Militarization of the South China Sea

As if China’s latest move of establishing a military garrison on the disputed Paracel Islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) is not bad and provocative enough, now comes Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) confirming that it will complete the installation of a certain number of cannons and mortars on Taiping Island in the South China Sea next month in a move to enhance its military presence in the disputed seas amid the escalating conflict over the region.

Taiwan controls the Dongsha Islands, the largest island group in the South China Sea, as well as Taiping Island, the largest of the Spratly Islands and the only one where fresh water is available.

A total of eight sets of 40mm autocannons and a certain number of 120mm mortars is said to be shipped to the island by the end of August after a legislative committee demanded in May that the MND should do so on Taiping Island and Dongsha Island within six months.

What we seem to be seeing now is the beefing up of arms and forces in the most unlikely place between these two antagonistic countries.

China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which it has vowed to retake, by force if necessary.
It must be recalled that Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China (ROC) government, which fled the mainland to Taiwan in 1949, at first claimed to represent the whole of China, which it intended to re-occupy. It held China's seat on the United Nations Security Council and was recognized by many Western nations as the only Chinese government.

But in 1971, the UN switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing when the sleeping giant started waking up and flexing its muscles and the ROC government was forced out.

While China belittles Taiwan’s existence as a sovereign state, Taiwan’s leaders, however, claim that it is clearly much more than a province, arguing that it is a sovereign state, as it has its own constitution, democratically-elected leaders, and over 400,000 troops in its armed forces.

With the militarization of the South China Sea by the Chinese and Taiwanese governments, not to mention the minuscule presence of naval forces from the Philippines and Vietnam, which are both active participants in the sovereignty dispute in the region, the more that we see tension building up and the prospect of resolving the dispute slipping away.

For as long as China continues asserting, for historical reason, its claim of sovereignty over nearly all of the sea, which is believed to hold vast amounts of oil and gas, a rich fishing grounds and is home to shipping lanes that are vital to global trade, it leaves no doubt in everybody’s mind that the region will be an inevitable flashpoint in the years to come.

Time to intervene in Syria

What used to be a public demonstration as part of the wider Arab Spring on March 15, 2011 that developed into a nationwide uprising demanding the end to nearly five decades of Ba’ath Party rule, as well as the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, has now turned into a deadly civil war between the government forces and the Free Syrian Army.

Not only has death toll been climbing every day but the conflict itself has created a humanitarian problem of unimaginable proportion, as it always happens, displacement, being a by-product of war.

Perhaps it would have been understandable if war is fought between two countries or between races, for one legitimate reason or another, but when war is fought within your own country, killing your own people, making them go elsewhere fearful, hungry and homeless simply because they had had enough of your ruthlessness and wants you to step down and you don’t want to because you think it is God’s given right for you to rule, then something has got to be done.

"What is the world waiting for?" asked one Syrian woman while holed up in a makeshift bomb shelter with her sick son. "For us to die of hunger and fear?"

Indeed, these are echoes of what is being heard in Syria since that fateful day in March 2011 and actions have been made but to no avail.

The United States, the European Union, the Arab League and Turkey are all enforcing sanctions against Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, but the violence has only worsened.

For months the UN and Arab League's special envoy, Kofi Annan, has tried to persuade the Syrian government and his opponents to implement his internationally-backed six-point peace plan.

A U.N. Security Council resolution backing the Arab League’s plan to encourage a post-Assad transition in Syria was vetoed by Russia and China. The veto left many in the international community disgusted and concerned that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad will continue to escalate the killing of civilians.

In fact the veto powers of Russia and China has only emboldened al-Assad in going after the opposition with all the fire power that he has in his resources.

Meanwhile, the unrelenting onetime ragtag militias of the Syrian opposition that has evolve into a more effective Free Syrian Army with the help of some of al-Assad’s high ranking officers who have abandoned him is sustaining their fight against the regime with  an increasingly sophisticated network of activists in southern Turkey that is smuggling crucial supplies across the border, including weapons, communications gear, field hospitals and even salaries for soldiers who defect.

The network reflects an effort to forge an opposition movement linking military, governmental and humanitarian organizations, that together can not only defeat the vastly superior military of President Bashar al-Assad, but also replace his government.

The rising sophistication of the effort underscores the evolving nature of the conflict and how control over the north and northwestern areas of the country is slowly slipping away from the government.

Not only that. The conflict is even getting closer to the presidential residence after an explosion at the National Security Bureau in Damascus caused by a suicide attack reportedly killed al-Assad's brother-in-law, the defense minister and a former defense minister.

If that is not bad enough, what is making it worst for al-Assad is that another 600 Syrians reportedly made their way to Turkey recently, and two Syrian brigadier-generals were said to be among the group. According to reports, there are now 20 Syrian generals who have turned their backs on al-Assad.

After this humiliating incident, what the Free Syrian Army is apprehensive about now is that al-Assad’s embattled regime might resort to using chemical weapons

Syria has the “biggest chemical weapons arsenal in the world,” according to Israel’s deputy chief of the general staff, Major General Yair Naveh. Israel has voiced concern about what will happen to them if the Damascus regime falls.

No doubt, the time to intervene in Syria’s conflict, sooner than later, is of the essence.

Magnetic material in trout determines its movement

A new study by German scientists led by Dr. Michael Winklhofer, from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, has found out that trout have cells in their noses that act like miniature compasses to help them navigate.

According to the study the cells, which are believed to exist in other animals, contain iron-rich deposits of a magnetic material called magnetite.

They were found in trout by suspending nasal cells in a solution and moving them using a rotating magnetic field.

The cells were then separated off and examined in more detail.

Each "magnetoreceptor" cell had magnetite particles firmly anchored to its membrane.

Tests suggested the cells were capable of detecting magnetic north as well as small changes in magnetic fields.

They were about 100 times more sensitive to magnetic fields than had been expected.

Scientists have long suspected that many animals, including migratory birds, fish and even cows, possess a magnetic sense.

The study published in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences, said their rotating field technique was able to "unambiguously identify" magnetic cells.

They concluded: "Our results show that the magnetically identified cells clearly meet the physical requirements for a magnetoreceptor capable of rapidly detecting small changes in the external magnetic field."

Similar magnetic cells could explain how cattle are affected by power lines, the scientists added.
Previous research has shown that cows tend to line up in a north-south direction when they graze.
But cows grazing under power lines face in random directions, suggesting that their magnetic sense has been disturbed.

China’s despotic incursions in other country’s territory

Not being done yet bullying the Philippines and other sovereign countries in the region over territorial dispute in the South China Seas, China has shifted its sights and now is causing an uproar in Japan by telling its government to respect Beijing’s “indisputable sovereignty” over islands claimed by both countries in the East China Sea.

The islands referred to here are islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

Like the contested Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Seas, the Senkaku or Diaoyu also lies in rich fishing grounds and are thought to contain valuable mineral reserves.

Tokyo recognizes a private Japanese family as owner of the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, which the government intended to purchase, but claimed otherwise by China, thus, the intrusion into Japanese territorial waters by Chinese patrol vessels.

It has been reported that the owner of the islands is demanding that either the Japanese government or the Tokyo government, which is also vying to buy the islets, construct a naval base to secure Japan's sovereignty over them.

It will be remembered that the Senkakus were controlled by the US after World War II, but were returned to Japan together with Okinawa. Chinese claims over the islands emerged in the late 1960s, about the time that a UN survey revealed the existence of a big hydrocarbon deposit beneath them.

Again, as in the Spratly and Scarborough dispute, the Chinese government issued a statement, saying, that “the Diaoyu Islands and their affiliated islets have always been China’s territory since ancient times.”

Unlike the small and poor nation claimants in the South China Seas that is being bullied with impunity by China, the latter has to think twice its actions towards Japan since it has been confirmed by the State Department that the Senkakus, which lies between Okinawa and Taiwan, "fall within the scope of Article 5 of the 1960 US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Co-operation and Security".

But, the most important question now is: What can you do to a UN member who refuses to recognize international agreements such as the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which were crafted to settle disputes?

It is even useless to bring the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which normally could settle questions of boundaries and questions of sovereignty, because China has said, time and again, that it would not agree to the jurisdiction of ICJ.

If China, in this regard, is dishonoring the UN charter and its preamble, how could an organization of lesser eminence, the 10 members of Southeast Asian regional body ASEAN, be able to stop China from making despotic incursions on other country’s territory?

It is for a reason, therefore, that Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario sounded desperate when he denounced Chinese “duplicity” and “intimidation” in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

“If Philippine sovereignty and jurisdiction can be denigrated by a powerful country through pressure, duplicity, intimidation and the threat of the use of force, the international community should be concerned about the behavior,” Del Rosario said in the recently concluded annual ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

World’s largest solar power plant may be life threatening

A study a few years back has confirmed that birds flying through a solar field meet sudden death upon accidental contact with a solar panel or suffers a slow death when their feathers are singed or burned off.

The question now is: How dangerous would the world’s largest solar power plant currently being built in the Mojave Desert be to humans and wildlife?

The plant is being equipped with 170,000 garage-door size solar mirrors and a specialized GPS device that will align the plants giant mirrors to track the sun across the desert sky, bouncing radiation to the tops of three 45-story towers which will then heat the water inside the towers to 1,000 degrees, creating steam power for electricity creation.

Because of the enormousness of the Ivanpah plant, and the fact that this type of technology has never before been used, researchers are worried about the dire consequences the massive mirrors would have on public safety especially that, for now, they are just relying mostly on computer modeling to provide answers.

Critics of the project, which includes the Defense Department, say no one can specify the dangers because no solar plant has been built on this scale—but it might vaporize birds, blind drivers miles away, flip small airplanes, or even attract Air Force heat-seeking missiles.

Even if the proponents of this huge project find the skeptics wrong, still threatening issues lie present, one way or another, since the federal government is said to be planning more than 100 solar projects in the Mojave Desert.

Drinking water from garden hose is unsafe

Whether you are in Asia experiencing the hot days or in countries welcoming the advent of the summer months, here is one precaution that should be taken to heart, especially if you have children playing around outdoors all the time, enjoying the sun and getting thirsty.

A recent study by the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan released on HealthyStuff.org has found out that the water from common garden hoses is full of toxic materials that could harm the human body.

The study reported that 100 percent of the garden hoses sampled contained plastic additives including phthalates or plasticizers currently banned in children’s products.

According to Health Stuff, consumption of these hazardous plasticizers can disturb normal hormonal processes and are linked to birth defects, altered levels of reproductive hormones, increased breast cancer risk, and asthma.

Also discovered were high levels of lead and bisphenol A (BPA).

Lead is found in the brass fixtures at the mouth of gardening hoses and, out of the of 90 garden hoses screened, 33 percent of products contained levels of lead that exceeded those considered safe for children.

Apparently, garden hoses are not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which monitors America's public drinking supply. The study's findings showed that levels of lead in water coming from garden hoses they tested exceeded legal safe levels 100 percent of the time.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines BPA as an industrial chemical used to make hard, clear plastic. The chemical component is said to have detrimental effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children.

The study found levels of BPA at 20 times higher than those of safe drinking water levels.

Hotel room most contaminated places

This does not concern me much since I seldom travel and much less stay in a hotel. But I find the subject interesting and I am blogging about it if only to forewarn those who happen to visit this site when they go traveling and staying in hotels.

According to researchers from the University of Houston led by Katie Kirsch, among the surfaces in a hotel room that is most likely to be contaminated with potentially sickness-inducing bacteria, including streptococcus and staphylococcus, are the bedside lamp switch and the television remote.

The study, according to Kirsch, was not intended to scare people away from staying in hotels, but was rather aimed at improving cleaning practices. It was conducted in three hotel rooms located in Texas, Indiana and South Carolina, where the researchers collected samples from 19 surfaces.

They tested the levels of total aerobic bacteria and coliform (fecal) bacterial contamination on each of the surfaces.

The lowest levels of contamination were found on bed headboards, curtain rods and bathroom door handles.

While some of the most contaminated samples, including the toilet and the bathroom sink, were to be expected, the highest levels of contamination, however, were found in the maid’s cleaning cart,  including gloves, mops and sponges – noting that these items would easily carry the bacteria from room to room.

'Identifying high-risk items within a hotel room would allow housekeeping managers to strategically design cleaning practices and allocate time to efficiently reduce the potential health risks posed by microbial contamination in hotel rooms,' Kirsch explained.