The European Union Times |
- Rare black seadevil Anglerfish caught on video
- British NHS staff stage mass protest
- Why the Grand Jury Didn’t Indict Darren Wilson
- Madagascar officials raise bubonic plague death toll to 47
- US Defense Secretary Hagel resigns over disagreements with White House
- Erdogan’s gender inequality comments at women’s rights conference spark outrage
- Heavy flooding kills at least 35 in southern Morocco
- America’s toughest sheriff prepares to use Obama’s own words against him in amnesty showdown
- Over 100 people killed in DR Congo last week by Ugandan rebels
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Posted: 25 Nov 2014 12:22 PM PST
 A nightmare-inducing sea creature made famous in ‘Finding Nemo’ was caught on video in the depths of the ocean for the first time. Scientists believe global warming is affecting its environment, bringing the rare anglerfish species to shallower waters. As shown in Pixar’s famous fish film, anglers get their name from the built-in fishing rod attached to their foreheads. The black seadevil (scientific name Melanocetus) lives in the pitch-black depths of Monterey Canyon off California’s coast, and uses its luminescent orb to attract prey. “In the darkness of deep water, they flash the light to attract prey and draw them near the angler’s mouth. When a fish or a squid swims up, it is quickly inhaled by the angler’s huge mouth and trapped by its long, sharp teeth,” senior scientist Bruce Robison said in a video of the seadevil released by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). MBARI scientists spotted the secretive species 2,000 feet (600m) below Monterey Bay’s surface, but it also lives in the “freezing, crushing water four times deeper,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. The footage captured at this depth by MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle, ROV Doc Ricketts, is believed to be the first video ever made of this species alive and at such a depth, the institute said in the video description. Fewer than half a dozen encounters with any type of deep-sea anglerfish have ever been recorded by deep-diving research vehicles, MBARI noted in a statement. The ROV located the fish during a “midwater transect” last Monday, institute spokeswoman Kim Fulton-Bennett told CNN. “This means we ‘fly’ the robot through the water at a series of different depths (10 minutes at each depth), and count all the different types of animals we see.” The female seadevil is recognizable from ‘Finding Nemo,’ where it snuck up on fish Dory and Marlin as they search for Nemo. As scary as the anglerfish might be, it is only 9 cm (3.5 in) long. The male is even smaller, “like a tiny little baby,” a video called ‘True Facts about the Angler Fish’ says. “He attaches himself to the female by biting her, and then digesting part of his face so he fuses with her flesh,” the description continues. “He then atrophies, losing his digestive organs, brain, heart and eyes, and winds up nothing more than a pair of gonads, which release sperm when needed.” Finding a female ‒ no matter how ugly she may appear‒ is imperative for the male. “If they don’t find a female, they drown,” Ted Pietsch, professor at the University of Washington and expert on the deep-sea anglerfish, told the Mercury News. “They’re not even properly equipped to eat.” Females also collect males throughout their lifetimes. Robison told KSBW that he has seen up to 11 males attached to a single female. Not much else is known about the elusive seadevil, however. “A video would tell us a lot about how it moves, swims, orients to gravity,” Pietsch noted. Robison and his international team of researchers didn’t just capture video of the angler; it captured the black seadevil to study. Unfortunately, they do not know how long it will survive. The team is studying the possible impacts of rising water temperatures on deep-sea animals. Robison told KSBW the fish discovery was thanks to the mid-water rest barometer, the only one of its kind. “What we’re trying to do experimentally with instruments that we take down into the ocean is to learn what the range of capabilities of these animals are,” he said. “Now that the temperature is rising, many species may not have the ability to adjust to the rising temperatures.” The temperature increase, he told the Mercury News, is “probably because of global warming. If the temperature continues to rise and the amount of oxygen continues to decrease, things are going to change.” The problem the black seadevil and other deep-sea creatures face from global warming is that oxygen ‒ which is already scarce at those depths ‒ will decrease even more. “Animals that live in the oxygen minim zones are adapted to low oxygen, but they might be close to their limit,” Brad Seibel, an assistant professor of marine biology at the University of Rhode Island, told the Mercury News. That could lead to stunted development, and possibly force the animals to head to shallower waters. And animals near the surface would have to swim to colder waters. These mass migrations would alter ecosystems as food and predators might not shift in the same way, Seibel said. Source           |
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Posted: 25 Nov 2014 11:30 AM PST
 Britain’s National Health Service workers have staged a mass walkout over a pay dispute with the government. Over 400,000 NHS workers, including midwives, nurses, radiographers and psychiatric staff, have taken action as part of an ongoing battle with the government over pay. The strikes follow a government decision to reject a proposed 1 percent pay rise. Four hours of industrial action began at 7a.m. in England and 8a.m. in Northern Ireland on November 24. It included NHS employees from 11 different unions. The strike action will be followed by up to six days of work-to-rule. Measures will include members claiming pay for extra hours or refusing to work overtime. And staff will take all breaks to which they are entitled. Now author, journalist and researcher Alan Hart says 90% of NHS workers “will get jobs elsewhere out of the NHS if jobs were available.” Hart also noted that “the basic problem is (the NHS) needs lots more money. It’s going to have a short fall. It is estimated that 30 Billion pounds by 2020, but what the government has been doing for the last several years is actually cutting back.” He said that “in the NHS, we now have chief executives that get paid a quarter of a million, half a million. We have now more bureaucrats in the health service than we do what I call the cold-face people.” The latest walkout is the second NHS walkout in a month. On October 13, for the first time in history, NHS midwives staged a four-hour walkout as part of the continuing fight for fairer pay. Source      |
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Posted: 25 Nov 2014 11:24 AM PST
   “No probable cause exists to file any charges against Darren Wilson,” St. Louis County prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch said during a news conference. “The duty of the grand jury is to separate fact and fiction. No probable cause exists to file any charges against Darren Wilson.” From The New York Times: The most credible eyewitnesses to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., said he had charged toward Police Officer Darren Wilson just before the final, fatal shots, the St. Louis County prosecutor said Monday night as he sought to explain why a grand jury had not found probable cause to indict the officer. From The Washington Post: Things then happened very quickly. Wilson said Brown was at his car window, enraged. Wilson said Brown hit him in the face, grabbing for his gun. Two shots fired. Brown bolted down the street. Wilson pursued. As Wilson told it, Brown charged the officer, reaching into his pants. Wilson raised his .40-caliber Sig Sauer and aimed for a lethal shot. And from the Smoking Gun: During his September 16 grand jury testimony, Wilson, 28, recounted how he tussled with Brown when the teenager grabbed for his gun while lunging into the squad car. As they fought over the weapon, Wilson testified, the teenager taunted him, yelling, “You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me.”  Source      |
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Posted: 25 Nov 2014 09:09 AM PST
 Madagascar’s Health Ministry made the announcement on Monday, and warned that the toll would probably rise over the coming months as it spreads towards the capital Antananarivo. They added that 138 suspect cases have been recorded since the beginning of the year. The ministry went on to say that it is attempting to contain the outbreak by disinfection of residents’ homes. The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed the dispatch of health workers to sanitize slums in the capital. According to Philemon Tafangy, the health ministry’s secretary general, “200 households have been disinfected” this month. He added that in an attempt to arrest the spread of the disease, antibiotics have been given to all those who had come in contact with the infected. The bacterial disease, which is wreaking havoc on the island nation off the coast of mainland Africa, is mainly transmitted by fleas, which often reside in the hair of rats and other rodents. People who catch the disease transmit it through coughing and develop swollen lymph nodes that are treatable with antibiotics. Source      |
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Posted: 25 Nov 2014 09:02 AM PST
 Flanked by US President Barack Obama and the vice president during a Monday morning announcement, Hagel, 68, acknowledged that he submitted his resignation, confirming reports that started to circulate earlier that day in the press. Hagel, whose resignation was accepted by the president, called leading the Department of Defense “the greatest privilege of my life.” He took office as defense secretary in February 2013 and previously spent more than a decade in the US Senate. Due to his previous opposition to the 2007 surge policy in Iraq and statements critical of the Israeli lobby in the US, his confirmation was met with significant controversy. Following Monday’s announcement, Hagel will have served just longer than the 20 months his predecessor Leon Panetta held the position. “For nearly two years, Chuck has been an exemplary defense secretary, providing a steady hand as we modernize our strategy and budget to meet long-term threats while still responding to immediate challenges like ISIL and Ebola,” Pres. Obama said Monday. “Thanks to Chuck, our military is on a firmer footing engaged in these missions and looking ahead to the future.” Hours before the Monday presser, the New York Times reported that the outgoing Defense chief is stepping down under pressure following the massive mid-term losses suffered by the Democrats this month and the national security team’s inability to keep ahead of a series of global crises, citing senior White House officials. CNN also reported that Hagel has clashed with the White House recently over alleged “micromanagement” issues within the administration. A senior defense official told the Associated Press that both Hagel and Obama had “determined that it was time for new leadership in the Pentagon” following weeks of discussion. From the White House this week, the president said “it was an appropriate time” for Hagel to step down, having guided the Dept. of Defense through a transition during the last 21 months that shifted focus towards new emerging threats in the wake of the Iraq War. With a military background and less hawkish view of international affairs, Hagel was viewed as the ideal candidate to bring major US combat operations in Afghanistan to an end while managing a leaner Pentagon amidst deep defense cuts. Recent events, however, including the rise of so-called Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, or ISIL, and the worldwide Ebola epidemic, “required a different kind of focus,” senior officials told the New York Times. With the White House ramping up its military operations in Iraq and Syria, one longtime associate of Hagel told ABC news the writing was on the wall. “He took the job to end the war–not start another one,” this associate of Hagel said. Hagel’s departure could both signal the White House is ready to carry out a more aggressive foreign policy, while also signaling to critics that the Obama administration is receptive to criticism of its perceived mishandling of recent events. It remains unclear who is slated to replace the outgoing defense chief. According to the NYT, Michele Flournoy, the former under secretary of defense; Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne; and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense, are all likely candidates. A senior administration told ABC news that a successor “will be named in short order.” Meanwhile, Hagel said he will stay in his current role until a replacement can be confirmed by the Senate. Hagel’s predecessors, Defense Secs. Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, both published memoirs shorty after exiting the Obama administration in which they criticized the president’s leadership over the military. Source      |
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Posted: 24 Nov 2014 02:21 PM PST
 Turkey’s president says men and women cannot be equal, and that feminists don’t understand motherhood. Recep Tayyip Erdogan caused widespread offence with his comments at a conference on women’s rights in Ankara. “You cannot make women and men equal; this is against nature,” Erdogan stated on Monday. “You cannot subject a pregnant woman to the same working conditions as a man. You cannot make a mother who has to breastfeed her child equal to a man. You cannot make women do everything men do like the communist regimes did… This is against her delicate nature,” he added. He added that feminists “don’t accept the concept of motherhood.” “But those who do understand are enough for us. We’ll continue down this path with them,” he stated. Commentators on social media have aired incredulity over his comments, with one user tagging them #NatoEmbarrassment and another referring to him as “Turkey’s creepy-grandpa-in-chief.” Another observed that it proved “secularism is dead in Turkey.” “Our religion has given women a station: the station of motherhood,” Erdogan stated, also citing a hadith of the Prophet Mohammed that says “Heaven lies at the foot of your mother,” and adding that he used to kiss his mother’s feet because of it. A conference attendee was forced out of the hall after interrupting a speech by Family and Social Policies Minister Ayşenur İsla. She insisted on putting her question to the minister as he made his speech rather than waiting until the end, after which she was removed by security guards. Erdogan’s statement’s on women’s right and gender equality are often met with criticism by local feminist groups. In April this year, he said that he does not “believe in equality between men and women,” which also triggered condemnation. This August the president also drew ire by saying that every woman in Turkey should have at least three children. He proposed limiting abortion rights and the use of morning-after pill. In one recent case, Erdogan called a prominent female journalist a “shameless woman” and told her “to know your place.” Source      |
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Posted: 24 Nov 2014 02:09 PM PST
 The southern province of Guelmim which was worst affected by the floods, accounted for 24 of the fatalities, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The statement added that 214 other people have been rescued following the deadly flooding in the country. About 130 all-terrain rescue vehicles and 335 Zodiac inflatables and other boats were being used for the rescue operations, the Interior Ministry said. The floods have also severely damaged parts of the country’s road network. Two dams on major rivers in Morocco’s southeast are beyond their reservoir capacity and are being carefully watched by authorities. The national weather service warned that more heavy rainfall was expected until Monday. Flash floods commonly occur in Morocco. Four children lost their lives in the south of the country in September when they were washed away by floods. The authorities have expanded alert systems in valleys of the Atlas region, especially in tourist hub, Ourika, located south of Marrakech city, where hundreds were killed in flash floods in 1995. Source      |
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Posted: 24 Nov 2014 02:02 PM PST
 Staunch Obama critic and Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has filed a lawsuit against the president for taking executive action on immigration. “I am not seeking to myself enforce the immigration laws as this is the province of the federal government,” Arpaio, who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” said in a statement, according to CBS News. “Rather, I am seeking to have the president and the other defendants obey the U.S. Constitution.” If allowed to stand, the executive action would “severely strain our resources, both in manpower and financially,” the Maricopa County sheriff said in the statement. The lawsuit was filed on Arpaio’s behalf by Larry Klayman, an attorney and founder of government watchdog group, Judicial Watch. It says the executive action and the 2012 DREAM Act commit “unconstitutional abuses of the president’s role in our nation’s constitutional architecture and exceed the powers of the president within the U.S. Constitution,” the Arizona Capital Times reported. Arpaio and Klayman plan to use Obama’s own words against him, according to the Times. “What we can do is then carve out the Dream Act folks, saying young people who’ve basically grown up here are Americans we should welcome,” the president said in a 2013 interview with Telemundo. “But if we start broadening that, then essentially I’ll be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that’s not an option.” “Instead of legislation first passing both houses of Congress and then being sent to the president under the ‘Presentment Clause’ for signature and implementation or veto, the president originates legislation by himself and then dares the Congress to disagree,” the lawsuit said. “The president cannot simply announce sweeping new rules and implement them by giving a speech.” The lawsuit also names as defendants U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder, according to the Arizona Capitol Times. Source      |
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Posted: 24 Nov 2014 01:57 PM PST
 More than 100 people have been killed in an alleged attack by Ugandan rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lawmakers say. The carnage took place near the volatile town of Beni, North Kivu Province, on Thursday, members of parliament told reporters. The bodies of 95 people were found in a mass grave while nine other dead bodies were shown to authorities at a morgue, said opposition lawmaker, Juma Balikwisha. Meanwhile, Albert Baliesima, a lawmaker for the parliamentary majority backing President Joseph Kabila, put the death toll at around 70 to 100. The Civil Society of North Kivu, a non-governmental organization based in Beni, alleged that the attackers were Ugandan rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces and National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-Nalu). Regional officials, however, said they could not identify the perpetrators of the killings in a region where the Congolese army and a UN special intervention force have been battling the ADF-Nalu since January. In October, more than 200 civilians were killed in gruesome machete attacks near Beni in North Kivu. The ADF-Nalu remains the only militant group active in the region, authorities said. The ADF-Nalu rebels, believed to number around 400, have been accused of serious human rights violations, including using child soldiers and rape. They are engaged in trafficking gold and wood to finance themselves, which could further destabilize the vast region rich in minerals, the United Nations said. Source     |
