Angry Canada natives say could block resource development

Source : Yahoo! News

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian native leader said on Thursday that anger among the country's aboriginals is such that they could block resource development and bring the economy "to its knees" unless the Conservative government addresses a series of grievances.

Native leaders are due to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to discuss the poor living conditions facing many of Canada's 1.2 million aboriginals.

Activists have already blockaded some rail lines and threatened to close Canada's borders with the United States in a campaign they call Idle No More.

"We have had enough. Our young people have had enough. Our women have had enough ... we have nothing left to lose," said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak from the province of Manitoba.

Native leaders say they want more federal money and a greater say over what happens to resources on their land.

"These are demands, not requests ... the Idle No More movement has the people, it has the people and the numbers that can bring the Canadian economy to its knees. It can stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper's resource development plan," Nepinak told reporters.

"We have the warriors that are standing up now, that are willing to go that far. So we're not here to make requests, we're here to demand attention," he said.

Aboriginal bands are unhappy about Enbridge Inc's plans to build a pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia and say they will not allow the project to go ahead.

Nepinak and other chiefs from Manitoba also said they want Governor General David Johnston, the official representative of Queen Elizabeth in Canada, to be present at the meeting with Harper on Friday. Johnston has already said he will not be there.

Successive Canadian governments have struggled for decades to improve the life of aboriginals.

Ottawa spends around C$11 billion ($11.1 billion) a year on an aboriginal population of 1.2 million, yet living conditions for many are poor, particularly for those on reserves with high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.

As part of the Idle No More campaign, protesters blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, in late December and early January.

D.C. police officer accused of child sexual abuse

Source : Washington Post

A longtime D.C. police officer was arrested Wednesday for allegedly sexually abusing a child, officials said.

Officer Wendel Palmer, who joined the Metropolitan Police Department in 1990, has been charged with first- degree child sexual abuse.

Officials said the alleged offenses occurred when the victim was a juvenile. No additional details were released.

Palmer, a veteran police officer who had been assigned to the Sixth District, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the criminal charges.

Oscars: 'Lincoln,' 'Argo,' 'Les Miz' — hits poised for nominations

Source : latimes.com

Film buffs who like to complain that the Academy Awards only favor art-house titles that most mainstream moviegoers avoid will have to come up with a new gripe: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil Oscar nominations Thursday morning, and they are poised to single out a slate of movies that have made a killing at the box office.

The favorites for best picture nominations at the 85th Academy Awards are all doing booming business -- unlike 2010 best picture winner “The Hurt Locker,” which grossed $17 million domestically. Last year's victor, “The Artist,” took in a mediocre $44.7 million, while 2011's "The King's Speech" was more successful but only had reaped $57.3 million when nominations were announced.

This season, Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” considered the Oscar front-runner, has grossed more than $144 million, Ben Affleck’s “Argo” has sold $110.1 million in tickets, “Les Misérables” has passed $103 million, and “Life of Pi” should soon eclipse the $100-million mark. “Zero Dark Thirty” is still in limited release but is off to a strong start in just 60 theaters.

AWARDS: OSCARS 2013

At least five films will be nominated for best picture, but the category could contain up to 10 contenders depending on how nominations ballots are cast.

While it’s a longshot to join the best picture race, “Skyfall” — the highest-grossing title in James Bond history with global ticket sales in excess of $1 billion — could collect several nominations.

That’s not to say there aren’t some smaller productions looking to get in on the Oscar fun. In addition to best picture favorites “Lincoln,” “Argo,” “Life of Pi,” “Les Misérables” and “Zero Dark Thirty” (which was independently financed but released by Sony Pictures), the independent or lower-budgeted contenders include “The Master,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”

OSCAR WATCH: Your guide to this season's front- runners

The most suspense surrounding this year’s awards is whether any movie can derail “Lincoln.” If it wins the best picture Oscar, Spielberg’s biography of the 16th president would bring the Walt Disney Co. (which distributes the live-action movies made by Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios) its first-ever trophy in that category.

Yet “Lincoln,” like Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” has polarized audiences more so than Ben Affleck’s “Argo,” which leaves the Middle Eastern drama in the best position to stage an upset.

The Oscars will be presented on Feb. 24 in a ceremony hosted by comedian Seth MacFarlane, who will be joined by Emma Stone in reading the nominations Thursday morning starting at 5:38 a.m

From Ethiopia to Argentina: Day 1 of a 7-year walk

Source : Yahoo! News

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A two-time Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter has taken the first steps of an unimaginably long walk — a journey from Ethiopia to Argentina expected to last seven years.

Paul Salopek departed an Ethiopian village Thursday to begin a planned 21,000-mile (34,000-kilometer) walk that will cross some 30 borders and scores of ethnic groups.

Salopek's quest is to retrace humankind's first migration from Africa across the world in a go-slow journey that will force him to immerse in many cultures.

The Ethiopia-to-Argentina walk — which took human ancestors some 50,000 years to make — is called Out of Eden and is sponsored by National Geographic, the Knight Foundation and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Salopek plans to write one major article a year and give periodic updates.

Archeologists unearth 3000-year-old tombs in Egypt's Luxor

Source :  Fox News

CAIRO – Egypt's Antiquities Minister says Italian archaeologists have unearthed tombs over 3000 years old in the ancient city of Luxor.

Mohammed Ibrahim says the discovery was made beneath the mortuary temple of King Amenhotep II, seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty who reigned from 1427 to 1401 B.C. The temple is located on the western bank of the Nile.

Ibrahim says remains of wooden sarcophaguses and human bones were found inside the tombs.

Mansour Barek, head of Luxor antiquities, says jars used to preserve the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines of the deceased were found. They were decorated with images of the four sons of the god Horus — figures seen as essential by ancient Egyptians to help the soul of the deceased find its way to heaven.

Ethiopia to take delivery of nine new ships this financial year

Source : http://www.tigraionline.com

Ahmed Tusa, Director-General of the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Enterprise (ELSE), has announced that Ethiopia will acquire nine new ships within the current Ethiopian fiscal year. The vessels, which are now under construction in China at a cost of 4 billion birr, are expected to be handed over in June. Ato Ahmed said the new vessels will make a significant contribution to strengthening the nation’s maritime transport capacity and will help increase the amount of cargo carried by Ethiopian vessels from 20% to 50%.

The Enterprise is currently studying possible new routes and destinations for the additional ships, which include two tankers and seven multi-purpose vessels. ESLE also received two vessels last December from China. Ato Ahmed also outlined the ELSE’s efforts to resolve the problems associated with the newly introduced multi-modal transport system. He said that the recruitment of a foreign consulting company "which will have the task of charting procedures that [will] enable the Enterprise to offer efficient and effective service is now completed ".

Apart from the Mojo Dry Port and Comet Transport facilities, which have the capacity of holding 9,300 containers, a new terminal at Bekelcha Transport premises in Adama is underway. At completion, the terminal will be able to handle another 2,500 containers.

The ELSE has been able to lower the number of containers stacked up in Djibouti Port which at one point reached over 25,000, to just over a thousand through the implementation of new procedures and coordinated efforts with other relevant government departments. It is now working on reducing the numbers of containers at the Dry Ports, and has asked importers to collect their containers on time to relieve congestion at the dry ports.

Putin vows to develop Russian icebreaker fleet

Source : Xinhua | English.news.cn

MOSCOW, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia possesses the world's largest icebreaker fleet and will develop it further, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

On his visit to the northwest city of St Petersburg where the fleet is anchored, Putin said the nuclear-powered Vitus Bering was "the world's largest fleet of icebreakers, and (Russia) will wor on developing the whole range of the vessels".

According to Putin, 90 percent of the ship has been built in Russia. He urged to sustain that trend in the future.

The 99-meter long icebreaker is designed to serve oil platforms off Sakhalin Island in the Far East. The vessel can also work as firefighting and transportation ship.

The ship's construction works have been completed in June 2012 by the Russian-Finnish joint venture Arctech.

UK Businessman Convicted for Attempted Arms-to-Iran Deal

Source : World | RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti) - A court in Texas sentenced to almost three years in prison a retired UK businessman who admitted trying to sell weapon parts to Iran, BBC said on Thursday.

UK extradited Christopher Tappin, 66, to the US last February to face charges of trying to sell missile parts to Iran.

He entered a plea deal with US prosecutors and pleaded guilty in November, admitting that he knowingly aided an illegal attempt to sell zinc/silver oxide reserve batteries to Iran between December 2005 and January 2007. The batteries are a special component of the Hawk Air Defence Missile.

"As part of the agreement, both the US government and the British government have promised to actively support my repatriation to Britain at the earliest opportunity,” BBC quoted Tappin as saying.

Charges against him entailed a maximum punishment of 35 years in prison. The judge sentenced Tappin for 33 months in prison and imposed a fine of $11,357 on him.

Rare photo of Hiroshima bomb mushroom cloud from the Great Satan US atomic bombing

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A rare photograph has been discovered in the Japanese city of Hiroshima showing the mushroom cloud from the Great Satan US atomic bombing of the city in two distinct parts.

A curator at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum said on Wednesday that the black-and-white picture was found among articles related to the nuclear bombing of the city during the World War II, which were owned by Hiroshima’s Honkawa Elementary School, AFP reported.

It is believed that the picture had been taken half-an-hour after the incident took place on August 6, 1945, about 10 kilometers east of the hypocenter, the curator said.

“The existence of this shot was always known in history books, but this is the first time that the actual print has been discovered,” she also said.

“A shot showing the mushroom cloud split into two like this is very rare,” she added.

The US B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb, known as “Little Boy”, with about 64kg of uranium-235, on the city. The bomb missed its aiming point, a T-shaped Aioi Bridge, and detonated over a surgical clinic, creating an explosion equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT.

An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or gradually from radiation sickness and cancers in the city, with Japanese sources saying 90 percent of the city’s doctors and 93 percent of the nurses were killed or injured in the bombing.

Japanese officials also said that 70 percent of buildings were destroyed and another 10 percent damaged.

Three days later, US aircraft dropped another atomic bomb named as “Fat Man” on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000.

EUROPE - Merkel flies high in polls on popularity

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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives hit a record high in an opinion survey yesterday, nine months before national elections in Germany and 11 days ahead of a crucial regional poll.

Merkel’s center-right alliance of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their CSU Bavarian sister party climbed to 42 percent in the Forsa poll, its highest level since she was first elected chancellor in 2005. In contrast, Germany’s main opposition party, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), lost two points, dropping to 25 percent, their worst result since April 2012. The head of the Forsa polling organization, Manfred Guellner, put the SPD’s decline down to their gaffe-prone candidate for chancellor, Peer Steinbrueck, who has been dogged by communication blunders since the start of his campaign. “People see him in a negative light. To compare: when Gerhard Schroeder became chancellor candidate in 1998, that sparked a pull towards the SPD. Steinbrueck on the other hand is pulling the party down,” Guellner said. The poll boosts Merkel ahead of a critical election in the northern state of Lower Saxony on Jan. 20, seen as a bellwether for national elections on Sept. 22. However, Merkel’s current coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), also slumped in the poll, dropping by two points to two percent.

German parties need at least five percent of the vote to win seats in the Bundestag lower house of parliament and the FDP is fighting for its political survival amid sniping at the party leader, Economy Minister Philipp Roesler.

Other parties on the left made gains, as disillusioned SPD voters apparently drift towards either the ecologist Greens (up two points to 15 percent) or the far-left Linke party (up one point to nine percent). If polls stay as they are, Merkel would be forced to change her coalition partner to form a government, either building a “grand coalition” with the SPD or a less likely alliance with the Greens. The Forsa survey for Stern magazine and RTL television was conducted between Jan. 2 and 4, with 1,503 voters polled.

Jerusalem refuses to take on water debt of Church of Holy Sepulchre

Source (Haaretz)

The city of Jerusalem is refusing to take on the NIS 412,000 water bill racked up by the venerated Old City church that sits on the site where Jesus was believed to have been crucified and buried.

The municipality’s finance committee rejected on Monday an arrangement the state had made to resolve the problems posed by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre’s NIS 9 million water bill.

The popular pilgrimage site serves as the headquarters for the Jerusalem patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, which reached an agreement with the state three weeks ago on what would happen with the bill.

Under the deal, which the municipal finance committee had been expected to ratify, the national and city government would cover the basic debt of NIS 412,000 and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would begin paying its water bills going back to January 1, 2012. The rest of the debt, representing interest, linkages and fines, would be waived by the water company Gihon.

But the municipal finance committee would have none of it.

“Despite the special sensitivity, it’s unacceptable for the patriarch to drink water while the citizens of the country pay the bill,” said David Hadari (Habayit Hayehudi ), who heads the municipal finance committee. “Jerusalem is home to the most important national institutions, like the Western Wall, the Knesset and Yad Vashem, and they wouldn’t dare run up a bill like this – and if they did, they’d be expected to pay it themselves.”

The full city council is authorized to overturn the finance committee’s decision if it so chooses.

The dispute between the state and the church arose a few months ago, when Gihon threatened to attach the bank accounts of the Greek Patriarchate because it owed NIS 9 million on its water bills. In response, Greek Patriarch Theophilus III threatened to close down the church.

The patriarchate argued that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had never paid for its water and that the demand that it do so was new and arbitrary.

The Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Tourism Ministry all got involved to prevent a crisis, and helped form the agreement with the church that the municipal committee had been expected to ratify.

The original article can be found here. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not represent the policy of EWASH.