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Reuters/Miami Cuban exile Joe Arriola at one time would never have dreamed of returning to his homeland while it was under communist rule. But after 53 years in the US, the former manager of the city of Miami swallowed his pride and decided he had waited long enough. Arriola, 67, said a week-long trip to the island last year had opened his eyes to what he now believes is a failed US policy of trying to isolate Cuba. “The number one weapon we have is capitalism and we are not using it,” he said over breakfast at the Riviera Country Club in Coral Gables, a bastion of older, conservative-minded exiles in Miami-Dade County.  “We should be flooding the place with tourists and commerce.” Tired of waiting for the end of communism in Cuba, more and more Cuban-Americans have concluded that it is time for the US to allow more engagement with the island they left behind, polls show. “Our president has not had the guts to do the right thing,” said Arriola, who helped raise funds for Barack Obama’s campaign and whose son, Ricky, sits on the president’s committee on the arts and the humanities. Advocates of policy change say the administration’s caution stems less these days from concerns about a Miami backlash than from the hard-line stance of lawmakers like senator Robert Menendez, a Cuban-American and the influential chair of the senate foreign relations committee. The New Jersey Democrat and other members of Congress, including senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is also of Cuban descent, say exiles who favour lifting a five-decade-old trade embargo against Cuba are undermining the cause of democracy and putting money in the pockets of the Castro dictatorship. But a poll released yesterday by Florida International University shows the exile community is tilting in favour of change, with a majority favouring closer ties with the communist-run island. The poll found that 52% of Cuban-Americans surveyed in Miami-Dade County oppose continuing the embargo. An even greater majority – 68% - favour diplomatic relations with Cuba, while 69% favour lifting travel restrictions to Cuba for all Americans. Such widespread sentiment could ease the way for the Obama administration to revise US-Cuba policy by permitting greater travel and commercial activity to help an emerging private sector on the island. “The old understanding was that you could not do anything in Cuba without causing a tempest among the exiles,” said Peter Schechter, director of the Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council think tank. “Now it’s clear there really isn’t a political price to pay.” The poll is the latest in a series of developments seemingly destined to undo the last vestiges of US-Cuba policy crafted during the height of the Cold War. Many Cuban exiles are letting their feet do the talking, taking advantage of relaxed travel restrictions Obama introduced in 2009. Between January and June, there were 2,345 flights to Cuba from the US, and about 82% of the 282,450 passengers were Cuban-Americans visiting family, according to Emilio Morales, president of the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group. He calculates that 650,000 people, mostly Cuban-Americans, will travel between Cuba and the US this year. The exiles will also send $3bn in cash remittances. George Feldenkreis, owner of Miami-based fashion company Perry Ellis, led a group of 12 family members back to Cuba in 2011 for the first time. “I wanted to make a trip to show my grandchildren what I came from, how poor I was,” he said, describing how he took the family to see his humble home near Havana’s train station. For Feldenkreis, 78, age was also a factor. “I didn’t want to go while he (former Cuban President Fidel Castro) was still alive, but I am getting old,” he said. Feldenkreis is frustrated with Cuba policy, but remains a staunch opponent of loosening US sanctions. A chorus of voices from Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state under Obama, to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence under president George W Bush, have recently spoken in favour of rethinking Cuba policy. The head of the US Chamber of Commerce visited Cuba last month and praised Havana’s free-market reforms, saying the US trade embargo was an impediment for American companies.    

Reuters/Havana   The head of the US Chamber of Commerce defended his visit to Cuba yesterday after coming under fire from critics in the US Congress who contend the trip is a publicity coup for the communist government. Chamber President Thomas Donohue said his agenda was unhindered by the Cuban authorities and he was confident he was getting a “fair look” at Cuba, after which the influential lobbying group would report its findings to its “friends” in the US. Donohue, a champion of capitalism and free enterprise, has long opposed US economic sanctions against the communist-ruled island, seeing them as an impediment to US business interests. He and a small group of US business leaders are in the middle of a three-day visit, in part to support the market-oriented reforms enacted by President Raúl Castro that have created a fledgling private sector. “I’ve been free to go where I want. I’m talking to people from the private and the public sector,” Donohue told reporters while visiting a private co-operative emblematic of the reforms. “We’re going to meet with small businesses. We’re meeting with people from other countries that are operating here. I think we’ll get a fair look and we’re enjoying ourselves.” Upon the announcement of the trip a week ago, US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from south Florida, blasted the visit as “just another Potemkin village tour.” As Donohue began his tour on Tuesday, US senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, expressed concerns it would strengthen a government that “jails foreign business leaders without justification, violates international labour standards and denies its citizens their basic rights.”  

AFP Washington   A senior US senator has moved to block hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Egypt to protest the death sentences imposed on nearly 700 suspected Islamists. Denouncing Egypt’s “dictatorship run amok” and its “egregious violation of human rights”, Democrat Patrick Leahy, who heads the Senate subcommittee overseeing foreign aid appropriations, said he is putting a hold on the $650mn in military aid given the green light by the Pentagon last week. “I am not prepared to sign off on the delivery of additional aid for the Egyptian military,” Leahy said in a floor speech on Tuesday. “I am not prepared to do that until we see convincing evidence the government is committed to the rule of law.” The US administration last week partially lifted a six-month freeze on some $1.5bn in mostly military aid to Cairo—a key regional ally that has relied for decades on American aid. Washington had agreed to deliver 10 Apache helicopters for counterterrorism efforts in the unruly Sinai Peninsula and $650mn in military aid, but withheld the rest of the funding until democratic progress is made. But Leahy said Egypt is not worthy of the assistance until it takes immediate steps to improve its rights record. “We cannot stand here and say we are troubled by hundreds of people being sentenced to death after a few minutes in a mass trial, but since we have been friends for so long we will go ahead and send you hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. No.” Leahy added: “I do not think the taxpayers of this country would condone that, and neither do I.” Several US lawmakers in recent months, including prospective 2016 Republican presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul, have questioned the Obama administration’s aid to Cairo in the aftermath of last year’s overthrow of democratically-elected president Mohamed Mursi. Leahy’s action came as Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy was visiting Washington, the highest-level Egyptian official to do so since the army overthrew Mursi. Fahmy met with Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, and the minister was scheduled to meet yesterday with leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That panel’s chairman, Senator Robert Menendez, told AFP the death sentences imposed by an Egyptian court “are clearly terribly alarming, and make us wonder where Egypt is headed”. He said he would discuss the aid matter with Fahmy. The minister appeared on US television yesterday to allay concerns about his government, saying “we will correct mistakes if they occur.” But he warned of moving too swiftly to block aid. “If you use that (aid) simply as a tool to—as leverage against every argument or disagreement you have with Egypt—you’ll end up... questioning and shaking the very roots of the strategic relationship,” Fahmy told MSNBC. “We will do better, not because you want us to do better, because Egyptians want us to do better.” Blocking aid would no doubt prick the US administration and potentially force it into complicated manoeuvring to honour its Egypt commitments. A Leahy aide said that continuing payments on existing US contracts is not the issue. In the complex and longstanding US aid-funding process, new assistance is presented to congressional committee, and if no members object within 15 days, the aid moves ahead.  A block like Leahy’s normally triggers consultations with the administration, which would work with lawmakers to reach an agreement before the aid flows.          

By Mizan Rahman Dhaka US Senator Robert Menendez has said he cannot support the renewal or expansion of Bangladesh’s generalised system of preferences (GSP) benefits as long as union organisers and members are subject to harassment, intimidation, and violence from garment factory owners and managers. “As chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, I cannot support the renewal or expansion of Bangladesh’s GSP benefits as long as union organisers and members are subject to harassment, intimidation, and violence from garment factory owners and managers,” he wrote in a letter to M Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). Menendez urged the BGMEA president to take immediate and substantial steps to end harassment and intimidation of union organisers and members by the garment factory owners in his industry association. In his letter, chairmen Menendez wrote that “union organisers and leaders in BGMEA factories are still subject to intimidation and termination,” and that he “cannot support the renewal or expansion of Bangladesh’s GSP benefits as long as union organisers and members are subject to harassment, intimidation, and violence from BGMEA factory owners and managers.” “I strongly urge you to exercise your leadership to end these grave injustices and protect workers’ rights and safety,” he wrote. In February 2013, Menendez held a hearing on workers’ rights in Bangladesh and released a report on the topic last November. Menendez mentioned that last year, at their first hearing on this topic, he urged the United States Trade Representative to suspend GSP benefits to Bangladesh because of the dire state of workers’ rights and safety. The Senator said union organisers and leaders in BGMEA factories are still subject to intimidation and termination. “Just last month, four union organisers, including two women, were reportedly severely injured by two dozen attackers as they tried to organise workers in a large garment factory.” He mentioned that incidents like these are completely unacceptable and the BGMEA is obligated to play a stronger role in preventing them.

A woman holds a placard reading “I am Russian. My homeland is Ukraine and I love her” during a rally at the Russian consulate in the Black Sea Ukrainian city of Odessa. AFP Donetsk, Ukraine Overshadowed by a vehement pro-Russian camp, those who would like to see the eastern city of Donetsk remain part of Ukraine are struggling to make themselves heard. They are a minority voice in a region that is mostly Russian-speaking and closer to the Russian border than to Kiev, where pro-European demonstrators ousted pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych last month. “People are afraid to protest,” said Tetyana Zarovna, a Donetsk journalist who is active in the anti-Yanukovych movement born on Kiev’s Independence Square, or Maidan, in November. Some 10,000 pro-Moscow demonstrators filled the streets of Donetsk on Sunday, loudly calling for the Donbas mining region to become part of Russia, just like Ukraine’s southern peninsula of Crimea, which will hold a referendum on Sunday on joining the Russian Federation. A rival pro-Kiev rally had to be cancelled at the last minute over security fears. Former boxer turned politician Vitali Klitschko, a pro-European campaigner and candidate in May 25 presidential elections, was scheduled to attend the demonstration but left town without meeting supporters, as opponents chanted “Donetsk, Russian city!” and “Putin for president!”. On March 5 however, a pro-Kiev rally drew some 5,000 people, an unexpectedly high number in a city that used to be a bastion of support for Yanukovych and where local politicians and media outlets are endlessly condemning the Kiev demonstrators as neo-Nazi radicals. The Donetsk protest escalated into an all-out punch-up when the demonstrators crossed paths with a pro-Russian crowd that had set up camp on the city’s central Lenin Square.  “They threw eggs, apples and firecrackers at us,” said Zarovna, fuming. “Local elites and the media backed Yanukovych’s regime and whipped up tensions, leading to the current confrontations,” said political expert Volodymyr Kipen. Unlike in Crimea - where the local parliament voted Tuesday for independence from Ukraine - the main political forces in Donetsk oppose annexation by Russia so the threat of separatism is relatively small, Kipen said. The industrial Donetsk region is also host to powerful financial clans who are advocating for national unity, such as the new Kiev-appointed governor Sergiy Taruta and Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of top football club Shakhtar Donetsk. The club’s supporters now provide security for pro-Kiev demonstrators. For one of the movement’s organisers, Enrique Menendez - whose name comes from a Spanish grandfather - the March 5 protest was a “historic moment,” showing that a significant part of the Donetsk population was against joining forces with Moscow. The young man, who owns an advertising agency, stressed however that he did not fully support the Maidan movement in Kiev, whose three months of protests resulted in some 100 deaths before bringing down the Yanukovych regime and triggering Russian forces to seize de facto control of Crimea. The Maidan demonstrators prioritised overthrowing the government over European Union integration, he said, calling for greater autonomy for Donetsk rather than attachment to Russia. “You have to understand that Donetsk has always felt unloved, the authorities never had a plan for the southeast,” he said. Even though the deposed president hails from the region, “Yanukovych never did anything for us,” he added, echoing local disillusion with Kiev and the west of the country.  Ukraine’s rust belt, known for its coal mining and steel industry, was a vital region under the former Soviet Union but now feels forgotten, and many in the Donetsk area fear the industrial heartland may fall apart entirely if ties with neighbouring Russia are broken. “Men work here in mines and in factories, they do difficult work and all the money goes to western Ukraine,” fumed Valentina, a pro-Russian protester, reiterating a widely held view in the city. Many also voiced resentment at a recent attempt by Kiev’s new Western-backed authorities to scrap a law making Russian an official language in the region. In a declaration published this week on a local pro-European website, ostro.org, Donetsk activists called for national unity but warned they wanted to keep Kiev at arm’s length. “We have much to reproach Kiev for,” they wrote, calling for discussions aimed at keeping more of Donetsk’s money in the region. “But that will be for tomorrow. Today, the enemy is at the gates,” they warned.

AFP/New York Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s government was accused by a leading Republican US senator of risking a credit default and of failing to stand by its democratic promises. Latin America’s third-largest economy appears powerless in the face of the hemorrhage of its currency, the peso, and Argentina’s central bank has said it burned through $2.1bn in reserves in January alone. Strains in diplomatic relations between the US and Argentina were aired during questioning of the next proposed US ambassador to Buenos Aires, Noah Mamet, at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington. “It looks like they’re headed for another default because all the actions they’re taking today seem to be designed to avoid a short-term default, but long term, their structural problems are extraordinary,” said Republican senator Marco Rubio, who has been talked of as a possible US presidential candidate in 2016. “We have this trend in Latin America of people who get elected but then don’t govern democratically. Argentina is an example of this,” said Rubio, comparing the country to Venezuela, which is also suffering high inflation. The Argentine government is struggling to beat back a mounting rush into dollars that has stoked 26% inflation, despite price controls on many items and pressure on businesses to avoid price increases. Rubio told Mamet: “I anticipate, quite frankly, that there is a very high likelihood that if you are confirmed, while you are in that post, you are going to have another similar collapse in Argentina to what you saw economically just a decade ago.” The Republican senator’s comments were rebuffed for their “arrogance” in Buenos Aires by Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich. And US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the administration of President Barack Obama does not share the senator’s views and dismissed fears of possible clashes with Buenos Aires. Argentina’s foreign reserves, crucial to service foreign debts and pay for needed imports such as fuel, have tumbled from $52bn at the beginning of 2011 to $28.5bn as of January 30, according to Central Bank data. Seeking to play up more positive aspects of US-Argentine relations, Mamet mentioned American investment, but senators on the committee seemed unconvinced. “And just the rosy view that we have business there — yes, we have business there. What we also have is bondholders who don’t get paid,” said senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat. “We have debt to the US that they keep playing with by saying, ‘we’re going to renegotiate’, and never get to a renegotiation,” he added.  

Reuters/Ankara   Iran is ready to answer the UN atomic agency’s questions about its nuclear programme, a senior official was quoted as saying ahead of talks today expected to broach sensitive military-related issues. The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to persuade Iran to finally start addressing long-held suspicions it may have researched how to build atomic bombs. Tehran has rejected the accusations of weaponisation-related work as forged and baseless, while saying it will co-operate with the IAEA to clear up any “ambiguities”. Today’s meeting comes 10 days before Tehran and world powers, building on a landmark interim deal that took effect last month, start talks on a long-term accord on Iran’s nuclear aspirations that would avert the threat of a Middle East war. A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said the meeting had been scheduled for one day but might be extended, the Isna news agency reported yesterday. The “aim is to answer the IAEA’s questions”, Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted as saying by Isna, without elaborating. Iran’s Press TV English-language state television said in a headline on its website, citing the same official: “Iran ready to answer all IAEA questions.” Diplomats are cautiously optimistic that after today’s talks in Tehran the team of senior IAEA inspectors will be able to show at least some progress in gaining Iran’s co-operation. Iran-IAEA relations have improved since last year’s election of a relative moderate, Hassan Rohani, as president of Iran on a platform to ease the country’s international isolation. Under an agreement signed in November, the IAEA has already visited a heavy water production plant and a uranium mine in Iran. However, those first steps did not go to the heart of its investigation and Western diplomats will watch today’s meeting closely to see whether the next phase achieves that. One Vienna-based envoy said there was an expectation that at least one issue related to the IAEA’s inquiry into what it calls the “possible military dimensions” to Iran’s nuclear programme would be among the next steps to be taken by Tehran. “It is quite a crucial meeting,” the diplomat added. The IAEA wants Iran to clarify alleged activities in a range of areas of potential application to developing bombs, including various experiments and computer calculations. The IAEA’s investigation is focused on the question of whether Iran sought atomic bomb technology in the past and, if it did, to determine whether such work has since stopped. Although separate, it is still closely aligned with the wider-ranging diplomacy between Tehran and the six powers - the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany. Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said Iran would not back down “an iota from its nuclear rights”. “These talks (with the powers) will continue in the case of the opposite party’s goodwill,” he added. lAn influential US senator sought on Thursday to revive a push for sanctions to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, arguing that calling for new penalties is not war-mongering as suggested by the White House. Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, went on the offensive in a marathon floor speech outlining his distrust of the Iranian regime, saying he was “deeply sceptical” of Tehran’s intention to adhere to the interim agreement with world powers.    

Reuters/Washington A women’s group says the military in Myanmar is still using rape as a weapon of war, with more than 100 women and girls raped by the army since a 2010 election brought about a nominally civilian government that has pursued rapprochement with the West. The Thailand-based Women’s League of Burma said in a report made available to Reuters that 47 of the cases documented were gang-rapes and 28 of the women were either killed or had died of their injuries. It said several victims were as young as eight. The group said the situation showed the need for legal reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and for changes to a 2008 constitution to ensure that the military is placed under civilian control. Myanmar’s government denied the allegation. “It’s not the policy of our Tatmadaw (military) to use rapes as weapons,” presidential spokesman Ye Htut said. “If there are rape cases committed by individual members, we try to expose them and take effective action against the offenders. It would be very helpful in taking action against the offenders if those who prepared that report could send us the details of the cases,” he said. The report from the women’s group comes less than a month after a bipartisan group of prominent US senators, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio Ben Cardin and Bob Corker, introduced a bill saying that no funds made available to the Pentagon in 2014 should be provided to the Myanmar government until there is such reform and rights abuses are addressed. The bill, which makes an exception for human rights and disaster response training for the military, also calls on the Pentagon and the US State Department to present a report on US strategy for military-to-military ties with Myanmar, including an assessment of the Myanmar military’s rights record and the link between a deepening of such ties and reform.  The women’s group said most of the rape cases it and its member organisations had documented were linked to offensives by the Myanmar military in the northeast of the country against ethnic minority Kachin and Shan insurgents. It said that in the past three years, the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand had documented 59 cases of sexual violence by Myanmar government soldiers. The Shan Women’s Action Network reported another 30 cases involving 35 women and girls, it said. The women’s league said the attacks were more than random isolated acts by rogue soldiers.“Their widespread and systematic nature indicates a structural pattern: rape is still used as an instrument of war and oppression.” The league said more than 38 different army battalions were implicated in the cases it had documented. It said the incidents took place in at least 35 different townships and that it believed the reported cases were only the “tip of the iceberg” as many cases went unreported.  “The use of sexual violence in conflict is a strategy and an act of warfare that has political and economic dimensions that go beyond individual cases,” the report said.  “Sexual violence is used as a tool by the Burmese military to demoralise and destroy ethnic communities.” The group said the abuses were potential war crimes and crimes against humanity and called for a thorough independent investigation.  

The building of the Permanent Mission of the European Union to the United Nations Office in Geneva, the venue of the current talks  between  Iranian and EU negotiators. AFP/Geneva Iran and world power representatives yesterday agreed on how to implement a landmark deal on containing Tehran’s nuclear programme, but stamps of approval from each country are still needed before it can take effect. Two days of talks in Geneva between high-level Iranian and EU negotiators “made very good progress on all the pertinent issues”, Michael Mann, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told AFP. Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi, who wrapped up two days of intense talks in Geneva with Ashton’s deputy Helga Schmid yesterday evening, agreed. “We found solutions for all the points of disagreement,” he told Iranian state-run TV. The EU represents the so-called P5+1 group of world powers - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany in the decade-long nuclear negotiations with Iran. Top US nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman also briefly met with Araqchi and Schmid on Thursday. Negotiators had previously said they wanted to implement the groundbreaking November 24 deal, which aims to rein in Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for some sanctions relief, by January 20. But Araqchi stressed yesterday that although differences on how to put it into action had been ironed out, “the implementation of the Geneva agreement depends on the final ratification of the capitals”. He would not confirm that the target implementation date remained January 20, stressing that too would be decided by the each country’s government, who he said would soon each issue a statement on the issue. Mann confirmed to AFP that the progress made in Geneva this week “is now under validation at (the) political level in capitals”. Western powers and Israel fear Iran is seeking to develop the atomic bomb under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, but Tehran has always denied this. Under the November deal, Iran agreed to curb parts of its nuclear drive for six months in exchange for receiving modest relief from international sanctions and a promise by Western powers not to impose new measures against its hard-hit economy. Technical experts from both sides have since November held several sessions in Geneva aimed at fine-tuning the deal. But when experts held four days of talks last month in Vienna - home of the International Atomic Energy Agency - the Iranians walked out after Washington expanded its sanctions blacklist against Tehran. This week in Geneva, Araqchi and Schmid pored over three outstanding issues, repeatedly breaking off discussions so Schmid could consult with each of the six countries she represented, Araqchi told Iranian TV on Thursday evening. The negotiations had been “good, constructive and intense”, he said yesterday, without revealing which issues had been debated. Diplomatic sources have meanwhile said disagreement over a new generation of nuclear centrifuges, which could potentially enable Iran to rapidly purify uranium to a weapons-grade level, might prove a hurdle to rolling out the agreement. The latest round of talks in Geneva came as Iranian leaders voiced concerns at the slow pace of implementation. Senator terms bill as a ‘diplomatic insurance policy’ A Democratic US senator leading the charge to pass new sanctions on Iran despite objections from the Obama administration said yesterday the measure is a “diplomatic insurance policy” to push Tehran to comply with agreements to curtail its nuclear programme.  Fifty-nine senators - 16 of them Democrats - of the 100 in the chamber were co-sponsoring the bill, despite the White House’s insistence that it could imperil delicate international negotiations with the Islamic Republic.  Senator Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, disputed that in an op-ed published in The Washington Post yesterday, saying the bill would bolster diplomacy, not threaten it. “The proposed legislation is a clarifying action,” he wrote. “It allows all sides to negotiate in certainties and provides one year of space for the parties to continue talking. It spells out precisely the consequences should the agreement fail,” he said.  

AFP/WashingtonSecretary of State John Kerry yesterday raised doubts if Iran was truly prepared to conclude a final deal with Western powers on dismantling its nuclear programme, but urged US lawmakers not to impose new sanctions. “I came away from our preliminary negotiations with serious questions about whether or not they’re ready and willing to make some of the choices that have to be made,” Kerry told US lawmakers. “Has Iran changed its nuclear calculus? I honestly don’t think we can say for sure yet. And we certainly don’t take words at face value,” Kerry told the House foreign affairs committee. The top US diplomat, who helped hammer out an interim six-month deal with the Islamic Republic to freeze parts of its suspect nuclear programme, said “believe me this is not about trust.” “Given the history we are all rightly sceptical about whether people are ready to make the hard choices to live up to this.” But he stressed Iran’s seriousness would be put to the test over the six months set out in the November 24 interim deal hammered out last month in Geneva. Iran has denied accusations it is seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon under the guise of its civilian atomic energy programme. Kerry said “we now have the best chance we’ve ever had to test this proposition without losing anything” and he urged lawmakers to hold off imposing new sanctions on Tehran to give negotiators time to work. “I’m not saying never ... If this doesn’t work we’re coming back and asking you for more. I’m just saying not right now.” Two US senators—Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Mark Kirk, are finalising a new Iran sanctions measure that they hope to introduce before Congress goes on its year-end recess. Senator John McCain, who said he hoped senators could “get an agreement in the next day or two”, dismissed the idea that introducing new sanctions legislation now would hurt the interim agreement. “It’s supposed to be a six-month deal,” he said of the legislation, which would aim to punish Iran if it reneged on its part of the deal that it reached with members of the so-called P5+1 group of global powers. Fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the new sanctions would not take effect until after the six months, and would “basically tie to the UN resolutions”. Kerry said the world faced a crossroads, “a hinge point in history”: one path could lead to a resolution of global concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme, the other could lead to conflict. And he warned that if the US went ahead with new sanctions, it risked angering Washington’s P5+1 partners and could also give Iran an excuse to flout the deal. Experts were meeting yesterday in Vienna in a bid to nail down a start date for the Geneva deal, which would set the clocking ticking on the six-month deadline for a deal.

Reuters/CaracasVenezuela’s government said it was temporarily occupying the local subsidiary of multinational packaging company Smurfit Kappa, accusing the company of using its dominant position in the market to inflate prices.In the run-up to December 8 municipal elections, President Nicolas Maduro’s government has launched an “economic offensive” to try to win over voters fed up with chronic shortages of basic goods and annual inflation of 54%.This week, Maduro said inspections of businesses would be stepped up and called for tough punishments for those accused of price gouging.The opposition says his statist policies, and a decade of strict currency controls, are the problem.Industry Minister Ricardo Menendez said the local subsidiary of Irish packaging group Smurfit Kappa had hiked prices for some food-related products by 372% in the last year.“This company is being occupied temporarily to guarantee the provision of raw material for the food chain, everything related to the packaging, to guarantee the food produced in our country,” Menendez said on state TV from the company’s factory in the west-central state of Carabobo.He said the government was not taking over the day-to-day running of the facility. “The owners are responsible, before the country, to guarantee the maximum increase in production from this plant ... but the state will be here, vigilant, to make sure that no one sabotages our economy.”There was no immediate response to requests for comments by Smurfit Kappa. It is not the company’s first collision with Venezuela’s socialist government.In 2009, president Hugo Chavez seized 3,700 acres of forestry land owned by Smurfit Kappa, vowing to clear the trees and use the land for crops. At the time, analysts said the company had some 74,000 acres in Venezuela, representing 35% of the group’s Latin American landholdings, which represented 15% of Smurfit Kappa’s revenues.Maduro, who has staked his leadership on preserving the legacy of his late mentor Chavez, alleged on Friday that price irregularities had been found at almost 99% of 1,705 businesses inspected so far this month.Maduro’s administration accuses companies of marking up prices by as much as 1,000% over cost, though many retailers say they have been forced to increase prices due to lack of access to foreign currency at the official rate.The president asserts that “capitalist parasites” are trying to wreck the Opec nation’s economy and drive him from office.He blames speculators for a black market rate for dollars that is now some 10 times the official level of 6.3 bolivars.The opposition denounces his latest theatrical economic moves as short-term populism and says they are coupled with incompetence that will only make things worse in the long run.

Relatives fixing mechanical limbs to Rebeka Khatun, one of the survivors of the Rana Plaza building collapse, at the BRAC Limb and Brace Centre (BLBC) in Dhaka yesterday. According to reports, BRAC has distributed mechanical prosthetic limbs to 11 Rana Plaza survivors who lost their arms and legs during the building collapse with the support of National Institute of Traumatology, Orthopaedics Rehabilitation (NITOR). Rana Plaza, a building that housed five garment factories in Savar, collapsed on April 24, killing 1,134 people and causing many others lose limbs.   AFP/Washington A US Senate report has urged Walmart, Gap and other retailers to respect labour unions in Bangladesh, saying workers desperately needed greater rights after hundreds died in fires. The staff report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic Party majority came as Bangladesh’s government and foreign retailers agreed to start safety inspections on the 3,500 factories in the world’s largest garment maker after China. Senator Robert Menendez, the chairman of the committee, vowed to help give workers “the tools they need to protect themselves” after a factory fire in April killed 1,135 people and a similar disaster in November 2012 left 111 workers dead. “No consumer will want to wear clothing if it’s stained by the blood of innocent workers,” Menendez said in a statement late on Friday. Following the tragedies, more than 100 companies, mostly from Europe, entered an accord on fire safety that includes union representation. Major US companies including Gap and Walmart, which is known for its opposition to organised labour, set up a separate initiative that also covers safety standards but does not bring in unions. The staff report urged US companies to “launch long-term, well-resourced programmes to educate their suppliers in Bangladesh of their expectation for compliance with laws allowing the right to organise unions and bargain collectively.” “They should also collectively develop and implement a policy of zero-tolerance for suppliers who consistently engage in anti-union activity,” it said. The report called on the United States to step up funding to support workers’ rights in Bangladesh and to keep high standards as it considers lifting the South Asian country’s suspension from duty-free access for many of its exports. Bangladeshi authorities recently cracked down on unions that have led street protests against a new $68-a-month minimum wage, which represents a 76% hike but is still below salaries in other major garment exporters such as Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. According to top UN official last week, measures by top Western retailers to improve safety in Bangladesh’s garment factories should be adopted worldwide. “It’s clear we shouldn’t make a double standard,” said Gilbert Houngbo, deputy director general of the International Labour Organisation had said. “In Bangladesh, yes, but we have to make sure that the other countries, in the region and also in other regions, have it,” the former prime minister of Togo told reporters in Geneva last week. The garment sector was spurred into action by April’s collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, which claimed 1,135 lives in one of the world’s worst ever industrial disasters. “Unfortunately this is always what makes the whole international community, and national communities, move,” Houngbo said as he launched an ILO report on the Bangladeshi economy. “My only hope is that, at least, for Bangladesh, there will be no repeat,” he added. Houngbo said he feared politics could distort efforts to improve labour standards. “I really hope to be wrong, but after the election, depending on how it goes, and if the international and media attention is a bit off, if this is off-radar, what will be the impact? This is really the danger,” he said.