Klimaatverandering 108

De International Herald Tribune bericht:

'Summary of UN panel's report on environment
By Seth Mydans

"Measures to reduce emissions can, in the main, be achieved at starkly low costs especially when compared with the costs of inaction," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which, together with the World Meteorological Organization, established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988.
The final report addresses possible ways of reducing emissions from principal sectors:
The energy supply sector: Governments would need to promote a range of options. Carbon-intensive fossil fuels could be substituted for by natural gas or mature renewable energy technologies like large hydroelectric dams and burning biomass (which does not add new carbon dioxide to the atmosphere like the burning of a long-buried fossil fuel does). Other renewable sources in development include solar-assisted air conditioning, wave power and nanotechnology solar cells. The report also included nuclear power, which - while saddled with issues - does not generate greenhouse gases.
Buildings: Greater use can be made of existing technologies like passive solar design; high-efficiency lighting and appliances; high-efficiency ventilation and cooling systems; solar water heaters; insulation materials and techniques; high-reflectivity building materials; and multiple glazing. Government policies like continuously updated appliance standards and building energy codes could further contribute.
Transport: Efficiencies could come from new and emerging technologies like directed-injection turbocharged diesels; improved batteries for road vehicles; regenerative braking and higher efficiency propulsion systems for trains; and blended wing bodies and unducted turbofan propulsion systems for airplanes. Biofuels also have the potential to replace a substantial part of the petroleum now used by transport.
Public transport and nonmotorized transport can reduce emissions.'

Lees verder: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/04/news/climateside.2-45561.php

The Empire 242

Terwijl de uitvoerende macht in Washington de rechterlijke macht aanpakt,

pakt de politie de media aan. Bericht uit de Promised Land:

'Police Action on Journalists at Melee Is Assailed

By Anna Gorman and Stuart Silverstein

The Los Angeles Times

Some news outlets whose reporters and camera operators were hurt in melee mull legal claims against LAPD.
One day after several reporters and camera operators were injured while covering an altercation at an immigrant rights rally in MacArthur Park, news organizations condemned the Los Angeles Police Department for its use of batons and riot guns against members of the media, and some said they were considering legal options.
"We are sorry for what happened to our employees and find it unacceptable that they would be abused in that way when they were doing their job," said Alfredo Richard, spokesman for the Spanish-language network Telemundo, of the anchor and the reporter who were hurt during the evening rally.
Other members of the media who were injured included four employees of KVEA-TV Channel 52, a KTTV-TV Channel 11 news reporter who suffered a minor shoulder injury, a camerawoman who has a broken wrist and a reporter for KPCC-FM (89.3) who was bruised by a police baton.
"I was dumbfounded," said the KPCC reporter, Patricia Nazario. "I've covered riots. I've covered chaos. I was never hit or struck or humiliated the way the LAPD violated me yesterday."
Nazario said she was walking away from riot police when she was hit in the back.
Wearing a press pass and holding a microphone, she turned around and told the officer, "Why did you hit me? I'm moving. I'm a reporter," Nazario recalled.
Then the officer hit her on the left leg, she said, knocking her to the ground and sending her cellphone flying.
"I was shocked, trying to scramble to my feet," she said. "At that point, I just started crying…. I just felt totally vulnerable."
Pedro Sevcec was anchoring the evening news for Telemundo when he saw the riot police moving slowly toward the news crews.
A few dozen people had gathered to watch Sevcec do his live broadcast.
"The next thing I heard was the shotguns," he said.
Police knocked over monitors and lights and hit reporters and camera operators with batons, he said.
Sevcec said police hit him three times and pointed a riot gun at his face before pushing him out of the park.
An emergency anchor in Miami took over the broadcast.
"It was so ridiculous," Sevcec said. "They know what a TV camera is. This is not a secret weapon."'

Lees verder: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-media3may03,0,6704192.story?coll=la-home-headlines Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050307B.shtml

The Empire 241

'Pentagon Casts Report Of Increased Combat Stress Among Troops As Positive News

A disturbing Pentagon report finds that the more often soldiers are deployed, the more likely they are to “suffer mental health problems such as combat trauma, anxiety and depression.”

The Washington Post reports some of the findings about the impact combat stress is having on the troops:
More than one-third of U.S. soldiers in Iraq surveyed by the Army said they believe torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. Four in 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.
In addition, about two-thirds of Marines and half the Army troops surveyed said they would not report a team member for mistreating a civilian or for destroying civilian property unnecessarily. “Less than half of Soldiers and Marines believed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect,” the Army report stated.
Acting Army Surgeon Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock characterized the report as positive news, telling reporters: “What it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they’re not acting on those thoughts. They’re not torturing the people.”
A livid Lou Dobbs reacted to Pollack’s statement with outrage:
This leadership is putting our men and women, the finest young people we’ve ever put in uniform, into absolutely impossible situations and then taking credit for them not living out their statements on some sort of bureaucratic psychiatric form? I mean, that is despicable.
[…]
[H]ow in the world can the leadership in that building…sit there and compliment themselves and those officers while they were extending their tours to 15 months and putting them in the most impossible of situations?
Watch it: ...'

Zie: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/05/dobbs-on-combat-stress/

The Empire 240

Zo kun je het dus ook zeggen: 'Soldaten leven in onmin met ethische regels,' terwijl je in feite bedoelt dat een aanzienlijk deel van je militairen dezelfde opvattingen hebben als SS-ers gedraagt. De Washington Post bericht:

'Troops at Odds With Ethics Standards
By Thomas E. Ricks and Ann Scott Tyson
The Washington Post
Saturday 05 May 2007

Army also finds more deployment means more mental illness.
More than one-third of U.S. soldiers in Iraq surveyed by the Army said they believe torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. Four in 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.
In addition, about two-thirds of Marines and half the Army troops surveyed said they would not report a team member for mistreating a civilian or for destroying civilian property unnecessarily. "Less than half of Soldiers and Marines believed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect," the Army report stated.
About 10 percent of the 1,767 troops in the official survey - conducted in Iraq last fall - reported that they had mistreated civilians in Iraq, such as kicking them or needlessly damaging their possessions.
Army researchers "looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The report noted that the troops' statements are at odds with the "soldier's rules" promulgated by the Army, which forbid the torture of enemy prisoners and state that civilians must be treated humanely.
Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general, cast the report as positive news. "What it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts," she said. "They're not torturing the people."
But human rights activists said the report lends support to their view that the abuse of Iraqi civilians by U.S. military personnel was not isolated to some bad apples at Abu Ghraib and a few other detention facilities but instead is more widespread. "These are distressing results," said Steven R. Shapiro, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They highlight a failure to adequately train and supervise our soldiers."
The study also found that the more often soldiers are deployed, the longer they are deployed each time; and the less time they spend at home, the more likely they are to suffer mental health problems such as combat trauma, anxiety and depression. That result is particularly notable given that the Pentagon has sent soldiers and Marines to Iraq multiple times and recently extended the tours of thousands of soldiers to 15 months from 12 months.
"The Army is spread very thin, and we need it to be a larger force for the number of missions that we were being asked to address for our nation," Pollock said.
The authors of the Army document argued that the strains placed on troops in Iraq are in some ways more severe than those borne by the combat forces of World War II. "A considerable number of Soldiers and Marines are conducting combat operations everyday of the week, 10-12 hours per day seven days a week for months on end," wrote Col. Carl Castro and Maj. Dennis McGurk, both psychologists. "At no time in our military history have Soldiers or Marines been required to serve on the front line in any war for a period of 6-7 months."'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050507Z.shtml Of:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050402151.html?hpid=topnews

Klimaatverandering 107

Italy's largest river drying up
Reuters

ROME — Italy declared a state of emergency in northern and central
regions on Friday due to fears of drought following unusually warm
and dry weather.

Farmers have been fretting as Italy's largest river, the Po, has
dried up in recent months. The river, running west to east across
northern Italy, feeds the broad Po valley which accounts for about a
third of the country's agricultural output.

Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said the state of
emergency had been declared as a precautionary measure. It came a day
after neighbouring France imposed water rationing in several of its
regions, also in fear of drought.

Italy's hottest winter in 200 years meant snowfall was light in the
Alps, with little snow-melt to swell the Po. Then a hot, dry spring
set in, with temperatures in April approaching levels usually seen in
June.


Officials have declared a state of emergency in the wake of unusally warm weather,
which has left the river dry.

But Cabinet Undersecretary Enrico Letta said the latest news of the
Po and the water situation in general was "reassuring".

And as the state of emergency was declared, torrential rain was
falling throughout the centre and north of Italy. Weather has been
generally cooler and wetter over the last week.

The environment ministry was unable to give immediate details of what
measures were envisaged.

Officials from the industry ministry, the national electricity grid,
regional governments and emergency services met last month to discuss
measures to replenish the Po and curb electricity consumption to
prevent the risk of summer blackouts.

Drought fears intensified after the Po's level fell by 80 centimetres
in late April, to 6.53 metres below its normal level in the northern
town of Pontelagoscuro.

Among the measures considered were filling the Po with water flows
from large lakes and reservoirs in the Alps, even though it was not
expected to bring it back to normal levels.

To minimise the risk of blackouts caused by millions of people
cranking up air conditioners, the government may also allow supplies
to some industrial clients to be temporarily interrupted, and raise
electricity imports.

Around 15 percent of Italy's electricity is produced from hydro-power
generation. Water supplies are also essential in thermoelectric plants.

Flowing for 650 kilometres from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea, the Po
has made the region it crosses Italy's most fertile agricultural
region and helped turn the north into the country's industrial
heartland.

Its delta of 70,000 square kilometres houses thousands of rice,
maize, tomato and melon cultivators.'

The Empire 239

De privatisering van het moorden.

'Blackwater Rising
By Chuck Goudie

The world's most controversial security service is now open for business in Illinois. But is Blackwater, Inc. looking to make Illinois an outpost for what has been called the world's largest private army?
This is the same Blackwater that has become the icon for private security services in Iraq. According to critics, Blackwater is nothing more than a corporate warlord, based in North Carolina, with a payroll of hired gunslingers-- hundreds of them now protecting diplomats and contractors in Iraq. Blackwater executives say they and their mission near a rural town south of Rockford are greatly misunderstood-- that to know them is to like them-- and that they want their new neighbors in Illinois to know them.
On the ground in nine nations around the world, Blackwater is what one company executive calls the most "notorious" in the fast-growing business of private security. For 10 years the firm has been headquartered on almost 7,000 acres in North Carolina. More than 100,000 people have been trained there, the majority of them active duty US Marines, sailors and soldiers. That makes it the largest private military training base in the world.
The firm has received hundreds of millions of dollars in State Department security contracts the past few years. But Blackwater also has a law enforcement training division. And the company says the facility it just opened in northern Illinois is for police training.
"We saw a need for it. You would have to go five states away to find a training facility to find anything like this," said Anne Tyrrell, Blackwater spokeswoman.
Surrounded by pristine farmland, down a series of bumpy rural roads, "Blackwater North" took over an existing 80-acre shooting range. On the day ABC7 visited, officers from several departments including Chicago and Rockford were in a tactical hostage exercise.
"There are new techniques that the criminals are using so we have to be updated with our techniques. Coming out to Blackwater, these guys have seen it all," said Det. Steve Stoball, Freeport Police Department.
In the nearest "big city" of Mount Carroll, some people say they just woke up one morning and Blackwater was in business.
"If they are going to do training for torture, are they going to do that on the site? We don't know," said one speaker at a community meeting.'

Lees verder: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=investigative&id=5267983

The Empire 238

'The Anti-Empire Report Some things you need to know before the world ends by William Blum

If the United States leaves Iraq things will really get bad. This appears to be the last remaining, barely-breathing argument of that vanishing species who still support the god-awful war. The argument implies a deeply-felt concern about the welfare and safety of the Iraqi people. What else could it mean? That the US military can't leave because it's needed to protect the oil bonanza awaiting American oil companies as soon as the Iraqi parliament approves the new written-in-Washington oil law? No, the Bush administration loves the people of Iraq. How much more destruction, killing and torturing do you need to be convinced of that? We can't leave because of the violence. We can't leave until we have assured that peace returns to our dear comrades in Iraq.
To better understand this argument, it helps to keep in mind the following about the daily horror that is life in Iraq: It did not exist before the US occupation.
The insurgency violence began as, and remains, a reaction to the occupation; like almost all insurgencies in occupied countries -- from the American Revolution to the Vietcong -- it's a fight directed toward getting foreign forces to leave.
The next phase was the violence of Iraqis against other Iraqis who worked for or sought employment with anything associated with the occupation regime.
Then came retaliatory attacks for these attacks.
Followed by retaliatory attacks for the retaliatory attacks.
Jihadists from many countries have flocked to Iraq because they see the war against the American Satan occupiers as a holy war.
Before the occupation, many Sunnis and Shiites married each other; since the occupation they have been caught up in a spiral of hating and killing each other.
And for these acts there of course has to be retaliation.
The occupation's abolishment of most jobs in the military and in Saddam Hussein's government, and the chaos that is Iraqi society under the occupation, have left many destitute; kidnapings for ransom and other acts of criminal violence have become popular ways to make a living, or at least survive.
US-trained, financed, and armed Iraqi forces have killed large numbers of people designated as "terrorists" by someone official, or perhaps someone unofficial, or by someone unknown, or by chance.
The US military itself has been a main perpetrator of violence, killing individually and en masse, killing any number, any day, for any reason, anyone, any place, often in mindless retaliation against anyone nearby for an insurgent attack.
The US military and its coalition allies have also been the main target of violent attacks. A Department of Defense report of November 2006 stated: "Coalition forces remained the target of the majority of attacks (68%)."[1]'

Lees verder: http://killinghope.org/aer45.htm