The man accused of gunning down Gabrielle Giffords and killing six is mentally incompetent to stand trial, a judge has ruled The man accused of gunning down US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killing six is mentally incompetent to stand trial, a judge has ruled after US marshals dragged him out of the courtroom because of an angry outburst. As survivors of the deadly January attack looked on, Jared Lee Loughner lowered his head, raised it, and said what sounded like “Thank you for the freak show. She died in front of me.” His words were loud but mumbled, and it wasn’t clear who he was talking about. He wore a khaki prison suit and sported bushy, reddish sideburns. US District Judge Larry Burns’ decision means the 21-year-old will now be sent to a federal facility for up to four months in a bid to restore his competency. The ruling came after Loughner spent five weeks in March and April at a federal facility in Missouri, where he was examined by two court-appointed mental health professionals. The two were asked to determine whether Loughner understands the consequences of the case against him. The competency reports by psychologist Christina Pietz and psychiatrist Matthew Carroll haven’t been publicly released. Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 federal charges stemming from the 8 January shooting at a meet-and-greet event, that wounded Giffords and 12 others and killed six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge. After the outburst, two marshals standing behind Loughner’s chair grabbed him by each arm and led him from the courtroom. Loughner’s father, sitting a few rows behind his son, lowered his eyes and huddled with two women seated next to him. After a short recess, the marshals told the judge that Loughner had calmed down. They then brought Loughner back into the courtroom, and the judge told him he had a right to watch the hearing. Burns asked Loughner if he wanted to stay in the courtroom and behave, or view the proceeding on a TV screen in another room. “I want to watch the TV screen,” Loughner responded. At least two survivors of the Tucson attack looked on: Giffords’s aide Pam Simon, who was shot in the chest and right wrist; and retired Army Colonel Bill Badger, who is credited with helping subdue Loughner after a bullet grazed the back of Badger’s head. Prosecutors had asked for the mental examination, citing a YouTube video in which they believe a hooded Loughner wore garbage bags and burned an American flag. The judge gave the two mental health professionals access to Loughner’s health records from his pediatrician, a behavioral health hospital that treated him for extreme intoxication in May 2006, and an urgent care centre where he was treated in 2004 for unknown reasons. Loughner will be sent to a federal facility for a maximum of four months to see if his competency can be restored. If he’s later determined to be competent, the case against him will resume. If he isn’t deemed competent at the end of his treatment, his stay at the facility can be extended. There are no limits on the number of times such extensions can be granted. If doctors conclude they can’t restore his mental competency, the judge would have to decide whether the suspect can be restored. If the judge decides there’s no likelihood of restoration, the judge can dismiss the charges against him. In that case, state and federal authorities can petition to have him committed and could seek to extend that commitment repeatedly, said Heather Williams, a federal public defender in Tucson who isn’t involved in the Loughner case. The doctors who examined Loughner were ordered not to focus on his sanity at the time of the shooting. Loughner’s lawyers haven’t said whether they intend to present an insanity defence. But they noted in court filings that his mental condition will probably be a central issue at trial and described him as a “gravely mentally ill man.” Jared Lee Loughner Gabrielle Giffords United States US gun control Gun crime guardian.co.uk
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The president redefines the role of the US and its allies with a stirring speech to both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall Barack Obama has put America and Europe unambiguously on the side of those fighting for freedom across the Middle East, saying the west can remain “the catalysts for global action”, ending a decade of war, terrorism and terrible recession. “The time for our leadership is now,” he asserted, challenging the notion that the west was in inexorable decline. In the centrepiece of a day of extraordinary theatre and pomp, Obama, the first American president to address both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall, sought to redefine the role of the US and its allies. He developed his foreign policy doctrine by arguing that the Arab spring showed the west need no longer fear that its interests and ideals were in conflict. Accepting the west had to overcome mistrust in the region, he said western leaders had come to recognise “repression only offers the false promises of stability, that societies are more successful when their citizens are free and that democracies are the closest allies we have”. But he sought to distance himself from George W Bush’s military simplicities in Iraq, insisting: “We will proceed with humility and the knowledge that we cannot dictate outcomes abroad. Ultimately freedom must be won by people themselves.” Obama’s speech came hours after a joint news conference with David Cameron in which they renewed their calls for Muammar Gaddafi to stand aside. But there were differences in tone, with Cameron saying they should be “turning up the heat” on the Libyan leader, while Obama called for patience and cautioned against artificial timelines. In addition, the US president did not explicitly call for regime change, saying “at minimum” the requirement was “to make sure Gaddafi does not have the capacity to send in a bunch of thugs to murder innocent civilians”. He also sought to dispel as a false perception the suggestion that the US military restraint was preventing a quick fix in Libya, denying that “there are a whole bunch of secret super-effective air assets in a warehouse somewhere that could just be pulled out and that would immediately solve the situation in Libya”. But in the more lofty context of his speech in Westminster Hall, Obama portrayed Libya as a test case of the west’s responsibility to stand up for universal rights. He said: “It would have been easy to argue that nation’s sovereignty is more important than the slaughter of citizens within its borders. “While we cannot stop every injustice, there are circumstances that cut through our caution – when a leader is threatening to massacre his people and the international community is calling for action. That is why we stopped a massacre in Libya. And we will not relent until the people of Libya are protected, and the shadow of tyranny is lifted.” From the beaches of Normandy to the Balkans and to Benghazi, he found a linear path through history, arguing that Britain and America had consistently rejected the notion that “people in certain parts of the world don’t want to be free or need to have democracy imposed on them”. But he warned that the struggle in the Middle East might be long, saying it would be years before these revolutions reached their conclusions. Paraphrasing the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, he reminded his audience: “Power rarely gives up without a fight, particularly in places where there are divisions of tribe and sect. We also know that populism can take dangerous turns – from the extremism of those who would use democracy to deny minority rights, to the nationalism that left so many scars on this continent in the 20th century.” Obama tempered some of his idealism by admitting that America had a strategic self-interest in the Middle East. “We must squarely acknowledge that we have enduring interests in the region: to fight terror with partners who may not always be perfect, and to protect against disruptions in the world’s energy supply.” The speech to 500 parliamentarians – including Cameron and three former prime ministers, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Major – reached its climax when the US president argued that both Britain and America, unusually, defined their nationhood “not through race or ethnicity, but by a belief in the rights of individuals and the rule of law”. Despite the tensions caused by waves of immigration, he said: “The example of our two nations says it is possible for people to be united by their ideals, instead of divided by their differences.” In Obama’s most optimistic passage, and the only one that drew applause in the stately surroundings, he argued that both nations believed “it is possible for hearts to change and old hatreds to pass, that it is possible for the sons and daughters of former colonies to sit here as members of this great parliament, and for the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British army to stand before you as president of the United States”. Away from the speechmaking, Cameron and Obama met for 90 minutes in Downing Street first alone and then alongside the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, the foreign secretary, William Hague, and the chancellor, George Osborne. The talks centred on Afghanistan, North Africa, Israel and the world economy. The prime minister will have been delighted with the pictures of the two men sharing table tennis and a barbecue, and Obama’s assertion that he had come to trust Cameron’s’s judgment through two dozen phone calls. He will have been disappointed, though, that the president did not take up the chance to endorse the coalition’s speedy and deep deficit reduction strategy. Instead he emphasised the differences between the two countries, saying: “Obviously the nature and role of the public sector in the United Kingdom is different than it has been in the United States. The pressures that each country are under from world capital markets are different, the nature of the debt and deficits are different and, as a consequence, the sequencing or pace may end up being different.” But Cameron sought to emphasise the similarities, saying: “When I look across now and see what the US and the UK are contemplating for the future, it is a relatively similar programme in terms of trying to get on top of our deficit and make sure that debt is falling as a share of GDP.” Obama also made clear that he did not think the UN should prematurely recognise Palestine as an independent state. He said: “The United Nations can achieve a lot of useful work but what the UN is not going to be able to do is to deliver a Palestinian state, so I strongly believe that for the Palestinians to take a UN route rather than sitting down and talking with Israel is a mistake.” He also seemed to tack to the Israelis, following his speech calling for a settlement based on 1967 borders, by arguing that it would be difficult currently for Israel to talk to the Palestinians. He said: “Hamas has not renounced violence. Hamas is an organisation that has thus far rejected the recognition of Israel as a legitimate state. It is very difficult for Israelis to sit across the table and negotiate with a party that is denying your right to exist, and has not renounced the right to send missiles and rockets into your territory.” Barack Obama Arab and Middle East unrest Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …We Couldn’t Dream Of Accusing Congress Members Of Taking Advantage Of Their Position. They’re Just Lucky!
May 25, 2011 No CommentDo we even have to pretend this is a coincidence ? There’s a reason why so many politicians vote the interests of the wealthy and retire as millionaires — because they’re playing the system. Maybe it’s time for a new system, one in which their investments are put in a blind trust until the day they leave: Members of the House of Representatives considerably outperform the stock market in their personal investments , according to a new academic study. Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call “significant positive abnormal returns,” with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually. What’s their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both. A study of senators by the same team of researchers five years ago found members of the higher chamber even better at beating the market — outperforming it by about 10 percent, an amount the academics said was “both economically large and statistically significant.” “Being one of 435, as opposed to one of 100, is likely to result in a significant dilution of power relative to members of the Senate,” the researchers wrote.The researchers, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University, noted that the circumstances are ripe for abuse . The House ethics manual clearly states that “all Members, officers, and employees are prohibited from improperly using their official positions for personal gain” and members must disclose their holdings annually. But the House’s official position is that demanding that members either divest themselves of potential conflicts or recuse themselves when there is a conflict is “impractical or unreasonable” because it “could result in the disenfranchisement of a Member‘s entire constituency on particular issues.” Ever since 2006, a small coterie of Democrats has been trying to officially prohibit members of Congress and their staffs from using non-public information to enrich their personal portfolios.The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was most recently re-introduced in March by Reps. Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) and Tim Walz (Minn.) . It has not been heard from since. When I was a reporter, working on a story that a congressman was accepting financial benefits from an insurance company for which he earmarked legislation, I was flabbergasted to discover that it was perfectly okay with the House Ethics Committee. I learned that it is almost impossible to find a member guilty of anything, so when they boot someone on ethics grounds, rest assured it had to be pretty bad.
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Residents flee capital city of Sana’a as bloody clashes continue over future of President Ali Abdullah Saleh Yemen’s president has vowed to resist pressure from armed opposition tribes after a third day of bloody clashes in the capital, Sana’a, insisting he will not step down or leave the country. Residents are fleeing the city in large numbers amid gun battles which have already killed at least 50 people, with the airport also choked with foreign nationals trying to escape. Fears of civil war were fanned further late on Wednesday as troops loyal to the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began firing on defecting government forces. Saleh said he would not allow Yemen to become a “failed state” or a refuge for al-Qaida. “I will not leave power and I will not leave Yemen,” he said in a brief statement released by aides. Saleh also rounded on the US, a former ally which is pressuring him to leave office, saying: “I don’t take orders from outside.” He also pledged to stop the violence “dragging the country into a civil war”. In a severe escalation to the three-month-long uprising against the president’s 33-year rule, government security forces have waged gun battles in recent days against fighters loyal to Yemen’s most powerful tribal leader, who has backed calls for the president’s removal. Gunfire continued in streets around the heavily defended mansion of Sadiq al-Ahmar, head of the Saleh’s own Hashid tribal federation. Some tribal fighters remain holed up in the munitions-marker compound in the eastern neighbourhood of Hasaba, but others now control nearby streets, covering a series of government buildings. In the north of the capital Saleh’s troops opened fire on the 1st armoured brigade, under the command of a former loyalist, Major General Ali Mohsin. Following a shelling on Tuesday night which killed 10 tribesman Ahmar’s compound was in disarray, with burned-out 4×4 vehicles in the courtyard, a swimming pool filled with rubble and camels and peacocks wandering about amid the confusion. The tribal fighters nonetheless remain well supplied. Toyota pickup trucks filled with cartons of juice, fig rolls and boxes of ammunition entered the compound throughout the day. The conflict appears to be the climax of long-souring relations between the president and the Ahmar clan, which are believed to be bankrolling the opposition as well as supporting the upkeep of the hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters camping out in Sana’a. The conflict is steadily escalating, with both sides occupying more ground and bombarding the other more frequently, using a combination of machine guns, snipers and mortars. “Saleh would like to start a war on the tribes,” said Muhammad Abdel Qadhi, a sheikh the president’s own tribe, the Sanhan. “But he will fail. No leader in Yemen has ever been able to defeat the tribes.” The chaos in the capital has prompted many locals to flee, with long lines of cars lining up on roads leaving the city, bags piled high on their roofs. “It’s no longer possible to stay in Sana’a. The confrontations will reach all parts of the city,” said one driver, Murad Abdullah, heading out of the city. Rivalling Pakistan and Afghanistan as an incubator of and shelter for al-Qaida, Yemen shows signs of becoming a serious international threat. Even before the popular uprising, its economy was prostrate and the government, reliant on foreign aid and dwindling revenue from oil, was running out of the cash needed to keep its patronage system going. The clashes, in the sandbagged streets surrounding Ahmar’s compound in Sana’s, erupted after Saleh refused on Sunday at the last minute to sign the Gulf-brokered deal that would ease him out of power within a month. Although he has backed out of previous deals, the latest turnabout was the one that most angered mediators, since loyalist gunmen had earlier trapped western and Arab diplomats in the United Arab Emirates embassy for several hours. Saleh, however, claims that the deal remained on the table. “I am ready to sign within a national dialogue and a clear mechanism,” he said. “If the mechanism is sound, we will sign the transition of power deal and we will give up power.” The opposition had warned that attacks by loyalist forces could trigger a civil war and crush hopes for a political solution to the revolt, inspired by protests that swept aside the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. The next step, according to one analyst, could be the intervention of neighbouring Saudi Arabia to bring about Saleh’s exit and avoid civil war. “Riyadh will not keep watching for long. They have their own network with tribal leaders in Yemen. The next step will be strong intervention from Riyadh to defuse the tension,” said Khaled Fattah a researcher at the University of St Andrews. Saleh, he added, “has reached the stage when he is unable to defuse the tension domestically and [is causing more] headaches than before. So I think the Saudis will interfere in the coming few days.” Yemen Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Peter Walker Matthew Weaver Tom Finn guardian.co.uk
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Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles says General Petraeus has increased levels of violence and should be ashamed of himself Britain’s former ambassador to Afghanistan has attacked the conduct of the war by the US commander, General David Petraeus, describing the future CIA chief’s tactics as counter-productive and “profoundly wrong”. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who also served as the UK’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, added that Petraeus should be “ashamed of himself” for making claims of the number of insurgent commanders his forces had killed. “He has increased the violence, trebled the number of special forces raids by British, American, Dutch and Australian special forces going out killing Taliban commanders, and there has been a lot more rather regrettable boasting from the military about the body count,” said Cowper-Coles. He added that the use of statistics was reminiscent of the Vietnam war. “It is profoundly wrong and it’s not conducive to a stable political settlement.” Petraeus is due to leave Afghanistan to become CIA director this summer. Since taking command of US and coalition troops in Afghanistan last June, he has increased the use of special forces raids and drone attacks against Taliban commanders. Earlier this year, Petraeus told Congress that his forces were killing or capturing 360 insurgent leaders every three months. His officers argue that the tactic is demoralising the Taliban and will ultimately make the movement more likely to agree to a peace deal on the terms of Kabul and the west. Cowper-Coles insists the tactic will make it harder for the west to find a political settlement and end the war. “There is no doubt that Petraeus has hammered the Taliban extremely hard,” he said. “I am sure that some of them are more willing to parlay. But, equally, for every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge. “Of course it produces tactical success in cleansing insurgents out of particular areas, but it’s essentially moving water around a puddle, and I think any general who boasts of the number of Pashtun insurgents he’s killed should be ashamed of himself.” He added: “Regrettably, General Petraeus has curiously ignored his own principles of counter-insurgency in the field manual, which speaks of politics being the predominant factor in dealing with an insurgency.” He compared the US commander unfavourably with his predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, whose central approach was to protect Afghan civilians, even if meant greater caution in the pursuit of the Taliban. Alongside the former foreign secretary, David Miliband, Cowper-Coles focused his efforts while UK special envoy on persuading the Obama administration to concentrate on a political settlement and start talking to the Taliban. Some reports suggest that Washington has initiated such contacts. But British officials say that Marc Grossman, the US special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan leading the outreach effort, is having trouble finding any credible Taliban representatives to engage in even talks about talks. Few serving British and European officials are as critical of Petraeus as Cowper-Coles. Most argue that the Taliban have to be put under some kind of focused military pressure to persuade them that a negotiated settlement was in their interest. However, there is growing unease in Whitehall that, despite orders to the contrary from Obama and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the military effort was still taking priority. “There are different parts of the Washington establishment who are pulling in different ways,” one official said. “But as long as Petraeus is in Kabul, the military approach will take precedence.” Petraeus is expected to leave Afghanistan in September. In any case, there are few expectations of much progress towards contacts with the Taliban until at least the end of the summer fighting season. Most serving officials are also less confident than Cowper-Coles that senior ranks in the Taliban are interested in a political settlement. “In 2011, there have been more feelers coming out from more senior people, but there is no solid evidence that anyone in the movement has been tasked with finding a route to peace,” one official said. There have been several backdoor attempts to draw the movement into a dialogue, but they have made little progress. “Why would they negotiate?” asked Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit and an expert on the Taliban. “They are winning; they are no longer ostracised in the Islamic world for links to Osama bin Laden. Why would you throw that away?” But Scheuer, the author of a new book on Bin Laden, said that Petraeus’s “decapitation” approach was also unlikely to work.”The Red Army tried that for 10 years, and they were far more ruthless and cruel about it than us, and it didn’t work so well for them,” Scheuer said. Afghanistan David Petraeus Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Back in April a poll was taken that showed how unhappy Floridians were with their newly elected Tea Party Governor Rick Scott: Like many of the newly elected Republican Tea Party Governors, polls are not their friends and Rick Scott of Florida has voters very upset and now would choose Alex Sink over him if they had the chance. Only three months removed from Governor Rick Scott’s (R) inauguration, a majority of Florida voters now say the state is headed in the wrong direction and that, if they could do it all over again, they wouldn’t have elected Scott in the first place, according to a new Suffolk University poll. In the poll, 54% of voters said the state was headed in the wrong direction, compared to 30% who said it was going the right way. Further, just under half (49%) of all voters said they disapproved of Scott’s job performance, versus only 28% who said they approved. Scott’s approval rating is so bad that the poll found him losing a hypothetical do-over election to Democrat Alex Sink by a ten-point margin, 41% to 31%. It’s too bad that when voters got angry they turned to phonies like Rick Scott. The Democrats didn’t help themselves at the time, but after Republicans destroyed our economy, electing alleged criminals is not the answer either. A new poll was released by Quinnipiac and he’s continued to drop like a rock with his constituency. Florida voters disapprove 57 – 29 percent of the job Gov. Rick Scott is doing, the worst score of any governor in the states surveyed by Quinnipiac University and down from a 48 – 35 percent disapproval in an April 6 survey, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. The state’s new budget is unfair to people like them, voters tell the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll 54 – 29 percent. Gov. Scott and the State Legislature are equally responsible for the budget, 68 percent of voters say. The legislature’s job approval rating is nearly identical to that of the governor, as voters disapprove 56 – 27 percent, compared to 47 – 35 percent disapproval in April. Despite the new property insurance law signed by the governor, voters say securing insurance is getting harder and more expensive. “Voters have turned even more negative on Gov. Rick Scott since the last Quinnipiac University survey,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It probably doesn’t make him feel any better that the State Legislature is sharing the basement suite in the eyes of the electorate. The good news for the governor is that he has three and a half years to turn public opinion around. ” Even Scott’s support among Republicans is relatively weak, with 51 percent of GOP voters approving and 37 percent disapproving of his job performance. Disapproval is 72 – 13 percent among Democrats and 57 – 28 percent among independent voters. Both sexes are down on Scott: Men disapprove 53 – 35 percent and women disapprove 60 – 24 percent. Republican voters’ support is also on the steep decline for Scott. I think what we are seeing is that even hard-line Republicans are understanding the consequences of their last action by voting for Scott, and when they begin feeling the effects of his budgetary cuts and unfair policies, they realize their mistake and express regret over the choice. Rick Scott is an ideologue of the highest order who has been linked to criminal actions, and I doubt he will change his modus operandi much in the next three years, but if he doesn’t, he won’t remain in his current job. We can only hope that the damage isn’t irreparable by the time they kick him out. When the economy is in the tank it’s a natural reaction for voters to kick out whoever is in charge no matter what party they represent. We are seeing that play out in Europe. The problem with many lefties overseas is that they grabbed on to the “austerity” chimera, and people across the world are revolting against it. Reuters: Analysis: Europe austerity backlash in votes more than riots Europeans angry at austerity are largely showing it at the ballot box rather than on the streets, delivering a string of local poll rebukes to those in power and favoring more unconventional parties. Recent elections across Europe have suggested a backlash against painful economic measures and a rise in Eurosceptic groups, leading some to fear the continent’s leaders are becoming dangerously out of touch with what their people want. That raises fears that even if countries avoid widescale social unrest, they may simply be unable to deliver essential reforms to tackle their debts. “There is significant and growing political risk in Europe,” said Charles Robertson, chief economist of Russian bank Renaissance Capital. “The gap between voters and the ruling elite is probably as wide as it has ever been. The political risk attached to the euro has probably risen to a record level and is only likely to increase.” Even Socialists are being dumped because they are acquiescing to calls for austerity. You just can’t cut your way out of recessions. These reports out of the UK also make David Brooks’ last article look like the mental joke that he is. The Atlantic: A very young-looking assistant editor at The Telegraph had lots of not-nice things to say about David Brooks today. In his globally syndicated column today–published stateside by The New York Times and in the U.K. by The Guardian –Brooks lauded the British political system and made some historical assumptions. In his rebuttal, Daniel Knowles lauded Brooks’ ability to fail at understanding basic facts: David Brooks, columnist, philosopher, writer of the Social Animal, salve to all our problems, has written a brief missive from London for the New York Times . It’s heartening stuff for us Brits. “As President Obama visits London”, he writes, “we will get a glimpse of the British political culture. We Americans have no right to feel smug or superior.” No doubt Mr Brook’s Westminster admirers will lap this up – is there anything we love more than being told how good we are by foreigners? But this column is laughably ignorant of British history and bizarrely naive about British political culture. Glenn Greenwald writes this about Brooks: It is true that public opinion very occasionally plays an important role in determining what happens in Washington (it sidetracked Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security, and is likely to prevent any serious dismantling of Medicare). But that’s what Brooks and his like-minded establishment mavens are angriest about: that the ignorant, ignoble masses very periodically are able to prevent David Brooks’ establishment political views from being implemented; that dreary problem would be solved by vesting all political power in “people who live in [Washington] and who have often known each other since prep school” — and who think just like David Brooks.
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Labour camp detainees endure hard labour by day, online ‘gold farming’ by night As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells. Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for “illegally petitioning” the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do. “Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,” Liu told the Guardian. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.” Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society. But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real. “If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things,” he said. It is known as “gold farming”, the practice of building up credits and online value through the monotonous repetition of basic tasks in online games such as World of Warcraft. The trade in virtual assets is very real, and outside the control of the games’ makers. Millions of gamers around the world are prepared to pay real money for such online credits, which they can use to progress in the online games. The trading of virtual currencies in multiplayer games has become so rampant in China that it is increasingly difficult to regulate. In April, the Sichuan provincial government in central China launched a court case against a gamer who stole credits online worth about 3000rmb. The lack of regulations has meant that even prisoners can be exploited in this virtual world for profit. According to figures from the China Internet Centre, nearly £1.2bn of make- believe currencies were traded in China in 2008 and the number of gamers who play to earn and trade credits are on the rise. It is estimated that 80% of all gold farmers are in China and with the largest internet population in the world there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country. In 2009 the central government issued a directive defining how fictional currencies could be traded, making it illegal for businesses without licences to trade. But Liu, who was released from prison before 2009 believes that the practice of prisoners being forced to earn online currency in multiplayer games is still widespread. “Many prisons across the north-east of China also forced inmates to play games. It must still be happening,” he said. “China is the factory of virtual goods,” said Jin Ge, a researcher from the University of California San Diego who has been documenting the gold farming phenomenon in China. “You would see some exploitation where employers would make workers play 12 hours a day. They would have no rest through the year. These are not just problems for this industry but they are general social problems. The pay is better than what they would get for working in a factory. It’s very different,” said Jin. “The buyers of virtual goods have mixed feelings … it saves them time buying online credits from China,” said Jin. The emergence of gold farming as a business in China – whether in prisons or sweatshops could raise new questions over the exporting of goods real or virtual from the country. “Prison labour is still very widespread – it’s just that goods travel a much more complex route to come to the US these days. And it is not illegal to export prison goods to Europe, said Nicole Kempton from the Laogai foundation, a Washington-based group which opposes the forced labour camp system in China. Liu Dali’s name has been changed China Human rights Games Internet guardian.co.uk
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Jet plane crewed by two BA pilots and two engineers flies through ‘red-zone’ hanging above Scotland British Airways flight 9271E had an unconventional cargo and destination. There were no passengers on the A320 aeroplane, which took off on Tuesday evening and flew north through a swath of UK airspace that contained, according to Met Office forecasts, a high density of volcanic ash. Crewed by two BA pilots and a pair of observers from the airline’s engineering department, the jet flew at various altitudes through a “red-zone” that hung above much of Scotland and had grounded thousands of travellers beneath it. There was no special monitoring equipment onboard, except for two cameras that were brought to record evidence of ash clouds but were in the end not needed. “We did not have any specialist equipment, hence the observers to put some additional eyeballs onboard with the ability to walk up and down the cabin in case we smelled anything,” said Garry Copeland, BA’s director of engineering who was on the flight. Copeland said there was no evidence of volcanic pollution throughout a 45-minute trip that charted a course from Manchester to Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London Heathrow, flying through the red zone much of the time. Asked if he was apprehensive while the plane waited to be cleared for take-off, Copeland said: “Not at all. We took it very seriously but not in terms of any safety concerns. We were very confident that we were not going to encounter any heavy ash.”After the flight the A320′s twin engines, equipped with new filters, were inspected with the type of telescopic video camera that is also used in pinhole surgery, again finding no evidence of contamination. BA had scrutinised weather maps from various forecasting organisations and was sure that there would be no ash, despite different predictions from the Met Office’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in Exeter. “As an engineer, my way of doing business is to make sure we use all the tools available,” said Copeland, adding that BA was not disregarding the VAAC model but wanted to include other forecasts. Under the current guidelines, UK airlines must abide by VAAC forecasts whereas US and Middle Eastern airlines use predictions by forecaster WSI, which pointed to lower densities of ash. “We wanted to fly in an area of forecast heavy ash to ensure that our procedures for avoiding dense ash were resilient,” he added. The flight had been cleared by the Civil Aviation Authority, the UK’s aviation safety regulator. Copeland added that BA pilots are well-versed in avoiding ash because their aircraft often fly routes where volcanic eruptions are a potential hazard. “The primary guidance is to avoid flying in visible ash, which shows up as a dark cloud. In times when it is not visible, such as in the dark, you can sense a sulphuric smell or see indications of static electricity, like a bluish glow,” he said. BA hopes that the verification flight will define high-density zones more closely, allowing airlines to fly through areas that are, in fact, uncontaminated. “The intention is to find safe ways of continuing operations,” said Copeland. “As engineers we are hard-wired to do that.” Iceland volcano 2011 (Grimsvotn) Iceland Natural disasters and extreme weather Airline industry British Airways Travel & leisure Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Freedom of information laws are used to harass scientists, says Nobel laureate
May 25, 2011 No Comment
Sir Paul Nurse says climate scientists are being targeted by campaigns of requests designed to slow down their research Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society. Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists. Nurse’s comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study into how scientists’ work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how “digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions”. Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had “opened a Pandora’s box. It’s released something that we hadn’t imagined … there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change debate to intimidate scientists. “I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it’s intimidating.” It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. “It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That’s going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently.” Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. “I don’t actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful.” Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists’ work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. “It’s also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience,” he said. “It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden.” Evidence of the aggression first began to emerge when personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) servers in November 2009 and leaked on to the internet. Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed scientists were colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals’ research from being published at all. In an independent inquiry a year later, the scientists at the UEA’s climatic research unit (CRU) were cleared of any misconduct , but Muir Russell, the former civil servant who led the investigation, found a “consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness”, although he stressed he had no reason to doubt the CRU team’s honesty or integrity. “The current fog of ambiguity concerning, for example, drafts of research papers produced in other countries is deeply damaging to our scientific standing,” said Tom Ward, pro vice-chancellor at UEA. “Part of the discussion should be informed by what we can learn from Scottish and US law, which explicitly recognise the need to extend some protection to research in progress.” Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, said he has been involved in many long-running exchanges with people making freedom of information requests for his data. “In the case that went on the longest, I answered all the guy’s questions. I spent half a day writing a long email explaining the answers to all his questions, but it wasn’t really that which he was after: he was after some procedural questions about IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. He wanted some evidence that an IPCC statement had been changed – it wasn’t about science at all; it was about procedure.” He added: “I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it’s very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record.” Nurse said that scientists were not blameless. At the University of East Anglia, they were too defensive in their responses to freedom of information requests over climate change, but their experience was one among many that highlighted a need for better training for scientists in the most appropriate way to respond to information requests. Ward agreed that most universities do not have a very good grasp of the requirements of freedom of information law. But he added that researchers should be able to have confidential conversations with colleagues and researchers in other universities, and that it was increasingly difficult for researchers to do that by email. “There’s no other walk of life where every conversation you have ought to be made public,” he said. “There’s a massive double standards because a lot of the people submitting these requests are themselves not transparent at all. They don’t reveal their sources of funding or the details of what they’re doing behind the scenes.” He added that the best way for scientists to respond was with more openness. “Scientists are going to have to get used to the idea that transparency means being transparent to your critics as well as your allies. You cannot pick and choose to whom you are transparent,” he said. “Increasingly it is going to be an issue for anyone working in contentious areas. Part of retaining the public’s confidence and trust is transparency and openness, and scientists should accept that that is part of the price of having the people’s trust.” Freedom of information Climate change Royal Society University of East Anglia Higher education Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Republicans are not reacting well to last night’s massive Democratic win in NY-26 which became a referendum on Representative Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare . Ryan tried awkwardly to laugh off the drubbing with the help of his dear buddy Joe Scarborough on MSNBC this morning but only looked like a petulant child in the process. His party is clearly on the defensive . His Leader – Speaker Boehner – haplessly fired off this tweet : GOP Path to Prosperity preserves & protects Medicare for retirees & future generations & leaves it completely unchanged for those 55 & over Uh yeah, okay. As Leader Pelosi’s office helpfully pointed out in this memo, it was Boehner, Ryan and the House Republicans who voted to : Re-open the prescription drug ‘donut hole’ for current Medicare beneficiaries (including for “those 55 & over”) Nationwide, nearly four million seniors would pay $2.2 billion more for prescription drugs in 2012 alone. [ DPCC Report] Eliminate the free annual wellness visit for current Medicare beneficiaries (including for “those 55 & over”) This could force at least one million seniors to pay over $110 million more for annual wellness visits in 2012. [ DPCC Report] What’s that word again? That’s right – PWNed . The reality is not fun for national Republicans. Even traditional media analysts are offering up the following ominous dose of conventional wisdom for the national GOP : The reality is that the total fealty to the Ryan budget increasingly demanded of Republican presidential candidates by the party’s base runs directly counter to the unpopularity of making drastic cuts to Medicare among the general electorate. Not only is that a major political problem for the party but it’s one without a simple solution. Of course the Republicans think that the simple solution here is to lie “message” their way out of it: “I think we need to be more aggressive in defining that Obamacare cuts Medicare,” said Christian Ferry, a senior Republican consultant. “Then, if the Ryan plan is our position for going forward, we need to actually get out there and define what it is and what it is not in an aggressive, offensive manner, rather than allowing the Democrats to play gotcha, scare politics as they did in NY-26.” Aaah, yes. Ferry and his GOP cohorts think just lying harder about Affordable Care Act is going to make their problems go away. That is not going to happen because more than a year has passed since ACA became law and not a single senior has seen their Medicare benefits cut. What the new health care law did do away with was waste and abuse in the form of billions of dollars, filling up the pockets of private insurance companies (Republican sugar daddies). As noted by the Economic Policy Institute , “[e]liminating these overpayments [to private insurance companies] would free up $157 billion over 10 years.” You can read more about the waste and abuse issue that ACA eliminated in this Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report . So trying to make their Medicare problem go away by crying about needless subsidies to the big insurance companies as “cuts” is just not going to work. So, back to the main event. What are the Senate Republicans going to do tomorrow? Are they going to bear hug a Ryan budget that even Republican Senators like Olympia Snowe are calling “a race to the bottom” ? Think about what someone like Senator Dean Heller is going to do. Is he going to vote to kill our Medicare program and throw our seniors off the cliff twice? He already voted to do it once as a member of Boehner’s crazy GOP caucus. Imagine the problems that will create for him in a battleground state like Nevada. If all the so-called “moderate” Republican Senators abandon ship when the RyanCare comes on the Senate Floor, that will pull the rug out of all the Republican Congressmen – voting to end Medicare – representing districts that were won by President Barack Obama in 2008. Any way you look at it, the picture is not pretty for the Republicans. It’s no wonder they are sounding like petulant children today.
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