Russian parliament opens after fraud-tainted vote

December 21, 2011 — MOSCOW (AP) — The parliament chosen in a fraud-tainted election that set off protests throughout Russia opened its first session Wednesday with the new speaker promising to allow more genuine debate in an attempt to win back the voters' trust.

Under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the parliament has become little more than a rubber stamp for government initiatives. The previous speaker once famously said it was "not a place for political discussion."

Sergei Naryshkin said this would change with him as the new speaker. "My firm conviction is that, indeed, parliament is a place for very serious and substantial discussions," said Naryshkin, who until Tuesday had served as chief of staff for President Dmitry Medvedev.

Naryshkin, 57, is a longtime Putin loyalist and has a similar background. He worked with Putin in the St. Petersburg government in the 1990s and is widely believed to have served in the KGB in the 1980s. His official biography says little about those years, while noting that he was posted to the Soviet Embassy in Belgium.

Naryshkin is a member of Putin's United Russia party, which won 238 of the 450 seats in the State Duma, parliament's elected lower house. The rest are split among three parties that have posed little opposition in recent years.

Although United Russia managed to retain its majority, it lost nearly 25 percent of its seats in the Dec. 4 election, and independent observers said even that result was achieved through widespread fraud.

Before Wednesday's session began, police broke up a small protest outside and arrested about a dozen people. Some wore signs with the words "we didn't vote for you" and a picture of the bear symbolizing United Russia.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the flamboyant leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, said it was no wonder Russians have taken to the streets. All they saw of their representatives in recent years were pictures of them "sitting lifelessly" in the hall, rather than actively addressing real concerns.

The biggest beneficiary of the protest vote was the Communist Party, which saw the number of its seats rise to 92 from 57. Party member Zhores Alfyorov, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics, called on fellow parliament members to put more effort into the drafting of legislation, rather than simply signing off on government bills. "We need to do the work ourselves and press the button (to cast votes) ourselves," he said, referring to the practice of party members voting for those who were absent.

Naryshkin said he would strive for compromise among the four parties, but if that proved impossible decisions would be made by the majority party, United Russia. He appointed two top deputies: one a Communist and the other from Putin's team, Alexander Zhukov, who until recently was a deputy prime minister. Zhukov also heads the Russian Olympic Committee, a high-profile post with the Sochi Winter Games now a little more than two years away.

Another notable addition to the new parliament was Alexei Pushkov, a prominent television journalist with anti-Western views. He was named the chairman of the international affairs committee.

2 jailed Russian opposition leaders freed

December 21, 2011 — MOSCOW (AP) — Two leaders of Russia's political opposition were released Wednesday from the Moscow jail where they were held for 15 days for their roles in a protest that set off a wave of protests across the country.

Alexei Navalny, a corruption-fighting lawyer and prominent blogger, and Ilya Yashin were arrested the day after the Dec. 4 parliamentary election while leading a protest against vote fraud that allegedly boosted the results for Vladimir Putin's party.

The Dec. 5 protest unexpectedly drew more than 5,000 people, the biggest opposition rally in years, and helped to energize Russians discontented with Putin's rule. A protest five days later drew tens of thousands in Moscow, while demonstrations attracting from a few hundred to 1,000 people took place in more than 60 other cities.

Navalny told supporters who waited for his release in the pre-dawn darkness that he "was jailed in one country and freed in another." Another nationwide protest is being held Saturday. Navalny, a charismatic speaker, is expected to address the crowd.

Putin, now prime minister, had been counting on a strong showing for his United Russia party in the election, both to maintain his control over parliament and to add legitimacy to his plans to return to the presidency through an election in March.

United Russia, however, had come to be seen as serving the interests of a corrupt bureaucracy and was widely known as "the party of crooks and thieves," a name originally coined by Navalny. Putin remains more popular than his party, although the protest movement is now posing the strongest challenge to his rule since he first came to power in early 2000.

Navalny said the focus now should be on demanding a free and fair presidential election through peaceful national protests. "For Putin to leave, we don't have to loot stores and set them on fire," he told supporters in a video posted on the site of Ekho Moskvy radio. "People need to come out and express their will and show that they themselves are the power."

Rajoy sworn in as Spanish prime minister

December 21, 2011 — MADRID (AP) — Conservative Mariano Rajoy was sworn in as Spain's new prime minister Wednesday and prepared to announce the names of the Cabinet ministers he hopes will help him lift Spain out of its severe economic crisis.

Rajoy took the oath on the bible before King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia in the Zarzuela Palace on Madrid's outskirts. He then went to the Moncloa palace government headquarters to complete the transfer of power to the new government.

He replaces Socialist party leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who had been in office since 2004. Rajoy was to return to the royal palace Wednesday evening to inform the monarch of his choice of ministers before making them public.

Rajoy's Popular Party won a landslide victory in Nov. 20 elections on promises to lift Spain out of economic turmoil. Spain has a eurozone-high unemployment rate of 21.5 percent, a swollen deficit and a stalled economy after a near two-year recession triggered by the collapse of a real estate bubble in 2009.

Rajoy has given no clues as to who he will name to the key portfolio of economy, although Popular Party economy spokesman Cristobal Montoro has been heavily tipped for the post. Spain has already made sharp cuts to its national spending and introduced several reforms under Zapatero but the measures have so far failed to boost the economy to any great extent.

The country's borrowing costs spiraled amid fears it might need a bailout like Greece, Ireland and Portugal but in recent weeks they have begun to slip back. Rajoy, however, on Monday pledged more austerity cuts totaling €16.5 billion ($21.6 billion).

The conservative leader promised reforms to encourage companies to hire and tax breaks for small and medium-sized firms that make up the bulk of the economy. He also intends trimming government personnel with a hiring freeze for most civil servant groups.

He is expected to announce further measures Friday after his first weekly Cabinet meeting. A property registrar by training, Rajoy held four ministerial portfolios in the governments of Jose Maria Aznar between 1996 and 2004.

He was the party's candidate twice before being elected in November.

Yemenis march from Taez to Sanaa to demand Saleh's trial

2011-12-21

SANAA - Thousands of Yemenis are marching 270 kilometers (170 miles) from Taez to the capital Sanaa demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh's trial for alleged crimes against anti-government protesters.

The demonstrators, who are being joined by fellow Yemenis from towns and villages along the road to Sanaa, began their journey on foot on Wednesday morning and are expected to reach the capital on Sunday.

They are marching in protest against the Gulf-sponsored transition plan that gave Saleh and his closest relatives immunity from prosecution in return for his resignation after more than 33 years in power.

Fifty women are leading the march of mainly young protesters who launched the uprising against Saleh's rule in January, according to the organizers from the Taez-based Youth Revolutionary Union.

They said the march was expected to swell to more than 50,000 protesters by the time it arrives in the capital.

The mass uprising has been met with a brutal government crackdown, leaving hundreds of people dead and thousands more wounded.

The organizers said they hoped the march will pressure the newly formed unity government to withdraw the promise of immunity for Saleh and other regime officials involved in the violent crackdown on the pro-democracy protests.

The tens of thousands of Yemenis who have braved the streets of the capital demanding regime change in recent months have held weekly protests against the Gulf Cooperation Council plan that promised Saleh immunity.

For the time being, Saleh holds the title of honorary president until elections are held in February when he will formally resign in favor of his deputy, Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49612.

Hidden victims of Iraq conflict: Women expect little change for better

2011-12-21

By Amelie Herenstein – BAGHDAD

Women remain victims of violence, trafficking, forced marriage at young age, kidnapping for confessional, criminal reasons.

With US forces having completed their pullout, Iraqis are hopeful their country will regain its lofty status in the Arab world, but one group expects little to change for the better: women.

Until the 1980s, Iraqi women were widely considered to have more rights than their counterparts across the Middle East, but they have suffered in the face of brutal violence, Islamic extremism, and a run-down education system.

"It has been a very bad regression," said Nada Ibrahim, an MP belonging to the secular mostly Sunni-backed Iraqiya party, adding that women have paid a heavy price in recent years.

Along with the increase in violence harming their own physical security, it has also resulted in husbands and sons being imprisoned, conscripted into militias or insurgent groups, or killed.

As a result of those factors, as well as the decades of unrest Iraq has suffered -- including the 1980-88 war with Iran, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 2003 US-led invasion that unleashed brutal bloodshed -- there are more than one million widows and female heads of households in Iraq.

Before the Gulf War and the embargo that followed, Iraqi women enjoyed strong protection and opportunities compared with the rest of the region, according to both Human Rights Watch and the United Nations.

HRW notes that, after coming to power in 1968, the Baath Party, which now-executed leader Saddam Hussein would eventually lead, "promulgated laws specifically aimed at improving the status of women in both the public and private spheres."

It guaranteed equal rights for women, mandated primary education, and passed labor and employment laws that improved women's status in the workplace.

But the 1991 war and the ensuing years of sanctions, followed by the violence triggered by the 2003 invasion, eroded those freedoms.

The overall level of violence in Iraq has declined since its peak in 2006-2007, but women remain victims of violence, trafficking, forced marriage at a young age, and kidnapping for confessional or criminal reasons, according to non-governmental organizations.

When the US overthrew Saddam after the invasion, Ibrahim noted, they had good intentions with regards to improving women's rights, but Iraqis were reticent to take them on board because the American forces "were invaders".

"People were against them because all the ideas that came from the Americans, they did not like them," she said.

A UN report issued this year notes that after 2003, "women's rights and gender equality became symbolic issues for Iraq’s new national agenda".

"However, as the overall situation in Iraq began to deteriorate after the invasion, the focus on women was lost amidst the violence and overall challenges faced by the country."

Safia al-Souhail, an MP who ran in March 2010 elections on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law slate but has since defected and is now an independent, said US forces made some progress, but did not do enough in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.

"They were always giving excuses that our society would not accept it," she said. "Our society is still wondering why the Americans did not support women leaders who were recognized by the Iraqi people."

She lamented that Maliki had completed a recent official visit to Washington without a single woman in his delegation, describing it as a "shame on Iraq".

Indeed, only one woman sits in Maliki's national unity cabinet, Ibtihal al-Zaidi, the minister of state for women's affairs.

"Yes, women have experienced conflict situations, war and terrorism, but security is getting better in Iraq, and based on that, the situation for women will also improve," Zaidi said.

But she has said that violence is not the only threat to women's rights, noting last month that one in five Iraqi women is subjected to either physical or psychological abuse, often inflicted by family members.

"One-fifth of Iraqi women are subjected to two types of violence, physical and psychological, constituting a very serious danger to the family and society," Zaidi told a conference on fighting violence against women in November.

Anou Borrey, senior gender adviser at the United Nations Development Program, remains hopeful, despite the uncertainty over Iraq's stability after the US military's withdrawal from Iraq, completed at the weekend.

"There have been discussions about a possible increase in violence, but there's also an understanding of the rule of law, and that people will get punished should women be harassed or hurt or violated," she said.

Borrey added: "I think women are getting more and more organized, they recognize they have potential, they also know they have rights."

In the end, though, Ibrahim said, the responsibility for improving women's rights fell to women themselves.

"The US did nothing for the women in the country when they were here," she said. "I think the struggles of women's rights activists, and strong advocates for women's rights, will change the situation in the country."

"It is with Iraqi women that we will change things," she said.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49604.

Dawn raid by bloody military junta in Tahrir Square in Cairo amid peaceful protests

20 December 2011

Witnesses report sound of heavy gunfire as police and soldiers charge hundreds of people gathered in Cairo protest hub. Bloody Egyptian security forces fired weapons and used batons and tear gas for a fifth day in the latest security operation to clear Cairo's central Tahrir Square of opponents of army rule.

The sound of heavy gunfire rang out as police and soldiers charged hundreds of protesters at dawn on Tuesday.

"Hundreds of state security forces and the army entered the square and began firing heavily. They chased protesters and burned anything in their way, including medical supplies and blankets," protester Ismail said by telephone.

13 people have been killed and hundreds wounded by military junta since Friday, while scores have also been detained in the wake of the clashes. The latest confrontation came after illegal Egypt's ruling military council claimed on Monday it had "uncovered a plot to burn down parliament", as Adolf Hitler did in 1933.

General Adel Emara, a member of the ruling military council, interrupted a live news conference to lie he had received a call about a "plot to burn parliament and there are now large crowds in Tahrir Square ready to implement the plan".

Source: Agencies
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/12/20/15525.shtml.

Bloody military junta in Egypt continues crackdown on peaceful protests

19 December 2011

Egyptian puppet security forces have fought opponents of army rule in Cairo for a fourth day, as the number of civilians killed in the clashes since Friday rose to 12.

Hundreds have been wounded and scores detained in the wake of the clashes. Puppet police and soldiers using batons, water cannons and tear gas drove stone-throwing protesters out of Cairo's Tahrir Square, hub of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February, over night. The violence appeared likely to continue, after Egypt's ruling military council claimed on Monday it had uncovered a plot to burn down parliament.

A thug general Adel Emara, a member of the ruling military council, interrupted a live news conference to say he had received a call about a "plot to burn parliament and there are now large crowds in Tahrir Square ready to implement the plan". The criminal was addressing the clashes during the televised news conference on Saturday, and he defended the military's use of force against the protesters, saying the army had a duty to protect the nation's installations.

Earlier, protesters said they had arrested four bloody soldiers who had been part of the attacking force in the early hours of Monday.

"We quickly got the four into vehicles and drove them away from the square, otherwise they would have been beaten to a pulp by angry protesters who experienced the army's vicious attacks," said Sayyid Abu Ella, speaking by telephone from Tahrir.

Late on Sunday, demonstrators had hurled petrol bombs at lines of security forces and chanted "Down with Tantawi", a reference to criminal "field marshal" Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the army council and was Mubarak's defense minister for two decades.

Wael Abbas, an Egyptian journalist and human rights activist in Cairo, told that while it was relatively calm on the streets by midday on Monday, at dawn there had been shooting, more arrests, and more deaths.

"They were using a water cannon all night with strange chemicals - it smelled a little bit like cheese and then it smelled like gasoline - and there were Molotov cocktails and stone-throwing," he said, until the army moved in at dawn.

Responding to the military's stance that the latest protesters were "counterrevolutionary", Abbas responded: "We know that the military council are remnants of Mubarak's regime."

"They used to steal our money, now they are taking our lives ... that's the definition of counterrevolutionary, in my opinion," he said.

The violence broke out just after the second stage of a six-week election for Egypt's new parliament that starts the slow countdown to the army's return to barracks. The military has pledged to hand power to an elected president by July.

An army source said 164 people had been detained while the state news agency, MENA, said the public prosecutor had detained 123 people accused of resisting the illegal criminal junta, throwing rocks at the army and police, and setting fire to junta government buildings.

Source: Agencies
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/12/19/15522.shtml.

Mujahideen of Jund al-Khilafah promise revenge on Kazakhstan's dictator for massacre of peaceful workers

18 December 2011

A video statement of the Mujahideen of the Kazakh Islamic Brigade Jund al-Khilafah, or Soldiers of the Caliphate in response to Friday's massacre of peaceful oil workers by beastly local dictator Nazarbayev in southwestern Kazakhstan's town of Zhanaozen, in which, according to preliminary data, up to 1,000 Muslims were beastly killed or wounded, has been posted on the Islamic internet forum Shamikh al-Islam.

To suppress the protests, the Kazakhstan's dictator Nazarbayev sent gangs of his riot police, internal troops, special forces, armored vehicles and aircraft. In addition, the gangs of special forces of Belarus dictator Lukashenko were air-lifted from Minsk to help Kazakhstan's dictator Nazarbayev.

The massacre of peaceful striking oil workers by the troops of the two dictators continued until Saturday. On that day, dictator Nazarbayev introduced the state of emergency in Zhanaozen.

In connection with the bloody events in southern Kazakhstan, the Mujahideen issued the following statement:

***

"In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful!

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, peace and blessings be upon the Prophet, after whom there will be no other prophet.

And then ...

The massacre, which took place in the town of Zhanaozen, killing dozens of civilians, shows us that the Nazarbayev's regime is fighting not only the Mujahideen, but also peaceful people of Kazakhstan.

They did not stop robbing and killing people, they also now decided to prohibit the worship to Allah.

Oh the people of Kazakhstan! Your blood is our blood, your soul is our soul. And we, with the help of Allah, shall not leave this case without consequences.

We encourage you to continue to protest against the Nazarbayev's regime, whose goal is to destroy the values ​​of the Kazakhs.

Today we demand not only the abolition of the law on religion, but also the chasing of Nazarbayev and his sycophants. Allahu Akbar!"

It is worth mentioning that it is not the first appeal of the Kazakh Mujahideen with a warning to Nazarbayev and his clique.

Earlier, the Mujahideen warned the bloody dictator of the implications of his law "On religious activities", which prohibits compulsory five-time prayers in state institutions.

Just a few days ago, the Mujahideen staged 2 explosions in the city of Atyrau near the buildings of Nazarbayev's administration, secret police and "prosecutors".

Moreover, on December 8, the Brigade Jund al-Khilafah took responsibility for the battle that occurred in southern Kazakhstan on December 3. The Mujahideen confirmed the martyrdom (Insha'Allah) of 5 Mujahideen during the fightings with Nazarbayev's puppets in the village of Boraldai.

Previously, after the first appeal of Jund al-Khalifah, the puppet "mufti of Kazakhstan" Absattar Derbisali said that Nazarbayev's puppets were "not take these threats seriously".

As the time has shown, the Nazarbayev's "mullah" was seriously mistaken.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/12/18/15520.shtml.

Syrian Sanctions Pose New Threat to Jordan's Economy

Abdullah Omar
Tuesday, December 20, 2011

DEIR-ALLA, Jordan - In the lush orchards of Abu Emad in this Jordan Valley town, lemons and oranges glisten in the sun as the day of picking draws near. The valley’s year-round mild climate, fertile soils and relatively ample water supply have made it a winter garden of cucumbers, tomatoes and other produce destined for Europe, where they are unavailable from local growers during the winter.

But this season may be different as Arab League sanctions against Syria go into effect. That is because Jordan Valley farmers like Abu Emad send their best produce through Syria to Europe, where prices are better than anything they could expect at home. The farmers, already coping with debts and water shortages, have few alternatives to Syria.

“If I’m not allowed to export products through Syria, it will be a catastrophe for me and all the communities in the region,” said the scrawny 56 year old farmer. Unemployment in Jordan is already high and poverty is on the rise. This farm employs dozens of workers from impoverished Deir Alla and neighboring towns. “If a war starts, many people will be hurt, not only in Syria, but also in Jordan.”

Unlike Syria’s two other Arab League neighbors, Iraq and Lebanon, Jordan supported the sanctions and King Abdullah has hinted that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad should step down after more than 5,000 people have died in a crackdown against the government. But the economy of Jordan, an important ally of the U.S., can ill-afford another blow.

Repeated attacks on the pipeline from Egypt have stanched the flow of natural gas that was once Jordan’s primary source of energy. While Abdullah faces no threat to his rule, the country has been shaken by protests calling for reform and an end to corruption. Jordan is already saddled by a record $2 billion budget deficit this fiscal year and high unemployment.

Syria and its Mediterranean ports serve as a lifeline for the kingdom, an almost entirely landlocked country. Close to 30% of Jordan’s exports of fruits and vegetables, about $126 million in 2010, went through Syria to Europe as well as the closer markets of Lebanon and Turkey. The ministry has said that about 3,000 Jordanian trucks will have to stop working because of the sanctions.

Syria finally agreed on Monday to let Arab League observers into the country to monitor a deal it agreed to last month to pull troops from rebellious cities, free political prisoners and start talks with the opposition. Nevertheless, the head of the League said there is no immediate plan to lift sanctions that were imposed when Damascus at first refused outside monitors.

Meantime, Jordanian traders are complaining they are being targeted by the Syrian regime, with trucks facing delays at the border and attacks by loyalists as the vehicles head north to Turkey.

The sanctions include a travel ban against scores of senior Syrian officials, a freeze on government assets in Arab countries, a ban on transactions with Syria's central bank as well as an end to all commercial exchanges with the Syrian government. The sanctions include a ban on dealing with the central bank of Syria as well as major companies that export to the region.

If they can’t find new markets for their fruits and vegetables, the Jordan Valley’s farmers risk seeing everything fall off their branches and rot. The oil-rich Gulf states represent an option, but fierce competition from other countries such as India and strict rules on imports will make it hard to find customers countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi or Qatar, he says.

Experts say other trade partners will have to be considered, including next-door Israel. But with the government already suffering I public opinion over the economy and political reform, expanding trade with the Jewish state would be a risky move. The two countries have a peace treaty but Jordanian popular opinion is hostile to Israel.

Sanctions will not only hit Jordanian farmers, but factories that use Syria as a route to import basic manufacturing products such as textiles and spare parts.

It will also hurt Jordanian families, which get the majority of their fruits and vegetables from Syria as well as wheat, cotton and other basic needs at an affordable price. Jordan imported some $187 million of Syria produce last year, according to Jordan's Agriculture Ministry. Additionally, as pressure on Damascus intensifies and more refugees start to make their way to the kingdom, officials in Amman are concerned that will compound the economy’s woes by adding more mouths to feed.

All told, two-way trade between Syria and Jordan amounts to $400 million, a significant figure for a country of seven million people and an economy worth about $27 billion. Traders say imports from Lebanon would also become all too expensive if they are to be shipped through the Mediterranean and into the Red Sea Gulf of Aqaba.

Jordan officials have sounded the alarm about the damage sanctions will impose if the kingdom’s special problems are taken into consideration. Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh has urged the other Arab countries to consider exempting the kingdom from the trade ban on Syria.

Jordan is believed to have received tens of millions of dollars from the Saudi and Qatari governments to help it accommodate an expected surge in the number of refugees. Experts say the kingdom could be given more cash from wealthier Arab League members to offset losses from cutting ties with Syria.

But Khalid Abdel Rahman, a farmer from the Jordan Valley town of Karama, expressed doubt about the aid money being spent effectively or going to deserving pockets.

“There is no transparency in these issues. If we receive aid, the government would give small amounts to certain people and leave others face the hardship by themselves,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amman has started seeking alternative routes for its exports. Talks have already held with Iraqi authorities to send trucks laden with exotic fruits and vegetables through northern Iraq and into Turkey, before reaching the European market. But the route is almost double the Syrian route and it through politically unstable areas, which will raise costs.

Source: The Media Line.
Link: http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=34004.

Army of loyal customers helps Organic Pastures owner Mark McAfee get vindictive raw milk quarantine lifted

Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) More than a month after the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) forced a recall and indefinite quarantine on all raw milk products produced by Organic Pastures Dairy (OPD), one of the nation's largest raw dairy producers, the agency has finally relented in this particular battle against food freedom. With the help of his army of feverishly loyal customers, OPD owner Mark McAfee heroically put the rogue agency in its place by basically threatening to unleash the power of the people -- and it worked.

When five children in California came down with E. Coli back in November, the CDFA went immediately after OPD without so much as a single piece of evidence linking the dairy's products to the outbreak. Since raw milk could have been involved, the agency basically just decided that raw milk was the cause, and arbitrarily forced OPD to stop all production and just sit idly by while the agency dragged its feet in conducting tests after the fact. All the tests later turned up negative, of course.

But even after these tests all began to come back negative, one after another, the CDFA took its sweet time in lifting the ridiculous quarantine restrictions that had stopped OPD from running its business for over a month. Such outlandish "economic terrorism" is completely unwarranted and, by all accounts, illegal, but it is precisely how raw milk producers and their customers are treated all across the country on a regular basis.

The good news, though, is that things were different this time. OPD owner Mark McAfee, who has worked hard over the years to defend food freedom across America, finally decided that enough was enough, and stood up to the CDFA's abuse of power by filing an emergency injunctive relief petition in the Fresno County Superior Court. Behind this action were his thousands of loyal, and very vocal, customers that supported him in declaring to regulators that government tyranny was no longer going to be tolerated.

The people have the power to fight back against tyranny
Apparently intimidated by this groundswell of opposition to its obvious efforts at destroying OPD and further tainting the image of raw milk, the CDFA finally lifted the quarantine and slithered back into the hole from which it came. So by banding together as one to fight tyranny, OPD and its customers achieved a victory that now serves as a model to raw milk dairies and cooperatives across the country that are also facing government tyranny...

Source: NaturalNews.
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/034458_Organic_Pastures_raw_milk_Mark_McAfee.html.

Moroccan Islamists quit pro-democracy movement

2011-12-20

Moroccan Islamist group Al Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity) on Monday (December 19th) suspended involvement in the youth-led February 20 Movement (M20F), Yabiladi reported.

"Some of the youth of the February 20 Movement broadcast ideas and rumors that suffocate the climate within the democratic movement as a whole, putting limits on our demands," Al Adl Wal Ihsane said in a statement. The group said that it still believed in the legitimacy of the democracy movement’s demands.

There has been no official response from M20F about the loss of their former ally.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/12/20/newsbrief-03.

Istiqlal official elected Morocco parliament speaker

2011-12-20

Istiqlal party official Karim Ghellab on Monday (December 19th) was elected president of Morocco's lower house of parliament, Le Matin reported. The 45-year-old ex-transport minister defeated Mohamed Abbou of the National Rally of Independents (RNI) for the leadership of the House of Representatives. He will serve a five-year term.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2011/12/20/newsbrief-02.

A Brighter Future for Spaceflight

by Morris Jones
Sydney, Australia (SPX)
Dec 21, 2011

Recent times have been troubling for the global spaceflight community. We have witnessed the end of the venerable Shuttle program, without an operational replacement vehicle for NASA. America's space agency lacks funding, support and overall direction.

Around the world, budgetary pressures are limiting the development of new missions, new technologies, and new spacecraft. Governments find themselves preoccupied with the larger financial problems plaguing the global economy, and have little time or money for spaceflight.

It's understandable that we could feel depressed under these conditions. These are probably the worst times that the spaceflight community has experienced in decades. But there's reason for hope. Although the near-term future will continue to be difficult, we are actually building the foundations for a much brighter future in space.

The earliest years of spaceflight were filled with novelty, excitement and generous funding. We could not expect conditions like this to last forever. We have also experienced indifference from governments and the general public, but there are plenty of worthy causes that also suffer the same fate.

Misguided management from governments and space agencies has also contributed to these problems. But this is common in organizations, both public and private.

Some of these bad decisions didn't fully hit spaceflight for decades after they were made. We are feeling the effects of poor long- term planning right now, but it's important to remember that much of this is the legacy of times past.

Admittedly, we could use more wisdom and nurturing right now. But insight into what works, and what doesn't work, is gradually being accumulated. Mostly, it's learned the hard way. We need to be realistic about the environment around us. The 1960s are history, and a program that cannot adapt to these harsh new realities is doomed.

Gradually, new technologies, new hardware and new ways of thinking are developing. The learning curve has sometimes been hard, as old ideas that worked for years must be revised or discarded.

We've seen development patterns like this before in other areas of human endeavor. Science, technology and knowledge does not always evolve at a steady pace.

History is full of cases where almost nothing new has been learned for centuries, and other cases where civilizations have willfully plunged themselves backwards into ignorance. Spaceflight hasn't suffered this badly.

Yes, we want more. We should certainly have more. Spaceflight remains beneficial to so many aspects of human society, and it shouldn't be so easily targeted for cutbacks.

But we still live in a spacefaring civilization. Our planet is ringed with operational satellites. We have a huge, complex space station above us. Robot probes are presently exploring the Moon and the solar system. All of this has survived amid a turbulent assault of economics, politics and social changes. We have taken blows, but we are still standing.

The long-term effects of this baptism of fire, and the toughness it is breeding within the spaceflight community, will be outstanding. We are developing systems and practices that can survive in difficult times. The foundations of spaceflight are growing stronger.

It's difficult and it's often disheartening. But the spaceflight community is standing up against the most hostile conditions it has ever known. Things may actually become more difficult for a short time, but we will still be in action.

Eventually, this storm will pass. The world will become more receptive toward spaceflight. It will understand how important it is to the future of the planet and the human race. When the world turns to the spaceflight community for more services and solutions, we will be ready.

Those of you who work to preserve our spaceflight capabilities are doing an excellent task. You are not only performing well in the face of challenges. You are fighting a critical battle to save a vital part of our modern civilization.

You are carrying the marathon torch across a turbulent river, to ensure it will be passed on again for decades to come. Keep running. The ground beneath your feet will grow more solid. The world awaits your arrival. They will cheer when you take us to the stars.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/A_Brighter_Future_for_Spaceflight_999.html.

Paul Poised to Win Iowa; GOP Establishment on Edge

Michael Tennant
Tuesday, 20 December 2011

With the Iowa caucuses just two weeks away, Ron Paul has taken the lead in two caucus forecasts — a development that has the GOP establishment on edge.

A December 18 Public Policy Polling survey found that the Texas Congressman was the choice of 23 percent of likely Republican caucus voters. Mitt Romney came in second at 20 percent, with Newt Gingrich in third at 14 percent and Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum tied at 10 percent. “Someone else/Not sure” was next at 7 percent, followed by Jon Huntsman at 4 percent and Gary Johnson at 2 percent.

Gingrich was the biggest loser in the poll, having plunged from 27 percent support three weeks ago to 14 percent now. In addition, he possesses the highest “unfavorable” rating of any candidate in the race (47 percent). Paul, meanwhile, led the pack on the positive side with 54 percent of voters viewing him favorably.

On matters of principle, Paul, not surprisingly, is the champion in voters’ minds. Seventy-three percent said he has strong principles, while only 50 percent thought the same of Romney and 36 percent of Gingrich. (The question was not asked about the other candidates.)

The New York Times is also forecasting a Paul win in the Hawkeye State, but with even more certainty than PPP. As of this writing the Gray Lady believes Paul has a 52 percent chance of winning the Iowa caucuses. His closest competitor, Romney, stands just a 28 percent chance of being the victor; Gingrich is given a mere 8 percent likelihood of success.

Feeling fairly confident that Paul will take Iowa, the Times’ Nate Silver argues:

It may now be as important to watch his New Hampshire polls as those in Iowa. Our New Hampshire forecasts now give Mr. Paul about a 17 percent chance of winning the state, but those odds would improve with a win in Iowa. Although Mr. Romney might prefer that Mr. Paul win Iowa … all bets would be off if Mr. Paul won New Hampshire too.

What happens if Paul does indeed win the caucuses? “The Republican presidential primary … will get downright ugly,” predicts the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney. His reasoning? “The principled, antiwar, Constitution-obeying, Fed-hating, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas stands firmly outside the bounds of permissible dissent as drawn by either the Republican establishment or the mainstream media.”

Three things are likely to occur following a Paul victory in Iowa, Carney says.

First, he forecasts, "Much of the media will ignore him (expect headlines like 'Romney Beats out Gingrich for Second Place in Iowa')." There is precedent for this. Paul was virtually ignored when he practically tied Bachmann for first place in the Ames Straw Poll in August, and his many subsequent straw poll victories have gone equally unreported. Even Carney’s joke headline isn’t much of a stretch: When a September poll showed Romney in first place in New Hampshire, distantly followed by Paul, Huntsman, and Perry, in that order, Yahoo! News actually posted a story about it with the banner “Romney leads in New Hampshire, Huntsman third, Perry in fourth.”

Second, according to Carney, “Some in the Republican establishment and the conservative media will panic.” This is, in fact, already happening. Rush Limbaugh has taken to lampooning Paul for his noninterventionist foreign policy, a sure sign that the Republican Party fears people might actually listen to Paul.

Sean Hannity, another reliable bellwether of GOP establishment opinion, “felt the need on [December 14] to bring Bill Bennett on his show for a segment of unsaturated Paul-bashing,” Salon’s Steve Kornacki reported. “Bennett articulated an increasingly common concern among GOP elites, saying that Paul’s candidacy “isn’t going anywhere — except if he wins Iowa.”

“And what happens if he does?” asks Kornacki.

If you have a mischievous streak, it’s a fun possibility to consider, because the short answer is that guys like Bennett and Hannity will freak out — and their freak-out could last for a while. An Iowa victory would make Paul the center of the political media world, flood his campaign treasury with even more small-dollar donations, and boost his prospects in subsequent states. He might be able to parlay it into an impressive showing in libertarian-friendly New Hampshire, weather losses in South Carolina and Florida (where the numbers just aren’t very promising), then surge again in February, when his caucus state strategy kicks in. If the rest of the field remains unsettled then — with, say, Romney winning New Hampshire and Newt Gingrich taking South Carolina and Florida — Paul could find himself at or near the top of the delegate race, pushing the Hannity/Bennett panic level through the roof.

The third probable result of a Paul caucus win, Carney suggests, is that “others [in the GOP establishment and conservative media] will calmly move to crush him, with the full cooperation of the liberal mainstream media.”

Indeed, Fox News’ Chris Wallace has already set the stage for just such an eventuality, saying that if Paul wins in Iowa, “it will discredit the Iowa caucuses because … most of the Republican establishment thinks he’s not going to end up as the nominee, so therefore Iowa won’t count.”

Wallace’s remark, however, is a mere pinprick compared to the onslaught Carney envisions. He predicts nothing less than full-scale character assassination: “[Paul’s] conservative critics and the mainstream media will imply that he is a racist, a kook, and a conspiracy theorist” — just as they smeared Pat Buchanan as a racist and anti-Semite following his victory in the 1996 New Hampshire primary.

This, too, is already under way. Last week the neoconservative media, including Limbaugh, Hannity, and National Review, had a grand old party repeating the canard that Paul believes in 9/11 conspiracy theories when, in reality, he simply believes that the whole story, particularly those portions that demonstrate government incompetence, has yet to be told.

As to charges of racism, recall that on the day of the 2008 New Hampshire primary, the New Republic published a hit piece claiming that Paul had authored several articles with potentially offensive, but mostly just politically incorrect, content that appeared in a newsletter bearing his name. The article, Justin Raimondo observed at the time, was “intellectually dishonest, inauthentic in its outrage, and unintentionally humorous at times.” Those who know Paul, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and the president of the Austin, Texas, chapter of the NAACP, did not believe that he had written the articles in question. Nevertheless, Paul was forced to respond to the attack, admitting that the articles had indeed appeared in his newsletter but repeatedly stating that he had neither authored nor approved them. Expect this story to be dredged up again if Paul begins to look like a real threat to a Romney or Gingrich nomination.

Paul is looking more and more like a serious contender for the GOP nomination, and the outcome of the Iowa caucuses may provide the first hard evidence of that. For constitutionalists, a Paul victory in Iowa will offer a glimmer of hope that America’s slide into socialism and empire can be reversed. “But for the enforcers of Republican orthodoxy,” avers Carney, it “will be an act of impudence that must be punished.”

Source: The New American.
Link: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/10252-paul-poised-to-win-iowa-gop-establishment-on-edge.

NASA Discovers First Earth-size Planets Beyond Our Solar System

by Michele Johnson for NASA Ames Research Center
Moffet Field CA (SPX)
Dec 21, 2011

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun.

The discovery marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth. The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-20f is a bit larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius.

Both planets reside in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.

Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days. These short orbital periods mean very hot, inhospitable worlds. Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass.

"The primary goal of the Kepler mission is to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone," said Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., lead author of a new study published in the journal Nature.

"This discovery demonstrates for the first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we are able to detect them."

The Kepler-20 system includes three other planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Kepler-20b, the closest planet, Kepler-20c, the third planet, and Kepler-20d, the fifth planet, orbit their star every 3.7, 10.9 and 77.6 days.

All five planets have orbits lying roughly within Mercury's orbit in our solar system. The host star belongs to the same G-type class as our sun, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.

The system has an unexpected arrangement. In our solar system, small, rocky worlds orbit close to the sun and large, gaseous worlds orbit farther out. In comparison, the planets of Kepler-20 are organized in alternating size: large, small, large, small and large.

"The Kepler data are showing us some planetary systems have arrangements of planets very different from that seen in our solar system," said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

"The analysis of Kepler data continue to reveal new insights about the diversity of planets and planetary systems within our galaxy."

Scientists are not certain how the system evolved but they do not think the planets formed in their existing locations. They theorize the planets formed farther from their star and then migrated inward, likely through interactions with the disk of material from which they originated. This allowed the worlds to maintain their regular spacing despite alternating sizes.

The Kepler space telescope detects planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets crossing in front, or transiting, their stars. The Kepler science team requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet.

The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planet candidates the spacecraft finds.

The star field Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can be seen only from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.

To validate Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, astronomers used a computer program called Blender, which runs simulations to help rule out other astrophysical phenomena masquerading as a planet.

On Dec. 5 the team announced the discovery of Kepler-22b in the habitable zone of its parent star. It is likely to be too large to have a rocky surface. While Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f are Earth-size, they are too close to their parent star to have liquid water on the surface.

"In the cosmic game of hide and seek, finding planets with just the right size and just the right temperature seems only a matter of time," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead and professor of astronomy and physics at San Jose State University.

"We are on the edge of our seats knowing that Kepler's most anticipated discoveries are still to come."

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Discovers_First_Earth_size_Planets_Beyond_Our_Solar_System_999.html.

Japan selects troubled F-35 as new fighter jet

Tokyo (AFP)
Dec 20, 2011

Japan on Tuesday chose the as-yet unproven F-35 stealth jet for its next-generation mainstay fighter, as North Korea provided a timely reminder of the region's potential for instability.

In a deal worth around $4.7 billion, Japan plumped for the jet to replace its aging fleet of F-4 fighters, despite a series of technical setbacks and fears that the US-built F-35 might be badly delayed.

"The government shall acquire 42 units of the F-35A after fiscal 2012 in order to replenish and to modernize the current fleet of fighters held by the Air Self-Defense Force," the cabinet said in a statement.

Lockheed Martin's F-35 beat off competition from two other jets -- the Boeing-made F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The formal decision, which had long been expected, came the day after news of the death of Kim Jong-Il sent jitters through the region amid fears a power transition could destabilize North Korea's hardline regime.

Japan was originally expected to announce its pick last week. The selection comes as China's massive military machine continues to grow and becomes increasingly assertive.

Tokyo and Beijing have butted diplomatic heads on a number of occasions, notably in a protracted -- and at times ugly -- spat over disputed islands in the East China Sea, known in Japan as Senkaku and in China as Diaoyu.

Both countries claim sovereignty over the Japanese-administered islands, which are strategically important, but uninhabited, outcrops.

Beijing, whose military spending has grown by double digits every year for much of the past decade, is seen as using its economic and military might to press its territorial claims ever more aggressively.

In January it unveiled its own stealth fighter jet.

In the six months to September, Japanese jets were scrambled 83 times to respond to possible airspace violations by Chinese aircraft, Jiji press reported, a more than three-fold increase on the same period last year.

Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa said the F-35 fitted the bill as a modern fighter plane, suited to Japan's needs.

"It was about its capability. It is a fighter with capacity to respond to the changing security environment."

With a price tag of around $113 million per jet, the F-35 is the most expensive weapons program in Pentagon history and has been plagued by cost overruns and technical delays.

Last week a leaked memo revealed an array of problems exposed by flight tests, including with the landing gear and issues over airframe fatigue and vibration.

The report, dubbed a "Quick Look Review" at the F-35 program, said the technical challenges generated "a lack of confidence in the design stability" of the aircraft, which has already started production.

As a result, the review calls for "serious reconsideration of procurement and production planning", it said.

A spokesman for the fighter program confirmed that managers were looking at scaling back the pace of production to allow time to fix the technical problems that had emerged.

However, Ichikawa said he was confident the hardware would arrive in Japan by 2016.

"We have received assurances that the delivery will be made on time," he said.

Japan initially aimed to acquire the F-22 stealth fighter to renew its fleet, but US law prohibits exports of the jet and the United States plans to halt production of the model.

Japan, which places its security alliance with the United States at the cornerstone of its foreign policy, has long depended on US manufacturers for its military hardware.

The United States welcomed the announcement.

"We are pleased with the decision of the government of Japan to purchase a US candidate platform," the US embassy said in a statement.

"This decision reflects the vitality of our alliance and will greatly enhance our bilateral cooperation and interoperability," it said, adding it would create about 10,000 news jobs in the United States alone.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_selects_troubled_F-35_as_new_fighter_jet_999.html.

China urges N. Koreans to stand behind Kim's son

Beijing (AFP)
Dec 20, 2011

China's president offered his condolences for the death of Kim Jong-Il Tuesday as Beijing, fearing instability on its border, called on North Koreans to unite behind their former leader's son and heir.

Hu Jintao visited the North Korean embassy in Beijing in person to pay his respects, a day after the isolated Stalinist state announced the death of its leader from a heart attack.

China is North Korea's closest ally, and just hours after the announcement of Kim's death on Monday, Beijing threw its backing behind his third son Jong-Un, urging North Koreans to "turn their sorrow into strength".

The Chinese government also pledged to work with the isolated, nuclear-armed state to ensure the "peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region".

"We believe that under the leadership of the Korean Workers Party and comrade Kim Jong-Un, the DPRK people will unite as one and turn their sorrow into strength," said Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, using communist North Korea's formal name.

Yang has held talks on the phone with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on the importance of ensuring security on the Korean Peninsula after the reclusive leader's death, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Tuesday.

Analysts say China is likely to strengthen support for its impoverished neighbor as it seeks to avoid a potentially destabilizing power struggle in the Stalinist regime.

Beijing is also likely to come under international pressure to use its influence to dissuade Pyongyang from carrying out more military provocations like those that rattled Asia last year.

Little is known about Kim's successor, but there are fears he has not had enough time to cement control over the country's government and military.

Jong-Un, who is in his late 20s, was given senior ruling party posts and made a four-star general in September 2010, despite his lack of any military experience.

"It is dangerous in a sense that if the succession arrangement does not work there could be chaos," said Professor Joseph Cheng of Hong Kong City University.

Beijing "certainly wants to avoid any kind of meltdown in North Korea because that would be destabilizing along the border."

Kim was a regular visitor to China and his death was splashed across the front pages of China's state-run newspapers on Tuesday. It was also the most popular topic on the weibos -- the Chinese version of Twitter.

"Beijing and Pyongyang have enjoyed a long tradition of friendship, forged by generations of leaders," said an editorial in the China Daily.

"It is hoped our neighbor will continue its endeavor to build an economically stronger DPRK under a new leadership."

The China Daily carried a photo of a smiling Kim under a headline reading "A friend's departure".

The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist party, carried news of Kim's death, but no commentary.

Liu told reporters that Beijing would "welcome the leaders" of North Korea "to visit at their convenience", underlining China's support for Kim Jong-Un.

Streets outside the North Korean embassy in the Chinese capital were blocked to cars and bicycles on Tuesday morning as Hu visited.

The only pedestrians allowed inside the cordoned area were North Koreans clutching bunches of white chrysanthemums -- the traditional flower for mourning -- wrapped in clear plastic.

Police told an AFP reporter at the scene that the embassy would remain off limits to non-North Koreans for at least one day.

"You can't have a visa today," a policeman told AFP. "Their leader has died."

North Korean restaurants were closed but the Golden Garden Flower Shop across the street from the embassy -- one of the few florists in the area -- was doing a roaring trade as dozens of North Koreans flocked to the store to buy bunches of fresh flowers and wreaths.

The floor was covered with debris and piles of flowers were stacked on tables in the cramped store as three people worked non-stop to make flower arrangements for the mourners.

Sombre-looking North Koreans waiting to buy flowers refused to speak to AFP.

A florist said that business had been "very good" since Kim's death.

"Can't you see? It's busy," the woman told AFP as she frantically cut flower stems.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_urges_N_Koreans_to_stand_behind_Kims_son_999.html.

China beefing up military presence in Indian Ocean

Nairobi (AFP)
Dec 20, 2011

Little by little China is forming military links in Africa and in the Indian Ocean in order, experts say, to protect Beijing's economic interests in the region.

In the past three weeks Beijing has committed to supporting Ugandan forces operating in Somalia and to helping the Seychelles fight piracy.

"It is very clear that the Chinese leaders recognize that military force will play a bigger role to safeguard China's overseas interests," Jonathan Holslag, of the Brussels Institute of Chinese Contemporary Studies told AFP.

"There is a willingness, and even a consensus, in China, that this process will take place."

The Indian Ocean is strategic, Holslag said, noting that 85 percent of China's oil imports and 60 percent of its exports are routed via the Gulf of Aden.

Beijing does not so far have any military base in the region: its military presence consists of three vessels in the Gulf of Aden to fight Somali pirates.

But the deployment of those ships in 2009, the first of its kind for the Chinese navy, was already highly symbolic.

For the moment, cooperation between China and the islands of the Indian Ocean is still limited to "low profile military-to-military exchanges, but it is getting broader and more structured," Holslag told AFP.

"The mere fact that China has a multi-year naval presence in the Gulf of Aden has great symbolic and diplomatic significance," said Frans-Paul van der Putten, senior research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael.

"Symbolic because it shows other countries that China is an emerging naval power in the region, and diplomatic because China uses its navy ships for occasional visits to ports along the Indian Ocean rim, which helps it strengthen its diplomatic ties with countries in the region," he added.

During an unprecedented visit by Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie earlier this month, the Seychelles asked China to set up a military presence on the archipelago to help fight piracy in the Indian Ocean.

Victoria is ruling out a military base but is looking rather at having "reconnaissance planes or patrol ships stationed" there, along the lines of what the US and Europe do, Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Paul Adam said.

"China needs port infrastructure to supply its ships in the Indian Ocean, and covering a wider zone could make sense," said Mathieu Duchatel of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

With trade exchanges between China and Africa totaling 126.9 billion dollars last year, the stakes are sizable.

Beijing's efforts to keep its trade safe are not confined to the high seas. On the African continent China has set up a raft of cooperation ventures in an attempt to secure its investment zones.

Somalia, which has been at war for the past two decades, is "of crucial importance for China," Holslag said.

Beijing has promised Uganda 2.3 million dollars towards covering the cost of its troops in the African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM).

"Not only is Beijing well aware that the failed state is a sanctuary for pirates that threaten its merchant and fishery fleet in the Indian Ocean; it also considers it to be an important source of instability and terrorism in other African countries where it has large economic interests," Holslag said.

He noted China "is making eyes at the oil reserves in Ethiopia" and private Chinese firms have started linking up the Ethiopian hinterland to the port of Berbera in the breakaway region of Somaliland.

"China has ... almost permanent exchanges with officials from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somaliland on security in the Horn," he said.

Both Washington and New Delhi, already concerned about China's activities in the Pacific, take a dim view of its ambitions in the Indian Ocean.

"It appears that, for now, the US and India are not very much alarmed by the relatively modest Chinese military activities in the Indian Ocean region," van der Putten said.

However "the US seems to welcome a greater Chinese involvement in addressing non-traditional security issues such as piracy, but is at the same time worried that China's growing international influence undermines US interests."

"In India there are concerns about a possible build-up of Chinese military power in the Indian Ocean," he added.

"This could ultimately affect the geopolitical balance between India and China, in particular with regard to the disputed parts of the Sino-Indian border and with regard to the relationship between India and Pakistan, a country with close ties to China."

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_beefing_up_military_presence_in_Indian_Ocean_999.html.

Discovery of a 'dark state' could mean a brighter future for solar energy

Austin, TX (SPX)
Dec 21, 2011

The efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased, according to new research on the mechanisms of solar energy conversion led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin. Zhu and his team have discovered that it's possible to double the number of electrons harvested from one photon of sunlight using an organic plastic semiconductor material.

"Plastic semiconductor solar cell production has great advantages, one of which is low cost," said Zhu, a professor of chemistry. "Combined with the vast capabilities for molecular design and synthesis, our discovery opens the door to an exciting new approach for solar energy conversion, leading to much higher efficiencies."

Zhu and his team published their groundbreaking discovery in Science.

The maximum theoretical efficiency of the silicon solar cell in use today is approximately 31 percent, because much of the sun's energy hitting the cell is too high to be turned into usable electricity.

That energy, in the form of "hot electrons," is instead lost as heat. Capturing hot electrons could potentially increase the efficiency of solar-to-electric power conversion to as high as 66 percent.

Zhu and his team previously demonstrated that those hot electrons could be captured using semiconductor nanocrystals. They published that research in Science in 2010, but Zhu says the actual implementation of a viable technology based on that research is very challenging.

"For one thing," said Zhu, "that 66 percent efficiency can only be achieved when highly focused sunlight is used, not just the raw sunlight that typically hits a solar panel. This creates problems when considering engineering a new material or device."

To circumvent that problem, Zhu and his team have found an alternative. They discovered that a photon produces a dark quantum "shadow state" from which two electrons can then be efficiently captured to generate more energy in the semiconductor pentacene.

Zhu said that exploiting that mechanism could increase solar cell efficiency to 44 percent without the need for focusing a solar beam, which would encourage more widespread use of solar technology.

Science Behind the Discovery
+ Absorption of a photon in a pentacene semiconductor creates an excited electron-hole pair called an exciton.

+ The exciton is coupled quantum mechanically to a dark "shadow state" called a multiexciton.

+ This dark shadow state can be the most efficient source of two electrons via transfer to an electron acceptor material, such as fullerene, which was used in the study.

+ Exploiting the dark shadow state to produce double the electrons could increase solar cell efficiency to 44 percent.

Source: Solar Daily.
Link: http://www.solardaily.com/reports/Discovery_of_a_dark_state_could_mean_a_brighter_future_for_solar_energy_999.html.

Poland seeks new partnership with China

SHANGHAI, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski says he's hoping to take his country's relationship with China to a new level during a state visit this week.

Komorowski, making the first official visit by a Polish head of state to China in 14 years, said the goal of the trip is to deepen cooperation with Beijing at a time when Poland has taken a greater role in the security of Europe, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

The goal is to elevate the two country's relationship to the strategic partnership level, Poland says.

"China has witnessed a rapid economic development, as well as an enormous increase of its political clout," Komorowski told Xinhua. "Meanwhile, Poland has become a member of NATO and the European Union and is the 20th largest economy in the world."

The five-day visit, which began Sunday in Shanghai, will see Komorowski seek to forge new ties in the form of new Chinese investments in Polish businesses and the purchase of Polish sovereign debt, officials from the two countries said.

Komorowski was to attend a China-Poland investment forum in Shanghai and to meet officials from the Chinese-Polish Joint Stock Shipping Company, Polish Ambassador to China Tadeusz Chomicki told Xinhua.

The trip's agenda also included a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing.

"I hope the talks will yield fruitful results for our long-term cooperation, including not only the cooperation between the economic arms of our governments, but also agreements reached by the two sides' enterprises," Komorowski said.

With the total value of Chinese investments in Poland this year estimated at $325 million, Komorowski is seeking to increase that level to $390 million per year, the Polish business news daily Puls Biznesu reported.

Slawomir Majman, president of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, told the publication the trip is meant to lay the groundwork for a new level of Chinese presence in the country.

"This will be a historical visit in that it will create a political umbrella for economic activity," Majman said.

The trip was expected to produce deals on future investment in Poland by Chinese construction machinery manufacturer Sany Group and Guangxi Liugong Machinery, which has already struck a deal to purchase a division of Polish construction machinery and military equipment maker Huta Stalowa Wola.

Puls Biznesu said Polish copper mining company KGHM and jeweler W. Kruk are also expected to ink deals with Chinese interests. Chomicki said last week cultural ties with China also should be taken to a new level.

"Both countries, both governments, have come to the conclusion that it is time to enhance our relations and to achieve a strategic partnership between China and Poland," he told the English language newspaper China Daily. "We think it is a great opportunity to show Poland as a good, strong and attractive partner for China."

Feng Zhongping, a European studies expert at the government think tank China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, agreed, telling Xinhua it makes sense for Beijing and Warsaw to upgrade their relationship.

"Poland is now a leading country in Central and Eastern Europe and plays an important role in the European Union," he said. "As both sides attach importance to bilateral relations, and as the world faces an economic downturn, developing relations between the two is not only important for both sides but also for Europe and the European Union as a whole."

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/12/20/Poland-seeks-new-partnership-with-China/UPI-61431324380300/.