News in Brief
JAKARTA (Reuters) -- Indonesia on Monday revealed the long-awaited site for its new $33-billion capital on the forested island of Borneo to replace the crowded, polluted megacity of Jakarta, which is slowly sinking into the sea.
The capital of the world’s fourth most populous country, on the island of Java, is now home to 10 million people and is prone to floods, traffic gridlock and faces the risk of earthquakes.
The as-yet unnamed new capital will straddle the regions of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara in Indonesia’s province of East Kalimantan on Borneo, President Joko Widodo told a news conference.
"It is a strategic location at the center of Indonesia, close to growing urban areas,” Widodo said at the presidential palace in Jakarta, adding that planning must start immediately if relocation is to begin in 2024.
The site of the new capital, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) northeast of Jakarta, is one of the regions least prone to the natural disasters that regularly hit the archipelago of 17,000 islands.
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BERLIN (Reuters) -- Germany’s co-governing Social Democrats (SPD) want to introduce a wealth tax for multimillionaires and billionaires and use the extra revenues to boost public investment in infrastructure, one of its interim leaders said on Monday.
Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel told reporters that the SPD party executive committee earlier in the day endorsed a working group proposal envisaging a 1% wealth tax on assets such as property, real estate, company shares and cash.
For billionaires, a tax rate of up to 1.5% could apply, Schaefer-Guembel said, adding that a more detailed proposal would be discussed at the SPD party congress in December.
The SPD wants to grant "very high” tax allowances to ensure that only wealthy Germans with assets worth more than 2 million euros are targeted, Schaefer-Guembel added.
Senior members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc oppose a wealth tax. They point to the coalition deal with the SPD in which both blocs said they would refrain from raising taxes in the current legislative period until 2021.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russia’s state weather agency said on Monday it had found the radioactive isotopes of strontium, barium and lanthanum in test samples after a mysterious accident during a test at a military site earlier this month.
The deadly accident on Aug. 8 caused a brief rise in radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk. President Vladimir Putin later said the mishap occurred during testing of what he called promising new weapons systems.
A cloud of inert radioactive gases formed as a result of a decay of the isotopes and caused the brief spike in radiation in Severodvinsk, the weather agency said in a statement.
The isotopes were Strontium-91, Barium-139, Barium-140 and Lanthanum-140, which have half-lives of 9.3 hours, 83 minutes, 12.8 days and 40 hours respectively, it said.
Russia’s state nuclear agency has said five of its staff members were killed and three injured in a blast during a rocket test on a sea platform that involved "isotope power sources”.
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BIARRITZ, France (Reuters) -- Brazilian women are probably ashamed of President Jair Bolsonaro, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday, hitting back after the Brazilian leader mocked Macron’s wife on Facebook.
The leaders have been feuding in recent weeks, with Macron blaming Bolsonaro for fires in the Amazon and accusing him of lying about climate change policy.
Bolsonaro responded on Sunday to a Facebook post that compared the looks of his wife Michelle, 37, with Macron’s 66-year-old wife Brigitte.
"Do not humiliate the man hahahah,” Bolsonaro wrote, in a comment widely criticized as sexist.
Asked about the incident at a news conference in Biarritz where G7 leaders are gathered for a summit, Macron said the comments were "extremely disrespectful” to his wife.
"It’s sad, it’s sad first of all for him and for Brazilians,” Macron said. "Brazilian women are probably feeling ashamed of their president.”
"Since I have a lot of esteem and respect for the people of Brazil, I hope they will very soon have a president who is up to the job,” Macron added.
The government of President Bolsonaro saw its approval rating plunge to 29.4% from a previous level of 39% in February, according to a poll by CNT/MDA on Monday.
The poll, which also saw Bolsonaro’s personal disapproval rating surge to 53.7% from 28.2%, was conducted between Aug. 22 and Aug. 25.
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MADRID (Reuters) -- A Spanish military jet crashed into the sea off the southeastern coast early on Monday, killing the pilot, the air force said.
The C-101 jet, used for training, came down near La Manga just after 0730 GMT, an air force spokesman said.
He said the cause of the crash, the second air disaster in as many days in Spain, was not yet known. The pilot, who was alone in the cockpit, was a flying instructor.
Three beaches in the area were closed to sunbathers after wreckage from the crash hit the sand, local authorities said.
On Sunday, seven people were killed in a collision between a helicopter and a light plane on the island of Mallorca.
The capital of the world’s fourth most populous country, on the island of Java, is now home to 10 million people and is prone to floods, traffic gridlock and faces the risk of earthquakes.
The as-yet unnamed new capital will straddle the regions of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara in Indonesia’s province of East Kalimantan on Borneo, President Joko Widodo told a news conference.
"It is a strategic location at the center of Indonesia, close to growing urban areas,” Widodo said at the presidential palace in Jakarta, adding that planning must start immediately if relocation is to begin in 2024.
The site of the new capital, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) northeast of Jakarta, is one of the regions least prone to the natural disasters that regularly hit the archipelago of 17,000 islands.
***
BERLIN (Reuters) -- Germany’s co-governing Social Democrats (SPD) want to introduce a wealth tax for multimillionaires and billionaires and use the extra revenues to boost public investment in infrastructure, one of its interim leaders said on Monday.
Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel told reporters that the SPD party executive committee earlier in the day endorsed a working group proposal envisaging a 1% wealth tax on assets such as property, real estate, company shares and cash.
For billionaires, a tax rate of up to 1.5% could apply, Schaefer-Guembel said, adding that a more detailed proposal would be discussed at the SPD party congress in December.
The SPD wants to grant "very high” tax allowances to ensure that only wealthy Germans with assets worth more than 2 million euros are targeted, Schaefer-Guembel added.
Senior members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc oppose a wealth tax. They point to the coalition deal with the SPD in which both blocs said they would refrain from raising taxes in the current legislative period until 2021.
***
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russia’s state weather agency said on Monday it had found the radioactive isotopes of strontium, barium and lanthanum in test samples after a mysterious accident during a test at a military site earlier this month.
The deadly accident on Aug. 8 caused a brief rise in radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk. President Vladimir Putin later said the mishap occurred during testing of what he called promising new weapons systems.
A cloud of inert radioactive gases formed as a result of a decay of the isotopes and caused the brief spike in radiation in Severodvinsk, the weather agency said in a statement.
The isotopes were Strontium-91, Barium-139, Barium-140 and Lanthanum-140, which have half-lives of 9.3 hours, 83 minutes, 12.8 days and 40 hours respectively, it said.
Russia’s state nuclear agency has said five of its staff members were killed and three injured in a blast during a rocket test on a sea platform that involved "isotope power sources”.
***
BIARRITZ, France (Reuters) -- Brazilian women are probably ashamed of President Jair Bolsonaro, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday, hitting back after the Brazilian leader mocked Macron’s wife on Facebook.
The leaders have been feuding in recent weeks, with Macron blaming Bolsonaro for fires in the Amazon and accusing him of lying about climate change policy.
Bolsonaro responded on Sunday to a Facebook post that compared the looks of his wife Michelle, 37, with Macron’s 66-year-old wife Brigitte.
"Do not humiliate the man hahahah,” Bolsonaro wrote, in a comment widely criticized as sexist.
Asked about the incident at a news conference in Biarritz where G7 leaders are gathered for a summit, Macron said the comments were "extremely disrespectful” to his wife.
"It’s sad, it’s sad first of all for him and for Brazilians,” Macron said. "Brazilian women are probably feeling ashamed of their president.”
"Since I have a lot of esteem and respect for the people of Brazil, I hope they will very soon have a president who is up to the job,” Macron added.
The government of President Bolsonaro saw its approval rating plunge to 29.4% from a previous level of 39% in February, according to a poll by CNT/MDA on Monday.
The poll, which also saw Bolsonaro’s personal disapproval rating surge to 53.7% from 28.2%, was conducted between Aug. 22 and Aug. 25.
***
MADRID (Reuters) -- A Spanish military jet crashed into the sea off the southeastern coast early on Monday, killing the pilot, the air force said.
The C-101 jet, used for training, came down near La Manga just after 0730 GMT, an air force spokesman said.
He said the cause of the crash, the second air disaster in as many days in Spain, was not yet known. The pilot, who was alone in the cockpit, was a flying instructor.
Three beaches in the area were closed to sunbathers after wreckage from the crash hit the sand, local authorities said.
On Sunday, seven people were killed in a collision between a helicopter and a light plane on the island of Mallorca.