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Maravot News of the World 10:29 AM - San Francisco Monday, February 18, 2008 (last post)

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News Headlines & Trends

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2.17.08 The spineless menace: Jellyfish overwhelm the sea

February 16 - For years, Mediterranean beaches have been plagued by jellyfish. Now scientists are reporting that the problem is far worse than they had feared – and that a new generation of the poisonous creatures is poised to overwhelm the sea. Perhaps you thought that jellyfish were a summer hazard of Mediterranean beaches, freak invaders that spoil your enjoyment of your favorite southern holiday resorts – but only momentarily, and only if you are unlucky. Well, if so, be warned.

Jellyfish are now active throughout the winter too, building up strength for their annual assault upon the Mediterranean's northern shore. What's more, they won't be going away. Jellyfish, says Spain's top scientist who specializes in these glutinous stinging creatures from the deep, are here to stay.

"We think of jellyfish as a worrying summer problem, particularly here in Spain, where we are so dependent on the tourist industry," says Josep Maria Gili, research professor at Barcelona's Institute of Marine Sciences. "But we have found that they come ashore just as frequently in the winter months, although no one notices. We've established that they proliferate off our shores all year round. It means the situation is much more serious than we thought."

Millions of jellyfish washed up on Spanish beaches last year, and tens of thousands of holidaymakers were treated for painful allergic reactions to their stings. Overfishing is the main cause, the scientist insists. And the only solution is to change the fishing practices of countries that have stripped the world's seas of big fish such as swordfish and red tuna which feast upon jellyfish.

The other traditional predator of jellyfish – the leatherback turtle, Caretta caretta – has been driven to the point of extinction. The beaches where it lays its eggs have been lost to tourism. It's not just a Mediterranean problem. Increases in the populations of jellyfish have been "spectacular" from Japan to Africa, from Alaska to Australia, Professor Gili says. "Every time we are swamped with jellyfish, the sea is sending us the message that it is sick and we are mistreating it. We face a huge problem of ecological imbalance." [Full story>>independent.co.uk; See earlier story, Maravot News 11.24.07, "Northern Ireland return of the killer jellyfish."]

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2.17.08 Kosovo declares its independence from Serbia

PRISTINA, Kosovo,February 17 - The former Serbian province of Kosovo declared independence on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians swarming through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the end of a long and bloody struggle for national self-determination.

Kosovo's intent to be recognized as Europe's newest country — after a civil war that killed 10,000 people a decade ago and then years of limbo under United Nations rule — marks the final dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, 17 years after its dissolution began.

It brings to a climax a showdown between the West — which argues that the brutal subjugation of Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians under the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic cost Serbia any rights to rule the territory — and the Serbian government and its allies in the Kremlin, which counter that Kosovo's independence is a reckless breach of international law that will spur other secessionist movements across the world. [More>>nytimes.com ; See also rian.ru, February 17, "Wrap — Kosovo declares independence, protests from Serbia, Russia."]

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2.17.08 Unpopular at home, Bush basks in African praise

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) February 17 - Unpopular at home and in much of the world during the last year of his presidency, George W. Bush is basking in rare adulation on his African tour. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete poured praise on Bush in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, the second day of his five-nation African tour, each compliment applauded warmly by members of the east African country's cabinet. Although around 2,000 Muslim demonstrators protested against Bush on the eve of his visit, many thousands more cheering, waving people lined his road from the airport on Saturday.

Banners across the route, decorated with Bush's image against a backdrop of Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro, read: "We cherish democracy. Karibu (welcome) to President and Mrs. Bush." Others read: "Thank you for helping fight malaria and HIV." Dancers at the airport and at Kikwete's state house to greet Bush on Sunday, wore skirts and shirts decorated with his face. [More>>thestar.com.my]

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2.17.08 Female bomber strikes Baghdad

February 17 - A female suicide bomber has struck the Karrada district of central Baghdad. The woman detonated her explosives vest on Sunday in an electrical shop after being chased by Iraqi troops who tried to stop her. The US military said that the only death in the explosion was the bomber. [More>>aljazeera.net]

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2.17.08 Bulgarian mufti's office hit by anti-Islam graffiti

February 17 - Graffiti proclaiming "Turks, die!" was found scrawled outside the building of Bulgaria's grand mufti Saturday, adding to mounting slurs against the country's large Muslim population, his office said. "These acts disturb us. Our anxiety is heightened by the fact that mosques, schools and other buildings related to our religion are desecrated almost every month," the office of Grand Mufti Mustafa Alish Hadzhi said in a statement.

The 45-year-old cleric appealed to the Bulgarian government to take urgent measures to find the culprits of the graffiti, which was apparently sprayed on the facade of the building Friday night, it said. About 12 percent of Bulgaria's population of 7.6 million is Muslim, the latest census conducted in 2001 showed. [More>>alarabiya.net]

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2.16.08 Suspected Danish cartoon rioters torch cars

February 17 - Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen after demonstrators evicted from a youth centre earlier in the year tried to occupy a new building. Five youths were arrested in the capital after 28 cars and 35 garbage trucks were burned, Copenhagen police duty officer Jakob Kristensen said. Danish media said arrests in other towns brought to 29 the number of people police were holding. Scores of cars and several schools have been vandalized or burned in the past week.

Police could give no reason, but said that unusually mild weather and the closure of schools for a winter break might have contributed. Police arrested two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent on Tuesday for planning to kill a cartoonist who drew one of the cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper two years ago that roused a storm of protest in Muslim countries. [More>>news.com.au]

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2.16.08 Bird flu kills 16-year-old boy in Indonesia

JAKAARTA (AP) February 16 - A 16-year-old Indonesian boy from Central Java province has died of bird flu, bringing the nation's death toll from the illness to 104, the Health Ministry said Saturday. The boy became ill on Feb. 3 with a cough and other respiratory symptoms, according to the Health Ministry's Web site. He died a week later in a hospital in the city of Solo, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of the capital, Jakarta, said Sumardi, a ministry spokesman. Like he many Indonesians, he goes by one name. [More>>thejakartapost.com]

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2.16.08 F.B.I. received unauthorized E-mail access

WASHINGTON, February 17 - A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.

F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said. Bureau officials noticed a “surge” in the e-mail activity they were monitoring and realized that the provider had mistakenly set its filtering equipment to trap far more data than a judge had actually authorized. [More>.nytimes.com]

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2.16.08 Parachinar blast claims 37 lives: Interior Ministry

ISLAMABAD, February 16 - The interior ministry confirmed that at least 37 people were killed in Parachinar suicide blast Saturday outside an election office of an independent candidate backed by PPP. "The death toll is now 37," interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said after the attack in the northwestern tribal town of Parachinar, bordering Afghanistan. The ministry confirmed that the blast was suicide attack. "Twenty-one people died and 93 were injured. It's a very severe emergency, a lot of the wounded are in a critical condition," a doctor at the main hospital in Parachinar was quoted as saying earlier.

A correspondent of an international news agency present at the hospital said he had counted at least 21 dead bodies. Talking to media, a security official earlier said that a suicide bomber attacked a Pakistan People's Party meeting outside the party office in Parachinar. "A man with long hair drove a car into the crowd and blew himself up," a witness added. Another security official said the blast happened outside the office of local PPP candidate Riaz Hussain in Parachinar, the main town in the Kurram tribal region. In a separate incident in the nearby Bajaur tribal area militants blew up a polling station with a time bomb, police said. [>thenews.com.pk]

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2.15.08 Bleak new batch of data on economy

February 15 - A fresh batch of data on Friday presented a bleak picture of the economy, with rising prices of imported goods, struggling manufacturing and an erosion in consumer confidence. With the price of oil near record levels, import costs grew in January at the highest annual rate in a quarter century, the Labor Department said. In New York, manufacturing activity fell to its lowest level in five years. And consumers, responding to a national survey, said they felt worse about the economy than any time since the recession era of the early 1990s.

...The price of imports rose 1.7 percent in January and was up 13.7 year over year, the highest annual rate since the Labor Department records began in 1983. Fuel costs led the rise, ballooning by 5.5 percent last month. Imported food and beverages also cost more in January, and the price of Chinese goods ticked up by 0.8 percent. Export prices rose 1.2 percent, and American companies are also charging more for food, industrial supplies, and agricultural products. Sales of imports are lagging even as export sales surge. The trade deficit narrowed in 2007 for the first time in five years, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

Manufacturers’ woes were reflected in the Empire State Manufacturing survey, a measure of business conditions in New York State. The index fell in February to -11.7, its lowest reading since April 2003 and the first negative reading in three years. A sharp drop in orders and payrolls led the decline, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Meanwhile, a closely watched measure of consumer confidence, the Reuters/University of Michigan survey, fell to 69.6 in February, the lowest reading since February 1992. It had stood at 78.4 in January. Consumers are likely cowed by a softening labor market — the Labor Department said employers cut 17,000 jobs last month — and rising inflation, which is forcing Americans to cut back on spending. [Full story>>nytimes.com ; See related story, washingtonpost.com, February 15, "Countrywide says foreclosure rate at new record."]

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2.15.08 Watchdog resigns over accountability

WASHINGTON, February 15 - The head of the audit and investigative arm of the US Congress announced his resignation Friday, citing "real limitations" on what he could do. A respected voice on fiscal matters, David Walker said he was making an early departure from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to head a new public interest foundation.

"As Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO, there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO's client - the Congress," Mr. Walker said.

He did not elaborate but Walker last year issued an unusually downbeat assessment of his country's future in a report that drew parallels with the end of the Roman empire. He had warned that the US government was on a "burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action was not taken soon. There were striking similarities between America's current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, he had said. [More>>news.com.au]

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2.15.08 Danish imams urge calm as cartoon protests mount

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) February 15 - Danish Muslim preachers sought to soothe Muslim anger on Friday after newspapers reprinted a drawing of the Prophet Mohammad which caused outrage in Islamic countries two years ago. Danish papers republished one of the drawings of Mohammad on Wednesday in protest against what they said was a plot to murder the cartoonist who drew it.

Mostafa Chendid, an imam at the Islamic Faith Community, said Danish media had confused freedom of expression with the freedom to insult others. But he called for all Muslims to "cool down" and "turn the other cheek," rather than pursue a violence, saying this would harm Islam the same way the cartoons had...Five leading Danish daily newspapers and more than 10 smaller papers have reprinted Westergaard's cartoon, which shows the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban. Most Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet as offensive. [Full story>>thestar.com.my]

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2.15.08 Scientists find solar system similar to ours

BEIJING (xinhuanet) February 15 - An international team of astronomers has discovered a miniature version of our own solar system nearly 5,000 light years away, according to a report published Friday in the journal Science. "We found a solar system that looks like a scaled-down analog of our solar system," Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University, who led the study, told reporters.

In the newly discovered system, a planet about two-thirds of the mass of Jupiter and another about 90 percent of the mass of Saturn are orbiting a reddish star about half the mass of the sun, at about half the distances that Jupiter and Saturn circle the sun. "So it looks like a scale model of our solar system," Gaudi said. The discovery relied on 11 different ground-based telescopes in places including New Zealand, Tasmania, Israel, Chile, the Canary Islands and the United States, the report said. [>xinhuanet.com]

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2.15.08 Iraqi Shiite worshippers attacked; 4 die

BAGHDAD (AP) February 15 - Two suicide bombers, one armed with a grenade as well as an explosive vest, killed at least four people and wounded 17 as worshippers left a Shiite mosque after Friday prayers in the northwestern city of Tal Afar. The explosions came on a day when the U.S. military and Iraqis were at odds over who was killed in a raid earlier this week, also in this country's restive north. The Americans and their Iraqi allies are pushing to take control of the region, where insurgent fighters are making a stand with their influence diminished in Baghdad and other areas. The suicide bombers struck the Sheik Juwad mosque in Tal Afar, about 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. [More>>indianexpress.com: hosted.ap.org]

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2.14.08 Al-Qaeda in Iraq threatens Israel

CAIRO, Egypt (Ap) February 14 - The purported leader of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq called in a new posting on a militant Web site on Thursday for attacks on Israel and proposed that Iraq's territory be a "launching pad" to seize Jerusalem. In the 30-minute audiotape, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, said to head the Islamic State of Iraq, lashed out at Arab and Palestinian groups — especially the Palestinian Hamas — for failing to liberate the Palestinians.

He also called on Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, to break away from the group's political leadership and liberate Jerusalem, or Al-Quds as the city is called in Arabic. The new posting came as Israeli security instructed embassies and Jewish institutions around the world to go on alert for fear of revenge attacks for a car bomb that killed a top-wanted terrorist, Imad Mughniyeh, late Tuesday in the Syrian capital. [More>>indianexpress.com: hosted.ap.org]

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2.14.08 UBS warns of a difficult 2008 as profits dive

February 14 - UBS, Europe's largest bank, confirmed its first loss in a decade today as it fell SwFr 4.4 billion (£2 billion) into the red and wrote off $13.7 billion (£7 billion) on investments related to US sub-prime mortgages. In the fourth quarter UBS reported a loss of SwFr12.5 billion, in line with the bank's forecast at the end of January, compared with a net profit of SwFr3.4 billion in the final quarter of 2006.

UBS's sudden fall from grace happened in the second half of 2007, after a record-breaking first six months of the year when the bank produced a net profit of SwFr8.9 billion. The bank said today that it expected 2008 "to be another difficult year" on top of last year, which Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS, who took on the role after Peter Wuffli resigned last year, described as "one of the most difficult in our history." [More>>timesonline.co.uk]

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2.14.08 'We'll shoot anyone who crosses border'

February 14 - A top Hamas delegation crossed into Egypt Thursday to meet up with Egyptian officials wanting to make clear that no further breaches of its border with the Gaza Strip will be tolerated, a security official said. The Hamas delegation, led by Mahmoud Zahar, came at the Egyptian request, after they received reports that the Islamist organization was planning to forcibly reopen the borders again at the end of the month, the official said speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "The Egyptians will tell Hamas bluntly that the old self-restraint manner is over and that Egyptian security guards have been given orders to open fire on any Palestinians trying to cross the border," the official said. [More>>jpost.com]

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2.14.08 Nasrallah: Mughniyah's blood will lead to elimination of Israel

February 14 - Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday threatened to retaliate against Israel for the killing of militant commander Imad Mughniyah Tuesday, saying "his blood will lead to the elimination of Israel." Mughniyah, the deputy secretary general of the Lebanon-based guerilla group, was killed in a bomb blast in a residential neighborhood in Damascus late Tuesday. Israel denied involvement. Nasrallah also vowed to strike Israeli targets abroad after accusing Israel of taking the fight beyond Lebanese borders by killing Mughniyah in Syria.

"You have killed Hajj Imad outside the natural battlefield," Nasrallah said, addressing Israel and referring to Hezbollah's longtime contention it only fights Israel within Lebanon and along their common border. "You have crossed the borders," Nasrallah said in the fiery eulogy at Mughniyah's funeral in south Beirut. "With this murder, its timing, location and method - Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open." [More>>haaretz.com]

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2.14.08 UAE emirate bans manneqins from shops

DUBAI (AFP) February 14 - The emirate of Sharjah, a conservative member of the United Arab Emirates, has banned realistic mannequins from window displays and shops, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.The municipality of Sharjah, neighbor to booming Dubai, imposed the ban in line with a fatwa — religious edict — issued by the local Islamic affairs department, the Arabic-language daily Al-Emarat Al-Yaum said. The fatwa bans the use of female dummies unless "the head is taken away or the features of the face are erased," municipality official Khaled al-Jabri told the paper. [>alarabiya.net]

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2.14.08 Russia could aim rockets at European missile shield - Putin

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) February 14 - Russia may have to retarget some of its rockets at the missile defenses that the U.S. is planning to deploy in Central Europe, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. "Our experts believe the system threatens our national security," Putin said at his final annual news conference in the Kremlin. "If it appears, we will be forced to respond appropriately - we will have to retarget part of our systems against those missiles." He also said Russia could be forced to redirect its missiles at Ukraine if NATO bases are deployed in the country. [More>>rian.ru ; See related story, independent.co.uk, February 14, "Ukraine set to outlaw NATO bases after Russian threats."]

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2.14.08 Philippines on alert after plot

MANILA, February 14 - The Philippine authorities went on high alert Thursday after the discovery of what officials said was a plot to assassinate President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The supposed plot was made public by the chief of the president's security staff on Thursday, one day before planned demonstrations here by groups accusing her of corruption and demanding her resignation.

According to Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, head of the presidential security group, the plot was hatched by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group and by Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian extremist Islamic network that authorities say has been operating in the southern Philippines. "If they want to launch it, they can do it anytime," General Prestoza told reporters Thursday, adding that the plot had forced Ms. Arroyo to cancel a trip to a northern city, Baguio, set for Friday [More>>nytimes.com ; See also inquirer.net]

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2.14.08 Microfiber fabric makes its own electricity?

CHICAGO (Reuters) February 14 - US scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that generates its own electricity, making enough current to recharge a cell phone or ensure that a small MP3 music player never runs out of power. If made into a shirt, the fabric could harness power from its wearer simply walking around or even from a slight breeze, they reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. "The fiber-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from the physical movement," Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who led the study, said in a statement.

The nanogenerator takes advantage of the semiconductive properties of zinc oxide nanowires — tiny wires 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair — embedded into the fabric. The wires are formed into pairs of microscopic brush-like structures, shaped like a baby-bottle brush. One of the fibers in each pair is coated with gold and serves as an electrode. As the bristles brush together through a person's body movement, the wires convert the mechanical motion into electricity. [More>>khaleejtimes.com]

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2.14.08 Korea secures right to develop oil in Iraq

February 14 - A consortium of Korean energy companies secured the rights to develop oil fields in northern Iraq yesterday, giving Asia's fourth-largest economy a firm foothold in the coveted oil-rich region. The consortium of local companies, led by state-run Korea National Oil Corporation, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Seoul allowing the development of 1 billion to 2 billion barrels of untapped crude oil, the KNOC said yesterday.

The "package deal" permits the consortium to tap into the oil fields while calling for it to help in building some of the infrastructure needed by Iraq's autonomous region to prosper and sustain growth, the KNOC said. [More>>koreaherald.co.kr]

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2.14.08 Ghosts and monsters are now banned in China

February 14 - China has added ghosts, monsters and other things that go bump in the night to its list of banned video and audio content in an intensified crackdown ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Producers have around three weeks to look through their tapes for "horror" and report it to authorities, the General Administration of Press and Publications said.

Offending content included "wronged spirits and violent ghosts, monsters, demons, and other inhuman portrayals, strange and supernatural storytelling for the sole purpose of seeking terror and horror," the administration said. The new guidelines aim to "control and cleanse the negative effect these items have on society, and to prevent horror, violent, cruel publications from entering the market through official channels and to protect adolescents' psychological health." [More>>news.com.au]

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2.09.08 General: Iran ready to teach US lesson

TEHRAN (Xinhua) February 9 - Iran's Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firouzabadi has said that his country's armed forces are ready to teach the United States a lesson if it crosses the line, Iran's state-run Press TV channel reported on Saturday. "America's enmity towards Iran stems from the fact that they know Iran's revolutionary ideology is against their quest for domination," Firouzabadi was quoted as saying in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad. The senior Iranian general reiterated that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and challenged the United States to prove its accusation that Tehran may be using civilian program as a cover to develop atomic weapons. [More>>xinhuanet.com]

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2.09.08 ANP election rally suicide attack death toll rises to 25

CHARSADDA, Pakistan, February 9 - A suspected suicide blast ripped through an opposition election rally in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 35 others, reports said. The attack happened at a rally of the Awami National Party (ANP), an ethnic Pashtun nationalist party, in the town of Charsadda in troubled North West Frontier Province, they said.

The bombing has further raised fears for the security of general elections on February 18, which have already been delayed by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at a rally in December. Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said the attack was likely carried out by a suicide bomber. "Yes, it was most probably a suicide attack. It was close to the stage but none of the ANP leaders there were hurt," Nawaz said. [More>>thenews.com.pk ; See also news.com.au (AFP), February 9, "Suicide bomber kills 20 at election rally."]

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2.09.08 31 Shiites detained south of Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AP) February 9 - Iraqi police arrested 31 Shiite activists Saturday in early morning raids south of Baghdad, and five American soldiers were killed in two roadside bombings, officials said. The US troops were killed Friday — four in Baghdad and one in the northern Tamim province, the military said. At least 3,958 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Saturday marked a third day of US and Iraqi operations in an area that includes several Shiite holy cities — raising tension with some Shiite tribesmen and fighters who have pledged to halt attacks. [More>>indianexpress.com: hosted.ap.org]

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2.09.08 Turkey's Parliament votes to lift head scarf ban

ISTANBUL, Turkey, February 9 - Turkey's parliament took a major step toward lifting a ban against women's head scarves in universities on Saturday, setting the stage for a final showdown with the country's secular elite over where Islam fits in the building of an open society. Turkish lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a measure supported by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to change two articles in Turkey's Constitution that they say would guarantee every citizen the right to go to college regardless of how they dress. Turkish authorities imposed the ban in the late 1990's, arguing that the growing numbers of covered women in colleges threatened secularism, one of the founding principles of modern Turkey. [More>>nytimes.com]

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2.09.08 Christians sue 'Tempo' for blasphemy

JAKARTA, February 10 - A Christian youth alliance has announced it is suing Tempo magazine for blasphemy. The Alliance of Christian Students and Youths (AMPK) said Friday the weekly news magazine's cover depicting a satirical version of Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper was a violation of Article 156 of the Criminal Code on public defamation, hostility and hatred against certain communities, including religious groups. A conviction carries a maximum four-year jail sentence.

The lawsuit came despite the magazine apologizing for the controversial cover, which it said