[LINK] On the worsening troubles of black Africans in Libya

One thing I've mentioned at Demography Matters is that Libya has become a country of mass immigration thanks to its oil wealth, attracting well over a million immigrants, mostly (but not entirely) from Egypt and from sub-Saharan Africa. The migrants from Egypt don't seem to be subjects of particular suspicion or dislike; the migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, both.

Gadaffi's recruitment of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa--covered in Serge Daniel's AFP article Kadhafi recruiting hundreds of Tuareg fighters"--is doing nothing good for regional stability or for the fate of Africans living in Libya.

Hundreds of young Tuareg from Mali and Niger, including former rebels, are being recruited by embattled Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi to fight off a popular uprising, officials in northern Mali said.

"We are worried in many respects," said Abdou Salam Ag Assalat, president of the Regional Assembly of Kidal.

These young people "are going in masses (to Libya). It's very dangerous for us because whether Kadhafi resists or he falls, there will be an impact for our region."

He said regional authorities "are trying to dissuade them" from leaving, particularly ex-rebels, but that it was not easy as there were "dollars and weapons" waiting for them.

Assalat said an entire network was in place to organise the trip to Libya.

"Kadhafi's reach stretches to us. He knows who to call, they make group trips. There seems to be an air link from Chad. Others go by road to southern Libya."

"All of that scares me, really, because one day they will come back with the same arms to destabilise the Sahel," said Assalat, adding that "a former Malian Tuareg rebel leader is also in Libya", but did not mention his name.

[. . .]

Malian worker Ibrahim Ombotimbe said: "Youths in Tiji robbed us of our money and injured some amongst us."

"Really we suffered," he added. "Africans are currently suffering in Libya. Some think they are with Kadhafi."

The previous article connects with stories like Colin Freeze's "Why black Africans are paying the price for the real or perceived use of mercenaries in Libya" in the Globe and Mail.

A cocked pistol points near the head of the black African teenager. A Libyan rebel barks questions in Arabic, waving an accusing finger as he suggests his captive is a paid pro-government mercenary. The youth’s face freezes with muted terror.

It’s an extraordinarily powerful image, one printed prominently in dozens of newspapers last week. And what makes it all the more potent are the details that the photographer could not capture in his frame.

“Honestly, he didn’t look to me as a mercenary at all,” Reuters’ Goran Tomasevic told The Globe and Mail from Ras Lanuf, the town near where he shot the photo.

The war photographer spoke of how he stumbled on the scene at a rebel checkpoint. There, angry onlookers were egging the interrogators on, claiming the youth – likely from Niger – had already “confessed” to being a foreign fighter. Yet he denied it, again and again.

Such scenes are playing out across Libya these days, as the uprising fuels friend-or-foe fears that resuscitate long-dormant tensions between mostly Arab citizens and foreign workers. “The black African, or sub-Saharan African population is, without any question, suffering repercussions and revenge attacks, for the real or perceived use of mercenaries by Gadhafi forces,” said Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch in New York.

[. . .]

Experts fear the Libyan conflict is evolving into a protracted civil war among various tribes. As both sides dig in, they accuse each other of recruiting foreign fighters. Col. Gadhafi claims his enemies are being spurred on by foreign “terrorists.” But many experts believe that the dictator himself is taking advantage of alliances he has forged over the past 40 years, with a variety of rebel forces in nearby countries.

[LINK] "Iran's African adventures"

IWPR's Ibrahim Gilani takes a skeptical gaze on the prospects for Iran becoming closer to African countries. The news from Senegal is surprising, inasmuch as Senegal seemed to be a major emergent partner.

Senegal broke off diplomatic relations with Tehran last month, saying it had evidence that separatist rebels in the southern region of Casamance used Iranian ammunition to kill government soldiers in a clash on February 21.

In December, Senegal recalled its ambassador but then sent him back to Tehran after saying it was satisfied with explanations given about an arms shipment seized by the Nigerian authorities last October.

When a ship that docked in Lagos and 13 containers labelled as construction machinery were found to contain Iranian weapons, the authorities there seized the freight, made several arrests, and reported the find to the United Nations as a breach of the Security Council embargo on arms purchases from Iran.

[. . .]

In Senegal, Iran has spent years investing in building schools, promoting Islam, laying roads and setting up a carmaking plant. Its ambassador in Dakar, Jahanbakhsh Hassanzadeh, had voiced hope that as economic ties grew, Iran would emerge as Senegal’s principal Asian partner.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should have formally inaugurated the car plant in January, but this did not happen because of the shipment scandal, and because he sacked his foreign minister, Manouchehr Motakki, while the latter was visiting Senegal in December.

[. . .]

Iran’s engagement with some of the smaller African states has been most marked at times when it is under pressure; it began when the country was isolated during the war with Iraq in the 1980s. Under the presidency of Ahmadinejad’s predecessor Mohammad Khatami, a special council was set up to foster these relationships. But despite a flurry of visits, Africa was not at this point a key target of political or economic interest for Iran.

With Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005 and an increasingly hostile international environment facing Iran, the race was on to reach out to make new friends, and they no longer had to be Muslim states or neighbours. The new president stepped up efforts in sub-Saharan countries, going on visits and inaugurating construction projects. A meeting of African Union foreign ministers even took place in Iran.

At a diplomatic level, most African states are members of the Non-Aligned Movement and many are part of the Islamic Conference Organisation, while economically, they are open to the kind of investment and trade Iran can bring.

Despite the surge in interest in African states, Tehran has failed to achieve decisive progress. Even though it has 27 embassies across the continent, foreign ministry officials have acknowledged publicly that many African states remain little-known.

[. . .]

Just minutes after parliament confirmed Ali Akbar Salehi in office as Iran’s new foreign minister on January 30, it was announced that he would be heading off to Ethiopia to attend the African Union Summit. But a few hours later, news came that the trip had been cancelled because the minister was too busy.

A London-based diplomat from an African country, who did not want to be identified, said this erratic behaviour exemplified the pattern of Iran’s wider relationships on the continent. In other words, hastily-made decisions, hesitation and a failure to follow through are nothing new.

Go, read.

[LINK] "Phoenix Coyotes worth getting to know"

Over at Facebook, Dave Bidini linked to an Arizona newspaper article about the state's Arizona Phoenix NHL hockey team, incidentally also the past and perhaps future Winnipeg Jets.

Sometimes we wait too long to meet our neighbors. Then a sign goes up in the yard and a moving truck arrives at the curb.

Don't let that happen with the Coyotes.

Here they are practicing on a quiet Monday morning in Glendale. The rink is freezing. The coach, Dave Tippett, is conducting a tightly focused practice. The team is coming off a huge victory over the Detroit Red Wings, and yet you can feel tension in the building.

For the most part, the Coyotes have done a remarkable job keeping their focus, ignoring all off-ice issues. Yet during a recent losing streak, team leaders noticed that the relentless threat of relocation was finally taking a toll.

"For the first time, I felt it was really affecting us," Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney said.

So with 15 games left in the season, Tippett is doing what he does best: spotting problems, fixing leaks, doing whatever necessary to lift a team that has spent less than $47 million in cash on players, some $12 million less than the NHL's $59.4 million payroll ceiling.

Inside the room, Tippett's stoic mannerisms often are mimicked by defenseman Adrian Aucoin, who has a reputation as one of the team's more-entertaining players. Aucoin specializes in impersonations and says the team's starting goalie is the easiest man to mimic.

"I just act with a silly Russian accent, and it's done," he said.

A few seats over, Ilya Bryzgalov is removing his bulky pads. Team captain Shane Doan has seen a lot of crazy goalies in his time but says Bryzgalov is the looniest of the bunch. In hockey, that's a good thing.

"First off, I want to say I have no comment on the Goldwater Institute or that whole thing," Bryzgalov said.

That bad?

"I throw up every day (thinking about it)," he said.

Bryzgalov begins talking about how rough it would be to leave Arizona, especially for veteran players with families in tow and children in school. Then he pretends to weep, burying his head in his hands.

Yep, he's crazy. And the best hope the Coyotes have at winning a playoff series.

Over here sits Paul Bissonnette, the social-network specialist and one of the team's more-compelling figures. It's a shame his on-ice efforts don't match his online production.

"I'd be upset to leave here, but I wouldn't be too upset either way," Bissonnette said.

Suddenly, teammates in the vicinity begin eavesdropping.

"It would be exciting to be the team that went back to Canada," he said. "C'mon, we'd be treated like gods. I mean, the big difference is the weather. The weather is awful, but you know that, and it's like everything would be opposite in Canada. The fans would be the opposite. The media would be different. There's no pressure from the media here, and it only comes from inside the room."

[LINK] "Experts Push NASA to Focus on Search for Life"

Wired Science's Ron Cowen notes the triage effort.

The search for life in the solar system, whether in rocks from Mars or on a Jovian moon, tops the wish list of a panel of space scientists convened by the National Research Council. Mindful of shrinking budgets, the panel has issued hard-nosed recommendations that identify which planetary science missions NASA should fly in the decade beginning 2013. Even some top-rated missions should be either deferred or outright canceled if their estimated costs can’t be significantly cut, the panel says in a report released March 7.

Among its big missions, the panel says, NASA should give highest priority to the Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher. This project would be the first of three missions designed to collect Martian samples and bring them to Earth for analysis of any evidence of life forms. But the panel of space scientists recommends that the mission should go forward only if NASA’s cost can be limited to $2.5 billion — $1 billion less than the project’s estimated price tag in fiscal year 2015 dollars (adjusted for inflation). The European Space Agency and NASA, which will jointly run the mission, should work together to reduce the high cost, the report suggests. One possibility is to include one large robot instead of two.

“I’m ready to hit the ground running with Europe to see if we can do something with that first priority,” says Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington, D.C.

NASA’s Jupiter Europa Orbiter also received a nod from the panel, which ranked the mission as the second-highest priority among large projects. The craft would carry a suite of instruments to determine if Jupiter’s moon Europa has an ocean — a possible haven for life — buried beneath its icy surface, as many scientists suspect. But the panel says the mission should fly only if the project’s current estimated cost of $4.7 billion is reduced and if NASA increases its planetary science budget. The panel did not say specifically how much to cut from the Europa mission in order to maintain funding of other projects, but did spell out a 5 percent boost to NASA’s planetary science research funding compared with FY 2011. The panel also recommends that the planetary science budget should remain 1.5 percent above inflation for the remainder of the decade.

Exploring the structure, composition and atmosphere of Uranus with an orbiter and probe also earned a high mark from the panel, which rated the project third among NASA’s large missions. But the panel recommends the mission be reduced in scope or canceled if it rises above its estimated $2.7 billion cost.

The report also encourages NASA to fund two new midsize missions among five candidates but did not say which to choose. The five possibilities include a Venus lander, a probe that would descend though Saturn’s atmosphere, missions that would sample either the surface of a comet or a large basin at the moon’s southern pole, and a craft that would study the small objects that trail or lead Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. The cap on these missions should be raised slightly, from $1.05 billion including launch costs in FY 2015 dollars to $1.0 billion excluding launch costs, the panel recommends.

[LINK] "Icy Saturn Moon Pumps Out 15.8 Gigawatts of Heat Power"

This interesting story, one I found via io9. Why does Saturn's ice moon Enceladus seem to have a subsurface water ocean when it shouldn't be producing enough energy to make one (yet does)?


CREDIT: NASA/JPL/SWRI/SSI

The south polar region of a frigid Saturn moon churns out far more heat than Yellowstone National Park, Earth's most famous geologic hotspot, a new study finds.

Using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, researchers have determined that the far southern reaches of the Saturn moon Enceladus produce about 15.8 gigawatts of heat-generated power. That's about 2.6 times the power output of all the hot springs in and around Yellowstone — and 10 times more than scientists had predicted, researchers said.

The new find is intriguing to scientists since it adds more evidence for the likelihood of a liquid-water ocean under Enceladus' icy shell. But it's puzzling as well — researchers aren't sure where all that heat is coming from. [Gallery: The Rings and Moons of Saturn]

"The mechanism capable of producing the much higher observed internal power remains a mystery and challenges the currently proposed models of long-term heat production," study lead author Carly Howett, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., said in a NASA statement Monday (March 7).

Enceladus is Saturn's sixth-largest moon and has a frigid surface but an active, roiling interior — at least near its south pole. In that region, geothermal activity is centered on four roughly parallel trenches informally known as "tiger stripes."

These fissures — each about 80 miles long and 1.2 miles wide (130 by 2 kilometers) — eject great plumes of water vapor and other particles into space. Cassini first discovered the Enceladus ice geysers in 2005.

In the new study, researchers used Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer to study the surface temperatures in Enceladus' south polar region. They then used the observations to determine the area's heat output.

The 15.8 gigawatts of heat on Enceladus measured by Cassini is roughly equivalent to the output of 20 coal-fired power plants. This came as a surprise, since a previous study had predicted that the region should generate only about 1.1 gigawatts, with Enceladus' own natural radioactivity adding another 0.3 gigawatts to that mix, researchers said.

I've a certain appreciation for commenter Billy Brantingham's suggestion: "Somewhere, under a sky of ice, there's a statesman introducing a bill to cut down on thermal pollution." The authors' suggestion that unusually intense gravitational interactions with Saturn and other moons is more realistic. Probably.

[URBAN NOTE] "The question of graffiti"

Spacing Toronto's Dylan Reid makes an argument in defense of a certain type of graffiti, threatened by an anti-graffiti campaign of the mayor.

Any debate really boils down to what to do about elaborate, highly-designed graffiti pieces in the following situations:

*where the property owner has created the murals themselves
* where the property owner had explicitly or implicitly invited the decoration of the surface by someone else
*where the property owner does not care that the surface has been decorated and has no desire to remove it.

In the first two cases, it's hard to see why the City should interfere. Surely, if the property owner indicates that they have created a mural or invited someone to do so, that should be enough for it to be "designated." But the case of two recent murals in the west end shows that the City doesn't think that's enough, and that some official body has to make the designation. In the end, the two murals were exempted by Etobicoke-York community council, but no-one should have to go through that much fuss to decorate their own building.

It's the same for implicit invitations to decorate a wall. On a popular Jane's Walk through "Graffiti Alley" (technically Rush Lane, south of Queen between Spadina and Portland) a couple of years ago, a member of the local community described how one property owner built a large wood frame on the back of their building in the alley, silently inviting some artist to create a mural on his wall -- an invitation that was taken up, with an artist laying claim to the space and creating a new mural each year. Creating a situation where this property owner could be charged for cleanup, or have to go through elaborate administrative hassles, for a gesture that created a free piece of public art on their own property in a neglected space is counter-productive, to say the least. In these cases, it's hard to see any reason why the city should intervene unless it is somehow unsafe or clearly offensive (or is in fact a commercial venture, such as a third-party ad, which is regulated separately).

Commenter El Sid MKII takes issue with Reid's definition.

The pro-graffiti movement is contradictory - if not outright lying - on this matter, as stylized, elaborate tagging has been put forward as "art" by its apologists (think 1970s-New-York-subway-graffiti-nostalgists) for years and so this is a duplicitous shifting-the-goalpost situation, where the more so-called "tags" are classified as "art", the wider the definition of what constitutes exempted activity from the stricter definition of "criminal vandalism" becomes, which is a clever device used by many to justify increased amounts of vandalism in the first place. Oh sure, they qualify it by saying that ugly tagging is wrong, blah blah blah, but I don't think they mean it and really, are just playing both sides of the fence to advance their agenda. Allowing one form of tagging, leads to more of the other as the standard shifts downwards, in part due to a there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it mentality of appeasement that led to graffiti alley in the first place. Look at it this way. Imagine if, say, Ford was mayor around 1990 when all this began, would we be having this discussion? No, we wouldn't, and this is an important point: graffiti is not inevitable despite the wishes of many at BlogTo and here to wish it so.

And this is also why, outside of forums such as Derek's and here, this crackdown will prompt untold numbers of nodding heads and about-time's from readers seeing this. I think Ford, in his own way, sees the disingenuousness of the whole "street art" movement that Miller was blind to, and has basically said, f**k it, that's it, enough of this bullshit and has unleashed the hounds. And yes, the murals seem to be immune, for now, but we'll see. I would not be surprised (and I frankly agree) that the presence of murals fosters an environment in which more tagging occurs (a chicken-and-egg argument I don't have the energy to get into), but the fact that this enforcement team is now *institutionalized* tells me the game has changed. The old laissez-faire argument won't work. I mean, just look at Open File's numbers: more clean-up orders in the past two months than in the previous FIVE YEARS. If that isn't indicative of what I would (perhaps hyperbolically) call criminal negligence of the Miller administration on this matter, I don't know what is. Miller makes August Heckscher III look like Julian Fantino.

Thoughts?

[LINK] "Still just about frozen"

Eastern Approaches' take on the frozen conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan seems to reflect common knowledge: no plans for war, but if war comes it could be a catastrophe. What role Turkey, say?

Often described as “frozen”, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been warming up. A recent report from the International Crisis Group says that ceasefire violations rose by 53% last year. At least 25 soldiers were killed in skirmishes. Hours before the Sochi talks began, reports emerged of the death of an Armenian soldier from Azerbaijani sniper bullets. In total, 3,000 people have been killed in skirmishes along the boundary line since the May 1994 ceasefire took effect.

Both countries have stepped up their bellicose rhetoric. Ilham Aliev, Azerbaijan's president, warned of war in at least nine separate speeches in 2010, and has shown no sign of letting up this year. His Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargysan, has strongly underlined his country’s readiness to repel any attacks. Recent military exercises in both countries suggest this is not empty bravado.

Moreover, both leaders are putting their money where their mouth is. In oil-wealthy Azerbaijan, defence spending has grown by an average of 50% every year since 2003. This year defence will account for one fifth of Azerbaijan's total public spending, and more than the entire Armenian budget. But Armenia too has increased its weaponry, with help from its Russian friends.

Popular attitudes in each country are unforgiving, with commemoration of past injustices at this time of year reinforcing hard-line attitudes. Azerbaijanis recently marked the 19th anniversary of the Khojali massacre, while Armenians mourned the 23rd anniversary of the anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait.

Neither leader appears minded to make concessions. Yet the status quo is unacceptable, particularly to Azerbaijan, which hosts over 580,000 displaced people and smarts at the occupation of 16% of its territory.

[. . .]

The chances of pre-meditated war, the ICG argues, are slim. Both sides appear to believe that grandstanding is a useful negotiating tactic. The danger is that it increases the chances of front-line skirmishes provoking an accidental war.

[DM] "Hein de Haas on migration in northern Africa"

I've a post up at Demography Matters pointing people to the writings of migration research Hein de Haas on migration within northern Africa, particularly between West Africa and Libya (and the rest of the Mediterranean coast). The attractiveness of the northern littoral of Africa to West Africans should not be underestimated.

Go, read.