Angry Birds: Argentina to shoot seagulls to save whales

AFP Photo / Stefan Sauer

Argentine officials are concerned about the growing seagull population, which has developed a habit of pecking at surfacing whales. Authorities want to shoot the birds, but activists say measures should be taken to contain seagull populations.

Officials blame the seagulls. Environmentalists blame humans. All agree, however, that the threatened southern right whales are under attack, and must be saved. If no measures are taken, the whales may change their migration route, upsetting the region’s biosphere and hence damaging tourism industry.

Seagulls off the coast of Chubut province in southern Argentina seem to have taken a page from Alfred Hitchcock’s famous horror movie ‘The Birds’ – they discovered that pecking at whales coming up for air leaves open wounds. If seagulls continue to peck away at skin and blubber, they can seriously injure the whale.

Marcelo Bartelotti of National Patagonia Centre, a government-sponsored conservation agency, said in an interview with the Associated Press that “It’s not just that the gulls are attacking the whales, but that they’re feeding on them, and this way of feeding is a habit that is growing and becoming more frequent.”


Marcelo Bartelotti of National Patagonia Centre, a government-sponsored conservation agency, offered a solution to the problem. A 100-day plan to shoot down seagulls that have learned to attack whales received support from the government of the Chubut province. According to Bartelotti’s plan, each downed bird would be recovered along with the ammunition, preventing possible damage to sea life.

Shooting the gulls is “surely not the most pleasant measure, but it’s necessary to do something to control a situation that has been growing after many years of inaction,” said Chubut Environmental Minister Eduardo Maza.

Environmentalists, however, believe the issue at the root of the problem is humans, who have created enough garbage to let the seagull population grow uncontrollably.

'Miscommunication' sparks plane hijack alert, Dutch F-16 scrambled

Passengers disembark a plane of the Spanish company
 Vueling after it landed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam
 on August 29, 2012. (AFP Photo/ANP/Robin Utreccht)

The Dutch military police have allayed fears that a passenger plane en route to Amsterdam from Malaga, Spain, has been hijacked, saying miscommunication between the pilot and Air Traffic Control was to blame for the panic.

Earlier, reports of a possible hijacking spread through the media and social networks. The Dutch defense ministry sent F-16 fighter jets to safely escort the plane, with 183 people on board, to ground.

The National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism and Security told reporters military police would determine what was happening after boarding the plane.

"Because of the loss of radio contact with the aircraft we escorted the plane to Schiphol airport with F-16 jets. The case is now in the hands of the military police."

According to local media, the passengers were taken from the plane by bus and a SWAT team came onboard to secure the plane.

"We first realized something was wrong when we started circling above Rotterdam over and over, and the captain told us there was some problem in Schiphol. We spent about four hours on the ground after arriving," said one of the passengers on board the plane.

A spokesperson from Spain's Vueling airline also said the hijack report was due to miscommunication between the pilot and control tower at Schiphol.

It is possible the plane had some problems with the transponder responsible for communications with the ATC. Some have suggested that the pilot could have accidentally selected the wrong transponder code, setting it to 7500, which is the international code for 'aircraft hijacking'.

This was the second security incident in Schiphol Airport in less that 24 hours. Earlier, parts of the airport were evacuated after a WWII bomb was found by workers. Some flights were cancelled and many more delayed, as work to safely remove the bomb continues.

Dutch F-16 escorts reportedly hijacked passenger plane to Schiphol Airport (Image from Twitter/@
DennisdeKanter)

- Rt.com

Stephen Hawking to star in Paralympics opener

Stephen Hawking. AP Photo

Britain's most-famous living scientist, Stephen Hawking, was to appear at the opening ceremony of the London Paralympic Games today, organisers said, promising a "radical show" to challenge perceptions.

Hawking, who has motor neurone disease and has been paralysed for most of his life, will make a rare public appearance to narrate segments of the ceremony, which is due to start at the Olympic Stadium in east London at 1930 GMT.

"The conversation with Stephen Hawking began towards the end of last year," co-artistic director Bradley Hemmings told a news conference.

"We have worked very closely with Professor Hawking to develop a series of messages which are now very much integrated into the storytelling of the ceremony.

"Everyone knows about Professor Hawking and his extraordinary theoretical work and extraordinary writings which have made very complex ideas about science accessible.

"What came through to us was the humanity and humour of Professor Hawking. He's a fun guy." Hawking's involvement fits into the "Enlightenment" theme of the opening ceremony, which has been co-directed by Jenny Sealey, who like Hemmings is a theatre director with a long history of working with disabled performers.

Hemmings, who is profoundly deaf and used a sign language interpreter at the news conference, said Hawking, who wrote the best-seller "A Brief History of Time", was "the most famous disabled person anywhere in the world".

The 80,000 crowd at the stadium and millions of television viewers around the world "will be taken on the most exquisite journey of discovery, inspired by the wonder of science", starting at the 18th century "Enlightenment", she added. "Stephen Hawking will speak about the origins of the universe and how humanity has tried to understand how everything is ordered and how things came to be," Hemmings added.

"(He) makes the point that even if there was a universal theory of everything, even if we understand the mechanics, what breathes life into these equations, what makes it worth understanding is humanity." The executive producer for all four Olympic and Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies, Stephen Daldry, described the Paralympic opening as "the most extraordinary piece of work".

"What we are going to get from Jenny and Bradley is something very unique and very different, much more classically driven" than Danny Boyle's opening Olympic celebration of British history and pop culture and Kim Gavin's musical closing.

"It's about challenging our perceptions in a very different way from the other ceremonies... It's a radical show," Daldry, a film director who was Oscar-nominated for the 2000 film "Billy Elliot", told reporters.

- AFP

Smaller families succeed more: Swedish study

Having a smaller family is a springboard for giving future generations the chance of greater prosperity, according to a Swedish study published on Wednesday.


Providing scientific support to what is anecdotal evidence, it says that in an advanced industrialised society, having fewer offspring means children benefit from greater parental investment and from inherited capital.

This translates into socio-economic success, which is transmitted over generations, the paper says. Scientists from London and Stockholm pored over a remarkable database which assessed 14,000 people born in Sweden between 1915 and 1929 and all their descendants up to 2009.

Families that were smaller and from more prosperous backgrounds were linked to better grades at school, a university education and a higher income and social status, they found.

The benefits were greatest when the parents were also in a high socio-economic category. The advantages were enduring, because they carried over the four generations which were studied.

In the modern world, fertility rates -- the number of offspring per woman -- decline as a country becomes more prosperous, a phenomenon called the demographic transition.

The trend occurs first and most substantially among wealthier sections of society.

"One of our most interesting findings is that being from an initially wealthy household makes the benefits of small family size even bigger," said David Lawson, an anthropologist at University College London.

"Poorer households in contrast have relatively little to gain by limiting fertility, perhaps because the success of their children is more determined by broader societal factors, rather than investment and inheritance from parents, which is in short supply."

The research, published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, touches on a keenly-debated aspect of Darwinian theory, said lead author Anna Goodman of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

"It's been a puzzle for evolutionary biologists," Goodman said.

"It's not what you would expect, because as a species gets more resources, it has more offspring." In this case, lower fertility was a success -- but in socio-economic terms, not in reproductive terms.

In the study, the first generation had an average of 3.2 children; their children had 1.7 offspring; the grandchildren had 1.8 children; and the great-grandchildren, as of 2009, had an average of 0.7 offspring.

-  AFP

Tomato battle drenches Spanish town in red

Revelers play with tomato pulp during the annual "tomatina"
 tomato fight fiesta in the village of Bunol, near Valencia,
Spain, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012. AP Photo

Tens of thousands of revellers hurled 120 tonnes of squashed tomatoes at each other today, drenching the streets in red in a gigantic Spanish food fight known as the Tomatina.

A sea of more than 40,000 alcohol-soaked men and women packed into the Plaza Mayor square of Bunol, eastern Spain, many with their shirts off and wearing swimming goggles to keep out the stinging juice.

Spectators peered over the balconies of surrounding buildings, some also chucking tomatoes on chanting, dancing food-fighters below, who covered the square like a carpet.

Five trucks loaded with the tomatoes struggled to find space in the human tomato soup to enter the square.

But as they unloaded the edible ammunition, the square and surrounding streets were suddenly awash in a sea of tomato sauce, covering the crowds of festival goers.

"I can't throw fast enough. This is crazy. It's my third year," said one battler, Angel, as he pelted others with tomatoes, which must be squashed before being chucked so as to minimise the pain.

"It is a battle of crazy people, who get on together, and no injuries," said another, Nestor, who after being slathered in tomato in previous years chose to watch from balcony, spraying others with a water hose.

Many wore yellow T-shirts enscribed "Fanatic of the Tomatina".

"Long live the Tomatina! cried one Japanese tourist wrapped in a scarf decorated with a huge tomato picture, alongside a friend who protected himself with a tomato-shaped helmet.

The Tomatina is held each year in Bunol, in the heart of a fertile region some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of the coastal city of Valencia, Spain's third-largest city, on the last Wednesday in August.

The town says it expects the fight to bring in 300,000 euros ($380,000) to the local economy, a welcome financial boost as the country suffers from a recession and a jobless rate of nearly 25 percent.


 the origins of the event are unclear, it is thought to have its roots in a food fight between childhood friends in the mid-1940s in the city.

It has grown in size as international press coverage brought more and more people to the festival, with tourists flocking in this year from Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.

After the fight, many of the revellers head to the local river to wash off the pulp.

- AFP

Russia's volleyball coach commits suicide after Olympic failure: Report

Russian coach Sergey Ovchinnikov during their Women's
Preliminary Round match against Dominican Republic at
 the London 2012 Olympic Games. EPA photo

Sergey Ovchinnikov, the Russian women's national volleyball team coach, has committed suicide following his team’s Olympic failure, RT.com reported today.

The 43-year-old coach was at a training camp in Croatia with his team, Dynamo Moscow, when he died.

Former coach Vladimir Kuzyutkin said the suicide could have been due to the Russian team's poor performance at the London Olympics. "He was my friend, my colleague," Kuzyutkin was quoted as saying. "Yes, there was a blunder at the Olympics, well, to hell with it. I don’t know why he couldn’t cope with it.”

The head coach of Russia's national men's volleyball team, Vladimir Alekno, confirmed that the rout in London was a huge blow to Ovchinnikov. "He took the Olympics very personally,” Alekno reportedly said. "I saw what he was going through and how upset he was after the defeat. He didn’t talk much."

The Russian squad was one of the favorites in women's volleyball at the London Games, but the team missed out on the medals, losing to Brazil in the quarterfinals.

Guinea-worm disease on verge of eradication: WHO

GENEVA, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Surveillance and case containment activities have been stepped up as the guinea-worm disease is on the verge of eradication, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday.

Only 396 cases were reported in the first six months of this year, a dramatic fall from the 807 cases of the same period of last year, and an decrease by 99 percent from the 3.5 million cases reported in 1986. Among them, 391 cases, or 99 percent were in South Sudan, according to WHO.

Gautam Biswas, officer of WHO's Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, said he was pleased by the decrease. As there is no vaccine to prevent infection from the disease nor is there any medication to treat the disease, close surveillance and transmission interruption measures should be taken for prevention.

South Sudan, which was expected to be the last country to eradicate guinea worms, has committed to interrupting transmission by 2013.

The crippling parasitic disease, also know as dracunculiasis, is caused by Dracunculus medinensis, a long thread-like worm. The water-borne disease is transmitted exclusively when people drink water contaminated with parasite-infected water fleas and is now found in the most deprived regions of Africa.

The guinea-worm disease is expected to be the second disease after smallpox to be eradicated.

Cambridge University investigates hacking claim

The University of Cambridge has launched an investigation after a group claimed to have hacked into its software systems.

The group named NullCrew said it had targeted several university departments and broken into databases.

The network is linked to the computer hacking network Anonymous and supports the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Mr Assange, who faces extradition to Sweden, is currently taking shelter at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

The NullCrew group published details of what appear to be university user names and passwords online with the message: "There is much more where this came from, and don't think this is the end.

"NullCrew, along with the whole Anonymous movement, isn't near finished with you. And we never will be, until the right thing is done with Julian Assange.

"Next time it will be worse, we guarantee it."

A spokesman for Cambridge University said: "A group calling itself NullCrew claims to have obtained login details for some web-based resources hosted on university systems.

"As a preventative measure these have been taken offline while IT staff investigate the claims.

"The hacking group itself has not claimed to have compromised the email login details of members of the university, and there is no evidence to substantiate such a suggestion."

Original source here

Anger as 'superhero' school fails to teach special powers

Police are investigating a school in Shanghai after it failed to live up to its promise of teaching children special powers.

Dozens of parents fell for the ruse, enrolling children from the ages of seven to 17 in the summer course at £9,950 (100,000 yuan) a head.

Among the special powers the children were to be taught was the ability to read a book in 20 seconds and identify a poker card with the touch of a hand.

Some would even excel to be able to see the answers to exams in their heads on sight of the test paper, the course promised.

This remarkable feat – the course claimed – would be achieved by training class members to tap into the right side of their brain. This would enable the children to detect “waves” emanating from certain things, such as words on a page, and create a picture inside their mind. This picture was the key to these phenomenal powers, it said.

But after the 10-day course came to an end and the 30 pupils registered in the class failed to achieve their superhuman abilities, the mothers and fathers began to realise they had been duped.

"I found that my child learned nothing except how to cheat," one angry parent told the Guardian.

Others said the number of parents tricked by the course highlights the desperation of Chinese families in ensuring their children surpass their classmates.

"Every kid is going to after school classes nowadays. It's not only kids who are not good at school but also top students," a Beijing mother said, describing the pressure her own child was under.

Police are investigating the company behind the school.

Original source here

Feds: Poverty 'Poses A Serious Challenge' To American Education

New information from the federal government is the latest to show tremendous gaps in college attainment between socioeconomic and ethnic groups.

A new study from the National Center for Education Statistics, the research arm of the U.S. Education Department, analyzed gaps in access and persistence across gender and racial lines as mandated by Congress. The report, released Tuesday, shows that postsecondary attendance is lower among youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds as well as those from Black and Hispanic backgrounds compared to Whites and Asians. The study also showed that more females were enrolled in undergraduate or graduate study than males.

"For instance, among first-time students seeking bachelor's degrees who started full time at a 4-year college in 2004, a higher percentage of females than males completed bachelor's degrees within 6 years (61 vs. 56 percent) -- a pattern that held across all racial/ethnic groups."

According to the study, much of the divide in educational limitations arises from poverty which "poses a serious challenge to a child's ability to succeed in school and its prevalence is markedly higher among certain racial/ethnic groups than in others."

Parental education levels also tend to influence how well students perform in school. Students whose parents are highly educated tend to have higher success rates. Thus children from ethnicities that haven't traditionally had a chance at greater education have a greater hurdle at being successful in secondary and post-secondary education.

President Obama's 2020 College Completion Goals aim for the U.S. to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. If the United States is to meet that goal, more Latino students will need to graduate at a much higher rate.

Still, even though Latino students are enrolling at a higher rate in universities, completion is an entirely different ballgame.

"Over 40 percent of Latinos who are enrolled in college are the first in their family to go to college. And so you already have issues not just of enrollment but persistence to completion that require academic support," Deborah Santiago, at Excelencia in Education, told The Huffington Post in August.

Those students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are also challenged when it comes to graduating from a college or university, according to Santiago.

"Other factors to think about at looking at graduation rates...one is the academic preparation of Latinos. We tend to be in school districts that have less resources, less qualified teachers, and you have less academically prepared students through no fault of their own but because of where they got an education."

According to a report titled "Building a Grad Nation," the president's goal might be too challenging to meet.

"The pace is too slow to meet the national goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate by 2020. We must calibrate our educational system to the greater demands of the 21st century through a Civic Marshall Plan to make more accelerated progress in boosting student achievement, high school graduation rates, and college- and career-readiness for our nation to meet national goals and fulfill the promise of the next generation.”

Original source here

Indonesia Gets UNESCO Literacy Prize

By Zarnish Hussain

Correspondent SAM Daily Times

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has rewarded Indonesia for its fight against illiteracy, the UN agency said on Wednesday.

The country’s directorate general for community education development was the top winner for the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize this year.

“This program [in Indonesia] is aimed at enhancing quality education and eradicating illiteracy through entrepreneurship, reading, culture and training. It is involving more than 3 million people and specifically prioritizing illiterate women,” UNESCO stated.

According to UNESCO data, Indonesia managed to boost its total literacy rate to more than 93 percent in 2009.

The rate for its young adults aged 15 to 24 is far higher, reaching almost 100 percent in 2009. Indonesia has managed to steadily reduce its illiteracy rate since the 1980s. In 1980, the country’s literacy rate stood at a mere 67.31 percent. Ten years later, it had jumped to 81.5 percent.

In 2004, the rate passed 90 percent, and four years ago it hit 92.19 percent

Regionally, Indonesia is on par with its more advanced neighbors, such as Malaysia and Singapore, which had literacy rates of 93 and 95 percent, respectively, in 2009.It is ahead of other Asean countries, such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

Education experts praised Indonesia’s achievement, saying that the continued increase in the literacy rate showed that the country had the potential to compete at the regional and global levels.

Arief Rahman, an education advocate, said that in the last 10 years Indonesia managed to drastically cut the illiteracy rate, enabling many of its citizens to expose themselves to knowledge. He praised the government for its continued fight against illiteracy, and for aiming to achieve education for all targets by this year.

That might be difficult because many children lack the birth certificates needed to get into schools.

Arief pointed to difficulties in getting women older than 30 to become literate.

“Most illiterate persons are women above 30,” he said. “It’s very difficult to reach them. For young adults, we can teach them in formal schools. That’s why we have a near-universal literacy rate at the young adult level.”

According to Arief, who is the head of the Indonesian Commission for UNESCO, the country still faced cultural problems as many people, especially at the village level, did not believe reading and writing skills were important.

“What is important to them is to earn a living by farming or selling something,” he said. “It’s time to get them to realize that illiteracy causes poverty, while literacy opens the door to prosperity because they have the ability to get more information.”

UNESCO also awarded prizes to Bhutan, Colombia and Rwanda for their efforts to improve literacy.

The winners will receive their awards during a ceremony on Sept. 6 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, as part of International Literacy Day.

Rwanda received the second King Sejong Prize for an adult national literacy program by the Pentecostal church. The program, which focuses on women and teenage dropouts, has reached 100,000 people through 3,500 education centers.

Bhutan earned the Confucius Prize for Literacy by providing community education through 950 education centers.

In Columbia, the Transformemos Foundation took second place in the Confucius Prize for its interactive programs which fight illiteracy in conflict areas. The program has reached 300,000 people since 2006

(jakartaglobe.com)

California Multiple Parents Bill Passes Assembly

The California State Assembly approved a bill on Monday that would allowing children to legally have more than two parents.

The bill, introduced by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), would give judges in custody hearings the authority to recognize three or more parents if it's best for the child's health and welfare.

"We live in a world today where courts face the diverse circumstances that have reshaped California families," said Leno in a statement. "This legislation gives courts the flexibility to protect the best interests of a child who is being supported financially and emotionally by those parents. It is critical that judges have the ability to recognize the roles of all parents, especially when a family is in distress and a child’s security is a concern."

The bill doesn't alter the standard for what is required to qualify as a parent (raising the child as they would their own). Rather, it gives judges more leeway in making legal decisions.

Read More Here

Headline Aug30,2012/"The Art in Greatness!"

"THE ART IN GREATNESS!"

Just honour a closer glance at the flags and the stats. American Heroes have just about doubled their lead! For us and for millions of students around the world: this is an "Exceptional Testament" of a Great Nation. I thank you all for this honour! We thank you all for rising to such heights, for a situation that is physically and emotionally so distant!

If children are eating better because farmers are growing more food, it's going to imporve the health of the children. Obviously, it will take the burden off the clinics. If the children are healthy, they are going to be in school. And they are going to be learning. If the children are going to be in schools, they are going to be the ones who will bring new ideas and new technology to the community, so it's all mutually reinforcing.

So, it was in this context and perspective, that Professor Jeffrey Sachs began to assimilate facts and seek insights and inspiration. Dr Jeffrey Sachs, who then was the director of both the Earth Institute at the Columbia University and the UN Millennium Project, got picked by destiny to lead a green revolution in Africa that would help rescue the starving continent. Here he is, recalling his dream from the unreal to the real:

My colleagues and I took a stand in our work several years ago that we would not look for the magic bullet, because there is none. These are just basic problems requiring basic work. Nothing magic about it.
The strategy follows from that basic idea, but the idea of approaching this on village-by-village basis came about accidentally. Officialdom the world over is pretty slow moving , pretty impractical, and pretty darn frustrating in many ways, some even when the proofs of these concepts is clear, actually getting things done is not so easy. You need a little bit of money, and donors seem utterly capable of spending it on themselves, on salaries of consultants, on meetings and seminars and workshops, but not on actually helping people not starve to death in villages.

Too much of our Aid money goes after an emergency comes, in shipping food aid instead of helping the farmers grow food, just as too much of it goes to razing and rebuilding a city rather than fortifying levees in advance of a disaster. Think of it as a smart investment: we can pay now or pay many times over later. And it's a lot cheaper to pay now, and the return is incalculable. Yet this stuff doesn't actually get done, and that's why people are hungry, and that's why they're unable to access safe drinking water, and that's why they are dying by the millions! It's just not satisfactory to see all this suffering and happening and not act.

And so in the last couple of years I've started talking about these problems with business leaders and philanthropists, and over and over again, I have heard the same response:  Don't wait for the Government. I'll help you!" The world is just so full of great people!

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless 

Schiphol Airport Evacuation: Authorities Close Part Of Main Terminal For Possible Bomb Threat

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Part of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport has been evacuated after workers unearthed a suspected World War II bomb near its main terminal building.

Airport spokeswoman Karin Heldeweg says that the airport's Pier C has been shut down for arriving and departing flights while military bomb disposal experts check the suspected explosive and decide what to do with it.

The airport says the pier's closure could lead to delays and cancellations of flights.

The suspected bomb was uncovered early Wednesday by workers digging near the pier, which houses many of Schiphol's departure and arrival gates.

Schiphol, just outside Amsterdam, is one of Europe's busiest aviation hubs.

Teachers fear no boost in sight for languages

By Zarnish Hussain
Correspondent SAM Daily Times

Language teachers say a review of SACE in South Australian schools has failed to address a steep decline in language studies.

The Modern Language Teachers Association has written to the SACE board to again highlight its concern that language programs offered at Year 12 are down by about one-third.

Senior students choose four subjects rather than five under the new SACE, with their fifth now a compulsory research project.

Association president Joe Van Dalen said this year's review of the curriculum changes had failed to properly address the decline of language studies.

"The SACE Board is recommending that the trend in enrolments be monitored, but we feel that this is a rather more serious drop in languages and other humanities subjects than was anticipated," he said.

"If you ask students to reduce their subjects from five to four [it] stands to reason that students wouldn't be choosing say a fifth subject that might have covered some of the humanities/languages areas.

"Because students aren't choosing those subjects then there aren't sufficient numbers within schools to sustain programs."

SA Education Minister Grace Portolesi said she was committed to ensuring languages had a strong future in South Australian schools and was finalizing her response to the recent curriculum review.

"I am sympathetic to the issues raised by the Modern Language Teachers Association however I think it's also important to note that languages have generally been on the decline, so this is an issue that has pre-dated the new SACE, although I do acknowledge that there has been a sharp decrease in the last little while," she said.

(http://www.abc.net.au/news/)

Improving global nuclear safety an urgent concern, says U.N. nuclear chief

VIENNA —Improving global nuclear safety after last year’s Fukushima disaster must remain an urgent concern, despite improvements already made. Much work remains to be done and we must not relax our guard.

Li Ganjie of China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration, president of the week-long meeting, said nuclear safety must know no boundaries, even though this may raise costs. Without nuclear safety there can be no nuclear power development.

Meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami sent radiation spewing over large areas, forcing more than 160,0000 people to flee. In the following months, all Japan’s remaining reactors were shut for safety checks. Two reactors resumed operation last month.

The IAEA has said it believes, however, that global use of nuclear energy could increase by as much as 100% by 2030 on the back of growth in Asia, including in China and India.

A senior Japanese official, Shinichi Kuroki, later briefed the conference about conditions at Fukushima, saying reactors had cooled in a stable manner but that the decommissioning posed problems.

Students March In Chilean Capital

Demanding Educational reforms, students, teachers and workers have marched in Santiago. One student leader has estimated strength of the protesters to about 150,000, while another has even reported 200,000.

The Confederation of Chilean Students (Confech), which represents both high school and university students, organized the march as part of a national day of action across Santiago. The United Federation of Workers (CUT) and the National Teachers’ College also lent support.

“The government said we are just 0.1 percent of Chile. Today we showed that we are a majority and that we are joining forces to demand free, quality education that is profit-free,” student leader Camila Vallejo wrote on Twitter in reference to President Sebastián Piñera’s comment that only 0.1 percent of schools supported the methods of high school protesters.

Estimates of the number attendees varied, with Chilean police putting the figure at 50,000. However, the Federation of Chilean Students (FECH) estimated 150,000 and Vallejo and the new president of the CUT, Bárbara Figueroa, said 200,000 participated.

The march was peaceful until it officially ended but quickly descended into chaos with “encapuchados”, or hooded vandals, attacking police.

Protesters throwing furniture, stones and slabs of pavement injured 13 officers, two seriously, according to Luis Valdés, the police chief in Chile’s Metropolitan Region. At the time of publication, police had reported 200 arrests.

Quebec police clash with student protesters for 2nd day

Demonstrators outside the University of Montreal hold up a banner reading 'We won't go back to class like this.' 

Ten people face charges — most of them for allegedly assaulting police or security guards Tuesday — as students staged a second day of protests to mark the resumption of classes at Quebec's post-secondary schools.

In all, 21 people were detained, Montreal police said, after riot police entered the Jean Brillant building on the University of Montreal campus for the second time in a day, in response to a complaint from the university administration about classes being disrupted.


The incidents Tuesday took place in the same arts building where masked protesters were confronted by police and security guards on Monday, the first day back to class at many Quebec universities following the suspension of the winter term due to a widespread student strike.

Montreal police briefly detained 19 people Monday at the University of Montreal on suspicion that they violated provisions of the province's contentious Bill 78, the anti-protest legislation now known as Law 12. Bill 78 sets out stiff penalties for protesters who block schools or who fail to provide police with their demonstration itinerary eight hours in advance.

Police in vehicles were also patrolling, but not fully deployed, at UQAM, the University of Quebec's Montreal campus, on Monday. There, dozens of demonstrators, many wearing bandanas on their faces, filed through classrooms clanging on pots, while others staged sit-ins in front of classroom doorways.

The protesters say they are only blocking classes attended by students from associations that voted in the past few weeks to continue their strike.

Most Quebec college and university students have voted to end their boycott of courses, but 9,100 students at UQAM, 2,800 at the University of Montreal, 12,000 at Laval University in Quebec City and 7,500 at other institutions are keeping up their general strike. More than 150,000 students were on strike at its peak in the spring, representing one-third of the pupils at Quebec's universities and CEGEP colleges.

The Quebec government officially suspended the winter term at many universities on May 18 due to the student crisis but under Bill 78, the the classes were supposed to resume this week.

-  CBC News

'Tatooine-like' double-star systems can host planets

An artist's impression depicts the two relatively small planets orbiting
a binary in the constellation Cygnus 

A new study shows that planetary systems can form and survive in the chaotic environment around pairs of stars.

A team reports in Science the discovery of two planets orbiting a pair of stars - a so-called binary.

Gravitational disturbances generated by stellar pairs are thought to be very severe for any orbiting planets.

Nasa's Kepler space telescope found two small planets around a pair of low-mass stars.

Such systems have particular significance for science fiction fans. In the Star Wars films, Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine orbits a binary star.

The planetary system, known as Kepler-47, is located roughly 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation Cygnus.

It contains a pair of stars whizzing around each other every 7.5 days. One star is Sun-like, while the other is about one-third the size of its neighbour and 175 times fainter.

Circling the stars is an inner planet about three times larger in diameter than the Earth, and an outer planet that is just slightly larger than Uranus.


The inner planet - dubbed Kepler-47b - takes 49 days to complete an orbit, while the outer planet - Kepler-47c - takes 303 days.

The orbit of the outer planet places it in the so-called "habitable zone", the region around a star where it is neither too cold nor too hot for liquid water to persist on the surface of a planet.

While the outer world is probably a gas-giant planet and thus not suitable for life, its discovery establishes that these "circumbinary" planets can, and do, exist in habitable zones.

-  BBC.co.uk

US Open: Novak Djokovic begins title defence with easy victory

Novak Djokovic made a convincing start to the defence of his US Open crown with an effortless straight sets victory over Italy's Paolo Lorenzi.

The second seed needed just 73 minutes to beat Lorenzi 6-1 6-0 6-1.

Joining him in the second round at Flushing Meadows is fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who defeated Karol Beck 6-3 6-1 7-6 (7-2).

Tomas Berydch progressed with a 7-5 6-3 6-3 win over David Goffin, while Andy Roddick is also through.

Roddick, the 2003 champion and 20th seed, beat fellow American Rhyne Williams 6-3 6-4 6-4 to set up a meeting with Bernard Tomic.

Lorenzi broke Djokovic in the opening game of the match, but that was as good as it got for the 69th seed, who had to wait until the start of the third set to win his next game.

Djokovic equalled his most convincing win in a Grand Slam match, conceding only two games at a major tournament for the fifth time in his career.

Serbian Djokovic, bidding for a sixth Grand Slam title, won 79 of 114 points and hit seven aces and 32 winners.

-  BBC.co.uk

Theo Walcott: Arsenal fail to agree contract terms with winger

England winger Theo Walcott has rejected a contract offer from Arsenal but negotiations are ongoing between the club and player.

The 23-year-old, whose contract expires in 2013, wants to stay and is willing to continue negotiations.

But reports suggest Arsenal will sell him before the 31 August transfer deadline unless he signs an improved five-year deal worth £75,000 a week.

Walcott joined Arsenal from Southampton for £12.5m as a 16-year-old in 2006.

He has scored 42 goals in 222 appearances and won 28 England caps during his time at the club.

Walcott contributed 12 assists in the Premier League last season, many of which were for Robin van Persie.

Van Persie moved to Manchester United for £24m on 17 August, three days before Alex Song joined Barcelona.

Walcott started the home draw with Sunderland on the opening day of the season but was left on the bench for Sunday's draw at Stoke.

Arsenal waited until after the campaign began to open dialogue with Walcott's representatives and feel they have enough cover in wide positions if he is sold.

Manager Arsene Wenger has Lukas Podolski, Gervinho, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Andrey Arshavin and highly-rated 17-year-old Serge Gnabry at his disposal.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, 19, started England's Euro 2012 opener against France, with Walcott forced to settle for substitute appearances in all four of their matches in the tournament.

- BBC.co.uk

Hantavirus warning to 1,700 Yosemite campers

The warning applies to visitors who stayed in the
cabins at Curry Village from mid-June onward 

(USA) Yosemite National Park is warning 1,700 visitors who stayed in some of its tent cabins this summer that they may have been exposed to a deadly virus.

Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome has been blamed for the deaths of two campers who stayed at the Californian park.

The disease can be carried in the urine, saliva and faeces of infected deer mice, and symptoms can appear as late as six weeks after exposure.

Two other infected campers were expected to survive.

The first death was reported earlier this month, and one of the victims was identified as a 37-year-old man from the San Francisco Bay area.

There is no specific treatment for the hantavirus, which has a fatality rate of 30%.

Double hit: Bigfoot imitator killed on Montana highway

An American man posing as the mysterious ape-like creature Bigfoot, has been killed in a freak road accident on a highway in Montana.
The man was dressed in a military-style camouflage costume worm by snipers and hunters. Local police reportedly identified the victim as 44-year-old Randy Lee Tenley.
He had been challenged to convince passing motorists they were witnessing a sighting of the reclusive Sasquatch.
He was in the right-hand lane of the highway when he was first hit by a car driven by a 15-year-old girl. When another car swerved to avoid him, the third vehicle driven by a 17-year-old girl ran him over again.
Highway Patrol trooper Jim Schneider was quoted as saying that the man’s camouflage suit was partly to blame for his death as it hindered the ability of people to clearly see him on the highway.
The police are waiting for toxicology results to see if alcohol played a role in the accident.

Exxon sets world record with the deepest oil well on the Russian shelf

Gravity Base Structure (GBS) to install oil and gas platforms "Berkut"
 on the Arkutun-Dagi maritime oil field (north-eastern shelf of Sakhalin
 Island), whose construction in the "Sakhalin-1" project is completed
at the dock port in Eastern Primorye territory.

Exxon Neftegas Ltd (ENL) has completed drilling the world’s deepest well in the Chayvo oil field on the Sakhalin shelf in the Russian Far East.
The shaft of well Z-44 is 12,376 meter deep, which is the equivalent to 15 times the height of the world tallest skyscraper the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
“We are  proud  of this  achievement,  which  furthers  the successful  implementation of  this remarkable project,”  ENL chief James Taylor is quoted as saying. Six of the world’s ten deepest wells, including Z-44, have been drilled in Russia for the Sakhalin-1 project using ExxonMobil drilling technology – the so-called “fast drill”, he added.
Chayvo is one of the three Sakhalin-1 fields and is located off the northeast coast of Sakhalin Island in eastern Russia. The Sakhalin-1 project is being developed by an international consortium led by ENL, which holds a 30% stake,  the Japanese SODECO (30%), India's ONGC Videsh  Ltd (20%) and subsidiaries of Russian oil major Rosneft – RN Astra (8.5%) and Sakhalinmorneftegaz Shelf (11.5%).
The total project is estimated to cost $10–12 billion. The fields of Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi are estimated to yield 2.3 billion barrels of oil and 17.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

- Rt.com

Underwater photography gallery on shipwreck

A photographer has plundered the depths of the Atlantic Ocean to combine his passion for diving and photography with a deep sea exhibition.
If you want to visit, it’ll mean a plunge 140-150 meters below sea level, at the bottom of the Key West Waters. Where the Atlantic meets the Gulf of Mexico, scuba divers can drop to the U.S.S. Vandenberg, sunken just off Key West for an artistic dip.
Austrian artist Andreas Franke has re-installed art on the shipwreck, a former U.S. Air Force missile tracking ship. His goal was to breathe life back into the wreck. Small particles and sea life have attached themselves to the photographs, giving them a living third dimension.
Franke is now researching locations for a completely new installation on a recently-sunken shipwreck off Sanibel Island, Florida, on the state’s gulf coast.

Cote d'Ivoire: Universities Reopen After Political Unrest

Abidjan — When Côte d'Ivoire's five public universities reopen on 3 September, 61,000 students will arrive for the first time after almost two years since they were closed in the violent unrest sparked by the disputed 2010 presidential vote. There are fears the influx could cause chaos.

In the 2009-10 academic year, before the closure, there were some 56,000 students. "If the influx is not competently handled, it will spark fears of serious social problems among the students and parents," said Kanvaly Fadiga, a lecturer at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure [a specialized tertiary institution] in Côte d'Ivoire's commercial capital, Abidjan.

Fadiga argues that the whole education system lacks quality, and that the lost years should have been used to assess university education. Weaknesses could have been identified and rectified through consultations, measures devised to eradicate violence, the learning programmes revised, and rigour in teaching instilled.

Read More Here