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Sunday, May 13, 2012
Does a military solution for Somali piracy work?
Somali pirate attacks have dropped, from 45 in 2010 to 24 in 2011, but there's no evidence that more naval patrols and aggressive private security firms are actually keeping pirates ashore.?
To some, the solution to Somali piracy is blindingly obvious. Patrol the seas. Capture the pirates. Send them to the briny deep. If it worked on the Barbary Coast, it should work in Somalia.
Skip to next paragraphBut with Somali pirates going further out to sea, such a solution is more difficult than it sounds. Patrolling the narrow waters of the Gulf of Aden ? as the European Naval Force and some other countries such as China, India, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan are doing ? is relatively simple. Patrolling the much broader Indian Ocean, where Somali pirates have moved, is more difficult.
And for those pirate crews who do get captured, there?s one more consideration. Where do you take them for trial? Very few nations ? none of them, interestingly, in the countries providing naval patrols off the Somali coast ? have taken Somali pirates to put them on trial. Most pirates who do get captured are simply disarmed, dragged in their skiffs closer to Somali shores, and released.
As a Guardian headline this week sums it up, ?Outgunned Somali pirates can hardly believe their luck.?
Not all of the navies patrolling for pirates use gentle methods, of course. In November 2008, the Indian Navy sank a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden. Russian Navy sailors apparently captured a Somali pirate ship earlier this year, and blew it up afterward. The video of this action went viral, alleging that the Russian sailors blew up the ship with the pirates on board, but there is no proof of that. (Advisory note: the video contains violence and may be difficult for sensitive viewers to watch). And on March 25, 2011, private security guards aboard a commercial freighter called the Avocet opened fire on an apparent Somali pirate crew aboard a skiff. The pirates never made it aboard the ship, but the video stirred controversy about the use of force in commercial shipping.
Does militarizing the seas actually deter piracy? The data don?t provide easy answers.
Since 2008, Somali pirate gangs have launched more than 800 attacks on commercial ships, with 170 ships hijacked, and 3,400 sailors held for ransom. Shipping firms have paid more than $530 million on private security firms during that time period, and $160 million was paid out to pirate gangs last year alone.
That, clearly, is the reason Somali gangs get into the pirate business. Do a few well-armed security guards onboard commercial ships, or a few naval patrol ships deter those pirates from taking to the high seas? Some point to the dropping number of pirate attacks ? from 45 attacks in 2010 to 24 in 2011 ? as a sign that naval patrolling and private security may be working.
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Friday, May 11, 2012
How a solar flare could send us back to the Stone Age
A powerful enough solar flare could knock out our power grids, disrupt our GPS satellites, and bring the global economy to a halt, warns a British scientists.
A stream of highly charged particles from the sun is headed straight toward Earth, threatening to plunge cities around the world into darkness and bring the global economy screeching to a halt.
Skip to next paragraphThis isn't the premise of the latest doomsday thriller. Massive solar storms have happened before ? and another one is likely to occur soon, according to Mike Hapgood, a space weather scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England.
Much of the planet's electronic equipment, as well as orbiting satellites, have been built to withstand these periodic geomagnetic storms. But the world is still not prepared for a truly damaging solar storm, Hapgood argues in a recent commentary published in the journal Nature.
Hapgood talked with the Los Angeles Times about the potential effects of such a storm and how the world should prepare for it.
Q: What exactly is a solar storm?
A: I find that's hard to answer. The term "solar storm" has crept into our usage, but nobody has defined what it means. Whether a "solar storm" is happening on the sun or is referring to the effect on the Earth depends on who's talking.
I prefer "space weather," because it focuses our attention on the phenomena in space that travel from the sun to the Earth.
Q: People often talk about solar flares and solar storms in the same breath. What's the difference?
A: Solar flares mainly emit X-rays ? we also get radio waves from these things, and white light in the brightest of flares. They all travel at the same speed as light, so it takes eight minutes to arrive. There are some effects from flares, such as radio interference from the radio bursts.
But that's a pretty small-beer thing. The big thing is the geomagnetic storms (on Earth) that affect the power grid, and that's caused by the coronal mass ejections (from the sun).
Coronal mass ejections are caused when the magnetic field in the sun's atmosphere gets disrupted and then the plasma, the sun's hot ionized gas, erupts and send charged particles into space. Think of it like a hurricane ? is it headed toward us or not headed toward us? If we're lucky, it misses us.
Q: How are solar flares and coronal mass ejections related?
A: There's an association between flares and coronal mass ejections, but it's a relationship we don't quite understand scientifically. Sometimes the CME launches before the flare occurs, and vice versa.
Q: What happens when those particles reach Earth?
A: There can be a whole range of effects. The classic one everyone quotes is the effect on the power grid. A big geomagnetic storm can essentially put extra electric currents into the grid. If it gets bad enough, you can have a complete failure of the power grid ? it happened in Quebec back in 1989. If you've got that, then you've just got to get it back on again. But you could also damage the transformers, which would make it much harder to get the electric power back.
Q: How else could people be affected?
A: You get big disturbances in the Earth's upper atmosphere ? what we call the ionosphere ? and that could be very disruptive to things like GPS (the network of global positioning system satellites). Given the extent we use GPS in everyday life (including for cellphone networks, shipping safety and financial transaction records), that's a big issue.
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50% off Qmadix Metalix Snap-On Cover for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 [Daily deal]
For today only, the iMore Store has the Qmadix Metalix Snap-On Cover for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 on sale for only $14.95! That's a whopping 50% off! Get them before they're gone! 
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Toshiba's 55XS5 brings quad HD without the glasses-free 3D tech to Japan in June
While we're still waiting for Toshiba to deliver its top of the line 55X3 HDTV with 4K resolution and glasses-free 3D technology here in the US, it just announced a step-down model in Japan. The Regza 55XS5 keeps the 3840 x 2160 LCD panel, but switches to edge LED lighting instead of local dimming and drops 3D altogether, autostereoscopic or otherwise. There's a CEVO Duo image processing engine inside the slimmed-down frame upconverting your standard HDTV res inputs to QFHD, as well as support for apps and USB hard drive for recording broadcasts. This model should ship in June on the other side of the Pacific for an "open price" expected to be around 750,000 yen ($9,410 US), slightly lower than the X3's 900,00 yen launch price last December.
Toshiba's 55XS5 brings quad HD without the glasses-free 3D tech to Japan in June originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 May 2012 00:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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President Obama Announces Support For Gay Marriage
President Barack Obama today became the first sitting president to announce support for same-sex marriage, making his position on the subject clear.
In a sit-down interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, Obama completed what has been a long and often dubious "evolution" on the controversial topic.
"I've always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly," Obama told Roberts in an interview that will air Thursday.
Obama's announcement, on the heels of North Carolina's Amendment 1 ban on gay marriage in that state, was made after much soul-searching.
"Over the course of several years, I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, and I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together," he said.
"When I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."
The statement constitutes an act of political bravery on the president's behalf, as 29 states have now banned gay marriage constitutionally.
It's also a major victory for the gay rights community, which has been pushing him to declare his support for marriage equality for years.
Just last Sunday, Vice President Joseph Biden told NBC's Meet The Press that he was personally comfortable with same-sex marriage.
With the issue back in the news, the pressure on Obama intensified.
The White House originally insisted over the weekend that Biden clarified his statement as being in reference to civil rights for gay couples.
But the explanation was largely dismissed as a political dodge, a way for Obama to support for marriage equality without having to declare it himself.
No longer.
The president finally chose to speak out Wednesday in the wake of the North Carolina ban, with the White House hastily scheduling an interview.
“It’s interesting, some of this is also generational,” the president said. “You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same sex equality or, you know, believe in equality."
"They are much more comfortable with it. You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently."
"It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”
The president's support of same-sex marriage will have little political impact, at least from a practical standpoint, as most states have tackled the issue legislatively and/or judicially, outside the realm of the federal government.
Symbolically, the impact is much more profound.
As the first president to support marriage equality, he sets the bar for its social and political acceptance and retains the ability to shape public opinion further.
What do you think of President Obama's support for gay marriage?
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