Wed Feb. 29 2012

Leap Day, February 29, comes but once every four years. Leap Day is an adjustment to the calendar to cover up the difference between the time it takes the Earth to circle the sun and the usual 365-day year.

There will never be another day like today — at least not until 2016. Today’s date (Feb. 29) pops up on the calendar only on leap years, once almost every four years.

It has taken millennia for our calendar, called the Gregorian calendar after the pope who modified it in 1582, to evolve to include this tweak — 97 leap years every 400 years. There are other alternatives, according to Yury Grabovsky, an associate professor in the department of mathematics at Temple University, who has studied the history and mathematics of the Gregorian calendar.

Leap year addresses a discrepancy between our 365-day calendar and the time it takes the Earth to circle the sun. The discrepancy: It takes 365.24219878 days for the planet to complete one trip, so over time, our calendar and the astronomical one fall out of step.

The oldest Babylonian calendar consisted of 12 months, based on the cycles of the moon. At 354 days per year, it fell a fair number short of the astronomical year. The ancient Egyptians brought this calendar up to 360 days, and later, added five days at the end of each year, according to Grabovsky.

More than 3,000 years later, in 238 B.C., the Egyptian king Ptolemy III introduced a sixth day at the end of every fourth year — the original leap year. Julius Caesar learned of this change and included it when he reformed the existing Roman calendar, added the leap day to February in his new Julian calendar.

But adding an extra day every four years didn’t fully solve the problem. The remaining discrepancy was small, showing up only as the calendar and the seasons gradually fell out of sync.

“The calendar was making a one-day error in 100 years,” Grabovsky said.

Over the centuries this became apparent. [Is It Time to Overhaul the Calendar?]

“I think the records show it became evident around the 10th century, about 1,000 years after Julius Caesar’s time. The 10-days’ error would have accumulated and astronomical observations even at the time were able to find the 10-day error,” he said. “But it took another more than 500 years before an official political change could be made.”

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that October would lose 10 days, so Oct. 4 would be immediately followed by Oct. 15. However, Protestants rejected this change for nearly 200 years. In 1752, Sept. 2 was followed by Sept. 14 in Great Britain and its colonies

The pope also tweaked the leap-year cycle to address the remaining one-day-per century drift: Years ending in “00″ are not leap years unless they can be divided exactly by 400, so 2000 was a leap year, while 1900 was not. (Hence the 97 leap years over 400 years.)

Grabovsky has used continued fractions — fractions in which the denominator, or bottom number, is expressed as a whole number plus a fraction with its own denominator that is a whole number plus a fraction, and so on, iteratively — to examine the ways a calendar could be constructed to handle the discrepancy between the astronomical year and the calendar year.

The 400-year cycle Pope Gregory XIII installed accumulates an extra 26 seconds each year, resulting in an error of a full day every 3,320 years, he calculated. He compares this to a 500-year cycle, which would be 17 seconds shorter than the solar year, resulting in an error of one day each 5,031 years — an alternative the pope appears to have missed either because he didn’t do his math or because astronomical measurements at the time weren’t precise enough to justify this cycle, Grabovsky writes.

Another alternative, based on a 900-year cycle, is too complicated and has an inconveniently long cycle.

A tiny amount of error remains in the Gregorian calendar, and to correct for most of it, he recommends canceling leap year every 3,200 years.

“The new system would accumulate a one day error in 100,000 years, that is never,” he writes as part of a presentation he gave on Feb. 29, 2000.

To add to the complication, the planet’s speed along its orbit isn’t constant, so occasionally, leap seconds are added to our clocks to compensate.

Leap year celebrations abound .

Wed Feb. 29 2012

February 29 is a special day for the estimated 4 million people worldwide who are celebrating a leap day birthday.

The intercalary day comes once every four years in the Gregorian calendar and is needed to keep the calendar in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun.

The Earth needs about 365.242 days to circle around the Sun once.

Without leap years, the Earth would lose about six hours of time every year.

“It was a rule introduced back in the roman times by Julius Caesar when he reformed the calendar, the Julian Calendar which some cultures still observe, and so it goes back 2000 years,’ said Alan Dyer from TELUS Spark.

The special day also holds a few traditions and superstitions for some.

Leap days are a popular day for women to propose to their partners and it is believed the tradition balances the roles of men and women just like leap days balance the calendar.

Tamera Van Brunt did just that 16 years ago when she proposed to her husband Trevor.

“I was running around and my husband was acting weird and saying what’s going on with you, and I was really freaked out and scared, it was actually weird being on the other foot and being the person to propose and pop the question. It was an odd feeling and pretty cool,” said Van Brunt.

For those born on this day, there are a number of special deals to be had.

Westjet started flying on February 29th, 1996.

To celebrate its leap birthday, the airline is offering a one-day sale to anyone born on February 29th.

Leap babies can take advantage of the deal and book a Canadian flight for just $16 one way plus tax.

“We’ve had a couple hundred emails from people wondering what this sale is all about, and it’s been shared hundreds and hundreds of times on social media, at this point in time as we do this interview there’s about 50 or 60 people that have booked,” said Robert Palmer from Westjet.

Sean Phillips thought it would be fun to offer a leap day contest and the winner will receive a professional photo session.

“The winner is going to win a lifestyle photo session, which really means I try to capture them doing the things they love to do, so we’ll probably go out to a park in the city or some place they really love, and we’ll just take some pictures of them being them,” said Philips.

Almost 30 Calgary couples will celebrate their first wedding anniversary on Wednesday and 46 local leap day babies are having their first birthday party.

February 29, 2012

Partial remains of several 9/11 victims were incinerated by a military contractor and sent to a landfill, a government report said Tuesday in the latest of a series of revelations about the Pentagon’s main mortuary for the war dead.

The surprise disclosure was mentioned only briefly, with little detail, in a report by an independent panel that studied underlying management flaws at Dover Air Force Base mortuary in Delaware. A 2011 probe found “gross mismanagement” there, but until Tuesday there had been no mention of Dover’s role in handling 9/11 victims’ remains.

Air Force leaders, asked about the 9/11 matter at a news conference, said they had been unaware of it until the head of the independent panel, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, held a Pentagon news conference Tuesday to explain his panel’s findings.

“This is new information to me,” Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said.

He said it was unclear whether the matter would be investigated further.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s press secretary, George Little, said Panetta “never would have supported” the disposal of remains in a landfill. “He understands why families would have serious concerns about such a policy.”

Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that was driven into the Pentagon by terrorist hijackers, said she was confused by the report. She said she attended a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery at which unidentified 9/11 remains were buried in an engraved casket.

“They were treated with great respect and great ceremony,” Burlingame said. “The Department of Defense was exceedingly sensitive and treated those unidentified remains with great respect. … I would want to know more.”

The Abizaid report primarily focused on management reforms to a “dysfunctional, isolated” Dover mortuary chain of command. It cited the 9/11 matter while explaining the history of problems at Dover that came to light last year through complaints from whistle-blowers who revealed the mishandling of war remains.

The practice at Dover of cremating partial remains and sending them to a landfill began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the report said, “when several portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the Shanksville, Pa., crash site could not be tested or identified.”

The terrorist-hijacked airliner that slammed into the west side of the Pentagon killed 184 people, and the plane that crashed in a field near Shanksville killed 40.

The Abizaid report said that in line with Dover’s policy, “cremated portions were then placed in sealed containers that were provided to a biomedical waste disposal” company under Air Force contract. “Per the biomedical waste contract at that time, the contractor then transported these containers and incinerated them.”

The report said Dover authorities assumed that after incineration “nothing remained.”

But a Dover management “query” found that “there was some residual material following incineration and that the contractor was disposing of it in a landfill.” It added that use of the landfill was not disclosed in the waste disposal contract.

“We don’t think it should have happened,” Abizaid told reporters.

It was unclear whether families of the 9/11 victims were aware remains had gone to contractors and then to the landfill. In the case of the war dead, officials previously said the remains were given to contractors for disposal only in cases in which remains could not be identified or in which families had already buried their loved ones and had informed the military that they did not want to be told if additional remains were later found.

Such a development was not uncommon as the wars wore on in Iraq and Afghanistan, where bombs were the main insurgent weapon.

In the case of 9/11 victims, some remains from the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed, were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on the anniversary of the attacks. Three caskets of unidentified remains from the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville were buried there last September.

In Pennsylvania, Somerset County coroner Wallace Miller said in an interview Tuesday that he was surprised that remains from Flight 93 might be involved in the new Pentagon report. “I wouldn’t know how there would be any possibility how any remains would get to Dover,” Miller said.

He said the only remains he knows of that would not be in Pennsylvania are those of four of the hijackers that are being held by the FBI for potential military tribunals.

A lawmaker who has closely followed the Dover scandal, Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., said the Pentagon has yet to fully explain the practice of disposing of partial remains in landfills.

“The Pentagon must provide absolute clarity and accountability as to what human remains were dishonored in this manner, and it must take far more aggressive steps to ensure this never happens again,” Holt said.

Holt also revealed that he had written to Panetta on Feb. 6 asking for a fuller explanation of the history of remains disposal by Dover.

In the letter, Holt asked, “Regarding the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, can the Air Force confirm that no 9/11 victim’s remains were incinerated, mixed with medical waste and sent to a landfill?”

Holt also said he received correspondence in November from the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Jo Ann Rooney, stating that remains of the five hijackers responsible for the Pentagon attack were identified by Dover using DNA samples.

“How were the remains of the hijackers handled?” Holt asked Panetta.

More than 9,000 human remains recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City remain unidentified because they are too degraded to match victims by DNA identification. The remains are stored at the city medical examiner’s office and are to be transferred to a subterranean chamber at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, once set for opening this year but now delayed.

Diane Horning, who lost her son, Matthew, at the World Trade Center, said she was shocked by Tuesday’s revelations.

“We need a protocol to be put in place so that we know this can never happen again,” Horning said. She added, “Not only am I broken-hearted but I am outraged.”

The disposal of more than 1.6 million tons of debris from the destroyed World Trade Center at a Staten Island landfill led to a yearslong lawsuit alleging that remains were left at the landfill. Roughly 20,000 human remains of the nearly 2,800 victims were found in trade center debris, most of which went to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, in the year after the 2001 attacks.

Family members claimed some of their loved ones’ ashes and remains were at the landfill but never found, and sued the city to try to force it to bury the material separately. The lawsuit was dismissed, and unsuccessfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Air Force on Tuesday laid out steps it is taking to resolve the problems at the Dover. But there continue to be several unresolved issues.

In a statement, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said officials will release a report in mid-March on the retaliation taken against the workers who initially reported the mortuary problems.

The Special Counsel said settlements with the workers will be finalized shortly and will include efforts to correct their records and “make the whistle-blowers whole.” Officials are also considering whether to take more severe disciplinary actions against supervisors who took part in whistle-blower retaliation.

Last year the Air Force disciplined, but did not fire, three senior supervisors for their role in the mishandling of remains. Officials are revisiting that issue because of the retaliation taken against the whistle-blowers.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Russell King Jr, 17, becomes second fatality a day after gunman opened fire on students, killing one and wounding four.

Ohio high school shooting: FBI officials would not comment on a motive Link to this video

A student wounded in an Ohio school shooting has been declared brain dead, authorities said on Tuesday, the second reported fatality in an attack that began when a teenager opened fire in the cafeteria at a suburban Cleveland high school a day earlier.

The Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office received the word about Russell King Jr just before 1am on Tuesday, office administrator Hugh Shannon said in a statement. It was unclear whether King remained on life support; the statement referred to him as both deceased and brain dead.

“The cause and manner of death of this case are under on-going investigation and will be released upon completion,” Shannon said in a statement. A spokeswoman at MetroHealth System said Tuesday morning that no information on his condition was available.

King, 17, was one of five students injured when a suspect identified by a family lawyer as TJ Lane began shooting at Chardon high school on Monday morning. King was studying alternative energy at nearby Auburn Career Center and, like the others, who were shot was waiting for a bus for his daily 15-minute ride to the center. Student Daniel Parmertor died hours after the shooting.

A student who saw the attack up close said it appeared that the gunman targeted a group of students sitting together and that the one who was killed was gunned down while trying to duck under the cafeteria table.

Lane’s family is mourning “this terrible loss for their community,” attorney Robert Farnacci said in a statement.

FBI officials would not comment on a motive. And police chief Tim McKenna said authorities “have a lot of homework to do yet” in their investigation of the shooting, which sent students screaming through the halls at the start of the school day at 1,100-student Chardon high.

An education official said the suspected shooter is a Lake academy student, not a student at Chardon high. Brian Bontempo declined to answer any questions about the student. Bontempo is the superintendent of the Lake County Educational Service Center, which operates the academy.

The alternative school in Willoughby serves 7th through 12th grades. Students may have been referred to the school because of academic or behavioural problems.

The FBI said the suspect was arrested near his car a half-mile from Chardon. He was not immediately charged.

Teachers locked down their classrooms as they had been trained to do during drills, and students took cover as they waited for the all-clear in this town of 5,100 people, 30 miles from Cleveland. One teacher was said to have dragged a wounded student into his classroom to protect him. Another chased the gunman out of the building, police said.

Fifteen-year-old Danny Komertz, who witnessed the shooting, said Lane was known as an outcast who had apparently been bullied. But others disputed that.

“Even though he was quiet, he still had friends,” said Tyler Lillash, 16. “He was not bullied.”

Farinacci, representing Lane and his family, told WKYC-TV that Lane “pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about.”

Long before official word came of the attack, parents learned of the bloodshed from students via text message and cellphone and thronged the streets around the school, anxiously awaiting word on their children.

Two of the wounded were listed in critical condition, and another was in serious condition.

“I looked up and this kid was pointing a gun about 10 feet away from me to a group of four kids sitting at a table,” Komertz said. He said the gunman fired two shots quickly, and students scrambled for safety. One of them was “trying to get underneath the table, trying to hide, protecting his face.”

Slain student Daniel Parmertor was an aspiring computer repairman who was waiting in the cafeteria for the bus for his daily 15-minute ride to a vocational school. His teacher at the Auburn Career School had no idea why Parmertor, “a very good young man, very quiet,” had been targeted, said Auburn superintendent Maggie Lynch.

Officers investigating the shooting blocked off a road in a heavily wooded area several miles from the school. Federal agents patrolled the muddy driveway leading to several spacious homes and ponds, while other officers walked a snowy hillside. A police dog was brought in. It wasn’t clear what they were looking for.

Teacher Joe Ricci had just begun class when he heard shots and slammed the door to his classroom, shouting “Lockdown” to students, according to Karli Sensibello, a student whose sister was in Ricci’s classroom.

A few minutes later, Ricci heard a student moaning outside, opened the door and pulled in student Nick Walczak who had been shot several times, Sensibello said in an email. Ricci comforted Walczak and let him use his cellphone to call his girlfriend and parents, Sensibello said. She said her sister was too upset to talk.

Heather Ziska, 17, said she was in the cafeteria when she saw a boy she recognized as a fellow student come into the cafeteria and start shooting. She said she and several others immediately ran outside, while other friends ran into a middle school and others locked themselves in a teachers’ lounge.

“Everybody just started running,” said 17-year-old Megan Hennessy, who was in class when she heard loud noises. “Everyone was running and screaming down the hallway.”

Farinacci said Lane’s family was “devastated” by the shootings and that they offered “their most heartfelt and sincere condolences” to Parmertor’s family and the families of the wounded students.

“This is something that could never have been predicted,” Farinacci told WKYC-TV.

Rebecca Moser, 17, had just settled into her chemistry class when the school went into lockdown. The class of about 25 students ducked behind the lab tables at the back of the classroom, uncertain whether it was a drill.

Text messages started flying inside and outside the school, spreading information about what was happening and what friends and family were hearing outside the building.

“We all have cellphones, so people were constantly giving people updates — about what was going on, who the victims were, how they were doing,” Moser said.

The school had no metal detectors, but current and past students said it had frequent security drills in case of a shooting.

Anxious parents of high school students were told to go to an elementary school to pick up their children.

Joe Bergant, Chardon school superintendent, said school was canceled Tuesday and grief counselors would be available to students and families.

“If you haven’t hugged or kissed your kid in the last couple of days, take that time,” he said.

Stephen Brown and Alexandra Hudson

Monday, Feb. 27, 2012

Germany’s parliament was almost certain to endorse a second Greek bailout on Monday but Chancellor Angela Merkel was torn between domestic pressure to stop throwing good money after bad and global calls to boost Europe’s crisis defences.

The world’s leading economies in the G20 piled pressure on Berlin at the weekend to drop opposition to a bigger European bailout fund, telling Europe it must put up extra money if it wanted more help from other countries.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso added his voice on Monday, saying he expected a decision on strengthening the euro zone’s financial firewall during March, although not yet at an EU summit on Thursday and Friday.

But Ms. Merkel, whose country provides the lion’s share of the emergency funds, first faces a tough vote in the Bundestag (lower house), which may force her to rely on the opposition to pass a €130-billion ($175-billion U.S.) rescue program for Greece, its second since 2010.

“Billions for Greece — Stop!” Germany’s best-selling newspaper Bild screamed across its front page.

“Don’t go any further along this crazy path,” it said, quoting leading economists who argue Greece would do better to default on its huge pile of sovereign debt and temporarily leaving the single currency.

Ms. Merkel will face a determined band of rebels from her own coalition when she opens the debate in the Bundestag Monday afternoon. The vote will take place a few hours later.

“We are confident we will get our own majority in today’s vote,” said her spokesman Steffen Seibert, when asked about the likelihood that at least a dozen MPs from her centre-right coalition will vote against the rescue package.

If the number of rebels rises to at least 20, the bill will pass thanks to the support pledged by the centre-left opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens.

That would be a humiliation for Ms. Merkel, raising doubts about her ability to cope with demands for more emergency funding for the euro zone and about her coalition’s survival until elections due in 2013, when she is expected to seek a third term.

Facing huge domestic pressure to make sure Germany’s euro zone partners only get aid in return for tough fiscal reforms – which Greece has failed to deliver – Berlin has sent conflicting signals on whether it will soften its stance.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, meeting G20 colleagues in Mexico this weekend, appeared open to merging the euro zone’s temporary and permanent bailout funds to create a €750-billion ($1-trillion U.S.) war chest. This would open the door to extra International Monetary Fund (IMF) support as well.

But an official close to Ms. Merkel stuck to Berlin’s official position that the “firewall” already has enough funding.

Ms. Merkel’s position is driven partly by public opinion and unease within her centre-right coalition, but also by a feeling in Berlin that market pressures are easing and there is no longer an urgent need to put up more money.

In fresh signs that the European Central Bank’s move to flood banks with cheap three-year liquidity has helped bond markets, Italy and Belgium saw their borrowing costs sharply reduced at debt auctions on Monday.

An opinion poll published in a Sunday newspaper found 62 per cent of Germans were against the second Greek rescue package while 33 per cent were in favour. In a similar poll in September, 53 per cent had been opposed and 43 per cent in favour.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich openly called on Greece to leave the euro zone, saying in a magazine interview its chances of recovery would be greater outside. It was the first time a member of Ms. Merkel’s cabinet had publicly broken ranks on the issue.

Mr. Seibert said the chancellor rejected this stance, which came from a minister belonging to one of her two smaller allies which often take a more euro skeptic stance than her Christian Democrats (CDU).

“The chancellor’s firm conviction about the right thing to do regarding Greece is clearly expressed in the bill going to the Bundestag today,” said Mr. Seibert.

Ms. Merkel needs 311 votes to reach a majority in the 620-member house. Her coalition holds 330 seats.

In a nail-biting Sept. 27 vote on the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), 15 deputies in her coalition broke ranks, leaving her with a narrow majority of 315 seats on that occasion.

One of the dissidents from Merkel’s CDU, Klaus-Peter Willsch, told Reuters on Sunday that “the mood in Germany is turning against further rescues for Greece.

“We’ve been promised all kinds of things that aren’t fulfilled and then a few months later there’s the need for another rescue package. The public’s faith is fading fast.”

Germans are growing impatient with what Mr. Schaeuble has described as a “bottomless pit” in Greece.

At the same time, there is a growing awareness in Germany, Europe’s leading economy, that its own prosperity is at risk as the debt crisis sucks in more countries and stifles demand within the currency bloc for German exports.

German criticism of Greece has reopened wounds dating from the Second World War. Protesters in Athens burned a German flag earlier this month while Greek newspapers have portrayed Ms. Merkel and Mr. Schaeuble in Nazi uniform.

Despite riding high in polls, Ms. Merkel has hit a rough patch – about 18 months before the next election – that has raised doubts about her grip on power.

Ms. Merkel is opposed to Greece leaving the euro zone, but her allies in Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) – including the interior minister – and the Free Democrats (FDP) face difficult state votes this year and next, and have been raising the volume on cutting off aid for Greece or pushing it out of the euro.

Marwa Awad

Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012

An Egyptian court adjourned the trial of dozens of democracy activists including 16 Americans on Sunday at the opening session of a case that has threatened ties between Cairo and Washington and $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid.

Forty-three foreign and Egyptian non-profit workers – including the son of the U.S. transportation secretary – are accused of receiving illegal funds from abroad and carrying out political activities unrelated to their civil society work.

Judge Mahmud Mohamed Shukry adjourned the trial until April 26 at the end of the session in the rowdy chamber, where television reporters crowded around him and an interior ministry official threatened to expel journalists.

His decision could give more time for a diplomatic solution to the case, lawyers said.

“The time set allows for the NGO law to be amended and this could leave room for lawyers to argue that the defendants are not guilty. A fine may be demanded however,” said Khaled Suleiman, a lawyer acting against the defendants.

In the crowded courtroom on the outskirts of Cairo, lawyers who said they were volunteering in the case against the activists, demanded the defendants be imprisoned and accused them of “espionage”.

“These organizations are accused of espionage and going against the law. Most of them are in contact with the CIA. These organizations gathered information and reports on Egypt and sent them to the U.S. State Department,” the lawyer Suleiman said.

Judge Shukry said the defendants were free to leave the court and would not be held in detention until the next hearing.

Those accused in the case were banned from leaving Egypt pending the trial and some of the U.S. citizens targeted in the probe have taken refuge at the American embassy.

Thirteen defendants stood behind the courtroom’s bars on Sunday, all Egyptians. They appeared to be relaxed during recesses, using their mobile phones and talking to one another.

Several of the accused foreigners were already abroad when the travel ban was enacted. Many of the activists had not been formally summoned to appear before the court.

A senior U.S. official said on Saturday Washington and Cairo were holding what he described as “intense discussions” to resolve the crisis within days.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in the Moroccan capital after visits to Algeria and Tunisia, has met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr twice in the last three days, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. pro-democracy groups whose staff have been charged deny they have done anything illegal.

Egypt says the case is a judicial matter and all groups must heed Egyptian law. In the text of the charges the prosecution would present, the groups are accused of establishing without permission branches for their organizations and offering unauthorized political training and workshops to parties.

One of the judges leading the probe has said the non-governmental organizations had violated Egyptian tax laws by not declaring their income from abroad or paying taxes on their workers’ pay and had carried out political activities unrelated to their civil society work.

Negad al-Borai, a lawyer representing the accused in Cairo, said the charges referred only to a short period in the groups’ activities and could therefore be argued against.

“The charges made involve only the period from March 2011 to December 2011,” he told Reuters. “These groups have applied for permits before that period.”

Some Egyptian officials have linked the funding of civil society initiatives to a U.S. plot to undermine Egypt’s sovereignty – accusations the United States and the civil society workers deny.

Among those accused is Sam LaHood, Egypt director of the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the son of the U.S. transportation secretary.

The crisis escalated on Dec. 29 when Egyptian authority swooped the offices of IRI and the National Democratic Institute, confiscating documents and computers and cash on the premises.

The government and the ruling military council say the case was initiated by the judiciary and is out of their hands.

Saturday Feb. 25, 2012

Pakistan on Saturday began demolishing the three-story compound where Osama bin Laden lived for years and was killed by U.S. commandos last May, eliminating a concrete reminder of the painful and embarrassing chapter in the country’s history.

Pakistan was outraged by the covert American raid because it was not told about it beforehand. The country’s powerful military faced rare domestic criticism because it was not able to stop U.S. troops from infiltrating the country by helicopter from Afghanistan under the cover of darkness. The compound was located next to Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, the elite U.S. military academy.

Three mechanized backhoes began demolishing the compound in the northwest town of Abbottabad after sunset on Saturday, said two local residents, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were afraid of being harassed by the government.

Authorities set up floodlights so they could work after dark, the residents said.

The demolition team conducted its work under heavy security. A large team of police set up an outer cordon around the compound to keep spectators away, said an Associated Press reporter who managed to get close enough to see the demolition work under way. A ring of army soldiers set up an inner cordon and warmed themselves against the winter chill by lighting a bonfire.

The backhoes broke through tall outer boundary walls that ringed a courtyard where one of the U.S. helicopters crashed during the operation to kill the al-Qaida chief. They then began to tear down the compound itself.

A Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that the demolition was in progress but declined to say why the government chose to do it. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Residents of the normally sleepy town of Abbottabad were divided on what the government should do with the compound in the aftermath of the raid. Some thought it should be destroyed, but others believed it should be turned into a tourist attraction to help the town earn money. There was always the danger, however, that it could also draw al-Qaida supporters.

American officials said they buried bin Laden’s body at sea to avoid giving his followers a burial place that could become a makeshift shrine.

Many U.S. officials expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for around six years without the Pakistani government knowing. But the U.S. has not found any evidence that senior Pakistani officials knew the al-Qaida chief’s whereabouts.

The U.S. did not give Pakistan advance warning of the raid, which lasted about 40 minutes, because it was worried someone in the country’s military or shadowy intelligence agency would tip off bin Laden.

The operation was a serious blow to the already troubled U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Pakistan responded to the raid by kicking out more than 100 U.S. troops training Pakistanis in counterterrorism operations and reduced the level of intelligence co-operation.

Ties between the U.S. and Pakistan have also been strained by American drone strikes targeting Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the country’s northwest tribal region near the Afghan border.

A suspected U.S. drone crashed Saturday in the North Waziristan tribal area, the main sanctuary for militants along the border, said Pakistani intelligence officials and local residents.

The unmanned aircraft went down near Mir Ali, one of the main towns in North Waziristan, said the intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The drone caught fire after it hit the ground and was believed to have crashed because of technical problems, they said.

Local resident Nasir Khan said he saw the burning debris from the roof of his home in the Machi Khel area. It was about 500 yards (meters) from his house.

Pakistani officials often criticize drone strikes as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, but the government is widely believed to have supported the covert CIA-run program in the past. That co-operation has come under strain as the relationship with the U.S. has deteriorated.

The U.S. refuses to speak openly about the program, but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.

Fri. Feb. 24 2012

Government troops shelled rebel-held areas in central Syria on Friday, killing at least eight people, activists said, as the United States, Europe and Arab nations met in Tunisia to seek ways to end President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on an 11-month uprising against his rule.

As government troops continued to pound rebel-held neighbourhoods in the besieged city of Homs, thousands of people in dozens of towns staged anti-regime protests under the slogan: “We will revolt for your sake, Baba Amr,” referring to the Homs neighbourhood that has become the centre of the Syrian revolt. Activists said at least 36 people were killed across the country.

More than 70 countries are taking part in Friday’s “Friends of Syria” meeting, which is expected to press Assad to agree to a cease-fire and allow for humanitarian aid to reach the areas that have been hardest-hit by the regime’s security forces. The nations will also call for the United Nations to begin planning a Syria peacekeeping mission once the regime agrees to a cease-fire, a senior diplomat said.

American, European and Arab officials have said the group would likely impose harsher sanctions if Assad rejects the cease-fire, and predicted the regime’s opponents would grow stronger if Assad remained in power.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis gained pace Thursday with the appointment of former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan as the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy on the Syrian crisis.

Annan said in a statement Friday that he would try to “help bring an end to the violence and human rights abuses, and promote a peaceful solution” in Syria. He expressed hope that the Syrian government and opposition groups will co-operate with him in his efforts.

The Tunisia meeting is the latest international effort to end the crisis, which began when protesters inspired by uprisings sweeping across the Arab world took the streets in some of Syria’s impoverished provinces nearly a year ago to call for political change.

Assad’s security forces have responded with a fierce crackdown, and blame the violence on Islamic extremists and armed gangs. In recent months, the situation has grown increasingly militarized as opposition forces, boosted by army defectors, have increasingly taken up arms against the regime.

The U.N. estimated in January that 5,400 people were killed in the conflict in 2011. Hundreds more have died since. Syrian activists say the death toll is more than 7,300. Overall figures cannot be independently confirmed because Syria has prevented most media from operating inside the country.

Also Friday, U.N.-appointed investigators in Geneva said they had compiled a list of Syrian officials accused of crimes against humanity in the crackdown. The list reaches as high as Assad.

While the U.S., EU and Arab League have ratcheted up the pressure on Assad, Russia and China have opposed foreign intervention or sanctions against Syria.

Alexei Pushkov, a Russian lawmaker, said Friday that in his recent meeting with Assad the Syrian president sounded confident and showed no sign he would he step aside. Pushkov warned that arming the Syrian opposition would fuel civil war.

“Assad doesn’t look like a person ready to leave, because, among other things, there is no reason for him to do that as he is being supported by broad layers of the population,” Pushkov said, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

Syrians demonstrating Friday condemned the positions of Russia, China and Iran — countries whose governments have stood by the Assad regime.

“Iranian and Russian bullets are tearing apart our bodies,” read a large banner unfurled in the town of Tibet el-Imam just north of the central city of Hama.

But in a move highlighting Assad’s deepening isolation, the Hamas prime minister of Gaza voiced support for Syrian protesters seeking to overthrow his regime. It was the first time that a senior Hamas figure has publicly backed the uprising and rebuked the Syrian regime.

“We commend the brave Syrian people that are moving toward democracy and reform,” Ismail Haniyeh told congregants after Friday prayers in Egypt’s Al-Azhar Mosque, the country’s pre-eminent Islamic institution.

Assad has long hosted and supported leaders of the Hamas movement, which rules Gaza, but the group has significantly reduced the presence of its exiled leaders in Syria in the wake of protests.

Four people died Friday in the renewed shelling of the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs, activists said, the latest of hundreds killed there in recent weeks. The neighbourhood has been under siege and intense shelling for three weeks.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four others were killed in Homs’ rebel-held neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh.

Amateur videos posted on the Internet by activists showed black smoke rising from residential areas of Baba Amr and debris littering its slum-like apartment blocks. Parts of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, have been under a fierce government attack for nearly three weeks.

The Observatory said troops were also attempting to storm Rastan, a besieged rebel-held town just north of Homs. He said the town was being shelled and reported heavy clashes between troops and army defectors who destroyed two armoured personnel carriers.

The Observatory said 36 civilians were killed throughout Syria on Friday, including a father and his three sons in the central village of Kfar Alton in the province of Hama that came under intense government troops shelling.

The Local Coordination Committees activist network said 53 people were killed by security forces across Syria Friday, but the number could not be immediately confirmed by others.

Tom Kington

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Confirmed death toll reaches 21 after four bodies, including that of a young girl, recovered from capsized cruise ship

Four bodies, including that of a small girl, have been recovered from the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia by divers searching the submerged section of the vessel.

The discovery on Wednesday brings to 21 the number of confirmed dead among the 4,200 passengers and crew of the ship, which struck rocks on the Italian island of Giglio on 13 January.

The location of the four bodies, which have not yet been identified, leaves 11 people still unaccounted for.

The young girl found is likely to be Dayana Arlotti, a five-year-old Italian who was travelling with her father and his partner. Both father and daughter are missing.

Divers from Italy‘s fire fighting service found the bodies on a section of the vessel’s fourth deck, which has hitherto not been searched, a spokeswoman for the civil protection agency said.

“Because of closed doors it was hard to get to, and the water sealed inside the area was unsafe for divers in normal wetsuits and masks because of the chemicals, food and other remains trapped,” she said.

Divers wearing sealed suits and helmets entered the area after statements by passengers suggested they might find bodies there, she added.

“We will be searching areas on the third deck for the same reason.”

The bodies will be taken to a hospital in Grosseto on the mainland for identification.

The divers were in action despite rough seas that forced the suspension of work underway to extract fuel from the Costa Concordia’s tanks.

Salvage workers have extracted 1,300 cubic metres of fuel from six tanks, equivalent to two-thirds of the total on board, with work expected to resume on Thursday.

As passengers prepare legal action against cruise ship operator Costa Crociere and its parent company, Carnival Corporation, an investigation continues into the vessel’s captain, Francesco Schettino, who is under house arrest suspected of abandoning ship and manslaughter.

A theatre in Grosseto has been rented out to hold a preliminary hearing on 3 March at which all passengers will be allowed to attend. At what is strictly a technical hearing, a judge will instruct experts nominated by investigating magistrates on what tests they need to carry out on the Costa Concordia’s black box.

Under Italian law injured parties are allowed to be present to nominate their own experts to follow the tests. “We have no idea how many passengers will show up,” said a court official.

By

JOSE DE CORDOBA

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

A day after 44 inmates died in Mexico’s worst prison riot, authorities said they believed the massacre was a cover for the escape of 30 drug-gang members.

Nuevo León Gov. Rodrigo Medina said that 30 inmates, all members of the Zetas drug cartel, used the massacre on Sunday as cover for an escape from Apodaca state prison, a few miles from the state capital of Monterrey.

“Without a doubt there was premeditation,” said Mr. Medina, speaking at a news conference. “This was planned.”

Mr. Medina said all the dead prisoners were members of the rival Gulf Cartel. The Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have been warring for two years for control of drug routes and lucrative drug markets, especially in the northeastern Mexican states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.

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CloseXinhua/Zuma Press

Relatives of inmates clashed with police on Sunday following a riot at the Apodaca prison near Monterrey, Mexico, that left at least 44 dead.

Mr. Medina said prison personnel appeared to have been involved in the massacre and escapes. He said four top prison officials had been fired from their jobs, as had 18 guards on duty at the time of the incident. All were being investigated for complicity, he said. As police and soldiers combed the state searching for the escaped prisoners, Mr. Medina said the state was offering a reward of about $800,000 for information leading to their capture.

“It’s difficult for us to confirm the treason, corruption and complicity of some can obstruct the good work of police, soldiers and sailors who everyday risk their life,” Mr. Medina said.

Since President Felipe Calderon declared war against Mexico’s drug traffickers in 2006, Mexican prisons have often become killing fields for members of warring drug gangs captured by security forces. Last month, 31 inmates died in a similar prison riot in neighboring Tamaulipas.

The Zetas, once enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, have a history of orchestrating massive prison breaks to free gang members and to recruit inmates for their organization. The Apodaca escape is the largest prison break since the Zetas helped 141 inmates to escape from a prison in the border city of Reynosa, in Tamaulipas, in 2010.

Mexico’s prison system has been left behind amid Mr. Calderon’s ambitious attempt to remake the country’s judicial system and security forces in order to meet the challenge posed by the country’s powerful organized-crime and drug-trafficking organizations, analysts say.

Family members of prisoners faced off with Mexican police after a prison riot kills dozens of inmates.

“Prison reform is a pending agenda item in Mexico,” says Eric Olson, at the Mexico Institute at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “The strategy has been to arrest a lot of people, but when you warehouse prisoners in prisons that are overcrowded and poorly managed, you are likely to have this kind of warfare break out inside prisons.

Many of Mexico’s prisons are run by one cartel or the other, which use them as sanctuaries. Two years ago, the government arrested the prison director and guards at one facility in the state of Durango, where officials provided arms and transport for Sinaloa gang members who were allowed out every night to kill their Zeta rivals. The inmates, who were involved in a number of drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 people at a restaurant, would then return to sleep at the prison.

Apodaca prison has a capacity to house 1,700 inmates but is now filled with some 2,700, said Jorge Domene, Nuevo Leon’s state security spokesman. On Monday, Mr. Medina asked the federal government to help relieve the stress on Nuevo Leon’s prisons by taking as many prisoners as possible who have been arrested or are serving time for federal crimes, to federal institutions.

He called for reform of Mexico’s prison system, which has been overwhelmed by a high number of arrests in the government’s antidrug efforts.

Most other Latin American countries face a similar prison crisis. Conditions throughout Latin America have deteriorated as governments incarcerate more people in an attempt to deal with a wave of violence linked in part to drug cartels. Last week, a fire swept through a jammed prison in Honduras, killing 359 people. Last year, in Venezuela, 30 people died in a 27-day riot and siege of a notoriously overcrowded prison.

Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of Washington-based Human Rights Watch, says governments throughout Latin America have abandoned their responsibility for running prisons. “Inmates in many prisons run the prisons as they wish,” said Mr. Vivanco. “In the last two decades in Latin America, most of the violence, the worst abuses, committed with total impunity, has been prisoners against prisoners.”