MUSHROOM SOUP

Australia's New Nuclear Ambitions

"Australians are left uninformed about what is really going on" concerning the Howard government's thinking about nuclear energy.

"But, for speculation, there are a number of indicative straws blowing in the wind", with possibilities including enhanced exports, nuclear waste imports, uranium enrichment, nuclear waste reprocessing, and even nuclear power generation.Broinowski concludes:

"Outlandish as it may seem to many Australians, the challenge may soon be to reassure Australia's neighbours, especially Indonesia, that Mr Howard has no plans to build nuclear weapons in Australia."

[Richard Broinowski, former diplomat and Adjunct Professor at theUniversity of Sydney,Austral Policy Forum 06-24A, 24 July 2006.]

THE QUICKENING

Warming hits 'tipping point'

In Siberia, 1 million square km of permafrost - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

HEART OF DARKNESS

Tony Lagouranis with a photo of one of his Iraqi interrogation subjects.

The Tortured Lives of Interrogators

In Iraq, when Tony Lagouranis interrogated suspects, fear was his friend, his weapon. He saw it seep, dark and shameful, through the crotch of a man's pants as a dog closed in, barking. He smelled it in prisoners' sweat, a smoky odor, like a pot of lentils burning. He had touched fear, too, felt it in their fingers, their chilled skin trembling.

But on this evening, Lagouranis was back in Illinois, taking the train to a bar. His girlfriend thought he was a hero. His best friend hung out with him, watching reruns of "Hawaii Five-O." And yet he felt afraid.

"I tortured people," said Lagouranis, 37, who was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq from January 2004 until January 2005. "You have to twist your mind up so much to justify doing that."

[ABC Four Corners this week looks into the dark world of torture.]

EARTH CHANGES

China puts economy before climate

China says its first and overriding priority in tackling climate change is to maintain economic development.

The remarks come in China's first national plan on climate change.

WAR ON DRUGS

Graphic anti-smoking campaigns work

Mass media campaigns are one of the most effective means to reduce smoking.

Evaluation of Australia's famous 'Every cigarette is doing you damage' ad shows that after the first six months of the mass media campaign smoking rates in Australia dropped by 1.4 per cent, representing 190,000 fewer smokers.

An economic evaluation has shown that the campaign was excellent value for money and resulted in significant savings to the health system.

[Compare this to the enormously unsuccessful War on Drugs with its harsher penalties, longer jail terms and the inhumane zero-tolerance.]

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE

Arsenic may help treat cancer: research

Arsenic can significantly extend survival in patients with a rare form of leukemia, US researchers say.

"It's a much smaller dose than you would use to poison people," Dr Bayard Powell of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Centre said.

Adding arsenic to standard treatment can extend patients' lives and prevent relapse, Dr Powell says.

The effect is so impressive that patients may some day be able to skip chemotherapy but that will take more testing.

"This study has redefined the standard of care," Dr Powell said, who presented results from the large, three-year study at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Background

The patented laetrile is a partly synthetic (man-made) form of amygdalin, while the laetrile/amygdalin made in Mexico comes from crushed apricot pits."
Though it is sometimes sold as "Vitamin B17", it is not a vitamin. Amygdalin has been advocated by some as a "cure" or a "preventative" for cancer, but due to a lack of scientifically accepted evidence of its efficacy, it has not been approved for this use by the United States' Food and Drug Administration.

FRAME DRAG

© abk.

POWER OF ONE

'Goodbye America': Anti-war mother ends protest

Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother who became a figurehead for the US anti-war movement, is abandoning her fight after growing disenchanted with the campaign.

Ms Sheehan has camped outside President George W Bush's ranch since 2005, demanding a meeting over the 2004 death of her son, Casey, in Iraq.Bush has refused to 'meet with' her.never

But announcing the end of her campaign in a blog post titled "Good Riddance Attention Whore", she has also hit out at Democrats and anti-war campaigners who put "personal egos above peace and human life".

"The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning ... was that Casey did indeed die for nothing," she said."I have tried every [day] since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful.

"Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months, while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives."

TRY TRIPOLE

Ferrite torus

My Moebius coil is NOT levitating itself, in the picture this is only the copper wire which maintains the coil. I have used this setup for testing the "eventual" thrust generated.
The interesting thing is that the Moebius coil is ALWAYS attracted by a grad-B field when the current flow, even if I change the current flow direction. Thus the Moebius coil can interact with the Earth magnetic field.

Some other coils designs can be used for increasing the "spacetime distorsion effect".

[29mm diam ext., 18mm diam ext., 7 mm thick.]

Rant: "This coil setup can generates some interesting effects in spacetime flow by using the divergent magnetic lines and special configuration of the vector potential. So, it seems possible to tap electromagnetic energy directly from spacetime by unipolar spherical magnets/coils...."

ANTI SOCIAL

Airport security whistleblower faces court

Allan Robert Kessing faces jail for doing something for the 'public good' but against the 'State'.

A Sydney court has heard submissions about what punishment should be given to the former customs official Allan Robert Kessing.
The whistleblower was earlier found guilty of giving a report to the media which detailed drug trafficking operations and security breaches at Sydney Airport.
The leak prompted a massive airport security review, but now Kessing is facing up to two years in jail.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Deep holes in Mars surface

[At its highest resolution of 25 centimeters per pixel, the HiRISE camera can see the detailed shape of the slightly scalloped edge of a hole on the flank of Mars' Arsia Mons (left), but no amount of image enhancement (right) can bring out any further details inside the hole. That means that the walls of the cave are overhanging -- the cave is larger below the ground than the entrance we can see at the surface -- and that it is very deep. Mars' dusty atmosphere produces enough scattered light that "skylight" would illuminate the floor of a shallow cavern well enough for HiRISE to detect it. Credit: NASA / JPL / U. Arizona]

COAL-MINE CANARIES

Cell Phones To Blame For Deserted Bee Colonies?

A small study from Landau University in Germany suggests that the navigational capabilities of honeybees may be adversely affected by radiation from GSM cell phones.

The findings could provide an answer to the mystery of disappearing bee colonies across the Western world.

The cell phone study, conducted by Landau's Jochen Kuhn, focused on the effects of cell phone radiation on the neurological mechanisms that control learning and memory.

Placing handsets near hives, Kuhn observed that GSM cell phone radiation in the frequency range 900-1800MHz caused the bees to avoid the hive.

[Kuhn speculates that the "waggle" dance that bees perform on the honeycomb to communicate with others could be influenced by the radiation.]

COAL-MINE CANARIES

Pollinate or perish

A mystery disease dubbed 'Colony Collapse Disorder' has destroyed about a quarter of the United States 2.4 million hives in the space of six months.

That means big business for Australian exporters, who are busy as bees helping to restock empty American hives.

But few Australian apiarists are rejoicing because they fear that whatever is causing the disorder may soon spread here.

In fact, just this week the CSIRO has been examining a sample of Asian honey bees recently discovered in far north Queensland, to see if they carry a mite - that just might be the source of the problem.

BOGEY WOMAN

Stoned to death
The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy.

A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.
Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.
Miss Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an "honour killing" by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.

"She was abducted and brutally murdered in front of hundreds of men by her relatives -- who stripped her body, beat and kicked her, and killed her by crushing her body with rocks and concrete blocks. These brutal and inhuman acts were filmed by the participants on their mobile phones and many of them have been circulating on the internet and from phone to phone. They show the participation of the police in this disgusting communal murder and the murderous excitement of the crowd as the girl's uncle, brother and cousin comit the grisly murder” [Source]

BOGEY MAN

Bush asked yet again: Where's Osama?

President Bush was pressed about the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

He was asked what he would have thought five years ago, that the architect of the September 11 terrorist attacks would still be at large.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Why is he at large? Because we haven't got him yet, Jim. That's why. And he's hiding, and we're looking. And we will continue to look until we bring him to justice. We brought a lot of his buddies to justice, but not him. That's why he's still at large.He's not out there traipsing around, he's not leading many parades however. He's not out feeding the hungry.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Critics say the war in Iraq has diverted resources from the continuing hunt for the elusive al-Qaeda leader.

WATER WARS

Obstacles to peace: Water

The Arab-Israeli dispute is a conflict about land - and maybe just as crucially the water which flows through that land.

The Six-Day War in 1967 arguably had its origins in a water dispute - moves to divert the River Jordan, Israel's main source of drinking water.

[Part of a series of articles about the attempts to achieve peace in the Middle East and the main obstacles.]

East African Water Clash Slams Nile Treaty

In a debate that may lead to confrontation between Egypt and eastern Africa nations over the River Nile, Kenya's members of parliament have voiced concern over the legality of an international treaty that bars the three countries from using water from Lake Victoria for irrigation.

WEB SCRUBBED

Peter Hayes, prominent Melbourne QC found naked and unconscious in an Adelaide hotel room, died four days later of a likely drug overdose.
Mystery surrounds prominent QC's death

Mr Hayes, 54, who had been entertaining two female escorts, was found naked and unconscious by his ex-bikie client Tony Sobey last Friday.
The lawyer was in Adelaide to represent Mr Sobey in a Federal Court case over a failed investment scheme.

WEB SCRUBBED:

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald story linked to the following Google Search result included a reference to a circa 2002 accusation of Hayes as being an "inveterate cocaine user".
The story said the bar association threw out the claim as "vexatious" and said that the solicitor was attempting to bring the profession into disrepute.
The story has scrubbed any mention of that episode.

Mystery surrounds prominent QC's death - National - smh.com.au
A spokeswoman for the Royal Adelaide Hospital would confirm only that Mr ... A solicitor once accused Mr Hayes of being an "inveterate cocaine user" but the ...
www.smh.com.au/news/national/mystery-surrounds-prominent-qcs-death/2007/05/22/1179601399958.html - 22 May 2007

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Professor James P. Kennett

Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'

A controversial new idea suggests that a large space rock exploded over North America 13,000 years ago.

The blast may have wiped out one of America's first Stone Age cultures as well as the continent's big mammals such as the mammoth and the mastodon.

The blast, from a comet or asteroid, caused a major bout of climatic cooling which may also have affected human cultures emerging in Europe and Asia.

[Scientists will outline their evidence - which comes from layers of sediment at more than 20 sites across North America - this week at a meeting in Mexico.]

SNOUTS IN TROUGHS

Opposition questions Government renovations

The Opposition may have tried in vain to use Senate Estimates Hearings for questions on the AWB kickbacks scandal, but it did get answers about some controversial Government spending measures, like the $25,000 spent replacing the wrong shade of carpet in the Cabinet suite.

Questions were also asked about $52,000 spent sound-proofing the doors to the Prime Minister's office and a $200,000 project to upgrade the Prime Minister's dining room.

[The $200,000 figure is a September 2005 "rough estimate" By late 2006 it was closer to half a million.]

PM scraps plan for $540,000 dining room

A Senate estimates committee today heard that the rough estimate for the building work alone had come in at $475,000 - enough to buy a house in most capital cities.
ut late today, a spokesman for Mr Howard said the work would not go ahead.

More than $65,000 has already been spent on architect and consultant fees for the extension, a Senate estimates committee heard today.

Senate President Paul Calvert had refused to table the document outlining the estimated cost, accusing Labor senators John Faulkner and Penny Wong of wanting to make a “cheap headline”.

“There's nothing cheap about this headline, I'll tell you. This is $475,000 plus consultants' fees of $65,000, plus the furniture and refurbishment. That's no cheap headline Senator Calvert,” Senator Faulkner said.

THE QUICKENING

BULLETIN #070520: It's happening faster than we thought

All the ominous predictions we heard about climate changes are now showing data indicating the effects are faster or more marked. And check out what's happening to the bees too.

EARTH CHANGES

Polar ocean 'soaking up less CO2'

One of Earth's most important absorbers of carbon dioxide (CO2) is failing to soak up as much of the greenhouse gas as it was expected to, scientists say.

The decline of Antarctica's Southern Ocean carbon "sink" - or reservoir - means that atmospheric CO2 levels may be higher in future than predicted.

These carbon sinks are vital; they mop up excess CO2 from the atmosphere, slowing down global warming.

[The study, by an international team, is published in the journal Science.]

BIBLE BASHING

Bible accused of obscenity in Hong Kong

A Hong Kong decency watchdog had been flooded with obscenity complaints about the Bible.

The Television and Entertainments Licensing Authority (TELA), which oversees the publishing industry, said it had received 208 complaints that text within the holy book was indecent.

TELA refused to divulge details of the complaints, but local media reported that they referred to acts of violence, rape and cannibalism reputedly contained in the Old and New  Testaments.

[Reports speculated that the sudden flurry of messages sent to TELA was sparked by a Chinese-language website which had exhorted readers to pressure TELA to reclassify the Bible as an indecent publication.]

COLD CALLING

© abk.

IRONY CLAD

Zimbabwe to lead UN commission on Sustainable Development


Western countries have expressed disappointment at the decision to elect Zimbabwe to lead the United Nations (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development.

The German representative, Sigmar Gabriel, said on behalf of the European Union that because of Zimbabwe's poor human rights record and its chronic economic decline, the result would have a negative impact on the commission's credibility.
United States diplomats agree the whole credibility of one of the commissions is now in question.

EARTH CHANGES

Charity warns of migration crisis

The effects of climate change could make at least one billion people homeless between now and 2050, says a charity body.

In a report to mark the start of Christian Aid week, the charity says that forced migration is now the most urgent threat facing poor people in the developing world.

Billions face climate change risk

Billions of people face shortages of food and water and increased risk of flooding, experts at a major climate change conference have warned.

L RON HOOVER

Scientologists stalk BBC investigator

"Rosemary", who is an ordinary mum and lives in England. She had two children and one died. Her surviving daughter was also her best friend.

Then her daughter joined Scientology and her mother saw less and less of her.

Almost two years ago she received a "disconnect" - a letter cutting her mother out of her life totally.
Rosemary received no Christmas cards, no birthday cards, no Mother's Day cards.
Rosemary said Scientology was a cult. It was one of the most moving and shocking interviews I have ever done.
Out of the blue, three hours after we left, her daughter came round for the first time in almost two years seeking a reconciliation. The next day she begged her mum not to use the interview. So we won't.

[Did they send the daughter round, specifically to kill the interview?]


Scientology is a pay-as-you-go religion - which is one of the reasons why the Charity Commission in Britain does not class it as a religion.
When you have paid as much as £100,000, you get to Operating Thetan Level Three and learn about "The Incident".
L Ron wrote that 75 million years ago an intergalactic space alien lord called Xenu kidnapped Thetans to earth, dumped them in volcanoes and blew them up with atomic bombs.
Ex-Scientologists have insisted to me that Xenu is part of Scientology. If so, it is a religion that requires its followers not to tell others about its core belief, which is very odd.
Critics say that if we all knew about Xenu, then Scientology could not charge people as much as £100,000 to find out about him.

SEA CHANGE

© abk.

The Guardian (early Oct 2005)

FEEL GOOD

Uploaded by KiWiTa [http://flickr.com/photos/kiwita/]

MUTANT RACE

Emergency GM law slammed

New emergency powers that allow Australian authorities to fast-track the release of genetically modified (GM) organisms, could pose unacceptable risks, say critics.

According to a Bill passed by the Senate this week, the Federal Health Minister could hypothetically order the rapid approval of a GM vaccine to fend off a possible bird flu pandemic, or a GM bacterium to 'eat' an oil spill threatening the environment.

But critics are concerned that emergency powers in The Gene Technology Amendment Bill 2007 could lead to inadequately tested GM organisms being released into the environment.

"There's a very real danger that the cure could be worse than the disease," said Australian Greens senator Rachel Siewert. "We do not want to create another cane toad."

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

Report: Iraq child mortality rate soars

The chance that an Iraqi child will live beyond age 5 has plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, according to a report released Tuesday, which placed the country last in its child survival rankings.

One in eight Iraqi children died of disease or violence before reaching their fifth birthday in 2005, according to the report by Save the Children, which said Iraq ranked last because it had made the least progress toward improving child survival rates.

OUR COSMOS

Star dies in brightest supernova

A massive star around 150 times the size of the Sun has exploded in what is the brightest supernova ever seen, Nasa scientists have said.

The supernova star, called SN 2006gy, was originally discovered in September last year.

The explosion peaked for about 70 days, during which it is thought to have shone about five times more brightly than any supernova seen in the past.

"Of all exploding stars ever observed, this was the king," Alex Filippenko, one of the Nasa-backed astronomers observing the phenomenon, said.

[Supernovae occur when huge, mature stars effectively run out of fuel and collapse in on themselves.]

THINK TANK

© abk.

OIL WARS

Bush vetoes troop withdrawal Bill

AP - President Bush vetoed legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq Tuesday night in a historic showdown with Congress over whether the unpopular and costly war should end or escalate.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Senators wary of Bush's wiretap proposal

Citing FBI abuses and the attorney general's troubles, senators peppered top Justice and intelligence officials Tuesday with skeptical questions about their proposal to revise the rules for spying on Americans.

BIG END

Stakeholders reject Murdoch's Dow Jones bid

The family that owns a controlling stake in the publishers of the Wall Street Journal has rejected an unsolicited bid for the company by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Publishers and financial news wire service Dow Jones issued a statement saying that a majority of the Bancroft family was rejecting the offer.

Mr Murdoch's News Corporation has offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, which values the company at $6 billion.

Mr Murdoch said he was prepared to be patient. "It's a generous offer," he said.

Media analysts say News Corporation is looking to launch a 24-hour business news channel later this year.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Arctic melt faster than forecast

Arctic ice is melting faster than computer models of climate calculate, according to a group of US researchers.

The scientists suggest forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may be too cautious.

The latest observations indicate that Arctic summers could be ice-free by the middle of the century.

"Somewhere in the second half of the century, it would happen," said Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado.

Dr Scambos co-authored the latest study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, with other scientists from NSIDC and from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), also in Boulder, Colorado.

They also calculate that about half, if not more, of the warming observed since 1979 originates in humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases.

POLICE STATE

Govt flags retroactive legislation to stop Hicks profits

The Federal Government says it is prepared to do everything in its power to prevent convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks from profiting from any book deal.

Some in the legal fraternity, including Melbourne civil liberties lawyer Robert Richter QC, say gaps in the Proceeds of Crime Act might allow Hicks to make a substantial amount of money from a book about his time as a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.

But Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says the Government will bring in retrospective legislation if this is found to be the case.

"We're not trying to stop [anyone] from trying to sell their story but we are saying you can't profit from it.

"What we've seen is that there are some lawyers out there arguing that they may be able to find technical difficulties with the legislation," he said.

"We don't believe there are any and what I'm saying is, 'look, if it's necessary to put beyond doubt that this legislation has effect, we'll do it'."

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Pressure mounting for MI5 inquiry

The MI5 security service had been watching two of the London suicide bombers - ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - 15 months before they killed 52 people in London.

In a speech last November, the outgoing head of MI5 Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller provided a pre-emptive defence of her organisation against the criticism she knew was coming.
"I wish life were like (TV Drama) Spooks, where everything is (a) knowable, and (b) soluble by six people," she said. "We are faced by acute and very difficult choices of prioritisation.

RIGHTS TRASHED

Games 'catalyst for China abuses'

Amnesty said China had failed to keep its promise to improve human rights in the lead up to the Games.Chinese authorities have not yet commented on the report.Committee pleaThe report said the August 2008 Olympics was "a catalyst for a continued crackdown on human rights defenders, including prominent rights defence lawyers and those attempting to report on human rights violations".

BRAIN SPACE

Hawking escapes wheelchair on zero-gravity flight

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking soared into weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight that allowed the leading expert on gravity to escape his wheelchair for a brief period of time."It was amazing ... I could have gone on and on," Professor Hawking, 65, said after riding for two hours on a modified jet that flew a rollercoaster trajectory to create the impression of microgravity.

HYPER RICH

Russia's 'secret city' is lined with huge mansions

Moscow's suburb for billionaires

According to Forbes magazine Russia now has 60 billionaires. It is quite a change for a place that 15 years ago had no millionaires, let alone billionaires.

How exactly these people have got hold of such vast wealth in such a short time is a very good question, and one many ordinary Russians would like answered.

[Fifteen years ago everything in Russia was owned by the state. Today a quarter of Russia's economy is owned by 36 men.]

MYSTERIOUS FIRE

“Spontaneous” ignition blamed

Spontaneous combustion is being blamed for a small shed fire behind a business on Strathalbyn’s historic High Street last week.
The fire on Monday, April 16, caused $300 damage to two pieces of furniture held in storage after being salvaged from a major fire at the nearby Antiques Bazaar back in February.
Sergeant Mark Thomas from Hills Police said the fire was not suspicious.
“A rag soaked in linseed oil and mineral turps was left on top of a wooden cabinet and it is believed to have spontaneously combusted,” he said.

SEA GOING

'Ghost yacht' found drifting off Australian coast

Australian authorities have ended their search for the crew of a yacht found off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, saying their fate remains a mystery.

The Kaz II was found with its engine running, a laptop computer switched on sitting on a table and neatly folded clothes and sunglasses on deck, but there were no signs of any people.

The three-crew members are thought to have set sail for Townsville from Airlie Beach on Sunday.
The 12m (40 foot) catamaran was spotted by a helicopter on Wednesday, but a rescue team only reached the boat on Friday, and confirmed that there was no one aboard. An air and sea rescue operation retraced the yacht's voyage.

News Limited reports: The yacht, which had a badly torn sail, was found with its motor still running, while the vessel's dinghy remained attached.

Original item.

[Remember the Marie Celeste? Or was it the Mary Celeste?]

OUR COSMOS

The gyroscopes used in Gravity Probe B are 'the most perfect spheres ever made'.

Einstein was right, probe shows

Early results from a Nasa mission designed to test two key predictions of Albert Einstein show the great man was right about at least one of them. It will take another eight months to determine whether he got the other correct say scientists analysing data from Nasa's Gravity Probe B satellite.

One of these effects is called the geodetic effect, the other is called frame dragging. A common analogy is that of placing a heavy bowling ball on to a rubber sheet.
In the analogy, the geodetic effect is similar to the shape of the dip created when the ball is placed on to the rubber sheet.
If the bowling ball is then rotated, it will start to drag the rubber sheet around with it. In a similar way, the Earth drags local space and time around with it - ever so slightly - as it rotates.
Over the course of a year, these effects would cause the angle of spin of the gyroscopes to shift by minute amounts.

[Other experiments are due to test the equivalence principle which stems from the observation that when two objects are dropped, they will accelerate at the same rate.
"Here there is a theoretical framework where one might expect to see a departure from the equivalence principle," said Professor Sumner. "This might give us pointers as to the way forward."]

COAL-MINE CANARIES

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

Scientists suggest that mobile phone radiation (and that of other hi-tech gadgets) is responsible for the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops.
Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers.
The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

[The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing them from finding their hives. There is now evidence to back this up.]

OIL WARS

Middle East fears broken Iraq

When you travel around the Middle East and ask people about how the war in Iraq has affected them you get a combination of regret, anger and trepidation.

Meanwhile ...

On the flight deck of the enormous US aircraft carrier the USS Eisenhower in the Gulf this week, warplanes were being shot out of the steam catapults on the flight deck with engines that roared and screamed so loudly you felt it in your sinuses, teeth and jawbone.
"Listen to it," one of the officers told me when the warplanes were launched and streaking up the Gulf to Iraq.

"It is the sound of freedom."

SACRED EARTH

Sacred Mound Springs drying up due to mining

The Sacred Mound Springs are of profound cultural significance to the Aboriginal people of the region. The Arabunna people are the traditional custodians of the Lake Eyre South region, the land in which effected mound springs are located. The springs and the Artesian waters that supply them form an integral part of the communal intellectual property of the Arabunna people.

WMC refused to negotiate with the Arabunna or be party to any initiatives to preserve and protect the mound springs.

In fact, former owners WMC mounted an extensive campaign against the World Heritage nomination of the Lake Eyre Basin. It had a vested interest in preventing World Heritage nomination because of its profligate use of water from the Great Artesian Basin.

[Olympic Dam's infamy stems in part from its thirst: the mine draws around 45 million litres of water per day from the Great Artesian Basin under the surface of central Australia to process the ore.]

SKY LIGHTS

Re: Strange lights seen over southern Queensland

An Adelaide skywatcher saw something at about the same time as the Queensland phenomenon and concluded it was a malfunctioning Russian satellite.

COAL-MINE CANARIES

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein

Flowers and fruit crops facing disaster as disease kills off bees

Devastating diseases are killing off vast numbers of bees across the country, threatening major ecological and economic problems. Honeybee colonies have been wiped out this winter at twice the usual rate or worse in some areas.
The losses are the result of either Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a disease that has already decimated bee populations in the US and parts of Europe, or a new, resistant form of Varroa destructor, a parasite that attacks bees.
Experts fear that, because honeybees are responsible for 80 per cent of all pollination as they collect nectar for the hive, there could be severe ecological problems with flowers, fruit and crops failing to grow.

In London, about 4000 hives — two-thirds of the bee colonies in the capital — are estimated to have died this winter.
In the US, 50 per cent of honeybee colonies have been destroyed by CCD, while hundreds of thousands have been wiped out in Spain.
Bee-keepers in Poland, Greece, Croatia, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal have also reported heavy losses. Meanwhile, scientists at universities in Southampton and Stirling who are concerned about declining numbers of wild bumblebees — which also aid pollination — are to use dogs to search for colonies in Scotland and Hertfordshire this year.

L'AMIE

© abk.

UNHEALTHY STATISTICS

Iraqis search for survivors in rubble in Ramadi, western Baghdad after a gun battle between US marines and insurgents. A survey last year estimated war had cost the lives of 601,000 Iraqis.

Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war.
The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust". Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

[The Lancet medical journal published its peer-reviewed survey last October. It was conducted by the John Hopkins School of Public Health and compared mortality rates before and after the invasion by surveying 47 randomly chosen areas across 16 provinces in Iraq.]

EASTER BUN

Astaroth: available Wednesdays

Astaroth appears as an ugly angel riding a dragon and holding a viper in his left hand. It is thought that this powerful grand-duke presides over 40 legions, and possibly over the East and is treasurer of hell. The Sidonians and Phlistines worshipped him in the past. Wierus mentions that he knows of past and future events, secret things, liberal arts, and the story of creation and the fall of the angels. He also believes he received an unjust punishment. Some magicians say he procures the goodwill of great lords and can be summoned on Wednesday. He is said to emit a powerful fetid odor, and to endure that, the magician should hold a silver magical ring that prevents odors under his nose.


[Dictionnaire Infernal - Collin de Plancy (1863) (paraphrased)]

INTENSIVE PHARMING

Tamiflu link to teen suicide

Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), the world's first line of defense against avian influenza, is correlated with teen suicides. This expensive and difficult-to-find drug has been linked to 64 cases of psychological disorders and two teenage suicides in Japan, according to media reports there.

In February 2004 a 17-year-old high school boy under treatment with Tamiflu died after he jumped in front of a truck.
A year later, a 14-year-old junior high student, also taking the drug for influenza, jumped to his death from the ninth floor of his condominium.

Warning of psychiatric problems with Tamiflu

A new warning label has been added to the influenza drug Tamiflu following reports of delirium and hallucinations among people – mostly children - taking the medication.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated the label after reports of more than 100 people, mostly in Japan, who suffered unusual psychiatric effects, including cases of self-injury and suicide, when taking the drug.

There have been 103 cases, 95 of them in Japan, of delirium among people with the flu who took Tamiflu and the FDA says about 60% of the affected patients were under 17. Suicide was reported in some cases.

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche, which manufactures Tamiflu, says that nothing indicated that the drug was responsible for the neuropsychiatric problems. The FDA adds that the relationship between the bizarre behaviour and the drug was not known, but that the label had been amended to “mitigate the potential risk”.

Previously, the label had only mentioned that “seizure and confusion” have been seen in some patients.


[Millions of doses of Tamiflu are being stockpiled by governments and the World Health Organization in the event of a global flu pandemic, which could be sparked if the avian H5N1 virus mutates into a form that can easily be passed among humans.]

ARTIFICIAL FUTURE

Scientists create 'emotional' robot

Robots that bond like human children and display emotion are being developed at a British university.
The £1.68 million Feelix Growing Project, a partnership of robotic experts, psychologists and neuroscientists from around the world, aims to produce machines designed to engage emotionally with humans.
Like children, they will form attachments with their human handlers.
They will also display "emotional resonance" - an ability to mimic people's emotions to enhance positive bonding. Feelix is an acronym of Feel, Interact, eXpress.
The robots, being built at the University of Hertfordshire, will be able to see, hear, touch and judge the distance between themselves and humans.

They will recognise human body language signals, and respond to emotional states such as anger, fear and happiness.

THE JET SET

Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Electric and Raytheon's FA-18 Super Hornet (above) and Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (below).



Govt spends $6b on 'stop-gap' fighter-bombers

Australia will spend $6 billion to buy 24 advanced Boeing Super Hornet fighter-bombers as a stop-gap measure so the RAAF can maintain regional air superiority until new Joint Strike Fighters are built.

The decision spells the end of the F-111 strike bombers which will be retired, most likely without ever having dropped a bomb in anger, in 2010.

[These 24 stop-gap aircraft will cost $6 billion, or $250 million each.]


FLASHBACK: RAAF 'won't need' interim jet
October 10, 2006
The deputy chief of the air force, Air Vice Marshal John Blackburn, said defence remained confident the F-35 would be delivered on time, with the first squadron scheduled to be blasting through Australian skies by 2014.

Main course: 100 Lockheed F-35 Lightening JSFs ordered


As a result of a 1995 Memorandum of Understanding, Australia is contributing US$144 million to the F-35 JSF project.
A total price tag of $12b means the unit price is about $120m each.

However, the joint strike fighter, conceived as a versatile and affordable fighter for the US and its allies, continues to be plagued by rising costs that have boosted the per-unit US government report released Thursday.

Some critics say the F-22 or the Eurofighter may be better choices, both offering better range, dogfighting capability, and supercruise at a cost that may not be much more than the F-35 — claims that as of July 2006 are being examined in a parliamentary inquiry.

Australian defense minister Brendan Nelson has reportedly decided to opt for the Super Hornet without a detailed study of alternative aircraft types such as the longer-range F-15E Strike Eagle, or more advanced air superiority options such as the Eurofighter Typhoon. Despite its name, the Super Hornet is a larger aircraft that offers only 25% to 30% commonality with the Australian Air Force's existing Hornets; it does, however, share the same support structure.

[Geoff Elliot Troubled stealth fighter tackles first test flight]

BRUTAL PLANET

Daniele Mastrogiacomo, 52, thought he would be killed.

Captive speaks of Taliban horror

An Italian journalist freed after being kidnapped by the Taleban in Afghanistan says he saw his captors cut off the head of one of two Afghans with him.
He said his Afghan driver had been decapitated in front of him by their Taleban guards.
"I saw him being decapitated, it was horrific," he told Italian TG3 television.
"I was shaking. Obviously I thought 'it's my turn now."



Pain of Afghan suicide women

Gulsoom is 17-years-old and married. Last year she tried to commit suicide - she failed.
She set fire to herself but, against the odds, survived with appalling injuries.

Her plight reflects that of a growing number of young Afghan women, campaigners say.
Driven to desperation by forced marriages and abusive husbands, more and more are seeking release through self-immolation.
Gulsoom was engaged at the age of 12. Three years later her family married her to a man aged 40 who she says was addicted to drugs.
She was then taken to Iran. Her husband beat her regularly, Gulsoom says, particularly when he had no money for heroin.

"Once after I was badly beaten by my husband, I was in bed when I heard a voice murmuring and telling me to go and set fire to myself," she says.
"I went and poured petrol on my whole body. The flames on my body lasted for minutes. After eight days I found myself conscious in bed.
"I cared about my father's dignity - that's why I tolerated everything."

[]

COAL-MINE CANARIES

Bees dying by the millions

Honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate from US states with losses ranging from 30% to more than 70%.
American bee colonies have been hit by regional crises before, but keepers say this is the first national crisis.
The mystery disappearances highlight the important link that honeybees play in the chain that brings fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables.

“I have never seen anything like it,” California beekeeper David Bradshaw, 50, told the New York Times.

[“Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”]

Italian bee deaths signals woe for environment

Italian bees are been killed off by the millions and environmentalists and honey producers warned today this was a sign of a worrisome turn for the environment.
The National Beekeepers' Association UNAAPI said the country was witnessing a silent "slaughter of bees" and that Italian honey production would plummet by at least 50% this year.

"Bees are our 'sentinels of the environment', very much like butterflies and fireflies. Unlike ants, termites or coachroaches they are extremely delicate and will not adapt to a negative environment," UNAAPI Chairman Francesco Panella told ANSA.

"A bee does not survive contact with toxic substances and dies before it even reaches the hive. Pure honey, in fact, is nature's real wonder product," said Panella, distressed that the shocking mortality rate has not yet shaken the authorities and the public out of their complacency.
He claims the situation in Italy is far worse than in neighbouring France where in June environmentalists and the influential daily Le Monde drummed up a campaign highlighting the plight of French bees, claiming they were being felled by a new high-tech pesticide being marketed by a major multinational.

UNLAWFUL PRISON

David Hicks affidavit

This Affidavit provides an outline of the abuse and mistreatment I have received, witnessed, and/or heard about since I have been detained by the United States in Afghanistan, aboard US Naval vessels and US military aircraft, and at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (hereinafter "Guantanamo Bay"). I have been detained by the United States Armed Forces from December 2001 until present. I arrived in Guantanamo Bay in January 2002. I does not detail all of the abuse I have received, or witnessed, or heard about, but merely sketches some of it. I have been careful to specify what happened to me, what I saw happen to others, and what I have heard about. During the course of my interrogations, I have repeatedly asked for a lawyer and why I am not being treated as Prisoner of War.

5. I have been beaten before, after, and during interrogations.
8. I have been beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed.
11. I have had my head rammed into asphalt several times (while blindfolded).
13. I have had medication - the identity of which was unknown to me, despite my requests for information - forced upon me against my will. I have been struck while under the influence of sedatives that were forced upon me by injection.
14. I have been forced to run in leg shackles that regularly ripped the skin off my ankles. Many other detainees experienced the same.
15. I have been deprived of sleep as a matter of policy.
16. I have witnessed the activities of the Internal Reaction Force (hereinafter "IRF"), which consists of a squad of soldiers that enter a detainee's cell and brutalize him with the aid of an attack dog. The IRF invasions were so common that the term to be "IRF'd" became part of the language of the detainees. I have seen detainees suffer serious injuries as a result of being IRF'ed. I have seen detainees IRF'ed while they were praying, or for refusing medication.

[This statement was made three years ago. Hicks has been held without charge for more than five years.]

MATHEMATICS

Part of the E8 matrix. The structure is described in the form of a vast matrix. Image: David Vogan / MIT

248-dimension maths puzzle solved

An international team of mathematicians has detailed a vast complex numerical "structure" which was invented more than a century ago.

Mapping the 248-dimensional structure, called E8, took four years of work and produced more data than the Human Genome Project, researchers said.
E8 is a "Lie group", a means of describing symmetrical objects.
The team said their findings may assist fields of physics which use more than four dimensions, such as string theory.
Lie groups were invented by the 19th Century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie (pronounced "Lee").
Familar structures such as balls and cones have symmetry in three dimensions, and there are Lie groups to describe them. E8 is much bigger.
"What's attractive about studying E8 is that it's as complicated as symmetry can get", observed David Vogan from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.
"Mathematics can almost always offer another example that's harder than the one you're looking at now, but for Lie groups, E8 is the hardest one."

[Professor Vogan is presenting the results at MIT in a lecture entitled The Character Table for E8, or How We Wrote Down a 453,060 x 453,060 Matrix and Found Happiness.]

HUMAN BONDAGE

Sudan's slave voices

Twin: Abuk Atak Deng: "I was abducted along with my two brothers, Garang and Bol. But we were taken by different men and I have never seen them again.
Garang is my twin and I do not feel complete without him. A part of me is still missing.
I was forced to marry an Arab man, Abdoubhakir. I was 13 when I had my first child. He used to beat me and I always wanted to escape.
My chance came in November 2006. The first day back I slept the whole day - my first rest for ages."

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Liquid Lakes on Titan

Radar imaging data from the flyby, published this week in the journal Nature, provide convincing evidence for large bodies of liquid. This image, used on the journal's cover, gives a taste of what Cassini saw. Intensity in this colorized image is proportional to how much radar brightness is returned, or more specifically, the logarithm of the radar backscatter cross-section.

The lakes, darker than the surrounding terrain, are emphasized here by tinting regions of low backscatter in blue. Radar-brighter regions are shown in tan. The strip of radar imagery is foreshortened to simulate an oblique view of the highest latitude region, seen from a point to its west.

This radar image was acquired by the Cassini radar instrument in synthetic aperture mode on July 22, 2006. The image is centered near 80 degrees north, 35 degrees west and is about 140 kilometers (84 miles) across. Smallest details in this image are about 500 meters (1,640 feet) across.

[The colors are not a representation of what the human eye would see.]

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Massive ice deposits found on Mars

Scientists say they have found huge deposits of ice on the south pole of Mars that are so plentiful they would blanket the planet in 11 metres of water if they were liquid.
The deposits are up to 3.7 kilometres thick and cover an area larger than Texas.

The deposits are under a polar cap of white frozen carbon dioxide and water.
They appear to be composed of at least 90 per cent frozen water with dust mixed in.
The findings have been published in the Science journal.

[Liquid water is a necessity for life as we know it.]

NEW WORLD ORDER

Cheney chides Democrats for Iraq withdrawal plans

In a speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Cheney said even discussion of a withdrawal [from Iraq] tells “the enemy to watch the clock and wait us out.”
And an actual pullout would send an even worse message, he said.

“If terrorists conclude attacks will change the behavior of a nation, they will attack the nation again and again,” he said.
“The only option for our security and survival is to go on the offensive … until our enemy is destroyed.”

[This business of the enemy ‘waiting us out’ makes no sense at all. ‘The enemy’ lives there Dick, they’re not going anywhere. More ...]

BIG BROTHER I

How to kill a country: the Australia-US free trade agreement

A tale about the dismantling and destruction of some of the nation's most important institutional arrangements like:
* Our rigorous Quarantine procedures that safeguard Australian agriculture from devastating exotic pests and diseases and give us a competitive advantage in world markets;
* Our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) that protects the health system against soaring prescription costs and makes medicines affordable for all Australians;
* Our Intellectual Property (IP) laws that encourage local innovators in IT and biotech, for example, without extravagant protection of incumbent firms;
* Our system of Government Purchasing programs that support Australian industry and return tax dollars to Australian residents.

[Linda Weiss is Professor of government at the University of Sydney, Elizabeth Thurbon is Postgraduate Research Co-ordinator in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of New south Wales, and John Mathews is Professor of strategic management at the Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University. This is the text of their presentation to the Evatt Foundation on 2 April 2005.]

BIG BROTHER II

Don't like ID cards? Hand over your passport

Anybody who objects to their personal details going on the new "Big Brother" ID cards database will be banned from having a passport.
James Hall, the official in charge of the supposedly-voluntary scheme, said the Government would allow people to opt out - but in return they must "forgo the ability" to have a travel document.
With one in every eight people saying they will refuse to sign-up, up to five million adults could effectively be refused permission to leave the country.

["It stretches the definition of voluntary beyond breaking point." - Phil Booth, of the NO2ID group]

GREAT DIVIDE

A few words on poverty...

The haves and the have yachts

They call themselves "the haves and the have yachts": rich London bankers and traders who drop tens of thousands of dollars for an evening of cocktails and hire "personal concierges" to get their girlfriends dresses like those worn by movie stars.
Long a hub for the world's ultra-rich, London has just welcomed an unprecedented number of newcomers into those ranks. Analysts here estimate that London's financial stars were paid a total of $17 billion in annual bonuses in recent weeks -- including more than 4,200 people who received bonuses of at least $2 million each, on top of salaries already sagging under the weight of zeros.
"There is a great deal of money sloshing about," said Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, noting that 15 years of uninterrupted growth in one of the world's most open economies has set London's financial sector swaggering.

[One out of six inhabitants of this planet struggles daily for adequate nutrition, uncontaminated drinking water, safe shelter and sanitation as well as access to basic health care. These people get by on $1 a day or less. Every day more than 20,000 die of dire poverty, for want of food, safe drinking water, medicine or other essential needs. More...]

ANTI SOCIAL

Denmark's Youth House (Ungdomshuset) destroyed by government

On 28 August 2006 the National Court stated, as the City Court did, that the right of ownership and usage of Ungdomshuset belongs to Faderhuset and it is free to evict the inhabitants.
On 1 March 2007 Ungdomshuset was cleared of its occupants by the police at about 7:00 (CET) in the morning. A 50 metre area surrounding the building was sealed off. The building was taken with assistance from a military helicopter, an airport crash tender and two boom cranes, used as a form of modern day siege towers. Special forces entered the building from the roof, the windows and the ground, while the house was covered in foam to diminish the effectiveness of possible counter attacks such as molotov cocktails.

Demolition began on 5 March 2007

[Ungdomshuset (literally "the Youth House") was the attributed name of a building located in Copenhagen on Jagtvej 69, Nørrebro, which functioned as an underground scene venue for music and rendezvous point for varying anarchist and leftist groups from 1982 until 2007. Due to the ongoing conflict between the municipal government of Copenhagen and the activists occupying the premises, the building has been the subject of intense media attention and public debate since the mid-1990s.]

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE

The murder victim's fiance, Robert Gojceta, has taken charge of the dolphin's care but has been unable to revive her.

Dolphin mourns murder victim

WHEN a young dolphin was rescued from the Adriatic Sea, distressed and bruised, she was nurtured back to health by a dedicated trainer, who took responsibility for her care.
Now the trainer is dead, the victim of a frenzied attack by her neighbour in the Italian town of Riccione where she lived - and the dolphin is reportedly dying of a broken heart.
Tamara Monti, 37, was stabbed to death at her flat in Riccione by Alessandro Doto, 35, who lived next door with his elderly parents – had been driven mad by the incessant barking of the two dogs Ms Monti left in her flat while she was working at the dolphinarium.

Keepers at the water park said yesterday they had lost not only "a marvellous trainer" but were also in danger of losing Mary G, the dolphin that Ms Monti had reared and cared for after it was found two years ago in the harbour at nearby Ancona.
The dolphin is refusing her daily diet of milk and squid and has lost 50kg since Ms Monti was murdered.
The sea mammal's weight has fallen to just 160kg and she has failed to respond to medication for a gastric infection.

[]

IN OUR IMAGE

Pizza pan marked by super supreme being

When an image of the Virgin Mary appeared on one of their pizza pans on Ash Wednesday, the dinner ladies at Pugh Elementary School knew that it had to be more than just the cheese and pepperoni talking. This had to be a message from God. The school principal confirmed that the school kitchens seemed to have been singled out for divine intervention.

Within hours, the apparition had become the talk of Houston and the pan a focus for pilgrims. Throughout the weekend, worshippers flocked to the home where the pan is now on display to pay their respects.
"I see an image of the Blessed Mother. It's a sign that something is going to happen," one visitor, Vincent Santiago, said.

This is not the first time that the Virgin Mary's face has appeared in unlikely places.
Previous examples of simulacra -- religious images appearing on inanimate objects -- include a grilled cheese sandwich bearing the outline of the Madonna, which fetched $US28,000 on the internet for its Florida owner in 2004.

[Scientists call this phenomenon religious pareidolia, when the eye sees religious images in objects such as tree trunks and grilled cheese sandwiches.]

WATER HARVEST

Device aims to harvest water from air

A wind-driven device could provide an unlimited water supply by harvesting water from the air, says its Australian inventor.
However critics are asking if it is too good to be true.

Dr Max Whisson, a retired medical specialist turned inventor, says he has designed a highly efficient wind turbine that can run a refrigeration system to cool air and condense moisture from it.
"The wind carries in the water and [provides] the power required to separate that water from the wind," Dr Whisson said, who is based in Perth.
He says there is a huge amount of water in the atmosphere that is replaced every few hours.
This means the whole world could just use water from the air without disrupting the environment.
Whisson says the system would even harvest significant amounts of water in areas with low humidity.

[The inventor says a four-metre square device could extract an average 7,500 litres of water a day.]

Taxi safe

Taxi safe, originally uploaded by abkyah00.

JUSTICE FOR DAVID

Austyralian government seeks to have Hicks 'court' case dismissed

The Australian Government is arguing in the Federal Court in Sydney that a case brought by lawyers for David Hicks should not be allowed to proceed.
Lawyers for Hicks have filed an application in the Federal Court, arguing that the Federal Government has breached its protective duty towards the Guantanamo Bay detainee.

The want to argue that the Australian Government should have asked the US Government to have Hicks returned to Australia.
But the Commonwealth is seeking to have the case dismissed before it is heard.
Solicitor-general David Bennett has told Justice Brian Tamberlin he has being asked to interfere in the area of international negotiations between executive governments, which is inappropriate.
A small group of Hicks supporters, including former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib, are in court for the hearing, which is set down for two days.

[Hicks' US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, said, "I think the support here and knowing that there are people out there fighting for him helps him get day by day through the time that he sits in that cell by himself in solitary, 22 hours a day."]

COMET MISSION

European spacecraft completes Mars fly-by

A European spacecraft has successfully completed a fly-by of the planet Mars as part of its journey to a distant comet near Jupiter to shed light on some of the mysteries of the solar system and how it evolved.
This was a critical manoeuvre in Rosetta's 10-year voyage through the solar system to make the first soft landing on a comet.
Rosetta's signal was picked up after 15 minutes of radio silence when the craft passed behind the red planet.

[At its closest, the spacecraft was flying barely 250 kilometres above the surface of Mars, using the planet's gravity to change course.]

EARTH CHANGES

A chilling possibility

In a 2003 report, Robert Gagosian cites "rapidly advancing evidence [from, e.g., tree rings and ice cores] that Earth's climate has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past." For example, as the world warmed at the end of the last ice age about 13,000 years ago, melting ice sheets appear to have triggered a sudden halt in the Conveyor, throwing the world back into a 1,300 year period of ice-age-like conditions called the "Younger Dryas." It is also now known that the Gulf Stream weakened in 'Little Ice Age'
On 6 December 2005 Michael Schlesinger, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, leading a research team, said "The shutdown of the thermohaline circulation has been characterized as a high-consequence, low-probability event. Our analysis, including the uncertainties in the problem, indicates it is a high-consequence, high-probability event." See also: Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age.

SKY LIGHTS

Strange lights seen over southern Queensland

Stargazers have been reporting a strange sighting in the skies over southern Queensland last night.
Numerous residents on the Darling Downs have called the ABC to report a milky glowing cloud and lights moving slowly across the night sky between 3am and 4am AEST.

Former meteorologist and amateur astronomer, Mark Yandle, from Millmerran says he thinks it could have been an explosion in space.
"High in the south-west there was a cloud of gas about twice the size of a full moon and as you watched it over, say, the course of an hour it moved slowly north-eastward and gradually got larger and at the centre of this cloud there was even brighter bits to me that sounds as though it was an explosion of some sort in outer space," he said.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Long arm of US law reaches Australia

Hew Griffiths has been in prison in Australia for nearly three years for allegedly breaching US copyright law. He has been charged by a grand jury in the US, but the offences alleged against him have never been tested, and the Australian Government has refused to resist an American demand to “surrender” him to face trial before the US District Court in Virginia.
Griffiths was born in England and has lived in Australia from the age of 7. His crime was breaching US copyright law via software piracy. The trouble is that Griffiths has never set foot in the US. He has lived all his life in Australia on the NSW Central Coast. He has been in custody for the past three years (he is 44 now) awaiting moves to extradite him to the US.

[Griffiths has already served more time on remand and awaiting extradition than anyone has served for a similar offence. Furthermore, the US authorities say they will not credit Griffiths with the time served.]

EARTH CHANGES

>

After 5m years the ancient Aral sea is now in it's death throes

Once the world's fourth largest lake, the mighty Aral Sea is now in it's death throws. Starved of it's lifeblood of the waters of the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers, the sea has been shrinking for the last 40 years.
From the 1930s, the former Soviet Union started building large scale diversion canals to irrigate vast cotton fields in a grand plan to make cotton a great export earner. This was achieved, and even today Uzbekistan is still a large exporter of cotton. But the cost in ecological and human terms have been astronomical.

[The Aral Sea is one of less than 20 ancient lakes in the world, and is estimated to be more than 5 million years old.]

THE BEE'S KNEES

Scientists abuzz with bee-sized aircraft

Scientists in Britain says they have figured out how insects fly, bringing bee-sized surveillance aircraft a step closer to reality. Experts from the University of Bath in south-west England have studied insect flight to find ways to build tiny aircraft that could be fitteded with cameras and sensors.

Scientists hope the discovery will help construct miniature aircraft that could be used for reconnaissance, border surveillance and spying.

Bath boffins found that bee wings are rigid at the front and flexible at the back.
The structure is the most efficient for generating maximum vortices, or spinning masses of air.

AUSTRALIA'S GUANTANAMO

ASIO error keeps Iraqi in detention until he went mad

The sole remaining detainee at Nauru has just been released after five years as a prisoner on the island nation's Pacific Solution prison.

The lawyer for an Iraqi refugee who has now been granted a visa says the decision proves ASIO was wrong to classify him as a threat to national security. He was refused a visa because ASIO had deemed him to be a security risk.

The Man's lawyer, Anne Gooley, said Muhammad Faisal was not a threat to Australia's national security, ASIO got it wrong.
"He should have had an opportunity to look at the things that ASIO relied on so that he could prove that he wasn't a threat."

[Muhammad Faisal was held on Nauru until last year, when he was moved to a psychiatric facility in Brisbane.]

ROGUE PILOTS

L/Cpl Matty Hull was in a convoy of light armoured vehicles near Basra.

'Rogue pilots' from US blamed for bombing UK tanks

L/Cpl Hull, Household Cavalry Regiment, died from multiple injuries inside his blazing Scimitar tank, despite efforts by colleagues to save him.

He was travelling in a column of light armoured vehicles near the southern city of Basra when it was reportedly attacked by a US A-10 "tankbuster" aircraft.

["British Forward Air Controller basically said they were rogue pilots that were working on their own," said Corporal Ashley Bell, who was also in the convoy.]

AUSTRALIA DAY

GUANTANAMO

US sets terrorism trial rules

The new rules for military courts in the US allow convicted terrorists to be imprisoned or put to death using hearsay evidence or coerced testimony.
The Pentagon's manual will apply to Guantanamo Bay detainees like Australian David Hicks.
It also states a suspect's defence lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence until the Government has had a chance to review it.
The detainee may never get to see classified information. Instead he will be given an unclassified version of the case against him.

Hicks's lawyer blasts new guidelines

David Hicks's American lawyer says new guidelines for his client's military trial are unfair and do not improve on the previous flawed system.
Major Michael Mori says the guidelines released by the Pentagon still do not include fundamental rights such as habeas corpus.
He has also criticised their retrospective nature.
"A law has been passed in 2006 that is being applied retroactively to someone for conduct five years ago," he said.
"That's not acceptable.
"Even the Australian ministers have said creating legislation now and applying it to David retroactively is inappropriate, and yet that's exactly what the United States is doing to David, which we would not accept for Americans."

[ "Unfortunately what we've seen in the past under the illegal system is that the Attorney-General just went right along with whatever his American counterparts told him and didn't exercise any independent judgement," - Major Michael Mori]

Don't accept new rules, Opposition urges Govt

The Opposition says the Federal Government should not accept the new rules for the military trial of non-American detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The Pentagon has released the guidelines, which allow hearsay evidence and information gathered under coercion to be admitted.
Lawyers say the only significant change in the new rules is the removal of the detainees' rights to habeas corpus - that is the right to challenge the nature of their detention.

["The United States' Military Commission Act expressly stipulates that no American citizen can be dealt with by the military commission, so if it's not good enough for an American citizen, if it's not good enough for a British citizen, why is it good enough for an Australian citizen?" - ALPs Kevin Thompson]

CASHLESSNESS

Banking sector wants consumers to pay for online fraud

Currently, banks reimburse consumers the money they've lost in so-called email "phishing" attacks, or from mistakes made during online transactions. But the sector's now lobbying the Australian financial services watchdog, ASIC, to shift responsibility from the banks to consumers.

The Director of CARE Financial Counselling Services, David Tennant, says banks are encouraging customers towards online banking to save costs.
DAVID TENNANT: They make some significant cost savings in consumers doing that rather than physically going into branches and so on. To think that you then reverse that course of savings by passing the risk for that transaction onto consumers just seems plain unfair to me.
JENNIFER MACEY: He says banks are better equipped to protect consumers from online and internet fraud.
DAVID TENNANT: It's now almost an entire occupation in itself to try and keep up with the new problems that you face in an online environment and to expect that average consumers are going to be able to do that when industry itself is struggling with it, I think is a bit rich.

ORANGE BOILERSUITS

Graphic footage of Saddam allies' hangings released

The Iraqi Government has released graphic video footage of the execution of two of Saddam Hussein's key allies.
One was his half-brother, the former chief of the intelligence service Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who was decapitated during the hanging.
The other man was the former boss of the Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bander.
The video first shows both men being prepared for execution, standing next to each other and dressed in orange boiler suits.

[US imperialism spreads in many and varied ways: orange boiler suits are becoming ubiquitous among prison populations and symbolise the pariah.]

SADDAM HANGED

Execution unites country
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said his government could review relations with any country which criticised the execution of ex-leader Saddam Hussein.
Mr Maliki said the hanging was a "domestic affair" for the benefit of Iraq's unity, adding that the former president had received a fair trial.

Execution divides country
The revulsion which was felt in the West and among Sunni Muslims has grown even greater. Yet so has the sense of triumph among Shias in Iraq and elsewhere. In death as in life, Saddam continues to divide his enemies.
His execution has acted like an explosion along the seismic fault-line between the two leading forms of Islam.