Sunday, 9 May 2010
Saturday, 8 May 2010
paul__lewis BBC: Cameron offered Lib Dems cabinet posts (home secretary, chief secretary to the treasury and transport secretary) #dontdoitnick
Pakistanis pose as Indians after NY bomb scare
Faisal Shahzad, 30, a naturalized American born in Pakistan, was arrested on Monday, two days after authorities say he parked a crude car bomb in New York's busy Times Square.
Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef are also of Pakistani decent, and anti-American militants fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan take refuge in Pakistan.
In Brooklyn, home to one of the largest Pakistani populations in the United States, business is scant at the various grocery, halal meat and sweet cake shops since a Pakistani-American was suspected in the Times Square plot. More than 100 businesses along Coney Island Avenue have closed due to a 30 percent drop in business since 2001, a merchants' association said.
In Washington, an American man of Pakistani descent told of coming under suspicion this week when he tried to buy garden fertilizer. The Times Square car bomb contained a non-explosive type of fertilizer.
While there have been no reported incidents since the failed car bomb attack last Saturday, some Pakistanis are bracing for reprisals. Police have increased foot patrols.
"A lot of Pakistanis can't get jobs after 9/11 and now it's even worse," said Asghar Choudhri, an accountant and chairman of Brooklyn's Pakistani American Merchant Association. "They are now pretending they are Indian so they can get a job."
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, creating hostilities that ordinarily would lead a Pakistani to resent being mistaken for an Indian.
According to the latest U.S. census data, some 210,410 people of Pakistani origin reside in the United States. Nearly 15,000 Pakistanis received U.S. immigrant visas last year.
"I want to make clear that we will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week, noting there are always "a few bad apples."
New York is "the city where you can practice your religion and say what you want to say and be in charge of your own destiny and we're going to keep it that way," Bloomberg said.
SUSPICION OF GARDENING
In Washington, an American of Pakistani heritage who would only be identified as Farhan, said a manager of a suburban home-improvement store prevented him from buying two bags of fertilizer for his family's lawn on Tuesday.
Farhan, who was born in northern Virginia, said police arrived soon after, investigated and allowed him to buy the fertilizer.
"What kind of a country are we living in when a 22-year-old male can't buy fertilizer?" Farhan asked. "I'm American. I'm not Pakistani."
Farhan said the store had subsequently apologized and the case appeared to be one of an overzealous manager rather than store policy.
Merchants in New York, many of whom declined to be named, still remember reprisals after September 11. Soon after the attacks, there was a drive-by shooting in Brooklyn at a Pakistani restaurant, which is now closed.
The local merchants association has shrunk to 150 members, from about 250 merchants almost a decade ago.
The FBI also arrested many undocumented workers in the neighborhood, leading to a wave of deportations, and residents would call law enforcement to make claims against their neighbors, including many false claims, Choudhri said.
"After 9/11, we took much pain," he said. "After that, a small beating is nothing. Now the Pakistanis are not so much scared but we are ashamed. We are embarrassed that the name of Pakistan came up."
@'Reuters'
How (and Why) to Donate Your Hair to the Gulf
Those sausage-looking things are actually hairbooms: pantyhose stuffed with human hair that can be tossed into the water to contain an oil spill. Sounds absurd, but it's one of the few known ways to contain them, and the technique was used for the Exxon Valdez mess in 1989, and in the Cosco Busan spill of 2007. Containing a spill is, after all, a first step in cleaning it up.
Of course, in order to contain the amount of oil currently messing up the Gulf, a lot of hair (and hose) is needed. Matter of Trust is on the case, collecting human, dog, and cat hair from salons and individual donors to weave it all together to make oil-absording mats and booms. If this hair thing works this go-round, it could be a pretty cool low-tech solution to a very big problem.
(If you're not due for a trim, the Daily Beast has a good list of other ways you can help out.)
Siobhan O'Connor @'Good'
Scientists bemoan loss of expertise in election
The departure from parliament of Dr Evan Harris, a family doctor and science spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, prompted a string of tributes and immediately sparked an online campaign to get him re-elected.
"We have so few members of parliament who are knowledgeable about science and medicine -- losing any is bad, but losing one with Evan's flair, charm and charisma is a disaster," said Simon Wessely of the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London.
"Let's hope there is another general election as soon as possible."
Gail Cardew, director of programs at the Royal Institution, said it was "a sad day for the science community."
Conservatives were in pole position to take power Friday after winning the most seats in parliament in a bitterly fought election, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown had not yet signaled a willingness to relinquish power.
Britain's scientists had taken keen interest in this election and expressed concern about the lack of expertise in a parliament that scrutinizes policies on everything from nanotechnology to abortion to embryonic stem cell research.
In an effort to focus attention on the relative lack of expertise, a tiny, newly formed Science Party put up a single candidate to fight for the seat of Conservative David Tredinnick, who has backed the idea of using astrology and homeopathy in the country's state-run National Health System.
Tredinnick held the seat, with the Science Party's candidate Dr Michael Brooks gaining just 0.4 percent of the vote.
A poll by the scientific journal Nature ahead of the election found that of the 3.3 million science and technology graduates in Britain, 80 percent said a candidate's attitude to science would have an impact on the way they cast their votes.
It also found the Liberal Democrats -- who came a long way back in third place in Thursday's poll -- were seen as the most likely party to use science or scientific advice to formulate their policies if they were to win power.
But as the final results trickled in Friday, commentators concluded that science was among the biggest losers.
"This election looks to have had a truly dreadful outcome for science, regardless of which party or parties ultimately go on to form the government," Mark Henderson, science editor of The Times newspaper, wrote in a blog.
"It has denuded the House of Commons (parliament) of science's strongest advocates, and significantly eroded its scientific expertise."
@'Reuters'
"We have so few members of parliament who are knowledgeable about science and medicine -- losing any is bad, but losing one with Evan's flair, charm and charisma is a disaster," said Simon Wessely of the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London.
"Let's hope there is another general election as soon as possible."
Gail Cardew, director of programs at the Royal Institution, said it was "a sad day for the science community."
Conservatives were in pole position to take power Friday after winning the most seats in parliament in a bitterly fought election, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown had not yet signaled a willingness to relinquish power.
Britain's scientists had taken keen interest in this election and expressed concern about the lack of expertise in a parliament that scrutinizes policies on everything from nanotechnology to abortion to embryonic stem cell research.
In an effort to focus attention on the relative lack of expertise, a tiny, newly formed Science Party put up a single candidate to fight for the seat of Conservative David Tredinnick, who has backed the idea of using astrology and homeopathy in the country's state-run National Health System.
Tredinnick held the seat, with the Science Party's candidate Dr Michael Brooks gaining just 0.4 percent of the vote.
A poll by the scientific journal Nature ahead of the election found that of the 3.3 million science and technology graduates in Britain, 80 percent said a candidate's attitude to science would have an impact on the way they cast their votes.
It also found the Liberal Democrats -- who came a long way back in third place in Thursday's poll -- were seen as the most likely party to use science or scientific advice to formulate their policies if they were to win power.
But as the final results trickled in Friday, commentators concluded that science was among the biggest losers.
"This election looks to have had a truly dreadful outcome for science, regardless of which party or parties ultimately go on to form the government," Mark Henderson, science editor of The Times newspaper, wrote in a blog.
"It has denuded the House of Commons (parliament) of science's strongest advocates, and significantly eroded its scientific expertise."
@'Reuters'
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