I am afraid Carnival is more than "a festival, a lime, a bachannal, where women underdress, wine up and many a man try their luck". That is the sort of thing my dear friend Mark would say having never participated in one.
For my trinidadian friends/family, bajan friends/family and of course for me it is a celebration of life where we learn more about ourselves and other cultures. It is a time where we encourage the ancient African traditions by utilising certain objects that represents a certain idea, for example the feathers which symbolizes our ability to rise above problems/illness and to be reborn and grow spiritually; the use of the masks which is a symbol for the dead. It is a form of uniting people from different cultures and countries. It is a time where our differences does not matter and our focus is merely to celebrate life. Of course, Carnival will not be the same without the steel band which grew out of Trinidad and came about because of the banning of drumming in Trinidad back in the 1880s. Much struggle and sacrifice was made to make that sweet music possible from the likes of tamboo bamboo (sp).
This is just a brief answer but I think you get the point.
Nobody thief Caribana. It was a goldmine , in the early days for people who had no business sense, greed, ignorance and corruption, as virtues. Very much like the CIA/MI5 Burnham regime, and for that matter , many other countries.
They stole, gave away, squandered, and was outfoxed by many, and ran a huge deficit, for many years, much like many third world countries, with the very same set-up.
This year-the black americans-many stayed home for obvious economic reasons, but was marginally supplemented by many from the Caribbean.
It would be a stretch to say that Caribana brought in $200.00 million this year, but then again; just what is it?
It is a festival, a lime , a bachannal, where women underdress, wine up, an many a man try their luck. Of course, it is also a music festival, but i really question how many really appreciate, good reggae, which helps this along.
So to all that 'had it', please take it back and run it to the ground, just like before. I will guarantee that the Santa Claus Parade/the Irish whatever etcc will long outlive you.
Since the americans that used to hold it up cannot afford to travel anymore; it is better in the hands of those, that have no idea of economic trends, relying solely on the enthusiasm shown by some homegrown women, believing that they got money to spend. They might, but only on the man they decide to chose.
RE: FIght On. Because There Really Is No Other Choice
Join Date: 12/31/09
Posts: 63
In regards to Guyana the AFC-THE 'THIRD PARTY' heads are now going to New York, with claims of Government corruption/racism etc.. One surmises to ask the 'good ole usa' to intervene/take over, in any way, so that they can be elected. MISSING IS ANY PROOF OF WRONG DOING-MUCH LIKE THE MADNESS THAT IS SPUN AS TRUTH IN AMERICA.
In Caribbean newspapers, articles abound as to the amount of Indians that live in Guyana and the most allotted is 40%, of the whole, with black people at 38%.
That is a flagrant & complete lie, but america can make it the truth, just like in 1963 when they installed Burnham as dictator, or Pinochet in Chile after the assassination of Salvador Allende.
But where is the Indian government that feels that they are on top of the world, because the white man with his superiors have come to them , bowl in hand, to ask them to continue to fight the 'good fight'?
Indians are being beaten up all over the world, notably in Australia and of course Guyana.
Under democratic law; the PPP in Guyana would prevail, until such a time when the wanton hatred/rape/murder/mutilation/robbery /intimidation & racial malignancy has been eradicated.
There is absolutely nothing that america can provide to guyana without dire consequences & a continuation of depravity.
Just look to what they have ever achieved in Africa/Vietnam or South/Central America or anywhere else.
The only people that needs america is the people that are paid by it,or the people that hope to get rich by it.
Nobody else needs america or israel-its boss.
But get your superiors to come on this website to discuss facts not that constant drivel that is fed to the west masses, and see how really intelligent they are/
Condi rice/Cheney & bush & all the jew neo-cons. Bring it on!
RE: FIght On. Because There Really Is No Other Choice
Join Date: 12/31/09
Posts: 63
The Community Center/Mosque/Swimming pool or whatever funding by CNN.
To date, as per CNN, no money has been raised to build this Center some numerous blocks away from 'ground zero'. Nancy Pelosi's initial request was to ask for an investigation into who is funding the 'push against this Muslim building'. That soon changed to 'who is funding the site'?, as per the never-ending madness that is Empire America. President Obama, too did an about turn, in regards to the building, but then he has been spinning like a top, for some two odd years, as per his backers demands.
As it turns out, there is no money raised yet, only probably the couple of million it took to buy the ground, which no other sane economic mind would want. In fairness to the self-proclaimed:'most trusted news", CNN did 'undercover' the fact that most funding of muslim enterprises do come from Qatar/United Arab Emirates & Saudia Arabia, which are second only to China in the funding of the United States wars against everyone, buying buying the printed paper that is the us money. OH! Japan is in there somewhere.
However, to this point, the 'link' to anyone of those friendly states cannot be established, nor the links to any western media named terrorists organization.
Notwithstanding, the war drumbeat goes on in the belly of the beast, as the hatred is whipped up to further notches, with this new deviance, designed upon people, as lost in their hatred and brutality, as they could have ever been made to be.
And on the second page, the us army claims to have withdrawn from Iraq and won the war, as per an illiterate moron on the back of a truck,hands raised, saying ;'we won ,'we won'.
And as Jesus Christ is claimed to have said " God forgive them, for they know not what they do"!
RE: FIght On. Because There Really Is No Other Choice
Join Date: 12/31/09
Posts: 63
After nearly a decade of Zion white occupation & destruction of entire countries,( it's People, History and Infrastructure); the 'coalition of the willing' seems to be winding down.
So, as per the predictable Zionist all encompassing western media; the effort is now solely focused, on re-motivation of the semi-literate, to 'fight the good fight', 'stay the course', 'us against them', 'winning hearts & minds' and all the other mantras, that replaces thought in the west. A potpourri of the most illegal,racist hatred, immoral & untruthful of lies that has come to epitomize the west. A place where the only truth is the slow & sure decay of a evil/immoral/illiterate decadence that's utter decay (time-wise), is only governed by how far the servants that run it, push forth to ultimate ruin.
Not satisfied with the complete and utter ruination of two great civilizations and countries, the war push is on to arm the Indians & 'try to bully' Asia, into re-acceptance of white rule, for this time it comes with Jewish control, and a broad coalition of many races. Yes! 'we do have Blacks , Hispanics & Asians or even muslims in our armies so we must be right'.
But, it was always wrong, even though, somehow justified by some centuries apart; jews that legally & historically, never had any land on this planet, except in their own aggrandize minds. The truth is that millions of people have been massacred and the remnants of Iraq/Afghanistan lie in utter ruins.
So continue to blame the victims, continue to whip up the hatred of muslims, whilst continuing to proclaim 'how free you are'& watch the continuous & sure slide of your rights & war power & living slip into nowhere, never ever to return.
But in the meantime, on to the next Iranian woman, living in splendor, or a black woman from Somalia that made millions changing from islam to christianity/jewism, or another 1 individual working for the puppet governments in occupied lands; all bestowing praise on ZionInc, or the racist jews that whip up the hatred against the Islamic community centre near your ground zero & get their republican subordinates to promote the hatred, even against Obama, that they have done from day one.
And you all really think that what needs fixing for your comfort is outside that disaster?
The job isn't finished in Afghanistan. Canadian Forces have already sacrificed much to help Afghans overcome a deadly insurgency that tramples on human rights and murders at will. In the Embassy Magazine, Lee Berthiaume explains why Canadians should stay committed militarily until the mission's objectives are won. An excerpt:
Liberal and Conservative members of the Commons' Special Afghanistan committee have been feeling out public opinion on the idea of deploying several hundred military trainers to Kabul to continue helping Afghan security forces get ready to take over responsibility for their security in 2014. The government has remained mum on the idea.
Meanwhile, by next year, Canada will have fulfilled its pledge to contribute $1.9 billion over 10 years for Afghan reconstruction and development. There has been growing criticism that Canada will fail to finish three signature projects or achieve many of the benchmarks it set for itself following the Manley Panel report in 2008. Some have used this as justification for leaving in 2011.
However, in an exclusive interview last week, Sima Samar, chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, strongly opposed the idea of Canada cutting its losses and leaving.
"Canada should evaluate when it went to Afghanistan, its objectives and how far they reached those objectives and goals," she said. "In my view it's reason enough to stay in. I believe that an incomplete job doesn't help Afghanistan, doesn't help Canadians. And the reputation of Canada, they have to leave a good example of their support in Afghanistan."
At the same time, Ms. Samar encouraged Canada to act upon the idea being vetted by Liberal and Conservative MPs to deploy more military and police trainers to the country, as security and law enforcement are two of the most important steps to ensuring progress.
"I hope they really focus a lot on training of national security forces in Afghanistan or Afghan security forces in order to hand over the responsibility to them," she said.
Human rights violations continue
Following Tuesday's Kabul Conference, Mr. Cannon acknowledged in a statement President Hamid Karzai's commitments in January to address security and governance, protect human rights and fight corruption.
"Today, we have seen the efforts made by the Government of Afghanistan to respond to that call," Mr. Cannon said.
However, Ms. Samar had a much more cautious assessment of the situation. She said while some progress has been made, "there's still a long way to go to free the people from the fear that they have." Security is "deteriorating," she said, and corruption remains a major problem.
According to a recent report from Afghanistan Rights Monitor, 1,074 civilians were killed between January and June of this year, which represented a slight increase from the previous year.
It's estimated that insurgent attacks are responsible for the vast majority of those, particularly since strict rules on when NATO forces can call in airstrikes were introduced. The UN says 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed last year, compared to 2,118 in 2008.
"[The] lack of security or deterioration of security in the country...really has a direct impact on basic human rights," Ms. Samar said.
Another related problem is the lack of proper law enforcement, corruption and impunity, she said.
"There are still some people who are above the law and act above the law," she said. "The majority of the people do not trust the judicial system.... This all ends up with the culture of impunity, unfortunately. The culture of impunity continues in this country. That is itself reducing a lot of confidence with the public on the government and state institutions."
A major step towards progress would be bringing several high-profile actors to justice for illegal activities, she said. Another would be a concerted effort to really build up the Afghan National Police into a quality force that can be counted on.
Instinctively a mother feels the need to always protect her young, but unfortunately in the Cameroon the measures are drastic.
"In a desperate attempt to prevent sexual assault and teen pregnancy, Cameroonian mothers are literally ironing their daughters' breasts with hot stones to make them less attractive.
Breast ironing is not an acceptable form of pregnancy prevention or a replacement for sex education.
The ritual affects a quarter of all women in Cameroon and as soon as they show signs of puberty, sometimes as young as nine. The girls cry as they're held down and scalding hot stones are pressed onto their breasts.
The possible damage of this practice can be severe, including bruises, deformities, abscesses, and even the disappearance of one or both breasts.
Cameroon mothers may think breast ironing is "for their [daughters'] own good," but it's not the way to prevent sexual violence and early pregnancy."
RE: Caribana the best yet, but…the more things change the more they stay the same
Join Date: 12/31/09
Posts: 63
There is absolutely nothing worse than a muslim apologist, taking money from the west, and contributing to the killing of thousands of muslim people, who can't vote or voices not heard. Most certainly by Zion west Inc!
In Canada the Wannabee muslims (that are allowed to preach)condemn this muslim monument, as a 'slap in the face' to the USA people.
The singular truth is that it will be bombed by a 'timothy mcveigh' and good riddance to it. Now some might say that billionaire Zionist Bloomberg agrees with this, so everything is alright. Obama even fell in line today, as per the jewish power, notwithstanding the so called 'left' jewish opinion, or the right jewish opinion, swaying your hatred this way and that.
But the real truth is that america needs investment and so the 100 million, will be money brought back into the us economy. Mayor Bloomberg is not spending a cent for new york, knowing that some 'patriot' is going to blow it up, at some point.
And the rich Muslims, who love the sharia law in their homelands, know that they can come out and pay for the physically nicest blonde, at the finest hotels in america.
And in the meantime, segments of the rabble, as they see it do their bidding, as per their propaganda machine. READ ON AND FELL MOTIVATED! I did not read it, for i have seen it a thousand times before
An American victory: a mosque near Ground Zero
New York finally did the right thing, and the city's nine landmark commissioners unanimously voted to clear the way for a mosque near the Ground Zero site.
The heated national debate about the mosque project revealed both strengths and weaknesses on the part of the US. The main weak point is the vulnerability of the American public to fear mongering by politicians and public intellectuals. Its main strength is its ongoing commitment to the Constitution and values in general.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 inflicted not only physical damage on America but also took a huge psychological toll. Under that psychological stress, the Muslim identities of the perpetrators and their perverted interpretations of Islam led to increased stereotyping. US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, along with many other leaders, have adopted a responsible stance to overcome this. They presented Islam as a religion of peace and suggested that Muslims as a whole should not be blamed. But irresponsible voices within media, religious, intellectual and political circles seem to have proven more effective in shaping public opinion over time. It is no wonder polls have been showing consistent opposition to the idea of a mosque two blocks north of Ground Zero.
The Republican Party has played a particularly unhelpful role on this issue.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, particularly during the primaries, several Republican candidates resorted to unacceptable rhetoric toward Islam and Muslims. In direct or indirect ways, Republicans suggested that Democratic candidate Barack Obama was a Muslim, to hurt his election chances. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell stood against his fellow Republicans who were engaged in fear mongering by asking, "What if he is? Is there something wrong being a Muslim in this country?" But his position apparently is not representative of the mainstream Republican decision-making circles. For instance, two leading Republican figures, presidential hopeful Sarah Palin and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, have recently come out against the idea of a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.
There are many outrageous arguments put forth by the critics of the mosque. Some feel this is a victory for Islamic radicalism. Others see it as a big step toward an Islamic regime in the US. Conspiracy theories usually float around bigotry, don't they? An understandable approach, however, could be privately and friendly approaching the American Muslim leaders of the project and saying:"Could you please consider putting this mosque a little further away? The American public is yet not ready for this. It might spark a huge controversy and an unwarranted negative reaction."
Frankly, if I were a sponsor of this ambitious $100 million project, I would have picked somewhere else at the outset, because the inevitable controversy would not help anyone other than abusive politicians and violent extremists on both sides of the spectrum. Having said that, once it was clear the Muslim sponsors wanted to proceed with this perfectly legal project anyways, every effort should have been made to ensure they weren't treated unjustly. That's what New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did. He deserves high marks not only for his cooperative actions, but also his eloquent words.
At a major speech on the topic delivered in sight of the Statue of Liberty at Governors Island, he said, "We would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else." To cave in to the popular sentiment would be "to hand a victory to the terrorists -- and we should not stand for that," the mayor added. Bloomberg called for honoring the victims of Sept. 11 not 'by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting' but "by defending those rights -- and the freedoms the terrorists attacked."
Mayor Bloomberg was not alone in taking a relatively unpopular and courageous stance. Many other sensible voices were on the same bandwagon. That proves the strength of the rule of law and continued commitment to American values. Opponents of the mosque project might resort to other obstructionist tactics, but I have full confidence in the US judicial system on this matter. Planting seeds of bigotry and effectively calling for religious discrimination is the utmost betrayal of the American way of life and the Constitution. The US as we know it can more easily be destroyed by radical ideologues and selfish politicians from within than by enemies from the Muslim world or elsewhere. 10 August 2010, Tuesday ALI H. ASLAN Dr. Ahmet Emin SEYHAN , Aug 11 2010 03:26, Wednesday Planting seeds of bigotry and effectively calling for religious discrimination is the utmost betrayal of the American wa... saad , Aug 10 2010 11:15, Tuesday Will it not be more sensible if we have the mosque a little farther away???
RE: Pregnant widow accused of adultery executed by Taliban
Join Date: 12/31/09
Posts: 63
Hi Carol, Sharia law for the Muslims did not originate when Bush Zion Inc/Usa invaded Afghanistan some 10 years ago. It has existed for centuries, even before the west stole the earth.
Saudi Arabia, a client state of USA, not only has those same laws, governing adultery, but beheads people ,every Friday, in a town square. That despotic dictatorship does not even allow women to drive.
Today, on the BBC, the two headlines are as follows:" Iraq not ready for US pullout" and "Iran stoning woman confesses". In the first headline ; it was the Iraqi general, put in by Zion America that made the statement, just like the scores of Afghanistan installed us puppets that frequent your 'truth' (self-proclaimed) media, when a drone wiped out a village, or Kabul is attacked by freedom/independent Afghanistan fighters.
Can you and yours truly(Zion Inc) venture a guess, as to how long that puppet Iraqi general would last, were the usa to actually leave Iraq. Now the 'coalition of the willing' has approximately 140,000 troops, not counting Israel Blackwater Inc, in Iraq.
But Obama is leaving 50,000 troops from freedom usa to man the Green Zone (larger than the vatican) & 13 more fortresses/bases. Now logic would tell me that this does not amount to a 'pull-out', but who the hell am i to question god's self chosen ones.
To cut it short; the logic i apply is this. These stories, sad as it may be if true, affects very few people, when one looks at the bigger picture. Is your usa general justifying the massacre of thousands upon thousands of Afghanistan people, for the freedom of women to commit adultery?
From American news the following has been written; The total US debt is $55 trillion. 1 million houses will be foreclosed in 2010 and even though the powers that be still list the unemployed at 10%; it is actually more than 20%.
The entire infrastructure of america is crumbling & many states are resorting to outing street lights and digging up roads, for there is no money to re-pave them.
In the meantime, the us carrier George Washington is on it's way to the yellow sea, despite China's objection, to put themselves squarely into the last Zionist stand for world dominance, by aggressive, evil intent.
China, from western sources, will unveil a bomb, before the year end, that with 3, could sink that and all carriers.
A poll in China revealed that 87% understood that USA was an enemy. Try dropping bombs on people that can actually fight back.
It's been 10 years of solid war propaganda, to re-vitalize the hatred of the oppressors, when things are not going so well. From the muslim heretics, to the members of the puppet governments, to the jewish think tanks and university professors, who motivate you by 'a difference of view', but collectively resolute in action. You know the ; ' i would have gone about it different from bush"!
Every second on this planet earth, a child dies from starvation/aids or water borne diseases. America is 300 million people but has the highest, by far, incarcerated, 75 % coloured people and the most on 'death row'.
Now how does a drone, controlled by computer, silent death, explode, kill and destroy humans from hundreds of miles away & yet the western press has the body count, the very next day? That's logic.
RE: Pregnant widow accused of adultery executed by Taliban
Join Date: 06/04/02
Posts: 645
Karl, welcome!
May I suggest quite an interesting leap of logic so I too need some clarification. With all due respects what does one thing have to do with the other? Are you suggesting that this situation did not happen or it should not be viewed as a big deal based on what you think is happening elsewhere? I wonder whatever happened to the man with whom she committed the adultery......lol
RE: Pregnant widow accused of adultery executed by Taliban
Join Date: 12/31/09
Posts: 63
If possible, i need clarification on some points. I thought that the USA and it's coalition forces were controlling Afghanistan?
Further to this story, the 'district governor' has a 'shadow' Taliban governor. But how is that possibly with 90,000 plus usa armed to the teeth?
Mr Green Card/ex-south american 'torres' says that; 'the people of Afghanistan want peace and freedom, but he did not mention from whom or what.
In the beginning, it was to destroy Al Qaieda for 9/11. Then it was to get rid of the Taliban, who were armed to the teeth, to fight the Russians, by America.
The story then morphed into women's rights and gay rights and one whole bag of lies, that are only believed by americans and a small pathetic bunch of wannabees, who have their own racist or religious axe to grind.
Wikipedia leaks have 90,000 documents, many showing the outright, blatant & deliberate massacre of hundreds of innocent Afghanistan people, but that is of no consequence.
The Zionists that run america have run them to the ground, and the only thing left to export is war. That to many is of no consequence.
The jews can murder, assassinate and threaten daily those that question their moral & legal legitimacy, but that is of no consequence.
USA is now taking their wars to China & soon Chinese people will benefit from the Zion plans just like Muslims, but that also is of no consequence.
But this great game is going to fail and it was never the Taliban's fault or China or Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Africa or Pakistan (which those 'wikileaks' were actually directed at). It is the Zionists filling your heads with Sodom & Gomorrah for centuries, whilst planning to steal the world, with ridiculous folklore of how 'they are god's chosen'.
Now China has stopped the american fleet from entering the South China seas, two weeks ago, but america seems like it wants to press the issue, and that is the story to watch.
I sincerely hope for the armageddon that you 'born again' zion led christians want, for the vast majority of humans are simply fed up with the stench that permeates this earth.
Pregnant widow accused of adultery executed by Taliban
Join Date: 06/22/02
Posts: 466
By Matiullah Mati, CNN August 9, 2010 -- Updated 1911 GMT (0311 HKT)
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban has executed a pregnant widow accused of adultery in western Afghanistan, provincial and district officials said Monday.
The 47-year-old woman, Sanam Gul, also known as Sanam Bibi, was killed in Badghis province Saturday morning, said Ashrafuddin Majidi, the provincial governor's spokesman.
The district governor of Qades, Hashim Habibi, confirmed the execution. He said the woman was accused of adultery that left her pregnant. The Taliban shadow district governor, Mullah Abdul Hakim, and his judge ordered the woman to be executed, he said.
Mohammad Yousuf, a Taliban commander, carried out the execution, shooting the woman in her head, Habibi said.
The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan condemned the killing. "This tragic gruesome brutality is an example of Taliban justice," said U.S. Army Col. Rafael Torres, director of the ISAF Joint Command Combined Joint Operations Center. "This is not what the people of Afghanistan want -- they want peace and freedom and that's what we're going to help provide."
The statement from the ISAF cited reports that the widow was whipped 200 times before she was shot.
On this day in 1973, the actor and martial-arts expert Bruce Lee dies in Los Angeles at age 32 from a brain edema possibly caused by a reaction to a prescription painkiller. During Lee’s all-too-brief career, he became a movie star in Asia and, posthumously, in America. Jun Fan (Bruce) Lee was born on November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, California. At the time, his father, a Chinese opera star, was on tour in the United States. The family moved back to Hong Kong in 1941. Growing up, Lee was a child actor who appeared in some 20 Chinese films; he also studied dancing and trained in the Wing Chun style of gung fu (also known as “kung fu”). In 1959, Lee returned to America, where he eventually attended the University of Washington and opened a martial-arts school in Seattle. In 1964, Lee married Linda Emery, who in 1965 gave birth to Brandon Lee, the first of the couple’s two children. In 1966, the Lees moved to Los Angeles and Bruce appeared on the television program The Green Hornet (1966-1967), playing the Hornet’s acrobatic sidekick Kato. Lee also appeared in karate tournaments around the United States and continued to teach martial arts to private clients including the actor Steve McQueen. In search of better acting roles than Hollywood was offering, Lee returned to Hong Kong in the early 1970s and successfully established himself as a star in Asia with the action movies The Big Boss (1971) and The Way of the Dragon (1972), which he wrote, directed and starred in. Lee’s next film, Enter the Dragon, was released in the United States by Hollywood studio Warner Bros. in August 1973. Tragically, Lee had died one month earlier, on July 20, in Hong Kong, after suffering a brain edema believed to be caused by an adverse reaction to a pain medication. Enter the Dragon was a box-office hit, eventually grossing more than $200 million, and Lee posthumously became a movie icon in America. Lee’s body was returned to Seattle, where he was buried. His sudden death at the young age of 32 led to rumors and speculation about the cause of his demise. One theory held that Lee had been murdered by Chinese gangsters while another rumor circulated that the actor had been the victim of a curse. The family-curse theory resurfaced when Lee’s 28-year-old son Brandon, who had followed in his father’s footsteps to become an actor, died in an accidental shooting on the set of the movie The Crow on March 31, 1991. The younger Lee was buried next to his father at Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery.
Over 100 million missing women - that's the number Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen came up with in 1990, referring to the number of females aborted, killed or neglected to death in China, South Asia, West Asia and North Africa. That was then, and this is now. Most of us know that China and northern India have unnaturally large numbers of boys. But you may not realize how bad the problem is, or that it is getting worse.
In China the imbalance between the sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls in the late 1980s; now more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. (Statistics reveal that slightly more boys than girls are born naturally, but nothing like this.) And although the situation is most extreme in China, it has spread far and wide. According to the Economist in their March 6 leader, "Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan and Singapore, former communist states in the western Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America's population: all these have distorted sex ratios..... it is no exaggeration to call this gendercide."
Why this destruction? The Economist cites three main reasons: the ancient preference for sons; the modern wish for smaller families; ultrasound technologies that identify the sex of a fetus, leading to the common procedure of gender selection abortions.
As a result of these policies, there is a huge gender imbalance: In terms of China, possibly the worst offender, more than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses by 2020, according to a study issued in January by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.The gender imbalance among newborns is the most serious demographic problem for the country's population of 1.3 billion, says the academy.
There are other side effects: * The growing gender imbalance means that bride abduction, forced prostitution and human trafficking have become "rampant" in some parts of the country, according to the researchers.
* The World Health Organization reports that female suicide rates in China are among the highest in the world
All this is horrible news for women and women's rights. A policy that dictates the aborting of female fetuses seems unthinkable in the 21st century; yet not only is the practice in place, it is actually growing.
One country has been able to halt this female infanticide. In the 1990s, South Korea had a sex ratio similar to China's. Thanks to female education, anti-discrimination lawsuits and equal-rights rulings, this has changed and their statistics reveal an almost-normal gender ratio today.
All countries need to raise the value of girls, and do whatever it takes to slow down and stop this horrifying female infanticide.
An Afghan woman in Kabul votes during her country's presidential election on August 20, 2009.
PEDRO UGARTE / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
In late April, if all goes according to plan, a resident of Kabul will fold up a paper ballot and push in into an empty box. It will mark the first time an Afghan citizen will have voted — for a candidate in the United Kingdom.
That's the idea behind an initiative called Give Your Vote, in which U.K. citizens will voluntarily give up their votes in the parliamentary elections expected to take place May 6 to residents in the developing world. The aim is less to tip the British elections one way or the other than to highlight the limitations of local decision-making in an increasingly interconnected world. "Right now, the people making decisions on things like climate change aren't getting their authority from the guy in Bangladesh whose house is being flooded," says James Sadri, one of the founders of Egality, the British activist group behind the project. "But what if the politicians did have to answer to these people? Would it change their position on climate change, poverty and war?" (See pictures of the presidential election in Afghanistan.)
Here's how the program, which launches on March 15, will work: British volunteers will pose questions from people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana to U.K. parliamentary candidates at town hall meetings or through party offices, and the answers will then be discussed on television and radio in each of the three countries. A week before the U.K. vote, Egality will hold an American Idol-style election in the countries, in which people will cast votes for their preferred U.K. party — Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat. The following week, British citizens who decide to participate in the program — organizers are hoping for a few thousand — will receive a text message from Egality telling them how to cast their ballot. The votes will be doled out based on the proportion each party received in the overseas elections. (See pictures of Brits voting.)
The idea came to Sadri in 2008, when he was studying Arabic in Damascus. He and his housemates — a group of Iraqi refugees — were watching Barack Obama, then a presidential candidate, debate his opponent John McCain on the war in Iraq. "It just seemed bizarre that this supposedly big democratic moment in the United States was missing such a vital component — the voice of the Iraqi people themselves," says Sadri. "National democracy is all very well if you're a strong country like the U.S. or the U.K. But if you live in a relatively weak state, you can have a democracy that's as effective as you want, and you still won't have a voice on a lot of the key issues that affect you." (See pictures of Iraq's revival.)
Take the issue of global warming. During the climate summit in Copenhagen in December, the biggest rifts were between the rich countries most responsible for global warming and the developing nations where its effects will be hardest felt. Representatives from poor countries attempted to raise the stakes by staging a walkout. But when a deal was finally struck, it was the major polluters — the U.S. and China — who dominated the discussion, not the world's smallest and least developed states.
For residents of the U.K., dealing with climate change means accepting a higher price on everything from gasoline to electricity. In crowded, low-lying Bangladesh, it means trying to avoid catastrophic flooding. Atique Chowdhury, Give Your Vote's organizer in Dhaka, is a self-described climate refugee, a former resident of an island near the Bay of Bengal that has been almost completely abandoned because of rising sea levels. "As a major emitter of carbon dioxide, the U.K. must take the responsibility," he says. But developing nations still want a say on how that's done. (See pictures of British soldiers in Afghanistan.)
Expanding the U.K. election debate to people in the developing world could yield insights that ordinary British voters might not have. "Notoriously, at election time, nobody talks about global issues," says May Abdalla, who is coordinating the program in London. "It's all very parochial." There's even a chance the initiative could inspire a renewed interest in British democracy. "It's kind of re-energizing," says Onyeka Igwe, a documentary filmmaker in London who heard about the project on Facebook and plans to participate. "Giving up my vote actually makes me feel like my vote has more power than if it was just me voting."
Yet giving a U.K. vote to people in far-flung countries may not yield a predictable result. When the Economist ran an online poll for people around the world to pick their preferred U.S. presidential candidate in 2008, Iraq was one of the few countries that favored McCain over Obama. In the U.K., there are no differences among the major parties on the country's Afghanistan policy — and certainly no big-name politicians calling for the 9,000 British troops to be pulled out. But that doesn't mean the U.K.'s newest voters won't have an opinion on the mission. "Right now, all the aid money is being spent in the conflict areas," says Reza Khateb, a program volunteer in Kabul. "If you spend your money in the secure areas, it will be more visible to the people." (Read: "Iraq: Political Turmoil Threatens as Votes Are Counted.")
"We've been affected by the U.K. politicians for 200 years," he adds. This year, it might be the other way around.
My first experience with this type of a situation was in Sri Lanka. While we should look to our Government to invest in empowering women they must also address attitudes which condone and perpetuate violence against women and children. They have to encourage and look to men to make a difference by driving awareness in communities about violence against women.
"DID YOU KNOW? In the ninety-plus years since its inception, International Women's Day has formed a rallying point for coordinated efforts by the growing international women's movement to call for women's rights and increased participation in the political and economic process. It is also a time to reflect on progress made, and to commemorate the lives of women who have played courageous roles in the history of women's rights. More... "
However our work is not done. Women and children are still being abused all over the world including South America and in several of these countries the Governments, system of policing and laws are falling short but today we celebrate the strides and efforts of many.
PANCHKULA, India — She was a gifted 14-year-old tennis player who idolized Steffi Graf and hoped to turn pro. He was a senior police official and president of the state lawn tennis club. He lured her to his office with a promise of special coaching that could make her tennis dreams come true, then groped her.
The New York Times
After his daughter's suicide, Mr. Girotra left Panchkula.
This encounter set in motion a saga that has taken almost 20 years to unfold. The family of the girl, Ruchika Girotra, threatened to press charges. Shambhu Pratap Singh Rathore, a senior officer in the Haryana State Police, then waged a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Ruchika so severe that she eventually committed suicide. Her brother, Ashu, was falsely accused of stealing cars, and said he had been beaten and tortured in custody. All the while Mr. Rathore, a flamboyant, mustachioed presence with deep ties to many of the state’s top politicians, rose through the ranks, retiring in 2002 as a state police chief. Ruchika Girotra’s ordeal is hardly unique. Girls are molested all the time in India; powerful officials often abuse their office to avoid criminal prosecution; sclerotic courts are painfully slow and often corrupt. But the case is emblematic of the way India’s growing middle class, egged on by a lively news media hungry for sensational stories, is increasingly unwilling to accept these seemingly immutable truths and willing to fight back. And increasingly the courts of law and public opinion have forced the government to act against the grossest abuses of power. The fight for justice for Ruchika has become a symbol of middle-class rage at a broken system. “This was a cute girl from a middle-class family,” said Ranjana Kumari, a leading women’s rights advocate and director of the Center for Social Research in New Delhi. “The media, the activist groups and eventually the politicians could no longer ignore it. It has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with India.” Mr. Rathore, reached by telephone at his home, declined to discuss the case. “I am not talking to the media,” he said. “The courts will decide the issue.” A chronology of the Girotra family’s ordeal has been pieced together from interviews with witnesses and court documents and police records. On Aug. 11, 1990, Mr. Rathore went to the tidy home in Panchkula of S. C. Girotra, a widower and bank manager, to talk to him about Mr. Girotra’s daughter, Ruchika. The girl was a gifted player, Mr. Rathore said, and could go far with good training. The next day Ruchika went to see him at his office, bringing her friend Aradhna along. Mr. Rathore asked the two girls to come into his office, then sent Aradhna out of the room. When she came back a few minutes later she saw Mr. Rathore pressing himself against Ruchika. “I saw him holding Ruchika tightly,” she said. “She couldn’t even breathe.” Startled, Mr. Rathore let go, and Ruchika ran out of the room. He turned to Aradhna and said, “Ask her to cool down, and I will do whatever she will say,” according to a police report. Aradhna found Ruchika sobbing outside. As they walked home, they wondered what to do. “We were really scared,” Aradhna said. “We asked ourselves, ‘Can we ignore it?’ ” Even at that age they knew that a senior police officer like Mr. Rathore had the power to harm their families, she said. They decided to keep silent. But the next day Mr. Rathore called Ruchika to his office again. Terrified, they told their parents. Mr. Girotra and several of his neighbors went to Mr. Rathore’s house to confront him. Mr. Girotra said that all he wanted was an apology. But Mr. Rathore slipped away. Mr. Girotra wrote to Haryana’s top government officials. At first everyone seemed to take the matter very seriously. The state’s director general of police, R. R. Singh, urged that criminal charges be filed against Mr. Rathore. But the charges never materialized; under Indian criminal law the police have enormous latitude in deciding whether to open a case and did not do so. Instead, a campaign of harassment began against Ruchika and her family. First she was expelled from school. The principal of the Roman Catholic school she attended claimed she had been thrown out for not paying her fees. Mr. Girotra tried to pay the small amount that was past due, but the principal refused to accept his money.
S. C. Girotra, right, and his son, Ashu, said they were tormented for seeking justice against an official who molested Ashu's sister.
“I told her, ‘Look here, Ruchika is the victim,’ ” he said. An investigation conducted years later discovered that many other girls, including Mr. Rathore’s daughter, were also behind on their tuition payments and had not been expelled. Ruchika was hounded everywhere she went, so she began a life of confinement. “She was such a bubbly character before all this,” said her brother, Ashu. But she folded into herself, blaming herself for the family’s misfortunes, wishing she had never told anyone about the incident. The case against Mr. Rathore stalled. Mr. Girotra continued agitating, but he found every door closed to him. “He was so powerful,” Mr. Girotra said of Mr. Rathore. “He had clout. All of the politicians were hand in glove with him.” Three years passed. Ashu, by then a 19-year-old college student, was arrested on suspicion of stealing cars and imprisoned. He was beaten and fed only tea and bread for two months, he said. “They tied my hands behind my back and hung me upside down,” he said. “They took off my trousers and beat my legs with leather belts and sticks.” He was finally released on bail, and Mr. Girotra wept when he saw his son, wasted away and barely able to walk. Ruchika took it even harder. “She held herself responsible for this state of affairs,” Ashu said. Soon he was arrested again, and held for weeks without explanation. On Dec. 25, 1993, the police brought Ashu to the Girotras’ neighborhood and paraded him through the streets, battered and in handcuffs. “The policemen told Ruchika: ‘You see the condition of your brother? The same thing will happen to your father also,’ ” Mr. Girotra said. Three days later Mr. Girotra found his daughter unconscious in her bed, white froth on her lips. She had taken poison. She died the next day, at age 18. Ashu was released the day after his sister’s body was cremated. A judge later concluded that the there was no evidence to support the charges against him. But the years of legal trouble shattered his dream of becoming an army officer or a civil servant. Mr. Girotra sold his house as quickly as he could for a fraction of its value and moved with his son to another state. As the Girotra family’s fortunes plummeted, Mr. Rathore’s career took off. He was promoted by a series of chief ministers, winning the top police post in the state in 1999. But the Ruchika case did not go away. Ruchika’s friend Aradhna and her parents, Anand and Madhu Parkash, kept pressing for a full investigation. “Ruchika’s death made it impossible for us to let the case go,” said Mr. Parkash, a silver-haired retired bureaucrat. “If someone is molesting my daughter’s friend today, someone will molest my daughter tomorrow.” That decision came at a price. Mr. Rathore filed civil and criminal cases against the family. Mr. Parkash was demoted and ultimately forced to retire early at a lower pension. But the telegenic, articulate Parkash family caught the attention of India’s flourishing 24-hour television news stations, which embraced Ruchika’s story as a crusade. The economic reforms of the early 1990s had given rise to a small but growing Indian middle class, and many families saw their own children in Ruchika. The Parkash family waged a much-publicized battle in the courts to get charges filed against Mr. Rathore, and finally, in 1999, the Haryana High Court ruled in their favor. In January 2000, nearly a decade after the incident, Mr. Rathore was charged with molesting Ruchika Girotra. He faced a sentence of up to two years in prison if convicted. He was placed on leave from the police force. The trial stretched on for almost another decade. Mr. Rathore’s wife, Abha, a well-known High Court lawyer, defended him. Mr. Girotra said that the defense found endless ways to drag out the trial. There were more than 400 hearings and repeated continuances. Mrs. Rathore cross-examined witnesses for months. Finally, on Dec. 21, 2009, nearly two decades after the crime, Mr. Rathore was convicted of molesting Ruchika. The judge gave him a reduced sentence of six months in prison after his wife argued that the long trial and Mr. Rathore’s age, 67, entitled him to leniency. He was also fined 1,000 rupees, about $22. Mr. Rathore is out on bail as he appeals the verdict. Mr. Girotra and his son have filed new charges against Mr. Rathore for his involvement in the son’s arrest and treatment. Now the Girotra and Parkash families want the government to charge Mr. Rathore with a more serious crime, abetment to suicide, contending that he drove Ruchika to her death. That crime carries a 10-year sentence. The government is planning changes to its criminal procedures in response to the case. Now officers will be required to file charges based on the victim’s statement alone in cases involving sexual crimes, a measure aimed at making it harder to evade investigation. It is also considering fast-track courts to deal with such crimes. Mr. Parkash said these changes were proof that the people could take on the powerful and win. “This is a fight against a rotten system,” he said. “We have to do our duty. I will take this case to its logical end, until the end of my life.”
Lathmar Holi - variaton of Phagwah Spring Festival
Join Date: 10/01/07
Posts: 1,727
Can you imagine this in Guyana...that new water cannon would be put to use....
UK Guardian March1, 2010
People celebrate Lathmar Holi, a variation of the Hindu spring festival Holi in which the women beat the men with sticks. The traditional Holi festival is celebrated on 1 March.... See photos...
Looting breaks out in Concepcion after deadly earthquake in Chile; death count soars
Join Date: 10/01/07
Posts: 1,727
New York daily News March 1, 2010
Chili's president called on the army Sunday to stop an outbreak of looting, a day after one of the most powerful earthquakes on record slammed the wealthy South American nation. read on...
India, Pakistan hold first talks since Mumbai terror attacks
Join Date: 10/01/07
Posts: 1,727
New York Daily News feb 25, 2010
New Delhi - India and Pakistan held wide-ranging discussions Thursday about terrorism, Kashmir, and other disputes in the first talks between the rival nations since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. read more...
Is Mr Slackman Jewish? Does he have the dual passport? Is the one Cell phone call publicized on the self proclaimed 'most trusted'-CNN some months ago during Iran's election unrest, enough to satisfy the dumbned west populous (american idol, survival etc.) of somebody in some apartment complex screaming of somebody coming & doing ???-It was not really clear; Is it enough to bomb 70 million people?
There are many thousands of immigrants living in the 'west', who make serious money as informants/advisors or research analysts. They are many on the payroll of the west, to go back and cause trouble, at certain times.
Sometimes the pictures shown on the west TV , does not gel with the commentary. It fools most, because they are mostly ignorant from lack of education etc. This is the real dilemma of western civilization. How to compete in a world created by us where we are the inferior, except in 'weapons of mass democracy'.
The systematic programmed illiteracy of their youth, to jive with their graphic displays & commentary, not just misleading but downright lies. Whipping up hatred for people that don't even know them and could not care less about them and their gay rights or equality after years of enslavement of people. For it is only fools or downright Zionists, Racists or people working in the very system (mentioned), that could believe in the constant war beats/drums that come out of this madness, repeatedely.
In putting her in her place, a teacher responded; ' ALL WRITTEN WORD IS PROPAGANDA'. I then went on to inform her that we live in the 'West' so all we hear is the west propaganda. There was no reply but the problem did not go away.
Some accept & acquiesce and some demand truth. That's life!.
Obama meets with Dalai Lama despite Chinese objections
Join Date: 10/01/07
Posts: 1,727
Guyana Chronicle Feb 19, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- President Obama met with the Dalai Lama -- the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader -- at the White House yesterday, despite strong objections from Chinese government officials. The meeting has the potential to further complicate Sino-U.S.tensions, which have been rising in recent months. China has warned it would damage Beijing's ties to Washington. read article...
CAIRO — In recent weeks, security officials have unleashed an epidemic of arrests across Iran in an effort to neutralize the political opposition, silence critical voices and head off widespread protests when the nation observes the anniversary of the revolution on Thursday, Iran analysts inside and outside the country said.
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Iranian security officers on motorcycles surrounded antigovernment protesters on foot during clashes in Tehran on Dec. 27.
Though the government has refrained from arresting the principal leaders of the opposition, the category of people it has pursued has grown broader over time. While a number of well-known reformists were detained shortly after the contested presidential election last June, the ranks of those imprisoned now include artists, photographers, children’s rights advocates, women’s rights activists, students and scores of journalists. Iran now has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world, with at least 65 in custody, according to Reporters Without Borders. Reports have filtered out from Iran of people being roused from their beds during midnight raids and disappearing into the penal system without an official word to family and friends, and of overcrowded jails and long stays in solitary confinement, according to human rights groups. In what appeared to be a first, the Revolutionary Court summoned Tuesday the wife and children of an imprisoned journalist, Mohammad Nourizad, to appear as “political prisoners,” the official Web site of the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, reported. This appeared to be connected to an open letter that Mr. Nourizad’s wife, Fatemeh Maleki, wrote recently to the people of Iran, said the site, called Kaleme. Though the government does not report the numbers of those arrested, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a group based in New York, calculated that in the past two months at least 1,000 people have been imprisoned, many arrested under a blanket detention order issued in June that empowers the police to take anyone into custody for any reason. “We don’t believe their detention has to do with any specific acts they have committed but for the ideas and ways of thinking they represent,” said Hadi Ghaemi, director of the human rights group. “By detaining them en masse, the government is spreading fear and intimidation, implementing a sort of a reign of terror, to dissuade potential protesters from coming out to the streets on Feb. 11.” Iran experts say the security sweeps reveal a concerted effort by the leadership to transform the country into a more efficient police state while extending its crackdown from those involved in the protest and reform movements to anyone calling for change. Lately, the authorities seem to have singled out two groups in particular: journalists, including political and cultural reporters and editors, and women’s rights activists, who have years of experience in organizing and maintaining a movement in the face of a hostile government. Iran’s leadership says it is determined to maintain control of the streets on the anniversary of the revolution, one of the most emotionally charged days in the Iranian calendar. In this smoldering political conflict, the opposition and the government have both tried to claim the mantle of the true heir to the revolution. Iranian officials often rely on large crowds of people — many of them paid by the government, the opposition charges — to prove the government’s legitimacy, and on Thursday the streets are likely to be filled with the state’s supporters as well as its opponents. The pace of arrests, which soared in the summer, picked up again at year’s end after tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets around the country during the national observance of Ashura, a religious day of mourning observed by Shiite Muslims. At least 10 people were killed when government forces opened fire on unarmed protesters. But in scenes circulated around the world on the Internet, protesters were seen fighting back, chasing after government gunmen, blocking roads and burning government vehicles. With those images clearly in mind, the government has moved aggressively to try to prevent a repeat. Experts say the officials have reason to be nervous. Even without calls from the principal opposition leaders, enormous crowds filled the streets on Ashura. This time those leaders, Mr. Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have both issued calls to people to pour into the streets. “There are signs of an exceedingly nervous security apparatus that is deeply concerned about the outcome,” said Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University. The government response has been to try to intimidate, Iran experts and opposition leaders said. That has included imposing the death penalty on 11 prisoners, and hanging two. Five more death penalty cases are currently being prosecuted. In the most recent crackdown, the government has rounded up scores of journalists, and not just those of the opposition. Reporters working for the semiofficial news agencies Mehr and ISNA have also been detained. The list of those arrested is a virtual Who’s Who of Iranian journalism, among them: Akbar Montajabi, political editor of the newspaper Etemad-e Melli; Ahmad Jalali-Farahani, the social affairs editor of Mehr; and Zeinab Kazemkhah, an arts and culture writer for ISNA. Other journalists, like Ahmad Zeydabadi and Masoud Bastani, arrested shortly after the election, have been sentenced to long prison terms in secret court proceedings. “The Islamic government thinks that by such tactics it will stifle all true information, all real reporting, and so will be able to flood the news with only what it wants,” said Hossein Ziai, the director of Iranian studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. No opposition or rights group has escaped, including the Mourning Mothers, an organization founded by women whose children were killed by government agents in the protests that broke out after the election in June. Every Saturday, members of the group and their supporters sit quietly near the fountains in Laleh Park in Tehran. And every Saturday, they are chased down by the police, piled into the back of police vans and carted off to prison, according to witnesses. “It shows how frightened they are of their own people, when they cannot tolerate mothers who are holding a silent vigil and want accountability,” Mr. Ghaemi said. The opposition today is adopting a tactic that was pioneered by the women’s movement, a decentralization of power so that the campaign continues even if a leader is arrested. The political opposition’s apparent weakness, its failure to coalesce into an organized movement, has also made it virtually impossible to shut down, even in the face of widespread arrests. “I am not sure what will happen on Thursday,” said Prof. Ali Ansari of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “Either way, it doesn’t look good for the authorities.”
RE: Cancer Awareness - Does Sharing Your Bra Color Equal Breast Cancer Awareness?
Join Date: 06/04/02
Posts: 645
Riley Karbon is a field intern and the following is what she said on NOW's blog. So at the risk of being considered a square or whatever else you find fitting I do agree that breast cancer is certainly a serious issue and is no longer unique to women.
Earlier last week, a flood of colorful status updates swept women's profiles on the social networking site Facebook. In response to a forwarded message, women were supposed to post the color of their bra in order to raise awareness about breast cancer. The message I received from a female friend said:
"We are playing a game...... silly, but fun! Write the color of your bra as your status, just the color, nothing else!! Copy this and pass it on to women you know. This will be fun to see how it spreads, and we are leaving the men wondering why all females just have a color as their status!! Let's have fun!! Be breast cancer aware!!!"
Reading this message with another friend of mine, we decided to play along by posting the colors of our bras. Not the ones we were wearing that day (both tan), but the decidedly sexier ones that we weren't. I posted "blue" and she, "leopard print." Why did we feel the pressure to lie and write something supposedly more racy? Even though men, the presumed recipients of our aesthetically pleasing lingerie vibes, were clueless to the real meaning behind the colorful status updates? We all know that the most comfy or supportive, and therefore most likely to be worn bras, tend to fall in the white to boring category. It's true. And yet the majority of statuses I read were elaborate descriptions of undergarments I couldn't even imagine, and frankly some sounded a little painful. Perhaps my comrade and I knew that when the men eventually found out about the "game" we wanted to make sure we had societal and patriarchy-approved answers.
Besides putting perhaps unintended pressure on women to lie about their lingerie, the message did not achieve its goal of breast cancer awareness. I'm betting most women, like myself, forgot about the reason for the "game" as soon as they "liked" another woman's bra status. Reducing women to their body parts is not new to breast cancer awareness campaigns, but this message went a step further by excluding men. Men can get breast cancer and/or support its research as much as women can support research for testicular cancer. Why would we want to exclude half the world's population in the fight against this terrible disease? This doesn't make any sense. And raising awareness is good to begin with, but why didn't we take the message a step further by promoting actions that individuals could take to monitor their own breast health and support advocacy work. This would have been much more effective.
Unfortunately the origin of the message cannot be traced, but it doesn't seem to have come from any established breast cancer organization. I now regret the quick decision to lie about my bra status, but in the future I'll either post more informative awareness statuses or just stick to what I ate that morning.
CaribWorldNews, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Jan. 19, 2010: If you don`t care about Haiti well at least be very, very concerned about the Big Quake should it strike California or any other U.S. state.....read commentary....
The information below was shared with me which I think everyone should be aware of.... Check your tires please...
Mark
Attached is a video link that's a must see. It's about brand new; old tires that may be on your car. Yes, I did say "brand new, old!" Watch the video and you'll understand. It may save your life, or someone you know. I recommend everyone review this video and take what steps you think are appropriate,and send to every one you know. I'm gonna check my tires tomorrow
1) The Norwegian Refugee Council report Climate Changed: People Displaced (by Vikram Kolmannskog) is available at http://www.nrc.no/?did=9448676
and
2) The paper "Climate change, disaster, displacement and migration: initial evidence from Africa" (also by Vikram Kolmannskog), published by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees is attached here and available at http://www.unhcr.org/4b18e3599.html
China Transparency Pledge Moves Copenhagen Talks Forward
China advanced hope for a global climate accord Thursday, saying it would enhance the information it makes available to other countries about its carbon emissions and submit that reporting to some form of international review.
This opens the door to a potential agreement that ensures transparency in a way that is not intrusive and respects China's sovereignty. It is a welcome sign of how serious the Chinese are about taking action against climate change.
The announcement was made by He Yafei, China's vice minister for foreign affairs, at a press conference at the UN climate summit. He said China would enhance and improve national communication to improve transparency, and that it would consider international exchange, dialogue and cooperation on these issues.
Transparency has been a sticking point between U.S. negotiators and the Chinese. The apparent opening came hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the United States would participate in a global climate fund to reach $100 billion a year by 2020. (See transcript here.) The money would be used to help low income countries cope with the ills of climate change.
Neither Secretary Clinton nor Vice Minister He drew a direct link between the moves. Both announcements, though, reflected forward motion by the two countries. Together, China and the United States account for about 40 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. For that reason, the two countries are regarded as essential to getting a global climate change accord.
President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed to forge a strategic partnership around climate and energy issues when they met last month in Beijing.
China's willingness to engage in a constructive way on the issue of international reporting and review reflects the spirit of the new partnership. We look forward to continued progress on this front.
For those of you interested in the goings on in Copenhagen at the Climate Change Conference. See the following highlights:
Oceans Day highlights the need to focus attention on oceans, coasts, and SIDS in the climate negotiations beyond Copenhagen
Oceans Day at Copenhagen UNFCCC COP-15 (December 14, 2009), the first-ever Oceans Day at a UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, brought together 320 leaders from governments, UN agencies, NGOs, science, and industry from 40 countries to focus on the central role of the oceans in climate change and the fact that close to 50% of the world’s population living in coastal areas will suffer disproportionately from ocean warming, sea level rise, extreme weather events, and ocean acidification.
Oceans Day underscored the following for consideration by UNFCCC negotiators in the climate talks beyond Copenhagen:
1. The UNFCCC negotiating text should recognize that oceans (70% of the earth) play a central role in climate--oceans generate oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide (about 30%) and regulate climate and temperature. When these functions are threatened, the future of the planet is threatened.
2. There is a need to craft an integrated oceans and coasts program within the UNFCCC by 2013 emphasizing the following major elements:
a) Proceed with utmost caution to ensure the continuing functioning of the oceans in sustaining life on Earth by adopting the most stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, within a short timeframe, to avoid disastrous consequences on oceans and coastal communities around the world;
b) Emphasize the positive contribution that oceans can play in mitigation of global warming, such as: Using natural carbon sinks in coastal areas (such as mangroves, kelp forests, coral reefs); carbon capture and storage through injection into deep seabed geological formations; taking further measures to reduce air pollution from ships; developing ocean-based renewable energy (such as windpower, currents, tides);
c) Provide sufficient funding to support adaptation for coastal and island communities that are at the frontline of climate change in 173 coastal countries. Current estimates of adaptation costs in coastal areas and small island States are woefully inadequate;
d) Adaptation strategies in coastal communities and island nations should encourage ecosystem-based adaptation strategies that increase the resilience of key coastal and marine ecosystems, and be implemented through integrated coastal and ocean management institutions and processes at local, national, and regional scales (e.g., Large Marine Ecosystems, Regional Seas).
3. World leaders underscored the centrality of oceans in climate and the hazards faced by coastal and island communities. H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco noted that “[Oceans] are sources of food, industry, energy. They are the lungs of our planet, precious generators of oxygen. They are indispensable thermo-regulators that attenuate climate change by absorbing CO2.” Monique Barbut, CEO of the Global Environment Facility, underlined that “the powerful link between oceans and climate is too often a neglected one. When you protect the oceans you protect the planet.” Indonesia’s Minister Fadel Muhammad said that “the Coral Triangle region, which is home to significant hotspots of marine biological diversity, is seriously threatened by climate change impacts, including sea level rise and ocean warming as well as ocean acidification.” UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Hilary Benn warned about ocean acidification and its potential impacts on food security. Jane Lubchenco, US Under Secretary of Commerce and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration emphasized that “Today, as never before, we better comprehend the connections between healthy oceans and healthy people, and the myriad interactions among land, air, fresh water, ocean, ice, and human activities.” Jacqueline McGlade, European Environment Agency Director, underscored the need for the UNFCCC program to rely on marine scientific information in addition to terrestrial and atmospheric science.
5. The global oceans community will be articulating a comprehensive program of work related to climate and oceans and coasts, including mitigation, adaptation, financing, capacity development, and public involvement, for consideration by the UNFCCC Parties in their continuing deliberations beyond Copenhagen.
I can not for one minute believe that this could happen in our day and age... now this is child abuse full blown....
MSNBC Dec 17th, 2009
BRASILIA, Brazil - A 2-year-old boy has as many as 50 metal sewing needles inside his body, apparently stuck there one by one, a doctor treating him said Wednesday. Brazilian media said the boy’s ex-stepfather was detained. ...read article....
The Obama administration is hoping to win new commitments to fight global warming from China and India in back-to-back summits next month, the Guardian has learned, including the first Indian emissions trading scheme.
The US hopes the new commitments will breathe life into the moribund negotiations to seal a global treaty on climate change in Copenhagen in December, by setting out what action each country will take. But many observers say such bilateral deals also risk seriously weakening any Copenhagen agreement by allowing the idea of a global limit on greenhouse gas emissions to be abandoned.
The US's twin diplomatic push will see Barack Obama meeting China's president Hu Jintao in Beijing on November 16-17 before playing host to India's prime minister Manmohan Singh at the White House on November 24. The visits appear timed to provide a much-needed boost to a proposed law to reduce US emissions now before the Senate, as well as to the Copenhagen talks.
At preparatory UN talks in Bangkok earlier this month, the US and other rich countries were accused by a group of 131 nations of trying to "fundamentally sabotage" the Kyoto protocol, which the group said must be the basis for its successor. Kyoto — which made no demands on developing countries and which the US refused to ratify — remains political kryptonite in Washington. The US wants to move away from a legally binding global agreement to one where individual countries pledge cuts in their national emissions.
The state department envoy, Todd Stern, believes strongly that separate bilateral agreements with countries such as China, India, Russia and Brazil are the building blocks to an agreement at Copenhagen. But adoption of national action plans is hazardous say others, as there would be little clear idea of whether together they would avoid dangerous global warming.
US officials are hopeful that breakthroughs with India and China could still provide the underpinnings for at least a limited deal at Copenhagen. "China and India are both critically important to achieving our international goals on carbon reduction. We need them as part the system," said Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who serves on the foreign and environment and public works committees. "There has already been a lot of work done between US and China, and there is going to be more work done next month with President Obama going to China."
Indian officials are looking to their prime minister's visit to Washington to replicate an energy agreement signed between the US and China in July. India wants help in speeding its adoption of new, greener technologies and expanding its use of solar power.There is also interest in research co-operation, especially on carbon capture technologies, which hopes to trap greenhouse gases from power plants and bury them. "It would be like the memorandum of understanding with China," said Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister.
In response, on India is preparing to unveil new measures to reduce its surging growth of greenhouse gas emissions: its own version of a carbon cap-and-trade scheme, in which polluters can buy and sell emissions permits, and a new solar project.
"We are going to introduce a domestic cap-and-trade programme, but the cap will be on energy intensity, not carbon," said Ramesh. This would limit how much carbon can be emitted for each unit of energy produced, which will slow the rise of emissions rather than cutting them back, and allow the Indian economy to continue to grow and alleviate poverty.
He said the legislation to establish the scheme would be introduced before Singh's visit to Washington, with a vote in the Indian parliament by the end of the year: "By December it will be done."
India is also pushing for a relaxation of international patents on green technology. "Unless you adjust the intellectual property rights, how do you bring about rapid defusion," said Shyam Saran, India's climate change envoy.
US officials say they are looking to Obama's visit to Beijing to produce concrete commitments from China on how it would reduce its large and rapidly rising emissions. President Hu announced at a UN summit last month that China would reduce energy intensity by "notable margins".
"Fairly intensive work is under way to thrash out specific content in the eight or nine different topic areas" spelled out in July's memorandum, said David Doniger, a former US climate negotiator now at the Natural Resources Defence Council. Those areas are thought to include energy efficiency, "clean coal" technologies and electric cars. There has also been talk of extracting an agreement from China for efficiency in different sectors.
"If the US and China can come to some sort of view on this then I think it will unlock a lot of things," said Björn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. "If that is not the case than i think we will not see a very comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen." The council represents 200 global companies with a combined value of $7 trillion, including household names such as Shell, Toyota, DuPont, adidas and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
However, the diplomatic effort is tempered by growing pessimism within China at the prospects for an international climate deal. "The Bangkok talks marked a new low. If we don't see progress soon, then Copenhagen is going to be an exercise in managing expectations," observed a European diplomat.
Nonetheless, as well as unlocking the Copenhagen negotiations, new moves from India and China would help Obama at home, where his Democratic allies in the Senate face a tough struggle trying to pass a climate change bill to cut US emissions.
After a number of delays and mixed signals from the White House, Democratic leaders in the Senate will begin an intense push on October 27 to craft a final bill. But that leaves barely three full working weeks before Copenhagen to try to put that bill to a vote.
Environmentalists say movement from India and China could still help by quashing the argument from the right that other countries are not doing enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "It is pretty clear to everyone in the US that bilateral agreements with India and China that are new and additional will help secure climate legislation in the US," said John Coequyt, who heads the climate programme at the Sierra Club. "The big advantage of doing it in [bilateral] form is that it makes sense to members of Congress."
India's move towards cap-and-trade is the latest in a series of shifts in Delhi's position on climate change. The moves are in part intended to dispel the risk that India is cast as the spoiler in the negotiations. "We are not going to be a deal-breaker at Copenhagen," said Ramesh. India is also anxious to separate itself from China in the negotiations. China has now overtaken America as the world's largest single polluter, producing 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions. India is producing an increasing share of the world's emissions, but it presently is responsible for just 5%.
Battle on the hill
After the denialist Bush era, Obama promised a radically different approach to global warming – at home and abroad. But the White House and its Democratic allies in Congress still face a tough battle to pass a law to cut emissions. Such a law is critical to persuading the world that the US is serious about acting on climate change. The White House – which has been focused on trying to get a healthcare bill through Congress – persuaded Democrats to hold off on opening up debate in the Senate on climate change. The first draft – an 821-page work that calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% over 2005 levels by 2020 – has been on hold for two weeks. Now the date for a showdown has been fixed for 27 October. With Republicans predicting disastrous economic consequences from carbon taxes, and rustbelt Democrats fearing job losses in dirty industries, most commentators say there is only a slim chance of producing legislation before Copenhagen.
China – A make or break partnership
A deal between the US and China on climate change could make or break the negotiations at Copenhagen, business leaders say.
The last round of negotiations in Thailand exposed the bitter divide between the industrialised and developing worlds over responsibility for causing global warming and compensation for the poor countries, which will be hit the hardest.
"If the US and China can come to some sort of view on this, then I think it will unlock a lot of things," said Björn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. "If that is not the case than I think we will not see a very comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen."
The council represents some 200 global companies with a combined value of $7tn, including household names such as Shell, Toyota, DuPont, and Adidas.
Other executives said the US and China could come to a larger accord through joint ventures in technology development – especially carbon capture and storage.
"I have come to believe that there needs to be a ladder of co-operation between US corporations and Chinese corporations, US cities and Chinese cities," said Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy."
About 70,000 women die every year and many more suffer harm as a result of unsafe abortions in countries with restrictive laws on ending a pregnancy, according to a report.
The total number of abortions across the globe has fallen, the influential Guttmacher Institute says, but that drop relates only to legal abortions and is mostly the result of changes in eastern Europe.
There were 41.6m terminations worldwide in 2003, compared with 45.5m in 1995. But in 2003, says the report, 19.7m of these were unsafe, clandestine abortions. The numbers of those have hardly changed from 1995, when there were 19.9m.
Almost all the unsafe abortions were in less developed countries with restrictive abortion laws.
"Virtually all abortions in Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean were unsafe," says the report. In Asia, safe procedures outnumbered unsafe because of the large number of legal abortions in China. Most of those in Europe and almost all in North America were safe.
The figures are hard to obtain in countries with restrictive laws from hospitals dealing with women damaged by backstreet or self-induced abortion. But the institute, which has been monitoring the numbers for many years, is confident of the picture it paints and hopes it will influence policy makers.
"Our hope is that the new report will help inform a public debate in which all too often emotion trumps science," said the institute president, Dr Sharon Camp.
Fundamental to turning the tide is preventing unwanted pregnancy, but in many countries there is little advice on family planning and contraceptive products are in short supply. "Women will continue to seek abortion whether it is legal or not as long as the unmet need for contraception remains high," Camp said. "With sufficient political will we can ensure that no woman has to die in order to end a pregnancy she neither wanted nor planned for."
The US has always been the biggest funder of family planning in developing countries, but a significant amount of it stopped under the presidency of George Bush, who reinstated a policy known as the "global gag rule" on arrival in office in January 2001.
It removed funding from any family planning organisation overseas that had anything to do with abortion, including counselling. Although European governments, including the UK, stepped up contributions, funds were short at a time when more couples were becoming interested in smaller families. "It really was a lost decade," said Camp.
President Barack Obama has rescinded the policy and more US funds are expected, but the process of ordering increased contraceptive supplies from manufacturers and getting them to where they are needed will take time.
Where contraceptive use has risen, such as in the former Soviet bloc countries, abortion rates have invariably fallen. Worldwide, the unintended pregnancy rate has dropped from 69 for every 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 1995 to 55 for every 1,000 in 2008. The proportion of married women using contraception increased from 54% in 1990 to 63% in 2003.
However, only 28% of married African women use contraceptives. Lack of availability is the biggest issue.
The report points to a global trend towards the liberalisation of abortion laws, which has allowed women with an unwanted pregnancy to end it safely. Nineteen countries have relaxed their restrictions since 1997. But in three countries, Poland, El Salvador and Nicaragua, tougher legislation has been introduced, the latter two prohibiting abortion even when the woman's life is at risk.
"We have seen an increase in women's deaths and teenage suicides in Nicaragua," said Dr Kelly Culwell, of the International Planned Parenthood Federation at the report's launch.
Camp deplored the exit of the pharmaceutical companies from research and development work on contraceptive products. "There used to be 13 major pharmaceutical companies with full-blown programmes of contraceptive R&D. Now there are none," she said.
Yet there was a real need for products women could use if they were having occasional rather than regular sex apart from the condom, which requires the consent of the man.
‘We simply disagree that he has done nothing,’ committee chairman says
updated less than 1 minute ago
OSLO, Norway - Members of the Norwegian committee that gave Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize are strongly defending their choice against a storm of criticism that the award was premature and a potential liability for the U.S. president.
Asked to comment on the uproar following Friday's announcement, four members of the five-seat panel told The Associated Press that they had expected the decision to generate both surprise and criticism.
Three of them rejected the notion that Obama hadn't accomplished anything to deserve the award, while the fourth declined to answer that question. A fifth member didn't answer calls seeking comment.
"We simply disagree that he has done nothing," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told the AP on Tuesday. "He got the prize for what he has done."
'A world with less tension' Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.
"All these things have contributed to — I wouldn't say a safer world — but a world with less tension," Jagland said by phone from Strasbourg, where he was attending meetings in his other role as secretary-general of the Council of Europe.
Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, also dismissed suggestions that the decision to award Obama was without merit.
"Don't you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?" Valle said by phone from the western coastal city of Bergen. "Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I'm not afraid of a debate on the peace prize decision. That's fine."
One of them is the first woman ever to win the economics prize
STOCKHOLM - Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for their analyses of economic governance — the rules by which people exercise authority in companies and economic systems.
Ostrom was the first woman to win Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences since it was founded in 1968, and the fifth woman to win a Nobel award this year — a record for the prestigious honors.
It was also an exceptionally strong year for the United States, with 11 American citizens — some of them with dual nationality — among the 13 Nobel winners, including President Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The academy said over the last three decades, the work done by Ostrom and Williamson had "advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention." It said their research showed that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.
Issues of governance have been at the heart of the ongoing world economic crisis. The failure by boards of directors, for instance, to police excessive compensation, or prevent bonuses that reward excessive risk taking, can be considered a corporate governance issue.
Ostrom, 76, working out of Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, devoted her career to studying the interaction of people and natural resources. Bucking common theory, she demonstrated how common resources can be successfully managed by groups using it, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Williamson, who is at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, was cited for his studies on how organizations — including companies — are structured and how that affects the cost of doing business.
Ostrom told the academy by telephone that she was surprised by their choice.
"There are many, many people who have struggled mightily and to be chosen for this prize is a great honor," she said. "I'm still a little bit in shock."
Williamson, 77, said he was "gratified" by the honor.
"One of the benefits I think that will accrue, or at least I hope will accrue, is that organizations will play a more prominent role in the study of economic activity in the near future," he said.
According to Williamson's theory "large private corporations exist primarily because they are efficient. They are established because they make owners, workers, suppliers, and customers better off than they would be under alternative institutional arrangements," the academy said.
"When corporations fail to deliver efficiency gains, their existence will be called in question," it added. "Large corporations may, of course, abuse their power. They may for instance, participate in undesirable political lobbying and exhibit anticompetitive behavior."
But based on Williamson's findings, it is better to regulate such behavior directly rather than with policies that restrict the size of corporations, the academy said.
Breakthrough boosts hope for breast cancer treatment
Join Date: 10/01/07
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OCTOBER IS BREAST CANCER MONTH.......
Monday, 12 October 2009 The Independent
(AFP)
Researchers reported the first evidence Thursday that cancer cells genetically mutate as the disease progresses, a "watershed" discovery they say holds hope for new treatments.
The researchers completed the world's first sequencing of the billions of letters in the DNA of a female cancer patient at three different stages, in just weeks. The feat was reported as the cover story in the October 8 edition of the science journal Nature.
Showing that cancer evolves "will lead to a shift in perspective" in how cancer is treated, lead researcher Samuel Aparicio of Canada's British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) told AFP.
When a cell divides as a normal and lifelong process, the DNA genetic code is copied to each new cell. When mutations cause the new cells to grow out of control, cancer can occur, noted the agency in a statement.
Researchers tracked mutations in the woman's healthy cells, in addition to a local tumour when her breast cancer was first diagnosed, and in cells nine years later after the cancer spread, or metastasized.
In the metastasized cells they found 32 DNA mutations, said Aparicio.
"When we looked back to see if they were present in the primary tumour, we found only five mutations that could have been present in all cells."
That just five of the 32 later mutations were originally present was a surprise, the BCCA said.
The mutations -- which they described as "spelling" mistakes in the DNA lettering -- were "the criminals that caused the disease to get started in the first place," the BCCA said. "These five mutations were previously unknown to researchers as playing a role in cancer."
The agency said that "the ability to analyze both the original and the metastatic cancer cells has given us unprecedented information about how breast cancer develops and progresses."
"This is a watershed event in our ability to understand the causes of breast cancer and to develop personalized medicines for our patients," Aparicio said in the statement.
He said a key finding was "not only that the primary cancer evolved a lot, but the primary tumour was a mosaic of different mutations which then increased over time".
That knowledge will improve cancer tests and treatments, he said, because it shows cells in a tumour are not all the same and each kind of cell may respond differently to treatment.
The agency compared being able to decode billions of DNA letters using new next-generation DNA sequencing technology to the discovery of a "secret book of a breast cancer".
Study co-author Marco Marra, director of the Genome Sciences Centre at the cancer agency, noted the first decoding of the human genome, completed in 2001, "took years and an enormous amount of funding. We were able to sequence the breast cancer genome in weeks and at a fraction of the cost."
Gene sequencing will cost increasingly less and eventually take "a matter of days," predicted Aparicio, allowing doctors to tailor future treatment to individual patients.
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women worldwide and the leading cause of cancer death among women.
Scientists do not know whether the woman whose DNA was used in the research survived her cancer, said Aparicio, because BCCA studies are conducted anonymously.
Denis Mukwege: Doctor dedicated to helping rape victims
The epidemic of sexual violence in Democratic Republic of Congo visits most of us in the form of statistics, like the 27,000 rapes reported in a single year in a single province, or the 70 per cent of the women of one town who had been brutally assaulted.
The crisis visits Dr Denis Mukwege in a different way. It's there every day in the waiting room of his surgery in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, the province where the first statistic was recorded.
An average of 10 women come every day, sometimes from hundreds of miles away, having been subjected to some of the worst acts of sadism imaginable. "It is important to point out that this sexual terrorism is done in a methodical manner," the 53-year-old told the US Senate last year. "Generally the victims are raped by several men at a time, one after another; in public, in front of parents, husbands, children or neighbours. Rape is followed by mutilations or other corporal torture."
In a country where sexual violence has reached levels never seen before and that no one can fully explain, Dr Mukwege is the man who has devoted his life to trying to repair the damage done to women often left for dead.
He was, for a long time, the only gynaecologist treating rape wounds in Congo. At the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, he performs as many as half a dozen surgeries a day; so far he has treated 21,000 women. His pioneering work has helped thousands of these women reclaim something of their physical selves and begin to heal some of the psychological wounds.
A pastor's son who saw at first hand the suffering of women in rural areas who would have to travel bleeding on the backs of donkeys when pregnancies went wrong, he decided to become a doctor. After studying obstetrics and gynaecology in Angers, France, he returned to Lemera, Kivu, to set up a clinic.
This effort was burned to the ground in 1996 during the first civil war. After settling in Bukavu to try again, he found that the maternity ward at Panzi was overrun by women who had been raped and that the numbers were growing. Dr Mukwege's response was to set up a ward for victims of sexual violence, and his work was recognised with the Olof Palme Prize last year, when he was also named African of the Year and given the UN human rights prize.
The doctor has repeatedly been asked to explain why the horrors are occurring in Congo but he limits himself to explaining what is happening.
"Here it is not rape because you have desire for a woman, it's rape because you want to destroy that person through her private parts," he said recently. "There is no appropriate expression, because if these were men, were shot by a gun, we would call it genocide. But it is another type of genocide."
Daniel Howden
Sima Samar: Working for Afghan families
Sima Samar has spent her life breaking through seemingly unbreachable barriers. The first Hazara woman to obtain a degree in medicine from Kabul University, she now dedicates her life to the rights of women and children. She is chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan. For many years, she would have considered such roles impossible.
She started her work in 1984 after her husband disappeared at the hands of the Communist regime. By 1987, she had opened a hospital for women, and set up clinics and girls' schools. In all, she opened 10 clinics, four hospitals and schools for 17,000, which put her in a perilous position after the Taliban seized control in the late 1990s.
But whatever obstacles she faces, Ms Samar remains determined. "I've always been in danger, but I don't mind," she once told the BBC.
Andrew Buncombe
Ghazi bin Muhammad: Philospher in search of peace
In the wake of 9/11, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad became an increasingly important player in religious dialogue. A philosophy professor in Islamic faith at Jordan University, the Jordanian prince's supporters said he deserved the award because he encourages debate on the relationship between Islam and other faiths.
In 2005, he brought prominent Islamic scholars together to work out a "theological counter-attack" against terrorism, and he is regularly praised for his ability to emphasis similarities between East and West. After Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 lecture that was seen by many as an attack on Islam, the Cambridge-educated prince, left, was among prominent Islamic scholars to sign an influential letter entitled A Common Word Between Us the following year. "Without peace and justice between these two religious communities," the letter read, "there can be no meaningful peace in the world".
Miranda Bryant
Greg Mortenson: Mountaineer fighting Islamic extremism with education
It was a failed attempt to climb K2 in Pakistan in 1993 that set Greg Mortenson on a path that would take him almost to the humanitarian summit of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Exhausted from the climb, recovering in a remote village Mr Mortenson, left, met a group of children sitting in the dirt and writing with sticks in the sand. He promised to build them a school. It seemed, he says, a "rash" promise.
The story of what happened next is told in Mr Mortenson's book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time, a bestseller that is now required reading for military leaders as well as for humanitarians. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, many say, his work has been transformative. His Central Asia Institute has built 84 schools in the region, educating mainly girls, and Mr Mortenson, 51, has become a tireless advocate of the need to build human relationships with the Muslim world. His mantra: politics won't bring peace, people will bring peace.
"These are secular schools that will bring a new generation of kids that will have a broader view of the world," he says. "We focus on areas where there is no education. Religious extremism flourishes in areas of isolation and conflict."
Born to two American humanitarian workers, during his own humanitarian career he has been kidnapped, shot at, and forced to deal with two fatwas issued against him by local clerics opposed to female education. In 2009 alone, he has been awarded Pakistan's highest civilian award, the Star of Pakistan, and a half dozen other humanitarian gongs but, for this year at least, he failed to land the biggest one of all.
Stephen Foley
Piedad Córdoba: Colombia's 'woman of peace'
A few days before the Nobel Peace Prize winner was announced, Oslo's International Peace Research Institute said the outspoken Colombian senator, Piedad Córdoba, was the favourite for the honour.
According to Kristian Berg Harpviken, the institute's director, her work "eagerly advocating a peace process in her country" made her a major contender. But not everyone loves Colombia's "woman of peace". She has braved controversy, kidnap and assassination attempts for her politics, and her integral role in negotiating with the guerrilla group Farc has stirred both praise and anger.
Her achievements are, however, indisputable. As head of Colombians For Peace, a group trying to put an end to the 45-year conflict between the government and Farc, Ms Córdoba was the government's official mediator in the humanitarian exchange discussions of 2007, and she secured the release of 16 hostages. One former captive, Alan Jara, the former governor of Colombia's Meta state, called her "an angel who could carry me to freedom".
Ms Córdoba's nomination praised her for seeking a solution to the conflict. It has sometimes been a dangerous calling. In 1999, she was kidnapped by paramilitaries before she was freed and exiled, with her family, to Canada. Only 14 months later, she returned to resume her work.
The 54-year-old former lawyer was born in Medellin, Antioquia, in north-western Colombia, to an Afro-Colombian father and a white mother. Her political opponents maintain that she is too close to Farc, and when email correspondence with Ms Córdoba was found on the computer of a now-dead rebel leader, Raul Reyes, she was accused of complicity with the group. Pictures of her meeting with Reyes drew further incriminations.
But, says Ms Córdoba, the conflict will be solved only if the guerrillas negotiate with people they trust. "We have to finish this conflict with words and with dialogue," she argues. "If I have to return to the Farc and have a photo taken, I'll do it again."
Miranda Bryant
Wei Jingsheng: The father of Chinese democracy
For a Chicago community organiser to rise far enough to receive the Nobel Prize is fairly remarkable; had a former electrician at Beijing Zoo been so honoured, the recognition would have been truly extraordinary.
But Wei Jingsheng, above, has come far from that humble beginning: indeed, his nomination this year is the seventh he has received for his work fighting for democratic rights in China. Now 59, Mr Wei was once a convinced ideologue, who served as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. That view changed as he saw the reality of Chairman Mao Zedong's China, and he became a committed democratic activist, who was jailed for 18 years until international pressure forced his release in 1997.
His prison sentence was for taking part in the "Democracy Wall" movement in 1978, when students and activists displayed uncensored news and dissenting opinions on a brick wall near Tiananmen Square, just as the Red Guards had done themselves in the universities early in the Cultural Revolution. Mr Wei posted an article, The Fifth Modernisation, that became a famous dissident text. "We want to be masters of our own destiny," Mr Wei wrote. "We need no gods or emperors." During imprisonment, he wrote open letters to the regime on toilet paper that were smuggled out and published, making him a figurehead for democratic campaigners. He was released in 1993 but refused to be silenced. That determination led to another jail sentence, this time for 14 years.
But by then, Mr Wei had powerful backers. Bill Clinton intervened, and he was released in November 1997 and allowed to fly to the US on medical grounds, shorthand for exile. His 1997 book, The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings, is seen as one of the classics of Chinese dissident literature.
Since those days, Mr Wei has won a string of major human rights awards for his work, and become known as "the father of Chinese democracy". But he is by no means the only Chinese dissident thought to have a chance of the Nobel, an option that may in the end have seemed too controversial for the committee.
Hu Jia has been imprisoned since 2007 for exposing government abuses and the plight of China's Aids sufferers, and Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of China's Uighur minority, has led the fight for minority rights.
President Barack Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize; Committee cites efforts to strengthen diplomacy
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Friday, October 9th 2009
OSLO — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.
"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.
Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change.
The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliment- Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
OSLO, Norway - President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
Speculation had focused on Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator and a Chinese dissident, along with an Afghan woman's rights activist.
The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage. The plaudit appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
NBC News reported that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called Obama with the news just before 6 a.m. Aides said the president felt "humbled" by the committee's decision.
'Captured the world's attention' Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee said. "In the past year Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations."
He added that the committee endorsed "Obama's appeal that 'Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.'"
President Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson won in 1919.
The committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.
Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.
The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.
"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given too someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
Nominators include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation welcomed the award on behalf of its founder Nelson Mandela, who shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.
"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
Romanian-born German novelist, essayist and poet Herta Muller has been named winner of the 2009 Nobel prize for literature, praised by the judges for depicting the "landscape of the dispossessed" with "the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose".
Müller becomes only the 12th woman to have won the Nobel since it launched in 1901; in 2007 British novelist Doris Lessing won for her "scepticism, fire and visionary power ... [which] subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Worth 10m Swedish kronor (£893,000), the Nobel is awarded to "the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction", as described in Alfred Nobel's will of 1895.
Müller was announced as winner of the award at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm this afternoon. Born in Romania in 1953, she refused to cooperate with Ceausescu's Securitate, lost her job as a teacher and was the subject of repeated threats until she emigrated in 1987. She now lives in Berlin, where she has been the recipient of a multitude of literary awards, including Germany's most prestigious, the Kleist prize, the Frankz Kafka and the 100,000 euro (£85,000) Impac award for her novel The Land of Green Plums. The story of five young Romanians living under Ceausescu's dictatorship, Müller has said that she wrote it "in memory of my Romanian friends who were killed under the Ceausescu regime", and that she "felt it was my duty". The New York times called it "a novel of graphically observed detail in which the author seeks to create a sort of poetry out of the spiritual and material ugliness of life in Communist Romania".
Although Müller left Romania over 20 years ago, she returns constantly to the themes of oppression, exile and dictatorship in her novels and poems, which also include The Appointment, about a young woman during Ceausescu's regime who works in a clothes factory, and sews notes into the suits of men bound for Italy, saying "marry me". Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger, published in English as The Passport, follows the story of a village miller in a German-speaking Romanian village, who applies for permission to emigrate to West Germany. Müller's latest novel Atemschaukel (Everything I Possess I Carry With Me) was published in August, and follows a 17-year-old boy who is deported to a Ukrainian labour camp. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called it "phenomenal, moving and humbling novel, perhaps the most memorable read of the autumn".
"The most overwhelming experience for me was living under the dictatorial regime in Romania. And simply living in Germany, hundreds of kilometres away, does not erase my past experience," Müller has said. "I packed up my past when I left, and remember that dictatorships are still a current topic in Germany."
Pete Ayrton, who has published Müller in translation at Serpent's Tail, said he was "absolutely thrilled" at the news. "It's terrific and I think it shows the Nobel prize are doing their job to bring the writings of wonderful, neglected writers, who are underappreciated in the Anglo Saxon world, to our attention" he said. "She is from the German minority in Romania and from that experience, she writes extraordinary accounts of being an ethnic minority in a totalitarian regime. But this is not overtly political writing; it's very poetic and elliptical. She's an extraordinary writer."
The Nobel prize winner is selected by 18 members of the Swedish Academy, who receive around 200 nominations at the start of the year, whittling this down to a secret shortlist of five and then choosing their winner, who must receive more than half of the votes cast. Müller becomes its 106th winner; last year French novelist JMG Le Clézio won, cited for his "new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy", and for exploring "a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization".
Scientists find gene that stops some cancers in their tracks
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October is Breast Cancer Month.....this is a positive bit of news...
Guardian UK. October 2009
Scientists have identified a gene they believe plays a major role in more than half of all breast cancers and a significant portion of other tumours.
The gene, which helps to stop cancer cells in their tracks, came to light after researchers noticed it was missing from tissues that had been removed from breast cancers for testing. The lack of the genehas also been implicatedin half of all cases of colon and prostate cancer, and a quarter of ovarian and bladder tumours.
Cancer charities described the discovery as a "major step forward" that could open up new ways to screen for and treat the disease.
Paul Edwards, a molecular biologist at Cambridge University, said the discovery could be the most important cancer-suppressing gene of the past 20 years. "This is a gene lost in a quarter to a half of common cancers, so it is clearly playing a really important role," Edwards said.
Scientists have long known that cancerous tissues are often missing fragments of chromosomes, the tightly coiled packages of DNA that carry our genes.
Edwards and his colleagues looked at tissues from 54 breast tumours and found part of chromosome 8 was missing in more than half of them. After cross-checking against the Human Genome Project they were able to identify a gene called NRG1 that was lost.
"In every case we looked at where a big chunk of chromosome 8 had been lost, at least part of the gene was lost," said Edwards, whose research is published in the journal Oncogene. When the gene is missing, healthy tissues lose their ability to guard against cancer cells, he said.
Researchers are still working out how chromosomes become broken in the first place, but by identifying the gene, they hope to develop new ways of screening people who are susceptible to cancer and possibly even finding new treatments.
Further experiments showed that blocking the effect of NRG1 in healthy breast cells made them divide more quickly. The research was funded by Breast Cancer Campaign and Cancer Research UK.
The discovery of NRG1 is thought to be the most significant step forward in the field since another gene, p53, was discovered in the 1970s and found to be implicated in cancers in the late 1980s. The gene was the first "tumour suppressor" gene found in cells and is known to be faulty or inactivated in many types of the disease.
"Knowing the identity of this gene will lead to far more detailed studies of how it works and how it is involved in breast cancer development," said Arlene Wilkie, director of research and policy at Breast Cancer Campaign.
"In the UK, 12,000 women die from this disease every year, so it is vital we understand how breast cancer develops in order to stop it happening."
Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This discovery is an important step forward in understanding a disease that more than 45,500 women are diagnosed with in the UK each year. More research is now needed to understand how this 'guard' gene is silenced and how exactly this influences the development of cancer. It might then be possible to develop ways to bypass the gene or target treatments to the defect," she added.
Scientists’ 3-D models helped researchers to develop antibiotic cures
updated 2 hours, 22 minutes ago
STOCKHOLM - Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work has been fundamental to the scientific understanding of life and has helped researchers develop antibiotic cures for various diseases.
Yonath is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the prize.
This year's three laureates all generated three-dimensional models that show how different antibiotics bind to ribosomes.
"These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the academy said in its announcement.
"All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome," the academy said.
Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, established the Nobel Prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later.
Each prize comes with a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse, a diploma, a gold medal and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10. The Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo.
The physics prize on Tuesday was split between a Hong Kong-based scientist who helped develop fiber-optic cable and two Canadian and American researchers who invented the "eye" in digital cameras — technology that has revolutionized communications and science.
The literature and peace prize winners will be announced later this week and the economics announcement is set for Monday.
Research highlights needless death of a million babies
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The Independent
More than than a million newborn babies are dying needlessly every year around the world because of lack of care in their first month of their life, according to research.
Newborn deaths account for 40 per cent of all deaths of children under the age of five, according to Save the Children, who are today launching their "Every One" campaign to highlight this neglected health crisis.
There is a clear link between poverty and high rates of newborn deaths, but many could be avoided by simple hygiene improvements and changes in traditional practices, the report claims.
According to Afghan traditions, "in order to keep the devil away, the newborn must be placed on the floor until the mother discharges the placenta," the report reveals. "The umbilical cord is then cut with a razor and a shoe."
Troubled African nations such as Liberia and Angola are also among those with the highest neo-natal mortality rates – the number of deaths per 1,000 births inside the first 28 days of life.
In Liberia, which tops the survey, babies are fed water for the first three days because the early, yellowish breast milk is believed to be inadequate. Babies often develop diarrhoea as a consequence and families use herbal treatments.
In China, members of the Hani minority believe it is inauspicious to transport a woman in labour, resulting in a high number of hazardous home births.
Infant mortality rates, that is deaths before the age of one, are commonly used as an indicator of economic performance and development. But until now relatively little attention has been paid to the fact that most deaths occur in the first month of a baby's life.
"One third of [these] lives could be saved through improved family and community care alone, such as improved hygiene at birth," according to Save the Children.
The report highlights Cuba which despite its status as a low income country has just four deaths per 1,000 births, a rate that compares favourably with the wealthiest nations.
It also reveals a number of deadly maternal myths, such as the belief that mothers should not breastfeed until a baby has been sprinkled with magic water by a witch doctor, and the notion that tea and biscuits are the best food for the first month of a newborn's life.
Nobel prize in physics goes to Briton who harnessed the power of light
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Guardian.UK Tuesday 6 October 2009
A Chinese-born Briton who graduated from Woolwich Polytechnic in east London and became director of research at a mobile phone company in Essex has won this year's Nobel prize for physics.
Charles Kuen Kao won half of the prestigious prize for research that allowed information to be sent in beams of light along glass fibres over distances of 100km and more. The research revolutionised modern communications.
Kao shares the prize with two Americans, George Smith and Willard Boyle at Bell Labs in New Jersey, who developed the charged-coupled device (CCD), more familiarly known as the miniature digital cameras now ubiquitous in devices as wide-ranging as mobile phones and spacecraft.
The 10m Swedish kronor (£818,000) prize money has been divided to give half to Kao, with Smith and Boyle taking a quarter each.
Announcing the award at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the Nobel assembly credited Kao for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication". Smith and Boyle were honoured "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor".
Speaking by phone to a press conference at the Karolinska Institute, Boyle said: "I have a lovely feeling all over my body."
The Nobel assembly said the research "helped to shape the foundations of today's networked societies. They have created many practical innovations for everyday life and provided new tools for scientific exploration".
Optical fibers make up the circulatory system of our communication-based society. The glass fibers allow for global broadband communications including the internet. Light flowing in thin threads of glass carries almost all of the telephony and data traffic. Text, music, images and video can be transferred around the globe in a split second.
The CCD is the digital camera's electronic eye. It revolutionised photography, allowing light to be captured electronically instead of on film. The technology is used in many medical applications, such as imaging inside the human body for both diagnostics and microsurgery.
ISTANBUL — Finance ministers from developing countries said Monday that they should get more voting power at the World Bank, echoing calls for change at the International Monetary Fund.
Ministers from Russia, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Venezuela spoke at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank, held this year in Istanbul. They said the credibility of the bank, which assists developing countries, would erode unless countries have a voice consistent with their weight in the global economy.
3 Americans win 2009 Nobel medicine prize for major genetic discovery
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday, October 5th 2009
STOCKHOLM - Americans Elizabeth H Blackurn, Carol W Greider and Jack W Szostak won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
The trio solved the mystery of how chromosomes, the rod-like structures that carry DNA, protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.
The Nobel citation said the laureates found the solution in the ends of the chromosomes — structures called telomeres that are often compared to the plastic tips at the end of shoe laces that keep those laces from unraveling.
Blackburn and Greider discovered the enzyme that builds telomeres — telomerase — and the mechanism by which it adds DNA to the tips of chromosomes to replace genetic material that has eroded away.
The prize-winners' work set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase to sustain their uncontrolled growth. Scientists are studying whether drugs that block the enzyme can fight the disease. In addition, scientists believe that the DNA erosion the enzyme repairs might play a role in some illnesses.
"The discoveries by Blackburn, Greider and Szostak have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies," the prize committee said in its citation.
It was the first time that two women have been among the winners of the medicine prize, committee members said.
Blackburn, who holds U.S. and Australian citizenship, is a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Fransisco. Greider is a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Greider, 48, said she was telephoned by just before 5 a.m. her time with the news that she had won.
"It's really very thrilling, it's something you can't expect," she told The Associated Press by telephone.
People might make predictions of who might win, but one never expects it, she said, adding that "It's like the Monty Python sketch, 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!'"
Greider described the research as beginning with experiments aimed at understanding how cells work, not with the idea for certain implications for medicine.
"Funding for that kind of curiosity-driven science is really important," she said, adding that disease-oriented research isn't the only way to reach the answer, but "both together are synergistic," she said.
Blackburn, 60, said she was awakened at 2 a.m.
"Prizes are always a nice thing," she told The AP. "It doesn't change the research per se, of course, but it's lovely to have the recognition and share it with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak."
London-born Szostak has been at Harvard Medical School since 1979 and is currently professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He is also affiliated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the citation said.
The award includes a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse divided among the winners, a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm on Dec. 10.
The researchers have already won a series of medical honors for their enzyme research. In 2006, they shared the Lasker prize for basic medical research, often dubbed "America's Nobel."
Some inherited diseases are now known to be caused by telomerase defects, including certain forms of congenital aplastic anemia, in which insufficient cell divisions in the stem cells of the bone marrow lead to severe anemia. Certain inherited diseases of the skin and the lungs are also caused by telomerase defects.
The Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced later this week, while the economics award will be presented on Oct. 12.
Prize founder alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, left few instructions on how to select winners, but medicine winners are typically awarded for a specific breakthrough rather than a body of research.
Nobel established the prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later.
Tankers full of oil its owners don't want to sell. Shady deals with brutal regimes. Vast profits. Pollution scandals. Cahal Milmo investigates a very murky business
Saturday, 26 September 2009 The Independent.
With a combined capacity for 313,000 tonnes of oil, the Delta Ios and the NS Burgas supertankers were launched two months ago to criss-cross the globe in search of trade. Instead, the vast vessels were to be found yesterday lying idle off the coast of Singapore after their owners were paid by two of the world's richest and most secretive oil companies to turn them into floating petrochemical warehouses.
At first glance, the decision by Trafigura Group and Vitol Holding BV to charter the newly built ships at an estimated cost of £47,000 a day to do nothing for up to four months in South-east Asia while laden with cargos of diesel worth at least £77m per vessel makes little economic sense.
When this is combined with the fact that the Delta Ios and the NS Burgas are just two ships in an enormous fleet of tankers which are currently being paid about £80m a month by independent oil traders like Trafigura and Vitol, as well as giants such as Shell, to stay anchored around the globe with anything between 50 and 150 million barrels of redundant crude on board, it seem that the ruthless barons of black gold must be losing money as fast as they can make it.
Far from it. The phenomenon of "floating storage", which has been brought about by a huge over-supply of global tanker capacity and unusual market conditions, is just one example of the multitude of ways in which a small group of private, mostly Swiss-based companies have become adept at turning vast profits from the closed and often murky world of independent oil trading. A glut of oil caused by the recession means that crude available for immediate purchase is currently cheaper than that bought on longer-term or "future" contracts – a practice known as "contango". The result is that independent traders have been rushing to buy the cheaper "spot" oil and storing it wherever they can – namely in under-employed tanker fleets – in anticipation of a sharp rise in price as the global economy begins to recover. The resulting profit can be anything between 15 and 20 per cent – tens of millions of dollars – even after the cost of hiring a tanker is deducted.
It is a situation which prompted one senior oil company executive to declare that the spring and summer of 2009 represented "blessed times for trading". Another oil trader told The Independent: "Contango has been a real boon. The independents have become very adept at buying up tanker capacity as cheaply as possible, sitting on the stock and selling it on via arbitrage. They've been as slick as you like."
The deals are part of a world in which discretion and an ability to keep out of the public eye have long been treasured. While the oil majors such as ExxonMobil, Shell and BP operate as global corporations, the independents or "jobbers" have thrived in the grey zone of fast trading-room deals and personal contacts that allow access to lucrative oil reserves.
But increasingly the activities of the "big four" independent traders – Trafigura, Vitol, Russian-owned Gunvor (which has consistently denied reports that it is linked to the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin) and the hugely successful Glencore – are coming under scrutiny. Questions are being asked about their role in uniting the oil wealth of some of the world's more unsavoury regimes with the open market.
Trafigura, which until August 2006 was barely known outside the oil trade – despite growing to become one of the world's biggest companies with a turnover of $73bn (£46bn) since it was founded 16 years ago – last week found itself making headlines around the world when it agreed to pay about £30m to thousands of residents of the Ivory Coast port of Abidjan who fell ill after toxic oil waste from a ship chartered by the company was dumped by a sub-contractor near the west African city.
The settlement of the claim brought on behalf of 31,000 Ivorians at the High Court in London after tonnes of foul-smelling sludge were fly-tipped in August 2006 was said by Trafigura to vindicate its position that there was no link between the waste and people who died or suffered serious illnesses.
But the Abidjan pollution disaster shone a light into the nature of the way these multibillion-pound "jobbers" of the oil trade make their money. In the case of Trafigura, the events of August 2006 were just part of a deal conducted across three continents in which a cheap, low-quality form of oil known as coker gasoline bought from a Mexican refinery was further refined in Europe, and the subsequent fuel was sold at a profit of about $7m per cargo.
Oil industry insiders have told The Independent that coker gasoline is just one of a myriad of methods used by independent traders to turn a profit, ranging from "paper" deals struck in the City of London's trading floors, to floating storage, to what is known as "physical trading" – transporting hundreds of consignments of different grades of oil on chartered tankers looking for the best price from dozens of offices across the globe. Executives, who are frequently equity partners in the companies, speak of constant shuttling around the world to close deals and negotiate prices.
By any standards, it is a huge and profitable industry. From a situation 20 years ago where the "majors" dominated the international trade, independents now account for about 15 per cent of world's $2 trillion oil industry.
Glencore, founded in 1974 by the controversial trader Marc Rich – who was indicted for tax evasion and later pardoned by President Bill Clinton – is estimated to supply 3 per cent of the world's daily oil consumption. The company is no longer involved with Mr Rich.
Between them, the "big four" had turnovers last year of about $415bn – equivalent to the GDP of Austria. Because the companies are privately owned, comprehensive profit figures are hard to come by, but Glencore announced a profit of $4.75bn for 2008. Trafigura made $440m last year.
In an industry which deals with a commodity for which many countries have gone to war, insiders say it is inevitable that traders will find themselves dealing with authoritarian oil-rich regimes and dabbling in controversial schemes. On at least one occasion, three of the big four – Glencore, Trafigura and Vitol – have been found to have crossed the line between incentives and kickbacks through their involvement in the United Nations' oil-for-food scheme to help Saddam Hussein's Iraq buy humanitarian supplies.
In the UN's Volcker report, all three companies were cited for paying surcharges demanded by Saddam's regime to win oil supply contracts. In 2007, Vitol pleaded guilty in America to paying $13m in surcharges, and the Swiss arm of Trafigura forfeited $20m. Both companies insisted that the deals had been handled in good faith via third parties. Glencore, which was cited for paying $6.6m in surcharges, denied any wrongdoing.
Glencore was also named in a 2005 High Court judgment as one of the companies which handled shipments of oil sold by the state-owned oil company of Congo-Brazzaville in central Africa. It was subsequently shown that cash derived from the shipments was used by the son of the country's President to pay credit card bills for shopping sprees in Paris. There was no suggestion that Glencore acted improperly.
All of the "big four" point out that they operate in accordance with international law and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's guidelines on business conduct. But campaigners complain that a lack of transparency in the industry means that proper scrutiny of the oil-rich governments in Africa and the middlemen they deal with is impossible.
Gavin Hayman, director of campaigns for Global Witness, said: "These companies play a major role in selling Africa's oil and their operations are notoriously opaque. It would be legitimate to ask: 'How do they get these contracts, do they sell the oil for its proper price, and do they send the money back to the correct place?'
"This lack of transparency creates a big risk that corrupt officials can siphon off some of the profits and deprive ordinary citizens of their rightful benefit from natural resource wealth."
Researchers have 'new hope' following success of experimental AIDS vaccine
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In a time when all the news is depressing..this would be the brightest ray of sunshine....
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, September 25th 2009
Scientists and government leaders have already started mapping out how to try to improve the world's first successful AIDS vaccine, which protected one in three people from getting HIV in a large study in Thailand.
Saudi Arabia's new university to allow women to unveil and study with men. THIS IS WONDERFUL NEWS!
Join Date: 06/04/02
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When women are empowered, all of society benefits. Hopefully this is the beginning of better to come for women.
Saudi Arabia’s new university to let women unveil and study with men
The King Abdullah Science and TechnologyUniversity opened Wednesday is meant to break ground on Saudi Arabia’s scientific learning and gender norms.
By David Montero | Correspondent09.24.09
For the first time in Saudi Arabia’s history, men attending a university north of Jeddah will have special classmates – women.
The conservative country unveiled on Wednesday its first ever fully coed university, the King Abdullah Science and Technology University (KAUST). In the past, women in the notoriously gender restrictive kingdom were only allowed to take classes separately from men.
The inauguration of KAUST is meant to signal two important developments: a lauded, if politically volatile, softening of hard-line rules, and the kingdom’s rising ambitions of being a hub of scientific learning. Both aims, Saudi Arabia’s rulers hope, will help blunt the impact of extremism.
The university’s lavish inauguration on Wednesday met with glowing praise, according to this description from Arabnews.com:
Breathtaking, spectacular and just amazing. That is how Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony of the multibillion-dollar King Abdullah University of Science and Technology was described by a large section of the nearly 3,000 guests that included prominent Saudis, foreign leaders, Nobel laureates, researchers, scientists and journalists.
Women guests in the audience carried along by the heady atmosphere of excitement and expectation spontaneously broke into traditional ululation, a sign of joy and good will.
There’s a lot for women to be happy about, as Al Jazeerareports:
[T]he new university will not require women to wear veils or cover their faces, and they will be able to mix freely with men.
They will also be allowed to drive, a taboo in a country where women must literally take a back seat to their male drivers.
The university’s relaxed rules appear to be part of a larger softening of gender segregation, as the Christian Science Monitor recently reported:
Agents of the feared Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are responsible for enforcing the restaurant rules. But these days, things have been relaxed a bit and it is possible for a group of foreigners who include unrelated men and women to dine together without incident. And in Jeddah, the commission’s enforcers have been banned from entering restaurants to spy on groups or couples who might be disobeying the gender segregation rules that offer a unique dining experience.
The opening of KAUST is seen as a decisive step in an ongoing battle with the kingdom’s extremist elements, as Reuters notes:
King Abdullah has promoted reforms since taking office in 2005 to create a modern state, stave off Western criticisms and lower dependence on oil.
But he faces resistance from conservative clerics and princes in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top oil exporters.
Al Qaeda militants launched a campaign against the state in 2003, blaming the royal family for corruption and opposing its alliance with the United States…
Officials who back Abdullah fear that without reforms young people will be drawn to militancy in the future.
Above, a photographer shoots a picture in front of the Sydney Opera House. One Sydney resident told a reporter the orange hue outside her window felt like "Armageddon."
SYDNEY — Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years blanketed the heavily populated east coast Wednesday in a cloud of red Outback grit, nearly closed the country's largest airport and left millions of people coughing and sputtering in the streets.
No one was hurt as a result of the pall that swept in overnight, bringing an eerie orange dawn to Sydney, but ambulance services reported a spike in emergency calls from people with breathing difficulties, and police warned drivers to take it easy on the roads.
Dust clouds blowing east from Australia's dry interior — parched even further by the worst drought on record — covered dozens of towns and cities in two states as strong winds snatched up tons of topsoil, threw it high into the sky and carried it hundreds of miles (kilometers).
International flights were diverted from Sydney to other cities — three from New Zealand, were turned around altogether — and domestic schedules were thrown into chaos as operations at Sydney Airport were curtailed by unsafe visibility levels. Passenger ferries on the city's famous harbor were also stopped for several hours for safety reasons.
The dust over Sydney had largely cleared by midafternoon, though national carrier Quantas said severe delays would last all day because of diverted and late-running flights.
The dust was still flying further north, however, and the sky over the Queensland state capital of Brisbane was clogged with dust into the early evening.
Such thick dust is rare over Sydney, and came along with other uncommon weather conditions across the country in recent days. Hailstorms have pummeled parts of the country this week, while other parts have been hit with an early spring mini-heatwave, and wildfires.
"It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red glow coming through," Sydney resident Karen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The storms — visible as a huge brown smudge in satellite photographs of Australia on Wednesday — are the most severe since the 1940s, experts said. One was recorded traveling from southern Australia all the way to New Zealand some 1,400 miles (2,220 kilometers) away.
Officials said particle pollution in Sydney's air rose to the worst on record Wednesday, and the New South Wales state ambulance service said it had received more than 250 calls before midday from people suffering breathing problems.
People with asthma or heart or lung diseases were urged not to go outside and to keep their medicine inhalers handy.
"Keeping yourself indoors today is the main thing to do if you have any of those conditions and particularly if you're a known sensitive sufferer such as children, older adults or pregnant women," said Wayne Smith, a senior state health official.
Sydney residents coughed and hacked their way through their morning commute, rubbing grit from their eyes. Some wore masks, wrapped their faces in scarves or pressed cloths over their noses and mouths.
"These dust storms are some of the largest in the last 70 years," said Nigel Tapper, an environmental scientist at Monash University. "Ten very dry years over inland southern Australia and very strong westerlies have conspired to produce these storms."
Muammar Gaddafi pitched his tent on an estate belonging to Donald Trump in suburban New York yesterday, according to reports.
The Libyan leader is scheduled to attend the UN general assembly this week. He had been struggling to find a plot to accommodate the large Bedouin tent he takes with him when travelling abroad.
Workers were seen yesterday erecting a tent and satellites in the glamorous neighbourhood of Bedford on an estate owned by Trump. Local officials tried to stop them, saying it was illegal to build a temporary residence without a permit. An ABC News helicopter filmed a large tent on the 113-acre Seven Springs estate, with rugs and patterned wall hangings. Green and yellow fabric lined the walls in a pattern dotted with images of small brown camels, according to a local newspaper website image. Last night a state department official told AP the tent might be used for entertaining by Gadaffi, but he would not be sleeping there.
Doors all over New York have been slammed in the colonel's face, but Trump says he has rented part of a large property in Westchester county to Middle Eastern tenants who may be associated with Gadaffi.
Gadaffi last month wanted to erect a tent in New Jersey, where the Libyan embassy owns property, but the US government said he could not. A request to set up tent in Central Park was also turned down.
Gadaffi arrived in New York yesterday, It is likely he will face protests over Scotland's recent release of Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270.
LONDON (Reuters) - A NATO call to study linking U.S., NATO and Russian missile defences will face technical and security problems so numerous that some experts say the idea is unlikely to go beyond a limited exchange of early warning data.
The broad concept of joint missile defence between the West and Russia dates back at least a decade but has not progressed beyond the theoretical despite a handful of Russia-NATO command post exercises held in recent years to explore the challenges.
Friday's proposal by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen gives the idea a political boost that may lift it into "the realm of possibility", said Andrew Nagorski, director of public policy at the East-West Institute think tank.
But making the notion a reality would require resolving a long list of military, diplomatic and technical questions that will likely take years, even in the favourable conditions of a diplomatic thaw between Moscow and the West, analysts say.
"We are years away. It's like a discussion of what we'll do once we land a man on Mars," said Jonathan Eyal, a defence expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Michael Elleman, a U.S.-based visiting senior fellow for missile defence at Britain's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said work on missile cooperation would likely focus on early warning radar information exchange.
"If you want to go beyond that, it gets really tricky," Elleman said. "I'm sceptical, but I remain open-minded."
Eyal said work could only meaningfully start once Washington had executed a revamped U.S. missile shield system for Europe that would replace a planned land-based anti-missile programme in Eastern Europe that had so alarmed Moscow.
"There isn't even a consensus in Europe or even in NATO over what that system should be, what technology it would apply and how extensive it would be," Eyal said.
"All you have is a tentative American decision unilaterally taken in the hope that the Europeans will follow. They will, I think, follow, but it's not obvious. And only when that decision is taken can you talk about plugging the Russians into this."
Rasmussen's suggestion follows Washington's announcement on Thursday that it would not build the anti-missile shield it had planned using facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland.
WOULD PARTNERS SHARE SPACE-BASED DATA?
The two sides have discussed technical issues most years since 2000 at expert level meetings in Moscow and command post exercises, said Christopher Langton, a senior fellow for conflict and defence diplomacy at IISS.
Discussions have included how to integrate missile defence, and whether there would be one Russian-NATO central command. Many technical issues remained to be addressed.
Elleman said handing simple radar data to a counterparty would not in itself compromise security, although it would be technically tough because merely exchanging and being able to read such data would require numerous new technical protocols.
And as an initial step the United States and Russia could resurrect a joint data exchange centre in Moscow that was set up under a 1998 agreement to share data from early warning systems tracking ballistic missiles, he said. The venture had withered after its establishment for lack of political support, he said.
But for "political and legitimate security reasons" partners might balk at disclosing more complex data, he said, for example how information about an enemy missile in flight was fed into their own defensive systems.
"And would we share spaced-based information?" he asked. "We have satellites that use infrared detectors to monitor missile launches by looking down and getting initial information from which they can cue radars to point in a certain direction. That data may be a little more difficult to share."
BEING a buffoon can buy a lot of time in international politics - you can do naughty things for a long while before people begin to take them seriously.
This is the case of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, whose relationship with Iran was the subject of a recent presentation by Robert Morgenthau, the legendary Manhattan District-Attorney.
Based on his office's investigations, third-party collaboration and snippets of public information, Morgenthau concludes that Venezuela and Iran are "acting together in our backyard on the development of nuclear and missile technology".
The news is not really new. For instance, a small group of private investigators came to my office a few months ago and showed me numerous documents and photographs that pointed to many of the things the Manhattan DA now confirms. They complained that they had visited authorities in the US and other countries but had received very little support in their effort to put the spotlight on what Chavez is up to.
Regardless of how one thinks liberal democracies should respond to Iran's development of nuclear weapons, Chavez's involvement has unsavoury implications for the Western hemisphere. Should the Tehran-Caracas relationship evolve into a nuclear Venezuela, or a Venezuela acting as a nuclear base for Iran, Caracas's ability to destabilise neighbouring countries that are resisting Chavez's attempts to subvert them would be exponentially augmented. Not an edifying prospect for those of us who would rather see Chavez - and the line of populist tyrants from which he descends - relegated to horror museums.
The new relationship between Iran and Venezuela started in 2006. If we brush aside the rhetorical declarations of mutual love, we are left with three hard facts, all of which emanate from the military, political and economic accords signed by Caracas and Tehran.
First, Iran has set up financial institutions - such as the Banco Internacional de Desarrollo - in Venezuela ostensibly for development purposes. But since Iran is in no position to lavish on other countries the development it has failed to bring to its own people, investigators believe the real intention is to bypass sanctions that bar Tehran from using the banking institutions of the US for payments related to its nuclear program.
Second, in the past three years, a series of factories owned by Iran have been established in remote locations inside Venezuela, including an area containing up to 50,000 tonnes of uranium.
Third, last December, Turkey intercepted an Iranian ship bound for Venezuela with equipment capable of producing explosives; it was hidden in 22 containers labelled "tractor parts".
These are not the only substantial elements in the relationship between Venezuela and the Middle East at large. Another one is Ghazi Nasr al-Din, a Venezuelan of Lebanese origin barred by the US Treasury from transacting any business in the US because of his terrorist connections. Morgenthau believes he is working under a different name at the Venezuelan embassy in Lebanon.
Bypassing international sanctions in order to continue making payments to its suppliers has long been an Iranian obsession. Since most wire transfers made in dollars are cleared by US banks acting as intermediaries - regardless of their origin and final destination - Iran needs at least indirect access to banks in New York.
While Iran's development bank in Caracas is on the US blacklist because it is a subsidiary of a larger Iranian institution, Venezuela's banks can transact business in the US legally. Iran can, therefore, use any Venezuelan financial institution with which its Caracas-based bank has a relationship to make transfers that will sail through the US banking system. All this happens under the nose of US authorities who think their sanctions are effective. Meanwhile, these authorities spend time pressuring other nations to do away with bank secrecy in order to catch US tax evaders.
Not since 1962 has Latin America been drawn directly by an outside power into the nuclear chess game. The Argentine and Brazilian nuclear programs developed in the 1970s and 80s (Mexico's never went past the preliminary phase) were entirely homegrown affairs, unrelated to the interests of outside powers. Venezuela, whose anti-imperialist government has announced a nuclear program of its own, is busy bringing Latin America back to the good old days of subservience to anti-imperialist foreign powers.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute
SAN'A, Yemen — A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said Saturday.
Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles (223 kilometers) west of the capital San'a.
Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country's females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.
Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia, said Ahmed al-Quraishi, chairman of Siyaj human rights organization, which promotes the rights of children in Yemen.
Al-Quraishi said that he stumbled upon Youssef in the hospital while investigating cases of children who had fled from the fighting in the north.
"This is one of many cases that exist in Yemen," said al-Quraishi. "The reason behind it is the lack of education and awareness, forcing many girls into marriage in this very early age."
Impoverished parents in Yemen sometimes give away their young daughters in return for hefty dowries. There is also a long-standing tribal custom in which infant daughters and sons are promised to cousins in hopes it will protect them from illicit relationships, he said.
Al-Quraishi said there are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed every year.
The issue of child brides vaulted into the headlines here two years ago when an 8-year-old Yemeni girl went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.
In February, parliament passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But some lawmakers are trying to kill the measure, calling it un-Islamic. Before it could be ratified by Yemen's president, they forced it to be sent back to parliament's constitutional committee for review.
Such marriages also occur in neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where several cases of child brides have been reported in the past year, though the phenomenon is not believed to be nearly as widespread as in Yemen.
Negotiations for a Trade and Development Agreement between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Canada are set to begin in early November. This was decided at a preparatory meeting between Ministers of both parties held yesterday in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. CARICOM Co-chairman of the session, Senator the Honourable Mariano Browne, Minister of Trade and Industry and Minister in the Ministry of Finance of Trinidad and Tobago said at a press conference following the meeting at the Trinidad Hilton Hotel and Conference Centre that the discussions were conducted in a positive spirit of co-operation and compromise. Mr Browne is CARICOM’s lead Minister in the negotiations and also at the meeting were Senator the Honourable Maxine McClean, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados, the Honourable Michael Church, Minister of the Environment, Foreign Trade and Export Development of Grenada, Senator the Honourable Marlene Malahoo Forte, Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica and Senator the Honourable Joanne Massiah, Minister of State in the Ministry of Legal Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda. The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade and for Asia-Pacific Gateway represented Canada. Minister Browne said the meeting had set the tone for the negotiations and was a great first step. He also alluded to the development dimension of the negotiations which he said should among other things aid in the development of the institutional capacity of the Region. Mr Day said the conclusion of the agreement was important as both sides would be working together to provide opportunities for jobs and investment. The preparatory meeting, he said, had set a framework of principles from which the technical experts could fashion an agreement that would be of mutual benefit. He said that development must accompany trade. Currently, trade and economic relations between CARICOM and Canada are covered under a number of instruments, including the 1979 CARICOM-Canada Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement and its Protocols, including the 1998 Protocol on Rum; CARIBCAN which grants unilateral duty free access to eligible goods from beneficiary countries in the English-speaking Caribbean up to 2011. Two-way merchandise trade between CARICOM and Canada averaged more than $700 million (US) over the last ten years with a surplus averaging more than $60 million (US) in favour of the Region.
Amazing how advanced the medical field has grown.....................keep up the great work
43-year-old patient lost lower half of his face due to malignant tumor
MADRID - Spanish doctors completed the first ever transplant of a tongue and jaw Tuesday, surgeon Pedro Cavadas said Friday.
The 43-year-old patient, who lost the lower half of his face during treatment for a malignant tumor 11 years ago, is recovering well and could be released in 10 days, Cavadas told a news conference in Valencia.
The unidentified patient was given a tongue and jaw as part of a face transplant operation, the first carried out in Spain.
"The patient should recover the capacity to speak intelligibly, to swallow .... recover sensitivity in his tongue and his face," the Spanish surgeon said.
Tuesday's transplant, the eighth involving a face since the surgery was pioneered in 2005, was particularly difficult because previous surgery had rendered the veins, arteries and nerves normally connected in these operations useless, Cavadas said.
By Moni Basu and Faith Karimi CNN - August 20, 2009
Peter Gathungu walks more than a mile to a shopping center, where he pays a sizable sum to charge his cell phone.
That's because electricity is nonexistent in Gathungu's hometown of Njoro, in northwest Kenya. Landlines and other forms of communication are not as efficient, so Gathungu and millions of others in emerging nations rely on mobile phones. Charging the phones can be a headache in towns and villages where electricity is scarce.
Gathungu's troubles may soon be over, though.
Kenya's biggest mobile phone company, Safaricom Ltd., launched the nation's first solar-charged phone this month. The handset comes with a regular electrical charger and a solar panel that charges the phone using the sun's rays, company CEO Michael Joseph told CNN by telephone.
Retailing at about $35, the phones were manufactured by Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp. Safaricom plans to make an initial supply of 100,000 phones available.
"People are excited about these phones," Joseph said. "I expect to be sold out in a week."
Eco-friendly phones have been touted by several companies at global trade shows, but most have not been
Samsung unveiled a solar-powered phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, earlier this year and introduced its first sun-powered phone in India in mid-June. The company expects its Solar Guru model to perform well in India, another country where electrical supply can be erratic.
Unlike many technological innovations, the solar phone is making its big splash in developing nations, where the need is the greatest. After the Solar Guru is in circulation in India, Samsung said, it plans to launch similar phones in other Asian markets, Europe and Latin America.
For the time being, Kenyans are happy to serve as early adopters.
"The power crisis here has been going on for ages," Joseph said, adding that the Safaricom phone's solar panel is small and portable, unlike charging devices some Kenyans now use.
Only about 1.3 million of Kenya's 37 million people are connected to the national electrical grid, said Migwi Theuri, a spokesman for Kenya Power and Lighting Co. The east African nation, which gets most of its energy from hydro-generation, has been undergoing power rationing after a three-year drought.
Despite the limited availability of power, Kenya has one of the most vibrant cell phone markets in Africa, analysts say. An estimated 17 million Kenyans use mobile phones.
Some charge phones on bicycle-run generators, Joseph said. Or like, Gathungu, they pay businesses in major cities to charge their phones, sometimes waiting an entire day.
"There's an enormous need for a device like this," Joseph said of the solar phone, which can charge during talk time, as long as there are rays.
"They will continue to charge on natural light, even on cloudy days," he added.
Gathungu plans to buy one of the new environmentally friendly phones. For him, it's a matter of money and convenience. He earns 4,000 Kenya shillings ($53 dollars) a month as a waiter. Charging his phone for 50 shillings (70 cents) a week adds up. The solar phone would pay for itself, Gathungu said.
Until he buys one, he'll keep making the trek to the shopping center every Sunday afternoon after church. He wouldn't go into further detail about his mobile phone woes, not wanting to waste his battery charge on the call.
International observers call for calm during precarious wait for results
updated 3:00 a.m. PT,Fri., Aug 21, 2009
KABUL - Campaign teams for President Hamid Karzai and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah each positioned themselves Friday as the winner of Afghanistan's presidential elections one day after millions of Afghans braved dozens of militant attacks to cast ballots.
The first official returns were not expected until at least Saturday, but campaign teams conducted informal counts and posted numbers at campaign headquarters. Abdullah's unofficial returns showed him beating Karzai handily — but they did not include any numbers from Afghanistan's south and east, where Karzai was expected to win a large majority.
LONDON (Reuters) – Visitors to London always have to be on the look out for pickpockets, but now there's another, more positive phenomenon on the loose -- putpockets.
Aware that people are suffering in the economic crisis, 20 former pickpockets have turned over a new leaf and are now trawling London's tourist sites slipping money back into unsuspecting pockets.
Anything from 5 pounds ($8) to 20 pound notes is being surreptitiously deposited in unguarded pockets or open handbags in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and other busy spots.
The initiative, which runs until the end of August in London before being rolled out countrywide, is being funded by a broadbrand provider, which says it wants to brighten up people's lives in unusual ways.
"It feels good to give something back for a change -- and Britons certainly need it in the current economic climate," said Chris Fitch, a former pickpocket who now heads TalkTalk's putpocketing initiative.
"Every time I put money back in someone's pocket, I feel less guilty about the fact I spent many years taking it out."
London's police have been briefed about the plan, which will see at least 100,000 pounds given away.
(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Kate Kelland)
Russia, Venezuela edge closer to oil deal, talk arms
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Published on Monday, August 17, 2009 Caribbean Net News
By Katya Golubkova
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) -- Russia and Venezuela on Saturday moved closer to an oil venture deal and discussed arms trade, forging a partnership that may drag Russia into a row over the US military presence in Colombia.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, due in Russia in September, said last week he was prepared to buy dozens of Russian tanks to counter the US intention to increase a military presence in Colombia.
"The president of Venezuela is one of the leading international policy makers. He is a very strong personality and a big friend of Russia," said Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin. "I know from experience if he said something he will definitely do it," Sechin told a news conference after talks with Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez when asked whether Russia would sell tanks to Venezuela.
Sechin said military cooperation with Venezuela will help Russia's struggling military industrial complex cope with the economic crisis but declined to comment further on the tank deal saying it was for presidents to work it out.
Colombia's government is expected to sign a deal this month giving US forces increased access to military bases in order to fight the cocaine trade and Marxist insurgents. Chavez has blasted the plan as a threat to regional stability.
"We as a sovereign state must protect our people and in that sense we can make arms purchases that we deem necessary," Carrizalez said. "These bases without doubt create a threat for all Latin American countries.
Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, wants to revive Latin American ties cultivated during the Soviet era. Sechin's recent Latin American tour included traditional Soviet allies Cuba and Nicaragua.
Russia and Venezuela are expected next month to present a joint venture that aims to develop the Junin 6 block in the Orinoco oil belt, which Venezuela says has the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves.
Sechin said Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and a consortium of Russian firms will need to jointly invest $30 billion in Venezuela's Junin 6 oil field.
"The venture with PDVSA may become a leader in oil production in Venezuela," Sechin said, adding that Ayacucho 2 and Junin 3 blocks, controlled by PDVSA ventures with TNK-BP and LUKOIL could also be included in the joint venture.
Sechin said reserves in the Junin 6 oil block are estimated at 53 billion barrels, potentially making it the biggest Russian oil exploration project abroad, and will last for at least 40 years.
The Russian consortium includes Rosneft, Gazprom, LUKOIL, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz. It also intends to bid for blocks in the Carabobo Project.
Women wearing the burka in Baharak town, Afghanistan. Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters
Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.
The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.
"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.
In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.
Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country.
Islamic law experts and human rights activists say that although the language of the original law has been changed, many of the provisions that alarmed women's rights groups remain, including this one: "Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband's permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient."
The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country's Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday's election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday.
Human Rights Watch, which has obtained a copy of the final law, called on all candidates to pledge to repeal the law, which it says contradicts Afghanistan's own constitution.
The group said that Karzai had "made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election".
Brad Adams, the organisation's Asia director, said: "The rights of Afghan women are being ripped up by powerful men who are using women as pawns in manoeuvres to gain power.
"These kinds of barbaric laws were supposed to have been relegated to the past with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, yet Karzai has revived them and given them his official stamp of approval."
The latest opinion poll by US democracy group the International Republican Institute showed that although Karzai was up 13 points to 44% since the last survey in May, his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, had soared from 7% to 26%.
If those numbers prove accurate, it would mean the contest would have to go to a second round run-off vote in early October. In that scenario, 50% of voters said they would vote for Karzai and 29% for Abdullah.
The survey was conducted in mid to late July, so it is not known whether Abdullah has made further gains on Karzai.
He could further increase his chance of victory by joining forces with Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister who is also running on a platform fiercely critical of Karzai.
Fifty-eight per cent of the 2,400 people polled by IRI said they would like to see an alliance between Abdullah and Ghani, who is polling in fourth place
NEWARK, N.J. – A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman has confirmed that a Continental Airlines pilot has died in mid-flight.
Spokeswoman Arlene Salac says the airline alerted the FAA around 10:30 Thursday morning that Flight 61 from Brussels to Newark was being flown by two co-pilots.
Salac says the plane, a Boeing 777, will receive priority handling when it lands around noon.
THIMPHU, Bhutan — If the rest of the world cannot get it right in these unhappy times, this tiny Buddhist kingdom high in the Himalayan mountains says it is working on an answer.
“Greed, insatiable human greed,” said Prime Minister Jigme Thinley of Bhutan, describing what he sees as the cause of today’s economic catastrophe in the world beyond the snow-topped mountains. “What we need is change,” he said in the whitewashed fortress where he works. “We need to think gross national happiness.”
The notion of gross national happiness was the inspiration of the former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in the 1970s as an alternative to the gross national product. Now, the Bhutanese are refining the country’s guiding philosophy into what they see as a new political science, and it has ripened into government policy just when the world may need it, said Kinley Dorji, secretary of information and communications.
“You see what a complete dedication to economic development ends up in,” he said, referring to the global economic crisis. “Industrialized societies have decided now that G.N.P. is a broken promise.”
Under a new Constitution adopted last year, government programs — from agriculture to transportation to foreign trade — must be judged not by the economic benefits they may offer but by the happiness they produce.
The goal is not happiness itself, the prime minister explained, a concept that each person must define for himself. Rather, the government aims to create the conditions for what he called, in an updated version of the American Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of gross national happiness.”
The Bhutanese have started with an experiment within an experiment, accepting the resignation of the popular king as an absolute monarch and holding the country’s first democratic election a year ago.
The change is part of attaining gross national happiness, Mr. Dorji said. “They resonate well, democracy and G.N.H. Both place responsibility on the individual. Happiness is an individual pursuit and democracy is the empowerment of the individual.”
It was a rare case of a monarch’s unilaterally stepping back from power, and an even rarer case of his doing so against the wishes of his subjects. He gave the throne to his son, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who was crowned in November in the new role of constitutional monarch without executive power.
Bhutan is, perhaps, an easy place to nimbly rewrite economic rules — a country with one airport and two commercial planes, where the east can only be reached from the west after four days’ travel on mountain roads.
No more than 700,000 people live in the kingdom, squeezed between the world’s two most populous nations, India and China, and its task now is to control and manage the inevitable changes to its way of life. It is a country where cigarettes are banned and television was introduced just 10 years ago, where traditional clothing and architecture are enforced by law and where the capital city has no stoplight and just one traffic officer on duty.
If the world is to take gross national happiness seriously, the Bhutanese concede, they must work out a scheme of definitions and standards that can be quantified and measured by the big players of the world’s economy.
“Once Bhutan said, ‘O.K., here we are with G.N.H.,’ the developed world and the World Bank and the I.M.F. and so on asked, ‘How do you measure it?’ ” Mr. Dorji said, characterizing the reactions of the world’s big economic players. So the Bhutanese produced an intricate model of well-being that features the four pillars, the nine domains and the 72 indicators of happiness.
Specifically, the government has determined that the four pillars of a happy society involve the economy, culture, the environment and good governance. It breaks these into nine domains: psychological well-being, ecology, health, education, culture, living standards, time use, community vitality and good governance, each with its own weighted and unweighted G.N.H. index.
(CNN) -- A British woman facing possible execution in Laos will escape the death sentence because she is pregnant, a spokesman for the Laotian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Samantha Orobator became pregnant in prison, according to a spokeswoman for rights group Reprieve.
The country's criminal law prohibits courts from sentencing pregnant women to death, spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing told CNN. The woman's trial hasn't been scheduled yet, he said, but is likely to happen next week.
Samantha Orobator, 20, was facing death by firing squad for drug trafficking, said Clare Algar, the executive director of Reprieve, a London-based human rights group.
She was arrested August 5, Khenthong has said.
Orobator was alleged to have been carrying just over half a kilogram (about 1lb) of heroin, Reprieve lawyer Anna Morris told CNN by phone from Vientiane, the Laotian capital. Those found guilty of carrying that amount normally face the death penalty, she said.
Reprieve has said Orobator became pregnant in prison, possibly as a result of rape, and that she is due to give birth in September. That would mean Orobator became pregnant in January.
Khenthong agreed that Orobator is five months pregnant.
But he indicated that Orobator might have already been pregnant when she was arrested, and that she lost the first baby while in prison.
He said Orobator declared on the day of her arrest in August that she was two months pregnant by her boyfriend. After she had already been in jail for some time, he said, Orobator asked for medication to cure a vaginal infection, and he believes it caused her to lose the child.
Nuanthasing said officials are investigating Orobator's pregnancy.
Orobator's mother said she found out about her daughter's pregnancy in January. Jane Orobator told CNN she heard the news from the British Foreign Office, which has been monitoring the case.
There is no British Embassy in Laos; a British vice-consul arrived in the country over the weekend, the British Foreign Office said.
Jane Orobator said she cannot believe her daughter was involved in drug trafficking, and she was surprised to learn she was in Laos.
"I don't know" what she was doing there, she said from her home in Dublin, Ireland. "The last time she spoke with me, she said she was on holiday in London and she would come to see us in Dublin before returning to the UK in July.
"She is not the type of person who would be involved in drugs," she added.
Reprieve is worried about her health, especially given her pregnancy, Anna Morris said.
"She became pregnant in prison. We are concerned that it may not have been consensual and we are concerned that someone who finds herself in prison at 20 is subject to exploitation," she said.
Reprieve sent Morris from London to Laos to try to help Orobator, Algar said.
The lawyer arrived there on Sunday and is hoping to visit Orobator on Tuesday, her boss at Reprieve said. A British consul has also arrived in the country.
"I am the first British lawyer who has asked for access to her," Morris said. "She needs to have a local lawyer appointed to her. We are pressing very hard for the local authorities to appoint one."
She said it was normal in the Laotian justice system for a defendant to get a lawyer only days before a trial.
The last execution in Laos was in 1990, the foreign affairs spokesman said.
Samantha Orobator was born in Nigeria and moved to London with her family when she was 8, her mother said.
Pregnant U.K. Woman Faces Death by Firing Squad in Heroin Trafficking Case
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Samantha Orobator
BANGKOK — The Laotian government on Monday insisted the trial of a pregnant British woman who faces possible death by firing squad for allegedly trafficking heroin will be conducted fairly.
That promise came despite the fact that Samantha Orobator, 20, has not been assigned a defense lawyer, raising concerns as to whether she will be able to properly defend herself, a human rights group said Monday.
Orobator has been in jail in the communist-ruled country since August, when she was accused of trying to smuggle 1.5 pounds of heroin in her luggage. Those caught with more than the statutory limit of 1.1 pounds face a mandatory death penalty.
"The trial is expected to be held this week but I don't know the exact dates," Laotian government spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing said, adding it was up to the judge. "The trial will be carried out fairly."
Khenthong refused to comment on the charges against Orobator, her medical condition nor allegations that she was abused while in prison.
Anna Morris, a lawyer with the British-based human rights group Reprieve, said she was concerned that trial would not meet the judicial standards of most countries
She hasn't been appointed a lawyer yet and that has been our concern," Morris said. "We are concerned that any hearing may be quite quick in comparison to what will happen in other countries."
Morris, who arrived Sunday in Vientiane, the country's capital, said she had been granted permission to meet with Orobator on Tuesday. The lawyer said Orobator had earlier been told the trial could start Monday, but it was now unclear when the trial would begin.
Morris also said the group was worried about the detainee's health.
"We are concerned about the effect of the uncertainty on Sam's well-being ... given her age, her vulnerability, her pregnancy," Morris said. "We just seek clarity from the Lao government as soon as possible as to what exactly is going to happen so that we can advise her properly."
From her home in Dublin, Orobator's mother Jane Orobator told The Associated Press that she just wanted her daughter home.
"I'm terrified. I'm scared," she said in a telephone interview. "I'm just begging they should not do anything to her. They should just send her back to me."
A Reprieve statement said Orobator was five months pregnant, but because she had no access to counsel they could not confirm whether she was raped in the prison.
The circumstances of her pregnancy remain unclear and the group's statement could not be independently verified.
She had been in jail for months before Britain's government learned of the detention. British diplomats and doctors have since visited her, according to the British Foreign Office.
Laos is a one-party state and rights groups say the judicial system is beholden to the communist regime that has ruled since 1975.
The country lies in the opium-producing Golden Triangle bordering Myanmar and Laos. Although production of the narcotic has in the region fallen in recent years, it is still a major source of illicit drugs.
JEDDAH - A 50-year old Saudi man has agreed to divorce his nine-year-old bride, media reported on Thursday, after the marriage drew international criticism.
The decision, reported by newspapers Alwatan and Al-Riyadh, came after months of court hearings, criticism from the United Nations and an international media frenzy about Saudi Arabia's human rights practices.
"This is a good step and I think the man did it because he was in a lot of pressure from everyone," Wajeha Al-Huaider, founder of the Group for Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia, told Reuters by telephone.
Al-Huaider, who campaigned for the child, said she hoped the pressure generated by the case would eventually lead to a law banning child marriages.
The child's mother, who opposed the marriage which took place when the girl was 8 years old, took the case to court last year. The court in the small town of Onaiza upheld the marriage on condition that the husband did not consummate it until the girl reached puberty.
In Saudi Arabia's patriarchal society, which applies an austere version of Sunni Islam, fathers have the right to decide whom their daughters marry.
"Islam does not specify an age for the marriage contract. The contract is one thing and the consummation of marriage is another," Ahmed Al Modi, an Islamic scholar and writer, told Reuters.
In the case of the Onaiza child bride he said the judge could not order a divorce because the marriage contract was carried out according to established rules for marriage, which include the approval of the father.
"When the child is under age the father can approve the marriage contract but as soon as the child reaches puberty she can object to the marriage," Al Modi said, emphasizing that it was merely a contract, signed to "secure her future".
He explained that in such cases the child usually remained in her parents' custody and her husband would be able to visit her. But he would not be permitted to live with her or consumate the marriage until she had reached puberty.
Discussion about a legal age for marriage in Saudi Arabia took off after a senior Saudi cleric, Sheikh Mohsen al-Obaikan, was quoted in a local newspaper recently saying that girls under 18 years of age should not be allowed to marry.
Many clerics in Saudi Arabia, including the Kingdom's chief cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, endorse the practice of young girls marrying.
The Onaiza case attracted international criticism.
"Irrespective of circumstances or the legal framework, the marriage of a child is a violation of that child's rights," UNICEF's chief, Ann Veneaman, said earlier this month.
Al Modi said Saudi Arabia was falling behind in the issue of child marriage.
"Egypt assigned a legal age for marriage in 1975, now we have started to awaken," he said, adding that Arab countries like Jordon Syria, Lebanon and Egypt had already assigned a legal age for marriage.
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