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Iranian president disparages peace talks
BY ALBERT AJI
damascus, syria—Iran’s presi- dent said Saturday that Middle Eastern countries will “disrupt” U.S. and Israeli plans for the region, appearing to dismiss U.S. efforts to forge a regional peace deal between Israel and its Pales- tinian neighbors. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made
the comments during a brief stop in Syria, a key ally of Tehran’s in its confrontation with the West, where he met with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad. The meeting came two days
after Assad sat down in Damas- cus with the Obama administra- tion’s special Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, to discuss starting separate Syria-Israel peace talks. The back-to-back trips under-
scored the battle for influence in Syria between Washington and Tehran. Seeking to isolate Iran, President Obama has tried — unsuccessfully, so far — to pry Damascus away from its alliance with Tehran. Ahmadinejad spoke disparag-
ingly in Damascus of U.S. peace efforts in the region, saying coun- tries there would “disrupt” U.S. and Israeli plans, though he did not elaborate. “Thosewhowant to change the
political geography of the region must know that they will have no place in the future of the region,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as say- ing by Iran’s state-run news agen- cy IRNA.
Ahmadinejad said before his
visit to Syria that he and Assad would discuss key areas of con- flict and tension in the Middle East, including Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He also told Iranian state TV on Friday that he and Assad would discuss “theWesterners’movesin the region,” an apparent refer- ence to theUnited States. Washington is at odds with
Iran over its nuclear program, which it fears is aimed at making weapons, and a military buildup that it believes threatens the United States’ Arab allies in the region, as well as Israel. Iran says its nuclear activity is only for producing energy. The United States began
reaching out to Syria soon after Obama took office and hasmade repeated overtures toDamascus this year, including nominating the first U.S. ambassador to Syria since 2005 and sending top diplomats to meet with As- sad. Mitchell said during his visit
Thursday that theUnited States is determined to reach a compre- hensive peace in theMiddle East and that the administration’s ef- forts to resolve the Palestinian-Is- raeli conflict did not contradict the goal of peace between Israel and Syria.
—Associated Press
EZ SU
KLMNO THE WORLD
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010
JEAN-PIERRE CLATOT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES Scientists have been drilling day and night to relieve pressure on Tete Rousse Glacier that is caused by an estimated 2.3 million to 2.8 million cubic feet of water trapped inside.
Deep within a French glacier, a melted menace Giant pocket of water could burst through ice, sending wall of debris onto Alpine town below
BY EDWARD CODY IN SAINT-GERVAIS, FRANCE F
rom time immemorial, the Tete Rousse Glacier has sparkled majestical- ly on the slopes of Ai- guille de Bionnassay, an
icy symbol of the Alpine heritage that molded the culture and pro- duced the prosperity of this mountaineering town in the shadow ofMont Blanc. But the glacier, a 20-acre mass
lying within a bowl-shaped rock formation at an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet, has suddenly turned menacing. Partly because of global warm-
ing, a giant pocket of water has accumulated within the ice, threatening to burst out of its frozen enclosure and send a wall of water, mud, ice and rock down on the chalets of Saint-Gervais spread across the valley below. “Nature is stronger than we
are,” explained the mayor of Saint-Gervais, Jean-Marc Peillex, calling on his sometimes skepti- cal townspeople to heed the threat. “No one can confirm the risk is imminent,” he said in an announcement posted around the community, “but nor can any- one confirm that there is no risk.” As soon as experts from the
National Scientific Research Cen- ter reported with certainty in mid-July that they had detected
Atlantic Ocean
0 MILES Saint-Gervais SPAIN POR. Madrid ANDORRA
Med. Sea
NATHANIEL V. KELSO/THE WASHINGTON POST
the water pocket, Peillex, acting on his own advice, set up an alarm system on the glacier, con- nected to sirens in Saint-Gervais. Many of the town’s 5,740 inhabit- ants, joined by up to 25,000 visi- tors during summer climbing season, were assigned rallying pointsonhigh ground where they could flee if the sirens wailed. Residents of the most exposed
homes on the upper side of the valley would have only 10 min- utes if the glacier walls gave way all at once, he estimated, and as many as 3,000 people could be killed if the worst scenario played out.
By August, teams of scientists
with special equipment were drilling day and night into the glacier to relieve the pressure, in a $3 million operation financed by the Saint-Gervais town hall, the national government and the Eu-
250 IRE. BRITAIN London
NETH. BEL.
Paris FRANCE
GER. LUX.
SWITZ. ITALY Corsica
ropean Union. From some holes, the water bubbled to the surface, as if from an artesian well. Pumps were lowered into others, sucking out the trapped water. After about four weeks of drill-
ing, Peillex said, the scientists estimate they have reduced the pressure by about half. But as the work progresses, the specialists have raised a newfear. The glacier reaches more deeply into the rocky pocket than previ- ously believed; it is now estimat- ed at more than 230 feet. By draining the water and reducing the pressure gradually, Peillex ex- plained in an interview, the scien- tists worry they might weaken the walls of ice, leading to a collapse that would send the re- maining water rushing out in a deadly wave. “Here in the mountains, we
don’t control everything,” said Rosend’al Garcia, an employee of the Mont Blanc Co. who directs hikers and climbers onto moun- tain trails after they alight from a little train that shuttles them up from the valley. Nevertheless, Peillex said, local
and national leaders will have to decide whether to continue at the present pace or, as the scientists have recommended, send up more equipment to accelerate the drilling and evacuate the water faster. Using magnetic detection de- vices similar to the scanners that
DIGEST BRITAIN
Pope meets with victims of sex abuse Pope Benedict XVI on Satur-
day met with and apologized to five people who were molested by priests as children, even as other abuse survivors and thou- sands of people opposed to his visit marched in central London in the biggest protest of his five-year papacy. Benedict met for 30 to 40
minutes with the victims at the Vatican’s apostolic nunciature in Wimbledon and “expressed his deep sorrow and shame over what victims and their families had suffered,” according to a Vatican statement. The state- ment was similar to those issued by the Vatican when Benedict met with victims on trips to the United States,Australia andMal- ta. This time, Benedict also met with a group of professionals and volunteers who work to safe- guard children and young people in church environments. As the pope met with the
victims, abuse survivors and demonstrators opposed to the pope’s stance against homosexu- ality, abortion and using con- doms to fight AIDS marched from Hyde Park to Downing Street to protest the pontiff ’s four-day visit.
— Associated Press MAURITANIA
Troops report killing 12 al-Qaeda militants Mauritanian military forces
killed 12 members of al-Qaeda’s North African wing and suffered two fatalities in fighting in the desert along the border with Mali, a Mauritanian security source said Saturday. The clash is the latest sign of
an escalation in the battle be- tween Saharan countries and al-Qaeda in the IslamicMaghreb, the chief suspect in the kidnap- ping of seven foreigners, includ- ing five French citizens, in Niger on Thursday. The fighting continued Satur-
day as Mauritanian forces encir- cled about 20 al-Qaeda vehicles in the border area, the Maurita- nian source said.
— Reuters
Government forces kill 3 in Kashmir: Police and paramili- tary forces opened fire on a funeral procession and a group of protesters in curfew-bound Indian-controlled Kashmir, kill- ing three civilians and wounding at least 16 others, police and local residents said. The fatalities in Anantnag, a town south of the main city of Srinagar, pushed the death toll in threemonths of civil unrest against Indian rule to more than 100.
Rights activist jailed in Iran: The semiofficial Iranian news agency ILNA says a prominent rights activist has been sentenced to six years in prison on various anti- government charges but has es- caped the death penalty. Shiva Nazar Ahari, a founder of the Committee of Human Rights Re- porters in Tehran, was also or- dered to pay $400 as a substitute for 76 lashes.
Germans turn out en masse for anti-nuclear protest: Tens of thousands ofGermans surround- ed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office in Berlin in an anti-nuclear demonstration that organizers estimated was the biggest of its kind since the Chernobyl disas- ter in 1986. Lastmonth,Merkel’s center-right coalition govern- ment decided to scrap plans to shut down the nation’s 17 nuclear reactors by 2021.
Chinese stage anti-Japan pro- tests: Protesters in several cities across China on Saturday marked the politically sensitive anniversary of the start of a Japanese invasion in 1931 with anti-Japan chants and banners, as authorities tried to ease anger over a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants. Chinese public opinion has been inflamed in recent weeks by Japan’s arrest of a Chinese captain after a colli- sion near an island group claimed by both Tokyo and Bei-
MARTIN BERNETTI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIA GETTY IMAGES
On Chile’s bicentennial, celebrated Saturday, a relative of miner Claudio Yanez holds a flag signed by the 33 miners trapped since Aug. 5.Anewbore on Friday reached the caverns where they are confined.
jing.
Nine Mexican lawmen apparent- ly kidnapped:An armed gang has kidnapped nine lawmen in the southern Mexican state of Guer- rero, police said. A police com- mander and a team of eight agents had gone to identify and recover a body in the northern
part of the state Friday, accord- ing to a police spokesman. After they stopped communicating with superiors, officialswere told they had been seized by an unknown group.
Iraqi violence targets police: Two roadside bombs, one near a police checkpoint and the other
near a Shiite mosque, wounded at least six policemen and two civilians in Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, lo- cal police officials said. Mean- while, a police officer was killed in western Baghdad when a bomb attached to his car deto- nated.
— Fromnews services
allow doctors to see within the human body, the specialists esti- mated the glacier had entrapped between 2.3 million and 2.8 mil- lion cubic feet of water, the equiv- alent of more than 20 Olympic- size swimming pools. That is a relatively small
amount here in the vastness of the Alps. But it is enough to pick up so much rock and rubble on the way down the slopes, Peillex said he has been told, that outly- ing suburbs of Saint-Gervais could get hit by a 90-foot wall of water-borne debris that would sweep through the lower part of town and slush on down this narrow green valley 50 miles southeast of Geneva. In addition, more recent
probes have shown only about 900,000 cubic feet of water trapped in the main pocket. The rest, according to Christian Vin- cent, the leading glacier specialist in the rescue operation, could be in other pockets or could be trickling from chamber to cham- ber in little channels that the probing equipment cannot pick up. It will have to be located and drained if Saint-Gervais is to be safe. This is not the first time Tete
Rousse has threatened Saint-Ger- vais. In 1892, the glacier sent down a gush of water, ice and debris that killed an estimated 192 people. Although the accu- mulationwasdifferent fromwhat
is happening now, Vincent told reporters, the effect of a new outpouring would be vastly great- er because Saint-Gervais in 1892 was nothing more than a hamlet with a dozen scattered farmhous- es.
Reacting to that disaster, the
French government ordered a mine-like shaft to be dug into the glacier’s side to enable scientists to monitor water accumulation inside. But in 2007, government offi-
cials told Peillex they wanted to close it down as a cost-saving measure. Only if scientists certi- fied that the glacier presented no danger would he sign off on the closure,Peillex recalled.His insis- tence led to theNational Scientif- ic Research Center investigation that eventually discovered the new water pocket, lurking far deeper than scientists had been able to monitor from the observa- tion shaft. Not everybody in Saint-Ger-
vais has embraced Peillex’s con- cern; the Tourism Office, just across the street from the town hall, tells visitors the danger has passed and was largely a concoc- tion of sensation-seeking journal- ists in the first place. “There’s no danger,” said Mi-
chel Montini, a hotel operator and mountain guide. “There nev- er was any danger. Peillex’s pock- et of water is a pocket of hot air.”
codyej@washpost.com
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