Taiwan to give asylum to Chinese dissidents under amended law

Taipei - Taiwan on Thursday amended a law governing relations with China so that Taipei can grant political asylum to Chinese dissidents. Under the revision, approved by the cabinet, Taiwan can grant political asylum to Chinese citizens, even if they have entered Taiwan illegally.

Additionally, Chinese dissidents waiting in Taiwan for asylum will be eligible for legal assistance and medical assistance, and be allowed to find work to support themselves.

Under current law, Chinese dissidents must have entered Taiwan legally in order to seek political asylum. While waiting for asylum, they are treated as illegal immigrants and not allowed to work or receive medical assistance.

Liu Teh-shun, vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, said at a news conference that the amended law is more humane because, if pro-democracy activists seek asylum in Taiwan, "their life must be in danger, so how can they enter Taiwan legally?"

"Now that we have this law, we can determine if they qualify for political asylum according to facts, and not mind if they entered Taiwan legally," he said.

Taiwan, split from China since 1949, used to welcome Chinese defectors during the Cold War, but stopped doing so as cross-strait tension began to thaw in the late 1980s.

In the last 10 years, Taiwan has sheltered very few Chinese defectors, and only on a case-by-case basis.

But Taiwan's existing asylum law and the fact that most Chinese dissidents arrived illegally meant that Taipei could only give temporary shelter to most of them before sending them on to a third country.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301639,taiwan-to-give-asylum-to-chinese-dissidents-under-amended-law.html.

Lithuanian nuclear power plant in final countdown

Vilnius - As preparations were underway Thursday for the shutdown of the only nuclear power plant in the Baltic states, opinion is divided on whether the closure of the Chernobyl-type plant is positive and how Lithuania's reliance on Russia could change as a result. The Ignalina facility in Lithuania came online in 1983 and is due to go offline at 11 pm Thursday (2200 GMT), fulfilling a commitment to close the plant that Lithuania gave when it joined the European Union in 2004.

Residents of the nearby town of Visaginas, which is heavily dependent upon the nuclear plant for employment, plan to shine torches into the sky after midnight as "lights of hope" for the future.

Viktor Shevaldin, the chief executive of the Ignalina facility, who is overseeing the shutdown, expressed mixed feelings about his task.

"So far not a single country in the world with at least part of its electricity generated by nuclear power plants has abandoned this type of energy altogether. Lithuania will be the first," he was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service Thursday.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite adopted a more positive tone on December 26 when she said the closure of the Soviet-era plant would mark the start of a new era for her country.

"After the decommissioning of Ignalina, 2010 will be the start of our energy independence. Lithuania's energy system was and continues to be dependent on Russia because all supplies of gas and electricity are related to that country," she said.

"Dependence on one country was caused by the old power plant. The issues around it tied Lithuania to Russia," she added.

However, following the closure, Lithuania will increase the output of its conventional power stations but also increase the amount of energy it imports from other countries - including Russia. Analysts expect electricity prices to increase by as much as a third as a result.

Plans for a replacement nuclear power plant have been thwarted by delays, but a tender was finally issued on December 8 with the bidding process expected to last six months, Lithuanian Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas said Wednesday.

Companies, including EDF, E.ON, GDF Suez, Enel, Iberdrola, RWE and Vattenfall, have been named as potential investors in the media, but Sekmokas said no bidders would be named until the tendering process was complete.

"On the one hand, they want this process to be transparent, but on the other hand, they want confidentiality to be ensured. It is their choice which projects and countries in which they want to invest," he said.

Investors will also have to work with Latvia, Estonia and Poland, which will be partners in a project that could cost up to an estimated 15 billion euros (22 billion dollars) and is unlikely to be completed before 2020.

Meanwhile, work will continue on dismantling the Soviet-era plant and disposing of its waste - a process expected to take 30 years.

The European Union has so far pledged 1.4 billion euros (2 billion dollars) towards the cost of decommissioning the Ignalina plant.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301645,lithuanian-nuclear-power-plant-in-final-countdown.html.

Palestinians, Israelis demonstrate against Gaza blockade - Summary

Gaza - Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis demonstrated Thursday against Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, and were praised by Hamas leader Isamil Haniya, who said their support strengthened the "steadfastness" of the Islamist organization. The rally, held one year after Israel's fierce offensive against militants in the Strip, took place on both sides of the Erez crossing point, at the northern end of the coastal enclave. The demonstrators in Gaza were bolstered by 86 international activists whom Egypt allowed into the salient on Wednesday night.

Israel imposed the blockade over three years ago, after militants in the salient snatched an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid.

Hundreds of protesters who gathered near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun chanted slogans against Israel and called for an end to the blockade.

On the Israeli side the demonstrators waved flags of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

"We succeeded in overcoming the occupation's (Israel's) plans. We are certain we will meet at the al-Aqsa mosque and that Jerusalem will continue being Arab and Islamic," Haniya said.

The Hamas leader was able to speak to the demonstrators on the Israeli side of the crossing by calling the cell-phone of an Israeli- Arab legislator and having his remarks relayed via a loudspeaker system.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and wants to set up an Islamic state in all of the territory now encompassing the Gaza Strip, Israel and the West Bank.

Jamal al-Khodari, head of the "Popular Committee to Challenge the Gaza Blockade" called for the immediate ending of the blockade and the reopening of all crossing points, either between Gaza and Israel, or between Gaza and Egypt.

Egypt has also kept the Rafah border crossing between the salient and the Sinai peninsula tightly shut.

The 86 activists, part of a much large group of 1,300, arrived in the Strip on Wednesday night, after spending several days in Cairo waiting for Egyptian authorities to allow them to cross into the enclave via the Rafah crossing point. They will meet with Hamas officials, and visit areas hit in the Israeli bombardments, visit Shifa hospital, and meet with community leaders, Hamdi Shaath, the head of the pro-Hamas Committee to Defeat the Blockade, said.

"I can never forget Palestine," said Yousef Barakat, an American- Palestinian who left in 1948 when he was 12 years old.

One of the foreign activists who took part in the Gaza demonstrations said that "there are hundreds of foreign activists demonstrating in Egypt at not being allowed to reach Gaza."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301649,palestinians-israelis-demonstrate-against-gaza-blockade--summary.html.

United Nations to move some staff out of Pakistan

Islamabad - The United Nations said on Thursday it was planning to temporarily relocate some of its international staff out of Pakistan to "safer places" due to security reasons. Ishrat Rizvi, the UN Information officer in Islamabad, said "some percentage" of the organization's foreign workers will be relocated to other countries in accordance with the "re-alignment of some of our projects in Pakistan."

"However this does not mean that we are pulling out our staff from Pakistan," she explained. "It's just a temporary arrangement and our staff will continue to support the projects from safe places."

Rizvi said the world organization will re-evaluate the security situation in Pakistan after six months.

Pakistan has seen an intensified campaign of militant attacks since October when its forces launched a major assault against Taliban fighters in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal district that borders Afghanistan.

A suicide bombing in early October at the UN World Food Program left five workers dead and injured many others.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301650,united-nations-to-move-some-staff-out-of-pakistan.html.

Tadic: Serbia will launch genocide lawsuit against Croatia

Belgrade - Serbia will file charges of genocide against Croatia at the United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ), President Boris Tadic said Thursday. Tadic told the national television RTS that Belgrade has prepared a lawsuit for atrocities Croatian forces allegedly committed against the Serbs in the 1991-95 war in the former Yugoslavia. The Serbian legal team completed preparations for the lawsuit in mid-December, officials said.

The move is intended to counter Croatia's own genocide lawsuit, filed more than 10 years ago. The Hague-based ICJ however only in November 2008 decided to take up that case.

Zagreb demands compensation, accusing Belgrade of a campaign of ethnic cleansing through an insurgency of ethnic Serbs it allegedly controlled a portion of Croatian territory and killing 20,000 Croats.

The war broke out in 1991, after Croatia declared it was splitting from the Yugoslav federation. Supported by Belgrade, the Serbs proclaimed a state of their own on Croatian soil, but were eventually crushed in the summer of 1995.

The ICJ had delivered an ambiguous verdict in a similar lawsuit of Bosnia against Serbia in February 2007, clearing Belgrade of accusations that it committed genocide, but saying it had not done enough to stop Bosnian Serbs from carrying it out.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301651,tadic-serbia-will-launch-genocide-lawsuit-against-croatia.html.

Viva Palestina Convoy Continues Journey To Tartus Port

From Kuzaimah Idris

DAMASCUS, Dec 31 (Bernama) -- While the rest of the world usher the arrival of 2010 with cheers and fireworks, members of the Viva Palestina convoy of 450 are expected to usher the New Year on a ship in the Mediterranean sea.

And as this news was written, the 220 trucks and ambulances loaded with humanitarian, educational aid and medical supplies was on their way to the Port City of Tartus in northern Syria.

The convoy continued their journey from here at 10.30am local time, after a day's delay, due to logistical problems.

The 230km journey to Tartus Port, through the town of Home and Hama, is expected to take between four to five hours.

And if everything goes as planned, the convoy of world nationals, will board an awaiting ship to get them to the Egyptian El-Arish Port city.

However, if the convoy were to be stranded in Tartus Port, the group would have no choice but to spend New Year's eve under tents and dreadfully cold temperatures at night, in the northern port city.

Though tired and exhausted, members of the convoy had not shown any sign of giving up their quest to deliver aid worth US$1 million (RM3.5 million) to the Palestinians in Gaza.

They hope when they reached El-Arish port, the journey to Gaza via Rafa by land would proceed smoothly.

The convoy started off from London on Dec 6 and had earlier planned to reach Gaza by Dec 27, a year after the Zionist atrocities against the Palestinians.

Source: Bernama.
Link: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=465563.

Hamas leaders return to Gaza after prisoners swap discussion

GAZA, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Two Hamas leaders returned to the Gaza Strip Thursday after holding talks with their exiled leadership in Syria on prisoners exchange with Israel.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas' politburo, and a Gaza-based leader Khalil al-Hayya, participated in Hamas' leadership talks to respond to an Israeli offer delivered last week by a German mediator

"The talks are still going on to respond to the Israeli proposal," he added.

The two sides are intensifying the talks on the prisoners swap, which requires Hamas to release the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for a number of Palestinian and Arab prisoners.

Abu Zuhri said "Hamas did not close the door before the swap and will declare its final decision officially in the coming phase."

Earlier, Hamas denied reports that its politburo rejected the Israeli offer since Israel wanted to expel many of the prisoners outside the Palestinian territories.

Source: Xinhua.
Link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/01/content_12737434.htm.