Morning Shinbun Tuesday October 12

Chile prepares for attempt to rescue 33 miners

An attempt to rescue 33 miners trapped underground in Chile will begin at midnight on Tuesday (0300 GMT), Mining Minister Laurence Golborne has said.  

The BBC  12 October 2010

A test of the steel rescue capsule was earlier carried out successfully, descending almost the whole way down a 622m (2,040ft) shaft, engineers said.

The men were trapped in the San Jose mine by a tunnel collapse on 5 August.

Correspondents say there is a sense of excitement on the surface, with the miners’ families counting the hours.

Journalists have flocked to the mine from all over the world to see the freed men emerge from their two-month ordeal.

Brazil eyes microchips for forest management

Tracking system has potential to be big step forward in protecting Amazon

By Brian Ellsworth

NOVA MUTUM, Brazil – A chainsaw buzzes, branches snap, and an Amazon tree crashes to the ground.

It could be just another of the thousands of trees felled each year in Brazil’s portion of the world’s largest forest except for one detail: a microchip attached to its base holding data about its location, size and who cut it down.

With a hand-held device, forestry engineer Paulo Borges pulls up the tree’s vital statistics from the chip — a 14-meter-high (46-foot) tree known as a “mandiocao” cut down in Mato Grosso state, the southern edge of the Amazon where the forest has largely been cleared to create farmland.

USA

Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Praise, and Backing

 

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: October 12, 2010

WASHINGTON – Google and a New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard that could ultimately transform the region’s electrical map.

The 350-mile underwater spine, which could remove some critical obstacles to wind power development, has stirred excitement among investors, government officials and environmentalists who have been briefed on it.

Google and Good Energies, an investment firm specializing in renewable energy, have each agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project. They are likely to bring in additional investors, which would reduce their stakes.

Families, veterans call operation name on Arlington headstones propaganda move

 

By Christian Davenport

Washington Post Staff Writer    

Along the meticulously spaced rows of graves at Arlington National Cemetery, the names of the nation’s wars are clearly etched into the headstones: World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea, the Persian Gulf.

Soon, a new inscription for troops killed in Iraq could appear: “Operation New Dawn.”

Unlike in past conflicts, the overwhelming majority of headstones for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at the nation’s most hallowed military burial ground use the military’s official names for those conflicts: Operation Enduring Freedom for Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom for Iraq. As of Sept. 1, Operation Iraqi Freedom has been rebranded Operation New Dawn.

Europe

Irish police find explosives and arms dump in blow to dissident republicans

Assorted weaponry including bomb-making equipment was found in a wooded area near the town of Dunleer

Henry McDonald

The Guardian, Tuesday 12 October 2010

A dissident republican explosives and arms dump has been uncovered in the Irish Republic, the Garda Síochána confirmed last night.

During searches in County Louth Garda officers found a homemade mortar, three kilos of TNT, bomb-making equipment, a pipe bomb, a general purpose machine gun and ammunition.

The weaponry was found in a wooded area near the town of Dunleer and is the second major blow to the anti-ceasefire republicans over the last few days. Eight suspected dissident republicans were freed on Sunday after a number of arrests across the Republic.

Money speaks louder than hollow EU praise for Chinese activist

EUROPEAN DIARY: Plaudits for Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo reflected the EU’s desire to avoid offending China, writes  

ARTHUR BEESLEY  

JOSÉ MANUEL Barroso, chief of the EU Commission, was quick from the traps when the Nobel Peace Prize went to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese democracy campaigner. The award was a strong message of support to all who struggle for freedom and human rights, he said.

Liu, a writer, is serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion. Absent from Barroso’s statement was any plea for Liu’s release from the tiny cell he shares with five ordinary criminals in a provincial jail.

When EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sent her congratulations it was the same. The baroness simply said she hoped Liu “will be able to receive his prize in person”.

Middle East

Basra in southern Iraq has been transformed – thanks to oil

The violence in the city is on the wane, and is being replaced by shops, cars and fun parks

Martin Chulov in Basra

guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 October 2010 21.00 BST

For the five years that British forces camped on the Basra air base, the nearby city that they came to liberate remained a lethal tinderbox. Militias ran rampant; residents cowered. Services were medieval.

But a drive through Basra in mid-2010 reveals an entirely different picture. The despairing sprawl British forces left behind 16 months ago is now heaving with new money. Wide boulevards, once scarred with bomb craters and decades of putrid refuse are now full of new cars and touts hawking trinkets.

Three weeks ago something happened that few in Basra thought they would ever see – the reopening of the city’s most recognisable landmark, the giant hotel dubbed the Sheraton, that has stood in ruin since April 2003.

Iran apparently arrests son of woman sentenced to stoning, group says



From Mitra Mobasherat, CNN

October 12, 2010  

The son and lawyer of an Iranian woman sentenced earlier this year to death by stoning appear to have been arrested in Tabriz, Iran, a spokeswoman for the International Committee Against Stoning said Monday.

Two German journalists who were conducting interviews with the men at the time also were arrested, Mina Ahadi told CNN.

Iran’s prosecutor general, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, confirmed to the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Monday that two foreign nationals had been arrested, though he did not specify what country they are from.

Asia

Pakistan aid workers in row with US over Stars and Stripes ‘logo’

Aid workers in flood-devastated Pakistan face the threat of terrorist attacks if the US does not back down on a policy that requires them to use a Stars and Stripes logo on American-funded assistance, according to a letter signed by 11 charities.

Rob Crilly in Islamabad  

Oxfam, Save The Children, World Vision and Care International are among the groups which have written to officials in Washington warning that the US policy of “branding” aid jeopardises their neutrality in a country riddled with anti-American militants.

Charities receiving US funding received a reminder of their obligation last month after the visit of Richard Holbrooke, US special representative to Pakistan. He expressed his frustration that the US was not getting the credit it deserved as he toured aid camps.

Some say privately would rather give up millions of dollars in funding than risk the safety of their staff and the people who receive the aid.

A draft of the letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, insists that aid must not be seen to “promote a political agenda”

South Korea’s Lee expects Kim Jong-un to rule North Korea

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a gathering of reporters that dynastic succession in North Korea for Kim Jong-un appears assured.

By Donald Kirk, Correspondent / October 11, 2010

Seoul

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is quite sure of one thing after watching a broadcast of the biggest parade in North Korean history.

“It seems quite clear North Korean leadership is now entering officially into the third generation of Kim rule,” he said Monday, the day after the Pyongyang parade at which North Korean leader Kim Jong-il appeared on the reviewing stand with son and heir Kim Jong-un beside him. South Korea’s government “will be watching very closely whatever transpires in North Korea.”

As far as Mr. Lee is concerned, the Kim dynasty, founded by Kim Jong-il’s father Kim Il-sung and dominated by him for nearly half a century before he died in 1994, will have to demonstrate goodwill toward its own people and the rest of the world before his government willrush to its aid.

Africa

Uganda customs impounds Museveni biography

Ugandan authorities impounded 500 copies of a new book critical of President Yoweri Museveni to investigate whether the content could cause “social disorder”, an official told Agence France-Presse on Monday

KAMPALA, UGANDA

Copies of The Correct Line? Uganda under Museveni had been shipped from a UK publisher last Tuesday. The book is authored by Olive Kobusingye, whose brother, Kizza Besigye, is challenging Museveni in elections next year.

“I wouldn’t call it confiscation,” said Sarah Birungi Banage, spokesperson for the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), confirming the customs department has taken possession of the texts.

“Under customs law we have the right to investigate what kind of material is in the book and whether it will cause social disorder.”

Banage added that while URA is conducting its own investigation, “police have also taken an interest in the books”.

African journalists tasked on climate change

 

TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2010 00:00 FROM KAMAL TAYO OROPO, ADDIS ABABA  

THE challenges posed by climate change to ordinary livelihoods in Africa are too acute to deserve the patchy coverage the African media give the phenomenon, some 40 African journalists concluded at the seventh African Development Forum (ADF) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The pre-ADF media training workshop, held at the conference Hall of the United Nations headquarters, ended at the weekend with experts’ submitting in one voice that there was an urgent need for more awareness on the dangers of climate change.

However, The Guardian discovered that opinion is  divided on the level of financial commitment towards alleviating dangers posed to the environment by climate change, especially on the African continent.

Latin America

Chilean miners face struggle after rescue

 

October 12, 2010 – 6:06AM

The Chilean miners who have survived more than two months underground will emerge forever changed and may struggle to return to normal life, psychologists warned as the rescue approached.

Rescue teams were set to start hoisting up the first of 33 miners, trapped down around 700 metres, to the surface around midnight on Tuesday (1400 AEDT Wednesday), Mines Minister Laurence Golborne said.

Some of the miners, who spent 17 days cut off from the outside world before making contact, are likely to emerge stronger, while others could be more fragile, but all will be changed, psychologists said

Ignoring Asia A Blog