Global Warming? Not So Much in -58 F Russia

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Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius [-58 F]. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.

The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.

Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.

The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.

The Emergency Ministry has issued warnings in 15 regions, which have been put on high alert over possible disruptions of communication and power.

Across the country, heat pipelines have broken down due to the cold. In southeastern Russia’s Samara, the cold has broken down many heat pipelines, leaving hundreds of homes without heating, including an orphanage and a rest house. Many schools and kindergartens have been closed for almost a week.

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Russia to Ban US Adoptions in Retaliation to Magnitsky Act

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The State Duma’s legislative committee has approved an amendment banning any US involvement in the adoption of Russian children. On Wednesday the Lower House will consider the second reading of the bill.

­The amendment bans both individual adoptions by US citizens and US companies and organizations acting as intermediaries for those who seek to adopt Russian kids. They were submitted jointly by United Russia and Liberal Democratic MPs.

United Russia, the majority party in Parliament, is ready to support the ban on US adoptions according to Deputy Duma Speaker Sergey Neverov. He added that if the ban is approved it must remain in force for as long as US courts pass ‘biased’ rulings in cases involving adopted Russian children. The minority factions also said they would vote in support.

Other suggested amendments deal directly with the potential for US citizens to influence Russian politics. These include a ban for US citizens to head or even to work in Russian NGOs that are engaged in political activities. It is also proposed that all NGOs receiving funding from the United States be closed.

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China Calls on United States to Adopt Strict Gun Control Without Delay

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The state news agency in China, the official voice of the government, has called for the United States to quickly adopt stricter gun controls in the aftermath of the shooting rampage in Connecticut that left 28 people dead, including 20 schoolchildren.

According to the state medical examiner who was overseeing autopsies of the children, all of them had been hit multiple times. At least one child had been shot 11 times.

All of the children were in the first grade.

“Their blood and tears demand no delay for U.S. gun control,” said the news agency, Xinhua, which listed a series of shootings this year in the United States.

“However, this time, the public feels somewhat tired and helpless,” the commentary said. “The past six months have seen enough shooting rampages in the United States.”

China suffered its own school tragedy on Friday — a man stabbed 22 children at a village elementary school in Henan Province. An 85-year-old woman also was stabbed.

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Iraqi Ayatollah Launches Fatwa On Christians: ‘Convert or Die!’

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Baghdad (AsiaNews) – An Advent of light and shadow for Iraq’s Christians, who are celebrating the reopening of the cathedral of Baghdad but at the same time subjected to new – and heavy – threats from a radical Shiite Muslim leader. From studies of a television broadcaster based in Egypt, an Iraqi Ayatollah launches a fatwa against the religious minority on the eve of Christmas: “Conversion to Islam or death.” However, strength of faith overcomes the fear of violence as witnessed by celebrations for the “rebirth” of the Syrian Catholic cathedral in the capital, the scene of a bloody attack at the end of October 2010 (see AsiaNews 31/10/2010 Al Qaeda attack on Baghdad church ends in massacre)

In an interview last December 13 on Egyptian television Al Baghdadia, the Shiite ayatollah Ahmad Al Hassani Al Baghdadi issued a fatwa against Christians in Iraq. Labeling them as “polytheists” and “friends of the Zionists”, the extremist leader stressed that they must choose “or Islam or death,” while “their women and girls may legitimately be regarded wives of Muslims.” Al Baghdadi is known for his “jihad” positions and for attacking Americans in the past during their presence in the country, and today he lives in Syria, supporting the armed opposition.

Catholic sources in the capital tell AsiaNews that it is “a very serious fatwa,” but “it is unlikely that people will be upset too much.” The government pays “attention” to these proclamations by extremists, however it is possible that such words could “create panic in some areas of the capital,” where there are now “very few” Christians.

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US Troops to Syrian Border

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photo credit: CJCS

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, TURKEY — The United States authorized on Friday the deployment of 400 troops for two Patriot missile-defense batteries along Turkey’s border with Syria, a move that could put American forces near the front lines of the Arab country’s escalating civil war.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta signed the order authorizing the deployment of the batteries Friday morning while flying from Kabul to this military base in southern Turkey.

Speaking to U.S. airmen inside a hangar, Panetta said the crisis in Syria has made this base, roughly 60 miles from Syria, and others in the region exceptionally important.

“This is a challenging time, a critical time,” Panetta said. “You are in a critical place doing a critical task.”

Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters the U.S. troops operating the Patriots will be tasked with a defensive mission only. The surface-to-air missiles could technically be used to enforce a no-fly zone over northern Syria, but NATO officials have stressed that they are not gearing up for such a move, which would mark a sharp escalation in the West’s involvement in Syria’s conflict.

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Knife-Wielding Man Injures 22 Children in China

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photo credit: the ewan

BEIJING (Reuters) – A knife-wielding man slashed 22 children and an adult at an elementary school in central China on Friday, state media reported, the latest in a series of attacks on schoolchildren in the country.

The man attacked the children at the gate of a school in Chenpeng village in Henan province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Police arrested a 36-year-old man, identified as villager Min Yingjun, Xinhua said. It did not give further details of the extent of the injuries.

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Congressman: State Dept Hiding Benghazi Survivors

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Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R- UT) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he has been “thwarted” by the State Department from seeing any Americans who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Many people forget that there were Americans who survived the Benghazi attack, some of whom were badly injured and are still recovering.

“My understanding is that we still have some people in the hospital. I’d like to visit with them and wish them nothing but the best but the State Department has seen it unfit for me to know who those people are—or even how many there are,” Rep. Chaffetz said. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. I don’t know what state they’re from. I don’t even know how many there are. It doesn’t seem right to me.

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Latest Hell for Ex-U.S. Marine: Chained to Bed in Mexican Jail

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MEXICO CITY — As a U.S. Marine, Jon Hammar endured nightmarish tension patrolling the war-ravaged streets of Iraq’s Fallujah. When he came home, the brutality of war still pinging around his brain, mental peace proved elusive. Surfing provided the only respite.

“The only time Hammar is not losing his mind is when he’s on the water,” said a fellow Marine veteran, Ian McDonough.

Hammar and McDonough devised a plan: They’d buy a used motor home, load on the surfboards and drive from the Miami area to Costa Rica to find “someplace to be left alone, someplace far off the grid,” McDonough said.

They made it to only the Mexican border. Hammar is in a Matamoros prison, where he spends much of his time chained to a bed and facing death threats from gangsters. He’s off the grid, for sure, in walking distance of the U.S. border. But it’s more of a black hole than a place to heal a troubled soul.

The reason might seem ludicrous. Hammar took a six-decade-old shotgun into Mexico. The .410 bore Sears & Roebuck shotgun once belonged to his great-grandfather. The firearm had been handed down through the generations, and it had become almost a part of Hammar, suitable for shooting birds and rabbits.

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Horrific Footage Shows ‘Syrian Rebels’ Forcing Boy to Behead Captive with Sword

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It is perhaps the most disturbing piece of video footage to emerge out of the Syrian crisis to date.

A young boy is egged on by a group of older men, believed to be rebel fighters, and filmed hacking the head off a man who is lying on the ground. An older man is then seen picking up the head before placing it on top of the body like a macabre trophy. In the background militants can be heard chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’, or ‘God is great’.

The victim appears to be dead before the gruesome act begins as he is lying flat and unmoving with his head resting on a cinderblock.

The clip is one of thousands of graphic videos that have been uploaded onto the internet purporting to show the horrors of the ongoing conflict in Syria. Several videos allegedly to show Syrian rebel fighters carrying out summary executions on captured government soldiers or suspected informants have attracted strong criticism. Others show the dead bodies of dozens of civilians said to have been killed in Government attacks. It is impossible to verify if the footage is real.

The emergence of this latest clip comes just as Washington is said to have begun a secret operation to arm the Syrian rebel fighters following reports of movements at Syria’s chemical weapons sites.

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UN LOST Treaty: The Return of Gunboat Diplomacy

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Last September, China deployed six surveillance ships in response to the Japanese government’s attempt to buy the disputed Senkaku islands, which the Chinese call the Daioyus, from their current owner, a wealthy Japanese family. Both countries are signatories to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. LOST was supposed to settle disputes between countries over maritime boundaries, but China and Japan seem not to have gotten the memo.

More recently the Chinese province of Hainan ratified a new law that gives Hainanese officials jurisdiction to board vessels in an area where China currently has joint sovereignty alongside the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan recently said that this new legislation could seriously aggravate tensions among these Asian nations and pose a threat to global trade.

American supporters of LOST argue that the treaty will reduce international tensions over disputed territories by helping to resolve potential conflicts. They also argue that the treaty will provide the legal certainty that U.S. companies need to exploit sub-sea floor resources that would otherwise go to competing nations like Russia and China, which are signatories to LOST. Five Republican former Secretaries of State—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker III, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice—argued in a May 2012 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “By becoming party to the treaty, we would strengthen our capacity to influence deliberations and negotiations in other nations’ attempts to extend their continental boundaries.” Yet, the problem lies in the treaty’s process itself.

LOST asserts jurisdiction over maritime boundaries that have been recognized and enforced for centuries. The treaty does this by creating a new global governing body—ominously named the Authority—for the high seas or “the Area,” which would remain “the common heritage of mankind.” To settle international disputes, LOST created the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

LOST was created to settle maritime disputes but has failed to do so. In fact, the dispute would probably not exist with LOST, which made the ownership of a group of small rocks a critical issue in determining the extent of the “exclusive economic zones” it sets out for signatory countries. Now it appears that at least one party, seemingly frustrated with the process, plans to return to gunboat diplomacy.

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