Iraq’s Maliki makes case for holding on to post
In an interview, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says he’s the best person to continue his work of sectarian reconciliation, and vows to accommodate his main rival if he forms the new government.
By Ned Parker
April 18, 2010
Reporting from Baghdad
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, in his first interview with a Western media outlet since last month’s bitterly fought elections, vowed Saturday that Iraq’s Sunni Arabs would be major players in the next government, as he cast himself both as peacemaker and front-runner to lead the country.The Shiite prime minister, who appeared confident and jovial during an hourlong interview at his palace office, also invited a secular bloc led by rival Iyad Allawi to join him in governing, despite an acrimonious postelection period that saw Maliki’s supporters label the Iraqiya slate a front for the late Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
Marking the day 40 years ago when the green revolution began
By Rocky Barker | McClatchy Newspapers
BOISE, Idaho – One U.S. senator and a core of young organizers turned April 22, 1970, into the day the environmental movement was born.On that day, 20 million Americans in 2,000 communities and 10,000 schools planted trees, cleaned up parks, buried cars in mock graves, marched, listened to speeches and protested how humans were messing up their world.
In New York, Marilyn Laurie, a young mother of two, convinced Mayor John Lindsay to close Fifth Avenue to cars and fill it with thousands of people to hear speakers such as actor Paul Newman.
USA
W.Va. mine disaster calls attention to revolving door between industry, government
By Kimberly Kindy and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 18, 2010
More than 200 former congressional staff members, federal regulators and lawmakers are employed by the mining industry as lobbyists, consultants or senior executives, including dozens who work for coal companies with the worst safety records in the nation, a Washington Post analysis shows.The revolving door has also brought industry officials into government as policy aides in Congress or officials of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which enforces safety standards.
Is Homeland Security Wary About Reporting on Right-Wing Extremists?
Mark Hosenball
Despite a recent upsurge in threats and violence by far-right groups and loners, the Homeland Security Department appears gun-shy about reporting or monitoring the trend too closely. Domestic security and counterterrorism officials say that even though, in light of recent events, a controversial report issued a year ago by Homeland Security about a “resurgence” in far-right radicalization and recruitment appears well informed, if not prescient, the Department has done nothing to re-issue the report or update it.When its report titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” first leaked to the media last year, the Homeland Security Department was slammed by conservative activists and pundits for even daring to address the issue.
Europe
Warning that air travel chaos will continue as eruption intensifies
Iceland volcano forces passengers into desperate measures
Jamie Doward and Cal Flyn
The Observer, Sunday 18 April 2010
Passengers are being warned to expect more travel chaos amid fears that airlines will run up huge losses if the ash spewing out of an Icelandic volcano continues to spread across Europe’s skies.Scientists said there was unlikely to be a significant improvement in air quality soon, as concerns about the impact of the freak atmospheric conditions switched to the economy and food supplies.
After studying webcam images of the eruptions at the Eyjafjallajökull volcano,Dr David Rothery of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the Open University said it appeared that fine ash was being drawn into the high altitude and blown towards the UK.
‘Saviour of Santo Stefano’: One man’s crusade to save southern Italy’s ancient villages
Meet Daniele Kihlgren, maverick millionaire. He’s an unlikely folk hero, but his scheme to restore and preserve southern Italy’s ancient villages has seen him hailed as ‘the saviour of Santo Stefano’. And he won’t let even an earthquake get in the way of his vision…
By Peter Popham Sunday, 18 April 2010
Daniele Kihlgren came around the Gran Sasso mountain on his motorbike one day 11 years ago and saw Santo Stefano di Sessanio shining in the distance, and it was, he says, “una folgorazione” – “an electric shock”. High stone walls shoot up from the mountain’s flank, as a crenellated tower floats above the terracotta roofs. Inside, narrow lanes corkscrew towards the summit, here and there giving on to small piazzas and sunlit courtyards. It is a city in miniature: anyone who has seen the Tuscan or Umbrian hill towns knows the form. But in the case of Santo Stefano, it sat in perfect harmony with the woods and rolling foothills of Gran Sasso. Italy’s rampant cement industry had got nowhere near: the place was pristine – and practically abandoned, with a population of about 100.
Middle East
Israel warns Syria over Hezbollah attacks
From The Sunday Times
April 18, 2010
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv
Israel has delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese-based Islamist group, by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.In a message, sent earlier this month, Israel made it clear that it now regards Hezbollah as a division of the Syrian army and that reprisals against Syria will be fast and devastating.
It follows the discovery by Israeli intelligence that Syria has recently supplied long-range ballistic missiles and advanced anti-aircraft systems to Hezbollah.
10 Years After a Mea Culpa, No Hint of a ‘Me, Too’
By ROBERT F. WORTH
BEIRUT, LebanonTHIRTY-FIVE years after the start of Lebanon’s long civil war, this divided country remains in a state of collective amnesia about its past. No major participant has publicly confronted or truly apologized for his or her role in the many atrocities committed during the bloody 15-year conflict.
No one, that is, except As’ad Shaftari. Ten years ago, Mr. Shaftari, a former intelligence officer in a feared Christian militia, published a searing, unconditional, and heartfelt apology for his war crimes, and has been repeating the message ever since, especially on the April anniversary of the war’s beginning.
Asia
Tension rises in Kandahar ahead of Nato summer offensive
Attack on contractors’ compound is unlikely to be the last
Jon Boone, Kabul
The Observer, Sunday 18 April 2010
Rahimullah Khan was at home in Kandahar, eating a late-evening meal with his family when he heard a grenade hit the checkpoint outside the building, then gunfire and “a huge explosion”.It was the sound of a minivan packed with explosives ripping through the front of the heavily defended compound where contractors from Louis Berger Group, the Afghanistan Stabilisation Initiative and Khan’s own employer, Chemonics International, live. At least 26 people were injured in the attack, including 10 foreigners, and three people killed, all of whom are Afghans, provincial authorities said.
Hello, children – I’m your 12-year-old headmistress
From The Sunday Times
April 18, 2010
Nicola Smith in Delhi
As an infant, Bharti Kumari was abandoned at a railway station in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. Now, at the age of 12, she has become the head teacher at a school in Kusumbhara, her adopted village.Every morning and evening, under the shade of a mango tree, she teaches Hindi, English and maths to 50 village children who would otherwise receive no education.
In between, she attends a state school in Akhodhi Gola, a two-mile walk away. Dressed proudly in her school uniform, she passes on the knowledge gleaned from her lessons to the village children, aged between four and 10, in her own class.
Africa
Welcome to your World Cup HQ, Mr Capello. It may not be ready on time
With just seven weeks to go, England’s training base is still a construction site
By Raymond Whitaker in Rustenburg Sunday, 18 April 2010
Barely seven weeks before the World Cup kicks off in South Africa, England’s training base remains a construction site, with scores of workers deploying cranes and heavy earth-moving equipment in a race to complete vital facilities.The Independent on Sunday gained access to the Bafokeng Sports Campus in South Africa’s North West Province, where the England team will be based during the tournament. The complex includes a luxury hotel, eight full-sized football pitches, a clubhouse with dressing rooms and a hi-tech gym with a spa and medical treatment rooms, but during a visit on Friday, large areas of the site were off-limits because of construction activity.
Zimbabwe’s 30th birthday: how did Robert Mugabe turn hope into misery?
It is exactly 30 years since Robert Mugabe became newly-created Zimbabwe’s first prime minister. What went wrong, asks Peta Thornycroft?
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
Published: 7:30AM BST 18 Apr 2010
“If yesterday I fought as an enemy, today you have become a friend. If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me, and me to you.”
With these words, Robert Mugabe sought to reassure white and black alike on the eve of his swearing-in as prime minister of the newly independent and internationally recognised state of Zimbabwe, exactly 30 years ago today.
He broadcast his address to the nation, then drove to a packed and carefully orchestrated ceremony in a football stadium in the capital, Harare.
Latin America
Ecuadorean threat to oil giants
The Ecuadorean government has threatened to take over foreign oil concessions if the companies resist growing state control of the industry.
The BBC Sunday, 18 April 2010
President Rafael Correa said every day millions of dollars were going to oil companies that should go to the state.
The government has been pressing the companies to give up concessions that give them a share of oil field profits and accept service contracts instead.
Oil firms operating in Ecuador come from Spain, Brazil, China and Italy.
‘Serious action’
President Correa said during a televised address on Saturday: “Every day that passes there are millions of dollars going to these companies that should be going to the Ecuadorean state.