4
News
Monday, February 20, 2012
International
Science
International
Thousands rally for Putin before Russian election
Agence France Presse
REUTERS/Matt Sullivan
Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum speaks during a Tea Party Rally in Columbus, Ohio February 18, 2012.
Santorum says Obama agenda not “based on Bible”
Reuters
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum challenged President Barack Obama’s Christian beliefs on Saturday, saying White House policies were motivated by a “different theology.”
REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
Flags with portraits of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are displayed during a car rally to show support for Putin’s presidential candidacy in Moscow February 18, 2012.
A devout Roman Catholic who has risen to the top of Republican polls in recent days, Santorum said the Obama administration had failed to prevent gas prices rising and was using “political science” in the debate about climate change. Obama’s agenda is “not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology,” Santorum told supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement at a Columbus hotel. When asked about the statement
at a news conference later, Santorum said, “If the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.” But Santorum did not back down from the assertion that Obama’s values run against those of Christianity. “He is imposing his values on the Christian church. He can categorize those values anyway he wants. I’m not going to,” Santorum told reporters. A social conservative, Santorum is increasingly seen as a champion for evangelical Christians in fights with Democrats over contraception and gay marriage. “This is just the latest low in
a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity - a stark contrast with the President who is focused everyday on creating jobs and restoring economic security for the middle class,” said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. The campaign’s response signaled a new respect for Santorum. Until this week, the Obama campaign appeared exclusively focused on Mitt Romney. Republicans are waging a state-by-state contest to pick a candidate to challenge Obama in November’s election. At a campaign appearance in Florida last month, Santorum declined to correct a voter who called Obama, a Christian, an “avowed Muslim.”
Bird flu still a menace in Asia and beyond
AP Photo/Na Son Nguyen
In this photo taken on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012, Nguyen Quang Duong, left, the owner of a poultry farm in Nhat Tan commune, Kim Bang district, Ha Nam province, Vietnam, stands still as a health worker wearing a protective gear sprays disinfectant at Duong’s farm where a suspected outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus among ducks was discovered in early February 2012. Associated Press Writer
HANOI, Vietnam — Thought bird flu was gone? Recent human deaths in Asia and Egypt are a reminder that the H5N1 virus is still alive and dangerous, and Vietnam is grappling with a new strain that has outsmarted vaccines used to protect poultry flocks. Ten people have died in Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, China and Vietnam since December during the prime-time flu season when the virus typically flares in poultry. “We are worried, and we will be very cautious,” said To Long Thanh, director of Vietnam’s Center for Animal Health Diagnostics in Vietnam. The H5N1 virus has killed 345 people worldwide since 2003, when it rampaged across large swaths of Asia decimating poultry stocks before later surfacing in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The number of poultry outbreaks has greatly diminished since then, but the virus remains entrenched in several countries and continues to surface sporadically,
resulting in 20 to 30 human deaths globally in recent years. Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, with most people sickened after being in close contact with infected poultry, but experts have long feared it could spark a pandemic if it mutates into a form that spreads easily among people. The fresh wave of cases comes amid a controversy involving scientists who created new lab-only versions of the virus that spread more easily among animals, hoping
Leadership tensions within Australia’s ruling Labor party have erupted with the release of a video showing ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd on an expletive-ridden rant about a Chinese interpreter. The two-minute video, uploaded onto YouTube by a mystery user calling themselves “HappyVegemiteKR”, shows an irate Rudd trying to record a message in Mandarin and railing against the embassy official who wrote the text. Rudd was ousted as leader in a shock partyroom coup in June 2010 by his deputy, Julia Gillard, who scraped back into power at elections and is now badly lagging in the polls. Speculation has intensified in recent weeks that Rudd, currently Australia’s foreign minister, is preparing to challenge for the top job.
He denied this but said a suspicious person would question the “unusual” timing of the video’s release, given that it was shot several years ago when he was still prime minister. Such out-takes footage is usually destroyed but Rudd said the video in question had clearly been archived by the prime minister’s office or some other government department. Gillard’s office denied leaking the footage. Rudd also insisted that he was a changed man and had learned to be less controlling and to consult more broadly -- two key criticisms that saw him lose office. “As to whether (I have) changed in any fundamental way, that’s a judgement for others to make, but I’ve certainly reflected a lot in the past several years,” Rudd told Sky News. He said he was “embarrassed” by the swearing
and he had been frustrated with himself, not the interpreter. Independent lawmaker Andrew Wilkie fuelled speculation of a challenge to Gillard, claiming that he and Rudd discussed the issue back in November and he “clearly wants the job back”. “There will be a challenge and I suspect he may well be successful,” said Wilkie. Gillard admitted that the leadership tensions were hurting her government. “This kind of focus over the last few weeks means it’s more difficult for me to be out there ex p l a i n i n g to people what’s happening in our economy,” Gillard said.
to better understand it. After a loud uproar over whether publishing the research would put the recipe for a bioweapon into the hands of terrorists, the researchers have agreed to temporarily halt their work. They are set to wrap up a two-day meeting on the issue Friday with international experts at the World Health Organization in Geneva. After the meeting, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told The Associated Press the work would not be published until a full discussion could be held about both the risks and benefits of the research and risks of the virus itself. He said the consensus among experts voiced by a lead researcher was that the work should be published eventually since there was only a small chance the virus could be used as a bioweapon.
Wildfires, peat fires and controlled burns on farming lands kill 339,000 people worldwide each year, said a study released on Saturday that is the first to estimate a death toll for landscape fires. Most of those deaths are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 157,000 people die as a result of being exposed to such fires annually, with southeast Asia ranking second with 110,000 deaths. “I was surprised at our estimate being so high when you consider that the exposure to fire smoke is quite intermittent for most people,” said lead author Fay Johnston of the University of Tasmania. “Even in southeast Asia and Africa, (fire) is a seasonal phenomenon. It is not year round,” Johnston said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Vancouver where she presented her research. The study, which Johnston
said was the first of its kind to attempt to estimate a death toll from wildfires and landscape burns, was published Saturday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Researchers looked at the number of deaths from all causes in areas that were exposed to heavy smoke and landscape fire between 1997 and 2006. They used satellite data and chemical transport models to assess the health impacts of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers, a major byproduct of landscape fire smoke. The number of deaths from wildfires came in far below the previously estimated global tolls for indoor air pollution at two million people per year and urban air pollution at 800,000. However, the study authors said their findings indicated that “fire emissions are an important contributor to global mortality.” The research also suggested a significant link between climate and fire mortality.
AFP Photo/Erich Schlegel
A fire fighting crew from the Lassen National Forest in California clean up hot spots after the destructive wildfire in Bastrop, Texas in 2011. Wildfires, peat fires and controlled burns on farming lands kill 339,000 people worldwide each year, said a study released on Saturday that is the first to estimate a death toll for landscape fires.
Startup sends live local TV to the iPhone
Profane video stokes Australia PM tensions
Agence France Presse
13
Wildfires kill 339,000 people per year: study
Reuters
MOSCOW - Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in cities across Russia in support of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday in a show of force two weeks before a March 4 presidential election that is expected to return him to the Kremlin. The rallies began in the Pacific coast port of Vladivostok and culminated with a late-night demonstration on wheels in Moscow, where motorists took to the streets with slogans such as “Putin rules” on their cars. “One wish unites us: we want to be sure of tomorrow,” said a declaration read out at the rally in St. Petersburg, which like many others was organized by trade unions that have close government ties. The declaration urged Russians to vote on March 4 and “defend the right to the stable future.” In central Moscow, about 10 people staging a street protest against Putin were detained, Ekho Moskvy radio reported. The pro-Putin rallies are aimed at showing that the prime minister, who could remain president until 2024 if he wins two straight terms, has majority support despite the biggest opposition protests of his 12-year rule. Opponents say state workers are pressured to attend the pro-Putin rallies with a combination of threats and payments, and that police exaggerate the size of the crowds while underestimating the size of opposition protests. Tens of thousands of people have turned out for opposition protests in recent months, venting anger over suspected fraud in December’s parliamentary election, and over what they see as a lack of say in Putin’s tightly controlled political system.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Associated Press Writer
Kevin Rudd
AP Photo/Aereo
This image provided by Aereo shows a screenshot from the iPad showing Aereo.com streaming ìBob the Builderî on New Yorkís PBS station, WNET 13. The service launched this week in New York, giving access to live TV from local stations on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
NEW YORK — A startup backed by media billionaire Barry Diller has launched a service that sends live local TV feeds to iPhones and iPads. But the service may be shortlived, since TV stations are likely to challenge its right to use their broadcasts. The service, Aereo, launched in New York this week, but it is available only by invitation. It hopes to broaden access to more people next month, and then launch in other cities. Subscribers pay $12 per month and use their web browsers to access streams from 27 local channels, including the major broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. For now, the service works
only on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, but Aereo is planning to make it accessible to PC browsers and Android-powered phones as well. In a test by an Associated Press reporter, the service provided highquality streams over Wi-Fi to an iPad, but often it wouldn’t show particular channels. The company says kinks are still being worked out of the system. Aereo has more than $25 million in venture capital backing, with more than $20 million of it coming from a funding round led by InterActiveCorp, which owns Match.com, Ask.com and other websites. Diller, the chairman of InterActiveCorp and the former CEO of Fox, says he’s “excited” about Aereo and the chance it has to dis-
rupt the way TV is consumed. Aereo exploits what it believes is a loophole in the laws governing retransmission of local broadcasts. Yet TV networks and stations are unlikely to buy that legal justification, and could drag Aereo to court. Representatives of CBS, NBC and ABC and the National Association of Broadcasters had no comment on Aereo’s launch. Cable companies pay local broadcast stations for the right to retransmit their signals to subscribers. Aereo doesn’t, and founder and CEO Chet Kanojia says it doesn’t have to. That’s because Aereo doesn’t use one big antenna to pick up the local broadcasts and relay them to the Internet. Instead, it uses one tiny antenna for each subscriber that’s watching.