China executes official for selling imperial relics

Fri, 19 Nov 2010

Beijing - China executed a local official Friday, six years after he was convicted of illegally selling hundreds of Qing Dynasty imperial relics for about 550,000 dollars, state media said.

Li Haitao and several accomplices stole the items while he was head of security for relics at the Waibaimiao, or Eight Outer Temples, in the Qing court's summer resort of Chengde in the northern province of Hebei.

Li was convicted in 2004 of stealing 259 protected items from 1993 to 2002 and selling 152 of them for a total of 554,000 dollars, state television and newspapers reported.

Li lost an appeal against his sentence, and China's Supreme People's Court approved the death penalty, the reports said without saying when the higher court gave its approval.

Three accomplices received sentences of two to seven years in prison in 2004.

Earlier reports said police suspicions were raised in 2002 by a Hong Kong auction of two Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) items labeled "Forbidden City," the common name of the former imperial palace in Beijing, now also known as the Palace Museum.

The Beijing museum had sent cultural relics to Chengde in the 1950s and 1960s, and they were not returned, the reports said.

China keeps the number of executions a state secret, but the US-based Dui Hua Foundation human rights group estimated that at least 5,000 people have been executed annually in recent years, more than in the rest of the world combined.

The government claimed to have limited the use of the death penalty in recent years but retains it for 68 offenses, including drug trafficking, serious corruption and other non-violent crimes.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354255,official-selling-imperial-relics.html.

Sri Lankan president sworn in for second term

Fri, 19 Nov 2010

Colombo - Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in for a second term Friday, saying his main focus was development work after the end of the civil war against ethnic Tamil rebels.

"During the last era, we worked with many nations in agreement and friendship for national security," Rajapaksa said, stressing his country's policy of non-alignment. "We now step into the development era. We extend our hand of friendship to those who assist us in this endeavour."

Rajapaksa has been accused of distancing himself from Western countries and maintaining closer links with China, India, Iran and Pakistan.

Many Western countries have demanded an independent inquiry of alleged human rights abuses during the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended last year when the government defeated the separatist rebels. The government has refused to allow the investigation.

"We united this country, achieving a victory over terrorism that had global echoes," Rajapaksa said at the inauguration, which took place at the Presidential Secretariat before Chief Justice Ashoka de Silva. "Today, on November 19, I take over this country again with determination, strength and courage to raise my motherland to a position of greatness in the world."

"Our task is to ensure lasting national unity and sustainable, permanent peace in our motherland," he said.

Rajapaksa opted for early elections in January, two years before his term was due to end, and received 57.81 per cent of the votes. He then delayed being sworn in for his second term by nine months, enabling him to gain the maximum period in power.

The event was attended by local and foreign dignitaries, including Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, and Jigme Y Thinley, Bhutan's premier.

His inauguration was also marked with a series of religious and other celebrations throughout the country.

He was due to carry out a cabinet reshuffle Monday, followed by the presentation of the budget for next year.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354266,lankan-president-sworn-term.html.

China: Between Myth and Reality

19/11/2010

By Amir Taheri

As the year 2010 drifts towards its end, the talk in Western political circle is about the fading of the United States as a superpower and the emergence of China as successor. The recent G-20 summit in Seoul, South Korea, revealed the beginnings of a new balance of power, with China's star rising at the expense of the US and the European Union.

Even before Seoul, China had flexed its muscle on a number of occasions.

At the summit in Copenhagen, it brushed aside US and EU pressure to commit itself to a new charter to deal with climate change. Later, it ignored US and EU demands to increase the value of its currency. In a more dramatic way, last month China forced Japan to throw in the towel in the row over a Chinese fishing boat that had violated Japanese waters.

Talk of China as a potential global power is not new.

Much of the 19th century was dominated by fear of China, or 'Yellow Peril' as it was called before Political Correctness consigned the sobriquet to oblivion. Once China had obtained its independence in 1911, a more positive image began to take shape. By 1949, however, that image had been buried under the red avalanche unleashed by Mao Zedong.

Almost 40 years ago, with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution dying down, Alain Peyrfitte, a French politician, wrote a bestseller entitled ' When China Wakes Up'. In it, he envisaged a China that, thanks to its position as the world's most populous nation, claims leadership.

At the time, Peyrfitte's prediction appeared far-fetched. China was one of the world's poorest countries still facing the threat of famine.

Today, the picture appears different. China remains the most populous nation at least until 2020 when India is projected to overtake it. It is also the world's fourth largest country. Until even 10 years ago, everyone in the West saw China as a great market. Today, it is everyone else that is a market for China. Leaving aside the oil exporting countries, almost every trading partner of China has a huge trade deficit with it.

How realistic is the image of China as the new world leader?

The principal argument of the 'China-as-World-Leader' school is economic. In 2009, China's GDP rose to $8.5 trillion, making it the world's third largest economy. However, when it comes to GDP per head China is numbered 131. The average Dutchman is six times richer than his Chinese counterpart.

But what about China's annual growth rate?

China's growth rate of 8 per cent is certainly impressive compared to two per cent n the European Union and, perhaps, three per cent in the US. However growth rate is often higher in developing economies. According to the World Bank, in 2009 Iraq, for example, had a growth rate of 34 per cent while Afghanistan's rate of growth was projected at 22 per cent. In the first phases of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain enjoyed average annual growth rates of 15 per cent.

In any case, economic power alone cannot propel a nation into a leadership position. For example, Japan and Germany, the fourth and fifth largest economies in the world, do not play a political role commensurate with their economic power. Candidates for global leadership must meet a number of conditions.

The first of these is to ensure the goodwill of neighbors in one's region.

On that score, China appears in a weak position. China has long-standing territorial disputes with Russia, Japan, Vietnam and India. In the 1960s the Russians occupied large tracts of Chinese territory along the Usuri River. In the same period, China attacked and occupied big chunks of Indian territory, including almost a third of Kashmir. China is also in dispute over continental shelf, water frontiers and islands with South Korea and Japan, not to mention its claim of ownership of the Taiwanese archipelago.

Russia, India and Japan are not alone in watching the rise of China with concern. Indonesia, Vietnam and The Philippines would also regard the emergence of China as a hegemonic power with little enthusiasm.

In fact, among China's immediate or near neighbors, only Pakistan could be regarded as an ally, and that because of shared hostility towards India.

The second condition that a candidate for global leadership must meet is internal peace. Here, too, China's position is less than secure.

Tibet may never be able to break away. But it could continue to blacken the country's image while raising the cost of its absorption into the Chinese sphere.

Even more complicated is the situation in East Turkestan or Xingjian as the Chinese prefer to call it, where the Muslim Uighur nation resists forcible sinification.

More importantly, the current system of one-party politics plus capitalist economy might not be sustainable for long.

Zhao Ziyang, the reformist leader of the Chinese Communist Party who was pushed aside after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, had recognized that contradiction as early as 1987. In his journals, smuggled out of China and published in the West, he warns that without democratization the country could head for instability and even disintegration.

China's ' economic miracle' has created a new middle class of around 200 million people and brought more than 400 million others out of poverty along the country's seaboard. However, that leaves almost half a billion people still in poverty with at least 250 million in precarious employment. Export-driven, China's economy remains vulnerable without a strong domestic market.

Thirdly, a candidate for global leadership needs an attractive cultural profile.

Here, too, China s found wanting. The world's third largest economy is not yet producing writers, composers, painters, filmmakers and designers that could attract a following in the outside world. In the same register, China does not feature among the world's leading scientific innovating powers. In 2009, less than three per cent of scientific and technological patents were registered by China.

To play a global leadership role, a great power also needs a wealth of knowledge and experience about the world. Here, too, China is far behind. Apart from English which has become popular with China's new middle classes, few Chinese learn foreign languages. Nor has China developed the research institutions dedicated to the study of other cultures and societies.

Over the past 20 years, China has become the world's factory, manufacturing cheap consumer goods for sale in Western markets. In other words, low-paid Chinese workers have been subsidizing wealthy Western consumers, in part thanks to a national currency that is kept below its real value.

Although a great power that must play a role in shaping the global agenda, China still lacks the wherewithal for assuming world leadership. It would be both unfair and potentially dangerous to propel it into a position for which it is not ready. The greatest service that China's leaders are offering the rest of the world is keeping their country, a quarter of mankind, relatively stable and peaceful.

Whether one likes it or not, the US must continue to bear the burden of world leadership. Right now, partly thanks to its clueless president, the US appears to be in decline as it did under Jimmy Carer in the 1970s. Nevertheless, news of its demise as a world power may prove to be widely exaggerated.

Source: Asharq Al-Awsat
Link: http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=23080.

Indonesia's Forests Loom As Green Gold

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Nov 16, 2010 (IPS) - All eyes are on Indonesia and its forest policy as climate- change negotiations continue in the upcoming global talks in Mexico, against the prospect of billions of dollars flowing from the planet’s major polluters to the developing world to slow global warming.

The forests in South-east Asia’s largest country will be among those coming under scrutiny during Nov. 29 to Dec. 10, 2010 climate change meetings in the Mexican resort city of Cancun, environmentalists say. These meetings are the 16th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 6th conference of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

The potential windfall of incoming funds for countries in the Global South stems from discussions between climate change negotiators under a scheme known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestations and Forest Degradation (REDD), which opens the door for market-friendly financial mechanisms to be used to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

International efforts to make Indonesia REDD-ready in the region arise from the archipelago’s being home to the largest biodiversity-rich rainforest in South-east Asia.

Indonesia accounts for 94 million hectares of the South- east Asia’s 214 million hectares spread across 10 countries, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Burma, or Myanmar, comes a distant second, with 32 million hectares of forest cover.

"This is why there is so much attention on Indonesia with the ongoing discussions regards REDD," said Patrick Durst, FAO’s senior forestry officer for Asia and the Pacific. "REDD could potentially be a useful tool and incentive for countries to stop deforestation."

Even before the prospect of new revenue streams from REDD heading to Indonesia, Jakarta had been pursuing measures to curb logging in its forests. Already, its rate of forest loss has dropped from 1.7 percent in the 1990s to 0.7 percent over the last five years, reveals Durst. "Indonesia has taken a serious approach to rein in forest clearance."

Indonesia’s significance in this climate change mitigation effort is also rooted in its being the country emitting the most amount of greenhouse gases in the world, largely due to deforestation and the clearing of forest land for plantation agriculture, including to harvest palm oil.

In a sign that he wants the country to do more, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made a commitment at the September 2009 meeting of the world’s G-20 largest economies to slash his country’s greenhouse emissions by putting the brakes on deforestation and degradation, which are among the major contributors to global warming.

The new benchmarks the Indonesia leader set were a "commitment to reduce emissions from land use, land use change and forestry by 26 percent in 2020 from the business- as-usual levels, and by 41 percent with international assistance," stated the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), an environmental think tank based in Bogor, Indonesia.

"Analysis shows that reducing Indonesia’s deforestation rate by five percent could generate REDD payments of 765 million U.S. dollars a year, while a 30 percent reduction could generate over 4.5 billion U.S. dollars a year," noted CIFOR. "Through REDD, Indonesia has a unique opportunity to generate revenue, reduce the loss of forest cover and, in doing so, to make a significant contribution to mitigating global climate change."

But this path to potential prosperity is also paved with hurdles, the most daunting among them being corruption in the forestry sector.

"There is serious corruption in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea," said Manoj Nadkarni, head of the forest governance integrity program in the Asia-Pacific region for Transparency International (TI), the Berlin-based global anti-corruption watchdog. "Indonesia ranks among the world’s worst five countries in Transparency’s Corruption Perception Index."

"Corruption threatens to undermine REDD," he told IPS on the sidelines of the 14th International Anti-Corruption Conference that ended over the weekend in Bangkok. "The problem is with illegal logging. Corruption in Indonesia’s forestry sector is the major driver of illegal logging."

Illegal logging worldwide "robs the public of around 10 billion U.S. dollars a year from state-owned forests," Transparency International said in its ‘Analyzing Corruption in the Forestry Sector’ report released at the just-ended conference. "Underpayment of taxes by legal concession holders amounts to an additional five billion U.S. dollars."

The ongoing illegal logging to feed the voracious demand for timbre for furniture and flooring across the world puts the estimated 700 million hectares of forest lands in the Asia-Pacific region in peril.

Some reports estimate that the current pace of illegal logging in countries targeted by timber companies – ranging from Burma, Cambodia and Laos to Vietnam, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea – could precipitate a dramatic drop in forest cover totaling a loss of 6.6 million hectares by 2020.

Strengthening governance at the local level is key for REDD to succeed, says Bernd-Markus Liss, an adviser on climate-relevant forest policy for the German Technical Cooperation in the Philippines. "Corruption in the forestry sector is prominent at the local level."

"There is a need to create more transparency in licensing, auditing and investment," he said in an interview. "Well-meaning measures, with adequate checks and balances, could also trigger corruption if local realities are not factored in."

Source: IPS News.
Link: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53568.

Seasonal Bans Not Enough to Save Pacific Tuna

By Edgardo Ayala

SAN SALVADOR, Nov 16, 2010 (Tierramérica) - The countries that fish for tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean see seasonal bans as a form of responsible fishing, but environmentalists argue that they are not enough to ensure the survival of a resource that is threatened around the world.

The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC, based in California), whose member countries fish for tuna in the tropical Pacific, on Oct. 1 adopted new seasonal bans for 2011, 2012 and 2013 for the three most prized tuna species in the zone: the yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis).

"What we are doing is preserving for the future; these are necessary conservation measures," Miguel Peñalva, director of operations for the Spain- based Calvo Group in El Salvador, told Tierramérica.

The Calvo Group started its tuna operations in El Salvador in September 2003 with an investment of 138 million dollars. Although this Central American country does not have a tuna industry as such, in virtue of Calvo's presence, it has become the region's principle exporter of canned tuna.

Four of the Calvo Group's boats fish in international waters of the Pacific off the Salvadoran coast, and more than 80 percent of its exports, which totaled 100 million dollars in 2008, are destined for the European Union.

"If we don't comply with the seasonal bans, they would declare our fishing illegal and we wouldn't be able to sell it," said Peñalva.

The IATTC bans, based on studies by its scientific committee on the state of the Pacific's fisheries, halt fishing 62 days per year and are required for all members: Belize, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, EU, France, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Taiwan, South Korea, United States, Vanuatu and Venezuela.

Independent observers report to the IATTC about the countries' compliance with the bans, and the fishing fleets are monitored using satellites to determine their positions.

"The bans take place during the tuna's growth period," said Peñalva, underscoring the importance of heeding the seasonal fishing stoppages.

But according to Sari Tolvanen, of Greenpeace International's oceans campaign, "the bans don't necessarily mean a reduction in fishing."

First of all, the periods are too short to make much of a difference, Tolvanen told Tierramérica from Amsterdam. The fleets that use purse-seine techniques fish 75 percent of the year, and cease operations when they have to undergo mechanical updates anyway, she said.

The purse-seine is one of the least eco-friendly fishing techniques because it allows huge captures in which there is a great deal of bycatch -- fish that are too small or species that are not marketable.

In addition, the purse-seine vessels are quite large and increasingly use artificial floating objects to catch more fish, such that the seasonal bans make little sense, said Tolvanen.

When fishing for skipjack, those floating devices increase the bycatch of yellowfin and bigeye tuna that are still too small to be sold, further endangering these and other species, like sharks and sea turtles.

"Calvo and other companies rely heavily on the objects," which makes their operations "completely unsustainable," said the Greenpeace activist.

In its resolution, IATTC recognized that tuna fishing in the Eastern Pacific is increasing and that populations could begin to decline if the catch is excessive.

In other parts of the world, tuna populations have fallen to critical levels.

Bigeye and yellowfin tuna have been over-fished in all seas and face serious problems in the central and western Pacific, where their populations were relatively robust just a few years ago, according to Greenpeace.

The bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), native to the Atlantic and adjacent seas, is one step away from extinction, and the bluefin of the Mediterranean has seen its population drop 80 percent since 1999.

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) maintains a tuna stocks status chart on its website, using color coding for each of the world's seas and their tuna species -- with red indicating the most critical stocks.

On the ISSF chart, the yellowfin and bigeye species are marked in yellow for the Eastern Pacific, because those populations cannot support any increase in catches, and in some cases suffer from overfishing. Only the skipjack is marked in green, indicating a healthy population.

In 2009, approximately 595,000 tonnes of tuna were caught in that region, 14 percent of the world tuna catch, according to the report updated in September, titled "ISSF Status of the World Fisheries for Tuna."

Spain, with the largest fishing fleet of the EU and third in the world after China and Peru, catches most of its tuna in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and off the coast of Western Africa, but according to Greenpeace, the "Spanish fishing armada" sails the world's oceans pursuing more substantial catches of tuna, shark and codfish.

That would explain the presence of the Calvo Group in El Salvador.

For the 2009-2011 period, IATTC established specific quotas for some of the big fishers in the Pacific: China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

In Tolvanen's view, the IATTC and other regional tuna commissions are a long way from achieving adequate management of the tuna species.

The Greenpeace expert stressed that it is just a handful of fishing nations that are negotiating the "tuna pie" and how to make more money, without considering the long-term health of the tuna stocks, the oceans, the means for people to make a living and their food security.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialized news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Program and the World Bank.) (END)

Source: IPS News.
Link: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53573.

Airports consider congressman's call to ditch TSA

By RAY HENRY and MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

ATLANTA – In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun airport pat-downs and veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: Ditching TSA agents altogether.

Federal law allows airports to opt for screeners from the private sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who's a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors some of the companies who might take the TSA's place.

Furor over airline passenger checks has grown as more airports have installed scanners that produce digital images of the body's contours, and the anger intensified when TSA added a more intrusive style of pat-down recently for those who opt out of the full-body scans. Some travelers are using the Internet to organize protests aimed at the busy travel days next week surrounding Thanksgiving.

For Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the way to make travelers feel more comfortable would be to kick TSA employees out of their posts at the ends of the snaking security lines. This month, he wrote letters to nation's 100 busiest airports asking that they request private security guards instead.

"I think we could use half the personnel and streamline the system," Mica said Wednesday, calling the TSA a bloated bureaucracy.

Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Once the new Congress convenes in January, the lawmaker is expected lead the committee.

Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica's call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports.

Private contractors are not a cure-all for passengers aggrieved about taking off their shoes for security checks, passing through full-body scanners or getting hand-frisked. For example, contractors must follow all TSA-mandated security procedures, including hand patdowns when necessary.

Still, the top executive at the Orlando-area's second-largest airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport, said he plans to begin the process of switching to private screeners in January as long as a few remaining concerns can be met. The airport is within Mica's district, and the congressman wrote his letter after hearing about its experiences.

CEO Larry Dale said members of the board that runs Sanford were impressed after watching private screeners at airports in Rochester, N.Y., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He said TSA agents could do better at customer service.

"Some of them are a little testy," said Dale, whose airport handles 2 million passengers a year. "And we work hard to get passengers and airlines. And to have it undone by a personality problem?"

To the south, the city's main airport, Orlando International, said it's reviewing Mica's proposal, although it has some questions about how the system would work with the 34 million passengers it handles each year. In Georgia, Macon City Councilor Erick Erickson, whose committee oversees the city's small airport, wants private screeners there.

Erickson called it a protest move in an interview.

"I am a frequent air traveler and I have experienced ... TSA agents who have let the power go to their head," Erickson said. "You can complain about those people, but very rarely does the bureaucracy work quickly enough to remove those people from their positions."

TSA officials would select and pay the contractors who run airport security. But Dale thinks a private contractor would be more responsive since the contractor would need local support to continue its business with the airport.

"Competition drives accountability, it drives efficiency, it drives a particular approach to your airport," Dale said. "That company is just going to be looking at you. They're not going to be driven out of Washington, they will be driven out of here."

San Francisco International Airport has used private screeners since the formation of the TSA and remains the largest to do so.

The airport believed a private contractor would have more flexibility to supplement staff during busy periods with part-time employees, airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. Also, the city's high cost of living had made it difficult in the past to recruit federal employees to run immigration and customs stations — a problem the airport didn't want at security checkpoints.

"You get longer lines," McCarron said.

TSA spokesman Greg Soule would not respond directly Mica's letter, but reiterated the nation's roughly 460 commercial airports have the option of applying to use private contractors.

Companies that provide airport security are contributors to Mica's campaigns, although some donations came before those companies won government contracts. The Lockheed Martin Corp. Employees' Political Action Committee has given $36,500 to Mica since 1997. A Lockheed firm won the security contract in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 2005 and the contract for San Francisco the following year.

Raytheon Company's PAC has given Mica $33,500 since 1999. A Raytheon subsidiary began providing checkpoint screenings at Key West International Airport in 2007.

FirstLine Transportation Security Inc.'s PAC has donated $4,500 to the Florida congressman since 2004. FirstLine has been screening baggage and has been responsible for passenger checkpoints at the Kansas City International Airport since 2006, as well as the Gallup Municipal Airport and the Roswell Industrial Air Center in New Mexico, operating at both since 2007.

Since 2006, Mica has received $2,000 from FirstLine President Keith Wolken and $1,700 from Gerald Berry, president of Covenant Aviation Security. Covenant works with Lockheed to provide security at airports in Sioux Falls and San Francisco.

Mica spokesman Justin Harclerode said the contributions never improperly influenced the congressman, who said he was unaware Raytheon or Lockheed were in the screening business.

"They certainly never contacted him about providing screening," Harclerode said.

Anger over the screenings hasn't just come from passengers. Two veteran commercial airline pilots asked a federal judge this week to stop the whole-body scans and the new pat-down procedures, saying it violates their civil rights.

The pilots, Michael S. Roberts of Memphis and Ann Poe of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have refused to participate in either screening method and, as a result, will not fly out of airports that use these methods, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington.

Roberts is a pilot with ExpressJet Airlines and is on unpaid administrative leave because of his refusal to enter the whole-body scanners. Poe flies for Continental Airlines and will continue to take off work as long as the existing regulations are in place.

"In her eyes, the pat-down is a physical molestation and the WBI scanner is not only intrusive, degrading and potentially dangerous, but poses a real and substantial threat to medical privacy," the lawsuit states.

___

Schneider reported from Orlando. Associated Press Writer Adrian Sainz in Memphis and AP Business Writer Samantha Bomkamp in New York contributed to this report.

Antihydrogen Trapped For First Time

by Staff Writers
Berkeley CA (SPX) Nov 18, 2010

Physicists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, have succeeded in trapping antihydrogen - the antimatter equivalent of the hydrogen atom - a milestone that could soon lead to experiments on a form of matter that disappeared mysteriously shortly after the birth of the universe 14 billion years ago.

The first artificially produced low energy antihydrogen atoms - consisting of a positron, or antimatter electron, orbiting an antiproton nucleus - were created at CERN in 2002, but until now the atoms have struck normal matter and annihilated in a flash of gamma-rays within microseconds of creation.

The ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser PHysics Apparatus) experiment, an international collaboration that includes physicists from the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), has now trapped 38 antihydrogen atoms, each for more than one-tenth of a second.

While the number and lifetime are insufficient to threaten the Vatican - in the 2000 novel and 2009 movie "Angels and Demons," a hidden vat of potentially explosive antihydrogen was buried under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome - it is a starting point for learning new physics, the researchers said.

"We are getting close to the point at which we can do some classes of experiments on the properties of antihydrogen," said Joel Fajans, UC Berkeley professor of physics, LBNL faculty scientist and ALPHA team member. "Initially, these will be crude experiments to test CPT symmetry, but since no one has been able to make these types of measurements on antimatter atoms at all, it's a good start."

CPT (charge-parity-time) symmetry is the hypothesis that physical interactions look the same if you flip the charge of all particles, change their parity - that is, invert their coordinates in space - and reverse time.

Any differences between antihydrogen and hydrogen, such as differences in their atomic spectrum, automatically violate CPT, overthrow today's "standard model" of particles and their interactions, and may explain why antimatter, created in equal amounts during the universe's birth, is largely absent today.

The team's results will be published online Nov. 17 in advance of its print appearance in the British journal Nature.

Antimatter, first predicted by physicist Paul Dirac in 1931, has the opposite charge of normal matter and annihilates completely in a flash of energy upon interaction with normal matter. While astronomers see no evidence of significant antimatter annihilation in space, antimatter is produced during high-energy particle interactions on earth and in some decays of radioactive elements. UC Berkeley physicists Emilio Segre and Owen Chamberlain created antiprotons in the Bevatron accelerator at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, now LBNL, in 1955, confirming their existence and earning the scientists the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics.

Slow antihydrogen was produced at CERN in 2002 thanks to an antiproton decelerator that slowed antiprotons enough for them to be used in experiments that combined them with a cloud of positrons. The ATHENA experiment, a broad international collaboration, reported the first detection of cold antihydrogen, with the rival ATRAP experiment close behind.

The ATHENA experiment closed down in 2004, to be superseded by ALPHA, coordinated by Jeffrey Hangst of the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Since then, the ALPHA and ATRAP teams have competed to trap antihydrogen for experiments, in particular, laser experiments to measure the antihydrogen spectrum (the color with which it glows) - and gravity measurements. Before the recent results, the CERN experiments have produced - only fleetingly - tens of millions of antihydrogen atoms, Fajans said.

ALPHA's approach was to cool antiprotons and compress them into a matchstick-size cloud (20 millimeters long and 1.4 millimeters in diameter). Then, using autoresonance, a technique developed by UC Berkeley visiting professor Lazar Friedland and first explored in plasmas by Fajans and former U.C Berkeley graduate student Erik Gilson, the cloud of cold, compressed antiprotons is nudged to overlap a like-size positron cloud, where the two particles mate to form antihydrogen.

All this happens inside a magnetic bottle that traps the antihydrogen atoms. The magnetic trap is a specially configured magnetic field that Fajans and then-UC Berkeley undergraduate Andrea Schmidt first proposed, using an unusual and expensive octupole superconducting magnet to create a more stable plasma.

"For the moment, we keep antihydrogen atoms around for at least 172 milliseconds - about a sixth of a second - long enough to make sure we have trapped them," said colleague Jonathan Wurtele, UC Berkeley professor of physics and LBNL faculty scientist. Wurtele collaborated with LBNL visitor Katia Gomberoff, staff members Alex Friedman, David Grote and Jean-Luc Vay and with Fajans to simulate the new and original magnetic configurations.

Trapping antihydrogen isn't easy, Fajans said, because it is a neutral, or chargeless, particle. Magnetic bottles are generally used to trap charged particles, such as ionized atoms. These charged particles spiral along magnetic field lines until they encounter an electric field that bounces them back towards the center of the bottle.

Neutral antihydrogen, however, would normally be unaffected by these fields. But the team takes advantage of the tiny magnetic moment of the antihydrogen atom to trap it using a steeply increasing field - a so-called magnetic mirror - that reflects them backward toward the center.

Because the magnetic moment is so small, the antihydrogen has to be very cold: less than about one-half degree above absolute zero (0.5 Kelvin). That means the team had to slow down the antiprotons by a factor of one hundred billion from their initial energy emerging from the antiproton decelerator.

Once trapped, the experimenters sweep out the lingering antiprotons with an electric field, then shut off the mirror fields and let the trapped antihydrogen atoms annihilate with normal matter. Surrounding detectors are sensitive to the charged pions that result from the proton-antiproton annihilation. Cosmic rays can also set off the detector, but their straight-line tracks can be easily distinguished, Fajans said.

A few antiprotons could potentially remain in the trap, and their annihilations would look similar to those of antihydrogen, but the physicists' simulations show that such events can also be successfully distinguished from antihydrogen annihilations.

During August and September of 2010, the team detected an antihydrogen atom in 38 of the 335 cycles of antiproton injection. Given that their detector efficiency is about 50 percent, the team calculated that it captured approximately 80 of the several million antihydrogen atoms produced during these cycles. Experiments in 2009 turned up six candidate antihydrogen atoms, but they have not been confirmed.

ALPHA continues to detect antihydrogen atoms at an increasing rate as the experimenters learn how to better tune their experiment, Fajans said.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Antihydrogen_Trapped_For_First_Time_999.html.

Rare Earth Elements In US Not So Rare

by Staff Writers
Reston, VA (SPX) Nov 18, 2010

Approximately 13 million metric tons of rare earth elements (REE) exist within known deposits in the United States, according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of these elements by the U.S. Geological Survey.

This estimate of domestic rare earth deposits is part of a larger report that includes a review of global sources for REE, information on known deposits that might provide domestic sources of REE in the future, and geologic information crucial for studies of the availability of REE to U.S. industry.

The report describes significant deposits of REE in 14 states, with the largest known REE deposits at Mountain Pass, Calif.; Bokan Mountain, Alaska; and the Bear Lodge Mountains, Wyo.

The Mountain Pass mine produced REE until it closed in 2002. Additional states with known REE deposits include Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

"This is the first detailed assessment of rare earth elements for the entire nation, describing deposits throughout the United States," commented USGS Director Marcia McNutt, Ph.D. "It will be very important, both to policy-makers and industry, and it reinforces the value of our efforts to maintain accurate, independent information on our nation's natural resources. Although many of these deposits have yet to be proven, at recent domestic consumption rates of about 10,000 metric tons annually, the US deposits have the potential to meet our needs for years to come."

REE are a group of 16 metallic elements with similar properties and structures that are essential in the manufacture of a diverse and expanding array of high-technology applications. Despite their name, they are relatively common within the earth's crust, but because of their geochemical properties, they are not often found in economically exploitable concentrations.

Hard-rock deposits yield the most economically exploitable concentrations of REE. USGS researchers also analyzed two other types of REE deposits: placer and phosphorite deposits.

Placer deposits are alluvial formations of sandy sediments, which often contain concentrations of heavy, dense minerals, some containing REE. Phosphorite deposits, which mostly occur in the southeastern U.S., contain large amounts of phosphate-bearing minerals. These phosphates can yield yttrium and lanthanum, which are also REE.

Ninety-six percent of REE produced globally now comes from China. New REE mines are being developed in Australia, and projects exploring the feasibility of economically developing additional REE deposits are under way in the United States, Australia, and Canada; successful completion of these projects could help meet increasing demand for REE, the report said.

REE are important ingredients in high-strength magnets, metal alloys for batteries and light-weight structures, and phosphors. These are essential components for many current and emerging alternative energy technologies, such as electric vehicles, photo-voltaic cells, energy-efficient lighting, and wind power. REEs are also critical for a number of key defense applications.

This report is part of a larger, Department of Defense-funded study of how the United States, and the Department of Defense in particular, use REE, as well as the status and security of domestic and global supply chains. In addition, the USGS National Minerals Information Center maintains statistics on global mineral production, trade, and resources that include rare earth elements.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Rare_Earth_Elements_In_US_Not_So_Rare_999.html.

LockMart Submits Bid For Space Fence

by Staff Writers
Moorestown NJ (SPX) Nov 19, 2010

Lockheed Martin has submitted its proposal for the next phase of Space Fence, a program that will revamp the way the U.S. Air Force identifies and tracks objects in space.

Space Fence will use S-band ground-based radars to provide the Air Force with uncued detection, tracking and accurate measurement of space objects, primarily in low-earth orbit. The geographic separation and the higher wave frequency of the new Space Fence radars will allow for the detection of much smaller microsatellites and debris than current systems.

Additionally, Lockheed Martin's Space Fence design will significantly improve the timeliness with which operators can detect space events which could present potential threats to GPS satellites or the International Space Station.

"The 2009 collision of an operational communications satellite with a defunct satellite illustrates the real risk space debris poses to both our manned and unmanned space missions," said John Morse, director of Lockheed Martin's Space Fence program.

"Space situational awareness is a national security priority and Space Fence will greatly enhance our ability to track and catalog orbiting objects which number in the tens of thousands."

For this next phase of the Space Fence program, the Air Force will award up to two preliminary design review contracts worth up to a total of $214 million. During the 18-month period of performance, selected contractors will develop preliminary system designs, radar performance analyses, evaluations and prototypes, and conduct other technical activities.

After completion of this phase in 2012, a separate production contract award is expected to lead to final system development, fielding and full operational capability.

Space Fence will replace the existing Air Force Space Surveillance System, or VHF Fence, which has been in service since the early 1960s. The new system's initial operational capability is scheduled for 2015. The contract is valued at more than $3.5 billion.

With more than 400 operational S-band arrays deployed worldwide, Lockheed Martin is a leader in S-band radar development, production, operation and sustainment.

The Lockheed Martin-led team, which includes General Dynamics, AT and T and AMEC, has decades of collective experience in space-related programs including sensors, mission-processing, cataloging, orbital mechanics, net-centric communications and facilities.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/LockMart_Submits_Bid_For_Space_Fence_999.html.

NASA Nanosatellite Studies Life In Space

by Staff Writers
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Nov 19, 2010

NASA is preparing to fly a small satellite about the size of a loaf of bread that could help answer astrobiologys fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. The nanosatellite, known as Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses, or O/OREOS, is a secondary payload aboard a U.S. Air Force four-stage Minotaur IV rocket planned for launch on Nov. 19, 2010.

O/OREOS weighs approximately 12 pounds and is NASAs first CubeSat to demonstrate the capability to have two distinct, completely independent science experiments on a single autonomous satellite.

O/OREOS also will use NASAs first propellant-less mechanism on a scientific satellite to ensure it de-orbits and burns up as it re-enters Earths atmosphere less than 25 years after completing its mission.

"Secondary payload nanosatellites, like O/OREOS are an innovative way to extend and enhance scientists' opportunities to conduct research in low Earth orbit by providing an alternative to the International Space Station or space shuttle investigations," said Pascale Ehrenfreund, O/OREOS project scientist at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

"With O/OREOS we can analyze the stability of organics in the local space environment in real-time and test flight hardware that can be used for future payloads to address fundamental astrobiology objectives."

The Minotaur IV rocket is on the launch pad at the Alaska Aerospace Corporations Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska and the range is conducting final launch preparations. The U.S. Air Force has announced that the rocket could launch at any time during a 90-minute launch window beginning at 5:24 p.m. PST on Nov. 19, 2010.

After O/OREOS separates from the Minotaur IV rocket and successfully enters low Earth orbit at approximately 400 miles above Earth, it will activate and begin transmitting radio signals to ground control stations and spacecraft operators in the mission control center at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, Calif.

"We are excited to have this opportunity to demonstrate the utility of these very small spacecraft in space for NASA's science missions," said Bruce Yost, O/OREOS mission manager at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Were hoping to demonstrate NASAs ability to build complex nanosatellites like O/OREOS that can meet the needs of scientists with big ideas and lofty goals."

Spacecraft operators could make contact with O/OREOS as soon as 12.5 hours after launch. O/OREOS will conduct experiments, which will last up to six months, autonomously or after receiving a command from the Santa Clara ground station.

Once the experiments begin, O/OREOS will relay data daily to mission managers, engineers and project scientists for further analysis. Spacecraft operators say the nanosatellite is scheduled to transmit mission data for a year.

O/OREOS, the first technology demonstration mission of NASA's Astrobiology Small Payloads Program, contains two experiment payloads, including the Space Environment Survivability of Live Organisms (SESLO), which will characterize the growth, activity, health and ability of microorganisms to adapt to the stresses of the space environment, and the Space Environment Viability of Organics (SEVO), which will monitor the stability and changes in four classes of organic molecules as they are exposed to space conditions.

The SESLO payload will monitor biological organisms' responses as they are exposed to radiation and weightless conditions in space. The experiment is sealed and contains two types of microbes commonly found in salt ponds and soil in a dried and dormant state: Halorubrum chaoviatoris and Bacillus subtilis.

After O/OREOS reaches orbit, the experiment will rehydrate, or "feed," and grow three sets of microbes. The SESLO experiment measures the microbes population density and change in color while they consume the dyed liquid nutrients.

For the SEVO experiment, scientists selected molecules distributed throughout our galaxy, as well building blocks of life. O/OREOS houses the organic samples in "micro environments" to mimic space and planetary conditions.

The experiment will expose the organic compounds to radiation in the form of solar ultraviolet (UV) light, visible light, trapped-particle and cosmic radiation. Scientists will determine the stability of the molecules by studying the changes in UV, visible and near-infrared light absorption.

The Small Spacecraft Division at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., manages the O/OREOS payload and mission operations supported by staff and students from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, Calif.

As with NASA's previous small satellite missions, such as the GeneSat-1 and PharmaSat, Santa Clara University invites amateur radio operators around the world to tune in to the satellite's broadcast.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Nanosatellite_Studies_Life_In_Space_999.html.

Madagascar's Rajoelina clings on despite mutiny - Summary

Thu, 18 Nov 2010

Antananarivo - Madagascar's embattled leader Andry Rajoelina Thursday appeared to have survived a mutiny by a group of army officers, who had yet to announce their next move after their declaration they were staging a coup came to naught.

The soldiers, led by Colonel Charles Andrianasoavina, announced Wednesday they were dismantling the interim authority led by Rajoelina since the former club DJ came to power in a coup last year.

Andrianasoavina, who had supported Rajoelina's power grab but now appears to have turned against him, said the military would put in place a committee to run the country while pursuing an agenda of national reconciliation.

But Rajoelina and his Prime Minister Camille Vital insisted they were still in charge and dismissed the mutineers as no more than a "handful of people."

Malagasy news websites reported Thursday that the officers, who are based at a barracks near the main airport in the capital Antananarivo, were meeting to discuss their next move.

In the meantime the island's around 20 million people were also awaiting the results of Wednesday's referendum on a new constitution.

The referendum was part of a plan to try restore stability to the Indian Ocean island, which has been in crisis since then opposition leader Rajoelina forced out ex-president Marc Ravalomanana in March 2009.

But the opposition had urged the electorate to boycott the vote.

Provisional results put voter turnout at around 48 per cent, a poor turnout for an election in Africa, with the Yes camp, led by Rajoelina, far head.

The new charter lowers the minimum age for presidential candidates from 40 to 35.

If passed it would mean Rajoelina, 36, whom the international community has shunned, could stand in presidential elections scheduled for May 2011, even though he has declared he will not be a candidate.

There were isolated protests in parts of Antananarivo on Wednesday, when thousands of voters were turned away from polling stations because they were not on the register.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354202,clings-mutiny-summary.html.

Rescued Chilean miners arrive in US for Heroes celebration

Thu, 18 Nov 2010

Los Angeles - The Chilean miners whose dramatic underground ordeal and rescue captivated the world last month arrived in the United States Thursday to participate in an annual salute to heroes organized by the news channel CNN.

The visit to Los Angeles comes amid intense interest from Hollywood in turning their incredible story into a major movie, with Brad Pitt only one of the major names angling to buy the rights to their tale.

The miners captured the world's attention after they were trapped below the Atacama desert following a huge mine collapse on August 5. There was no sign of life from them for more than two weeks until they were discovered alive more than 700 meters below the earth's surface.

It took until October 22 for "Los 33" to be brought out to daylight in a dramatic rescue watched all over the world.

Now, the men are swapping the months of darkness for the bright lights of Hollywood where they will be feted at the annual CNN Heroes: An All Star Tribute.

But they are trying not to let it go to their heads. "The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," miner Mario Sepulveda told reporters ahead of the trip. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354208,arrive-us-heroes-celebration.html.

Myanmar's Suu Kyi wants talks with United Nations - Summary

Thu, 18 Nov 2010

New York - Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday called for an "early visit" by a United Nations envoy and for talks on the challenges facing people in the country, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

Ban conferred by telephone with Suu Kyi for the first time since her release from house arrest last week by the ruling military government.

Suu Kyi expressed her "desire to engage with him (UN envoy) for pushing ahead in addressing the challenges facing the people in Myanmar. She also suggested an early meeting with the head of the UN office in Yangon," Ban said in a statement about the conversation.

Ban said he reiterated his and the UN's commitment "to continue to uphold the cause of human rights and support all efforts by the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all other stakeholders to build a united, peaceful, democratic and modern future of their country."

The two were said to have held a "warm and cordial conversation" during which Ban expressed his respect for Suu Kyi's "courage and dignity as a source of inspiration for millions of people around the world."

Ban and Suu Kyi said the release of all political prisoners is a matter of priority so they can freely take part in the process of national reconciliation and democratic transition in Myanmar.

The military government won re-election earlier this month, based on a new constitution that barred Suu Kyi from running for public office. Following its victory, the government set her free from house arrest, where she had spent most of the past two decades in confinement.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the country's 1990 election, but the results were disqualified by the military government. She won the Nobel Peace Prize for demanding democracy in her country.

Ban last visited Myanmar in 2009, and was criticized by human rights groups after he offered positive words about the country's ruling generals, while failing to gain access to meet with Suu Kyi.

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution on the situation in Myanmar on Thursday, condemning the continued violations of human rights and detention of political prisoners.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the resolution was an improvement over last year's, but it failed to focus on the "sham" election and release of Suu Kyi.

It said Suu Kyi's release was "cynically designed to divert attention from the continued military rule and the detention of more than 2,200 other political prisoners," said Philippe Bolopion, UN advocacy director for the organization.

"While we applaud this resolution, given the military junta's history of ignoring past demands of the General assembly, we urge the UN system to start working towards the creation of an international commission of inquiry to look into possible crimes against humanity committed in the country," Bolopion said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354215,united-nations-summary.html.

UN chief meets with Cyprus leaders on stalled talks

Thu, 18 Nov 2010

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with leaders of divided Cyprus on Thursday, trying to break the impasse in talks to end the division on the island inhabited by Greeks and Turks.

The meeting at UN headquarters in New York was seen as a last- ditch effort to prevent a total breakdown of 18 months of negotiations in Nicosia between Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and Dervis Eroglu, president of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Alexander Downer, former Australian foreign minister and UN mediator on Cyprus, said both Christofias and Eroglu could directly tell the UN chief their problems with the negotiations and future prospects if any. Failure to revitalize the negotiations could result in a permanent division of Cyprus.

A major sticking point is the issue of properties and compensation. Turks and Greeks lost properties when the island was divided by a ceasefire line running through Nicosia in 1974 after Turkish-held northern Cyprus declared an independent state.

The Turkish population in northern Cyprus is backed by Turkey, which has posted over 30,000 military troops while the south, the Republic of Cyprus with a large population of Greeks, is supported by Athens. The south is also a European Union member while the north is not.

UN-led negotiations had been dealing with a power-sharing federal government, currency, refugees and compensation for lost properties.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354216,cyprus-leaders-stalled-talks.html.

Moroccan divorcees to receive nafaqa from government fund

A long-awaited financial assistance program for Moroccan female divorcees begins in 2011.

By Siham Ali for Magharebia in Rabat – 18/11/10

Seven years after Morocco's Moudawana, or Family Code, authorized financial help for divorced women, the Family Solidarity Fund will finally take effect on January 1st, 2011.

The House of Representatives on Thursday (November 4th) unanimously passed a bill authorizing payment of alimony (nafaqa) to women and minor children if the ex-spouse defaults.

Justice Minister Mohamed Naciri told legislators that the fund aims to promote family solidarity and social cohesion. Some 500 million dirhams allocated for 2011 will be available for immediate disbursement.

Moroccan women without income often struggle because judicial decrees on alimony are slow to be enforced. Left on their own and with children in tow, these divorced women have to get by without any help.

Samira R. is 34 years old. Divorced at the age of 22, and left with a newborn daughter, she has been unable to get the courts to enforce the nafaqa ruling.

"My ex-husband has gone into hiding so that he doesn't have to pay anything. The courts haven't been able to track him down, even though he's a trader and can cater to the needs of his only daughter," she said.

For twelve years, Samira has been working as a maid so that her daughter Nora, a first-year secondary school student, can "continue with her studies and extricate herself from the vulnerable position they are living in". In January, Samira will be able to apply for money from the family court that issued the alimony ruling.

Under the new law, destitute divorced mothers and their children will be eligible for support after two months of non-payment, in cases where the alimony decree cannot be enforced, and "where the husband is absent".

Court-ordered alimony must be strictly enforced, because in some cases, the father has the wherewithal to pay but is not "sufficiently" compelled to perform this duty, MP and lawyer Fatima Moustaghfir told Magharebia. She said that the creation of the fund is a brave step, but should not encourage fathers to shirk their obligations.

"The marriage contract must include clear articles concerning the rights of both parties," she said, adding that taking action before marriage avoids needless problems and divorce.

Although there is a reconciliation procedure that spouses can resort to prior to divorce, it is difficult for judges to implement it properly, given the high number of divorce cases that are heard every day, the MP explained.

"The essential requirement for marriage is continuity. If it is dysfunctional from the beginning, the only result can be social problems. Both spouses must be compatible in every respect," she said.

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/11/18/feature-01.

UN gender official visits Algeria

While experts note that Algeria has come a long way to tackle gender-based violence, attacks on women remain a persistent problem.

By Walid Ramzi for Magharebia in Algiers – 18/11/10

UN Special Rapporteur on gender-based violence, Rashida Manjoo, is visiting Algeria through Saturday (November 20th) to meet with women in cities across the country.

Manjoo plans on meeting with senior officials and producing a report on instances of violence against women.

The rapporteur said this week that the Algerian government has met its international obligations to secure women's rights, but there are a number of areas that need improvement.

The preliminary report praised the mechanisms adopted by Algeria to reduce violence and discrimination against women. Manjoo recommended elevating the minister delegate in charge of family and women's issues to a ministry itself. She also welcomed the initiative establishing a Center for Studies on Women, Family and Children.

However, the UN official stressed the lack of a dialogue between government and civil society, in addition to the absence of accurate statistics about the cases of violence against women. The report will be discussed at the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva in July 2011.

The UN visit was based on a report of dozens of violent attacks on female workers in Hassi Messaoud over the past year, according to working women's organizations chief Khalfa Fadhila. There were also reports that some 300 heavily armed men attacked and burnt a group of women.

The special rapporteur visited the region along with a representative of Human Rights Watch in order to probe the circumstances surrounding the 2001 attacks. Manjoo said she "obtained conflicting information during the visit", adding that there will be a thorough investigation.

Manjoo also met with Minister Delegate for Family Affairs Nouara Djaafar who presented the policy of Algeria to combat violence against women. The minister claimed that during the last two years there has been a decrease in violence. Nevertheless, she emphasized the need to involve other ministerial sectors and civil society and work to minimize the phenomenon.

"Based on a study of violence against women carried out by the ministry in 2009 on a sample of 2,000 families, only two out of 10 Algerian women have been subjected to violence," Djaafar said. "Algeria is ranked among the least prevalent countries of the phenomenon of violence against women."

Messoudane Kheira, head of the Children Protection Office in the Public Directorate of Security, said that physical assaults were at the forefront of forms of violence against women with 4,191 victims, followed by ill-treatment with 1,313 victims, and sexual violence with 186 victims. Seventy-four cases of sexual harassment were recorded, in addition to five murders.

However, the Algerian organization Wassila ("means"), reported significantly higher numbers, with 7,419 women victims of violence. The group's numbers on sexual violence and other crimes were also higher than official statistics. Wassila even reported cases of honor killings as well as burns and severe beatings resulting in death.

Khadija, 54 years old and one of the women victims of domestic violence, said she contacted one of the organizations that are active in the defense of women's rights seeking help.

"At first I hesitated to contact this association that advised me to file a complaint before the court, which I did not do fearing for my four children's fate", Khadija said. She added that she "hated the marital home because of her violent husband who turned her life into an unbearable hell".

"Violence in our society always has a male connotation, whether it is a husband or a brother or a father," said 37-year-old Fatima.

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/11/18/feature-02.

Tizi Ouzou citizens rally against terrorism

2010-11-18

Algerian citizens will hold a rally and general strike in Freha on November 20th to protest the new outbreak of terrorist violence and organized crime in Tizi Ouzou province, El Watan reported on Thursday (November 18th). The call for the Freha protest followed a young man's abduction in Aghribs last week-end. The victim, identified by rally organizers as an "unemployed father of a child", vanished from a fake roadblock during a failed attempt to kidnap his businessman cousin. "The mobilization will continue and intensify until the release of our brother," said a press release from the "crisis cell" set up to free the young kidnap victim.

On the first day of Eid al-Adha, hundreds of citizens drove a caravan through the region's forests to demand the unconditional release of the hostage. Other actions may follow the protest on Saturday, organizers said. Last July, a similar Freha protest rally led to the release of a young entrepreneur.

In other security news, three gendarmes were injured Tuesday in Lakhdaria when their car hit a roadside bomb. Another bomb explosion Tuesday injured an ANP sergeant near Sidi Bel Abbès. He was participating in a sweep operation that followed an armed attack on a farm in Tagouraya.

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2010/11/18/newsbrief-01.

British Defense Chief: 30 to 40 Years of Afghanistan Occupation Ahead

By New American

November 18, 2010 "New American" -- The foreign policy bait-and-switch continues. First, President Barack Obama declared the end of combat in Iraq, withdrawing some U.S. troops but leaving many others behind, possibly for decades, and redefining their role as “advise and assist” — whereupon they continued engaging in combat. Now, with Obama having publicly stated his intent to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next July, both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus are arguing for a long-term, if not permanent, U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

On top of that, British Defense Chief Gen. Sir David Richards, echoing their sentiments, has stated that “Nato now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role to help the Afghan armed forces hold their country against the militants,” according to the Daily Mail, though he “stuck to the government’s plans to withdraw combat troops by 2014 but made clear that thousands of troops will be needed long after that date.”

In an interview on November 14, Richards said, “Everyone is clear that we will have to remains [sic] a lot longer than” four to five years. “The plans,” he added, “are now in place to do that” and will be made “rather clearer” at the upcoming NATO summit in Lisbon.

Richards correctly argued that the Taliban and al-Qaeda cannot be defeated militarily and that victory cannot be declared by “marching into another nation’s capital,” as in conventional warfare. These organizations, after all, are loosely organized and have no command center that can be neutralized. However, he contended, victory over Islamic terrorism in the traditional sense “is unnecessary and would never be achieved. But we can [sic] contain it to the point that our lives and our children’s lives are led securely? I think we can.”

The problem is that Richards, along with most other members of the government and media elite, believes that continued intervention in Afghanistan by foreign countries is the best way to go about containing terrorism. Therefore, in his opinion, U.S. and British forces must remain in Afghanistan for “generations,” albeit under the rubric of assistance rather than combat. Richards, writes the Mail, “said that there would need to be more support for the military from political, diplomatic and international aid efforts if the effort is to succeed.” (He did allow for the possibility of negotiating with some Taliban members, an option that the Obama administration has opposed.)

The idea that Islamic terrorism is, in large measure, a response to foreign intervention in Muslim countries seems never to have crossed Richards’ mind; but then such thoughts are anathema to a political establishment with an enormously inflated opinion of its own benevolence and effectiveness. Rare indeed is the politician or pundit who suggests that his own government ought to maintain “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none,” as Thomas Jefferson counseled. When one does make such a suggestion, he can expect to be shouted down with charges of “isolationism.”

Thus, both British and American officials, regardless of political affiliation, are playing along with the charade of ending combat while continuing to station troops in volatile regions and of stamping out terrorism by prolonging the conditions that incite it. In Britain, Prime Minster David Cameron of the Conservative Party “has recently moderated [his] stance” toward withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next year in response to Richards’ and Petraeus’ assertions that “it may be 2012 before there can be any significant draw down of frontline forces,” says the Mail. Likewise, the paper reported that the Labor Party’s shadow defense secretary, Jim Murphy, “said Gen Richards was ‘right’ that there was no purely military solution and said there would be ‘no white flag surrender moment.’ He added: ‘It will be for the long haul.’ ”

On this side of the Atlantic, Obama himself “is going to make a public announcement of the US government’s official abandonment of the July 2011 date and the new 2014 ‘target’ for the war effort’s transition to Afghan control,” according to Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz, who adds that “Obama will be vowing an ‘enduring presence’ in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 date.”

It appears, then, that Afghanistan (and Iraq) will be occupied by foreign troops for years to come, costing American and British taxpayers a hefty sum and increasing, rather than decreasing, the chances of terrorism against those same taxpayers. There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion; and just this summer CIA Director Leon Panetta estimated there were no more than 100 al-Qaeda militants in all of Afghanistan. At the same time, NATO is spending an estimated $50 million for every Taliban member it kills in that same country. Surely there are better uses for this increasingly scarce money, such as in paying down both governments’ astronomical debts. Bringing the troops home, cutting the defense budget down to what is needed strictly to defend our actual territory, and eliminating foreign aid and other intervention will do far more for our pocketbooks and our security than another 40 years’ worth of futile — and, from the American perspective, unconstitutional — intervention.

Source: Information Clearing House.
Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26859.htm.