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Climate change blamed for decline in penguins: Population has halved in 30 years in western Antarctica
Climate change effects on food sources may have contributed to a halving of penguin populations in western Antarctica, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that populations of Adelie and chinstrap penguins in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and Scotia Sea had fallen by 50 per cent in the last 30 years.
The decline was directly related to a huge reduction in numbers of the penguins’ main prey, shrimp-like krill.
Krill density had dropped by as much as 80per cent, both because of heightened Read more…
UN document would give ‘Mother Earth’ same rights as humans
Bolivia is planning to table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans.
Photograph by: NASA
UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.
The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to “dominate and exploit” — to the point that the “well-being and existence of Read more…
North Korea Could Help Myanmar Obtain Nuke Tech, Expert Says
Myanmar could create systems for nuclear weapons with North Korean support, but the Southeast Asian state has yet to build such equipment, former International Atomic Energy Agency official Robert Kelley said on Monday (see GSN, April 11).
The nation possesses multiple facilities it might tap for uranium enrichment, the Yonhap News Agency quoted Kelley as saying. The enrichment process can produce civilian as well as weapons material.
The facilities incorporate German equipment, said Kelley, now a fellow with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“When the Germans are inspecting, the factories appear to be civilian,” he said. “But Read more…
IRS to increase “pre-crime” enforcement
Did you ever see Minority Report? It’s one of Steven Spielberg’s often forgotten about movies based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. In the movie, pre-couch Tom Cruise plays a police officer in the year 2054 who works for the highly specialized ‘pre-crime’ division.
Using a bizarre array of technology and metaphysics, the pre-crime division sees into the future and stops criminals in their tracks, arresting them before they commit a crime… sometimes before they even think about committing a crime.
This very elaborate and morally ambiguous law enforcement system is predicated on the government determining what your actions and intentions will be, often before Read more…
China blocks coastal waters, enlarges military
Pacific’s chief calls shadowy move ‘troubling’
**file photo **Chinese paramilitary police patrol in Urumqi, western China’s Xinjiang province. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
NavyAdm. Robert F. Willard said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that China’s intentions behind its decades-long buildup remain hidden and are undermining stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
The four-star admiral said the arms buildup is understandable because of China’s economic rise, but “the scope and pace of its modernization without clarity on China’s ultimate goals remains troubling.”
“For example, China continues to accelerate its offensive air and missile developments without corresponding public clarification about how these forces will be utilized,” he said.
Chinese officials, in meetings with their U.S. counterparts, have refused to explain the pace or goal of the arms buildup, defense Read more…
Supervolcano plume sized up
University of Utah
This image, based on variations in electrical conductivity of underground rock, shows the volcanic plume of partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. Yellow and red indicate higher conductivity,green and blue indicate lower conductivity.
By John Roach
The volcanic plume beneath Yellowstone is larger than previously thought, according to a new study that measured the electrical conductivity of the hot and partly molten rock.
The findings say nothing about the chances of another cataclysmic eruption at Yellowstone, but they give scientists another view of the vast and deep reservoir that feeds such eruptions.
“It’s a totally new and different way of imaging and looking at the volcanic roots of Yellowstone,” study co-author Robert Smith, an emeritus professor Read more…
Syria bars medical access for protesters: HRW
(Reuters) – Syrian security forces prevented wounded protesters reaching hospitals and stopped medical teams from treating them in two towns during last Friday’s demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
Pro-democracy protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year rule have been shaking the country, known for its heavy-handed security apparatus, for more than three weeks.
Protests after mass Friday prayers have generally been the largest because emergency law, in force since the Baath Party took power in 1963, bans any gatherings and demonstrations not sponsored by the state.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said 27 people were killed in the southern city of Deraa and one other in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Friday.
“To deprive wounded people of critical and perhaps life-saving medical treatment is both inhumane and illegal,” said Sarah Leah Witson, HRW’s Middle East director.
“Syria’s leaders talk about political reform, but they meet their people’s legitimate demands for reform with bullets.”
Based on witness accounts, HRW said security forces set up a roadblock near a bridge in Deraa to prevent protesters crossing to the other part of town.
One witness said about 50 soldiers were in front, surrounded by several thousand uniformed and civilian-clothed members of security services as well as snipers.
When protesters ignored the army’s warnings to stop, security forces fired with Kalashnikovs and snipers opened fire at the same time. Read more…
RFID Chips And Soul Catcher 2025
From RFID chips to Soul Catcher 2025 - technology to capture your soul and implant it in somebody else...
News that the British government is planning to tag prisoners with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips was met last year with instant opposition from probation officers and civil rights lawyers.
And rightly so. Government plans to implant the RFID chips without prisoners’ consent would in any circumstance be deemed an illegal act. It would also, of course, create a major moral dilemma.
“If the Home Office doesn’t understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet,” said Shami Chakrabarti of the civil rights group, Liberty, “they don’t need a human-rights lawyer—they need a common-sense bypass.”
And Harry Fletcher, Assistant General Secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, had this to say about the no-brainer scheme:
“Knowing where offenders like paedophiles are does not mean you know what they are doing. Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement Read more…
Iraq Grapples With Water Shortages, Pollution
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12
Salam Abdel Munim, the spokesman for UNICEF in Iraq, told RFI on March 22 that as a consequence of the water shortage “some 500,000 Iraqi children access their water from a river or stream, and another 500,000 access their water from open wells.” Read more…
Iran to build new nuclear research reactors-report
TEHRAN, April 11 (Reuters) – Iran plans to build “four to five” nuclear research reactors and will continue to enrich uranium to provide their fuel, a nuclear official said on Monday despite Western pressure on Tehran to curb atomic work.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoon Abbasi, said Tehran would build the reactors “in the next few years” to produce medical radioisotopes, according to the students news agency ISNA.
“To provide the fuel for these (new) reactors, we need to continue with the 20 percent enrichment of uranium,” ISNA quoted him as saying.
Abbasi’s remarks are likely to deepen Western fears that Iran’s atomic work is aimed at Read more…
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