Weekly Times of India

Keystone XL pipeline back on hot seat in Washington

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:57:21 +0000

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans have resurrected their efforts to force speedy approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, attempting to insert provisions aimed at greenlighting the project into legislation before both the House of Representatives and the Senate this week. Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, is co-sponsoring the Republicans’ Keystone XL amendment to a highway bill that’s working its way through the upper chamber.
That suggests the Republicans will push for a vote on the bill soon, perhaps even later, in the Senate, where they hold 47 of the chamber’s 100 seats. The House of Representatives, meantime, will debate a 979-page package of energy and transportation proposals in several separate pieces of legislation this week, Speaker John Boehner said. Splitting up the package enables “each major component of the plan to be debated and amended more openly, rather than as a single ‘comprehensive’ bill with limited debate and limited opportunity for amendment,” he said in a statement. The energy component of the package includes a measure that would reverse President Barack Obama’s decision last month to reject the $7.6-billion pipeline that would transport oilsands bitumen from northern Alberta through six U.S. states to Gulf Coast refineries.
Renewed Republican efforts to force the pipeline’s approval came as TransCanada (TSX:TRP) announced it now expects a start-up date for Keystone XL in early 2015, not 2014 as previously announced. The company has said the delay is partly due to the fact that it’s waiting for more information from the Obama administration about reapplying for a permit. Asked about the latest Republican move, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling said the company appreciates any efforts to speed up the project’s approval.
“That said, I’m not focused on what’s going on there at all. Our focus is 100 per cent on things that we know how to do, which is permit and construct pipelines.” Last month, the White House rejected the Keystone XL application, saying a congressionally imposed deadline of Feb. 21 for approving the project didn’t provide enough time for State Department officials to complete a fresh review of Keystone’s new route around a key aquifer in Nebraska.
The State Department is involved in the process because the pipeline crosses an international border. Obama invited TransCanada to reapply, saying the rejection had less to do with the merits of Keystone XL than it did with the deadline set by the Republicans. It’s unclear whether the Republicans would succeed this time around either, but environmentalists are fretting about their latest tactics. They’re nervous Democratic senators might go along with the Keystone provisions since the transportation bill has bipartisan support. A coalition of groups marched to the Senate in protest, while 350.org also launched a 24-hour movement to deliver 500,000 email messages to the Senate to state their opposition to Republican efforts to force approval of the pipeline.
Their expectations were exceeded. By noon, more than 600,000 people had sent emails, and officials from several environmental groups were planning to deliver boxes containing the signatures directly to McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In New York, meantime, a group of environmentalists planned a Valentine’s Day march on the office of Chuck Schumer, the senior Democratic senator of their state. “It’s time for lawmakers to start heeding people across the country who are saying no to this Big Oil project and other dirty energy projects,” Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.
“Americans know that we can do better for our climate, water and farmlands than expansion of destructive and expensive Canadian tarsands.” Keystone XL has become a political hot potato for Obama in a presidential election year. Opponents of the pipeline say it’s an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and emblematic of America’s over-dependence on fossil fuels.
Proponents say it will create thousands of jobs — some Republicans have even suggested hundreds of thousands — and will help end U.S. reliance on oil from often hostile OPEC regimes. The jobs argument, however, has focused on temporary positions. It’s been tempered by recent State Department findings that suggests the pipeline will create as few as 20 permanent positions once it’s fully constructed and operational.

Court hears blood-spatter evidence in Stobbe trial

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:56:13 +0000

WINNIPEG — The murder trial of former Saskatchewan political adviser Mark Stobbe has heard some graphic forensic evidence. An RCMP blood spatter expert said Stobbe’s wife was attacked while upright, taken to a car in her garage, and then driven to a remote spot while blood continued to leave her body. Retired RCMP Inspector Bruce Maclean analyzed hundreds of blood drops, and says there was blood beneath her car that showed blood kept flowing while the car was in motion.
Stobbe worked as a senior political adviser in Saskatchewan and moved to the Winnipeg area in 2000 for a job with the Manitoba government. The Crown alleges Stobbe attacked his wife with a hatchet in the couple’s backyard, then drove her body to a parking lot 15 kilometres away and bicycled back home to report her missing. Crown witnesses have testified Stobbe told them his wife disappeared while on a late-evening shopping trip.

Families, friends mark 30 years since Ocean Ranger sank

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:55:03 +0000

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Ray Hawco was in line on Feb. 14, 1982 to board what turned out to be the last chopper headed for the doomed Ocean Ranger drilling rig off Newfoundland. Seventeen passengers waited for 16 seats that day, he said on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Canada’s worst offshore oil disaster. The loss of the entire 84-man crew in a fierce overnight storm sent Newfoundland into a state of shock and grief that was felt across Canada, the southern U.S. and as far away as England.
Husbands, fathers and sons never came home. At the airport on the morning before the Ocean Ranger went down, Hawco said the foreman of a three-man welding team was eager to get to the massive rig about 300 kilometres east of St. John’s. “He was quite insistent that if all three of them couldn’t go, then none of them were going to go.” In what he thought was a kind gesture, Hawco gave up his seat for the welders and planned to take a later flight.
“It was the last trip out,” said the former public relations director for the provincial petroleum directorate. That twist of fate “was a source of torment” that Hawco still thinks about, he said. He wondered that night what it was like on the rig as a ferocious blizzard with hurricane-force winds whipped up waves the size of five-storey buildings.
A royal commission report would later blame a chain of events that sunk the Ocean Ranger. A rush of sea water through a glass portlight at about 7:45 that night soaked an electrical panel, shorting out controls for ballast gauges and pumps. If the portlight’s inner metal cover or “deadlight” had been lowered and secured, the entire catastrophe might have been avoided. But there were no standing orders for deadlight use during storms, said the report.
When power was restored hours later, damaged switches opened the wrong ballast valves which affected balance. Poorly trained workers didn’t help a swiftly deteriorating situation as the rig suddenly began to tilt. The royal commission report indicates the men, some of them lightly dressed, evacuated the rig in the next half hour or so with the storm still raging. Even in good weather, it would have taken more than an hour for rescue helicopters to reach them.
Nearby supply vessels that arrived to help were ill-equipped to save men from the water. A single lifeboat alongside one of the ships capsized at 2:38 a.m., says the royal commission report. There were no survival suits on the rig — regulations didn’t require them — and access to lifeboats was inadequate, the report found. Of the 84 crew who died, 69 were Canadians including 56 Newfoundlanders. Other victims hailed from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and England. At about 5 a.m. that day, Hawco got a call from his boss. He was soon at the petroleum directorate in St. John’s to co-ordinate a grim response. “We knew the rig was gone,” he said. Hope for survivors soon faded as people struggled to comprehend that the Ocean Ranger, hyped as a marvel of modern engineering, had failed.
The semi-submersible drilling rig floated on two 122-metre long pontoons and had a deck the size of two football fields. Owned by the Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company of New Orleans and leased by Mobil Oil, it was the largest platform of its kind and the pride of the industry. Hawco said the province never contemplated an outright failure. “The contingency plan never anticipated that there would be such a thing as a total loss of everybody onboard.” Brian Murphy, an offshore worker for the last decade, is the local union president for about 700 workers at the Terra Nova and Hibernia production sites.
His brother-in-law, Douglas Putt, was one of the welders who caught that last chopper flight to the Ocean Ranger. It was a coincidence that Putt, a married father of three young children, was even heading to the rig, Murphy said. He had taken the two-week welding job to offset a temporary layoff in St. John’s.
Murphy remembered how he and his wife spent a sleepless night as news of the sinking came in. “I’m sure that scene was replayed by lots of people all over the island.” Murphy said stories soon came out of how workers on the rig dubbed it “Ocean Danger.” ” Frank Palmer was just 15 when his father, George, died on the Ocean Ranger. He had started in laundry and worked his way up to various jobs on the rig’s sprawling deck.
“There wasn’t a lot of training back then. If you kind of hung around long enough and saw what the other guys would do, they’d give you a chance at doing another job.” Frank recalled how his dad loved to watch him play hockey, soccer and basketball, and how fast he grew up after his death.
Of the 22 bodies recovered from the Ocean Ranger, his father’s was not among them. “There’s not a cemetery. There’s not a headstone.” Instead, Palmer takes his own two children once a year to a stone memorial at the provincial legislature, telling them: “This is Poppy’s grave.” Family and friends of the victims will also gather at St. Pius X Church in St. John’s as they do each year to remember the men who died.
Max Ruelokke, now chairman of the federal-provincial board that regulates oil activity off Newfoundland, has rarely missed the memorial service over the last three decades. He was a partner and manager of a commercial dive company working on the Ocean Ranger when it went down, killing five of his workers.
The memory of those who perished helps drive ongoing efforts to improve offshore safety, Ruelokke said.

Air Canada pilots give strike mandate but talks continue

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:53:53 +0000

OTTAWA — The union representing Air Canada pilots has been given an overwhelming mandate to call a strike, though the pilots have said they won’t use that option while mediated talks are ongoing. The union says 97 per cent of the 3,000 Air Canada pilots it represents have voted in favour of a strike if necessary to press their contract demands. Air Canada says travellers can keep booking flights as negotiations continue with a new federally appointed mediator to help resolve an ongoing dispute between the airline and its pilots. Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick says it’s business as usual at the country’s largest airline. The company is also in a position to lock out its pilots, but it too has said it wants to keep talking with the union. Air Canada’s president has said the company has no intention of imposing new contract terms or locking out its pilots. One of the key sticking points for the pilots has been Air Canada’s plan to set up a low-cost international carrier whose pilots would earn less than those flying for the main airline.

Former bodyguard for Gadhafi’s son faces deportation

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:52:19 +0000

TORONTO — The Ontario-based security contractor who has worked for Moammar Gadhafi’s son says he’ll soon face immigration officials to convince them he should stay in Canada. But Gary Peters insists he’s done nothing wrong. The Australian-born Peters says he’s been told he’ll have to go before the Canada Border Services Agency on Feb. 28 to see if he’s still admissible. He hasn’t been told why, he says, other than it has to do with “recent events.”
Peters worked as a bodyguard for al-Saadi Gadhafi and helped get him out of Libya and into Niger amid the Libyan uprising. He says he still works with al-Saadi “when he calls,” but insists none of his activities were illegal. Gadhafi has been under house arrest in Niger, but Libya demanded last week that he be handed over after he warned in a television interview that his homeland was facing a new uprising.
A former associate of his, Canadian Cynthia Vanier, is facing charges in Mexico for allegedly trying to smuggle Gadhafi into that country. Peters — who is not facing charges — was questioned by CSIS, the RCMP and Mexican prosecutors after returning from Libya in September. “I’ve never ever, ever broken the law, I’m just doing my job,” said Peters, a permanent resident who has lived in Canada for 10 years. He runs Can/Aust Security and Investigations International Inc. out of Cambridge, Ont. Peters called immigration officials to ask whether he was “in trouble.”
“They said, ‘No… but due to recent events we just want to ask you a few questions to see if you’re still admissible to stay in Canada’,” he said. “I think it’s a bit unfair, but anyway, that’s only my view.” CBSA officials were not immediately available for comment. Vanier, from Mount Forest, Ont., as well as two Mexicans and a Danish suspect were charged earlier this month with attempted human trafficking, falsifying documents and organized crime in connection to the alleged plot.
Peters said he doesn’t know how Vanier got wrapped up in that sweep. He had worked with her providing security when she travelled to the northern Ontario reserve of Attawapiskat as part of her job as a mediator working with First Nations. He also protected her during a fact-finding mission in Libya with Canadian firm SNC Lavalin, which had construction projects in the country. The two parted ways in September and he only heard later she’d been arrested.
Vanier’s parents have denied all the charges against her and have said she was in Mexico negotiating plans for a water-treatment project. Peters also said he didn’t think he was the fifth suspect Mexican authorities have said they are seeking.

Mountie had shots of vodka to ‘calm nerves’ after crash

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:51:08 +0000

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — The lawyer for an off-duty RCMP officer accused of obstructing justice by leaving the scene of a fatal motorcycle accident and then pounding back two shots of vodka to “calm his nerves” is arguing testimony about the officer’s statement should be disallowed. Cpl. Monty Robinson is facing a second round of high-profile accusations: A year before the motorcycle accident, Robinson was the senior officer among the four Mounties who approached a Polish immigrant at Vancouver’s airport, a confrontation that left Robert Dziekanski dead after he was zapped with an RCMP Taser.
Robinson’s lawyer, David Crossin, argued testimony by the officer that arrested Robinson at the scene of the motorcycle accident should not be considered by the judge hearing the case because Robinson hadn’t been notified of his right to legal counsel before telling her about the vodka. “She ought to have warned him,” Crossin said of Const. Sarah Swallow, the Delta, B.C. police officer who arrested Robinson. “She was about to, frankly, put the final nail in the coffin.”
The Crown is expected to argue that the information should be admissible and it’s unclear when the court will rule. Swallow testified Robinson wasn’t at the accident site when she arrived, but he appeared a few minutes later. A man walking his dog saw the aftermath of the crash between Robinson’s Jeep and Orion Hutchinson’s motorcycle.
Swallow told court the man had Robinson’s driver’s license and told Swallow the driver of the Jeep said he was taking his children home and would be back. Minutes later, Swallow said she saw Robinson standing just feet away from fire fighters who were working frantically trying to save motorcyclist Hutchinson, 21. Minutes later, a sheet was pulled up to cover the young man’s body.
Swallow said Robinson smelled of alcohol, was slurring his words and appeared to have had more to drink that just two shots of vodka. She told the trial she asked if he had had anything to drink that night. “Mr. Robinson replied that when he was at home he’d had a drink to calm his nerves.”
He explained that he had also been at a party earlier and had a few beer, Swallow told the court. Hutchinson, who also had alcohol in his system, was killed when his motorcycle slammed into Robinson’s Jeep on the suburban Delta street. Crown prosecutor Kris Pechet told the trial in his opening statement earlier that Robinson tried to use his police training to escape a drunk driving conviction when he claimed to have had the alcohol after the crash. Pechet said Crown witnesses will say Robinson took an RCMP data training course in 2005 where he was taught that people who have an accident while driving after drinking can defeat an impaired charge if they have something to drink after the accident.
By leaving their driver’s licence at the accident scene, they can escape a charge of leaving the scene of a crash. Swallow said she arrested Robinson that night for impaired driving causing death, but he was charged with obstruction of justice and has pleaded not guilty.
She testified she only learned that Robinson was a peace officer when she was booking him and asked what he did for a living. He replied that he was an RCMP officer in Richmond.

CN at fault in fatal U.S. train derailment: report

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:49:31 +0000

U.S. officials say that a fatal derailment in Illinois was the result of a failure by CN Rail to adequately warn an oncoming train about a washout. The National Transportation Safety Board said in a long-awaited report that CN had discovered the washout an hour before the derailment but didn’t act in time to notify trains in the area. “While the washout was discovered about an hour before the train’s arrival, Canadian National Railway Company’s (CN) inadequate emergency communication procedures prevented timely notification,” the NTSB said in a statement.
The crash occurred on June 19, 2009 when a CN freight train went off the tracks in Cherry Valley, Ill., about 90 minutes drive northwest of Chicago. The train, which had two locomotives and 114 cars, was travelling at about 58 kilometres an hour just prior to the derailment at a crossing. Investigators said that 13 cars of the cars, all of which were carrying the flammable liquid ethanol, were breached and soon caught fire. “There were missteps and miscommunications, procedures not followed and poor decisions,” said NTSB chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman. “There were multiple points where this catastrophe could have been averted, but it was not.” The flames from the crash were so intense that motorists at the crossing were endangered, the NTSB report said. One passenger was killed by the flames and two others in the same vehicle were seriously injured. The deceased was 41-year-old Zoila Tellez, a woman from nearby Rockford, who died as she attempted to flee the scene. Last October, CN agreed to pay US$36.2 million to Tellez’s family.
Five passengers in other cars nearby were also injured in the blaze. The NTSB also noted that CN did not work with local authorities in Winnebago Country to create a long-term storm management system, despite previous washouts in the area in 2006 and 2007. “Also, contributing to the severity of the accident was CN’s failure to issue a flash-flood warning to the train crew and the inadequate design of the tank cars, which made the cars subject to damage and catastrophic loss of hazardous materials during the derailment,” the NTSB said. Equally, investigators said that CN’s police emergency communication system was inadequate at the time of the crash. CN police were then “unable to prevent” the derailment despite adequate time to do so, the report said.
CN spokesperson Patrick Waldron said the company has altered the way it handles warnings related to weather. “Following this incident, CN instituted a number of changes at our dispatch centers to improve procedures involving weather warnings and emergency calls. “Those policy changes include steps where certain mandatory orders would be part of that process, which may include orders to stop a train.”

Nostalgia but no winning votes for Cong in Nehru’s hometown

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:39:23 +0000

MEJA (ALLAHABAD): “Nostalgia is good, till I go to vote,” says a villager in Pandeypur village in Meja constituency of Allahabad. He doesn’t want to be named but he is assertive, “Congress’s fortunes are on the up, but not because of the Nehru family’s legacy in Uttar Pradesh.” A Pandit himself, now retired from government service, he fondly remembers the days when Congress ruled the state. “Then the parties brought in mandal and kamandal. It broke society into fractions and Congress lost, it just frittered away,” he talks of the past sitting next to his fertile fields that abut the Ganga. “Will I vote for it on February 15? I can say its at least worth thinking of this time around,” he adds. Of course, being from the dominant community in his region, he is unhappy with the changing dynamics where the landowning Thakurs and Brahmins have slowly lost real political and financial muscle over the last decade.
His son, who openly advocates the case of first-time nominee of Congress in Meja Baba Tiwari, is more candid. “We all know that before Bahujan Samaj Party took control of politics, the Scheduled Castes could not even vote in constituencies like Meja and Karchana. They would be threatened and beaten away. Naturally they are diehard followers of the elephant,” he says. “But the most backward communities are tired of finding their space with Samajwadi Party and BSP. Riding on the disaffection among these and the Pandits, Congress will win more seats for sure. But not as many. Its surely on its way back,” he says. “In entire UP,” he clarifies.
The refrain is the same across all 12 constituencies of Allahabad, “Congress is going to gain. Not enough in this ‘panch varshiya’ but it’s on the upswing. Is baar banvayegi to agli baar banegi. Lage rehna chahiye (this time it shall help someone make the government, next time it could be in power, it should keep at it with the efforts).” “It takes time to rebuild an organization that has become defunct. Congress can attract votes from across the spectrum. This time Rahul Gandhi has at least put some effort into the game,” says another voter in Phulpur, hometown to Nehru. “My grandfather took me to see Indira Gandhi. But, of course, I am not going to vote for that. Let them have someone in my constituency who can get my work done or even attend the weddings of our children, then we shall talk,” he adds.
But a local Samajwadi Party poll manager in Karchana sums it up best, “People have patience to wait for Congress to return, I must admit. The real question is does Congress have the patience to rebuild its way back in UP. It won’t help remembering Nehru and Indira, they have to spend more time counting the potholes on village roads. They need to know those roads.”

UP polls: Flush with funds but no progress in Naxal-affected districts

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:38:21 +0000

LUCKNOW: UP’s three Naxal-affected districts, Sonbhadra, Chandauli and Mirzapur, limping out of the shadow of the menace have again slipped into decay. Though no major Naxal activity has been reported rom the region after the 2004 Naugarh landmine blast, the rash of initial ‘development ‘ has come to a standstill. Following the 2004 incident, aggressive policing pushed back the Naxals and the state and central governments pumped n large funds for development. Strict vigil is still maintained along the borders with neighbouring states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
But the utilisation of funds under a spate of schemes : chief among them the Special Infrastructure Scheme (SIS ) and Security Related Expenditure (SRE ) has been iffy and uneven. The condition of the poor has deteriorated while the wealth of mmigrants has risen. The disparity is evident in Sonbhadra. While localities housing the immigrant population show signs of prosperity, those of original locals are in tatters. The district has four assembly segments. Barring Renukoot, where industrial development has generated employment for locals, the remaining three are underdeveloped. Ghorawal, where crusher units make up its ‘industry’, is known for tomato cultivation. But, at times tomato growers have junk huge quantities when there is surplus yield. Ramjanam, a tomato cultivator, says, “For many years we have been demandng food processing units that can help increase farmers ‘ earnings and avoid wastage of tomato. But no attention has been paid.”
Robertsganj, the district headquarters and a core Maoist zone, lacks both higher and technical education facilities and specialty hospitals. Power plants in Obra assembly electrify many parts of the state but locals reel under power crisis Roads are in a pitiable state and pollution is sky-high : there is an always-present dust haze from the mines and crusher units and ash and smoke from power plant chimneys. Villages get drinking water from the Rihand dam, but chemical disposal has polluted the water. Amarnath, a Roberts ganj resident says, “Crisis of water and compulsion of consuming polluted water is not limited to Obra, Renukoot and Dud dhi; even residents of Robertsganj suffer badly.” The Kanhar dam project is in its 35th year of construction.
Mirzapur’s famed ceramic pottery and carpet industry is in decay. Chunar’s over 200 ceramic pottery units have dwindled drastically to a single unit. “Increasing cost of coal and poor valuation of our products led to the closure of units,” say Ashok and Santosh Prajapati, who now make plaster-of-P aris idols to earn a liveli hood. Barring the one unit, ceramic pot tery business has shifted to Khurja.

Lalu and Mishra appear in CBI court on fodder scam case

WTOI — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:37:05 +0000

RANCHI: Two former Bihar chief ministers and Jagannath Mishra appeared in a CBI court in Ranchi to record their statements in a case related to the multi-million rupee fodder scam in which funds meant for buying cattle feed were embezzled in undivided Bihar. Lalu Prasad arrived under heavy security cover around 11am. The statements of both Lalu and Mishra will be recorded in the CBI special court of Judge PK Singh. Lalu appeared in one of the 61 fodder scam cases – RC 20 A/96 – which is related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37 crore from the Chaibasa district treasury. There were 330 witnesses in the case and their statements have been recorded. There are 46 accused in the case, including Lalu Prasad and Mishra. The recording of their statements began and it will continue till. A total of ten accused recorded their statements. Among them were Jagdish Sharma, a Lok Sabha member from Jahanabad in Bihar, former Indian Administrative Service officers Julius Beck, Mahendra Prasad and Phul Chandra Singh, and animal husbandry department officers KM Prasad and SN Sharma. Lalu Prasad and Mishra are accused in five cases related to the scam. Their trial is going on in the Ranchi CBI courts. Lalu Prasad had to quit the Bihar chief minister’s post in 1997 after an arrest warrant was issued against him.
The fodder scam hit the headlines in the late 1990s in Bihar, where officials and politicians were accused of illegally withdrawing crores of rupees of public money on the pretext of purchasing cattle fodder. A total of 61 cases were filed in the scam and 53 were transferred to Jharkhand after it was carved out from Bihar in 2000. Various CBI special courts in Ranchi have passed judgments in 40 cases.