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Deadly tornado rips through Oklahoma City

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May 212013
 

US President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma after a 3km-wide tornado packing winds of up to 320kph tore through the state capital killing at least 51 people, including 20 children, and injuring at least 230.

The Oklahoma medical examiner’s office said it was expecting the death toll to rise to 91 people.

Officials in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore said that many people were missing and the death toll was expected to rise after the tornado tore up at least two schools, trapping two dozen children beneath rubble, and obliterated a hospital, numerous other buildings and vehicles in its path.

Moore, which has a population of about 50,000, was strewn with debris, with street signs gone and lights out in the structures left still standing in the most severe of a series of savage storms to hit the state on Sunday and Monday.

Obama spoke with Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin to express his concern and ordered federal aid to help state and local recovery efforts.

Fallin told reporters that “hearts are broken” for parents looking for their children.

She declared 16 counties disaster areas and deployed the state National Guard and extra police to assist with rescue operations.

“We’re doing everything we can … to find anyone who might be injured or might be lost,” Fallin said.

Medical centre devastated

The Oklahoma medical examiner said 20 of the 51 confirmed deaths were children and the toll was expected to rise.

At least 45 of the 230 people known to have been injured were children, according to area hospitals.

Rescue teams raced against the setting sun and worked into the darkness in search of survivors throughout the wide swath of devastation, while the dangerous storm system threatened several southern Plains states with more tornadoes.

Severe weather was expected through the night from the Great Lakes south to Texas.

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Oklahoma City, said the roof of the Moore Medical Centre had “been completely ripped off of the building” and that survivors would have to be taken to nearby towns for treatment.

The injuries could go beyond those sustained directly as a result of the tornado.

“There are hundreds of people walking through the streets,” said Hendren.

“The emergency officials here have been so busy dealing with the search that they’re having a hard time keeping people from combing through the wreckage, and, of course, that remains dangerous.”

More tornadoes possible

The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted a 10 percent chance of tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.

It said parts of four other states – Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa – had a five percent risk of tornadoes.

The area at greatest risk includes Joplin, Missouri, which on Wednesday will mark two years since a massive tornado killed 161 people.

Emergency crews searched the rubble of Plaza Towers Elementary School for two dozen missing children, Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb said.

Witnesses said Monday’s tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the area on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes.

Survivor Ricky Stover relived his terror as he surveyed the devastated remains of his home.

“We thought we died because we were inside the cellar door,” Stover said. “It ripped open the door and just glass and debris started slamming on us and we thought we were dead.”

Fist-sized hail

The NWS assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 320kph.

Oklahoma activated the National Guard, and the US Federal Emergency Management Agency activated teams to support recovery operations and coordinate responses for multiple agencies.

The latest tornado in Oklahoma came as the state was still recovering from a strong storm on Sunday with fist-sized hail and blinding rain.

Two men in their 70s died in the storm, including one at a mobile home park on the edge of the community of Bethel Acres near Oklahoma City, said Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Office of Emergency Management.

Hackers target Saudi government websites

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May 182013
 

Several government websites in Saudi Arabia were hacked in a series of heavy cyber attacks from overseas in recent days, disabling them briefly until the attacks were repelled, the government has said.

An investigation traced the “coordinated and simultaneous attacks” to hundreds of Internet protocol addresses in a number of countries, an unnamed source at the Saudi Interior Ministry told SPA, the country’s state news agency.

The interior ministry website crashed on Wednesday after it received a “huge amount” of service requests, but was back online less than two hours later after the “necessary technical drills” were performed to counter the attack, the source said.

The report made no mention of a possible motive.

Businesses, government agencies and critical infrastructure operators face unprecedented challenges from increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks launched by criminals, hacker activists and foreign governments.

An attack last year on national oil company Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, damaged almost 30,000 computers and was one of the most destructive cyber strikes conducted against a single business.

That attack used a computer virus known as Shamoon. A group that claimed responsibility said Saudi Aramco was the main source of income for the Saudi government, which it blamed for “crimes and atrocities” in several countries including Syria and Bahrain.

On Friday, the website and Twitter feed of the Financial Times newspaper were hacked, apparently by the “Syrian Electronic Army”, a group of online activists who claim that they support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Nigerian forces target Boko Haram strongholds

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May 172013
 

Nigerian forces have launched attack on Boko Haram strongholds in the country’s northeast region, security sources have told Reuters news agency, amid deployment of fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

Soldiers raided areas in the Sambisa Game Reserve in Borno state where the armed group has established bases, two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Thursday without giving details.

Nigeria’s military said that it was ready to launch air strikes against Boko Haram fighters as several thousand troops moved to the remote region to retake territory seized by the group.

A force of “several thousand” soldiers along with fighter jets and helicopter gunships have been deployed for the offensives in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa state, according to defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade.

Telephone connections to Borno and Yobe were almost completely cut on Thursday, and a 12-hour overnight curfew has been imposed in Adamawa, following the other two states which are already under curfew.

The operation comes after President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in all three areas as he admitted that Boko Haram had “taken over” territory in the northeast and declared war against the government.

Upsurge in violence

The increased military presence follows an upsurge in violence against government and Christian targets in the northeast by Boko Haram, who want an Islamic state in Nigeria’s north.

The offensive has been cautiously welcomed by some in Nigeria, but the army’s reputation for excessive force is causing concern around the world.

Rights groups said they feared for the safety of civilians from combatants on both sides, but Jonathan’s move enjoys widespread public support after more than three years of trying to contain the insurgency without notable success.

The United States expressed fears over a worsening “cycle of violence” on Wednesday, and warned that any “heavy-handed” tactics or disregard for human rights during the emergency operations could damage bilateral relations.

Rights groups have documented cases of abuses by Nigerian forces, including summary executions and random shootings.

“If the military continues its practice of targeting civilians, there is a risk of massive abuses during this offensive,” Eric Guttschuss, from Human Rights Watch, said.

‘Greedy pig’ protest held at Kenya parliament

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May 152013
 

Kenyan demonstrators have released a litter of pigs and poured blood on the pavement outside the gates of parliament in Nairobi to protest a proposed law that would raise wages for parliamentarians.

Police and parliament officials chased the pigs after using tear gas, batons and water cannons to disperse the nearly 250 protesters who marched through downtown Nairobi Tuesday and sat down at the entrance to parliament.

The names of specific MPs has been written on the bodies of some of the pigs, which were rounded up and loaded them onto a lorry.

At least 10 people were arrested.

“We will not allow members of parliament to increase their salaries at will,” Okiya Omtatah, one of the protest organisers shouted.

“They are greedy just like the pigs we have brought here,” Omtatah added.

Mithika Linturi, a parliamentarian supporting a proposed bill, said the protesters had little regard for the law and that “there are proper channels to air their grievances”.

“Kenya is not a banana republic. This premise should be respected,” Linturi told reporters as he made his way into parliament, adding that parliamentarians had “a right to their opinions, even if they do not please everyone.”

The proposed bill would disband the commission that regulates MP’s salaries and thus lead to a pay rise for the law makers.

The bill is the first act of Kenya’s parliamentarians since their election in March 4 polls.

Constitutional amendment

Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Nairobi, said that this is about far more than just a a salary increase.

“This is about a change to constitution because this bill would in effect call for a change to the constitution.”

Our correspondent said that President  Uhuru Kenyatta would have to make the final decision though.

Kenyan parliamentarians are already some of the best paid on the continent, although their tax-free monthly salary of some $13,000 in the previous parliament has been cut to around $7,000.

The wages were cut after recommendations by the salaries commission, the body MPs now wish to close.

In January, parliamentarians voted themselves a $107,000 send-off bonus, their last work before parliament closed ahead of elections, after earlier efforts to grant themselves the windfall were vetoed by the then President Mwai Kibaki.

Obama and Cameron discuss Syria crisis

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May 142013
 

US President Barack Obama says he and British Prime Minister David Cameron have agreed to “increase the pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the aim being Assad’s departure.

Obama and Cameron addressed the media after a meeting between the two leaders in Washington on Monday.

“We’re going to continue our efforts to increase pressure on the Assad regime, to provide humanitarian aid … to strengthen the moderate opposition and to prepare for a democratic Syria without Bashar al-Assad,” Obama said.

Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington DC, said that while there was a lot of talk in local media about the possibility of arming the rebels, there were concerns about which country was arming which Syrian rebel group.

She said it would be a tough battle if the Obama administration decides to arm the rebels.

Cameron said he ruled out tougher action in Syria but pledged to double non-lethal aid to Syria.

Under pressure

Our correspondent said there was no real change in position from the statements made by the two leaders.

She said the Obama administration is under a lot of pressure as some rebels groups are believed to be linked to al-Qaeda.

Obama has also said publicly that the use of chemical weapons would be the “red line” that would have to be crossed for the US to reconsider its position.

Cameron, fresh from a trip to Moscow, one of Assad’s few remaining backers, said the US efforts that had convinced Russia to join a conference on a political transition in Syria were a significant step forward.

He told National Public Radio that John Kerry, US secretary of state, made a “real breakthrough” in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin “when they agreed to an American-Russia peace conference”.

Cameron also said that Putin was “keen now to move from the generalities of having a peace conference to talking through the specifics of how we can make [this] work.

“There are still big hurdles to overcome … but I sense there is an understanding now that the current trajectory of Syria … this is not in anybody’s interest”.

Protests in Turkey

Amid the diplomatic developments, Assad’s troops claimed back the Syrian village of Western Dumayna, an officer who led the assault told AFP news agency.

The village is one of three strategic settlements between Qusayr and the flashpoint central city of Homs that army commanders said they had recaptured on Monday.

Also, pictures uploaded by activists claim to show a well-known mosque in Homs being hit by a missile. Other pictures uploaded by activists, which could not be independently verified, show government fighter jets shelling several suburbs of Damascus, including the town of Darayya.

In the Turkish town of Reyhanli, reverberations mounted from a string of deadly bombings, which the Turkish government blamed on Syria.

Thousands of Turks took to the streets on Sunday to urge their government to rethink its outspoken support for rebels battling Assad, warning that the decision had provoked reprisals against Turkey, including the bombings, which killed 48 people.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish prime minister, is due to meet Obama at the White House on Thursday, with Syria also topping their agenda.

Different players

In a sign of accelerating diplomacy on Syria, the Kremlin said Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, will hold talks on Tuesday with Putin amid concerns Russia plans to deliver advanced missiles to the Assad government.

Arrangements for the peace talks sponsored by Russia and the US, which could take place by the end of May and into June, meanwhile remain unclear.

Jen Psaki, State department spokeswoman, said that as there are many different players, and many different countries involved the meeting could slip into early June.

“The goal here is of course to get representatives of both sides to the table,” Psaki said.

She said she could not rule in or out the Iran or other participating countries to the conference, which would aim to reach a political resolution for the conflict in the Syria.

The Syrian National Coalition opposition group is to meet May 23 to discuss the US-Russian proposal during three-days of talks in Istanbul.

The group would then “take a decision on the Kerry-Lavrov proposal and our participation”, Sonir Ahmed, SNC spokesman, told AFP.

Opposition response

Syrian opposition forces said they will consult Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey before deciding whether to participate in the talks.

“It is too early to decide whether or not we will take part, because the circumstances of this conference are not yet clear,” George Sabra, acting head of the opposition National Coalition, said in Istanbul.

“There is no agenda or calendar yet. The list of participating states and their representatives has not yet been announced.”

Sabra’s statements came as the organisation Geneva Call said it had produced several videos on the rules of war, aimed at encouraging rebel fighters on the ground to follow international criminal laws.

The European Union gave warning on Sunday that the humanitarian aid community was at “breaking point” because of the scale of needs created by the conflict.

Kristalina Georgieva, EU’s humanitarian aid commissioner, issued the warning as she visited Syrian refugees in Jordan and unveiled $84m in additional aid.

“Unless all those involved in the fighting, as well as the international community, find a political solution to the violence very soon, the humanitarian community will simply be unable to cope with the unprecedented scale of the needs – we are already at breaking point,” Georgieva said.

Global lenders ‘linked to Vietnam land grabs’

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May 132013
 

Global Witness, a group that campaigns on resource issues, has accused Vietnamese rubber firms bankrolled by an arm of the World Bank and Germany’s Deutsche Bank of driving a land-grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia.

Indigenous ethnic minorities are bearing the brunt of the seizures, which have affected tens of thousands of villagers and led to the clearance of swathes of protected forests, according to the group.

Vietnam, the world’s third-largest rubber producer, is keen to tap surging demand for the commodity in particular from China, which is hungry for car tyres and other rubber goods as its economy booms.

Global Witness accused two firms, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), of driving forced evictions via subsidiaries linked to government cronies in impoverished Cambodia and Laos.

According to the report, Deutsche Bank has multi-million dollar holdings in both companies, while the International Finance Corp (IFC) – the World Bank’s private lending arm – invests in HAGL through financial intermediaries.

HAGL dismissed the accusations saying it strictly conformed with laws in the countries in which it operated.

“I am completely surprised by this,” the chairman of the HAGL Group, Doan Nguyen Duc, told the Reuters news agency.

“I can affirm that these accusations are all fabrication and vilification … I am unpleased when they issue the accusations
without meeting us and working with us.”

VRG cold not be reached for comment.

‘Ignoring laws’

More than 1.2 million hectares of land in Cambodia alone have been leased for rubber plantations, Global Witness said, with about 400,000 people affected by land grabs for rubber and other uses since 2003.

“The governments in Cambodia and Laos are allocating large areas of land and ignoring laws designed to protect human rights and the environment,” according to the report.

“Often the first people know about either company being given their land is when the bulldozers arrive.”

Global Witness urged Cambodia and Laos to suspend all dealings with the two firms and their subsidiaries.

It called on Deutsche Bank and the IFC to withdraw their funding if the two companies fail to take steps to comply with human rights and environmental standards within the next six months.

In response, Deutsche Bank said an “intensive due diligence process” was conducted before the shares were bought on behalf of its investors.

The IFC declined to comment ahead of the report’s release, saying Global Witness had not shared its full findings in advance.

Voting closes in Philippine mid-term polls

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May 132013
 

Filipinos have voted to choose thousands of local leaders and national legislators in what was seen as a referendum on the presidency of reformist Benigno Aquino.

More than 52 million people were eligible to vote in Monday’s elections. Results are expected on Tuesday and Wednesday.Police and military were on heightened alert for poll-related violence that has claimed dozens of lives since campaigning began in February.

More than 18,000 positions were at stake, ranging from town and city mayors to provincial governors and members of the legislature in an exercise traditionally dominated by political dynasties .

Aquino won the presidency by a landslide in 2010 on a promise to crush corruption which he blames for widespread poverty in the nation of 100 million.

He consistently scored high popularity ratings for nursing the Philippines back to fiscal health and prosecuting erring officials, including predecessor Gloria Arroyo, now in detention while being tried for alleged massive corruption.

Aquino is also close to signing a final peace deal with the main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), potentially ending a rebellion in the south that has killed more than 150,000 since the 1970s.

The aim is to get both houses of parliament – the Senate and the House of Representatives – to pass a law creating a new autonomous region to be governed by the MILF in the south.

All the seats in the lower house and half in the Senate are being contested in Monday’s elections.

Violence 

Reports said one army member was killed on Monday and one injured in the island of Negros following an encounter between the military and communist rebels, according to military spokesman Franciso Patrimonio.

Two more people were reported dead and seven injured in an ambush in Sulu Province in Southern Philippines, according to a local TV station ABS-CBN.

An improvised explosive device was found in the district of Sharif Aguak, in the province of Maguindanao, where a campaign-related massacre took place in 2009 and 34 journalists died.

Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas, reporting from Manila, said that more than 30 people have been reported killed in the run-up to the elections.

“But security forces are pointing out that this is a much smaller number than they have seen in previous elections,” she said.

“In fact, the reported incidents of violence in the run-up to these particular elections compared to the previous ones have been a sign, some say, that the reforms Aquino has been instituting during his three years in power are so far working.”

In 2009, 58 people, including 32 journalists, were massacred in the country’s worst political violence that was blamed on rivalry between two powerful clans in southern Maguindanao province.

Voting concerns

Sixto Brillantes, head of the Philippines’ election agency, reported that at least 200 polling stations reported malfunctioning ballot counting machines.

He also said that voting was cancelled in one precinct in the northern Philippine city of Baguio, and one in Compostela Valley in southern Philippines, after election workers failed to deliver the ballots.

He said that special voting, at a later date, would only be ordered if “it will adversely affect the final result”.

An election watchdog also reported power outages in some areas.

Other problems, including politicians who jostle for power by bribing, intimidating or launching attacks against opponents, are expected to have marred the vote.

Ana Maria Tabunda from the independent pollster Pulse Asia said such dynasties restrict democracy, but added that past surveys by her organisation had shown that most Filipinos were less concerned about the issue than with the benefits and patronage they could receive from particular candidates.

Voters often pick candidates with the most familiar surnames instead of those with the best records, she said.

“It’s name recall, like a brand. They go by that,” she said.

Vote-buying has also been a problem.

The Commission on Elections ordered a ban on bank withdrawals of more than 100,000 pesos ($2,440) and the transportation of more than 500,000 pesos ($12,200) from Wednesday through to Monday to curb vote-buying, but the Supreme Court stopped the move.

Carbon dioxide levels hit historic high

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May 112013
 

Carbon dioxide levels hit historic highThe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has broken above a symbolic threshold, 400 parts per million (ppm), for the first time, US monitors have said, indicating a record level for greenhouse gases.

Climate scientists said the findings should serve as a call for action to reverse the damage caused by human activities and heavy use of polluting fossil fuels.

The Earth has not had these levels of carbon dioxide in millions of years, said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science.

“We are creating a prehistoric climate in which human societies will face huge and potentially catastrophic risks,” Ward said.

“Only by urgently reducing global emissions will we be able to bring carbon dioxide levels down and avoid the full consequences of turning back the climate clock.”

‘Abrupt increase’

Data showing that the daily average carbon dioxide level over the Pacific Ocean was 400.03 ppm as of May 9 was posted online by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s monitoring centre in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

A separate monitor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California initially reported its May 9 data showing that atmospheric carbon dioxide was at 399.73 ppm, but later revised that to show 400.08 ppm.

The difference came down to the time zone, with NOAA using the universal time clock and Scripps reporting on Hawaii time. When Scripps adjusted its measurements to UTC time, it concurred with NOAA that 400 ppm threshold had been breached.

Michael Mann, climate change author and director of the Earth System Science Centre at Penn State, said the main concern was the speed with which the concentrations of CO2 were rising.

“There is no precedent in Earth’s history for such an abrupt increase in greenhouse gas concentrations,” Mann told AFP.

“While living things can adapt to slow changes that took place over tens of millions of years, there is no reason to believe that they, and we, can adapt to changes that are a million years faster than the natural background rates of change.”

Global temperatures hotter

Mann said that the last time scientists were confident that carbon dioxide was sustained at the present levels was more than 10 million years ago, during the middle of the Miocene Period.

Global temperatures then were hotter, ice was sparse and sea levels were dozens of metres higher than today.

“It took nature hundreds of millions of years to change CO2 concentrations through natural processes such as natural carbon burial and volcanic outgassing,” Mann said.

“We’re unburying it and burning it over a timescale of 100 years, a million times faster.”

Thousands protest over Spain education cuts

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May 102013
 

Thousands protest over Spain education cutsThousands of teachers and students have taken to streets across Spain to protest spending cuts they say are destroying the country’s public education system.

In Madrid, the protesters – many of them wearing green T-shirts that have become a symbol of their movement against the budget cuts – marched to the education ministry on Thursday. The demonstrators called on Jose Ignacio Wert, education minister, to resign.

“We have a small budget and they are reducing it more and more. There are fewer and fewer teachers and more and more students,” said Fernanda Gonzalez, 39-year-old  high-school English teacher, at the protest.

Students in the crisis-wracked European Union nation perform below EU standards in mathematics and foreign languages.

One-day strike

The protests coincided with a one-day strike by teachers, students and support staff that affected all levels of education.

Organisers claimed a 70-percent turnout by teachers for the strike, while the education ministry put the figure at 20 percent.

Protests were also held in several other cities, including Barcelona, Spain’s second-largest city, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Madrid, said though many Spaniards agree their education system is in need of reform, the government’s proposed changes are not the way to address Spain’s shortcomings.

The Platform for the Defence of Public Schools, which groups together students, teachers and administrative staff, called the strike to protest against austerity measures they say are running down the public education system.

They are also angered by a planned education reform, which sets new grading systems, allows for larger class sizes and boosts the proportion of Spanish-language classes at the expense of regional languages.

The education ministry’s budget has been cut by 14 percent between 2012 and 2013.

The cuts have caused university tuition fees to soar, led to larger class sizes, fewer grants for graduate studies and cuts to school buses for primary school students in rural areas.

UN accuses Congolese troops of child rapes

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May 092013
 

Congolese troops fleeing the M23 rebels last November raped at least 97 women and 33 girls, some as young as 6, according to a UN report.

The report, released on Wednesday covered “mass rape, killings, and arbitrary executions and violations resulting from widespread looting,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.

A report by the UN Joint Human Rights Office said most of the rapes took place over November 22-23 in the eastern Congo town of Minova.

The report states: “One or two of the soldiers would leave with the looted goods and at least one would stand guard as the remaining (Congolese) soldiers raped women and girls in the house. Victims were threatened with
death if they shouted; some were raped at gunpoint. Most victims were raped by more than one soldier.”

“The victims included 33 girls aged between 6 and 17,” Nesirky said.

Mass rapes

During the rebel occupation of the towns of Goma and Sake, the M23 “perpetrated serious violations of human law and gross human rights violations,” Nesirky said, including at least 59 cases of sexual violence.

The mass rapes occurred in November, 2012, after the Congolese army was defeated by the M23 rebels who seized the provincial capital of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s troubled east. The national army retreated in disorder.

Commanders lost control of their troops, or were unwilling to impose discipline over their men who regrouped some 50 kilometers south of Goma, in Minova.

A small, dusty town on the shore of lake Kivu, Minova is home to several thousand people. For days, the Congolese army raped, killed and looted in anger after their defeat, before discipline could be re-established by army commanders.

The report says 11 Congolese soldiers have been arrested by the Congolese military prosecutor’s office, “including two for murder, but only two for related cases of rape.” The other charges were not specified.

The commanding officers and deputy commanding officers of the two main battalions suspected of committing these acts, as well as officers of eight other units, have been suspended, the UN said.

Military magistrates from both North Kivu and South Kivu, UN peacekeeping and humanitarian agency staff travelled to Minova and surrounding villages from Feb. 6-13, and “military investigators took testimony from several hundred victims, including a large number of victims of sexual violence,” the report said.

Roger Meece, head of the UN mission in Congo, said the investigation “should be pursed in an independent and credible manner.”

“Those responsible for such crimes must know that they will be prosecuted,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement, calling the sexual violence outlined in the report “horrifying” in scale and systematic nature.

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