February 27, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake has hit central Chile, the epicenter estimated about 200 miles southwest of the capital Santiago, roughly 70 miles from the city of Concepción, the nation’s second most populous city. The tremor lasted about 90 seconds and caused serious damage to roads and bridges. 122 people are confirmed dead, according to Chilean authorities, and a tsunami warning has been issued for the entire Pacific Ocean basin (including Hawai’i, Japan and the Philippines).
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January 18, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The bottleneck problem is center stage, as the volume of aid appears to outpace the remaining transport infrastructure for getting it where it needs to go. Today, Haitian authorities have complained there may be too exclusive a focus on the capital Port-au-Prince, causing some heavily devastated population centers to be left unattended, by comparison.
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January 18, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Apple has set up a special section of its iTunes Music Store to allow users to donate directly to the Red Cross. The funds are charged through the user’s iTunes account, billed to the same bank account or credit card on file, and use the same process as for buying a song, video or iPhone app. The move is the latest in a series of high-profile actions designed to help expedite the delivery of charitable donations to the Haiti relief effort.
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January 16, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The following is a list of updates on the situation in Haiti, including resources for people searching for missing loved ones: List of Disaster Relief Efforts for Haiti … Haiti plans massive evacuation of quake-hit homeless – Xinhua … Sec. of State Clinton reviews Haiti relief efforts – Washington Post … UN: Haiti quake catastrophe poses unprecedented relief problems – Monsters & Critics … Haiti Earthquake : Photos (Some very graphic images) – CNN … Canada to speed up immigration requests from Haiti – Washington Post … L’aide internationale se déploie dans un climat tendu en Haïti – Le Monde … A l’appel d’Obama, Bush rejoint Clinton pour aider Haïti – Le Monde … Google lance un outil de recherche des victimes – Le Monde … Haïti. J+4 Distribution d’eau potable pour 35000 personnes – Ouest-France … Le Sénégal octroie un soutien de 500.000 dollars à Haïti – Agence de Presse Africaine …
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January 15, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Obama has asked former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to join together to help oversee the administration of the massive relief effort now descending on Haiti. The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund is now online at ClintonBushHaitiFund.org, with a mission to ensure that funds coming in are directed to where they are most needed.
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January 15, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Fully three days after the catastrophic earthquake that struck the region of the Haitian capital, the bodies of thousands of dead are reported to be arrayed in the streets and being moved into mass graves, with likely no way to trace who is buried there. While massive amounts of international aid are moving into the disaster zone, and the Haitian government continues to function and is meeting every morning and afternoon to coordinate relief efforts, the sheer scale of the destruction is hampering the delivery of aid to neighborhoods blocked off by rubble and filled with dead and injured.
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January 14, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Obama outlined today a wide array of search and rescue, relief aid and security efforts his administration is sending to Haiti to assist the Haitian people in dealing with the worst recorded earthquake to strike their nation. The US president promised Haiti’s people that the US will not forget the victims of the Haitian quake and that “more search and rescue teams” are on their way. He also said his administration will invest an initial amount of $100 million to support its relief efforts in Haiti, and that this investment will grow.
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January 14, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The disaster response for the Haitian earthquake has been swift and coordinated, channeling massive international resources to the affected area. But the logistics of deploying the resources, personnel and technology needed to deliver comprehensive disaster assistance, are beyond complicated, with roads and transport overwhelmed, and means of contacting the wounded almost non-existent.
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January 14, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Red Cross (ICRC) relief & rescue efforts in Haiti
Haïti : le CICR intensifie ses efforts pour venir en aide aux victimes du séisme
UNICEF Emergency Relief Effort for Haiti
L’UNICEF déploie son aide d’urgence après le tremblement de terre
Doctors without Borders: Setting up clinics to serve the wounded
MSF: Haïti: des centaines de blessés reçoivent les premiers soins
USAID Haiti Earthquake Disaster Response …
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January 13, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives. The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to deliver the humanitarian relief — the food, water and medicine — that Haitians will need in the coming days. In that effort, our government, especially USAID and the Departments of State and Defense are working closely together and with our partners in Haiti, the region, and around the world.
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January 13, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The president of the island nation of Haiti, René Preval, has told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta in an interview conducted on the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince that the situation on the ground is “incredible”, adding that “you have to see it to believe it”. The destruction is widespread and the human suffering inestimable. Small health clinics are overwhelmed by massive numbers of casualties, as public health infrastructure has collapsed.
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January 12, 2010 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, is described tonight as in a state of disaster, with some reports suggesting there are more buildings destroyed than left standing, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake at 4:53 this afternoon. The epicenter of the quake is reported to have been just 10 miles away from Port-au-Prince, with the most severe tremors and violent shaking felt across an area 70 miles in diameter. There are no reliable estimates so far of loss of life, but thousands are feared killed.
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January 4, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
En mesa redonda, en el programa 59 segundos de la TVE, un panel de periodistas y analistas políticos debaten los méritos y desafíos del primer año del mandato de Barack Obama, presidente de Estados Unidos. Entre las complicaciones, debaten las expectativas, tal vez más globales y desafiantes que las que encontró ningún otro presidente al llegar al poder, y la agresiva resistencia de sus contrincantes políticos a la ética del diálogo y de la política colaborativa.
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December 29, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: One Comment
Aung San Suu Kyi, the jailed Burmese pro-democracy opposition leader, was recently granted visitation rights to meet with three aging leaders of her National League for Democracy. The meeting marked the highest-level contact she has had with her party in years, even as the Burmese junta prepares to clamp down on pro-democracy elements ahead of the first nationwide election since her victory —never realized by taking office— in 1990. Suu Kyi has instead spent most of the last two decades under house arrest.
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December 28, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, has reportedly been transported by military helicopter to a secure location, on a military base outside Tehran. Reports emerging from Iran suggest the security forces’ brutal crackdown on unarmed civilians during the festival of Ashura has sparked active resistance. There are now reports of ongoing clashes across the capital.
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December 27, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Iranian police have fired on crowds of unarmed civilians demonstrating in Tehran on the feast day of Ashura, the commemoration of the most sacred martyr of the Shi’a strain of Islam. At least four people are reportedly confirmed killed, including one nephew of the leading opposition politician, Mir Hossein Mousavi, whose supporters —along with numerous international observers— believe he won the disputed presidential elections in June of this year.
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December 24, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: No Comment Yet
The Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri died this past weekend, opening a period of seven days of mourning for one of the nation’s most influential clerics. The seventh day of mourning happens to coincide with the Shi’a holy day of atonement, Ashura. Ashura marks the killing of Hossein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed, by the Caliph Yazid, in the year 680. Yazid is often portrayed as a tyrannical ruler in Shi’a tradition, and the festival lends itself to an expression of the very anti-dictatorship language used by the reformist opposition.
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December 19, 2009 :: Eva Scherson :: One Comment
After two weeks of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations, US president Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen to marshal all his diplomatic skills in brokering the beginnings of a viable framework for global carbon emissions reductions. Late Friday, it was announced that five nations —the United States, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa— had carved out a deal that would, for the first time, bring all the world’s major economies into the same camp on efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
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December 19, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Philippines looks upon these negotiations in Copenhagen with a critical sense of urgency. The average world per capita CO2 equivalent emission is 6 tons and must be brought down to 3 tons to stabilize at 450 ppm in 2050. The Philippines is already doing better than that. Our emissions are only 1.6 tons per capita and we are committed to further deviate from our business-as-usual growth path.
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December 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
When Pres. Obama and Pres. Medvedev meet, their agenda will reach beyond carbon emissions and climate change negotiations, however.They are expected to discuss ongoing negotiations on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. US and Russian negotiations have been meeting in Geneva, holding talks described as “intense”, in the interests of mutual nuclear disarmament. The plan will be a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (StART 2), aimed at moving the world closer to Pres. Obama’s vision of “a world without nuclear weapons”.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Gordon Brown plans “plan b” 2nd round of talks if Copenhagen conference fails to achieve global pact. The plan would call for a smaller number of nations to meet to agree to concrete steps to curb emissions and move their contribution to the world economy toward a green energy future.
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December 17, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The government of the Philippines has deployed military forces to the vicinity of the Mayon volcano, near Legazpi City, to evacuate at least 50,000 people who live in the expected path of lava flows or ash plumes that could result from an impending eruption. Mayon is the most active of the 22 active volcanoes across the Philippines archipelago. The Philippines has failed to prevent loss of life in natural disasters like urban flooding linked to poor management of drainage systems and mudslides linked to illegal mountainside logging, and is determined to do succeed in doing so in this case.
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December 16, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The above image, captured by and transmitted from the Hubble Space Telescope, in orbit around the Earth, shows the largest star-forming region in the vicinity of our Milky Way galaxy. According to NASA: “The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus.”
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December 7, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change opened today, with 192 nations in attendance, making it the most significant event ever staged to bring governments together to fashion a global response to climate destabilization. 15,000 participants representing governments and the fields of science, economics and public policy research, are gathered to try to reach agreement on the first true global protocol for curbing emissions and countering the threat of comprehensive climate destabilization.
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December 6, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
A prominent Russian journalist, Olga Kotovskaya, has been killed in a mysterious fall from a building in Kaliningrad, under circumstances press rights groups believe suggest yet another attack on press freedom by shadowy individuals linked to the government. Kotovskaya had just won an important court victory over the government and should have been allowed to take back control of a TV network she had founded.
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December 6, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: No Comment Yet
Iran’s government has temporarily banned foreign media from operating in the capital, Tehran, in anticipation of student rallies on Monday, marking Iran’s Student Day commemoration. The government has warned against any “illegal rallies”, suggesting it fears the student rallies could turn into a new round of protests against the alleged rigging of the June presidential vote and the subsequent violent crackdown against dissent.
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December 1, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present –day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2oC. Even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increase the chances of exceeding 2oC warming.
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November 29, 2009 :: Mirya Dunaeva :: No Comment Yet
The Nevsky Express train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, carrying 661 passengers, yesterday suffered a serious impact or explosion, derailing several cars and killing at least 26 people, near the village of Uglovka. A small crater found near the tracks and an engineer’s testimony that an explosion had occurred have led investigators to suspect a bomb attack as the cause for the tragedy.
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November 26, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: No Comment Yet
Andal Apatuan, Jr., the heir to a powerful political dynasty on the southern Philippine Island of Mindanao, and a candidate for governor in 2010, has been taken into custody after a raid by military and police forces. Ampatuan is running to replace his father as governor of Maguindanao province, his father being forced to step down after three consecutive terms due to term limits.
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November 24, 2009 :: Severino Villalonso :: No Comment Yet
With election contests heating up in the troubled southern region of the Philippines, Mindanao, a mass-grave has been unearthed that is said to contain the bodies of at least 46 people kidnapped and murdered yesterday in connection with the local campaign. At least 20 are reported to be journalists who were traveling with one of the candidates when his convoy was attacked and everyone in it kidnapped, and now, according to reports emerging from the region, summarily executed and thrown into a shallow mass grave.
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November 21, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
From WhiteHouse.gov: “In an address recorded in Seoul, South Korea, the President discusses his trip to Asia. He talks about his push to stop nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Iran, and around the world. He talks about promoting America’s principles for an open society in China while making progress on joint efforts to combat climate change. And talks in-depth about the primary objective of his trip: engaging in new markets that hold tremendous potential to spur job creation here at home.”
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November 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
A court in Iran has sentenced 5 people to death for their role in post-election anti-government protests this summer. At least 81 people have been sentenced to jail terms ranging up to 15 years in prison, for protesting the government’s handling of the election and its violent crackdown on the protesters. The government says all 5 are members of “terrorist and opposition groups”, apparently considering opposition to the ruling party a “terrorist” crime.
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November 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has called for sweeping political and economic reforms, designed to make Russia a modern, advanced democratic society. In his state of the nation address, Pres. Medvedev said Russia needs to evolve from being a “primitive” economy based on raw materials and natural resources to an advanced economy based on unique innovative human knowledge. He also said the new Russia needs to be one of “intelligent, free and responsible people”, not one where political bosses dictate policy.
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November 10, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This video is a report from Doctors without Borders (MSF) on their ongoing efforts to deliver much-needed medical aid to civilian populations across the war-torn Democratic Republican of Congo. MSF got into delivering aid to the DR Congo after the ethnic clashes in Rwanda that turned into the brutal Rwandan genocide. The mass exodus of refugees from that human catastrophe caused the violence to spill into DR Congo, and was one of the factors that sparked the brutal civil war there, which took 5.4 million lives between 1998 and 2008.
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November 10, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Berlin Wall separated East and West Berlin, ensuring that capitalist and democratic West Berlin remained surrounded on all sides by the communist German Democratic Republic, where a permanent state of martial law kept millions prisoner for decades. West Germany was forced to move its seat of government to Bonn, to protect against a potential hostile siege from the East German regime, strongly backed by the Soviet Union. But on 9 November 1989, a spreading movement of ground-up resistance and reform climaxed in what seemed like the sudden unraveling of an empire that covered half the continent.
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November 9, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This video shows the emotional exuberance of the massive crowds of millions that flooded the streets of Berlin around the places where the wall was being dismantled and the checkpoints where cars were being allowed through. The iconic East German Trebant cars were symbolic of the people’s urge to peek through the barrier and glimpse life on the other side. They brought East Germans into the streets packed with revelers, who welcomed their newly free neighbors. The atmosphere is one of joy and celebration as families and communities are reunited.
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November 9, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
his video is in German, with English subtitles. It shows the convergence of thousands at the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing, as news of the opening of the wall began to spread. The wall is slowly opened as the border guards begin to understand the scope of what is taking place. The political order has shifted so quickly, it takes time for the information to filter through that they are not to use force to stop the tens of thousands seeking to cross into West Germany.
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November 9, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This video shows original video footage from 12 November 1989, taken at various sites both before sunrise and later that morning. The video focuses on Potsdamer Platz and records the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the jubilation of those who flocked to the historic celebration.
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November 9, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This video shows an ABC News report on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the process of reform and political change that rapidly swept across eastern Europe in the months surrounding that event. The report cites the efforts of mass movements of ordinary people to overthrow hardline totalitarian regimes through peaceful mass protest.
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October 16, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
There are rumors circulating that Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, is dead, or in a coma. The rumors are unconfirmed, which also means not proven false, and this has spurred still further speculation that the rumors might be true and Iran’s government struggling to determine how to see a smooth transition to a successor’s reign. The most prominent cleric after Khamene’i is a staunch opponent of the government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
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October 10, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: No Comment Yet
One day after the world was shocked by the surprise award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the United States’ young first-term president, Barack Obama, statements of dismay and/or congratulation have given way to more cogent analysis of the important new direction Obama has brought to international relations of all kinds. Here are just a few meaningful examples…
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September 30, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
An 8.0-magnitude earthquake, off the coast of Samoa, has resulted in a tsunami that came ashore just minutes after warnings were issued. Many areas received no warning, and officials now say at least 99 people have died. They also estimate the death toll could rise steadily as remote areas are accessed and the full scale of the tsunami is better understood and a comprehensive count of missing persons can be made.
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September 29, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
During the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, riot police were recorded firing tear gas into crowds of students and faculty who were doing nothing more than sitting, standing or walking on their own campus. A group of students reported being forcibly removed from “our own unit”. By PA, the police order all people in the public spaces on campus to “immediately disperse” or risk attack from “less lethal munitions”.
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September 27, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Iran’s precarious ruling power bloc, centered around Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, continues to use detention as a means of silencing the opposition. The Green Path of Hope movement started by Ahmedinejad presidential rival, the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, has continued to stage protests and demands the release of leading politicians being held for protesting the legitimacy of the 12 June election.
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September 24, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
While covering an anti-G20 protest in Pittsburgh, a CNN reporter was hit with a chemical agent. It appears the chemical substance was fired by police at demonstrators in an effort to disperse the crowd. It is unclear from the video what event occurred to prompt the order declaring the demonstration illegal. It appears the demonstrators may have strayed from their assigned, agreed route, in an effort to get closer to the site of the G20 meeting.
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September 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Queen Noor, of Jordan, spoke last night to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell about the growing movement among world leaders to rid the world of nuclear weapons. She said a major sign of hope is the support expressed by Presidents Obama (US), Medvedev (Russia) and Hu (China), for a global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether. Today, Pres. Obama achieved an historic Security Council resolution to reduce the global nuclear threat.
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September 10, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
A report by the California Nurses Association has found that between 2002 and June 2009, six of the largest private insurers in the state of California rejected fully 22% of all claims filed by doctors and hospitals during that time. The findings demonstrate a systematic and ongoing effort by private insurance companies to ration and deny medical care to patients whose treatment is supposed to be paid through their policies with those companies.
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September 9, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
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September 1, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: One Comment
Tens of thousands of head of livestock are dying in Kenya, due to one of the worst recorded droughts in the east African nation’s history. The UN is requesting $230 million in aid, and says 4 million people may face hunger if food aid is not delivered. Goatherds report being unable to get their herds to water, having to leave their animals along the way and carry what small amount of water they can back to the dying animals.
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August 30, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
At yesterday’s funeral service for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, his son Teddy —Edward, Jr.— gave a stirring eulogy, one of many, in which he lauded his father’s spirit of perseverance and his ability to infuse others, himself included, with that optimistic spirit. He tells of his father’s lessons to him as a boy of besting more talented opponents by superior preparation and by working harder and longer to out-perform and outlast them when the time came.
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