Germany to phase out nuclear power by 2022

Chancellor Angela Merkel

After the reunification in 1990, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to phase out the use of all nuclear power by 2022 will yet be another best that will ever happen to this economically strong German state.

The Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, considered the world’s worst nuclear accident that killed, endangered and displaced hundreds of thousands of people and vastly contaminated pristine forests and farmlands from its radioactive fallout may have haunted the German government no end.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan brought about by a powerful earthquake, which in turn caused giant tsunami, may very well have sealed its fate to have nuclear power plants mothballed in all of Germany.

According to The New York Times, Germany shut down seven plants in March after the Fukushima nuclear explosion and will close down its remaining plants during the next ten years.

It will be noted that after the Japanese crisis, Germany’s seven oldest reactors went into close scrutiny for safety review and was later decided not to operate them anymore. An eighth nuclear plant called the Kruemmel in northern Germany, which has not been operating because of plaguing technical problem, has also been decommissioned for good.

There are six operational plants that is being planned to go offline by 2011and the three newest by 2022.

The negative public opinion shown by the German people following Japan’s nuclear crisis coupled with the assurance by the Ethics Commission for Secure Energy that an alternative source of energy can be put in place during the next ten years has hasten the decision to renounce nuclear energy for good.

Renewable energy resources

The renewable sources of energy being studied and planned for use in the very near future is a combination of wind, solar, and water power, and the harnessing of geothermal energy, and biomass energy from waste.

The transition to alternative and renewable energy, thus, makes Germany the first industrialized nation to reject the further use of nuclear power plants and embrace with determination and commitment the use of renewable and environmentally friendly energy to fuel the economy of the future.

“We want the electricity of the future to be safe, but also to remain reliable and affordable,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement.

Another world’s most wanted, Gen. Mladic, captured

 

Ex-Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic before and during his capture 16 years later

This augurs well for the world, perhaps.

Two of the world’s top criminals have been taken off from the list of the most wanted fugitives.

First, America’s most wanted, the infamous terrorist and founder and leader of the famed al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was killed earlier this month by US ground forces in Pakistan after ten years of hiding.

A few days ago, Europe’s most wanted for the worst atrocities committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Gen. Ratko Mladic, was captured in Serbia after having been on the run since 1995, when he was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

It must be remembered that Gen. Mladic was the top commander of the Bosnian Serb army during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, who allegedly led the forces that attacked the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, a UN-declared safe area, which left more than 100,000 people dead and drove another 1.8 million from their homes. In early July that year, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed by Serbian forces.

It was reported during that time that just hours before the massacre, Mladic handed out candy to Muslim children in the town’s square, assuring them everything would be fine and patting one child on the head. Then the shootings began and the bodies of the victims were bulldozed into mass graves.

Ratko Mladic was hiding under an alias Milorad Komadic in a village called Lazarevo, where masked police officers surprised him as he was heading for a walk, having a hard time sleeping. Lazarevo is where some of his relatives are living and, supposedly, protecting him.

But, just the same, at 69 years of age, his frail health has slowed him down and with his gray hair, it made him unnoticeable by many in the neighborhood. What has been imprinted in the minds of many people was Mladic’s robust, uniformed figure strutting in front of the cameras during the Bosnian war.

Mladic had two loaded pistol with him when he was roughly tackled to the floor. When asked to identify himself, the alleged murderer could only whisper his name, saying, “I’m Ratko Mladic.”

 

 

Obama’s new vision for ending Israel-Palestinian conflict

US President Barack Obama

In his strong desire to finally end the Israel-Palestinian conflict and bring peace to the Middle East, President Barack Obama, in a major speech, said that the only way to create a “viable Palestine and a secure Israel” is for the warring countries to co-exist based on borders that were present before the 1967 Middle East war, but with modifications due to Israeli expansion on the ground now.

It must be remembered that during the war, Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the strategic Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula, to ensure the defensibility of the state of Israel.

“The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine,” Obama said in a 45-minute address laying out his vision of a new Middle East and North Africa.

While this vision sets well with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian  people, who always make reference of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as “occupied Palestinian territories,” it has, however, disconcerted  Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who reacted, saying, that there would be no withdrawal to the “indefensible” 1967 borders.

“A Palestinian state should not be established at the expense of Israel’s existence,” Netanyahu declared.

In Netanyahu’s mind is perhaps the estimated 300,000 Israelis living in settlements built in the West Bank, which lies outside those borders before 1967.

With so many settlements built throughout these years, is their any hope for peace now in the Middle East or has Obama’s vision for pacifism and accord just makes it all the more harder for the contending parties to embrace each other?

Is Obama’s objective realistic? Is it doable?

Could there be harmony without trust between peoples who have been bitter enemies since time immemorial?

Are they ready to bury the hatchet – for good?

Can Israel forever live in peace? Will there ever be a Palestinian state?

Or is all these a mere wishful thinking?

Jubilation over bin Laden’s death

There is no doubt there is euphoria being felt in some parts of the world, more especially in the USA, over the death of Osama bin Laden.

We have seen on TV how celebration erupted in the streets outside the White House and in New York City with accompanying chants of USA! USA! and waving American flags and honking horns.

The question, however, is: Will this jubilation, this utter disregard of someone’s dead, signals the end of all terrorist acts or will it simply incite the Muslim jihadist movement sympathetic to bin Laden to plan another attack?

Am not saying that the ten years of waiting before justice could finally be exacted on one man – the mastermind of the most horrific attack humankind has ever known, which is more remembered now as the events of 9/11- do not deserve a joyful feeling.

Surely, it does. But, over reacting with joy smacks of arrogance and does not do good to America’s image and intentions.

More than joy it is the feeling of fulfillment and contentment in ones heart that matters most for, at long last, the aggrieved nation has not let the 9/11 victims and their grieving relatives down. There is no need for it to be enthusiastically celebrated.

Justice has come to the souls of the many Americans who died that fateful day and to that end peace has to be worked on to prevail.

In trying to attempt to eliminate Osama bin Laden from the face of the Earth, many Americans and members of the coalition forces met violent deaths in Afghanistan. Many more have come home maimed.

Jubilation will simply fan the embers of Muslim hatred against the Americans.

A collective, yet composed display of emotion is what is needed by America in its resolve to establish peace with the Muslim world.

Civility is what symbolizes a cultured nation.

Bin Laden’s death and the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings

With Osama bin Laden’s death, will al-Qaeda continue to be a dreaded terrorist organization or will the modern day ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings that continue to sweep across North Africa and parts of the Middle East make it weaker and irrelevant eventually?

Finding success after toppling regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, the revolutionary civilian uprisings against long-standing, undemocratic and nepotistic leaders are causing unrest in Yemen and Syria and are threatening rulers in Bahrain, Lebanon and Morocco.

What started as protest against a despotic leader has now turned into a civil war in Libya with some western nations arming and helping the people fight a ground war against the Gaddafi’s forces.

While al-Qaeda became exalted and has inspired many Arab people and Muslim countries as a means to an end, ten years of an uneventful status, however, has turned this renowned terrorist organization as simply an ‘idea.’

What has become eventful news again regarding al-Qaeda, which took ten years to happen, is the capture and death of their leader, Osama bin Laden.

It is believed that this ‘idea’ has not and will not have any bearing at all to the people behind every ‘Arab Spring’ uprising.

‘Arab Spring’ has supplanted whatever success bin Laden’s al-Qaeda has brought about.

But, does this mean al-Qaeda is less of a threat now?

It never will be, according to CIA Director Leon Panetta.

“The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him (bin Laden), and we must — and will — remain vigilant and resolute,” he said. “But we have struck a heavy blow against the enemy. The only leader they have ever known, whose hateful vision gave rise to their atrocities, is no more. The supposedly uncatchable one has been caught and killed. And we will not rest until every last one of them has been delivered to justice.”

Perhaps that will take forever.

What to expect from Obama’s new top security team – Part II

Osama bin Laden

When I wrote Part I of this article, little did I know that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has already been captured and, in fact, killed.

I was then right in my statement saying that, “Given the highly commendable profile of these gentlemen (meaning Panetta and Petraeus), what the world should expect is for the top security team to be more competently reliable in their intelligence gathering and coordinating efforts so that untoward incidents are prevented and surprises, eliminated.

“Creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen is always better than responding to it after it has happened.”

For it was, in fact, an intelligence-driven U.S. operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan that led to the capture and death of the world’s most wanted criminal.

President Barack Obama revealed that shortly after taking office in January 2009, he ordered CIA Director Leon E. Panetta to make bin Laden’s death or capture the top priority of the U.S. war against the al-Qaida terrorist organization.

It was in August 2010 that Obama was briefed by his national security team on a possible lead to bin Laden. After eight months of thorough surveillance by the intelligence community, a breakthrough happened when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the al-Qaida chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.

It was a detainee at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who divulged the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

What followed was eight months of organized and diligent intelligence work with CIA operatives examining photos of the compound which they found so secure, so large, that American officials guessed it was built to hide someone far more important than a mere courier.

After feeling confident that it was bin Laden who was living in the compound, a helicopter assault was ordered by Obama on Sunday, May 1, 2011, that resulted in the final closure of one of history’s most extensive and frustrating manhunts.

From here on, it will always be a painstaking undercover work by the world’s premier intelligence agencies against those wanting to sow mayhem and terror in civilized countries.

The meaning of Easter in our lives

Empty tomb where Christ was laid

We always seem to just aimlessly celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of Christ – a historical event that happened over 2000 years ago.

We go back in time with eyes closed visualizing our participation as witnesses in the ignominious suffering and death of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

But, what we can’t understand until now is that Christ suffered for us and bore our sins in His body unto His death on the cross so we may be able to fulfill God’s design for us to live by the teachings of His only begotten Son.

To change our old, wretched ways and live righteously anew is the Easter message that God wanted to happen in humanity when He raised Christ from the dead, three days after His death on the cross.

It has been the same message then and now.

Alas, we continue to look at the resurrection of Christ simply as an event to be commemorated and not a mission to be accomplished in ones lifetime.

It is time to make a reflection on the real meaning of Easter in our lives.

It is time to effect a real change and be responsible for our actions.

Government should take a lead.

Public servants should heed the call

Citizens should be cognizant of the laws of the land and the moral and ethical teachings of the Church without being sanctimonious about it.

Righteousness is not all about being pious.

Righteousness is about knowing the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong.

Righteousness is being honest and honorable, just or fair.

Wikipedia defines righteousness (also called rectitude) as an attribute that implies that a person’s actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been “judged” or “reckoned” as leading a life that is pleasing to God.

In this regard I have been a total failure.

But, I have faith and haven’t lost hope. With love, the greatest of virtues, I can be something new.

Wishing you all sincerely Happy Easter!

Catholic Church should stop crucifixion, self-flagellation

Nothing wrong being a copycat.

People from all over the world are doing it, too.

We copy designer originals.

We mimic Lady Gaga’s outrageous costume and looks.

We imitate accents – ask any call center agents.

But, we, Filipinos, are taking our apery preposterously farther.

Every Holy Week some of our brothers put up a show looking like Christ, dressing like Christ and depicting the suffering of Christ until his ‘death’ on the cross.

As a finale, some gets as real as it can be by being nailed to the cross.

All, in the name of repentance!

Among the penitents, however, most choose self-flagellation, not because it indulges a little less suffering, for that is neither here or there.

The question is: are these practices – this grim, outward expression of compunction and atonement for sins, still acceptable and needed in this time and age?

Being the third largest Catholic country in the world, shouldn’t the leaders of the Church start preaching the real meaning of repentance and the appropriate manner by which one should make amends and do penance?

Let us stop being a nation of twisted religious beliefs. There is only one Jesus Christ who suffered and died brutally to save humanity.

Nobody should be making a travesty of His fate, for doing it means totally nothing, but a big folly.

Repentance is not about the re-enactment of Christ’s notorious suffering and painful, public death by crucifixion.

Repentance is a solemn reflection and contemplation of our faith on whether or not we have become better Christians as we age.

Either the Catholic hierarchy puts a stop to this religious chicanery that is being feasted on by busybodies from here and abroad or expect the Department of Health (DOH) to be repeating, like a broken record every Holy Week, their warning on the health risk with these kinds of superstitious practices performed by penitents, which at best is absurd and ungodly at worst.

Philippines will patrol the Spratlys

This may sound threatening, but not really especially to the Chinese, who had been repeatedly reiterating its exclusive claims to all the disputed areas and their adjacent waters, much of which are closer to Philippine land than China.

We are no match to China’s military might and having patrol boats alone surely does not win disputes.

But, having a recently purchased Hamilton-class patrol craft around the Philippine-claimed area of the Spratly archipelago simply signals our serious intentions of pursuing what is suppose to be ours under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

By ours, it means and it constitutes the Philippines claim that the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) in the Spratlys is an integral part of the country to which it has sovereignty and jurisdiction.

Under the UNCLOS, it provides that sovereignty and jurisdiction applies to waters around or adjacent to each relevant geological feature in the KIG following the principle that “the land dominates the sea.”

Earlier, on March 3, the Philippines filed a diplomatic protest over Chinese incursion into Reed Bank, 250 kilometers west of Palawan, where Chinese patrol boats allegedly harassed a Philippine vessel conducting oil exploration. Reed Bank is part of the KIG.

The Philippines and China, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, claim all or part of the Spratlys, which are believed to sit on vast mineral resources and lie near vital sea lanes.

It is, however, China’s absolute claim to all of the Spratly or what is called as China’s “9-dash line claim” that is making this region a flashpoint. Its muscle flexing, domineering, and bullying attitude towards the other ASEAN countries laying claim to some islands in the archipelago makes it even tragic.

Our only consolation is that the United States considers the Philippines a major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization military ally and the two countries are bound by a 1951 mutual defense pact.

But, even then, having grown both in economic and military power, China has repeatedly reminded the United States that it has no right to be involved in the Spratlys dispute.

No doubt both powers have covetous sights on this rich region and only time will tell where the most powerful wind blows.

Meanwhile, it safe to adopt the saying that “it is better to be on the side of the devil you know than to be with the devil you don’t know.”

Marianne’s size breasts displeases French mayor

 

Marianne - symbol of liberty

Mayor Gerard Cordon of Neuville-en-Ferrain, France, is making much ado about Marianne’s breasts.

Marianne is actually a terracotta bust depicting a proud and determined woman wearing a Phrygian cap.

A Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward. It is sometimes called a liberty cap. In its artistic representations it signifies freedom and the pursuit of liberty.

Marianne is one of the symbols of the French Republic and embodies the Republic as much as the nation’s tricolored flag. Marianne represents the permanence of those values which bind French citizens to the Republic: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

It is said that Catherine Lamacque, the artist, deliberately sculpted an oversize mammaries for a Marianne, to symbolize the mood and the generosity of the Republic of that era.

Unfortunately, a much endowed Marianne in Mayor Cordon’s town hall is not anymore to his liking when he ordered it thrown out and then asked his councilors to approve 900 euros (1,280 dollars) in this year’s budget to buy a replacement, a more conventional bust of Marianne modeled on the statuesque French model Laetitia Casta.

According to reports, the town hall bought Marianne’s terracotta statue in 2007 for 1,400 euros.

It must have been the extra large breasts that really made the statue more expensive.

But that is neither here nor there for the statue was made in good taste.

There is just something wrong with the mayor, being alone and making much ado, about wanting the old Marianne replaced with a new, slimmer one when the rest of the people find the act of changing it absurd, if not unnecessary.