Ketchikan testing local beaches for PSP toxins – Alaska Public Radio Network

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(Photo: seator.org)

Last summer, Ketchikan Indian Community (KIC) began a phytoplankton and shellfish monitoring program in Ketchikan as part of the Southeast Alaska Tribal Toxins Program. KIC tests samples, and informs the public if dangerous levels of the toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning arefound in local clams and mussels.

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Nicole Forbes is the environmental specialist at KIC in charge of collecting samples. She said its important for people to understand what paralytic shellfish poisoning is and how it is transmitted.

Basically there are tiny, microscopic plants in the ocean called phytoplankton, Forbes said. Most of them are not harmful. In fact, they produce 50 percent of our oxygen. But there are a few harmful species and one of those is Alexandrium and it produces something called saxitoxin. When the shellfish filter-feed, it gets collected in the shellfish, and when people eat it, thats what causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.

PSP toxins cannot be cooked or cleaned out of shellfish, and freezing does not destroy the toxin. Consumption of the toxin can cause paralysis and death. Commercial shellfish is tested and considered safe. The Tribal Toxins Program targets recreational beaches.

Forbes said KIC is testing samples at popular beaches in the Ketchikan area so people will know if clams, mussels, and cockles are safe to harvest. Currently, testing is being done at Settlers Cove and Whipple Creek. Forbes said they plan to add Seaport Beach in Saxman soon. She said the program is in the beginning stages and they are working to identify other sample sites.

Were trying to figure out where most people harvest, so that we can get those results, Fores said. The thing is, you have to get results for each beach. Because you could go two or three miles down and its going to be completely different down there.

Forbes said there are three steps to the collection process which starts with weekly phytoplankton samples.

Which involves me going out there with a phytoplankton net and wading in the water, and grabbing a sample, Forbes said. I bring that back to our local lab, and I put it under the microscope and look for those harmful phytoplankton species that I was talking about. If I see one, thats the first warning sign that we need to get a shellfish sample out as soon as possible, because its possible that saxitoxin is in the shellfish.

Forbes said suspect samples are sent to the Sitka Tribe of Alaskas lab in Sitka. She said the turnaround time for testing is fairly quick.

I send it out on Tuesday, gets there Wednesday, I get results Thursday or Friday, Forbes said.

Forbes said the third step of the process is filtration which involves taking a water sample, filtering it, and then sending the filter to the lab, where phytoplankton species and quantities are identified, along with concentration of toxins.

Tony Gallegos, the cultural and natural resources director for KIC, saidAlexandrium may be present, but not necessarily producing toxins.

The scientific literature hasnt come to clear conclusion on how you know whether theyre going to produce the toxins or not, what triggers that, Gallegos said. Thats still unclear. We can see the algae, but we need to actually do an analysis of those algae to see if they actually have toxins in them.

Forbes said phytoplankton arent as active in the winter because it is cold and dark, but she said no time of the year is safe to harvest without testing. She said they found high levels of toxins in butter clams at Whipple Creek this winter.

Actually butter clams hold onto the toxins longer, and then during the winter the shellfish slow down their filter feeding, so they can actually hold on to those toxins for the whole winter, Forbes said.

Forbes said she collects samples every two weeks, weather permitting, and if samples test positive, they are retested weekly. Results for all Southeast beaches being tested are posted in the data section of the Southeast Alaska Tribal Association Research website http://www.seator.org. Information is also sent to local media.

KIC is interested in identifying other local sites for sampling. If you have suggestions, you can contact Nicole Forbes at KIC. Forbes email is nforbes@kictribe.org. The phone number is 228-9365.

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Ketchikan testing local beaches for PSP toxins - Alaska Public Radio Network

‘Poisonous Parsnips’ Are Washing Up on Beaches in Scotland … – Atlas Obscura

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On Monday, the North Ayrshire Council, which represents some 136,000 people in southwest Scotland, issued a warning on their website: beware, they said, of poisonous parsnips at the local beaches.

The plants in question, known as Hemlock water dropworts, are not actually parsnips, they just look like parsnips. Theyve been spotted on beaches in Ayrshire, on the Scottish coast, around 25 miles from Glasgow.

The council is especially urging pet owners and parents to be vigilant. If consumed, the plants can be deadly for animals, while just touching them can produce severe burns for humans.

The Hemlock water dropwortcan often be found in shallow waters and is most toxic during late winter and early spring time, notes the Ardrossan Coastguard Rescue Team (Search and Rescueits what we do) on Facebook.

The plantshave been known to be poisonous for decades now, if not millennia. In fact, theymight have been responsible for what Homer called the risus sardonicus, or thesardonic grin,a bizarre distortion of ones face. In ancient Sardinia, the plant was fed to older residents who couldno longer care for themselves, Scientific American reported in 2009, thus giving them agrin before they wereceremonially killed.

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'Poisonous Parsnips' Are Washing Up on Beaches in Scotland ... - Atlas Obscura

Organic rice cakes are washing up on Cornwall’s beaches and posing a threat to wildlife – Cornwall Live

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Organic rice cakes are causing havoc for wildlife in Cornwall after a container ship lost 32 pallets of the plastic wrapped snacks.

A small container ship lost four large containers off the coast of Cornwall. One of the containers, which had rice cakes inside, broke, causing hundreds of them to wash up along the north coast.

The rice cakes are all individually wrapped in plastic which is causing concern among conservationists as to the adverse effects the latest pollution could have on wildlife.

Read more: Eden Project includes apprentices in long term future

Local group Surfers Against Sewage has already had a meeting with marine surveyors and now local residents are being called on to join the efforts to clean-up the worst hit beaches.

A Surfers Against Sewage spokesperson said: "A small container ship was hit by bad weather and four containers fell overboard. One contained Ikea furniture, one had power tools, one was filled with cases of wine and one was filled with 32 pallets of rice cakes. That container broke up and the rice cakes started washing ashore almost straight away.

"They have been washing up along the coast from Holywell Bay to Perranporth, with Perranporth being the worst hit beach."

Read more: Bomb squad heading to suspicious device on Maenporth beach near Falmouth - LIVE

The rice cakes belonged to Irish company Bunalun Organics who issued a statement apologising for the incident.

The company also arranged for a surveyor to visit the beach to organise the clean-up.

A spokesperson for Surfers Against Sewage added: "We have met with marine surveyors and we are now coordinating a clean-up, working with Clean Cornwall and Cornish Plastic Pollution Coalition.

"We had reps out over the weekend to start the clear-up. The problem is that each rice cake is individually wrapped in plastic wrappers, which is a big worry. The recent storms are breaking these wrappers up as well which is making it much worse for the wildlife.

"We will be organising volunteer beach cleans and these will be advertised on our website as soon as we have the dates."

Read more: Penzance man left mesmerized and privileged after incredible west Cornwall beach discovery

Kieran Dunne managing director of Bunalun Organics said: "As Managing Director of 'Bunalun Organic' I would like to express how sorry we are for the recent land spill on the beach at Perranporth.

"As an organic company we believe in promoting a healthy environment and in the 19 years we have been in business we have been very fortunate not to encounter an accident of this nature. As you may or may not be aware, one of our containers of 'Bunalun Organic' rice cakes was lost at sea on Friday, due to bad weather conditions, thankfully no persons were injured in the storm and the vessel arrived safetly home.

"We were made aware yesterday morning by the local people in Perranport that our products had washed up on to their beach. I would like to convey my thanks to each and every one of the persons involved in helping to commence with the clean-up and to thank them for responding so quickly.

"We are glad to inform you that a surveyor will be on the scene today and will arrange with the local authorities for a further clean up, to ensure the beach is restored to its former glory. As a company based in Co Kerry in Ireland, we are also surrounded by some beautiful beaches and we are aware of the importance of promoting a safe and environmental place for local people and visitors.

"We are confident that this was a rare incident and all measures will be put in place to try and avoid anything of this nature from happening again. We hope to learn from this situation and that all our shipments become smarter and safer in the future."

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Organic rice cakes are washing up on Cornwall's beaches and posing a threat to wildlife - Cornwall Live

Brunswick to take part in Peaches to Beaches Yard Sale next month – The News (subscription)

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In response to overwhelming support of Brunswicks participation in the Peaches to the Beaches Yard Sale this year, the citys Downtown Development Authority voted in favor of participating in the event this year.

A lot had to do with my new position with the DDA, said Harvest Hale program manager with the Downtown Development Authority. I had the time to find out if it was something we could do. We surveyed the community and over 200 people participated in the survey. There was huge interest, so we decided to bring it back.

The DDA Board agreed Feb. 10, to participate in Peaches to the Beaches and is now running full swing trying to spread the word ahead of the March 10-11 event.

Its been five years since the last time Glynn County was an official participant in the massive yard sale stretching from Perry to Brunswick and put on by Golden Isles Parkway Association.

We eventually gave it off to other people to work with it, and they eventually stopped participating, Hale said of why Brunswick has not been involved recently.

Extending along U.S. Highway 341, Peaches to the Beaches is a large community-wide yard sale event with a wide variety of vendors and concessions in every town along the way. Locally, it will take place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., March 10-11 at Mary Ross Waterfront Park alongside the Elvis Festival.

The earliest set up time for vendors is 6 a.m. that Friday (March 10).

According to Hale, The Downtown Development Authority can only ensure vendor applications until March 3 but can accept them until noon the day before.

The success of this years event will likely determine future participation, Hale said.

I think wed want to continue to participate, she said. It depends on how successful we are and the communitys opinion.

In addition to the endless possibilities of what youll find along the roughly 170-mile sale, Hale said in her opinion, the draw of the yard sale, is that people like to have a good time.

Its very Georgia-focused, and it brings a certain level of love for your town, she added.

According to Hale, the DDA can accept only cash or check to rent space. The basic fee for space is $30, a yard sign is $30 and banners are $190. Availability of yard signs and banners is limited.

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Brunswick to take part in Peaches to Beaches Yard Sale next month - The News (subscription)

East Hampton Considers Annual Renewals For Beach Permits For First Time – 27east.com

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By Michael Wright

East Hampton Town officials are weighing whether the town should require owners of four-wheel-drive vehicles to get new permits for driving on the ocean beaches each year, as a means of getting a handle on how many vehicles may actually be using local beaches in a given year.

The proposal, which will be the subject of a public hearing next month, does not call for any new fees to be attached to the beach driving stickers, only that they be renewed each year.

Nonetheless, some members of the East Hampton Town Trustees have questioned the move and whether it is necessary or advisable.

"I would like to get some information from our enforcement officers, how many violations are they encountering out there?" Trustee Diane McNally asked other Trustees on Monday night. "Why is this coming up now?"

For decades the town has allowed town residents to get a free sticker for the bumper of their 4x4 that gives them the right to ride the beaches for as long as they own the vehicle. In 2000 the town changed the color of the stickers from blue to red, though the old stickers were not invalidated and there was no requirement that a vehicle owner get a new one.

During last year's trial of a lawsuit brought against the town by homeowners in Amagansett over the use of the popular "Truck Beach" area of Napeague by 4x4s, one of the claims that the property owners made in support of their argument that vehicle use had reached unreasonable levels was that there are more than 30,000 vehicles with 4x4 permits in the town. Officials brushed off the statistic in court by noting that certainly most of those vehicles were no longer in existence or the stickers long ago faded away.

Most of the Trustees, seemingly, understood the Town Board's reasoning for making the permits annual.

"They want to understand how many are actually in play here," said Trustee Keith Grimes, who also noted that when a vehicle with a town sticker is sold, someone who is not a town resident could be getting free access to town beaches.

Ms. McNally worried, however, that re-issuing the stickers to everyone entitled to one each year might give new weight to the opponents of beach driving by putting a fine point on the actual number.

"If we start from square one, what is going to be the magical number when the anti-vehicle people say you've issued too many?" she asked, also hinting that the annual re-issuing would eventually lead to fees to help cover the costs of renewals and new stickers each year.

Trustee Tyler Armstrong noted that residents get new dump stickers each year, with very high fees attached, and that getting the beach sticker should be of little inconvenience.

The board relented to Ms. McNally's doubts, agreeing to inquire with the town Marine Patrol about their experiences with permit violations before weighing in on the proposal officially.

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East Hampton Considers Annual Renewals For Beach Permits For First Time - 27east.com

Astronomers catch a supernova just as its big boom begins – Astronomy Magazine

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When massive stars (on the order of ten or more times the mass of our Sun) end their lives, they go out with a bang. In an instant, these stars send out a massive shock wave as type II supernovae, spreading the contents of their interiors hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements that include silicon, oxygen, and iron into the interstellar medium, sprinkling the materials of future stars and solar systems throughout the galaxy.

Supernovae have been observed, both within our galaxy and in other galaxies, for thousands of years, and their results can be seen as nebulae, neutron stars, and black holes. But what is it that actually makes these stars go bang? The answer is: We dont know.

But Ofer Yaron of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and his colleagues have just brought us a little closer to finding that answer. In a paper recently published in the journal Nature Physics, Yaron and his colleagues report their measurements of supernova SN2013fs, which exploded in the nearly galaxy NGC 7610 in 2013. Their results represent some of the earliest post-explosion follow-up observations of a supernova event, including the earliest spectra of a supernova ever, shedding light on the dying stars final days.

Reading the gas

What we do know is that the evolution of a star prior to its explosion likely holds key clues about the processes that precede type II supernova. The stars behavior, such as its growth into a red supergiant and the mass loss it experiences during this phase, affect the results we see when the star does explode. But the red supergiant phase is actually quite short (cosmically speaking; this phase can last between a few hundred thousand to maybe a million years), so we rarely see stars in this part of their life cycle.

Because supernovae are instantaneous and unpredictable, we also rarely catch them right as theyre happening. The chance to see a supernova just as its occurring, rather than days or weeks later, could translate into the data needed to trace back the stars evolution and even understand the instant of the explosion itself.

One of the processes astronomers are looking to trace is the red giants history of mass loss. Mass can be lost through expansion as the star ages, as well as via eruptions of the stars upper atmosphere. This mass loss can cause a shell of circumstellar material that blankets the star. And when the supernova occurs, the way it lights up this material can thus tell astronomers about how the material was lost, highlighting the stars most recent history like the last few rings in a trees trunk.

When the supernova occurs, the shock wave it produces causes a process called photoionization, which strips electrons away from the gas surrounding the star. Shortly thereafter, all these free electrons recombine with the gas atoms of the shell (in a process aptly called recombination), which causes the gas to shine. Studying the resulting spectrum of the gas reveals information about the elements in this gas shell, as well as its density, motions, and the distance of the gas from the star.

As the shock wave moves through the shell surrounding the star, it lights up different features, all of which provide 3-dimensional information about the structure of the cloud. All of this information can be used to reconstruct a picture of the environment around the star just before the supernova occurred.

The key, though, is catching the supernova in its earliest stages, because as the shock wave progresses through the material around the dying star, it quickly distorts it and blows it away, erasing the information there like shaking a cosmic Etch A Sketch.

SN2013fs observations

SN2013fs was first detected in October of 2013 by the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) survey. The event was quickly followed up in multiple wavelengths, including X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and infrared. These follow-up observations include the earliest spectroscopy of a type II supernova ever obtained. The explosion was first identified just three hours after it occurred, and the first spectrum was taken within six hours of the initial event.

The observations are consistent with a shell of material surrounding the star out to a distance of about 1015cm thats a little more than 66 times the Earth-Sun distance. Models indicate that the bulk of this material was ejected within the last few hundred days of the stars life. But because the velocity of the gas cloud around the star could not be directly measured, its still difficult to decouple the effects of a short burst of mass loss right before the supernova event from longer-term, slower mass loss due to a stellar wind over hundreds of years.

Fortunately, surveys such as the one that identified SN2013fs are on the rise, and the better and more comprehensive these surveys become, the more likely it is that additional young supernova events will receive the follow-up necessary to begin piecing together the physics that lead to these cataclysmic events in the first place.

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Another Hubble repair mission could be on the way – Astronomy Magazine

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The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, has provided a wellspring of information about our universe over the last 27 years. Some of those discoveries required five upgrades to the system.

And now, according to a Wall Street Journal report, there could be a sixth. According to the report, the servicing would provide an insurance policy in case the James Webb Space Telescope, which will perch itself far from low-Earth orbit (and even beyond the Moon) at a stable point called L2.

With the space shuttle program ending in 2009, there isnt a vehicle to complete the mission. Yet. But Sierra Nevada, a private spaceflight company, has worked for years on a miniature space shuttle called the Dream Chaser, based on older designs generated in the early days of NASA. Right now, the craft is only cleared for automated flights and may resupply the ISS as soon as 2019. The project would require a human-piloted variant relying on infrastructure that already exists in the ships design.

According to the WSJ report, the possibility is currently in the (very) preliminary stages. It would represent a public-private venture that would drive down federal government costs by teaming up with private spaceflight companies, a model that is expected to be utilized in the administration in general.

Along with the Webb telescope, NASA has two telescopes based on modified versions of the Hubble design donated by the National Reconnaissance Office. One such mission, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, will be utilized as an exoplanet and dark matter hunter to be launched in the mid-2020s. Plans for the other telescope have not yet been announced.

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Another Hubble repair mission could be on the way - Astronomy Magazine

Astronomy team finds more than 100 exoplanet candidates – Space Daily

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An international team of astronomers has released the largest ever compilation of exoplanet-detecting observations made using a technique called the radial velocity method. By making the data public, the team is offering unprecedented access to one of the best exoplanet searches in the world.

The data were gathered as part of a two-decade planet-hunting program using a spectrometer called HIRES, built by UC Santa Cruz astronomer Steven Vogt and mounted on the 10-meter Keck-I telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

"HIRES was not specifically optimized to do this type of exoplanet detective work, but has turned out to be a workhorse instrument of the field," said Vogt, a professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics. "I am very happy to contribute to science that is fundamentally changing how we view ourselves in the universe."

The data compilation, available on the team's web site, includes almost 61,000 individual measurements made on more than 1,600 stars. An initial analysis of the data revealed more than 100 potential exoplanets, including one orbiting the fourth-closest star to our own solar system. The researchers presented their findings in a paper accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal and available online.

"This paper and data release represents a good chunk of my life work," said lead author Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the researchers who helped jumpstart the field of exoplanet science.

Wobbly stars The radial velocity method is one of the most successful techniques for finding and confirming planets. It takes advantage of the fact that, in addition to a planet being influenced by the gravity of the star it orbits, the planet's gravity also affects the star. Astronomers are able to use sophisticated tools to detect the tiny wobble the planet induces as its gravity tugs on the star.

As the HIRES survey moves into its third decade, the team members decided it was time to clean house. With so much data at hand and a limited amount of time, they recognized that more exoplanets would be found by sharing their catalog with the exoplanet community.

Before giving everyone the keys to their exoplanet-finder, however, the team took it out for a spin themselves. Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire led a sophisticated statistical analysis of the large data set to tease out the periodic signals most likely to be planets.

"We were very conservative in this paper about what counts as an exoplanet candidate and what does not," Tuomi explained, "and even with our stringent criteria, we found over 100 new likely planet candidates."

One of these probable planets is around a star called GJ 411, also known as Lalande 21185. It is the fourth-closest star to our own sun and has only about 40 percent of the sun's mass. The planet has a very short orbital period of just under 10 days, so it is no Earth-twin. However, GJ 411b continues a trend that has been seen in the overall population of detected exoplanets: The smallest planets are found around the smallest stars.

Open source An open-source software package for analyzing exoplanet data (Systemic Console) was developed at UC Santa Cruz by team member Greg Laughlin and his students, primarily Stefano Meschiari.

"One of our key goals in this paper is to democratize the search for planets," explained Laughlin, now at Yale University. "Anyone can download the velocities published on our website and use the open-source Systemic software package and try fitting planets from the data."

The team is hoping their decision will lead to a flurry of new science as astronomers around the globe combine the HIRES data with their own existing observations or mount new observing campaigns to follow up on potential signals. The catalog release is part of a growing trend in exoplanet science to broaden the audience and discovery space, which has emerged in part to handle the follow-up of planets discovered by NASA's Kepler and K2 missions.

"I think this paper sets a precedent for how the community can collaborate on exoplanet detection and follow-up, moving forward," said team member Johanna Teske of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

"With NASA's TESS mission on the horizon, which is expected to detect 1,000-plus planets orbiting bright, nearby stars, exoplanet scientists will soon have a whole new pool of planets to follow up."

"The best way to advance the field and further our understanding of what these planets are made out of is to harness the abilities of a variety of precision radial velocity instruments and deploy them in concert. But that will require some big teams to break from tradition and start leading serious cooperative efforts," added team member Jennifer Burt, who earned her Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz last year and is now at MIT.

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Astronomy team finds more than 100 exoplanet candidates - Space Daily

Elon Musk Says We Must Become Cyborgs To Interface With Artificial Intelligence – CleanTechnica

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February 13th, 2017 by Steve Hanley

Originally published on Gas2.

Elon Musk was in Dubai on February 13th to officially announce that Tesla would soon open a showroom there and is working to install 5 new Superchargers in the United Arab Emirates. Musk being Musk, he didnt fly halfway around the world just to cut a ceremonial ribbon. He also addressed theWorld Government Summit in Dubai while he was there. Here is some of what he had to say.

Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence, Musk told his audience. Its mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.

Computers can communicate at a trillion bits per second. Humans, on the other hand, who do most of their communicating by typing on various digital devices with their fingers, are limited to a woeful 10 bits per second. As artificial intelligence technology improves, as some point humans will become irrelevant. Thats why they must learn to merge with machines, according to Musk.Some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem, Musk explained.

Musk has spoken often on his deep seated fear of deep artificial intelligence. That is intelligence that goes far beyond systems that can make cars drive themselves all the way to what he callsartificial general intelligence. He describes it as smarter than the smartest human on earth and calls it a dangerous situation.The technology he proposes would create a new layer in the human brain that could access information quickly and tap into artificial intelligence.

The most near term impact from a technology standpoint is autonomous cars That is going to happen much faster than people realize and its going to be a great convenience, Musk said. He claims that within 20 years, up to 15% of the worlds workforce will be rendered redundant by artificial intelligence. There are many people whose jobs are to drive. In fact I think it might be the single largest employer of people driving in various forms. So we need to figure out new roles for what do those people do, but it will be very disruptive and very quick.

Last November, Musk told CNBC that governments will be forced to provide a universal basic income when machines start doing most jobs. Better pray Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are not still in charge of Congress when that happens.

Source: CNBC Photo credit: YouTube

Reprinted with permission

Buy a cool T-shirt or mug in the CleanTechnica store! Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech daily newsletter or weekly newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: artificial intelligence, basic living wage, cyborg, Musk at World Government Summit in Dubai

Steve Hanley writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island. You can follow him onGoogle +and onTwitter.

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Elon Musk Says We Must Become Cyborgs To Interface With Artificial Intelligence - CleanTechnica

Artificial Intelligence To Reveal The Biggest Secret In Oil – OilPrice.com

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The EIA is, and will continue to be, the gold standard for reporting U.S. oil inventories, and the administrations weekly reports have the power to immediately swing crude oil prices depending on builds or draws in oil stocks. But while the U.S. is a transparently reporting country, other nations are not revealing oil stocks data, or are rarely reportingat bestopaque figures in which the markets have little faith.

No one really knows how much oil the countries around the world are storing, creating uncertainty in the supply side of the oil markets.

But one of the hottest new technologies may shed more light on oil storage around the globe, especially in countries that are keeping inventory figures to themselves. The tech is artificial intelligence (AI) - and an unlikely collocation to put in a sentence with oil and inventories.

Yet, U.S. geospatial analytics company Orbital Insight has been using a form of AI - convolutional neural networks (CNN) to analyze satellite images and identify and quantify crude oil storage tanks. The tanks have floating roofs, so the volume of oil is visible. Orbital Insight is using shadow-detection technology and calculates how full a storage tank is by the size of the crescent-shaped shadow on the tank roof.

That approach to estimating oil storage capacity and volumes may reveal how much oil closed economies have or plan to have. One such nation is China, a huge consumer of oil and oil productsa closed economy not eager to share its reserves and storage figures with the world. But Chinas storage has the potential to sway global oil markets.

Last year, Orbital Insight said that it had found that there were 2,100 commercial and strategic petroleum reserve tanks across China, with the capacity to store 900 million barrels of oil as of the end of 2014. Thats four times more than the 500 tanks reported in the industry-standard database of tank farms at TankTerminals.com. Orbital Insights estimates showed that China had around 600 million barrels of oil supply on its territory as of May 2016and thats not counting underground storage. Related:Is $60 Oil Within Reach?

Orbital Insight has tracked U.S. and China oil storage so far and is currently analyzing this data for the world. Its plans are to launch oil storage estimates for countries like Russia, Brazil, India, Venezuela, Angola, Nigeria, and Iran.

If AI analyses of satellite images can reveal how many oil storage tanks these countries have, and how full they are - above ground at least they could shed more light on oil supplies around the world.

For now, tracking and reporting crude oil supply, storage, and flows is being done (if at all) in a variety of ways depending on the country: some estimate supply by calculating domestic consumption and tracking tankers, others just give some figures without revealing details, and a third group of nations report supply by collecting and aggregating data from companies.

These are also prone to misinformation and are sometimes not retroactively reviewed in case some companies did not report in the survey, Michael D. Cohen, an analyst at Barclays, has recently told Rigzone.

Although satellite technology can tell you a lot, but not everything - as Sandy Fielden, director of research for commodities and energy at Morningstar, told Rigzone AI may have the power to increase, even if just a little bit, transparency in oil storage and inventories reporting. Because as sensitive as the oil industry is, there will always be countries that will not be sharing transparent and independent oil inventory figures.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Artificial Intelligence To Reveal The Biggest Secret In Oil - OilPrice.com

Ford snaps up artificial-intelligence startup Argo – SiliconBeat

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Ford snaps up artificial-intelligence startup Argo
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We founded Argo AI to tackle one of the most challenging applications in computer science, robotics and artificial intelligence self-driving vehicles, the company wrote. While technology exists today to augment the human driver and automate the ...
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Ford snaps up artificial-intelligence startup Argo - SiliconBeat

Artificial Intelligence Is Not a ThreatYet – Scientific American

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In 2014 SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted: Worth reading Superintelligence by Bostrom. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes. That same year University of Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking told the BBC: The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also cautioned: I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence.

How the AI apocalypse might unfold was outlined by computer scientist Eliezer Yudkowsky in a paper in the 2008 book Global Catastrophic Risks: How likely is it that AI will cross the entire vast gap from amoeba to village idiot, and then stop at the level of human genius? His answer: It would be physically possible to build a brain that computed a million times as fast as a human brain.... If a human mind were thus accelerated, a subjective year of thinking would be accomplished for every 31 physical seconds in the outside world, and a millennium would fly by in eight-and-a-half hours. Yudkowsky thinks that if we don't get on top of this now it will be too late: The AI runs on a different timescale than you do; by the time your neurons finish thinking the words I should do something you have already lost.

The paradigmatic example is University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's thought experiment of the so-called paperclip maximizer presented in his Superintelligence book: An AI is designed to make paperclips, and after running through its initial supply of raw materials, it utilizes any available atoms that happen to be within its reach, including humans. As he described in a 2003 paper, from there it starts transforming first all of earth and then increasing portions of space into paperclip manufacturing facilities. Before long, the entire universe is made up of paperclips and paperclip makers.

I'm skeptical. First, all such doomsday scenarios involve a long sequence of if-then contingencies, a failure of which at any point would negate the apocalypse. University of West England Bristol professor of electrical engineering Alan Winfield put it this way in a 2014 article: If we succeed in building human equivalent AI and if that AI acquires a full understanding of how it works, and if it then succeeds in improving itself to produce super-intelligent AI, and if that super-AI, accidentally or maliciously, starts to consume resources, and if we fail to pull the plug, then, yes, we may well have a problem. The risk, while not impossible, is improbable.

Second, the development of AI has been much slower than predicted, allowing time to build in checks at each stage. As Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said in response to Musk and Hawking: Don't you think humans would notice this happening? And don't you think humans would then go about turning these computers off? Google's own DeepMind has developed the concept of an AI off switch, playfully described as a big red button to be pushed in the event of an attempted AI takeover. As Baidu vice president Andrew Ng put it (in a jab at Musk), it would be like worrying about overpopulation on Mars when we have not even set foot on the planet yet.

Third, AI doomsday scenarios are often predicated on a false analogy between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence. As Harvard University experimental psychologist Steven Pinker elucidated in his answer to the 2015 Edge.org Annual Question What Do You Think about Machines That Think?: AI dystopias project a parochial alpha-male psychology onto the concept of intelligence. They assume that superhumanly intelligent robots would develop goals like deposing their masters or taking over the world. It is equally possible, Pinker suggests, that artificial intelligence will naturally develop along female lines: fully capable of solving problems, but with no desire to annihilate innocents or dominate the civilization.

Fourth, the implication that computers will want to do something (like convert the world into paperclips) means AI has emotions, but as science writer Michael Chorost notes, the minute an A.I. wants anything, it will live in a universe with rewards and punishmentsincluding punishments from us for behaving badly.

Given the zero percent historical success rate of apocalyptic predictions, coupled with the incrementally gradual development of AI over the decades, we have plenty of time to build in fail-safe systems to prevent any such AI apocalypse.

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Artificial Intelligence Is Not a ThreatYet - Scientific American

Google’s Artificial Intelligence System – TechMalak (blog)

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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is amuch-discussed topic in and outside of the tech community these days. In the coming years, we could likely see Artificial Intelligence being used in almost every horizon right from occupying the spaces of your home to large and gigantic industrial applications.

So to explain in laymans terms, the A.I of Machine Learning technology aims at making self-learning robots that in future can exhibit human-likecapabilities and perform similar tasks.

Many tech giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Tesla and others have already started working in this segment. However, there are some people expressing concern about developing AI because of the potential threat to the existence of humans.

Stephen Hawking has previously said that AI will either bethe best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity.

Similarly, Tesla boss and CEO Elon Musk, while talking about AI, saidAI systems today have impressive but narrow capabilities.It seems that well keep whittling away at their constraints, and in the extreme case, they will reach human performance on virtually every intellectual task. Its hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and its equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly.

Some interesting results have recently come out of the tests performed with Googles DeepMind AI system. In this test, the Google AI demonstrated an ability of self-learning from its own memory.

The team at DeepMind AI ran about 40 million tests for a fruit gathering computer game wherein two DeepMind agents have to compete to gather the maximum number of virtual Apples.

Initially, with enough Apples to gather, things went well between the two agents. But as soon as the number of available apples began to reduce, the two agents became extremely aggressive to the point of using laser beams to defeat each other down to gather more Apples.

Take a look at the below video:

Studying this behavioral pattern, the researchers at Google said that DeepMind feels that it is about to lose, and hence it turns aggressive to come out in the top spot.

The algorithm was designed like if one agent tags the opponent with a laser beam, it would leave the opponent out of the game for some time. Meaning the first one could then gather more Apples and ultimately win.

Rhett Jones from Gizmodo, tells that for simpler algorithms DeepMind used smaller agents and demonstrated peaceful co-existence among themselves.

However, for complex networks, the agents turned competitive and aggressive, each willing to defeat the other one.

However, the Google team performed another test with three AI agents in a video game called Wolfpack. Two of the three agents are wolves while the third is a prey.

Unlike the aggressive behavior inGathering,the two wolf agents exhibited a cooperative behavior. This is because the algorithm would reward both the wolf agents with extra points once they come near the prey, regardless of who takes away the prey.

In their paper, the Google team writes The idea is that the prey is dangerous a lone wolf can overcome it, but is at risk of losing the carcasses to scavengers.However, when the two wolves capture the prey together, they can better protect the carcass from scavengers, and hence receive a higher reward.

We are just in the nascent stage of development for Artificial Intelligence, and these results successfully exhibit and early behavior of humanness filled with competitive nature.

This technology is likely to have a lot of merits and make multiple tasks absolutely easy for humans. But we believe that developers should take every care in their creations.

For all of you who are interested in knowing more about it and analyze the data of these experiments, you can have a look at the official DeepMind blog.

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Google's Artificial Intelligence System - TechMalak (blog)

Hopes remain for revival of peace talks – Manila Bulletin

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Published February 14, 2017, 12:05 AM

The call of over a hundred congressmen for the revival of the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) representing the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New Peoples Army (NPA) reflects a widespread feeling that, with so much already accomplished in the talks, it would be unfortunate if they are now abandoned.

The call to revive the talks was made last Thursday by some 100 lawmakers represented by the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives, after the collapse of the peace talks in Rome, Italy. Frustrated by President Dutertes refusal to release immediately some 400 political detainees, the NDF-CPP-NPA panel had announced that the NPA commanders in the field were now free to determine if they would still follow their unilateral ceasefire. President Duterte answered with his own announcement cancelling the governments own ceasefire.

The Makabayan bloc in the House includes lawmakers of party-list organizations Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Anakpawis, and Kabataan. The bloc lamented the breakdown of the talks when so much progress, it said, has already been accomplished.

The negotiating panels had held three sessions the first two in Oslo, Norway, with the support of the Norwegian government, and the latest in Rome, Italy. The two sides had reached agreement on several issues under Socio-Economic Reforms and Political-Constitutional Reforms. They were to take up proposals for a binding bilateral ceasefire to replace their separate unilateral ceasefires at their next meeting on February 22-25 in Utrecht, Switzerland.

In its resolution urging a revival of the talks, Makabayan stressed that the talks under the Duterte administration had gone so much farther than in previous administrations. In response to the Presidents statement that the peace talks would resume if there is a compelling reason that will benefit the nation, Makabayan said a just and lasting peace is a compelling reason to continue the talks.

The two sides will have to step back from their positions on the release of detained political prisoners and reach some middle ground. They also need to talk it out on the NPA complaint that government soldiers are helping in civic community programs in areas they claim to be under their authority.

These are minor issues compared to the solid and basic socio-economic and political-constitutional matters that they have already discussed. Even without declared ceasefires, the two sides should exert all possible efforts to avoid any encounter. In due time, the proper atmosphere for talks should come about and the peace efforts can resume.

Tags: Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Hopes remain for revival of peace talks, lawmakers, Manila Bulletin, mb.com.ph, National Democratic Front (NDF), New Peoples Army (NPA)

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Hopes remain for revival of peace talks - Manila Bulletin

Lobster crash erodes West Coast way of life – GroundUp

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Holiday homes overlook the Sandy Point Harbour. All photos: Craig Dodds

The view from the Sandy Point harbour wall towards the shore at St Helena Bay tells the little fishing towns story in a glance.

A scattering of derelict buildings brackets the harbour on either side. Their vacant window frames are testimony to an age that is all but gone, whenthe ocean sustained generations of fisherfolk.

Today there is only a desultory coming and going of vessels in search of heavily depleted fish stocks on the West Coast.

Across the road from the harbour, holiday homes have sprouted on the slopes above the town a phenomenon that is replicated down the coast in villages like Paternoster and Langebaan, where quaint cottages that once belonged to fishing families now host visitors from around the world in a thriving tourist industry.

For better or worse, change is rippling up the coast as the disruption of the marine ecosystem spills over on dry land.

But a collapse in the population of the iconic West Coast rock lobster, whose tender flesh draws foreigners in droves during the season, may finally sever the areas ties to its fishing past, driving its people into new forms of employment and leaving only a few commercial outfits behind.

The Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) has listed the species as endangered and called for the fishery to be closed after Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana reneged on a recovery plan for kreef that had been thrashed out with scientists in his department and stakeholders in the fishery by announcing an unchanged total allowable catch for the 2016/17 season.

The situation is so dire that even small-scale and commercial fishers have come out in support of SASSI, with a group of big suppliers under the aegis of the Responsible Fisheries Alliance warning last week that unless the government took heed of scientific evidence and significantly reduced the total allowable catch, the sustainability of the fishery would be under threat.

The alliance, which includes the Oceana Group, Viking, Sea Harvest, I&J and Pioneer, said steps in foreign markets like the US South Africas biggest customer for frozen lobster - to ban imports of seafood from potentially illicit sources could damage trade in the sector.

The lobster fishery was one of the most valuable, with an annual turnover of R530 million, supporting 4,100 direct jobs and providing livelihoods and food security for many more in the small-scale sector, the alliance said.

SASSI estimates from an analysis of catch data and extrapolations of poaching levels, among others, that the kreef population now stands at just two percent of historical levels, warning that it could vanish within five years.

This view is supported by anecdotal evidence.

Outside the Visko Seeprodukte building in the Sandy Point Harbour, Heinrich Sias, Zander Papier, Bryan Adams, Warren Fortuin and Connery Januarie while away their downtime by sprucing up the companys Number 7 vessel.

They struggle to find lobster these days, they say, sometimes forcing them to remain at sea for days at a time before they have caught enough to justify the trip. They agree in unison that the cause of the problem is rampant poaching. But they blame the fisheries departments glacial processes in issuing permits and inadequate quotas for those who do get a licence for the proliferation of poaching. As a result, some fishers double as poachers by night, they say.

Johannes Erasmus, a fisherman for more than 50 years, has retired now, but can still recall the days when he could bring in 400kg of lobster from one outing. He says this has changed dramatically in the past five years and now the boats seldom catch their fill in one day. His wife, Lenie, says the children of St Helena today are unlikely to become fishers, as they drift towards the city and better job prospects. Just one of their four sons has followed in his fathers footsteps, but Erasmus doesnt mourn the passing of the old ways. Being a fisherman is not a good life. Today theres plenty and tomorrow theres nothing, he says.

A little down the coast, the restaurants of Paternoster have taken lobster off the menu in the height of the tourist season following SASSIs call, and are paying the price. Behind the till at the Voorstrandt eatery, within walking distance for a kreef from the shoreline, Tanzi-Anne Stander says foreign visitors especially are furious when they discover there is no lobster to be had. If somebody comes to the Western Cape they will spend one or two days in Paternoster to experience the crayfish, but now, why bother? Every bit of seafood we sell they can get in Cape Town, she says.

The effect of would-be diners walking out because of the lack of kreef has made about a 15% dent in her turnover, she estimates. She is angry that illegally caught lobster is openly traded on the streets of Paternoster, undermining the efforts of the restaurants to protect the stocks. But, if people cant catch and sell kreef they have no income, she adds, and some will turn to petty crime to survive. The only real solution would be to halt or drastically curtail the export business, where most of the commercially harvested lobster is destined, Stander says.

Pavitray Pillay, manager of the SASSI programme for WWF South Africa, says the ministers decision to reject the recovery plan and implement an unchanged total allowable catch came like a bolt from the blue.

The SASSI team and Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) scientists had worked together on the data and the plan, which included reducing the total allowable catch, issuing long-term fishing rights, ensuring lobster could be traced to its source to curtail poaching and shortening the season, among others.

We were ready to implement this plan and SASSI was happy, wed done a lot of legwork, and then all of a sudden the minister announced an unchanged total allowable catch, unchanged fishing effort, no real implementation around traceability, nothing to do with long-term fishing rights, and he announced it at the end of October, beginning November, roughly as the recreational season was opening, with no consultation with his own scientists, no consultation with outside stakeholders, no consultation with the fishing community, literally just, boom, Pillay says. Its unusual for small-scale fishers to back an environmental NGO, seemingly against their own interests, in a proposal to suspend fishing, she adds. They said, no, we know the problem, we see the problem.

Pedro Garcia, a fisherman and chairman of the SA United Fishers Front, says its undeniable the lobster population has drastically declined over the past three years. We used to come in with anything from 150 to 200kg a day, he says. Now when we go out, we are lucky if we come in with 50kg.

This has set off a destructive spiral in which boat operators struggle to recover the costs of going to sea and turn to poaching as a means of supplementing their income. They tail their catch breaking off the creaturestail to make it easier to conceal, but the practice means they are wiping out immature lobster that would have formed the basis of the following years catch.

The result is that the catch declines every year, in turn driving fishers to more desperate efforts. From a compassionate point of view, you know these guys are out there, you know they need to meet their operational expenses, Garcia says. This is the problem with the small-scale (fishers), we criminalise our people continually because they are soft targets, but were not realising the huge socioeconomic impact if they dont get sufficient resources to harvest.

Support for the suspension of the fishery, which the front made on condition that fishers were compensated in full for the catch they would forego, has not been universal. In fact, says Garcia, the majority of his members dont support the call and some communities have been up in arms, accusing him of taking the decision unilaterally. But it was fully canvassed via the fronts WhatsApp chat groups, he says. Many fishers opposed to the suspension are also poachers who would lose if no lobster could be sold, Garcia adds.

Pillay says while SASSI understands the impact on peoples livelihoods of a total shutdown, this is the only way to halt the poaching and allow kreef stocks to recover. Because the department has done nothing about ensuring traceability of the sold product, illegal stocks can enter the formal value chain undetected. If no kreef was allowed to be sold, this would end.

The commercials agree with us, because I think theyre also noticing that we have no handle on the traceability issue, how its getting into the market, Pillay says. Its a tough one to police, Ill give DAFF that, because its so easily exploitable. You dont need heavy equipment, you dont even need a boat. And its an extensive coastline where you can catch the species, you can catch it at night or (during) the day.

At the same time, we dont have enough capacity, DAFF hasnt done anything about the capacity issue, and its not like there arent people in this country who need employment. Thats something DAFF really has to get right because its not just for rock lobster, its probably why abalone went the way it did. Otherwise I dont know where were going to go, Pillay says.

Asked why the recovery plan that had been agreed to had notbeen implemented, Zokwanas spokeswoman, Bomikazi Molapo, said that setting total allowable catches must balance scientific requirements with the broader socio-economic obligations faced by fishers.

Molaposaid SASSIs decision to red-list lobster and call for the suspension of the fishery was extremely unfortunate and would have serious consequences for small-scale fishing communities, while leaving large commercial operators unaffected. The decision had been taken without consulting the department, she said.

Molapo said the decline in lobster biomass was not due to legitimate harvesting by rights holders, but was because of poaching and illegal trade. The total allowable catch was set at sustainable levels. The department believes that instead of prejudicing and punishing legal operators while poachers continue to take lobster with little consequence, our focus must be on eradicating illegal fishing, Molapo said. Cutting the catch by 34 percent, as proposed by WWF, would have catastrophic consequences for communities, without helping lobster recovery.

She said the 2007 suspension of the abalone fishery had shown that suspension for the sake of suspension does not work. In 2008, while the abalone fishery was suspended, we recorded some of the highest levels of poaching ever. Conversely, the departments concerted efforts at protecting line fish species which were declared in 2000 to be in a state of environmental crisis the equivalent of the current state of lobsters by focussing on effective fisheries management, close collaboration with fishers and their representative bodies and enforcement of fishery management and recovery rules has yielded substantial recovery of our line fish stocks as has been independently documented over the past three years.

Suspension of the fishery in our opinion would result in greater ecological, social and economic harm than good, Molapo said.

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Lobster crash erodes West Coast way of life - GroundUp

Anti-Trump Swedish Government Accused of Hypocrisy for Kowtowing to Iran – Heat Street

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The government of Sweden has been accused of hypocrisy for attacking Donald Trumps stance on womens rights but rolling over for the oppressive regime in Iran.

Female ministers in Sweden who claim to run a feminist government gloried in viral fame earlier this month for Trump over his executive order restricting funds to pro-abortion groups.

After Trump was slammed for signing the order surrounded by men, Swedish officials staged an all-women photo as a smug rebuke to the White House.

However, just weeks later they have been accused of double standards for sucking up to Iran when they demanded government visitors wear the hijab a symbol of female oppression during a trade visit.

Swedish trade minister Ann Linde was photographed in a veil in Tehran, alongside female officials and journalists, who all had to do the same thanks to Irans Islamic modesty laws.

Activists in the country said the incident shows that Sweden is happy to put economic advantage ahead of womens rights when it suits them.

The My Stealthy Freedom campaign which records how Iranian women are arrested and beaten upby police for wearing the wrong clothes released a statement condemning the Swedish authorities:

The criticism was taken up by Swedish politicians, who attacked their government for abandoning its principles.

Amineh Kakabaveh, a Swedish MP of Iranian descent, said: Iranian women are fighting to not wear the veil. Then the feminist government representatives go and put on the veil instead taking a stand.

An article by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladetreported that the dress of Swedish female visitors was closely policed when they came on the visit.

It said: During the visit President Hassan Rouhanis staff went round the female journalists and ensured that they wore a tightly concealing shawl.

Even women from the Swedish government received instructions.

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Anti-Trump Swedish Government Accused of Hypocrisy for Kowtowing to Iran - Heat Street

Anti-Castro Cuban-American lawmakers see a champion in Trump – The Daily Progress

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MIAMI (AP) Cuban-American lawmakers from Florida helped shape U.S. relations with the island for years until they found themselves on the outside during a historic thaw in relations.

But they could be getting the upper hand on Cuba policy again under President Donald Trump with a possible return to an earlier, more hard-line U.S. stance toward relations with Cuba's government.

"We have had more conversations with high-level Trump officials than we had in eight years of the Obama administration," said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, one of a handful of Republican members of Congress from Florida who long had an outsized role on U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba.

What Diaz-Balart and other Cuban-American lawmakers hope is that their renewed access to the U.S. government under Trump's leadership will help them reverse the steps taken by President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro to normalize relations between the two countries.

"Everything is going to be very different," predicted Rep. Carlos Curbelo, another Miami-area Republican who said he felt shut out under Obama.

The congressional delegation from South Florida, home to the largest number of Cuban-Americans in the nation, was long able to help craft U.S. policy toward the island. They had hoped to continue isolating the Castro government and both Democrat and Republican politicians went along, at least in part.

Diaz-Balart recalled that under President George W. Bush he and other Cuban-Americans persuaded the administration to grant travel visas and asylum to Cuban doctors working overseas, helping drive a brain drain from the island.

"When something came up, we could call and they responded to us immediately," he said.

But that changed under Obama, who Diaz-Balart said refused to meet with him as the administration used executive orders to lift some restrictions on travel, trade and investment and ended the so-called "wet-foot, dry foot" policy that allowed Cubans to stay and apply for legal residency if they reached U.S. soil.

Diaz-Balart and other Cuban-American lawmakers want U.S. policy to return to where things were before December 2014, citing what he says is the Castro government's "brutal oppression." Curbelo agrees about the return to earlier policies but does not oppose the easing of restrictions on travel that allow Cuban-Americans to more easily visit family back home.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, another Florida delegation member, declined to speak to The Associated Press but recently forwarded a letter to the Trump administration calling for a policy focused on "freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights" that enforces sanctions written into U.S. law. Sen. Marco Rubio, who also declined an interview request, has criticized what he calls Obama's "failed Cuba policy," and recently said he expected Trump would reverse the previous administration's order halting the asylum program for doctors.

During the presidential campaign, Trump was critical of the opening with the Castro government and said Obama wasn't paying enough attention to human rights on the island. He promised to re-evaluate the agreements with Cuba and cancel those he doesn't believe serve U.S. interests. He named several anti-Castro Cuban-Americans to his transition team, but has not yet said publicly whether he intends to reverse specific policies of his predecessor.

Some supporters of the opening with Cuba see reason for optimism. James Williams, head of Engage Cuba, a corporate-backed bipartisan group that supports improving ties to the island, said Trump may not want to reverse what he sees as the "positive progress" of the last three years.

"We have seen more positive progress in Cuba over the last two years than the last 55 years combined," said Williams, adding that a thorough review of current policy should show the Trump administration the advantages of moving toward normalization.

Diaz-Balart and Curbelo said the meetings they and others have had with officials from the new administration, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's confirmation hearings, have given them hope that Obama's executive orders restoring relations with Cuba would be reversed. "Without a doubt, the days of those orders are numbered," Diaz-Balart said.

Even though Ros-Lehtinen and Curbelo did not endorse Trump, some believe they, like Diaz-Balart and Curbelo, will have significant influence on the new administration.

"They are going to be the guides of the policy toward Cuba," said Sebastian Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

Frank Mora, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere under Obama, agreed: "Trump is going to go back to handing the foreign policy of the U.S. toward Cuba to the Cuban-American legislators."

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Anti-Castro Cuban-American lawmakers see a champion in Trump - The Daily Progress

Do we have a legitimate government? – Altoona Mirror

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Feb 13, 2017

Prior to last years election, supporters of Hillary Clinton worried that Donald Trump and his supporters might not accept Hillary Clintons victory as legitimate. It never occurred to them that the shoe might soon be on the other foot. Shortly after it became apparent that there would be no Clinton victory party, many of her supporters instantly switched gears and began to question the legitimacy of Trumps victory.

No matter how much it angers some people, though, Donald Trump is the duly elected President of the United States. Still, there is a much more fundamental question about the legitimacy of the government he leads. Its has nothing to do with who won the election.

Over the past four decades, American government has been completely transformed by the growth of the Regulatory State. Most governing decisions are now made by distant bureaucrats with little input from Congress. Courts rarely provide any checks and balances giving executive branch officials free reign to interpret laws according to their own preferences and agendas.

An unaccountable government, insulated from the public and their elected representatives, threatens the very legitimacy of a democratic political system, according to Yale Universitys Jonathan G.S. Koppell. The Regulatory State is not merely unconstitutional; it is anti-constitutional, adds Boston University Law Professor Gary Lawson. The Constitution was designed specifically to prevent the emergence of [these] kinds of institutions.

By placing its faith in unaccountable government officials to pick winners and losers, the Regulatory State is a rejection of the core American values of freedom, equality and self-governance. This hostile takeover of Americas government did not happen by accident or misunderstanding. Its architects did not misunderstand the Constitution, explains Lawson. They understood it perfectly well. They just didnt like it.

Lacking Constitutional authority, the Regulatory State might conceivably claim legitimacy by appealing to the higher values expressed in the Declaration of Independence. But that great document says clearly that governments can derive just authority only from the consent of the governed.

The Regulatory State fails on that front as well. During the entire four decades of its existence, there has never been a time when a majority of Americans trusted the federal government (other than a brief blip immediately following 9/11). The longer that people have lived under the regulatory regime, the less they support it. Over the past decade, the number trusting the federal government to do the right thing most of the time has fallen to 25 percent or less.

The Regulatory State, therefore, can claim no legitimacy from either the Constitution or the Declaration. Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office and who controls Congress, it is an illegitimate form of government. It gives far too much power to the president, a fact that instills tremendous fear of oppression among those who support the losing candidate.

Its time to re-establish a legitimate government in America and restore our national commitment to freedom, equality, and self-governance. That means forcing the bureaucracy to live within our Constitutional system of checks and balances. Its the only way to ensure a bright future for our nation. Its also the only way to ensure that, regardless of who wins an election, all Americans can enjoy the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

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Do we have a legitimate government? - Altoona Mirror

Duterte militarises the war on drugs in the Philippines – World Socialist Web Site

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By Dante Pastrana 13 February 2017

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this month ordered the suspension of police involvement in his brutal war on drugs that has left thousands dead throughout the country. All units of the Anti-Illegal Drug Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were ordered dissolved and the PNPs Operation Tokhang (Knock and Plead), a campaign of house visits and intimidation of those accused of illegal drug activity, was put on hold.

The pullback of the police by no means indicates the end of Dutertes war. It portends an even greater escalation. Vowing to continue the offensive until the end of his term, Duterte called on the military to take the front line. This will widen and deepen the violence being inflicted on the working class and the poor.

Duterte is not only militarising his war on the poor, conducted on the pretext of the anti-drug crusade. He has also moved to resurrect the hated Philippine Constabulary, the military apparatus of domestic repression, created by the United States during its colonial rule in the country and used by former President Ferdinand Marcos to implement martial law.

Duterte is proposing to make this section of the military responsible for continuing the program of state-sanctioned vigilante killings. This is a marked development in Dutertes own rapid drive toward dictatorial power and direct military rule.

The sidelining of the Philippine police followed the exposure last month of police involvement in the abduction and murder of Jee Ick Joo, a South Korean businessman. Jee was seized last October from his home in Angeles city, two hours from Manila, the countrys capital, by a PNP Anti-Illegal Drug Group unit under the guise of an anti-illegal drug operation.

On the same day, Jee was brought to Camp Crame, the PNP national headquarters, where he was strangled. The unit demanded and received $US100,000 in ransom for the by-then deceased Jee, and then, even more brazenly, demanded an additional ransom of nearly $100,000 more.

Three other South Koreans have since come forward claiming that they have also been accused of illegal drug activity by police, detained, beaten up and forced to cough up large sums of money for their release.

The toll of the war on drugs has been horrendous. Since Dutertes assumption of office, 7,080 people have been killedof that number, 2,555 by the police and 4,525 by death squads. Underscoring the intimate connection between the police and the death squads, following Dutertes orders, extrajudicial killings dropped sharply, from over 30 deaths a day to one a day.

On January 31, Amnesty International released a report on its latest investigation into the killings. Entitled, If you are poor you are killed: Extrajudicial Executions in the Philippines War on Drugs, the report states:

Police officers routinely bust down doors in the middle of the night and then kill in cold blood unarmed people suspected of using or selling drugs. In several cases documented by Amnesty International, witnesses described alleged drug offenders yelling they would surrender, at times while on their knees or in another compliant position.

They were still gunned down. To cover their tracks, police officers appear often to plant evidence and falsify incident reports.

According to the report, the killings have engendered an economy of death, where the police and the death squads are provided financial incentives for each death. It states:

A police officer with more than a decade of experience on the force, and who currently conducts operations as part of an anti-illegal drugs unit in Metro Manila, told Amnesty International that there are significant under-the-table payments for encounters in which alleged drug offenders are killed.

This source said the police are paid by the encounter The amount ranges from 8,000 pesos ($US161) to 15,000 pesos ($302) That amount is per head. So if the operation is against four people, thats 32,000 pesos ($644) Were paid in cash, secretly, by headquarters Theres no incentive for arresting. Were not paid anything.

In addition, Amnesty International recounts strong evidence of state authorities paying off assassins to carry out drug-related killings. Two individuals paid to kill alleged drug offenders told Amnesty International that their boss is an active duty police officer; they reported receiving around 10,000 pesos ($201) per killing.

The Amnesty report points to the class character of the war on drugs. Those killed are overwhelmingly from the urban poor. Many were unemployed and lived in informal settlements or squatter communities.

The killings mean further misery for already impoverished families, at times compounded by police officers stealing from them during crime scene investigations. A woman whose husband was killed said the police took goods she sold on commission, money she set aside for the electric bill, and even new shoes she bought for her child.

The targeting of the poor is no accident. Intensifying inequality is fuelling deep social tensions and unrest, with brutal repression the only answer of the Filipino ruling class.

The more than a decade of economic growth recorded for the Philippines has been built on the backs of the working class and the poor. In 2014, out of a population of 100 million, 50 people held over $74.2 billion in assets, equivalent to 25.7 percent of the 2014 gross domestic product. Their wealth increased $8.45 billion from the previous year, cornering 51 percent of economic growth for 2014.

This obscene level of wealth is a product of the export of cheap labour around the world and the brutal exploitation of even cheaper labour locally. Over 2.4 million workers are abroad as overseas contract workers, joining more than 8 million Filipino economic migrants. These overseas Filipinos, enduring long hours, low wages and few chances to visit family, sent back $29.1 billion last year.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the minimum daily wage in Manila is barely $10 and in the provinces, as low as $5 a day.

While huge wealth is being accumulated at one end of the social scale, more than 26 million people are living below the poverty threshold of a monthly income of $184. Of these, more than 12 million people are living in extreme poverty on less than $128 a month and could not even meet their basic food needs.

Amid growing social inequality and massive poverty, the Philippine ruling class is preparing to use the state apparatus and associated vigilantes to intimidate and suppress any opposition by the working class and the poor. That is the significance of Dutertes anti-drug war and his assumption of increasingly draconian powers.

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Duterte militarises the war on drugs in the Philippines - World Socialist Web Site

Sh170m heroin recovered in war on drugs at Coast – The Standard (press release)

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Coast Regional Coordinator Nelson Marwa, flanked by religious leaders, outside Bamburi Police Station in Mombasa County yesterday, where suspected drug traffickers arrested over the weekend were taken. [photo: Maarufu Mohamed/Standard]

At least nine people were arrested and heroin worth Sh170 million confiscated as the police intensified the war against drugs at the Coast.

Besides the 17 kilogrammes of heroin, the officers also recovered Sh18.4 million in cash from some of the suspects in night raids in several estates, including Nyali and Kisauni in Mombasa County as well as Kanamai in Kilifi County on Saturday and Sunday.

Coast region, particularly Mombasa, has been on the spotlight since late last month when the Government launched the anti-narcotics war.

The war was upped by the extradition of the Akasha brothers, alongside and Indian and a Pakistani, to the US to face drugs-related charges. And on Saturday, two retired South African soldiers were arrested when the police raided a hotel and an apartment in Mombasa.

However, lawyer Cliff Ombeta said Marc Anthony Faivelewitz and Barend David Nolte are innocent. He said they entered Kenya two weeks ago and were to work as bodyguards to one (Vijaygiri) Goswami.

Ombeta claims the two entered Kenya legally, on tourist visas, on the invitation by Goswami, the Indian national who was extradited to the US alongside Gulam Hussein of Pakistan, Baktash Akasha and Ibrahim Akasha to face drug trafficking charges.

ALSO READ: SA, Seychelles nationals held in narcotics crackdown

The South Africans were arrested at Nyali Beach hotel. They are said to have been in the process of obtaining new visas to enable them offer security services in Kenya.

Two Seychellois men, Nelson Vivian George's Domingeuz and Nedy Conrad Rodney Micock, were also arrested in a raid on an apartment in Nyali estate, Mombasa. Their legal status in Kenya was not clear with claims they have been deported.

The police have claimed four of the suspects are partners in international crime and have been on the list of wanted criminals for years. There are reports the arrests were as a result of combined efforts between officials from different security agencies and Interpol.

Ombeta admitted there are arrest warrants against the Seychellois but not the South Africans. Tanzanians were also among those arrested. The law student, identified as Wendy Kinyua, is said to have been found with a lot of cash at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa where she was reportedly trying to board a plane to Nairobi. The police have since linked her to the Seychellois Micock.

Yesterday, Shanzu Senior Principal Magistrate Diana Mochache gave the police five days to investigate the suspects. The prosecution said more people are set to arrested.

"The suspects should be detained in Nyali to allow the police complete investigations. They should, however, be treated fairly, given food and clean water," said Mochache.

Coast Regional Coordinator Nelson Marwa and head of the Anti-Narcotic Unit Hamis Massa said they will not relent until all drug dealers are arrested and prosecuted. Those nabbed in the Kanamai raid are Swaleh Yussuf Ahmed Kendereni and his in-law Farida Omar Said. They two are said to be key distributors.

ALSO READ: SA, Seychelles nationals held in narcotics crackdown

Also arrested was Kendereni's wife Asma Abdalla Mohamed who led detectives to Bamburi where 15 kilogrammes of heroin were found in a store belonging to Farida. Kendereni was among those taken to court yesterday. Rashid Athuman and Athuman Salim, found in Kendereni's company during the raid, were also arrested.

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Sh170m heroin recovered in war on drugs at Coast - The Standard (press release)