Every Wednesday you will find links and top-line summaries to current events around the globe.
Video Shows U.S. Killing of Reuters Employees [New York Times]
- The Web site WikiLeaks.org released a graphic video on Monday showing an American helicopter shooting and killing a Reuters photographer and driver in a July 2007 attack in Baghdad. A senior American military official confirmed that the video was authentic. At a news conference at the National Press Club, WikiLeaks said it had acquired the video from whistle-blowers in the military and viewed it after breaking the encryption code. WikiLeaks released the full 38-minute video as well as a 17-minute edited version
- Reuters had long pressed for the release of the video, which consists of 38 minutes of black-and-white aerial video and conversations between pilots in two Apache helicopters as they open fire on people on a street in Baghdad. The attack killed 12, among them the Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and the driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. Reuters employees were allowed to view the video on an off-the-record basis two weeks after the killings, but they were not allowed to obtain a copy of it. The news organization said its Freedom of Information Act requests were not approved
- The American military in Baghdad investigated the episode and concluded that the forces involved had no reason to know that there were Reuters employees in the group. No disciplinary action was taken. Reuters said at the time that the two men had been working on a report about weightlifting when they heard about a military raid in the neighborhood, and decided to drive there to check it out
Apple’s iPad debuts strongly, but key tests remain [Reuters]
- Apple Inc sold more than 300,000 iPads on the tablet computer’s first day in stores, a strong showing that roughly matched Wall Street forecasts and mirrored the iPhone’s debut in 2007. Despite a solid opening weekend, the bigger test will come later this year, as consumers outside the company’s core fan base size up the iPad. Only the Wi-Fi version of the iPad went on sale Saturday, and only in the U.S. Apple will expand to nine international markets, and roll out a 3G-compatible iPad, later this month, with wireless service from AT&T
- Questions remain about whether consumers will shell out $500 or more for a device that fits between a smartphone and a laptop, and which Apple hopes pioneers a new class of device. It hopes the sleek iPad joins the iPod and the iPhone in its stable of successful consumer products, providing the next driver of growth as sales of its multimedia player and smartphone begin to moderate
- Analysts expect the company to sell 1 million or more iPads in the current quarter ending in June. Wall Street expects the company to sell around 5 million in 2010, although estimates vary widely. iPhone sales passed the 1 million mark after 74 days in 2007. Apple said iPad users downloaded more than 1 million applications from the company’s App Store and more than 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day
Rains kill at least 95 in Rio, paralyze city [Reuters]
- Landslides and floods set off by the heaviest rains in decades killed at least 95 people in Rio de Janeiro state, making hundreds homeless, flooding roads and paralyzing Brazil’s second city on Tuesday. Mudslides swept away shacks in Rio’s hillside slums, turning the city’s main lake and the sea brown during the heavy rains that started on Monday and continued to fall through most of Tuesday
- The mayor said 1,200 people had been made homeless and that 10,000 houses remained at risk, mostly in the slums where about a fifth of Rio’s people live, often in precarious shacks that are highly vulnerable to heavy rains. Morning flights in and out of the city of 6 million people — which will host the 2014 soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympics — were canceled or seriously delayed and many neighborhoods were cut off from power and transport
- The downpour, which began late on Monday, is the worst Rio has recorded in at least 30 years. In less than 24 hours, Paes said, 9 inches of rain fell on the city — more than what meteorologists said was expected for all of April. After a break, heavy rains began again in mid-afternoon, raising fears of more mudslides
Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety [New York Times]
- Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. It is the worst US mining accident in 25 years and four people remain missing. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable
- The Massey Energy Company, the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia and the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine, has drawn sharp scrutiny and fines from regulators over its safety and environmental record. In 2008, one of its subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its kind levied by the Environmental Protection Agency — for clean water violations
- It is still unclear what caused Monday’s blast, which is under investigation. But the disaster has raised new questions about Massey’s attention to safety under the leadership of its pugnacious chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, and about why stricter federal laws, put into effect after a mining disaster in 2006, failed to prevent another tragedy
Space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Florida [BBC]
- The space shuttle Discovery has blasted off on its mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The shuttle, on one of the final missions before the programme is shut down at the end of 2010, is hauling equipment and supplies to the station. The astronauts are due to carry out three spacewalks, to make repairs on the station and retrieve an experiment. The shuttle, launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, includes three female astronauts for the first time
- The shuttles are coming to the end of their lives as useful vehicles, and it is not yet clear what will replace them. President Barack Obama is due to visit the Space Center soon to outline Nasa’s future direction. ome 6,000 jobs are expected to be lost as the space programme is cut back. The White House wants to shut down development of the space vehicles intended to replace the shuttle, which would have taken astronauts back to the Moon by 2020
- Only four shuttle flights remain – including this one – before the fleet is retired later in 2010
Protesters seize local government HQ in Kyrgyzstan [Reuters]
- Protesters rampaged through a regional government headquarters in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday, fighting off riot police and demanding the resignation of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Police firing teargas and rubber bullets briefly took back the building in the northwestern town of Talas, freeing the regional governor who had been taken hostage, but a crowd of 3,000 returned to retake the building after nightfall
- The Central Asian republic has been gripped by political unrest since early March and the latest unrest in Talas is of concern to the United States, which uses a military air base in Kyrgyzstan to support its operations in Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan’s 5 million people are among the poorest in the former Soviet Union, and foreign powers are nervous of violence taking hold in the fragile, mainly Muslim region just north of Afghanistan and Iran
- The opposition had been demanding that Bakiyev, who came to power in a people-power revolt in 2005, crack down on corruption and fire his relatives from senior positions. Last week U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Bishkek and called on the government to do more to protect human rights
Maoists kill 75 police in central India attack [Reuters]
- Maoist rebels killed at least 75 police by setting off explosives and firing from hilltops around dense forest in central India on Tuesday, in one of the worst attacks by the insurgents in years. The ambush by more than 700 Maoist fighters in Chhattisgarh state highlights the strong rebel presence in large swathes of India, especially remote rural areas left out of the booming economy
- Police said the Maoist rebels, who control several areas rich in mineral resources, had retreated into the forest in the Dantewada district of the Bastar region, home to government-owned iron ore miner NMDC Ltd, the largest in India. Tuesday’s attack left mining operations unaffected, but mining officials were rattled
- Maoists regularly attack rail lines and factories, hurting business potentially worth billions of dollars in mineral-rich and often remote regions. They extort more than $300 million from companies every year, the government says. The rebels carried out more than 1,000 attacks last year, killing more than 600 people. The rebels number between 6,000 and 8,000 hardcore fighters in nearly a third of India’s 630 districts. While they have made few inroads into cities, they have spread into rural pockets in 20 of 28 state
- How Sarah Palin Became a Brand [New York Times]
- Canada dollar edges above U.S. dollar; highest since 2008 [Reuters]
- British parties launch month-long election campaign [Reuters]
- Nigeria’s acting leader appoints new cabinet [Reuters]
- Thai red-shirt protesters blockade Bangkok shops [BBC]
- CEO pay down 15 percent, Ellison tops list [Reuters]
- Great Barrier Reef oil disaster fear from stricken ship [BBC]
- South African far-right leader Terre’blanche murdered [Reuters]
Photograph by Yan Yan/AP/Xinhua News Agency
A rescued miner is taken out of the flooded Wangjialing coal mine in Xiangning, north China’s Shanxi Province, Monday, April 5. More than 100 Chinese miners were pulled out alive Monday after being trapped for over a week in a flooded coal mine, where some ate sawdust and strapped themselves to the shafts’ walls with their belts to avoid drowning while they slept. AP / Xinhua News Agency / Yan Yan
via The Frame: Chinese Miners Rescued
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