On this World Press Freedom Day, the United States joins with people around the world in reaffirming the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and association that provide the foundation for media to operate freely and keep citizens informed.  We rededicate ourselves to the basic principle enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that every person has the right “to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”  And we recognize the courageous journalists who work every day to give meaning to these rights, often at great risk to their lives, as we have seen most recently with the tragic deaths of journalists in Libya.    
 
Governments have an obligation to protect these rights and freedoms. Yet this year alone, at least 16 journalists have already been killed and more than 145 remain imprisoned around the world, simply for daring to report the truth.  Dozens of countries continue to stand in the way of a free press.  This includes recent crackdowns on the independent press in Bahrain, threats against and arrests of domestic and foreign journalists in China, political persecution of independent journalists and bloggers in Iran, arrests and detention of international journalists in Syria, and the government takeover of independent media outlets in Venezuela.  Countries such as Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan also continue to be notoriously repressive of press freedoms.  Freedom of expression is also under attack through criminal violence and impunity in countries like Mexico, Honduras, and Russia.
 
As we witnessed in the historic events in Tunisia and Egypt, new media tools can also help empower citizens exercise their freedoms of speech and association, yet these same 21st century tools can be used to filter, block, and restrict free expression.  That is why we must always stand up for the free flow of information around the world.
 
History shows that one of the ingredients of successful, prosperous, and stable societies is a free press where citizens can freely access information and hold their governments accountable.  On this World Press Freedom Day, we recognize the vital role that journalists play in strengthening democratic governance around the world and we honor all those who have given their lives in courageous pursuit of the truth.

· Translated by Catherine Lawlor

Originally Published at GlobalVoices:  http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/05/03/russia-who-is-restricting-the-russian-internet/

I am a great admirer of John Keane. His writings on Democracy have helped shaped all our understandings of the History of Democracy, but I think that he is wrong in several important aspects of his historical characterization of the latest stages of the Democratic Revolution in the Middle East.

As an old hand in Soviet and East European studies I have come across the idea of refolution before. It was one of the mixes of  words that we were struggling with over two decades ago as the Soviet Union disgauged itself of its European satellites and struggled to find a peaceful way into modernity. I think that current developments are related to those times, and that we do not need to have new words to describe them. The old words Democracy and Revolution are still quite functional, especially if we use one as a noun and the other as an adjective. There are two possible combinations: Democratic Revolutions and Revolutionary Democracy, and we need to be aware of the differences.

Democratic Revolutions. This is a term that has been much used by historians and political scientists. My University has taught a famous course on ‘The Age of Revolutions’ for the last 30 years. This is a course   that refers to the Democratic Revolutions of the late 18th Century in America and France. But this was an Age of Revolution in those countries for only part of the population: mainly for the free and property owning groups. The Age of Revolutions for much of Europe was delayed to the long 19th Century and although linked to Democracy it ended up in places in unstable forms as Dictatorships and Totalitarianism, and in others in more durable forms as ‘managed’ democracies. A wave of Democratic Revolutions swept the world in the late 20th Century as former Colonial state achieved independence. But despite the great emphasis placed on Democracy in the origins of these new states (and often in their names), the nature of these democracies soon deteriorated to the managed democratic shells that predominate today. Nowadays almost every regime calls itself a democracy, but these democracies are managed by all sorts of privileged groups and individuals using electoral fraud and repression. What they need is not another Democratic Revolution (a revolution to set up a state that describes itself as democratic), but a revolutionary change in the nature of that democracy.

Revolutionary Democracy is a possible outcome of a Democratic Revolution, but so far it has been a rather elusive and fleeting outcome. We saw some elements of it in Russia between February and October 1917 and in the early stages of most Democratic Revolutions. But generally the Democratic Revolution fails to transform itself into an operating Revolutionary Democracy. The Revolutionaries who took power generally transform themselves into oligarchic elites or ruling parties that become divorced from democracy. They quickly become skilled in handling and managing democracy, either by crude demagogy or by even cruder electoral fraud and restrictions on criticism of the regime.    

The Russian Revolution of February 1917 had been deeply democratic-with almost everyone opposing the Tsar, but there were intense differences about how the new Revolutuionary state should be run. The Bolsheviks had the overwhelming majority of support amongst the workers and soldiers in the main Russian cities in October 1917, but the peasants who made up 80% of the population tended to support the Socialist Revolutionaries- SRs. In fact the SRs received 60% of the votes in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. This actually indicates that the Bolsheviks probably polled quite well in the countryside, but not well enough to claim a democratic victory. When the  Bolsheviks forcibly dissolved the constituent assembly and remained in power they could not claim to be running a democracy, and they didn’t. They changed the franchise of the peasants, who were unequally represented by deputies in the new Soviets and they described this accurately as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

It was Stalin in the 1936 constitution that gave peasants equal representation with workers in the Soviet and introduced what he described as ‘the most democratic constitution in the world’. By this time the party had developed other ways of managing Soviet democracy, that replaced the need for competition and meaningful elections. This was formally a transfer of governmental system from a formal dictatorship to a system that now claimed to be democratic and so it could be called a Democratic Revolution, but the managed Democracy that resulted from this change was very undemocratic. Stalin and his successors never took democracy seriously, and only pretended to be democratic. They had elections, but with only one candidate, and the electoral commissions knew full well that their jobs, and possibly their lives depended on their putting on a good show of democracy and claiming overwhelming support for the regime.

With time the regime became  excessively confident in their ability to tame the idea of democracy.  Brezhnev signed the Helsinki Accords in 1975, confident that he could manage the problem of isolated dissidents who protested against the abuse of Human Rights and Democracy that the Soviet Union had now so openly claimed to support, but which it was so blatantly ignoring.

And for a while the Soviet managers could handle the problem. Samizdat, the Helsinki Monitoring Group and Western supported Radio stations like Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe appeared to be having only limited success, but these appearances were deceptive. Future generations of Russian, Soviets and East Europeans were beginning to think differently, and were not being as easily intimidated as the managers had presumed. And then in the late 1980s the leading Soviet political managers  Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Shevanardze and others, eventually came around to placing ‘democratization’ onto their agenda.

 

I remember well how the Soviet Union was transfixed by the peaceful democratic revolution that Gorbachev and his colleagues carried out with the ‘unleashing of glasnost’ (Openness)’ and the revolutionary force of democratization once it had been released from managerial control in the USSR. It wasn’t the unleashing of Democracy that brought down the USSR, but the upsurge of personal and Nationalist interests that were mobilised against the revolutionary force of democratization. For a while the new Nationalism that came to the fore in post-Soviet states,  in alliance with the vested interests of the old security system, military and managerial elites, were themselves successful in  their attempts to tame and de-revolutionise democracy. But they like the USSR before them were trapped by their pretences at being democratic. The Orange Revolution of 2006 was a clear indication that the spirit of the old dissidents and early Gorbachev period were alive;  the population could no longer be fooled by signs of democratic fraud and they went onto the streets to protest the fraud.

 
It is the recurrent demonstration of refusals to accept electoral fraud, and the false promises of democracy that link the USSR and East European Revolutions of  1987-90, to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in  2006, the Belarusian demonstrations against electoral fraud in 2009-11 and the Middle East demonstrations and Democratic Revolutions of today.
 
Professor Keane is mistaken when he tries to emphasise the separation between these events. With respect I do not think that he is fair on Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel when he calls them ‘self-selected saviours of the nation’, and I don’t think that he is right in saying that such figures as Walesa and Havel are absent in the Middle Eastern Revolutions. It is clear that the Revolutions are not being led by professional revolutionaries like Lenin or Trotsky, but Lenin and Trotsky did not lead the Russian Democratic Revolutions of 1905 or February 1917.  Solidarnosc was led by a minor trade union activist who was an electrician, it was the revolution that turned him into a revolutionary leader. And Havel was a philosopher/playwrite and not a professional revolutionary before he was declared a Dissident by the authorities. Gorbachev may be different as he was a political leader who was trying desperately to resolve an intractable political (and economic) problem before he, rather unwillingly stumbled into democratic revolution. (In those days we debated as to whether Gorbachev was an in-system reformer, or whether his priorities would lead him to go further and change the system if required. At one point he appeared to reach a point when he felt that there was no turning.) I wouldn’t call this process ‘self-selection’, the process was more dialectical and complex than that.

There are undoubtedly electricians and philosophers in the Arab democratic revolution, and some of them and other members of non-political professions are likely to be pressed into political leadership, and may well be transformed by that process. Some politicians who had earlier served the regime loyally may also be persuaded that Democracy is the way to go.

What is new about the process is the expansion of the public monitoring possibilities through new technology. It is this which is making the old hypocrisies and frauds more apparent. The role of election monitors is becoming more important. Earlier elections could be easily managed by the government. It was the government who appointed a compliant electoral commission, and these electoral commissions had a tendency to do what their governments wanted them to do.

In order to pretend to be a real democracy, it was necessary to allow some observers, and even international electoral monitors. The international observers would not interfere in the elections and would only write up accounts of what they had observed. These accounts would typically only be published a long time after the election and these monitors have been criticised for allowing corrupt regimes to appear more legitimate than they were.  

But such criticism is being shown to be wrong. The radical nature and extent of recent complaints about electoral fraud have been greatly strengthened by the knowledge of what these Monitors and Observers have been saying. Their reports do embolden the disadvantaged candidates, and generally they do make it more difficult for electoral commissions to be so blatant in allowing fraud to happen. In the regions of the former USSR there are CIS electoral observers who seem to find nothing strange with a 90% turnout at voluntary elections in Chechnya with a record level of support registered for a regime that the locals appear to detest. But even Russian deputies are beginning to challenge some of these bizarre results. (see the mass walkout of Deputies in 2009).  The compliant CIS monitors were set up precisely to counter the revolutionary force that other less compliant monitors were having, and as we saw in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, in recent elections in Belarus and in Russia this did not succeed. Elsewhere, and particularly in the Middle East these observers and monitors have been particularly significant.

The exciting thing about recent developments is the explosion of revolutionary democracy in states that have claimed to be democratic and in which their democracies have been subject to the revolutionising impact of massive democratic monitoring.   

We don’t need new words to describe this, John Keane himself gave us the words to describe it. These are democratic revolutions in the age of monitory democracy and they are causing a democratic revolutions to be built. Through active monitory procedures they may even stay democratic.  

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Refolution in the Arab world

Of all the countries in the world that one would expect to be a target of terrorist attacks, Belarus surely ranks near the bottom of the list. Unlike its neighbor, Russia, where a January bomb that killed 35 people at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport was just the latest in a string of attacks related to the ongoing conflict in Chechnya, Belarus is not fighting an Islamic insurgency—or, in fact, any type of insurgency. It’s an ethnically and religiously homogenous nation mostly composed of Orthodox Christian Slavs, kept in the tight grip of its authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko. There aren’t violent sectarian rifts of the sort that brought decades of terrorism  to Northern Ireland or ethnic cleansing to the Balkans. And Belarus is not participating in any foreign military operations of the kind that might inspire overseas terrorist organizations to strike.

So, when an explosion hit Kastrychnitskaya (October Square) subway station in Minsk  last Monday, killing 13 and injuring over 200, many Belarusians were shocked. “Who would do that and why?” Iryna Vidanava, editor of the independent multimedia youth magazine 34, asked me. “It’s obvious [Belarus] is not a country where we would have any problems with terrorism or explosions or terrorist groups.” Granted, this isn’t the first time there has been a bombing in Belarus: There was one in 2005, in the eastern city of Vitebsk, and another in 2008 in Minsk, both of which injured dozens and which authorities blamed on “hooligans.” Yet the sheer randomness of these crimes and their inexplicable place in Belarus’s political culture has created more questions than answers—the most uncomfortable being, who benefits?

 

Lukashenko, a former collective farm chairman who seems to have come out of central casting to play the role of a Soviet-era apparatchik, has ruled Belarus since 1994 . His regime routinely assaults, arrests, and occasionally “disappears” political opposition, shuts down independent media , and controls most of the economy. The repression culminated last December, when Lukashenko rigged a presidential election—his fourth victory—and then ordered truncheon-wielding riot police to attack tens of thousands of peaceful protestors in Minsk. Lukashenko jailed 700 opposition activists  and continues to hold dozens on trumped-up charges  that could keep them imprisoned for up to 15 years.

Unsurprisingly, then, high-ranking officials have intimated that the opposition is responsible for the recent subway attack. The day after the bombing, the head of the Belarusian KGB (as the country’s internal security service is still called) suggested political opponents were to blame for the attack. “You know that there were events recently,” he said, referring to the post-election protests, “and not all people who have been held responsible or investigated by the prosecutors and the courts agree with the decisions of those courts. … There are those today who do not like the way of life in Belarus or the Belarussian security structure. They are looking for changes that will exacerbate the situation by spreading fear, panic and distrust of law enforcement agencies and government organs.”

Then, with unusual swiftness, the Belarusian government claimed to have “solved” the crime: Less than two days after the explosion, police announced the arrest of three perpetrators, who allegedly confessed not only to last week’s blast but to involvement with the 2005 and 2008 attacks as well. Those confessions, however, were conveniently announced just one day after Lukashenko speculated that the bombings  were “links in a single chain.” The regime has also withheld the names of the suspects, as well as any other incriminating details or information about a possible motive.

Needless to say, many Belarusians aren’t buying what their government is telling them. “The thinking of people now is diametrically the opposite of what we are hearing from our televisions,” Andrei Dynko, editor-in-chief of Nasha Niva, one of the handful of independent media outlets in Belarus, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. One popular theory? That the Belarusian government itself carried out the latest bombing to pin blame on the opposition and rally support behind Lukashenko. So widespread is this theory that it has made it as far up as the U.N. Security Council, where an anonymous member recently told Foreign Policy, “Well informed sources around Minsk believe that there was an even chance that the government might be behind this.” (What’s more, in light of this concern, the council condemned the bombing as an “apparent terrorist attack,” the first time the body has used such language.)

According to the theory of government involvement, Lukashenko has come under increasing domestic and international criticism for cracking down on opponents—criticism he would obviously like to do without. Still, it wouldn’t appear that Lukashenko needs to intimidate his already beleaguered and demoralized opposition, certainly not by conspiring to set off a bomb in downtown Minsk. And, to be sure, no evidence has surfaced to implicate the government in a plan to use violence as a means of undermining its detractors. But there is speculation that the regime could be complicit in the explosion for other reasons—namely, an impending economic crisis the likes of which the country hasn’t seen since the era of the communist breadline.

Throughout his rule, Lukashenko has been able to marshal popular support via the economic stability that his authoritarian system, largely buoyed by Russian oil subsidies, provided. When I reported from Belarus in December, I was surprised by the number of people I met who said they backed Lukashenko because he had insulated the country from the economic shocks bedeviling the Western world due to the global financial crisis. Some 80 percent of citizens are employed by the government, which regulates the prices of most goods. Last November, a month before the election, Lukashenko raised salaries 30 percent in a bid to win popularity.

But, according to Katia Glod, an independent political and economic analyst based in Minsk, “the economy has remained unreformed largely since the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Far too much money has been spent on social welfare to keep the population content, while insufficient amounts have been invested in modernizing the economy and encouraging entrepreneurship. Added to this strain is that Moscow has grown impatient with Lukashenko’s lack of economic reforms; it has delayed its extension of billions of dollars in credits over the regime’s hesitancy to reduce state spending, tighten monetary policy, and turn over much of its oil refineries and chemical plants to Russian control.

Now, after almost two decades of economic calm, it appears that the key assumption behind Lukashenko’s authoritarian social contract—that Belarusians would exchange political freedom for economic stability—is crumbling. In recent weeks, long lines have formed outside currency exchange centers, with citizens waiting days to get their hands on rare U.S. dollars and euros. Since the beginning of the year, Belarus has used up 20 percent of its hard foreign currency reserves. Five days before the subway blast, RFE/RL reported that the economy was “teetering on the brink of collapse.”

How could the bombing play into this? It’s not clear, of course, that it does at all. But those who believe the rumor that the government was involved say Lukashenko may have hoped the blast would be a distraction from the economy’s nosedive. And, according to people I spoke to, the bombing did divert public attention for a while. “All people were talking about before and after the explosion was the price of sugar, where to get dollars,” Iryna Vidanava of 34 told me.  But, after the bomb went off, “for a couple of days, everyone forgot about the economic hardship.”  

The initial shock from the blast quickly subsided, however, and the government’s inability or unwillingness to produce information about the alleged attackers in its custody has only contributed to public distrust. Indeed, it still remains unclear whether authorities have arrested four men and one woman, or three men and one woman, and they haven’t revealed any of the individuals’ names. On Tuesday, a Russian website revealed the identities of what it claims are three of the suspects, all of whom live in a single apartment block in Vitebsk. But the Belarusian government has refused to confirm or deny the report. All it will say is that the suspects constructed the bombs in the basement of the building in which they live.

The regime is also highly sensitive to the perception that it might be withholding information about the bombing or, worse, that it was responsible for it. “Only idiots and scoundrels can allege that, only the scum can do that,” Lukashenko snapped in a Tuesday statement, responding to allegations that the government perpetrated the attacks to distract the country from its economic woes. The regime has reprimanded two independent newspapers, Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Volya, for publishing articles critical of its response to the attack.  Earlier this week, a local prosecutor sent an official warning to a journalist at a local newspaper who raised questions about the government’s explanations, accusing him of “distributing false information about the investigations into the Minsk subway bombing,” and for attempting to “discredit and insult law-enforcement officers [and] Belarusian statehood and society.”

Understandably, with no evidence on their side, Belarusians are being careful with what they say publicly; in particular, most of the speculation about the regime’s motives is being whispered in private or published anonymously on internet forums. “I would say that it’s too early to draw any conclusion like that,” Vidanava says when I ask her if she thinks the government might be behind the bombing. “As of today, if I say this is the case, it’s a criminal responsibility for me.”  

Was the government actually involved? Right now, the only thing that’s clear is that nothing is adding up to explain who set off the bomb in Minsk and why. It doesn’t help that conspiracy theories, whether ultimately correct or not, seem to be as plausible as the government line. Worst of all, in country where information is so tightly controlled, the Belarusian people may never know the truth about what happened.

James Kirchick is a contributing editor for TheNew Republic and writer at large with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty based in Prague.

"Threats to Internet freedom are growing and have become more diverse," warns a new report on global cyber-liberty titled Freedom on the Net 2011. The survey, published by Freedom House, looks at the state of Internet free speech in 37 countries. It notes that in twelve of them, state cyberattacks against critics of their respective regimes are "intensifying." And in almost two thirds, bloggers and less prominent users face harassment and arrest for expressing their views.

The report spotlights a quintet of countries that it sees as "particularly vulnerable to deterioration" over the next 12 months: Jordan, Russia, Thailand, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. China, Iran, Tunisia, and Belarus are highlighted when it comes to recent crackdowns on state critics. Now under new leadership, Tunisia's Internet status is in flux, but Freedom on the Net calls the Chinese government "a major global source of cyberattacks."

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Ukraine is currently undergoing a crisis, according to several of its leading intellectuals. It is not an economic quandary, but rather one of self-perception and future path. Six years after the Orange Revolution had appeared to put an end to a neo-Soviet leadership, the country has yet to establish a national identity and a clear direction. One of its leading writers comments that although Ukraine is celebrating its 20th year of independence, it will cease to exist in 20 years’ time.

Are such statements credible? Why is there such a crisis of identity today?

In terms of politics, there is no question that the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych has reversed some of the gains made in 2004-05. Both Western analyst Alexander Motyl and Ukrainian writer Mykola Riabchuk have highlighted the cronyism and corruption of the Yanukovych team.

But it was author and poet Yuri Andrukhovych who expressed the “doomsday scenario” in an interview [in Ukrainian] on 5 April on the website polit.ua (Ukrainian Politics). Noting that Ukraine is divided today between “Soviet Russians and Ukrainians”, he maintained that opponents of the country’s independence are as numerous as its supporters. In this situation normal development is impossible. Instead Ukraine is being dragged into what Andrukhovych calls “the Russian world” under the leadership of its east Ukrainian clan.

In his 18 March article “Beauty and the Beasts”, Riabchuk observes that the leading Ukrainian oligarchs are afraid of a pro-western policy, open competition, and the rule of law and thus abandoned the more moderate and centrist position they had held under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) and opted instead to back the Russophile group that is currently in power, which relies on tight control and brutal crackdowns against opponents in the best of Soviet traditions.

The Holodomor (1932-33) has become a symbol of
Ukrainian national suffering at the hands of Russia.
Some pro-Russian Ukrainians contest this version of
history.

Regarding the pro-Ukraine policies heralded by the Orange Revolution, Kyrylo Halushko, a sociologist from the Drahomaniv National University in Kyiv, speaking at the University of Alberta on 7 April, commented that they were identified closely with the personal fortunes of President Viktor Yushchenko and therefore disappeared from view once the latter’s popularity began to drop sharply. Thus national symbols such as Ivan Mazepa, Symon Petlyura, and the Famine-Holodomor of 1933 are barely recognised in contemporary school textbooks.

An additional problem has been the figure responsible for those textbooks, Dmytro Tabachnyk, Ukraine’s Minister of Education and Science, Youth and Sports. In fact Tabachnyk, who has even been chided by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov for antagonising teachers, symbolises what critics perceive as the fundamentally anti-Ukrainian nature of the Yanukovych Cabinet.

How can Ukraine attain a national identity if its national leaders deny that one exists?

A study conducted several years ago by scholar Yaroslav Hrytsak contrasted popular opinion in two antithetical cities, namely Hrytsak’s native L’viv and Donetsk; one Ukrainian-speaking, Europe-oriented and pressing hard for recognition of nationalist heroes; the other Russian-speaking, Sovietised, and supportive of the Red Army heroes of the “Great Patriotic War”.

The point, however, is not that both identities exist—they surely do—but that they represent the extremities. Most Ukrainians are not interested in going back to the Soviet Union and the younger generation cannot even remember it.

Moreover, even the Yanukovych government wishes to join the Free Trade Area of the European Union. It is not yet confined within what Andrukhovych calls “the Russian space”. It has not even joined the Common Economic Space with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Kyiv in April 2011 with a mission to coax Yanukovych to integrate the Ukrainian economy more closely with Moscow. Economic pressure is today’s substitute for the more forcible methods of the Soviet era. Already there is talk that the agreement on gas prices might be waived, and Ukraine could pay $350 per 1,000 cubic meters rather than its current $260.

Dmytro Tabachnyk, Ukraine’s Minister of
Education and Science, Youth and Sports.
For many, Tabachnyk symbolises the
Yanukovych government's inherent
anti-Ukrainianism

Ukraine’s situation admittedly is troubling, but even the Donetsk group currently in control has its own priorities, and these are national by default. They have no wish to be subsumed to the interests of their larger neighbour.

Ultimately then, Ukraine may be defined not for what it is, but what it is not. And the key goal for Ukrainian intellectuals should be to find issues of common consent to identify what is Ukraine without alienating a large portion of the population. The recent past remains too divisive to be used as a basis.

The first task is to build up a strong opposition force that embraces democracy and the centrism of the Kuchma era without the corruption. The removal of Tabachnyk should be the first task. And focus should be on the parliamentary election set for 28 October 2012. Given the growing unpopularity of the government, there is a real opportunity to bring change.

The response to Andrukhovych is encapsulated by the title of Ukraine’s national anthem: Ukraine is not yet dead!

 

A version of this article originally appeared in the Edmonton Journal

Of all the former republics of the Soviet Union, Belarus has changed the least. Its economy remains almost entirely in state hands, the government shows zero tolerance for dissent and the domestic spy agency is still called KGB.

MINSK, Belarus – The authoritarian president of Belarus angrily refuted allegations Saturday the government was behind a subway bombing in the capital that killed 13 and wounded more than 200 others. Monday’s bombing in Minsk puzzled terrorism experts who have … Continue reading →

MINSK, Belarus — The authoritarian president of Belarus angrily refuted allegations Saturday the government was behind a subway bombing in the capital that killed 13 and wounded more than 200 others. Monday's bombing in Minsk puzzled terrorism experts who have struggled to speculate on possible motives in a tightly-controlled country with little history of attacks on such a scale.

The authoritarian president of Belarus angrily refuted allegations Saturday the government was behind a subway bombing in the capital that killed 13 and wounded more than 200 others.

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Asia

• The leader of Japan's opposition Liberal Democratic Party is urging Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign over his handling of the country's post-earthquake crisis. 
• A suicide bomber blew himself up during prayers at a police station mosque in West Java, Indonesia. 
• China's economy grew a faster-than-expected 9.7 percent in the first quarter.

Middle East

• Syria has formed a new government in response to widespread unrest. The U.S. is accusing Iran of helping Syria put down protests. 
• Tunisian prosecutors say they want to try former leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on 18 charges including manslaughter and drug trafficking. 
• The Bahraini government has filed a lawsuit to ban two Shia opposition groups. 

Americas

• 16 police officers were arrested in Northeast Mexico in connection with recently discovered mass graves. 
• Argentina's last military leader, Reynaldo Bignone, was sentenced to life in prison for torture and murder. 
• Cuba Communist Party Congress is set to begin this weekend. 

Africa

• Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore has fled his palace after a mutiny by his presidential guard. 
• A key pro-Gbagbo militia leader was arrested in the Ivory Coast. 
• Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is favored to win reelection tomorrow. 

Europe

• Belgium was shocked by the televised admission of a former Catholic bishop that he abused two of his nephews. 
• Two former Croatian military leaders were convicted at the Hague of atrocities against ethnic Serbs.
• Belarus prosecutors have released images said to show last week's metro bombing. 

ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images

Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?

Courtesy of Guest Author Ellen Brown, originally published at Truthout

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Attorney general says foreign minister will be indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering, pending final hearing

Israel's attorney general has announced that the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, will be indicted on corruption charges but will be allowed a standard final hearing before he is charged.

Lieberman, a hardline member of Binyamin Netanyahu's cabinet, has been under investigation on various charges for years.

The attorney general's office said Lieberman would be indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust, aggravated fraud, money laundering and harassing a witness.

The announcement came as Lieberman oversaw a conference of his ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party in Jerusalem. He and his aides had no immediate comment.

Allegations against Lieberman centre on the transfer of millions of shekels to what police described as shell companies and accounts belonging to people close to him.

Police had also alleged that Israel's ambassador to Belarus leaked information to Lieberman about the proceedings against him, and recommended Lieberman additionally be indicted for bribery, but this charge did not appear in the attorney general's statement.

Israel's supreme court ruled in a 1993 case that the prime minister was required to dismiss a government official who was charged with a crime. Israeli legal analysts say this precedent means Lieberman would be required to step down if indicted.

Opposition fears fresh crackdown after the government of Belarus issued a security alert following the death of 12 people and wounding of 149 by a bomb in a crowded metro station in the capital

Japan has raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis from five to the maximum seven, putting the emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant on a par with that at Chernobyl in 1986. Mark Tran looks at the differences between the two disasters

What is the severity level?

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) international nuclear and radiological event scale ranks nuclear and radiological accidents and incidents by severity from one to seven. Until now, the 1986 Chernobyl accident was the only nuclear accident to have been rated a level seven event, which the IAEA describes as "a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures". Officials from Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency (Nisa) estimate that the amount of radioactive material released to the atmosphere from Fukushima is much less than Chernobyl. A spokesman for Nisa said the new ranking did not mean the Japanese plant posed the same threat to public health or involved similarly big releases of radiation as the Chernobyl disaster.

What is the main difference between the two accidents?

At Chernobyl, explosions destroyed a reactor, releasing a cloud of radiation that contaminated large areas of Europe. At Fukushima, which was damaged by an earthquake, the reactors still have mostly intact containment vessels surrounding their nuclear cores. Japanese officials point out that at Chernobyl, the reactor itself exploded while still active At Fukushima, the magnitude nine earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant's cooling system, leading to a partial meltdown of the reactor. Earlier attempts to cool the reactor by hosing water from fire engines and helicopters left pools of contaminated water and flooded basements, hampering the containment operation and efforts to restart the cooling pumps. To make room for more highly radioactive liquid, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric pumped tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific but stopped after the move was criticised by South Korea. Tokyo Electric appears to be no closer to restoring cooling systems at the reactors, critical to lowering the temperature of overheated nuclear fuel rods.

How much radioactive material has been released at Fukushima?

Japan's nuclear safety commission has estimated that the Fukushima plant's reactors had released up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 per hour into the air for several hours after they were damaged in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. It said emissions since then had dropped to below one terabecquerel per hour, adding that it was examining the total amount of radioactive materials released. A terabecquerel equals a trillion becquerels, a measure for radiation emissions. The government says the Chernobyl incident released 5.2m terabecquerels into the air about 10 times that of the Fukushima plant.

What were the effects of Chernobyl?

Fifty emergency rescue workers died from acute radiation syndrome and related illnesses, 4,000 children and adolescents contracted thyroid cancer, nine of whom died. More than 100,000 people were immediately evacuated, and the total number of evacuees from contaminated areas eventually reached 350,000. The explosions that destroyed the unit four reactor core released a cloud of radionuclides, which contaminated large areas of Europe and, in particular, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and affected livestock as far away as Scandinavia and Britain. Hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to substantial radiation doses, including workers who took part in efforts to mitigate the consequences of the accident. The IAEA said the situation had been made worse by conflicting information, exaggeration in press coverage and pseudoscientific accounts of the accident reporting, for example, fatalities in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

What have been the effects so far at Fukushima?

The death toll from the tsunami is more than 13,000, but no radiation-linked deaths have been reported and only 21 plant workers have been affected by minor radiation sickness, according to Japanese officials. About 70,000 people living within a 12-mile radius of the plant have been evacuated, while 130,000 living between 12 and 20 miles from the plant have been told to leave voluntarily or stay indoors. The government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said the current evacuation zone would be extended to five other communities, including the village of Iitate, which lies 25 miles from the plant. Some experts have criticised the raising of the severity level. "I think raising it to the level of Chernobyl is excessive," said Murray Jennex, associate professor at San Diego state university. "It's nowhere near that level. Chernobyl was terrible – it blew and they had no containment and they were stuck. Their [Fukushima] containment has been holding, the only thing that hasn't is the fuel pool that caught fire."

President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, says deadly blast in Minsk metro station was an attempt to destabilize the country

President Alexander Lukashenko has said that a blast that tore through a crowded metro station in the Belarus capital Minsk in the evening rush hour, killing 11 people, was an attempt to destabilize the country.

As police placed the capital on high alert, Lukashenko linked the explosion to a previous unsolved blast in 2008, saying: "These are perhaps links in a single chain.

"We must find out who gained by undermining peace and stability in the country, who stands behind this," added the president, whose re-election for a fourth term and subsequent crackdown on protests in December was criticised by western nations.

Acts of deliberate violence are unusual in the ex-Soviet republic of 10 million people which shares borders with Poland, Latvia and Lithuania and with Russia and Ukraine.

One opposition figure said he feared Lukashenko would use the blast to crack down even more harshly on political rivals. "Prosecutors qualify this as a terrorist act," a source in Lukashenko's administration said.

Lukashenko said: "I do not rule out that this [the blast] was a gift from abroad."

A former state-farm boss, Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994, jailing opponents and silencng independent media while offering generous welfare and pensions to his citizens on the back of Russian subsidies.

After the election, police arrested nearly 700 protesters and reporters during protests.

The EU and the US have imposed a travel ban on Lukashenko and his closest associates because of the 19 December crackdown. He has said the opposition rally was an attempted coup financed by the west.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors said the vote count was flawed and criticised police for being heavy handed. The remarks angered Minsk, which forced the OSCE to close down its office there.

In typical combative style, Lukashenko hit back, defending the police, dismissing members of the opposition as being bent on "banditry" and denouncing the OSCE verdict as "amoral".

Monday's blast occurred on a platform at around 6 pm at the Oktyabrskaya metro station – one of the city's busiest underground rail junctions – about 100m from the main presidential headquarters.

Lukashenko was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying 11 people had been killed and 100 injured. A presidential administration source later said 126 people had been injured.

In his remarks, Lukashenko referred back to July 2008 when a homemade bomb wounded about 50 people at an open air concert he was attending. The crime was never solved.

"Regardless of who organised and ordered the blast, the government will be tempted to use it as an excuse to tighten the screws ... I am afraid they will use it," said Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the opposition United Civic party.

BY YURAS KARMANAU | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MINSK, Belarus -- An explosion tore through a key subway station in the Belarusian capital of Minsk during evening rush hour Monday killing 11 people and wounding 126. An official said the blast was a terrorist act.

President Alexander Lukashenko did not say what caused the explosion at the Oktyabrskaya subway station, but suggested outside forces could be behind it.

"I do not rule out that this gift could have been brought from outside," Lukashenko said. The authoritarian leader, under strong pressure from the West over his suppression of the opposition, has frequently alleged outside forces seek to destabilize his regime.

Deputy prosecutor-general Andrei Shved said the blast was a terrorist act, but did not give further details.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw heavily wounded people being carried out of the station, including one person with missing legs.

Several witnesses told The Associated Press that the explosion hit just as passengers were stepping off a train about 6 p.m. The Oktyabrskaya station, where Minsk's two subway lines intersect, was crowded with passengers at the end of the work day.

The station is within 100 yards of the presidential administration building and the Palace of the Republic, a concert hall often used for government ceremonies.

Lukashenko visited the site about two hours after the blast and left without comment. He later ordered that the country's feared police to "call in all forces and turn everything inside-out" to investigate the blast.

About five hours after the blast, Health Minister Vasily Zharko said 11 people were killed and 126 people were wounded, 22 of them severely.

One witness, Alexei Kiklevich, said at least part of the station's ceiling collapsed after the explosion.

Political tensions have been rising in Belarus since December, when a massive demonstration against a disputed presidential election sparked a harsh crackdown by police in which more than 700 people were arrested, including seven presidential candidates.

Financial analysts are now predicting that Spain will be the next Eurozone country to require an IMF/ECB bailout. With its persistent high unemployment and a banking sector that was severely damaged by the collapse of the real estate bubble, the country’s economy is shaky indeed. But Spanish government officials insist that “Spain is not Portugal”, and will survive the crisis without outside intervention.

In other news, a terrorist bomb exploded in a subway station in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. The bomb was loaded with bolts and similar metal objects, so as to inflict the most severe injuries. Up to eleven people were reported killed.

Meanwhile, Tunisian boat people on Lampedusa rioted again, and set fire to buildings in the refugee center where they were being housed.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, DS, Fjordman, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, JP, Steen, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The explosion, which took place in the centre of the capital as commuters travelled home from work, injured up to 100 people

A powerful blast has ripped through a metro station in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, killing at least 11 people and injuring up to 100.

The explosion took place at the Oktyabrskaya station in the centre of the city just before 6pm on Monday as commuters travelled home from work.

Video shot by witnesses on mobile phones showed survivors reeling across a smoke-filled platform where a woman with a damaged leg sat propped against a wall.

In other images, a tide of frightened people rushed out through exit doors into an underpass as men with stretchers descended into the station. At street level, on Minsk's Independence Avenue, emergency workers tended to more than a dozen seriously injured victims in shredded clothes, lying in pools of blood. Some had severed limbs. A young woman wailed "Mum, I'm alive! I'm alive!" into her telephone, while at least two corpses lay under a sheet of plastic.

The Oktyabrskaya station is situated close to the residence of Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus. Lukashenko, a Soviet-style dictator, sent security forces to violently crush an opposition rally after disputed presidential elections in December.

Several opposition candidates were arrested and are awaiting trial on charges of "organising mass public disturbances".

There is likely to be speculation that the blast will play into the hands of the hardline regime, who may use it as an excuse to crack down on the opposition.

News agencies said that President Lukashenko visited the scene and laid flowers.

"I can't exclude that this gift was brought to us from outside, but we need to look at ourselves," he told his defence minister, Yury Zhadobin, at an emergency government meeting."You must check all the warehouses to see if ammunition and explosives are in place."

Lukashenko said the explosion could be connected to an unsolved incident in July 2008 when a bomb exploded in a park in Minsk, injuring about 50 people. "Maybe it's a link in the same chain," he said.

Security sources said it was most likely a terrorist attack, but it was unclear who might have detonated the blast, which happened at rush hour at one of the city's busiest transport hubs. There appeared to be no suicide bomber and Belarus has no history of confrontation with Islamists, like its larger neighbour, Russia.

Witnesses described a scene of horror in the moments after the device went off. "It happened between the second and third carriages of the train on the Moscow line," one man told reporters. "There were a lot of people covered in blood. I carried six young people out of there. I think there are fatalities."

Another man told Interfax: "I heard a muffled sound, like someone opening a champagne bottle, then the wave from the blast blew out the windows in the carriage. There was a great deal of smoke; we even became afraid that we might choke to death." Some witnesses spoke of a crater on the platform, not far from an escalator.

BY MARI YAMAGUCHI AND CHARLES HUTZLER | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TOKYO -- Once Japan's leaky nuclear complex stops spewing radiation and its reactors cool down, making the site safe and removing the ruined equipment is going to be a messy ordeal that could take decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Radiation has covered the area around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and blanketed parts of the complex, making the job of "decommissioning" the plant -- rendering it safe so it doesn't threaten public health and the environment -- a bigger task than usual.

Toshiba Corp., which supplied four of Fukushima's six reactors, including two on which General Electric Co. collaborated, submitted a roadmap this past week to the plant's operator for decommissioning the crippled reactors. The study, done with three other companies, projects that it would take about 10 years to remove the fuel rods and the reactors and contain other radioactivity at the site, said Keisuke Omori of Toshiba.

That timeline is far faster than those for other nuclear accidents and contains a big caveat: The reactors must first be stabilized and cooled, goals that have eluded emergency teams struggling with cascading problems in the month since the devastating tsunami damaged their cooling systems. Omori said the extent of damage to the reactors and other problems still need to be assessed.

"Of course decommissioning the four reactors would be more challenging than retiring one from an ordinary operation. We still have a lot to examine," Omori said. He declined to provide details on the costs and the timeframe, citing business confidentiality.

Getting a quick resolution to the Fukushima crisis would give a boost to a nation trying to recover from the severe disasters and to the tens of thousands forced to evacuate communities near the plant and already wearying of living in shelters with no prospects of returning home.

"It could take decades. We will all have to move away," said 36-year-old Hitomi Motouchi, who left a home on the fringe of the evacuation zone and is living in a gymnasium in Fukushima city. Unlike the tsunami refugees who may return to rebuilt communities, "it's different for us, because this disaster may never end," Motouchi said.

Decommissioning usually takes three forms: dismantling or decontaminating parts of the reactors so the land can be used; safely sealing off and monitoring the nuclear plant while the radiation inside decays; and entombing radioactive parts in concrete and steel.

With so much radiation spread about, experts said a combination of these is likely to be used at Fukushima. Once the reactors cool, heavily contaminated areas could be entombed by pouring concrete on top and tunneling underneath to insert a slab to prevent seepage. Other tainted areas could be locked down. That would allow the radiation to decay naturally but put on hold usual tasks like dismantling parts of the complex.

"The best solution is to entomb the site for 40, 50, 60 years," said Arnold Gundersen, who wrote part of the Energy Department manual on decommissioning and runs the U.S.-based environmental consulting company Fairewinds Associates.

A Fairewinds study cited cost estimates for decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, whose boiling water reactors are similar to Fukushima's but have fewer problems, that ran as high as $950 million last year and would likely exceed $1 billion next year. Gundersen said the tab for the Japanese plant may end up being many times that amount.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, chief spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, has said ideally the Fukushima complex eventually will be returned to "flat land," meaning the facility is dismantled and removed.

Though an avid user of nuclear power with 54 plants, Japan has little experience in decommissioning and none involving problematic reactors. The first, the Tokai Power Station's No. 1 reactor, is 13 years into a 22-year process. Its fuel rods have been removed, and its turbines and other equipment are being dismantled while the reactor is isolated, its vents and ducts closed.

Decommissioning troubled reactors tends to be more drawn-out. Parts of Ukraine are still uninhabitable 25 years after the Chernobyl nuclear plant's No. 4 reactor exploded, while neighboring Belarus began allowing some people to move into its no-go zone last year.

The dun-colored cooling tower and rounded dome of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant's Unit 2 still loom over central Pennsylvania 32 years after its cooling system malfunctioned, causing a partial meltdown and sending up plumes of radioactive gas. Its final decommission date is two decades away at a cost, as estimated by the U.S. nuclear regulatory agency, of more than $850 million.

"It's like a funeral where the pallbearers have to stand around for decades," said Eric Epstein, who runs the monitoring group TMI Alert. The region was long known for plain-living Amish farmers, the Hershey Co. chocolate factory and the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, he said, but is now stigmatized in the public mind by the United States' worst nuclear accident.

Unlike Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, where problems were confined to one reactor each, Fukushima has three active reactors that are not cooling properly and at least one of which may be leaking, and four storage pools for spent fuel which have overheated, some to dangerous levels.

"This is going to be inevitably a much more challenging decommissioning than we have experience with," said Peter Bradford, a former commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Explosions in the first few days of the crisis at Fukushima showered debris over the site and highly radioactive water has inundated trenches, tunnels and ducts not normally exposed to radiation. Plutonium, which lingers for decades and may cause cancers at high levels of exposure, has been found on site and other highly radioactive elements like cobalt are likely there.

Cesium-137, another long-lingerer linked to cancer, has been detected 15 to 35 miles away from the plant in amounts the scientific journal Nature said this past week suggests the areas may not be fit for food production for decades, as was the case with Chernobyl.

Once the extent of contamination is known, the Japanese government may have to decide whether a faster expensive cleanup -- that is, one undertaken before much radiation decays -- is feasible or preferable to sealing off wide areas to let the radiation decay, as was done in Chernobyl.

Another speedy solution suggested by some experts is to pour concrete or sand over the overheated reactors, not waiting until they cool. The tactic has been dismissed by Japan's nuclear safety agency and other experts have called it risky as the nuclear fuel may melt through the container.

The Toshiba plan -- developed with its Westinghouse Electric Co. unit, the energy company Babcock & Wilcox Co. and the Shaw Group, which specializes in civil engineering -- was worked on by 100 specialists and looks at Three Mile Island for lessons, said Omori, the company spokesman.

It predicts the reactors will be stabilized in several months and envisions moving ahead on multiple tasks simultaneously. Fuel removal could begin late this year while radioactive debris would be cleared and less contaminated equipment outside the reactors demolished, Omori said.

That's a faster timetable than Three Mile Island, where fuel removal began six years after the accident and took another six years to complete.

Whatever the method, Fukushima's four problematic units, 1, 2, 3 and 4, will be scrapped. But a final decommissioning may depend on whether the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., keeps Units 5 and 6 running. At Three Mile Island, nuclear fuel from the damaged Unit 2 reactor has been shipped to Idaho and contaminated water has evaporated. But it cannot be fully dismantled and decommissioned until after its adjacent Unit 1 is shut down in 2034.

------

Hutzler reported from Beijing. Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge in Fukushima and Ryan Nakashima and Mayumi Saito in Tokyo contributed to this report.

Added Djibouti

←Older revision		Revision as of 05:30, 10 April 2011
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Line 234:		Line 234:
	Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office [http://caipo.gov.bb/]		Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office [http://caipo.gov.bb/]
		+
		+	= Belarus =
		+
		+	Ministry of Trade [http://www.mintorg.gov.by]
		+
		+	Ministry of Emergency Situations, Aftermath of Chernobyl [http://www.chernobyl.gov.by]
		+
		+	Ministry of Internal Affairs [http://bep.gov.by]
		+
		+	Gomel Customs [http://gomel.customs.gov.by]
		+
		+	Vitebsk Customs [http://vitebsk.customs.gov.by]
		+
		+	Brest Customs [http://brest.customs.gov.by]
	= Belgium =		= Belgium =
Line 240:		Line 254:
	CODA-CERVA, the federal 'Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre' by the Federal government [http://www.var.fgov.be]		CODA-CERVA, the federal 'Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre' by the Federal government [http://www.var.fgov.be]
		+
		+	= Belize =
		+
		+	Southern Health Region [http://shr.health.gov.bz]
		+
		+	Ministry of Education [http://www.moe.gov.bz]
		+
		+	Police Department [http://www.police.gov.bz]
	= Benin =		= Benin =
Line 248:		Line 270:
	Army [http://www.etamajorgeneral.gouv.bj/]		Army [http://www.etamajorgeneral.gouv.bj/]
		+
		+	= Bhutan =
		+
		+	Department of Human Resources [http://www.molhr.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Cabinet Secretariat [http://www.cabinet.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Department of Trade [http://www.trade.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Infocomm and Media Authority [http://www.bicma.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Thimpu District Municipality [http://www.tcc.gov.bt]
	= Bolivia =		= Bolivia =
Line 304:		Line 338:
	Ministry of Finance and Treasury [http://www.mft.gov.ba]		Ministry of Finance and Treasury [http://www.mft.gov.ba]
		+
		+	= Botswana =
		+
		+	Ministry of Trade and Industry [http://www.mti.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation [http://www.mofaic.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Directorate of Public Service Management [http://www.dpsm.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Central Statistics Office [http://www.cso.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Ministry of Youth, Sport, and Culture [http://www.mysc.gov.bw]
	= Brazil =		= Brazil =
Line 360:		Line 406:
	Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC) / Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) [http://www.coc.fiocruz.br/]		Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC) / Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) [http://www.coc.fiocruz.br/]
		+
		+	= Brunei Darussalam =
		+
		+	Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources [http://www.bruneimipr.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Attorney General's Chambers [http://www.agc.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Department of Civil Aviation [http://www.civil-aviation.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Prime Minister's Officer [http://www.jpm.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Energy Division, Prime Minister's Office [http://www.energy.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Judiciary [http://www.judicial.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Ministry of Communications [http://www.mincom.gov.bn]
		+
		+	MOD [http://www.mod.gov.bn]
		+
		+	E-Business Leadership Forum [http://www.eblf.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Ministry of Defence [http://www.mindef.gov.bn]
	=Bulgaria=		=Bulgaria=
Line 378:		Line 446:
	Ministry Of Youth And Employment [http://www.mje.gov.bf/]		Ministry Of Youth And Employment [http://www.mje.gov.bf/]
		+
		+	= Cameroon =
		+
		+	Ministry of Higher Education [http://www.minesup.gov.cm]
		+
		+	Ministry of Youth Affairs [http://www.minjeun.gov.cm]
		+
		+	Ministry of Urban Development [http://www.minduh.gov.cm]
		+
		+	Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Regional Development [http://www.minepat.gov.cm]
	= Canada =		= Canada =
Line 419:		Line 497:
	= Cape Verde =		= Cape Verde =
-	President of Cape Verde [http://www.primeiroministro.cv/]	+	President of Cape Verde [http://www.primeiroministro.cv]
		+
		+	Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros [http://www.mnecc.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Health, Dengue Fever [http://www.dengue.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Education and Sport [http://www.minedu.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Environment and Agriculture [http://www.madrm.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Coordination Unit for State Reform [http://www.reformadoestado.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Mundu Novu [http://www.mundunovu.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Economy, Growth and Competitiveness [http://www.mecc.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Direccao-Geral do Ensino Superior e Ciencia [http://www.dgesc.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Health [http://www.minsaude.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Finance [http://www.minfin.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Cape Verde 2016 [http://www.caboverde2016.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Justice [http://www.mj.gov.cv]
		+
		+	Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Solidarity [http://www.mtfs.gov.cv]
		+
		+	= China =
		+
		+	Liaoning Provincial Sports Bureau [http://www.lnsports.gov.cn]
		+
		+	Jiading District Water Authority [http://www.jdwater.gov.cn]
		+
		+	Beijing Science and Technology Cooperation Center [http://www.beijingstcc.gov.cn]
		+
		+	Dalian City Public Security Bureau Traffic Police Detachment [http://www.dlutc.gov.cn]
		+
		+	Sichuan Enviornmental Protection [http://www.schj.gov.cn]
		+
		+	Aksu City Government [http://www.akss.gov.cn]
	= Colombia =		= Colombia =
Line 614:		Line 732:
	Ministry of Cultural Development [http://www.mocd.gov.ck/]		Ministry of Cultural Development [http://www.mocd.gov.ck/]
		+
		+	= Cypress =
		+
		+	Ministry of Interior [http://moi.gov.cy]
		+
		+	Department of Electronic Communications [http://www.emf.mcw.gov.cy]
	= Guatemala =		= Guatemala =
Line 620:		Line 744:
	Ministerio de Finanzas Públicas [http://minfin.gob.gt]		Ministerio de Finanzas Públicas [http://minfin.gob.gt]
		+
		+	= Djibouti =
		+
		+	Ministry of National Education and Higher Education [http://www.education.gov.dj]
	= Dubai =		= Dubai =

Added Cameroon

←Older revision		Revision as of 04:54, 10 April 2011
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Line 234:		Line 234:
	Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office [http://caipo.gov.bb/]		Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office [http://caipo.gov.bb/]
		+
		+	= Belarus =
		+
		+	Ministry of Trade [http://www.mintorg.gov.by]
		+
		+	Ministry of Emergency Situations, Aftermath of Chernobyl [http://www.chernobyl.gov.by]
		+
		+	Ministry of Internal Affairs [http://bep.gov.by]
		+
		+	Gomel Customs [http://gomel.customs.gov.by]
		+
		+	Vitebsk Customs [http://vitebsk.customs.gov.by]
		+
		+	Brest Customs [http://brest.customs.gov.by]
	= Belgium =		= Belgium =
Line 240:		Line 254:
	CODA-CERVA, the federal 'Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre' by the Federal government [http://www.var.fgov.be]		CODA-CERVA, the federal 'Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre' by the Federal government [http://www.var.fgov.be]
		+
		+	= Belize =
		+
		+	Southern Health Region [http://shr.health.gov.bz]
		+
		+	Ministry of Education [http://www.moe.gov.bz]
		+
		+	Police Department [http://www.police.gov.bz]
	= Benin =		= Benin =
Line 248:		Line 270:
	Army [http://www.etamajorgeneral.gouv.bj/]		Army [http://www.etamajorgeneral.gouv.bj/]
		+
		+	= Bhutan =
		+
		+	Department of Human Resources [http://www.molhr.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Cabinet Secretariat [http://www.cabinet.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Department of Trade [http://www.trade.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Infocomm and Media Authority [http://www.bicma.gov.bt]
		+
		+	Thimpu District Municipality [http://www.tcc.gov.bt]
	= Bolivia =		= Bolivia =
Line 304:		Line 338:
	Ministry of Finance and Treasury [http://www.mft.gov.ba]		Ministry of Finance and Treasury [http://www.mft.gov.ba]
		+
		+	= Botswana =
		+
		+	Ministry of Trade and Industry [http://www.mti.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation [http://www.mofaic.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Directorate of Public Service Management [http://www.dpsm.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Central Statistics Office [http://www.cso.gov.bw]
		+
		+	Ministry of Youth, Sport, and Culture [http://www.mysc.gov.bw]
	= Brazil =		= Brazil =
Line 360:		Line 406:
	Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC) / Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) [http://www.coc.fiocruz.br/]		Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC) / Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) [http://www.coc.fiocruz.br/]
		+
		+	= Brunei Darussalam =
		+
		+	Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources [http://www.bruneimipr.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Attorney General's Chambers [http://www.agc.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Department of Civil Aviation [http://www.civil-aviation.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Prime Minister's Officer [http://www.jpm.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Energy Division, Prime Minister's Office [http://www.energy.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Judiciary [http://www.judicial.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Ministry of Communications [http://www.mincom.gov.bn]
		+
		+	MOD [http://www.mod.gov.bn]
		+
		+	E-Business Leadership Forum [http://www.eblf.gov.bn]
		+
		+	Ministry of Defence [http://www.mindef.gov.bn]
	=Bulgaria=		=Bulgaria=
Line 378:		Line 446:
	Ministry Of Youth And Employment [http://www.mje.gov.bf/]		Ministry Of Youth And Employment [http://www.mje.gov.bf/]
		+
		+	= Cameroon =
		+
		+	Ministry of Higher Education [http://www.minesup.gov.cm]
		+
		+	Ministry of Youth Affairs [http://www.minjeun.gov.cm]
		+
		+	Ministry of Urban Development [http://www.minduh.gov.cm]
		+
		+	Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Regional Development [http://www.minepat.gov.cm]
	= Canada =		= Canada =

MINSK, Belarus — The economy here, still loaded with Soviet paraphernalia, is sick and getting sicker. A hard currency crisis that began in March has brought parts of the private sector to a standstill, and a systemwide financial collapse looms if the government can’t hit upon a solution.

Radioactive yellow rain that fell in Tokyo and surrounding areas on March 24 caused panic amongst Japanese citizens and prompted a flood of phone calls to Japan’s Meteorological Agency this morning, with people concerned that they were being fed the same lies as victims of Chernobyl, who were told that yellow rain which fell over Russia and surrounding countries after the 1986 disaster was merely pollen, the same explanation now being offered by Japanese authorities.

“After two days of rain in Tokyo I woke up to a thick coating of this yellow stuff all over my car. What looks like a glare between the glass and the body of the car is actually pollen. My first thought was ewe! Radioactive sludge from Fukushima, but no,” states the comment associated with this You Tube clip.

“The (Japan Meteorological) agency received more than 200 inquiries Thursday morning about yellowish residue left on roofs and elsewhere by the rain, stirring concerns that radioactive substances had fallen after accidents caused by the March 11 quake and tsunami at a nuclear power plant around 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo,” reports Japan Today.

Officials later suggested the discoloration was caused by air-borne pollen falling with the rain. “The JMA believes the yellow patches are pollen, but has yet to confirm this,” reports the Wall Street Journal, adding that the JMA received over 280 calls after residents in the Kanto region discovered yellow powder on the ground.

“A health official at the Tokyo metropolitan government also said there is a possibility that the rain contained radioactivity but not at a level to have had adverse effects on people’s health,” adds the Japan Today report.

Given the fact that Japanese authorities have been habitually deceptive about the Fukushima crisis from start to finish, assurances that the yellow powder was merely a result of air-borne pollen particles are dubious at best. With people living in Tokyo already being told that tap water is unsafe to drink, along with contaminated vegetables and milk from certain areas near Fukushima, the fact that they were panicked by yellow rain is unsurprising.

Although pollen can turn rain a yellow color, the fact that the phenomenon occurred a couple of hundred kilometers south of the radiation-spewing Fukushima nuclear plant has stoked alarm, and understandably so given the fact that victims of Chernobyl nuclear fallout in 1986 were also told by authorities that yellow rain was harmless pollen, when in fact it was deadly radioactive contamination.

A University of California Daily Bruin article entitled “Remembering Chernobyl,” documents how children in Belarus happily splashed around in puddles of yellow rain having been assured by
https://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/chernobyl-style-yellow-rain-causes-panic-...

Russian authorities that it was merely pollen, when in fact it was a toxic mixture of radioactivity that had been blasted from the Chernobyl plant 80 miles away.

Thinking back to 20 years ago, it’s the splashing in yellow rainwater that Antonina Sergieff vividly recalls.

“We all jumped in the puddles with the yellow stuff. … You don’t see (it in) the air, it doesn’t materialize. But when you see the yellow dust, you see radiation,” Sergieff said.

When these elements first reached Sergieff 20 years ago, they came in the form of yellow rain.

It was not long after that residents in her hometown knew it wasn’t simply “pollen” – which is what government officials assured them, she said.

The effects of this “pollen” soon confirmed that those puddles of yellow rain contained something far more sinister, namely iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239.

“Soon, people started losing their hair, pictures of deformed animals sprouted up in independent newspapers, and incidences of cancer in Belarus skyrocketed, Sergieff said. According to the U.N. brief, cases of breast cancer in Belarus doubled between 1988 and 1999, among other increases.”

With levels of radiation emitted by Fukushima now approaching those spewed out by the blast at Chernobyl, as the establishment media bizarrely pretends that the crisis is all but over, seawater samples taken around 330 meters south of the plant confirm that levels of radioactive iodine released are the highest yet recorded.

As we have highlighted, despite UN and World Health Organization studies that claim Chernobyl led to a maximum of 9,000 deaths and 200,000 cases of radiation sickness, more contemporary studies have shown that nearly a million people have been killed from cancers caused by the disaster over the course of the last 25 years.

• added by: Dagum  
• 6 comments

Radioactive yellow rain that fell in Tokyo and surrounding areas on March 24 caused panic amongst Japanese citizens and prompted a flood of phone calls to Japan’s Meteorological Agency this morning, with people concerned that they were being fed the same lies as victims of Chernobyl, who were told that yellow rain which fell over Russia and surrounding countries after the 1986 disaster was merely pollen, the same explanation now being offered by Japanese authorities.

“After two days of rain in Tokyo I woke up to a thick coating of this yellow stuff all over my car. What looks like a glare between the glass and the body of the car is actually pollen. My first thought was ewe! Radioactive sludge from Fukushima, but no,” states the comment associated with this You Tube clip.

“The (Japan Meteorological) agency received more than 200 inquiries Thursday morning about yellowish residue left on roofs and elsewhere by the rain, stirring concerns that radioactive substances had fallen after accidents caused by the March 11 quake and tsunami at a nuclear power plant around 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo,” reports Japan Today.

Officials later suggested the discoloration was caused by air-borne pollen falling with the rain. “The JMA believes the yellow patches are pollen, but has yet to confirm this,” reports the Wall Street Journal, adding that the JMA received over 280 calls after residents in the Kanto region discovered yellow powder on the ground.

“A health official at the Tokyo metropolitan government also said there is a possibility that the rain contained radioactivity but not at a level to have had adverse effects on people’s health,” adds the Japan Today report.

Given the fact that Japanese authorities have been habitually deceptive about the Fukushima crisis from start to finish, assurances that the yellow powder was merely a result of air-borne pollen particles are dubious at best. With people living in Tokyo already being told that tap water is unsafe to drink, along with contaminated vegetables and milk from certain areas near Fukushima, the fact that they were panicked by yellow rain is unsurprising.

Although pollen can turn rain a yellow color, the fact that the phenomenon occurred a couple of hundred kilometers south of the radiation-spewing Fukushima nuclear plant has stoked alarm, and understandably so given the fact that victims of Chernobyl nuclear fallout in 1986 were also told by authorities that yellow rain was harmless pollen, when in fact it was deadly radioactive contamination.

A University of California Daily Bruin article entitled “Remembering Chernobyl,” documents how children in Belarus happily splashed around in puddles of yellow rain having been assured by
https://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/chernobyl-style-yellow-rain-causes-panic-...

Russian authorities that it was merely pollen, when in fact it was a toxic mixture of radioactivity that had been blasted from the Chernobyl plant 80 miles away.

Thinking back to 20 years ago, it’s the splashing in yellow rainwater that Antonina Sergieff vividly recalls.

“We all jumped in the puddles with the yellow stuff. … You don’t see (it in) the air, it doesn’t materialize. But when you see the yellow dust, you see radiation,” Sergieff said.

When these elements first reached Sergieff 20 years ago, they came in the form of yellow rain.

It was not long after that residents in her hometown knew it wasn’t simply “pollen” – which is what government officials assured them, she said.

The effects of this “pollen” soon confirmed that those puddles of yellow rain contained something far more sinister, namely iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239.

“Soon, people started losing their hair, pictures of deformed animals sprouted up in independent newspapers, and incidences of cancer in Belarus skyrocketed, Sergieff said. According to the U.N. brief, cases of breast cancer in Belarus doubled between 1988 and 1999, among other increases.”

With levels of radiation emitted by Fukushima now approaching those spewed out by the blast at Chernobyl, as the establishment media bizarrely pretends that the crisis is all but over, seawater samples taken around 330 meters south of the plant confirm that levels of radioactive iodine released are the highest yet recorded.

As we have highlighted, despite UN and World Health Organization studies that claim Chernobyl led to a maximum of 9,000 deaths and 200,000 cases of radiation sickness, more contemporary studies have shown that nearly a million people have been killed from cancers caused by the disaster over the course of the last 25 years.

• added by: Dagum  
• 1 comment

The peace activist gunned down in front of the venue he helped found in the West Bank reminds us of the true value of the arts

Last October, the European Theatre Convention organised a visit to the West Bank. On the morning of the trip we spent 90 minutes with Shimon Peres discussing the peace process and the role of the arts in a divided society, before boarding a coach and passing through a checkpoint into Ramallah. From there we went on to the refugee camp in Jenin. On arrival, we were taken to the Freedom Theatre and welcomed by Juliano Mer-Khamis; handsome, charismatic and with a warmth that belied the strength of character needed to work in such conditions.

He showed us short films detailing the Freedom Theatre's work, talked about his history and mediated in conversations with three of the company. One, an ex-terrorist, believed himself responsible for the death of his sister at the hands of the Israeli army. Another's cousin had participated in a suicide attack that had led to the death of three women; his cousin's dream had been to be an actor. The third, a young woman, talked about how she was constantly abused by her neighbours when she first started attending the Freedom Theatre.

Mer-Khamis himself stood at the heart of this extraordinary project – a drama venue in the heart of the occupied West Bank. Half-Israeli, half-Palestinian, he had been in an elite section of the Israeli army and gone on to become a successful actor (Holk Freytag, chairman of the German Theatre Association, yesterday described him as one of the best actors he knew) before finally returning to Jenin to found the Freedom Theatre, a project born out of the work of his mother, Arna Mer, to improve the education of children in occupied Palestine. He had worked alongside her before returning to Israel after her death.

Some years later, he heard the suicide attack that killed those three women had been committed by one of the young people his mother had taught and returned to Jenin. On finding that many of those same young people were now dead or fighting in the second intifada, he decided to stay and start work on what he called the "third intifada", which he described as needing to be "cultural; with poetry, music, theatre, cameras and magazines".

Following our visit last year, he agreed to come to Nottingham as part of the first 2011 Nottingham European Arts and Theatre Festival (NEAT 11) to show his extraordinary film about his mother's project, Arna's Children, and to talk about his work.

As the details of the festival were being finalised, we received some terrible news: Anna Yablonskaya, who was also due to participate, had been killed in the Moscow bombing. Then the Belarus Free Theatre had to pull out because their government was denying them visas. A few days later, an email arrived from Juliano with some wonderful news tinged with disappointment. His wife was expecting twins at the same time he was due in Nottingham and he had to cancel his visit. We agreed to show the film and to ask UK artists who had worked at his theatre to come and talk on his behalf.

On Monday, I received a call telling me that Juliano had been murdered by masked gunmen metres from the Freedom Theatre in a car containing his infant son. It's not 100% clear yet who the perpetrators were, but it is clear that there were many people with reason to hate him – for his fight for freedom of expression, his articulation of the Palestinians' plight, his call for the liberation of women and his willingness to stand against fundamentalism of all types. At a time when we are asked to justify the value of the arts, it is salutary to be reminded that some people die for the things we take for granted.

I believe that the Freedom Theatre needs to thrive in order to continue the legacy that Arna and Juliano have left behind – but today, 7 April 2011, it becomes a mourning house for the life of a courageous man, a loving husband and a devoted father.

• Giles Croft is the artistic director of the Nottingham Playhouse and NEAT11. There will be a screening of Arna's Children at 8pm on Thursday 9 June at New Art Exchange. Tickets cost £5 (£3). All proceeds will go to the Freedom Theatre, in memory of Juliano. For more information, go to nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk.

Russia's MTS has confirmed that it is in talks with the Belarussian government regarding the purchase of the 51% stake in MTS Belarus currently owned by the government. Click here for more.

Most Poles may feel connected to nature, but the battle for Białowieża lays bare their belief in their right to exploit the forest

It is a spectacle of savage beauty: splintered stumps and trunks lie like battlefield corpses between soaring oak and lime trees. Ochre-fringed bracket fungus feasts on the dead wood, while the first green shoots of spring pierce the leaf mold, amid the tracks of wolves and bison.

For ecologist Janusz Korbel, standing in the forest he loves and surrounded by decaying logs and branches, it is this life springing from death that is at the heart of this untouched place. "It's a kind of Eden," he says. "It was not created by humans."

The Białowieża forest is a time capsule, protected for centuries by Polish kings and Russian tsars as a royal hunting ground. To walk among the giant, slender trees – the tallest in Europe – is to glimpse the primeval forest that once blanketed all of the continent's lowlands. "It began about 8,000 years ago and has existed since then without any meaningful interference from people," says Korbel. But Białowieża is the last significant fragment of that vast forest, and while a 10 sq km wood is fully protected, a mighty battle is being fought over the 84% of the forest that lies outside the national park.

It is an almost biblical battle of philosophies, pitting those who believe nature has to be actively managed to prosper in the 21st century, and those who think nature can only be truly natural if left alone. Korbel is firmly in the latter camp: "This forest has lived for thousands of years without humans."

Opposing him is the powerful state forestry service, which manages 30% of all Poland's land and exerts deep local influence. "To keep the habitat in its proper state it needs to be managed and foresters try to manage natural forces," says regional director Marek Maslowski. "It is necessary to cut some trees to help nature work faster."

The key question today is whether the successful protection the national park provides should be extended, to protect the ancient trees and myriad species that live outside its boundaries. For example, white-backed woodpeckers, whose resonant knocking booms over the spring chatter, have lost 30% of their population in the past 20 years in forestry-managed areas.

"This is the best moment in many years for change," says Robert Cyglicki, director of Greenpeace Poland, as we survey a clear-felled copse. There is a Polish general election in October, the Polish presidency of the European Union in January, as well as the drafting of a new forest management plan and a crucial change in legislation to ease the extension of national parks. The latter was prompted after Greenpeace collected 250,000 petition signatures in November and follows its three-day occupation of the environment ministry roof in August. The forest has been a Unesco world heritage site since 1979.

In coal-dependent Poland environmentalists are rare, with little national sympathy for action on climate change. Adam Wajrak, nature correspondent for Poland's biggest daily paper Gazeta Wyborcza and Białowieża resident, says: "Polish people are very different to those in the west. They don't save energy. But they are very connected to nature. Most of us have grandparents in the countryside, some farmers, some foresters, and spend holidays there. I am surprised how much emotion comes out. If they tried to cull wolves here, as they did in Sweden, there would be demonstrations in the street."

But that connection to the land cuts both ways. Unlike in the UK, where broad public protest overturned government plans to sell off England's national forests, there is entrenched local opposition to enlarging the national park. The neat woodpiles by the timber homes in the villages around Białowieża, and the smell of woodsmoke, show the visceral connection of the people to the forest. As well as heating their homes through winters in which temperatures plummet below zero for months, many have worked as foresters for generations.

Near the village of Sorocza Nóżka, foresters are clear felling a stand of trees planted 80 years before. Environmentalists do not oppose the cutting of earlier plantations, but these areas of low ecological value blend into more natural forest. Within earshot of the chainsaws there are mighty oaks, some 140ft tall, and abundant evidence of the woodpeckers that, with owls, eagles and other birds, attract thousands of British birdwatchers every year.

The forestry foreman, who asked not to be named, is blunt in his opposition to enlarging the national park and allowing its natural wonders to reclaim the entire 60,000 hectares (148,200 acres) of the Białowieża forest on the Polish side of the Belarus border. "Look, the ecologists and campaigners get their salaries for what they do, I get mine for what I do. I employ 20 men, 60 people with their families, and they can't imagine any other job," he says. "If you had been here two days ago, you would have seen the villagers fighting for the small amount of wood we can give. I said 'go and ask the ecologists for your wood'."

Most environmentalists agree that a small amount of timber could be taken sustainably from outside the current national park, but only if rules such as protecting trees more than 100 years old are observed. Adam Bohdan, of the campaign group Workshop for All Beings, spends hours in the forest using GPS to record rule breaches, such as felling trees with hollows used by birds to nest, or felling in the breeding season.

As we leave Sorocza Nóżka, he finds a bronze beetle larva nestled in the bark of a log stacked by the track. "That's Cucujus cinnaberinus," he says of the 15mm creature, which like many of the 8,000 insect species in Białowieża specialises in eating dead wood. "It's protected under the EU habitats directive, and is already extinct in some countries." His GPS-tagged photo, sent to the nature protection unit, should prompt officials to return the dead wood to the forest. "If it is not stolen in the night," he adds. To date, there have been no prosecutions for breaking management rules, but Bohdan was himself taken to court last year, unsuccessfully, for collecting a small sample of a new lichen for scientific identification. "They are getting desperate," says Cyglicki. "They want to try to prevent ecologists and activists going deep into the forest."

The dead wood is vital to life in the most natural part of the forest, the strictly protected zone within the national park where the only entry is on foot and with a permit and a guide. Korbel says almost half of all the wood in the forest is dead, 10 times more than in managed forests, and that half the 12,000 species depend on decaying logs. In managed forests, the dead wood is removed by foresters who see it as a sign of an ecosystem in danger, or as a fire risk. Such forests are mere gardens, Korbel scoffs, no more natural than a manicured lawn. It is the balanced rhythm of life and death, Korbel says, which supports a full ecosystem, headed by the largest herd of European bison in the world, and featuring wolves, lynx and eagles that keep the numbers of deer, moose, boar and beavers in proportion.

Foresters, of course, disagree and nowhere more vehemently than over the bark beetle. This modest-looking insect strikes terror into the hearts of woodmen. The spruce stripped of their bark die quickly and lie scarred on the forest floor, the trunks resembling the backbones of slain giants.

Zdzisław Szkiruć, director of the Białowieża national park, gives an example from another national park he previously worked in. "The bark beetles struck and huge areas were covered by dead spruce. If they were cut and replanted with the same species, in 50 years we will have proper forest. But if we left the dead trees in the forest, it will take 300-400 years for the same type of forest to come back. So some people say we should kickstart nature, but some say we can wait for nature to act. This is the key discussion point."

Ecologists say cutting and replanting makes sense in conventional, managed forests but not in the unique primeval forest of Białowieża. "In nature, all is connected and the beetles – a food for birds – attack only the weakest trees, helping to establish good relations between all the species," says Korbel.

Like Szkiruć, the person with the ultimate responsibility for the Białowieża forest, environment minister Andrzej Kraszewski, wants an extension of the existing protections. "I will try to establish protection over the whole area, but as a first shot I would like to do another 12,000-14,000 ha," he told the Guardian. "There are two obstacles: the opinion of the local communities – they have very firm opinions that they can exploit this area as they have for hundreds of years – and the opinion of the forestry service, who believe there is no harm in exploiting the forest in a modest way. I have to convince both of them."

An offer by a previous environment minister of 100m zlotys (£22m) for local enterprise in return for a 20% extension of the national park was rejected. "Local politicians think that if they accept money from the ministry of environment, they will not be elected next time," says Kraszewski. "I intend to start negotiations with the local societies from scratch."

While the latest efforts to overcome the mistrust of local citizens play out, the scientists prepared to speak out continue to protest against the gradual attrition of the forest. "It has an incredible richness, which should be protected at all costs," says Professor Tomasz Wesołowski, at Wrocław University, who has researched the Białowieża forest for 30 years. He likens it to the Hubble space telescope, which revolutionised astronomy by allowing scientists to peer back in time with unprecedented clarity, but with a key difference. "In the event of damage to [Hubble], it can be replaced. This primeval forest cannot be bought or reconstructed."

: "We are a country destroyed by wars and there is not much heritage left, apart from nature. This is the one unique thing we can give to the world."

Summary

Wikitravel users have collectively created a free Belarusian phrasebook with the goal of making it possible for travelers to "get by" while traveling in areas where Belarusian is spoken.

Wikitravel phrasebooks are available in many languages and each one varies in depth and detail. Most of the phrasebooks include a pronunciation guide, a general phrase list, information about dates and numbers, a color list, transportation-related phrases, vocabulary for shopping and phrases for eating and drinking. Some are even more in depth, and all are free!

From Website

Belarusian is the main language of Belarus.

Belarusian and Russian are the two official languages, but Russian is more widely spoken. It will be difficult to get by without some Russian. The two languages are closely related, together with Ukrainian, so even the Belarusian monolinguals understand some Russian and Ukrainian. Polish is spoken in the western parts, especially around Grodno.

The Belarusian language (Беларуская мова, BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova, łac.: biełaruskaja mova) is the language of the Belarusian people. It is the official language of Belarus, along with Russian, and is spoken abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Prior to Belarus gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1992, the language was known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian, transliterating the Russian name, Белорусский язык, or alternatively as White Russian or White Ruthenian. Following independence, it was also called Belarusan.

Belarusian is one of the East Slavic languages (Indo-European > Balto-Slavic > Slavic > East Slavic) and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. Its predecessor stage is known as Old Belarusian (14th to 17th centuries), in turn descended from Old East Slavic (10th to 13th centuries).

According to the 1999 Belarus Census, the Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens (36.7% of the population) as of 1999. About 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declared it their "mother tongue". Other sources put the "population of the language" as 6,715,000 in Belarus and 9,081,102 in all countries. According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home, while Belarusian is used by only 11.9% of Belarusians. 29.4% of Belarusians can write, speak and read Belarusian, while only 52.5% can read and speak it. According to the research, one out of ten Belarusians does not understand Belarusian.

The Belarusian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic script and is derived from the alphabet of the Old Church Slavonic language. The alphabet has existed in its modern form since 1918 and consists of thirty-two letters.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_alphabet

View the Belarusian Phrasebook.

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John Vidal questions whether official estimates of the risk of radiation exposure are accurate, and points to health effects around Chernobyl as a clear indication that they are not (Nuclear's green cheerleaders forget Chernobyl at our peril, 2 April). There is no doubt that the high level of exposure of infants to radioactive iodine in heavily contaminated areas of the former USSR has led to more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer; but the evidence for health effects attributable to Chernobyl exposure beyond these thyroid cancers is much less clear. This is largely because the radiation doses received by other tissues (and by thyroid glands outside these areas) were so much lower. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has recently reviewed the available data and reiterated this conclusion. It needs to be recognised that socioeconomic conditions in the countries of the former USSR during the 90s led to widespread health effects, which can be seen in, for example, the far east of Russia that was hardly affected by Chernobyl contamination.

Radiological protection professionals come under pressure not only from that wing of opinion suggesting that radiation risks have been greatly underestimated, but also from those on the opposite wing who suggest that there is no risk from low doses of radiation, or even that such doses are beneficial – an example of these views can be found in an article by Wade Allison on the BBC News website (http://bbc.in/eJCMF7). Those responsible for radiological protection have to walk a difficult fine line between these frequently vociferous camps.

Professor Richard Wakeford

Visiting professor, Dalton Nuclear Institute, University of Manchester

• I helped bring the increase in thyroid cancer to the attention of the west when we published the result of our studies in Belarus in the journal Nature in 1992. I have continued to work on the radiation-induced thyroid cancers that are still occurring. Tragically, deformed babies occur in every society and being shown a ward full of such children and being told they are the result of Chernobyl does not constitute proof that they are due to radiation exposure. What it does constitute is evidence that further studies, including dose assessment, accurate classification and epidemiology, are needed. The figures quoted by Yablokov and Nesterenko, and referred to by Vidal, are at the high end of most estimates; other figures are very much lower.

What is disgraceful is that there has been no international comprehensive scientific study of the health effects of exposure to the Chernobyl accident comparable to that set up after the atomic bombs in Japan. The health effects for those exposed to the atomic bombs are still occurring over 60 years later. The long-term effects of Chernobyl, with a very different type of exposure, will differ, and will hopefully be much less than those of the atomic bombs. Unless comprehensive studies are set up to review past evidence and carry out lifespan studies of those exposed, speculation will flourish. This was a European accident that led to fallout across the whole of Europe, and the European community should take the lead.

Professor Dillwyn Williams

Cambridge

• The government's proposals for a green investment bank, announced in the budget (Report, 24 March), are underwritten by the sale of Britain's share in Urenco. This uranium enrichment company is owned by Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. Ministers aim to raise up to £1bn from the sell-off. When the last Labour government investigated selling Britain's share in this firm, in 2008, it was reported to be valued at £3-4bn. When mooted again for sell-off in 2009, Vince Cable dismissed the idea as a "car boot sale" and "not the most prudent way to go". Yet the coalition is planning to sell Urenco with little regard for market conditions following the disaster in Japan and the events in the Middle East. I am pressing ministers for answers to the following questions about the privatisation of Urenco: first, does it represent value for money in the current market? Second, what guarantees can we be given that it does not threaten Britain's national security interests?

Luciana Berger MP

Shadow minister for energy and climate change

We're excited to announce the launch of Wikistrat's Middle East Monitor for February 2011, which can be viewed in entirety by clicking here.

Summary

The U.N.-authorized intervention in Libya appears to have monopolized the attention of the world media, but the Middle East is a region in flux undergoing rapid changes. As stated in the previous bulletins, the region is a significantly different place with each passing month. The sparking of an uprising in Syria is equally as important as the conflict in Libya, if not more so. The Yemeni government teeters on the edge of conflict and the Saudi and possible Iranian intervention in Bahrain are defining moments in the Arab Spring, as the revolutions are increasingly referred to.

The conflicts in the Middle East were largely internal in nature until March, as this month saw the entry of foreign intervention in several places. Libya is the most obvious example, with a U.N.-backed coalition (and possibly Al-Qaeda) backing the rebels and Muammar Qaddafi being supported by Syria, Belarus and possibly Algeria and others. Saudi and Emirati forces entered Bahrain to support the Royal Family and Iranian ayatollahs are reportedly registering volunteers to wage war on the Bahraini government. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have also begun launching attacks on Israel, likely with the intent of fomenting a conflict to stabilize their own rule and that of Bashar Assad in Syria.

These trends indicate that, as has been the case since January, the Middle East will look quite different in April than it did in March. The uprisings are spreading and outside powers are playing a greater role in these internal struggles. The attacks on Israel, the largest since 2009, indicate that Iran, Syria and their terrorist allies believe a confrontation is in their interest.

 

Open Letter From Russian Doctors In Libya To The President Of The Russian Federation:

President of the Russian Federation Medvedev DA and Prime Minister of Russian Federation VV Putin:
From citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, working and living in Libya…

Sent on the 24 of March, 2011, From Tripoli, Libya:

Dear Mr. Medvedev and Vladimir Putin,

You said that citizens of the former Soviet Union were destined to become today citizens of different Slavic CIS countries – Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Despite this, we all believe that it is Russia as successor to the USSR, which is our SOLE safeguard for the interests of our countries and the security of our citizens. Therefore, we appeal to you for help and justice.

Today, there is blatant external aggression of USA and NATO against a sovereign country – Libya. And if anyone can doubt this, then we say this obvious fact is well known, because all this is happening before our eyes, and the actions of U.S. and NATO threaten the lives of not only the citizens of Libya, but to us who are on its territory. We are outraged by the barbaric bombing of Libya, which is currently carried out by a coalition of U.S. and NATO.

The bombing of Tripoli and other cities in Libya is aimed not only at the objects of air defense and Libya’s Air Force and not only against the Libyan army, but also the object of military and civilian infrastructure. Today, 24 March 2011, NATO aircraft and the U.S. all night and all morning bombed a suburb of Tripoli – Tajhura (where, in particular, is Libya’s Nuclear Research Center). Air Defense and Air Force facilities in Tajhura were destroyed back in the first 2 days of strikes and more active military facilities in the city remained, but today the object of bombing are barracks of the Libyan army, around which are densely populated residential areas, and next to it – the largest in Libya’s Heart Centers. Civilians and the doctors could not assume that common residential quarters will be about to become destroyed, so none of the residents or hospital patients was evacuated.

Bombs and rockets struck residential houses and fell near the hospital. The glass of the Cardiac Center building was broken, and in the building of the maternity ward for pregnant women with heart disease a wall collapsed and part of the roof. This resulted in ten miscarriages whereby babies died, the women are in intensive care, doctors are fighting for their lives. Our colleagues and we are working seven days a week, to save people. This is a direct consequence of falling bombs and missiles in residential buildings resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, which are operated and reviewed now by our doctors. Such a large number of wounded and killed, as during today, did not result during the total of all the riots in Libya. And this is called “protecting the civilian population”?

With full responsibility as witnesses and participants of what is happening, we state that the United States and its allies are thus carrying out genocide against the Libyan people – as was the case in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Crimes against humanity, carried out by coalition forces akin to those crimes committed by the fathers and grandfathers of today’s Western leaders and their henchmen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and in Dresden in Germany, where civilians were also being destroyed in order to deter, to break the will of the people to resist (Germany remembers it, and therefore refused to participate in this new slaughterhouse). Today they want in such ways to make the Libyan people surrender their leader and the legitimate government and meekly lay down their national oil wealth for the countries of the coalition.

We understand that applying to the “international community” to save the people of Libya and we were living in Libya, is useless. Our only hope – is Russia that has the right of veto in the UN, and specifically its leaders – the President and the Prime Minister.

We still hope for you, as hoped in the past, when we took the decision to stay in Libya, and to help its people, medical duty playing its role in the first place. After an abortive coup attempt in late February, the situation calmed down in Libya and the government had successfully restored order. To everyone in Libya, it was clear that without American intervention the country would soon return to normal life. Convinced that Russia, which has veto power, would not allow the aggression of the United States and its allies, we decided to stay in Libya, but were mistaken: Russia, unfortunately, believed the false assurances of Americans and did not oppose the criminal decision of France and the U.S.

We are Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, the people of various professions (mainly doctors), working in Libya for more than a year (from 2 to 20 years). During this time, we became well acquainted with the life of the Libyan people and state with few citizens of other nations living in this social comfort, as the Libyans. They are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious. Today, the people are suffering. In February, the peaceful life of the people was violated by gangs of criminals and insane drugged youth – whom the Western media for some reason called “peaceful demonstrators”. They used weapons and attacked police stations, government agencies, military units – resulting in bloodshed. Those who direct them, pursue a clear objective – to create chaos and establish control over Libya’s oil. They misinformed the international community, and said that the Libyans are struggling against the regime. Tell us, who would not like such a regime? If such a regime were in Ukraine or Russia, we would not have been here and worked and enjoyed the social comfort at home in our own countries and in every possible way such a regime would be maintained.

If the U.S. and the EU today have nothing to do, let them turn their attention to the plight of Japan, the Israeli bombing of Palestine, the audacity and impunity of Somali pirates, or the plight of Arab immigrants in France, and leave the Libyans themselves to sort out their internal problems. We see that today in Libya they want to do another Iraq. Carrying out the genocide of an entire people and those who are found with him. We perform MEDICAL DEBT and cannot leave Libyans alone in trouble, leaving them to be destroyed by the forces of the coalition, in addition, we understand that when all the foreigners leave and no one will tell the truth (the small staff of diplomatic missions have long been silenced), the Americans will arrange here a bloodbath. Our only chance of survival – is a solid civil position of Russia in the UN Security Council.

We hope that you, Mr. President, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, as citizens of Russia and as decent people will not allow American and European fascists of the 21st century to destroy the freedom-loving people of Libya and of those who today turned out to be with them.

We therefore urgently request that Russia uses its right of veto, the right earned by millions of lives of the Soviet people during World War II to stop the aggression against a sovereign state, to seek immediate cessation of U.S. and NATO bombing campaign and to demand the introduction of African Union troops in the conflict zone Libya.

Note: The African Union Peace & Security Council delegates that had been accepted by both the Libyan government and the rebel leaders to mediate a peaceful solution between the various parties, were refused entry into Libya by the UN Security Council. This act should have been reprimanded by Russia and China, who should study the AU resolutions, mandate and support its wise decisions]

HANDS OFF LIBYA!
With Respect and Hope
Your Wisdom and Honesty,
Citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia,
located in Libya
Bordovsky S., Vasilenko, S., Vegerkina A., Henry IV, Henry H., L. Grigorenko, DraBragg, A., Drobot V. Drobot, N., Yemets E., Kolesnikova, T., Kuzin, I., Kuzmenko, B., Kulebyakin V. Kulmenko T., Nikolaev AG, Papelyuk V. Selizar V. Selizar About . Smirnov, O. Smirnova, R., Soloviev DA, Stadnik VA, Stolpakova T. Streschalin G. Stakhovich Yu, Sukacheva L. Sukachev V. Tarakanov, T., Tikhon N. Tikhonov VI, Tkachev AV, Hadareva E., Tchaikovsky, O., Chukhno D. Chukhno O. Yakovenko D. et al

The collection of signatures under the Appeal to the heads of Russia and under the request of an international tribunal in The Hague for crimes of U.S. and NATO in Libya.
Source: http://en.m4.cn/archives/6734.html

Hummm…

Windows to Russia!

Tags: 24 march, bombing of libya, cis countries, civilian infrastructure, country libya, external aggression, federation president, former soviet union, heart centers, libyan army, Medvedev, military facilities, nato aircraft, nuclear research center, residential areas, residential quarters, russian doctors, sovereign country, tripoli libya, Vladimir Putin

Just two hours from Britain is Europe's last dictatorship, a country that recalls Stalinist Russia and where critics of the government 'disappear'. But thanks to an underground theatre group – and supporters including Jude Law and Tom Stoppard – the world is finally waking up to its plight

Britain's greatest living playwright is nodding gently in his sleep. Tom Stoppard is uncomfortably folded into a second-class Eurostar seat, his head lolling against his shoulder. I've been told that he'll give me an interview half an hour before we reach Brussels, so after a moment's hesitation, I tap him on the arm and, like a lizard, he slowly opens one bloodshot eye.

He's not just tired – he's jet-lagged. He's feeling a bit ill, or "odd" as he puts it. He's just returned from America, and has got up at the crack of dawn to catch the Eurostar in order to spend three days attending something called the Brussels Forum. "And I don't even know what the Brussels Forum is," he says. "Do you?"

I shake my head.

"I'm really not entirely sure why I'm here. I was in New York and Natalia rang me up and asked me to come. So I came." He considers this. "Why are you here?"

Natalia asked me, I say, and we share a moment of mutual incomprehension at the fact that he is addressing a conference of Eurocrats and I'm attending one. But then "Natalia", or Natalia Kaliada, is an unstoppable force. Stoppard calls her "the little dynamo", but this is understating the matter. She's the artistic director of the Belarus Free Theatre, previously based in Minsk, now in exile, an organisation that has come to be the central motor of a campaign to draw attention to the terrible political repression happening in a country that, as Natalia points out frequently, to any audience that'll have her, "is in the middle of Europe, only two hours from London".

Five years ago, Natalia wrote to Stoppard and asked him to sign a letter of support, and it's why he now finds himself in situations like this: spending the weekend in Brussels with a hotel full of high-level government ministers, having agreed during an inattentive moment to giving the conference's "opening remarks" before a keynote address by the president of Europe.

"And I really have no idea what to say. What on earth do you think I should talk to them about?" It's a shame that it's only in retrospect that I realise that the man who wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Jumpers, and Arcadia, who was the great champion of the dissident writers of the eastern bloc, is probably not actually seeking my advice. Because, oh dear God, I give it anyway.

You're the only person here who doesn't represent a vested interest, I say. It's really up to you to go and stir things up.

"You think I should bang the Belarus drum?" he says. "I was wondering if I should. Or if I should talk about what the purpose of these forums are?"

Bang the drum! I say. Bang the drum!

In my defence, Natalia Kaliada is a force field I defy anyone to resist. I've watched Jude Law stumble blindly into it. He turned up at the Observer's office on a sunny Saturday, two weeks ago, to introduce her at our TEDxObserver event; next thing you know, he's promised to be at the Houses of Parliament for a performance alongside Natalia's husband, and co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, the playwright Nikolai Khalezin.

I, too, find myself pulled along in her wake, following her from event to event and now on to this dawn Eurostar (she's sitting at the back), drawn in by her sheer energy and determination and the fierce commitment that she brings to her cause. Because what's so compelling about what Natalia is doing, and why everyone around her, can't help but be compelled, too, is that, as Jude Law puts it, "she's living it". She and Nikolai and their youngest daughter, 12-year-old sweet-faced Daniella, who hasn't been to school since they fled Minsk, can't go home. Their other daughter, 17-year-old Marya, is still in Belarus, as are their parents and they don't know when they'll ever see them again. They've been named enemies of the state, but, as Natalia repeatedly points out, they're the lucky ones. Many of their friends are in jail; others are dead.

It's almost as if perpetual motion is the only thing that's keeping her going. In between her talk at TEDxObserver and now, she's been to Washington, addressed another conference, and flown back on the redeye. Later, on no sleep, she gave another emotional speech at the Index on Censorship awards, where Tom Stoppard presented her with a special award on behalf of Belarus's prisoners of conscience, as classified by Amnesty, halfway through which she broke down and cried, and now, here on the train, while Stoppard has fallen into a coma and I'm just about managing to stare blankly into space, Natalia is furiously typing letters and emails and texting her contacts in Belarus.

"She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep," says Irina Bogdanova, a fellow Belarussian whom Natalia and her family are currently staying with in Hampshire. Irina's voice is cracking. She's sucking Strepsils and is rasping away, but then she's another unwilling activist. Another accidental campaigner. "I hate politics!" she says. "Hate it. And yet here I am! It's incredible to me." She's a doctor who's lived in Britain for the past 18 years, her partner is a British aeronautical engineer, but on 19 December last year, her brother, Andrei Sannikov, Belarus's most credible opposition leader, and a presidential candidate, was beaten up, arrested, and is being held in a KGB jail awaiting what in effect amounts to a show trial.

He's one of the prisoners of conscience. And his wife, Irina Khalip, a journalist, is under house arrest with their three-year-old son unable to contact the outside world, and so it's to Amnesty that Irina Bogdanova has found herself turning. "They have been fantastic. Because there is only my 78-year-old mother in Belarus, who's all by herself, who is trying to do it all. We found a lawyer, but they de-barred him, because that's what they do. But I've been speaking to Amnesty's lawyer and they've been advising us. And they act straight away. When something happens, they act so much quicker than anybody else. They issue this urgent action, which means they send a letter and a press release, to all their offices and the government, so at least the government knows that Amnesty is on their case, even if they don't care much. But actually, they do, I think. I mean, I don't think the situation changes drastically, but maybe it doesn't become any worse.

"What Amnesty does is to show that the world is watching. That somebody is taking note. That there are consequences. Or maybe one day, there will be. Because at the moment, nothing is happening. Nobody else is reacting! Can you imagine if it was Britain? If Gordon Brown had been locked up by David Cameron before even the election results had been announced? That is what is happening in Belarus. And this is Europe. Europe!"

There are so many difficulties in writing about what is going on in Belarus. Why you might struggle to find the country on a map. Why you might be struggling to care. There have been so many revolutions this spring, so many populist uprisings, and yet, right here, in Europe, is a forgotten country in the grip of what – you'll discount this as hyperbole and will almost certainly resist believing (I did) – is a Stalinist-style reign of terror.

Or, at least, when I meet Natalia for the first two times – unprepared, in a rush, my mind on other things – I just can't really process what she tells me, can't quite compute it. She's so passionate, so determined to tell her story, to convince me of its rightness, and its urgency, that words such as "torture" and "killing" and "KGB" tumble from her mouth, and I find it hard to piece together a narrative, or understand the context. And while I spent my early 20s hanging around eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, my strongest memory from my last trip to Moscow was the traffic jam to get into Ikea.

And yet talking to Natalia feels like stepping into a DeLorean and speeding back 30 years in time. "Longer," says Irina. "This isn't like Russia in the 80s. It's Russia in 1937. These mass arrests. People being disappeared. It's the purges."

Poor Belarus. It's always been the country in the way of western armies heading east, and eastern armies heading west; a brutal history that has continued into this century, first by Hitler – the Nazis killed a quarter of its population – and then by Stalin. It had the briefest moment of freedom, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and then in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko, the director of a state farm, was elected president and systematically began stripping those freedoms away again.

And last December, in the worst timing in modern protest history, just months before the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, roughly 50,000 Belarusians took to the streets on election night in a peaceful demonstration that was violently put down. Natalia, like many others, was arrested; she, unlike many others, was released (there was a mix-up over her name). According to Amnesty, 42 are still in jail, and every day brings news of fresh trials and increasingly punitive sentences.

Two out of eight presidential candidates are in KGB jails; another is under house arrest, although at one point seven out of the eight had been detained. ("Even in Russia, they renamed the KGB the FSB," says Natalia. "In Belarus, they didn't even bother.") Another, Ales Mikhalevic, has now fled to the Czech Republic and at a press conference told how he was tortured by masked men. "In fact, we've known about torture happening in police cells for years," Heather McGill, Amnesty's country researcher for Belarus, tells me. "This isn't new. None of this is new. It's just got worse. What we're most concerned about, more than these high-profile cases which at least the EU knows about, is that there are an awful lot of young people, who nobody knows about, in jail.

"Yesterday, a 20-year-old law student who was simply peacefully demonstrating was sentenced to three and a half years in a labour camp."

And then there are the "disappeared". When we get to Brussels, I meet another Irina: Irina Krasovskaya, the founder of a movement and website called We Remember. Twelve years ago, her husband, businessman Anatoly Krasovsky, and his friend, Viktor Gonchar, the leader of the opposition, simply disappeared while driving home. Vanished. Today, having told the story hundreds, if not thousands of times, Irina can't keep the emotion out of her voice when she tells me how their bodies have never been found.

It's such an anomaly, Belarus. The last dictatorship in Europe. A regime that, at times, seems to exist as an echo chamber of the past (Irina Bogdanova's nephew, Sannikov and Khalip's son, was removed by the authorities who attempted to place him in a state orphanage, the same tactics employed in Stalin's time). It's even made Tom Stoppard think again about totalitarianism. "Because there were certain assumptions I always made about Czechoslovakia under communism, and I'm now wondering whether those assumptions were actually true. It seemed to me that, there, people were followed and harassed, and they might lose their job or a promotion, the usual menu of that totalitarian system but my impression was that the jails were not full of political dissidents as they are here. The penalties were harsh for the few who did it, but there wasn't this mass fury."

Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia and became closely involved with the dissident movement there, as well as travelling to the Soviet Union in the 80s with Amnesty, whose value as an organisation he calls "inestimable". What it does, he says, "is connect awareness to protest globally… And, of course, the very phrase 'a prisoner of conscience' is a very potent idea. Someone who's been locked up because of his conscience." But he had no idea that three decades on, having seen the Wall fall, and much of the old eastern bloc become part of the EU, he'd still be fighting the same old battles.

Is what is going on in Belarus now worse than what was happening in the old eastern bloc?

"I don't think there were these extrajudicial killings. The Soviet system was too officious. It was very fond of legalistic paperwork… It was a matter of ideology and obeying it. But Lukashenko doesn't have an ideology, he has a business plan."

A couple of hours later, in the ultra-marble lobby of Brussels's five-star Conrad hotel, I come across a tense grouping of Natalia and the two Irinas. Natalia looks like she's going to cry. Irina Bogdanova has now lost her voice completely. "I am just so tired of all of this!" she says.

They've just found out from a friend in Belarus that 70 more people have been arrested. And when they corner Baroness Ashton, the EU's foreign affairs representative, she gives them the brush-off. "We have responded quickly to the situation in Belarus," she says in the opening session in response to a question that Natalia asked. "I have met with relatives… we have imposed strong sanctions."

Strong sanctions? I ask Natalia afterwards.

"That's bullshit! There are bullshit sanctions. There's a travel ban on some politicians, that's it. We need economic sanctions."

"It's just feels so pointless!" says Irina Bogdanova, while Irina Krasovskaya adds: "Look, Belarus is on the agenda. They mentioned Andrei Sannikov in the opening remarks. Belarus is here."

And it's here because of them. Because, perhaps, most remarkably of all, the fight for freedom is being led by women. "We haven't any choice," says Irina Bogdanova. "I don't want to fight. I don't want to be here doing this. But someone has to. And all the men are in jail." It's the wives, and mothers and sisters and daughters, who've been left to do the dirty work. There's Elena Edwards, sister-in-law of the former presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevic; and Natalia Radina, who's taken over as editor of the main opposition website, Charter 97, after its founder, Oleg Bebenin, was found hanged last September.

And it's why, perhaps, they're so persuasive, so moving. When they talk, it's fuelled by pain and loss and anger. It's not hard to see why Steven Spielberg has become a supporter of the cause, why George Clooney has, why Mick Jagger made a video appeal on their behalf. In fact, in many ways, the Free Belarus Theatre is the model of a modern human rights campaign, although it never set out to be one. Natalia comes from a theatrical family and always wanted to be an actress but after studying in Moscow, she ended up working for NGOs, and Nikolai was a newspaper editor. He edited the three most influential independent newspapers in Belarus, until, one by one, they were all closed down.

What's the main newspaper called now, I ask Natalia at one point. "Sovietskaya Belorussiya. Soviet Belarus! I mean, really, it's beyond a joke! Except it's not funny."

With no newspapers left to work for, Nikolai turned to writing plays, and "one was put on in Moscow and we received royalties and with this money we decided to set up a theatre company with our friend, the director Vladimir Shcherban". It's the company's sixth anniversary this week, and while the authorities take their inspiration from Stalin, they have explicitly borrowed from the samizdat writers of the 1970s and 80s, employing the same methods, putting on plays in private flats and houses.

The British playwright Laura Wade, who went to Minsk to hold workshops with them, and attended one of their underground performances, says that "the thing about them is that not only are they very brave on a personal level, as well as very powerful, but also the work they are doing is incredibly high quality as well".

Being an underground theatre group is one thing; being the figureheads for a campaign to free Belarus is another. But, according to Jude Law, "the theatre has become a symbol of what's happening to the country, and Natalia has become a symbol of the theatre. She's been thrust into the spotlight because she's eloquent and charming, but what they're so good at is getting attention for their work, and then turning that back on to the country."

It's really no surprise to me that after a week or so of intermittently following Natalia Kaliada around, I end up in a room at the House of Commons with her, Jude Law, Kevin Spacey, Tom Stoppard, Sam West, half a dozen MPs, the leading lights of the Young Vic, a brace of playwrights, and a director or two.

"If there's ever the smallest crack," says Stoppard, "then Natalia has her foot in that door." As we wait around, Kevin Spacey, director of the Old Vic, tells me how he saw them in New York when they put on Being Harold Pinter, a play Nikolai wrote based on Pinter's work. "There was just four actors. And five chairs. It was so powerful, hearing Pinter's words about politics and repression, in their own language. My heart was on the floor."

"I took Harold to see it in Leeds," says Stoppard. "It turned out to be one of his last public outings, and it was tremendously moving."

"I said to them: 'How can I help?'" says Spacey. "And they said: 'We need performance space.' So I said: 'Come to the Vic.' So they're now rehearsing there."

It'd be easy to dismiss them, the luvvies, and the film stars, stepping out of their sparkling celebrity bubbles for just a second, to throw a crumb of human comfort at the exiled and dispossessed, but there's real respect for the work that the Belarus Free Theatre is doing. They've all shown up at a moment's notice. And, crucially, it's a lot more than anybody else is doing – than the British government and EU have done. Tom Stoppard is on his fifth straight day on the Belarus trail. Spacey's not even on the bill. And Jude Law is refreshingly un-A-list about the whole thing. It's hardly a glamour gig: we're in a committee room of the House of Commons, with a handful of MPs, some parliamentary researchers and assorted hangers-on. And yet watching this odd couple – Jude Law in his crisp, white, tailored shirt, Nikolai Khalezin, with his ponytail and earring – do a scratch performance of an extract from Nikolai's play, Generation Jeans, alternately in Russian and English, is genuinely moving, not least because it is, in part, a love letter to Natalia, or "Natasha" as he calls her. (They're inseparable now, but when I ask Natalia how they met, she shudders. "I really hated his ponytail, his leather trousers… ugh! But then, you know, I got to know him.") When he was arrested during the election before last, and was in prison, he dreamed of "green meadows that would not lead me to Natasha", and notes that "when we are at risk our women become samurais".

They do. Poor Irina Bogdanova is in tears again. "It's just too close to me, emotionally," she says. "It's like going through it all again." But Mike Harris, of Index on Censorship, is pleased. "We had a really good turnout of MPs. And Douglas Alexander [the shadow foreign secretary] showed up." Why did they come, do you think? "Because we have tea and celebrities," he says.

And this, in very large part, is down to Natalia. She looks shattered. There are dark circles around her eyes already and she'll be up again at dawn for an interview for BBC World, off next week to New York, answering emails, drumming up support, thinking up schemes. I say goodbye, although not for long. Ping! An email drops into my inbox. "Is there any chance you can help me get a letter to Moby?"

For more information on the campaign, please see freebelarusnow.org. Natalia's talk at TEDxObserver can be watched online at guardian.co.uk/tedx

A man’s attendance at a peaceful demonstration that the government described as a coup attempt landed him in jail for months, accused of assaulting riot police officers.

Belarus’s government allowed a de facto 10 per cent devaluation of the rouble this week by letting banks trade the troubled currency in a 10 per cent band around the official exchange rate – but analysts feel it won’t be enough to rescue the economy. “We think that the 10 per cent move is not sufficient and expect …Continue...

Jude Law and Kevin Spacey joined Free Belarus Now for a protest outside the offices of public relations firm Grayling in London this week to bring attention to Grayling’s drive to encourage foreign investment into a country that is facing State-led persecution of pro-democracy activists.

According to its website, Grayling is the second-largest independent public relations, public affairs, and investor relations consultancy in the world. The company opened an office in Minsk at the end of 2009 and is currently the only international public relations company to have done so. Grayling states on its website that “Belarus is a market that is often misrepresented in global media”.

Numerous international observers, including the U.S State Department, have published reports on the human rights abuses by government in Belarus, and the failure to account for politically motivated disappearances of individuals. The most recent presidential elections in December 2010 were described by the OSCE as “marred by detentions of most presidential candidates.”

Despite criticizing the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, the British government is yet to impose any trade sanctions on the country. In contrast, the U.S. government – in response to Lukashenko’s crackdown on political opponents – has instigated both political and economic sanctions.

“British society is one of the most active in protesting against injustice in any part of the world and it is a great honour that Belarus is supported by British citizens,” Natalia Koliada, Co-Founder of Belarus Free Theatre says. “Now we have the opportunity to protest together”

Photo: Alexander Čajčyc via FreeBelarusNow.org

Related past articles

• Kate Winslet Enlists Celebrity Charity Help For New Book
• Bono Nominated For Mikhail Gobachev Charity Award
• Get Your Hands On Jude Law's Jeans For Charity
• Kevin Spacey Is Critical Of Recession Players
• Kevin Spacey To Bring Theater To Middle East

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We are gratefult to Prof Christopher Busby, a British scientist known for his work on the health effects of ionising radiation, for his response to the ATCA 5000 in regard to our briefings on the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan.  He writes:

Deconstructing Nuclear Experts

Since the Fukushima accident we have seen a stream of experts on radiation telling us not to worry, that the doses are too low, that the accident is nothing like Chernobyl and so forth. They appear on television and we read their articles in the newspapers and online. Fortunately the majority of the public don’t believe them. I myself have appeared on television and radio with these people; one example was Ian Fells of the University of Newcastle who, after telling us all on BBC News that the accident was nothing like Chernobyl (wrong), and the radiation levels of no consequence (wrong), that the main problem was that there was no electricity and that the lifts didn’t work. “ If you have been in a situation when the lifts don’t work, as I have” he burbled on, “you will know what I mean.” You can see this interview on youtube and decide for yourself.

What these people have in common is ignorance. You may think a professor at a university must actually know something about their subject. But this is not so. Nearly all of these experts who appear and pontificate have not actually done any research on the issue of radiation and health. Or if they have, they seem to have missed all the key studies and references. I leave out the real baddies, who are closely attached to the nuclear industry, like Richard Wakeford, or Richard D as he calls himself on the anonymous website he has set up to attack me, “chrisbusbyexposed”.

I saw him a few times talking down the accident on the television, labelled in the stripe as Professor Richard Wakeford, University of Manchester. Incidentally, Wakeford is a physicist, his PhD was in particle physics at Liverpool. But he was not presented as ex- Principle Scientist, British Nuclear Fuels, Sellafield.  That might have given the viewers the wrong idea. Early on we saw another baddy, Malcolm Grimston, talking about radiation and health, described as Professor, Imperial College. Grimston is a psychologist, not a scientist, and his expertise was in examining why the public was frightened of radiation, and how their (emotional) views could be changed. But his lack of scientific training didn’t stop him explaining on TV and radio how the Fukushima accident was nothing to worry about. The doses were too low, nothing like Chernobyl, not as bad as 3-Mile Island, only 4 on the scale, all the usual blather. Most recently we have seen George Monbiot, who I know, and who also knows nothing about radiation and health, writing in The Guardian how this accident has actually changed his mind about nuclear power (can this be his Kierkegaard moment? Has he cracked? ) since he now understands (and reproduces a criminally misleading graphic to back up his new understanding) that radiation is actually OK and we shoudn’t worry about it. George does at least know better, or has been told better, since he asked me a few years ago to explain why internal and external radiation exposure cannot be considered to have the same health outcomes. He ignored what I said and wrote for him (with references) and promptly came out in favour of nuclear energy in his next article.

So what about Wade Allison? Wade is a medical physics person and a professor at Oxford. I have chosen to pitch into him since he epitomises and crystallises for us the arguments of the stupid physicist. In this he has done us a favour, since he is really easy to shoot down. All the arguments are in one place. Stupid physicists? Make no mistake, physicists are stupid. They make themselves stupid by a kind of religious belief in mathematical modelling. The old Bertie Russell logical positivist trap.  And whilst this may be appropriate for examining the stresses in metals, or looking at the Universe (note that they seem to have lost 90% of the matter in the Universe, so-called “dark matter”) it is not appropriate for, and is even scarily incorrect when, examining stresses in humans or other lifeforms. Mary Midgley, the philosopher has written about Science as Religion. Health physicists are the priests. I have been reading Wade Allison’s article for the BBC but also looked at his book some months ago. He starts in the same way as all the others by comparing the accidents. He writes:

"More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to."

Then we move to 3-Mile Island: There were no known deaths there.

And Chernobyl:

"The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan)."

 This is breathtaking ignorance of the scientific literature. Prof. Steve Wing in the USA has carried out epidemiological studies of the effects of 3-Mile Island, with results published in the peer-review literature. Court cases are regularly settled on the basis of cancers produced by the 3-Mile Island contamination. But let us move to Chernobyl. The health effects of the Chernobyl accident are massive and demonstrable. They have been studied by many research groups in Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, in the USA, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan. The scientific peer reviewed literature is enormous. Hundreds of papers report the effects, increases in cancer and a range of other diseases. My colleague Alexey Yablokov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published a review of these studies in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2009). Earlier in 2006 he and I collected together reviews of the Russian literature by a group of eminent radiation scientists and published these in the book Chernobyl, 20 Years After. The result: more than a million people have died between 1986 and 2004 as a direct result of Chernobyl.

I will briefly refer to two Chernobyl studies in the west which falsify Wade Allison’s assertions. The first is a study of cancer in Northern Sweden by Martin Tondel and his colleagues at Lynkoping University. Tondel examined cancer rates by radiation contamination level and showed that in the 10 years after the Chernobyl contamination of Sweden, there was an 11% increase in cancer for every 100kBq/sq metre of contamination. Since the official International Atomic Energy Agency  (IAEA) figures for the Fukushima contamination are from 200 to 900kBq.sq metre out to 78km from the site, we can expect between 22% and 90% increases in cancer in people living in these places in the next 10 years. The other study I want to refer to is one I carried out myself. After Chernobyl, infant leukaemia was reported in 6 countries by 6 different groups, from Scotland, Greece, Wales, Germany, Belarus and the USA. The increases were only in children who had been in the womb at the time of the contamination: this specificity is rare in epidemiology. There is no other explanation than Chernobyl. The leukemias could not be blamed on some as-yet undiscovered virus and population mixing, which is the favourite explanation for the nuclear site child leukemia clusters. There is no population mixing in the womb. Yet the “doses” were very small, much lower than “natural background”. I published this unequivocal proof that the current risk model is wrong for internal exposures in two separate peer-reviewed journals in 2000 and 2009. This finding actually resulted in the formation in 2001 by UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher of a new Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters CERRIE. Richard Wakeford was on this committee representing BNFL and he introduced  himself to me as “BNFL’s Rottweiler”. No difference there.

Wade then turns to a comparison of contamination:

"So what of the radioactivity released at Fukushima? How does it compare with that at Chernobyl? Let's look at the measured count rates. The highest rate reported, at 1900 on 22 March, for any Japanese prefecture was 12 kBq per sq m (for the radioactive isotope of caesium, caesium-137)."

"A map of Chernobyl in the UN report shows regions shaded according to rate, up to 3,700 kBq per sq m - areas with less than 37 kBq per sq m are not shaded at all. In round terms, this suggests that the radioactive fallout at Fukushima is less than 1% of that at Chernobyl."

But the IAEA themselves, not known for their independence from the nuclear industry, report that contamination levels out to 78km were between 200 and 900kBq/sq metre. And Wade has been rather selective with his data, to put it kindly. The UN definition of radioactively contaminated land is 37kBq/sq metre just as he writes, but actually, in all the maps published, the inner 30km Chernobyl contamination exclusion zone is defined as 555kBq/sq metre and above. This is just a fact. Why has he misled us? In passing, this means that there are 555,000 radioactive disintegrations per second on one square metre of surface. Can you believe this is not harmful? No. And you would be correct. And another calculation can be made. Since the IAEA data show that these levels of contamination, from 200,000 to 900,000 disintegrations per second per square metre, exist up to 78km from Fukushima, we can already calculate that the contamination is actually worse than Chernobyl, not 1% of Chernobyl as Wade states. For the area defined by a 78km radius is 19113 sq km compared to the Chernobyl exclusion zone of 2827 sq km. About seven times greater.

Now I turn to the health effects. Wade trots out most of the usual stupid physicist arguments. We are all exposed to natural background, the dose is 2mSv a year and the doses from the accident are not significantly above this. For example, the Japanese government are apparently making a mistake in telling people not to give tap water containing 200Bq/litre radioactive Iodine-131 to their children as there is naturally 50Bq/l of radiation in the human body and 200 will not do much harm. The mistake is made because of fears of the public which apparently forced the International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP, to set the annual dose limits at 1mSv. Wade knows better: he would set the limits at 100mSv. He is a tough guy. He shoots from the hip:

"Patients receiving a course of radiotherapy usually get a dose of more than 20,000 mSv to vital healthy tissue close to the treated tumour. This tissue survives only because the treatment is spread over many days giving healthy cells time for repair or replacement. A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information."

But Wade, dear, these people are usually old, and usually die anyway before they can develop a second tumour. They often develop other cancers even so because of the radiation. There are hundreds of studies showing this. And in any case, this external irradiation is not the problem. The problem is internal irradiation. The Iodine-131 is not in the whole body, it is in the thyroid gland and attached to the blood cells: hence the thyroid cancer and the leukaemia. And there is a whole list of internal radioactive elements that bind chemically to DNA, from Strontium-90 to Uranium. These give massive local doses to the DNA and to the tissues where they end up. The human body is not a piece of wire that you can apply physics to. The concept of dose which Wade uses cannot be used for internal exposures. This has been conceded by the ICRP itself in its publications. And in an interview with me in Stockholm in 2009, Dr Jack Valentin, the ex-Scientific Secretary of the ICRP conceded this, and also made the statement that the ICRP risk model, the one used by all governments to assess the outcome of accidents like Fukushima, was unsafe and could not be used. You can see this interview on the internet, on www.vimeo.com.

Why is the ICRP model unsafe? Because it is based on “absorbed dose”. This is average radiation energy in Joules divided by the mass of living tissue into which it is diluted. A milliSievert is one milliJoule of energy diluted into one kilogram of tissue. As such it would not distinguish between warming yourself in front of a fire and eating a red hot coal. It is the local distribution of energy that is the problem. The dose from a singly internal alpha particle track to a single cell is 500mSv! The dose to the whole body from the same alpha track is 5 x 10-11 mSv.  That is 0.000000000005mSv. But it is the dose to the cell that causes the genetic damage and the ultimate cancer. The cancer yield per unit dose employed by ICRP is based entirely on external acute high dose radiation at Hiroshima, where the average dose to a cell was the same for all cells.

And what of the UN and their bonkers statement about the effects of the Chernobyl accident referred to by Wade Allison?  What you have to know, is that the UN organisations on radiation and health are compromised in favour of the nuclear military complex, which was busy testing hydrogen bombs in the atmosphere at the time of the agreement and releasing all the Strontium, Caesium, Uranium and plutonium and other stuff that was to become the cause of the current and increasing cancer epidemic. The last thing they wanted was the doctors and epidemiologists stopping their fun. The IAEA and the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed an agreement in 1959 to remove all research into the issue from the doctors of the WHO, to the atom scientists, the physicists of the IAEA: this agreement is still in force. The UN organisations do not refer to, or cite any scientific study, which shows their statements on Chernobyl to be false. There is a huge gap between the picture painted by the UN, the IAEA, the ICRP and the real world. And the real world is increasingly being studied and reports are being published in the scientific literature: but none of the authorities responsible for looking after the public take any notice of this evidence.

As they say on the Underground trains in London: Mind the Gap. Wade Allison and the other experts I refer to need to do just this for their own sake. The one place that this gap is being closed rapidly and savagely is in the courts. I have acted as an expert witness in over 40 cases involving radiation and health. These include cases where Nuclear Test veterans are suing the UK government for exposures at the test sites that have caused cancer, they include cases involving nuclear pollution, work exposures and exposures to depleted uranium weapons fallout. And these cases are all being won. All of them. Because in court with a judge and a jury, people like Wade Allison and George Monbiot would not last 2 minutes. Because in court you rely on evidence. Not bullshitting.

Joseph Conrad wrote: "after all the shouting is over, the grim silence of facts remain". I believe that these phoney experts like Wade Allison and George Monbiot are criminally irresponsible, since their advice will lead to millions of deaths. I would hope that some time in the future, I can be involved as an expert in another legal case, one where Wade Allison, or George or my favourite baddy, Richard Wakeford (who actually knows better) are accused in a court of law of scientific dishonesty leading to the cancer in some poor victim who followed their advice.  When they are found guilty, I hope they are sent to jail where they can have plenty of time to read the scientific proofs that their advice was based on the mathematical analysis of thin air.

In the meantime, I challenge each of them to debate this issue with me in public on television face to face, so that the people can figure out who is right. For the late Professor John Gofman, a senior figure in the US Atomic Energy Commission until he saw what was happening and resigned, famously said:  "the nuclear industry is waging a war against humanity." This war has now entered an endgame which will decide the survival of the human race. Not from sudden nuclear war. But from the on-going and incremental nuclear war which began with the releases to the biosphere in the 60s of all the atmospheric test fallout, and which has continued inexorably since then through Windscale, Kyshtym, 3-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Hanford, Sellafield, La Hague, Iraq and now Fukushima, accompanied by parallel increases in cancer rates and fertility loss to the human race.

There is a gap between them and us. Between the phoney scientists and the public who don’t believe what they say. Between those who are employed and paid to protect us from radioactive pollution and those who die from its consequences.  Between those who talk down what is arguably the greatest public health scandal in human history, and the facts that they ignore.

Mind the Gap indeed.

[ENDS]

Prof Christopher Busby is a British scientist and activist known for his work on the health effects of ionising radiation. In addition to his academic appointments he is the director of Green Audit, an environmental consultancy agency and scientific advisor to the Low Level Radiation Campaign which he set up in 1995.  Chris Busby is Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk. He is visiting Professor at the University of Ulster and also Guest Researcher at the Julius Kuehn Institute of the German Federal Agricultural Institute in Braunschweig, Germany. He was a member of the UK Committee Examining Radiation Risk on Internal Emitters CERRIE and the UK MoD Depleted Uranium Oversight Board. He was Science and Policy Interface leader of the Policy Information network on Child Health and Environment based in the Netherlands. He has been the Science and Technology Speaker for the Green Party of England and Wales. He has conducted fundamental research on the health effects of internal radiation both at the theoretical and epidemiological level, including recently on the genotoxic effects of the element uranium.

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The State Department announced on Tuesday that it has decided to apply the recently passed Iran sanctions legislation to the Belarusian company Belorusneft. But GOP senators monitoring the implementation of the law said the move was marginal and unsatisfactory.

The action prevents Belorusneft, a subsidiary of the government-owned conglomerate Belneftekhim, from seeking any loans or doing any business in U.S. financial markets. The sanction was implemented under the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) of 1996 as amended by the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2010. In a press release, the State Department focused on Belorusneft's 2007 $500 million contract with the NaftIran Intertrade Company (NICO), which is also being punished under U.S. sanctions.

"Since President Barack Obama signed CISADA into law on July 1, 2010, Iran's ability to attract new investment to develop its oil and natural gas resources, and to produce or import refined petroleum products, has been severely limited," the release said. "The State Department's direct engagement with companies and governments to enforce CISADA is raising the pressure on the Government of Iran."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday that, in practical terms, the action prohibits Belorusneft from seeking assistance from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, obtaining U.S. government export licenses, obtaining private U.S. bank loans exceeding $10 million, and securing any procurement contracts with the U.S. government.

Belarusneft, the largest oil company in Belarus, hasn't actually tried to apply for any of those things, but Toner explained that the new announcement "also sends a message to our partners in Europe as well that this is a company that we've decided to sanction. And I'm sure they have access or would seek access into European markets." Toner didn't say if State was pushing the EU to follow suit.

Three senior senators who have been intimately involved in the Iran sanctions law and its implementation immediately shot off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, obtained by The Cable, criticizing today's announcement as too weak.

"We are writing to express our disappointment with today's announcement that the administration designated only one additional entity for violating U.S. sanctions with regard to Iran," wrote Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). "We do not believe this represents full compliance with the sanctions regime put in place by Congress."

These senators have long been calling for the administration to penalize companies that hail from other countries, especially China.

"It appears that Chinese firms in the energy and banking sectors have conducted significant activity in violation of U.S. law," ten senators wrote to Clinton on March 10. "We cannot afford to create the impression that China will be given free rein to conduct economic activity in Iran when more responsible nations have chosen to follow the course we have asked of them. We are sure you agree."

The State Department's Bob Einhorn briefed senators on Capitol Hill on this very issue on March 11, but a senior GOP senate aide told The Cable that the meeting was disappointing.  

The GOP senate offices in question see today's designation as marginal, especially as the parent company, Belneftekhim, was already sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2007 through Executive Order 13405, which targeted firms connected to President Alexander Lukashenko for human rights violations, and three other subsidiaries were sanctioned in 2008.

"It's a complete disappointment," one senior GOP aide told The Cable. "You would have thought they had already found a way to only designate the lowest hanging fruit when they sanctioned NICO. Alas, they found a lower hanging fruit."

A different senior GOP aide said the move sends the signal that the Obama administration only has the willingness to punish Iranian companies such as NICO and companies from other states that doesn't have close or critical relations with, such as Belarus.

"While the administration is patting itself on the back for its empty action today with Belarus, we can hear the sighs of relief coming from Tehran, Beijing, Ankara and Geneva where bankers, gasoline traders, and oil and natural gas financiers just realized that the Obama administration isn't serious about stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program," the aide said.

Mark Dubowitz, executive director and head of the Iran Energy Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told The Cable  that today's announcement "is a step in the right direction for both human rights and national security, but it's only a small and incremental one."

"The administration should be praised for moving against the energy lifeblood of both Belarus and Iran, two regimes which savagely repress their own people," he said. "But this was only a borderline meaningful designation since Belneftekhim and three other subsidiaries are already subject to designations. While a designation against this fourth subsidiary is helpful, the time for incrementalism is long past as Iran drives towards a nuclear weapon."

Lawrence Livermore studies on Chernobyl liquidators have focused on three techniques-two of them developed at Livermore in the 1980s-that are in wide use today to monitor genetic damage in people. The techniques are called biodosimeters because they measure changes in cells to infer the biological consequences of the "dose," or energy deposited in human tissue from ionizing radiation.

A technique called FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization), which was developed at Livermore and is currently used around the world, has been applied to Chernobyl liquidators as well as to others suspected of receiving ionizing radiation or of being exposed to potentially damaging chemicals. FISH measures chromosome damage by detecting the number of reciprocal translocations, or broken pieces of chromosomes, in lymphocytes that rejoin in a mismatched way. Livermore scientists have shown that the number of reciprocal translocations is proportional to exposure to ionizing radiation at low doses. What's more, unlike some biodosimeters, including other types of chromosome alterations, the frequency of reciprocal translocations is sufficiently stable with time (even over several decades) to permit retrospective dosimetry and can be measured accurately at low levels of radiation.

There was a claim that radiation from Chernobyl was 10 billion curies. However, the detailed work shows that this claim is wrong (100 times higher than actually was there) and there was not the higher levels of radiation exposure.

ON April 26, 1986, an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the former Soviet Union released an enormous number of fission products into the atmosphere and over a large portion of the planet. With about 100 million curies released in the 10 days following the initial explosion, the accident was the largest single nonmilitary release of radioactivity in history-and one of the largest environmental disasters ever.

During the first year after the accident, about 25,000 people, mainly Soviet Army troops, were dispatched to the site to clean up the accident. These so-called liquidators were estimated to have received doses of up to 70 centigrays (a gray is the international unit for measuring absorbed ionizing radiation and is equivalent to 100 rads, or 1 joule per kilogram). In the following three years, another half-million people assisted the effort and are estimated to have received lower doses (about 10 to 25 centigrays).

The tasks performed by liquidators included shoveling core material off the roof of the undamaged part of the building, operating heavy equipment to contain contaminated soil, and building a concrete sarcophagus around the destroyed reactor. Depending upon the intensity of radiation exposure associated with their assigned task, most liquidators received radiation exposures over a period of at least several days, and in some cases over many weeks.

The exact number of liquidators is unknown as no completely accurate records were kept of the people involved in the clean-up. More than 700,000 people involved, on- and off-site, in tackling the accident’s aftermath were eventually granted the status of liquidator, and were provided special government benefits.

The cancer and death rate studies that have been conducted among samples of the recorded liquidators have shown no direct correlation between radiation exposure at Chernobyl and increased cancer or death rates. The correlation between psychological problems and the status of liquidator is more clearly drawn, although the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic troubles in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus may also be factors for psychological stress.

The total number of deaths already attributable to Chernobyl or expected in the future over the lifetime of emergency workers and local residents in the most contaminated areas is estimated to be about 4,000. This includes some 50 emergency workers who died of acute radiation syndrome and nine children who died of thyroid cancer, and an estimated total of 3,940 deaths from radiation-induced cancer and leukemia among the 200,000 emergency workers from 1986-1987, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas (total about 600,000). These three major cohorts were subjected to higher doses of radiation amongst all the people exposed to Chernobyl radiation.

The estimated 4000 casualties may occur during the lifetime of about 600,000 people under consideration. As about quarter of them will eventually die from spontaneous cancer not caused by Chernobyl radiation, the radiation-induced increase of about 3% will be difficult to observe. However, in the most highly exposed cohorts of emergency and recovery operation workers, some increase in particular cancers (e.g., leukemia) has already been observed.

Confusion about the impact has arisen owing to the fact that thousands of people in the affected areas have died of natural causes. Also, widespread expectations of ill health and a tendency to attribute all health problems to radiation exposure have led local residents to assume that Chernobyl related fatalities were much higher than they actually were.

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Some people try to blame alcoholism deaths in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus on Chernobyl. Alcoholism causes about half of all premature the deaths in Russia.

Alcohol has been a very important part of Russia’s social history since around the 10th century AD. Nearly every class and both genders appeared to over indulge regularly. Effectively, there was a culture of alcohol use that has continued into modern times

The main difference between alcohol consumption in Russia vs. other countries was that the vast majority (as much as 90%) was hard liqueur like vodka (other countries favored wine or beer), and the consumption occurred in binges. Modern studies show that this type of alcoholic beverage is more damaging and many times more quickly addicting.

Because alcohol provided an excellent source of revenue, drinking was often encouraged throughout Russia. In the mid 1500s, for example, many towns built a spirit production house the monies from which went right to the treasury. By the 19th century about 33% of government money came from the sale of alcohol.

Alcohol and alcoholism in Russia continues to influence the overall morality, crime rates, social behavior and legislation.A Mikhail Gorbachev enacted an anti-alcohol campaign in 1985 that was successful for about a year, during which time male life expectancy improved by 2 years. Sadly like the prohibition in the US, it ended up spurring even greater amounts of alcohol consumption in Russia (particularly illegally made beverages), followed by a decrease of three years in life expectancy by 1993.

The fall of the Soviet Union prevented the state government from having communist control which was keeping alcoholism under some restraint.

The fact that so many in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are alcoholics (50 bottles of vodka per year on average) is ridiculous to blame on Chernobyl. There was alcoholism before and there was alcoholism after. The difference was that there was Soviet control before and there was not Soviet control after.



Ukraine also had an anti-alcohol campaign from 1985-1988

Ukraine experienced a large mortality reduction during the (1985-1988 anti-alcohol) campaign. The estimates of prevented deaths revealed that at least 76% of the mortality reduction was attributable to alcohol. Alcohol-related mortality due to injuries is much higher for men, while coronary heart disease (CHD) alcohol-attributable fractions were about 0.5 in middle age both for men and women. Discussion and Conclusions. While in Western countries alcohol is considered as a protective factor for CHD, in Ukraine alcohol-related cardiovascular mortality is rather high. In 2004 in Ukraine total number of alcohol-related deaths was about 119,000 or 251 per 100,000 of population

As I noted in my article on lifetime energy deaths per TWh, if you don't get to a 2 year life shortening (like being 15% overweight) then I do not count it because it is in the noise. So taking a bit more salt that has iodine in it will not have a measurable impact on life spans.

For my annual deaths from energy per TWh, people have to die in the years being examined. It may have been from pollution or causes over many years, but they have to die and have that death caused by one of the energy sources in that year.


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Grayling CEO Michael Murphy believes protestors who last night picketed the London office of Huntsworth’s global PR operation for its alleged work for the Government of Belarus are off base.

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The latest capital punishment statistics are out. Find out who uses the death penalty today
• Get the data

Despite fewer countries executing prisoners than ever before, the death penalty is still alive and well around the world.

The latest statistics show that China executes thousands, said Amnesty International in its report on the death penalty worldwide. Amnesty does not provide a precise figure of executions in China as Beijing keeps such figures secret.

China, together with Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US carried out the most executions last year, the report says:

• Whilst 67 countries handed down sentences in 2010, only 23 countries actually carried out executions – just over a third
• The number of official executions reported fell from at least 714 people in 2009 to at least 527 in 2010, excluding China.
• We have also seen fresh steps towards abolition in countries including Belarus and Mongolia.

Meanwhile, 139 countries have the death penalty - a record number. Which meants the number of countries executing prisoners is at a record low (see above).

Setting China aside, Amnesty said at least 527 executions were carried out last year. Almost half of those took place in Iran (252). North Korea executed 60, Yemen 53 and the US 46. The minimum number of executions was down from at least 714 in 2009.

Methods of execution included beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and various kinds of shooting (by firing squad, and at close range to the heart or the head). No stonings were recorded in 2010, but stoning sentences were reported in Nigeria, Pakistan and Iran, where at least 10 women and four men remain under stoning sentences. At least 2,024 new death sentences were imposed during 2010 in 67 countries, including 365 in Pakistan alone, meaning it has some 8,000 people currently on death row.

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Nuclear power is unsafe because the consequences of any accident are so dire. Despite George Monbiot's perverse conclusion (Why Fukushima made me stop worrying about nuclear power and love it, 22 March), the disaster at Fukushima has so far caused the evacuation of over 100,000 people, the suspension of fisheries and agriculture over a large area and a ban on the consumption of drinking water by babies in a city of 12 million.

The reactors are not yet under control, four out of six of them are so badly damaged that they can never be used again and the whole site will probably have to be abandoned and cordoned off for decades, at astronomic expense. Nuclear power is also more accident-prone, because fission reactors are so hard to control and the complexity of the containment structures and control systems makes them highly susceptible to design, construction and operator error. The worst aspect, however, is that nuclear power generates waste and decommissioning products, which cannot be safely disposed of, are a major security threat and must be guarded, monitored and cooled for decades.

Every time we commission a nuclear power plant we are taking out a massive mortgage that future generations will have to pay for. Yet we cannot know that they will have the will, the capacity, the skills and the resources to do so.

Mike Gatehouse

Brecon, Powys

• Monbiot's assumption ignores all that is known about the health effects of previous nuclear accidents, particularly Chernobyl. Leaving aside the deaths of workers killed either by the initial explosion or through exposure to dangerous levels of radiation during the clean-up, the impact on health from nuclear accidents continues – 25 years and more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer later, the effects of Chernobyl are still being felt in the UK. Today, more than 300 farms remain contaminated and are still under food restriction orders.

Supporters of nuclear power often fail to address the threat to the health of future generations by the unsolved problem of nuclear waste. Buried in the ground, it remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years, and is vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. What right do we have to dump this lethal legacy on future generations?

Monbiot worries about the impact of wind farms, pylons, power lines and reservoirs on the landscape. Can we really balance the altered appearance of the landscape with the impact that drinking water contaminated by radiation would have on children's health? Given the potentially devastating impact on the health of future generations, the cost of nuclear power is just too high.

Marion Birch

Director, Medact

• I agree with George Monbiot's support of nuclear power but was surprised he did not quote James Hansen of Nasa in his book Storms of My Grandchildren: "Fast (modern) reactors produce nuclear waste but in volumes much less than slow reactors. More important, radioactivity becomes inconsequential in a few hundred years rather than ten thousand" and "we already have enough fuel stockpiled in nuclear waste and byproducts of nuclear weapons to supply all our fuel needs for about a thousand years". Surely the answer to nuclear waste is to reprocess it. Carbon capture of coal generators produces liquid CO₂ that is stored in oil seams and can leak. Surely burning coal with carbon capture is more dangerous, and the waste more toxic and longer lasting, than fourth generation nuclear reactors. Nuclear supporting conservation and the development of renewables, including tidal barrages such as Severn, Solway and Islay, are safer and the answer to our energy needs.

John Smith

Walton, Cumbria

• To those like George Monbiot who state "there is no alternative" to the great God atom, I always say you could consider how it is that Germany has the confidence to go down an entirely non-nuclear route, even with the same 2050 objective of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases. The difference between where we believe our electricity consumption will be by then – twice, even three times, present levels – and where the German government thinks electricity demand can be via a purposeful and consistent efficiency programme (25% below present levels) is so vast that it does beg one obvious question.

And that is, naturally, why have the Germans got it all so economically wrong yet again?

Andrew Warren

Director, Association for the Conservation of Energy

• Monbiot's concern about global warming is sincere, so perhaps his nuclear affair should end. A landmark study published recently in Scientific American found: "Nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction and uranium-refining and transport are considered." Atomic energy is no friend of climate.

Gideon Forman

Executive director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

• George Monbiot blithely cites a graphic from xkcd.com which claims that 100 mSv is the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to increased cancer risk.

This is just not true. For example, Steve Wing and David Richardson (Radiation and Mortality of Workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1999) found significant increased cancer risks associated with exposure to 10 mSv in workers at the Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee.

Japanese A-bomb survivors' cancer risks are also linked to their radiation dose, even for those who received less than 20 mSv in 1945. Monbiot's polemic does not fit all the facts.

Greg Dropkin

Liverpool

• I have every sympathy with George Monbiot, and his wish to abandon fossil fuels, but embracing nuclear power may not be the best solution. He claims that only 43 people died as a result of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. In fact, in 2006, the BEIR VII committee of the US National Academy of Science estimated that Chernobyl was responsible for an extra 4,000 cancer deaths among evacuees and workers involved in the clean-up, and 5,000 extra cancer deaths among the population of Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation. Furthermore, if one accepts the linear no-threshold model of ionising radiation, then, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) , there will be a total of 16,000 excess cancer deaths worldwide as a result of this nuclear disaster.

Of course, these figures are dwarfed by the likely deaths resulting from climate change which will threaten millions through drought, famine and disease. So the current paradigm for the world community is to continue burning fossil fuels with the certainty of widespread environmental destruction, or to rely on nuclear power and risk the possibility of widespread radioactive contamination. Personally, I cannot think of a stronger argument in favour of renewable energy.

Dr Robin Russell-Jones

Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

• The assumption implicit in Monbiot's essay is that the human population can continue to grow and consume more energy without limit.

But just as there is "peak oil" there is "peak uranium" also. The entry on this subject in Wikipedia offers a good introduction to the topic. Some analysts estimate that we have already passed the point of maximum uranium production; while others leave about 25 years.

If we put all our efforts into a massive transformation from fossil fuel to nuclear energy, as Monbiot advocated, what does he propose after the point of peak uranium? During his shortlived nuclear renaissance, the human population will continue to grow; and be that much more vulnerable when peak uranium compels another transformation to a truly sustainable lifestyle.

I would prefer Monbiot to put his mind to estimating the size of the human population that is sustainable on Spaceship Earth in perpetuity; and how to make the earliest possible transition to that size.

Derek Wilson

Port Moody, Canada

• Caroline Lucas and George Monbiot have missed the elephant in the room in their head-to-head (Is nuclear power still the answer to our energy problems, 26 March). It is that Europe's urban areas can become the power stations of the future. The EU building standards directive seeks to reduce the energy use in buildings to 120kw/h m². Most of Europe's urban buildings use two to three times this. So, as both Caroline and George acknowledge, the first step to decarbonisation must be to lower consumption through waste reduction.

However, it is the next step that has not yet been recognised. Europe's larger urban areas have the potential to meet such reduced energy demand from the renewable energy-generating potential of their land and buildings. Metropolitan energy self-sufficiency is conceivable and achievable, with all the benefits for energy security, stable energy prices and competitiveness that this could bring. Energy saving can fund the required renewable energy investment. We could have a decarbonised urban Europe in 20 to 30 years and greenhouse gas emissions would not then be an issue. A major European project is coming to its conclusion shortly and the evidence will be made public.

Roger Read

Secretary general, METREX – The Network of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas

by: Daniel Becker
This is very important.  It is a list of all we have done in the world.   Go take a look.  It won't take long.  I'll wait for you to return.

That we do not teach about this in our schools is why we are who we are.  This list should be a banner which is run along the bottom of every news cast for as long as we are involved in such activity or when a new such action is proposed.  It should be a page in every Sunday newspaper edition for as long as we are involved or when a new such action is proposed.

Most of all, this list and the banner should start with the following words: "You have done all of the following..."  I say "you" because such actions need to remain personal.   It is always personal.  Yes, you and me personally have done all of this.  Don't start thinking that the use of robotics removes you from the equation.  Don't fall for that psych-ops.  You, me, we still are the one's pulling the trigger.  We did this.  All of this. 


We're broke? We have to sacrifice? What do we have to sacrifice, our dignity? Our integraty? Do you like someone doing all this in your name? Your name is on it. Don't make that mistake thinking it's not.

Oh, it's only about the money at this blog? Well, you're the private sector, you, me and we. Is this how you would choose to spend your Nth dollar? Is this how you would choose to spend your vaction money, your retirement money, your holiday gift money? I mean, it's all extra spending anyway. Gee, you have no extra? Well then, is this how you would choose to spend your grocery money, your heating money (just filled my tank, $3.59/gal), your insurance money, your TAX money?

Is the private sector spending it better than the government sector? How can you tell? See, private or government, it's still US. You pulled the trigger. I pulled the trigger by inclusion. We pulled the trigger.

And the rest of the world knows it.

In case you did not go to the link, here is the first list:
US interventions taken for sole purpose of regime change since 1945:


1946 – Thailand (Pridi; conservative): success (Covert operation)
1946 – Argentina (Peron; military/centrist): failure (Subverted election)
1947 – France (communist): success (Subverted election)
1947 – Philippines (center-left): success (Subverted election)
1947 – Romania (Gheorghiu-Dej; stalinist): failure (Covert operation)
1948 – Italy (communist): success (Subverted election)
1948 – Colombia (Gaitan; populist/leftist): success (Subverted election)
1948 – Peru (Bustamante; left/centrist): success (Covert operation)
1949 – Syria (Kuwatli; neutralist/Pan-Arabist): success (Covert operation)
1949 – China (Mao; communist): failure (Covert operation)
1950 – Albania (Hoxha; communist): failure (Covert operation)
1951 – Bolivia (Paz; center/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1951 – DPRK (Kim; stalinist): failure (Overt force)
1951 – Poland (Cyrankiewicz; stalinist): failure (Covert operation)
1951 – Thailand (Phibun; conservative): success (Covert operation)
1952 – Egypt (Farouk; monarchist): success (Covert operation)
1952 – Cuba (Prio; reform/populist): success (Covert operation)
1952 – Lebanon (left/populist): success: (Subverted election)
1953 – British Guyana (left/populist): success (Covert operation)
1953 – Iran (Mossadegh; liberal nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1953 – Costa Rica (Figueres; reform liberal): failure (Covert operation)
1953 – Philippines (center-left): success (Subverted election)
1954 – Guatemala (Arbenz; liberal nationalist): success (Overt force)
1955 – Costa Rica (Figueres; reform liberal): failure (Covert operation)
1955 – India (Nehru; neutralist/socialist): failure (Covert operation)
1955 – Argentina (Peron; military/centrist): success (Covert operation)
1955 – China (Zhou; communist): failure (Covert operation)
1955 – Vietnam (Ho; communist): success (Subverted election)
1956 – Hungary (Hegedus; communist): success (Covert operation)
1957 – Egypt (Nasser; military/nationalist): failure (Covert operation)
1957 – Haiti (Sylvain; left/populist): success (Covert operation)
1957 – Syria (Kuwatli; neutralist/Pan-Arabist): failure (Covert operation)
1958 – Japan (left-center): success (Subverted election)
1958 – Chile (leftists): success (Subverted election)
1958 – Iraq (Feisal; monarchist): success (Covert operation)
1958 – Laos (Phouma; nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1958 – Sudan (Sovereignty Council; nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1958 – Lebanon (leftist): success (Subverted election)
1958 – Syria (Kuwatli; neutralist/Pan-Arabist): failure (Covert operation)
1958 – Indonesia (Sukarno; militarist/neutralist): failure (Subverted election)
1959 – Laos (Phouma; nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1959 – Nepal (left-centrist): success (Subverted election)
1959 – Cambodia (Sihanouk; moderate/neutralist): failure (CO)
1960 – Ecuador (Ponce; left/populist): success (Covert operation)
1960 – Laos (Phouma; nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1960 – Iraq (Qassem; rightist /militarist): failure (Covert operation)
1960 – S. Korea (Syngman; rightist): success (Covert operation)
1960 – Turkey (Menderes; liberal): success (Covert operation)
1961 – Haiti (Duvalier; rightist/militarist): success (Covert operation)
1961 – Cuba (Castro; communist): failure (Covert operation)
1961 – Congo (Lumumba; leftist/pan-Africanist): success (Covert operation)
1961 – Dominican Republic (Trujillo; rightwing/military): success (Covert operation)
1962 – Brazil (Goulart; liberal/neutralist): failure (Subverted election)
1962 – Dominican Republic ( left/populist): success (Subverted election)
1962 – Indonesia (Sukarno; militarist/neutralist): failure (Covert operation)
1963 – Dominican Republic (Bosch; social democrat): success (Covert operation)
1963 – Honduras (Montes; left/populist): success (Covert operation)
1963 – Iraq (Qassem; militarist/rightist): success (Covert operation)
1963 – S. Vietnam (Diem; rightist): success (Covert operation)
1963 – Cambodia (Sihanouk; moderate/neutralist): failure (Covert operation)
1963 – Guatemala (Ygidoras; rightist/reform): success (Covert operation)
1963 – Ecuador (Velasco; reform militarist): success (Covert operation)
1964 – Guyana (Jagan; populist/reformist): success (Covert operation)
1964 – Bolivia (Paz; centrist/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1964 – Brazil (Goulart; liberal/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1964 – Chile (Allende; social democrat/marxist): success (Subverted election)
1965 – Indonesia (Sukarno; militarist/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1966 – Ghana (Nkrumah; leftist/pan-Africanist): success (Covert operation)
1966 – Bolivia (leftist): success (Subverted election)
1966 – France (de Gaulle; centrist): failure (Covert operation)
1967 – Greece (Papandreou; social democrat): success (Covert operation)
1968 – Iraq (Arif; rightist): success (Covert operation)
1969 – Panama (Torrijos; military/reform populist): failure (Covert operation)
1969 – Libya (Idris; monarchist): success (Covert operation)
1970 – Bolivia (Ovando; reform nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1970 – Cambodia (Sihanouk; moderate/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1970 – Chile (Allende; social democrat/Marxist): failure (Subverted election)
1971 – Bolivia (Torres; nationalist/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1971 – Costa Rica (Figueres; reform liberal): failure (Covert operation)
1971 – Liberia (Tubman; rightist): success (Covert operation)
1971 – Turkey (Demirel; center-right): success (Covert operation)
1971 – Uruguay (Frente Amplio; leftist): success (Subverted election)
1972 – El Salvador (leftist): success (Subverted election)
1972 – Australia (Whitlam; liberal/labor): failure (Subverted election)
1973 – Chile (Allende; social democrat/Marxist): success (Covert operation)
1975 – Australia (Whitlam; liberal/labor): success (Covert operation)
1975 – Congo (Mobutu; military/rightist): failure (Covert operation)
1975 – Bangladesh (Mujib; nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1976 – Jamaica (Manley; social democrat): failure (Subverted election)
1976 – Portugal (JNS; military/leftist): success (Subverted election)
1976 – Nigeria (Mohammed; military/nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1976 – Thailand (rightist): success (Covert operation)
1976 – Uruguay (Bordaberry; center-right): success (Covert operation)
1977 – Pakistan (Bhutto: center/nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1978 – Dominican Republic (Balaguer; center): success (Subverted election)
1979 – S. Korea (Park; rightist): success (Covert operation)
1979 – Nicaragua (Sandinistas; leftist): failure (Covert operation)
1980 – Bolivia (Siles; centrist/reform): success (Covert operation)
1980 – Iran (Khomeini; Islamic nationalist): failure (Covert operation)
1980 – Italy (leftist): success (Covert operation)
1980 – Liberia (Tolbert; rightist): success (Covert operation)
1980 – Jamaica (Manley; social democrat): success (Subverted election)
1980 – Dominica (Seraphin; leftist): success (Subverted election)
1980 – Turkey (Demirel; center-right): success (Covert operation)
1981 – Seychelles (René; socialist): failure (Covert operation)
1981 – Spain (Suarez; rightist/neutralist): failure (Covert operation)
1981 – Panama (Torrijos; military/reform populist); success (Covert operation)
1981 – Zambia (Kaunda; reform nationalist): failure (Covert operation)
1982 – Mauritius (center-left): failure (Subverted election)
1982 – Spain (Suarez; rightist/neutralist): success (Subverted election)
1982 – Iran (Khomeini; Islamic nationalist): failure (Covert operation)
1982 – Chad (Oueddei; Islamic nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1983 – Mozambique (Machel; socialist): failure (Covert operation)
1983 – Grenada (Bishop; socialist): success (Overt force)
1984 – Panama (reform/centrist): success (Subverted election)
1984 – Nicaragua (Sandinistas; leftist): failure (Subverted election)
1984 – Surinam (Bouterse; left/reformist/neutralist): success (Covert operation)
1984 – India (Gandhi; nationalist): success (Covert operation)
1986 – Libya (Qaddafi; Islamic nationalist): failure (Overt force)
1987 – Fiji (Bavrada; liberal): success (Covert operation)
1989 – Panama (Noriega; military/reform populist): success (Overt force)
1990 – Haiti (Aristide; liberal reform): failure (Subverted election)
1990 – Nicaragua (Ortega; Christian socialist): success (Subverted election)
1991 – Albania (Alia; communist): success (Subverted election)
1991 – Haiti (Aristide; liberal reform): success (Covert operation)
1991 – Iraq (Hussein; military/rightist): failure (Overt force)
1991 – Bulgaria (BSP; communist): success (Subverted election)
1992 – Afghanistan (Najibullah; communist): success (Covert operation)
1993 – Somalia (Aidid; right/militarist): failure (Overt force)
1993 – Cambodia (Han Sen/CPP; leftist): failure (Subverted election)
1993 – Burundi (Ndadaye; conservative): success (Covert operation)
1994 – El Salvador (leftist): success (Subverted election)
1994 – Rwanda (Habyarimana; conservative): success (Covert operation)
1994 – Ukraine (Kravchuk; center-left): success (Subverted election)
1996 – Bosnia (Karadzic; centrist): success (Covert operation)
1996 – Congo (Mobutu; military/rightist): success (Covert operation)
1996 – Mongolia (center-left): success (Subverted election)
1998 – Congo (Kabila; rightist/military): success (Covert operation)
1998 – Indonesia (Suharto; military/rightist): success (Covert operation)
1999 – Yugoslavia (Milosevic; left/nationalist): success (Subverted election)
2000 – Ecuador (NSC; leftist): success: (Covert operation)
2001 – Afghanistan (Omar; rightist/Islamist): success (Overt force)
2001 – Belarus (Lukashenko; leftist): failure (Subverted election)
2001 – Nicaragua (Ortega; Christian socialist): success (Subverted election)
2001 – Nepal (Birendra; nationalist/monarchist): success (Covert operation)
2002 – Venezuela (Chavez; reform-populist): failure (Covert operation)
2002 – Bolivia (Morales; leftist/MAS): success (Subverted election)
2002 – Brazil (Lula; center-left): failure (Subverted election)

Join the conversation about this story »

Cows will be calmer, doctors happier and crooks less active.

That’s the thinking as Russia puts forward its clocks for the last time this weekend.

Leading the way in an incipient global trend that rejects the notion of changing the clocks in spring and autumn, the Russian authorities believe the move will reduce human – and animal – misery.

It means Russia, which stretches across nine time zones from Kaliningrad in Europe to the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific, will stay permanently on summer time from this Sunday, gaining extra daylight in the afternoons during its seemingly interminable winter.

The president, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russians were fed up with the time changes because they caused “stress and illnesses” and “upset the human biorhythm”.

“It’s irritating, people wake up early and don’t know what to do with themselves for the spare hour,” he said. “And that’s not to mention the unhappy cows and other animals that don’t understand the clocks changing and don’t understand why the milkmaids come to them at a different time.”

The only other country in Europe without switches to and from daylight saving time is Iceland, but Belarus and Ukraine are also considering abandoning the system.

Some critics suggested it was a populist move by the Kremlin to distract from more serious social issues, but many experts supported the idea.

Arkady Tishkov, a geography professor and member of the working group that advised cancelling twice-yearly time adjustments, said they provoked a litany of problems, including disruption of sleep patterns, aggravation of chronic diseases and increased traffic accidents.

“During the period of the clocks changing, the number of heart attacks increases by 50% and the number of suicides by 66%,” he said. Crime will also drop when the clocks are not put back in October because thieves are less active during daylight hours, Tishkov added.

Tatyana Rybalova, head of the research centre of Russia’s National Union of Milk Producers, told the Guardian that Medvedev was right to highlight the effect on livestock. “It’s true that cows are a lot more sensitive than humans to the changing of the clocks,” she said.

“I remember when daylight saving time was introduced in the Soviet times, there were protests by milkmaids in Novosibirsk and Omsk. It seemed to particularly upset the cows in Siberia.”

Russia is not blazing a lonely trail. Chile delayed its switch to winter time for three weeks to 2 April because of a looming energy crisis following drought and falling water levels in reservoirs serving hydroelectric plants. The time delay caused problems as clocks, mobiles and laptops flipped back an hour automatically.

It was the third recent occasion on which Chile had pushed back a time change to save energy. The first was in 2008, when there was another drought, while the second, last year, added daylight to help cope with the aftermath of Chile’s own earthquake and tsunami in February 2010.

In Australia, a small single-issue party, Daylight Saving for South East Queensland, is also gearing up for what it hopes will be a wave of support for its demands when the state parliament debates a bill seeking a referendum on the issue, probably next month or in May. It wants the state split into two time zones – so that the south-east of the state – where, it says, the population wants more evening daylight for business and the outdoor lifestyle – can go its own way.

In Britain, the daylight savings bill going through parliament is pressing for a government review of how and when the clocks are changed. MPs are collecting evidence on benefits and pitfalls of the idea, which is being promoted by Lighter Later, part of the 10:10 climate change campaign.

Windows to Russia!

• Russia Gets Rid Of “Daylight Savings Time”… (windowstorussia.com)
• Putin Keeps Laying the Groundwork for the Future… (windowstorussia.com)
• Coffee and March Madness in Russia… (windowstorussia.com)
• Coffee: Russians and Their Coats and Boots… (windowstorussia.com)
• Russians to plunge into darkness but wake up to eternal summer (news.windowstorussia.com)

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/25/clocks-go-forward-last-time-russia

KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- The government of Belarus has guaranteed the transit of 1.4 billion barrels of oil for the Odessa-Brody pipeline in 2011, a Ukrainian official said.