decreased by 75 percent.
'STRATEGIC VISION'
After resigning, Silva quit the Workers' Party and found a brief home with Brazil's Green Party. More importantly, she courted resourceful allies, especially Guilherme Leal, the billionaire behind Natura (NATU3.SA), a cosmetics empire built on locally-sourced ingredients, many of them from the Amazon.
Leal says he admired Silva's "strategic vision" for a country with the world's largest rainforest and abundant sources of water and clean energy. He also admired her political chops.
"It's in her DNA," Leal says. "She puts the knife between her teeth and goes. Not after power for power's sake, but for the sake of political action."
Leal financed a presidential campaign for Silva in 2010 and joined her ticket as running mate. He also introduced her to an influential group of economists, business people and financiers.
Now an important part of her power base, those people repel some of Silva's former fans.
Leonardo Boff, a prominent theologian and anti-poverty activist who has known Silva since her youth, says she has surrounded herself with "neoliberals" – capitalist types unpopular with some leftists.
Still, Silva surprised. She reaped 20 percent of the vote in 2010, far more than expected.
Green Party leaders were annoyed that a newcomer had eclipsed them so Silva defected and tried to form a new party.
When a court ruled last year that the party did not meet electoral requirements for this election, she turned to another ally: Campos, the former science minister, by now a popular governor and a presidential aspirant himself.
Campos made Silva his vice-presidential candidate. He then died in a plane crash in August and Silva moved to the top of the ticket.
At a recent rally in Rio, Silva denounced "savage marketing" by opponents suggesting she would halt oil exploration in the region. She chastised the Workers' Party, itself the target of scaremongering before it came to power, for painting her as a radical.
"I fought against lies back then," she said. "Now they want to use the same rusty knife against me."
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At least 10 killed in shelling of school and mini-van in Ukraine

At least 10 killed in shelling of school and mini-van in Ukraine
3:39pm BST

By Maria Tsvetkova
DONETSK Ukraine Wed Oct 1, 2014 3:39pm BST

1 of 5. A view of a classroom of school No. 57 damaged by recent shelling in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, October 1, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov
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(Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed on Wednesday when shells hit a school playground and a public transit mini-van in a nearby street in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, underscoring the fragility of a ceasefire between separatists and government forces.
Teachers managed to lead pupils at school No. 57 into a cellar for safety when shelling started and there were no children among those killed, municipal authorities and witnesses said.
The shelling occurred at 10 a.m. on the first day of the new school year after the 50-60 pupils aged from eight to 10 had already entered the school. The dead included a male biology teacher and the father of one of the children at the school, teachers said.

Apart from those bodies and that of a third person who was identified as a separatist fighter, Reuters correspondents saw a further six bodies in the burnt-out mini-van and on streets nearby.
The regional administration said a total of 10 people had been killed in the shelling in the city, a stronghold of Russian-backed rebels waging a separatist rebellion against the pro-Western government in Kiev. Rebels put the number of dead at 12, saying two victims had been removed from the scene.
Nine others were wounded, seven of whom were taken to hospital, the municipality said in a statement on its website.
City authorities blamed the shelling on the rebels and the separatists blamed it on government forces. It interrupted a fragile ceasefire in a conflict in which about 3,500 people have been killed, according to U.N. figures.
BROKEN GLASS
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said last week there were clear signs that the ceasefire that came into force on Sept. 5, the cornerstone of his peace plan to end six months of conflict, was working.
But it has begun to fray with the deaths on Monday and Tuesday of nine Ukrainian servicemen in clashes with separatists.
The school is in a city district a few kilometres from the city's main airport where separatists have been trying to dislodge government forces for some days.
Since the rebellions erupted in eastern Ukraine in April and shelling began in Donetsk, authorities have introduced distance-learning courses for children to allow them to stay at home. School No. 57 has capacity for 400 children although only the 50-60 assembled for classes on Wednesday.
There were pools of blood inside the school and the floor was strewn with broken glass and overturned school tables.
Lidia Sheiko, who teaches Russian at the school, said: "It was a nightmare. There was glass flying everywhere. The children got frightened and began to cry."
Near the shelled school, a Reuters team saw two charred bodies in the mini-van, two more on the pavement and another two on the street about 20 metres (yards) away.
A car had also been hit and destroyed. Rebels at the scene said two people had been killed in it and their bodies had been taken away.
A commander of a rebel unit, Viktor Khalyava, said the school was hit by five Uragan rockets fired by the Ukrainians. "It was a targeted strike on the school," he said.
The municipal authorities however blamed the attack on the school and on the minibus on forces of the rebel "Donetsk People's Republic."
(Additional reporting by Lina Kushch; Writing by Richard Balmforth Editing by Timothy Heritage and Alison Williams)
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France defies EU partners with 'no austerity' budget Merkel says Europe's credibility at stake on budget policy German exporters say France putting euro and EU at risk German government declines to comment on France's budget plans

France defies EU partners with 'no austerity' budget

By Leigh Thomas

PARIS Wed Oct 1, 2014 2:00pm BST

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin attends a news conference to announce the 2015 Budget Project at the Bercy Ministry in Paris October 1, 2014. REUTERS/John Schults

1 of 3. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin attends a news conference to announce the 2015 Budget Project at the Bercy Ministry in Paris October 1, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/John Schults

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(Reuters) - France laid down the gauntlet to EU partners on Wednesday with a 2015 budget setting out how it would bring its borrowing back to within EU limits two years later than promised, a retreat it blamed on a fragile economy.
The announcement from Paris came hours after news that Italy too planned to ease the pace of painful deficit-reduction steps to try to counter another year of recession.
"We have taken the decision to adapt the pace of deficit reduction to the economic situation of the country," French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told a news conference.
"Our economic policy is not changing, but the deficit will be reduced more slowly than planned due to economic circumstances - very weak growth and very weak inflation."
Under the French budget plan, the public deficit is set to fall from 4.4 percent of output this year to 4.3 percent next year, 3.8 percent in 2016 and 2.8 percent in 2017 - below the EU-mandated threshold of 3 percent.
Previously, France had promised EU partners it would bring its deficit below 3 percent by next year, a deadline that had already been extended from 2013. France's spending watchdog doubted even the new targets could be reached.
"No further effort will be demanded of the French, because the government - while taking the fiscal responsibility needed to put the country on the right track - rejects austerity," the budget statement said.
There was no immediate comment from other EU governments but Germany's main exporters' association, the BGA, accused France of putting the euro and the wider regional economy at risk.
"The French elite has still not understood that in the 21st century you can't get competitive by printing money," BGA president Anton Boerner said, according to the text of a speech due for delivery at a conference in Berlin.
"If that country doesn't figure a way out of the downward spiral, the euro and therefore Europe are at risk."
President Francois Hollande is resisting pressure from some in his Socialist Party to ease off even more emphatically on cutbacks but also has to contend with an approval rating at a record low 13 percent and news a week ago that conservative rival Nicolas Sarkozy, the man he beat in the 2012 election, is making a return to frontline politics.
Sapin, who this month conceded the 2015 deficit target was untenable, reaffirmed forecasts that the euro zone's second largest economy would grow at a modest 1.0 percent next year, rising to 1.9 percent in 2017.
Despite the government's decision to lower its sights, the country's independent public finances watchdog, the High Council of Public Finances, said the revised projections still looked optimistic as far as 2016 and 2017 were concerned.
PUBLIC SPENDING
The government described its effort to shave 50 billion euros off projected public spending volumes between now and 2017 as "unprecedented" - while acknowledging the total volume of public spending would still rise by 0.2 percent over the period.
That would imply public debt ticking up to a peak of 98.0 percent of output in 2016 before a slight fall in 2017. French public spending and the total tax burden - among the highest in the world - would fall only modestly as a result.
The so-called structural deficit, a figure closely watched by EU budget watchdogs as it strips out the effects of the economic cycle, will fall less than hoped by France's partners from 2.2 percent of output in 2015 to 1.4 percent in 2017.
Incoming European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is now under pressure to react firmly enough to avoid a further loss of confidence in the bloc's already battered budget rulebook. His options include sanctions including hefty fines.
The European Commission, where Sapin's predecessor Pierre Moscovici has just been named Commissioner tasked with keeping tabs on respect for EU budget rules, declined immediate comment in the wake of the budget bill presentation in Paris.
Advocates of budgetary rigour led by Germany believe the time has come for France to taste some of the fiscal austerity and painful structural reform already undertaken by its southern neighbours in the wake of the 2009-2012 debt crisis.
But Paris can count on allies in Rome, Athens, Dublin, Madrid and elsewhere to support its argument that further austerity would be counterproductive by snuffing out the fragile start of recovery across the euro zone.
Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Tuesday he expected a third straight year of recession this year. While Rome would honour a pledge to cut its deficit to the 3 percent EU target in 2014, the aim of bringing the budget into balance in structural terms - adjusted for the effects of the business cycle - would be delayed by a year until 2017, he said.
Hollande has charged Sapin and Prime Minister Manuel Valls with imposing spending caps on individual ministries and Sapin said he would recoup a further 4 billion euros in French public asset sales to pay off debt.
In a bid to return some cash to the pockets of low-earners, the budget will also cancel the existing lowest income tax band - a move to be funded with tax proceeds elsewhere.
Despite its fiscal woes, France continues to borrow at historically low rates - the yield on its benchmark 10-year bond was unchanged around 1.289 percent in early Wednesday trade.
In an interview with Les Echos newspaper, former conservative Prime Minister Francois Fillon - a possible presidential candidate in 2017 - warned nonetheless that France was "on the verge of serious financial accident".
(Additional reporting by Gernot Heller and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Mark John, Brian Love and Alison Williams)
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Turkey vows to fight Islamic State, coalition strikes near border Turkey will fight Islamic State, wants Assad gone- President Erdogan Turkey's role in Islamic State fight may hinge on ancient tomb France says to boost military response to Islamic State

Turkey vows to fight Islamic State, coalition strikes near border 3:13pm BST
Turkey vows to fight Islamic State, coalition strikes near border

By Ayla Jean Yackley and Oliver Holmes
MURSITPINAR Turkey/BEIRUT Wed Oct 1, 2014 3:13pm BST

1 of 7. A Turkish soldier stands guard as Syrian Kurdish refugees wait behind the border fences to cross into Turkey near the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province September 27, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Murad Sezer
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(Reuters) - Turkey signalled it may send troops into Syria or Iraq and let allies use Turkish bases to fight Islamic State, as coalition jets launched air strikes on Wednesday on insurgents besieging a town on its southern border with Syria.
The government sent a proposal to parliament late on Tuesday which would broaden existing powers and allow Ankara to order military action to "defeat attacks directed towards our country from all terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria".
The proposal would also mean Turkey, until now reluctant to take a frontline role against Islamic State, could allow foreign forces to use its territory for cross-border incursions.
But President Tayyip Erdogan said the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remained a Turkish priority and stressed Ankara's fears that U.S.-led air strikes without a broader political strategy would only prolong the instability.
Turkey accuses Assad of stoking the growth of Islamic State through sectarian policies.
"We will fight effectively against both (Islamic State) and all other terrorist organisations within the region; this will always be our priority," he told the opening of parliament, but added: "Tons of bombs dropped from the air will only delay the threat and danger.
"Turkey is not a country in pursuit of temporary solutions nor will Turkey allow others to take advantage of it."
The Islamic State advance to within sight of the Turkish army on the border has piled pressure on the NATO member to play a greater role in the U.S.-led military coalition carrying out air strikes against the insurgents in Syria and Iraq.
The militants are encroaching on the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the Ottoman Empire's founder, which lies in northern Syria but which Ankara considers sovereign territory. It has made clear it will defend the mausoleum.
A column of black smoke rose from the southeastern side of Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish border town under siege by Islamic State for more than two weeks, as jets roared overhead, a Reuters correspondent on the Turkish side said.
"(They) hit a village that is four to five kilometres (two to three miles) southeast of Kobani and we heard they destroyed one (Islamic State) tank," Parwer Mohammed Ali, a translator with the Kurdish PYD group, told Reuters by telephone from Kobani, known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic.
The United States has been carrying out strikes in Iraq against the militant group since July and in Syria since last week with the help of Arab allies. Britain and France have also struck Islamic State targets in Iraq.
Using mostly nighttime strikes, it aims to damage and destroy the bases and forces of the al Qaeda offshoot which has captured large areas of both countries. Turkey, which hosts a U.S. air base at its southern town of Incirlik, has so far not been militarily involved.
Britain said on Wednesday that it had conducted air strikes overnight on Islamic State fighters west of Baghdad, attacking an armed pick-up truck and a transport vehicle. French President Francois Hollande meanwhile said France would boost its military commitment to the fight against the militants.
FLUID FRONTLINE
The insurgents have taken control of 325 of 354 villages around Kobani, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war. It said seven men and three women were beheaded by the Islamists in its campaign to frighten residents resisting its advance.
"They're killing us on the Turkish border, that makes us very angry. There's no humanity from Turkey, no humanity from Europe or anywhere else in the world," said Maslum Bergadan, who fled to Turkey and said two of his brothers had been captured by Islamic State fighters.
Turkey shares a 1,200 km (750-mile) border with Iraq and Syria and is already struggling with 1.5 million refugees from the Syrian war alone. It deployed tanks and armoured vehicles in the hills overlooking Kobani this week as fighting intensified.
But it fears that the air strikes could strengthen Assad and bolster Kurdish militants allied to Kurds in Turkey who have fought for three decades for greater autonomy.
Its rhetoric has hardened since 46 Turkish hostages, whose captivity at the hands of Islamic State militants made it wary of taking action, were released this month, but it remains hesitant.
Esmat al-Sheikh, commander of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani, said there were five air strikes but that he did not yet know if they were successful. "Jets are still circling overhead," he said by telephone.
The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said Kurdish sources on the battlefront reported seeing dead Islamic State fighters at the strike sites.
"Kurdish people saw the bodies," he said.
Islamic State fighters, besieging Kobani from three sides, are now just kilometres away from the town, with the battle lines fluid. Kurds watching firefights from hills on the Turkish side of the border cheered when insurgent positions were hit.
"Sometimes YPG pushes them back, other times ISIS progresses ... the situation is still very, very dangerous," said Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister in a local Kurdish administration, forecasting a long battle.
"I don't think that ISIS can control Kobani easily".
CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION
Islamic State has carved out swathes of eastern Syria and western Iraq in a drive to create a cross-border caliphate between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, terrifying communities into submission by slaughtering those who resist.
Iraqi Kurdish troops drove Islamic State fighters from a strategic border crossing with Syria on Tuesday and won the support of members of a major Sunni tribe, in one of the biggest successes since U.S. forces began bombing the Islamists.
Peshmerga fighters took control of the Rabia border crossing in a victory which could make it harder for militants to operate on both sides of the frontier.
"Of course there were attempts (by Islamic State) to return to Rabia, but they were not able to," Peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hikmat said.
"Now they are under great pressure from the Peshmerga in Zumar," Hikmat said, referring to a mixed Kurdish-Arab town northwest of Mosul near an oilfield, from where Kurdish fighters had been forced to withdraw because of mines and a suicide bomb attack by Islamic State.
Control of Zumar provides access to the small Ain Zalah oil field and a nearby refinery. The insurgents have used oil sales to fund their operations.
Rabia controls the main highway linking Syria to Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, which Islamic State fighters captured in June at the start of a lightning advance through Iraq's Sunni Muslim north.
"We are in control of the (Rabia) district. There are small pockets (of militants) in the surrounding villages. The only thing left is the hospital and that will be dealt with today," a Peshmerga fighter told Reuters by telephone.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Dziadosz in Beirut, Isabel Coles in Arbil, Ned Parker and Yara Bayoumy in Baghdad, Costas Pitas in London; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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