Strasbourg turns into fortress for NATO

STRASBOURG (Reuters) - Strasbourg is shutting schools, sending out up to 15,000 troops and police, and even sealing up the manholes into its sewers as the city readies itself to host NATO's 60th anniversary summit.

The intensive security, costing some 110 million euro ($147.4 million), is meant to protect leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and control 20,000-50,000 peace activists who are expected to stage protests.

Both protesters and politicians will have a busy agenda as they flit between Strasbourg and its German co-hosts, Baden Baden and Kehl, during the summit.

But locals are expecting gridlock on both sides of the Rhine river during the summit on April 3 and 4, as France has reinstated controls along the German border and shut some roads, while left-wing activists are expected to try and block traffic.

With authorities worried about the risk of student riots, police have evacuated Strasbourg university and will keep it closed for a week.

Students protesting against the government's education policies had occupied the building, and university authorities feared anti-NATO demonstrators would join them.

"The potential for violence is there, it depends on the opportunity: what can be done, will be done," Heinz Fromm, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, told Reuters.

Organizers of the pacifist "NATO counter-summit," who are setting up a tent city to host thousands of activists, are angered by a ban on demonstrations in the town centre.

Their main demonstration, scheduled for Saturday, has been diverted out of the centre.

"That's totally unacceptable," said Frederic Henry, one of the spokesmen of the movement.

ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS

Home to the European Parliament, Strasbourg is used to visiting VIPs and extra security -- though not in this scale.

Anti-aircraft guns have been installed near the city, and there will be a temporary no-fly zone, while traffic on the Rhine will also be halted.

French daily Le Monde said every resident or shopkeeper would have to wear a badge, 13 schools would be closed along with sports fields, while manholes would be sealed.

Some 6,000 delegates and other staff are expected to arrive from NATO's 26 member states, discussing issues from future strategies for the Cold War military alliance to a potential increase of troops in Afghanistan.

France's planned return to the military command of NATO, which it left in 1966, is also expected to be feted in style.

Faced with the prospect of protests and security controls, many residents of Strasbourg prefer to escape.

"My son's school will be closed and there's a risk it will be very hard to get around," said Sylvie Fintz, who has taken a day off work to leave town with her family for a few days.

(Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Berlin; writing by Sophie Hardach in Paris; editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Japan prepares to blast North Korean missile out of the sky

The missile launch is believed to be a military test, though Pyongyang insists it is launching a satellite.

By Arthur Bright

Japan has authorized its military to shoot down a North Korean missile that is being prepared for launch in the coming weeks, should it endanger Japanese territory.

The Washington Post reports that the Japanese government has ordered two anti-missile destroyers into the Sea of Japan and is moving Patriot missiles to the coast to intercept the North Korean rocket or its debris.

The orders punctuated a week of rising tensions in Northeast Asia, as North Korea moved its rocket to a launch pad and warned the outside world not to interfere or impose sanctions for its planned launch of what it describes as a "communications satellite." The launch is scheduled for sometime between April 4 and 8.

Japan, South Korea, and the United States have repeatedly asked North Korea to cancel the launch, calling it a provocative pretext for the test of a long-range ballistic missile, which may be able to strike Alaska. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the launch could harm talks aimed at helping North Korea with food and fuel in return for abandoning nuclear weapons....

Japan took pains Friday to explain that it was preparing for a possible accident, not for an attack. Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said he issued orders "to prepare for an event in which a North Korean projectile falls onto our country in an accident."

Reuters writes that the North Korean missile is a multi-stage long-range rocket, and that while the rocket's boosters are expected to crash in the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean, "a failed launch or accident could result in one of the stages of the rocket, or bits of it, falling on Japan and endangering lives and property." Reuters adds that Japan would have only 10 minutes notice if the missile or its debris were to threaten Japanese territory.

However, the Associated Press reported earlier this week that some in the Japanese government are not convinced that its military will be able to successfully intercept the missile or its debris.

Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said "it would be difficult" to shoot down fragments from a failed launch of the North Korean missile.

"Our country has never done this before. And we don't know how or where it may come flying," Nakasone told reporters Tuesday.

He was echoing an unidentified top official, who said Monday that "there is no way you can hit a bullet if you exchange pistol fire in a distant duel," according to Kyodo and other Japanese media.

The Associated Press adds that Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada disagreed with the foreign minister's assessment.

Japan's order to prepare to intercept the North Korean missile comes a day after Dennis C. Blair, the US National Intelligence Director, issued "the most pointed US challenge so far to Pyongyang's repeated assertions that its upcoming rocket launch is for peaceful purposes," reports the Los Angeles Times.

"Most of the world understands the game they are playing," National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair said. "I think they're risking international opprobrium and hopefully worse if they successfully launch it."...

"They're trying to use the rationale of a legitimate space launch for a missile, which is in its foundation a military missile," Blair said, describing the rocket as a Taepodong, a multistage missile that may be capable of reaching Alaska.

Gerald Warner, blogging for The Daily Telegraph, adds that the US has dispatched two anti-missile destroyers, the USS McCain and the USS Chafee, to Japanese waters as well.

North Korea earlier this week reiterated its claim that the missile was for a peaceful satellite launch, and warned that any attempt to shoot down would be considered an act of war, reports The Korea Times.

"We will retaliate any act of intercepting our satellite for peaceful purposes with prompt counter strikes by the most powerful military means," a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army was quoted as saying, specifically naming South Korea, the US, and Japan.

"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," the spokesman said in a statement carried in English by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Agence France-Presse reports that Russia, which typically has supported the North Korean government, today recommended that North Korea refrain from the missile test.

"North Korea would be better off refraining from it," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin told reporters in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported.

"There is no need to ignite passions around this problem," he said. "All the issues that arise in connection with the planned launch one way or another need to be decided by way of dialogue and consultations."

Russia, he said, "understands that the situation in the region of Northeast Asia is tense therefore it would be best if our partners from North Korea refrained from this launch."

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Fred Goodwin’s house vandalised

Source

by davidgerard

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, London EC1, Wednesday (NNN) — Sir Fred Goodwin’s house and car in the Grange, Edinburgh have been attacked by vandals.

Revellers queued for several hours for the opportunity of a piece of the action. Two scenes-of-crime officers from the Scottish Police Services Authority kept the crowd orderly. Neighbours, who said Sir Fred had not been seen there for weeks, did a roaring trade in rotten tomatoes and cabbages and bits of wood with a nail through the end.

Sir Fred is assumed to be overseas, reportedly hiding out with a false beard under an assumed name in a market stall in Marrakesh.

Lothian and Borders Police said that officers were acquiring CCTV footage and carrying out door-to-door inquiries in the neighbourhood. “Our inquiries are at an early stage and we are appealing for anyone with information about this incident to contact us. We’re looking at OBEs for the participants and recommending a knighthood for the organiser.”

The attack is considered likely to presage similar activity in the London G20 meeting protests planned for early April. Barack Obama, who will be attending, called on protestors to take action in an orderly and civilised manner. “Torching houses and smashing cars creates a horrific waste in spent carbon. All these materials can be recycled and used again. The same goes for the bankers — reusing their organs is a lot more socially responsible than tearing their guts out and hanging them from streetlights. What would Al Gore do? I beg you, think of the planet.”

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