Thursday, April 30, 2015

On Friday, Eva Mozes Kor, a 81-year-old Auschwitz concentration camp survivor, publicly forgave and embraced 93-year-old former SS guard Oskar Gröning, who is currently on trial in Germany as an accessory to 300,000 murders of Jews at Auschwitz.

Kor, who was among many Jews medically experimented on at Auschwitz, has thanked Mr Gröning for answering to the crimes he aided during his time as an Auschwitz guard.

Kor is amongst a number of Auschwitz survivors attending the trial who have joined the prosecutors as co-plaintiffs in the case against Mr Gröning. While Kor has forgiven Mr Gröning, she still holds him liable for his involvement during the Holocaust, as she did last week when she testified against him. Other survivors have recently spoken out about the trial; survivor Eva Pusztai-Fahidi said on Tuesday the trial itself against a former SS guard matters more than the end punishment.

During the first day of Mr Gröning’s trial, he denied any direct role in the killings, though he did admit to having witnessed them. Mr Gröning said he shared “moral guilt” for the crimes, regardless of whether his actions make him criminally guilty.

The prosecutors have argued that serving as a concentration camp guard is legally accessory to the act of murder. Mr Gröning is reportedly one of three remaining former SS guards that have been identified for trial. If found guilty, the former SS Guard could reportedly face up to fifteen years in prison.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

On the eve of the third anniversary of the June 17 raid on the central office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and homes of dozens of Iranian political refugees and dissidents, Paris Court of Appeals in separate rulings revoked all restrictions on Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect, and all those arrested on June 17, 2003. The rulings came while the investigative magistrates were insisting on continuing the restrictions.

For the past three years, Mrs. Rajavi and 16 members and supporters of the Iranian Resistance had been under judicial restrictions including the denial of the right to travel, entry to the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Auvers-sur-Oise, and the right to have contact with each other.

Mrs. Rajavi welcomed the verdict and said, “The case was conceived at the request of the fascist theocracy ruling Iran and was solely based on lies churned out by this regime. With the latest ruling, the time has come for this dossier to be brought to an end and all proceedings halted.”, “The shameful June 17, 2003 raid was a futile attempt to destroy Iran’s democratic opposition and aid the Iranian regime. If resistance against religious despotism for freedom is considered a crime, then I and all members and supporters of the Resistance proudly accept this crime. We are determined to establish democracy in Iran. Nothing can save the clerical regime from its inevitable fall and nothing can stop the Iranian nation from attaining freedom and democracy,” she added.

Following the court ruling, dozens of Iranian and French sympathizers of the Resistance went to Mrs. Rajavi’s residence in Auvers-sur-Oise, to congratulate her. Mayors of Auvers-sur-Oise and Cergy, in the northern Paris province of Val d’Oise also joined the celebrations.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

As of 10:00 p.m EST November 8, 2006, the Democratic Party is projected to have gained control of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate in the 2006 United States general elections. MSNBC projects that the Democrats now control 234 seats in the House of Representatives, 16 more seats than the 218 needed to control the House of Representatives as all 435 seats were up for election. In the Senate, where the balance of power is closer, one-third of all seats were up for grab. As of 10:00 p.m. EST, AP and Reuters were projecting that the Democrats had picked up all six seats they needed to retake the Senate, including the seats of incumbents Rick Santorum (Penn.), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Jim Talent (Missouri), Mike DeWine (Ohio), John Tester (Montana), and Jim Webb (VA). The Tester victory by less than 3,000 votes was projected at approximately 2 p.m. EST after the State of Montana announced the results of overnight recounts. Democrat Jim Webb has prevailed in that race by slightly more than 7,000 votes, though his opponent has not conceded and a recount may still occur.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Pakistani security officials have said that at least eight Taliban fighters were killed following a suspected US missile drone strike in the country on Wednesday.

The drones struck the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, the fourth missile attack in the area since the beginning of the week, after the US decided to step up its offensive against insurgents in the region.

“One missile hit the compound while the other hit a vehicle parked outside. We have confirmed reports of six dead,” said an unnamed security official.

Intelligence officials reported that two missiles, fired from a US airplane, struck a compound and a vehicle, in a village about twenty kilometres east of North Waziristan’s main city of Miranshah.

Three Pakistanis, three Arabs, an Uzbek and a Chechen were among the people killed by the blasts, the national intelligence agency said.

The US military has not confirmed the attacks, but it and the CIA are the only organisations in the region to use the drones.

Thursday, March 2, 2006

A new report on the commercial logging industry in Papua New Guinea (PNG) released by international forestry organization, Forest Trends, shows that the overwhelming majority of current commercial industrial forestry operations in PNG are ecologically and economically unsustainable.

Foreign logging companies are in open defiance of the law and cutting down Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, thanks to corruption and government inaction, the report alleges. Washington-based environmental group, Forest Trends, linked Malaysian loggers to Papua New Guinea’s political elite. It described working conditions as “modern-day slavery” and said forests were effectively being logged out.

While the PNG Government does have laws and regulations to ensure sustainable timber production, these were not being enforced, the report states. It identified “a political vacuum with no demonstrated government interest in controlling the problems in the sector.”

The report summarised independent reviews of the timber industry between 2000 and 2005. Forest Trends claimed corruption had devastated rural living standards and ignored the basic rights of landowners: “There are a few logging operations in the country which are deemed beneficial to both local landowners and the country, but they are lost in a sea of bad operators. The Government needs to support these companies, or risk having the international community boycott all of PNG’s exports.”

Natural forests are being chopped down unsustainably, mostly by Malaysian companies, the organisation says.

It reports that much of the labour is imported, and says that Papua New Guineans are not getting an acceptable return for the logging while one of the country’s precious natural resources is dwindling. Most of the timber is exported to China, and is often turned into products for export to Western countries.

If foresting continues in this manner, they warn, Papua New Guinea could be bereft of its natural cover in a decade.

“The system must be fixed,” said Michael Jenkins, President & CEO of Forest Trends. “The nexus between the logging companies and the political elite needs to be broken. One way to do this is to help local landowners better understand their rights and to establish a legal fund so that they can be defended. Papua New Guinea’s legal system does exist outside of political control and the courts have a track record of ruling against illegal logging.”

Sunday, February 7, 2010

A major winter storm, which has been nicknamed by some as “Snowmageddon“, has pummeled parts of the U.S. Middle Atlantic region, dumping up to 19 inches (50 centimeters) of snow in some parts of the Washington area.

The National Weather Service is predicting as much as 24 to 30 inches (60 to 75 cm) of snow for the Washington, D.C. region by late Saturday. The storm brought high winds and low visibility, with winds gusting at 56 miles per hour (93 kilometers per hour) along the coast.

Life in the nation’s capital ground to a halt with the federal government and most businesses closing early on Friday and residents warned to stay off the snow-clogged roads. Hundreds of thousands of homes were without power as the wet snow weighed heavily on trees and power lines. Power lines in some areas have been brought down by the heavy snow.

The Weather Service issued blizzard and winter storm warnings for states reaching from Virginia and West Virginia up to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.

Forecasters say this could be the largest recorded snowfall in Washington, rivaling a storm, known as the Knickerbocker Storm, that hit the city nearly 90 years ago, in January 1922. The largest amount of snowfall recorded so far has been in Elkridge, Maryland, reporting 32 inches (81 cm). The 1922 storm was named the Knickerbocker Storm for a theater where 98 people were killed when the building’s roof collapsed due to heavy snow. Snowfall in that storm measured 28 inches (71 cm).

Airlines and airports across the region have canceled flights and train service has been disrupted. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport suspended flight operations for the day while nearby Washington Dulles International Airport reported only a few international flights would be departing. Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport reported most flights were canceled. Flights at Philadelphia International Airport are also canceled.

Amtrak announced that it was canceling a number of trains between Washington and New York City, along with service from Washington to cities in the south. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, known as the Metro locally, has suspended bus service and above ground train service. Underground subway service is running at 30 minute intervals.

As the storm approached, residents emptied supermarket shelves, stocking up on food and other supplies, especially due to Super Bowl XLIV which will be held on Sunday. Local area sports teams in Washington, D.C. will still play games as scheduled. People are urged to take the Metro to see the games and not use the roads. Impromptu snowball fights have also broken with some people going as far as to organize them over Facebook and Twitter.

The winter weather has already been blamed for hundreds of road accidents. So far two fatalities have been reported, a father and son who were rendering aid to a stranded motorist on Interstate 81 in Virginia, when an approaching tractor-trailer jackknifed and killed the pair.

This is the second major snowstorm to hit the region in less than two months.

Friday, July 29, 2005

The Australian Medical Association (A.M.A.), an independent organization representing over 27,000 doctors, has written a letter to the Australian Government’s Biofuels Taskforce supporting the mandatory use of ethanol blends.

“The A.M.A. is a strong advocate on initiatives related to environmental impacts on human health such as global warming,” wrote Dr Haikerwal, President of the A.M.A. .

“In our opinion, there is incontrovertible evidence that the addition of ethanol to petrol and biodiesel to diesel will reduce the deaths and ill-health associated with the emissions produced by burning those fuels.” The A.M.A. has recommended the use of petrol with 10% ethanol and diesel with 20% biodiesel.

The A.M.A. also indicated its support for the reduction of toxic aromatics (such as benzene), increased use of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) or compressed natural gas (CNG), and the use of filters and gas-detoxification systems in vehicle tunnels.