MH370: Illegal immigrants to Europe or something much more sinister?

March 10, 2014

The aircraft is still missing and even the oil slicks sighted have turned out to be from a ship and not from an aircraft. For the aircraft to vanish without a trace is what is so perplexing and ominous.

Were the fake passport holders illegal immigrants or something much more sinister??

The “Iranian” connection, the mysterious Mr. Ali is of less significance, I think, than the cash payment for the tickets by a friend of Mr. Ali on behalf of the two passengers.

The Chinese – I am convinced –  are still not telling everything they know.

The Guardian reports on an FT report (pay-walled).

The Guardian:

A Thai travel agent who booked the men with stolen passports onto the missing plane, has told the FT that the tickets were arranged with an “Iranian contact” on behalf of clients looking for cheap tickets to Europe. 

Benjaporn Krutnait, owner of the Grand Horizon travel agency in Pattaya, Thailand, said the Iranian, a long-term business contact who she knew only as “Mr Ali”, first asked her to book cheap tickets to Europe for the two men on March 1. Ms Benjaporn initially reserved one of the men on a Qatar Airways flight and the other on Etihad. 
But the tickets expired when Ms Benjaporn did not hear back from Mr Ali. When he contacted her again on Thursday, she rebooked the men on the Malaysia Airlines flight through Beijing because it was the cheapest available. Ms Benjaporn booked the tickets through China Southern Airlines via a code share arrangement.

A friend of Mr Ali paid Ms Benjaporn cash for the tickets, she said, adding that it was quite common for people to book tickets in Pattaya through middle men such as Mr Ali, who then take a commission.

 

 

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MH370: Chinese media blame Malaysia but were they expecting an attack?

March 10, 2014

The blame game has started but it has started much too early.

For the Chinese media, blame is already clear. It is either Malaysia (if terrorism) or Malaysia Airlines (if aircraft fault) to blame. For the Malaysian Home Minister it is incompetence among his passport control staff. (Note that this is passport control for passengers leaving the country). Malaysia Airlines is also being criticised for not even knowing where and when the aircraft disappeared.

The rush to judgement by the Chinese does make me wonder whether they were expecting something. The recent knife attack by terrorists at Kunming Railway station where 29 died may not be irrelevant. The Chinese media were not pleased then, when the Western media were divided in calling the knife-wielding attackers “dissidents” or “terrorists”. I have the distinct perception – from their response and their allocation of blame – that the Chinese know much more about MH370 than they are letting on.

China does not also seem entirely satisfied with the search efforts for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 and are stepping up their own efforts to locate it:

Xinhua: China creates search plan for Malaysia Airlines jet

Chief of China’s Maritime Search and Rescue Center He Jianzhong said Monday the country has created a plan for the search and rescue of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet. The search and rescue plan involves four patrol and rescue vessels and two naval warships. The search range of the six ships has also been clarified, said He, who is also vice minister of transport.

Chinese warship Mianyang and a marine police vessel with hull number 3411 have begun searching the sea where the Beijing-bound MH370 flight from Kuala Lumpur might have lost contact, he said. He said that three more patrol and rescue vessels under the command of the transport ministry are expected to arrive in the area on Monday and Tuesday. Their hull numbers are 115, 31 and 101.

Most of the passengers on MH370 were from China and there is an assumption in the Chinese media that a terrorist act must have taken place and there is a growing criticism of Malaysian security arrangements and their speed of response. The Malaysian Home Minister is rattled – see previous post- and is looking for scapegoats. The acting Malaysian Transport Minister does not know very much. For the Chinese media, if it was an aircraft problem then it was clearly the fault of Malaysian Airlines and if it was a terrorist act then it was equally clearly the fault of Malaysian security. (But I think the Chinese are protesting too loudly and much too quickly. They were – perhaps –  expecting some kind of an attack).

BBC: A commentary in the Beijing Times notes that Premier Li Keqiang said he was “very worried” over the missing plane and added that his government will continue to be a “strong shield” for people who are overseas.

“When the citizens are out of the country, their dignity is closely linked to the dignity of the country. When the country is strong and prosperous, especially if it respects the citizens and protects them, citizens will feel confident and proud when they are abroad,” it says.

Criticising Malaysia for not responding swiftly during the initial stages of the problem, the Global Times Chinese edition says the incident shows there were “obvious loopholes in security checks” in Malaysia. The daily calls for better security for Chinese holidaymakers.

“The Chinese society is no longer in the era of poverty, life is no longer cheap. We demand safety of food, air, water as well as transportation. So we pay great attention to the safety situation in holiday destinations in other countries which are popular among the Chinese,” it says.

ChannelNewsAsia:

China’s state-run media on Monday lashed out at Malaysia and its national carrier over their handling of the missing passenger jet, calling for a swifter response effort and tightened airport security.

Nearly two-thirds of the 239 people aboard Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 were from China, and if the loss of the aircraft is confirmed, it would be China’s second-worst air disaster in history. 

“The Malaysian side cannot shirk its responsibilities,” the Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, wrote in a scathing editorial. “The initial response from Malaysia was not swift enough.

“There are loopholes in the work of Malaysia Airlines and security authorities,” it said.

“If it is due to a deadly mechanical breakdown or pilot error, then Malaysia Airlines should take the blame. If this is a terrorist attack, then the security check at the Kuala Lumpur airport and on the flight is questionable.”

The China Daily newspaper wrote in an editorial that “terrorism cannot be ruled out”, with Malaysian and international authorities still at a loss to explain how at least two passengers were able to board with stolen Italian and Austrian passports.

“Who were they and why were they using false passports?” the paper asked.

“The fact that some of the passengers on board were travelling with false passports should serve as a reminder to the whole world that security can never be too tight, at airports in particular, since terrorism, the evil of the world, is still trying to stain human civilisation with the blood of innocent lives,” it added.

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“Asians” were travelling on two of the stolen European passports on MH370

March 10, 2014

The Malaysian Home Minister is embarrassed.

But in good politician style he will find others to pass the buck on to. In this case he is passing responsibility on to his immigration staff. He “slammed Immigration officials for not conducting proper passport checks, and identified the two passengers who were travelling on stolen passports as “Asians”. He clearly believes in racial profiling and probably has not heard about how many Europeans today are of “Asian” origin.  A special investigation – or will it be a witch-hunt? – is under-way. There is little doubt that a scapegoat within the immigration department will be found. And I would venture to predict that the staff found to be blamed will be of Chinese or Indian ethnicity.

Malaysian Insider: The Home Minister slammed Immigration officials for not conducting proper passport checks, and identified the two passengers who were travelling on stolen passports as “Asians”. Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid  Hamidi  hit out at the Immigration officers allowing two “Asian” men with European identities to board the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370. 

“I am puzzled how come (immigration officers) cannot think, Italian and Austrian (passengers) but with Asian facial features,” he was quoted saying by national news agency Bernama, adding that an internal investigation of the Immigration Department has commenced.  

“The investigation would give special attention to the department’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) branch. “We will conduct an internal probe, particularly of the officers who were on duty at the KLIA Immigration counter during flight MH370.”
 
Ahmad Zahid said the investigation was being conducted by a special team led by Immigration Department director-general Datuk Aloyah Mamat.

It is now thought that “only” two passengers were using false passports and not four. Small comfort!

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Little Ice Age was due to low solar irradiance

March 10, 2014

The Sun is the only real source of energy available at the surface of the earth (and any heat from nuclear reactions at the earth’s core is extremely small if not completely negligible). That the oceans have a much higher heat capacity than the atmosphere at the surface of the earth is obvious. It seems also fairly clear to me that it is the dynamics of ocean – atmosphere interactions which control climate and weather. And it is the oceans and long time scales which dominate climate while it is the atmospheric variations and short time scales which determine weather.

But the driver is always the Sun.

A new paper in Nature GeoScience “used seafloor sediments taken from south of Iceland to study changes in the warm surface ocean current. This was done by analysing the chemical composition of fossilised microorganisms that had once lived in the surface of the ocean. These measurements were then used to reconstruct the seawater temperature and the salinity of this key ocean current over the past 1000 years.”

The researchers found that ” low solar irradiance promotes the development of frequent and persistent atmospheric blocking events, in which a quasi-stationary high-pressure system in the eastern North Atlantic modifies the flow of the westerly winds. We conclude that this process could have contributed to the consecutive cold winters documented in Europe during the Little Ice Age.”

Paola Moffa-Sánchez, Andreas Born, Ian R. Hall, David J. R. Thornalley, Stephen Barker. Solar forcing of North Atlantic surface temperature and salinity over the past millennium. Nature Geoscience, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2094

Abstract: There were several centennial-scale fluctuations in the climate and oceanography of the North Atlantic region over the past 1,000 years, including a period of relative cooling from about AD 1450 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age. These variations may be linked to changes in solar irradiance, amplified through feedbacks including the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Changes in the return limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation are reflected in water properties at the base of the mixed layer south of Iceland. Here we reconstruct thermocline temperature and salinity in this region from AD 818 to 1780 using paired δ18O and Mg/Ca ratio measurements of foraminifer shells from a subdecadally resolved marine sediment core. The reconstructed centennial-scale variations in hydrography correlate with variability in total solar irradiance. We find a similar correlation in a simulation of climate over the past 1,000 years. We infer that the hydrographic changes probably reflect variability in the strength of the subpolar gyre associated with changes in atmospheric circulation. Specifically, in the simulation, low solar irradiance promotes the development of frequent and persistent atmospheric blocking events, in which a quasi-stationary high-pressure system in the eastern North Atlantic modifies the flow of the westerly winds. We conclude that this process could have contributed to the consecutive cold winters documented in Europe during the Little Ice Age.

Cardiff University Press Release:

Changes in the sun’s energy output may have led to marked natural climate change in Europe over the last 1000 years, according to researchers at Cardiff University. The study found that changes in the Sun’s activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.

Scientists studied seafloor sediments to determine how the temperature of the North Atlantic and its localised atmospheric circulation had altered. Warm surface waters flowing across the North Atlantic, an extension of the Gulf Stream, and warm westerly winds are responsible for the relatively mild climate of Europe, especially in winter. Slight changes in the transport of heat associated with these systems can lead to regional climate variability, and the study findings matched historic accounts of climate change, including the notoriously severe winters of the 16th and 18th centuries which pre-date global industrialisation.

The study found that changes in the Sun’s activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.

Predictions suggest a prolonged period of low sun activity over the next few decades ……..

Though their study has nothing whatever to do with global warming and any man-made effects they still feel it necessary to add this caveat (presumably because the reviewers, and the Journal, or both, insisted).

Predictions suggest a prolonged period of low sun activity over the next few decades, but any associated natural temperature changes will be much smaller than those created by human carbon dioxide emissions, say researchers.

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Boeing 787 Dreamliner still not out of the woods

March 9, 2014

The Dreamliner woes continue with cracks in the wings found during manufacture and another emergency landing for a JAL Dreamliner. And in the meantime Norwegian Airlines is in rough seas as a consequence of their Dreamliner problems but have still ordered another four aircraft. Their eggs are all in the Dreamliner basket now but Boeing must have provided a great many sweeteners. The Dreamliners are proving not to be as fuel efficient as it was claimed they would be when they were being sold. Air India which has taken delivery of 13 Dreamliners and has a total of 27 on order is also reported to be seeking compensation from Boeing.

JAL Dreamliner makes emergency landing in Honolulu

Japan Airlines said Sunday its Dreamliner flight from Tokyo to San Francisco made an emergency landing in Honolulu, reportedly due to a possible problem with its hydraulic system.

The pilot of flight JL002, carrying 171 passengers and crew, decided to divert to Hawaii after a warning message about falling pressure of lubricant oil in its right engine, according to Japanese national broadcaster NHK.

Boeing Has a New 787 Dreamliner Headache With Wing Cracks

Boeing’s 787 is the airplane program that keeps on giving—problems. The company will inspect about 40 airplanes and delay some 787 deliveries after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which makes the plane’s carbon fiber wing, discovered small cracks in newly built wings following a change in its manufacturing process, Boeing said Friday.

The cracked area is very small and will require repairs that will take a week or two per airplane, Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said. “We are confident that the condition does not exist in the in-service fleet,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “We understand the issue, what must be done to correct it, and are completing inspections of potentially affected airplanes.”

Mitsubishi Heavy crafts the wings in Nagoya, Japan, and Boeing flies them to its 787 assembly plants in Everett, Wash., and North Charleston, S.C. About 17 of the 787s being inspected are fully completed, and seven have been undergoing predelivery flight tests, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the cracks.

Profits down after Dreamliner dramas

Norwegian Air reported a profit in 2013 for the seventh year running on Thursday, but takings were significantly down on previous years. Major problems setting up its new long-haul routes with trouble-plagued Boeing 787 Dreamliners led to a huge amount of customer complaints, and the budget carrier angered unions and other airlines over pay conditions and its use of cheaper Asian crews. Norwegian reported its pre-tax profits for 2013 were NOK 437 million (USD 71.5 million), down from NOK 623 million in 2012. The airline lost NOK 283 million in the fourth quarter.

Norwegian orders four more Dreamliners and reports Q4 losses

Norwegian Air Shuttle announced on Thursday the lease of four more Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, despite a series of technical hitches with the planes. The contract, which brings Norwegian’s planned Dreamliner fleet to 14, was signed with the US aircraft leasing company International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) but no financial details were released.

Boeing Says Air India Unhappy With 787 Dreamliner’s Performance

Boeing Co. said Air India Ltd. is dissatisfied with the performance of its 787 Dreamliner, joining other carriers including Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA in slamming the manufacturer for repeated faults on its marquee jet. “Yes, they are not happy with the reliability portion, neither are we,” Dinesh Keskar, a senior vice president at the Chicago-based planemaker, said in an interview at the Singapore Air Show today. “Over the last few months, we understood which are the components that were causing issues, which software needs to be upgraded.”

…. Air India diverted one of its 787s to Kuala Lumpur this month as a precaution after a software fault on a flight to New Delhi from Melbourne. Boeing is upgrading software and changing some components on Air India 787s whenever the planes can be taken out of service, Keskar said, adding that a 13th Dreamliner will be delivered to the carrier this month. …… Air India, which has ordered 27 Dreamliners, will seek compensation from Boeing after the carrier found that its 787s aren’t as fuel efficient as the planemaker had claimed while selling them ……. Fuel efficiency of the Dreamliner is improving after earlier models didn’t “quite make the mark” on this count, Keskar said.

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Muddled EU and an indecisive US help Russia emerge from the Cold War doldrums

March 9, 2014

The Soviet Union was dissolved 23 years ago. The experiment of exporting and imposing the Russian vision of socialism on 14 other countries had collapsed in spectacular fashion. It was a resounding victory for Ronald Reagan, Rambo, Capitalism, Democracy and “Western” values – in that order. The 15 post Soviet countries were then Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Countries within their influence but not part of the Soviet Union broke free and looked to find a new place in the growing and expansionist European Union. Czechoslavakia split. Yugoslavia fractured into many pieces. And Europe picked up the pieces. On the back of their economic problems and the dissolution of their Empire, Russia had no diplomatic clout left to speak of. They did inherit the Soviet seat on the Security Council along with its veto and that kept them at the big table if rather ineffective.

But all that is beginning to change. There is a long way to go but with its wealth of resources the Russian economy is beginning to recover. There is a resurgence of Russian diplomacy. Russian diplomats are beginning to have opinions on all matters of substance. They are aided and abeted by a muddled and meddlesome EU together with an indecisive and risk-averse President in the US.

In foreign as with economic policy the EU is a place of very many voices. Some members are looking to create a successor to the Holy Roman Empire with a Holy European Empire. Others are looking to create the United States of Europe. Some want in for the benefits but want out of the costs. But rather than being a place for the dissemination of best practices it has become a hodge-podge where the lowest common denominator applies. They claim to share the same “values” of equality and freedom but none of them like dirty gypsies from Romania. The European Parliament and the European commission add layers of fairly useless politicians and bureaucrats. If only there had been a rule that every sinecure created at the European level would have been accompanied by a reduction at a country level! Radicalised youth in the EU now provide cannon fodder for many conflicts around the world. On all possible sides. The UK and France provide psychopathic young muslims to conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. French and German and Swedish skinheads travel to the Ukraine to support the neo-nazi Right Sector.

With so many countries in the EU it is not too surprising that they get confused. A referendum in the Crimea is illegal but a referendum in Scotland is OK. They have been fooled into supporting miltant islamists in Syria and have handed the opposition into the control of Al Qaida. They have tried to meddle in the Ukraine and only succeeded in building up the neo-nazi Right Sector and in provoking Russia to enter the Crimea ostensibly to support the Russian origin population. One Swedish politician today suggested implementing a fast track entry for the Ukraine into the EU “as a signal to the Russians”. Little people trying to be politicians on the world stage. With 28 member states and 8 more in the wings, with a full range of political opinions in each country, it is hardly surprising that what emerges as policy, from the attempt to be balanced, borders on idiocy. Meanwhile the US is tired of its expensive adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan which have achieved very little. President Obama is looking to disengage wherever he can. To take on new risk is anathema. In Syria, Obama kept re-drawing red lines, and kept retreating behind them. That proxy war is being won by the Assad regime supported by Russia. The US and the EU no longer know who they support – or should support –  in Syria.

Syria and the Ukraine are just examples. A confused EU together with an indecisive US are providing the Russians with opportunities to test their diplomatic skills and to test the resolve of the EU and the US.

And judging by the results so far, neither the US nor the EU has a sticking point. There is not a leader in sight.

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Mystery surrounding Malaysian MH370 deepens with four passengers travelling on stolen European passports

March 9, 2014

I find aircraft accidents particularly disturbing – not just because I travel quite often – but mainly because of the suddenness and the helplessness of the many on board. Whatever the explanation 239 people have lost their lives.

I thought that suicide bombers generally operated singly. So while the news that at least four MH370 passengers were travelling on stolen European identities brings foul play up the list of possibilities, it seems unlikely that four suicide bombers would act in concert. In any event the lack of any contact before the disappearance  suggests a sudden, catastrophic airframe failure or a massive – perhaps malicious – explosion. Oil slicks suggest the South China Sea but there is no trace of wreckage. Military radar indicates that the aircraft may have started to turn back

The mystery however is deepening.

  • The lack of contact suggests something very sudden
  • A bomb should have provided a lot of floating wreckage.
  • Four “bad guys” acting in concert would be more suggestive of an attempted  hijacking
  • A turn-back should have allowed time for contact.
  • Aircraft breakup in the air should also have provided a lot of wreckage.

It may not be completely irrelevant that in August 2012 this particular aircraft was involved in a collision with the tail of a China Eastern Airline A340 plane at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China and suffered a damaged wing.

MH370 collision 2012 photo AP

MH370 collision 2012 photo AP

One theory is that an airframe failure could have caused the aircraft to suddenly fracture into two large pieces – both of which were large enough to plunge into the sea and sink without leaving much surface wreckage?

The Guardian: …… two Europeans listed on the passenger manifest – an Italian, Luigi Maraldi and an Austrian, Christian Kozel – had not been on the flight and were safe and well. Maraldi had his passport stolen in Thailand last year and Kozel’s was stolen in the region two years ago. The flight was a codeshare with China Southern and the two people named as Maraldi and Kozel on the list booked together via the Chinese airline, Chinese media reported.

The company said it had CCTV footage of the two people who checked in as Maraldi and Kozel.

Malaysian Insider: Authorities have yet to confirm the identities of two more European passengers on flight MH370, adding to two others using stolen passports in the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished over the Malaysia-Vietnam maritime border yesterday. The Malaysian Insider understands that all four had bought their flight tickets from China Southern Airlines, the Malaysia Airlines codeshare partner for the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route.

“The background checks with the embassies are being done but these two cannot be confirmed,” a source told The Malaysian Insider, adding that both were from the same country.

MH370-Malaysia_Airlines-mas-last-location-graphics-080314-kamarul_540_341_100

MH370-Malaysia_Airlines-mas-last-location-graphics-080314-kamarul husain Malaysian Insider

Malaysian Insider: Malaysia Airlines said that the plane took off at 12.41am Malaysian time and that it disappeared from air traffic control radar in Subang at 2.40am.

The timeline seemed to suggest that the plane stayed in the air for two hours – long enough to fly not only across the Gulf of Thailand but also far north across Vietnam.

But Fredrik Lindahl, the chief executive of Flightradar24, an online aircraft tracking service, had said that the last radar contact had been at 1.19am, less than 40 minutes after the flight began.
The authorities said yesterday that the last conversation between the flight crew and air traffic control in Malaysia had been about 1.30am. – March 9, 2014.

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Chinese corporate bonds no longer have a government backstop as solar cell firm defaults

March 7, 2014

Overseas investors have so far assumed that Chinese corporations would be bailed out by banks and the government if there was any danger of them defaulting. That assumption has now gone up in smoke as the Chinese Government – probably intentionally and as a signal – has allowed Chaori Solar to default. Chinese corporate bonds are now going to get a lot less attractive.

The strange fact about solar subsidies – around the world – is that the equipment manufacturers and the consumers have not benefited. Only plant developers have effectively walked away with the subsidies and they are usually very good at milking subsidies. As subsidies dry up it makes more sense for them to just walk-away. Solar (and wind) equipment manufacturers ramped up their production capabilities – sometimes by very expensive acquisitions – and are now in dire straits as subsidy reductions has caused the market to dive.

Bloomberg:Chaori Can’t Make Payment in China’s First Onshore Default

A Chinese solar-cell maker failed to pay full interest on its bonds, leading to the country’s first onshore default and signaling the government will back off its practice of bailing out companies with bad debt.

Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. (002506) is trying to sell some of its overseas plants to raise money to repay the debt, Vice President Liu Tielong said in an interview today at the company’s Shanghai headquarters. The company said March 4 it will only be able to pay 4 million yuan ($653,990) of an 89.8 million yuan coupon due today.

The BBC warns:

Up until now, the Chinese government and state-owned banks have helped bail out or provide last-minute loans to Chinese firms in trouble. That has led many investors to park their funds in the corporate bonds of many Chinese firms, on the belief that the government would help ensure that these firms could continue to repay their debts.

However, a significant portion of this debt is set to mature in 2014 – with more than $1.5 trillion of corporate bonds outstanding at the end of January. …… That is why the Chinese government may be making a strategic decision to let some firms fail – particularly those, like Chaori, that may not have a huge knock-on effect in the market.

China’s solar industry has been suffering from an overcapacity problem for some time, as cheap financing and local government support led to a glut of firms entering the industry. That has led to a sharp fall in price, and the Chinese government has since hinted that it supports consolidation in the industry. ……… 

Yet while some see the default as a good thing for China’s corporate bond market, others worry it could be a sign of a wave of defaults to come. Bank of America analysts wrote in a recent note that the default could be “China’s Bear Stearns moment”. “In the US, it took about a year to reach the Lehman stage when the market panicked and the shadow banking sector froze,” they wrote. “We assess that it may take less time in China, as the market here is less transparent.”

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Indian General Election 2014 – by the numbers!

March 7, 2014

By the numbers, GE 2014 could be the greatest show on earth!

The logistics are frightening. The Election Commission of India’s arrangements for securing a “free and fair” election are quite comprehensive and more than a little daunting.

Press Note GE-2014_05032014

About 11 million people will be involved under the authority of the Election Commission of India as election officials or in providing security. Almost 1 million polling stations, over 800 million voters, over 1,400 political parties and more than 4,000 candidates are expected. The administrative cost for holding the election is expected to be about $650 million.

It is worth noting that other than at village level China does not even attempt any kind of “free” elections. Elected leaders are always subject to the over-riding authority of the secretary of the appropriate level of the strictly hierarchical Communist Party of China.

  1. 543 Lok Sabha constituencies will go to the polls.
  2. Voting will begin on April 7th and continue on nine separate dates until May 12th.  Counting will take place on 16.05.2014 (Friday) and is expected to be completed on the same day.
  3. More than 1,400 political parties are involved. There are 6 recognised and registered National parties, 54 recognised and registered State parties and 1,392 registered but “unrecognised” parties.
  4. The total electorate in the country is approximately 814.5 million compared to 713 million in 2009. This marks an increase of more than 100 million electors.
  5. There has been a remarkable increase in the enrollment of electors in the age group of 18 to 19 years. Over 23 million electors are in this age group. Electors in the age group of 18 to 19 years now constitute 2.88% of total electors, against 0.75% in 2009. 
  6. Transgender persons with gender written as “Others” have been in the electoral rolls since 2012. The number of electors enrolled as “Others” gender is 28,314.
  7. Parliament amended the Representation of the People Act, 1950, allowing enrollment of Indian citizens living overseas as electors. 11,844 overseas electors have been enrolled in the current electoral rolls.
  8. There are 1,328,621 service electors in the electoral rolls (see note below).

  9. There will be approximately 930,000 Polling Stations in the country, as compared to 830,866 Polling Stations set up during Lok Sabha election, 2009. This marks an increase of nearly 11.9 percent Polling Stations. 

  10. Electronic Voting Machines will be used. There are 1,468,430 Control Units (CUs) and 1,495,430 Ballot Units (BUs) available in the country. Manufacturers have been asked to manufacture and supply 251,650 Control Units and 382,876 Ballot Units, which are expected to be received by 31st 

    March, 2014. With this, the country will have 1,720,080 Control Units and 1,878,306 Ballot Units. 

  11. The Supreme Court has directed that there should be a “None of the Above” 

    (NOTA) option on the ballot papers and a special button has been provided for this on the voting machines.

  12. All the candidates will be required to file an affidavit along with 

    their nomination papers. This affidavit will include information on the criminal antecedents of the candidate, if any, assets (including the movable, immovable 

    properties and investments even in foreign countries, of the candidate, his/ her spouse and dependents), liabilities of the candidate, his/ her spouse and 

    dependents and his/ her educational qualifications. 

  13. The maximum limit of election expenses for a Lok Sabha Constituency is Rs.70.00 lakh per candidate for all States except Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Sikkim. For these three States it is Rs.54.00 lakh per 

    candidate. For the Union Territories, the maximum limit is Rs.70 lakh per candidate for NCT of Delhi and Rs.54.00 lakh per candidate for other UTs. For the Assembly Constituencies, the maximum limit is Rs.28.00 lakh per candidate for the bigger States and NCT of Delhi and Rs.20.00 lakh per candidate in the other States and Union Territory of Puducherry. Accordingly, in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha the limit of expenses for Assembly Constituencies is Rs.28.00 lakh per candidate and in Sikkim it is Rs.20.00 lakh per candidate. (Note Rs 1 lakh = $1,600 approximately).

  14.  Every contesting candidate will maintain and furnish a separate and true account of his/ her election expenditure.

  15. Since the tenure of the Legislative Assemblies of the States of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim will expire on 02.06.2014, 07.06.2014 and 21.05.2014 respectively and a new Assembly in Sikkim has to be constituted before 22nd May, 2014 elections will be held for new Legislative Assemblies for these three States, simultaneously with the General Elections to the 16th Lok Sabha. 

Service electors qualify as
(a) Being a member of the armed Forces of the Union; or 
(b) Being a member of a force to which provisions of the Army Act have been made applicable 
(c) Being a member of an Armed Police Force of a State, and serving outside that state; or 
(d) Being a person who is employed under the Government of India, in a post outside India.

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Eugenics by default: Abortion is of greater significance now than infant mortality ever was

March 6, 2014

We determine the demographic future – almost unthinkingly – by the patterns of child-bearing and child-rearing that we practise today. Population and its composition for the next 100 years or so has already been determined. The Chinese population has started declining and will continue to do so till at least 2100. The Indian population will reach its peak around 2050 and will then decline. The “aging” of populations and the increase of longevity has also been fixed. Demographic “robustness” is critically dependent on maintaining the ratio of the “working” population to the “supported” population (the young and the old). The US is maintaining its demographic sustainability by means of immigration in the face of declining fertility rates. Some countries in Europe are doing the same. Many do not since maintaining  some form of “racial purity” is an undercurrent in many societies and fuels the resistance to immigration – even with dangerous declines in fertility rates. Japan is facing an aging crisis as immigration is resisted. The numbers are inexorable.

Fitness to survive after birth is no longer of significance in the survival stakes. All around the world societies see to it that those with disabilities – once born – are protected. The further evolution of humans will now increasingly be the result of

  1. artificial selection for particular genetic traits, and
  2. the deselection of individuals who have been conceived but are not allowed to be born or to survive and reproduce.

It is my contention that we are in fact – directly and indirectly –  exercising an increasing amount of genetic control in the selection and deselection of our offspring. So much so that we already have “eugenics by default” being applied to a significant degree in the children being born today.

The numbers tell the tale.

One of the key measures of the advances of medical science has been the drastic reduction of infant mortality rates (defined here as deaths after birth but before the age of one year). In the 16th and 17th century this was about 30% of all births (an estimate based on a dearth of data). Since 1950 this rate has dropped from about 15% of all births to around 4% today. The variation is still very high with the current rate being as high as 12% in Afghanistan and 11% in Niger but less than 0.2% in Monaco. By 2050, as development in Africa proceeds, this global rate is expected to have dropped to about 2% (20 per 1000 live births).

It is more difficult to define miscarriages. After fertilisation of an egg it seems that perhaps 50 – 70% fail to attach themselves to the uterus wall and these would not even be considered – or even show up – as a pregnancy. I take such “miscarriages” to be failures of conception. Taking attachment to the uterine wall and the establishment of a fetal heartbeat as being a successful conception, around 10% still result in a miscarriage today.

In 2012 about 135 million babies were born (7 billion population and crude birth rate of 19.15 per 1000 of total population). Worldwide induced abortions numbered about 45 million (estimate). One third of all successful conceptions were not allowed to reach birth.

Economist:  It fell precipitously in the 1990s, but recently the rate has not budged, barely dipping from 29 abortions per 1,000 women (aged 15 to 44) in 2003 to 28 abortions per 1,000 women in 2008. Eastern Europe has the highest abortion rate in the world, at 43 per 1,000. The geography of abortions has also shifted. In 2008, 86% of abortions were in the developing world, up from 78% in 1995.

(Note! the number per 1000 women of child bearing age is different to the number per 1000 live births).

The current status then is:

  • Of 1000 successful conceptions (fetal heartbeat established)
  • less than 20 are by IVF
  • 100 are miscarried before birth
  • 330 are aborted before birth
  • 570 live births result
  • 22 do not survive beyond one year
  • 548 survive beyond 12 months
  • 3 do not survive beyond 5 years
  • About 540 – 545 live to child bearing age

Four hundred years ago miscarriage rates (after successful conception) were probably around 20% of live births and infant mortality rates were about 30%, such that only 50% of all successful conceptions led to children surviving up to their first birthdays.

The picture today is not so different. About 55% of all successful conceptions lead to children surviving beyond one year.

Without moralising about abortion – which I am not qualified to do – as far as the numbers are concerned, infant mortality of 400 years ago has effectively been replaced by abortion today. Deselection which took place in the first year after birth has been shifted to the period after conception but before birth. From a genetic perspective and since there is an element of “selection” in every abortion, abortions today are of greater evolutionary and demographic significance than infant mortality ever was.

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Posted in Aging, Behaviour, Demographics, Evolution, Medicine | Comments Off on Eugenics by default: Abortion is of greater significance now than infant mortality ever was

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