Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Syrian unrest: 'Many deaths' as army attacks Hama
The Syrian army has begun an assault on the city of Hama in northern Syria, with residents saying that dozens of people have been killed.
The BBC 31 July 2011

Hama has been in a state of revolt and virtually besieged for the past month.

Locals said more than 20 people were killed in "intense gunfire" after forces moved in from several sides.

The army is signalling that it will not tolerate large-scale unrest ahead of the month of Ramadan, when protests are expected to grow, correspondents say.

Syria has seen more than four months of protests against the authoritarian four-decade rule of President Bashar al-Assad's Baath party.

China rail crash families accept compensation as Beijing moves to silence furore
Ten families agree to £87,000 compensation as death toll mounts
Tania Branigan in Beijing
The Observer, Sunday 31 July 2011
Relatives bereaved by China's high-speed rail crash have accepted compensation after the government doubled its original offer, as authorities tried to silence the furore over the disaster. Ten families have agreed to the deal – 915,000 yuan (£87,000) per victim – the state news agency reported. The death toll is now 40, with another 190 injured.

Other relatives say the compensation is insufficient and that the ministry of railways, which has apologised for last weekend's disaster, should take more responsibility. "Our deceased relatives were in the prime of their lives; they have children and senior parents to support," said Chen Engfen. He said he would not accept less than £141,000.

Kenya is on the brink of its own disaster
While the situation in Somalia deteriorates, millions of its neighbours are at risk of malnutrition
By Emily Dugan Sunday, 31 July 2011
The small harness hanging from the branch of an acacia tree looks much like the baby swings used to cradle infants around the world. But slumped against its straps is no bouncing, chubby toddler. Instead, there lies the listless frame of a child brought close to death by hunger.

The harness is hooked to a set of makeshift scales – and the weight reading for two-and-a-half year-old Ekure Nachukuli signals a grim future if she is not helped quickly. At 12.5kg, with spindly arms, belly protruding and every upper rib showing, she is in a state of severe malnutrition.

Europe's Right-Wing Populists Find Allies in Israel
Islamophobic parties in Europe have established a tight network, stretching from Italy to Finland. But recently, they have extended their feelers to Israeli conservatives, enjoying a warm reception from members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition. Some in Israel believe that the populists are Europe's future.

By Charles Hawley
Anders Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto is nothing if not thorough. Pages and pages of text outline in excruciating detail the ideological underpinnings of his worldview -- one which led him to kill 76 people in two terrible attacks in Norway last week.

It is a document which has led many to question Breivik's sanity. But it has also, due to its myriad citations and significant borrowing from several anti-immigration, Islamophobic blogs, highlighted the deeply entwined network of right-wing populist groups and parties across Europe -- from the Front National in France to Vlaams Belang in Belgium to the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

Nuclear regulator asked utility to push nuclear power in public forum

2011/07/31

In 2006, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency asked a utility to manipulate public opinion in favor of nuclear power at a public forum, a fresh example of collusion between the nuclear watchdog and electric power companies.

The Shikoku Electric Power Co. admitted NISA asked it to mobilize residents to attend the June 2006 public hearing in Ikata, Ehime Prefecture, home to Shikoku Electric's Ikata nuclear power plant, the industry ministry said July 29.

Campaign puts Mexico teachers union leader back in spotlight
Elba Esther Gordillo is courted by nearly every political party because of the 1.5 million votes she controls. She says her true cause is Mexico, but scandal dogs her.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
July 31, 2011
Reporting from Mexico City— The most powerful woman in Mexico carries $5,000 Hermes purses and can make or break a presidency.

She's head of the nation's principal teachers union, the largest syndicate in Latin America, and once gave Hummers as gifts to loyal teachers.

Elba Esther Gordillo commands the patronage of more than 1.5 million teachers, and in election years, that means more than 1.5 million votes. Almost every political party courts her.

Random Japan

DIAMOND DUST
Sho Darvish, the younger brother of Nippon Ham Fighters ace Yu Darvish, was arrested twice in June—once for marijuana possession and again for assaulting a 19-year-old woman. So much for weed mellowing you out…
Seattle Mariner Ichiro Suzuki saw his string of ten straight MLB All-Star Game appearances come to an end when he finished seventh in fan voting among American League outfielders. He still picked up over 2.5 million votes.
A renegade cat delayed a BayStars vs. Hiroshima Carp ballgame at Yokohama Stadium when it got on the field and had to be chased off by security.
Golfer Tiger Woods may have philandered away millions in endorsement contacts in the U.S. but he’s still big in Japan. Woods is the new face of Kowa, a Japanese muscle balm.
The heat is on once again and the Japan Football Association has decided to allow sports drinks, as well as your standard water, on the sidelines at soccer games to prevent heatstroke. Some stadiums, however, have a water-only policy in effect, worried that a little Pocari Sweat might kill the grass.
A 17-year-old boy scout with Japanese roots from Utah delivered soccer balls, uniforms and whistles to students affected by the March 11 earthquake/tsunami. Perhaps more suited to Sudan than Japan, but a good deed nonetheless.

Stats


45
Percent of children in Fukushima Prefecture surveyed in late March who experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, officials of the Nuclear Safety Commission said

104
Indonesian nurses and caregivers who arrived in Japan for work in July as part of a health professionals program started in 2008

¥2 trillion
A second extra budget for fiscal 2011, approved by the cabinet of PM Naoto Kan, to finance relief work after the earthquake and tsunami in March

51
Percent of respondents to a Mainichi Shimbun poll who do not want nuclear reactors taken out of operation to be restarted

74.6 million
Expected travelers to domestic and overseas destinations between July 15 and August 31, according to an estimate by JTB, marking a 2.8 percent drop from a year earlier

DOG DAYS
Japanese hot dog-eating king Takeru Kobayashi set up his own personal wolf-down event on a New York rooftop while Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest took place on Coney Island across town. Joey Chestnut won Nathan’s event for the fifth time, powering down 62 dogs, while in Manhattan Kobayashi pounded back 69.

Kobayashi, a former six-time Nathan’s champ, has been banned from the competition since 2010 for refusing to sign a contract with Major League Eating, the sport’s governing body. Last year, he stormed the stage and had to be subdued, “thus officially making this the stupidest controversy in the history of everything,” as Rick Chandler of NBC Sports’ Off the Bench website aptly wrote.

Another Kobayashi, Formula One driver Kamui Kobayashi, also found himself in hot water, and it had nothing to do with boiling wieners. Sauber’s Kobayashi was accused by a couple of other drivers of dangerous driving at the Canadian Grand Prix, a charge he vehemently denied.

Orders for traditional Japanese fans uchiwa are way up this year with people looking for ways to stay cool while saving energy.

In Sendai, meanwhile, bug sprays and fly-swatters are flying off shelves as the summer heat has turned waste piles into insect magnets.

Twitter Bites Her

In The

Having Issues Over

Undies

Golfer

Driving The Wrong Way

Hamaoka to get seawalls of 18 meters
¥100 billion plan to make nuclear plant safe from huge tsunami
Kyodo
NAGOYA — Chubu Electric Power Co. said Friday it will build seawalls as high as 18 meters at its Hamaoka nuclear plant to protect the facility from tsunami.

Chubu Electric will spend ¥100 billion in total to build the seawalls, the facility's first, and take other measures against tsunami at the power plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, which was taken out of operation in May at the request of the government. Construction of the seawalls will begin next month.

Previously, Chubu Electric planned to build seawalls at least 12 meters high based on its estimate that the maximum height of tsunami triggered by a potentially massive earthquake would be around 8 meters.

Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Cops: Norway gunman claims he acted alone
92 died in Friday attacks by anti-immigration zealot
msnbc.com staff and news service reports

A right-wing zealot who admitted to bomb and gun attacks in Norway that killed 92 people on Friday claims he acted alone, Norway's police said on Sunday.
"He has admitted to the facts of both the bombing and the shooting, although he's not admitting criminal guilt,'' acting police chief Sveinung Sponheim told a news conference about detained suspect Anders Behring Breivik.
"He says that he was alone but the police must verify everything that he said. Some of the witness statements from the island (shootings) have made us unsure of whether there was one or more shooters.''

Al-Shabaab's stranglehold on Somalia

JASON STRAZIUSO DADAAB, KENYA - Jul 24 2011
The needs of those in Somalia's expanding famine zone are extraordinary, prompting parents to sweep up their small children and start a dangerous walk that can last days or weeks -- one that many die on. Livestock have perished, and crops no longer grow after consecutive rains failed to fall in south-central Somalia.

The journey is so long and so perilous that few Somalis are eager to return to their war-torn homeland, a facet of the dual crisis of the Somalia conflict and Horn of Africa famine that has Kenyan officials -- who are only reluctantly accepting more refugees -- in a bind.

Escape from Azamgarh
Security agencies call it a "terror hub". But Azamgarh's children simply see it as the place they want to leave. Shobhan Saxena travels to the eastern UP town where education is the only way out
Shobhan Saxena, TNN | Jul 24, 2011
It's a sodden morning. As rain comes down in thick sheets, the road quickly turns into a muddy track. Drains clogged with garbage are overflowing on dug-up streets. A bunch of travellers, whose jeep is stuck in mud, sit under a tree for shelter. The town's bus stand is slowly sinking into a pool of sludge. The sprawling campus of the main college is empty and the schools are shut. The mosques, too, are desolate. The shops are open but there are no customers. In cubbyhole boxes near the bus stand, men sit amid their unsold goods. It seems the whole of Azamgarh has retreated into a shell to save itself from the downpour.
Azamgarh town has a population of two lakh. It has just two main roads, which run parallel to each other and are connected by a maze of narrow alleys and streets.

Germany divided again as Europe grapples with euro bailout plan
Greece has been saved from bankruptcy again but it has brought fears about the cost to European unity and the burden it will place on Germany's taxpayers.

By Harriet Alexander, in Berlin8:00AM BST 24 Jul 2011
It was a crucial decision for the European Union, desperately needed to stave off once again the complete collapse of confidence in Greece - and with it the ruination of the euro.
In a deal struck privately between Germany and France, and then endorsed by other members of the euro-zone, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed that private sector banks would pick up a share of the cost of the latest Greek bailout - a plan at first hailed in Germany as a triumph for the determined Mrs Merkel.

Unraveling Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel
As drug smugglers from the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico sent a never-ending stream of cocaine across the border and into a vast U.S. distribution web in Los Angeles, DEA agents were watching and listening.
By Richard Marosi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 24, 2011
Reporting from Calexico, Calif.— Never lose track of the load.

It was drilled into everybody who worked for Carlos “Charlie” Cuevas. His drivers, lookouts, stash house operators, dispatchers -- they all knew. When a shipment was on the move, a pair of eyes had to move with it.

Cuevas had just sent a crew of seven men to the border crossing at Calexico, Calif. The load they were tracking was cocaine, concealed in a custom-made compartment inside a blue 2003 Honda Accord.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 'last stories' will appear in English at last
Collection of innovative short stories reveals that the Russian writer was still experimenting in his final years
Dalya Alberge
The Observer, Sunday 24 July 2011
A collection of nine short stories by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, described by scholars as ranking alongside his best work, is to be published in English for the first time. In one of the publishing events of the autumn, the collection will appear under the title Apricot Jam and Other Stories, fulfilling a long-held desire of the author that the work be available to the English-speaking world.

The collection reveals that Solzhenitsyn was still experimenting with literary form towards the end of his life. Eight of the stories have two parts, which are conceived as pairs. Daniel J. Mahoney, a Solzhenitsyn scholar, said:

Random Japan

GOING DIGITAL
A communications ministry survey revealed that, for the first time in 29 years, the number of landline phone subscriptions fell below 40 million.

At the same time, the “penetration rate” of mobile phones in Japan has reached 96.8 percent.
It was reported that the communications ministry has set up 160 temporary call centers in 44 prefectures around the country to help people deal with the changeover from analog to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, scheduled for July 24.

Meanwhile, sales of flat-panel TVs are skyrocketing ahead of the changeover. Stores are reporting sales 250 percent higher than a year ago.

Other hot items this summer include electric fans, whose sales have jumped 4.5-fold compared to last year.

Stats


¥1,200
Average amount of daily spending money Japanese wives give their husbands, according to a survey by Shinsei Financial Co.

29
Years since the allowance given to salarymen was so low

570,000
Female millionaires in Japan, according to a survey by wealth management consultancy Capgemin

GOING GA-GA

A class action lawsuit filed in the US claims that Lady Gaga failed to donate proceeds of her “relief wristband” to victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The suit also alleges that the singer “charged buyers an excessive $3.99 for shipping within the United States, against the actual cost of only 50 cents.”

Japan and the US have agreed not to use the word “burden” in official documents when referring to US military bases in Okinawa. The term has been ditched in favor of the more neutral-sounding “impact.”

Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto praised UNESCO’s decision to name the Ogasawara Island chain as a World Heritage site, saying, “It brings us great joy.”

Yes We're Liars

But That's OK

License

I Don't Need No Stinking License

Google Has Many Uses

Like Planing Robberies

Volunteers wanted more than ever for disaster areas

2011/07/15
Four months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, volunteers are still desperately needed in the hardest-hit areas for jobs ranging from clearing debris from homes to delivering relief materials and food.

About 483,000 volunteers have helped reconstruction in disaster-hit prefectures in the three and a half months since the March 11 disaster, compared with 1.17 million volunteers who pitched in over the same period after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

The Japan National Council of Social Welfare surveyed the number of volunteers in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures between March 11 and June 26.

Oslo explosion

Oslo Police: Say the explosion was caused by a bomb.

1610: Ella Mork in Oslo "I was at home, just half a kilometre away when I heard the noise. At first, I thought it was thunder, but then I thought it was a little too loud. I was on my way out and when I arrived at the scene, there was shattered glass everywhere and buildings on fire."

1607: Olaf Furniss, a reporter in the city, says: "There was a huge blast. All the windows have been blown out from one of the main government buildings, it's a sort of big skyscraper.
"And that's where the prime minister's office is, one of the main newspapers is based there, and a lot of other government buildings.
"The whole area has been damaged, there's windows blown out in about a 1km radius, a lot of shock. And I can hear a lot of ambulance and police activity as well."
1606: US-based news broadcaster ABC is quoting US government sources as saying the explosion was caused by "a massive vehicle bomb".
1601: There are dramatic pictures on the front page of NRK's website - the public broadcaster reporting that one person has been killed in the blast.

Fault Lines Outsourced: Clinical trials overseas

As US pharmaceutical companies move their operations abroad, India has become a testing ground for trial medicines.

Instead of testing trial medicines on Americans, more and more of these tests are being carried out on poor people in faraway places. Russia, China, Brazil, Poland, Uganda and Romania are all hot spots for what is called clinical research or clinical trials.

Now employing CROs - or clinical research organisations - the industry is big business, worth as much as $30bn today.

One country has experienced a boom like no other in this industry - India. Spoken English, an established medical infrastructure, welcoming attitudes toward foreign industry and, most importantly, legions of poor, illiterate test subjects that are willing to try out new drugs have transformed the Indian landscape into a massive testing ground for pharmaceuticals.

Fault Lines' Zeina Awad travels to India to see what the clinical research practices look like on the ground. What role are the US regulatory bodies playing in overseeing the trials? Are participants aware that they are taking part in a clinical trial? Is the testing being held up against international ethical standards?

BARRIERS TO COVERAGE: High hurdles blocked reporting of Fukushima nuclear accident

The Asahi Shinbun today published an article demonstrating efforts by the Japanese government and TEPCO to impede reporting on the accident at the Daiichi-Fukushima nuclear power plant after the the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Japan claims to be bastion of free speech and a free press yet there a press clubs which prevent such rights from achieving full bloom.

An article from the March 13 edition pointed to an explosion at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant as well as the possibility of a core meltdown after cooling functions were lost. The article was partly based on interviews with experts.

However, TEPCO and the central government refused to acknowledge that a core meltdown had occurred, saying that information from within the core was unavailable.

It was only in late May, more than two months after the nuclear accident, that TEPCO finally admitted to the possibility of a core meltdown based on data retrieved from the central control room at the nuclear plant.

Due to doubts about the reliability of the announcements made by TEPCO officials, Asahi reporters continued to contact current and retired TEPCO employees in the nuclear energy sector to get a better picture of the story.

What emerged from those interviews were questions about the safety design of the Fukushima No. 1 plant. That led to concerns about problems with the equipment at the plant as well as to the possibility that a lax forecast about what could occur during emergencies led to an expansion of the damage to the plant from the quake and tsunami.