The Rescuers Vhs
Elisabetta Buendia
The whale was first spotted in distress near the South Bay with rope wrapped around both its left and right fluke blades, severely restricting its movement. The whale moved down the coastline to Orange County before settling near Dana Point for the last several days.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries for short) worked with whale watching groups and other rescue agencies, going out onto the water to take photos and videos documenting the entanglement and determining how and where to cut the rope. The whale was easy for rescuers to keep tabs on, since the rope on the whale's flukes made it hard for it to dive deep.
"We were really lucky that this whale basically hung out in the same area for this entire week," said Justin Viezbicke, with NOAA Fisheries. "And pretty much every day, we've had the whale watch folks letting us know, 'Hey, the whale's here. We'll stay on it until you guys get out here to help out.'"
Viezbicke, who spoke to LAist on Friday while returning to shore from the successful rescue attempt, said saving the whale took so long because its behavior was skittish and evasive. He is the California coordinator for responding to marine mammals in distress or danger.
"We've had to be really patient and really take our time so that we could get in close proximity to get the video and the pictures and then make the cut," he said. "So it's been a really long process this week, for sure."
"The whale was breaching and was super surface active, and typically when they're doing those things, that can help and loosen things up," Viezbicke said. "You could see the gear getting looser and looser, and finally the gear just flew off. And it was kind of a surreal moment. I think everybody on the boat cheered. I might have gotten some goosebumps."
But research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.
But some international law specialists fiercely disagree, arguing that the strikes amount to little more than state-sanctioned extra-judicial executions and questioning how the US government would react if another state such as China or Russia started taking such action against those they declare as enemies.
The first confirmed attack on rescuers took place in North Waziristan on May 16 2009. According to Mushtaq Yusufzai, a local journalist, Taliban militants had gathered in the village of Khaisor. After praying at the local mosque, they were preparing to cross the nearby border into Afghanistan to launch an attack on US forces. But the US struck first.
For the Americans the attack was a success. A surprise tactic had resulted in the deaths of many Taliban. But locals say that six ordinary villagers also died that day, identified by Bureau field researchers as Sabir, Ikram, Mohib, Zahid, Mashal and Syed Noor (most people in the area use only one name).
The Khaisoor incident was not a one-off. Between May 2009 and June 2011, at least fifteen attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, Associated Press, ABC News and Al Jazeera.
The researchers were told by villagers that strikes on rescuers began as early as March 2008, although no media carried reports at the time. The Bureau is seeking testimony relating to nine additional incidents.
One of the most devastating attacks took place on March 17 last year, the day after Pakistan had released American CIA contractor Raymond Davis, jailed for shooting dead two men in Lahore. Davis had been held for two months and was released after the payment of blood money said to be around $2.3m.
The agency was said to be furious at the affair. The following day when a massive drone strike killed up to 42 people gathered at a meeting in North Waziristan, Pakistani officials believed it to be retaliation.
Drone attacks have long been a source of tension between the US and Pakistan despite the fact that the Pakistan government gave tacit agreement, even allowing them to fly from Shamsi airbase in the western province of Baluchistan, while publicly denouncing the attacks.
However the relationship has been stretched to breaking point, first with the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May and subsequent US accusations of Pakistani complicity, then the NATO bombing of a Pakistani post in November, killing 24 soldiers. In December Pakistan ordered the CIA to vacate the Shamsi base. For a while drone attacks stopped but they resumed two weeks ago.
The US claims the drones are a vital tool that have helped them almost wipe out the leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan. But others point out they have stoked enormous anti-American sentiment in a country with an arsenal of 200 nuclear weapons.
So dramatic is the switch to unmanned war that he says the US now has 7,000 drones operating and 12,000 more on the ground, while not a single new manned combat aircraft is under research or development at any western aerospace company.
After a remarkable lack of debate, there is starting to be unease in the US at the lack of transparency and accountability in the use of drones particularly as the campaign has expanded to hit targets in Libya, Yemen and Somalia and until recently to patrol the skies in Iraq.
The fact that the operations are carried out by the CIA rather than the US military enables the administration to evade questions. The Agency press office responds to media inquiries on the subject with no comment and refusal to give names of those killed or who are on the target list.
Privately some senior US military officers say they are extremely uncomfortable at the way the administration is carrying out these operations using the CIA which is not covered by laws of war or the Geneva Convention.
The use of drones outside a declared war zone is seen by many legal experts as setting a dangerous precedent. Aside from allies such as Israel, Britain and France, other countries have drone technology including China, Russia and Pakistan. Iran recently captured a downed US drone.
Flash flooding tore through a village in southwestern Sichuan province in the middle of the night Saturday, and rescuers said 10 people died and they were searching for another 29 missing. Days of heavy rain swelled the river that runs through the village of Xinhua in Hanyuan county. The water swept away 40 houses on the riverbank, according to local media, while also breaking bridges and cutting off roads.
In northwestern Shaanxi province, vehicles fell into a rushing river when part of a highway bridge collapsed late Friday, and state broadcaster CCTV reported at least 15 deaths confirmed as of Monday. A photo released by China's Xinhua news agency showed a section of the bridge snapped and folded at almost a 90-degree angle into the rushing brown water below.
The collapse raised more questions about the safety of China's road and bridge infrastructure, which was built rapidly in recent decades. A similar collapse in May in Guangdong province killed 36 people.
With climate change, the world is likely to face more extreme weather and climate events such as record heat and rainfall. This year, in just the first five days of May, 70 countries or territories broke heat records.
The US government made no exceptions for refugees escaping persecution, and it did not adjust the immigration laws during the refugee crisis of the 1930s and 1940s. As a result, the waiting lists for US immigrant visas grew as hundreds of thousands of Jews attempted to flee Europe. When the United States entered World War II, it became more challenging for Jews to escape. The State Department instituted additional restrictions on immigration in 1941, citing national security concerns. Among these was the announcement that any refugee with close family still in enemy territory would be ineligible for a US immigration visa. American consulates in Nazi-occupied territory closed in July 1941, cutting off many applicants from the US diplomats who could issue visas. At the same time, the State Department announced that all visa applicants had to be approved by an interdepartmental visa review committee in Washington, DC. This decision lengthened the delays for refugees who had managed to make it to southern France or Lisbon, Portugal, the only places in Europe from which they could still sail to the United States. In addition, the United States and other Allied forces prioritized military victory over humanitarian aid during World War II. Although the United States could have done more to aid the victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, large-scale rescue by Americans was impossible by the time the United States entered the war.
Despite the lack of support for wide-scale governmental intervention on behalf of Jewish refugees, American individuals from many religious backgrounds risked their lives to help Jews. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks both small and large. A variety of US-based organizations (both religious and secular, Jewish and non-Jewish) engaged in rescue efforts. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the National Refugee Service, the Emergency Rescue Committee, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), the Unitarian Service Committee, and other groups coordinated relief activities for Jewish refugees in France, Portugal, Spain, and elsewhere throughout the war.
Roosevelt tasked this organization, nominally headed by the secretaries of state, war, and the treasury, with carrying out an official American policy of rescue and relief. The War Refugee Board staff worked with Jewish organizations, diplomats from neutral countries, and resistance groups in Europe to rescue Jews from occupied territories and provide relief to Jews in hiding and in concentration camps. They organized a psychological warfare campaign to deter potential perpetrators, opened a refugee camp in upstate New York, and released the first details of mass murder at Auschwitz to the American people.
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