North and eastern China have been struck by what looks like the worst drought in half a century. For the Olympic Games, Beijing launched missiles to fend off the rain. This time, they're trying to summon it. Weather experts are divided over the cause of the drought, which is affecting more than 3.7 million farmers and two million cattle. Is it a sign of global warming? Or an effect of Beijing's ambitious use of hydraulic resources? In any case, the government has taken the situation in hand and declared, for the first time, a "maximum" state of emergency, granting 100 billion Yuan (around 11 billion euros) in aid to the most affected regions. They have also resorted to the use of mini-rockets, filled with a chemical product and launched from planes and trucks, to "charge" clouds. According to the Chinese press, around 1,200 of these agricultural missiles have been fired since January Laurent Li is a climatologist and director of the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research in France). The use of artificial rainfall is very common in China. I know the Chinese weather agency director, who's a great specialist and defender of the practice. But with other climatologists, the question of the efficiency of artificial rainfall remains under dispute. There was a lot of research done into it in the seventies and eighties [when it was used by Canada and the USSR]. Although the method was proved to produce condensation, it wasn't scientifically proved to produce rain. And seeing as firing rockets is an expensive practice, the idea was abandoned by most countries."Firing rockets to bring on the rain
"The efficiency of artificial rainfall remains under dispute"
The mechanism is simple: the product used in the rockets, silver iodide, harnesses and enlarges the raindrops in the clouds. Once the size of the drops has been increased by ten, it will then rain.
Islamabad admits Mumbai plots partly planned in Pakistan
THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2009
Part of the plotting of the Mumbai attacks that killed over 160 people last December was done in Pakistan, the country's top interior ministry official admitted for the first time, registering the case with with a special investigation unit.
AFP - The Mumbai attacks that killed 165 people last November were partly planned in Pakistan, a top-level Islamabad official admitted for the first time Thursday.
"The incident happened in India and part of the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan," interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters.
Pakistan has lodged a "first information report" with police in Islamabad and six people have been arrrested in connection with the attacks following an investigation on the basis of information provided by India, Malik added.
He said the case had been registered with a special investigation unit in Islamabad.
It is the first time a senior official in Islamabad has admitted that any planning took place in Pakistan.
New Delhi blamed the attacks on the banned Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The plight of Japan's homeless
FRIDAY 06 FEBRUARY 2009
Homelessness hit Japan hard during the recession of the early 1990s - and it's on the rise again now. Critics say the government needs to do more.
SPECIAL REPORT CARING: HUMANITARIAN REPORTS AROUND THE WORLDJapan is one of the world's richest and most industrialised nations. Yet below the gleaming high rise buildings and state-of-the-art luxury hotels lives a community that's been bypassed by the vast opportunities of wealth: the homeless.
In a culture that prides itself on honour and Confucian values, the authorities are struggling to deal with the needs of the desperate. In Tokyo alone, some 2,600 people are now officially listed as homeless - although charities say the number is more likely to be two to three times that figure.
Yosuke Tanaka sleeps on the street. Every night he builds a shelter from cardboard, at the foot of one of the buildings in Shinjuku. He takes it apart and stows it away again every morning to avoid being expelled by the security guards at his building. But they are not his only fear: there are also attacks by young people.
Tokyo’s government offers emergency beds during the two coldest weeks of the year. On Dec. 24, 68 people came to register but only 25 beds were available. The selection method might be surprising: it is by drawing lots.
There are also centres which provide 800 beds for a one to five month stay, and a few emergency beds. But that is for the whole of Tokyo.
Due to the lack of beds, some homeless people have pitched their tents in a public park in downtown Tokyo. Their blue tents have become one of the symbols of Japan’s homeless population. After the economic crisis of the late 90s, Tokyo’s parks were packed with hundreds of them.
Nowadays, the tents have become scarce. The capital’s residents pressured the local authorities to clear the tents from public areas. In 2004, Tokyo’s government started a reinsertion policy. The idea was to provide the tents’ occupants with an apartment for two years, for only 20 euros a month.
But they were not necessarily tempted by the offer. Nishi-san, one homesless man, told France 24: "The fact that one can only stay in those apartments for two years would only make life harder for me when I had to go back out on the streets because I would not get permission to rebuild my blue tent."
The goal of the policy is actually to get people off the street for good. With a stable address, former homeless people have a better chance of finding a job and saving money: 1,800 people have benefited from the programme.
The official figure of 2,600 is almost half the number in 2004. The local authorities claim it is a success but community organisations say the figure isn't accurate and more than 2,000 haven't been included in the official statistics. Their number will no doubt increase dramatically, as the ongoing economic crisis is already pushing more people onto the streets.
Creationism going strong on Darwin anniversary
THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2009
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of naturalist Charles Darwin. But the Creation Museum near Washington, DC, continues to teach visitors that the world was created in 6 days.
Forget about dinosaurs, the origins of life, and the birth of the universe. According to Ken Ham, the creator of the Creation Museum in Washington, DC, the world is only several thousand years old, despite the claims of scientists.
Ham said, “What this museum is saying is that God created the world in 6 days, about 6000 years ago.”
Ken is one of the stalwarts of creationism. He believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Creationists believe that dinosaurs and humans were contemporaries. Adam and Eve frolicked among the brontosaurus in Eden’s lush vegetation.
The Page family, visitors of the museum, had theories of their own. Kelly Page, the father, claims that dinosaurs never went extinct. “Humans used to live 900 years, so reptiles actually never stopped growing. Dinosaurs are just big lizards. Now the lizards don’t live as long, so they don’t get as big.”
Terry Mortenson, a historian at the museum, claimed that Noah’s Ark included a few dinosaurs in its menagerie.
The world according to creationists may seem laughable, but they are dead serious. Support for their theories gained steam under former US president George W. Bush. He even raised the possibility of teaching creationism in school. And this is the ultimate goal of Ham.
“They’ve thrown God and the Bible out and re-defined science as naturism,” said Ham. “That’s actually a religious position. It’s the religion atheism.”
Since its opening a year and a half ago, the museum has welcomed over 600,000 visitors. And in a recent study, Americans showed their scepticism of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which only 50% of the US population accept as true.
4 comments:
Hello,
How are you?
I also did a post on Darwin 30 mins ago! What a coincidence! Well, great minds think alike! I just realized that your feed is not being updated in my blogroll which is why I have not been visiting your blog. Have you transferred your feeds to Google?
Hope the weather is ok in Ireland. My cousin tells me that they are snowed out in Switzerland.
What is your name by the way?
Take care and all the best to you :-).
cheers
Oh- I just noticed you created a link to my post! How sweet of you! Thanks :-). I have yet to figure out how to do that. Could you please teach me and also link your post to mine in my blog? Thanks. I have tried many times to do that by ended up linking to myself :(.
cheers
Aaaw, you are too kind ! You have a great mine. My mind has been around the block more than a few times and the world, may be, but mine is not great at all ! :-)
I have not changed any of my settings. More likely, I need to improve on my time management. The world has gotten smaller but where has all the time gone to ? Time do have wings !
I have 2 left feet, when it comes to IT,still on a long learning curve for as many years, plodding along the blogosphere ! I am afraid, I won't be able to teach anyone anything . :-(
My name is ocho onda which is a misnomer because it should be ocho ondas, which is Spanish for eight waves but since there is one and only me, it is ocho onda ! :-)
Cheers
Ooops! You have a great Mind ! See, I say it twice ,already! :-)
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