Every Wednesday, the Sifter posts top-line summaries to current events around the globe. All news articles are from Reuters, The New York Times and BBC News.
Recovery from floods to take Pakistan years [Reuters]
- Pakistan could take years to recover from the floods disaster, its president said. An official in the province of Sindh said on Tuesday that up to 600,000 people were now in danger from rising flood waters in the south, nearly a month into a calamity that has affected a third of the country and cast some 4 million from their homes
- Pakistan faces the challenges of securing aid for relief efforts, ensuring militants do not exploit the catastrophe to gain recruits and devising ways to dull long-term economic pain. At least 3.2 million ha (7.9 million acres) of crops, some 14% of cultivated land, have been damaged or lost, the U.N. says. In the northwest, 71% of rice crops have been destroyed
- The United Nations estimates at least 660,000 people have contracted acute diarrhea, skin and respiratory diseases and warns of the spread of fatal scourges such as cholera. Even before the floods, Pakistan’s economy was fragile. Growth, forecast at 4.5 percent this fiscal year, is now predicted at anything between zero to 3 percent
Wyclef can’t appeal Haiti poll exclusion: council [Reuters]
- A ruling by Haiti’s electoral council that disqualified hip-hop star Wyclef Jean from running for the presidency is final and cannot be appealed, a council lawyer said on Tuesday. The Haitian-born and U.S.-based singer-songwriter said on Sunday he would appeal against the provisional electoral council’s decision on Friday which rejected his candidacy for the Nov. 28 election in the poorest state in the Americas
- Council officials said Jean, who left his homeland with his family at the age of 9 to live in the United States, did not meet residency requirements. The 40-year-old musical celebrity has an enthusiastic youth following in Haiti and the dispute over his candidacy has raised some fears of tensions that could disrupt the country’s rebuilding after a devastating earthquake in January
- Jean was one of 15 candidates disqualified from running to succeed President Rene Preval, who cannot stand again after serving two terms. A total of 19 candidates — including two former prime ministers, a former minister and a former first lady — were approved to run in the presidential election. Electoral officials said Jean failed to meet a requirement that presidential candidates maintain five consecutive years of residency in Haiti prior to running
Chile to dig escape shaft, prep miners for long haul [Reuters]
- Engineers prepared on Tuesday to install a big drill to rescue 33 miners trapped for 19 days deep in a Chilean mine, and will send down games to help them cope with a wait that could last until Christmas. The rescue crews began sending hydration gel and medication through a narrow bore hole on Monday to keep the miners alive during the long rescue effort and set up an intercom
- To avoid hurting morale, officials have not yet told the miners how much longer they may be underground. Engineers must now build a concrete platform and erect the drill, which will bore a shaft 2,300 feet straight down around 2 feet in diameter, and plan to use a pulley to lower a cage to evacuate the miners one at a time
- The government plans to send the miners card games and dominoes to help them pass the time, and will feed electricity down a small bore hole to run different types of lighting to mimic the sensation of night and day. It is already one of the longest periods trapped miners have survived underground
Iran starts to fuel up first nuclear power plant [Reuters]
- Iran began loading fuel into its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and its rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb. Television showed live pictures of Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr
- Russia designed and built the plant and will supply fuel. To ease nuclear proliferation concerns, it will take back spent rods that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium. Washington has criticized Moscow for pushing ahead with Bushehr despite Iranian defiance over its nuclear programme
- Moscow supported a U.N. Security Council resolution in June that imposed a fourth round of sanctions because of fears, backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme is aimed at developing nuclear arms. The fuelling up of Bushehr is a milestone on Iran’s path to harness technology that it says will reduce consumption of its abundant fossil fuels
Chevron fights potentially historic damages case [Reuters]
- A run-down court building that also houses the local casino in this Amazon jungle town is the unlikely venue for the largest environmental damages lawsuit ever tried. On the first floor, people play for pennies in The Mirage bingo and slot machine parlor. Three stories up, in Sucumbios provincial court, the stakes are $27 billion
- That’s what local farmers and indigenous tribes want from U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp (CVX.N) to fund cleanup of areas they say were polluted with faulty drilling practices in the 1970s and ’80s. A verdict could be reached in 2011 after 18 years of litigation in U.S. and Ecuadorean courts. As the ruling looms, each side accuses the other of presenting fraudulent evidence while a slew of related legal actions are played out in the United States and Europe
- Investors and the petroleum industry are watching to see if Chevron will have to pay massive damages, setting a precedent that could fuel other big lawsuits against oil companies accused of polluting countries around the world. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has sided publicly with the plaintiffs. Both sides expect Ordonez to rule against Chevron
Blackwater fined $42m for breaking US export laws [BBC News]
- Private defence company Blackwater has been fined $42m for violating US export and arms traffic laws. The nearly 300 breaches include the export of illegal weapons to Afghanistan and the unauthorised training of foreign nationals. The alleged violations were revealed in US State Department documents
- The multi-million dollar settlement means that Blackwater, now known as XE Services, will be able to bid for government contracts. The investigation which covered Blackwater’s business practices between 2005 and 2009 found the company guilty of numerous violations
- Blackwater has provided security forces in almost every part of the world but the company has been mired in controversy because of reports of excessive use of force by some of its staff in Iraq. The company was last year re-named as XE Services and is now up for sale. Its directors have recently stressed that XE is a different company to Blackwater, having implemented a number of management and procedural changes
Somali militants storm hotel, 31 dead includes MPs [Reuters]
- Insurgents in army uniforms stormed a hotel in Mogadishu frequented by Somali government officials on Tuesday, killing at least 31 people including members of parliament. The hardline al Shabaab Islamists who have been fighting for three years to oust the fragile Western-backed “transitional government,” and control most of the city, claimed the attack
- The assault, several hundred meters away from the president’s residence, underscored the failure of the government and more than 6,300 mostly Ugandan African Union peacekeepers to bring order after nearly two decades of anarchy, making Somalia a continual source of instability for east Africa
- Last month al Shabaab expanded its reach as far as Uganda, claiming a double suicide bombing of packed bars in the capital Kampala, to put pressure on it to pull its troops out. Those attacks killed more than 70 people. More than 21,000 Somalis have been killed in the insurgency, 1.5 million have been uprooted from their homes and nearly half a million are sheltering in other countries in the region
Markets nervous as Australia faces hung parliament [Reuters]
- Australia’s two major parties wooed independent lawmakers on Sunday after an inconclusive election left the nation facing its first hung parliament since 1940 and set up financial markets for a sell-off
- With 78 percent of votes counted, a hung parliament was most likely, with two possible scenarios for a minority government: a conservative administration backed by rural independents or a Labor government backed by Green or green-minded MPs
- The independent and Green lawmakers who have emerged from the election stand for everything from higher income and company taxes, in the case of the Greens, to more open government and fewer banana imports, in the case of two independents. The Greens party, which is also set to win the balance of power of the Senate, will certainly push for action on climate change, with Labor postponing its carbon emissions trading scheme until 2012 and the conservatives opposing a carbon price
- Inside the Knockoff-Tennis-Shoe Factory [New York Times]
- Inside Neurosurgery’s Rise [New York Times]
- To Catch Cairo Overflow, 2 Megacities Rise in Sand [New York Times]
- Thailand to extradite Viktor Bout to US BBC News]
- Hong Kong hostages killed in Manila bus siege [BBC News]
Photograph by New York Times/Ed Ou
Protesters opposing the Islamic center near ground zero rally in downtown New York, Aug. 22, 2010
via The Frame: NYC Mosque Protests
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