BEST EARTH IMAGES OF THE WEEK XLVI

Best Earth Images of the Week - March 22, 2013
By Our Amazing Planet, 23 March 2013.

1. The road less travelled

A camera trap has captured photos of two healthy tigers using a protected corridor in the Kerala province of southwest India this year, evidence that the pathway could help populations of the endangered animals.

The first photo shows an adult male tiger in very good health that has just preyed upon a gaur, also known as an Indian bison, according to a release from the World Land Trust, which funded the creation of the protected area. The camera trap spotted another adult tiger, also in good health, earlier in the year.

[Full Story: Cameras Capture Tigers Trekking Through Wildlife Corridor]

2. Big Hop for amphibian conservation

Several teeny-tiny frogs, one big hop for amphibian conservation.

Scientists have successfully bred a certain type of endangered Panamanian amphibian - the limosa harlequin frog - for the first time. The development is key because populations of the itty-bitty frog, which is smaller than a quarter as a baby, are declining in its native country.

[Full Story: Itsy-Bitsy Endangered Frog Bred in Bid to Save Species]

3. Images of home

NASA's latest Earth-observation satellite has snapped its first photos, continuing a four-decade effort by numerous spacecraft to track environmental change and resource use across the planet.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), which launched Feb. 11, captured a series of images of the United States' Great Plains and Rocky Mountain region on Monday (March 18) using both of its on-board instruments.

[Full Story: Powerful New Earth-Observation Satellite Snaps 1st Photos]

4. New finds

Two new colourful species of lizards have been discovered in the Peruvian rain forest, in a little-explored section of the Andes Mountains in the northeast of the country.

Both species of lizards sport colourful splotches of green and brown that allow them to blend into the mountain rain forests they call home.

[Full Story: 2 New Lizard Species Discovered in Peru]

5. Earth as art

It's that time of year again: the first day of spring.

On this special date, the length of the day and night are about the same for most of the planet. The amount of solar energy delivered to the Northern and Southern Hemisphere is also equal.

[Full Story: What the Spring Equinox Looks Like from Space]

6. Happy blowout day

On this day in 2008, molten lava blasted through the summit of Kilauea volcano at 2:58 a.m. Hawaii time.

The blowout built a lava lake in Halema'uma'u crater, itself the remnant of a past explosion. After five years of close study, scientists think the lake is like no other place on Earth. The lava is as light as water. The lake level rises and falls by the minute, the hour, the month. Watchers who study the pit's "breathing" can forecast coming eruptions, because the gaping hole is a direct conduit into Kilauea's magma reserves.

[Full Story: Mighty Hawaiian Volcano's Blowout Turns 5]

7. New views

Those unwilling to face the altitude sickness, crevasses and avalanches of Mount Everest can still explore the world's highest mountain from home.

Google Maps has unveiled stunning, panoramic imagery from some of the highest, most remote places on Earth, including the 18,192-foot-high (5,545 meters) Mount Everest base camp. (Everest's peak is at an altitude of 29,035 feet, or 8,850 meters)

[Full Story: Google Maps Unveils Views of Everest ]

8. Underwater grave boasts new life

For the first time ever, scientists say they have discovered a whale skeleton on the ocean floor near Antarctica. Resting nearly a mile below the surface, the boneyard is teeming with strange life, including at least nine new species of tiny of deep-sea creatures, according to a new study.

Though whales naturally sink to the ocean floor when they die, it's extremely rare for scientists to come across these final resting places, known as "whale falls." Discovering one typically requires a remote-controlled undersea vehicle and some luck.

[Full Story: Antarctic's First-Ever Whale Skeleton Found]

[Source: Our Amazing Planet. Edited.]

AUNG SAN SUU KYI'S "SAFFRON MONKS" STALK STREETS WITH MACHETES - MASS SLAUGHTERING REFUGEES

We should already be familiar with the person in the centre of the above photo - Myanmar’s most famous and beloved citizen, a living icon of resistance to military tyranny and of democracy, who is feted at home and abroad as a freedom fighter on par with Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. But as the saying goes, “things are not always what they seem.” Now the iconic figure is not as angelic as we are led to believe, as the following article shows. (Another article reports she has become a tarnished idol.) And note that most of the victims in this slaughter are the Rohingya, the stateless ethnic Muslim group.

Aung San Suu Kyi's "Saffron Monks" Stalk Streets With Machetes - Mass Slaughtering Refugees
By Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer, 22 March 2013.

March 22, 2013 (LD) - In Southeast Asia's Myanmar, already 20 are reported dead in the latest genocidal violence carried out by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's "Saffron monk" political movement.

Aung San Suu Kyi's "Saffron Monks" are committing genocide in Myanmar. The West has both created this movement and is silently supporting it, hoping to disrupt and ultimately drive out extensive Chinese interests found at the epicentre of the violence.

CNN's "Armed Buddhists, including monks, clash with Muslims in Myanmar," reports that:

Buddhist monks and others armed with swords and machetes Friday stalked the streets of a city in central Myanmar, where sectarian violence that has left about 20 people dead has begun to spread to other areas, according to local officials.

The article also added that:

In the western state of Rakhine, tensions between the majority Buddhist community and the Rohingya, a stateless ethnic Muslim group, boiled over into clashes that killed scores of people and left tens of thousands of others living in makeshift camps last year.

Most of the victims were Rohingya.

"The on-going intercommunal strife in Rakhine State is of grave concern," the International Crisis Group said in a November report. "And there is the potential for similar violence elsewhere, as nationalism and ethno-nationalism rise and old prejudices resurface."

CNN's citing of the corporate-financier funded "International Crisis Group," which has supported and engineered similar strife elsewhere around the world, including Egypt in 2011, is particularly foreshadowing. And as in previous spates of recent violence, Aung San Suu Kyi has once again allowed opportunities to call on her own supporters to stand down, slip by in silent complicity.

Rakhine state is the site of an expanding Chinese presence, including a port and the terminal of a Sino-Myanmar pipeline and logistical network leading to China's Yunnan province. The violence unfolding in Rakhine over the past months appears to be the execution of the well-documented US "String of Pearls" containment strategy versus China, and mirrors similar violence being carried out by US proxies in Pakistan.

Suu Kyi's "Saffron Monks"

Similar violence in September of last year revealed the name of one of the leading "monks." AFP's September 2012 article, "Monks stage anti-Rohingya march in Myanmar, refers to the leader of these mobs as "a monk named Wirathu."

However, this isn't merely "a monk named Wirathu," but "Sayadaw" (venerable teacher) Wirathu who has led many of "democratic champion" Aung San Suu Kyi's political street campaigns and is often referred to by the Western media as an "activist monk."

In March 2012, Wirathu had led a rally calling for the release of so-called "political prisoners," so designated by US State Department funded faux-NGOs. Wirathu himself was in prison, according to AFP, for inciting hatred against Muslims, until recently released as part of an amnesty, an amnesty US State Department-funded (page 15, .pdf) Democratic Voice of Burma claims concerned only "political prisoners."

Real monks don't do politics. The "venerable" Wirathu (front, left) leads a rally for "political prisoners" loyal to Aung San Suu Kyi's "pro-democracy" movement in March, 2012. Wirathu himself has been often portrayed as an "activist monk" and a "political prisoner" who spent years in prison. In reality, he was arrested for his role in violent sectarian clashes in 2003, while Suu Kyi's "pro-democracy" front is actually US-funded sedition. Wirathua has picked up right where he left off in 2003, and is now leading anti-Rohingya rallies across the country.

Human Rights Watch itself, in its attempt to memorialize the struggle of "Buddhism and activism in Burma" (.pdf),  admits that Wirathu was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years in prison along with other "monks" for their role in violent clashes between "Buddhists and Muslims" (page 67, .pdf). This would make Wirathu and his companions violent criminals, not "political prisoners."

While Western news agencies have attempted to spin the recent violence as a new phenomenon implicating Aung San Suu Kyi's political foot soldiers as genocidal bigots, in reality, the sectarian nature of her support base has been back page news for years. AFP's recent but uncharacteristically honest portrayal of Wirathu, with an attempt to conceal his identity and role in Aung San Suu Kyi's "Saffron" political machine, illustrates the quandary now faced by Western propagandists as the violence flares up again, this time in front of a better informed public.

An alleged monk, carries an umbrella with Aung San Suu Kyi's image on it. These so-called monks have played a central role in building Suu Kyi's political machine, as well as maintaining over a decade of genocidal, sectarian violence aimed at Myanmar's ethnic minorities. Another example of US "democracy promotion" and tax dollars at work.

During 2007's "Saffron Revolution," these same so-called "monks" took to the streets in a series of bloody anti-government protests, in support of Aung San Suu Kyi and her Western-contrived political order. HRW would specifically enumerate support provided to Aung San Suu Kyi's movement by these organizations, including the Young Monks Union (Association), now leading violence and calls for ethnic cleansing across Myanmar.

The UK Independent  in their article, "Burma's monks call for Muslim community to be shunned," mentions the Young Monks Association by name as involved in distributing flyers recently, demanding people not to associate with ethnic Rohingya, and attempting to block humanitarian aid from reaching Rohingya camps.

The Independent also notes calls for ethnic cleansing made by leaders of the 88 Generation Students group (BBC profile here) - who also played a pivotal role in the pro-Suu Kyi 2007 protests. "Ashin" Htawara, another "monk activist" who considers Aung San Suu Kyi,  his "special leader" and greeted her with flowers for her Oslo Noble Peace Prize address earlier this year, stated at an event in London that the Rohingya should be sent "back to their native land."

Hands up for recolonization and genocide. One of the US State Department's favourite "activism 2.0" gags is having activists write on their hands and photographing it to show solidarity for a cause across social media. Aung San Suu Kyi (photo courtesy of Soros.org) herself promoted the recolonization of Myanmar by Western interests in this way. Ironically, her supporters who had used the tactic to support Suu Kyi and others in her movement, are now writing pro-genocide slogans on their hands.

The equivalent of Ku Klux Klan racists demanding that America's black population be shipped back to Africa, the US State Department's "pro-democratic" protesters in Myanmar have been revealed as habitual, violent bigots with genocidal tendencies. Their recent violence also casts doubts on Western narratives portraying the 2007 "Saffron Revolution's" death toll as exclusively caused by government security operations.

While in late 2012 the Western media attempted to ignore the genocidal nature of Suu Kyi's "Saffron Monks," now it appears that more are catching on. The International Business Times published recently an article titled, "Burmese Bin Laden: Is Buddhist Monk Wirathu Behind Violence in Myanmar?" stating:

The shadow of controversial monk Wirathu, who has led numerous vocal campaigns against Muslims in Burma, looms large over the sectarian violence in Meikhtila.

Wirathu played an active role in stirring tensions in a Rangoon suburb in February, by spreading unfounded rumours that a local school was being developed into a mosque, according to the Democratic voice of Burma. An angry mob of about 300 Buddhists assaulted the school and other local businesses in Rangoon.

The monk, who describes himself as 'the Burmese Bin Laden' said that his militancy "is vital to counter aggressive expansion by Muslims".

He was arrested in 2003 for distributing anti-Muslim leaflets and has often stirred controversy over his Islamophobic activities, which include a call for the Rhohingya and "kalar", a pejorative term for Muslims of South Asian descent, to be expelled from Myanmar.

He has also been implicated in religious clashes in Mandalay, where a dozen people died, in several local reports.

The article also cites the Burma Campaign UK, whose director is attempting to rework the West's narrative in Myanmar to protect their long-groomed proxy Suu Kyi, while disavowing the violence carried out by a movement they themselves have propped up, funded, and directed for many years.

Like their US-funded (and armed) counterparts in Syria, many fighting openly under the flag of sectarian extremism held aloft by international terrorist organization Al Qaeda, we see the absolute moral bankruptcy of Myanmar's "pro-democracy" movement that has, up until now, been skilfully covered up by endless torrents of Western propaganda - Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize and recent "Chatham House Prize" all being part of the illusion. And just like in Syria, the West will continue supporting and intentionally fuelling the violence while attempting to compartmentalize the crisis politically to maintain plausible deniability.

Aung San Suu Kyi is a Western Proxy

In "Myanmar (Burma) "Pro-Democracy" Movement a Creation of Wall Street & London," it was documented that Suu Kyi and organizations supporting her, including local propaganda fronts like the New Era Journal, the Irrawaddy, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio, have received millions of dollars a year from the Neo-Conservative chaired National Endowment for Democracy, convicted criminal and Wall Street speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute, and the US State Department itself, citing Britain's own "Burma Campaign UK (.pdf)."

The Myitsone Dam, on its way to being the 15th largest in the world until construction was halted in September by a campaign led by Wall Street-puppet Aung San Suu Kyi, a stable of US-funded NGOs, and a terrorist campaign executed by armed groups operating in Kachin State, Myanmar.

And not only does the US State Department in tandem with Western corporate media provide Aung San Suu Kyi extensive political, financial, and rhetorical backing, they provide operational capabilities as well, allowing her opposition movement to achieve Western objectives throughout Myanmar. The latest achievement of this operational capability successfully blocked the development of Myanmar's infrastructure by halting a joint China-Mynamar dam project that would have provided thousands of jobs, electricity, state-revenue, flood control, and enhanced river navigation for millions. Suu Kyi and her supporting network of NGOs, as well as armed militants in Myanmar's northern provinces conducted a coordinated campaign exploiting both "environmental" and "human rights" concerns that in reality resulted in Myanmar's continual economic and social stagnation.

The ultimate goal of course is to effect regime change not only in Myanmar, but to create a united Southeast Asian front against China. The unqualified "progress" the US claims is now being made in Myanmar moves forward in tandem with Myanmar's opening to Western corporate-financier interests.

As reported in June, 2011's "Collapsing China," as far back as 1997 there was talk about developing an effective containment strategy coupled with the baited hook of luring China into its place amongst the "international order." Just as in these 1997 talking-points where author and notorious Neo-Con policy maker Robert Kagan described the necessity of using America's Asian "allies" as part of this containment strategy, Clinton goes through a list of regional relationships the US is trying to cultivate to maintain "American leadership" in Asia.

(Top) The "Lilliputians" though small in stature were collectively able to tie down the larger Gulliver from the literary classic "Gulliver's Travels." In the same manner, the US wants to use smaller Southeast Asian nations to "tie down" the larger China. (Bottom) From SSI's 2006 "String of Pearls" report detailing a strategy of containment for China. While "democracy," "freedom," and "human rights" will mask the ascension of Aung San Suu Kyi and others into power, it is part of a region-wide campaign to overthrow nationalist elements and install client regimes in order to encircle and contain China.

The US backing of puppet-regimes like that of  Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra, his sister Yingluck, or Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, installing them into power, and keeping them there is central to projecting power throughout Asia and keeping China subordinate, or as Kagan put it in his 1997 report, these proxy regimes will have China "play Gulliver to Southeast Asia's Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes." Two of these "Lilliputians" are Yingluck Shinawatra and Aung San Suu Kyi, the rope and stakes are the street mobs and disingenuous NGOs funded by the US State Department to support their consolidation of power.

It is essential to look past the empty rhetoric of "democracy," "human rights," and "progress" used to justify foreign-funding and meddling to install servile autocrats like Thailand's Thaksin, Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, or even Malaysia's proxy dictator-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim, and see the greater geopolitical game at play. It is also essential to expose the disingenuous organizations, institutions, and media personalities helping promote this global corporate-fascist agenda.

With Suu Kyi's movement now being exposed as violent, sectarian-driven mobs rather than the "pro-democracy" front it was claimed to be by its sponsors in the West, it remains to be seen whether well-meaning people worldwide turn their backs on this carefully crafted hoax and the corporate-financier interests that created it - and instead seek genuine causes that abandon political struggle for pragmatic solutions.

[Source: Land Destroyer. Edited. Top image added.]

8 TOTALLY COOL USES FOR DRONES

8 Totally Cool Uses for Drones
By Marc Lallanilla, Live Science, 23 March 2013.

Versatile drones

Just a few years ago, drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), were virtually unknown.

But the remote-controlled aircraft have stealthily slipped over the horizon and are now causing a buzz from Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to the rain forests of Sumatra.

"I am convinced that the domestic use of drones to conduct surveillance and collect other information will have a broad and significant impact on the everyday lives of millions of Americans," Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of a Senate Judiciary Committee looking into drone legislation, said on Thursday (March 21), CNN reports.

There's little doubt that UAV technology is here to stay, but their use isn't limited to cloak-and-dagger operations and military technology. Here are just a few ways the drone can be your friend:

8. Real-estate sales

Credit: nito / Shutterstock.com

Daniel Gárate had a lucrative career as a UAV videographer, using his $5,000 drone to capture stirring images of high-end properties for the Los Angeles real-estate market - until the Los Angeles Police Department shut him down, declaring that commercial uses for drones were not allowed, the New York Times reports.

That's no longer the case, since a federal law signed in 2012 opened drone technology to commercial applications. Gárate, who also uses drones to take videos for commercials, has also been approached to take paparazzi-style photos of celebrities like Kim Kardashian, the Times reports.

7. Sports photography

Falkor Systems, a pioneer in the consumer use of UAV technology, has targeted extreme sports photography and video for drone use, focusing on skiing and base-jumping activities.

"The angles people get [while filming] are not quite as intimate as would be possible with an autonomous flying robot,” said Sameer Parekh, Falkor CEO, who envisions a small UAV device that can accompany a downhill skier.

"You just take it out, let it take off and it follows you down the hill. You get back on the ski lift and put it back in your backpack," Parekh said.

6. Highway monitoring

There are roughly 4 million miles of highways crisscrossing the United States, but who's watching them all? Drones, someday.

A project to study the use of drones for inspecting roads and bridges, surveying land with laser mapping and alerting officials to traffic jams and accidents recently received a $75,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration and the Georgia Department of Transportation.

"Drones could keep workers safer because they won't be going into traffic or hanging off a bridge," said Javier Irizarry, director of the CONECTech Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "It would help with physical limitations of the human when doing this kind of work."

5. Wildlife research

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been testing the Raven A, a small, camera-equipped drone that's about 3 feet (1 meter) long, to see if it can be used to conduct aerial counts of the endangered sandhill crane (Grus canadensis pulla).

“We flew the [drone] over the cranes when they were roosting, feeding, and loafing to see how they reacted," said Leanne Hanson, a field biologist, in a USGS report. "They sat still for us when they were roosting and loafing, but birds flushed during feeding. We will plan missions during roosting and loafing times, when their behaviour is not affected."

And critically endangered Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) nest in treetops, making them difficult to study. Drones, however, can easily navigate the primates' aeries, providing valuable information that will assist in conservation activities, reports PCMag.com.

4. Atmospheric research

Ozone in the upper atmosphere plays a critical role in protecting the Earth's surface from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

To better understand how water vapour and ozone interact, NASA is sending a UAV into the stratosphere - the layer of the atmosphere where protective ozone is found - above the tropics.

The flights are the first of a multiyear campaign to study how changes in water vapour in the stratosphere can affect global climate.

3. Hunting and anti-hunting

Credit: Richard Chaff / Shutterstock.com

Wild hogs ruining your crops? Get yourself a "Dehogaflier," a drone devised by engineer Cy Brown of Bunkie, La., which uses a heat-sensing camera to find feral hogs at night. The drone saves time otherwise wasted wandering muddy fields in the dark.

"Now you can know in 15 minutes if it’s worth going out," Brown told the New York Times.

Drones have also been used by animal-rights advocates to determine if illegal hunting is taking place, even on private property. Drones equipped with video cameras are being used by the League Against Cruel Sports, a British animal-rights group, to spot instances of illegal fox hunting.

2. Disaster relief

Drones have a wide range of applications for disaster relief, from entering radiation-filled "hot zones" where human access would be dangerous (after a nuclear accident, for example) to searching for survivors across a debris-filled landscape.

George Barbastathis and others at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology recently received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop drones to deliver vaccines and medicines to hard-to-reach locations and disaster zones, PCMag.com reports.

1. Environmental compliance

Midnight dumping of toxic waste and other surreptitious activities are the bane of environmental law enforcement. But drones may prove to be a cost-effective solution to that problem.

A drone hobbyist in Texas discovered a river of blood flowing into the Trinity River near Dallas. "I was looking at images after the flight that showed a blood-red creek and was thinking, 'could this really be what I think it is?'" he told sUAS News.

The blood, it turns out, was coming from a meat-packing plant that was discharging into the river. The facility was soon under investigation by Texas environmental authorities.

[Source: Live Science. Edited.]

DALIAN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE: CHINA'S NEW FUTURISTIC SPACESHIP-INSPIRED BUILDING

China completes new spaceship-esque conference centre
By Megan Wollerton, Dvice, 21 March 2013.

The Dalian International Conference Centre in Northeast China is a gorgeous steel and concrete structure designed by Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au. Construction began on this unique, undulating building back in 2008 and was recently finished. Its futuristic facade and cavernous rooms bring a ton of character to the busy coastal city of Dalian.

The main section of the conference centre boasts a 1600-seat theatre and concert venue. The largest meeting room can hold up to 2,500 people, but can be easily adapted into a banquet hall, art gallery, or additional seating for the concert hall.

Here's Coop Himmelb(l)au on the project:

The building has both to reflect the promising modern future of Dalian and its tradition as an important port, trade, industry and tourism city. The formal language of the project combines and merges the rational structure and organization of its modern conference centre typology with the floating spaces of modernist architecture.

Check out more angles on the Dalian International Conference Centre in the gallery below.

Via Dezeen

[Source: Dvice. Edited.]

Related Post: Zoomlion Headquarters: China's Proposed Futuristic, Mind-Blowing Spacecraft-Inspired Architecture