This video says about itself:
US starts landmark Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam
The $41m project was inaugurated at a former US air base near the city of Danang.
For thousands of babies in Vietnam, however, the cleanup is decades too late.
Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane explains.
The United States finally began to clean up the defoliant Agent Orange today – 50 years after it was first sprayed by US planes on Vietnam‘s jungles: here. See also here.
This is a Dutch video about restoring seagrass along the Wadden Sea coast; see also here.
Dutch site Natuurbericht reports about new research at the Wadden Sea coast of Groningen province in the northern Netherlands.
The biggest seagrass field of the Netherlands is there. Seagrass is a favourite food for brent geese and wigeons. Every autumn, these birds arrive on migration from colder countries.
The new research proves that the birds eat seagrass in a way which helps the seagrass to grow again next summer.
The research results have been published in the article: Ecosystem Engineering by Seagrasses Interacts with Grazing to Shape an Intertidal Landscape.
This video says about itself:
May 2010
When Colm O’Gorman infamously sued the Vatican for sexual abuse, he catalysed a wave of new cases. As the abuse scandal continues to shake the Catholic Church, we revisit that legacy.
Religiosity Plummets In Ireland And Declines Worldwide; Atheism On The Rise
08/08/2012 6:05 pm Updated: 08/09/2012 9:26 am
Rocked in recent years by sex-abuse scandals and crises in leadership, the Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland has been struggling to keep its members close.
But this week, a new global survey on faith and atheism has revealed that the crisis of faith in Ireland may be much worse than previously thought.
According to the poll released by WIN-Gallup International, the traditionally Catholic country has seen one of the steepest drops worldwide in religiosity.
The poll — which was based on interviews with more than 50,000 people selected from 57 countries — asked participants, “irrespective of whether they attended a place of worship, if they considered themselves to be religious, not religious, or an atheist.”
In Ireland, only 47 percent of those polled said they considered themselves religious — a 22-point drop from the 69 percent recorded in a similar poll conducted in 2005. In addition, 10 percent self-identified as atheist.
The only country that registered a steeper decline in religiosity was Vietnam, which saw a 23-point drop from 53 percent to 30 percent.
However, Ireland and Vietnam were not unique in this dip in faith, Reuters notes.
According to the global index, there has been a notable decline in religiosity worldwide.
Current data shows that the number of people worldwide who call themselves religious is now 59 percent, while 13 percent self-identify as atheist.
However, according to trending data, religiosity has fallen by 9 points globally since 2005 and the number of people who identify as atheist rose from 4 percent to 7 percent. Note that only 40 countries were polled in both 2005 and 2012, so there are two different sets of data available.
The U.S., France and Canada joined Ireland on the top-10 list of countries to have experienced a “notable decline in religiosity” since 2005.
The number of people in the U.S. who self-identify as religious dropped 13 points to 60 percent. In addition, 5 percent of Americans declared themselves atheists, an increase of 4 points since 2005.
This mockingbird video from Denton in Texas in the USA says about itself:
A young mockingbird was left in our backyard today while its parents went off gathering food. The young bird stays mostly near the lower bird bath. We keep this specifically for young birds so they can easily get water during the first 24-48 hours out of the nets.
In the last half of the video our young explorer makes it up to the hackberry tree where his mother rewards him with some food.
george-b was so kind to give me the One Lovely Blog Award.
Thanks so much! This is my second time for that award.
george-b has a very interesting blog, he writes about many varied subjects (a bit similar to my blog in that respect 
). Those subjects include animals, music, history and many others.
The rules of the One Lovely Blog Award are:
Give credit to the awesome person who nominated you,
Describe seven things about yourself,
Nominate 15 other bloggers [presumably, linking to them].
***
My list of seven things about me:
1. When I was in my teens, I was in a table tennis club.
2. I was in football clubs as well.
3. I was in an athletics club (best parts: 1500 meter running and long jump).
4. At a classmate’s house, I watched aquariums and terrariums.
5. Today, I was at the cemetery. I heard a nuthatch, but not so many birds today. More dragonflies than usually, a speckled wood butterfly sitting on a leaf, and mushrooms.
6. My knee is still slowly recovering after I fell during the Rembrandt celebration.
7. The birds are coming back to the balcony, now that the house shaped feeder has been repaired.
***
And now I would like to nominate the following 15 bloggers for this Award. Please note that I understand completely if you choose not to participate. As the saying goes; ‘No strings attached’!
So here are my 15 nominations:
3. Love to God
4. Mirrored Images Photography
6. jhasmoments
7. European Scientist and Journalist
8. Sharmishtha Basu’s poetries
10. The Trail
11. Lord Brummell
12. Live. Explore. Learn. Remember.
14. Blessed with a Star on the Forehead
15. sobnyc
This video says about itself:
China announces plans to ban shark fin soup at official functions, delighting environmentalists. Ramy Inocencio reports.
From AFP news agency:
Threatened shark species turning up in US restaurants
August 9, 2012
Threatened shark species are being used to make shark fin soup, a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, in several US cities, according to an unprecedented study based on DNA testing.
Thirty-three different species of sharks turned up in samples collected in 14 cities and analyzed at Stony Brook University’s Institute for Ocean Conservation Science in New York. “US consumers of shark fin soup cannot be certain of what’s in their soup,” said Demian Chapman, who co-led the DNA testing, in a statement Wednesday. “They could be eating a species that is in serious trouble.” Scalloped hammerhead sharks, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, was among the species found on the menus of US restaurants where shark fin soup can sell for as much as $100 per bowl.
Others included smooth hammerheads, school sharks and spiny dogfish, all listed as vulnerable to extinction, as well as a variety of near-threatened species such as bull and copper sharks. “This is further proof that shark fin soup here in the United States, not just in Asia, is contributing to the global decline in sharks,” said Liz Karan, of the Pew Environment Group, a foundation that supported the study.
At-Risk Species Still on U.S. Menus. It may be easier to order a troubled entrée than you think, especially if you eat fish and seafood: here.
Hammerhead Shark – Island Beach State Park, NJ: video here.
From LiveScience:
Tiny Snail, Thought Extinct, Rediscovered by Grad Student
Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 08 August 2012 Time: 05:01 PM ET
In 2000, the oblong rocksnail — about the size of a nickel with a yellow body and a banded shell — was declared extinct in its home, Alabama’s Cahaba River Basin.
But a graduate student has rediscovered these snails on a short stretch within the Cahaba River, where it crosses the Bibb and Shelby county lines.
“To be able to find a species that was thought to be extinct is always encouraging,” said the graduate student, Nathan Whelan of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, in a statement, “especially considering biodiversity and conservation stories are not typically positive these days.”
It’s not clear why the snail, scientifically known as Leptoxis compacta declined, but it is likely a combination of the species’ small natural range, and pollution from local mines and the Birmingham metropolitan area, Whelan and colleagues write in a study published today (Aug. 8) in the journal PLoS ONE.
Whelan found the oblong rocksnail at only one section within its original, 50-mile (80-kilometer) range along the river. However, at other sites along its historic range, similar snails turned up. This gives rise to another mystery: Why did the oblong rocksnail suffer such a dramatic loss of range when other snails in the same environment did not, he and colleagues write.
The oblong rocksnail’s range is so restricted now that the remaining snails could easily be wiped out, so Whelan and colleagues argue that it should be considered for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Researchers also hope to establish a second population of the snails elsewhere within their previous range.
See also here.
This video is called Unarmed Men Executed By Free Syrian Army/Al Qaeda.. And These Are The Good Guys?
By Bill Van Auken in the USA:
Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda
9 August 2012
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday issued a warning against anyone “attempting to exploit the misery of the Syrian people, either by sending in proxies or sending in terrorist fighters.” She insisted that such actions would “not be tolerated.”
Neither she nor the State Department cared to spell out precisely which countries or organizations were being warned. Hidden behind Clinton’s hypocritical statement is the reality that US imperialism and its allies are themselves relying on, bankrolling and arming just such “proxies” and “terrorist fighters” to pursue their war for regime-change in Syria.
Chief among these forces is Washington’s supposed arch enemy, the Islamist terrorist organization Al Qaeda.
The growing acknowledgment within official circles that Al Qaeda is playing a decisive role in Syria’s civil war exposes both the real nature of the US-backed bid to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the fraud of Washington’s “war on terror.”
Having for months dismissed as “propaganda” the Syrian government’s statements that it is battling Al Qaeda terrorists, the corporate media and sources close to the US government are now not only acknowledging the role of this organization in the Syrian events, but celebrating it.
The major US news networks all carried reports on Monday and Tuesday highlighting Al Qaeda’s presence inside Syria. These follow a report in the New York Times late last month that Al Qaeda is operating in the heart of the so-called Syrian “revolution” through three groups: the Al Nusra Front for the People of the Levant, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and Al Baraa ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade.
The frankest admission of the significance of Al Qaeda’s role came Monday in an article posted on the web site of the Council on Foreign Relations by Ed Husain, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies and one of the council’s chief analysts on Islamist political movements in the Middle East.
Husain wrote: “The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective… Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now.”
America’s Syrian Jihad: An Old War in New Clothes: here.
The United States and its Comrade-in-arms, Al Qaeda: here.
The Dangerous Global Consequences of a Syria Intervention: here.
Washington is intensifying its bloody intervention to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: here.
Grisly videos show yet more Syrian atrocities: here.
The “Free Syrian Army” are hardly paragons of virtue in this dirty war: here.
US efforts to bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria focus on collusion with Turkey’s Justice and Development Party: here.
Yesterday US and NATO officials discussed plans for a US military invasion of Syria to bring down Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, after US President Barack Obama announced that the US was contemplating a direct attack on Syria at a press conference Monday night: here.
United Nations experts warned today that an increasing number of “foreign elements” including jihadis are now operating in Syria: here.
US proxy war in Syria spreads to Lebanon and Iraq: here.
From daily News Line in Britain:
Thursday, 9 August 2012
GREEK BANK WORKERS TO CONTINUE THEIR NATIONAL STRIKE -while armed police round up immigrants
GREEK bank workers at the ATE Bank (Agrarian bank) decided last Monday in a mass meeting to continue their national strike against the sell off of the ‘healthy’ part of the Bank to the private Piraeus Bank while the other ‘rotten’ half, according to the Bank of Greece, is to be liquidated.
About 350 ATE Bank workers staged a mass picket at the bank’s HQ on Monday demanding that ATE Bank stays united and public.
For decades, ATE Bank offered cheap bank loans and mortgages to hundreds of thousands of farmers and village inhabitants.
These people are now facing total ruin if ATE Bank is privatised, since the Piraeus Bank would demand immediate loan payments at much higher commercial bank rates.
The SEATE, the ATE Bank trade union, have issued a call to farmers to support their strike.
In many cities and towns throughout Greece, ATE Bank workers are picketing daily the bank’s branches assisted by workers and small farmers.
At the Athens mass picket, ATE Bank worker Yiannoula Chrysikou spoke to the News Line about the strike.
Chrysikou was critical of the SEATE as well as the OTOE (federation of bank workers’ trade unions) leaders, who have refused to call out on strike the remainder of bank workers.
She was going to raise this issue and the call for a general strike at the union’s mass meeting. The majority of ATE Bank’s employees are married women in their 30s and 40s.
Chrysikou showed a letter from Piraeus Bank in effect affirming that, if the takeover goes ahead, all 5,500 ATE Bank workers would be sacked and offered re-employment under new conditions.
That involves the same salary but without supplements and pension rights. It would also mean that the new employer Piraeus Bank would have the right to sack any worker.
Piraeus Bank is one of the four Greek banks that are, in effect, bankrupt.
They are operating thanks to constant aid of billions of euros from the Greek state as part of the EC-IMF-ECB bailout accord of 130bn euros early this year, out of which some 40bn euros are to be handed over to the four main Greek private banks to keep Greek capitalism afloat.
Up to now, the GSEE (Greek TUC) have remained silent on the strike.
SEATE and the Postal Bank’s trade union were staging a joint rally on Wednesday. Postal Bank is under immediate threat of privatisation.
Meanwhile, Greek armed riot police squads assisted by other police units continued on Tuesday, for the fourth day running, the biggest pogrom against immigrant workers and their families in Athens code-named Xenios Zeus, under the pretext of searching for ‘illegal immigrants’.
Literally thousands of police, with vans and buses, have cordoned off large chunks of the city centre arresting everyone on sight that does not look Greek.
The arrested persons are made to stand in line or sit on the pavement; then police officers check their identity papers or passports and make lists.
All arrested persons are then bused to the Athens police HQ where they are further interrogated. Their fate is decided by police officers alone, with no lawyers present.
On police officers’ jurisdiction, the arrested persons are deported or taken to the Amygdaleza ‘illegal immigrants’ concentration camp just outside Athens, or put in cells.
According to Greek police data, in the period 28 July to Friday 3rd August, some 4,340 police officers and 1,000 police vehicles where employed in the Xenios Zeus operation.
Nearly 14,000 persons (3,500 Greek nationals and 10,500 of other nationalities) where rounded up during that period. Of these persons 500 Greeks and 3,800 foreigners were charged with minor offences and arrested.
Operation Xenios Zeus (Foreign Zeus) begun last Saturday, centred on three main Athens squares, with armed riot police making sure that their weapons were in full view of bystanders and tourists just under the Acropolis.
Again according to released police figures, 4,900 persons were rounded up, of which 1,130 were arrested as ‘illegal immigrants’. Nine public persecutors were involved in the police search of 52 buildings.
Last Sunday, police said that 1,130 persons were rounded up of which 395 were arrested as ‘illegal immigrants’. 88 immigrants have been deported.
The Greek Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said that the operation is being carried out on direct orders from the Prime Minister of the three-party coalition government Antonis Samaras, the leader of the Conservatives.
Dendias said that the operation was combating ‘the biggest invasion of immigrants in our country’. The Greek capitalist media presents the state and police pogrom as ‘systematic’.
The Greek Opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) parliamentary deputy Dimitris Tsoukalas protested against the police pogroms, stating that ‘fully-armed police arrested on the Greek Prime Minister’s orders anyone who does not look like a Greek in the Athens city centre’.
Tsoukalas implied that the pogrom started symbolically on 4th August, the date that a pro-fascist dictatorship was imposed in Greece in 1936.
Tsoukalas pointed out that: ‘On Saturday afternoon people, mostly men, scared with their heads down, were immobilised by the special squads of the Greek police.’
In a statement last Sunday the Greek Communist Party (KKE) called the pogrom ‘an exhibition of inhumanity and barbarism’.
Both SYRIZA and the KKE have called on the government to stop such operations. …
At the same time, hundreds of Greek riot police are operating in the Chalkidiki district in northern Greece against protestors who have launched a militant campaign against the plans for an open gold mine using cyanide by Canadian firm Eldorado Gold.
Local people say that the firm’s plans will destroy their health, the farming soil, their livestocks and the thriving tourist trade in the area.
Fierce battles between riot police squads and protesters took place all day last Sunday. Police attacked with tear gas and smoke bombs, while protestors attacked police vans, a police station and one of the local town halls.
Ten persons arrested by police were later released. Locals said that the riot police used rubber bullets, but police denied this.
Speaking on a Greek TV station, the Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias implied that the people of the village of Skouries, the nearest to the gold mine, would get the same treatment as the Athens steel workers. ‘As in the Hellenic Steel plant, likewise here legality will be enforced.’
That to Greek people sounds almost identical to the hysterical proclamations of the 1967-1974 military junta leaders, who sent the army and the police against workers and students, killing hundreds.
The Greek government’s motto is fear; the EC-IMF-ECB-installed three-party coalition junta, parading as a parliamentary government, is out to smash workers and youth so as to make sure that the prepared new massive, almost 15 billion euros of public cuts and slashing of wages and pensions can be implemented.
…
SYRIZA’s perspective is that the current Greek three-party coalition government is disintegrating and in a few months’ time a new general election will be held, surely to be won by SYRIZA.
As the economies of Italy and Spain collapse, it is clear in statements by politicians in those countries, that democracy is a ‘luxury’ not suited to today’s economic crisis.
The issue of a general strike in Greece, against the EC-IMF plans and barbaric civil war, is being raised by some bankworkers in the current all-out national strike of the Greek Agrarian Bank (ATE) against privatisation.
7,500 migrants rounded up in Athens: here.
Last weekend, Athens witnessed events not seen since Greece’s military dictatorship of 1967-1974. Some 4,500 police officers were mobilized to round up thousands of people, singled out because their skin colour and general appearance suggested they were immigrants: here.
Australian government authorises forced interrogation of refugees: here.
This video is called Common Shelducks – Tadorna tadorna.
Ecomare museum on Texel island in the Netherlands reports that this late summer, 60,000 shelducks are molting in the Dutch part of the Wadden Sea. That is more than usually.
In the German part of the Wadden Sea, molting shelduck numbers have declined from 200,000 to 150,000. Probably, many ducks have moved to the Netherlands.
