Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world

[Rad]

North Magnetic Pole Is Shifting Rapidly Toward Russia

Brian Vastag
for National Geographic News

 
Santa better check his compass, because the North Pole is shifting—the north magnetic pole, that is, not the geographical one.

New research shows the pole moving at rapid clip—25 miles (40 kilometers) a year.

Over the past century the pole has moved 685 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Arctic Canada toward Siberia, says Joe Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University.

At its current rate the pole could move to Siberia within the next half-century, Stoner said.

"It's moving really fast," he said. "We're seeing something that hasn't happened for at least 500 years."

Stoner presented his team's research at the American Geophysical Union's meeting last week in San Francisco.

Lorne McKee, a geomagnetic scientist at Natural Resources Canada, says that Stoner's data fits his own readings.

"The movement of the pole definitely appears to be accelerating," he said.

Not a Reversal

The shift is likely a normal oscillation of the Earth's magnetic field, Stoner said, and not the beginning of a flip-flop of the north and south magnetic poles, a phenomenon that last occurred 780,000 years ago.

Such reversals have taken place 400 times in the last 330 million years, according to magnetic clues sealed in rocks around the world. Each reversal takes a thousand years or more to complete.

"People like to think something special is happening in their lifetimes, but despite the dramatic changes, I don't see any evidence of it," Stoner said. "It's probably just a normal wandering of the pole."

The north magnetic pole shifts constantly, in loops up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) wide each day.

The recorded location of the pole is really an average of its daily treks, which are driven by fluctuations in solar radiation.

The pole is currently at about 80º north latitude and 104º west longitude, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

Importance of the Pole

Pinpointing the precise location of the north magnetic pole is important for navigation: As you move closer to the pole, the direction north indicated by your compass becomes less accurate.

The pole also plays a role in the Northern Lights, which form when solar radiation bounces across the magnetic field in the upper atmosphere. As the north magnetic pole drifts, it will take the Northern Lights with it.

But for scientists, studying the field provides a tantalizing glimpse into the fiery center of the Earth.

The planet's outer core of molten iron spins constantly, acting as a giant dynamo, or electromagnet.

This energy interacts with the rocky mantle of the Earth, which is also shifting, resulting in a complex, ever-changing magnetic field.

"We're close to having a much better understanding on how the field fluxes," Stoner said.

First Reading

The first readings of the north magnetic pole date to 1831, when Sir John Ross and his ship searching for the Northwest Passage became ice-bound.

To pass the time he sent out a team with a compass to take readings, and the team soon found a dipole—an area with compass readings pointing both north and south—in what is now Nunavut. It was the north magnetic pole.

While historical readings date back almost two centuries, Stoner's team wanted to take a deeper look into the past.

They went to the Arctic and pulled 4.5-meter-long (15-foot-long) cores of mud and clay from the bottom of frigid lakes.

Each year, snowmelt deposits a layer of silt at the bottom of the lakes, which is then covered with a layer of clay. "There are these distinct couplets every year," Stoner said. "It's a lot like counting rings in a tree."

Back at his laboratory at Oregon State University, Stoner and his team sliced the cores into thin sections.

They then ran each section through an instrument that reads tiny magnetic particles in the silt to reveal both the direction and intensity of the magnetic field.

Each section comprises five to ten layers, or five to ten year's worth of magnetic readings.

"We can't get down to the yearly scale yet," Stoner said, "but that's getting to be a pretty tight resolution."

In contrast, similar techniques used to measure magnetism in rock have yielded much coarser resolutions of thousands to tens of thousands of years.

Besides recording the movement of the pole, the silt cores also show a recent drop in the strength of the magnetic field, Stoner said, a phenomenon that often accompanies north-south reversals.

But research by French scientists published in 2003 suggests that such "jerks" in the magnetic field—abrupt shifts in intensity and direction—occur often, not just during reversals.

[Rad]

I have just recently learned of how many cities in the USA are actively 'banning' feeding hungry and  homeless peoples .......

Activists promise to challenge Houston’s ban on feeding homeless

By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, April 6, 2012 14:43 EDT

The Houston City Council voted this week to require prior permission before any citizen may distribute food to five or more people on public property, but local activists are preparing to fight back — and hard.

While the ordinance passed Wednesday night by an 11-6 vote was drastically stripped down from the version supported by Houston Mayor Annise Parker, activists say they’re going to challenge it in court and attempt to gather 20,000 signatures over the next month, which should be enough to trigger a city-wide vote on the ordinance in November.

It turns public property into private property,” Chris Carmona, a civil rights attorney in Houston and volunteer with the charitable group Noah’s Kitchen, told Raw Story on Friday. “We already have trespassing laws on the books. We have loitering laws. We have littering laws. But to take public property and turn it private… That’s our local government’s recent mood. That’s our biggest concern.”

The ordinance that passed Wednesday night requires groups to obtain permission from the city before handing out any food, and imposes a fine of $500 for anyone who defies the rule. It also allows the city to designate certain organizations as “recognized” charitable food providers, which would have to adhere to certain rules mostly pertaining to cleanliness.

The disjointed groups opposing the city on public food distribution are being led by the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, which boasts that they have been serving Houston’s homeless community four nights a week over the last 18 years. They helped lead the charge against the original proposal, which would have required food handlers’ licenses and special permits from the city to serve food in a public place.

“This will make it a crime to pull over to the side of the road and hand out food to five or more people,” Nick Cooper, spokesman for Houston Food Not Bombs, told Houston newspaper The Memorial Examiner.

Carmona added that his group, Noah’s Kitchen, would be restricted to operating at only very specific locations, and likely far away from the less-seen populations they try to serve. He pointed to the city’s wealthier land and business owners as having been influential in the city’s thinking on the ordinance, which he claimed essentially says that the city owns all public property.

And Randall Kallinen, a civil rights attorney who has worked with Occupy Houston, absolutely agrees with Carmona. “A few of the downtown moneyed interests have been able to exert their influence to prevent people from giving and sharing food,” he told the local Fox affiliate.

Kallinen and Carmona, along with other associated groups, have released petition forms online for distribution across social media, hoping to generate the 20,000 signatures required to force the issue onto a city-wide ballot this November. Other groups are reportedly pursuing a restraining order against the ordinance, which would otherwise take effect on July 1 — but Carmona told Raw Story that may not even be necessary.

“Under city charter, if we get our signatures in a timely manner, once you submit them to the city secretary, that should stop any action on the ordinance until it can be voted on by the citizens of Houston,” he said.

[Rad]

Women’s rights activist poised to become Malawi’s new president

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, April 6, 2012 12:30 EDT

Joyce Banda, who rose to prominence in Malawi as a relentless advocate for women’s rights, now appears set to become only the second female African head of state in modern times.

She become Malawi’s first woman vice president in 2009 as the running mate of President Bingu wa Mutharika, who has died after a heart attack, sparking political suspense about who will succeed him.

Just one year after their election victory the two fell out in a spectacular succession battle.

Mutharika decided to groom his brother Peter, currently the foreign minister, to become his Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for the next polls in 2014.

He expelled Banda from the party, but she refused to give up her job. Instead, she formed her own People’s Party and became one of Mutharika’s fiercest critics, lambasting his management of an economy beset by crippling fuel shortages.

Banda was born on April 12, 1950, in Malawi’s colonial capital of Zomba where her father was an accomplished and popular police brass band musician.

She began her career as a secretary, but she became a well-known figure during the dictatorial era of Kamuzu Banda, no relation to her own family.

She started a women’s empowerment programme, travelling throughout the country to sell the National Business Women Association, a campaign that made her one of Malawi’s most visible champions of gender equality.

She later established the Joyce Banda Foundation to empower women through girls education.

She entered politics in 1999, during Malawi’s second democratic elections. She won a parliamentary seat in the former ruling party of retired president Bakili Muluzi.

He named her minister for gender and community services. Five years later, she retained her seat as a candidate for Muluzi’s party, even as Mutharika won the presidency.

The new president crossed party lines to appoint her as foreign minister in 2006. During her time as Malawi’s top diplomat, the country severed its long ties with Taiwan and established relations with Beijing.

She argued the switch would bring economic benefits to Malawi. China has since built Malawi a new parliament.

Mutharika tapped her as his running mate in the 2009 elections, but their honeymoon was short as party in-fighting intensified over his decision to anoint his brother as his successor, drawing accusations that he was trying to create a dynasty.

“The chronic disease of third term, or chieftaincy, remains one of the greatest enemies of our efforts to achieve sustainable development,” she said.

“The country is constantly caught in a vicious circle of privatisation of the state where one or two people hold the fate of the country.”

Banda’s expulsion from the ruling party angered many urban voters, and she remains a popular figure for many Malawians, known for her vigorous campaigning.

But her critics question her ability to steer the country through its economic crisis, with the currency trading on the black market at twice the official exchange rate.

After anti-government protests broke out in July last year, when police shot 19 people dead, Banda warned that Malawi could face more unrest ahead of the next polls.

“The road to 2014 will be rough, bumpy and tough. Some will even sacrifice their own lives,” she said.

Banda remains a role model to many women in Malawi for her gender fight in a male-dominated society.

Under the constitution the vice president is next in line and if Banda is sworn in as president, she will become Africa’s second female leader of modern times, after Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Her family is now among the most influential in Malawi. She is married to retired chief justice Richard Banda.

Her sister Anjimile Oponyo was hired by Madonna to run her school for girls, although that project collapsed and she was sacked by the mega-star.

[adina]

This article expands on the one Rad posted above about feeding the hungry and includes some other cruel and disgusting ways this country treats the homeless. 

Alternet / by Tana Geneva

10 Unbelievably Sh**ty Things America Does to Homeless People

No population has their human and civil rights so casually and routinely trampled as do homeless Americans.

April 5, 2012  |   
 
For decades, cities all over the country have worked to essentially criminalize homelessness, instituting measures that outlaw holding a sign, sleeping, sitting, lying (or weirdly, telling a lie in Orlando) if you live on the street.

Where the law does not mandate outright harassment, police come up with clever work-arounds, like destroying or confiscating tents, blankets and other property in raids of camps. A veteran I talked to, his eye bloody from when some teenagers beat him up to steal 60 cents, said police routinely extracted the poles from his tent and kept them so he couldn't rebuild it. (Where are all the pissed-off libertarians and conservatives at such flagrant disrespect for private property?)

In the heady '80s, Reagan slashed federal housing subsidies even as a tough economy threw more and more people out on the street. Instead of resolving itself through the magic of the markets, the homelessness problem increasingly fell to local governments.

"When the federal government created the homelessness crisis, local governments did not have the means of addressing the issue. So they use the police to manage homeless people's presence," Jennifer Fredienrich told AlterNet last year. At about the same time, the arrest-happy "broken windows theory," which encourages law enforcement to bust people for "quality of life" crimes, offered ideological support for finding novel ways to legally harass people on the street.

Many of the policies end up being wildly counterproductive: a criminal record bars people from the very programs designed to get them off the street, while defending unconstitutional measures in court ends up costing cities money that could be used to fund homeless services.

Here is an incomplete list of laws, ordinances and law enforcement and government tactics that violate homeless people's civil liberties.

1. Outlawing sitting down. People are allowed to exist in public, but sometimes the homeless make that civic rule inconvenient, like when their presence perturbs tourists or slows the spread of gentrification. One solution to this problem is the "sit-lie" law, a bizarrely authoritarian measure that bans sitting or resting in a public space. The law is clearly designed to empower police to chase homeless people out of nice neighborhoods, rather than protect cities from the blight of public sidewalk-sitting.

Cities around the country have passed ordinances of varying awfulness: some limit resting in certain areas during certain times of the day, while progressive bastion San Francisco voted in November 2010 to outlaw sitting or laying down on any city sidewalk.  The measure was bankrolled by some of the richest people in the city, who poured so much money into the campaign that homelessness advocates were outmatched  $280,000 to $7,802, reported SF Gate. (After the measure passed, Chris Roberts of the SF Appeal found that support for the law was strongest in the richer parts of the city with the fewest homeless.)

Supporters of sit-lie claim the law helps police deal with disruptive behavior like harassment and public drunkenness, and that getting people off the street will get them into shelters. Homelessness advocates counter that the disruptive behaviors associated with some homeless people are already against the law.

2. Denying people access to shelters. In November the Bloomberg administration tried to institute new rules that would force shelters to deny applicants who failed to prove they had no other housing options, like staying with relatives or friends (NYC's overcrowded shelters being so appealing that people with access to housing are desperate to sneak in).

A State Supreme Court judge struck down the new measure in February, admonishing the mayor's office for rushing through the plan without adequate public vetting. (Critics also argued the new rules would conflict with a New York consent decree that guarantees shelter to all homeless adults who ask for it.) Not easily discouraged from making the lives of poor people harder, Bloomberg fumed, "We’re going to do everything we can to have the ability to do it ... Or let the judges explain to the public why they think that you should just have a right to walk in and say, 'Whether I need services or not, you give it to me.' I don’t think that’s what this country’s all about."

Homeless families are not covered under the 1981 decree that guarantees shelter space to homeless single adults, so they've had to prove need to get a space at a shelter for years. The results have not been great. A report prepared by the New York city council cited a study showing that many homeless families who are turned away often end up reapplying, suggesting that their needs were not accurately assessed -- and that they likely ended up sleeping on the street or in subways. NBC New York recently profiled a mother and two kids (6 and 10), who were sleeping in Penn Station after being turned away from the shelter three times.

In 2010 Bloomberg also tried to institute a policy charging homeless families rent if at least one member worked, at a rate that would have forced a family making $25,000 to pay $946 a month. (After major protest by homelessness advocates the policy changed so instead of flowing to the city the money would be funneled into savings accounts used to help families find housing.)

Patrick Markee, senior analyst for Coalition for the Homeless, tells AlterNet that the bigger problem is the Bloomberg administration's ideologically driven policy to limit access to federal housing programs. In 2005 Bloomberg replaced federal housing subsidies with temporary assistance programs like Advantage, which subsidized housing for a limited time and only if at least one member of a family is employed. Rocky from the start, Advantage was killed in 2011 when the state withdrew funds.
 
A 2011 study by the Coalition for the Homeless found that the rate of homeless families in New York had exploded to a record 113, 533 people -- 42,888 of them children -- sleeping in shelters.

3. Making it illegal to give people food. Two weeks ago, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter announced a citywide ban on giving food to the hungry in public parks. Amidst outcry by homelessness advocates and religious and charity groups, Nutter insisted the policy is meant to draw unhoused people to indoor facilities where they might benefit from medical care and mental health services. Critics pointed out that the policy -- rushed to go into effect in 29 days -- may have more to do with planned renovation of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the construction of a new museum, as Isaiah Thompson reported in the Philadelphia City Paper.

Public feeding bans are not new, and they continue to crop up despite being routinely overturned by the courts. The city of Orlando, for one, is committed to wiping out the scourge of public food donation, embroiling itself in a five-year battle with Food Not Bombs that has cost the city more than $150,000.

A 2006 statute forced charity groups in Orlando to obtain special permits, only two of which were issued per year, and punished feeding more than 25 people with 60 days in jail or a $500 fine. A federal judge overturned the law in 2010, citing a litany of constitutional rights breached by the measure: freedom of speech, freedom of religion (one of the plaintiffs was a religious organization), freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. "Rather than address the problem of homelessness in these downtown neighborhoods directly, the City has instead decided to limit the expressive activity which attracts the homeless to these neighborhoods," the judge said in his ruling.

Orlando officials took up the case again, pushing it further and further up the courts, until a panel of judges finally voted in favor of the city in 2010. The law got worldwide attention when Food Not Bombs activists continued to feed the hungry.

Twelve people were arrested and Orlando's mayor unhelpfully deemed the group "food terrorists," reported the Florida Independent. "Why is it that in certain US cities feeding pigeons is OK, but giving a homeless child a handout is a $2,000 fine," the National Coalition for the Homeless asked in a 2010 report on food bans (Dallas can fine churches $2,000 for distributing food in certain areas).
 
4. Installing obstacles to prevent sleeping or sitting. Many cities have invested in their homeless torture infrastructure, spending thousands to install obstacles preventing the homeless from sleeping, standing, or sitting in parks, under bridges and next to public transportation.

The city of Minneapolis installed "bridge rods" -- pyramid structures meant to keep the homeless from sleeping under bridges. It hasn't worked -- apparently it helps people store their stuff -- but the effort costs the city $10,000 a year. Benches in Honolulu bus stops were swapped out for round, concrete stools, according to a roundup of anti-homeless laws by Coalition for the Homeless.

Sarasota, Florida just got rid of all the benches in its city parks. The city also instituted a smoking ban in conjunction with the bench removal, citing it as another way to repel the homeless who gathered in the area. The city later expanded the ban to public spaces throughout the city, but an exception was eventually carved out for a city-owned golf course (for totally mysterious reasons).

Manteca, California changed the sprinkler schedule from day to night in order to water any homeless who tried to sleep in a local park.
 
5. Anti-panhandling laws. Standing on the street and saying something like, "Occupy Wall Street!" or "Do you have a dollar?" -- clearly falls under constitutionally protected free speech. Still, cities all over the country enforce strict anti-panhandling laws that make it illegal to ask for money, food or anything else of value around tourist attractions, and in some cases city-wide. A 2009 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless found that 47 percent of cities surveyed had some form of measure prohibiting begging in some public spaces, while 23 percent forbid it anywhere in the city.

There are already laws on the books against aggressive panhandling -- Rudy Giuliani deftly exploited them to purge homeless people from Manhattan in the 1990s -- so arguments that panhandling laws are required to protect tourists from mistreatment at the hands of the city's homeless fall flat. Many panhandling laws protect against such threatening behavior as asking for money next to a bus stop, public bathroom, train station, taxi stand, on public transportation, or after dark. In Orlando, a city ordinance forbids telling a lie or "misleading" when asking for money. A St. Petersburg ordinance proposed in 2011 -- that ended up being shelved -- would have banned misleading signs.

Fines for panhandling can go into the hundreds of dollars and months of jail time.

6. Anti-panhandling laws to punish people who give. Some cities are so eager to spare their citizens the horrors of panhandling they've instituted laws protecting them from themselves. In 2010 Oakland Park, Florida, made it illegal to give money to panhandlers. The Los Angeles Times reported:

Under the ordinance initially passed last month, anyone who responds to a beggar with money or any "article of value" or buys flowers or a newspaper from someone on the street would face a fine of $50 to $100 and as many as 90 days in jail. "You're going to put someone in jail for giving someone a coat when it's cold or a hamburger if they're hungry?" City Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue said Wednesday. "For me, it's so wrong." She cast the only "no" vote at the March meeting.

7. Feeding panhandling meters instead of panhandlers. Cities across the country have launched programs that encourage people to feed "panhandling meters" with change rather than give directly to the homeless. The bulk of the cash goes to homeless charities. While many homeless advocates applaud the giving sentiment behind the meters, they also point out that the machines can make the issue abstract and easier to detach from emotionally. As the National Coalition for the Homeless says on their blog, "Donations to service organizations are always encouraged, but we should never let these meters discourage acknowledging those who ask for money are fellow human beings. Just as ignoring the issue of homelessness will not help end it, ignoring the people directly affected by homelessness will not help them help themselves."

For many homeless people, a conversation of a few minutes helps ward off loneliness. Francine Triplett, a middle-aged woman who ended up on the streets after escaping domestic abuse, toured the country a few years back as part of a panel raising awareness about homelessness. Triplett said the worst part for her was not being hungry or cold, but being treated like she didn't exist. People walking by "treated us like we was a big old bag of trash," she told the Philadelphia Weekly Press.  "All I wanted was conversation. I didn't want food," she recently said during National Poverty Awareness Week according to the Weekly Press.

8. Selective enforcement of laws like jaywalking and loitering. Many laws that apply to all citizens, like loitering or jaywalking, end up being selectively enforced against homeless people or based on race. A UCLA report on LA's efforts to clean up Skid Row found that the 50 extra officers assigned would cost $6 million -- more than the $5.7 million the city allocated  for homeless services. Their favored method was going after people for infractions like jaywalking, which do not get strictly enforced against the general population. Defendants in many cities have sued police departments for discrimination in selectively enforcing the law.

9. Destroying possessions of the homeless. Police regularly conduct sweeps of homeless encampments, destroying or confiscating tents, blankets and other private property, including medications and documents, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The destruction of property caused by law enforcement raids clearly violate constitutional protections against search and seizure without due process, but most cities continue to rely on the tactic to clear out public areas (a strategy that could come into play in crushing the Occupy camps). Here's how a homelessness advocate described a Dallas raid in Pegasus News:
... a Crisis Intervention team from the City of Dallas (now part of the Dallas Police Department) raided the homeless camps under a bridge. All of the personal possessions of the camp inhabitants — clothing, blankets, coats, years worth of belongings — were shoveled up by two bulldozers, and four to five loads comprising the contents of the "cardboard community" were dumped into city trucks and taken to the landfill.

In 2008, following five sweeps one right after the other, police in Port Charlotte, Florida rounded up the people from the camp, making them take a "Homeless Class of 2008 photo.

Residents of homeless shelters also have their property rights routinely trampled by police.

10. Kicking homeless kids out of school. Unsurprisingly, good educational opportunities are not bountiful for homeless children. The country's estimated 1.35 million homeless youth face a number of obstacles to regular schooling, ranging from residency requirements that are tough to meet when a family is transient to a lack of immunization records. According to a Department of Education report, 87 percent of homeless kids were enrolled in school in 2000; only 77 percent attended regularly.

These difficulties were highlighted in a 2011 case in which a homeless Connecticut woman used her babysitter's address to enroll her child in a public school in the area. Her efforts to provide her kid with an education earned her a first-degree larceny charge. The babysitter who helped was evicted from her public housing complex.

Better Ways

There are municipalities that do not mutiliate the Constitution to address the problems associated with homelessness. In Daytona Beach, service providers and business groups banded together to lower rates of panhandling with a program that hires homeless people to clean up downtown areas. In exchange, they received transitional housing. Portland, Oregon's "A Key Not a Card" program allows outreach workers to set up homeless with permanent housing. These efforts are driven by the fact (shown in multiple studies) that housing, which lowers rates of hospitalizations and arrests, ends up being way cheaper for cities.

[Rad]

UK ‘exporting surveillance technology to repressive nations’

By Jamie Doward, The Observer
Saturday, April 7, 2012 22:51 EDT

Fears that software similar to that which government wants to use in Britain is being sold to monitor dissidents abroad

Britain is exporting surveillance technology to countries run by repressive regimes, sparking fears it is being used to track political dissidents and activists.

The UK’s enthusiastic role in the burgeoning but unregulated surveillance market is becoming an urgent concern for human rights groups, who want the government to ensure that exports are regulated in a similar way to arms.

Much of the technology, which allows regimes to monitor internet traffic, mobile phone calls and text messages, is similar to that which the government has controversially signalled it wants to use in the UK.

The campaign group, Privacy International, which monitors the use of surveillance technology, claims equipment being exported includes devices known as “IMSI catchers” that masquerade as normal mobile phone masts and identify phone users and malware – software that can allow its operator to control a target’s computer, while allowing the interception to remain undetected.

Trojan horse software that allows hackers to remotely activate the microphone and camera on another person’s phone, and “optical cyber solutions” that can tap submarine cable landing stations, allowing for the mass surveillance of entire populations, are also being exported, according to the group.

Privacy International said it had visited international arms and security fairs and identified at least 30 UK companies that it believes have exported surveillance technology to countries including Syria, Iran, Yemen and Bahrain. A further 50 companies exporting similar technology from the US were also identified. Germany and Israel were also identified as big exporters of surveillance technology, in what is reportedly a £3bn a year industry.

Last month Privacy International asked 160 companies about sales of equipment to repressive regimes. So far fewer than 10 have written back to deny selling to nations with poor human rights records. The campaign group warns: “The emerging information and communications infrastructures of developing countries are being hijacked for surveillance purposes, and the information thereby collected is facilitating unlawful interrogation practices, torture and extrajudicial executions.”

Many of the brochures, presentations and marketing videos used by surveillance companies to promote their technology have now been posted on the WikiLeaks website, while a list of firms identified by Privacy International as a cause for concern has been provided to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The trade minister, Mark Prisk, has been briefed on the situation.

Last month the European council banned the export of surveillance technologies to Iranian authorities in response to serious human rights violations. It has imposed similar bans on exports to Syria.

But human rights groups said equipment was still being sold to commercial organisations in the two countries and called for the government to take stronger action.

“By the time the embargo is in place the ship has sailed,” said Eric King, head of research at Privacy International. “Our research shows the idea that this is not a British problem is wrong. We need governments to act now. In a few years this equipment will need to be updated; these countries don’t have the technical expertise to do it, so this is something the UK needs to be aware of and to take action against now.”

In December it emerged a British company had offered to sell software to Egyptian security services that experts say could hack into web-based email. The company, Gamma Group International, insists it “complies, in all its dealings, with all relevant UK legislation”.

Last year a public outcry forced an Italian company to pull out of supplying Syria with “deep packet investigation” technology that would allow the country’s security forces to access internet service providers. But Syriatel Mobile, Syria’s largest mobile phone operator, uses blocking technology provided by a Dublin-based company.

Creativity Software (CS), a British firm specialising in “location-based services”, sold technology to the mobile network operator MTN Irancell that campaign groups said could be used to track individuals. The company said its technology provided “the same type of activities that are enjoyed by consumers in many other markets – a hugely popular and successful social networking and location-based mobile advertising service”.

It is the responsibility of manufacturers to ensure their technology is not used to perpetrate human rights abuses. But there are now calls for them to be subject to stringent export controls requiring a licence to sell abroad.

Privacy International also argues that, in order to prevent dangerous technologies reaching authoritarian regimes through middlemen, there is a need for “end-use” controls that would make it illegal for companies to provide their products when they know or suspect they will be used in human rights abuses.

In a letter to Privacy International, Downing Street said the government was “actively looking at this issue” and was working within the EU to introduce new controls on surveillance.

© Guardian News and Media 2012

[Rad]

‘War on drugs’ has failed, say Latin American leaders

By Jamie Doward, The Observer
Sunday, April 8, 2012 2:33 EDT

Watershed summit will admit that prohibition has failed, and call for more nuanced and liberalized tactics.

A historic meeting of Latin America’s leaders, to be attended by Barack Obama, will hear serving heads of state admit that the war on drugs has been a failure and that alternatives to prohibition must now be found.

The Summit of the Americas, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia is being seen by foreign policy experts as a watershed moment in the redrafting of global drugs policy in favour of a more nuanced and liberalised approach.

Otto Pérez Molina, the president of Guatemala, who as former head of his country’s military intelligence service experienced the power of drug cartels at close hand, is pushing his fellow Latin American leaders to use the summit to endorse a new regional security plan that would see an end to prohibition. In the Observer, Pérez Molina writes: “The prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global drug policy today is based on a false premise: that global drug markets can be eradicated.”

Pérez Molina concedes that moving beyond prohibition is problematic. “To suggest liberalisation – allowing consumption, production and trafficking of drugs without any restriction whatsoever – would be, in my opinion, profoundly irresponsible. Even more, it is an absurd proposition. If we accept regulations for alcoholic drinks and tobacco consumption and production, why should we allow drugs to be consumed and produced without any restrictions?”

He insists, however, that prohibition has failed and an alternative system must be found. “Our proposal as the Guatemalan government is to abandon any ideological consideration regarding drug policy (whether prohibition or liberalisation) and to foster a global intergovernmental dialogue based on a realistic approach to drug regulation. Drug consumption, production and trafficking should be subject to global regulations, which means that drug consumption and production should be legalised, but within certain limits and conditions.”

The decision by Pérez Molina to speak out is seen as highly significant and not without political risk. Polls suggest the vast majority of Guatemalans oppose decriminalisation, but Pérez Molina’s comments are seen by many as helping to usher in a new era of debate. They will be studied closely by foreign policy experts who detect that Latin American leaders are shifting their stance on prohibition following decades of drugs wars that have left hundreds of thousands dead.

Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, has called for a national debate on the issue. Last year Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, told the Observerthat if legalising drugs curtailed the power of organised criminal gangs who had thrived during prohibition, “and the world thinks that’s the solution, I will welcome it”.

One diplomat closely involved with the summit described the event as historic, saying it would be the first time for 40 years that leaders had met to have an open discussion on drugs. “This is the chance to look at this matter with new eyes,” he said.

Latin America’s increasing hostility towards prohibition makes Obama’s attendance at the summit potentially difficult. The Obama administration, keen not to hand ammunition to its opponents during an election year, will not want to be seen as softening its support for prohibition. However, it is seen as significant that the US vice-president, Joe Biden, has acknowledged that the debate about legalising drugs is now legitimate.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil and chairman of the global commission on drug policy, has said it is time for “an open debate on more humane and efficient drug policies”, a view shared by George Shultz, the former US secretary of state, and former president Jimmy Carter.

 © Guardian News and Media 2012

[Rad]

U.S., Europe to ‘demand’ Iran close nuclear facility

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, April 8, 2012 1:26 EDT

The United States and its European allies plan to demand the immediate closing by Iran and ultimate dismantling of a recently completed underground nuclear facility near the city of Qum, The New York Times reported.

Citing unnamed US and European diplomats, the newspaper said the allies will also call at upcoming negotiations for a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country.

Iran last held talks with the six powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — in January 2011 with no results.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said the new talks would open April 13 in Istanbul. But Iran later said that Turkey was not an acceptable host after the NATO member cut oil imports from Tehran in response to US pressure.

The new demands will be the opening move in what President Barack Obama has called Iran’s “last chance” to resolve its nuclear confrontation with the United Nations and the West diplomatically, the report said.

The UN Security Council has imposed four sets of sanctions on Iran because of suspicions over its nuclear program, which the West and Israel believe includes a drive to develop atomic weapons capability.

Some experts fear the tough conditions being set could instead swing the debate in favor of Iran’s hard-liners, according to The Times.

“We have no idea how the Iranians will react,” the paper quoted one senior administration official as saying. “We probably won’t know after the first meeting.”

In a related story The Washington Post reported late Saturday. that a stealth surveillance drone operated by the CIA penetrated deep inside Iran over three years ago, snapped images of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qum and returned home.

CIA stealth drones scoured dozens of sites throughout Iran, making hundreds of passes over suspicious facilities, before a version of the RQ-170 drone crashed inside Iran’s borders in December, the report said.

The surveillance has been part of an intelligence surge that is aimed at Iran’s nuclear program and that has been gaining momentum since the final years of George W. Bush’s administration, The Post noted.

The effort has included eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, the formation of an Iran task force among satellite-imagery analysts, as well as an expanded network of spies, the paper added.

The expanded intelligence collection has reinforced the view within the White House that it will have early warning of any move by Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb, the report said.

According to the paper, the expanded intelligence effort has coincided with a covert campaign by the CIA and other agencies to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.

The administration of President Barack Obama has cited new intelligence reports in arguing against a preemptive military strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities.

[Rad]

meanwhile in the USA

The Washington Post

The rich are different; they get richer

By Harold Meyerson,

Occupy Wall Street is not known for the precision of its economic analysis, but new research on income distribution in the United States shows that the group’s sloganeering provides a stunningly accurate picture of the economy. In 2010, according to a study published this month by University of California economist Emmanuel Saez, 93 percent of income growth went to the wealthiest 1 percent of American households, while everyone else divvied up the 7 percent that was left over. Put another way: The most fundamental characteristic of the U.S. economy today is the divide between the 1 percent and the 99 percent.

It was not ever thus. In the recovery that followed the downturn of the early 1990s, the wealthiest 1 percent captured 45 percent of the nation’s income growth. In the recovery that followed the dot-com bust 10 years ago, Saez noted, 65 percent of the income growth went to the top 1 percent. This time around, it’s reached 93 percent — a level so high it shakes the foundations of the entire American project.

While never putting a premium on economic equality, America has always prided itself on being the preeminent land of economic opportunity. If all of this nation’s wealth is captured by a narrow stratum of the very rich, however, that claim is relegated to history’s dustbin. Research by Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, as part of the Economic Mobility Project, has shown that intergenerational mobility in the United States has fallen far below the levels in Germany, Finland, Denmark and other more social democratic nations of Northern Europe. Now, Saez’s analysis of income data provides further evidence that mocks America’s self-image as a land where hard work yields rewards.

How has the top 1 percent been able to decouple itself from the nation beneath it? To begin, much of its income comes from investments in funds and firms that are raking in profits from overseas ventures in economies like China’s, which weathered the downturn better than ours. Much of those firms’ profits also derive from their reduced labor costs — the result of layoffs and paycuts. Finally, as Saez points out, there has been “an explosion of top wages and salaries” since 1970. In that year, 5.1 percent of all wages and salaries paid in the United States went to the wealthiest 1 percent. In 2007, the share going to the wealthiest 1 percent had more than doubled, to 12.4 percent.

The consequences of this concentration of wealth and income extend beyond the purely economic. A middle class enduring prolonged stagnation isn’t likely to fund projects the nation needs to undertake — such as rebuilding our infrastructure or increasing teacher pay — or, ultimately, to retain its faith in the efficacy of democracy. The rise of super PACs, the low rates of taxation on capital gains and hedge fund operators, the ability of the major banks to fend off reform — all testify to the power of a neo-plutocracy beyond democratic control.

Most proposals to restore a modicum of balance to the American economy focus on making the tax code more progressive. Raising the tax on investments to the level of the tax on wages, for instance, and increasing the inheritance tax would help start reconstruction of a more viable economy.

But changes to the tax code, indispensable though they would be, aren’t remotely sufficient to the challenge of restoring the broadly shared prosperity that Americans enjoyed in the mid-20th century. That would require changing some laws to give stockholders and other corporate stakeholders the power to diminish the share of corporate revenue routinely claimed these days by top executives — at the expense of everyone else. It would require revitalizing unions. David Madland and Nick Bunker of the Center for American Progress recently found that in 1968, when 28 percent of the workforce was unionized, 53 percent of the nation’s income went to the middle class. In 2010, when 11.9 percent of the nation’s workers were unionized, the share claimed by the middle class had fallen to 46.5 percent.

Capitalism can create prosperity, but left unfettered it doesn’t create broadly shared prosperity — and never will. If belief and participation in democracy are sustained by people’s conviction that democracy produces good economic outcomes, then the growing concentration of wealth and income in the United States is a long-term threat to everything we profess to stand for. A nation where 93 percent of income growth goes to the top 1 percent is not a nation that will embark on great projects, or long command the allegiance of its people.

[Rad]

meanwhile in the USA .........

Tennessee seeks to question evolution in bill

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, April 9, 2012 7:49 EDT

US conservative Christians and science advocates are clashing again, this time in Tennessee over a bill that would allow debate in public schools over theories like evolution.

Lawmakers from the southeastern US state home to a strong base of ultraconservative “Tea Party” activists have approved the bill, which now awaits the signature of Governor Bill Haslam, a Republican.

The measure, which could pass by a Tuesday deadline, would allow public schoolteachers to challenge accepted science on topics such as climate change and evolution in their classrooms without facing sanctions.

If it passes, Tennessee would join nine other states with similar laws promoting creationism, more or less explicitly.

Critics have labeled the legislation the “Monkey Bill” in reference to the highly publicized 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” in which Tennessee charged high school science teacher John Scopes of violating a state law against teaching “that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

The Tennessee Science Teachers Association and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union rights group, the measure’s biggest critics, are calling for Haslam to veto it. They say it would provide legal cover for educators to teach pseudoscientific ideas.

“They are not talking that much about creationism but rather aboutIntelligent Design,” said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU’s Tennessee branch.

“It’s a very nuanced and clever way… to challenge the theory of evolution and allow teachers to inject Intelligent Design and neo-creationism.” Intelligent Design is the idea that scientific evidence can show that life forms developed under the direction of a higher intelligence.

The measure states that “teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”

It also says the legislation “shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine.”

In a letter to lawmakers, the Tennessee members of the National Academy of Sciences argued that the bill would “miseducate students, harm the state’s national reputation and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.”

The Tennessee Education Association, meanwhile, blasted the “unnecessary legislation.”

But Haslam has already indicated he would “probably” sign the measure into law.

The Discovery Institute, whose model legislation inspired the bill, hailed the passage of a text that “promotes good science education by protecting the academic freedom of science teachers to fully and objectively discuss controversial scientific topics, like evolution.”

Based in Seattle, Washington, the group backs the teaching of alternatives to evolution in public schools and supports research into Intelligent Design, a form of creationism.

The creationist offensive is part of a long-running battle, in a country where only a quarter of the population believes whole-heartedly in evolution, between advocates of non-religious teachings in public schools and conservative Christians who say man is a divine creature not descended from apes.

It was not before 1968 that the US Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional, based on the separation of church and state, to teach anti-evolution principles.

And in 1987, the high court said that mandatory teaching of creationism was against the Constitution because any such law intended to advance a particular religion.

[Rad]

Indian forest-dwellers take battle against mining conglomerate to supreme court

By The Guardian
Sunday, April 8, 2012 19:45 EDT

By Jason Burke

The leaders of thousands of forest-dwelling tribesmen who have fought for years to preserve their ancestral lands from exploitation by an international mining corporation have promised to continue their struggle whatever the decision in a key hearing before India’s supreme court on Monday.

Dubbed the “real life Avatar” after the Hollywood blockbuster, the battle of the Dongria Kondh people to stop London-based conglomerate Vedanta Resources mining bauxite from a hillside they consider sacred has attracted international support. Celebrities backing the campaign include James Cameron, the director of Avatar, Arundhati Roy, the Booker prize-winning author, as well as British actors Joanna Lumley and Michael Palin.

On Monday the court will decide on an appeal by Vedanta against a ministerial decision in 2010 that stopped work at the site in the Niyamgiri hills of India’s eastern Orissa state.

Lingaraj Azad, a leader of the Save Niyamgiri Committee, said the Dongria Kondh’s campaign “is not just that of an isolated tribe for its customary rights over its traditional lands and habitats, but that of the entire world over protecting our natural heritage”.

An alliance of local tribes has now formed to defend the tribe.

Kumity Majhi, a leader of the Majhi Kondh adivasi (indigenous people), said local communities would stop the mining “whether or not the supreme court favour us”.

“We, the Majhi Kondh adivasis, will help our Dongria Kondh brothers in protecting the mountains,” he said.

India’s rapid economic growth has generated huge demand for raw materials. Weak law enforcement has meant massive environmental damage from mining and other extractive industries, according to campaigners.

Vedanta, which wants the bauxite for an alumina refinery it has built near the hills, requires clearance under the country’s forest and environmental laws. But though it had obtained provisional permission, it failed to satisfy laws protecting the forests and granting rights to local tribal groups.

A government report accused the firm of violations of forest conservation, tribal rights and environmental protection laws in Orissa, a charge subsequently repeated by a panel of forestry experts.

Jairam Ramesh, the then environment minister, decided that Vedanta would not be allowed to mine the bauxite because “laws [were] being violated.”

At the time, a spokesman denied the company had failed to obtain the consent of the tribal groups.

“Our effort is to bring the poor tribal people into the mainstream,” Vedanta Aluminium’s chief operating officer, Mukesh Kumar, said shortly before the 2010 decision.

Since then the company has made efforts to win over local and international opinion.

This weekend Vedanta, contacted through their London-based public relations firm, declined to comment.

Many Indian businessmen say economic growth must be prioritised even at the expense of the environment or the country’s most marginalised communities. They argue these are the inevitable costs of development.

Ramesh was considered the first environment minister to take on major corporate interests after decades where legal constraints on business were routinely ignored. But his stance caused a rift within the government and he was moved to a different ministry.

Chandra Bhushan, of the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, said the outcome of the court case would either be “very encouraging for business or very encouraging for civil society”.

“There are so many reasons not to mine there [in the Niyamgiri hills], the court could only overturn it on procedural grounds. Otherwise it will send a signal of total political paralysis,” he told the Guardian.

The supreme court may decide to send the case to the newly constituted national green tribunal, a body of legal and technical experts, to consider once more.

Last week the tribunal suspended the environmental permits for the massive Posco iron and steel refinery, also in Orissa. The project would see an £8bn investment from a South Korean firm, and would significantly enhance India’s industrial capacity as well as generating hundreds of jobs. The tribunal decided however that studies on its environmental impact had been based on a smaller venture and were thus invalid.

Elsewhere in India power plants, dams, factories, roads and other infrastructure projects are stalled pending environmental clearance. There are frequent reports of clashes over land throughout the country. In February, Survival International, a UK-based campaign group, said it received reports of arrests and beatings apparently aimed at stopping a major religious festival in the Niyamgiri hills where Vedanta’s bauxite mine is planned.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2012

[Rad]

Austerity hits Italy’s crumbling cultural heritage

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, April 9, 2012 1:42 EDT

After slashing arts budgets and with its most famous monuments badly in need of repair, Italy’s government is increasingly looking to private investors to help it preserve a priceless cultural heritage.

The biggest initiative so far, however, is faltering after billionaire Diego Della Valle said he might pull his 25 million euros ($33 million) to restore the Colosseum following union protests and investigations into the project.

Fragments of the 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre — now at the centre of a busy road junction and blackened with pollution — have begun falling down and the restoration project’s start date of March is looking increasingly unlikely.

Meanwhile, at the archaeological site of Pompeii near Naples, which has also been hit by a series of alarming collapses in recent months, the long-mooted prospect of bringing in private investors is still a distant prospect.

The government has promised to unblock 105 million euros ($138 million) in funding from the European Union for a four-year maintenance plan and to increase the number of archaeologists at the site from just one person employed there currently.

“Italy’s entire heritage needs attention,” the National Association of Italian Archaeologists said in a recent appeal for greater resources.

Italy is not alone in its struggle to preserve its ruins.

In a move that left many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece’s culture ministry said it would open up some of the debt-stricken country’s most-cherished archaeological sites, including the Acropolis, to advertising firms, movie companies and other ventures. The money generated would be spent on upkeep and monitoring of the sites.

Greek archaeologists are also finding it hard to get funding for licensed digs while antiquity smuggling is on the rise.

Italy is the fourth biggest tourism destination in the world after France, the United States and Spain, and is rightly proud of its cultural heritage — enriched by centuries of history from the Roman era to the Renaissance to the Baroque.

But its low growth and debt mountain of 1.9 trillion euros ($2.5 trillion) has spooked international investors and forced the government to implement three austerity budgets in under a year in a bid to rein in public finances.

Italy currently allocates just 0.21 percent of its gross domestic product to culture and the 1.8 billion euros ($2.4 billion) are often only good for patching up its many monuments, leaving little space for funding the living arts.

The internationally renowned La Scala opera house and Piccolo Teatro in Milan were forced to accept a cut of 17 million euros ($22.4 million) last year.

And a special fund that subsidises Italian theatres had a budget of 231 million euros ($304 million) in 2011 — 50 percent less than the previous year.

Cinema has also been badly affected, with an association of cinema and television workers this month saying the situation was “grave”.

Italian documentary maker Gustav Hofer said he had been forced to go abroad to look for financing. “There are just crumbs in Italy,” he said.

Camillo Esposito, the head of a small production company, agreed: “It’s hard to find financing and distribute a film that isn’t commercial.”

Author and professor Umberto Eco, a leading voice in the arts, recently wrote a scathing open letter to the government.

“Something isn’t working,” he wrote. “We haven’t learnt how to make money from our national culture.”

[Rad]

Iran urges ‘honesty’ in crucial nuclear talks

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, April 9, 2012 7:35 EDT

Iran on Monday urged “honesty” at crucial talks with world powers due to be held this week in order to defuse a tense international showdown over its disputed nuclear activities.

“We hope the P5+1 will come to the negotiating table with honesty, and we also will make an honest effort so that both sides reach a win-win conclusion,” Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told the Iranian parliament’s website.

Salehi warned the P5+1 group — consisting of UN Security Council members the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China, plus Germany — should not try to impose conditions on the talks before they begin on Saturday in Istanbul.

The aim was that “Iran gain its rights and the P5+1 have its stated concerns alleviated” over Tehran’s nuclear programme, he said.

The United States and its allies fear Iran’s nuclear activities mask a drive towards atomic weapons capability — something Tehran strenuously denies. The United States and Israel have threatened to launch attacks on Iran if diplomacy on the issue fails.

Salehi rejected a weekend report in The New York Times newspaper quoting unnamed US and EU diplomats as saying the West was going into the talks with demands that Iran close an underground nuclear bunker in Fordo, and that it halt enriching uranium to 20 percent.

“Those (demands) have been raised only by the media and we cannot make a judgment based on them,” Salehi said.

“Putting forward preconditions before the meeting happens is equivalent to reaching a conclusion before the negotiations start. It is completely meaningless. No one will accept preconditions before the talks,” he added.

Salehi did not speak about the venue of the talks or Iran’s see-sawing in recent days over whether the negotiations should be held in Istanbul.

The foreign minister had initially said Iran favoured Istanbul. But other Iranian officials and politicians last week said they were opting for Baghdad instead.

The office of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is representing the P5+1, on Monday confirmed that “we have agreed to launch talks in Istanbul on April 14.”

Spokesman Michael Mann added: “We hope that this first round will produce a conducive environment for concrete progress.”

Iran’s last talks with the P5+1 powers were also held in Istanbul, in January 2011, and ended in failure.

[Rad]

Israel warns negotiators to be tough with Iran

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, April 8, 2012 10:50 EDT

JERUSALEM — Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday warned the six-power group negotiating with Iran to set stringent limits on its nuclear enrichment at forthcoming talks.

“If the P5+1 will set a much lower threshold, like just stop reaching 20 percent it means that basically the Iranians at a very cheap cost bought their way into continuing their military programmes, slightly slower but without sanctions,” Barak said in English in an interview aired on Sunday by CNN.

“That would be a total change of direction for the worse,” he added.

The so-called P5+1, comprising the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, is scheduled to begin talks with Iran in coming weeks, though no date has been set and Tehran has rejected at least one proposed venue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month set three “benchmarks” for a peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue: That the Islamic republic dismantle its underground nuclear facility in Qom, stop uranium enrichment and get rid of all enriched material in Iran beyond what would allow it to make medical isotopes or generate nuclear power.

“And when I say all the material, I mean all the material, from 3.5 percent up,” Netanyahu said, during a March 2 visit to Ottawa on his way to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington.

The New York Times reported late Saturday that the United States and its European allies plan to demand the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of the Qom plant, a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country.

“Mr. Obama and his allies are gambling that crushing sanctions and the threat of Israeli military action will bolster the arguments of those Iranians who say a negotiated settlement is far preferable to isolation and more financial hardship,” the Times wrote.

The Obama administration says it does not believe Iran has taken a decision to develop a nuclear weapon, or that the time is right for military action, preferring to give sanctions time to work.

But Israel, which sees a possible Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to its very existence, claims Iran may be on the cusp of “breakout” capability — when it could quickly build a nuclear weapon — and it does not rule out staging a pre-emptive strike of its own.

Iran last held talks with the six powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — in January 2011 with no results.

Obama has told Iran the United States would accept Tehran having a civilian nuclear programme if the Islamic state can prove it is not seeking atomic weapons, the Washington Post said Friday.

Obama sent such a message to Tehran via Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who delivered it to Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week, said the newspaper’s foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius.

[Rad]

SPIEGEL ONLINE
04/06/2012 03:56 PM

Anguish in Azerbaijan: Residents Forcibly Cleared to Make Way for Modernity

By Annette Langer  in Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku, set to host the Eurovision Song Contest in just over a month, is rapidly trying to become a modern city. To do so, it is forcibly removing residents from their homes to make way for slick new skyscrapers and other development projects. Those who try to stay bear the brunt of the government's wrath.

Shortly before midnight on March 17, Grandma Shirinbaji awoke suddenly from her sleep. Her heart was pounding -- a deafening crash had torn her from her slumber. She rushed to the room where her 11-year-old grandson and his mother were sleeping. "I couldn't believe my eyes," she says. "Somebody had hurled an enormous concrete block through the roof with a back hoe." Now there is a gaping five-square-meter (54-square-foot) hole in the ceiling.

It was a miracle no one was injured. For the seven residents in the 50-square-meter flat in Agamirsa Aliyev Street it was clear that this was an attack not only on the Rzayeva family's home but also on their integrity and pride.

"We called the fire department but all they did was ask us why we wouldn't sell our property," the pensioner says, breathing heavily as she speaks, her eyes glittering with anger. Since 2009 property owners in Baku have been forced to sell their homes -- many of which were built during the first oil boom of the 19th century -- at low prices in order to make room for modern buildings. "The president wants to build his new city at my expense," Rzayeva grumbles. "I refuse to be a part of that."

In February, a government representative came to the door and urged the family to finally sell their home. "They wanted to scare me. That's something I really don't like," Rzayeva says indignantly. The sum they offered was much lower than the value of a property in the city center and accounted for only 41 of the 54 square meters, leaving out the kitchen and bathroom.

Rzayeva refused to sell and went to court. An expert loyal to the government explained that the house would have to be sold because it was disrepair and dangerous. "Sure, my roof fell into my bedroom by accident," the owner says angrily.

Treacherous Methods

As the elderly woman laments her fate, laborers on a starvation wage are demolishing another house in the neighborhood, despite the presence of children playing in the building just next door. A group of angry residents has gathered around them, hurling abuse at the workers, who stubbornly carry on with their work, concealed in a cloud of dust.

"In Azerbaijan, anarchy rules," Rzayeva says. "Our president is incompetent, we are practically leaderless."

Article 13 of the Azerbaijani constitution guarantees the integrity of private property, declaring "it will be protected by the state." But ever since the capital city of Baku issued a decree on behalf of President Ilham Aliyev that privileged state interests over private property, prospects have been grim for homeowners.

The methods employed by the authorities to acquire valuable land are treacherous. Sometimes they rip apart the roof so that moisture ruins the structure of the building, then they let their henchmen throw garbage into the landings so that residents willingly flee from the rats and the stench. Still, many choose to remain in the life-threatening conditions of the unstable houses.

Not all residents have valid documentation for their homes, in part because the Soviet Union did not allow for individual property ownership. Larisa Mammadli has the documents but still stands before the ruins of her tiny house, in which she used to live with her three children and three grandchildren. Now she is homeless. "I live here and there," she says. "I've left the children with friends in the countryside. I'm going to fight until the end for my rights." But the refugees from the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, for whom the state has arranged lodging for here, lack the courage to take such action. They are being left completely in the dark about their future.

Symbols and Superlatives

The whole area around a planned park near Shamsi Badalbeyli Street looks like the aftermath of a bomb attack. Heaps of rubble and garbage surround a massive pit. At house number 38, a demolition crew has torn down the "Institute of Freedom and Democracy" office.

"I wanted to save furniture, computers and most of all, our archives," says Azat Isazade, a psychologist and employee of the non-governmental organization. "But it remained in the rubble." The affiliated women's crisis center was forced to stay closed for a long time.

The situation has intensified since 2009. According to the institute, at least 20,000 people have lost their homes through state intervention. "In some cases the properties were worth 10 times as much as the price they were bought for," says Leyla Yunus, head of the human rights organization, which has been looking after the property owners for years. The profits to be made are not difficult to calculate.

The Eurovision Song Contest, which will be held in Baku at the end of May, also plays a role in the evictions. "Light Your Fire" is the motto of the contest -- as if there was not enough burning and flickering everywhere in Baku. There are flames everywhere made of glass, concrete, papier-mâché and rhinestones. Some, like those on the oil fields at the edge of town, are even real.

Ninety percent of Azerbaijan's exports are in oil. But since even enormous reserves are finite, authoritarian President Aliyev is focusing increasingly on natural gas. He boasts that he can "supply Europe for the next 100 years." To this end, he is employing symbols and superlatives.

The Eurovision 'Smokescreen'

Three "flame towers" are perched on a hill near the Caspian Sea. They make up a huge complex of houses and offices in the shape of an "eternal fire." The highest tower reaches 235 meters (770 feet) into the sky, but this is not high enough. The Azerbaijani group Avesta plans to build a 1,050-meter business center south of the capital city in a bid to top the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the highest building in the world.

But for something new to exist, something old must give way. Apartment blocks were systematically demolished to make space for the "Crystal Hall," the convention center for the Eurovision Song Contest situated at the bay of Baku and near the highest flagpole in the world. Video footage shows how brutally the authorities carried out the evictions. The site is not yet finished and many doubt that it will be completed by mid-May.

"The Eurovision Song Contest is no more than a smokescreen behind which our government can increase its wealth at the cost of our citizens," says human rights activist Leyla Yunus. "A mafia-style system has established itself in Azerbaijan. That means that one can beat, torture, imprison and destroy homes and possessions with impunity."

Azerbaijan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It ranks 143rd out of 183 in Transparency International's index. Bribes are being paid in nearly all areas of public life.

"The people of Azerbaijan have only one weapon in the fight against the powerful authorities and that is the word. But when they make use of it, they are bitterly persecuted," says Yunus.

[Rad]

in the USA........

April 09, 2012 02:00 PM

NOAA: More Than 15,000 Temperature Records Broken In March

By Susie Madrak

Of course, no one running for president mentions that specific things actually need to be done to fix this ongoing crisis, but if we all stay as quiet as church mice, maybe it will all go away! (Maybe we could stop selling massive quantities of coal to China? Nah, not gonna happen!)

    Record and near-record breaking temperatures dominated the eastern two-thirds of the nation and contributed to the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States, a record that dates back to 1895. More than 15,000 warm temperature records were broken during the month.

    The average temperature of 51.1°F was 8.6 degrees above the 20th century average for March and 0.5°F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910. Of the more than 1,400 months (117+ years) that have passed since the U.S. climate record began, only one month, January 2006, has seen a larger departure from its average temperature than March 2012.

    U.S. climate highlights — March
    Every state in the nation experienced at least one record warm daily temperature during March. According to preliminary data, there were 15,272 warm temperature records broken (7,755 daytime records, 7,517 nighttime records). Hundreds of locations across the country broke their all-time March records. There were 21 instances of the nighttime temperatures being as warm, or warmer, than the existing record daytime temperature for a given date.

    March 2012 Statewide Temperature (top) and Precipitation (bottom) ranks
    A persistent weather pattern led to 25 states east of the Rockies having their warmest March on record. An additional 15 states had monthly temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. That same pattern brought cooler-than-average conditions to the West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California.

    Temperatures in Alaska during March, which are not included in the contiguous U.S. average value, ranked as the tenth coolest on record.

    The nationally-averaged precipitation total was 2.73 inches, which is 0.33 inches above average. The Pacific Northwest and the Southern Plains were much wetter than average during March while drier-than-average conditions prevailed in the interior West, Northeast, and Florida. Colorado had its driest March on record.

    According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of April 3rd, 36.8 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, a decrease from 38.7 percent at the end of February and an increase from 28.8 percent a year ago on April 5, 2011. Above-average precipitation across the Southern Plains improved long-term drought conditions Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

    Warmer-than-average conditions across the eastern U.S. also created an environment favorable for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. According to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, there were 223 preliminary tornado reports during March, a month that averages 80 tornadoes annually. The majority of the tornadoes occurred during the March 2nd-3rd outbreak across the Ohio Valley and Southeast, which caused 40 fatalities. Total losses from this event are estimated to exceed $1.5 billion dollars, making this the first event of 2012 to exceed one billion dollars in damages and losses.

    On March 9, a large weather system impacted the Hawaiian Islands, bringing extreme rainfall and severe thunderstorms. A rare EF-0 tornado hit the towns of Lanikai and Kailua on Oahu, causing minor damage. A hailstone with the largest diameter on record for the state, measuring 4¼ inches, fell on Oahu during this event.