Region

A climate of tensions and charges of fraud increase today in Haiti after the release Monday of the preliminary results in the elections that gave victory to singer Michel Martelly.

The PEC announced that the representative of Peasant Answer Party achieved 67.57 % of the valid votes against 31.74 for Miriande Marigat of Regrouping of the National Progressive Democratic Party.

The former Landsbankinn in Iceland that went bankrupt in the big financial crash in Iceland in October 2008 offered its British customers sky high interests, way above any that of any other bank. The question at stake in the referendum is whether or not Icelandic taxpayers should compensate those who put their money in the Icesave account now that Landsbankinn is bankrupt.

During the March 26th demonstration in London a group of nonviolent protesters from UK Uncut occupied the Fortnum and Mason luxury store in Piccadilly to bring attention to it’s owners tax avoidance strategies. In spite of their not causing any damage the protesters were arrested after being promised by the police they would not be if they agreed to leave peacefully.

The White House-massaged media spin portrays President Barack Obama’s decision to go to war in Libya as a triumph for a triumvirate of liberals — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and Obama adviser Samantha Power — who have well-established records of advocating the use of U.S. military force for “humanitarian” purposes.

Below is a letter from Anne, an English teacher living in Japan for the last 10 years. Having survived the Earthquake she writes about the very human response to the tragedy that is afflicting the people in this part of Japan in stark contrast to the scenes of looting and violence that seem to accompany other natural disasters around the world.

The likelihood of DU use in Libya has now increased following the deployment and use of A-10 and Harrier AV-8B aircraft. ICBUW calls for pressure to be brought on the US to clarify the situation, and to put DU ammunition beyond use.

Laureates of the Right Livelihood Award and members of the World Future Council have called for a global phase-out of atomic power reactors as well as the abolition of nuclear weapons. In a joint statement, fifty laureates said the Japanese nuclear disaster had raised global awareness of the extreme dangers that can result from nuclear power generation.

With its US affiliate, Physicians for Global Survival called for a moratorium on new nuclear reactors in Canada and a suspension of operations at the nuclear reactors on fault lines. PGS cited the medical risks associated with radiation exposure and stressed that radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants expose entire populations and are the “gifts that keep on giving”.

Responding to the comment by Japanese nuclear safety agency spokesman Mr. Nishiyama that Greenpeace’s radiation data from Iidate village, 40km from the crisis-ridden Fukushima nuclear plant “could not be considered reliable” (1), and that most people have already voluntarily left the town of Iitate, Greenpeace radiation expert Jan van der Putte said:

In his early thirties, Kamakura-born Koichi Nakatani will never forget the day he stepped outside his isolated Hokkaido home and began as usual to breathe in the beautiful day when the thought struck him…. ‘oh, radiation is in the air, I shouldn’t really breathe deeply; oh my open sea and sky, will I ever be able to breathe deeply here again?’