World News Thread & Breaking News!!

[Dolcevita]

Philippine does not have money to remove stranded "Sierra Madre" from Ren'ai Reef

China offered to remove ‘Sierra Madre’

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

‘Chinese Foreign Secretary Wang Yi made a tantalizing offer that rendered the usually articulate Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario speechless.’

CHINESE Foreign Secretary Wang Yi made a tantalizing offer yesterday during the Asean Regional Forum in Brunei that rendered the usually articulate Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario speechless.

Del Rosario told reporters that Wang “said Scarborough and Ayungin were theirs, historically, and we were the ones sending ships, interdicting their fishermen, and the grounded ship has been there for so long.”

Wang was referring to BRP Sierra Madre which ran aground at Ayungin Shoal also known as Second Thomas shoal (Ren’ai Reef to the Chinese) in May 1999. The grounded ship now serves as quarters of Filipino troops on that shoal.

Ayungin Reef is 105.77 nautical miles from Palawan. It is about 21 nautical miles from Mischief Reef, which was occupied by China in 1995.

Del Rosario said he told Wang: “We don’t have money to move it.”

Wang, Del Rosario said, offered “to do it themselves.”

Asked what was his reply to Wang, del Rosario said: “Nothing.”

Asked what was the reaction of other participants, del Rosario said, “Nothing.”

 

[ManilaBoy45]

Tensions Easing in the South China Sea?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By Katie Hunt, for CNN
July 1, 2013 -- Updated 0856 GMT

Hong Kong (CNN) -- China has agreed to hold formal talks with its southeast Asian neighbors about establishing a "code of conduct" to ease maritime tensions in the South China Sea, a major step forward in the long-running dispute.

A statement issued after a weekend meeting of foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China in Brunei, said the countries "aim to reach a conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, which will service to enhance peace, stability and prosperity in the region."

The South China Sea is home to messy mix of rival territorial claims, with China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam disputing sovereignty of island chains and nearby waters. The areas in dispute include fertile fishing grounds and potentially rich reserves of undersea natural resources.

 

[delft]

I found this in today's NYT:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement
By RON NIXON

Brendan Bannon for The New York Times
Leslie James Pickering, the owner of a bookstore in Buffalo, was targeted by a tracking program from the United States Postal Service.

A Postal Service program created after anthrax attacks gathers photos of the exterior of every piece of paper mail processed in the nation — about 160 billion pieces last year.

Is this why USPS can't pay its way?

 

[SteelBird]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The police officers caught on tape last week fatally shooting a dog in front of a crowd of people are now facing criticism and even death threats from animal lovers across the nation.

A video of last Sunday’s incident quickly went viral, directing a wave of condemnation towards the Hawthorne, California Police Department.

Three police officers were involved in the arrest of 52-year-old Leon Rosby, who they say was disturbing a crime scene by videotaping it and blasting music from his car. While apprehending the man, Rosby’s pet Rottweiler, Max, jumped out of an open car window and approached the officers while barking. One policeman shot the dog four times, causing the writhing animal to slowly bleed to death on the street.

Since the cell phone video was posted on YouTube, the officers and their families have received threatening phone calls, emails and Facebook messages. In some cases, California residents who share the same name as the officers have mistakenly received threats. A shop in Glendale was flooded with angry phone calls because the storeowner’s name is the same as Hawthorne police spokesman Lt. Scott Swain.

“These aren’t just threats of ill-will,” Hawthorne Police Chief Robert Fager told NBC News. “These are absolutely threats to life.”

The police department issued a statement on Wednesday apologizing for the fatal shooting of the dog and the pain it inflicted upon animal lovers. The statement garnered thousands of critical comments on the department’s website and Facebook page.

“Unfortunately, in the midst of this social media response, fallacies are being perpetuated and outright criminal threats are being made,” the police department wrote. “In the public forum of various websites, department employees have been misidentified as the officer who shot. This has led to criminal threats of harm directed not only at city employees, but also at similarly-named public citizens who just happen to live and work in our surrounding region.”

But the department’s apology did little to calm the criticism, and angry pet lovers have continued to threaten the police and condemn their actions.

“You know you’re a disgrace when people would rather see your officers dead than an innocent dog. Find a hole, crawl in it,” Facebook user Harmit Tamber wrote on the police department’s website.

Even Anonymous, the computer hacking activist group, has commented on the issue. The group has threatened to retaliate against the Hawthorne Police Department, and on Wednesday a person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask appeared in YouTube video with a digitally altered voice to call the shooting “unacceptable” while promising to take action. A police source told the Daily Breeze that its website had been attacked on Monday, and was down for several days. It is not clear who was behind the attack, but some suspect Anonymous may have been involved.

During a July 3 press conference, the man whose dog was killed went on camera to ask people to “just calm down” and to stop threatening the families of the officers. Even though he lost his beloved pet, he insisted that “not all police officers are bad.”

But since then, the threats have continued. The three police officers involved in the incident have been pulled from street duty to avoid any confrontations with angry pet lovers.

 

[plawolf]

Death threats for killing a dog? Seems pretty extreme even if the arrest and charges are pure BS. Especially when you compare the mild reaction to fatal shooting of people.

It seems that in America, police fear being filmed more than being shot, and will go out of their way to intimidate and punish people who film them even when it is not against the law.

 

[delft]

In a democracy the actions of the police should be open to supervision and commend by the voters. Quite clearly many police departments in the US don't believe they live in a democracy.

 

[bd popeye]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

[video=youtube;fqhYbkhaqy4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqhYbkhaqy4[/video]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul, South Korea, crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, forcing passengers to jump down the emergency inflatable slides to safety. It was not immediately known whether there were any injuries.

The Boeing 777 was supposed to land on runway 28 left at the airport, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown. She said the sequence of events was still unclear, but it appeared the plane landed and then crashed.

A video clip posted to YouTube shows smoke coming from a silver-colored jet on the tarmac. Passengers could be seen jumping down the inflatable emergency slides. Television footage showed debris strewn about the tarmac and pieces of the plane lying on the runway.

Fire trucks had sprayed a white fire retardant on the wreckage.

A call to the airline seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.

Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the oneWorld alliance, anchored by American Airlines and British Airways.

The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.

The last time a large U.S. airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from JFK in 2001.

Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal U.S. crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y. on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.

 

[bd popeye]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By Mathieu Belanger (Reuters)

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec, July 6 (Reuters) - A driverless freight train carrying tankers of crude oil derailed at high speed and exploded into a giant fireball in the middle of a small Canadian town early on Saturday, destroying dozens of buildings and killing at least one person.

The disaster occurred shortly after 1 a.m. (0500 GMT) when the runaway train with 73 cars sped into Lac-Megantic, a picturesque lakeside town of about 6,000 people in the province of Quebec near the border with Maine, and came off the rails. Witnesses said the town center was crowded at the time.

Four of the cars were set alight and blew up in a huge fireball that mushroomed many hundreds of feet up into the air. Many of the destroyed buildings were totally flattened.

Police spokesman Michel Brunet told a briefing that at least one person had died. He gave no further details and said he could not say how people many were missing.

The train was transporting crude oil from North Dakota to eastern Canada, likely to New Brunswick, news that is bound to revive questions about the safest way to carry the oil needed to service North America's economies.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, which operated the train, said it had been parked some distance from the town and no one was on board when it derailed.

"We're not sure what happened, but the engineer did everything by the book. He had parked the train and was waiting for his relief ... somehow, the train got released," Montreal, Maine & Atlantic vice president of marketing Joseph R. McGonigle told Reuters.

Fireman said they were spraying cold water on five unexploded tanker cars they said posed a particular danger. Town Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche urged residents to use water sparingly to help the fire services.

The rail tracks pass next to a bar popular with young people. Eyewitness Yvon Rosa said he had just left the bar when he saw the train speeding into the middle of the town.

"I have never seen a train traveling that quickly into the center of Lac-Megantic," he told French-language broadcaster Radio-Canada, saying he watched as the train hurtled around a bend.

"I saw the wagons come off the tracks ... everything exploded. In just one minute the center of the town was covered in fire."

Residents told reporters they had heard five or six large blasts. More than 15 hours after the derailment, one rail car was still burning.

"Many parents are worried because they haven't been able to communicate with a member of their family or an acquaintance," Roy-Laroche told Radio-Canada.

CENTER OF TOWN 'ALMOST DESTROYED'

Police imposed a 1/2-mile (1-km) security zone around the blast and evacuated about 1,000 people from their homes.

"When you see the center of your town almost destroyed, you'll understand that we're asking ourselves how we are going to get through this event," a tearful Roy-Laroche told a televised news briefing earlier in the day.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made an initial statement via Twitter: "Thoughts & prayers are with those impacted in Lac Megantic. Horrible news."

Lac-Megantic is part of Quebec's Eastern Townships region, an area popular with tourists that is close to the border with Maine and Vermont. Quebec is a predominantly French-speaking province in the eastern half of Canada.

Fire officials said they had asked for help from fire services in the United States. Around 20 fire engines were fighting the blaze.

Police said some of the tanker cars had spilled their contents into the river that runs through the town. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board, which probes all accidents, said it was looking for the train's "black box" voice recorder.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic owns some 510 miles (820 km) of track in Maine and Vermont in the United States and in Quebec and New Brunswick in Canada.

The debate over shipping oil by rail is becoming increasingly topical as President Barack Obama decides whether to approve TransCanada Corp's proposed Keystone XL pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Texas Coast.

Backers of Keystone XL - a project which environmentalists strongly oppose - say transporting oil by pipeline is safer than using rail cars.

There have been a number of high-profile derailments of trains carrying petroleum products in Canada recently, including one in Calgary, Alberta, last week when a flood-damaged bridge sagged toward the still-swollen Bow River. The derailed rail cars were removed without spilling their cargo.

 

[Equation]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So far there are just 2 deaths.

 

[no_name]

The plane struck the sea barrier just in front of the run way. Also part of the tail seemed to have broke off. Maybe the two deceased were in the tail section?