Obama, Hagel tell young officers: You must lead in ridding US military of sexual assault

Sexual assault is growing in the US military, addressed by President Obama and Defense Secretary Hagel in speeches to young officers. 'This scourge must be stamped out,' Hagel said.

By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / May 25, 2013

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel presents diplomas to graduating cadets during ceremonies at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Saturday.

Mike Segar/REUTERS

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Speaking to the nation?s future military leaders this Memorial Day weekend, their Commander in Chief and Secretary of Defense made a point of addressing an important issue in today?s armed services: sexual assault.

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"This scourge must be stamped out," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the graduating cadets and newly-minted second lieutenants during his commencement address at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, Saturday.

"We are all accountable and responsible for ensuring that this happens," Secretary Hagel said. "We cannot fail the Army or America. We cannot fail each other and we cannot fail the men and women that we lead."

A day earlier, President Obama had the same message for Navy ensigns and Marine Corps second lieutenants graduating at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

?Those who commit sexual assault are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong,? Mr. Obama said. ?That's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes, because they've got no place in the greatest military on Earth.?

?We need your Honor ? that inner compass that guides you, not when the path is easy and obvious, but when it's hard and uncertain; that tells you the difference between that which is right and that which is wrong,? the President told the graduates. ?Live with integrity and speak with honesty and take responsibility and demand accountability.?

In both speeches, other issues were covered and in some instances emphasized.

?Even as we?ve decimated the al Qaeda leadership, we still face threats from al Qaeda affiliates and from individuals caught up in its ideology,? Obama said, echoing his speech at the National Defense University a day earlier. ?Even as we move beyond deploying large ground armies abroad, we still need to conduct precise, targeted strikes against terrorists before they kill our citizens. And even as we stay vigilant in the face of terrorism and stay true to our Constitution and our values, we need to stay ready for the full range of threats ? from nations seeking weapons of mass destruction to cyber criminals seeking to unleash weapons of mass destruction.?

As a former US Army infantryman twice wounded in Vietnam, Hagel said, ?I learned that combat is a furnace that can consume you, or it can forge you into something better and stronger than you were before.?

But within the US military itself, sexual assault and other sexual misconduct is seen as one of today?s major problems, one just as likely to draw public attention as drone strikes and the Guant?namo Bay military prison.

A study released by the Defense Department earlier this month estimated that reports of unwanted sexual contact in the military, from groping to rape, rose 37 percent in 2012, to about 26,000 cases from 19,000 the previous year. Another recent report found that the number of sexual assaults reported at West Point, Annapolis, and the other service academies soared in recent years, from 25 in the 2008-09 academic year to 65 in 2010-11 and 80 in 2011-12.

In a report Saturday, CNN listed the most recent instances of sexual misconduct by those in positions of authority:

? This week, the Army said it had suspended Brig. Gen. Bryan Roberts, the top general at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, after allegations of adultery and assault.

? Last week, a US Army sergeant first class stationed at West Point was charged with covertly shooting videos of female cadets in showers and latrines.

? This month, an Army sergeant first class assigned to the sexual assault prevention unit at Fort Hood, Texas, came under investigation for alleged sexual assault, pandering, abusive sexual contact, and maltreatment of subordinates. He has been relieved of duty while investigators look into the allegations.

? Also this month, an Air Force officer who managed an assault prevention unit, was charged with sexual battery, accused of grabbing a woman and groping her buttocks and breasts in an Arlington County parking lot near his Washington office.

In his speech to West Point cadets Saturday, Hagel referenced serious challenges to military life and mission today ? alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, mental illness, sexual harassment, and sexual assault ? saying, ?You?ll need to not just deal with these debilitating, insidious and destructive forces, but rather, you must be the generation of leaders that stop it.?

?This will require your complete commitment to building a culture of respect and dignity for every member of the military in society,? he said.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/AAnWp2BXPGg/Obama-Hagel-tell-young-officers-You-must-lead-in-ridding-US-military-of-sexual-assault

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Myanmar's Suu Kyi slams 2-child limit for Muslims

In this photo taken on Oct. 28, 2012, Muslims refugee children wave their hands while taking photos at their refugee camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar.Authorities in Myanmar's western Rakhine state have imposed a two-child limit for Muslim Rohingya families, a policy that does not apply to Buddhists in the area and comes amid accusations of ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of sectarian violence. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)

In this photo taken on Oct. 28, 2012, Muslims refugee children wave their hands while taking photos at their refugee camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar.Authorities in Myanmar's western Rakhine state have imposed a two-child limit for Muslim Rohingya families, a policy that does not apply to Buddhists in the area and comes amid accusations of ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of sectarian violence. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, rights groups and Islamic leaders expressed dismay Monday over plans by authorities in western Myanmar to revive a two-child limit on Muslim Rohingya families, a policy that does not apply to Buddhists and comes amid accusations of ethnic cleansing.

Over the weekend, authorities in strife-torn Rakhine state said they were restoring a measure imposed during past military rule that banned Rohingya families from having more than two children. Details about the policy and how it will be enforced have not been released, sparking calls for clarity and concerns of more discrimination against a group the U.N. calls one of the world's most persecuted people.

"If true, this is against the law," said Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Suu Kyi has faced criticism for failing to defend the Rohingya following two waves of deadly sectarian violence last year. She told reporters she had not heard details of the latest measure but, if it exists, "It is discriminatory and also violates human rights."

The policy applies to two Rakhine townships that border Bangladesh and have the highest Muslim populations in the state. The townships, Buthidaung and Maungdaw, are about 95 percent Muslim.

The order makes Myanmar perhaps the only country in the world to level such a restriction against a particular religious group, and is likely to bring further criticism that Muslims are being discriminated against in the Buddhist-majority country.

China has a one-child policy, but it is not based on religion and exceptions apply to minority ethnic groups. India briefly practiced forced sterilization of men in a bid to control the population in the mid-1970s when civil liberties were suspended during a period of emergency rule, but a nationwide outcry quickly shut down the program.

For years, the Rohingya in Myanmar have faced a variety of heavy-handed restrictions. They needed permission to travel outside their villages, couples were required to have permission to marry, and were then limited to having two children. Any offspring that exceeded the regulation were "blacklisted" and refused birth registrations, and denied the right to attend school, travel and marry, according to a report by the Arakan Project, a Thailand-based advocacy group for the Rohingya.

Longstanding hatred toward the Rohingya erupted last year into mob violence in which Rakhine Buddhists armed with machetes razed thousands of Muslim homes, leaving hundreds of people dead and forcing 125,000 to flee, mostly Muslims. The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has accused the government and security forces in Rakhine of fomenting an organized campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya.

Since the violence, the religious unrest has expanded into a campaign against Muslim communities in other areas, posing a serious challenge to President Thein Sein's reformist government as it attempts to implement democratic reforms after nearly half a century of harsh military rule.

Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing said over the weekend the policy was meant to stem population growth in the Muslim community, which a government-appointed commission last month identified as one of the causes of the sectarian violence. He said authorities have not determined how the measure will be enforced, but it will be mandatory.

Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch called the development "outrageous," noting that the commission's report stated that any form of population control must be "voluntary" and conform to human rights standards.

"When one ethnic group starts talking about birth control for another group, it's quite chilling," he said. "This is a step precisely in the wrong direction ? going exactly the wrong direction from reconciliation and respect for human rights."

Robertson expressed concern that the state government was trying to formalize what was previously more of a de facto practice.

"Now there is a movement to codify this by the state government," he said. "They're deepening the commitment of the government in these policies. It is a major step."

The government has not made any statement about the two-child policy since Rakhine state authorities quietly enacted the measure a week ago. Calls seeking comment from government spokesmen have not been returned.

Although Muslims are the majority in the two townships in which the policy applies, they account for only about 4 percent of Myanmar's roughly 60 million people.

Myanmar's government does not include the Rohingya as one of its 135 recognized ethnic minorities. It considers them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh says the Rohingya have been living in Myanmar for centuries and should be recognized there as citizens.

"This restriction violates human rights," said Nyunt Maung Shein, head of Myanmar's Islamic Religious Affairs Council. "Even if it existed under the military regime, it should be considered inappropriate under the democratic system."

He cautioned that the measure could backfire and inflame already tense relations in Rakhine state.

"The authorities should be very cautious," he said. "If this is a step to ease tension between the communities, it will not produce the desired effect."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-27-Myanmar-Two%20Child%20Policy/id-496c1daa6fb544c2b08431f3584cfb2a

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2 rockets hit Lebanese Hezbollah stronghold

A Lebanese army officer investigates part of a rocket which struck a car exhibit on a street at the Mar Mikhael district, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday May 26, 2013. Rockets slammed Sunday into two Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, wounding at least 4 people, Lebanese security officials and media said. Tensions have been running high in Lebanon, and Syrian rebels have threatened to retaliate against the militant Shiite Hezbollah group for sending fighters to assist President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A Lebanese army officer investigates part of a rocket which struck a car exhibit on a street at the Mar Mikhael district, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday May 26, 2013. Rockets slammed Sunday into two Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, wounding at least 4 people, Lebanese security officials and media said. Tensions have been running high in Lebanon, and Syrian rebels have threatened to retaliate against the militant Shiite Hezbollah group for sending fighters to assist President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A Lebanese investigator takes pictures at a balcony where a rocket struck an apartment in a building at Chiyah district, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday May 26, 2013. Rockets slammed Sunday into two Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, wounding at least 4 people, Lebanese security officials and media said. Tensions have been running high in Lebanon, and Syrian rebels have threatened to retaliate against the militant Shiite Hezbollah group for sending fighters to assist President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Lebanese army soldiers investigate at a damaged room where a rocket struck an apartment in a building at Chiyah district, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday May 26, 2013. Rockets slammed Sunday into two Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, wounding at least 4 people, Lebanese security officials and media said. Tensions have been running high in Lebanon, and Syrian rebels have threatened to retaliate against the militant Shiite Hezbollah group for sending fighters to assist President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A Lebanese army officer gestures in front of damaged cars after a rocket struck a car exhibit on a street at the Mar Mikhael district, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday May 26, 2013. Rockets slammed Sunday into two Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, wounding at least four people, Lebanese security officials said. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A Lebanese policeman speaks on his phone, as he stands at a damaged balcony where a rocket struck an apartment in a building, at Chiyah district south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday May 26, 2013. Rockets slammed Sunday into two Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, wounding at least 4 people, Lebanese security officials and media said. Tensions have been running high in Lebanon, and Syrian rebels have threatened to retaliate against the militant Shiite Hezbollah group for sending fighters to assist President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

BEIRUT (AP) ? A pair of rockets slammed into a car dealership and a residential building in strongholds of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in southern Beirut on Sunday, wounding four people and raising fears that Syria's civil war is increasingly spreading into Lebanon.

Lebanon's sectarian divide mirrors that of Syria, and Lebanese armed factions have taken sides in their neighbor's civil war.

There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday's attack. However, a Syrian rebel commander threatened earlier this week to strike against Hezbollah strongholds in retaliation for the militia's military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group, while most of the rebels are Sunnis.

Street fighting between rival Lebanese groups has been relatively common since the end of the country's 15-year civil war in 1990, but rocket or artillery attacks on Beirut neighborhoods are rare.

The rockets struck hours after Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, vowed to help propel Assad to victory in Syria's civil war and warned that the Syrian leader's overthrow would give rise to extremists.

One rocket struck a car dealership in the Mar Mikhael district on the southern edge of the capital, wounding four Syrian workers, according to Lebanese security officials.

After the attack, part of the rocket's main body was left embedded in the ground, where a Lebanese soldier measured its diameter. Two cars were badly damaged and others had windows broken by shrapnel.

Another rocket hit the second floor of an apartment building in the Chiyah district, about two kilometers (one mile) away. It damaged a living room, but no one was hurt.

Lebanese media said security forces were searching for a third unexploded rocket.

A security official said rocket launchers were found in the woods in a predominantly Christian and Druse area in suburbs southeast of Beirut. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

An ongoing battle in the Syrian town of Qusair on the Lebanese border has laid bare Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian conflict. The Iranian-backed militia and Syrian troops launched an offensive against the town last weekend. After dozens of Hezbollah fighters were killed in Qusair over the past week and buried in large funerals in Lebanon, Hezbollah could no longer play down its involvement.

Col. Abdul-Jabbar al-Aqidi, commander of the Syrian rebels' Military Council in Aleppo, appeared in a video this week while apparently en route to Qusair, in which he threatened to strike in Beirut's southern suburbs in retaliation for Hezbollah's involvement in Syria.

"We used to say before, 'We are coming Bashar.' Now we say, 'We are coming Bashar and we are coming Hassan Nasrallah,'" he said, in reference to Hezbollah's leader.

"We will strike at your strongholds in Dahiyeh, God willing," he said, using the Lebanese name for Hezbollah's power center in southern Beirut. The video was still online on Youtube on Sunday.

Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar said the incident targeted coexistence between the Lebanese and claimed the U.S. and Israel want to return Lebanon to the years of civil war. "They want to throw Lebanon backward into the traps of civil wars that we left behind," he told reporters. "We will not go backward."

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel blamed "saboteurs" and said: "We hope what is happening in Syria does not move to Lebanon."

Nasrallah's speech Saturday offered the clearest public confirmation yet that the militia is directly involved in Syria's war. Nasrallah's remarks were also the first since Hezbollah fighters have pushed to the front lines of Qusair.

In his televised address, he said Hezbollah members are fighting in Syria against Islamic radicals who pose a danger to Lebanon, and pledged that his group will not allow Syrian militants to control areas along the Lebanese border. He pledged that Hezbollah will turn the tide of the conflict in Assad's favor, and stay as long as necessary to do so.

"We will continue this road until the end, we will take the responsibility and we will make all the sacrifices," he said. "We will be victorious."

Lebanese Sunnis sympathetic to the Syrian opposition have also been fighting in Syria alongside the rebels. Nasrallah urged both sides to fight for their side in Syria "and leave Lebanon out of it."

The fighting next door has repeatedly spilled over the border. For the past week, Assad's opponents and supporters have been clashing in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, using mortars, grenades and machine guns to attack densely populated areas.

Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, slammed Nasrallah's speech as an "an attempt to pit the Lebanese people against their Syrian brothers and sisters who have revolted against the brutal dictator."

In a statement Sunday, it said his speech "has the potential for serious ramifications in the region."

"It explicitly declares Iranian interests as superior to the basic, inherent rights of people across the region," the statement said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-26-Lebanon/id-10b89814a1ae4c78a042c50b330236e6

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Write for the Future: Multiple Homelands, Or None At All?

by Ravi Popat

I have been homeless for almost 18 years. Or maybe, I should call it "homeland-less." I am a citizen of France, was born in England, am living in the USA, and am of Indian origin. And so my opportunity or dilemma starts with my lack of a definitive home country.

I have the opportunity to make my own culture, picking and rejecting elements from the different places of my upbringing. For example, I am an Indian as I declare that my parents will never see the inside of a nursing home. I am English and American, knowing I will never exist in a caste.

I face a dilemma when I allow other forces to dictate the choices for me. I realized this when I met "John." I was 12 years old working at my uncle's convenience store in England. The shop was calm as usual on this Tuesday morning, with a steady trickle of men from the nearby factory coming for newspapers and cigarettes.

"Good morning John, can I get a pack of Marlboro's as well?" asked one of his regular customers.

I looked around the shop, searching for "John." My name is Ravi and I know my Uncle as Ramesh. Who was John? My uncle responded by happily handing his customer the pack of cigarettes. I realized that John was the name that regulars used for my uncle. I was bewildered, yet I still accepted my uncle's Anglicized name. As I grew older, I came across more "Johns."

John was not just a name; it was my uncle's effort to keep his English customers comfortable with him. My first personal "John" moment was in a hostile place: the school bus on the way to Bedford. On the bus we often laughed at the latest episodes of The Simpsons. One conversation veered towards Apu, the show's Indian shopkeeper. His arranged marriage-once a cultural staple of the Indian community-attracted my friends' laughter. "Are you going to have an arranged marriage Ravi?" I had never really thought about the question of marriage before, but understood that saying "yes" would be totally un-John. "No way," I replied. I was keeping my western peers comfortable.

At 13, I moved to New York. The city's cultural diversity makes it an ideal place to be a cultural chooser. In New York, I learned to choose or reject in a way that strengthens my individuality and outgrew that "John" model, which forces one to choose names to please others and reject customs merely to fit in with peers. Rather, I choose and reject based on my view of the world. As a global cultural chooser, I am forced to think deeply about values and morality in a fresh way. I do not automatically embrace or reject something because it is Indian, American or English. I often deeply consider if something feels compatible to my taste. In doing so, I have grown to control many of the cultural influences of my identity.

My embrace of my religion challenged the "John" template. It started with a question in my English class junior year: "Do you think people look down upon you if you're religious at Trinity?" My classmates hands flew up to answer "yes." Why? The answers were antithetical to my sense of religion as a force of morality in my life. "Most kids at Trinity think that being religious doesn't make logical sense, and so those who are religious are kind of seen as illogical." For the most part, all the kids in the class felt this way. I felt cornered because I was amongst the minority; I did not agree at all. I had chosen Hinduism as my religion; my parents had left the decision up to me. To me, it seemed logical to choose this part of my family's Indian culture, because I related to many of the principles. How could my peers think that intelligence and religion were incompatible when I myself underwent such a logical process of choosing my faith?

A year later, I stood on stage in front of my whole school in a special assembly presented by the South Asian Society about Diwali and Hinduism. The topic of my speech? The role faith and doubt play in religion. I spoke about faith in front of an audience who were dismissive of its value because I am not "John." I no longer need to please my "customers," although I am interested in hearing their ideas as well as mine. I try to pick the best aspects of all the cultures at my disposal, in order to create my own "homeland."

Ravi Popat is a freshman at Tufts University and a graduate of the Trinity School in New York.

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Jor-El, Krypton?s Science Council, And American Politics (OliverWillisLikeKryptoniteToStupid)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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Stimulus rollback fears, TD trigger TSX slump

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index stumbled on Thursday, with every major sector in the red on concerns about a quicker-than-expected end to the U.S. Federal Reserve's stimulus program and sluggish economic data from China and Europe.

further weighed on the market after the country's No. 2 lender reported earnings slightly below expectations.

TD Bank gave back 1 percent to C$83.22, was the worst performer among Canada's six largest banks and key to driving the market lower.

Investors were nervous after U.S. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress on Wednesday that a decision to scale back massive bond buying each month could come at one of the central bank's "next few meetings" if the economy looked set to maintain momentum.

"We all know that at some point, the Fed's going to have to do something to withdraw some of that liquidity they put in the marketplace," said Irwin Michael, portfolio manager at ABC Funds.

"It's a game of chicken," he added. "People are waiting to find out when, and they will probably react in the short run."

Other negative market factors included surveys showing China's factory activity shrank for the first time in seven months in May and that the euro zone economy was likely to contract again in the second quarter.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> tumbled 102.12 points, or 0.80 percent, at 12,650.38.

All of the 10 main sectors in the index were losers.

Shares of energy producers fell 1.3 percent, reflecting lower oil prices. Miner Teck Resources Ltd fell 4.3 percent to C$28.17. Suncor Energy Inc , Canada's largest energy company, was down 0.6 percent, at C$32.31.

Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, lost 0.8 percent, led by TD Bank.

The materials sector, which includes mining stocks, was down 0.5 percent despite a 1.4 percent rise in shares of gold companies.

Potash Corp slipped 2.1 percent to C$43.02.

Among other active stocks, Nordion Inc jumped as much as 11 percent after the major provider of isotopes used in medical imaging said it will sell its targeted therapies division.

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tsx-may-open-lower-bernankes-comments-125103006.html

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Writer Chinua Achebe honored in Nigeria funeral

Pallbearers carry the coffin of late author Chinua Achebe at his funeral service, held at St. Philip's Anglican Church in Ogidi, Nigeria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria?s corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticizing those he felt ruined a country he once supported breaking away from. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country?s elite came to him. Hundreds attended Achebe?s funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw even President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer?s books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the ?eagle atop the Iroko tree? in his native Igbo language. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Pallbearers carry the coffin of late author Chinua Achebe at his funeral service, held at St. Philip's Anglican Church in Ogidi, Nigeria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria?s corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticizing those he felt ruined a country he once supported breaking away from. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country?s elite came to him. Hundreds attended Achebe?s funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw even President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer?s books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the ?eagle atop the Iroko tree? in his native Igbo language. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Traditional Igbo chiefs attend the funeral of late author Chinua Achebe in Ogidi, Nigeria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Writer Chinua Achebe is being remembered in Nigeria as a fearless writer who bowed to no political pressure, as mourners gather in his hometown for a funeral Thursday. Among attendees was Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who held up copies of Achebe's books during the service at a local Anglican church ? including his famous essay "The Trouble With Nigeria" and Ghanaian President John Mahama. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

From left, Deputy speaker of the house of representative Emeka Ihedioha, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, centre, and Ghanaian President John Mahama, right, attend the funeral of author Chinua Achebe at his funeral service, held at St. Philip's Anglican Church in Ogidi, Nigeria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria?s corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticizing those he felt ruined a country he once supported breaking away from. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country?s elite came to him. Hundreds attended Achebe?s funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw even President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer?s books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the ?eagle atop the Iroko tree? in his native Igbo language. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

A hearse carrying the coffin of late author Chinua Achebe at his funeral service, held at St. Philip's Anglican Church in Ogidi, Nigeria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria?s corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticizing those he felt ruined a country he once supported breaking away from. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country?s elite came to him. Hundreds attended Achebe?s funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw even President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer?s books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the ?eagle atop the Iroko tree? in his native Igbo language. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Policemen stand guard during the funeral service for author Chinua Achebe at his funeral service, held at St. Philip's Anglican Church in Ogidi, Nigeria, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria?s corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticizing those he felt ruined a country he once supported breaking away from. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country?s elite came to him. Hundreds attended Achebe?s funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw even President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer?s books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the ?eagle atop the Iroko tree? in his native Igbo language. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

OGIDI, Nigeria (AP) ? Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria's corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticize those he felt ruined his country. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country's elite came to praise him.

Hundreds attended Achebe's funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer's books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the "eagle atop the Iroko tree" in his native Igbo language.

It was a fitting tribute to the respect Achebe carried among the people here and for many others around the world who knew him through his books, which many say is the first African voice heard in modern literature.

"Chinua Achebe gave Africa its confidence," said Emeka Anyaoku, an Igbo elder.

Achebe rose to acclaim with the publication of his 1958 classic novel "Things Fall Apart," a parable for the collapse of traditional society in Africa on the arrival of colonialists. The journalist's tense, short sentences recalled Ernest Hemingway, but offered a vision of Igbo culture before British rule ultimately united the regions that now form modern Nigeria.

"Things Fall Apart" has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Though describing himself in writing as a "British-protected child," Achebe became a forceful critic of Western literature about Africa, especially Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." His writings often focused on that split between cultures, serving at times as a bridge for those wanting to understand the those two worlds.

Achebe died in March at the age of 82 in Boston after an illness. Though a 1990 car crash left him paralyzed from the waist down, he continued writing and taught at universities in the United States, earning him the nickname "Prof" throughout Nigeria.

Achebe also could be just as harsh of a critic of Nigeria. When the Igbo lands of the east broke away from Nigeria to become the nation of Biafra, Achebe served as a roaming ambassador for the new nation. However, the war saw 1 million people killed, many through starvation in the waning days of the conflict. His friend, the poet Christopher Okigbo, also died but his family survived bombings and the war's horrors.

"As we reached the brink of full-blown war it became clear to me that the chaos enveloping all of us in Nigeria was due to the incompetence of the Nigerian ruling class," Achebe wrote in his recent civil war memoir, "There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra." ''This clique, stunted by ineptitude, distracted by power games and the pursuit of material comforts, was unwilling, if not incapable, of saving our fledging new nation."

Achebe later twice refused Nigeria's second-highest award, the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic, over the lawlessness in his home state of Anambra. A spokesman for President Jonathan later said Achebe's decision to reject the honor "clearly flies in the face of the reality of Nigeria's current political situation." However, the problems raised in Achebe's polemic 1980s essay "The Trouble With Nigeria" ring true even today in this oil-rich nation beset by extremist violence, rampant poverty and poor governance.

Thursday, even Jonathan held up that essay before mourners at St. Phillip's Anglican Church, which sits just next to the primary school Achebe attended as a child in Ogidi. Jonathan mentioned how Achebe wrote that Nigeria's problem "is political leadership" and "tribal sentiments."

"He was making reference to what was happening in the 1950s and '60s," the president said. "Have we changed from that?"

The crowd loudly shouted back: "No!"

Yet Jonathan himself, toward the end of his 12-minute speech, referred to the 2011 elections that cemented him in power as a "significant improvement," without mentioning the 800 people killed in religious rioting and political violence afterward, nor the allegations of vote rigging. Many expect Jonathan to run for re-election in 2015 and some see his appearance at burials for Igbo leaders as an attempt to sway voters in a crucial powerbase.

Ghanaian President John Mahama also attended the service alongside Jonathan, as well as other politicians and leaders. In a scene reminiscent of Achebe's own complaints, the elite rushed out of the service and into tinted-glass SUVs. In the wake of their sirens, soldiers and police officers carrying automatic weapons pushed and fought with the surging crowds. Others scuffled over programs in the back of the church during the service.

Everyone, including Jonathan, however, waited for Achebe's body to be first carried out of the church. Pallbearers later entombed the writer's casket in a mausoleum next to his home, as traditional dancers and others gathered. Outside, hawkers continued to sell Achebe's books, a sign that the writer's influence will continue long after these ceremonies come to an end.

Said Ikechi Nwachukwu Nwosu, the Anglican archbishop who eulogized Achebe: "There are some people who cannot be buried."

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-23-Nigeria-Achebe/id-95361daadae1436e9cc06cabd47c8de7

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Cricket Reveals Galaxy S 4, Future Smartphone Plans

LAS VEGAS?Cricket is moving on up. At the CTIA Wireless trade show this week, the nation's No. 5 carrier outlined an ambitious plan to stock more high-end smartphones supporting nationwide LTE, most notably including the Samsung Galaxy S 4.

"A year ago, we had less than 1 percent of our customers on high-tier handsets," Cricket CEO Doug Hutchinson said. "Now we're in the mid-teens on the high-tier handsets and growing nicely."

Cricket is backing up these plans with an aggressive new ad campaign targeting AT&T and Verizon subscribers called "Half is More," highlighting how its $50 plans cost half what most AT&T and Verizon subscribers are paying. This is a nuanced strategy for Cricket, which is much cheaper than the two big players but tends to be a little more expensive than the truly low-cost prepaid carriers.

I spent a little time with the new Cricket Galaxy S 4 and the less expensive Samsung Galaxy Discover at Cricket's press conference. They're both pretty much as expected; Cricket's major addition is its unlimited Muve Music service. The Galaxy S 4 will cost $599 up front, but Cricket will also offer a range of financing options.

Cricket's unafraid to offer high-end, high-cost smartphones after seeing the success of its Galaxy S III this year, said Matt Stoiber, Cricket's senior vice president for devices.

"Our expectation was that our customers probably wouldn't spend that much money to get to an iconic phone, but we were surprised with the take rate on the Galaxy S III," he said.

A More Focused Portfolio

Cricket's 2013 portfolio will focus primarily on smartphones, with Samsung playing a heavy role. Stoiber said Cricket will carry two entry-level feature phones, a clamshell, and a QWERTY device, along with a bunch of entry-level smartphones and some high-end smartphones. About a third of Cricket's customers are still on feature phones, and mid-tier smartphone customers have been moving up to high-end devices with the coming of Cricket's device financing plans, he said. But you shouldn't expect a huge lineup from a carrier with seven million customers.

"You're not going to see us go to 18-24 devices in the lineup again. We're going to be trying to be very smart about which devices we pick, and you'll see a much narrower focus on OEMs," he said.

That seems to be a signal that Cricket won't be aggressively auditioning new Chinese manufacturers and instead is going to be primarily working with bigger brands like Samsung, LG, and HTC.

LTE will also be a major focus. Cricket only covers a third of the country by itself, but it also has an ongoing wholesale agreement with Sprint offering Cricket customers nationwide roaming on Sprint's 3G and LTE networks. The new Cricket GS 4 will support LTE on both Cricket's AWS and Sprint's 1900Mhz networks, and some 2014 devices may mix in Clearwire's 2.5Ghz as well.

"You'll see fewer 3G options for our customers," Stoiber said. "You're not going to see a lot of new 3G Android devices. We're working hard to get 4G to entry level pricing."

And while Cricket is focused on its iPhones and Android devices right now, it isn't counting out other mobile operating systems.

"We're likely to have [a Windows Phone 8] in the future," Stoiber said. "We're very interested in it, and it wouldn't be an entry level device ? we continue to talk to BlackBerry, but we haven't made any commitments to BlackBerry," he said.

Source: http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/breakingnews/~3/LDa8ZMbjXEw/0,2817,2419377,00.asp

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Ford Australia Drops Axe On Falcon And Territory; Production To End 2016

After more than fifty years of manufacturing at Campbellfield, and more than eighty years of manufacturing vehicles in Australia, Ford Australia has now made the announcement everyone expected: it?s to shut-down its Australian manufacturing operations in 2016.

That date brings to end the Australian Falcon and Territory, and the i6 six-cylinder engine.

Citing challenging market conditions, Ford Australia CEO Bob Graziano said today that Ford Australia was unable to continue to manufacture locally if it was to serve ?Australian customers with the very best vehicles that deliver cutting edge technology at an affordable cost?.

The announcement today will result in the loss of around 1200 jobs in Ford?s Broadmeadows and Geelong manufacturing plants.

?We know this announcement is very difficult, especially for our employees,? Mr Graziano said. ?Providing support to those in our team whose roles will be affected is a key priority for us during this three-year transition period.?

As part of this announcement, Ford today released its FY financial results, posting an operating loss of $141million for the 2012 financial year.

This follows a loss of $290 million in 2011. In the past five years, Ford losses in Australia have climbed to a total of around $600million.

Of course, no-one expected anything other than red ink on Ford Australia's ledgers for the past financial year.

You can?t make money selling cars if people are buying something else: over the past year, Ford Australia?s manufacturing output for the Falcon and Territory dropped from 209 vehicles per day to 148 vehicles per day.

Sales of the Falcon are the lowest they have been since the very early days of the model?s release onto the Australian market with the XK Falcon in 1960.

Back then, and for the next 35 years, the car of choice for Australian families was a sedan, with a boot, and loping six-cylinder under the bonnet.

How much we?ve changed. Sales of the Falcon are tracking to just 10,000 units for 2013 (with 717 sales in April), and sales of the Territory tracking to just 15,000 (1260 April sales). These results are on top of years of declining market share.

Ford of course, on the receipt of a $34 million Government assistance package in July last year, committed to the Australian Government to continue manufacturing to 2016.

It was never likely to extend that date. It has a boardroom in Dearborn Michigan to report to.

Ford, across its global operations, has an annual turnover of more than US$140billion.

And certainly, while we might wish it were so, no Australian Government has a pocket deep enough to divert a boardroom of that size and influence.

The Falcon and Territory were orphaned in a company with a global product strategy of ?One Ford? ? with products, platforms, engines and technologies shared across and common to all areas of its global manufacturing operations.

And while this announcement and these job losses are another blow for Australian manufacturing, and will result in many more hundreds of downstream job losses for components and parts suppliers, this day has been a long time coming.

The writing was on the wall for the Falcon and Territory with the announcement of the retention of the i6 engine. That meant, five years ago, that there was no intent to develop an indigenous platform capable of accepting Ford?s new range of V6 petrol engines.

Falcon and Territory ? perhaps the best cars ever produced by this country ? have found themselves out of step with the parent, out of favour in the market, losing money and simply out of time.

MORE: VFACTS - Ford, Holden: A Tale Of An Australia Lost.

- Tim O'Brien
TMR Managing Editor

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMotorReport/~3/yZIHbgnQ2mg/ford-australia-drops-axe-on-falcon-and-territory-production-to-end-2016

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Minus environment, patterns still emerge: Computational study tracks E. coli cells' regulatory mechanisms

May 21, 2013 ? Environment is not the only factor in shaping regulatory patterns -- and it might not even be the primary factor, according to a new Rice University study that looks at how cells' protein networks relate to a bacteria's genome.

The Rice lab of computer scientist Luay Nakhleh reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that when environmental factors are eliminated from an evolutionary model, mutations and genetic drift can give rise to the patterns that appear. They studied changes that show up in regulatory networks that determine the organism's characteristics.

Nakhleh and lead author Troy Ruths, a Rice graduate student, said their work is an important step toward understanding Cis-regulatory networks (CRNs), which play a dominant role in cells' information processing systems. Cis -- a Latin word for "on the same side as" -- regulators are regions of DNA (or RNA) that regulate the expression of genes located on the same DNA molecule.

The researchers generated 1,000 computer models of random Escherichia coli regulatory networks and watched them evolve through millions of generations. However, they did not program into the models environmental factors that might have prompted change through natural selection. Their results supported other studies that suggested networks might evolve spontaneously through mutation, recombination, gene duplication and genetic drift.

Their "neutral evolutionary" approach sidestepped one taken by other researchers who, Nakhleh said, have tried to understand cellular protein networks by looking at motifs. These motifs are short sequences called subgraphs in the network that appear more frequently than is expected by chance alone. "Biological networks are complex systems, and the community has responded by developing lots of mathematical and sophisticated computational analysis tools to understand these networks," he said. Those researchers argued the emergence and conservation of these regulatory motifs were largely due to adaptation to environment; the Rice researchers argued that isn't necessarily so.

Nakhleh said he and Ruths decided to tie what scientists now know about the genome -- the entire collection of an organism's DNA -- to the evolution of such networks.

"Instead of jumping directly to the network, where we don't understand much, we decided to look back at our broad knowledge about the genome and link it to these networks," he said. "In this paper, we zoomed in on the issue of how much of what we see in the network is a result of neutral evolution, where there's no selection involved. How much of what we are seeing is a side effect, so to speak, of random mutations and genetic drift?"

The wealth of genomic data available for E. coli encouraged the Rice researchers to build a sophisticated model that matched Cis-regulatory networks to their related DNA. "If there is any model in the prokaryotic world that has been studied well and has data, it's E. coli," Nakhleh said.

Their conclusion, put simply by the paper, is that "neutral evolution acting on genomic properties" can indeed explain bacterial regulatory patterns.

"There are two sides to the paper," Nakhleh said. "One is that many of these motifs have nothing adaptive in their origin. They emerge because mutation is a random process.

"The second and, I think, more powerful part of the story is that for the first time, the extent of neutrality in a network has been quantified. ? Our model will never be able to tell you, 'I can rule out adaptation from this.' What we are saying is that you do not need to invoke adaptation to explain what you are seeing.

"Now we can start to understand how changes at the genome level can result in how these networks form, what some researchers are calling the 'design principles' behind these networks," Nakhleh said. "I don't think there is anything being designed here, so to speak. Patterns emerge in response to mutations; genetic drift and selection then affect the frequencies of these patterns. We showed that genetic drift can explain much of these frequencies."

The National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation supported the research. Nakhleh is an associate professor of computer science and ecology and evolutionary biology.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/hKSyMWSyBTE/130521194153.htm

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Junior Rodeo in Rocky Ford | City of Rocky Ford

Junior Rodeo in Rocky Ford

June 21 at 1pm and June 22nd at 8am at Rocky Ford Fairgrounds

Colorado Junior Rodeo Association The CJRA is a non-profit organization designed to promote good sportsmanship and healthy competition among youth competing in rodeo.? Youth ages 5 ? 18 years participate in our Junior Rodeo Association.

More Information

Registration

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Source: http://rockyfordcolo.com/2013/05/cjra/

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Lovelorn frogs bag closest crooner

May 20, 2013 ? What lures a lady frog to her lover? Good looks, the sound of his voice, the size of his pad or none of the above? After weighing up their options, female strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) bag the closest crooner they can, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers of Zoology. This seemingly short-sighted strategy turns out to be the optimal mate choice strategy for these colourful frogs.

Males of the species congregate in the Costa Rican rain forest 'lek-style' to display and call together, giving females the chance to weigh up multiple males at once. But despite their best efforts, build and territory size, females tend to mate with the closest calling male, Ivonne Meuche from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany, and colleagues report.

The find was confirmed by playback experiments where females, played recordings of various male calls, failed to discriminate between different call rates or frequencies, preferring instead, the nearest speaker.

Female mate choice is a tricky business. Some species chose the first mate that is 'good enough' whilst others seek out and compare many mates before returning to choose the fittest. But the simplest, least costly option is to mate with the first or nearest male encountered, regardless of quality. The strategy doesn't seem an evolutionary winner as it means that nearby, unfit frogs sometimes get to pass on their genes at the expense of more distant, genetically-superior specimens. But it does make sense in certain situations.

Non-choosy behaviour like this has been noted in fishes, and some frog species with a lek-like mating system. It's thought the strategy works for them because it reduces 'costs' in terms of search time and competition for mates. Female strawberry poison frogs may also benefit little from 'shopping around' because strong inter-male competition means the available mates are all much of a muchness.

The team also noted that females unable to find a mate within a certain time period ended up laying unfertilised eggs that never hatch. So in species, like the strawberry poison dart frog, where the choosing sex outnumbers the chosen sex, it makes sense to 'grab the nearest guy' rather than run the risk of not mating at all.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/BoBpdJzuBGM/130520095103.htm

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Ever 'hack your body?' Join us for a chat about the new trend at 12:30 p.m. ET

The battle between BlackBerry and Microsoft for the No.3 spot in the smartphone platform war is showing no signs of slowing, but a new contender will soon come to market to challenge these struggling giants. Jolla, whose CEO spoke with us nearly a year ago about the company?s efforts, has unveiled its first smartphone. Named simply ?Jolla,? the handset will feature a 4.5-inch HD display, a dual-core processor, 4G LTE, 16GB of internal storage, microSD support, an 8-megapixel camera, Android app support and the Sailfish mobile operating system. Most impressively of all, perhaps, is the price tag: just??399 before taxes and subsidies. Jolla says it hopes to begin shipping the phone by the end of 2013, and a video of

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chat-live-with-rewnowned-biohackers-about--hacking-your-body--at-2-00pm-144851209.html

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Yahoo confirms acquisition of Tumblr, but will run it as a 'separate business'

Hot on the heels of yesterday's rumors, Yahoo and Tumblr have jointly announced a "definitive agreement" for the former to acquire the latter for $1.1 billion. The agreement makes it clear that Tumblr will be "independently operated as a separate business" with its own branding and line of development. A frankly worded press release says that this arms-length arrangement will help Yahoo "not to screw it up" and promises that the 300 million monthly visitors to the blogging site will continue to experience Tumblr's "irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators." Those who have allegedly fled to WordPress already, for fear of Tumblr being shut down, may have slightly jumped the gun.

Filed under: Internet, Mobile

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Source: BusinessWire ( via Yahoo)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/JtIn9aRoXTI/

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Germany's uncomfortable role as Europe's 'economic police'

Since World War II, Germany has preferred to stay out of international leadership roles. But the eurocrisis has put the country at Europe's head ? with all the criticism that entails.

By Sara Miller Llana,?Staff writer / May 16, 2013

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a discussion panel on 'making Europe strong' during the Europe forum conference in Berlin Thursday. Germany has consciously avoided a leadership role in Europe since the end of World War II, but the eurocrisis has put it in the limelight ? with all the criticism that brings.

Gero Breloer/AP

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Americans took a leading role in the world in the post-World War II era. And today they are used to being unpopular, yet called upon when needed.

Skip to next paragraph Sara Miller Llana

Europe Bureau Chief

Sara Miller Llana?moved to Paris in April 2013 to become the Monitor's Europe Bureau?Chief. Previously she was the?paper's?Latin America Bureau Chief, based in Mexico City, from 2006 to 2013.

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Germans in the postwar era, on the other hand, have preferred to blend into the background.

But amid Europe's sovereign debt crisis, as Germany's healthy economy has put it at the head of the 27-member European Union, that's been proving impossible. And now Germans are dealing with the criticism that accompanies being a regional ? if unwilling ? hegemon.

While a recent Pew poll shows Germany to be considered by many countries to be the most trustworthy nation in Europe, it has also accrued new enemies far and wide, with Greeks burning German flags or picketing with signs of German Chancellor Angela Merkel dressed in Nazi uniform. There have even been?claims from France that Germans are out to rule the Continent.

?We have made a lot of commitment to help those people,? says Markus, a musical theater stage producer, in Berlin?s Alexanderplatz, a public square and major transportation hub in Germany?s capital Berlin. ?It?s really unfair.?

It?s also untrue ? at least the part about Germany wanting continental dominion, say German and European observers. Instead, the avoidance of tough positions in foreign policy, so Germany is not led into a moral dilemma, is ingrained in the postwar mentality, they say.

?There is no appetite for domination. Germany has been pushed into this position by default,? says Jan Techau, director of Carnegie Europe in Brussels for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ?There is no ambition to shape the continent in the image of Germany.?

?Germans want to be liked by the rest of the world,? says Michael Wohlgemuth, director of Open Europe Berlin. ?Germany feels uneasy in its new powerful role. We don?t want to be leaders of Europe.?

Outside the US embassy in Berlin, Erkan Arikan says that Germany is being unfairly maligned in Europe. But he says he can also laugh it off, as a German of Turkish descent in a multicultural Germany that has nothing to do with the 1930s.

He says that he can see some parallels between the hegemonic positions of Germany and the US today, but there is a limit. ?The US is still the world police for everyone; Germany doesn?t want to be the focus,? he says. ?But maybe it?s becoming the economic police of Europe.?

It?s a role that many Germans might feel uncomfortable playing, especially with the bad will that can breed.

If Americans don?t like the term ?ugly American,? Germans like it even less.

Ulrike Gu?rot of the European Council of Foreign Relations says when she travels around the country and talks to everyday Germans, they are starting to ask, ?Are we responsible for this youth unemployment in Spain? There is an uneasiness they they are just starting to feel,? she says. ?They don?t want to be the ?ugly German.??

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/bQa_gfaDmsk/Germany-s-uncomfortable-role-as-Europe-s-economic-police

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The Future Of Mobile-Social Could Spell The End For Social Networks

Editor's note:? Keith Teare is the founder of just.me and a partner at Archimedes Labs. He is also the co-founder of TechCrunch. This was a momentous week for those of us who are watching the rapid transition that is taking place from desktop computing to mobile., and particularly for those focused on mobile-social as I am due to my job at just.me. Here is my take on what we just witnessed.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OD5QpDrxKhE/

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Writing a Book ? Hot Article Depot

Writing a book can be a comprised art type, and all musicians have their personal distinct type.

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Source: http://hotarticledepot.com/writing-a-book-2/

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Marine who dumped toxins felt illness was payback

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) ? Ron Poirier couldn't escape the feeling that his cancer was somehow a punishment.

As a young Marine electronics technician at Camp Lejeune in the mid-1970s, the Massachusetts man figured he'd dumped hundreds of gallons of toxic solvents onto the ground. It would be decades before he realized that he had unknowingly contributed to the worst drinking water contamination in the country's history ? and, perhaps, to his own premature death.

"It's just a terrible thing," the 58-year-old veteran told The Associated Press shortly before succumbing to esophageal cancer at a Cape Cod nursing facility on May 3.

"Once I found out, it's like, 'God! I added to the contamination.'"

The cancer that killed Poirier is one of more than a dozen diseases and conditions with recognized links to a toxic soup brewing beneath the sprawling coastal base between the 1950s and mid-1980s, when officials finally ordered tainted drinking-water wells closed. As many as a million Marines, family members and civilian employees are believed to have been exposed to several cancer-causing chemicals.

In the final weeks of his life, it was not just cancer that was gnawing at Poirier.

The Brewster, Mass., man was with the 8th Communications Battalion at Lejeune from 1974 to 1976, working in a shop installing and repairing top-secret radio components. The shop was located just south of the Hadnot Point Industrial Area, right in the middle of a cluster of drinking water wells serving one of the base's main residential sections.

There was plenty of suspicion about the possible health effects of handling and ingesting trichloroethylene, or TCE. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had not yet established regulations for limiting exposure levels.

In a mid-March telephone interview from his home, Poirier said one of his jobs was to recondition circuit boards and other components. Working in a space with little or no ventilation, he used his bare hands to bathe the components in a pan of the TCE-laced cleaner or spray them down with an aerosolized version.

"It was also a great degreaser," he said in halting tones, stopping often to catch his breath. "And it would leave the circuit boards absolutely clean."

And it was cheap.

According to the manufacturer, the chemicals were to be used only once. Poirier chuckled when he recalled orders not to dump the stuff down the toilet, "because it would kill the bacteria" in the base's septic system.

The only warning he could remember was not to dispose of the product beside buildings. So when he and his colleagues had filled a drum with used cleaner, they carried it across the parking lot and dumped it in the woods.

"Over the two years, how much did I dispose of?" he asked. "Christ. We used to go through 55 gallons in less than a month. So, you know, if I had to say a rough guess would be 100 gallons a month. ... It was probably more. That's a conservative figure."

A civilian worker from Lejeune told a federal fact-finding group that there was "no guideline, policy, or program in place for base personnel handling or disposing of any chemical until the mid-1980s.Until that time, said the worker, whose name was redacted from the group's report, PCB-laden transformer oil was spread onto roads "to keep the dust down," and everything else "was either dumped on the ground or they just dug a hole and poured the chemicals into the ground."

At one point, Poirier recalled, the EPA issued some guidance on TCE.

"And I remember the old-timers there saying, 'That's a bunch of bull. ... We've been doing it this way for years,'" he said. "I was 18 years old. You did what you were told. You didn't ask questions."

Victims of the contamination note that there was a 1974 order governing the disposal of organic solvents and cleaning chemicals on the base.

Poirier left the Marines in 1976 as a sergeant, then spent six years with the Army.

Over the years, Poirier was surprised at the number of former Marine comrades who had died of cancer. With all the chemicals he'd handled during his lifetime, he said, "I thought maybe I was the lucky one."

Then his luck ran out.

By the time doctors discovered the tumor in his throat, the cancer had already spread to other parts of his body. Poirier's only option was chemotherapy.

At first, Poirier's doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital were baffled by his illness. He never smoked or drank to excess, and had quit both years earlier.

Then he learned about the Lejeune investigation, "and things started to make sense there."

Esophageal cancer is one of 15 diseases or conditions listed under the Camp Lejeune Veterans and Family Act, which covers Marines and family members who were at the base between 1957 and 1987. Poirier's disability claim "breezed right through," and he had nothing but praise for the care he received through the VA.

Following a recent NBC News report on Lejeune men diagnosed with breast cancer, Poirier poured his heart out on an online message board.

"It is very difficult living with the tought that i took part in this ground polution and facing death from this cancer," he wrote, his fingers stumbling over the keys. "I joined the USMC to serve and protect, not to harm."

Mike Partain, one of the men who appeared in the NBC piece, tried to reassure Poirier that he bore no blame.

"How can you be responsible in ignorance?" replied Partain, a Marine's son who was born at Lejeune's Naval Hospital. "You were poisoned just as much as I and everyone else at the base was."

Poirier understood that ? on one level.

"I'm a religious person," he told the AP, apologizing repeatedly for his slurred speech. "I believe in the universe. I don't think it's a direct thing. But I have guilt, let's put it that way. I have guilt."

A couple of years ago, the lifelong fisherman founded RonZ Engineered Soft Baits. He had recently switched from lead weights to tin, "a green metal," and scrupulously avoided using plastics made with phthalates, a softening agent linked to cancer and reproductive issues.

Earlier this year, Poirier began having trouble walking. In mid-March, he learned the cancer had spread to his brain.

Within a week of speaking with the AP, Poirier had moved into hospice. He was later transferred to a skilled nursing facility, where he spent his final three weeks.

While he knew he couldn't alter the past, Poirier had hopes that he could change the future.

"When judgment day comes, you know," he said, "I hope those people that suffered ... realize that I didn't know what I was doing."

___

Associated Press writer Martha Waggoner in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this story.

Breed is a national writer, based in Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at features(at)ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/(hash)!/AllenGBreed

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/marine-dumped-toxins-felt-illness-payback-135339347.html

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