Hunting season has been in full swing for a couple of weeks, at least in Niagara County, but the prey isn't deer or turkeys. Burglars have been dodging bullets.
Homeowners are mad as heck, and they're fighting back at the intruders.
Three times in Niagara County over a one-week period and once in Buffalo last April homeowners confronted home invaders with gunfire.
Not all the shots found their marks, but the four incidents left one burglar dead, another shot in the chest, and one homeowner who didn't hit anyone charged with two felonies.
Dennis F. Cherry of Royalton, the homeowner facing the felonies, a soft-spoken and polite Army veteran, said he was protecting himself from a home burglary at about 11:20 a.m. Jan. 21, when he fired 15 shots from a military-style assault rifle at the vehicle of a fleeing intruder.
This shooting occurred during the second burglary in three days at his Akron Road home, and Cherry said he believed the two burglars one was his stepdaughter had stolen a handgun. He claimed he knew they were on drugs, knew they were coming back and was afraid they were armed.
"I wasn't trying to kill anyone," he said in an interview in his Lockport attorney's office last week. "I didn't fire at the windshield. I fired at the radiator and the tires.
"I didn't want to wait two days later and have him come back and beat my head in with a baseball bat," Cherry added. "When people get into drugs, they don't care what they do. I wanted to stop him. What if the cops came eight minutes later and the cops had a problem with him? I don't know. I've gone through this in my mind a thousand times."
But the 63-year-old Cherry, a retired Harrison Radiator employee who served in Vietnam 38 years ago, now faces felony charges of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief for firing 15 shots. Fourteen of the 15 struck the vehicle.
#7
He was firing at a fleeing vehicle. Once the criminal goes outside and is fleeing it gets tough to defend the shootings in almost every state.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/31/2010 15:28 Comments ||
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#8
"Fourteen of the 15 struck the vehicle"
Better shooting than most police officers.
As far as "fleeing", in "Make My Day" "Home=Castle" states like Colorado, if they are on your property, they are fair game. About the only charges that wouls stick would be the "criminal mischief" for firearm discharge that coudl potentiall harm the public (i.e. go off his property).
Get this guy a jury trial of peers from the burglarized neighborhood, he should walk.
#9
If I recall correctly (Lockport wasn't exactly my part of town), Akron Road is a main street, not a side street within a neighborhood. So the question becomes, were the 15 bullets fired from Mr. Cherry's property into a vehicle on his property, or into a vehicle driving down a public main road in broad daylight on a weekday, meaning there were other vehicles on the road that either Mr. Cherry or the distraught burglar might hit. The secondary question is whether 15 bullets is overkill. The fact that Mr. Cherry is a Viet Nam veteran is immaterial, intended to prejudice the reader against him.
#10
The radiator he shot means he was shooting at the front of the car. He most likely had a 30 round clip, so he was not emptying the banana clip on these thieves. In the three trys in a span of a few days, this time possibly armed with a firearm they just took from him means its going to be a gun fight this go round. But not only did the police not protect and serve this veteran, they too are going after him. Thats a red flag of dangerous incompetence resulting in a desperate situation for people in that community.
#11
the fact he is a vietnam veteran doesn't prejudice me at all, in fact I'm going down to our brigades reunion in April and I will propose a toast to the vet that hit a moving car 14 out of 15 times.
Prison inmate Ricky Silva thinks the death penalty is too severe a punishment for strangling his cellmate with a shoestring. In fact, he's proud of what he did. And he wants you to be proud of him, too.
"It's not like I killed an innocent citizen or somebody who was undeserving," said Silva, 29, of Terry Bell's Oct. 14 homicide at the Martin Correctional Institution, where both men were serving life prison terms.
"Under my belief system, there's still some people in the world that need killing and he was one of them," he said. "I don't believe I should pay for killing somebody that needed to be killed."
Continued on Page 49
#7
The power of life and death is the ultimate power. When the state drops that power, it doesn't disappear, it just moves on to others who will use it. They become more powerful than the state. Just watch the frustration of the cops in television programs like 48 Hours. They can't get cooperation to solve a murder because those who perpetrated it have more power than the state, a death penalty without due process or appeal. Watch as authorities threaten a witness for not cooperating. What are you going to do, time in jail or face death? The other side holds the trump card. It is said a civilized society doesn't need a death penalty, to wit the reply would be that a civilized society wouldn't have murder in its midst.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/31/2010 8:53 Comments ||
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#9
Before there were 'human rights advocates', rapists and (especially) child molesters typically didn't survive their first week in prison.
A deterrent perhaps?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/31/2010 9:13 Comments ||
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#10
well, kind of hard to argue with his logic...certainly makes more sense to me then last week's SOTU...and will definitely save the taxpayer's more money then what's coming from our Clown-In-Chief.
[Straits Times] ABOUT 8,000 people across Malaysia have fallen prey to a get-rich-quick scam that promised returns of as much as 500 per cent on their investments.
They suffered losses of millions of ringgit after investing in a company which convinced them that it was a profit-making junket operator.
Junket operators are middlemen who, for a fee, bring in high rollers from all over the world to casinos' VIP tables. The company claimed it was also paid commissions each time the high rollers bought chips to gamble.
Up to 30 per cent of the commissions was to be shared among the investors, according to two victims who claimed they were cheated of about RM4.5 million (S$1.8 million) by the company.
Former manufacturing manager R. Prakash, 46, who lost about RM3 million, said that in the beginning the company paid investors the returns as promised. This prompted him to increase his investment amount and persuade his friends to join the scheme, he said at a press conference at the Consumers Association of Penang office here last Friday.
'Everything seemed genuine and I even went on 10 free trips to Macau from the time I joined in December 2008 to September last year. Everything was complimentary, from the food to the lodging,' he said. 'I also received gifts such as Rolex watches, diamond rings and bracelets as inducements to make me invest even more,' he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2010 00:00 ||
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I see the word "Ponzi" was not translated properly.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/31/2010 2:13 Comments ||
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The top three drivers in next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix have been told not to spray one another with champagne. Islamic sensibilities mean alcohol and scantily clad "pit girls" are banned at the event this weekend. Adel al-Moawada, deputy speaker of parliament, described the unacceptable behaviour. "Shaking the champagne and spreading it on the people, this is something that I don't think the people here will accept," he said. "The organisers know how to run this event without contradicting the culture of the place they are in." Formula One organisers are preparing non-alcoholic drinks for drivers to spray, says the Daily Telegraph. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has gone to huge lengths to host the grand prix. Bahrain built a world-class racing circuit in 483 days and the king even offered to accommodate Schumacher in a royal palace.
#3
ooooh, fizzy Gatorade! *sigh* The Koran only forbids drinking alcoholic beverages, not bathing in them, especially fully clothed. Nor does the Koran require non-Muslim women dress modestly.
Miss Virginia Caressa Cameron won the 2010 Miss America title Saturday night after strutting in a skintight yellow dress, belting Beyonce's "Listen" from "Dreamgirls" and telling kids they should get outside more often.
"We need to get our kids back outside, playing with sticks in the street like I did when I was little," she said. "Expand your mind, go outside and get to see what this world is like."
Cameron, a 22-year-old from Fredericksburg, Va., won a $50,000 scholarship and the crown in Las Vegas after a pageant that started with 53 contestants. She outlasted her opponents in swimsuit, evening gown, talent and interview competitions.
Cameron is broadcast journalism student at Virginia Commonwealth University, and wants to become an anchor.
When asked during the interview portion of the competition her thoughts on fighting childhood obesity, Cameron said parents should curb television and video games. "We need to get our kids back outside, playing with sticks in the street like I did when I was little," she said. "Expand your mind, go outside and get to see what this world is like."
Miss California Kristy Cavinder was the first runner-up, winning $25,000.
The African Union (AU) has selected Zimbabwe for a place on its Peace and Security Council, one of the bloc's most powerful organs, the organisation's head of legal affairs said. The southern African country is emerging from a period of international isolation after a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Ben Kioko, the AU legal counsel said the trial of former Chadian ruler Hissene Habre would commence in the next few months, once the AU and the European Union have sorted out a trial budget and issues of procedure. Habre, president between 1982 and 1990, faces charges of crimes against humanity.
The EU became involved in the issue after Belgium issued an international arrest warrant for Habre in 2005. Belgium's move to try him in Europe was rejected by the AU and the trial will take place in Senegal where Habre is exiled.
"It is an issue (budget) that we should be able to finalise within the next two weeks," he said.
A detailed plan to merge the African Court of Human and People's Rights with the African Court of Justice, and to mandate the new entity to handle serious offences like war crimes, would be presented at the next summit of AU leaders in July, Kioko also said.
"The African judicial organs should be able to deal with cases relating to unconstitutional changes of government so that is also another axis we will be looking to confer jurisdiction upon the African court."
(Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Matthew Jones) Thank you both
#1
Hat tip to the AU, a splendid selection. An HIV rate of 20%, possibly higher. The lowest life expectancy by far in he world. Delicious servings of mice and grass top ward off hunger. Human culling via starvation. Zim is indeed the logical choice. [sark off]
THE security service MI5 has accused China of bugging and burgling UK business executives and setting up "honeytraps" in a bid to blackmail them into betraying sensitive commercial secrets.
Cluetrain finally finding customers in the UK?
A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the Peoples Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of "gifts" and "lavish hospitality".
The gifts -- cameras and memory sticks -- have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users computers.
MI5 says the Chinese government "represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK" because of its use of these methods, as well as widespread electronic hacking.
Been doing it for a while now. Gotten better and better at it too.
Written by MI5s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the 14-page "restricted" report describes how China has attacked UK defence, energy, communications and manufacturing companies in a concerted hacking campaign.
It claims China has also gone much further, targeting the computer networks and email accounts of public relations companies and international law firms. "Any UK company might be at risk if it holds information which would benefit the Chinese," the report says.
The explicit nature of the MI5 warning is likely to strain diplomatic ties between London and Beijing. Relations between the two countries were damaged last month after Chinas decision to execute a mentally ill British man for alleged drug trafficking.
Earlier this month the United States demanded that China investigate a sophisticated hacking attack on Google and a further 30 American companies from Chinese soil.
China has occasionally attempted sexual entrapment to target senior British political figures.
British political figures have sex? Who knew?
Two years ago an aide to Gordon Brown had his BlackBerry phone stolen after being picked up by a Chinese woman who had approached him in a Shanghai hotel disco.
The report says the practice has now extended to commercial espionage.
It warns that British executives are being targeted in China and in other countries.
China has repeatedly denied spying on Britain and the West. Its London embassy did not comment.
In 2007 Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, had written privately to 300 chief executives of banks and other businesses warning them that their IT systems were under attack from "Chinese state organisations".
There have been unconfirmed reports that China has tried to hack into computers belonging to the Foreign Office, nine other Whitehall departments and parliament.
Yup, that's the big threat. Meanwhile they'll nibble you out of market and profits.
But the latest document is the most comprehensive and explicit warning to be issued by the UK authorities on the new threat. Entitled The Threat from Chinese Espionage, it was circulated to hundreds of City and business leaders last year.
The growing threat from China has led Evans to complain that his agency is being forced to divert manpower and resources away from the fight against Al-Qaeda. His lobbying helped to prompt the Cabinet Office to set up the Office of Cyber Security, which will be launched in March.
Years late and millions of pounds sterlin too little, one fears. But better something than nothing.
#2
In his sequel to The Eiger Sanction, Trevanian wrote The Loo Sanction, in which the assassin Hemlock, played by Clint Eastwood in the movie, is transplanted to Britain, where he is blackmailed to work for British Intelligence.
With great irony, Trevanian wrote The Eiger Sanction to be a spy novel parody, and The Loo Sanction, to be a parody of both The Eiger Sanction and the ultraviolence of Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. But both were taken at face value by the public and became best sellers.
I mention this because the leadership of British Intelligence was depicted as amazingly ruthless and vicious, led by a Church of England Reverend who saw no hypocrisy in leading church services one minute, and supervising the harvesting of organs from comatose enemy spy prisoners for the next.
Quite an enjoyable read, but makes the ruthlessness of James Bond look rather effete. And since Trevanian had some special insight into the workings of the US and British Intelligence operations, it would seem they had no objection to being portrayed as murderous.
Makes you wonder if they still "have it", when it comes to espionage hardball.
Suspected drug hitmen burst into a party and killed 13 high school students, on Sunday in Ciudad Juarez, the latest massacre in one of the world's deadliest cities, Mexican media and witnesses said.
Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating victory in a local American Football championship, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of Sunday.
"The men drove up in four SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbour at the scene said.
It was not immediately clear why the gunmen attacked the students. But drug hitmen have attacked parties in the city, searching for rivals, while police have reported that some teenagers have been involved in kidnapping others.
Ciudad Juarez is the bloodiest city in Mexico's drug war as rival cartels fight over markets and control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Violence is escalating even as federal police and soldiers patrol the streets. Some 2,650 people were killed in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez last year and cartel murders have jumped since the start of 2010.
In some of the worst attacks, gunmen have stormed at least seven drug rehabilitation clinics in the manufacturing city over the past two years targeting rival dealers. Two strikes in September killed 28 people.
Mexico is the key transit route for U.S.-bound cocaine from South America and a top producer of marijuana and heroin.
A military crackdown on rival cartels in Mexico has fuelled a surge in drug violence that has killed more than 17,000 people over the past three years.
#2
At the rate they're going, Columbus New Mexico Part II is just a matter of time. They've been too busy to notice how the Taliban and AQ leaders have fared lately. El Drug Jefe that survives will enjoy Gitmo for life.
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The African Union (AU) agreed on Sunday to consider a Senegalese proposal to resettle Haiti's earthquake homeless and possibly create a state for them in Africa.
The idea was first floated by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade who said the history of Haitians as descendants of African slaves gave them the right to a new life on the continent.
AU chairman Jean Ping told African leaders at its annual summit in Addis Ababa that they would discuss the proposal during the three-day event. The AU had opened an account for Haiti with the African Development Bank, he said.
"It is out of a sense of duty and memory and solidarity that we can further the proposal of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to create in Africa the conditions for the return of Haitians who wish to return after the effect of the disaster that ravaged Haiti," Ping said.
Wade said Senegal and other African states should naturalise any Haitians who sought new nationality, and he urged a mass adoption programme across the continent for orphans of the quake, feared to have killed as many as 200,000.
The idea for a new state is reminiscent of the 19th century creation of Liberia by freed U.S. slaves. The West African country is currently recovering from a 1999 civil war and is hoping to benefit from recent oil discoveries off its coast.
"We have attachment and links to that country," Ping said of Haiti. "The first black republic in 1804, that carried high the flame of liberation and freedom for the black people."
#3
Heck it works for me. Consolidation of all 4th world failed states makes life easier. With any luck the ones that stay on this side will get their $*77 together...............nah, I don't really think so.
But then we could turn the mess back to the UN right? They can continue their Stellar Work, right? Hey, maybe the UN could relocate to the NEW Improved Haitafrica.
#4
Hat tip to the visionary President Abdoulaye Wade. Please keep in mind Mr. President, things are very bad in Detroit, Atlanta, Philladelphia, New York, and New Orleans as well.
#5
Relocating them and giving them a goat (ala Heifer.org) sure beats perpetual WFP handouts. Haiti had a pre-quake 80% unemployment rate, 60% were under 20, and the estimated 385,000 orphans just tripled. Most are illiterate and don't even have the social skills to work the tourist industry on the cruise ships. I just heard they expet US troops to be there years to rebuild. Considering the overall picture, Africa sounds like a good deal for many of them.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Haitian police have arrested 10 US citizens after they tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the earthquake-stricken nation. The suspects were detained at Malpasse, Haiti's main border crossing with the Dominican Republic, after Haitian police conducted a routine search of their vehicle.
One of the suspects, who says she is the leader of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children's Refuge, denied they had done anything wrong.
The Haitian authorities said the 10 US citizens had no documents to prove they had cleared the adoption of the 33 children -- aged 2 months to 12 years old -- through any embassy and no papers showing they were made orphans by the quake in the impoverished Caribbean country.
That sounds like they were doing something wrong.
I know a thing or two about this racket: the ringleaders come to a foreign country and trick or coerce mothers into surrendering their children. They have help from locals, generally lawyers, who get a substantial cut. They then bribe the local judges to sign off on adoption papers. With the papers in hand they get desperate American couples to take temporary custody in the country, and then apply for guardianship. With that they can go to the American embassy and file the papers to allow their new child to travel with them back to the US, where they go to a state court to finalize the 'adoption'.
The birthmother's rights were terminated, there's an impressive piece of paper with all sorts of stamps and seals from the foreign country, and a US Dept of State paper for the travel. The state child court judges don't say no to all that.
It's outright selling of children, and it's been a problem for decades in poor countries like Guatemala and Vietnam. Parenthetically, it was a problem for a while in China until China made an example of a few local officials by shooting them. That cleaned up the situation enough such that now China is actually one of the more ethical countries in international adoption.
There is a UN accord on inter-country adoption that is supposed to make this much more difficult; it is only know being implemented by the US.
In Guatemala an 'adoption', frequently fraudulent, might cost an American couple up to $50,000. Please don't tell me that they "didn't know".
The louses who organize these scams particularly like a disaster like an earthquake or hurricane. It generates orphans, real or imagined, and plays on the heartstrings of Westerners who are desperate for a child.
The leaders of this racket need their finances and associations with all stateside agencies thoroughly tossed, and then they need to go to prison.
In addition to outright trafficking in children, Haitian officials have also expressed concern that legitimate aid groups may have flown children believed to be orphans out of the country for adoption before efforts to find their parents had been exhausted.
That's one of the tricks, snatching the children before their parents can be found. One of the locals who is in on the scam will then tell the parents that their child was found dead and was buried so as to avoid disease. Who's going to prove them wrong?
As a result, the Haitian government halted many types of adoptions earlier this month.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2010 00:00 ||
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After listening to several news reports about this it appears the group thought they ahd all the paperwork done but missed the part about the Prime Minister having to give his permision.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/31/2010 14:38 Comments ||
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Russia on December 29 flew a prototype of its Sukhoi T-50 fighter, said to be the first fighter jet designed and built in post-Soviet Russia, albeit with help from India. The unique twin-engine all-weather low-visibilitly steatlhy "fifth-generation" fighter is expected to be capable of extended supersonic flight. Its design is said to have been determined "taking into account the F-22's capabilities, merits and drawbacks," according to RIA Novosti. Having won a design contest in 2002, the Russian jet was expected to fly first in 2007. With Friday's first flight, testing is expected to continue over the next five to six years. According to Russian military commentator Ilya Kramnik, the T-50 compares with aircraft like the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, developed from the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. The Russian jets are expected to "replace the Su-30MKI Flanker-H fighters currently serving with the Indian Air Force, in the 2020s and the 2030s. Moreover, it is likely they will be mass-produced in India," as well as Komsomolsk-on-Amur (far south-eastern Russia), beginning as early as 2015.
According to RIA Novasti, the Russian T-50 was designed to include: included: "greater agility, sustained supersonic-flight capability in non-afterburning mode, low radar visibility, low heat signature, as well as enhanced take-off and landing performance." The T-50's specifications remain classified, but Russian sources believe it will have a take-off weight of more than 30 metric tons and is close in dimension to the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker. It is said to be fitted with Russian Saturn 117S turbofan engines. Short field abilities may include the ability to take off from a one thousand foot runway and the jet is expected to have a range of about 5,500 kilometers.
#2
And they use very dirty and cheap energy to do it with.
Meanwhile, we pursue a policy of making electricity (and therefore aluminum and steel and glass) as expensive as possible, and oil (and therefore resin, nylon, carbon fiber, and kevlar) as expensive as possible, and blame the oil companies because we can't keep up in the Green Future.
#6
I've though for some time that the chinese should build a bunch of pebble bed reactors (not that foolish dam) so they'd have power to spare. One of the few advantages of an authoritarian country is they can ram that sort of thing through without green protestors. Once they had power they would elimnate their long oil supply line problems.
Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched today in Tokyo to protest against U.S. military presence on Okinawa, while a Cabinet minister said she would fight to get rid of a marine base Washington considers crucial.
Hey Joe, we have some extra room on Guam?
Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa. Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases.
Japan and the U.S. signed a pact in 2006 that called for the realignment of American troops in the country and for a Marine base on the island to be moved to a less populated area. But the new Tokyo government is re-examining the deal, caught between public opposition to American troops and its crucial military alliance with Washington.
On Saturday, labor unionists, pacifists, environmentalists and students marched through central Tokyo, yelling slogans and calling for an end to the U.S. troop presence. They gathered for a rally at a park - under a banner that read 'Change! Japan-U.S. Relations' - for speeches by civil leaders and politicians.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has repeatedly postponed his decision on the pact, with members of his own government divided on how to proceed. Last week he pledged to resolve the conundrum by May, just before national elections.
'The Cabinet is saying that it will announce its conclusion in May. For this reason, over the next few months we must put all of our energy into achieving victory,' Cabinet minister Mizuho Fukushima said at the rally, to shouts of approval from the crowd. Fukushima - who has a minor post in the Cabinet and heads a small political party - wants the base moved out of Japan entirely.
Hatoyama's government must appease such political allies to maintain its majority coalition in parliament, and the public are increasingly vociferous on the U.S. military issue, even outside of Okinawa.
The deal with Washington calls for the Marine base in a crowded part of Okinawa to be moved to a smaller city called Nago. But last week residents of Nago elected a new mayor who opposes the move, ousting the incumbent that supported a U.S. military presence.
On the other side of the debate, a steady stream of U.S. officials have petitioned Tokyo to follow the agreement and maintain American troop levels in Japan, with U.S. Ambassador John Roos on Friday calling them 'front-line forces' in case of emergencies or security threats.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/31/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
The hell with them...
Its time for Fortress Am.
#4
Thus weakening Japan and strengthening China. I wonder how many of these protesters know what a balance of power is, and how they're helping to alter it negatively.
#6
We're doing an awful lot of infrastructure improvements and additions on our bases in Guam. Somehow, I think we have been expecting this. So far, I generally only see one guy protesting our presence at the entrance to Andersen AFB, and he looks like Tarzan.
#9
Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases.
Take it for what it's worth, but other than while transiting Narita, the presence of any westerner in Japan is generally seen as something of a "crime."
#10
I suspect they'll get their wish. Unable to pull out of Afghanistan I suspect Obama will be looking to pull back in other areas. Japan, Korea and Germany seem like likely candidates.
The memorial is supposed to consist of a tall monument, and an "army' of 21,857 natural size statues of soldiers the number equal to the number of the Polish POWs murdered by the Soviets in Katyn.
Each statue will have its first name, surname, military rank and ... a hole in the head.
#5
"little interlude between grand European fratricides"
Where'd anyone get the idea that the EUros were peace-loving, anyway?
The press lying as usual, maybe?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/31/2010 8:57 Comments ||
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#6
This Katyn murders weren't just a buncha Polish soldiers; they were the creme of Polish society, primarily officers the Soviets murdered to impose communism on an otherwise conservative state.
The murders were a calculated attempt at social engineering to achieve by the absence of Poland's defenders, what the Soviets knew they could not impose otherwise.
What the Polish government should do upon completion of the plans and engineering, is to post those files on the internet so that should the memorial ever be destroyed, the world could at least have a chance to rebuild it as it was.
This calamity, to call this event in Polish history was it was, should never be forgotten.
In order to bind these wounds the Russians should
1) Pay compensation to the families of the victims
and
2) Pay part of the costs of construction of the memorial.
The Russians should never be allowed to live this down, ever.
Plans to scale up India's nuclear capacity nearly ten-fold over the next decade has got underway, with the Centre according 'in principle' approval to over 38,000 MWe (mega watt electrical) of new reactor capacity.
Too bad the US isn't this enlightened ...
Imported Light Water Reactor units ranging from 1,000 MWe to 1,650 MWe from Russia, France and the US would make for over 80 per cent of the envisaged capacity, with indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors of 700MWe accounting for the rest.
"The units are planned to be constructed with a gestation period of about six years from the first pour of concrete to commercial operation. The plan is to start work on the first set of twin units at these sites by 2012," a Government official said.
Site clearances, including primary environmental clearance, have been received for the second phase of the Koodankulam project (four additional Russian 'VVER' series of reactors) and the Jaitapur site (in Maharashtra), where French nuclear major Areva NP would set up its 'EPR' reactor units.
State-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd had initially set itself a target of achieving a total installed capacity of 20,000 MWe by 2020.
This, according to officials, could go up to 40,000 MW if the LWR programme gains momentum, with Toshiba-Westinghouse's AP1000 series of reactors, GE-Hitachi's ABWR reactor series, Areva's 1,650 MWe European Pressurised Reactors and the Russian 'VVER' reactors set to be deployed at the earmarked sites. The current installed nuclear capacity is 4,120 MWe.
Besides the units that have bagged clearances, four 700 MWe indigenous PHWRs are already under construction at Kakrapar in Gujarat (KAPP-3 and 4) and Rawatbhata in Rajasthan (RAPP-7 and 8), while two 1,000 MW reactors are coming up at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu through Russian assistance.
Russia has cashed in on its first-mover advantage in the nascent Indian nuclear market by moving ahead with plans for additional units at the Koodankulam site, where it is in advanced stages of commissioning the first phase of the same project consisting of two 'VVER-1000' units of 1,000 MWe each. It has also got a greenfield site in West Bengal for fresh capacity of 6,000 MW.
France has also begun the process of setting up its maiden project at the Jaitapur site.
The Americans are still waiting in the wings, though the Government has indicated its willingness to earmark two sites to US reactor manufacturers. The demand by the US companies for capping of accident liabilities and lack of consensus at a bilateral level on enrichment and reprocessing rights for future fuel supplies are holding up the entry of American players.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/31/2010 10:21 ||
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[Straits Times] THAILAND'S prime minister said on Saturday he saw no threat of his government being ousted in a coup despite speculation back home, insisting that the rule of law would triumph over intimidation.
Abhisit Vejjajiva said in an interview with The Associated Press that any talk of his government being overthrown was linked to the February court decision on whether to confiscate more than US$2 billion (S$2.81 billion) in assets linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and his supporters' attempts to destabilise the country.
'I don't think there is any reason for a coup d'etat,' Mr Abhisit said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. 'This government has been in office for just a little over a year. We have turned the economy around, implementing a number of policies that are reaching out to all sections of the population of Thailand. We are also observing the rule of law.'
Mr Abhisit said political opponents of his royalist party had sufficient rights to freedom of expression, and that there was no need for any political change outside of new elections.
He promised to hold early elections when there were assurances that violence and intimidation tactics would be avoided.
Thaksin's supporters and opponents have repeatedly taken to the streets since he was ousted in a 2006 coup, sparring over who has the right to rule the country. He fled into self-imposed exile in 2008 before a Thai court found him guilty of violating a conflict of interest law and sentenced him to two years in prison. A court will decide next month whether to seize more than US$2 billion in Thaksin's assets.
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[Straits Times] CAMBODIAN and Thai troops have had a brief shoot-out on their disputed border, a Cambodian defence ministry spokesman said on Saturday, in the latest such flare-up.
Mr Chum Socheat told AFP that soldiers from the two countries exchanged fire for two or three minutes on Friday evening.
'We are now further investigating into the problem to find out how it started. We can't tell who started it first,' he said. He added that Cambodian troops reported a Thai soldier was killed in the skirmish, however Thai military officials were not immediately available to comment.
Troops from the two countries briefly exchanged fire in disputed territory near an ancient Khmer temple last Sunday.
Cambodia and Thailand have been at loggerheads over their border for decades. Nationalist tensions spilled over into violence in July 2008, when the Preah Vihear temple was granted Unesco World Heritage status.
Four soldiers were killed in clashes in the temple area in 2008 and three more in a gunbattle last April. The border has never been fully demarcated, partly because it is littered with landmines left over from decades of war in Cambodia.
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In a 15,000-square-foot warehouse just down the road from the Oakland Airport, an entrepreneur is opening a one-stop shop for medicinal marijuana cultivation that's believed to be the largest in the state.
"A lot of people don't know much about growing pot," said Dhar Mann, 25, the owner, who stood in front of an array of Ikea-like displays, showing different rooms of cannabis cultivation systems. "Since there are no full-service resources like us, they take risks, like electrical fires."
This is hardly a fringe business. When iGrow opens today, at least three City Council members will attend. So will most of the leaders of the cannabis industry in Oakland, a city long at the vanguard of medicinal marijuana.
Today's opening also comes on a key day for proponents of a statewide ballot measure to allow recreational marijuana. They plan to turn in about twice as many signatures as needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot.
The supporters of that measure are being led by Richard Lee, owner of Oaksterdam University, an Oakland-based business that trains people for work in the cannabis industry.
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.
