Dutch postal workers on strike

This is a Dutch video about an earlier postal workers’ strike movement, in 2008.

From DutchNews.nl:

Postal workers begin 24 hour strike

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Thousands of postal workers are taking part in a one-day strike on Tuesday in protest at TNT’s plans to reduce its workforce by 11,0000 and sack 3,100 delivery staff.

The strike began in sorting centres on Monday night. On Tuesday, post boxes will not be emptied and ordinary post will not be delivered. Emergency post, such as medicine and death notices will still be distributed.

Thousands of postal workers are expected to be in The Hague on Tuesday afternoon for a rally outside TNT’s headquarters.

Liberalisation

Today’s strike is the first by postal workers since 1983.

Not true for local strikes, only for national strikes.

The unions want the company to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies and spread the reorganisation over a longer period.

TNT has been hit by competition from email and budget mail companies which employ delivery staff as freelancers and pay per item they deliver.

Under an agreement signed when the sector was liberalised, the budget firms, such as Sandd and Selekt Mail, are supposed to employ most of their workers directly within a few years. But they are now going to court to fight the plan.

The government has now appointed a mediator to look in to that conflict.

A new postal strike for 25-26 November has been announced; see also here.

Drought and Big Oil kill Niger’s addax

This is a video about addax.

In the present world of imperialist capitalism, not just its uranium has become a curse for the African country Niger.

Its oil has become a curse as well. From Wildlife Extra:

Niger’s addax hit by drought & oil

15/11/2010 23:43:53

Courtesy of the Sahara Conservation Fund – By John Newby, CEO

November 2010. The failure of the rains in 2009 was a disaster for many parts of the Sahel, with countries like Chad and Niger suffering major crises, widespread famine and loss of livestock.

Although highly adapted to cope with extremes of heat and aridity, desert wildlife, too, suffers when drought is severe and pastures poor in quality and quantity. For the first time in several years our project team in Niger witnessed firsthand the impact of drought on Termit’s addax, with several dead animals found. Surviving addax were dreadfully thin and as such at greater risk from other impacts on their survival, such as the exploration and drilling for oil in their Tin Toumma stronghold. The construction of drilling sites and the constant heavy vehicle traffic is keeping the addax out of many key areas of pasture.

One of the multinational corporations with their fingers in Niger oil is ExxonMobil.

Already the indelible and totally inadmissible smudge of oil spills is polluting an environment that has remained pristine since its creation eons ago. On raising the issue with one person, I was told glibly that it didn’t matter because it was only a desert!

Another significant impact of prolonged drought or poor grazing on desert ungulates is a reduction in breeding. Not only do pregnancies fall off but foetuses are aborted and young calves abandoned. Luckily, these same gazelles and antelopes seem capable of switching the reproductive process back on rapidly when conditions improve. We sincerely hope to see a bumper crop of young animals following this year’s excellent rainfall.

As we recently saw in Chad, not only has the rain brought on a major crop of annual plants but has also kick-started a new age class of perennials that will hope-fully grow rapidly, establish themselves and prosper. Once well established, the tussock grasses and thorny shrubs will often last many years, providing addax and gazelles with food, moisture and even protection when big enough to provide shelter against the wind and sandstorms.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Niger Wildlife: In search of the addax

Playboy hunters with helicopters and Kalashnikovs are driving the Sahel’s fragile population of wild animals to extinction. Stanley Johnson travelled to Niger to witness the devastation.

From Wildlife Extra:

Chad’s Dama gazelles surveyed

21/11/2010 08:47:50

Dama and Dorcas gazelle in Chad

Courtesy of the Sahara Conservation Fund

November 2010. In August this year an SCF Pan Sahara Wildlife Survey team carried out a highly productive and exciting three week fieldtrip to western Chad. The mission, lead by Dr. Tim Wacher, was a return to one of the first areas surveyed by the fledgling SCF in 2001, and thus an important opportunity to see how rare Saharan wildlife had fared over the intervening years. As before, the mission was conducted in close partnership with Chad’s Environment Ministry.

GUATEMALA: Legal Battle Over Wetland Oil Drilling: here.

USA: Revised Drilling Plan Protects Some Areas, Leaves Polar Bears Vulnerable: here.

Help protect Africa’s critically endangered hirola antelope from extinction: here.

Rare bat in small Sumatran rainforest

Save the Sumatran rainforest from The RSPB on Vimeo.

From Wildlife Extra:

Rare bat and other species found in forest fragment on oil palm plantation

16/11/2010 07:38:36

Proof that even small areas are worth saving

November 2010: The discovery of a rare bat species in a tiny fragment of rainforest surrounded by an oil palm plantation has demonstrated that even small areas of forest are worth saving.

This first record of the Ridley’s leaf-nosed bat in Sumatra was found by a team from the Zoological Society of London, Queen Mary, University of London and the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) in a 300 ha fragment of forest during a biodiversity survey in Indonesia. The bat is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

The find contradicts recent claims that such small fragments are not worth preserving. Among many other species found by the biodiversity survey were sunbear, tapir, agile gibbon and banded langur, all of which are also of conservation concern.

Protecting large areas will always be the priority. Sophie Persey, ZSL Biodiversity and oil palm project manager says: ‘Protecting large areas of connected forest will always be a priority for wildlife conservation, but if ambitious future plans for oil palm expansion are realised, conserving forest fragments within oil palm landscapes will also be important for maintaining Indonesia’s biodiversity.’

The area surveyed in Sumatra is currently managed as a conservation area by the palm oil company, limiting the impact of logging and encroachment on the forest fragment.

For years, Harapan Rainforest, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, suffered from illegal logging. This destroyed vast areas of lush greenery and vital habitat for all its wildlife: here.

Greenpeace published a report in July showing how the last wild Sumatran tigers are threatened with extinction by the practices of Indonesia’s biggest pulp and paper producer, Asia Pulp and Paper, (APP). We thought that was reason enough to give APP a ‘Golden Chainsaw Award’ to mark the International Pulp and Paper Awards in Brussels: here.

Dozen endangered Sumatran tigers, incl. frolicking cubs, captured on video in Indonesian forests slated to be logged: here.

Sumatran tigers: here.

Future of Sumatran tigers threatened: here.

Indonesian president urges other countries not to buy illegally logged wood from Indonesia: here.

UK animal feed helping to destroy Asian rainforest, study shows: here.

Related articles

• Indonesia’s Sumatran tigers face extinction due to illegal hunting (nzweek.com)
• New labelling for palm oil (wtcampaigns.wordpress.com)
• Less stuff, more orangutans (point4counterpoint.wordpress.com)
• Banks, stop funding Indonesian forest destruction corporation (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Lingering deadly fate of the Sumatran tiger (greatcatsoftheworld.wordpress.com)
• Palm Oil company PT Kallista Alam fails to show in court case filed by Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment over destruction of world renowned Sumatran Orangutan stronghold, the Tripa Peat Swamp Forest. (endoftheicons.wordpress.com)
• Spotlight: Do Your Part to Save Sumatran Tigers (cyndacation.wordpress.com)
• Three rare Sumatran tiger cubs born at Indonesia zoo (dawn.com)
• Sumatran Tiger Conservation (greatcatsoftheworld.wordpress.com)

Jay and blue tit

This is a video of an Eurasian jay.

This morning, in the Nova passage, a jay eating peanuts from a feeder close to the tree trunk. At the feeder next to it, further away from the trunk, hanging from a smaller branch, a blue tit eating seeds.

Only outside the United States could an American robin generate tremendous excitement in the birding world, and that’s just what has happened this month in Exeter. For the first time in more than 25 years, a vagrant American robin has been sighted there, and birders are gathering in huge flocks of their own to see the rare bird: here.

British government torture hush money

From the (conservative) Daily Mail in Britain:

Hush money: Multi-million pound payouts to silence British terror suspects held in Guantanamo

By Tim Shipman

Last updated at 7:39 AM on 16th November 2010

Terrorist suspects freed from Guantanamo Bay are to be paid off to silence their claims that UK spies were complicit in torturing them.

At least one former detainee will receive more than £1million in hush money from ministers desperate to stop the cases reaching court.

One of the largest payouts will go to Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who claims MI5 and MI6 fed questions to his CIA-backed torturers.

In return for the cash, the detainees will drop the civil cases for damages that had threatened to lift the lid on the activities of the intelligence agencies after 9/11. …

The former detainees due to receive the money include British citizens and residents of the UK, some of whom entered the country as asylum seekers.

…

One allegation is that the British government knew they were being illegally transferred to Guantanamo Bay but failed to prevent it. …

Mr Cameron told MPs the inquiry would be free to look at allegations of ‘extraordinary rendition’, where agencies could have known about CIA operations to fly mistreated suspects secretly from country to country, sometimes using UK airports.

There was also speculation that the British military base in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia, was being used to hold terror suspects.

From British daily The Guardian:

Earlier this month George W Bush, the former US president, had claimed that controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, had protected the UK from further terrorist attacks. David Cameron rejected such sentiments. …

Those detainees understood to be in line for settlements include Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga. One allegation is that the British government knew they were being illegally transferred to Guantánamo Bay but failed to prevent it. …

The payout is bound to be seen as a blow to the reputation of the former foreign secretaries David Miliband, Margaret Beckett and Jack Straw [see also here] for allegedly eroding civil liberties. Their reputations will turn more on the outcome of the Gibson inquiry.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Allegations made by the former detainees include that some of them were subjected to the controversial practice of waterboarding. One claims to have lost the sight in one eye after it was rubbed with a rag soaked in pepper spray. …

When claims of MI5 collusion into the torture of one of the men, Binyam Mohamed, first became public, the then Shadow Justice Secretary, Dominic Grieve, now the Attorney General, called for a judicial inquiry into the allegations and for the matter to be referred to the police.

Court papers revealed last year how Mr Mohamed’s genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods employed were so extreme that, according to one court official, waterboarding was “very far down the list of things they did”.

Britain: The government’s attempts to avoid potentially incriminating court proceedings by offering compensation to former Guantanamo detainees must not prevent the truth coming out, campaigners and MPs warned today: here.

An MI5 officer will not be prosecuted over claims he was complicit in the torture of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, the Crown Prosecution Service said today: here.

Online Panel With Former Guantanamo Detainee Omar Deghayes; Human Rights Now : here.

Why [US] Republicans and [British] Tories no longer see eye-to-eye: here.

Torture, Abuse on the USS Bataan and in Bagram, Kandahar: here.

Related articles

• Cruel Britannia by Ian Cobain – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Secret court powers case ‘unproven’ (express.co.uk)
• Peers demand changes to controversial Justice and Security Bill (independent.co.uk)
• British Supreme Court accuses government of war crime (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Torture UK: why Britain has blood on its hands (guardian.co.uk)
• Torturer in the Pulpit (lewrockwell.com)
• Demand President Obama Release Uncharged Guantanamo Bay Detainee (forcechange.com)
• Kidnapped, detained, tortured – a victim of the west’s secret war (morningstaronline.co.uk)

US billionaires richer, poor poorer

This video from the USA is called Headzup: Bush‘s X-Mas Message For The Richest One Percent.

Bonuses for CEOs at the largest US firms rose by 11 percent last year as millions of workers remain mired in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression: here.

Lame duck US Congress moves to cut taxes for rich, end of benefits for unemployed: here.

USA: The ongoing “turmoil” roiling megabanks and their faulty home foreclosure practices may represent deeper, more systemic problems regarding the origination, transfer and ownership of millions of mortgages, potentially putting Wall Street on the hook for billions of dollars in unexpected losses and threatening to undermine “the very financial stability that the Troubled Asset Relief Program was designed to protect,” a government watchdog warns in a new report: here.

Members of US Congress increased their combined personal wealth by more than 16 percent from 2008 and 2009. Nearly half are now millionaires: here.

The US Department of Justice has quietly dropped its investigation of Angelo Mozilo, the former head of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial and one of the most culpable figures in the financial meltdown of 2008: here.

White stork and snipe

Today, again to the former Baillon’s crake breeding ground.

On the windmill, two great cormorants, a starling and a magpie.

In a canal: male and female gadwall ducks, a moorhen and teal.

In the next canal, a great crested grebe and a magpie sitting on a reed stem.

Snipe flying.

In the northern lake: many great cormorants, lapwings and a shelduck.

Herring gulls and black-headed gulls.

Teal. Tufted ducks.

Many shovelers flying. Panic because of a raptor? I did not see the raptor.

As I walk back, I do see a white stork flying.

Holocaust survivor threatened by Israeli racists

From British daily The Independent:

The Holocaust survivor whose life is in danger again

In the Israeli city of Safed, an 89-year-old man has been accused of treachery for welcoming Arab students. Catrina Stewart reports

Monday, 15 November 2010

First they threatened to burn his house down. Then they pinned leaflets to his front door, denouncing him as a Jewish traitor. But Eli Tzavieli, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, is defiant. His only “crime” is to rent out his rooms to three Arab students attending the college in Safed, a religious city in northern Israel that was until recently more famous for Jewish mysticism and Madonna.

A campaign waged by Shmuel Eliyahu, the town’s radical head rabbi, culminating in a ruling barring residents from renting rooms to Israeli Arabs, means that Safed is fast emerging as a byword for racism.

“I’m not looking for trouble, but if there is a problem, I’ll confront it,” says Mr Tzavieli, a Jew who survived Nazi forced labour camps and whose parents perished in Auschwitz. “These [tenants] are great kids. And I’m doing my best to make them comfortable.”

At an emergency meeting last month, Mr Eliyahu, the son of a former chief rabbi of Israel, was joined by 17 other religious leaders in warning that the city’s 40,000 Jewish residents were threatened with an “Arab takeover.”

The declaration appeared to trigger a campaign of harassment against Mr Tsavieli to pressure him into throwing the students out. When the pensioner paid little heed to his aggressors, he received an anonymous threat to set fire to his house and a vicious poster campaign accused him of “returning the Arabs to Safed.”

Mr Eliyahu, who once advocated the mass slaughter of Palestinians civilians in Gaza to stop the firing of Qassam rockets, declined to be interviewed for this story.

Theatre and politics in Israel: here.

Israel to build migrant centre: Cabinet votes to build detention facility for thousands of Africans: here.

Gamelan concert in the museum

This video from Indonesia is called gamelan gong kebyar from Bali.

On 14 November, there was a gamelan concert at the museum.

It was by the Sekar alit (“little flower’) orchestra, who play Balinese gamelan; usually faster than Javanese gamelan.

Most instruments in gamelan to Europeans look like metallophones. One of the gangsa (one type of metallophone) players told me that they would like to have more players, as at present not all instruments can be played at the same time. For instance, the big kettle gongs, which need to be played by two, prefersably four, people, were not played today, she said.

The director Henry Nagelberg played the kendang drum. The woman who played ugal (the highest metallophone) also had a central role.

During three pieces, there was also Balinese dancing by a group of five girls, aged about 8-12.

Afghans and NATO soldiers die, war profiteers profit

This video from the USA is called 60 Afghan Civilians Killed As War Intensifies.

From the Canadian Press:

November 15, 2010 – 12:32 a.m.

Canadian Helicopters foresees strong revenues from Afghanistan contracts

By Ross Marowits, The Canadian Press

MONTREAL – Canadian Helicopters Income Fund expects the ramp up of U.S. military contracts in Afghanistan will strengthen its revenues in the coming quarters and offset normal seasonal domestic weakness.

“The likelihood we are projecting of greater revenues than previous years over the next two quarters in spite of normal domestic seasonal fluctuations is grounded in very solid expectations,” CEO Don Wall said Monday during a conference call.

The Montreal-based transportation fund’s optimism flows from its third contract with the United States Transportation Command and the renewal of two earlier deals.

The Oct. 1 contract would generate more than US$360 million if all options are exercised and hours flown by June 2016 and be the largest since the company’s initial public offering in 2005.

It will use two heavy-lift Sikorsky S61 and four Bell 212 medium helicopters for the contract. Five of the aircraft will be acquired.

The contracts to carry goods and passengers to forward military operating locations in war-torn Afghanistan should ramp up in the first quarter of fiscal 2011 and more than offset two large unrenewed contracts.

Ontario air ambulance service Ornge recently decided against exercising its option to extend a services agreement beyond the end date in 2012.

The United States Transportation Command also didn’t renew a North Warning System operation and maintenance contract.

“Notwithstanding the setbacks we experienced in 2010…we believe our overall results and prospects firmly demonstrate the flexibility of our assets and the resiliency of our business model,” Wall told analysts.

Canadian Helicopters (TSX:CHL.UN) said its quarterly revenues were stable but its profit fell 13 per cent due to higher maintenance costs and the need to hire additional crew for work in Afghanistan.

The fund’s net income before non-controlling interest dropped to $14.4 million or $1.10 per unit, down from $16.5 million, or $1.26 per unit, in the third quarter of 2009.

Revenue was almost unchanged at $54.8 million, down from $54.9 million a year earlier, as the loss of U.S. contracts was partially offset from by additional aircraft contracted in Afghanistan.

Canadian Helicopters says its domestic revenue benefited from greater activity in the mining sector, mainly in Eastern Canada.

It ended the quarter with $31.2 million of cash and cash equivalents, up from $19.2 million at the end of the previous quarter and unused debt facilities totalling $55 million.

Canadian Helicopters is the largest helicopter transportation services company operating in Canada and one of the largest in the world, serving primarily the resource industries.

On the Toronto Stock Exchange, its units fell eight cents to $14.60 in midday trading.

NATO summit in Portugal: here.

Anti-war protest in London as Nato leaders hold war talks: here.