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World News Thread & Breaking News!!
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
21 February 2013 Last updated at 14:40 ET
Iran installing new Natanz centrifuges, says IAEA
Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuge machines for enriching uranium at its nuclear plant at Natanz, says the UN's nuclear watchdog.
The US said if confirmed it would be "another provocative step".
International talks over Iran's nuclear programme are due to resume in Kazakhstan next week.
Western powers fear Tehran is seeking weapons technology, but Tehran says it is refining uranium only for peaceful energy purposes.
The Natanz facility, in central Iran, is at the heart of the country's dispute with the UN's watchdog.
'Further isolation'
The IAEA released a report each quarter detailing its progress at monitoring Iran's nuclear development.
The BBC obtained a copy of the latest report, which has not yet been officially released.
It concludes: "The director general is unable to report any progress on the clarification of outstanding issues including those relating to possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear programme."
It adds that despite intensified dialogue with Iran, no progress has been made on how to clear up the questions about Iran's nuclear work.
The IAEA has made similar complaints in previous quarterly reports, and Iran is under an array of sanctions as a result of its lack of co-operation.
Iran had informed the IAEA in a letter on 23 January that it planned to introduce a new model of centrifuge called the IR2m, which can enrich two or three times faster than current equipment.
Gas centrifuges are used to increase the proportion of fissile uranium-235 atoms within uranium.
For uranium to work in a nuclear reactor it must be enriched to contain 2-3% uranium-235 while weapons-grade uranium must contain 90% or more uranium-235.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new centrifuges could cut by a third the time Iran, one of Israel's fiercest opponents in the Middle East, needed to create a nuclear bomb.
US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the report development at Natanz was "not surprising".
"The installation of new advanced centrifuges would be a further escalation, and a continuing violation of Iran's obligations under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and IAEA board resolutions," she said.
But she added that Iran had the opportunity to allay the international community's concerns during talks in Kazakhstan next week.
Starting on 26 February, the talks will involve Iranian officials, the five permanent members the UN Security Council, and Germany.
21 February 2013 Last updated at 08:42 ET
China Cultural Revolution murder trial sparks debate
The trial in China of an elderly man accused of murder during the Cultural Revolution has sparked online debate.
The man, reportedly in his 80s and surnamed Qiu, is accused of killing a doctor he believed was a spy.
The Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, was an era of violence against intellectuals and other alleged bourgeois elements.
Some have questioned why one man is on trial so belatedly when so few officials have been brought to account.
Prosecutors say that in 1967 Mr Qiu, from Zhejiang province, strangled the doctor with a rope.
Charges were filed against him in the 1980s and he was arrested last year, Global Times reported.
Mao's 10-year Cultural Revolution was intended to produce massive social, economic and political upheaval to overthrow the old order.
Ordinary citizens - particularly the young - were encouraged to challenge the privileged, resulting in the persecution of hundreds of thousands of people who were considered intellectuals or otherwise enemies of the state.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai says the topic of what went on during the Cultural Revolution remains highly sensitive in China and public discussion of it is limited, but that the trial has caused fierce debate online.
One user said on the Weibo micro-blogging site described the case as a farce, saying: "Do they really think this reflects the rule of law?"
The South China Morning Post quoted one internet user as asking: "What about those big names who started the Cultural Revolution? "How come they never took any responsibility?"
However some internet users was a step in the right direction.
"This is good, at least it sends out the message that those who did evil will pay back one day," wrote one user.
The state-run China Youth Daily published an outspoken editorial comparing the excesses of the period to the Nazi atrocities in Europe.
"The most shocking thing about the Cultural Revolution was the assault on human dignity. Insults, abuse, maltreatment and homicide were common. The social order was in chaos," it said.
It suggested that unless the period was finally allowed to be openly reviewed there was a danger of the chaos and violence returning, warning that many people harbour nostalgic views of it.
21 February 2013 Last updated at 11:14 ET
Japan PM Abe heads for Obama talks
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is heading to the US for talks to fortify a key security alliance between the two nations.
Mr Abe, who was elected in December, meets US President Barack Obama on Friday in Washington.
Both tensions with Beijing over a territorial dispute and North Korea's recent nuclear test are expected to top the agenda.
Economic ties, including an Asian trade deal, will also be discussed.
Mr Abe is the fifth Japanese prime minister that Mr Obama has met in office. Mr Abe is serving as Japan's top leader for a second time, after a brief period in power in 2006-7.
His visit is seen as a bid to shore up a security alliance between the two countries that goes back decades.
Ties were strained somewhat under the previous Democratic Party (DPJ) administration amid a row over the relocation of a US military base in Okinawa.
But Mr Abe, who heads a Liberal Democratic Party administration, has spoken out about the need to prioritise the Japan-US alliance amid a changing regional dynamic.
'Critical'
Ahead of his visit Mr Abe gave an interview to the Washington Post newspaper, saying that improved ties with Washington were top of his agenda.
On the bitter row with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea, he said US support was key.
"It is important for us to have them recognise that it is impossible to try to get their way by coercion or intimidation," Mr Abe said, referring to China.
"In that regard, the Japan-US alliance, as well as the US presence, would be critical."
Both Beijing and Tokyo have ships in waters around the islands - known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China - leading to fears of a clash. Japan controls the islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan.
The US has urged restraint from both sides, while Chinese state media has warned the US against taking sides in the dispute.
On North Korea, both sides back action against Pyongyang in the UN Security Council in the wake of its third nuclear test, on 12 February.
Economic ties are also expected to be on the agenda for the meeting.
The two leaders are expected to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposal for a free-trade agreement between countries in North America, Asia and South America.
Japan has discussed becoming part of the TPP over the years. But this has been met with opposition from farmers, who say that tariff removals will have an a negative impact on their industry.
21 February 2013 Last updated at 12:07 ET
Stock markets fall after US Fed comments
Market Data
LAST UPDATED AT 15:27 ET
Dow Jones 13895.29
Down
-32.25 -0.23%
Nasdaq 3135.56
Down
-28.85 -0.91%
S&P 500 1504.30
Down
-7.65 -0.51%
FTSE 100 6291.54
Down
-103.83 -1.62%
Dax 7583.57
Down
-145.33 -1.88%
BBC Global 30 6754.97
Down
-53.04 -0.78%
Marketwatch ticker DATA DELAYED BY 15 MINS
Global stock markets have fallen after some members of the US central bank suggested its stimulus measures may be increasing the "risks of future economic and financial imbalances".
The comments came in minutes of the Federal Reserve's last meeting, where the Fed said it had left its monthly $85bn bond-buying plan in place.
US markets opened lower on Thursday after recording their biggest drop so far this year on Wednesday.
European markets all closed down.
Bubble bursts
The Fed comments have raised expectations that the US central bank may scale back its bond-buying programme earlier than predicted.
Currently, the Fed is carrying out its plan of buying $85bn of bonds a month until the US jobs market sees a substantial improvement.
By buying bonds, the Fed keeps interest rates low, which keeps the cost of borrowing for mortgages and other loans low.
However, the minutes of the Fed's meeting in January showed that some members were concerned that the bond-buying programmes could push up inflation or could "foster market behaviour that could undermine financial stability".
The minutes said that "a number of participants" commented that an ongoing review of the effectiveness of the bond programme "might well lead the committee to taper or end its purchases before it judged that a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labour market had occurred".
LAST UPDATED AT 21 FEB 2013, 15:26 ET *CHART SHOWS LOCAL TIME
$1 buys change %
0.7585 +
+0.01
+
+0.73
The bond-buying programme has been cited as a major reason for the rise in share prices in recent weeks, so signs of a premature end have hit stocks.
"US liquidity concerns following the Fed minutes looks like the pin which will burst the recent bubble in equities," said Mike McCudden, head of derivatives at Interactive Investor.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index ended Wednesday down 108.13 points at 13,927.54, and continued to fall on Thursday, shedding a further 61 points by midday in New York.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 159.15 points, or 1.4%, to 11,309.13, while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng index closed down 400.74 points, or 1.7%, at 22,906.67.
European markets all fell, with London's FTSE 100 closing down 1.6% at 6,291.54 and the Cac 40 in Paris falling 2.3% to 3,624.80.
The dollar rose 0.5% against the euro on Thursday, with one euro buying $1.3206.
While the dollar had been boosted by the Fed minutes, the euro was also hit by the latest survey of the eurozone region which suggested the downturn in the region's businesses had worsened.
The latest eurozone purchasing managers' index (PMI), compiled by research firm Markit, fell to 47.3 this month, down from 48.6 in January. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.
The figure was the lowest reading for two months and appeared to dash hopes that the eurozone's economy would show signs of revival.
It also indicated a growing divergence between Germany and France, with output rising in Germany but declining at an increasing pace in France.
21 February 2013 Last updated at 14:53 ET
Haiti's 'Baby Doc' Duvalier avoids appearing in court
Haiti's former ruler Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has been ordered to appear in court in Port-au-Prince after failing to attend a hearing.
Relatives of some of those allegedly killed or tortured by his militias in the 1970s and 1980s want him charged with crimes against humanity.
Mr Duvalier had filed a last-minute appeal to avoid appearing in court.
The ex-leader, who returned to Haiti in 2011 after 25 years in French exile, had already missed two hearings.
He denies all charges, with his lawyers saying the case should be thrown out.
The courtroom was packed with relatives of his victims, lawyers in black robes, human rights observers and journalists.
A Haitian human rights lawyer, Mario Joseph, said: "Duvalier is trying to control the justice system like when he was a dictator."
Human rights groups say hundreds of political prisoners died from torture or were murdered under Mr Duvalier's rule from 1971 to 1986.
His unexpected homecoming two years ago prompted the Haitian authorities to open an investigation.
In January 2012, a court decided Mr Duvalier should stand trial for embezzling public funds but ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on charges of murder, arbitrary arrest, torture and disappearances.
However, Amnesty International and the Open Society Justice Initiative said the former leader "must not evade justice" for crimes against humanity. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has also said Mr Duvalier should face justice.
Symbolic
The court in Port-au-Prince is hearing an appeal by victims challenging the January 2012 ruling regarding the charges of human rights abuses.
Any future trial would be a symbolically crucial moment and a potential turning point for Haiti, says the BBC's Mark Doyle.
There is a widespread feeling in that the judiciary is biased in favour of the rich, he adds.
The appeal court already ordered Mr Duvalier twice to appear to answer the charges - once on 31 January and again on 7 February.
A judge ruled the ex-leader would be arrested if he did not turn up on Thursday.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are observing the case in the capital.
Jean-Claude Duvalier was just 19 when he inherited the title of president-for-life from his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who had ruled Haiti since 1957.
Like his father, he relied on a brutal militia known as the Tontons Macoutes to control the country.
In 1986 he was forced from power by a popular uprising and US diplomatic pressure, and went into exile in France.
Cholera claim
Meanwhile, the United Nations has formally rejected claims for the compensation of victims of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed about eight-thousand people.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called the Haitian president Michel Martelly to inform him of the decision, and to reiterate the UN's commitment to the elimination of cholera in Haiti.
The UN says it is immune from such claims under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which was adopted in 1947 by the General Assembly.
The UN has never acknowledged responsibility for the outbreak, saying it is impossible to pinpoint the exact source of the disease.
There is growing evidence that cholera was accidentally introduced to Haiti through a United Nations peacekeepers' base that had leaking sewage pipes.
20 February 2013 Last updated at 16:43 ET
HRW: Mexico security forces colluded in disappearances
The pressure group Human Rights Watch says Mexico has failed to properly investigate human rights abuses committed by the security forces.
The group has documented almost 250 disappearances during the term of former President Felipe Calderon.
It says evidence suggests that in more than half of the cases the security forces participated either directly or indirectly in the disappearances.
HRW has called on the new government to find the missing.
'Arbitrary detention'
In a report published on Wednesday, HRW says "state agents participated directly in the crime [of disappearances], or indirectly through support and acquiescence" in more than 140 of the cases they investigated.
In the remaining cases, their researchers were not able to determine whether state actors may have participated.
HRW says the majority of the cases of enforced disappearances it investigated followed a pattern, in which members of the security forces "arbitrarily detain individuals without arrest orders or probable cause".
"In many cases, these detentions occur in victims' homes, in front of family members; in others, they take place at security checkpoints, at workplaces, or in public venues, such as bars," the report alleges.
The report says that the administration of former President Calderon ignored the mounting problem and failed to take steps to address it, thereby contributing to it becoming "the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades".
Nationwide efforts
An estimated 70,000 people are believed to have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, when Mr Calderon came to power and declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels.
Mr Calderon deployed the army in an attempt to curb the violence, but human rights groups say the levels of human rights abuses against civilians has risen as a result.
Mexico's interior ministry has not yet commented on the report.
Human Rights Watch says it hopes the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto will develop a national strategy to tackle the growing number of disappearances.
According to HRW, the creation of a national database documenting disappearances and unidentified remains would be an invaluable tool for investigators and relatives trying to trace the missing.
Shortly after coming to office on 1 December 2012, Mr Pena Nieto announced the creation of a new national police force which he said would be better trained and better equipped to fight crime.
21 February 2013 Last updated at 08:39 ET
Bulgarian PM Boiko Borisov's resignation accepted
Bulgarian MPs have voted to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov and his government.
The vote opens the way for an early election, now expected in April rather than the scheduled July.
Mr Borisov's surprise resignation followed nationwide street protests against high electricity prices and austerity measures.
On Tuesday clashes between protesters and police left at least 14 people injured.
The government's resignation was accepted in a 209-5 vote.
President Rosen Plevneliev will now try to appoint an interim cabinet, to take the country through to early elections.
A crowd of supporters chanted their approval of Mr Borisov as he left the parliament building - a stark contrast to the anger of the streets during the past 10 days, says the BBC's Nick Thorpe in Sofia.
But Bulgarian commentators largely agree that his departure deepens rather than solves the crisis, our correspondent says.
The protesters have accused the whole political class of being corrupt and inefficient, not just Mr Borisov's party.
Some commentators said Mr Borisov's resignation may have been designed to save too much damage to the ruling party.
Low living standards
The street protests across Bulgaria, which is the EU's poorest country, were initially over high electricity prices but soon took an anti-government turn.
The prime minister tried to calm the protests on Tuesday by promising to slash prices and by sacking his finance minister.
He also pledged to punish foreign-owned power companies that he said charged too much.
But our correspondent says that the clashes on Tuesday were the last straw for Mr Borisov.
The government lost support after it abandoned plans in March 2012 to build a new nuclear power station at Belene, close to the Romanian border.
A controversial referendum last month on whether to build a second nuclear power plant was invalidated by a low turnout, although more than 60% of those who voted backed the idea.
Correspondents say that while budget cuts have felled a series of governments around Europe, Mr Borisov - a former bodyguard to Bulgaria's Soviet-era dictator Todor Zhivkov - had until recent weeks seemed relatively immune.
The New York TimesFebruary 21, 2013
Car Bomb in Damascus Kills Dozens, Opposition Says
By ANNE BARNARD and RICK GLADSTONE
TRIPOLI, Lebanon — At least three car bombs roiled Damascus on Thursday, including a powerful blast near the downtown headquarters of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling party and the Russian Embassy that witnesses said shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. Antigovernment activists described the bombings as some of the worst to hit the Syrian capital in the nearly two-year-old conflict and said at least 72 people had been killed, mostly civilians.
Witnesses, including people who had been living near the ruling party headquarters in the Mazraa district, said the bombings shattered what little confidence they had left that Mr. Assad’s forces could preserve at least some semblance of normalcy in Damascus, where armed insurgents have attacked with increasing brazenness.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The main umbrella opposition group seeking to depose Mr. Assad condemned the bombings as it convened a meeting in Cairo. It was unclear whether the blasts had been timed to the Cairo meeting.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency described the blasts as the work of armed terrorist groups, its standard terminology for the insurgency. SANA said the victims included children and students and that hundreds of people had been wounded. It said the Foreign Ministry had sent letters to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, and the Security Council, urging that the body “adopt a firm stance which proves its commitment to combating terrorism regardless of its timing or place.”
Some witnesses contacted in Damascus reported insurgent attacks and explosions elsewhere in the city on Thursday, including mortar rounds aimed at the Defense Ministry’s headquarters, central Umayyad Square and a park in a heavily protected affluent neighborhood of Abu Roumana. Earlier this week insurgent fighters lobbed mortar rounds that damaged one of the presidential palaces and killed a soccer player practicing inside a stadium.
“It is the first time to feel we are living in a war condition,” said a 30-year-old Mazraa resident named Anas, who lived with his family in a house behind the headquarters of Mr. Assad’s Baath Party. “Today I saw what was happening in Baghdad in my city, Damascus. This is not the Damascus I know.”
He said the Mazraa bombing “was similar to an earthquake — my house’s windows were broken.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group based in Britain that has a network of contacts in Syria, reported that at least 59 people were killed by the Mazraa district bomb, which the group described as a booby-trapped car next to a military checkpoint. It said at least 16 of the dead were members of the security forces.
It said at least 13 other people in Damascus were killed — 10 of them in the security forces — in two other car bombings near checkpoints in the Barzeh district, in the northeast part of the capital.
At the meeting in Cairo, Mr. Assad’s foes discussed the terms under which the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the main Syrian umbrella group for the opposition, was prepared to talk about a negotiated settlement to the conflict, which has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives.
The group denounced the car bombings and other mayhem that had killed civilians in Damascus, saying in a statement that it “holds the Assad regime responsible for them.”
The meeting was being held mainly to discuss recent proposals by the council’s leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, to talk with representatives of the Assad government. Participants made it clear that at least so far, Mr. Khatib was speaking only for himself.
“Per his own words it is not a formal initiative,” said Yasser Tabbara, a legal adviser to the coalition. “It is an idea he had, and now he is seeking some sort of a sanction for it, through the General Assembly of the coalition.” Mr. Tabbara added, “It is no secret to anyone that the fact that Sheik Khatib took this unilateral initiative or unilateral approach was a problem.”
Despite reports from fighters on the ground and journalists near the front lines that the battle is in a rough stalemate, Mr. Tabbara insisted that in the council, “the balance of power on the ground is shifting toward the armed opposition, and we need to capitalize on this politically.”
Mr. Tabbara said the council was seeking to condition Mr. Khatib’s proposal for dialogue in a way that reflected its assessment of the shifting balance of power. “What is being discussed right now is basically taking what Sheik Khatib had proposed and injecting it into that general context,” he said. “I think that is what is being hashed out right now.”
Syrian rebels have been entrenched for months in suburbs south and east of Damascus, but they have been unable to push far into the center, although they strike the area with occasional mortar shells and increasingly frequent car bombs.
Such indiscriminate attacks, however, have risked killing passers-by, exposing the rebels to charges that they are careless with civilian life and property. Many Damascus residents have remained undecided in the civil war and fear that their ancient city will be ravaged like Aleppo and other urban centers to the north.
At the same time, the government has decimated pro-rebel suburbs with airstrikes and artillery, leaving vast areas depopulated and traumatized.
Anne Barnard reported from Tripoli and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada from Tripoli, David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo, Alan Cowell from London, Christine Hauser from New York and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 21, 2013
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the country that the bylined reporters were filing from. It is Lebanon, not Libya.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
NYT
Raul has for Children his Daughters Déborah, Mariela and Nilsa and one son Alejandro Castro Espín. Deborah Is married too Colonel Luis Alberto Rodríguez of the Cuban Army,
Mariela is married to a Italian and heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education.
Outside of the Castro's the Vice president of Cuba is José Ramón Machado Ventura, M.D Thing is He's a year older then Raul.
The other VP of Cuba ( they have two.) is Corps General Julio Casas Regueiro age 75.
and Leopoldo Cintra Frias Who holds office in the Politburo he was Born in 1941 so age 72 he's the baby of the group...
Basically all of the Standing Cuban heads of State are to be frank Geezers.
Hay Popeye The navy might not Take you back but You seem to meet the Age Qualifications.. In fact You would be touted as a Young man. There looks to be a job opening in Cuba.
but kidding aside Really This is starting to seem more like Bad comedy. . Links between the North Korean and Iranian Weapons Programs are known. There are Reports That during the Recent Test in NK The head of the Iranian weapons Program was on site.
This is very much a who's who of instability. As The DPRK keeps playing these Games Eventually something has got to give.
February 22, 2013
U.N. Rejects Claim for Direct Compensation to Victims of Cholera Epidemic in Haiti
By DEBORAH SONTAG
There will be no direct financial compensation from the United Nations for the more than 8,000 Haitians who died and the 646,000 sickened by cholera since the disease struck the earthquake-ravaged country in October 2010, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Haitian president this week.
More than 15 months after the United Nations received a legal claim seeking to hold peacekeeping troops responsible for setting off the epidemic, its lawyers declared the claim “not receivable,” citing diplomatic immunity.
At the same time, Partners in Health, the leading nongovernmental health care provider in Haiti, has stepped forward to urge the United Nations to invest more seriously in Mr. Ban’s own largely unfunded anticholera initiative to make amends.
In an Op-Ed article posted Friday night on the Web site of The New York Times, Dr. Louise C. Ivers, the group’s senior health and policy adviser, says the United Nations has “a moral, if not legal, obligation to help solve a crisis it inadvertently helped start.” Evidence, she said, finds the United Nations “largely, though not wholly” culpable for the outbreak of cholera.
To date, Mr. Ban has not acknowledged the reigning scientific theory about the origin of Haiti’s cholera epidemic — that peacekeepers from Nepal imported the cholera and, through a faulty sanitation system at their base, infected a tributary of the country’s largest river.
Dr. Ivers, however, while noting the “causality” of epidemic disease is complex, says that no other reasonable hypothesis for Haiti’s cholera has been put forth.
What makes her comments especially striking is that her organization’s co-founder and chief strategist, Dr. Paul Farmer, served as the United Nations’ deputy special envoy for Haiti for the past three years and was appointed by Mr. Ban in December to lead the very anticholera initiative that she found lacking.
Dr. Farmer declined to comment, but a spokeswoman for Partners in Health said Dr. Ivers’s statements represented the group’s concerns about the 10-year, $2.2 billion anticholera initiative that he was supposed to advise.
The ambitious initiative is intended to upgrade Haiti’s abysmal water and sanitation infrastructure while increasing cholera prevention and treatment efforts, including the expansion of a small cholera vaccination campaign that Partners in Health and a Haitian health care group, Gheskio, undertook last year.
Donors have pledged $215 million. The United Nations said it would contribute $23.5 million — 1 percent of the initiative’s cost, Dr. Ivers said.
In contrast, she said, this year’s budget for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, $648 million, “could more than fund the entire cholera elimination initiative for two years.”
Expressing his “deep sorrow and solidarity with the many Haitian families who lost loved ones in this terrible epidemic,” Nigel Fisher, the new head of the peacekeeping mission, nonetheless said that the United Nations had “mobilized resolutely to combat the disease.” It spent some $118 million on cholera before the initiative was announced, officials have said.
Mr. Ban, through his spokesman, also expressed “his profound sympathy” while announcing on Thursday that the legal claim had been rejected.
Mario Joseph, lead lawyer for the cholera victims, said, “While these sympathies are welcome, they will not stop cholera’s killing or ensure that survivors can go on living after losing breadwinners to cholera.”
The demand, filed in an internal United Nations claims unit, had sought $100,000 for each bereaved family and $50,000 for each cholera survivor.
Mr. Joseph described the United Nations’ terse rejection of a claim filed over a year ago as “disgraceful,” and he and his American colleagues at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said they would file a lawsuit in Haiti or abroad.
Though the death rate from cholera has declined significantly since the epidemic initially devastated Haiti, the disease is still coursing through the country. National statistics show a spike of reported cases in December 2012 over that same month in 2011 — 11,220 compared with 8,205.
“The U.N. will not pay,” said a headline Friday on the Web site of Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste newspaper.
“It’s not surprising,” a reader responded.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 23, 2013
An earlier version of this article misrendered a quotation from an Op-Ed article by Dr. Louise C. Ivers. The quotation should have read “largely, though not wholly,” not “largely, if not wholly.”
If Raul does decide to join his brother in Retirement. Assuming Cuba fallows Familial line. Fidel Has a Son Fidel Ángel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart with his First Wife. He ran Cuba's Atomic energy program until Fidel kicked him out Fidel had another five sons with his second wife. Dalia Soto del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander "Alex" and Ángel Castro Soto del Valle. God Knows How many Children He had though Affairs The admitted Children of these are Jorge Ángel Castro, Alina Fernández Revuelta (who lives In Exile)Cuba: As He Prepares for a New Term, Raúl Castro Reserves His Right to Retire
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Raúl Castro has unexpectedly raised the possibility of leaving his post, saying Friday that he was old and had a right to retire. But he did not say when he might do so or if such a move was imminent. Mr. Castro is scheduled to be named by Parliament to a new five-year term on Sunday. On Friday, during a joint appearance in Havana with Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, he joked with reporters and urged them to listen to his speech on Sunday. “I am going to resign,” he said. “I am going to be 82 years old,” he added, the hint of a smile on his face. “I have the right to retire, don’t you think?” Mr. Castro, who will be 82 in June, has spoken before of his desire to introduce a two-term limit for all government positions. Mr. Castro’s predecessor, his brother Fidel, is 86 and retired.
Raul has for Children his Daughters Déborah, Mariela and Nilsa and one son Alejandro Castro Espín. Deborah Is married too Colonel Luis Alberto Rodríguez of the Cuban Army,
Mariela is married to a Italian and heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education.
Outside of the Castro's the Vice president of Cuba is José Ramón Machado Ventura, M.D Thing is He's a year older then Raul.
The other VP of Cuba ( they have two.) is Corps General Julio Casas Regueiro age 75.
and Leopoldo Cintra Frias Who holds office in the Politburo he was Born in 1941 so age 72 he's the baby of the group...
Basically all of the Standing Cuban heads of State are to be frank Geezers.
Hay Popeye The navy might not Take you back but You seem to meet the Age Qualifications.. In fact You would be touted as a Young man. There looks to be a job opening in Cuba.
February 22, 2013
No Exit: China Uses Passports as Political Cudgel
By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING — Flush with cash and eager to see the world, millions of middle-class Chinese spent the 10-day Lunar New Year holiday that ended on Monday in places like Paris, Bangkok and New York. Last year, Chinese made a record 83 million trips abroad, 20 percent more than in 2011 and a fivefold increase from a decade earlier.
Sun Wenguang, a retired economics professor from Shandong Province, was not among those venturing overseas, however. And not by choice. An author whose books offer a critical assessment of Communist Party rule, Mr. Sun, 79, has been repeatedly denied a passport without explanation.
“I’d love to visit my daughter in America and my 90-year-old brother in Taiwan, but the authorities have other ideas,” he said. “I feel like I’m living in a cage.”
Mr. Sun is among the legions of Chinese who have been barred from traveling abroad by a government that is increasingly using decisions on passports as a cudgel against perceived enemies — or as a carrot to encourage academics whose writings have at times strayed from the party line to return to the fold.
“It’s just another way to punish people they don’t like,” said Wu Zeheng, a government critic and Buddhist spiritual leader from southern Guangdong Province whose failed entreaties to obtain a passport have prevented him from accepting at least a dozen speaking invitations in Europe and North America.
China’s passport restrictions extend to low-level military personnel, Tibetan monks and even the security personnel who process passport applications. “I feel so jealous when I see all my friends taking vacations in Singapore or Thailand but the only way I could join them is to quit my job,” said a 28-year-old police detective in Beijing.
Lawyers and human rights advocates say the number of those affected has soared in recent years, with Tibetans and Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking minority from China’s far west, increasingly ineligible for overseas fellowships, speaking engagements or the organized sightseeing groups that have ferried planeloads of Chinese to foreign capitals.
Although the government does not release figures on those who have been denied passports, human rights groups suggest that at least 14 million people — mostly those officially categorized as ethnic Uighurs and Tibetans — have been directly affected by the restrictions, as have hundreds of religious and political dissidents. A representative of the Exit-Entry Administration of the Public Security Bureau declined to discuss the nation’s passport policies.
The seemingly arbitrary restrictions, not unlike those long employed by the former Soviet Union, also affect overseas Chinese who had grown accustomed to frequent visits home. Scores of Chinese expatriates have been denied new passports by Chinese Embassies when their old ones expire, while others say they are simply turned away after landing in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong.
Returnees whose names show up on a blacklist are escorted by border control officers to the next outbound flight. Even if seldom given explanations for their expulsions, many of those turned away suspect it is punishment for their antigovernment activism abroad. “Compared to other forms of political persecution, the denial of the right to return home seems like a small evil,” said Hu Ping, the editor of a pro-democracy journal in New York who has not been allowed to see family members in China since 1987. “But it’s a blatant violation of human rights.”
Even those carrying valid passports are subject to the whims of the authorities. On Feb. 6, Wang Zhongxia, 28, a Chinese activist who had planned to meet the Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was barred from boarding a Myanmar-bound flight from the southern city of Guangzhou. Four days earlier, Ilham Tohti, an academic and vocal advocate for China’s ethnic Uighurs, was prevented from leaving for the United States.
Mr. Tohti, who was set to begin a yearlong fellowship at Indiana University, said he was interrogated at Beijing International Airport for nearly 12 hours by officers who refused to explain his detention. Speaking from his apartment in the capital, Mr. Tohti says that Uighurs have long faced difficulties in obtaining passports but that the authorities have made it nearly impossible in recent years.
“We feel like second-class citizens in our own country,” he said.
For decades after the Communists came to power in 1949, most Chinese could only dream of traveling abroad; the handful who managed to leave often escaped by evading border guards and swimming across shark-infested waters to what was then British-ruled Hong Kong. As China opened up to the outside world in the early 1980s, the government began providing passports and exit visas to graduate students who had acceptance letters from universities overseas.
All that changed in 1991, when Beijing issued new rules allowing Chinese to join group tours to “approved destinations” in Southeast Asia, and two years later, to the United States and Europe. These days, members of China’s ethnic Han majority can generally obtain a passport in 15 days.
But the rules are more arduous for Tibetans and Uighurs, who must win approvals from several layers of bureaucracy — including provincial authorities; the applicant’s hometown public security bureau; and for students, university administrators. Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan writer who has tried and failed to get a passport since 2005, says the denials are driven by fears that once abroad, minorities will speak out about China’s repressive ethnic policies or link up with exile groups.
“For the Han, getting a passport is as easy as buying a bus ticket,” she said. “But for Tibetans it’s harder than climbing to the sky.”
Since last April, the authorities have been confiscating passports from Tibetans lucky enough to have them in the first place. According to documents obtained by Human Rights Watch, the police in Tibet are also required to interrogate returnees and determine whether they have broken a signed pledge not to engage in activities that “harm state security and interests” while outside the country.
The new procedures were introduced after thousands of Tibetans attended a religious gathering in India that included an appearance by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader whom Beijing considers a separatist. Tibetan exiles say the restrictions also seek to limit information about the recent spate of self-immolations from reaching the outside world.
The frustrations of those affected by the tightened rules received a rare public airing after a 21-year-old Uighur college student blogged about her unsuccessful attempt to get a passport. The student, Atikem Rozi, said the repeated rejections had dashed her hopes to study abroad.
“Whenever the subject of a passport is mentioned, it brings me to tears,” Ms. Rozi, a student at Minzu University in Beijing, wrote last month. “My passport is still a riddle, a luxury.”
Widely forwarded, the blog posts prompted favorable coverage in one Chinese publication. But they also drew unwanted attention from the domestic security agents in Xinjiang, who during six hours of questioning this month suggested that she was “politically unqualified” to go abroad because she had used her microblog, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, to complain about discrimination against Uighurs.
The inability to travel has driven many Chinese to take desperate measures. In 2011, Liao Yiwu, a poet and author from the southwest city of Chengdu, escaped overland to Vietnam after the authorities rebuffed his passport application more than a dozen times and then threatened him over plans to publish a book overseas. He now lives in exile in Germany.
Wu’er Kaixi, who was No. 2 on the government’s most wanted list after he organized student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, has spent the last several years trying to get himself arrested by the Chinese authorities in an attempt to return home to see his aging parents. Mr. Kaixi, who lives in Taiwan, has tried crashing through the gates of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and he once flew to Chinese-administered Macau and offered himself up to the police. He was promptly put back on a plane and sent home.
“It is unbearable to contemplate the idea that I may never see them again,” he wrote last year of his parents, who have also been barred from leaving China. “This is barbaric and cruel behavior by the Chinese government.”
Patrick Zuo contributed research.
22 February 2013 Last updated at 09:58 ET
China acknowledges 'cancer villages'
China's environment ministry appears to have acknowledged the existence of so-called "cancer villages" after years of public speculation about the impact of pollution in certain areas.
For years campaigners have said cancer rates in some villages near factories and polluted waterways have shot up.
But the term "cancer village" has no technical definition and the ministry's report did not elaborate on it.
There have been many calls for China to be more transparent on pollution.
The latest report from the environment ministry is entitled "Guard against and control risks presented by chemicals to the environment during the 12th Five-Year period (2011-2015)".
It says that the widespread production and consumption of harmful chemicals forbidden in many developed nations are still found in China.
"The toxic chemicals have caused many environmental emergencies linked to water and air pollution," it said.
The report goes on to acknowledge that such chemicals could pose a long-term risk to human health, making a direct link to the so-called "cancer villages".
"There are even some serious cases of health and social problems like the emergence of cancer villages in individual regions," it said.
Beijing smog
The BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing says that as China has experienced rapid development, stories about so-called cancer villages have become more frequent.
And China has witnessed growing public anger over air pollution and industrial waste caused by industrial development.
Media coverage of conditions in these so-called "cancer villages" has been widespread. In 2009, one Chinese journalist published a map identifying dozens of apparently affected villages.
In 2007 the BBC visited the small hamlet of Shangba in southern China where one scientist was studying the cause and effects of pollution on the village.
He found high levels of poisonous heavy metals in the water and believed there was a direct connection between incidences of cancer and mining in the area.
Until now, there has been little comment from the government on such allegations.
Environmental lawyer Wang Canfa, who runs a pollution aid centre in Beijing, told the AFP news agency that it was the first time the "cancer village" phrase had appeared in a ministry document.
Last month - Beijing - and several other cities - were blanketed in smog that soared past levels considered hazardous by the World Health Organisation.
The choking pollution provoked a public outcry and led to a highly charged debate about the costs of the country's rapid economic development, our correspondent says.
February 22, 2013
Japan and United States Reaffirm Their Close Ties
By JACKIE CALMES
WASHINGTON — President Obama and Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, met at the White House on Friday to show that their countries were putting relations back on solid footing after several years of friction, and at a time when the allies face the challenge of an increasingly powerful China.
Their meeting yielded no announcements of major policy changes, and the leaders did not even address publicly whether Japan would speed the relocation of an important United States military base on Okinawa. But the summit suggested at least the potential for a warming, with the administration adding a White House luncheon including Vice President Joseph R. Biden to extend the leaders’ time together.
And a joint statement hinted at an opening that could give Mr. Abe political cover, once back in Tokyo, to push for Japan’s participation in talks toward an Asia-Pacific trade agreement among democracies in the region struggling against China’s growing economic clout.
Japan is central to Mr. Obama’s effort to shift America’s focus toward the Pacific Rim after years of preoccupation with war and with counterterrorism efforts in the Middle East and North Africa. And Mr. Abe, whose country is embroiled in an increasingly nasty territorial dispute with China, signaled his eagerness to maintain a close relationship with the United States, reversing signs sent by one of his recent predecessors who suggested Tokyo should pull back a little from Washington.
Mr. Abe is the fifth Japanese prime minister Mr. Obama has dealt with as president, a turnover reflecting the nation’s years of economic and political instability that has, in turn, complicated relations between Washington and its biggest Asian ally.
“Japan is one of our closest allies, and the U.S.-Japan alliance is the central foundation for our regional security and so much of what we do in the Pacific region,” Mr. Obama told reporters when they were allowed briefly into the Oval Office during a meeting with Mr. Abe.
Mr. Abe, sitting beside him near the fireplace, said, “I think I can declare with confidence that the trust and the bond in our alliance is back.”
Both leaders said they had agreed on the need for what Mr. Obama called “strong actions” against North Korea’s latest rebuff to the global community — last week’s underground nuclear test. Mr. Abe spoke of possible financial sanctions, and also said that the two allies would press the United Nations for a resolution calling for further international penalties.
With Japan also concerned about China’s claims to a group of Japanese-controlled islands, Mr. Abe said: “When we look at the security environment in the Asia Pacific, it’s becoming more and more difficult. And we need to create an order in this region based on cooperation between our two countries to secure the freedom of the seas and to secure a region which is governed based on laws, not on force.”
Mr. Abe also seemed to move closer to committing Japan to join the United States and other Pacific Rim nations in negotiating the regional free-trade agreement — and in a way that seemed intended to satisfy both leaders’ separate domestic political concerns. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership has been a priority of Mr. Obama’s economic and foreign policy agenda since late 2011.
While Mr. Abe’s advisers have said he has personally favored joining the talks, in keeping with his emphasis on an economic stimulus program that has become known as “Abenomics” in Tokyo, he faces domestic political risks: Mr. Abe regained office less than two months ago, and his party faces critical parliamentary elections in July, when it will need the support of rice farmers skeptical of more open markets.
In a joint statement, the two governments agreed that if Japan does participate in the trade talks, there would be no exemptions stopping discussions on any products, a starting point the United States had insisted upon. But the statement also recognized “that both countries have bilateral trade sensitivities, such as certain agricultural products for Japan and certain manufactured products for the United States” and held that Japan would not have to commit to ending all tariffs upon joining the talks. Even so, the goal of the trade talks is a comprehensive agreement that eliminates tariffs.
With Japan still the world’s third-largest economy despite two decades of economic weakness, its participation in the negotiations is considered all but essential to any agreement’s success. But the Obama administration had opposed any exemptions or preconditions to secure Tokyo’s entry, especially given the opposition of American agricultural and manufacturing interests, including automakers.
A response to the leaders’ joint statement from Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan testified to the skepticism within Mr. Obama’s party. “There must be a clear, concrete understanding that before Japan would join the T.P.P. negotiations that those negotiations would result in a real change in Japan’s policies and practices,” Mr. Levin said, referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
On another issue of importance to Mr. Abe, the prime minister indicated that Japan had American reassurance of support in Tokyo’s increasingly tense dispute with China over islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, though he did not specify what that meant. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last month warned China against “unilateral” actions challenging Japan’s control. But the United States is neutral on the question of the islands’ sovereignty and has cautioned both countries against hostilities, which could potentially draw in the United States since it is obligated by treaty to come to Japan’s defense.
Mr. Abe, who has taken hawkish stands in the past, also signaled that he had reassured the Americans that he would not act rashly and instead would seek to improve relations with Beijing.
On Friday, a Japanese government spokesman said Japan has asked Beijing to explain why Chinese ships placed several buoys near the disputed islands. When asked by the Japanese media if the buoys could be used to track Japan’s sophisticated submarines, Japan’s defense minister said they could possibly be used to track “vessels.”
Neither Mr. Abe nor Mr. Obama mentioned any real movement on the Okinawan base, one of the worst irritants in the two countries’ relations. Yukio Hatoyama, a recent prime minister from a different political party, had briefly backed off on earlier Japanese promises to allow the base to be relocated to a less populated part of the island.
Martin Fackler contributed reporting from Tokyo.
Secret documents uptained by me Indicate that North Korea has completed there long AwaitedFebruary 23, 2013
North Korea Warns U.S. Forces of ‘Destruction’ Ahead of Drills
By REUTERS
SEOUL (Reuters) — North Korea on Saturday warned the top U.S. military commander stationed in South Korea that his forces would “meet a miserable destruction” if they go ahead with scheduled military drills with South Korean troops, North Korean state media said.
Pak Rim-su, chief delegate of the North Korean military mission to the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom, gave the message by phone to Gen. James Thurman, the commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, KCNA news agency said.
It came amid escalating tension on the divided Korean peninsula after the North’s third nuclear test earlier this month, in defiance of U.N. resolutions, drew harsh international condemnation.
A direct message from the North’s Panmunjom mission to the U.S. commander is rare.
North and South Korea are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command is holding an annual computer-based simulation war drill, Key Resolve, from March 11 to 25, involving 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 U.S. troops.
The command also plans to hold Foal Eagle joint military exercises involving land, sea and air manoeuvres. About 200,000 Korean troops and 10,000 U.S. forces are expected to be mobilized for the two month-long exercise which starts on March 1.
“If your side ignites a war of aggression by staging the reckless joint military exercises...at this dangerous time, from that moment your fate will be hung by a thread with every hour,” Pak was quoted as saying.
“You had better bear in mind that those igniting a war are destined to meet a miserable destruction.”
Washington and Seoul regularly hold military exercises which they say are purely defensive. North Korea, which has stepped up its bellicose threats towards the United States and South Korea in recent months, sees them as rehearsals for invasion.
North Korea threatened South Korea with “final destruction” during a debate at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Sung-won Shim; Editing by Nick Macfie)
but kidding aside Really This is starting to seem more like Bad comedy. . Links between the North Korean and Iranian Weapons Programs are known. There are Reports That during the Recent Test in NK The head of the Iranian weapons Program was on site.
This is very much a who's who of instability. As The DPRK keeps playing these Games Eventually something has got to give.
February 22, 2013
Internal Documents Portray BBC as Top-Heavy, Bickering and Dysfunctional
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON — A senior press officer for the British Broadcasting Corporation darkly volunteers to “drip poison” to discredit a BBC reporter he suspects of having leaked embarrassing information. The woman in charge of the corporation’s news divisions accuses Newsnight, a public-affairs program she oversees, of being out of touch and “sneery” toward rival BBC shows.
And, as investigators seek to uncover why the corporation canceled a Newsnight broadcast alleging that a once-beloved BBC personality who had recently died had in fact been a serial pedophile who preyed on vulnerable girls, everyone involved is scrambling to deflect blame onto someone else.
These and other unflattering details about the inner workings of Britain’s public broadcaster emerged Friday when the BBC released some 3,000 pages of internal documents — e-mails, memos and transcripts of interviews — from an external investigation into why the program, about the BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, had been canceled.
In all, the documents painted a picture of a highly dysfunctional, top-heavy organization divided into discrete, rival factions, and weighed down by mistrust, poor communication, buck-passing and internecine squabbling.
There were no startling revelations; all those came out in the so-called Pollard report into the Savile affair, which was published in December and which concluded that there were deep structural problems in the BBC. But the supporting documents released Friday shed light on just what Nick Pollard, who prepared the report, meant by his scathing critique, said John Whittingdale, chairman of the House of Commons culture and media committee.
“It demonstrates the extent of unhappiness within the BBC structure, the frustration at the bureaucratic nature of the management, and the generally poor state of morale,” Mr. Whittingdale said in a television interview.
Referring to the fact that material in some of the newly released documents was blacked out, apparently because of concerns that it might give rise to lawsuits, Mr. Whittingdale added: “The fact that so much of the evidence can’t be published, because we are told the lawyers have advised it could be defamatory, in a sense tells its own story.”
Large portions of the testimony of Jeremy Paxman, a blunt-talking Newsnight host who is known for his testy and combative interview style, for instance, are blacked out in places where it appears he is about to make personal remarks about other people.
And in an annoyingly tantalizing instance, Peter Horrocks, director of global news, declares: “It is no secret that ...” What follows has been redacted, however, so that it is in fact a secret.
Lord McAlpine, a former Tory cabinet minister who, in another debacle at Newsnight, was unjustly accused of being a pedophile in a report that was broadcast, said that the BBC should not have left out any material. “The BBC is not the Secret Service, for Christ’s sake,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
But the BBC defended the redactions. Tim Davie, the acting director general, said that “97 percent plus of all the thousands of pages are out there.”
In an interview with an off-camera interlocutor that was broadcast on the BBC Web site, Mr. Davie continued: “We are not redacting or taking out material that is embarrassing or uncomfortable to the BBC. We have simply taken out stuff that external lawyers saw as a clear risk.”
He did not make himself available for interviews with other news organizations on Friday — indeed, no one from the BBC did. That strategy was roundly ridiculed by the broadcaster’s rivals.
On Twitter, Ben de Pear, editor of Channel 4 News, said that over his career he had successfully coaxed interviews out of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. “We are still trying for Tim Davie,” he said.
Much of the material focused on who said what to whom, and when, during Newsnight’s investigations into the allegations against Mr. Savile — and during the subsequent decision to cancel the broadcast. But there were also general interviews with many key figures in the corporation about what was wrong and how to fix it.
The testimony of Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, was particularly sharp, as he described the chaotic flow of information, the preponderance of high-ranking officials (the BBC had “more senior leaders than China,” he said) and the general mistrust within the corporation. “Is a lesson I should take from this that I can’t believe it when I’m told things by the next director general, that I have to query everything he says or the director of news says to me or whatever?” he asked rhetorically.
No, he said in response. “With the next director general I won’t — or his senior colleagues — I won’t begin every conversation on the assumption that he or she or they may not be telling me the whole truth,” he said. “I will want to be more convinced that there is a structure in place which ensures that the truth is being told.”
Lark Turner contributed reporting from London, and Matthew Purdy from New York.
February 22, 2013
Scud Missile Attack Reported in Aleppo
By HWAIDA SAAD and RICK GLADSTONE
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Antigovernment activists in Syria said the military fired Scud missiles into at least three rebel-held districts of Aleppo on Friday, flattening dozens of houses, killing at least 12 civilians and burying perhaps dozens of others under piles of rubble.
The assertion, which appears to be corroborated by videos posted on the Internet, came one day after Syrian government targets in central Damascus were hit by multiple car bombings that were among the deadliest and most destructive so far in the nearly two-year-old conflict.
The report said the Hamra, Tariq al Bab and Hanano areas of Aleppo were hit with Scuds, which are not known for their accuracy; it was the second report this week of the military using such missiles on rebel-held areas in the northern city.
Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial capital, has become one of the focal points of rebellion in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, according to activists in the city, a Syrian missile leveled part of Jabal Badro, another neighborhood controlled by the rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with contacts inside Syria, said in a statement that the victims of missile explosions in Aleppo on Friday included children and that the number of victims “is expected to rise significantly because there are dozens of wounded under the rubble.”
Syria’s state-run news media made no immediate mention of the Aleppo attacks. The Web site of Syria’s official SANA news agency was dominated by the aftermath of the car bombings in Damascus on Thursday, which killed more than 70 people. The ferocity and scope of those bombings were unusual for central Damascus, which until now has been largely insulated from the carnage and destruction wrought by the conflict in the city’s outer suburbs and other parts of the country.
Most of the casualties in Damascus were caused by an especially powerful bomb near the headquarters of President Assad’s Baath Party and the Russian Embassy, which were both damaged, according to Russian news reports and witnesses contacted in the capital. SANA reported that a hospital and neighboring schools were also damaged.
No group has taken responsibility for the Damascus bombings, but the government has said they were carried out by terrorists, its generic description for the alliance of armed rebels seeking to oust Mr. Assad. The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the main Syrian group for the opposition, which was meeting in Cairo at the time, condemned the bombings, as did its Western supporters, including the United States.
Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters on Thursday that the United States denounced such bombings as “indiscriminate acts of violence against civilians or against diplomatic facilities.” The attacks violate international law, she said, adding that “perpetrators on all sides have to be held accountable.”
Nonetheless, the bombings appeared to create a new source of diplomatic friction between the United States and Russia, which has supported the Syrian government during the conflict and has rejected any proposed solution that would force Mr. Assad to relinquish power.
Russia’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States of blocking its attempt to seek approval of a Security Council statement that would have condemned the Damascus bombings as terrorism. The United States mission denied the Russian accusation, saying it had requested only that the Russian statement include a paragraph that also condemned the Syrian government’s “continued, indiscriminate use of heavy weaponry against civilians.”
In a statement posted online Friday, Erin Pelton, a spokeswoman for the United States mission, said, “Unfortunately, if predictably, Russia rejected the U.S.-suggested language as ‘totally unacceptable’ and withdrew its draft statement.”
Other insurgency-related violence was reported by the Syrian Observatory and activists elsewhere in Syria on Friday, including random sniping attacks in the north-central city of Raqqa that killed four people during an antigovernment demonstration, and seven people killed near a mosque in Dara’a, the southern city where the anti-Assad uprising first began in March 2011.
The Local Coordination Committees, a network of anti-Assad activists, reported that fighters with the Free Syrian Army and other groups had taken control of at least two military facilities in the suburbs of Deir al-Zour, an eastern city that has been a battleground for many months. The report, which could not be corroborated, also claimed that rebels had gained control of a missile facility in Deir al-Zour that was formerly the site of a partly built nuclear reactor bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007. Syria disclosed the existence of the missile facility four years ago at a technical meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Activists reached via Skype also reported what they described as rival demonstrations in the city of Kafr Nabl in northern Idlib Province, a rebel-held area, between a group calling for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and a group seeking a secular state. The demonstrations appeared to reflect the influence of militant Islamist groups like the Al Nusra Front, which have been welcomed by some in the Syrian opposition for their brave fighting skills but are regarded warily by others. The United States has been reluctant to provide weapons to the Syrian insurgency partly because it considers Al Nusra a terrorist group, with links to Al Qaeda militants in neighboring Iraq.
In Idlib, what appeared to be a deepening sectarian divide caused by the conflict has taken the form of retaliatory kidnappings between rival Shiite and Sunni villages in recent weeks. The Syrian Observatory reported on Thursday, however, that scores of hostages had been released.
In Cairo, the Syrian opposition coalition concluded its two-day meeting Friday with an announcement that it would convene again in Istanbul on March 2 and begin forming a provisional government by naming a prime minister. Members hope that such a government can begin providing services in rebel-controlled territories and help prepare for a transition, predicated on the assumption that Mr. Assad leaves power.
The coalition also pulled back from recent statements by its leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who had said he was open to talks with members of Mr. Assad’s government about a political solution to end the conflict.
“Bashar al-Assad and the security and military leadership responsible for the state of Syria today must step down and be considered outside this political process,” the coalition said in a statement after the meeting. “They cannot be part of any political solution for Syria and must be held accountable for their crimes.”
Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo.
SteelBird
Colonel
Looks like everybody ignores this news which claimed up to 10 lives.
At least ten people were killed in a house collapse caused by a series of explosions early on February 24.
Witnesses said they were awakened by two big explosions from lane 384 of Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Road in district 3 at 00.30am. A big fire flared up and within minutes four houses in the lane were engulfed in flames.
The explosion reduced three houses to rubble, and 10 people were said to be trapped inside.
The HCM City Fire Brigade deployed 13 fire trucks and more than 100 fire fighters to extinguish the roaring blaze.
Initial investigations showed that the explosions came from a two-storey house that contains film props, owned by Le Minh Phuong.
Phuong, 46, designs props for film crews. He is also director of Lac Viet company that specialises in film production and prop effects.
A total of six people in his house, including Phuong, his wife, their three children and a housemaid, were found burnt to death.
Rescue workers also pulled four other dead bodies from debris.
Relevant agencies cordoned off the scene and looked into the cause of the case.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
History repeats or does it???
But Wait there's more....Iran says foreign ‘enemy drone’ captured
By Ali Akbar Dareini - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Feb 23, 2013 13:50:56 EST
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saturday that it captured a foreign unmanned aircraft during a military exercise in southern Iran.
Gen. Hamid Sarkheili, a spokesman for the military exercise, said the Guard’s electronic warfare unit spotted signals indicating that foreign drones were trying to enter Iranian airspace. Sarkheili said Guard experts took control of one drone’s navigation system and brought it down near the city of Sirjan where the military drills began on Saturday.
“While probing signals in the area, we spotted foreign and enemy drones which attempted to enter the area of the war game,” the official IRNA news agency quoted the general as saying. “We were able to get one enemy drone to land.”
Sarkheili did not say whether the drone was American.
Iran has claimed to have captured several U.S. drones, including an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel CIA spy drone in December 2011 and at least three ScanEagle aircraft.
State TV said the Guard’s military exercise, code-named Great Prophet-8, involved ground forces of the Guard, Iran’s most powerful military force. State TV showed tanks and artillery attacking hypothetical enemy positions. He said various systems, including unmanned planes that operate like suicide bombers, were tested.
“Reconnaissance as well as suicide drones, which are capable of attacking the hypothetical enemies, were deployed and their operational capabilities were studied,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard denies drone capture
The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Feb 24, 2013 9:45:36 EST
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard is denying that it captured a foreign unmanned aircraft during a military exercise in southern Iran.
A spokesman for the Guard, Yasin Hasanali, told The Associated Press that the drone was actually being used during the drill as a supposed enemy aircraft.
Iranian media on Saturday quoted a spokesman for the Guard as saying that its electronic warfare unit had taken control of a foreign drone’s navigation system and forced it to land during the site of the military exercise.
Iran has claimed to have captured several U.S. drones, including an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel CIA spy drone in December 2011 and at least three ScanEagle aircraft.
The Guard’s military exercise, code-named Great Prophet-8, ends on Monday.
joshuatree
Captain
Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean are claiming environmental activisit group Sea Shepherd is trying to sabotage their refuelling operations.
And Sea Shepherd says the Japanese are using their large factory ship Nisshin Maru to "ram" the smaller protester ships.
So far no one has been hurt in the at-times violent clashes, which yesterday saw ships damaged, and also feature on Animal Planet's documentary-reality television series Whale War.
Both sides are producing video clips to support their claims.
What is striking however is that the clashes are taking place on a stretch of ocean that also has icebergs and is about 4000 kilometres away from any help.
Both sides have been clashing since 2008 and this time the Japanese fleet has a tanker, Sun Laurel, with its fleet of whale chasers and factory ship.
Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which operates the whaling fleet, says that in yesterday's incidents, Nisshin Maru was trying to come alongside San Simon but that Sea Shepherd vessels were "again provoking collisions" and were subjecting the Japanese to sabotage.
"As the Nisshin Maru was about to come alongside her supply tanker for refuelling, the Sea Shepherd vessels Steve Irwin, Bob Barker and Sam Simon repeatedly forced their way between the Nisshin Maru and her supply tanker," the institute said.
It said that during their obstruction to refuelling operations the Sea Shepherd vessels Bob Barker and Sam Simon repeatedly rammed the Nisshin Maru and the supply tanker.
The institute said it was using its water cannon on Sea Shepherd vessels as "a preventive measure" to stop them coming closer.
It said Sea Shepherd was being "extremely dangerous and foolhardy" and it was threatening the safety of "research ships and lives of crews on them, and is therefore completely unacceptable".
The institute called on New Zealand, the Netherlands and Australia to take action against Sea Shepherd.
The institute said Japan's whaling "is a perfectly legal activity carried out under the International Whaling Convention for the Regulation of Whaling".
It also denied the refuelling operations had resulted in oil being spilled.
"Refuelling from the supply tanker to the research vessels is safely conducted through a hermetically sealed fuel transfer system, making leakage impossible," the institute said.
"SS's allegations and rumours about the supply tanker hitting icebergs and oil spilling are equally unfounded."
Sea Shepherd said in its latest account of yesterday's incidents that the whaling fleet was backed up by the Japanese Self Defence Force icebreaker Shirase.
"The Nisshin Maru has caused at least three collisions: twice with the Bob Barker, shoving the ship into the Sun Laurel . . . and ramming the Sam Simon," Sea Shepherd said.
"The Bob Barker has sustained major damage from being sandwiched between the Nisshin Maru and the fuel tanker Sun Laurel. The engine room is now visible through a crack in the floor of the galley."
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It said Sam Simon had "scratches and dings" along its hull, and a smashed satellite dome.
"The three Yushin Maru harpoon ships crossed the bows of Sea Shepherd Ships trailing propeller-fouling lines," the organisation said.
"The Sam Simon, Steve Irwin, and Bob Barker have had flooding in their engine from the Nisshin Maru's water cannons. The Nisshin Maru threw a flash-bang grenade that exploded off the port stern of the Sun Laurel, leaving large black charred marks."
Equation
Lieutenant General
History repeats or does it???
But Wait there's more....
Drones are starting to show their vulnerability lately.
ManilaBoy45
Junior Member
Shots Reportedly Fired in Sabah Standoff
By Nikko Dizon
Philippine Daily Inquirer 1:18 pm | Monday, February 25th, 2013
MANILA, Philippines– Shots have reportedly been fired in Lahad Datu in Sabah on Sunday afternoon, which were believed to have come from the group of Raja Muda Azzumudie Kiram as a warning to supporters who might want to leave the area, the INQUIRER learned Monday.
The source, a senior Philippine diplomat, said the Malaysian security forces were believed not to have fired back. Malaysian police have cordoned off Tanduo village where Azzumudie and some 180 of his followers, some 30 of them armed, have been holed up since arriving in Sabah last Feb. 12 in what they said was laying their historical right to the resource-rich land.
By Nikko Dizon
Philippine Daily Inquirer 1:18 pm | Monday, February 25th, 2013
MANILA, Philippines– Shots have reportedly been fired in Lahad Datu in Sabah on Sunday afternoon, which were believed to have come from the group of Raja Muda Azzumudie Kiram as a warning to supporters who might want to leave the area, the INQUIRER learned Monday.
The source, a senior Philippine diplomat, said the Malaysian security forces were believed not to have fired back. Malaysian police have cordoned off Tanduo village where Azzumudie and some 180 of his followers, some 30 of them armed, have been holed up since arriving in Sabah last Feb. 12 in what they said was laying their historical right to the resource-rich land.
A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists, according to health and security officials.
It was one of the worst accidents involving tourists in Egypt and likely to push the key tourism industry deeper into recession.
The casualties included French, British, Belgian, Hungarian, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, Luxor Governor Ezzat Saad told reporters.
Three initial survivors of the crash -- two British tourists and one Egyptian -- were taken to a local hospital. But one of the British tourists later died of his injuries. British tour operator Thomas Cook confirmed that the tourist died in the hospital, while state radio reported that the Egyptian has severe burns on his body.
Egypt's civil aviation minister, Wael el-Maadawi, suspended hot air balloon flights and flew to Luxor to lead the investigation into the crash.
According to the Egyptian security official, the balloon -- carrying at least 20 tourists -- was flying over Luxor early Tuesday when it caught fire, which triggered an explosion in its gas canister, then plunged at least 1,000 feet from the sky.
It then crashed into a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village just west of Luxor, 320 miles south of Cairo, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Bodies of the dead tourists were scattered across the field around the remnants of the balloon. The security official said foul play has been ruled out.
An official with the state prosecutor's office said initial findings show that the accident occurred when the pilot's landing cable was caught around a helium tube. He spoke anonymously because the investigation is ongoing.
The head of Japan Travel Bureau's Egypt branch, Atsushi Imaeda, confirmed that four Japanese died in the crash. He said two were a couple in their 60s from Tokyo. Details on the other two were not immediately available.
In Hong Kong, a travel agency said nine of the tourists that were aboard the balloon were natives of the semiautonomous Chinese city. There was a "very big chance that all nine have perished," said Raymond Ng, a spokesman for the agency. The nine, he said, included five women and four men from three families.
They were traveling with six other Hong Kong residents on a 10-day tour of Egypt.
Ng said an escort of the nine tourists watched the balloon from the ground catching fire around 7 a.m. and plunging to the ground two minutes later.
In Britain, tour operator Thomas Cook confirmed that three British tourists were among the dead.
"What happened in Luxor this morning is a terrible tragedy and the thoughts of everyone in Thomas Cook are with our guests, their family and friends," said Peter Fankhauser, CEO of Thomas Cook UK & Continental Europe.
In Paris, a diplomatic official said French tourists were among those involved in the accident, but would give no details on how many, or whether French citizens were among those killed.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be publicly named according to government policy, the official said French authorities were working with their Egyptian counterparts to clarify what happened. French media reports said two French tourists were among the dead but the official wouldn't confirm that.
Hot air ballooning, usually at sunrise over the famed Karnak and Luxor temples as well as the Valley of the Kings, is a popular pastime for tourists visiting the area. Tickets for a hot air balloon ride per person are around 200 Egyptian pounds, or roughly $30.
The site of the accident has seen past crashes. In 2009, 16 tourists were injured when their balloon struck a cellphone transmission tower. A year earlier, seven tourists were injured in a similar crash.
Egypt's tourism industry has been decimated since the 2011 uprising and the political turmoil that followed and continues to this day. Luxor's hotels are currently about 25 percent full in what is supposed to be the peak of the winter season.
Scared off by the turmoil and tenuous security following the uprising, the number of tourists coming to Egypt fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion.
Magda Fawzi, whose company operates four luxury Nile River cruise boats to Luxor, said she expects the accident will lead to tourist cancellations. Tour guide Hadi Salama said he expects Tuesday's accident to hurt the eight hot air balloon companies operating in Luxor, but that it may not directly affect tourism to the Nile Valley city.
Poverty swelled at the country's fastest rate in Luxor, which is highly dependent on visitors to its monumental temples and the tombs of King Tutankhamun and other pharaohs. In 2011, 39 percent of its population lived on less than $1 a day, compared to 18 percent in 2009, according to government figures.
In August, Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi flew to Luxor to encourage tourism there, about a month after he took office and vowed that Egypt was safe for tourists.
"Egypt is safer than before, and is open for all," he said in remarks carried by the official MENA news agency at the time. He was referring to the security situation following the 2011 ouster of autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.
Deadly accidents caused by poor management and a decrepit infrastructure have taken place since Morsi took office. In January, 19 Egyptian conscripts died when their rickety train jumped the track. In November, 49 kindergarteners were killed when their school bus crashed into a speeding train because the railway guard failed to close the crossing.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful political force and Morsi's base of support, blames accidents on a culture of negligence fostered by Mubarak.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Drones are starting to show their vulnerability lately.
hmm. Years of fighting asymmetric conflicts have pushed Drones too the front trouble is as these systems have moved up in US forces they have done so in others to. It's part of the Problem Facing modern military's, And possible future issues to. After the RQ170 incident the US Should have gone over all it's Drone control systems but we heard nothing. One of the Advantages of Manned Aircraft is of course unless the Pilot decides to defect he's not going too land in enemy territory with out a fight. A drone by comparison will just think that an enemy spoofer who managed too hack in, is just a new command node.
It's not just Drones either. Radio Activity, Artillery operations, Armored warfare, Marine amphibious warfare missions.. What were SOP and needed skill sets in case of conflict against a conventional force were dropped due too fighting non-conventional Iraq and Afgan wars for over ten years. The best Case out come now is that a Hybrid kind of Force will move too the Front allowing rapid transition back and forth based on mission need but that's going too demand streamlining of Asymmetric programs and rearmament of duel mission equipment.
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