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December 2008
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Queen Noor Campaigns For Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

The Jordanian Queen was busy helping to launch the anti-nuclear weapons campaign, Global Zero. She, along with several other dignitaries and activists, are calling for the weapons to be banned within 25 years. France Global Zero

The project was launched in Paris on Tuesday after 18 months of talks on how to revive lagging disarmament efforts.

Delegations went to Moscow for talks with Russian officials Wednesday and on to Washington on Thursday.

An estimated 20,000 nuclear weapons are held by the Britain, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States. Israel is also thought to have nuclear weapons. As a first step, Global Zero hopes to build support for new negotiations between Russia and the United States to cut 1,000 weapons from their nuclear arsenals of about 5,000 each.

Besides Queen Noor, signatories for Global Zero include former US President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, businessman Sir Richard Branson, Ehsan Ul-Haq, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Pakistan, and Brajesh Mishra, former Indian National Security Advisor.

“We have to work on de-legitimising the status of nuclear weapons,” Queen Noor told the BBC.

“We have to set an example,” billionaire Richard Branson was quoted as saying.

With President-elect Barack Obama and several other world leaders advocating the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, Richard Burt, a former United States arms negotiator, said the idea, once considered radical and unrealistic, was “entering the political mainstream.”

December 11th, 2008 | Tags: | Category: Jordan | Leave a comment

Monaco Drops Expansion Plans Due To Economic Crisis

Plans to have the tiny principality of Monaco expand into the Mediterranean Sea have been shelved due to the global economic turmoil.albert_monaco

That is what Monaco’s ruler, Prince Albert II says. In an interview with the AFP, the prince explained the reasons to ditch the multi-billion dollar expansion, which drew comparisons to the projects in Dubai.

“In the current climate it would be irresponsible to launch a project of this scale,” the Prince says, explaining that the project had fallen short of its funding and environmental protection goals.

“The international crisis has forced us to seek better financial guarantees, more security. I would in any case want to reassure myself that effects on the environment would be as limited as possible,” he said.

The huge artificial peninsula would have been the size of 20 football fields, packed with housing, shops and tourist facilities.

Monaco, population 30,000, is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It sits on the French Riviera, with a steep hill at its back.

The principality is famous for its glamorous casinos and banking sector.

Prince Albert  insisted that the decision to halt the project does not imply that Monaco’s economy is in trouble, and noted that a third of the principality’s budget is allocated to capital infrastructure projects.

Albert told AFP he had not ruled out relaunching the project to expand Monaco’s sea front, but warned that the designs so far presented had fallen short of his hopes in terms of environmental safeguards.

“Protecting the environment is just as important a priority as the economic imperatives,” he said, promising that a more thorough ecological study would be carried out before any future development was planned.

The expansion project was to begin in 2011.

December 11th, 2008 | Tags: , | Category: Monaco | Leave a comment

Emperor Akihito Suffering From Stress Related Illness

The Emperor is the latest member of Japan’s Imperial Family to suffer from a stress related illness. Japan Emperor

A week after suffering from an irregular heartbeat, Emperor Akihito has been diagnosed with an ulcer, or extensive internal bleeding in his stomach and duodenum, the uppermost part of the intestine. Doctors say it has been brought on by physical and mental stress.

“The Emperor cares and feels distress about various matters,” his chief doctor, Ichiro Kanazawa, announced at a press conference yesterday. “I think we should regard this as mental strain or anguish.”

The emperor is the latest member of the royal family to suffer a stress-related illness. His wife Michiko experienced intestinal bleeding last year, and their daughter-in-law Crown Princess Masako has yet to recover from a mental illness.

The Emperor, who turns 75 later this month, has been told to reduce his royal duties for the next month to heal from this illness.

Royal watchers in Japan wonder if tension between Akihito and his heir, Crown Prince Naruhito, is causing the ulcer.

Pressure, and the failure, for both Naruhito and Masako to produce a male heir has perhaps caused this rift. Reportedly, at one point, the Emperor and his son did not see each other for months.

According to sources close to the Imperial Palace, Akihito reproached his son for taking lightly the responsibility of perpetuating the world’s longest unbroken royal line — dating back some 2000 years and 125 generations.

Masako has given birth to only one child, a daughter named Aiko. But because she is female, Aiko cannot inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Though there was debate over allowing women to become reigning Empresses, which was widely supported in Japan, that ended when Naruhito’s brother, Prince Akishino and his wife, Kiko, had a son in 2006.

December 11th, 2008 | Tags: , | Category: Japan | Leave a comment