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Drought ravages northern Kenya
Millions of people in northern Kenya are facing hunger and an uncertain future as a drought continues to destroy their crops and livestock.
The drought is also taking its toll on the population’s health and the number of malnourished and ill, increases by the day. And there seems to be little respite.
With no rains forecast over the next three months and the government saying that the country’s food reserves are dwindling fast, some in this region might not make it through.
Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from Turkana, in Kenya.
“Inexcusable”: TSA STILL Refusing To Release Naked Scanner Safety Reports
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
February 9, 2011
– Senate amendment introduced to make misuse of images a federal crime punishable by prison
– Further amendment introduced to force all scanners to use “privacy enhancing” software
– TSA once again lies, tells media machines are not capable of storing images
The chairman of a House oversight committee on homeland defense has labeled “inexcusable” the TSA’s continued refusal to release it’s internal reports on the safety of radiation firing airport body scanners.
“The public has a right to know, and there isn’t something so sensitive that requires holding it back,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. tells USA Today.
The newspaper filed Freedom of information requests for the reports over two months ago, prompting members of congress to get involved, with a group led by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, demanding that the TSA Read more…
Chinese weapons fall into hands of insurgents
Insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq have obtained Chinese-made weapons
Chinese-made weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan because of China’s failure to enforce export controls on arms to Iran, the leaked cables show.
By Gordon Rayner
US diplomats also feared that Chinese companies were selling materials to Iran that could be used to build nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
Chinese-made guns, as well as rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles containing Chinese-made components, have all been used against Coalition forces or civilian targets in Iraq, the US claims, while other weapons have been obtained by militants in Afghanistan.
The US was so concerned about Chinese arms and components being sold to Iran that in September 2008 the State Department launched a major diplomatic offensive to put pressure on Beijing.
It decided to share intelligence with eight “key allies” including Spain and Italy to “persuade China to enforce its export control laws more effectively” and to “aggressively implement” UN Security Council resolutions on the sale of arms and weapons materials.
Ambassadors were told to encourage the foreign governments to point out to the Chinese that arms sales to Iran “could ultimately damage China’s reputation and its bilateral relationship with” each of the countries.
The What? And Why? Of Rare Earth Metals
Over the past few months, there’s been a buzz surrounding rare earth metals. These are metals such as europium, lanthanum, neodymium and 14 others found in small concentrations attached to other metals and resource deposits. They’re actually not that rare, just expensive and difficult to pull out of the ground.
These naturally occurring elements are essential in everything from wind turbines to lasers to iPads.
Rare earths are a conundrum for the environmentally conscious—they hold the key to green energies but create toxic waste when being separated away from other elements. “Just one wind turbine generating 3 megawatts of electricity requires 600 kilograms of rare earths for its magnets,” a source told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper.
Electric and hybrid cars can contain more than twice as much rare earth metals as a standard car. This image from the NY Times breaks down how these metals make up critical elements of a Prius.
Currently, China controls 97 percent of the world’s production of rare earth metals. In October 2010, the country cut exports of the metals by 70 percent, disrupting manufacturing in Japan, Europe and the U.S., and sending the prices of these metals up 40 percent.
China currently controls production but the country only has 37 percent of Read more…
ACLU slams Chicago’s pervasive surveillance system
CHICAGO — A vast network of high-tech surveillance cameras that allows Chicago police to zoom in on a crime in progress and track suspects across the city is raising privacy concerns.
Chicago’s path to becoming the most-watched US city began in 2003 when police began installing cameras with flashing blue lights at high-crime intersections.
The city has now linked more than 10,000 public and privately owned surveillance cameras in a system dubbed Operation Virtual Shield, according to a report published Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
At least 1,250 of them are powerful enough to zoom in and read the text of a book.
The sophisticated system is also capable of automatically tracking people and vehicles out of the range of one camera and into another and searching for images of interest like an unattended package or a particular license plate.
“Given Chicago’s history of unlawful political surveillance, including the notorious ‘Red Squad,’ it is critical that appropriate controls be put in place to rein in these powerful and pervasive surveillance cameras now available to law enforcement throughout the City,” said Harvey Grossman, legal director of the ACLU of Illinois.
The Chicago police “Red Squad” program from the 1920s through the 1970s spied on Read more…
Pirates hijack $200 million crude oil: owners say Somali pirates dangerously disrupting world oil supplies
A supertanker carrying about $200m (£125m; 146m euros) worth of crude oil has been hijacked off the coast of Oman, the vessel’s Greek operator says.
Athens-based shipping company Enesel said they had lost communication with the Irene SL.
The 333m (1,093ft) vessel was on its way from the Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico when it was attacked.
Although the incident happened hundreds of miles from Somalia, pirate gangs are known to operate there.
A body representing the owners of much of the world’s tanker fleet warned that Read more…
Icelandic volcano ‘set to erupt’
Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after evaluating an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island’s second largest volcano.
Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides “good reason to worry”.
He told the country’s national TV station that a low number of seismometer measuring devices in the area is making it more difficult to determine the scale and likely outcome of the current shifts.
But he said there was “every reason to worry” as the sustained earthquake tremors to the north east of the remote volcano range are the strongest recorded in recent times and there was “no doubt” the lava was rising.
The geologist complained that the Read more…
Grocery Bills Are on the Rise
China police stop spread of Egypt news: activist
BEIJING — Police in southwest China have barred activists from distributing leaflets about anti-government protests in Egypt and Tunisia, deeming the news too sensitive, one dissident said Wednesday.
Activists in Guizhou province tried to hand out information about the demonstrations over the weekend, but police told them this was an “unusual period” and gave them 3,000 yuan ($450) to stop, Chen Xi told AFP.
The police paid the money to compensate for losses incurred from the printing costs, and when the activists tried to distribute more information in Guiyang city on Monday, police again barred them from doing so, Chen said.
“We do this (hand out leaflets) all the time but the Read more…
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