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Southern California hit by severe storm
23 December 2010 Last updated at 00:00 ET
A huge storm system has dumped record amounts of rain on southern California and prompted concern that the poor weather could spread across the US.
Streets flooded, residents were evacuated and authorities were on alert for landslides in the wake of the torrential downpour.
The deluge came at the end of a week that saw Los Angeles receive half its annual rainfall in just six days.
Torrential rain was also reported in neighbouring Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
There are concerns that the weather system will spread across the US, reaching New Mexico by Thursday and the Gulf Coast by the end of the week.
However, forecasters said the rain would ease as it travelled eastwards.
Mudslides: Even before the storm arrived, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for half a dozen communities in California, some of which have already seen mudslides and flooded streets.
Torrential flood waters and fallen trees clogged the streets in some areasHundreds of people were evacuated in the suburbs of Los Angeles, with particular concerns for homes in steep-sided canyons previously ravaged by wildfires.
“The ground is so saturated it could move at any time,” said Bob Spencer, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.
There were reports of mudslides in Laguna Beach, California, as intense rain hit the region, and 25 to 30 people were evacuated from their mountain homes in Silverado Canyon, Orange County, the Associated Press reported.
Heavy rains – estimated at up to 1in (2.5cm) per hour – brought down a hillside on a heavily used section of Interstate 10 early on Wednesday, covering three lanes near the city of Pomona.
In Highland, some 65 miles (104km) east of Los Angeles, two creeks overflowed, swamping as many as 20 homes in mud.
“This mud flow moved cars, picked them up, stood them up on their nose at 45-degree angles, buried them,” Bill Peters, a spokesman for the California department of forestry and fire protection told AP.
Homes in the mountains were blocked by boulders and mud as rescue workers helped residents seek shelter before the largest of the storms struck.
In far north-western Arizona, residents rushed to gather belongings from their homes along a flooded stretch where further structures risked being swept away.
“It is a mess,” said Lois Rolfsmeyer, resident of Beaver Dam.
“The water is going to take our next-door neighbour’s house and the one behind us, and it’s eroding under our house.”
On Tuesday, officials ordered the evacuation of 232 homes that sit beneath large hillsides in La Canada Flintridge and La Crescenta, in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
Flood warnings and emergency orders have also been put in place in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
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- California storms: Your stories 23 DECEMBER 2010, US & CANADA
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German anger over America’s ’15 per cent cut of Afghan aid’
By Lewis Smith
Friday, 3 December 2010
Germany has accused the US military of swallowing a ¤50m (£42m) contribution to building up the Afghan army by charging a 15 per cent “administration fee”.
A series of protests was made by the German government to the US after discovering that money it was raising for nation-building in Afghanistan was being taken by the US. One of the cables sent to WikiLeaks was from the US mission at Nato requesting instructions from Washington after being harangued by the Germans.
The US ambassador to Nato, Ivor Daalder, pointed out there were “serious political concerns” arising from the complaint and warned the perception that “the US is charging allies an excessive fee for the use of monies they have donated” could be “difficult to explain away”.
The fund the money was intended forwas set up in 2007 to buy kit and infrastructure for the Afghan army. More than ¤100m had been raised by the start of 2010 with a further ¤150m more pledged. Germany’s donation was the biggest.
Some of the protests were made by Ulrich Brandenburg, the German ambassador to the military alliance, who demanded an explanation for the 15 per cent handling fee charged by the US army corps of engineers and wanting to know why projects were being held up.
A cable reporting his anger said: “He said that money for earmarked projects had not been disbursed, resulting in delayed projects. He also said that the US army corps of engineers was charging a 15 per cent administrative fee. He said that German parliamentarians were beginning to ask questions about how this money has been handled, adding that this could make it difficult for Berlin to provide additional contributions in the future.”
Germany’s ¤50m was transferred to Nato’s headquarters in Brussels in October 2009 and ¤7m was intended specifically for three military schools. However, by February this year the Germans were complaining that the money had gone to the US Treasury and “as of today no project financing has occurred”.
Five superbug defenses that can keep you from dying in the hospital
By Boonsri Dickinson | Dec 22, 2010 | 0 Comments
He may have not realized it, but Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered a mold that could save millions of lives. On 1928, while in his lab, he discovered penicillin. The active ingredient in the mold Penicillium notatum was an infection-fighting agent that could kill colonies of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus.
The pharmaceutical industry began producing antibiotics, drugs that could kill disease-causing bacteria. Bye bye, syphilis? Bye bye, gangrene? Bye bye, tuberculosis? Almost. Doctors started prescribing them (and then over-prescribing them). And we started using them (and abusing them).
However, this spawned another problem. This one possibly was as lethal as the infection itself: resistance and the suberbug. Some experts warn that we are at the end of the antibiotic era.
University of California, Los Angeles professor Brad Spellberg told Newsweek:
“It’s already happening,” says Spellberg, to the tune of roughly 100,000 deaths a year from antibiotic-resistant infections in the United States alone. “But it’s going to become much more common.”
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA is a superbug – when it enters the blood stream and begins to attack the body, the infection can grow so large only surgery can get rid of the drug-resistant bug.
Right now, our best line of defense to kill off the infection is antibiotics. Sometimes, as a last line of defense, doctors prescribe — vancomycin and linezolid. But even those drugs aren’t guaranteed to work.
The MRSA infections are becoming a problem as bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Just because hospital-acquired MRSA infections have been declining, it doesn’t mean we don’t need more ways to fight the superbug infections.
Superbugs are a huge problem in hospitals, but scientists have been working on a number of ways to combat the spread of the potentially deadly bug.
Here are five technologies that stand a chance against superbugs:
1. Fecal transplants: Any poo will suffice, as long as it is screened for infectious diseases. But siblings make the best donors. Gastroenterologist Thomas Borody’s clinic has performed 1,500 fecal transplants. Restoring the bacterial flora of the colon to the native state can literally stop a potentially deadly Clostridium difficile infection from taking over.
Borody tells New Scientist:
“I got a very bad name among my colleagues, as someone who feeds people shit.”
The donor’s poo is first cleaned with saline and filtered to remove unwanted particles. Then the poo is fed to a patient through a tube goes through the nose and into the stomach. Going from the bottom seems the more natural way. Either way, the transplants help restore populations of Bacteroides, the type of bacteria that is seen in a person with a healthy colon.
Borody asks:
2. Light technology: Scientists at the University of Strathclyde have shown that special light can make bacteria basically commit cell suicide. Clinical trials proved the HINS-light Environmental Decontamination System is effective in getting rid of bacterial pathogens in the hospital setting. The light prevents the pathogens from being transmitted through the environment – which ultimately prevents the spread of the infection among patients. University of Strathcylde professor John Anderson explains:
“The system works by using a narrow spectrum of visible-light wavelengths to excite molecules contained within bacteria. This in turn produces highly reactive chemical species that are lethal to bacteria such as meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and Clostridium difficile, known as C.diff.”
3. Anti-pathogenic drugs: Case Western Reserve researchers developed an anti-pathogenic drug to treat MRSA . The drug works by blocking MRSA from producing toxins. This way, you can treat MRSA without actually killing the bacteria.
“Staph bacteria are ubiquitous and normally do not cause infections, however, occasionally these bacteria become harmful due to their secretion of toxins,” said Case Western Reserve’s professor Menachem Shoham. The key was preventing a molecule called AgrA from releasing toxins. The professor looked for compounds to inhibit it, so he screened 90,000 compounds. Seven of those worked.
The anti-pathogenic drugs might change they way we fight bacteria in the body. The way we currently treat the infection makes it a prime place for bacteria to want to fight for survival. The side effect of that is the eventual resistance to the drugs. This new type of drug would sidestep that urge and keep the bacteria at bay.
4. Brains of cockroaches: My first instinct around cockroaches have been to kill them with a paper towel. British researchers discovered that molecules found inside the brain tissues of insects can fended off unwanted bacteria. The brain tissue killed off 90 percent of the E. coli and MRSA. Remarkably, the healthy human cells were left alone.
“We hope that these molecules could eventually be developed into treatments for E. coli and Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections that are increasingly resistant to current drugs,” University of Nottingham’s Simon Lee said in a statement. “Also, these new antibiotics could potentially provide alternatives to currently available drugs that may be effective but have serious and unwanted side effects.”
5. A coating can kill MRSA upon contact: Imagine if surgical equipment or the walls of the hospital could be coated with a paint that could slice up MRSA. The coating has carbon nanotubes with lysostaphin, an enzyme that is found in Staph bacteria that naturally fights off the superbug.
In the lab, when the nanotube-enzyme was mixed with regular household paint, all of the MRSA was eradicated in 20 minutes after it touched the special surface. Don’t worry though, the paint isn’t toxic to other cells – it’s just toxic to MRSA. It probably won’t lead to more resistance and won’t pollute the environment. The coating can be washed without losing its ability to kill MRSA.
Related on SmartPlanet:
- War against superbugs: A coating that can kill MRSA upon contact
- New antibiotics might come from the brains of cockroaches
- Light technology can combat superbugs
- Fight for life against superbugs
- Scientists can shut down a bug’s CPU
- Researchers discover anti-pathogenic drugs to treat superbugs
- Fire fighters and paramedics more likely to carry MRSA
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Quake near Japanese islands triggers tsunami warning
- A Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected, center says
- Japanese authorities have issued tsunami warnings for the Ogasawara Islands
Tokyo, Japan (CNN) — A magnitude 7.4 earthquake off the coast of Japan early Wednesday triggered a tsunami warning for a group of remote islands and an advisory for the southern region of the country, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, which occurred 3:19 a.m., is about 95 miles (155 km) from Chichi-shima, Ogasawara Islands.
A tsunami is a series of destructive sea waves caused by an earthquake, and the warning required people in the islands to evacuate from the seashore immediately to safe places.
According to an initial observation by the Japanese agency, the tsunami height is estimated to be up to 2 meters.
The tsunami advisory stretched across the southern Japanese coast. The quake epicenter is 210 miles (335 km) from Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands, and 650 (1,050 km) miles from Tokyo.
The Japan National Tourism Organization says the “Ogasawara Islands is the general term for 30 islands of various size scattered over the Pacific Ocean.” They are also known as the Bonin Islands.
Chichi-shima island, “the main island and the entrance to the area, is 1,000 kilometers south of downtown Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean, and it has a land area of about 24 square kilometers. Water-eroded high cliffs surround the island making the scenery even more magnificent, and the area is a popular spot for divers,” the organization said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said a Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected.
“No destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and tsunami data,” the Warning Center said.
“However, earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometers of the earthquake epicenter. Authorities in the region of the epicenter should be aware of this possibility and take appropriate action.”
HP inks $400 million data center outsourcing deal with BP
Hewlett Packard said Tuesday that it has inked a five-year outsourcing deal with BP valued at more than $400 million.
HP said it will consolidate and standardize BP’s data centers across the globe. HP currently provides data center services to BP in Europe and the United Kingdom. The new deal puts the remainder of BP’s European data centers and those in the Americas under one contract.
Services under the deal include:
- Data center monitoring;
- Back up and recovery;
- Site management;
- Support services onsite and from HP’s India services hub;
- Maintenance;
- Use of HP’s orchestration software;
- And database and middleware management.
BP will have the option to use HP’s private and public cloud services and use external providers.
Weather chaos continues to hit UK airports
An Aegean Airlines Airbus A321 passenger jet comes in to land as a Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 taxis at Heathrow airport in west London December 20, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Luke MacGregor (BRITAIN – Tags: TRANSPORT ENVIRONMENT BUSINESS)
LONDON | Tue Dec 21, 2010 5:09am EST
LONDON (Reuters) – Snow and freezing temperatures continued to ground flights to and from Britain on Tuesday, with travellers hoping to get away for Christmas likely to suffer delays and cancellations for several more days.
British Airways (BAY.L) said it expects to make a “significant number of cancellations” to its shorthaul services from London’s Heathrow airport, which will again operate with just one of its two runways on Tuesday.
“Severe weather continues to cause significant disruption to our operation and will do so in the run up to Christmas,” the airline said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Currently Heathrow has only one of its two runways operational and many areas of the airfield remain unusable, including areas around parked aircraft.”
Ferrovial (FER.MC)-owned BAA, which operates Heathrow, said the airport’s south runway would remain closed on Tuesday, as on Monday, meaning the airport would be operating at significantly reduced capacity.
Thousands of passengers have been stranded at Heathrow, the world’s busiest international airport, for days as flights have been delayed and cancelled.
Arctic conditions have caused major disruption to operations since Saturday, with BA expecting the travel chaos to continue. The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for most of the UK for the remainder of the week.
BAA said 27 flights had arrived at Heathrow and 10 had departed by 0745 GMT on Tuesday — more than at the same point on Monday.
“BAA has confirmed a limited schedule of flights to and from the airport, at least until 06.00 on Wednesday 22 December,” BA said. “We have adjusted our schedule to fit with the capacity of the airport for both flight departures and arrivals.”
The British government on Monday said it had relaxed regulations on night flights at Heathrow, allowing for arrivals until 0100 GMT each day until Christmas.
The harsh winter weather has grounded flights across northern Europe for days.
Eurocontrol, the umbrella group for air-traffic control across 38 countries, said more than 22,000 flights across Europe were cancelled on Monday but that more services would likely operate on Tuesday.
London’s Gatwick Airport re-opened at 0600 GMT after closing overnight.
“We expect to operate the vast majority of our flights into and out of London Gatwick and London City, although some flights may be subject to delays,” BA added.
Analysts believe the freezing conditions are hitting BA’s profit by around 10 million pounds a day.
Shares in BA were 1 percent up at 268 pence by 0830 GMT, in line with the FTSE100 bluechip index, up 0.75 percent.
(Reporting by Rhys Jones, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
Palast Arrested Busted by BP in Azerbaijan
by Greg Palast
Monday, December 20, 2010
BP’s Azeri police arresting Palast for filming BP oil rig – Baku, Azerbaijan, December 2010
“Here in Azerbaijan we believe in human rights. PLEASE GIVE US YOUR FILM.”
Oh, no, no, not good.
The enforcers here come in three colors: the military police still wearing their old Russian puke-green uniforms, the MSN (the dictator’s secret police) in windbreakers without ID, and BP’s own corporate police force in black tunics, sashes and full hats who look like toy soldiers from the Nutcracker ballet. They weren’t dancing.
I showed all three flavors of police our press credentials in both English and Azeri, neither of which could be read by the officers. (The dictator had suddenly changed the Azeri alphabet, making most of the nation illiterate overnight.)
The dictator made everyone call him, “Baba,” Grandpa.
I told the dumbest-looking one, “Look here: This paper says your so-called President is a weasel’s rectum,” which our ‘fixer’ translated as, “This letter from Foreign Ministry is authorization to make a documentary for the British Television.”
We’d been surreptitiously filming BP’s cancer-making machine, the giant pipeline terminal near Baku, the capital, that sends the Azeri’s Caspian Sea oil eastward to light Europe’s Christmas trees.
Now, it looked like I’d be spending Christmas in Baba’s dungeon licking rats for breakfast. My clown-show antics bought the crew the precious minutes needed to switch the film in the camera to blanks. Our cameraman told a BP cop, with mime: “Hadn’t begun filming yet, Old Bean.”
We would now. I clicked on my hidden micro-cam.
BP’s Azeri police badge depicting oil drilling rig
A black SUV arrived on the remote desert track and unloaded its impressive cargo, a colonel sprinkled with medals from the recent war Azerbaijan lost to Armenia. The colonel said, “British Petroleum drives this country,” and as a “British” journalist, he thought I’d be as proud of that fact as he is.
“I know,” I said. “Believe me, I know.”
There is an awful lot of evidence that BP and Britain’s MI6 had their hands in Baba’s 1993 coup d’état which overthrew the nation’s elected president. Within months of taking power, Baba signed “The Contract of the Century” giving BP monopoly control of Azerbaijan’s Caspian reserves.”
Baba headed the KGB when this Islamic land was an occupied “republic” of the Soviet Union, the good old days of relative peace, freedom and prosperity.
I was here in the desert to investigate a tip-off I’d had that BP had a near-disaster at its Caspian offshore rig that was extraordinarily similar to the Deepwater Horizon blow-out. But BP covered it up.
What I didn’t know was that WikiLeaks was about to release a State Department memo which referred to a small piece of this BP game. Rather than go to Azerbaijan to check the facts, the Wiki newspapers called BP in London for comment.
That put BP on high alert and my sources in high danger.
Palast pictured in front of BP offshore oil rig in Baku, Azerbaijan, December 2010
So the Baba-BP police were more than curious about our film which we promised was about nothing more than, “the business boom in Central Asia.” Of course, we didn’t add that the only business booming here is corruption and BP’s oil drilling. (I don’t use the plural here because it is a single industry.)
How the crew and I (and the poor shepherd on a little horse swept up with us) were released is a complex story involving an impromptu banquet with the Secret Police and the poignant recanting of a statement about BP made to us by an environmental activist.
I understood his need to back down. The night before, we dined with a young video blogger who’d just gotten out of prison after the current president (now Baba’s son, Baby Baba), saw the blogger hold a press conference in a donkey suit. The President had no doubt that he was the ass. He was. He is.
Welcome to the Islamic Republic of BP, otherwise known as Azerbaijan. And good-bye.
I’m out of there. Out with the evidence we need about BP and how it lead to the Gulf of Mexico blow-out and an extension of the occupation of Iraq.
It’s a hell of a story, and my holiday gift to myself is that I’m here and ready to tell it.
My best wishes to you and your family.
*****
Won’t you please support this work, the “Arctic to Amazon investigation”?
I need seven more committed folks to make a tax-deductible donation of at least $1000 to cover the remaining work. Donate at least $1,000 and we will, with your approval, list you as a co-producer in the video version of this important film already scheduled for broadcast everywhere but the USA.
And we MUST bring it to America. That will require more help for the US production and print reports. Don’t have $1,000 or $5000? All donations to the Palast Investigative Fund are tax-deductible and keep us going.
We had to leave the secret filming equipment in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital; we were warned by a friendly plainclothesman that they knew I had it and needed to ditch it.
I’ve now taken our crew from the Amazon rainforest to BP’s next drilling target above the Arctic Circle, to Africa and now to Central Asia. We must now go to the most dangerous locales yet: deepest darkest Washington DC, and London, home to BP, whose natives are heavily armed with lawyers and PR bullshit.
Please help me drill down to the truth with your tax deductible donation to the Palast Fund. Donations of $50 or more receive, if you wish, a gift I will sign. (Make the request today or tomorrow, Dec. 21, and I’ll send it priority within 12 hours.)
Three big European networks have combined to cover our travel costs and some filming; but none have the money to support the deep investigation, the endless hours of research, that provide the hard facts on which the filming must be based.
Special, exceptional thanks go to the Cloud Mountain and Puffin foundations for their faith in our work and to the 2,000 wonderful supporters who have sent us donations.
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All … and to all, a good night.
Greg Palast, reporting from … somewhere safe.
*****
Greg Palast is an investigative journalist and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His reports can be seen on BBC Newsnight.
Subscribe to Palast’s Newsletter and podcasts.
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Obama to blink first on Social Security
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| By: Robert Kuttner December 16, 2010 04:49 AM EST |
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| The tax deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is just the first part of a multistage drama that is likely to further divide and weaken Democrats.
The second part, now being teed up by the White House and key Senate Democrats, is a scheme for the president to embrace much of the Bowles-Simpson plan — including cuts in Social Security. This is to be unveiled, according to well-placed sources, in the president’s State of the Union address. The idea is to pre-empt an even more draconian set of budget cuts likely to be proposed by the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as a condition of extending the debt ceiling. This is expected to hit in April. White House strategists believe this can also give Obama “credit” for getting serious about deficit reduction — now more urgent with the nearly $900 billion increase in the deficit via the tax cut deal. How to put this politely? For a Democratic president, this approach is bad economics and worse politics. For starters, cutting Social Security as part of a deficit reduction deal is needless — since Social Security is in surplus for the next 27 years. The move also gives away the single most potent distinction between Democrats and Republicans — Democrats defend your Social Security, and Republicans keep trying to undermine it. If you think the Democratic base feels betrayed by Obama’s tax-cut deal, just imagine the mayhem when Obama proposes to cut the Democrats’ signature program. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) compared Obama’s tax deal to punting on first down. A pre-emptive cut in Social Security is forfeiting the game before kickoff. Obama is already in trouble with older voters. Republicans have succeeded in convincing seniors that the health care reform bill diverted money from Medicare. Consider what the right will do when Obama moves to cut Social Security. Republicans, with no sense of contradiction or hypocrisy, will whack Obama once for not being sufficiently serious about deficit reduction — then whack him again for cutting Social Security. As for the Republicans’ leverage on raising the debt ceiling, a more resolute president would dare the Republicans to jeopardize government bonds, just as President Bill Clinton dared Speaker Newt Gingrich to shut down the government. One hopes that Clinton, in his recent visit to the White House, reminded Obama that Gingrich blinked first. But Obama’s trademark is that he blinks first. There was brief talk in the House Democratic Caucus on Tuesday night of tying an extension of the debt ceiling to the tax deal, to deprive the Republicans of that leverage. But that support crumbled in the face of White House lobbying and overwhelming Senate support for the deal. Obama, who gives in repeatedly to Republicans, turns out to be highly skilled at isolating Democrats. Beltway Washington — the editorial writers, columnists, centrist policy organizations, Blue Dogs and, of course, the Obama administration and its Wall Street advisers — has become an echo chamber of bad advice. Slaying the deficit gets top billing — generating a strong economic recovery is offstage. A smaller deficit is said to promote recovery by increasing confidence — though nobody can give a plausible explanation of the economics. Destroying government’s capacity for social investment seems now only a tertiary concern for the White House — though a prime Republican goal. In this weird inversion, being willing to sacrifice the Democrats’ best-loved programs is taken as a sign of Democratic resolve. Obama is finally getting the bipartisanship he craved — but entirely on Republican terms. Republicans win three ways. They have a Democratic president doing their work for them, destroying the Democratic capacity to use affirmative government to address dire national problems and annihilating his own party. And all this before they even take over the House. Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and author of “A Presidency in Peril.” |
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 © 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
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As massive street protests rock Europe, Americans accept tax-cuts for the rich with little outrage
| Austerity: from suites to streets | ||||||||
William Shakespeare put a key question this way: “To be or not to be?” Today’s economists and policy makers pose a different choice: to spend or not to spend. Governments throughout the west are in a panic as debt mounts and economies contract. Their solution is cut, cut, cut, in the name of a doctrine called austerity. They are slashing budgets, trimming public payrolls and arguing fatalistically in the spirit of Margaret Thatcher’s philosophy, “There is no alternative.” (TINA) Austerity is the other name for it. Confronting massive deficits and fearful of losing investor confidence, European governments are pulverising budgets and shutting down public services. The plan by England’s new Tory government is considered among the most painful, if not draconian. It is justified as being absolutely necessary. This view is being challenged in the realm of ideas and with a growing spasm of street protests rocking European cities. You have probably seen the pictures: a bloodied former minister in Athens as rioters denounce the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which is demanding concessions from their government. Strikes in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy had the SWAT teams out in force. A meeting this week in Germany by Eurozone ministers is unlikely to please anyone. Cutting versus spending At a time when most people are saying the path out of the financial crisis and European debt problem is for individuals and governments around the world to cut back, the American economist Paul Krugman wants us to spend, spend, spend. What is behind the fervour for austerity, he asks? “The answer is” he writes, “to reassure the markets – because the markets supposedly won’t believe in the willingness of governments to engage in long-run fiscal reform unless they inflict pointless pain right now.” This argument has moved off the op-ed pages and into the streets. These protests conjuring up a revival of the class war confrontations of the 1930’s are erupting as the Eurozone is fracturing. The marches are becoming more militant and bitter, as clashes between the police and angry protesters grow in intensity marked by scattered violence. Symbolically, the one incident that received massive coverage was a student attack on British Royalty when Prince Charles’s car was attacked with some protesters chanting, “off with their heads”. The Telegraph newspaper in the UK reported that: “Demonstrators kicked the Rolls-Royce as it travelled to the Royal Variety Performance in central London. White paint and bottles were thrown over the car and a window shattered. The Prince and Duchess (Camilla Parker-Bowles were “unharmed” and continued with their engagement at the London Palladium, a Clarence House spokesman said. When asked how she was as she left the London Palladium, the Duchess said: ”I’m fine thanks – first time for everything.” It may have been the first time, but as more austerity measures are expected, it is unlikely to be the last. Broader anger These protests reflect more than dissatisfaction with a single issue but seem to be a reflection of growing public disenchantment with unresponsive government, an untrustworthy media and a failing economy. So far, conservative governments are ignoring the criticisms and moving forward with their slashing of worker and unemployment benefits as well as the social safety net. In England, Parliament voted to raise tuitions – the cap is set to rise to $14,500 by 2012, higher than the current average of $7,605 at US state universities – but the student protests are surprising officials by their tenacity. Student activists are becoming radicalized and can become contagious, argues Gary Younge in The Guardian newspaper: “As these protests intensify – as they are bound to – we can expect them to be routinely disparaged on the right as either privileged kids acting out or innocents led astray by revolutionaries…That students and youth in Europe have erupted at this moment, however, should come as no surprise. More than one in five people under the age of 25 in the EU is unemployed. Meanwhile the principle that education is a public good, to which all are entitled, all contribute, and all benefit through a more competitive economy, is in its death throes.” US acquiesces In the United States, a Republican-dominated Congress– swept into power on the backs of right wing Tea Party activism spurred by Fox News and other fear-driven conservative media– promises to roll back government programs even as it “compromises” with Democrats to keep tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. So far, there has been little street activism in the United States. Perhaps it is because of the Christmas shopping season, the inundation of entertainment shows and sporting events or just so little oppositional leadership, especially among Democrats unwilling to challenge a Democratic President who has just negotiated a compromise deal with Republican tax cutters. Only one Senator, Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont had the guts to take on Barack Obama in an eight hour and 37 minute near filibuster speech that drove up the ratings of CSPAN, the congressional TV channel. David Seth Michaels, a political blogger, commented that: “it was the most important political speech – by far – of the past two years. Seldom, if ever, has anyone seized the spotlight to discuss and examine so thoroughly the plundering of the nation by its wealthiest citizens.” But his supporters did not pour into the streets, at least not yet. Sanders has been challenging what he calls his: “progressive friends” on these very issues. “I have long been concerned that some progressive activists do not stand up and fight effectively or pay enough attention to the needs of ordinary Americans,” he said. When they do speak out, many prefer sending emails or organising Facebook pages. Where is the outrage and sense of solidarity or militancy? The unions are quiescent, the polls seem incapable of inspiring anyone. Has this generation been seduced by their Ipads and emails? Has everyone forgotten that call to get involved? Remember it is not the ship that makes the waves, it is the motion on the ocean. It may take time, but it is likely in the not too distant future that American activists will emulate the movements now emerging in Europe. Governments have the power to impose their austerity measures, but not without a fight. As things get worse, Bob Dylan’s pithy blast from the past may be back to characterise the times ahead: “A Hard Rain Is Going To Fall?” Mediachannel editor News Dissector Danny Schechter directed the film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time He was part of the student protest movement in Europe when he attended the London School of Economics in the late 1960s. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. |
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The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World – When do we Draw the Line?
We, as Americans, work too many hours. If you don’t believe so, check out the following data points that compare us to our peers around the world.
American Work-Life Balance
- According to the Center for American Progress on the topic of work and family life balance, “in 1960, only 20 percent of mothers worked. Today, 70 percent of American children live in households where all adults are employed.” I don’t care who stays home and who works in terms of gender (work opportunity equality for all – it’s a family choice). Either way, when all adults are working (single or with a partner), that’s a huge hit to the American family and free-time in the American household.
- The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe.
- Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave. That is, except for the United States.
American Average Work Hours:
- At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not.
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In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
- According to the ILO, “Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers.”
- Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.
American Paid Vacation Time & Sick Time:
- There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States.
- The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that has no legally mandated annual leave.
- In every country included except Canada and Japan (and the U.S., which averages 13 days/per year), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days. In France and Finland, they get 30 – an entire month off, paid, every year.
- Then there’s this depressing graph on average paid vacation time in industrialized countries:
The Impact of Too Much Work
I’m not telling you to work less hours. If you genuinely love what you do and are doing it for the right reasons, you are more than entitled to spend all of your waking hours plugging away.
But for many of us, more work leads to more stress and a lower quality of life. Without time to unwind, take care of your home, spend time with loved ones, enjoy our hobbies, connect with friends, and generally live a more balance life. Stress is the #1 cause of health problems – mentally and physically. And there are few things that stress us out on a consistent basis like work does, especially when it takes away from all of the other things that life has to offer.
Americans are the Outliers
And if all of this data tells anything, it’s that we are the outliers, not the norm. Why are we the outliers?
- Our companies fairly ruthlessly let people go. We want to keep our jobs and not be a ‘low performer’ compared to others.
- The decline of the union has led to less paid time off and other leave benefits.
- Cultural value of money over everything else. We love money, we want more of it, and we think money can buy happiness. And the more we work, the more we get paid.
- It’s been drilled in our heads that we are lazy compared to emerging market counterpart workers in India, Mexico, China, and other parts of Asia. Who isn’t? And what is our mental image of the work environments in those locales? To validate those fears, our jobs are being outsourced to the cheap labor in those countries. In reality, the U.S. is still the world leader in productivity per person.
- Our legislative branch of the government (on both sides of the aisle) has been bought and as a result has shied away from passing laws that protect workers that every other industrialized nation has passed.
- We generally don’t fight for our working rights. We take what is given to us.
What we All Need to Remember
What we all need to remind ourselves is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
- It’s OK to ask to move to fewer hours at work.
- It’s OK to take a week-long vacation if we need to.
- It’s OK to ask to work from home.
- It’s OK to take a month of unpaid leave while you raise a child.
- It’s OK… you get the idea.
Don’t let life pass you by in the name of fear, circumstance, greed, or misguided hopes. Sometimes you just need to draw a line in the sand and say “enough is enough”.
Overworked Discussion:
- Do you think we work too hard?
- Do you like the cultural norm around your workplace on working hour expectations?
- How have you been able to limit unhealthy overworking habits?
Related Posts:
- 5 Ways to Recession Proof Yourself
- How to Calculate your Real Hourly Wage
- Should you Tell your Employer you are Changing Careers?
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