Monthly archives for March, 2009
Written by US deploys warships as North Korea prepares to launch missile
The deployment comes as America, Japan and South Korea threaten North Korea with ‘serious consequences’ if it proceeds with plans to conduct the missile test in defiance of a 2006 UN resolution.
North Korea, which has informed international agencies of its plan to fire the missile between April 4 and 8, says the launch is a “satellite test” which it is entitled to make under international law.
U.S.: Border security must remain tight
WASHINGTON – A senior official in the Obama administration doused hopes on Wednesday that the Canadian border will be treated differently than the beefed-up Mexican boundary where drug violence is escalating and countless illegal immigrants flood into the United States every day.
“One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border,” Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, told a Canada-U.S. border conference.
Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe
IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.
A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.
It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn’t create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.
Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.
The projections of just how catastrophic make chilling reading. “We’re moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster,” says Daniel Baker, a space weather expert based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and chair of the NAS committee responsible for the report.
China criticised over YouTube
China’s move to block YouTube has been criticised by a leading advocacy group that promotes constitutional liberties in the digital age.
The Centre for Democracy and Technology told the BBC: “China’s actions fail to live up to international norms.”
The video sharing site has been off limits in China since Monday.
“China’s apparent blocking of YouTube is at odds with the rule of law and the right to freedom of expression,” said CDT president Leslie Harris.
“Anytime a country limits or takes down content online , it must be forthright and specific about its actions and do so only in narrowly defined circumstances consistent with international human rights and the rule of law,” stated Ms Harris.
Google, which owns YouTube, told the BBC that it had no idea why the Chinese government had taken this action.
“We don’t know the reason for the block and are working to restore access to users in China as quickly as possible,” said spokesperson Scott Rubin.
New law to throw the book at Israel?
UN human rights investigator Richard Falk explains why Israeli conduct in the Gaza Strip necessitates the world to introduce a new law.
While presenting his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, declared that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza and called for an independent inquiry into the issue.
Falk explained that Tel Aviv enforced a crippling blockade on Gaza while bringing three weeks of devastation to the territory and thus prevented civilians from fleeing “from the orbit of harm”.
He said such conduct constitutes a new form of crime against humanity.
