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Let there be light . . . a new kind of light Gun control backers win first showdown in US Senate
Hopes of resurrecting the Middle East peace process appeared in jeopardy yesterday amid reports that Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister, was about to quit over a power struggle with Mahmoud Abbas.
Fayyad, a former IMF economist deeply trusted by the United States and Israel, was said to be preparing to hand his resignation to Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, following a deterioration in their relationship and fierce criticism from members of Fatah, the dominant faction in the West Bank.
Western policymakers have already voiced dismay about the prospects of Fayyad’s rumoured departure.
‘‘ Fayyad’s departure will have a serious effect on how the international community relates to the PA,’’ one European diplomat said.
However, an unnamed US state department official said at the G8 talks in London that Fayyad was not resigning.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, held talks over an economic initiative with Fayyad in Ramallah this week. Gun control supporters in the United States Senate won the first showdown over how to respond to the December school shootings in Connecticut, defeating an effort by conservatives to derail firearms restrictions before debate could even start.
The 68- 31 vote yesterday gave an early burst of momentum to efforts by President Barack Obama and lawmakers to push fresh but modest gun curbs through Congress.
The National Rifle Association, the top gun advocacy group, along with many Republicans and some moderate Democrats, says the proposals go too far.
The Senate turns to the heart of the battle over curbing gun violence next Wednesday when it considers a pro-
by Nathalie Thomas Stark fluorescent lighting tubes that are a common feature in most office buildings may soon be a thing of the past.
Philips, the Dutch electricals giant, has unveiled a new lamp which it claims will bring a softer and more environmentally friendly glow to workplaces around the world.
Philips believes an LED lighting tube, which resembles a glow stick, will revolutionise the way large buildings are illuminated and consign the traditional bright white fluorescent lighting tube to the history books.
The new lamp, which Philips claims is the most energy efficient model of its kind, is expected to become commercially available from 2015.
The Dutch group, which dates back to 1891, has high hopes for the invention and expects it to become a more environmentally friendly replacement for fluorescent tubes, which have been used in offices and industrial buildings since the 1930s.
‘‘ This is a major breakthrough in LED lighting and will further drive the transformation of the lighting industry,’’ said Rene van Schooten, head of light sources and electronics for posal to expand required federal background checks to gun shows and online firearms sales.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he thinks the debate will last weeks.
The road to congressional backing of major restrictions remains difficult, particularly in the Republicanled House of Representatives, where there is strong opposition.
The vote came four months after a gunman killed 20 young children and six staffers at a Connecticut school, spurring Obama and legislators to attempt to address firearms violence.
Congress has not approved sweeping gun restrictions since enacting an assault weapons ban 19 years ago, a prohibition that lawmakers failed to People killed in the war in Syria, according to the United Nations Killed since August in regime airstrikes designed to terrorise citizens, according to Human Rights Watch
In their campaign against the opposition, the Syrians have been using helicopters, MiG jets and trainer aircraft to hit targets daily in the north, the east, the south and in rebel strongholds on the edges of Damascus.
‘‘ The aim of the airstrikes appears to be to terrorise civilians from the air, particularly in the oppositioncontrolled areas where they would otherwise be fairly safe from any effects of fighting,’’ Ole Solvang, of Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press.
More than 4300 people have been killed since Syria’s summer in such attacks that amount to ‘‘ serious violations of international humanitarian law’’, and people who commit such breaches are ‘‘ responsible for war crimes,’’ the New York- based group said in the report, the most comprehensive study of Syrian air force operations in rebel- held areas since the beginning of the conflict.
The United Nations estimates that more than 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war.
The Assad regime has significantly increased its use of air power since Philips Lighting. ‘‘ It’s exciting to imagine the massive energy and cost savings it will bring to our planet and customers.’’
Traditional fluorescent lamps used a gas, most commonly mercury vapour, and phosphorus to emit a startling white light. Fluorescent lighting has already started to be replaced by LED lamps, but Philips believes its latest prototype will use renew a decade later. Expanded background checks of gun purchasers are at the core of the latest Democrat- led gun control drive.
Other top proposals — including bans on assault weapons and highcapacity ammunition magazines — will be offered as amendments during Senate debate but seem destined for defeat.
Background checks currently apply only to transactions handled by the country’s 55,000 licensed gun dealers.
Advocates of expanding the system say too many sales — the exact proportion is unknown — escape the checks, which are supposed to keep weapons from going to criminals, the seriously mentally ill, and others. July, when the rebels captured territory in the north after an offensive, as well as last month after they seized their first provincial capital, Raqqa. The city is bombed almost daily.
Human Rights Watch said it inspected 52 sites in northern Syria and documented what it labelled 59 unlawful attacks by the Syrian air force in rebel- held areas.
Based on inspections and more than 140 interviews with witnesses, HRW said warplanes ‘‘ deliberately targeted four bakeries [ in the north] where civilians were waiting in bread lines a total of eight times’’.
Repeated aerial attacks on t wo hospitals that the group visited in the northern areas under opposition control ‘‘ strongly suggest that the Government also deliberately targeted these facilities’’, HRW said.
Assad’s jets have dropped incendiary weapons on residential areas in the north that are designed to set fire to objects and people, the group said.
The planes have also hit civilian areas with makeshift bombs, made from hundreds of kilograms of explosives stuffed into barrels. HRW even found unexploded naval mines on sites hit by airstrikes in northern Syria, Solvang said.
‘‘ They seem to be using pretty much everything they have to bomb places,’’ he said.
Officials in Damascus could not be reached for comment on the Human Rights Watch report. The Syrian Government describes the rebels as foreign- backed terrorists.
HRW also criticised the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups for not taking measures to avoid deploying forces and headquarters in or near densely populated areas. The company says its ‘‘ TLED’’ lamps are 10 times more efficient than the old fluorescent tubes. half the energy of even the most efficient LED models on the market.
The lamp is 10 times more energy efficient than traditional fluorescent lighting tubes, according to the company.
Philips claims that if all fluorescent lights in the United States were replaced with its model, dubbed the ‘‘ TLED’’ lamp, it would result in energy savings of 100 terawatts, the equivalent of 50 medium- sized power stations, and a cost saving of more than US$ 12 billion ($ 13.9 billion).
It would also prevent 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, the company said. Lighting accounts for more than 19 per cent of the world’s total electricity consumption and fluorescent lamps are believed to account for half of the total global lighting market.
The TLED lamp produces what Philips claims is a ‘‘ record’’ measurement of 200 lumens per watt of light compared with 100 lumens for fluorescent lamps and just 15 lumens for a traditional light bulb.
A spokesman for Philips in Britain said the prototype lamp also produces a warmer glow compared with fluorescent lighting, which has built a reputation for its stark white effect.
Underscoring the difficult path gun curbs face in the House, its leader, Speaker John Boehner, repeated his plan to wait for the Senate to produce something and pointedly noted the background check agreement had yet to pass Senate muster.
‘‘ It’s one thing for two members to come to some agreement. It doesn’t substitute the will for the other 98 members,’’ he said.
In a written statement, Obama said, ‘‘ This is not my bill,’’ adding that he wished the agreement was stronger. Still, he praised it as significant progress, saying, ‘‘ We don’t have to agree on everything to know that we’ve got to do something to stem the tide of gun violence.’’