Bizarre Magellanic penguin nests

By Barbara Fenig:

The Magellanic penguins nest in the Andes mountains once a year. Watch this footage of their nesting patterns and unusual neighbors, like the world’s smallest deer and wildcat.

Bizarre marine animal behaviour

This video is about the mating rituals of the spotted box fish and the blue headed wrasse.

This video is about underwater predator and prey camouflage.

This video is about pistol shrimps.

Evolutionary biology theory predicts that males usually won’t invest a lot of time raising offspring when there is a good chance they are not the fathers. Yale University researchers have found a notable exception to this premise-a male fish in the Mediterranean, the ocellated wrasse, that is more likely to be paternal when there is grave doubt about the offsprings’ parentage: here.

Amazing Camouflage Animals (PHOTOS): here.

Asian Sheepshead Wrasse resembling “Shrek” filmed off Japanese coast: here.

Bizarre reindeer and skunk behaviour

By Barbara Fenig:

Reindeer have evolved an insatiable appetite for the fly agaric mushroom. The animals dig for the mushrooms obsessively. Notably, the mushroom may be the root behind the myth of flying reindeer. Watch the video to find out more!

British Cavemen Didn’t Eat Reindeer: here.

The spotted skunk uses the handstand as a defense mechanism to warn predators of its spraying abilties. Watch as the skunk essentially breakdances with its human buddies.

The Spotted Skunk Is One Stinky Acrobat: here.

Bizarre baboon and crab behaviour

By Barbara Fenig:

Chacma baboons have evolved an unusual taste for shark eggs. Watch as the baboons visit the seaside to find their treat.

Watch this video of the dresser crab as it elaborately adorns itself in camouflage.

Drunk baboons plague Cape Town’s exclusive suburbs: here.

Baboon Tangerine: Animals Lead To Discovery Of New Fruit Variety: here.

Bizarre monkey and ant behaviour

By Barbara Fenig:

In St. Kitts, vervet monkeys have developed a penchant for alcohol by eating fermented sugarcane for the past three hundred years. Recently, the monkeys have started to scavenge local resorts and sip from tourists’ glasses to get their fix.

This unusual population of ants herds packs of aphids and sucks out the honeydew nectar that the aphids produce. The ants also protect the aphids from predators, like the ladybug, in an act of predatorial symbiosis.

Georgian Saakashvili critics flee from repression

This video is called Mysterious deaths of top political rivals of Georgian Dictator wouldn’t trouble Western politicians.

From Partisan News blog:

Friday, September 4, 2009

Georgian Journalist Seeks Asylum in S. Ossetia

Georgian opposition journalist Levan Gudadze and his family have fled Georgia and are seeking political asylum in Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital.

According to South Ossetian Foreign Minister Murat Dzhioev, Gudadze fled from Georgia on Thursday. The journalist fled Georgia because he had been receiving threats from Georgian authorities over his criticism of the Saakashvili Administration.

“Levan had three Tbilisi-based news websites, and they were shot down by the authorities one by one. He was called on the phone, sent threatening letters, so we decided to leave the country,” Roza Bichikashvili, Gudadze mother, said.

“Incidents like this have become more frequent lately,” South Ossetian human rights officer David Sanakoev said. “Many Georgian citizens are seeking ways to leave the country because of the tense situation in Georgia and the impossibility of continuing to live there.”

Naturally, the American media will ignore this because Saakashvili is a NATO puppet.

See also here.

A New York Times editorial attempts to portray the recent report by EU investigators, which found the Georgian government legally responsible for initiating the [South Ossetia] conflict, as a vindication of the newspaper’s own biased coverage in August 2008: here.

Bush’s Attorney General can be sued for human rights violations

This video from the USA is a John Ashcroft musical parody.

By Rebecca Boone in the USA:

John Ashcroft Can Be Sued For Post-9/11 Detentions, Court Rules

09/ 4/09 11:07 PM

BOISE, Idaho — A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration‘s post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government’s improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism case can sue Ashcroft for allegedly violating his constitutional rights. Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen and former University of Idaho student, filed the lawsuit against Ashcroft and other officials in 2005, claiming his civil rights were violated when he was detained as a material witness for two weeks in 2003.

He said the investigation and detention not only caused him to lose a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia, but cost him employment opportunities and caused his marriage to fall apart.

He argued that his detention exemplified an illegal government policy created by Ashcroft to arrest and detain people – particularly Muslim men and those of Arab descent – as material witnesses if the government suspected them of a crime but had no evidence to charge them.

See also here.

United States economic news

The unemployment rate in the US rose to 9.7 percent in August, its highest level since 1983, as the economy shed 216,000 jobs. Economists had anticipated a more modest increase in the unemployment rate, to 9.5 percent over the 9.4 recorded in July: here.

A detailed study released Wednesday reveals that violations of labor laws are the rule, not the exception, in low-wage industries in the US: here.

As a result of the government’s bailout, the largest US banks are gaining control of an ever greater share of financial markets and using their monopolistic position to gouge consumers and small businesses: here.

The 16th annual Institute for Policy Studies “Executive Excess” report exposes this year’s windfalls for top financial bailout recipients [in the USA]: here.

Sri Lankan workers fight exploitation

This is a United Nations video about Sri Lankan tea plantation workers.

From British daily News Line:

Saturday, 5 September 2009

SRI LANKA TEA WORKERS BATTLE FOR £2 A DAY

SRI LANKAN tea workers, some 400,000 strong, are mainly Tamil women workers, who work for around £1 a day and live, along with their families, in crude lineshacks which have absolutely no amenities and which were constructed in the 19th century by British imperialism.

Their wages are not enough to feed their families or pay for the medicines that their health care requires, and such are the harsh conditions of life, most families have at least one member who is seriously ill.

The cost of living and surviving, far exceed their wages, so they are permanently in debt to moneylenders – a debt which increases every week and becomes unrepayable – a huge millstone around the neck of every family.

In inverse proportion to their oppression and poverty is the riches that they have created for the owners of the tea plantations, the British and other capitalists.

Now their unions have begun a struggle to try to double their wages to just over £2 a day, by not allowing tea to leave the plantations.

They will be opposed by the Rajapakse regime and its armed forces who, using their anti-terror laws, can jail anybody using trumped up charges.

The teaworkers have the support of the Sri Lankan working class who section by section, from garment workers to power workers, are being drawn into the struggle to defend their jobs, and to win wage rises in a situation of rising inflation, and a growing number of bankruptcies which threaten themselves and their families.

They must also have the support of the British workers. The TUC Congress must carry an emergency motion to fully support their struggle and give practical support, including making big financial donations to the cause. …

Sri Lanka already has a massive debt. This will be added to by Rajapakse’s decision to increase the manning of the army by 50 per cent to 300,000. With the [Tamil] Tigers defeated the working class is the target.

A humanitarian catastrophe has been escalating over the last three months in the internment camps in which 285,000 Tamil civilians have been imprisoned in the north of Sri Lanka: here.

Sri Lanka orders Unicef official to leave. James Elder loses diplomatic status after speaking out on plight of Tamils in government-run camps: here.

Why has Britain funded Sri Lankan detention camps? Here.

The Sri Lanka government announced it will “resettle” hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians held in detention camps since mid-May, but they are being moved into what amounts to a permanent military occupation and subjected to prison-like restrictions: here.

High street British brands are being accused of exploiting factory garment workers in Asia by failing to pay them enough to live off in a report published today: here.

Anti-poverty campaigners exposed on Friday the appalling conditions of tea workers at the Powai Tea estate plantation in Bengal: here.