marathon06.org

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says he may introduce plans to make Australian citizens carry an identity card to avert terrorist attacks. “I’ll make an announcement soon and that could be this week,” Ruddock said. “It depends upon when I’m fully satisfied about the issues that we want examined.”

According to a recent poll of 1200 people, over 50 percent would support a national identity card. A Newspoll in The Australian newspaper found that 31 per cent of voters were opposed to the ID card.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard refloated the possibility of an “Australia Card” after the July 7 London suicide bombings. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government is considering introducing cards identifying Britons by fingerprints and iris scans.

Australia last debated a national ID card (to cut down on tax avoidance), the Australia Card, in 1987, but was defeated in the Senate after public outrage. Mr Howard, then in opposition, opposed the card, but now says times have changed. “This is an issue that ought to be back on the table…in the wake of something like the terrible tragedy in London,” Howard told a news conference in June last year.

Australia has been on medium terror alert since 2001. While there hasn’t been a major terrorist attack on Australian soil, Prime Minister John Howard says it’s a “possibility.”

Mr Ruddock is expected to announce this week the terms of an independent inquiry into an ID card, citing national security and fraud prevention as key concerns. The inquiry will investigate the possible benefits of such a card in combating terrorism and fraud, and whether it could be introduced at a reasonable cost.

Opposition public accountability spokesman Kelvin Thomson said he was unsure whether it would help Australia’s fight against terrorism as there was no great evidence to suggest ID cards assisted those countries that already had them.

Australian Privacy Foundation chief Anna Johnston said the poll was good news for those who opposed the ID card. She said the lower level of support for the ID card compared with 1986 showed that people were better informed.

“I would suggest that this shows the Government is already on very shaky ground on this proposal if there is only this very small majority of people in favour of it,” Ms Johnston said. “Because as more details emerge about what is actually being put forward, support will drop.”

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, said that policy should not be dictated by public opinion.

Advocacy groups say that work had already started on creating a coalition of lobby groups in readiness for a campaign. “We’re starting to marshall our resources now,” Ms Johnston said. “Like the Australia Card debate, we are looking to establish a broad coalition of people across the political spectrum and from all walks of life.”

Ruddock’s comments have been slammed by security experts, who say national ID cards do not make Australia any safer and could have the opposite effect.

James Turner, security analyst at Frost & Sullivan Australia, said: “ID cards cannot protect us from terrorism because an ID card cannot indicate intention. It’s like signature based anti-virus, the AV signature can only point out the currently known viruses; and an ID card can only identify currently known baddies.”

Jo Stewart-Rattray, director of information security at Vectra Corporation said: “As far as its goal being to protect us from terrorist attacks, I don’t think so. The bad guys will always find a way to propagate their own version of these cards. It is not protecting us against terrorist attacks by any means.”

Stewart-Rattray’s comments echoed those of ex-MI5 chief Dame Stella Rimington, who recently said ID cards were “useless” at fighting terrorism. “If we have ID cards at vast expense and people can go into a back room and forge them they are going to be absolutely useless. ID cards may be helpful in all kinds of things but I don’t think they are necessarily going to make us any safer,” said Rimington.

Bruce Schneier argued that ID cards will not help improve security and would have the opposite effect. He says the card will require an “immense database” with “enormous” security risks.

“The security risks are enormous. Such a database would be a kludge of existing databases; databases that are incompatible, full of erroneous data, and unreliable. As computer scientists, we do not know how to keep a database of this magnitude secure, whether from outside hackers or the thousands of insiders authorised to access it,” wrote Schneier.

Roger Clarke, of the Australian Privacy Foundation asked whether the “billions it would cost would be worth it”, especially considering the “enormous intrusions into the affairs of the majority of law-abiding citizens”.

According to Privacy International, around 100 countries have compulsory identity cards. They also stated that “virtually no common law country has a card”.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

NASA’s Cassini–Huygens spacecraft has discovered evidence for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft’s direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. The study has been published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.

Data from Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and usually low in salt far away from the moon. Closer to the moon’s surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an “ocean-like” composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt-water. When water freezes, the salt is squeezed out, leaving pure water ice behind.

Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph also recently obtained complementary results that support the presence of a subsurface ocean. A team of Cassini researchers led by Candice Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, measured gas shooting out of distinct jets originating in the moon’s south polar region at five to eight times the speed of sound, several times faster than previously measured. These observations of distinct jets, from a 2010 flyby, are consistent with results showing a difference in composition of ice grains close to the moon’s surface and those that made it out to the E ring, the outermost ring that gets its material primarily from Enceladean jets. If the plumes emanated from ice, they should have very little salt in them.

“There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than salt water under Enceladus’s icy surface,” said Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

The data suggests a layer of water between the moon’s rocky core and its icy mantle, possibly as deep as about 50 miles (80 kilometers) beneath the surface. As this water washes against the rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and rises through fractures in the overlying ice to form reserves nearer the surface. If the outermost layer cracks open, the decrease in pressure from these reserves to space causes a plume to shoot out. Roughly 400 pounds (200 kilograms) of water vapor is lost every second in the plumes, with smaller amounts being lost as ice grains. The team calculates the water reserves must have large evaporating surfaces, or they would freeze easily and stop the plumes.

“We imagine that between the ice and the ice core there is an ocean of depth and this is somehow connected to the surface reservoir,” added Postberg.

The Cassini mission discovered Enceladus’ water-vapor and ice jets in 2005. In 2009, scientists working with the cosmic dust analyzer examined some sodium salts found in ice grains of Saturn’s E ring but the link to subsurface salt water was not definitive. The new paper analyzes three Enceladus flybys in 2008 and 2009 with the same instrument, focusing on the composition of freshly ejected plume grains. In 2008, Cassini discovered a high “density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected” in geysers erupting from the moon. The icy particles hit the detector target at speeds between 15,000 and 39,000 MPH (23,000 and 63,000 KPH), vaporizing instantly. Electrical fields inside the cosmic dust analyzer separated the various constituents of the impact cloud.

“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson in 2008, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets,” said Nicolas Altobelli, the European Space Agency’s project scientist for Cassini.

“If there is water in such an unexpected place, it leaves possibility for the rest of the universe,” said Postberg.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Australia’s overnight penalty shootout 9–7 win against the Russia women’s national water polo team qualified the Australia women’s national water polo team into the quarter-finals of the FINA Women’s World League Super Finals, where they will meet the Germany women’s national water polo team at 9:00 p.m. AEST.

Australia was behind at the end of the first quarter, with a score of 2–3. They came back to tie up the game at the end of the second period where they scored 3 goals to Russia’s 2. Both teams scored a goal each in the third, before both went scoreless in the fourth quarter. Australia won the the penalty shoot out 3–1.

Glencora Ralph, Rowie Webster, and Nicola Zagame led Australia in scoring with two goals each. Gemma Beadsworth, Jane Moran, and Kate Gynther also scored a goal each.

The game marked the three hundredth cap for Australian Melissa Rippon and the two hundredth cap for Alicia McCormack. Other Australian players that competed in the match included Victoria Brown, Beadsworth, Sophie Smith, Holly Lincoln-Smith, Moran, Zoe Arancini, Gynther, Webster, Ralph, and Zagame.

Following the competition, Australia’s head coach Greg McFadden will make the last round of player cuts before the team heads to London for the Olympics.

Monday, December 28, 2015

According to witness reports, Boko Haram gunmen and suicide bombers killed at least fifteen people in an attack in the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria yesterday, before the military drove them off.

Locals reported hearing gunfire as evening prayers ended at local mosques. The military pushed back the militants, who were on trucks and firing at civilians with guns and grenade launchers, with heavy weapons fire. Amidst the fighting, suicide bombings were carried out.

A local resident Sheshu Mala said that during the attack, “all the residents in the area fled their homes to other parts of the city.” As people fled, two female suicide bombers reportedly detonated themselves in groups of people.

Government sources say ten other suicide bombers have been killed.

The militant group Boko Haram started in the city of Maidugari, where the attacks took place; they lost the territory three years ago as the military retook the city.

The news came after another Boko Haram attack on the village of Kimba killed at least fourteen people on Friday.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Independent U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader had harsh words for the Democrats who engineered yesterday’s passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, a bailout of the U.S. financial system. At a campaign stop in Waterbury, Connecticut on Saturday, Nader said that Democrats passed up a chance to enact re-regulation of the financial system and instead gave Wall Street everything it wanted.

According to Nader, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), and other Democrats considered but rejected measures such as a tax on transactions of derivatives (a “speculation tax”) because of their financial ties to Wall Street and its lobbyists. He said that Representative Chris Murphy (D-CT), who represents Waterbury, had “become a toady” of Nancy Pelosi. He drew enthusiastic applause by calling Murphy “a dynamic fraud”, and referred to Senator Joe Lieberman as “the Hermaphrodite of American Politics”. For Murphy and Representative Chris Shays (R-CT), Nader said, supporting the bailout despite the opposition of constituents was a “profile in betrayal”. Because there were no public hearings where taxpayers and experts could weigh in on the bailout, Nader characterized it as a return to “taxation without representation“—under “King George IV” 225 years after the 13 colonies were taxed under King George III.

Asked about causes of the financial crisis, Nader pointed to the deregulation of the financial sector with the 1999 Glass-Steagall Act and further deregulation in 2000, as well as the rise of overly complex financial derivatives. He outlined a four-part reform plan:

1. Re-regulation of financial markets
2. Increasing shareholder control of corporations
3. Taxpayer equity as part of any bailout, as in the 1979 bailout of Chrysler Corporation
4. Making speculators pay by enacting a 0.1% tax on derivatives transactions (which Nader said will amount to over $500 trillion this year)

Regarding the equity warrants included in the passed bailout, Nader relayed word from an unnamed source that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had told Wall Street executives “don’t worry, it’s not enforceable”.

Nader told reporters that he had abandoned the Green Party because “Greens are not disciplined, and they’re not mature”, and also lack the fund-raising capabilities to break into mainstream political discussions. “They bicker and bicker,” he said, pushing out their best people. However, he endorsed several local Green Party candidates, including Chris Murphy’s opponent Harold Burbank.

The virtual media blackout for third party campaigns by national newspapers and networks has been a source of continual frustration for the Nader campaign, as well as the campaigns of Libertarian Bob Barr and Green Cynthia McKinney and the post-campaign activities of Republican Ron Paul. According to Nader, reporters tell him that editors of national media are “very bigoted against third party and independent candidacies”. Even journalists for taxpayer-supported media, such as National Public Radio‘s Terry Gross and the Public Broadcasting Service‘s Jim Lehrer, have shut him out during this campaign. Debates, he lamented, are controlled by corporate interests through the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Nader spoke to a supportive crowd of about 60 people and his campaign raised over $2000 at the event, their third visit to Waterbury. The event took place in the former building of a closed-down bank.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

The inflation rate in Ireland, as measured by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), edged upwards to hit a five month high in May at 2.4%. This represents a 0.2% rise on the previous month when the rate stood at 2.2%.

The major contributors to the rise were increased transportation, healthcare, and education costs. In April the EU25 average rate of inflation was 2.1%, with Latvia having the highest rate at 7.1% and Sweden the lowest at 0.4%.

Despite the increase in the rate, Irish inflation remains very low – having hit 7% during 2000 and remaining around the 5% until the beginning of 2003. Another major factor easing any worries about the increase is Ireland’s very strong GDP growth – expected to be around 5.5% this year

On an annual basis the cost of footwear and clothing have fallen by 2.7% whilst energy costs have soared by 10.4%. The cost of food, furniture, and communications also fell over the last 12 months.

The Consumer Price Index is made up of over 55,000 prices consisting of 613 headings which cover over 1,000 different items.

Saturday, May 7, 2005

Testing began on a chemical reactor at the Newport Chemical Depot near Terre Haute, Indiana on Friday morning. If successful, the reactor will be put to use destroying the large VX nerve gas stockpiles stored at the facility over the course of the next two years. After the disposal project experienced several delays, the facility announced it would begin pumping VX into a completed disposal unit for testing. The unit consists of a chemical reactor in which the VX will be mixed with water and sodium hydroxide, heated to 194°F while mixed with paddles. The resulting chemical, called hydrolysate, is chemically similar to commercial drain cleaners and has similar properties. If the test is successfully completed , the unit will continue processing the VX until the entire stockpile has been neutralized, a process projected to take two years. Administrators expect to complete testing on May 10, 2005.

According to the controversial plan, the finished waste product would be shipped to New Jersey for final reprocessing. The inert chemical would then be emptied into the Delaware River where natural attenuation would occur.

Residents near the proposed river disposal site in New Jersey oppose this idea. The contractor for the final component of this disposal would be the DuPont Corporation.

NCD is a bulk chemical storage and destruction facility in west central Indiana, thirty miles north of Terre Haute. Originally founded during World War II to produce RDX, a conventional explosive, it later became a site for chemical weapons manufacturing during the Cold War. It is now used to securely store and gradually neutralize part of the US stockpile of VX.

VX was manufactured by the U.S. in the 1950s and 60’s as a deterrent to possible Soviet Union use. It was never deployed, and the manufacture was halted in 1969 after an order signed by then-president Richard Nixon.

In 1999, the Army announced it awarded a disposal contract to Parsons Infrastructure & Technology, Inc., a business unit of Parsons Corporation. Some 220 civilian Parsons employees work at the facility, which is supervised by an Army officer reporting to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, and a board of civilian government overseers called the Indiana Citizens’ Advisory Commission, some of whose members are appointed by the state governor.

Security at the facility is controversial. A private security service, supplemented by a complement of Indiana National Guard soldiers, guarded the facility until April 14, 2005, when the soldiers were withdrawn. An Indianapolis television station has questioned security measures in some of its special reports.