The quake, on Saturday morning, killed at least 300 people

U.S. condemned Israeli plans to expand settlements

lindo2000 — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:31:55 PST

The U.S. government on Tuesday condemned Israel's plans to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem settlements.

The news of the construction of new housing was known during the second day of the visit of U.S. vice president, Joe Biden, is making the Middle East.

Biden issued a statement which said the initiative announced by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu "is against the constructive discussions" that is keeping to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launch of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the confidence we need right now," he said.

"We must create an atmosphere that supports negotiations, not that simple," he said.

For its part, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) reacted angrily to news of the construction of new Jewish homes.

ANP spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said "Israel's decision to destroy the proximity talks, announced on Monday by U.S. mediator George Mitchell.

"The decision to build in East Jerusalem means that U.S. efforts have failed even before the start of negotiations," said Rudeina, reported AFP.

Palestinians on Sunday agreed to pursue for a limited period of four months indirect discussions with Israel brokered by George Mitchell.

Occupied Territory

The status of Jerusalem, home to some 450,000 Jews and 230,000 Palestinians, is one of the crucial aspects of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel considers Jerusalem as its capital "eternal and indivisible" and the Palestinians claim the eastern sector of the Arab-majority city, as the capital of their future state.

The international community includes East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967 after the Six Day War, as an occupied territory, as housing is illegal.

Prior to that time the Israeli government's decision to allow the expansion of the settlement of Ramat Shlomo, Joe Biden had met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden said after the meeting that a "real opportunity" for peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

The Vice President welcomed the fact that the two parties have agreed to conduct proximity talks and said his country will support those "who take risks for peace".

He said the proximity talks expected to lead to direct talks, through which one can "achieve a two state solution."

In a joint conference with Netanyahu, Biden also said Washington is absolutely committed to Israel's security and ready to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Bad timing

As noted by the editor of the News Middle East Jeremy Bowen, Joe Biden's visit comes at a time of apprehension and pessimism about the possibilities that could provide further peace negotiations in the region.

"The fact that the indirect negotiations are presented as an achievement, is a sign of how bad things are," said Bowen.

The Palestinians refuse to hold direct peace talks with Israel until Tel Aviv to halt the building of settlements.

Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Despite the end of last year, Israel announced its intention to freeze for 10 months to build settlements in the West Bank on Monday, coinciding with the arrival of Biden to the region, Israeli authorities gave the green light to the building of 112 new homes in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.

Joe Biden will visit Ramallah on Wednesday for talks with PNA President Mahmoud Abbas, and also travel to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah.

Biden is the highest American authority who is visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories since Barack Obama became president in January 2009.

Additional info: At News Minute by Minute.

U.S. condemned Israeli plans to expand settlements

Earthquake in Chile The aid comes in tons

lindo2000 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:37:00 PST

Mattresses Chinese, French seismographs, water purifiers, Russians, Americans canned foods. On the runway of the Air Force base on the outskirts of Santiago, consignments of humanitarian aid to shape a sort of outdoor bazaar, with goods "made worldwide".

In the Pudahuel, east of the capital, the seat of Group 10 of the Armed Forces (FACH) functions as a repository and distribution of international aid that arrived in Chile to mitigate the devastating earthquake of 8.8 degrees on the Richter scale which occurred ten days ago.

They are staples for the 2 million homeless, according to the authorities, left behind the earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

But there are also medical technology and equipment for rescue and relief groups such as hospitals, electricity generators, satellite phones or mechanical bridges to restore contact with areas that have been isolated.

"From abroad have come here about 200 tons of cargo," he told NoticieroGeneral Carlos Bertens, commander of the Second Air Brigade which is headquartered in Pudahuel.

The military base, installed next to the Santiago International Airport, no rest. And what is handled here is only part of all assistance that comes from outside.

"Chile has received most of 1,135 tons of aid on essential goods from different countries, therefore once again reiterate our infinite gratitude", said Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez.

Study priorities) (

The receipt of international aid began just after the government of President Michelle Bachelet evaluate the order of needs.

"(The aid) corresponded fully with the priorities we set and the list of requests we have made," the minister added Fernandez.

However, many criticized these proceedings as the arrival of foreign assistance took longer than necessary.

Now, the loads are shipped mostly to the areas most affected, particularly the southern Maule and Bío Bío.

Ten days after the natural disaster, the entry of cargo aircraft is ongoing. The purr of the engines at the track stuns Pudahuel military and volunteers, but nobody seems to care.

In recent days, a thousand staff working in the base-joined 250 other civilians, police, volunteers and Scouts-Armed Forces working in "unbind" shipments, separating the boxes are grouped on palettes of wood.

Then classify merchandise, which will be released according to priorities established by the Ministries of Health and Interior.

"We brought about 300 rolls of plastic emergency shelters, for example, that are specially designed to replace damaged walls or ceilings and can last up to one year, which is important now that winter comes," he noted to a spokesman for BBC World U.S. embassy in Chile. The boxes marked "U.S. Aid, from the American People" (U.S. Aid, the American people) are stacked on the campus military aircraft downloaded from the north country and ready to be forwarded to the South.

But also collaborating countries provide vital transportation services. This has established an "air bridge" between Pudahuel and other military bases in central and southern, covered by planes of different flag.

Two U.S. C-130 Hercules, for instance, came loaded with water and satellite phones, and they were: fly to the pair of planes fetching and carrying Chilean people and goods.

Regional solidarity ()

According Bertens, the 70 flights that landed in recent days came mostly from countries in the region.

"We would highlight the impressive Latin American collaboration, commitment, including developing countries that have a lower than Chile, and Bolivia, which has provided three planes with drinking water," said the chancellor.

Neighboring Peru was among the first to get assistance, while Colombia and Ecuador have two separate aircraft parked in Pudahuel to serve in the airlift.

From Argentina reached a field hospital, one of the 12 that are in operation, with a staff of 50 professionals, and ten thousand doses of vaccine against hepatitis A. Noticiero has learned, Argentina's Foreign Ministry has planned 8 flights, including newly arrived 3.

Also Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Uruguay and other Latin Americans added their quota.

"Each country sends things by their means, because we could not take care of the logistics. And come even from distant places like Russia, China and Qatar, some of the armed forces and others as commercial flights," he noted Bertens.

Two or three weeks, at least, will bustle in Pudahuel: this is the time that the military authorities estimate will receive all that the world has to send to assist earthquake victims in Chile.

Additional info: @ Noticias Minuto a Minuto.

Brazil announced in Geneva investigation against dictatorship

Kathryn Bigelow makes history on film

lindo2000 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:26:06 PST

She made history by becoming the first woman to win the Oscar for best director in the 82 years they have been giving these awards.

"It's the most important moment of my life," said Kathryn Bigelow, whose film "The Hurt Locker" ( "In Hostile Land") was raised with six statues of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Full list of winners click

The reporter (J) said that the success of Bigelow means a radical change of fortune since his previous films had gone completely unnoticed by the academy.

But Bigelow decided to gamble in style with "The Hurt Locker", a film partially funded convinced herself that no major studio would allow him the creative freedom she needed, adds Savage.

The result was that the film took awards for best editing, original screenplay, sound editing and sound mixing defeating the giant blockbuster "Avatar," director James Cameron, Bigelow's former husband, who left with just three: photography, visual effects and art direction.

click on "the best party of the city

Some have described the contest between Bigelow and Cameron as a clash of the titans as the tapes of both competing for nine awards, but the same director had said he only wanted the best picture and give him his ex-wife the best director .

Bigelow made the film, a war drama set in Iraq, with a cast of unknowns "for the audience not imagine which of the three main characters would die based on the reputation" of the actors.

And instead of deciding to shoot in the Arizona desert, the filmmaker chose to Jordan, despite having to work at temperatures up to 46 degrees Celsius.

The result won over the critics for the "sharpness convincing action sequences" and "deep study of heroism", but many criticized the decision of the director not to assume ideological point of view regarding the war Iraq, as noted by Mark Savage.

According to the filmmaker, one of his intentions was to recreate the drama of the soldiers in a war, something that in their opinion, the U.S. media fails to reflect.

Kathryn Bigelow was born in 1951 in San Carlos, California. His father ran a paint factory and his mother was a librarian.

The director is described as a shy girl who poured all their anxieties in artistic creation, especially in the arts. "Painting is a bit elitist, while the film crosses cultures and classes," he said.

In adolescence Bigelow attended the Art Institute of San Francisco and received classes on film critic Susan Sontag at Columbia University in New York.

And, says Savage, the composition of the scenes in his movies, you can see their training as a painter.

His films, full of action, reflect the life of a person who likes action, who has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and scuba diving.

He has made films about vampires Near dark (When darkness falls, 1987), the Cold War K-19 The Widowmaker (K-19, 2002) and thrillers like Strange Days (Strange Days, 1995).

Before Bigelow only three women were nominated for an Oscar for Best Director: Lina Wertmuller for "Pasqualino Seven Beauties" in 1977 and Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993, and Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation" in 2003.

But despite its current position in the history of the Oscars, Bigelow did not yield to the feminist label, says Mark Savage.

"I love strong women," she said in an interview. "However, just as men inspire me."

China slows military spending surge and...

Chileans experienced they worst week

lindo2000 — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:06:57 PST

Santiago de Chile, Mar 6 (Prensa Latina) Chilean live out its worst week after suffering the biggest earthquake in its history, and time-past the initial emergency-will face the enormous challenge of recovery and reconstruction.

From the nearby port of Valparaiso to Conception, the second largest city, located 500 kilometers south of Santiago, the quake triggered massive landslides, panic, injuries and a still-undetermined number of dead and missing.

The government set up the date, in 452 fatal victims identified by the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis. Physical damage to the country are estimated at 30 billion dollars.

Approximately 50 percent of Chileans live in the devastated areas, declared state of emergency and disaster by President Michelle Bachelet, a measure authorizing military presence-security tasks, including curfew and distribution of assistance.

Towards the end of the week, improved land connectivity of this long and narrow country, increased aid to more isolated places, consisting of clean water, food, blankets, tents and other items to those who had lost not only family but also their homes , goods, ie, everything.

In many areas still lack electricity, water and fuel. The telephone-including mobile-phone interruptions suffered and suffered. In Chile, all these basic services are run by private companies.

All television reporters deployed into the country to show the devastating effects of the earthquake, its aftershocks and many of the tsunamis that swept through fishing villages.

Perhaps unintentionally, in rare scenes also revealed the degree of insecurity in many Chileans living inside the country before the disaster.

A few days after the earthquake, many countries responded to the call for assistance from the government and sent and installed field hospitals, generators, water purification, satellite phones and money, support, culminating this weekend with the presence of Secretary General UN, Ban Ki-moon, who liberated 10 million dollars to Chile.

This first week, Chileans sought to resolve their most pressing needs, but also wondered how the national recovery face the future government of Sebastián Piñera, who will take the next March 11.

Bachelet spoke in the palace of La Moneda Pinera, in a meeting prompted by the need to transfer relevant information about the earthquake.

After two hours of conversation, said that political differences are now moving a second, third or fourth level, the challenge of rebuilding the country and added that "guaranteed the continuity of government action in areas hardest hit.

"My government will meet its obligations until the last day, but also do everything in their power to facilitate the installation of the new authorities, because I think all of Chile believes that time is unity, solidarity and generosity, "he added.

Additional info: At Noticias Minuto a Minuto.

The extreme right gaining ground in the Netherlands

Gay sex scandal in the Vatican

lindo2000 — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:02:38 PST

Two employees of the Vatican were removed from their posts after being involved in a homosexual prostitution ring, in what constitutes a new scandal that splashes to the Holy See.

An aide to Pope Benedict XVI and a member of a choir of the Basilica of St. Peter were expelled from their posts after their names appeared on transcripts of telephone conversations intercepted by police, who in turn were published by an Italian newspaper.

A Vatican spokesman told the BBC that the Pope is informed of the case.

"The Vatican's gay sex scandal, as some newspapers call it, captures headlines in Italy," the BBC correspondent in Rome, Duncan Kennedy.

"According to reports, Thomas Ehiem-a showgirl Vatican aged 29, allegedly would have been an intermediary who then sought out young men who would argue with Angelo Balducci homosexual encounters," said our correspondent.

According to Kennedy, Balducci is a 'Gentleman of His Holiness', ie, a close aide to the pope when he meets with important visitors.
Dialogues

The conversations leaked to the press include a dialogue between the two men.

The transcripts suggest that Ehiem got at least ten contacts to Balducci, including several models and a rugby player.

Duncan Kennedy BBC correspondent in Rome

"In one call, Balducci Ehiem asks if he has' spoken to the seminary." Meanwhile, Ehiem replied: 'Perhaps you are at Mass,' "said Kennedy.

"In another conversation, another man Ehiem described as" 2 meters, 97 kilos, is 33 years old and fully active '. "

"The transcripts suggest that Ehiem got at least ten contacts to Balducci, including several models and a rugby player," said Kennedy.

According to police, the telephone interceptions Balducci were carried out in connection with another separate investigation and not linked to the Vatican "on corruption, our correspondent said.

It is understood that Ethiem sang against Pope Benedict XVI at Christmas as part of its obligations in the Vatican choir.

Balducci's role as a Gentleman of His Holiness includes assisting in the events where heads of state are involved and carry the coffin at the papal funeral, Kennedy concluded.

Additional info: At News Minute by Minute.

The other war

lindo2000 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:31:48 PST

Havana (Noticiero) As elusive ghost, citadina violence causes more deaths today in the world to the unjust wars of the present and creates a particularly serious situation in Latin America.

According to a forum held in Lima, Peru, on 9 February, one of the main bases of the phenomenon in this region is that much of "the poorest quintile among young people" (according to Wikipedia, the fifth of a statistical population sorted from lowest to highest) is not economically active or study, especially in the female gender. "

Antonio Prado, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said here that only 32.4 percent of young women, with up to three years of school, have jobs, a percentage that rises to 53 between those who complete primary and secondary.

It also found that "the consequences of a weak labor market insertion of young people are multiple, including low income, another of the many expressions of inequality.

All of the above "perpetuates inequality and intergenerational transmission of poverty", the "misuse of resources invested in education and social disintegration," he added.

Because "education influences the future employability of young people", ECLAC recommends investing in it and in job training.

This will limit the negative effects that are in sight as possible, but both qualitative political changes are required.

The Latin American Information Agency recently embodied the concern that "the specter of violence plaguing Latin America," without a "country or social gap that is safe," so that there seems no place of refuge.

"Even after the walls of the sacred home", he added, "grows the aggression against the weak, children, or on the elderly and women."

Roberto Briceño León, in Sociology of violence in Latin America, defines it as "meet death at the corner of the house", but also can be added inside.

In his work, published in 2007 by headquarters Ecuador, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Briceño notes that the unemployment rate for young Latin Americans in 2003 was 15.7 percent, more than double that among adults, those affected at 6.7 percent.

But in 2009 unemployment was 8.3 percent regionally, on average, and continued to weigh, the more weight on youth and women, a population factor of national life in each country.

Statistics cited by the author reveal that in the world at the beginning of the decade, 565 were killed every day young people aged between 10 and 29 years for a murder rate of 9.2 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2002 occurred about 520 thousand homicides globally each year to a rate of 8.8 murders per 100 thousand inhabitants.

In contrast, only produced about 310 thousand victims in military actions, which represented 5.2 per every 100 thousand inhabitants.

Europe had the lowest homicide statistics, with one per 100 thousand, followed by America with 11, Africa and Latin America with 17.6 to 34.6, scene of the biggest problem.

The WHO estimated as higher global rates in 2002 the Latin American countries like Colombia with 84.4, El Salvador with 50.2, 32.5 Brazil and Mexico with 15.3.

Around the same time, the Inter-American Development Bank considered that 28.7 percent of all homicides in Latin America then as victims were young people aged 10 and 19 years, a reality that gets worse instead of better.

Briceño notes, meanwhile, that one of the major sources of violence is based on the "inability to match the prescribed roles" for that age group, especially at the beginning of adolescence.

The author adds that in Latin America had at the beginning of the decade about 58 million poor youth, of which 21 million were in extreme poverty, with higher incidence among women, leading to a deteriorating reality.

With regard to violence, believes that "men exercise it and suffer" more in a world where the homicide rate, according to WHO, is among them, 19 per 100 thousand inhabitants and only four per 100 thousand among women.

During 2002, the American men had 12 times more likely than women to die murdered in Colombia, El Salvador and Venezuela, 11 in Ecuador, 10 in Brazil and six in Costa Rica.

Among the reasons are listed as aggravated trafficking in drugs, alcohol and possession of firearms, which facilitates and lethality caused annually in 2004, over 200 thousand deaths in these media "in no event warfare "and 300 thousand in the unjust wars.

Weapons produced by "more than a thousand companies in 98 countries around the world," even contribute to Latin America with the highest number of homicides for this cause and show a rate three times that of Africa, five times that of North America or Central Europe and east, and is 48 times larger than Western Europe.

Equally, femicide, trafficking and trafficking of women reflect a trend that the Central American Integration System and the Spanish Cooperation Agency in Madrid considered with "category epidemic in Central America.

Throughout the area, the number of such deaths doubled between 2003 and 2009 with over five thousand murders in Guatemala, in this case since 2000 - followed by Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

While the female leads in the insignificant figures, adds instead a growing number of victims, high at 160 per cent between 2003 and 2007, whereas for males then increased only at 50 percent.

It is considered that this is enhanced by "the use of firearms, trafficking and trafficking in women - with" primarily for sexual exploitation - and the coexistence of "sale of children born in the context of trafficking ".

On February 16, news media reported from Mexico, Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, was declared "disaster area" because "terror seized" of everyday life.

The state Congress chief, Maria Avila Serna, said there that "the stories are frightening," because "there are families who no longer even go to restaurants, for fear that drug traffickers they pulled off their daughters, if they like , although they are minors.

Given this, then developed military Coordinated Operation Chihuahua, whose scheme was based on "territorial control" and actions against vehicles without license plates or that the Americans had, and in bars, taverns and brothels.

A report by the Woodrow Wilson International Center reflects that the Secretary General of the Organization of American States Jose Miguel Insulza, recently revealed that this region, with only eight percent of the world population in 2009 was 40 per cent of firearm homicides and 66 percent of kidnappings in the world.

It recognized that the homicide rate in Latin America and the Caribbean twice in the present world average, although in some countries quintupled.

In this regard he added that organized crime, drug trafficking and other evils have a transnational, with increasing magnitude across the continent and manifestations as actual drug trafficking, kidnapping, weapons proliferation and human trafficking.

This comes as a progressive state, since when poverty began to deepen regional urban macrocephaly in the second half of the twentieth century.

While it is argued that life expectancy tended to rise from 50 to 70 years, it is also true that a generation of parents migrating to cities in search of a better future which then caused the explosion in the hills Caracas, violence in the favelas of Rio and, finally, the fight for survival in Latin American cities.

In 1950, only 41 percent of Latin America's population lived in cities, but in 2000 the percentage had risen to 75, almost twice statistically.

But this was not a reflection only of migration, but also a growing urban population was 69 million at mid-century in Latin America and the Caribbean 391 million in 2000, an increase of 332 million city dwellers.

By then the region was barely between 161 and 175 million people, but now exceeds 550 million and, according to projections, will rise to 695 million by 2025 and 794 million in 2050, alarming expectation if not modified expansion violence.

In this context, WHO considers that the murders are, without doubt, a serious public health problem, with an even greater dimension than wars.

Not always recognized, however, affect how the deficiencies in the population statistics of violence in Latin America the most unequal region in the world.

In 2009, ECLAC reported that regional poverty increased by 1.1 percent and extreme poverty by 0.8 in relation to 2008 and that, as a result, the poor rose from 180 to 189 million (34.1 percent of the population) and the indigent from 71 to 76 million (13.7 percent), to roll back even very insufficient progress achieved between 2002 and 2007.

Again increasing insecurity and crisis adds to population growth, urban concentration in the last 60 years, the economic and social inequality correlated, and a silent war, as reflected in statistics, triggered by poverty.

Additional info: At Noticias Minuto a Minuto.

Guatemala another police chief arrested
Laters News World Wide

Brown "was right" to go to war in Iraq

lindo2000 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:32:02 PST

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has defended the decision to London to go to war in Iraq in 2003, to appear before the independent commission investigating the UK's role in that conflict.

In his speech, Brown-who was then finance minister in Tony Blair's Labor government, "said the latter always provided all relevant information and to go to war" was the right decision for the right reasons. "

He said "nobody wants war, nobody wants to see innocent people die, nobody wants that soldiers risk their lives."

Brown added to the Committee call Chilcott: "Nobody makes a decision and if not the most serious of circumstances and with complete confidence that this is the right decision."

He further explained that "we support the invasion in the last minute when we realized that there was no diplomatic option. He had reached a point where we felt that the sanctions of the international community would not work."

In his words, "I have never been denied information, but my role was not to intervene" but to ensure that the government "to arrange for all necessary resources" to finance the participation in the war.

Brown has been censored for not having sufficient funding for the armed forces, according to his critics.

For this reason, many soldiers have gone into battle with inadequate equipment.

But the prime minister insisted that "we did a good job on the costs" of war.

"The Ministry (of Finance) would not interfere in any military decisions that had just been done and we would not put any economic barrier," he said.

Additional info: @ News Minute by Minute.

Brazil announced in Geneva investigation against dictatorship
Earthquake in Chile leaves over 700 dead

Number of NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan during 2010 reached to 111

lindo2000 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:18:34 PST

A soldier of the Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was killed by a homemade bomb on Thursday in southern Afghanistan and another in a traffic accident, the agency announced Friday, two low that they get to 111 the number of military foreigners who have died since the beginning of the year in the Central Asian country.

The year 2009 had already been, from far away with 519 dead, the deadliest in eight years of war and the balance, after just over two months, announcing a 2010 even worse.

"A soldier of the ISAF International Security Assistance Force (ISAF, for its acronym in English) NATO was killed by an improvised explosive device in the south" on Thursday, said a statement from ISAF. Another "died in a car accident" also in the south, the same day, "it said.

NATO will never reveal the identities or nationalities of soldiers killed, leaving what do the countries of origin of the military.

Extra info:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; pronounced /?ne?to?/, NAY-toe); French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called "the (North) Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium,[3] and the organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.

Additional info: At News Minute by Minute.

Microsoft offers more browsers, but...
Security Council divided on new sanctions on Iran

Security Council divided on new sanctions on Iran

lindo2000 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:42:18 PST

United Nations, March 4 (News) Russia and China today defended the continuation of the path of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, against the imposition of new sanctions promoted by the United States, France and the UK.

These positions were set Thursday during a meeting of the Security Council, that committee heard a report from United Nations sanctions.

During the debate on China's Alternate Representative to the UN, Liu Zhenmin, said there is still room for further diplomatic action with Iran and that the doors are still open dialogue.

Similarly, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Chirkin, also said there is still continuing discussions horizon in search of a deal.

Meanwhile, the U.S. permanent representative, Susan Rice and the UK, Mark Grant, and the alternate of France, Nicolas de Riviere, insisted on applying new sanctions on Iran.

These three countries have recently Russia and China delivered a proposal for another round of penalties against Tehran for continuing to pursue its peaceful nuclear program, as defined by the Iranian government.

The report presented to the Security Council by the holder of the sanctions committee, the Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, cites several alleged violations by Iran with regard to penalties imposed previously.

The series of punishments meted out to the country so far include a ban on arms exports and trade in materials, equipment, goods and technology related to uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons development.

They also include the freezing of assets, inspection of ships suspected of carrying any of the prohibited items and the strengthening of surveillance on Iranian financial institutions, among other restrictions.

Additional info: At Noticias Minuto a Minuto.

China slows military spending surge and...
Security Council divided on new sanctions on Iran

The extreme right gaining ground in the Netherlands

lindo2000 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:18:12 PST

Preliminary results in municipal elections in the Netherlands show that an anti-Islamic party gained ground and could jeopardize the general elections scheduled for June.

The Party for Freedom (PVV, for short Dutchman) led by Geert Wilders is opposed to what he calls the "Islamization" of the country.

General elections were called following the collapse of the Netherlands government in a dispute over the deployment of troops in Afghanistan.

Last year, the Freedom Party was placed as the second political force in elections to the European parliament.

Wilders positions are seen in many circles as extremist and xenophobic. He became known outside the borders of his country with a controversial short film entitled Fitna (a Koranic term can be translated as chaos or conflict), which shows scenes of the attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States and of the Madrid attacks in March 2004 and London in July 2005.

The video, which shows a graph of the growing number of Muslims in the Netherlands and Europe, concludes with the message: "Stop Islamization.'s Defend our freedoms."

The UK had banned the entry of Wilders in the country.

Additional info: At Noticias Minuto a Minuto.

Earthquake in Chile Curico the city that was organized to avoid chaos