TOP 100 NEWS SITES
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| Indus tragedy Charting Pakistan's flood disaster in words and pictures bbc.co.uk |
Iran leader 'backs Lebanon unity' During his first state visit to Lebanon, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his country supports a strong, unified Lebanon. bbc.co.uk |
Chilean miners return to the mine for Thanksgiving mass Some of the 33 rescued miners toured Camp Hope, as evidence of further splits in the group emergedSome of the 33 rescued miners returned to the mine today for a thanksgiving mass and tour of Camp Hope to try to draw a line under their ordeal, as evidence of further splits in the group emerged.Around 12 of the miners, escorted by relatives and police, attended an emotional service in a tent near the rescue shaft, giving them their first proper look at a site which held the world's gaze last week."It's a very beautiful experience to be here and see where our families were," said Luis Urzua, the foreman who was the last to be winched to safety after 69 days trapped beneath the San Jose copper and gold mine."I am just remembering all the tough emotions that I felt here," said Luciano Reygadas, whose father Omar was one of the trapped miners. "Now it's all over."Another miner, Juan Carlos Aguilar, held his daughter's hand as he walked around the minehead and improvised settlement where relatives held a two-month long vigil. Hymns and the national anthem floated from the tent.The mood was overshadowed by an angry protest at the camp by relatives of 368 miners from the same company, San Esteban, over unpaid wages. They said they had been abandoned and pledged to remain at the site until compensated. "Seventy days without money," said one sign.Some sour notes also crept into "los 33" in the form of cracks in their solidarity, uncertainty over the future and resentment at media intrusion.Two of the miners challenged the praise heaped on Urzua's leadership and said he lost control soon after an August 5 accident entombed the men beneath the Atacama desert."It doesn't seem right to me to call him the leader because he wasn't ... he lost control," Yonni Barrios, 50, told La Tercera newspaper. "I think he wasn't able to lead the group because we didn't know how much time we would be buried. In the most critical moments he wasn't with us."Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the youngest member, agreed with Barrios that the key figure for the 69 days underground was Mario Sepulveda, whose ebullient emergence from the capsule last week earned the nickname Super Mario. Sepulveda took the initiative in putting decisions such as food rationing to majority vote, he told the newspaper.As the men left hospital for home over the weekend joy was in some cases tempered by stress. Instead of his mother's house Claudio Yanez went to that of the mother of his two children, infuriating relatives. His sister, trailed by cameras, hurled a rock at the house where Yanez was celebrating and said the family would not support him.The media barrage, with camera crews staking out miners' houses in Copiapo, aggravated tensions. At a press conference attended by seven of the men Juan Illanes, the designated spokesman, asked the media to not "destroy" the group's image and to give the men "sufficient space to learn how to deal" with fame. He singled out the soap opera treatment given to the wife and girlfriend competing for the affection of Barrios.The men confirmed they had vowed a "pact of silence" over certain parts of their story, especially the first 17 days before contact with rescuers. They were due to meet this week to formalise the agreement in an association, or trust, which would pool earnings from interviews and book and film deals.Some, however, were already making individal deals. Osman Araya, 30, appeared at the mine escorted by a team from the German tabloid Bild. Sepulveda gave a hospital bed interview to the Mail on Sunday.A local tycoon, Leonardo Farkas, was due to host the group on Tuesday to reveal how much his fund-raising campaign had raised. There was speculation it exceeded hundreds of thousands of pounds for each man.Vendors at the mine who sold flags with photos of "los 33" for $6 reminded the men that others are already profiting from their story.An opinion poll showed President Sebastian Pinera's popularity had risen from about 50% to 62% in the wake of his handling of the crisis. The conservative leader, currently on a triumphant European tour, was hosted by Manchester United on Saturday. He is due to give presents of rocks from the mine to the British prime minister, David Cameron, and the Queen tomorrow.ChileMiningJonathan FranklinRory Carrollguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Steve Jones leaves T4 tv show Steve Jones is to leave Channel 4's Sunday morning show T4 after seven years. bbc.co.uk |
More false voter fraud allegations | Michael Tomasky I wrote yesterday about the oleaginous Norm Coleman and GOP warnings about voter fraud in Minnesota. And lo and behold, today we have a story at TPM that brings us news of the resolution of a case involving allegations made by the GOP of large-scale voter fraud in the self-same Minnesota in 2008.Bottom line: initially, the GOP sent to the prosecuting attorney of Hennepin County (Minneapolis) allegations about 1,250 voters. In the end, the prosecutor's office, after investigating each, found that evidence supported filing charges in - ready? - 47 of those cases. TPM:They claimed in November 2009 to have 800 additional individuals who were illegal felon voters," [prosecutor] Freeman said. "When they summited names to us in late February 2010, it was down to 451. We have processed that 451, and more than half of them were either not felons or not on probation when they voted. The rest of them we investigated more fully, and today we reported that the remaining cases presented sufficient support to charge, so we charged them."Freeman said he made a commitment to get the cases taken care of before the 2010 elections. He noted that .00006 percent -- six-one-thousandth of one percent -- of the voters in Hennepin County had been charged with improperly voting."I think we've had a reaction from the right and the far right that there was significant voter fraud, and the fact is the facts show that there's not," Freeman said. "The right thing to do is to review and investigate claims of illegalities, that's my job and we do that. But Minnesota has a proud history of clean elections.Voter fraud is itself a fraud. How many times does Acorn need to be cleared by prosecutors before people will believe this? Well, some people never will. And there are certainly instances of fraud; of felons voting, say, that should be prosecuted, as it's the law. But they're few and far between, and this story is alas fairly typical.Meanwhile, on the other side of this coin, mysterious fliers appear in black communities round about now "informing" voters that if they have an outstanding traffic ticket, or haven't paid this month's gas bill, they can't vote. I have trouble sometimes imagining who this works on, but then again, humans exist in nearly infinite variety. We cannot of course measure the number of people who don't vote because of such intimidation, but the amount of money and time Republicans put into these schemes tells us that they think it's worth the effort. I guess if I were a Republican, I wouldn't want black people to vote in large numbers either. But lying to people about democracy's most sacred rite is another matter.End note: I erred yesterday when I wrote that George Soros devoted a half million dollars a year to nonpolitical philanthropic causes. That of course should be a half billion with a b. And remember, he apparently gave only $10,000 to the secretary of state project. I'd imagine his maid finds $10,000 in his pants pockets over the course of a year.US midterm elections 2010MinnesotaMichael Tomaskyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |