US servicemen in Japan have been banned from drinking in public places following a number of incidents involving US marines and the local population. According to the order by US Forces Japan (USFJ), all personnel are only allowed to consume alcohol in their own homes. Selling liquor has also been forbidden on the US bases from 10 pm to 8 am local time and anyone found leaving the compound drunk after sunset will be prevented from leaving the base. In the latest round of incidents involving inappropriate and dangerous behavior of US marines, a serviceman was arrested by Japanese police for drunk driving that injured two people on November 30.
The end of America's Pacific century - Opinion - Al Jazeera English.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010
You may not know his name, but my friend Liu Xiaobo is a global icon for freedom. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights.
Today, this hero remains in jail, as China's most famous political prisoner.
Xiaobo is serving an 11-year term for his activism demanding that the Chinese government make his country more democratic and make its courts more independent. His wife, who has never been convicted of any crime, is under house arrest. This is not just.
I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for my work fighting the racist Apartheid system in South Africa. I am humbled to share the Nobel legacy with someone so brave as Xiaobo.
Today, with more than 130 other Nobel Prize winners, I am calling on the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to release Liu Xiaobo from prison and his wife, Xia, from house arrest.
This is an historic moment in China. Every 10 years, the Chinese government hands over power to a new generation of leadership. As of a few weeks ago, Xi Jinping has succeeded his predecessor, Hu Jintao, in leading China -- and hopes are that he will open China to reform more than any of his predecessors.
The Chinese government doesn't usually listen to voices from outside the country. (Or voices from within the country, for that matter!) But the world has a singular opportunity to push for change when China's leadership changes over every 10 years. This is our chance!
Humans are wonderful, and we can do amazing things when we act together. I have seen this time and time again with my own eyes.
Brothers and sisters, we are going to move mountains together!
God bless you,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Cape Town, South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa
election spending
While public records show billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam gave over $53 million to pro-GOP super PACs in the 2012 campaign, he gave about $100 million more to secretive 501(c)(4) groups that do not disclose donors, according to a Huffington Post report. And now, Adelson is reportedly attempting to leverage his massive pro-GOP investment to spur House Republicans to pass legislation that would help his company.
As a point of comparison, the 2004 general election campaigns of President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry combined to spend less than $150 million.
As a point of comparison, the 2004 general election campaigns of President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry combined to spend less than $150 million.
Bradley Manning
Blanking Bradley Manning:
NYT and AP Launch Operation Amnesia
November 30, 2012Source: Empire Burlesque
By Chris Floyd:
On Thursday, Bradley Manning, one of the foremost prisoners of conscience in the world today, testified in open court — the first time his voice has been heard since he was arrested, confined and subjected to psychological torture by the U.S. government.
An event of some newsworthiness, you might think. Manning has admitted leaking documents that detailed American war crimes in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He has been held incommunicado for more than 900 days by the Obama administration. Reports of his treatment at the hands of his captors have sparked outrage, protests and concern around the world. He was now going to speak openly in a pre-trial hearing on a motion to dismiss his case because of that treatment. Surely such a moment of high courtroom drama would draw heavy media coverage, if only for its sensationalistic aspects.
But if you relied on the nation’s pre-eminent journal of news reportage, the New York Times, you could have easily missed notice of the event altogether, much less learned any details of what transpired in the courtroom. The Times sent no reporter to the hearing, but contented itself with a brief bit of wire copy from AP,tucked away on Page 3, to note the occasion.
– The Washington Post reports: Bradley Manning, the Army private accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, told a military judge on Thursday that he contemplated suicide soon after he was arrested in 2010 and that he was kept in isolation for 23 hours a day.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Pussy Riot
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian lawmakers are reworking a draft law introducing prison terms for religious offences after signs that Vladimir Putin is concerned it could undermine the delicate balance between the country's many religions.
The president's party proposed the law after two members of the Pussy Riot punk band were jailed for two years over a protest in a cathedral against Putin's increasingly close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Putin has trod a thin line between celebrating a secular state of many religions and promoting the Russian Orthodox Church since rising to power in 2000, but has leaned more on the Orthodox Church for support since starting his third term as president in May following protests against his rule.
Opponents say the draft law is intended as part of broader Kremlin moves to suppress dissent and bolster public support by casting Putin, a former KGB spy, as the protector of religious believers.
Critics have also said the definition of offending religious feelings is so broad and vaguely defined in the draft law that it risks being ineffective or applied selectively in practice, hurting relations between Russia's many religions.
"The impression is that in the Kremlin they understood that somehow they have overdone it," said Alexei Malashenko, a religion expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
"The goal of this law is still to tighten regulations in general but they understand that a too radical tightening is dangerous so they will consult now and hold talks, especially as at the Kremlin itself there is no unanimity on that matter."
Yaroslav Nilov told Reuters that the parliamentary committee overseeing the legislation, which he heads, was looking again at the wording after Putin told his advisory council on human rights that lawmakers should not rush with the bill.
He did not comment on the jail term it now envisages -- up to three years for offending religious feelings and up to five years for inflicting damage on religious sites or holy books, in addition to fines and community work.
"What does offending religious feelings mean? Is the most important principle for Muslims, that there is no God but Allah, an offence to the religious feelings of Christians?," said Alexei Grishin, a member of Russia's Civic Chamber, an advisory body to the Russian authorities.
"Most likely it is if you approach it very stringently, as it suggests all other gods are not really gods. So the law really needs to be worded very precisely, otherwise it would lead to unpredictable consequences."
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH RESURGENT
The Russian Orthodox Church has been resurgent since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but atheistic traditions are also strong after decades of repression of religious faith during the Soviet Communist era.
About three in four Russians say they are Orthodox Christians and a vast majority were outraged by the profanity-laced Pussy Riot protest in February, although far fewer supported the tough sentences, opinion polls showed.
The two members of the all-female protest band were sentenced for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
Nilov, head of parliament's committee on civic and religious groups, said he hoped the jail terms would stay.
"We are refining the wording. The law will only be passed next year," he said, adding that one change discussed was aimed at avoiding legal discrimination of atheists.
"For example, we will move away from talking of safeguarding the feelings of believers towards creating a punishment for offending people because of their views on religion. Such a phrase will also include non-believers."
Rights activists have said the legislation, in its current form, could blur the line between religion and the state in Russia, which by constitution is a secular country.
"I think our legislation already has enough instruments to protect against attacks on citizens whose right to easily exercise their freedom of conscience, both in religious and other terms, is hindered," Russia's human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, said.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage and Anna Willard)
The president's party proposed the law after two members of the Pussy Riot punk band were jailed for two years over a protest in a cathedral against Putin's increasingly close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Putin has trod a thin line between celebrating a secular state of many religions and promoting the Russian Orthodox Church since rising to power in 2000, but has leaned more on the Orthodox Church for support since starting his third term as president in May following protests against his rule.
Opponents say the draft law is intended as part of broader Kremlin moves to suppress dissent and bolster public support by casting Putin, a former KGB spy, as the protector of religious believers.
Critics have also said the definition of offending religious feelings is so broad and vaguely defined in the draft law that it risks being ineffective or applied selectively in practice, hurting relations between Russia's many religions.
"The impression is that in the Kremlin they understood that somehow they have overdone it," said Alexei Malashenko, a religion expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.
"The goal of this law is still to tighten regulations in general but they understand that a too radical tightening is dangerous so they will consult now and hold talks, especially as at the Kremlin itself there is no unanimity on that matter."
Yaroslav Nilov told Reuters that the parliamentary committee overseeing the legislation, which he heads, was looking again at the wording after Putin told his advisory council on human rights that lawmakers should not rush with the bill.
He did not comment on the jail term it now envisages -- up to three years for offending religious feelings and up to five years for inflicting damage on religious sites or holy books, in addition to fines and community work.
"What does offending religious feelings mean? Is the most important principle for Muslims, that there is no God but Allah, an offence to the religious feelings of Christians?," said Alexei Grishin, a member of Russia's Civic Chamber, an advisory body to the Russian authorities.
"Most likely it is if you approach it very stringently, as it suggests all other gods are not really gods. So the law really needs to be worded very precisely, otherwise it would lead to unpredictable consequences."
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH RESURGENT
The Russian Orthodox Church has been resurgent since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but atheistic traditions are also strong after decades of repression of religious faith during the Soviet Communist era.
About three in four Russians say they are Orthodox Christians and a vast majority were outraged by the profanity-laced Pussy Riot protest in February, although far fewer supported the tough sentences, opinion polls showed.
The two members of the all-female protest band were sentenced for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
Nilov, head of parliament's committee on civic and religious groups, said he hoped the jail terms would stay.
"We are refining the wording. The law will only be passed next year," he said, adding that one change discussed was aimed at avoiding legal discrimination of atheists.
"For example, we will move away from talking of safeguarding the feelings of believers towards creating a punishment for offending people because of their views on religion. Such a phrase will also include non-believers."
Rights activists have said the legislation, in its current form, could blur the line between religion and the state in Russia, which by constitution is a secular country.
"I think our legislation already has enough instruments to protect against attacks on citizens whose right to easily exercise their freedom of conscience, both in religious and other terms, is hindered," Russia's human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, said.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage and Anna Willard)
U.S. and world production of oil
Bill Fisher of the University of Texas at Austin expects the world to gradually transition to an economy based on natural gas during the first half, then to a hydrogen economy.
Caltech physicist David Goodstein sees little hope for hydrogen, which he said requires fossil fuels in order to extract. And natural gas, like oil and coal and shale (another proposed alternative) are all finite.
Goodstein puts little stock in nuclear fusion. It doesn't matter so much when we run out, he argues, but what we do about it. He predicts a looming world crisis that could fuel war and bring society to its knees.
Stanford University geophysicist Amos Nur predicts the potential for war. None of the roughly 500 scientists in the room voiced disagreement with Nur.
(Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein W.W. Norton & Company)
http://www.livescience.com/3754-oil-fuel-civilization.html
The amount of recoverable OPEC oil is 909 BSTB (billion barrels) or which is about 78% of the world reserves.
Non-OPEC countries have already reached their peak production in 2006.
The amount of recoverable non-OPEC oil is 252 BSTB (billion barrels) or 22% of the world's reserves being depleted at an annual rate of 5.6%.
The US uses about 7 billion of the 30 billion barrels of oil produced annually around the globe. The United States now imports nearly 60 percent of the oil it uses. Oil consumption equals standard of living.
China uses a comparatively modest 1.5 billion barrels a year (perhaps 2.4 billion this year) according to some estimates. India consumes less. China's consumption is expected to grow 7.5 percent per year, and India's 5.5 percent.
Both countries' economies are becoming increasingly dependent on oil, however.
http://www.q8nri.com/home/2010/03/10/kuwaiti-researchers-predict-peak-oil-production-in-2014/
Caltech physicist David Goodstein sees little hope for hydrogen, which he said requires fossil fuels in order to extract. And natural gas, like oil and coal and shale (another proposed alternative) are all finite.
Goodstein puts little stock in nuclear fusion. It doesn't matter so much when we run out, he argues, but what we do about it. He predicts a looming world crisis that could fuel war and bring society to its knees.
Stanford University geophysicist Amos Nur predicts the potential for war. None of the roughly 500 scientists in the room voiced disagreement with Nur.
(Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein W.W. Norton & Company)
http://www.livescience.com/3754-oil-fuel-civilization.html
Crude oil production will peak in 2014
Scientists from Kuwait University and Kuwait Oil Company are forecasting that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014—almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. The world oil reserves are being depleted at an annual rate of 2.1%.The amount of recoverable OPEC oil is 909 BSTB (billion barrels) or which is about 78% of the world reserves.
Non-OPEC countries have already reached their peak production in 2006.
The amount of recoverable non-OPEC oil is 252 BSTB (billion barrels) or 22% of the world's reserves being depleted at an annual rate of 5.6%.
The US uses about 7 billion of the 30 billion barrels of oil produced annually around the globe. The United States now imports nearly 60 percent of the oil it uses. Oil consumption equals standard of living.
China uses a comparatively modest 1.5 billion barrels a year (perhaps 2.4 billion this year) according to some estimates. India consumes less. China's consumption is expected to grow 7.5 percent per year, and India's 5.5 percent.
Both countries' economies are becoming increasingly dependent on oil, however.
http://www.q8nri.com/home/2010/03/10/kuwaiti-researchers-predict-peak-oil-production-in-2014/
Saturday, December 1, 2012
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