ayreonautiqus

A Fake Birthday with a Fake Family

2011-12-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

With the rest of Savaii gone (excluding Cochran), it's time for the power tribe to start turning on itself. But Ozzy, Dawn, and Whitney are waiting in the wings at Redemption Island. Maybe Dawn will take Ozzy out! At the Te Tuna camp, Edna is getting a little paranoid after seeing her name at Tribal.

"Doesn't this feel great?" Coach says, stupidly, "it finally feels like we're a family." But familiarity breeds contempt, and the former Upolu tribe is starting to become familiar with Cochran. Sophie is not won over by Cochran, and he is not welcome into their family/cult. It is getting pretty freaky on the island.

Cochran notes that the cult feeling is getting strange, and with the perfect music to underscore their prayer and consistent use of the word "family," I am buying into it. Are they going to murder Cochran? He needs a plan before he gets "exterminated." Not if Sophie can help it!

Cochran approaches The Family and asks for one more Tribal Council. For his birthday. Sophie's response? "Screw you." But Coach wants to keep Cochran around. Sophie says she feels "as indebted to Cochran as I do to Edna," which means no promises to either of them.

A duel at Redemption Island will break up the monotony of group decision making! The challenge is one of dish stacking. So if you ever waited tables, or hate doing dishes so you try to stack them as high as possible in the sink, this could be your bag. Has Ozzy ever waited tables? Or was he too busy catching fish in the sea? Dawn wavered a bit, but regained balance on her dish stack. Later, she drops her stack and joins the jury, in tears.

Whitney is looking like she has bused some tables in her day. Ozzy has the focus of a hawk, or my dog when you have food in your hand. Whitney loses it, and congratulates Ozzy on his almost certain opportunity to face off with Coach in the end. Dawn learned that "anything is possible!" She was so cute, telling Jeff that she loves him and kissing her buff goodbye before she goes to have some chicken wings in a hotel.

Ozzy tells us in an interview that he's excited to defeat his enemies in the coming duels, and winning is what he does best. Damn, Ozzy, you've got a case of the Island Crazies.

Meanwhile, back at camp, Edna is desperately doing laundry. Albert, so proud of what he said last time, mentions again how it's not "out-clean, out-gather, out-organize." You tell 'em, Albert. After laying in the hammock for a good two hours, Albert tries to pull some shorts out of Edna's laundry, then extinguishes the fire. This is not good for Albert.

Rick has something to say! Apparently, this whole time, Rick has been calling Albert "Prince Albert," (maybe in his head?). "He's like one of them Barbie dolls, they look really cute because they don't do a damn thing," Rick says. He is not having it! He will stay silent no more!

Edna double checks the game plan with Coach, who would love nothing more than to keep Edna and Cochran around to secure him the win. He ponders whether he should be a man of integrity and stick with the original alliance and his verbal contract, or look out for himself. One thing is certain: sixth or seventh place is not acceptable for Edna.

Coach also likes Cochran, because he is a student, and will learn Tai Chi. They will soon become one with the universe, and each other. They will become ... Coachran.

For this immunity challenge, they will toss sandbags and use a slingshot. The winner gets immunity and a spa day, but the spa is back at camp, which kind of sucks. I hope Rick wins it.

Albert moves onto the final round, followed by Rick (yes! Win that spa day, cowboy!). Sophie lands the third spot in the slingshot round. Albert makes relatively quick work of it, and wins immunity and a massage. Prince Albert will enjoy the spa day, will he not?

He gets to choose one more person to join him. Who from The Family will he choose? The Father, Coach. Albert gives his reward away in lieu of a food reward later down the line, and he gives it to Cochran, whose "birthday" is coming up. This will surely only solidify the growing bond between Coachran.

Naturally, this sets Cochran's head spinning. Was it a way of currying favor, or just a farewell gift? No birthday present will go unexamined! Oh, and it's not Cochran's birthday, his real birthday was 6 months ago. This isn't exactly a Johnny Fairplay dead grandmother, but the lie did get him something!

Coach declares that he will fight for his young warrior, Cochran, even if it means sacrificing his young virgin, Edna. After his massage, Cochran sits down with Albert to take the temperature of the tribe. Albert tells Cochran that he would be ecstatic to see him go farther in the game than Rick. Someone told Albert about the "Prince Albert" comment.

Don't get rid of Rick! He's spectacular. Cochran tells Edna about the plan to oust Rick, and Edna is delighted. They like each other, because they have so much in common, like their rail-thinness and undying devotion to Coach. Cochran reports back to Coach, who strokes his beard and ponders his options to change the rest of the game by switching alliances. If I were Coach, I would ally with the least likeable people possible, and break any alliances with Brandon if possible.

Look how cute Whitney looks on the jury! I hope she and Keith are doing it now. Cochran admits that he feels humiliated to have given life to the Upolu tribe, only to be voted out seventh. Keith looks stupidly delighted to see that Cochran will perish. Edna has her moment as number 6, and then Brandon pipes up.

"Tonight, my vote is for Cochran, and the next night, my vote is for Edna." OK, Brandon, way to stick to the plan as loudly as possible. Coach says Brandon's steadfastness is both a blessing and a curse, which brings Brandon, inexplicably, to tears.

"I'm human, but there's something stronger inside me that won't .... anything worth having's not going to be easy," Brandon cries. This opens up a glorious door for Cochran:

"Brandon has revealed that he's probably not the best person to be in a strategic partnership with, because talking strategy with Brandon is like talking to you about shirts that aren't blue," Cochran says to Jeff. Oh my god, perfection. Jeff is clearly trying to point out that Brandon is a loose cannon and a liability and they should vote him out.

"This has been an eye-opening tribal, hasn't it?" Jeff says, to which Sophie responds, "no." We'll see! Why wont they vote out Brandon? Ah, soon enough. We'll see if Coach switches, though. He loves Cochran, but he is also a man of his word.

The votes go back and forth, between Cochran and Rick. The final vote is for Cochran. Happy Fake Birthday, little buddy. Now he has to go face the god-like, strong, glowing Ozzy and his fish. That's too bad, Cochran gave us all the best soundbites.

Source http://www.buddytv.com/articles/survivor/survivor-recap-a-fake-birthday-42949.aspx

As doctors jailed, Western nations plan weapons sales to Bahrain

2011-10-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

MARK COLVIN: In Bahrain, 20 doctors have been given jail sentences of up to 15 years.

Their crime - treating demonstrators who protested against the ruling family in February and March this year.

Thirteen doctors were sentenced to 15 years in jail. Others were given jail terms of five and ten years.

International human rights groups are outraged by the sentences.

Amnesty International has called the proceedings a 'travesty of justice'.

But Western nations have been more careful in their response, as Jess Hill reports.

JESS HILL: Thousands of Bahraini citizens took to the streets in February this year, calling for democratic elections and political reform.

In one video, dated to February 18th, demonstrators are seen marching towards army tanks in the capital, Manama. They are chanting, and many are waving Bahraini flags.

(Protesters chanting)

Suddenly, security forces open fire.

(Sound of gun fire)

Wounded protesters were taken to the capital's main hospital, the Salmaniya Medical Complex.
Doctors there were overwhelmed.

(Sounds of wailing)

DOCTOR: Definitely a live ammunition, because the femur, the bone, is completely shattered in pieces, many, many, many pieces.

JESS HILL: Dr Ghassan Dhaif was at Salmaniya Medical Complex that day. He made a frantic call to Al Jazeera.

GHASSAN DHAIF: The hospital is full of casualties. All the medical staff are running all over the place. There are victims thrown in the road, nobody can free them, nobody can bring them to the hospital. It's chaos here in the hospital.

We are an innocent people, they haven't done anything, anything, they have just demonstrated peacefully. They were on their way to the hospital and they were shot dead.

JESS HILL: Dr Ghassan Dhaif is now one of 20 doctors sentenced to jail in a Bahraini military court over night.

Dr Dhaif, along with 13 of his colleagues, received the heaviest punishment, 15 years in jail.

The hearing lasted seven minutes. None of the doctors on trial were present at the sentencing. One doctor, Nada Dhaif, who spoke to The World Today, found out about her sentence via Twitter.

The government says these doctors are guilty of crimes against the state. It charged the doctors with stealing medicine, possessing weapons, occupying a public building, and instigating hatred against another sect.

Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Mubarak al Khalifa, is a spokesman for Bahrain's Ministry of Information.

ABDUL-AZIZ BIN MUBARAK AL KHALIFA: I say that they were involved with the Hard Nine protesters in seeking regime change. That is the red line that we will not allow. As worldwide you would expect it, you know, to be the norm.

JESS HILL: Widney Brown is the senior director of International Law and Policy at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London.

WIDNEY BROWN: Absolutely appalling, but unfortunately not surprising. Clearly what's happening is the government wants to punish anyone who gives what they see as support to the protesters, in this case it's medical service providers doing what they must do, which is trying to save people's lives, and they're being punished for that.

JESS HILL: Was there anything in the government's charges that warranted a trial?

WIDNEY BROWN: Based on our research, absolutely not. I think the reason they were charged, and this is absolutely illegitimate, is because they were talking to the press and they were talking to people from, for instance, Amnesty International, to give information about the wounds.

JESS HILL: Britain and the United States have issued statements on the sentences, but stopped well short of condemning them. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said, quote, "the sentences appear disproportionate to the charges brought", and called the developments worrying.

The US State Department says it's 'deeply disturbed' by the sentences, and said the Bahraini government should provide fair trials, access to attorneys and judicial transparency.

Widney Brown, from Amnesty International, says the Britain and the United States are being soft on Bahrain's government, because of the Gulf state's strategic importance.

WIDNEY BROWN: We all know that Bahrain is considered a key country for military purposes, the Fifth Fleet is stationed there. So the willingness to come down hard on the Bahrainian authorities when they're obviously using force against their own people, there's less willingness to take that on board than there was, say for instance, in the first country, Tunisia, which had not real significant political or strategic power.

JESS HILL: The US Defence Department is currently planning to sell Bahrain $53 million worth of weapons. Likewise, the British government invited Bahrain to the UK's largest arms fair earlier this month.

Widney Brown:

WIDNEY BROWN: We're one of the main non-governmental organisations pushing for an arms treaty precisely to stop this type of sale of arms. Basically what we're saying, whether it's a government or a private broker who's selling arms, and we know there's a strong likelihood they'll be used for violations for laws of war, IHL (International Humanitarian Law), or human rights laws. And it has to be stopped.

JESS HILL: A lawyer for the doctors said the group will appeal the verdict next month before Bahrain's High Court of Appeal.

MARK COLVIN: Jess Hill.

Source http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3329927.htm

Berber culture reborn in Libya revolt

2011-07-22T02:28:00.000-07:00

In a packed classroom on a cool evening near the front line in Libya's civil war, 15-year-old Mira is teaching children to spell out the names of animals in the ancient Berber script, an act that once could have landed her in one of Muammar Gaddafi's jails.

The indigenous people of north Africa, known to others as Berbers and among themselves as Amazigh, were brutally suppressed under Gaddafi, who considered the teaching of their language and culture to be a form of imperialism in his Arab country.

They have become crucial supporters of the rebellion seeking to topple Gaddafi, with their stronghold in the Nafusa Mountains southwest of Tripoli emerging as one of the main fronts.

Berber was the main language of North Africa before Arabic arrived with the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. It is still spoken in the Sahara and in mountainous parts of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as well as Libya.

Activists say most of the Arabs of North Africa are in fact descended from Amazigh peoples who were there before the arrival of Islam.

Today, the rebel-held town of Jadu, normally home to about 20,000 people but now swollen with refugees from areas within shelling range of Gaddafi's troops, has become the center for the rebirth of Amazigh culture and language. Shops have painted Amazigh signs above their doors.

For a few weeks, a radio station has been broadcasting from here in both Arabic and Amazigh, in what Berber activists believe are the first conversations in their language over Libyan airwaves in four decades.

An Amazigh publishing house has printed four books so far over the past month, billed as Libya's first publications in the language since Gaddafi seized power.

And there is Mira's school, where classes are held six evenings a week from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

The children study the Amazigh language at basic and advanced levels, as well as English, and sing songs in the courtyard. Their teachers learned Amazigh in secret from their parents at home.

Nearby is a museum, with local artifacts defiantly labeled in the once-banned script, items bearing the distinctive geometric patterns that Berbers say are part of their heritage.

Early in his rule, Gaddafi declared that anyone studying the Amazigh language was drinking "poisoned milk from their mother's breast," explained Fathi Anfusi, a 48-year-old Amazigh activist who escaped Tripoli and arrived in Jadu last month.

Gaddafi accused Amazigh activists of being on the payroll of Western intelligence agencies and seeking to divide the country. Berber activists were rounded up and jailed. The hero of their movement, a poet and journalist named Said Mahrooq, was paralyzed after being run down by a car. Even giving children Amazigh names was forbidden.

Anfusi, an agronomist by profession, wanted to name his daughter Tala, a Berber name meaning "fountain." He was forced to register her with the Arabic name Hala instead.

FRIENDS ... FOR THE REVOLUTION

Even the Berber name of the Nafusa mountain range was banned. On Gaddafi's maps, the region is known only as the Western Mountains.

Gaddafi's government still uses hostility to the Amazigh as part of its propaganda, warning Arabs in nearby towns that Berbers are coming out of the hills to attack them.

Inside rebel-held territory, Arabs and Berbers say they are united. Rebel units from Berber towns like Yefren and Jadu have been fighting side by side with units from Arab towns in the mountains, such as Zintan.

All fly the same pre-Gaddafi flag and profess similar goals of creating a democratic state.

But although they fight side by side, the units are still kept separate. When they captured the village of al-Qawalish last week, one of the first acts of the rival units was to hurriedly spray-paint the names of their Arab or Berber home towns on village walls.

An Arab rebel fighter in Zintan winced when this reporter referred to the Nafusa Mountains.

"Never say the Nafusa Mountains. That's what the Berbers call it. We call it the Western Mountains," he said.

But aren't you all friends?.

"We are friends for now," the fighter replied, pausing for a moment to consider. "For the revolution." Anfusi acknowledges that hostility between Arabs and Berbers will probably outlast Gaddafi's time in power.

"We will discover about each other. This will need time. Maybe we need five years. Maybe ten years to build our country. This is our opportunity," he said.

But in his own way, Gaddafi had inadvertently helped. The Libyan leader's crackdown on the rebellion this year had united the Arabs and Berbers of the mountains for the first time, Anfusi said.

"The people, they all hate Gaddafi."

Source http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/11/us-libya-berber-idUSTRE76A4PD20110711

Sore Eros Playing Shea Stadium

2011-07-05T23:58:00.000-07:00

You might not call it freak folk, but there is definitely something a little freaky about Sore Eros. The mostly acoustic band twist tones into a sinister turn, emphasizing walls of abrasive noise and weaving in charmingly subtle accents of guitar and bass that hide under the din. Lead singer Robert Robinson hits some high notes that have a spritely, paranormal quality to them and bounce off the loose boundaries of the songs. They deftly waffle between the gentlest moments of the Velvets (the times when they almost made you believe they were a pop band) and more ethereal, airy structures. It is music that both gentle lulls you and inspires a few jitters.

Sore Eros play Shea Stadium on Saturday with Psychic Reality and Octo Octa. San Francisco’s Jonas Reinhardt will be DJing. Tickets are $7.

Source http://bushwickbk.com/2011/06/29/sore-eros-playing-shea-stadium/

Building economic change on the streets of Egypt and Tunisia

2011-04-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

Few of the revolts shaking the Arab world look likely to produce democratic governments in the near term. But even those states with the best chance of improving politically are facing a daunting economic challenge: Can new Arab democracies deliver the economic goods -- in time?

Most of the Arab rebellions -- in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain -- have deteriorated into civil war, or regime-led violence. But the two countries with the best shot at democracy -- Tunisia and Egypt -- are paying a steep economic price for their upheavals. Tourism is down, labor unrest is up, investors are scared -- even as the jasmine revolutions raise popular expectations of better lives.

Tunisian Minister of Finance Jaloul Ayed worried out loud -- at the 2011 U.S.-Islamic Forum this week in Washington -- that Arab revolutions would stall "if democracy doesn't translate soon into well-being.

Legions of young Arabs -- in a region where 65 percent of the population is under 30 -- are unemployed, or can do little better than sell vegetables on the street.

As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly noted at the U.S.-Islamic forum: "Overall, Arab countries were less industrialized in 2007 than they were in 1970. Unemployment often runs more than double the worldwide average, and even worse for women and young people."

Moreover, Clinton added: "Arab countries, almost without exception, have some of the weakest anticorruption systems in the world." And corruption was clearly a driver of the Arab revolts, especially in Egypt.

When the Mubarak regime privatized industries in its heavily state-controlled economy, it handed them off at bargain rates to cronies of Hosni Mubarak's family. This created a super-wealthy elite, while vast numbers of people live without sanitation, safe water, or reliable electricity.

"We have a significant class of scavengers who skim off the top," says Nabil Fahmy, a former Egyptian ambassador to Washington now at the American University of Cairo. These are the kinds of complaints I heard over and over in February from the people gathered for demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

I see little chance that Arab countries with huge oil wealth will move toward essential economic -- or political -- reforms, but I'm more concerned here with the countries that have the best prospects for transformation. In other words, can Tunisia and Egypt, which don't live off oil and have restored some stability, implement economic changes that meet their people's raised expectations? And how can the West help?

Tunisia, with its small, better-educated population and broader middle class, seems to have the best prospects.

As for Egyptians, I believe they are likely to be patient -- in the short term -- especially as they can look forward to democratic elections. The spectacle of Mubarak cronies -- and perhaps Mubarak and his sons -- being hauled into court, or even to jail, will buy time.

But circuses can't substitute for bread in the medium and long term. It's unclear how soon tourism will return. Many factory workers, eager to get some reward from the revolution, are striking for higher wages.

"I'm frightened about whether we have the resources to buy time," Fahmy told me. "We will grow only 2 percent this year because of the events. But we need 8 percent for at least seven to eight years just to make up for lost time and deal with unemployment.

"We need life support. We can't attract investment in the next six months."

So, Egypt needs immediate help. The U.S. has pledged $150 million in short-term assistance. Let's hope Arab gulf states, which have an interest in Egypt's success, pitch in.

But the real challenge will come in the medium and long term, when a democratic government will be judged by whether it creates jobs.

The answer -- as Turkey as shown -- is to construct a system that encourages entrepreneurs to start small and midsize businesses. Clinton stressed this week that the U.S. will work with Egypt and Tunisia to encourage foreign investment and will also establish enterprise funds to give such startups access to capital.

Clinton also advocated programs to expand Egyptian duty-free exports to the U.S., which is essential.

We've yet to see whether new, democratic Egyptian leaders will have the courage to press for vital economic changes. The corruption of the Mubarak regime has convinced many Egyptians that liberal economic reforms are a sham.

The future of Egyptian -- and Tunisian -- democracy depends on whether new leaders can give young people the better lives they fought for. For a fraction of what we spent trying to impose democracy in Iraq, we should try hard to help.

Source http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_17864790?nclick_check=1

13-year cicadas to invade here

2011-04-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

Around the end of April, thousands of red-eyed, black-bodied, buzzing bugs will appear in Alabama — after 13 years.

The periodic cicadas — not to be confused with the larger annual cicadas —will soon emerge from holes in the ground, grow to adulthood and leave their delicate, freaky, outgrown skins attached to trees and shrubs. The males will lure lovers with their crazy buzzing. The females will lay eggs, and the 13-year process will begin again.

While the appearance of the 13-year cicadas — Brood XIX — seems to either repel or fascinate people, it always alarms gardeners. The females poke holes in shrubs and small trees to deposit their eggs, which can damage limbs. Pesticides have limited effect on cicadas, so 1/4-inch netting is the best prevention, according to The Gardener’s Network at www.gardenersnet.com. You have 5 to 10 days after they crawl from the soil to protect plants, according to the website.

As bugs go, cicadas are among the most misunderstood. Their fly-like appearance and the whirring ruckus they make in the spring probably contribute to that.

Throughout history, people have sometimes referred to cicadas as locusts. Locusts are actually grasshoppers that can appear in droves and quickly destroy crops. Cicadas were dubbed locusts because they also appeared en mass, leading people to expect a similar plague.

Many love cicadas, including cats and dogs that play with the buzzing bugs.

There are experts who can identify a cicada’s species simply by hearing its song, just like a classic rocker knows a Beatle’s title simply by hearing a few notes.

Some even eat the insects.

Cicada eating was popular in Chicago in the 1990s, so much so that it made the pages of Time Magazine, according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology periodical cicada website by J. Stein Carter.

What to expect in Alabama

The adult life of a cicada is brief but determined.

In Alabama, the nymphs should emerge from the earth during the last 10 days of April and the first week of May, said Lacy Hyche, associate professor of the Department of Entomology at Auburn University, in her informative treatise on the cicada titled, “Periodical Cicadas (‘The 13-Year Locusts’) in Alabama.”

That it takes cicadas 13 years to emerge to mate should surprise no one who has ever waited for a woman to prepare for a date. (Who hasn’t had a sister who took just under a week to bathe, wrap her hair onto giant rollers, sit under the hairdryer and then rat, tease, spray and comb it, trowel on foundation, add false eyelashes and Cleopatra eyeliner, and then squeeze into hosiery, a dress and shoes?)

According to Hyche’s article, cicadas roughly follow the following process:

Once the nymphs leave the ground, they grow, leave their split-back former shells stuck to trees and other surfaces, and emerge from as winged adults. Now, the boy of the species begins putting out the vibe. His lure is his whirring buzz, considered a song by girl cicadas, poets and entomologists. The bugs find each other and mate, and then the male dies a short time later. The female continues on, poking holes in shrubs and tree limbs in order to deposit her eggs. Then she passes. The eggs hatch, fall to the ground and head into the ground, where they spend the next 13 years getting ready for their dates.

Source http://enewscourier.com/local/x1281099788/13-year-cicadas-to-invade-here

African leaders snuff out flames of discontent

2011-03-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Mass demonstrations forced out rulers in Egypt and Tunisia after decades in office, but in Zimbabwe — whose leader has been in power for more than 30 years — even watching video footage of those uprisings can lead to treason charges punishable by death.

Longtime African rulers like Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe are trying to prevent people's revolts like the ones that have roiled North Africa from igniting in their own countries.

So far, they have kept the revolts at bay with tear gas, intimidation, arrests, censorship and handouts.

State-controlled TV stations in Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Zimbabwe are not allowed to show video footage from North Africa favorable to the protesters.

In Cameroon, where 77-year-old President Paul Biya has ruled since 1982, the government ordered cell phone companies to suspend mobile services for Twitter. This came after people used the social networking site to report the mass deployment of troops to prevent a "Drive Out Biya" march.

Sub-Saharan Africa shares many of the root causes that have prompted the uprisings in the north: rising food prices, youth unemployment and repressive regimes that subvert democracy by rigging elections. Before the Tunisian uprising, 18 African rulers or their families had held power for more than 20 years.

Analysts point to the cohesion of people in Egypt and Tunisia, and contrast it to sub-Saharan Africa's tribally based politics that leaders use to win allegiance, divide and rule. It's a tribalism that helps sustain Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and Zimbabwe's Mugabe.

Still, Na'eem Jeenah, director of the Afro-Middle East Center, said the revolts in Arab nations have sparked Africans' belief and hope in the power of mass action.

People in Swaziland, a tiny mountain kingdom in South Africa's northeast, staged a mass protest Friday over freezing civil service wages while King Mswati III, who has 14 wives, awarded himself a 24 percent increase in his budget allocation.

"There is no doubt that the Swazi people ... have been inspired by the democracy campaigns in Egypt and elsewhere, and have understood the importance of mass democratic action to change things for the better," said the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

Jeenah, whose center is in Johannesburg, said even if the revolts in North Africa have not yet caught fire south of the Sahara, governments are concerned.

Those concerns have often translated into crackdowns aimed at snuffing out opposition protests before they flicker into life.

Angola's ruler of more than 30 years, President Eduardo dos Santos, has used mass troop deployments and arrests to quash a planned pro-democracy protest. Opposition politicians and human rights lawyers in Angola, a virtual one-party state, have been receiving anonymous death threats and the cars of two lawyers were set ablaze.

In Djibouti, riot police moved against an estimated 6,000 people at an opposition political rally on Feb. 18, and opposition politicians said five people were killed and dozens wounded. A second rally planned for March 4 didn't happen after security forces filled the streets. Opposition leaders have been jailed.

"There is no way anybody can win against him," opposition leader Abdourahman Boreh said from exile in London, referring to President Ismail Omar Guelleh. "He uses all the power, all the police, all the government instruments and resources, and he uses brutality."

Uganda's Conservative Party leader John Ken Lukyamuzi said "it is very possible" the protests will spread to sub-Saharan Africa. In his own country, police fired tear gas against people protesting alleged rigging in last month's presidential vote that saw incumbent Yoweri Museveni, 66, who has been in power since 1986, win again. He threatened his opponents.

"I will deal with them decisively and they will never rise again," Museveni said, promising at one point to "bang them into jails and that would be the end of the story."

Some have used the carrot to quell unrest.

Ethiopia's 22-year government announced a cap on basic food prices within days of President Zine al Abidine Ben Ali's flight from Tunisia. Opponents said Saturday the government has rounded up some 200 opposition members in the past week "in a preemptive action to prevent the popular uprising that is sweeping through northern Africa."

In Zimbabwe, Jeenah said, people are held back from taking to the streets by fears of the beatings and torture meted out to dissenters, while Mugabe is sustained by the lack of criticism and even support demonstrated by other African leaders.

Ivory Coast threatens to slide back toward civil war since Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept that he lost November elections. As Gbagbo's intransigence turns the commercial capital, Abidjan, into a war zone, African leaders have been hesitant to intervene militarily. Some who side with Gbagbo are themselves anti-democratic.

If Gbagbo prevails, he would be the third African leader to refuse to accept election results, following the lead of Mugabe and Kenya's Mwai Kibaki.

It's a dangerous precedent. More than a dozen presidential elections are scheduled across Africa this year. If winners of free and fair elections are prevented from taking office, the people's discontent can only build.

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g5biRcySSD5IjEte10LxuvC2QQdw?docId=05c335f747724f5ca9bc9833c2eef3d2

Step into the spin zone with Record Collectors Expo 2011

2011-03-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

Sure, geeky counterculture types once dominated events like the Denver Record Collectors Spring Expo 2011, happening Sunday in Northglenn.

But longtimers in local album-lovers circles report a recent shift in their ranks: fewer specialists and old fogies, and many more young people who, in this era of digital downloading, simply cannot resist the novelty of their favorite music on vinyl.

As for hard-core record collectors, visitors to Sunday's expo need not look further than the dealers themselves, one of whom will be Apples in Stereo bass player Eric Allen. Here the musician, 40, who also plays with the Perry Weissman 3, the Babysitters and Replicast, and has long supplemented his income by selling records, talks about his personal collection and offers tips for navigating a record fair.

Q: How would you characterize your record collection?

A: Sprawling. Some collectors are real specific, like they only look for original first-pressing Blue Notes and anything outside of that is not in their scope. But I'm interested in a lot of different kinds of music and stuff I haven't heard. I have a hard time letting go of something if I fear I'll never see it again. ... In my personal collection, there are about 5,000 LPs, a little over 2,000 45s, and maybe 1,000 78s.

Q: Do you collect anything else?

A: Old hymn books. My dad was a Baptist minister, so I spent a good deal of my life sitting in church flipping through hymn books. (I especially love hymm books with) shape notes. They come from a Pentecostal sect where they don't believe in using instruments, so they might have a musical staff with a triangle or circle and everyone knows how to follow along with it. I've watched documentaries on it, and there's still plenty of churches that do this. ... Everything that I collect in some way comes back to music. I'll even collect old catalogs from record companies, any kind of musical ephemera.

Q: First album you ever bought?

A: It was probably third grade, and I saw this Kiss record at Kmart and was completely fascinated by it. It was the makeup. I thought, 'Who are these freaky creatures?' "

I also have vivid memories of going to that same Kmart and getting the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" 45. I still have that one. It actually has my initials on it because at the elementary school I went to (in northern Virginia), every week we could bring in our 45s to do jumping jacks and stuff like that in gym class, and my teacher would write your initials on them.

Q: How about the last album you bought?

A: Lennie Tristano's first release on Atlantic Records, from 1955. He was a blind pianist in the '40s and '50s. He's got a really unique style and had a lot of students who went on to be famous. At the time Charlie Parker was doing the bebop thing, (Tristano) was also doing his own thing. It's just a fantastic record.

Q: Is there a dream album that you're hunting for?

A: Bill Jennings/Leo Parker Quintet, "Billy in the Lion's Den," on King Records.

I've heard some of this. Bill Jennings is a jazz guitarist and Leo Parker is a baritone sax player. It's mostly them as a duet. Between the spacious guitar playing and the baritone sax that plays so good you could almost do anything on it. ... I've heard a couple of cuts off of it but I've never actually seen a copy. It sells for about $700 in good condition.

Q: Is there an album you just can't live without?

A: "Ray Price's Greatest Hits," on Columbia Records. I just love Ray Price. He's one of my favorite old country singers. "Crazy Arms" is one of my favorite songs of all time and it's the first song on the album.

Q: What tip(s) can you offer for navigating a record collectors event?

A: You've got all these records in your head and as soon as you walk in and see a million records, your mind goes blank. It's completely overwhelming. So if there are dream items that you're really looking for, write them down.

You can also go around and ask dealers if they have that album and they can tell you right off. They'll even make an announcement for you over the intercom.

Source http://www.denverpost.com/insideandout/ci_17542033

Carter, Reagan and Freaky Times

2011-02-22T21:07:00.000-08:00

The cultural politics of the 1970s is irresistible to historians, the way the decade’s dance music is irresistible to D.J.’s at weddings. Thus a book like Dominic Sandbrook’s “Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right” arrives in bookstores every six months or so. Nixon, Ford, Carter: there’s little greatness there, but these presidencies are so familiar that you can hum nostalgically, dismally along.

At first glance, there’s not much that makes “Mad as Hell” — the title is a reference to a famous scene from the film “Network” — stand out on the history table at your local Borders. (If your town still has its Borders.) But if you look closer, some not uninteresting details pop out.

For one thing, Mr. Sandbrook is British. For another, he’s young. Born in 1974, he was in a pram during several of the years he describes here, so he brings a certain fresh perspective. Now flip his book open to its table of contents, and breathe deeply of its invigorating chapter titles: “Southie Won’t Go,” “Let’s Look Ferocious,” “The Weirdo Factor.”

I skimmed the acknowledgments, too, before committing to read “Mad as Hell.” Here’s the lovely way Mr. Sandbrook thanks his wife at book’s end: “With the self-control of Pat Nixon, the guts of Betty Ford, the drive of Rosalynn Carter and the glamour of Nancy Reagan, she deserves a lot better than to be married to a man with the memory of Ronald Reagan, the humility of Jimmy Carter, the wit of Gerald Ford and the charm of Richard Nixon. It is my good fortune, however, that fate has dealt her such a poor hand.”

Clearly, as historians go, this man is a Hugh Grant-level charmer.

Back home in England, however, where Mr. Sandbrook is a leading figure among a new generation of historians, he has not always enchanted everyone. He’s published three best-selling books on modern British history, and his youth and his frenetic output have rankled some. So has his streaming ease on the page. Writing in The Independent, Charles Shaar Murray called Mr. Sandbrook “the Hoodie Historian,” who throws “whatever passes for gang signs in the history department of the University of Sheffield.”

That “hoodie” line is pure hyperbole; if anything, Mr. Sandbrook is a bit of a young fogy, albeit an appealing one. His gifts are as much those of the journalist as of the historian.

Mr. Sandbrook’s not daring thesis in “Mad as Hell” is that during the ’70s a “new kind of populism” became “the most powerful political and cultural force” in America. “The notion of the virtuous citizen locked in battle against big government, big business and a decadent elite,” he writes, “was the single most compelling theme of the 1970s.”

He hashes through topics like busing, the Equal Rights Amendment and tax revolts, and the rise of evangelism, and he posits that class bitterness fed the decade’s roiling anger. He sternly criticizes progressives for not taking their opponents’ full measure.

“One of the biggest mistakes liberals ever made,” he writes, “was to underestimate their adversaries as kooks, eccentrics, losers, blindly lashing out against progress and modernity.”

It’s not a putdown, or not much of one anyway, to remark that Mr. Sandbrook’s heart isn’t entirely in this thesis. He circles regularly back to it, of course. But he’s drawn to the floppy 1970s writ large — its music, films, fads, cults, sitcoms, bumper stickers, best sellers and bad juju. Can you blame him? The decade was a steaming heap of gas station nachos, and it would be a pity to ignore the salty cheese and canned jalapeños and simply nibble at the beans.

What kept me reading “Mad as Hell” are Mr. Sandbrook’s deft, dryly funny observations. About one of Mr. Carter’s televised fireside chats, he observes: “It was hard to imagine George Washington striding across the battlefield in a cardigan.”

He refuses to blame Ford for missing a chance to dine next to a famous Russian dissident: “Ford had spared himself an awkward hour,” he writes, “of making small talk into Solzhenitsyn’s beard.” Compared with the sunny Reagan, he notes, “Carter could have played the personification of Gloom in some bleak Scandinavian film.”

He’s got a shrewd eye for detail. He reminds us how stunning it was that the single heroine of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was not a virgin. And that “Midnight Cowboy” won an Oscar for best picture a scant four years after “The Sound of Music” did. He effortlessly links popular entertainment and politics. In the second “Godfather” film, he writes, Al Pacino “broods in the shadows like Nixon in his final days, his vampiric face glimmering in the darkness.”

He captures, neatly, the freak shows and freak-outs that conservatives imagined being visited on innocent folk. “An Alabama farmer can flick a dial,” one said, “and there’s Allen Ginsberg on a talk show.” Talk about U.F.O.’s.

Mr. Sandbrook seeds his narrative with references to (and apt quotations from) writers like Updike, Roth and Pynchon, and he’s on intimate terms with the decade’s landmark sociology texts, from Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” (1974) to Sissela Bok’s “Lying” (1978). He scans European newspapers as well as American ones.

For all his charms, though, he can be ham-handed. He has zero feel for American pop music. A small, artless chapter on Bruce Springsteen makes it clear that he’s barely listened to the Boss. There are many words you might use to describe Tanya Tucker, the fiery country singer. But one Mr. Sandbrook selects — “crooner” — is not among them.

Mr. Sandbrook’s prose can be off in other ways. About the mood in the room when Reagan conceded defeat in the Republican contest for the 1976 presidential nomination, he says, “the air crackled with sadness.” Sadness doesn’t crackle, except on occasion in Trent Reznor’s songs and Nabokov’s prose.

Every sentence in a 500-page book can’t be expertly lighted and framed, but you begin to take note of the clichés that sprout in “Mad as Hell.” In a formulation that needs to be placed on literature’s Do Not Fly list, he writes, “If Bruce Springsteen had not existed, they would have had to invent him.”

Some passages sound as if they had been composed to fill a lesser Ken Burns documentary and spoken over an adagio piano version of Meat Loaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” Here’s one short example: “The bicentennial celebrations spoke of a zest for life and a sense of fun too often overlooked in all the gloom about inflation and energy crises.”

“Mad as Hell” is frisky and intelligent; it’s among the most readable histories of the 1970s I’ve come across. At moments, though, you worry that the talented Mr. Sandbrook was already composing his next book in his head while he typed out this one.

Source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/books/16book.html?_r=1&src=twrhp

Tunisian opposition fears chaos

2011-02-15T02:23:00.000-08:00

A prominent Tunisian once jailed for challenging the ousted president fears that the "people's revolution" which ended the country's 23-year dictatorship will fall into chaos as residents press for instant rights.

And that, Moncef Marzouki said in an interview Thursday, could benefit the country's old guard and possibly even lead to calls for the deposed president's return.

"All this is extremely dangerous for the country," Marzouki, a longtime human rights activist who has spent the past five years in exile in France, told The Associated Press.

But Marzouki, who was jailed for trying to run for president under the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, is optimistic enough to envisage seeking the presidency again in upcoming elections. He also doesn't exclude an alliance with the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha.

Tunisia's interim authorities have said elections could be held in about six months. It would be the first free ballot in the history of this small North African nation on the Mediterranean, a French colony until 1956.

Under Ben Ali, women's rights were encouraged and Tunisia became a tourist haven for its deserts, beaches and ancient ruins but the government quashed dissent in politics and the media. Marzouki said Tunisia must finish cleaning house before those elections, sweeping out the old system under Ben Ali's ruling party that spread fear, corruption and patronage.

"The biggest threat is probably chaos. You have a lot of people from the old regime, mainly politicians and what remains of the secret police, and all these people are fearing the future," Marzouki said at his home in Paris a day before his return to Tunisia.

"They think that chaos would probably benefit them," because the people would then seek the return of Ben Ali, said Marzouki, a physician who once headed the Tunisian League of Human Rights.

Tunisians are now clamoring for the rights they were denied for years, but Marzouki says the demand for instant gratification poses a risk because it cannot be fulfilled.

"Now, you feel that really it's a free people in a free country, and this is extremely marvelous," Marzouki said. "(But) the people have to understand that now it's time to build up a new country, and that we need much more discipline, and that they have to accept that we cannot have everything now and as soon as possible."

The 74-year-old Ben Ali fled to exile in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14 after a month of deadly street protests just as he began the process to name himself "president for life" — the title held by the man he deposed in a 1987 coup, Habib Bourguiba, the founder of modern-day Tunisia.

The top brass in the police corps, which carried out Ben Ali's repressive policies, has yet to be cleansed, and fearful officers are increasingly deserting their posts, Marzouki claimed, citing his southern hometown of Douz. A security official in Tunis confirmed police were vacating their posts, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

The official TAP news agency reported Thursday that the army helped arrest gunmen suspected of ties to weekend violence in the northwestern city of Kef. An angry crowd set afire a police station there and police fired on them, killing two people.

Police also fired on protesters during the weeks of demonstrations that drove Ben Ali from power. At least 219 people were killed, according to the U.N.

Marzouki, 65, who left Tunisia after jailings and harassment, came home after Ben Ali's departure. He then returned to France to arrange his affairs before resettling in his country.

Tunisia's parliament voted this week to give the interim president, Fouad Mebazaa, the power to enact laws by decree to expedite reforms before elections. Still, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi warned Tunisians that not all demands could be quickly met.

Marzouki says the prime minister is part of the problem because of his decade under Ben Ali and because only two opposition parties are represented in his Cabinet.

The Ennahdha party representing moderate Islamists is not included, he said, nor is his own party, the Congress for the Republic, created in 2001.

Marzouki has no qualms about the eventual entrance of Ennahdha, banned and hunted down under Ben Ali, onto the political scene and says he knows the party's leader, Rachid Ghanouchi, "very well." Ghanouchi recently returned to Tunisia from 20 years in exile in London.

What if Ennahdha allied with Marzouki?

"Why not?" he said. "Ennahdha is a central part of the (political) spectrum."

The first-ever political opinion poll in Tunisia shows, above all, that its nearly 11 million people have little knowledge of political options. Only three parties, Ben Ali's RCD — whose activities are now suspended — Ennahdha and the legal opposition PDP party are recognized by more than a fifth of people.

Marzouki was jailed twice, once for four months after trying to run in the 1994 presidential election, which was won by Ben Ali with an alleged 99.9 percent of the vote.

"Of course, I have doubts" about Tunisia's future, Marzouki said. "Nothing is sure. But I prefer to be optimistic."

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ibaLEW6gksH1eo7jwYgvu2v5kwvg?docId=8f6e3124b57c4656bfa8598b0bfba15e

Protesters Call for Ban of Tunisian RCD Party

2011-02-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

Tunisia's transitional government met for the first time as protesters hardened their calls for the former ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party to be dissolved and banned.

The protests in Tunisia are smaller these days than the mass demonstrations that ousted former strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power, but protesters say they will continue their rallies until every vestige of his once all-powerful RCD party is gone.

In Tunis, hundreds rallied in front of the RCD party headquarters and on the main Avenue Habib Bourguiba. News agencies reported several thousand people gathered in the southern town of Gafsa and elsewhere in the country.

Several ministers in the new interim government have quit RCD, including the country's interim president Fouad Mebazaa and interim prime minister Mohammed Ghannouchi. Tunisia's official news agency reports a junior minister resigned on Thursday after being criticized over his ties to the old Ben Ali regime.

Prime Minister Ghannouchi has enacted key reforms, including lifting the press ban, legalizing a main human rights groups and freeing political prisoners. And on Wednesday, Mebazaa vowed a complete break from the past, saying the country is turning the page.

But that isn't enough for protesters like 30-year-old Mona Turki. "Let's say the speech from yesterday, from the new president was a little bit better. Because he has changed the tone and he's trying to make things better. But he's like the old ones. Nothing has changed."

Police fired warning shots to deter demonstrators, and helicopters flew overhead as in previous days of protests. The situation overall has calmed, though, with fewer reports of violence and looting.

Tunisian authorities also announced the arrest of 33 members of Ben Ali's family, with new reports of the state seizing their assets. Allegations of corruption surrounding the former president and his extended and wealthy clan helped fuel the national fury that drove Ben Ali from power.

Source http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Tunisian-Ministers-Quit-Ruling-Party--114265364.html

The limits of silencing Tunisia

2011-01-18T23:13:00.000-08:00

If history remembers one thing about Tunisia's long-reigning President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, it would likely be how he silenced his critics. Since coming to power 23 years ago, Ben Ali has systematically controlled Tunisia's media and silenced his opposition. The last month of social riots in Sidi Bouzid have confirmed that domestic censorship is more than a political constant. It is a reason of being for a government that has never been familiar with press freedom.

This state of affairs is the natural culmination of years of clamping down on critical voices. Few countries facing more economic and security problems impose fewer restrictions on their media. In the late 1970s, party and independent papers emerged while pro-government media slipped in importance. But that momentum did not lasted beyond the early 1990s. Human rights watchdogs describe Tunisia as one of the most repressive regimes. Reporters Without Borders has named Ben Ali as a leading "Predator of Press Freedom."

Private media is exclusively owned and/or dominated by Ben Ali's inner circle. The Tunisian Agency for External Communication (ATCE) unfairly distributes public advertising and state subsidies among media outlets, according to their editorial stance. Opposition newspapers are regularly seized. Independent journalists are harassed and even jailed. A group of pro-government reporters has seized control of Tunisia's journalist union (SNJT). Foreign media are banned, and the few journalists who sporadically visit the country are tightly controlled. In 2005, on the eve of the World Summit on Information Society in Tunis, Christophe Boltanski, a reporter with the French daily Libération, was beaten and stabbed. His colleague, Florence Beaugé, from Le Monde, was luckier because she was only stopped at the Tunis airport and expelled from the country hours before the 2009 presidential election.

When protests broke out in December, the regime's first instinct was to escalate its censorship and intimidation of the media. Oussama Romdhani, the president's personal translator and communication minister, is blamed for imposing a complete news blackout on the social riots in Sidi Bouzid that quickly spilled over to other regions. He paid a very heavy price when Ben Ali replaced him in a government reshuffle, though it is unlikely that he could unilaterally have taken such measures.

Samir Labidi, his successor, known for his bombastic speeches on college campuses when he was a far-left activist, failed in his first test. Nessma TV, a private TV channel, gave air to journalists in an astonishing talk show debating social riots with no apparent red lines. It was too good to be true, as the rerun was banned. Printed press suffered the same fate. Al Mawqif and Attariq Al Jadid, two opposition newspapers, were seized, their only crime having been that they reported from Sidi Bouzid.

The panic-stricken government launched a smear campaign against international media outlets. Koll Ennass, a weekly newspaper, lashed out at the Al Jazeera satellite channel. The Tunisia's journalists' union (SNJT) condemned "the tendency of some television channels, especially Al Jazeera TV, to dramatize and distort aiming at sowing discord and stirring up ill- feelings." This hostility toward Al Jazeera is not new. In 2006, Tunisia closed its embassy in Doha, accusing Al Jazeera TV of launching a "hostile campaign" against the country. This campaign echoes Ben Ali's speech in which he suggested that the riots had been manipulated by foreign media and had hurt the country's image.

The government has been caught off guard by the new media. Rioting young eyewitnesses have gone beyond the official sacrosanct principle of not leaking any "harmful" video. Since the early hours of the protests, they have become a dynamic and compelling news source for international media outlets. They have posted dozens of videos showing spiraling discontent and updated death tolls in real time. It goes without saying that new media overwhelmed traditional local media. And while opposition parties have been dithering over the way to deal with the unprecedented large-scale riots, Internet users have given free rein to their views with no fear of retaliation. In response to what it deems as subversive, the government has censored dozens of pages on social networks, stolen passwords, and arrested bloggers.

Although Ben Ali's regime is putting in huge sums of money in public relations efforts to make up its image, it loses credibility since it doesn't show any willingness to move in the direction of political openness and honesty. Quite the contrary, Tunisia has one of the worst human rights records in the region, and freedoms don't seem likely for a while. And, while drawing to an end, the undemocratic Tunisia's ruling elite merely keeps stifling dissenting voices.

Source http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/12/the_limits_of_silencing_tunisia

Deadly wave heads for Brisbane

2011-01-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

THE nation confronts its worst flood disaster in living memory, with 30 people believed dead and 78 missing in southeast Queensland.

The wall of water bearing down on Brisbane threatens to engulf thousands of homes and put more people at risk.

The official death toll from the flash flooding that ripped through Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley yesterday stands at 10, with half the victims children, but Julia Gillard warned that this was bound to increase.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the number of suspected deaths was twice or more the confirmed toll. A senior emergency official told The Australian more than 30 people had died, including nine whose bodies had been located but not yet recovered.

As the focal point of the crisis shifted to Brisbane, the State Emergency Service reported tonight that a three-year-old boy had drowned in floodwaters in the Ipswich region on the capital's western fringe.

Rescuers saved his mother but were unable to reach the toddler before he was torn from her arms by the raging torrent.

The young woman's car had been caught in the overflow of the swollen Bremer River at Minden, on Ipswich's outskirts, after she fled her flood-bound home.

Tonight, Black Hawk army helicopters competed the evacuation of the town of Forest Hill, 67km west of Brisbane, after it was menaced by swiftly rising waters.

Its entire population of more than 300 was airlifted to nearby Gatton.

The once-picturesque hamlet of Grantham, which took the brunt of the tsunami-like torrent that poured down the Great Dividing Range from Toowoomba, was a scene of epic destruction.

Police believe bodies are buried beneath the layer of silt the flood left behind.

Les Schultz, a former resident of the Lockyer Valley town, told of screams coming from inside one house smashed off its foundations and hurtled along in the deadly torrent. Quoting a friend, who witnessed the scene, he said: "This home just floated past his house with people yelling out for help. But no one could help them."

Nearby Murphys Creek was still too dangerous for emergency crews to enter today, and police Deputy Commissioner Ian Stewart said there was no way of knowing how many people had died there. "We have had to hold back our staff," he said. "The creek is still flooding in that area. It is very high-risk for our people."

Ms Bligh said "grave concern" was held for 15 of the 78 people posted as missing tonight. "With so many outstanding and unaccounted for, we still face some very grim news," she warned.

As torrential rain continued to pelt down, the Premier said flooding in Brisbane would be worse than the 1974 disaster that killed 14 people and devastated much of the city. More than 9000 properties were set to be inundated, and another 30,000 will be hit to some degree by the intensifying flooding. This represents about 10 per cent of the 400,000 buildings and homes in Brisbane.

To the north of Brisbane, residents of low-lying areas of urban Caboolture and Strathpine were ordered by police to evacuate today. The major growth city of Ipswich has also been warned of a flood threat as waters continue to gush along the Bremer River and Lockyer Creek.

Major roads remain cut, including the national highway - the Bruce Highway - at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, south of Gympie and south of Rockhampton, where 160 homes remain surrounded by floodwaters.

Chinchilla, Dalby and Condamine on the Darling Downs also faced flooding.

Ms Bligh pledged to give regular briefings and steer the state through the crisis: "It might be breaking our hearts at the moment: it won't break our will."

Ms Bligh said people living on "high ground" should reach out and offer shelter to those in low-lying areas.

"We are facing one of our toughest tests," she said. "We will only pass this test if we are calm, patient with each other . . . now is not a time to panic."

Overnight, the Brisbane River was set to rise to 3m. With a big high tide backing up floodwaters, it would reach 4.5m by 3pm tomorrow, before topping the devastating 1974 mark of 5.45m on Thursday.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the crisis had overwhelmed the ability of emergency services to preserve homes with sandbagging or other flood barriers.

Mr Newman revealed that Wivenhoe Dam, built to flood-proof Brisbane after the last flood disaster, was now so full it could no longer protect the city.

"The dam is full," the Lord Mayor said.

"Every bit of rain that falls on the catchment will get to Brisbane, and there is not much more we can do about that."

A volume of water equivalent to two Sydney Harbours is pouring over the vast dam's spillway into the river every 24 hours. Mr Newman said if it continued to rain, "who knows what happens on Friday".

The Prime Minister was tonight preparing to fly to Brisbane to be on hand as the emergency peaked. Expressing her deep sadness over the loss of life so far, Ms Gillard said the nation should "brace itself" for more bad news.

"This is a very grim situation and Queensland is going to need us to stand shoulder to shoulder with Queenslanders over months and months and months of recovery," she told the Seven Network.

The declaration yesterday of a state of emergency covering Brisbane means police can order people out of their homes in forced evacuations.

As the Brisbane River broke its banks and submerged low-lying parts of the CBD, nearby West End and leafy suburbs such as New Farm, in the inner north, Milton and Sherwood in the inner west went under water during this afternoon's high tide. At the same time, homes were being evacuated in the outer suburban precincts of Strathpine and Caboolture, north of the city, stretching emergency services.

A third of Ipswich, 30km southwest of the Brisbane CBD, was expected to be flooded by the Bremer River before it peaked at 22m tomorrow, eclipsing the 1974 flood level.

Mr Newman said the imperative was to protect lives in what he branded a "national disaster".

Ms Bligh said people should not baulk if police or emergency personnel asked them to leave threatened homes.

Source http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/queensland-floods/flood-death-toll-rises-as-brisbane-river-breaks-its-banks/story-fn7iwx3v-1225985777625

U.S. Government Documents: Public Printer Bob Tapella Resigns

2011-01-04T02:52:00.000-08:00

Public Printer of the United States Bob Tapella announces his resignation as head of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Tapella has led the men and women of the 150-year-old agency the last three years. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2007 to become the 25th Public Printer of the United States. Deputy Public Printer Paul Erickson becomes the Acting Public Printer effective immediately.

Prior to becoming Public Printer, Tapella served as a senior executive at GPO for five years. He was part of the team that took GPO from a survival mode to the thriving operation it is today. Tapella helped turn GPO’s financial situation from years of significant losses into the positive net operating income the agency enjoys today. Fiscal year 2010 marked the seventh consecutive year of positive results. The agency also launched GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) during Tapella’s tenure, giving the American people a one-stop site to authentic, published government information.

“It has been a pleasure serving both President Obama and President Bush during the last eight years at GPO,” said Public Printer Bob Tapella. “I want to thank the hardworking men and women of GPO who have transformed an agency that opened in 1861 into a 21st century printing, digital media, secure credentialing and ISO 9001 premiere manufacturing organization. I believe the successful launch of FDsys positions GPO to meet the challenges of the Digital Age.”

Source http://web.resourceshelf.com/go/resourceblog/62980

VNC Enterprise Edition 4.6 improves video compression

2010-12-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

RealVNC has launched the newest version of its enterprise-level application for remote desktop access, VNC Enterprise Edition 4.6. The upgrade improves support for images and video through new compression technology. The company suggests users can take advantage of higher video rates and better interactivity on slow networks. End-to-end connection security now supports 256-bit AES encryption and multiple-file and multiple-folder transfers are also new in v4.6.

VNC is multiplatform and supports Windows, Linux and Unix in addition to Mac OS. The update adds numerous OS support updates. Using peer-to-peer architecture with a server base on each controlled machine and a viewer on the controlling machine, VNC includes Remote IT Maintenance, IT help-desk support and home-working applications.

RealVNC 4.6 supports Mac OS 10.4 and above. A single unit costs $50, while three units are $145, five are $230 and 10 cost $390. Discounts increase with higher volume purchases.

Source http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/12/27/256.bit.aes.encryption.on.board.in.v46/

Obama administration readies indefinite detention order for Guantanamo detainees

2010-12-22T00:18:00.000-08:00

The Obama administration is preparing an executive order that would formalize indefinite detention without trial for some detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but allow those detainees and their lawyers to challenge the basis for continued incarceration, U.S. officials said.

The administration has long signaled that the use of prolonged detention, preferably at a facility in the United States, was one element of its plan to close Guantanamo. An interagency task force found that 48 of the 174 detainees remaining at the facility would have to be held in what the administration calls prolonged detention.

"We have a plan to close Guantanamo, and this detainee review process is one element," said an administration official who discussed the order on the condition of anonymity because it has yet to reach the president.

However, almost every part of the administration's plan to close Guantanamo is on hold, and it could be crippled this week if Congress bans the transfer of detainees to the United States for trial and sets up steep hurdles to the repatriation or resettlement in third countries of other detainees.

Officials worked intensively on the executive order over the past several weeks, but a senior White House official said it had been in the works for more than a year. If Congress blocks the administration's ability to put detainees on trial or transfer them out of Guantanamo, the official said, the executive order could still be implemented.

"I would argue that you still have to go ahead because you can't simply have people confined to a life sentence without any review and then fight another day with Congress," the administration official said. "One of things we're mindful of is [that] you can't have a review conducted by the same people, in the same process, who made the original decision to detain. You have to have something that is different and is more adversarial, which the Bush administration never had."

Under the system established by the previous administration, Guantanamo detainees could go before military review panels with "personal representatives," also military officers, who explained the process but could not act as lawyers. The system envisioned under the executive order would be more adversarial and would allow detainees to challenge their incarceration periodically, possibly every year.

"There isn't a single serious commentator on the subject who hasn't thought something like this wasn't necessary as part of a rule-of-law approach," said the senior White House official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Provisions in the defense authorization bill, which has passed the House and is before the Senate, would effectively ban the transfer of any detainee to the United States for any purpose. That rules out civilian trials for all Guantanamo detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. His potential prosecution had remained possible even though the administration had balked in the face of political opposition to a trial in New York.

The defense bill, if it passes the Senate, would effectively force the administration to conduct only military commissions and at Guantanamo Bay, which would also have to remain open to house those held indefinitely. The bill would also create new requirements before the administration could repatriate or resettle detainees who were cleared for release by the interagency task force.

"If it passes, it is the final, decisive blow to the president's plan," said Tom Malinowski, head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch.

In a speech at the National Archives in May 2009, President Obama said his administration would use criminal trials, reformed military commissions, transfers to other countries, releases and continued detention in pursuit of its commitment to close Guantanamo.

An administration task force ultimately determined that at least 48 detainees were too dangerous to release but could not be put on trial. Officials have said the evidence against these detainees has been tainted by torture or cannot be used in court because it is classified or would not meet legal standards.

"When the review panel puts someone in the category of long-term detention, the 48 people, what happens then?" the administration official said. "Are they there for the rest of their lives? What's the review mechanism? How impartial is it? Do they have a chance to contest it? All of that stuff has to be answered. And we have been working on an executive order laying out these elements."

Those designated for prosecution but who are not charged could also have their cases reviewed under the proposed system in the executive order, the White House official said.

Detainees at Guantanamo would continue to have access to the federal courts to challenge their incarceration under the legal doctrine of habeas corpus. Officials said the plan would give detainees who have lost their habeas petition the prospect of one day ending their time in U.S. custody. And officials said the International Committee of the Red Cross has been urging the administration to create a review process.

Some civil liberties groups oppose any form of indefinite detention, even with a built-in mechanism to challenge incarceration.

"Indefinite detention without charge or trial is wrong, whether it comes from Congress or the president's pen," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office. "Our Constitution requires that we charge and prosecute people who are accused of crimes. You cannot sell an indefinite detention scheme by attaching a few due-process baubles and expect that to restore the rule of law. That is bad for America and is not the form of justice we want other nations to emulate."

The executive order, however, could be an effort to preempt legislation supported by some Republicans, which would create a system of indefinite detention not only for some Guantanamo detainees but also for future terrorism suspects seized overseas.

Malinowski said there is a "big difference" between using an executive order, which can be rescinded, to handle a select group of detainees that Obama inherited, and legislating a general indefinite detention scheme.

Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/21/AR2010122104598.html