Around the World
RIA Novosti
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:54 EST
© RIA Novosti. Alexey Druzhinin
Russia and India signed on Friday a host of high-profile deals during Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's working visit to the country. The visit kicked off late on Thursday, amid many expectations as well as big money.
New fighter jet contract
Russia and India have signed a $1.5-billion contract on the supplies of 29 more MiG-29K Fulcrum-D carrier-based fighter jets to New Delhi. The start of the supplies is scheduled for 2012.
The two countries signed an earlier contract stipulating the supply of 12 single-seat MiG-29Ks and four two-seat MiG-29KUBs to India in January 2004. The contract is part of a $1.5-billion deal to deliver the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, currently being retrofitted in Russia for the Indian Navy.
Ann Hellman
IPS News
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:10 EST
With the 15th-year review of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women taking place at the ongoing Commission on the Status of Women in New York, South African teachers and education experts say they fear that a special focus on the advancement of girls is getting lost amidst the growing levels of poverty in the country.
Any notion that a gender-responsive curriculum, which ensures gender equality, should be taught is taking a back seat to other socio-economic problems plaguing one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Cameron Scott
Alternet
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:57 EST
Chevron claims it's not responsible for dumping 18 billion gallons of industrial wastewater into the Amazon. A local leader says otherwise.
What is a lost culture? Is it just some intangible time before? Is it an economy? Can you inventory a lost culture in the number of lives lost or rivers polluted?
Those questions haunt the lawsuit brought by Ecuadorian indigenous groups against the U.S. oil giant, Chevron, for environmental destruction it allegedly wrought as Texaco in the Amazon rainforest of eastern Ecuador. On paper, the suit asks Chevron (which acquired Texaco in 2001) to pay for the environmental cleanup of an area three times the size of Manhattan, pocked with open oil pits and steeped in 18 billion gallons of dumped industrial wastewater. The damages in the case - calculated by a court-appointed expert at a record $27 billion - would also establish a health fund to pay for the estimated 1,400 cases of cancer caused by the pollution - a number that will likely continue to grow until the site is cleaned up. The rest of the damages fall into the catchall category, "compensation."
Jane Perlez
The New York Times
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
A tour of the United States arranged by the State Department to improve ties to Pakistani legislators ended in a public relations fiasco when the members of the group refused to submit to extra airport screening in Washington, and they are now being hailed as heroes on their return home.
"People should be thankful, you made them so proud," Hamid Mir, the host of a popular national talk show, said during an interview in his studio Tuesday with four of the six politicians, who railed against the security precautions at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Meetings with the Obama administration's top policy makers on Pakistan, including the president's special representative, Richard Holbrooke, and visits to the Pentagon and the National Security Council, did not allay the anger the politicians said they felt at being asked to submit to a secondary screening Sunday before boarding a flight to New Orleans. They declined to be screened and did not board the flight.
John Pilger
truthout
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
© (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: World Economic Forum, vladstudio, GrungeTextures)
Adelaide is Australia's festival city. Its arts festival is currently in swing. Polite debate, aesthetics and high-octane wine are putting the world to rights. With one exception. Adelaide is where Rupert Murdoch began his empire. The voracious trail starts here. No statue stands; his is a spectral presence, controlling the only daily newspaper, even the printing presses. Across Australia, he owns almost 70 percent of the capital city press and the only national newspaper and Sky Television and much else. Welcome to the world's first murdochracy.
What is a murdochracy? It is where the fealty and augmentation of Murdoch's editors and managers are undisguised, an inspiration to his choir on seven continents, where even his competitors sing along, and wise politicians heed the Murdochism: "What'll it be? A headline a day or a bucket of shit a day?"
Jodie Minus
The Australian
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:11 EST
The girlfriend of a wheelchair-bound Canadian who was allegedly stomped on, punched and struck with metal poles by two teenagers at a Sydney train station has urged one of them to turn himself in.
The 35-year-old Canadian, who wishes to remain anonymous, was at Mt Druitt train station in the city's west about 11pm yesterday when he was approached by two youths who allegedly launched into a ''savage'' assault.
The victim is in Nepean Hospital undergoing surgery for severe cuts to his head and depressions to his skull.
A 16-year-old from Doonside in Sydney's west was arrested by police after the alleged assault and charged with a robbery offence and is expected to appear in court later today. The second alleged offender, described as being aged between 12 and 15 and of Pacific Islander appearance, remains at large.
Disability News Asia
Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
The manager a prefectural housing complex appointed by the Tottori Prefectural Government refused to rent apartments to three people on the grounds that they had disabilities, it has been learned.
It has also emerged that a prefectural official passed on information on disabilities and other personal information on 25 people who were initially selected to enter the apartments, following a request from the prefectural housing complex manager.
The Western Tottori General Office, which is handling the situation, plans to punish the workers involved and sack the manager.
Officials said that the 25 people were selected to enter the 156-apartment complex in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, in August and December last year and January this year.
BBC News
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:21 EST
© AFP
Those who died were reported to be mainly women and children
The governor of Nigeria's Plateau state has accused military commanders of ignoring warnings of an attack on Sunday near the city of Jos.
Hundreds died during attacks on three villages in the area between the mainly Christian south and Muslim north.
The massacre is seen as revenge for a previous bout of killings in January.
Rohini Hensman
Dissident Voice
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:11 EST
The deepest division in Sri Lanka is not the so-called ethnic divide but the split between supporters of democracy and supporters of totalitarianism, and the recent elections proved this point. Bitter arguments within the Sinhalese community generated by the candidacy of Sarath Fonseka completely demolished the manufactured image of a community united behind Mahinda Rajapaksa which had been projected immediately after the end of the war. There was understandable relief among Sinhalese that there would be no more bomb blasts in buses, trains, shops and markets, no more young men being sent to the front to die in their thousands or come back disabled. But this did not necessarily translate into universal approval for Rajapaksa.
Elissa Hunt
Herald Sun
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:27 EST
A girl tormented and abused by child bullies has won a landmark bid for compensation.
The Supreme Court has overturned a decision by the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal, which refused to compensate the girl because her attackers were under 10 - too young to face criminal charges.
In making the ruling, the Supreme Court said the bullies meant to hurt their victim even if they weren't old enough to form "criminal intent".
The ordeal began when the girl was eight in grade 2 at a country Victorian state primary school. At least three girls joined in daily abuse over the next few years, until the girl's parents moved her to a private school that they struggled to afford.
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