Bangladesh police kill textile workers

Child Factory Workers in Bangladesh from EyeToEye on Vimeo.

From Al Jazeera:

Bangladesh workers riot over pay

At least two people have been killed and scores injured in clashes between textile workers and police in Bangladesh, police have said.

The violence broke out as workers protested over unpaid salaries in the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, on Saturday.

“Law-enforcers had to fire rubber bullets from shot guns to disperse the workers who hurled stones and bricks at our officers,” Shafiqul Alam, a police inspector, said.

Why did Inspector Shafiqul Alam not just say, factually, that police “fired rubber bullets”? Why did he say that they “had to fire rubber bullets”? Granted, this police spokesperson is hardly alone in using this ideological euphemism. Police spokespeople in many countries do so. Even worse, theoretically “fair and balanced media” use this euphemism as well, whenever police kill people.

“So far two people have died.”

Workers coming to work at the Nippon Garments factory north of Dhaka found a notice at the gate saying authorities were closing the factory for a month, citing losses and falling orders.

Angry protest

They then took to the streets to protest, and police said as many as 15,000 people were involved in the protests.

Maleka Begum, a police official, said at least 100 workers and a number of police officers were injured in the clashes.

The protesters were demanding three months’ back pay, she said.

See also here. And here.

Bangladesh have ordered an independent probe into clashes between riot police and protesting garment factory staff on Saturday that left two workers dead and around 100 injured: here.

A gay Bangladeshi couple have been battling to gain citizenship in Australia for 10 years. The Refugee Review Tribunal knocked back their claims three times, and three times a higher court has overturned the rulings: here.

The Bangladeshi finance minister recently warned that some 20 million Bangladeshis – one-sixth of the population – are threatened with displacement through rising sea levels: here.

Union leaders demanded on Sunday that textile bosses compensate the families of more than 20 workers killed in Bangladesh’s latest garment factory fire: here.

Bangladesh: Factory fire kills 21 garment workers: here.

Spider web from dinosaur age discovered

This video says about itself:

A team of British researchers have been rebuilding fossils of 300-million year old spiders using computer 3-D technology- they say they are providing a clearer picture of how some extinct species once lived on early Earth.

From the BBC:

Saturday, 31 October 2009

Spider web confirmed as ‘oldest’

Spider webs encased in amber which were discovered on an East Sussex beach have been confirmed by scientists as being the world’s oldest on record.

The amber, which was found in Bexhill by fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks and his brother Jonathan, dates back 140 million years to the Cretaceous period.

Professor Martin Brasier said they were the earliest webs to be incorporated into the fossil record.

He has published his findings in the Journal of the Geological Society.

Professor Brasier, who is a palaeobiologist at the University of Oxford, said: “This amber is very rare. It comes from the very base of the Cretaceous, which makes it one of the oldest ambers anywhere to have inclusions in it.”

‘Sticky droplets’

He added: “These spiders are distinctive and leave little sticky droplets along the spider web threads to trap prey.

“We actually have the sticky droplets preserved within the amber. These turn out to be the earliest webs that have ever been incorporated in the fossil record to our knowledge.”

His studies revealed that the spider that spun the web is related to the modern day orb-web or garden spider.

Scientists think the web became trapped in conifer resin after a forest fire and then became fossilised inside the resulting amber.

Mr Hiscocks and his brother also found the fossilised remains of an Iguanodon jaw bone on the coastline.

Extreme Behavioral Adjustments by an Orb-Web Spider to Restricted Spaces: here.

The brown recluse spider, Loxosceles reclusa, has a bad and largely undeserved reputation. Across the U.S., people fear the bite of this spider, believing it is an aggressive attacker and certain to cause devastating necrotic wounds. Research on brown recluse spiders has proven these assertions to be false: here.

European garden spider: here.

Did Caterpillars Starve Dinosaurs to Death? Here.

Japanese PM hates whale meat

This video is called Promo ‘Kingdom Of The Blue Whale’, National Geographic Channel.

This is another National Geographic video about blue whales.

From AFP news agency:

Japanese PM says he hates whale meat

October 31, 2009 – 8:09PM

AFP

Japan’s Yukio Hatoyama has revealed he dislikes whale meat, a newspaper has reported in an unusual confession for the prime minister of a country that defies Western criticism of whaling.

“I hate whale meat,” Hatoyama said during a meeting with his visiting Dutch counterpart Jan Peter Balkenende on Monday, the Sankei Shimbun reported on Saturday.

Most Japanese (and most people in other countries where there still is whaling, like Iceland and Norway) don’t eat whale meat. Continuing whaling just serves the special interests of small minorities, at the detriment of the global ecosystem. Time to stop it forever.

November 12 2009. A major review of Japanese government spending could spell the end to whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, according to Greenpeace, after the review committee proposed massive cuts in subsidies to a body which funds the so-called scientific research programme: here.

In the lead-up to US President Barack Obama’s first visit to Japan, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has signalled that his government is wanting to readjust the country’s longstanding alliance with the US: here.

US President Barack Obama arrives today in Tokyo at the start of his first trip to Asia. While he will also stop off in South Korea and the APEC summit in Singapore, the central focus of the tour is China and the underlying economic and strategic rivalry between Beijing and Washington: here. And here.

Visiting US President Barack Obama faced a mass protest in central Tokyo on Friday as activists demanded the withdrawal of the 47,000 US troops still based in Japan: here.

Some people just don’t know when to shut up. Japanese whalers ridiculous PR: here.

Pondskater and long-tailed tits

This video says about itself:

Pond skater. Gerris sp. feeding on ants that have fallen from bushes and are trapped in the surface tension. Also close up view of adult and nymph.

Today, in the brook in the botanical garden, a pondskater.

Just outside the garden, a group of long-tailed tits.

The immature stages of the genus Trepobates (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Gerridae): here.

February 2010. A new report reveals that 80% of ponds in the British countryside are in a ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ condition. In England and Wales, the study also shows that the condition of ponds has got worse since 1996: here.

Cheney and the Plamegate scandal

This video from the USA is called Stephanie Miller and Larry Johnson on Plame-Gate part 1.

From the New York Times in the USA:

In ’04 Interview, Cheney Denied C.I.A. Leak Role

By DAVID JOHNSTON

Published: October 30, 2009

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney denied in an interview with a special prosecutor investigating the C.I.A. leak case that he had played any role in the disclosure of the identity of Valerie Wilson as an intelligence officer, according to F.B.I. documents released

Some of the assertions by Mr. Cheney in his interview with the prosecutor on May 8, 2004, appeared to conflict with testimony at the 2007 trial of his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice and whose sentence was later commuted by President George W. Bush.

This Plamegate scandal, of course, was the Bush administration’s revenge against Valerie Wilson’s husband for proving that the Bush clique used forged documents to justify starting the Iraq war.

Bush White House willfully left Plamegate leaker’s emails unrestored: watchdog: here.

PHOTOS: Naomi Watts, Valerie Plame & Partners At ‘Fair Game’ Premiere: here.

Cheney Failed to Answer 72 FBI Questions: here.

Halliburton/KBR Goes After Rape Survivor Jamie Leigh Jones’ Personal Integrity In Its Supreme Court Petition: here.

Hondurans celebrate return of Zelaya to presidency

In this Associated Press video, Hondurans celebrate the probable return of democratically elected president Zelaya to office.

See also here. And here. And here. And here. And here.

US Labour Secretary Hilda Solis and former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos are set to arrive in Tegucigalpa tomorrow as part of a commission that is to monitor the creation of a power-sharing government in Honduras: here.

The leadership of Honduras’s Congress has met to begin consideration of an accord that could reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya, but they failed to set a date for bringing the issue to the floor: here.

Corrupt occupation in Afghanistan, new film

This video from the USA is called The Corrupt Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

By Mathew Benn:

An exposure of corruption: Afghanistan, on the Dollar Trail

31 October 2009

The documentary, Afghanistan, on the Dollar Trail, which was aired this month on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) program “Four Corners”, is a well-produced exposure of the corruption and criminality that has accompanied the “reconstruction” of Afghanistan since the 2001 US invasion.

The timing of its screening was not accidental. Particularly in the wake of the widespread vote-rigging in the August 20 presidential poll, the media has been highlighting government corruption in Afghanistan as a major reason for the growth of the Taliban insurgency amid speculation that President Hamid Karzai might be removed.

Blaming the Karzai administration conveniently ignores the fact that pay-offs and bribes have been integral to the US invasion and occupation from the outset. Washington brought down the Taliban regime by buying off a series of warlords who were notorious for their thuggery and criminal activities, including involvement in the drug trade. Karzai was simply installed as the frontman for the puppet regime constructed on this basis.

While the documentary is uncritical of the US occupation, it is, without intending to be, a damning indictment of US propaganda that its invasion of Afghanistan was to improve the lives of the long-suffering Afghan people.

The documentary follows director Paul Moreira as he seeks to track down how some of the estimated $US18 billion in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan has been used. Last year, a host of countries and organisations attended the “International Afghanistan Support Conference” in Paris. The assembled delegates voted to finance the building of 680 new schools in the country. Moreira makes it his initial task to inspect some of these schools in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Moreira stumbles across one by chance. It is a girls´school in which “a few minor details are missing for the situation to be perfect”, comments the narrator, “details like walls and a roof”. The students are forced to have lessons outside, with only a damaged portable blackboard to suggest a classroom setting. There is no protection from the cold. Snow begins to fall. A teacher comments that the students cannot be expected to learn when they are more concerned about staying warm.

Moreira contacts USAID, which can suggest only one other newly-built school to visit in Kabul. Upon arriving, a billboard depicts a modern facility in a pristine surrounding. The next shot is of the school itself. It consists almost entirely of tents. Although the government promised 18 months ago that construction would be finished within two years, all that has been built are a brick wall and some bathrooms.

A presidential run-off election planned for Nov. 7 seemed headed for collapse Saturday, with the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, widely expected to pull out of the race: here.

More than 1,000 American troops have been wounded in battle over the past three months in Afghanistan, accounting for one-fourth of those injured in combat since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001: here.

Kipling Haunts Obama’s Afghan War: here.

NATO strategy in Afghanistan is increasing the likelihood of terrorist attacks in Britain, a Tory MP Adam Holloway has warned: here; and here.

Pakistanis angry about US drone attacks

This video is called Refugees flee heavy fighting in South Waziristan – 23 Oct 09.

From CBS News in the USA:

ISLAMABAD, Oct. 30, 2009

Clinton Takes Heat for Drone Attacks

Secretary of State Mum as Pakistanis Unleash Anger over Unmanned Aerial Bombings along Afghan Border

(CBS/AP) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came face-to-face Friday with Pakistani anger over U.S. aerial drone attacks in tribal areas along the Afghan border, a strategy that U.S. officials say has succeeded in killing key terrorist leaders.

In a series of public appearances on the final day of a three-day visit marked by blunt talk, Clinton refused to discuss the subject, which involves highly classified CIA operations. She would say only that “there is a war going on,” and the Obama administration is committed to helping Pakistan defeat the insurgents and terrorists who threaten the stability of a nuclear-armed nation. …

During an interview broadcast live in Pakistan with several prominent female TV anchors, before a predominantly female audience of several hundred, one member of the audience said the Predator attacks amount to “executions without trial” for those killed.

Another asked Clinton how she would define terrorism.

“Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?” she asked. That woman then asked if Clinton considers drone attacks and bombings like the one that killed more than 100 civilians in the city of Peshawar earlier this week to both be acts of terrorism.

“No, I do not,” Clinton replied.

Earlier, in a give-and-take with about a dozen residents of the tribal region, one man alluded obliquely to the drone attacks, saying he had heard that in the United States, aircraft are not allowed to take off after 11 p.m., to avoid irritating the population.

“That is the sort of peace we want for our people,” he said through an interpreter.

The same man told Clinton that the Obama administration should rely more on wisdom and less on firepower to achieve its aims in Pakistan. …

A similar point was made by Sana Bucha of Geo TV during the live broadcast interview.

“It is not our war,” she told Clinton. “It is your war.” She drew a burst of applause when she added, “You had one 9/11. We are having daily 9/11s in Pakistan.”

Capturing a feeling that Clinton heard expressed numerous times during her visit, one woman in the audience said, “The whole world thinks we are terrorists.” The woman said she was from the South Waziristan area where the Pakistani army is engaged in pitched battles with Taliban and affiliated extremist elements – and where U.S. drones have struck with deadly effect many times.

See also here. And here. And here.

U.S. vs. Taliban? Who is the Bigger Threat in Pakistan? Here.

BP fined for Texas City disaster

This video from the USA says about itself:

A detailed study of the events leading up to the BP Texas City refinery explosion of 2005. Litigation is still ongoing for this incident, which was preventable.

From the New York Times in the USA:

BP Faces Record Fine for ’05 Refinery Explosion

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: October 30, 2009

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will announce the largest fine in its history on Friday, $87 million in penalties against the oil giant BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Tex. refinery, federal officials said Thursday.

The suspected cause of the explosion that killed 15 workers at BP‘s Texas City, Tex., plant in 2005 was the escape of flammable hydrocarbons that were ignited by the backfire of a truck.

The fine is more than four times the size of any previous OSHA sanction.

The officials, who insisted on anonymity because the fines were not scheduled to be announced until Friday, said the penalty was the result of BP’s failure to comply in hundreds of instances with a 2005 agreement to fix safety hazards at the refinery, the nation’s third-largest.

According to documents obtained by The New York Times, OSHA issued 271 notifications to BP for failing to correct hazards at the Texas City refinery over the four-year period since the explosion. As a result, OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, is issuing fines of $56.7 million. In addition, OSHA also identified 439 “willful and egregious” violations of industry-accepted safety controls at the refinery. Those violations will lead to $30.7 million in additional fines.

http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=6410203&m=6410204&t=audio

This is an NPR audio on this.

Oil giant Total UK on Friday admitted health and safety breaches in connection with the massive Buncefield oil depot explosion: here.

A Friday morning explosion and fire at an oil refinery in Washington state has killed three workers and left four more critically injured: here.

A company was found guilty on Wednesday of a health and safety breach in connection with the huge explosion at the Buncefield oil depot in December 2005: here.

Tav Engineering Ltd has been found guilty of a health and safety breach in connection with the huge explosion at the Buncefield oil depot: here.

Almost five years after the Buncefield oil depot explosion, the five companies whose negligence and irresponsibility caused the blast have been fined over £9 million: here.

Deal in Honduras?

This video is called Zelaya addresses UN via cell phone.

From Democracy NOW! in the USA:

Deal Reached in Honduran Coup Crisis; Zelaya Restoration Would Depend on Vote by Honduran Congress

The Honduran coup regime and representatives of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya reached an agreement late Thursday that would pave the way for Congress to restore Zelaya to office and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. We go to the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa to speak with Andrés Conteris, who has been holed up at the embassy since Zelaya took refuge there last month.

See also here. And here.