Serious incident at Detroit airport today; CNN has complete coverage

CNN has complete video coverage of an apparent attempt by a man from Nigeria to ignite a device on a flight landing in Detroit Christmas day. The man had traveled from Nigeria through Amsterdam. The CNN link for the story is here.



The suspect was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and apparently was not on any no-fly list, and apparently was not rescreened in Amsterdam.

I personally last passed through Schiphol in May 2001, returning to Minneapolis on Northwest. On that occasion, the Dalai Lama passed right by me as I was waiting to board.

The Los Angeles Times reports that other passengers overpowered the suspect, story here.

Wikipedia attribution link for Schiphol indoor picture.

Prince William does a dress rehearsal on homelessness

Prince William of Wales spent a night on the streets of London Dec. 22, when the temperature dropped below freezing, in order to demonstrate what it is like for the homeless. William has been associated with a group called Centerpoint, and at one point was almost run over by a streetsweeper.

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Phil Han has a similar story on CNN here. (I could not get the CNN video to embed).

The Prince did have a warm breakfast and shower waiting the next morning.

Attribution link for Wikipedia p.d. picture of London after 1940 Blitz.

Philippines volcano could undergo explosive eruption; maybe global cooling?

AP and ABC News have a story Monday morning warning that the Philippines volcano Mayon could have an explosive eruption soon. The story is here.

A major eruption could actually temporarily cool the Earth’s climate, as Mount Pinatubo did in 1991. Recently scientists like Nathan Myhrvold have suggested countering global warming by pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere at high latitudes.



Wikipedia attribution link for USGS picture of Pinatubo.

National Geographic explains how Singapore works: does authoritarianism "work"?

I’d recommend the January 2010 issue of National Geographic for its end story by Mark Jacobson, “The Sinagpore Solution: How did a sleepy little island transform into a high tech powerhouse in one generation? It was all in the plan ,” photographs (many) by David McLain, link here.

It didn’t become independent from Britain until 1963, and this little city-state, almost on the Equator, is sometimes compared to Switzerland, having a higher standard of living than much of Europe.

But the culture is somewhat authoritarian, well known for the strict rules about cleanliness in public places, caning, and censorship. Lee Kuan Yew has a somewhat Calvinist moral philosophy and believes that people need rules, even if they are secular and not as inflexible as in most fundamentalist religion of any kind.

There is in Singaporean culture a certain competitive attitude called kiasu, of “afraid to lose”, which can lead to existential moral dilemmas familiar to me, at least. Perhaps the culture has a slight bite of fascism.

Partly as a result of kiasu, Singapore has a low birthrate, despite pro-natalist initiatives by Yew's government.

Back in the 1980s, the Sinagpore Symphony Orchestra was quite helpful in bringing a lot of obscure romantic works to compact disc on the Marco Polo label.

Attribution link for Wikipedia map of Singapore.

Copenhagen reaches weak deal; Sea levels were 25 higher 125000 years ago

An AP story, reproduced on MSNBC, reports that global sea levels were about 25 feet higher than they are today about 125000 years ago, during the Eemian Stage. The last warm spell started about 10000 years ago, but man’s activity is definitely accelerating the melt-off of polar ice caps and mountain glaciers. The MSNBC link is here.
All of this is reported in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature, which has a Climate Feedback blog here.

The president returns home from Copenhagen, his landing complicated suddenly and ironically by an East Coast Noreaster, after signing a non-binding “mutual inspection” deal between the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

Here is MSNBC’s video of the president’s speech in Copenhagen.

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Here is a PDF of the accord, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (link).

Northern Virginia "5" (arrested in Pakistan) shows that younger American, as well as European, men can be drawn to radical ideology

The recent arrests in Pakistan of northern Virginia men Waqar Khan, Ramy Zamzam, Umar Chaudhry, Ahmad Minni, and Amman Yamer has led to numerous media reports suggesting that sometimes young American men, while generally more assimilated than comparable men in Europe, still are attracted to radical ideology, often from what they find on “foreign” websites. Bruce Bawer had examined this problem a few years ago with his book "While Europe Slept", a book by a gay conservative who had lived in Amdsterdam and journaled what was happening around the time of 9/11.

The role of the Internet in hosting “propaganda” has long been a concern ever since 9/11 (the steganography concern) , and this time Facebook figured into the bust of the five as the FBI tracked the case down with Pakistan.

Brian Ross of ABC News has a typical report here.

Colbert L. King has a perspective on the situation on p A15 of the Washington Post today, link here. There is a concern that young men, particularly those with some difficulties in social competition, will get drawn to absolutist ideology found online. She makes this amazing statement. “The men who pulled off the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were motivated by something apart from greed, lust or a thirst for power. Their malice sprang from a belief that the world in which they lived could not be reconciled with the wider world around them.” Others have simply characterized this fanaticism as simply directed a “infidels” and a world that is either “us or them” in which there is only one version of “the Law” for everyone allowed to exist (sound like the 1930s?). But absolute virtue has always been a seductive trap for some, going back to the writings of Sayyid Qtub.

Britain considers revising defamation laws to stop "libel tourism"

Sarah Lyall has a front page story in the New York Times about English libel tourism, Friday Dec. 11, “Britain, Long a Libel Mecca, Reviews Laws,” link here.

Parliament is considering requiring the plaintiff to show that harm in England before bringing suit, under England’s “one hit” system that has attracted suits against books with very few sales in Britain and even web sites viewable in Britain. Judgments could be obtained against foreigners, who then could not enter the country. The US is considering refusing to recognize British libel judgments, as do many states.

In Britain, the defendant has the onerous of proving truth; the presumption is that the plaintiff’s complaint of falsity would hold. In the US, the plaintiff must prove beyond a 51% chance that the statements are false, malicious, and recklessly disregard the truth. In the US, it is possible to libel oneself, , which can lead to bizarre situations with implicit content.

Scotland has its own system.

British libel law was drawn up in the 19th Century along the lines of Victorian society.

The story mentions several famous plaintiffs, such as Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, Incelandic businessman Jon Olafson, and NMT Medical Company in Boston.

In the US, despite much stricter rules, “SLAPP” libel suits have been very troublesome in some areas, like those filed by real estate developers in eminent domain cases.

Attribution Wikipedia link for picture of Parliament

Russian missle test creates UFO effect with spiral arms over Norway

An endless night (land of the midday moon) UFO over Norway stirred up speculation, as it showed spiral arms, as if coming from an astronomical black hole. It turns out to be a Russian missile test.

Back in 1995, Norway thought that a Russian missile launch could be the “real thing” and false alarms can be a real security problem.

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Attribution link for Wikipedia map of Russian regions.

World depends on Chinese rare earths for green technology

Here’s an MSNBC video on the world’s dependence on China for rare earth metals, used in green technology, but polluting the Chinese countryside.

Are we trading one kind of dependence for another?

Rare earths confound every high school student on the Periodic Chart.

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Wikipedia attribution link for Periodic Table here.

Amanda Knox conviction: travelers, when abroad, be careful: the justice system of the country you visit applies

The conviction of Amanda Know in Perugia, Italy, for the murder of a British roommate, brings up the issue that Americans must bear in mind when they travel, even in western countries: they are bound by the laws and legal procedures of the countries they visit.

It does seem at first glance that Italian criminal justice may have fewer protections, in shielding jurors from global (including Internet) publicity and in presuming innocence, than does the American system. Nevertheless, Knox will spend 25 years in prison unless her conviction is overturned. And it seems as if the DNA and other physical evidence could be questioned more. If she returns to the US, she would have to serve the full sentence here.

There are other issues. People sued in Britain under “libel tourism” practices can never visit the UK.

Can gay people active on the Web safely visit many Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia (or worse, Iran), when their postings can be found by authorities? Could they be arrested and held forever? What about people who have criticized China online (written about Tibet) who then travel to China?

Any ideas? I don’t recall the State Department’s comments on this matter.

Attribution link for map of Italy on Wikipedia.

In Italy a criminal jury has 8 people, with 2 judges and 6 ordinary people. There is a presumption of innocence, but not the same concept of reasonable doubt. Even in a jury trial, the judge(s) have to write an opinion in Italy.

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Update: December 10. Stephanie Gosk reports about the conditions of Italian women's prison for Amanda Knox.

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Obama on Afghanistan: military will have to work with tribal culture, testing its own cohesion

There’s a lot of post-mortem on President Obama’s Tuesday night speech at West Point on Afghanistan, but Michael Gerson’s column on p A27 of the Friday Dec. 4 Washington Post, “Obama’s Case to Make”, link here, goes into a little more subtlety.

The military (mainly the Army, including allies like the Brits, Prince Harry included perhaps) has a task related to its own issues of “unit cohesion” (so often mentioned in conjunction with “don’t ask don’t tell”): it has to comingle and become socialized with the people and break up the primitive tribalistic culture than enables the nighttime “letter threats” that Gerson talks about. He also talks about a warlord culture developing in Afghanistan, like that well known from Somalia (ironically mentioned in the ABC series “FlashForward”).

High speed train in Russia attacked, between Moscow and St. Petersburg

A high speed train from Moscow to St. Petersburg was derailed and lifted off the tracks by a bomb late Friday night, about 200 miles N of Moscow in western Russia. Islamic extremists and Russian super-nationalists are both suspect. Videos show that the train consisted of blue and gray cars. Some commentators have drawn comparison to the Beslan School Hostage Crisis of Sept. 1, 2004.

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A train hijacking occurs in the 1977 thriller film “Cassandra Crossing”.

Russian security remains important in efforts to account for any loose or unsecured nuclear materials in the vast country, as often discussed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Dubai debt default: a paradox and contagion; it may help force ING to break up

Major financial media sources report that Wall Street was unnerved today by reports that Dubai (including developers -- the state-owned company Dubai World (link - "The sun never sets on Dubai World"!)) are asking for a six-month extension on its $60 billion debt, due to the 50% drop in Dubai real property values this year. There is a fear that other “sovereign” emirates could default.

All of this happens in a culture that still will put debtors in prison, leaving Europeans and Americans to flee, leaving property and further depressing values.

Dubai may have built the largest manmade artificial island projects in history, all of which could be jeopardized by seal level rises.
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Partly as a result (and also to meet the terms of previous Dutch bailout), Dutch financial services company ING Groep took a beating today, and is offering rights to its stock at discounted prices. And apparently ING will have to sell or spin off all of its insurance subsidiaries, like ING-USA, (and ING Direct) which individually are healthy. This may be a better thing for ING employees and retirees.

Wikipedia attribution link for Burj Dubai. It sounds like a fascinating destination anyway, a sci-fi modern Arabia.

Update: Dec 4

Check the op-ed by Sebastian Mallaby in the Washington Post today, p A27, "A bad omen in Dubai", link here. Despite the erosion of confidence in the stability of sovereign states, the stock market went up, he says.

Nuclear power becoming acceptable to green movement

A few days after a small leak at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the Washington Post, in a story by Anthony Faiola, reports overseas that “Nuclear Power Gains Support”, link here and that overseas even green groups support it. Nuclear power plants are being built in Britain again, after years of being banned after Chernobyl. There are 53 nuclear power plants under construction around the world, and the Waxman-Markey bill would get nuclear power generation going again in the U.S., which has long stopped building new plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (link) reports 22 applications for new plants in the U.S.

I recall a large anti-nuclear pressure group in New York in the late 1970s when I lived there, even before Three Mile Island (a woman I met through Understanding wanted to run a caravan across country to oppose nuclear power). I recall the headlines in March 1979 that a meltdown was possible (I was in Texas then, and visited the Glen Rose Commanche Plant in 1982). A lot has changed since then.

Journalist Maziar Bahari tells 60 Minutes about his imprisonment in Iran

On Sunday Nov. 22 CBS 60 Minutes aired an interview of journalist Maziar Bahari, who was held in an Iranian prison and questioned for 118 days before being released on $300000 bail and allowed to leave the country, after which he went to London. He was told that he could be hunted down and returned to Iran, as if there were a bounty resembling that at one time announced for Salman Rushdie.

He was well known as a professional journalist and documentary filmmaker in Iran for twelve years. After the protests, he was accused of working as a spy. Iranian’s claimed that Newsweek magazine was a front for US intelligence (like the CIA). He said that in Iran “you’re for us or you’re against us” and that reporters are not allowed to present shades of gray.


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