Gabon jails activist for defaming ally of president

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - A prominent environmental activist was sentenced to six months in prison for defamation in Gabon, his lawyer said on Friday, after he accused an ally of the president of secretly owning the local unit of commodities giant Olam International.

Marc Ona Essangui said during a television broadcast that President Ali Bongo's chief of staff, Liban Souleymane, controlled Olam Gabon, which is developing timber, palm oil and rubber projects in the tiny Central African nation.

Souleymane denied the allegation and brought a defamation case against him, which we won in a Libreville court.

"I regret this decision against my client, who was only fulfilling his role of a counterweight (to the government). I will consult with my client and possibly appeal this decision," Ona Essangui's lawyer Ruphin Nkoulou said.

The court also ordered Ona Essangui to pay a fine of 5 million CFA francs ($9,800). The state prosecutor had requested a one-year jail sentence.

During his first appearance in court on March 9, the wheelchair-bound activist said he did not regret making the accusation. "If I had it to do over again, I'd do the same thing," he said at the time.

Olam began operating in Gabon in 1999, establishing a logging operation. It later entered into a joint venture with the Gabonese state to develop plantations and palm oil mills with planned investments of around $236 million.

Gabonese environmental groups have for the past three years requested publication of the joint venture agreement without success.

Ona Essangui was jailed briefly in 2008 after calling for more transparency in the country's public management. ($1 = 510.8300 CFA francs)

(Reporting by Jean-Rovys Dabany; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gabon-jails-activist-defaming-ally-president-184922019--finance.html

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Striking Guantanamo prisoners say water denied

MIAMI (AP) ? Prisoners taking part in an expanding hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay leveled new complaints about their military jailers Wednesday as a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross made a fact-finding trip to the U.S. base in Cuba.

In an emergency motion filed with a federal court in Washington, lawyers say guards have refused to provide drinking water to hunger strikers and kept camp temperature "extremely frigid," to thwart the protest. A spokesman for the detention center denied the allegations.

"The reality is that these men are slowly withering away and we as a country need to take immediate action," said Mari Newman, a human rights lawyer based in Denver, who was among those who submitted the motion.

They filed the petition after interviewing Yemeni prisoner Musaab al-Madhwani by phone Monday. He told them that guards were refusing to provide bottled water and telling prisoners to drink from tap water that inmates believe is non-potable. The lawyers say in their motion that the lack of drinkable water has "already caused some prisoners kidney, urinary and stomach problems," in addition to the health effects of the hunger strike.

Along with their motion, they submitted an affidavit from Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist and retired general, who believes that the hunger strike and lack of adequate drinking water "sets them up for gastrointestinal infections and a quick demise." The doctor also said the 34-year-old al-Madhwani suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder linked to his torture while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and could be worsened by harsh conditions at Guantanamo.

The U.S. government has not filed a response to the motion. Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the prison, said prisoners are provided with bottled water and that the tap water is safe to drink.

"It's potable water. It's the same water I make my coffee with and that they make lunch with," Durand said. He also denied that there had been any change to the air conditioning settings inside the prison camps.

Accounts of the hunger strike have been in sharp conflict for weeks. Lawyers who have visited or interviewed their clients say a majority of the 166 men held at Guantanamo have joined the protest and some have lost significant weight and are at serious risk.

The military said that as of Wednesday, there were 31 men on hunger strike, up from 28 on Monday. Three men were at the hospital being treated for dehydration and 11 were being force-fed with a liquid nutrient mix to prevent dangerous weight loss.

A two-person delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross that includes a doctor is at the base to assess the situation. They started a week earlier than planned because of the hunger strike, said spokesman Simon Schorno. Their findings will be presented to the camp commander and Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees the prison, but will not be made public.

Lawyers for the prisoners say the hunger strike began on Feb. 6 as a protest of the men's indefinite confinement without charge and because of what they said was a return to harsh treatment from past years, including more intrusive searches and confiscation of personal items such as mail from their families. The military says no policies or procedures have changed at Guantanamo and the strike is an attempt to draw attention to their cause.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest say Obama's team is closely monitoring the hunger strikes, but deferred to the Pentagon for any specifics.

"The administration remains committed to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo bay," Earnest said, noting that legislation passed by Congress makes it likely that process won't be quick.

____

Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler contributed from Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/striking-guantanamo-prisoners-water-denied-152817946.html

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Review: G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Film Reviewer - Chronicle Live

28 Mar 2013 14:14

Following up 2009's hit G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, the Joes are back in this bigger-budget sequel

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Film Reviewer

****

The original G.I. Joe film opened at the peak of the 2009 summer blockbuster season to largely negative reviews.

The all-guns-blazing romp based on the popular line of military action figures stormed past 300 million dollars in worldwide box office takings.

Money talks louder than a flimsy script, so director Jon M Chu (Step Up 3D) locks and loads for this bigger-budget sequel, which raises the action ante with eye-popping set pieces and bruising showdowns.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is slicker and more entertaining than its predecessor, although the bar wasn?t set particularly high.

Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick sensibly kill off swathes of their cast in the explosive opening sequence in order to focus attention on a handful of undernourished characters.

Once the dust settles, we learn that arch-villain Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey) is in stasis in a subterranean prison and his henchman Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) is installed in the White House, impersonating the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce).

Zartan frames the G.I. Joes as traitors to the American cause and wipes out most of the brave men and women in order to clear the way for the rise of the Cobra terrorist network.

Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (DJ Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) survive the bloodbath and quickly realise that the order to terminate must have come from the upper echelons of power.

``There?s only one man who could authorise an attack like that,? growls Roadblock, ``and I voted for him.?

So the Joes march back to American soil and seek help from legendary retired operative General Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis).

Meanwhile, evil agent Firefly (Ray Stevenson) masterminds Cobra Commander?s escape and mute swordsman Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and ninja Jinx (Elodie Yung) travel to the Himalayas to capture heinous henchman Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun).

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is preoccupied with spectacle over substance but does deliver a few pulse-racing thrills and spills that make good use of the 3D.

The cliff-hanging Himalayas sword fight incorporates vertiginous shots of bodies tumbling to terra firma, and when Firefly unleashes a swarm of tiny mechanised insects, they buzz about the screen, apparently close enough to swat.

Johnson, Channing Tatum, Willis and co flex their pecs, discharge hundreds of bullets and perform gravity-defying leaps in the name of world peace, but they still can?t save London from being reduced to rubble by a nuclear detonation.

That?s the price we pay for turning our noses up to the first film.

Source: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/film-tv/review-gi-joe-retaliation-2062604

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Robot ants successfully mimic real colony behavior

Friday, March 29, 2013

Scientists have successfully replicated the behaviour of a colony of ants on the move with the use of miniature robots, as reported in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The researchers, based at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark, USA) and at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (Toulouse, France), aimed to discover how individual ants, when part of a moving colony, orient themselves in the labyrinthine pathways that stretch from their nest to various food sources.

The study focused mainly on how Argentine ants behave and coordinate themselves in both symmetrical and asymmetrical pathways. In nature, ants do this by leaving chemical pheromone trails. This was reproduced by a swarm of sugar cube size robots, called "Alices", leaving light trails that they can detect with two light sensors mimicking the role of the ants' antennae.

In the beginning of the experiment, where branches of the maze had no light trail, the robots adopted an "exploratory behaviour" modelled on the regular insect movement pattern of moving randomly but in the same general direction. This led the robots to choose the path that deviated least from their trajectory at each bifurcation of the network. If the robots detected a light trail, they would turn to follow that path.

One outcome of the robotic model was the discovery that the robots did not need to be programmed to identify and compute the geometry of the network bifurcations. They managed to navigate the maze using only the pheromone light trail and the programmed directional random walk, which directed them to the more direct route between their starting area and a target area on the periphery of the maze. Individual Argentine ants have poor eyesight and move too quickly to make a calculated decision about their direction. Therefore the fact that the robots managed to orient themselves in the maze in a similar fashion than the one observed in real ants suggests that a complex cognitive process is not necessary for colonies of ants to navigate efficiently in their complex network of foraging trails.

"This research suggests that efficient navigation and foraging can be achieved with minimal cognitive abilities in ants," says lead author Simon Garnier. "It also shows that the geometry of transport networks plays a critical role in the flow of information and material in ant as well as in human societies."

###

Garnier S, Combe M, Jost C, Theraulaz G (2013) Do Ants Need to Estimate the Geometrical Properties of Trail Bifurcations to Find an Efficient Route? A Swarm Robotics Test Bed. PLOS Comput Biol9(3): e1002903. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002903

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002903

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127509/Robot_ants_successfully_mimic_real_colony_behavior

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Taylor Swift to Guest Star on New Girl

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/taylor-swift-to-guest-star-on-new-girl/

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93% No

All Critics (83) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (77) | Rotten (6)

A cunning and richly enjoyable combination of high-stakes drama and media satire from Chilean director Pablo Larrain.

A mesmerizing, realistic and often hilarious look at the politics of power and the power of ideas ...

A political drama, a personal drama, a sharp-eyed study of how the media manipulate us from all sides, No reels and ricochets with emotional force.

It's a funny look at the way the media warp public opinion, and a curiously hopeful one.

On every level, "No" leaves one with bittersweet feelings about democracy, love and the cost of compromise.

If you can shake off the inherent grossness of mining the Pinochet years for yet another Mad Man-style deification of zeitgeist-grasping salesmen, this is moderately interesting stuff.

"No" is filmmaking of the first order.

Old technology plus the packaging of a revolution add up to a Yes

Freshens up a decades-old story with vibrant humor and a good sense of storytelling.

No continually impresses for its slyness and savvy -- rarely has such an eyesore been so worth watching.

Larrain fashions an unlikely crowd-pleaser from a historical episode that has its share of tragedy as well as triumph.

Stirring as a celebration of voter empowerment, No may also inspire pangs of wistful nostalgia.

Fascinating work from director Pablo Larrain and screenwriter Pedro Peirano, who manage to slip into the skin of a beleaguered country and detail the urgency of a revolution, sold one jingle at a time.

Swims upstream against high-definition with a defiantly lo-fi approach that's also ingeniously evocative of the historical period.

Wildly colorful strokes, full of bitter humor.

It's a fascinating and surprisingly fun look behind the scenes of politics and media.

An Oscar-nominated win for more than just political junkies.

No quotes approved yet for No. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/no_2012/

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Famous Taiwan news animator taken off market, away from China

A deal fell through this week to sell Taiwan's Next Media, known for spoofs on everyone from the British royals to Sarah Palin. Many Taiwanese worried that its sale could have given it a pro-China bias.

By Ralph Jennings,?Correspondent / March 28, 2013

A man walks past the logo of Next Media at its headquarters in Taipei January 21. Taiwan regulators, under pressure from a public worried that Beijing may meddle in their media, have begun talking tough on TV and newspaper deals by Taiwanese businessmen with strong ties to the mainland.

Pichi Chuang/REUTERS

Enlarge

You may never have heard of Taiwan?s Next Media but you may have seen its handiwork while surfing television channels or online.

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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?highlighted the animation studio?s spoof on the royal wedding in 2012, and the group's poke at Tiger Woods, imitations of Al Gore, and a jab at Silvio Berlusconi?s sex scandals in Italy all went viral on the Internet.

But then in November, the media group known so well for depicting famous controversies around the world suddenly found itself at the center of its own kerfuffle at home when it announced it was for sale to a conservative business group with China connections. The news set off a chain of street demonstrations in Taiwan, drawing thousands. ?

In Taiwan, the media tends to be heavily polarized, either bashing China or avoiding criticism of it. Independent empires such as Next Media are rare. So activists feared that the prospective buyers would take that gem away by revamping Next Media to please China and compromise its irreverent independence.

But on Wednesday, Next Media announced that the buyers had bailed. As the consortium of four buyers missed a deadline to complete the deal worked out in November, the media group sought to reassert the independent spirit that made it popular before the concern about Chinese control started looming.

It said that except for television, which has lost more than $200 million since 2003, the group is no longer for sale.

?People?s concerns are fair and with evidence,? says Leonard Chu, a retired media studies professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei, referring to protesters and skeptical academics. ?We know that China is not an open society, so that?s a reason to worry.?

Of Taiwan?s six major daily papers and six mainstream cable TV channels, only three regularly raise doubts about Taiwan?s engagement with China.

The Want Want Group, a main contender to buy Next Media, controls several Taiwanese media outlets seen as warm toward Beijing, and raised fears that the politically neutral Next Media coverage would be slanted toward Beijing. But before the $586 million takeover could be finalized, a Next Media spokesman said infighting between investors crashed the deal.

?The buyers decided they don?t want to go forward,? says Next Media?s commercial director Mark Simon, who added that Next Media changed its mind about selling. ?The company is not for sale anymore.?

Next Media?s animated graphics, which use lifelike cartoon videos of politicians and celebrities to recreate news events, have earned the company a cult following online. Next Media?s Internet following has reached about 15 million in Taiwan and Hong Kong combined.

?Why go out and put your employees and put everybody through hell?? Simon says of the decision to take the company off the market. ?TV is on the way out, and we?ll sell TV, but everything else here makes money. It?s a very profitable company.??

Because of pressure from the public, Taiwan?s?broadcast authorities and the legislature are studying whether they can?change laws to prevent media monopolies.

?The public opinions toward the purchase did play a role in keeping the government on their toes, so they can?t just not be transparent and let a deal go through,? says?Ketty Chen,?a political scientist and visiting instructor at National Taiwan University in Taipei.

China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s?and demands that the two sides eventually reunify. Beijing has not ruled out the use of force, keeping the island on guard, despite a thaw in relations since 2008.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ST01T1kHh14/Famous-Taiwan-news-animator-taken-off-market-away-from-China

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