A total eclipse of the Sun – 20th March, 2015

March 12, 2015

Though it’s a total eclipse only over Svalbard and the Faeroe Islands, it should be a partial but almost complete solar eclipse visible from Scandinavia on Friday March 20th. It should be visible in Europe, northern and eastern Asia and northern and western Africa. The eclipse starts at 07:41 UTC and ends at 11:50 UTC (0841 – 1250 CET).

The red zones will see a complete eclipse and the orange area will see more than 90% of Sun eclipsed by the moon.

total solar eclipse 20th march 2015 time and date.com

total solar eclipse 20th march 2015 timeanddate.com

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Now Mars moves into India’s orbit

March 11, 2015

I couldn’t resist the headline. At one time a Mars bar and a pint of beer used to be lunch.

Mars Bar

Business Standard: Chocolate manufacturer Mars International India is all set to invest Rs 1,005 crore (over $160 million) to set up its manufacturing plant in Pune. The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based Mars Inc., today signed an MoU with the Government of Maharashtra to set up a Greenfield project in Khed at Pune.

The manufacturing plant will be the first from Mars International India in the country, which was so far importing its products Snicker and Galaxy. Mars has been selling its product in India for last four years.

The company said that the investment will generate 200 direct employment opportunity and indirect employment of over 1000 people.

 

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Not much difference between Hillary Clinton and Richard Nixon

March 11, 2015

They didn’t have email in Richard Nixon’s day. And we don’t have much in the way of magnetic tape recordings these days. But otherwise Richard Nixon’s deletion of 18.5 minutes of incriminating recordings is no different to Hillary Clinton’s deletion of some 32,000 emails – self defined as being “private”.

To claim that over 50% of her email during this period when she was secretary of state was private is an insult to intelligence. “Of the 62,320 emails in her account, her office said 30,490 were deemed public business, while the remaining 31,830 were deemed private”. Really!

WashPo (16th June, 2014):

This week in 1972, a conversation took place which would lead to the most famous incident of evidence destruction by a presidential administration. ……. 

On November 17, 1973, the White House informed Federal District Judge John Sirica that the 18 1/2 minute Nixon-Haldeman conversation of June 20, 1972, had been erased. White House Counsel Fred Buzhardt told the Court that he no explanation for the erasure.

Nixon’s Secretary Rose Mary Woods took the blame for the first five minutes of the erasure. She said that she had been transcribing the tape, and when she reached to take a phone call, her foot hit a pedal on the recording machine, inadvertently causing the tape player to “record” over the original tape’s contents. Reporters were called to the White House to watch her perform a re-enactment, and the photos of her performing a tremendous stretch, which she supposedly held for five minutes, were rejected as implausible. Moreover, the particular tape recording machine does not operate the way she had claimed; simply pressing the foot pedal to “record” would not initiate a recording unless the play button was being manually depressed at the very same time.

Chief of Staff Alexander Haig blamed the 18 1/2 minute gap on a “sinister force.” In January 1974, experts who examined the tape reported that were four or five separate erasures. ……..

WashingtonTimes (10th March, 2015):

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton deleted nearly 32,000 emails she deemed private from her time in the Obama administration and refused Tuesday to turn over her personal email server, insisting she “fully complied” with the law and that voters will have to trust her judgment.

Answering questions for the first time about her emails, Mrs. Clinton said she’s turned over to the State Department 55,000 pages of emails she deemed work-related, but said she got rid of the rest last year. She defended her decision to keep control of her emails by using a private account, saying previous secretaries did the same thing, and saying it was more “convenient” for her this way.

“I wanted to use just one device for both personal and work emails instead of two,” she said in a hastily called press conference after she spoke at the U.N. Conference on Women.

Hillary Clinton’s motives and morals in destroying incriminating evidence are not so different to Richard Nixon’s. There is only one reason for a public official (or even any employee in any company) to use private email rather than the organisation or company provided email. And that is to keep something secret from that organisation or company. Deletion of material is even more an explicit admission that the deleted material was incriminating. The “convenience” argument is childish – but I am surprised at how many in the US can be so “gullible” and take such an excuse seriously. I suppose the acolytes will believe whatever they want to believe no matter what the evidence says.

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A certain hypocrisy

March 10, 2015

Leslee Udwin’s documentary about the Delhi rapes was shown in Sweden recently and there was much coverage in the media and the talk shows about the misogynist nature of Indian society. Also in India an alleged rapist was lynched last week by a mob which was led by a gang of schoolgirls. The alleged rapist was an immigrant from Bangladesh. The girls are being hailed as heroes in some quarters even though CCTV pictures show the victim apparently willingly accompanying her rapist into and out of a hotel. The “human rights” and “women’s rights” activists are largely silent here. So was the lynching due to misandry and were the schoolgirls leading the mob misandrists?

Today it is reported in Sweden that the rapist of a 13 year old was set free by two successive courts because the girl was well developed for her age. I note also that a certain Julian Assange is sitting holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid a Swedish arrest warrant for the investigation of an alleged rape by a woman who was willingly sharing his bed. No doubt the Swedish arrest warrant for Assange is largely political (on two counts; first to appease the US and second to appease the feminist lobby). The definition of rape in Sweden is quite wide and many so-called “rapes” would not be considered so in other countries. On the other hand Sweden must be one of a very few countries where sexual intercourse with a minor – no matter what she looked like – would not lead to a rape conviction. And when convictions are reached they often lead to little more than a slap on the wrist. Acquittals are very common. Which leads to the peculiar situation that the bar to what is considered rape is quite low when it comes to prosecution but there are very few convictions by the courts.

(With penalties for rape so low in Sweden I wonder why Assange is so scared of being questioned. Presumably he is more concerned about “rendition” to the US – where he is wanted for the leaks in the Bradley (Chelsea) Manning case – than of any consequences for the alleged rape in the Swedish courts. Sweden does have a history of assisting the CIA in cases of rendition in the past).

But whether in India or in Sweden the hypocrisy is palpable. In India there are only very few and very reluctant prosecutions, but convictions lead to very severe sentences. Once a rape is alleged, the suspect lives precariously. In Sweden, on the other hand, the definition of rape is very wide and the bar to prosecution is very low. The many prosecutions rarely lead to any consequence of substance from the courts.

Aftonbladet: The 27-year old man saw the 13-year-old girl on a bench outside his apartment, invited her in and had sex with her.
He was charged with child rape but was acquitted in two instances.
The decisive factor was the Court’s assessment – that the girl’s body was well developed for her age.
The 27-year-old man was arrested in April last year and charged first with child-rape and secondly, rape. But both Västmanland District Court and the Svea Court of Appeal acquitted the man.
The prosecutor chose not to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the girl’s counsel has taken up the case. The Supreme Court must first grant leave to appeal for the case to be reopened.
“There are very few cases that have so far been taken up”, says the girl’s lawyer Goran Landerdahl.

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“A bloody nose” as Swedish foreign policy degenerates to be just domestic policy

March 10, 2015

UPDATE! The 22 foreign ministers of the member countries of the Arab League released a statement today condemning the Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, for her anti-Saudi comments. Her comments were considered “irresponsible and unacceptable”. The undertone is that she does not understand very much about the Arab world or about Sharia law. No matter what one may think of Sharia and Saudi Arabia, Margot Wallströms statements reveal a Swedish foreign affairs behaviour which either does not analyse the consequences of its statements – or is incompetent. The obsessions of the greens and the far-left are bringing the country’s foreign policy into disrepute.

The new left-green Swedish government seems to have become a slave of their minority green partners (and are also going out of their way to placate the far left party which supports them from outside the government). So much so that foreign policy has now become a string of sanctimonious positions. It is now more about being politically correct in a domestic context rather than actually promoting Sweden’s interests (geopolitical and commercial) in foreign lands.

The Foreign Minister – Margot Wallström – started of her term by recognising Palestine as a State. It pandered to all her domestic constituents and allies, upset Israel and the US,  and has not helped the Palestinians one jot. But it allowed those on the left to expound their beliefs and provided support for the growing anti-semitism in Sweden.

Some 10 years ago the socialist government of the time entered into a cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia regarding defence and defence production. The agreement was nurtured all through the 8 years of the subsequent moderate-led government and provided a good deal of business and many jobs in Sweden. The current socialist government of Stefan Löfven is hard pressed by its own left wing to cancel the deal. The greens absolutely hate this agreement but that is because their goal is to dismantle the Swedish defence industry. The politically correct feminist view is that all things Saudi Arabian must be condemned. For the last few weeks the Swedish media (which are predominantly left of centre and hopelessly politically correct) have been running a campaign to support the greens and the far left in condemning the Saudi agreement.

And their efforts have now resulted in Margot Wallström “receiving a bloody nose” from Saudi Arabia. She was scheduled to make a speech to the Arab League (about Human Rights) but this was cancelled at short notice by a very irritated Saudi Arabia.

TheLocal.se: Sweden’s national debate about a controversial arms deal has sparked anger in Saudi Arabia and formed the backdrop to its move to block the Swedish foreign minister’s planned speech at the Arab League, according to an expert on Saudi politics.

Thord Janson, a Saudi Arabia expert at Gothenburg University, said: “This isn’t a slap on the hand; it’s a punch in the nose,” he told news agency TT. The decision by Saudi Arabia, a regional powerhouse, to prevent Wallström from speaking in Cairo on Monday appeared designed to cause embarrassment, he said. “From a diplomatic perspective it’s incredibly harsh. One couldn’t be more clear.” Janson predicted that Saudi Arabia would now make life trickier for Swedish firms operating in the wealthy Middle Eastern oil state. “The authorities might make it more difficult for them to import goods, deliveries might get slowed down in customs, and it could become hard to get certain permits.” 

The very public discussion in Sweden on whether to extend a military cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia had sparked strong reactions in Riyadh, said Janson. Sweden’s Green Party, the junior partner in the Social Democrat-led government, wants to scrap the deal, as do several members of Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s own party.  

Swedish criticism of the flogging of the blogger and human rights activists Raif Badawi may also have played a part in the Saudi decision.

“They thinks it’s an internal matter,” said Janson. “They don’t understand why a morally decadent country like Sweden is getting involved in the Saudi legal system.

My perception is of Swedish foreign policy now becoming quite shallow and with little substance. It is more concerned with being – and being seen to be – politically correct in the eyes of the greens, the far left and the feminist party. Foreign policy has degenerated to become a series of sanctimonious and self-righteous statements where the purpose is to look good for the domestic audience. And Margot Wallström – who is not inexperienced – has not the strength to resist the domestic lobbying.

Swedish foreign policy no longer shows any evidence of any deep thought about Swedish interests or how to promote change abroad. The end of the agreement with Saudi Arabia is now inevitable. There is little chance of Saudi Arabia (or Israel) now paying any attention to the “Swedish opinion”. Swedish business of any kind – and not just the defence business – can expect to meet more unfriendly customers. Other European countries will not be slow to step in to replace Swedish suppliers. But the far left and the greens can wallow in self-righteousness. Any chance of a place on the Security Council has disappeared.

 

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High stocks and continued oversupply mean oil price has further to drop

March 9, 2015

The underlying and driving fundamental remains that there is an oversupply and oil stockpiles are still increasing. Certainly oil exploration has taken a hit with the drop in oil prices and will – eventually – lead to lower production. Certainly the growth of shale oil production in the US has slowed. But the decline in some of this production has only been to turn off the most expensive production rigs. The oversupply has hardly been affected. Industrial growth has not yet picked up enough to balance this oversupply.

Oil price has been relatively stable for over a month at around $60 per barrel and all the talk from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf is about a stabilisation at this level and a recovery of oil price in the second half of 2015.

MarketPulse:

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said on Wednesday he expected oil prices, which hit a near six-year low in January, to stabilize, signalling cautious optimism about the market outlook. Giving a speech in the German capital, Ali al-Naimi also urged non-OPEC producers to help balance the oil market, saying it was not up to Saudi Arabia to subsidize higher-cost producers and that circumstances required non-OPEC to cooperate.

“Going forward, I hope and expect supply and demand to balance and for prices to stabilise,” Naimi said. “Global economic growth seems more robust.” The comments are a further sign OPEC’s top producer is sticking to its policy to defend market share. Last month, Naimi signalled satisfaction with developments, saying he saw oil demand growing and that markets were “calm”. Oil was trading just above $60 a barrel on Wednesday, up more than 30 percent from a near six-year low close to $45 on Jan. 13.

ABS CBN:

World crude prices are expected to gain this year or at least stabilise at between $50 and $60 a barrel, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Ali al-Omair was quoted as saying.

“Forecasts for the oil price this year indicate that it will gain or at least stabilise between $50 and $60 a barrel,” the official KUNA news agency quoted Omair as saying late on Saturday in Bahrain. The minister said prices are currently supported by conflict in Iraq and Libya and by a drop in sand oil and shale oil output. But that is counterbalanced by slow global economic growth, which is dampening demand, Omair said.

World prices dropped at close on Friday as the dollar rose sharply, making dollar-priced crude more expensive for buyers using weaker foreign currencies. West Texas Intermediate for delivery in April slid $1.15 to $49.61 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, ending near its week-ago level. Brent North Sea crude for April, the international benchmark, dropped 75 cents to $59.73 a barrel in London.

But there is a large element of wishful thinking here. The January price of around $45 per barrel was just testing the waters that we will probably see again later this year. According to “data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that crude inventory is sitting at an 80-year high with the United States recently recording its biggest weekly inventory rise in 14 years. Crude inventories are now sitting at 444.4 million barrels, which is more than a year’s worth of production”. Storage capacity in the US is now utilised to 60% compared to 48% at this time last year.

Global economic growth may provide some demand growth in the second half of 2015 and it is possible that oil price will remain at between $50 and 60 for most of the year. But I think it is more likely that we will see another dip to around $40.

US crude oil stocks March 2015 source EIA

US crude oil stocks March 2015 source EIA

 

 

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India’s daughter let down by government stupidity

March 9, 2015

The documentary film about the Delhi rape victim by Leslee Udwin and which was banned by a Delhi Court and the Indian government, was shown on Swedish TV tonight (available here till 7th April with Swedish text). I thought the authorities were being rather stupid in their knee-jerk reaction in imposing the ban. Now after seeing the documentary, it is apparent that I was being too kind. The stupidity was multiplied by idiocy. The ban does no service to India’s daughters.

The ban was for having “objectionable content” and because it might cause a “public outcry”. There should instead be a public outcry against their ridiculous ban. I found nothing derogatory at all about women in the film. In fact the attitudes displayed by the rapist (and his lawyer) were what I found most revealing. Their attitudes are no different to what is displayed by most of the male politicians (of all political hues). The argument made by the government that the film provides a platform for the condemned rapist does not hold and could only be put forward by someone who has not seen the film.

As a documentary, the film itself was a little patchy but very good in parts. But where it worked very well was in exposing the ingrained nature of the attitudes of people – male and female – when they have been brought up to see women as chattel.

It ought to be compulsory viewing for Rajnath Singh, all members of the BJP and the Delhi Court which banned the film. (Of course what ought to come first is that they all be required to exercise their minds before opening their mouths).

I was glad to hear that NDTV which was scheduled to screen the documentary today did not replace the film but just showed a slate with the film title for the scheduled duration of the banned documentary:

Screen grab from NDTV of a slate featuring India's Daughter titles

BBC: 

India’s NDTV has halted programming in protest at the banning of the BBC documentary India’s Daughter.

The network ran a slate referring to the film’s title, during the hour-long slot when it should have aired.

The film, which features an interview with one of the men convicted of the Delhi bus rape, was due to be broadcast by the channel on Sunday night.

But it was outlawed by the Indian authorities on the grounds of “objectionable content”.

Explaining its decision not to broadcast an alternative show from 21:00 to 22:00 local time (15:30-16:30 GMT), editorial director Sonia Singh said in a tweet: “We won’t shout, but we will be heard.”

 

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The monkey orchid

March 8, 2015

Seen at Kuriositas

Dracula simia: These wonderful orchids come from the south-eastern Ecuadorian and Peruvian cloud forests from elevations of 1000 to 2000 meters

monkey orchid grinning

Image Credit Columbus GV Team

 

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MH370: One year on and those who know still aren’t telling

March 8, 2015

Some few do know what happened to MH370 a year ago.

My post from April 13th last year speculating that this was a state sponsored and highly successful hijacking, is just as valid or invalid as it was then. There has been much speculation since but no new, certain, evidence has appeared. In fact even the “handshake” tracking which places the plane in the Southern Indian Ocean turns out to be fairly speculative in itself.

Whatever happened to MH370 was no accident. In one year there has been no evidence to alter my belief that this was the most successful hijacking and “disappearing” of a commercial airline and its 239 passengers and crew. And the objective – which was clearly achieved – was to prevent some passengers or cargo or both from reaching Beijing.

MH370: Emirates CEO suggests plane’s flight was controlled, October 11, 2014

MH370: Further indications of a deliberate event to prevent technology reaching Beijing, June 22, 2014

MH370: Very short preliminary report issued – could have been “laundered”, May 2, 2014

MH370: The most successful, state-sponsored hijacking ever?, April 13, 2014

MH370: The altitude excursion which could have rendered most unconscious, April 1, 2014

A deliberate excursion?

The calculations leading to the search area are speculative

 

 

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Pvt Jogendra Nath Sen (1887 – 1916) of the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment

March 7, 2015

A rather poignant story about Jogendra Nath Sen of Bengal and Leeds.

JN Sen by Caroline Jaine

JN Sen by Caroline Jaine

Born in Chandernagore in 1887, Jogendra Nath Sen left from Calcutta in 1910 and travelled to Leeds University to study electrical engineering (54 years before I also travelled from Calcutta to the UK though I was on my way to the Midlands and mechanical engineering). He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and took up employment with Leeds Corporation at their Electric Lighting Station when the First World War broke out. He was one of the first to volunteer when the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment (Leeds Pals) was formed a month later in September 1914 (service number 15/795). He served first in Egypt and then on the Western front. He was killed during heavy shelling in the trenches of Bus-les-Artois on the night of 22 May 1916 and is buried in the Sucrerie Military Cemetery at Colincamps.

In spite of his education, the colour bar of the time prevented his ever reaching any rank higher than Private. He was not permitted even to be a non-commissioned officer, and to be a regular officer was completely out of the question. Twenty five years later the situation was somewhat changed when my father enlisted for WW2.

15th (Service) Battalion (1st Leeds)
Formed in Leeds in September 1914 by the Lord Mayor and City.
June 1915 : came under orders of 93rd Brigade, 31st Division.
December 1915 : moved to Egypt. Went on to France in March 1916.
7 December 1917 : amalgamated with 17th Bn to form 15th/17th Bn.

Leeds University has published this account of their  former student:

The unlikeliest of Pals? An Indian soldier alone among Yorkshiremen

A shattered pair of spectacles in an Indian museum has helped shed light on the fascinating story of a lone non-white soldier among Yorkshire volunteers fighting on the Western Front.

Jogendra Sen, a highly-educated Bengali who completed an electrical engineering degree at the University of Leeds in 1913, was among the first to sign up to the 1st Leeds “Pals” Battalion when it was raised in September 1914.

He remained the only known non-white soldier to serve with the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment during the First World War. Despite his education, he was thwarted in his attempt to join up as an officer and unable to progress beyond the rank of private. 

Killed in action near the Somme in May 1916, aged 28, the bachelor is thought to have been the first Bengali to have died in the war. Private Sen’s name is on the University’s war memorial. 

His story caught the attention of Dr Santanu Das, Reader in English at King’s College London and an expert on India’s involvement in the First World War. On a visit in 2005 to Sen’s home town of Chandernagore – a former French colony – Dr Das came across Sen’s bloodstained glasses in a display case in the town’s museum, the Institut de Chandernagore.

He said: “I was absolutely stunned when I saw the pair of glasses. It’s one of the most poignant artefacts I’ve seen – a mute witness to the final moments of Sen’s life. It was astonishing that something so fragile has survived when almost everything else has perished.”

A contemporary photograph shows Private Sen relaxing with his fellow Pals – who knew him as Jon – wearing what is thought to be the same spectacles Dr Das found almost a century later. ……… 

……. Known as Jon to his fellow soldiers, he was among the first to sign up to the Leeds Pals shortly after the outbreak of war, while working as assistant engineer at Leeds Corporation Electric Lighting station.

A comrade, Arthur Dalby, told historian Laurie Milner in 1988: “We had a Hindu in our hut, called Jon Sen. He was the best educated man in the battalion and he spoke about seven languages but he was never allowed to be even a lance corporal because in those days they would never let a coloured fellow be over a white man, not in England, but he was the best educated.” 

The battalion had been formed in September 1914 by mayor Edward Brotherton. Some 20,000 people gathered to wave off the first recruits from Leeds on September 25. 

The title “Leeds Pals” is unofficial, but as it suggests, pals battalions were often made up of friends from the same street, school, factory, church or even university. Heavy losses inflicted on such battalions from towns and cities across the country were therefore felt even more keenly back home.

Private Sen ended up in Number 16 Platoon (D Company) of the 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Leeds) Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) – often abbreviated to the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment or 1st Leeds Pals. ….

…. Sen’s personal effects were sent from York back to his brother in India in 1920. Along with a graduation picture, regimental cap badge, notebooks, snaps and a pocket knife was – somewhat tantalisingly – an undated photograph of a well-dressed young woman taken in a Scarborough portrait studio. It bears the inscription “Yours with love, Cis”. 

Nothing more was known about the mystery woman, who also gave the young soldier a book of quotes about the value of friendship inscribed: “With the very best of good wishes in this world + after, To Jogi, my dear brother, From his loving sister, Cis”.

But then researcher Ruth Allison was able to identify her as Mary Cicely Newton (nee Wicksteed), who may have met Sen through her connection with Mill Hill Chapel. Their relationship appears to have remained a platonic one. 

David Stowe also did much research on Jogendra Nath Sen and his account is here,

PTE. JOGENDRA SEN: A LEEDS PAL AND SON OF LEEDS

I first came across the name Jogendra Nath Sen in 2010 when researching the Leeds University Roll of Honour. More recently my attention was drawn to the work of Dr Santanu Das after he had lectured at a Legacies of War event at the University of Leeds.1 Dr Das is an expert on the Indian soldier and his work in that area is impressive. However, as I began to read his work on Jogendra Nath Sen I realized the archive in Chandernagore, where he had located several artefacts belonging to Sen, had caused confusion by mislabeling the collection and mixing Jogendra Nath Sen with his doctor brother who shared the same initials.2

This article seeks to not only correct that confusion, but also answer the question posed by Dr Das: ‘Now, was Dr Sen, a member of the elite Indian Medical Services, fighting as a British imperial subject, or as a Bengali (a member of the ‘non-martial’ race) or as a resident of Chandernagore, which was a French colony, or all three?’3Using both local and national sources it might be impressed that Jogendra Sen had settled into the local community and even joined a local battalion at the outbreak of war. It might be further impressed that Jogendra Sen was a volunteer who had made Leeds his home. ……… 

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