Category: Archive

Captain Paul Watson, founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is currently touring Australia. Hear him speaking abouthis 30 year fight to save the oceans. For tour schedule, go to http://seashepherd.org/events.html

Insects such as the crow butterfly and snake mantis have extended far to the south of their traditional Queensland habitat and scientists believe the gradual warming of temperate Sydney is the cause, reported The Daily Telegraph (13 November 2006 p12).

Former tourist now resident: Australian Museum naturalist Martyn Robinson said the crow or oleander butterfly was once only found in Sydney in the hot summer months and then only if blown down by northerly winds. It is now breeding and living year-round in Sydney. "It used to be news if people found them breeding in Sydney but now it happens all the time," Dr Robinson said.

Telltale signs: Following the hottest October on record and predictions of above-average temperatures for spring and summer, other signs of a warmer, drier Sydney have emerged:

• Cicadas, which normally hatch in November, were early this year. Entomologist David Britton said cicadas had been out since October;

• Jacaranda trees have bloomed with much more vibrant and abundant flowers; and

• Tropical bee hawk moths, snake mantises and plumbago blue butterflies are being noted in increased numbers.

Birds doing it, why not insects? Macquarie University ecologist Associate Prolessor Lesley Hughes said the permanent presence of tropical insects in Sydney was no surprise. “We do have some reasonable data for birds moving south [from tropical areas] and it’s reasonable for insects to be doing the same thing," she said.

Starting early: Cicadas usually arrive in Sydney in November; however, Australian Museum entomology collection manager David Britton said the insects had been here for weeks.

The Daily Telegraph, 13/11/2006, p.12

Source: Erisk Net  

STANBUL, Nov. 13 — Leaders from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds on Monday announced a United Nations initiative to resolve the conflict between the West and the Muslim world.

They issued a framework for their effort, prepared over the past year, that singled out the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a primary source of the deepening split.

“No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield,” Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said at a news conference. “As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed.”

The report was drafted by 20 scholars and other leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Mohammad Khatami, the former Iranian president, and others from many nations. It calls for collective action on issues of education, youth and immigration.

Members of the panel and Mr. Annan emphasized their view that the causes of tensions are primarily political, not religious.

The secretary general will appoint a representative to oversee the follow-up of the recommendations, which, Mr. Annan warned, will have little impact if Muslims in violent places — whether Iraqis, Afghans, Chechens or Palestinians — continue to perceive their situation merely as a case of being made victims by non-Muslims.

“If these conflicts or difficult situations can be resolved, it will have a positive impact on the work we are doing here,” Mr. Annan said.

The host of the event, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, emphasized the symbolic importance of holding it in Istanbul, which bridges East and West and is the leading city in a predominantly Muslim country taking steps to join the European Union.

Joining the European Union, he said, would “prove that the polarization between cultures is actually artificial and contrived.”

The Alliance of Civilizations Initiative was the idea of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, who suggested it six months after terrorist bombings in Madrid killed 191 people in 2004.

“We’re going to immobilize extremists, prevent their actions,” Mr. Zapatero said here. “Nobody should doubt our victory.”

Mr. Annan said in a written statement: “The problem is not the Koran or the Torah or the Bible. Indeed, I have often said that the problem is never the faith, it is the faithful and how they behave toward each other.”

Source: New York Times