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China Business – Japanese officials detect radioactive incinerator ashes in Tokyo, other prefectures

chtutornet2org — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 07:54:54 +0000

A radioactive substance of up to 170,000 becquerels per kilogram was detected in incinerator ashes at a sewage plant in Koto Ward, east Tokyo, in late March, the Kyodo News Agency quoted government sources as saying Friday.

The highly-contaminated ashes were discovered following the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant which escalated through March as a hydrogen explosion exacerbated the disaster and highly radioactive water was both discharged and found to be freely flowing into the Pacific Ocean.

The ashes have since been recycled into materials used for construction, such as cement, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

In addition, the sources revealed that also in late March a radioactive substance, which may or may not have been cesium, measuring 100,000-140,000 becquerels per kg, was found in two other separate sewage facilities in the Itabashi and Ota areas of Tokyo.

Separately on Friday, the local government of Maebashi, the capital city of Gunma Prefecture, said radioactive cesium of 41,000 becquerels per kg was detected in incinerator ashes collected Monday at a water sanitation facility.

The Maebashi officials also said that less radioactive cesium was also found in sludge and molten slag.

On May 1, the local government of Fukushima Prefecture, home to the crippled No. 1 nuclear power plant, said that 334,000 becquerels per kg of radioactive cesium was found in molten slag after being processed in the prefecture.

The prefectural government also said that radioactive cesium was also detected at 15 other sewage facilities in the area, as well as at facilities in Tochigi Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture, three in Gunma Prefecture and one in Niigata Prefecture.

Local officials from the Kanagawa Prefectural Government also said later in May that cesium was detected at four sewage plants in the area.

BEIJING, May 13 (Xinhua) — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in Beijing Friday that he will visit areas of Japan that were affected by the country’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami during an upcoming trip.

“I will visit disaster-hit areas to express my sympathy to the Japanese people, convey the friendly sentiment of the Chinese people and their sincere support for the country’s reconstruction efforts,” Wen told a delegation of Japanese business leaders.

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HSK – Wife of Egyptian ex-president detained over wealth probe

chtutornet2org — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:53:16 +0000

Egypt has detained Suzanne Thabet, wife of ex-president Hosni Mubarak, over wealth investigations, official MENA news agency said Friday.

Assem al-Gohari, head of the Illicit Gains Authority under the Justice Ministry, ordered the detention over charges that she abused her position to gain wealth illegally, MENA said.

Mubarak and his two sons were detained on April 13 for 15 days and their detentions were extended twice. They face accusations of killing protestors and corruption.

Mubarak was forced to resign on Feb. 11 after 18 days of protests against his 30-year rule. He is now in a hospital in Egypt’s Red Sea resort Sharm el-Sheikh.

CAIRO, May 12 (Xinhua) — Egyptian former president Hosni Mubarak and his wife Suzanne Thabet would be investigated over accumulated illegal wealth, state media said Thursday.

A team of investigators from the Illicit Gains Authority went Thursday to Sharm el-Sheikh to question the ex-president and his wife, Assistant Justice Minister Essam el-Gohari said, according to official news agency MENA.

learn mandarin – At least 16 killed in NATO attack in Libya’s Brega: state TV

chtutornet2org — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:51:30 +0000

Libya’s state television said on Friday at least 16 people were killed in a NATO air strike at the eastern city of Brega, which is still reportedly controlled by forces loyal to embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The television said the air raid targeted a guest house in the city, but no comments were made by the NATO to confirm the raid.

learn Chinese online – U.S. lawmaker Ron Paul announces third presidential bid

chtutornet2org — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:50:06 +0000

Representative Ron Paul formally announced Friday that he will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

“I’m officially announcing that I am a candidate for president in the Republican primary,” he said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“Time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years,” he said.

This will be the third presidential campaign for the 75-year-old Paul. He first ran in 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party and again in 2008 as a candidate for the Republican nomination but failed.

Paul, whose son is Senator Rand Paul, has gained prominence for his libertarian positions on many issues, often at odds with both Republican and Democratic leaders.

The long-term congressman holds extremely conservative views on fiscal policy, which makes him enjoy strong support form the Tea Party activists. In terms of foreign policy, he opposes both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and has criticized President Barack Obama on the way the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden was carried out.

learn Chinese – Syria expects comprehensive national dialogue in upcoming days: minister

chtutornet2org — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:54:32 +0000

Syrian Information Minister Adnan Hassan Mahmoud said Friday Syria would hold a comprehensive national dialogue across the country in the upcoming days.

“Syria is determined to bring back security and stability to the country,” he said at a press conference in the Foreign Ministry when talking about latest developments on the turmoil which has been gripping the country for some two months.

“Army and security forces have arrested many armed groups’ members and seized big amounts of weapons, ammunition and explosives which were prepared to target citizens and blow up vital and economic installations,” the minister said, adding 120 members from the army, security and police forces were killed, while 1,491 wounded in the operation.

Meanwhile, thousands of anti-government protesters on Friday took to the streets in the cities of Damascus, Homs, al-Boukamal and Qamishli, chanting anti-government slogans and demanding President Bashar al-Assad to resign in what activists dubbed ” Friday of Syria’s female liberals.”

Syria has seen almost two months of protests calling for reforms and demanding civil rights. The government blamed the unrest on terrorist groups and thugs to weather sectarian strife in the country.

Chinese language – Israel, U.S. Jewish groups praise Demjanjuk sentencing

chtutornet2org — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:53:10 +0000

Israel and U.S.-based Jewish organizations on Thursday lauded the sentencing of John Demjanjuk, a convicted war criminal, in a German court.

Earlier in the day, a Munich court capped a legal saga that spanned three decades when it sentenced Demjanjuk, 91, to five years in prison for his part in the murder of upwards of 28,000 Jews at Sobibor, one of the Third Reich’s notorious death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

The court charged Demjanjuk, who served as a guard at the camp for six months in 1943, with 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder.

The prosecution could not present evidence directly linking Demjanjuk to any specific act of murder, since the handful of survivors of that camp are no longer alive. Rather, it argued that his physical presence at the camp while the mass killings were taking place in itself made him an accomplice.

A statement issued by the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Authority said that the trial and verdict “demonstrate that there is no statute of limitations on the crimes of the Holocaust, and served as a significant forum for raising awareness about it.”

“Demjanjuk’s conviction today underscores the fact that even though the policies of the ‘Final Solution’ – the systematic murder of six million European Jews – were set and carried out by the German Nazi regime, the murder could not have taken place without the participation of myriads of Europeans on many levels. Their role was also criminal,” the statement continued.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1941 and a year later became a prisoner of war. As a POW, he was assigned to work as a guard at Sobibor, where an estimated 250,000 Jews were killed.

He emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, where he was eventually awarded citizenship, making his livelihood as an auto mechanic in Ohio.

In 1981, after allegations of war crimes were tied to his name, Demjanjuk’s citizenship was revoked and he was extradited to Israel to stand trial. He was sentenced to death eight years later, after numerous Holocaust survivors pointed him out as “Ivan the Terrible” from the Treblinka extermination camp.

Israel’s Supreme Court, however, overturned the ruling in 1993 after a local attorney defending Demjanjuk presented documents that cast doubt on his client’s identity as “Ivan the Terrible,” paving the way for his eventual exoneration and return to the United States.

Stripped of his American citizenship for a second time in 2002, Demjanjuk was deported to Germany in 2009 to stand a new trial. He has been jailed in Munich up until Thursday’s sentencing.

Demjanjuk continues to maintain his innocence, claiming that he was a victim of the Nazi regime. His attorneys said they will appeal the verdict.

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) said justice had been done with Demjanjuk’s conviction, and praised Germany’s ongoing efforts to bring Nazi war criminals and their accomplices to trial.

“There must never be impunity or closure for those who were involved in mass murder and genocide, irrespective of their age,” WJC President Ronald Lauder said.

“The WJC will persist in its efforts to bring the few old men out there who have the blood of innocent Shoah (Holocaust) victims on their hands before courts of law, to be tried and held accountable for their actions,” Lauder vowed.

Efraim Zuroff, who heads the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that the sentencing “sends a very powerful message that even many years after the crimes of the Holocaust, the perpetrators can still be held accountable for their crimes,” the daily Jerusalem Post quoted Zuroff as saying.

Zuroff said he hoped Demjanjuk’s trial would not be the last of its kind, saying that a “large number of aging ex-Nazis and their accomplices could still be tracked down and tried.”

China Travel – Japan finalizes TEPCO compensation scheme

chtutornet2org — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:52:12 +0000

Japanese government approved on Friday a plan to help Tokyo Electric Power Co. compensate victims of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant which was crippled in March’s twin disasters.

The government decided to set up a state-backed institution to keep TEPCO solvent and allocate to the institution subsidy bonds that could be cashed whenever it wanted, according to Kyodo News report.

The Japanese government will also establish a third-party commission to monitor the utility.

It required TEPCO to take steps such selling its assets and cutting the payrolls to streamline its management.

TEPCO’s compensation payouts are estimated to range from 37.1 billion U.S. dollars to 123.5 billion U.S.dollars.

China Business – 68 killed, over 80 injured in twin suicide blasts in Pakistan

chtutornet2org — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:41:25 +0000

People transfer an injured man to a hospital in northwest Pakistan’s Peshawar, May 13, 2011. (Xinhua/Umar Qayyum)

ISLAMABAD, May 13 (Xinhua) — At least 68 people were killed and over 80 others injured in a powerful twin suicide blast that took place early Friday morning at a military training center in Charsadda, a city some 30 kilometers northeast of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan, local media quoted the top official of the police department in the city as saying.

According to Nisar Khan, District Police Officer of Charsadda, the blasts have so far killed 68 people and injured some 80 others and the death toll could further rise due to the lack of adequate medical facilities in the local hospital.

Some of the injured people have to be shifted to the hospital in the neighboring city of Peshawar, said the report.

According to local media reports, the attack took place at about 6:10 a.m.local time when a motorcycle and a horse cart both laden with explosives attacked a Frontier Corps training center in the Shabqadar area of the city.

It is not known at this point how many kgs of explosives have been used in the attacks, said local police.

The blasts took place at the main gate of the training center when FC personnel were on their way back after morning exercises.

So far at least seven FC personnel have been confirmed killed in the blasts. Some of the killed also include civilians as the military training center is located nearby a market, said local media reports, adding that over 15 shops and a lot of vehicles were also destroyed in the blasts.

Police have cordoned off the area shortly after the blasts were reported. Journalists are kept away from the blast site. Local media reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying that ambulances were heard rushing towards the site.

No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack yet.

Friday morning’s terrorist attack is the most serious one of its kind in Pakistan since the killing of the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden by the U.S.special task forces in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Abbottabad on May 2. Both al-Qaida and Pakistan Taliban have vowed to avenge the death of bin Laden by threatening to launch attacks in Pakistan as well as in other places of the world.

ISLAMABAD, May 13 (Xinhua) — Pakistani Taliban Friday claimed responsibility for twin bomb attacks on a training center of security forces in the country’s northwest, which according to officials killed 68 security personnel, more than 10 civilians and injured over 100 others.

Geo TV reported that a Taliban spokesman called media outlets and claimed responsibility for the attacks on the main training center of Frontier Constabulary (FC), a paramilitary force to maintain security in the country. Full story

Taliban mean it, more attacks could follow in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, May 13 (Xinhua) — Following the killing of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. special task forces in Pakistan’s northwestern city Abbottabad earlier this month, both al-Qaida and Pakistan Taliban have vowed to avenge the death of their common leader by threatening to launch attacks in Pakistan and the United States as well as in the other places of the world.

Partially due to the tightened security measures taken by many countries following the death of bin Laden and partially due to the lack of time for preparation, no major retaliatory actions have been taken by al-Qaida and Pakistan Taliban for a roughly two- week time though some minor terrorist attacks did occur time and again in Pakistan and a few terrorist attempts were foiled in other parts of the world. Full story

Pakistani PM says attacks can not deter anti-terror war

ISLAMABAD, May 13 (Xinhua) — Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Friday condemned bomb attacks on security personnel in the country’s northwest and said “such cowardly acts could not undermine the war against these elements.”

Officials said that death toll in twin attacks on the training center of Frontier Forces (FC) in the town of Shabqadar reached 70 and 100 more were injured.

HSK – 80 killed in twin Taliban blasts in NW Pakistan

chtutornet2org — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 05:40:01 +0000

People transfer an injured man to a hospital in northwest Pakistan’s Peshawar, May 13, 2011. At least 80 people were killed and dozens injured in a twin suicide blast that took place early Friday morning at a military training center in Charsadda, a city some 30 kilometers northeast of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. (Xinhua/Umar Qayyum)

ISLAMABAD, May 13 (Xinhua) — Two Pakistani Taliban bombers Friday struck a training center of security forces in the country’ s northwest and killed 80 people and wounded over 100 others, a provincial minister said.

Taliban said the deadliest attacks were the first to avenge the death of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden who was killed by United States forces in the Pakistani city of Abbotabad on May 2.

The bomber struck the center of Frontier Constabulary (FC) at the town of Shabqadar, 35 kilometers from Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province and killed 69 militia recruits, who had completed one-year training and were ready to assume duties including anti-terror mission. They were about to go home on a 10-day leaves.

Senior Provincial Minister Bashir Bilour confirmed that 80 people, mostly security men, were killed and around 115 others were injured.

The first bomber, riding on a motorcycle, detonated his explosive vest near the main gate of the roadside Frontier Constabulary training center. The second bomber, who too was on a motorcycle, struck about eight minutes later as security personnel were removing the dead and injured from the scene, witnesses and police said.

Frontier Constabulary commandant Akbar Hoti told reporters that precautions taken by his force had limited casualties.

“We were taking precautions, such as sending the personnel on leave in batches of 15. More casualties were caused by the second blast,” Hoti told reporters.

learn mandarin – Anti-gov’t protests erupt in Syria

chtutornet2org — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 05:36:20 +0000

Thousands of anti-government protesters on Friday took to streets of the cities of Homs and al- Boukamal, witnesses said.

The demonstrators chanted slogans demanding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign in what activists dubbed as “Friday of Syria’s female liberals” in reference to the female activists arrested by the authorities.

The protests came despite presidential advisor Buthaina Shaaban ‘s remarks recently that Syria’s turmoil was almost over.

“Now we’ve passed the most dangerous moment … I hope we are witnessing the end of the story,” Shaaban was quoted by The New York Times as saying.

Syrian rights activists say that security forces have killed 800 Syrians at least, while 9,000 people have been jailed or gone missing since the pro-democracy protests erupted across Syria two months ago.