80th Anniversary of Anne Frank’s Birth: How a 13-Year-Old Girl Became the Defining Voice of the Nazi Holocaust
Events are being held today around the world to mark what would have been Anne Frank’s eightieth birthday. In Amsterdam, the Anne Frank House museum has announced it will put her diaries on permanent display. Anne Frank died at the age of fifteen of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the spring of 1945, just weeks before the concentration camp was liberated. Her diary was first published in 1947 and has since become one of the most widely read books in the world. We play a reading from the Anne Frank Diary Recording Project.
On June 8 protesters refused to leave until there was a commitment from the High Commission and official feedback. The High Commissioner gave in and agreed to meet SSN today.
The SSN delegation of national chairman Solly Mapaila and five others said that they highlighted the need for the Swazi monarchy to recognise the inevitability of dialogue and a peaceful transition to democracy.
They delivered a statement, signed by 14 South African political, trade union and solidarity organisations calling for “direct, open, credible talks between the monarch on the one hand and the representatives of the people on the other.”
Present King Mswati III‘s father Sobhuza II suspended the nation’s constitution in 1973, five years after independence from Britain. Political parties remain banned and the prime minister is appointed by the King.
Protesters express public outrage at US missile bases
Friday 12 June 2009
Peace activists will converge on RAF Fylingdales tomorrow to demonstrate their continued opposition to the base’s role in the US missile defence programme.
The protest will culminate in a rally featuring a number of speakers, including CND chairwoman Kate Hudson and Czech Republic activist Jana Glivicka.
The action takes place as a new poll commissioned by CND showed that over half the British population believes the siting of US missile defence system components – such as Menwith Hill and Fylingdales – would provoke international tensions and increase the threat to UK and EU security.
The poll also showed that most people believe that US President Barack Obama should cancel plans for bases in Europe.
Commenting on the survey’s findings, Hannah Tweddle of Yorkshire CND said: “This poll reiterates the strength of opposition to US missile defences in the UK.”
Ms Glivicka added: “Public pressure has lead to the withdrawal of the RADAR agreements from the Czech parliament and finally to the fall of the pro-RADAR government. But we need a strong international movement to win the fight.”
Finance union GMB has hit out at news that Barclays elite stand to make £380 million from the bank’s sale of its fund management arm, calling it “a sign of greed shoots of recovery” in the economy.
More than 400 Barclays staff are to share £380m after the bank agreed to sell Barclays Global Investors to US suitor BlackRock for £8.2 billion.
Barclays president and investment banking boss Bob Diamond will pick up a £22m profit before tax on his stake, having forked out £6m on shares over the past six years.
The deal will also significantly bolster Barclays‘s financial strength, making it “one of the most capitalised banks in the world,” according to the group’s chief executive John Varley.
But news of the banker windfall from the sale drew condemnation from GMB, which is angry that the money, rather than being paid into the pension fund to benefit all staff, is being used to make a few people rich.
“This is the first sign of the ‘greed shoots’ of recovery in the economy,” stormed GMB general secretary Paul Kenny.
“It is worrying evidence that the multimillionaire elite are taking the financial gravy train back on the tracks after the sector had to be bailed out by the taxpayers’ billions,” he added.
Mr Kenny recalled that Mr Diamond was instrumental in bankrolling the private equity elite as they took £300m out of AA/SAGA and left it saddled with £4.8bn of debts just before the crash in 2007.
He called for “an independent royal commission” on the financial sector and the economy, adding: “GMB members are very concerned that lessons have not been learned from the systemic failures that has given rise to this bankers’ recession.”
Joseph Stiglitz: The US has a huge corporate safety net, allowing the banks to gamble with impunity, but offers little to struggling individuals: here.
Bank accused of undermining stability as staff receive biggest bonus payouts in firm’s 140-year history: here.
TOKYO – Japan’s internal affairs and communications minister has resigned, dealing a setback to conservative Prime Minister Taro Aso just months before a general election.
Kunio Hatoyama, the brother of Japan’s main opposition party leader Yukio Hatoyama, stepped down in a row related to the privatisation of the country’s huge postal service.
“I submitted my resignation,” he said.
“It’s regrettable but I can’t change my beliefs,” Hatoyama told reporters after a meeting with Aso.
Hatoyama had demanded Aso fire Yoshifumi Nishikawa, the head of the privatised postal service, over Nishikawa’s attempts to sell off postal assets at what Hatoyama called unreasonably low prices.
The minister accused the postal chief of a conflict of interest in trying to sell off a key public asset of the service, a nationwide hotel chain, at a price far below market value to a business associate.
Hatoyama had warned for weeks that if Nishikawa didn’t go, he would.
His resignation dealt a setback to Aso, whose public support ratings have recently hovered in the 30 percent range ahead of the general election, which must be held sometime between now and October.
Aso has been put in a quandary as some heavyweights of his Liberal Democratic Party back Nishikawa, the former governor of the private mega bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.
Japan’s opposition Democratic Party (DPJ) has won another local election, with a landslide, ahead of general elections that must be held this year: here.
Thousands of people joined demonstrations across Peru on Thursday in support of the indigenous people battling against laws making it easier for foreign companies to explore for oil.
Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Peru, said many protesters were demanding the cancellation of the laws rather than their suspension and would keep fighting until that happened.
In Lima, the capital, riot police fired tear gas at several hundred student protesters, some of whom threw rocks and petrol bombs.
In Peru’s second largest city, Arequipa, demonstrators burnt a blood-smeared effigy of Alan Garcia, the Peruvian president, who backed the laws as part of the free trade deal with the US. …
PERU: Families of Dead Native Protesters Tell Their Stories: here.
Peru accused of cover-up after indigenous protest ends in death at Devil’s Bend: here.
A Peruvian community leader has called for an end to the protests that left dozens dead in the Amazon after MPs revoked the decrees that indigenous groups said would spur exploitation of their lands: here.
In the face of mass protests over the recent massacre in the Amazon basin and continuing blockades by indigenous groups, the Peruvian government has been forced to repeal two decrees opening up the region to exploitation: here.
CHILE: Mixed Reception for Indigenous Protection Code: here.
Element 112 gets permanent place on chemical list; will need new name
June 11, 2009
BERLIN – A new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said.
A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 393-foot-long (120-meter-long) particle accelerator to hit a lead target.
“The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table,” the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement late Wednesday.
The zinc and lead nuclei were fused to form the nucleus of the new element, also known as Ununbium, which is a placeholder name.
John Jost, executive director of IUPAC in North Carolina, told Reuters that the creation of new elements helps researchers to understand how nuclear power plants and atomic bombs function.
The atomic number 112 refers to the sum of the atomic numbers of zinc, which has 30 protons, and lead, which has 82. Atomic numbers denote how many protons are found in the atom’s nucleus.
Scientists at the Helmholtz Center have discovered six chemical elements, numbered 107 through 112, since 1981. The remaining five elements have already been recognized and named.
In 1925, scientists discovered the last naturally occurring element on the periodic table. Since then researchers have sought to create new, heavier elements.
Proving the existence of atoms with such a high mass, the so-called superheavy elements, is a complex procedure because they exist for only tiny fractions of a second and then decay radioactively into other elements.
Last year, the Werkgroep Europese Orchideeën (WEO) discovered the first early marsh-orchid in the Netherlands. Until then, it was thought that this plant only grew in the British isles. After a call on the WEO forum, it turns out that there are more sites where this orchid lives in Dutch coastal regions. On some spots, hundreds of them may grow!
Free tools for conservation – Everyone loves free stuff and this is equally true for conservation biologists, especially if it is easily downloadable from the internet! Xeno-canto is a platform for birders, biologists and conservationists to share knowledge and recordings of the world’s birds. Visitors can search through sounds in many different ways, make maps showing locations of recordings, and use simple song characteristics to try and identify unknown songs heard in the field. Xeno-canto provides access to its collections to anyone in the world. The recordings are shared under a Creative Commons license, allowing unlimited (non-commercial) distribution and copying. The final region (Australasia) has recently come online. Check it out at www.xeno-canto.org.
On 1 June 2009, Frans Cupedo discovered in his garden in Geulle (Limburg province) a male of the moth Eremodrina gilva. As far as people know, this species had never been recorded before in the Netherlands.
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