Legislator Says [North Carolina] Needs Its Own Currency
Cautioning that the federal dollars in your wallet could soon be little more than green paper backed by broken promises, state Rep. Glen Bradley wants North Carolina to issue its own legal tender backed by silver and gold.
The Republican from Youngsville has introduced a bill that would establish a legislative commission to study his plan for a state currency. He is also drafting a second bill that would require state government to accept gold and silver coins as payment for taxes and fees.
If the state treasurer starts accepting precious metals as payment, Bradley said that could prod the private sector to follow suit — potentially allowing residents to trade gold for groceries.
“I think we’re in the process of inflating a dollar bubble that could be very devastating,” said Bradley, a freshman legislator elected in November’s GOP tide. “The idea is once the study commission finishes its work, then we could build on top of the hard-money currency with an actual State Tender Act that will basically [issue currency] in correspondence to precious metals stored in the state treasury.”
Bradley’s bill has yet to attract any co-sponsors among his fellow Republicans.
Mike Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University, said the notion of North Carolina reverting to having its own currency is outlandish.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
400 Rabbis, George Soros and Elie Wiesel
On January 27, 2011, designated by the UN as “Holocaust Memorial Day,” 400 rabbis placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal in the form of an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of the News Corporation, requesting that Glenn Beck be “sanctioned” for “his unscrupulous attacks on a survivor of the Holocaust” (George Soros) and that Roger Ailes, president of the Fox News Channel, apologize for his insensitivity in asserting that NPR is “the left-wing of Nazism” and for saying that there are “some left-wing rabbis who basically don’t think that anybody can use the word Holocaust on the air.” Undoubtedly, there is insensitivity in characterizing one’s political opponents as Nazis. Israelis are rightly indignant when Palestinians and their allies, both Muslim and non-Muslim, characterize them as such. Nevertheless, the description by 400 rabbis of George Soros as a Holocaust survivor is, to say the least, astounding. Soros has publicly admitted collaborating with the Nazis at age 14 to stay alive, an understandable motive. Nevertheless, Soros was no Holocaust survivor.
Although one can possibly understand Soros’s behavior in Nazi-occupied, Jew-hunting Budapest, Soros himself has described those years as “the most exciting time of my life.” He has also reported that, “The early stages of the Russian occupation were as exciting and interesting-in many ways even more interesting and adventurous-than the German occupation…”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Alaska Seeks to Bar Foreign Law From Courts
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — An Alaskan lawmaker hopes to guard against Islamic Sharia law by prohibiting state courts from honoring foreign law that violates Alaskan or U.S. constitutional rights.
Though the bill’s language does not specifically target Sharia, Rep. Carl Gatto, R-Palmer, said the legislation is a reaction to what he sees as the growing use of international law codes in courts that have robbed people of their constitutional rights.
In a hearing before the House State Affairs Committee, Gatto’s chief of staff Karen Sawyer said Sharia is an example of the type of transnational law that has appeared in family law, divorce and child custody cases nationally, though she knows of instances of it appearing in Alaska courts.
“Sharia is clearly offensive to the U.S. Constitution,” Sawyer said. “It is the foremost foreign law that is impacting our legal system.”
Sawyer added that countries following Sharia law do not allow freedom of religion or equal rights to women.
Gatto called the law a preventative measure necessitated by the religious beliefs of recent immigrants.
“As a kid, we had Italian neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods … but they didn’t impose their own laws,” Gatto said. “When these neighborhoods are occupied by people from the Middle East, they do establish their own laws.”
Sharia law is a set of Islamic principles and religious interpretations that have been adopted into the laws of certain countries, mostly in the Middle East.
The Alaska proposal is based on the American Laws for American Courts act, which has been proposed in several states and versions of which have been enacted in Tennessee and Louisiana, said David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based attorney who supports the legislation.
In testimony before the committee, Yerushalmi said the law would protect people who are forced to litigate in any country with laws counter to U.S. constitutional protections, not just countries practicing Sharia law.
“Today, we are far more likely than ever before to have foreign laws in American courts,” said Yerushalmi. “There are plenty of occasions in which foreign law informs what Alaskan law could be.”
Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the Alaska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the bill was an unnecessary overreach, and adequate protections for religious freedom in court already exist.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist,” Mittman said.
While Committee chair and bill co-sponsor Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, said he hoped to move the bill out of committee after its first hearing, concerns from lawmakers on how the bill would affect agreements with Alaska Native tribes or neighboring countries led to the bill being held over for further consideration.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Cyprus: Reunification: UN Reportedly Has New Plan
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, MARCH 9 — A glimmer of hope seems to have reappeared for the reunification of Cyprus, the Mediterranean island that has been divided since 1974 following a failed Greek coup and subsequent Turkish military invasion. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, reports a reliable Turkish-Cypriot daily today, has reportedly drafted a plan (as his predecessor Kofi Annan also did) to put an end to the nearly 40-year-long division of the island. News about the project and its main details were revealed by Demokrat Bakish (Democratic Vision) of the Democratic Party (centre-right liberal) led by Serdar Denktash under the headline, “A new plan”. Hopes on the island are that this plan will have a different outcome than the one proposed by Annan. In an island-wide referendum in April 2004, the proposal received 65% approval from Turkish Cypriots, but was rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots. Ban Ki-moon, writes the daily citing anonymous but “reliable” sources, reportedly intends to make the plan public on March 15, when he will invite the leaders of the two communities, Republic of Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Dervish Eroglu, the leader of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognised only by Ankara, to a new three-way summit. The UN chief, according to the same sources, will give the sides “two months at the most” to negotiate on the proposal. For some time the UN has been applying pressure to establish a time limit, considering the imminent political elections in Cyprus (22 May) and Turkey (12 June). Based on the new plan, the sides must “simultaneously” discuss all items on the table, as requested by Greek Cypriots. Following insistence by Turkish Cypriot officials on the “security” issue, this item should be discussed at an international conference including the three powers that ensure safety of the island (Greece, Turkey and Great Britain). The two leaders, according to the intentions of the UN, should come to a “preliminary agreement” to be signed by May. Meanwhile, this morning there was another meeting between Christofias and Eroglu, which as usual, was held at the residence of Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy to Cyprus, Lisa Buttenheim, in the buffer zone that divides Nicosia. The two leaders resumed meetings on February 9 and on that day they agreed to intensify talks, meeting once a week (on Wednesday) to speed up the timetable to resolve the so-called “Cyprus issue,” referring to reunification. The purpose of the negotiations is to reach a definitive agreement on what was agreed upon on May 23 2008 between Christofias and Eroglu’s predecessor, Mehmet Ali Talat, which called for a reunified Cyprus, equipped with a “federal government with a single international figure”. In other words, a single entity with a federal, bizonal and bicommunal state and with a single central government.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Eco-Trap: Is Environmentalism Really Working?
Germany is among the world leaders when it comes to taking steps to save the environment. But many of the measures are not delivering the promised results. Biofuels have led to the clear-cutting of rainforests, plastics are being burned rather than recycled and new generation lightbulbs have led to a resurgence of mercury production.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In Italy, Left-Behind Luggage Gets New Lease on Life
Train company project delivers abandoned articles to needy recipients
In Naples, they found a complete doctor’s bag, the type used for home visits, with a blood pressure gauge, a stethoscope and all the trimmings. In Verona, a complete set of clinical records that “took who knows how long to put together.” In Milan, the city of shopping, a suitcase that contained two brand new Chanel bags and a barely-used pair of Church shoes, all accompanied by receipts and guarantees: 1,550 euros for each bag and 528 euros for the shoes.
There was also a rather curious ‘party set,’ which included plastic phalluses and latex lingerie. It’s strange what people forget in the suitcases they entrust to luggage services, but then fail to retrieve. The good news is that these objects are now being offered a new life, along with a humanitarian purpose. As part of a recently completed restructing process, Italian rail station company Grandi Stazioni Spadecided to clear out all of its unclaimed bags, appointing a social welfare organization called “La Gabbianella” to put the abandoned articles to good use by distributing them through a network of some 40 local non-profits. The effort is more complicated than it may seem, explained Mariella Bucalossi, a Gabbianella volunteer and one of the coordinators of the project. “Just taking Rome’s Termini station alone, we’re talking about 2,600 items, including backpacks, packages and various shoulder bags,” she said. “In Rome, we have already processed two lots of bags — 548 of the total of 2,600.” They have since been distributed to the Torvajanica mission and and the Erythros charity that defends the rights of foreigners.
The project has also been successful in Bologna, Milan, Florence, Naples, Venice and Verona. Turin, Genoa, Bari and Palermo are getting ready to start the same process. Things that are immediately reusable are distributed to people who need them. The other objects are sold in tag sales. Even the suitcases end up being reused. “Do you know how many people it takes just to send the stuff to our street children in the Ivory Coast and Mozambique?” said Riccardo Mabilia, a missionary from the Villaregia di Nola community, who cleared out the lost bag collection at Naples’ central station. “Each summer 10 or 12 volunteers go to Nairobi, each with one of these suitcases filled with 50 pounds of supplies. Much of it is clothes, but there are also products for hygiene and personal cleanliness.”
The biggest problem is damaged bags, some of which, as Ernesto Chiesa of the La Goccia association in Milan described, have been “destroyed by mice, because they were abandoned who knows how long ago. We have had to throw away more than 500 items. The volunteers didn’t even want to risk touching them.” La Goccia also works with unclaimed bags at Malpensa airport, where abandoned luggage is treated as very serious business. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the mere idea of unattended baggage in a crowded place can create panic. “And in fact, before donating them for reuse, the railway police have to check them,” said Bucalossi. Sometimes the most suspect bags end up containing the most valuable goods. “According to the contract that regulates left-behind luggage, bags are considered abandoned after 60 days. To be on the safe side, we wait a little longer: between six and 12 months,” explains Massimo Paglialunga, lead coordinator for the Grandi Stazioni.
“Sometimes someone realizes and asks for everything to be sent. Once the bag has technically passed into the ownership of Grandi Stazioni, the bag will be checked, transferred to a designated storage place, and then donated to the non-profit groups.” The system works well all around, although it’s still not clear where those lingerie sets and sex toys ended up. Are they also dutifully recycled? “Joking aside,” said Ernesto Chiesa, “we destroyed them all. We do have a sense of morality.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Island of Capri Wages War on Noise Pollution
To make sure the chic island getaway offers maximum R&R, Capri wants to limit the use of heavy machinery in summer months. August will be completely silent — except, of course, for all the tourists
This island is already known for its breathtaking scenery and VIP parties. Now Capri is offering tourists another treat: peace and quiet.
Authorities have prepared a series of regulations to safeguard visitors’ siesta time. Police official Marica Avellino has signed a directive to limit noise on the island. The ordinance will go into effect during tourist season: between April and October. Violators will be punished with fines of between 50 and 500 euros.
The new law goes into great detail regulating the use of farming and construction machinery. The use of noisy farming equipment is only allowed four hours a day, between noon and 2 p.m., and between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. In the construction sector, only manual work is permitted, however noisy, and just during limited hours: between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the island’s center and in Marina Grande, Capri’s main harbor; and between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on the rest of the island.
However, all farming or construction machinery, even if used for public works, is banned in August, the peak of the summer holiday season. Capri had already enforced similar rules in 1999, but not to the same extreme degree.
Avellino wrote in the directive that several hotels had complained about excessive noise caused by construction activities. “We deemed it indispensable during the whole tourist season to safeguard the peace and quiet of our guests, an essential part of what we offer,” she said.
The customer may always be right, but construction workers and gardeners worry that their work will grind to a halt. They demanded a meeting with Capri’s mayor, Ciro Lembo, insisting the strict noise ordinances be lifted, or at the very least revised.
Under the new rules, the mayor can in fact allow certain work to go ahead under extreme circumstances, or if it is deemed to be in the best interest of the island’s population.
Environmentalists on the island welcomed the move. “The anti-noise ordinance is extremely interesting,” says Francesco Emilio Borrelli, regional representative for the Greens. “It could be used as a model for all the cities in the area.” Still, Borrelli says the Capri regulations don’t go far enough, noting that there is no mention of muffling the island’s biggest source of noise pollution: the local power plant.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Gladiators Rescued From Tomb Raiders Lie Forgotten Under Sheets
Capena — fifth-century artefacts hidden from visitors. Superb finds at Lucus Feroniae abandoned after 2007 rescue by financial police
ROME — Anyone who cares about Italy’s cultural heritage should drop everything and rush to Lucus Feroniae. Go into the museum courtyard and lift the canvas sheets. Underneath are seven funerary panels of gladiators, rescued three years ago from the clutches of tomb raiders near the overgrown archaeological site. You’ll be shocked. Is that any way to look after a masterpiece?
The site a few kilometres north of Rome on the Via Tiberina is the right place to get an idea of how much attention is given to Italy’s archaeological heritage. Today, it is heart-breaking to visit what remains of the “lucus” (sacred wood) of Feronia, the goddess to whom the famously wealthy ancient sanctuary, pillaged by Hannibal in 211 BC, was dedicated. As the protectress of freed slaves, Feronia was believed by her devotees to have the power to heal wounds of the body and soul.
This major religious centre was abandoned, probably in the fifth century AD, and discovered accidentally in 1953 on the estate of Prince Vittorio Massimo, owner of the castle of Scorano in the municipality of Capena. The site, a few hundred metres from the busy Autostrada del Sole, is now overgrown with weeds that no one clears away.
Once, this was a Roman town with its own forum, basilica, amphitheatre, temples, shops and workshops, as well as an imperial-age bath complex that was warmed by steam passing under the floor and behind the walls. Today, you will find it only if you know that it exists and you are sufficiently stubborn to seek out the battered, hard-to-read sign.
Obviously, the Capena municipal authority takes pride in its ancient origins. Its home page quotes Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares: “Si vis pingues agros et vineas perge Capenam”, which translates as “If you want fertile fields and vineyards, head for Capena”. Yet there is little or nothing about the archaeological site. To give you some idea, there are three photos of Lucus Feroniae, three of the opening of a car park, three of the inauguration of a new school hall, six of the new school canteen and twelve of the new sports field.
You can see the results. Entrance to the archaeological site and museum is free but clearly this is not enough to attract the occasional tourists. A peak was reached in 2001, when as many as 3,934 people came to Lucus Feroniae, after which numbers steadily declined. Last year’s total was 1,337, or an average of 3.6 visitors a day. It’s humiliating, and even more so since the 2007 discovery of the magnificent funerary monument decorated with incredibly accurate bas-reliefs of gladiatorial combats.
They were recovered in the Fiano Romano countryside by the financial police’s archaeological heritage protection group before they could be taken elsewhere — abroad, of course — to be sold. This is all too often the fate of Italy’s archaeological treasures when they fall into the hands of unscrupulous traders. When the officers saw them, they realised the bas-reliefs were one of the most important recovery operations of recent years. The quality, state of conservation and above all the subject are exceptional, as are the size and completeness of the find. The monument was discovered by accident by workers preparing the ground for a new house who turned into spur-of-the-moment tomb raiders. The arts superintendency was not informed. Instead these “predatori dell’arte perduta” [raiders of the lost art], as Fabio Isman calls them his book, dismantled the funerary monument, burying the thirteen pieces prior to selling them on the black market. Miraculously, the financial police operation thwarted their plans.
Such large panels are beyond price on the international antiquities market and any of the world’s great museums would be proud to exhibit them in a place of honour. Significantly, it was proposed to take the sections of the monument to Rome when they were found, perhaps for display at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme museum.
However, it was not to be. In compliance with the principle that archaeological finds should stay in their place of origin, the superintendency opted to assign the monument to the small museum at Lucus Feroniae. Unfortunately, the museum was only able to put six of the blocks on public view and the other seven were placed under a portico. Ironically, the pieces had been recovered from the thieves’ underground hiding place only to be concealed by canvas sheets. That was in January 2007, since when they have not been moved.
There may have been little choice, given the lack of space in the tiny museum, but it is incomprehensible to visitors who happen to see the superb, canvas-covered panels. Equally incomprehensible is the negligence of whoever put the six bas-relief panels on display without so much as a card to explain to any visiting tourists what they are, where they come from or when they were carved. There is no information at all. Zilch…
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Too Late to Go Back on Nuclear Power Plans Says Minister
Talk must focus on safety after Japan woes says Romani
(ANSA) — Latina, March 17 — Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear crisis should give pause for thought but it is too late to go back on Italy’s plans to revive its nuclear programme, Italian Industry Minister Paolo Romani said Thursday.
Reopening a debate on the government’s intention to build four latest-generation plants is “too late and inappropriate,” said the minister, speaking near the site of a nuclear plant decommissioned after a referendum a year after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster led to the abandonment of atomic energy in Italy.
Discussions must focus, he said, on safety issues which have been thrust into the spotlight by what has happened in Japan.
He said so-called stress tests recommended by the European Union must give assurances on safety.
“At the centre of debate there is only the safety issue.
News coming from Japan today is more worrying than yesterday and yesterday’s were more worrying than the day before.
“But we are convinced about the nuclear choice”.
The government has rebuffed opposition demands to halt plans, launched last year, to return to nuclear power and cut Italy’s energy dependance on foreign oil and gas.
But it has pledged to make sure the new plants are immune to the kind of problems that occurred in Japan and has stressed that the sites, yet to be located, will be in non-seismic zones.
Romani said the safety debate must take on board Japan’s experience.
“What has happened in Japan must give a moment’s reflection.
“The government, technicians and the whole system in the country must stop a second and try to understand what is best to do”.
Amid fears of blackouts in Japan as a battle to cool over-heating reactors continued, Romani said “we cannot deny we are worried.
“There is great concern over something we did not imagine we would see.
“We cannot make choices that are not shared by all,” the minister went on, referring both to domestic opposition on site location and to EU plans to review policy in the wake of the disaster at four Japanese reactors.
Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said Wednesday Italy’s decisions would be in line with those of the EU.
“Italy intends to move in step with Europe and any decision on our country’s energy future will be taken with EU decisions in mind,” she said.
The response to the Japan nuclear crisis has been varied across Europe.
Germany has announced the temporary closure of its seven oldest plants while France and other countries have decided to step up monitoring while Ukraine, for instance, has ruled out any “emotional” response and Britain says it is awaiting clearer news before deciding whether to halt any plants.
Prestigiacomo said earlier this week that the government would never take decisions that might jeopardize the health or safety of citizens.
But Italy’s energy independence is “dear to the government’s heart,” she said.
The government line was supported by Italian employers Tuesday with Emma Marcegaglia, head of the industrial federation Confindustria, saying it was important that Italy did not react in an “emotional way as it has in the past”.
“We have a problem of energy costs, we import gas from countries like Algeria, Libya and Russia,” she noted, saying “the energy policy we have set needs to be maintained”.
The Italian Senate this week gave the green light to the four new nuclear reactors as well as a site for nuclear waste, although all of Italy’s regions this week refused to have them.
Construction would begin in 2013 and be completed in 2020.
Italy struck an accord with France in 2009 for the joint construction of the four plants in Italy and five in France.
This led to several other company accords signed in April of last year, including an important one between ENEL, Ansaldo Energia and the French energy giant EdF.
That agreement established the areas of potential cooperation in the development and construction of at least four reactors in Italy using the advanced third-generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) technology developed by EdF.
The Italian public appeared to be largely opposed to the nuclear revival according to opinion polls last year that said between 50% and 60% were against atomic energy, which was entirely phased out by 1990.
Polls this week said that proportion was rising steadily.
On Thursday the opposition Democratic Party accused the government of “lying” to the Italian people on the safety of the new plants as well as keeping them in the dark about the “plans to move ahead with the programme regardless”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 35 ‘Ndrangheta Arrests in Lombardy
Mob ‘handled operations of courier firm TNT’
(ANSA) — Milan, March 14 — Italian police on Monday arrested 35 suspected members of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Lombardy, the affluent northern Italian region around Milan.
The suspected mafiosi are under investigation for mafia conspiracy, extortion, illegal waste disposal and drug trafficking, police said.
According to investigators, ‘Ndrangheta members handled the Lombardy operations of the post and parcel courier service TNT.
Police also seized assets worth two million euros. The probe unveiled contacts between one suspected boss and show business figures including controversial talent scout and impresario Lele Mora, police said.
Mora, one of three people accused of abetting underage prostitution in a case involving Premier Silvio Berlusconi, is not under investigation in connection with the ‘Ndrangheta probe, police said.
Anti-mafia authorities have been warning for years that ‘Ndrangheta, Italy’s richest mafia thanks to its control of the European cocaine trade, is making ever greater inroads into the northern Italian economy.
On Friday Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi said organised crime was on the offensive in regions like Lombardy “where 80% of the arrests for mafia association were in the provinces of Milan, Bergamo and Brescia”.
Italy was making some progress in cracking down on money laundering, Draghi said, but a greater role in pinpointing possible violations needed to be played by notaries and certified accountants, even if they were the most exposed to pressure from Mob figures.
The economic crisis of the past three years, the governor added, has contributed to the mafia’s spread in the north because many companies found themselves strapped for cash and thus tempted to take dirty money and fall into the grips of organized crime.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Anti-Mafia Police Arrest 35 Suspects in Northern Lombardy Region
(AKI) — Police overnight arrested 35 people in northern Italy who are suspected of links to the Calabrian mafia and impounded some two million euros of assets. The 35 mafia suspects face charges of extortion, illegal waste disposal and drug trafficking, police said.
The operation was coordinated by anti-mafia prosecutors in the northern business capital, Milan.
Lombardy, the affluent region around Milan has fallen victim to a “full-fledged colonisation”, Italy’s national anti-mafia directorate warned in a report last week.
The Calabrian mafia or ‘Ndrangheta is continuing to grow in Italy and abroad thanks to “unlimited” financial resources, the report said.
The ‘Ndrangheta is considered Italy’s most powerful crime syndicate, whose financial clout has been estimated at more than 3 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The mafia is one of the biggest reasons for chronically sluggish growth in Italy — the European Union’s fourth largest economy — the Italian central bank governor Mario Draghi said last Friday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel the Panic Merchant
The German Chancellor strikes again, quips Brussels pundit Jean Quatremer. Having sowed panic in the Eurozone last year, Angela Merkel has now succeeded in transforming the Japanese nuclear tragedy in Fukushima into a global nuclear energy crisis.
Jean Quatremer
Angela Merkel has a talent for sowing panic. Last year, the German Chancellor’s dithering transformed the Greek crisis into a systemic crisis in the Eurozone, with markets doubting her willingness to save the single currency. This time around, she has managed to transform the Japanese nuclear catastrophe, a local crisis — serious but nonetheless local — into a global nuclear energy crisis by deciding, on Monday 14 March, without consulting anyone, to suspend the application of a law to prolong the lifespan of Germany’s nuclear power stations beyond 2020, a law she herself had endorsed last year, to shut down seven out of 17 plants, and to launch a safety review.
She immediately triggered a tsunami in Europe, nuclear energy now being the focus of all suspicion, causing the most extreme embarrassment for her European partners. Belgium, by the way, has openly criticised her.
It has to be said that the German Chancellor’s reaction beggars belief: the Japanese accident did not happen because safety at the site was not seen to, as was the case for Chernobyl, but because of one of the most violent earthquakes in recorded history (9 on the Richter scale, which has 9 levels) followed by a tsunami. According to latest reports, seismic activity in Germany (and Europe), is limited, to say to least, without mentioning the risk of a tsunami in the Baltic…
Government according to the mood swings of German public opinion
That is not to say that there should be no debate on nuclear power, especially in France where this energy source was imposed without any democratic debate and where it continues to be subsidised (waste management not included in the price), but we should keep a sense of proportion. Quitting nuclear power will take time and must be done in an orderly way, making sure there are alternative energy sources, which is currently not the case.
The Chancellor, aware that she has blundered, is now backpedalling, explaining to the Bundestag that the immediate closure of German nuclear power plants is out of the question, because “for the moment we just cannot do without” nuclear energy…
To relish the irony of the situation, it should be remembered that Merkel is one of the European heads of state that has most fought environmental norms too restrictive for industry, particularly the car industry — to the point where she is still angry with Commission President José Manuel Durao Barroso, promotor of a “climate” package. It’s clear that the effects produced by global warming will take place well after the next German election…
Once more, Angela Merkel has demonstrated that she governs with a wet finger held up to the wind, and according to the mood swings of German public opinion. Which is very reassuring for the future…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: First Baby Born Without Gene Linked to Cancer
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 17 — In Spain, the first baby was born without the ‘Brca1’ gene following a genetic selection process, which scientists believe has a strong link to the development of cancer cells, especially breast, ovarian and pancreatic tumours, reports El Mundo today.
The Spanish law on Assisted Reproduction authorises genetic selection on embryos free of certain diseases linked to a single gene. The pre-implant genetic diagnosis process was carried out by the Puigvert-Sant Pau Assisted Reproduction Programme in Barcelona. Several eggs were fertilised to produce embryos, two of which did not have the Brca1 gene, and were implanted into the mother, who had several cases of cancer in her family’s medical history.
One of the two embryos survived. After 9 months the first baby in Spain without the Brca1 gene was born.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cancer Operations Are Denied to Thousands of Elderly Patients ‘Because of Ageism’
Thousands of older cancer patients are being denied potentially life-saving surgery because of ageism in the NHS.
The chances of being operated on start falling in middle-age and plummet for those in their 70s and older, an official study shows.
Experts blame age discrimination and poor access to specialist opinion in some areas.
This may explain why older people in Britain are less likely to survive than elsewhere. Surgery rates vary greatly, from 80 per cent of breast and uterine cancer cases to just 6 per cent of those with liver cancer, researchers found.
Lead researcher Mick Peake, of Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, said the decline in operating rates among the middle-aged is particularly worrying as surgery has the biggest benefit in long-term survival.
Campaigner Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ‘It is outrageous that ageist attitudes are condemning older patients to an early, preventable death.
‘The NHS was set up to provide healthcare for all.’
Meanwhile, 9,000 pensioners are missing out on potentially life-saving cancer tests because staff cannot cope with the workload.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Health Tourists Told They Won’t be Allowed Back Into Country if They Have Unpaid NHS Debts
A crackdown on so-called health tourists was announced by ministers yesterday.
Foreigners who have failed to pay NHS bills of £1,000 or more will be banned from returning until the debt is paid.
Visitors are supposed either to have health insurance or pay themselves for hospital care in Britain.
Thousands flout the rules, however, with £7million being owed to London health trusts alone.
Damian Green, the immigration minister, said: ‘The NHS is a national health service not an international one.
‘If someone does not pay for their treatment we will not let them back into the country.’
The move is expected to stamp out 94 per cent of the abuse of the Health Service, even though it does not restrict access to GP surgeries.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-Slovenia: MPs Discuss Minority Status
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MARCH 10 — The parliamentary committee for relations with Serbs outside of Serbia and a delegation of the Slovenian parliament discussed the possibility of giving Serbs in Slovenia minority status, the Serbian parliament has announced, reports Tanjug news agency.
The two sides also discussed Slovenian rights as a minority in Serbia and the work of the Slovenian minority council.
Head of the Serbian team Branimir Djokic informed the Slovenian delegation about the work of his committee, which comprises 25 parliament members, meaning that the parliament finds relations with the Serbs living abroad very important, says the announcement.
According to the head of the Slovenian delegation, there are some 500,000 Slovenians living outside of their homeland, of which 6,000 are in Serbia. The contacts with the Slovenian minority council in Serbia are good, he noted, adding that he hoped the relations with the Serbian parliament committee would improve in the future.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Med-O-Med for Preservation of Botanical Gardens
07 March , 14:23
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 7 — The Islamic Culture Foundation (FUNCI) has launched an international cooperation programme, ‘Med-O-Med, cultural landscapes in the Mediterranean and the Middle East’, which is presented these days in Madrid. Its goal is to recognise and promote the protection of the most important landscapes and gardens from a viewpoint of biodiversity and cultural heritage. “The cultural landscape as synonym of understanding and cohabitation”, explained FUNCI chairman Cherif Abderrahman Jah.
“A place in which all people, without distinction, like to be, representing the aspiration of all human beings of living in peace with themselves and their environment”, he added.
Med-O-Med focuses on the countries with a Muslim majority in the Mediterranean and Middle East region. Some of its goals are the creation of a network of botanical gardens, an international agreement and a model for the management of the region’s cultural landscapes and the institution of a biological centre for the recovery of traditional practices. “Med-O-Med has an intercultural character and has a multi-disciplinary approach”, continued Abderrahman Jah. “It is an answer to the strong historical and cultural bond between Spain and the countries with a Muslim majority, and the particular sensitivity of the Spanish community for the problems of its Mediterranean neighbours”. The network already has a webpage: www.medomed.org, through which scientific research and several examples of the creation of environmental diversity are presented. The Muslim civilisation has a history of productive interaction with nature, considering ecosystems a source of resources and managing to capture the spirituality of the landscapes, shaped into gardens and cultivations. Still, as the chairman of the Islamic Culture Foundation underlined, in the past years the governments have taken insufficient measure to protect the environmental heritage, neglecting to care for the cultural heritage, leading to environmental deterioration. The Med-O-Med programme has prestigious members like the Botanic Gardens International Conservation; the Royal Botanic Garden of Madrid; the Botanic Garden of Bordoba; the Botanic Garden of Zagreb, in Croatia; the garden Nazarì di Velez de Beaudalla (Granada); the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (Jordan) and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Morocco. The network has the support of the Spanish Culture Ministry, the Biodiversity Foundation, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, the International Union for Nature Conservation. The partnership has started projects in Morocco, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.
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Egyptian TV: Jewish Children ‘Do Disgusting Things’
Television report boasts Arabs occupied Jerusalem first, by 2,000 years
Documents have been uncovered just in recent days describing how al-Qaida recruits children as young as 14 for suicide missions, and now a report has been released revealing Muslims using television to indoctrinate even toddlers and school-age children into a culture of death.
The new report comes from the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors media in the Middle East, translating reports and offers a commentary perspective on the meanings.
Its new report, released today, is about a recent broadcast to children on Egypt’s Al-Khaleejiyah Television. The organization has posted a video clip of the comments.
According to MEMRI’s excerpts of the “Ammo Alaa” children’s show, which aired on Dec. 29, 2010, the host said, “Let’s see how we should answer the disgusting Jews, who say that Jerusalem belongs to them. What proof do we have that Jerusalem is Islamic? We tell our friends that … Am I making you fall asleep, Mr. Sa’d, or what? Wake up Sa’d … Have a carrot … First of all, we tell the Jews that the Arabs lived in the blessed city of Jerusalem, more than 2,000 years before the first Jew settled in there.”
His monologue continues, “Two thousand is a very big number. Not one year, not two, not 10, not 100 — 2,000 years. That’s the first thing. We tell them that the Arabs lived in Jerusalem 2,000 years before the first Jew set foot in it. Okay? Okay!”
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French Jets Enter Libyan Airspace, Gadafy Defies UN
French military jets flew over Libya today to enforce a UN no-fly resolution as Muammar Gadafy continued attacking rebel forces, defying world demands for an immediate ceasefire.
Col Gadafy’s advance into Benghazi appeared to be an attempt to pre-empt Western military intervention which may come after an international meeting in Paris today. Strikes against Libya would mark the first military action by Western powers against an Arab government since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A defiant Col Gadafy said today Western powers had no right to intervene in his affairs. “This is injustice, this is clear aggression,” government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim quoted him as saying in a letter to France, Britain and the United Nations. “You will regret it if you take a step towards interfering in our internal affairs.”
President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed this afternoon that French fighter planes are enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya, particularly Benghazi. “As of now our aircraft are preventing [Gadafy’s] planes from attacking,” he said after today’s conference of world leaders in Paris.
Mr Sarkozy hosted the talks in the Elysee Palace, which were also attended by British prime minister David Cameron, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, as well as European and Arab leaders.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said after the summit that British, French and Canadian fighter planes could carry out strikes against Libyan forces later today ahead of wider Nato action.
Mr Cameron said Col Gadafy had broken the ceasefire and the time had come for action. “What is absolutely clear is that Gadafy has broken his word, he has broken confidence and continues to slaughter his own civilians,” he said. “This has to stop, we have to make him stop and make him face the consequences”
The Libyan government blamed the rebels, who it claims are members of al-Qaeda, for breaking the ceasefire around Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city of 670,000 people.
As explosions shook Benghazi, rebel fighters said they were being forced to retreat from the outskirts of the city, but later claimed victory after holding back the advance, as they have in other towns they eventually lost to government troops.
“We revolutionaries have taken control of four tanks inside Benghazi. Rebel forces have pushed Gadafy’s forces out of Benghazi,” said Nasr al-Kikili, a lawyer who works for the rebel media centre in Benghazi, as crowds celebrated by firing guns in the air and parading on top of a tank.
Al Jazeera reported there were 26 dead and more than 40 wounded in Jala hospital in Benghazi after the eastern Libyan city was bombarded.
Rebel leaders said that a fighter jet shot down over Benghazi early today was one of their own planes, apparently downed by regime forces. State TV claimed the rebels downed the plane themselves by mistake.
Meanwhile, residents of the rebel-held city of Misrata said government snipers were shooting people from rooftops today and the hospital could not operate on the wounded because it had no anaesthetic. Local people said there was some shelling this morning in the city — the last rebel stronghold in the west of Libya — this morning — though not as heavy as the previous day.
There were reports on Libyan state television of civilians massing as “human shields” at locations thought to be possible targets for allied air strikes.
The United States, after embarking on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had insisted it would participate in rather than lead any military action.
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Italy ‘Ready’ To Back Libya No-Fly Mission
‘We will do our duty’ says defence minister
(ANSA) — Rome, March 18 — Italy is ready to provide air bases and planes for the United Nations-sanctioned mission to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to stop strongman Maummar Gaddafi from bombing remaining rebel strongholds, government sources said Friday.
Various options had been drafted which would be weighed up with Italy’s international partners, a source said.
“We aren’t going to duck our duties,” said Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa after an informal meeting with Premier Silvio Berlusconi and President Giorgio Napolitano.
Berlusconi huddled with top ministers including La Russa and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini as well as intelligence chiefs ahead of an extraordinary cabinet meeting early Friday afternoon to be followed by a briefing at parliament’s foreign and defence committees.
Italy, a former colonial power in Libya, is expected to lay on at least two bases, one at Trapani in Sicily and the other at Gioia del Colle in Puglia.
Former air force chief of staff Leonardo Tricarico said Italy might provide Tornado fighter-bombers to help knock out Libyan air defence and missile positions, as they did in Kosovo.
F-16 fighters and Eurofighters might be offered for patrol missions from Italian bases as well as AV8 planes off the Cavour aircraft carrier, he said.
Frattini has repeatedly said Italy would back a no-fly zone and encourage the UN, Arab League and African Union to move for a ceasefire and national reconciliation talks in Libya.
Last week the foreign minister said a 2008 friendship treaty with the North African country ruling out military action from Italy had been effectively suspended because of the uprising against the Gaddafi regime. Gaddafi on Friday promised “hell” for any country that moved against him.
Libyan Deputy Defence Minister Khaled Kaaim told ANSA: “Let’s hope Italy stays out of this initiative”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kerry Nudges Obama Into North Africa
By M K Bhadrakumar
The United States, Britain and France steered through the United Nations Security Council late on Thursday a strongly worded resolution for military action against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. The operative part of the resolution — called Resolution 1973 — is five-fold: the protection of civilians, a no-fly zone, the enforcement of the arms embargo, a ban on flights, and an asset freeze. [1]
Although touted generically as a no-fly zone resolution, the scope and range of 1973 and the use of force authorized under it are open to interpretation. Which means that the ostensibly limited involvement by the international community for the specific purpose of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya with the humanitarian intent of protecting the civilian communities, can open the door to large-scale military intervention as time passes.
Britain and France are ready to commence operations, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is scheduling a meeting to focus on operational details. Germany abstained in the Security Council voting and Turkey voiced opposition to any external involvement in Libya. In effect, NATO will constitute a “coalition of the willing” from among member countries.
Holding together
One salient outcome of the voting was that four of the BRICS member countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China — but not South Africa) abstained. The Indian stance was based on three points: that the resolution was not backed up by any report of the special representative of the UN secretary general on Libya and was being adopted while the African Union had yet to send a panel to Libya — underlining that political efforts should have been exhausted first; there was “relatively little credible information” available on the Libyan situation to back up the resolution; and there was no “clarity” about the actual operations authorized by 1973.
Russia tried to scuttle the resolution by suggesting an alternative variant calling for ceasefire, as is the traditional approach by the Security Council. Russia opposed the use of force, pointed out that resolution 1970 — which in late February imposed on sanctions on Libya — wasn’t yet fully implemented; said it remained unclear how the no-fly zone was to be implemented, and was apprehensive of large-scale foreign military intervention.
China’s stance rested on fundamental principles. China insisted on peaceful means to resolve the problem, upheld Libya’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, opposed the use of force, and underscored the need to ensure intervention accorded with international law and UN Charter. China said it had sought certain clarifications but that these were not made available.
US raises the ante
The ultimate clincher appears to have been the “hardening” in the US position. Whereas in recent weeks Washington kept up an air of studied indifference to no-fly zone, it turned out to be posturing. As recently as Tuesday, Britain and France failed to win support for a no-fly zone during the two-day meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers in Paris.
Credit goes to the Barack Obama administration that it held on to its “pre-conditions” on imposing a no-fly zone over Libya — namely, the US will not act without Security Council authorization; it does not want to put US ground troops into Libya; and there should be broad international participation, especially by Arab states. Washington can draw satisfaction that these conditions have been met.
However, the US was covertly active in arranging military assistance for the Libyan rebels. Last week Robert Fisk of Independent reported that Obama administration approached Saudi Arabia to secretly finance the transfer of American weapons to the Libyan rebels. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday quoted unnamed US and Libyan rebel officials saying that Egypt’s military has been shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington’s knowledge.
Egypt’s covert involvement carries much meaning. It highlights that the military junta in Cairo and the Obama administration are getting along famously after the apparent loss of US influence in the post-Hosni Mubarak era. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Cairo (following visits by British Prime Minister David Cameron and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe) indicates that the Egyptian military junta has been assigned a key role in Gaddafi’s ouster. This is bound to impact Egypt’s own march to democracy.
The Libyan rebels hailed the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as two other Arab League nations assisting them. Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-held Benghazi. The indications from New York are that the US and Britain have arranged the participation of a few more Arab League states in the Libyan operation. No doubt, Washington’s ability and sincerity to prevail upon the autocratic Persian Gulf states to reform remains to be seen.
Open to interpretation
Indeed, US intentions are quite opaque. Clinton told reporters in Tunisia on Thursday that a no-fly zone over Libya would require action to protect the planes and pilots, “including bombing targets like the Libyan defense systems.” But R-1973 says no such thing.
Again, once it became clear Russia and China wouldn’t go to the extent of vetoing the resolution, the US raised the ante by suggesting that beyond creating a no-fly zone, the international community should also have authorization the use of planes, troops or ships to stop Gaddafi’s forces. The US amendment proposed that UN should authorize the international community to “protect civilians and civilian objects from the Gaddafi regime, including halting attacks by air, land and sea forces under the control of the Gaddafi regime”.
This proposal, however, seems to have met with resistance from Russia and the final text of 1973 instead authorizes “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. The compromise formula, actually, opens up all sorts of dangerous possibilities to stretch the type and scope of military operations.
On the one hand, 1973 expressly forbids any boots on the ground — “excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory”. On the other hand, it gives authorization “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi”. [Emphasis added.]
Again, regarding the no-fly zone, 1973 authorizes states “to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights”. [Emphasis added.] The likelihood is that once the implementation gets under way, exigencies will arise to undertake ground operations to neutralize Gaddafi’s forces. These could be special forces operations, which are deniable and do not constitute “foreign occupation” of Libyan territory.
In sum, we are standing somewhere at a similar threshold to the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, which began as aerial operations to back up Northern Alliance [NA] militia, supplemented by special forces operations, and was later legitimized as a ground presence…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: GB Base in Cyprus Probable Hub for No Fly Zone Jets
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, MARCH 18 — British forces are preparing to patrol the skies over Libya after the United Nations voted to impose a no-fly zone on the North-African country and it is understood that Britain will use Typhoon jets at RAF Akrotiri to enforce the UN directive. Cyprus’ media report today. The resolution also calls for “all necessary measures” short of an invasion “to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas”. The Typhoon jet is a multi-role combat aircraft capable of being deployed in the full spectrum of air operations, from air policing, to peace support, through to high intensity conflict.
With Tripoli located just 1,850 kilometers west of the RAF airbase at Akrotiri and the new Typhoon having a range of 2,900 kilometers, Cyprus is the most likely option for the no-fly zone base. The jet-fighter is capable of mid-air refueling or stop-offs on allied aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean.
Italian Air Force Eurofighters have been previously deployed to protect Albania’s airspace. Britain has retained two military bases in Cyprus after the country gained its independence in 1960 from British colonial rule. It is understood that aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and a large US air base in Italy are also being considered for the operation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Says U.S. Role Limited as Libya Strikes Start
The United States, France, Britain, Canada and Italy began attacks on targets designed to cripple Muammar Gaddafi’s air defenses as the West tries to force the Libyan leader from power. At least some Arab nations are expected to join the coalition.
French planes fired the first shots, destroying tanks and armored vehicles in eastern Libya eight years to the day after U.S.-led forces headed across the Iraqi border in 2003. Hours later, U.S. and British ships and submarines launched more than 110 cruise missiles against air defenses in the oil-producing North African country.
The United States’ huge military power dominated the initial phase of the strike and Army General Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, was leading the entire coalition. Pentagon officials said, however, their plan is take a smaller role over time in the operation, which was named Odyssey Dawn.
“Today I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun,” Obama told reporters in Brasilia, his first stop on a five-day tour of Latin America.
He said U.S. troops were acting in support of allies, who will lead the enforcement of a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi’s attacks on rebels.
“As I said yesterday, we will not, I repeat, we will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground,” Obama said, grim-faced as he delivered the news of U.S. military action in a third Muslim country within 10 years.
With the United States involved in long-running campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mark Quarterman, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the war-weary American public was nervous about more military action.
“The way the U.S. has handled this — the deliberations both in the Security Council and in Washington leading up to this — has been calibrated to the concern that, yes, the U.S. is in two pretty serious wars now,” Quarterman said. “The administration has made it very clear it has serious doubts about taking the lead in another military action in the Middle East.”
Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, said of the U.S. role: “We are on the leading edge of a coalition military operation. This is just the first phase of what will likely be a multiphase operation.”
25 COALITION SHIPS
The Obama administration had taken a lower profile in diplomacy leading to the U.N. resolution that set up the strikes, believing that it would allow Arab states to coalesce around a call for action and deny Gaddafi the chance to argue that the United States was again attacking Muslims.
“Even yesterday, the international community offered Muammar Gaddafi the opportunity to pursue an immediate ceasefire, one that stopped the violence against civilians and the advances of Gaddafi’s forces,” Obama said.
“But despite the hollow words of his government, he has ignored that opportunity,” he said.
The Arab League, which had suspended Libya over its handling of the uprising, called for a no-fly zone on March 12, a key to securing U.S. and European backing.
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U.S., Britain Fire More Than 100 Cruise Missiles as Libya Action Begins
Obama: U.S. begun ‘limited military’ action in Libya; five-country coalition including U.S., France, Britain, Canada, and Italy launching strikes to cripple Gadhafi’s air defenses.
A U.S. official said Saturday that over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at Libyan targets from U.S. and British submarines.
The Pentagon official said the cruise missiles targeted Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi’s air defenses, mostly in Western Libya.
Obama said Saturday that the U.S. has begun “limited military” action in Libya.
A senior military official said the U.S. launched air defenses Saturday with strikes along the Libyan coast that were launched by Navy vessels in the Mediterranean.
The official said the assault would unfold in stages and target air defense installations around Tripoli, the capital, and a coastal area south of Benghazi, the rebel stronghold.
Obama declared once again that the United States would not send ground forces to Libya, though he said he is deeply aware of the risks of taking any military action.
A U.S. defense official said on Saturday that the U.S. Navy has three submarines outfitted with Tomahawk missiles in the Mediterranean ready to participate in operations against Libya.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
West Pounds Libya, Kadhafi Vows Retaliation
The US, Britain and France pounded Libya with Tomahawk missiles and air strikes into the early hours of Sunday, sparking fury from Moamer Kadhafi who said the Mediterranean was now a “battlefield.”
United States and British forces fired at least 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libya’s air defence sites on Saturday, a top US military officer said, two days after a UN Security Council resolution with Arab backing authorised military action.
An AFP correspondent said bombs were dropped early Sunday near Bab al-Aziziyah, the Tripoli headquarters of strongman Moamer Kadhafi, prompting barrages of anti-aircraft fire from Libyan forces.
State television had earlier said hundreds of people had gathered to serve as human shields at Bab al-Aziziyah and at the capital’s international airport.
A Libyan official told AFP that at least 48 people had died in the assaults, which began with a strike at 1645 GMT Saturday by a French warplane on a vehicle the French military said belonged to pro-Kadhafi forces.
Libyan state media said that Western warplanes bombed civilian targets in Tripoli, causing casualties while an army spokesman said strikes also hit fuel tanks feeding the rebel-held city of Misrata, east of Tripoli.
Kadhafi, in a brief audio message broadcast on state television, fiercely denounced the attacks as a “barbaric, unjustified Crusaders’ aggression.”
He vowed retaliatory strikes on military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, which he said had been turned into a “real battlefield.”
“Now the arms depots have been opened and all the Libyan people are being armed,” to fight against Western forces, the veteran leader warned.
Libya’s foreign ministry said that in the wake of the attacks, it regarded as invalid a UN resolution ordering a ceasefire by its forces and demanded an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
The attacks on Libya “threatens international peace and security,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“Libya demands an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after the French-American-British aggression against Libya, an independent state member of the United Nations,” the statement said.
On Thursday, the Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which authorised the use of “all necessary means” to protect civilians and enforce a ceasefire and no-fly zone against strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s forces.
The following day, Libya declared a ceasefire in its battle to crush an armed revolt against Kadhafi’s regime which began on February 15 and said it had grounded its warplanes.
As a result of the Western attacks, however, “the effect of resolution 1973 imposing a no-fly zone are over,” the ministry statement said.
State television, quoting a security official, said Libya had also decided to suspend cooperation with Europe in the fight against illegal immigration due to the attacks.
“Libya has decided not to be responsible over the illegal immigration to Europe,” the television cited the official as saying.
Boats carrying thousands of undocumented migrants, mainly Tunisians, have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in recent weeks putting a heavy strain on Italy’s immigration infrastructure.
US President Barack Obama, on a visit to Brazil, said he had given the green light for the operation, which is codenamed “Odyssey Dawn.”
“Today, I authorised the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya,” Obama said in Brasilia.
But with nearly 100,000 US troops fighting a protracted war in Afghanistan — and with Saturday’s missile strikes coming eight years to the day after the United States launched its war in Iraq — Obama made clear that operation “Odyssey Dawn” would not send US troops to Libya.
“As I said yesterday, we will not — I repeat — we will not deploy any US troops on the ground,” he said.
The first Tomahawk missile struck at 1900 GMT on Saturday following air strikes carried out earlier by French warplanes, Admiral William Gortney, director of the US joint staff, said in Washington.
“It’s a first phase of a multi-phase operation” to enforce the UN resolution and prevent the Libyan regime from using force “against its own people,” he said.
One British submarine joined with other US ships and submarines in the missile attacks, he said.
The first strikes took place near Libya’s coast, notably around Tripoli and Misrata, “because that’s where the integrated missile defence systems are.”
The targets included surface-to-air missile sites but it was too early to say how effective the Tomahawk strikes were, he said.
“Because it is night over there, it will be some time before we have a complete picture of the success of these strikes,” the admiral said.
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50 Rockets on South Israel, Casualties in Retaliation
(AGI) Jerusalem — Palestinian militiamen shot 50 rockets from Gaza on the S of Israel, causing only light injuries to 2 villagers. The village targeted was Eshkol, near the border.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the combat arm Hamas. The Israeli Air Force immediately activated a retaliation raid against four targets.
Five Palestinians were injured in Zeitoun, a suburbian district of Gaza.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Hits Back After Palestinians Unleash Heaviest Rocket Attack for Two Years
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 rockets into Israel today, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said.
A Hamas official was killed and four civilians were wounded when Israel hit back with tank fire and air strikes, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he will file a complaint at the UN after the unusually large barrage of rockets.
In a statement, he said the Palestinians’ ‘primary goal is destroying Israel’.
[…]
Abbas said Gaza and the West Bank had to reconcile. ‘Hamas have committed terrible crimes but they are still part of the Palestinian people,’ he said.
Hamas used force to break up a small rally today, witnesses said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman was nearby when he was cornered by Hamas police and beaten with sticks. He was briefly detained and released unharmed. Other cameramen also were beaten and some had their equipment confiscated by Hamas.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Jazeera Hosted American Academics at “Opulent” Forum
Al-Jazeera terror TV channel “forum” in Doha, Qatar, not only hosted a top leader of the Hamas terrorist group, but several American commentators and professors of journalism and political science.
Americans attending this event were Steve Clemons, author of The Washington Note blog; Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University; and Philip Seib, Professor of Journalism and Public Diplomacy and Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
Some credit has to go to leftist American journalist Danny Schechter, who also attended the Al-Jazeera Forum as a “guest” of the channel and has filed a dispatch boasting about the luxurious accommodations. He describes being at “the opulent Sheraton Hotel” with other journalists and asking, “…why not some luxury for these media warriors?”
He goes on, “Why shouldn’t some of the gazillions earned in Qatar from fuelling the cars of the West go into funding Middle East movements for justice?”
How’s that as a rationale for taking money from an Arab dictator?
Schechter not only boosts Al-Jazeera, but has appeared several times on Russia Today (RT) television, which is funded by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Meanwhile, another puff-piece on Al-Jazeera, depicting the channel as a courageous, independent, and honest source of news, is being distributed by Reuters news service. Al Anstey, managing director of Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel, is quoted as saying that his financial benefactor, the regime in Qatar run by an oil-rich monarch, has zero input over the news product. “There’s been no interaction from Qatar whatsoever,” he says.
[…]
Anstey apparently finds it necessary to misrepresent Al-Jazeera’s government connection because he is leading the charge to have Comcast and other cable and satellite systems carry the channel.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Revolts: Netanyahu Wants Democracy, But Fears ‘New Irans’
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MARCH 18 — Israel confidently hopes that, in perspective, the winds of protest that started to blow in various Arab countries can lead to a major democratic change across the whole Middle East. But at the same time he warned the West about the “nightmare” involving, in the near future, the emergence of “new Irans” here and there, to the complete benefit of the regional ambitions of Teheran’s Islamic-radical regime, the sworn enemy of the Jewish State and others.
The warning was lastly renewed, with the usual tones, by premier Benyamin Netanyahu, in a lengthy Cnn interview distributed today in Israel by his press office.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Revolts: Bloody Friday: 41 Dead in Sana’a, 3 in Syria
(ANSAmed) — SANA’A, MARCH 18 — More than 40 people died and more than 100 were wounded by shots fired, according to the government version, by people unknown and “not by the police” during a a demonstration to protest against Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh in Sana’a. Meanwhile at least three demonstrators died in Syria.
This is the first time that mass demonstrations were also carried out in Syria. Aside from Damascus, marches took place in Aleppo, Raqqa and Idlib in the north, Homs and Hama in the central area, Qamishli and Hasake, in the north-east where the largest Kurd majority is located, Albukamal and Dayr az Zor, in the east close to the border with Iraq. Not included were the western coastal cities mostly inhabited by Alawites, a branch Shia Islam that includes the al-Assad family and their allies in power. The most serious incidents reportedly took place in Daraa, where three people died.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: World’s Largest Oil Tanker Inaugurated
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 16 — The world’s biggest oil tanker, built exclusively by the Saudi yards of Azzamel, was launched yesterday. The newspaper Asharq Al Awsat reports that Azzamel shipyards will deliver another 33 ships by the end of the year, all of them built in the Saudi kingdom.
Azzamel is to deliver three ships by the end of this month, two of them for the Saudi navy and one for the Saudi Port Authority.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: First Zinc Mine Discovered
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 16 — The first zinc mine has been discovered in the Saudi city of Najran. The Asharq Al Awsat newspaper says that the productive capacity of the mine is 700,000 tonnes of zinc, gold, silver and copper.
Reserves of primary materials have been calculated at 9 million tonnes, according to the Undersecretary for Mining Resources, Jamal Shawly, with feasibility studies showing that they cover more than 12 years of production.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian-American Business Council to Stengthen Trade
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 17 — Yesterday a Syrian-American business council was launched in Damascus in order to strengthen economic and trade relations, reports Al Hayat. The business council is a very positive step towards bolstering trade relations between Syria and the U.S., according to Syrian Minister of the Economy Lamia Asi. The volume of American investments into Syria amounted to 9 million dollars in 2008. According to the minister, this is a very low sum when considering the many investment opportunities present in the country. Trade between the two countries grew from 600 million dollars in 2007 to 1 billion dollars in 2008. The trade balance is in favour of Syria, which exported products for an overall value of 700 million dollars compared to 300 million dollars in imports. The Syrian economy, according to the U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Robert David, has become increasingly integrated into the global economy thanks to important reforms that have taken place in recent years.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Tribes in South Challenge Regime of Assad
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — At least 10,000 people demonstrated today in the region south of Syria calling for the end of the 40 year’s regime by President Bashar al-Assad’s Baath Party after the killing of four protesters by security forces. In the meantime, the government of Damascus said that an inquiry was launched to clarify what happened during the protests and accused the “infiltrated” of being manouevred by foreign interferences. Syria is the latest country witnessing the people’s revolt whereas clashes continue in Yemen and Bahrain.
In Algeria the heavy presence of police avoided a new demonstration in the capital Algiers, but President Bouteflika has engaged in a new wave of reforms.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Middle East Influence Evaporating
Perception that Obama abandoned Egyptian ally cause instability
Relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia are beginning to fray at the edges as the Sunni Saudi kingdom dispatched 1,000 troops to next-door Bahrain in an attempt to quell revolt against that nation’s Sunni-ruled regime, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The U.S. had urged Saudi Arabia not to do that.
That, analysts say, is just a tip of the iceberg of decisions that are being made that reveal the extent to which U.S. advice now is ignored, or even repudiated, across the Middle East, and they say a part of that is because of President Barack Obama’s perceived abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: North Sumatra Governor on Trial for Graft
(AKI/Jakarta Post) — North Sumatra Governor Syamsul Arifin is scheduled on Monday to attend the first hearing in his graft trial at the Corruption Court in Jakarta.
Central Jakarta District Court spokesperson Suwidya on Saturday confirmed the court schedule to tribunnews.com. Syamsul is accused of embezzling the regional budget for Langkat regency, causing state losses of up to 99 billion Indonesiain rupiahs (11.28 million dollars).
Syamsul Huda, the defendant’s lawyer, said his client was ready for trial. “I met him yesterday, visiting him [in Salemba Detention Center, Jakarta], implicitly. He is ready,” the lawyer said.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested Syamsul in October last year. It also confiscated his assets suspected of being fruits of corruption, including a Jaguar automobile and a house in the Raffles Hills estate, Jakarta.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nepal: Kathmandu: High Risk of Attacks Against Christians
The government under the Maoists blackmail has not yet appointed a new interior minister. Police warn of increased activity of Hindu extremist groups, but has no money to continue operations. Christians are afraid to go to church and prefer to pray in their homes.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — Political turmoil is crippling the Nepalese security system and endangering the lives of Christians and other religious minorities. The government has not yet appointed a minister of the interior and for months the police have no funds for operations and is without a security program.
Narayan Sharma, bishop of the Protestant Church claims that “there is no security in the country and our pastors are subject to continuous threats and violence. Many believers do not want to come to church for fear of assaults and attacks and remain locked in their house. “
Fr. Robin Rai of the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in Kathmandu is more cautious. The priest admits a security issue, but stresses that so far there is no climate of fear among Catholics. However, Fr. Rai says that if the situation is not resolved, people will start to get scared and pray at home rather than in church. “The government — he said — knows the risks faced by Catholics and our safety is their responsibility.”
Recently the police foiled a series of attacks by the Nepal Defence Army (NDA), an extremist Hindu group, against Christian churches and public buildings. The mastermind was Ram Prasad Mainali former leader of the NDA, arrested in 2009 and responsible for several attacks, including one against the Cathedral of the Assumption of Lalitpur (Kathmandu). From prison he managed the entire criminal network and extorted money from businessmen and Christian politicians with the threat of bloody attacks against churches and public buildings. To date the investigations are at a standstill and according to local sources there are other group members who are preparing for future attacks.
Kush Kumar Joshi, a Christian manager says: “I’m afraid to attend Mass and other crowded celebrations. Every time I go out I do not know if I will return home alive. “ Joshi points out that this situation is killing the Nepalese economy. “We business people suffer constant threats and we can not work, the government should protect us”
To date, the office of the Minister of the Interior is covered by the new Prime Minister Khanal, leader of the Communist Party of Nepal, who has taken on the Ministerial post so as not to give in to the Maoists. Khanal was elected last February 4 thanks to the support of the party of former rebels, who for eight months boycotted the appointment of a Premier. But as the price for their support, the Maoists want the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interior Ministry, leaving police with no funding or management.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Leadership Fears Its Own People
Beijing is making sure Chinese pro-democracy activists, who have called for their own “Jasmine Revolution,” do not succeed in emulating their North African counterparts. The leadership’s crackdown borders on paranoia, but the Communist Party knows that the economic miracle that maintains social stability is at risk.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fukushima is Not Chernobyl, Wind Power Causes More Deaths
Between 1952 and 2011, nuclear power caused 63 deaths against 73 for wind power. Media and undeclared interest groups are whipping up nuclear fears. It is too soon to compare Fukushima to Chernobyl. In the meantime, the victims of the earthquake and tsunami are forgotten.
Milan (AsiaNews) — How many people died in Japan’s earthquake and tsunami? For now, no exact figures exist, but early estimates put the number in the thousands, with about 10,000 missing. The latest reports suggest that they might be as high as 20,000. However, the victims of the quake and tsunami, and their economic consequences, appear to have taken a back seat to the incident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. “Catastrophe” and “apocalypse” are the terms most media around the world use to describe the incident at the power station rather than the natural disaster.
For the past 65 years, that is since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, people have been afraid of nuclear power. Civilian nuclear power is almost as scary despite the existence of advanced safety systems. Such fear is almost metaphysical because it concerns a stealthy and silent death caused by atomic radiation. For this reason, media coverage holds the attention of readers and viewers.
Of course, mass media have to use vivid language in order to attract the public’s attention. But in this case, they are exaggerating to the extent that we might think that someone has an interest in spreading panic among people.
Historically, chaos and terror are the best tools for mass control. Nations can accept, with their consent, goals and objectives that elites might normally be hard pressed to push if openly presented because of strong opposition and rejection. Facts tend to fall by the wayside when terror and metaphysical fear take hold. Yet, someone is actually trying to do just that.
Deaths from Chernobyl and wind power
Since nuclear power first appeared, in 1952, until now, there were 63 recorded deaths relating to civilian nuclear power plants[1], 53 (top figure from all available reports) from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the worst to date.
As a result of that incident, 237 people suffered acute radiation sickness (ARS), mostly firefighters and rescue staff, who worked on bringing the crisis under control.
ARS has a 60 per cent mortality rate within 30 days of exposure if those affected get immediate intensive care. It is based on exposure levels ranging from 4 to 6 sievert (Sv). Of the 53 people who died in Chernobyl, 28 died of ARS; 15 died of thyroid cancer and the rest from other causes.
Out of 72,000 people who worked during the emergency, 216 died from non-tumour related causes, whilst among those who developed a tumour the number of deaths was insignificant (between 1991 and 1998 because of the time lag between exposure and appearance of illnesses), proportionately no higher than the rest, unexposed part of the population.
The event was of course a great tragedy, but it must be judged against the danger that every human activity entails. By comparison, the number of people who died in the wind power industry since the 1970s stands at 73[2].
In order to determine the level of danger each form of energy carries, we must look at the actual amount of energy each generates (not their potential) over a given period of time, and view them in relation to the number of deaths each can be blamed for. In 2009, nuclear power generated 2.6 trillion kwh (= 2600 Terawatt-hour, TWh) against 340 TWh for wind power, a figure that has declined since 2006, whilst wind power output jumped quickly, increasing tenfold. From this, we can see that wind power is more dangerous than nuclear power. Data for coal and hydrocarbon-generated electrical power also show that nuclear is more advantageous.
If we compare the Fukushima plant incident to Chernobyl, the most significant fact relates to acute radiation poisoning. First, 6 sievert (which is the level of ARS) correspond to 6 million microsievert (µSv). At present, levels around the Japanese plant are about 10 µSvh, for now. Only in two or three reading posts along the ring that surrounds the evacuation area (10 kilometres) are levels higher (according to data[3] of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the highest figure was 80 µSvh at 11.30 am on 16 March at Reading Points 21 and 4). The highest radiation level recorded in Fukushima (nor a brief moment at Plant ? 3) was 400 mSvh[4] (millisievert per hour). By contrast, at Chernobyl, near Reactor ? 4, radiation levels were much higher, around 10,000 / 300,000 mSvh.
Of course, in Chernobyl there was a core meltdown, something that has not yet occurred in Fukushima. However, constantly comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl does not stand the test.
What are the real reasons behind this anxiety-generating mass campaign? We do not have anything to go on, yet. However, we shall consider the various elements and if there are any convincing facts, present them.
[1] See “Chernobyl disaster,” in Wikipedia, retrieved on 18 March 2011.
[2] See “Summary of Wind Turbine Accident data to 31st December 2010,” in Caithness Windfarm Information Forum, retrieved on 18 March 2011. Also, “Wind Turbine Accident Compilation,” retrieved on 18 March 2011.
[3] See “Huge Discrepancy In Radiation Readings In Fukushima Between Official (Semi) Disclosure And Japan Atomic Energy Agency,” in Zerohedge, 17 March 2011.
[4] See “Status of nuclear power plants in Fukushima as of 12:30 March 16 (Estimated by JAIF),” by the, Japan Atomic Forum, retrieved on 18 March 2011.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Fukushima No. 4 Reactor Doused as Tokyo Electric Attempts to Restore Power
Japan’s military began spraying sea water from fire engines to cool the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4 reactor, the site of two blazes last week and the target of a warning four days ago by the chief U.S. nuclear regulator.
Storage pools used to cool spent plutonium fuel rods atop the reactor had little or no water, and large amounts of radiation could be released as the rods overheat, Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told Congress on March 16, citing reports he received from NRC officials in Japan.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the 40-year-old power plant crippled in the worst nuclear disaster in a quarter century, will attempt to restore electricity to the damaged No. 1 and No. 2 reactors today, Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama said on public broadcaster NHK TV. Workers reconnected a power cable yesterday to reactor No. 2, seeking to revive cooling systems knocked out after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Tokyo Electric said that cooling systems may fail to function even with power restored because of damage sustained during the quake and tsunami.
“This is a necessary step because they’ve got to migrate from emergency-response mode, where they’re relying on unusual or improvised approaches, to a regular, engineered system,” Roger N. Blomquist, principal nuclear engineer at the U.S. Energy Department’s Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “The end state you want is to have the reactor and the spent-fuel pools cooled.”
Radiation Levels
Efforts to prevent a full-scale meltdown of the reactors have been hampered by radiation that made it hazardous for workers to spend prolonged periods in the immediate vicinity of damaged buildings.
Residents in an adjacent region that covers an area equivalent in size to Los Angeles were evacuated in the first few days after the disaster. In Tokyo, 220 kilometers (140 miles) to the south, people have been watching weather reports for signs that winds may carry fallout toward them.
Engineers at Tokyo Electric, known as Tepco, hope to use the power cable attached to the No. 2 reactor as a hub to restore electricity to the other five reactors, said Hikaru Kuroda, chief of Tepco’s nuclear facility management department.
“We are making progress one step at a time, but we will not let our guard down,” Fukuyama said.
The longer the company can prevent overheating of the reactor cores and water-filled pools used to store spent fuel, the smaller the supply becomes of the most dangerous, volatile elements, said Blomquist, who oversees the nuclear section at Argonne, a federal research center managed by the University of Chicago, birthplace of the nuclear industry.
Improvement Seen
The radioactive nature of the fuel means that it’s in a constant state of decay, he said. Even if some of the nuclear material has started melting, restoring electrical systems will enable Tepco to bring temperatures down to a manageable level so corrective measures and a cleanup can begin, Blomquist said.
“Reading from the figures of monitoring, we have a feeling that things are getting a little better,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in a meeting with reporters.
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Japan: Nuclear Update: Entire Reactor Core Stored in Fuel Pond
Japan has raised the accident level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to 5 on an international scale of 7, according to the Kyodo news agency and NHK. The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 also ranked as a level 5. But there was some good news.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that the situation at reactors 1,2 and 3 appears to remain fairly stable. The spent-fuel ponds at units 3 and 4, however, remain an important safety concern. Reliable, validated information is still lacking on water levels and temperatures at the spent fuel ponds, but the IAEA announced on Friday that prior to the earthquake,
The entire fuel core of reactor Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had been unloaded from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel pond located in the reactor’s building.
This would explain the fear yesterday that the spent fuel in the Unit 4 pond could go critical (see 18:20, 16 March update, below).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Tokyo Electric Co.: Chance of Chain Reaction ‘Not Zero’
As Japan races against time to control its nuclear crisis, the cooling pools for the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima nuclear plant remain a source of major concern. On Friday water levels in at least one pool — housed in the Unit 3 reactor building — were dangerously low, according to Japanese authorities.
[…]
The bad news is that enough fuel rods remain in the pools that, if exposed to air for a long enough period of time, it is theoretically possible that they could burn and melt into a pile of fissile rubble dense enough to restart a nuclear chain reaction.
Tokyo Electric Power said earlier this week that the possibility of such “recriticality” occurring in the pools is not zero. If it happened the pools would then in essence have turned into running mini-reactors, and begin emitting much more heat and dangerous radiation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: The 175,000-Tonne Ship Lifted Up and Dumped on the Harbour-Side Like a Bit of Driftwood by Japanese Tsunami
This is the 175,000-tonne ship that was lifted up by Friday’s tsunami and dumped on top of a pier in Japan.
The cargo ship lies on the dock promenade Kamaishi, more than a week after the huge surge of water tossed it about like so much driftwood.
The stern of the Asia Symphony juts out several metres onto a road, as some survivors drive past on their way to see what remains of their belongings.
It is one of thousands of apocalyptic scenes that now provide the backdrop to life for victims who managed to escape the wall of water.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
378 New Arrivals at Lampedusa on 3 Boats
(AGI) Palermo — Three more boats made landfall on Lampedusa after midnight. The Coast Guard underscored the fact that the boats were comprehensively carrying 378 migrants and made landfall directly on the island, without needing to be rescued at sea. The first boat, carrying 116 persons, landed at Cala Creta; the second, with 118, at Capo Grecale, and the third docked in the port with 144 Tunisians on board, 5 of which are minors.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
CIS: Nearly 200:000 Children Born in U.S. To Temporary Foreign Visitors
A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds that 200,000 children were born to women who were lawfully admitted to the United States on a temporary basis. These 200,000 children receive automatic citizenship to the United States despite the mother’s allegiance to another nation. The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R.140) would end the practice of birthright citizenship.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: LNP’s Bossi Concerned at Repercussions of Libya Bombing
(AGI) Milan — “The bombings will lead to millions of migrants, all headed for our shores”, says LNP party leader Umberto Bossi.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lampedusa at Breaking Point as Migrant Wave Continues
Miserable conditions for people fleeing North African turmoil
(ANSA) — Rome, March 18 — The southern Italian island of Lampedusa is at breaking point as the wave of migrants fleeing turmoil-ravaged North Africa continued on Friday.
Two boats carrying 38 people each landed on the island between Sicily and Tunisia Friday with seven more vessels seen approaching to add to the over 11,000 people to have arrived since January. Conditions for almost 3,000 people at Lampedusa’s reception centre, which was designed to hold just 800, are miserable, with many migrants complaining about a lack of food and access to toilets.
Officials are looking to set up camps on the small island to ease the pressure but many local councillors do not see this as an adequate response.
Indeed, Mayor Bernardino De Rubeis had Italian flags flown at half mast on Thursday, the anniversary of the 150th anniversary of unification, in protest at the presence of “3,000 migrants who should be transferred elsewhere”.
Residences that used to house United States servicemen at Mineo, near Catania in Sicily, are due to be opened to migrants on Friday, although the initial intake is only for 200 asylum-seekers.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni complained on Wednesday that the European Union’s reaction to Italy’s appeals for help in dealing with the crisis had been “unsatisfactory”.
Maroni’s request for 100 million euros in emergency funding received a cool response from other EU member states. photo: migrants on Lampedusa.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants: Lampedusans Occupy Reserve, No to Tent City
(AGI) Palermo — Late this morning a group of Lampedusans occupied the areas where 200 Tunisians were due to be transferred today. The island’s reception centre is currently packed with almost 3,000 people. The decision to occupy the site, a marine protected area run by the environmental group, Legambiente, was taken at a meeting of the youth committee of the Askavusa association of hoteliers and fishermen, who oppose the two 500 place tent encampments to house the migrants.
Locals see this government decision as intending to transform the island into a ghetto with negative repercussions for tourism and general life in Lampedusa, which doesn’t have enough water and agricultural resources to meet its needs.
Besides the occupation of the nature reserve, the islanders assembly decided to protest in other ways today at the docks where the Tunisians are arriving.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The ‘Crime Visa’: How 18,000 Illegal Immigrants Got Legal Status by Being the Victim of a Crime
More than 18,000 illegal immigrants, plus 14,000 of their relatives, have gained U.S. visas under a new law since 2009 because they were victims of crime.
While many immigrants may still be unaware of the U visa, word is spreading fast in some communities.
The controversial rules state that if you are a victim of crime and you cooperate, or are ‘helpful’ with authorities, then you stand a good chance of getting a U visa.
Since 2009, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has issued 18,654 and rejected 5,639 U visas — a 77 per cent approval rate.
Congress has put a ceiling on the number available annually at 10,000 and this year the USCIS looks on course easily to reach that figure, having received 3,331 applications in the first quarter.
Supporters of the visa says it helps in fighting crime. All too often crimes ranging from robbery and domestic violence to rape and murder have gone unreported because the victims were in the U.S. illegally.
The visa rewards people who may have worked hard, they say, and it helps keep families united because relatives of the crime victim can also get the papers saying they can stay in America.
Critics of the visa say it has created a legal minefield that is being increasingly played out in courtrooms across the country.
They also argue that it is wrong to be writing out so many visas at a time when so many Americans cannot get a job.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Europe-Bound Algerians Halted
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, MARCH 18 — Police in the Tunisian governorate of Jendouba have arrested a group of young Algerian citizens who had entered the country in an irregular manner and were thought to be headed for Europe. The operation was conducted jointly with frontier guards. Preliminary investigations indicate that the group of young Algerians was planning to make for a Tunisian port before setting out in one of the makeshift vessels which regularly take migrants to destinations such as the Italian island of Lampedusa.
According to TAP press agency, special services targeting illegal migrants were assisted by inhabitants of the areas where many Algerians heading for Europe are to be found.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Herman Cain: Obama’s Scrubbing Christian Heritage ‘Intentional’
‘The majority of people do not want God to be taken out of our culture’
Businessman Herman Cain, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, has criticized Barack Obama for disregarding America’s Christian heritage, stating he believes the president’s repeated omission of the phrase “endowed by their Creator” is “intentional.”
“I have been able to get the pulse of the American people of not only what’s in their head but what’s in their heart,” Cain told CBN News Correspondent David Brody in an interview. “What’s in their heart is they love this country. They love the values upon which this country was founded, and they don’t like it when the president omits ‘endowed by their Creator’ from reciting the Declaration of Independence.”
Brody asked Cain, “Do you believe that was intentional by the president?”
“I believe it was intentional because he did it three times, two of which I know about, and a friend of mine actually knows of a third one,” Cain answered. “With all of his teleprompters, how could you not put that in there? No. I believe it was intentional.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Wins Crucifix Appeal
Decision seen as victory for freedom of faith
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, March 18 — Italy on Friday won a keenly awaited appeal against a landmark European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on the display of crucifixes in school classrooms.
Italy was acquitted of the charge of violating human rights.
The ruling was acclaimed by Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who had described the case as “a major battle for freedom of faith” so that believers won’t need to hide “in catacombs”.
Speaking ahead of the majority decision, the foreign minister said he was optimistic the Court would rule “that the crucifix is not a symbol that divides but rather one that unites” people.
He said he based his views on the fact that for the first time in the Court’s history, 10 member states from the Council of Europe, the human rights body that founded the ECHR, had intervened in support of Italy.
Present as the ruling was read out were Italian officials and representatives of the 10 countries: Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, Romania, Russia and San Marino. Also there was the Finnish-born Italian citizen who first brought up the case against crosses in her two sons’ classrooms 10 years ago, Sonia Lautsi. In November 2009, the ECHR said the display of crosses in Italian schools violated children’s and parents’ freedom of belief, prompting Rome to request that the matter be referred to the court’s appeal body, the Grand Chamber.
The Grand Chamber authorized written observations from 10 non-governmental bodies, including Human Rights Watch, Interrights, the Italian Christian Workers Association and the Central Committee of German Catholics.
In addition, 33 members of the European Parliament, which has no link to the ECHR, were for the first time ever given permission to intervene.
The Grand Chamber only rarely agrees to hear appeals and only on matters deemed of particular significance throughout the Council of Europe’s 47 member states.
In the 2009 decision, the Strasbourg court unanimously upheld an application from Lautsi, stressing that parents must be allowed to educate their children as they see fit.
It said children were entitled to freedom of religion and said that although “encouraging” for some pupils, the crucifix could be “emotionally disturbing for pupils of other religions or those who profess no religion”.
It said the state has an obligation “to refrain from imposing beliefs, even indirectly, in places where persons are dependent on it or in places where they are particularly vulnerable”.
But arguing against the court’s comments, the Italian government’s representative Nicola Lettieri said crucifixes in Italian classrooms are “a passive symbol that bear no relationship to the actual teaching, which is secular”.
He said there was “no indoctrination” involved and said the cross did not deprive parents of the right to raise their children as they saw fit.
The jurist representing the 10 Council of Europe members supporting Italy, Joseph Weiler, said that “Italy without the crucifix would no longer be Italy”.
“The crucifix is both a national and a religious symbol,” he said, suggesting that religious references and symbols are pervasive in Europe and do not necessarily connote faith.
Crucifixes are a fixture in Italian public buildings although the postwar Constitution ordered a separation of Church and State, and Catholicism ceased to be Italy’s state religion in 1984.
Two Fascist-era decrees from 1924 and 1928, which were never repealed, are usually used to justify their status, although a 2007 education ministry directive also recommended they be displayed in schools.
Lautsi started her legal battle in 2001 when her sons were aged 11 and 13, and it reached Italy’s Constitutional Court in 2004.
However, the Constitutional Court declined to rule on the matter, pointing out the crucifix provisions stemmed from secondary decrees predating the constitution, rather than parliament-made law currently on the Italian statute books.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Offended’ Parent Can’t Remove Classroom Cross, Court Decides
Ruling could have set ‘dangerous example’ for activist judges in U.S.
A new international court ruling has found that a parent who was “offended” by a schoolroom display of a cross cannot demand that it be removed, a decision U.S. attorneys say will remove one possible reason for activist judges to attack symbols of Christianity in the United States.
The ruling from the European Court of Human Rights concerned a complaint raised by Soile Lautsi on behalf of herself and her two children who opposed the presence of a crucifix in school classrooms in the predominantly Catholic nation of Italy.
A lower court has banished the symbols, but the verdict from the Grand Chamber of the international court concluded that the nation has the right to determine its own teaching atmosphere.
“In deciding to keep crucifixes in the classrooms of the State school attended by the first applicant’s children, the authorities acted within the limits of the margin of appreciation left to the respondent State in the context of its obligation to respect, in the exercise of the functions it assumes in relation to education and teaching, the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions,” the ruling said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Biology’s ‘Dark Matter’ Hints at Fourth Domain of Life
Until the 1990s, it had just two branches: one for eukaryotes — animals, plants, fungi and some other strange forms, including the slime moulds — and one for everything else. Then, gene analysis revealed that the “everything else” branch could be divided into two domains: bacteria and archaea. Not only that, some believe that mimivirus, the largest known virus, may also represent a new domain of life: despite being recognised as a virus, it contains many genes found only in cellular organisms. “People have suggested they might be a fourth branch themselves,” says Eisen. “If you think of those mimiviruses as a fourth branch, maybe our sequences represent a fifth branch — we just don’t know yet.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Black Hole’s Burps May Blow Bubbles Around Milky Way
STARS plunging into the giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy can explain two huge bubbles of gamma rays that NASA’s Fermi space telescope discovered last year. The bubbles tower 25,000 light years above and below the Milky Way’s disc of stars. More than 100,000 stars swarm within a light year of the black hole.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Legislator Says [North Carolina] Needs Its Own Currency
Cautioning that the federal dollars in your wallet could soon be little more than green paper backed by broken promises, state Rep. Glen Bradley wants North Carolina to issue its own legal tender backed by silver and gold.
The Republican from Youngsville has introduced a bill that would establish a legislative commission to study his plan for a state currency. He is also drafting a second bill that would require state government to accept gold and silver coins as payment for taxes and fees.
If the state treasurer starts accepting precious metals as payment, Bradley said that could prod the private sector to follow suit — potentially allowing residents to trade gold for groceries.
“I think we’re in the process of inflating a dollar bubble that could be very devastating,” said Bradley, a freshman legislator elected in November’s GOP tide. “The idea is once the study commission finishes its work, then we could build on top of the hard-money currency with an actual State Tender Act that will basically [issue currency] in correspondence to precious metals stored in the state treasury.”
Bradley’s bill has yet to attract any co-sponsors among his fellow Republicans.
Mike Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University, said the notion of North Carolina reverting to having its own currency is outlandish.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
400 Rabbis, George Soros and Elie Wiesel
On January 27, 2011, designated by the UN as “Holocaust Memorial Day,” 400 rabbis placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal in the form of an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of the News Corporation, requesting that Glenn Beck be “sanctioned” for “his unscrupulous attacks on a survivor of the Holocaust” (George Soros) and that Roger Ailes, president of the Fox News Channel, apologize for his insensitivity in asserting that NPR is “the left-wing of Nazism” and for saying that there are “some left-wing rabbis who basically don’t think that anybody can use the word Holocaust on the air.” Undoubtedly, there is insensitivity in characterizing one’s political opponents as Nazis. Israelis are rightly indignant when Palestinians and their allies, both Muslim and non-Muslim, characterize them as such. Nevertheless, the description by 400 rabbis of George Soros as a Holocaust survivor is, to say the least, astounding. Soros has publicly admitted collaborating with the Nazis at age 14 to stay alive, an understandable motive. Nevertheless, Soros was no Holocaust survivor.
Although one can possibly understand Soros’s behavior in Nazi-occupied, Jew-hunting Budapest, Soros himself has described those years as “the most exciting time of my life.” He has also reported that, “The early stages of the Russian occupation were as exciting and interesting-in many ways even more interesting and adventurous-than the German occupation…”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Alaska Seeks to Bar Foreign Law From Courts
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — An Alaskan lawmaker hopes to guard against Islamic Sharia law by prohibiting state courts from honoring foreign law that violates Alaskan or U.S. constitutional rights.
Though the bill’s language does not specifically target Sharia, Rep. Carl Gatto, R-Palmer, said the legislation is a reaction to what he sees as the growing use of international law codes in courts that have robbed people of their constitutional rights.
In a hearing before the House State Affairs Committee, Gatto’s chief of staff Karen Sawyer said Sharia is an example of the type of transnational law that has appeared in family law, divorce and child custody cases nationally, though she knows of instances of it appearing in Alaska courts.
“Sharia is clearly offensive to the U.S. Constitution,” Sawyer said. “It is the foremost foreign law that is impacting our legal system.”
Sawyer added that countries following Sharia law do not allow freedom of religion or equal rights to women.
Gatto called the law a preventative measure necessitated by the religious beliefs of recent immigrants.
“As a kid, we had Italian neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods … but they didn’t impose their own laws,” Gatto said. “When these neighborhoods are occupied by people from the Middle East, they do establish their own laws.”
Sharia law is a set of Islamic principles and religious interpretations that have been adopted into the laws of certain countries, mostly in the Middle East.
The Alaska proposal is based on the American Laws for American Courts act, which has been proposed in several states and versions of which have been enacted in Tennessee and Louisiana, said David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based attorney who supports the legislation.
In testimony before the committee, Yerushalmi said the law would protect people who are forced to litigate in any country with laws counter to U.S. constitutional protections, not just countries practicing Sharia law.
“Today, we are far more likely than ever before to have foreign laws in American courts,” said Yerushalmi. “There are plenty of occasions in which foreign law informs what Alaskan law could be.”
Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the Alaska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the bill was an unnecessary overreach, and adequate protections for religious freedom in court already exist.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist,” Mittman said.
While Committee chair and bill co-sponsor Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, said he hoped to move the bill out of committee after its first hearing, concerns from lawmakers on how the bill would affect agreements with Alaska Native tribes or neighboring countries led to the bill being held over for further consideration.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Cyprus: Reunification: UN Reportedly Has New Plan
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, MARCH 9 — A glimmer of hope seems to have reappeared for the reunification of Cyprus, the Mediterranean island that has been divided since 1974 following a failed Greek coup and subsequent Turkish military invasion. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, reports a reliable Turkish-Cypriot daily today, has reportedly drafted a plan (as his predecessor Kofi Annan also did) to put an end to the nearly 40-year-long division of the island. News about the project and its main details were revealed by Demokrat Bakish (Democratic Vision) of the Democratic Party (centre-right liberal) led by Serdar Denktash under the headline, “A new plan”. Hopes on the island are that this plan will have a different outcome than the one proposed by Annan. In an island-wide referendum in April 2004, the proposal received 65% approval from Turkish Cypriots, but was rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots. Ban Ki-moon, writes the daily citing anonymous but “reliable” sources, reportedly intends to make the plan public on March 15, when he will invite the leaders of the two communities, Republic of Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Dervish Eroglu, the leader of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognised only by Ankara, to a new three-way summit. The UN chief, according to the same sources, will give the sides “two months at the most” to negotiate on the proposal. For some time the UN has been applying pressure to establish a time limit, considering the imminent political elections in Cyprus (22 May) and Turkey (12 June). Based on the new plan, the sides must “simultaneously” discuss all items on the table, as requested by Greek Cypriots. Following insistence by Turkish Cypriot officials on the “security” issue, this item should be discussed at an international conference including the three powers that ensure safety of the island (Greece, Turkey and Great Britain). The two leaders, according to the intentions of the UN, should come to a “preliminary agreement” to be signed by May. Meanwhile, this morning there was another meeting between Christofias and Eroglu, which as usual, was held at the residence of Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy to Cyprus, Lisa Buttenheim, in the buffer zone that divides Nicosia. The two leaders resumed meetings on February 9 and on that day they agreed to intensify talks, meeting once a week (on Wednesday) to speed up the timetable to resolve the so-called “Cyprus issue,” referring to reunification. The purpose of the negotiations is to reach a definitive agreement on what was agreed upon on May 23 2008 between Christofias and Eroglu’s predecessor, Mehmet Ali Talat, which called for a reunified Cyprus, equipped with a “federal government with a single international figure”. In other words, a single entity with a federal, bizonal and bicommunal state and with a single central government.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Eco-Trap: Is Environmentalism Really Working?
Germany is among the world leaders when it comes to taking steps to save the environment. But many of the measures are not delivering the promised results. Biofuels have led to the clear-cutting of rainforests, plastics are being burned rather than recycled and new generation lightbulbs have led to a resurgence of mercury production.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In Italy, Left-Behind Luggage Gets New Lease on Life
Train company project delivers abandoned articles to needy recipients
In Naples, they found a complete doctor’s bag, the type used for home visits, with a blood pressure gauge, a stethoscope and all the trimmings. In Verona, a complete set of clinical records that “took who knows how long to put together.” In Milan, the city of shopping, a suitcase that contained two brand new Chanel bags and a barely-used pair of Church shoes, all accompanied by receipts and guarantees: 1,550 euros for each bag and 528 euros for the shoes.
There was also a rather curious ‘party set,’ which included plastic phalluses and latex lingerie. It’s strange what people forget in the suitcases they entrust to luggage services, but then fail to retrieve. The good news is that these objects are now being offered a new life, along with a humanitarian purpose. As part of a recently completed restructing process, Italian rail station company Grandi Stazioni Spadecided to clear out all of its unclaimed bags, appointing a social welfare organization called “La Gabbianella” to put the abandoned articles to good use by distributing them through a network of some 40 local non-profits. The effort is more complicated than it may seem, explained Mariella Bucalossi, a Gabbianella volunteer and one of the coordinators of the project. “Just taking Rome’s Termini station alone, we’re talking about 2,600 items, including backpacks, packages and various shoulder bags,” she said. “In Rome, we have already processed two lots of bags — 548 of the total of 2,600.” They have since been distributed to the Torvajanica mission and and the Erythros charity that defends the rights of foreigners.
The project has also been successful in Bologna, Milan, Florence, Naples, Venice and Verona. Turin, Genoa, Bari and Palermo are getting ready to start the same process. Things that are immediately reusable are distributed to people who need them. The other objects are sold in tag sales. Even the suitcases end up being reused. “Do you know how many people it takes just to send the stuff to our street children in the Ivory Coast and Mozambique?” said Riccardo Mabilia, a missionary from the Villaregia di Nola community, who cleared out the lost bag collection at Naples’ central station. “Each summer 10 or 12 volunteers go to Nairobi, each with one of these suitcases filled with 50 pounds of supplies. Much of it is clothes, but there are also products for hygiene and personal cleanliness.”
The biggest problem is damaged bags, some of which, as Ernesto Chiesa of the La Goccia association in Milan described, have been “destroyed by mice, because they were abandoned who knows how long ago. We have had to throw away more than 500 items. The volunteers didn’t even want to risk touching them.” La Goccia also works with unclaimed bags at Malpensa airport, where abandoned luggage is treated as very serious business. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the mere idea of unattended baggage in a crowded place can create panic. “And in fact, before donating them for reuse, the railway police have to check them,” said Bucalossi. Sometimes the most suspect bags end up containing the most valuable goods. “According to the contract that regulates left-behind luggage, bags are considered abandoned after 60 days. To be on the safe side, we wait a little longer: between six and 12 months,” explains Massimo Paglialunga, lead coordinator for the Grandi Stazioni.
“Sometimes someone realizes and asks for everything to be sent. Once the bag has technically passed into the ownership of Grandi Stazioni, the bag will be checked, transferred to a designated storage place, and then donated to the non-profit groups.” The system works well all around, although it’s still not clear where those lingerie sets and sex toys ended up. Are they also dutifully recycled? “Joking aside,” said Ernesto Chiesa, “we destroyed them all. We do have a sense of morality.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Island of Capri Wages War on Noise Pollution
To make sure the chic island getaway offers maximum R&R, Capri wants to limit the use of heavy machinery in summer months. August will be completely silent — except, of course, for all the tourists
This island is already known for its breathtaking scenery and VIP parties. Now Capri is offering tourists another treat: peace and quiet.
Authorities have prepared a series of regulations to safeguard visitors’ siesta time. Police official Marica Avellino has signed a directive to limit noise on the island. The ordinance will go into effect during tourist season: between April and October. Violators will be punished with fines of between 50 and 500 euros.
The new law goes into great detail regulating the use of farming and construction machinery. The use of noisy farming equipment is only allowed four hours a day, between noon and 2 p.m., and between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. In the construction sector, only manual work is permitted, however noisy, and just during limited hours: between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the island’s center and in Marina Grande, Capri’s main harbor; and between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on the rest of the island.
However, all farming or construction machinery, even if used for public works, is banned in August, the peak of the summer holiday season. Capri had already enforced similar rules in 1999, but not to the same extreme degree.
Avellino wrote in the directive that several hotels had complained about excessive noise caused by construction activities. “We deemed it indispensable during the whole tourist season to safeguard the peace and quiet of our guests, an essential part of what we offer,” she said.
The customer may always be right, but construction workers and gardeners worry that their work will grind to a halt. They demanded a meeting with Capri’s mayor, Ciro Lembo, insisting the strict noise ordinances be lifted, or at the very least revised.
Under the new rules, the mayor can in fact allow certain work to go ahead under extreme circumstances, or if it is deemed to be in the best interest of the island’s population.
Environmentalists on the island welcomed the move. “The anti-noise ordinance is extremely interesting,” says Francesco Emilio Borrelli, regional representative for the Greens. “It could be used as a model for all the cities in the area.” Still, Borrelli says the Capri regulations don’t go far enough, noting that there is no mention of muffling the island’s biggest source of noise pollution: the local power plant.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Gladiators Rescued From Tomb Raiders Lie Forgotten Under Sheets
Capena — fifth-century artefacts hidden from visitors. Superb finds at Lucus Feroniae abandoned after 2007 rescue by financial police
ROME — Anyone who cares about Italy’s cultural heritage should drop everything and rush to Lucus Feroniae. Go into the museum courtyard and lift the canvas sheets. Underneath are seven funerary panels of gladiators, rescued three years ago from the clutches of tomb raiders near the overgrown archaeological site. You’ll be shocked. Is that any way to look after a masterpiece?
The site a few kilometres north of Rome on the Via Tiberina is the right place to get an idea of how much attention is given to Italy’s archaeological heritage. Today, it is heart-breaking to visit what remains of the “lucus” (sacred wood) of Feronia, the goddess to whom the famously wealthy ancient sanctuary, pillaged by Hannibal in 211 BC, was dedicated. As the protectress of freed slaves, Feronia was believed by her devotees to have the power to heal wounds of the body and soul.
This major religious centre was abandoned, probably in the fifth century AD, and discovered accidentally in 1953 on the estate of Prince Vittorio Massimo, owner of the castle of Scorano in the municipality of Capena. The site, a few hundred metres from the busy Autostrada del Sole, is now overgrown with weeds that no one clears away.
Once, this was a Roman town with its own forum, basilica, amphitheatre, temples, shops and workshops, as well as an imperial-age bath complex that was warmed by steam passing under the floor and behind the walls. Today, you will find it only if you know that it exists and you are sufficiently stubborn to seek out the battered, hard-to-read sign.
Obviously, the Capena municipal authority takes pride in its ancient origins. Its home page quotes Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares: “Si vis pingues agros et vineas perge Capenam”, which translates as “If you want fertile fields and vineyards, head for Capena”. Yet there is little or nothing about the archaeological site. To give you some idea, there are three photos of Lucus Feroniae, three of the opening of a car park, three of the inauguration of a new school hall, six of the new school canteen and twelve of the new sports field.
You can see the results. Entrance to the archaeological site and museum is free but clearly this is not enough to attract the occasional tourists. A peak was reached in 2001, when as many as 3,934 people came to Lucus Feroniae, after which numbers steadily declined. Last year’s total was 1,337, or an average of 3.6 visitors a day. It’s humiliating, and even more so since the 2007 discovery of the magnificent funerary monument decorated with incredibly accurate bas-reliefs of gladiatorial combats.
They were recovered in the Fiano Romano countryside by the financial police’s archaeological heritage protection group before they could be taken elsewhere — abroad, of course — to be sold. This is all too often the fate of Italy’s archaeological treasures when they fall into the hands of unscrupulous traders. When the officers saw them, they realised the bas-reliefs were one of the most important recovery operations of recent years. The quality, state of conservation and above all the subject are exceptional, as are the size and completeness of the find. The monument was discovered by accident by workers preparing the ground for a new house who turned into spur-of-the-moment tomb raiders. The arts superintendency was not informed. Instead these “predatori dell’arte perduta” [raiders of the lost art], as Fabio Isman calls them his book, dismantled the funerary monument, burying the thirteen pieces prior to selling them on the black market. Miraculously, the financial police operation thwarted their plans.
Such large panels are beyond price on the international antiquities market and any of the world’s great museums would be proud to exhibit them in a place of honour. Significantly, it was proposed to take the sections of the monument to Rome when they were found, perhaps for display at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme museum.
However, it was not to be. In compliance with the principle that archaeological finds should stay in their place of origin, the superintendency opted to assign the monument to the small museum at Lucus Feroniae. Unfortunately, the museum was only able to put six of the blocks on public view and the other seven were placed under a portico. Ironically, the pieces had been recovered from the thieves’ underground hiding place only to be concealed by canvas sheets. That was in January 2007, since when they have not been moved.
There may have been little choice, given the lack of space in the tiny museum, but it is incomprehensible to visitors who happen to see the superb, canvas-covered panels. Equally incomprehensible is the negligence of whoever put the six bas-relief panels on display without so much as a card to explain to any visiting tourists what they are, where they come from or when they were carved. There is no information at all. Zilch…
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Too Late to Go Back on Nuclear Power Plans Says Minister
Talk must focus on safety after Japan woes says Romani
(ANSA) — Latina, March 17 — Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear crisis should give pause for thought but it is too late to go back on Italy’s plans to revive its nuclear programme, Italian Industry Minister Paolo Romani said Thursday.
Reopening a debate on the government’s intention to build four latest-generation plants is “too late and inappropriate,” said the minister, speaking near the site of a nuclear plant decommissioned after a referendum a year after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster led to the abandonment of atomic energy in Italy.
Discussions must focus, he said, on safety issues which have been thrust into the spotlight by what has happened in Japan.
He said so-called stress tests recommended by the European Union must give assurances on safety.
“At the centre of debate there is only the safety issue.
News coming from Japan today is more worrying than yesterday and yesterday’s were more worrying than the day before.
“But we are convinced about the nuclear choice”.
The government has rebuffed opposition demands to halt plans, launched last year, to return to nuclear power and cut Italy’s energy dependance on foreign oil and gas.
But it has pledged to make sure the new plants are immune to the kind of problems that occurred in Japan and has stressed that the sites, yet to be located, will be in non-seismic zones.
Romani said the safety debate must take on board Japan’s experience.
“What has happened in Japan must give a moment’s reflection.
“The government, technicians and the whole system in the country must stop a second and try to understand what is best to do”.
Amid fears of blackouts in Japan as a battle to cool over-heating reactors continued, Romani said “we cannot deny we are worried.
“There is great concern over something we did not imagine we would see.
“We cannot make choices that are not shared by all,” the minister went on, referring both to domestic opposition on site location and to EU plans to review policy in the wake of the disaster at four Japanese reactors.
Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said Wednesday Italy’s decisions would be in line with those of the EU.
“Italy intends to move in step with Europe and any decision on our country’s energy future will be taken with EU decisions in mind,” she said.
The response to the Japan nuclear crisis has been varied across Europe.
Germany has announced the temporary closure of its seven oldest plants while France and other countries have decided to step up monitoring while Ukraine, for instance, has ruled out any “emotional” response and Britain says it is awaiting clearer news before deciding whether to halt any plants.
Prestigiacomo said earlier this week that the government would never take decisions that might jeopardize the health or safety of citizens.
But Italy’s energy independence is “dear to the government’s heart,” she said.
The government line was supported by Italian employers Tuesday with Emma Marcegaglia, head of the industrial federation Confindustria, saying it was important that Italy did not react in an “emotional way as it has in the past”.
“We have a problem of energy costs, we import gas from countries like Algeria, Libya and Russia,” she noted, saying “the energy policy we have set needs to be maintained”.
The Italian Senate this week gave the green light to the four new nuclear reactors as well as a site for nuclear waste, although all of Italy’s regions this week refused to have them.
Construction would begin in 2013 and be completed in 2020.
Italy struck an accord with France in 2009 for the joint construction of the four plants in Italy and five in France.
This led to several other company accords signed in April of last year, including an important one between ENEL, Ansaldo Energia and the French energy giant EdF.
That agreement established the areas of potential cooperation in the development and construction of at least four reactors in Italy using the advanced third-generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) technology developed by EdF.
The Italian public appeared to be largely opposed to the nuclear revival according to opinion polls last year that said between 50% and 60% were against atomic energy, which was entirely phased out by 1990.
Polls this week said that proportion was rising steadily.
On Thursday the opposition Democratic Party accused the government of “lying” to the Italian people on the safety of the new plants as well as keeping them in the dark about the “plans to move ahead with the programme regardless”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 35 ‘Ndrangheta Arrests in Lombardy
Mob ‘handled operations of courier firm TNT’
(ANSA) — Milan, March 14 — Italian police on Monday arrested 35 suspected members of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Lombardy, the affluent northern Italian region around Milan.
The suspected mafiosi are under investigation for mafia conspiracy, extortion, illegal waste disposal and drug trafficking, police said.
According to investigators, ‘Ndrangheta members handled the Lombardy operations of the post and parcel courier service TNT.
Police also seized assets worth two million euros. The probe unveiled contacts between one suspected boss and show business figures including controversial talent scout and impresario Lele Mora, police said.
Mora, one of three people accused of abetting underage prostitution in a case involving Premier Silvio Berlusconi, is not under investigation in connection with the ‘Ndrangheta probe, police said.
Anti-mafia authorities have been warning for years that ‘Ndrangheta, Italy’s richest mafia thanks to its control of the European cocaine trade, is making ever greater inroads into the northern Italian economy.
On Friday Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi said organised crime was on the offensive in regions like Lombardy “where 80% of the arrests for mafia association were in the provinces of Milan, Bergamo and Brescia”.
Italy was making some progress in cracking down on money laundering, Draghi said, but a greater role in pinpointing possible violations needed to be played by notaries and certified accountants, even if they were the most exposed to pressure from Mob figures.
The economic crisis of the past three years, the governor added, has contributed to the mafia’s spread in the north because many companies found themselves strapped for cash and thus tempted to take dirty money and fall into the grips of organized crime.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Anti-Mafia Police Arrest 35 Suspects in Northern Lombardy Region
(AKI) — Police overnight arrested 35 people in northern Italy who are suspected of links to the Calabrian mafia and impounded some two million euros of assets. The 35 mafia suspects face charges of extortion, illegal waste disposal and drug trafficking, police said.
The operation was coordinated by anti-mafia prosecutors in the northern business capital, Milan.
Lombardy, the affluent region around Milan has fallen victim to a “full-fledged colonisation”, Italy’s national anti-mafia directorate warned in a report last week.
The Calabrian mafia or ‘Ndrangheta is continuing to grow in Italy and abroad thanks to “unlimited” financial resources, the report said.
The ‘Ndrangheta is considered Italy’s most powerful crime syndicate, whose financial clout has been estimated at more than 3 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The mafia is one of the biggest reasons for chronically sluggish growth in Italy — the European Union’s fourth largest economy — the Italian central bank governor Mario Draghi said last Friday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel the Panic Merchant
The German Chancellor strikes again, quips Brussels pundit Jean Quatremer. Having sowed panic in the Eurozone last year, Angela Merkel has now succeeded in transforming the Japanese nuclear tragedy in Fukushima into a global nuclear energy crisis.
Jean Quatremer
Angela Merkel has a talent for sowing panic. Last year, the German Chancellor’s dithering transformed the Greek crisis into a systemic crisis in the Eurozone, with markets doubting her willingness to save the single currency. This time around, she has managed to transform the Japanese nuclear catastrophe, a local crisis — serious but nonetheless local — into a global nuclear energy crisis by deciding, on Monday 14 March, without consulting anyone, to suspend the application of a law to prolong the lifespan of Germany’s nuclear power stations beyond 2020, a law she herself had endorsed last year, to shut down seven out of 17 plants, and to launch a safety review.
She immediately triggered a tsunami in Europe, nuclear energy now being the focus of all suspicion, causing the most extreme embarrassment for her European partners. Belgium, by the way, has openly criticised her.
It has to be said that the German Chancellor’s reaction beggars belief: the Japanese accident did not happen because safety at the site was not seen to, as was the case for Chernobyl, but because of one of the most violent earthquakes in recorded history (9 on the Richter scale, which has 9 levels) followed by a tsunami. According to latest reports, seismic activity in Germany (and Europe), is limited, to say to least, without mentioning the risk of a tsunami in the Baltic…
Government according to the mood swings of German public opinion
That is not to say that there should be no debate on nuclear power, especially in France where this energy source was imposed without any democratic debate and where it continues to be subsidised (waste management not included in the price), but we should keep a sense of proportion. Quitting nuclear power will take time and must be done in an orderly way, making sure there are alternative energy sources, which is currently not the case.
The Chancellor, aware that she has blundered, is now backpedalling, explaining to the Bundestag that the immediate closure of German nuclear power plants is out of the question, because “for the moment we just cannot do without” nuclear energy…
To relish the irony of the situation, it should be remembered that Merkel is one of the European heads of state that has most fought environmental norms too restrictive for industry, particularly the car industry — to the point where she is still angry with Commission President José Manuel Durao Barroso, promotor of a “climate” package. It’s clear that the effects produced by global warming will take place well after the next German election…
Once more, Angela Merkel has demonstrated that she governs with a wet finger held up to the wind, and according to the mood swings of German public opinion. Which is very reassuring for the future…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: First Baby Born Without Gene Linked to Cancer
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 17 — In Spain, the first baby was born without the ‘Brca1’ gene following a genetic selection process, which scientists believe has a strong link to the development of cancer cells, especially breast, ovarian and pancreatic tumours, reports El Mundo today.
The Spanish law on Assisted Reproduction authorises genetic selection on embryos free of certain diseases linked to a single gene. The pre-implant genetic diagnosis process was carried out by the Puigvert-Sant Pau Assisted Reproduction Programme in Barcelona. Several eggs were fertilised to produce embryos, two of which did not have the Brca1 gene, and were implanted into the mother, who had several cases of cancer in her family’s medical history.
One of the two embryos survived. After 9 months the first baby in Spain without the Brca1 gene was born.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cancer Operations Are Denied to Thousands of Elderly Patients ‘Because of Ageism’
Thousands of older cancer patients are being denied potentially life-saving surgery because of ageism in the NHS.
The chances of being operated on start falling in middle-age and plummet for those in their 70s and older, an official study shows.
Experts blame age discrimination and poor access to specialist opinion in some areas.
This may explain why older people in Britain are less likely to survive than elsewhere. Surgery rates vary greatly, from 80 per cent of breast and uterine cancer cases to just 6 per cent of those with liver cancer, researchers found.
Lead researcher Mick Peake, of Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, said the decline in operating rates among the middle-aged is particularly worrying as surgery has the biggest benefit in long-term survival.
Campaigner Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: ‘It is outrageous that ageist attitudes are condemning older patients to an early, preventable death.
‘The NHS was set up to provide healthcare for all.’
Meanwhile, 9,000 pensioners are missing out on potentially life-saving cancer tests because staff cannot cope with the workload.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Health Tourists Told They Won’t be Allowed Back Into Country if They Have Unpaid NHS Debts
A crackdown on so-called health tourists was announced by ministers yesterday.
Foreigners who have failed to pay NHS bills of £1,000 or more will be banned from returning until the debt is paid.
Visitors are supposed either to have health insurance or pay themselves for hospital care in Britain.
Thousands flout the rules, however, with £7million being owed to London health trusts alone.
Damian Green, the immigration minister, said: ‘The NHS is a national health service not an international one.
‘If someone does not pay for their treatment we will not let them back into the country.’
The move is expected to stamp out 94 per cent of the abuse of the Health Service, even though it does not restrict access to GP surgeries.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-Slovenia: MPs Discuss Minority Status
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MARCH 10 — The parliamentary committee for relations with Serbs outside of Serbia and a delegation of the Slovenian parliament discussed the possibility of giving Serbs in Slovenia minority status, the Serbian parliament has announced, reports Tanjug news agency.
The two sides also discussed Slovenian rights as a minority in Serbia and the work of the Slovenian minority council.
Head of the Serbian team Branimir Djokic informed the Slovenian delegation about the work of his committee, which comprises 25 parliament members, meaning that the parliament finds relations with the Serbs living abroad very important, says the announcement.
According to the head of the Slovenian delegation, there are some 500,000 Slovenians living outside of their homeland, of which 6,000 are in Serbia. The contacts with the Slovenian minority council in Serbia are good, he noted, adding that he hoped the relations with the Serbian parliament committee would improve in the future.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Med-O-Med for Preservation of Botanical Gardens
07 March , 14:23
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 7 — The Islamic Culture Foundation (FUNCI) has launched an international cooperation programme, ‘Med-O-Med, cultural landscapes in the Mediterranean and the Middle East’, which is presented these days in Madrid. Its goal is to recognise and promote the protection of the most important landscapes and gardens from a viewpoint of biodiversity and cultural heritage. “The cultural landscape as synonym of understanding and cohabitation”, explained FUNCI chairman Cherif Abderrahman Jah.
“A place in which all people, without distinction, like to be, representing the aspiration of all human beings of living in peace with themselves and their environment”, he added.
Med-O-Med focuses on the countries with a Muslim majority in the Mediterranean and Middle East region. Some of its goals are the creation of a network of botanical gardens, an international agreement and a model for the management of the region’s cultural landscapes and the institution of a biological centre for the recovery of traditional practices. “Med-O-Med has an intercultural character and has a multi-disciplinary approach”, continued Abderrahman Jah. “It is an answer to the strong historical and cultural bond between Spain and the countries with a Muslim majority, and the particular sensitivity of the Spanish community for the problems of its Mediterranean neighbours”. The network already has a webpage: www.medomed.org, through which scientific research and several examples of the creation of environmental diversity are presented. The Muslim civilisation has a history of productive interaction with nature, considering ecosystems a source of resources and managing to capture the spirituality of the landscapes, shaped into gardens and cultivations. Still, as the chairman of the Islamic Culture Foundation underlined, in the past years the governments have taken insufficient measure to protect the environmental heritage, neglecting to care for the cultural heritage, leading to environmental deterioration. The Med-O-Med programme has prestigious members like the Botanic Gardens International Conservation; the Royal Botanic Garden of Madrid; the Botanic Garden of Bordoba; the Botanic Garden of Zagreb, in Croatia; the garden Nazarì di Velez de Beaudalla (Granada); the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (Jordan) and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Morocco. The network has the support of the Spanish Culture Ministry, the Biodiversity Foundation, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, the International Union for Nature Conservation. The partnership has started projects in Morocco, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian TV: Jewish Children ‘Do Disgusting Things’
Television report boasts Arabs occupied Jerusalem first, by 2,000 years
Documents have been uncovered just in recent days describing how al-Qaida recruits children as young as 14 for suicide missions, and now a report has been released revealing Muslims using television to indoctrinate even toddlers and school-age children into a culture of death.
The new report comes from the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors media in the Middle East, translating reports and offers a commentary perspective on the meanings.
Its new report, released today, is about a recent broadcast to children on Egypt’s Al-Khaleejiyah Television. The organization has posted a video clip of the comments.
According to MEMRI’s excerpts of the “Ammo Alaa” children’s show, which aired on Dec. 29, 2010, the host said, “Let’s see how we should answer the disgusting Jews, who say that Jerusalem belongs to them. What proof do we have that Jerusalem is Islamic? We tell our friends that … Am I making you fall asleep, Mr. Sa’d, or what? Wake up Sa’d … Have a carrot … First of all, we tell the Jews that the Arabs lived in the blessed city of Jerusalem, more than 2,000 years before the first Jew settled in there.”
His monologue continues, “Two thousand is a very big number. Not one year, not two, not 10, not 100 — 2,000 years. That’s the first thing. We tell them that the Arabs lived in Jerusalem 2,000 years before the first Jew set foot in it. Okay? Okay!”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
French Jets Enter Libyan Airspace, Gadafy Defies UN
French military jets flew over Libya today to enforce a UN no-fly resolution as Muammar Gadafy continued attacking rebel forces, defying world demands for an immediate ceasefire.
Col Gadafy’s advance into Benghazi appeared to be an attempt to pre-empt Western military intervention which may come after an international meeting in Paris today. Strikes against Libya would mark the first military action by Western powers against an Arab government since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A defiant Col Gadafy said today Western powers had no right to intervene in his affairs. “This is injustice, this is clear aggression,” government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim quoted him as saying in a letter to France, Britain and the United Nations. “You will regret it if you take a step towards interfering in our internal affairs.”
President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed this afternoon that French fighter planes are enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya, particularly Benghazi. “As of now our aircraft are preventing [Gadafy’s] planes from attacking,” he said after today’s conference of world leaders in Paris.
Mr Sarkozy hosted the talks in the Elysee Palace, which were also attended by British prime minister David Cameron, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, as well as European and Arab leaders.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said after the summit that British, French and Canadian fighter planes could carry out strikes against Libyan forces later today ahead of wider Nato action.
Mr Cameron said Col Gadafy had broken the ceasefire and the time had come for action. “What is absolutely clear is that Gadafy has broken his word, he has broken confidence and continues to slaughter his own civilians,” he said. “This has to stop, we have to make him stop and make him face the consequences”
The Libyan government blamed the rebels, who it claims are members of al-Qaeda, for breaking the ceasefire around Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city of 670,000 people.
As explosions shook Benghazi, rebel fighters said they were being forced to retreat from the outskirts of the city, but later claimed victory after holding back the advance, as they have in other towns they eventually lost to government troops.
“We revolutionaries have taken control of four tanks inside Benghazi. Rebel forces have pushed Gadafy’s forces out of Benghazi,” said Nasr al-Kikili, a lawyer who works for the rebel media centre in Benghazi, as crowds celebrated by firing guns in the air and parading on top of a tank.
Al Jazeera reported there were 26 dead and more than 40 wounded in Jala hospital in Benghazi after the eastern Libyan city was bombarded.
Rebel leaders said that a fighter jet shot down over Benghazi early today was one of their own planes, apparently downed by regime forces. State TV claimed the rebels downed the plane themselves by mistake.
Meanwhile, residents of the rebel-held city of Misrata said government snipers were shooting people from rooftops today and the hospital could not operate on the wounded because it had no anaesthetic. Local people said there was some shelling this morning in the city — the last rebel stronghold in the west of Libya — this morning — though not as heavy as the previous day.
There were reports on Libyan state television of civilians massing as “human shields” at locations thought to be possible targets for allied air strikes.
The United States, after embarking on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had insisted it would participate in rather than lead any military action.
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Italy ‘Ready’ To Back Libya No-Fly Mission
‘We will do our duty’ says defence minister
(ANSA) — Rome, March 18 — Italy is ready to provide air bases and planes for the United Nations-sanctioned mission to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to stop strongman Maummar Gaddafi from bombing remaining rebel strongholds, government sources said Friday.
Various options had been drafted which would be weighed up with Italy’s international partners, a source said.
“We aren’t going to duck our duties,” said Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa after an informal meeting with Premier Silvio Berlusconi and President Giorgio Napolitano.
Berlusconi huddled with top ministers including La Russa and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini as well as intelligence chiefs ahead of an extraordinary cabinet meeting early Friday afternoon to be followed by a briefing at parliament’s foreign and defence committees.
Italy, a former colonial power in Libya, is expected to lay on at least two bases, one at Trapani in Sicily and the other at Gioia del Colle in Puglia.
Former air force chief of staff Leonardo Tricarico said Italy might provide Tornado fighter-bombers to help knock out Libyan air defence and missile positions, as they did in Kosovo.
F-16 fighters and Eurofighters might be offered for patrol missions from Italian bases as well as AV8 planes off the Cavour aircraft carrier, he said.
Frattini has repeatedly said Italy would back a no-fly zone and encourage the UN, Arab League and African Union to move for a ceasefire and national reconciliation talks in Libya.
Last week the foreign minister said a 2008 friendship treaty with the North African country ruling out military action from Italy had been effectively suspended because of the uprising against the Gaddafi regime. Gaddafi on Friday promised “hell” for any country that moved against him.
Libyan Deputy Defence Minister Khaled Kaaim told ANSA: “Let’s hope Italy stays out of this initiative”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kerry Nudges Obama Into North Africa
By M K Bhadrakumar
The United States, Britain and France steered through the United Nations Security Council late on Thursday a strongly worded resolution for military action against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. The operative part of the resolution — called Resolution 1973 — is five-fold: the protection of civilians, a no-fly zone, the enforcement of the arms embargo, a ban on flights, and an asset freeze. [1]
Although touted generically as a no-fly zone resolution, the scope and range of 1973 and the use of force authorized under it are open to interpretation. Which means that the ostensibly limited involvement by the international community for the specific purpose of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya with the humanitarian intent of protecting the civilian communities, can open the door to large-scale military intervention as time passes.
Britain and France are ready to commence operations, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is scheduling a meeting to focus on operational details. Germany abstained in the Security Council voting and Turkey voiced opposition to any external involvement in Libya. In effect, NATO will constitute a “coalition of the willing” from among member countries.
Holding together
One salient outcome of the voting was that four of the BRICS member countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China — but not South Africa) abstained. The Indian stance was based on three points: that the resolution was not backed up by any report of the special representative of the UN secretary general on Libya and was being adopted while the African Union had yet to send a panel to Libya — underlining that political efforts should have been exhausted first; there was “relatively little credible information” available on the Libyan situation to back up the resolution; and there was no “clarity” about the actual operations authorized by 1973.
Russia tried to scuttle the resolution by suggesting an alternative variant calling for ceasefire, as is the traditional approach by the Security Council. Russia opposed the use of force, pointed out that resolution 1970 — which in late February imposed on sanctions on Libya — wasn’t yet fully implemented; said it remained unclear how the no-fly zone was to be implemented, and was apprehensive of large-scale foreign military intervention.
China’s stance rested on fundamental principles. China insisted on peaceful means to resolve the problem, upheld Libya’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, opposed the use of force, and underscored the need to ensure intervention accorded with international law and UN Charter. China said it had sought certain clarifications but that these were not made available.
US raises the ante
The ultimate clincher appears to have been the “hardening” in the US position. Whereas in recent weeks Washington kept up an air of studied indifference to no-fly zone, it turned out to be posturing. As recently as Tuesday, Britain and France failed to win support for a no-fly zone during the two-day meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers in Paris.
Credit goes to the Barack Obama administration that it held on to its “pre-conditions” on imposing a no-fly zone over Libya — namely, the US will not act without Security Council authorization; it does not want to put US ground troops into Libya; and there should be broad international participation, especially by Arab states. Washington can draw satisfaction that these conditions have been met.
However, the US was covertly active in arranging military assistance for the Libyan rebels. Last week Robert Fisk of Independent reported that Obama administration approached Saudi Arabia to secretly finance the transfer of American weapons to the Libyan rebels. The Wall Street Journal on Thursday quoted unnamed US and Libyan rebel officials saying that Egypt’s military has been shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington’s knowledge.
Egypt’s covert involvement carries much meaning. It highlights that the military junta in Cairo and the Obama administration are getting along famously after the apparent loss of US influence in the post-Hosni Mubarak era. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Cairo (following visits by British Prime Minister David Cameron and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe) indicates that the Egyptian military junta has been assigned a key role in Gaddafi’s ouster. This is bound to impact Egypt’s own march to democracy.
The Libyan rebels hailed the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as two other Arab League nations assisting them. Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-held Benghazi. The indications from New York are that the US and Britain have arranged the participation of a few more Arab League states in the Libyan operation. No doubt, Washington’s ability and sincerity to prevail upon the autocratic Persian Gulf states to reform remains to be seen.
Open to interpretation
Indeed, US intentions are quite opaque. Clinton told reporters in Tunisia on Thursday that a no-fly zone over Libya would require action to protect the planes and pilots, “including bombing targets like the Libyan defense systems.” But R-1973 says no such thing.
Again, once it became clear Russia and China wouldn’t go to the extent of vetoing the resolution, the US raised the ante by suggesting that beyond creating a no-fly zone, the international community should also have authorization the use of planes, troops or ships to stop Gaddafi’s forces. The US amendment proposed that UN should authorize the international community to “protect civilians and civilian objects from the Gaddafi regime, including halting attacks by air, land and sea forces under the control of the Gaddafi regime”.
This proposal, however, seems to have met with resistance from Russia and the final text of 1973 instead authorizes “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. The compromise formula, actually, opens up all sorts of dangerous possibilities to stretch the type and scope of military operations.
On the one hand, 1973 expressly forbids any boots on the ground — “excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory”. On the other hand, it gives authorization “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi”. [Emphasis added.]
Again, regarding the no-fly zone, 1973 authorizes states “to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights”. [Emphasis added.] The likelihood is that once the implementation gets under way, exigencies will arise to undertake ground operations to neutralize Gaddafi’s forces. These could be special forces operations, which are deniable and do not constitute “foreign occupation” of Libyan territory.
In sum, we are standing somewhere at a similar threshold to the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, which began as aerial operations to back up Northern Alliance [NA] militia, supplemented by special forces operations, and was later legitimized as a ground presence…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: GB Base in Cyprus Probable Hub for No Fly Zone Jets
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, MARCH 18 — British forces are preparing to patrol the skies over Libya after the United Nations voted to impose a no-fly zone on the North-African country and it is understood that Britain will use Typhoon jets at RAF Akrotiri to enforce the UN directive. Cyprus’ media report today. The resolution also calls for “all necessary measures” short of an invasion “to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas”. The Typhoon jet is a multi-role combat aircraft capable of being deployed in the full spectrum of air operations, from air policing, to peace support, through to high intensity conflict.
With Tripoli located just 1,850 kilometers west of the RAF airbase at Akrotiri and the new Typhoon having a range of 2,900 kilometers, Cyprus is the most likely option for the no-fly zone base. The jet-fighter is capable of mid-air refueling or stop-offs on allied aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean.
Italian Air Force Eurofighters have been previously deployed to protect Albania’s airspace. Britain has retained two military bases in Cyprus after the country gained its independence in 1960 from British colonial rule. It is understood that aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and a large US air base in Italy are also being considered for the operation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Says U.S. Role Limited as Libya Strikes Start
The United States, France, Britain, Canada and Italy began attacks on targets designed to cripple Muammar Gaddafi’s air defenses as the West tries to force the Libyan leader from power. At least some Arab nations are expected to join the coalition.
French planes fired the first shots, destroying tanks and armored vehicles in eastern Libya eight years to the day after U.S.-led forces headed across the Iraqi border in 2003. Hours later, U.S. and British ships and submarines launched more than 110 cruise missiles against air defenses in the oil-producing North African country.
The United States’ huge military power dominated the initial phase of the strike and Army General Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, was leading the entire coalition. Pentagon officials said, however, their plan is take a smaller role over time in the operation, which was named Odyssey Dawn.
“Today I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun,” Obama told reporters in Brasilia, his first stop on a five-day tour of Latin America.
He said U.S. troops were acting in support of allies, who will lead the enforcement of a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi’s attacks on rebels.
“As I said yesterday, we will not, I repeat, we will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground,” Obama said, grim-faced as he delivered the news of U.S. military action in a third Muslim country within 10 years.
With the United States involved in long-running campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mark Quarterman, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the war-weary American public was nervous about more military action.
“The way the U.S. has handled this — the deliberations both in the Security Council and in Washington leading up to this — has been calibrated to the concern that, yes, the U.S. is in two pretty serious wars now,” Quarterman said. “The administration has made it very clear it has serious doubts about taking the lead in another military action in the Middle East.”
Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, said of the U.S. role: “We are on the leading edge of a coalition military operation. This is just the first phase of what will likely be a multiphase operation.”
25 COALITION SHIPS
The Obama administration had taken a lower profile in diplomacy leading to the U.N. resolution that set up the strikes, believing that it would allow Arab states to coalesce around a call for action and deny Gaddafi the chance to argue that the United States was again attacking Muslims.
“Even yesterday, the international community offered Muammar Gaddafi the opportunity to pursue an immediate ceasefire, one that stopped the violence against civilians and the advances of Gaddafi’s forces,” Obama said.
“But despite the hollow words of his government, he has ignored that opportunity,” he said.
The Arab League, which had suspended Libya over its handling of the uprising, called for a no-fly zone on March 12, a key to securing U.S. and European backing.
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U.S., Britain Fire More Than 100 Cruise Missiles as Libya Action Begins
Obama: U.S. begun ‘limited military’ action in Libya; five-country coalition including U.S., France, Britain, Canada, and Italy launching strikes to cripple Gadhafi’s air defenses.
A U.S. official said Saturday that over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at Libyan targets from U.S. and British submarines.
The Pentagon official said the cruise missiles targeted Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi’s air defenses, mostly in Western Libya.
Obama said Saturday that the U.S. has begun “limited military” action in Libya.
A senior military official said the U.S. launched air defenses Saturday with strikes along the Libyan coast that were launched by Navy vessels in the Mediterranean.
The official said the assault would unfold in stages and target air defense installations around Tripoli, the capital, and a coastal area south of Benghazi, the rebel stronghold.
Obama declared once again that the United States would not send ground forces to Libya, though he said he is deeply aware of the risks of taking any military action.
A U.S. defense official said on Saturday that the U.S. Navy has three submarines outfitted with Tomahawk missiles in the Mediterranean ready to participate in operations against Libya.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
West Pounds Libya, Kadhafi Vows Retaliation
The US, Britain and France pounded Libya with Tomahawk missiles and air strikes into the early hours of Sunday, sparking fury from Moamer Kadhafi who said the Mediterranean was now a “battlefield.”
United States and British forces fired at least 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libya’s air defence sites on Saturday, a top US military officer said, two days after a UN Security Council resolution with Arab backing authorised military action.
An AFP correspondent said bombs were dropped early Sunday near Bab al-Aziziyah, the Tripoli headquarters of strongman Moamer Kadhafi, prompting barrages of anti-aircraft fire from Libyan forces.
State television had earlier said hundreds of people had gathered to serve as human shields at Bab al-Aziziyah and at the capital’s international airport.
A Libyan official told AFP that at least 48 people had died in the assaults, which began with a strike at 1645 GMT Saturday by a French warplane on a vehicle the French military said belonged to pro-Kadhafi forces.
Libyan state media said that Western warplanes bombed civilian targets in Tripoli, causing casualties while an army spokesman said strikes also hit fuel tanks feeding the rebel-held city of Misrata, east of Tripoli.
Kadhafi, in a brief audio message broadcast on state television, fiercely denounced the attacks as a “barbaric, unjustified Crusaders’ aggression.”
He vowed retaliatory strikes on military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, which he said had been turned into a “real battlefield.”
“Now the arms depots have been opened and all the Libyan people are being armed,” to fight against Western forces, the veteran leader warned.
Libya’s foreign ministry said that in the wake of the attacks, it regarded as invalid a UN resolution ordering a ceasefire by its forces and demanded an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
The attacks on Libya “threatens international peace and security,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“Libya demands an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after the French-American-British aggression against Libya, an independent state member of the United Nations,” the statement said.
On Thursday, the Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which authorised the use of “all necessary means” to protect civilians and enforce a ceasefire and no-fly zone against strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s forces.
The following day, Libya declared a ceasefire in its battle to crush an armed revolt against Kadhafi’s regime which began on February 15 and said it had grounded its warplanes.
As a result of the Western attacks, however, “the effect of resolution 1973 imposing a no-fly zone are over,” the ministry statement said.
State television, quoting a security official, said Libya had also decided to suspend cooperation with Europe in the fight against illegal immigration due to the attacks.
“Libya has decided not to be responsible over the illegal immigration to Europe,” the television cited the official as saying.
Boats carrying thousands of undocumented migrants, mainly Tunisians, have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in recent weeks putting a heavy strain on Italy’s immigration infrastructure.
US President Barack Obama, on a visit to Brazil, said he had given the green light for the operation, which is codenamed “Odyssey Dawn.”
“Today, I authorised the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya,” Obama said in Brasilia.
But with nearly 100,000 US troops fighting a protracted war in Afghanistan — and with Saturday’s missile strikes coming eight years to the day after the United States launched its war in Iraq — Obama made clear that operation “Odyssey Dawn” would not send US troops to Libya.
“As I said yesterday, we will not — I repeat — we will not deploy any US troops on the ground,” he said.
The first Tomahawk missile struck at 1900 GMT on Saturday following air strikes carried out earlier by French warplanes, Admiral William Gortney, director of the US joint staff, said in Washington.
“It’s a first phase of a multi-phase operation” to enforce the UN resolution and prevent the Libyan regime from using force “against its own people,” he said.
One British submarine joined with other US ships and submarines in the missile attacks, he said.
The first strikes took place near Libya’s coast, notably around Tripoli and Misrata, “because that’s where the integrated missile defence systems are.”
The targets included surface-to-air missile sites but it was too early to say how effective the Tomahawk strikes were, he said.
“Because it is night over there, it will be some time before we have a complete picture of the success of these strikes,” the admiral said.
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50 Rockets on South Israel, Casualties in Retaliation
(AGI) Jerusalem — Palestinian militiamen shot 50 rockets from Gaza on the S of Israel, causing only light injuries to 2 villagers. The village targeted was Eshkol, near the border.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the combat arm Hamas. The Israeli Air Force immediately activated a retaliation raid against four targets.
Five Palestinians were injured in Zeitoun, a suburbian district of Gaza.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Hits Back After Palestinians Unleash Heaviest Rocket Attack for Two Years
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 rockets into Israel today, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said.
A Hamas official was killed and four civilians were wounded when Israel hit back with tank fire and air strikes, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he will file a complaint at the UN after the unusually large barrage of rockets.
In a statement, he said the Palestinians’ ‘primary goal is destroying Israel’.
[…]
Abbas said Gaza and the West Bank had to reconcile. ‘Hamas have committed terrible crimes but they are still part of the Palestinian people,’ he said.
Hamas used force to break up a small rally today, witnesses said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman was nearby when he was cornered by Hamas police and beaten with sticks. He was briefly detained and released unharmed. Other cameramen also were beaten and some had their equipment confiscated by Hamas.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Jazeera Hosted American Academics at “Opulent” Forum
Al-Jazeera terror TV channel “forum” in Doha, Qatar, not only hosted a top leader of the Hamas terrorist group, but several American commentators and professors of journalism and political science.
Americans attending this event were Steve Clemons, author of The Washington Note blog; Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University; and Philip Seib, Professor of Journalism and Public Diplomacy and Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
Some credit has to go to leftist American journalist Danny Schechter, who also attended the Al-Jazeera Forum as a “guest” of the channel and has filed a dispatch boasting about the luxurious accommodations. He describes being at “the opulent Sheraton Hotel” with other journalists and asking, “…why not some luxury for these media warriors?”
He goes on, “Why shouldn’t some of the gazillions earned in Qatar from fuelling the cars of the West go into funding Middle East movements for justice?”
How’s that as a rationale for taking money from an Arab dictator?
Schechter not only boosts Al-Jazeera, but has appeared several times on Russia Today (RT) television, which is funded by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Meanwhile, another puff-piece on Al-Jazeera, depicting the channel as a courageous, independent, and honest source of news, is being distributed by Reuters news service. Al Anstey, managing director of Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel, is quoted as saying that his financial benefactor, the regime in Qatar run by an oil-rich monarch, has zero input over the news product. “There’s been no interaction from Qatar whatsoever,” he says.
[…]
Anstey apparently finds it necessary to misrepresent Al-Jazeera’s government connection because he is leading the charge to have Comcast and other cable and satellite systems carry the channel.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Revolts: Netanyahu Wants Democracy, But Fears ‘New Irans’
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MARCH 18 — Israel confidently hopes that, in perspective, the winds of protest that started to blow in various Arab countries can lead to a major democratic change across the whole Middle East. But at the same time he warned the West about the “nightmare” involving, in the near future, the emergence of “new Irans” here and there, to the complete benefit of the regional ambitions of Teheran’s Islamic-radical regime, the sworn enemy of the Jewish State and others.
The warning was lastly renewed, with the usual tones, by premier Benyamin Netanyahu, in a lengthy Cnn interview distributed today in Israel by his press office.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Revolts: Bloody Friday: 41 Dead in Sana’a, 3 in Syria
(ANSAmed) — SANA’A, MARCH 18 — More than 40 people died and more than 100 were wounded by shots fired, according to the government version, by people unknown and “not by the police” during a a demonstration to protest against Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh in Sana’a. Meanwhile at least three demonstrators died in Syria.
This is the first time that mass demonstrations were also carried out in Syria. Aside from Damascus, marches took place in Aleppo, Raqqa and Idlib in the north, Homs and Hama in the central area, Qamishli and Hasake, in the north-east where the largest Kurd majority is located, Albukamal and Dayr az Zor, in the east close to the border with Iraq. Not included were the western coastal cities mostly inhabited by Alawites, a branch Shia Islam that includes the al-Assad family and their allies in power. The most serious incidents reportedly took place in Daraa, where three people died.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: World’s Largest Oil Tanker Inaugurated
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 16 — The world’s biggest oil tanker, built exclusively by the Saudi yards of Azzamel, was launched yesterday. The newspaper Asharq Al Awsat reports that Azzamel shipyards will deliver another 33 ships by the end of the year, all of them built in the Saudi kingdom.
Azzamel is to deliver three ships by the end of this month, two of them for the Saudi navy and one for the Saudi Port Authority.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: First Zinc Mine Discovered
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 16 — The first zinc mine has been discovered in the Saudi city of Najran. The Asharq Al Awsat newspaper says that the productive capacity of the mine is 700,000 tonnes of zinc, gold, silver and copper.
Reserves of primary materials have been calculated at 9 million tonnes, according to the Undersecretary for Mining Resources, Jamal Shawly, with feasibility studies showing that they cover more than 12 years of production.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian-American Business Council to Stengthen Trade
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 17 — Yesterday a Syrian-American business council was launched in Damascus in order to strengthen economic and trade relations, reports Al Hayat. The business council is a very positive step towards bolstering trade relations between Syria and the U.S., according to Syrian Minister of the Economy Lamia Asi. The volume of American investments into Syria amounted to 9 million dollars in 2008. According to the minister, this is a very low sum when considering the many investment opportunities present in the country. Trade between the two countries grew from 600 million dollars in 2007 to 1 billion dollars in 2008. The trade balance is in favour of Syria, which exported products for an overall value of 700 million dollars compared to 300 million dollars in imports. The Syrian economy, according to the U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Robert David, has become increasingly integrated into the global economy thanks to important reforms that have taken place in recent years.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Tribes in South Challenge Regime of Assad
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — At least 10,000 people demonstrated today in the region south of Syria calling for the end of the 40 year’s regime by President Bashar al-Assad’s Baath Party after the killing of four protesters by security forces. In the meantime, the government of Damascus said that an inquiry was launched to clarify what happened during the protests and accused the “infiltrated” of being manouevred by foreign interferences. Syria is the latest country witnessing the people’s revolt whereas clashes continue in Yemen and Bahrain.
In Algeria the heavy presence of police avoided a new demonstration in the capital Algiers, but President Bouteflika has engaged in a new wave of reforms.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Middle East Influence Evaporating
Perception that Obama abandoned Egyptian ally cause instability
Relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia are beginning to fray at the edges as the Sunni Saudi kingdom dispatched 1,000 troops to next-door Bahrain in an attempt to quell revolt against that nation’s Sunni-ruled regime, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The U.S. had urged Saudi Arabia not to do that.
That, analysts say, is just a tip of the iceberg of decisions that are being made that reveal the extent to which U.S. advice now is ignored, or even repudiated, across the Middle East, and they say a part of that is because of President Barack Obama’s perceived abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: North Sumatra Governor on Trial for Graft
(AKI/Jakarta Post) — North Sumatra Governor Syamsul Arifin is scheduled on Monday to attend the first hearing in his graft trial at the Corruption Court in Jakarta.
Central Jakarta District Court spokesperson Suwidya on Saturday confirmed the court schedule to tribunnews.com. Syamsul is accused of embezzling the regional budget for Langkat regency, causing state losses of up to 99 billion Indonesiain rupiahs (11.28 million dollars).
Syamsul Huda, the defendant’s lawyer, said his client was ready for trial. “I met him yesterday, visiting him [in Salemba Detention Center, Jakarta], implicitly. He is ready,” the lawyer said.
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested Syamsul in October last year. It also confiscated his assets suspected of being fruits of corruption, including a Jaguar automobile and a house in the Raffles Hills estate, Jakarta.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nepal: Kathmandu: High Risk of Attacks Against Christians
The government under the Maoists blackmail has not yet appointed a new interior minister. Police warn of increased activity of Hindu extremist groups, but has no money to continue operations. Christians are afraid to go to church and prefer to pray in their homes.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — Political turmoil is crippling the Nepalese security system and endangering the lives of Christians and other religious minorities. The government has not yet appointed a minister of the interior and for months the police have no funds for operations and is without a security program.
Narayan Sharma, bishop of the Protestant Church claims that “there is no security in the country and our pastors are subject to continuous threats and violence. Many believers do not want to come to church for fear of assaults and attacks and remain locked in their house. “
Fr. Robin Rai of the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in Kathmandu is more cautious. The priest admits a security issue, but stresses that so far there is no climate of fear among Catholics. However, Fr. Rai says that if the situation is not resolved, people will start to get scared and pray at home rather than in church. “The government — he said — knows the risks faced by Catholics and our safety is their responsibility.”
Recently the police foiled a series of attacks by the Nepal Defence Army (NDA), an extremist Hindu group, against Christian churches and public buildings. The mastermind was Ram Prasad Mainali former leader of the NDA, arrested in 2009 and responsible for several attacks, including one against the Cathedral of the Assumption of Lalitpur (Kathmandu). From prison he managed the entire criminal network and extorted money from businessmen and Christian politicians with the threat of bloody attacks against churches and public buildings. To date the investigations are at a standstill and according to local sources there are other group members who are preparing for future attacks.
Kush Kumar Joshi, a Christian manager says: “I’m afraid to attend Mass and other crowded celebrations. Every time I go out I do not know if I will return home alive. “ Joshi points out that this situation is killing the Nepalese economy. “We business people suffer constant threats and we can not work, the government should protect us”
To date, the office of the Minister of the Interior is covered by the new Prime Minister Khanal, leader of the Communist Party of Nepal, who has taken on the Ministerial post so as not to give in to the Maoists. Khanal was elected last February 4 thanks to the support of the party of former rebels, who for eight months boycotted the appointment of a Premier. But as the price for their support, the Maoists want the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interior Ministry, leaving police with no funding or management.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Leadership Fears Its Own People
Beijing is making sure Chinese pro-democracy activists, who have called for their own “Jasmine Revolution,” do not succeed in emulating their North African counterparts. The leadership’s crackdown borders on paranoia, but the Communist Party knows that the economic miracle that maintains social stability is at risk.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fukushima is Not Chernobyl, Wind Power Causes More Deaths
Between 1952 and 2011, nuclear power caused 63 deaths against 73 for wind power. Media and undeclared interest groups are whipping up nuclear fears. It is too soon to compare Fukushima to Chernobyl. In the meantime, the victims of the earthquake and tsunami are forgotten.
Milan (AsiaNews) — How many people died in Japan’s earthquake and tsunami? For now, no exact figures exist, but early estimates put the number in the thousands, with about 10,000 missing. The latest reports suggest that they might be as high as 20,000. However, the victims of the quake and tsunami, and their economic consequences, appear to have taken a back seat to the incident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. “Catastrophe” and “apocalypse” are the terms most media around the world use to describe the incident at the power station rather than the natural disaster.
For the past 65 years, that is since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, people have been afraid of nuclear power. Civilian nuclear power is almost as scary despite the existence of advanced safety systems. Such fear is almost metaphysical because it concerns a stealthy and silent death caused by atomic radiation. For this reason, media coverage holds the attention of readers and viewers.
Of course, mass media have to use vivid language in order to attract the public’s attention. But in this case, they are exaggerating to the extent that we might think that someone has an interest in spreading panic among people.
Historically, chaos and terror are the best tools for mass control. Nations can accept, with their consent, goals and objectives that elites might normally be hard pressed to push if openly presented because of strong opposition and rejection. Facts tend to fall by the wayside when terror and metaphysical fear take hold. Yet, someone is actually trying to do just that.
Deaths from Chernobyl and wind power
Since nuclear power first appeared, in 1952, until now, there were 63 recorded deaths relating to civilian nuclear power plants[1], 53 (top figure from all available reports) from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the worst to date.
As a result of that incident, 237 people suffered acute radiation sickness (ARS), mostly firefighters and rescue staff, who worked on bringing the crisis under control.
ARS has a 60 per cent mortality rate within 30 days of exposure if those affected get immediate intensive care. It is based on exposure levels ranging from 4 to 6 sievert (Sv). Of the 53 people who died in Chernobyl, 28 died of ARS; 15 died of thyroid cancer and the rest from other causes.
Out of 72,000 people who worked during the emergency, 216 died from non-tumour related causes, whilst among those who developed a tumour the number of deaths was insignificant (between 1991 and 1998 because of the time lag between exposure and appearance of illnesses), proportionately no higher than the rest, unexposed part of the population.
The event was of course a great tragedy, but it must be judged against the danger that every human activity entails. By comparison, the number of people who died in the wind power industry since the 1970s stands at 73[2].
In order to determine the level of danger each form of energy carries, we must look at the actual amount of energy each generates (not their potential) over a given period of time, and view them in relation to the number of deaths each can be blamed for. In 2009, nuclear power generated 2.6 trillion kwh (= 2600 Terawatt-hour, TWh) against 340 TWh for wind power, a figure that has declined since 2006, whilst wind power output jumped quickly, increasing tenfold. From this, we can see that wind power is more dangerous than nuclear power. Data for coal and hydrocarbon-generated electrical power also show that nuclear is more advantageous.
If we compare the Fukushima plant incident to Chernobyl, the most significant fact relates to acute radiation poisoning. First, 6 sievert (which is the level of ARS) correspond to 6 million microsievert (µSv). At present, levels around the Japanese plant are about 10 µSvh, for now. Only in two or three reading posts along the ring that surrounds the evacuation area (10 kilometres) are levels higher (according to data[3] of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the highest figure was 80 µSvh at 11.30 am on 16 March at Reading Points 21 and 4). The highest radiation level recorded in Fukushima (nor a brief moment at Plant ? 3) was 400 mSvh[4] (millisievert per hour). By contrast, at Chernobyl, near Reactor ? 4, radiation levels were much higher, around 10,000 / 300,000 mSvh.
Of course, in Chernobyl there was a core meltdown, something that has not yet occurred in Fukushima. However, constantly comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl does not stand the test.
What are the real reasons behind this anxiety-generating mass campaign? We do not have anything to go on, yet. However, we shall consider the various elements and if there are any convincing facts, present them.
[1] See “Chernobyl disaster,” in Wikipedia, retrieved on 18 March 2011.
[2] See “Summary of Wind Turbine Accident data to 31st December 2010,” in Caithness Windfarm Information Forum, retrieved on 18 March 2011. Also, “Wind Turbine Accident Compilation,” retrieved on 18 March 2011.
[3] See “Huge Discrepancy In Radiation Readings In Fukushima Between Official (Semi) Disclosure And Japan Atomic Energy Agency,” in Zerohedge, 17 March 2011.
[4] See “Status of nuclear power plants in Fukushima as of 12:30 March 16 (Estimated by JAIF),” by the, Japan Atomic Forum, retrieved on 18 March 2011.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Fukushima No. 4 Reactor Doused as Tokyo Electric Attempts to Restore Power
Japan’s military began spraying sea water from fire engines to cool the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 4 reactor, the site of two blazes last week and the target of a warning four days ago by the chief U.S. nuclear regulator.
Storage pools used to cool spent plutonium fuel rods atop the reactor had little or no water, and large amounts of radiation could be released as the rods overheat, Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told Congress on March 16, citing reports he received from NRC officials in Japan.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the 40-year-old power plant crippled in the worst nuclear disaster in a quarter century, will attempt to restore electricity to the damaged No. 1 and No. 2 reactors today, Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama said on public broadcaster NHK TV. Workers reconnected a power cable yesterday to reactor No. 2, seeking to revive cooling systems knocked out after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Tokyo Electric said that cooling systems may fail to function even with power restored because of damage sustained during the quake and tsunami.
“This is a necessary step because they’ve got to migrate from emergency-response mode, where they’re relying on unusual or improvised approaches, to a regular, engineered system,” Roger N. Blomquist, principal nuclear engineer at the U.S. Energy Department’s Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “The end state you want is to have the reactor and the spent-fuel pools cooled.”
Radiation Levels
Efforts to prevent a full-scale meltdown of the reactors have been hampered by radiation that made it hazardous for workers to spend prolonged periods in the immediate vicinity of damaged buildings.
Residents in an adjacent region that covers an area equivalent in size to Los Angeles were evacuated in the first few days after the disaster. In Tokyo, 220 kilometers (140 miles) to the south, people have been watching weather reports for signs that winds may carry fallout toward them.
Engineers at Tokyo Electric, known as Tepco, hope to use the power cable attached to the No. 2 reactor as a hub to restore electricity to the other five reactors, said Hikaru Kuroda, chief of Tepco’s nuclear facility management department.
“We are making progress one step at a time, but we will not let our guard down,” Fukuyama said.
The longer the company can prevent overheating of the reactor cores and water-filled pools used to store spent fuel, the smaller the supply becomes of the most dangerous, volatile elements, said Blomquist, who oversees the nuclear section at Argonne, a federal research center managed by the University of Chicago, birthplace of the nuclear industry.
Improvement Seen
The radioactive nature of the fuel means that it’s in a constant state of decay, he said. Even if some of the nuclear material has started melting, restoring electrical systems will enable Tepco to bring temperatures down to a manageable level so corrective measures and a cleanup can begin, Blomquist said.
“Reading from the figures of monitoring, we have a feeling that things are getting a little better,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in a meeting with reporters.
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Japan: Nuclear Update: Entire Reactor Core Stored in Fuel Pond
Japan has raised the accident level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to 5 on an international scale of 7, according to the Kyodo news agency and NHK. The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 also ranked as a level 5. But there was some good news.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that the situation at reactors 1,2 and 3 appears to remain fairly stable. The spent-fuel ponds at units 3 and 4, however, remain an important safety concern. Reliable, validated information is still lacking on water levels and temperatures at the spent fuel ponds, but the IAEA announced on Friday that prior to the earthquake,
The entire fuel core of reactor Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had been unloaded from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel pond located in the reactor’s building.
This would explain the fear yesterday that the spent fuel in the Unit 4 pond could go critical (see 18:20, 16 March update, below).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Tokyo Electric Co.: Chance of Chain Reaction ‘Not Zero’
As Japan races against time to control its nuclear crisis, the cooling pools for the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima nuclear plant remain a source of major concern. On Friday water levels in at least one pool — housed in the Unit 3 reactor building — were dangerously low, according to Japanese authorities.
[…]
The bad news is that enough fuel rods remain in the pools that, if exposed to air for a long enough period of time, it is theoretically possible that they could burn and melt into a pile of fissile rubble dense enough to restart a nuclear chain reaction.
Tokyo Electric Power said earlier this week that the possibility of such “recriticality” occurring in the pools is not zero. If it happened the pools would then in essence have turned into running mini-reactors, and begin emitting much more heat and dangerous radiation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: The 175,000-Tonne Ship Lifted Up and Dumped on the Harbour-Side Like a Bit of Driftwood by Japanese Tsunami
This is the 175,000-tonne ship that was lifted up by Friday’s tsunami and dumped on top of a pier in Japan.
The cargo ship lies on the dock promenade Kamaishi, more than a week after the huge surge of water tossed it about like so much driftwood.
The stern of the Asia Symphony juts out several metres onto a road, as some survivors drive past on their way to see what remains of their belongings.
It is one of thousands of apocalyptic scenes that now provide the backdrop to life for victims who managed to escape the wall of water.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
378 New Arrivals at Lampedusa on 3 Boats
(AGI) Palermo — Three more boats made landfall on Lampedusa after midnight. The Coast Guard underscored the fact that the boats were comprehensively carrying 378 migrants and made landfall directly on the island, without needing to be rescued at sea. The first boat, carrying 116 persons, landed at Cala Creta; the second, with 118, at Capo Grecale, and the third docked in the port with 144 Tunisians on board, 5 of which are minors.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
CIS: Nearly 200:000 Children Born in U.S. To Temporary Foreign Visitors
A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds that 200,000 children were born to women who were lawfully admitted to the United States on a temporary basis. These 200,000 children receive automatic citizenship to the United States despite the mother’s allegiance to another nation. The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R.140) would end the practice of birthright citizenship.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: LNP’s Bossi Concerned at Repercussions of Libya Bombing
(AGI) Milan — “The bombings will lead to millions of migrants, all headed for our shores”, says LNP party leader Umberto Bossi.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lampedusa at Breaking Point as Migrant Wave Continues
Miserable conditions for people fleeing North African turmoil
(ANSA) — Rome, March 18 — The southern Italian island of Lampedusa is at breaking point as the wave of migrants fleeing turmoil-ravaged North Africa continued on Friday.
Two boats carrying 38 people each landed on the island between Sicily and Tunisia Friday with seven more vessels seen approaching to add to the over 11,000 people to have arrived since January. Conditions for almost 3,000 people at Lampedusa’s reception centre, which was designed to hold just 800, are miserable, with many migrants complaining about a lack of food and access to toilets.
Officials are looking to set up camps on the small island to ease the pressure but many local councillors do not see this as an adequate response.
Indeed, Mayor Bernardino De Rubeis had Italian flags flown at half mast on Thursday, the anniversary of the 150th anniversary of unification, in protest at the presence of “3,000 migrants who should be transferred elsewhere”.
Residences that used to house United States servicemen at Mineo, near Catania in Sicily, are due to be opened to migrants on Friday, although the initial intake is only for 200 asylum-seekers.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni complained on Wednesday that the European Union’s reaction to Italy’s appeals for help in dealing with the crisis had been “unsatisfactory”.
Maroni’s request for 100 million euros in emergency funding received a cool response from other EU member states. photo: migrants on Lampedusa.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants: Lampedusans Occupy Reserve, No to Tent City
(AGI) Palermo — Late this morning a group of Lampedusans occupied the areas where 200 Tunisians were due to be transferred today. The island’s reception centre is currently packed with almost 3,000 people. The decision to occupy the site, a marine protected area run by the environmental group, Legambiente, was taken at a meeting of the youth committee of the Askavusa association of hoteliers and fishermen, who oppose the two 500 place tent encampments to house the migrants.
Locals see this government decision as intending to transform the island into a ghetto with negative repercussions for tourism and general life in Lampedusa, which doesn’t have enough water and agricultural resources to meet its needs.
Besides the occupation of the nature reserve, the islanders assembly decided to protest in other ways today at the docks where the Tunisians are arriving.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The ‘Crime Visa’: How 18,000 Illegal Immigrants Got Legal Status by Being the Victim of a Crime
More than 18,000 illegal immigrants, plus 14,000 of their relatives, have gained U.S. visas under a new law since 2009 because they were victims of crime.
While many immigrants may still be unaware of the U visa, word is spreading fast in some communities.
The controversial rules state that if you are a victim of crime and you cooperate, or are ‘helpful’ with authorities, then you stand a good chance of getting a U visa.
Since 2009, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has issued 18,654 and rejected 5,639 U visas — a 77 per cent approval rate.
Congress has put a ceiling on the number available annually at 10,000 and this year the USCIS looks on course easily to reach that figure, having received 3,331 applications in the first quarter.
Supporters of the visa says it helps in fighting crime. All too often crimes ranging from robbery and domestic violence to rape and murder have gone unreported because the victims were in the U.S. illegally.
The visa rewards people who may have worked hard, they say, and it helps keep families united because relatives of the crime victim can also get the papers saying they can stay in America.
Critics of the visa say it has created a legal minefield that is being increasingly played out in courtrooms across the country.
They also argue that it is wrong to be writing out so many visas at a time when so many Americans cannot get a job.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Europe-Bound Algerians Halted
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, MARCH 18 — Police in the Tunisian governorate of Jendouba have arrested a group of young Algerian citizens who had entered the country in an irregular manner and were thought to be headed for Europe. The operation was conducted jointly with frontier guards. Preliminary investigations indicate that the group of young Algerians was planning to make for a Tunisian port before setting out in one of the makeshift vessels which regularly take migrants to destinations such as the Italian island of Lampedusa.
According to TAP press agency, special services targeting illegal migrants were assisted by inhabitants of the areas where many Algerians heading for Europe are to be found.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Herman Cain: Obama’s Scrubbing Christian Heritage ‘Intentional’
‘The majority of people do not want God to be taken out of our culture’
Businessman Herman Cain, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, has criticized Barack Obama for disregarding America’s Christian heritage, stating he believes the president’s repeated omission of the phrase “endowed by their Creator” is “intentional.”
“I have been able to get the pulse of the American people of not only what’s in their head but what’s in their heart,” Cain told CBN News Correspondent David Brody in an interview. “What’s in their heart is they love this country. They love the values upon which this country was founded, and they don’t like it when the president omits ‘endowed by their Creator’ from reciting the Declaration of Independence.”
Brody asked Cain, “Do you believe that was intentional by the president?”
“I believe it was intentional because he did it three times, two of which I know about, and a friend of mine actually knows of a third one,” Cain answered. “With all of his teleprompters, how could you not put that in there? No. I believe it was intentional.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Wins Crucifix Appeal
Decision seen as victory for freedom of faith
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, March 18 — Italy on Friday won a keenly awaited appeal against a landmark European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on the display of crucifixes in school classrooms.
Italy was acquitted of the charge of violating human rights.
The ruling was acclaimed by Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who had described the case as “a major battle for freedom of faith” so that believers won’t need to hide “in catacombs”.
Speaking ahead of the majority decision, the foreign minister said he was optimistic the Court would rule “that the crucifix is not a symbol that divides but rather one that unites” people.
He said he based his views on the fact that for the first time in the Court’s history, 10 member states from the Council of Europe, the human rights body that founded the ECHR, had intervened in support of Italy.
Present as the ruling was read out were Italian officials and representatives of the 10 countries: Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, Romania, Russia and San Marino. Also there was the Finnish-born Italian citizen who first brought up the case against crosses in her two sons’ classrooms 10 years ago, Sonia Lautsi. In November 2009, the ECHR said the display of crosses in Italian schools violated children’s and parents’ freedom of belief, prompting Rome to request that the matter be referred to the court’s appeal body, the Grand Chamber.
The Grand Chamber authorized written observations from 10 non-governmental bodies, including Human Rights Watch, Interrights, the Italian Christian Workers Association and the Central Committee of German Catholics.
In addition, 33 members of the European Parliament, which has no link to the ECHR, were for the first time ever given permission to intervene.
The Grand Chamber only rarely agrees to hear appeals and only on matters deemed of particular significance throughout the Council of Europe’s 47 member states.
In the 2009 decision, the Strasbourg court unanimously upheld an application from Lautsi, stressing that parents must be allowed to educate their children as they see fit.
It said children were entitled to freedom of religion and said that although “encouraging” for some pupils, the crucifix could be “emotionally disturbing for pupils of other religions or those who profess no religion”.
It said the state has an obligation “to refrain from imposing beliefs, even indirectly, in places where persons are dependent on it or in places where they are particularly vulnerable”.
But arguing against the court’s comments, the Italian government’s representative Nicola Lettieri said crucifixes in Italian classrooms are “a passive symbol that bear no relationship to the actual teaching, which is secular”.
He said there was “no indoctrination” involved and said the cross did not deprive parents of the right to raise their children as they saw fit.
The jurist representing the 10 Council of Europe members supporting Italy, Joseph Weiler, said that “Italy without the crucifix would no longer be Italy”.
“The crucifix is both a national and a religious symbol,” he said, suggesting that religious references and symbols are pervasive in Europe and do not necessarily connote faith.
Crucifixes are a fixture in Italian public buildings although the postwar Constitution ordered a separation of Church and State, and Catholicism ceased to be Italy’s state religion in 1984.
Two Fascist-era decrees from 1924 and 1928, which were never repealed, are usually used to justify their status, although a 2007 education ministry directive also recommended they be displayed in schools.
Lautsi started her legal battle in 2001 when her sons were aged 11 and 13, and it reached Italy’s Constitutional Court in 2004.
However, the Constitutional Court declined to rule on the matter, pointing out the crucifix provisions stemmed from secondary decrees predating the constitution, rather than parliament-made law currently on the Italian statute books.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Offended’ Parent Can’t Remove Classroom Cross, Court Decides
Ruling could have set ‘dangerous example’ for activist judges in U.S.
A new international court ruling has found that a parent who was “offended” by a schoolroom display of a cross cannot demand that it be removed, a decision U.S. attorneys say will remove one possible reason for activist judges to attack symbols of Christianity in the United States.
The ruling from the European Court of Human Rights concerned a complaint raised by Soile Lautsi on behalf of herself and her two children who opposed the presence of a crucifix in school classrooms in the predominantly Catholic nation of Italy.
A lower court has banished the symbols, but the verdict from the Grand Chamber of the international court concluded that the nation has the right to determine its own teaching atmosphere.
“In deciding to keep crucifixes in the classrooms of the State school attended by the first applicant’s children, the authorities acted within the limits of the margin of appreciation left to the respondent State in the context of its obligation to respect, in the exercise of the functions it assumes in relation to education and teaching, the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions,” the ruling said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Biology’s ‘Dark Matter’ Hints at Fourth Domain of Life
Until the 1990s, it had just two branches: one for eukaryotes — animals, plants, fungi and some other strange forms, including the slime moulds — and one for everything else. Then, gene analysis revealed that the “everything else” branch could be divided into two domains: bacteria and archaea. Not only that, some believe that mimivirus, the largest known virus, may also represent a new domain of life: despite being recognised as a virus, it contains many genes found only in cellular organisms. “People have suggested they might be a fourth branch themselves,” says Eisen. “If you think of those mimiviruses as a fourth branch, maybe our sequences represent a fifth branch — we just don’t know yet.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Black Hole’s Burps May Blow Bubbles Around Milky Way
STARS plunging into the giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy can explain two huge bubbles of gamma rays that NASA’s Fermi space telescope discovered last year. The bubbles tower 25,000 light years above and below the Milky Way’s disc of stars. More than 100,000 stars swarm within a light year of the black hole.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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