Haiti's president handed out medals to celebrities, aid-group directors and politicians for post-earthquake work

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti’s president handed out medals to celebrities, aid-group directors and politicians for post-earthquake work Monday in a ceremony designed to beat back criticism of an uneven recovery that has left 1.6 million people homeless and destitute six months to the day since the disaster.Just out of sight, baking in the oppressive noonday sun, were the fraying tarps of tens of thousands of homeless who live on the Champ de Mars, once a grassy promenade surrounding the government complex.

“That is just a way to put the people to sleep. But the people are suffering,” Edouard James, a 32-year-old vendor said when he was told of the ceremony. Unable to find a job with his degree in diplomacy, he sells pirated DVDs in a tarp-covered booth.”We are tired of the NGOs … saying we will have a better life and better conditions, and then nothing happens,” he said.Twenty-three honorees – including actor Sean Penn, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission – crossed a podium in front of the crushed, unrepaired national palace to steady applause. Some smiling, some solemn, each received medals and certificates deeming them Knights of the National Order of Honor and Merit.

President Rene Preval, whose successor is to be elected in November, defended the response to the quake. He said in two speeches during the ceremony that hard-to-see successes – like the avoidance of massive disease outbreaks and violence – obviates the perception that not enough has been done.”There are people who did not see all the big efforts that were deployed during the emergency stage: distributing tents, water, food, installing latrines, providing health care during the six months that have just gone by,” Preval said. “It is a major, major task.”The ceremony was resolutely upbeat. The focus was on successes past and plans going forward, with little talk of the 230,000 to 300,000 people killed in the magnitude-7 temblor.

The president and prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, both used the occasion to announce that a six-month emergency phase has ended and that reconstruction has begun.The distinction was lost on some Haitians.”I don’t know if I’m mad or happy,” Anne Bernard, a 24-year-old mother of two living in a metal shack a few hundred yards from the national palace. “All I know is they haven’t done anything.”

The most visible early-emergency programs like massive food distributions have stopped, and there still are few tangible effects of $3.1 billion in humanitarian aid for all but a handful of those left homeless by the quake, who rely on plastic tarps for shelter.Tarp-and-tent camps are growing instead of shrinking. Just 5,657 transitional shelters have been built of a promised 125,000, which even if completed would not be nearly enough for everyone.When building materials finally get through customs, there is nowhere to put them. Fights over land rights, customs delays and systemically slow coordination between aid groups and the government have hampered nearly everything. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the location of the largest of two relocation camps provided by the government was the result of an inside deal.Shortly after the ceremony ended, that camp flooded in a sudden summer squal, with 94 deluxe tents collapsing in the wind and rain.Compounding the problem in the city is that almost no rubble has been cleared. Preval said Monday it would take $1.5 billion to remove all of it.

Meanwhile donors have met 10 percent of a promised $5.3 billion in reconstruction aid – separate from the humanitarian aid – mostly by forgiving debts, not providing cash.Clinton, who also received a medal, said it will be his mission in coming weeks to make sure donors meet their pledges. He acknowledged that more could have been done, but that recovery has so far been faster than the rebuilding of coastal Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami.”To those who say we have not done enough, I think all of us who are working in this area agree this is a harder job (than the tsunami),” Clinton said. “Viewed comparatively I think the Haitian government and the people who are working here have done well in the last six months.”

CNN’s Cooper, who spent parts of January and February in Haiti following the quake and had not returned since, said he found out about the award while getting ready to board his plane to Haiti on Sunday.”I thought a long time about not accepting it. We finally came to the opinion that it was recognition by the country for all journalists,” he told resident reporters after the ceremony. “I don’t think this in any way impacts the desire or willingness to be critical of the government.”(AP)

European Space Agency have got photo of the asteroid Lutetia in the range of 280 million around Mars and Jupiter

BERLIN The European Space Agency has taken the closest look yet at asteroid Lutetia in an extraordinary quest some 280 million miles in outer space between Mars and Jupiter.The comet-chaser Rosetta transmitted its first pictures from the largest asteroid ever visited by a satellite Saturday night after it flew by Lutetia as close as 1,900 miles (3,200 kilometers), ESA said in Darmstadt, Germany.”These are fantastic and exciting pictures,” space agency scientist Rita Schulz said in a webcast presentation. She said it would take several weeks before all 400 pictures and all data from the high-precision instruments aboard Rosetta would come through to Earth.”I am a very happy man,” said ESA manager David Southwood. “It is a great day for European Science and for world science.”Though Lutetia was discovered some 150 years ago, for a long time it was little more than a point of light to those on Earth. Only recent high-resolution ground-based imaging has given a vague view of the asteroid, the agency said.”At the moment we know very little about it,” Schulz said.

Lutetia is believed to be 83.3 miles (134 kilometers) in diameter with a “pronounced elongation,” but scientists have been puzzled as to what type of asteroid it is – a “primitive” one containing carbon compounds or a metallic asteroid.”We are now going to get the details of this asteroid, which is very important,” Schulz said. “There will be a lot of science coming from that mission.”

Scientists hope to find in the information and images gathered by Rosetta clues to the history of comets and asteroids and of the solar system, Schulz said.For Rosetta, examining Lutetia and other asteroids is only a side event on its long journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the mission’s destination, said project manager Gerhard Schwehm.Rosetta was launched in 2004 and is expected to reach its target in 2014.Though the wait is long, scientists are certain it is going to be worthwhile, Schwehm said.”We want to study the material out of which the planets formed,” he said. This is possible only close up, he said.(AP)

Mexico now is safe from the outbreak of H1N1 influenza

Mexico is now safe from the outbreak of H1N1 influenza, often called the flu Pig. Nevertheless, despite the alert status had been revoked about two weeks ago, the State government was determined not to Sombrero negligent in anticipating the re-emergence of the H1N1 outbreak, which last year killed many residents.Thus said the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister) of Mexico, Patricia Espinosa. “Enabling alert in Mexico to take specific measures to prevent H1N1 recently revoked by the Health Ministry two weeks ago,” Espinosa said in a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa in Jakarta, Thursday, July 8, 2010.

“However, we continue to make efforts to prepare the health sector because (H1N1) can occur anytime,” added Espinosa.He continued, the mortality rate due to the H1N1 virus was not as high as previously feared. The Mexican government also set up institutions to deal with better people who contracted the virus.According to Espinosa, compared with previous years, cases of pneumonia or respiratory problems in Mexico, which is one of the symptoms of swine flu, the numbers have declined. “This means that the awareness of citizens to immediately went to the doctor are rising,” said Espinosa.According to the Associated Press news agency, swine flu could spread in over 200 countries with 17 800 claimed the lives of sufferers. In Mexico, where the first cases of H1N1 outbreaks, the disease infected 72 546 people and killing 1289 people.

Mexico is now safe from the outbreak of H1N1 influenza, often called the flu Pig. Nevertheless, despite the alert status had been revoked about two weeks ago, the State government was determined not to Sombrero negligent in anticipating the re-emergence of the H1N1 outbreak, which last year killed many residents.Thus said the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister) of Mexico, Patricia Espinosa. “Enabling alert in Mexico to take specific measures to prevent H1N1 recently revoked by the Health Ministry two weeks ago,” Espinosa said in a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa in Jakarta, Thursday, July 8, 2010.

“However, we continue to make efforts to prepare the health sector because (H1N1) can occur anytime,” added Espinosa.He continued, the mortality rate due to the H1N1 virus was not as high as previously feared. The Mexican government also set up institutions to deal with better people who contracted the virus.

According to Espinosa, compared with previous years, cases of pneumonia or respiratory problems in Mexico, which is one of the symptoms of swine flu, the numbers have declined. “This means that the awareness of citizens to immediately went to the doctor are rising,” said Espinosa.According to the Associated Press news agency, swine flu could spread in over 200 countries with 17 800 claimed the lives of sufferers. In Mexico, where the first cases of H1N1 outbreaks, the disease infected 72 546 people and killing 1289 people.

Tokyo court convicts New Zealand anti-whaling activist

TOKYO A Tokyo court on Wednesday convicted a New Zealand activist of assault and obstructing Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, and sentenced him to a suspended prison term.Peter Bethune was also found guilty on three other charges: trespassing, vandalism and possession of a knife. He had pleaded guilty to all but the assault charge when his trial started in late May.The court sentenced Bethune to two years in prison, with the sentence suspended for five years – meaning he will not be jailed.The assault conviction was for throwing bottles of rancid butter at the whalers aboard their ship, including one that broke and gave several Japanese crew members chemical burns.

Bethune, 45, climbed onto the Shonan Maru 2 in February from a Jet Ski to confront its captain over the sinking of a protest vessel the previous month. He slashed a protective net with a knife, which the court said he possessed illegally, to enter the ship.The former activist for Sea Shepherd, a U.S.-based conservation group, was held on board the ship and arrested when it returned to Japan in March.

The group has been protesting Japan’s whaling for years, often engaging in scuffles with Japanese whalers. Sea Shepherd claims the research whaling mission, an allowed exception to an international whaling ban, is a cover for commercial hunting.Judge Takashi Tawada said Sea Shepherd has been engaged in “acts of sabotage” against the whalers, and that the use of such violence should not be tolerated.

Bethune “assaulted the crew members and interfered with their mission and the impact was extremely serious,” Tawada said. “His actions are based on his selfish beliefs.”However, Tawada said there was room for leniency given that Bethune had acknowledged what had happened, indicated that he wouldn’t return to similar protest activities and had no criminal record in Japan.Bethune did not make a statement in court Wednesday, but flashed a message written on a notebook to his lawyers saying he wanted to go home as soon as possible, one of his attorneys said.The lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of attacks by ultra-rightwing activists, said Bethune would not appeal the ruling. Bethune is expected to be deported within days.

In Wellington, New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully welcomed Bethune’s suspended sentence. Arrangements have been made through consular officials for his return home, McCully’s spokesman, James Funnell, told The Associated Press.”What a relief all right,” Bethune’s wife Sharon said of the ruling. She credited her husband with raising awareness of Japanese whaling, but added, “We don’t want him to be doing it again, though.”In his tearful closing statement June 10, Bethune apologized for the trouble and said he never intended to hurt anyone.During earlier trial sessions, Bethune said he just wanted to confront the ship’s captain and hand him a $3 million bill for the destruction of the Ady Gil, a Sea Shepherd vessel that sank during a collision in January.Outside the court Wednesday, about 30 right-wing protesters chanted and held up placards, including one that said, “Give Sea Shepherd terrorist capital punishment.”Shuhei Nishimura, one of the protesters, called the sentence “too lenient.”Sea Shepherd recently said it expelled Bethune because he violated its policy against carrying weapons. The group said he had a bow and arrows with him while he was aboard the Ady Gil, although he never used them.

Still, on Wednesday, the group called Bethune “a hero” and said his mission helped save hundreds of whales which were to be killed by Japan.Sea Shepherd also said it is free to return to the Antarctic, vowing to be “more effective next season.”Japan, Norway and Iceland hunt whales under exceptions to a 1986 moratorium by the International Whaling Commission. Japan’s whaling program involves large-scale expeditions to the Antarctic Ocean, while other whaling countries mostly stay along their own coasts.

Separately, Japan has said the leader of Sea Shepherd, Canadian citizen Paul Watson, 59, is now on an Interpol wanted list for allegedly ordering Bethune’s actions as part of the group’s disruption of Japanese whaling in the Antarctic. Watson was placed on the Interpol list in late June at the request of Japan, which accuses his group of risking whalers’ lives during their expedition.(AP)

Hurricane Alex gained strength early Wednesday as the storm began to take aim on the western Gulf of Mexico

Hurricane Alex gained strength early Wednesday as the storm began to take aim on the western Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center reported.The Category 1 storm, which became the first June hurricane on the Atlantic side of the United States since 1995, is expected to make landfall in northeastern Mexico or southern Texas by late Wednesday or early Thursday.

The hurricane center’s advisory issued at 2 a.m. ET said Alex was moving erratically, but generally westward, at 5 mph. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and was about 255 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas.President Barack Obama issued a federal emergency declaration for Texas ahead of the expected arrival of Alex, the White House said Tuesday night.A hurricane warning was issued for the Gulf Coast from Baffin Bay, Texas, to La Cruz, Mexico. A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions and tropical storm-force winds are expected in the forecast area within 36 hours.

A tropical storm warning was in place along the Texas coast from Baffin Bay to Port O’Connor.The storm continued to move away from the massive BP oil catastrophe near the Louisiana coast in the northern Gulf of Mexico, but it already was complicating cleanup efforts. The storm created 12-foot waves on Tuesday and oil skimming ships were sent back to shore, from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

The rough seas may force crews to replace and reorganize booms meant to deter the oil from reaching shore, reported CNN’s Ed Lavandera.Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said that even though Florida may dodge a bullet with this storm, the Atlantic hurricane season is just beginning.”In Florida, we’ve had a lot of hurricanes a number of years ago, but we handled them very well,” he told CNN’s Campbell Brown. “The difference and the distinction that we face now is that we have a Gulf of Mexico that’s full of oil. So our hope and our prayer is that we don’t have a mixture of hurricanes with oil that could potentially damage the beautiful beaches of Florida. But if we do, we’re prepared for it.”

Brownsville, Texas, Mayor Pat Ahumada said his city was expecting to distribute 60,000 sandbags and provide shelter for roughly 2,000 families. Utility crews were put on standby to handle outages. At the same time, 90 buses had been provided by the state government in case an evacuation is required.”I expect about 10 percent of residents to evacuate voluntarily, which already started yesterday,” Ahumada said. “I see a steady flow of people going out, but no bottlenecks — which is good.””We’re not taking it lightly,” he said. “We’re ready for a worst-case scenario.”

On Monday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster proclamation for 19 counties and ordered the pre-deployment of state resources. The governor’s declaration allows the state to initiate necessary preparedness efforts, such as pre-deploying resources to ensure local communities are ready to respond to disasters.The governor’s order puts up to 2,500 National Guard personnel, eight UH-60 helicopters and three C-130 aircraft on standby for rapid deployment as needed, Perry’s office said in a statement.(CNN)

to watch

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/30/hurricane.alex/?hpt=T1&fbid=d3drOUu-5r2

Gulf residents prepare for Alex

6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY June 30  A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico early on Wednesday, shaking buildings in Mexico City, the U.S. Geological Survey and Reuters witnesses reported.The quake’s epicenter was 8 miles (14 km) east of Oaxaca, Mexico, the USGS said. The quake was felt in Mexico City, where some people fled their houses in the city center, a Reuters witness reported..(Reuters)

Tropical Storms Hit Central U.S., 10 Killed

Managua Tropical Storm Alex, the season’s first hurricane in the Atlantic, killing at least 10 people in Central America, local media reported on Monday. Hundreds of people were evacuated from lowland areas in El Salvador, when Alex storms into the Gulf of Mexico. Six people were killed and their bodies were found drifting in the River San Lucas, said an official with Nicaragua. In the western part of Guatemala, a landslide buried two farmers as they worked on a road improvement project, the Office of Emergency Response, Conred, reported.

U.S. National Disaster Management Center, Alex is still going strong storms on Tuesday local time Wednesday Hurricane season this year came not as usual. Pacific typhoon, Agatha, who appeared before the June 1 killing 156 people in Guatemala.Tropical storm Alex was somewhat weakened after the rain down in Belize, but continue to create gusts of wind and heavy rains, said the United States National Hurricane Center .

Nevertheless, the storm did not immediately threaten the activities of oil drilling in wells Macondo of BP Plc (British Petroleum), U.S. Coast Guard said. Alex, the first hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season in 2010, has a wind speed of nearly 65 km per hour and was at about 90 km west of Chetumal, Mexico.

The storm was expected to subside when entering Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula, said Miami-based hurricane center. Atlantic cyclone began to move on June 1 to 30 November and meteorological experts predict this year will be the most prone to hurricanes. (Xinhua-Oana)

Ariane-5 rocket blasted off from the European Space Agency's launch center in Kourou

The Ariane-5 rocket blasted off from the European Space Agency’s launch center in Kourou, French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America at 6.41 p.m. (2141 GMT).Originally slated for launch on Wednesday, countdown was halted seconds before lift-off when a technical problem was detected.A second launch attempt on Thursday was also halted because of technical problems.Twenty-six minutes after lift-off the Arabsat-5A satellite separated from the rocket.

Arabsat is designed for telecommunications throughout the Middle East and north Africa for Riyadh-based Arabsat.The satellite weighed 4.9 metric tones at launch and was built by a consortium led by EADS-Astrium and Thales Alenia Space.

“The Riyadh station is going to pick up the satellite within a few minutes and there will be a partial deployment of the solar panels,” Arabsat satellite manager Ahmad Al-Shraideh said.Six minutes later the South Korean COMS satellite separated from the rocket.COMS will provide weather forecasting, ocean monitoring and telecommunications for South Korea’s Aerospace Research Institute (Kari).

“After separation of COMS our satellite will be managed by Astrium in Toulouse (France),” Koonha Yang of Kari said.”Then our Kari ground station in Korea will take over COMS and perform in-orbit tests,” he said.COMS weighed 2.4 metric tones and was also built by EADS-Astrium.Saturday’s launch was the 37th consecutive successful launch of an Ariane rocket.

3.3 earthquake rattles Fontana area

A 3.3 earthquake struck the Fontana area Thursday morning, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.Dozens of residents in Fontana, Rialto, Rancho Cucamonga San Bernardino and surrounding cities told the U.S. Geological Survey they had felt the quake, which struck at 5:14 a.m.

The quake was centered about three miles north of Fontana and four miles west of Rialto (that’s about 46 miles east of downtown Los Angeles).The USGS did not say which fault they believed the quake was linked to.

Tropical storm Darby strengthened off Mexico's Pacific coast on Thursday

Tropical storm Darby strengthened off Mexico’s Pacific coast on Thursday and could become a hurricane but is not expected to threaten land before next week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.Darby, the fourth named storm of the eastern Pacific season, had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph and was 230 miles south of the Mexican beach town of Puerto Escondido. The strengthening storm was moving west at 12 mph.

Darby could become a hurricane later on Thursday and might turn north and head toward land early next week, the Miami-based hurricane center said.Pacific hurricanes can cause damage to tourist resorts in Mexico but pose no threat to the country’s oil industry, which is primarily located in the Gulf of Mexico.

Farther out in the Pacific, Celia remained a strong Category 2 hurricane but posed no threat to land.The first hurricane of the Pacific season, Celia was 735 miles south of Baja California and had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph. Celia was forecast to continue moving west away from land.(Reuters)