Conservative leader David Cameron took over as PM[ 1225 ]

Brown resigns, Cameron takes over as British PM

Sumeet Desai and Tim Castle

LONDON

Tue May 11, 2010 4:32pm EDT

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LONDON (Reuters) - Conservative leader David Cameron took over as British prime minister on Tuesday and said he wanted to form a full coalition with the smaller Liberal Democrat Party.

World

Gordon Brown had resigned as prime minister earlier on Tuesday, ending 13 years of rule by his center-left Labour Party.
The center-right Conservatives won most seats in a parliamentary election last week but fell short of a majority. Labour came second and the Liberal Democrats a distant third.
Giving his first speech as prime minister, Cameron, 43, said he aimed to form what would be Britain's first coalition government since 1945.
"I believe that is the right way to provide this country with the strong, the stable, the good and decent government we need so badly," Cameron said, his pregnant wife Samantha standing nearby.
Britain's sterling currency rose against the dollar and the euro as Cameron spoke. Markets had been impatient to see an end to the uncertainty thrown up by last Thursday's inconclusive election.
Both the Conservatives and Labour had tried to win Lib Dem support to form the next government during five days of intense negotiations, but it became clear on Tuesday afternoon that Labour had lost and Brown would have to resign.
"I wish the next prime minister well as he makes the important choices for the future," an emotional Brown, 59, said earlier in front of the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, flanked by his wife Sarah.
First among those choices will be how to reduce Britain's record budget deficit, whose size has raised fears that the country could lose its triple-A credit rating.
MARKET RALLY
Financial markets favored a Conservative-led government because they believe it would move faster and harder to cut the deficit.
Brown, his wife and their two children briefly posed for photographers after his farewell remarks, before leaving Downing Street. Brown then went to Buckingham Palace where Queen Elizabeth accepted his resignation.
Shortly afterwards, it was Cameron's turn to visit the queen, who formally asked him to form a government in her name. He went straight from the palace to Downing Street to deliver his speech.
Details of what the Conservatives and Lib Dems had agreed have not yet been made public. Both negotiating teams were due to report back to their legislators and party colleagues later in the evening.
The two parties will have to endorse any deal agreed by the negotiating teams.
The Lib Dems had turned to the Conservatives as potential coalition partners first, on the basis that they had won most votes and most seats in last Thursday's election.
Clegg had made clear during the election campaign that he did not wish to prop up the unpopular Brown.
But Brown said on Monday he would step aside in the coming months -- a move designed to tempt the Lib Dems to stop talking to the Conservatives and form an alliance with Labour.
(Additional reporting by Michael Holden, Peter Griffiths, Mohammed Abbas, Adrian Croft, Keith Weir and Tim Castle; writing by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Tim Pearce)

US prison facilities in Afghanistan, Red Cross [ 1224 ]

Red Cross confirms secret U.S. prison

Published: May 11, 2010 at 10:15 AM

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 11 (UPI) -- 

The Red Cross says a U.S. air base in Afghanistan has established a separate facility from its main prison that is being used for detainees.

The International Committee for the Red Cross says since August 2009 U.S. authorities have been providing the names of prisoners in a separate facility at Bagram Air Base, the BBC reports.

Nine former prisoners have told the BBC they were held in a separate building and subjected to abuse.

They told of being held in isolation in cold cells where lights are on day and night and U.S. military personnel prevented them from sleeping.

Vice Adm. Robert Harward, head of U.S. detention in Afghanistan, denies the existence of a separate facility at Bagram.

The U.S. military has agreed to investigate allegations of abuse that were made to th

NASA Image of the Day,May 11th [ 1223 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Menkhib and the California Nebula

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, features one of the bright stars in the constellation Perseus, named Menkhib (at upper left near the red dust cloud), surrounded by the large star-forming California Nebula, running diagonally through the image. 

 

Menkhib is one of the hottest stars visible in the night sky; its surface temperature is about 37,000 Kelvin (about 66,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or more than six times hotter than the sun). Because of its high temperature, it appears blue-white to the human eye. 

 

It has about 40 times the mass of our sun and gives off 330,000 times the amount of light. Menkhib is a runaway star, and the fast stellar wind it blows is piling up in front of it to create a shock wave. This shock wave is heating up dust, which WISE sees as the red cloud in the upper left of the image. 

 

Menkhib and the California Nebula are about 1,800 light-years away from Earth and are located within the same spur of the Orion spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy as Earth. All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image. 

 

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Τρίτη, 11 Μάιος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

The Turkish acronym IHH, was banned in Israel...[ 1222 ]

Turkish charity worker arrested in West Bank

Izzet Sahin, who was arrested on 27 April, has not been charged BBC., Tuesday, 11 May 2010 11:38 UK Israeli security forces have arrested a Turkish charity worker in the West Bank because they suspect he was helping banned groups. The arrest was made on 27 April, and can only be reported after a court-imposed gagging order was lifted. The man has been named as Izzet Sahin, 40, from the Turkish organisation the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief. The group organise flotillas of boats aiming to break a blockade on Gaza. It was not immediately clear what charges were being brought against him. 'Security risk' A statement on behalf of the Shin Bet security services said the group which goes by the Turkish acronym IHH, was banned in Israel. The statement did not say why the organisation is banned. "He was arrested on suspicion he had been working for a long time in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] for the Turkish organisation IHH, which in 2008 was declared illegal in Israel, also that in his activity he assisted other organisations in Judea and Samaria which were declared illegal," the statement said. "He was arrested on suspicion that his activities in Judea and Samaria risked the security in the area." The statement also said his arrest was not connected to an IHH's attempts to break the blockade of Gaza by sea, planned for later this month. The IHH was not immediately available for comment. But in a statement posted on their website, they said Mr Sahin had been living in the West Bank since 2009. IHH described him as the organisation's West Bank representative and a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was arrested as he travelled from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. The Israeli security services said Mr Sahin will remain in custody until at least 13 May. The Israeli foreign ministry said they had had no contact from the Turkish government over the arrest, other than the consular services offered by the Embassy. Relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated recently. Ankara was highly critical of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza which started in December 2008. In January this year the Israeli deputy foreign minister publicly reprimanded the Turkish ambassador for a television show aired in Turkey which depicted Israeli security services as baby-snatchers. The row deepened in April when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel was the "main threat to peace" in the Middle East while on a trip to France.

Russian coal mine accident has reached 52 deaths.. [ 1221 ]

52 dead in Russian mine blasts

Relatives sit near the Raspadskaya mine in the Kemerovo region Siberia on Sunday.

Moscow, Russia (CNN) -

From Maxim Tkachenko,

May 11, 2010 10:46 a.m. EDT

- The death toll from a Russian coal mine accident has reached 52, with 38 people still missing, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said Tuesday.

"The rescue operation to locate and recover the missing people is being carried out around the clock," Veronica Smolskaya, spokeswoman for the ministry, told CNN.

More than 80 survivors are currently in hospitals, according to the Russian State Health authorities.

Emergency Situation Minister Sergei Shoigu said more than 700 rescue workers are now combing numerous underground tunnels of the mine, and the plan is to complete the operation within the next 24 hours, according to the ministry's website.

He was speaking at a special meeting of the rescue headquarters in Kemerovo region, which was also attended by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who traveled to the region Tuesday.

Russian officials are still displaying hope and optimism in public, but several sources at the mine told Russian reporters on conditions of anonymity that finding anyone underground who survived the explosions would be a miracle.

"Hope is always the last one to die, but there is indeed little hope left," Sergei Cheremnov, spokesman for the local regional Kemerovo governor, told CNN on the phone from the site of the accident.

Cheremnov also said the first six funerals took place Tuesday. Five miners were buried in the town of Mezhdurechensk itself, where the accident took place, and one was buried in the town of Tashtagol, also in Kemerovo region.

The gas explosion in the Raspadskaya mine occurred around 8:55 p.m. Saturday (12:55 p.m. ET), when 359 people were working at the time. The mine is located near the western Siberian town of Mezhdurechensk, more than 2,300 miles east of Moscow, Russia. Almost 300 people were evacuated shortly after the explosion.

More than 50 rescue workers had gone into the mine to recover the rest of the victims when a second gas explosion rocked the structure about four-and-a-half hours later, officials said, causing more fatalities and destruction. Dozens of miners and rescue workers were trapped as a result of that second, much more powerful explosion, and all communications with them were disrupted.

Thick smoke and high methane concentrations in the mine prevented active rescue operations underground on Sunday and most of Monday morning, Russian officials said.

The operation was further complicated by the very size of the mine: Raspadskaya is one of the largest in Russia's mining industry. It has dozens of underground tunnels with a total length of almost 200 miles, according to Kemerovo Gov. Aman Tuleyev.

Putin said on Russian state television Tuesday the investigation is closely analyzing all possible clues to determine the cause of the blasts.

"When such disasters are investigated, attention is always given to studying all aspects of the problem, including the so-called human factor, which means unsafe handling of fire," Putin said while talking to victims' families.

But once the groups of rescuers entered the mine after the first blast, he said, "there could have not been any unsafe handling of fire or equipment. It's simply out of the question," he said. "The second blast was the hardest."

The victims' families will be paid 1 million rubles (more than $33,000) in moral damages, and underage children of those killed in the accident will be paid a pension of 10,000 rubles (more than $330) every month until they reach the age of 18, the Russian government decided Tuesday.

The injured will receive 400,000 rubles (more than $13,300), and miners sustaining light injuries will receive 200,000 rubles (more than $6,600). Local authorities and the management of Raspadskaya mine will also allocate money to those affected, in addition to the federal government.

On Tuesday, the first working day in Russia following three days of the May 9 Victory Day holidays, the shares of Raspadskaya mine plummeted by 15 percent at the Moscow stock exchange.