Events

from mirjam-donath:

How long can a Hungarian hunger strike go on?

A Hungarian TV journalist is nearing Mahatma Gandhi’s limit of 21 days for a hunger strike. 44-year-old Balazs Nagy Navarro has been sitting at the doorstep of Hungary’s Public Television Bureau for 19 days in below-freezing temperatures.

The protests that have swept through the world over the last year have finally reached Hungary. Christmas found thousands of Hungarians on the streets chanting DE-MOC-RA-CY! and FREEDOM-OF-THE-PRESS! at demonstrations against Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Navarro, a television journalist and vice president of one of the largest unions of broadcast journalists sees himself fighting for basic democratic rights such as fairness in public media.

Navarro and a fellow journalist, Aranka Szavuly, who also joined the hunger strike, are fed up with what they say is extensive news manipulation by the center-right ruling administration. For them, the last straw came on December 3, when images of  Zoltan Lomnici, the former chief judge of the Hungarian Supreme Court, were digitally blurred out in the evening news reports by two of the three state television channels. Lomnici held a press conference together with Laszlo Tokes, the other leader of the Council of Human Dignity, but only the latter was visible in the boradcasted images. The figure of Lomnici was pixelated in the background.

Lomnici is said to be persona non grata on state television due to a personal conflict, public media sources told Reuters confirming that personal revenge might have been behind the incident.

The hunger strike of Navarro and a few other journalists protesting for "fair public media” is a desperate attempt on their part to shake their countrymen out of what they say is national apathy. In reality, Hungarians are getting more and more frustrated by the political leadership failing to tackle the ailing economy and not playing according to traditional rules.

Following the defeat of the socialist Prime Minister (who admitted lying about the country's poor finances to win the election), the present center-right government limited the rights of the top Constitutional Court, dismantled an independent budget oversight body and renationalised private pension assets. On the top of all that, the government enacted a new media law that, according to its critics, gives uncontrollable government influence over public media.

Yet most Hungarians fear losing the little they still have. “There is a lack of solidarity here,” Iren Kembe, the mother of hunger striker Sorel Kembe, said. ”We see layoffs happening to others but we think it won’t touch us.”

Nobel salutes the slow unlocking of the universe’s secrets

By Richard Panek The views expressed are his own.

For the first time in history our species has begun to answer some of the eternal questions about the universe: Where did it come from? Where is it going? We’re able to do so in part because of the discovery that is being recognized by this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.

Before Galileo published the first discoveries he made with a primitive telescope, in 1610, cosmology—the study of the structure and evolution of the universe—was equal parts speculation and superstition. Even the subsequent, centuries-long discoveries of new planets, new moons, new stars, and new galaxies didn’t address the evolution of the universe. Not until Edwin Hubble’s 1929 discovery that, on a cosmic scale, galaxies appear to be receding from one another, carried along by the expansion of space itself, did the universe begin to acquire a narrative—a story that changes over time.

Even then theorists split into two camps: those who posited a universe that emerged in a “big bang,” and those who preferred a universe poised in a “steady state” through the continuous creation of matter. And there the theoretical divide, as theoretical divides must do in the absence of evidence, rested.

That evidence arrived in 1964, with the discovery of a remnant radiation that matched a prediction of the Big Bang theory. The answer to the question of where the universe had come from was beginning to find its answer—and cosmology was beginning its passage from metaphysics to physics, from speculation to science.

And what of the fate of the universe? Throughout the 1990s, two international teams of scientists raced each other to find out the answer. They reasoned that if the universe is expanding, and all the matter in the universe is attracting all the other matter in the universe through gravity, then the cumulative gravitational drag of all that matter on all that other matter would be slowing the expansion. The question was, How much? So much that the universe will eventually stretch as far as it can go, reverse direction, and collapse back on itself? Or so little that the universe will keep cruising, more and more slowly, until it reaches a virtual standstill?

By studying a form of exploding star called a Type Ia supernova at distances as much as half the way back to the beginning of the universe, however, these rival teams found that the expansion is behaving in a way they hadn’t anticipated. It’s speeding up.

My September 11th

By Rudy Giuliani The opinions expressed are his own.

The following is an excerpt from an essay written by former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former NY Governor George Pataki from the recently published, 9/11: Stories of Courage, Heroism and Generosity, a book compiled by Zagat Survey CEO and former head of NYC & Co., Tim Zagat.

September 11 was Primary Day, a semi-holiday for those of us in government. So I had planned for a relatively slow morning that included breakfast at Fives, the restaurant at The Peninsula hotel, with Bill Simon, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who worked with me while I was United States Attorney. He wanted to talk about a possible run for Governor of California. But when Bill, my chief counsel and longtime aide, Denny Young, and I were finishing breakfast, Patti Varrone, a detective with the NYPD, who served on my police detail, interrupted us with news that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. As Denny and I left, Bill said, “Good luck. God bless you,” and then hugged us.

For Denny and me, this was business as usual; at least twice a month, I got called out to major emergencies such as a big fire, subway derailment or hostage situation. A plane crash was bad, but this is New York, and along with its greatness, serious incidents do occur. As our car approached Canal Street, we saw a big flash of light, and within seconds we got a call from the police that a second plane had hit the towers. The situation was no longer business as usual. We had been attacked.

Despite the chaos outside, the mood in the car was calm and deliberate. With Patti in the front seat next to my driver, and Denny and me in the back, we tried to get through to the Governor and White House, but cell service was flooded and hardly working. Everybody was doing his or her job and reinforced each other.

We still hadn’t reached the President or Governor when we stopped about three blocks from the South Tower. Getting out of our SUV; I was met by Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota and Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik right behind him. “It’s really, really bad, Mayor. It’s really bad,” Joe said, “People are throwing themselves out of the building.”

Battling death at the World Trade Center

This is an excerpt from Unmeasured Strength, Lauren Manning’s account of surviving the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center and her struggle to recover from severe burn injuries.

The flames were consuming me, and as the first searing pain hit, I thought, This can’t be happening to me.

The fire embraced my body tighter than any suitor, touching every inch of my flesh, clawing through my clothes to spread its hands over me, grabbing left and right, rifling over my shoulder blades, down my back, wrapping my legs in agony, gripping my left arm, and taking hold of both my hands. I covered my face, but I could not scream. My voice was powerless. I was in a vacuum, the air depleted of oxygen, and everything was muffled. The screams, the roar of the fire, the shattering sound of breaking glass— all that was very far away. I was suspended in space.

Then my captor slammed me forward. I lurched toward the doors in a desperate effort to get away. As I did, something— I have no idea what— hit me in the back of the head. For a moment, I was pushed against the glass; then I was sucked backward again by a monstrous inhalation that pulled me toward its heart. I battled to escape, fighting my way through the outer doors as the fire grew over me, spreading farther down my head, my arms, my back, my legs. Then, abruptly, I was spit from the fire’s mouth out onto the sidewalk, where I had been standing just seconds before.

The fire was all around me now, a shroud of flame. I was suffocating with every gasp of charring fumes. I saw nothing but concrete and pavement, but I knew there was a narrow strip of grass on the other side of West Street, in front of the World Financial Center. I knew with absolute certainty that I had to get there, that the patch of grass offered my only chance to put out the flames, and that if I did not push myself toward it with a razor-edged act of will, I would be annihilated, devoured by unbearable pain and terror.

I felt myself sliding toward blackness— and then something primal rose up from the deepest part of my being. My mind was flooded with a vision of Tyler, who’d not celebrated his first birthday.

Norway Massacre

Explosion rocks Oslo

from MediaFile:

Tech CEO turns to trusted adviser on key decision; 10-year old daughter

Anyone who thinks the word “executive” in CEO stands for a person who actually executes decisions and strategy should think again, at least according to Technicolor CEO Frederic Rose.

REUTERS/Charles Platiau

“It’s very funny, you get a job as a CEO and everyone says you’ve got this absolute power,” Rose told the Reuters Global Media Summit in Paris.

“The reality is, the power you have, the authority you have is to basically guide and to give direction…and if people don’t want to follow, they’ll just forget to do it,”

Rose said that since he took the helm of the video technology specialist in September 2008 he really only took one decision on his own -- but if you want to get technical someone else helped him along.

“The only true executive decision that I have taken all by myself was the choice of the logo,” Rose said, showing Technicolor’s logo.

Merkel puts on brave face for CeBIT’s future

It’s that time of year when the tech industry flocks in droves to that dreary, grey German city called Hanover to celebrate the sector, to make deals, to network and connect and to round it all off in the evenings with swanky company dos, right?

Well, that used to be.

We know that CeBIT has lost its glam factor, its lustre — even if it still claims to be the world’s No.1 tech and IT fair. And, alas, we know that the industry is increasingly shifting its focus to the much hotter trade shows in Spain and the United States.

In hindsight, could it have been a desperate attempt to ward off the slide into oblivion when CeBIT invited Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to open the fair last year?

Or a sign of times to come?

Schwarzenegger symbolises a mix of Californian innovation and Hollywood glamour. But the state he governs is in a budget crisis and some are asking is California America’s first failed state?

Not a comforting sign.

from Left field:

Hasta La Pista, Baby

The Olympic torch relay just got bigger, much bigger.

At 106 days, the pre-Vancouver Winter Games run weighs in as the longest domestic relay in Olympic history and to help get it across the finish line… Arnie is back.

Famous for his ‘I’ll be back’ and ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ catchphrases in the Terminator films, Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Governor of California, is nipping over to Canada to flex his pecs with a torch run through Vancouver’s famous Stanley Park.

The former Mr Universe and Mr Olympia champion is the only heavyweight on a list you could describe as more Kindergarten Cop than Conan the Barbarian.

Singer Michael Buble and retired professional hockey player Richard “King Richard, Kermit” Brodeur are among the names, which arguably lack a bit of A list grandeur.

Who would you like to see bringing it home ahead of the start of the Games on Feb. 12?

from Maggie Fox:

Where scientists go to learn about swine flu

Usually, at a forum on swine flu, all the experts stand up, present a bunch of general background material, a few new findings, and leave. The learning curve on H1N1 is so steep that by the time you fill in the background, you are out of time, and there's no point in hearing the next presenter speak to a general audience

But this week's Institute of Medicine  meeting was different. Epidemiologists - the people who specialize in how disease spreads - were talking to molecular geneticists. Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization filled in the bench scientists on how negotiating to get vaccines and drugs for poor countries was taking up everyone's valuable time. Veterans of the 1976 swine flu vaccine mess told their stories. Every scientist sat there raptly listening to the other's presentations. Much of the material had not yet gone through the time consuming peer-review process needed for publication in a medical journal, so it was a little raw, but that much more useful and timely to an educated audience.

They traded notes on how technology could make it a lot harder to fight the rumor mill about vaccines and drug side-effects; presented good news about the severity of the pandemic and traded their worries about how the public health system -- or rather the lack of one in the United States and many other countries -- will cope.

CDC pathologist Dr. Sherif Zaki looked at the bodies of patients who died of swine flu and found a surprise -- the virus does not act like regular flu, at least not in seriously ill patients. And more study confirmed that the virus did indeed originally come from pigs.

The consensus is that while many may accuse the public health community and the media of hyping the pandemic, the world is not out of the woods yet, and this virus will continue to surprise the experts for a long time.