Thai PM says rejects compromise offer by protesters

BANGKOK, April 24 (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva rejected on Saturday a new, compromise offer by anti-government "red shirt" demonstrators to end weeks of increasingly violent protests in return for early polls.

The red-shirted supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra said on Friday they would end a three-week occupation of Bangkok's ritzy shopping district if the government dissolved parliament and announced elections in 30 days, softening a previous demand for an immediate dissolution.

Asked by reporters if he had accepted the proposal, Abhisit replied "No, I don't".

"They keep saying they will escalate the situation. That's why the government cannot consider the proposal." (Reporting by Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat. Editing by Jason Szep)

Bangkok braces for unrest after peace plan rejected

(Reuters) - Bangkok braced on Sunday for more unrest a day after the Thai government rejected a peace overture from demonstrators offering to end increasingly violent protests in return for early polls.

World | Thailand

The red-shirted supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra told thousands of supporters to expect a crackdown and rescinded their offer to end a three-week occupation of Bangkok's main shopping area if the government called elections in 30 days.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose six-party coalition government is under pressure from upper-class and royalist Thais to take a stern line with the "red shirts," is sticking with an offer to call elections in December, a year early.

The mostly rural and urban poor protesters returned to their previous demand for immediate polls, which their political allies are well placed to win.

Abhisit said their peace overture looked insincere, designed only to boost their image and could not be considered amid threats. The protests, he added, were taking a worsening toll on Thailand's economy, Southeast Asia's second biggest.

Hotel occupancy in Bangkok has crumbled to 20 percent, tourism operators say, down from about 80 percent in February, squeezing an industry that supports six percent of the economy.

"We will have to revise the growth rate again, especially after this month and last month, as we can see that the protests have had a big impact on tourism," Abhisit said in his weekly television broadcast.

He said the government would have to revise down its forecasts of 4.5 percent economic growth this year.

The protesters threaten more aggressive measures, including laying siege to Central World, the second-largest shopping complex in Southeast Asia, next to the stage at their main protest site.

"If you want Central World shopping mall back safely, you must withdraw army forces out of the nearby Rajaprasong area immediately," said Jatuporn Prompan, a protest leader.

The shopping center at the Rajaprasong intersection has been closed since the protesters occupied the area on April 3.

Bangkok, a sprawling city of 15 million people, is on edge after a series of grenade blasts three days ago killed one person and wounded 88 in a business district, an attack the government blamed on the red-shirts, who deny they were responsible.

That followed an April 10 clash between protesters and the army that killed 25 people and wounded more than 800 in Thailand's worst political violence in nearly two decades.

CRACKDOWN FEARS

The army warned on Saturday it would forcibly disperse the protesters who have set up a self-contained village in a roughly 3 square-km (1.9 mile) area of the city, but it said wanted to first separate militants in the area from women and children.

Any attempt to disperse the protesters risks heavy casualties and the prospect of clashes spilling into high-end residential areas, which are slowly emptying of residents and workers as shops close and apartment building owners tighten security.

Thousands of troops, many armed with M-16 assault rifles, keep watch over red-shirts at several city intersections. Royalist pro-government protesters often gather outside their fortress-like barricade, with both sides hurling bottles.

Tens of thousands of red-shirts remain encamped in the central Bangkok shopping district, vowing to stay until parliament is dissolved and defying a state of emergency.

"This hardening of the battle lines between the two sides does not bode well for Bangkok's security situation and a risk of another, and this time maybe even more violent, crackdown is immediate," risk consultancy IHS Global Insight said in a note.

Analysts and diplomats say both sides want to be in power in September during an annual reshuffle of the military, an institution central to protecting and upholding the monarchy.

If Thaksin's camp prevails and is governing at the time, big changes are expected, including the ousting of generals allied with Thailand's royalist elite, a prospect royalists fear could diminish the monarchy's influence.

Royalist generals are likely to resist that at all costs.

In recent days, the government has stepped up accusations the red shirts want to overthrow the monarchy, which the protesters deny, raising the stakes in a country where Thailand's 82-year-old king is deeply revered but has appeared rarely in public since September when he was hospitalized.

The protests are radically different from any other period of unrest in Thailand's polarizing five-year political crisis -- and arguably in modern Thai history, pushing the nation close to an undeclared civil war.

Diplomats and analysts say the army's middle ranks look dangerously split with one faction backing the protesters led by retired generals allied with Thaksin, ousted in a 2006 coup and later sentenced in absentia for corruption.

The red shirts say British-born and Oxford-educated Abhisit came to power illegitimately in December 2008, heading a coalition the military cobbled together after courts dissolved a pro-Thaksin party that led the previous government.

They chafe at what they say is an unelected elite preventing allies of twice-elected Thaksin from returning to power through a vote. Thaksin lives in self-imposed exile, mostly in Dubai.

(Additional reporting by Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Shortsighted to oppose bank tax, IMF warns

(Reuters) - Countries that weathered the global economic crisis with their financial systems relatively unscathed are being shortsighted by opposing a global bank levy, the IMF's chief said on Saturday.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn suggested a bank tax would be helpful in preparing for crises that could strike anywhere and indirectly criticized countries that might think they would never feel the brunt of a downturn.

"The countries ... which are likely to implement (a bank tax) are the ones having had problems in the banking sector," Strauss-Kahn said. "The others say, 'We didn't have a problem so we're immune.'"

"Maybe it's a bit shortsighted," he added, without naming any countries. Canada has taken a lead role in rallying opposition to a tax on banks, and anti-poverty organization Oxfam zeroed in on it for that stance.

"It would be shameful if Canada blocks a tax that could provide hundreds of billions of dollars for countries that have been devastated by the economic meltdown," Oxfam said in a statement distributed at IMF headquarters, where its semi-annual meetings were held.

"If the IMF can be on the side of the angels, why can't Canada?" Oxfam asked.

The possibility of setting some kind of levy on banks split Group of 20 finance ministers at a meeting on Friday and carried on into the subsequent IMF gathering, where Strauss-Kahn faced questions about it from reporters.

He said that before the crisis it was likely that the United States, Britain and some European countries thought they could manage their way through safely, which proved to be incorrect because they were forced to fund massive bank bailouts.

"So I'm not sure that this kind of instrument -- it's true also for strong regulation -- shouldn't be applied everywhere," Strauss-Kahn said in best diplomatic fashion.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Friday that not only was he steadfastly opposed to a tax but also that he had persuaded some colleagues from other Group of 20 rich and emerging countries to join him.

There are other voices, notably in the banking industry, that want to stop the idea of a bank tax in its tracks.

The Institute of International Finance, which represents 390 firms worldwide, wrote to G20 finance ministers after Friday's meeting to lay out their case against a tax.

"The IIF sees no merit in the idea that any levy on the financial sector should be paid into general revenue. Neither do we believe that an ex-ante levy on the banking system should be used to finance the bailing out or recapitalization of failing institutions," IIF Managing Director Charles Dallara said in the letter made public on Saturday.

Dallara suggested such a tax designed to fund future bailouts would only encourage excessive risk-taking, since it meant there would be cash on hand to rescue them in any case.

"That would contribute to the persistence of moral hazard and weaken market discipline," he said.

Dallara said the IIF will propose measures for managing failures by winding up firms and suggested that would be a more useful approach than considering new taxes.

"We can no longer contemplate a world in which public or private sector funds are used to bail out or recapitalize failing firms."

The IIF is to offer a paper on a proposed resolution arrangement to the Financial Stability Board, which is made up of G20 central bankers and regulators and coordinates financial reforms.

(Reporting by Louise Egan, Francesca Landini and Glenn Somerville; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

U.S. senators postpone climate bill unveiling

(Reuters) - One of President Barack Obama's top priorities -- tackling global warming -- suffered a severe setback on Saturday when a fight over immigration derailed plans to unveil a compromise climate change bill.

Barack Obama | COP15

A bipartisan group of senators led by Democrat John Kerry had been aiming to outline details of their climate change bill on Monday.

That plan was canceled after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the working group, threatened to pull out if Democrats pushed for a debate on an overhaul of immigration before doing the huge environmental and energy legislation.

Without Graham on board, efforts to pass climate control legislation could be doomed, as he was expected to work to win more Republican support for the bill.

Kerry later announced that "regrettably, external issues have arisen that force us to postpone" advancing the climate control bill, which also would have expanded U.S. nuclear power generation and offshore oil drilling.

The Massachusetts Democrat indicated the three senators had agreed on the details of a bill before Graham sent his letter.

Kerry added that he and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman would continue working to advance the legislation "and are hopeful that Lindsey will rejoin us once the politics of immigration are resolved."

The Senate climate legislation, under close international scrutiny, would have reduced U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide pollution, which is blamed for causing global warming and results from burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, to generate electricity, power factories and operate cars and trucks.

That legislation also would was expected to introduce a new trading system for pollution permits, similar to programs in the European Union and among 10 northeastern U.S. states, to cut pollution.

A Democratic Party aide suggested that key figures were scrambling late on Saturday to find a way to put back on track what may be a last-ditch effort this year for climate-change legislation.

"There's huge movement to find an accommodation between (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid, Graham, and the White House," the aide told Reuters.

"The environmental community is sounding the alarm that they need the majority leader to put the pieces back together or they'll hold him accountable," the aide added.

REID UNDER PRESSURE

The flare-up over immigration came a day after Arizona Governor Janice Brewer, a Republican running for reelection, signed into law a tough immigration measure that Obama called "misguided."

Reid, like many Democrats in Congress, is in a tough race for reelection in November and is facing pressure in his state to pass immigration reform, while others want a climate control bill. There is little time left in the legislative calendar.

Democrats, who have a majority in Congress, have signaled they want to pass the climate bill as well as legislation to provide a path for some 11 million people in the United States illegally -- many of them Hispanics -- to gain citizenship.

Hispanics, a key voting bloc who tend to favor Democrats, and other groups have pushed for the legislation, which would also increase border security and reform rules for temporary workers in the United States, which is important to the business community.

The effort to pass the two major bills this year has angered Republicans, many of whom oppose both measures. Graham is seen as a key player on both the climate and immigration issues.

The fate of both bills depends on the ability of Reid and Obama to forge an agreement with Republicans, who have resisted cooperating for the past two years on most major Democratic initiatives.

Carol Browner, the White House's top energy and climate advisor, said on Saturday, "We have an historic opportunity to finally enact measures that will break our dependence on foreign oil, help create clean energy jobs and reduce carbon pollution."

She urged the three senators to continue their efforts.

Reid said Graham was under "tremendous pressure" from his party "not to work with us on either measure."

"I appreciate the work of Senator Graham on both of these issues," Reid said, adding that Americans "expect us to do both and they will not accept the notion that trying to act on one is an excuse for not acting on the other."

Graham has been chafing all week over reports that Democratic leaders were signaling that immigration changes could be the next big legislative push in the Senate after it finishes a bill to overhaul financial regulations.

"Moving forward on immigration -- in this hurried, panicked manner -- is nothing more than a cynical political ploy," Graham said in a letter on Saturday to Kerry and Lieberman.

Graham said debate on the controversial immigration changes was not ripe and should occur next year, after the November congressional elections.

The climate bill, however, already faced an uphill battle in the Senate before it became enmeshed in the battle over immigration.

If Congress fails to approve climate legislation this year, it could try again in 2011. If all efforts collapse in Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it would begin regulating greenhouse gases for the first time, an outcome business and environmental groups wish to avoid. They prefer legislation tailored to their needs.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Asheville, North Carolina; Editing by Paul Simao)

Tornado kills 10 in Mississippi: officials

(Reuters) - A tornado nearly a mile wide ripped through central Mississippi on Saturday, killing 10 people, including three children, and injuring dozens of others, state authorities said.

U.S.

The tornado struck at least 13 counties, destroying scores of homes and trapping people inside, damaging businesses, blocking highways and knocking out power to thousands, said the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

Five people died in Choctaw County, four in Yazoo County and one in Holmes County, said Greg Flynn, spokesman at the agency.

Governor Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency after the first major U.S. tornado of the year.

"It has done huge damage around Yazoo City," Barbour, who grew up in the city, told CBS television.

"We have fatalities, a number of people that we're still trying to rescue who are trapped in buildings. But it is a major, significant tornado ... and it did some huge damage and perhaps some fatalities north of here," Barbour said.

"The Hinds County Sheriff's Department is sending two dozen deputies and 100 inmates to assist with the response in Yazoo County and clear debris," the emergency agency said.

The storm system has moved to Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, said Greg Carbin, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

(Reporting by Peggy Gargis; Writing by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Peter Cooney)

history of reuters news

Paul Julius Reuter noticed that, with the electric telegraph, news no longer required days or weeks to travel long distances. In 1850, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen—then in the Kingdom of Prussia, now in Germany—close to the borders with the Netherlands and Belgium, and he began using the newly opened Berlin–Aachen telegraph line to send news to Berlin. However, there was a 76-mile (122 km) gap in the line between Aachen and Brussels, the Belgian capital city and the financial center of that country. Reuter saw there was an opportunity to speed up news service between Brussels and Berlin by using homing pigeons to bridge that gap in the telegraph lines.

In 1851, Reuter moved to London. After failures in 1847 and 1850, attempts by the Submarine Telegraph Company to lay an undersea telegraph cable across the English Channel, from Dover to Calais, appeared to promise success. Reuter set up his "Submarine Telegraph" office in October 1851 just before the opening of that undersea cable in November, and he negotiated a contract with the London Stock Exchange to provide stock prices from exchanges in continental Europe in return for access to the London prices, which he then supplied to stockbrokers in Paris.

In 1865, Reuter's private firm was restructured, and it became a limited company (a corporation) called the Reuter's Telegram Company. Reuter had been naturalised as a British subject in 1857.

Reuter's agency built a reputation in Europe for being the first to report news scoops from abroad, like the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. After many decades of progress, almost every major news outlet in the world subscribes to the Reuters company's services. It operates in at least 200 cities in 94 countries, supplying news text in about 20 languages.

Reuters was financed as a public company in 1984 on the London Stock Exchange and on the NASDAQ in the United States. However, there were concerns that the company's tradition for objective reporting might be jeopardised if control of the company later fell into the hands of a single shareholder. To counter that possibility, the constitution of the company at the time of the stock offering included a rule that no individual was allowed to own more than 15% of the company. If this limit is exceeded, the directors can order the shareholder to reduce the holding to less than 15%. That rule was applied in the late 1980s when Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which already held around 15% of Reuters, bought an Australian news company that also owned stock in Reuters. The acquisition meant that Murdoch then held more than 15%, and then he was compelled to reduce the holding to less than 15% to stay in line with the rules.

Further protecting Reuters from owner actions that might threaten its independence is Reuters Founders Share Company Limited, formed in 1984 as part of the share float. This is a company whose sole task is to protect the integrity of the company's news output. It holds one "Founders Share" which can outvote all other shares in the event that an attempt is made to alter any of the rules relating to the Reuters Trust Principles. These principles set out the company's aim to preserve its independence, integrity, and freedom from bias in its news reporting.[2] Subsequent to the forming of Thomson Reuters the trust principles continue to live on, with the RFSC now holding a Founders Share in each of Thomson Reuters Corporation and Thomson Reuters PLC.[3]

Reuters began to grow rapidly in the 1980s, widening the range of its business products and expanding its global reporting network for media, financial and economic services. Recent key product launches include Equities 2000 (1987), Dealing 2000-2 (1992), Business Briefing (1994), Reuters Television for the financial markets (1994), 3000 Series (1996) and the Reuters 3000 Xtra service (1999).

In the mid-1990s, the Reuters company engaged in a brief foray in the radio sector — with London Radio's two radio stations, London News 97.3 FM and London News Talk 1152 AM. A Reuters Radio News service was also set up to compete with the Independent Radio News.

In 1995, Reuters established its "Greenhouse Fund" to take minority investments in a range of start-up technology companies, initially in the USA, only.

On 15 May 2007, Canada's The Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, in a deal valued at US $17.2 billion. Thomson now controls about 53% of the new company, named Thomson Reuters. The new chief of Thomson Reuters is Tom Glocer, the former head of Reuters. The earlier rule of 15% ownership (see above) was waived; the reason as given by Pehr Gyllenhammar, the chairman of the Reuters Founders Share Company, was "The future of Reuters takes precedence over the principles. If Reuters were not strong enough to continue on its own, the principles would have no meaning."[4] citing the recent bad financial performance of the company. On 26 March 2008, shareholders of both organisations agreed to the merger. The acquisition was closed on 17 April 2008.

In October 2007, Reuters Market Light, a division of Reuters, launched a mobile phone service for Indian farmers to provide local and customised commodity pricing information, news, and weather updates.

The last surviving member of the original Reuters family, Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, died aged 96 on 25 January 2009 after having suffered a series of strokes in late 2008.[5]

Should be parent be responsible if their children behave badly?

Should be parent be responsible if their children behave badly? The most adolescent want to be adult.But sometime ,they do not have responsible to decide many problem in their life.by themselves. They might make damage and problem to social. Such as , crime, escapade.
They have many reason for support should not be parent responsible.Firstly,teenager to day are want freedom in life.they think, they can dicision by themselve,they want to learn anything by themselves.and then adolescent feel they become adult. The do not need attention from parent . they feel attacned with friend more their parent.last parent should relax more because they might tried from working hard.adolecent children should responsible their’s problem by themselves,athought teenage can responsible their life but for their decide true,perent should responsible them for many reason .
First of all,childen are too younger they don’t have exparience in decide problem.they might walk in mistake way.parent should give advice to them.second,adolescent want moral from parent whent childen have problem.they want attention form parent.third,it were duty of parent to responsible their children .if parent don’t responsible children they might make crime and social problem.
However,I think for that be should take care adolescent to be more for reduce the crimes and social problem are clause by children .expecially ,parent should give morale,advide and attention to teenage children.