Marco Rubio: Engagement with Cuba won't lead to freedom

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Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, one of the most vocal critics of President Obama's move to normalize relations with Cuba, said Sunday that the president's actions were based on the "false notion that engagement alone automatically leads to freedom."

"Look at Vietnam and look at China, countries that we have engaged. They are no more politically free today than they were when that engagement started," Rubio said. "We need to hold this administration accountable for these policy changes, and if in fact, the Cubans do nothing reciprocal to do live up to or to open up political space, constantly challenge and reexamine these policy changes the president's made."

Although Rubio held up Vietnam and China as evidence that engagement will not lead to more freedom for the Cuban people, he also said that "comparing China to Cuba is not really a comparable analogy."

"China is the second-largest economy in the world, they have the third-largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, they are the most populous nation on the planet. So obviously, from a geopolitical perspective, our approach to China by necessity has to be different from a small impoverished island of 13 million people," Rubio said.

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Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, explains why he supports President Obama's decision to shift U.S. policy on Cuba.

In a separate interview, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, one of the lawmakers who accompanied freed prisoner Alan Gross back to the U.S. the day of Mr. Obama's announcement, called criticism like Rubio's "rhetorical chest-thumping" that doesn't actually advance the goals of American foreign policy.

"We have isolated the Cuban people, but we have actually reinforced and helped sustain the power of the Castro brothers. So, more engagement directly with the Cuban people, more travel, more trade, more ideas back and forth, that will over time, I think, help loosen things up from the bottom up. This isn't going to happen tomorrow. And we're not expecting a transformation in the views of the Castro brothers, but more engagement will work better than the policy of the last 54 years," Van Hollen said.

He acknowledged that the transformation "isn't going to happen overnight" but said that greater communication between the people of Cuba and the U.S., especially in the business world, will help create more personal freedom "over time."

He said a "fair amount" can happen immediately under the president's orders in terms of increasing travel and trade, but that the long-term goal of those who advocate normalizing relations with Cuba is to lift the embargo.

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Marco Rubio: Engagement with Cuba won't lead to freedom

Horizons' beaches on show for summer

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New Zealanders are being encouraged to do their surfing online before hitting the beach this summer. Beach goers can check the quality of the water at their nearest beach thanks to environmental monitoring website Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA).

Information on water quality at beaches within the Horizons Region is now accessible online from http://www.lawa.org.nz. The website provides a seasonal guide to beaches water quality based on the last three years of monitoring.

"Beaches are a key part of many New Zealanders lifestyles and its important that people can swim without getting sick from contaminated water," explains Bruce Gordon, chairman Horizons Regional Council.

"By reviewing bacteria levels at beaches over time, LAWA allows us to assess to what extent the water at our beaches is affected by bacteria and whether this poses a health risk to the public."

Based on the last three years of enterococci data, Mr Gordon says that the majority of monitored beaches are suitable for swimming.

"Four of the six beaches we monitor in this Region are classified as having a low or very low risk of causing infection or illness. The remaining two are classified as moderate risk."

As well as the seasonal guide, LAWA also provides the results of the most recent weekly beach monitoring, allowing users to see the latest bacteria reading and how this might affect current suitability for swimming.

Read together, the seasonal indicator and weekly monitoring results give people a good idea of the water quality. However, Mr Gordon says people still need to think twice before swimming after heavy rain.

"Even a low risk beach can be unsuitable to swim at from time to time and we recommend that you avoid swimming for 48 hours after heavy rainfall."

He also advised people to remember LAWA provided information on water quality but other hazards may by present.

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Horizons' beaches on show for summer

Two Otago beaches on 'caution' list

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Nick Smith

Information on the water quality of 350 New Zealand beaches is now available in one place online, a national water quality monitoring site, Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA).

Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith said New Zealand beaches generally had good water quality for swimming.

''I want the millions of New Zealanders who go to the beach to swim, surf and play to have access to good information on water quality. It enables people to stay healthy.''

The site rated each beach for its overall recreation risk based on three years of bacteria data.

Of the 350 coastal spots monitored, 64% were rated as having low or very low risk, 22% an acceptable standard and 14% high risk.

Five Otago beaches, all monitored by the Otago Regional Council over summer, were listed on the website including Brighton Beach at Otokia Creek (moderate risk), Kaka Point beach (low risk) and Waikouaiti Estuary (very low risk).

The two in Otago to receive ''caution'' ratings - showing they could at times be high risk (10% or greater chance of illness) - were Kakanui Estuary and Otago Harbour at Macandrew Bay.

The ratings came with the rider that the risk indicator was a ''precautionary approach'' to managing health risk, so a site with a ''caution'' risk could still be suitable for swimming some of the time.

Information on water quality at those spots was also available on the Otago Regional Council's website, which also advised people against swimming during and shortly after rainfall.

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Two Otago beaches on 'caution' list

The world's best beaches

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BAY OF ISLANDS: We've got plenty of choices back home for great beaches yet we're always on the look out for perfection.

What is it about the humble meeting of sand and sea that seems to enchant us? It's more than just the sum of its parts, a beach. It's more than sand to lie on, more than water in which to swim. It's romance, it's adventure and it's the time of your life.

Beaches mean so much. They're building sandcastles when you were a kid. They're family holidays away from school. They're the feeling of catching your first wave as a teenager. They're wild nights in foreign lands in your 20s, the relaxing getaways of middle age and the long walks of later years.Beaches are freedom. Beaches are an escape.

We're spoilt with beaches here in New Zealand. Yet still we travel in search of perfection, to discover and enjoy beaches the world over, to soak up culture and difference while getting a hit of vitamin D.

There's variety in beaches, easily enough to keep you amused for a lifetime. There are the hidden beaches, those secluded wonderlands that you feel like keeping to yourself forever. There are the bustling city beaches, European hotspots of carefully primped sunbathers and oblivious foreign gawkers.

There are the stunning, windswept northern beaches of Scotland, in whose cold waters you would never dream of dipping a toe. There are the spring-break beaches of the Caribbean, the surf beaches of Tahiti, the family-friendly patches of Fiji, the stunning backdrops of South Africa.

Whatever your preference, there's romance, joy, relaxation and adventure in every beach. It's impossible to deny the attraction of that humble meeting of sand and sea.

Here, then, are some perfect beaches around the world.

PERFECT PACIFIC ISLAND BEACH

BEST PACIFIC ISLAND BEACH: The Rocks Bar, Vomo Island Resort, Fiji.

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The world's best beaches

Another way to check HB beach water quality over summer

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Information on Hawkes Bay beaches is now on the environmental monitoring website Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) - http://www.lawa.org.nz/.

The LAWA website was launched in March with information on river water quality at over 1110 sites around the country. This week new data has expanded it to include coastal water quality at New Zealands beaches.

"The LAWA site gives people another option for checking water quality, especially making it easy for people holidaying away from home to check the water quality at a nearby beach on LAWA than having to search out the right council website," says Iain Maxwell, Group Manager Resource Management.

"Hawkes Bay Regional Councils staff have worked hard over recent weeks to get the data links flowing to the LAWA site so that people can get reliable information on Hawkes Bay beaches."

The LAWA website aims to help New Zealanders know more about the quality of their environment around the country. It will eventually show information on air quality, land and biodiversity, as well as water quantity and more fresh and coastal water quality data. LAWA will also contribute to a new national environmental reporting regime being designed by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand.

Hawkes Bay Regional Council provides data to the LAWA site and continues to display this information on its website. The B4U swim webpage on http://www.hbrc.govt.nz covers both river and coastal swimming spots and was recently enhanced with improved map and data display. The B4USwim free phone line (on 0800 248 7946) is also still available with information on Hawkes Bay recreational water quality.

The best advice is still to avoid swimming in any rivers or at the coast for at least 3 days after heavy rain. Beaches near towns and cities are most prone to contamination as rainfall washes material off roads and land into coastal waters.

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Another way to check HB beach water quality over summer

Prosecute illegal sand winners at beaches Police urged

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Regional News of Sunday, 21 December 2014

Source: GNA

The Police Administration has been called upon to step up its efforts to arrest and prosecute illegal sand winners at the various beaches, to ensure safe environments.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the destruction of the beaches was alarming, and everything possible should be made to protect them.

Mr Peter Nana Ackon, Senior Officer of the Central Regional Office of the Environmental Protection Agency, made this known at a forum at Senya Bereku.

It was organized by the Save Our Beaches Ghana, a Winneba-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).

Mr Ackon said the Ghana Police Service owns it a duty to assist the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to bring those destroying the beaches to book.

He also called on the Environmental and Sanitation Departments of the various Assemblies in the coastal areas, to intensify their activities to halt people who defecate at the beaches with impunity.

Mr Ackon regretted that Europe and other foreign countries were maximizing huge profits from beaches due to proper preservation, but not Ghana.

The Senior EPA Official, therefore, urged government to place ban on the importation of take away black and plain rubber bags into the country.

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Prosecute illegal sand winners at beaches Police urged

New Doubt About Dark Matter

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Tantalizing signals from a handful of recent high-energy searches for dark matter are more likely the product of conventional astrophysics than the first tentative detections of the universes missing mass, say skeptical astrophysicists.

A decade ago, no [one] would make these claims without first checking and re-checking that it couldnt be from some normal astrophysical source, Stacy McGaugh, an astrophysicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, told Forbes. Nowadays, the attitude seems to be that if you dont immediately recognize what it is, it must be dark matter; [with] no penalty for crying wolf over and over again. Even so, the theoretical stakes remain high.

Thats because for the better part of a century, cosmological cold dark matter has been needed to explain the gravitational dynamics of much of the cosmos visible matter; including the rotation rates of massive galaxies like our own.

Clusters of galaxies like this one, MCS J0416.1-2403 located in the constellation of Eridanus, have long been theorized to be bound by cosmological dark matter. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields; Acknowledgement: Mathilde Jauzac (Durham University, UK and Astrophysics & Cosmology Research Unit, South Africa) and Jean-Paul Kneib (cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Switzerland)

By a very large margin, the matter we do see directly in galaxies does not produce enough gravity to hold the galaxies together; dark matter is invoked to provide the extra gravity needed, Mordehai Milgrom, a physicist at Israels Weizmann Institute, told Forbes. That is, Milgrom says, if the standard laws of physics are used to calculate gravity as we know it.

And because non-baryonic (or exotic) dark matter is theorized to only interact with normal matter primarily via gravity, dark matters detection has inherently been problematic. Even so, most cosmologists accept the idea that normal dark matter may make up as much as 85 percent of the universes missing mass.

The need to invoke dark matter at all stems either from the product of unseen exotic particles that lie well beyond the ken of known physics or is the result of new physics in which gravity behaves differently on the largest scales. Neither scenario is easily tested.

For decades, however, experimental physicists have used both laboratory and astronomical observations from ground and space to search for this missing component.

One of the most recent, as noted this month in the journal Physical Review Letters, involves x-ray emissions from both the Perseus galaxy cluster and the nearby Andromeda galaxy.

Using the European Space Agencys XMM-Newton telescope, researchers from Switzerlands EPFL Laboratory of Particle Physics and Cosmology and Leiden University in The Netherlands report that this observed excess of x-ray photons may represent signals of decay by sterile neutrinos. That is, heretofore unverified, hypothetical dark matter particles.

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New Doubt About Dark Matter