Signs of the Times Archive for Mon, 30 Jun 2008

- Signs of the Times Archive for Mon, 30 Jun 2008 -

Sections on today's Signs Page:

SOTT Focus
Best of the Web
U.S. News
UK & Euro-Asian News
Around the World
Big Brother
Axis of Evil
Middle East Madness
Grand Theft Economics
The Living Planet
Health & Wellness
Science & Technology
Our Haunted Planet
Don't Panic! Lighten Up!

SOTT Focus

Tunguska, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
SOTT.net
2008-06-30 04:33:00

©Unknown

How the Tunguska object may have appeared.

One hundred years ago today, on the night of 30 June and 1 July, one of the most extraordinary events in modern history occurred.

The first reports of a strange glow in the sky came from across Europe. Shortly after midnight on 1 July 1908, Londoners were intrigued to see a pink phosphorescent night sky over the capital. People who had retired awoke confused as the strange pink glow shone into their bedrooms. The same ruddy luminescence was reported over Belgium. The skies over Germany were curiously said to be bright green, while the heavens over Scotland were of an incredible intense whiteness which tricked the wildlife into believing it was dawn. Birdsong started and cocks crowed - at two o'clock in the morning. The skies over Moscow were so bright, photographs were taken of the streets without using a magnesium flash. A captain on a ship on the River Volga said he could see vessels on the river two miles away by the uncanny astral light. One golf game in England almost went on until four in the morning under the nocturnal glow, and in the following week The Times of London was inundated with letters from readers from all over the United Kingdom to report the curious 'false dawn'. A woman in Huntingdon wrote that she had been able to read a book in her bedroom solely by the peculiar rosy light. There were hundreds of letters from people reporting identical lighting conditions that went on for weeks... (Tom Slemen)

None of the people witnessing this strange phenomenon had any idea that, in the central Siberian plateau, just after 7:15 a.m. local time, the planet had been hit by a cometary impactor that exploded - as most such impactors do - in the atmosphere just above the Earth's surface.

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Signs Economic Commentary for 30 June 2008

Donald Hunt
SOTT.net
2008-06-30 05:06:00

Another scary week with oil rising 4% in dollars and the Dow falling almost four and a half percent. As Nouriel Roubini points out, until recently it was possible for some to think that the worst of the financial crisis was past. Now few could say that.

With energy and food prices rising rapidly, average people feel the crisis in their gut. But should we be so pessimistic? Maybe a change in perspective will help us. A couple of weeks ago we quoted Ran Prieur who said that we should think of "corporate rule" when we hear the term "the economy." We should interpret "expansion" as a "contraction." So if we hear that the economy is crashing, can we think that really the rule of psychopathic corporations is crashing?

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Best of the Web

Cosmic Winter - A Lecture by Victor Clube

Victor Clube
kronia.com
2008-02-10 16:21:00

Moderator: In introduction, I just should say that Victor is the author of two extremely intriguing books. The first is The Cosmic Serpent which was published in 1982, and the second is The Cosmic Winter, published in 1990 in collaboration with astronomer Bill Napier. And I think that today Victor is going to present a talk illustrated by slides which will continue along the lines that he developed in The Cosmic Winter, which is a book that I urge all of you to read if you can.

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The Nature of Punctuational Crises and the Spenglerian Model of Civilization

S.V.M. Clube
Vistas in Astronomy, Volume 39, Issue 4, Pages 673-698
1995-12-01 13:42:00

Abstract: Mankind's essentially untroubled state of mind in the presence of comets during the last two centuries has been fortified by the overall relative brevity of cometary apparitions and the calculated infrequency of cometary encounters with planets.

During the course of the Space Age, however, the fact of cometary splitting has also become increasingly secure and there is growing appreciation of the fact that mankind's state of mind can never be altogether relaxed. Indeed a watershed in the modern perception of cometary facts has evidently been reached with the most recent and devastating example of cometary splitting, that of the fragmentation of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 and its subsequent bombardment of planet Jupiter.

Thus there is a recognized tendency now amongst comets, especially those in short-period orbits, due to the occasionally excessive effects of solar irradiation, planetary tides and small body impacts, which gives rise to individual swarms of cometary debris, and it is the resulting repeated penetration of such dispersed swarms by our planet which apparently increases the danger to mankind from time to time.

The danger comprises global coolings, atmospheric pollution and super-Tunguska events, the cometary debris being responsible for both high-level dust insertions and low-level multimegaton explosions in the Earth's atmosphere along with a generally enhanced fireball flux.

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The Sky Is Falling

Gregg Easterbrook
The Atlantic
2008-05-14 13:51:00

The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this century may be as high as one in 10. So why isn't NASA trying harder to prevent catastrophe?

©Stéphane Guisard, www.astrosurf.com/sguisard

Breakthrough ideas have a way of seeming obvious in retrospect, and about a decade ago, a Columbia University geophysicist named Dallas Abbott had a breakthrough idea. She had been pondering the craters left by comets and asteroids that smashed into Earth. Geologists had counted them and concluded that space strikes are rare events and had occurred mainly during the era of primordial mists. But, Abbott realized, this deduction was based on the number of craters found on land - and because 70 percent of Earth's surface is water, wouldn't most space objects hit the sea? So she began searching for underwater craters caused by impacts rather than by other forces, such as volcanoes. What she has found is spine-chilling: evidence that several enormous asteroids or comets have slammed into our planet quite recently, in geologic terms. If Abbott is right, then you may be here today, reading this magazine, only because by sheer chance those objects struck the ocean rather than land.

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Flashback: The Gospel of Consumption - and the Better Future We Left Behind

Jeffrey Kaplan
Orion Magazine
2008-05-01 19:47:00

©Unknown

Private cars were relatively scarce in 1919 and horse-drawn conveyances were still common. In residential districts, electric streetlights had not yet replaced many of the old gaslights. And within the home, electricity remained largely a luxury item for the wealthy.

Just ten years later things looked very different. Cars dominated the streets and most urban homes had electric lights, electric flat irons, and vacuum cleaners. In upper-middle-class houses, washing machines, refrigerators, toasters, curling irons, percolators, heating pads, and popcorn poppers were becoming commonplace. And although the first commercial radio station didn't begin broadcasting until 1920, the American public, with an adult population of about 122 million people, bought 4,438,000 radios in the year 1929 alone.

But despite the apparent tidal wave of new consumer goods and what appeared to be a healthy appetite for their consumption among the well-to-do, industrialists were worried. They feared that the frugal habits maintained by most American families would be difficult to break. Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that the industrial capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater than people's sense that they needed them.

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Whither American accountability? Go after Bush Jr

Philip J Cunningham
Bankok Post
2008-06-18 01:04:00

The view from afar can be a gift. Like a photograph taken when the subject is not aware of the camera, an outsider's perceptions can show us what we would rather not, but must see. To make amends, the US has to demonstrate that no one is above the law, especially those with the power to put fellow citizens in harm's way.

On June 9, 2008, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich stood up on the floor of US Congress to read 35 Articles of Impeachment against US President George Walker Bush.

Given House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's clout and the correspondingly quiet reaction in Congress - she has made it repeatedly clear impeachment is not on the table - it might appear that Mr. Kucinich stands alone.

Would that it were not so, for America's inability to come to terms with its own wrongdoing continues to disappoint a dispirited world.

Comment: Dennis Kucinich need not stand alone. The citizens of the U.S. can stand with him. See here

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U.S. News

Pretending That Bush is Not a Tyrant

Robert Parry
Consortium News
2008-06-30 12:00:00

If you listen to Bush's legal advisors, questions about the limits of his authority might not be hypothetical anymore.

All over the world down through history, political leaders who have engaged in torture and other grotesque crimes of state have justified their actions as necessary to protect their governments or their people or themselves.

It was true when England's King Edward I had William Wallace - "Braveheart" - drawn and quartered in 1305 for resisting the crown's rule in Scotland, and a gruesome death was what King George III foresaw for America's Founding Fathers in 1776 when they stood up to his abuses in the Colonies.

Kings and tyrants often inflicted special pain on people they viewed as challenging their authority and - at such times - they wiped away the rules of justice. But the United States was supposed to be different.

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Flashback: Plane Crash Kills West Kentucky Man

Gerran Thomas
WPSD
2008-06-19 14:22:00

54-year-old Dan Hutson II of Murray, Kentucky died when the plane he was flying crashed near Lexington. The FAA says Hutson's plane took off from Kyle Oakley Field at Murray-Calloway County Airport, dropped off a passenger in Lexington and was on its way back to Murray when the plane experienced trouble and crashed near Springfield, Kentucky.

Hutson alerted air traffic controllers and was trying to make an emergency landing when the single engine plane crashed just off the runway at Springfield Lebanon Airport. Witnesses saw the plane spiraling almost like a helicopter before it crashed. They ran to the site to help but nothing could be done."

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Flashback: Really? Local Doctor Says Medical Helicopter Crashes Still Rare

Matt Felder
KWTX
2008-06-16 13:46:00

A rising number of medical helicopter crashes has local hospitals taking a long hard look at safety.

On June 8, a medical helicopter crashed moments after taking off from a hospital in Huntsville on a flight to Houston.

The pilot, a nurse, a paramedic and the patient all died.

Three of the 1,000 medical helicopters across the country have crashed so far this year, claiming 10 lives.

Two of the crashes happened in Texas.

While the rate of crashes has tripled since the early 90s supporters of the service say the benefits still far outweigh the risks.

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Flashback: Medical helicopter crash kills four in Texas: report

Agence France-Presse
2008-06-08 13:24:00

A medical helicopter rushing a patient to hospital crashed Sunday in Texas, killing all four people on board, US media reported.

The patient was being transported in predawn hours from Huntsville to Houston, Texas, a distance of about 70 miles (112 kilometers), but ground control lost contact with the pilot minutes after takeoff, CNN television said.

Around 8:30 am local time, Texas authorities spotted the wreckage of the Bell 407 helicopter in a densely wooded area of Sam Houston National Forest, just southwest of Huntsville, the reports said.

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Indiana: Cause of fatal collapse still unknown

Amy Bartner
The Indiapolis Star
2008-06-27 12:25:00

State officials said today that they still have not determined what caused a building collapse that killed three workers in Greenwood Thursday.

"The Department of Labor is putting together the totality of its resources on this alone,'' said Lori Torres, Indiana commissioner of labor, adding that her office has 12 employees assigned to the investigation.

Torres and Jeff Carter, deputy commissioner of the Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Administration, spoke at an afternoon news conference at the construction site today.

Carter said investigators are still trying to determine whether the Dayton Freight construction site was properly braced during heavy rain and winds that swept through northern Johnson County about 4 p.m. Thursday.

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California: Two men lost in plane crash remain unidentified

Matthew Rodriguez
Sign on San Diego
2008-06-27 12:16:00

Four days after a small plane crashed into the ocean off Oceanside, killing two men on board, authorities and representatives of the families still had not released the names of those involved in the crash.

The families had planned a news conference for today, but a spokeswoman for the families said they realized they were still having a hard time dealing with their loss and were not ready to talk about it publicly.

At 9 p.m. Monday, the Coast Guard suspended its search for the two men, one of whom was the pilot. A third man was rescued by a Vista couple aboard their fishing boat Sunday. He was taken to a hospital in La Jolla.

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Flashback: Utah: Two hospitalized after plane crash-lands near Vernal

Ana Breton
The Salt Lake Tribune
2008-06-18 11:57:00

A small plane attempting to make an emergency landing crashed into a semi, sending two people to the hospital on Wednesday morning.

The northbound plane was attempting to land on State Road 191 north of Vernal when it collided with a semi heading south around 8 a.m., said Cameron Roden, a spokesman for the Utah Highway Patrol.

The crash, which occurred near mile post 360 north of the Steinaker Reservoir, ripped off the left wing of the plane causing it to spin around and hit the back of the trailer.

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Flashback: Fumes force Caracas-bound plane to return to Miami

Associated Press
2008-06-19 11:50:00

A flight to Venezuela has been forced to return to Miami International Airport because after passengers smelled fumes in the cockpit.

American Airlines flight 2107 left with 186 passengers at 8:32 a.m. Thursday. Officials say the plane turned around when passengers and crew smelled an odor inside. It's not clear what caused the smell.

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Nevada plane crash kills 4, touches off wildfire

Associated Press
2008-06-28 20:41:00

North Las Vegas - The crash of a small plane near Las Vegas has killed four people and started a fire that is threatening homes.

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At least 7 dead in Arizona medical helicopter crash

Associated Press
2008-06-29 20:33:00

FLAGSTAFF - Seven people are dead and another three are critically injured after two medical helicopters crashed in Flagstaff.

Preliminary reports indicate the helicopters collided near Flagstaff Medical Center. According to an FAA spokesperson, the helicopters collided in mid-air.

The crash took place just before 4 p.m. on Sunday. It is still unclear what caused the collision.

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Bear mauls teen during 24-hour bike race in Alaska

Associated Press
2008-06-29 20:10:00

ANCHORAGE - Anchorage police say a teenage girl taking part in a 24-hour bike race was severely injured after a grizzly bear attack.

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State of Emergency

Lewis Seiler & Dan Hamburg
Op Ed News
2008-06-28 15:23:00

Charlie Black, senior advisor to John McCain, caused a fluff by saying that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a "big advantage" to his candidate.

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Update: Police Announce Arrests In Murder Of NASA Engineer and 3 others

cbs2.com
2008-06-29 17:55:00

QUARTZ HILL, CA -- Police announced Sunday that two men, one of them previously wanted by cops as a "person of interest", have been taken into custody in connection with the quadruple murders last week of a NASA engineer and three other people in his Quartz Hill home.

Jae Hwan Shim, 39, and another man who has not been identified, were taken into custody Saturday about 9 p.m. in Douglas, Arizona, a border town 90 miles southeast of Tucson.

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Supermodel falls to her death in Manhattan

Associated Press
2008-06-29 15:31:00

Ruslana Korshunova, 20, died in a fall from a building on Water Street, in Manhattan's financial district, about 2.30pm on Saturday (4.30am yesterday AEST), local media reported, citing unnamed officials and police.

Police said the fall was under investigation. Korshunova's New York agency and a spokeswoman for medical examiners did not immediately return telephone messages.

But a bystander told The New York Post: "I heard what sounded like a gunshot or a bomb or an explosion.

"I looked down the street, and I say to the cop, "Did that person just get hit by a car?"' said an electricity company worker, who identified himself only as Patrick, 32, of Brooklyn.

©Unknown

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Feds raid Blackwater's North Carolina armory in firearms probe

Mike Baker
Associated Press
2008-06-26 06:28:00

RALEIGH - Federal agents raided Blackwater Worldwide this week as part of an investigation into whether the private security company sidestepped federal laws prohibiting the private purchase of automatic assault rifles, the company said Thursday.

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UK & Euro-Asian News

Temple elder jailed on sexual assault charges

The Comet 24
2008-06-30 14:38:00

A perverted elder at a Sikh temple was caught abusing a young girl on the building's new CCTV cameras.

Gurdial Singh, 32, denied molesting the girl in a computer room at the temple as there was another child in the room at the time

But the nine-year-old victim's story was backed up when other people at the temple in Wilbury Way, Hitchin viewed the recording.

Singh, an over-stayer in the UK from India, made no comment in police interviews after being told of the evidence. But when brought before the court he pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault on a female aged under 13.

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Foreign Ministry: Israeli ministers may be arrested in Spain

Tova Tzimuki
Ynet
2008-06-30 14:14:00

Several Israeli officials instructed not to visit European country due to international arrest warrant issued against them over their involvement in assassination of senior Hamas member Salah Shehade.

The Foreign Ministry has instructed a number of Israeli officials not to visit Spain after an international arrest warrant was issued against them on suspicion of committing war crimes.

A Spanish human rights organization, believed to be representing a Palestinian group, filed a lawsuit last week against Israeli officials involved in the assassination of senior Hamas member Salah Shehade six years ago. Sixteen Palestinians were killed in the airstrike in the heart of Gaza.

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Anthrax kills livestock at farm in southern Russia

RIA Novosti
2008-06-30 13:05:00

An outbreak of anthrax has been registered among the livestock at Russia's southern republic of Kalmykia, a police source said Monday.

A total of five sheep and goats have died at the private farm since June 17.

"On Monday, the republic's vet lab received the results of laboratory tests, showing that the animals died of anthrax," the source said.

Forty animals and two farm workers have been vaccinated.

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Flashback: Railway steel structure collapse kills at least six, injures two in China

Xinhua
2008-06-21 12:21:00

At least six people were killed and another two severely injured as the steel structure of a railway collapsed on Saturday morning in Wenzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, according to sources with the Wenzhou city government.

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Flashback: One Canadian dead, one Spaniard injured in stunt plane crash in Lithuania

The Canadian Press
2008-06-19 11:53:00

A Canadian citizen has died after a two-seat stunt plane piloted by a Spaniard crashed in Lithuania.

Police say 72-year-old Verne Heiderich was killed and Spanish citizen Pedro Telleri suffered a serious back injury when their single engine turboprop crashed late Tuesday near an airstrip in northern Lithuania.

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16 wounded including children during French military shooting demonstration

Associated Press
2008-06-29 17:15:00

A military shooting demonstration in southeast France on Sunday left 16 people wounded, including children, when real bullets were used instead of blank ones, officials said.

Four of the wounded were in serious condition, including a 3-year-old child, Bernard Lemaire, chief of the regional administration in Aude, said on France-3 television. Fifteen of the injured were civilians.

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Germany paid the most into EU in 2007, Greece received most

Monsters and Critics
2008-06-27 16:26:00

Brussels - Germany is the country which paid most for its membership of the EU in 2007, while Greece is the country that got the most money from the bloc, officials in Brussels said Friday.

But the bloc's system of giving cash handouts to farmers is no longer the most expensive part of its budget, with more spending now devoted to boosting economic growth and jobs, their figures showed.

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Bulgarians freed from slave labor on farm in Greece

eKathimerini
2008-06-29 16:24:00

A Greek and a Bulgarian have been charged with forcing a group of Bulgarian migrants to work 15 hours a day on a tobacco farm in northern Greece for just over one euro a day each.

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Road accident in northwest Russia leaves 8 dead, 18 injured

RIA Novosti
2008-06-29 15:43:00

At least eight people died and another eighteen were injured after a bus collided with a truck in the Leningrad Region in northwest Russia, the regional emergencies center said on Sunday.

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Five killed in plane crash near Moscow

RIA Novosti
2008-06-28 12:07:00

A light cargo plane, making an aerial photography flight, crashed in the Moscow Region on Friday shortly after a take-off, killing all five people onboard, the emergencies ministry said.

"The An-2 plane crashed from the height of around 1.5 to 2 kilometers and burst into flames on the ground," a spokesman for the ministry said, adding that two crew members and three members of an aerial photography team died.

©Unknown

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Russia: Experts confirm bodies of last tsar's children soaked in acid

RIA Novosti
2008-06-28 12:05:00

Russian forensic experts confirmed Friday that remains believed to belong to the children of Russia's last tsar were burnt and then soaked in sulfuric acid.

The bones, thought to be those of Prince Alexei and his elder sister Maria, were found in July 2007 near the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where the tsar's family and several servants were shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

It was thought that only nine of the 11 bodies were covered in sulfuric acid, which was used to disfigure the bodies and hinder identification, as well as to prevent them from becoming the objects of veneration.

©Unknown

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Three plane occupants involved in air rally die in Spain

EITB
2008-06-28 11:40:00

Spain's airport authority says three occupants of a plane involved in an air rally died when their aircraft plunged to earth shortly after takeoff from an airfield on the Balearic island of Mallorca.

AENA said Saturday that the single-engined Cessna 172 registered at Sabadell airdrome near Barcelona in northeast Spain was one of several planes taking part in a rally.

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Boris Johnson pulls out of global anti-nuclear group: office

AFP
2008-06-26 10:45:00

London - New mayor Boris Johnson has pulled out of a global campaign group that calls for nuclear disarmament, saying the city's membership was "not a priority", his office told AFP Wednesday.

A spokesman confirmed a claim by British lobbyists the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) that Johnson had withdrawn London from the United Nations-backed Mayors for Peace initiative that opposes nuclear proliferation.

CND chairwoman Kate Hudson said the decision was "appalling", despite being aware that Johnson, from the main opposition Conservative Party, backed the renewal of Britain's nuclear capability.

A spokesman for the mayor said: "Whilst there may be debate about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, membership of Mayors for Peace is not a priority for the new administration."

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UK: Ministers accused over return of refugees to Zimbabwe

Ben Russell & Nigel Morris
The Independent
2008-06-28 10:44:00

Ministers were accused of "breathtaking double standards" for attempting to send thousands of failed asylum-seekers back to Zimbabwe, despite the government-sponsored violence there.

Campaigners expressed horror that the Home Office is pressing ahead with a High Court battle to deport up to 13,000 Zimbabweans despite warnings they face persecution if they are returned to their homeland because they have sought asylum in Britain.

Refugee groups will stage a final attempt on Wednesday to appeal against a ruling that could allow ministers to begin deportations.

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Mugabe's secret war - in Britain

Cahal Milmo & Kim Sengupta
The Independent
2008-06-28 10:35:00

Agents of Robert Mugabe's regime are harassing and intimidating Zimbabwean dissidents in Britain in an attempt to silence his political rivals and disrupt vital fundraising for Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Mr Mugabe's feared security force, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), is waging a highly-organised campaign to terrify the 4,000 MDC members living in the UK. It involves surveillance, threats against family members in Zimbabwe, menacing late-night phone calls and bogus messages saying that fundraising activities are cancelled or disrupted.

The existence of the campaign was confirmed last night by British security sources, who said the targeting of dissidents and MDC members was stepped up in recent weeks as Mr Mugabe sought to maintain his grip on power. Police are investigating a number of incidents, including an alleged phone call to an MDC member who was told that his parents in Zimbabwe faced eviction unless he stopped criticising Mr Mugabe.

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Around the World

CIS states to send experts to probe Sudan plane crashes

RIA Novosti
2008-06-30 14:42:00

Experts from the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), a civil aviation body for ex-Soviet states, will take part in a probe into recent crashes of Soviet-made transport planes in Sudan, the IAC said on Monday.

"We have not received an official request from Sudan, but when we do, our experts, in line with international agreements, will fly to crash sites [in Sudan] to participate in the investigation," the spokesman said.

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As famine looms in Ethiopia, only the neediest get food aid

Nicholas Benequista
The Christian Science Monitor
2008-06-27 12:00:00

Aid workers must now choose who's the most malnourished, and experts say the crisis could become as bad as the infamous 1984 famine.

HADERO - One by one, the children are placed on a scale hanging from a makeshift wooden stand.

The mothers look pleadingly at the Doctors Without Borders aid worker, but he keeps his eyes on his clipboard, tallying the figures that determine whether each child is sick enough to eat today.

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Pakistan: Numbers for impeachment of Musharraf grow

The News
2008-06-29 12:00:00

ISLAMABAD - The Thursday's by-polls have further cemented the coalition partners' parliamentary position to impeach the president as now their combined strength stands at 13 more than the two-thirds majority of the joint house of parliament.

The fresh party position in parliament makes it clear that the treasury partners and their supporters have reached the combined figure of 308 against the required 295 from both houses, the National Assembly and the Senate, for packing up the sitting president.

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Eritrea crisis worsens Djibouti food shortages

Bill Weinberg
Bill Weinberg's blog
2008-06-29 01:44:00

A large percentage of Djibouti's population could face food shortages due to drought, rising prices, declining earnings, and high levels of livestock deaths, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. Some 130,000, including 50,000 in Djibouti's capital, require emergency food assistance, the network found. FEWS Net also noted that the recent border conflict with Eritrea could aggravate the situation. "Approximately 1,000 people have been displaced in and around the conflict zone, and as many as 22,000 could be displaced, should the violence worsen," it stated in an alert.

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Propaganda! North Korea: only four clothes colours allowed in Kim's drab capital

Michael Sheridan
The Sunday Times
2008-06-29 11:37:00

A prominent Chinese writer has provided a rare insider's account of the Orwellian routine that governs the daily lives of North Korea's privileged elite in Pyongyang, the capital city.

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The Human Right to Eat -- Agro- Profiteering and Predictable Food Scarcity

Joan P. Mencher
CounterPunch
2008-06-28 22:34:00

Somini Sengupta's front-page article, "India's Growth Outstrips Crops" (New York Times, June 22, 2008) points out various reasons for the current shortage of staple foods in India-- including rapidly sinking water tables, inadequate government investment in agriculture and especially in irrigation and access to loans for farmers, agricultural land being sold for residential use since the profits from agriculture were so poor. Between 1968 and 1998 India's production of cereals had doubled, but between 1998 and 2008 it has gone down due to the cancellation of government support prices, which followed the advice of the World Bank and the United States economists. Based on my own field research on agricultural issues in India over the last fifty years I have always been surprised by the disconnect between what farmers tell me and what I hear from economists (most of whom rarely visit many farms). I see a very different picture.

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Sweating It Out: Labourers in Third World Countries

Jeffrey St. Clair
CounterPunch
2008-06-28 21:50:00

This is an excerpt from Jeffrey St. Clair's new environmental history, Born Under a Bad Sky, now available from AK Press / CounterPunch Books.

The place is in Honduras, a so-called free-trade zone or maquiladora - little more than a ragged swath hacked out of the rainforest and ringed by a tall fence, tipped with razor-sharp wire. Inside a clump of factories produce cut-rate apparel for American companies. Armed guards, many of them veterans of the Honduran defense forces (accused by human right groups of assassinations, drug-running, and torture of political prisoners), patrol the borders.

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Pakistani Forces Attack Islamic Insurgents Outside Peshawar

James Rupert
Bloomberg
2008-06-28 21:00:00

Pakistani paramilitary troops attacked a stronghold of Islamic militant insurgents between the country's northwestern provincial capital and the Afghan border today, and a prominent Taliban commander announced he was breaking off peace talks with the government.

Soldiers of Pakistan's Frontier Corps with armored vehicles and mortars destroyed the home of guerrilla leader Mangal Bagh, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) west of Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, officials told Pakistani news organizations. Bagh and his fighters had melted away before the offensive, into rugged mountains near the border.

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Australia: Military drill above Darwin comes to an end

Northern Territory News
2008-06-27 00:31:00

The sky above Darwin rumbled, roared and shook.

For the past two weeks, fighter pilots from all corners of the globe have gone head to head in screaming jets during mock battles.

Up to 3000 service men and women from 10 nations - including Australia, the US, Singapore, Malaysia and France - have catapulted into action from RAAF bases in Darwin and Tindal, near Katherine.

This may explain why some NT residents reported they were seeing UFOs.

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Fourteen dead in Indonesia plane wreck

Telly Nathalia
Reuters
2008-06-28 11:49:00

An Indonesian search team pulled 14 bodies on Saturday from the wreckage of a military plane that crashed in a dense forest with 18 people on board, including three foreigners, an air force official said.

The plane, which was flying from Jakarta to Bogor in West Java, went missing on Thursday. It had 12 military personnel and six civilians on board, including a Briton, a Singaporean and an Indian.

A small air force plane spotted the wreckage late on Friday but could not get closer because of bad weather.

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Afghanistan: The Battle Over Kandahar

Naseer Ahmad Nawidy
IslamOnline.net
2008-06-25 22:00:00

©Unknown

For the last two weeks, fighting has been intensifying in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the NATO forces, backed by Afghan forces, over the southern part of Kandahar province, which is strategically important to both sides for its special position in the south - bordering Pakistan - and being the starting point and birthplace of the Taliban.

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Absurd Japanese government mandate: a 33-inch waistline?

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
2008-06-16 18:06:00

The New York Times reports that in Japan, "under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups.

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Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai rejects 'sham' ballot

BBC News
2008-06-27 18:03:00

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has described the country's election run-off as "an exercise in mass intimidation".

Mr Tsvangirai, who boycotted the poll because of violence, said people across Zimbabwe had been forced to take part and urged the world to reject the vote.

The European Union and the US dismissed the vote as meaningless.

Turnout is reported to have been low. President Robert Mugabe - the only candidate - is assured of victory.

Official results are expected at the weekend.

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Big Brother

Boulder, Colorado police Taser man in Pearl Street brawl

Heath Urie
Daily Camera
2008-06-28 21:01:00

Boulder police used pepper spray and a Taser on a man early Saturday after responding to a 1 a.m. report about a fight happening in the area of 10th and Pearl Streets.

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European Union: Brussels to sign away your private details to US

David Leppard
The Times (UK)
2008-06-29 15:55:00

American authorities will be able to obtain greater access to private information such as credit card transactions, internet browsing habits and travel histories of people in Britain under a deal being finalised by European Union officials.

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Flashback: It took less than one drink to get Shannon Wilcutt busted for felony DUI

Sarah Fenske
Phoenix New Times
2008-03-20 13:59:00

Phoenix, Arizona - The businessman was meeting with clients for lunch at Mimi's Café when he noticed the woman. Sitting a few tables over with her 4-year-old boy, she seemed groggy - yet she was drinking a mimosa.

It got worse. The woman ordered a glass of white wine, then another. She was so out of it, the businessman would later write in a statement to police, that she looked ready to fall asleep at the table.

When the woman paid her bill and left the restaurant, the businessman was right behind her, cell phone in hand. When she ran a stop sign in the parking lot, he called the police.

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Fortress Britain

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Media Monitors Network
2008-06-25 10:28:00

©FortressBritain.com

"Sensing opportunity as the war on terror grinds on, its neoconservative architects have swooped in from across the Atlantic to establish their presence in Britain. With ties to the arms industry and the neoconservative wing of the Israel lobby, the Henry Jackson Society seems to be assuming the role that the Committee on Present Danger played in the United States. Its Israel-centric worldview, as exhibited by its roster of speakers, predisposes it towards perpetual conflict. The support for a militarized ethnocracy is not the natural inclination of a liberal-democratic Britain; it can only be sustained in a context where Israel can be seen aligned with Britain in an overarching conflict against a common enemy."

"The public has to be more alert", warned one "international terrorism expert" in the Daily Mail late last year, because Scotland "is set to become another Israel within five years". "[A]nti-terror measures will soon become a common feature of life", he assured the audience, and called for "routine arming of police officers" and increasing children's "awareness of the dangers of terrorism" and for them to be "encouraged" to report anything "out of the ordinary".

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Airport-style security for UK rail stations blocked

Dan Milmo
The Guardian
2008-06-28 10:23:00

Plans to install airport-style x-ray machines in every London underground and mainline rail stations across the UK were ruled out today amid fears of a passenger rebellion against journey delays.

A handful of bag screening machines and bomb detection dogs will be placed at tube and mainline stations in London and other cities instead, the Department for Transport said.

A trial found that introducing airport-style checks would be impractical and antagonise the public.

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Missouri bill makes mandatory microchipping a misdemeanor

Associated Press
2008-06-26 03:42:00

JEFFERSON CITY - Missouri employers: Make your workers get a microchip implant at your own peril. It could now cost you a thousand big ones. But if you happen to run a gun range, rest easy as noise and nuisance complaints can't be filed by angry neighbors.

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Uncle Sam's cyber force wants you

William J. Astore
TomDispatch.com
2008-06-28 09:39:00

Recently, while I was on a visit to Salon.com, my computer screen momentarily went black. A glitch? A power surge? No, it was a pop-up ad for the US Air Force, warning me that an enemy cyber attack could come at any moment - with dire consequences for my ability to connect to the Internet. It was an Outer Limits moment. Remember that eerie sci-fi show from the early 1960s? The one that began in a blur with the message, "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission ..." It felt a little like that.

©Unknown

Hacking job for the Air Force anyone?

And speaking of air force ads, there's one currently running on TV and on the Internet that starts with a bird's eye view of the Pentagon as a narrator intones, "This building will be attacked 3 million times today. Who's going to protect it?" Two army colleagues of mine nearly died on September 11, 2001, when the third hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon, so I can't say I appreciated the none-too-subtle reminder of that day's carnage.

Leaving that aside, it turns out that the ad is referring to cyber attacks and that the cyber protector it has in mind is a new breed of "air" warrior, part of an entirely new Cyber Command run by the Air Force.

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"Thought Crime" Bill Dead in Senate

BORDC
2008-06-28 09:35:00

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 1955) passed by an overwhelming 404-6 in the House last October. However, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee does not plan to consider the bill this year. Grassroots activists' calls seem to have moved the bill to a very slow track for the time being.

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Le Téléprésident: Sarkozy tightens his grip over French state TV

Angelique Chrisafis
The Guardian
2008-06-27 08:29:00

Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to increase government control over state TV yesterday sparked an outcry from his political opponents who accused him of tightening a Berlusconi-style grip on the airwaves and dragging France back into its dark age of postwar censorship and propaganda.

©Unknown

Sarkozy TV

The French president's proposed "cultural revolution" for France's five state TV channels prompted an uproar when he announced that in future, he and his cabinet would appoint the head of French state TV, instead of an independent body.

Sarkozy, known as the Téléprésident, prides himself on his numerous TV appearances, carefully studies his own ratings and has privately confided that he would have liked to have been a TV executive. So it was no surprise that he took direct control of the project to overhaul French state TV. He argued that a government appointment of the head of France Televisions was more "democratic". This has reopened the festering row over the president's influence over the media and closeness to his press and TV baron friends who are willing to lean on, censor or even sack journalists who displease him.

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U.S. and Europe Near Agreement on Private Data

Charlie Savage
The New York Times
2008-06-28 07:47:00

Washington - The United States and the European Union are nearing completion of an agreement allowing law enforcement and security agencies to obtain private information - like credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits - about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The potential agreement, as outlined in an internal report obtained by The New York Times, would represent a diplomatic breakthrough for American counterterrorism officials, who have clashed with the European Union over demands for personal data. Europe generally has more stringent laws restricting how governments and businesses can collect and transfer such information.

Negotiators, who have been meeting since February 2007, have largely agreed on draft language for 12 major issues central to a "binding international agreement," the report said. The pact would make clear that it is lawful for European governments and companies to transfer personal information to the United States, and vice versa.

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The Democrats embrace Big Brother

Candace Cohn
SocialistWorker.org
2008-06-24 02:34:00

It may be June, but Christmas came early this year for Big Brother and the telecommunications giants. Unfortunately, it is average Americans who will pay--dearly--on three separate counts.

First, precious constitutional and other legal protections against warrantless domestic surveillance have been shattered. The federal government may now secretly and legally eavesdrop on virtually any American's e-mail, cell phone and landline communications--without first getting a court-ordered warrant.

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Axis of Evil

Master of Our Domain

Jeff Wells
Rigorous Intuition
2008-06-12 13:48:00

©Jeff Wells

Half the people had turned into squealing pigs, the other half were cooking - Nick Cave

There's a Kids in the Hall sketch in which Mark McKinney plays a loner who's injured his toe. By the swelling, the pus and the change of colour he knows it needs attention, but he can't get motivated to go to the hospital, because "as it is, I'm fascinated by the process!" His leg has gone numb below the knee, and he can stick a fork in it and not feel a thing. "Now that," he says, "is interesting!"

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Zionism's Dead End

Jonathan Cook
CounterCurrents.org
2008-06-27 12:13:00

The following is taken from a talk delivered at the Conference for the Right of Return and the Secular Democratic State, held in Haifa on June 21.

In 1895 Theodor Herzl, Zionism's chief prophet, confided in his diary that he did not favour sharing Palestine with the natives. Better, he wrote, to "try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country ... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

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Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state

Amos Schocken
Haaretz
2008-06-27 11:30:00

The government's decision last week to extend the validity of the Citizenship Law (Temporary Order), for another year, is evidence that the legal barriers preventing severe discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens and harm to their civil rights have been removed.

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Robert Mugabe, Yet Another Man the West Loves to Hate

William Bowles
Creative-i
2008-06-29 11:19:00

Robert Mugabe is bit like Osama bin Laden, if he didn't exist they'd have to invent him, and invent him they have, with a vengeance.

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Hersh: Preparing the Battlefield

Seymour M. Hersh
The New Yorker
2008-06-29 15:05:00

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.

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Mounting propaganda for the impending attack: Israel has a year to stop Iran bomb, warns ex-spy

Carolynne Wheeler and Tim Shipman
The Telegraph
2008-06-29 15:35:00

A former head of Mossad has warned that Israel has 12 months in which to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or risk coming under nuclear attack itself. He also hinted that Israel might have to act sooner if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election.

Shabtai Shavit, an influential adviser to the Israeli parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee, told The Sunday Telegraph that time was running out to prevent Iran's leaders getting the bomb.

Mr Shavit, who retired from the Israeli intelligence agency in 1996, warned that he had no doubt Iran intended to use a nuclear weapon once it had the capability, and that Israel must conduct itself accordingly.

"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," he said in an interview.

©Unknown

A satellite image of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility

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Avoiding the Torture Taint: Advice from Military Lawyers

Brian Beutler
The Media Consortium
2008-06-29 11:24:00

Even as they worked out details of how interrogation techniques widely regarded as torture would be used on detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Pentagon officials sought to keep the blood off Defense Department hands

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Political theater seen in Israeli drill

Amy Teibel
Associated Press
2008-06-27 04:02:00

Jerusalem - An Israeli military exercise over the Mediterranean appears to have been less a dry run for an attack on Iran than a message that Tehran must curb its nuclear ambitions, according to officials and experts.

©AP /Ariel Schalit

Israeli Air Force pilots throw their hats in the air at a graduation ceremony at the Hatzerim Air Force Base near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, Thursday, June 26, 2008. Israeli military exercise this month over the Mediterranean Sea appears to have been less a dry run for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities than an Israeli message to the world that Tehran must curb its nuclear ambitions, according to officials and experts.

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Culling the Herd

Sheila Samples
Online Journal
2007-12-29 00:09:00

"Everything you can imagine is real" --Pablo Picasso

In 1974, a year after orchestrating a mass terror bombing of Cambodia -- after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize -- Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his National Security Council completed "National Security Study Memo 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests." This document, whose sharp edges are dulled by page after leaden page of how to reduce overpopulation in the Third World through birth control and "other" population-reduction programs, was classified until 1989, but was almost immediately accepted as US policy, and remains the US blueprint for ethnic cleansing today.

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Disinformation Agent Exposed: David Albright, The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was

Scott Ritter
TruthDig
2008-06-26 00:16:00

I am a former U.N. weapons inspector. I started my work with the United Nations in September 1991, and between that date and my resignation in August 1998, I participated in over 30 inspections, 14 as chief inspector. The United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, was the organization mandated by the Security Council with the implementation of its resolutions requiring Iraq to be disarmed of its weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities. While UNSCOM oversaw the areas of chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missiles, it shared the nuclear file with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. As such, UNSCOM, through a small cell of nuclear experts on loan from the various national weapons laboratories, would coordinate with the nuclear safeguards inspectors from the IAEA, organized into an "Action Team" dedicated to the Iraq nuclear disarmament problem. UNSCOM maintained political control of the process, insofar as its executive chairman was the only one authorized to approve a given inspection mission. At first, the IAEA and UNSCOM shared the technical oversight of the inspection process, but soon this was transferred completely to the IAEA's Action Team, and UNSCOM's nuclear staff assumed more of an advisory and liaison function.

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EU Constitution author says referendums can be ignored

Bruno Waterfield
Telegraph
2008-06-28 22:49:00

Future referendums will be ignored whether they are held in Ireland or elsewhere, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the architect of the European Union Constitution said.

The former President of France drafted the old Constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters three years ago before being resurrected as the Lisbon EU Treaty, itself shunned by the Irish two weeks ago.

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The Fallacy of Islamic "National Suicide"

George Bisharat
SabbahBlog
2008-06-28 17:24:00

A new buzzword is arising from the network of Israeli think tanks and security-oriented academic departments bent on instigating a U.S. attack on Iran: "national suicide." The term describes a supposed Arab Muslim tradition of politically motivated suicide at the national, not just individual, level. Arab Muslim regimes have purportedly launched ruinous wars they could not have reasonably hoped to win, condemning their nations to destruction.

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Israelis beat and torture returning journalist, Mohammed Omer

ISP News
2008-06-28 05:00:00

My dear friend and brother Mohammed Omer returned to his native Gaza Strip on Thursday... literally unconscious and unable to speak after being beaten and tortured by Israeli troops. He is still unable to speak so I was not able to communicate with him, I will be posting updates on his condition in future posts.

Mohammed was in Britain, where he was the recipient of a prize for journalism. You can read about it HERE in a post I wrote earlier in the week.

Mohammed's ordeal is written about in an Action Alert issued by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a journal in which he appears regularly.

©Unknown

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A Confederacy of War Whores: US Congress agrees to keep troops in Iraq until end of Bush's term

Elana Schor
The Guardian
2008-06-27 11:59:00

The Democratic-controlled US Congress late yesterday agreed to keep the military in Iraq until George Bush leaves office while also giving $62bn in new education benefits to veterans of the war.

The massive war bill faced little opposition after Bush reached a deal with Democrats, exchanging unrestricted war money for the veterans' education as well as 13 extra weeks of employment benefits for Americans hit by a faltering economy.

"At a time when 2m men and women have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and when our troops have had to endure multiple deployments ... and an unclear strategy, giving them the opportunity to fuel our future economy is the least we can do," Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid said yesterday.

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Congress approves $170 Million increase for Israel 'defense' aid

The Raw Story
2008-06-27 07:29:00

The US Congress has approved a 170 million dollar increase in security assistance to Israel as part of its new 10-year, 30 billion dollar defense aid commitment to the Jewish state.

The money for Israel was part of a larger supplemental spending bill that included 162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation gained final approval in a 92-6 Senate vote late Thursday.

America's pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, welcomed the congressional action, saying it would increase US aid to Israel to 2.55 billion dollars in fiscal year 2009, up from 2.38 billion dollars this year.

"The US commitment to maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge is the cornerstone of American policy in the region," AIPAC said in a statement Friday.

"This year's package holds heightened significance for US security interests, as the US and Israel face new challenges from Iran's drive to acquire nuclear weapons as well as the growing influence of radical anti-western forces to Israel's south in Gaza and to the north in Lebanon."

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Middle East Madness

Palestine: Swimming in sewage

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
2008-06-30 12:00:00

"I think the sea probably is polluted. Sometimes I get strange white marks on my skin; but we come down to the beach every day because we have nowhere else to go." Samer and his friends are hanging out on the beach in Gaza city, just about to jump in next to the old fishing harbor. One of the boys holds a plastic bottle with several small fish and a tiny crab trapped inside. The fish are all dead. Less than a hundred meters away, a sewage pipe pours mucky water into streams of dark waste that flows towards the sea where Samer and his friends swim.

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Israel: Elite police unit simulates hostage crisis at Ben Gurion Airport

Yaakov Lappin
Jerusalem Post
2008-06-30 16:27:00

The Israel National Counter-Terrorism Unit held a drill at Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday, "freeing" hostages and "killing" terrorists in a simulated aircraft hostage exercise.

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Iran: Building collapses in Tehran, killing 19 construction workers

RIA Novosti
2008-06-30 14:39:00

A building being built in Iran's capital collapsed on Monday, killing 19 workers, national radio reported.

The accident occurred early in the morning at a construction site in the Sa'adatabad district in northwest Tehran, when the workers were sleeping inside the seven-storey building.

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Syria put troops in Lebanon ahead of Israeli drill - report

The Daily Star
2008-06-30 14:03:00

A publishing house specialized in military matters reported that commercially available satellite imagery shows Syrian troops deployed on Lebanese territory along the border in early 2008, just ahead of Israel's largest ever military drill. The report, published in Jane's Defense Weekly earlier this month, said that images obtained through DigitalGlobe show Syrian troops being deployed in the remote and rugged hills north of the Lebanese town of Rashaya al-Wadi. The report added that these maneuvers took place just before Israel was due to hold a five-day nationwide response drill in early April.

According to the report, entitled "Middle ground: Lebanon plays buffer as Syria and Israel simmer," the Syrian bases are "aimed solely at creating a defensive line in the event of an Israeli military advance and are not conduits for weaponry" smuggled from Syria to Hizbullah.

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Iran sentences 'Israel spy' to death

Agence France-Presse
2008-06-30 12:42:00

Iran has sentenced to death an Iranian telecoms salesman found guilty of spying for Israel, official media reported on Monday, in a rare move amid spiralling tensions between the archfoes.

"Ali Ashtari, 45, was convicted of being spy for Israel and was sentenced to death by the revolutionary court," the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ashtari was accused of involvement in a plot run by the Israeli secret services to intercept the communications of Iranian officials working in the military and its contested nuclear programme.

He still has time to appeal the verdict with a higher court.

"This is an initial verdict and should receive final approval. The defendant can appeal," the Fars news agency quoted an unnamed intelligence official as saying.

©Unknown

Ali Ashtari is accused of involvement in a plot to intercept military communications on behalf of Israel

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Israeli authorities warn hospitals to prepare for 'earthquake'

Associated Press
2008-06-30 10:30:00

A strong earthquake could soon rock Lebanon and parts of Israel, authorities said on Monday, urging health officials in northern Israel to make preparations for such an event.

"The probability of an earthquake of a magnitude of up to six on the Richter scale, originating in Lebanon and being felt in Israel has increased," the health ministry said in a letter sent to medical officials in northern Israel.

Since February, abnormal seismic activity has been noted in southern Lebanon, which had suffered some 500 minor earthquakes in a three-month period, health ministry director-general Avi Yisraeli said in the letter.

"In May, the tremors have become more intense and were felt in northern Israel," he said adding that "should an earthquake of such magnitude hit northern Israel it may cause substantial infrastructural damage in the area." "All medical facilities and organisations must do everything they can to enhance the level of readiness," Yisraeli said in the letter published by the ministry on Monday.

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Propaganda Alert! In prisoner swap, Israel shown to be victim

Barak Ravid, Yossi Melman
Haaretz
2008-06-30 12:00:00

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to ultimately support the prisoner swap deal with Hezbollah on Sunday stemmed from his desire to avert another Ron Arad-like saga, he said Monday.

The whereabouts and fate of Arad, an Israel Air Force navigator whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986, is still unknown despite countless Israeli efforts to obtain this information.

I didn't want a situation to arise like the one with Ron Arad, where for 20 years we are trying to figure out what happened to him," the premier said on Monday. "It was clear to me that if we didn't approve the deal, the result would be that we would lose touch with them for many years and we would not be able to bring the soldiers to Israel for burial."

On Sunday, the cabinet overwhelmingly voted in favor of a prisoner exchange with the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah in which two kidnapped Israel Defense Forces reservists presumed dead, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, would be returned in exchange for five Lebanese fighters including notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar.

Comment: Here is a standard piece of propaganda. Refer to soldiers captured in an occupied zone as kidnapped!

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Settlers, with the Help of the Police, Stop "Breaking the Silence" Tour Again

Jeremiah Haber
The Magnes Zionist
2008-06-13 05:00:00

Once again, the Hebron settlers proved that, in the Wild West Bank, they are the bosses. After the High Court of Justice ruled that Breaking the Silence can conduct their tours, provided that they are coordinated with the police, the settlers said, "Ain't no way they are coming in here" and blocked the bus for two hours. The police arrived and did not interfere, except to shorten the route of the tour to 500 meters. The BTS guys said, "Forget it," and they turned around and went home.

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Crisis grows in Iraq over U.S. raid that killed Maliki relative

Hannah Allam
McClatchy Newspapers
2008-06-28 00:00:00

Senior Iraqi government officials said Saturday that a U.S. Special Forces counter terrorism unit conducted the raid that reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, touching off a high-stakes diplomatic crisis between the United States and Iraq.

U.S. military officials in Baghdad had no comment for the second day in a row, an unusual position for a command that typically releases information on combat operations within 24 hours.

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Israeli troops kill youth in West Bank

International Herald Tribune/Associated Press
2008-06-29 16:22:00

Nablus, West Bank: Palestinians say Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian youth during a night patrol in a West Bank village.

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Shadow of war looms as Israel flexes its muscle

Peter Beaumont, Rory McCarthy, Tracy McVeigh and Paul Harris
The Guardian
2008-06-29 14:59:00

Israeli fighter jets flew 1,500 kms across the Mediterranean this month, in a dry run for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Tehran has threatened to treat such a raid as a declaration of war. As the Middle East braces itself for a stand-off of epic proportions, how close is the region to that nightmare scenario?

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Israeli settlement activity surges despite peace talks

Dion Nissenbaum
McClatchy Newspapers
2008-06-27 01:17:00

Blue and yellow signs advertising new homes pepper the narrow West Bank roads that wind up to gated hilltop Jewish settlements.

"A new stage is on its way," boasts one billboard promoting a dozen homes being built in this small Israeli settlement not far from Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital.

As construction workers press ahead with work on these modest townhouses, telephone salesmen dismiss any concerns that Israel's pledge to restrict settlement construction in the West Bank could halt the building.

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Hamas: Truce violators in Gaza will be arrested

Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz
2008-06-29 00:50:00

A Hamas leader in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, says his organization will arrest anyone who tries to break the cease-fire with Israel and will confiscate their weapons whether they are from Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

In an interview published yesterday in Saudi daily Al-Watan, Zahar said anyone who overstepped the national consensus and harmed the interests of the Palestinian people was operating not as a resistance group would but as someone who wants to harm the resistance.

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Israel Lobby Authors Walt, Mearsheimer Travel to Tel Aviv

Linda Mamoun
AlterNet
2008-06-28 21:28:00

Tel Aviv -- like all of Israel -- is a stridently nationalist place. Israeli flags hang everywhere: over buildings, roads, city parks and beaches. They're mounted on cars and motorcycles. In residential areas, on the city's narrow tree-lined streets, you see flags draped over balconies, painted on ledges, growing in the bougainvillea. Some of the flags are festooned with lights. A fruit vendor may have so many flags bunched around his stand that you might not know if he is selling fruit or flags.

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Diary of a Bridge

Marcy Newman
Body on the Line
2008-06-11 17:00:00

i had this idea this morning to chronicle minute-by-minute what happens when i go through the fiasco that is the palestinian-jordanian border, which is, of course, illegally controlled solely by israelis. my plan didn't work as i had expected, however, because for the first time i did not have to go through the hell that is having every little piece of your luggage searched: every little paper, book, bra normally gets looked at and swabbed with some cloth that goes into a machine; normally every little drop of liquid (shampoo, lotion, etc.) gets sampled and tested. but somehow i escaped that today for the first time. but because i cataloged the series of events i thought i'd type them up here for posterity:

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Grand Theft Economics

The 'Mortgage Meltdown' Was No Accident

Kai Wright
The Nation
2008-06-30 12:00:00

How the mortgage industry stole black America's hard-won wealth.

George Mitchell's wife, Lillian, took her last breath in the house she loved, on New Year's Day 2006. "Right there in that spot," says George, 77, nodding to the far end of his worn, floral-print couch. "I think the last words she spoke was my name."

"Yup," confirms his youngest daughter, Chandra Chavis. "I was trying to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at the time." She points out the living room window to the small, sloping front yard and drive. "There was no address on the house, so I had to stop doing that to get the ambulance to come in." But Lillian's heart had seized, and Chandra knows there's not much she could have done anyway. She figures if even the trauma team at Atlanta's century-old public hospital couldn't revive her mom, she must have been long gone. "Nobody can bring you back if the Lord calls you," concludes an older daughter, Gwen Russell.

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House of Cards

Danny Schechter
LACityBeat
2008-06-28 13:30:00

©LACityBeat

You thought the housing crisis was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet.

The Mess

Nationwide, two million homes sit vacant. Home sales are at a nine-year low. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says that housing finance has not been this bad since the Depression. We still don't know the full extent of the colossal subprime rip-off, but a recent Bank of America study did some guesstimating on the scale of the consequences of the "credit crisis." The meltdown in the U.S. subprime real estate market, the bank said, had led to a global loss of $7.7 trillion dollars in stock market value since October.

While many eyes are focusing on the housing meltdown and its hugely negative effect on an economy clearly moving into recession, few are paying attention to the next bubble expected to burst: credit cards. Combined with the subprime losses, such a credit card nightmare has the potential, experts say, of bringing down the entire financial system and global economy. You and your credit card have become key players in the highly unstable financial crunch. Mortgage lender cupidity and bank credit card greed wedded to financial institution deregulation supported by both political parties, have been made manifestly worse by Bush administration support-the-rich policies. It has brought us to a brink not seen since just before the Great Depression.

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America's Shrinking Groceries

Kate Pickert
Time
2008-06-27 13:10:00

Fleecing the sheeple - retail style.

American supermarkets are epics of excess: it often seems like every item in the store comes in a "Jumbo" size or has "Bonus!" splashed across the label. But is it possible that the amount of food Americans are buying is, in fact... shrinking? Well, yes. Soaring commodity and fuel prices are driving up costs for manufacturers; faced with a choice between raising prices (which consumers would surely notice) or quietly putting fewer ounces in the bag, carton or cup (which they generally don't) manufacturers are choosing the latter. This month, Kellogg's started shipping Apple Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks containing an average of 2.4 fewer ounces per box.

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The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve. IMF to investigate U.S. financial system

Gabor Steingart
Spiegel
2008-06-30 11:32:00

Humiliation for Mr. Dollar: Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Bank, faces a general investigation by the International Monetary Fund. Just one more example of the Fed losing its power.

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London: Crash worries grow over housing market

Sumeet Desai and Matt Falloon
Reuters
2008-06-30 09:58:00

Fears of a property market crash mounted on Monday after new figures showed approvals for home loans plummeting to a record low and the consumer mood at its bleakest since the onset of the recession in 1990.

The Bank of England said mortgage approvals -- perhaps the best pointer to where house prices will go -- fell 28 percent in May to just 42,000, around a third of their level a year ago.

Actual mortgage lending rose by just 0.3 percent, its weakest rate in 12 years. Analysts said the housing market looked set for a long and serious downturn and that could have a serious impact on the wider economy.

"Approvals are now pointing to house price falls of 15 to 20 percent this year," said Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics. "With the housing market going into freefall, it's only a matter of time before consumer spending growth weakens sharply."

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The Dow-Crash, The Dollar, Gold, and WAR!

Alex Wallenwein
SmallBusinessGoldmine
2008-06-29 09:32:00

Part I: The June 2008 Dow Crash and the coming first strike attack on Iran herald the end of dollar hegemony.

Break-DOW!

They say that pictures speak a thousand words, so let's start this with a picture:

©StockCharts.com

Today, the Dow crashed through its eight-year support level at 11,750. There isn't much below now to keep it from dropping all the way back down to the 7,500-range. What that will do to American investor psychology and worse, consumer confidence, and therefore spending, and therefore the economy, is only too apparent.

The gold-attack on Monday obviously didn't take. Gold recovered the following day and powered up by $26 the very next day to close in NY at $911. On Friday, gold confirmed its breakout, which means there will be little holding it back - just like there is now very little that's holding the Dow up.

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Flashback: Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt
2007-07-03 18:40:00

It has been called "the most astounding piece of sleight of hand ever invented." The creation of money has been privatized, usurped from Congress by a private banking cartel. Most people think money is issued by fiat by the government, but that is not the case. Except for coins, which compose only about one one-thousandth of the total U.S. money supply, all of our money is now created by banks. Federal Reserve Notes (dollar bills) are issued by the Federal Reserve, a private banking corporation, and lent to the government.1 Moreover, Federal Reserve Notes and coins together compose less than 3 percent of the money supply. The other 97 percent is created by commercial banks as loans.2

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Gulf Cooperation Council: Ensuring food security in the region

Marie Lillo
Khaleej Times Online
2008-06-29 12:00:00

Sky rocketing food inflation partly triggered by shortages and rising transportation costs have curtailed food availabilities throughout many parts of the world. At times, this has led to significant social unrest and international political tensions.

For the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) states, ensuring medium- to long-term food security has to be a top policy priority, in order to avoid similar difficulties. As it stands, according to a Gulf Research Center (GRC) report on food inflation, in absolute numbers Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab food importer in the GCC followed by the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. In 2007, total GCC food imports hit US$10 billion, US$3 billion of which accrued to the UAE.

When it comes to food security, Africa has gained a new degree of strategic importance. The continent is seen by many as providing a short- as well as long-term answer to the current crisis. Already, countries such as China have begun to look earnestly into this direction, generating new dynamics of power with the onset of a competition for farmland and investments in agro-businesses. As a result and in the light of this race for supplies and the possible longevity of the crisis, the GCC states should think of establishing a strategic partnership with Africa to prepare for future challenges in the region.

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Agricultural leader: California farmers must adapt to shortages of water, land, labor and energy

Donna Jones
Santa Cruz Sentinel
2008-06-28 22:17:00

Escalating fuel costs will force Pajaro Valley farmers to switch from a global to a regional marketing strategy during the next 25 years. Farmers also will pay more for water, and cheap labor from across the border is likely to be harder to come by due to Mexico's dropping birth rate and improving economy.

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Standing Up To The Banks: Legal Defense Against ForeClosure

Ellen Brown
Information Clearing House
2008-06-27 23:46:00

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin (1802)

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At the Height of an Energy Crisis, Fat-Cat CEOs Still Litter the Skies with Private Jets

Chuck Collins and Sarah Anderson
AlterNet
2008-06-28 21:20:00

If shareholders, corporate watchdogs and consumer groups would like to know just how weak the oversight of corporate management is in America, they need to check out the abuse of corporate jets.

The private jet industry has more than doubled its sales in the past five years, and corporate executives form the backbone of its clientele. In addition to legitimate business trips, many executives and their families have access to the company jet for personal use, an expense picked up by their companies' other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. And the rest of us pay a price in diminished air quality as a result of these heavily polluting jets.

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US: Fed says Bear bailout was an attempt to avert contagion

Associated Press
2008-06-28 12:00:00

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve scrambled to avert an "expected contagion" that risked infecting the nation's financial system when its took unprecedented actions in mid-March to provide financial backing to Bear Stearns and provide emergency loans to Wall Street firms.

The Federal Reserve released documents Friday providing insights into its private deliberations of those controversial decisions.

The Fed's actions came at a time when credit and financial problems were intensifying, threatening to paralyze the entire financial system and plunge the economy into a recession.

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Why Aren't Corporate Interests Organizing Against Policies that Hurt Them?

Nader.org
2008-06-28 10:29:00

No matter how much economic gain is at stake, business groups stick together -- it's all about the power.

Here is a counter-intuitive story for you. Why don't organized corporate interests challenge damage or risks to their clear economic interests?

Think about oil prices for big consumers, not just your pocketbook. Airlines are groaning, limiting flights, and laying off employees because of the skyrocketing price for aviation fuel. Executives in that industry say that fuel costs are close to 40 percent of the cost of flying you to your destination. The powerful chemical industry is under pressure from the prices they're paying for petroleum -- probably their main raw material.

The powerful trucking industry is beside itself with diesel fuel going to $5 per gallon.

You can add your own examples -- cab companies, tourist industry, auto companies, etc.

Why aren't these very influential lobbies throwing their weight around Washington to get something done about the speculators on Wall Street determining what is paid for gasoline and related petroleum products? It is in their own economic interests.

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Desperate propaganda: Muslim Terrorists May Be Trying To Sink the Dollar

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
IsraelNN.com
2008-06-17 07:19:00

Mujahideen Muslim terrorists may be behind the sinking American dollar as part of a campaign to cripple the American economy, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported. The media watch group, which specializes in tracking Arabic language websites, said that postings on websites the past two years reflect a move toward waging an economic war against the United States.

Comment: MEMRI tracks Arabic language websites then distorts their meaning for Israeli propaganda purposes.

Mujahideen terrorist groups that operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries "have come to the conclusion that it is financial, rather than military, losses that will prompt the U.S. to change its policies in the Middle East and elsewhere," according to MEMRI.

An article recently posted in Sada Al-Jihad (Echo of Jihad) magazine and posted on several Muslim websites, discusses the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. as having influenced the decline in the dollar. It also cited the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as draining the American economy.

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Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve's credibility crumbles

Ambrose Evans Pritchard
The Telegraph
2008-06-27 00:30:00

US central bank accused of unleashing an inflation shock that will rock financial markets.

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The Living Planet

Tropical storm kills 16 in China

RIA Novosti
2008-06-30 14:44:00

At least 16 people have been killed after the deadly typhoon Fengshen hit southern China, China Daily reported on Monday.

The authorities fear the death toll could rise with nine people still missing.

The storm, whose name means "God of Wind" in Chinese battered China's southern province of Guangdong last Wednesday. Strong winds and downpours caused rivers to swell, destroying over 1,200 houses and hundreds of hectares of crops.

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US: Bees' decline could lead to higher food prices

Associated Press
2008-06-27 13:12:00

Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

©AP

Farmers say their businesses are feeling the sting of the decline of honey bees.

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Strong quake rattles South Sandwich Islands

Agence France-Presse
2008-06-30 12:50:00

A strong 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck Monday near the South Sandwich Islands, a remote British territory near Antarctica and South America's southern tip, the US Geological Survey said.

The earthquake, which was 10 kilometers (six miles) deep, took place 283 kilometers (176 miles) southeast of Bristol Island and 2,374 kilometers (1,476 miles) southeast of Punta Arenas, Chile, the USGS said.

The quake occurred at 0617 GMT, USGS said.

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Mystery surrounds virus which is devastating bee colonies

Alexandra Wood
The Yorkshire Post
2008-06-30 12:00:00

A VIRUS that has wiped out billions of honey bees is causing a buzz among scientists trying to understand why some colonies abruptly disappear.

Experts are mystified by the way the bee plague is transmitted.

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Firefighters in stalemate against California blazes

Marcus Wohlsen
Associated Press
2008-06-29 22:44:00

SAN FRANCISCO - Firefighters in Northern California battled more than a thousand wildfires to a stalemate by Sunday, but forecasters said dangerous conditions would not relent anytime soon.

No new major fires had broken out Sunday as fire crews inched closer to getting some of the largest blazes surrounded, according to the state Office of Emergency Services.

©AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Brandon Hoefs, of Nebraska, a member of the Mid Plains Interagency fire crew, turns away from a wildfire as it nears the deck of a home on Partington Ridge Rd. south of Big Sur, Calif., Friday, June 27, 2008. Fire crews continue to fight the Basin Complex fire, which is burning in the Los Padres National Forest near the coastal town of Big Sur.

But a "red flag warning" - meaning the most extreme fire danger - was still in effect for Northern California until 5 a.m. Monday. And the coming days and months are expected to bring little relief.

Forecasters predicted more thunderstorms and dry lightning through the weekend, similar to the ones that ignited hundreds of fires a week ago. Meanwhile, a U.S. Forest Service report said the weather would get even drier and hotter as fire season headed toward its traditional peak in late July and August.

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Census Of Marine Life Lists 122,500 Known Species, Over Halfway To Complete Inventory By Oct. 2010

Science Daily
2008-06-29 22:26:00

Census of Marine Life-affiliated scientists consolidating world databases of ocean organisms have demoted to alias status almost one-third of all names culled from 34 regional and highly specialized inventories.

The new World Register of Marine Species contains about 122,500 validated marine species names (experts having recognized and tidied up some 56,400 aliases -- 32% of all names reviewed). It also contains some 5,600 images, hyperlinks to taxonomic literature and other information.

Marking the World Register's official inauguration, some 55 researchers from 17 countries met in Belgium to plan its completion by 2010. Leading WoRMS experts independently estimate that about 230,000 marine species are known to science. They also believe there are three times as many unknown (unnamed) marine species as known, for a grand total on Earth that could surpass 1 million.

©Bernard Picton and World Register of Marine Species

Halichondria panicea, popularly called "Breadcrumb Sponge," is the marine world's reigning champion of Latin aliases, with 56 synonyms appearing in taxonomic literature since its first description in 1766. Of no fixed address, it's known to frequent floats, pilings, and the underside of rocks, smells like exploded gunpowder and takes on many guises.

"Convincing warnings about declining fish and other marine species must rest on a valid census," says Dr. Mark Costello of the University of Auckland, co-founder of WoRMS and a senior Census of Marine Life official. "This project will improve information vital to researchers investigating fisheries, invasive species, threatened species and marine ecosystem functioning, as well as to educators. It will eliminate the misinterpretation of names, confusion over Latin spellings, redundancies and a host of other problems that sow confusion and slow scientific progress."

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Volcano 'Pollution' Solves Mercury Mystery

Science Daily
2008-06-29 22:21:00

Scientists from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have discovered how volatile metals from volcanoes end up in polar ice cores.

©University of Oxford

Measurements have shown that 7 tonnes of mercury escapes from the Masaya volcano every year.

'It has always been a mystery how trace metals, like mercury, with a volcanic signature find their way into polar ice in regions without nearby evidence of volcanic activity,' said Dr David Pyle of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences who led the research team with colleague Dr Tamsin Mather. 'These traces only appear as a faint 'background signal' in ice cores but up until now it has still been difficult to explain.'

The team sampled the fumes of two volcanoes; Mount Etna in Sicily and Masaya in Nicaragua. They pumped gases from the edges of the volcanic craters across some gold-plated sand, to measure the volatile metal mercury, and through very fine filters, to capture fume particles. They discovered that the gases at both volcanoes contain high levels of mercury vapour, and that the fume is also very rich in tiny particles, as small as 10-20 nanometres in size.

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Fisheries, Not Whales, To Blame For Shortage Of Fish

Science Daily
2008-06-29 22:05:00

The argument that increasing whale populations are behind declining fish stocks is completely without scientific foundation, leading researchers and conservation organizations said today as the International Whaling Commission opened its 60th meeting in Santiago, Chile.

©iStockphoto/Chris Overgaard

Harpoon on the bow of a whale hunting ship. The Humane Society International, WWF and the Lenfest Ocean Program have presented three new reports debunking the science behind the 'whales-eat-fish' claims emanating from whaling nations Japan, Norway and Iceland.

The Humane Society International, WWF and the Lenfest Ocean Program today presented three new reports debunking the science behind the 'whales-eat-fish' claims emanating from whaling nations Japan, Norway and Iceland. The argument has been used to bolster support for whaling, particularly from developing nations.

"It is not the whales, it is over-fishing and excess fishing capacity that are responsible for diminishing supplies of fish in developing countries," said fisheries biologist Dr. Daniel Pauly, director of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre.

"Making whales into scapegoats serves only to benefit wealthy whaling nations while harming developing nations by distracting any debate on the real causes of the declines of their fisheries."

Who's eating all the fish? The food security rationale for culling cetaceans, the report co-authored by Dr Pauly for the Humane Society International contrasts "the widely different impacts of fisheries and marine mammals" with fisheries targeting larger fish where available and marine mammals consuming mainly smaller fish and organisms.

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Australian Astronomical Society Warns Of Global Cooling As Sun's Activity 'Significantly Diminishes'

EPW Blogger
Canadian Free Press
2008-06-29 20:42:00

Australian Astronomical Society warns of global cooling as Sun's activity 'significantly diminishes'.

A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia has a warning to global warming believers not immediately obvious from the summary: Based on our claim that changes in the Sun's equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun's orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun's meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn.

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US: Wildfire forces town to evacuate north of Phoenix

Associated Press
2008-06-29 20:41:00

People in the Crown King and Horse Thief Basin areas were asked to leave immediately Sunday afternoon because of a growing wildfire.

At 4 p.m., fire crews say flames had torched 300 acres and that the fire was growing.

Crown King smoke plume (Arizona).

"This is a very serious situation," said Steve Sams with the Prescott National Forest Office.

The fire was located about one mile south of Crown King, northeast of Lane Mountain. It was slowly moving north.

Fire crews used aircraft to battle the blaze. A 60-person fire crew was on the ground hiking and trying to build a fire line to stop the flames from spreading.

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US: 5.1 magnitude earthquake off Oregon Coast

usgs.gov
2008-06-29 15:57:00

Earthquake Details
Magnitude 5.1
Date-Time

* Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 19:33:41 UTC
* Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 10:33:41 AM at epicenter

Location 44.309°N, 129.243°W
Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region OFF THE COAST OF OREGON
Distances:

* 409 km (254 miles) W (272°) from Yachats, OR
* 410 km (255 miles) WNW (287°) from Barview, OR
* 410 km (255 miles) WNW (290°) from Bandon, OR
* 490 km (304 miles) W (275°) from Eugene, OR
* 537 km (334 miles) WSW (258°) from Portland, OR

Location Uncertainty horizontal /- 8.5 km (5.3 miles); depth fixed by location program

Parameters NST=105, Nph=105, Dmin=473.9 km, Rmss=1.32 sec, Gp=169°,

M-type=body magnitude (Mb), Version=7

Source

* USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID us2008twbk

* This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

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Ancient Oak Trees Help Reduce Global Warming

Science Daily
2008-06-29 15:45:00

The battle to reduce carbon emissions is at the heart of many eco-friendly efforts, and researchers from the University of Missouri have discovered that nature has been lending a hand. Researchers at the Missouri Tree Ring Laboratory in the Department of Forestry discovered that trees submerged in freshwater aquatic systems store carbon for thousands of years, a significantly longer period of time than trees that fall in a forest, thus keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.

"If a tree is submerged in water, its carbon will be stored for an average of 2,000 years," said Richard Guyette, director of the MU Tree Ring Lab and research associate professor of forestry in the School of Natural Resources in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. "If a tree falls in a forest, that number is reduced to an average of 20 years, and in firewood, the carbon is only stored for one year."

The team studied trees in northern Missouri, a geographically unique area with a high level of riparian forests (forests that have natural water flowing through them). They discovered submerged oak trees that were as old as 14,000 years, potentially some of the oldest discovered in the world. This carbon storage process is not just ancient; it continues even today as additional trees become submerged, according to Guyette.

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US: Bush declares emergency in California as wildfires rage

Xinhua
2008-06-28 15:27:00

U.S. President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency Saturday in California, as the coastal state was grappling with more than 1,000 wildfires.

Bush said the federal government will send more aid to California in an effort to bring the raging fires under control.

According to Cheri Patterson, a spokeswoman for the state's fire department, more than 12,000 firefighters have been battling the fires in northern California for more than a week now and the firefighting force has been stretched too thin by the sheer number of blazes.

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4.3 earthquake hits Mammoth Lakes, California

PressDemocrat.com
2008-06-29 13:09:00

A magnitude-4.3 earthquake struck the Sierra Nevada on Saturday, but there were no reports of damage or injuries, authorities said.

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Strange purple suns seen over California

Space Weather
2008-06-29 12:51:00

California is on fire. Hundreds of wildfires across the state are filling the air with smoke and filling the sky with ... lavender suns? Christopher Calubaquib saw one on June 26th when he looked through the haze over El Sobrante, California:

"Because of the smoke, the sun was not very bright. I didn't need to use a filter," says Calubaquib. A day later, another lavender sun appeared over Arcata, California:

©Mike Kelly

"The colors were not retouched; that is how it really looked," says photographer Mike Kelly.

What makes the sun lavender? It happens when the air is filled with particles measuring about 1 micron (10-6 m) across, a little larger than the wavelength of red light. Micron-sized particles scatter red light strongly, while letting shades of blue pass through. The mix of ash over El Sobrante produced a lavender hue, reminiscent of the great Alberta muskeg fires of September 1950. Believe it or not, the same physics can turn the Moon blue, but that is another story.

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Health & Wellness

Over 100 children sick with stomach bug in East Siberia

RIA Novosti
2008-06-30 14:46:00

A total of 108 people in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in East Siberia have been diagnosed with yersiniosis, a stomach infection, a spokeswoman for the local consumer rights watchdog said.

Yersiniosis is an infection contracted through eating undercooked meat, milk, water or vegetables contaminated by the bacteria. The disease, which usually occurs in young children, typically develops from four to seven days after exposure and may last up to three weeks.

"Of the 108 people, 96 children and one adult have been hospitalized," Natalya Krasnopeyeva said.

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Flashback: Stress during childhood increases the risk of allergies

Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research
2008-06-18 14:30:00

Stress events during childhood are increasingly suspected of playing a role in the later development of asthma, allergic skin disorders, or allergic sensitisations. Dramatic life events like the death of a family member, serious illnesses of a family member or the separation of parents, but also harmless events like for example moving house are suspected of increasing the risk of allergies for the children affected.

The immune system obviously plays a mediator role between stress on the one hand and allergies on the other. Since these mechanisms had hardly been understood before, researchers attempted to identify stress-related factors showing an influence on the immune system, in the context of an epidemiological study (LISA).

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Flashback: Scientists uncover potential key to better drugs to fight toxoplasmosis parasite

Indiana University
2008-06-18 14:25:00

Discoveries by Indiana University School of Medicine scientists have opened a promising door to new drugs for toxoplasmosis and other parasites that now can evade treatments by turning dormant in the body.

Their findings help explain how the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis transforms into a cyst form that resists drugs and the body's immune system, yet can emerge from its dormant state to strike when a patient's immune system is weakened.

Led by William J. Sullivan Jr., Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology, and Ronald C. Wek, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, the research team found a cellular signaling system that takes hold when the parasite is stressed, enabling it to transform into the cyst surrounded by a protective barrier.

The signaling system identified by the IU team could serve as a target to block the transformation into the cyst form or to attack the parasite while in the cyst form. Their report was published in the June 13 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The Toxoplasma gondii parasite converts from an active state to the inactive cyst state when it is stressed, for example, by heat from fever. Stress response mechanisms have been well studied in yeast and other organisms, but the pathways used by the toxoplasmosis parasite had not been determined.

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Colorado: First cases of West Nile virus confirmed

Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
2008-06-29 02:59:00

The state reports its first two infections and urges steps to avoid mosquito bites.

The West Nile virus is here and Colorado residents are being urged to take precautions.

The first two cases of West Nile this season were reported Friday by state health officials. The two patients, in Boulder and Logan counties, are recovering from the virus, officials said.

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Fluoride could go on ballot throughout Central Nebraska, US

Mark Coddington
The Grand Island Independent
2008-06-28 10:53:00

Towns throughout Central Nebraska are leaving it up to voters to decide whether to opt out of the Legislature's new mandate to fluoridate all water in municipalities with 1,000 or more people.

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Homosexual behavior due to genetics and environmental factors

Queen Mary, University of London
2008-06-28 15:44:00

Homosexual behavior is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors, according to findings from the world's largest study of twins.

Writing in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, researchers from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm report that genetics and environmental factors (which are specific to an individual, and may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb), are important determinants of homosexual behavior.

Dr Qazi Rahman, study co-author and a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, explains: "This study puts cold water on any concerns that we are looking for a single 'gay gene' or a single environmental variable which could be used to 'select out' homosexuality - the factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply talking about homosexuality here - heterosexual behavior is also influenced by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.

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Smoky skies threaten health in fiery California

Associated Press
2008-06-29 00:58:00

SACRAMENTO - Hundreds of lightning-sparked wildfires have turned the air of Northern California into an unhealthy stew of smoke and ash, forcing the cancellation of athletic events and other outdoor activities.

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The lunatic fringe: Is moonlight the miracle cure?

Jason Oddy
The Independent
2008-06-28 13:42:00

Deep in the Arizona desert, a bizarre machine is offering new hope to sufferers from conditions ranging from eczema to cancer. How does it work? By the light of the silvery moon...

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Flashback: Too Many Choices Can Spoil the Research

Chicago Journals
2008-06-17 11:56:00

The more choices people get, the less consistent they are in making those choices, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. The study's findings may affect the way researchers examine consumer choices.

Authors Jordan J. Louviere (University of Technology, Sydney), Towhidul Islam (University of Guelph, Ontario), Nada Wasi, Deborah Street, and Leonie Burgess (all University of Technology, Sydney) examined choice experiments, where researchers study which brands or products consumers prefer. The research found that experiments that are considered "statistically efficient" (asking complex questions of fewer respondents) lead to less consistency in participants' choices.

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Hard Work While Fatigued Affects Blood Pressure

UAB
2008-06-26 11:46:00

Working hard when fatigued may be admired by many Americans, but it is a virtue that could be harmful to one's health, according to new research by psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The research supports a theory which suggests that exhausted individuals' cardiovascular systems are forced to work harder when they attempt to complete tasks, such as those encountered on the job or at school.

The research, published in the July issue of the International Journal of Psychophysiology, found that fatigued individuals had larger blood pressure increases than rested individuals under conditions where they viewed success as both possible and worthwhile. Investigators believe the effects were determined by effort on the part of the study participants, said UAB psychologist Rex Wright, Ph.D. , who led the study.

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Flashback: Ecstasy is the key to treating PTSD

Amy Turner
The Sunday Times
2008-05-04 01:15:00

At last the incurably traumatised may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And controversially, the key to taming their demons is the 'killer' drug Ecstasy.

An Ecstasy tablet. That's what it took to make Donna Kilgore feel alive again - that and the doctor who prescribed it. As the pill began to take effect, she giggled for the first time in ages. She felt warm and fuzzy, as if she was floating. The anxiety melted away. Gradually, it all became clear: the guilt, the anger, the shame.

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Science & Technology

Acid rain traces support meteor theory for 1908 Tunguska blast

RIA Novosti
2008-06-30 14:35:00

International researchers investigating the Tunguska Event, an explosion exactly 100 years ago in central Siberia, say acid rain traces in the region back up the theory that the blast was caused by a meteorite.

On June 30, 1908, an explosion equivalent to between 5 and 30 megatons of TNT occurred approximately 7-10 km (3-6 miles) above the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a remote Siberian region.

"Extremely high temperatures occurred as the meteorite entered the atmosphere, during which the oxygen in the atmosphere reacted with nitrogen causing a build up of nitrogen oxides," one of the authors of the joint research, Natalia Kolesnikova, told RIA Novosti.

Kolesnikova said a similar impact 66 million years ago wiped out a significant portion of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs.

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Fire in the sky: Tunguska at 100

Paul Rincon
BBC
2008-06-30 13:26:00

©Unknown

The Tunguska event was caused by a space rock tens of metres across

At 7:17am on 30 June 1908, an immense explosion tore through the forest of central Siberia.

Some 80 million trees were flattened over an area of 2,000 square km (800 square miles) near the Tunguska River.

The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked people to the ground 60km from the epicentre.

The cause was an asteroid or comet just a few tens of metres across which detonated 5-10km above the ground, 100 years ago today.

Eyewitnesses recalled a brilliant fireball resembling a "flying star" ploughing across the cloudless June sky at an oblique angle.

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Crater study surprise: Deep in ground where meteorite hit, rocks are full of extra-salty water

Dennis O'Brien
Baltimore Sun
2008-06-27 12:55:00

An artist's conception of the mile-wide meteorite crashing into Earth 35 million years ago in the Chesapeake Bay.

Scientists drilling into the site where a giant meteorite smashed into the lower Chesapeake Bay millions of years ago have found one more surprise amid the microscopic life and pockets of prehistoric ocean.

The water is saltier than expected - and no one is sure why.

"It's not a reservoir. It's water in pores and in cracks and shattered rocks," said Ward Sanford, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Scientists have been examining the bay impact crater since its discovery in 1993.

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Tunguska Event: No answers to fireball mystery

David Hill
Otago Daily Times
2008-06-28 12:12:00

©Unknown

When Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik made his way to the remote Tunguska River basin, his group found thousands of pine trees lying burned in a radial pattern.

JUNE 30, 1908.

Reindeer graze beside the Podkamennaya or Lower Stony Tunguska River that winds through the Siberian steppes.

The tents of a few herdsmen stand nearby, but hardly anyone else lives in this land of swamps and forests.

7.14 am. Pine trees glow in the summer light. The morning is blue and cloudless.

Then a blinding ball of light rips across the sky, trailing a column of fire.

Some eye-witnesses say the light was red. Others claim it was blue, and cylindrical in shape.

It races down towards the Tunguska River, and explodes.

A spear of fire splits the sky. Explosions boom across the land.

A dark mushroom cloud begins rolling upwards. It will reach a height of 80km: ten times higher than Mt Everest.

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Flashback: Fossil DNA tells tales of red-haired Neanderthals

Robert C. Cowen
The Christian Science Monitor
2007-11-08 16:20:00

Paleontologists are surprised to find such diversity; clues also suggest wider migration.

Some Neanderthals may have had pale skin and red hair similar to that of some modern humans.

Scientists probing Neanderthal remains find important clues in DNA. One recent study suggests some of our extinct cousins had pale skin and red hair. Another investigation finds Neanderthals ranged much farther from Europe into Asia than paleontologists have thought.

The key fact is that at least some Neanderthal fossils yield DNA of high enough quality to tell such tales. Last month, members of an international research team led by Carles Lalueza-Fox at the University of Barcelona in Spain explained in the journal Nature why they think recovering specific DNA sequences from extinct species "can potentially provide information" as to what the species looked like. They backed up this hypothesis with analysis of DNA from two Neanderthal fossils.

They found genetic information similar to, but distinct from, the genes governing skin and hair color in modern humans. They say this "suggests that Neanderthals varied in pigmentation levels" just as we do. That includes the pale skin and red hair that evolved largely in Europe. The team adds that the data suggest this potential "evolved independently in both modern humans and Neanderthals."

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As research funds stagnate, science in state of 'crisis'

Amy Ellis Nutt
Star-Ledger
2008-06-29 01:58:00

Once the world's gold standard, American scientific enterprise is in free fall. Short of government funds and strapped for cash, researchers across the country are abandoning promising avenues of scientific investigation and, increasingly, the profession of science itself.

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Lyme Disease Bacterium Came From Europe Before Ice Age

Science Daily
2008-06-29 22:13:00

Researchers at the University of Bath have discovered that a bacterium that causes Lyme disease originated in Europe, rather than in North America as previously thought.

The blacklegged tick Ixodes pacificus, a known vector for Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen responsible for Lyme disease.

The bacterium responsible for Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, originated in America, or so researchers thought. Now, however, a team from the University of Bath has shown that this bug in fact came from Europe, originating from before the Ice Age.

By understanding the origins of the bacterium and how it has evolved so far researchers hope to be able to predict how it will continue to develop, and so find ways to prevent its spread.

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Cluster Listens To The Sounds Of Earth

Agence France-Presse
2008-06-29 21:43:00

The first thing an alien race is likely to hear from Earth is chirps and whistles, a bit like R2-D2, the robot from Star Wars. In reality, they are the sounds that accompany the aurora.

Now ESA's Cluster mission is showing scientists how to understand this emission and, in the future, search for alien worlds by listening for their sounds.

©ESA

Artist's impression of the Cluster constellation. ESA's mission Cluster consists of four identical spacecraft flying in formation between 19000 and 119000 km above the Earth. They study the interaction between the solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere, or the Sun-Earth connection in 3D.

Scientists call this radio emission the Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR). It is generated high above the Earth, by the same shaft of solar particles that then causes an aurora to light the sky beneath.

For decades, astronomers had assumed that these radio waves travelled out into space in an ever-widening cone, rather like light emitted from a torch. Thanks to Cluster, astronomers now know this is not true.

By analysing 12 000 separate bursts of AKR, a team of astronomers have determined that the AKR is beamed into space in a narrow plane. This is like placing a mask over the torch with just a small slit in the middle for light to escape.

"We can now determine exactly where the emission is coming from," says Robert Mutel, University of Iowa, who conducted the three-year study with colleagues. For each of the AKR bursts they analysed, the astronomers pinpointed its point of origin to regions in Earth's magnetic field just a few tens of kilometres in size. These were located a few thousand kilometres above where the light of the aurora is formed.

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A Quark Star? Super-luminous Stellar Explosion Observed

Science Daily
2008-06-29 15:38:00

Astronomers recently announced that they have found a novel explanation for a rare type of super-luminous stellar explosion that may have produced a new type of object known as a quark star.

Three exceptionally luminous supernovae explosions have been observed in recent years. One of them was first observed using a robotic telescope at the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Palomar Observatory.

Illustration of a supernova explosion.

Data collected with Palomar's Samuel Oschin Telescope was transmitted from the remote mountain site in southern California to astronomers via the High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Nearby Supernova Factory research group at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory reported the co-discovery of the supernova, known as SN2005gj.

Researchers in Canada have analyzed this, along with two other supernovae, and believe that they each may be the signature of the explosive conversion of a neutron star into a quark star.

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NASA to Attempt Historic Solar Sail Deployment

physorg.com
2008-06-27 14:10:00

"Hold your hands out to the sun. What do you feel? Heat, of course. But there's pressure as well - though you've never noticed it, because it's so tiny. Over the area of your hands, it only comes to about a millionth of an ounce. But out in space, even a pressure as small as that can be important - for it's acting all the time, hour after hour, day after day. Unlike rocket fuel, it's free and unlimited. If we want to, we can use it; we can build sails to catch the radiation blowing from the sun."1

These words were spoken not by a NASA scientist but by a fictional character - John Merton - in Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Wind from the Sun. If all goes well, Merton's prophetic words are about to become fact.

NASA researchers, thinking "out of the box" (or maybe "out of the rocket") have long dreamed of the possibility of sailing among the planets with sails propelled by sunlight instead of by wind. Except in works of fiction, though, no one has yet successfully deployed such a sail anywhere beyond Earth.

"There's a first time for everything," says Edward "Sandy" Montgomery of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Montgomery's team and a team from Ames Research Center (led by Elwood Agasid) hope to make history this summer by deploying a solar sail called NanoSail-D. It will travel to space onboard a SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket, scheduled for launch from Omelek Island in the Pacific Ocean during a window extending from July 29th to August 6th (a back-up extends from August 29th to September 5th).

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Charleston resident teams with EIU professor to watch skies for dangerous near-Earth objects

Rob Stroud
JG-TC.com
2008-06-27 10:16:00

CHARLESTON - More than 1,300 square miles of Siberian forest were devastated a century ago by what is thought to have been an asteroid or comet.

As the 100th anniversary of the June 30, 1908 event approaches, astronomy enthusiast Robert Holmes Jr. of Charleston has been using his two professional-grade telescopes to measure potentially hazardous objects that could collide with the Earth.

©JG/T-C

Astronomy enthusiast Robert Holmes Jr. of Charleston has been using his two professional-grade telescopes to measure potentially hazardous objects that could collide with the Earth.

Eastern Illinois University physics professor James Conwell and Holmes have partnered to turn over images collected via the two telescopes to students throughout the world for analysis as part of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program.

Holmes estimated his observatory near Charleston has facilitated the measuring of 5,835 near-earth asteroids during the past year.

"The asteroid or comet that exploded over Tunguska (in Siberia) is very small and we don't typically research objects this small with our telescopes," Holmes said. "We measure asteroids that are 10 times this size, or about 400 feet in diameter or larger."

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Flashback: Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists

Robert Roy Britt
Space.com
2002-10-09 08:32:00

In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit.

Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years, indicating a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is likely a seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual orbit.

They suspect the average surface temperature increased about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius.

Pluto remains a mysterious world whose secrets are no so easily explained, however. The warming could be fueled by some sort of eruptive activity on the small planet, one astronomer speculated.

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Flashback: Global Warming Detected on Neptune's Largest Moon

Scienceagogo.com
1998-06-28 08:21:00

There may not be much industrial pollution on Neptune's largest moon, but things are hotting up nonetheless...

The Earth is not alone in suffering global warming. According to observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based instruments, temperatures on Neptune's largest moon have increased dramatically since the Voyager space probe swung by in 1989. So much so, in fact, that Triton's surface of frozen nitrogen is turning into gas, making its thin atmosphere denser by the day.

"At least since 1989, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming," confirms astronomer James Elliot, professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Percentage-wise, it's a very large increase."

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$100m supercomputer will boost life science research

Chee Chee Leung
The Age
2008-06-19 01:36:00

A $100 million supercomputer capable of processing 400 trillion pieces of information a second to help scientists accelerate their research into diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's will be built in Melbourne.

The powerful machine will be able to generate, manage and manipulate enormous amounts of information - such as extensive patient records or genetic databases - and make it easier to map the spread and treatment of viruses.

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Too little, too late: Russian space probe may save Earth from asteroid

RIA Novosti
2008-06-28 12:08:00

Russian experts have said a space mission should be sent in 2012 to the Apophis asteroid to establish whether it will collide with Earth, adding that the Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft could be used for that purpose.

A report at a Moscow scientific conference said 99942 Apophis, or Asteroid 2004 MN4, with a diameter of 350m, is the biggest space threat to Earth.

In 2029, this near-Earth object will be at a distance of only 36,000 km (22,400 miles) - closer than satellites in geostationary orbit. Earth's gravity could change the orbit of Apophis in such a way that it would collide with Earth on its next approach in 2036.

©Unknown

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Our Haunted Planet

Welsh UFO sighting to feature on US show

Nathan Bevan
WalesOnline
2008-06-29 12:32:00

A mysterious UFO seen hovering in the sky above Wales is set to be the subject of a US TV show.

International interest in little green men was sparked after it was reported earlier this month that a police helicopter had almost been involved in a collision with a flying saucer while waiting for landing clearance at the Ministry of Defence's base in St Athan, Vale of Glamorgan.

The alleged incident saw the whole of Wales gripped by extraterrestrial excitement, prompting the phone lines in the office of Media Wales to jam as floods of readers rang in to tell of similar experiences with strange sights in our skies.

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Australia: Fireball at Ayers Rock

Astronomy Picture of the Day
2008-06-28 12:06:00

A weekend trip for astrophotography in central Australia can result in gorgeous skyscapes. In this example recorded in March of 2006, the center of our Milky Way Galaxy rises over planet Earth's horizon and the large sandstone formation called Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock.

Fireball at Ayers Rock

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Blast but "no bomb" in Pakistani cities

Augustine Anthony
Reuters
2008-06-30 03:09:00

A loud blast alarmed residents and security officials in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and nearby city of Rawalpindi on Monday but police later said it appeared it had been a sonic boom.

Residents of both cities heard a big blast just before 11a.m. (6 a.m. British time).

"We have checked everywhere in Rawalpindi, all the main areas and hospitals, but there is nothing," a senior city police official said about 45 minutes after the blast was heard.

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Australia: Plane, meteor or just a UFO?

Mark Gallagher
Port Macquarie
2008-06-29 20:19:00

It looked like a small plane that was on fire and about to ditch in the ocean, Port Macquarie's Luke Williams said.

To the policeman he spoke to it looked like a meteor or a piece of space junk that disappeared into the ocean.

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Crop Circles: Objective scientific analysis

Greg Bishop
UFO Mystic
2008-06-27 12:21:00

When the subject of crop circles comes up, there seem to be just two ways to go: they're hoaxes or they're made by aliens. Certainly many intricate designs have been made by people armed with planks and surveying equipment in the dead of night, but some of the strangest things have happened before, during, and after the circles form (or are formed) as well.

My English buddy Mark Pilkington insists that all crop circles are made by hoaxers (or artists) like himself and his friends. Even so, he and others have told me about instances when the circle makers have been stopped in their tracks by strange lights, sounds, and sensations. For a couple of years now, I have been content to take Mark's word for it.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a significant percentage of crop circles which exhibit anomalies that can't be easily blamed on people like Doug Bower and Dave Chorley or their skulking nocturnal offspring. Many of these anomalous aspects have been investigated by a woman named Nancy Talbott and her organization, BLT Research Team Inc.

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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!

Satire: We Must Preserve The Earth's Dwindling Resources For My Five Children

Brenda Melford
The Onion
2008-06-30 15:44:00

©The Onion

As we move into the 21st century, it is our responsibility to think of the future of the earth - not for ourselves, but for those who will inherit what my husband and I leave behind when we're gone. If we do not join together and do what's best for this, our only planet, there may not be an environment left in which my five children, and their 25 children's 125 children, can grow up and raise large upper-middle-class families of their own.

Nothing less than the preservation of my descendents' lifestyle itself is at stake.

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Exam student's reward for writing 'f*** off'

Joanna Sugden
Times Online
2008-06-30 14:57:00

Write 'f*** off' on a GCSE paper and you'll get 7.5%. Add an exclamation mark and it'll go up to 11%

Pupils are being rewarded for writing obscenities in their GCSE English examinations even when it has nothing to do with the question.

One pupil who wrote "f*** off" was given marks for accurate spelling and conveying a meaning successfully.

His paper was marked by Peter Buckroyd, a chief examiner who has instructed fellow examiners to mark in the same way. He told trainee examiners recently to adhere strictly to the mark scheme, to the extent that pupils who wrote only expletives on their papers should be awarded points.

Mr Buckroyd, chief examiner of English for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), an examination board, said that he had given the pupil two marks, out of a possible 27, for the expletive.

To gain minimum marks in English, students must demonstrate "some simple sequencing of ideas" and "some words in appropriate order". The phrase had achieved this, according to Mr Buckroyd.

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