Mar 31, 2011

Dodgers-Giants taunting? The skies have it

Opening day features dueling aerial messages over Dodger Stadium after widely publicized plans by Giants' fans to tout their World Series win are countered by Dodgers' fans missives.

A plane pulls a banner taunting Dodgers fans prior to the team's season opener against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium on Thursday. (Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

By Bill Shaikin

March 31, 2011, 7:14 p.m.

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Henry Yu glanced nervously toward the sky. He had paid to taunt the Dodgers, for a plane to tow a banner above Dodger Stadium demeaning the home team, and the plane had not shown up at the appointed hour.

Turns out the skies were so crowded that Yu's plane had to wait to enter the airspace above the stadium.

The storied Dodgers-Giants rivalry went aerial Thursday, with a touch of mutual provocation amid the Dodger blue sky.

"That is one thing they never did at the Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field," Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti said.

Photos: Dodgers home opener

The first plane appeared two hours before game time, towing this banner: "LA 5, SF 1, GO DODGERS." That would be the total number of World Series championships for each team since moving from New York.

That also was the counterattack before the attack, the response to the widely publicized plans of Giants fans to conduct an aerial taunting campaign on opening day.

Yu's plane followed shortly thereafter, with this banner: "DODGERS STILL SUCK, FROM SF CHAMP FANS." Later came another plane, and another banner: "SF GIANTS 2010 CHAMPS, BEAT LA."

Yu, who grew up in San Francisco but lives in Long Beach, attended Thursday's game dressed in his Tim Lincecumjersey. He said he paid $1,050 to hire the plane, a small price for payback for all he has endured to root on his Giants at Dodger Stadium.

"I always got heckled about the fact the Giants had never won a World Series," Yu said.

Photos: The Fernando Valenzuela years

The plane wars did not appear to attract much interest in the stands, in part because they were relatively invisible in comparison to the Goodyear blimp that hovered overhead, providing aerial camera shots for the ESPN broadcast while displaying this decidedly nonpartisan message to the fans below:

"ENJOY THE GAME."

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

twitter.com/BillShaikin

Rebels battle for control of Libyan oil town

03/31 | 23:31 GMT

©AFP / Aris Messinis

A Libyan anti-Kadhafi fighter waves the flag of the rebellion on a desert road some 30 kilometers before Brega

NEAR BREGA, Libya (AFP) - Libyan rebels failed Thursday to secure control of the oil town of Brega from Moamer Kadhafi's forces, as the West shied away from supplying arms to their outgunned rag-tag army.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the rebels needed training more than guns but suggested other nations do that job, while French counterpart Gerard Longuet said providing weapons was not part of the UN mandate.

Gates said the military mission did not call for deposing Kadhafi and suggested ultimately it would be economic and political pressure and Libya's people -- not coalition air strikes -- that would topple him.

Scene: Libyan rebels in running street battles for Brega

Grilled by US lawmakers, the Pentagon chief described the rebels as a "disparate," improvised force that had a supply of small arms seized at regime depots but sorely lacked military leadership.

©AFPTV

VIDEO: Libyan rebels fight to regain oil town of Brega. Duration: 01:35

"What they really need is training, command and control and some coherent organization," Gates told the House Armed Services Committee.

"The truth is in terms of providing that training, in terms of providing that assistance to them, frankly, there are many countries that can do that. That's not a unique capability of the United States and as far I'm concerned someone else should do that."

Focus: Pious Libyan rebels say they are not Al-Qaeda

The day after the regime was rocked by the defection of foreign minister Mussa Kussa, a report said British officials held confidential discussions in London with Mohammed Ismail, a top aide to Kadhafi's son Saif al-Islam.

Citing a British government source, the Guardian newspaper said the meeting, one of a number between the two nations in the last two weeks, is believed to have addressed an exit strategy for Kadhafi and his regime.

Britain's Foreign Office refused to comment on the report other than to say it would not provide a "running commentary" on contact between the two countries.

The US military's top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said about 20 to 25 percent of Kadhafi's military had been knocked out by NATO-led bombing but "that does not mean he's about to break from a military standpoint."

animationSet

©AFP iactiv

Storm over Libya: a chronology

"The biggest problem the last three or four days has been weather," Mullen told lawmakers, explaining that an inability to identify targets had reduced their effectiveness and allowed regime forces to make gains.

But experts say the opposition lacks anti-tank weapons, radios and other basics, and above all the disjointed, chaotic force needs rudimentary training.

AFP reporters said running battles raged on the edge of Brega, with regime forces shelling the insurgents who replied with Grad rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.

A day after Kadhafi's forces overran the key oil hub Ras Lanuf and neighbouring villages, the frontline ebbed and flowed on the outskirts of Brega, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Tripoli.

©AFP / Aris Messinis

Libyan rebels return from battle

Shells thumped across the desert north of the road, sending up black clouds of smoke as the rebels responded with a barrage of rockets that flared into the distance.

Clashes also ensued around an oil terminal, but it was unclear who was in control of the town, which the rebels had retaken at the weekend, only to lose it again on Wednesday.

There was house by house fighting in the bombed-out streets of central Misrata, Libya's third largest city, which has held out against a relentless siege by Kadhafi's forces.

"Kadhafi is killing us," shouted one opposition fighter in a ragged uniform and a blue beret, as artillery fire blasted nearby. Tank and rocket explosions echoed around the shuttered shops, the homes and mosques of the city centre.

Scene: Shell-shocked city resists Kadhafi onslaught

As the debate raged over whether Western powers should arm the insurgents, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen ruled out such a move.

©AFP / Filippo Monteforte

An injured boy lies on his bed in a local clinic after the polyclinic he was being treated in was bombed in Misrata

"We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm people," Rasmussen told reporters.

US, British, French, Canadian, Danish and Belgian jets have attacked Kadhafi's ground forces since March 19 under UN Security Council resolution 1973, which authorized "all necessary measures" to protect civilians.

Facts: Military contributions to NATO-led mission

France, which had previously indicated it was ready to discuss sending arms to the insurgents, on Thursday appeared to rule it out.

"Such assistance is not on the agenda because it is not compatible with resolution 1973," Longuet told reporters.

On the humanitarian front, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said it was "absolutely essential that humanitarian access is given to all those in need of assistance wherever they might be in Libya."

French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) said a new wave of refugees fleeing the fighting in Libya was crossing into Tunisia and warned that even more might be on their way.

"A month after the start of the conflict, the number of displaced people fleeing the violence is again on the increase at the border between Libya and Tunisia," ACF said.

"Today 9,000 people are living in the camp at Choucha," compared with hardly 3,000 last week, the organisation said.

Wednesday's defection of Kussa, the most senior figure to jump ship since the uprising against Kadhafi's iron-fisted 41-year rule erupted more than six weeks ago, was widely seen as a sign of a crumbling regime.

©AFP / Aris Messinis

Libyan anti-Kadhafi fighters return from battle

British Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted that Kussa, who has been linked to atrocities including the 1988 Lockerbie bombing over Scotland, had not been offered immunity from prosecution.

Scottish prosecutors said they had requested an interview with Kussa over the Lockerbie bombing, while Hague told reporters he was being interviewed "voluntarily" by British officials.

The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that the United States and Britain had inserted covert intelligence agents into Libya to make contact with rebels and to gather data to guide coalition air strikes.

The White House refused to comment on the apparent shadow war and also declined to discuss another report that President Barack Obama had signed a secret order allowing CIA operations in the country.

How Libya Might Go Wrong: The French Version

By BRUCE CRUMLEY / PARIS Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2011

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech in Paris after international talks on Libya.

Lionel Bonaventure / Reuters

How might the Libya mission go badly? Every country involved in the coalition has its own military and domestic political calculations. But a general sense of what factors are in play can be gleaned from the predicament of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Western leader who first came out hard for the intervention against Muammar Gaddafi.

In the eyes of the French public, Sarkozy is looking fairly good at the moment. The deeply unpopular President has experienced a small boost of approval at home and abroad because of his role in rallying risk-averse allies into staging air intervention to prevent what could have been a massacre of opponents and civilians at the hands of advancing Gaddafi troops. Sarkozy's hawkishness on Libya "is winning him applause in France today due to the universal hostility toward Gaddafi," says Karim Emile Bitar, a Middle East specialist for the Institution of International and Strategic Relations in Paris, "but that could prove short-lived for several reasons and come back to haunt him." That's because the French public could quickly develop mission fatigue, especially with Paris already imposing an array of austerities to reduce the domestic budget deficit. The moral imperative to help the Libyan rebels may bog down if the French people figure the money involved is better spent at home.(See photos of the battle for Libya.)

The nature of the conflict is more than likely to prolong the intervention or make its open-endedness frustratingly clear. Says Bitar: "Gaddafi has managed to group a large number of his forces within big cities, meaning air strikes to eliminate them aren't going to work unless you're willing to kill far greater numbers of the surrounding civilian population. This is why the air strategy was risky from the start ... By consequence, fears are high that after a certain point, this could go on and on and wear Western opinion down."

Then there is the potential quagmire in the tangle of countries associated with the alliance against Gaddafi. Already, in Europe, there is disagreement between prointervention countries and nations like Germany and Italy on both the military operation and how to deal with Gaddafi. The French and British issued contradictory statements on the ultimate overseer of the operation. Paris indicated that a contact group of nations would essentially run the Libya mission; London stressed that the NATO command structure would ultimately make the strategic and military decisions.(See photos of workers lost in Libya's turmoil.)

There is not just French and Western public opinion to worry about. "If the military operation goes on for very long," says Bitar, "Arab public opinion will begin rapidly [to compare] it to Iraq and start viewing it as another kind of invasion of an Arab country, rather than an attempt to let Libyans determine their fate in a fair fight. And that's not even considering the possibility of large numbers of Libyan civilians' being killed as collateral damage in strikes, or if they get caught between opposing forces in what becomes an open-ended civil war. There, too, Arab public opinion will turn hostile to the intervention and blame it for the unending violence and death."

Bitar warns of unintended consequences. "Up till now, uprisings in Arab countries have largely been spontaneous, national affairs that have ebbed and flowed, succeeded or failed without outside intervention, and as struggles between popular desire and resistance from regimes." However, he says, "should Libya become primarily associated with outside intervention and the death and destruction that produces, it could have a real quashing effect on the aspirations and ambitions that have been driving the Arab Spring up till now. And that — combined with continued unrest and chaos in Libya — could also have a very real impact on the search for new systems of government in Tunisia and Egypt. We could very well see some of the old-guard elements in those countries looking over at Libya and deciding, 'O.K., let's stop playing around and impose our will here. Look what the will of the people gets you.'"

And things could still go wrong even if the rebels prevail. "Who are the figures leading the opposition?" Bitar asks. "They're almost all veterans of the Gaddafi regime who defected once the wind had turned and are now trying urgently to make sure they didn't back the wrong horse. They may all turn out to be valuable partners and committed democrats who want to bring prosperity and human rights to Libya once Gaddafi is gone. Or they may turn out to be other kinds of people — we won't know for a while. But there's a risk there too, and one Sarkozy will have to live with."(Read "Libya: NATO Takes Charge, but Will Europe Take the Lead?")

Sarkozy won a fair measure of praise for being the first leader to recognize the Libyan opposition as the legitimate leadership of the country — but even that may come back to haunt him if things go wrong. Sarkozy's decision was taken almost on the spur of the moment, and under the spectacular browbeating of mediagenic philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who decided to make a crusade to protect the Libyan opposition a reprise of his 1990s campaign as the savior of the Bosnians during the Balkan war. Sarkozy reportedly did so without even consulting newly named Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppé (who was said to have been both hostile to the move and aghast that a media star had taken his role as France's top diplomat). "There may be heavy consequences," says Bitar, "when a President makes decisions based on input by celebrities."

Japan Seeks French, U.S. Nuke Expertise

By AP / RYAN NAKASHIMA AND MARI YAMAGUCHI Thursday, Mar. 31, 2011

Inside Fukushima Daiichi, March 23, 2011
Engineers check the interior of the central control room at the stricken power plant. Though the environment inside the building is extremely hot, the workers must wear thick rubber bodysuits to protect their skin from radioactivity.

Jiji / AFP / Getty Images

(TOKYO, Japan) — Japan is increasingly turning to other countries for help as it struggles to stabilize its tsunami-stricken nuclear plant and stop radiation leaks that are complicating efforts to recover the bodies of some of the thousands swept away by the towering wave.

French, American and international experts — even a robot — are either in Japan or on their way, and French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Tokyo on Thursday to meet with the prime minister and show solidarity.

Workers are racing to find the source of contaminated water that has been pooling in the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The leaks have often forced workers to flee the plant, preventing them from restarting important cooling systems.

"The amount of water is enormous, and we need any wisdom available," said nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama.(See pictures from inside Fukushima.)

Experts from French nuclear giant Areva, which supplied fuel to the plant, are helping figure out how to dispose of the contaminated water that has begun leaking into the ground and the sea.

"We are not a supplier only for happy days," CEO Anne Lauvergeon told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday. "We are effectively also there when things become difficult."

Officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, said they welcome the help.

"U.S. nuclear plants aren't by the ocean, unlike Japanese ones, so we think the French may be able to help us more than the Americans," said TEPCO manager Teruaki Kobayashi.

TEPCO officials also said they expect to use a remote-controlled robot sent by the U.S. within a few days to evaluate areas with high radiation. They are also setting up a panel of Japanese and American nuclear experts and U.S. military personnel to address the crisis.(See how bad the radiation is in areas surrounding Fukushima.)

A TEPCO spokesman said Thursday that radioactive contamination in groundwater nearly 50 feet (15 meters) under one of six reactors had been measured at 10,000 times the government standard for water at the plant. It was the first time the utility has released statistics for groundwater near the plant.

TEPCO did not immediately explain the health risks if that water were to get into the environment or say if that was a possibility, although spokesman Naoyuki Matsumo said the drinking water supply has not been affected. Still, elevated levels of iodine-131, a radioactive substance that decays quickly, were another sign that radiation continues to leak at the plant.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the tsunami and magnitude-9.0 earthquake. Some saw their homes destroyed by the wall of water, while others have been ordered to leave if they live 12 miles (20 meters) from the plant. Authorities have recommended that people who live 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the plant might want to evacuate too — because of the lack of services in that area.

Some frustrated evacuees closer to the plant had begun trickling back to gather belongings and check on their homes, but officials in Fukushima prefecture posted warnings at evacuation centers telling them not to go back for any reason.

"There is not only a risk that you may be contaminated, but also that you could contaminate others in the evacuation centers when you return," the warnings said. "The national government is now considering whether to allow brief return visits, so please bear with us."

On Friday, the government said it planned more tests on a cow slaughtered for beef that had very slightly elevated levels of cesium, another radioactive particle. Officials stressed that the meat was never put on the market. Contamination has already been found in vegetables and raw milk near the plant.

Health Ministry spokesman Taku Ohara said the cesium was found in a cow slaughtered March 15 more than 40 miles (70 kilometers) from the plant. It had a total cesium level of 510 becquerels per kilogram. The limit is 500.

Radioactive cesium can build up in the body and high levels are thought to be a risk for various cancers. Still, researchers who studied Chernobyl could not find an increase in cancers that might be linked to cesium.

It is still found in the soil of Germany, Austria and France 25 years after Chernobyl and is found in wild boar in Germany, making the pigs off-limits for eating in many cases. The limit Germany has set for cesium in wild boars is 600 becquerels per kilogram.

In Japan, the radiation has forced police officers trying to recover the dead from the evacuation zone to don white hazmat suits and radiation monitors. Officials believe more than 19,000 people died, but so far only about 11,000 bodies have been found. Local media estimate that hundreds of corpses remain.(See photos of the calamity of the Japan quake.)

"We find bodies everywhere — in cars, in rivers, under debris and in streets," a police official from the hard-hit Fukushima prefecture said Thursday. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

In the small coastal city of Miyako, many people still have no idea what happened to their relatives. Residents watched intently Thursday as a firefighter in a boat and two tractors cleared the bay of rubble, part of cleanup efforts under way along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of Japan's northeastern seaboard.

Giant tractors and dump trucks cleared roads and sorted debris into giant piles. Huge barges with onboard cranes docked offshore and scooped up wreckage in the shallow bays.

"I lost three grandchildren," says Isamu Aneishi, 69, who sat on a log for hours and watched the men search the bay.

A vacant lot outside Miyako has been turned into a car graveyard, with hundreds of wrecked vehicles from across the region deposited in neat rows. Some looked ready to be driven away, while others were little more than mangled heaps of metal. Many were marked with red spray paint, indicating bodies had been found inside, and some still had keys in the ignition. Residents walked up and down the rows looking for their cars.(See Japan's Fukushima heroes.)

"This is my third time coming here," said Yasuhiro Ichihashi, 42, who watched his car get swept out of the parking lot at his factory from high ground. "They keep adding more cars every day, so I come back to check."

Meanwhile, at the nuclear plant 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, workers go inside in shifts and are often forced to turn back because radiation levels are too high.

They have been lauded as heroes, but Kazuma Yokota, head of the Fukushima local office Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said he saw them living under harsh conditions during a recent inspection visit. They got only two meals a day and just one blanket each when it was time to sleep.

"They sleep on the floor, inside a conference room, or even in the hallway or in front of a bathroom. That's where they sleep, with only one blanket each to wrap themselves around," he told a televised news conference. Nishiyama said TEPCO is working to improve the conditions.

Sarkozy, the first major international leader to visit since the disaster, praised the work being done at the plant.

"Every image I have seen is really, really disturbing, and I am really impressed by the workers in Fukushima who work at the nuclear plant with courage," he said before meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

After the meeting, he urged the world to learn from Japan's crisis and suggested that the Group of 20 nations set international nuclear safety standards.

"It's completely abnormal that these international safety norms don't exist," Sarkozy said. The International Atomic Energy Agency does have standards, but nations are not bound by them.

Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge in Fukushima, Jay Alabaster in Miyako and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report.

NEWS

Mar 31, 2011

Dodgers-Giants taunting? The skies have it

Opening day features dueling aerial messages over Dodger Stadium after widely publicized plans by Giants' fans to tout their World Series win are countered by Dodgers' fans missives.

Rebels battle for control of Libyan oil town

How Libya Might Go Wrong: The French Version

By BRUCE CRUMLEY / PARIS Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2011

MORE

Japan Seeks French, U.S. Nuke Expertise

By AP / RYAN NAKASHIMA AND MARI YAMAGUCHI Thursday, Mar. 31, 2011

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