Eyeless Creature Discovered in Undersea Tunnel

Jeanna Bryner
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com

A previously unknown species of an eyeless crustacean was discovered lurking inside a lava tube beneath the seafloor.

The creature, named Speleonectes atlantida, lives in the Tunnel de la Atlantida, the world's longest submarine lava tube on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands off the western coast of northern Africa. The discovery, which has implications for the evolution of an ancient group of crustaceans, will be detailed in September in a special issue of the journal Marine Biodiversity.

While in the cave, the international team of scientists and cave divers also discovered two previously unknown species of annelid worms.

Tunnel life

The 5,000-foot (1,500 meter) long tube where the crustacean lives formed some 20,000 years ago when the Monte Corona volcano erupted on the island of Lanzarote. The erupted molten rock flowed across the land and into the ocean.

"The tunnel formed because the lava on the surface cooled and solidified faster than lava in the center of the stream," said study researcher Stefan Koenemann of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, in Germany. "At present, there are no more active volcanoes on Lanzarote. The last eruptions took place in the 18th century."

The tunnel's newly identified inhabitant, which is less than an inch (10 to 20 mm) long, belongs to the class Remipedia, whose crustacean members live only in cave systems. Like this species, most other remipedes lack eyes and are hermaphrodites (equipped with both male and female sexual organs).

And similar to its relatives, S. atlantida is adapted for life in a dark, dismal cave. With long antennae sprouting from its head and plenty of sensory hairs along its body, the animal can easily feel its way along the dark tunnel.

Organisms like S. atlantida also must be savvy hunters to nab food where resources are limited, Koenemann said.

"Apart from its powerful raptorial head limbs, which are used to hunt and seize other cave animals up to twice their body size, remipedes like Speleonectes are also filter- or particle feeders and scavangers," Koenemann told LiveScience. "In other words, they are capable of using and ingesting a large variety of food types."

Ancient and isolated

S. atlantida looks similar to the only other remipede, called Speleonectes ondinae, found in this lava tunnel.

Since most remipede species, about 20, live in marine caves in the Caribbean, scientists think the two Canary Island cave dwellers are relics from long ago, isolated by Earth's ever-shifting continents, which were once all joined.

"The previously known species in the tunnel, Speleonectes ondinae, was considered an isolated relic that became separated from the main distribution area in the larger Caribbean region a very long time ago, presumably more than 200 million years ago, when the continental plates began drifting apart," Koenemann said.

Israel Declares War on Sweden!

Or at least on the Swedish press.
Joshua Holland, AlterNet

August 24, 2009

You understand the rules of the game, right? When a Scandinavian paper prints something offensive to the Muslim world and Islamic leaders condemn it, protest it, or ask for an apology it's simply more evidence that the "false religion" doesn't mix with democracy, and an occasion for fonts of outrage on the part of newly minted free speech enthusiasts on the right.

But don't hold your breath waiting for those voices to condemn the exact same behavior from The Only Democracy in the Middle East®.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel urged the Swedish government on Sunday to condemn an article in a Swedish newspaper last week accusing the Israeli Army of harvesting organs from Palestinians wounded or killed by soldiers.

As the furor in Israel over the article gathered into a diplomatic storm revolving around questions of anti-Semitism and freedom of speech, Mr. Netanyahu told ministers at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that the article, published in the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet, was "outrageous" and compared it to a "blood libel," referring to medieval anti-Semitic accusations that Jews ritually killed gentile children and collected their blood.

"We are not asking the government of Sweden for an apology," Mr. Netanyahu said, according to an official who attended the cabinet meeting and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We are asking for their condemnation."

To be clear: it does seem from all accounts that the article was a truly shoddy piece of reporting, based on unconfirmed rumors dating back more than a decade (and as such the "Swedish libel" will be used to defend against other, legitimate charges of abuse on the part of the Israeli military).

But that's kind of beside the point -- the same allegations have been published several times without the kind of hand-wringing we're seeing now.What's interesting here is that the outrage in Israel -- they're boycotting Ikea, which I actually find kind of funny for some reason -- is being nurtured directly and apparently intentionally by ...

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s outspoken foreign minister, has led the protest, saying that the Swedish government’s silence was "reminiscent of Sweden’s position during World War II, when it also did not become involved."

What's going on? Well, a little wag the dog ...

Lieberman is the subject of multiple corruption probes. In all likelihood, he'll have to resign in disgrace at some point soon, and may face jail time. But in the meantime, a nice, juicy foreign scandal -- a blood libel, no less! -- might just take some heat off of the controversial far-right minister.

And he's apparently not satisfied only going after Sweden:

Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Sweden, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday accused another Scandinavian country - Norway this time - of promoting anti-Semitism.

On Sunday, Lieberman moved his criticism on to Norway for marking the birthday of an early 20th century "pro-Nazi" author.

"I was amazed at the Norwegian government's decision to celebrate the 150th birthday of Knut Hamsun, who admired the Nazis," Lieberman told students at the Ariel University Center.

Whatever.

Anyway, beyond the value this brouhaha has for Lieberman personally, there's also some poisoning of the well -- Sweden just took over the EU presidency, and is expected to take an activist position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So we'll be hearing a lot about how Sweden's government is rife with anti-Semitism over the next five months.

And, as is very often the case, the Israeli government's view of the matter is totally at odds with that of Sweden's Jewish community, according to this report in Ha'aretz:

Lena Posner, president of the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden, said Sunday that Israel's demand that Sweden officially condemn the article that accused Israel Defense Forces of harvesting Palestinian organs "had blown the issue completely out of proportion.

"No one even noticed the article - which is, incidentally, anti-Semitic and absolutely untruthful - when it was buried in the last pages of Aftonbladet," Posner explained. "But the Israeli response pushed the journalist who wrote it, Daniel Bostrom, to the front of the stage and into the heart of the Swedish mainstream."

"What's even worse is that by making the preposterous demand for a government condemnation, the debate has changed from anti-Semitism to freedom of speech in Sweden: Instead of concentrating on debunking the story, they have made it a freedom of speech issue. The government is not going to condemn the article - freedom of speech here is sacrosanct," added Posner, who said she could see how the Swedish mainstream media, which at first attacked the tabloid for printing the piece, were now supporting it, based on the principle of preserving the freedom of speech.

Message of felicitation of the Leadership Council on the 90th Anniversary of Independence of Afghanistan

Afghan Resistance Statement

Message of felicitation of the Leadership Council on the 90th Anniversary of Independence of Afghanistan

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Ramadan 2, 1430 A.H, August 24, 2009

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would like to extend its heart-felt felicitation to the believing people of Afghanistan, particularly to the heroic Mujahideen who have been struggling to expel the British invaders and their allies from the country.

While feeling pride about the past heroism shown by our forefathers in regaining our independence, The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, considers Afghanistan once again under the occupation of the offspring of the formers invaders; the holy Jihad to regain the independence from the claws of the aggressors is the duty of all Afghans. All should be prepared to neutralize conspiracies of the enemy and embark on a protracted struggle with strong determination and resolve.

The claim of the enemy that they are going to remain in Afghanistan for a few decades or that the war in Afghanistan is a long war of necessity is just an effort on their behalf to create confusion among the masses in order to benefit from it for their own interests. In this way, they want to put pressure on the noble people of Afghanistan.

We believe the Britons and their allies will face defeat once again like before. The pious and gallant people of Afghanistan will give an exemplary defeat to the historical enemy of our land and Islam. Signs of victory are now appearing on the vista one after another. The day is not far away when the proud Afghans will lead a prosperous and free life in a free Afghanistan under the shade of an independent Islamic government. This task is easy for Allah (Swt) to accomplish.

--Forward to regaining the independence of our country from the claws of the invaders.

Leadership Council

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Fayyad plans for statehood as Egypt tries to end Palestinian internal feuds

As Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad unveiled on Tuesday a plan to establish a Palestinian statehood in two years, Gaza ruling Hamas movement revealed that Egypt is working on a document to end its feuds with Fatah party.

Fayyad told a news conference in Ramallah that a de facto state will be created in two years "without waiting for the results of the peace negotiations with Israel."

The statehood would exist on the territories that Israel captured in the 1967 war, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

"We will establish the basic infrastructure of the Palestinian statehood. We should take the initiative and spare no efforts to make it a fact on the ground," Fayyad said, stressing that security, economic and institutional reforms are cornerstones of the plan.

Building an international airport in the West Bank and a railway linking the Palestinian territories with neighboring countries are also listed in the plan.

Observers believe that hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government would reject Fayyad's plan.

"I don't think Fayyad's plan will be implemented as long as Israel keeps occupying and controlling the West Bank and Jerusalem and rejects to endorse a two-state solution, which calls for the ending of its occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian statehood," said Ra'ed Afana, an academic at al-Azhar University in Gaza.

Netanyahu, who took office as Israel's premier in early April, said that Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital and refused to stop Jewish settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees.

Netanyahu also stressed that he only accepts the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, without Jerusalem as its capital and without the right of Palestinians to return to the state of Israel.

If the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, "Israel would recognize a demilitarized Palestinian state," Netanyahu said.

The declaration of his plan comes at a time when peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority were halted due to the Jewish state's refusal to endorse a two-state solution and its continuation of settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the plan calls for achieving "a national unity between Gaza and the West Bank," which needs the reconciliation between Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama is to present a new peace plan on September which aims at resuming the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Arabs.

Fayyad's declaration coincided with an announcement of a senior Hamas leader Salah al-Bardaweel saying that Egypt, which sponsors the reconciliation dialogue, "is working on a document on issues agreed upon between Fatah and Hamas in the past rounds of dialogue."

Salah al-Bardaweel told the Gaza-based pro-Hamas "Falastin" daily that the document will depend on what had been agreed upon in Cairo in 2005 and the document of national accordance in 2006.

Al-Bardaweel revealed that Cairo "has recently brought to Hamas reassuring letters from President Abbas indicating that he has a desire to achieve reconciliation and the release of political prisoners in the West Bank."

Hamas insists that Abbas must free all its prisoners in the West Bank before resuming its dialogue with Fatah in Cairo, which was postponed until late September.

"Despite reassuring letters of Abbas, we haven't seen the implementation of his new ideas to succeed the dialogue," said al-Bardaweel, expecting that the situation "would remain the same as long as Fatah links the reconciliation to holding elections on time in Jan. 2010."

Meanwhile, Afana said that as long as Hamas is ruling the Gaza Strip, and "as long as there is no end to feuds between Fatah and Hamas and the Palestinians are not united, Israel will keep using this as an excuse to escape from resuming the talks to reach a permanent peaceful settlement."

Hamas says Germany helps in Israel prisoner talks

GAZA - German involvement in mediation over an Israeli-Palestinian prisoner swap has advanced the negotiations but a breakthrough is not imminent, Hamas said on Tuesday.

Hamas, an Islamist group running the Gaza Strip, wants to trade a captive Israeli soldier for hundreds of jailed Palestinians. Israel long balked at freeing some of the prisoners but local media have recently reported progress.

Hamas does not recognize Israel so the talks have been conducted through Egypt. Its president, Hosni Mubarak, told an American television interviewer last week that his country was working “in collaboration and cooperation with the Germans”.

Hamas at first declined comment but on Tuesday a senior official, Ayman Taha, told Reuters: “There is nothing new except the German intervention, which caused things to move. But things have not yet reached a breakthrough.”

Israel has not talked about its efforts to retrieve Gilad Shalit, a conscript seized by Hamas-led gunmen on the Gaza border in June 2006 who has been kept incommunicado since.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau is scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Thursday. In Berlin, a German official did not want to comment.

Keen to atone for its Holocaust history, Germany has been a stalwart ally of the Jewish state and in 2004 and 2008 helped negotiate sensitive Israeli-Lebanese prisoner swaps.

A source close to the mediation said Israel has dropped its objections over some of the inmates on Hamas’ release roster.

Hamas, the source said, signaled flexibility on an Israeli demand that some freed prisoners be deported rather than returned to homes in the West Bank, where the Islamists’ rival, U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, holds sway.

Israel holds some 11,000 Palestinians in its jails on charges ranging from minor criminal offenses to militant links and orchestration of suicide bombings and other attacks on Jews. Most Palestinians regard the prisoners as national heroes.

The involvement of a top European power in the Shalit talks could help Hamas boost its standing abroad. The Islamists are formally shunned by the West for their hardline stance against Israel and against Abbas, who seeks a Middle East peace deal.

SKorea rocket takes off, satellite launch fails

By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's first rocket launch Tuesday failed to push a satellite into its orbit but the flawed mission may still anger rival North Korea, coming just months the communist nation's own launch drew international condemnation.

The failure dealt a blow to Seoul's quest to become a regional space power. It comes against the complex backdrop of relations on the Korean peninsula — and recent signs that months of heightened tension over the North's nuclear program may be easing.

Also Tuesday, a South Korean newspaper reported that North Korea has invited top envoys of President Barack Obama for the first nuclear negotiations between the two countries under his presidency, but Washington quickly said it has no plans to send the envoys to Pyongyang.

The North gave no immediate reaction to the rocket launch but has said it will watch to see if the U.S. and regional powers refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council — which in June approved sanctions on the North over its recent nuclear and missile tests.

The two-stage Naro rocket, whose first stage was designed by Russia, was South Korea's first launch of a rocket from its own territory. It lifted off Tuesday from South Korea's space center on Oenaro Island, about 290 miles (465 kilometers) south of Seoul.

The rocket was carrying a domestically built satellite aimed at observing the atmosphere and oceans. A South Korean official said they could not trace the satellite in orbit after it separated from the rocket.

"We could not locate our satellite. It seems that communications with the satellite scheduled on Wednesday are unlikely to happen," Science Ministry official Yum Ki-soo told The Associated Press late Tuesday.

He said more details could be available on Wednesday as South Korean and Russian scientists were analyzing data to try to determine the cause of the failure.

Russia's Interfax-AVN news agency, citing an unidentified Russian space industry source, said the satellite never reached orbit and problems occurred in the South Korean-built second stage of the rocket.

In Moscow, an official at the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, declined to comment on the report that the satellite did not enter any orbit or say anything about what happened to it.

In joint statements, Roscosmos and the state-controlled Khrunichev company, which made the rocket's first stage, said that the first stage operated as planned.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called the launch a "half success."

"We must further strive to realize the dream of becoming a space power," Lee said, according to his office. Among Asian countries, China has conducted a manned space flight, and Japan and India have also sent rockets carrying satellites into space.

The liftoff came after a warning from North Korea that it would be "watching closely" for the international response to Seoul's launch after its own launch in April — suspected as a disguised test of long-range missile technology — drew a rebuke from the United Nations.

The North, unlike the South, is banned from ballistic missile activity by Security Council resolutions as part of international efforts to eliminate its nuclear and long-range missile programs.

South Korean officials said it is inappropriate to compare their launch with the North's because Seoul's is for peaceful purposes and was carried out with transparency.

"As I look at the case, our government, as a member of international treaties on nonproliferation, has been engaging in its space development program with a responsible attitude. We've been doing this openly," Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae told reporters.

Last week, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly supported Seoul, saying South Korea has developed its program in a very open and transparent way.

The North sees the contrasting international reactions over the launches as discriminatory. It says its April rocket launch fired a satellite into space, although experts say no such satellite has been detected in orbit.

Kim Tae-woo, a senior analyst of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said that despite the North's stance, Tuesday's launch is unlikely to have major implications on inter-Korean relations.

In recent weeks, the North has become markedly more conciliatory, both toward the United States and to South Korea.

Earlier this month, it freed two American journalists following a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton. It has also freed a South Korean detainee, agreed to lift restrictions on border crossings with the South and resume suspended inter-Korean projects in industry and tourism.

On Wednesday, Red Cross officials of both Koreas are set to hold three days of talks on resuming reunions of families separated during the Korean War over five decades ago.

In its latest diplomatic sweetener toward Washington, Pyongyang has reportedly invited U.S. envoys for talks on its nuclear program.

North Korea recently offered the invitation to Stephen Bosworth, special envoy to North Korea, and chief nuclear negotiator Sung Kim, Seoul's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported.

But in Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that neither Bosworth nor Sung Kim has plans to go to North Korea.

Pyongyang has long sought direct negotiations with Washington about its nuclear program and other issues. The U.S. has said it is willing to talk bilaterally to Pyongyang, but only within the framework of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, which North Korea withdrew from in April.

Karzai, top rival run nearly even in Afghan vote

By RAHIM FAIEZ and HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writers

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah both have roughly 40 percent of the nationwide vote for president with 10 percent of polling stations counted, the Afghan election commission said Tuesday as it announced the first official returns.

If neither Karzai nor Abdullah gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the two will face each other in a runoff, likely in early October. The Independent Election Commission plans to release more results in the coming days, but final certified results of last week's election won't be ready until at least mid-September.

Low voter turnout and allegations of fraud have cast a pall over the election. Abdullah has accused Karzai of widespread vote rigging, including ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. Karzai's camp has leveled similar accusations. Both campaigns have denied the claims.

The Independent Election Commission announced that Karzai has 40.6 percent and Abdullah has 38.7 percent of the votes in the country's first official returns since millions of Afghans voted for president last Thursday.

But the returns come from only 22 of the country's 34 provinces and represent votes from just 10 percent of the country's polling stations. Of the roughly 525,000 valid votes counted so far, the majority came from Kabul, nearby Parwan and Nangarhar provinces, Kunduz and Jowzjan provinces in the north and Ghor province to the west.

In the volatile south, less than 2 percent of Kandahar votes have been counted, and no votes in Helmand have been tallied, the commission said. Karzai would expect to do well in both provinces, suggesting his returns could go higher.

Both Karzai and Abdullah have claimed they were leading in early returns, but no official figures have backed those assertions.

The U.S. government urged candidates to wait for more complete results.

"We call on all parties to refrain from speculation until national results are announced," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Allegations of vote rigging mounted Tuesday. Abdullah for the first time showed marked ballots, pictures and video of alleged fraud. Meanwhile, six presidential candidates_ none of them Abdullah or Karzai — warned that fraud threatens to undermine the election and could stoke violence.

Abdullah showed reporters a packet of ballots with an official stamp on the back — used to mark cast ballots — nearly all checked for Karzai. He also showed video of what he said were Karzai supporters in eastern Ghazni province marking dozens of ballots for Karzai, and a picture of a polling site in the south showing people he said were Karzai campaign officials looking over the shoulders of voters.

"If the widespread rigging is ignored, this is the type of regime that will be imposed upon Afghanistan for the next five years and with that sort of a system, a system that has destroyed every institution, broken every law," Abdullah said at a news conference just before the results were announced.

The election commission said it had fired four election workers in northern Balkh province for attempted fraud. Photographs showed three trying to vote with multiple cards, while the fourth was ordering voters to cast ballots for a specific candidate, said Daoud Ali Najafi, the commission's chief electoral officer.

The six presidential candidates said in a statement that dozens of complaints filed could affect the outcome of the election "to the point that many are seriously questioning the legitimacy and credibility of the results."

"Fraud in the elections could result in increased tension and violence," the six added.

The signatories are all long-shot candidates. The most prominent is Ashraf Ghani, a Western-educated former finance minister who has been suggested as a "chief executive" under the next president tasked with handling day-to-day management of the government.

Ghani earlier sent out a statement listing the complaints his campaign has submitted, including gunmen telling voters to cast ballots for Abdullah and officials stuffing ballot boxes in favor of Karzai.

The fraud claims threaten to undermine President Barack Obama's Afghanistan strategy. The Obama administration hopes the election will produce a leader with a strong mandate to confront the growing Taliban insurgency.

As of Monday evening, the independent Electoral Complaints Commission said it received more than 50 allegations of fraud that could affect the election results if true. Final results cannot be certified as legitimate until the complaints commission rules on these cases.

Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for Karzai, said the government had the resources to respond to any violence that results from election announcements.

"Today Afghanistan has its own security institutions, today Afghanistan has a constitution and has its own rules and law," he told reporters. "If anyone tries to break the law, they will face the legal process."

Pakistani Taliban admit Mehsud killed in US strike

By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press Writer

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – The Pakistani Taliban acknowledged Tuesday that the militants' top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was dead, ending weeks of claims and counterclaims over his fate following a U.S. missile strike on his father-in-law's home this month.

Two of Mehsud's top aides, Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman, called The Associated Press on Tuesday evening to say that he had died Sunday of wounds from the Aug. 5 strike near the Afghan border.

"He was wounded. He got the wounds in a drone strike and he was martyred two days ago," Hakimullah Mehsud said. Rehman later repeated the same statement.

Both also confirmed an earlier Taliban announcement that Hakimullah Mehsud now leads the Pakistani Taliban, while Rehman would lead the movement's wing in South Waziristan.

The Taliban had insisted for weeks that Baitullah Mehsud was still alive following the missile strike, while U.S. and Pakistani officials said he was almost certainly dead and a leadership struggle had ensued.

Hakimullah and Rehman, who had served as top aides to Baitullah, said they were calling together — handing the telephone back and forth to each other — to dispel reports of disunity in the Taliban leadership. They spoke to an Associated Press Reporter who had interviewed both and recognized their voices.

"Our presence together shows that we do not have any differences," Rehman said.

Both men had been named as candidates — and possibly rivals — to replace Baitullah Mehsud as chief of the al-Qaida-linked movement, which is blamed for dozens of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and also for planning attacks on U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan.

However, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban Movement, announced Friday that Hakimullah would lead the group because Baitullah was ill. Members of the Mehsud clan use the same last name.

The 28-year-old Hakimullah Mehsud is known for his ruthless efficiency in staging attacks.

Hakimullah commanded three tribal regions and had a reputation as Baitullah's most ferocious deputy. He first appeared in public to journalists in November 2008, when he offered to take reporters on a ride in a U.S. Humvee taken from a supply truck heading to Afghanistan.

Hakimullah claimed responsibility for the June 9 bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in Peshawar, and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier this year.

He also threatened suicide bombings in Pakistani cities in retaliation for a recent army offensive in the Swat Valley, which has been winding down in recent weeks.