ecopolis

Guillermo Habacuc Vargas paid local children to catch a dog on the street and then confined, starved and publicly displayed the dog as an “art” exhibit until the animal died of starvation. Guillermo Habacuc Vargas has been selected to represent Costa Rica in Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008.

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Kurdistan, the homeland to more than 20 million Kurds, is a nation that exists only in the dreams of the Kurds, and in the long forgotten Treaty of Sevres, which divided up the Ottoman Empire, following World War I. The Kurds, inhabiting parts of Turkey, Iraq and Iran are the largest national group without a country.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Turkey reluctantly supported the anti-Iraq coalition, including Operation Provide Comfort, to shield Iraqi Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s revenge, while the PKK intensified its guerrilla war, operating from bases in Iraq and Syria.

In 1993, with the Gulf War over, Turkey sent 50,000 troops into Iraq, in a massive assault against Kurdish rebels, no longer protected.

In 1994, dissenting political parties were banned, elected Kurdish representatives were accused of treason and imprisoned, while others fled into exile. Turkish forces have launched air and ground attacks, ravaging as many as 3000 Kurdish villages, forcibly relocating over 3 million villagers and defoliating forests in its scorched earth campaigns to destroy the PKK. The death toll is approaching 40,000.

Turkey has moved again more troops to the mountainous Iraqi border, to monitor on an estimated 3,000 rebels of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use northern Iraq as a base.

Yesterday Turkey sent warplanes to bomb Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets along the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, the country’s semi-official Anatolia news agency has said.

Intergovernmental Agreement on the Turkey-Greece-Italy Pipeline

Press Statement
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
July 26, 2007

The United States congratulates the Prime Ministers of Turkey, Greece, and Italy on their signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement for the Turkey-Greece-Italy Pipeline (TGI) today in Rome. This Agreement defines the commercial and legal framework for the transit of Caspian gas into the Pipeline, clearing the way for accelerated construction. This Agreement is a cornerstone of joint efforts by all three countries, with strong U.S. and EU support, to help Europe diversify its sources of natural gas supplies from the Caspian Sea, and to promote economic development in the Caspian region. These efforts build on strong cooperation over the past decade among the United States, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey to develop the South Caucasus gas pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and expand our collaboration to include key EU partners.

2007/639 – Released on July 26, 2007

“Karmacoma” is the promotional video made for the single of the same name by British trip-hop collective Massive Attack. The experimental musician Tricky collaborated and sang on the track. It premiered in May 1995 and was directed by Jonathan Glazer. The bass line sample featured is the same bass line used by Serge Gainsbourg in the song Melody from his 1971 album Historie de Melody Nelson. During the first Gulf War, several British media channels became anxious to avoid using words suggestive of war and violence, and Massive Attack (then struggling to become established) were forced to temporarily change their name to Massive.

Tireless champion for the abolition of the death penalty throughout the world, the EU proposes a European day against the death penalty.

The EU wants to see the death penalty become a thing of the past everywhere on the planet. Its campaign is based on respect for people’s dignity, regardless of their actions, as enshrined in the charter of fundamental rights.

As part of this campaign, the EU commission is proposing that 10 October be not only the world day against the death penalty, but a European day too.

At the international conference to be held in Lisbon on 9 October, a joint declaration is to be signed by the EU and the Council of Europe to promote the universal abolition of the death penalty.

The EU is campaigning worldwide to bolster opposition to the death penalty and urge those countries who still apply it to drop the practice. This public commitment is backed up by financial support for specific projects under the European instrument for democracy and human rights. These projects aim not only to stimulate debate, educate and encourage alternatives to the death penalty as a way of reducing crime, but also to enhance the rights of the condemned and train those responsible for their defence.

On 31 January 2007, the European parliament adopted a resolution calling for the universal abolition of the death penalty to be made one of the fundamental objectives of the European Union. The foreign ministers of the EU countries have also decided to propose a resolution against the death penalty at the next meeting of the general assembly of the United Nations.

According to Amnesty International, 1591 people were executed worldwide in 2006. The countries still applying the death penalty include China, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and the United States.

In this video is presented the point of view of a Al-Jazeera journalist on the case of the Piergiorgio Welby, Italian man that Welby was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 17 and last year, after the disease got worse, wanted to stop his sufference, by refusing medical treatment, not by doing suicide.

Welby used the Internet as his primary mean of communication by posting on web forums and, since 2003, on his own blog.

On September 22, 2006, Welby sent an open video-letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. It was shown on national television and made available for downloading on the Internet, describing his condition and explaining his desire to die. Napolitano answered he felt deeply touched by Welby’s situation, inviting Italian politicians to a parliamentary debate on this and similar complex ethical issues.

On a controversial move, Roman Catholic Church didn’t allow a religious funeral, officially declaring that: “Welby had repeatedly and publicly affirmed his desire to end his own life, which is against Catholic doctrine.”

A civil funeral was celebrated in a public square in Rome.

Message of the ONU Secretary-General Kofi Annan

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Peace is one of humanity’s most precious needs. It is also the United Nations’ highest calling.

It defines our mission. It drives our discourse. And it draws together all of our worldwide work, from peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy to promoting human rights and development.

This work for peace is vital. But it is not easy. Indeed, in countless communities across the world, peace remains an elusive goal. From the displaced person camps of Chad and Darfur to the byways of Baghdad, the quest for peace is strewn with setbacks and suffering.

September 21, the International Day of Peace, is an occasion to take stock of our efforts to promote peace and well-being for all people everywhere.

It is an opportunity to appreciate what we have already accomplished, and to dedicate ourselves to all that remains to be done.

It is also meant to be a day of global ceasefire: a 24-hour respite from the fear and insecurity that plague so many places.

Today, I urge all countries and all combatants to honour this cessation of hostilities. And I ask people everywhere to observe a minute of silence at noon local time.

As the guns fall silent, we should use this opportunity to ponder the price we all pay due to conflict. And we should resolve to vigorously pursue ways to make permanent this day’s pause.

On this International Day, let us promise to make peace not just a priority, but a passion. Let us pledge to do more, wherever we are in whatever way we can, to make every day a day of peace

Researchers at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology preparing the frozen mummy of a 15-year-old girl, called La Doncella, “the maiden,” for exhibition.

SALTA, Argentina — The maiden, the boy, the girl of lightning: they were three Inca children, entombed on a bleak and frigid mountaintop 500 years ago as a religious sacrifice.

The three Inca children were found frozen at the peak of Mount Llullaillaco, 6,700 m. above sea level, on March of 1999.
Their frozen bodies were among the best preserved mummies ever found, with internal organs intact, blood still present in the heart and lungs, and skin and facial features mostly unscathed. The children were sacrificed as part of a religious ritual, known as capacocha. They walked hundreds of miles to and from ceremonies in Cuzco and were then taken to the summit of Llullaillaco (yoo-yeye-YAH-co), given chicha (maize beer), and, once they were asleep, placed in underground niches, where they froze to death.

Nature was sacred for American Pre-Columbian cultures. Mountains were considered the gods or “apus” who protected the communities. The Inca state attributed great importance to this ancient worship, and its inhabitants built small constructions for religious rituals that are nowadays known as “high altitude sanctuaries or shrines.” Mount Llullaillaco is the highest peak of the region.

In the eight years since their discovery, the mummies, known here simply as Los Niños or “the children,” have been photographed, X-rayed, CT scanned and biopsied for DNA. The cloth, pottery and figurines buried with them have been meticulously thawed and preserved. One hundred and forty-six artifacts, which formed this miniature treasure, are exhibited for the first time, at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology.

A computerized climate control system replicates mountaintop conditions inside the case — low oxygen, humidity and pressure, and a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
The room holding La Doncella is dimly lighted, and the case itself is dark; visitors must turn on a light to see her. At a touch of the button, she seemed to materialize from the past, sitting cross-legged in her brown dress and striped sandals, bits of coca leaf still clinging to her upper lip, her long hair woven into many fine braids, a crease in one cheek where it leaned against her shawl as she slept.

Source: NYTimes

Cloning is the process of creating a “copy” of an “original” that is genetically identical to another living organism by some kind of design. The term clone is derived from κλων, the Greek word for “twig”.

Cloning an organism broadly means to create a new organism with the “same” genetic information as a cell from an existing one. The modern cloning techniques involving nuclear transfers have been successfully performed on several species.

The first animal clone was a frog cloned by Thomas J. King and Robert W. Briggs in 1952. For a complete list see: List of animals that have been cloned.
However, the success rate has been very low: Dolly the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell, was born after more then 200 failed attempts.

Dolly the sheep was originally code-named 6LL3 . She was cloned at the Roslin Institute in Scotland and lived there until her death in 2003 when she was 6. The technique that was made famous by her birth is somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which a non-reproductive cell containing a nucleus is placed in a de-nucleated ovum where it develops into a fetus. Even if she was successfully cloned she had arthritis and sign of premature aging. Or a matter of enviromental factor?

Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing, or previously existing human or growing cloned tissue from that individual. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning because human clones can occurs in the form of twins during the natural process of reproduction.

Scientists want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs in a bid to extract stem cells. Sharing the cells . British Regulators have agreed in principle to allow human-animal embryos to be created and used for research. The resulting “cytoplastic hybrid” embryo, or “cybrid” would be 99.9 percent human and 0.1 percent animal.

There are only around a dozen lines of cells cultivated from human embryos available to researchers in the world and the creation of a UK Bank for the cells will make access in Europe much easier. In Australia embryos are allowed to be created for research, but human-animal hybrids banned as in US where are allowed only research involving pre-existing embryos – left over from fertility treatment. Italy and Germany only allow the use of pre-existing embryos. Other countries including Austria, Norway and Tunisia do not allow embryo research at all.

Cremaster 5, From “The Cremaster Cycle” by artist Matthew Barney featuring Ursula Andress
Music by Jonathan Bepler.

However, if this new ontology of reprotechnology, merging and factor environment developed to meet the emerging belief and therefore therapeutic needs, we should also continuing to promoting a true dialogue among civilizations, laws and religions as a political instrument to deal with birth control.

In 2003 the Celera Consortium, a governement financed isntitution, announced it had completed the human genome, but itcomprised just half the DNA contained in a normal cell, and the DNA used in the project came from a group of people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

But today a paper presented by the research team of Dr. Venter, is announcing that it has decoded a new version of the human genome, that some experts believe may be better than the consortium’s.
This genome is better because it consists of the DNA in both sets of chromosomes, one from each parent, and the genome the team has decoded belongs to just one person: Dr. Venter.

The most important thing is that this new Genome makes clear that the variation in the genetic programming carried by an individual is much greater than expected: in at least 44 percent of Dr. Venter’s genes, the copies inherited from his mother differ from those inherited from his father.

via NYTimes