Florida mosque arsonist shared extreme pro-Israel propaganda

The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, in Florida, suffered extensive damage in an 11 September arson attack. (via Facebook)

Rania Khalek-18 September 2016

The man accused of setting fire to the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce in Florida a week ago is an ardent supporter of Israel who labeled all forms of Islam as “radical.”

Joseph Michael Schreiber, a 32-year-old messianic Jew, was arrested at his home in St. Lucie, Florida, on Wednesday and charged with arson and a hate crime. Police say he confessed after his arrest.

His attack is part of a spate of anti-Muslim hate crimes since the start of the current US election season.

The mosque he set ablaze has been regularly attended by the father of Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen and the crime was committed on 11 September, which marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The attack was also the night before the Islamic center was due to hold a community celebration for Eid al-Adha.

Extensive damage

An affidavit by the St. Lucie County Police Department describes Schreiber as “a habitual felony offender,” meaning that if convicted he could face up to life in prison due to Florida’s mandatory sentencing laws.

The affidavit also notes that Schreiber’s Facebook page was littered with “anti-Islamic postings,” “posts related to pro-Israel propaganda” and “negative propaganda related to Muslims.”

Police estimate damage to the Islamic center in excess of $100,000. As of Friday, the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce reported it had received more than $30,000 in donations from well-wishers to help it repair the extensive damage.

A hate crime enhancement was added to the charges after police discovered the social media posts.

Media outlets were quick to publicize Schreiber’s anti-Muslim postings, but few mentioned his promotion of pro-Israel propaganda or his admiration for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, two great champions of the anti-Muslim far right.

Schreiber’s postings showed he turned to Islamophobic hate sites, official Israeli sources and Israel lobby groups for information.

According to Schreiber’s Facebook page, he is also a fan of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF Women, the Israeli American Council of Florida and the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America.

Islamophobia network

In a 12 July Facebook post, Schreiber wrote, “ALL ISLAM IS RADICAL , and should be considered TERRORIST AND CRIMANALS [sic].”

With such rhetoric, Schreiber was echoing the anti-Muslim messages emanating from organizations and high-profile individuals who have been spewing anti-Muslim hatred for years.

Many of them are key players in what the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, calls theIslamophobia Network.

Hardline support for Israel is a central driver of those funding the network. The top eight of the network’swealthy pro-Israel donors poured some $57 million into anti-Muslim organizations between 2001 and 2012, according to the Center for American Progress.

A comprehensive accounting of the Islamophobia industry by the Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) found that between 2008 and 2014, a core of anti-Muslim groups received a staggering $206 million to spread hate and promote new laws and policies that discriminate against Muslims.

A leaked FBI memo last year warned that right-wing extremists were plotting to attack Muslims.

The extremists were said to be drawing inspiration from pervasive disinformation about Muslims “repeated over the course of a decade by self-appointed watchdogs of Islamic extremism, Internet bloggers and some news media.”

Schreiber’s Facebook page is full of anti-Muslim material from far-right sources, including postings from Pamela Geller, the notorious anti-Muslim agitator named in the FBI memo.

He has also shared hateful blog posts written by Walid Shoebat, another Islamophobia network demagogue.

Pro-Israel propaganda

On 17 June, Schreiber posted 11 videos from the The Israel Project, a politically connected right-wing organization that specializes in feeding anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim propaganda to journalists and policy makers.

One of the The Israel Project videos shows president Bill Clinton accusing Palestinians of deliberately inducing Israel to kill them.

Another video claims Iran wants to commit genocide against millions of Israeli Jews.

Other sources of content on Schreiber’s Facebook page include the World Zionist Organization, the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA, the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party Britain First and Israeli army spokesperson Peter Lerner.

Incitement and murders

Schreiber’s attack on the Fort Pierce Islamic Center is not an isolated incident.

Imraan Siddiqi, chair of the Arizona chapter of CAIR and founder of Hate Hurts, which tracks anti-Muslim violence, has long warned that individuals and organizations capitalizing on anti-Muslim hate would eventually lead to violent attacks on Muslims.

“This can be looked at as the output of the well-funded Islamophobia industry – where according to CAIR, nearly $206 million was funneled into just 33 hate groups,” Siddiqi told The Electronic Intifada. 

“There is definitely an overlap in far-right, pro-Israel groups espousing and promoting Islamophobic rhetoric, which can lead to hate crimes like these,” he added.

Indeed, there have been alarming spikes in hate crimes against Muslims in recent years, especially since the start of the current presidential election season, which has been dominated by anti-Muslim rhetoric, especially in the Republican field.

Since the campaign kicked off in March 2015 through February this year, Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative has documented 180 incidents of anti-Muslim violence, including 12 murders, 34 physical assaults, 56 acts of vandalism, nine arson attacks and eight shootings or bombings.

In August, Khalid Jabara, an Arab American man, was shot dead at his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Police charged a neighbor who had harassed the family for years with racist and anti-Muslim slurs with his murder. When Khalid was killed, the accused gunman was free on bond, awaiting trial on charges of deliberately running over Khalid’s mother Haifa with his car, causing her serious injuries.

Two days after the slaying of Jabara, the imam of a Queens, New York, mosque and his assistant were gunned down in the street just after they left afternoon prayers.

A week ago, two Muslim women were physically attacked while strolling their babies in Brooklyn.

According to prosecutors, their female attacker shouted “Get the fuck out of America, bitches,” punched one of the women in the face, attempted to tear off their headscarves and tried to knock over one of the baby strollers.

Deconstructing Samantha Power’s Big Lies

by Stephen Lendman

( September 19, 2016, Virginia, Sri Lanka Guardian) She’s Obama’s neocon UN envoy, a despicable character, complicit in his high crimes by outrageously supporting them.

Edward Herman once called her a member of “the cruise missile left.” She glorifies US-sponsored genocides outrageously called humanitarian interventions, ignoring or shamelessly justifying Washington’s sordid record of repeated supreme crimes against peace.

She disgraces the office she holds, part of Obama’s permanent war criminal cabal. Her notion of responsibility to protect is mass slaughter and destruction to advance America’s imperium.

Responding to Russia’s calling an emergency Saturday Security Council session to address US naked aggression against Syrian forces earlier in the day, flagrantly breaching Geneva ceasefire terms, she shamelessly changed the subject, turned truth on its head, bashed Russia’s “uniquely hypocritical and cynical” attempt to make her explain her government’s lawless aggression.

“Why are we having this meeting tonight,” she asked? “It is a diversion from what is happening on the ground. If you don’t like what is happening on the ground then you distract.”

“It is a magician’s trick…(W)e encourage the Russian Federation to have emergency meetings with the Assad regime and deliver them to this deal.”

“What Russia is alleging tonight is that somehow the United States is undermining the fighting against ISIL. The Russian spokesperson even said that the United States might be complicit in this attack.”

Truth about Obama’s war, its support for ISIS and virtually all other terrorists groups operating regionally and elsewhere is too much reality for her or other rogue US officials to admit publicly.

Playing the blame game instead, she disgracefully holds Assad and his democratic government responsible for Obama’s genocidal war – typical US arrogance and hubris.

“We are investigating (Saturday’s US terror-bombing) incident,” she ranted. When America investigates its own high crimes, whitewash follows every time.

Neocons infesting Washington don’t “regret the loss of life,” as Power claimed. They mass slaughter defenseless victims over and over again endlessly, civilians considered legitimate targets.

Power’s remarks were more despicable than usual, calling Russia’s legitimately convened Security Council session on Saturday “a stunt with moralism and grandstanding…uniquely cynical and hypocritical.”

She lied accusing Assad of “intentionally striking civilian targets with horrifying, predictable regularity.”

She lied saying Syria “prevent(s) life-saving humanitarian aid from reaching people” in need.

She lied claiming Syrian forces steal humanitarian aid for themselves.

She lied accusing its military of double-tapping civilian targets (striking the same ones twice to target rescue personnel rushing to the scene to aid victims of the first strike).

She lied claiming Syria used chemical weapons against its own people.

She lied saying Syria “tortured tens of thousands of people in its prisons, which now double as torture chambers.”

She lied about what she called Syria’s “worst practices: hitting hospitals, hitting refugee camps, hitting markets without a single public expression of remorse” – these and other civilian sites routine US targets in all its wars of aggression.

She lied accusing Syria of numerous other atrocities, calling them “some of the most systematic (ones) that we have seen in a generation.”

She lied claiming America doesn’t support ISIS or other terrorist groups – imported death squads it created and uses as imperial foot soldiers.

She lied saying Saturday’s US willful, malicious and lawless terror-bombing of Syrian military personnel was done “in error.”

There was nothing accidental about it, a flagrant breach of Geneva terms, a high crime of war, more proof America reviles peace and stability.

Power sounded buffoon-like claiming “(t)he United States is extremely serious about making (Geneva) work.” It was dead-on-arrival because Washington rejects cessation of hostilities and diplomatic conflict resolution.

Power is paid to lie for Washington’s criminal cabal in charge. Her despicable remarks show she does it with relish.

Theresa May’s Incredible Shrinking Brexit

The British prime minister has reduced a world-historical event to an anonymous technocratic exercise -- for now.

BY ROBERT COLVILE-SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

Back in June, Britain’s decision to exit the European Union was the biggest thing in global politics. Flags were waved, slogans were chanted, joy and despair were unconfined.

And now? There has been no Brexit recession. But there has been no Brexit decision, either. May has assured us that “Brexit means Brexit” — in other words, even though she voted to Remain, she will deliver on the voters’ decision to leave the EU. But what, precisely, does Brexit mean?

On that score, it’s all gone quiet — and it will apparently stay that way for quite some time. In the interim, the British press can happily occupy itself with arguments about grammar schools and giving the departing prime minister a kick up the backside on his way out.

There are three reasons why May has succeed in lowering the Brexit temperature from rolling boil to gentle simmer. The first is that the topic is, by its very nature, hugely important but hugely boring. The headline slogan is “Take back control!” — but the mechanism of doing that involves unpicking thousands of regulations and scrutinizing dozens of potential legal frameworks.

Even the big headline questions — such as whether Britain wants to remain a member of the single market (and enjoy tariff-free trade at the price of accepting unrestricted immigration) — break down into the question of what differentiates access to the market from membership of it into issues of financial passporting and WTO baselines and Canadian or Norwegian models.

The second reason is that these technocratic issues are meat and drink to May. Her Tory supporters may be painting her as the second coming of Margaret Thatcher. But there are aspects of her personality that are much closer to (whisper it) Gordon Brown. Like him, she successfully ran a major department (the Home Office rather than the Treasury) with a strategy of top-down command and control, mastering every detail while keeping both decisions and information as tightly controlled as possible. For May, inscrutability isn’t a bug — it’s a feature.

The third reason, which is closely allied to this, is the extent to which May has stamped her authority on government — and on Brexit.

Her masterstroke was to hand control of the departments overseeing the process to three rival Brexiteers — Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, and David Davis. Each has a healthy regard for his own ability and is not noted for a history of friendship or communality of political vision with the other two. Each also represents a separate institutional power base that will inevitably push against the others. (Not least because Fox’s and Davis’s departments, covering international trade and the Brexit negotiations, respectively, will need to filch staff from Johnson’s Foreign Office.)

There is something else about this triumvirate: They are no threat to her. Johnson, the foreign secretary, is the biggest beast — May’s likely rival for the leadership until being knifed by his former Vote Leave comrade Michael Gove. But Fox and Davis were — to Westminster observers if not to themselves — on the downslope of their careers. The former, the international trade secretary, had left office in disgrace. The latter, having come in runner-up to David Cameron in the previous leadership contest, stormed out of the shadow cabinet to mount a quixotic campaign over civil liberties.

It was a sign of their diminished standing, perhaps, that neither of the two was involved at a senior level in Vote Leave. And this, too, is crucial, because it has given May enormous room to maneuver.
During the referendum campaign, the Brexiteers made certain promises about what Britain would look like after Brexit: Britain’s EU spending (the largely mythical $462 million a year) to go to the National Health Service, a points-based immigration system, scrapping value-added tax on fuel. One by one, May has brushed these aside. She was not part of Vote Leave and does not feel bound by its specific pledges.

So what will Brexit look like? It is impossible to tell what is happening behind the scenes, but so far any attempt by one of her three juniors to venture an opinion — whether it be Johnson’s sending her his thoughts on what the “red lines” in negotiation should be or Davis’s suggesting that Britain will probably leave the single market — appears to have been met with either a frosty silence or an outright rebuke by the prime minister.

What Brexit means, in other words, is what May wants it to mean. And she isn’t telling anyone.
In terms of taking the heat out of the issue, this has been a masterstroke. The dilemma facing her, however, is that at a certain point, masterly inactivity simply becomes inactivity.

Earlier this week, I went to hear Ed Balls — formerly the shadow chancellor for the Labour Party, currently delighting the nation as a contestant on Britain’s version of Dancing With the Stars — talk about the lessons he’s learned in politics. He said that, to him, May’s silence on the issue felt like a mistake.
“Theresa May has been successful as a politician by not defining herself and keeping her head down,” he said, which was a recipe for success “in any job except prime minister.” In particular, he said that the way she was “standing back slightly above it and watching [Johnson, Fox, and Davis] fight it out” felt like a mistake.

In some respects, it’s already clear what May wants from Brexit. As home secretary, she was constantly determined to cut immigration and constantly unhappy at the fact that European rules (and her colleagues’ desire to protect Britain’s lucrative trade in educating foreign students) prevented her from doing so. She believes she now has a clear instruction from voters to control immigration, even if it means that Britain takes an economic hit from leaving the single market.

But as for the rest of it? There are 1,000 decisions to make, each of them deeply contentious, many of which will need endorsement from a Parliament in which May has a slim majority in the House of Commons and a nonexistent one in the House of Lords, with interest groups and lobbyists and campaigners kicking up an almighty fuss all the while. The legalistic details involved mean that the process might, on many fronts, go rapidly from technical to nightmarish — as helpfully pointed out in a recent briefing paper by former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

May would obviously prefer to formulate her plans in private: Davis has said that neither the public nor Parliament will be given a running update. But as Cameron found out when he was trying to win concessions from EU countries before the Brexit vote, getting your negotiations done in secret is next to impossible — as is coming up with deals that are acceptable to both your audience at home and your partners abroad. Meanwhile, there is an economy to keep on an even keel, a party to keep under control, and all the other duties of a prime minister to carry out.

As of this week, May is mistress of all she surveys: streets ahead in the polls, unrivaled commander of the Cabinet, the previous Tory regime driven from power and, in the case of its leader, from Parliament. The problem for her is that whatever decisions she makes on Brexit, she will upset a large and vocal constituency. Perhaps that’s why she seems so happy to postpone them.

Photo credit: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images

China threatens countermeasures after Dalai Lama speaks at EU Parliament

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama gestures as he gives a public religious lecture to the faithful in Strasbourg, France, September 17, 2016. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

 Mon Sep 19, 2016

China expressed anger on Monday and threatened countermeasures after exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama spoke at the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg and met its president, Martin Schulz.

China regards the 80-year-old, Nobel Peace Prize-winning monk as a separatist, though he says he merely seeks genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland, which Communist Chinese troops "peacefully liberated" in 1950.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the European Parliament and Schultz had ignored China's "strong opposition" about meeting the Dalai Lama, which ran contrary to the European Union's promises to China on the issue of Tibet.

"China is resolutely opposed to the mistaken actions of the European Parliament," Lu told a daily news briefing, adding that its leaders' insistence on taking an erroneous position had damaged China's core interests.

"China absolutely cannot remain indifferent, and we will make the correct choice in accordance with our judgment of the situation," he added, without elaborating on what China may do.

Few foreign leaders are willing to meet the Dalai Lama these days, fearful of provoking a strong reaction from China, the world's second-largest economy.

Last week, Beijing warned Taiwan not to allow the Dalai Lama to visit, after a high-profile Taiwan legislator invited him to the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

Tibet's spiritual leader told the European Parliament last week he hoped the Tibetan issue would be resolved but urged the outside world and the European Union in particular not to hold back from criticising Beijing.

The Dalai Lama, who also met the European Parliament's foreign affairs chairman, Elmar Brok, fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising against the Chinese.

Rights groups and exiles accuse China of trampling on the religious and cultural rights of the Tibetan people, charges strongly denied by Beijing, which says its rule has brought prosperity to a once backward region.

(Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Clarence Fernandez)

Saudi hospital staff strike over months of unpaid wages

A nurse at the Saad specialist hospital in al-Khobar city complained of not being paid for three-and-a-half months

Workers in Saudi Arabia have complained of not being paid for months (AFP)

Monday 19 September 2016

Staff at a hospital in eastern Saudi Arabia have gone on strike over unpaid wages, workers said Monday, in the kingdom's latest case of corporate financial difficulties.

"We are on strike," a nurse at Saad Specialist Hospital in the Gulf coast city of al-Khobar told AFP.

"We didn't receive any salary for three-and-a-half months," she said, unwilling to be identified out of fear of being fired.

She said the hospital is part of Saad Group, whose website says the Saudi-based firm runs "diversified businesses" in the Gulf and has investments around the world.

 Follow

Ali AlAhmed @AliAlAhmed_en

This is what @RepDennisRoss calls a revolution #Saudi Arabia, leading hospital failed to pay staff for 4 months

8:33 AM - 19 Sep 2016

 
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The finance and construction conglomerate controlled by Saudi billionaire Maan al-Sanea made a high-profile and acrimonious split from another Saudi business group, the Algosaibi family, in the wake of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

Saudi construction firms have been particularly hard hit this year, with tens of thousands of employees left unpaid.

Sources in March told AFP that delayed receipts from the government, whose oil revenues have slumped over the past two years, had left employees of the kingdom's construction giants struggling.

"The hospital doctors and nurses are on strike," a hospital security worker confirmed to AFP.

A spokesman for Saad Specialist Hospital could not immediately be reached for comment.

The nurse told AFP that "almost all" the medical staff, which includes about 1,200 nurses, have joined the strike action in a country where labour unions are banned.

Lower-paid housekeeping and security staff have been paid and remain at work, she said.

"They promised us, after Eid you will receive your salaries but we didn't," the nurse said, referring to Muslim holidays last week.

About 100-150 hospital workers stood outside the hospital on Monday morning as part of the walkout.

They also planned to visit the local governor's office to state their grievances, and if that brings no results they would continue the job action on Tuesday, the nurse said.

Only out-patient clinics are closed during the strike and urgent cases are not endangered, she said.

Study: Indonesian fires possible cause of 100,000 deaths

Southeast Asia's annual haze problem is largely caused by illegal burning in Indonesia. Pic: AP.

19th September 2016 

NEW research has revealed Indonesian forest fires that choked a swath of Southeast Asia with a smoky haze for weeks last year may have caused more than 100,000 premature deaths.

The latest findings by scientists from Harvard University and Columbia University will likely add to pressure on Indonesia’s government to tackle the annual crisis.

The study to be published in the journal Environmental Research Letters is being welcomed by other researchers and Indonesia’s medical profession as an advance in quantifying the suspected serious public health effects of the fires, which are mostly set to clear land for farming.

The number of deaths is an estimate derived from a complex analysis that has not yet been validated by analysis of official data on mortality.

According to the Associated Press, the research has implications for land-use practices and Indonesia’s vast pulp and paper industry. The researchers showed that peatlands within timber concessions, and peatlands overall, were a much bigger proportion of the fires observed by satellite than in 2006, which was another particularly bad year for haze.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia: Haze investigators held captive, threatened with death

Haze largely caused by illegal slash-and-burn agricultural policies in Indonesia has affected the Southeast Asian region annually for decades.

Uncontrolled burning from fires in Riau, South Sumatra, and Kalimantan causes the smoke to spread hundreds of kilometers across the region to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, resulting in major deterioration in air quality levels, health problems, and economic losses.

The study’s researchers surmise that draining of the peatlands to prepare them for pulpwood plantations and other uses made them more vulnerable to fires.

Haze brought on by Indonesian peat fires blanket the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on April 22, 2016. Pic: Asian Correspondent.

Haze brought on by Indonesian peat fires blanket the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on April 22, 2016. Pic: Asian Correspondent.

The estimate of early deaths linked to respiratory illness and other causes covers Indonesia and its neighbors Singapore and Malaysia.

The bulk of the estimated deaths, however, are in Indonesia, by far the most populous of the three countries as well as the nation within the biggest land area affected by haze.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia urges neighbors to stop complaining about haze

The study, according to the news agency, finds there is a high statistical probability that early deaths ranged between 26,300 and 174,300. Its main estimate of 100,300 deaths is the average of those two figures. It predicts 91,600 deaths in Indonesia, another 6,500 in Malaysia and 2,200 in Singapore.

The researchers involved in the study say the model they developed can be combined with satellite and ground station observations to analyze the haze in close to real time. That gives it the potential to be used to direct firefighting efforts in a way that reduces the amount of illness caused, they say.

However, the possible scale of serious health consequences was indicated by a statement from the country’s disaster management agency in October that said more than 43 million Indonesians were exposed to smoke from the fires and half a million suffered acute respiratory infections.

A man covers his nose during a hazy day in Singapore. Pic: AP

A man covers his nose during a hazy day in Singapore. Pic: AP

The study considered only the health impact on adults and restricts itself to the effects of health-threatening fine particulate matter, often referred to as PM2.5, rather than all toxins that would be in the smoke from burning peatlands and forests.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia: State of emergency declared in six provinces over haze

The fires from July to October last year in southern Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo were the worst since 1997 and exacerbated by El Nino dry conditions.

About 261,000 hectares of land burned. Some of the fires started accidently, but many were deliberately set by companies and villagers to clear land for plantations and agriculture.

Rajasekhar Bala, an environmental engineering expert at the National University of Singapore, one of five experts who reviewed the paper for The Associated Press and were not involved in the research, said the study is preliminary and involved a “very challenging” task of analyzing the sources and spread of fine particulate matter over several countries and a lengthy time frame.

Even with caveats, it should serve as a “wake-up call” for firm action in Indonesia to curb peatland and forest fires and for regional cooperation to deal with the fallout on public health, he said.

“Air pollution, especially that caused by atmospheric fine particles, has grave implications for human health,” he said.

The AP also quoted Frank Murray, an associate professor of environment science at Australia’s Murdoch University, as saying that the death estimates are not “precise health outcomes”.

However, Murray said their overall scale should trigger intensified efforts to deal with the crisis. The study is a major contribution to addressing an international problem, he said.

Late last month, Indonesia declared states of emergency in six provinces as peat fires shroud parts of neighboring Singapore and Malaysia in smog.

Additional reporting from The Associated Press

Second lowest minimum for Arctic ice

PETER J. RAYMOND/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

15 September 2016

Arctic ice cover in 2016 reached the second lowest minimum on record, tied with 2007.

The sea-ice extent on 10 September stood at 4.14 million sq km, some way short of the 3.39 million sq km record low in 2012.

Arctic sea-ice cover grows each autumn and winter, and shrinks each spring and summer.

It has long been regarded as a sensitive indicator of change to the Earth's climatic system.

The ice extent has been tracked by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, using satellite measurements.

NASA-Image captionThe 2016 Arctic sea ice summertime minimum, reached on Sept. 10, is 2.3m sq km (911,000 sq miles) below the 1981-2010 average minimum sea ice extent, shown here as a gold line.

However, the centre cautioned that the figures were preliminary, adding that changing winds could still push the ice extent lower.

Ted Scambos, NSIDC lead scientist, commented: "It really suggests that in the next few years, with more typical warmer conditions, we will see some very dramatic further losses."

This year's minimum is seen as something of a surprise as scientists believed that the low atmospheric pressure and cloudy skies in June and July had slowed down the melt.

"It's pretty remarkable that this year's sea-ice minimum extent ended up the second lowest, after how the melt progressed in June and July," said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist with Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center.

NSIDC

"June and July are usually key months for melt because that's when you have 24 hours a day of sunlight - and this year we lost melt momentum during those two months."

Record global land and sea surface temperatures in 2015 that continued to shatter records well into 2016 had led many to believe that the Arctic melt would reach a new low mark this year. But some scientists, including experts from Reading University in the UK, argued that their analysis of melt ponds on ice floes indicated that 2016 would not beat 2012.

While tying for the second lowest minimum in the satellite era, this year's figure is in fact well above the 2012 melt, which saw the ice cover fall to 3.41 million sq km (1.32 million sq mi) - 50% lower than the 1979-2000 average.

How LSD Affects Language

The findings of a new study have implications for psychedelic therapy.

Photo Credit: Zerbor / Shutterstock.com

By Phillip Smith-September 16, 2016

New research into psychedelics continues to yield new insights, and the latest comes from a team led by David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Britain's Imperial College. In research results [3] reported last month in Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, the team gained new clues into how LSD affects speech and the brain.

The research described an experiment [4] in which 10 participants underwent two sessions each of looking at pictures and identifying certain images. One session was on LSD; the other was on a placebo.

Images were sometimes paired with similar images, such as a hand and a glove, and sometimes with unrelated images. The researchers found that subjects on LSD were more likely to incorrectly identify images when they were similar than when they weren't. If "hand" was shown next to "glove," subjects were more likely to misidentify it than if "hand" was shown next to "train."

“Results showed that while LSD does not affect reaction times, people under LSD made more mistakes that were similar in meaning to the pictures they saw,” lead author Neiloufar Family explained in a press release [5].

The research indicates that the drug affects the brain's semantic networks, which govern how words and concepts are stored in relation to each other. Neuroscientists think that words and concepts related to each other are neurologically connected, and LSD seems to broaden the network that gets activated when we look at an image.

When you see an image of a dog, you might think "dog, canine, pet." Under LSD, the links stretch further, and you might come up with "fish" or "cat."

The findings, while limited, have implications not only for the understanding of the neurological basis of semantic network activation, but also for the study of creativity and psychedelic therapy, Family said.

“These findings are relevant for the renewed exploration of psychedelic psychotherapy, which are being developed for depression and other mental illnesses. The effects of LSD on language can result in a cascade of associations that allow quicker access to far away concepts stored in the mind," he explained.

“Inducing a hyper-associative state may have implications for the enhancement of creativity,” he added.

Well, yeah. 

 

Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug War Chronicle.

Time we tell mea culpa - EDITORIAL

 2016-09-18

he International Day of Peace is observed around the world on September 21. The United Nations General Assembly declared September 21 as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of Peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.
The theme for this year’s (2016) Day of Peace -“The Sustainable Development Goals: Building Blocks for Peace” was adopted by the United Nations at its summit of the world’s leaders in New York in September 2015 and calls on countries to begin efforts to achieve these goals over the next 15 years, that is by 2030.

For us in Sri Lanka, just emerging from the shadow of war, the ‘Day of Peace’ is of special significance. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the 17 Sustainable Goals –No poverty, zero hunger, good health and well being, quality education, gender equality, clean drinking water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work, industry innovation and  infrastructure, reduced inequalities sustainable cities and communities, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace justice and strong institutions and partnerships for the goals; as a shared vision of humanity and a to do list for the people and the planet.

In short the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all. It aims to eliminate the causes of conflict and provides the foundation for a lasting peace. The SDGs grew out of the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN in the year 2000. 

The eight goals targeted to be achieved, by the end of 2015 were: Reducing poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality and improving access to safe water and sanitation. According to the UN Millennium Development Goal Country Report 2014, out of a total of 26 indicators, Sri Lanka was unable to attain only two of them.

Whereas the MDGs had only eight goals to be achieved within 15 years, the new SDGs have 17 goals to be achieved by 2030 and its aim is to bring about PEACE, not merely an end to war.
Since 1971, Sri Lanka has seen three armed conflicts –one of which lasted over two and half decades and all of which were crushed militarily. 

However, the end of war did not bring peace in its aftermath. The causes behind the conflict still remain. They are merely dormant. Problems of poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality and inadequate access to safe water and sanitation still remain. We still have many roads before us and many challenges to face...

The violent conflicts cost us over two hundred thousand young lives. They were not limited to a single community. They brought death, destruction and misery to hundreds of thousands of children, made widows of unknown numbers of women and orphans of undocumented numbers of children.
The first victim of war is the loss of morality and justice. It came to such a sad pass that at one time criminals and gangsters ruled the roost in this country. We Sri Lankans cannot afford any more violence or another war. This country and its people need PEACE.

While the State has a major role to play in achieving the goal of peace, the Government cannot do it on its own. Every Sri Lankan needs to play an active role if we are to achieve the elusive peace by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals provide us in Sri Lanka another opportunity to achieve the peace which has eluded this country and its people.

The challenge posed by the SDG requires developing an effective awareness raising programme to ensure people understand why each of us needs to actively participate and become partners in the programme. We have to learn to forgive... and learn from past mistakes. We have to understand that all communities, irrespective of whether they be Sinhala or Tamil, Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist all have had a hand in creating conditions, which led to the mayhem which overtook this land at different times.

So, far very little has been done in this field and the public at large have little awareness of the goodwill of the other. To successfully meet these challenges the Government needs to develop plans to be implemented within specific time frames, set up efficient systems for data collection and monitoring progress.

Mechanisms need to be set up to evaluate success/failures and to put us back on track if targets are not being met. It is also important to identify inequalities among groups or regions and action initiated to minimize such inequalities.