US warns Iran over drone attack

The USA has warned that it will protect its military assets after Iranian warplanes opened fire on one of its unmanned surveillance planes last week. The aircraft was flying in international airspace over the Arabian Gulf at the time.

The unarmed drone was not damaged and returned safely to its base. The US has protested to Iran over the incident.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said:
“The United States has communicated to the Iranians that we will continue to conduct surveillance flights over international waters over the Arabian Gulf, consistent with long-standing practice and our commitment to the security of the region.”

The US says the drone was conducting routine military surveillance 16 nautical miles from Iran when it was intercepted by the warplanes which then opened fire. It regards the attack as attempt to shoot down the aircraft

Emotional Obama sheds tears as he thanks campaign team

Newly re-elected US President Barack Obama is to make a major speech on the economy today and a historic visit to Myanmar later this month.

But the talking point of the moment is an emotional visit he paid to thank his campaign team at his Chicago headquarters.

“What you guys have done means that the work I’m doing is important. And I’m really proud of that. I’m really proud of all of you,” he said, unable to complete his message as the tears got the better of him, to sustained applause from staff.

He told them his work in running for office had come “full circle”, and praised them for being much more efficient than he had been as a young community organiser.

Obama also became emotional in his final campaign rally in Iowa on Monday night.

The surprise announcement that he is to become the first American president to visit Myanmar follows opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip to Washington in September.

It is the strongest endorsement yet of the southeast Asian country’s fragile democratic reforms after decades of military rule.

Suicides highlight crisis over Spain mass evictions

The number of evictions in crisis-hit Spain is turning into a national scandal, as a second homeowner committed suicide on the day a foreclosure order was served.

53-year-old Amaya Egaña threw herself from her fourth floor appartment in the Basque town of Barakaldo.

Three hundred and fifty thousand people are said to have lost their homes over unpaid mortgages since the crisis began.

Senior judges in Spain have joined in the criticism of the legislation and there are calls for politicians to act.

“This kind of situation, like the one we had today here, shouldn’t happen. It would be good if those responsible for changing the law did so – and they’re not the judges,” said local judge Juan Carlos Mediavilla.

The European Court of Justice has also criticised Spain’s mortgage legislation and rules over evictions for being incompatible with European norms. Consumers, it says, are not sufficiently protected against abusive clauses in contracts.

Protest groups have sprung up and there have been demonstrations outside banks.

There have been calls for people facing eviction to pay a “social rent” rather than being kicked out of their homes.

The conservative government and the opposition socialists have agreed to take urgent measures to help the most vulnerable mortgage defaulters.

Fracking in Europe

Wojciech Swieton has travelled all over the world as a drilling engineer.

He started his search for natural gas in his native Poland, then moved to Germany, then on to India and then spent five years building gas drilling rigs in the Libyan desert.

The father of two is now back in Poland. His home country has a ravenous appetite for so-called “unconventional gas” hidden deep inside underground shale, but to extract it, a highly complicated and controversial method is used, fracking.

Poland has perhaps one of the largest shale gas reserves of Europe and Wojciech is involved in setting up a new drilling rig in the small southern Polish town of Syczyn, he says:

“It is a good time for us at the moment, because shale gas is more popular than before and I hope we keep going.”

Three kilometres underground, several horizontal pipes have been laid. In spring, massive amounts of water and chemicals will be injected under high pressure into the shale to liberate the gas from the rocks.

Poland is motivated by two major energy concerns: Firstly that for now most energy in the country is produced by burning coal and secondly that the country is, for now, dependent on oil and gas imports from Russia.

The villagers in Syczyn are largely in favour of fracking. The region is poor and many have high hopes that the shale gas industry will boost the local economy, although all around the village, rumours run wild.

Zbigniew Krezel, Syczyn resident:

“People say different things: ‘The water will turn yellow’… ‘The hens will lay no more eggs’… but I don’t know if this is true or not.”

Czeslawa Kulbaka, Syczyn resident:

“There will be irreversible changes underground because this technique will create fractures. The concrete surrounding the pipes won’t last forever so the local water supply will be contaminated.”

Jozef Siwek, Syczyn resident:

“We like the fact that we have found gas here in Syczyn. Maybe more jobs will be created for our children.”

Alicja Struszewska, Syczyn resident:

“Most people in the village are in favour of exploiting the shale gas. The village and the community have said yes.”

Karol Kaszczuk, Syczyn resident:

“They say that no chemicals will be used. Yet we know that the shale gas is extracted by injecting chemicals and can be dangerous for the environment.”

Pollution

Another issue is that many of the shale gas resources sit in or close to protected nature reserves. Large-scale fracking requires a huge logistical operation. As well as putting substances into the ground, companies also have to treat heavily polluted water which flows back out of the wells.

Magdalena Piatkowska, the Operations Manager of a drilling company explains how they plan to minimise the environmental impact:

“Our well is designed in a way which protects underground water against any possible pollution from drilling fluid or in the future against gas which could migrate to the surface. Each casing set is cemented to the surface and I can promise that there is no possibility that gas or drilling fluid reach a point where there is a contact with underground water.”

There are shale gas deposits all over Europe. In the United Kingdom a temporary halt on the process was put in place after earthquakes were felt near a fracking site. Although the government announced on October 30, 2012 that it could soon launch a new round of licensing for shale gas exploration.

In France the process has been halted all together. A gas drilling company had wanted to exploit the resources in the picturesque Ardèche region but they were stopped by campaigner Chritophe Tourre.

The Frenchman set up one of the most efficient NGO networks in France: the famous “Collective 07 – Stop au gas de schiste”. He explains why he was so against the idea.

“Whatever fracturing technique is used, it will inevitably perforate a geological layer called the toarcian layer in which there is shale gas. This layer is thought of by scientists as a trash layer full of harmful products such as heavy metals and radioactivity.

“Fracturing this layer will inevitably put these toxic chemicals in contact with the groundwater that sits just above them.”

Propaganda

The French anti-shale-gas campaigners put us in contact with Marta, in Warsaw. She is trying to coordinate some of the polish anti-shale-gas campaigners. She says the government is not telling the truth about the process:

“It is over 700 chemicals that are used, half of them carcinogenic. In the information they give they show a little rock playing with shampoo, salt, soap and they are saying it is just the same chemicals you use to bake a cake. And this is a government pamphlet. It is propaganda! The polish government is functioning as a propaganda machine right now.”

Polish and French activists, both argue that investment in renewable energy would create more sustainable workplaces than shale gas exploitation.

Ardèche-based chestnut-farmer Jean-Francois Lalfert is part of the multinational anti-shale-gas network. He says the technique is deadly:

“There are already cases of cancer, there are already cases of poisoning. It’s been seen in the United States, it’s been seen in Canada, in Germany, in Poland, it’s been seen wherever shale gas has been extracted from the bedrock. Hydrocarbons which are extracted from the bedrock. All around there is damage to health. It’s not worth digging these wells if you’re going to make people sick.”

The shale gas debate splits Europe: Some countries are enthusiastic about the technique while others are fearful.

In Warsaw at the Environment Ministry we meet Poland’s chief geologist, Piotr Grzegorz Wozniak. The Junior Minister in charge of Polish shale gas exploitation is keen to get more energy from home soil:

“The gas import prices from Gazprom, that’s the only exporter from Russia, are at least twice as high as the spotprice today. Twice! – We need to change our energy mix and stay apart a bit, step by step, from coal, and with our dependence on imports of natural gas which is absolutely intolerable given the supplier which is absolutely unreliable and you can never know when you have gas or when you don’t have, we need to rely on something else.”

Greenhouse gas

But there is still another problem, methane. The highly potent greenhouse gas is emitted by fracking rigs. That is why at the Marie-Curie University in Lublin, Poland, researchers are working hard to find a way to capture it, as Geology professor Marian Harasimiuk explains:

“At our university, in cooperation with some other institutes, we do pioneering research for the Polish Fund for Nature and the Environment. Through our work we will soon be able to capture and chemically neutralise all methane gas emissions coming from boreholes on an industrial scale.”

It is up to each EU member State how it makes its energy. But the European Union can intervene when it comes to environmental issues. It is still being decided if EU-wide shale gas regulations are needed, and how far they should go.

A Violent Sunday in Syria

A bomb has ripped through a hotel in central Damascus close to a Syrian government complex.

State TV described the explosion as a terrorist act.

Seven people have been injured, one them critically.

Opposition activists claim the bomb went off close to a heavily-guarded army installation in the heart of the capital.

Rebels have planted a number of bombs in Damascus in recent times in an attempt to take the conflict to the core of Assad’s Syria.

Three hundred kilometres away in the ravaged city of Aleppo government forces and anti-Assad fighters continue to battle it out amid the debris of the country’s second metropolis.

Rebels say they are having to defend themselves against government sniper attacks.

The Syrian military claims to have destroyed a number of vehicles carrying men and munitions as the fighting continues with no end in sight.

Threat of freezing weather adds to US east coast woes

The presidential election might be fast approaching but so too is cold and wintry weather.

With more than two-and-a-half million homes and businesses still without power after superstorm Sandy struck, one utility company has set up tents where residents can charge up lap tops and phones.

But for some reconnection to the national grid could take weeks.

While emergency supplies are being distributed to those who have lost everything the other main concern having to be addressed by the governor of New York is the petrol shortage.

“Fuel is on the way. You don’t have to panic. We don’t need anxiety. We don’t need the lines. Be prudent, but fuel is on the way,” announced Governor Andrew Cuomo.

A promised delivery of 28 million gallons (127 million litres) of that precious fuel and the setting up of mobile petrol stations cannot some soon enough.

The petrol shortage has indeed tested the patience of drivers – there have even been reports of fights breaking out among frustrated would-be customers.

La Scala’s winning duo: Dudamel and Barenboim

World-famous conductor Gustavo Dudamel has reunited with his colleague Daniel Barenboim for a concert celebrating the maestro’s 70th birthday.

For the occasion, Dudamel led the Filarmonica della Scala in the world premiere of Elliott Carter’s Dialogues II, composed for Barenboim.

Two generations face to face at Milan’s opera house: Dudamel’s youth, talent and modesty combined with Barenboim’s virtuosity and experience.

Brahms’ sublime music did the rest.

“Barenboim treats me like a son, and of course he’s like a father to me,” said Gustavo Dudamel of his relationship with Daniel Barenboim.

“He’s also a great thinker: every time we talk, and I don’t mean when we rehearse, I learn so much. These last days, for example, have been wonderful, we’ve walked the streets of Milan, and he’s told me about his unique experiences: when he conducted Michelangeli, when he met Stravinsky, or Furtwängler.

“We’re talking about someone who has played a major role in the music of the 20th and the 21st century.”

On Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Dudamel said:

“The piano’s first melody is initially played by the orchestra, it’s like a huge, symphonic, sound block the pianist has to play down gently while keeping the same symphonic intensity.

“Brahms always had this idea of the piano as a ‘massive’ instrument. The way he manages the piano’s colours as if it were a symphonic instrument is just wonderful.”

In addition to Brahms’ First Piano Concerto, the show included a world premiere: ‘Dialogues II’, written especially for Barenboim on his 70th birthday by 103-year old American composer Elliott Carter.

“I’ve never conducted a piece by Carter, this is my first time,” said Dudamel. “Maestro Barenboim showed it to me and said: ‘Carter wrote it for me, for my birthday, could we do it?’ And I said: ‘Of course, I’d love that to do that!’.

“It’s like travelling in time, it’s as if Brahms had suddenly jumped forward a hundred years or so,” he added.

Gustavo Dudamel, who is also Music Director at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has been a guest at the world’s top concert halls. He has conducted for the Pope and even for the London Olympics, but it has never gone to his head.

“I’m just a musician,” he told euronews. “I feel strongly committed to music and the power it has to change people’s lives.”