Wednesday, May 14, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Ukraine Holds OSCE Power-Sharing Talks With Regional Leaders – NBC
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
- Alexander Smith
First published May 14th 2014

The Ukrainian government on Wednesday sat down with regional officials for talks which could see Kiev relinquish some of its powers in an attempt to resolve the country's crisis.

The Western-backed Kiev administration has reluctantly agreed to discuss a set of proposals drafted by transatlantic security and rights group the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Russia has strongly backed the plans, which would see Ukraine's regions gain more power, but reaction to the plan from Ukraine and the U.S. has been muted.

Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, Yatsenyuk thanked the OSCE for its plan but said Ukraine has its own plan for ending the crisis, according to a report of the speech by The Associated Press. He offered no further details of his plan other than to say it should be left to the Ukrainian people to settle the crisis.

The OSCE is calling on all sides to refrain from violence and urges amnesty for those involved in the unrest, the AP said. It also urges further talks on decentralization and the status of the Russian language.

Pro-Russian separatists who have occupied towns and cities across the east of the country and are demanding to be absorbed into Russia were not due to attend the talks on Wednesday.

Ukraine said it would enter into talks with the separatists, but not those with "blood on their hands." This stipulation is likely to be a stumbling block, coming a day after a firefight between separatist militants near Kramatorsk in which six Ukrainian soldiers were killed.




“Pro-Russian separatists who have occupied towns and cities across the east of the country and are demanding to be absorbed into Russia were not due to attend the talks on Wednesday.” Will this be another set of talks that don't go anywhere? If the separatists are not involved it may. Kiev also has “reluctantly agreed to discuss” the OSCE plan. The US is not wildly enthusiastic about it either. Oh, well, it's one more news story. I do hope for peace, but not at the sacrifice of the Ukrainian speaking citizens' freedom and autonomy.

Russia wants Ukraine to be a “neutral nation” rather than West leaning. I wonder what that would really mean – is that another name for Russian control? For no meaningful communication with Western nations? The other question in my mind is whether Kiev's government will be able to maintain a power base of its own with Russia always hovering nearby, and whether they could win over the Russian speaking groups without slaughtering them all. After all, Russia still hasn't pulled its troops out of the border area.

Today Kiev is sitting down with “regional officials” with Russia's strong approval. Maybe something good will happen. I do hope so. I'll try to collect the latest stories as events unfold.




Mysterious Birth Defects: No Answers, Only Questions, Experts Say – NBC
BY JONEL ALECCIA
First published May 14th 2014

There’s barely a bump beneath Jocelyn Robles’ gray T-shirt, but she already knows the baby is there — and that the child she’s carrying suffers from a rare and fatal birth defect known as anencephaly.

So the 23-year-old farmworker from Yakima, Washington, had questions Tuesday night for the health officials, scientists and other experts gathered to discuss the cause of an alarming local spike in the disorder that leaves babies missing parts of the skull or brain.

“At this point, you don’t know anything about that, right?” asked Robles, whose baby is due on Halloween.

Since 2010, at least 30 babies — now 31 — have been diagnosed with anencephaly in a three-county area of central Washington state that includes Yakima and Sunnyside, where Robles grew up. That’s a rate of 8.7 per 10,000 births in the region, far higher than the national rate of 2.1 cases for 10,000 births.

“We would love to find a smoking gun.”

The problem has stumped Washington health officials, who say they can find no common link or exposure to explain the rise in the severe defects first noticed by a nurse at a rural hospital in 2012. They say many small clusters of birth defects turn out to be nothing more than coincidence.

“We would love to find a smoking gun,” said Juliet VanEenwyk, the Washington state epidemiologist who helped lead the review of medical records that detected the problem.

Now, state health officials have turned to the public, including about three dozen people who showed up at the Sunnyside Community Center for the first of two public “listening sessions” designed to gather citizen input before a high-level advisory group decides how to move forward. The second one is Wednesday night in Kennewick.

The group may have been small — and local residents may have been outnumbered by health care advocates and members of the media — but they demanded answers just the same.

“What might we expect here? What’s likely to happen here?” asked Dr. Dean Effler, a Toppenish, Washington, pediatrician who attended the session.

Others wanted to know exactly how long the problem had been going on, whether it could be linked to diet, occupation, geography — or the Hanford nuclear plant in nearby Richland.

State officials reiterated their previous answers — no, no, no and no — and said they planned to come up with new ideas for investigation at meetings that are set to begin in mid-June and continue throughout the summer.

That could include detailed interviews with the dozens of women whose babies have been born with neural tube defects, including anencephaly and spina bifida, VanEenwyk told NBC News.

“As we move forward, we’ll look for what is useful — and feasible,” she said.

The would be a logical plan, said Allison Ashley-Koch, an anencephaly expert at the Duke University Medical Center for Human Genetics who is not part of the new 16-member advisory panel led by Dr. Kathy Lofy, Washington state health officer.

“The next step is to interview the mothers and fathers of these babies,” Ashley-Koch said. “The challenge at this point is that many of these conceptions happened four years ago. So for parents to try and remember particular eating habits, environmental exposures and such is challenging.”

Such a close look could point to — or rule out — possible links to the birth defects, including pesticides, grain molds, nitrates in water supplies and other concerns previously tied to the problem, VanEenwyk said.

One factor that’s certain to get attention is the low rate of folic acid use in the region. Low levels of the B vitamin in early pregnancy are known to increase risk of anencephaly, spina bifida and other neural tube defects. Sixty percent of women in the three-county area don’t take folic acid as recommended — a figure that climbed to 80 percent to 90 percent in those whose babies were affected.

“The bad news is, most cluster investigations don’t find a cause.”

But VanEenwyk also noted that many clusters, including those with higher numbers than the Washington cases, are never solved. “The bad news is, most cluster investigations don’t find a cause,” she said.

That’s frustrating for longtime local residents Don and Shirley Dufault, both 68, whose son, Christopher, was born with anencephaly in 1977.

“I believe it is an ongoing problem and I believe that the environment might have something to do with it,” Don Dufault said.

Shirley Dufault offered a hug to Jocelyn Robles as the meeting broke up Tuesday evening. Robles, who has a healthy 4-year-old son, said she came for answers but left with more questions.

“I just wish for a little more information,” she said. “I didn’t have any idea about what was going on.”



Anencephaly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anencephaly is the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalpthat occurs during embryonic development.[1] It is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the rostral (head) end of theneural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th days of conception.[2] Strictly speaking, the translation of the Greek term to English is "no brain" (that is, totally lacking), but it is accepted that children with this disorder are born without a telencephalon,[3] the largest part of the brain consisting mainly of the cerebral hemispheres, including the neocortex, which is responsible for cognition. The remaining brain tissue is often exposed, i.e. not covered by bone or skin.[4] With very few exceptions,[5] most babies with this disorder do not survive.[6]




“Yakima, Washington has a spike in the incidence of anencephaly. “Since 2010, at least 30 babies — now 31 — have been diagnosed with anencephaly in a three-county area of central Washington state that includes Yakima and Sunnyside, where Robles grew up. That’s a rate of 8.7 per 10,000 births in the region, far higher than the national rate of 2.1 cases for 10,000 births.” So far there are no clues apparent, but Washington State officials are looking into diet, occupation or the nearby Hanford Nuclear Plant. Two community meetings are being held to explore links to the rare births. A 16-member advisory panel is led by Dr. Kathy Lofy, Washington state health officer.

Possible causes could include “pesticides, grain molds, nitrates in water supplies and other concerns previously tied to the problem.” The low rate of a B vitamin, folic acid, being used during the first few months of pregnancy is being considered. This mother in question is a farm worker, and may be too poor to buy vitamins. “Sixty percent of women in the three-county area don’t take folic acid as recommended — a figure that climbed to 80 percent to 90 percent in those whose babies were affected.” Juliet VanEenwyk, the Washington state epidemiologist said that many clusters are never explained.

The earliest case mentioned in the article happened in 1977, so if it's environmentally caused, it goes back a long way. It would seem that if there were “a spike” going back that far it would have been noticed before now. This case was noticed by a humble nurse in the local hospital. Nurses too often don't get enough credit unless they go for an advanced degree.




County App Listed Bernardo Fire as “In Your Pants” – NBC
The county explained how the mistake ended up on its map

Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/County-App-Says-Bernardo-Fire-Was-In-Your-Pants-259164371.html#ixzz31hKX0OA3 
Follow us: @nbcsandiego on Twitter | NBCSanDiego on Facebook

Amid all the emergency alerts surrounding the Bernardo Fire that sparked Tuesday, things started to really heat up at the County of San Diego after a not-so-serious emergency message was discovered on its app and website.

Apparently, the location of the fire was “in your pants.” At least, that’s according to the notes under the site’s emergency notification map.

San Diego Communications Director Mike Workman said he learned about the problem a short time after it was made public.

He explained that two people were assigned to create a map to use the county’s geographic information system (GIS) once they realized the fire would be a significant emergency.

As they entered coordinates and neighborhood names into the system, an unknown person entered the words “fire in your pants” in the notes field. It was supposed to say “Bernardo Fire.”

Officials soon published a new version over it, so they never had to take the whole map down to fix the issue. They also closed a “portal” into the system that the culprit used to gain entry.

According to Workman, officials were dealing with a public emergency and have not had time to backtrack and identify the user who entered the “offending words.”

When the time is appropriate, Workman said the county will investigate.

However, he was reluctant to say the system was hacked. The GIS system is reportedly not available to the general public, but they do provide a link to people who need to use the system for land use, general plan maps, tracking runoff and more.

Workman thinks steps will soon be taken to prevent something like this from happening again.

A number of Twitter users picked up on the mistake, taking screen shots of the evacuation information and poking fun at it. We're just glad the early assessment of the fire's location got it wrong. Leaving "your pants"  is a hard evacuation order to give.



I just had to include this news article in today's collection. It needs no comment.




Ukraine Gas Producer Appoints R. Hunter Biden to Board – NBC
BY JAVIER E. DAVID
First published May 14th 2014

Ukraine's largest private gas producer announced on Tuesday that it added R. Hunter Biden — the son of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden — to its board of directors.

In a statement on its website, Burisma Holdings said the younger Biden will be in charge of the company's legal unit, while providing support "among international organizations."

The release quoted Hunter Biden as saying that "my assistance in consulting the Company on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine."

Large corporations frequently appoint well-connected marquee names of both major U.S. political parties as directors. Yet corporate governance experts are critical of the process, which can be fraught with conflicts of interests and the appearance of favoritism.

The arrangement raised questions about the propriety of his appointment, given the tense political standoff between Russia and the West over the future status of Ukraine, where fighting has resulted in the deaths of dozens of soldiers and civilians. Natural gas has factored heavily in tensions between Russia and Ukraine, both of which have political leadership that's intertwined with their respective energy industries.

Until a few years ago, the younger Biden was a senior vice president for financial services giant MBNA—an arrangement that drew criticism during the 2008 elections for potential conflict of interests. As a senator, the elder Biden spearheaded legislation that would have affected MBNA's business. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden has been a vocal supporter of a cross-border European natural gas pipeline.

Earlier Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney referred questions on the appointment to the vice president's office.

In response to an inquiry from CNBC, a spokesperson for the vice president said, "Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer. The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."

A representative at Rosemont Seneca told CNBC that Biden was traveling and not immediately available for comment.

With Moscow threatening to cut gas supplies to the former Soviet satellite, some have called for the U.S. to deepen its ties to Ukraine by shipping its own natural gas bounty to Eastern Europe.

Burisma touted Biden's "public service and foreign policy," and is listed as a co-founder of Rosement Seneca Partners, an investment advisory company. He also served as executive director of E-Commerce Policy Coordination under former Commerce Secretary William Daley, and co-chaired the 2008 Obama-Biden Inaugural Committee.




Burisma Holdings has named R Hunter Biden to its legal department, who stated that he will consult on “ matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities.” The writer comments, “Natural gas has factored heavily in tensions between Russia and Ukraine, both of which have political leadership that's intertwined with their respective energy industries.” In response to questions of conflict of interest the VP's representative stated “'Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer. The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company.'" This move does, obviously, add a new connection between the US and Ukraine, and I for one am glad to see it. I hope other Western nations will follow suit. Democracy needs an economic background to succeed.




Latino Children As Young As 7 Laboring In U.S. Tobacco Farms – NBC
First published May 14th 2014

In tobacco farms around the U.S., children as young as seven are being exposed to high levels of nicotine and toxic pesticides and are working more than 50 to 60 hours a week. Most of them are Latino, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.

"The children we interviewed were mostly the sons and daughters of Hispanic immigrants, though they themselves were frequently US citizens," states the report. Most of the children were seasonal workers and many had migrated by themselves or with their families to work on the tobacco farms which supply the largest tobacco companies in the world.

Human Rights Watch interviewed over 141 children between the ages of 7 and 17, and three quarters of them reported symptoms consistent with acute nicotine poisoning. While working in tobacco fields or barns with dried tobacco leaves and dust, the children said they felt nausea and vomiting, as well as dizziness, skin rashes, difficulty breathing and irritation to their eyes and mouths. One 16-year-old who wants to study engineering said he had headaches that last for days.

Many children also spoke of getting "woozy" and dizzy after tractors sprayed pesticides around them. The children also reported injuries from heavy machinery and tools.

"Based on our findings - Human Rights Watch believes that no child under age 18 should be permitted to perform work in which they come into direct contact with tobacco in any form," stated the report.

Ninety percent of the tobacco is grown in four states - North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

In the agricultural industry it is legal for children as young as 12 to work for unlimited hours. While there is a law limiting children under 16 from working in dangerous farm work, the law does not include working with tobacco leaves and plants.

Human Rights Watch reported that nine out of ten tobacco companies reached about the report's findings said they had taken steps to prohibit child labor in their supply chains.



Human Rights Watch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. HRW headquarters are in New York City .

Human Rights Watch was founded as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the former Soviet Union's compliance with theHelsinki Accords.[5] Helsinki Watch adopted a methodology of publicly "naming and shaming" abusive governments through media coverage and through direct exchanges with policymakers. By shining the international spotlight on human rights violations in the Soviet Union and its European partners, Helsinki Watch contributed to the democratic transformations of the region in the late 1980s.[5]

Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America. Relying on extensive on-the-ground fact-finding, Americas Watch not only addressed perceived abuses by government forces but also applied international humanitarian law to investigate and expose war crimes by rebel groups. In addition to raising its concerns in the affected countries, Americas Watch also examined the role played by foreign governments, particularly the United States government, in providing military and political support to abusive regimes.




“In tobacco farms around the U.S., children as young as seven are being exposed to high levels of nicotine and toxic pesticides and are working more than 50 to 60 hours a week.” Human Rights Watch reports that 9 out of 10 tobacco companies now “have taken steps to prohibit child labor in their supply chains.” That's good. I do remember a couple of teenagers in my church during the 1960s, however, who were voluntarily spending their summers on local farms working in tobacco. They were saving money for college. They weren't seven years old, though, and they weren't migrant laborers who barely made enough money to live.

I didn't know you could get tobacco poisoning from touching tobacco. My father worked on his father's farm on tobacco and I believe my mother said she did at least a few times, too. NC is tobacco country. Human Rights Watch would have had a field day in those days. Of course factories employed children, too, and not all kids went to school if their parents couldn't afford to send them. There were no public schools at that time. It was an entirely different situation, and one that I wouldn't like to see again. One of the unspoken problems here is that American kids today have to go to school whether they want to or not, but these Latino migrants apparently don't get to go. The whole issue with migrant workers is too much like slave labor in many ways. As the news article points out, though, these practices are not illegal. We need to work on our laws to improve the situation.




Factories Burned In Anti-China Protest In Vietnam – NPR
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 14, 2014

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Mobs burned and looted scores of foreign-owned factories in Vietnam following a large protest by workers against China's recent placement of an oil rig in disputed Southeast Asian waters, officials said Wednesday.

The unrest at industrial parks near Ho Chi Minh City is the most serious outbreak of public disorder in the tightly controlled country in years. It points to the dangers for the government as it tries to manage public anger at China while also itself protesting the Chinese actions in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam.

Vietnam has sent ships to confront the rig which are engaged in a tense standoff with Chinese vessels protecting it.

The rioting Tuesday into Wednesday in Binh Duong province followed protests by up to 20,000 workers at the industrial parks. Smaller groups of men attacked factories they believed were Chinese-run, but many were Taiwanese or South Korean, the provincial government said in a statement.

On Wednesday morning, groups of men on motorbikes remained on the streets and factories in the area were closed, said a park manager who declined to give his name because of the sensitivity of the situation. Riot police were stationed around the area but men were still seen carrying looted goods, said a security guard, who also declined to be identified.

Firefighters battled to extinguish a fire at Tan Than Industries, a Taiwanese bicycle factory, where walls were toppled in the riots. Smoke poured out of blackened windows at other factories, as people waved Vietnamese flags while riding motorcycles through the streets.

Police said 440 people had been detained over the violence. Tran Van Nam, vice chairman of the Bing Duong government, said Chinese, Taiwanese and South Korean factories that hadn't already shut down had been asked to do so temporarily for the sake of public order. He said the "situation was now under control."

Taiwanese-owned athletic shoe manufacturer Yue Yuen, which makes shoes for Nike, Adidas and Reebok, said it had closed its three complexes close to Ho Chi Minh City as a precautionary measure. "We believe that this should be solved very soon, that somehow ultimately it will be up to the government authorities to guide the overall sentiment," company spokesman Jerry Shum said.

The Singapore government, which operates two industrial parks hit by rioters, called on Vietnam "to act immediately to restore law and order ... before the security situation worsens and investor confidence is undermined."

The security guard said looters stormed his factory at 1 a.m. and took computers and anything valuable.

"The whole industrial zone looks like it was just smashed by a typhoon," the guard said.

Another executive said many foreign-owned factories were putting banners on the gates of the factories saying, "We love Vietnam" and "Hoang Sa, Truong Sa - Vietnam," using the Vietnamese names for the Paracel and Spratly islands claimed by both Vietnam and China.

The government said the protests were initially peaceful but were hijacked by "extremists" who incited people to break into the factories. It said at least 15 factories were set alight and hundreds more vandalized or looted.

China's Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Hanoi issued warnings to Chinese citizens and urged Vietnam's government to protect them. The embassy's website said it saw no end to attacks by what it called anti-China forces and urged Chinese to take safety precautions and avoid unnecessary travel.

Low wages have attracted foreign investors from across the world to Vietnam in recent years.

In 2013 Chinese invested $2.3 billion, a sharp rise from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. The country is also Vietnam's biggest trading partner, exporting billions of dollars of materials each year for factories producing goods including clothes, shoes and smartphones.

Vietnam reacted angrily after China towed a deep-sea oil rig on May 1 close to the Paracel Islands, which are controlled by China but claimed by Hanoi. It sent a flotilla of vessels to try to disrupt the oil rig. Some of the Vietnamese boats clashed with Chinese ships sent to protect the rig, raising fears of a possible conflict.

China has shown no signs of backing down, and accused Vietnam on Wednesday of "hyping" the issue.

"We urge Vietnam to stop all provocative actions, come to their senses, and stop all acts intended to create disturbances," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

The standoff underlines China's aggressive pursuit of its territorial claims despite complaints from smaller nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines, which also claim parts of the waters. The United States, a treaty ally of the Philippines, has called the latest Chinese action "provocative."

Over the weekend, the Vietnamese government gave rare permission for street protests against China in cities across the country.

The protests were enthusiastically covered by the state media, unlike the ones on Tuesday, which appear to have been hit by a media blackout.

The ruling Communist parties in China and Vietnam maintain close links and until May 1 had been trying to handle tensions over the territorial disputes quietly. Vietnamese authorities are normally highly nervous about spontaneous public gatherings of any sort. Many of the leaders of the anti-Chinese protests are also calling for basic democratic reforms, presenting a challenge to one-party rule.

Last month, the Philippines protested China's efforts to reclaim land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea after surveillance aircraft took pictures of dredging by Chinese vessels at Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands, which the Philippines says violates a regional non-aggression pact, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said.

Del Rosario told The Associated Press that it's not clear what China intends to build on the reef, which Manila claims as part of its western province of Palawan, but one possibility is an airstrip. Another official said China could also build an off-shore military base.

Associated Press writers Gillian Wong in Beijing, Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.



Spratly Islands dispute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Spratly Islands dispute is a territorial dispute over the ownership of theSpratly Islands, a group of islands located in the South China Sea. States staking claims to various islands are: Brunei, China (People's Republic of China), Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan (Republic of China), and Vietnam. All except Brunei occupy some of the islands.

The Spratly Islands are important for a number of reasons: the Spratly area holds significant reserves of oil and natural gas, it is a productive area for world fishing and commercial shipping, and coastal countries would get an extended continental shelf. But only some states, such as China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC), and Vietnam have made claims based on historical sovereignty of the islands.[1]The Philippines, however, claims it as its territory under UNCLOS, an agreement which all competing countries have ratified.




“The government of Vienam “tries to manage public anger at China while also itself protesting the Chinese actions in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam.” So they aren't fully dominated by China, though it is their ally. “The rioting Tuesday into Wednesday in Binh Duong province followed protests by up to 20,000 workers at the industrial parks. Smaller groups of men attacked factories they believed were Chinese-run, but many were Taiwanese or South Korean, the provincial government said in a statement.” Police said 440 people had been detained.

Shoe manufacturer Yue Yen has closed down until order is regained. "We believe that this should be solved very soon, that somehow ultimately it will be up to the government authorities to guide the overall sentiment," company spokesman Jerry Shum said. It's interesting to see this statement that the government authorities will “guide the overall sentiment.” That is definitely not the way US public opinion resolves itself.

Is this a war erupting? “'The whole industrial zone looks like it was just smashed by a typhoon,'” said a security guard. The dispute is apparently around the ownership of two islands -- the Paracel and Spratly islands -- claimed by both Vietnam and China. The government said that “extremists” excited a peaceful group of demonstrators to burn 15 factories and vandalize “hundreds more.” The article states that “low wages have attracted investors from around the world.” The possibility of more job choices may be part of the rebellion. Over the weekend, the Vietnamese government gave “rare permissions” for street protests and aired it on the government new agency, so they seem to approve of the anti-China feeling.

“Many of the leaders of the anti-Chinese protests are also calling for basic democratic reforms, presenting a challenge to one-party rule.” The Philippines is also protesting recent dredging by the Chinese at Spratly Islands as violating a regional non-aggression pact. Manila claims Spratly Islands as part of its province of Palawan. It is feared that China may be planning to build an airstrip or perhaps a military base. This looks like a situation that needs to be clarified. China, Vietnam, the Philippines and several other nations all claim Spratly Islands. I hope the US will not be involved in this if it becomes a full-blown war, but we are allies with the Philippines so we may be.