الجمعة، 27 يناير 2012

Lincoln Tribune

Lincoln Tribune

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Republican Presidential Candidates Engage in Spirited Debate

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 08:54 PM PST

The four remaining candidates for the U.S. Republican Party's presidential nomination met in a sometimes heated debate in Jacksonville, Florida, Thursday ahead of that state's January 31 primary.

The debate quickly produced fireworks on issues like immigration and foreign bank accounts. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney reacted angrily to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich calling him anti-immigrant.

"I think you should apologize for it and I think you should recognize that having differences of opinions on issues does not justify labeling people with highly charged epitaphs," Romney said.

Romney noted that his father was born in Mexico and he defended his immigration plan as one that favors legal immigration, but strengthens the enforcement of laws designed to prevent illegal entrants from getting jobs.

Gingrich struck back by saying that he would not favor any policy that would force older people, many of them grandparents who have lived in the United States for many years, to leave the country.

Gingrich said "All I want to do is allow the grandmother to be here legally with some rights to have residency, but not citizenship, so that he or she can finish their life with dignity within the law."   

Romney countered by saing "You know, there are not 11 million .. the problem is not 11 million grandmothers."

The two front-runners also sparred over Gingrich's attacks on Romney's investments, including funds in foreign bank accounts, which Romney defended as being in a blind trust not directly under his control.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum chided both candidates for taking their focus off the more important issues facing the country.

"Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress and used the skills that he developed as a member of Congress to go out and advise companies and that is not the worst thing in the world and that Mitt is a wealthy man because he went out and worked hard and you guys should just leave that alone and focus on the issues" he said.

There were some questions from the audience about foreign policy issues, including the Middle East peace process, but the sharpest divide resulted from Texas Congressman Ron Paul's response to a question about U.S. relations with Latin America.

"I believe that with friendship and trade you can have a lot of influence and I strongly believe that, with time, we have friendship and trade with Cuba,"  he said.

The other three candidates expressed disagreement with Paul. In Florida the large Cuban exile community has traditionally supported strong measures against the communist government of Cuba. Many Cuban-Americans also call for more U.S. engagement in Latin America to offset both Cuba and the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Recent polls have shown a tight race between Romney and Gingrich, both of whom have been campaigning actively in Florida ever since Gingrich won the South Carolina primary on January 21, upsetting Romney's status as frontrunner. Voters in Florida go to the polls next Tuesday to decide which candidate they think should run against President Barack Obama in November's presidential election. 


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Documentary Highlights Burma’s Jailed Political Activists

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 06:47 PM PST

A documentary film about Burma's political prisoners premiered this week in Asia, drawing attention to the plight of the country's activists as the government releases hundreds of prisoners in an amnesty program.

Director Jeanne Hallacy said former political prisoner and activist Bo Kyi inspired her to make "Into the Current," which made its regional debut in Bangkok Thursday to a soldout audience at the Foreign Correspondents' Club.

"His mandate was, as a former political prisoner, he was going to work every which way he could on the global stage, to ensure that all these prisoners could be released," she said.

Bo Kyi spent seven years in prison in Burma before escaping to Thailand, where he co-founded the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in 1999.

Burmese authorities announced this month that they would be releasing 651 of the estimated 2,000 political activists behind bars in an effort to promote national reconciliation.

Bo Kyi said those who remain in prison should not be forgotten.

"Political prisoners do not receive timely medical treatment, so there is not enough medication, and there are not enough doctors for the prisoners, therefore the prisoners suffer a lot," he said, adding that even after their release, life is not easy.

He pointed to the case of Thet New, who died shortly after being freed under the government amnesty this month. The activist is believed to have died from the effects of torture suffered in prison.

Free, but not

Ko Bo Kyi said those who survive are still punished professionally and personally.

"The Burmese government doesn't recognize the existence of political prisoners. Therefore, even after they were released, they are blacklisted. They do not receive passports. They do not get back their license," he said.

Another focus of the film is Bo Kyi's lifelong friend, the writer and poet Min Ko Naing.  He is considered Burma's most prominent opposition leader after Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and was released earlier this month.

"It was because of his unyielding stance, and the enormous risks that he took, over and over again, that put him in that position of being a leader of what was called the '88 Generation Group," said Hallacy.

Min Ko Naing spent 16 years in solitary confinement, and emerged from prison in 2007, only to lead another protest that returned him to jail later that year.

The human toll

The human toll exerted on the government's opponents is explored in "Into the Current." Min Ko Naing speaks ruefully of his former girlfriend, who he says, "now belongs to someone else," following his many years in prison. Bo Kyi bid farewell to his parents when he fled Burma more than a decade ago. And Aung San Suu Kyi had to give up her family life with her late husband Michael Aris and her sons.

"Despite all of that, what is their response? It's informed by their Buddhist belief, Metta, loving kindness," said Hallacy.

In the film, Aung San Suu Kyi is asked if the National League for Democracy will show mercy to members of the former military government. "We all need mercy," she said.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest over the past two decades. She was released in 2010, just days after controversial elections that gave Burma its first nominally civilian government since 1962.

She will be among the candidates vying for a seat in parliamentary by-elections in April. It will be the first time that she has been allowed to seek political office since the military ignored her party's election victory in 1990.

Five dead, 16 missing after buildings collapse in Rio de Janeiro

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 03:08 PM PST

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (BNO NEWS) -- At least five people have been confirmed dead and more than a dozen remain missing after three commercial buildings collapsed in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on late Wednesday, officials said on Thursday.

The accident happened at around 8:40 p.m. local time on Wednesday when a 20-story building collapsed and crashed into two smaller buildings, collapsing them as well. It happened on May 13 Avenue in downtown Rio de Janeiro, not far from the city's Municipal Theater.

As of Thursday afternoon, Rio de Janeiro's Civil Defense subsecretary Márcio Motta confirmed at least five people had been confirmed to have been killed while 16 others remain missing. Other reports indicate that as many as 21 may be missing.

Emergency teams were quickly at the scene and evacuated surrounding buildings, but the cause of the collapse was not immediately known. Officials pointed out that the number of casualties was relatively low considering it involved large commercial buildings but took place outside of business hours.

Brazilian media speculated that the accident may have been caused by weak structures and the age of the buildings, although some reports indicate an explosion triggered by a gas leak may have been involved.

(Copyright 2012 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)


Car bomb attack kills four civilians in southern Afghanistan

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 02:30 PM PST

LASHKAR GAH, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- Four civilians were killed on late Thursday morning when a suicide car bomber targeted a British convoy in southern Afghanistan, officials said. Dozens more were injured.

The attack happened at around 10:40 a.m. local time in front of the Afghanistan Stabilisation Initiative (ASI) and Education Department offices in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province. A convoy carrying civilian employees of the British Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) was nearby.

Afghan officials said the attack left four civilians killed, including two ASI employees, a child and a passer-by. At least 34 others were also injured in the blast, including two foreigners whose nationality were not immediately released.

In addition to the casualties, more than a dozen vehicles were destroyed and nearby residences and offices were damaged, according to a provincial spokesman. The British Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) said it believes its convoy was the target of the attack.

"This reprehensible attack further illustrates that the Taliban and other insurgents have no respect for the lives of innocent Afghan civilians, especially women and children," a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said. "The United States mourns the loss of life in Lashkar Gah, and our sympathies go to all the victims and their families. We remain a steadfast partner of the Afghan people against the scourge of international terrorism."

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

(Copyright 2012 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)


Obama Promotes Energy, Tax Proposals on Cross-Country Trip

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 02:26 PM PST

President Barack Obama Thursday continued his three-day cross-country trip reinforcing major themes of his State of the Union address. He used remarks in the western state of Nevada to discuss his proposals for boosting development of U.S. natural gas and energy reserves.

In Las Vegas, the president chose for his remarks a UPS company facility that used money from his $787 billion economic stimulus three years ago to construct a public liquefied natural gas fueling station.

Addressing the nation Tuesday, he proposed steps to further develop U.S. natural gas and oil reserves, and investments in alternative energy sources, emphasizing that this must be done safely while protecting the environment.
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The administration announced it is opening a more than 150,000-square-kilometer area in the Gulf of Mexico for lease, which the government estimates contains nearly 31 billion barrels of oil and 134 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement estimates the available amount of unrecovered oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico could result in the production of one billion barrels of oil and about 113 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

The administration says the land for lease is located about five to 370 miles off the coast of the southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Drilling leases will be auctioned off in June.

Obama said the United States is moving in the right direction away from reliance on foreign oil imports, but he repeated the call in his State of the Union address for an "all-out" strategy to develop every source of American energy.

"We have got to have an all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every source of American energy. A strategy that is cleaner, cheaper and full of new jobs," said Obama.

The president said he has directed his secretary of energy, Steven Chu, to launch a new competition to encourage U.S. scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to come up with new breakthroughs in natural gas-powered vehicles.

Opposition Republicans in Congress, and Republican candidates seeking to replace Obama in the White House, have called his proposals insufficient. They sharply criticized his recent decision to reject a proposal pipeline to carry natural gas from Canadian tar sand fields to the southern U.S. state of Texas.

At every stop on this three-day five-state tour, Obama also has re-played other major themes of his State of the Union address, calling for more fairness in the U.S. economy, and proposing that wealthy Americans pay more in taxes.

He is setting the stage for the expected next big battles with Republicans over extending a payroll tax cut for Americans through this year, and ending tax cuts that were supposed to be temporary when passed by Congress under former president George W. Bush.

Obama said repairing the U.S. fiscal mess will require "tough choices" beyond cutting government spending and inefficiencies, and he fired back again at Republicans suggesting that he is using the tax issue to wage "class warfare."

"We don't shy away from financial success, we don't apologize for it," Obama said. "But what we do say is when this nation has done so much for us, shouldn't we be thinking about the country as a whole?"

Obama's remarks later Thursday at an Air Force base in Colorado focused on proposals to boost renewable energy through billions of dollars in tax incentives for clean energy industries.

The five states on the president's post-State of the Union address trip - Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan - are important political "swing states" he has visited frequently, and hopes to win against a Republican challenger in this November's presidential election.
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