Paralympics spectators boo British Conservative Chancellor

This video from Britain says about itself:

George Osborne Gets Booed Handing Medals at the Paralympic Athletics Medal Ceremony.

By George Eaton in Britain:

George Osborne booed at the Paralympic Games

Chancellor greeted with boos as he awards medals for the men’s 400m

03 September

He commented at the weekend that it was “no surprise” that he was unpopular but George Osborne still probably wasn’t expecting to be greeted by a chorus of boos when he presented the medals for the men’s 400m at the Paralympic Games.

See also here.

Labour leader Ed Miliband praised the thousands of Paralympic spectators today who booed failed Chancellor George Osborne this week: here.

Good Australian right whale news

This video is called Breeding Southern Right Whales – Attenborough – Life of Mammals – BBC.

From Wildlife Extra:

Hundreds of whales recorded at South Australia’s Head of Bight

Right whales gather in large numbers between May and October

55 calves including 4 white youngsters

September 2012. More than a hundred southern right whales have been counted at the Head of Bight on South Australia’s west coast during an annual monitoring program conducted by the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR).

119 Southern right whales, including 55 calves!

DEWNR Great Australian Bight Marine Park (GABMP) manager Saras Kumar said a total of 119 individual southern right whales, including 55 calves, were recorded within the GABMP at the Head of Bight during a two-week monitoring expedition (August 17 to 31) by Alinytjara Wilurara and Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources staff, four volunteers and 25 local Aboriginal community members from Yalata.

DEWNR Alinytjara Wilurara coast project officer Yasmin Wolf said visitors to the Head of Bight were treated to sightings of large numbers of migrating whales while they reside in the area for their breeding season, which takes place from May to October.

“How long it takes before a female commences breeding, how often females breed, how long the calves stay with mothers, and movement between locations was some of the information surveyed,” Ms Wolf said.

Whale ID

Ms Kumar said monitoring was conducted using binoculars to survey how many whales were in the area, and photographs were taken to record individual whales noting patters of callosities (roughed patches of skin colonised by crustaceans) on their head and other markings such as white blazes on their backs and undersides.

Previous results

“Monitoring results this year compare to 148 individuals including 67 calves in the GABMP during 2011 and 95 individuals including 42 calves in 2010,” Ms Kumar said.

“The 2012 monitoring results are part of a three-year DEWNR study and will be added to a regional catalogue where-by individual whales can be matched to photographs taken of whales at other locations to understand their movements.

4 white calves

“Some interesting sightings this year included four white calves and a few pods of curious dolphins. This year we also took time to train local Aboriginal community members so they can take more ownership of the monitoring program in future.”

The GABMP is part of the Alinytjara Wilurara region and was created in the 1990s to protect breeding southern right whales, Australian sealions and other marine life.

“South Australian areas such as the GABMP are popular with breeding whales because they are protected and have warm, shallow waters with a sandy ocean floor,” Ms Kumar said.

The 2012 southern right whale monitoring results coincide with the State Government’s launch of the public consultation period for South Australia’s 19 marine parks.

Marine parks with effective zoning have been designed to help to protect threatened and endangered species, and the habitats they rely upon, like the southern right whale.

The proposed zoning, which will protect a range of animals and ecosystems, including other whale breeding hot spots, mangroves, fish breeding sites and important reef ecosystems, can be viewed at www.marineparks.sa.gov.au.

African wolf discovery in Morocco

This video is about wolves.

From Wildlife Extra:

African wolf found in Morocco for the first time

Camera trap photos from the Middle Atlas reveal a wolf

September 2012. A group of Spanish-Moroccan researchers has announced the discovery of the African Wolf (Canis lupus lupaster) in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The team leader, Vicente Urios, from the University of Alicante says it is “a fabulous find”. The wolves were photographed by camera trap in 2011.

The researchers discovered from the Berbers that inhabit that they knew of two types of “jackals”, one large and one small. Vicente Urios’s team guessed that the largest would actually be a wolf. “They even have a word for wolf, but they always thought the animals were jackals” says Urios.

The photographs show an animal with “obvious wolf characteristics, such as a large body, slender, with a powerful neck, tall individuals with darker mantle and short tail.” The photo is taken in the Atlas at about 1,800 metres.

Much larger distribution than previously thought

This discovery extends the known distribution area of the African Wolf (Canis lupus lupaster) westwards by more than 3000 Km to north-west Africa.

African wolf also in north-eastern Algeria and Senegal

An article published in PLoS ONE by Gaubert et al. on 10 August 2012 shed more light on the African Wolf Canis lupus lupaster in North and West Africa and put forward its uniqueness among other wolf lineages:

The African wolf appeared as a distinct genetic entity. Genetic distances with the other wolf lineages ranged between 1.9 and 4.3%, whereas they reached 4.5 to 9.3% between the African wolf and the different lineages of jackals. The uniqueness of the African wolf was reinforced by the fact that it had the highest level of haplotype and nucleotide diversity among gray wolf lineages, even exceeding that of the Holarctic wolves and dogs, and far greater than what was found for the Himalayan and Indian wolves.

It is most likely that C. l. lupaster has been roaming in Africa since (at least) the Middle to Late Pleistocene, and that the African wolf and a cline of smaller morphotypes, traditionally defined as ‘golden jackals’, have been co-occurring in Africa since that period, without any clear morphological, temporal or ecological delineation (Geraads 2011).

The full report of this discovery will be published in the September issue of the Quercus magazine: “Detectanal lobo en Marruecos gracias al uso del foto-trampeo” by Vicente Urios, Carlos Ramírez, Miguel Gallardo and Hamid Rguibi Idrissi.

September 2012. “Don’t let our wolves become homeless” is a campaign to raise money to buy the 17-hectare site on which the Iberian Wolf Recovery Centre (IWRC) has stood for the last 25 years: here.

Mange and viral diseases have a substantial, recurring impact on the health and size of reintroduced wolf packs living in Yellowstone National Park, according to ecologists: here.

September 2012. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is requesting assistance with an investigation involving the suspected illegal take of a radio-collared red wolf that was recently found dead. The red wolf is protected under The Endangered Species Act: here.

Saving Kenya’s rare antelopes

This video is called HUNTER´S HARTEBEEST OR HIROLA (KENYA SAFARI).

From The Star (Nairobi, Kenya):

Kenya: World’s Rarest Antelope Gets New Home

By Raabia Hawa, 3 September 2012

One of the world’s rarest antelope now has a new home in Marasabit. The Kenya Wildlife Service and the Northern Rangeland Trust have successfully introduced the rare species of the antelope – the hirola – to a sanctuary in Ishaqbini. The hirola is the world’s most endangered antelope having rapidly declined from roughly 14,000 in the 1970s to just about 430 today.

It is only found in small pockets of bushland in Kenya and Somalia. It is also said that it is likely to be the first mammal to become extinct in Africa in modern history if steps are not taken protect it. In collaboration with KWS, the Northern Rangeland Trust have completed, with the help of the Nature Conservancy, a 3,000 acre predator-proof sanctuary.

The aim of the sanctuary is to protect endangered animals by providing a secure environment for them to increase in population. It is seen by experts as possibly the last effort to save the hirola from extinction. The six-day operation saw the hirolas being tagged and individually airlifted by helicopter to the new sactuary from the Tana area and the Somali border.

Two oryx, eight topi, eight zebra and a few giraffes were also transported to the safe-haven. The capture and relocation was a success with no deaths recorded. The team also managed to remove six cheetahs and six hyenas and place them outside the fenced area. The future looks hopeful for the Hirola with the establishment of the new sanctuary in Kenya, and the animals will continue to be monitored.

Romney’s Bain Capital faces tax avoidance probe

This video from the USA is called Thom Hartmann (July 19, 2012): Bain Capital and El Salvador death squads.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Romney‘s equity firm Bain faces tax avoidance probe

Monday 03 September 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

New York’s attorney general is investigating the tax strategies of some of the largest private equity firms in the US, including Bain Capital, the company founded by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

It emerged at the weekend that attorney general Eric Schneiderman is examining whether the firms have abused a tax strategy to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

The practice involves converting management fees collected for handling investors’ accounts into fund investments, so resulting in a lower tax rate.

Some tax experts who spoke to the New York Times, which reported the investigation on Sunday, warned that the strategy was potentially illegal, although other experts linked to the companies claimed it was commonplace.

The attorney general sent subpoenas to more than a dozen firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, according to the official.

Bain Capital has been a high-profile target of the Democrats as they seek to portray Mr Romney as someone willing to close businesses and lay off workers in pursuit of profit.

Mr Romney has claimed that lessons he learned at Bain Capital would help him as president to fix the economy and create jobs.

The tax strategy of converting management fees into investments producing capital gains can be attractive to fund managers because capital gains are subject to a federal tax rate of 15 per cent in the US, which is far less than the top rate of 35 per cent for ordinary income.

The “management fee waiver” strategy is widely used within the industry, the New York Times has claimed.

At least $1 billion (£630 million) in accumulated fees that otherwise would have been taxed as ordinary income for Bain company executives had been converted into investments producing capital gains, according to Bain financial documents leaked online.

Bain partners were able to save more than $200m (£126m) in federal income taxes and more than $20m (£12.5m) in Medicare taxes, according to the newspaper.

The US Internal Revenue Service has not yet ruled on whether the waiver strategy complies with tax law and expert opinion varies.

Romney’s Bain victims set up protest camp: here.

Vultures endangered by new drug

This video is called Vulture Conservation Campaign Organized in Northern India.

From Wildlife Extra:

New drug threat to Asia’s vultures

More pain-killers threaten vulture survival in South Asia

September 2012. Even as the ban on veterinary painkiller diclofenac and vulture breeding efforts of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and RSPB are beginning to bear some fruit, new threats are looming on the horizon.

Another painkiller aceclofenac, used on cattle, is equally dangerous to vultures, since it gets metabolized into diclofenac. BNHS draws attention to this vital issue and also insists that to ensure long-term vulture survival, it is necessary to do safety testing of all veterinary painkillers to prevent other unsafe drugs such as ketoprofen from being used on animals.

Another vulture killer?

The new research paper emphasizes that it is important to understand the metabolic profile of veterinary painkillers. Aceclofenac, the new entrant in this category, bears close structural and pharmacological resemblance to diclofenac. It has been found that aceclofenac is a new derivative of diclofenac and gets metabolized into diclofenac.

The Gyps species of vultures in South Asia, (White-backed, Long-billed and Slender-billed, have suffered a catastrophic decline of about 99% over the past decade due to the use of diclofenac in cattle, which causes vulture deaths when the dead bodies of such cattle are consumed by them. Efforts of BNHS and RSPB led to a ban on veterinary diclofenac subsequently. Over the years, BNHS and RSPB have been successfully running Vulture Conservation Breeding Centres in three northern states of India, with help from the forest departments. Efforts are also on to measure the incidence of diclofenac after the ban and sustained advocacy and to find vulture safe zones across the country. Going forward, the crucial aspect would be total annihilation of all unsafe veterinary drugs from the system, so that the vulture programme can reach its logical culmination of rehabilitating the Gyps species back in the wild.

Commenting on the issue, Mr Sharma said, “A study demonstrating in vivo conversion of aceclofenac into diclofenac in cattle will be important. Once proven this will establish the exposure of vultures to diclofenac. The aceclofenac issue also points to the need for a comprehensive environmental evaluation of veterinary drugs before granting licenses. All other veterinary drugs, which we do not know much about, must be subjected to safety testing.”

The paper demonstrates that aceclofenac should not even be safety tested on vultures as its threat to vultures is already clear. Safety testing should focus on other molecules which are still in the grey area. Other drugs such as ketoprofen are also unsafe for vultures.

Referring to the recently held Symposium in Delhi to develop a regional response for saving South Asia’s vultures, BNHS director, Dr Asad Rahmani said, “In order to create a safe natural environment for vultures in South Asia, banning the unsafe drugs and safety testing of other potentially toxic drugs should be a priority.”

The four governments of South Asian countries had already agreed in the Delhi Symposium that it is important to create and maintain a non-toxic environment for vultures, by identifying and preventing the veterinary use of other unsafe veterinary drugs with similar toxicity as diclofenac.

A recent research paper published in a peer-reviewed journal called “Journal of Raptor Research” (volume 46-3, 2012) highlights this threat . The new research paper is titled “Aceclofenac as a Potential Threat to Critically Endangered Vultures in India: A Review” by Pradeep Sharma from Rajasthan University of Veterinary and Animal Science, Bikaner.

No vultures will be left in India and the rest of South Asia if immediate steps are not taken for their conservation, NGOs have warned at the CBD CoP 11 currently being held in Hyderabad, India. South Asia once had millions of vultures but over the last decade, 99% of three species have disappeared: here.

There is good news and bad news when it comes to the struggle to keep Namibia’s vultures from disappearing: here.

Sweden helped Bush’s Iraq war

This video is called ‘From Assange to NATO, Sweden a voluntary vassal state of US’.

Translated from daily Expressen in Sweden:

Sweden helped the U.S. to bomb Baghdad

Prime Minister Göran Persson condemned the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 2003.

At the same time the Swedish military secretly helped the U.S. with information about bomb targets in Baghdad.

This is shown by declassified documents from the U.S. military headquarters, U.S. Central Command, which Expressen can publish today.

MP Peter Eriksson (Green Party) and the Left Party‘s former leader Lars Ohly are now demanding to know the truth about Sweden’s suspected duplicity.

If Sweden facilitated an attack, then that is very remarkable, says Lars Ohly.

Iraq: How the CIA Says It Blew It On Saddam’s WMD: here.

Related articles

• Sweden ‘helped US bomb Iraq in 2003′: report (thelocal.se)
• Sweden, while publicly protesting, aided US invasion of Iraq – report (rt.com)
• Sweden, while publicly protesting, aided US invasion of Iraq (EndtheLie.com)
• Russian Lawmakers to Review Military Transit Deal with Sweden (EndtheLie.com)

Saving Mauritian skinks

From Wildlife Extra:

Critically Endangered Mauritian skinks breeding fast at Durrell

Trio of female Mauritian skinks kick-start breeding programme in Jersey

September 2012. The breeding skills of three female orange-tailed skinks have impressed conservationists and given the new safety net population for their Critically Endangered reptile species a real chance for the future.

16 juveniles and 4 eggs

Over the past four months at the Durrell headquarters in Jersey, the females have produced a staggering 16 juveniles between them, all of which are doing well, and another 4 eggs are currently incubating. This is despite the fact that female skinks produce only two large eggs at one time and the trio were the only females out of 22 rescued orange-tailed skinks that were brought to Durrell a year ago that were able to breed; the others were still too small or male.

Matt Goetz, Head of Durrell’s Herpetology Department, said: “These three orange-tailed skinks have gone above and beyond our expectations for them since they arrived at Durrell a year ago and started breeding in March. When they were rescued from Flat Island in Mauritius following the invasion of the predatory Indian musk shrew, we knew that a safety net population elsewhere was going to be essential as their numbers were critically low.

But even in our wildest dreams, we couldn’t have hoped that the females would get off to such a flying start. They are clearly happy and healthy, and we are delighted that population numbers of the orange-tailed skink in Jersey are increasing so rapidly.”

Tourism development led to local extinction

The invasion of Flat Island by the Indian musk shrew followed the development of tourism there and sadly recent surveys have confirmed that no orange-tailed skinks have survived on the island.

Translocation

Fortunately, fears about the extinction of the species led Durrell’s team, along with staff from the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation and the Mauritius National Parks and Conservation Service, to translocate 82 orange-tailed skinks to the Mauritian nature reserve, Gunner’s Quoin, in 2008 and a further 390 in 2010. Unlike Flat Island access by tourists and the public is prohibited.

The restoration of Mauritian endemic reptile communities is one of Durrell’s core conservation projects and in an attempt to establish a safety net population, 22 of the rescued skinks made their way to Jersey in June 2011.

Dr. Nik Cole, Durrell’s team leader in the Mauritian reptile project said: “Aside from the population at Durrell, the only surviving orange-tailed skinks are present on Gunner’s Quoin and it will be years before we know whether the translocation there has been a success or we manage to find a way to tackle the shrew problem. That is what makes the safety net population of this Critically Endangered reptile so important and in turn what makes the news about the breeding trio of females such a delight.”

The first of the females’ eggs were laid after conservationists created the onset of an artificial wet and hot season in the skinks’ new habitat in March. Having produced four clutches each, the females will now rest and the artificial climate will cool down. Towards the end of the year, the Durrell team will initiate another hot, rainy season and by then the remaining skinks will have reached maturity and should start breeding as well.

See also here.

Wilders supporters threaten rock singer’s life

This video is a Dutch regional TV interview with singer Bennie Jolink about his Hitler-Wilders-Breivik painting.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Monday, September 3, 2012, 13:07

Singer Bennie Jolink has been threatened because of his painting in which he shows Geert Wilders with Adolf Hitler and Anders Breivik.

In an interview with Nieuwe Revu weekly the singer of the band Normaal says that at his office threats have been received. Messages hoped that he would die or get serious illnesses. In the interview Jolink says that he does not need security guards: “I protect myself by laughing out loudly about it.”

Jolink also received messages of support for the painting.

That the supporters of Wilders’ xenophobic party now threaten this rock singer’s life, saying they would “come to get him”, shows that Bennie Jolink was not that wrong in depicting Wilders together with Breivik.

The decline in popularity of Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedon (PVV) in the Netherlands can be traced back to two months ago when a 63 year old Turkish man was attacked, and later died from his injuries. The couple who inflicted the injuries were named Henk and Ingrid, which are the names of the typical Dutch couple that Wilders had championed in public speeches: here.

Iris Murdoch letters acquired

This video is called Iris Murdoch on Philosophy and Literature: Section 1.

From Kingston University in England:

Kingston University acquires revealing Iris Murdoch letters

03 September 2012

A collection of letters written by Dame Iris Murdoch, which reveals the depth of her relationship with one of her closest female friends, has been acquired by Kingston University’s Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies. The 250 letters from the 1940s to 1990s were written by Murdoch, the philosopher and distinguished post-war British novelist, to fellow philosopher Professor Philippa Foot. The pair first met in the early 1940s and subsequently had a brief affair in the late 1960s.

The purchase – made possible by a £107,000 Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant – represents an important addition to the London university’s Iris Murdoch archive, now thought to be the most extensive in the world. The letters provided a rare insight into Murdoch’s private life and thoughts, director of the Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies Dr Anne Rowe said. “They hold particular human interest because of the intense personal relationship between the two women who first met as undergraduates at Somerville College, Oxford,” she explained. “They went through all the ups and downs of friendship together but they remained very close for six decades and, in the final stages of Murdoch’s illness, Philippa was one of the few people apart from Murdoch’s husband with whom she could be left alone without becoming agitated.”

Murdoch and Foot’s 60-year friendship survived personal upheavals and painful emotional dilemmas. Referring to an earlier estrangement, Murdoch wrote in the late 1950s: ‘‘Losing you, and losing you in that way, was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. I hope very much that we can now recapture something. I have thought of you so much in these years and dreamed painfully of you too. I would entirely wish only to speak to you from the heart.” In 1968, the year in which their relationship became more intimate, Murdoch wrote: “Sometimes I feel I have to invent a language to talk to you in, though my heart is very full of definite things to say. You stir some very deep part of my soul. Be patient with me and don’t be angry with my peculiarities. I love you very much.”

Iris Murdoch published 26 novels between 1954 and 1995 and is recognised internationally as one of the most significant British writers of the 20th Century. The latest purchase would ensure that the letters, which also gave a first-hand insight into the social, political, philosophical and literary zeitgeist in Britain in the mid-to-late 20th Century, would stay in the United Kingdom and be made available to a global community of scholars and researchers and the wider public, Dr Rowe said. “The powerful combination of historical, intellectual, political and personal insight in the letters provides a unique opportunity to encourage members of the public to explore the significance of scholarly archives to British heritage,” she added.