Smart bracelet protects aid workers

When triggered, the personal alarm uses phone and sat-nav technology to warn that its wearer is in danger.

Warnings are sent in the form of messages to Facebook and Twitter to rally support and ensure people do not disappear without trace.

The first bracelets are being given out this week and funding is being sought to make many more.

The bracelets have been developed by the Civil Rights Defenders campaign group in a bid to help workers in war zones and other areas of conflict.

The chunky bracelet has mobile phone technology buried within it that can send prepared messages when the gadget is triggered.

Alerts can be sent manually by a rights worker if they feel under threat or are triggered automatically if the bracelet is forcefully removed. The alarm sends out information about its owner and where they were when they were attacked. Other staff nearby will also be alerted so they can start to take action to help anyone in distress.

Civil Rights Defenders wants people to sign up to monitor the bracelets of individual rights workers via social media. It hopes the global involvement will act as a deterrent to anyone planning attacks on aid workers.

"Most of us, given the chance, would like to help others in danger," said Civil Rights Defenders' executive director Robert Hardh. "These civil rights defenders are risking their lives for others to have the right to vote, or to practise religion or free speech."

Those who monitor bracelets can also help bring pressure to bear on governments to find or release people abducted or jailed. In total, 55 bracelets will be given out by the end of 2014.

The rights group started work on the gadget in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of Chechen rights worker Natalia Estemirova in 2009. Ms Estemirova had been involved in documenting the alleged abuse of civilians by government-backed militias.

China culls birds as bird flu death toll mounts

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese authorities were slaughtering birds at a poultry market in the financial hub Shanghai as the death toll from a new strain of bird flu mounted to six on Friday, spreading concern overseas and sparking a sell-off on Hong Kong's share market.

A farmer feeds chickens at a hennery in Ganyu county, Jiangsu province, April 3, 2013. A total of 10 people in China have been confirmed to have contracted H7N9, all in the east of the country. The latest was a 64-year-old man from Huzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, who state media said on Thursday was admitted to hospital on March 31. Picture taken April 3, 2013. REUTERS/China Daily

State news agency Xinhua said the Huhuai market for live birds in Shanghai had been shut down and birds were being culled after authorities detected the H7N9 virus from samples of pigeons in the market.

All of the 14 reported infections from the H7N9 bird flu strain have been in eastern China and at least four of the dead are in Shanghai, a city of 23 million people and the showpiece of China's vibrant economy.

Xinhua did not say how many birds would be culled.

In Hong Kong, shares tumbled to a four-month low on Friday on worries that the new strain of bird flu could hurt the local economy.

"The bird flu issue is at the top of people's minds now," said Alfred Chan, chief dealer at Cheer Pearl Investment in Hong Kong.

Chinese airlines were among the biggest percentage losers on the day, including China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China. Cathay Pacific also fell.

The strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human but Hong Kong airport authorities said they were taking precautions. Vietnam banned imports of Chinese poultry.

In Japan, airports have put up posters at entry points warning all passengers from China to seek medical attention if they have flu-like symptoms.

In the United States, the White House said it was monitoring the situation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had started work on a vaccine if it was needed. It would take five to six months to begin commercial production.

With the fear that a SARS-like epidemic could re-emerge, China said it was pulling out the stops to combat the virus.

"(China) will strengthen its leadership in combating the virus ... and coordinate and deploy the entire nation's health system to combat the virus," the Health Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.moh.gov.cn).

SHADOW OF SARS

In 2003, authorities initially tried to cover up an epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in China and killed about 10 percent of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

China "will continue to openly and transparently maintain communication and information channels with the World Health Organisation and relevant countries and regions, and strengthen monitoring and preventative measures", the ministry said.

Shanghai has suspended poultry sales at two other markets and ordered through disinfection of the premises. In Huhuai, authorities were conducting proper disposal of the culled birds, their excrement and contaminated food as well as disinfection of the market, Xinhua said.

The virus has been shared with World Health Organization (WHO) collaborating centres in Atlanta, Beijing, London, Melbourne and Tokyo, and these groups are analysing samples to identify the best candidate to be used for the manufacture of vaccine - if it becomes necessary.

Any decision to mass-produce vaccines against H7N9 flu will not be taken lightly, since it will mean sacrificing production of seasonal shots.

That could mean shortages of vaccine against the normal seasonal flu which, while not serious for most people, still costs thousands of lives.

Sanofi Pasteur, the world's largest flu vaccine manufacturer, said it was in continuous contact with the WHO through the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), but it was too soon to know the significance of the Chinese cases.

Other leading flu vaccine makers include GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis

Preliminary test results suggest the new flu strain responds to treatment with Roche's drug Tamiflu and GSK's Relenza, according to the WHO.

Other strains of bird flu, such as H5N1, have been circulating for many years and can be transmitted from bird to bird, and bird to human, but not generally from human to human.

So far, this lack of human-to-human transmission also appears to be a feature of the H7N9 strain.

"The gene sequences confirm that this is an avian virus, and that it is a low pathogenic form (meaning it is likely to cause mild disease in birds)," said Wendy Barclay, a flu virologist at Britain's Imperial College London.

"But what the sequences also reveal is that there are some mammalian adapting mutations in some of the genes."

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Olivier Fabre in TOKYO, Hanoi newsroom; Kate Kelland in LONDON and Julie Steenhuysen in CHICAGO; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Connecticut governor signs tough gun law

Measure bans hundreds of military style weapons, raises the minimum age for purchasers, and tightens background checks.

Connecticut's governor has signed tough new gun ownership rules into law, four months after a gunman opened fire on an elementary school in the US state, killing 20 children and six adults.

Governor Dannel Malloy put his signature to the bill on Thursday, noting that the state's ability to reach a bipartisan accord on the issue at a time of bitter debate in Congress was "something quite different in our nation".

The measure passed in the state assembly makes Connecticut the third state after New York and Colorado to tighten gun laws in the wake of the December 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

More than 100 makes of rifles - including the Bushmaster AR-15 used by killer Adam Lanza in the Newtownschool - were added to an existing, but now vastly expanded ban on military style weapons.

In addition, ammunition clips holding more than 10 rounds must now be registered, while new sales of the large clips are banned.

The law, which raises the minimum age for purchasers from 18 to 21, tightened the procedure for background checks. It also created the first state registry in the US of people convicted of gun-related crimes.

President Barack Obama, who campaigned in Colorado on Wednesday for a national tightening of gun laws, was set to drive home his message with a visit to Connecticut on Monday.

Despite the steady drip of massacres by gunmen in public places, Newtown being just the latest, many Americans remain staunch backers of keeping powerful firearms for sport or self-defence.

Rihanna Pictures

Sand In Mah Ass

This is Rihanna saying “is there sand in my ass?” No but seriously, she’s probably doing exactly that and then saw the photo and was like “ohhh, well I look good in it, lets tweet it out.”

North Korea moves missile to coast

Poses limited threat to U.S., analysts say

SEOUL, South Korea -- After a series of escalating threats, North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korea's defense minister said Thursday. But he emphasized that the missile was not capable of reaching the United States, and that there are no signs that the North is preparing for a full-scale conflict.

North Korea has been railing against U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began in March and are to continue until the end of this month. The allies insist that the exercises in South Korea are routine, but the North calls them rehearsals for an invasion and says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself. The North also has expressed anger over tightened U.N. sanctions for its February nuclear test.

Analysts say the ominous warnings in recent weeks are probably efforts to provoke softer policies from South Korea, to win diplomatic talks with Washington and solidify the image of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Many of the threats come in the middle of the night in Asia -- daytime for the U.S. audience.

The report of the movement of the missile came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the United States using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that North Korea has improved its nuclear technology, or a bluff.

The North is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to miniaturize nuclear bombs enough to mount them on long-range missiles. Nor has it demonstrated that those missiles, if it has them at all, are accurate. It also could be years before the country completes the laborious process of creating enough weaponized fuel to back up its nuclear threats.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said he did not know the reasons behind the North's missile movement, and that it "could be for testing or drills." He dismissed reports in Japanese media that the missile could be a KN-08, which is believed to be a long-range missile that, if operable, could hit the United States.

Mr. Kim told lawmakers at a parliamentary committee meeting that the missile has "considerable range," but not enough to hit the U.S. mainland. The range he described could refer to a mobile North Korean missile known as the Musudan, believed to have a range of 3,000 kilometers, or 1,800 miles. That would make Japan and South Korea potential targets -- along with U.S. bases in both countries -- but there are doubts about the missile's accuracy.

The Pentagon announced that it will hasten deployment of a missile defense system to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack.

Experts say North Korea has not shown that it has accurate long-range missiles. Some suspect that an apparent long-range missile unveiled by the North at a parade last year was actually a mockup.

"From what we know of its existing inventory, North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could complicate a situation on the Korean Peninsula (and perhaps reach Japan), but we have not seen any evidence that it has long-range missiles that could strike the continental U.S., Guam or Hawaii," James Hardy, Asia Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, wrote in a recent analysis.

Mr. Kim, the South Korean defense minister, said that if North Korea were preparing for a full-scale conflict, there would be signs such as the mobilization of a number of units, including supply and rear troops, but South Korean military officials have found no such preparations.

North Korea's recent declarations, he said, "are rhetorical threats. I believe the odds of a full-scale provocation are small." But he added that North Korea might mount a small-scale provocation, such as its 2010 shelling of a South Korean island that killed four people.

At times, North Korea has gone beyond rhetoric. On Tuesday, it announced that it would restart a plutonium reactor it had shut down in 2007. A U.S. research institute said Wednesday that satellite imagery shows that construction needed for the restart has already begun.

For a second day Thursday, North Korean border authorities denied entry to South Koreans who manage jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong. South Koreans already at the plant were being allowed to return home. South Korea has prepared a military contingency plan should North Korea hold South Korean workers hostage in Kaesong, said Mr. Kim, the defense minister.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/north-korea-moves-missile-to-coast-682168/#ixzz2PgvICgYV

Lessons from Korea's and U.S.' Long Ago War

Just a few years after U.S. warships forced Japan to open its borders, another conflict arose in the Pacific region between the United States andKorea. While a New York newspaper called it "The Little War with the Heathens," Koreans referred to it as the "Barbarian Incursion of 1871." Not only was this the first time Americans seized Asian territory and raised the flag there, but it revealed how U.S. political leaders and their foreign policy unthinkingly dismissed different cultures, especially of nonwhite peoples, while presuming that their own values and national aspirations were universally appealing.(1)

In 1866 when heavily armed American merchant vessels arrived in Koreanwaters seeking a trade agreement, the Korean government had just driven out French Catholic missionaries, not to mention having been threatened by both China and Japan. Koreans sent a clear message to the Americans indicating they wanted neither Christianity nor trade, let alone a military invasion followed by a lengthy war. However, the U.S. ignored the message and landed at Pyongyang. When a crowd formed, U.S. sailors fired on them. The Koreans retaliated by killing those whom they presumed guilty and by burning a ship. Although there was talk of war in Washington, no action was taken.

Four years later the Grant Administration asked China's assistance to open negotiations with Korea, admitting that "little is known...of the people who inhabit that country." Yet Americans did have strong opinions about Asians, mainly that they were "cunning and lacked imagination."(2) The U.S. also believed that if it practiced restraint, "orientals" were likely to misunderstand it, merely serving to invite a Korean use of force. Orders were given to the U.S. secretary of state that the U.S. might have to use and display force if necessary. As expected, a flotilla of warships and supporting vessels anchored at the mouth of the Yomha River and Seoul did not appear benign but as a threat.

Although Korea maintained formal relations with China, it believed both China and Japan had been corrupted by having regular relations with theChristian West. Korea prided itself by upholding the true Confucian morality of familial piety and of practicing right relationships, right thinking, and right behaviors. Korea also sought self-sufficiency and pursued a policy of self-strengthening. Therefore, it wanted to remain isolated from much of the world. Initially, Korea ignored the U.S. believing that a dialogue with Americans would violate their longstanding policy of seclusion and commitment to non-intercourse with the West.

Even without a reply the U.S. was determined to visit the emperor and started to sail its warships and merchant vessels up the Han River. They also surveyed the river and coast. Although such actions appeared provocative, even hostile, the Korean emperor had ordered his people to avoid conflict and bloodshed. The Americans misunderstood this restraint, and, finding no resistance, they pressed on, confident of the purity of their motives and rightness of their mission.(3) They supposed that international treaties and trade relations were central to a civilized life and were offering the people of Korea an option to what Americans assumed were better technologies and a superior faith.

Such actions, though, marked the Koreans as uncivilized and that their policies, such as isolationism and self-sufficiency, were wrong. The Korean emperor finally sent a message to the U.S. which read that he wanted friendly relations but had no interest in meeting the Americans or in negotiating any treaties. The Americans affirmed their peaceful intentions and indicated they would continue the surveys. As the U.S. warships proceeded upstream towards the emperors palace, the Koreans opened fire. The Americans landed a contingent of almost 700 Marines, who defeated the Korean force on shore and then departed.

Both Korea and the U.S. believed each side had provoked the attack. "Koreans," wrote the U.S. secretary of state, "were no more and no less than a semi-barbarous and hostile race" who resisted the Americans' reasonable aspirations.(4) Americans were also made to believe that for the Koreans "human life is considered of little value, and soldiers, educated as they have been, meet death with the same indifference as the Indians of North America."(5) The Koreans, on the other hand, credited America's withdrawal to their superior moral virtues and fierce struggle, even overcoming the Westerners' advanced technologies and superior warships.

As the U.S. continues to send a number of advanced aircraft and guided missile destroyers, including nuclear submarines and B-52 bombers andB-2 stealth planes and F-22 Raptor fighter jets, to counter North Korea's nuclear test, its start-up of Yongbyon nuclear complex, and its claim that it is entering a "state of war" with South Korea; it is obvious that policies of containment and self-restraint have failed for both the U.S. and North Korea. Such failures always arise from ethnocentric presumptions and misinterpreting another's culture and moral values. At issue too are racist and religious presuppositions that, in the end, can lead to needless violence.

History reveals that changes in degrees and technologies, at some point, move so far as to become uncontrollable. The destructive nature of nuclear war dictates that war itself can no longer be regarded as the continuation of policy by other means. Just as nuclear weapons are a status symbol to the U.S., the same is true of North Korea. This security dilemma, or the propensity of armaments undertaken by one state for ostensibly defensive purposes to threaten other states, which arm in reaction, actually weakens national security. Technological fanaticism, or mutually assured destruction at any cost, whether it be nuclear missiles or drones, can never by materially or emotionally contained.

Fanaticism and advanced weapons technologies call for national sacrifices and the forgoing of important life-sustaining resources. Sadly, this is the new international order. Tragically, it is incompatible with both Confucian and Western beliefs. "The experience of dead generations," wrote Karl Marx, "weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." A nation and its individuals are subjected by ghastly forces beyond their control, by events and misunderstandings of the past that still influence the present. Regarding Korea's and the U.S.' "not so" long ago wars, including their fanatical provocations, will a middle ground for peace and justice be attempted before another hellish war occurs?