Somali pirates free British couple

British Couple Released from Somali Pirates, Gian Sexsmith

British Couple Released from Somali Pirates, Gian Sexsmith

Rachel and Paul Chandler describe their awful beating from Somali pirates. This British couple spent close too 400 days held hostage in Somalia. Paul and Rachel chandler are both experienced sailors and were sailing from the Seychelles towards Tanzania as part of a longer sailing excursion.  This British couple was taken right off their yacht in October 2009, The pirates were trying to separate the couple but Paul and Rachel refused to be separated and were viciously abused. As said in BBC Mr. Chandler, 60 , said “ they had been driven across Somalia, then were left locked in a car to sleep over night. Just after dawn, about 7 o'clock, we were asked to leave and join our rescuer. It was hard to have any feelings really, almost disbelief, it was too good to be true,"

            The couple was held in very unpleasant conditions and dreadful heat in Somalia for thirteen months. When they were rescued they were “rather skinny and bony” as said by Mr. Chandler. They were taken to the British High Commission in Nairobi where they had received medical check- ups. The couple said that the worst time was when they had to abandon their boat and were taken on board the container ship. Rachel and Paul had not had any communication with the outside world since the middle of June.

            The couple did not release any information in the UK, except a statement saying "The family believes it would be irresponsible to discuss any aspect of the release process as this could encourage others to capture private individuals and demand large ransom payments, something that we are sure none of us wants." This couple has been through what you would see in a Hollywood movie and something that you would never expect to happen. Ending their horrifying journey safe at home but with the loss of their yacht.

Nuclear Waste Makes it to Germany, By Gian Sexsmith

Nuclear Waste Makes it to Germany, By Gian Sexsmith                        

Germany has kept nuclear waste in the city of Gorleben for the past three decades. The past three decades protesters have tried to block transport of that waste. Some protesters have chained themselves to railroad tracks and blowing whistles. Officials said that this year is by far the largest group of protesters. The reason for the massive group of protesters is because the government has made the decision to make their seventeen nuclear plants keep going for another twelve years even though they were supposed to be shut down by 2020.

There were three days of protests that sometimes resulted with violent interactions with cops. The train that was being protested was carrying 123 tons of nuclear waste eventually arrived in Germany on Monday. The nuclear waste was reprocessed in France and was transferred to trucks that knew they were going to run into a final group of protesters. On Monday 4,000 protesters caused a twelve-hour delay by blocking the tracks not letting the train make its way to Dannenberg. Local farmers were using everything they could to try and block the roads, they were using sheep, goats and tractors. In the last three days 1,000 protesters have been arrested.

The reasoning for chancellor Angela Merkel and her associates to extend the nations nuclear plants was because it was necessary to preserve access to cheap energy as part of a comprehensive energy policy that included developing renewable resources.

In conclusion the government really wants to keep the nuclear power plants up and running and were willing to send out 20,000 police officers to make sure it gets done. They spent about $70 million on making sure everything happened according to plan. Even with all of that the protesters still managed to delay and delay the arrival of the nuclear waste. They did all they could to not let the nuclear waste make it to its final destination but it wasn’t enough.

The end of the Protests, By Gian Sexsmith

The end of the Protests, By Gian Sexsmith

After weeks of strikes, school protests, blockades, gas shortages and some violence France has begun to get back on track. The pension has passed raising the legal minimum retirement age from sixty to sixty- two. This should become a law by mid November.

France is picking up its streets from all the trash left and businesses now counting the cost of all the strikes. What has France learned? That strikes do not do the same damage as they used to. This is because now with people striking it doesn’t cause people to not get to work and people who do strike are no longer paid. This being the case, local bosses have turned to other ways to disrupt and stop people getting to work. They have turned too blockades on oil depots or getting a blockade of cars to go slow on the highways.   

“As said in the economist, In 1995 the government backed down because unions were able to cripple the country with public-transport strikes.” Now Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t back down to the strikes and kept the retirement age the same. Nicolas Sarkozy took a bet that there was more people striking that would accept the change, once the pension was passed and stop protesting even though they said they wouldn’t accept it.

Now with the strikes over France has the chance to go back to everything being normal and everything running smoothly again. Gas stations open, kids back in school, there wont be over a million people in the streets protesting and even flight will be landing on time and not getting cancelled. 

France Passes Pension Bill, By Gian Sexsmith

 France Passes Pension Bill, By Gian Sexsmith

France has finally come to a conclusion and passed the pension bill. On Tuesday, the French Senate passed the final draft making the minimum age for a pension from 60 to 62 and now a full pension from 65 to 67. The Pension was passed from a vote of one hundred and seventy seven to one hundred and fifty one.  

The bill is expected to become a law in November and be brought into full effect by July of next year. One of the main exceptions of the law says there will be a new debate on a more comprehensive review of Frances pension system after the next presidential elections. This is because right now Nicolas Sarkozy has most of the National Assembly on his side and that is who is passing the pension bill.

With all the Union striking and all the walkouts from oil refineries and airports it has really hurt  Frances economy but now most have stopped last Tuesday morning. France lost so much imported fuel in the past few weeks; France has been importing fuel at four times the rate to help re-supply their gas stations.  Train services are working back to normal and the garbage men returned to work. The garbage men were on strike for two weeks and now are forced to clean up 10,000 tons of garbage that has been left unattended. 

 The unions are talking about having more national strikes on Thursday and one more on November 6^th. The government isn’t worried about it because once the National Assembly passes its final vote, they think the demonstrations will keep lessening.  

In conclusion France has finally made a decision. Hopefully causing everything to go back to normal for Frances economy. People will be getting back to work and quit striking or at least until next year president elections in 2013. Where the Pension Bill will be revised again. 

OIL STRIKE IN FRANCE 10-18-10

French Strikers still going at it but even more intense, Gian Sexsmith

            French Strikers still going at it but even more intense, Gian Sexsmith

France last week was experiencing its biggest strike yet at three hundred thousand people and was its third strike. This week Frances turnout on its sixth strike was over one million people. They are still striking because of Frances president Sarkozy is trying to raise the government pension reforms. These strikes have affected Frances fuel supplies, public transportation and its education.

Frances fuel economy is being affected because right now there are over 4,000 gas stations with out any fuel. In France there are only 13,000 gas stations and if 4,000 of them have no fuel, that is about 1/3 of Frances gas stations.

Frances public transportation is being hit hard half of Paris’s Orly airport were cancelled because of a walk out by air traffic controllers. Frances train services were very over crowded because only half of the services were running.

The education system was affected with 379 secondary schools were being blockaded with people or had some sort of disruption. In some areas schools were rioting throwing stones at police officers, which they responded back with tear gas.

Overall Sarkozy is going to have to do something to take control back of his country. His popularity has been decreasing since 2007 as shown in the graph. As said from BBC, “One poll for BVA conducted on 15 and 16 October suggested his approval rating was down to 30%, the lowest for three years.” Otherwise France is going to be suffering for a while.

France hit by third national strike this month,the biggest so far.

Frances Biggest Strike Yet

Frances Biggest Strike Yet, Gian Sexsmith

            France is currently experiencing huge union strikes, with some workers off the job for more than fifteen days already.  Many of these workers are striking because they are trying to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. The people of France are striking because of the government pension reforms; this is going to be the third strike in one month for France. These are the biggest strikes that have happened “Police say Tuesday's protests in Paris are the biggest so far, estimating a turnout of 330,000.” According to the BBC.. Due to all the different jobs that are striking it is causing complete chaos for France.  Airline flights are being cancelled; one out of three are being cancelled from the Charles de Gaulle Airport. In Paris the Eifel Tower was shut down because there weren’t enough staff to operate it. The French oil industry is taking huge blows with, “Workers at the Fos-Lavera oil port in southern France are striking for a 15th day, forcing up diesel prices in Europe. Diesel supplies have run out on Corsica”. According to the BBC There are 56 petrol tankers and 29 cargo ships stranded outside Fos- Lavera port. A cement worker in the central town of Angouleme told some French press "I'm prepared to extend the strike. I started working at 17 and now I'm 50 and I'm starting to get really fed up with it." According to the BBC. People are not ok with the pension reforms and are going to continue to strike until they are revoked.

Wind Farms in the UK

Wind Farms in the UK, Gian Sexsmith

Off the coast of southeast England there is a wind farm that has just opened to help with the use  of renewable energy to power homes. With not only the U.S trying to go "green" Britain is also fighting for finding alternative energy resources. With a deadline of 2020 coming closer and closer to having 15% of its power be from renewable energy sources, where right now its only at 3%.  The opening of this wind farm is one step closer to reaching their goal. Although there are many people who are in favor of this concept of putting as many wind farms that will fit too use the energy created from the farm. There are just as many people who are against the idea. People who live on the beach of where this wind farm just opened complain about the view it gives them now. Even though their view is not as important as global warming and finding alternative energy sources, it is something people complain about. One man, Mr. Wellington lives in Norfolk, England protested and dressed up as a rare pink footed goose because he is concerned with opening more and more of these farms it is going to end in the result of extinction of that species. There are only 250,000 more pink-footed geese and he doesn’t want to keep putting indents on the species population. Even though people are protesting the government is still pushing forward trying to meet the deadline. Off the southeast shore of England the largest off shore wind farm operated by a company called Vattenfall. This new wind farm can operate alone 200,000 homes just off of the energy it produces.  Britain now has 268 wind farms and are trying to think of new ways besides wind farms to produce alternative energy.  They are talking about hydropower generators and how they could produce way more energy than wind farms. They would produce more energy because wind is inconsistent change of wind direction and how hard it can be blowing. That hydropower could be a better approach.

Can Greeks be Trusted

                               

              Can Greeks be Trusted, Gian Sexsmith

    After reading the Vanity Fair Magazine article “Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds” it really puts into perspective how bad and dishonest the Greeks’ government system is. They think, if you can get away without paying taxes then you’re already doing it. The amount of people that can get away with it was unbelievable.  One of the quotes from the article says, “The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes… because no one is ever punished, it’s like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady.” As it’s said an estimated two- thirds of Greek doctors reported incomes under 12,000 dollars a year. The reason these doctors are saying they get paid so little is because an amount that low was not taxable. This is including doctors such as plastic surgeons who make millions of dollars not having to pay anything. One of the reasons that so many people do it and can get away with it is because the people who would be prosecuting them are doing it too, but that it can take up to 15 years to resolve tax cases in Greece. Greece’s new minister, Minister Papaconstantinou came to Greece last October. When he first got there the government estimated their budget deficit at 3.7 %. Later when he had the numbers revised the real numbers came out and were closer to 14%.  After this all came out the “Ministry of Agriculture had created an off- the books unit employing 270 people to digitize the photographs of Greek public lands.” At the end of the discovery it was said that the there was only going to be a 7 billion euro deficit but in actuality it was more than 30 billion Euros. How could have this happened and no one of known about it till know?  Now the question is if Greece is going to default on their debts. They would have to walk away from a 400 billion euro debt, or try and pay back the banks and countries that lent them the money. If not it could really hurt the other countries and could start the bankruptcy of the other countries.

The Popes Visit to the UK

                                                     The Popes Visit to the UK, Gian Sexsmith
Last week Pope Benedict XVI took a four day trip to the United Kingdom. It was the Vatican’s first ever, state visit to Britain. He went to the UK to talk about the Roman Catholic churches sex abuse scandal that has been going on. During his time in Birmingham it happened to be the weekend of the 70^th anniversary of the battle of Britain. The battle of Britain was when the Nazi’s bombed England. Pope Benedict XVI said “For me, as one who has lived and suffered through the dark days of the Nazi regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be here with you on this occasion, and to recall how many of your fellow citizens sacrificed their lives, courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology,” (http://www.nytimes.com).  There were tens of thousands of people gathered to see the pope and him driving around in the popemobile. Surprisingly many of them were there to protest against the pope and did not want him around because of the child sex abuse crisis. During the popes four-day stay in the UK he had brought up the child sex abuse crisis three out of the four days. The last time was on the last day with the Roman Catholic Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales where he said it “Undermines the moral credibility of church leaders”. (http://www.nytimes.com). He also talked about how he acknowledged that the church failed to act quickly enough to deal with the child rape and the molestations by priests. He than stated, "It's difficult to understand how a man who has said this could then fall into this perversion. It's a great sadness," Benedict said. (www.npr.org).  In Belgium over 13 people have committed suicide because of what has happened to them with priests and hundreds have said they have either been raped or molested. All in all the pope said that it was a historical trip and was glad he made it. 

Greeces Financial Crisis

                     
                                        Greeces Financial Crisis, Gian Sexsmith

The U.S has been going through an economic crisis for a long time now and it’s not only happening in the U.S. Like the rest of the world Greece has been experiencing an intense economic crisis. Greece has been struggling economically since the beginning of summer. Prime Minster George Papandreou said  “The major task of reforming Greece has just begun,”. The Economist.com.  In may Greece received a 140 million dollar rescue package from the UN and the IMF (International Monetary Fund).  Now in Greece “New statistics show that one in three Greeks younger than 24 is unemployed.” The economist.com. There is said to be over 200,000 new jobs being created to help out Greece’s unemployed. The new jobs will have to do with new wind farms and solar plants. The countries current debt is €300 billion while the countries GDP is only at €250,000. On Sunday Mr. Papandreou was criticized and was told that his ambitions were weak and incomplete. On September 8^th Greeces economy shrank by 1.8 %. As said by an article on BBC “The contraction was worse than expected and compares with the 0.8% shrinkage in the January-to-March period.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/ This caused Greeces citizens to keep protesting and continuing strikes. With the economy so bad it might cause Greece to start borrowing from other countries, which inevitably would put them into further debt because that is just more to pay back. Hopefully soon something will come along to help Greece get out of its deep economic battle.