The United States said
on Wednesday that North Korea had agreed to implement a moratorium on
nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and nuclear activities
including enrichment at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and to allow U.N.
nuclear watchdog inspectors in to ensure compliance.
The State
Department said that the United States in return had agreed to finalize
details of a proposed food aid package and to take other steps to
improve bilateral ties.
"The United States still has profound
concerns regarding North Korean behavior across a wide range of areas,
but today's announcement reflects important, if limited, progress in
addressing some of these," a State Department statement said.
North Korea has never followed through on any agreement reached with the U.S. on any issue of concern especially when its nuclear programs are involved
There was deep concern last night over the whereabouts of three
Western journalists who are believed to be trapped in the restive Syrian
city of Homs after an overnight rescue attempt succeeded in extracting
British photographer Paul Conroy, but which had also led to the death of
at least 13 opposition activists who had volunteered for the operation.
It is understood that the mission to rescue Mr Conroy, whose leg was
badly injured in a raid on the Baba Amr district of Homs last week that
killed his Sunday Times colleague Marie Colvin and the photographer Remi
Ochlik, also included a bid to rescue three other reporters.
Giant prehistoric penguin is reconstructed in New Zealand
Kairuku was 30cm taller and 50% heavier than emperor penguin, the largest of the modern era
It has taken 26m years but scientists say getting the first glimpse
at what a long-extinct giant penguin looked like was worth the wait.
Experts from New Zealand
and the United States have reconstructed the fossil skeleton of one of
the giant seabirds for the first time, revealing long wings, a slender
build and a spear-like bill.
In research published this week in
the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the scientists say the bird they
have dubbed Kairuku – Maori for "diver who returns with food" – stood
about 1.3 metres tall or four feet and two inches, and had a body shape
unique from any previously known penguin, living or extinct. Kairuku
lived in the Oligocene period, about 26m years ago.
Beijing Wants Say in Choice of World Bank Head
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington
Traditionally, the US gets to appoint the president of the World
Bank. But China is keen to make its influence felt in the search for a
successor to Robert Zoellick, who will step down in June. The next head
may still be American, but he or she will need to get Beijing's
blessing.
The first person to complain was a Brazilian. He saw "no reason" why the
future president of the World Bank had to be of a certain nationality,
Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said recently, speaking in the
Brazilian capital Brasilia. Then came an angry outburst from Manila,
where the Philippines' Finance Minister Cesar Purisima said that it was
time to rethink the selection of the head of the World Bank. They were
speaking in the aftermath of World Bank President Robert Zoellick's
announcement on Feb. 15 that he would step down when his five-year term
comes to an end on June 30.
Senegal's Wade glum at prospect of presidential runoff
DAKAR, SENEGAL The normally loquacious leader didn't take
questions and appeared subdued as he met reporters for the first time
since Sunday's contentious election, which was preceded by weeks of
protests calling for the leader's departure. Reading from a prepared
statement, Wade said that with more than half of the vote counted, he
was leading 13 other candidates with 32.17%. He needs more than 50% to
avoid a runoff.
Experts say that for the 85-year-old to remain in power he needed to win
on the first round when the opposition was split between multiple
candidates. In a runoff, his chances of winning are much slimmer because
the opposition will be united behind a single contender.
Diplomacy to seal Iran's
fate By Victor Kotsev
While the rhetoric between Iran and its
enemies has reached new heights - with Iran's
defense minister reportedly threatening the use of
"hidden capabilities which are kept for rainy
days" in response to a foreign attack - the
diplomatic front is also busier than ever. A great
deal of expectation is placed on the meeting
between United States President Barack Obama and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next
Monday, just as a great deal of attention is
focused on Israel's preparations to strike the
Iranian nuclear program.
Yet while Israel
is one of the noisiest participants in the
stand-off, it is by far not the only important
player to watch. From a long rostrum of powers
with heavy stakes (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China
immediately come to mind), Russia seems to be
driving a particularly hard bargain with the US
and its allies.
29 February 2012Last updated at 01:57 GMT
Razzies vs Oscars: Can bad movies ever be good?
By Kate DaileyBBC News Magazine
Truly bad movies can sometimes be more entertaining, and enlightening, than high art. But are their days numbered?
There are two types of bad movies: boring films with
lacklustre scripts and ho-hum acting, or outlandish, offensive bombs
with over-the-top performances, awful jokes and unbelievable plot lines.
The former are instantly forgettable. The Music Never Stopped, Terri and Priest, all flops from 2011, won't ring many bells.
But the latter incite anger in some fans and enthusiasm in others, drawn to the size and scale of the cinematic disaster
Investigation reports that government covered-up true scale of Fukushima disaster, and considered Tokyo evacuation.
It describes frantic phone calls by the manager, Masao Yoshida, to top officials in the Kan government arguing that he could get the plant under control if he could keep his staff in place, while at the same time ignoring orders from Tepco’s headquarters not to use sea water to cool the overheating reactors. By contrast, Mr. Funabashi said in an interview, Tepco’s president, Masataka Shimizu, was making competing calls to the prime minister’s office saying that the company should evacuate all of its staff, a step that could have been catastrophic.
The report quotes the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yukio Edano, as having warned that such a “demonic chain reaction” of plant meltdowns could result in the evacuation of Tokyo, 150 miles to the south.
“We would lose Fukushima Daini, then we would lose Tokai,” Mr. Edano is quoted as saying, naming two other nuclear plants. “If that happened, it was only logical to conclude that we would also lose Tokyo itself.”
A January 2011 email from
Fred Burton, Vice President for Intelligence at Stratfor reveals that
the US Department of Justice has a sealed indictment against Wikileaks
founder and spokesman Julian Assange.
Fw: [CT] Assange-Manning Link Not Key to WikiLeaks Case
Email-ID 375123
Date 2011-01-26 15:23:28
From burton@stratfor.com
To secure@stratfor.com Not for Pub --
We have a sealed indictment on Assange. Pls protect
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sean Noonan
Sender: ct-bounces@stratfor.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:16:53 -0600
To: CT AOR
ReplyTo: CT AOR
Subject: [CT] Assange-Manning Link Not Key to WikiLeaks Case
January 25, 2011 3:37 PM
Assange-Manning Link Not Key to WikiLeaks Case
A report that investigators have so far failed to establish a direct
link between the founder of the document-dumping website WikiLeaks and
the Army private accused of providing the site with hundreds of
thousands of secret State Department cables won't derail the military's
case as much as it might seem.
The case against Army Pfc.
Bradley Manning didn't hinge on investigators uncovering a direct link
to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange anyway,
But no one ever thought there was direct contact between Assange and
Manning, Martin reports. Assange meeting or e-mailing Manning would be
like the director of the Central Intelligence Agency meeting or
e-mailing a CIA agent. The theory of the case is that Assange
orchestrated the leak through cut outs deliberately designed to immunize
himself from charges of espionage.
In his own e-mails,
Manning refers to himself as a source for Assange even though he did not
give the documents to Assange but allegedly to a third person while
home on Christmas leave, Martin reports.
The Espionage Act of 1917
The chilling intent and affect of the Espionage Act as described byNaomi Wolf:
The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 -- because President
Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First
Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the
run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens -- educators,
journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists -- who
were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act
was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted
'crime' of their exercising their First Amendment Rights. A movie
producer who showed British cruelty in a film about the Revolutionary
War (since the British were our allies in World War I) got a ten-year
sentence under the Espionage act in 1917, and the film was seized; poet
E.E. Cummings spent three and a half months in a military detention camp
under the Espionage Act for the 'crime' of saying that he did not hate
Germans. Esteemed Judge Learned Hand wrote that the wording of the
Espionage Act was so vague that it would threaten the American tradition
of freedom itself. Many were held in prison for weeks in brutal
conditions without due process; some, in Connecticut -- Lieberman's home
state -- were severely beaten while they were held in prison. The
arrests and beatings were widely publicized and had a profound effect,
terrorizing those who would otherwise speak out.
Inside a dissenting Kazakh newspaper, where free speech comes at a price and getting published means risking everything.
By Simon Ostrovsky
Two months ago I stood on the fourth floor of police headquarters in the Kazakhstan city of Zhanaozen. I was staring at a group of bloodied men who I never expected to see while filming The Fight to Publish, which was supposed to be a film about a plucky opposition newspaper defying the authorities. But I did not have a camera.
The men stood in two rows facing the walls of a long corridor with their backs facing each other. Soldiers and police rushed between this corridor of stooped shoulders, entering and exiting and slamming doors. I heard someone scream in agony when one of the doors opened.
It was only hours since the worst violence in Kazakhstan's modern history had been visited upon oil workers here. But then, as now, few people around the world have heard of Zhanaozen. On December 16, Independence Day, a protest for better wages at their jobs in the oil industry had erupted into a riot and was put down with police guns. At least 17 people died.
Syrian activists: 64 bodies found near Homs in one of the worst mass killings
By Liz Sly, Tuesday, February 28, 7:59 AM BEIRUT — The bodies of dozens of men were found dumped on wasteland on the outskirts of the stricken city of Homs on Monday in what appeared to be one of the worst instances of mass killing since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last March.
The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said that the bodies of 64 men were taken to the National Hospital in Homs and that an unknown number of women and children who had been with them are missing. Activists said they thought that the men had been trying to flee the violence with their families when they were stopped and gunned down by security forces.
Red Cross rescue fails as Assad's tanks roll back into Homs President hails victory in referendum on new constitution – but the onslaught continues
Justin Vela The Turkish-Syrian border
Tuesday 28 February 2012 Syria's interior ministry announced yesterday that 89.4 per cent
of voters had approved a new government-proposed constitution in a
referendum held on Sunday that would limit the presidency of Bashar
al-Assad and impose multi-party elections. But at the same time as
the results were being announced, opposition activists reported a
fresh onslaught against Homs.
Despite the seemingly impressive result – there has been no independent verification – the government in Damascus conceded that 57.4 per cent of voters had bothered, or had been able, to cast their ballots. The result, if adopted, will allow President Assad to stay in power for another 16 years.
'Occupy London' protesters evicted
rishtimes.com - Last Updated: Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 08:06 Police said 20 people had so far been arrested in the “largely peaceful” operation.
Bailiffs and police arrived at the site early this morning, five days after the Occupy London campaign was refused permission by the Court of Appeal to challenge orders evicting protesters.
Confirming the eviction had begun, City of London Corporation said in a statement: “We regret that it has come to this but the High Court judgment speaks for itself and the Court of Appeal has confirmed that judgment.
Nuclear crisis set off fears over Tokyo
MARTIN FACKLER
February 28, 2012 - 12:57PM TOKYO: In the darkest moments of last year's nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident has disclosed.
The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organisation, offered one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Germany finds itself back in power in Europe Germany is the unquestioned boss amid Europe's debt crisis and economic woes. But the turnaround has inspired discomfort among its neighbors and among Germans.
By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times Reporting from Berlin—
For nearly 70 years, Germany's grand national ambition has basically been not to have one.
After losing two world wars and carrying out a horrific genocide, the country set to working its way back into the European fold, content to focus on rebuilding its shattered economy while dutifully leaving continental leadership to the likes of France.
The plan has been a roaring success — so much so that, in one of history's great ironies, Germany today finds itself right back where it wasn't supposed to be: dominating Europe.
Wronged women of Liberia reluctant to revisit human rights abuses Having already testified to a government commission, victims of sexual violence eschew new process based on traditional justice
Tamasin Ford
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 February 2012 07.00 GMT The women sat on plastic chairs arranged in a circle, some breast feeding, others with small children at their feet. This is their centre in Ganta, the dusty, vibrant commercial capital of Nimba county in north-east Liberia.
"Most of the women here were raped [during the war]," says Yarih Geebah, the speaker for Ganta Concerned Women. "But if you don't have money, nothing happens. [For] we, the poor people, we who don't know book … justice don't prevail."
Violent Uproar in Afghanistan Casts Shadow on U.S. Pullout
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and THOM SHANKER American officials sought to reassure both Afghanistan’s government and a domestic audience on Sunday that the United States remained committed to the war after the weekend killing of two American military officers inside the Afghan Interior Ministry and days of deadly anti-American protests.
But behind the public pronouncements, American officials described a growing concern, even at the highest levels of the Obama administration and Pentagon, about the challenges of pulling off a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that hinges on the close mentoring and training of army and police forces.
Syria holds 'farcical' poll while violence continues
Justin Vela Antakya, Southern Turkey Monday 27 February 2012 Syrians voted in a government-sponsored referendum yesterday, which if approved would allow multi-party elections and time limits on presidential terms. The poll was rejected as farce and a political stunt by activists and Western politicians who say it is designed solely to bolster the beleaguered Bashar al-Assad.
Members of the Syrian opposition called for a boycott and demanded the international community intervene to end a conflict that has left at least 6,000 people dead.
"The Syrian people are calling for international intervention and for this regime to step down," said Omar al-Muqdad, a senior Syrian activist.
Make Greece 'offer it can't refuse' to leave euro zone The Irish Times - Monday, February 27, 2012
DEREK SCALLY in Berlin GREECE SHOULD be “made an offer it can’t refuse” to leave the euro zone, according to one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet ministers, ahead of a vote today on Germany’s contribution to a second bailout.
With almost two-thirds of Germans opposed to further assistance to Athens, according to a new poll, interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich suggested the EU should “create incentives for an exit” by Greece.
“Outside European monetary union, Greece’s chances of regenerating itself and becoming competitive are definitely better than if it remained inside the euro zone,” said Mr Friedrich to Der Spiegel, insisting he did “not mean that Greece should be kicked out” of the 17-nation bloc. Mr Friedrich’s remarks reflect widespread pessimism in Germany’s ruling coalition government that bailouts are the correct medicine
Senegal tallies votes as incumbent seeks third term Senegal tallied results on Monday in an election in which incumbent Abdoulaye Wade, who is seeking to extend his rule with a disputed third term, was greeted by jeers as he cast his ballot.
Sapa-AFP | 27 February, 2012 06:45 The west African nation's reputation as a haven of stability has been tarnished by pre-poll violence over 85-year-old Wade's candidacy which left six dead in a month of riots.
As night fell some votes were counted by candlelight or lamps, and people sat intently listening to results trickling in on their cellphone radios.
In an election fraught with tension, none of the 13 opposition candidates emerged as a frontrunner before the poll as protests over Wade's candidacy rocked the nation and left six dead.
Weibos: China clamps down on popular microblogs Weibos are the freest place in China to speak. Now Chinese authorities are moving to curb that freedom.
By Peter Ford, Staff writer / Beijing
Just a few years ago, no ordinary Chinese citizen would ever have heard sensitive news – say, for example, if a top Chinese policeman had spent a day in a US consulate, apparently seeking asylum.
But when that happened in February, it was all over China's hugely popular Twitter equivalents within hours.
Resourceful "citizen journalists" posted photos of police massing outside the US Consulate in Chengdu, screenshots of an airline passenger manifest, and other evidence suggesting that Wang Lijun had been at the consulate and then escorted to Beijing by a senior Chinese security official. More than 2 million posts flooded China's "weibos" – Twitter-like microblogs – in just a few days.
Americans are no-shows at opening of NGO trial in Egypt
By Omnia Al Desoukie | McClatchy Newspapers CAIRO — Civil society workers for U.S. and other nonprofit groups that are accused of illegally receiving foreign funds entered pleas of not guilty Sunday, the first day of a trial that threatens to unravel three decades of close Egyptian-American relations.
None of the 16 American defendants showed up to court.
Of the 43 defendants, only 14 Egyptian nongovernmental organization — NGO — workers were present inside the cage as prosecutors read charges that accused them of circumventing Egyptian law to receive more than $20 million in funding from Washington to set up offices and promote a U.S.-friendly agenda.
LONDON — The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks
began publishing on Monday more than five million emails from a
U.S.-based global security analysis company that has been likened to a
shadow CIA.
The emails, snatched by hackers, could unmask sensitive sources and
throw light on the murky world of intelligence-gathering by the company
known as Stratfor, which counts Fortune 500 companies among its subscribers.
In a statement shortly after midnight ET, Straford said the release
of its stolen emails was an attempt to silence and intimidate it.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Reuters: "Here we have a
private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the U.S.
government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations
and journalists."
"What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are,
among others, activist organizations fighting for a just cause."
Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global
Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the
Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails
date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the
inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher,
but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations,
such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman,
Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of
Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence
Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure,
payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example :
"[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual
or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation
on your next phase" – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva
Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence
informant providing information on the medical condition of the
President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.
The material contains privileged information about the US
government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s
own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails
mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the
revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the
United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world
give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in
exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor
has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss
banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert
and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff
and journalists around the world.
The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how
they target individuals for their corporate and government clients.
For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of
Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men", for the US chemical giant
Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union
Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of
deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting
environmental damage.
On Sunday mornings in America the broadcast networks air programs which are meant to flesh out the ideas and policies of America's two main political parties. Having viewed some of these news interview programs what can best be said about them is that if one were looking to to be spoon fed lies and propaganda then these programs are for you. They video above is from one such program called Up With Chris Hayes in this particular segment he asks the panelists what they would ask the quests of these Sunday morning programs if given the chance.
Something sounds familiar. 'Long-range nuclear missiles', 'terrorist sleeper cells', 'WMDs': terms which quickly became part of the media's vocabulary in the run up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Fast-forward to 2012 and they are featuring heavily once again, only now it is not about Iraq, but Iran. Last time, the media's saber-rattling followed the Bush administration's lead in selling the attack on Iraq. This time, the so-called 'Iranian Threat' is a narrative being constructed by the US media all by itself - with scant public support from the Obama administration. Our News Divide this week takes a close look at the coverage of Iran and a culture of journalism that seems to have forgotten the very real dangers of hypothesis and conjecture.
Judith Miller a former reporter for the New York Times helped ferment the call to war with Iraq
"[T]he very qualities that endeared Miller to her editors at the New York Times—her ambition, her aggressiveness, her cultivation of sources by any means necessary, her hunger to be first—were the same ones that allowed her to get the WMD story so wrong.
Miller was criticized for her reporting on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. As Salon.com summarized: "Lying exile grifter Ahmad Chalabi fed her the worst of the nonsense designed to push America into toppling Saddam Hussein (and giving Iraq to him), and she pushed that nonsense into the newspaper of record.... She was hyping stories about Iraq's WMD capabilities as far back as 1998, and in the run-up to the war, her front-page scoops were cited by the Bush administration as evidence that Saddam needed to be taken out, right away."[4] On September 7, 2002, Miller and fellow New York Times reporter Michael R. Gordon reported the interception of metal tubes bound for Iraq. Her front-page story quoted unnamed "American officials" and "American intelligence experts" who said the tubes were intended to be used to enrich nuclear material, and cited unnamed "Bush administration officials" who claimed that in recent months, Iraq "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb".[14] Miller added that
"Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war."[14]
Shortly after Miller's article was published, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld all appeared on television and pointed to Miller's story as a contributory motive for going to war. Miller said of the controversy, "[M]y job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."[15] Some have criticized this position,[weasel words] believing that a crucial function of a journalist is independently to assess information, to question sources, and to analyze information before reporting it.
Report: Afghan police officer sought in US slayings
By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services A police intelligence officer was the "main suspect" in the alarmingly brazen killing of two senior U.S. Army officers at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, sources told BBC News on Sunday.
Abdul Saboor, 25, fled the ministry after the slayings on Saturday, counter-terrorism officials told the BBC. His family home in Parwan province in the northeast of the country had been raided and his family in Kabul detained, the BBC reported.
A gunman shot dead two American military officials — a lieutenant colonel and a major — inside the heavily guarded ministry in the center of the capital as protests raged across the country for a fifth day over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base.
Bin Laden's last refuge is razed in the dead of night' Pakistan brings in the bulldozers to destroy any chance of the spot where the al-Qa'ida leader died becoming a shrine
Sunday 26 February 2012
Authorities inPakistan last night started to tear down the compound located barely a mile from the country's premier military academy in which Osama bin Laden lived undetected for more than five years.
Military officials had warned there was concern the house could become a shrine to supporters of the dead al-Qa'ida leader.
Reports from the town of Abbottabad said local people had watched as troops started bringing in bulldozers and other heavy machinery yesterday evening and began to demolish the three-storey house.
Bloodbath on eve of Syria's referendum
February 26, 2012 - 2:15PM Syrian government forces have reportedly killed at least 83 people in a sustained clampdown on rebel areas on the eve of a referendum across the country on a new constitution.
The surge in violence came on Saturday as the Syrian government was preparing to hold a vote called by President Bashar al-Assad for Sunday on a new constitution.
Witnesses in the Damascus told DPA that women in white T-shirts were stopping cars and handing out leaflets reading: "Your vote is essential for Syria's sovereignty".
Nelson Mandela: SA prepares for the day it fears most It is the day South Africans dread more than any other, and it is not a question of if but when.
DAVID SMITH Feb 26 2012 07:20 "It's like watching one's grandfather fade away," was how Heidi Holland, the South African-based journalist, put it recently. After Mandela's previous health scare last year, Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes wrote of a "country huddled as if in a national waiting room".
He added: "What South Africans feel for Madiba is not simply affection or respect. Even love may not be a strong enough word. His presence is part of the structure of our national being. We worry that we may not be quite ourselves without him."
Ordinary Russians train to observe presidential vote Since the Russian parliamentary election in December, which was widely seen as fraudulent, thousands of people have been volunteering to monitor the presidential vote on 4 March. I went to see how they were being trained.
By Oleg Boldyrev BBC Russian It is late and getting to a college in the north of Moscow across frozen streets takes some time. But two dozen people are willing to make the effort.
When the lecture finishes, at around ten o'clock in the evening, they will be qualified to work as election observers.
Opposition leaders hope to see volunteers at every polling station in the country.
This will be difficult to achieve throughout Russia but in Moscow, at least, there are already enough activists to cover the city.
War of 1812 bicentennial is a big deal – in Canada It may have given Americans 'The Star Spangled Banner,' but Canadians say they were the big winners. Major celebrations are planned.
By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times Reporting from Washington—
For a piece of history that gave us the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air, the War of 1812 tends to evoke a collective "Huh?" on the U.S. side of the border with Canada.
"The War of 1812 has no compelling narrative that appeals to the average American,'' said Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. "It's just a hodgepodge of buildings burning, bombs bursting in air and paintings being saved from the invaders, all for a vaguely defined purpose. "
Yet the vacuum of interest in the War of 1812 is about to get a pyrotechnic blast of attention for its bicentennial year.
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.
Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.
'We are not afraid of Assad any longer. But why must more people die?' Eyewitness
Kim Sengupta Author Biography
Saturday 25 February 2012
The bodies were in a field, dumped during the night. They were men who had been arrested and taken away for interrogation after the forces of the Syrian regime began a vicious and vengeful sweep through this region.
The families in the village of Kurin have not been able to collect and bury their dead because they would be walking into a trap; any approach so far, they say, has been met with sniper fire. A force of rebel fighters who went to carry out the task twice had to retreat under fire from mortars.
Burma's Punk Scene Fights Repression Underground Despite signs of greater openness, Burma's government continues to wield an iron fist. Among its targets is the punk scene, whose bands are forced to play and practice in secret to avoid harsh punishments. Here, punk isn't a lifestyle. It is an act of genuine rebellion.
By Alexander Dluzak, in Rangoon The punk band Rebel Riot stands on a makeshift stage in an abandoned restaurant on the outskirts of downtown Rangoon, Burma's largest city. They wear their hair spiked straight up and studded leather jackets. "Saida! Saida! Saida!" singer Kyaw Kyaw barks into the microphone, "Resistance! Resistance! Resistance!" The drummer pounds away at his set while the guitars reverberate through the room. "No fear! No indecision! Rage against the system of the oppressors!" Kyaw Kyaw howls.
Native Americans are on a roll as tribal cigarettes exploit tax loophole
Thomas Kaplan
February 25, 2012 ONEIDA, New York: The trucks trundle past cornfields and dilapidated farm houses, pull up to a one-time bingo hall and unload their cargo: boxes of tobacco imported from the Carolinas.
Inside, employees of the Oneida Indian Nation dump the shredded tobacco leaves into rolling machines and fashion them into cigarettes to be sold at a dozen tribal convenience stores midway between Syracuse and Utica in New York state.
Mali clashes forced 120,000 to flee their homes: UN report
By AFP DAKAR Clashes between the army and Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have forced 126,400 people to flee their homes since mid-January, the United Nations said in a statement on Friday.
The UN refugee agency meanwhile said it needed Sh2.9 billion ($35.6 million) to cover the needs of those displaced by the escalating conflict.
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said people were continuing to flee and estimated 61,400 were displaced internally, while 65,000 had sought refuge in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Algeria.
In addition, at least 7,563 Niger citizens who were living in Mali had returned home.
Summit of the Americas standoff: Cuba wants in President Obama could take the high road and allow Cuban President Raul Castro to observe the Summit of the America's in Cartagena
By Anya Landau French, Guest blogger It’s never easy to sit at the same table as someone with whom you have deep disagreements, especially when you believe that that someone shouldn’t even be at the table.
But, President Obama could find himself in that position at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia this April.
President Obama and thirty-three other heads of state from around the region, all members of the Organization of American States (OAS), are expected to attend the summit.
After discovering that Koran's were burned at the U.S. Baghram airbase in Afghanistan ISAF and President Obama issued apologies over the incident saying that there would be a full investigation. Obviously Newt Gingrich Republican candidate for U.S. President proved just how intolerant, obtuse and racist he is by issuing this statement about what happened in Afghanistan. This isn't the first time for Gingrich to issue such a statement. In December of last year he stated that the Palestinian people were a made up people which just completely dehumanizes them.
Gingrich lashed out at President Barack Obama for the formal apology
after copies of the Muslim holy book were found burned in a garbage pit
on a U.S. air field earlier in the week
Obama's apology was announced Thursday morning. A few hours
later, news organizations reported that an Afghan soldier had killed two
U.S. troops and wounded others in retaliation for the Quran burning.
Campaigning in Washington state, Gingrich said Afghan President Hamid Karzi owes the U.S. an apology for the shootings.
"There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get
Barack Obama's attention in a negative way and he is consistently
apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of
the United States period," Gingrich said.
"And, candidly, if Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan,
doesn't feel like apologizing then we should say good bye and good luck,
we don't need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on
somebody who doesn't care."
It's just amazing that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly establishes that religion shall have no place in American politics yet Republican candidates for the U.S. Presidency insist that the United States is a Christian nation when it clearly is not.
Indonesia prides itself on being a democratic nation, but critics say that its justice system does not reflect the country’s progress.
Riddled with corruption and incompetent investigative procedures, trials and sentences are often deemed unfair.
Wealthy or politically influential suspects are often able to buy themselves out of a trial, while poorer suspects face abuse in prison.
A major conference is being held in Tunisia to seek a breakthrough in the increasingly bitter Syrian unrest.
The BBC 24 February 2012 The US, Europe and Arab countries plan to challenge President Bashar al-Assad to provide humanitarian access within days to the worst-affected areas.
But Russia and China, key allies of Syria which have blocked UN resolutions again Damascus, are not attending the "Friends of Syria" conference.
Activists say more than 90 people died across Syria on Thursday.
Around 70 nations, including the US, UK, France and Turkey are attending the conference, organised by the Arab League
Family of three die from apparent starvation in Japan Discovery raises questions over the official response to rising poverty levels among the elderly and the unemployed in Japan
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 February 2012 05.04 GMT Authorities in Japan are under pressure to explain how three members of the same family were allowed to die of apparent starvation, after their bodies were discovered two months after their deaths.
Police found the bodies of a couple believed to be in their 60s and their son, thought to be in his 30s, at their apartment in Saitama, north of Tokyo, after the building's owner said he had been unable to contact them.
The hard labour behind soft drinks Coca-Cola is being urged to help end exploitation in Italian orange groves
Andrew Wasley Friday 24 February 201 Coca-Cola is facing questions about its links to orange harvesting in southern Italy, which campaigners say relies on the cheap labour of African migrants living in squalid conditions.
An investigation into citrus fruit growing in Calabria has revealed how thousands of African workers, many of whom have made the treacherous voyage across the Mediterranean in search of a new life, are earning as little as €25 (£21) for a day's picking in orange groves in a region that supplies juice concentrates to several multinational companies.
Activists try to shake off whalers in Australian waters
February 24, 2012 - 1:22PM Sea Shepherd ships are again headed for Australian waters in an attempt to shake off their long Southern Ocean pursuit by Japanese whalers.
The refuelled long-range ship Bob Barker has left Wellington and plans to rendezvous with the Steve Irwin at Macquarie Island early next week, the conservation group's leader, Paul Watson, said today.
The Tasmanian sub-Antarctic island was the scene of a cat-and-mouse chase in early January, when the Yushin Maru No.3 followed the Bob Barker inside the Australian 12-mile territorial limit there.
Inside the kommando camp that turns boys' doubts to hate Thick clouds of diesel smoke fill the air outside a run-down guest farm outside the town of Carolina in Mpumalanga.
ELLES VAN GELDER JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Feb 24 2012 06:43 It is after midnight when the boys heft bags full of military clothing. "There are old blood stains on my uniform," one of them says, as he trades his sneakers for army boots.
Shouted orders ring out. The harsh intimidation begins immediately. Groaning, the boys raise 4m tent poles among the cowpats dotting the grassland. The large army tent will be their home for the next nine days.
What is Iran's Supreme Leader's game? THE ROVING EYE
By Pepe Escobar We interrupt this program to ask the supreme war-or-peace question; what game is Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei really playing?
A recurrent theme among the lively Iranian global diaspora is that the Supreme Leader is the perfect US/Israel asset - as he incarnates Iran (although in many cases less than President Mahmud Ahmadinejad) as "the enemy"; in parallel, the military dictatorship of the mullahtariat in Tehran also needs "the enemy" - as in the Great Satan and the Zionists - to justify its monopoly of power.
In March 2012, a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
As tens of thousands of people were evacuated from nearby towns and villages, the world waited anxiously to see whether the radioactive fallout would spread across the country, or even be carried overseas.
Unsurprisingly, in the wake of this incident, the nuclear operations of other countries have come under considerable scrutiny.
One such country is the US where more than 100 similar reactors - some of them in earthquake zones or close to major cities - are now reaching the end of their working lives.
Their owners want to keep them running, but others - from environmentalists to mainstream politicians - are deeply concerned.
In this investigation for People & Power, Joe Rubin and Serene Fang of the Center for Investigative Reporting examine whether important safety considerations are being taken into account as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) considers extending the licences of these plants.
US, N. Korea in first nuclear talks since Kim death
Discussions will be closely watched for signs of more cooperation from Pyongyang
Associated Press BEIJING — Amid cautious optimism, U.S. and North Korean envoys met Thursday for their first talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programs since the death of the country's longtime leader Kim Jong Il.
The discussions will be closely watched for signs of a more cooperative approach from North Korea, which stands to gain food aid, economic help, and diplomatic concessions in return for taking steps to end its efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
EU tar sands vote looms The decision whether Europe will officially label oil produced from tar sands as highly polluting will be made on Thursday
Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 February 2012 06.45 GMT A fierce battle over whether the European Union will officially label oil produced from tar sands as highly polluting comes to a head on Thursday with a crucial vote.
The issue is seen as a key test of the EU's ability to implement its climate change policies amid pressure from the Canadian government and oil companies' ability to prevent billions of barrels of tar sands oil being designated as especially harmful to the environment. The lobbying has been intense, with Canada secretly threatening a trade war with Europe if the proposal is passed. The Nasa climate scientist James Hansen has said full development of the tar sands would mean it was "game over" for the climate.
Prosecutor tells Mubarak he faces death by hanging Ex-President snubs final chance to address court after claims he ordered shooting of protesters
Alastair Beach Cairo Thursday 23 February 2012
The deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was last night facing the possibility of death by hanging as the final session in one of the most sensational trials in recent history drew to a close.
Given a last opportunity to address the court in Cairo, where for much of the past six months he has lain on a hospital bed in a cage listening to the evidence against him, Mr Mubarak refused, telling the judge he had no comments to make
SADC heads planned onslaught on pirates Southern African Development Community navies are plotting to defeat Somali pirates before they move southwards
MHLABA MEMELA | 23 February, 2012 01:10 The bloc's naval heads from 14 countries were locked in high-level discussions in Durban yesterday to formulate their battle plan, which they expect to put into action as soon as the issue of funding is thrashed out.
The naval chiefs, who will deliberate until tomorrow, acknowledged that piracy now threatened the entire continent - as trends show that brazen pirates are moving towards the south sub-Saharan region.
Convoluted fuse to Bangkok bombs Southeast Asia
By Anthony Davis BANGKOK - Since the mid-February bomb blasts which struck Bangkok and New Delhi, and a failed attack in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, confusion over events on the ground has been compounded by a predictable war of words between Iran, widely viewed as behind the attacks, and its arch-enemy Israel, the apparent target.
Amid the din of accusation and denial, amplified by camp-followers of both parties, puzzled independent observers have managed to concur on only two aspects of the still unexplained events.
Brazilian activists urge crackdown on 'death squads' Human rights officials aim to make contract killing a federal crime in Brazil after two journalists are killed.
By Elyssa Pachico, Guest blogger A top human rights official in Brazil's government said that Congress should push through a bill which makes contract killings a federal crime, after two journalists were shot to death in less than a week.
Maria do Rosario, head of the office of the President's main human rights commission, said Congress should pass a bill allowing the federal government to investigate and prosecute contract killings. The bill would also increase the penalties for murders committed by militias and death squads, including increasing jail time for militia members from four to eight years, Agencia Brazil reports (in Portuguese).
If the 2011 uprising in Bahrain was difficult to cover, the first anniversary, which was marked on February 14, was near impossible to report on. Over the last year, the Bahraini government has been scaling up its information control apparatus and media access to the country is rigorously monitored and managed by the government and its team of Western PR advisors.
Many journalists who applied to enter the country for the one-year anniversary were refused by Bahraini officials who said they could not handle the volume of visa applications they received. The government did, however, grant entry to a select few foreign news outlets.
The German news weekly Der Spiegel was among them and on the eve of the anniversary, the magazine ran an exclusive interview with Bahrain's king, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. Within the country, the king's media presence was much more visible, with state TV running hours of footage of the royal family celebrating the 11-year-old Bahraini National Reform Charter - a programme that initiated political change in the country, but which opponents say does not go anywhere near far enough.
Our News Divide this week focuses on the Bahraini uprising one year on and the media battle that continues to rage in the island country.
Marie Colvin (left) and Remi Ochlik (right) were killed in Homs,
Syria, Wednesday, opposition activists and a French government official
said.
In a news report aired by U.K. broadcaster ITN on Tuesday, Colvin talked about the situation in Homs and its Baba Amr suburb.
"The Syrians are not allowing civilians to leave. Anyone who gets on the
street, if they are not hit by a shell, they are sniped," she said in
the report.
"There are snipers all around Baba Amr on the high buildings," Colvin
said. "I think the sickening thing is the complete merciless nature ...
they are hitting civilian buildings absolutely mercilessly, without
caring. The scale of it is just shocking."
Speaking to BBC News Tuesday, Colvin compared the situation in Baba
Amr to the massacre of Srebrenica during the Bosnian war in 1995, when
Serb forces killed more than 7,000 Muslims.
She said there were 28,000 living in Baba Amr and "they are here because they can't get out."
Colvin told the BBC that she had counted 14 shells falling on the suburb within 30 seconds early Tuesday morning.
She spoke about watching a 2-year-old child dying from shrapnel
wounds in a makeshift clinic in an apartment, saying it was "absolutely
horrific."
"The doctor just said 'I cannot do anything.' His little tummy just
kept heaving until he died," Colvin told the BBC. The child was among a
"constant stream" of injured civilians coming to the apartment for
treatment.
Qur'an protests force US embassy into lockdown
Kabul embassy issues safety warning amid anger over burning of Muslim holy books at Nato base in Afghanistan
The US has locked down its embassy in Kabul amid violent protests across the capital over the burning of Qur'ans at Nato's main base in Afghanistan.
"The
embassy is on lockdown; all travel suspended. Please, everyone, be safe
out there," the embassy posted on its official Twitter feed after
protests at which demonstrators screamed "Death to America!".
Several
people were wounded on Wednesday, according to witnesses, when shots
were fired as hundreds of angry Afghans gathered for a second day of
violent clashes after copies of the Qur'an were burned at the Bagram
airbase.
Paradise lust: the man who sexed up America
He had named two continents after himself and
thrilled Europe with the salacious tales of what he saw there. But, 500
years on, can we trust Amerigo Vespucci's accounts? Peter Popham
discovers the full story
Wednesday 22 February 2012
Christopher Columbus didn't know where he was going when he set out
and he didn't know where he had been when he got back. But was Amerigo
Vespucci, who died 500 years ago today and after whom America was named,
any better informed? Click HERE to view graphic
A
person who has not one but two continents named after himself is likely
to attract his share of jealousy. The Florentine mathematician and
navigator who crossed the Atlantic a few years after Columbus, making
landfall in what are now Venezuela and Brazil and reaching almost as far
south as Patagonia, has been called many names over the years, a
deliberate liar, a "faker", a "false pickle-dealer" and much else.
Dolphin activist cleared in Japan
February 22, 2012 - 3:36PM
A Sea Shepherd dolphin activist, held for two months in jail in the
town of Taiji over an alleged minor assault, has been cleared of the
charge in a very rare finding by a Japanese court.
Erwin Vermeulen, a volunteer with the Cove Guardians
group of Sea Shepherd protesting against the Taiji dolphin hunt, was
arrested after he was said to have shoved an employee of the Dolphin
Resort Hotel.
Report says Somali children used as 'cannon fodder'
NAIROBI, KENYA - Feb 21 2012 13:54
Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab rebels
have forced children as young as 10 to fight alongside them and serve as
"cannon fodder" in battles against government troops, Human Rights
Watch said on Tuesday.
The Islamists have also abducted girls to
help on the frontline and as wives to rebel fighters, according to a
report by the New York-based group.
Parents who try to prevent their children being dragged into the
conflict have themselves been targetted and even killed, it added.
"After several weeks of harsh training, al-Shabaab's child recruits are
then sent to the front lines, where some serve as 'cannon fodder' to
protect adult fighters," the organisation said.
22 February 2012Last updated at 09:45 GMT
Western journalists 'killed in Homs shelling'
Unconfirmed reports from Syria say two Western journalists have been killed in the central city of Homs.
Activists said an American and a French national had died
after a shell hit a makeshift media centre in the Baba Amr area, which
has come under bombardment.
Several other people were also killed and wounded, the activists added.
Opposition-held districts of Homs have been under siege by
security forces for more than two weeks, with hundreds of people
reportedly killed
After two wars, drums beat again over Iran
'When you have heated politics and incomplete control of
events, it's possible to stumble into a war,' nuclear strategy expert
says
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON — The United States has now endured what by some measures is the longest
period of war in its history, with more than 6,300 American troops
killed and 46,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ultimate costs
estimated at $3 trillion. Both wars lasted far longer than predicted.
The outcomes seem disappointing and uncertain.
So why is there already a new whiff of gunpowder in the air?
Talk of war over Iran’s nuclear program has reached a strident pitch
in recent weeks, as Israel has escalated threats of a possible strike,
the oratory of American politicians has become more bellicose and Iran
has responded for the most part defiantly. With Israel and Iran
exchanging accusations of assassination plots, some analysts see a
danger of blundering into a war that would inevitably involve the United
States.
Thousands protest at US Afghan base after Quran desecration
By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services KABUL, Afghanistan -- A crowd of Afghans protesting outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan swelled to more than 2,000 Tuesday over a report that foreign troops had improperly disposed of copies of the Quran, Afghan officials said.
General John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), earlier offered his "sincere apologies" for the actions in an apparent bid to prevent anti-Western anger from spreading across Afghanistan.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities," he wrote in a statement.
Climate change increased likelihood of Russian 2010 heatwave – study Although the heatwave was made three times more likely, the size of the event was within natural limits, say scientists
Alok Jha, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 February 2012 07.00 GMT The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of man-made climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said the scientists, laying to rest a controversy last year over whether the extreme weather was natural or human-induced.
The 2010 heatwave broke all records for Russia – temperatures in the central region of the country, including Moscow, were around 10C above what they should have been for the time of year.
Fukushima: Return to the disaster zone A year since the Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed, the fight to prevent disaster goes on. In an exclusive dispatch from the reactors, David McNeill becomes the first European journalist to revisit Japan's ground zero
Tuesday 21 February 2012
The journey to Fukushima Daiichi begins at the border of the 12-mile exclusion zone that surrounds the ruined nuclear complex, beyond which life has frozen in time. Weeds reclaim the gardens of empty homes along a route that emptied on a bitterly cold night almost a year ago. Shop signs hang unrepaired from the huge quake that rattled this area on 11 March, triggering the meltdown of three reactors and a series of explosions that showered the area with contamination. Cars wait outside supermarkets where their owners left them in Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba – once neat, bustling towns. Even birds have deserted this area, if recent research is to be believed.
Greece secures second bailout after tortuous talks irishtimes.com
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 09:14 Euro zone finance ministers sealed a second bailout for debt-laden Greece in the early hours of this morning that will resolve its immediate financing needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation's shattered economy.
After 13 hours of talks, euro zone officials said ministers had finalised measures to cut Greece's debt to 120.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020, a fraction above their original target of 120, after negotiators for private bondholders accepted bigger losses to help plug the funding gap.
Senegal opposition calls fresh protest after deadly riots
By AFP Senegal's opposition called for a new protest Monday, prompting fears of fresh violence days before polls in which President Abdoulaye Wade's bid for a third term has upset the normally stable nation.
The president's spokesman Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye on Monday said the violence was regrettable and accused opposition candidates of paying youths and retired soldiers to "install chaos" in the country.
Tensions are running high just six days before elections in the west African nation, a former French colony known for being one of the continent's pioneer democracies which has never suffered a coup or conflict.
Spies shouldn't police us
Opinion » Editorial In September, 1970, J. Edgar Hoover wrote a secret memo which pithily explained the difference between criminal investigators and spies: the “purpose of counter-intelligence action,” it stated, “is to disrupt, and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge.” Four decades on, as Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram prepares to give teeth to India's new National Counter-Terrorism Centre, the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's legendary — and paranoiac — founding director should help Indians understand why the idea is profoundly misguided.
With the Syrian government
continuing its deadly crackdown on its citizens, two senior American
senators who were on their way to the Middle East spoke out strongly on
Sunday in favor of arming the Syrian opposition forces.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, both Republicans, laid out a series of diplomatic,
humanitarian and military aid proposals that would put the United States
squarely behind the effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria. The senators, both of whom are on the Senate Armed Services
Committee, said that rebel fighters deserved to be armed and that
helping them take on the Syrian government would aid Washington’s effort
to weaken Iran.
“I believe there are ways to get weapons to the opposition without
direct United States involvement,” Mr. McCain said. “The Iranians and
the Russians are providing Bashar Assad with weapons. People that are
being massacred deserve to have the ability to defend themselves.”
“So I am not only not opposed,” he said, “but I am in favor of weapons being obtained by the opposition.”
In the 1980's after the United States Congress passed a law prohibiting the export of arms to the Contra,s fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua Republican President Ronald Reagan decided to ship arms to the Contra,s through a third party. The Iran Contra affair led to several convictions and resignations from Ronald Reagan's administration
Senator John McCain Republican of Arizona one those advocating for the arming of Syrian rebels once during a news conference began singing Bomb Bomb Iran to the tune of the Beach Boys song Barbra Ann.
Of course there are the two wars started by a Republican administration which I'm sure no one seems to remember Iraq and Afghanistan. Which have failed to achieve any of the goals. So, once again republicans are screaming for war. .
Two years after the earthquake, Haiti is trying to clear tent cities
By William Booth, Monday, February 20, 11:29 AM PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — International aid worker Emmett Fitzgerald has to get 20,000 very poor people squatting in front of the National Palace to pack up their tarps and tin, their plastic buckets and soiled mats — to empty the most notorious camp in Haiti and go home.
There is not enough money, there is not enough time to build the cities of tomorrow in Haiti today. So the 4,641 families that have been living for the past two years in the Champ de Mars park in downtown Port-au-Prince will be given $500 to return to the kind of desperate housing they lived in before the earthquake.
In Haiti, that is considered good news.
Foxconn lifts wages for workers 25% as Apple lets ABC News into plants Pay rise for staff comes as company says it will limit workers' hours at huge plants where products are assembled for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Hewlett-Packard
Charles Arthur
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 February 2012 07.23 GMT Foxconn, the Taiwan-owned manufacturer with giant assembly facilities in mainland China which is one of Apple's main contractors, says it has raised wages by up to 25% in the second major salary hike in less than two years.
As the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, it has come under intensive scrutiny after a spate of suicides last year and reports of long hours for the hundreds of thousands of staff. Its facilities are scheduled for inspection by a team from the US Fair Labor Association, at the prompting of Apple.
France and Germany 'to blame for Greece crisis' Countries encouraged profligate spending on arms that Athens could not afford, say critics
Athens Monday 20 February 2012
As Greeks wait for a second eurozone rescue package to finally be agreed in Brussels today, many are blaming Germany and France for encouraging and benefiting from some of the much-criticised profligate spending which reduced Greece to near bankruptcy.
About 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the Greek Parliament in central Athens yesterday afternoon while riot police waited to see if there would be a fresh confrontation. But in general, Greeks are resigned to the new package of austerity measures that will cut jobs in public service and slash pensions and the minimum wage.
China's promise of easier living herds Tibetan nomads into jobless penury
Philip Wen
February 20, 2012 LOSANG, a dark, stocky man, with wavy, jet-black hair, is known as the happiest man in his village. It is easy to see why; the former nomad cackles with infectious laughter even when telling of his own misfortune.
Chinese authorities told him that if he gave up herding yaks and sheep in exchange for a house in a Tibetan nomad resettlement camp, he could buy a car, open a business and get government support. He now has the house - two rooms, each about three metres across and four metres long - but not much else.
''We were happy to move, but now there is nothing,'' Losang, 46, says, laughing loudly.
Senegal protesters and police clash just before vote Senegalese riot police fired volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets at stone-throwing demonstrators after prayers at a mosque in Dakar on Sunday
DAKAR, SENEGAL Rescue workers took away one man who was unconscious after being hit by a rubber bullet, an Agence France-Presse journalist witnessed.
It was the latest violence in days of urban clashes between police and protesters trying to defy a ban and hold demonstrations against 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade's plan to run for a third term in office.
Sunday's clashes erupted outside a mosque, which demonstrators said had been "profaned" when it was hit by tear gas grenades thrown by a police officer on Friday.
S Korea holds military drills despite North's threats South Korea has held live fire military drills from islands near disputed sea borders with the North, despite threats of retaliation from Pyongyang.
20 February 2012 The drills, which North Korea has called "premeditated military provocation", lasted two hours.
There was no reported action from the North, which warned on Sunday that it would retaliate for any attacks.
The drills took place in an area where four South Koreans were killed in 2010 in a North Korean artillery attack.
Two civilians and two military personnel died in the November attack on Yeonpyeong Island, which lies west of the Korean Peninsula close to the disputed maritime border.
Palestinian’s Trial Shines Light on Military Justice
By ISABEL KERSHNER NABI SALEH, West Bank — A year ago, Islam Dar Ayyoub was a sociable ninth grader and a good student, according to his father, Saleh, a Palestinian laborer in this small village near Ramallah.
Then, one night in January 2011, about 20 Israeli soldiers surrounded the dilapidated Dar Ayyoub home and pounded vigorously on the door. Islam, who was 14 at the time, said he thought they had come for his older brother. Instead, they had come for him. He was blindfolded, handcuffed and whisked away in a jeep.
As Libya celebrates a year of freedom, evidence grows of its disintegration First anniversary of the Libyan revolution highlights the fear and suspicion threatening a divided country with further conflict
Chris Stephen in Tripoli
The Observer, Sunday 19 February 2012 One thing was missing from the highly charged celebrations that erupted in Tripoli's Martyrs Square at the weekend to mark the anniversary of last year's revolution.
There were fireworks, marching bands and bouncy castles for the children, a hooting phalanx of tugboats on the seafront and thousands of flickering Chinese lanterns sent into the night sky. But there was no sign of the government. The balcony on the Red Castle overlooking the square was empty, with the leadership of the National Transitional Council perhaps sensing that an appearance would see the cheers turn to jeers.
Inside the torture chamber of Assad's inquisition squads Charlotte McDonald-Gibson in Damascus talks to an activist who survived 21 weeks' interrogation by Syria's security forces
Sunday 19 February 2012
It was a single egg that made Jolan, a 28-year-old activist, realise he was going survive Syria's notorious torture chambers. He was blindfolded and locked in what he describes as a metal coffin, and each morning his tormentors would push a small piece of bread and a hard-boiled egg through a narrow opening by his head. But his cramped box – so short he could not straighten his legs – was tilted and his hands were bound, so for five days the egg would simply roll away and drop to the floor through a hole by his feet.
Knives out over bid to bar Mugabe A new draft constitution provision which bars Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe from standing in the next election, which is expected to take place this year or next
JAMA MAJOLA | 19 February, 2012 00:57 The situation has increased the stakes in the constitution-making process and shed light on the intensifying succession battle now playing out on the ongoing reform agenda.
The draft constitution clause which has caused a political storm states: "A person is disqualified for election as president if he or she has already held office for one or more periods, whether continuous or not, amounting to 10 years".
Nuke crisis caused by Japan, not quake: Kan Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan has admitted that Japan was woefully unprepared for last year's nuclear disaster
In an exclusive interview, Kan acknowledged flaws in the authorities' handling of the crisis, including poor communication and coordination among nuclear regulators, Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s management and the government Kan was heading at the time.
But he said the disaster — the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 — laid bare a host of even bigger vulnerabilities in the nuclear power industry and its regulations, ranging from inadequate safety guidelines to crisis management, all of which he said need to be overhauled.
Mexico female presidential candidate Mota Vazquez embraces role Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the ruling PAN, doesn't hesitate to play the so-called gender card at chosen times. She trails the leader by a wide margin.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
February 19, 2012
Reporting from Mexico City—
"I will be the first woman president of Mexico."
Thus declared Josefina Vazquez Mota on the night this month when she was officially crowned the incumbent party's candidate in upcoming national elections.
A former congresswoman and education minister, Vazquez Mota, 51, has eagerly embraced her historic position as Mexico's first female presidential candidate for a major political party. In a contest where she trails the leader by a wide margin, she does not hesitate to play the so-called gender card at chosen moments.
