Giant penguin fossils discovered

This video from the USA says about itself:

30 September 2010

Paleontologists have unearthed the first extinct penguin with preserved evidence of scales and feathers. The 36-million-year-old fossil from Peru shows the new giant penguin’s feathers were reddish brown and grey, distinct from the black tuxedoed look of living penguins. The animal was nearly five feet tall.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Pick up a penguin: remains of giant red species found

Scientists believe discovery could explain how the smaller, modern-day creature evolved

* Sam Jones
* Thursday 30 September 2010 19.00 BST

Scientists have discovered the fossilised remains of an enormous red-feathered penguin that cast a long and waddling shadow across the shores of Peru 36m years ago.

The fossils of the beast, which were discovered by Peruvian student Ali Altamirano in the Paracas National Reserve on the country’s southern coast, could help explain how its modern descendants evolved.

The new species – known as Inkayacu paracasensis, from the Quechua for water king – was nearly one-and-a-half metres tall, making it twice the size of its largest living relative, the Emperor penguin.

Its plumage was as distinctive as its stature. Feathers still attached to the bird’s wing revealed that it would have been reddish-brown and grey in contrast with the black-and-white of living penguins.

After finding a patch of scaly, soft tissue preserved on one of the penguin’s exposed flippers, the team nicknamed it Pedro after the hero of a Colombian telenovela.

Pedro’s remains show that while the flipper and feather shapes that makes penguins such excellent swimmers evolved early on, the colour patterning of modern penguins is likely to be a far more recent development.

Like living penguins, and unlike all other birds, the creature’s feathers were radically modified in shape, densely packed and stacked on top of each other to form stiff, narrow flippers.

Researchers established Pedro’s plumage colours by comparing its melanosomes – the tiny, pigment-carrying structures within cells that give birds’ feathers their hues – with those of living penguins.

In a paper published today in the online edition of the journal Science, they report that the fossil‘s melanosomes were much smaller than those of its modern descendants.

The melanosomes found in today’s penguins give their feathers great resistance to wear and fracturing, leading the researchers to speculate that the change in their feathers may been produced in response to the birds’ aquatic lifestyle.

The change in colouration, they argue, could also be explained by the arrival of penguin predators such as seals.

“Before this fossil, we had no evidence about the feathers, colours and flipper shapes of ancient penguins,” said Julia Clarke, a palaeontologist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences and the lead author of the paper. “We had questions and this was our first chance to start answering them.”

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

This Adelie penguin with unusually light colouring may well be a leucistic specimen. This bird was seen and photographed in 1963 on Avian Island, off Adelaide Island on the Antarctic Peninsula in 1963, near the British Antarctic Survey Base by reader Mike Fleet. Adelie penguins more usually have a black back rather than brown. Adelie chicks are much ‘fluffier’ when young, and when they moult their infant feathers they are black: here.

The only prehistoric bird ever to be mentioned in an H.P. Lovecraft novel–albeit indirectly, as a blind, murderous, feathered albino–Anthropornis was the largest penguin of Eocene Australia, circa 40 million years ago, attaining heights of close to six feet and weights in the neighborhood of 200 pounds: here.

Emperor penguins mass mourning after chicks die on Antarctic ice shelf. The Daily Telegraph: here.

How blue penguins got their colored tuxes: here.

Military coup attempt in Ecuador

This video is the film THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED, about the attempted Rightist military putsch in 2002 in Venezuela.

After the Pinochet military dictatorship in Chile … after the failed Rightist military attempt in Venezuela to oust democratically elected President Chavez … after the military dictatorship which overthrew democratically elected President Zelaya of Honduras last year … today, an attempt to replace the democratically elected Leftist government of Ecuador with a dictatorship.

Attempted Coup in Ecuador: On the Ground Report from Sofia Jarrin: listen here.

PRESS RELEASE: Obama Administration Should Oppose Any Attempted Coup in Ecuador: here.

Update: according to Dutch NOS TV, the coup attempt seems to be mainly the work of some elements in the police; while the army commander has said that the supports elected President Correa.

Ecuador declares state of emergency: here.

Translation of ALAI article “Ecuador: Attempted Coup”: here.

Film on women workers striking for equality

This video from England is called Made In Dagenham Movie Trailer.

By Jeff Sawtell in Britain:

Made In Dagenham (15)

Directed by Nigel Cole

Thursday 30 September 2010

Given the advance publicity I was looking forward to Made in Dagenham, since it’s based on the 1968 strike of women sewing machinists at Ford Motors which was supposed to have inspired the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

Made in Dagenham? More like made in Ealing, since it’s a film-fiction that has been described by some of the survivors as being “sexed up” and clearly doesn’t represent the political reality of the times.

That’s because director Nigel (Calendar Girls) Cole follows the formula of films like The Full Monty rather than the realism of Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960) and Poor Cow (1967).

The real-life working class heroes included Lil Grisley, Sheila Douglas and Violet Dawson, along with two male T&G conveners Bernie Passingham and Frederick Blake who were sympathetic to their cause.

At the time there were 55,000 men in the Essex plant and 187 women, the latter working for 70 per cent of the male wage. They’d had enough, especially being reclassified as non-skilled and working in decrepit conditions.

For the sake of dramatic licence the names have been changed and we have Sally Hawkins playing Rita O’Grady, who is encouraged by her sympathetic shop steward Albert (Bob Hoskins) to represent the women.

Naturally, she’s an inspiration, even though she has to cope with her children and a working husband (Daniel Mays) who, after being initially impressed, begins to wilt as soon as he’s got to do a spot of ironing.

After a successful 24-hour strike, they’re encouraged to take it further which provokes obstruction by some of the stone-faced union officials especially when the draconian US Ford bosses threaten to shut down the plant.

This provides for the stuff of the drama, which includes everything from humour to a tragedy before a meeting with Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson) sees them win a partial victory and the promise of an Equal Pay Act.

My criticism of the style is its flagrant disregard for the politics of the time.

Despite showing a worker reading the Morning Star, it’s suggested that the T&G resembled a bunch of Kremlin clones – completely ignoring that the ban on communists holding office wasn’t lifted until 1968.

Then we have the Ford US boss describing “communists” as belonging to the “Socialist Workers Party, Workers Revolutionary Party and Revolutionary Communist Group” when they didn’t exist at the time.

Ironically, while the issue is portrayed as inspiring Castle to introduce the Equal Pay Act, she was writing up the white paper In Place of Strife to shackle the unions in 1969 that led to the Tory’s Industrial Relations Act of 1971.

Never mind, it’s a feel-good film that couldn’t be more apposite given we’re yet again faced with an onslaught on working class conditions to take us back to the stone age before we founded the welfare state.

See also here. And here.

Dutch Wilders MP arrested for violence

From DutchNews.nl:

PVV parliamentarian arrested for head butt

Thursday 30 September 2010

An MP for the anti-Islam PVV spent Wednesday night in a police cell after being involved in a fracas in the centre of The Hague, news agency ANP reports.

Marcial Hernandez, elected to parliament in June, is a former army officer. He was arrested after reportedly giving someone – said to be a civil servant from the economic affairs department, a head butt and was released on Thursday morning.

The other man is pressing charges, ANP said.

According to ANP, Hernandez was in the Kosovo and Afghanistan wars (as a major). It looks like this MP of this xenophobic party, the party of Geert Wilders, wants to bring the violence of those bloody wars to the Netherlands.

Wilders on trial: here.

The racist Freedom Party won more than a quarter of the vote in local elections in Vienna on Sunday on the back of a hate-mongering campaign: here.

The Rise of Racists and Islamophobes in Europe: How the Right Thrives on Crisis: here.

Extreme Opinions: Right-Wing Attitudes On the Rise in Germany: here.

Dolphin esperanto discovered?

This video is called Bottlenose Dolphins & Pseudo Orcas in Drake Bay, Costa Rica.

From the BBC:

Thursday, 30 September 2010 12:47 UK

Dolphin species attempt ‘common language’

By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

When two dolphin species come together, they attempt to find a common language, preliminary research suggests.

Bottlenose and Guyana dolphins, two distantly related species, often come together to socialise in waters off the coast of Costa Rica.

Both species make unique sounds, but when they gather, they change the way they communicate, and begin using an intermediate language.

That raises the possibility the two species are communicating in some way.

Details are published in the journal Ethology.

It is not yet clear exactly what is taking place between the two dolphin species, but it is the first evidence that the animals modify their communications in the presence of other species, not just other dolphins of their own kind.

Biologist Dr Laura May-Collado of the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan made the discovery studying dolphins swimming in the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge of the southern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are larger, measuring up to 3.8m long, with a long dorsal fin.

Guyana dolphins (Sotalia guianensis) are much smaller, measuring 2.1m long, and have a smaller dorsal fin and longer snout, known as a rostrum.

Both species swim in groups made up of their own kind.

When bottlenose dolphins swim together, they emit longer, lower frequency calls, that are modulated.

In contrast, Guyana dolphins usually communicate using higher frequency whistles that have their own particular structure.

But often, the two species swim together in one group. These interactions are usually antagonistic, as the larger bottlenose dolphins harass the smaller Guyana dolphins.

When the two dolphins gather, they produce quite different calls, Dr May-Collado has discovered.

Crucially, calls emitted during these multi-species encounters are of an intermediate frequency and duration.

In other words, the dolphins start communicating in a style that is somewhere between those of the two separate species.

“I was surprised by these findings, as I was expecting both species to emphasise, perhaps exaggerate, their species-specific signals,” Dr May-Collado told the BBC.

“Instead the signals recorded during these encounters became more homogenous.

“This was a very exciting discovery.”

As yet, Dr May-Collado cannot be sure if both species are changing the way they communicate, or whether it is one species attempting to call more like the other.

That is because her sound equipment could only record the total calls produced by mixed species groups of dolphins, and could not separate out sounds made by individuals.

“This limits how much I can say about how much they are communicating,” says Dr May-Collado.

However, dolphins are known to have an extraordinary ability to change their calls when ‘talking’ to other individuals, or to ensure they are heard over the din of background noise pollution.

So “I wouldn’t be surprised that they can modify their signals to mimic, and even possibly communicate with other species. Particularly when their home ranges force them to interact on a daily basis, which is the case of this study,” she says.

It is also unclear whether the two species are simply learning to communicate using a common language, or whether the Guyana dolphins alone are making the new sounds due to stress.

It could even be that the Guyana dolphins are attempting “to emit threatening sounds in the language of the intruder”, in a bid to make the bottlenose dolphins desist, Dr May-Collado says.

African fishermen treated like slaves

This video says about itself:

Dr. Sumaila, director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia Fishery Center, talks about overfishing, its impact on the Ghanaian economy, and the global ramifications of a fish shortage in Africa.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Modern-day slavery: horrific conditions on board ships catching fish for Europe

Exclusive: Crews marooned at sea off Africa found in squalor, with cardboard bunks, 18-hour shifts, and payment in fish

* Felicity Lawrence and Robert Booth

*Thursday 30 September 2010

When environmental campaigners began tracking a hi-tech South Korean trawler off the coast of West Africa, they were looking for proof of illegal fishing of dwindling African stocks. What they uncovered was an altogether different kind of travesty: human degradation so extreme it echoed the slavery they thought had been abolished more than a century ago.

“It was horrendous,” said Duncan Copeland, a senior campaigner at the Environmental Justice Foundation, who boarded the South Korean-flagged trawler at the end of 2008 with naval forces from Sierra Leone.

“The men were working in the fish hold with no air or ventilation in temperatures of 40-45 degrees. It was rusty, greasy, hot and sweaty. There were cockroaches everywhere in the galleys and their food was in disgusting boxes. All they had for washing was a pump bringing up salt water. They stank. It was heartbreaking.”

As their investigation continued, the EJF found vessel after vessel, some up to 40 years old, rusted and in terrible repair, engaged in pirate fishing – an illegal trade that damages already fragile marine stocks and exploits human labour in shocking conditions.

The 36 crew members on the boat boarded by Copeland came from China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. Eight men shared a tiny windowless area of the fish hold with four cardboard “bunks” resting on planks. Four worked in the hold sorting and packing fish for the European market while four slept, and they would alternate, literally rolling out to allow the next to roll in.

The Sierra Leonean crew members said they were not paid with money but in boxes of “trash” fish – the bycatch rejected by the European market – which they would be given to sell locally. If anyone complained, the captain would abandon them on the nearest beach, they said.

“The conditions aren’t good, but we can’t do anything about it,” a worker on another South Korean-registered ship told investigators. “We live with it, because it is hard to find work. If someone offers you a salary of $200 to support your family it’s not good, but we have to live with it.”

In May, about 150 Senegalese men were found labouring in a ship off Sierra Leone; working up to 18 hours through the day and into the night, eating and sleeping in spaces less than a metre high. The vessel carried a licence number for importing fish to the EU, showing it had passed apparently strict hygiene standards.

EJF also found several apparently redundant trawlers out at sea still with crew on board, some of whom had been there more than a year with no radio or safety equipment.

“I was sent here by the company,” said one fisherman on a trawler off the coast of Guinea. “The company sends a boat with supplies to bring me food like fish and shrimps. Nobody wants to come here.”

The fishermen’s tales reveal the human toll of pirate fishing, a business thought to produce a catch of at least 11m tonnes of fish a year worth more than $10bn (£6.3bn).

Vessels often stay at sea for months on end, with reefers coming alongside every couple of weeks to unload the catch and resupply them. As they operate in remote waters, they can avoid detection for long periods. The crew are effectively imprisoned, most cannot swim and many of those interviewed by EJF meet the UN definition of forced labour. Reports of violence, withholding of pay and retention of documents are common, said Copeland.

The investigators found a crew of 200 Senegalese operating off Sierra Leone in 2006. The men were living in a makeshift structure built on the stern of the ship, divided into four levels with barely a metre of headroom and cardboard packing boxes crammed together to serve as mattresses.

The ship did not appear on the official list of vessels licenced to fish in Sierra Leone at the time of sighting. Records show that it has visited Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, which is the largest landing point for west African fish into Europe and has been criticised by senior EU officials for its lax inspection regime.

But the investigators’ original interest in fish stocks also produced worrying evidence.

Several of the vessels boarded by EJF are bottom trawlers, licensed to import to the EU, catching high value fish such as shrimp, lobster and tuna. Bottom trawlers drag heavy chains across the sea bed, scraping up everything in their path including coral. In one case, the boat had been dumping more than 70% of its catch overboard, including sharks – once the fins had been removed for the Asian market.

The vessel’s owner had been putting its Senegalese crew out to sea in small boats to bring in tuna and shark to sell as caught by “hook and line, having first identified fishing targets with global positioning software. Many of the Senegalese were fishermen unable to sustain a livelihood in their own waters because stocks have been decimated by overfishing by hi-tech trawlers.

The EJF believes most illegal fishing is carried out by ships flying flags of convenience. Under international maritime law, the country where a ship is registered is responsible for its activities. Some countries allow vessels of other nationalities to register with them for a few hundred dollars and are known to ignore offences.

Pirate vessels can re-flag several times a season and frequently change their name. They are often backed by shell companies, which makes their real owners hard to trace and law enforcement extremely difficult. The maximum fine for illegal fishing is around $100,000, which is typically less than two weeks’ profit from the trade, according to EJF.

The South Korean captain, first mate and engineer of one of the ships were arrested by the Sierra Leone navy and fined $30,000 plus their catch for fishing in the country’s inshore exclusion zone. The same ship was however spotted in August, fishing again off the coast of Sierra Leone and Liberia according to EJF.

Does illegal fish make it to UK?

Deciding whether the fish on your plate is from an illegal catch from west African waters remains difficult, but it should be getting easier after a crackdown in recent months by the British and European authorities.

Under an EU regulation brought in this year, it is forbidden to import fish into the member states unless it has been certified as legal by the flag state of the vessel. That means if a ship sails under a Spanish flag, Spain has to certify the catch as legal. Campaigners believe the problem remains that some countries, including South Korea and China, are not effectively policing fishing vessels using their flags.

Investigators believe pirate fish are “laundered” – packed in boxes with the stamp of a licensed fishing boat. During checks in 2006 and 2007 the Environmental Justice Foundation found west Africa-caught denton, commonly sold in the UK as snapper or sea bream, in London fish markets. Some boxes of frozen denton carried the logo of a Chinese company that operates many of the illegal fishing vessels the EJF had observed operating in Guinea. The problem of pirate fish reaching the plate is thought to be greater for consumers in southern Europe, which consumes the bulk of west African fish, shrimp, prawn and lobster.

In the year that the International Maritime Organization has designated “The Year of the Seafarer”, a new report published today by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) exposes extensive human rights abuses suffered by crews working on illegal ‘pirate’ fishing vessels: here.

Pacific fisheries face collapse by 2035: here.

Whale exhibition in the Netherlands

This video from Australia says about itself:

The Oceania Project | 17 June 2008

http://songlinesofthewhales.org

We present to you the voice of Migaloo, the White [humpback] Whale. We thought it appropriate that Migaloo be granted the opportunity to speak before the meeting of the International Whaling Commission. As speakers are allowed only a few minutes to present their case, we extracted only the most poignant statements from our 1998 recording of Migaloo’s two hour discourse. ‘Migaloo’ means ‘White Fella’. He was named by Australian Aboriginal Elders.

The images are highlights from close extended pod encounters between 1988 and 2008. For images of Migaloo, please view the encounter as narrated by our intern Dave Williams:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0vEj9gYZChw

”One of the great thrills of my life was hearing and feeling Migaloo’s voice pass through my body as he swam past The Oceania Project’s research vessel on October 2, 1998.”
~Dave Williams

The song is clearly audible through the hull of the research vessel. Depending on the proximity of the singer, the song is also audible standing on the deck. The sound pressure level of their song is reduced significantly once it passes into the air. Whales speak to each other constantly. The cadence and syncopation of their normal conversations are much different from that of their songs. They often make sounds above water through their nostrils.

Because water is denser than air it is a much better conduit for sound. If a singer is close you can hear him or her in much the same way standing on the deck as our recordings sound on YouTube. Of course the moment you enter the water, which we don’t because it is illegal and unnecessary, the sound is felt at it’s full sound pressure level, the equivalent of a jack hammer or loud rock concert.

We are working on several papers related to whale ‘language’. The term ‘language’ in relation to Humpback Whales is not yet accepted by the scientific community so we are careful about using it. Although we firmly believe that whales of all species have highly evolved languages.

Three researchers in Hawaii, two computer engineers and a marine biologist, have created a computer application to asses the entropy of whale sounds (loss of energy from a system in this case sound frequency) and have compared them to a range of human languages. They have concluded that Humpback sounds are equivalent to human languages. They used the recordings of Dr. Roger and Katy Payne, made in the 1970s, who were the first scientists to recognize that the unique sounds made by Humpback Whales were in fact conscious, complex evolving songs.

SONGLINES documents the evolution of the intricate and beautiful East Australian Humpback song. An hour of pristine digital recordings selected from five different years between 1992 and 2008 which draw the listener into a mysterious and majestic world.

Established in 1988, The Oceania Project is an independent, non-profit research organization dedicated to the conservation and protection of whales, dolphins and the oceans.

Humpback whale songs are transferred from year to year and evolve in a similar fashion to the verbally transmitted tribal lore of Aboriginal cultures from where the term songlines is derived.

The East Australian Humpback Whales travel in an unending cycle of migration between their birthplace in the inter-reef lagoon of the Great Barrier Reef and their Antarctic feeding areas.

Their world is comprised of vast stretches of ocean where songs emitted by the Humpback Whales can be heard over great distances. Each year the whales sing a new song. Haunting melodies of radiant joy which fill the ocean along the East Coast of Australia.

When ecosystems across the planet are collapsing and species are becoming extinct at an accelerating rate, the East Australian Humpback Whales are making a remarkable recovery. They have become Australia’s national treasure and a symbol of hope for our imperiled environment.

We as the new generation of caretakers of the planet Earth have learnt from the mistakes of our elders and are helping nurture the Rebirth of a Species.

Audio CD: 5 Tracks, running time 60 minutes. Track 3 features Migaloo the White Whale recorded in 1998.

© The Oceania Project – All Rights Reserved

To celebrate the annual return of the Humpback Whales, sixty Australian communities are participating in the Humpback Icon Project. Each of these communities has adopted a known individual Humpback Whale from The Oceania Project’s Fluke Catalogue:

http://bit.ly/HumpbackIconProject

In Naturalis museum in Leiden, the Netherlands, there will be an exhibition about whales and dolphins, from 15 October 2010 to 21 August 2011.

Big whale skeletons will hang from the museum ceiling during the exhibition, including a 12 meter long southern right whale and a narwhal.

This is a Dutch TV video about putting together a humpback whale skeleton for the exhibition.

Whale snot collected by remote control helicopter: here.

Tune in to the live whale song network: here.

USA: Bay Area Whale Deaths Blamed On Krill, Ship Traffic: here.

Whales Help Fertilize Ocean With Floating Dung: here.

Tagged Narwhals Track Warming Near Greenland: here.

With a long tooth and deep dives, tagged narwhals give researchers valuable info about warming waters: here.

October 2011: WWF is supporting a new project to track narwhals, Arctic whales best known for the long tusk that projects forward from their faces: here.

February 2011. WDCS has submitted a legal petition in the USA, backed by 19 organisations, calling on the United States government to impose trade sanctions on Iceland for its whaling and trade in whale products: here.

Beware Meta-Studies: An Example From Whale Evolution: here.

Whale skulls might have twisted origins, with the oldest known whales possessing contorted skulls that might have helped them hear better underwater, researchers suggest: here.

Papua New Guinea miniature seahorse on video

From British daily The Guardian about this video:

The pygmy seahorse of Papua New Guinea

This lovely video captures one of the nine miniature seahorse species known so far

Jean-Michel Cousteau and his Ocean Futures Society team were extremely fortunate to get an up-close look at this tiny coral reef resident in the waters of Papua New Guinea – a miniature seahorse!

Captured on film is one of the smallest vertebrates in the world – the pygmy seahorse. Living in the tropical waters of New Guinea and belonging to the same genus as their larger cousins but reaching a maximum size of about an inch, its no wonder that many of these miniature species have only been discovered within the last decade. Currently there are nine known species but, with scientists and divers exploring more reefs and making better observations, surely there will be more discoveries to come.

Hope for seahorses in Sydney Harbour, Australia: here.

Seahorses get new home: here.

The seahorse’s peculiar body shape is not just for show: it may be an adaptation for hunting prey: here.

Why do seahorses resemble horses? Here.

Female fish flaunt fins to attract a mate: here.

Long-legged buzzard nests in Spain

This is a long-legged buzzard video.

From the Dutch bird researchers of SOVON:

The long-legged buzzard, Buteo rufinus, is breeding in southern Spain since 2009.

In 2009, there was one couple with two chicks. In 2010, there were at least two couples (one couple with three chicks) and three occupied territories. So, this African species is moving north.

More about this in Spanish daily El Pais.

NATO kills Pakistani soldiers

This video is called PROTEST AGAINST DRONES ATTACKS – Pakistan Students Movement.

From The Express Tribune in Pakistan today:

Nato investigating Pakistan cross-border attack

KURRAM AGENCY: Nato said Thursday it was investigating claims by Pakistani security officials that three of their soldiers were killed in a cross-border attack by coalition helicopters based in Afghanistan.

…

Nato helicopters strike security check post in Kurram

Three Pakistani security personnel have been killed and three have been injured in an attack by Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) helicopters on a checkpoint in Kurram Agency.

Reports coming out of the area say Nato targeted the checkpoint in Mandato Kandaho, which is about five kilometres inside Pakistan.

AFP quotes a senior security official as saying it was an unprovoked attack that took place early morning. He said Nato helicopters entered Pakistani airspace and targeted a paramilitary checkpost killing three soldiers and wounding three others.

This is the third time in a week that Nato helicopters have violated Pakistani airspace.

Islamabad has protested against the violations on two occasions. A protest against this recent attack is yet to be seen.

Earlier in 2008, an American jet bombed a Pakistani checkpoint in Mohmand Agency killing 11 Pakistani soldiers. The attack caused outrage across Pakistan.

Some comments by Pakistani readers there:

If the army or the government doesn’t take any steps now! We are completely sold out, might as well just let America invade us! Not like it already hasn’t!
Zain 3 hours ago
*

If a comapny takes too much loan from bank and does not payback then bank officer runs that co.Same thing happens with country…
kamal 3 hours ago
*

This is scary.. They have killed our security personnel.. why would they strike a check post.. this is not normal and is someone even taking notice of it ??
Beenish 3 hours ago
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They have killed our security personnel… and our government record our protest….is thy joking with pubilc….
Mazhar 3 hours ago
*

It is a test of our Army. some non sense people invite army to take over the country but thats not army’s duty. Here comes his duty to safeguard Pakistan’s territory.They should do their job and make us proud by protecting Pakistan’s land not overtaking Government.We hope Kiani will play his role in stopping attacks because if we fail to stop them now then one day they will officially invade into Pakistan. Request to Kiani Please do not play any role in supreme court-Government matters just fulfill your real duty by protecting your motherland.Thats our demand and thats our constitution says….
We Love Army…….. we Love Pakistan………
Ghulam shabbir 3 hours ago
*

Now Pakistan should have to burn every NATO supply truck.
Shaukat 2 hours ago
*

Assalam-o-Allaikum Warahmatullah.Unfortunately our leaders now-a-days have been with each other like cats and dogs just to be in the government versus Supreme Court and their all attention is on their constitutional matters to find the ways that how corrupt and NRO certified President Zardari can be protected from presenting in Supreme Court and our leaders are showing extreme effrontery by only protesting on these attacks.If they have been unable to control these attacks then allow Pakistan Army to control these cruel and brutal attacks.Now showing only the protests time has gone and the time has come to take strong,stern and strict steps practically against these attacks instead of showing weakness and protesting.This is our leaders’ extreme meanness and shamefulness they are showing in this regard because their own security has been on priority basis than the nation’s security and the most importantly it has been confirmed that our leaders have introduced themselves as the slaves and beggars before the modern world and slaves and beggars are only for the obeying not for the ruling and when advanced nations shall give you aid in begging they also have right to kill your people whenever and wheresoever they will desire because our leaders have sold their and the whole nation’s grace,honor,dignity and self-respect against the Dollars and Euros in the hands of non-muslims and Allama Iqbal said for this occasion the most accurately “Baatil kay iqtadar mein taqwa ki aarzo, Kitna haseen faraib hai jo kha rahay hain hum” and “Apni millat pey qayas aqwam-e-maghrib sey na kar, khas hai tarkeeb mein qaum-e-Hashmi”
Ahmer Ali 1 hour ago
*

Outrageous….and out of words again~
ADE 1 hour ago
*

This is a slap on the face for Pakistan’s so-called international ‘cooperation.’ Army should stop all NATO supplies and consider carrying out a similiar response air strike.
Bunty 1 hour ago
*
…

What is the use of being the only Nuclear Islamic country if we cannot defend ourselves. They are deliberately killing our soldiers and civilians but our Govt. keep on lodging strong protests. Our Army should take some retaliatory measures to make NATO understand that we know how to defend ourselves. Being Muslims, we should not be afraid of anyone except ALLAH.
Chaudhry 47 minutes ago

The CIA is implicated in a court case in which it’s claimed it used an illegal, inaccurate software “hack” to direct secret assassination drones in central Asia: here.

Pakistan blocked a vital supply route for US-led troops in Afghanistan on Thursday in apparent retaliation for an alleged cross-border Nato helicopter strike that killed three Pakistani frontier troops: here.

US-PAKISTAN: Rise in Cross-Border Attacks Spurs Backlash: here. And here. And here.

Suspected militants in southern Pakistan have destroyed at least 27 tankers carrying fuel for Nato forces in Afghanistan, officials said: here.

More than two dozen trucks and oil tankers carrying supplies for the US military offensive against Kandahar in Afghanistan were destroyed in two separate attacks Friday in southern Pakistan: here.

Pakistan militants torch at least 15 more NATO fuel supply tankers, kill one driver: here.

The week-old standoff between Washington and Islamabad over US military attacks and the blocking of a vital NATO supply line underscores the growing threat that the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan is spiralling out of control: here.

Drone targets Pakistan again: At least four killed in latest strike in tribal area amid rift between Islamabad and Washington: here.

Top academics predicted on Thursday that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will land US taxpayers with a whopping $900 billion healthcare bill: here.

This CBS News interview with a US captain in Afghanistan really shows the futility of this war.

More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields: here.

Australian soldiers charged over civilian killings in Afghanistan: here.