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World News
TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
December 20 – January 11, 2013
Obama delivers emotional speech and vows gun reform after shooting PRESIDENT Obama comforted the nation and gave solace to Newtown’s inconsolable families Sunday — and strongly hinted he would seek a legislative solution to the wave of mass shootings that has haunted America on his watch. Saying he was tormented by the massacre of 27 victims in Connecticut and the paroxysm of mass slaughter that has brought him to console grieving communities four times during his presidency, Obama signalled that in the weeks ahead he will deploy “whatever power this office holds” to seek reform of gun laws. “Can we say we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose?” a somber Obama asked as audience members wept openly. “If we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is no,” he said. “We’re not doing enough, and we’ll have to change.” He also made a heartbreaking personal connection with the infant granddaughter of slain Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung, the martyred 47-yearold who died while lunging at the gunman in a heroic and doomed effort to overpower him. Cradling the adorable child in his arms, with his jaw set and his face a portrait of grief and resolve, the comforter-in-chief tried to lift the boundless pain of a picture-postcard
The deputy prime minister blamed the “tribal” nature of both the Conservative and Labour parties for what he sees as their inability to remain on the centre ground of British politics.
President Obama poses with family members of victim Emilie Parker.
New England village that overnight has become a gruesome national symbol of unspeakable evil. “My mom would be SO proud to see President Obama holding her granddaughter,” tweeted Cristina Hassinger, the principal’s brave daughter. “But not as proud as I am of her,” she added. All was hushed at Newtown High School as Obama took the stage barely one mile from the elementary school where 12 first-grade girls and eight first-grade boys — all of them only 6 or 7 years old — and six adult women were cut down. “We have come to remember 20 beautiful children and six remarkable adults,” Obama told the mourners at
the interfaith service. “We have come to a school that could have been any school — in a town that could have been any town in America . . .“Newtown — you are not alone,” Obama proclaimed. His voice was even, but he was emotionally vested in the audience of more than 1,500, and at one point, he appeared to brush away a tear with his index finger. “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?” the President asked. “No single law or set of laws can eliminate evil from the world,” the President proclaimed . . . . But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.”
Death toll from Typhoon Bopha tops 1,000 in the Philippines THE grim toll from a typhoon that devastated southern Philippines earlier this month continues to climb, with 1,020 reported dead as of Sunday morning, authorities said. Officials fear the toll from the December 4 storm will rise further. Because while rescue crews continue searching, the chances of finding people alive dim with each passing day. With 844 still missing and 1.2 million families displaced, Bopha is the strongest and deadliest storm to hit the Philippines this year, according to the country’s emergency management agency. Among the missing are hundreds of fishermen who went to sea before the storm hit. Officials hope that they could yet be found sheltering on small islands out at sea. If the death toll continues to rise, Bopha could eventually prove deadlier than Tropical Storm Washi, which killed 1,268 people a year ago. But its toll would still remain far below that of Tropical Storm Thelma, the country’s most lethal
Residents gather their belongings after their house was destroyed by strong winds brought about by Typhoon Bophal earlier this month.
storm on record that left more than 5,000 people dead in 1991. The worst of the death and destruction from Bopha took place on the southern island of Mindanao, where the storm hit first and hardest with gusts as strong as 220 kph (138 mph).
The storm, known locally as Pablo, was the most powerful typhoon to hit Mindanao in decades. It set off flash floods and landslides that engulfed people sheltering in their rickety houses in remote, unprepared regions of the island. (CNN)
Ukraine murders: puzzle over Kharkiv beheadings Police in Ukraine are investigating the unexplained beheading of a judge and his family. The headless bodies of Judge Vladimir Trofimov and his wife, as well as their son and his girlfriend, were found at their home in the eastern city of Kharkiv. The heads were missing. Ukraine’s interior minister and general prosecutor flew to Kharkiv
on Sunday. Police said the murders might be connected to the judge’s work, or to his extensive collection of antiques. Mr Trofimov, 58, was well known for collecting rare coins, World War II medals and china statuettes. Some antiques were reportedly missing. The other victims were Mr
Trofimov’s wife Irina, 59, their son Sergei, 30, and his girlfriend Marina Zoueva, 29. The case recalls the murder of Georgy Gongadze, an investigative journalist, in 2000, says the BBC’s David Stern in Ukraine. Mr Gongadze, an active critic of the government, disappeared and his headless body was found in a forest outside Kiev. (BBC)
Clegg hits out at ‘draconian’ wing of Conservative Party DEPUTY Prime Minister Nick Clegg has criticised “siren voices” among Conservatives for seeking to impose “draconian” cuts on the welfare system. In a speech marking his five years as Lib Dem leader he claimed his party curbed plans for an extra £10bn in welfare cuts, and had “anchored reform in the sensible centre ground”. Ministers had a duty to ensure that “further reforms” were fair, he added. But Labour accused him of trying to distance himself from broken pledges. His speech marks the eve of the fifth anniversary of his election as Liberal Democrat leader but comes at a time when some opinion polls suggest his party has slipped to fourth, behind UKIP. BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the deputy prime minister believed “it is time the public understood that policymaking in government is like a kitchen in which all sorts of recipes are suggested but only some make it onto the menu”. “He wants voters to know which ingredients the Lib Dems added and, just as importantly, which they insisted were left out.” ‘TRIBAL’ Mr Clegg conceded that changes to the welfare system had at times been “painful and controversial”. His party “agreed £3.8bn of benefit cuts” in negotiations on the content of the Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, he said, with benefits going up by 1% - below inflation - in line with public sector pay increases. But, he added, the Lib Dems had blocked “more extreme” plans to “penalise families with more than two children by taking away child benefit” and “penalise young people who want to move away from home in search of a job by denying them housing benefit”. The deputy prime minister blamed the “tribal” nature of both the Conservative and Labour parties for what he sees as their inability to remain on the centre ground of British politics. “There are some on the right who believe that no-one could possibly be out of work unless they’re a scrounger,” he argued. ‘TOTAL COLLAPSE’ “If you can’t find a job you must be lazy. If you say you’re too sick to
work you’re probably pretending. “The siren voices of the Tory right who peddle this myth could have pulled a majority Conservative government in the direction of draconian welfare cuts.” By contrast, he said, the Lib Dems were “a centre-ground party” delivering “centre-ground reforms”. He indicated his support for means-testing of benefits such as winter fuel payments and free bus passes for pensioners, saying he would “support fairness by making clear that money should not be paid to those who do not need it - looking again at universal benefits paid to the wealthiest pensioners”. In the question session after the speech, he explained: “We have a coalition agreement commitment to maintain those universal benefits for all pensioners, so I’m not asking the prime minister to re-open that during this Parliament. “What I’m saying... is in the future, as we make further savings... I just don’t think it’s justifiable or sustainable when so many other people are tightening their belts, that multi-millionaire pensioners still receive universal benefits across the board.” In his address to the Centre Forum think tank, Mr Clegg acknowledged that his party had acquired a “harder edge” since going into coalition with the Conservatives, but the alternative was “a retreat to the comfort and relative irrelevance of opposition”. He described the welfare system designed by the former Labour government as both badly designed and financially unaffordable. “When two -thirds of people think the benefits system is too generous and discourages work then it has to be changed, or we risk a total collapse in public support for welfare existing at all,” he said. “We need welfare protection for people who fall on hard times. Of course. But you cannot ask low-income working people to pay through their taxes for people who aren’t in work to live more comfortably than they do.” Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman commented: “Nick Clegg will try every trick in the book to distance himself from the record of his government. “But as ever, with the Lib Dems, they say one thing whilst doing another - resulting in a record of economic failure, trebled tuition fees, nurses cut, police axed and millions paying more while millionaires get a tax cut.” (BBC)