A Massive Iceberg from Greenland afloat going southwards
Photo of an iceberg the size of Manhatan Island, afloat travelling southwards
Sunday, August 8, 2010
France, - immigrant crackdown..[ 1592 ]
Sarkozy's approval ratings rise after immigrant crackdown
A recent poll has shown that French President Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity crept two points higher to 34 percent following a recent highly publicised crackdown on illegal immigrants.
By News Wires (text)
REUTERS -
A poll published on Saturday in daily newspaper Le Parisien showed the percentage of French people who trusted Sarkozy rose to 34 percent in early August, two percentage points higher than the previous month's poll.
However, 61 percent of voters said they did not trust the 55-year-old conservative leader, who is widely expected to seek a second five-year term in 2012 despite his weak poll ratings.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon, seen as a possible challenger to Sarkozy from within the ruling UMP party, fared better, with 40 percent saying they trusted him while 54 percent did not. Fillon may be replaced in a cabinet reshuffle which the president has announced for October.
The telephone poll of 1,002 people was conducted on Aug. 4-5, a week after Sarkozy launched his plans for a security crackdown during a visit to the southeastern city of Grenoble, the scene of mid-July riots sparked by the death of a man of Arab origin who was fleeing from police.
A poll published on Thursday showed French people overwhelmingly support the tough new measures proposed by Sarkozy, himself the son of a Hungarian father and French mother of Greek Jewish origin.
Thursday's survey said some 89 percent of people favoured Sarkozy's plan to force criminals to wear electronic tags for years after committing a crime, while 70 percent backed an initiative to strip French nationality from people with immigrant roots found guilty of killing a policeman.
"I will present proposals before the end of the month for legal measures to implement the withdrawal of nationality from those who kill public officials, practice polygamy or excision (female circumcision)," Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Saturday.
He added that he would consult with Immigration Minister Eric Besson, who has expressed public doubts about the legality of the move.
Latest update: 08/08/2010
President Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity inched higher after he announced tough new measures against crime and illegal immigration, but more than half of voters say he is still not tackling the country's problems.A poll published on Saturday in daily newspaper Le Parisien showed the percentage of French people who trusted Sarkozy rose to 34 percent in early August, two percentage points higher than the previous month's poll.
However, 61 percent of voters said they did not trust the 55-year-old conservative leader, who is widely expected to seek a second five-year term in 2012 despite his weak poll ratings.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon, seen as a possible challenger to Sarkozy from within the ruling UMP party, fared better, with 40 percent saying they trusted him while 54 percent did not. Fillon may be replaced in a cabinet reshuffle which the president has announced for October.
The telephone poll of 1,002 people was conducted on Aug. 4-5, a week after Sarkozy launched his plans for a security crackdown during a visit to the southeastern city of Grenoble, the scene of mid-July riots sparked by the death of a man of Arab origin who was fleeing from police.
A poll published on Thursday showed French people overwhelmingly support the tough new measures proposed by Sarkozy, himself the son of a Hungarian father and French mother of Greek Jewish origin.
Thursday's survey said some 89 percent of people favoured Sarkozy's plan to force criminals to wear electronic tags for years after committing a crime, while 70 percent backed an initiative to strip French nationality from people with immigrant roots found guilty of killing a policeman.
"I will present proposals before the end of the month for legal measures to implement the withdrawal of nationality from those who kill public officials, practice polygamy or excision (female circumcision)," Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Saturday.
He added that he would consult with Immigration Minister Eric Besson, who has expressed public doubts about the legality of the move.
FIRST BIG ROMA EVICTION
Opposition parties, human rights groups and unions announced this week that they would stage major demonstrations across France on Sept. 4 to protest against the measures, which they say are xenophobic.
Critics say the measures are populist steps aimed at diverting attention from a series of recent setbacks for the government, which has been rocked by allegations of illegal political donations from L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt as well as last month's riots in two towns.
Labour Minister Eric Woerth, the man at the heart of the funding scandal, has vigorously denied any wrongdoing.
Critics say the measures are populist steps aimed at diverting attention from a series of recent setbacks for the government, which has been rocked by allegations of illegal political donations from L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt as well as last month's riots in two towns.
Labour Minister Eric Woerth, the man at the heart of the funding scandal, has vigorously denied any wrongdoing.
On Friday, scores of police dismantled an illegal camp of 135 Roma in the central French city of Saint-Etienne, giving them a one-month ultimatum to leave the country.
It was the first high-profile eviction since the government launched a plan in late July to dismantle 300 illegal camps of travellers and Roma, which it says are linked to crime, prostitution and drug trafficking.
Massive iceberg afloat..[ 1591 ]
Massive iceberg afloat
Updated: 02:50, Monday August 9, 2010
An iceberg, 40 times larger than Australia's Uluru, has broken off a glacier in Greenland.
Scientists say the iceberg will either move south down the Arctic Ocean, break into smaller pieces or fuse to land.
If it moves south, the iceberg has the potential to block shipping.
Scientists have not confirmed if climate change caused the breakage.
Pakistan : Prime Minister visits flooded areas.. [ 1590 ]
Pakistani PM visits flooded areas
A man hands over his daughter to a naval rescue boat as he wades through floodwaters in Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province August 8, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Akhtar Soomro
ROHRI |
The Pakistani military has maintained a dominant role in foreign and security policy even during civilian rule, and has come to the fore during natural disasters, such as in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake.
The civilian government has meanwhile appeared overwhelmed and President Asif Ali Zardari has been singled out for criticism for not remaining on an official visit to Europe as the country suffered its worst floods in 80 years.
But analysts do not expect the government's heavily criticized handling of the crisis to encourage the military, which has ruled for more than half of Pakistan's history, to try to seize power.
Heavy rain is forecast to further lash the country in the next 36 hours.
Rubber and wooden navy boats set out from areas in Sindh province, where flood waters burst from the Indus River across vast distances, to help Pakistanis who have watched safe ground shrink by the hour and waters swallow up their livestock.
"We have been doing this for several days," said navy officer Akhter Mahmood after his boat travelled through about 20 km (12 miles) of flood water.
Women, chest-deep in water, carried chickens and clothes on their heads before entering navy boats. "I thought the waters would go away," said Sakina. "I want to come back."
Zardari drew fire for leaving the country for official visits in Europe during the crisis. He said the prime minister was handling the catastrophe and informing him of developments.
GETTING WORSE
Floods wiped out Mohammad Saleem's home and grocery store in the village of Kot Addu. "We have not received any help from the government so far and I am sure any foreign help that will come will never reach us," he said.
Even though relief efforts may have improved the military's standing, and widened the perception that Pakistani civilian governments are too weak and inefficient to cope with disasters, analysts do not see any threat to the current administration.
The army is busy fighting Taliban insurgents and does not want to be strapped with Pakistan's enormous problems; from costly rebuilding after the floods, to the struggle to attract foreign investment in a troubled economy, to widespread poverty.
"I don't think they are willing to dump Zardari," said Kamran Bokhari, Regional Director, Middle East and South Asia at global intelligence firm STRATFOR.
"The current army leadership ... is very clear that there is a war that needs to be waged."
Foreign aid organizations, also playing a much bigger role than the government, say weather has hampered relief efforts.
Floodwaters have roared down from the northwest to the agricultural heartland of Punjab and on to southern Sindh along a trail more than 1,000 km (600 miles) long.
The flooding, brought on by unusually strong monsoon rains, has destroyed 360,000 houses, aid groups say.
"We are very concerned because the situation is getting worse and worse," said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian relief will be needed in the coming months alone, he said. Billions may be needed to rebuild infrastructure in the long term.
In Punjab alone, 1.4 million acres of land was destroyed. The economy, which depends heavily on agriculture and foreign aid, has taken a major hit.
In some areas, only the tops of trees and telephone poles are visible. Pakistanis fighting to hold on to anything they can walked waist-deep in water carrying logs from their shattered homes.
Even before the floods, Pakistan was struggling to tame inflation that averaged 11.7 percent for the last fiscal year. In Swat Valley, one of the hardest hit areas, tomato prices have more than tripled since the floods hit.
"Our country has gone back several years," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters on a visit to Sindh province.
In Punjab, hundreds of people were evacuated from drenched areas to a railway track on higher ground.
"What we are wearing is all that we have, the rest is all gone -- our house, animals, wheat we had stored, everything has been destroyed," university student Fiza Batool said as she fed her 10-year-old sister biscuits.
(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony in Islamabad, Adrees Latif and Asim Tanveer in Muzaffargarh; Myra MacDonald in London, and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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