Heaven lent you a soul, Earth will lend a grave."

 

 

The word 'byte' is a contraction of 'by eight.'

The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)

Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.

Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.

The tune for the "A-B-C" song is the same as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Des Moines has the highest per capita Jello consumption in the U.S.

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps. Hence, the postage stamps of Britain are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin.

Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.

Arab League: Reject Proposal to Restrict Satellite Broadcasts
 
(New York, February 26, 2008) – Arab governments should publicly reject those elements of a proposed regional policy on satellite television broadcasting that would seriously restrict freedom of expression and information, Human Rights Watch said today. 

During their meeting in Cairo on February 12, Arab ministers of information adopted “Principles for Organizing Satellite Broadcast and Television Transmission and Reception in the Arab Region.” The document, introduced by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, calls on the regulatory bodies in Arab League member states to ensure that satellite channels broadcasting from their jurisdictions do not “negatively affect social peace, national unity, public order, and public morals” or “defame leaders, or national and religious symbols [of other Arab states].”  
 
Only Qatar and Lebanon publicly opposed the document and its proposed restrictions.  
 
“Arab League governments are trying to stifle one of the few relatively uncensored forms of mass communication in the region,” said Joe Stork, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be ashamed for sponsoring a proposal that would extend repression of free speech to airwaves across the region.”  
 
The vaguely worded restrictions that this document places on freedom of expression would seriously impede the right of people in the region to express views critical of the governments and to receive news and commentary reflecting critical opinions. For example, article 5 obliges broadcasters to “protect the supreme interests the Arab states,” and “respect the principle of national sovereignty.” Devising legislation and regulations detailing the implementation of these principles would be left up to individual member states.  
 
The document, intended as guidelines that carry no legal obligations, recommends that the regulatory bodies of Arab League members states confiscate equipment, impose fines, and suspend, refuse to renew or withdraw licenses from satellite channels that authorities deem to have violated those “principles.”  
 
“Many Arab states routinely use this language of ‘state interests’ and ‘national sovereignty’ as an excuse to imprison journalists and intimidate critics,” Stork said. “These so-called principles are nothing but a crude assault on free speech.”  
 
Domestic laws in most Arab states severely restrict freedom of expression and the media. Jordan is the only country with a law guaranteeing freedom of access to information, but even there the Ministry of Interior decides what information is excluded from this freedom of access under broadly worded national security exemptions. On December 12, 2007, Jordan’s Court of Cassation upheld a State Security Court sentence of two years in prison for former parliamentarian Ahmad Oweidi al-‘Abbadi for “disseminating ... news he knows to be false or exaggerated which undermine the psychology of the [Islamic] nation.”  
 
Egypt, one of the document’s sponsors, has repeatedly prosecuted reporters under its penal code for broadly worded “crimes.” On September 13, 2007, a Cairo court sentenced four editors of independent and opposition newspapers for publicizing “false news, statements or rumors that are likely to disturb public order.” In early February 2008, an appeals court upheld the conviction of Al Jazeera reporter Huwaida Taha for “possessing and giving false pictures about the internal situation in Egypt that could undermine the dignity of the country” with a documentary about torture in Egyptian police stations.  
 
Saudi Arabia, the other sponsor, has no written penal code and routinely imprisons dissidents for broadly worded charges such as “going beyond the realm of obedience to the ruler.” On December 10, 2007, authorities arrested Saudi blogger Fu’ad al-Farhan, apparently for criticizing the earlier arrest of reform activists in February 2007. He remains in incommunicado detention in Dahban prison in Jeddah without, so far as is known, having been charged.  
 
In Syria, authorities have similarly prosecuted human rights defenders and bloggers on charges of “spreading false news that weaken the spirit of the nation,” for disseminating articles “that harmed the image and security of Syria.”  
 
Iraq has closed down at least three satellite TV stations’ operations since 2004, when it permanently denied Al Jazeera to have a presence in the country. In November 2006, authorities closed al-Zaqra and Salah al-Din stations’ offices because they allegedly incited sectarian tensions following their coverage of the verdict against former president Saddam Hussein. A spokesman for the interior ministry justified the January 2007 closing of the office of al-Sharqiyya satellite station and the September 2006 closing of al-Arabiya satellite channel on similar grounds, without recourse to the courts or publicly demonstrating that these broadcasts led to violence.  
 
Last year authorities in Tunisia refused to accept the accreditation of Lotfi Hajji as correspondent of Al Jazeera. Hajji is also president of the independent Tunisian Journalists Syndicate, which the government has refused to legalize.  
 
Implementing the document’s operative articles would violate international law and standards on freedom of expression, in particular article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protect the “right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”  
 
Exercise of this right cannot be restricted on grounds such as “national security,” “public order,” or the “respect for the rights and reputations of others” when these restrictions are defined in an overly broad way. The Johannesburg Principles on freedom of expression clarify that such restrictions on freedom of expression are only legitimate where they “protect a country’s existence or its territorial integrity against the use or threat of force, or its capacity to respond to the use or threat of force,” but not “to protect interests unrelated to national security, including, for example, to protect a government from embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing, or to conceal information about the functioning of its public institutions, or to entrench a particular ideology, or to suppress industrial unrest.”  
 
“Qatar and Lebanon have shown that Arab support for tight restrictions on satellite broadcasting is not unanimous,” said Stork. “Other Arab states should follow their example and speak up for media freedoms by publicly opposing this document.” 
 

 

PLEASE

PLEASE TELL ME WHY YOU DID IT

WHY DID YOU HURT HIM

HE WAS SO PEACEFULL

HIS EYES WAS WATERING WHEN HE SAW HIS OWN BABY BOY DEAD

HIS HANDS TOUCH WAS GENTLE SO HE NEVER BEAT A WOMAN OR A SERVANT

HIS YOUNGEST WIFE WAS A CHILD AND HE TREATED HER AS ANY WIFE DREAMS NOW

HE DIDNT EVEN SAW HIS FATHER..

HE HAD TO WORK SINCE HIS VERY EARLY CHILDHOOD

HE DIDNT MIND THAT

HE LOVED HIS UNCLE SO MUCH THAT HE TOOK ONE OF HIS BOYS TO BE RAISED AND FED IN UNDER HIS CARE

HE APPEALED SO LONG TO HIS GOD TO JOIN HIM AND HIS UNCLE AFTER DEATH

HE IS NOT THE BEST HUMAN ON EARTH EVER

HE IS ONLY....MOHAMMAD

 

 

Antarctica doesn't have any "residents" in that everyone who goes is a visitor for a short time. There are two groups of visitors who can have an impact on Antarctica, tourists and those who go as part of a national Antarctic programme.

In terms of numbers, tourists greatly outnumber national programme personnel 37,000 as against 4,000 in the 2006/2007 season for instance (tourist numbers were up 14% on the previous year leading to calls to limit the number of tourists allowed to go). The national programme personnel clock up far more person-days however, and impacts are difficult to compare directly.

While tourists may only only spend a relatively small time on landings, it is by its nature relatively "high-impact" time - compared to a scientist or electrician say who probably spend most of their time on a permanent or semi-permanent base. Tourists also, by their nature will want to visit the most picturesque and wildlife rich areas of Antarctica, and they tend to do so in numbers far greater than the entire compliment of many Antarctic bases.

There is also the fact that those national programmes that are supplied by ship (as the majority are) have relatively few visits of those ships, whereas in the season, the great majority of all shipping activity in Antarctica is of tour ships. There have been accidents with ships being grounded on uncharted rocks and there have been oil-spills. With the best safe-guards in the world (and it has to be said that marine regulations for Antarctic ships, both statuary and self-imposed are as good as they get) the more ships there are, the more accidents there will be.

Tourism in Antarctica is at present self-regulated by the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO). This is an organization that applies strict guidelines to its member tour operators and ships. Such guidelines limit the size of the ships that can cruise Antarctic waters and also how many people can be landed at sites around Antarctica. So far IAATO is perceived as being successful in its aims and in regulation for Antarctic protection - though there are always those who would have no tourism at all.

The real potential threat from tourists is from non IAATO member ships and tour operators who run cruises with larger ships and greater numbers of people landing. This has not happened yet to any significant degree, but if it does, at present, there is little or nothing that could be done.

Another threat comes from smaller expeditions that are becoming increasingly common by individuals and small parties. Antarctica requires careful planning and a series of fail-safe rescue procedures if anyone gets into difficulty. These smaller expeditions often fail to do this adequately and resort to "humanitarian" requests for aid from shipping or nearby national bases when they get into difficulty. In recent years for example a small helicopter crashed into the sea off the Antarctic peninsula requiring rescue and an attempt to fly across Antarctica via the pole in a small aircraft ended by the aircraft crashing and the pilot being rescued by nearby base personnel.

There is no guarantee that derelict or crashed vehicles left by private expeditioners will be removed from Antarctica as they should be.

How many people go to Antarctica as tourists and where do they come from?

What do tourists do once they are in Antarctica?

Tourist Data from IAATO

Guardian newspaper article. Explorers or boys messing about? Either way, taxpayer gets rescue bill  January 28 2003.  Their last expedition ended in farce when the Russians threatened to send in military planes to intercept them as they tried to cross into Siberia via the icebound Bering Strait -

More on visiting Antarctica