ႏိုင္ငံတကာသတင္း

A partial view of the entrance of the collapsed San Jose mine, which trapped 33 miners a year ago today.

1 year after mine collapse, survivors confront life after fame

A partial view of the entrance of the collapsed San Jose mine, which trapped 33 miners a year ago today.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Friday is the one-year anniversary of the Chile mine collapse
  • Four of the miners are at the opening of a new exhibit at the Smithsonian
  • Fame for them has faded in Chile, one miner says
  • Abroad, a movie is in the works

(CNN) -- They spent 69 days in the bowels of the earth, 700 meters deep, not knowing if they would survive. For 17 days after the mine in which they were working collapsed, nobody even knew if they were alive. Friday marks the one-year observance of the fateful incident in Chile that trapped 33 miners who were saved in a miraculous rescue that made headlines around the world.
Fame came after the rescue, which faded quicker in their country than abroad, and since then they have traveled to several destinations all-expenses-paid, though many report having money problems.
Four of the miners will observe the anniversary of the event that changed their lives in Washington where an exhibit in their honor is being opened at the Smithsonian Institution.
Mario Sepulveda, one of the miners attending, reflected on the historical significance of the event.
"In spite of our painful experience, it is very important to us that what is being exhibited will show the world what happened," Sepulveda said. He was the second to be rescued from the mine.
Since they were rescued last October, the miners have traveled the world. Edison Pena, the miner whose underground workouts in the darkness garnered attention, ran the New York Marathon less than a month after being rescued.
Pena also appeared on "The Late Show with Dave Letterman" on CBS where he impersonated his idol, Elvis Presley. Then, in January, he was invited as a guest of honor to the Graceland Mansion, in Memphis, Tennessee. Pena had dreamed of visiting the mansion since he became an Elvis fan as a teenager.
In January, the entire group of 33 was honored at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. While there, they served as honorary Grand Marshals of Disney's Main Street U.S.A parade. They spent a full week in Orlando enjoying the attractions.
But at home in Chile celebrity has not been what they expected, according to one of the miners, Jorge Galleguillos.
The good will from their country faded fast, he said.
"They love us more abroad. They congratulate us, they want to touch us and get a blessing from us. That's not the case in Chile. Only a few greet us with affection; many more say hi with envy," Galleguillos said.
A movie about the miners' ordeal is in the works. According to the Hollywood Reporter, producer Mike Medavoy ("Shutter Island", "Black Swan") has snapped up the right to the story and Jose Rivera ("Motorcycle Diaries") has been enlisted to adapt the screenplay.
But at home, relations with the Chilean government are strained. Thirty-one of the 33 miners filed a lawsuit accusing the agency that oversees mining of failing to ensure safety measures.
Carlos Barrios, the 13th miner rescued, says they're not targeting President Sebastian Pinera.
"We're not suing the current president. This has been happening for a long time. This happened during the administrations of other presidents. Why didn't they take a closer look [at the situation]?" Barrios asked.
Hernan de Solminihac, the Chilean mining minister, said his government respects the miners' right to sue.
"As any Chilean citizen, the miners have the freedom and the right to file any lawsuit they wish. They have chosen to do so and our judicial authorities are evaluating the suit," he said.
The miners are seeking the equivalent of $16 million in damages for the collapse of the mine where they were trapped last year in the Chilean Atacama desert. They say their lawsuit isn't about the money, but about raising awareness about the working conditions for miners in their country, which they say, has been neglected for a long time.




Why did Pakistan's spy chief make a secret trip to China?

By Ishaan Tharoor, Global Spin
Reports reveal Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan's main military intelligence agency, the ISI, flew on a secret mission to Beijing for urgent talks this Monday. The visit followed swiftly on the heels of yet another round of diplomatic squabbling between Washington and Islamabad.
During a heated summer of disputes, tensions between the ISI and the CIA flared most recently over the alleged Pakistani harassment of American officials stationed in the country. Pasha's China trip has been interpreted by some as a tacit act of defiance — a reminder to his American counterparts that the Pakistanis can always look east to their “all-weather” friend across the Himalayas rather than bend the knee to the will of the U.S.
But it also may be a sign of China's growing disquiet with Pakistan. Another top-ranking Pakistani military officer, Lt. Gen Wahid Arshad, had already conducted a considerable tour of China just weeks ago in a bid to improve ties.
A few analysts have suggested that Pasha's trip — couched in vague terms about building a “broad-based strategic dialogue” — may have been less a visit and more of a summons.
After all, China claimed this week that Islamist militants trained in Pakistan were behind a violent attack in the far western city of Kashgar that killed at least 14 and injured dozens more. Like the U.S., perhaps the Chinese are now also frustrated at the dangers Pakistan has long let take root on its soil.

Russia's Ghost Towns

By Howard Amos, Global Post
PSKOV, Russia ― A few miles after the tiny Russian hamlet of Molodoshkovo the unpaved road ends in a muddy path. Though it has only four inhabitants ― three of whom are over 75 ― there are 11 houses in Molodoshkovo. There are also the remains of several more.
From Portugal to Japan, demographic stagnation is a familiar story of developed countries, but relentless rural depopulation is particularly acute in Russia. The region of Pskov, home of Molodoshkovo, is one of the areas most affected.
According to preliminary data from the country’s 2010 census, Pskov’s population shrank by almost a million souls over the last eight years ― an 11.5 percent drop. The population in the country as a whole dropped just 1.6 percent.
In a list of Russia’s 83 regions ranked according to demographic loss, Pskov comes third behind Magadan, former center of the Soviet Union's forced labor camps in the country’s far northeast, and the north Caucasian republic of Ingushetia, blighted by decades of violence.
Pskov, in contrast, is on Russia’s western border with the European Union.
And ― unlike Magadan or Ingushetia ― this is ancient Russian land. The regional capital, also called Pskov, was founded in 903 and is home to exquisite Byzantine frescoes. It is there that Russia’s last czar signed his abdication in 1917.
In a nod not only to its geographic position, but also to its long history, the regional tourist department has devised a slogan that is plastered across city buses, “Pskov Region: Russia Starts Here!”
Little public transport passes through Molodoshkovo, which is connected to the district center, a town 13 miles away, by a bus that runs once a month. But the village was not always half-deserted.
A photograph taken at the beginning of the 20th century ― when Nicholas II was czar and Lenin was scribbling social democratic tracts in a London garret ― shows Molodoshkovo on a festival day. There are more than 16 people in the picture, young and old, and there is a two-story house in the background.
Today, the village’s seven deserted houses have been looted of anything of value. Torn pictures, empty jars and old farm tools lie amid the rubbish scattered on their floors, while filthy white drapes billow in the breeze.
World War II dealt the first blow to the population in this part of Russia. Of the 1.5 million people living in the region before the war, only 500,000 remained when the Nazis retreated toward Germany in 1944. Pskov was the last Soviet city to be liberated from Nazi occupation.
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But the depopulation of Russia as a whole began in earnest during the disintegration of communism ― in 1992 more people died than were born for the first time since World War II. Ever since, numerous factors have led to a precipitous decline in the rural population.
The prevalence of chronic disease, poverty (23 million Russians live on less than $231 a month), high rates of violence and the abuse of alcohol and tobacco push up mortality rates, while birth rates remain low. The life expectancy for Russian males is 61.8 years, compared with 74.2 years for females.
In rural areas the implosion of the Soviet planned economy in the early 1990s caused the collapse of the agricultural system on which people depended for a living and made internal migration to the cities easier and increasingly desirable. The closure of schools and other public services has accelerated the outflow.
A source close to Pskov’s governor, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said that this situation was more or less typical for Russia because, while the Soviet Union could force people to work in certain places, modern Russia can’t do that.
“Of course it’s bad when there is land and no inhabitants,” he said. “But you can say that agriculture is falling apart ― or you can say that people do not want to work in agriculture.
“People like to live in a ‘modern’ way ― sit in front of computers, go to supermarkets, receive a salary and have fun with it ― they are not interested in physical labor.”
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He pointed to the growth of St. Petersburg. “We are not dying [in Pskov region] because everything is terrible, but because the grass is greener on the other side of the field.”
Former agricultural glories are visible in Vyazi, a village near Molodoshkovo, where rusty grain towers stand next to a large, empty concrete notice board from the old collective farm. It is labelled “our achievements.”
Nina Antonovna lives in Baranovo, a few miles from Molodoshkovo. She said Baranovo ― with its current population of three adults and half a dozen goats ― was more typical of the region’s decline than Molodoshkovo.
Fifty years ago Baranovo had 12 houses and several families with children, said Antonovna, who was born in the village and is now in her 80s. She recalled the Nazi occupation of the area during the Second World War: a German soldier who gave her candies and the nocturnal visits of Russian partisans.
Her husband, Nikolai Antonov, said his father had lived in the nearby hamlet of Timnovo, which is now accessible only by foot or 4×4. During his childhood, Antonov said, Timnovo had more than 50 people living in it.
The last resident of Timnovo, Maria Ivanovna, died on New Year’s Day 2011 and a team of people struggled to get her body, by tractor, to the cemetery through deep snow.
Few rural settlements in Russia do not have empty houses and there are about 6,000 “ghost villages” ― like Timnovo, without a single resident ― across the country.
The couple complained that land ownership rights are irretrievably muddled due to large numbers of people dying and leaving permanently for cities ― to such an extent that legal complications deter people looking to move the other way.
Many characterize Russia’s demographic problems as a crisis. In an April report, the Berlin Institute for Population and Development predicted that Russia’s population will fall by another 24 million people before 2050 ― making it the world’s 14th most populous state, one place above Vietnam.
Depopulation has been a charged political issue since the fall of Soviet Union ― Boris Yeltsin once faced a possible impeachment charge for presiding over the “genocide” of the Russian people ― and both Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev have spoken out on the issue.
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In his April 20 annual address to Russia’s parliament, Putin said that 1.5 trillion rubles ($52.5 billion) had been allocated to “demographic projects.”
Nikolai Petrov, a scholar at Moscow’s Carnegie Center, however, said that the government, in offering financial incentives for mothers as a primary means of encouraging growth, was not addressing root causes.
Those around Putin, he said, have misinterpreted a demographic “echo” of the baby boom as “the result of their wonderful demographic politics.”
Today, as one part of a drive to stimulate development, Pskov’s administration is looking to make the area into a magnet for tourism.
Ivan Tsetsersky, the city’s mayor, has tried to turn what the city lacks into an asset. “We don’t have heavy industry — or chemical industry,” he said.
What the region does have is rural vistas speckled with remnants of imperial Russia. Pskov was once the playground of the czarist elite from St. Petersburg, who built hundreds of extravagant country houses. Russia’s most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin, had his estate here ― to which he was banished for subversive poetry.
In villages across the region, the ruins of imperial estates and churches dwarf modern houses of cheap, gray bricks or wood. Glimpses of once enormous landscaped gardens are preserved in alleys of trees, scummy ponds and fountains which haven’t worked for decades.
“Pskov occupies fourth place for the best environmental conditions in the world,” Tsetsersky boasted.
Perhaps Pskov’s emptiness can bring people back ― at least for a long weekend.


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