Powerful bursts on the Sun have become quite frequent lately. Planet Earth was seized with a strong magnetic storm several days ago, which measured almost the maximum on the 0-9 scale. Proton currents were especially intensive in the European part of Russia. Common people’s interest in the solar activity is not limited to the desire of having a good tan. The activity of the Sun may result in bad health, headaches, and blood pressure surges. It may also disrupt radio and satellite communication, or lead to technical malfunctions in the work of devices possessing strong electromagnetic fields.
Full Article:pravda.ru

Zurab Zhvania died because of natural gas poisoning, although assassination is quite possible too.

The death of Zurab Zhvania, the prime minister of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, will most likely become the subject of numerous discussions about who gains profit from it and who he was an obstacle to. Zhvania was a reformer and ally of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili; he was persona number two in the administration of the republic.
Full Article: pravda.ru

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The Somali government took a fresh step toward establishing itself on home soil on Sunday when a second team of officials including a senior minister flew from Kenya to Mogadishu to assess security in the failed state.

Five thousand Somalis who had waited six hours cheered when 50 MPs including the speaker of parliament and the national security minister entered a Mogadishu stadium, the second team of MPs to arrive in a week to ready the government’s return.
Full Article:nytimes.com/reuters

By P. Sainath
Number of homes damaged by the tsunami in Nagapattinam: 30,300. Number of homes destroyed by the Congress-NCP Government in Mumbai: 84,000.

How agonized we are about how people die. How untroubled we are by how they live.

Maharashtra’s Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, says every Chief Minister would like to leave behind a legacy. His own, he believes, will be that of the man who cleaned up Mumbai. Mr. Deshmukh, in short, wishes to be remembered.

He will be. His Government wiped out 6,300 homes on a single day. This is a record the Israeli army would be proud to match on a busy afternoon in the occupied territories.

The Mumbai mass evictions – now on hold – reflected well an elite mindset towards the deprived that fully matured in the 1990s. It is a lot about how we see the poor today. About a view marked by contempt for the rights and suffering of ordinary people. Unless that suffering is certified as genuine by the rest of us.

Mr. Deshmukh now says the destruction of “some” houses was “an accident”. Not intended. Which perhaps places his Government in the category of natural calamity. However, most of Mumbai’s beautiful people, some of whom attended `tsunami dinners’ after expressing satisfaction over the city’s mass demolitions, are firmly with their Chief Minister. No one from that fraternity has `adopted’ a demolished slum for adoring cameras. Nor organized relief operations for people, including many babies shivering without shelter, in one of the coldest winters.
Full Article: counterpunch.org

Britain launched a last-ditch bid to muster support for its plan to rid Africa of poverty despite a flat rejection by the United States in talks among the Group of Seven industrial powers today.

Finance ministers engaged in heated and occasionally angry exchanges late into Friday night but failed to achieve any kind of resolution, sources said as talks went into a second day.

“The Americans are on a different wavelength,” German deputy finance minister Caio Koch-Weser told reporters.

British finance minister Gordon Brown wants approval for his International Finance Facility (IFF) scheme to double aid to Africa to $100 billion a year and write off the debts of the poorest countries completely.

The plan has the backing of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela who made an emotional appeal to the G7, equating the fight against poverty to the struggle against apartheid.

“Do not delay while poor people continue to suffer,” the 86-year-old former political prisoner said putting all his moral weight behind his plea. He demanded a full write-off of African debt and $50 billion extra a year in aid for the next decade.

But without US support the chances of any breakthrough appear remote.

US Treasury under secretary John Taylor yesterday rejected Brown’s plan to double existing aid by using rich countries’ guarantees to raise money in the capital markets.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

The road from Kingston to Bob Marley’s mausoleum swerves and dips past stalls of sugarcane, papaya and mangoes and then hugs the hairpins of Dry Harbour mountains. Ask a man at Prickly Point the directions and he will tell you: “Bob is up there.”

“Once you get up there you will feel he vibe,” he adds, and then moves on with his cutlass over his shoulder.

Up in the village of Nine Miles, where Marley was born 60 years ago tomorrow, the reggae superstar – who died aged 36 in 1981 – lies encased in marble. “This is where Bob rests in peace,” says Jonathan Braham, the tour guide. The question most people on the island are asking is, for how long?

Marley’s family has announced plans to move his remains to Ethiopia, sparking a pan-African tug-of-love not just between his family and his fans but between the country in which he was born and the continent he revered in his religion and music.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

Havana, Feb 2 (AIN) Cuba’s Minister of Education Luis Ignacio Gomez said in Havana that the world has the obligation to respond to humanity’s call for eradicating illiteracy as part of the fight for social justice and emancipation.

During the opening of the First World Congress on Literacy on Tuesday -attended by Cuban President Fidel Castro- Gomez noted that the world’s 860 million adult illiterates surpasses the number of Internet visitors. He indicated that despite the technological advances illiteracy continues to be one of the main problems on Earth.

The Cuban Education Minister recalled that 15 years ago humanity made a commitment to reduce illiteracy but despite the commitments of many nations, the goal of 2015 will not be possible as experts predict that by that year over 800 million people will remain illiterate.

He pointed out that to transform this situation 8 billion dollars are needed for education or en equivalent of four days of military spending in the world.

Gomez noted that the United States spends 56 times more than that figure each year on its war machine, which he said shows the lack of a political will to help address a problem inherited from colonialism, imperialist exploitation and unequal exchange.
Full Article: periodico26.cu

Cuba willing to assist Latin America in literacy efforts
vnagency.com

The Bradshaw Foundation, in association with Stephen Oppenheimer, presents a virtual global journey of modern man over the last 160,000 years. The map will show for the first time the interaction of migration and climate over this period. We are the descendants of a few small groups of tropical Africans who united in the face of adversity, not only to the point of survival but to the development of a sophisticated social interaction and culture expressed through many forms. Based on a synthesis of the mtDNA and Y chromosome evidence with archaeology, climatology and fossil study, Stephen Oppenheimer has tracked the routes and timing of migration, placing it in context with ancient rock art around the world.

Who were our ancestors? From where did we originate? If we came out of Africa, what factors governed our routes? And when? Now finally this interactive map reveals an exciting journey of opportunity and survival, confirmed by genetic science and documented by ancient rock art.
bradshawfoundation.com/journey

The massive west Antarctic ice sheet, previously assumed to be stable, is starting to collapse, scientists warned on Tuesday.

Antarctica contains more than 90% of the world’s ice, and the loss of any significant part of it would cause a substantial sea level rise. Scientists used to view Antarctica as a “slumbering giant”, said Chris Rapley, from the British Antarctic Survey, but now he sees it as an “awakened giant”.

Rapley presented measurements of the ice sheet at a major climate conference in Exeter, UK. Glaciers on the Antarctic peninsula, which protrudes from the continent to the north, were already known to be retreating. But the data Rapley presented show that glaciers within the much larger west Antarctic Ice sheet are also starting to disappear.

If the ice on the peninsula melts entirely it will raise global sea levels by 0.3 metres, and the west Antarctic ice sheet contains enough water to contribute metres more. The last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2001, said that collapse of this ice sheet was unlikely during the 21st century. That may now need to be reassessed, Rapley warned.
Full Article: newscientist.com

The United States has developed a non-lethal microwave weapon for use in Iraq.

Officials said the vehicle, termed Sheriff, would contain the Active Denial System. The system uses millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy that can be directed at targets at a range of 1 kilometer.

The ADS system would be downgraded for Iraqi deployment in urban areas, officials said. The ADS causes the skin to burn, causing the people to run away.

The Pentagon plans to install the non-lethal, high-powered microwave weapon on a military vehicle. The deployment of the first platforms in Iraq would take place in September 2005.
Full Article: worldtribune.com

Microwave beam weaponry. Just goes to show you can never be too paranoid. In this spirit, since they announce they are going to deploy it, I am sure they already have.