Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Red River at Winnipeg is almost clear of ice blocks and ice jamming, however there are still dangers from the Red River flood.

Ice blocks which were as high as two storey buildings were ripping out trees, fences and railway ties. “You’ll see huge pans of ice standing vertical, up to 20 feet (6.1 m) high,” said Steve Topping, an official with the provincial Water Stewardship Department. “Ice was shoved up on the shore and took out trees with a very devastating effect. It has changed people’s view of the river.”

“It is incredible, the force. One piece of ice pushed out of the river about 20 feet. You watch the force push this up right in front of your eyes,” said Dean North, of the Selkirk Golf and Country Club.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police are ticketing sight seers who are driving through road closure signs and approaching excavators, cranes and crews breaking up the ice. Vehicles, people, boats, and kayaks are getting in the way.

An eight year old boy is in critical condition after slipping on a culvert Thursday. He was pulled underwater by the speed of the flowing water and remained under for about five to ten minutes until adults could rescue him. The air ambulance supplied by Alberta’s STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society) remains in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

“This is not a spectator sport. It’s not about getting the best pictures for the family albums. I know floods are seen as a bit of an event, but some of the instances I’m hearing about, people should give their head a shake, they really should,” said Steve Ashton Manitoba Emergency Measures Minister, “Those who fall into the river or get into trouble in another way would be not only endangering themselves but the emergency response crews trying to rescue them. I don’t want to see a situation … where we’re trying our darndest to prevent flooding and save lives and somebody [who] decides to go have a white-water experience ends up killing themselves.”

Early Easter Sunday morning floodwater reached the rural municipalities of St. Andrews and St. Clements north of Winnipeg. Residents were sent an evacuation advisory Good Friday, however some residents remained. Rescue efforts commenced Saturday night to find those stranded and unable to leave as their vehicles cannot travel in the swollen overland floodwaters. Some people were rescued from roof tops as entire houses were swept off of their foundations by the large ice blocks hurtling down the river.

Highways in the area remain closed. Neil Gobelle, of Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation said to “definitely continue to watch the Red River Valley and north of the city up in the Selkirk area. Things are changing quite a bit, quite quickly, so we’ll keep an eye on those areas.”

As of Easter Sunday, Winnipeg is expected to be ice free on the Red River. The River rose 4 feet (1.2 m) in the course of 24 hours. Rain is in the forecast and the higher temperatures of 17 °C (62.6 °F) will cause melting of snow and ice.

A weather system caused by La Niña is being watched by the United States National Weather Service and its potential effects between April 16-18 for residents along the Red River Valley. “We want people to be aware there is a very real possibility of the river going higher than what is out there,” said Mark Ewens, data manager at the NWS, “To have spring floods like this back-to-back is just an unfortunate series of events that have come along to plague us this spring. We’re wanting people to understand that this is a potentially serious problem.”

Saturday, July 2, 2005

Musician Luther Vandross died at 1:47 pm Eastern time Friday, at a hospital in Edison, New Jersey, likely from complications related to a 2003 stroke.

He was the winner of numerous Grammy Awards.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Detainees, or individuals in United States custody considered to be suspects connected to terrorism, will no longer be able to protest their being held in custody or their treatment while in custody, otherwise known as the “writ of Habeas Corpus,” at least not in U.S. federal courtrooms.

Democrats, who sponsored the bill, needed at least 60 votes in order for the bill to allow detainees to fight but received only 56, which included six Republicans. 43 Republicans voted against the bill.

“[The bill’s failure to pass] calls into question the United States’ historic role of defender of human rights in the world. It accomplishes what opponents could never accomplish on the battlefield, whittling away our own liberties. This is America?” said Democratic Senator for Vermont, Patrick J. Leahy.

In 2006, the U.S. Military Commissions Act limited the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. run detention facility in Cuba for the most dangerous individuals in the world, accused of acts of terrorism. The act also included smaller U.S. prisons around the globe.

Opponents of the bill claim that to allow detainees those rights, the U.S. would potentially be engulfed in an endless line of lawsuits.

“To start that process would be an absolute disaster for this country. I cannot think of a more ill-advised effort to undermine a war that I think will be a long-standing effort,” said Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey O. Graham.

Some Senators are planning on debating and voting on the bill again, but it is not known when or if that will happen.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Iran, has decided to pull its finances out of European banks and into different foreign banks. A senior Iranian official stated that this is an attempt to pre-empt possible U.N. sanctions over its resumption of nuclear fuel enrichment activities.

Comments by Iran’s central bank governor Ebrahim Sheibani, carried on air by the ISNA student news agency, confirmed that Iran had started transferring funds.

“We transfer foreign reserves to wherever we see as expedient. On this issue, we have started transferring. We are doing that,” Sheibani told the ISNA agency.

Ebrahim Sheibani also told the agency that the assets were being moved to an “undisclosed” location.

It is unknown exactly how much money is involved or whether or not Iran’s investments in Europe would be affected by the move. Traders have said that they had already factored such a possibility into the market.

Gary Samore, an expert on Iran and vice president for international programs at the McArthur Foundation in Chicago, said “the move reflected concern by Tehran that the Europeans might take unilateral measures amid the crisis over its nuclear program.” He also added that its decision to pull its assets from Europe “makes sense in terms of preparing for the possibility that Europe might take some measure to impose some financial sanctions. I don’t know that it changes the diplomatic formula. The key issue is still the question of whether or not the Western group can engineer a formal referral to the Security Council.”

It is unclear if an asset freeze or other punishment is imminent in Iran, but it has happened before. The country’s assets in the United States have been frozen since Iranians seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its staff hostage after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

An Italian court last year had ordered an Iranian bank account to be frozen at the request of U.S. plaintiffs who were seeking compensation for terrorist acts they believe were supported by the country (Iran).

Earlier the EU drafted a resolution that calls for referring Iran to the 15-nation council. But it is said to stop short of asking for punitive measures against Iran. The IAEA is expected to meet on February 2, 2006 to discuss Europe’s draft.

Monday, June 25, 2018

On Saturday, the plastic ban in the Indian state of Maharashtra came into force. In an attempt to minimise pollution, the state government has introduced a ban on single-use plastics.

The leader of the Yuya Sena political party, Aaditya Thackeray, said on Twitter, “The ban on single use disposable plastic cups, plastic bags, plastic straws, plastic plates and cutlery, styrofoam cutlery and non woven bags”. He added, “these are global issues now and we have taken a step to combat it”.

Plastic pollution has led to the choking of drains, marine pollution and a risk of animals consuming plastics. This year, India’s motto for World Environment Day — June 5 — was “Beat Plastic Pollution”. People violating the plastic ban are to face a fine of 5,000 Indian Rupees (INR) for the first offence. For the second offence, the fine is INR 10,000 and the third time offence is INR 25,000 and a three-month prison term. Deputy municipal commissioner Nidhi Choudhary said, “To weed out corruption, we plan to give inspectors payment gadgets for electronic receipts of the fines”.

The Maharashtra government has given a 90-day period for manufacturers to dispose of existing polyethylene terephthalate (PET/PETE) plastic spoons and plates, while shopkeepers and citizens in general have six months to dispose of plastics. However, the ban does not prohibit plastic usage for wrapping medicines or milk cartons thicker than 50 microns.

The state government had announced the decision for the plastic ban on March 23. According to NDTV’s report, Maharashtra is the eighteenth Indian state to enforce a state-wide plastic ban. Aaditya Thackeray also said, “I congratulate the citizens for making this into a movement, even before the ban was enforceable, giving up single use disposable plastic.”

Monday, September 2, 2013

Radiation at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant yesterday spiked to lethal levels around a leaking tank. Today the national Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said contaminated water may be pumped into the sea.

Tanks holding contaminated water at the site continue to leak; operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says up to 300 metric tons may have leaked from one tank alone. Radiation at that tank soared to 1,800 millisieverts per hour yesterday, a rate lethal to an exposed human in about four hours. Japanese law says nuclear workers cannot be exposed to more than 50 millisieverts in a year.

TEPCO says other locations at the plant have readings of 70–230 millisieverts per hour. Waste water totalling more than 300,000 tons has already been collected at the site; more is being stored at a rate of 400 tons per day. An unknown quantity of radioactive groundwater is flowing into the sea.

NRA boss Shinichi Tanaka told a press conference today that stored water may be pumped into the Pacific after treatment to reduce contamination to within legal limits. “I’m afraid that it is unavoidable to dump or release the water into the sea,” he said, adding “careless management” was being applied to the water by TEPCO.

TEPCO first noticed a leak at the now-deadly tank in July but said it was minor and the NRA gave it a level one “anomaly” rating on the seven-part international scale. Last week that was raised to “serious incident”, level three, after TEPCO said up to 300 tons of water had leaked. The exact amount is unknown as there is no gauge to measure levels inside the tank and TEPCO staff had said water levels in the tank had remained constant.

Last week levels under the tank, where lost water is thought to have seeped into the ground, stood at 100 millisieverts per hour, and another at the facility had a level of 70 millisieverts per hour. TEPCO found another leak yesterday in a pipe between coolant tanks. Highly radioactive material was dripping out, but TEPCO says the leak is now fixed. Monitoring at the site has been increased since the original leak’s discovery two weeks ago.

Around 1,000 tanks are used to store water from the power plant’s coolant system, which was contaminated when three reactors melted down after a tsunami in March 2011. Around 160,000 people were evacuated in the worst nuclear disaster since 1986. Tanaka said “The situation at Fukushima is changing everyday… The accident has yet to be settled down.”

The new radiation involves beta rays, TEPCO said, which can be stopped with a sheet of metal. Water treatment has extracted caesium from the tanks but other radioactive elements remain. TEPCO’s equipment to remove other contamination is out of action due to filter corrosion after a few months of operating, but the government has demanded it be returned to service this month.

None of the tanks have monitoring equipment and TEPCO’s initial procedure involved two employees manually checking each tank over a two-hour period. Since the tank was found to be leaking the total monitoring staff has increased from ten to 60, and patrols are carried out four times a day instead of twice a day.

Prosecutors brought criminal charges against TEPCO and government officials including then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan for their handling of the crisis formed after the tsunami. Daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun today claimed all charges, brought after local residents complained, were to be dropped. Sankei Shimbun suggests a formal announcement may come within days.

Kansai Electric Power today began shutting down one of only two reactors still generating power in Japan, reactor #3 at Oi Nuclear Power Plant, for mandatory inspection. The other, Oi’s reactor #4, is to be permanently switched off this month. When the accident began nuclear energy supplied a third of Japan’s power requirements, but in the aftermath of Fukushima the nation has switched to fossil fuels.

Monday, May 30, 2005

New information surfaced on Saturday, 28 May, that suggest that the US and UK increased air strikes against Iraq in mid 2002. The Ministry of Defence figures, provided in response to a question from Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, show that allied aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq beginning in May of 2002.

This apparent escalation in the number and intensity of air strikes was initiated prior to the passage of UN Resolution 1441 in November 2002 and prior to the US Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq in October 2002. Critics claim that this was an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein or soften his military infrastructure in preparation for a more comprehensive military campaign, and that it reaffirms their assertions that the Bush administrations was determined to go to war long before the official decision was made.

In August 2002, allied commander Tommy Franks admitted that this operation was designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war, but according to legal guidance appended to the Downing Street memo (dated 23 July 2002) the allied aircraft were only “entitled to use force in self-defence where such a use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to actual or imminent attack from Iraqi ground systems”.

According to military documents shown to the Sunday Express in 2002, the Allies invaded Iraq from Turkey on August 8th, 2002, after an air strike on the 6th that took out a crucial air defence system.

Pentagon officials initially denied there had been any military action or incursion, but when challenged with specific military details a spokesman called back two hours later issuing the terse statement: “We can’t comment on current or future operations.”

The evidence seems to corroborate information in the Downing Street memo:

“CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.”

In light of these revelations, Representative John Conyers has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield. A draft of the letter is available here.

In Conyer’s draft, he states:

“The allegations and factual assertions made in the May 29 London Times are in many respects just as serious as those made in the earlier article. If true, these assertions indicate that not only had our nation secretly and perhaps illegally agreed to go to war by the summer of 2002, but that we had gone on to take specific and tangible military actions before asking Congress or the United Nations for authority.”

Thus, while there is considerable doubt as to whether the U.S. had authority to invade Iraq, given, among other things, the failure of the U.N. to issue a follow-up resolution to the November 8, 2002 Resolution 1441, it would seem that the act of engaging in military action via stepped up bombing raids that were not in response to an actual or imminent threat before our government asked for military authority would be even more problematic from a legal as well as a moral perspective.

As a result of these new disclosures, I would ask that you respond as promptly as possible to the following questions:

1) Did the RAF and the United States military increase the rate that they were dropping bombs in Iraq in 2002? If so, what was the extent and timing of the increase?

2) What was the justification for any such increase in the rate of bombing in Iraq at this time? Was this justification reviewed by legal authorities in the U.S.?

3) To the best of your knowledge, was there any agreement with any representative of the British government to engage in military action in Iraq before authority was sought from the Congress or the U.N.? If so, what was the nature of the agreement?

In connection with all of the above questions, please provide me with any memorandum, notes, minutes, documents, phone and other records, e-mails, computer files (including back-up records) or other material of any kind or nature concerning or relating thereto in the possession or accessible by the Department of Defense.”