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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Yemen sentences 8 Shias to prison

A Yemeni court has sentenced eight Houthi fighters to up to 10 years in prison for resisting a government offensive outside Sana'a between March and June 2008.

The court sentenced 26-year-old former army captain Waleed al-Moayed, and 50-year-old Salem Hussein al-Baytari to 10 years in prison, AFP reported Sunday.

Yasser al-Wazeer, 28, Hussein al-Aghrabi, 19, Abdullah al-Jalal, 29, Al-Ezzy al-Muqdad, 30, and Mohammed al-Shahari, 30, were handed eight-year sentences. Ahmed al-Wazeer, 25, was sentenced to five years.

They were convicted of fighting government forces at Bani Husheish, 30 km (19 miles) north of the capital city of Sana'a.

Their sentences bring to 42 the number of Houthi fighters imprisoned over what the Yemeni government describes as "belonging to an armed group and carrying out a terrorist criminal plot that resulted in the death of many soldiers and citizens."

The government accuses fighters of breaching a ceasefire deal by taking foreign visitors hostage in 2009.

The fighters deny the charges, saying they seek to put an end the government's discriminatory policies against Shia minorities.

In August 2009, Yemen launched an offensive, joined by Saudi forces in November, against the fighters in north of the country.

The joint Yemeni-Saudi attacks have so far killed scores of civilians and displaced thousands of others in north.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116388§ionid=351020206.

Washington Moves to Control Iran's Revolution

by Shamus Cooke
Global Research, January 14, 2010

It seems that President Obama has finally woken up. He now realizes that the U.S. friendly “color revolution” in Iran that he hoped for — and planned for — has gotten out of control. To the Democrat’s terrible regret, a real revolution is under way.

An extremely revealing article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "US Shifts Focus to Support Iran’s Opposition," explains the U.S. government’s unpleasant wake-up call. The article is essentially a debate among state officials and other “experts” as to the Iranian movement’s strength, and whether or not it can be channeled to meet the needs of the U.S. government and the U.S. corporate interests it represents. The article states:

“...a number of Iran scholars in the U.S. said they have been contacted by senior administration officials eager to understand if the Iranian unrest suggested a greater threat to Tehran's government than originally understood.”

And:

“American diplomats, meanwhile, have begun drawing comparisons in public between Iran's current political turmoil and the events that led up to the 1979 overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlavi.”

The article also stated that “There's realization now that this unrest really matters." (January 10, 2010).

To the Democrats, this presents an urgent foreign policy re-shuffling: the U.S.-friendly leaders of Iran’s opposition movement — represented by their leader Moussavi — need to be strengthened, since their political approach is significantly more conservative than the still-radicalizing demands of Iran’s revolution, which already amounts to no less than a deep structural change in Iran's political and economic life. The "official" Iranian opposition wants no such change; as such, they have stopped organizing demonstrations and have become mere spectators, watching events unfold that have already passed them by.

This was already the case in June, when The New York Times reported:

“People in the street have been radicalized, and I do not believe that most of them would today subscribe to Moussavi’s avowed platform.” (June 24, 2009).

Also from The New York Times:

“...Mr. Moussavi... meant only to be an instrument for making Iran a tiny bit better, nothing more... Now, like us, Mr. Moussavi finds himself caught up in events that were unimaginable, each day’s march and protest more unthinkable than the one that came before.” (June 19, 2009).

It’s now been seven months since this commentary, and the revolution has only become more resolute and militant. The initial shouts against voter fraud have evolved into demanding "death to the dictator", combined with threats against other sections of Iran's political superstructure. The “respectable" opposition seems like a dinosaur in this context.

But Obama is determined to re-energize the already-extinct “official” opposition. He hopes that by financially targeting the current political rulers — through sanctions and bank account freezes — that the U.S. friendly Iranian opposition will be strengthened, while toppling the existing regime.

This is a risky maneuver. The outcome could in fact strengthen the current regime, and help unite people against the economic attacks of a foreign enemy. But any open collaboration between Iran’s opposition and the U.S. is also risky, since Iranians have a good memory of repressive U.S. interference in their country — when the C.I.A. organized the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 — not to mention more recent examples of U.S. imperialist foreign policy in neighboring Iran and Afghanistan.

The Wall Street Journal article is the first report of Iran’s opposition openly proposing plans to help de-stabilize the current regime and signifies Washington’s willingness to follow through.

It must be noted that Moussavi and other leaders of the U.S. friendly-section of Iran’s opposition do not represent progress for Iran. These people are arch-conservatives who constitute a resolute section of Iran’s repressive establishment. If they were to come to power, they would likely welcome U.S. business interests, while maintaining the repressive state apparatus used by the current regime, which is exactly why the U.S. wants them in power.

But the U.S. is walking a dangerous tightrope, since the energy of the revolution is more than capable of ruining all the U.S. plotting. Moussavi and his ilk are already in the process of being pushed aside. Real revolutions — unlike a U.S. “color revolution” — are not easily manipulated events; masses of suddenly-conscious people have high expectations that cannot be met by the corporate-controlled U.S. government.

If Obama were sincere about helping the people of Iran, he would leave the country in peace, instead of making threats and beating the war drum, a drum he’s pounding in the exact same rhythm that Bush played in the march to war with Iraq.

Hands off Iran!

Source: Global Research.
Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16940.

Israel bullied Abbas into deferring UN vote

Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas was bullied by Israel to postpone a UN vote on the Goldstone report last year, an Israeli newspaper says.

Abbas' decision to request the UN Human Rights Council to postpone a vote on the Goldstone report about the Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip followed a particularly tense meeting with the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service.

Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin told Abbas that if he did not ask for a deferral of the vote on the critical report on last year's military operation, Israel would turn the West Bank into a "second Gaza," Haaretz reported.

Diskin also threatened to revoke the easing of restrictions on movement within the West Bank that had been implemented earlier last year.

The Shin Bet chief, during the meeting, warned that Israel would withdraw permission for the mobile phone company Wataniya to operate in the Palestinian Authority. That would have cost the Palestinian Authority tens of millions of dollars in compensation payments to the company.

The Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip last year killed over 1,400 Palestinians, including many women and children.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116353§ionid=351020202.

Ex-Tehran prosecutor should stand 'trial'

The head of an Iranian parliamentary panel which blamed Tehran's former prosecutor for the death of three post-election protesters said Sunday the accused should stand before a judge and present evidence about the case.

Saeed Mortazavi, the former Tehran prosecutor who is now a deputy to the country's prosecutor general, has dismissed the charges.

He wrote a letter to Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Saturday, a copy of which was carried by Fars News Agency, saying he could not have ordered the detention of 147 protesters in Kahrizak prison — where at least three young men were killed last summer — as he was "on leave during the main period."

The protesters were rounded up after demonstrations erupted following the presidential election in June 2009.

Mortazavi said he supports the decision of his judges for taking actions against "thugs" in the riots who were wielding knives and daggers. He also warned against publicizing the report.

The parliamentary panel tasked with investigating the deaths pointed the finger of blame at Mortazavi for keeping the detainees in Kahrizak prison for "four days in a 70-square-meter (750-square-foot) space without ventilation in the heat of summer, hygienic standards, food and water, in addition to beating and intimidation by prison guards."

Parviz Sorouri, the lawmaker who heads the panel, told Mehr News Agency that the report was "based on undeniable evidence and documents" gathered by his team.

The lawmaker insisted a tribunal should be established to consider the panel's report. "Mr. Mortazavi should also present his evidence in this court," Sorouri said.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116381§ionid=351020101.

Taliban claim killing 6 US soldiers

The Taliban militants say they have killed six US soldiers in separate bombing attacks in the eastern Afghanistan province of Khost.

Taliban Spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the militants planted the roadside bomb that claimed two US soldiers in a passing military convoy in the province's Gurbez district on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, four other GIs died when their vehicle went over an improvised explosive device in Khost's provincial capital. The incident was similarly claimed by the militants.

The US-led International Security Assistance Force said earlier that another American soldier had died yesterday in another eastern province, Kunar, succumbing to injuries from a fight with the Taliban.

Brigadier-General Daniel Menard, the commander of the allied forces in Kandahar, also reported today the death of a Canadian soldier in an explosion in the southern province.

About 500 foreign forces died in the country last year.

Violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels in more than eight years of the US-led occupation despite the presence of more than 110,000 foreign forces there.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116380§ionid=351020403.

Haiti quake most serious humanitarian crisis: UN

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has described the catastrophe in the Central American nation as the "most serious humanitarian crisis" faced by the United Nations in Decades.

"I am going to Haiti with a very heavy heart to express solidarity and full support of the UN to the people of Haiti," the UN secretary-general told journalists accompanying him on the day-long trip to the disaster zone on Sunday, AFP reported.

"We have to prepare for the worst," Ban added, referring to UN employees still missing after the disaster that flattened much of the capital Port-au-Prince and nearby towns in western Haiti.

On Saturday, Hedi Annabi, the Algerian head of the UN mission in Haiti, was found in the rubble. The bodies of his deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa and Doug Coates, who served as chief of the UN police force in Haiti, were also recovered from the toppled Christopher Hotel, where the mission was headquartered.

Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime says the death toll the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that hit the nation could reach 200,000.

It is difficult for rescuers to provide the survivors the aid supplies as the poor country's infrastructure like ports, airports and roads are either ruined or badly damaged.

According to the UN chief the first priorities of the world body is to rescue as many people as possible, bring emergency humanitarian aid in the form of water, food and medication, and coordinate the massive aid effort.

By Saturday, more than 70 people were pulled out alive. Aftershocks continue to rattle the capital as survivors are in urgent need of aid.

Meanwhile, amid desperation and hunger, Haitian police have opened fire on a group of looters, killing one of them.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116379§ionid=351020706.

Russia says further anti-Iran sanctions futile

Moscow said on Saturday that imposing additional sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear energy program will most likely prove to be of no avail.

"I believe that in this particular situation, the effectiveness of [additional] sanctions is highly doubtful," said Russian Foreign Ministry Deputy Sergei Ryabkov, who represented Moscow at the meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1).

Meanwhile, an EU official said the six powers would continue to seek a diplomatic solution to the issue. However, he added that the P5+1 members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany — would also begin considering new sanctions.

"We will continue to seek a negotiated solution, but consideration of appropriate further measures has also begun," senior European Union security adviser Robert Cooper, who chaired the meeting, said on Sunday, without specifying the possible measures.

Although Cooper said that his statement was made on behalf of the P5+1, Ryabkov stressed that the six powers decided against new sanctions on Tehran.

The Russian deputy foreign minister added that the six powers had agreed to study new political methods to solve the issue.

"We will look at which measures can be developed in order to stimulate political and diplomatic solutions to the problem at hand," said Ryabkov.

"This does not mean that we have made a decision in regard to sanctions, this is the fulfillment of the mandate given by our ministers to complete a collective evaluation of the situation to decide what can be done further," the Russian official added.

"We do believe there is still time for meaningful political engagement, and efforts to find a solution. That's something that Russia has always advocated," he said.

P5+1 members had come together in the US capital to discuss possible new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Russia and China reportedly opposed any new measures. Beijing even sent a lower-level diplomat to show its reluctance to support tougher sanctions pushed by the West.

The US and its European allies were seeking to impose a new round of sanctions against Tehran, targeting certain high-ranking officials from Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and some of its affiliated companies.

Washington and its allies accuse Tehran of pursuing a military nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, has repeatedly said that it has found no evidence supporting the allegation.

The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, confirming the non-diversion of nuclear material in country's functional and under-construction plants.

Iran also denies the allegation, saying that it needs nuclear energy to produce electricity to meet the country's growing demand.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116378§ionid=351020104.

Iran's "WWII compensation commission" meets in Tehran

A task force assigned by Iran's president has begun their work in estimating the amount of damage inflicted on the Iranian nation during the Second World War.

The compensation commission, consisting of representatives from Iran's main ministries and organizations, concluded their first meeting on the task in Tehran Saturday.

Earlier this month, President Ahmadinejad had called for the need to demand reparations from the West for the damages inflicted on Iran during the world war that raged between 1939 and 1945.

At the outbreak of the conflict, Iran, which had declared its neutrality, was simultaneously invaded by Britain and the Soviet Union on August 26, 1941.

Iran served as a source of oil and a transit route for American war materials to the Soviet Union -- what the Allies came to call their "victory bridge" or the "Persian Corridor," as it was known.

Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States together managed to move over 5 million tons of munitions and other war materials across Iran to the Soviet Union.

The war had dire consequences for the ordinary citizens of Iran.

Thousands of Iranian civilians, from laborers and drivers to skilled mechanics, were forced to work the "little Detroit's" truck assembly plants at Iran's northern city of Andimeshk. In one year, 648,000 vehicles were built in Iran for shipment to the Soviet Union.

Severe inflation imposed great hardship on the lower and middle classes, while fortunes were made by individuals dealing in scarce items.

The country's population also suffered food shortages, as the invading forces had bought up most of the grain intended for the Iranian marketplace.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116376§ionid=351020101.

Germany provides instant satellite maps of Haiti

Bonn, Germany - Instant satellite maps of Haiti that show which roads have been cut by its killer earthquake have been passed to relief workers, Germany's space agency DLR said Saturday. The images of the landscape were passed to the German Red Cross and the German civil-defense agency THW.

A DLR spokeswoman in Bonn explained, "Satellites make images of land surfaces much like a digital scanner. Our scientists decoded this data and turned it into up-to-the-minute maps."

A Bonn relief group, Help, said it had landed two workers in Haiti early Saturday, while another group, the Knights of Malta aid arm, said it was about to fly its second medical relief mission into Haiti.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304128,germany-provides-instant-satellite-maps-of-haiti.html.

Iran bans Umrah Hajj amid row with Saudi regime

Iran announces a temporary ban on making the Umrah Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia for Iranians following the souring of relations between the Islamic Republic and the Saudi Kingdom in recent months.

"The Umrah (minor hajj pilgrimage) ceremonies for the next year have been banned temporarily," Fars News Agency reported Saturday, quoting Hojjatoleslam Ali Qazi-Askar, the new representative of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Hajj Affairs

"There are certain problems,” said Qazi-Askar. “Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization are currently following up political issues."

He added that Iranian and Saudi authorities have held negotiations to settle their differences and said, "Saudi Arabia is not keen to stop Umrah Hajj."

Meanwhile, the Head of the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization Ali Layali told the Iranian Students News Agency that the mistreatment of Iranian pilgrims by the Saudi police officials have led Tehran to negotiate with Riyadh "to agree on certain conditions."

He added that an Iranian delegation would hold talks with Saudi officials soon and expressed hope that the negotiations would bear appropriate outcomes.

"If we reach an understanding with the Saudi side, we will resume the Umrah Hajj in the shortest time," he said.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116300§ionid=351020101.

This day in history

Saturday, January 16, 2010

{Zsqf}In 1978, NASA named 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who became America’s first woman in space.

Today is Saturday, Jan. 16, the 16th day of 2010. There are 349 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

•On Jan. 16, 1920, Prohibition began in the United States as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect, one year to the day after its ratification. (It was later repealed by the 21st Amendment.)

On this date:

•In 1547, Ivan IV of Russia (popularly known as “Ivan the Terrible”) was crowned czar.

•In 1883, the U.S. Civil Service Commission was established.

•In 1919, pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski became the first premier of the newly created republic of Poland.

•In 1935, fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, were killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Fla.

•In 1942, actress Carole Lombard, 33, her mother and about 20 other people died when their plane crashed near Las Vegas while returning from a war-bond promotion tour.

•In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off under extremely tight security; on board was Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. (The mission ended in tragedy when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.)

•In 2007, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., launched his successful bid for the White House.

•Ten years ago: Ricardo Lagos was elected Chile’s first socialist president since Salvador Allende.

•Five years ago: The U.S. military freed 81 detainees in Afghanistan, ahead of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. Golden Globes were awarded to “The Aviator” as best movie drama and “Sideways” as best movie musical or comedy.

•One year ago: President-elect Barack Obama made a pitch for his massive economic stimulus plan at a factory in Bedford Heights, Ohio, saying his proposal would make smart investments in the country’s future and create solid jobs in up-and-coming industries. Painter Andrew Wyeth died in Chadds Ford, Pa., at age 91. John Mortimer, the British lawyer-writer who’d created the curmudgeonly criminal lawyer Rumpole of the Bailey, died in the Chiltern Hills, England, at age 85.

•Today’s Birthdays: Author William Kennedy is 82. Author-editor Norman Podhoretz is 80. Opera singer Marilyn Horne is 76. Auto racer A.J. Foyt is 75. Singer Barbara Lynn is 68. Country singer Ronnie Milsap is 67. Country singer Jim Stafford is 66. Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger is 63. Movie director John Carpenter is 62. Actress-dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen is 60. Comedian Robert Schimmel is 60. Singer Sade is 51. Rock musician Paul Webb (Talk Talk) is 48. R&B singer Maxine Jones (En Vogue) is 44. Actor David Chokachi is 42. Actor Richard T. Jones is 38. Actress Josie Davis is 37. Model Kate Moss is 36. Rock musician Nick Valensi (The Strokes) is 29. Actress Yvonne Zima is 21.

Source: Telegraph.
Link: http://www.telegram.com/article/20100116/DIGESTS/1160336/1011/RSS01&source=rss.

Chavez raises minimum wage by 25%

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez announced a 25-per cent increase in Venezuela’s minimum wage on Friday to try to blunt the effects of soaring inflation, and defended his handling of an energy crisis and other domestic problems.

Mr. Chavez challenged opponents’ predictions that his popularity could take a dive due to measures such as last week’s currency devaluation and rolling blackouts imposed by the government.

Mr. Chavez said the minimum wage will increase 10 per cent in March and 15 per cent in September, bringing it to nearly 1,200 bolivars, or $521 at a new preferential exchange rate set last week for priority goods such as food. Inflation is widely expected to surge higher this year after last week’s devaluation.

Mr. Chavez’s government also began power outages of up to four hours a day throughout the country this week. But a day after the measures took effect, Mr. Chavez suspended the outages in the capital of Caracas, saying the rationing plan was riddled with mistakes.

Critics say Mr. Chavez backtracked in response to widespread anger among the city’s estimated six million residents.

Venezuelans have also been coping with water rationing.

Source: The Hindu.
Link: http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/17/stories/2010011756571200.htm.

Somalia: Explosions Rock Galkayo, Somaliland Officer Killed in Las Anod

15 January 2010

At least two explosions happened in Galkayo town of Puntland State of Somalia on Friday night after unknown assailants attacked two radio stations.

The attackers targeted Radio Galkayo in the Puntland-controlled north of Galkayo and Radio Voice of Mudug, which is in South Galkayo under Galmudug State control.

Hand grenades were hurled into the radio station buildings but no one was injured in the attacks, sources said. The buildings were damaged.

Puntland police arrested two suspects including a woman in connection with the attack in North Galkayo. The assailants who targeted the radio station in South Galkayo escaped.

Separately, a senior military officer with the Somaliland army was killed in the disputed town of Las Anod, capital of Sool region.

Sources said the killers wore masks and escaped authorities. The dead officer hails from Sool region, which is disputed between the separatist republic of Somaliland and the Puntland regional government in northeast Somalia.

The killing comes a day after unknown gunmen attacked a police station in Las Anod, wounding three Somaliland police officers.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201001170010.html.

International Space Station crew takes spacewalk

2010-01-15

MOSCOW - Two Russian cosmonauts conducted a spacewalk on Thursday intended to activate a new segment on the International Space Station so it can dock Russian spacecraft.

The effort was expected to last nearly six hours, and Americans Jeff Williams and Timothy J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi of Japan were supporting the mission from inside the space station.

Cosmonauts Maxim Suraev and Oleg Kotov ventured into open space at 1:05 p.m. Moscow time (1005 GMT, 5:05 a.m. EST) to activate the new module and make it ready for docking, said Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin.

They will work on the Russian Poisk module to link it to the station's communications and power systems, and prepare it for future dockings with the Russian spacecraft, Lyndin said. The research module was launched in November.

The spacewalk was the third one for Kotov, who made two spacewalks in 2007 totaling more than 11 hours, and the first for Suraev.

Suraev and Williams, the station's commander, will be the first to use the new docking port when they relocate their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from another docking port on the station next week.

Lyndin said that redocking the ship will allow the engineers to more efficiently adjust the station's orbit later this month.

With the U.S. shuttle fleet set to be grounded soon, NASA and other international partners will have to rely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft alone to ferry their astronauts to the space station and back.

The increase of the station's permanent crew, which had consisted of no more than three people until last May, means that two Soyuz spacecraft must be permanently docked at the station to serve as lifeboats in case of emergency.

Source: Muzi.
Link: http://dailynews.muzi.com/news/ll/english/10097625.shtml.

Thousands of Americans died from H1N1 even after receiving vaccine shots

(NaturalNews) The CDC is engaged in a very clever, statistically devious spin campaign, and nearly every journalist in the mainstream media has fallen for its ploy. No one has yet reported what I'm about to reveal here.

It all started with the CDC's recent release of new statistics about swine flu fatalities, infection rates and vaccination rates. According to the CDC:

• 61 million Americans were vaccinated against swine flu (about 20% of the U.S. population). The CDC calls this a "success" even though it means 4 out of 5 people rejected the vaccines.

• 55 million people "became ill" from swine flu infections.

• 246,000 Americans were hospitalized due to swine flu infections.

• 11,160 Americans died from the swine flu.

Base on these statistics, the CDC is now desperately urging people to get vaccinated because they claim the pandemic might come back and vaccines are the best defense.

But here's the part you're NOT being told.

The CDC statistics lie by omission. They do not reveal the single most important piece of information about H1N1 vaccines: How many of the people who died from the swine flu had already been vaccinated?

Many who died had already been vaccinated
The CDC is intentionally not tracking how many of the dead were previously vaccinated. They want you (and mainstream media journalists) to mistakenly believe that ZERO deaths occurred in those who were vaccinated. But this is blatantly false. Being vaccinated against H1N1 swine flu offers absolutely no reduction in mortality from swine flu infections.

And that means roughly 20% of the 11,160 Americans who died from the swine flu were probably already vaccinated against swine flu. That comes to around 2,200 deaths in people who were vaccinated!

How do I know that swine flu vaccines don't reduce infection mortality? Because I've looked through all the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials that have ever been conducted on H1N1 vaccines. It didn't take me very long, because the number of such clinical trials is ZERO.

That's right: There is not a single shred of evidence in existence today that scientifically supports the myth that H1N1 vaccines reduce mortality from H1N1 infections. The best evidence I can find on vaccines that target seasonal flu indicates a maximum mortality reduction effect of somewhere around 1% of those who are vaccinated. The other 99% have the same mortality rate as people who were not vaccinated.

So let's give the recent H1N1 vaccines the benefit of the doubt and let's imagine that they work just as well as other flu vaccines. That means they would reduce the mortality rate by 1%. So out of the 2,200 deaths that took place in 2009 in people who were already vaccinated, the vaccine potentially may have saved 22 people.

61 million injections add up to bad public health policy
So let's see: 61 million people are injected with a potentially dangerous vaccine, and the actual number "saved" from the pandemic is conceivably just 22. Meanwhile, the number of people harmed by the vaccine is almost certainly much, much higher than 22. These vaccines contain nervous system disruptors and inflammatory chemicals that can cause serious health problems. Some of those problems won't be evident for years to come... future Alzheimer's victims, for example, will almost certainly those who received regular vaccines, I predict.

Injecting 61 million people with a chemical that threatens the nervous system in order to avoid 22 deaths -- and that's the best case! -- is an idiotic public health stance. America would have been better off doing nothing rather than hyping up a pandemic in order to sell more vaccines to people who don't need them.

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/027956_H1N1_vaccine_CDC.html.

U.N. confirms death of Haiti mission chief Annabi

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. mission chief in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, died in Tuesday's earthquake that devastated the country's capital, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Saturday.

Annabi, a Tunisian, was believed to be 65.

In a statement, Ban also confirmed the death of Annabi's deputy, Brazilian Luiz Carlos da Costa, and of the acting U.N. police commissioner in Haiti, Doug Coates of Canada.

Ban gave no details of how the bodies had been found, but the world body said earlier this week that Annabi and his aides were under the rubble of the Hotel Christopher, the U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, and could be alive or dead.

Haitian President Rene Preval said on Wednesday that Annabi had died, but the United Nations said at the time it could not confirm that.

Annabi is the first U.N. mission chief to die in the line of duty since Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil was killed along with 14 other U.N. staff when a truck bomb exploded outside the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in 2003.

Ban described Annabi as "the gold standard of service against which all who had the privilege to work with him were measured." He hailed the Tunisian's "unparalleled work ethic -- he was the first in and the last out every day for his entire career."

After working in the Tunisian foreign service, Annabi joined the United Nations in 1981. For nearly a decade, he worked on a political settlement in Cambodia before joining the U.N. peacekeeping department where he rose to be an assistant secretary-general. He had held the Haiti job since 2007.

Ban said of Annabi, da Costa and Coates that "in every sense of the word, they gave their lives for peace."

By Friday, the U.N. death toll in Haiti had stood at 37. The deaths announced by Ban raise that to at least 40, but U.N. officials expect it ultimately to rise well over 100.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that under the leadership of Annabi and his team, the U.N. mission in Haiti "helped the country turn a corner after the suffering it endured in recent years."

"This is an effort now set back by this unimaginable catastrophe," she said.

Source: Malaysian Star.
Link: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/17/worldupdates/2010-01-17T075854Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-454510-1&sec=Worldupdates.

Hezbollah Accuses Arab Leaders of Caving to U.S. Pressure

BEIRUT — The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah accused Arab leaders Saturday of caving in to U.S. pressure to bring the Palestinians back to peace talks with Israel.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah made the statement after meeting Friday with the political leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Last week, the Obama administration laid out a bold shift in its Mideast peace strategy, stepping up pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to resume stalled talks by moving immediately to negotiations on the toughest issues dividing them, like the borders of a Palestinian state and the status of Jerusalem.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that dealing with those matters first would eliminate Palestinian concerns about continued construction of Jewish settlements in disputed areas. The Palestinians have refused to return to talks until such building stops.

A Hezbollah statement said Nasrallah and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal discussed "the ongoing political movement to resume negotiations under Israeli conditions." It added that this shows "the level of retreat and weakness in the official Arab position facing Israeli dangers and American pressure."

President Barack Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, is expected in the region this week to press for a resumption of peace talks.

Source: Fox News.
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583194,00.html.

Israel threatens to expel Turkish ambassador

Tel Aviv, which is at odds with Ankara, has threatened to expel the Turkish ambassador, should Turkish dramas depicting Israeli brutality continue.

In a series of confrontations between the once-close allies, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that if a Turkish drama — the second of its kind — continues to depict Israeli security forces as brutal, the country's ambassador could be expelled.

This is while, Turkey is set to make a feature length movie depicting the "Israeli crimes against humanity."

The movie would "depict Israel as it is — with bloody hands, merciless... flouting all human values," against a backdrop of the Palestinian suffering in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Turkish scriptwriter Bahadir Ozdener said, AFP reported.

Ayalon made the threat during an interview with Channel 2 on Saturday, a day before Defense Minister Ehud Barak was due to fly to Turkey for a first visit by an Israeli official since the feud erupted.

Ayalon had called in Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to reprimand him over a TV program that showed Israeli agents kidnapping children and shooting old men. He was forced to apologize after Turkey threatened to recall its ambassador.

He also said that the incident, in which he reportedly 'humiliated' Ambassador Celikkol by making him sit in a lower chair, was intended to send the Turks a threatening message, not to humiliate the ambassador.

On his one-day visit, Barak is scheduled to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Vecdi Gonul, and with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Both visits will take place in Ankara.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116340§ionid=351020202.

New Turkish film on Israeli war crimes

A damning Turkish motion picture, aimed at depicting the "Israeli crimes against humanity," is set to further alienate Ankara from Tel Aviv.

The movie would "depict Israel as it is - with bloody hands, merciless... flouting all human values," against a backdrop of the Palestinian suffering in the blockaded Gaza Strip, the national daily Vatan quoted Turkish scriptwriter Bahadir Ozdener as saying, according to an AFP report.

"What we do is fiction,” said Ozdener. “But what about what they do, their crimes against humanity? They are real."

Tel Aviv took issue with Ankara over the "Valley of the Wolves" - the TV series boasting Ozdener's contribution which, besides other patriotic depictions, featured the emancipation of a Turkish boy captured by the Israeli intelligence apparatus, Mossad.

Reacting to the series, Israel called Turkish ambassador Oguz Celikkol to account, seating him on a low couch and removing the Turkish flag from the table of discussion. Celikkol was later quoted by the Anatolia news agency as denouncing the humiliating treatment as one "that will go down in the books of diplomatic history," AFP added.

Downplaying the Israeli ire at the matter, Ozdener said, "It is Israel who must show remorse.... If they cannot see themselves in the mirror, we know how to hold the mirror to their face."

The bilateral relations took a mortal blow after Israel brought the Gaza Strip under heavy aerial, artillery and naval bombardments at the turn of the year.

In October, Ankara canceled a military exercise with Israel in denunciation of the raids which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later criticized the international community for seeking to incriminate Islam while Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116311§ionid=351020204.

US Army to 'protect' Pakistan's nuclear sites

In face of a growing anti-Americanism among the Pakistan military, the US army moves to train a 'crack unit' to thwart possible attacks on the country's nuclear facilities.

The unit would be responsible to take back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event the militants gain access to the strategic devices and materials, the Pakistani daily The Nation reported Sunday.

The measure is taken as the US military fears the possibility of an attack "from inside the country's security apparatus," added the report.

The daily notes that the rising anti-Americanism among the Pakistani military personnel, as well as a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, has prompted the US officials to take the action.

“There have been attacks on (Pakistani) army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities," Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department's intelligence unit, was quoted as saying.

Larssen claimed the nuclear Pakistan houses "the highest density of extremists in the world," declaring that the US has the right to be concerned over the issue.

Heated debate has been going on between the US and Pakistani officials over the security of its nuclear facilities over the past two weeks.

There have been reports that US officials' primary goal is to gain access to and disable or neutralize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, which they consider as a possible threat to US and Israeli security.

Pakistani nuclear arms have also been referred to as an “Islamic Bomb” in the American and Israeli press and political circles, highlighting their mindset regarding the country's atomic weapons, which was meant to rival India's. India's nuclear arms, however, have never been raised as a concern in western circles.

In 2007, militants attacked military facilities at Sargodha, in Punjab, and at Kamra, in Attock district, which are thought to house nuclear weapons.

In August 2008, militants blew up the gates to the Wah weapons complex in Punjab. The attack left 63 people dead.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116374§ionid=351020401.

Senegal proposes right of return to Africa for Haiti quake victims

Nairobi/Dakar, Senegal (Earth Times) - The victims of last week's earthquake in Haiti should be offered a "right of return" to Africa, says Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, the online edition of the Le Soleil newspaper reported Sunday. Wade argues that because many Haitians are the descendants of slaves forcibly sent to the Western hemisphere, Africa needs to show its hospitality to them, the report said, citing a presidential spokesman.

"They have the same right to African soil as we do. It would be a return home."

Wade plans to present a resolution to that effect before the African Union.

The president noted the example of Liberia, a nation formed of slaves returning to Africa, which showed that such a return is "difficult, but not impossible."

Haitians search desperately for missing relatives

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – They wait outside crumbled schools or shattered markets, searching for sisters, fathers, children, lovers. They stand vigil at smashed buildings where sons were last known to be, or at tangles of concrete where their mothers once went shopping.

Across the ruins of Port-au-Prince — and from computer screens around the world — people are desperate to learn whether loved ones are among the living — or buried anonymously.

At the small mountain of rubble where the luxury Montana Hotel stood, Johanne Lerebours did not look hopeful. But, she said, "I have to have hope because there are people alive in there."

Her brother Alain was in the hotel restaurant when Tuesday's earthquake hit.

No one knows how many dozens of people are missing from the hotel because its register is buried. But Lerebours came when she heard that rescue dogs found three people alive in the rubble Saturday morning. The hotel's co-owner — a prominent resident of the community — was rescued early Sunday.

Lerebours' mood swings wildly between despair and hope. As the 43-year-old kindergarten teacher spoke, rescue workers descended from the rubble carrying a corpse in a silver body bag.

"I just hope that isn't where I'm going to find my brother. I just don't know. And I need to know," she said.

Yet she could not bring herself to look into any body bags Friday, when people were asked if they could identify victims from the hotel.

"It was clear the bodies inside were bloated. I couldn't bear the thought that that might be my last memory of my brother. I finally peeked into one. It just had someone's legs."

Haitians abroad are using Web sites and social networking systems to look for family members, but on the devastated island nation itself, people are resorting to more primitive methods. Town criers drive through neighborhoods announcing the names of missing people and locations of relatives who are trying to find them.

The earthquake struck just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, when many workers were away from home. After buildings collapsed, dazed survivors cried out for loved ones and wandered past dead bodies in streets made unfamiliar by the huge heaps of rubble.

The impoverished country's already poor communications system also collapsed, both because cellular telephone towers were toppled and because of an overload of calls from people trying to find family and friends.

Only one cellular network is working at the moment, and then only sporadically. Landline telephones are dead. Haitians once again are reduced to relying on "radio jol," or bush radio, as they call the network that speedily spreads news by word of mouth.

The Red Cross launched a Web site Thursday for relatives and friends to post names of the missing. It quickly swelled to more than 18,000 names in just over 24 hours.

Officials also set up old-fashioned desks in Port-au-Prince where people could physically register missing people starting Sunday.

"People can give us information, and we do the footwork" of tracking them down and putting them in touch with family," said Simon Schorno, a spokesman for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross.

There have been many remarkable rescues since the quake struck. There was another early Sunday as Montana Hotel co-owner Nadine Cardoso was pulled to safety.

Cardoso, 62, was dehydrated but otherwise uninjured, said her husband, Reinhard Riedl. He had been waiting anxiously for more than 100 hours since the quake, first hearing a report she was alive, only to learn it was about another person.

Then, late Saturday afternoon, as rescuers worked to free three survivors trapped under rubble, his son said he heard his mother's voice. Ecuadorean Red Cross workers said they heard a woman speaking French.

"It's a little miracle. She's one tough cookie. She is indestructible," Riedl said Saturday.

Doctors reached Cardoso late Saturday and extracted her Sunday — some 20 family members and friends gathering to watch as word of the rescue spread. Workers used a stretcher and rope to lower her down a hill of debris as onlookers clapped.

"She has no injuries, but they have given her an infusion to stabilize her system, that's all," Riedl said.

While helmeted foreign rescue workers used search dogs, power saws and fiber-optic cameras to hunt for survivors, ordinary Haitians did the same with bare hands.

Untold thousands of families are missing loved ones.

"Everyone you talk to has a story," Lerebours said. "The woman who works for me as a cook, she doesn't know if her mother is alive."

The cook's sister called from the southern resort town of Jacmel on Wednesday to say the family home had been destroyed. "Then the phone line was cut. There's been no communication since."

Lerebours' cook does not know where her sister and the sister's four children are. The neighborhood where they lived in the Port-au-Price suburb of Nerette was destroyed.

"They couldn't even find the house, there's such a mess of rubble," Lerebours said. "They couldn't find anyone who could tell them what had happened."

Nozile Claude, 38, was eager to distribute a list of survivors from an orphanage in Port-au-Prince's Nazon district.

"Nine people died, and we have 56 survivors, some seriously injured, but the rumor's going around that everyone was killed because the orphanage was flattened," he said from one of the dozens of refugee camps that have sprung up across Port-au-Prince.

Some people have no hope, even though they have seen no bodies.

"We can't find four members of our family, but I have no hope for them. So many people have disappeared," said Benson Charles, a 21-year-old information technology student. "Twenty of us from my family managed to get out of the house after it collapsed. We couldn't do anything for the others."

Haitians desperate for supplies; rescues continue

By MICHELLE FAUL and MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Rescuers pulled a dehydrated but otherwise uninjured woman from the ruins of a luxury hotel in the Haitian capital early Sunday, an event greeted with applause from onlookers witnessing rare good news in a city otherwise filled with corpses, rubble and desperation.

"It's a little miracle," the woman's husband, Reinhard Riedl, said after hearing she was alive in the wreckage. "She's one tough cookie. She is indestructible."

For many, though, the five days since the magnitude-7.0 quake hit have turned into an aching wait for the food, water and medical care slowly making its way from an overwhelmed airport rife with political squabbles. And while aid is reaching the country, growing impatience among the suffering has spawned some violence.

Nobody knows how many died in Tuesday's quake. Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies — not counting those recovered by independent agencies or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press.

The Pan American Health Organization now says 50,000 to 100,000 people perished in the quake. Bellerive said 100,000 would "seem to be the minimum."

A U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman declared the quake the worst disaster the international organization has ever faced, since so much government and U.N. capacity in the country was demolished. In that way, Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva, it's worse than the cataclysmic Asian tsunami of 2004: "Everything is damaged."

Truckloads of corpses were being trundled to mass graves Saturday. Search teams also recovered the body of Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, the United Nations chief of mission in Haiti, and other top U.N. officials who were killed when their headquarters collapsed.

Experts have said rescue of people trapped beneath wreckage after three days is unlikely. But an American team pulled a woman alive from a collapsed university building where she had been trapped for 97 hours. Another crew got water to three survivors whose shouts could be heard deep in the pancaked ruins of a multistory supermarket.

At the Hotel Montana, the son of co-owner Nadine Cardoso said he could hear her voice from the rubble, and the effort to pull her to safety began. Twelve hours later, with more than 20 friends and relatives of the prominent community member watching early Sunday, she was lowered from a hill of debris on a stretcher.

The rescue was bittersweet for Cardoso's sister, because rescuers also told Gerthe Cardoso they had abandoned a search for her 7-year-old grandson after an aftershock closed a space where he was believed to be.

"Well, we can't have them both," she said after her sister was saved.

Later Sunday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to arrive in Haiti to discuss aid delivery, which appeared to be speeding up.

Florence Louis, seven months pregnant with two children, was one of thousands of Haitians who gathered at a gate at the Cite Soleil slum, where U.N. World Food Program workers handed out high-energy biscuits for the first time.

"It is enough because I didn't have anything at all," said Louis, 29, clutching four packets of biscuits.

The Haitian government has established 14 distribution points for food and other supplies, and U.S. Army helicopters scouted locations for more. Aid groups opened five emergency health centers. Vital gear, such as water-purification units, was arriving from abroad.

On a hillside golf course, perhaps 50,000 people were sleeping in a makeshift tent city overlooking the stricken capital. Paratroopers of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division flew there Saturday to set up a base for handing out water and food.

After the initial frenzy among the waiting crowd, when helicopters could only hover and toss out their cargo, a second flight landed and soldiers passed out some 2,000 military-issue ready-to-eat meals to an orderly line of Haitians.

But aid delivery was still bogged down by congestion at the Port-au-Prince airport, quake damage at the seaport, poor roads and the fear of looters and robbers.

"Many people are just fleeing to the countryside, they are looking for a place to stay and for food," said Enel Legrand, a 24-year-old Haitian volunteer aid worker.

The airport congestion also touched off diplomatic rows between the U.S. military and other donor nations. France and Brazil both lodged official complaints that the U.S. military, in control of the international airport, had denied landing permission to relief flights from their countries.

Haitian President Rene Preval, speaking with the AP, urged all to "keep our cool and coordinate and not throw accusations."

As relief teams grappled with on-the-ground obstacles, U.S. leadership promised Saturday to step up aid efforts. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited and pledged more American assistance. President Barack Obama met with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in Washington and urged Americans to donate to Haiti relief efforts.

In Port-au-Prince, hundreds of Haitians simply dropped to their knees outside a warehouse when workers for the agency Food for the Poor announced they would distribute rice, beans and other supplies.

"They started praying right then and there," said project director Clement Belizaire.

Children and the elderly were asked to step first into line, and some 1,500 people got food, soap and rubber sandals until supplies ran out, he said.

Israeli cabinet minister to visit Abu Dhabi

An Israeli cabinet minister is to visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the first time, despite no diplomatic ties between the two governments.

Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau will attend a conference of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, AP reported.

Israel's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor has declared that this will be the first visit by an Israeli cabinet minister to the UAE capital.

He claimed, however, that the trip is "within the framework of an international conference and not in a bilateral framework."

Israel has formal diplomatic ties with only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116368§ionid=351020205.

China confirms deaths of police officers in Haiti quake

Beijing - China confirmed Sunday that the bodies of all eight of its police officers buried under a collapsed building in the Haiti earthquake had been found, state media reported.

The Ministry of Public Security said the bodies were retrieved by the efforts of a Chinese rescue team, the country's peacekeeping force in Haiti and several foreign rescue teams.

Four of the victims were officers of China's peacekeeping force in Haiti and the rest were in a team sent by the ministry to Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, for peacekeeping consultations, according to the ministry.

The eight were meeting UN officials in the headquarters of the UN Stabilization Mission in Port-au-Prince when the quake struck at about 4:50 pm Tuesday.

The team of consultants had just arrived in Haiti the same day.

"The eight comrades who sacrificed their lives during the Haiti quake are outstanding representatives of the 2 million Chinese police force members," the ministry said. "They are the models for public security departments across the country to learn from."

A total of 142 Chinese police peacekeepers are deployed in Haiti.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304187,china-confirms-deaths-of-police-officers-in-haiti-quake.html.

China launches third orbiter for global navigation system

Xichang, China (Xinhua) - China successfully launched an orbiter into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in south-western Sichuan province Sunday, state media reported. It was the third orbiter launched for the country's independent satellite navigation network known as Beidou, or Compass system, Xinhua news agency said.

The network which will eventually have a total of 35 satellites, capable of providing global navigation service to users around the world around 2020.

The Beidou system will provide navigation, time signal and short message services in Asian and Pacific region beginning in 2012, the agency reported.

The COMPASS system will provide both open and authorized services, according to China's satellite navigation project center.

The open service will be free of charge for the system's users in the service area, at a resolution of 10 meters for positioning, an accuracy of 10 nanoseconds for time signal and accuracy of 0.2 meter per second for speed measurement, the report said.

The authorized service will provide more accurate services for subscribers.

China began building its own satellite navigation program to break its dependence on the US-based GPS system in 2000, when it launched two orbiters as an experimental positioning system.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304188,china-launches-third-orbiter-for-global-navigation-system.html.

Japan marks 15th anniversary of Kobe earthquake

Tokyo - Japan marked the 15th anniversary Sunday of the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that hit Kobe and neighboring cities, killing more than 6,400 people and injuring nearly half a million. The anniversary came just days after a powerful quake hit Haiti.

People converged in a Kobe park before dawn to light thousands of bamboo lanterns in the shape of "1995" and "1.17" and offered silent prayers at 5:46 am, the time the temblor jolted the city.

In the Kobe quake, high rises and highway overpasses crashed down and fires raged throughout the major port.

But today the city bears few signs of the devastating temblor.

More than 400 people, including Crown Prince Naruhito, Princess Msako and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, attended the ceremony held in the city Sunday.

"The image of the people trying to overcome difficulties is deeply etched in my memory," the prince said.

Hatoyama also said, "It is an important political role to make the nation well-prepared for a natural disaster and protect human lives."

When the earthquake hit, local and central government officials were harshly criticized for their slow response and inefficient work. But groups of first-time volunteers became the key to relief efforts.

Seiji Yoshimura was one of such volunteers who flocked to help out. Yoshimura later quit his job in Tokyo and formed the volunteer Response Association Kobe Genki Mura in Kobe to help victims and rebuild the international port city.

Other citizens' groups also began to spring up all over Japan and volunteerism wove itself more into the life of the society.

Yoshimura started Human Shield Kobe, another civic group, four years ago. It has responded to many natural disasters at home and abroad.

"I believe it is a responsibility of Kobe as a quake-hit city to use its lessons and experiences in other disaster-stricken areas," Yoshimura said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304209,japan-marks-15th-anniversary-of-kobe-earthquake.html.

Polls open in Chile's tight presidential run-off election

Santiago- Polls opened Sunday in a Chilean presidential run-off election that was expected to be very tight, with the two candidates technically tied, according to a recent opinion poll. In fact, the vote could turn out to be historic, if Eduardo Frei, 67, the candidate of the center-left alliance that has ruled Chile since the restoration of democracy in 1990, loses to conservative multimillionaire Sebastian Pinera, 60.

With about 8 million Chileans registered to vote, polling stations were set to close at 2000 GMT. Exit poll results were expected to be available shortly afterward, with the first preliminary official results to be made public later Sunday.

The ruling Concertacion - a coalition of Socialists and Christian- Democrats with two smaller parties - is facing the possibility of losing power for the first time in its history, despite the huge popularity of outgoing President Michelle Bachelet.

Indeed, Pinera easily won the December 13 first round of voting with 44 per cent, but fell short of an outright majority, forcing him to contest a run-off against second-place finisher Frei, who got barely 30 per cent of the first-round votes.

Pinera had long seemed poised for a win that would give him the presidency Sunday, and voter surveys showed him several percentage points ahead of Frei. But Frei, a Christian Democratic senator who previously governed Chile from 1994-2000, closed the gap in the final days of the campaign.

An opinion survey issued Wednesday by the prestigious MORI polling firm put Pinera at 50.9 per cent compared to 49.1 per cent for Frei, a statistical dead heat based on the 3-per-cent margin of error.

The winner of Sunday's run-off is scheduled for inauguration to a four-year term on March 11.

Bachelet, a Socialist, is ending her term with approval ratings above 80 per cent. Chilean law forbids presidents from seeking consecutive terms, but she has already declared her intention to run for the office again in the future.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304212,polls-open-in-chiles-tight-presidential-run-off-election.html.

UN: Haiti quake catastrophe poses unprecedented relief problems

Geneva - The massive earthquake on Haiti has confronted United Nations' relief organizations with unprecedented problems in trying to cope with the catastrophe, UN humanitarian officials said Saturday. UN Coordination office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told the German Press Agency...

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304132,un-haiti-quake-catastrophe-poses-unprecedented-relief-problems.html.

The end of humanity in Haiti's mass graves - Feature

Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Death is so normal in a country numbed by disaster that craters gouged out by the earthquake in which putrid, decomposing bodies are dumped have become acceptable. The reality of death in Haiti cannot be described in words and pictures. And as the government closes its eyes to this horror, you wish that you could too. The mass dumping grounds for bodies provide a surreal snapshot of what the earthquake has done to people here - it has robbed them of their humanity.

So, this is what dying in Haiti means: At the National Cemetery, Port-au-Prince's largest, scores of bodies never made it to graves. They were brought here to be left amid the concrete crypts, mourners and rubble of grave stones.

As you enter the cemetery, stung by the stench of death from bodies exposed to the heat, humidity and dust, you can hear the strains of a woman's broken voice singing for the dead. She's surrounded by other women who are holding onto each other to prevent themselves from collapsing in grief. Their cries escalate into shrieks and then anger, and echo through the grounds.

But before you can approach them you have to negotiate your way through bloated bodies that have been discarded on the narrow path. Most of them are covered with flies. Some of them have their hands and legs tied with string. All of them are oozing with pus and faecal matter, the fluids streaming down a slope. Roosters and hens crow over them, pecking at the periphery.

A cemetery implies death with dignity, a calm passage into another world, a quiet end to a life well spent. But not in Haiti, where it seems that all sense of decency has been swallowed up by the earthquake.

Scores of bodies have also been dumped in a large crater in the cemetery. A security guard said that they were brought by locals and not through officials of the government, which has been largely absent in the crisis. They have been tossed like garbage - men, women and children - some with their coffins, others not even given that cover. They lay one on top of the other, even a pregnant woman, as if their lives didn't matter.

Beyond this mass grave and a broken wall is a main road on to which the bodies overflow. One male body was lying in the middle of the road, as cars drove past and people walked hurriedly to avoid the stench, his arms crossed above his head, almost in prayer.

"This is the end of the world," said the cemetery's security guard, Elmond Chere.

In Haiti, there's a rush to dispose of the dead - partly because there is no space to accommodate bodies that are being retrieved from the rubble each day. At one small hospital, Centre Hospitalier Eliazar Germain, there is no morgue and the sole doctor said the gynaecology department was being used to keep bodies.

But the main reason is the fear that decomposing bodies are dangerous. A persistent myth in Haiti is that the dead pose a serious health risk and bodies need to be disposed of quickly to prevent epidemics.

Health experts say that epidemics do not occur spontaneously after a natural disaster and cadavers do not lead to catastrophic outbreaks of disease.

Infectious agents do not survive long in dead bodies, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In fact, cadavers pose less risk of contagion than a person who is alive and infected.

"The belief that bodies pose a serious health threat often leads authorities to take misguided action, such as mass burials, which can add to the burden of suffering already experienced by survivors," the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said.

"The worst part of this is that these actions are taken without respecting the processes of identifying and preserving bodies, something that not only goes against cultural norms and religious beliefs but also has social, psychological, emotional, economic and legal consequences that add to the suffering directly caused by the disaster," said PAHO.

People handling bodies do run a slight risk from tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, HIV and diarrhoeal diseases, but these don't last more than two days in a dead body, except for HIV, which may survive up to six days. But in the cemetery there are no such safeguards or the protection given by rubber gloves and boots.

While there is no public health risk associated with bodies, WHO and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the psychological impact could be intense. Overwhelmed doctors in Haiti say they haven't even thought of psychological counseling for survivors.

ICRC officials, who recommended only shallow ditches to cover the dead, said: "People need to be able to identify their relatives. It is important to at least take photographs of those being buried and to note any unique physical markings, like teeth and scars."

They cited the Asian tsunami of 2004 in which people were swiftly buried in mass graves or cremated. "We don't want to repeat those mistakes," the Red Cross said. But here in Port-au-Prince, fresh fatal errors are committed daily.

After any disaster the focus should naturally be on the living, but surely the dead deserve the right to finally rest in peace.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304144,the-end-of-humanity-in-haitis-mass-graves--feature.html.

EXTRA: Germany boosts Haiti aid sum, reports one quake death

Berlin - Germany quintupled Saturday its official relief budget after the Haiti earthquake and also disclosed that one German national died in the disaster. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Aid Minister Dirk Niebel announced after a meeting of the Berlin crisis team managing the response that Germany would provide 7.5 million euros (10.7 million dollars) in relief, up from 1.5 million euros earlier this week.

Niebel said the UN World Food Program would distribute food paid for by Germany.

Westerwelle said Germany's civil-defense agency THW was sending a water purification team to set up machines that can provide clean drinking water for 60,000 people. Berlin was also preparing to set up a tent hospital.

Westerwelle did not give the name or age of the German man who was killed. He said 30 German nationals remained missing after the quake.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304153,extra-germany-boosts-haiti-aid-sum-reports-one-quake-death.html.

Somalia: Somali Central Bank reopens after 18 years

Transitional Federal Government in Somalia has today reopened Somali Central Bank which became collapsed after Somali civil war erupted the beginning of 1991 A ministerial committee that paid a visit to Aden International Airport in Mogadishu stated that Somali transitional Federal Government made the inauguration and implementation of the reopen of Somali Central Bank possible

Speaking to the reporters at Mogadishu International Airport, Deputy prime minister of TFG in Somalia, Pro. Abdirahman Haji Aden ( Ibbi ) disclosed that Somali government – after a long struggle had been made- reinstated and Somali Central Bank back in business telling that Government economy was used to be passed through Somali remittance companies ; how ever, from today the Government has a governmental Bank which will help international donors to send through their pledged economy

"The economy offered to TFG used to be transited through different countries like Djibouti and Kenya but as everyone sees we have a central bank which donors can use to assist Transitional Federal Government in Somalia," said Deputy prime minister of TFG in Somalia, Pro. Abdirahman Haji Aden.

Somali Central Bank which didn't come in use for nearly twenty years was part of many Somali government institutions which collapsed in the Somali civil war that started in 199.

Source: Mareeg.
Link: http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.php?sid=14925&tirsan=3.

Lebanon, Iran to coordinate in UN Security Council: Lebanese president

BEIRUT, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese President Michel Suleiman on Saturday told visiting Iranian Vice President Mohammed Reza Tajeddini that Lebanon and Iran should coordinate their stances in the UN Security Council, the country's state-run National News Agency reported.

Suleiman described the Lebanese-Iranian relations as "good on all aspects," and asked Tajeddini to convey his regards to the Iranian president and his wishes of prosperity and stability to the Iranian people.

Tajeddini conveyed Iranian President Ahmadinejad's appreciation for Suleiman's efforts to strengthen the atmosphere of consensus in Lebanon and emphasized Ahmadinejad's full support for the unity, sovereignty and independence of Lebanon and its territory, the report said.

Lebanon became a non-permanent member in UN Security Council for a 2-year term from 2010 to 2011.

Tajeddini came to Beirut to attend the Arab and international forum on supporting the resistance which started on Friday. Both Hezbollah and Hamas officials attended the forum.

Source: Xinhua.
Link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/17/content_12822627.htm.