Hungary braces for second wave of toxic sludge - The Guardian

Hungarian soldiers wait in line to get cleaned with a water jet in Devecser. Photograph: Bea Kallos/EPA

Emergency workers in Hungary have warned that another torrent of toxic red sludge will inevitably be unleashed when the remaining walls collapse at a reservoir which still holds more than 500m litres of the liquid waste.

The prime minister, Viktor Orban, has promised "the toughest possible" consequences for those responsible for the disaster, which has killed at least seven people and spilled millions of litres of toxic waste.

"Behind this tragedy, human errors and mistakes must exist. We are going to reveal all that," Orban said.

But the government has still not decided whether the company can resume production. Shutting down the plant completely would leave thousands out of work.

Cracks in the retaining walls have stopped widening for now, but will inevitably deteriorate, said Hungary's environment secretary, Zoltan Illes. He has already described the incident as the worst chemical accident in his country's history.

Gyorgyi Tottos, a spokeswoman for the disaster crews, said the effort to contain the waste was "a race against time" as further rain threatens to increase pressure on the reservoir wall.

Repair work is continuing. Extra protective walls are being built around the 10-hectare reservoir, near Ajka, and a dam 620 metres long is under construction to save parts of Kolontar not already hit. But experts are not confident that these measures can prevent a further disaster.

"I would describe the situation as hopeful, but nothing has really changed," Tibor Dobson, head of Hungary's disaster management team, told Associated Press. "The wall to protect Kolontar is planned to be finished by tonight, but it will likely be several days before residents may be able to move back."

Almost 800 residents of the town were evacuated on Saturday as a precaution, and 6,000 residents of the next village, Devecser, have been ordered to pack a single bag and be ready to abandon their homes at a moment's notice. Experts have warned a new flood could be even more toxic, because much of what poured out in the original leak was water, leaving the remaining sludge more concentrated.

A week after the original collapse at the alumina plant unleashed a wave of up to 700m litres of red mud which covered fields and seven towns and villages, the long-term effects of the spill are still being assessed. The sludge entered the Danube on Thursday, moving towards Croatia, Serbia and Romania.

Police have confiscated documents from the company, Mal Rt. The company's contingency plans for such a disaster are said to have allowed for only a fraction of what was actually unleashed.

While the torrent has left a trail miles long the colour of dried blood, neutralising chemicals and clay poured into tributaries before it reached the Danube, and the sheer volume of water in Europe's second longest river, seem to be limiting its impact to some extent.

In Romania, authorities are testing the water every four hours and warning people against letting animals drink from the water. However, fishermen were still putting out into the waters, and people still fishing for pike from the banks.

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Tea party convergence: Big boost for Republicans in Election 2010 - Christian Science Monitor

It’s still three weeks and a couple days before the midterm election. But the likelihood of a Republican takeover in Congress just keeps growing, powered by a major boost from the tea party movement – a political phenomenon that has evolved from a scattered and sometimes flaky insurgency into a sophisticated, organized effort.

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In his latest estimate, polling expert Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog says Republicans have a 72 percent chance of taking over the House, up from 67 percent last week. Also, he writes in his latest New York Times column, the GOP has “nearly even odds of a achieving a net gain of 50 seats” – 11 more than it needs to become the majority party in the House.

No doubt that’s thanks in large measure to the higher level of preelection energy among tea-fueled Republicans.

IN PICTURES: Tea parties

The latest survey conducted jointly by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University shows why.

“On every measure, strong supporters of the tea party movement stand above the rest of the field,” writes Dan Balz in the Post.

“For starters, take the question of whether people are very interested in these elections,” Balz writes. “Forty-three percent of Democrats said they are. Among Republicans, 57 percent said they're very interested. Among tea party supporters the figure was 74 percent, and among the strongest tea party supporters it was 83 percent.”

While the Republican Party has had its run-ins with tea partyers – most notably in GOP primaries where establishment candidates got whacked – the Washington Post-Kaiser-Harvard poll shows a large majority of tea party supporters favoring a GOP takeover of Congress.

Meanwhile, what probably should have been called the “tea parties” – over the past year there have been many disparate and sometimes contending groups – are becoming more organized and unified as the election approaches.

In Virginia, for example, groups from around the state have formed a federation called “Virginia Tea Party Patriots.” The group just held a two-day convention in Richmond.

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China detains Nobel Peace Prize winner's wife: U.S. rights group - Reuters

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia pose in this undated photo released by his family on October 3, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Handout

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON | Sun Oct 10, 2010 12:59pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese authorities are detaining the wife of jailed Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Price laureate Liu Xiaobo at her Beijing apartment, a U.S. human rights group said on Sunday.

In a statement, Freedom Now said that Liu Xia has not been charged with a crime but has not been allowed to leave her home or use her mobile telephone after visiting her husband in jail to tell him about his award.

When he heard the news, Liu Xiaobo cried and said the Nobel "award is for the Tiananmen martyrs," according to the Washington-based group, which said it represents the Chinese dissident. The group works worldwide for the release prisoners of conscience and provides free legal counsel.

Freedom Now lawyer and spokeswoman Beth Schwanke said one of the group's human rights specialists, Yang Jianli, obtained news of Liu Xia's detention from a source in China they could not name over fears that the informant would also be detained.

"Liu Xia is under enormous pressure," said Jianli, who the group said is currently in Taiwan.

Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for two decades of non-violent struggle over human rights, infuriating China, which called the award "an obscenity.

The prize shines a spotlight on human rights in China at a time when it is starting to play a leading role on the global stage as a result of its growing economic might.

Liu has been in and out of jail since 1989, when he joined student protesters on a hunger strike days before the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. He was jailed for 11 years in December for subversion of state power.

Liu Xia said on Friday she was being taken to visit her husband in jail but that police were preventing her from talking to reporters.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

I condemn the incarceration of Mr. Liu Xiaobo and his wife. Even more strongly I condemn the treatment of Guantanamo Bay victims, the occupation Australia & Canada and extermination of their aboriginal population.
Every country has its laws. You shouldn’t preach what you don’t practise.
We need China for the right balance of power in this world (instead of Al-Qaeda)

gsuomi Report As Abusive

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