Pictures: Errant Shell Oil Rig Runs Aground Off Alaska, Prompts Massive Response

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Photograph courtesy Jonathan Klingenberg, U.S. Coast Guard

Waves lash at the sides of the Shell* drilling rig Kulluk, which ran aground off the rocky southern coast of Alaska on New Year's Eve in a violent storm.

The rig, seen above Tuesday afternoon, was "stable," with no signs of spilled oil products, authorities said. But continued high winds and savage seas hampered efforts to secure the vessel and the 150,000 gallons (568,000 liters) of diesel fuel and lubricants on board. The Kulluk came to rest just east of Sitkalidak Island (map), an uninhabited but ecologically and culturally rich site north of Ocean Bay, after a four-day odyssey, during which it broke free of its tow ships and its 18-member crew had to be rescued by helicopter.

The U.S. Coast Guard, state, local, and industry officials have joined in an effort involving nearly 600 people to gain control of the rig, one of two that Shell used for its landmark Arctic oil-drilling effort last summer. "This must be considered once of the largest marine-response efforts conducted in Alaska in many years," said Steve Russell, of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation.

The 266-foot (81-meter) rig now is beached off one of the larger islands in the Kodiak archipelago, a land of forest, glaciers, and streams about 300 miles (482 kilometers) south of Anchorage. The American Land Conservancy says that Sitkalidak Island's highly irregular coastline traps abundant food sources upwelling from the central Gulf of Alaska, attracting large numbers of seabirds and marine mammals. The largest flock of common murres ever recorded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was in Sitkalidak Strait, which separates the island from Kodiak. Sitkalidak also has 16 wild salmon rivers and archaeological sites tied to the Alutiiq native peoples dating back more than 7,000 years.

Shell incident commander Susan Childs said Monday night that the company's wildlife management team had started to assess the potential impact of a spill, and would be dispatched to the site when the weather permitted. She said the Kulluk's fuel tanks were in the center of the vessel, encased in heavy steel. "The Kulluk is a pretty sturdy vessel," she said. " It just remains to be seen how long it's on the shoreline and how long the weather is severe."

—Marianne Lavelle

*Shell is sponsor of National Geographic's Great Energy Challenge initiative. National Geographic maintains editorial autonomy.

Published January 2, 2013

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Senate Swears in a Historic 20 Female Senators

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Today the Senate will make history, swearing in a record-breaking 20 female senators – 4 Republicans and 16 Democrats – in office.


As the 113th Congress is sworn in today on Capitol Hill, ABC "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer has an exclusive joint interview with the historic class of female Senators.


Diane Sawyer's complete interview will air on World News this evening.


"I can't tell you the joy that I feel in my heart to look at these 20 gifted and talented women from two different parties, different zip codes to fill this room," Sen. Barbara Mikulksi, D-Md., said while surrounded by the group of women senators. "In all of American history only 16 women had served. Now there are 20 of us."


Senator-elect Deb Fischer, R-Neb., becomes today the first women to be elected as a senator in Nebraska.


"It was an historic election," Fischer said, "But what was really fun about it were the number of mothers and fathers who brought their daughters up to me during the campaign and said, "Can we get a picture? Can we get a picture?' Because people realize it and -- things do change, things do change."


The women senators all agree that women will be getting things done in this new Congress, a sign of optimism felt for the new Congress, after the bruising battles of the 112th Congress.




"We're in force and we're in leadership positions, but it's not just the position that we hold. I can tell you this is a can-do crowd," Mikulski said of both Democrats and Republican senators in the room. "We are today ready to be a force in American politics."


And while the number of women in the Senate today makes historic, many of the women agreed that they want to keep fighting to boost those numbers. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said that women are still "underrepresented" in the Senate.


"I think that until we get to 50, we still have to fight because it's still a problem," Boxer said. "I think this class as you look around, Republicans and Democrats... I think that because of this new class and the caliber of the people coming and the quality of the people coming, I think that hopefully in my lifetime -- and I really do hope and pray this is the case -- we will see 50 percent. "


No Sorority Here, Even With the Will to Work Together


The cooperation does not make them a "sorority," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says. There are real differences in ideology and personality and they don't want their gender to define them as senators.


But the women also admit that they believe having more women in the room would help in fierce negotiations, compromise, and legislating on Capitol Hill, traits they say do not come as naturally to their male colleagues in the Senate. That sentiment enjoys bipartisan support among the women of the Senate.


"What I find is with all due deference to our male colleagues, that women's styles tend to be more collaborative," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said.


Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said by nature women are "less confrontational." Sen-elect Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, says that women are "problem solvers."


Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., says that women have a camaraderie which helps in relationships that are key to negotiations on Capitol Hill, something she says comes natural to women more than men.


"I think there's just a lot of collaboration between the women senators and... advice and really standing up for each other that you don't always see with the men," she said.






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Gold rallies on fiscal deal

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SINGAPORE: Gold prices receive a boost as US lawmakers finally approved a bill to address the fiscal cliff.

The precious metal rose as much as US$29 an ounce from last week's close of US$1,655.70 a troy ounce on December 28.

The deal struck in the US Congress has helped arrest the threat of the world's largest economy falling into a deep recession.

But some analysts said it is just a knee-jerk reaction and the rally may not be sustainable.

Gold is often seen as a safe haven for investors and is commonly used as a hedge against inflation and a store of wealth especially in times of uncertainty.

Despite a bullish outlook on gold in 2012, the precious metal only managed a modest gain of seven per cent from the start of the year.

It also underperformed against equities which saw Asian stock markets gaining about 20 per cent. For instance the Hang Seng Index up 22.9 per cent , STI gained 20.6 per cent, Nikkei's up 23 per cent in 2012.

The latest move by the US Congress to pass a bill to end the fiscal cliff crisis has lifted sentiment on gold investing.

Some investors expect gold prices to propel higher since the deal may lead to a weakening of the US dollar and this means gold prices will rise as investors switch into the precious metal.

Yet, most experts are not too sanguine of its prospects and expect the impact on gold prices to be muted at best.

"We have the debt ceiling issue which we address somewhere in end February, early March and then we expect a gradual recovery in the US economy in the second half of this year," said Roy Wellington Teo, a foreign exchange and precious metals strategist at ABN Amro (Asia).

He added: "Therefore, we think a stronger US dollar towards the second half of this year could potentially lead to gold prices trend lower towards US$1,500 an ounce end of this year."

Swiss lender UBS expect gold prices to make a steady climb later this year when investors start to worry about inflation when economic growth returns.

During inflation, the value of key currencies like the US dollar and Japanese yen will weaken and this will prompt investors to switch into gold and boost prices.

US said it expects the precious metal to reach USD$1,950 a troy ounce by the first half of this year and is likely to show better performance in 2013.

Dominic Schnider, head of NTAC Research at UBS, said: "Overall the gold price will definitely lag equities but it is still going to be a good asset in your portfolio if you consider we still have a lot of risk factors out there including monetary debasement which is actually a big topic especially with the recent development in Japan."

Looking ahead, experts said gold prices will get a further boost if the US Federal Reserve extends its stimulus programme.

This is expected to inject more liquidity into the financial system.

Avtar Sandu, a business development senior manager at Phillip Futures, said: "We have low interest rate environment, we have all the QEs and we have all the central banks that are buying gold. All these will slowly drive the prices of gold forward."

Yet, some analysts warned that it may not be all glitter for gold this year.

They said that inflation may ease in 2013 and concerns over inflation may be misplaced.

- CNA/fa



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Trinamool suspends leaders over dance row

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KOLKATA: Ruling Trinamool Congress on Wednesday suspended party leaders and workers after they were seen showering money at dancing girls at an event to celebrate the Mamata Banerjee-led party's foundation day ceremony.

The decision came following severe criticism from political parties, the women's commission and intellectuals, after the partymen — including zila parishad member Meer Taheer Ali — were caught on camera showering money on skimpily-dressed women dancers who were hired for the event in South 24-Parganas' Bhangore Tuesday evening.

Party MP Derek O'Brien, who condemned the incident on Wednesday morning and assured that action would be taken within 48 hours, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the accused men have been suspended from the party.

O'Brien did not rule out expulsion of the suspended cadres from the party.

Earlier, the "erotic dance" controversy left Banerjee's Trinamool Congress embarrassed after the opposition CPM, the Congress and the National Commission for Women took a dig at the party leadership.

National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma dubbed the incident as "shameful".

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Space Pictures This Week: Ice “Broccoli,” Solar Storm

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Obama Hails 'Cliff' Deal, Warns of Next Fiscal Fight

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Minutes after the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan Senate deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" and preserve Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans making less than $400,000 per year, President Obama praised party leaders and wasted little time turning to the next fiscal fight.


"This is one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy for everybody," Obama said.


Obama lamented that earlier attempts at a much larger fiscal deal that would have cut spending and dealt with entitlement reforms failed. He said he hoped future debates would be done with "a little less drama, a little less brinksmanship, and not scare folks quite as much."


But Obama drew a line in the sand on the debt ceiling, which is set to be reached by March.


"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether they should pay the bills for what they've racked up," Obama said. "We can't not pay bills that we've already incurred."


An hour after his remarks, Obama boarded Air Force One to rejoin his family in Hawaii, where they have been since before Christmas.






AP Photo/Charles Dharapak













House Republicans agreed to the up-or-down vote Tuesday evening, despite earlier talk of trying to amend the Senate bill with more spending cuts before taking a vote. The bill delays for two months tough decisions about automatic spending cuts that were set to kick in Wednesday.


A majority of the Republicans in the GOP-majority House voted against the fiscal cliff deal. About twice as many Democrats voted in favor of the deal compared to Republicans. One hundred fifty-one Republicans joined 16 Democrats to vote against the deal, while 172 Democrats carried the vote along with 85 Republicans.


The Senate passed the same bill by an 89-8 vote in the wee hours of New Year's Day. If House Republicans had tweaked the legislation, there would have been no clear path for its return to the Senate before a new Congress is sworn in Thursday.


The vote split Republican leaders in the House. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, voted yes, and so did the GOP's 2012 vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.


But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., the No. 2 Republican in the House, voted no. It was his opposition that had made passage of the bill seem unlikely earlier in the day.


The deal does little to address the nation's long-term debt woes and does not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff."


Indeed, the last-minute compromise -- far short from a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- sets up a new showdown on the same spending cuts in two months amplified by a brewing fight on how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.


"Now the focus turns to spending," said Boehner in a statement after the vote. "The American people re-elected a Republican majority in the House, and we will use it in 2013 to hold the president accountable for the 'balanced' approach he promised, meaning significant spending cuts and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt."


Republicans hope that allowing the fiscal cliff compromise, which raised taxes without an equal amount of spending cuts, will settle the issue of tax rates for the coming debates on spending.






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Helping VA rehabilitate those with multiple wounds of war

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Micaela Cornis-Pop oversees more than 110 rehabilitation facilities around the country, helping the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) stay at the forefront of developments in treating traumatic brain injury and other medical injuries and issues facing injured veterans and military service members.


With the increase in battlefield survival rates of military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, service members live with more complex casualties, which led the VA to coin the word “polytrauma” to describe multiple injuries to one person, the most prevalent of which is traumatic brain injury, but also can include post-traumatic stress disorder, multiple amputations, burns, auditory and visual impairments and mental health issues.


In 2005, Cornis-Pop helped conceive, develop and implement the VA’s Polytrauma System of Care, an integrated network of facilities that provide specialized programs to help wounded men and women recover, and move from acute care to outpatient rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. She now leads and manages the system, developing policies and procedures and monitoring their implementation.

“We have a direct impact on how health care is delivered and is impacting veterans and service members, and that is tremendously gratifying,” said Cornis-Pop, national program manager of the Polytrauma System of Care at the Veterans Health Administration, Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Services, at the VA.

She also is responsible for providing education opportunities for VA health care providers who treat traumatic brain injuries. And the system works with another 39 VA locations that provide some, but not all elements of comprehensive polytrauma rehabilitation care, to define the care those facilities can provide and help make the decision when to refer patients to another level of care.

In addition, Cornis-Pop was the lead author and editor of a “massive project” to publish a 166-page book that came out in April 2010, which serves as an accredited independent study course on traumatic brain injury for members of VA health care teams around the country, said Joel Scholten, director of Special Projects at the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Program Office (PM&R), which manages the Polytrauma System of Care. Nearly 12,000 clinicians have completed the course between April 2010 and July 2012, using either the book or a Web version of it.

Cornis-Pop “has the innate ability to pull people together and get focused on a task and think creatively, and, most amazingly, develop an end product that is useful and veteran-centric,” Scholten said. “She develops programs and projects that have been sustained because they are clinically relevant. It’s not just policy that is developed and sits there.”

Dr. David Cifu, national director of the PM&R office, not only relies on Cornis-Pop to coordinate the care programs around the country but also to respond to outside requests for information, including from Congress. “She’s the person who makes it all happen,” he said. “She doesn’t care about getting credit. She just gets things done. That’s gold.”

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Sengkang West LRT loop now fully operational

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SINGAPORE: Some commuters in Sengkang will find it easier to get around the estate on the LRT.

On Tuesday, the trains on the Sengkang West LRT ran in both directions throughout the day, instead of only during the morning and evening peak hours.

Cheng Lim LRT Station, which is on the Sengkang West LRT, also started operations on Tuesday.

Previously, trains on the Sengkang LRT ply either one of the two loops - the East Loop or the West Loop.

The trains were crowded, especially during the peak hours on weekdays and on weekends.

SBS Transit hopes the move will better meet the travel needs of commuters.

It added that an additional 1,033 trips will be added to the line each week.

- CNA/fa



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Pakistani judicial panel to arrive in India by end of January

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NEW DELHI: The Pakistani judicial commission, which will cross examine four witnesses in 26/11 terror attack case, is expected to arrive here by the end of January after approval of the Bombay high court.

The agreement on the visit of the second Pakistani judicial commission to Mumbai was finalised on December 25 in Islamabad following several rounds of discussions on complex technical and legal issues between a four-member visiting Indian delegation and Pakistani officials.

The home ministry will approach the Bombay high court within a day or two to seek its approval for the visit of the Pakistani panel and cross examination of the four witnesses of the Mumbai terror attack case, official sources said.

The witnesses are Metropolitan Magistrate Rama Vijay Sawant-Waghule, who recorded the confessional statement of hanged terrorist Ajmal Kasab, chief investigating officer Ramesh Mahale and two doctors from the state-run Nair and JJ Hospitals who had conducted autopsies of nine terrorists.

The cross examination of the four witnesses is required to take the ongoing 26/11 case in a Rawalpindi court to its logical conclusion.

Seven terrorists, including Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, were charged with planning, financing and executing the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.

Once the approval of the high court is received, New Delhi will convey the same to Islamabad which in turn will inform the Lahore high court for intimation to the Rawalpindi court.

During its visit, the Indian team secured assurance from Pakistani authorities that the findings of the second judicial commission would not be summarily rejected by the anti- terrorism court that is conducting the trial of seven men.

The findings of the first Pakistani judicial commission that visited India in March 2012 were rejected by the anti-terrorism court as the panel's members were not allowed to cross-examine the Indian witnesses.

After the judicial panel visits India and cross examines the four witnesses, Islamabad will be expected to reciprocate by granting an Indian judicial commission access to Pakistani suspects when it visits the country at a later stage.

The trial of the Pakistani suspects has made little or no headway for months due to various technical and legal issues.

The Lahore high court has barred the anti-terrorism court from using Kasab's confession while defence lawyers have contended that existing Pakistani laws do not allow witnesses in another country to depose via video conferencing.

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Space Pictures This Week: Ice “Broccoli,” Solar Storm

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