Sid Douglas

Share this

Wary that Hong Kong police might move into protest areas and destroy the array of art created inside the grounds of the democracy movement, a band of “art guardians” has been standing by in case they are needed.

The protests have extended over a month, calling for greater democracy within Hong Kong. The Chinese government continues to deny the calls.

Within the kilometer-long stretch of highway opposite the government headquarters that is the site of the ongoing protest, many pieces of protest art have been created–including the famous “Umbrella Man,” a 12-foot tall wooden sculpture. The umbrella is symbolic of the defense of the people against police batons as well as rain and tropical heat.

New works are constantly being made. Demonstrators sketch chalk art on roads and fold origami umbrellas. Almost all of the walls and pillars is now decorated with art.

The art guardians are ready to protect this art, should police be called in, according to the members.

“Their job is to call me,” Meaghan McGurgan, who runs a theatre blog and founded the Umbrella Movement Art Preservation group. “I can then mobilise the rescue teams standing by.”

This is a people’s art, according to McGurgan. “Everyone can see it, everyone can go, everyone can participate.”

There is currently nowhere for the art to go, however.

“We phoned the museums,” McGurgan said. “They either didn’t get back to us, or said they wouldn’t take the art as it was political. I thought that was really sad.”

A dozen art galleries have offered to take the works temporarily.

Even the “Lennon Wall”–a wall covered in thousands of sticky notes posted by both supporters and detractors of the movement–will be reassembled, according to McGurdan.

“We’ve taken large-scale photographs from far away and gridded them off into sections. If necessary we can put it all together again like a puzzle later on.”

As a last resort, the art guardians will allow the art to be destroyed, McGurdan said. If the police move in and the guardians can’t safely get the art out, they will do their best to document “the destruction of something beautiful”.

By Sid Douglas

Share this

Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken direct control of a key law enforcement agency, according to Communist Party state-run media outlets.

In order to focus concern on the reform of China’s legal system, Xi took direct charge over China’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC). Xi’s taking charge was an “upgrade” of the government’s control of the agency, according to media outlets–members of the Politburo Standing Committee had been in charge of PLAC in times past.

Xi criticized government corruption harshly at a Central PLAC meeting early this year, and vowed to eliminate corruption and corrupt officials with “the strongest will and the strongest action.”

Xi’s government put former PLAC leader Zhou Yongkang–a top ally of former Chineseleader Jiang Zemin–under formal investigation in July. Under Zhou, PLAC had become a highly powerful organization in charge of all law enforcement authorities, including the Ministry of Public Security, the Armed Police, the courts, the Procuratorate, and prison and labor camps.

Religious practitioners such as Falun Gong members were persecuted under PLAC’s authority, after being banned in 1999. Practitioners were detained, tortured and brainwashed under Zhou.

Petitioners and rights defenders were also suppressed under PLAC and Zhou.

By Sid Douglas

Share this

Although mountain glaciers around the world are melting at increasing rates in our warming climates, at least one range is unaffected. Pakistan’s Karakoram range, the highest point in Pakistan and the source of much of the water of the Indus River, is not melting–and scientists expect that it will not melt, but may put on snowmass in coming years.

Scientists are not sure why Karakoram range is not melting. An early theory was that the range was covered in rubble that may have had an insulating effect.

But now, researchers at Princeton University think they may have a better answer: seasonal weather patterns.

In their recent report, “Snowfall less sensitive to warming in Karakoram than in Himalayas due to a unique seasonal cycle,” the scientists credit Karakoram’s snowmass retention to temperatures that never rise enough to melt mountain glaciers–all year round.

Although most of the Himalaya’s experience heavy summer rains stemming from the South Asian monsoon, which far outweigh winter snows, this is not the case in Karakoram, where cold winter winds from Central Asia bear most of the precipitation. The South Asian monsoon seldom reaches Karakoram–it is uniquely blocked by the Great Himalayan Range to the south.

Investigating Karakoram for data has been a challenge. The topography of the area is extreme. K2 and three other pinnacles exceed 8,000 meters. In the past, researchers relied on average altitudes for the region, but the Princeton study used high-resolution maps and monthly precipitation data to create climate model simulations from 1861 to 2100.

While Karakoram does experience some warming in summer, the higher slopes were too cold in summer for glaciers to melt, the researchers found.

Not only are the glaciers and snowmass above 4,500 meters not melting, the scientists expect them to remain until at least 2100, which is good news for Pakistan.

The range provides water to most of Pakistan through the Indus River. Although snow and ice at lower altitudes will melt, these declines will be offset by the higher cold. The cold upper regions provide water at a controlled rate, rather than the boom-bust cycle of flood and dry associated with sudden melts.

The rest of the Himalayas are bound to melt too, the researchers believe. They expect sharp glacial declines in coming years.

“Something that climate scientists always have to keep in mind is that models are useful for certain types of questions and not necessarily for other types of questions,” said Sarah Kapnick, a postdoctoral research fellow in Princeton’s Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and lead researcher on the work. “While the IPCC models can be particularly useful for other parts of the world, you need a higher resolution for this area.”

By Sid Douglas

Share this

Despite Attempts by recruiters from organizations such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), Xinjiang Uighurs will not join the jihadist movements of Islamic caliphates, according to exile Uighur activists. Uighurs do not share the same ideology, according to the activists, despite caliphate claims that the region should be “recovered [into] the shade of the Islamic Caliphate.”

These claims will have “little impact,” said Alim Seytoff, president of the Uyghur American Association and director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project in a recent interview.

“These claims are mostly likely attempts by these groups to lure and recruit disillusioned young Uighurs to their cause. That is not going to happen because Uighurs do not share their ideology.”

“The Uighur people will simply ignore such claims,” said Seytoff.

The Chinese government, which administers the far-western province of Xinjiang, has taken advantage of recent Islamist terrorist movements, according to Seytoff.

“China has been opportunistically taking advantage of the rise of ISIS and attempting to artificially create links between ISIS and the Uighurs in the world in order to mute international criticism of its systematic and egregious human rights violations of the Uighur people in East Turkistan,” he said.

“This has not prevented the Chinese government from demonizing the Uighurs as supporters and sympathizers of these groups in order to justify its heavy-handed repression of the Uighur people since 9/11.”

By Sid Douglas

Share this

China executed more people than the rest of the world combined, according to a nonprofit US-based rights group. China executed 2,400 people in 2013, three times the number executed by the 195 other countries, which executed a total of 778 people.

“China currently executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined, but it has executed far fewer people since the power of final review of death sentences was returned to the (Supreme People’s Court) in 2007,” said the nonprofit human rights foundation, Dui Hua, which seeks clemency and better treatment for at-risk detainees.

Courts in China used final review to send 39 percent of death sentences back to lower courts for additional evidence in 2013, and 10 percent of the verdicts were overturned.

Executions are treated as state secrets in China. Amnesty International, which collects information on death sentences around the world, was forced to abandon publishing statistics on death penalties in China in 2009 because of the difficulty in obtaining information from Chinese authorities.

According to Amnesty, death sentences worldwide increased in 2013–14 percent. The total death sentences in 2013 were 778. Eighty percent of those 778 were recorded in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Iran executed 369 people and Iraq executed 169.

Most of the 23,392 people (excluding Chinese executions since 2009) recorded by Amnesty have been executed for offenses related to drugs.

China also uses the death penalty as punishment for drug trafficking, as well as corruption offenses.

Dui Hua estimated that the 2,400 figure was down 20 percent from the previous year, and that China would likely execute the same number of people in 2014.

The report was published in the Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Weekly. Information for the report was based on a judicial official who had access to the annual number of executions, reportedly.

By Sid Douglas

Share this

Since 1970, the glaciers of Peru have decreased by over 40 percent, according to the National Water Authority of Peru (ANA), causing concern regarding the hydroelectric plants, agricultural basins and cities that lie below–particularly in the dry coastal region where most Peruvians live.

Peru used satellite images to inventory their glaciers ahead of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 20), which Peru will host in December.

ANA found that 40 percent of Peru’s glaciers had melted since 19070, and some glaciers had lost more than half of their surface to melting during that time. The worst affected, the 5,200 meter (17,000 foot) Pastoruri Glacier, situated in the Andes Mountains, lost 52 percent of its surface in the last four decades.

The melts have created nearly 1,000 new lagoons, according to the ANA.

Peru has 2,670 glaciers in 20 mountain ranges that cover approximately 2,000 square kilometers (770 square miles).

The glaciers feed hydroelectric plants and irrigate agricultural basins and cities below,

Peru is one of the world’s most biodiverse nations. Below the snowy Andes Mountains lie Amazon rainforests. The coastal region, where most of Peru’s population lives, is dry, and environmentalists have raised concerns about the impact of the melting glaciers on these populated areas.

Peru is the third most sensitive country when it comes to the impacts of climate change, according to Britain’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Changes in Peru’s glaciers could have a significant impact on precipitation and water availability.

Lima has a population of almost 10 million. It is the world’s second largest desert city after Cairo, Egypt. Lima relies mostly on non-glacial water supplies–specifically, 20 regulated lakes in the Andes, runoff from Yuramayo Lake, and the Rimac and Chillon rivers. However, Lima’s water supply is currently strained due to its growing population, and only 80 percent of Limans have access to running water.

The ANA warned that the Peruvian government needed to adopt preventative measures to protect water resources in the face of natural disasters.

By Sid Douglas

Share this

Uhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, arrived at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague Wednesday for a hearing over his indictment on charges of crimes against humanity. Kenyatta is the first sitting leader to appear at the ICC, and his trial court proceedings are taking place as Kenya is under threat from active militant groups in the region.

Kenyatta is accused of orchestrating a wave of violence in Kenya in 2007. The violence followed a set of contested elections. Kenyatta has denied the charges.

Kenyatta and his allies have warned that the trial poses a risk of destabilization for Kenya, where an active threat exists. Al-Qaeda-linked militant Islamists in Somalia are conducting ongoing attacks in the region.

“This is no time to weaken a country and a region by removing its President for trial,” said Mahboub Maalim, head of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) regional organization, who attended the hearing.

The ICC has secured only two convictions in its 11 years of service. Both convictions were of Congolese warlords for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

All of the ICC’s cases to date have been in Africa. Many Africans leaders continue to ignore the court, and the African Union has decided not to cooperate with the ICC.

The ICC has 34 judges, over 700 staff, and a budget of $166 million annually. To date, the court has cost $2 billion.

By Sid Douglas