THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting

Monday, June 14, 2010

Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill 14 June Updates

NATIONAL by Linda Evans
 
-Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill 14 June Updates
June 14th, 2010


2010 Oil Spill-Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill 14 June Updates.  The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues on, and there’s no sign of stopping the oil so far.  The US Government previously gave BP 48 hours to increase the amount of oil the LMRP and containment cap were containing. The company previously said that they would be able to siphon 90% of the leaking oil, but that didn’t seem to be the case if you watched the live feed.
In addition, the Obama Administration wants BP to set up an escrow fund to pay for oil spill claims.  This would ensure that the company has the cash to pay for the damage caused by the spill, and would allow the government to rest easy knowing that they wouldn’t be totally stiffed by BP in the future.
In addition, BP is meeting today to discuss possibly cutting the dividends that they give shareholders each year.  A decision may not be reached today.  There are rumors that the company could eliminate the dividend this year or cut it back 50%.
Many people are sending in their suggestions on how to clean up the spill.  We are hoping that the government and BP are taking the suggestions seriously.While the oil spill containment is taking place, cleanup efforts should happen on the same time as well.
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Russia posts Katyn massacre documents on Internet


Russia posts Katyn massacre documents on Internet

Published April 28, 2010
 | Associated Press


AP
In this May 1943 file photo, two German officers, left, and a group of Allied officers who were prisoners of war look over a partly-emptied mass grave in the Katyn Forest in Russia. Russia's state archives posted documents Wednesday April 28, 2010 for the first time on the Internet about the Soviet Union's World War II massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens.
MOSCOW
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's state archives posted documents on the Internet for the first time Wednesday about the Soviet Union's World War II massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens.
The step was a gesture to Poland in a case that looms large in Polish history and has soured relations between the two countries for decades.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the documents posted on the archives' Russian-language website, reflecting a new willingness in Russia to accept responsibility for the killings at Katyn and elsewhere in 1940.
Relations between Russia and Poland have warmed following the tragic April 10 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others on a flight to visit the Katyn forest in western Russia for a memorial ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the massacre.
But while Medvedev's order was clearly intended as a positive gesture, the documents posted Wednesday were made public long ago and already have been published in Poland and Russia. Many more documents remain classified, despite dogged Polish appeals for the archives to be opened.

"There is some material that has not yet been handed over to our Polish partners. I have given the order to make that happen," he told journalists in Copenhagen.Medvedev later promised that more documents would be released.
The Katyn documents would help people learn from history, he said.
"Let everyone know what was done, who made the decisions, who ordered the elimination of the Polish officers," he said. "Everything is written there. With all the signatures."
In Warsaw, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk was cautiously optimistic, saying he welcomed the sentiment but would await Russia's next step.
Kaczynski's death could be a catalyst for renewed co-operation between Warsaw and Moscow, and Tusk urged Russia not to let the opportunity slip.
"I am curious to see if Russia will use the chance that this tragedy has given," Tusk told a news conference. "Let's wait for facts."
The documents now on the Internet were made public in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader. They include a March 1940 letter by Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police, recommending the execution of the Polish prisoners of war. The letter bears the signatures of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and three other members of the Politburo.
The documents also include the minutes of the Politburo meeting on March 5, 1940, at which Beria's proposal was approved, and a note from the head of the Soviet secret police in 1959 to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev advising that the Katyn files be destroyed.
For 50 years, the Soviet Union blamed the massacres on the Nazi German forces who invaded in 1941. This remained the official line until Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged Soviet responsibility in 1990, but Poles had always known the truth and the cover-up fed animosity toward Russia.
Documents that remain classified include materials from an investigation in the 1990s that are believed to include the names of those who carried out the executions. It was not clear whether Medvedev planned to release these materials.
Russia also has refused Polish requests to recognize the executed Poles as victims of political repression.
Polish historian Andrzej Kunert said although the documents posted Wednesday were known to historians, the decision to post them on the Internet was significant.
"We can surely call the decision a breakthrough, because it seems that for the first time a website that is generally accessible to everyone in the Russian Federation publishes three very important documents concerning the Katyn massacre," Kunert said on Polish TVN24. "It is certainly a very important step forward."
Many Russians still do not know the truth about Katyn, and the release of the documents may play a positive role in helping Russians come to terms with their own painful history under Stalin.
Within hours of the posting of the documents, nearly 700,000 Internet users tried to access the website, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing a spokesman for the state archives. The website responded slowly throughout the day due to the continued heavy traffic.
Kunert stressed that Poles were still waiting to see the results of the investigation by Russian prosecutors, and especially the classified reasons behind the discontinuation of the investigation in 2004.
Russia's Supreme Court took a small step in that direction last week by ordering the Moscow City Court to consider an appeal calling for the prosecutor's decision to drop the investigation to be declassified.
The Memorial rights organization, which brought the appeal, welcomed the posting of the documents on the government website, but said it was only a small step.
"The files of this criminal case must be disclosed and procedures observed, giving the Polish POWs executed in Katyn the status of victims of political repression," Alexander Guryanov of Memorial said, according to the Interfax news agency.
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On the Net: http://rusarchives.ru/publication/katyn/spisok.shtml
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1930s books revived to teach pupils traditional British history


1930s books revived to teach pupils traditional British history

History books first published in the 1930s have been revived in a bid to tackle schoolchildren's ignorance of Britain's past.

By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
Published: 9:30PM BST 10 Apr 2010
Book A History of Britain from Carter and Mears: 1930s books revived to teach pupils traditional British history
According to the publishers, the 1930s books are needed to address a 'crisis' in the teaching of the traditional narrative of British history
The series, called A History of Britain, was first published in 1937 and was widely used in schools for decades.
It has now been updated and relaunched for a modern audience amid growing concerns that schools are failing to give children a good grasp of history.
It comes as a group of leading history experts called for reform to the school curriculum so secondary schoolchildren are taught a single chronological history course, stretching from the Norman conquest to the 20th century.
Currently, pupils study topics such as the Nazis, Soviet Russia, slavery or the Victorians, often taught in isolation and repeated in different years.
According to the publishers, the 1930s books are needed to address a "crisis" in the teaching of the traditional narrative of British history.
"For more than half a century most intelligent youngsters in Britain have grown up to live in the half-darkness of historical ignorance," said Tom Stacey, chairman of Stacey International.
"I have seen this ignorance creeping up on three generations. I count their loss as incalculable deprivation. There has been a parallel discarding of the fabric of biblical history and the Christian narrative."
He said that traditional history had "all but vanished" in schools, replaced by a diet of "projects on slavery, Victorian slums, the labour movement or, again and again, the Second World War".
The 1930s series was written by E H Carter, who was chief inspector of schools, and R A F Mears, a history teacher. Subsequent volumes covered British history up to the 1950s.
The updated books are edited by David Evans, an historian and former head of history at Eton College.
The first two books to be re-released cover the Tudors and the Stuarts. Eight more will follow, beginning with the Roman invasion.
The last two books, From Churchill to Thatcher; 1951 – 1990, and Into the 21st Century, are new but will be in the same style as the original series.
Concerns that schools are failing to instil a good understanding of the timeline of British history have been raised by a long list of commentators, including academics David Starkey and Niall Ferguson, Andrew Marr, the BBC presenter and author of A History of Modern Britain, and the Prince of Wales.
"There can be no justification for the excessive focus on the history of the Third Reich," said Professor Ferguson, "What we urgently need is a campaign for real history in schools."
A group of experts, lead by Sean Lang, a senior lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, have just published a report, Better History, calling for a single chronological history course for 11 to 16 year olds. It should be compulsory and have historical knowledge at its heart, the group say.
Mr Lang said: "The current situation whereby students study one set of topics in the early years of secondary school and then embark on a quite separate set of topics in later years has gone unquestioned for too long.
"The building up of an extensive body of historical knowledge should be a central aim of the history curriculum."
Fears about current history teaching are backed by a damning Ofsted report which found that although the National Curriculum demands that children develop a "chronological framework", in practice pupils' knowledge was "often very patchy and specific" and that children were "unable to sufficiently link discrete historical events to answer big questions".
The Conservatives have pledged to give children a "clear sense of how British history developed", if the party wins the general election, and the Anglia Ruskin group hopes to influence a Tory rewrite of the National Curriculum.
The group, which includes Martin Roberts, a member of the academic steering committee of Prince Charles's Teaching Institute, and Nicolas Kinlock, a former school head of history, author and former deputy of the Historical Association, will hold a seminar in the summer to sort out details of the new proposed course of study.
Alan Hodkinson, principal lecturer in educational research at Liverpool John Moores University, whose three year study showed that even young children can grasp chronology, said: "Historical time is vital to the study of history.
"Without a comprehensive grasp of such, children will fail to understand how to sequence events, periods and people chronologically.
"My research suggests that rather than being de-emphasised, dates appear vital to historical study and should be employed consistently.
"It is time that the people responsible for the curriculum stopped underestimating what our children are capable of."
A report published last year by the Historical Association found that thousands of pupils get only two years of teaching in the subject at secondary level, instead of three.
Official figures show that fewer than a third of students sat GCSE history in 2008, raising concerns that the subject is becoming the preserve of independent and grammar schools.
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England 'least patriotic' country

England 'least patriotic' country

England is the least patriotic country in Europe, with just one in three British people aware of the date of St George's Day a survey has shown.

By Nick Collins
Published: 9:42PM BST 19 Apr 2010

Only a third of people were aware that the celebration of St George was this Friday, while forty per cent did not know why he is the patron saint, a study revealed yesterday. (MON)
Political correctness and a fear of appearing racist were said to be the main factors in the apparent lack of patriotism in England, along with the increasing influence of the European Union.
 ''This England'' magazine.
Twenty per cent blamed a broken society for their lack of patriotism, while half said they had been patriotic in the past.
The survey, which questioned 5,820 adults in nine European countries including Scotland, Wales and The Republic of Ireland, found that The Netherlands was the most patriotic European country.
Respondents were questioned on several aspects of national pride, with English people judging their overall level of patriotism to be 5.8 out of ten on average – the lowest of the nine nations.
One in four English adults said 'political correctness' had left them feeling ashamed to be English, while forty per cent said they felt England had completely lost its national identity.
Just ten per cent said they would happily fly the national flag on their house or in their garden, compared to more than a third of Dutch people, with more than a quarter saying they feared being called racist if they did so.
However, forty per cent of English people said they were happy to express their national pride in private, with a similar number saying they felt patriotic during big sporting events such as the world cup and the Olympics.
Three out of ten said they felt waves of patriotism in the wake of terrorist attacks on British soil.
Stephen Garnett, editor of ''This England'' magazine, said: ''We're incredibly disappointed that English people are afraid of displaying the St George's Cross on our patron saint's day.
''It was quite shocking to see some of the results, particularly the amount of people that don't fly the flag because of fear of being judged.
''It just shows what political correctness has done to the English people over the years."
The study, which was carried out between the 7th and 14th April, was published to celebrate St. George's Day this Friday.
Scottish people ranked their patriotism at 7.1 out of ten, the Welsh at 7.06 and the Irish at 6.72, while the Dutch were the most patriotic on 7.18.
Ireland was the nation where people were most likely to display their national flag.
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Survey:Vienna has world's best quality of life-Athens lowest Europe's (75)


Vienna has world's best quality of life: survey
(AFP) – May 26, 2010
NEW YORK — Vienna has the world's best quality of life and Baghdad the worst, with wildly popular but less organized cities like New York and London falling between, according to a survey Wednesday.
Mercer consultants' city rankings for 2010 lists Vienna, Zurich, Geneva, Vancouver and Auckland the top five urban living destinations.
Paris comes in only at 34, London at 39, Tokyo 40, Madrid 48 and New York at a lowly 49.
The list, aimed at government or multinational human resources departments, does not pretend to rank the most exciting or energetic cities, instead concentrating on stability, safety and public services.
"Mercer evaluates local living conditions in all the 420 cities it surveys worldwide. Living conditions are analyzed according to 39 factors, grouped in 10 categories," the company says.
These include crime levels, banking services, personal freedoms, sanitation, schools, transport, and climate.
On these criteria, cities known chiefly for cleanliness and calm come out well.
Switzerland scores three times in the top 10 with the addition of Bern at number nine. Germany also has three top 10: Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich.
In 10th place is Sydney, closely followed by New Zealand's Wellington at 12.
Auckland, sharing fourth place, leads Asian-Pacific cities, followed by Sydney, Wellington, Melbourne at 18 and Perth at 21. Singapore keeps its place as highest-ranking Asian city at 28, followed by Tokyo, Kobe and Yokohama in Japan.
Bottom of the Asian heap are Dhaka in Bangladesh at 206 and the ex-Soviet cities of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and Dushanbe in Tajikistan at 209 and 210.
Nothing though can match Baghdad at 221.
"A lack of security and stability continue to have a negative impact on Baghdad's quality of living and its score remains far behind that of Bangui (27.4) in the Central African Republic which is second to last," Mercer says.
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