Referendum results kill Italy’s nuclear plans as Berlusconi’s future uncertain

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europe/referendum-results-kill-italys-nuclear-plans-as-berlusconis-future-uncertain/article2059123/

 

Italy’s nuclear revival is officially dead and the “no” vote seems likely to accelerate the meltdown of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s career.

After two days of voting, four binding referendum questions passed and each went overwhelmingly against Mr. Berlusconi wishes. In one referendum, voters blocked the centre-right government’s plan to construct nuclear power plans. Two others blocked the privatization of municipal water utilities.

The outcome of the fourth referendum abolished his right not to appear in court by claiming a conflict with official duties. Mr. Berlusconi, 74, is being tried in Milan for allegedly paying an underage nightclub dancer for sex. In three other trials, he faces tax-evasion, fraud and bribery charges, each related to his family’s control of Mediaset, the market-leading commercial broadcaster that turned him into a billionaire.

Mr. Berlusconi’s defeat had more to do with the man and his plunging popularity than the referendums themselves, political observers and opposition politicians said. “More than the substance of the laws, most of them were making a clear statement of their distaste for the Prime Minister,” said James Walston, professor of international relations at the American University of Rome.

Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the Democratic Party, the biggest opposition party, called on Mr. Berlusconi to resign immediately. “This has been a referendum on the divorce between the government and the country,” he said at a press conference in Rome.

Mr. Berlusconi might have been able to shrug off the referendum defeats had his political fortunes not already been in a nosedive. Two weeks ago, Mr. Berlusconi’s candidate in Milan, his home town and traditional power base, suffered a resounding loss in a run-off municipal election. Mayoral candidates he had supported in other big cities, including Turin and Naples, were also crushed.

Since then, the anti-Berlusconi media, both nationally and internationally, has gone on the attack. The cover story of the latest issue of The Economist magazine is about Mr. Berlusconi and is entitled “The man who screwed an entire country.” The Times of London said “the Italian Prime Minister is a political vegetable – one that’s riddled with E. Coli.”

While Mr. Berlusconi gave no sign that he would step down or call an early election – his government is supposed to run until 2013 – his coalition partner, Umberto Bossi of the Northern League party, is clearly losing his patience with the Prime Minister. “Berlusconi has lost the ability to communicate on television,” Mr. Bossi said after the referendum defeat. “That’s the simple truth.”

Roberto Calderoli, a Northern league government minister, said his party was growing weary of being “slapped around” by voters who are fed up with Mr. Berlusconi.

The rejection of Italy’s nuclear revival marks a big victory for the anti-nuclear lobby. In a referendum in 1987, Italians voted to close the country’s nuclear plants. Mr. Berlusconi pushed hard to restart the nuclear program, using French technology. Construction was supposed to start no later than 2015.

But public fear about nuclear accidents made the program a hard sell and the post-earthquake nuclear disaster in Japan all but ensured the Italian nuclear program would get killed in the referendum. “We shall have to say goodbye to nuclear,” Mr. Berlusconi said at a press conference in Rome. He promised that his government would push renewable energy instead.

Africa’s most wanted al-Qaeda terror suspect shot dead at checkpoint

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0613/1224298811498.html

 

MOGADISHU – Somali police said at the weekend that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Africa’s most wanted al-Qaeda militant, was killed in the capital last Tuesday.

Mohammed, who was reputed to run al-Qaeda in east Africa, operated in Somalia and evaded capture for over a decade after being accused of playing a lead role in the 1998 US embassy attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 240 people.

Police said they shot Mohammed at a checkpoint in Mogadishu after an exchange of fire at midnight on Tuesday in the chaotic country where Mohammed, also known as Harun, an accomplished linguist and computer expert with at least 18 aliases, is believed to have been hiding for most of the past decade.

Washington says several al-Qaeda members involved in the embassy bombings sought sanctuary in Somalia’s south, its most violent region.

Somalia, Kenya’s northern neighbour, has been without an effective central government since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

“We have confirmed he was killed by our police at a control checkpoint this week,” Halima Aden, a senior national security officer, said in Mogadishu.

“He had a fake South African passport and of course other documents. After thorough investigation, we confirmed it was him, and then we buried his corpse,” the national security officer said.

The United States had offered a $5 million (€3.5 million) reward for information leading to the capture of the Comoran, who spoke five languages and was said to be a master of disguise, forgery and bomb-making.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said, on a visit to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: “Harun Fazul’s death is a significant blow to al-Qaeda, its extremist allies and its operations in East Africa. It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents . . . and our own embassy personnel.”

A senior US official in Washington said his killing removed one of the group’s most experienced operational planners in east Africa and has almost certainly set back operations.

US officials say Mohammed, believed to be in his mid-30s, also masterminded an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel along Kenya’s coast in November 2002 that killed 15 people.

At times, Somali sources say, Mohammed hid among mixed-race, minority communities that live in villages dotted along the coast between Mogadishu and the Kenya border, where his looks blended in well with the coast’s Benadir and Bajuni people of mixed Somali, Arab, Persian, Portuguese and Malay ancestry.

These accounts fit with Mohammed’s well-known method of “hiding in plain sight”.

Adopting the guise of an itinerant Islamic preacher, he settled in an isolated Kenyan coastal village, Siyu, near Somalia’s south, in 2002, evading detection for months before and after the hotel bombing.

Shortly after, he slipped into southern Somalia. Local residents said that every morning Mohammed exercised on a beach near Gendershe before he left to live just south of Mogadishu.

However, in recent years he was believed to have been more often under the protection of al-Shabaab fighters in inland areas. – (Reuters)

Eurasian geopolitics face Astana earthquake

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http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/201161171726322565.html

 

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Washington is at a loss, facing regional integration led by Russia and China.  

On Wednesday, June 15, by all means, don’t take your eyes off Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital. The day may turn out to be the ultimate turning point as geopolitical tectonic plates clash in the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Astana will on Wednesday host the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – composed of China, Russia, and four Central Asian “stans”, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

What’s more, the SCO is about to admit India and Pakistan as full members – and Afghanistan as an observer.

Instant translation: a geopolitical checkmate by Russia/China on the post-American world. The message, in a nutshell: Dear Washington, forget about getting embedded in Asia. The reaction: Washington elites freaking out, big time.

Washington’s recent flurry of chessboard moves were interpreted in selected circles in Moscow and Beijing as concerted pre-emption. Such moves included:

• The UN-sanctioned/Africom/NATO “humanitarian” intervention in Libya
• The threat of a “humanitarian” intervention in Syria
• The revival of the Bush administration’s obsession in deploying a US missile defence system in Eastern Europe
• The no-holds barred expansion of NATO from Northern Africa to Central Asia (spanning that famous, Pentagon-named “arc of instability”)

Not to mention the serial invasions - via drone war or targeted assassination – of Pakistan’s territory and sovereignty.

Reset remixed

Whether or not Washington pays lip service to a “reset” of US/Russia relations, Moscow has interpreted all these moves, both at the periphery and the center of Eurasia, as torpedoing - by all means necessary – the role of Russia as a top global energy exporter.

Moscow’s strategy is to boost the SCO as a solid counterpunch not only to NATO but also to the US’ designs on Central Asian energy.

Moscow and Beijing see NATO for what it is – essentially the weaponised European arm of the Pentagon. Thus Beijing’s official policy of “soft reverse containment” of the US rush in Eurasia - with “all-weather ally” Pakistan as a key peon.

For its part, Washington registers India essentially as the key Asia-Pacific labourer in a strategy of Chinese containment.   

For Moscow as much as Beijing, a central Asia that is not subject to the winds of change of the Great 2011 Arab Revolt implies a politically and economically stable Pakistan - even as Moscow still enjoys a “privileged” strategic partnership with New Delhi.

That’s where a crucial trip by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to Russia in mid-May fits in.

Zardari discussed not only terrorism and drug smuggling with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but also Gazprom’s detailed, possible involvement in a crucial pipelineistan chapter; the eternally plagued TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline - which, it should always be stressed, has been the key issue at play in Afghanistan since the mid-1990s.  

Incidentally, Russia-Pakistan bilateral projects are way more ambitious than US-Pakistan projects.

Equally crucial has been a pre-SCO meeting working trip by Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasoul last month to Beijing - openly defying a US “ban”. India has invested over $1.5 million in Afghanistan. Yet China has invested over $3 billion - including the huge Aynak Copper Mine project.

At a recent lecture at Pakistan’s National Defense University, US ambassador Husain Haqqani, asked the audience whether the biggest threat to the country was internal, India, or the US. The US “won” by a large majority.

Compare that with the US neocon view - which is the same as the Pentagon’s - according to which “victory” against the Taliban in Afghanistan means NATO waging an air war on Pakistan as well. 

When Islamabad looks at the Russian/Chinese charm offensive and compares it with the ultra-fractured relationship with Washington, no wonder what stands out is an essentially Punjabi fear of a hidden US agenda: a determination to balkanise Pakistan.

Apart from Pakistan itself, the other key victim of such a scenario would be China - as in the competing Iran-Pakistan pipeline that would transit fuel to the crucial, Chinese-built Arabian Sea port of Gwadar being definitely killed.    

For the SCO, a potential Pakistani balkanisation - a crossroads in Eurasia of Southwest, Central and South Asia (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Western China) – would represent the ultimate nightmare.

We are all Afghans now

Of course there is a huge wall of mistrust between New Delhi and Beijing - which may be alleviated over time by closer contacts inside the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). But the problem is not only the Russian political elite, but that the Indian political elite have also still have not developed a strategic vision of BRICS in the post-US world.

And this while imperial Washington - occasional help from David Cameron’s beleaguered Britain and neo-Napoleonic Sarkozy’s France notwithstanding - seems to be running out of ideas to counteract real strategic competitors Russia and China.

As facts on the ground go, Moscow and Beijing have been deeply alarmed by the NATO war on Libya, the threat of an intervention in Syria, the absolutely free pass for repression in Bahrain, and the Washington obsession on remaining in Iraq at all costs.

But instead of the Arab world, their counterattack has been focused closer to home, in Eurasia - “the world’s heartland”, as conceptualised by the (imperial British) father of geopolitics Halford Mackinder (1861-1947).

That’s where the SCO concept for a stable Afghanistan fits in.

The SCO’s long-term plan is to increase Islamabad’s strategic autonomy so it may become immune to relentless Washington pressure/humiliation/violation of sovereignty. And getting Pakistan into the SCO is a sterling mechanism for both Moscow and Beijing to “force” Islamabad to fine-tune its stance towards Afghanistan.

Both Moscow and Beijing also want Afghanistan - like Pakistan - to become a crossroads of rail, roads and pipelines from across the Indian Ocean and Eurasia. That explains Beijing using the privileged Sino-Pak axis to “seduce” Kabul and, within the SCO, investing in “all-weather” strategic partnerships all across the board.

Moscow has also found the SCO immensely helpful. What Washington really wanted all along in Central Asia was for virtually unlimited gas from Turkmenistan to flow to Western Europe - via the also eternally plagued Nabucco pipeline - and thus cut off Gazprom’s grip on Europe’s energy.

With TAPI becoming viable with Gazprom’s help, Moscow will be able to “reward” Pakistan with transit rights and India with much-needed gas. And on top of it, Turkmen gas won’t compete with Russian gas in the European market.

The South Yolotan gas field in Turkmenistan – with 3,500 square kilometers – is the second largest in the world. This means gas, gas, gas until the 23rd century for China, India and Pakistan. And Turkmenistan can even export what’s left.

So welcome to the much-vaunted “SCO energy club”. And the winner is, once again, former Russian President Vladimir Putin, who came up with this idea way back in 2005.

If the SCO is instrumental in pulling this off - and that’s still a major “if” - it would be a monster fact on the ground towards the Asian Energy Security Grid, a concept of pan-Asian integration I have been lectured about by energy experts since the early 2000s.  

All aboard on the new silk road

Beijing has clearly identified Afghanistan-Pakistan – after the Obama-sanctioned extension – as a dangerous regional war. Beijing had to act not only in the geopolitical arena but because its economy is also at stake.

A Sino-Pak axis getting closer to Afghanistan spells out a crucial chapter of the much-taunted Silk Road revival - massive Chinese investment in a network of roads, pipelines and electric grids.  

All those who travelled in the region have marvelled at the Wakhan corridor that links Northeastern Afghanistan to Western China. Fabled Kashgar is only a few hours away from the Wakhan.

For all its usually deplorable treatment of Uighurs, Beijing is investing tens of billion of dollars to turn its far west into a special economic zone (SEZ), geared towards Central and South Asia. Kashgar is being remixed to its former Silk Road glory, as a key crossroads to Pakistan (via the Karakoram Highway), Afghanistan and Central Asia.

There’s no way the Pentagon’s war on terror-based Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine can compete with that integrated vision.

By surveying the chessboard, this is what the SCO has concluded. Washington won’t stabilise Afghanistan; the SCO has a better shot. No regional player wants eternal US military bases in Afghanistan - as the Pentagon, according to Full Spectrum Dominance, ardently desires.

Moscow is sure that Washington will stop at nothing to seduce the Central Asian “stans” into bypassing the Russian pipeline network.

And, sooner rather than later, NATO may be monopolised to “secure” pipelines that eventually bypass Russia (this was always a Bush administration wet dream).

Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University, couldn’t be more precise: “The purpose of establishing the SCO is to challenge the American strategic intention of extending its military breach to Central Asia.”

Via the SCO, Beijing and Moscow are now ready to smash the myth of NATO as a security umbrella in Eurasia. At the same time, China harmonises with India in their eagerness to stabilise both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and thus deflate the myth of a war on terror-based US “Great Central Asia” strategy.

The ball - and what a ball - is now somewhere across the Potomac.

Iran informs IAEA of changing uranium enrichment site

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-06/10/c_13920808.htm

 

TEHRAN, June 9 (Xinhua) — Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Thursday Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it is going to transfer its nuclear enrichment activities to a new site, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Salehi said the transfer of 20-percent uranium enrichment activities from Natanz site to Fordo site in the central province of Qom has been notified to the IAEA, according to the report.

Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi said Wednesday that the enrichment of uranium to the level of 20 percent will be transferred from Natanz site to Fordo site under the supervision of the IAEA, after which Iran will triple its 20-percent uranium enrichment output.

Abbasi said Iran will stop the enrichment process in Natanz after it makes sure that the Fordo site can produce the uranium enriched by three times as its current status.

In September 2009, Iran confirmed that it was building the new nuclear fuel enrichment plant of Fordo near the city of Qom.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday in a press conference in Tehran that the country will never stop uranium enrichment.

About the current status of Iran’s nuclear activities, Ahmadinejad reiterated that the Iranian nuclear train “has neither brakes nor the rear gear,” implying that the country is determined to push forward the program.

The West suspects that Iran’s uranium enrichment may be meant for producing nuclear weapons, which has been denied by Iranian officials.

China, NKorea break ground on joint economic zones

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

 

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/06/09/general-as-china-nkorea_8507802.html

 

BEIJING — China and North Korea have broken ground on the initial stages of a pair of joint economic development zones that appear to reflect minor progress in Beijing’s push to persuade Pyongyang to reform its moribund economy.

China’s Commerce Ministry said ceremonies marking the start of the projects took place during consultations from Tuesday to Thursday held in northeastern China.

Few details have been given about plans for the zones, one of which is on islands in the Yalu River near the Chinese city Dandong, the other near China’s Yanbian county to the northeast where a road is also being built to help move Chinese goods to the Sea of Japan.

The move follows North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s visit last month during which China pressed him to adopt changes to revitalize North Korean industry and agriculture. Pyongyang abandoned its previous halfhearted attempts and it’s unclear how far Kim is willing to go now.

The sides agreed the economic zones should be developed along the principles of “government-guided, enterprise-based and market-oriented,” the Commerce Ministry said in a news release reviewing the talks, which were led by Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming and Jang Song Thaek, a top official in the ruling Korean Workers’ Party who is Kim’s brother-in-law.

The statement did not say when or where the ground-breaking ceremonies were held, although South Korea’s Yonhap News agency said one was Wednesday on Hwanggumphyong and Wihwa islands, which form the western zone on the Yalu River separating the two near Dandong.

Jang and Chen attended, along with hundreds of others, while brass bands played, doves were released and giant baloons floated above the proceedings emblazoned with the words “North Korea-China friendship and joint development,” Yonhap said.

China is North Korea’s most crucial diplomatic and economic supporter and is determined to shore up the isolated hard-line communist regime and forestall a collapse that could unleash political chaos and send waves of refugees across its border. Its economy in ruins, North Korea is again struggling to feed its people following flooding last summer and a bitter winter.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency echoed the Chinese statement, saying the sides “agreed to build the two economic zones into a model of … economic and trade cooperation and a theatre of developing the economic and trade cooperation with other countries.”

The North’s last attempt at establishing economic development zones along the Chinese border was abandoned after China arrested the Dutch-Chinese businessman, Yang Bin, behind the project.

China’s Foreign Ministry referred questions on the economic zones to the Commerce Ministry.

However, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said Seoul hoped such deals would help bring progress on other fronts, especially multinational efforts to convince the North to abandon its nuclear programs and adopt a less confrontational approach toward its neighbors.

“We think it’s desirable for this kind of economic cooperation between China and North Korea to proceed,” Cho said.

China Plays Mediator to Libya’s Fighting Factions

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

 

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/north/China-Plays-Mediator-to-Libyas-Fighting-Factions-123540664.html

 

Libyan opposition forces trying to oust Moammar Gadhafi from his four decades in power are heading to China to seek support. Foreign Ministry official Chen Xiaodong announced the visit at a briefing Thursday – just as an envoy from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi wrapped up a two-day visit during which he urged China to help secure a ceasefire. China also says Libya’s future should be freely determined by its own people.

The envoy from the Libyan leader traveled to China, earlier this week, seeking help in securing a ceasefire between his battered government and the rebels. On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry official Chen Xiaodong revealed a delegation from the Libyan opposition would also soon be in Beijing to seek Chinese backing.

Chen said Beijing is “ready to receive” the Libyan rebels in the near future  – though he did not specify a date.

Chinese diplomats and rebel leaders met recently in Qatar and in the rebel’s main base in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Analysts speculate China is seeking a larger role as peacemaker because it secures much of its oil from the region.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at regular media briefing Thursday China hopes the Libyan factions involved in armed conflict immediately begin a ceasefire to prevent further humanitarian disaster.

Hong says political means such as discussion and dialogue should be used to end the crisis.

He says Beijing wants to see relevant parties in Libya quickly resolve the crisis through political means.

Hong also re-asserted China’s opposition to military actions that exceed a U.N. Security Council resolution authorization. Chinese authorities have said that NATO air strikes on government positions in Libya go beyond the U.N. mandate.

During his two-day visit to Beijing, Gadhafi’s envoy Abdelati Obeidi said his government is ready to agree to a total ceasefire and hoped China will help broker such a temporary peace settlement.

Chen Xiaodong, who Chinese state media identified as director general of the Foreign Ministry’s West Asian and North African Affairs Department, was quoted as saying China has stepped up its push to persuade the two sides in the conflict to seek “an amicable settlement through dialogue”.

He also said China is mulling additional humanitarian aid for Libya.

Fukushima nuclear plant may have suffered ‘melt-through’, Japan admits

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/08/fukushima-nuclear-plant-melt-through

 

 

Molten nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is likely to have burned through pressure vessels, not just the cores, Japan has said in a report in which it also acknowledges it was unprepared for an accident of the severity of Fukushima.

It is the first time Japanese authorities have admitted the possibility that the fuel suffered “melt-through” – a more serious scenario than a core meltdown.

The report, which is to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said fuel rods in reactors No 1, 2 and 3 had probably not only melted, but also breached their inner containment vessels and accumulated in the outer steel containment vessels.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), says it believes the molten fuel is being cooled by water that has built up in the bottom of the three reactor buildings.

The report includes an apology to the international community for the nuclear crisis – the world’s worst since Chernobyl in 1986 – and expresses “remorse that this accident has raised concerns around the world about the safety of nuclear power generation”.

The prime minister, Naoto Kan, said: “Above all, it is most important to inform the international community with thorough transparency in order for us to regain its confidence in Japan.”

The report comes a day after Japan’s nuclear safety agency said the amount of radiation that leaked from Fukushima Daiichi in the first week of the accident may have been more than double that initially estimated by Tepco.

The 750-page report, compiled by Japan’s emergency nuclear task force, concedes that the country was wrong-footed by the severity of the accident, which occurred after the plant was struck by waves more than 14 metres high following the earthquake on 11 March.

“We are taking very seriously the fact that consistent preparation for severe accidents was insufficient,” the report said. “In light of the lessons learned from the accident, Japan has recognised that a fundamental revision of its nuclear safety preparedness and response is inevitable.”

The nuclear task force’s head, Goshi Hosono, said Tepco had failed to adequately protect plant workers early on in the crisis, and had provided inadequate information about radiation leaks.

About 7,800 workers had been involved in the battle to stabilise the plant as of late May, the report said. While their average exposure dose was well within safe limits, “a certain number” may have been exposed to more than 250 millisieverts per year, the maximum allowable dose under revised government guidelines for Fukushima workers.

The report acknowledged that bureaucratic red tape, and the division of responsibilities across several government agencies, had hampered the response to the accident.

It said the government would separate the country’s nuclear safety watchdog from the trade and industry ministry, a recommendation made earlier this month by a team of experts from the IAEA.

The trade and industry minister, Banri Kaieda, said Japan would share all available data and co-operate with the IAEA. “Our country bears a serious responsibility to provide data to the international community with maximum transparency, and to actively contribute to nuclear safety,” he said.

The most urgent problem facing workers at Fukushima Daiichi is how to deal with vast quantities of highly radioactive water that has accumulated in reactor buildings and basements and in ditches.

The estimated 100,000 tonnes of contaminated liquid – runoff from water used to douse overheating reactors – is hampering efforts to repair the plant’s cooling systems.

Tepco has said it hopes to have a system in place by the middle of the month to remove radioactive substances from the water, enabling it to be reused to cool reactors.

 

5 US soldiers killed in Iraq. What does it mean for the withdrawal?

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/0606/5-US-soldiers-killed-in-Iraq.-What-does-it-mean-for-the-withdrawal

 

A rocket attack that killed five American soldiers in eastern Baghdad Monday inflicted the single worst death toll on US troops in Iraq in more than two years and renewed discussion of plans for the withdrawal of the remainder of US forces by year’s end.

With some 47,000 US troops slated to leave the country by then, the attack could provide a new impetus for the Pentagon to push for an extension of the US military presence in the country.

US military officials have made it clear that while security on the ground in Iraq has improved in recent years, “there is still much work to be done and still plenty of extremists aided by states and organizations who are bent on pulling Iraq back into violence,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said during a visit to Iraq in April.

RELATED: Five bombshells from WikiLeaks’ Iraq war documents

 

US troops are currently scheduled to leave by Dec. 31 under a security agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. When President Obama took office in January 2009, there were 144,000 US military personnel in the country.

The Iraqi government could request US troops to stay beyond 2011, but no such request has yet been made.

“Should the Iraqi government desire to discuss the potential for some US troops to stay, I am certain my government would welcome the dialogue,” Admiral Mullen said during his April 22 visit to Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has echoed these sentiments, telling an audience at the American Enterprise Institute on May 24 that having US troops remain beyond 2011 “sends a powerful signal to the region that we’re not leaving, that we will continue to play a part. I think it would not be reassuring to Iran, and that’s a good thing,” he added.

As recently as last week, senior US officials predicted that Iraq was poised to become “a political and economic leader in the Middle East.” Colin Kahl, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, acknowledged, however, that there remain considerable concerns in the Pentagon “about the readiness of the Iraqi government to provide security in Iraq as US forces draw down.”

Mr. Kahl emphasized, too, that terrorists and militias continue to pose a threat throughout the country. In mid-May, three coordinated car bombs killed more than two dozen people in the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, and at the end of May, Al Qaeda conducted a series of attacks in Baghdad that left 14 people dead and dozens wounded, Kahl said in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia on June 1.

The Pentagon has signaled frequently in recent months that if Iraq decides that it wants US troops to stay beyond the 2011 deadline, they must make the request soon “should there be any chance of avoiding irrevocable logistics and operational decisions we must make in the coming weeks,” Mullen said during his April visit to Iraq. “Time is running short for any negotiations to occur.”

But Mr. Gates acknowledged last month the political difficulties that come with Iraqi leaders requesting an extended US troop presence in the country. “We have to realize that it is a political challenge for the Iraqis because, whether we like it or not, we’re not very popular there” – particularly among the followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, he added. “The Sadirists clearly want us out.”

Some defense analysts are wondering whether the attacks Monday that appear to have been launched out of eastern Baghdad in the neighborhood of Sadr City – a Shiite-controlled stronghold once notorious for its anti-US forces militias – could be an effort to dissuade the Iraqi government from asking US forces to stay.

It could, additionally, be a brutal public relations move, analysts point out – a bid by supporters of al-Sadr to claim credit for chasing the Americans out of the country.

“At the micro level, I think it’s like the Mafia – there are all kinds of 17-year-old Sadrists who are trying to make their bones before US troops leave Iraq,” says Douglas Ollivant, former director for Iraq at the National Security Council under the Bush and Obama administrations and senior fellow with the New America Foundation. “At the macro level, the Sadrists know we’re leaving and they are trying to claim credit for our departure.”

Pentagon officials continue to stress that whether US troops remain in Iraq beyond 2011 or not, continued US engagement with Iraq remains vital. “We are now at the point where the strategic dividends of our tremendous sacrifices and huge investments in Iraq are within reach as long as we take the proper steps to consolidate them,” Kahl said.

What remains to be seen is what, precisely, those proper steps will be.

Fujimori Concedes Defeat in Peru Presidential Elections

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-06-06/fujimori-concedes-defeat-in-peru-presidential-elections.html

 

June 6 (Bloomberg) — Peru’s Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat in yesterday’s presidential election to Ollanta Humala, who won a narrow victory as voters overlooked his past support for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and rallied behind his pledges to stamp out corruption and extend a mining boom to the nation’s poor.

Fujimori, speaking to reporters in Lima, said she will lead a responsible opposition and “build bridges” with Humula’s government. She said she will offer him her personal congratulations in a meeting later today.

“I recognize his triumph,” said the 36-year-old congresswoman. “It’s important that the country continues its economic course and that it has clear rules”

Peruvians, fearful of reviving the political trauma associated with the authoritarian rule of Fujimori’s father, Alberto Fujimori, opted for a former army rebel who advocates greater state control of the country’s natural resources. Many voters doubt the sincerity of Humala’s transformation from a one-time ally of President Chavez to a defender of policies that have made Peru the fastest-growing economy in Latin America over the past decade.

Peru’s benchmark stock index plunged a record 12.5 percent and Peru’s currency and bonds dropped as investors dumped Peruvian assets on concerns Humala, 48, would freeze $50 billion of mining, energy and infrastructure investment. The Lima General Index’s decline was the biggest since its creation in December 1981. After shares plunged, trading was suspended for the first time since the global financial crisis.

Bonds Tumbled

Dollar bonds tumbled, sending borrowing costs to the highest in four weeks. Yields on dollar bonds due 2037 rose 19 basis points, or 0.19 percentage point, to 5.93 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Last night, Humala said he would seek broad backing for his policies and form a government comprised of the most-qualified people independent of their political affiliation.

Humala may appoint an ally of former President Alejandro Toledo to head the Finance Ministry, Omar Chehade, the President-elect’s running mate, told Canal N today.

Instead of looking to Chavez, Humala now says he’d emulate the pro-market policies of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and hired two of his former aides as campaign advisers.

Chavez today said Humala’s victory is “part of this dynamic of this world awakening to a new era.”

Southern Copper

Like Chavez, who as a paratrooper in 1992 led a coup attempt, Humala as an army lieutenant colonel in 2000 led 50 soldiers who seized and occupied for a week one of Phoenix-based Southern Copper Corp’s mines to protest corruption in Fujimori’s government. His brother, Antauro Humala, is in jail for killing four policemen during the takeover of a highland town in 2005.

The Nationalist Party candidate also abandoned the rhetoric against foreign mining and natural resource companies he used during the 2006 campaign, when he lost the presidency to Alan Garcia by five percentage points.

In the final days of the campaign Humala stepped up attacks on Fujimori, accusing her of turning a blind eye to the corruption and human rights abuses when she served as first lady during her father’s decade-long government, which ended in 2000.

Water, Sewage

Humala’s candidacy ignited the hopes of a third of Peru’s population that hasn’t benefitted from the economic boom. While a decade of growth averaging 5.6 percent has spurred employment and doubled per capita income to $5,224, as many as 80 percent of homes still lack running water and sewage in the state of Huancavelica, according to a United Nations study last year.

Humala pledges to curb tax evasion and raise mining taxes to finance higher social spending, and says he’ll resolve conflicts between farmers and mining companies that have caused companies including Southern Copper to shelve investments.

Peru is the world’s biggest silver producer, and third in copper and zinc. Mining investment helped bring in $7.3 billion in foreign direct investment last year and helped fuel growth above 7 percent for the past 13 straight months.

Many Peruvians voted for Humala simply to thwart Fujimori amid fears her victory could revive the corruption and authoritarian rule associated with her father, Coletta Youngers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Elder Fujimori

The elder Fujimori, after slashing 7,650 percent inflation, saw his government collapse after his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was caught on videotape in 2000 bribing lawmakers. He’s now serving a 25-year prison sentence for directing a paramilitary death squad that killed civilians during a war against the Shining Path, a Maoist insurgency.

Chehade said today that the 78-year-old Fujimori would likely be transferred to an ordinary prison from the police station on the outskirts of Lima, where he tends a garden and takes music lessons.

“Many who had been reluctant to endorse either candidate opted for Humala to prevent the return of a political movement responsible for the most corrupt government in Peruvian history,” said Youngers.

Israel to consider French Mideast peace bid: PM

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The Blogger column aims to introducing foreign media’s interesting stories and expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers, as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Authors who do not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories.)

 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-06/05/c_13912480.htm

 

JERUSALEM, June 5 (Xinhua) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would consider a new initiative raised by France to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“I heard the proposal brought by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe,” Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet session.

“We very much appreciate our French friends and I will respond to them after we have considered the matters,” he said, according to a statement sent to Xinhua.

Netanyahu said Israel, while studying the French proposal, would bring up the option with the American interlocutors as well.

“The Americans also want to advance initiatives and we have our own thoughts as well. We will consider how the proposal fits in with other initiatives,” the prime minister said, referring to recent talks with the U.S. President Barack Obama and his address before the U.S. Congress laying out Israel’s stand on a possible peace deal.

The French foreign minister presented last week a peace plan, which envisions the 1967 lines as the borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state. The French initiative agrees mostly with a recent speech by Obama, but goes further to emphasize the security for the two states.

A spokesman for the Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that Abbas had accepted the French initiative to resume the peace talks with Israel.

Netanyahu, however, cautioned on Sunday that Israel would not hold talks as long as Abbas’ Fatah party remained in an accord with Hamas, which Israel views as a terror organization.

Israel maintains that the Islamist movement must accept conditions laid down by the Quartet, the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia, before any resumption of negotiations can take place. The conditions includes renouncing violence, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and adhering to past agreements between the PNA and Israel.