Thatcher's cuts too low..[ 1860 ]

Cuts 'will be worse than Thatcher'

Standard co.uk.,10.10.10

 Alan Johnson said the Government's spending cuts would cause more damage than that inflicted by Margaret Thatcher

Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson has warned that the Government's spending cuts would cause more damage than that inflicted by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

In his strongest attack so far on the coalition's deficit-reduction plans, Mr Johnson said they would "fundamentally alter our community" and require years of repair.

He also raised the spectre of a double-dip recession, claiming that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration was putting economic growth at risk with cuts of 25% over four years.

Pointing to the continued economic turmoil in Ireland, he told The Observer: "We don't have to look far to see what the effect can be of cutting too deep too soon.

"Even if double dip doesn't happen, the way this coalition is implementing these changes will fundamentally alter our community and lead to a situation where we spend years trying to repair the damage. If you think of Thatcher in the Eighties, the most she cut was 10%, and we are still feeling the effect of that in Hull, the city I represent."

Mr Johnson is still fleshing out his approach to the economy after emerging as Labour leader Ed Miliband's surprise choice for shadow chancellor.

He has endorsed former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling's plan to halve the deficit over four years, saying that is his starting point, and has also indicated he would not oppose every cut proposed by the coalition, whose comprehensive spending review on October 20 presents Mr Johnson with his first major test.

Chancellor George Osborne is to detail about £83 billion of cuts from Whitehall budgets, but Mr Johnson, who was home secretary until Labour lost the general election in May, said there was "no way" his old department could afford to lose a quarter of its budget.

But he insisted he was a "realist" about the need to reduce the deficit, but added the proviso that economic growth had to be the priority.

"If you are cranking up lots of interest on debt you need to bring the deficit down as fast as you can, consistent with jobs and growth and I think that is where the Conservatives have fallen down," he said.

NASA Image of the Oct 9th..[ 1859 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Ascent

The Soyuz TMA-01M rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, Oct. 8, 2010 carrying Expedition 25 Soyuz Commander Alexander Kaleri of Russia, NASA Flight Engineer Scott J. Kelly and Russian Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka to the International Space Station. 

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

Σάββατο, 9 Οκτώβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Japan, unmanned aircraft builded..[ 1858 ]

Researchers build unmanned aircraft to scan Japan's most forbidding locales

The unmanned aircraft is pictured flying over the mountains taking aerial photographs in Kita-Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture. (Photo courtesy of Shinji Suzuki)

 

(Mainichi Japan) Oct 10,2010

Researchers from the University of Tokyo and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. have developed an unmanned aircraft to provide detailed aerial images of wetlands, mountains and other natural areas that are difficult for humans to reach.

The new unmanned aircraft will help researchers observe slight changes in nature with the camera attached to its body, which can take up to 400 color images during a single flight, capturing objects on the ground as small as 2 square centimeters in size. The research team plans to use their invention to monitor ecosystems across the country.

The aircraft -- about 1.7 meters wide and weighing around 2 kilograms -- can be folded and carried in the trunk of an automobile. Flight routes can be programmed into the global positioning system (GPS) of the craft, which flies at an altitude of 80 to 150 meters for up to 30 minutes on a single charge.

To date, researchers have often been forced to give up on aerial photography from helicopters and airplanes due to bad weather. Moreover, they have been unable to obtain detailed photographs because they had to avoid flying at low altitudes for safety reasons.

During the test flight last month, the unmanned aircraft successfully took photographs of small pale pink polygonum flowers in the Yawata wetlands in Hiroshima Prefecture, where a number of aquatic plants have been lost over the past few years. The area has been turned into grasslands after the prefectural government started a water channel development project in the wetlands in fiscal 2007.

"The daily operating cost of unmanned aircraft is 1 million yen, about 10 percent of the expense of flying conventional airplanes. We can see the effectiveness of the project, and it will be helpful (for the government) to improve policy efficiency by adjusting measures if needed," said developer and University of Tokyo professor Shinji Suzuki.

Click here for the original Japanese story

(Mainichi Japan) October 10, 2010

"Royal Navy", occupying Falkland Islands by force,,,[ 1858 ]

Royal Navy are pirates, says Argentina's president

The president of Argentina has described the Royal Navy as pirates and accused the British government of behaving like an imperial power with regard to the Falkland Islands.

Telegraph co.uk.,By Jon Swaine in New York
Published: 2:30PM BST 10 Oct 2010

Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, attacked the Navy over Twitter Photo: EPA

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner used Twitter, the micro-blogging website, to sharply criticise plans by the Ministry of Defence to carry out military tests in the region. In a series of frank postings on her official Twitter account, she announced that Argentina had complained to the United Nations about Britain's "militarisation of the South Atlantic".

"Serious, very serious," Mrs Kirchner wrote. "Royal Navy, occupying colonial force in Falkland Islands, reports military exercise with missiles on the coast of East Falkland.

"Typical nineteenth century colonialism. Anachronistic use of force in violation of international law. They do not care. A clear example of double standards."
Mrs Kirchner then promised to summon the British ambassador, Shan Morgan, and said: "Conclusion ... pirates for ever?"
Her postings were erased, but not before they had been re-posted by hundreds of other Twitter users, many of them Argentines who enthusiastically endorsed the remarks.

The Twitter posts threaten to increase tension between the two countries at a time when British companies are beginning to explore for oil and gas in the region. Last week, in what is thought to have been the first incident of its kind in four years, an Argentine military ship confronted a trawler from the Falklands and accused it of fishing illegally. The Argentine crew contacted the fishermen, who were several miles inside Falklands waters, and demanded their details. The boat, from Port Stanley, eventually moved away.
Britain informed Argentina last week that it planned to carry out missile tests, in what officials have insisted was standard procedure. An embassy spokesman told local reporters: "We are a little taken aback, because these exercises are routine and are carried out every six months.
They've been happening for 28 years."
Mrs Kirchner has previously pledged an "eternal fight" to claim the Falklands Islands, which are known to Argentines as Las Malvinas. However she later ruled out the use of force to take the islands, which were briefly under the control of the then-ruling Argentine military junta in 1982. Britain sent a naval force and thousands of troops to reclaim the islands and there is a permanent British military presence on the islands, with 1,076 troops and four ships stationed in the region.
Recent tests indicated that there could be about 700 million barrels worth of crude oil under the ocean around the Falklands, which could be worth about £3 billion.
An official statement later released by Mrs Kirchner's office said: "The Argentine Government reiterates that the Malvinas, Georgias and South Sandwich Islands, part of the Argentine Republic and unlawfully occupied by the United Kingdom, are in dispute, which is recognised by the United Nations and other international organisations."

Monitoring pollution in Russia..[ 1857 ]

Russian "scallop garden" will monitor pollution

4:44pm GMT+0300

A general view shows an oil terminal at Russia's Far-East port of Kozmino October 4, 2010. R

Credit: Reuters/Jessica Bachman

By Jessica Bachman

KOZMINO, Russia | Fri Oct 8, 2010 8:50am EDT

 

KOZMINO, Russia (Reuters) - Some prefer them grilled or steamed, but Russian scientists will now use sea scallops to monitor pollution levels at a Pacific oil terminal.

An enormous sea scallop garden will be set up at the end of this month in Russia's Far East Kozmino Bay, eight time zones east of Moscow. It will be the first Russian port to use mollusks as a water-monitoring instrument.

"Scallops are a very good measure of water pollution because they are very sensitive to contaminants. They absorb and retain impurities" said Natalia Vykhodtseva, the organic chemist at the helm of Kozmino's ecological safety department.

She added that while sea scallops -- which prefer to live at depths of 20-22 meters (64-70 feet) -- are known for their ability to filter contaminants such as oil or heavy metals, the main purpose of the garden at present is to monitor the bay.

"If the monitoring is successful, we have an idea to create large permanent colonies for scallops, mussels and seaweed at the bottom of the bay and use them to filter the water and keep it clean," said Vykhodtseva.

The Kozmino port, launched at the beginning of this year by Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, sits at the bottom of a forested hill range in a bay on the Sea of Japan.

The only export terminal for crude tapped from new East Siberian deposits, it will ship out 200 million barrels next year, meaning the number of tankers calling into port will double, raising greater concern over pollution.

"If oil happens to leak into the water, the scallops will imbibe it, filtering back out the clean water," Vykhodtseva said.

In the same bay, a short distance from the oil terminal, rusting Soviet-era ships, pipelines and old navy infrastructure jut out from the water.

The port's General Director Boris Melnikov said the water-monitoring project begins later this month when marine biologists will lower 80 long tubular nets filled with 10,000 of the meaty sea scallops into the frigid Pacific Ocean waters.

Melnikov added that the scientists are contracted from the Pacific Ocean Institute of Bio-Organic Chemistry in Vladivostok, and that divers will study the bay and plot the scallop garden this week.

SANITARY SEA CREATURES

Since the mid 1990s, scientists at the Far East branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Bio-Organic Chemistry have studied scallops' chemical and medicinal properties, and their environmental and sanitary capabilities.

Once a month, they will draw up several hanging scallop gardens to analyze and document the mollusks' chemical composition, contamination levels, weight and mortality rates.

Organic sea bacteria helped break down the oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico following the rupture of BP's Macondo well, but experts say they do not have the same pollution-cleaning potential in Russia's cold waters.

"The colder the water, the less quickly and efficiently bacteria can work to break down the hydrocarbon. So in Russia, their use is very limited," said Vladimir Chuprov, head of Greenpeace's energy department in Russia.

(Reporting by Jessica Bachman; editing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Steve Addison)