This 21 March 2017 video shows a male great spotted woodpecker making a nest hole.
AG Hols from the Netherlands made this video.
Woodpecker making nest, video
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Daily Archives: March 27, 2017
General strike in French Guiana
This video from France says about itself:
French Guiana: ‘A powder keg abandoned by the state’
FRENCH PAPERS – Mon. 27.03.17: The situation in French Guiana is making headlines. The overseas territory in South America has seen social unrest over the past week and there are calls for a general strike today. Meanwhile, less than a month before round one, many French people still don’t know who to vote for in the upcoming presidential elections.
By Kumaran Ira:
General strike declared in French Guyana
27 March 2017
A few weeks before the French presidential elections, French Guyana is paralyzed by a general strike. Strikes and road blockades have been ongoing for a week in this French overseas department in South America, bordering Brazil, based on demands on health, education, economy, security and housing.
Protests by health care, transport and energy workers are demanding jobs, pay increases and improvements to the quality of public services. After a week of strikes and demonstrations, largely launched independently of the union bureaucracy, the 37 unions gathered in the Union of Guyanese Workers (UTG) union federation voted to hold a general strike starting today.
At the same time, significant protest movements are mobilizing farmers and agricultural labourers in solidarity with the workers. In recent days, they have set up dozens of roadblocks that control strategic intersections in several cities, including the entrances to the cities of Cayenne, Kourou, Rémire-Montjoly and Saint-Laurent du Maroni.
A dozen roadblocks and strike action are paralyzing the Cayenne airport. A Paris-Cayenne Air France flight had to head back to Paris after four hours flight time when the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) radioed that it could not land in Cayenne airport due to a shortage of staff.
Striking electricity workers, Kourou hospital workers, and workers of the Endel corporation have blockaded the entrance to the Guyana space centre in Kourou. They were thus able to prevent the launching of the Ariane 5 rocket, the heart of Guyana’s economy, scheduled for March 21. “Due to a social movement, it was impossible to carry out the transfer operations of the launcher of the Final Assembly Structure (BAF) towards the launch area scheduled for today,” Ariane-Space declared in a statement.
Strikers also blocked the commercial port, the local authorities, the police prefecture and major roadways. Farmers are blockading the Agricultural Directorate’s buildings. Guyana’s schools, junior high schools and high schools have been closed by the authorities “until further notice.” University students are reportedly joining the protests.
The strike reflects deep social anger that is building among workers and oppressed social layers after five years of austerity under the Socialist Party (PS) government of President François Hollande. In this department of 200,000 people, 22 percent of workers (18,000 people) are jobless. Youth aged 15 to 24, who make up 46 percent of the unemployed, are the worst hit.
Speaking to France-Info, Senator for Guyana Antoine Karam said there was in Guyana “more insecurity than in the major cities inside France itself.” He added, “nearly 30 percent of the population does not have access to either drinkable water or to electricity, but on the other hand we have a space station.”
He also pointed to “murder, and armed robbery” in Guyana, claiming, “People will carry out murder for 20 euros, a jewel or a mobile phone.”
Guyanese people underscored their deep disappointment with the Hollande administration and the French government. Hollande promised a Pact for the Future of Guyana, which is still not signed.
Maud, 29, a teacher at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, told RMC: “Everyone has had it. People feel that no one ever talks about them, but that the situation is truly catastrophic. The Guyanese people have the impression that they have been abandoned by metropolitan France. They do not feel they are treated equally as compared to other departments.”
A month before the presidential elections, which are taking place amid explosive social anger in France, the PS government will seek to rapidly end the strike in the overseas department, before it triggers solidarity protests and strikes inside metropolitan France.
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New Zealand seabird news
This video from New Zealand says about itself:
6 May 2012
A kakapo named Crusty Bum has joined seven other kakapo on Little Barrier Island, north of Auckland.
From BirdLife:
27 Mar 2017
Lessons from Little Barrier Island
Alanna Matamaru-Smith, from our Cook Islands’ BirdLife Partner Te Ipukarea Society finds out more about seabird conservation during a recent visit to Little Barrier, an island off the northeastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
Alanna Matamaru-Smith, from our Cook Islands’ BirdLife Partner Te Ipukarea Society finds out more about seabird conservation during a recent visit to Little Barrier Island, off the northeastern coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
I’d never been to an island that was solely dedicated to being a nature reserve, but once I landed on Little Barrier Island, known as Hauturu in Māori language, it didn’t take long to realise I was in a Garden of Eden. Straight away I could see kākā and kākāriki flying overhead, tūī and bellbirds trying to out-sing each other, and kōkako bouncing across the ground nearby.
In the Cook Islands the closest we have to a nature reserve is Suwarrow, our national park, which is is 825km north-west of Rarotonga and home to millions of seabirds, thousands of huge coconut crabs, hundreds of sharks, and rare species of turtles. Suwarrow was predator-free until last year when one of the rangers noticed rats on one of the islets (Motu Tou).
A team is to return there this year to complete a rat eradication programme. Back on Hauturu, my first week involved helping Dan Burgin, of Wildlife Management International, and Leigh Joyce, DOC’s assistant ranger on Hauturu, conduct a population survey on the taiko/Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni.
I got a real hands-on experience holding these big seabirds and carefully learnt how to direct them in and out of their burrows. After handling the bird, with Dan banding it, we checked its nest for eggs or chicks. My second week involved a New Zealand Storm Petrel project with the Northern New Zealand Seabird Trust.
It was interesting to see how these birds were caught through the use of high beam lights, mesmerising the small petrel towards the ground. I was told back at home, old mamas on Mauke, one of our outer Cook Islands, used this technique too, but that was for chickens!
I had the job of placing captured birds into their new artificial burrows. Walking by myself in the dark forest to the burrows some 200m away, I saw what I thought was a kiwi but it turned out to be a kākāpō right there in the middle of the track. We both stood still for a good eight seconds before the kākāpō realised I had spotted it and headed off into the nearby bush.
After that, I had a lot more helpers join me on my walks to the burrows! Having arrived back home, I’m looking forward to utilising my skills learnt on Hauturu. For instance (funding dependent), I hope to work on a new project surveying and monitoring the herald petrel population on Rarotonga.
Little is known about this species, which is a major obstacle to developing a conservation plan and starting predator control work. There has been little recent activity in terms of seabird projects being conducted in the Cook Islands. So, with my new passion and drive for seabird conservation, I hope to jump-start a bit more excitement within this area, especially among our young people.
BIRDLIFE IN THE PACIFIC
BirdLife International is the world’s largest nature conservation partnership, with 120 partners worldwide. BirdLife’s Pacific Partnership includes national conservation groups from New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Palau, and Australia.
The Pacific has more threatened bird species per unit area of land, or per person, than anywhere else in the world. There are 34 critically endangered bird species in the region that are on the brink of extinction, with many more edging closer to being wiped out every year. Do you want to help? Head to our Support Us page.
Today we celebrate World Oceans Day as we finally reach 10 million – not dollars, pounds or euros – but valuable data points in the Seabird Tracking Database. Discover how this inspiring international collaboration enables scientists and policy-makers to better understand and protect seabirds: here.
A new scientific paper, spearheaded by our Head of Conservation, Iván Ramírez, has been published in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Marine Policy’. This study summarises the latest country-by-country and species-specific analyses of the EU’s marine SPA (Special Protection Areas) network and offers critical new insights into how well Europe is protecting its seabirds: here.
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Real Neat Blog Award, congratulations all nominees!
Late in 2014, I made this new award: the Real Neat Blog Award. There are so many bloggers whose blogs deserve more attention. So, I will try to do something about that 🙂
It is the first award that I ever made. I did some computer graphics years ago, before I started blogging; but my computer drawing had become rusty 🙂
The ‘rules’ of the Real Neat Blog Award are: (feel free not to act upon them if you don’t have time; or don’t accept awards; etc.):
1. Put the award logo on your blog.
2. Answer 7 questions asked by the person who nominated you.
3. Thank the people who nominated you, linking to their blogs.
4. Nominate any number of bloggers you like, linking to their blogs.
5. Let them know you nominated them (by commenting on their blog etc.)
My seven questions are:
1. Where do most visits to your blog come from?
2. What is your favourite sport?
3. What has been a special moment for you so far in 2017?
4. What is your favourite quote?
5. What was your favourite class when still at school?
6. Anything you had wished to have learned earlier?
7. What musical instrument have you tried to play?
My nominees are:
3. Maruti Suzuki Workers Union
4. stbarbebaker
5. Ipuna Black
6. cyah1983
10. Café Philos: an internet café
11. VIVID LENS VIEW
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Bluethroat, avocets and godwits
This 2014 video is about Polders Poelgeest nature reserve in the Netherlands and its bird life.
I went there again on 26 March 2017.
Near the entrance, grey lag geese and tufted ducks swimming.
Black-headed gulls. A coot on the bank. Northern lapwings flying.
On top of the windmill, great cormorants resting.
Many jackdaws flying.
A swimming great crested grebe in the southern lake.
In the northern lake, over a hundred black-tailed godwits standing; sometimes flying around. Probably just returned from Africa. Good to see them back!
Three shelducks. Shoveler ducks.
Mute swans. A gadwall couple.
Two Egyptian geese land.
Two avocets.
This is an avocet video.
In the eastern part of the lake, near the railway, many teal whistling softly. A male reed bunting sings. Chiffchaff sound.
A snipe. Good at hiding, but we still see it.
A grey heron. A moorhen swims.
A northern lapwing drives a magpie away.
A mallard couple. A chaffinch sings.
We go back. Along the west side of the southern lake, barnacle geese. And oystercatchers.
Finally, a special bird. A male bluethroat, probably just returned from spring migration, sings in a reedbed.
This is a bluethroat video.
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Japanese government’s extreme right scandals
This video says about itself:
Japan: Anti-Abe activists protest PM’s alleged ties to ultra-nationalist school
5 March 2017
Scores of demonstrators gathered in Tokyo, Sunday, to protest Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe‘s alleged links to an ultra-nationalist private schooling company.
By Peter Symonds:
Scandal exposes Japanese government’s ultra-right ties
27 March 2017
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is embroiled in a widening scandal over his alleged involvement with a private elementary school project in Osaka by Moritomo Gakuen, an extreme-right educational organisation. The allegations, which also involve Abe’s wife Akie, have contributed to falling opinion polls for Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government.
In sworn testimony to the Japanese parliament last Thursday, Moritomo Gakuen head Yasunori Kagoike added further fuel to the controversy swirling around Abe. He confirmed he received a sizeable donation for the school from Abe via Akie in September 2015. “She said ‘please, this is from Shinzo Abe,’ and gave me an envelope with 1 million yen ($US9,000) in it,” he said.
Abe flatly denied making a donation. However, Kagoike declared: “Abe’s wife apparently says she doesn’t remember this at all, but since this was a matter of honour to us, I remember it quite vividly.” Akie was named as “honorary principal” of the school until she abruptly resigned after the scandal broke.
Whether or not money changed hands, Abe and his wife are clearly in sympathy with Moritomo Gakuen’s curriculum and methods. While the school project has been shelved, the organisation already operates a kindergarten in Osaka in which young children are required to recite the Imperial Rescript on Education—a 19th century edict issued by the Emperor calling for loyalty and filial piety and hailing the glory of the Japanese empire. The school has been accused of sending a letter to parents expressing hatred toward Koreans and Chinese.
The alleged donation is not strictly illegal, but the controversy first erupted in February over allegations that government influence was enabling Moritomo Gakuen to purchase land for the new school at a fraction of its worth. Kagoike testified in parliament last week he believed some sort of political intervention took place as the process began to move more rapidly after he began asking for assistance.
Kagoike later told the media he believed finance ministry officials, whom he did not name, helped in the sale … His organisation bought the land for 134 million yen (about $1.2 million) or about one seventh of its assessed value—supposedly discounted to cover waste disposal costs. Kagoike defended the discount, claiming it needed “a lot of money to take out the household waste in the land and replace it with good soil.”
The scandal has drawn in other political figures close to Abe, providing a glimpse of the network of right-wing nationalist organisations connected to his government. Defence Minister Tomomi Inada was forced to apologise to parliament and retract a statement that she had never represented Moritomo Gakuen in court. As a lawyer, Inada appeared in court on its behalf in 2004, and defended other extremist organisations in high-profile cases.
Three other politicians—two from the LDP and one from the ultra-nationalist Nippon Ishin—denied assisting Moritomo Gakuen after being named in parliament last week. In Osaka, the organisation asked the prefectural government to relax the restrictions on setting up private schools, which was granted in April 2013 when Ichiro Matsui, a close political ally of Abe, was governor.
Abe and the overwhelming majority of his cabinet, including Defence Minister Inada, are members of Nippon Kaigi, an extreme nationalist organisation that seeks to re-establish Japan as a “proud nation.” It promotes the necessity for a strong military, the writing of the constitution to remove restrictions on the armed forces and patriotic education, whitewashing the crimes of Japanese militarism in the 1930s and 1940s.
Moritomo Gakuen head Kagoike was a member of Nippon Kaigi but claims to have left in 2011. He boasted that the school he planned to establish would be the first Shinto primary school in Japan with a shrine housed on the grounds. The organisation claimed the shrine would help connect the school and “the roots of our country.” Shintoism was the state religion of the pre-World War II militarist regime in Japan that revered the emperor as a god.
The Imperial Rescript on Education was a key element of this militarist ideology, read in schools and enshrined alongside a portrait of the emperor until after the war. The document refers to the people of Japan not as citizens but “subjects of the emperor” and declares: “Should an emergency arise, muster your courage under a cause and dedicate yourselves to the good of the Imperial state.”
During the post-war US occupation of Japan, the parliament officially repudiated the rescript as incompatible with the country’s democratic constitution. Successive governments have held that the imperial edict was invalidated by the adoption of the Fundamental Law on Education. The promotion of the rescript is part and parcel of efforts by government-linked organisations such as Moritomo Gakuen and Nippon Kaigi to whip up patriotism and militarism.
Since coming to power in 2012, Abe has taken significant steps to remilitarise Japan. These include boosting the military budget, removing constitutional constraints on “collective self-defence”—that is, participating in US-led wars—and establishing a US-style National Security Council to centralise military strategy, planning and operations in the prime minister’s office (see: “Japanese imperialism rearms”).
Abe has also encouraged an ideological offensive designed to cover up the past crimes of Japanese imperialism and stir up militarism, particularly among young people. Significantly, Defence Minister Inada has repeatedly defended the use of the imperial rescript in schools. Asked about it in parliament in February, she declared: “I don’t agree with the education ministry saying that there’s a problem having students memorise the rescript by heart.”
The revival of Japanese militarism is another sign of the deepening crisis of Japanese and global capitalism, which is fuelling geo-political tensions and the drive to war. The Abe government’s determination to rearm reflects the sentiment in ruling circles that Japanese imperialism must be able to use all means, including military, to prosecute its economic and strategic interests against its rivals.
Despite protests by thousands of people outside the Diet (parliament) building, the Japanese government last week pushed through the lower house legislation that enables a vast expansion in police powers and suppression of political opposition: here.
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Lumpsucker fish guards eggs, video
This 21 Mach 2017 video shows a male lumpsucker fish guarding eggs. He moves his fins to provide the eggs with oxygen.
Diver Bert Peters made this video in the Oosterschelde estuary in Zeeland province in the Netherlands..
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United States workers prepare anti-Trump May Day
This video says about itself:
A Global Roundup of May Day Marches and Protests
2 May 2016
Cities around the world both celebrated the history of the labor rights struggle and carried on its tradition by protesting for higher wages, better working conditions and an end to austerity.
From daily News Line in Britain:
Monday, 27 March 2017
US workers mobilising for Anti-Trump May Day strike actions
WORKERS along America’s West Coast are mobilising for ‘strikes with the community’ this May Day in opposition to President Trump’s war on immigrants.
Shop steward Tomas Mejia sensed something was different when 600 janitors streamed into the Los Angeles union hall on February 16 – far more than for a regular membership meeting. Chanting ‘Huelga! Huelga!’ (‘Strike! Strike!’), they voted unanimously to strike on May Day.
The janitors of SEIU United Service Workers West felt driven, Mejia says, ‘to strike with the community’ against the raids, threats, and immigrant-bashing hate speech that the Trump administration has unleashed.
‘The president is attacking our community,’ said Mejia, a member of his union’s executive board.
‘Immigrants have helped form this country, we’ve contributed to its beauty, but the president is attacking us as criminal.’
Following the Los Angeles vote, union janitors elsewhere in California have also voted to ‘strike with the community’ on May 1. As the meetings gathered steam, Mejia reports, workers in schools, grocery stores, restaurants, and farms started talking about joining the walkout too.
And the strike is going on the road: SEIU-USWW is partnering with the human rights group Global Exchange, worker centres, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, and faith groups to organise a ‘Caravan against Fear’ that will tour California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in April, staging rallies, cultural events, direct action trainings, and community strike votes leading up to May Day.
In recent years, May Day has seen demonstrations to support immigrant rights. This year’s mobilisations will centre on defending immigrants, but weave in other issues as well, such as climate justice and the de-funding of public education. Up and down the West Coast, we are likely to see the largest May Day strikes since hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers walked off the job in 2006.
A thousand miles to the north of Mejia’s home city, leaders of the unions representing Seattle public school teachers, graduate employees at the University of Washington, and staff at Seattle’s community colleges have called for a strike to protest against the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, Muslims, workers, women, and members of the LGBT community.
The public school teachers and UW graduate employees are scheduling strike votes in the coming weeks. ‘We’re horrified about what Trump has done,’ said Alex Bacon, a community college administrative assistant and member of AFSCME Local 304.
And given the Trump administration’s support for ‘right-to-work’ legislation and slashing health care and retirement programs, he said, ‘even if we’re not in the crosshairs this second, we’re next.’ A March meeting organised by the county labour council and Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant brought together immigrant community leaders and representatives from two dozen Seattle-area unions – including Labourers, Teamsters, Boeing Machinists, stagehands, hotel workers, and city and county workers – to plan a May Day of mass resistance.
Participants acknowledged the need for creativity rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. A week later, the labour council committed its support for an immigrant-led May Day march, in a resolution urging unions ‘to consider all forms of action on May 1, 2017, whether striking, walking out, taking sick days, extended lunch hours, exercising rights of conscience, organising demonstrations or teach-ins, or any other acts of collective expression that builds solidarity across communities.’
Labour Council head Nicole Grant described May Day as just the beginning of a ‘summer of resistance,’ showing that working people can and will respond to Trump’s attacks with disruptive action. We won’t take down this president in one day,’ added Sawant. ‘But on May Day we are taking our resistance to another level.’
Climate justice activists are also joining in the May Day movement. In Washington state, the Sierra Club and other environmental organisations are calling for an ‘Earth Day to May Day Action Week,’ blending Earth Day April 22 and a ‘March for Science’ into a full week of workshops and protests culminating in a big May 1 mobilisation.
Nationally, many union leaders haven’t weighed in on the May Day strike movement, in part because their contracts with employers include no-strike clauses. Mejia acknowledges the risk of striking, but says, ‘The government is criminalising us.’ The bigger risk, he says, would be to not fight back, because inaction will only embolden Trump and his billionaire backers. Key to successful May Day strikes, many activists point out, is connecting local fights to anti-Trump resistance activities.
At the University of Washington, for instance, where one-third of the graduate employees are international students, union members are demanding that university administrators bargain with them over the impact of Trump’s Muslim ban and other executive orders. And they are pressing the university to declare itself a ‘sanctuary campus’ and to waive a discriminatory fee it now imposes on international students.
• About 300 people crowded Chicago’s Federal Plaza for a rally staged by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare, representing Illinois health care workers, on Thursday to celebrate the Affordable Care Act’s (Obamacare) seventh anniversary and protest against Republican-led efforts to repeal and replace it.
Among the demonstrators were people who said former President Barack Obama”s signature legislation saved their lives by granting them access to medical help despite pre-existing conditions such as cancer or traumatic brain injury.
Will Wilson, 63, is living with AIDS and credits the Medicaid expansion under the ACA with giving him coverage when he needed it. He had lost his insurance due to his diagnosis in 2002 and wasn’t able to obtain it again until the ACA passed in 2010.
‘Getting insurance opened up a brand-new door to me,’ Wilson said at a news conference before the rally. ‘I got to experience a freedom I hadn’t been able to experience in quite a number of years.’
The news conference and rally were meant to coincide with a scheduled House vote Thursday for the Republicans’ American Health Care Act, but the vote was postponed as more Republicans withdrew their support. Nevertheless, protesters gathered with signs and balloons for the ACA birthday, along with megaphones to express opposition to the bill.
SEIU Healthcare, which represents home, health care, child care and nursing home workers in Illinois — invited several prominent Illinois Democrats to the rally. State Senator Daniel Biss, Ald. Ameya Pawar and Cook County Commissioner Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia pledged to push back against a policy that would strip Illinois residents of affordable and accessible health care.
Democratic Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said the new legislation would have cost the county a ‘staggering’ $300 million in federal aid each year. What the Republicans have proposed is a disaster for Cook County,’ Preckwinkle said. Under the ACA, 480,000 people — almost half a million people in Cook County — were able to sign up either for a Medicaid expansion programme or a marketplace health plan.’
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Green woodpecker hiding, video
This 17 March 2017 video shows a green woodpecker hiding behind a tree.
Jan Gorel made this video near Hengelo in Overijssel province in the Netherlands.
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Pentagon admits killing Iraqi civilians
This video says about itself:
23 March 2017
Over 130 people trying to take shelter from the fighting in Mosul have been buried under the rubble of a building hit by a coalition airstrike, witnesses say in a video released by Associated Press.
From daily The Morning Star in Britain:
Iraq: US admits to deadly civilian air strike
Monday 27th March 2017
THE US-led bombing coalition admitted on Saturday that it had carried out an air strike on the Iraqi city of Mosul that witnesses said killed hundreds. …
It said it had opened an investigation to determine whether reports of more than 200 casualties caused by the raid earlier this month were true. …
Rescue workers said the raid hit two houses where more than 200 people were sheltering from fierce fighting and artillery fire …
Monitoring website Airwars.org said more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed by the US-led coalition this month.
US mass murder in western Mosul is aiding, abetting and strengthening ISIS – and not defeating it: here.
The US-led “coalition” has admitted that its forces carried out the March 17 air strike in Mosul—ostensibly against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters—that slaughtered as many as 200 civilians, including numerous children. The admission was only made in the face of evidence provided by survivors to Iraqi journalists, whose accounts were reported by sections of the Western press: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 