North Korean overture: Concession or mood swing?

 

The three-stage rocket tested by North Korea in December 2012 could be capable of delivering a warhead to Alaska or the West Coast of the United States. /Photo via AP

Whether North Korea is responding to pressure from its only ally or Kim Jong-un is repeating the bipolar diplomacy of his father and grandfather, Pyongyang has taken a step back from the brink of war.

On Friday, May 25, a North Korean envoy told Chinese President Xi Jinping that Pyongyang was willing to "take positive actions" to restart the six-party aid-for-disarmament talks that collapsed in 2008, China's state-run Xinhua news service reported.

"North Korea is willing to make joint efforts with all parties to appropriately resolve related issues through multilateral dialogue and consultations like the six-party talks, and maintain peace and stability on the peninsula," Kim's special envoy, Choe Ryong-hae, told Xi.

While this change in North Korea's tone is a welcome development after months of saber-rattling, Choe made no mention of negotiating nuclear disarmament, which has become the key sticking point for the United States, South Korea and many other members of the international community.

In an interview with Reuters, North Korea expert Cai Jian of Fudan University in Shanghai summed up the continuing thermonuclear impasse brilliantly: "The U.S. says if North Korea doesn't clearly renounce its nuclear program, it won't return to the six-party talks. But if the international community doesn't hold peace talks with North Korea, then North Korea will use that time to develop its nuclear weapons and missiles."

Equip Tornado Alley schools with storm shelters

Moore Police officers try to reach children trapped in the rubble of Plaza Towers Elementary School on Monday, May 20. At least seven children died at the school when a powerful tornado hit the Oklahoma town. Many schools in Oklahoma and other Tornado Alley states do not have storm shelters and safe rooms. /AP photo

"To not have storm shelters in the schools -- it has to change."

- State Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, May 21, 2013

Space telescope that found new worlds probably lost

The Kepler space telescope's honeycombed main mirror wieghs 86 percent less than solid designs. /NASA photo

After extending its 3.5-year mission by about six months, NASA's revolutionary Kepler space telescope is crippled and probably only has months to live.

Kepler has collected data leading to the stunning conclusion that there are potentially billions of Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy. Kepler has discovered 132 planets that Earth-based telescopes have confirmed. There are 2,700 other Kepler planet discoveries awaiting confirmation.

The Goldilocks Principal underlies Kepler's mission: finding planets that are not only Earth-sized but also orbiting a Sun-like star in a "habitable zone." This orbital sweet spot is not too warm and not too cold; it's just right to support life.

With two of its four gyroscopes now inoperative, Kepler has enough fuel onboard to steady itself for about six months. The second "reaction wheel" broke last week, and Kepler's wobble is posing a daunting challenge to NASA engineers.

In a May 15 prepared statement, NASA reported: "With the failure of a second reaction wheel, it's unlikely the spacecraft will be able to return to the high pointing accuracy that enables its high precision (photo imaging)."

The following images are artists' conceptions of planets Kepler has observed:

Kepler-47 is a circumbinary solar system in the constellation Cygnus, one of the space telescope's primary study areas. Multiple planets orbit two stars in Kepler-47. /NASA image

Kepler-62f is the smallest Earth-like planet discovered in a solar system's habitable zone. /NASA image

Kepler-69c is a super-Earth-sized planet in the Cygnus constellation. /NASA image

KOI-961 is a compact Cygnus solar system similar in size to Jupiter and its moons. The KOI-961 planets orbit a red dwarf star. /NASA image

Kepler-35b is a Saturn-sized planet orbiting two stars. /NASA image

Kepler-22b is the first Earth-like planet found orbiting in its solar system's habitable zone. /NASA image

Kepler-11 has a Sun-like star and six planets. /NASA image

Dutch cut deal with the devil on natural gas

The Netherlands has the largest natural gas reserves in Europe. But the multibillion dollar industry that has helped keep the Dutch on solid ground through the Great Recession is shaking property owners to their foundations.

The BBC reports fracking companies face 6,000 damage claims from Dutch property owners for earthquakes linked to the Groningen natural gas fields, which are the biggest in the EU. The Dutch government's cut of the fracking pie last year was about $18 billion.

We've seen this movie before, and it's playing in theaters around the world.

The dozens of Groningen earthquakes recorded since 1996 are similar to earthquakes linked to fracking in U.S. natural gas fields. In Oklahoma, scientists recently tied fracking to the strongest temblor in state history. And fracking has been exempt from several key U.S. environmental laws since 2005.

The fracking drama pits profits and an energy quick fix against a barely understood range of environmental dangers that includes earthquakes and ground water contamination. In most cases, governments are apparently looking the other way with their hands out while the petroleum industry fracks away despite obvious environmental damage.

U.S. child poverty by the numbers

Hispanic children are twice as likely to live in poverty as white children in the United States. /AmericanPoverty.org image

One of the best measures of a just and compassionate society is the care afforded to its most vulnerable members. The level of child poverty in America depends on how it's gauged, but it's safe to say one quarter of U.S. children live in conditions that contrast appallingly with conditions found in the mansions of the 1 Percenters.

2010 U.S. Census data show childhood poverty spiked during the Great Recession:

• In 2010, more than 15.7 million U.S. children, 1 of 5, lived in poverty
• More than 1.1 million children fell into poverty from 2009 to 2010
• The 2010 child poverty rate, 21.6 percent, was the highest since the Census began its American Community Survey poll in 2001

Food insecurity is a component of U.S. child poverty:

• In 2011, 22 percent of U.S. children lived in homes that were food-insecure
• In 2011, 1.1 percent of children experienced the highest level of food insecurity, food intake reduced and eating patterns disrupted
• In 2011, food insecurity was twice as prevalent in households led by blacks (32 percent) and Hispanics (35 percent) than households led by whites (16 percent)
• In 2011, food insecurity was more than twice as prevalent in single-mother households (40 percent) than in married-couple households (16 percent)
• In 2010, 44 percent of children living in homes with incomes below the federal poverty line experienced food insecurity

UNICEF ranks the United States among worst in industrialized world for child poverty:

• In a 2009 survey of 35 industrialized countries, the United States had the second-highest child poverty rate at 23 percent, just below Romania's 25 percent rate
• In 2007, the United States ranked 31st out of 35 industrialized countries in public spending on families, including tax breaks, cash transfers and services
• Compared to other industrialized countries, the absence of public services such as health insurance and early childhood education exacerbates U.S. childhood poverty (factoring in relatively weak U.S. family services, as many as one-third of American children are living in poverty)

Domestic violence deadly blight on society

Evidence is overwhelming that Ariel Castro kidnapped three teens and sexually assaulted them in his Cleveland home for a decade. There was earlier evidence that he physically abused his ex-wife. There is no place for domestic violence in a civilized society. /Cleveland Police photo

U.S. leads industrialized world in newborn deaths

This baby was born with rubella, which was an epidemic disease before the widespread use of rubella vaccine. Children born into poor families have low immunization rates and high mortality rates, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. /Immunization Action Coalition image

The first day of life is a struggle with death for hundreds of thousands of the 4.3 million children born each year in the United States. In a report released this week, Save the Children ranks the United States last in the industrialized world in newborn survival.

The following excerpt from the State of the World's Mothers report is a powerful indictment against income inequality and lack of universal health care in the United States:

"In the industrialized world, the United States has by far the most first-day deaths. Only 1 percent of the world's newborn deaths occur in industrialized countries, but the newborn period is still the riskiest time, no matter where a baby is born, with the first day being the riskies time of all in most, if not all, countries. The United States has the highest first-day death rate in the industrialized world. An estimated 11,300 newborn babies die each year in the United States on the day they are born. This is 50 percent more first-day deaths than all other industrialized countries combined. When first-day deaths in the United States are compared to those in the 27 countries making up the European Union, the findings show that European Union countries, taken together, have 1 million more births each year (4.3 million U.S. babies vs. 5.3 million E.U. babies), but only about half as many first-day deaths as the United States (11,300 in the United States vs. 5,800 in E.U. member countries). ...

"Current data do not allow for analysis of first-day death rates among disadvantaged groups in wealthy countries, but newborn and infant mortality are often higher among the poor and racial/ethnic minorities, and populations with high newborn mortality rates also tend to have high first-day death rates. Poor and minority groups also suffer higher burdens of prematurity and low birthweight, which likely lead to first-day deaths in the United States and elsewhere."

The American Academy of Pediatrics held a conference this week on poverty and child health in the United States. According to the pediatrician group:

"Children are the poorest segment of society: 22 percent of U.S. children live below the federal poverty level, a prevalence that has persisted since the 1970s. The effects of poverty on children's health and well-being are well-documented. Poor children have increased infant mortality; more frequent and severe chronic diseases such as asthma; poorer nutrition and growth; less access to quality health care; lower immunization rates; and increased obesity and its complications."

American captains of industry and politicians love to pat themselves on the back when they throw scraps to the most vulnerable citizens in the country -- the infant children of the poor and disadvantaged. These leaders love to be in the front row when the cameras roll at toy drives and fund-raisers for children's hospitals.

The next time I hear hollow assurances about "doing X for our children" or "doing Y for our grandchildren," I'll be thinking about the 11,300 Americans born last year who never got a chance to do anything but die.

Putin shameless at levers of propaganda machine

Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, was a flashpoint in both of the Chechen separatist wars with Russia that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. Street battles, artillery shelling and aerial bombardment in the mid-1990s, and again in 1999 and 2000, leveled the city. /Image via historyofrussia.org

I have lived in and around Boston for nearly all of my adult life, so I have nothing but scorn and disdain for the ethnic Chechen Tsarnaev brothers' attack on the Boston Marathon.

But Vladimir Putin's claim that the marathon bombing vindicates Russian actions in the North Caucasus, particularly his crackdown on Chechnya, is shamelessly self-serving propaganda. Speaking at an annual question-and-answer session on April 25, Putin said, "I was always appalled when our Western partners and the Western media called the terrorists, who did bloody crimes in our country, 'insurgents,' and almost never ‘terrorists.'"

Moscow has had a literally tortured relationship with Chechnya over the past 70 years, bookended by Stalin's deadly winter 1944 forced deportation of about 400,000 people from Chechnya and the brutal warfare Putin launched on the Chechens in 1999. There's a long history littered with the deaths of innocents that has turned Chechnya into a hotbed for terrorism.

Chechnya has been a blot on Russia's human rights record for the past 20 years. The U.S. State Department's 2012 annual survey on human rights released last month is highly critical of Russia's record in the North Caucasus:

• Rule of law was particularly deficient in the North Caucasus, where conflict among government forces, insurgents, Islamist militants, and criminal forces led to numerous human rights abuses, including killings, torture, physical abuse, and politically motivated abductions.
• There continued to be reports that security forces used indiscriminate force resulting in numerous deaths and that the perpetrators were not prosecuted.
• Armed forces and police units reportedly abused and tortured both rebels and civilians in holding facilities. Human rights groups noted that physical abuse of women was becoming increasingly common in the region.
• Government personnel, rebels, and criminal elements continued to engage in abductions in the North Caucasus.
• Burning the homes of suspected rebels reportedly continued. Memorial (a leading Russian human rights group) reported that on April 22, two days after a special operation in the village of Komsomolskoye in the Gudermes District of Chechnya, armed men in camouflage burned the house belonging to the grandparents of Akhmed Bantaev, one of the men killed in the special operation.

Acting President Vladimir Putin signs autographs for Russian troops outside Grozny in January 2000. Boris Yeltsin had resigned the presidency the day before. /AFP image

Marketing of guns to young children has high cost

A 5-year-old boy fatally shot his 2-year-old sister on Tuesday in this rural Burkesville, Ky., home. /AP photo

There are several risks linked to having guns in private households, including theft of firearms and household guns harming family members through incidents ranging from mistaken identity to childhood mishaps.

On Tuesday, a 5-year-old Kentucky boy playing with his .22 caliber "Cricket" rifle shot his little sister in the chest. The 2-year-old died before the family could get her to the hospital.

Here are some of the more stunning passages from an AP story on the incident:

• The rifle was made by a company that sells guns specifically for children - "My first rifle" is the slogan - in colors ranging from plain brown to hot pink to royal blue to multi-color swirls.
• The company that makes the rifle, Milton, Pa.-based Keystone Sporting Arms, has a "Kids Corner" on its website with pictures of young boys and girls at shooting ranges and on bird and deer hunts. It says the company produced 60,000 Crickett and Chipmunk rifles for kids in 2008.
• Sharon Rengers, a longtime child advocate at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, said it is is "mind-boggling" to make and market weapons specifically for children: "We're having a big national debate whether we want to check somebody's background, but we're going to offer a 4-year-old a gun and expect something good from that?"