A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck Baja California in northwestern Mexico on Sunday, shaking the ground at least as far away as Los Angeles, California, the U.S. Geological Survey and witnesses reported. The quake struck at 3:40 p.m. PT and was centered about 175 kilometers (110 miles) east-southeast of Tijuana, according to the USGS.
Chandeliers swung and water sloshed around in swimming pools in the Los Angeles suburbs, witnesses reported, while posters to Twitter reported feeling the quake in Phoenix, Arizona.
#3
MSM-NET > The USGS is repor that GUAM + MARIANSA suffered a series of quakies this Easter weekend. LOCAL NEWS claims that twas wasn't enuff for people for feel anyting at all.
I WOULDN'T GO THAT FAR, as the quakes were strong enough to SUDDENLY JOLT MYSELF + OTHERS OUT OF OUR RESTAURANT SEATS, + also LOUD ESCALATING "ROLLER" RUMBLINGS WHICH SUDDENLY STOPPED.
DAKAR -- Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade announced his country was taking back military bases held by former colonial power France at midnight as the country marked 50 years of independence Sunday.
"I solemnly declare that from 00H00 (GMT) April 4 Senegal will take back all the (military) bases formerly held by France and intends to exert its sovereignty," Wade said in an address to the nation on public television. "Regarding the time frame for the release of these bases, I have asked the prime minister and army chief of staff to begin talks with the French side."
Oh -- this did not happen at midnight, as of midnight discussions will be scheduled to negotiate what the French might be persuaded to agree to. Not nearly as impressive as throwing those damned Frenchies off sacred Senegalese soil, heels over head.
Wade was speaking Saturday on the eve of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Senegal's independence from France, on April 4, 1960.
As Wade spoke, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux was arriving to represent France at Sunday's ceremonies, which will include a military parade in which French soldiers will take part. "This year will be different from the others," said Wade at the start of his speech.
Following independence, Senegal had agreed to let its former colonial masters France keep military bases there, he said. "Over the years, this situation has appeared more and more incongruous and has often been felt by our populations, particularly young people, civil servants and the army, as an incomplete independence," he added.
In Paris, a French defence ministry spokesman told AFP talks between the two countries were ongoing on future cooperation and the maintenance of a smaller French force on Senegalese territory.
On Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the question of their military presence in Senegal in a message to Wade, in which he said France wanted to maintain political and military cooperation. He is not attending the ceremonies in Senegal marking the 50th anniversary of independence.
France and its former colony Senegal have been bound by a defence agreement since 1974, and 1,200 French soldiers are currently "pre-positioned" in Dakar at one of three permanent French bases in Africa.
On February 19 Wade's spokesman Mamadou Bamba Ndiaye told AFP "the French military bases will leave Dakar in virtue of an agreement signed by both parties" ahead of the April 4th independence celebrations.
The French defence minister confirmed the same day that Paris intended to close its military bases in Senegal but intended to preserve a "centre of military cooperation with a regional purpose."
At the end of February Sarkozy announced that only 300 soldiers, 900 fewer than there are today, would stay in Dakar.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/04/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Yay, less stability for Africa. Just what they need.
#4
How will the French be able to replace their giant Senegalese snail ranches? There were never that many French snail wranglers, and it took years to train a Senegalese snail skinner.
#5
There is a union of Senegalese workers who work on the base and for the French families. They are PO's about the closure and want to compensation. The jobs feed about 15-20K Senegalites. We should do this in Germany, Japan, and Korea.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
04/04/2010 10:08 Comments ||
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#6
We should do this in Germany, Japan, and Korea.
We did it in Germany in the early '90s. Residential property rental prices went down 30-50%, and unemployment went up. Our landlord became deeply unhappy when he discovered the impact of the former, even though we were in an area not near any Ami bases -- his market was the international managers attracted by Frankfurt's business environment.
#7
"I solemnly declare that from 00H00 (GMT) April 4 Senegal will take back all the (military) bases formerly held by France and intends to exert its sovereignty,"
#8
Whoops, had the cursor in the wrong place when I pressed .
"I solemnly declare that from 00H00 (GMT) April 4 Senegal will take back all the (military) bases formerly held by France and intends to exert its sovereignty,"
So you'd like the Senegalese to believe that you have the horsepower to run the French out on a rail, eh?
Looks like he's setting himself up for his last term in office. Second-to-last if he's lucky.
HONG KONG Prosecutors in Tokyo indicted an anti-whaling activist on Friday for illegally boarding a Japanese whaling vessel in February. News agencies in Japan said Peter Bethune, 44, a New Zealander, was charged with five criminal counts trespassing, assault, illegal possession of a knife, destruction of property and obstruction of business.
These charges are bogus, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society questions the credibility of the entire Japanese judicial system for entertaining such absurdities,' the anti-whaling group said Friday on its Web site, calling Mr. Bethune, who is a member of the group, a political prisoner.' And he'll be one for about five years, I'm guessing ...
Mr. Bethune allegedly used a jet ski to approach the whaling ship Shonan Maru 2 on Feb. 15, then cut through an anti-boarding net that was draped around the hull and climbed on board. He presented the captain of the whaler with a bill for $3 million for damages to the Ady Gil, a former racing trimaran that was skippered by Mr. Bethune when it collided with the Shonan Maru 2 on Jan. 6. There's no 'allegedly' about it; he went onto the ship.
Mr. Bethune was taken into custody by the crew, who held him for a month as the whaling ship returned to Japan. When the boat arrived in Tokyo on March 12, he was taken into custody by the Japanese Coast Guard.
The Ady Gil was being used by the Sea Shepherd groupto interfere with Japanese whaling ships during their annual hunt in the Antarctic, south of Australia and New Zealand. The bow of the Ady Gil was sheared off in the collision, and Mr. Bethune and his crew were rescued by the Bob Barker, another Sea Shepherd boat. Each ship blamed the other for the incident.
The assault and obstruction of business charges carry prison terms up to 15 years, and a trespassing conviction can result in a three-year prison sentence, The Associated Press reported from Tokyo.
Japanese media reports have suggested that Tokyo intends to use Mr. Bethune's case as a warning to Sea Shepherd to end its confrontations with Japan's whaling fleet. The group has tried to disrupt the Antarctic hunts by blocking Japanese ships, using ropes to clog their propellers and throwing bottles of rancid butter onto their decks to make them slippery.
Hirotaka Akamatsu, the Japanese fisheries minister, told reporters when Mr. Bethune was arrested that his actions were outrageously illegal behavior.'
Japan kills about 1,000 whales a year primarily minke whales as part of a government-financed program that Tokyo says is for scientific purposes. Activists say the program is a cover for commercial whaling, which was banned globally in 1986.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/04/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Look on the bright side, Mr. Bethune - by the time you're a free man again, you'll be able to speak Japanese.
It's always good to know a second language. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2010 0:17 Comments ||
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#2
These "whale wars" people are committing acts of piracy.
The ships they attack would be within their rights to sink them immediately, and I believe most people would either cheer or simply move on.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/04/2010 6:50 Comments ||
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#3
LOL Barb - and he'll be addicted to Anime and whale meat
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2010 8:01 Comments ||
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...and lusting after women dressed in short skirt school uniforms.
Thousands of protesters have again staged an anti-government rally in Bangkok as the political crisis sweeping Thailand continues.
The protesters, known as red-shirts, took to the streets for a fourth weekend to demand that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva step down and call fresh elections.
More than 60,000 protesters participated in the mass rally on Saturday despite a heavy military presence on Bangkok's streets.
Meanwhile, Vejjajiva has warned that authorities might use force to disperse the protesters. The army has also announced that it would clear the Red-Shirted demonstrators by nightfall.
The Red-Shirts reject the 2006 coup that toppled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and accuse Vejjajiva of taking power undemocratically.
Protest leaders have already rejected Vejjativa's offer to call for new elections within nine months, demanding that polls be held much sooner.
Thaksin now lives in exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption. Nevertheless, the former prime minister remains popular among the rural poor, who have staged numerous rallies for his return to power.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2010 00:00 ||
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JENNINGS, LA - Members of the New Black Panther Party and Ku Klux Klan plan to protest in Jennings.
The protests could take place as early as Monday.
Members of the New Black Panthers visited Jennings last week and according to those members, local officials did not give them a friendly welcome. Their visit was in response to the termination of local black man who was allegedly fired for sexual harassment of a white woman.
The New Black Panthers say they will bear arms during the protest. As much as 250 members will show up in Jennings, according to the New Black Panthers.
In response to this, the Ku Klux Klan is also expected to make their presence known in Jennings on Monday.
#1
What constitutes a firing 'harassment' offense is anybody's guess, whether the man or woman is white or black. Need more information to make appropriate snark. The guy might have done no more than open the door for a lady with a batch of packages - or he might have requested his intern to go under the desk and smoke his cigar.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck Baja California in northwestern Mexico on Sunday, shaking the ground at least as far away as Los Angeles, California, the U.S. Geological Survey and witnesses reported. The quake struck at 3:40 p.m. PT and was centered about 175 kilometers (110 miles) east-southeast of Tijuana, according to the USGS.
