In criminal investigation of BP, who’d go to jail? Not the CEO
By Scott Hiassen | McClatchy Newspapers
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promises an aggressive criminal investigation of BP and its contractors for their actions leading up to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, already the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.If history is any guide, however, don’t expect to see the chief executive of BP in handcuffs.
Over the years, the Justice Department has repeatedly pursued criminal charges in major environmental accidents, from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident a decade earlier.
Deep Roots in Kashmir Tug Hindus Back Home
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: June 5, 2010
SRINAGAR, Kashmir – The ceremony is simple and common. A Hindu priest lights a fire, places some herbs, clarified butter and other offerings atop it and through its peculiar alchemy the smoke purifies everything it touches.
But nothing about this Maha Yaghya ritual performed in the once-abandoned Vichar Nag shrine here on a recent Saturday night was simple. A week of downpours left the shrine’s grounds waterlogged and putrid. The wood was wet and the fire would not start.
USA
With oil spill, White House struggles to assert control of the unknown
By Karen Tumulty and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 6, 2010
In a time of crisis, no resource is so precious, or so perishable, as credibility. Last weekend, the Obama White House discovered that it had sprung another leak.
At a public briefing on May 29, BP’s chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, described the company’s latest last-ditch maneuver to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill: hacking the gushing pipe at the bottom of the gulf, so that a cap could be installed over it. Twice, Suttles said that shearing the riser would have little effect on the size of the leak.
BP captures 6,000 barrels of oil from leaking well
As engineers monitor the oil flow through a containment cap, wildlife rescue efforts are stepped up in Louisiana.
By Tina Susman and Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times
June 5, 2010 | 7:40 p.m.
Reporting from New Orleans and Los Angeles – Efforts to contain the flood of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico showed signs of progress as a cap placed atop BP’s blown-out well managed to capture 6,000 barrels of oil in its first 24 hours, officials announced Saturday.No one knows exactly how much is still spewing from the well, although estimates by a government task force before the well was capped ranged between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels of oil daily.
Europe
Angela Merkel: Once she could do no wrong, but her woes are now legion
The latest top-level resignation in Germany adds to the perception of a rudderless Berlin leadership
by Kate Connolly in Berlin
The Observer, Sunday 6 June 2010
As if she didn’t already have enough troubles to deal with, German chancellor Angela Merkel’s miseries deepened last week with the resignation of one of her leading political allies, President Horst Köhler.Köhler, 67, gave Merkel less than two hours’ notice before going on live television to announce his decision, which was apparently driven by his anger over the hefty criticism he had received for appearing to advocate gunboat diplomacy over Germany’s military participation in Afghanistan.
As a former head of the International Monetary Fund, Köhler was the man to whom Merkel had turned in recent months for advice over the financial crisis and whose “authoritative voice”, as she put it, she had greatly valued.
Group jolts Sweden’s tolerant self-image
Party leader calls Islam greatest threat to society, sparks fierce reaction
By KARL RITTER
STOCKHOLM – From his party’s office in the basement of a Stockholm parking garage, Jimmie Akesson is running for Parliament, preaching sharp cuts in immigration and calling Islam the greatest threat to Swedish society.That message until now has gained little traction in Sweden, but polls are predicting gains for Akesson’s far-right Sweden Democrats that could give them a king-maker role in national elections this year if neither mainstream bloc wins an outright majority.
Middle East
The hijacking of the truth: Film evidence ‘destroyed’
Protesters say Israel had an assassination list. Israel says soldiers fired only in self-defence. So what really happened on 31 May? Catrina Stewart reports
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Jamal Elshayyal, a journalist with al-Jazeera, woke with a start to the opening salvos of an Israeli assault that would transform the decks of the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel bound for Gaza, into a bloodbath.From the ship’s position deep in international waters, satellite images of Israeli speedboats and helicopters approaching the vessel were beamed across the globe before communications were abruptly cut off, leaving the events on the Marmara to unfold away from the eyes of the world.
Iran using Dubai to smuggle nuclear components
Iran is using the Gulf port of Dubai to smuggle sophisticated electronic and computer equipment for its controversial uranium enrichment programme that are banned under United Nations sanctions.
By Con Coughlin
Published: 8:00AM BST 06 Jun 2010In the latest deal, an Iranian company associated with the regime’s nuclear programme has acquired control systems from one of Germany’s leading electronics manufacturers. The deal was negotiated with a prominent Dubai trading company, which then sold Iran a range of electronic equipment for use at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Details of the deal have emerged amid mounting concern in the West that Tehran has ended its self-imposed suspension of its nuclear weapons programme. A National Intelligence Estimate issued by US intelligence agencies in late 2007 concluded that Iran had suspended its attempts to build an atom bomb in 2003.
Asia
Deep in the desert – the gold mine that swallowed a town
Business is booming at Western Australia’s giant super pit – but for the local community, there’s a high price to pay. Kathy Marks reports
Sunday, 6 June 2010
The super pit, Australia’s biggest gold mine, is an awe-inspiring sight.One of the biggest holes ever dug by man, it is visible from space and is even said to influence the weather in Kalgoorlie, the hard-bitten town perched on its rim. From the top of the massive crater, 240-ton trucks toil up and down the terraced pit face 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They resemble children’s toys.
Located on the “Golden Mile”, the richest square mile of earth on the planet, the super pit produced nearly 700,000 ounces of gold last year. Now the open-cut pit, gouged out of the rust-red earth of the Western Australian desert, is set to become even bigger. An expansion programme is under way, and once it is completed, the massive crater will be 3.6km long, 1.6km wide and 650m deep.
Corruption fuels Kabul’s version of Beverly Hills
Poppy palaces’ mimic White House, Roman ruins, plantation mansions
By Karin Brulliard
KABUL, Afghanistan – For rent on Street 6 in the neighborhood of Sherpur: a four-story, 11-bedroom dwelling of pink granite and lime marble, complete with massage showers, a rooftop fountain and, in the basement, an Asian-themed nightclub. Price: $12,000 a month.It’s a relative bargain in this district favored by former warlords and bureaucrats – Kabul’s version of Beverly Hills. There’s a war on, but carnival-colored mansions are mushrooming alongside cratered streets and sewage streams. Vast outdoor chandeliers, heated indoor pools and acres of mirrored, skyscraper glass windows abound.
Africa
Lesotho’s people plead with South Africa to annex their troubled country
Popular campaign grows within the HIV-stricken monarchy to relinquish independence and accept rule from Pretoria
Alex Duval Smith in Maseru, Lesotho
The Observer, Sunday 6 June 2010
Thousands of people in the impoverished Commonwealth kingdom of Lesotho have asked South Africa in effect to annex their state because it has been bankrupted by the HIV pandemic.The move comes as South Africa, in a move to secure its borders ahead of the World Cup, which starts on Friday, has barred thousands of people from Lesotho from crossing its borders.
“Aids has killed us,” said charity director Ntate Manyanye. “Lesotho is fighting for survival.
Zuma’s marital own goal blots World Cup
South Africa is agog at rumours that one of the president’s wives is carrying a love child by her bodybuard, Phinda Thomo
RW Johnson in Cape Town
From The Sunday Times
June 6, 2010
A FAMILY row which threatens to reduce Friday’s World Cup opening ceremony to a farce, has erupted in the polygamous household of Jacob Zuma, the South African president.Just as Zuma’s youngest and least popular wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli, was greeting dignitaries on a state visit to India, claims were published that she had become pregnant by her bodyguard, Phinda Thomo, at a time when she and Zuma were estranged.
A letter from “concerned family members” sent to Ilanga, the Durban Zulu newspaper, said that Thomo, who presumably knew what traditional penalties await a Zulu warrior who impregnates a chief’s wife, committed suicide when the affair was revealed.
Latin America
Judgment day approaches for Diego Maradona
Argentina’s troubled coach and soccer great will put his legacy on the line at the World Cup.
By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times
June 6, 2010
To the soccer faithful, Argentina should be a lock to win the 2010 World Cup. After all, it has god on its side.God, as Argentines are wont to point out, is their coach, Diego Maradona, the greatest soccer player of his generation and, arguably, of all time.
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To understand the gargantuan shadow Maradona casts over his soccer-mad homeland, one has to conjure up the athleticism of Michael Jordan, the power of Babe Ruth – and the human fallibility of Mike Tyson.