Six In The Mornig

'Ecological timebomb' fears over cruise ship

Italian officials fear environmental crisis as rescuers search for 29 people still missing after Mediterranean sinking.

Last Modified: 17 Jan 2012
Rescue workers are continuing to search for 29 people missing since a cruise ship partially sank after hitting rocks off the coast of an Italian island, as officials voiced concerns that the possible break-up of the stricken could trigger an environmental disaster. The Costa Concordia ran aground on rocks off the island of Giglio on Sunday, threatening to plunge the giant vessel and an estimated 2,400 tonnes of diesel fuel below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding nature reserve. Giglio mayor Sergio Ortelli said that the ship was an "ecological timebomb" amid concerns that the vessel could start leaking oil into the sea, prompting an environmental crisis. Six people are so far confirmed dead as a result of the accident. Most of the 4,200 passengers and crew survived, despite hours of chaos as some were rescued from the ship and others boarded lifeboats or swam to shore.

Chinese dissident Zhu Yufu charged with subversion
Zhu, 60, faces charges over online poem in which he urged people to gather to defend their freedoms

Reuters in Beijing guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 January 2012
Chinese authorities have indicted veteran dissident Zhu Yufu on subversion charges for writing a poem urging people to gather to defend their freedoms, his lawyer said. He is the latest activist to face such charges. Zhu, 60, from the eastern city of Hangzhou, was arrested last April for "inciting subversion of state power". No trial date has been set, his lawyer, Li Dunyong, said on Tuesday. "The main reason for the indictment was a poem he had written calling for people to gather. He had written the poem around the same time there was chaos [in the Middle East]," Li said. "He believes in freedom of expression."

Poverty is main culprit as 19 die in slum tragedy
Building collapse highlights rental laws which have left Beirut's poorest tenants living in danger

Robert Fisk Tuesday 17 January 2012
Usually it's Cairo, this time it was Beirut, but it was a familiar story. At least 19 – possibly 30 – dead, an old 1920s Lebanese apartment block in a semi-slum, equally old rents, so the survivors said, cheap for the poor tenants; one Egyptian among the dead, four Lebanese including a 14-year-old girl, along with Sudanese, Filipinos and Jordanians. It had been raining for almost a week in Beirut and, during a weekend storm, one of the tenants heard the snap of concrete. He thought it was thunder.

'Speculation Is an Important Cause of High Prices'
In a SPIEGEL interview, José Graziano da Silva, 62, the new head of the United Nations aid organization FAO, discusses his plans to combat hunger as well as his efforts to limit speculation and the impact it has on dramatically fluctuating food prices


SPIEGEL: Mr. da Silva, as the new head of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), you have made it your chief goal to eradicate hunger in the world. Isn't this an extremely ambitious objective, in light of skyrocketing food prices, a continually growing world population and ongoing economic crises? Da Silva: My plan is ambitious. But you can only motivate people with big objectives. This is precisely what we have to achieve -- to mobilize all parts of society and the international community in the fight against hunger. The FAO or a government alone cannot eradicate hunger on earth.

Soldiers deployed as Nigeria fuel strike ends
Labour unions ended a crippling nationwide strike on Monday in Nigeria after the country's president partially restored subsidies that keep gasoline prices low

JON GAMBRELL LAGOS, NIGERIA - Jan 17 2012 08:18
Union leaders claimed a victory for labour, saying this would allow its leaders to guide the country's policy on fuel subsidies in the future. But the newly agreed price of about $2.27 a gallon (60 cents a litre) is still more expensive than the previous price of $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per litre), putting additional economic strain on those living in a nation where most earn less than $2 a day and few see the rewards of being a major oil exporter. And to force the compromise and stop popular protests, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered soldiers to take over security in the country's major cities, something unseen since the nation abandoned military rule for an uneasy democracy in 1999. The move raises new questions about freedom of speech in a nation where government power still appears absolute.

Fake malaria drugs could 'put millions at risk'
Fake and poor quality anti-malarial drugs are threatening efforts to control the disease in Africa and could put millions of lives at risk, scientists say.

The BBC 17 January 2012
The counterfeit medicines could harm patients and promote drug resistance among malaria parasites, warns the study, funded by the Wellcome Trust. Malaria is believed to kill about 800,000 people a year. Some of the fake tablets are said to have originated in China. The researchers, from the Wellcome Trust-Mahosot Hospital-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration, published their work in the Malaria Journal.