Ghetto Palestine - Bloody Israeli raid on Freedom Flotilla

The United Nations Security Council said early Tuesday that it deeply regretted the loss of lives on the humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza and condemned the actions that led to the deaths.

"The Security Council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza," the council said in a statement. "The council in this context condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and expresses condolences to the families."

Israel instituted a blockade on Gaza in January 2006, when Hamas won democratic elections in the Palestinian territories. The U.N. has described the blockade of Gaza by Israel as the "collective punishment" of the Palestinian people living there. The statement also said the "only viable solution to the conflict is a two-state solution with an independent and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its neighbors. The statements reflected the international community's strong disapproval of Monday's events in the high seas, when Israeli soldiers stormed the six ships in international waters about 65km off the Gaza coast. The ships with about 700 pro-Palestinian activists were carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Gaza, the coastal territory under a crippling Israeli siege. Israeli commandos rappelled down to an aid flotilla sailing to thwart a Gaza blockade on Monday, clashing with pro-Palestinian activists on the lead ship in a bloody raid that left at least 10 people dead and sparking protests in Arab capitals across the world. Bloodied passengers sprawled on the deck and troops dived into the sea to save themselves amid hand-to-hand fighting that injured dozens of activists and six soldiers. Hundreds of activists were towed from the international waters to Israeli detention centers and hospitals. Israeli spin masters have been going into overdrive, doing their best possible to spin this event as though the Israeli commandos were not the ones attacking but rather the attack was perpetrated by people on board. In this case, we're looking at a humanitarian aid convoy, with prominent people and activists, clearly not a military target in any way whatsoever. Hamas, the Palestinian group which governs the Gaza Strip, said the assault was a "massacre" and called on the international community to intervene. The attack earned Israel widespread international condemnation, with many countries canceling planned military exercises with Israel and visits from Israeli officials. The incident could have especially dire consequences for Israel’s relationship with Turkey, a major power in the region and historically one of the few Muslim countries that have maintained strong ties with Israel. Relations between the two countries had already hit a low point in recent months. Turkey has attempted to reassert its dominance in the Middle East after largely giving up on its attempts to fully integrate into the Euro zone, which have been met with resistance. The Turkish foreign ministry posted a statement on its website Monday condemning the raid in the strongest language yet:

Israel has once again clearly demonstrated that it does not value human lives and peaceful initiatives through targeting innocent civilians. We strongly condemn these inhuman acts of Israel. This grave incident which took place in high seas in gross violation of international law might cause irreversible consequences in our relations...

Whatsoever the motives might be, such actions against civilians who are involved only in peaceful activities cannot be accepted. Israel will have to bear the consequences of these actions which constitute a violation of international law.

Turkey had been the unofficial sponsor of the aid flotilla, giving its implicit support to the Turkish humanitarian organization Insani Yardim Vakfi, which sent a large passenger ship and another cargo ship. The Free Gaza organization said Monday that at least six of the dead were Turkish citizens, and thousands of people gathered in Istanbul to protest the Israeli raid, chanting “murderous Israel, you will drown in the blood you shed.”

deepwater horizon - environmental nightmare

An explosion and fire on a British Petroleum drilling rig on April 20, on the eve of Earth Day, left 11 workers missing and presumed dead. The rig sank two days later about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. After the blast, the flow of oil should have been stopped by a blowout preventer, but the mechanism failed. The oil slick, which already stretches over an area the size of West Virginia, is growing rapidly as more than 200,000 gallons of oil per day gush from the ruptured well on the ocean floor. At that rate, the spill could pass the Exxon Valdez 1989 disaster in Alaska as the worst oil spill in the nation's history. The oil threatens oyster beds, shrimp, bluefin tuna, and many other kinds of seafood. A pod of sperm whales and sea turtles in the northern Gulf are also in great danger. Oil is especially harmful to sea birds. The sticky oil robs feathers of their ability to insulate from the cold. Birds can get sick from licking the toxic goo off their feathers.

BP was the exploratory well's owner and overall operator, Transocean the rig's owner and Halliburton a subcontractor that was encasing the well pipe in cement before plugging it in anticipation of future production. Hearings were held in Washington DC on Tuesday in which senior executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton were asked to account for the "cascade of failures" at the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform prior to the catastrophic rupture in the wellhead. Each company defended its own operations and raised questions about its partners in the project. Tuesday's back-to-back hearings were the first congressional inquiry into the April 20 incident, which has since grown a massive environmental and economic disaster. Journalist Greg Palast, who took part in the investigation into the BP Exxon Valdez oil disaster of 1989, blames British Petroleum for cutting its safety budget, which led to the accident.
“I’ve been following British Petroleum for two decades. Last year they cut production costs by $1 billion while production increased in the most dangerous areas, like offshore,” he said. Moreover, he believes the spill is even beneficial for the company:
“Because of the spill the price of oil went up about $2.5 per barrel. That means that they are making $10 million a day while the spill is happening,” he added. Halliburton did admit to failure.
“Prior to the point in the well construction plan that the Halliburton personnel would have set the final cement plug, the catastrophic incident occurred. As a result, the final cement plug was never set,” Tim Probet from Halliburton said. The glaring spotlight turned from the corporate oil industry to the MineralsMmanagement Services (MMS).The MMS – the agency that is suppose to regulate the oil industry and impose safety guidelines and regulations – is being charged with allowing the industry to run wild with very limited oversight and regulation. The communities, the oil companies, the coast guard, all knew this could happen sooner or later. From the coast you can see an almost unbroken line of oil rigs along the horizon. In the fading light, their burning flares almost like a chain of foreboding. Under the surface, a spidery network of pipes reach up from the seabed, through which endless barrels of oil constantly glug. It’s a vast enterprise - the Gulf supplies up to 30 per cent of the USA’s energy needs. Within a 60km radius of Port Fourchon, there are 600 platforms.

The Coast Guard abandoned its plan to burn off some of the oil after sea conditions worsened. Efforts to plug the gushing well 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface with submersible robots have so far failed. The next solution is to drill relief wells to plug the leak, but that could take three months. Other tactics include: using remote-controlled vehicles to shut off the well at its source on the sea floor, an operation that has so far been unsuccessful; dropping domes over the leaks at the sea floor and routing the oil to the surface to be collected, an operation untested at such depths that would take at least two to four more weeks; and drilling relief wells to stop up the gushing cavity with concrete, mud or other heavy liquid, a solution that is months away. The array of strategies underscores the unusual nature of the leak. Pipelines have ruptured and tankers have leaked, but a well 5,000 feet below the water’s surface poses new challenges, officials said. In the meantime, more than 200,000 feet of protective booms were put in place along the coast to contain oil reaching the shore. Aircraft have dropped 100,000 gallons of chemical dispersants on the water's surface to break down the oil. The Gulf of Mexico is one of the world's richest sources of seafood. A BP spokesman said an oil containment box known as a "top hat" was being taken to the leaking oil well and undersea robots would position it over the gusher by Thursday. The new device is much smaller than one that failed during the weekend and engineers hope it will cap the leak and allow the oil to be brought up to waiting tankers on the surface. Oil giant BP has said that it will pay for all the cleanup costs from a ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. "BP is responsible for this leak; BP will be paying the bill," Obama said.

The oil could keep gushing for months until a second well can be dug to relieve pressure from the first...

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