Six In The Morning

Don’t Bother Hiding  



With Air Force’s new drone, ‘we can see everything’

In ancient times, Gorgon was a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them. In modern times, Gorgon may be one of the military’s most valuable new tools.

This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

The system, made up of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, can transmit live images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements.

They’re Pissed At Everyone And With Good Reason  

 

Gazan youth issue manifesto to vent their anger with all sides in the conflict

The meeting takes place in a bare room in a block of flats in the centre of Gaza City. No photographs, no real names – those are the conditions.

This is the first time that a group of young Palestinian cyber-activists has agreed to meet a journalist since launching what it calls Gaza Youth’s Manifesto for Change. It is an incendiary document – written with courage and furious energy – that has captivated thousands of people who have come across it online, and the young university students are visibly excited, but also scared. “Not only are our lives in danger; we are also putting our families at risk,” says one of them, who calls himself Abu George.

For The Fox News Climate Change Deniers  

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves

India’s hidden climate change catastrophe  

Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. “I don’t know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn’t say,” Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. “I’d tell him: don’t worry, we can sell the salt from our table.”

Ms Nagamma, 41, showed us a picture of her husband – good-looking with an Elvis-style hairdo – on the day they married a quarter of a century ago. “He’d been unhappy for a month, but that day he was in a heavy depression. I tried to take the tin away from him but I couldn’t. He died in front of us. The head of the family died in front of his wife and children

Everything Changes On New Years Day    



Zapatistas: The war with no breath?  

Seventeen yearsafter rallying cries for land and freedom sparked the Zapatista rebellion, a quiet mist cloaks the mountains of Chiapas state in southeast Mexico.

Unlike previous years, there are no major celebrations, no marches or fiery public speeches by rebels fighting for the region’s long-neglected indigenous people.  

Hailed by the New York Times in 1994 as the “first postmodern Latin American revolution”, some commentators in Mexico and beyond now consider the Zapatistas a spent force, a rebellion with strong rhetoric and little capacity, lacking the ability to deliver beyond its rural base.

“The transformations the movement tried to make did not arrive,” says Gaston Garcia Flores, a professor of philosophy who studies social movements at the Universidad del Mar in southern Mexico.

But, after being pushed around for more than 500 years, others think it is naïve to consider the Zapatistas down for the count.

It’s A Good Thing I’m A Jerk With A Huge Ego

 

Don’t count on foreign troops, Gbagbo tells rival

Gbagbo has refused to step down as president, even though the country’s electoral commission and world leaders have recognised his challenger Alassane Ouattara as the winner of a November presidential election. The dispute has triggered violence in a country still divided after a 2002-3 civil war.

Three presidents from West African regional bloc Ecowas are planning a second round of talks on January 3 with Gbagbo in a bid to convince him to cede power to Ouattara. Gbagbo has shrugged off a threat by the regional body to unseat him by force.

Hoping To Destroy America    



Incoming House chairmen are on a mission

Reporting from Washington – They want to repeal the healthcare overhaul, pare back financial regulations, slash federal spending and curtail the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency. In essence, they want to challenge the agenda of the Obama administration at every turn.

The new GOP chairmen of key House committees such as Appropriations, Budget, Energy and Commerce, and Oversight and Government Reform believe they have a mandate to check the size and scope of government.