Six In The Morning

‘We may be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day’: PM says 65 killed in quake

 



February 22, 2011  

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key says 65 people died in the earthquake that devastated Christchurch today.

”The death toll I have at the moment is 65 and that may rise. So it’s an absolute tragedy for this city, for New Zealand, for the people that we care so much about,” Mr Key told TVNZ. ”It’s a terrifying time for the people of Canterbury.”

He said: “We may be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day.”

As thousands of shocked people wandered the rubble-strewn streets of Christchurch after today’s devastating and deadly earthquake, emergency workers were searching for survivors.

Four American hostages killed by pirates



All of the pirates were killed or captured by U.S. forces

They Love That KGB Man  

Russia’s Prime Minister is feared in the West – but adored at home, says Mary Dejevsky. Is the reason we don’t trust him that we don’t really understand him?

Vladimir Putin and the people



Later this week,  the Russian Prime Minister will be in Brussels – to which you might well respond wearily, “Big Deal”. EU-Russia meetings at this level take place every year and soon become non-events, even if they avoid descent into recriminations. This time, however, a real “Big Deal” might not be far off the mark. Russia has spent the past few months signalling that it would like to see relations with the EU shifting from the tetchy political arena to Russia’s economic modernisation, and the Prime Minister will have with him a large delegation of ministers and business people to that end.

Guns In School That’s An Important Educational Need  

Universities in Texas are set to be forced to allow students and academics to carry guns on campus, in a victory for a firearms lobby unbowed after last month’s massacre in Arizona.

 

Universities in Texas ‘to allow students to carry guns on campus’



A new law that looks certain to pass through the Texas legislature would mean that its 38 public colleges, which are attended by half a million students, must permit concealed handguns on site.

It would become only the second state, after Utah, to enforce such a rule.

More than 20 states have rejected similar proposals introduced since the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.

At present, colleges in Texas – along with churches and businesses – are free to ban firearms from their premises. Guns are prohibited from university buildings, dormitories and surrounding grounds.

Imprisoned For Their Crimes  

 

Congolese court jails colonel 20 years in rape trial



A CONGOLESE court has sentenced a colonel to 20 years in the highest-profile rape case ever held in the massive Central African nation where sexual violence is endemic.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP) yesterday, 49 women testified in the mobile court in the lakeside village of Baraka in eastern Congo. The women – from a newlywed to a white-haired grandmother – relayed horrifying tales of being gang-raped and beaten by Congolese soldiers.

Lt. Col. Mutuare Daniel Kibibi denied all charges before yesterday’s sentencing.

The court of military judges was paid for by U.S. legal aid agencies and the United Nations (UN) mission to Congo.

The Elephant In The Room Brought The Book  

Sasha Alyson hauls (sometimes by elephant) children’s books in the local language to kids in rural Laos eager to learn to read.



Publishing children’s books – and delivering them by elephant

The little booklet contains riddles about animals – and the children in Pakseuang village just love it. Squeezing around a young Laotian staffer from Big Brother Mouse, the 40 or so second-graders listen with bated breath as he reads out the rhyming riddles to them..

“Buffalo!” “Snake!” “Frog!” they shout back their guesses. At each correct answer they jump up cheering with arms raised. Books – even simple ones like the 32-page “What Am I?” – hold a magical appeal for Laotian children. Many of them have never seen a book, much less owned one.

“What struck me when I came here [as a tourist in 2003],” says Sasha Alyson, the American expatriate who founded Big Brother Mouse, a local children’s publisher, “was that I never saw a book for children.”

Britain, Italy condemned for Libya ties

 

The countries have done business with Kadafi’s regime in recent years, including the reported sale of tear gas and bullets from a British arms dealer



By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

February 21, 2011



Reporting from London –

They opted for engagement instead of estrangement, lured in part by the prospect of Libyan oil. Decisions by Britain and Italy to do business with the regime of Moammar Kadafi have led to billions of dollars in contracts for companies from both countries.

But their friendliness with the longtime dictator is generating angry denunciations of London and Rome as the deaths and injuries mount in Kadafi’s crackdown on anti-government protesters.

In Britain, critics Monday blasted the 2007 “deal in the desert” between Kadafi and then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to try to normalize relations between their nations.