Iran Khodro says coping with Peugeot exit
Tehran Times | July 25, 2012
Iran’s main automobile company, Iran Khodro, says it is coping with a decision early this year by troubled French car maker Peugeot to halt exports of vehicle kits for assembly, according to reports on Wednesday.
“Iran Khodro has managed to become self-sufficient in producing 90 percent of the parts for the (popular Peugeot model) 206, and an effort is being made to use local suppliers for parts that were previously imported,” Hossein Najari, Deputy CEO for production was quoted as saying.
Peugeot’s parent company PSA Peugeot Citroen in February suspended its sales of car assembly kits to Iran, which had been its top export market in terms of trade volume up to then.
The decision appeared to be tied to Peugeot’s alliance with U.S. group General Motors, and U.S. sanctions pressure on Iran.
PSA Peugeot Citroen on Wednesday announced it will seek to cut 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion dollars) in costs over the next three years after declaring a 819-million-euro ($989-million) loss for the first half of 2012.
Its exports to Iran, where locally assembled versions of its 405 and 206 models are prevalent on the roads, represented up to 800 million euros in revenue per year before they were suspended, according to figures given in Tehran.
The maker of two-thirds of France’s cars is in a tailspin as a deepening recession in many markets in Europe takes its toll on its business — Europe is Peugeot’s main market. The company’s share price has more than halved since March.
The first-half loss contrasts starkly with a profit of €805 million in the same period last year and came on the back of a 5.1 percent fall in revenue to €29.6 billion.
The company doesn’t expect Europe to pick up anytime soon, saying Wednesday that it expects its European market to contract by 8 percent this year.
In response, Peugeot announced earlier this month that it would close a major factory in France and cut 8,000 jobs — part of a plan to save €2.5 billion by 2015. Those savings will also come from efficiencies gained by an alliance with General Motors. About half — €1 billion — of those savings will come this year alone.
“The group is facing a difficult time,” Chairman Philippe Varin said. “The depth and persistence of the crisis impacting our business in Europe requires the launch of the reorganization of our French production and a reduction in our structural costs.”
But the company’s cost-cutting plans have run afoul of President Francois Hollande’s Socialist administration, which has said the restructuring is unacceptable and that it will force Peugeot to save some of the jobs it wants to eliminate.
On Wednesday, the government will unveil a plan to support the auto industry — part of its carrot-and-stick strategy with Peugeot. It’s expected to give incentives to French consumers to buy French cars and to support the clean-energy vehicles that the company excels at.
But much of Peugeot’s problems stem from an over-supplied European car market, and it’s unclear how much the government can do for the company. France’s car industry was already given a bailout under former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
(Source: agencies)
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UN Committee against Torture releases list of issues for Israel
DCI | July 19, 2012
In June, the UN Committee Against Torture (the Committee) released a list of issues it would like the Government of Israel to address when the Committee reviews Israel’s compliance with the Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 2013. Specific issues raised by the Committee relevant to the continued prosecution of Palestinian children in military courts include:
- What steps has the Government of Israel taken to audio-visually record interrogations conducted by the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) as a further means to prevent torture and ill-treatment? DCI-Palestine further recommends that this inquiry should be broadened to include interrogations conducted by the Israeli police, being the body most likely to interrogate Palestinian children from the West Bank.
- What steps has the Government of Israel taken to ensure that all detainees are promptly brought before a judge and have prompt access to a lawyer? Under military law, Palestinian children are not required to be brought before a judge for 8 days, and can be denied access to a lawyer for up to 90 days. By way of contrast, Israeli children, including those living in the settlements, must be brought before a judge within 24 hours and can be denied access to a lawyer for 48 hours.
- Please indicate how many Palestinian prisoners from the Occupied Palestinian Territory are held in detention facilities inside Israel? Transferring and detaining Palestinian prisoners out of occupied territory violates article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and attracts personal criminal liability under articles 146 and 147 of the same convention.
- Please indicate the measures taken to ensure that the detention or imprisonment of a child is used as a measure of last resort, that solitary confinement is never used as a means of coercion or punishment and that all children receive appropriate education.
- Please also explain the regime applied to children under military detention, in particular if their interrogations are recorded and if their parents or other legal representatives can have access to them. DCI-Palestine recommends that all interrogations of children must be audio-visually recorded and parents must be entitled to accompany their children at all times, as is the right generally afforded to Israeli children. Further, children must be entitled to consult with a lawyer of their choice prior to their interrogation.
The full list of issues released by the Committee is available here.
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Israel to Annex More of East Jerusalem
By Craig Harrington | IMEMC & Agencies | July 25, 2012
On Tuesday Israel announced plans to take full municipal control of a section of East Jerusalem that lies on the other side of its separation wall.
Israeli officials in Tel Aviv have been discussing taking full municipal control of the rest of East Jerusalem for several years. Their latest plan will bring portions of the city suburbs that lie east of the separation wall under Israeli jurisdiction, reports Ma’an News.
The decision to expand municipal services into this portion of East Jerusalem does carry some positive potential outcomes. As it currently stands the area under consideration has been cut off from the rest of the neighborhood by the Israeli wall. It is sectioned off from the rest of Jerusalem and receives no government services from Israel. At the same time the neighborhood also receives no administration from the Palestinian Authority. The expansion of municipal control for the Israeli authority in Jerusalem will at the very least bring some administration to the forgotten Palestinian district.
Unfortunately, the presence of some semblance of administration may be the only positive change many residents should expect. The portions of East Jerusalem that have already been formally annexed into Israel receive administration and pay taxes, but see virtually nothing in return in terms of developmental or social services. East Jerusalem contributes nearly half of the tax base for the city of Jerusalem, but receives less than one-tenth of the municipal funding. Schools are overcrowded, trash is infrequently collected, and job opportunities are hard to come by.
More than 90,000 Palestinians live on the eastern side of the separation wall and receive no administration from either the governments of Israel or Palestine.
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Russia: US Supporting Terror in Syria, West Spurring Bloodshed
Al-Manar | July 25, 2012
Russia accused the US on Wednesday of justifying terror in Syria, as it said that the West was spurring further bloodshed in the crisis-hit country.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that Washington’s failure to condemn the July 18 blast that killed top security officials meant it was justifying terror.
“This is quite an awful position, I cannot even find the words to make clear how we feel,” Lavrov said, adding: “This is directly justifying terrorism. How can this be understood?
Lavrov expressed bewilderment at calls on Russia to clarify its position on Syria, saying Moscow’s policy was crystal-clear and it was the West whose actions were contradictory.
He criticized the US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, saying she had argued that the attacks in Damascus meant the UN Security Council had to agree to a sanctions resolution against Syria last week that Russia later vetoed.
“In other words, to say it in plain Russian, this means ‘we (the United States) will continue to support such terrorist acts for as long as the UN Security Council has not done what we want’,” Lavrov said.
WEST SURRING BLOODSHED IN SYRIA
For his part, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said statements made by some Western leaders urging to end the conflict in Syria outside the UN Security Council framework were wrong and “a step aside from our common positions.”
During an interview with Itar-Tass news agency, Gatilov said: “We agreed that all foreign players will act in one direction – in the work with the government and with the opposition. We believe that viable decisions backing political settlement can be taken only in the UN Security Council.”
The international community would exert “proper influence” on both sides of the Syrian conflict only if it spoke with one voice and acted in coordination, Gatilov said, adding some Western partners’ intention to circumvent the UN would make no progress in the current difficult situation.
Meanwhile, Gatilov slammed those Western countries trying to spur “further bloodshed” from the opposition. “This upset us greatly, we take this as a step aside from the consensus obtained by the Geneva agreements,” the diplomat said.