Mayor of New York Asks Obama and Romney Steady hand on Arms Issue
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg invited the President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney and required them to show strong and clear positions regarding the control and possession of firearms in the United States.
Bloomberg’s remarks come at a time that the country is overwhelmed by the killing last Friday at a theater in Colorado, that killed 12 people while 59 others were injured.
Both Obama and Romney showed their sorrow and condolences for the tragic event.
Although the reassurances of the presidential candidates are nice, are not enough, Bloomberg considered.
It is time for those who aspire to sit in the Oval Office to stand up and tell us what to do about it, because this is obviously a national problem, the mayor said in an interview with radio station WOR News Talk 710, in New York .
Bloomberg has been an outspoken supporter of gun control, said the newspaper The Hill.
There are so many gun murders every day, so that it’s time to put an end to this situation, Bloomberg estimated.
Instead of talking about a better world and other general topics, the president and the former governor should show their position on the Second Amendment and express in concrete terms, what will they do with guns, the official questioned.
The Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to gun ownership.
The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said to reporters that the president is aware of the fine line between the law which protects the Second Amendment and the need to protect citizens from those who abuse the law.
We are making progress in terms of improving the volume and quality of the information to verify the criminal records of those who wish to buy weapons. But there is nothing else, Carney acknowledged.
Romney, who also issued a statement condemning the killings, is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, the newspaper noted.
“I support the Second Amendment as one of the most basic and fundamental rights of all U.S Americans”, said the former governor during a meeting of the National Rifle Association in 2007.
Bolivian Vice President Blames Right-Wing Media for Manipulation
Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, is clear that the rightwing press has manipulated Bolivians so far about the issue of the Indigenous Territory and Isiboro-Secure National Park (Tipnis).
According to García Linera, “all private media, without exception, have spoken of Tipnis as the lung of the world. Sounds great and is very striking to talk about the lungs of the world, where these are the forests that provide us with air and water, then you say, how it is possible to not care about the lung of the world. “
But in reality “in the Tipnis there are and were sales of wood, even with the current leadership involved. When we denounced them, they said it was government propaganda. The truth is that there is an area with machinery and a lot of companies exploiting wood with private concessions, ” Garcia Linera emphasized.
Garcia Linera, also chairman of the Legislative Assembly stressed that “the lung of the world is not a lumber concession, a place where thousands of crocodile are killed annually to transform them into leather by foreign private companies, and then take the skins to Italy and make expensive handbags and belts with them. “
“In the Tipnis, there are leather factories and nobody has taken that into account. None of these media has made a report of such predation, ” said García Linera.
The official recalled that “there remains privilege tourism at that place. A ticket for 4 days to the Tipnis and hunting in lakes and rivers in the area is worth seven thousand dollars. No Bolivian ever went. Visitors just came from the United States and Europe, with flights to airstrips in the Tipnis,”
The vice president said that despite all that, media was reporting on the region as something precious and that sensitized many people, when that was an area of wide industrial production, legal and illegal. The media did not invoke this and built the myth of the lung of the planet, a paradise enclosed in a small territory in the Amazon ‘. The media has also encouraged the belief that a road would destroy the heart of that park.
However, Garcia Linera lamented that “noboby has sofar complained that each year in Santa Cruz, 250 thousand hectares of forest are destroyed without there has being a single run or walk or vigil to protest against the fact.”
“That kind of lies has been the guiding of all private television channels in the country, according to Garcia Linera.
Israel removes West Bank checkpoint after 12 years
Israeli authorities removed on Saturday a 12-year roadblock in the West Bank city of Jericho, a Palestinian official said.
The governor of Jericho, Majid al-Fityani, confirmed that Israeli bulldozers opened the northern entrance to the province, benefiting the farmers in the Jordan Valley. The farmers can now move their products without unnecessary delays, reviving the trade and the economy in Nuweima village, he added.
Furthermore, Palestinian citizens can now travel with ease between the northern West Bank and Jericho, avoiding 80 kilometer long route.
The roadblock was set in place under the second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000. The UN estimates the number of Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints between West Bank villages and cities at 600.
Via PL