Docudharma Times Thursday January 14

Tens of thousands feared dead after Haiti earthquake

In Port-au-Prince

By Mary Beth Sheridan, William Branigin and Scott Wilson

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, January 14, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — Haitian leaders estimated Wednesday that tens of thousands of people have died in the aftermath of the earthquake that throttled this impoverished Caribbean nation, as the United States and other countries mobilized a vast rescue and relief effort to assist the legion of desperate survivors.

Untold numbers of people remained trapped under rubble a day after the 7.0-magnitude quake struck the capital, Port-au-Prince, a coastal sprawl of makeshift shacks, cinder-block buildings and historic gingerbread homes that witnesses described as a scene of unfolding chaos.

Tectonics and poor construction conspired to create devastation in Haiti

The earthquake was a massive, shallow eruption beneath a heavily populated area that lacked stringent building standards, resulting in catastrophe.

By Cara Mia DiMassa and Alexandra Zavis

January 14, 2010  

The catastrophic quake that struck Haiti on Tuesday involved a collision of lethal circumstances: a massive, shallow eruption below a densely populated city with few, if any, building codes.

The magnitude 7.0 quake occurred near the boundary between two major tectonic plates, the Caribbean and North American plates.

Most of the movement along these plates is what is known as left-lateral strike-slip motion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward in relation to the North America plate.

USA

U.S. obesity rates reaching a resting point, studies show

The assessments from the CDC indicate that Americans may have turned a corner in fighting weight problems. But health experts say there’s more to be done to reverse the trend.

By Jeannine Stein

January 14, 2010

Americans may not be collectively doomed to die in their recliners after all, one hand in the chips bag, the other stretching for the remote. Obesity levels seem to be leveling off or slowing across most of the population, according to two new comprehensive studies of the nation’s heft.

The assessments, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a welcome respite from the seemingly endless reports of Americans getting fatter and fatter. The latest of several to find an obesity plateau, they suggest that those earlier findings were not aberrations but that Americans may truly have turned a corner.

Meet Mikey Hicks, 8: U.S. has him on watch list

Since he was 2, he has been frisked, his family delayed every time they fly

By Lizette Alvarez

The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last month’s bombing attempt, has on its Web site a “mythbuster” that tries to reassure the public.

Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.

Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.

“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.”

Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name “was on the list,” she recalled.

Asia

China responds to Google hacking claims

• China says it opposes hacking and has suffered cyber attacks

• Google feared dissidents were at risk from surveillance

Tania Branigan in Beijing

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 January 2010 07.41 GMT

Google moved quickly to announce that it would stop censoring its Chinese service after realising dissidents were at risk from attempts to use the company’s technology for political surveillance, according to a source with direct knowledge of the internet giant’s most senior management.

China this morning issued a statement saying it resolutely opposed hacking and was itself a victim of cyber-attacks, in its first response to Google’s hacking claims. In a statement posted on the state council information office website, cabinet spokesman Wang Chen reminded companies of their need to abide by internet controls, citing their “social responsibilities”.

Taliban ‘killing thousands of civilians’

Death toll soaring as a result of insurgent attacks, says UN report

By Julius Cavendish in Kabul Thursday, 14 January 2010

More Afghans are dying in their country’s bloody insurgency than at any time since 2001, a new UN report says, thanks largely to the Taliban’s use of indiscriminate roadside bombs and suicide attackers. The findings released yesterday came as at least six civilians were shot dead in Helmand and a series of bomb attacks around the country killed or wounded bystanders.

According to the UN, at least 2,412 civilians were killed last year and a further 3,566 wounded as a direct result of the war between Taliban-led insurgents and the Western-backed government. This could, however, be a fraction of the true total: human rights advocates say many families caught up in the insurgency live in areas too dangerous for researchers to collect information on casualties.

Europe

EU’s finance chief targets bankers

Michel Barnier promises new regulations to restore trust in battered institutions

By Vanessa Mock in Brussels  Thursday, 14 January 2010

The Frenchman who is set to reign over Europe’s banks has vowed to “turn the page on an era of irresponsibility” and rule over the financial sector with an iron hand during the coming five years. Michel Barnier, whose controversial appointment as the EU’s financial services chief triggered a row between Paris and London, says he plans to propose a “roadmap” with a raft of fresh regulations and controls to restore trust in Europe’s banks.

Last month, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Britain “the big loser” and hailed Mr Barnier’s appointment to one of the most powerful posts in Brussels as a triumph over the liberal, free-market ways of the City, Europe’s largest financial centre.

Hippo swims to freedom after zoo is flooded

From The Times

January 14, 2010

Roger Boyes

Hippopotamuses mate in water, are born in water and spend most of the day wallowing in muddy pools – but there comes a time in every hippo’s life when she simply wants to have dry feet.

For Nikica, aged 11, that moment came this week after floodwaters surged through the zoo in Montenegro where she spends her days. Seizing the moment, she bobbed to the top of the cage and swam to freedom.

Now Nikica, weighing in at two tonnes, is a hippo on the run; an uneasy, lurking presence in the village of Plavnica. For the time being, there is no going back: the private zoo, on a small island on Lake Skadar, is completely submerged.

Middle East

Israel apologises for slight against Turkish ambassador

Israel has apologised to Turkey for publicly dressing down Ankara’s ambassador in a dispute that has strained ties between the Jewish state and the Muslim regional power

Published: 12:01AM GMT 14 Jan 2010

Turkey had demanded a formal apology for Ambassador Oguz Celikkol’s treatment on Monday and threatened to recall him.

But after receiving the letter of apology on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan hit out at Israel, saying it should do more for peace in the region.

Turkey, as a Muslim country, is an important ally of Israel and in the past has helped forge contacts between the Jewish state and the Arab world.

But relations have deteriorated following criticism by Erdogan of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip last year.

The latest row broke out after Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Mr Celikkol on Monday to protest against a Turkish television drama that portrayed Israeli diplomats as masterminds of a child abduction ring.

A killer blow against US-Iran ties

 

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

The assassination of Dr Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a Tehran University nuclear physicist, on Tuesday, blamed by the Iranian government on the United States and Israel and their fifth-column allies inside Iran, is the latest sign of an ominous, growing shadow war with Iran over its nuclear standoff with the West.

The US has officially denied any role in the incident in which a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorbike went off near the 50-year-old professor’s home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood in northern Tehran.

Bill Burton, the White House deputy press secretary, called the accusation “absurd”, saying he would not comment further as he did not want to “prejudge any information about what actually happened”.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehman-Parast, commented, “In the preliminary investigations there can be seen the traces of the triangular villainy of the US, the Zionist regime and their agents in Iran’s terror attack.”

Africa

Uganda rows back on draconian anti-gay law after western outrage

• Museveni says bill is now a ‘foreign policy issue’

• HIV positive people faced death penalty for gay sex

Xan Rice in Nairobi

The Guardian, Thursday 14 January 2010

Uganda has indicated it will bow to international pressure and amend draconian anti-homosexual legislation that includes the death penalty for HIV-positive people convicted of having gay sex.

Breaking his silence on the controversial bill – which was put forward by a member of the ruling party – Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, said it had become a “foreign policy issue” and needed further consultation before being voted on in parliament.

Bed-ridden Nigerian President eclipsed by his deputy

From The Times

January 14, 2010

Tristan McConnell

In a ruling effectively sidelining Nigeria’s absent President, a high court judge decided yesterday that his deputy can take executive decisions, making Goodluck Jonathan the de facto leader of Africa’s most populous country.

“The court verdict has now empowered the Vice President to start assuming the powers of an acting president,” the Attorney-General, Michael Aondoakaa, told reporters after the ruling at a federal court in Abujam, the capital.

Ignoring Asia A Blog