Dear Kitty backup UK

Darwin helps to save rare Galapagos mockingbird

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:44:33 +0100

From the BBC:

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

DNA clue to save rare Darwin bird

Sub-populations of the mockingbirds remain on two small islands

A rare mockingbird could be reintroduced to the Galapagos Islands - with the help of some specimens collected by Charles Darwin.

A team of geneticists extracted DNA from two birds that the famous naturalist collected in 1835.

By comparing this to DNA from living sub-populations on two other islands, the scientists revealed genetic clues about how best to conserve the birds.

They report their findings in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

The researchers used two specimens that Darwin and Robert Fitzroy - the captain of HMS Beagle - collected from Floreana Island during their trip to the Galapagos more than 170 years ago.

The Floreana mockingbird (Mimus trifasciatus) became extinct on the island soon after this famous expedition, mainly because of the human impact on its delicate habitat.

Today only two small sub-populations survive on two tiny satellite islets - Champion and Gardner-by-Floreana.

Survival of species

Karen James, a Natural History Museum of London researcher who was involved in this study, said the Floreana mockingbird was one of the rarest birds in the world.

"It was also important for Darwin's realisation that organisms might evolve independently on islands," she told BBC News.

The Charles Darwin Foundation, which carries out conservation research in the Galapagos, plans eventually to reintroduce the birds to Floreana.

But for this reintroduction to be effective, Dr James said, a population would have to be restored that was "as close as possible to what existed before".

To find out what this population would look like, the scientists needed to study the Floreana birds.

"There are very few of these specimens," Dr James explained. "But the Natural History Museum has two of them and they just so happened to have been collected by Darwin and Fitzroy."

Dr James and her colleagues were given the opportunity to take tiny samples from the toe pads of each historic specimen, from which to extract DNA.

The team found "genetic signals" in each of the two surviving species that were also present in Darwin's samples.

This revealed that the two sub-populations split from each other very recently. This split, the researchers said, was likely caused by the Floreana mockingbird becoming extinct.

Its extinction would have severed a "bridge" between the two populations - meaning that it was no longer possible for them to interbreed.

Even though they have evolved independently and become inbred, this study showed that the tiny sub-populations have retained much of the important "genetic variation" once found in the mockingbirds on Floreana.

This is good news for the survival of the species.

It has led the researchers to conclude that future conservation plans should focus on protecting "the two satellite populations in situ and establishing a single third population on Floreana".

This reintroduction could use birds from both islands, the researchers said, "to maximize genetic diversity".

Dr James said the project highlighted the importance of historic specimens.

"Though Darwin knew nothing of DNA, the specimens he and Fitzroy collected have, after 170 years of safe-keeping in collections, yielded genetic clues to suggest a path for conservation of this critically endangered and historically important species," she said.

Money first, women with breast cancer second?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:08:44 +0100

This video from CNN in the USA is called Rep. Wasserman Schultz on Situation Room about new breast cancer screening guidelines.

By Joanne Laurier in the USA:

US government mammogram recommendations

Denial of breast cancer screenings will have deadly consequences

18 November 2009

A US government panel’s recommendation that women under the age of 50 not undergo annual mammogram screenings has provoked outrage from oncologists and other health care professionals, as well as breast cancer patients and survivors.

Compelling evidence suggests that following the advice of the United States Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) will lead to thousands of new breast cancer deaths and a rise in the incidence of the disease. One in eight women in the US (13 percent) will be afflicted by the disease at some point in their lives. An estimated 182,000 American women were newly diagnosed in 2008 with breast cancer, and more than 40,000 women died from the illness.

After decades of promoting mammograms as the best tool for early detection of breast cancer, the USPSTF is recommending against yearly screenings for women between the ages of 40 and 49, claiming the risks outweigh the benefits.

The recommendations announced Monday have been denounced by a wide range of specialists in the field and people who deal on a daily basis with the devastation that breast cancer inflicts upon hundreds of thousands of women and their families every year. Both the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute condemned the change.

The American College of Radiology / American Roentgen Ray Society says:

USPSTF mammography recommendations will result in countless unnecessary breast cancer deaths each year

See also here.

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Goldcrest, smallest bird in Britain

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:53:18 +0200

This is a video of a goldcrest feeding young at its nest.

Another goldcrest video is here.

An article about goldcrests in Britain is here.

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Afghanistan, a 'good war'?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:15:25 +0200

This video from England says about itself:

Afghanistan - the "Good War"? Seumas Milne July 13 2009

Guardian columnist in a meeting organised by Stop the War Coalition and Media Workers Against War.

Afghanistan: U.S. military contractors take root

The U.S. military buildup in Afghanistan signals opportunity for DynCorp and Fluor corporations. Awarded contracts totaling $15 billion over five years, the giant enterprises will build military structures and bases there and undertake power, water, housing, logistic and administrative projects.

Texas-based Fluor Corporation will carry out work at 74 bases in northern Afghanistan, while DynCorp will operate throughout southern Afghanistan.

The Defense Department rejected bids from Halliburton subsidiary KBR, recipient of contracts worth $31.4 billion from 2001-2009. Reuters recalled that a Congressional commission found that KBR had wasted billions because of “poorly defined work orders, inadequate oversight and inefficiencies” marking construction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Picasso and communism, Liverpool exhibition

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:23:36 +0200

From British daily The Independent:

Picasso's red period - heading for Liverpool

By Jonathan Brown

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Pablo Picasso was the most celebrated artist of the 20th century when, living under Nazi occupation in exile in Paris, he stunned the world with the announcement that he had joined the French Communist Party.

The enlistment to the casue of perhaps the greatest living creative genius of the day was an incredible coup for Moscow and one which has divided scholars of art and politics ever since. Some cynics doubted his convictions, claiming they were merely typical of the fashionable views espoused in the intellectual leftist circles in which he mixed. Others believe his art was never to recover its former glories as the great showman and extrovert found himself enmeshed in the increasingly bitter propaganda battles of the Cold War.

Now British audiences will be given the chance to make up their own minds about Picasso's long red period as a member of the communist party, a relationship which survived the Hungarian uprising and Prague spring, keeping him loyal right up until his death in 1973. A major exhibition of more than 150 works by the Spanish painter will go on display at Tate Liverpool next year in a bid to throw new light on this controversial chapter in his extraordinarily productive career.

Among the stars of the show will be his monumental The Charnel House, not been seen in Britain for half a century, which was inspired by images of liberated concentration camps. The exhibition, being staged in collaboration with the Albertina in Vienna will feature The Rape of the Sabine Women, a variation on David's masterpiece painted at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

There will also be examples of The Dove of Peace, which went on to become the instantly recognisable symbol for the international peace movement.

Picasso: Peace and Freedom, which follows Tate Liverpool's blockbusting Gustav Klimt exhibition during the city's year as Capital of Culture, follows years of planning and painstaking research which took experts to the Picasso Institute in Paris where much of his correspondence is held.

Tate Liverpool director Christoph Grunenberg, hopes audiences will develop a more subtle appreciation of the artist in the years after 1945. "It is really looking at Picasso during the Cold War and driving away from this myth of him as a creative genius and playboy with this compulsive expressive talent, for a more nuanced view," he said. "People have tried to downplay Picasso's political involvement but he was a full party member and was clearly highly committed to the peace movement," Mr Grunenberg added.

One of the things that made Picasso and the communists unlikely bedfellows was the party's official embrace of the Social Realist School and official opposition to the Modern movement of which the "decadent" Picasso was perhaps the greatest exponent.

But his long exile from his native Spain in opposition to the regime of General Franco coupled with the brutal experiences of life during the Nazi occupation of Paris, meant he saw communism and the ideal of peace as the key to a world free of fascism.

There was a severe backlash following Picasso's public unveiling as a communist. Protests by right-wing groups were held at exhibitions after liberation and he was barred from entry to the United States. But the artist began to travel widely, addressing public audiences for the first time, and giving donations to causes including a one million Franc gift to striking French coal miners.

He joined protests against the Korean War, and the execution of Nikos Beloyannis, the Greek communist and resistance leader.

He went on to receive the Stalin Peace Prize and the World Peace Prize, which he shared with the American singer Paul Robeson and Chilean writer Pablo Neruda though [he] later declined the Legion d'honneur [of the French government].

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Obama's books banned in the USA

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:49:47 +0200

I hope my Blogsome blog will be back soon; it is, unfortunately, not working at the moment.

In that blog, some time ago, I mentioned that there is much Leftist criticism of the United States Obama administration for not breaking enough with the previous George W. Bush administration. This, however, did not prevent US extreme Right university authorities from banning the student organization of Obama's Democratic Party.

And now, it turns out that in "the land of the free", not just Obama's party may face bans; but his books as well.

From World War 4 Report blog in the USA, quoting Associated Press:

Supermax prison: Obama's books objectionable

The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them. ...

Last year, [prisoner] Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

But prison officials, citing guidance from the FBI, determined that passages in both books contain information that could damage national security. A prison spokeswoman referred questions to the FBI, where a spokeswoman was looking into the matter Thursday evening.

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Singing gibbon also instrumentalist

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:45:12 +0200

From the BBC:

Gibbon sings 'door-slamming' tune

Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

The all singing, door-slamming female white-handed gibbon

A female gibbon has been observed enhancing her territorial song with a percussive noise.

Each time her song reached its natural climax, the gibbon slammed shut the door of her enclosure, using the loud noise it made to accentuate her call.

The gibbon used the door to create a single beat rather than a rhythm.

But her behaviour is yet another example of how smaller ape species are also capable of novel tool use, says the primatologist who witnessed it.

Thomas Geissmann is a leading expert on the conservation and behaviour of small apes, which comprise four genera of gibbon and siamang.

Yet while great apes, the gorillas, chimps and orang utans, are frequently observed to use tools both in captivity and in the wild, gibbons are rarely seen to do the same.

That was until Geissman observed a female white-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) living with a male at Zoo Seeteufel in Studen, Switzerland.

In many gibbon species, the males call out using a series of short distinct noises that gradually become more complex. At regular intervals, females join in, singing long phrases known as 'great calls'.

The gibbons are thought to produce these sounds to defend their territory, and they can be heard from up to 2km away in natural forest.

No other gibbons lived at the zoo with the white-handed pair, but a group of siamangs did live in an enclosure nearby.

But despite the absence of other gibbons, the pair sang regularly.

However, Geissmann soon noticed that the female would exhibit a rather unique behaviour every other time she made her great call.

Just a few seconds before she started her great call, Geissmann reports in the 5th edition of the Gibbon Journal, the female would retreat into her sleeping box, singing as she went.

She then half shut the sliding door to the wooden box.

At the climax to her call, she would then slam the sliding door shut, and after it bounced back open again, she would jump out of the box, thrashing her arms and legs in a display.

"She would go into her little sleeping box made of wood, and always at the same point of her duet song she would jump out and smash shut the sliding door, which made a bang," says Geissman, who is based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. ...

It also bears a striking resemblance to one other example of primate behaviour recorded back in the 1960s at the Gombe study site in Tanzania.

Then chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall recorded a wild male chimp, which she called Mike, using four empty gasoline drums to make a loud noise.

Mike was a low-ranking male, and would loudly bang on the drums to enhance his threat displays to other males. It seemed to work, as Mike rose to the top of his troop without fighting any other males.

Wild orang utans have also been recorded calling through folded up leaves, which increase the intensity and frequency range of their calls, while wild capuchin monkeys have also been seen bashing stones in threat displays to rivals.

Hear the sound of the gibbon and the door here.

Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys spotted in forests of northern Vietnam by local community conservation team: here.

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Dinosaur discovery in Utah, USA

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:31:40 +0200

From LiveScience:

Pot-Bellied Dinosaur Skeleton Found in Utah

By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer

posted: 14 July 2009 07:59 pm ET

The most complete skeleton of a type of pot-bellied dinosaur, a therizinosaur, has been discovered in southern Utah.

Such remains shed light on the evolution of leafy and meaty diets back in paleo times, suggesting that iconic predators like Velociraptor may have evolved from less fearsome plant-eating ancestors.

The newly discovered dinosaur, dubbed Nothronychus graffami, lived some 93 million years ago. When alive, the animal would have stood at 13 feet (4 meters) and sported a beaked mouth and forelimbs tipped with 9 inch- (22 cm)-long sickle claws.

Its stumpy legs, large gut and other features suggest the lumbering giant scarfed down plants rather than chasing after meaty prey.

"It takes a lot of gut-time to digest plants," said lead researcher Lindsay Zanno of the Field Museum in Chicago. "Plant eaters have to develop long digestive tracts to get the energy they need to survive."

Diet discovery

The dinosaur's physical features match up with other so-called therizinosaurs, a mysterious group of dinosaurs now thought to be a type of maniraptoran dinosaur, which share a common ancestor with birds (though the two groups split some 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period).

While most theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, were meat eaters, the therizinosaurs likely consumed plants.

To figure out how both carnivorous and herbivorous diets evolved in theropods, Zanno and her colleagues compared the anatomy of the newly discovered dinosaur with specimens from 75 other theropod species. In doing so, the team found that plant-eating therizinosaurs like N. graffami are the most ancient group of maniraptorans.

That meant plant-eating was around early in the evolution of maniraptorans.

Early plant eating

Several maniraptoran lineages show adaptations for plant-eating, including the beaked ornithomimosaurs (ostrich-dinosaurs) and oviraptorosaurs (egg-thieves). So the team looked at herbivorous and carnivorous features in a sample of maniraptorans, finding the earliest species may already have been at least flirting with the idea of plant-eating.

"Before this we thought that plant-eating theropods like therizinosaurs were a rare occurrence," Zanno told LiveScience. "We knew they must have evolved from meat-eaters somewhere in their ancestry, but before our study it seemed like plant-eating was the exception not the norm for maniraptoran theropods."

Rather than a rarity, Zanno and her colleagues discovered that eating plants exclusively or in combination with meat can be traced back to the origins of the maniraptoran group as a whole.

"Many lineages of maniraptoran dinosaurs likely ate some amount of plants as part of their diet, and they probably inherited this ability from the common ancestor of the whole group," Zanno said. "Thus, predatory maniraptoran dinosaurs like Velociraptor must have re-evolved exclusive meat-eating."

The researchers speculate this ability to nab veggies may have allowed maniraptorans to move into new niches and diversify in ways they couldn't when only meat was on the menu.

"Something happened early in the evolution of maniraptorans that is tied to their incredible diversity," Zanno said. "The ability to feed on much more than just meat may have been one of several key innovations contributing to their ultimate success."

The discovery is reported online July 15 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

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Israeli soldiers on Gaza abuses

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:40:05 +0200

From the BBC:

Israel soldiers speak out on Gaza

Soldier testimonies appear to contradict official Israeli statements

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement.

The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said civilians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers. ...

Many of the testimonies are in line with claims made by human-rights organisations that Israeli military action in Gaza was indiscriminate and disproportionate.

Amnesty International has accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the 22-day conflict.

The full Breaking the Silence report is here.

See also here.

This is a Dutch TV video (in Hebrew, with English subtitles) of interviews with Israeli soldiers who were involved in the "Cast Lead" invasion in Gaza.

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Peruvian workers against President Garcia

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:18:59 +0200

This video is called Indigenous Leader visits Oil Contamination in Peru's Amazon.

Peru’s President Garcia is moving towards a confrontation with the working class in the wake of nationwide protests over the recent massacre in the Amazon basin: here.

Thousands of workers marched in Lima, Peru on July 8 in opposition to the free-market economic policies of President Alan Garcia: here.

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Economic crisis, workers resist

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:57:04 +0200

USA: Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion in government bailout cash, reported record profits and compensation in its second-quarter earnings report: here.

In the midst of the state’s economic crisis, Southern California social service clients tell of their difficulties: here.

Germany: Opel workers oppose cuts in holiday pay: here.

Australia: Sacked workers from the bankrupt manufacturing company Nylex staged a protest outside the ANZ bank in Melbourne’s central business district yesterday to demand full payment of their redundancy and entitlement mone: here.

Britain: Labour MP Michael Meacher has demanded urgent action from Prime Minister Gordon Brown to curb the return of mega-bonuses for wealthy bankers: here.

The media may have swung on from the recession, but the economic chaos is still here: here.

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Swiss Banks Threaten Indonesian Rainforest

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:12:30 +0200

By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal with Rainforest Rescue:

ACTION ALERT PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

Swiss Francs Threaten Indonesian Rainforest

July 9, 2009

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW:

http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=swiss_indo_finance

Major Swiss banks Credit Suisse and UBS are to further fund Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), the world's largest listed palm oil company, which currently produces 10 percent of Indonesia's palm oil. A further 1.3 million hectares of land are to be developed for palm oil plantations with Swiss finance on the island of Indonesia Kalimantan (Borneo) and in Papua on the Western half of the island of New Guinea. Let these banks and the Swiss government know that their financing of rainforest destruction and climate change is completely unacceptable and will be protested until it ends.

TAKE ACTION NOW:

http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=swiss_indo_finance

DISCUSS THIS ALERT:

http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/07/alert_swiss_francs_threaten_in.asp

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C.I.A. Deceived U.S. Congress for Years

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:15:34 +0200

From the New York Times in the USA:

Democrats Say C.I.A. Deceived Congress for Years

By SCOTT SHANE

Published: July 8, 2009

WASHINGTON — The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, referred to Mr. Panetta’s disclosure in a letter to the committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, Congressional Quarterly reported on Wednesday. Mr. Reyes wrote that the committee “has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to.”

In a related development, President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight — the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses of Congress and the two Intelligence Committees.

A White House statement released on Wednesday said the proposed expansion of briefings would undermine “a long tradition spanning decades of comity between the branches regarding intelligence matters.” Democrats have complained that under President George W. Bush, entire programs were hidden from most committee members for years.

The question of the C.I.A.’s candor with the Congressional oversight committees has been hotly disputed since Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to disclose in a 2002 briefing that it had used waterboarding against a terrorism suspect. Ms. Pelosi said the agency routinely misled Congress, though she later said she intended to fault the Bush administration rather than career intelligence officials.

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Arts suffer from economic crisis

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:58:05 +0200

This video from the USA is called Art, community, the environment (and the financial crisis).

By Richard Phillips from Australia:

Sydney Film Festival 2009—Part 1: Courage and audacity sadly lacking

9 July 2009

This is the first in a series of articles on the 56th Sydney Film Festival held June 3-14.

The Sydney Film Festival was cut by 30 percent this year, running for 12 days instead of the usual 19 and only screening 154 films (118 features and 36 shorts), compared to last year’s 250 movies, and 2007’s 290. Initial statements by festival organisers claimed that the cuts were in response to complaints of “viewer fatigue” and that a shorter festival would be more “financially viable”.

Festival director Clare Stewart later admitted, however, that the decision, which was taken just nine weeks before the festival, came in response to declining corporate funds. “As any arts organisation would say right now, it’s a bloody tough environment for finding corporate sponsorship,” Stewart said. “Other film festivals—Sundance, Tribeca, San Sebastian—have all been open about that ... and in the current economic climate, it behoves us to be economically responsible.” ...

The obvious question, however, is why is this important cultural event, held in a major global centre, so dependent on private sponsorship? Why does it not receive adequate funds from the state and federal governments?

The crisis facing the New York City Opera says a great deal about the current state of so-called “high” culture, those sections of the performing arts that are not always or even mostly profitable: here.

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Japanese government in trouble

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:30:19 +0200

Japanese workers at US bases on strike-Report-EN-FRANCE24
by france24

By John Chan:

Japan: Ruling LDP in disarray

9 July 2009

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso appointed two new cabinet ministers on July 1 in the latest move to shore up his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government. With rock-bottom opinion poll ratings and the worst economic slump in more than 60 years, the government is in disarray in the lead up to a general election due to be held before mid-September.

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Honduran coup and the media

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:12:53 +0200

This video says about itself:

Venezuelan-American attorney and lawyer Eva Golinger says the military coup [in Honduras] couldn't have happened without the approval of Washington.

Underlying the coup that overthrew Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is a social system dominated by extreme inequality and grinding poverty for the vast majority of the country’s people, as well as a long history of US intervention and domination: here.

The contrasting coverage of events in Iran and Honduras says a great deal about the character and role of the [US] American media: here.

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Pro-US Afghans killing each other

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:10:36 +0200

From the BBC:

Afghan clash 'kills police chief'

The provincial police chief and at least eight other police have been killed in a clash with US-trained Afghan guards in Kandahar, reports say.

The clash is said to have erupted after the guards, who are employed by US special forces, tried to remove an Afghan prisoner from a civic building.

The situation remains confused, with Kandahar city closed off.

Kandahar province is a Taliban stronghold, but there is no suggestion the Taliban were involved. ...

Gun battle

The guards are said to have tried to free one of their colleagues who was being kept prisoner at the prosecutor's office in Kandahar City. ...

The BBC in Afghanistan has been told that what began as a fist fight with police turned into a gun battle.

Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of Kandahar's provincial council and a brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, confirmed the incident.

"The police chief for Kandahar, the head of the city's criminal department and seven other police were killed in the clash," he told Reuters news agency.

A BBC update, later today, says:

Afghan guards held after shootout

Forty-one US-trained Afghan guards have been arrested after a shootout in which Kandahar's provincial police chief was killed, the regional governor says.

Thoryalai Wesa says the guards will be sent from the southern province to the capital Kabul for trial.

Up to eight other policemen were killed after the guards, who are employed by US security forces, entered the prosecutor's office in Kandahar city.

They were trying to free colleagues held in the building, the BBC was told.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he "seriously condemns this action", describing it as a "serious blow to governance-building".

Gun battle

In a statement, Mr Karzai's office described what had happened.

"Armed men from one of the private security firms based in Kandahar tried to free two criminals - they attacked the local prosecutor's office," it said.

"The police chief of Kandahar and the head of the criminal investigation department resisted them - these guards opened fire" and killed them, it went on.

The statement said three others were also killed, although other reports put the total at nine.

The police chief has been named as Matiullah Qatay and the head of the criminal investigation department as Abdul Khaliq Hamdam.

The US military spokesman in Kabul, Col Greg Julian, confirmed to the AFP news agency that there had been "an incident" but did not have details.

Some witnesses had said US forces were at the scene of the incident, but this is unconfirmed.

...

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that Afghan guards are often employed at coalition military bases across the country.

They are paid and trained by the US. While the guards are recognised by the Afghan government, they do not come under their command.

Locals often refer to these guards as Afghan special forces as they are well-trained and well-armed, our correspondent says.

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US museum dinosaurs, victims of gas capitalism?

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:00:13 +0200

From Associated Press:

Paleontologists don't dig closing Wyo. dino museum

By Mead Gruver

Associated Press Writer / June 12, 2009

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Paleontologists are in an uproar over a decision by the University of Wyoming to save money by closing its Geological Museum, home to dinosaur specimens including a rare skeleton display.

Closing the museum -- and laying off its director and a part-time employee -- is expected to save about $80,000 a year. It's part of $18 million in cuts the university in Laramie announced last week amid predictions of declining state revenue.

But paleontoligsts, including ReBecca Hunt-Foster of Grand Junction, Colo., say closing the museum would be a mistake. "I really don't think they've thought this through," she said. "They've got world-class specimens."

Hunt-Foster ... writes a paleontology blog and calls herself "Dinochick" online. She has been circulating an online petition that as of Friday had more than 800 signatures.

She said schoolchildren from all over Wyoming and Colorado visit the museum, which includes an apatosaurus skeleton that is one of only about a half-dozen such displays in the country.

"You can go to a lot of little museums and see the same thing over and over and over again. But at the museum in Laramie, they really do a good job of interpreting their local paleontology and geology," she said.

...

Blaire Van Valkenburgh, president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, said other natural history museums have had to reduce staffing and hours of operation due to decreased funding, but this is the first natural history museum she knows of that is closing.

"Of course we're very horrified and these are very tragic decisions if they do follow through with it," said Van Valkenburgh, who is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It's very unfortunate."

Dewey Blanton, a spokesman for the American Association of Museums in Washington, D.C., said other natural history museums facing budget trouble recently include the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, which cut back its hours of operation; the San Diego Natural History Museum, which cut staff pay 10 percent; and the University of Connecticut's Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, which has cut both its hours and staff.

"It's certainly not confined to natural history museums but all museums -- all nonprofits are suffering in the economy," Blanton said.

The University of Wyoming's budget cuts are in response to low natural gas prices. Taxes and royalties on natural gas production provide a significant chunk of Wyoming's state government revenue.

Then, why not tax Big Oil and Gas a bit more, so that the museum dinosaurs will stay?

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Anti apartheid exhibition in London

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:00:56 +0200

Jerry Dammers & friends - Free Nelson Mandela
by mickeynold

From British daily The Morning Star:

Apartheid struggle remembered

Thursday 11 June 2009

A new exhibition documenting the South Africa's vicious apartheid system will open tomorrow at the Museum of London.

Forward to Freedom highlights the struggle of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the movement's foundation.

The display will include campaign posters and materials spanning 40 years.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement was the largest and most potent international solidarity movement in British history, one which bridged political divides and involved ordinary people from many backgrounds.

The display explores the versatility and creativity of its most significant campaigns, including the decades-long consumer boycott, the high-profile demonstrations against touring South African rugby and cricket teams, the call for an end to arms trade with South Africa and the many campaigns in support of political prisoners and against apartheid executions.

The display also underlines the central importance of London as the city where the Anti-Apartheid Movement was founded and based many of its campaigns and the capital of a country which was inextricably linked with apartheid South Africa, especially during the Thatcher-led Tory years in the 1980s.

Commenting on the exhibition, Lord Bob Hughes of Woodside, who is a former Labour MP and previous chairman of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, said: "This display and partnership with Museum of London and the Bodleian Library reflects the ethos of collaboration demonstrated by the Anti-Apartheid Movement throughout its history."

Forward to Freedom runs from June 12 to September 6 and is free for all.

See also here.

The exhibition is in the Museum of London, London Wall, London EC2Y 5HN.

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McCain's Top Strategist Lobbied For Iran-Linked Firm

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:48:31 +0200

This video from the USA is called John McCain: [Shiite] Iran training [Sunni] Al-Qaeda, Oh, I mean extremists.

From Sam Stein's blog in the USA:

McCain's Top Strategist Lobbied For Iran-Linked Firm

June 2, 2008

In the summer of 2005, John McCain's chief strategist Charlie Black, working for his firm Black, Kelly, Scruggs & Healey, was paid $60,000 to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of the Chinese oil conglomerate CNOOC. At the time, CNOOC was mounting an aggressive bid to buy Unocal, a California-based oil giant, and Black was tasked with churning up congressional support. But the bid ultimately fell through, in part because of objections over the China oil industry's ties to Iran, a country in which it had already invested tens of millions of dollars.

"This transaction poses a clear threat to the energy and national security of the United States," wrote Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican. ...

Flash-forward nearly three years and Black's old client -- which later scored a $16 billion deal with the Iranian government -- could now create major headaches for his current boss. On Monday, McCain, in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, called for a broad and aggressive international campaign to divest from Iran.

Maybe McCain's "bomb, bomb Iran" macho talk aims at erasing the tracks of his buddy Black's link to the Iranian regime ... like Dick Cheney's warmongering against Iran may try to cover up Cheney's Halliburton's selling of nuclear components to Iran ... and Donald Rumsfeld's war against Iraq took attention away from the chummy 1980s Rumsfeld-Saddam Hussein relationship ...

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What is happening at Blogsome and Blogger blogs?

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:38:01 +0200

Yesterday, suddenly the Blogsome site became inaccessible. A problem for many bloggers, including me with over 2,000 entries at "Dear Kitty. Some blog", there.

I do hope the problem will be solved very soon. I don't want the heartbreaking experience at ModBlog again, where the owners pulled the plug on thousands of bloggers without any notice.

At least, I have two backup blogs for my main blog at Blogsome. However, only this one here at blog.co.uk is working now. As my backup blog at Blogger was blocked, as over zealous anti spam blog software decided my blog was supposedly a spam blog. If I would not inform them within twenty days, they said, that it was not a spam blog, they would delete my Blogger blog.

Of course, I informed them, and I hope now they will make my Blogger blog accessible again. However, it being a backup blog; and my main blog at Blogsome having, until yesterday, few technical problems; I was lucky to go there yesterday, as I did not come there often.

Stay tuned, for the moment at this blog here.

UPDATE: fortunately, my BlogSome blog is back. The downtime was "only" 12 hours. I hope it won't happen again.

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Terminal cancer patient executed in the USA

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:10:56 +0200

This video, in English and Spanish, is against the death penalty in the USA.

From Dutch NOS TV:

In the US state of Oklahoma, a terminal cancer patiënt has been killed by an injection. It is a 49 year old man, convicted eleven years ago for shooting his employer.

Opponents of the death penalty call this execution senseless as the man had only half a year left to live. His lawyer had asked the supreme court to stop the execution as it would be against the constitution which bans cruel and unusual punishment.

See also here.

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Chagos islanders keep fighting in London

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:10:56 +0200

This video is called The Plight of the Chagos Islanders Part 1.

Part 2 is here.

From British daily News Line:

Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Chagos Islanders head for 10 Downing Street

Chagos Islanders are angry that the Blair government, in its dying hours has appealed to the House of Lords against the recent Court of Appeal decision that they are able to return to a part of the Chagos Islands Group.

They were forcibly expelled from the Chagos Islands by the Wilson government so that Diego Garcia could be handed over to the US governent for a massive US naval and air base.

The House of Commons never voted on their eviction.

The ethnic cleansing was carried out by a special order in council signed by Elizabeth II.

On Friday, at 3pm, a delegation of Chagos Islanders will be delivering a letter to 10 Downing Street demanding that the new Prime Minister Brown withdraw the appeal to the House of Lords and makes arrangements for the islanders to be able to return to their homes.

Many Diego Garcians now live in Crawley in Sussex.

Some of them will be travelling up to Downing Street on Friday at 3pm.

Chairman of the Chagos Islanders Community Association, Hengride Permal told News Line yesterday: ‘We are going to bring a petition letter to Mr Brown because we think the British government is playing with us, especially now after the court judgement that we have the right to go back to the Chagos Islands.

‘This is the third time they have said they are going to appeal it and now they are going to appeal to the House of Lords.

‘It’s time for the government of Mr Brown to meet us face to face about what is going to happen to us and negotiate because we are not going to sit around and wait until they decide. The Chagossian people need action now.

‘A lot of the Chagossians have signed the petition letter and it’s about time that we had justice. It was Blair’s last decision as prime minister to appeal against the court decision.

‘Three times the court has judged that what they did to us was illegal and three times they have appealed. It’s very disrespectful and very disgraceful.’

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Rare frog and snake found in India

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:51:17 +0200

From The herptile blog:

Rare species of frog, snake in Orissa

Kendrapada (Orissa), June 26: Two highly endangered species, the crab-eating frog and the white belly mangrove snake, have been spotted in Orissa.

The rare species were seen at the river mouth of Dhamra, five kilometres from the Bhitarkanika national park in Kendrapada district, some 170 km from Bhubaneswar, Sushil Kumar Dutta, a herpetologist, told IANS.

Dutta, a zoology professor with the North Orissa University at Baripada, and his team found the frog and the snake during a recent study. ...

The crab-eating frog, scientifically known as ‘fejervarya cancrivora’, is native to Southeast Asia. It inhabits mangrove swamps and is the only known modern amphibian that can tolerate salt water.

The white belly mangrove snake is scientifically known as ‘fordonia leucobalia’. It stays in mangrove swamps and tropical tidal wetlands from Southeast Asia to the coasts of Northern Australia.

The snake hangs out in crab-made holes, after eating its occupants. It is an estuarine species and has all the adaptations necessary for survival in a fully marine life.

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Slam poetry in the theatre, again

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:34:26 +0100

After the first part of the first round two weeks ago, today was the second part of the first round of the slam poetry tournament.

There were supposed to be six poets: two from The Netherlands, four from Belgium.

However, from Flanders, Tine M Ducatteeuw and Pauline Pisa were not there.

From The Netherlands, the first poet on stage was Seipie from Amsterdam.

His poems were on an elephant, a carp, and more.

Second was Leon Koek, added to the program later.

His poems included one on an inflatable doll.

Third was Sylvie Marie from Belgium, whose poems included one on the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.

Then, Jos Zuijderwijk, with a poem on gulls in Leiden, and more.

Finally, David Troch from Belgium.

After a pause, with rap music by Horizontaal, including a song on Guantanamo Bay, the same poets again, but in reverse order.

Jos Zuijderwijk had a poem on the Afghanistan war.

The jury decided David Troch would go on to the final round of the slam poetry tournament.

And the votes of the audience decided that Leon Koek would join him there.

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Welcome to Dear Kitty backup blog UK

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 18:18:13 +0200

Hi, welcome to Dear Kitty backup blog UK.

It is a backup blog in case something goes wrong with my main blog.

When I started here in 2005, that was at ModBlog: it was Dear Kitty Modblog.

UPDATE 25 October 2006: Unfortunately, ModBlog is gone.

Now my main blog is at Blogsome, here.

As the new Harry Potter book comes out these days: a picture of a snowy owl.

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