Airlines including Qantas and Virgin Australia suspend flights as ash cloud spreads, threatening to damage engines Airlines in Australia and New Zealand suspended flights on Sunday as an ash cloud from an erupting volcano in southern Chile spread, threatening to damage engines. Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, said all of its flights in and out of the Melbourne would be grounded. It also cancelled 22 flights to and from New Zealand and Tasmania, as well as eight flights within New Zealand’s south island, as the dust cloud from Chile’s erupting Cordon Caulle volcano spread across the atmosphere. About 8,000 people would be affected by the cancellations, a Qantas spokeswoman said. Virgin Australia suspended 34 domestic flights and one international one from Melbourne. “We have been closely monitoring the situation all day,” Virgin’s Sean Donohue said in a statement. “Safety is always our number one priority.” Australian budget carrier Jetstar said it cancelled domestic flights to New Zealand’s south island airports. National carrier Air New Zealand did not cancel or delay any flights but has adjusted flight routes and altitudes to ensure aircraft remain clear of any ash, company spokeswoman Tracy Mills said. The drifting clouds of fine grit can severely damage airplane engines. New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority said the ash plumes could affect cruising levels for both jet and turboprop aircraft at between 20,000 and 35,000 feet (6,000 and 10,600 metres). The agency said the ash was likely to disrupt flights for the next week. The volcano in Chile began erupting on 4 June. Flights in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil were grounded for days following the eruption. The flight warnings and disruptions come 14 months after air traffic was grounded across Europe after the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Air transport Chile Australia New Zealand Natural disasters and extreme weather guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A 52-year-old climber died on Mt. McKinley yesterday, soon after reaching the 20,320-foot summit, reports Reuters . After a 20-hour climb, Brian Young returned to the high camp, 3,000 feet below the summit, when he apparently suffered a heart attack and stopped breathing. Attempts to revive Young failed. His…
Continue reading …The race to be the next head of the IMF heated up yesterday, as Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer announced he would run for the prestigious position, reports Reuters . Fischer, a former deputy managing director at the IMF, is considered a strong candidate, as he was well liked during…
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Mothers of Plaza de Mayo’s former legal adviser accused over misuse of funds as presidential ally fears election backlash For more than 30 years the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have been a symbol of courage against adversity and the enduring battle against injustice. Clad in white headscarves, the Mothers first appeared during the dark days of the Argentine dictatorship, a group of ordinary women valiantly facing down a brutal military government as they silently marched in front of Argentina’s national congress demanding information about their missing children. But now the headscarf has slipped as the Mothers have become engulfed in a corruption scandal that has stunned Argentina and could threaten to destabilise President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her government, just five months before national elections. Last week the group was forced to fire on of its most high-profile executives over alleged misuse of funds meant for government-backed social housing projects. Prosecutors accuse the group’s former legal adviser Sergio Schoklender, his brother and more than a dozen others of fraud and money laundering and of siphoning off substantial chunks of public money into personal businesses. Media reports allege that while Schoklender earned the equivalent of £13,000 to help Argentina’s poor, he acquired an 18-room mansion, a yacht and sports car. Shocklender denies any wrongdoing. Kirchner was reportedly furious when news of the scandal broke, particularly with her close association with the group. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo split into two factions in 1986, and the largest and most powerful group – headed by the 82-year old Hebe de Bonafini – is a huge political ally and public relations tool of her administration. Kirchner’s late husband and former president Nestor Kirchner went to great lengths to establish close ties with Bonafini and the Mothers, an alliance continued by her government after she was elected in 2007. Few political rallies are complete without a white headscarf appearing prominetly next to the president, who has staked much of her public reputation on championing human rights. Kirchner’s government has also helped the Mothers transform themselves from an advocacy group into a powerful anti-poverty organisation. Since Bonafini declared in 2006 that “there is no longer an enemy in the Casa Rosada [Argentina's seat of government]“, the Kirchner cabinet has handed the Mothers over 187m pesos (£28m) to complete thousands of social housing projects. Last week opposition politicians claimed that only 35% of these projects have so far been completed and that the Mothers and federal officials had shown a shocking failure of responsibility to the Argentine people. Influential union leaders and the heads of other human rights groups including Las Abuelas, the group of grandmothers working to identify babies stolen from political prisoners during the dirty war (1976-83), have all called for Bonafini to be formally investigated. Bonafini, who helped found the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo after the disappearance of her two sons and daughter-in-law, denies knowledge of any wrongdoing and has accused the Schoklender brothers of being “traitors and scammers”. “The Schoklenders are one thing and the Mothers are a completely different thing,” she told Argentine national radio. “We personally carried on with the battle to vindicate our children … and no one is going to hurt our public image.” Government officials are struggling to contain the scandal and preserve the integrity of the group’s public reputation. Argentina’s foreign minister Héctor Timerman stated that any attack on Bonafini was inextricably an attack on the government itself. As the scandal gathers pace, some analysts have suggested it could cause Kirchner to delay announcing whether she will run for re-election in October as her party frantically works to distance itself from the allegations. Argentina Human rights Annie Kelly guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Mothers of Plaza de Mayo’s former legal adviser accused over misuse of funds as presidential ally fears election backlash For more than 30 years the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have been a symbol of courage against adversity and the enduring battle against injustice. Clad in white headscarves, the Mothers first appeared during the dark days of the Argentine dictatorship, a group of ordinary women valiantly facing down a brutal military government as they silently marched in front of Argentina’s national congress demanding information about their missing children. But now the headscarf has slipped as the Mothers have become engulfed in a corruption scandal that has stunned Argentina and could threaten to destabilise President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her government, just five months before national elections. Last week the group was forced to fire on of its most high-profile executives over alleged misuse of funds meant for government-backed social housing projects. Prosecutors accuse the group’s former legal adviser Sergio Schoklender, his brother and more than a dozen others of fraud and money laundering and of siphoning off substantial chunks of public money into personal businesses. Media reports allege that while Schoklender earned the equivalent of £13,000 to help Argentina’s poor, he acquired an 18-room mansion, a yacht and sports car. Shocklender denies any wrongdoing. Kirchner was reportedly furious when news of the scandal broke, particularly with her close association with the group. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo split into two factions in 1986, and the largest and most powerful group – headed by the 82-year old Hebe de Bonafini – is a huge political ally and public relations tool of her administration. Kirchner’s late husband and former president Nestor Kirchner went to great lengths to establish close ties with Bonafini and the Mothers, an alliance continued by her government after she was elected in 2007. Few political rallies are complete without a white headscarf appearing prominetly next to the president, who has staked much of her public reputation on championing human rights. Kirchner’s government has also helped the Mothers transform themselves from an advocacy group into a powerful anti-poverty organisation. Since Bonafini declared in 2006 that “there is no longer an enemy in the Casa Rosada [Argentina's seat of government]“, the Kirchner cabinet has handed the Mothers over 187m pesos (£28m) to complete thousands of social housing projects. Last week opposition politicians claimed that only 35% of these projects have so far been completed and that the Mothers and federal officials had shown a shocking failure of responsibility to the Argentine people. Influential union leaders and the heads of other human rights groups including Las Abuelas, the group of grandmothers working to identify babies stolen from political prisoners during the dirty war (1976-83), have all called for Bonafini to be formally investigated. Bonafini, who helped found the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo after the disappearance of her two sons and daughter-in-law, denies knowledge of any wrongdoing and has accused the Schoklender brothers of being “traitors and scammers”. “The Schoklenders are one thing and the Mothers are a completely different thing,” she told Argentine national radio. “We personally carried on with the battle to vindicate our children … and no one is going to hurt our public image.” Government officials are struggling to contain the scandal and preserve the integrity of the group’s public reputation. Argentina’s foreign minister Héctor Timerman stated that any attack on Bonafini was inextricably an attack on the government itself. As the scandal gathers pace, some analysts have suggested it could cause Kirchner to delay announcing whether she will run for re-election in October as her party frantically works to distance itself from the allegations. Argentina Human rights Annie Kelly guardian.co.uk
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One of the country’s staples seems aptly suited to the current national condition of being without government for a year In the bars and boutiques around the splendidly gothic Grand Place in Brussels, tourists and locals can savour beer, chips and chocolate. They can also enjoy waffles, another Belgian staple, and one which is aptly suited to the current national condition. Thanks to epic political waffling, Belgium on Monday will have been without a government for a year. A caretaker government has been running Belgium since elections on 13 June 2010, but despite countless negotiations among the fragmented political parties, the country’s leaders are not even close to an agreement on a new coalition. The deadlock reflects a widening split between French and Dutch-speaking communities who rarely intermingle, and increasingly refuse to learn each other’s language. In last year’s elections, the biggest proportion of votes, some 17%, went to the N-VA, a Flemish nationalist party founded only 10 years ago that calls for independence for Flanders. Despite his belligerent rhetoric, N-VA leader Bart De Wever is involved in seven-party talks on a new coalition, but there is a suspicion – and not just on the French-speaking side – that he is systematically sabotaging them for his own political ends. Language bickering infects almost every political issue, to the extent that Belgians cannot even agree on what music to play in the Brussels metro. Last month, complaints about an apparent bias towards Jacques Brel and other French-language singers forced the public transport authority to restrict its playlist to English, Spanish and Italian songs. Some say Belgium’s 180-year history, as a shotgun alliance of French and Dutch speakers, means the country lacks a sense of national purpose to push people together during a crisis. “We have an awkward democracy, which is quite conflict prone,” said Carl Devos, professor of political science at Ghent University. “If you don’t have a national identity, everything is defined as them and us. Belgian problems don’t exist: it’s only French and Flemish problems.” Yet for most Belgians these tiffs matter little. Thanks to well-functioning bureaucracy, rubbish is collected, buses run on time, and taxes still have to be paid. This is partly because many powers have already been hived off to Belgium’s regional governments and linguistic communities, who handle day-to-day responsibilities like transport, the environment, and local economic projects. At the federal level, the caretaker administration of the outgoing prime minister, Yves Leterme, has kept things ticking over. It deftly helmed Belgium’s six-month presidency of the European Union last year, pushed through bold budget-cutting measures in February, and also dispatched fighter jets to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya. The country is recovering well from the downturn: business and consumer confidence is at its highest level since 2007, and last month the government forecast economic growth of 2.2% for this year and 2012, well above the average of 1.7% for the eurozone. “You could say that Belgium has invented a whole new form of governance: Nogov, ” says Dave Sinardet, a politics lecturer at Brussels Free University (VUB). “The fact that Belgium has not done so badly in the past year, does in a way prove that the country is not a complete non-functioning mess, as some in Flanders claim it is.” The scant impact deadlock exerts on everyday life is probably why most Belgians shrug off the stalemate, even making light of it at times. Earlier this year, tongue-in-cheek efforts to resolve the crisis included a campaign to get Belgian men to quit shaving until a government is formed and a suggestion by one MP that politicians be denied sex until they can agree on a coalition. When Belgium broke the world record for its government impasse, beating Iraq’s 2009 marker as undisputed dithering champion, it was greeted with ironic celebrations across the country . There will probably be a few more mocking celebrations on Monday. It may well be another year before the crisis is resolved, but if Belgians continue to laugh at their bizarre condition, it probably means there is hope yet. Belgium Europe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …One of the country’s staples seems aptly suited to the current national condition of being without government for a year In the bars and boutiques around the splendidly gothic Grand Place in Brussels, tourists and locals can savour beer, chips and chocolate. They can also enjoy waffles, another Belgian staple, and one which is aptly suited to the current national condition. Thanks to epic political waffling, Belgium on Monday will have been without a government for a year. A caretaker government has been running Belgium since elections on 13 June 2010, but despite countless negotiations among the fragmented political parties, the country’s leaders are not even close to an agreement on a new coalition. The deadlock reflects a widening split between French and Dutch-speaking communities who rarely intermingle, and increasingly refuse to learn each other’s language. In last year’s elections, the biggest proportion of votes, some 17%, went to the N-VA, a Flemish nationalist party founded only 10 years ago that calls for independence for Flanders. Despite his belligerent rhetoric, N-VA leader Bart De Wever is involved in seven-party talks on a new coalition, but there is a suspicion – and not just on the French-speaking side – that he is systematically sabotaging them for his own political ends. Language bickering infects almost every political issue, to the extent that Belgians cannot even agree on what music to play in the Brussels metro. Last month, complaints about an apparent bias towards Jacques Brel and other French-language singers forced the public transport authority to restrict its playlist to English, Spanish and Italian songs. Some say Belgium’s 180-year history, as a shotgun alliance of French and Dutch speakers, means the country lacks a sense of national purpose to push people together during a crisis. “We have an awkward democracy, which is quite conflict prone,” said Carl Devos, professor of political science at Ghent University. “If you don’t have a national identity, everything is defined as them and us. Belgian problems don’t exist: it’s only French and Flemish problems.” Yet for most Belgians these tiffs matter little. Thanks to well-functioning bureaucracy, rubbish is collected, buses run on time, and taxes still have to be paid. This is partly because many powers have already been hived off to Belgium’s regional governments and linguistic communities, who handle day-to-day responsibilities like transport, the environment, and local economic projects. At the federal level, the caretaker administration of the outgoing prime minister, Yves Leterme, has kept things ticking over. It deftly helmed Belgium’s six-month presidency of the European Union last year, pushed through bold budget-cutting measures in February, and also dispatched fighter jets to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya. The country is recovering well from the downturn: business and consumer confidence is at its highest level since 2007, and last month the government forecast economic growth of 2.2% for this year and 2012, well above the average of 1.7% for the eurozone. “You could say that Belgium has invented a whole new form of governance: Nogov, ” says Dave Sinardet, a politics lecturer at Brussels Free University (VUB). “The fact that Belgium has not done so badly in the past year, does in a way prove that the country is not a complete non-functioning mess, as some in Flanders claim it is.” The scant impact deadlock exerts on everyday life is probably why most Belgians shrug off the stalemate, even making light of it at times. Earlier this year, tongue-in-cheek efforts to resolve the crisis included a campaign to get Belgian men to quit shaving until a government is formed and a suggestion by one MP that politicians be denied sex until they can agree on a coalition. When Belgium broke the world record for its government impasse, beating Iraq’s 2009 marker as undisputed dithering champion, it was greeted with ironic celebrations across the country . There will probably be a few more mocking celebrations on Monday. It may well be another year before the crisis is resolved, but if Belgians continue to laugh at their bizarre condition, it probably means there is hope yet. Belgium Europe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Twin explosions ripped through a market district in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, earlier today, killing at least 34 people and injuring more than 100. The initial bomb went off in a hotel bathroom from a timed device, say police, but the second was detonated by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle….
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Somalia’s president congratulates troops who killed al-Qaida terrorist responsible for African embassy bombings Kenyans and Somalis are celebrating the death of al-Qaida mastermind who planned East Africa’s deadliest terror attack in recent history and had eluded capture for 13 years, and Somalia’s president has congratulated the troops who killed him. The death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed – a man who topped the FBI’s most wanted list for planning the Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania – was the third major strike in six weeks against the worldwide terror group that was headed by Osama bin Laden until his death last month. Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed congratulated government soldiers for killing Mohammed on Tuesday at a Mogadishu security checkpoint. “His aim was to commit violence in and outside the country,” Ahmed said, showing reporters documents and pictures he said government troops recovered from Mohammed. Ahmed did not let reporters check the documents, but he held up photos he said were of Mohammed’s family and operational maps for the militants in Mogadishu. Ahmed also held up a condolence letter he said Mohammed sent after bin Laden’s death. He didn’t say who it was addressed to, but said Mohammed co-authored the letter with a known Islamist leader in Somalia, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also honoured the victims of the bombings during a visit to the American compound in Tanzania. She put flowers on a large rock just inside the main gate of the embassy, said a silent prayer and spoke with three Tanzanian employees who were at the embassy when it was bombed. The attacks in Tanzania and Kenya killed 224 people. Most of the dead were Kenyans. Twelve Americans died. One of the survivors, Douglas Sidialo, was blinded by the bombing in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi. “God the creator has delivered Fazul Abdullah Mohammed to his destiny the same way he delivered Bin Laden to his destiny,” he said. “When you kill by the sword, bullets and bombs you die through a similar tragedy.” Sidialo, who said he once wanted to skin Bin Laden alive, said Sunday he has “moved on” and now would have preferred to see Mohammed captured alive and asked to account for his decisions. “Any death is not a cause of celebration,” he said. Thousands were wounded when a pickup truck rigged as a bomb exploded outside the four-story U.S. Embassy building. Within minutes, another bomb shattered the U.S. mission in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. “Killing terrorists only breeds more terrorists. We must find a lasting solution to this menace,” said Sidialo. Global terrorism Somalia Africa Kenya Tanzania guardian.co.uk
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Only question is whether prime minister will win enough votes to secure a mandate to rewrite the country’s constitution Voters in Turkey look set to make Recep Tayyip Erdogan the most successful prime minister in the history of the country’s multi-party system after an election that could open the door for fundamental changes to the constitution. Erdogan’s centre-right Justice and Development party (AKP) has goverened since a landslide victory in 2002, and all indicators are that it will win easily again after Sunday’s vote. “The sole question is if the AKP will win with a margin sufficiently large enough to secure them a constitutional majority, ” Gencer Ozcan, professor for international relations at Bilgi University, told the Guardian. According to Turkey’s current constitution, a party needs to win at least 10% of the national vote before it can enter the country’s 550-seat parliament. Only two of the 15 parties standing for election are expected to achieve that, with pollsters suggesting that the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will get up to 30% of the votes. The rightwing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) might yet be stopped from reaching the threshold, after a sex tape scandal caused the resignation of 10 senior party members. Some 28 independent candidates, who are not bound to the 10% hurdle, are also expected to be voted into office. The AKP has vowed to change the constitution, which has remained largely unchanged since it was implemented in 1982 in the aftermath of a military coup two years earlier. If the MHP fails to get 10% of the vote, the AKP has a real chance to secure a supermajority, which would allow Erdogan to rewrite the country’s constitution without having to consult the rest of parliament. “In one way or another, Erdogan wants to implement a presidential system,” Ozcan said. “This is the main goal of a new constitution. This is the first time that the prime minister handpicked all AKP candidates, assuring absolute loyalty within his own party. In previous terms, there was a form of balance of power within the AKP, but this is now over.” Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian stance has raised concerns in Turkey and abroad, and government critics accuse him of wanting to “Putinise” the country in an effort to remain in charge beyond 2015, when he would be barred from serving as prime minister again. “He strongly dislikes any kind of checks and balances,”Ozcan said. Four years ago the debate centred on whether Erdogan wanted to turn Turkey into an Islamic state , with the military threatening to overthrow the government. “The only reason that I give my vote to the CHP today is to push the AKP out of power,” said Seyhan Namli, as he went to the polls in the Cihangir neighbourhood of Istanbul. “I am not afraid of an Islamisation of Turkey at all,” she said. “But the AKP disregards the poor, the disenfranchised. They do politics only to fill their own pockets.” Even were they to win a constitutional majority in parliament, the AKP will face a rocky third term. Analysts predict a dangerously overheating economy, and Turkey’s “zero-problem” foreign policy is being challenged by regional uprisings such as that in neighbouring Syria , long an ally of AKP-ruled Turkey. Journalist Oral Çalislar told the Guardian: “Prime Minister Erdogan has already indicated that after the elections, the honeymoon with Syria will be over. Turkey will take a much harder stance, and side with the EU to solve the Syrian problem.” The handling of Turkey’s large Kurdish minority will also be a key issue. In a ballot station in the predominantly Kurdish area of Dolapdere, Süleyman Demir expressed his dissatisfaction with the AKP. “We don’t expect anything from the government anymore”, he said. “Erdogan has made his view on Kurdish rights only too clear over the past weeks.” During the election campaign Erdogan adopted a harsher and more nationalistic tone which, critics say, has alienated many Kurds. “There is no comparison anymore to the Erdogan of 2002 and 2005. He has turned his stance by 180 degrees,” said 34-year-old Demir. He, like many other Kurds, voted for one of the independent candidates backed by the Kurdish BDP. “We don’t want any canals, bridges or airports,” he said in reference to Erdogan’s regeneration schemes . “We don’t need any ‘crazy projects’. All we want is peace, and an end to the bloodshed in the south-east.” Turkey Middle East Europe guardian.co.uk
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