The 12 days of Chavmus

There are no accidents around here

"There are no accidents around here" (Lay Your Hands On Me - Peter Gabriel)

Chinese Govt to set up centre for weather control

A national command center for weather modification will be built before 2010 to coordinate the practices of rainmaking and hail suppression around the country.

China regularly suffers from natural disasters, and its weather-modification operations are the largest in the world, a report by the Xinhua News Agency said yesterday.

Thirty of the country's 34 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and special administrative regions and 1,952 of about 2,900 counties have been involved in such operations and they are equipped with 7,113 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and more than 32,300 people, figures from the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said.

Since 1999, some 250 billion tons of rain have been created and 470,000 sq km of land have been protected from hail. By 2010, the volume of artificial rain is expected to reach 50 billion tons a year, the Xinhua report said.

Weather modification is even being used to help Beijing prevent a downpour forecast for the opening day of the 2008 Olympics.

The report said that by 2010, all weather-modification efforts would be coordinated by central government with support from provincial, municipal and county administrations. A national weather-modification experimental base will also be launched, it said.

Having a national command center and experimental base will better protect the country against extreme weather conditions, the report quoted an unnamed official from the meteorological office as saying.

China is at more risk of being hit this year by extreme weather, such as drought, floods and typhoons, than at any time over the past decade because of climate change. Droughts could seriously affect northern areas, while heavy rainfalls could hit the south, Zheng Guoguang, director of the CMA, told China Daily last month.

Consideration is also being given to the health and safety of those involved in modification efforts.

In May last year, the operator of an anti-aircraft gun in Pengshui County of Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality had his right arm blown to pieces and a passer-by was shot dead.

The county has four such guns for use in weather modification.

On Friday in Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong Province, a meeting to discuss safety issues was held between officers from two of China's seven military areas headquartered in Jinan and Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, and representatives of the North Sea Fleet of the navy, all of whom are involved in local weather-modification efforts.

Source: China Daily



Many years ago a friend told me of a story of how the Russians controlled the weather in Red Square in Moscow (making it brilliantly sunny for parade days) by using crop dusters to "dust the clouds" However the weather in the surrounding areas would turn pretty bad as a result

Holy Sprog Nativity Spoof

The Milton Show - Singing the Man Song

Christmas Pictures of London 2007

Christmas Tree Trafalgar Square 2007






Looking towards Big Ben 2007

LIFE IS A LAUGH

Life Is A Laugh




A Panda Bear's Head at Gloucester Road Tube Station



An Undercover Trains Inspector at Embankment Tube Station (well he was undercover!!!)

Phillipines - Jeepney Drivers Launch Strike

Jeepney drivers in many parts of the Philippines did not ply their routes today to protest oil price increases which they branded as “unwarranted”, “unchecked” and “oppressive”.

Manila Jeepney
A Jeepney in Manila (from Wikipedia)

The jeepney drivers group PISTON declared the strike a success, with the government saying it did not affect traffic.

Bloggers took note of the strike in their own way:

Highway 53 complained about the cancellation of an orchestra practice at the University of the Philippines and noticed few jeeps serving students.

Writing passionately in Filipino, as if in a dream tells how she managed to go to the University of Santo Tomas only to find out that the administration cancelled classes at 3:00 pm. The blogger said she was able to get a seat in a “free bus” courtesy of the university and enjoyed the ride with other Thomasians.

Val Makasiar MD complains to Piston about jeepney drivers who cut their trips.

Another student-blogger, some grape juice for new year's day, also managed to get a ride and also found out belatedly about cancelled classes. The blogger hopes:

Sana, kung anuman kahantungan ng strike na yan, makakabuti sa bayan, hindi lang sa malalaking kumpanya. Sayang naman ang paghihirap ng mga Pilipino kung iba rin ang makikinabang.

Whatever is the outcome of the strike, I hope it is for the good of the country and not of the big companies. The efforts of suffering Filipinos will go to waste if others will be the ones to benefit.]

Aude Sapere does not mince words for what he dubs as “Piss-ton”:

These jeepney drivers, who did nothing but pollute the environment, break traffic laws, cause too much heavy traffic, and hike up transport fares, are protesting the series of increases in oil prices. Too bad the only affected party is the average Filipino commuter, who are mostly students and employees.

For every diligent student that was forced to absent themselves from their classes, for every workman who lost his daily wage today, for all the kids in grade school who were forced to walk a couple of kilometers to school, for each and every grim story this strike has caused, I curse you PISTON.

Elsewhere, i.am.bliss tries to understand the jeepney drivers' and consumers' situation:

Hindi mo masisisi ang mga tsuper. Ang ginawa nilang tigil-pasada ang natatanging paraan para maiparating nila sa pamahalaan ang kanilang hinaing

We cannot blame the drivers. The strike was their way of informing the government of their grievances.

Ang linggo-linggong pagtataas ng gasolina ay damang-dama ng mga tsuper. Sa pamilya namin, meron kaming anim na sasakyang pinatatakbo ng gasolina

Drivers suffer from the weekly oil price hikes]

The bloggers adds:

Bilang isang pasahero, hassle nga naman na ma-late sa pupuntahan… Trabaho, eskwela, gimik, atbp. Pero isipin mo, one-time hassle lang ‘to eh. Yung pinaglalaban ng mga tsuper, ng mga kasapi ng PISTON, yung kanilang isinisigaw, ang dahilan ng malawakang tigil-pasda… kaya nila yun ginagawa dahil merong mas malubhang problema, mas masama kesa sa ilang beses kang mahuhuli sa trabaho mo. Kung walang tigil-pasada, aakalain ng administrasyong Arroyo na okey lang tayo sa pagtaas ng presyo ng langis. Sa pamamagitan ng jeepney strike, naipahatid ang pag-resist, pagtuligsa…

As a commuter, it was really a hassle. It is really inconvenient that we get late going to our destinations… Work, school, gimmicks, etc. But think about it: This is just a one-time hassle. What the drivers are fighting for, the members of PISTON, what they are shouting, are the reasons why there's a big strike… there's a bigger reason why they launched a strike, many of times worse than you're being late in your work. If there were no strike, the government will think that we don't care about oil price increases. Through the jeepney strike, we were able to send the message that we resist and we condemn…]

Well said!

Met Police Staff Reject Below Inflation Pay Offer

CS members working for the Met Police, including Police Community Support Officers, Traffic Wardens, 999 Operators and admin support staff, have overwhelmingly rejected a below inflation pay offer in a pay ballot.

Over 95% of members voting in the ballot rejected the below inflation offer of 2.25%. With the retail price index measure of inflation at 4.2% the pay deal represents a pay cut in real terms. Staff are angry over the insistence of Met Police management to remain within the government's public sector pay limit, even though for the fifth year running there has been a massive underspend on the police staff budget.

With members of other unions in the Met Police also rejecting the pay offer, this is the first time in nearly three decades that the Met Police unions have been in dispute over pay in the Met Police.

Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "This massive vote to reject this pay offer illustrates the strength of feeling amongst hardworking staff, who aren't prepared to accept a pay cut in real terms. With the Met Police spending £15 million on consultants, £17 million on agency workers and £22 million on an unwanted and unnecessary reorganisation of HR, staff are angry that they can only find a paltry 2.25% pay increase this year for its staff. Coming at a time when everyone is working extra hard to counter the continuing security threat in the capital, Met Police management need to recognise the important role that staff play by paying a fair wage or there is a very real possibility of a ballot for industrial action."

UN: Atrocities Fuel Worsening Crisis in Horn of Africa

UN Security Council Should Press Ethiopia and Somalia to Put an End to Abuses


(New York, December 3, 2007) – The United Nations Security Council should urgently press the Ethiopian and Somali governments to end the grave human rights abuses that are fueling the worsening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and eastern Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, Human Rights Watch said today.
" The humanitarian suffering we see in Somalia and Ethiopia’s Somali region is the direct result of serious international crimes. "
Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch



On December 3, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, concludes a one-week visit to the Horn of Africa. Last month, UN officials described the situation in Somalia as the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.

“The humanitarian suffering we see in Somalia and Ethiopia’s Somali region is the direct result of serious international crimes,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Concerned governments and the UN Security Council need to press Ethiopia and Somalia to end these abuses and ensure accountability for their armed forces.”

The conflict in Somalia has steadily intensified since last December, when Ethiopian forces supporting the Somali Transitional Federal Government ousted the Islamic Courts Union from Mogadishu. Ethiopian forces quickly came under attack from a growing coalition of insurgent groups, and fighting in March and April 2007 forced as many as 400,000 residents of the city to flee their homes.

Both sides were responsible for war crimes during the fighting, including deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Clashes intensified again in November, driving tens of thousands of people from Mogadishu yet again. The November clashes have been marked by increasing brutality toward civilians, including summary executions and enforced disappearances of individuals by Ethiopian forces.

Aid workers and the media have also been targeted by the warring parties. Eight journalists have been killed this year. The transitional Somali government has repeatedly shut down media outlets. Three of Mogadishu’s independent radio stations and a human rights organization remain closed.

The Somali government has repeatedly harassed and obstructed humanitarian organizations trying to assist the displaced population. The mayor of Mogadishu, former warlord Mohamed Dheere, detained the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) for five days in October, causing WFP to temporarily suspend food distributions to at least 75,000 people.

“Key governments are ignoring the rampant human rights abuses in Somalia at their own peril,” said Crawshaw. “Their action is a catastrophe for victims today, and it’s also likely to radicalize younger Somalis and create tomorrow’s fighters.”

The conflict in Somalia is also affecting the region. Since early this year, part of eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State known as the Ogaden, which borders Somalia, has experienced a sharp escalation in a longstanding conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel movement that claims it is fighting for self-determination for the region.

The ONLF attacked a Chinese oil installation in April, and Ethiopian military forces launched a brutal crackdown in June, targeting civilians perceived to be supporting the ONLF in five key zones of Somali Region. ONLF forces have also been responsible for abuses, particularly killings of suspected collaborators and the use of anti-vehicle mines in indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Human Rights Watch has found that Ethiopian troops have used scorched-earth tactics to depopulate the rural areas and terrorize rural communities in the Somali Region. Their crimes include the burning of villages, public summary executions, sexual violence against women and girls, and confiscation of livestock – the main asset of the predominantly pastoralist population.

The Ethiopian government imposed a trade and commercial blockade on much of the affected region and expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross from Ethiopia’s Somali Region in July.

Although Ethiopia and the UN recently signed an agreement to increase humanitarian assistance to civilians in the country’s Somali Region, there are credible reports of ongoing abuses.

Human Rights Watch welcomed UN Under-Secretary-General John Holmes’s visit to the region and his call for further investigation of abuses in the Ogaden.

“Improving civilian access to humanitarian assistance in the Ogaden is a positive step,” said Crawshaw. “But unless the Ethiopian government lifts the trade blockade, ends these appalling crimes, and ensures accountability, it will be too little, too late.”



WHY THIS HAS HAPPENED:

A blind alley

So why didn't Ethiopia's allies - the European Union, Britain and the United States, who provide Ethiopia with millions of dollars' worth of development assistance each year and who are also providing substantial support to the TFG - do more to stop these violations?

The answer is as depressing as it is obvious. Ethiopia and its Somali proxies, including a large number of warlords with notorious records of abuse from earlier conflicts, are perceived by the EU and US government as key allies in the "war on terror" and are doing the west's dirty work against Somalia's Islamists. Behind the scenes the US has been helping the Ethiopian military effort and interrogating suspects in Ethiopian detention.

The "realistic" rationale of western policymakers goes like this: some of the Islamists, whose power the Ethiopians say they are seeking to destroy in Somalia, are aligned with al-Qaida; unless they are defeated the country will be "Talibanised". The apparent conclusion of such reasoning is that rights abuses and violations of the laws of war are regrettable but unavoidable.

This "realistic" approach is dangerously simplistic and shortsighted. There may well be some Al-Qaeda element active in Somalia: that needs to be dealt with. But Somalia is essentially a country of clan politics and the war that Ethiopia and its backers have now precipitated is rapidly evolving into a clan war - broadly pitting the Darod clan which dominates the TFG, against the Hawiye clan which supported the Islamic Courts Union.

There is now a lull in the conflict and Ethiopia claims that its opponents have been defeated. But the armed opposition to Ethiopia and the TFG gains greater support from Somali nationalists and Islamists alike with every day the Ethiopian troops remain on Somali soil. Branding them all as terrorists is inaccurate and misleading. Before they were dislodged by Ethiopia, the Islamists were widely seen by Somalis as having brought more peace and stability to Mogadishu than it had seen for over fifteen years.

The current western-backed Ethiopian approach to Somalia will lead to a mountain of civilian deaths and a litany of abuses. The policy risks precipitating exactly the sort of human-rights disaster in Somalia as the one the west rightly condemns in Darfur. This approach will only strengthen the hand of the extremist minority in Somalia, handing al-Qaida another potential theatre of militant action, and another opportunity to present themselves internationally as defenders of Islam against western aggression.

Washington, London and Brussels are in a blind alley in Somalia. They should rethink a policy which is encouraging serious abuses, and come up with one which prioritizes the protection of civilians. They should start by issuing a clear call to all sides in this conflict to observe and uphold the rules of war and human-rights standards.


TAKEN FROM : Human Rights Watch

Bush made me lie over CIA scandal, says ex-aide

Daily Mail Thursday 22nd November 2007


PRESIDENT BUSH was yesterday accused of making his press secretary lie to cover up a dirty tricks scandal.

The allegation about Mr Bush's role in illegally "outing" an undercover CIA agent is made by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan in his forthcoming book.

At a press conference in 2003 Mr McClellan denied top aides Karl Rove & Lewis Libby were involved in leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem> It was not true," he writes."I had unknowingly passed along false information."

He says five officials in the White House were involved in his doing so, including the vice-president and Mr Bush.

Valerie Plame has always claimed the White House leaked her name in revenge for her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, having undermined one of the president's key pieces of "Evidence" for going to war in Iraq.

A spokesman for Mr Bush said the President "had not and would not " ask a spokesman to pass on false information.

HARRODS.CON - yes thats right not .com - .con

Thinking , with Christmas coming up I thought I would do some early shopping on the Harrod's website - WRONG IDEA!
But with my sister having her baby just around the corner I thought I would buy a Harrod's bear for her newborn. The website (which immediately you have logged in is no longer a secure site - the padlock disappears on my browser) gave me the option of ordering all three items now or all three items just before Christmas. Seeing two of the items were perishable food items I had no choice but to press the "before Christmas " button. BIG MISTAKE!!!!

I then phoned up Harrods.com customer services and they told me that the only choice I would have was to cancel the order, which I then did - I then asked them (looking at my internet banking website ) when I would receive my refund as £45.35 had just been taken out of my bank account.

She seemed shocked that the money had been taken so quickly and when I told her that my card was a Visa Electron she told me that Visa Electron cards weren't accepted.

Fours weeks later - guess what ? Yes NO REFUND.

After several phone calls I eventually got through to a supervisor called Nick , who said he would look into it and that he would send The Accounts Department AN EMAIL!! as every one reads emails these days!!!

So I then took the next step and phoned up Harrods in London (Harrods.com is based in Nottingham!!!) and after making an official complaint, received a phone call from Nick saying that The Head of Customer Services had been on the phone to him and that I would receive my refund within 5 - 7 working days.

YES YOU GUESSED IT - 5 and a half weeks later - NO REFUND!!!!!

BE WARNED - GIVE HARRODS.CON some money and then ask for it back - especially when they havent sent you anything is like trying to get blood from a stone!!!

Cameron did meet Bush but the media kept it quiet

Could you trust this man to lead your country when he blatantly goes and pals it up with George Bush when he thinks Labour has lost (Just to remind you Labour lost because of Tony Blair's relationship to this very man!!?) !!!

Conservative leader David Cameron said he had a "very positive" half-hour meeting with US President George W Bush during his current trip to Washington.

They discussed areas including Iran, Afghanistan, free trade and climate change and "got on very well", he said.

"We had a good conversation about some issues that Britain and America really need to work together on," he added.