Video: Live Feed of Rovers Exploring the Ocean Floor

Video: Live Feed of Rovers Exploring the Ocean Floor
By Carl Engelking | April 14, 2014 1:18 pm



[font size=1]This site had a fantastic “amphitheater of chemosynthetic life,” researchers said.
Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, Gulf of Mexico 2014 Expedition.[/font]

The bottom of the ocean is a largely unknown habitat — but now you can explore it from the comfort of your desk chair. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is live-streaming its three-week investigation of the Gulf of Mexico basin.

The ship Okeanos Explorer set out last Thursday to examine the location and contents of deep-sea habitats in the gulf. The team of scientists will conduct multiple dives using sea rovers, each capable of diving up to 6,000 meters, between now and the end of the month. This is the third leg of a three-part mission that started in February, and the data collected will provide a deeper level of knowledge about deep-ocean habitats than ever before.

Seeing the Ocean Floor

But the researchers aren’t keeping this adventurous journey to themselves. Courtesy of the NOAA live stream from the rover Deep Discoverer, you can get the rover’s view as it films strange creatures, coral beds, shipwrecks, and maybe even a few mud volcanoes thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface. The research team provides live commentary of what they’re seeing.

Another feed shows real-time footage overlaid with data that scientists are looking at to guide the mission. A third stream shows the view from the Seirios camera sled.

More:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/04/14/video-live-feed-of-rovers-exploring-the-ocean-floor/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20DiscoverEnvironment%20%28Discover%20Environment%29

Undocumented Migrants in Venezuela Have More Rights than US Citizens in the US

Undocumented Migrants in Venezuela Have More Rights than US Citizens in the US
By Tamara Pearson
Global Research, April 13, 2014

Krosbi Quintero, a Venezuelan, spent 60 days in a migrant prison in Spain, he told Clarin last year. Before that, he had been detained ten other times for not having identity documents. In prison he and other inmates were given Alprazolam, normally prescribed for panic attacks, so they wouldn’t “create problems”. Quintero said migrants were blamed for “stealing jobs”, and police hunted for undocumented migrants in the train stations, stepping the hunt up when Spain’s economic situation got worse. Quintero claimed the police focused on darker skinned people such as himself.

While most first world and imperialist countries criminalise refugees and undocumented migrants, scapegoating them, promoting racism, and mistreating them, Venezuela welcomes migrants; and provides them with the same rights as Venezuelan citizens. The Chavez and Maduro governments have never blamed the millions of migrants here for any of the problems the country is facing; rather, migrants -documented or not- are welcomed and receive health care, education, and other benefits.

Meanwhile, Venezuelans and other Latin Americans, as well as migrants from Africa and Asia, are locked up, shot at, and demonised, when they try to migrate to and even vacation in first world countries. Every year the US expels almost 400,000 people who don’t have migration documents. According to a Telesurreport, border patrol agents even teach children near the border with Mexico to fire at cut outs of dark skinned migrants. The Oaxacan Institute of Migrant Attention said that in the January this year ten people were killed when trying to cross the border to the US, and in 2013 a total of 214 people were killed.

Spanish security forces have fired rubber bullets at migrants trying to swim to Spanish soil, seeing nine people from African countries drown in the attempt in February, according to rights groups and migrants. In Italy, undocumented migrants are needed for the cheap labour they provide to the agriculture industry (super exploitation the government turns a blind eye to), but are also demonised and degraded, with some forced to live in sewers. In England, the Home Office gives its workers vouches to expensive clothing shops as an incentive when to meet the target of rejecting 70% of asylum seekers.

More:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/undocumented-migrants-in-venezuela-have-more-rights-than-us-citizens-in-the-us/5377684

Rich Deducting Groceries in Chile Target of Bachelet Plan: Taxes

Rich Deducting Groceries in Chile Target of Bachelet Plan: Taxes
By Eduardo Thomson Apr 13, 2014 11:00 PM CT

Writing off groceries as a corporate expense, a common practice among Chile’s wealthy, will get harder as the government moves to clamp down on tax avoidance to raise revenue needed to pay for social programs.

The month-old administration of President Michelle Bachelet plans to employ 500 more tax inspectors, who will be empowered to review every credit-card expense to see if it is business related. Supermarket spending claimed as a tax deduction will be rejected out of hand, though people can appeal. Tax disputes will go to special courts, eliminating the more informal chats with officials where disagreements now are resolved.

The measures are part of a package of tax changes presented to legislators that aim to raise 3 percent of gross domestic product to finance Bachelet’s election pledges, including free education for all. Approval is expected later this year, with Bachelet’s ruling coalition having a majority in both chambers of the Chilean Congress.

Some tax advisers say the proposals are too draconian for a country with the lowest tax evasion in Latin America, and will lead to an increase in disputes as tax bills mount. Advisers themselves risk fines if regulators deem they’re helping clients avoid taxes.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-14/rich-deducting-groceries-in-chile-target-of-bachelet-plan-taxes.html

OAS Insider Reveals Details of Illegal Foreign Intervention Against Haitian Democracy

OAS Insider Reveals Details of Illegal Foreign Intervention Against Haitian Democracy
February 25, 2014

Detailed Account of Proposed Coup Against Préval; Overturning of Haitian Elections

Washington, D.C. - In 2010, a secret “core group” of foreign dignitaries sought to force the president of Haiti out of office in a coup. They also engineered an intervention in Haiti’s presidential elections that year that ensured that the governing party’s candidate would not proceed to a runoff. These are the revelations being made by the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Special Representative to Haiti at the time, Ricardo Seitenfus. In an exclusive interview published by Dissent Magazine, Seitenfus – who was present at some of these meetings - describes these and other bombshells detailed in his new book being published in his native Brazil, titled International Crossroads and Failures in Haiti.

In the written interview with Dan Beeton of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and journalist Georgianne Nienaber, Seitenfus provides new details regarding threats against then-president of Haiti René Préval. Seitenfus also corroborates the conclusions of CEPR’s earlier analysis of an OAS “Expert” Mission sent to verify the election: that the OAS overturned the results of the first round in a political intervention. The OAS took this unprecedented step without so much as a recount or calling for a new election, something that had never been done before by an international body. This was a “white coup and a blatant electoral intervention,” Seitenfus says.

“When it comes to Haiti, the international community does not have limits for the actions it takes,” Seitenfus writes in the interview.

The OAS “Expert” Mission, most of its members coming from the U.S., Canada and France, recommended changing the result of the first round of the election after findings that CEPR’s analysis determined to be “methodologically and statistically flawed, and arbitrary.” The international community – especially the U.S. government – then exerted strong pressure for the Haitian government to accept the mission’s recommendations, which would remove governing party candidate Jude Célestin from the runoff, to be replaced by Michel Martelly. Martelly went on to win the second round of an election versus another conservative opponent, Mirlande Manigat, with less than 17 percent of the vote from the eligible electorate.

Seitenfus’ account of events corroborates the results of this statistical analysis:

More:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/oas-insider-reveals-details-of-illegal-foreign-intervention-against-haitian-democracy

The U.S. and the Confrontation in Venezuela

The U.S. and the Confrontation in Venezuela

By Roger Burbach

March 25, 2014


The U.S. media is almost unanimously propagating the falsehoods that the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is using violence against the opposition, that the U.S. government is not trying to promote a coup, and that Maduro is destroying the economy by continuing the transition to socialism begun by Hugo Chavez.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Regarding a coup, the media must be blind if it believes that the U.S. is not backing the opposition to the hilt in its efforts to overthrow Maduro. This is the Administration that declares it can use drones to kill anyone it judges to be a terrorist without any due process. And as Edward Snowden’s documents reveal, the U.S. believes it has the right to spy on and intervene in the affairs of countries around the world, including allies.

The economic situation in Venezuela recalls that of Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity government that I witnessed from 1970 to 1973. Richard Nixon ordered the CIA “to make the economy scream.” The destabilization of the economy was a critical factor leading to the military coup. The opposition in Venezuela is also hell-bent on destroying the economy, using the capitalist marketplace to cause speculation, inflation, shortages of commodities, and capital flight. What is occurring in Venezuela is a critical battle in the struggle for national sovereignty and 21st century socialism. At the fifth annual gathering of the World Social Forum on January 30, 2005, Hugo Chavez declared: “It is necessary to transcend capitalism…through socialism, true socialism with equality and justice.” As part of the roaring crowd of 15,000 at the Gigantinho stadium in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I heard Chavez go on to say: “We have to re-invent socialism. It can’t be the kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union, but it will emerge as we develop new systems that are built on cooperation, not competition.” This is an historic call to confront capitalist-dominated globalization, the mammoth transnational corporations that promote hyper-speculation, the concentration of wealth, perpetual conflict for markets, and the destruction of the environment.

http://zcomm.org/zmagazine/the-u-s-and-the-confrontation-in-venezuela/

(Short article, no more at link.)

Victims of Pinochet government reburied in Chile after 40 years

Source: BBC News

13 April 2014 Last updated at 15:37 ET
Victims of Pinochet government reburied in Chile after 40 years

The remains of six men have been reburied in Chile more than 40 years after they were killed by the military government of Augusto Pinochet. Their bodies were discovered in an unmarked grave in 1992.

The men were among dozens of people killed by a military unit in late 1973, just weeks after General Pinochet came to power in a coup. His officials flew around the country in helicopters, and executed political prisoners by firing squad.

The men - Carlos Berger, Carlos Escobedo, Luis Moreno, Hernan Moreno, Mario Arguelles and Jeronimo Carpanchay - were killed in the northern Chilean city of Calama.

Mr Berger, a lawyer and journalist, had been arrested on 11 September 1973 after refusing to broadcast a government message at the radio station where he worked.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27014505

Yoani Sánchez and the ZunZuneo scandal

Yoani Sánchez and the ZunZuneo scandal
April 10, 2014 — Sabina Becker



So, you thought that Yoani Sánchez and her “popular” anti-Castro blog were all that and a bag of Doritos, did you? Well, you may want to think again. Because there is a connection between her and the dearly defunct ex-parrot that is ZunZuneo, and a real Cuban blogger, Norelys Morales Aguilera, has laid it out for us:

While US vice-president Joe Biden was talking about his meeting with his country’s Cuban-born blogger, Yoani Sánchez, the Associated Press (AP) was revealing the scandal of how the US government created a communications network designed to undermine the government of Cuba, using shell companies constituted in secret and financed by way of transactions with foreign banks, and in which the US Agency for International Development (USAID) participated: a “Cuban Twitter” called ZunZuneo.

CNN and other sites claimed that the meeting was to discuss topics related to freedom of expression on the Caribbean island, according to Biden’s official Twitter account. With the picturesque mystery that accompanies the US blogger, no details of the meeting have been revealed. A representative of the White House, in an e-mail to HuffPost Voices, stated that “I can only confirm that the Vice-President met with Yoani Sánchez, but beyond that information, there are no additional details.”

The links between Yoani and the Washington-designed network have collapsed under their own weight. The AP report did not mention by name whom Washington had assigned the task of interpreting the “buzz” of this illegal interference operation which as cost several million dollars of taxpayers’ money, which the Miami “Duende” immediately made vanish.

The blogger has always denied any relationship between herself and the US government, or its interests section on the island, but a cable from their diplomatic seat in Havana, on November 27, 2006, spoke of a meeting in the home of a US diplomat with young Cubans, to watch and discuss a documentary about the fall of [former Serbian leader Slobodan] Milosevic and the OTPOR movement. And on top of that, in 2011, information came to light of meetings with the then US interests chief Michael Parmly, although Obama never met with the blogger.

Political murder betrays violence, corruption in Peruvian state's 'mini-dictatorship'

Source: Associated Press

Political murder betrays violence, corruption in Peruvian state's 'mini-dictatorship'
By Frank Bajak, The Associated Press April 13, 2014 1:20 AM

CHIMBOTE, Peru - One by one, the senior officials from the capital took the microphone and apologized to an auditorium packed with angry people who had long been living in fear. The officials admitted they had failed to prevent a political murder foretold by its victim. Their integrity was in doubt.

Peru's chief prosecutor, comptroller and the head of Congress' investigations committee, which was now holding a public hearing, had all ignored evidence that Ezequiel Nolasco, now murdered, had thrust in their faces for months.

Having survived a 2010 assassination attempt after he denounced government corruption, Nolasco had repeatedly warned that his home state, Ancash, was run by a criminal syndicate that plundered the treasury, killed people it couldn't buy or intimidate, wiretapped foes and used police as spies and journalists as character assassins.

A lone gunman finished the job on March 14, pumping five bullets into the former construction union leader when he stopped for a beer heading from Lima to this coastal city that is home to nearly half of Ancash's 1.1 million people.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/world/Political+murder+betrays+violence+corruption+Peruvian+states/9733742/story.html

A REBIRTH OF HOPE IN COLOMBIA

A REBIRTH OF HOPE IN COLOMBIA

The Return of the Patriotic Union Party

by James Bargent, Toward Freedom

In Colombia's congressional elections in early March, the name the Patriotic Union appeared on ballot sheets for the first time in over a decade. It is a name that carries a heavy historical burden, evoking memories of a political party whose tragic history casts a long shadow over Colombia’s civil conflict—and whose remarkable rebirth now hangs in the balance.

The first incarnation of the Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica or UP) was extinguished when the state removed its legal status as a political party in 2003 after membership was whittled down to a handful of activists, and the party could barley muster 50,000 votes in elections.

The signing of the UP's death warrant was little more than legally ratifying the success of a bloody "political genocide." By that time, thousands of UP leaders, activists and supporters had been murdered by right-wing paramilitaries, corrupt members of the security forces and drug traffickers, who saw the party as the civilian face of the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

In 2013, the UP's legal status was returned after a long campaign for recognition by those who survived the bloodshed and wanted to keep alive not only the memory but also the political hopes and dreams of those that did not.

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/13142

France's foreign minister on landmark visit to Cuba

France's foreign minister on landmark visit to Cuba
April 12, 2014 - 15:53 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - France's foreign minister was expected to arrive in Cuba on Saturday, April 12, for a brief but historic visit, the first by such a high-ranking French official in 30 years and a sign of the quickening pace of improving ties between the European Union and Havana, according to Reuters.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was scheduled to have a working lunch with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez before meeting with Cardinal Jaime Ortega and then French businessmen.

Rodriguez met with Laurent in Paris last month.

"We expect him to discuss the start of a political dialogue that will include human rights, and business opportunities provided by economic reforms on the island," a French diplomat said, adding that no agreements would be signed.

Since Fabius took office in 2012 he has tried to shift more of France's diplomatic focus toward winning contracts in markets where French firms are traditionally weak, as Paris looks to find growth opportunities overseas.

France is looking to expand its business ties with Latin America and sees Cuba as an important player in the region, given that it hosted a regional summit earlier this year and both Brazil and Mexico are increasing their presence in the country.

More:
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/177924/