Libyan leader and chairman of the African Union, Muammar Gaddafi, says that a one state solution is the key to the Palestinian question. Gaddafi addressed the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2009.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Thursday, October 08, 2009
10:27 Mecca time, 07:27 GMT

Libya war report request denied

Gaza residents put up posters denouncing Abbas for blocking action against Israel

The UN Security Council has rejected Libya’s request to hold a special session on the Goldstone report but agreed to advance a periodical meeting to address the issues it raises.

Published at the end of September, the UN-sanctioned Goldstone report identifies war crimes committed during Israel’s war on Gaza between last December and January.

At a closed door session, the UN Security Council decided against an emergency session, but voted to bring forward its monthly meeting on the Middle East by six days, to October 14.

Abdurrahman Shalgham, the Libyan ambassador, flanked by ambassadors for Egypt, Sudan, the Arab League and the Palestinians, earlier said the goal had been to open discussion on what happened in Gaza and “the tragedy for Palestinians living there”.

“We have to keep this momentum regarding this report,” Shalgham said.

The Security Council met at the behest of Libyan diplomats, who requested an emergency session to discuss its findings.

The report authored by Richard Goldstone highlights a disproportionate use of force by Israel and its deliberately harming of civilians during its Gaza offensive. It also alleges that Hamas fired rockets indiscriminately at civilians in southern Israel.

Anger at Abbas

The council’s move comes amid public anger among Palestinians over the support from Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and head of Fatah, that action be suspended in regard to the Goldstone investigation.

Hundreds of posters appeared in public areas around Gaza City on Wednesday criticising Abbas.

Abbas is accused of backing the postponement of a UN Human Rights Council vote in Geneva last Friday that would have condemned Israel’s failure to co-operate with a UN investigation into the December-January war.

Such a vote would have been one of many steps to bring Israel before a war crimes tribunal, something many Palestinians want to see.

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza, said: “There’s no doubt the public outrage over the decision by the PA to withdraw support for the Goldstone report continues several days after that decision.

“We saw today some of the more powerful images of the people here in Gaza turning against the Palestinian Authority president.”

He said a rally was held and that dozens of people - mostly intellectuals as well as university students, some of whom were relatives of the victims of the Gaza war – attended.

“During the course of that rally, we heard some very strong condemnation of the PA president,” he said.

‘Offensive gesture’

“We saw a very offensive public gesture. Many of them had taken off their shoes and slapped the posters of the Palestinian president.”

Israel launched a major offensive on the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip in December 2008, saying it wanted to stop rockets fired by Hamas into its territory.

At least 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died during the three-week war.

Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, told Al Jazeera it was possible Libya might try to put a draft resolution forward “but I think there is no chance of any consequential action being taken by the security council”.

Still, Ahmed Gebreel, a Libyan government spokesman, said his country had requested the emergency meeting at the UN “because of the seriousness of the report and because we think it’s too long to wait until March [to discuss it]”.

Hamas and Abbas both backed the Libyan move, with Abbas even sending a delegate to add weight to the Libyan request.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, Abbas’s senior adviser, told the Voice of Palestine radio that backing the postponement of the UN human rights council vote was “a mistake”.

“We have the courage to admit there was a mistake,” he said, but added that the situation “can be repaired”.

Palestinians, including members of Fatah, Abbas’s party, have strongly criticised the Goldstone vote postponement, holding him responsible for the decision.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said that the controversy surrounding the Goldstone report could affect the Palestinian reconciliation deal which Egypt has said will be signed later this month.

“All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, are angry at the [Palestinian] Authority after what happened with the Goldstone report and this could affect the arrangements for the [reconciliation] dialogue,” he said on Wednesday.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

There is slow but notable progress towards stability in strife-torn Somalia, but international financial support for the transitional government is vital, with speed being the most critical element, the United Nations political chief said today.

The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has launched a child protection campaign in a war-ravaged eastern province of the African nation.

Despite claims of an economic recovery, 50,000 people showed up in downtown Detroit seeking applications for assistance with utility bills and mortgage payments. The political leaders in the U.S. have failed to stem the crisis while millions suffer daily.
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October 8, 2009

Cobo a scene of desperation

Social service agencies are bracing for more troubles

BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA and MATT HELMS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

The economic tsunami washing over metro Detroit swept its casualties to the doors of Cobo Center on Wednesday in the form of 35,000 people so desperate for help with mortgage and utility bills that threats were made, fights broke out and people were nearly trampled.

Some were treated by emergency medical workers on site.

It was one of the most dramatic signs to date of how deeply joblessness and the home foreclosure crisis have pushed people from the lower and middle ends of the economic scale to seek help wherever they can.

City officials said a total of about 65,000 people over the past few days have gotten applications — due next Wednesday — for a share of $15.2 million in federal stimulus money to help people avoid foreclosure or quickly rebound from homelessness.

Ultimately, as few as 3,500 people may receive the help.

Area social service agencies worry the problem will worsen because of lingering economic woes and the masses of people who could soon run out of unemployment benefits.

Racquel Sawyers, 35, a laid-off engineer for General Motors and Chrysler, went home after seeing the crush at Cobo. “I’m just trying to do what I can right now,” she said.

Kelli Phillips tries to make the numbers work: $650 a month for rent, $300 to $500 a month to heat her old house, plus food for her and her boys, ages 6 and 17.

The unemployed office worker does it all on $1,000 a month, plus “borrowing, doing odd jobs,” said Phillips, 42, of Detroit. “I clean houses for people.”

That’s why she stood in the chaos of thousands lined up outside Cobo Center on Wednesday, hoping for a chance at $3,000 in assistance through a Detroit housing and utility payment program funded through the federal stimulus program.

The huge lines were a sobering glimpse into the deep economic trouble in metro Detroit, but they were no surprise to social service agencies struggling to provide food, clothing, utility and housing assistance to people living in the state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate — 15.2% in August — and a city where joblessness is approaching 30%.

Folks are out of work, out of money and running out of hope.

“People seem to be falling between the cracks of government programs that are supposed to help them,” said Kristin Seefeldt, a research scientist for the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Seefeldt, who is following 45 low-income Detroit women for a study on the recession’s impact on poor people, said the group is a microcosm of what’s happening across the state and country. They’re losing jobs and having a hard time finding new ones. More than half owe money to utility companies, ranging from $200 to several thousand, that they’re unable to pay because groceries, rent and food come first.

“They may be able to keep up with current payments, but there’s always this back debt that they owe,” Seefeldt said. “People are struggling. They’re really struggling. Although, I would say many of them would say, ‘At least I have a roof over my head.’ “

Metro Detroit’s economic troubles are severe. Michigan unemployment was at 15.2% in August –and 27.8% in Detroit proper.

“You have to go back to the 1982 recession to find unemployment levels at or above the levels we’re at in 2009,” said Bruce Weaver, an economic analyst for the state’s Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.

Weaver said the state lost 330,000 nonfarm jobs between August 2008 and August 2009, a 7.9% drop. Of those, 142,000 were in manufacturing, a 25% drop in that sector.

Social service agencies say they’re swamped with requests for aid.

“It’s probably the worst hunger crisis we’ve seen in our history,” said Anne Schenk, spokeswoman for Detroit’s Gleaners Community Food Bank, the state’s largest food bank, serving five counties in southeast Michigan.

Schenk said charitable groups are bracing for even more troubles as the long-term jobless run out of unemployment benefits — as many as 50,000 in the next few months in Michigan if the federal government doesn’t approve an extension.

“That, we’re anticipating, is going to throw a lot more families into poverty,” Schenk said. “It’s going to happen three months from now, or six months from now, or within the year. We are looking at every strategy available to us to get more food and get it out” to agencies that provide food directly.

Heading into 2009, Michigan was already in bad shape. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates for 2008, 1.4 million Michiganders lived below the poverty line, about 14% of the state’s population. In Detroit, the number was 33%. The bureau puts the poverty level at about $22,000 in yearly household income for a family of four.

Bill Sullivan, director of 211, the services hotline of United Way for Southeastern Michigan, said the region is being jolted by job losses and a culture and society that are unsustainable.

“What we saw at Cobo today is nothing new” to people struggling to get by, Sullivan said. “It’s new to everyone else. The people who are most affected by a lack of jobs, what they experienced today is what they experience every day on a certain level.”

Robyn Smith, community relations director for the Coalition on Temporary Shelter, said the tremendous crush of people didn’t sadden her.

“I’m happy because there’s something available,” she said as she collected filled-out applications from a doorway guarded by a Detroit police officer to keep people from slipping in. COTS provides 44,000 shelter nights a year to the city’s homeless people, about 40% families and about half working poor people.

People fainted and others fought as police tried to keep people calm and cooperative in line at Cobo, with some waiting since Tuesday night. By 11:45 a.m., Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s office sent out word for people to stay away.

Inside Cobo, lines led up to a crush of people outside the Riverview Ballroom, where Detroit Planning & Development employees were to hand out applications. At about 10:30 a.m., a shoving match broke out in the crowd, and many of the people bolted away.

“It’s a disaster here,” City Council candidate Gary Brown said. Brown, a former Detroit Police assistant chief, handed out bottles of water to those in line. “This is dangerous. Very unorganized, very dangerous.”

Police said only a few people were hospitalized for medical issues or minor injuries in the skirmishing.

Camille Lewis and Lakia Montgomery, both 25 and longtime friends, moved in together to save money after Lewis was laid off from her Aramark job cooking at Cobo and Montgomery was let go from an adult foster care position.

“When that happened, we had to move in together,” Lewis said. “That’s what’s making it easier.”

Contact MATT HELMS: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Free Press data analyst Kristi Tanner contributed to this report.

October 7, 2009

http://detnews.com/article/20091007/METRO01/910070396

Chaos at Cobo: Detroiters turn out for federal help

CHARLIE LEDUFF, GEORGE HUNTER AND SANTIAGO ESPARZA
The Detroit News

Detroit — Thousands hoping to get applications for federal help on rent and utility bills turned Cobo Center into a chaotic scene today.

They came by foot, wheelchair, bicycle and car. About six left by ambulance after tensions rose and people were trampled, according to a paramedic on the scene. One unfortunate soul got his car booted.

Detroiters were trying to pick up 5,000 federal assistance applications from the city at Cobo because Detroit received nearly $15.2 million in federal dollars under the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which is for temporary financial assistance and housing services to individuals and families who are homeless, or who would be homeless without this help.

People in wheelchairs and others using canes were being leaned on by people too weak to stand. Emergency medical technicians on the scene said they treated applicants who were injured during the rush to get inside the venue.

That’s what happens when a town full of broke people gets a whiff of free money, said Walter Williams, 51, who came before the sun to get an application and a shot at some federal assistance.

“This morning, I seen the curtain pulled back on the misery,” he said. “People fighting over a line. People threatening to shoot each other. Is this what we’ve come to?”

Outside Cobo on Wednesday, some people reportedly were going through the crowd, snatching the necessary applications from those who’d already obtained them. There also was a constant din of screams from people insisting they be let inside.

LaTanya Williams, a 32-year-old Detroiter, quickly filled out her form because “people are stealing them.”

“I am hoping to get any help that they will give me,” she said. “Everybody needs help.”

By early morning, the applications had run dry. But some hustlers got the bright idea to photocopy the original and sell the copies for $20 a pop. They were doing a brisk business. The desperate are easy prey. The white original applications stated clearly on the bottom: “Do not duplicate — Must Submit Original Application.”

By late morning, however, volunteers from the City of Detroit Planning and Development Department were handing out yellow photocopies themselves.

“I’m not even sure the government will accept those applications,” said Pam Johnson, a volunteer. “But it’s almost like they had to pacify people. There was almost a riot. I mean, they had to call out the gang squad. I saw an elderly woman almost get trampled to death.”

John Paul, a 25-year-old Detroiter, said the crowd and chaos illustrates the need people have for help.

“We need it,” he said of the money. “Whatever they have for me is great.”

Detroit Police 2nd Deputy Chief John Roach said 150 officers on the scene got a handle on the situation. “There was some pushing and shoving, and some people have fainted,” Roach said. “Given the fact that we have 15,000 people down there, I’m surprised things have been as orderly as they are.”

It was difficult to estimate the crowd because lines snaked all through the convention center and outside along the building and down the parking ramp along Cobo Arena to the river. One police officer estimated the crowd at 50,000.

More than 25,000 applications were snapped up in less than three hours Tuesday at Neighborhood City Halls. That day, Karen Dumas, a spokeswoman for Mayor Dave Bing, said some people mistakenly believed they would receive cash on the spot.

“That is totally untrue,” she said. “There is a process.”

Response had been so great that Detroit police and fire officials considered shutting down the process because of the volume of people.

Kelley Turcotte, a Detroit dishwasher, was near the end of the line around 10:30 a.m. today. The 27-year-old just had a son and said he is only squeaking by on his bills.

“I hope the government sees this and realizes the city needs a lot more help than they are giving,” Turcotte said.

Luis Irizarry, 35, drove from Flint for the chance he could get assistance. He later found out only Detroit residents are eligible. He said it was a shock to see this many people in need.

“This is ridiculous,” Irizarry said about the thousands who showed up.

Tony Johnson came at 5 a.m. Johnson has not found a job in three years.

“If I could win the mega lottery, I’d be tighty-iddy. I wouldn’t be here,” Johnson said. “But there’s no peace ’cause there ain’t no jobs. Everybody’s looking for the freebie, the hand-out. They don’t count me as unemployed ’cause I ain’t drawing a check. It’s like I don’t even exist. But I do. Look around. There’s thousands … millions of us.”

Dan McNamara, president of the Detroit Firefighters Association Local 344, was looking down from his office window across from Cobo.

“This absolutely is representative of the struggling middle class in America,” he said. “We’ve been betrayed by the government, Realtors and those who’ve got. The promise has been broken.”

Detroit News Staff Writer Christine MacDonald contributed to this report.

A new study reports that a small group of female pilots passed astronaut physiology tests with flying colours 50 years ago – Henry Spencer explains why NASA didn’t consider them for space flights

David Wighton: Business Editor’s Commentary

Energy from the wind and the tide is as free as the air and the waves. Or so you might think.
The chaps at the Crown Estate have other ideas. Rubbing their hands with glee, the rent collectors of Pall Mall were trumpeting the third round of licensing for offshore wind turbines.
The Crown Estate owns most of Britain’s foreshore and the seabed extending out 12 nautical miles.
Renewable energy brought in just £1 million last year, but it is a taster of what could be to come if the Government’s plans to build marine windmills on every coastal horizon come to fruition. The Crown Estate will get a bit less than 1 per cent from the value of every kilowatt produced offshore and rent from every inch of cable.

Thanks to the brilliant deal parliament did with George III, these wind tithes go straight into Treasury coffers, which may help to explain the Government’s infatuation with this expensive and unreliable source of energy.

A world-first experiment to try and reduce energy use for the day on the Isles of Scilly was foiled after a turn in the weather caused participants to use more electricity.

Published: 5:25PM BST 07 Oct 2009

More than 2,000 people on the tiny islands were asked to turn off all unnecessary electrical appliances in a bid to cut power consumption by 15 percent.
The experts behind the project used Scilly - 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall - as all power reaches the island through just one cable from the mainland.
Islanders followed a series of guidelines including switching off unnecessary lights and TVs when not in use and only filling kettles with the exact amount of water required.
But despite the mass power-down red-faced organisers announced they reduced electricity consumption - by just over one percent.
Organiser Dr Matt Prescott said the experiment was undermined by bad weather - which saw people using more power than usual.
He said: “Scilly usage fell by 1.2per cent. The weather was horrendous compared to the day before so we were really fighting the conditions.
“Normally electric use tends to go up on a Tuesday so we were fighting the general trend and the weather.”
The aim of the project - called E-Day - was to cut power use over a 24 hour period to prove that green living can considerably reduce energy output.
Organisers chose Scilly because power reaches the island through just one cable from the mainland - making it easier to measure the energy used.
Project organisers say it was the first “co-ordinated attempt” of its kind involving an entire community anywhere in the world.
The Isles of Scilly has a population of 2,150 people living on five islands - St Mary’s, Tresco, St Martin’s, St Agnes and Bryher.

The Tories oppose airport expansion and are backing green technology and renewable fuels, but will they be able to honour their energy-efficiency commitments?
David Adam
The Guardian, Thursday 8 October 2009
Despite strong rhetoric from Labour on the environment, its failure to deliver enough meaningful action has left many environmental campaigners disappointed. Some measurements put overall carbon dioxide emissions higher than in 1997 and a pledge to deliver a 20% cut by 2010 is doomed to fail. There has been little progress on renewable energy and Labour has managed to find itself on the wrong side of the debate on the two hot environmental issues of the day – the expansion of Heathrow and the construction of a new coal-power station at Kingsnorth in Kent.
So would a Conservative government offer a greener future? The pre-recession days when the two main parties battled to be the most eco-friendly have long gone, but there are still votes in the environment, and the Conservatives have set out a strong stall. Just this week, they restated their opposition to Heathrow’s proposed third runway, and promised to make it a manifesto commitment, along with blocks on further expansion at Gatwick and Stansted. A new high-speed rail network will take up some of the domestic slack between London and northern cities such as Manchester.
The Tories have also talked up the need to modernise Britain’s ageing electricity grid, and envisage a new “smart” system with householders able to sell power back to the system and check their fuel use on state-of-the-art meters.
Central to their energy plans would be the adoption of a feed-in tariff, to pay householders a fixed premium for spare electricity they generate. The system is credited with boosting uptake of renewables in countries such as Germany, but has been resisted by Labour. On a larger scale, they believe carbon capture and storage is reliable enough to force every coal power station to reduce its carbon emissions to the level of a modern gas plant.
On housing, they have pledged to find the money for £6,500 of energy-efficiency improvements to every home, and want to generate enough methane from farm and food waste to replace some 50% of natural gas used in central heating.
So far, so good, but environmental promises have a habit of being scrapped, or at least kicked out to endless consultations.
Labour officials question the sums, particularly the energy-efficiency pledge, which they point out will cost £160bn if delivered to every UK house. Conservative MPs voted against green investment in the budget, they say, and Conservative councils have opposed 60% of wind farms since Cameron became leader.
Dave Timms of Friends of the Earth says there are reasons for both encouragement and alarm in the Conservative approach. While green campaigners do not doubt the personal commitment of Cameron and other senior Tories on the issue, there are vocal elements within the party that remain distinctly off-message. “It’s not a question of personal commitment, it’s whether they can win the battle with the other departments,” Timms says.
For all political parties, it remains easier to set environmental targets than to meet them. The first may help get the Tories into government, but only the second will help save the planet.

In Taipei, recycling is not just socially responsible, it is a religious practice for the elderly volunteers at the charity Tzu Chi
I had a vision of the future last week. It wasn’t half as sexy, hi-tech or awe-inspiring as I might once have hoped, but there was a certain gritty positivism about the experience that made it feel more real than any science-fiction fantasy.
The setting was a Buddhist recycling centre on the outskirts of Taipei, where elderly volunteers were acquiring social and religious merit (or in some cases, just passing the time of day) by unscrewing tops and peeling off labels from a mountain of discarded plastic bottles. Sorted by colour so the plastic could be broken down, granulated and reused, the bottles were destined for reincarnation as soft blue polyester blankets.
In a separate workroom, another rank of volunteers on sewing machines hemmed the material, ironed on the logo of the Buddhist charity Tzu Chi, and folded them ready for free distribution to disaster victims and the homeless.
And that’s it. Not a very euphoric revelation, I grant you. But it struck me that Tzu Chi – an organisation I had never heard of until last week – were riding three of the biggest waves of the 21st century.
The first was the ageing of wealthy societies. Taiwan is in the world’s grey frontline, along with Japan, Hong Kong, Macau and several countries in Europe that are trying to find new ways to keep their elderly populations active, occupied and socially useful. The old people sorting through the trash near Taipei were from middle-class families. They said they did so for the exercise, for the company and because it was more constructive than sitting at home alone watching TV.
The second was the growing importance of recycling as the world’s nonrenewable resources run down. Taipei city has one of the highest recycling rates on the planet. The rules are so strict that some city residents plan their social lives around rubbish truck schedules. Even McDonald’s has separate bins. Chiau Wen-Yan, deputy minister of environmental protection, told me the recycling policy was now so successful it was creating a welcome problem of incinerators not having enough to burn. On this crowded island, the practice is not just socially responsible, it’s becoming semi-religious. Tzu Chi – with 50,000, mostly retired, recycling volunteers – is one of three Buddhist groups that picks up members along with the rubbish.
The third was the growing need to prepare for disaster. If the climate specialists are right, storms and floods will become more frequent and intense. This summer, Tzu Chi handed out 60,000 recycled plastic blankets to the survivors of Typhoon Morakot, the biggest downpour in Taiwan’s history, which killed more than 500 people.
People expected more disasters on this scale in the future, the vice minister of economic affairs, Huang Jung-Chiou, told me. It turned out he too was a Tzu Chi member, who was vegetarian on Mondays and volunteered for rubbish recycling even after taking office.
“It was an important experience,” he said. “Peeling the labels off bottles was extremely boring, but it made me think ‘Look at all that garbage. Who produced it?’”
I don’t know enough about Tzu Chi to endorse them, but their bottles-to-blankets activity seems a grittier form of the recycling done by charity shops in the UK. It is not exactly how I hope to spend my retirement, but facing up to absurd amounts of waste is probably what we will all have to do a lot more of in the future.