The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stated Saturday that pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine were obliged to abide by international law and protect civilians.
If separatists break international law, Pillay said, the international community can bring them to justice.
“These groups are obliged to respect international law, and they need to protect civilians. If they do not, the international community can hold them to account. We have the International Criminal Court, which is going against these groups.
The UN High Commissioner’s were reported by Deutsche Welle Saturday.
Pillay said that all governments that have any influence on the separatists should apply that influence.
She also likened the situation in Ukraine to situations in Africa, where the has also had a strong presence policing, providing care and mediating the conflict.
“The UN High Commissioner for human rights violations reacts very quickly,” said Pillay. “After the conflict broke out in the eastern Ukraine and the Central African Republic, our teams were to initiate investigations in a short time on the ground.
“In Ukraine, we have documented extensive violations of human rights. People in conflict situations can contact us directly and put forward their cases. But many governments take human rights more seriously than before. So let all UN member states review their human rights by the UN. Experts of the UN Human Rights Council to control the situation and make recommendations.”
Pillay qualified her statement abut the responsiveness of the UN by noting that sometimes the UN is held back because it can often only act after the outbreak of conflict or violence.
Sixteen-year-old Nick Rubin has created a free app intended to show the main sources of US politicians’ funding. The app was designed to allow users to scroll over the names of all members of Congress on any webpage to see a list of the top ten industries from which each receives money.
Rubin’s stated goal was to promote transparency, which Rubin said he believed would help fix the problem of people not understanding the role of money in politics. He hoped that internet users would use it daily while reading about politics online. “For example, if you’re reading a piece on Congress votes for energy policy,” Rubin said of his app, “you might see that a sponsor has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry. I like to say that Greenhouse allows people to see the money story behind the news story.”
Rubin also hoped the app would help voters make election decisions. “Once people are informed, they will reject elected officials who are motived by money instead of principles.”
The app provides 2012 data from the last full election cycle when scrolling over a politician’s name, but clicking the politician’s name links to 2014 data from OpenSecrets.org.
“Greenhouse provides access to the most up-to-date 2014 data on OpenSecrets.org by clicking on the name of the member of Congress in the popups,” Rubin told The Speaker. “Greenhouse popups currently use the totals from the last full election cycle (generally 2011-12 for Representatives and 2007-12 for Senators) because it is the most complete and 2014 data to date underrepresents the amounts of campaign dollars in an election cycle. Data in the popup will be updated later in this election cycle.”
Rubin told us that he was motivated to pursue this line of interest after giving a presentation on corporate personhood in 7th grade. “What this did was introduce me to the concepts of campaign finance and the issue of money-in-government I wasn’t as interested in corporate personhood, and may have been too young to truly understand it. But the campaign finance issue grabbed my eye because it really made me angry. I remember asking my dad (a few times) ‘How is this legal?'”
Tel-Aviv University researchers have found that agreeing with people on controversial issues causes them to reconsider their opinions, becoming more accepting of differing points of view.
The study, “Paradoxical thinking as a new avenue of intervention to promote peace,” was completed by Boaz Hameiria, RoniPoratc, Daniel Bar-Tald, AtaraBielerb, and Eran Halperinb, and was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month.
The researchers subjected study participants to videos of extreme versions of their beliefs–“consistent, though extreme, information” in the words of the researchers–and found that the participants sometimes came to view their opinions as irrational or absurd.
One hundred and fifty Israelis were repeatedly exposed to video clips that related to Palestinians, from the perspective of an extremist Israeli set of values. A control group watched neutral TV commercials.
The videos illustrated how the conflict with Palestine was consistent with many Israeli beliefs.
“For example, the fact that they are the most moral society in the world is one of the most basic beliefs of Israeli society,” said Eran Halperin, a psychologist at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel and one of the authors of the study. So when the researchers showed participants a video that claimed Israel should continue the conflict so that its citizens could continue to feel moral, people reacted angrily.
“You take people’s most basic beliefs and turn them into something that is absurd. For an outsider, it can sound like a joke, but for them, you are playing with their most fundamental belief.”
After being shown videos over a months-long period, participants were found to exhibit a 30 percent increase in willingness to re-evaluate their opinions on the responsibility for the conflict. The effects persisted one year after the study concluded. The study participants also reported voting more often for moderate parties, suggesting changed behavior in addition to changed opinions.
The researchers noted, however, that some study participants were effected in the opposite way, taking the videos at face value and assimilating the extreme messages into their opinions.
The significance of this work, according to the researchers, lies in a premise of most interventions that aim to promote peacemaking–that information that is inconsistent with held beliefs causes tension, which may motivate alternative information seeking.
The researchers said that they supposed facts were not at the heart of disagreements. “We truly believe that in most intractable conflicts, the real problems are not the real issues,” Halperin said. Although both sides of a conflict may know how to find resolution, “psychological barriers… prevent societies from identifying opportunities for peace.”
A recent study by Pennsylvania State and the University of Texas has looked at the varying levels of generosity exhibited by people around the world, and has found that, although some countries are much more generous than others, the issue is more complex than some might think.
The report, “Accepting Inequality Deters Responsibility: How Power Distance Decreases Charitable Behavior,” was completed by Pennsylvania State Smeal College of Business’ Karen Winterich, assistant professor of marketing, and Yinlong Zhang of the University of Texas-San Antonio, and will be published in the Journal of Consumer Research’s August edition.
“Our research examines whether cultural values can explain the different levels of charitable giving between different countries,” the authors stated. “Could power distance, which is the extent that inequality is expected and accepted, explain why some countries and consumers are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior, including donations of both money and time?”
The researchers looked at prosocial behaviors such as giving money, volunteering time and helping strangers, and found that some countries are much more generous than others. Across the world, 28 percent of people donate money, but in China, Greece and Russia, for example, only 10 percent or less do. In Australia, Ireland and Canada, over 60 percent donate money. Ten percent of Indians, Bulgarians and Singaporeans volunteer their time, while over 40 percent of Canadians, Americans and Liberians do.
The researcher found, however, that one notable factor had a marked influence on generosity in the least generous nations. The less generous nations were willing to aid victims of natural disasters and other circumstances deemed out of the personal control of the needy, but were not willing to help those people they considered to be “at fault” for their situation, such as the obese and sedentary.
The most generous nations were more willing to help all because, the researchers said, culturally they were less accepting or expectant of inequality in wealth and power.
“In a high power distance society, inequality is seen as the basis of societal order,” wrote the authors. “Uncontrollable need increases feelings of responsibility to offer aid among those who otherwise would not feel responsible to offer aid for a need that is controllable and may simply be part of the accepted inequality in society.”
A new joint collaboration between Tel Aviv University, Columbia University’s Medical Center, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has demonstrated that life events can effect the genetic heritage of an organism’s immediate descendants. The Columbia team was able to show that transgenerational memory is passed on through an organism’s short RNAs for at least three generations.
“It shows that our experiences shape our inheritance… and that’s there’s a memory of our ancestors’ lives,” Tel Aviv’s OdedRechavi, lead researcher on the project, told The Speaker.
The study, “Starvation-Induced Transgenerational Inheritance of Small RNAs in C. elegans,” was completed by Leah Houri-Ze’evi, SaritAnava, Wee Siong Sho Goh, Sze Yen Kerk, Gregory J. Hannon and Oliver Hobert, in addition to Rechavi. The study was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical institute and was published in the June 10 edition of Cell.
In its research, the team demonstrated that drastic environmental changes, such as famine, can cause genetic changes that are passed down through at least three consecutive generations.
The team demonstrated this using roundworms. The team starved roundworms for six days and examined their cells. The starved roundworms were found to have developed a specific set of small RNAs.
Small RNAs are a type of non-coding RNA (ncRNA), functional RNA molecules that are not translated into protein (as are DNA). Many ncRNAs have been newly identified in recent years, and have not yet been validated for their function. Small RNAs are involved in various aspects of genetic expression.
Dr. Oded Rechavi
“Small RNA-induced gene silencing can persist over several generations via transgenerationally inherited small RNA molecules in C. elegans,” stated Rachavi. Starvation induced changes in the roundworms’ small RNA were inherited by subsequent generations. The genetic inheritance took place apparently independent of DNA involvement.
Based on evidence of human famines and animal studies, it had long been suspected that starvation can affect the health of descendants, but the means by which such genetic inheritance was conveyed was not known.
“[E]vents like the Dutch famine of World War II have compelled scientists to take a fresh look at acquired inheritance,” said Oliver Hobert, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Animal studies have been conducted showing that, like humans who give birth during famine, animals such as rats can be caused to produce thin or obese offspring.
Roundworms were used in another small RNA-related study in 2011, when they were used to show that virus immunity developed during a parent’s life could be passed on to offspring for many generations through small RNA viral-silencing.
Hobert suspected that the small RNAs were somehow finding their way into the worms’ sperm and egg cells. “When the worms reproduced, the small RNAs could have been transmitted from one generation to the next in the cell body of the germ cells, independent of the DNA.”
How small RNAs were entering germ cells, and what types of biological experiences were registered by small RNA changes, Rechavi told The Speaker, “is a completely uncharted area.”
Rechavi said that the response to an organism’s environment was, however, “not necessarily only dietary related. In theory… any response that would produce a strong systemic small RNA response could be heritable. It’s not clear exactly how small RNAs find their way to the germline, but in worms several genes that enable cell-to-cell transfer of small RNAs have been discovered.”
In Rechavi’s previous work he has demonstrated that human immune cells, such as T or NK cells, can exchange small RNAs with other cells, and that some small RNAs can be found circulating in human blood.
“In general, I would suspect that it would be worth ‘memorizing,’ or producing a heritable response,” Rechavi told us, “cues which are really important for the survival of the organism.”
The implications of the study include that the biology of inheritance is more complicated than previously thought.
“[They] suggest that we should be aware of other things—beyond pure DNA changes—that may have a long-term impact on the health of an organism,” said Dr. Hobert. “In other words, something that happened to one generation, whether famine or some other traumatic event, may be relevant to the health of its descendants for generations.”
The study has also been said to give weight to the long-dismissed Lamarckian theory of genetics, which proposed that organisms adapt to their environment and pass on adaptations to offspring. Lamarckian genetics has traditionally been contrasted with Darwinian genetics, which theorized that all mutations were random, and the randomly mutated offspring were selected by nature according to their success surviving and reproducing.
Next for Rechavi and his team is to further pursue an understanding of the effects of environment on genetics. “We are testing how stable these effects are,” Dr. Rechavi told us. “exactly how the small RNAs are produced, and which regulated genes are most important in the process. We are also interested in examining the generality of this mechanism. This could be an important mechanism that acts side by side along with the traditional DNA-based inheritance mechanism.”
Posing as hundreds of models, celebrities, and professionally-photographed schoolgirls, and displaying profile descriptions taken from journalists, choreographers and other professionals, China has been caught using Twitter for a mass propaganda campaign aimed at spreading the Chinese government’s messages about Tibet, while Tibetans are denied free speech rights by the Chinese government.
The propaganda campaign was uncovered by Tibet rights group Free Tibet, working with the New York Times.
The fake profiles were composed of photographs of attractive Westerners, taken from professional photographers’ websites, commercial stock image libraries, and other internet resources, combined with profile descriptions taken from Western professionals, and have genuine followers.
The Chinese government’s messages on Tibet were spread through these accounts by means of copying messages from English-language Chinese websites that agree with the Chinese government, attacking the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and portraying Tibet as a “contented and idyllic Chinese province,” according to Free Tibet.
The accounts were also used for other types of political spam, such as adding the word “Tibet” into unrelated tweets to drown out legitimate Tibet-related content on the internet.
The fake accounts also spread messages about other Chinese government interests, such as the ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.
Around 100 fake accounts have been identified, but Free Tibet suspects there to be hundreds more.
Free Tibet compiled a detailed report on the fake accounts, and submitted it to Twitter, urging Twitter to prevent abusive propaganda.
“A company of Twitter’s size and highprofile must take responsibility for failing to prevent abuse on this scale for the political purposes of an authoritarian regime,” wrote Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren. “These accounts are an act of cynical deception designed to manipulate public opinion regarding an occupied and brutally repressed country.
“Tibetans within Tibet are completely denied the right to speak to the world online. They face even greater restrictions on their online activity than China’s own citizens and can receive sentences of up to life imprisonment for online or email content criticising China’s regime. China has the power and resources to use Twitter for its own ends and Tibetans do not. In the words of concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel, ‘neutrality helps the oppressor, never the oppressed’.”
The Chinese authorities in Tibet regularly cut off media communications after sensitive political events, such as Tibetan protests and Chinese government celebrations.
Chinese authorities have also taken more direct actions against Tibetans use of communications media, such as visiting internet cafes and monasteries and arresting Tibetans who had engaged in overseas calls. Tibetans have also been arrested for sharing photos or other information of protests. More familiarly, carrying photographs of Tibetans high spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who is considered a dangerous separatist by the Chinese government, is illegal, as is carrying recorded Tibetan songs.
Free Tibet has begun a campaign asking netizens to email Twitter about propaganda abuse.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in opposition to a proposed giant mine project in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, has initiated a set of regulations that industrial advocates such as US Senator Lisa Murkowski have termed a “Blueprint That Will Be Used Across the Country to Stop Economic Development.”
“The EPA is being disingenuous in saying that this decision is only going to impact mining in a particular area of Alaska,” said Murkowski (R-Alaska). “The EPA is setting a precedent that strips Alaska and all Alaskans of the ability to make decisions on how to develop a healthy economy on their lands. This is a blueprint that will be used across the country to stop economic development.”
Murkowski has been vocal in criticizing the EPA for allegedly attempting to expand its authority unilaterally under the Clean Water Act (CWA), stripping Alaskans of their right to develop their state economy. She has also criticized the EPA for basing its review of potential mining operations in Alaska on a hypothetical mining plan.
The EPA has backed off their plan to use the CWA to shut down the mine before a plan was submitted, however, and has instead pitched a set of regulations that would make moving forward with the mine project much more difficult, and could stifle it entirely.
The conditions include restricting discharges of dredged or fill material related to mines where those discharges would endanger the Bristol Bay watershed. The EPA’s proposal is subject to a public comment period through September 19.
The EPA’s stated motivation is to protect the world’s largest salmon fishery from the ecological destruction that would be caused by the mine.
The mine in question, the Pebble mine project in Bristol Bay, would be one of the world’s biggest–as deep as the grand canyon–and was projected to create 1,000 direct jobs and bring in up to $180 million in state revenue for Alaska. It would span 20 square miles of state-owned land, and a dam would be needed to contain the mine waste.
The Clean Water Act, under which the EPA receives much authority, was passed in 1972 with the purpose of preventing point and nonpoint pollution sources in order to restore and maintain the ecological integrity of American waters. In April, an EPA rule out sought to define “Waters of the United States,” over which the CWA has jurisdiction, not just as navigable waters, but also inclusive of tributaries and adjacent waters.
Pebble mine would sit near Lake Iliamna at the headwaters of two rivers which flow into Bristol Bay.
One of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), has been convinced to end all logging of natural forests. The Jakarta-based company, which has 14 major companies in Indonesia and China and an annual capacity of 18 million tons of paper and pulp products, has received an endorsement by Greenpeace, long its rival, after signing a contract to log only certain timber lands this week.
APP’s owner and chairman, TeguhGandaWijaya, put his personal seal on the commitment–the first time he has done so on an environmental agreement. The move is expected to cost APP a significant amount of money, but, according to APP’s sustainability managing director, “We now want to be a true global player and true leader.”
APP, which has cleared an estimated 2 million hectares of tropical forest in Sumatra since 1994, will now log only plantation timber, according to the agreement. Its suppliers will be bound to stay clear of timber with high conservation value and carbon-rich peat swamps. They will also be required to obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from landholders upon opening new concessions.
Greenpeace had targeted APP for years in a campaign that cost the logging company over 130 customers. Recently, Disney, Mattel and Hasbro dropped APP due to the Greenpeace campaign.
Although Greenpeace has endorsed APP’s contract, the endorsement was qualified. Greenpeace’s lead forest campaigner in Indonesia, BustarMaitar, said that Greenpeace would continue to “watch and monitor closely” APP’s activities. APP has broken environmental commitments in the past.
“We welcome this move, but we urge everyone to wait and see, after independent monitoring is done,” commented the pulp and paper manager of the World Wildlife Federation, an organization that has seen environmental commitments made by APP broken in recent years.
Two reports of the downing of a plane suspected to be Malaysian Air MH17 have been published by Russian news network LifeNews. The two television reports were aired before and after the identity of the Malaysian passenger plane was known, and reported conflicting testimonies by pro-Russian separatists active in Donetsk about responsibility for a plane crash near Torez, Donetsk that took place July 17.
“Insurgents have reported a downed another Ukrainian military cargo aircraft,” the newscaster reported in the earlier broadcast. “The plane was flying over the city of Torez in the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic at approximately 5 pm Moscow time . The AN-26 was flying over the city and was hit by a missile, there was an explosion, and the plane fell, with black smoke visible.”
The reporter added that the location of Torez was near Snezhnoe and Saur-Mogila Hill–territories controlled by the rebels.
This report accompanied social media posts by pro-Russian separatists, such as a post purportedly by militant leader Strelkov stated, “Near Torez we just downed an AN-26 plane. It’s lying near Progress Mine. We warned them–don’t fly in our sky.” The post accompanied the same picture presented in the LifeNews broadcast.
After the identity of the Malaysian passenger plane was reported, the post was removed and claimed to have been a fake.
The rebels later published statements that they did not have the equipment to down the plane, although the rebels have already downed several Ukrainian military planes with surface-to-air missiles, and had made statements that they would protect the sky over Donetsk with highly sophisticated surface-to-air Buk missile systems.
The rebels asserted that the Malaysian jet was downed by the Ukrainian air force. The LifeNews reporter also noted that “according to some data, the plane was followed by a UA air force plane,” and that, according to Russian intelligence, the Ukrainian military had transported Buk systems to the area.
Russian News Channel Airs Conflicting Before and After Reports of Suspected Downing of Malaysian Air MH17
While the current global market for drones is expected to double to 11.6bn by 2023, America will most likely lose its current industry lead to other nations less hampered by export control regulations and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules, according to a recent report by Stimson Center.
“At the moment, the United States has the world’ largest and most sophisticated fleet of weaponized drones,” the report stated, adding that regarding the more general global UAV market, “the United States is not likely to remain the world leader in the development of innovative UAV technologies.”
The report, “Recommendations and Report of the Task Force on US Drone Policy,” was completed by the Washington global security policy organization Stimson Center and was written by Gen. John P. Abizaid, a former commander of the US Central Command, and Rosa Brooks, professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
The report stated that despite the enormous commercial potential of civilian UAVs, their development–especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises–was hampered by “clumsy export control rules” and FAA regulations.
Export control rules in the US are ambiguous, the report explained, not clearly drawing a distinction between “unarmed military unmanned aerial vehicles” and other unarmed drones, while subjecting military vehicles to stricter export controls. This prevents manufacturers from measuring the size of their markets, “chilling” their production, according to the report.
Another hindrance to UAV development is that drones operation is not allowed in the “national airspace system” (NAS). Where drones are flown, special permits are required, which, according to the report, are often quite restrictive.
Laws are changing with regards to drones. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which seeks to integrate UAVs into the national airspace system, has a deadline set for September 2015.
The Act required, however, a roadmap for integration, which was requested of the FAA to be produced by February 2013. The FAA released the roadmap nine months behind the deadline.
“The FAA is grappling with important and difficult issues,” stated the report. Notable among these difficulties is determination of how UAV pilots will avoid air collisions without lines of sight and situational awareness.
The concern raised in the report is that the FAA’s months-long delays may become years-long delays, and the US may lose the initiative.
Meanwhile, UAV developers have awaited government clarity while markets abroad have expanded rapidly, and foreign buyers turn increasingly to countries developing more advanced platforms.
“Outside of the United States,” the report read, “UAVs increasingly are being developed for agriculture, weather tracking and infrastructure maintenance.”
“This could chill innovation and dull the technological edge the United States enjoys in the UAV arena, with negative consequences both for the civilian sector and for the military,” the report read. The US may also lose the ability to shape UAV use abroad, according to the report, while some markets are expected to be used for non-peaceful purposes.
“The state that becomes the ‘first-mover’ to fully integrate UAVs into their national airspace may, if given enough of a lead, become a center for the development and scale of UAVs, giving a competitive edge to its domestic manufacturers.”
The area needed to meet the world’s current electricity needs–16,000 TWh/y–would be smaller than a 254 km x 254 km square section of the unused Sahara desert, theoretically. The demand of the EU states only could be met by a 110 x 110 km parcel. A single nation like Germany? 45 x 45 km, which is equal to less 0.03 percent of the suitable areas in North Africa.
This was the finding of the Technical University of Braunschweig’s Nadine May in 2005, when solar cells were much less efficient than today’s.
According to a document made public by the UN recently, China was issued a “joint urgent appeal” earlier this year. China has responded to the appeal, confirming that at least six of the 10 Tibetan musicians were jailed on charges of separatism for singing songs supporting Tibetan culture and about the plight of Tibet under Chinese rule. No information was provided by China on the other four musicians.
The joint appeal was sent to China on behalf of UN offices covering freedom of expression, cultural rights, arbitrary detention, minority rights, and other UN interests.
For several years, Tibetans have been arrested and jailed on various charges, including the charge of separatism, for such offenses as carrying pictures of their chief spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and Tibetan songs on their phones, refusing to fly Chinese flags from their homes, and self immolation or being related a person who had self immolated. Jail terms for these offenses usually range from around six to nine years.
Listed along with many other nations in a UN Human Rights Commission document, the People’s Republic of China was alleged to have arrested and detained ten Tibetan singers and musicians. The charge laid by China in the arrests was alleged to have been that of creating or performing songs supporting Tibetan culture and reflecting the current situation in Chinese-ruled Tibet.
The UN report stated, “Serious concerns are expressed that the alleged arbitrary arrest and detention or enforced disappearance of the aforementioned 10 Tibetan singers and musicians may be linked to their legitimate human rights activities.”
The human rights mentioned here included those related to arbitrary detention, cultural rights, disappearances, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, freedom of religion, and minority issues.
The ten artists were listed as GongpoTsezin, TrinleyTsekar, KelsangYarphel, Lolo, PemaTrinley, Chakdor, Khenrap, Nyagdompo, ShawoTashi, and AchokPhulshung.
The musicians were reported to have been detained or of unknown whereabouts.
In the same UN document, China was also alleged to have arrested Liu Xia, the wife of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Mr. Liu Xiaobo, in violation of international human rights law.
The joint appeal seeking an account of the fates of the Tibetan musicians came after the rights group Free Tibet sent a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights.
China responded in late April, stating that, “The Chinese government has carried out careful investigations on the matter as stated in the letter and provides replies…” and confirming the fate of six of the 10 listed musicians.
The musicians were in prison for terms of six to nine years on charges of “seditiously splitting the state” and related crimes, although one had been released for health-related reasons. Regarding two other musicians, the Chinese response read, “On KelsangYarphel and Achok (both names are transliterations), there is lack of reliable information on them. We, therefore, cannot verify their authentic identities and personal data.”
The response made no mention of Khenrap and Nyagdompo. Free Tibet also noted that the UN did not make mention of another musician, Choksal, in its request to China.
Free Tibet has set up a petition to demand the release of the jailed Tibetan musicians, addressed to China’s justice minister.
designed to allow users to scroll over the names of all members of Congress on any webpage to see a list of the top ten industries from which each receives money.
supporting Tibetan culture and about the plight of Tibet under Chinese rule. No information was provided by China on the other four musicians.