UK & Euro-Asian News
The Daily Mail
Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:05 EDT
© EPA
Passengers as they rush to take a TGV run by French firm SNCF which today accidentally posted an emergency message on its website
French rail operator SNCF posted sparked panic when it wrongly announced on its web site that 102 passengers had died in a train explosion.
The state-run train company was flooded with phone calls from alarmed relatives after the news was posted on its website earlier today.
The announcement read: 'An explosion of unknown origin occurred at 8am today aboard TGV1234, close to Macon.
Passengers as they rush to take a TGV run by French firm SNCF which today accidentally posted an emergency message on its website
'The first estimates of the fire service say 102 people died and another 380 were injured. All the victims were evacuated to hospitals in Macon.
'Due to the dramatic events today on TGV1234, our site will only be publishing essential information. Thank you for your understanding.'
After a deluge of panic-stricken calls, the SNCF swiftly removed the item from the site.
Comment: 'There was no accident. At the SNCF we often carry out crisis simulation training exercises, which include the writing of press releases and public information messages."
Hmm . . . . where have we heard those words before?
Richard Allen Greene
CNN
Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:53 EDT
© na
Pope Benedict XVI arrives at the Lutheran church in Rome Monday as a deepening sex abuse scandal engulfs the Vatican
A priest who was accused of sexually abusing children -- and whose subsequent move from one location to another the pope approved when he was a German cardinal -- has been suspended, his archdiocese announced Monday. The priest was later convicted.
The priest, identified only as H, violated the terms set out for him after his conviction, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising said in a statement. It did not say what the violation was, but at the time of his conviction by a German court, he was ordered to pay a fine and not work with children again.
The priest's superior also resigned, the church said.
Tehran Times
Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:41 EDT
Russia is not considering a proposal to combine part of its South Stream gas project with the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Monday.
"We are not discussing such issues," Shmatko said.
Shmatko commented on a recent suggestion by Italy's Eni SpA, Gazprom's partner in the South Stream gas pipeline project, that combining some sections of the pipelines would cut costs and boost profits.
Matthew Moore
Telegraph
Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:22 EDT
Two nursery rhyme adverts commissioned by the Government to raise awareness of climate change have been banned for overstating the risks.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the adverts - which were based on the children's poems Jack and Jill and Rub-A-Dub-Dub - made exaggerated claims about the threat to Britain from global warming.
In definitely asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought the adverts went beyond mainstream scientific consensus, the watchdog said.
It noted that predictions about the potential global impact of global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "involved uncertainties" that the adverts failed to reflect.
New York Times
Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:00 EDT
© HSBC
Curiouser and curiouser.
Hervé Falciani, the computer specialist formerly employed by HSBC and involved in the leak of information on about 24,000 accounts at the bank, says he was once kidnapped by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.
Mr. Falciani told Le Matin Dimanche, a major Swiss weekly, that the Mossad was investigating potential ties between Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group, and the giant British bank.
"I've always said that these people introduced themselves as being from Mossad," Mr. Falciani said. "They told me they suspected Lebanese Hezbollah of trying to use the bank for criminal ends."
Mr. Falciani told the newspaper that
he was singled out because he was Jewish and because of his presumed loyalty to Israel. "A terrorist group could put the bank's security at risk without too much difficulty," he said.
Allan Hall
Telegraph
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:56 EST
Adolph Eichmann during his trial in 1961
Those hoping to have a 50-year secrecy order overturned believe the government is embarrassed by details within that may prove German and Vatican officials colluded in his escape and freedom.
The secrecy order is being challenged in a benchmark court case against the BND, Germany's domestic intelligence service, which wants the 4,500 pages of documents on Adolf Eichmann to remain out of the public domain. The service claims that intelligence agencies in other countries will be "frightened off" in future data-sharing if they are disclosed,
Der Spiegel reported.
Critics believe this is a smokescreen designed to avoid official embarrassment both in Berlin and the Vatican. It is well documented that German Bishop Alois Hudal in Rome operated postwar "Ratlines," getting passports for wanted Nazis to allow them to escape justice.
American Free Press
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:32 EST
The prime minister of contract murder, Binyamin Netanyahu, was not long permitted to rejoice over the agreement to sanction Iran which he had wrested from the Russian leadership. A few days later, China made it clear that it would in no case help to carry out such sanctions. Consequently, Netanyahu believed it necessary to pay a visit to the Chinese leadership, in order to bring them on course through an Israeli word of command.
But the Chinese leadership did not even once want to see Netanyahu. So "Bibi" had to stay home. On Feb. 25, 2010, Israel sent a high-ranking government delegation to Beijing, including Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, as well as the currency bank chief, Stanley Fischer, in order to move the Chinese leadership to hard sanctions against Iran."
Ayla Jean Yackley and Simon Cameron-Moore
Reuters
Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:47 EDT
© Reuters
Tensions between the staunchly secular military and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-leaning government have simmered in the weeks that followed the arrests and sent shivers through financial markets.
There are several plots being investigated, but General Ilker Basbug told
Milliyet newspaper the investigation into the 2003 "Operation Sledgehammer" was the most serious.
The Press Association
Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:42 EST
The EU has developed a set of options to help Greece overcome its financial crisis, which has unsettled the euro currency and markets globally, officials said.
But Athens will have to arrange for possible loan guarantees with individual EU governments, they said.
"There are intensive consultations on a bilateral basis in case Greece needs support for a special loan guarantee that a number of countries could come to provide," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for the Spanish presidency of the 27-nation EU.
Nick Pisa
Telegraph
Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:02 EDT
The Vatican claimed instances of sexual abuse of children were far more widespread in the secular world than in the Catholic church as it worked on Sunday to calm a growing row over allgations of priestly misconduct.
In a front page editorial, its official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano stressed: "For the love of truth, the number of incidents involving clergy is very small."
It blamed media coverage of the sex scandals rocking the Catholic Church in Ireland, Germany and Austria for implying that there was a higher instance of sexual abuse in the Church than in other parts of society.
"This has a negative effect on the Catholic Church...but it should be noted that abuse of children is more widespread in non-religious people and married couples than clergy," the paper said.
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Hmm . . . . where have we heard those words before?