Good night and welcome to the Overnight News Digest for April 16, 2011.
I'm filling-in tonight for Neon Vincent, our regular Saturday host. Normally, Saturday's OND would compile the week's news in science and research, but tonight I'm sampling news from around the world. Please add your own news selections from science, environment, politics, current events, or anything else that may strike your interest.
Headline News
- LAT - 2 U.S. troops killed by drone's 'friendly fire' in Afghanistan
In what appeared to be the first case of U.S. troops being hit by "friendly fire" from a drone aircraft, two American servicemen were killed by a Hellfire missile after apparently being mistaken for insurgents moving to attack another group of Marines in southern Afghanistan.
A Predator drone fired the missile that killed a Marine and a Navy medic in Helmand province last week, according to two Pentagon officials…
The missile strike occurred about 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday near the crossroads town of Sangin. The former insurgent stronghold has seen a resurgence of clashes in recent weeks between Marines and Taliban fighters, the officials said. Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy D. Smith of Arlington, Texas, and Seaman Benjamin D. Rast of Niles, Mich., were hit as they moved on foot in a group trying to reach other Marines who had been pinned down by insurgent gunfire. |
More news after the jump.
USA
- Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Experts racing to assess how much BP will have to pay to restore Gulf
In the year since BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the northern Gulf of Mexico, thousands of birds and hundreds of sea turtles and dolphins have washed ashore dead as waves of crude lapped a thousand miles of shoreline.
But for all the damage visible from land here, far more occurred offshore, from the cobalt surface where small fish float on rafts of seaweed to dark canyons where corals grow at crushing depths.
Like insurance adjusters after a hurricane, government scientists are racing to inventory the damage to charge BP with the cost of environmental restoration. Unlike rebuilding homes, however, restoring this Gulf ecosystem is complex, and unprecedented in the deep sea. For rare resources that may be impossible to bring back — 1,000-year-old corals for instance — scientists will have to assess a dollar value for something many consider priceless.
The environmental evaluation — it is separate from the many claims for lost business and income — is required under federal laws passed after the Exxon Valdez collision in Alaska. While the process has worked for dozens of smaller oil spills, including one in Tampa Bay in 1993, the BP disaster will test the law as never before. |
- AJE - BP anniversary: Toxicity, suffering and death
April 20, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of BP's catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On this day in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, causing oil to gush from 5,000 feet below the surface into the ninth largest body of water on the planet.
At least 4.9 million barrels of BP's oil would eventually be released into the Gulf of Mexico before the well was capped 87 days later. It is, to date, the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. BP has used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic dispersants to sink the oil, in an effort the oil giant claimed was aimed at keeping the oil from reaching shore.
Critics believe the chemical dispersants were used simply to hide the oil and minimise BP's responsibility for environmental fines…Marine and wildlife biologists, toxicologists, and medical doctors have described the impact of the disaster upon the environment and human health as "catastrophic," and have [said] this is only the beginning of that what they expect to be an environmental and human health crisis that will likely span decades. |
- Biloxi Sun-Herald - BP chief doesn’t foresee cleanup workers here in 5 years
BP’s chief of operations for the Gulf cleanup, Mike Utsler, has been on the job since the first days of the spill. He’s shifted it from a major effort in the summer and fall to pulling back as oil residue washing ashore has diminished each month since the winter…
Figures BP released this week: Total of $17.7 billion spent on well shutoff, cleanup and partial financial restoration to the region; 34.7 million gallons of oil and water mix recovered; 11.1 million gallons of oil burned and 92,800 tons of tar balls, oily solids, oiled material and vegetation and oiled protective clothing collected.
Utsler said BP will stay until the Gulf is cleaned to pre-spill conditions, but he said he doesn’t see workers here five years from now, based on the current level of cleanup…
He said some of the chemicals in the Corexit dispersant were in the Gulf before the spill. BP sprayed 1.84 million gallons of the dispersant in an effort to keep oil from coming ashore. |
- Times-Picayune - BP says it's not responsible for paying to reseed oyster beds
State officials' decision to turn on a number of freshwater diversions full blast to block oil from entering coastal wetlands on both sides of the Mississippi River -- a strategy that decimated private and public oyster beds -- was not approved by the Unified Command overseeing the response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a senior BP official said Friday.
"Having been a part of this response since the beginning, I can tell you categorically that the Coast Guard indicated that it was not necessary and was not seen as a viable response technique," Mike Utsler, chief operating officer of BP's Gulf Coast Restoration Organization, said Friday. "As a Unified Command, we saw this as a not-needed exercise, and the state still chose to pursue that course of action."
Utsler said that's one reason why BP has so far refused to pay to restore oyster beds with cultch, the shell material on which oyster eggs attach and grow in the spring and fall. |
- McClatchy - Oil companies' new Gulf drilling plans called inadequate
Oil companies recently turned in their first plans for exploratory drilling in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including new information the government has required since last year's BP blowout about how they'd try to prevent and cope with another oil disaster.
The oil companies that want to explore the seabed below the deep water say they've learned from last year's accident and have better plans in place than they did a year ago, when an explosion at an oil rig set off the nation's worst oil accident.
Environmental groups, however, cite several reasons those plans fall short: The system to capture oil at a broken wellhead still hasn't been proved in the very deep waters; systemic problems with blowout preventers haven't been solved, and companies were too optimistic about how quickly they could drill the kind of relief wells that ultimately plugged the BP spill. |
- Houston Chronicle - War casualty on the home front
Marine veteran Clay Hunt… had narrowly escaped death in Iraq four years ago, when a sniper's bullet missed his head by inches. But he wrestled with post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt over the deaths of four friends in his platoon who weren't so lucky.
"Two were lost in Iraq, and the other two were killed in Afghanistan," said his mother, Susan Selke. "When that last one in Afghanistan went down, it just undid him." …
Hunt's suicide was baffling to friends and family, but not because he hid his struggle or failed to get help. It baffled them because he faced it, head-on, leading from the front like any good Marine. Hunt had become a poster boy for suicide prevention. He appeared in an award-winning public service campaign to encourage returning veterans who feel isolated to reach out to their peers for help.
"He tried everything," said his best friend Jake Wood, a fellow Marine. "He tried the medication, he tried (humanitarian) service, he tried moving back closer to family. He tried everything under the sun, and he was fully self-aware. I think that's what kind of surprised everybody. We thought that Clay was taking the steps to try and avoid something like this. It's unfortunate that he wasn't able to." |
- NYT - Study Ties Suicide Rate in Work Force to Economy
The suicide rate increased 3 percent in the 2001 recession and has generally ridden the tide of the economy since the Great Depression, rising in bad times and falling in good ones, according to a comprehensive government analysis released Thursday.
Experts said the new study. may help clarify a long-clouded relationship between suicide and economic trends.
While many researchers have argued that economic hardship can raise the likelihood of suicide in people who are already vulnerable — like those with depression or other mental illnesses — research has been mixed. Some studies have supported such a link, but others have found the opposite: that rates drop in periods of high unemployment, as if people exhibit resilience when they need it most. |
- CS Monitor - Budget bill cuts federal wolf protection
When 66 Canadian wolves were released into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho 15 years ago, it was a last-ditch effort to revive an iconic species that had been hunted to near-extinction across most of the United States…
By the end of 2010, according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, they numbered at least 1,651 in 244 packs and 111 breeding pairs… With the wolves’ comeback, all interested parties were working on a plan to “delist” the animal under the Endangered Species Act…
This week Congress jumped into the fray. In a brief rider attached to the budget bill for FY 2011, lawmakers – with the Obama administration’s assent, however reluctant – removed wolves in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah from the federal endangered species list, returning wolf management to the states. |
Europe
- CS Monitor - Former Croatian general seen as hero at home convicted of war crimes at Hague
Ante Gotovina, a swashbuckling former Croatian general who many in Zagreb view as a national liberator, was sentenced Friday to 24 years in jail for war crimes and crimes against humanity for carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Serbs.
he United Nations war crimes tribunal at The Hague also sentenced Mladen Markac, one of Mr. Gotovina's commanders, to 18 years for helping carry out a military offensive known as "Operation Storm," which the court said aimed to rid Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia through persecution, deportation, and murder. The goal, the court said, was to repopulate the mainly Serb region with Croats.
The imprisonment of Gotovina, whose sentence was met with protests in Croatia today, could intensify feelings of Croatian animosity toward the European Union. |
- Guardian - 91 victims and rising: Murdoch's News International hacked phones
Scotland Yard has accepted for the first time the extent of the phone-hacking scandal when it told a court the number of potential victims whose voicemails were targeted by the News of the World is likely to be "substantially" more than 91.
A high court hearing to timetable and organise the growing civil claims for damages against Rupert Murdoch's News International heard that the new police investigation believed the scale of potential victims was much higher than leading officers had previously said.
Previously the Metropolitan police said they had found a total of 91 pin numbers – necessary to access a mobile phone's voicemail – in the possession of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. |
- RIA Novosti - People who didn't prevent Minsk metro blast arrested - Lukashenko
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that during the investigation into the Minsk metro bombing people, because of whose negligence the explosion was not prevented, were arrested.
At least 13 people were killed and over 190 injured after a bomb went off at the Oktyabrskaya metro station, one of the city's busiest, at rush hour on Monday evening.
"They were detained," Lukashenko said. "I instructed to interrogate them as criminals. How a person with a huge bag of 20 kilograms, carrying an explosive, passes by the police, by employees of the metro?" |
- EUobserver - Rehn on eurozone rescue: euro will 'survive' and be 'stronger'
EU economy chief Olli Rehn has declared the eurozone rescue mission accomplished.
In a speech to the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based conservative think-tank on Thursday (14 April), he said: "While I cannot yet say ‘Mission accomplished', I am increasingly confident that we are entering into the endgame of the crisis management phase." …
He admitted that the "turbulence in sovereign debt market is not over yet. But we are quite confident that with the Portuguese programme, we will have contained the problem." …
"The euro's critics are wrong to claim that [the crisis] will lead to its failure or break-up. The euro will not only survive but is coming out of the crisis stronger than before."
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- Spiegel - Why Elections in Finland Could Doom Portugal's Bailout
Right-wing populism has arrived in Finland. The True Finns stand to gain close to 20 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections on an anti-Islam, anti-Europe platform. That could be bad news for Portugal…
Timo Soini… is the head of the True Finns political party, the most recent arrival on Europe's right-wing populist scene and one that is armed with the usual collection of phobias. He is anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, anti-abortion and anti-Europe. Of particular concern on the Continent, however, is Soini's extreme skepticism regarding efforts to provide euro-zone aid to heavily indebted Portugal. And should his party do well in general elections on Sunday, the True Finns -- together with anti-bailout allies -- could block efforts to prop up Portugal.
"I'm not a bad person," Soini told the Wall Street Journal recently. "I'm just saying that bailing out these countries is not going to function. It is outrageous that countries which have governed their economy badly are now putting their problems and debt on Finnish taxpayers."
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Africa
- WaPo - NATO runs short on some munitions in Libya
Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials.
The shortage of European munitions, along with the limited number of aircraft available, has raised doubts among some officials about whether the United States can continue to avoid returning to the air campaign if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi hangs on to power for several more months…
Opposition spokesmen in the western Libyan city of Misurata, under steady bombardment by government shelling, said Friday that Gaddafi’s forces had used cluster bombs, and Human Rights Watch said its representatives on the ground had witnessed the explosion of cluster munitions in civilian areas there. The Libyan government denied the weapons had been used. |
- Reuters - Egypt court dissolves Mubarak's former ruling party
An Egyptian court on Saturday ordered the dissolution of former President Hosni Mubarak's political party, meeting a demand of the pro-democracy movement whose protests ended his 30-year authoritarian rule.
The disbanding of the National Democratic Party (NDP) was likely to further appease protesters who had called off fresh demonstrations after the military council that now rules Egypt earlier this week ordered Mubarak detained for questioning about corruption allegations.
The NDP had dominated Egyptian politics since it was founded by Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in 1978. For many in Egypt, it epitomised the graft and abuse of power that helped ignite the protests which forced Mubarak to quit in February. |
- France24 - Stockpiles of arms across Abidjan threaten peace
Kalashnikovs, M16s and mortar shells are just some of the weapons that now litter the city of Abidjan after the brutal battle between supporters of Gbagbo and Ouattara. Clearing the streets of these weapons is now vital if peace is to be secured…
Since Friday, joint patrols that include tanks of the French “Operation Licorne” and pick-up trucks of the pro-Ouattara Republican Forces of Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI) have been combing the different neighbourhoods of Abidjan. The success of their mission hinges entirely on their ability to seize the numerous weapon stockpiles scattered all over this bustling city.
The arms were originally handed out by Charles Ble Goude, the leader of the pro-Gbagbo militia known as the Young Patriots, when he called on supporters of the ousted president to enlist in the army. |
- Science Now - Language May Have Helped Early Humans Spread Out of Africa
The story of humanity's prehistoric expansion across the planet is recorded in our genes. And, apparently, the story of the spread of language is hidden in the sounds of our words. That's the finding of a new study, which concludes that both people and languages spread out from an African homeland by a similar process—and that language may have been the cultural innovation that fueled our ancestors' momentous migrations…
Quentin Atkinson, a psychologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has long worked on language evolution, decided to look at language units whose pedigrees might be traceable further back: phonemes, the smallest units of sound that allow us to distinguish one word from another…
Atkinson looked at the phonemes from 504 languages across the world, using as his database the authoritative online World Atlas of Language Structures, which includes phonemes based on differences in the sounds of vowels, consonants, and spoken tones. He then constructed a series of models, demonstrating first that smaller populations have lower phoneme diversity. And, as also predicted if language arose in Africa, phoneme diversity was greatest in Africa and smallest in South America and Oceania (the islands of the Pacific Ocean), the points farthest from Africa. |
Middle East
- LAT - Syria protests swell as tens of thousands turn out
Antigovernment demonstrations sweeping Syria appeared to have crossed a threshold in size and scope, with protesters battling police near the heart of the capital and the protest movement uniting people from different regions, classes and religious backgrounds against the regime.
Tens of thousands of people turned out across the country Friday, dismissing minor concessions offered a day earlier by President Bashar Assad. The demonstrators called for freedom, the release of political prisoners and, in some instances, the downfall of the government, echoing demands for change across the Arab world.
Momentum seemed to be with the protesters… But it was the spread of large-scale protests into new corners of Damascus, the capital, and Assad's seat of power, that underscored the growing depth of the protest movement. |
- NYT - Syrian Leader Says He Will Lift Emergency Law
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria addressed his nation on Saturday in a televised speech aimed at appeasing a two-month-old protest movement that has posed an unprecedented challenge to his family’s four decades of rule, according to human rights groups.
In a speech at the swearing-in of a new cabinet, Mr. Assad announced a raft of new legal proposals, including a pledge to end the country’s 48-year-old emergency law within days, and he expressed sorrow for deaths that have taken place since antigovernment unrest began — perhaps more than 200, according to human rights groups.
“The blood that was shed in Syria pains us all,” he said, swearing in a cabinet named last week. “We are sad for every loss. We consider each of them martyrs.” |
- NYT - In Iraq, Bottoms Up for Democracy
Tariq Harb, who was a military attorney under Saddam Hussein and is now a constitutional lawyer and television talking head, was happy to see the liquor flowing again at the Iraqi Writers Union’s outdoor cafe. But many other Iraqis aren’t. “There are people who want to kill me because I drink,” he said, shuffling prayer beads at the cafe. “We are fighting the religious educators, the imams, the preachers, who are extremists.”
So goes the struggle to define Iraq’s emergent democracy and whether it can balance religion and secularism. If the issue of liquor offers any clues, the effort remains a work in progress.
In January, bars and clubs, including the Writers Union, were raided in what many Iraqis saw as a government move toward a stricter interpretation of Islamic law. The author of the ban on alcohol was the head of the Baghdad Provincial Council, Kamil al-Zaidi, who told The New York Times, “We are a Muslim country, and everyone must respect that.”
But soon after, as protests for reform began about other issues, the boozy haunts were allowed to reopen. And since then, Baghdad has seen a surprising renaissance of its night life. |
- AFP - UN calls for immediate probe into Iran camp raid
The UN called on Iraq to immediately start an independent inquiry into a raid on an Iranian opposition camp that left 34 dead, after expressing "deep concern" over the incident on Saturday.
The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) also said it would continue to help the Baghdad government find a permanent solution to deal with Camp Ashraf, which is home to around 3,500 Iranian exiles…
Iraqi security forces raided the camp as tensions between the opponents of Iran's clerical regime and the Iraqi authorities reached new heights. Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh denied the military carried out the killings and said Baghdad would hold its own investigation. |
- Tehran Times - Iran says Siemens behind Stuxnet cyber attack
The director of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization has said that the German engineering conglomerate Siemens should be held responsible for the infection of Iranian industrial sites by the Stuxnet computer worm.
“Siemens should explain why and how it provided the enemies with the information about the codes of the SCADA software (which is used at some of Iran’s major industrial sites) and prepared the ground for a cyber attack against us,” Gholam-Reza Jalali told IRNA on Saturday.
Iranian officials should lodge a complaint against Siemens, he said. |
South Asia
- BBC - Ten die in Afghanistan army base bomb
Five foreign and five Afghan troops have died in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials say. A Taliban suicide bomber wearing a military uniform hit an Afghan army base near the city of Jalalabad, the Afghan defence ministry said.
Coalition officials said five foreign troops died but gave no more details. Four Afghan soldiers and four translators were said to be injured. The attack was one of the deadliest in months against foreign troops. It took place shortly after 0730 (0330 GMT) when the bomber approached the gate of the military base and detonated his explosives.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, adding that the attacker was a "sleeper agent" who had served in the army for at least one month before launching his attack. |
- Times of India - India, Kazakhstan ink civil nuclear cooperation deal
Refusing to be scared away from nuclear energy as a viable source of power even after the Fukushima crisis, India on Saturday signed a civil nuclear agreement with Kazakhstan which gives Indian reactors access to uranium from the Central Asian country.
During a rare visit to Astana, PM Manmohan Singh also formalized a joint oil exploration deal between ONGC-Videsh and Kazmunaigas for a 25% stake in the Satpaev oil block in Caspian basin. Other agreements include those on mutual legal assistance, agriculture, cyber security and healthcare. The PM said, "They represent solid and substantive outcomes in sectors where we have complementary strengths."
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Asia
- Kyodo News - Fukushima seawater radioactivity rises inside containment fence
The level of radioactive substances in seawater increased sharply overnight inside a containment fence installed near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday.
The utility said the rise suggested that the fence is helping to curb the spread of contaminated water, but the government's Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency remained cautious, citing the possibility that radioactive water could still be seeping from the complex.
The company said the level of radioactive iodine rose Saturday morning to 260 becquerels per cubic centimeter in seawater inside the fence near an intake leading to the No. 2 reactor. The figure, 6,500 times the legal limit, was around six times the 42 becquerels detected the previous day, the company said, adding the reading of radioactive cesium had also jumped by four times. |
- LAT - To Japan quake survivors, temporary homes feel like heaven
The Terui family were among the winners of a lottery this month that involved 1,160 applicants, a stroke of luck that brought Mika close to heaven: She was able to take a shower for the first time in a month.
"It's just so wonderful to have hot water and electricity again," she said. "I'm just so happy to have a place we can call our own. We have privacy for our family again."
For many Japanese, the new housing complex was an upbeat sign that the country could focus on something other than death and destruction. They said the speed with which the units went up showed the resolve of a technologically advanced nation that has become a world leader in the development of robotics, high-speed trains and electronics.
With more than 150,000 people still at shelters across northern Japan, officials are aiming to build temporary housing for 62,000 households. Families will be expected to return to permanent housing within two years. |
- Globe and Mail - Uprooting the Chinese 'jasmine revolution’
Ai Weiwei was supposed to be untouchable, too well known as an artist and too well connected as the son of one of China’s most famous Communist poets to be treated like the country’s other dissidents.
He seemed to think so too, and dreamed up ever more outlandish ways of showing his disdain for the country’s authoritarian rulers, including a photograph of his middle finger raised in the direction of the Forbidden City.
And then suddenly he wasn’t protected any more. He was detained at customs at Beijing airport on April 3 and taken into custody. His family and friends – not to mention his 79,000 Twitter followers – haven’t heard from the 53-year-old since, though the government has confirmed that Mr. Ai is being investigated for unspecified “economic crimes.” …
It’s not clear what exactly prompted the Communist Party’s tough new line toward its critics, though most trace it to mysterious online calls earlier this year for Chinese to stage a Middle East-inspired “jasmine revolution.” Though few protesters actually showed up at the chosen demonstration sights, the online chatter seemed to spook the country’s leaders. |
- Reuters - Malaysian govt keeps key state but loses ground in tough poll
Malaysia's ruling coalition won the Sarawak election on Saturday but saw its grip on its bastion state sharply weakened, reducing the odds of snap polls for Prime Minister Najib Razak to fast track economic reforms demanded by investors.
The ruling coalition won 55 of 71 seats to retain its two-thirds majority but the opposition had 15 seats for its best showing in 24 years after campaigning on a platform of Christian anger against the government and frustration over the rule of the state's long-serving chief minister.
"We need to build on this momentum, what's important is that we maintain support so that it can be translated in the next general elections," Najib was quoted by local media as saying in Kuala Lumpur after the result was announced. |
Oceana
- SMH - It's all white to be a rare sight in the bush
That is not an escaped lab mouse on steroids peering through the grass of the Wolgan conservation area in the Blue Mountains. Nor is it a giant white rabbit on its way to a tea party. It is, in fact, a rare albino wallaroo, one of three that have been delighting staff and visitors at the Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa.
"We've had sightings of one mature albino wallaroo on the property since opening 18 months ago, but to have two more spotted on the property is incredibly rare and exciting for us and our guests," the resort's general manager Joost Heymeijer said.
The resort's field guides have noticed the albino wallaroos are more timid and less trusting of humans than their grey brothers and sisters, and wait until it is darker to come out to feed. The education program co-ordinator at Featherdale Wildlife Park in Doonside, Peter Spradbrow, said albinism is a rare condition where the skin, hair and eyes lack the pigment that gives them colour. |
Americas
- MercoPress - Cuba admits food imports bill is up 25% and “miracles are running out”
Cuba announced Friday that it will have to spend 25% more than its original estimates to pay the cost of food imports due to the international surge in commodity prices.
In a statement published Friday in the Communist Party daily Granma, the president of state-owned importer Alimport, Igor Montero, said that the impact of the world crisis on the Cuban economy this year is expected to total more than 308 million US dollars for basic products…
Cuba imports close to 80% of the food supplies consumed by its 11 million inhabitants at a cost of some 1.5 billion USD per year. |
- CNN - Human rights group presses for Duvalier trial in Haiti
Haiti has an opportunity to address the worst crimes of its past in prosecuting former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, a leading human rights monitoring agency says.
It is pressing for a full investigation and subsequent trial and urges the international community to lend resources to help fill gaps in Haiti's legal system.
"The Duvalier trial could be the most important criminal case in Haitian history," said Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch. "The challenges for Haiti's weak justice system to carry out a fair trial are enormous, but international support can help Haiti meet those challenges." |
- Guardian - New rights challenge to Belo Monte dam in Brazil
For the first time in the long drawn-out struggle between indigenous peoples living in the Xingú river basin and the Brazilian government, the underdogs have won the support of a sizeable ally. In a letter addressed to the state of Brazil, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) officially requested it "immediately suspend the licensing process for the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant project".
The commission was responding to an appeal lodged at the end of last year by non-government organisations including the Pará Society for the Defence of Human Rights. It asserts that the Brazilian authorities failed to organise proper consultation of the people affected by the dam project. This claim allegedly angered President Dilma Rousseff.
Among the dozen or so tribes concerned, the Arará and Paquiçamba groups would be hardest hit. It is not yet entirely clear how the dam would affect the region's ecosystem. A group of independent Brazilian scientists, who recently studied the environmental impact report, concluded that the project was not viable. |
- NYT - Fishermen in Amazon See a Rival in Dolphins
Along the rivers of the Amazon rain forest, people still recount legends in which pink dolphins are magical creatures that can turn into men and impregnate women. Brazilian musicians write songs about them, singing lovingly about the “eye of the river dolphin.”
But for Ronan Benício Rego, a fisherman in this tiny settlement, pink dolphins are both rival — and prey. Standing on the muddy banks of the river here recently, he said he had killed river dolphins many times before, to use as bait to catch a catfish that is sold to unknowing consumers in Brazil and Colombia.
“We want to make money,” said Mr. Rego, 43, the president of the community here. Two dead dolphins could yield about $2,400 in catfish sales in a single day of fishing, he said. |
- AP - U.S. State Dept. and ex-Uribe aide pressed in Drummond lawsuit
The U.S. State Department and Fabio Echeverri, a one-time adviser to former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, are being pressed for information in a U.S. court case brought by families of death squad victims in the South American nation.
The victims' relatives are suing an Alabama-based coal company that does business in Colombia for allegedly supporting the killers. The families have subpoenaed the State Department for any information about the relationship between the death squads and Drummond Company Inc., which is headquartered in Birmingham.
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- LAT - Body count from mass graves in Mexico rises to 145
The number of bodies pulled from mass graves in northeastern Mexico has risen to 145, officials said Friday, following the arrest of 16 police officers for allegedly providing cover to drug-cartel gangsters suspected in the grisly slayings.
Morelos Canseco, a senior government official for the state of Tamaulipas where the clandestine burials were discovered, said another 23 bodies were extracted Thursday. Unlike the previous victims who are thought to be passengers kidnapped recently from buses, the latest corpses had apparently been buried for a much longer time, Canseco said in a radio interview.
Canseco said none of the bus companies whose passengers were kidnapped ever informed authorities about the crimes. The newspaper Reforma reported Friday that there are 400 unclaimed suitcases at bus depots in the route's final destination city of Matamoros. |
- CS Monitor - Mexican opinion of US dwindles amid spread of Arizona-style immigration laws
No less than two dozen states have introduced pieces of legislation with “show me your papers” aspects, although there is some significant doubt whether they will ever be enforced…
"Criminalizing immigration will not stop the flow of Immigration," says Avelino Mendez, a lawmaker representing a Mexico City district. "These laws don’t solve anything.”
"These laws may change the way we see ‘el gabacho,' " says Guillermo Rivera, a constituent from Mr. Mendez’s district, using the Spanish slang for Americans. "But it won’t stop us from going there.”
Polling data does indeed reveal a sharply eroded opinion toward the US. Among 21 nations recently surveyed in the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, Mexicans had the largest decline in favorable opinion toward the US, with researchers eyeing the Arizona law as the cause. Such opinions are reflected across Mexican politics. Right-leaning President Felipe Calderón has said the Arizona law amounts to a tacit acceptance of racial profiling, echoing the sentiments of left-leaning Mr. Cárdenas. |
- Globe and Mail - Liberals drop gloves with attack ad on Harper’s ‘secret’ health agenda
Conservatives are reacting with fury to a Liberal attack ad that accuses them of harbouring a secret agenda to cut health care funding if they obtain a majority government.
“The Liberal ad uses some of the dirtiest tricks in the book — including twisting words out of context and deliberately altering dates to make old words appear recent,” Tory campaign manager Jenni Byrne wrote to party supporters in reaction to the new attack ad…
The letter raised eyebrows, including in the Liberal camp, since it is the Conservatives who, in the past, have been criticized for distorting, exaggerating or generally misrepresenting their opponents’ policies through attack ads.
"This is by far the silliest and most far fetched statement coming from the Harper Conservatives as they scramble to cover up Harper's stated views on health care and the cuts he's admitted to," said party spokesman Michel Liboiron. |
- McClatchy - Pacific salmon may be dying from leukemia-type virus
In Canada's Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma.
For 60 years before the early 1990s, an average of nearly 8 million wild salmon returned from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River each year to spawn. Now the salmon industry is in a state of collapse, with mortality rates ranging from 40 percent to 95 percent.
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