China facing Three Gorges fallout; Turkey says US Armenian genocide resolution strains ties; UN calls for Iraq contractors to face justice...

11 October :: China plans to relocate some 4 million additional people to curb ecological fallout from massive reservoir, "irrational development", ecological collapse around Three Gorges Dam; move comes after top officials, engineers at site warned gov't the project could lead to "environmental catastrophe"; ENN reports "Environmentalists have long criticized the project, saying silt trapped behind the dam is causing erosion and warning that the dam's reservoir will turn into a cesspool of raw sewage and industrial chemicals backing onto Chongqing"... Turkey's gov't has condemned a resolution passed by the US House recognizing the WWI massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide; PM Tayyip Erdogan, head of the conservative ruling party, has been preparing to push for permission from Parliament for a military incursion into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, says US resolution will damage strategic relationship "make relations with a friend and ally, and a strategic partnership nurtured over generations, more difficult"... Reuters reports "The United Nations wants probes to determine whether private security contractors in Iraq have committed war crimes and for governments to ensure that the rule of law is applied, U.N. officials said on Thursday"; statement comes after a shooting incident in which a Dubai-based security firm allegedly "shot randomly" at security checkpoint, killing two female civilians, amid mounting pressure to rein in security firms after Blackwater guards allegedly killed 17 Iraqi civilians in mid September shooting... Monks detained by Burmese junta reportedly told "you are no longer monks", as guards abused, threatened them, forced them to stand in cages for days with no toilet or wash area...

Sarkozy campaign against 'sans papiers' includes police storming homes, woman killed, child in coma, public mounts 'resistance'...

3 October :: Guardian newspaper reports Sarkozy campaign against immigrants has led to police "storming" private residences, people falling from balconies —at least one woman killed, one youth in coma—, new underground network of conscientious citizens hiding children to prevent parents' deportation, estimated 20,000 have joined 'new resistance' to prevent rounding up of neighbors... Intense ice-melt across Canadian Arctic has split Ayles Ice Island —iceberg the size of Manhattan— in half, with one section traveling up to 98km in one week; record ice-melt has startled climatologists, Coast Guard... Chinese scientists and officials have warned Three Gorges dam project will cause "environmental catastrophe unless accumulating threats are quickly defused, senior officials and experts have warned"; according to the Environmental News Network, even top officials at the dam itself, who have formerly defended its safety, now say local ecosystems are facing calamitous stresses and action needs to be taken...