Supernova 2010lt is a magnitude 17 supernova in galaxy UGC 3378 in the constellation of Camelopardalis, as reported on IAU Electronic Telegram 2618. The galaxy was imaged on New Year’s Eve 2010, and the supernova was discovered on January 2, 2011 by Kathryn and her father Paul.
The march by hundreds of people in Thala city, Sidi Bouzid region, started peacefully but trouble flared up when riot police fired tear gas at the demonstration.
Protesters responded by setting tyres ablaze. Some attacked the offices of the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally.
Witnesses reported that some protesters had been seriously injured in clashes with police, but this was impossible to confirm.
Activists complain that the government is trying to enforce a media blackout on the ongoing demonstrations, which kicked off early last month when a young unemployed university graduate, Mohamed Bouazizi, attempted to commit suicide by setting himself on fire.
Students report that the government has hacked emails and blogs that express support for the protests that have since spread across the country.
Security forces have reportedly surrounded schools and universities in a bid to prevent young people from participating in the rallies.
Lawyers who took to the streets last week to condemn the crackdown were themselves on the receiving end, with several reported injured. The Tunisian Bar Association has announced a general strike for Thursday in protest at the repression.
In a manifesto reportedly posted on the prime minister’s website but later removed the group charged that President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s administration had “unilaterally declared war on free speech, democracy, and even its own people.”
First Posted: 01- 4-11 08:51 AM | Updated: 01- 4-11 09:08 AM
BP cleanup crews returned to work Monday after a 10 day break, WKRG reports, and they seem to have their work more than cut out for them. Tarballs have been washing up all along the shores of Alabama’s Fort Morgan beach.
According to the Press-Register, they range in size from as small as a nickel to as large as a person’s palm. The tarballs are so plentiful on the beach that they are seldom more than an inch apart from each other on shore.
BP Prudhoe Bay Closure: Part Of Alaska Oil Field Closed: here.
Panel: BP Well Blowout Revealed Industry-Wide Problems: here.
January 2011. WWF calls on UK listed companies SOCO and Dominion to abandon their oil exploration plans in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), warning these actions will undermine decades of work and successful and costly conservation efforts aimed at saving the park’s unique nature: here.
We at UAW 2069 located in Dublin Virginia are on strike since Feb 1, 2008 at 12:01pm all UAW workers walked out due to a contract agreement that has yet to be met at this time. … We all are very upset with this and all of us UAW workers are working 24 hours around the clock picketing. Other UAW and USW of America have been supporting by standing with signs walking the picket line with us. We would all like to thanks those that are supporting.
Three workers at at a Volvo engine plant in central Sweden were given their marching orders after one of them described his place of work as a ‘madhouse’ in a Facebook status update.
During a break at work one of the workers updated his Facebook status with the words, “One work day of the week to go in this madhouse”, the local Skaraborgs Allehanda newspaper reports.
What took the man less than thirty seconds to write cost him his job. Upon viewing the man’s status update, his employers interpreted the post as disloyal and sent the man packing.
Two colleagues were also fired for commenting on the post, according to several media reports.
Although the man was not a direct employee of Volvo, but was working for a staffing agency, Volvo made it clear that the man was not welcome back.
The fact that he had praised Volvo in other status updates made no difference, according to the Skaraborgs Allehanda.
The man defended himself by saying that he was in a bad mood as his mother was seriously ill. She died two days later.
After taking a three day absence from work, the man returned and was called into a meeting where he learned that he wasn’t welcome back because of what he wrote on Facebook.
The Swedish trade Union organisation LO, which represents 1.5 million workers in Sweden, has no central policy on the use of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook at the place of work.
However, LO ombudsman, Johan Ingelskog is skeptical toward employers who fire workers over what they may write on social media websites.
“If you write something on Facebook, your employer should not be able to sack you for it,” he told The Local on Monday.
Mårten Vikfors, head of media relations at Volvo Group AB, the parent company of Volvo Powertrain, told The Local that employees are welcome to use social media.
“They should, among other things, be judicious and show respect as well as follow the company’s code of conduct,” he said.
“Following the company’s code of conduct” in practice means totalitarian corporate dictatorship over workers’ lives. According to Volvo bosses, workers should have no free speech during work, but also not during breaks and while they are not at work.
Oh, how stupid those refugees are, voting with their feet against the brave new world brought in at the point of the Pentagon’s guns [sarcasm off].
The number of unaccompanied refugee children who came to Sweden also increased. Last year the figure was 2,394, compared with 2,250 in 2009. The children come mainly from Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.
Kabul — Five-year-old Marjan sniffles from the cold as she struggles under her load. Hoisted on her back is a bag almost as big as she is.
Instead of going to school, Marjan scavenges for hours with her 10-year-old aunt collecting trash. It is a heavy burden for such a small child but a necessary one. The trash she collects is what her family uses as fuel for cooking and, more importantly, to fend off Kabul’s bitter winter.
It is a matter of life and death for someone so young. Last winter, Marjan’s baby brother died from the cold. …
UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, says that Afghanistan is the worst place in the world to be a child. One in five children do not live past the age of five. Afghanistan is second only to Sierra Leone when it comes to child mortality. Most of those deaths are caused by curable childhood diseases and malnutrition, compounded by the security situation, which means that parents are unable to access proper health care.
Pakistan: Afghan refugees’ houses demolished in Landikotal: here.
AFGHANISTAN: Bleak outlook for food security in 2011: here.
The Kenyan police in Mombassa have deported nearly 30 Somali refugees, who were in custody for untold period of time, as the United Nations urged Kenya to stop the deportations of Somali people: here.
Kenyan police forces on Monday accused Kenyan police of committing inhumane action against Somali refugees in Kenya: here.
Greece intends to erect a barrier along its 160-mile border with Turkey in a bid to prevent refugees from Asia and Africa entering the European Union: here.
German Supreme Court overturns acquittal of officer implicated in asylum seeker’s death: here.
Submitted by georgiamedia on Tue, 04/01/2011 – 14:07
Georgia’s central-government-controlled police force yesterday attacked veterans of the Georgian-Abkhaz war in the centre of Tbilisi, breaking up what had been a small and peaceful protest by the main war memorial (pictured) in Heroes Square.
The veterans say they believe the police attack was on the direct orders of Mikheil Saakashvili – who many of them hold in contempt for his constant nationalist rhetoric about recovering Abkhazia despite his conspicious failure to serve in the conflict. They say the president’s motorcade drove past them and within two hours the police were on hand to smash up their protest.
Civil.ge report that the major media channels – including the “public broadcaster” on which so much western effort has been targeted in the hope of building a credible news gathering fuction – in Georgia completely ignored the protest and its break up, preferring to highlight Moscow police attacking protestors than report on similar events right on their doorstep.
With Maestro TV remaining in a state of suspended animation the only channel to cover the story was the small Tbilisi cable station Kavkasia.
The lack of media coverage has allowed MPs to claim today they did not even know of the attack, so giving them the opportunity to dodge any questions.
Those who were arrested yesterday are being charged with hooliganism – a catch-all charge preserved from the Soviet criminal code – and resisting the police.
Veterans say they will return to the war memorial today to protest about their treatment.
Storm over police attack on veterans protest continues to build: here.
Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.
Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.
However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.
The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.
Ireland: A whale watching trip with Martin Colfer on the Rebecca C from Dunmore East 9th January produces the first inshore humpback whale sighting of 2011: here.
Antarctic minke whales are mating with Arctic cousins, DNA shows: here.
Lampreys give clues to evolution of immune system: here.
A repellant for sea lampreys could be the key to better controlling one of the most destructive invasive species in the Great Lakes, says a Michigan State University researcher: here.
This video is called More torture claims against Egyptian police – 10 Aug 07.
A bomb attack on the al-Qiddissin Coptic Church in Alexandria, where more 1,000 people were praying during a service on New Year’s Eve, killed 21 to 25 people and injured at least 97, according to various reports. A nearby mosque was also damaged. Those injured included eight Muslims at the mosque and three police and an official guarding the church: here.
Egyptian police charge activists. Eight Muslim activists who joined Coptic demonstrations against Alexandria attack charged with disturbing public safety: here.
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: “As Egyptian Copts attended mass at churches across the country, ‘thousands’ of Muslims, including ‘the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak,’ joined them, acting as “human shields” to protect from terrorist attacks by extremists. The Muslims organized under the slogan ‘We either live together, or we die together,’ inspired by Mohamed El-Sawy, an Egyptian artist”: here.
Three Dutch Muslim organisations have offered to help protect three Coptic churches in the Netherlands from possible terrorist attack, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday: here.
Over the past few weeks, the WikiLeaks Internet platform has published secret documents that shed a revealing light on the criminal cooperation between US imperialism and the Mubarak regime in Egypt. The leaked documents, personally despatched from Cairo by US Ambassador Margaret Scobey, expose leading Egyptian politicians as unscrupulous agents of the US: here.
La Niña and monsoonal winds flood northern Australia: here.
Frogs, snakes, mice, spiders, crocodiles and likely other reptiles and amphibians are now too close for human comfort in Queensland, Australia, where recent severe floods transported these creatures in and around homes, according to reports in The Australian and other sources there: here.
Australia put an army general in charge of flood recovery efforts today after weeks of heavy rains deluged the country’s north-east, crippling the area’s economy, including the key coalmining industry: here.
Australia: Queensland crisis points to lack of flood mitigation and basic infrastructure: here.
Former deputy director of the NSW State Emergency Service Chas Keys spoke to the WSWS about declining state and federal government funds for flood mitigation, housing development on flood plains, deforestation and other factors behind the Queensland flood disaster: here.
