May Day rally in Seattle turns violent, leads to 18 arrests

May 2, 2013

SEATTLE, May 2 (UPI) -- A May Day protest in Seattle turned violent as demonstrators smashed windows and threw items at police, who responded by using pepper spray and making arrests.

By late evening Wednesday, police said 18 people had been arrested for assault and property damage, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

Eight police officers were injured in the confrontations.

Using Twitter, police reported groups of protesters gathering in several locations throughout Seattle, including Seattle Central Community College. The Twitter feeds said protesters seemed to be lighting "flares or smoke devices" at one location and that windows were being damaged at another.

Police later reported on Twitter objects were thrown at them and that they had used pepper spray "to clear the streets."

Police tried to disperse protesters with flash-bang devices and pepper spray and reported bottles and other objects were being thrown at them, the Post-Intelligencer said.

A separate, early afternoon May Day march in support of immigration reform drew the largest crowd, estimated to be 3,000-4,000 people, The Seattle Times reported.

Marchers chanted and waved signs as they marched from Judkins Park through the Chinatown International District to the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle.

This year's march occurred two weeks after a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a bill that, among other things, would grant legal status to an estimated 11 million people in the United States illegally.

"This is it," marcher Mauricio Ayon, legislative director for Washington Community Action Network, told the Times. "The tide is turning on this issue, and I don't think anybody wants to be caught on the wrong side of it."

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/05/02/May-Day-rally-in-Seattle-turns-violent-leads-to-18-arrests/UPI-33541367492967/.

First Japan tsunami debris confirmed in California

Los Angeles (AFP)
April 26, 2013

A Japanese fishing boat washed across the Pacific following the 2011 tsunami has been confirmed as the first piece of debris to reach the coast of California, officials said Friday.

The 20-foot (six-meter) skiff, found this month near the northern Californian coastal town of Crescent City, belonged to the Takata High School in the Japanese city of Rikuzentakata, in Iwate Prefecture.

Japan's consulate in San Francisco helped the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirm where the boat came from, after it was spotted washed up on a local beach.

The boat was covered in pelagic gooseneck barnacles. Experts at California's Humboldt State University also helped to identify it, said NOAA spokeswoman Keeley Belva.

The vessel is the 27th item of debris so far confirmed on the US West Coast, and the first in California. Other items have been found washed up in the states of Alaska, Washington and Oregon further up the coast.

One of the biggest items so far, a 66-foot floating dock, washed up in June in Oregon, after a 15-month trip across the Pacific from the port of Misawa, in Japan's Aomori prefecture.

A year ago, the US Coast Guard fired on and sank a deserted Japanese "ghost ship" off the coast of Alaska, after it was deemed to be a potential danger to shipping.

Japan last month marked the second anniversary of the March 11, 2011 9.0-magnitude earthquake that sent a huge wall of water into its northeastern coast, killing some 19,000 people and triggering a nuclear calamity.

The tsunami created the biggest single dumping of rubbish, sweeping some five million tonnes of shattered buildings, cars, household goods and other rubble into the sea.

An estimated three and a half million tonnes sank immediately, leaving some 1.5 million tonnes of plastic, timber, fishing nets, shipping containers, industrial scrap and innumerable other objects to float deeper into the ocean.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/First_Japan_tsunami_debris_confirmed_in_California_999.html.

Latin America threatened with cancer epidemic

Sao Paulo (AFP)
April 25, 2013

Latin America faces a cancer epidemic, scientists warned Friday as they pressed for urgent action to reduce tobacco use and obesity and allocate more resources to control the disease.

The researchers spoke at the Latin American Cooperative Oncology Group (LACOG) 2013 conference at which they unveiled a groundbreaking study on soaring cancer cases in the region.

The study, published in the British journal The Lancet Oncology, points to around 13 deaths for every 22 cancer cases in the region, compared to around 13 deaths for every 37 cases in the United States and around 13 deaths for every 30 cases in Europe.

It estimated that by 2030, 1.7 million cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Latin America and the Caribbean, with more than one million deaths from cancer predicted to occur annually.

It said the main reason was that too many people are diagnosed with cancer at a late stage, when the disease is much harder to treat and more likely to kill.

"We want to galvanize everybody to take action... Cancer is going to be the number one threat and we believe it is very wise to invest more and distribute the budget and resources equitably across all the populations of a country," lead researcher Paul Goss of Harvard Medical School told a press conference.

The American scientist said that while many regional governments have cancer control plans, "what we find is that implementation is lacking."

"Too small a fraction of GDP is going to cancer control and too small a fraction of the overall health budget is directed to cancer control," he added.

Fellow researcher Eduardo Cazap, a member of the executive committee of Argentina's National Cancer institute, noted that there were 1.2 million cancer cases in Latin America, or 10 percent of the world total.

Of these 1.2 million cases, 60 percent were in just two countries: Mexico and Brazil, the region's economic engines, he added.

"Cancer is not a problem of hospitals... It's the environment, the cities in which we live, what we eat, the air we breathe," Cazap said, calling for greater political will by governments to confront it head on.

David Collingridge, editor of The Lancet Oncology, also urged collective action to face the threat directly "if we are not to find ourselves in a catastrophic situation" 15 to 20 years from now.

The report noted that Latin American countries have focused health investments on prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, but said "spending on non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, has not kept pace."

"However, cancers are diseases of aging people, and researchers estimate that by 2020 more than 100 million people in Latin America will be over 60 years of age," it added.

The researchers said the disease currently costs the region $4 billion a year, including not just treatment and medicine, but also the impact on businesses and the economy of lives prematurely cut short by cancer.

"These costs will rise substantially if governments do not take coordinated action now to arrest the growing impact of cancer in the region," the study warned.

And it noted that "many people across the region, especially those in poor, rural or indigenous communities, have little or no access to cancer services, a problem exacerbated by low, and highly inequitable, health investment in most Latin American countries."

Another factor is that more than half (320 million people) of the Latin American population have inadequate or no health insurance.

Governments can bring down cancer rates at relatively low cost, by encouraging people to give up smoking, avoid cooking smoke, reduce their alcohol intake and adopt healthy diets and exercise, the researchers suggested.

The report, which involved 72 people, took 12 months to compile.

Source: Intern Daily.
Link: http://www.interndaily.com/reports/Latin_America_threatened_with_cancer_epidemic_999.html.

Sixth French soldier dies in Mali

April 30, 2013

BAMAKO, Mali, April 30 (UPI) -- The number of French soldiers killed since France sent troops to Mali in January rose to six, with a death reported in northern Mali, French officials said.

The French Defense Ministry said Cpl. Stephane Duval, 32, was killed and two other soldiers were seriously wounded in an explosion Monday near Boughessa, Radio France Internationale reported.

When offering condolences to Duval's family, French President Francois Hollande praised "the determination and courage of the French forces engaged in Mali alongside Malian and [other] African forces."

France sent troops to its former colony in Africa to help Mali forces fight al-Qaida-linked groups that seized control of northern Mali following a military coup.

France has started withdrawing its 4,500 troops.

The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution calling for a 12,600-troop peacekeeping force for Mali. Peacekeepers could be in Mali by midsummer, taking over duties from a 6,000-member African-led force. The resolution calls for a one-year mission with up to 11,200 military personnel and 1,400 police who would assume duties July 1 and which would include some of the African-led force.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/04/30/Sixth-French-soldier-dies-in-Mali/UPI-80121367330521/.

Northern Mali still unstable despite French intervention

Afua Hirsch, West Africa correspondent
The Guardian, Sunday 28 April 2013

Inhabitants of Timbuktu live in fear of attacks by bandits and suicide bombers

There is an eerie silence in Timbuktu. A sweltering heat lingers at this, the hottest time of year, and a mist of sand obscures the fabled Saharan town – but something is missing.

"When the jihadists came here, they killed all the dogs," explains Tahar Haidara, 32, one of the town's hotel owners. "They called it Operation Dog. There used to be many pet dogs here – they were barking at them and it annoyed them. So they [shot] them."

It's not just the absence of dogs – a staple presence in most Malian towns – that gives Timbuktu a subdued air. Banks, restaurants and many other businesses remain shut after they were looted and vandalized by the city's jihadist occupants. Army vehicles patrol the streets and there is a ban on driving after 6pm, when night begins to fall. The famously diverse city has been almost emptied of its Tuareg inhabitants. Residents say that only a few Tuareg women remain and all the men have left.

Many accuse the Tuaregs – whose rebellion in the quest for an independent state in the Malian desert paved the way for al-Qaida-linked rebels to seize control of northern Mali last April – of continuing to wage armed conflict. There are also reports of armed robbery. "There is a lot of banditry outside the city," said Colonel Gilles Bationo, from Burkina Faso, who leads the UN-backed African military force in the Timbuktu region. "It is difficult to know who is a jihadist, who is the MNLA [the Tuareg Movement National de Liberation de l'Azawad], and who is a bandit. All these bandits have taken advantage of the security situation. The jihadists are getting supplies from people by attacking them on the road."

The security problems in northern Mali, where militants have lost their grip on towns but large weapons caches are believed to be hidden in the desert, have dampened the jubilant spirit that arose when French forces swept into the region in January. In addition to regular incidents outside Timbuktu, it and other towns in the north have been rocked by a spate of suicide bombings, previously unheard of in the country. Army officials and residents alike say it is impossible to completely eliminate the risk of further similar attacks."No one knows if there will be more suicide bombings," said Bationo. "It is possible at any time. All we can do is continue to patrol the city and the area outside it, and to be vigilant."

On one empty billboard "Vive la France" has been scribbled in chalk, then crossed out. Nearby, Arabic graffiti is daubed on a wall in red paint.

Across the road, a gaudy mansion, which residents say belonged to a Tuareg narcotics chief, is barricaded with a makeshift fence of dry branches. The empty bag of an intravenous drip lies in the sand outside. "The jihadists were well-equipped," said Haidara, who left the city for the capital, Bamako, two days before the jihadist occupation began. "They had all their own medical supplies. They occupied this house when the owners were forced to flee.

"Everyone is happy that the French drove them out – that is why I came back. But the suicide bombings have made people fear that [we have] not really been liberated.

"We listen to music, dance, drink alcohol, do what we want. But at 9pm or 10pm, we go home and stay inside."

Source: The Guardian.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/northern-mali-unstable.

Ecuador launches first homemade satellite

Quito (AFP)
April 26, 2013

Ecuador launched its first satellite into space from China Friday morning, in a moment broadcast live on radio and television back home.

The "Pegaso" (Pegasus) nanosatellite, designed and built in Ecuador, set off aboard an unmanned rocket at 0413 GMT from the Jiuquand station in northern China.

Measuring just 10 by 10 by 75 centimeters (four by four by 30 inches), and weighing 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds), Pegaso will beam live video images back to Earth from an onboard camera.

"Welcome to the heavens, Pegaso. Welcome to space Ecuador. The mission is a success," said Ronnie Nader, Ecuador's first and only astronaut, who runs Ecuador's civilian space agency.

The Ecuadoran Space Agency plans a second satellite launch in July.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Ecuador_launches_first_homemade_satellite_999.html.