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China Leading Race to Make Clean Energy

2010-01-30T22:46:00.000+01:00

Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

As China takes the lead on wind turbines, above, and solar panels, President Obama is calling for American industry to step up.

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 30, 2010

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate the global manufacture of renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,” he told Congress.

The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race.

Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators.

“You have to move fast with the market,” said Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. “Nobody has ever seen such fast development in a wind market.”

Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.

Yet renewable energy may be doing more for China’s economy than for the environment. Total power generation in China is on track to pass the United States in 2012 — and most of the added capacity will still be from coal.

China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States. Coal will still represent two-thirds of China’s capacity in 2020, and nuclear and hydropower most of the rest.

As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the advantage of being the world’s largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing.

China’s top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.

Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China.

China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year. To meet demand in the coming decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to add nearly nine times as much electricity generation capacity as the United States will.

So while Americans are used to thinking of themselves as having the world’s largest market in many industries, China’s market for power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, even though the American market is more mature. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production.

In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively.

Interest rates as low as 2 percent for bank loans — the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy — have also made a big difference.

As in many other industries, China’s low labor costs are an advantage in energy. Although Chinese wages have risen sharply in the last five years, Vestas still pays assembly line workers here only $4,100 a year.

Full article >>>

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009

2009-10-12T09:50:00.002+02:00

Google hits back at book critics

2009-10-12T09:02:00.006+02:00

Google hits back at book critics
Computer screen in the New York Library
Google's digital library plans have met with strong opposition.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has hit out at critics of the company's plans to create what could be the world's largest virtual library.

Writing in the New York Times, Mr Brin said he wanted to "dispel some myths" surrounding the project.

He said the plan would make millions of "out-of-print" books available to the public online.

Those against the idea fear it would give Google a monopoly over access to the world's information.

"In reality, nothing in this agreement precludes any other company or organisation from pursuing their own similar effort," he wrote.

"The agreement limits consumer choice in out-of-print books about as much as it limits consumer choice in unicorns.

"Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice — fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks."

'No deal'

Google Books - formerly known as Google print - was first launched in 2004.

FULL ARTICLE>>>

Lauryn Hill Zion

2009-10-10T23:31:00.001+02:00

Lyrics
Unsure of what the balance held
I touched my belly overwhelmed
By what I had been chosen to perform
But then an angel came one day
Told me to kneel down and pray
For unto me a man child would be born
Woe this crazy circumstance
I knew his life deserved a chance
But everybody told me to be smart
Look at your career they said,
"Lauryn, baby use your head"
But instead I chose to use my heart

Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion

How beautiful if nothing more
Than to wait at Zion's door
I've never been in love like this before
Now let me pray to keep you from
The perils that will surely come
See life for you my prince has just begun
And I thank you for choosing me
To come through unto life to be
A beautiful reflection of his grace
See I know that a gift so great
Is only one God could create
And I'm reminded every time I see your face

That the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion

Marching, marching, marching to Zion
Marching, marching
Marching, marching, marching to Zion
Beautiful, beautiful Zion
(repeat to end of song)

Bob Marley with Lauryn Hill - Turn your lights down low

2009-10-10T23:24:00.002+02:00

Rod Stewart & Faces & Keith Richards

2009-10-10T22:57:00.005+02:00

Let me tell you about a place, somewhere up in new york way
Where the people are so gay, twistin the night away
Here they have a lot of fun, puttin trouble on the run
Oh man youll find the old and young twistin the night away

Heres a man in evening clothes, how he got here I dont know
But oh man, you ought to see him go, twistin the night away
Hes dancing with a chick in slacks, shes moving up and back
Oh man, there aint nothing like twistin the night away

Feel much better

Heres a fellow in blue jeans, whos dancing with an older queen
Dolled up in her diamond rings, twistin the night away
Man you ought to see her go, twistin to the rock and roll
Here youll find the young and the old twistin the night away

Theyre twistin, twistin, everybodys doing great
Theyre twistin man, twistin, theyre twistin the night away
Twistin, you know theyre twistin, twistin the night away
Theyre twistin, twistin, man twistin the night away

Here they have a lot of fun, puttin trouble on the run
Oh man youll find young and the old twistin the night away
Heres a man in evening clothes, how he got here I dont know
I dont know but man you ought to see him go
Twistin the night away

Students 'could face dope tests'

2009-10-08T11:54:00.000+02:00

Students 'could face dope tests'

By Angela Harrison
BBC News education reporter

American studies have measured such drug use

Students could one day face dope tests to prove they have not boosted their academic performance with so called "smart drugs", a psychologist suggests.

More students are turning to drugs in an attempt to boost their grades, writes Vince Cakic of Sydney University in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Among drugs apparently being used are those designed to treat hyperactivity and dementia.

Some academics think their use can be a positive thing, if regulated.

There are calls for a debate.

They say that although much written about the extent of drug use in the UK is anecdotal, studies at American universities suggest as many as one in four students on some campuses are taking stimulants.

Mr Cakic said: "The possibility of purchasing 'smartness in a bottle' is likely to have broad appeal to students seeking to gain an advantage in an increasingly competitive world."
The drugs would be near impossible to ban, he said.

"As laughable as it may seem, it is possible that scenarios such as this [urine testing] could very well come to fruition in the future.

Any attempt to prohibit the use of [smart drugs] will probably be difficult or inordinately expensive to police effectively

Vince Cakic, Sydney University

"However, given that the benefits of [smart drugs] could also be derived from periods of study at any time leading up to examinations, this would also require drug testing during non-exam periods," he writes.

"If the current situation in competitive sport is anything to go by, any attempt to prohibit the use ... will probably be difficult or inordinately expensive to police effectively," he warns.
Experts working in the UK are divided on the issue between those who believe such drugs, if taken under supervision, are a legitimate way of boosting performance and those who warn of the health and social dangers of such use.

'Own choices'
John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at Manchester University, said: "My position on enhancement generally and on 'smart drugs' in particular is that enhancement is definitely a good thing.

"If they do improve function in a way that is safe enough I think people should make their own choices about whether to access them.

"Drugs are banned by most sports governing bodies, so if athletes use them it is only cheating because it is against the rules.

"In education, there are lots of ways students can steal an advantage over others: they could be privately educated, have extra tuition, have access to expensive study aids or expensive computers.

"All of these, if others do not have access to them, are in a sense unfair but there are good reasons for students to improve their study skills."

We have a number of well-respected scientists speaking in very positive terms.....but among teachers, there are concerns

Paul Howard-Jones, Bristol University

Professor Harris believes the sector should be regulated but that use of the so-called "smart drugs" should not be banned.
"There is a lot of evidence that there is a wide black market in these drugs.

"They are available on prescription and on the internet. it would be better if they were regulated so people could have access to these drugs, with their GPs keeping track of them."

Universities as a whole warn students of the health risks with taking drugs not prescribed for them.

A spokeswoman for Universities UK said: "Currently, much of the evidence available on the use of [smart] drugs among students is largely anecdotal.

"However, universities take the issue of drug abuse very seriously, and would have grave concerns about students taking drugs not prescribed to them. Not only is this illegal but it also poses health risks to those students.

"All universities would advise students under pressure to seek advice from university counselling services, welfare officers or their GP."

Dr Ken Checinski, a specialist in addictive behaviour and psychological medicine at St George's, University of London, has treated many young people who have taken such drugs to boost their exam performance.
One was 15.

He says such drugs are marketed as making people cleverer and braver - but says the reality can be the opposite.

"I obviously see the extreme cases," he said, "but people can develop severe anxiety from amphetamines, they make the heart beat fast and can fuel panic attacks, so people feel like they are having a heart attack which is very frightening.

"They can suffer sleeplessness and this can be very long-lasting; and they might have mood disorder not quite as bad as the crash from coming off cocaine but a near crash. They might feel suicidal."

In the most extreme cases, Dr Checinski said people could develop psychosis and have delusions or hear voices.

Educational view
Dr Paul Howard-Jones, senior lecturer at Bristol University's graduate school of education, says it is vital that the issues are debated now, before such drug use becomes more common.
"We need to have a debate on this now. These drugs will multiply in number, range and power," he said.

"We have a number of well-respected scientists speaking in very positive terms about these drugs in terms of benefits for us as a society and as individuals, but among teachers, there are concerns.

"I can see there are potential huge benefits but they challenge many of the values we have in education and society."

Dr Howard-Jones said possible concerns were about the devaluing of normal achievement and effort, inequalities - because not everyone might be able to afford the drugs - and the possibility of students feeling pressured to use them.

Teachers he had surveyed mostly thought these drugs would increase the education poverty gap, would demand drug testing if they became prevalent, and would not value grades achieved using them as highly as those achieved without drugs.

The calls for debate and continued research are also reflected in the article by Vince Cakic, from Sydney University.

"Perhaps the most that can be hoped for is to have a better understanding of the dangers of (the drugs) so that students will take this into consideration when deciding whether or not to use them," he said.

Mighty microbes might help clean up oil extraction and radioactive wastes

2009-09-08T08:43:00.000+02:00

There appears to be literally nothing microbes cannot do. From the invention of photosynthesis to lifecycles that require no sunlight—even surviving extreme radiation—the most extreme microbes thrive almost everywhere scientists look. And now microbiologists have added two more energy-related tricks to the microbial arsenal.

At the European Society for General Microbiology meeting this week, Richard Johnson and his fellow scientists from the University of Essex will present research showing that a mixed ecosystem of particular bacteria can survive—and clean up—one of the most lethal man-made environments: the residue from extracting petroleum from oil sands.

Extracting this heavy oil and refining it produces a slew of toxic waste, particularly water with naphthenic acid (one of the secret ingredients of napalm). In Athabasca region of Canada—home to much of the oil sands industry—there are at least one billion cubic meters of such polluted water sitting in local ponds.

What to do? Unleash bacteria, Johnson says. The microbes can break down the naphthenic acid into more benign byproducts in a few days rather than the decade or more it can take naturally. This can cut down on the environmental impact of producing oil from tar sands, of which there is an estimated 3.6 trillion barrels (double known conventional oil reserves).

It does not, however, address that other related byproduct: climate change caused by the greenhouse gases emitted when the oil is burned. Maybe microbes can help with that too (after all, they were responsible for the composition of the atmosphere until humans came along).

And it turns out E. coli—most famous for its role in food poisoning—does a pretty good job of cleaning up another potentially important but lethal energy source: radioactive waste. Lynne Macaskie and colleagues at the University of Birmingham show in another presentation at the same meeting how said E. coli, in conjunction with a cheap, widely available chemical (inositol phosphate), can recover uranium from the polluted waters of mines.

Basically, the E. coli break down the chemical and free the phosphate, which then bonds with the uranium and forms a precipitate on the exterior of the cell that can be harvested.

The researchers estimate that such recovered uranium would cost about 15 cents per gram of the nuclear fuel element. But it also offers an environmental protection advantage, removing radioactive material from the mine tailings. The process could even be used on spent fuel rods and other nuclear waste.
Image: Courtesy of USDA Agricultural Research Service / Photo by Eric Erbe, digital colorization by Christopher

"Space Internet" to Link Worlds by 2011?

2009-09-07T18:42:00.001+02:00

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

July 9, 2009

For all its might, the World Wide Web is still limited to, well, our world.

But that's quickly changing with the advent of an "interplanetary internet" that planners say will revolutionize space communication.

Enlarge Photo

The Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) system, which entered another phase of testing this week, will allow astronauts to Google from the moon or tweet their observations from space.

But DTN provides far more than a connection to check your email. It's also essential for simplifying space command and control functions—such as power production or life-support systems—crucial for future space initiatives.

"You need an automated communications technology … to sustain planetary exploration on the scale that NASA and others want to perform over the next decade," said Kevin Gifford, a senior research associate at BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"DTN enables the transition from a simple point-to-point network, like a walkie-talkie, to a true multimode network like the Internet."

After a decade of development DTN has advanced quickly over the past year, and NASA missions are planning to adopt the network by 2011. In November 2008 NASA test-drove the network by sending space images to and from the EPOXI spacecraft, some 20 million miles (32 million kilometers) from Earth.

DTN protocols were also installed on the International Space Station in May, and summer testing began the first week of July.

Houston, We're Fixing a Problem

Though tweeting astronauts have gotten a lot of press, "the reality is that they [don't really] tweet or have browsing capability on the International Space Station," explained Gifford, who is part of a large, cooperative DTN effort that has also included NASA and Internet veterans.

"Right now they actually voice down a simple blurb, and the tweet is operated manually from Houston," he said. In fact most current space communication involves humans manually scheduling each and every link, sometimes weeks or even months in advance for distant spacecraft, and dictating exactly which data are sent and when.

"Typically spacecraft go off and do their thing, gather up data, and then on some schedule they connect to the ground and [we] pull down the results of what it has been doing and send up instructions for the next time period," Hooke said.

Such manual operations are inefficient and expensive. But simply extending Earth's Internet into space won't work.

The Web uses Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), a type of communication language in which hosts and computers must be constantly connected.

This rarely happens in space, where intermittent connections are the norm because of the vast distances involved and the tendency of orbiting moons, rotating planets, and drifting satellites to temporarily disrupt wireless lines of communication.

Communications Leap

Typical space delays, even those caused by solar storms, are handled in stride by DTN, Hooke said.

Each node in the network—whether it's the International Space Station or a small orbiting robot—stores all the data it receives until a clear opportunity arises to pass its "bundle" along to the others in the network. DTN nodes do not discard data when a destination path can't be identified.

Hooke likens this "store and forward" process to a basketball team systematically passing the ball downcourt to players closer to the hoop.

The result, he explained, will be a communications leap akin to that between the post office and the telephone.

"A letter is a pretty self-contained story, it says do this or order that, and you mail it off and wait for a response."

But the new DTN system will open a more consistent line of back-and-forth communication.

(Read about how humans are exploring the cosmos.)

Edge of the Solar System

DTN is already used for earthbound projects.

Scientists, for instance, are using the system to tag and track wildlife with a data-delivery capacity far more reliable than past satellite-based networks.

DTN can also bring broadband Web to remote areas with few communication structures, connecting remote humans such as the Arctic's Sami people via satellite with far shorter time lags.

The U.S. military has also embraced the technology to help keep lines of communication open in remote areas—or when other infrastructure is destroyed.

So far, DTN doesn't seem to have a catch, experts say.

"There are no physical limits on where the protocols would stop working," Hooke said.

"We could use it to [send messages to] the edges of the solar system—the question is, how long will you wait for a response?"

Dr. Jill Tarter, receives 2009 TED prize

2009-08-31T20:16:00.002+02:00

Mining the Web for Feelings, Not Facts

2009-08-24T13:02:00.000+02:00

By ALEX WRIGHT

Published: August 23, 2009

Computers may be good at crunching numbers, but can they crunch feelings?

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Margaret Francis and Mars Hall of the San Francisco company Scout Labs.

Enlarge This Image

Minh Uong/The New York Times

The rise of blogs and social networks has fueled a bull market in personal opinion: reviews, ratings, recommendations and other forms of online expression. For computer scientists, this fast-growing mountain of data is opening a tantalizing window onto the collective consciousness of Internet users.

An emerging field known as sentiment analysis is taking shape around one of the computer world’s unexplored frontiers: translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data.

This is more than just an interesting programming exercise. For many businesses, online opinion has turned into a kind of virtual currency that can make or break a product in the marketplace.

Yet many companies struggle to make sense of the caterwaul of complaints and compliments that now swirl around their products online. As sentiment analysis tools begin to take shape, they could not only help businesses improve their bottom lines, but also eventually transform the experience of searching for information online.

Several new sentiment analysis companies are trying to tap into the growing business interest in what is being said online.

“Social media used to be this cute project for 25-year-old consultants,” said Margaret Francis, vice president for product at Scout Labs in San Francisco. Now, she said, top executives “are recognizing it as an incredibly rich vein of market intelligence.”

Scout Labs, which is backed by the venture capital firm started by the CNet founder Halsey Minor, recently introduced a subscription service that allows customers to monitor blogs, news articles, online forums and social networking sites for trends in opinions about products, services or topics in the news.

In early May, the ticket marketplace StubHub used Scout Labs’ monitoring tool to identify a sudden surge of negative blog sentiment after rain delayed a Yankees-Red Sox game.

Stadium officials mistakenly told hundreds of fans that the game had been canceled, and StubHub denied fans’ requests for refunds, on the grounds that the game had actually been played. But after spotting trouble brewing online, the company offered discounts and credits to the affected fans. It is now re-evaluating its bad weather policy.

“This is a canary in a coal mine for us,” said John Whelan, StubHub’s director of customer service.

Jodange, based in Yonkers, offers a service geared toward online publishers that lets them incorporate opinion data drawn from over 450,000 sources, including mainstream news sources, blogs and Twitter.

Based on research by Claire Cardie, a former Cornell computer science professor, and Jan Wiebe of the University of Pittsburgh, the service uses a sophisticated algorithm that not only evaluates sentiments about particular topics, but also identifies the most influential opinion holders.

Jodange, whose early investors include the National Science Foundation, is currently working on a new algorithm that could use opinion data to predict future developments, like forecasting the impact of newspaper editorials on a company’s stock price.

In a similar vein, The Financial Times recently introduced Newssift, an experimental program that tracks sentiments about business topics in the news, coupled with a specialized search engine that allows users to organize their queries by topic, organization, place, person and theme.

Using Newssift, a search for Wal-Mart reveals that recent sentiment about the company is running positive by a ratio of slightly better than two to one. When that search is refined with the suggested term “Labor Force and Unions,” however, the ratio of positive to negative sentiments drops closer to one to one.

Such tools could help companies pinpoint the effect of specific issues on customer perceptions, helping them respond with appropriate marketing and public relations strategies.

For casual Web surfers, simpler incarnations of sentiment analysis are sprouting up in the form of lightweight tools like Tweetfeel, Twendz and Twitrratr. These sites allow users to take the pulse of Twitter users about particular topics.

A quick search on Tweetfeel, for example, reveals that 77 percent of recent tweeters liked the movie “Julie & Julia.” But the same search on Twitrratr reveals a few misfires. The site assigned a negative score to a tweet reading “julie and julia was truly delightful!!” That same message ended with “we all felt very hungry afterwards” — and the system took the word “hungry” to indicate a negative sentiment.

While the more advanced algorithms used by Scout Labs, Jodange and Newssift employ advanced analytics to avoid such pitfalls, none of these services works perfectly. “Our algorithm is about 70 to 80 percent accurate,” said Ms. Francis, who added that its users can reclassify inaccurate results so the system learns from its mistakes.

Published: August 23, 2009

(Page 2 of 2)

Translating the slippery stuff of human language into binary values will always be an imperfect science, however. “Sentiments are very different from conventional facts,” said Seth Grimes, the founder of the suburban Maryland consulting firm Alta Plana, who points to the many cultural factors and linguistic nuances that make it difficult to turn a string of written text into a simple pro or con sentiment. “ ‘Sinful’ is a good thing when applied to chocolate cake,” he said.

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Enlarge This Image

Scout Labs tracks positive and negative sentiments about keywords like “cash for clunkers.”

The simplest algorithms work by scanning keywords to categorize a statement as positive or negative, based on a simple binary analysis (“love” is good, “hate” is bad). But that approach fails to capture the subtleties that bring human language to life: irony, sarcasm, slang and other idiomatic expressions. Reliable sentiment analysis requires parsing many linguistic shades of gray.

“We are dealing with sentiment that can be expressed in subtle ways,” said Bo Pang, a researcher at Yahoo who co-wrote “Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis,” one of the first academic books on sentiment analysis.

To get at the true intent of a statement, Ms. Pang developed software that looks at several different filters, including polarity (is the statement positive or negative?), intensity (what is the degree of emotion being expressed?) and subjectivity (how partial or impartial is the source?).

For example, a preponderance of adjectives often signals a high degree of subjectivity, while noun- and verb-heavy statements tend toward a more neutral point of view.

As sentiment analysis algorithms grow more sophisticated, they should begin to yield more accurate results that may eventually point the way to more sophisticated filtering mechanisms. They could become a part of everyday Web use.

“I see sentiment analysis becoming a standard feature of search engines,” said Mr. Grimes, who suggests that such algorithms could begin to influence both general-purpose Web searching and more specialized searches in areas like e-commerce, travel reservations and movie reviews.

Ms. Pang envisions a search engine that fine-tunes results for users based on sentiment. For example, it might influence the ordering of search results for certain kinds of queries like “best hotel in San Antonio.”

As search engines begin to incorporate more and more opinion data into their results, the distinction between fact and opinion may start blurring to the point where, as David Byrne once put it, “facts all come with points of view.”

Sun and snow

2009-08-24T10:47:00.001+02:00

Whether you're heading to the beach or the slopes, there are precautions you should take to avoid the effects of the weather

At the beach

Even if it's cloudy, protect yourself from harmful UV rays by using a suncream with a high protection factor. Reapply it every couple of hours and don't forget to protect your ears, lips, hair parting and the tip of your nose with sunblock.

Stay in the shade between 11am and 3pm when the rays are at their most damaging.

Sunburn

Sunburn leads to premature ageing and an increased risk of skin cancer. To avoid it, make sure you:

Wear a wide-brimmed hat and loose clothing
Choose sunglasses with UV filters to protect your eyes
Protect children and babies from direct sunlight - apply a suncream with SPF25 or higher, and make sure they wear hats and long sleeves
Keep babies under 12 months out of the sun

FULL ARTICLE>>>

Why is the African continent poor?

2009-08-24T10:43:00.001+02:00

By Mark Doyle
BBC world affairs correspondent

The desolate, dusty town of Pibor on South Sudan's border with Ethiopia has no running water, no electricity and little but mud huts for the population to live in.

You would be hard put to find a poorer place anywhere on earth.

I went there as part of a journey across Africa to ask the question "Why is Africa poor?" for a BBC radio documentary series.

We have oil and many other minerals - go name it

Barnaba Benjami, South Sudan regional co-operation minister

I was asked to investigate why it is that every single African country - with the exceptions of oil-rich Gabon and Algeria - is classified by the United Nations as having a "low" broadly defined Human Development Index - in other words an appalling standard of living for most of the people.

In Pibor, the answer to why the place is poor seems fairly obvious.

The people - most of whom are from the Murle ethnic group - are crippled by tribal conflicts related to disputes over cattle, the traditional store of wealth in South Sudan.

The Murle have recently had fights with the Lol Nuer group to the north of Pibor and with ethnic Bor Dinkas to the west.

In a spate of fighting with the Lol Nuer earlier this year several hundred people, many of them women and children, were killed in deliberate attacks on villages.

There has been a rash of similar clashes across South Sudan in the past year (although most were on a smaller scale than the fights between the Lol Nuer and the Murle).

And so the answer to why South Sudan is poor is surely a no-brainer: War makes you destitute.

Why is there so much war?

And yet South Sudan is potentially rich.

Our leaders, they just want to keep on being rich. And they don't want to pay taxes

Fisherman on Lake Victoria

Blog: Why is Africa poor?

"It's bigger than Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi combined," the South Sudan Regional Co-operation Minister Barnaba Benjamin, enthused.

"Tremendous land! Very fertile, enormous rainfall, tremendous agricultural resources. Minerals! We have oil and many other minerals - go name it!"

The paradox of rich resources and poor people hints at another layer of explanation about why Africa is poor.

It is not just that there is war. The question should, perhaps be: "Why is there so much war?"

And the headline question is in fact misleading; Africans as a people may be poor, but Africa as a place is fantastically rich - in minerals, land, labour and sunshine.

That is why outsiders have been coming here for hundreds of years - to invade, occupy, convert, plunder and trade.

But the resources of South Sudan, for example, have never been properly developed.

During colonial rule South Sudan was used as little more than a reservoir of labour and raw materials.

Then independence was followed by 50 years of on-off war between the south and north - with northerners in Khartoum continuing the British tactic of divide and rule among the southern groups.

Some southerners believe this is still happening today.

Corruption

On my journey across the poorest, sub-Saharan swathe of the continent - that took in Liberia and Nigeria in the west, Sudan in the centre, and Kenya in the east - people explored the impact that both non-Africans and Africans had had on why Africa is poor.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says she underestimated the problem of graft

Almost every African I met, who was not actually in government, blamed corrupt African leaders for their plight.

"The gap between the rich and the poor in Africa is still growing," said a fisherman on the shores of Lake Victoria.

"Our leaders, they just want to keep on being rich. And they don't want to pay taxes."

Even President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia came close to this when she told me she had underestimated the level of corruption in her country when she took office.

"Maybe I should have sacked the whole government when I came to power," she said.

"Africa is not poor," President Johnson-Sirleaf added, "it is poorly managed."

This theme was echoed by an architect in Kenya and a senior government official in Nigeria.

Both pointed out that the informal sector of most African economies is huge and almost completely unharnessed.

Eastleigh has the most expensive real estate in Nairobi

Marketplaces, and a million little lean-to repair shops and small-scale factories are what most urban Africans rely upon for a living.

But such is their distrust of government officials that most businesspeople in the informal sector avoid all contact with the authorities.

Kenyan architect and town planner Mumo Museva took me to the bustling Eastleigh area of Nairobi, where traders have created a booming economy despite the place being almost completely abandoned by the government.

Eastleigh is a filthy part of the city where rubbish lies uncollected, the potholes in the roads are the size of swimming pools, and the drains have collapsed.

Africa is not poor. Africa is just poorly managed

Architect Mumo Museva

But one indication of the success of the traders, Mr Museva said, was the high per-square-foot rents there.

"You'll be surprised to note that Eastleigh is the most expensive real estate in Nairobi."

He added that if Eastleigh traders trusted the government they might pay some taxes in return for decent services, so creating a "virtuous circle".

"It would lift people out of poverty," he said.

"Remember, poverty is related to quality of life, and the quality of life here is appalling, despite the huge amount of wealth flowing through these areas."

Then the young Kenyan architect echoed the Liberian president, some 5,000km (3,000 miles) away on the other side of the continent.

"Africa is not poor," he also said.

"Africa is just poorly managed."

You can hear the first of Mark Doyle's programmes Why is Africa poor? on the BBC World Service on Monday 24 August 2009 at 0906 GMT, 1406 GMT and 1906 GMT. It will also be available for a week on the website.

Robot Sub Reaches Deepest Ocean

2009-06-03T14:21:00.003+02:00

Nereus can switch between free-swimming and tethered configurations

A robotic sub called Nereus has reached the deepest-known part of the ocean.

The dive to 10,902m (6.8 miles) took place on 31 May, at the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean.

This makes Nereus the deepest-diving vehicle currently in service and the first vehicle to explore the Marianas Trench since 1998.

The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight tether.

Its thin, fibre-optic tether to the research vessel Kilo Moana allows the submersible to make deep dives and be highly manoeuvrable.

THE NEREUS SUBMERSIBLE
Nereus submarine

Weight on land: 2,800kg
Payload capacity: 25kg
Maximum speed: 3 knots
Batteries: rechargeable lithium ion

Nereus can also be switched into a free-swimming, autonomous vehicle.

FULL ARTICLE >>>

French plane lost in ocean storm

2009-06-01T16:51:00.001+02:00

Relatives have been gathering at the two airports involved

An Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France has vanished over the Atlantic after a possible lightning strike, airline officials say.

The Airbus sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT, four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro, reporting a short circuit as it flew through strong turbulence.

It was well over the ocean when it was lost, making Brazilian and French search planes' task more difficult.

Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has set up a crisis centre.

FULL ARTICLE >>>>

Gary Moore - Still Got The Blues (Live)

2009-05-15T07:48:00.007+02:00

LYRICS

Used to be so easy to give my heart away
But I've found that the hard way is a price you have to pay
I found that love was no friend of mine
I should have known time after time

So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

Used to be so easy to fall in love again
I've found that the hard way, it's a road that leads to pain
I've found that love was more than just a game
To play and to win but to lose just the same

So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

So many years since I've seen your face
And now in my heart, there's an empty space
You used to be

So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you
Though the days come and go, there's one thing I know
I've still got the blues for you

Virtual worlds and web 'merging'

2009-05-03T20:42:00.010+02:00

Virtual worlds and web 'merging'

CEO of Second Life, Mark Kingdon
Second Life boss, Mark Kingdon, said identity is key in virtual worlds

"You take one avatar and you cross multiple virtual worlds… that is going to be a really powerful and important part of the virtual world future," predicted Mark Kingdon, the boss of Second Life.

This online fantasy space had 1.4m users over the past two months, out of its 17m registered users, who can access to products and places replicated from real life.

The residents can spend their time visiting exact replicas of actual tourist hotspots, shops, or even bizarre fantasy lands.

Videos on the site's homepage aim to help users find content that interests them within the vast 3D environment.

Second Life may have been one of the first virtual worlds of its kind, but six years on, the competition is fierce.

FULL ARTICLE >>>

Did You Know?

2009-05-03T20:29:00.002+02:00

Shedding light on the Catacombs of Rome

2009-05-03T20:09:00.003+02:00

By Duncan Kennedy
BBC News, Rome

Rome's underground Christian, Jewish and pagan burial sites, the Catacombs, date back to the 2nd Century AD.

There are more than 40 of them stretching over 170km (105 miles).

But, until now, they have never been fully documented, their vast scale only recorded with handmade maps.

That is now changing, following a three-year project to create the first fully comprehensive three-dimensional image using laser scanners.

VIDEO LINK >>>

La niña que silenció al mundo durante 6 minutos

2009-03-28T01:38:00.000+01:00

Laird Hamilton on Life

2009-03-01T20:18:00.001+01:00

NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) Tour

2009-02-24T11:57:00.002+01:00

Teddy Weisberg, who has worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for 40 years, gives us a tour of the exchange.

VIDEO LINK >>>

Tour of the post-Oscars party venue

2009-02-22T21:44:00.002+01:00

VIDEO LINK>>>

Robot that mimics human expressions

2009-02-22T21:41:00.002+01:00

Bristol scientists have created the first robot that can mimic human expressions in real time.

VIDEO LINK >>>

Bremner, Bird, and Fortune: George Parr (Army)

2009-02-12T09:08:00.004+01:00

blog.hitzEnglish.com

China Leading Race to Make Clean Energy

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009

Google hits back at book critics

Lauryn Hill Zion

Bob Marley with Lauryn Hill - Turn your lights down low

Rod Stewart & Faces & Keith Richards

Students 'could face dope tests'

Students 'could face dope tests'

Mighty microbes might help clean up oil extraction and radioactive wastes

"Space Internet" to Link Worlds by 2011?

Dr. Jill Tarter, receives 2009 TED prize

Mining the Web for Feelings, Not Facts

Sun and snow

In this article

At the beach

Sunburn

Why is the African continent poor?

Robot Sub Reaches Deepest Ocean

French plane lost in ocean storm

Gary Moore - Still Got The Blues (Live)

Virtual worlds and web 'merging'

Did You Know?

Shedding light on the Catacombs of Rome

La niña que silenció al mundo durante 6 minutos

Laird Hamilton on Life

NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) Tour

Tour of the post-Oscars party venue

Robot that mimics human expressions

Bremner, Bird, and Fortune: George Parr (Army)