Click here to view this media U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the assassination of Osama bin Laden Monday. “Osama bin Laden is dead and justice has been done,” she said. “I know that nothing can make up for the loss of the victims or fill the voids they left, but I hope their families can now find some comfort in the fact that justice has been served.” And the Secretary had a message for al Qaeda and the Taliban. “Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today, it may have even greater resonance. You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us, but you can make the choice to abandon al Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process.”
Continue reading …
The Sept. 11 attacks and Osama bin Laden triggered a new industry centered around airport security. Now, his death has triggered an uptick in the funny T-shirt business. As news filtered out last night that U.S. special operations forces killed Osama bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan, people looking to capitalize on his death got to
Continue reading …
enlarge Wow. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown announced Monday that he will go to Afghanistan as part of his annual National Guard duties. The Republican senator, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, will leave for Afghanistan before the end of the calendar year, according to his office. “I have service obligations that I fulfill each year. Following in the tradition of other lawmakers who have completed their military service requirements overseas, this year I have requested to conduct my annual training in Afghanistan,” Brown said in a statement. Brown, who serves on the Senate Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs committees, said his training in Afghanistan “will help me to better understand our ongoing mission in that country, and provide me first-hand experience for my duties.” Unlike the rest of the draft-deferring GOP who feel qualified to opine on matters military, I have hopes that Brown will have enough independence to lead the push for us to leave Afghanistan having personally experienced the futility of our operations there.
Continue reading …
EU climate chief opens discussion about extending the targets and expresses concern at gas industry’s lobbying The EU’s climate chief is seeking to extend the bloc’s renewable energy targets, in a move apparently designed to protect the green energy sector from an intensifying attack by the gas industry . This is the first time the European commission has raised the issue of mandatory targets beyond 2020, when the current commitment – to generate 20% of energy from renewable sources – expires. An extension would boost the renewable energy industry in the face of lobbying efforts by the gas industry , which is trying to rebrand gas as a cheaper “green” alternative to renewables. In its attempts to push this line, the gas industry has held a series of high-level meetings with senior figures in the European commission and the European parliament, as well as with the governments of member states. Connie Hedegaard, the climate change commissioner in Brussels , is concerned at the lobbying, and is determined to maintain Europe’s lead in developing renewable energy and clean technology. “We should be looking to avoid a lock-in to fossil fuels,” she said. “We should be discussing a renewable energy target for 2030. We need to have ambitious targets. It would be one way to send a long-term price signal for renewable energy – that renewable energy is not just going to stop growing after 2020.” In an interview with the Guardian, Hedegaard declined to put a clear figure on what the renewable energy target should be beyond 2020. But others have suggested that it could be cost-effective to opt for a target of 40% by 2030. The push to extend the target is likely to be resisted by some member states who fought hard against the 2020 targets when they were unveiled in early 2007. Poland is known to be concerned that its heavy reliance on coal should not attract penalties, and Italy has a history of opposing climate targets.An official in the department of Günther Oettinger, the EU commissioner for energy, said no targets were yet needed beyond 2020. He is also against raising the current emissions-cutting target from 20% by 2020 to 30%, as some member states – including the UK, France and Germany – have proposed. A spokesman for José Manuel Barroso said the European commission president was following the arguments closely, but had no view on the matter of new targets. In its ” Roadmap to 2050 “, the commission estimated that the share of low-carbon technologies – comprising renewables, nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage – in the electricity mix would have to rise to 75% or 80% by 2030 . The gas industry’s lobbying push has been inspired by the rapid expansion of shale gas, a controversial form of the fuel that is extracted from dense shale rock. Industry estimates suggest there may be enough of this and other so-called “unconventional” forms of gas, which are newly accessible because of advances in a technique known as hydraulic fracturing – “fracking” – to power the globe for two centuries. Lobbyists have circulated a report by the European Gas Advocacy Forum , co-authored by the consultancy McKinsey, that appears to show Europe could meet its 2050 greenhouse gas targets and save €900bn by opting for gas rather than renewable energy generation. However, the assertions of the gas industry are now in doubt. The EGAF report was adapted from a previous study that contradicts this claim, concluding that Europe should opt for more renewable power in order to meet its emissions targets and improve its energy security. The EGAF report has now been disowned by the original study’s co-authors , the European Climate Foundation. A separate study from Cornell University also found that, because of the difficulties involved in its production, using shale gas for electricity generation produces as much carbon dioxide as coal, if not more. Renewable energy Energy Gas Carbon emissions Climate change European Union Green politics Gas Oil and gas companies Energy industry Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Eisläuferin is part of an outstanding collection of postwar German art to be sold at Sotheby’s One of Gerhard Richter’s earliest paintings, which the artist thought had been destroyed long ago, has emerged in the most significant collection of recent German art ever to come on the market. Richter’s paintings over the past 50 years are all in his catalogue raisonné – a comprehensive list of his works. Eisläuferin, “skater”, holds a special place at No 2, but until now the only version available has been a poor-quality mono illustration on Richter’s website. The original is expected to fetch up to £3m Sotheby’s is to auction Eisläuferin along with other works from the 1960s and 1970s. The sale, in June, will include canvases by Georg Baselitz and Sigmar Polke, all assembled by German industrialist Count Christian Duerckheim. Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art in Europe, said of Eisläuferin: “It is a special painting last exhibited in 1963 in a very, very early group show that Richter was part of and then the artist lost sight of the piece. Basically Richter and everyone around him thought that the work was destroyed.” “We are working very closely with Richter’s archive and the team around the artist are very excited,” she said. The work is one of 59 in the sale, with a total estimated value in excess of £33m. “It is a truly outstanding collection. We’ve never seen anything like it on the market,” said Westphal, describing the paintings as a “portrait of a generation of artists”. She added: “To have a collection of this quality, depth and unbelievable freshness has never happened before.” Richter, who will have a retrospective at Tate Modern this autumn to mark his 80th birthday, is also represented by works such as Telefonierender, an early photo-painting, and 1024 Farben, a vivid colour chart. Many of the works have not been seen publicly since they were exhibited in the early 1960s. One of the auction’s highlights is Baselitz’s The Big Night Down the Drain, which Sotheby’s believes is “the most important German work of art of the postwar period to come to the market”. The canvas – showing a short, ugly man holding his outsized erect penis – was inspired by a newspaper story about Irish poet Brendan Behan reading his work on stage, drunk and with his flies open. In 1963 it was confiscated by the German authorities for “infringement of public morality”. Baselitz got the painting back only after several years, and several court cases. The Big Night Down the Drain has a sale estimate of £2m-£3m. During a 2007 retrospective in London, curator Norman Rosenthal wrote: “The artist recently stated in public that perhaps he never has and never will make a finer painting.” Duerckheim has other important examples of the artist’s work including Spekulatius, from the Hero series. One of the Polke works is Jungle, the largest of the artist’s dot paintings, estimated to be worth £3m-£4m. “We all thought it was a much smaller work than it is,” said Westphal. “When I finally got to see the painting I nearly fainted. It was so amazing and such a discovery.” Duerckheim says he is selling because he feels the collection is complete and it is time to start something new. It will be shown publicly in London before the sale. Gerhard Richter Germany Europe Mark Brown guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Eisläuferin is part of an outstanding collection of postwar German art to be sold at Sotheby’s One of Gerhard Richter’s earliest paintings, which the artist thought had been destroyed long ago, has emerged in the most significant collection of recent German art ever to come on the market. Richter’s paintings over the past 50 years are all in his catalogue raisonné – a comprehensive list of his works. Eisläuferin, “skater”, holds a special place at No 2, but until now the only version available has been a poor-quality mono illustration on Richter’s website. The original is expected to fetch up to £3m Sotheby’s is to auction Eisläuferin along with other works from the 1960s and 1970s. The sale, in June, will include canvases by Georg Baselitz and Sigmar Polke, all assembled by German industrialist Count Christian Duerckheim. Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art in Europe, said of Eisläuferin: “It is a special painting last exhibited in 1963 in a very, very early group show that Richter was part of and then the artist lost sight of the piece. Basically Richter and everyone around him thought that the work was destroyed.” “We are working very closely with Richter’s archive and the team around the artist are very excited,” she said. The work is one of 59 in the sale, with a total estimated value in excess of £33m. “It is a truly outstanding collection. We’ve never seen anything like it on the market,” said Westphal, describing the paintings as a “portrait of a generation of artists”. She added: “To have a collection of this quality, depth and unbelievable freshness has never happened before.” Richter, who will have a retrospective at Tate Modern this autumn to mark his 80th birthday, is also represented by works such as Telefonierender, an early photo-painting, and 1024 Farben, a vivid colour chart. Many of the works have not been seen publicly since they were exhibited in the early 1960s. One of the auction’s highlights is Baselitz’s The Big Night Down the Drain, which Sotheby’s believes is “the most important German work of art of the postwar period to come to the market”. The canvas – showing a short, ugly man holding his outsized erect penis – was inspired by a newspaper story about Irish poet Brendan Behan reading his work on stage, drunk and with his flies open. In 1963 it was confiscated by the German authorities for “infringement of public morality”. Baselitz got the painting back only after several years, and several court cases. The Big Night Down the Drain has a sale estimate of £2m-£3m. During a 2007 retrospective in London, curator Norman Rosenthal wrote: “The artist recently stated in public that perhaps he never has and never will make a finer painting.” Duerckheim has other important examples of the artist’s work including Spekulatius, from the Hero series. One of the Polke works is Jungle, the largest of the artist’s dot paintings, estimated to be worth £3m-£4m. “We all thought it was a much smaller work than it is,” said Westphal. “When I finally got to see the painting I nearly fainted. It was so amazing and such a discovery.” Duerckheim says he is selling because he feels the collection is complete and it is time to start something new. It will be shown publicly in London before the sale. Gerhard Richter Germany Europe Mark Brown guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
As government forces try to crush dissent in a wave of raids and arrests, influential intellectuals are fleeing their homes Scores of Syria’s most prominent intellectuals and activists have gone into hiding as government forces try to crush dissent by carrying out raids and arrests in towns and cities across the country. Influential political figures including the lawyer Haitham al-Maleh and doctor Walid al-Bunni, whose prominence has until now protected them, have joined younger activists in fleeing their homes. Security forces rounded up more than 70 people in Zabadani and Idleb on Monday and dozens more in Kafer Nabul, 200 miles north of Damascus, activists said. At least three women were arrested at a protest in Hamra street, in the centre of the capital as all-female groups increasingly take to the streets to protest against the violence and arrests, the brunt of which has been borne by men. One of those held was named as Dana al-Jawabra. The arrests continued in a wave in Deraa on Sunday, with residents saying security forces backed by soldiers marched from house to house methodically selecting people and carrying them away in buses and trucks. Kurdish sources also said seven people had been arrested in the north-eastern towns of Qamischli and Amouda, where large protests have been held. The state news agency, Sana, gave a different version of arrests in Deraa, saying army units had arrested 499 members of “terrorist groups” and killed 10 of their members. The authorities also set a deadline of 15 days for people who had committed “unlawful acts” to give themselves up. Seeking to increase pressure, security forces are increasingly targeting the families of known activists. Human rights monitors said the 22-year-old nephew of the political activist Ayman al-Aswad, Osama, had been arrested in Deraa. Razan Zeitouneh, a lawyer who has been in hiding since the end of March, said her husband had also gone underground after security forces raided their house and arrested her 20-year-old brother-in-law over the weekend. “It is not easy but we have no choice if we want to work,” said Zeitouneh, adding that she believed she would be found and arrested at some point. Foreigners appear no longer immune from arrest as al-Jazeera announced it had not heard from journalist Dorothy Parvaz since she landed in Damascus last Friday. Human rights organisations estimate the Syrian authorities have detained more than 7,000 people since protests calling for the regime to go began in mid-March. About 600 have also been killed. Those emerged report tales of torture and the confiscation of personal belongings including money. One man recently released told the Guardian that he had been badly beaten and prodded with electric tasers. Despite the arrests and violent clampdown, protests posing the biggest challenge to over 40 years of Assad family rule have continued, with violence leaving a trail of devastation across parts of the country. Rastan, a town close to Homs where 13 were killed on Friday, is described by witnesses as a “war zone” littered with tanks, sandbagged checkpoints and burned-out cars. On Monday a humanitarian aid convoy was due to depart from the Jordanian border for the besieged southern city of Deraa from where accounts of devastation continue to emerge. Katherine Marsh is a pseudonym for a journalist living in Damascus Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Protest Katherine Marsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Diseases such as Alzheimer’s almost four times as likely to affect people who are obese in middle age, new study shows People who are obese in middle age are at almost four times greater risk of developing dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease in later life than people of normal weight, according to a study released today. The study, published in the journal Neurology, examined data on more than 8,500 people over the age of 65. Of the sample, 350 had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia and a further 114 had possible dementia. Scientists used records of the participants’ height and weight in the decades before and found that those who had been overweight in middle age had a 1.8 times (80%) higher risk of being diagnosed with dementia in later life. But for obese people, classified as those having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, the risk soared. People with midlife obesity had an almost four times (300%) higher risk of dementia. “Currently, 1.6 billion adults are overweight or obese worldwide and over 50% of adults in the US and Europe fit into this category,” said Weili Xu of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, who led the research. “Our results contribute to the growing evidence that controlling body weight or losing weight in middle age could reduce your risk of dementia.” According to the Alzheimer’s Society, around 750,000 people in the UK suffer from dementia, more than half of those with Alzheimer’s. By 2021, a million people will be living with dementia. Obese people are classified as those with BMI greater than 30, overweight people are those with a BMI between 25 and 30. Between 20 and 25 is classified as normal. Almost 30% of those in the study, 2,541 in total, had been either overweight or obese between 40 and 60 years of age. “Although the effect of midlife overweight on dementia is not as substantial as that of obesity, its impact on public health and clinical practice is significant due to the high prevalence of overweight adults worldwide,” said Xu. Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Society , said: “This robust study adds to the large body of evidence suggesting that if you pile on the pounds in middle age, your chances of developing dementia are also increased.By eating healthily and exercising regularly, you can lessen your risk of developing dementia. Not smoking and getting your cholesterol and blood pressure checked regularly is also very important.” Xu agreed that healthy living in middle age can help to reduce a person’s risk of developing dementia in later life and added that a person’s experience of education also played a role in the rate of decline of the brain. “Based on this data, every one year in higher education is associated with about 10% reduced risk of overweight and obesity, and 8% decreased risk of dementia.” Exactly how excess weight can influence the degradation of the brain is not certain, but Xu said there could many possible mechanisms. “Higher body fat is associated with diabetes and vascular diseases, which are related to dementia risk,” she said. In addition, fatty tissue is the largest hormone-producing organ in the body and it can produce inflammatory molecules which may affect cognitive functioning or the process of neurodegeneration. Sorensen said that further research was needed to find the links between being overweight and dementia. “One in three people over 65 will die with dementia, yet research into the condition is desperately underfunded.” The Alzheimer’s Society has launched the Drug Discovery programme, which it says could lead to new treatments for dementia within a decade. Scientists will screen compounds that have already been licensed for other conditions, to see if they have any effect on the causes of Alzheimer’s disease. Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, said not enough clinical trials for dementia were taking place in the UK. “We need £4,000 every day for the next 10 years for the first phase of this groundbreaking initiative, and we are asking all those concerned with dementia to help us raise this. Together, we can transform hundreds of thousands of lives.” Health & wellbeing Alzheimer’s Obesity Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
enlarge Chris Christie says he won’t raise taxes on the rich because they might leave the state. How shocking, that Republican and Blue Dog governors are pursuing tax policies that punish the working class under the guise of keeping the rich in their states: When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was presented with a new state tax on the wealthy, he vetoed it. He said: “You’re not going to fix this tax situation by continuing to load more and more taxes onto people who have both the ability to leave the state and the inclination to leave the state if they feel as if they are being treated unfairly.” It’s not just Christie. Democratic governors in New York and Maryland recently dropped extra taxes on the wealthy from their budgets, citing the same concerns. But two new studies show there is little evidence that the rich flee high-tax states. “Taxes [have] essentially no impact on causing people to leave a state ,” says Jeff Thompson, of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In a study tracking 18 years of migration between states in New England, Thompson found that people mostly move for job-related reasons. They go where the jobs are, regardless of whether it’s low-tax New Hampshire or higher-tax Maine. “If you’re living in a state and your tax bill goes up by a thousand or two thousand dollars,” he says, “that … pales in comparison to what it would cost you to actually move. And it might not be worth it to have to be farther away from your job, farther away from your friends.”
Continue reading …