Monday, May 23, 2005
Lake disappears, baffling villagers
NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.
"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.
Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.
"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Brazil police confiscate guns from Iraqis at summit
A federal police spokesman said the security agents did not have permission from Brazilian authorities to carry the Glock 9 mm guns. The agents were accompanying
Iraq's new president, Jalal Talabani, who is making his first trip abroad to attend the summit of 12 South American and 22 Arab leaders.
The Iraqis will ask the Foreign Ministry for the return of the guns, the spokesman added.
Thousands of troops are guarding the streets of the Brazilian capital in the biggest show of armed force since the end of military rule in 1985.
Security chief General Jorge Armando Felix said the Iraqi and Palestinian delegations would however receive special treatment because of the possibility of an attack against them.
"Terrorism is part of our worry. For our security plan, we are working on the possibility of this type of action," he said.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Call to give 16-year-olds the vote
Wednesday May 4, 2005
The voting age should be lowered to 16 by the next general election to prevent young people from becoming further alienated from politics, a coalition of child rights and electoral reform campaigners said today.
The coalition, which includes the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), the Electoral Reform Society, the British Youth Council and the National Union of Students, has written to the leaders of the three main parties calling on them to enfranchise Britain's 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds.
The Votes at 16 coalition says if 16 and 17-year-olds are able to leave home, get a full-time job, pay taxes, raise children and join the armed forces they should also be able to vote.
Louise King, policy officer at the CRAE, said: "At 16 and 17, young people's lives are as rich and varied as at any other age.
"They have considerable responsibilities and routinely make complex decisions but adult society does not consider them responsible enough to vote. This is both illogical and unjust."
The campaigners contend that swelling the number of young voters would force politicians to take their views more seriously.
So far only the Liberal Democrats have committed in their manifesto to reducing the voting age to 16. The party's spokesman for young people, Matthew Green, said: "We believe that involving young people earlier in the political process will lead to a lifetime of interest and activism.
"Sixteen is the age when they are given many other responsibilities of citizenship such as beginning full-time work and paying taxes."
Damilola Ajagbonna, 17, of the CRAE, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's the old revolutionaries' cry, 'no taxation without representation'. If we're not allowed to vote to decide who lowers or raises the tax, then why should we be taxed."
Mr Ajagbonna believes that lowering the voting age would also help to prevent the disillusionment with politics that an estimated two-thirds of first-time voters say has put them off voting in the current election.
He said: "To a certain degree that's partly the reason why we want to lower the voting age. Because politics is seen as this obsolete thing over there. It's them and us."
Mr Ajagbonna, who wants to be an MP, rejected claims that young people lacked sufficient knowledge and experience to vote wisely. He said the introduction of compulsory citizenship education into schools had raised the awareness of what it meant to be a good citizen.
The voting age has been reduced to 16 years in eight countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Philippines, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia.(very interesting issue if you take into consideration that in Brazil the age was reduced some time ago and now we can clearly see the results. If you had the opportunity to give advice on this matter, what would you say?) LEO COSTA
Monday, May 02, 2005
The gang!!
