Enjoy China rails on about Norway and dissident's Nobel

China rails on about Norway and dissident's Nobel


Beijing, China (CNN) -- China on Tuesday stepped up criticism of Norway and the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese dissident.
Liu is serving an 11-year prison term after repeatedly calling for human rights and democratization.
"The Norwegian Nobel committee's decision to give Liu the Nobel Peace Prize will damage bilateral relations. There is reason for every Chinese person to be unhappy," Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a news briefing.
"We already made our position clear. Since reform and opening up, China has made remarkable progress," Ma said. "By giving a convicted person the Nobel Peace Prize, they show no respect for China's judicial system."
"It not only disrespects China, but also reveals their true intentions. If you try to change China's political system from the outside, or if they are trying to stop Chinese people from moving forward, that is obviously making a mistake," he added.
Video: China censors Nobel coverage Video: Wife of Nobel Prize winner detained Video: Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel Peace Prize
Liu was sentenced in 2009 for inciting subversion of state power. He is the co-author of Charter 08, a call for political reform and human rights, and was an adviser to the student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Asked about Liu's wife, Liu Xia, Ma responded: "I do not know who you are talking about. I am not familiar with this person."
Liu Xia remains under house arrest in Beijing and has been banned from talking to friends or media, Liu Xiaobo's lawyer said. She is trying to visit the attorney to discuss an appeal to her husband's sentence.
"She is negotiating with the police on the terms of the visit," Shang Baojun, the lawyer, told CNN. "The issue of an appeal is not if, but when and how."
Shang confirmed that Liu Xia said her husband wanted her to go to Oslo to accept the award in December, but he is not optimistic about the prospect.
"It's way too early to think about her Norway trip, considering she can't even leave her house," he said.
Liu Xia briefly re-gained phone access Tuesday, talking to Shang and several friends, as well as a few media outlets, from a new mobile phone after police broke her old one. The new number has been disconnected again, her friends tweeted Tuesday evening.
Coppied by http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/12/china.nobel.reaction/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Watch Murrumbidgee residents worried about water cuts

Murrumbidgee residents worried about water cuts


ELIZABETH JACKSON: Irrigators along the Murray Darling are reeling after suggestions they could have their water entitlements cut by up to 37 per cent.

Regional communities in the southern end of the Murray Darling Basin are bracing themselves for bad news.

Bronwyn Herbert joins us now from Griffith in south-western New South Wales.

Bronwyn you've been speaking to many farmers there in Griffith. What have they been saying to you about this?

BRONWYN HERBERT: Well I have been speaking with both farmers and the business community over the past couple of days.

And farmers, obviously there's a lot of angst and disappointment particularly with the suggested leaks of there being cuts between 27 to 37 per cent of current water entitlements.

Now small business owners like the newsagent are also reeling because of the flow-on effects to the community and to a town that really does rely on water and agriculture.

Because Griffith is a main city that takes in what's known as the Murrumbidgee irrigation area and this area doesn't have other major industries like a university or a big hospital. So water cuts like it has been suggested would cut very deep in this town.

And irrigators have known for a while that there is pressure on them to reduce their water use. And I spoke with farmer Rob Houghton from the nearby town of Leeton and he acknowledged that for too long there has been too much water taken out.

ROB HOUGHTON: There has been over allocation, that has to be addressed and we are certainly supportive of everyone working together to get a better balance.

But within that mix we need to look at the health of these communities that survive purely because there is water running through the veins of the area.
Coppied by http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s3032888.htm

Woods and former wife break silence about their divorce

Watch Woods and former wife break silence about their divorce

LARA MARLOWE in Washington

TIGER WOODS and his former wife, Elin Nordegren, have broken their silence about their divorce, he in a press conference at a golf tournament in New Jersey, she in an exclusive interview with People magazine.

Ms Nordegren said she has been on an “emotional roller coaster” since the scandal broke last Thanksgiving Day weekend.

“I have been through the stages of disbelief and shock, to anger and ultimately grief over the loss of the family I so badly wanted for my children,” she said in excerpts from the interview released by People before the magazine reaches newsstands tomorrow.

In 19 hours of interviews over four days in Windermere, Florida, where she has rented a home, Nordegren said she had lost weight, could not sleep and her hair fell out due to the stress of the break- up of her six-year marriage to Woods. She said speculation that she attacked Woods with a golf club on the night of the car crash that made the scandal known was truly ridiculous.

The 30-year-old former au pair said she felt stupid as more and more of Woods’s infidelities were revealed. “How could I have not known anything? The word betrayal isn’t strong enough. I felt my whole world had fallen apart.”

At The Barclays in Paramus, New Jersey yesterday, where he practised for the FedEx Cup play- off yesterday, Woods bumped fists with fans and signed autographs. He stopped smiling, however, during a news conference where he again assumed responsibility for the break-up of his marriage.

“My actions certainly led us to this decision and I have made a lot of errors in my life and that is something I’m going to have to live with.”

Woods twice failed to answer when reporters asked whether he still loved his ex-wife.

“I wish her the best in everything. You know, it’s a sad time in our lives and we’re looking forward to [rebuilding] our lives and how we can help our kids the best way we possibly can. And that’s the most important thing.”

Woods now stands 112th on the FedEx Cup points list and must make a decent finish this week if he is to advance to the next stage in the championship.

He acknowledged that his game was affected by the break-up. “At times it was difficult [to focus]. Certainly you try and block it out as best you can and focus on a shot. But at times it certainly was, yes.”

Nordegren is reported to have received between $100 million and $750 million in the still-undisclosed divorce settlement, which became final on Monday.

“She is very unselfconscious about the fact that yes, she is going to be a very wealthy woman,” said Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, the journalist who interviewed Nordegren for People . “It will make it easier for her to get through this, because she can stay home with her children. She doesn’t have to go right out and get a job and she can travel, to take her children back to Sweden.”

Nordegren also said though that “money can’t buy happiness or put my family back together”.

She is studying for a university degree in psychology and says that despite her ex-husband’s infidelity, “I also feel stronger than I ever have. I have confidence in my beliefs, my decisions and myself.”
Coppied by http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0826/1224277610097.html

prevented the rape UN 'was not told about DR Congo mass rapes'

UN 'was not told about DR Congo mass rapes'

UN troops could not have prevented the rape of more than 150 women and boys by rebels in DR Congo because they did not know it was happening, a UN envoy said.

Peacekeepers passed through the area twice but were told only that rebels were setting up road blocks, he said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "outraged" by the attacks and has sent two envoys to investigate.

The UN has called an emergency session of the Security Council to discuss a response to the violence.

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The rapes happened in Luvungi town and surrounding villages, within miles of a UN peacekeeping base, a US aid worker and a Congolese doctor have said.

Some reports say rebels occupied the area and gang-raped nearly 200 women and some baby boys over four days before leaving.

A UN joint human rights team confirmed allegations of the rape of at least 154 women by fighters from the Rwandan FDLR militia and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels in the village of Bunangiri.

But Roger Meece, a UN official in eastern DR Congo, said that while local people had told the UN patrols about roadblocks, they said nothing about the sexual violence. The UN was only told about it 10 days later by an aid group.

Speaking to journalists by video from Goma, Mr Meece said the villagers may have feared reprisals from the rebels or have been ashamed by the cultural stigma of rape.

But the BBC's Barbara Plett at the UN says there was clearly a serious failure in communications, made all the more significant as the peacekeepers work from a small forward operation base established to increase the UN's contact with civilians in the volatile region.

Mr Meece said the UN was now investigating ways of improving communication with local people.

One idea is for villagers to contact the base daily, "with the default being that if the communication is not made, there would be an assumption of a problem and a patrol despatched," he said.

'Must speak out'
DR Congo has a shocking reputation for sexual violence and rape is commonly used as a weapon of war.

Haunted by Congo rape dilemma
But even by normal standards, the latest attacks were particularly vicious, says our correspondent.

Mr Ban said he had met victims of "appalling crimes of sexual violence" in DR Congo last year and felt compelled to ask whether more could have been done to protect the latest victims.

"Women and children should not have to live in fear of rape. Communities should not suffer the indignity of knowing that human rights abusers and war criminals can continue to behave with impunity," he said.

"We must speak up and we must act."

The UN has previously described Congo as "the rape capital of the world", with more than 8,000 women raped during fighting in 2009.

A report released in April by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu province had been gang-raped by armed men.

More than than half of the assaults took place in the victims' homes, the report said, and an increasing number of attacks were being carried out by civilians.

Eastern DR Congo is still plagued by army and militia violence despite the end of the country's five-year war in 2003.

UN peacekeeping troops have been backing efforts to defeat the FDLR, whose leaders are linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and who are operating in eastern DR Congo.

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Coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11092639