Make Mine Freedom (1948)

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVh75ylAUXY&feature=player_embedded#!

Slow progress is being made at little-noticed Copenhagen follow-up

Hardly anyone has noticed, but international climate negotiations have resumed in formal session for the first time since the Copenhagen summit last December. Six months after failing to seal a deal in the Danish capital, despite much optimism when the summit opened, the negotiators are trying to get the process back on track in time for the next major conference in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year.

The good news is that the atmosphere is much better than in Copenhagen. Mind you, it could hardly be worse, than at that rancorous, chaotic, atrociously organised and disastrously chaired occasion. But even so there is a remarkable amount of goodwill around, especially given where things broke off just before Christmas. One sign of that is that much of the Copenhagen Accord, the last-minute agreement personally hammered out by the leaders on the summit’s last day, is being quietly merged with the formal UN negotiating text: a clash between the proponents of the two dragged on into extra time through the night after summit was supposed to have ended, threatening to turn admitted disappointment into indisputable disaster. Meanwhile, most of the negotiating countries – representing 80 per cent of world carbon dioxide emissions – have signed up to it.

The bad news is that there are still deep differences between developed and developing countries. The Third World wants industrialised nations to pledge to make bigger emissions cuts faster. They, and particularly the United States, have responded by demanding better monitoring and verification of developing country measures to fulfill the often impressive promises they have made to tackle their own emissions. On the other hand, good progress has been made on working out ways of rewarding tropical rainforest countries for keeping their trees standing, and on transferring clean, green technologies from rich to poor.

But the main issue is money – most immediately the $30 billion promised by the leaders at Copenhagen to help the poorest adapt to the effects of global warming. Some $28 million of this has now been pledged – chiefly from Japan ($11 billion), the European Union ($9.6 billion), the US ($5.1 billion), Norway ($1.8 billion) and Australia ($500 million). $25 billion of this looks like being grants, rather than loans, but – critically – how much of it is new money rather than funds switched from existing aid budgets is unclear. And when will it start to flow?

There look like being two more negotiating meetings – in August and September/October – before everyone assembles again in Mexico. No-one is expecting a treaty to be concluded then; most would settle for steady, if slow progress, without the dramas of Copenhagen. Whether that will be enough to get global warming under control in time, is another, if unknown, matter.

Birds Flocking North By The Thousands

Shepard Ambellas

In a farmers field in Tennessee, birds arrive by the thousands. Gathering to woodland areas and power lines. This behavior is not typical to standard fall migration pattens. Could this be a direct correlation with the gulf oil spill; a vision of what is to come for mankind?

Please send all video and information surrounding this subject to tips@theintelhub.com

The video below was sent to us by FYO1

South Africa cannot protect its nuclear stockpile

By Adriana Stuijt.

There are growing fears among the nuclear powers that South Africa would not be able to safeguard its stored nuclear material. On November 7 2007, Africa's only enriched-uranium storage facility, Pelindaba in Pretoria, was invaded by two armed gangs.

Pelindaba, described as a 'fortress', houses hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium -- remnants of the apartheid government's six nuclear bombs, dismantled in the early 1990s. This material is watched over by closed-circuit cameras from inside a supposedly secured control room which is surrounded by triple fencing and a cordon of other high-tech security measures. Yet last year 's unprecedented, boldest assault ever on a facility containing weapons-grade uranium, is according to the Sixty Minutes TV programme, 'a still-unsolved crime that could have had calamitous consequences.' Not mentioned in their report but perhaps it should have been: Only four months earlier, the country's National Energy Corporation of SA's newly appointed services general manager Eric Lerata, 43, was gunned down in front of his home after returning from a business trip in France. All these incidents were just 'ordinary crime' the SA authorities are saying. The highly enriched uranium stored there is worth millions on the black market and could be turned into fuel for illicit nuclear bombs. The anti-nuclear lobby and other interest groups believe these two seperate groups of attackers were after specific information -- while other security experts believe the attackers were after the weapons-grade uranium itself. The Pelindaba attack has become an item of serious discussion in the security industry worldwide - so much so that it has even been developed into a defence safety analysis case study. This was said by Mike Kantey, the chairman of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy in South Africa (Cane), this week.

Matthew Bunn of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government said in a 60 Minutes TV programme (see video above) aired about the attack that 'it would not be hard to buld a crude atomic bomb' if the terrorists (his words) 'had gotten hold of the stored uranium'. Also interviewed by the programme were the attacked central control-room manager Anton Gerber and its operator Ria Meiring, who were injured in the attack and are now suing South Africa's control body, the Nuclear Energy Corporation, for its truly grotesquely lax security ... See Sixty Minutes programme report here: It has now been a year since two armed gangs launched simultaneous attacks on the Pelindaba nuclear facility outside Pretoria -- yet no one has been arrested for the crime that left Gerber wounded. And South Africans are left wondering about the underlying motive for this double-assault by two gangs with handguns -- also because the government has drawn a heavy security veil across the entire incident. The mystery already started within hours when the Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA executive in charge, Rob Adam, claimed that the control room had not been 'compromised' -- when it clearly had been, as Gerber was shot there and Meiring assaulted.... Then the police in Pretoria announced the arrest of three people, including a 17-year-old, in connection with these attacks a week after the incident - but those same cops now deny that anyone has ever been arrested for it. Earlier this year, three security guards at Pelindaba were fired because 'they'd been caught sleeping on the job'. During the attack, Gerber was shot and injured by the intruders and Ria Meiring assaulted by the first four men who had managed to penetrate the 'secure'nuclear facility on November 7, 2007. However Rob Adam, the chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa), said at that time that the control room had not been 'compromised' in the attack by "four armed, technically sophisticated criminals". These men had entered the Necsa site unnoticed and then simply cut the outside fence, then slipping through the electric fence. Moreover, the attackers had roamed the premises for about an hour unnoticed; stealing a ladder from a fire engine with which they reached the first floor of the emergency control centre through a window. There, they stole a computer which, rather strangely, was placed on a balcony. Then they attacked Gerber and Meiring in the control room, and left behind the computer. The NEC-executive said at the time that 'it was evident the criminals had prior knowledge of the electronic security systems. Attackers filmed on surveillance cameras but guards 'were asleep..'. "These activities were captured on surveillance cameras but, unfortunately, not detected by the operators on duty," Necsa had said. As has recently become known, this was due to the fact that they'd been fast asleep. The NEC also lied to the news media when he claimed that 'at no time was the emergency control room systems compromised' - when it clearly had been as Gerber and Meiring were attacked inside. At exactly the same time, a second gang had also tried breaking through the boundary fence on the opposite side of the facility -- but they were spotted by a security guard who hadn't been sleeping on the job. That gang still managed to flee back across the wire fence and underneath the electrified fencing in the the ensuing shootout. And they have been running ever since - because no-one has ever been captured. Gerber and Meiring, his fiance, now are suing Necsa for damages and loss of income following their ordeal. Papers filed in the Pretoria High Court in November state that Gerber is claiming R850,000 and Meiring R750,000 from Necsa as well as from the security staff on duty on the night of the attack. Summonses have been issued against Necsa and a security services manager, security shift supervisor and two camera room operators who were on duty. The couple claim negligence -- on the grounds that the camera operators were asleep and did not warn them inside the central control room about the trespassers or organise a timeous response. It had taken security guards 24 minutes to respond to their calls for help. Gerber said during a recent American network television 60 Minutes programme that it took police 10 months before they bothered to show up to interview him. Necsa has meanwhile kept its report on what happened that night a closely guarded secret. Arie van der Bijl, the general manager of Necsa, rather ridiculously also denied in the same programme that 'the two attacks on the same night were linked." It had all been 'a coincidence,' he said - adding that if indeed these had been "sophisticated terrorists", Gerber would not be alive today. ' Abdul Minty, muslim, new director-general of the International Atomic Energy Commission... His unproven claim was supported by South Africa's nominated director-general of the International Atomic Energy Commission -- Abdul Minty. He's the man who is going to be placed in charge of all the Nuclear Energy matters worldwide. A sobering thought... see A hghly-placed senior South African police official said however the mere fact that the case was being investigated by the serious and violent crimes unit was a clear indication this was more than a "mere break-in". "This is a national keypoint, a protected site," this officer said. Necsa has meanwhile offered a R25,000 reward, a mere $12,000, for the arrest and conviction of the two gangs. To date, there have been no takers. And who can blame them? One Rolex watch is worth more than that... In January, IAEA experts concluded after their visit to Pelindaba that 'there was no evidence that sensitive nuclear areas were under any threat during the incident." South African officials lied The IAEA wants to make sure that Pelindaba still 'provided an appropriate basis" for ensuring physical protection of nuclear material and nuclear facilities at the site and submitted a long list outlining all the security improvements required to do so. If this was not undertaken, this material would have to be moved out of South Africa to a safer holding facility elsewhere... This week Necsa again strongly denied that the intruders were anywhere near the valuable enriched-uranium stocks. "These stocks have additional internationally benchmarked security features protecting them," said its spokesman Elliot Mulane. And although none of the attackers have been arrested nor questioned, he also denied that 'the attackers could have been after information. There is no mainframe computer in the building that the intruders broke into and the local area network is controlled from a server located about 2km from this building," he concluded.

BP to sell spill oil from Gulf well

Thick oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill floats on the surface of the water and coats the marsh wetlands in Bay Jimmy near Port Sulphur, Louisiana, Friday.

CAPTION

By Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images

Fill her up with spill oil? When BP sells the crude from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil could end up at gas stations.

BP said it would use the net revenue made from selling the crude to fund wildlife protection efforts in four Gulf Coast states, the Associated Press reports.

The company did not explain the specifics of how much money will be put into the fund. BP said in a recent press release the amount will be based on how much oil is collected and the price at which the oil is sold.

• CHAT: USA TODAY reporter to talk about oil spill Wednesday
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• MAP: Oil spill growing in the Gulf of Mexico

Since the collected oil contains a high concentration of methanol, BP expects that each barrel will sell at a lower price than regular crude.

Oil taken from the well will be indistinguishable from other oil on the market, Louisiana State University professor Julius Langlinais told the AP.

(Posted by Jessica Durando)

Florida Beachgoers Cleaning Up Oil - By Hand

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog

for an important Public Service Announcement:

Memo to the people of the coasts impacted by this oil disaster:

IF YOU SEE OIL,

DON'T TOUCH IT.

IF YOU SMELL OIL,

GO TO WHERE YOU DON'T

OR WEAR A RESPIRATOR.

Do you understand?

This is serious!

OIL IS TOXIC!

Tell all your friends near the Gulf coast.

And now, back to my blog. Thank you for your patience.

From the "Millions of Dumbfounded Dipshits" Department:

Beachgoers Picking Up Tar Balls By Hand

Posted by Rob Shaw on June 4, 2010, in WKRG/News 5, Florida

They came armed with cups, plates, bottles, plastic bags, anything they could get their hands on. As tar balls and other small globs of oil began to wash up on Pensacola Beach this morning and into the afternoon, ordinary people became the cleanup crew.

They weren't wearing gloves or protective clothes. They wore swimsuits and had a simple mission in mind: try to save the white beach they love.

Dale Balsavich sees himself as sort of a one-man cleanup crew.

While most people go to the beach to collect seashells, he was on a mission this morning to collect as many tar balls as he could in a small plastic blue bowl.

"Where's the government? Where's the BP people?'' the 26-year-old personal trainer asked as he walked along the beach, stooping every few steps to gather more gunk. "They're the ones supposed to be cleaning this up.''

Balsavich had gone less than 100 yards on the beach and already his bowl was overflowing with a brown mixture of goo that looked like melted fudge.

"It's a travesty,'' the Pensacola native said. "The beach will be affected and won't come back for a long, long time. Toxic sludge is what we are dealing with.''

Sonya Daniels, spokeswoman for Escambia County emergency management, said a dozen teams of 10 people each were combing the beach to look for oil, which had impacted about a 10-mile stretch of the shore.

"They would really like to find it in the sand, right on the shore, not where someone has handled it," Daniels said. "Be our lookout, spot it and then let the assessment teams go out and do the collection."

The oil is considered a contaminated substance and should not be touched, the spokeswoman said. Globs of oil ranging from a quarter to the size of a dinner plate were washing up, she added.

As children frolicked in the waves and parents and toddlers built sandcastles, members of the media gathered around folks such as Balsavich who were finding oil washing up on the formerly pristine white beaches.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg,'' Balsavich said. "It's a shame. It's really sad because there are a lot of people who depend on this beach for their livelihood.''

And more may be on the way, according to a consortium of disaster officials from several Gulf states that make up the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command. Winds gusting up to 28 mph from the southwest are expected through Sunday and that could push portions of the oil plume onto the western Panhandle beaches. Seas of up to 6 feet also are expected.

Officials say a 30 to 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms over the weekend could hamper some recovery operations.

According to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil plume model updated today, a large oil slick is 17 miles from Pensacola, more than 100 miles from Gulf County, and 280 miles from St. Petersburg. Some smaller globs of oil are scattered across the Gulf, officials say, and may be closer to shore, although they can't be seen in satellite photos.

States of emergency have been declared in 10 coastal Panhandle counties. Emergency operations centers have been activated in six of those counties. None of the beaches has been closed.

Carol Van Kay of Venice was visiting her sister, Kathy Stanton, in Pensacola when they both headed to the beach with tiny plastic bags on their hands. They compared picking up the tar balls to picking up after a dog.

"This beach is so nice,'' Van Kay said, admitting she was worried about west coast beaches such as Venice, Sarasota and elsewhere. "If people can pick these tar balls up, the more, the better. It will keep the beach that more clean.''

Edie Manning has been coming to Pensacola Beach since she was 15.

The 49-year-old Tennessee resident was getting ready for a day of sun as news crews blanketed the sandy white beaches.

"It hurts me," she said of the oily mess that began to wash ashore. "It hurts my heart to think that this beach could be closed at the peak of the season."

Manning said she has been to beaches all across the country but that this destination in Escambia County is her favorite.

"Pensacola Beach is my beach," she said. "It's home to me."

She said she was most worried about the economic impact it would have on everyday workers -- at docks, restaurants, hotels and other places.

"You can see it in their faces," she said. "It's their livelihood."

John Hughes of New Orleans brought his wife and twin 10-year-old daughters to Pensacola Beach because he said it might be the last time they ever see it this white.

"It is so pretty and white and beautiful,'' Hughes said as Camryn and Courtney frolicked in the large waves crashing ashore. "It could ruin it for the rest of their lifetime.''

Hughes, who brings his family on vacation to the Panhandle a couple of times each year, said it has been heartbreaking to see the devastation in his own state of Louisiana.

"Every day the girls ask if I can take them to the coastline to help rescue those animals,'' he said.

Courtney's biggest worry is that "all the animals will die and they won't be able to be rescued.'' She is most worried about pelicans, dolphins and turtles.

"It makes me really sad to see that,'' she said of television images of blackened, dying birds and other wildlife.

As for Camryn's biggest fear? "The sand will turn black and it won't ever be pretty again.''

Pensacola Beach wasn't the only place getting tar balls. Waves of gooey tar blobs were washing ashore in growing numbers elsewhere in the Panhandle and nearby Alabama beaches today as a slick from the BP spill drifted closer to shore.

Spotters who had been seeing a few tar balls in recent days found a substantially larger number starting before dawn on the beaches of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and nearby areas, a county emergency official said. The park is a long string of connected barrier islands near Pensacola.

Keith Wilkins from Escambia County emergency management said tar patties were common on parts of the beach, as much as one every foot.

Small gobs of reddish brown oil washed up in the surf for the first time in nearby Gulf Shores, Ala., this morning and a petroleum smell tinged the air.

Officials have said it is inevitable oil will eventually wash up on Panhandle beaches after a slick from the Deepwater Horizon spill was spotted about 9 miles offshore this week. The edge of the spill had moved to four miles off the coast Thursday, Gov. Charlie Crist said after a flyover.

Crist said the news of today growth in tar balls was "very disturbing."

"Obviously, it's not the kind of news that we want to hear," Crist said on CNN's "American Morning."

Escambia County emergency officials have been preparing for the oil by shoring up miles of boom. The county plans to block oil from reaching inland waterways, but left its beaches unprotected because they are too difficult to shield and easier to clean up.

Joe Fairleigh and his son, Henry, of Kentucky were going for a stroll on Pensacola Beach when they found a gooey mess of tar. And another. And then another.

"It is all along the beach. We must have seen a hundred," the father said as he held a clump of oil mixed with sand perched in a children's sand toy.

"It's really scary to think how big the Gulf is and how much coastline could be impacted by this," he added.

--- I hate to say it, I wish it weren't true, but, if you live near the Gulf coast, and you want to remain healthy, I think you're going to have to move. You should research this for yourself. Its your life - and many people officially charged with advising you are lying. This is a fact. From what I know, I'd move if I were you, and I know that isn't the answer I would have wanted to hear. Maybe you can move back soon. I hope so. I'm sorry. God help us.

Be seeing you.

Mexico condemns Border Patrol shooting of teen

Mexico on Thursday condemned the shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a U.S. Border Patrol agent through diplomatic correspondence and an angry phone call to the Homeland Security secretary. Some Mexican politicians called for the agent's extradition to face Mexican justice.

EL PASO, Texas — Mexico on Thursday condemned the shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a U.S. Border Patrol agent through diplomatic correspondence and an angry phone call to the Homeland Security secretary. Some Mexican politicians called for the agent's extradition to face Mexican justice.

Anger over the Monday night shooting across the muddy Rio Grande on the border was fueled by a cellphone video of the shooting, as debate began over which country has jurisdiction in the case.

A still-unidentified Border Patrol agent trying to arrest illegal immigrants running into the United States fired his weapon from the U.S. side into Mexico, killing Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka, 15, while people on the Mexican side threw rocks at border agents.

What is still unclear is whether Hernandez was one of the rock-throwers and whether the agent or the victim crossed the border. Mexican federal police quickly chased Border Patrol agents out of the riverbed with rifles trained on them while a crowd on the Mexican side taunted the U.S. officials and threw rocks and firecrackers.

"We are worried by this surge of violence against Mexicans, which comes along with a surge of other anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican occurrences in the United States," Mexican President Felipe Calderón said in a new statement, apparently referring to Arizona's new immigration law, which the Mexican leader previously has condemned.

The grainy cellphone video, available on Univision.com, shows an unedited glimpse of the violence. A Border Patrol agent on a bicycle arrives in the riverbed as several men run back to Mexico. He detains one on the U.S. side. Once the agent has the suspect on the ground, he fires three audible shots toward Mexico. The camera then shows what appears to be a body under a railroad bridge.

Interior Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont phoned U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to protest the killing of Hernandez and a man on the California-Mexico border two weeks ago. Gómez Mont's office said he demanded that the U.S. and Mexico carry out a joint review of protocols on the use of force by border officers.

Border Patrol agents are allowed to use lethal force against rock-throwers.

Calderón's government has come under increasing criticism at home for what some Mexicans believe is a lukewarm reaction to the two deaths. Opposition politicians and some commentators criticized him for leaving Thursday to watch the World Cup in South Africa.

Jesús Ortega, president of the opposition Democratic Revolution Party, said the agent who shot Hernandez should be extradited to Mexico. "When a delinquent commits a crime in Mexico that affects a U.S. citizen, extradition is immediately requested and the Mexican government immediately grants it," Ortega said.

Calderón gave no indication his government would seek extradition. Instead, he called for a thorough U.S. investigation.