Merkel to hold talks with Sarkozy amid euro crisis By the CNN Wire Staff

German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Christian Social Union Party conference in Germany, on October 7, 2011.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• France's President Sarkozy visits Germany for talks with Chancellor Merkel
• Europe is facing a debt crisis and Greece is running out of cash
• A Greek default would affect the world banking system
• Experts say talk of the collapse of the euro is alarmist

Berlin (CNN) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy sits down for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Sunday as the leaders of Europe's two biggest economies fight to keep the continent's currency experiment from collapsing.
The meeting comes amid fears that Greece will default on at least some of it debts, having warned it will run out of money this month.
That will put pressure on the euro, the common currency used by Greece and 16 other European Union countries.

Eurozone crisis at heart of meeting

But Merkel cheered European stock markets on Thursday, hinting that governments could inject cash into troubled banks.
Merkel said providing government money for European banks that are struggling with liquidity issues "is sensibly invested" if it's clear that such action is needed to prevent a broader financial crisis.
"We should not hesitate," she said, "because otherwise there will be far greater damage to our systems."
European banks have been struggling with fears about potential losses on government bonds issued by troubled European governments such as Greece. The threat of a so-called sovereign debt contagion has also led to a pullback in lending between banks.
The IMF recently estimated that European banks face an overall credit risk of up to 300 billion euros ($401 billion) stemming from bonds issued by Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Belgium.
Analysts suggest the euro will survive, but that tense times lie ahead.
"The system will hold together but it will not be a stress-free exercise. The benefits of keeping Europe and the euro together outweigh the risks over the long-term," said James Rickards, senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners. "What's going on in Europe is classic brinksmanship."
Dan Dorrow, senior vice president of research at Faros Trading, an independent currency broker-dealer, agreed.
"The risk of someone leaving the euro is a small tail risk probability," said Dorrow.
Merkel and Sarkozy's meeting Sunday comes ahead of a meeting of finance ministers of the Group of 20 nations in France October 14-15.

Don't pigeonhole us, say Saudi women artists

Reem Al Faisal's photography focuses on people and landscapes

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Critics expect our work to address women's rights, says Reem Al Faisal
• Having women judges is more important than driving, she adds
• People stereotype us as Saudi women, says artist Lulwah Al-Homoud

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -- As Saudi women artists, Reem Al Faisal and Lulwah Al Homoud, feel they are fighting against multiple stereotypes.
They are caught between conservative attitudes at home and western critics who expect them to address women's rights in their work.
"They want you to talk about very limited things like sexual oppression, search for identity and if you don't fit these criteria you're excluded and you are not considered a good artist," said Al Faisal.
Al Faisal, a photographer, has another reason for being wary of people's expectations: She is a princess, a granddaughter of the first king of Saudi Arabia. She avoids being photographed or showing her face in interviews to allow her to travel the world anonymously without bodyguards.

They want you to talk about very limited things like sexual oppression
Reem Al Faisal

Her work has taken her to China, Japan, India, Europe, America and all around the Middle East, capturing striking black-and-white photographs of people and landscapes.
Al Homoud, a single mother who brought up her two sons in London, creates abstract art, often geometric black-and-white drawings.
She said: "People kind of concentrate on you and give you more attention because you have female Saudi artists, but it's kind of upsetting because it's related to stereotype, and I think what we are doing is changing this stereotype."
Her work includes "infinite square," in which she uses the word Allah -- the Arabic word for God -- to create geometric shapes and lines connecting the artist to a timeless world unlimited by borders.
Al Homoud said: "I am trying to say that I am not a prisoner of a moment or a place. My work is -- I would say -- eternal. It's not restricted to an event or an experience or anything. It's spiritual, it's higher than senses."

A Reem Al Faisal shot of people using umbrellas to protect them from the sun

Al Faisal and Al Homoud, along with other Saudi artists, displayed their work at the Nabatt exhibition of modern Saudi artists in Shanghai last year and more recently in Beirut.
The position of Saudi women has gained attention worldwide after King Abdullah announced in September that women will in future be allowed to serve as members of the Shura Council, the appointed consultative council that advises the king.
He also said women will be allowed to run as candidates and nominate candidates in the next set of municipal elections.
They could not participate in municipal elections that were held last month for only the second time in the kingdom's history.
Women are also subject to male guardianship laws, in which they have to seek permission from their husband, father or even son to work, travel, study and many other activities.
Saudi women have been campaigning for the right to drive. Last month King Abdullah revoked a flogging sentence of 10 lashes for a woman allegedly arrested for driving a car.
Nuha Al Sulaiman, who founded the Saudi Women Revolution earlier this year to campaign for greater rights, welcomed King Abdullah's announcements but said they did not go far enough.

It's kind of upsetting because it's related to stereotype
Lulwah Al-Homoud

"We are afraid that it's not going to happen the way we want it to," she said. "Also we think that this decision is good but it's not enough."
Al Sulaiman said she still wanted to see the end of male guardianship, the introduction of laws to protect women from violence and discrimination, and driving licenses for women.
She said: "We suffer every day. The improvement process is so slow we wish the next step won't delay more.
"The king mentioned very impressive and effective words in his speech towards women's dignity and rights, we hope it's an obligation to give Saudi women back their dignity step by step."
Al Faisal, too, wants to see an improvement in women's rights, but believes sometimes the issue of driving has distracted from more important issues.
"I would like to see women in the judiciary system as far more important for me. A car will come naturally if she is a supreme court judge or traveling without a permission."

cnn

40-year low in America's view of Wall Street

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Lindsay Owens: Polls show a spike in Americans' lack of confidence in finance
• She says Americans react to scandals such as the 2007-8 financial crisis
• Financial turmoil is another factor that weakens confidence in Wall Street, she says
• Owens says key question is whether this disapproval translates into reforms

Editor's note: Lindsay A. Owens is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University and a research associate at Stanford's Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality. Her paper, "Confidence in Banks, Financial Institutions and Wall Street, 1971-2011," is forthcoming in Public Opinion Quarterly. She is also a contributing author to the new book, "The Great Recession."

(CNN) -- The Occupy Wall Street protest may be the answer to a favorite question of social scientists ever since the bank bailouts of 2008 -- where is the social movement? Americans are famously willing to tolerate a relatively large amount of income inequality (especially compared to our European counterparts). Americans love meritocracy, and are typically quite happy to see hard work rewarded, even to the tune of millions of dollars, as is often the case on Wall Street. But there is a catch — we want the rules of the game to be fair.
Recent scandals involving Wall Street banks and financial institutions, headed by some of the world's most well-paid managers, executives and analysts, have many Americans asking themselves whether this game is rigged. It is this sense of injustice, coupled with economic insecurity, that animates changes in Americans' attitudes toward Wall Street. It's not just a small number of Americans, those who are actually "occupying" Wall Street, who feel such injustice. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Lindsay Owens

In a paper forthcoming in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, I examine Americans' attitudes toward banks, financial institutions and Wall Street over the last 40 years and look at historical trends in how Americans perceive the honesty and ethical practices of bankers.
Animosity toward Wall Street is at its highest level in at least 40 years. Americans have never exactly loved Wall Street stockbrokers or bankers—but we certainly didn't always hate them. Why this increasing hostility? The answer is a "perfect storm" of financial turmoil and a series of major scandals on Wall Street.
The public has been down on big Wall Street banks and financial institutions for some time now. The General Social Survey, administered by the National Opinion Research Council, has asked Americans about their confidence in banks and financial institutions since 1973. Between March of 2006 and March of 2010, the percent of Americans with a great deal of confidence in banks and financial institutions plummeted 19 percentage points, from 30 percent to an all-time low of 11 percent. According to a similar trend from Harris Interactive, the percent of Americans with a great deal of confidence in the people running Wall Street had already reached an all-time low of just 4 percent by February of 2009. These figures are not just a reflection of Americans' dissatisfaction with the size of their bank accounts — they also reflect the increasing belief that Wall Street is playing a game that only the bankers can win.

Occupy protests reach from East to West

Paul: Economy biased against the poor

Cain: 'Occupy' protests waste of time

'Occupiers' get Obama's attention

Economic hard times, such as global recessions, do tend to bring about small, but noticeable drops in the public's confidence in Wall Street, just as we might expect falling confidence in a military that is losing a war.
But when economic downturns coincide with major scandals, as in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s and our current dilemma, the biggest changes in public confidence result — changes that may have contributed to the protests we are seeing on Wall Street today. In other words, Americans really begin to get angry when there is evidence of systematic foul play.
To be sure, material hardships such as unemployment rates in the 9 percent range and the continuing high levels of foreclosures and bankruptcies undoubtedly set the stage for a public outcry. But this outcry has a distinctly moral tenor. The sentiments of the Occupy protestors holding signs reading "Blame Wall Street Greed," "People not Profits" and "Wall Street was the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction" certainly echo the wider American public's sense of moral indignation.
Just 26 percent of Americans in an April 2011 Harris poll thought the people working on Wall Street were "as honest and moral as other people" (for a point of comparison, the percentage was 51 in 1997). In that same poll, 67 percent of Americans agreed that "most people on Wall Street would be willing to break the law if they believed they could make a lot of money and get away with it."
Ultimately, whether Occupy Wall Street is a watershed moment or a momentary disturbance remains to be seen.
The key question, however, is whether the bubbling populist outrage evidenced in Occupy's "We are the 99%" signs will translate into populist-friendly politics. The Buffett Rule, calling for millionaires to pay taxes at higher rates than their employees, is one, albeit timid (as the political scientist Larry Bartels has recently articulated), indication that the new political calculus involves tapping into this brand of populism. Elizabeth Warren's Senate campaign is another.
At minimum, the visibility of the Occupy Wall Street's movement should bring renewed attention to a political and economic issue the majority of Americans on Main Street agree upon—something's not quite right on Wall Street and something has got to be done about it.

Chavez opponents optimistic heading into 2012

Opposition leader and Caracas Mayor, Antonio Ledezma gestures a during press conference on September 1, 2009.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Venezuelan opposition will have a primary to decide on a presidential candidate
• Antonio Ledezma is one of the top contenders in the race
• He says the opposition is better positioned than in past failed attempts
• Ledezma says education and firearms would be among his points of focus as president

(CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a divisive leftist, but nonetheless has bested (fairly or unfairly, as some say) his political challengers in two re-elections and one recall referendum since taking office in 1999.
With the next presidential elections a year away, the Venezuelan opposition is once again hopeful of a victory. The parties that make up the opposition were buoyed recently by the Inter-American Human Rights Court ruling that opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez had been unjustly banned from running for the presidency by the Chavez government.
Meanwhile, Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles' profile continues to rise as he polls at the top among potential presidential candidates.
Another of the top contenders for the opposition, Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, spoke with CNN Tuesday about why the challengers are optimistic about 2012.
"Today's opposition is more balanced and has a joint agenda," Ledezma said as he compared the current race with previous failed attempts.
The Venezuelan opposition in the past was more fractious and more prone to anxiety when they didn't see an immediate impact from their campaigns, he said. This time, there is a strategy and a set of rules everyone is following, starting with a primary process that he said all the opposition parties will back.
Even though he is in competition with Capriles and Lopez, Ledezma said they do not see each other as foes.

Today's opposition is more balanced and has a joint agenda
Antonio Ledezma, Mayor of Caracas

The opposition's overarching goal, as Ledezma put it, is "to restore democracy to Venezuela."
Pieces of the opposition's platform include ushering in economic recovery, mending the social fabric and building unity among Venezuelans.
Chavez's tenure has been defined by what he calls "21st century socialism." Thanks to a number of social programs, paid in part through the state's oil money, poverty rates in Venezuela have decreased significantly since Chavez came to power. But charges of favoritism to political followers and accusations that the social programs are not sustainable have dogged the president. He is seen as an autocrat who has sought to punish perceived enemies in the media and in the opposition.
A majority of Chavez's support comes from Venezuela's poor, a group that the opposition has traditionally had difficulty connecting with.
Ledezma said that rather than scrap the social programs that Chavez has designed, he would restructure and improve them.
What is needed, he said, are "not crumbs like they currently get, but opportunities for education and learning. Not a handout, but something permanent."
The message coming from the opposition also has to be more emotional than in the past, Ledezma said. Their messages have not connected with the people, he said.
If victorious, one of Ledezma's pet projects would be the creation of guarderias familiares, or "family nurseries." These centers would help tackle one of the social problems that Ledezma is most concerned about -- teen pregnancy. With 100,000 teen pregnancies a year, Venezuela leads South America in this category, he said.
To help these young mothers and their children, the family nurseries would be home-based centers that would care for eight to 10 children, providing food, activities and an alternative to being at home alone or on the streets.
He wants to see the creation of more technical schools to prepare students for jobs, and wants to see the pay and stature of educators elevated.
"I aspire to be the president who makes education the bedrock of the modernization of Venezuela," he said.
Ledezma also would implement a disarmament incentive for the public -- there are currently more than 11 million weapons in the country, he said.
The candidates vying in the February primary to run on behalf of the opposition differ in their specific plans, but the overall goals remain the same, Ledezma said.
These include reinforcing the separation of powers, restoring the independence of the judiciary and tackling impunity, he said.

Deadly gunfire at funeral of Syrian opposition leader

October 8, 2011 -- Updated 1609 GMT (0009 HKT)

Supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a recent demonstration. The U.S. asked Assad to"step down now" following the assassination of a prominent Kurdish opposition figure.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Syrians in Turkey gather to remember slain opposition leader
• His killing sparks protests in Syria that turn deadly
• A general strike is called in the city where he was killed Friday
• Syria remains tense as a violent government crackdown continues

(CNN) -- Anti-government protests across Syria -- one propelled by the funeral of an assassinated Kurdish opposition leader -- turned deadly again Saturday as security forces cracked down, activist groups said.
Mashaal Tammo, a spokesman for the Kurdish Future Party and a member of the newly formed Syria National Council, was shot dead Friday at a private residence in the northeastern city of Qamishli.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said after Tammo's funeral, more than 50,000 people joined a mass demonstration demanding the overthrow of the government of Bashar al-Assad. It said two people were killed.
The group said a 14-year-old child was killed in Damascus province and 14 others were injured when security forces opened fire on a funeral procession for protesters killed Friday.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) of Syria reported a different toll. It said five people were killed in Qamishili. Another two died in Hama; one in Douma; and one in the Damascus suburb of Dumair.
Meanwhile in London Saturday, five protesters were arrested outside the Syrian Embassy.
A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police said three people were arrested after climbing the roof of the embassy and two others were taken into custody for separate incidents related to the protest. There was no breach of security, the spokesman said.
In Qamishili, anti-government activists were also staging a general strike to mourn Tammo, the LCC said.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported Friday that he was killed by "an armed terrorist group." Local activists said he was slain by members of a pro-government militia.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, condemned the assassination "in the strongest terms," in a statement Saturday.
"Mr. Tammo's death follows other targeted assassinations in the past days, which are totally unacceptable. These appalling crimes further add to the EU's grave concern over the situation in Syria. All those responsible for and complicit in these crimes must be held accountable," the statement said.
Tammo had previously spent more than three years as a political prisoner for his criticism of the Syrian government, it added.
In Istanbul, Turkey, several dozen Syrians gathered in a hotel basement to remember Tammo.
"The regime is trying to play a game of ethnicity so people fight each other," said Omar Shawaf, a Syrian opposition activist. "Mashaal Tammo was someone who represented unity of ethnic groups. This dirty regime will not keep quiet until they destroy the country and create a civil war."
Mourners relied on some of the same technology that has publicized the uprising in Syria, a country where the media is strictly controlled..
"The government tried to kill him one day before his murder and one month before his murder," said Abdul Ghafar Mohammed, speaking via Skype from Qamishli. "Now Tammo has become a flame of the revolution."
In Arabic, Tammo's first name, Mashaal, means flame.
The EU's Ashton also condemned the beating of opposition leader Riad Saif and urged an end to all violence to allow for a peaceful transition to democracy.
A White House statement Friday said Saif was subjected to a "vicious and unprovoked assault."
The LCC described the attack on Saif, who was beaten in the Damascus neighborhood of Medan, as a "dangerous development" and said the Syrian government was taking advantage of the "lax attitude" of the international community to repress political opponents by violent means.
The Syrian Observatory said Saturday that tens of military tanks were blocking routes out of the western city of Homs, a day after protests over the death of Tammo were held there. Mobile and landline networks were reported to be down.
Clashes also broke out Saturday between security forces and protesters who had pulled down a statue of al-Assad, the LCC said.
The United States called Friday for al-Assad to "step down now" following the assassination and amid continuing violence in the nation.
Assad should resign "before taking his country farther down this very dangerous path," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in the White House statement.
"It is also notable that these acts of violence took place just three days after the U.N. Security Council failed to pass a resolution calling for international human rights monitors in Syria in face of brutal repression," he said, referring to a resolution vetoed by Russia and China.
Earlier this week, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution condemning Syrian authorities for using violence against anti-government demonstrators.
The two nations argued the proposed resolution would lead to military intervention similar to the NATO operation to protect anti-government protesters in Libya.

CNN's Ivan Watson and Salma Abdelaziz contributed to this report.

Don McCullin's war with guilt

October 8, 2011 -- Updated 1226 GMT (2026 HKT)

Don McCullin's last war

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Photographer Don McCullin's exhibition "Shaped by War" opened in London Friday
• McCullin has photographed wars in Vietnam, Congo, Biafra and the Middle East for more than 30 years
• Today McCullin is more comfortable shooting landscapes and Roman ruins
• McCullin: I've got a last chapter of my life and I want it to be enjoyable

London, England (CNN) -- Don McCullin is best known for the unwavering gaze of his war photography.
For thirty years he traveled to places most people run from, depicting horror unflinchingly and with enormous compassion for the people he captured in unimaginable situations.
Considered one of the greatest war photographers, McCullin's pictures chart conflicts in Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Congo, El Salvador, Biafra, Cambodia and the Middle East, including the Six-Day War in June 1967.
He has, as he puts it, taken "terrible liberties" with his life -- dashing through rice paddies in Vietnam to escape snipers' bullets; jumping up to snap a shot during gun battles -- to bring home images that are, at times, excruciating to look at but often unforgettable.

Don McCullin's first photograph of the Vietnam War: South Vietnamese soldiers wait for helicopter transport at a Landing Zone in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

And yet, as enduring as these images are, forgetting them is exactly what McCullin now wants to do. "That war stuff... I don't even want to print it anymore," he says. "I want to put it right out of my mind."
But, along with his photos of poverty, "that war stuff" has won McCullin a handful of photography awards and filled tens of books and exhibitions across the world, including his latest, "Shaped by War," which opened Friday at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Much of the photography that appears in the exhibition he shot during the 18 years he worked for the UK's Sunday Times Magazine. He went to his first war in Cyprus in 1967 and covered every major conflict of his generation until the Falklands War.
The thrill of war
McCullin, now 76, admits that at first he found war "incredibly exciting."
"You've got to remember I grew up as a child looking at Hollywood films where no one seemed to die," he says.

You can't learn about survival after a certain point. After that, it's sheer luck really
Don McCullin

He liked the thrill of making it home alive and seeing his images published even more: "I felt as if I could levitate and forget gravity as a human being -- I felt really amazing."
How he made it home alive is another matter. As McCullin himself admits: "You can't learn about survival after a certain point. After that, it's sheer luck really."
But his bravery under fire is well known. Harold Evans, then editor of The Sunday Times wrote of McCullin in The Guardian newspaper many years later: "Don McCullin has the bottle. This is the man who, amid a fusillade of bullets, would stop to take a light reading."
Shell shock in Vietnam
In 1968, one of McCullin's greatest moments of "bottle" produced arguably his most celebrated image: A shell-shocked solider in Vietnam that he photographed during a huge battle for the ancient city of Hue.

A US Marine suffering from severe shell shock waits to be evacuated to safety during the Battle for Hue, Vietnam, 1968.

The battle raged for two weeks, McCullin remembers. The city was being shelled constantly from navy boats in the Gulf of Tonkin 17 miles away, and phantom bombers were dropping napalm just a few streets from where he was.
He said: "When you saw those napalm tumbling, carrying molten death, you'd say to yourself, 'Keep going. Keep going. Keep going." And he did, staying with the 5th Marine Corps for the duration of the battle, during which time, he says, they lost 70 men and 300 wounded.
McCullin came away having taken some of the most powerful photographs of his career -- but he was left suffering combat stress, much like the soldier in his photograph.
A personal battle
McCullin himself says he was "completely insane," by the end of the battle. When he finally got back to the press center and changed and showered, he realised some remnants of that fight would be harder to get rid of.

Don McCullin has the bottle. This is the man who, amid a fusillade of bullets, would stop to take a light reading
Harold Evans, former editor The Sunday Times

"I thought, you know, it (the shower) could cleanse the filth of war off me. It didn't, really, because by then it had all gotten into my brain.
"I was sleeping next to bodies and things (in Hue)... and then you say, 'What the hell's this got to do with photography?' 'Who am I?' 'Where the hell have I just been?' 'What's happened to me?'"
McCullin has spent many years battling the psychological after effects of war, trying to balance the quest for excellence in his work with the horrors he's witnessed.
"It really messes you up," he said. "It's incomprehensible the way human beings can slaughter each other in front of you. And you take it home with you. And it's like you haven't cleaned your teeth in several months, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth."
McCullin's gentle approach

It's incomprehensible the way human beings can slaughter each other in front of you. And you take it home with you
Don McCullin

Throughout his career, McCullin has been driven by a search for equality. He puts it down to his background growing up, ill-educated and impoverished, in London's Finsbury Park.
That empathy comes through in his gentle approach to the victims he photographed.
"I was very gentle with people. I would come to people that were injured and try to get their consent," he says. "I would not be brash the way I've seen lots of journalists operating... pushing and shoving and having fist fights in front of victims.
"I would seek out the chance to take my photographs and I would look at the person I was photographing and try to convey my disgust to them and I would try to bring them to me in a trusting way."
Landscapes and ruins

Somerset Levels near Glastonbury circa 1990

Nowadays, McCullin is more content photographing inanimate objects -- like the landscapes around his house in the south of England. He says he shoots his landscapes mainly in winter because he likes the drama of the naked trees, the "threat" of winter.
"People say my landscapes look like war scenes because I do (print) them very dark," he admits. "But, you know, I suppose the darkness is in me, really."
Last year, he also published "Southern Frontiers," a book of photographs of Roman ruins in the Middle East and North Africa.
It was inspired, he says, by a spur-of-the-moment trip to Algiers many years ago with travel writer Bruce Chatwin. They journeyed around and found themselves, to their surprise, in a Roman town "with these great slabs of granite as roadways."
He's stored the memory ever since and when he wanted to do one more project and "totally get away from war" it fitted. Of course, he says, the irony is that today war would have stopped him from going to some of the places in the book.

I don't want to be persecuted by myself anymore, by my guilt anymore -- I've had all that
Don McCullin

"Look at it [the region] now. I couldn't possibly do it today with war in Libya and war in Syria," he said.
Searching for peace
Mainly, though, McCullin's current quest is for peace of mind. He'll never forget the wars he's witnessed -- "It took me all my life to try and understand, you know, why do people do this to each other and I still haven't come to any conclusions about it" -- but they don't haunt him they way they used to.
A far cry from the macho war photographer image, McCullin says the thing that gave him the most joy recently was coming home after a holiday and picking some blackberries in the field behind his house.
"I felt real human freedom," he said. "Just having the choice of going and picking those blackberries and ambling home and washing them.
"It's a funny thing to say, but you have to find your own place in the world, eventually.
"I've got a last chapter of my life and I want it to be enjoyable. I don't want to be persecuted by myself anymore, by my guilt anymore -- I've had all that."

Killer whales in danger of being stuck in frozen Alaska river

Two orcas swim in Alaska's Nushagak River on Tuesday.

October 7th, 2011

10:55 AM ET

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Three wayward killer whales are loitering 30 miles up an Alaska river, and federal wildlife officials are concerned they may be iced in when the river freezes over, possibly at the end of the month.

For three weeks, the whales have been spotted in the Nushagak River near Ekwok, Alaska. Marine mammal scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service say the whales are likely suffering stress from being in fresh water for such an extended period. The scientists say they're also concerned that if the whales don't head downstream soon, they'll be trapped in the river.
Water levels are dropping as colder temperatures reduce the flow from glaciers into the river. That could make it difficult for the whales to navigate certain sections of the river. And the Nushagak could freeze over by the end of October, according to the fisheries service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA biologist Barbara Mahoney said killer whales are sometimes seen where the Nushagak empties into Nushagak Bay near Dillingham, but none had ever been reported this far inland. In fact, this is the first time killer whales have spent a prolonged period of time in an Alaska river, according to NOAA.
Officials said the orcas are in an area when they are unlikely to encounter humans, but they are asking that people stay 100 yards away for their own safety and that of the animals.
The fisheries service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the local Bristol Bay Native Association are monitoring the situation to determine if and how the whales could be returned to salt water, federal officials said.