Mates on a mission

Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, right, sits next to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in his office in Baghdad

Over on the post “U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday declared the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a ’successful endeavor’ in a visit to Iraq.

An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expelling the woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon March 11, 2008. The landless peasants tried in vain to resist the eviction with bows and arrows against police using tear gas and trained dogs. — [REUTERS/Luiz Vasconcelos-A Critica/AE].

In ‘What makes a great picture?’ David Viggers of Reuters writes:

Images of heavy-handed oppression really don’t come much better than this - defenceless, screaming woman clutching naked child is shoved and beaten by faceless, armoured authority.”

A view of the remaining part of the Larsen B ice shelf that extends into the northwest part of the Weddell Sea is seen in this handout photo taken on March 4, 2008.

A glacier used as a benchmark to measure global warming’s impact on the Antarctic Peninsula melted more than usual in the past year, according to an Argentine glacier researcher.

For more than 20 years, Pedro Skvarca has studied the Devil’s Bay glacier on Vega Island off the Antarctic Peninsula, a part of Antarctica that is warming five times faster than the average in the rest of the world.

The whole of Antarctica holds enough ice and snow to raise world sea levels by 187 feet if it all melted over thousands of years, according to UN data.

Skvarca said the Devil’s Bay glacier has thinned by 3.3 feet (1 metre) per year on average since his research began. But its deterioration has been unusually marked in the past year.

A review of the controversial scientific research conducted by Japan and its whalers has uncovered a list of ‘bizarre’ and useless experiments, including how to cross breed cows with whales.

Scientists have analysed 43 research papers produced by Japan over 18 years, finding most were useless or esoteric.

The scientific research included injecting minke whale sperm into cows eggs, and attempts to produce test-tube whale babies.

For years Japan has continued its whaling program under the guise of scientific research, to the disgust of anti-whaling nations such as Australia.

Say no more.

Activists on board anti-whaling ship The Steve Irwin pelting the Nisshin Maru with rotten butter

The environmental group Sea Shepherd says it doubts its attack on a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica yesterday injured anyone.

The group threw 24 litres of rotten butter onto the Nisshin Maru whaling ship.

Meanwhile, the Taipei Times reports:

“Militant environmentalists hurled stinging acid for more than an hour onto a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica yesterday, hurting three crew members, Japanese government officials said.”

But the Sea Shepherd’s founder, Paul Watson, does not believe the claims.

‘We certainly didn’t injure anybody because we saw where every container hit — it was fully videotaped,’ he said.

‘The Japanese videotaped it and I’m sure that if we had have hit somebody they’d have it on their website, which they do not have.

‘My understanding is that the three injuries were three guys who got sick from the smell and just threw up.

‘So three guys chundering on the deck, really that’s the extent of it.’

The past bites Bill Clinton on the arse with some advice for those who can’t decide between his wife and Barack Obama:

According to this story in the New York Times, the United States prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.

The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are.