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Thousands protest banks, corporate greed in U.S. marches

2011-10-16T15:01:00.001+07:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of anti-Wall Street protesters rallied in New York's Times Square on Saturday, buoyed by a global day of demonstrations in support of their month long campaign against corporate greed.

Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, protests on Saturday started in Asia and rippled through Europe back to the United States and Canada. Protesters fed up with economic inequality took to the streets in cities from Washington, Boston and Chicago to Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto.
After weeks of intense media coverage, the size of the U.S. protests on Saturday have been smaller than G20 meetings or political conventions have yielded in recent years. Such events often draw tens of thousands of demonstrators.
In New York, where the movement began when protesters set up camp in a Lower Manhattan park on September 17, organizers said the protest grew to at least 5,000 people as they marched to Times Square from their makeshift outdoor headquarters.
"These protests are already making a difference," said Jordan Smith, 25, a former substance abuse counselor from San Francisco, who joined the New York protest. "The dialogue is now happening all over the world."
The protesters chanted, "We got sold out, banks got bailed out" and "All day, all week, occupy Wall
Street." They arrived in Times Square at a time when the area is already crowded with tourists and Broadway theatergoers.
"This is disgusting" said Anatoly Lapushner, who was shopping with his family at Toys R Us in Times Square. "Why aren't they marching on Washington and the politicians? Instead they go after the economic lifeblood of the city."
PARTY MOOD IN NEW YORK
American protesters are angry that U.S. banks are enjoying booming profits after getting bailouts in 2008, while many people are struggling in a difficult economy with more than 9 percent unemployment and little help from Washington.
Some were disappointed the New York crowd was not larger.
"People don't want to get involved. They'd rather watch on TV," said Troy Simmons, 47, who joined demonstrators as he left work. "The protesters could have done better today ... people from the whole region should be here and it didn't happen."
The Times Square mood was akin to New Year's Eve, when the famed "ball drop" occurs. In a festive mood, protesters were joined by throngs of tourists snapping pictures, together counting back from 10 and shouting, "Happy New Year."
Police said three people were arrested in Times Square after pushing down police barriers and five men were arrested earlier for wearing masks. Police also arrested 24 people at a Citibank branch in Manhattan, mostly for trespassing.
Citibank was not immediately available for comment.
Five thousand people marched through the streets of Los Angeles and gathered peacefully outside City Hall.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been gathering steam over the past month, culminating with Saturday's action. The protests worldwide were mostly peaceful apart from Rome, where the demonstration sparked riots.
But it was unclear if the movement, which has been driven using social media, would sustain momentum beyond Saturday. Critics have accused the group of not having clear goals.
In Toronto, a couple of thousand people gathered peacefully and started to set up a camp in one of the city's parks. Protesters in Washington marched through the streets.
"I am going to start my life as an adult in debt and that's not fair," student Nathaniel Brown told Reuters Television. "Millions of teenagers across the country are going to start their futures in debt, while all of these corporations are getting money fed all the time and none of us can get any."
(Additional reporting by Cameron French in Toronto, Pascal Fletcher in Miami, Ian Simpson in Washington D.C., Karl Plume in Chicago, Jim Finkle in Boston and R.T. Watson in Los Angeles and Ray Sanchex in New York, writing by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mark Egan and Peter Cooney)

Thailand flooding: Fear brings people together

2011-10-15T23:08:00.001+07:00

Thailand flooding: Fear brings people together
By Moni Basu, CNN
October 14, 2011 -- Updated 1842 GMT (0242 HKT)

(CNN) -- Thailand's rice bowl is now Thailand's nightmare.
The Chao Phraya River delta nourishes the nation's vast rice paddies. But Friday, the river and its many tributaries eyed the capital, Bangkok, like a ferocious animal stalking its prey.
Monsoonal rains have flooded Thailand's plains and now the bursting river threatens to drown Bangkok.
The water has already turned parking lots into marinas, markets into lakes and houses into homes suitable only for fish. It has gushed into houses of the holy -- Buddhist temples stood amid rising water -- and into sanctuaries of the vulnerable.
Fifteen elephants, including seven mothers with babies and a 9-year-old known for its painting skills, are stranded on top of Ayutthaya's Royal Elephant Kraal. The elephants climbed on top of the building last week and are going hungry now that food can only be brought in small quantities on rowing boats. Elephants can swim but the babies might drown in an attempt to escape.

Floods bear down on Thailand's capital Thailand floods leave elephants stranded Bangkok braces for more flooding Moon, rain causing Thai river 'backup'
In Bangkok and other deluged cities and towns, the strong carried the feeble on their backs. The young aided the old.
Everyone helped each other.
It was hard to imagine that last year, Red Shirts battled Yellow Shirts in deadly political street protests that prompted a state of emergency in Thailand and left a nation deeply divided.
Disaster brought them back together this week.
An English Facebook page set up to help foreigners in Thailand saw a frenzy of action Friday.
"Kidney failure patients'd like to get in dialysis process can contact HSRI co. with NE Kidney Medico"
"Free shuttle bus from Dusit Thani hotel to TU DOME available for donation stuffs logistic tomorrow"
"Slippers (foam type) needed for any sizes at Don Muang Evacuation Cent."
"Both lanes of Bangkruy-Sainoi Rd... flooded"
With 283 people dead and another 8 million affected by the flooding, the fears were real in Bangkok.
Workers stuffed sandbags furiously and shored up barriers. Evacuation centers began to fill with people.
Banjong Palim, 43, said he had never seen anything like this in his lifetime. He was forced to flee when his suburban Bangkok home drowned.
Some recalled the devastating 2004 tsunami that wiped out everything with walls of water. And panicked.
Ed White watched the river flow over containment walls in Ayutthaya. He stacked the furniture as high as he could get it in his house in there, and felt lucky it was made of concrete and brick, not wood, like so many traditional Thai homes.
White grew up in Ocean City, Maryland. He was used to hurricanes and the Atlantic's fury. But this was different.
The water was not raging. There weren't torrents.
It just kept inching upward. Slowly, but surely.
At the market where White gets his hair cut, people scurried, spreading rumors born from fear. In two hours, they said, everything would be under water. The flood was coming! The flood was coming!
White moved to Thailand in 2003 to work for a rubber company. Friday, he said he had moved into a second-floor company apartment in Bangkok, confident he would be safe there. Meanwhile, his employer had made a fortress out of the rubber factory, erecting concrete barriers around everything as though it were a war zone.
For many it was a losing battle.
The military helped evacuate them, whisking them away by boat or carrying them through chest-high water.
Just about every day now, rain has come down hard, exacerbating worries. This is already the worst flooding Thailand has seen in decades. Some wondered Friday how much worse it could get.
The government's Flood Relief Centre chief said that Bangkok would be spared. But with a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast for the next few days, reassurances Friday were difficult to swallow.

Obama orders U.S. troops to help chase down African 'army' leader

2011-10-15T13:44:00.000+07:00

Obama orders U.S. troops to help chase down African 'army' leader
By the CNN Wire Staff
October 15, 2011 -- Updated 0110 GMT (0910 HKT)

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama is sending about 100 U.S. troops to Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord's Resistance Army in and around Uganda.
"I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter sent Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kony is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army.
U.S. military personnel advising regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders will not engage Kony's forces "unless necessary for self-defense," Obama said.

"I believe that deploying these U.S. armed forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa."
Obama noted that the group "has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa" and "continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security."
What is the Lord's Resistance Army?

According to the State Department, "since 2008 alone, the LRA has killed more than 2,400 people and abducted more than 3,400. The United Nations estimates that over 380,000 people are displaced across the region because of LRA activity."
Obama said the United States since 2008 has backed regional military efforts to go after the Lord's Resistance Army. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that since that time the United States has provided more than $40 million in support.
Efforts to combat the LRA, however, have been unsuccessful.
In his letter, Obama cited the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. In that measure, Congress "expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability," he said.
"I have directed this deployment, which is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive. I am making this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution," he said. "I appreciate the support of the Congress in this action."
Obama said the initial team of U.S. military personnel "with appropriate combat equipment" deployed to Uganda on Wednesday. Other forces deploying include "a second combat-equipped team and associated headquarters, communications and logistics personnel."
"Our forces will provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nation forces," he said. "Subject to the approval of each respective host nation, elements of these U.S. forces will deploy into Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The support provided by U.S. forces will enhance regional efforts against the LRA. "
The U.S. troops backing the operation "are primarily comprised of Special Operations Forces," according to the Pentagon.
It said the United States has been helping Uganda and the other regional countries in their fight against the LRA since 2008. The U.S. has provided logistical support, non-lethal equipment, training and intelligence assistance, as well as $33 million to Uganda's People Defense Forces effort to counter the group.
The Pentagon cited multiple examples of its assistance, such as sending equipment to Central African armed forces and training a Democratic Republic of Congo light infantry battalion deployed in that country's northeast.
It noted that U.S. Africa Command is "exploring ways to support the military of South Sudan."
In early October 2010, the U.S. military had more than 1,700 troops deployed in sub-Saharan Africa, the Pentagon said. The majority of them -- around 1,380 - were deployed in Djibouti. But U.S. troops had at least a small presence in 33 different nations in sub-Saharan Africa. At this time last year they had nine troops in Uganda.
One conservative member of Congress, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, weighed in to support the effort.
"I applaud our nation's military for making this a priority and taking the steps outlined in our legislation that will eventually protect the children and people from Joseph Kony's reign of terror," Inhofe said.
"I have witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by the LRA, and this will help end Kony's heinous acts that have created a human rights crisis in Africa. We must work to bring justice to the children and victims in Uganda devastated by Kony and the LRA. I have been fervently involved in trying to prevent further abductions and murders of Ugandan children, and today's action offers hope that the end of the LRA is in sight."
Kony claims he is a prophet sent from God to replace the Ugandan government with a democracy based on the Ten Commandments.
The group has been "notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines," according to the website GlobalSecurity.org.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Kony and four other group leaders for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Campo said that the "LRA is an involuntary army and the majority of the fighters are formerly abducted children. "
Obama's plan in dealing with the LRA calls for increasing "protection of civilians," apprehending or removing Kony and senior LRA commanders from the battlefield, promoting the "defection, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of remaining LRA fighters" and increasing "humanitarian access."
Representatives of 34 groups in the LRA-affected areas of northern Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan wrote Obama in December, applauding his commitment to tackle the problem and urging him to deal with the group, according to Human Rights Watch.
"Each day that goes by without a solution to the problem of the LRA is another day of terror and pain for those of us living under constant threat of renewed attacks. Already, the LRA has brutally killed more than 2,300 of our family members and abducted over 3,000 others since they began their latest wave of killings in September 2008," the letter said.
"Many of our children are still in the hands of the LRA. We do not know if they are alive or dead. Those who have managed to escape the LRA bear the physical and mental scars of what they have suffered and will never be the same again. We have few means to help them readjust and integrate back into our communities, but we are trying to do what we can."
The letter cites massacres in 2008 and 2009.
"During these attacks, our family members were killed in unimaginably savage ways: their heads crushed with clubs or machetes; their faces disfigured; and their genitals, mouths, ears, legs and arms cut off, for no reason other than to terrorize."

Times Posts News | BANGKOK — As some of Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century..

2011-10-14T22:53:00.002+07:00

As Thailand Floods Spread, Experts Blame Officials, Not Rains

By SETH MYDANS

Published: October 13, 2011
NYTIMES
BANGKOK — As some of Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century bears down on Bangkok — submerging cities, industrial parks and ancient temples as it comes — experts in water management are blaming human activity for turning an unusually heavy monsoon season into a disaster.

The main factors, they say, are deforestation, overbuilding in catchment areas, the damming and diversion of natural waterways, urban sprawl, and the filling-in of canals, combined with bad planning. Warnings to the authorities, they say, have been in vain.

“I have tried to inform them many times, but they tell me I am a crazy man,” said Smith Dharmasaroja, former director general of the Thai Meteorological Department, who is famous

here for predicting a major tsunami years before the one that devastated coastal towns in 2004.

The monsoon season this year has brought disaster to Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well as Thailand, where 283 people are reported to have died.

Thousands of people have been displaced as typhoons have battered the Philippines, and the country’s steep rice terraces of Banaue are reported to have been damaged by mudslides.

Floods have spread through Cambodia, where the city of Siem Reap is reported to be knee-deep in water, with floodwaters reaching the nearby temples of Angkor.

Thai officials are warning that, in the next few days, Bangkok could be inundated by a combination of heavy floodwaters from the north, unusually high tides and monsoon rains. People in some of the most threatened neighborhoods are building sandbag barriers around their homes and emptying shops of food, drinking water, batteries and candles.

Preparations in Bangkok have become frantic. About 45 miles of sandbags have reportedly been laid to reinforce a dike along the Chao Phraya River, which flows through the city. New flood barriers and drainage canals are being built. People are being told to stay alert.

As the water flows south from the inundated cities of Nakhon Sawan and Ayutthaya, with its submerged brick temples, the local news media have reported that 150,000 sandbags are moving south too, as soldiers truck them from one hard-hit area to the next high-risk point.

As the government rushes to protect some urban or industrial areas by diverting water from them, local officials have faced off over whose towns will be saved and whose will be sacrificed.

In Ayutthaya, two groups of villagers are reported to have battled over a dike that protected one side and condemned the other. As the unlucky residents dug at the dike to send the water toward their neighbors, a gunfight broke out, wounding one of the villagers. In some places, according to news reports, troops have been deployed to protect the dikes.

Among those stranded by floodwaters were 15 elephants, which climbed to the top of a wall a week ago to escape fast-rising water in Ayutthaya. They include seven mothers and their babies and a nine-year-old elephant known internationally for his painting skills with his trunk, said Ewa Narkiewicz, communications director for a group called Elephantstay, a nonprofit agency that cares for retired elephants.

“If proper help does not come soon, the mothers and babies are in grave danger,” Ms. Narkiewicz said. Each animal consumes up to 440 pounds of food a day, but the boats that could be used to ferry bananas, pineapples and sugar cane to them are busy rescuing stranded residents, she said.

Mr. Smith, the meteorologist, said the flooding situation this year had been aggravated by bad water management.

“They miscalculated the water levels and did not discharge water from the dams early enough in the rainy season,” he said. “The dams are almost full now, so they discharge the water at the same time, and all the discharge water comes down to the low-lying areas.”

Those areas become obstacles to the free flow of water, he said, as developers continue to extend their activities.

“They build their estates in low-lying areas that are supposed to be reservoirs,” he said, “and they throw up a dam or a dike, and they block the flow where the water is supposed to go in rainy season.”

Once the floodwaters reach Bangkok, they will pour into a city that has lost its natural defenses: a huge network of canals that have been filled in — or clogged with garbage — as the city has become an overcrowded behemoth.

“Our city plan is inefficient,” Capt. Somsak Khaosuwan, director of the National Disaster Warning Center, said by telephone.

“The weather hasn’t changed that much,” he said. “We always have more water in the rainy season. But if we don’t have integrated water management, we will face this problem again next year.”

Man and nature are increasingly estranged, he said, and their coexistence is becoming a battle. “This is the sign that we should preserve the forest,” he said. “We’ve hurt nature for a long time, and right now it seems that nature wants to pay us back.”

Times Posts News | Obama Says Facts Support Accusation of Iranian Plot

2011-10-14T21:33:00.001+07:00

Obama Says Facts Support Accusation of Iranian Plot
By HELENE COOPER
Published: October 13, 2011

NYTIMES
WASHINGTON — President Obama vowed on Thursday to push for what he called the “toughest sanctions” against Iran, saying that the United States had strong evidence that Iranian officials were complicit in an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

In his first public remarks on the assassination scheme, Mr. Obama sought to counter skepticism about whether Iran’s Islamic government directed an Iranian-American car salesman to engage with a Mexican drug cartel to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States and carry out other attacks. Mr. Obama insisted that American officials “know that he had direct links, was paid by, and directed by individuals in the Iranian government.”

“Now those facts are there for all to see,” Mr. Obama said. “We would not be bringing forward a case
unless we knew exactly how to support all the allegations that are contained in the indictment.”

The president did not lay out any specific new sanctions against Iran; his administration is considering a number of measures, but has limited leverage and would have to muster international support to impose anything with real teeth.

While Mr. Obama made his remarks during a news conference in the White House East Room with the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, the State Department said that United States officials had been in direct contact with the government of Iran over the accusations.

The State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, would provide no details. But Thursday night a White House official said the contact had been made by the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, who gave a letter to her Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Khazaee.

In her remarks about the alleged plot, Ms. Nuland said: “When you look at these details, it seems like something out of a movie. But as you begin to give more detail on what we knew and when we knew it and how we knew it, it has credibility.”

Mr. Obama said that the administration had reached out to allies and the international community to build support. “We’ve laid the facts before them,” he said. “And we believe that after people have analyzed them, there will not be a dispute that this is in fact what happened.”

The president got some support from some allied governments on Thursday. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, told reporters at a news conference in Vienna that “this dastardly act reflects the policies of Iran.” The Saudi government has not yet decided whether to withdraw its ambassador from Tehran in protest, he said.

In London, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, told the House of Commons that the suspected plot “would appear to constitute a major escalation in Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism outside its borders,” British news agencies reported. He added that the British government was “in close touch with the U.S. authorities and will work to agree an international response, along with the U.S., the rest of the E.U. and Saudi Arabia.”

Iran escalated its rebuttal of the American charges, saying the claims about the alleged plot were so ludicrous that even politicians and the media in the United States were expressing skepticism about them.

Iran’s state-run media was dominated on Thursday by rejections of the American charges. The foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, called the charges part of a “new propaganda campaign.” The official IRNA news agency quoted Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying: “Repeating stupid and useless methods by hopeless Western policy makers to create Iranophobia will not be fruitful and they will fail again.”

While Mr. Obama echoed assertions by other administration officials that Iranian officials were complicit in the alleged plot, he did not go as far as some officials did on Wednesday when they told reporters that they had concluded that the operation had been discussed at the highest levels of the Iranian government.

Appearing next to the South Korean president, Mr. Lee, who was in Washington for a state visit, Mr. Obama promised to “apply the toughest sanctions and continue to mobilize the international community to make sure that Iran is further and further isolated and pays a price for this kind of behavior.” He said that all options were on the table — a diplomatic signal that he would not rule out military strikes — but administration officials privately say it is highly unlikely that the United States would respond with force.

Instead, the administration will try to persuade Russia, China, Europe and India to endorse tougher sanctions against Tehran. Thus far, the United States has prodded its international partners to put in place limited sanctions against Iranian officials involved in the country’s nuclear program, as part of the international effort to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

But that strategy has, so far, had limited success, with Russia and China in particular wary about going too far in a direction that officials say could hurt commercial interests in those countries.

The United States does virtually no business with Iran, and that leaves American officials with few meaningful options for unilateral action. Some lawmakers in the United States are calling for Mr. Obama to try to increase pressure on Iran by punishing Russian and Chinese companies that do business with Iran’s energy industry. But the administration has resisted such a move, which would undoubtedly deeply anger Moscow and Beijing.

White House officials said they were still weighing what additional sanctions they would push for in light of the alleged plot. One possibility, administration officials said, would be to target Iran’s central bank. But that likely would provoke resistance because it would entangle other countries or entities that do business with the central bank. Another possibility would be to focus on members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps who are involved in the country’s oil industry. But that could affect global oil markets.

Standing next to Mr. Obama in the White House East Room Thursday, Mr. Lee gave him a measured vote of confidence on the suspected plot.

“We were deeply shocked when we read the reports on the attempt to harm the Saudi envoy here in Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Lee said. “I and the Korean people strongly condemn all forms of terrorism.”