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Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Slavery's Global Comeback
Slavery's Global Comeback
J.J. GOULD - J.J. Gould is deputy editor of TheAtlantic.com. He has written for The Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, The Moscow Times, and The European Journal of Political Theory
Buying and selling people into forced labor is bigger than ever. What "human trafficking" really means.
Slaves pan for gold in Accra, Ghana. Many have children with them as they wade in water poisoned by mercury that's used in the extraction process. (Lisa Kristine)
RANGOON, Burma -- Earlier this year, Ko Lin, 21 at the time, left his hometown of Bago, 50 miles northeast of Rangoon, along with a friend to look for work in Myawaddy, near the Thai border. The two found jobs there as day laborers loading and offloading goods, anything from rice to motorcycles, that were being illicitly transported by truck in and out of Thailand. After a month, Ko Lin had saved up the equivalent of about US$150 and decided to rejoin his family in Bago. Stopping first to pray at a local pagoda, the two friends met a super-amiable young woman who ended up pitching them an offer to work in Thailand. Her uncle, she said, could arrange a great job for them there.
Ko Lin was reluctant but bent to his friend's enthusiasm. The uncle turned out to be a trafficker who forced them to walk through the jungle for more than a week. They ended up in weeks of forced labor in Chonburi, a city 60 miles east of Bangkok, after which Ko Lin was knocked unconscious and woke up separated from his friend on a fishing boat in the Gulf of Thailand. For months, he then rarely if ever had more than two hours of sleep a night, always on a shared, cramped bed; he was given three meals only on days when the captain felt he'd pulled in enough fish to earn it; and when he was fed, it was always dregs from a catch that couldn't be sold on the market. His arms regularly became infected from the extended exposure of minor wounds to sea water. If he complained that he was feeling unwell, the crew would beat him. He was injured multiple times by heavy blocks and booms, once having to tend to a head wound himself with a handful of wet rice. Three months out, Ko Lin was rescued in a police raid.
There are now twice as many people enslaved in the world as there were in the 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade. Ma Moe, 34, and her husband lived in a suburb about an hour outside of Rangoon, poor enough that some days they had nothing to eat. A friend offered her a job as a domestic worker in China where, she was told, she could make between $100 and $200 a month. Despite her husband's objections, she decided to go. Near the border, her friend told her the trip would be getting rough and she should take some pills so she wouldn't get carsick. The pills knocked her out almost immediately. When she woke up, she was in a small village in China; she still doesn't know where. Kept with a few other women in a small house, Ma Moe would be taken around to different villages where she was offered up for purchase as a "wife." After a failed escape attempt, when she was beaten by local police, a man from northern China bought her. Given the anxious month-and-a-half she'd now spent as a Burmese commodity in China, she could hardly eat from the stress and was emaciated. Concerned, wanting a child, the man who bought her had her blood tested; the results showed she's HIV-positive; and he ended up leaving her at the bus station. With no hope of being able to get back to Burma, she prayed to die there. But a young newspaper seller, after fending off an attempt by another apparent trafficker to get Ma Moe to go with him, called a Chinese police hotline for trafficking victims. The police coordinated Ma Moe's transfer to a Burmese anti-trafficking task force, and they ultimately took her home.
There's a plain-language word for the horror stories that Ko Lin and Ma Moe have survived, as anachronistic as it might sound: slavery. Contemporary slavery is real, and it's terribly common -- here in Burma, across Southeast Asia, and around the world.
The leading demographic accounts of contemporary slavery project a global slave population of between 20 million and 30 million people. Most of these people have been unknowingly trafficked though the promise of opportunity by predators. Others are children literally sold by parents or relatives in order to pay off debt or to lessen their economic burden. The highest ratios of slaves worldwide are from South and Southeast Asia, along with China, Russia, Albania, Belarus, and Romania. There is a significant slave presence across North Africa and the Middle East, including Lebanon. There is also a major slave trade in Africa. Decent-based slavery persists in Mauritania, where children of slaves are passed on to their slave-holders' children. And the North Korean gulag system, which holds 200,000 people, is essentially a constellation of slave-labor camps. But most contemporary slavery is based on trafficking -- based on varying combinations of deception and coercion, very mobile, very dynamic, leveraging communications and logistics in the same basic way modern businesses do generally. After the earthquake of 2010 devastated Haiti, Hispaniola was quickly overrun with opportunistic traffickers targeting children to sell into domestic slavery or brothels.
As pervasive as contemporary slavery is, it hasn't come clearly into focus as a global issue until relatively recently. There are a couple of big reasons why -- one having to do with the scale of the problem, the other with the concept of slavery itself.
The Scale
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates the number of slaves in the world today at around 21 million. Kevin Bales, of Free the Slaves -- the U.S. affiliate of the world's oldest human-rights organization, the U.K.-based Anti-Slavery International -- (and the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy) puts it at 27 million. Siddharth Kara of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy says more than 29 million.
That range represents a tightening consensus. In the 1990s, some accounts had the world's slave population as high as 100 million; others had it as low as 2 million. "It was nuts," says Bales. "I traced all these numbers back. The 100-million number, I finally found this guy in India who'd said it at at UN conference. I asked him, 'How did you get that?' And he said, 'I don't know, it was just a guess.' So nobody had the number."
Bales's 27 million -- which as a statistician he considers a "conservative estimate" -- is derived from secondary-source analysis. "It's still not great," he says, "in the sense that it's not based on random-sample surveys at the grass-roots level. We're doing that now, though, building much sounder numbers, and they're still coming out in the same range. ... So we're getting closer."
In which case, assuming even the rough accuracy of 27 million, there are likely more slaves in the world today than there have been at any other time in human history. For some quick perspective on that point: Over the entire 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade, 13.5 million people were taken out of Africa, meaning there are twice as many enslaved right now as there had been in that whole 350-year span.
The Concept
Some of what's obscured contemporary slavery, then, has been mathematical; but some has been conceptual: In the West, and particularly in the United States, slavery has long settled in the public imagination as being categorically a thing of the past.
One consequence of this is that when people apply the idea of slavery to current events, they tend to think of it as an analogy. That is, they tend to use the word to dramatize conditions that may be exploitive -- e.g., terrible wages or toxic working environments -- but that we'd never on their own call "slavery" if the kind of forced labor we used to call "slavery" still existed. "In 1994, when I was in the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery," Bales recalls, "a group came in and said they wanted the UN to declare incest a form of slavery. And we were like, incest is incest; you don't have to call it slavery."
But there's a reverse consequence to seeing slavery as a thing of the past, too: It can mean having a harder time recognizing slavery when it's right in front of us.
A slave in Kathmandu, Nepal, stacks 18 bricks at a time, each weighing four pounds, carrying them to nearby trucks for 18 hours a day. (Lisa Kristine)
Right after the end of the Cold War, people in Western cities -- in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York -- started noticing something pronounced about migration patterns out of the just-collapsed Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc: The "immigrants" were disproportionately young women and girls. It took no one long to understand that they were prostitutes, and it took few much longer to get that they weren't operating freely; criminals were trafficking them out of Eurasia effectively as black-market goods, like opium or Kalashnikovs.
The dominant rhetoric that the coalition of Christian conservatives and anti-prostitution feminists who took the lead on this issue used at the time wasn't "slavery" but "trafficking for sexual exploitation." Around the same time, a movement developed against sweatshop labor that ended up focusing not broadly on the issue of forced labor but narrowly on the conditions of the sweatshops themselves, sometimes even just on safety issues within them.
Luis CdeBaca, the U.S. ambassador at large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, sees both of these frameworks as inhibiting and, intentionally or not, ways to feel too comfortable about addressing the issues in question. "If we say the problem with domestic servants is that they're not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, and so let's just go out and make sure they get covered by labor laws around the world, we get to ignore, for example, the fact that domestic servants are being locked in and raped. It's not a wage issue; it's a crime issue. If we look at prostitution and we devolve back to the old debates about whether prostitution should be legal and regulated, should it be illegal and criminalized, we won't say, '... hey, why doesn't the 13th Amendment apply to a woman in prostitution just as much as to a woman on a farm?' Then we end up missing the reality of modern slavery."
Pattern Recognition
CdeBaca thinks we've been using euphemisms about slavery in our recent history scarcely less euphemistic than were "servant" or "peculiar institution" before the U.S. Civil War, noting current preferences for "gender-based violence" or "rape as a weapon of war" to describe what goes on in eastern Congo. "If rape becomes the more comfortable word than slavery," CdeBaca says, "you know slavery is a highly emotive term."
But if the president of the United States has nevertheless embraced the term "slavery," as Barack Obama has now done with his speech at the Clinton Global Institute in September, you know it's also an emotive term whose time has come -- or come again. The State Department, meanwhile, now answers the question "What is modern slavery?" by implying, virtually to the point of stating, that it now considers "slavery" the umbrella term for crimes of "trafficking":
Over the past 15 years, "trafficking in persons" and "human trafficking" have been used as umbrella terms for activities involved when someone obtains or holds a person in compelled service.
The United States government considers trafficking in persons to include all of the criminal conduct involved in forced labor and sex trafficking, essentially the conduct involved in reducing or holding someone in compelled service. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as amended (TVPA) and consistent with the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), individuals may be trafficking victims regardless of whether they once consented, participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked, were transported into the exploitative situation, or were simply born into a state of servitude. Despite a term that seems to connote movement, at the heart of the phenomenon of trafficking in persons are the many forms of enslavement, not the activities involved in international transportation.
(Emph. added)
CdeBaca understands the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the Palermo Protocol that State mentions here, both dating from 2000, to be crucial preconditions for the change in social conceptions about human trafficking and forced labor that have followed. Usually the dynamic is the other way around, CdeBaca says: A social movement grows and, if it's successful, after 10 years or so, Congress passes legislation or the UN (or some other international body) passes a resolution. With contemporary slavery, more than a decade of governmental and trans-governmental initiatives have seeded the social conversation, which has in turn taken the lead in articulating the emerging consensus around the language of contemporary slavery.
CdeBaca thinks this consensus is hugely consequential, not just domestically in the U.S. -- where Obama has now not only embraced this language but issued an executive order to remove human trafficking and forced labor from federal contracting -- but globally. "The fact that we're able to come into a place like Burma, which has come so far so fast just in the last 10 or 12 months, with this unified message is wonderful," he says, "because the government here isn't going to have to unlearn those differences. When we talked to the government [on Friday], they were talking about forced labor and forced prostitution as though they're the same concept. We didn't have to talk through 'here's why you need to care about forced labor as much as you care about forced prostitution,' or 'here's why the girls in the brothels matter.' They got it. And I think it's because they come into this at this moment, now."
The New Abolitionism
It's to the not-modest credit of modern civilization that the awareness of slavery has always given rise to anti-slavery movements. Abolitionism today may be more complex than what went before it only because it has to be. Contemporary slavery is, as Ethan Kapstein wrote in Foreign Affairs back in 2006, "a product of the same political, technological, and economic forces that have fueled globalization" -- or as Andrew Forrest, the chairman of Fortescue Metals Group and founder of the anti-slavery group Walk Free, has it, "Slavery is the dark side of globalization."
In essence, organizations like Walk Free, or the Global Business Coalition Against Trafficking (gBCAT), want harness the good, or at least potentially good, aspects of globalization to eliminate its most evil aspect. Forrest believes that it now makes maximum sense for big global businesses to integrate their risk-management strategies with their corporate-social-responsibility strategies and their procurement strategies, cleaning their supply chains once and for all of any involvement with forced labor. Forrest believes in the constructive power of potential shame, too, with his current campaign to recruit major businesses around the world to sign on to Walk Free's "zero tolerance for slavery pledge."
Slavery today is driven by the same political, technological, and economic forces as globalization itself. Projects like this won't necessarily be easy; in fact, their success will necessarily be a tough question. There are certainly precedents for it: Nike may be one of the most slave-free garment manufacturers in the world today, because it got hammered for its labor practices in the 1990s by a very successful campaign against it as a brand -- brand equity being a very important, very bottom-line issue for a company like Nike. But what if we're looking instead at a mining company that needs to procure concrete for railway tracks to get its materials out, and the best deal on concrete is made by slave labor in Abu Dhabi by some nameless supplier? There's no brand equity at stake there. Mineral extraction is a similarly faceless industry. We all know who makes our cell phones; few of us know who makes the tantalum and coltan that go into them. That doesn't have to be note of cynicism, but it does get at the complexity of the challenge in leveraging global business's better angels against its worst instincts.
There will meanwhile be new opportunities for political will against slavery, particularly now that Obama has used the word -- new legislative efforts, new instruments of international cooperation -- and new opportunities to build important capacities, with law enforcement, with victim care and rehabilitation, and so on.
And then there will be social-awareness campaigns -- which may represent the one strand of the contemporary anti-slavery movement skeptical observers are more inclined to be cynical about than they are about the leadership of global business on the issue. If you're tempted to think that way, consider before anything else that here in Rangoon, it's not only perfectly reasonable but a vital public-service announcement to say, "Kids, this is how you recognize it if someone's trying to trick you into slavery, and this is what you do about it ...." When I asked Ma Moe, who'd been sold into slavery by a friend, what was the most important thing she wanted people to understand about her experience, she lit up emotionally in a way she hadn't up to then, insisting emphatically on how crucial it is that people in Burma -- especially young people -- get the coaching they need to insulate themselves and their families from the risk of being trafficked, particularly given how sophisticated traffickers are at profiling victims and preying on trust.
Neither is any of this the hard part compared with the complex task of modulating or outright changing kinds of social norms that heighten the risk of capture by traffickers, particularly in contexts governed by a caste system or other forms of entrenched social hierarchy. Which aren't uncommon across South and Southeast Asia, and which can create barriers to human empathy every bit as powerful as what morally and psychologically enabled the open slave trade of the 16th-19th centuries.
There are historical reasons why social awareness of slavery could be more effective on the global level than we might first be inclined to think.
"Stowage of the British Slave Ship 'Brookes' Under the Regulated Slave Trade, Act of 1788" (Thomas Clarkson)
As Bales likes to remember, there have been three major anti-slavery movements in the modern era prior to the nascent contemporary one. The first was started in 1787 by Anti-Slavery International -- or as it was called at the time, the Society for Effecting the Termination of the Slave Trade -- in London. Twenty years later, the slave trade in the British Empire was finished. This worked completely through social mobilization; in fact, it was one of the first major social movements in the West. The Society inundated parliament with huge petitions against slavery -- 517 altogether. It passed around anti-slavery cameos that fashionable women wore in bracelets and pins. And it disseminated Thomas Clarkson's drawing of the Liverpool-based slave ship Brookes, showing the horrible reality that slaves were forced to cross the Atlantic packed in like sardines, lying in their own excrement and vomit, for months. This picture was extremely shocking -- and effective.
The second anti-slavery movement was marked by some of the most decisive moral leadership in U.S. history, but it was also thwarted by a virtually total social division between the North and the South, with virtually total Southern intransigence, and culminated an enormous war that resulted in more than a million deaths, counting civilian casualties, and ended in results for the United States' former slaves that abolitionists could only be very partially proud of, if at all, and that has cast a long shadow since.
Hierarchical societies still create empathy barriers as powerful as what enabled the open slave trade of the 16th-19th centuries. The third movement is less well known but offers a precedent for contemporary abolitionism that may be in some ways as compelling as the first. This was the global movement, which included luminaries like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt, against the enslavement of between 5 and 10 million people in the Congo as the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium. The purpose of this enslavement was to feed new technologies, particularly pneumatic rubber tires. But the breakthrough for this movement was also thanks to new technologies: portable cameras that enabled abolitionists to do magic-lantern shows in big theaters everywhere -- a kind of documentary film before there were documentary films -- detailing the destitution in the Congo, which truly freaked viewers out and helped mobilize the public broadly. After this anti-slavery campaign captured the photos it captured and showed them across Western Europe and in North America, Leopold, who had completely denied everything until then -- and he could, because there was no way to prove what he was doing -- gave up, ended the enslavement, and, in 1908, relinquished the Congo to the Belgian government.
Let's see what the fourth one does. The most optimistic view says that as massive as slavery is today, it's also on the edge of its own extinction, needing only the right push. If the global slave population is 27 million, it's still 27 million out of a total of 7 billion, making it -- and here's the paradox -- the smallest fraction of the global population to be enslaved ever. If slavery generates between $30 billion and $45 billion a year to the global economy, it's a big industry, but it also amounts to the smallest ratio of the global economy ever represented by slave labor and slave output. While slavery has grown in absolute terms, it's shrunk in relative terms, and so, the theory goes, it's increasingly vulnerable.
A possibly less optimistic but still hopeful variation on this theme -- well clear of the most pessimistic view, at any rate, which would be that slavery is simply endemic to global capitalism -- is that slavery isn't just growing more slowly than the rest of the world is; it's also increasingly toxic to the rest of the world; and it's increasingly toxic in ways that the rest of the world will be forced to defend itself against. The same interests responsible for human trafficking and forced labor are, after all, also responsible for fostering other types of crime, as well as the kinds of corruption that slave-labor operations need for survival. If developed countries let slavery go unchecked, it will threaten to corrode the bilateral and multilateral agreements, and the international rule of law, that the whole global economy depends on. If developing countries don't check it, it may or may not mean slower short-term growth, but it definitely complicate long-term growth growth, or stunt it altogether, as outside investors bring more scrutiny and demand more transparency. In the meantime, the more visible an issue slavery becomes globally, the less inclined I'd be to forget some of the social uses mobile technology and social media been put to around the world in the last two years -- or to ignore the analogies between these uses and some of the tactics of the first and third modern anti-slavery movements.
The relationship between a country's tacit willingness to abide slavery and that country's risk of being left behind by the currents of global civilization isn't one that Burmese officials are necessarily inclined to discuss candidly. When I asked Brigadier General Kin Maung Si, the chief of police and head of the ministry of home affairs's human-trafficking office, about his government's emerging commitment to eliminating forced labor, he spoke only of poor economic conditions as a cause of slavery, not of slavery as a cause of economic stagnation. But it's a relationship that his government's new commitments acknowledge implicitly.
It's also a relationship that the leading exponents of the second modern anti-slavery movement were emphatic about and staked their own political reasoning on. As The Atlantic's first editor, James Russell Lowell, wrote in the magazine's endorsement of Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860:
The inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists, to reduce the non-slaveholding class to a continually lower and lower level of property, intelligence, and enterprise. ... We do not, of course, mean to say that slaveholding states may not and do not produce fine men; but they fail, by the inherent vice of their constitution and its attendant consequences, to create enlightened, powerful, and advancing communities of men, which is the true object of all political organization.
This reporting was sponsored by MTV EXIT
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Tour prices are per person in U.S. dollars. All hotel accommodations, motor coach transportation, entertainment, special dinners, sightseeing, admissions, porterage and the services of local guides, drivers and the Tauck Director are included. Transportation from Catania's Aeroporto di Catania-Fontanarossa (Catania International Airport)to the Grand Hotel Ortigia is included, regardless of the time you check in to the hotel, provided you have furnished us with accurate flight arrival information at least three weeks before to the start of your tour. Transportation from Grand Hotel Timeo (or alternate exception Taormina Hotel) to Catania's Aeroporto di Catania-Fontanarossa (Catania International Airport) is also included on when you check out of the hotel. Transportation to and from airports may be shared with other Tauck guests.
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Average Temperature
Palermo, Italy
Siracusa, Italy
Hi/Lo ºF
Hi/Lo ºC
58 / 50
14 / 10
60 / 49
15 / 10
59 / 50
16 / 10
61 / 51
16 / 11
63 / 51
17 / 10
65 / 55
18 / 13
66 / 54
19 / 12
71 / 60
22 / 16
73 / 60
23 / 16
77 / 67
25 / 19
81 / 67
27 / 20
82 / 73
28 / 23
86 / 72
30 / 22
83 / 74
87 / 74
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79 / 70
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82 / 70
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73 / 64
23 / 18
76 / 65
24 / 18
66 / 57
19 / 14
68 / 58
20 / 15
60 / 52
62 / 52
17 / 11
Average Rainfall
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A Sicilian Odyssey is an active and extensive tour. To enjoy this tour, you should be in good health and able to walk reasonable distances, often over unpaved and uneven surfaces. Some of the most memorable sightseeing can only be accomplished on foot. Sicily is home to innumerable historic buildings and sites, some dating from antiquity. Therefore, roads, walkways and architecture will present challenges for you if you have difficulty walking independently and, therefore, we do not recommend this tour if you have such difficulty. You will encounter cobblestone streets, narrow passageways, and steep and winding hill town roads. The amount of walking you do at the various sites and towns is at your sole discretion; you may remain on the coach during any of these walking excursions.
Examples of our walking itinerary:
In addition, coach travel along the many "Yellow Roads" on this tour are very windy and may cause you some discomfort if you are prone to motion sickness. If you are, we advise bringing motion sickness remedies or medication with you.
PLEASE NOTE: We regret that this Tauck itinerary cannot accommodate wheelchairs or motorized scooters. Likewise, we regret that we're unable to provide individual assistance to guests with walking difficulties or other personal needs. The responsibility of the Tauck Director who accompanies your trip is to ensure that the larger group enjoys a relaxing and informative journey, and he or she cannot be relied upon to provide ongoing individual assistance to any one guest. Guests requiring such individualized assistance must be accompanied by an able-bodied companion who can provide it.
While drinking water is generally safe at all our hotels, bottled water will be available wherever the local water is not fit to drink. We also provide bottled water on the motor coaches.
Please check with your health insurance provider to determine whether you are covered while traveling. If you will not be covered under your current policy, we strongly suggest that you arrange for adequate coverage while on tour.
If you have a medical condition which might limit your participation in activities, please consult your physician for pre-departure health advice and notify us as soon as possible, if you have not already done so. We will advise your Tauck Director accordingly.
If you are a resident of the U.S. traveling internationally, no vaccinations are currently required for travel to Italy. For complete vaccination and inoculation information, contact your physician, the public health service in your area, or the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. The Travelers' Health Section of the CDC operates a 24-hour "Travelers' Health Hotline" at 800-232-4636 (toll-free in the U.S.). You may also log on to the CDC website by clicking here.
If you are a resident of another country traveling internationally, please contact an embassy or consulate of Italy to determine what vaccination(s) may be required for your travel.
Age Recommendations ― Children 8 years of age or older at the time of travel are welcome on this Tauck journey. Based upon our experience with family travelers, we have a minimum recommended age for each journey to encourage comfort and enjoyment for all of our guests. All children must be accompanied on activities by a parent or guardian. At least one guest in the traveling party must be 21 years of age or older in order to make a reservation.
Babysitting ― Our journeys are designed for adults and children to share the wonder of discovery together. If you require babysitting services, your Tauck Director will put you in contact with the appropriate hotel staff with whom you may make babysitting arrangements. There is usually an additional fee for these services. Many hotels do offer on-site babysitting services; however, babysitting services may not be available at all of our hotels. Please note that our Tauck Directors are not responsible for providing babysitting services.
Safety and Welfare Responsibility ― We welcome the participation of child travelers on our exciting excursions. If you are traveling with a child on a Tauck journey, you have the sole responsibility for ensuring that that the child with whom you are traveling follows all rules of safety throughout the tour. By traveling with us, you release Tauck, Inc. and our partners of all liability for any risks and/or injuries to the child with whom you are traveling.
Special Travel Documentation for Children
Authorization for Travel
If you travel into or out of the U.S. with children under the age of 18, you should be aware of the following: because of increasing incidents of child abductions in disputed custody cases and because children are at risk as possible victims of child pornography, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) strongly recommends that unless the child is accompanied by both parents, you should have a notarized note from the child's other parent (or, in the case of a child traveling with grandparents, uncles or aunts, sisters or brothers, or friends, a note signed by both parents) stating that the parent(s) not traveling acknowledge that the parent(s), family members, etc. who are traveling into or out of the U.S. with the child have permission to do so. While CBP may not ask to see this documentation, if they do ask, and you do not have it, you may be detained until the circumstances of the child traveling without both parents can be fully assessed.
If there is no second parent with legal claims to the child (parent deceased, sole custody, etc.), other relevant paperwork, such as a court decision, birth certificate naming only one parent, or a death certificate, will be useful.
Authorization for Emergency Medical Treatment
In the unlikely event of a medical emergency, a medical facility will require permission from the child's parents to provide treatment. Therefore, we strongly suggest that you bring along a letter from both parents (including other pertinent documents as cited above) authorizing emergency medical treatment for their child.
We are not responsible for the disruption of travel caused by the improper documentation of any guest, including children traveling without both parents. While there is no definitive format or standard, click here to view a sample letter for guardians or one parent traveling with a child.
If you are traveling from the U.S., the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) requires that your name, as it appears on your domestic or international airline ticket, must precisely match your name as it appears on the government-issued photo ID (i.e., passport or driver's license) that you present during security screening. The ID name must also match any additional airline data, such as frequent-flyer information. For example, if you present your driver's license to security and it says John T. Smith, your ticket must also say John T. Smith, not John Thomas Smith, Jack Smith, or any other variant. Your date-of-birth and gender information provided to the airline must also match your passport.
If you make your air travel arrangements through us, please ensure that the name you provide us precisely matches your name as shown on the identification you will use while traveling. If you make your own airline reservations, please ensure that the airline has the correct information.
For more information on the TSA's requirements, please visit their website by clicking here.
If you are traveling from an airport outside the jurisdiction of the U.S., you will need to determine what travel documentation and identification is required for that particular airport.
Due to heightened security regulations, certain items such as a metal nail file, pocketknife, cigarette lighter, or tweezers, and some liquid, gel, or aerosol items may not be permitted in your carry-on luggage. Please call your airline prior to departure to obtain current information on non-permissible carry-on items and recommended airport check-in times.
Bringing the right clothing for your trip is important – we've partnered with New Headings who provide an "easy-to-use, one-stop shop" for your Tauck travel needs, specifically selected for this trip. Click here to visit their site.
When packing for your trip to Sicily, it is important to keep in mind the time of year you are traveling and the current weather conditions for that time. The weather in Italy is temperate and unpredictable. Your journey is designed with leisure in mind. Dress for comfort and convenience with a wardrobe that is adaptable and allows for layering. Generally, during the day, casual, comfortable, cotton clothing is recommended. Cool weather at higher elevations or at night will require warmer, layered clothing.
In Europe, especially in finer restaurants, it is customary to dress somewhat formally. Slacks or a dress for women and a jacket for men are acceptable dining attire. It is advisable to avoid wearing jeans, sneakers or shorts for dinner. You may also wish to dress up a bit for the welcome reception and the farewell dinner, but certainly be comfortable.
Most Catholic churches in Italy require that your knees and shoulders be covered when you enter, even during the hot days of summer.
You will find a hair dryer located in your hotel guest room. By law in Italy, irons and ironing boards are not made available to guests at the hotels. Valet laundry and dry cleaning services are available for a fee.
We recommend that you pack an adequate supply of your prescription medication in its original container to last through your entire journey, together with a copy of your doctor's prescription or a letter from your health-care provider on office stationery explaining that the medication has been prescribed for you, a list of the generic names of your medication, your travel documents and a change of clothing in your carry-on bag to avoid any inconvenience in the event that your flight or luggage is delayed.
Following is a list of recommended items to pack for your trip to Italy:
All the hotels and motor coaches used on this tour are air-conditioned for your comfort. European air conditioning in hotels should be considered as a climate-control system; most have three settings for the fan, plus a "cool" setting. Very few of the European systems actually have a temperature setting. In general, the amount of cool air that is produced from a European air-conditioning system may be less than what you may have in your own home.
The official currency in Italy is the Euro and most reputable establishments will accept major credit cards. ATMs (Automatic Teller Machines) in Italy are known as Bancomats, and they are widespread. Using a credit card, or even better, a debit card or your local bank ATM card, is very easy. If you are unsure about the compatibility or the banking systems, contact the bank or institution that issued your card. The Bancomat will dispense Euro. Many banks are now charging large fees of 2.5% to 4% for cash advances on credit cards which negates any advantage of using the Bancomat in the first place. We advise that you use your regular ATM card and simply withdraw money from your account just as you would do at your local bank.
To obtain the most current exchange rates for all national currencies, you may want to check your local newspaper or log on to the website, oanda.com, by clicking here.
Each country we visit has its own customs clearing process. You should familiarize yourself with Italy's specific required customs declarations before you travel. In general, you are not permitted to bring live plants, fresh fruits and other produce items into most countries. You may find additional information by visiting VisaHQ.com by clicking here.
If you are a U.S. resident who will be returning to the U.S. at the end of the tour, you are entitled to a duty-free exemption based on the total value of merchandise purchase abroad, as long as you physically bring them with you. There are limits to the amount of alcohol that can be a part of this exemption. Certain restrictions apply to unaccompanied goods mailed from abroad to the U.S. Please call your local customs office or consult the U.S. government's customs regulations as contained in their publication entitled Know Before You Go.
If you are a resident of another country traveling internationally, please refer to your own country's rules and regulations regarding customs and duty-free shopping to ensure compliance upon your return.
Many countries levy Value Added Taxes (VAT) on consumer goods and services. (The tax rate may be higher for luxury items and lower for basic goods.) As a rule, if you are not a resident of the country (or of the country's intergovernmental economic community, e.g., the European Union) in which the purchase is made, you may be entitled to a VAT refund and should inquire about the refund policy where you shop.
The electrical current in Italy is 220 V, 50 Hz. If your electrical devices do not conform to this standard, you will need to bring the appropriate converters and adapters. These items can be purchased in a store that specializes in travel products.
Complimentary basic Internet where available in hotel rooms; service levels are not guaranteed.
Italy is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (or Greenwich Mean Time). From late March through October, Italy switches to Daylight Saving Time and is 2 hours ahead. To determine current time in major cities around the world, we suggest you log on to the website, timeanddate.com, by clicking here.
The maximum elevation on this tour is approximately 10,922 ft (3,329 m) at Mount Etna.
To help expedite your booking, please have the following information ready before you call us:
For reservations, call 800-788-7885 or contact your travel agent to book today!
Reservation Sales Center hours – North America Eastern Time Zone (New York City time):
Monday – Friday: 8:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Saturday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Sunday: 12:00 Noon – 5:00 PM
Monday – Friday: 8:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Saturday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Sunday: 12:00 Noon – 5:00 PM
The Deposit and the fees for the optional Protection Plan or Cancel Fee Waiver [CFW] coverage are due at time of booking. Your deposit is $600 per person.
We will be happy to advise hotels of any special requests, provided we receive them at time of booking. We regret that requests cannot be guaranteed.
Final Payment is due at Tauck's Wilton Woods, CT office 60 days before departure. Any bookings without full payment at this time may be subject to cancellation without notice.
Final Documents, which may include airline tickets, when applicable, are sent by first class mail upon receipt of final payment. They include joining instructions, hotel lists, tour itinerary, clothing suggestions, luggage tags and other pertinent information. We recommend overnight mailing service for any reservation that is made within 30 days of the tour departure date to ensure timely delivery. The additional expense will be added to your tour cost.
Effective for plans purchased as of July 1, 2017:
Tauck's Guest Protection
Tauck's Guest Protection provides you with cancellation protection before your journey begins as well as insurance benefits while you are traveling. Guest Protection includes the following:
Cancellation Waiver – Provided by Tauck:
Under Tauck's Cancellation Fee Waiver you can cancel your tour for ANY REASON up to the day before departure and receive a money-back refund (except in Extreme Circumstances*) on the land tour cost, based on your original method of payment.
*Extreme Circumstances: In the event of an act of God, war (whether declared or undeclared), terrorism, accident, natural disaster, outbreak of disease, or other event or circumstance beyond our control that contributes to or results in cancellation rates above our historical cancellation rates in the absence of such event or occurrence, Tauck reserves the right to issue a credit to you in lieu of a money-back refund, applicable to a future Tauck journey.
Under Tauck's Cancellation Fee Waiver you can cancel your tour for ANY REASON up to the day before departure and receive a money-back refund (except in Extreme Circumstances*) on the land tour cost, based on your original method of payment.
*Extreme Circumstances: In the event of an act of God, war (whether declared or undeclared), terrorism, accident, natural disaster, outbreak of disease, or other event or circumstance beyond our control that contributes to or results in cancellation rates above our historical cancellation rates in the absence of such event or occurrence, Tauck reserves the right to issue a credit to you in lieu of a money-back refund, applicable to a future Tauck journey.
Travel Insurance Benefits – Underwritten by United States Fire Insurance Company.
Worldwide Emergency Assistance Services – Provided by On Call International; 24-hour emergency telephone assistance hotline for medical and travel related problems.
The cost of Tauck's Guest Protection is $419.00 per person.
This protection provides insurance coverage that applies only during the covered trip. You may have coverage from other sources that provides you with similar benefits but may be subject to different restrictions depending upon your other coverages. You may wish to compare the terms of this policy with your existing life, health, home and automobile policies. If you have any questions about your current coverage, call your insurer, insurance agent or broker.
This optional Guest Protection must be requested at time of booking and fee must be included with initial payment. Details will be provided with written confirmation of your tour reservation. Guest Protection does not protect travel agent commissions. Reimbursements will be made according to original method of payment. The amount of any refund shall be reduced by any recoveries obtained by you from any third parties.
The Guest Protection plan waives cancellation fees outlined below, provided we are notified of cancellation before your tour departs. Tour cancellation fees are waived regardless of reason, without written notice, and Tauck will refund land tour cost.
If You Have to Cancel
Cancellations Fees – Regardless of reason, cancellations result in costly charges from our travel and hotel providers covering penalties and fees incurred by canceling confirmed bookings. Therefore, the following fees apply.
Guests choosing to purchase Tauck's Guest Protection will incur cancellation penalties of $419.00 per person regardless of cancellation date prior to tour departure date.
Guests choosing not to purchase Tauck's Guest Protection will incur cancellation penalties per person as follows:
Time of cancellation will be when notice is received in our Wilton Woods, CT office.
In the event of an unforeseen circumstance beyond our control, Tauck reserves the right to amend the cancellation terms outlined herein.
Note: All Guests, regardless of residency, who book a Tauck journey have the option of purchasing the Cancellation Waiver provided by Tauck in the event they need to cancel their trip after making their reservations. Tauck's Guest Protection, which includes both the Cancellation Fee Waiver and the Travel Insurance Benefits and Assistance Services described above, is not available to residents of Puerto Rico.
To obtain your state-specific Certificate of Insurance that contains the complete terms, conditions, limitations and exclusions of the certificate, visit http://www.affinitytravelcert.com/docs/TACGPPINTL
If you purchased a Protection Plan prior to July 1, 2017, click here to download Description of Coverage.
As of July 1, 2017, for guests purchasing the protection plan discussed above contain insurance benefits underwritten by the United States Fire Insurance Company. C&F and Crum & Forster are registered trademarks of United States Fire Insurance Company. The Crum & Forster group of companies is rated A (Excellent) by AM Best Company 2016. The plans may also contain a non-insurance Cancellation Waiver provided by Tauck as well as non-insurance Travel Assistance Services that are provided by On Call International. Please see the plan documents for complete terms, conditions, limitations and exclusions that apply. Coverage available may vary and not all coverage is available in all jurisdictions.
Airfare may be purchased through us for travel originating in the United States. By using our air services, you agree that we, in purchasing, selling or otherwise arranging air transportation, are acting only as your agent and are not liable or responsible for any accident, death, personal injury, illness, property damage, delay or other loss or expense of any nature whatsoever arising directly or indirectly out of any act of God, or any actions or omissions (including any failure to provide services) or default of, any carrier. All carriers are independent contractors and are not owned, managed, controlled or operated by us. Your airline ticket constitutes a contract between yourself and the airline only, even if purchased through us. We are not liable for, and do not assume responsibility or accept claims with regard to seat assignments, schedule changes, flight changes, cancellations, claims for a refund or reimbursement of airline ticket fees, or any other loss incurred by you for any reason whatsoever (including, without limitation to, bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization or similar relief from creditors). We must handle ticketing for our special fares, which are subject to availability and cannot be guaranteed until reserved. Our air services can only be purchased in conjunction with one of our tours. Tickets or e-ticket numbers will be mailed with final documents. If you cancel or change your air booking before or after departure, all airline cancellation and change fees will apply.
As an added service, we can make flight arrangements
for your journey, if your travels originates in the United States, offering you a
number of welcome advantages.
What's more, if you purchase Tauck's Guest Protection, you'll receive a refund should
you need to cancel your flights due to covered reasons. Another great reason to
buy your air from Tauck!
Tell us a little about yourself and we'll make sure you get the most relevant information.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Gov. Hickenlooper headed to Israel
Gov. John Hickenlooper's office announced he is departing today for Israel and will return to Colorado on April 17.
From the news release: "This is a personal trip initiated more than a year ago and planned for the past six months. The trip includes stops at various historic sites and a variety of events, as well as meetings with President Shimon Peres and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. The governor is paying for all of his expenses; no public dollars are being used for the trip."
No word yet on whether the governor will ask advice on gun control.
Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia will serve as acting governor while Hickenlooper is out of the country.


text:
More on:
Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament
"I guess there have been periods when their relationship has been worse. There's a great degree of disquiet by the new Iranian president and the new Iranian administration. Some of it is legitimate," says Takeyh, a senior fellow in Middle Eastern studies. He doubts the United States and the Europeans will be able to persuade the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] at its September 19 meeting to send Iran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear-related activities.
Takeyh was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on September 6, 2005.
The IAEA issued another report last week on Iran's nuclear situation, and it seemed a bit vague. How would you describe the situation?
The IAEA's report is similar to the previous IAEA reports—namely, it's still somewhat ambiguous and its conclusions are still inconclusive. What the IAEA suggests is Iran still has much to account for in terms of its nuclear program, in terms of its nuclear intentions. However, there has been no evidence that Iran has misused its nuclear resources or technology for military purposes. The way forward, as far as the IAEA is concerned, is continuation of the examinations process. And that's where [IAEA Director General Mohammed] ElBaradei and the IAEA inspection regime are; they're restrained by their evidence and they're trying to move forward on this issue in which many individuals' and many countries' conclusions are more politically drawn. The IAEA has to be constrained by its evidence. They have no option other than that as a political neutral body involved in monitoring nuclear activities.
What are the concerns of the United States and the European countries that are negotiating with Iran?
Well, there are two different issues. First, the United States is convinced Iran's nuclear program is a cover for nuclear arms; that the civilian research program and its claims of energy production are mere fabrications as Iran seeks to develop a nuclear-weapons capability. That's the American conclusion.
And that's based on what?
That's based on American intelligence, and what American intelligence is based on, I imagine, is very little. So essentially, what the United States is trying to do is calibrate Iran's intentions. What the IAEA is trying to do is examine Iran's technological procurement efforts. And those are two different things. The IAEA—given the pattern of Iran's technology, given the pattern of Iran's conduct—cannot validate the American conclusion at this particular point. And the Americans are confident in their conclusions and frustrated at the IAEA's unwillingness to substantiate those conclusions. That's the gap that remains as unresolved today as it was in October 2003 when this entire investigation process began.
And what about the European negotiators with Iran, the British, French, and Germans [the EU-3]?
They seem to have embraced critical aspects of American policy. Their position is that Iran has been in such systematic violation of this previous nuclear agreement—and here we're talking about safeguard agreements, under which Iran did not declare to the IAEA some of its nuclear facilities and enrichment activities as it was supposed to under its [Nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] (http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/treaty/) obligations. They're saying that Iran's previous violations are so significant, the only way the international community can have confidence Iran is not determined to produce nuclear weapons is for Iran to cease all enrichment and reprocessing activities.
And the enrichment process has just begun again at Isfahan?
Yes, that's right. That's designed to produce yellow cake that will produce the necessary fuel for centrifuges that will in turn enrich uranium.
Talk about the Iranian government's position.
The Iranian government position is, "Yes, we were in violation of our previous safeguard agreements. And the reason we did not declare our nuclear facilities is because we were worried about American sanctions against those facilities, military, covert, or otherwise. We accept the fact that we need to have a confidence-building measure. We have done so; we have signed the additional protocol. We have accepted a stringent inspection regime from the IAEA and these should constitute as objective guarantees to the international community. We should therefore be allowed to proceed with our enrichment activities—a right that we have under the Non-Proliferation Treaty."
Does the IAEA agree Iran's conceded to everything they've asked?
Well, again, there's a tentativeness to it. The IAEA report says Iran's cooperation is improving, but in some cases, there've been unnecessary delays. So again, even on the issue of the discharging of the inspection activities, there's a level of ambiguity. The IAEA is not as unsatisfied with Iranian progress as the United States is, but it is also not as satisfied with the Iranian progress as the Iranians are. It's somewhere in between the United States and Iran.
What has to happen next on this nuclear issue?
The IAEA board will meet September 19 to contemplate the IAEA report—this is a 35-country membership—and at that time, it will deal with the American and probably the European Union's requests for the Iranian portfolio to be transferred to the United Nations Security Council for deliberation of more stringent, if not coercive measures.
You've said before that it would be "dead on arrival" at the Security Council because of the Russian and Chinese positions, right?
Actually, I have always said that the notion this portfolio could be easily deferred from [IAEA headquarters in] Vienna to [UN headquarters in] New York is a problematic one. I'm not quite sure if that's going to happen. The way the IAEA board is dealing with it is there has to be a consensus among the thirty-five members. Now the word consensus, again, is ambiguous and in the past, it has denoted uniformity of opinion.
The United States is unlikely to garner such consensus, so it's pushing for plurality. Namely, if you get eighteen out of thirty-five members to vote for this, then it can go to the Security Council in contravention of previous IAEA reporting behavior on such proliferation issues. Fine, that may be, legally, an acceptable definition. But it is a difficult case to make. Namely, the United States is suggesting not that Iran today is in violation of the safeguard agreements, but that previous violations of safeguard agreements, which came to an end in October 2003, are sufficient for Iran's portfolio to be transferred to the United Nations for contemplation of sanctions and so on. So Iran would not be deferred to the Security Council because it today stands in violation of the safeguard agreements, but because in the past it has committed those violations and those past violations are sufficient legal grounds for transferring this portfolio to [the UN Security Council].
I have some problems with that, and the IAEA has some problems with that, because if you read the inspection report carefully, what Mr. ElBaradei says and what the report suggests is that the way you deal with previous Iranian safeguard violations is with the continuation of the inspection process. It doesn't say anything about taking this file to the next level. That would imply that Iran is obdurate and is not complying with its contractual agreements—that doesn't seem to be the case today. So this is where this issue becomes so much more complicated because, again, it's the American perception of Iranian intentions that is driving much of this activity.
Let's talk about the Iranians again. This has become a national issue in Iran, right? Everyone is for peaceful uses of nuclear energy?
Sure. I think that's now the consensus position.
Is this new government under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad different on this issue from the previous one under Mohammed Khatami?
They're more assertive in terms of their rights. Namely, they're unwilling to continue the suspension of nuclear activities to placate the Europeans. And what they're saying is, "We're no longer going to negotiate just with the EU-3, but we're going to negotiate with the international community." The new chief negotiator of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, has been meeting with South African representatives; he was recently in India; he's contemplating another trip to Pakistan. Namely, the Iranians say there is nothing intrinsically valuable in the EU-3 that negotiations on this issue should be limited to them. They are saying they are open to negotiate with the Europeans, the European-3, or the European-7, or whatever, but they are no longer going to continue the process of suspension just to placate the Europeans.
So in that sense, there is a subtle difference, but I should say that even the previous reformist government was suggesting that the process of negotiations and suspension has gone on too long. The Iranians claimed that whatever objective guarantees the Iranians had offered seemed to be insufficient and inadequate for the Europeans; therefore, this process cannot continue on perpetuity and we need to reconsider it.
I gather the various reports from the United States and Britain suggest that Iran is still quite far away from any nuclear-weapons production. Is that right?
Right. Ten years, I think, is the latest American intelligence assessment.
So there's not a sense of great urgency about it?
On the surface you would think so, but again, there seems to be a division between the sense of urgency the American political class feels and the sense of urgency the American intelligence community feels. It's like the Iraq scenario.
Do you have any sense about what has to happen at the end of September?
I don't necessarily believe the IAEA board will transfer this file to the United Nations. I think it will, once again, perhaps admonish Iran and call for it to resume the suspension of its activities and revisit this issue at a later date. I could be dramatically wrong about this, but I think that's where it's going.
And is there any possibility Iran will agree to suspend activities?
Some of Iran's enrichment activities continue to be suspended. But I think what Iranians are now doing is beginning the process of enrichment a step at a time—not all at once, but a step at a time, hand-in-hand with the IAEA. I think that trajectory is unlikely to be reversed.
So when you say, "hand-in-hand with the IAEA," what do you mean?
It means just what they did in Isfahan. Namely they said, "We're going to resume these particular reprocessing activities, but that resumption will take place under the auspices and monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency."
And that's happening now?
That's in fact happening now in Isfahan, yes.
Is there still concern there are secret facilities nobody knows about?
The United States government continues to insist there are secret facilities, undeclared sites, and I have no way of ascertaining that. Do I think there are activities that are taking place outside the purview of the international-inspection regime? I suspect there are. Can I offer you any evidence to prove that? No.
And I think that's the dilemma that perhaps the United States is in. It has certain suspicions, but it is incapable or perhaps unwilling to offer evidence that would convince the international community.
And relations between the United States and Iran?
They've never been worse.
Why has it never been worse?
Well, it has never been worse in the past ten years or so. I guess there have been periods when their relationship has been worse. There's a great degree of disquiet by the new Iranian president and the new Iranian administration. Some of it is legitimate.
How would you sum up this new government?
It's a younger government. It's a government comprised of hardliners, who have been largely isolated from the international community. It is an experienced government in a sense that most of these individuals are in their mid-forties and they seem to have been selected more for their ideological reliability as opposed to their technical competence. It is an assertive government about its national rights and prerogatives. It is a hawkish government in terms of its embrace of Islamic tenets of the revolutions.
And have they cracked down on social freedoms in Iran?
Not yet. That hasn't happened yet, but they're still getting their bearings.
What do you think, is President Ahmadinejad actually one of the captors during the 1979 hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran?
There is no evidence to suggest that; the CIA itself has suggested he was not part of it. But here you get into a tricky position because the Bush administration is unwilling to contradict the American hostages.
It's the hostages who've claimed it?
Five of the hostages have claimed that Ahmadinejad was one of their captors. The CIA, after a laborious investigation, has not accepted that claim. But politically, it's difficult for the Bush administration to take a position different from those who suffered 444 days of captivity.
So I take it there's no initiative on either side to improve these relations.
I don't hear a giant sucking sound from either capital.
More on:
Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament


text:
Life that Lives On Uranium
The extremely thermoacidophilic archaea, Metallosphaera sedula. Image Credit: Yukari Maezato and Paul Blum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Life in extreme environments – hot acids and heavy metals, for example – can apparently make very similar organisms deal with stress in very different ways, according to new research from North Carolina State University.
One single-celled organism from a hot spring near Mount Vesuvius in Italy fights uranium toxicity directly – by eating the heavy metal and acquiring energy from it. Another single-celled organism that lives on a "smoldering heap" near an abandoned uranium mine in Germany overcomes uranium toxicity indirectly – essentially shutting down its cellular processes to induce a type of cellular coma when toxic levels of uranium are present in its environment.
Interestingly, these very different responses to environmental stress come from two organisms that are 99.99 percent genetically identical.
In a paper published this week online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, NC State researchers show that these extreme organisms – basic life forms called Archaea that have no nucleus and that are so tiny they can only be seen under a microscope – can teach us a lot about how living things use different mechanisms to adapt to their surroundings.
The researchers, led by Dr. Robert Kelly, Alcoa Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State, exposed two very close relatives of thermoacidophilic Archaea – they live in highly acidic environments with temperatures of more than 70 degrees Celsius, or about 160 degrees Fahrenheit – to pure uranium. One, Metallosphaera sedula, metabolized the uranium as a way to support its energy needs.
That in itself was surprising to Kelly and his fellow researchers, as it was the first report that an organism can directly use uranium as an energy source.
"This could be a new way to mine uranium using microorganisms to release the metal from ores – a process referred to as bioleaching," Kelly says of M. sedula.
Its genetic twin, Metallosphaera prunae, reacted very differently. When faced with pure uranium, it went into a dormant state, shutting down critical cellular processes that enable it to grow. When the toxic threat was removed, M. prunae rebooted its cellular processes and returned to its normal state.
Metallosphaera sedula was isolated from a hot spring near Mount Vesuvius, Italy. Image Credit: Published in U.S. Geological Survey Lassen Peak Folio 15, Figure 5, 1895.
Kelly hypothesizes that M. prunae is an offshoot of M. sedula, with just a small number of mutations, or changes, to its genome that allow it to react differently when faced with heavy-metal toxicity.
Kelly says the findings could also have implications for understanding how antibiotic resistance develops and operates in pathogens.
"We have come across a new model for how organisms learn how to live in an environment that would otherwise be deadly for them," he says.
Kelly adds that the study calls into question the ways that scientists classified living things before the rise of the genomic era.
"How do we classify microorganisms now that we can compare genomes so easily?" Kelly asks. "These are not different species by the classical definition because their genomes are virtually identical, but they have very different phenotypes, or lifestyles, when faced with stress."
The research was funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the U.S. Department of Defense, and by the National Institutes of Health.


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Veterinarian Reviewed on June 5, 2012 by Paulina Nelega, RH
Posted in Uncategorized
In 1817, selenium was discovered associated with tellurium. It was found to be a byproduct of the production of sulfuric acid. it was also found to be toxic to humans that worked in industry. It was found to be toxic to animals that ate plants high in selenium.
In 1957 it was found to be essential in the functions of selenium in the human body. In the 70's it was found in two sets of enzymes and later in proteins.
Industrial uses
Selenium is an essential element in the processes of steel alloying, selenium rectifiers and also in rubber compounding. Selenium is also essential in copier and laser printer drums. It was eventually used primarily for use as a photoconductor in paper copiers. Today organic conductors are the primary use in copiers. Selenium is primarily used in the manufacture of glass and by use in pigments and chemicals. Its use in the electronic industry is declining. Its use in plumbing brass to meet the environmental standards of no lead environments increased in the 90's. To this day its use is increasing at a modest rate.
Modern usage and side effects
Although selenium is toxic if used in excessive dosages, it is essential for animal health. There are some plants that contain toxic dosages of selenium. There are also plants such as locoweed that require large amounts in soil to survive.
The proper function of the thyroid gland is also dependent on selenium. Consequently, every cell that uses the hormone produced by the thyroid will require selenium.
Selenium is found in meat, mushrooms, fish, eggs, nuts and cereal. The richest dietary source is Brazil nuts. Tuna, crab, lobster and kidney are also higher in selenium. The human body has a content of between 13-20mg.
Toxic effects of selenium
Although essential, excess intake is toxic. Selenosis can be caused by exceeding the recommended allowance. In 1992, as study was done that determined the intake of 15mcg of selenium per day was save. It also stated that it is best to keep it lower than 400mcg to avoid toxicity. The study was done in China and it was found that the citizens that had toxicity had been eating corn that was grown in selenium rich soil. 5mg /day can be lethal.
Symptoms of toxicity include hair loss, garlic breath, irritability, fatigue, nerve damage, garlic odor and cirrhosis of the liver if the case is extreme.
The media reported that a group of polo ponies died before a match. It was attributed to the incorrect dosage of an injectable vitamin supplement. While these vitamin and mineral injections are common after a match it is not usual before a match. Selenium is used in very small amounts. The mistake is sometimes made of administering mg instead of mcg. Consequently, the recipient is receiving 1000 times the recommended dosage. It has also been found that excess selenium can cause congenital issues in some birds.
Deficiency is rare except in times of severe malnutrition.
Health effects
There have been several studies suggest a potential link between deficiency and cancer. The studies have been controversial with some saying yes and others no.
Our Expert
Paulina Nelega, RH, has been in private practice as a Clinical Herbalist for over 15 years. She has developed and taught courses in herbal medicine, and her articles on health have appeared in numerous publications. She is very passionate about the healing power of nature. Ask Dr. Jan


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The Wes Craven produced "Last House on the Left" remake hits theaters everywhere today. Expect a review for it some time tomorrow, in the meantime feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.
Oh Snap! New Line Cinema has announced that it's releasing "Final Destination: Death Trip 3D" against Rob Zombie's "H2". That date would be August 28th, 2009. For those unfamiliar with this, "H2" has been "served", it is now their opportunity to "serve back". If they do, then it's officially "on". In which case we settle all of this with a dance-off. Oooohhh, how exciting!
Valerie Cruz (Dexter), has been cast on the next season of HBO's "True Blood". We used to cover it when the site, but stopped when fan interest seemed to wain. What do you guys think, is anyone out there interested in having us pick up coverage again? Informal poll in the comments!
Trailer for "Orphan", starring Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga, about "a husband and wife who recently lost their baby [who] adopt a 9-year-old girl who is not nearly as innocent as she claims to be". Seems to be lots of evil kid movies lately. Wonder if there's something to that.
The "Night of the Demons" remake has a release date, October 9th 2009. Suspiciously absent from this announcement, whether or not it's going wide theatrically. I refuse to believe a film starring Edward Furlong, Tiffany Shepis and Linnea Quigley is playing across the country in 2009. Not that I wouldn't love to see it happen, but let's be realistic here people.
Speaking of wide releases, the remake of Stephen King's "IT" is going to be an "all out theatrical" adaptation set "in present day". I do enjoy the original miniseries, although I think we can all agree that the finale needs a much needed special FX upgrade, so I'm interested to see how this reboot turns out.
If you're practicing bestiality on Florida, better hurry up! The long overdue ban is due any day now. Better party like it's 1999, yall.
Good news, the fraud going on in Iraq at the hands of US corporations is actually far worse than anything Bernie Madoff's done in the last 30 years. Oh wait... that's actually horribly depressing news. I'm really bad at this.
One more dose of awesomely ironic hilarity for you on this Friday. Monkey kills owner with coconut for making him pick coconuts out of trees all day. That's it, you've been a great crowd this week folks... till Monday!
1881: An anarchist from the radical group People's Will throws a bomb which disrupts Czar Alexander II's motorcade. After he thanks God for his deliverance, the anarchist yells "It is too early to thank God" and throws a second bomb, causing injuries from which Alexander bleeds to death.


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ConnectYourCare one of 12 finalists for 2014 iAward
November 04, 2014
Disclaimer: ConnectYourCare does not provide tax or legal advice. This information is not intended and should not be taken as tax or legal advice. Any tax or legal information in this notice is merely a summary of ConnectYourCare's understanding and interpretation of some of the current tax regulations and is not exhaustive. You should consult your tax advisor or legal counsel for advice and information concerning your particular situation before making any decisions.


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Quote: Judo is japanese, jujitsu is brazillian
Quote: ive heard this is because helio gracie was is such a little guy that he had trouble making the standup holds work
Quote: judo is more like karate and other standing fighting!
Quote:basically both use the same princables of fighting including throws, locks, and cholks. Judo is japanese, jujitsu is brazillian both i think are used as sports but i just dont know which one i should take???....drop me a line someone...
Quote:When you study Judo you will in fact be learning techniques from older schools of Ju-Jutsu. It is common knowledge that many of the best Ju-Jutsu masters were consulted by Kano in the developement of the Kodokan techniques.
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When it comes to cars in hip hop, there's not much other than sitting sideways in a Mercedes/Escalade/Rolls Royce, or hitting a high speed like you're in a Nascar. Nerdcore rapper Richie Branson stepped up for drifting, doing "Tofu Delivery" about Initial D.
Richie is in the middle of a series he calls OtakuTuesdays where he does an anime/manga rap every week. Might we suggest doing a tribute to Lupin III's Fiat 500 next?


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I've had this thought in my head for a while, as I'm developing my game, but this question really sparked me into posing the question.
In the game I'm developing, peoples normal stats/attributes aren't just static numbers but they give an idea of personality as well. The ones I have so far are:
- Brute - Someone with high brute favours strength and power in their actions over finesse (effectively Str&Con). They can take hits physically and give them back.
- Finesse - Someone with high finesse favours agility and speed in their actions over using brute force (effectively dex). They can move and deliver attacks quickly, as well as avoid them.
- Heart - Someone with heart is better at resolving social conflict, diplomatically where compromise is important (An aspect of Charisma)
- Charm - Someone with charm is better at using cunning and guile to twist social situations into their favour (an aspect of charisma)
- Will - Someone with strong will, has great strength of mind and intelligence and uses this to solve their problems.
- Wit - Someone with strong wit, uses intuition over knowledge, and is right about things because they favour their instincts. This is how they solve their problems
These aspects are meant to cover abilities, but due to that ability sway the characters preference.
Do these aspects cover all the bases that Str, Con, Dex....etc do? Do they cover the bases that the WoD statline covers? Is a character with these as stats missing some functionality I can't think of?
N.B these stats will come with 'broad skills', such as talk, which give unique outcomes in combination, e.g. Talk + Brute gives intimidation. Charm + Conceal would give a 'bluff' against someone trying to manipulate you.


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ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Nearly 1,000 Naval Academy midshipmen attended a lecture by former NFL defensive lineman Feb. 6 on the role of gender, relationships, ethics and maturity in leadership. Joe Ehrmann is a former NFL player, named to the All-Century and All-American football teams at Syracuse University who is now a motivational speaker.
He is a former Baltimore Colts "Man of the Year" award winner, also named "Man of the Year" by the Frederick Douglass Society and the National Fatherhood Initiative. Ehrmann explained that most of the gender definitions in society are based on misconceptions. For example, we are falsely led to believe that manhood is defined by athletic ability, sexual conquest and economic success. Misconceptions of femininity include the notions that "worthy" women are rescued by "Prince Charming," that beauty and body define a woman's worth, and that women can either be honest and real or loved and accepted, but not both. These misconceptions are damaging because "you move toward and become that which you believe about yourself," he said. Ehrmann told the midshipmen they have to redefine who they are outside of these misconceptions.
"You have to define what you will stand for, who you will stand with, and what you will stand against," he said. To Ehrmann, true masculinity and femininity are defined by the same two things. The first is our relationships with others, our capacity to love others and allow others to love us. "The people we touch, mark, love, imprint - they're going to be here long after we leave this earth," he said. "My success is defined every day by the impact, influence and integrity of my relationships."
The second thing that defines us is our commitment to a cause, he said. "All of us have a responsibility to give back, to make the world more fair, more just, more hospitable for every human being." He encouraged the midshipmen to continue developing their own leadership style and their own definitions of what is important in life and leadership. "You are signs of hope for your family, your community and your country," he said.


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Greek Life at Hope is getting an early start on service through participation in a five-kilometer community run scheduled on behalf of the Rotary International Youth Exchange this coming Saturday, Sept. 5, the first weekend of the new school year.
Numerous members of the college's fraternities and sororities will be among the participants in the Mercantile Bank, Baird & Holland Rotary Benefit 5k Run/Walk. The community-wide race begins at 8:30 a.m. at Smallenburg Park adjacent to Holland Municipal Stadium.
The Rotary International Youth Exchange provides students the opportunity to spend up to a year studying abroad in a foreign country. The proceeds from the benefit run/walk will be used to support costs associated with hosting guest students in Holland.
Hope has 14 fraternities and sororities, 12 local and two chapters of national organizations. About 400 of the college's 3,200 students are members, a figure that will climb to about 550 after spring new member activation.
The fraternities and sororities are involved in service projects throughout the year, including projects of their own; a variety of opportunities organized by community organizations and other campus groups; and college-wide activities like the annual Dance Marathon and Relay for Life.


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This week is a special DOUBLE FEATURE review! First up, the raunchy comedy from Seth MacFarlane: TED! Then a lesser-known hockey film starring Seann William Scott: GOON!
Director: Seth MacFarlane
Writers: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Seth MacFarlane, Joel McHale, and Giovanni Ribisi
Director: Michael Dowse
Writers: Jay Baruchel, Evan Goldberg, Adam Frattasio, and Doug Smith
Starring: Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill, Liev Schreiber, and Eugene Levy
Fair Use:
All copyrighted material used under Fair Use. If you are a copyright holder and believe your material has been used unfairly, please contact me at:
TED Review Transcript:
You know, it's nice to see someone like Seth MacFarlane go outside of his comfort zone. The transition from crude humor portrayed through the medium of animation to live action sophisticated comedy is undoubtedly a difficult one. It's not often that we get to see a movie capture the magic of a child's imagination and true friendship, and Ted the teddy bear…
Oh who the hell am I kidding? It's an extra long live action episode of Family Guy with a talking teddy bear instead of Brian the dog. That's really all you need to know about this movie. If you enjoy Family Guy, you'll like Ted. If you're not a fan of Family Guy and are easily offended, you will hate it.
Wahlberg plays the grown up yet perpetually immature Peter Gri- I mean John Bennett. MacFarlane voices Ted the teddy bear, who sounds remarkably similar to Peter Griffin. Mila Kunis voices a hotter version of Meg Griffin…my mistake, she voices herself playing Lori Collins. Correction: she doesn't voice herself, she's acting.
The biggest issues with Ted (outside of the humor that's subject to opinion) are:
1) It goes on a little too long. There is a weird little side plot that feels incredibly forced and really isn't necessary at all. Given, it works with the story in the end, but what it DOES could have been handled in a way that easily cuts 15-20 minutes from the movie.
2) Good comedies can intermingle drama in their comedy with serious moments and maintain an overall enjoyable experience. Great comedies can intermingle the drama and overall storyline without ever breaking the comedic tone (see: The Naked Gun series, Mel Brooks' films, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut). Ted falls short of being a great comedy because it has moments of "serious drama" that break the overall flow. There aren't many of these, but they're rather jarring because any jokes made during these moments feel incredibly awkward (and not in a funny way).
Otherwise, as I said before, if you like Family Guy then you'll like Ted. Needless to say, as a fan I laughed my head off. It's immature, it's raunchy, it's foul, and by god it's hilarious! You won't find anything new from Seth MacFarlane here, but his comedic style works very well as long as that's your kind of thing. If you're looking for something different, you can always check out That's My Boy. Yeah…
I give Ted: 7 / 10.
Oh yeah, to all the parents out there (specifically the ones that came into the theater with their 5 to 8 year old looking kids): just because the movie has a talking teddy bear doesn't mean it's something you should take your young children to. I'm not saying that you're bad parents…I'm saying that you're horrible parents.
GOON Review Transcript:
Considering American Reunion was released this week in what can only be described as a land-speed record for "theater to DVD" in barely over 3 months, I came very close to reviewing it since I had been too busy biting my toenails, or watching the neighbor dog roll in its own excrement, or something else that's infinitely more interesting to me than the final installment after what was supposed to be a final installment of an until-now trilogy that can at best be described as "meh". Instead, I decided to take a look at the latest non-pie related career choice of Seann William Scott (aka Stifler, aka the only funny character in the series that didn't get freaky with band instruments and wasn't the pie-humper's dad).
Goon is a hockey movie and an interesting amalgamation of elements that seem innocent enough, but as a whole create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Take one part Forrest Gump in the form of a dim-witted yet incredibly nice and kind protagonist named Doug, then mix that with a mild violent streak and a dash of concrete fists. In a separate bowl you'll add the feel of the Mighty Ducks movies, strip away the kid-friendly Disney humor, then replace it with language your mom wouldn't approve of, fist fights and blood, and have the story focus around one half of the "Bash Brothers". Finally, mix it all together, add annoying best friend to taste, and pour into a bread pan of "inspired by a true story". Yep, good old IBATS is back!
Like Ted, Goon is a comedy, but a completely different kind of comedy aside from one being a movie about a teddy bear with the heart of a foul-mouthed jackass, and the other being about a huge intimidating hockey player with the heart of a teddy bear. It's not as funny overall, and you won't be doubled over with laughter unless you're some kind of sadist that finds watching grown men beat the crap out of each other hilarious. Though if that's the case, laughing is probably the least of your problems…and you're probably one of my exes.
What this movie has more than anything is heart. You may not be laughing the whole time, and you may want to shove a hockey puck into the best friend's mouth every time he talks, but the movie as a whole is a wonderful journey from start to finish. You could say that it's a great family movie for families without kids. Older kids would be fine, though they might develop tourette's after listening to that annoying runt from The Sorcerer's Apprentice talk for thirty seconds.
I give Goon: 7 / 10
I'm Papa Kenn, and I'll see you next review.