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)

Russia now says Iran sanctions ban S-300 air-defense missiles

MOSCOW The new U.N. sanctions prevent Russia from delivering S-300 air-defense missiles to Iran, a Kremlin official said Friday, in a reversal of the position announced by Russia’s Foreign Ministry the day before.The Kremlin statement was sure to please Israel and the United States, which have long urged Russia not to supply the powerful missile system. Russia signed a deal to sell the missiles in 2007, but has delayed their delivery.

The U.N. Security Council resolution passed Wednesday bans Iran from developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, investing in nuclear-related activities and buying certain types of heavy weapons. (AP)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district's ethnic studies program

PHOENIX Arizona Gov. has signed a bill targeting a school district’s ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.

Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.”It’s just like the old South, and it’s long past time that we prohibited it,” Horne said.Brewer’s signature on the bill Tuesday comes less than a month after she signed the nation’s toughest crackdown on illegal immigration – a move that ignited international backlash amid charges the measure would encourage racial profiling of Hispanics. The governor has said profiling will not be tolerated.The measure signed Tuesday prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.

The Tucson Unified School District program offers specialized courses in African-American, Mexican-American and Native-American studies that focus on history and literature and include information about the influence of a particular ethnic group.For example, in the Mexican-American Studies program, an American history course explores the role of Hispanics in the Vietnam War, and a literature course emphasizes Latino authors.

Horne, a Republican running for attorney general, said the program promotes “ethnic chauvinism” and racial resentment toward whites while segregating students by race. He’s been trying to restrict it ever since he learned that Hispanic civil rights activist Dolores Huerta told students in 2006 that “Republicans hate Latinos.”

District officials said the program doesn’t promote resentment, and they believe it would comply with the new law.The measure doesn’t prohibit classes that teach about the history of a particular ethnic group, as long as the course is open to all students and doesn’t promote ethnic solidarity or resentment.

About 1,500 students at six high schools are enrolled in the Tucson district’s program. Elementary and middle school students also are exposed to the ethnic studies curriculum. The district is 56 percent Hispanic, with nearly 31,000 Latino students.Sean Arce, director of the district’s Mexican-American Studies program, said last month that students perform better in school if they see in the curriculum people who look like them.

“It’s a highly engaging program that we have, and it’s unfortunate that the state Legislature would go so far as to censor these classes,” he said.Six UN human rights experts released a statement earlier Tuesday saying all people have the right to learn about their own cultural and linguistic heritage, they said.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman didn’t directly address the UN criticism, but said Brewer supports the bill’s goal.”The governor believes … public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,” Senseman said.Arce could not immediately be reached after Brewer signed the bill late Tuesday.(AP)

Shakira visited Phoenix to learn more about how the law will be implemented if it goes into effect this summer and to meet with Phoenix's Latino community

PHOENIX Colombian singer Shakira visited Phoenix on Thursday, meeting with the city’s police chief and mayor over concerns that a sweeping new state law cracking down on illegal immigration will lead to racial profiling.The Grammy winner said she wanted to learn more about how the law will be implemented if it goes into effect this summer and to meet with Phoenix’s Latino community.”I heard about it on the news and I thought, ‘Wow,'” Shakira told The Associated Press after meeting with city officials. “It is unjust and it’s inhuman, and it violates the civil and human rights of the Latino community … It goes against all human dignity, against the principles of most Americans I know.”

The law, signed Friday by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, is viewed as the toughest on illegal immigration in the nation and has drawn criticism from President Barack Obama, who questioned its legality. The law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they’re illegal immigrants.”I’m not an expert on the Constitution but I know the Constitution exists for a reason,” Shakira told reporters after meeting with city officials. “It exists to protect human beings, to protect the rights of people living in a nation with or without documents. We’re talking about human beings here.”

Shakira also made a stop at the state Capitol in downtown Phoenix, telling a group of a few hundred community members that if the law were in effect, she could be arrested since she didn’t bring her driver’s license to Arizona.”I’m here pretty much undocumented,” she told the crowd, who screamed her name and took photos of her with cameras and cell phones.She called on the U.S. Congress to work on immigration reform. “No person should be detained because of the color of their skin,” she said.

The new law thrust Arizona into the international spotlight last week, with civil rights leaders and others demanding a boycott of the state, and the Mexican government warning its citizens about an “adverse political atmosphere” in Arizona. At least three Arizona cities are considering lawsuits to block the law, and there are two efforts to put a referendum on Arizona’s November ballot to repeal it.Supporters of the law say it takes the handcuffs off police and is necessary to protect Arizonans, while opponents say it will lead to rampant racial profiling.

Shakira also sought to meet with Brewer during her visit to Phoenix but was told the governor’s schedule was booked, said Trevor Nielson, the singer’s political and philanthropic adviser.Shakira is perhaps best known for her nimble dance moves and songs including “Hips Don’t Lie” and “She-Wolf,” but recently she has become more active in political and social issues.

She visited earthquake-ravaged Haiti earlier this month, expressed her support for Cuban dissident group Ladies in White and has worked as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Her Barefoot foundation provides nutrition to more than 6,000 children in Colombia, and she is a member of the ALAS foundation that advocates for children across Latin America.Last month, the U.N. labor agency gave the singer a medal for her work to help impoverished children.

Iran denies Enrichment Determining Location facilities for uranium enrichment has not been decided

Tehran,Head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Wednesday (21/4/2010) said the location for the construction of new facilities for uranium enrichment has not been decided.”Design for the location (enrichment) of the first new nuclear will be done this year,” said Ali Akbar Salehi told news agency ILNA.

“The location for a nuclear facility has not been decided. After presidential approval, the decision will be made regarding this matter.”On Monday, Mojtaba Hashemi Samareh, senior advisor to Ahmadinejad, says the president has approved the location for new nuclear facilities.Development in this location will start with commands him. But Hashemi also explained that the design of new facilities that are still studied.

In November 2009, Ahmadinejad announced Iran will build 10 new uranium enrichment facility after Tehran’s nuclear watchdog criticized the UN for building a second facility like that near the Shia holy city, Qom.Salehi, April said the plans of two new uranium enrichment plant has been presented to Ahmadinejad and construction will commence mid year and will run until March 2011.

Argentina Argentina and Uruguay both professed neighborly affection, if not brotherly love

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina Argentina and Uruguay both professed neighborly affection, if not brotherly love, after a U.N. court delivered a long-awaited ruling that rejects Argentina’s claim that an Uruguayan pulp mill pollutes their shared river.Both sides said Tuesday’s decision by the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands gave them what they need to resolve their differences, with Argentina taking heart from a part of the ruling that said Uruguay did not properly inform it about the project.The countries vowed to work through a binational commission to protect the Rio Uruguay.

A key hurdle remains, however, with no indication of how Argentine President Cristina Fernandez will overcome it: Argentine activists are still blocking the main bridge across the river and are refusing to give up their fight.The verdict cannot be appealed, but the activists said they won’t accept it – raising the possibility of a violent confrontation if Argentine police have to intervene.

For more than three years, the activists have blocked traffic between Guayleguachu, Argentina, and Fray Bentos, Uruguay, where the $1.2 billion Botnia paper mill is located. At times they had the open support of Fernandez’s predecessor and husband, Nestor Kirchner, who took the fight to the U.N. court demanding the factory be torn down.The court said it found no conclusive evidence that the mill is pumping dangerous pollution into the river.

In a portion of the ruling welcomed by Argentina, the court said both South American countries “have a legal obligation” to work closely together in honoring their treaty requiring shared decision-making for river projects.While saying Uruguay should have involved the river commission to inform Argentina of plans to build two pulp mills before authorizing construction, as called for in their 1975 treaty regulating the river’s use, the court rejected Argentina’s demands for more than a reprimand of Uruguay.

“Ordering the dismantling of the mill would not, in the view of the court, constitute an appropriate remedy,” the court’s vice president, Peter Tomka, said.Uruguayan President Jose Mujica made no immediate comment, in keeping with his effort to reduce passions and resolve the dispute. But his foreign minister, Luis Almagro, called the verdict a reaffirmation of international law.

“In environmental politics, Uruguay follows the most strict international standards,” Almagro said.Fernandez took a conciliatory stance, saying, “Surely both of our countries are going to pursue from now on a strong monitoring effort, a strong control.”

“We have with Uruguay a common history, we have more than 300,000 Uruguayans living in Argentina, we have a deep feeling for Uruguay and I in particular have a very special affection for its president, Pepe, for Lucia his wife and surely this will enable us to build mechanisms of control,” the Argentine president added.The paper mill is far downstream along the Rio Uruguay, which runs for 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) from Brazil to the Rio de la Plata, and drains about 210,000 square miles (339,000 square kilometers) of farmland, an area larger than California and more than twice the size of Britain.

The farm runoff includes vast amounts of fertilizer, including nitrogen, phosphate, potassium and magnesium. It combines with heavy metals from factories – mostly on the Argentine side – and untreated sewage from most of the nearly 100 Argentine and Uruguayan municipalities near the river. Together, these effluents feed algae blooms, robbing the water of oxygen and contributing to skin diseases for people who come into contact with the water.

While the bridge blockade has damaged local economies and frustrated people who have to drive hundreds of miles (kilometers) out of their way to cross the river, the dispute has raised environmental consciousness and prompted governments in both nations to take action. Guayleguachu opened its sewage treatment plant in 2005, which sharply reduced coliform bacteria in the Rio Guayleguachu, which feeds the Rio Uruguay.

In part to compensate for any pollution from its mills, Uruguay plans similar treatment plants for its main river cities of Salto and Paysandu, while the sewage from Fray Bentos will soon be processed by the Botnia mill’s own treatment facility, said Uruguay’s lead counsel before the U.N. court, Paul Reichler.

The dispute also led to intensive monitoring of the river, both upstream and downstream from Botnia, starting two years before the plant opened. But neither country systematically tracks pollutants in the river to their sources, drawing criticism from environmental activists.”This is a conflict that involves a lot of hypocrisy,” said Juan Carlos Villalonga, campaign director for Greenpeace-Argentina. He said both countries need to strengthen land use rules in the watershed, where fast-growing eucalyptus trees promise a booming industry.(AP)

senior official said on Monday Iran has started work on a new uranium enrichment nuclear plant

Iran has started work on a new uranium enrichment nuclear plant, a senior official said on Monday, part of a big expansion of its nuclear program which has contributed to fears in the West it aims to build a bomb.Defying Western pressure to curb its sensitive nuclear work, Iran announced in November it planned to expand its enrichment activities by building 10 new sites. The announcement was condemned by the United states and its European allies.”The president has confirmed the designated location of a new nuclear site and on his order the building process has begun,” Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, a senior adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the semi-official ILNA news agency.

“New locations on which the plants should be constructed this year have been determined and initial construction is underway,” Samareh-Hashemi was quoted as saying.Iran’s top nuclear official Akbar Salehi told Reuters in February that Iran would start construction of two enrichment sites by March 2011.Washington is pushing for a fourth round of United Nations sanctions on Iran in the coming weeks to pressure it to halt its enrichment-related work, which Tehran says is entirely peaceful.Iran started higher-level enrichment in February, saying it needed the 20 percent enriched fuel for a research reactor in Tehran making medical isotopes. Such potent material is not necessary to generate electricity.

Tehran has said it is still willing to swap low-level enriched uranium for higher-grade fuel enriched abroad — a move which would help address fears about Iran’s enrichment activities — but the exchange must happen on Iranian soil.The West believed it had persuaded Iran, at talks in Geneva last October, to hand over some of its uranium stocks to be enriched abroad, but that deal fell apart soon afterwards.Samareh-Hashemi said any import of enriched uranium would not mean Iran planned to stop its own enrichment.”The domestic production of (nuclear) fuel does not contradict importing it,” he said.

“We have started to produce uranium domestically based on our need to provide fuel for the Tehran research reactor and this will continue until our needs are met.”In a separate development, state-owned Jam-e-Jam daily said Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, would soon be stepping down as his term was coming to an end. Soltanieh was not immediately available to comment.(Reuters)

Mogadishu The explosion of landmines in the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu has killed eight people

Mogadishu The explosion of landmines in the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu has killed eight people, and mortar shells that insurgents fired at the city’s airport when the president arrived injuring six people, witnesses said, and medical parties, Sunday. Al Shabaab guerrillas fired mortar shells perluru-soon after the plane carrying President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and the speaker of parliament landed Saturday night. Peace army troops the African Union (AU) reply to the attack by guerrillas firing bases.

“All is not mortar shells hit the airport but landed in civilian areas,” said Ali Muse, coordinator of the ambulance service told AFP. He said five people died in Bakara market, where the Al Shabaab often launch attacks. Four of them are women. On Tuesday, the UN urged the security forces of Somalia, AU troops and Islamic guerrillas do not attack blindly into areas that many of its inhabitants, and say this is a violation of the laws of war.

Since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991, Somalia has no effective government for nearly two decades. Residents in the area of settlement Waberi, the capital, said eight people were killed when a landmine planted near a coffee shop which are frequently visited by government troops exploded Saturday night, agakya in a single attack on security forces.

“The blast killed five soldiers and three civilians. The pieces of human flesh are everywhere and some of the injured victims screaming for help,” said Joseph Abdulqader eyewitness told Reuters. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but accused the families of the action was carried out Al Shabaab. “They killed our people, they ignored our people, our flag, and our sovereignty,” cried Fadumo Abdi, a son killed in the blast.

Somalia’s parliament is expected to convene Sunday for the first time since December after repeatedly delayed, but the trial was suspended for four days due to “technical reasons”. A number of Somali MPs leave Somalia to save themselves in the state of African countries, Europe and the United States, could cause ttidak parliament to convene a quorum.( Reuters)

Four Spanish soldiers seconded to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, was reported killed

PORT AU PRINCE, Four Spanish soldiers seconded to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, was reported killed.”Four people have us confirm the Spanish army were killed in a helicopter crash on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic,” said George Ola Davies, spokesman for the UN, Saturday (17/4/2010).Spanish military helicopter crashed in the area’s steep cliffs in Haiti on Friday in a steep cliff 50 miles southeast of the capital of Haiti.

According to George Ola-Davies, seconded Chilean helicopter for the UN peacekeeping mission, the crew finally managed menindetifikasi who died.”Location of the accident about 50 miles southeast of the capital of Haiti. Terrain is very heavy, very steep cliff,” he said.

45 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the Khyber tribal region

Pakistan acknowledged yesterday that at least 45 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the Khyber tribal region, an admission that could undermine the military’s anti-Taleban campaign in the country’s northwest region. Hundreds of tribesmen demonstrated against the attack in Sera Vela village, which was hit by air force jets at the weekend, causing the worst civilian casualties in a single incident in Pakistan’s war against Islamic militants. Tribal elders said that up to 71 people were killed in the strike, denying there any militants in the area.

A senior military official told The Times that civilians were among dozens of people killed in airstrikes aimed at insurgent hideouts along the Afghan border. He said that the attack also killed 30 militants.

The military rarely admits civilian deaths, which, according to some reports, have mounted in recent months as Pakistan intensifies its offensive against al-Qaeda backed militants in the lawless tribal region. The military had earlier denied that there were any civilian casualties in the weekend attack.

The military official insisted the military had received credible intelligence that militants had been hiding in the area. Security officials said that a large numbers of Taleban fleeing the military operation in South Waziristan had moved to the Khyber tribal region.

Tribal elders and residents disputed the military’s account, saying that there was no militant sanctuary in the area. Many of those killed in the attack belonged to the Kookikhel tribe which has a history of co-operating with the military in the anti-Taleban campaign. Most families in the village have sons in the security forces and many retired army and paramilitary soldiers were among the dead and injured.

Kashmalo Khan, 63, a retired paramilitary soldier whose right leg was fractured, said that he lost 11 family members in the attack. “The bombing continued as people were busy in relief work,” said Mr Khan, who was being treated in a Peshawar hospital. “There is not a single Taleban in our area. The military was given wrong information.”

Another resident said the house that was initially bombed belonged to Hamid Khan, whose two sons were serving in the Frontier Corps. “They had nothing to do with the Taleban,” said Hazar Gul, a resident of Sera Vela.

Sera Vella is a small border village in Khyber, one of the seven semi autonomous tribal regions where the Pakistani army has been conducting operations against Islamic militants. Analysts said that such a large number of civilian deaths could undermine the military’s efforts to mobilise public support for its anti-Taleban campaign. The incident has provided a strong propaganda tool for militants.

“The attack has killed the people most directly affected by the Taleban savagery. It may now turn these people against the military,“ said Rifaat Hussain, professor of Security Studies at Quai-e-Azam University in Islamabad. “The family members of the victims could become easy recruits for the militants.”

Tension ran high in the area, where hundreds of tribesmen joined an anti-Government rally demanding an apology from the military. They also demanded compensation for the family of the victims.

Thousands of Pakistan troops have been involved in the biggest ever offensive against militants in the tribal regions which had become a haven for the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

Pakistan’s military effort to clear the borderland of insurgents who have also been involved in the attacks on Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan has earned praise from Britain and the US administration. The offensive is seen as being critical to the success of the new US Afghan war strategy.

The army, backed by the air force, has recently expanded its operation to Orakzai and Khyber tribal regions after driving out insurgents from South Waziristan, which was also the headquarters of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the militant group responsible for most of the recent terrorist attacks inside the country.

About 200,000 have fled the Orakzai and Khyber regions, swelling the total number of displaced people. According to the United Nations 1.3 million people fleeing from the conflict zone have taken refuge in neighboring towns in the North West Frontier Province.