Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
The scandal of the Alabama poor cut off from water
The scandal of the Alabama poor cut off from water
Sheila Tyson, a community activist in the deprived West End area of Birmingham, tells the BBC how her community has been affected
Banks stand to lose millions of dollars in debt repayments if the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history is allowed to proceed.
But the real victims of the financial collapse in the US state of Alabama's most populous county are its poorest residents - forced to bathe in bottled water and use portable toilets after being cut off from the mains supply.
And there is widespread anger in Jefferson County that swingeing sewerage rate hikes could have been avoided but for the greed, corruption and incompetence of local politicians, government officials and Wall Street financiers.
Tammy Lucas is the human face of a financial and political scandal that has brought one of the most deprived communities in America's south to the point of what some local people believe is collapse.
She says: "If the sewer bill gets higher, my light might get cut off and if I try to catch up the light, my water might get cut off. So we're in between. We can't make it like this."
Mrs Lucas's monthly sewerage rate bills - the amount levied by the county to flush away waste and provide water for baths and showers - has quadrupled in the past 15 years. She says it is currently running at $150 (£97) a month, which leaves little left out of her $600 social security cheque for food and electricity.
"We need to keep the water running because we're women," she says. "We need to take baths. I try to pay the sewer bill and the water bill together and then what little I got left I try to put on my lights. I got to have lights."
'Just outrageous'Her neighbour in one of the poorest districts of Jefferson County's largest city, Birmingham, a father of four who asked not to be named, has already made that choice.
The poorest citizens in Birmingham, Alabama, say they can no longer afford running water His modest rented home, next to a busy freight train line, is one of a growing number in the area that now has a blue portable toilet next to it.
He says he finds it cheaper to buy drums of water from a petrol station and pay a sanitation company about $14 a month to remove waste from his "porta-potty" than pay the combined sewer and water rate bill, which some months can reach $300.
"Most people who live here are on social security," he said.
"They can't spend this kind of money on sewerage. It's just outrageous. It's too high.
"I pay my sewerage bill, then I'm going to slack on my groceries. Then what am I going to eat?"
Sewerage rates and water rates, which are levied on drinkable water, vary widely across the United States.
But they are generally rising faster than inflation as cities are forced by federal government to replace worn-out sewerage facilities.
The two rates have been combined into a single bill in Jefferson County, which has increased by 329% over the past 15 years, making it among the highest in America, as the county has struggled to service the mountain of debt it took on to pay for a new sewer system.
Corruption scandalThe facility, which has been under construction since 1996, was meant to cost about $300m.
But the bill soared to $3.1bn after construction problems and a series of bond and derivatives deals that went sour in the financial meltdown of 2008.
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Sheila Tyson Community activistIf they let this stuff happen they are going to get the biggest riot the South has seen”
Investment bank JP Morgan Securities and two of its former directors have been fined for offering bribes to Jefferson County workers and politicians to win business financing the sewer upgrade.
Six of Jefferson County's former commissioners have been found guilty of corruption for accepting the bribes, along with 15 other officials.
New county commissioners, struggling to service the debt they inherited from their crooked predecessors, took the decision to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy last month.
But the county's bondholders, who stand to lose about $4.5m a month in repayments if the bankruptcy is allowed to proceed, are contesting it in court.
A Birmingham bankruptcy judge, Thomas B Bennett, has yet to make a final ruling.
Breaking pointPrior to the bankruptcy filing, the county's sewer rates had been due to go up by a further 8.2% a year for the next three years in a deal with the county's creditors, to the dismay of local residents.
Now that is more likely to be 10% a year or even, according to the court appointed receiver John S Young, as much as 25%.
Sheila Tyson, a community activist in the deprived West End district of Birmingham, says people in the city are reaching breaking point.
"These people are going to end up rioting about this," she says. "If they let this stuff happen they are going to get the biggest riot the South has ever seen. Over this sewer business. I can see it coming."
She says soaring sewer-rate bills have traditionally hit the poorest parts of the county hardest, as better-off people in the suburbs installed septic tanks at their properties.
But the people affected are embarrassed to speak out about living in such unsanitary conditions, she tells BBC News.
"This is not even a race issue, if I'm telling the truth," says Ms Tyson. "It's just so happens that it's affecting black people. It's a class issue. They don't give a doo-doo about poor people period."
Budget shortfallAnd she adds: "Somebody from Washington DC needs to come down here and take these sewer bills to where they are affordable for the people in these districts. Injustice - that's all this is. They need to come down here and fix it."
Continue reading the main story 
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Tony Petelos Jefferson County managerWhen you look at the amount of debt, and you look at the revenue that is produced from the rate payers, there is no way it is going to come down”
To add further to Jefferson County's woes, it faces a budget shortfall next year of $40m after a local tax was declared illegal.
The county is appealing to the Alabama state legislature for financial aid, but there are still likely to be cuts to public services.
More than 500 county workers were laid off over the summer and are having to get by on unemployment benefit, while their jobs hang in the balance.
Tony Petelos, the county manager appointed by the new commissioners to sort the mess out, admits it could take years to get the area back on its feet.
"The public has lost confidence in Jefferson County over the last decade and a half, because of the mismanagement, because of the corruption. We have got to rebuild that confidence," he says.
He insists there is "light at the end of the tunnel" and that some of residents' worst fears about looming public service cuts are groundless, with most savings likely to be made through efficiencies and property sales.
Troubled projectBut he can offer few assurances to citizens struggling with soaring sewer and water rate bills.
The decision is in the hands of the bankruptcy court, he stresses, but even if the judge decides to hand control of sewer rates back to the county - and Mr Petelos has offered to manage the troubled project himself - there is no prospect of the bills being reduced.
"When you look at the amount of debt, and you look at the revenue that is produced from the rate payers, there is no way it is going to come down," says Mr Petelos.
When he was Republican mayor of Birmingham's neighbouring city of Hoover, Mr Petelos recalls attending a presentation by a Wall Street bank about the same kind of bonds that would later prove to be the downfall of Jefferson County.
He says: "I turned to my finance director and said, 'did you understand that?' He said, 'no I didn't'. So I said, 'we had better not buy it then'."
Perhaps if Jefferson County's previous commissioners had made the same decision, some of their poorest residents would not be facing daily life without basic sanitation and running water.
Wikileaks: Bradley Manning military hearing bias row
Wikileaks: Bradley Manning military hearing bias row
Bradley Manning is accused of leaking 720,000 diplomatic and military documents
A military officer overseeing the hearing of the US Army analyst accused of leaking government secrets has rejected a request to recuse himself.
The request was made by a defence lawyer for Private Bradley Manning, 23, as he appeared at a military court.
He faces 22 charges of obtaining and distributing government secrets - which he allegedly leaked to anti-secrecy site Wikileaks.
The Article 32 hearing will determine whether Pte Manning is to stand trial.
During the hearing, which is expected to last around five days according to the defence team, prosecution and defence lawyers will each make their initial cases and are permitted to cross-examine witnesses.
Friday's session has adjourned and the hearing is due to resume on Saturday.
Proceeding to trialThe hearing offers the first opportunity for Pte Manning's defence team to present their case since he was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 and placed in military custody.
It is taking place under tight security at an army base at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Pte Manning sat in the courtroom dressed in military khaki and wearing black-rimmed glasses.
But his defence team quickly switched focus by asking for the investigating officer - equivalent to a judge in a civilian court - to withdraw from the case.
Defence lawyer David Coombs said Lt Col Paul Almanza, the investigating officer, was "biased".
Continue reading the main story 
At the scene
For almost everyone present, this is our first glimpse of the man accused of the biggest leak of confidential material in American history. Private Manning sat in uniform, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, hands clasped before him. In his only remarks so far, he said he understood his rights and confirmed the identities of the one civilian and two military officers representing him.
But the focus of attention was the investigating officer. Manning's civilian lawyer demanded he recuse himself, arguing that as prosecutor for the Department of Justice, Lt Col Paul Almanza works for an organisation actively pursuing a separate case against Wikileaks.
Mr Coombs said Lt Col Almanza's decision to reject defence witnesses, as well as the government's alleged reluctance to put forward witnesses to explain the damage done by the leaks suggested Almanza was biased.
"Where's the damage? Where's the harm?" Mr Coombs demanded, in an early indication of part of his defence strategy. Lt Col Almanza announced a recess to consider the defence plea. It could last some time.
Lt Col Almanza is a former military judge who now works for the Department of Justice, which has its own investigation into Wikileaks. His refusal to accept all but two of 38 defence witnesses meant the defence could not adequately make their case, Mr Coombs said.
Following two recesses and arguments by the prosecution and the defence, the investigating officer refused to recuse himself and the hearing continued.
Afterwards, recommendations will be made to a military general, who will decide whether to proceed to a full trial.
The BBC's Paul Adams says the soldier's defence team is likely to argue that little harm came of the leaks, and that their release was in the greater public interest.
Assange link?Pte Manning has also been charged with "aiding the enemy", a charge that could carry the death penalty. However, reports say prosecutors will only seek a prison sentence.
He is accused of the unauthorised possession and distribution of more than 720,000 secret diplomatic and military documents.
"If it is the case that Bradley Manning is indeed the source of this and other Wikileaks materials, Manning would have single-handedly changed hundreds of thousands of people's lives for the better," Wikileaks said in a statement.
"This material has contributed to ending dictatorships in the Middle East, it has exposed torture and wrongdoing in all the corners of the world and it has held diplomatic bodies and politicians accountable for the words, deals and pacts held behind close doors," Wikileaks said.
One of the key questions is expected to be whether Pte Manning had any kind of relationship with Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, our correspondent at Fort Meade says.
Mr Assange is also embroiled in a legal battle, facing extradition to Sweden from the UK to face sexual assault charges. As Pte Manning was preparing for his own court appearance on Friday, the UK Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Mr Assange against his extradition ruling.
Detention conditionsPte Manning was arrested after a computer hacker went to US authorities with details of an online exchange he had had with Pte Manning in which he allegedly confessed to the data theft.
The conditions of Pte Manning's confinement since his arrest have been denounced in the US and abroad.
PJ Crowley: "I think it is a necessary prosecution"
State department spokesman PJ Crowley resigned after publicly criticising the detention conditions of Pte Manning, and British politicians and members of the European Parliament have also spoken out on the subject.
Pte Manning was brought to the maximum security prison at Quantico in July 2010, where he was held in isolation and was reported to have had his clothing removed at night as a suicide-prevention measure.
But in April 2011 Pte Manning was moved to a lower-security prison at Fort Leavenworth, where his lawyers say conditions are better.
MIT's trillion frames per second light-tracking camera
MIT's trillion frames per second light-tracking camera
The equipment captures images at a rate of roughly a trillion frames per second (Footage courtesy of MIT)
A camera capable of visualising the movement of light has been unveiled by a team of scientists in the US.
The equipment captures images at a rate of roughly a trillion frames per second - or about 40 billion times faster than a UK television camera.
Direct recording of light is impossible at that speed, so the camera takes millions of repeated scans to recreate each image.
The team said the technique could be used to understand ultrafast processes.
The process has been dubbed femto-photography and has been detailed on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab's website.
"There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera," said Andrea Velten, one of the researchers involved in the project.
Scan linesTo create the technique, the scientists adapted a "streak tube" - equipment used to take data readings from light pulses.
It works in a similar fashion to the way pictures are created on traditional television cathode ray tubes, scanning one thin horizontal line at a time.
Since each image is only equivalent to one scan line on the television set, many hundred scans had to be taken to create a single frame.
The scientists did this by repeating each shot, angling the camera's view with mirrors to record a different scan line of the object.
As a result, the technique is only suitable for capturing an event that can be recreated exactly the same way multiple times.
A pulse of light can be seen as it reaches the top of a soft drink bottle To create a moving picture, a laser pulse was used to illuminate the scene - flashing briefly once every 13 billionth of a second.
These pulses triggered the streak tube, which captured the light that returned from the scene.
The laser and the camera were carefully synchronised to ensure each pulse was identical. When the scan lines were stitched together, they appeared to have been taken at the same time.
It took about an hour to take enough shots to make a final video representing a fraction of a second of real time, leading one member of the team to dub the equipment "the world's slowest fastest camera".
Light analysisSoftware was then used to turn all the images into movies lasting roughly 480 frames.
One showed a pulse of light, less than a millimetre long, travelling through a soft drink bottle at a rate of half a millimetre per frame.
Another showed different wavelengths of light rippling over the surface of a tomato and the table it was sitting on.
In addition to revealing new ways of seeing the world, the MIT scientists say the process could have some practical uses.
"Applications include industrial imaging to analyse faults and material properties, scientific imaging for understanding ultrafast processes and medical imaging to reconstruct sub-surface elements, ie 'ultrasound with light,'" they say on their website.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Pepper spray: US campus police suspended
Pepper spray: US campus police suspended
An officer appeared to spray the protesters at close range
A US university has suspended two campus police officers over the use of pepper spray on students at a peaceful protest on Friday in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Video of the incident shows police blasting seated protesters in the face with the chemical at close range.
The chancellor of the University of California, Davis, who had called in the police, criticised the use of pepper spray on the protesters.
However, she says she will not resign.
The demonstration was intended to show solidarity with protesters at another branch of the University of California, in Berkeley, who were hit with batons by police on 9 November.
The footage of the pepper spray incident, which has been circulated widely on the internet, caused outrage among students.
The protesters are seen sitting in a line on the floor with their arms interlocked, refusing to move.
Continue reading the main story
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Davis Faculty Association statementThe violence was unprovoked, disproportional and excessive”
They try to cover their faces as officers in riot gear walk along emptying canisters of the spray onto them.
'Excessive force'Linda Katehi, Chancellor of the University of California, Davis, near Sacramento, described the use of pepper spray as "chilling".
She said the university was launching an investigation into what had happened.
A task force comprised of students, staff and faculty members would be set up and asked to report back within 30 days, she said.
"The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this," Ms Katehi said in a message on the university's website.
The Davis Faculty Association, which represents academic staff, has condemned the University of California's approach to protests on several different campuses.
"This week, we have seen excessive force used against non-violent protesters," said a statement on the association's website.
"Student, faculty and staff protesters have been pepper-sprayed directly in the eyes and mouth, beaten and shoved by batons, dragged by the arms while handcuffed, and submitted to other forms of excessive force."
'Occupy' protests have been held on several University of California campuses, including in this rally at Berkeley "The violence was unprovoked, disproportional and excessive," it said.
"We demand that the Chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress non-violent political protests."
The association said Ms Katehi should resign, a call she rejected.
"I do not think that I have violated the policies of the institution," she said.
"I have worked personally very hard to make the campus a safe campus for all."
The Occupy Wall Street protests began in New York more than two months ago against perceived corporate greed and economic inequality.
Similar protests have since sprung up in other places around the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Snorting cocaine 'threatens Colombian national security'
Snorting cocaine 'threatens Colombian national security'
Colombia's president is calling on foreign governments to take more responsibility for illegal drug use in their countries.
President Santos, who is in the UK for a two-day visit, told the BBC that "as long as people in London, New York and Paris are sniffing cocaine, we will suffer".
He described it as a matter of national security for Colombia and said drug consumption overseas helped finance both local mafia and political groups involved in a decades-old violent struggle to overthrow the government.
Mr Santos claimed a victory earlier this month when the leader of the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, or Farc, was killed.
He told the BBC's Alastair Leithead that it was an important step towards peace in his country.
Source Go to link to see VIDEO
Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip
Scientists at MIT replicate brain activity with chip
The chip replicates how information flows around the brain
Scientists are getting closer to the dream of creating computer systems that can replicate the brain.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information.
Such chips could eventually enable communication between artificially created body parts and the brain.
It could also pave the way for artificial intelligence devices.
There are about 100 billion neurons in the brain, each of which forms synapses - the connections between neurons that allow information to flow - with many other neurons.
This process is known as plasticity and is believed to underpin many brain functions, such as learning and memory.
Neural functionsThe MIT team, led by research scientist Chi-Sang Poon, has been able to design a computer chip that can simulate the activity of a single brain synapse.
Activity in the synapses relies on so-called ion channels which control the flow of charged atoms such as sodium, potassium and calcium.
The 'brain chip' has about 400 transistors and is wired up to replicate the circuitry of the brain.
Current flows through the transistors in the same way as ions flow through ion channels in a brain cell.
"We can tweak the parameters of the circuit to match specific ions channels... We now have a way to capture each and every ionic process that's going on in a neuron," said Mr Poon.
Neurobiologists seem to be impressed.
It represents "a significant advance in the efforts to incorporate what we know about the biology of neurons and synaptic plasticity onto ...chips," said Dean Buonomano, a professor of neurobiology at the University of California.
"The level of biological realism is impressive," he added.
The team plans to use their chip to build systems to model specific neural functions, such as visual processing.
Such systems could be much faster than computers which take hours or even days to simulate a brain circuit. The chip could ultimately prove to be even faster than the biological process.
World's 'lightest material' unveiled by US engineers
World's 'lightest material' unveiled by US engineers
Engineers say the material is less dense than aerogels and metallic foams
A team of engineers claims to have created the world's lightest material.
The substance is made out of tiny hollow metallic tubes arranged into a micro-lattice - a criss-crossing diagonal pattern with small open spaces between the tubes.
The researchers say the material is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam and has "extraordinarily high energy absorption" properties.
Potential uses include next-generation batteries and shock absorbers.
The research was carried out at the University of California, Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology and is published in the latest edition of Science.
"The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair," said lead author Dr Tobias Schaedler.
Low-densityThe resulting material has a density of 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimetre.
By comparison the density of silica aerogels - the world's lightest solid materials - is only as low as 1.0mg per cubic cm.
The metallic micro-lattices have the edge because they consist of 99.99% air and of 0.01% solids.
The engineers say the material's strength derives from the ordered nature of its lattice design.
By contrast, other ultralight substances, including aerogels and metallic foams, have random cellular structures. This means they are less stiff, strong, energy absorptive or conductive than the bulk of the raw materials that they are made out of.
William Carter, manager of architected materials at HRL, compared the new material to larger low-density structures.
"Modern buildings, exemplified by the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge are incredibly light and weight-efficient by virtue of their architecture," he said.
"We are revolutionising lightweight materials by bringing this concept to the nano and micro scales."
RobustTo study the strength of the metallic micro-lattices the team compressed them until they were half as thick.
After removing the load the substance recovered 98% of its original height and resumed its original shape.
The first time the stress test was carried out and repeated the material became less stiff and strong, but the team says that further compressions made very little difference.
"Materials actually get stronger as the dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale," said team member Lorenzo Valdevit.
"Combine this with the possibility of tailoring the architecture of the micro-lattice and you have a unique cellular material."
The engineers suggest practical uses for the substance include thermal insulation, battery electrodes and products that need to dampen sound, vibration and shock energy.
US university investigates campus pepper spray use
US university investigates campus pepper spray use
An officer appeared to spray the protesters at close range
A US university says it is launching an investigation into the use of pepper spray by riot police trying to clear a demonstration.
Video of the incident at the University of California, Davis, shows officers blasting seated protesters in the face with the chemical at close range.
The university chancellor, who had called in the police, described the pepper spray incident as "chilling".
The protest, on Friday, was in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
It was intended to show solidarity with protesters at another branch of the University of California, in Berkeley, who were hit with batons by police on 9 November.
The footage of the pepper spray incident, which has been circulated widely on the internet, has caused outrage among students.
The protesters are seen sitting in a line on the floor with their arms interlocked, refusing to move.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Davis Faculty Association statementThe violence was unprovoked, disproportional and excessive”
They try to cover their faces as officers in riot gear walk along emptying canisters of the spray onto them.
'Excessive force'Linda Katehi, Chancellor of the University of California, Davis, near Sacramento, says she is forming a task force to investigate what happened.
"The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this," she said in a message on the university's website.
The Davis Faculty Association, which represents academic staff, has condemned the University of California's approach to protests on several different campuses.
"This week, we have seen excessive force used against non-violent protesters," said a statement on the association's website.
"Student, faculty and staff protesters have been pepper-sprayed directly in the eyes and mouth, beaten and shoved by batons, dragged by the arms while handcuffed, and submitted to other forms of excessive force."
There have been 'Occupy' protests on several campuses of the University of California, including in this rally at Berkeley "The violence was unprovoked, disproportional and excessive," it said.
"We demand that the Chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress non-violent political protests."
The Association said Ms Katehi should resign, a call she rejected.
"I do not think that I have violated the policies of the institution," she said.
"I have worked personally very hard to make the campus a safe campus for all."
The Occupy Wall Street protest began in New York more than two months ago against perceived corporate greed and economic inequality.
Similar protests have since sprung up in other places around the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Sea salt health claims 'flawed'
Sea salt health claims 'flawed'
Don't add salt to your food, say health experts
Rock and sea salt is no different from ordinary table salt, despite claims it is natural and more healthy, say consumer groups.
Research for Which? and Consensus Action on Salt and Health found no difference in chemical content between regular salt and costly gourmet brands.
Manufacturers dispute the report saying it does not give the full picture.
Most UK adults eat too much salt, far above the recommended guideline of about a teaspoon a day.
Eating a diet high in salt is linked with high blood pressure, a risk factor for stroke, heart failure and heart disease.
The research analysed the chemical content of several gourmet brands of sea and rock salt, and compared this with ordinary table salt.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
David Lea-Wilson Co-owner of the Anglesey Salt CompanyThis report is not giving a full picture by not going into the other things in either sea salt or the additives in table salt”
They say all contain almost 100% sodium chloride and are equally damaging to health in large quantities.
Celebrity chefs should not be encouraging people to sprinkle sea salt on food, the report claims, as you can get all the salt you need from a balanced diet.
Professor Graham MacGregor of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine is chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH).
He said it was "disgraceful" that chefs still encouraged people to use so much sea and rock salt.
He told the BBC: "The most important message is that you don't need to add a chemical [sodium chloride] to your food.
"Food without salt tastes much better. There's quite enough already present in fruit, vegetables, meat and fish."
Cheaper optionThe report says brands claiming some salts are more natural and contain essential minerals are confusing the public.
An online survey of 1,358 members of Which? found around one in three admitted thinking that rock and sea salts were healthier than table salt.
Which? chief policy adviser Sue Davies said: "Many of us are trying to reduce the amount of salt in our diet, but our research shows that people are needlessly spending more money on 'premium' salt as they often believe it's healthier than traditional table salt.
"Given that most of the salt we eat is already in the food we buy, the cheapest - and healthiest - option would be to stop adding extra salt to food altogether.
"Which? is calling on food manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt in their foods, and we'll be monitoring their progress over the coming months."
David Lea-Wilson, co-owner of the Anglesey Sea Salt Company, which makes Halen Mon Pure White Sea Salt, disputed the research.
He told the BBC: "This report is not giving a full picture by not going into the other things in either sea salt or the additives in table salt."
Romi Alexander of So Natural, which supplies Himalayan Crystal Salt, said: "Table salt is a highly refined, processed white substance that's devoid of nutrients."
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