It's the 16th anniversary since the massacre of hundreds, if not over a thousand students by the Chinese military in Tiananmen Square after six weeks of peaceful protests. A vigil was held in Hong Kong to commemorate the event. A reporter who obtained a copy of a manuscript in which a then-Chinese premier at the time that indicated support for the democracy movement in the government has been charged with spying by the Chinese government and imprisoned. Amnesty International used the anniversary to call for the release of the students who are still imprisoned from the demonstration and that an independent inquiry be conducted bringing those responsible for the orders to justice. The Chinese government has simply ignored these requests. To think this is the country that will host the 2008 Olympics - they might as well have chosen Iran.
In the United States, the Amnesty International report continues to make news. Think Progress notes that although the Bush administration has attempted to discredit the authority of AI when they are being criticized, they were all too quick to use AI reports when providing examples of the crimes of Saddam Hussein. The report has caused some problems for the administration as the war over how to define the detention centres consumes political capital. The bad press has some senators calling for the shut down of Guantanamo Bay. Amnesty has recently added fuel to the fire, by stating that the United States was running an archipelago of secret detention centres around the world where they can interrogate prisoners without external observation.
The United Nations has declared that the forced evictions of people from shantytowns by the government of Zimbabwe is a gross violation of human rights. This comes as the regime of Robert Mugabe increasingly clings on to control of the government, implementing a scorched-earth policy against anyone it sees as opposing it.
A story on how bird flu could likely be the next world pandemic, and by that, we're talking millions worldwide. A bigger problem is that it's likely to originate in China, where the government has a history of covering up outbreaks instead of alerting the international community so other countries can prepare for a rapidly spreading disease. On the upside though, other scientists believe that they have found a vaccine for Ebola, another fear-inducing illness in Africa.
In the continuing saga of religious conservatives in America, a story about how the new company to boycott is Ford. Among the many claims on their site justifying the boycott, one of my personal favourites is "Ford was given a 100% score on this year's Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index." Because you clearly can't support a company that scores so high in their enforcement of human rights standards. When they're not boycotting random companies, and now that they have put some pressure on what universities teach, 'Christian' conservatives are now going after secondary institutions. Now, any case where people are not free to practice their religion or offer their opinion is clearly reprehensible, but worrying about that a World History class will indoctrinate students with Islam is a little loony.
Also:
- Scientists now agree that Voyager 1 has officially left the solar system, crossing the terminal shock. A website out of the University of Iowa allows you to hear what this sounded like, in addition to other astronomical phenomena.
- A consortium of physicists have simulated a universe measuring 2 billion light years on each side starting from the big bang in order to see the evolution of galaxies over billions of years.
- NASA is currently planning its next mission to Mars, just as it managed to free the current rover from a sand trap.
- Scientists have sequenced the DNA of a species of cave bear that went extinct 40,000 years ago.
- The United Nations has released a series of photographs showing the amount of environmental change that has occurred from when satellites first were launched until now.
- In an interesting plan to curb traffic problems, the UK is proposing using satellites and other technology to track motorists on routinely busy routes and charge them up to £1.30/mile.
- Hold on to your hats if you live on the Atlantic. Scientists are expecting a busy hurricane season.
- Laugh for 10-15 minutes a day, and you burn enough calories to eat an extra piece of chocolate.
- Israel released almost 400 Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal with the Palestinian Authority.
- The Christian Science Monitor points out that where radical Islam has faced electoral competition, they have generally become more moderate.
- Russia lets its concerns be known about the possible American weaponization of space.
- Apparently Greece is more hard-core religious than I knew, as an artist has been charged with insulting public decency and the Church.
- Swiss voters recently voted 55% in favour of closer European integration and 58% in favour for entrenched rights for same-sex couples.
- Next up on the Bush administration's pro-life crusade, embryo adoption for all those left over from IVF attempts.
- A group of Wal-Mart investors is coming down hard on the recent problems facing the company image.
- An article about how the rate of human innovation might be on the decline.
- Pornography might be getting its own domain name, .xxx.
- Quake 4 has a website where you can check out the flash trailer for the game.
- Perhaps taking a line from Super Size Me, a blog about attempting to verify the extent to which Guiness is a beer that drinks like a meal.
- BBC Radio 3 is having an all-Beethoven week, featuring free mp3 downloads of all 9 symphonies.
- More free mp3s, this time old recordings from 78s.
- Some pretty friggin' cool chalk drawings on the street.
No comments:
Post a Comment