South African bank notes to bear Mandela's image
(Reuters) - Nelson Mandela's face will feature on all South Africa's bank notes to honor the former president's role in fighting apartheid, President Jacob Zuma said Saturday.
The announcement coincides with the 22nd anniversary of Mandela's release from prison after serving 27 years in jail for his opposition to white-only rule.
"It is a befitting tribute to a man who became a symbol of this country's struggle for freedom, human rights and democracy," Zuma said.
(Photo Credit: Reuters/Stringer)
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
(graphic by palantir)
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Current Contributors are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent who also serves as chief cat herder.
NEWS & HEADLINES
- Syria 'emboldened by UN inaction'
(BBC) The failure of the UN security council to take action has emboldened Syria to make an "all out assault" on opponents, the UN's human rights chief says.
Navi Pillay told the UN the lack of agreement encouraged Damascus to use "overwhelming force" against protests.
Activists say more than 400 people have been killed since security forces launched an assault on opposition-held areas in the city of Homs this month.
Earlier, the Arab League called for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping force.
- U.N. Official Rebukes Syria Over Violence
By RICK GLADSTONE and NEIL MacFARQUHAR, New York Times
The top United Nations human rights official offered a grim appraisal of the Syrian conflict on Monday, accusing the government there of interpreting the repeated diplomatic failure to end the violence as a green light to escalate deadly attacks on its political opponents with indiscriminate brutality and “overwhelming force” over the past 10 days.
The appraisal, delivered in a tone of cold frustration by the official, Navi Pillay, the high commissioner for human rights, was presented at an unusual meeting of the 193-nation General Assembly devoted entirely to the Syrian conflict, despite strenuous objections from Syria and a few of its dwindling number of allies, notably Iran and North Korea.
Ms. Pillay’s appraisal, and the support for her expressed by the United States, the Arab League and a wide spectrum of diplomats at the public forum of a General Assembly meeting, amounted to a strong rebuke to Syria. But her frustration also seemed directed at the inability of the United Nations, the Arab League or any other group to devise a workable proposal to help resolve the crisis in Syria, now nearly a year old.
- Stem cells used to 'heal' heart attack scars
By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News
Damage caused by a heart attack has been healed using stem cells gathered from the patient's own heart, according to doctors in the US.
The amount of scar tissue was halved in the small safety trial reported in the Lancet medical journal.
The authors said there was also an "unprecedented" increase in new heart muscle.
The British Heart Foundation said it was "early days", but could "be great news for heart attack patients".
- Immune cells use 'starvation tactics' on HIV
By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News
Scientists have shown how some cells in the body can repel attacks from HIV by starving the virus of the building blocks of life.
Viruses cannot replicate on their own; they must hijack other cells and turn them into virus production factories.
A study, published in Nature Immunology, showed how some parts of the immune system destroy their own raw materials, stopping HIV.
It is uncertain whether this could be used in therapy, experts caution.
HIV attacks the immune system and can weaken the body's defences to the point that everyday infections become fatal.
However, not all parts of the immune system become subverted to the virus' cause. Macrophages and dendritic cells, which have important roles in orchestrating the immune response, seem to be more resistant
- The drum beat of an unwanted war
Mark Mardell, BBC
Politicians and diplomats can be surprisingly coy about asking direct questions, even in private. So, "are you going to plunge us into a war in an election year?" may remain unspoken.
The drumbeat of war has grown louder in the past few days.
The Washington Post reported that US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta believes Israel could attack Iran as early as this spring.
Mr Panetta did not deny the story.
This was reinforced by a fascinating and incredibly detailed article by the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman.
"After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012," Mr Bergman concludes.
- Israel Blames Iran for Attacks in India and Georgia
New York Times
JERUSALEM — Tensions between Israel and Iran rose sharply on Monday when bombers struck at Israeli Embassy personnel in the capitals of India and Georgia. Israel accused the Tehran government of being behind the attacks, which Iran denied.
The wife of an Israeli defense envoy to New Delhi was hurt along with several other people when her car was destroyed by an explosive device placed on it by a motorcyclist at a red light. In Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, a similar device was discovered on the car of a local staff member of the Israeli Embassy, but was defused by the police.
Both resembled attacks that have killed five of Iran’s nuclear scientists in recent years, most recently last month. Iran has attributed the assassinations to Israeli agents and has vowed to take revenge. The scientists’ assassinations — along with sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program through cyberwarfare and faulty parts — are aimed at delaying what the West believes is Iran’s drive to build a nuclear weapon
- Greek bailout crisis: Brussels welcomes austerity vote
(BBC) The European Commission has welcomed the Greek parliament's decision to approve tough new austerity measures.
Economics commissioner Olli Rehn urged Greek officials to "take ownership" and fully implement the reforms, demanded by the EU in return for a huge bailout.
But the measures attracted massive protests throughout Greece. Buildings were set on fire in Athens and police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.
The government confirmed later that an election would be held in April.
Analysts say the biggest party in the governing coalition, the socialist Pasok, is likely to suffer at the hands of the electorate.
- Athens Shaken by Riots After Vote for Austerity
ATHENS — The acrid stench of tear gas permeated central Athens on Monday and the husks of burnt-out buildings still smoldered after a night of rioting following the Greek Parliament’s vote to approve austerity measures in exchange for more rescue financing.
In the aftermath, municipal workers were sweeping up broken glass while Greek political leaders were surveying the damage to their parties following the expulsion of dozens of lawmakers from their parties, after the legislators had broken ranks ahead of early national elections. On Monday, the government spokesman, Pantelis Kapsis, said the elections would be held in April.
About 150 stores were vandalized and looted, and about 45 buildings — including neo-Classical structures, two historic movie theaters, banks and cafes — were seriously burned, many beyond repair, according to the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The chamber estimated losses in the “tens of millions” of dollars. The public order minister, Christos Papoutsis, called the damage part of “an organized plan of arson and looting.”
- Michigan Militia Defended as ‘Social Club’ at Trial of 7
By NICK BUNKLEY, nytimes
DETROIT — A group of militia members arrested nearly two years ago in southern Michigan effectively operated as a “social club” that amassed guns and bombs to defend themselves, not to plot a war against the government, their lawyers said Monday at the start of a trial for seven of the defendants.
...
But the federal authorities contend that the Hutaree (pronounced hu-TAR-ee) was on the brink of carrying out a plan to begin attacking police officers, possibly by killing one and then using improvised explosives to ambush mourners at the officer’s funeral.
“These individuals, led by David Stone, wanted a war,” said Christopher Graveline, an assistant United States attorney. “They wanted to start the war, and the war to them meant ‘patriots’ rising up against the government.”
- 14-year-old arrested after hammer attack at Columbine H.S.
9news.com
JEFFERSON COUNTY - Authorities are investigating a 14-year-old girl's actions before they say she attacked two students with a hammer at Columbine High School. Investigators Monday were trying to gather additional details, including where the girl got the hammer, said John McDonald, Jefferson County School District's executive director of security and emergency management.
It was unclear what sparked the attack Monday morning at the school.
The 14-year-old targeted a 15-year-old girl in a hallway leading to bathrooms, Jefferson County Sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said.
A 16-year-old boy, Aaron Flowers, saw the attack developing and was injured while stopping it. He and the girl were expected to recover fully from their injuries, described by Kelley as hand injuries. They were taken to a hospital and later released.
Native American News Excerpts from the FNNAV series on Daily Kos.
Nation's First Tribally Owned Wind Farm Planned for Maine
Passamaquoddy Chief Clayton Cleaves
(Photo by Joyce Scott)
Joining a growing number of tribes installing renewable energy operations on their land, the Passamaquoddys of Maine hope to have between 18 and 50 wind turbines generating electricity for up to 21,000 homes by 2013. To get there requires passing through a few bureaucratic hoops, including the purchase of surplus government land. The remote location of the proposed wind farm is now home to blueberry barrens and cranberry bogs and an abandoned Air Force radar site. Because all the land involved is held for the tribe in federal trust, only federal permits will be required to install the wind turbines.
The $120 million wind farm is a joint project of the tribe and the Boise, Idaho-based Exergy Development Group. It will be called Peskotmuhkati Wind LLC (after the Indians' own word for Passamaquoddy). Clayton Cleaves (Passamaquoddy), chief of the Pleasant Point reservation, said his tribe own 51 percent of the project and will invest profits in other local projects. additional projects. “This can be a key economic driver for the Passamaquoddy Tribe,” he said.
Tribal ownership of the wind farm is unique. That arrangement took place on the advice of John Richardson, a consultant the tribe hired for the project. Richardson, formerly Commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development and at one time Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Maine legislature, is a principal in Native Power LLC. The firm's goal is to ensure majority ownership by tribes of project relying on wind, solar and other renewable resources. Peskotmuhkati Wind is its first effort. No U.S. tribe currently has such ownership of any large-scale energy projects on tribal lands.
Richardson said that seeing the project succeed was very important to him because of the struggling economy in Washington County. “What is most significant is that because the wind project will be owned by the tribe, the majority of revenues created by the wind farm and other businesses will remain in Washington County,” he said. “This could be a game changer for the county.” [...]
“We became interested in this project because it is a first-of-its-kind development of a commercial-scale wind power project that is uniquely owned with Native Americans,” James Carkulis, president and CEO of Exergy said Tuesday. “We have also been highly encouraged by the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Indian Affairs analyses that we are a national model of how to navigate development and financing of renewable energy projects on tribal lands.”
—Meteor Blades
• Navajo Nation Wins One Uranium Waste Cleanup Fight: Tribal experts proved the Highway 160 waste-dumping site should have been part of the federal cleanup program that ended in 1997. The cleanup is now completed. The tribe has other waste sites it wants the government to remediate.
— navajo
• California Tribes Strive to Keep Pomo Language Alive: Only a handful of fluent speakers of Southern Pomo are still live and they're over 90. But, using a full array of modern technology, linguistics teacher Alex Walker is trying to revive the Northern California Indian language by teaching some 20 Pomos the idiom that their parents and grandparents were punished for speaking.
— Meteor Blades with a h/t to maggiejean
• Ski Resort Wins Case to Make Wastewater Snow on Peaks Sacred to Tribes: The Save the Peaks Coalition and individual members of the Navajo Nation have been fighting a legal battle to prevent a ski resort from further desecrating the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff since 2005. The latest ruling allows Snowbowl to use 100% reclaimed sewer water to make snow, something not done anywhere else in the world.
— navajo
• Oglala Sioux Sues Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors, and Liquor Stores in White Clay: The tribe blames the huge beer makers for knowingly exploiting alcohol sales to liquor stores in White Clay, Neb., which has a dozen residents but sold nearly 5 million cans of beer in 2010. Nearby Pine Ridge reservation has struggled with alcohol abuse as a result of pervasive poverty since the 1800s.
— navajo
The First Nations News & Views weekly series (on Sunday afternoons) is one element in the "Invisible Indians" project put together by Meteor Blades and navajo, with assistance from the Native American Netroots Group.
MORE NEWS & HEADLINES
- Russian hot springs point to rocky origins for life
(New Scientist) It's a question that strikes at the very heart of one of the deepest mysteries in the universe: how did life begin on Earth? New evidence challenges the widespread view that it all kicked off in the oceans, around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
Instead, hot springs on land, similar to the "warm little pond" favoured by Charles Darwin, may be a better fit for the cradle of life.
...
Life appeared sometime before 3.8 billion years ago, towards the end of a turbulent phase in our planet's early history dubbed Hadean Earth. Exactly where and how this happened is still a mystery. The first fossils are about 3.4 billion years old, and all we know about life's very first stages comes from chemical signatures in rocks.
This hasn't stopped endless speculation. Conventional wisdom has it that hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor offered an ideal chemical environment for the earliest life. Deep, dark oceans would also have protected the delicate cells from the harmful ultraviolet light that bathed early Earth before the ozone layer formed.
Case closed? Not quite. Armen Mulkidjanian at the University of Osnabrück in Germany says there is a fundamental problem with the ocean floor hypothesis: salt. The cytoplasm found inside all cells contains much more potassium than sodium. Mulkidjanian thinks that chemistry reflects the chemistry of the water life first appeared in, yet salty seawater is sodium-rich and potassium-poor.
- Bright Days: How India Is Reinventing Solar
By Niharika Mandhana, Time Ecocentric blog
On paper, India has always had a good case for going solar. Several parts of the country are endowed with an abundance of raw material – as many as 300 days of sunshine a year – much to the envy of cloud-enveloped Germany and Spain; it has vast tracts of under-utilized land on which to embed rows upon rows of solar panels; the country’s growing and grossly underserved population and expanding industry are hungry for electricity. But the deal breaker, solar’s classic Achilles’ heel, had always been the cost factor; solar is expensive – considerably more expensive than the alternatives, coal and wind – and a seemingly extravagant venture for a developing nation struggling with double-digit poverty and ruinous public health.
...
But last year, the promise of affordable solar came one step closer to becoming a reality. First, the global price of solar panels and modules that turn sunlight into electricity plummeted 30 to 40 percent, triggered by a massive expansion in China ...
Then India veered from the global story by departing from the fixed-price subsidy framework. In countries like Germany, Spain, the U.K. and U.S., governments subsidize solar power by agreeing to buy it at fixed prices for several years – a model described by solar skeptics as unsustainable and wasteful, the Economist writes.
...
India set up a reverse auction process, making developers compete for its business. In an auction in December – the second of two — over 100 producers bid to sell solar power to a state-owned utility. The lowest bid was 7.49 rupees (15 cents) per kilowatt-hour, less than half of what the government had offered in the beginning and about 30 percent cheaper than the global average for solar projects, Bloomberg writes.
- An Unlikely Environmental Evangelist
by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Common Dreams
I was not raised in any religion, nor do I follow any religious practices now. I don’t believe in God as a benevolent white man in the sky, nor do I believe that one needs to sit in a particular building, listening to a particular preacher, to reach out to the divine.
But I have always felt a deep spiritual connection to the natural world. When I was 8 or 9, I used to go out into the woods and sit alone in my “spot,” which was a circle of mossy stones at the top of a big stone ridge, ringed by maples and centered around a grassy glade. It was a small circle, no bigger than 10 feet in diameter. I would just sit there and look and listen to the birds in the trees above me, the small insects on patrol in the grass, feeling the wind ruffling against my face and a kind of inner exultation and delight that I can only describe as religious ecstasy.
No one taught me to do this, and it wasn’t until much later, reading personal narratives by indigenous elders, that I was able to put this early spiritual connection with nature into a broader polytheistic cultural framework.
I believe that everything in our world is tinged with spiritual significance. And I believe that human beings, because we are unique among animals in being able to see the effects of our actions on the larger landscape of the planet, and to both predict and alter the future, have a special moral imperative to do what we can to be the responsible stewards of the natural world of which we are a part.
I have never said that out loud.
- Zebra stripes evolved to keep biting flies at bay
By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature
Why zebras evolved their characteristic black-and-white stripes has been the subject of decades of debate among scientists.
Now researchers from Hungary and Sweden claim to have solved the mystery.
The stripes, they say, came about to keep away blood-sucking flies.
They report in the Journal of Experimental Biology that this pattern of narrow stripes makes zebras "unattractive" to the flies.
They key to this effect is in how the striped patterns reflect light.
- House Republicans Yield on Extending Payroll Tax Cut
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, New York Times
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans backed down on Monday from a demand that a payroll tax rollback be paid for with reductions in other programs, clearing the way for an extension of the tax cut for 160 million Americans through 2012.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
After months of partisan confrontation that left the tax break hanging in the balance, Republicans suddenly offered to extend the two-percentage-point cut while continuing to haggle over added unemployment benefits and a measure to prevent a drop in fees paid to doctors by Medicare. The payroll tax holiday and jobless benefits expire at month’s end, and doctors would face a 27 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements.
The decision, announced by House Republican leaders, was a surprise after weeks of Republicans’ insistence that they would not accept extensions to any of the three benefits without offsetting the costs.
- Military Cuts and Tax Plan Are Central to Obama Budget
New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s final budget request of his term amounts to his agenda for a desired second term, with tax increases on the affluent and cuts in spending, especially from the military, both to reduce deficits and to pay for priorities like education, public works, research and clean energy.
While Republicans issued the usual declarations that the package was dead on arrival at the Capitol on Monday, Mr. Obama harbors hope of winning some victories yet. The likelihood of a post-election lame-duck session and a raft of laws expiring at year’s end — including the Bush-era tax cuts — could give him leverage to force compromises even on taxes. Both parties are already calculating for the prospect of a December showdown.
The budget request for the 2013 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, and its projections for the years that follow, reflect Mr. Obama’s vision for another term in which he would switch from years of temporary stimulus measures to promoting long-term initiatives to spur new business and manufacturing activity and help educate Americans for new skills that businesses demand.
- Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?
By JOHN ALLEN PAULOS, New York Times
I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. Tan won the very close election and joined the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who also has a degree in mathematics.
China has even more scientists in key positions in the government. President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer and Premier Wen Jiabao as a geomechanical engineer. In fact, eight out of the nine top government officials in China have scientific backgrounds. There is a scattering of scientist-politicians in high government positions in other countries as well. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has a doctorate in physical chemistry, and, going back a bit, Margaret Thatcher earned a degree in chemistry.
One needn’t endorse the politics of these people or countries to feel that given the complexities of an ever more technologically sophisticated world, the United States could benefit from the participation and example of more scientists in government. This is obviously no panacea — Herbert Hoover was an engineer, after all — but more people with scientific backgrounds would be a welcome counterweight to the vast majority of legislators and other officials in this country who are lawyers.
- Answering for Taking a Driller’s Cash
By FELICITY BARRINGER, New York Times
The recent disclosure of the Sierra Club’s secret acceptance of $26 million in donations from people associated with a natural gas company has revived an uncomfortable debate among environmental groups about corporate donations and transparency.
The gifts from the company, Chesapeake Energy, have drawn criticism from some environmentalists. “Sleeping with the enemy” was a comment much forwarded on Twitter posts about the undisclosed arrangement.
“Runners shouldn’t smoke, priests shouldn’t touch the kids, and environmentalists should never take money from polluters,” John Passacantando, a former director of Greenpeace who is now an environmental consultant, said in an interview.
- Critics Question Record of Monitor Selected by Apple
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, nytimes
Apple’s announcement on Monday that an outside monitoring group, the Fair Labor Association, has begun inspecting its suppliers’ factories in China rekindled a debate over how effective the group has been in eliminating labor abuses.
The association was founded in 1999, by universities and nonprofit groups, along with Nike, Liz Claiborne and several other American apparel companies that said they were eager to eliminate workplace abuses; at that time, anti-sweatshop groups were pummeling American apparel companies for abuses in overseas factories they used.
Since its founding, the association has inspected more than 1,300 factories in Asia and Latin America, uncovering myriad violations. But despite these successes, many labor advocates say its efforts have barely made a dent in improving working conditions.
- California Set to Send Many New Faces to Washington
By ADAM NAGOURNEY, nytimes.com
LOS ANGELES — California’s Congressional delegation, the largest and most influential in the nation, is undergoing a major upheaval, the result of reapportionment and retirements, threatening the state’s influence in Washington next year and forcing members to scramble to withstand what is emerging as a generational wave.
A quarter of the state’s 53-member delegation to Washington could be newcomers in the new Congress, analysts said, the result of at least 6 members retiring and strong contests in 10 other districts. By contrast, only one seat changed hands between parties in the course of 255 Congressional elections in California over the past 10 years.
- California Rules
New York Times, Editorial
For historical reasons — including its own severe pollution problems — California has been allowed to write its own clean air rules, as long as it gets a waiver from the federal government. The results have been hugely beneficial for all. California’s clean air rules in the 1970s helped lead to nationwide use of the catalytic converter. A 2002 California law requiring cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions from automobiles led to the aggressive fuel efficiency standards approved by President Obama.
Two new California rules will push that process even further. One calls for a 75 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides and other smog-forming emissions from new vehicles by 2025. The other says that by the same year, one of seven new vehicles on California roads — 1.4 million altogether — must be zero-emission. By 2050, it hopes, four of five cars will be powered by batteries or hydrogen, helping the state reach its midcentury target of reducing greenhouse gases by 80 percent.