Trade group offers $7,500 reward for information in sabotage at multiple farms

Police have reported a rash of sabotage actions against pig and turkey farms across northeastern Iowa. Damage is described as “considerable”. Neither the Animal Liberation Front nor other clandestine animal liberation group has yet claimed responsibility.

The actions are described as occurring at “multiple” farms in three counties. Three pig factory farms were vandalized in Chickasaw and Fayette Counties. One turkey factory farm in Bremer County was also targeted. One of the sabotaged farms was 5 miles northwest of New Hampton, site of the largest Animal Liberation Front mink liberation in U.S. history.

The sabotage included damaged office equipment and broken windows. Police have not ruled out the actions could be merely apolitical vandalism. However if there was no danger of animal’s being harmed in the action, factory farms would be a likely A.L.F. target and these attacks would fit the model of an Animal Liberation Front action.

Police are advising farms to be vigilant in monitoring their farms, and call police if they notice suspicious vehicles.

– Peter Young …source

A launch malfunction sent the Glory satellite crashing into the ocean, almost exactly mimicking the 2009 loss of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory By John Matson | March 4, 2011 | 23

In the last few years NASA has built and launched two world-class climate satellites, both of which promised invaluable new data on the natural and human influences on Earth’s changing climate. Neither of them, however, will ever deliver the data that climate scientists so eagerly expected from them. Both spacecraft, in fact, are at the bottom of the ocean, having succumbed to nearly identical rocket mishaps that prevented them from reaching orbit.

The latest incident occurred in the wee morning hours of March 4, just after the Glory spacecraft lifted off atop a Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. About three minutes into the flight the protective nose cone, or fairing, enshrouding Glory failed to separate from the rocket as commanded, and the entire assembly came tumbling back to Earth. That is just what happened in February 2009, when NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) blasted off on board another Taurus XL rocket and came crashing down in the waters off Antarctica.

“All indications are that the satellite and rocket are in the southern Pacific ocean somewhere,” NASA launch director Omar Baez said of Glory in a somber March 4 news conference following the liftoff. Given the comparable launch weights of Glory and the OCO and the similarity of the malfunction, Glory may have ended up in close proximity to its fellow climate satellite. “Physics says it’s likely in the same spot or close to it,” Baez said. …more

Forecasting what the Earth’s climate might look like a century from now has long presented a huge challenge to climate scientists. But better understanding of the climate system, improved observations of the current climate, and rapidly improving computing power are slowly leading to more reliable methods.
by michael d. lemonick

A chart appears on page 45 of the 2007 Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), laying out projections for what global temperature and sea level should look like by the end of this century. Both are projected to rise, which will come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying even the slightest attention to the headlines over the past decade or so. In both cases, however, the projections span a wide range of possibilities. The temperature, for example, is likely to rise anywhere from 1.8 C to 6.4 C (3.2 F to 11.5 F), while sea level could increase by as little as 7 inches or by as much as 23 — or anywhere in between.

It all sounds appallingly vague, and the fact that it’s all based on computer models probably doesn’t reassure the general public all that much. For many people, “model” is just another way of saying “not the real world.” In fairness, the wide range of possibilities in part reflects uncertainty about human behavior: The chart lays out different possible scenarios based on how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases humans might emit over the coming century. Whether the world adopts strict emissions controls or decides to ignore the climate problem entirely will make a huge difference to how much warming is likely to happen. ..more

Senate includes wolf delisting bill in must-pass funding package
Provision would strip ESA protections for wolves in Idaho and Montana

Washington, D.C. (March 4, 2011) – In the latest effort to strip federal endangered species protections from gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, a Continuing Budget Resolution to fund federal government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year was unveiled in the Senate today. The provision directs the Secretary of the Interior to reissue the 2009 delisting rule, which was struck down in 2010 by a federal district court, and would insulate the reissued rule from further judicial review. If enacted, wolf management authority would be returned to all states in the region other than Wyoming. Idaho and Montana have made clear that wolf numbers will be drastically reduced in those states, and Wyoming has thus far refused to produce a wolf management plan that passes muster under the Endangered Species Act.

The following is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife:

“What do wolves have to do with critical funding for our federal government? Absolutely nothing. Congress should be focused on keeping our nation’s essential services up and running, not going back on America’s commitment to restore wolves to Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.

“This provision would hand over responsibility for wolves to the states when their approach of late has been anything but responsible. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has repeatedly stated his intent to kill as many wolves as possible in Idaho, and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer recently encouraged ranchers to take the law into their own hands and kill wolves on sight. We should not be rewarding these states for thumbing their noses at the conservation of wolves, wildlife that belongs to all Americans. ..more

Bahrain: Hundreds of prisoners suffering from appalling conditions in Jaw Central Prison
Overcrowding, harsh punishments, and deprivation of contact with the outside world or complain
05 Nov 2011 – BCHR

Bahrain Centre for human rights (BCHR) is following up with great concern the deterioration of the situation of prisoners detained in the Jaw Central Prison of Bahrain, including being subjected to mistreatment and arbitrary punishments, especially solitary confinement which are sometimes associated with physical abuse. Moreover, this includes the General poor conditions caused by overcrowding the prison of large numbers of convicts that exceed its capacity, where 17 prisoners being crammed in one cell that could not accommodate more than four beds (with 2-floors). Those prisoners are being kept in the cell for at least twenty hours a day where they have only one health facility for shower, toilet and washing, and the room itself is being used to eat, sleep, rest and worship.

One cell is gathering different ages, where a large number of prisoners held on security and political issues are adolescents and young people who are rounded up with people convicted in criminal cases of various nationalities and some with criminal records. Prisoners find considerable difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of Quran, religious books associated with worship daily, and the biggest difficulty is the ability of getting any cultural or general books. Although daily newspapers provided by the prison administration are only those which support the Government’s policies, these newspapers are subject to censorship, and often are blocked because they contain news or information about the situation outside the prison.

Add to all that the complete denial of access to daily news through television channels. Despite the availability of televisions in the places that prisoners go to for few hours a day, but it display movies only to make the prisoners in almost total blackout from what’s happening in the country or abroad. Since there is tight control to communicate with families and that is once a week for half an hour, as well as family visit with a very limited number of them twice a month, the prisoner cannot convey their suffering in prison via communication with family, and if so, it is liable to penalties of imprisonment in solitary confinement, mistreatment and sometimes physically abused.

Beginning of mistreatment starts since the first reception of the prisoner where they are humiliated, offended and threatened. However, the Proper or bad treatment later depends on those in charge of the Prisoners Affairs Department where many of them seem to be part of political or sectarian mobilization, especially against prisoners with cases of political background. The prison lacks an effective inspection system to detect the abuses carried out by those or by the prison administration. Prisoners also do not have the opportunity to speak to the top freely and safely, thereby reducing their ability to fully improve conditions or protesting mistreatment. Indeed, the only tool left for prisoners to improve their situation is the hunger strike where any prisoner on hunger strike is being treated so cruelly exposing any paddle to solitary confinement and mistreatment and sometimes being beaten as a warning to other prisoners, as was the case July 2010 when the prison used the riot police to stop the prisoners on hunger strike by attacking and injuring them [1].

Prisoners are subjected to degrading treatment each time they are taken outside the prison or to meet their relatives as well as upon return. Where they are forced to take off all their clothes and wearing wrapper only, then sit in a certain way on the grounds that such a procedure to “prevent the smuggling of narcotic substances” as they claim, while that in itself is reason enough for separating prisoners according to their quality and nature of the charges against them. …more