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By Madison Park, CNN
September 1, 2010 — Updated 1642 GMT (0042 HKT)
(CNN) — The health of 33 trapped Chilean miners is authorities’ top priority, as crews this week began drilling in an effort to free them.
The men have been trapped 2,300 feet underground since a rockslide cut off their exit route on August 5.
Drillers could take three to four months to reach the subterranean chamber, Chilean authorities have estimated.
Humans can survive in extreme environments, such as the 540-square-foot space the men share. But this kind of prolonged confinement with darkness, crowding and lack of sanitation can take a heavy physical toll.
Despite such adversity, humans are remarkably resilient and adaptable, health experts said.
“There’s a strong instinct for human survival,” said Jason Kring, assistant professor for human factors and systems at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. “They happen to be forced into the situation. People will always find a way. It’s the most basic instinct to find a way to survive.”
Despite the challenging environment, the body will attempt to maintain the balance of oxygen, glucose and water.
“We can live without oxygen for a matter of seconds or minutes, without glucose or water for matter of days,” said Lawrence Armstrong, a professor at the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Connecticut. “Therefore, as long as they have good air supply, food and water, they could survive indefinitely in that environment.”
There are other health factors, he said.
This week, a four-person team from NASA — a doctor, a psychologist, a nutritionist and a logistics engineer — are traveling to Chile to apply its techniques for keeping astronauts healthy in outer space to the miners.
The miners have been communicating through three holes, each about four inches in diameter.
Here are some health factors as the miners wait for what could be months buried underneath the earth.
Air and heat
Rescue workers have been pumping down compressed, cool air periodically to keep the enclosed space fresh.
The men have been trapped in the San Esteban copper and gold mine in northern Chile for nearly four weeks.
“The temperature increases, as you get deeper into the Earth,” said Michael Nelson, an associate professor and chair of mining and engineering at the University of Utah. “Mines that are very deep are quite warm.”
A video shot last week showed the heavily bearded men stripped to the waist. A thermometer showed the shelter to be at about 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
The heat could affect oxygen levels inside the shelter.
“If it’s hot, people will breathe harder,” said Dr. Andrew Wala, professor at the University of Kentucky who teaches mining and ventilation courses. “If you are resting, you breathe less oxygen and produce less carbon dioxide as exhaust. But you can calculate that being hot, they are breathing like they are working hard, you can assume there is some factor.”
The lack of oxygen could cause a condition called hypoxia, in which oxygen levels dip, as carbon dioxide levels rise. To prevent breathing problems, Chilean authorities began sending oxygen to the safety shaft last week.
Diet
The miners will receive a diet approved by the nation’s Department of Health, said Alejandro Pino Uribe, spokesman for the Association of Chilean Security. On Monday, they received yogurt, cereal and ham and jam sandwiches, he said. On Wednesday, they are scheduled to receive their first plates of hot food — meat and rice.
The challenge has been in finding items that will fit down and survive the journey through the 4-inch tube that’s the miners’ only link to the surface. The Chilean staple of beans will not be sent to the men because of the possibility of giving them intestinal gas.
The miners can expect to get up to 2,000 calories and 5 liters of water per day.
So far, each man has lost about 22 pounds, Chile’s Health Minister Jaime Manalich told reporters last week.
Light
Being deprived of sunlight for months affects an individual’s sleep cycles, mood and vitamin D intake.
“It is fairly clear that seeing sunlight has an important effect on mental health,” said Dr. Alan Ducatman, professor and chair of the department of community medicine at West Virginia University, who has treated American miners.
Not having regular sunlight could cause conditions such as seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression. The lack of regular sunlight may disrupt the miner’s circadian rhythm, which tells the body when to sleep or be awake. This could lead to feelings of depression, inability to function and fatigue.
“Anyone who is sleep-deprived or getting less than four to five hours a night, you begin to have difficulties, cognitively and physically on the body,” said Kring, president of the Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments, a group of researchers and practitioners who improve human safety and performance in extremely risky and challenging settings.
The miners have split into two shifts, so half can rest, while the others keep busy doing tasks, exercising or playing card games or dominoes. Stretchers that were stored in the rescue cabin are being used as beds, according to a video the men sent to the surface last week.
Mental health
Three or four of the miners are showing signs of anxiety and depression, said Manalich.
“They’re essentially incarcerated, not voluntarily,” said Ducatman, who specializes in internal medicine and occupational health. “It’s a form of incarceration in a space with a number of people that’s obviously not ideal.”
It’s important to stimulate the miners with outside communications, Kring said.
The key is to add variety into the miners’ days and have elements of surprise. In long space missions, U.S. astronauts have received surprise telephone calls from athletes or movie stars to motivate them, Kring said.
Getting telephone calls from family members and recording video messages to the world can add some variety into their day.
“The key part is to have a lot of surprise built in their day, so each day doesn’t take on a monotonous schedule of waking up, doing nothing, eating and going to sleep,” Kring said. “That boredom and monotony, that’s the worst part of being in an isolated environment.”
Over the past few days, the miners received MP3 players and small speakers with a selection of music including Mexican rancheras, Puerto Rican reggaeton and Dominican merengue.
Rescue crews have sent down playing cards and religious figures such as statuettes of saints and a crucifix, according to Chilean officials.
Sanitation
Chilean doctors have given the miners advice about how to keep their limited living space clean: Portions of a 1-meter-high (3.3 feet), 40-meter-long (about 130 feet) shaft are being used as a latrine. It is connected to the main cabin, which is being used for sleeping, washing and praying.
The separation is to minimize disease so that there is no mixing of human waste with food and hands.
“You have a humid, hot environment, and you have human waste accumulating at a significant pace over the course of three to four months,” Kring said.
The mounting human waste will produce a stench in the already hot shelter, but even such an environment could become tolerable over time.
“For these men, they become accustomed to the sensory experience,” Kring said. “If we were to go in, the smell is overwhelming. They become accustomed because the body becomes adjusted to sensory overloads.”
皆さん、お元気ですか？
北海道の旭川も32℃まで上がったようです。これも温暖化の影響でしょうか？
夏バテ気味ですが今日も頑張っていきましょうね・・・！
8月30日の旭川時事英語研究会のtextです。
From CNN staff
August 24, 2010 — Updated 2011 GMT (0411 HKT)
(CNN) — Thirty-three miners trapped 2,300 feet (701 meters) below ground in Chile are depending on food, medicine and supplies being dropped to them through a 4-inch-wide tube.
What comes out of that tube will have to sustain the men both physically and mentally for a long time — perhaps four months, experts say — while a shaft wide enough to pull a man through is drilled.
The miners already have been trapped for 18 days, since a rockslide inside the San Esteban gold and copper mine cut off their exit route.
A probe retrieved a note from the miners Sunday saying all were alive and well in a cramped, 530-square-foot (50-square-meter) shelter. They survived by sharing tiny portions of canned fish stored in the shelter room.
“Medics now are beginning to put down glucose water through a tube, first starting off with liquids and rehydrating salts, then in the coming days will put more solid food down,” CNN’s Karl Penhaul reported Tuesday morning from the scene near the town of Copiapo in northern Chile.
“But psychologists say really it is the mental health that’s the real thing,” Penhaul added. Forced confinement for months in a small, dark, hot space with many other people will pose intense psychological and emotional challenges. The men will have to help one another, Penhaul said.
“They have to make sure on a day when somebody is feeling down, depressed, that the others keep him there to cheer him up,” he said.
Davitt McAteer, former director of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, said the situation is challenging on a number of levels, but the Chilean government seems to be doing everything right.
“It’s difficult. It’s the size of a studio apartment, and it’s dark. Well, now there will be some lights put in, but the conditions were very, very difficult,” he said Tuesday morning.
“You have to deal with bodily functions, and you’ve got to deal with that kind of question. Then you’ve got to deal with the psychological impact.
“Now, I think the fact that they’ve made it these 18 days is very, very positive. But the euphoria of making contact with the surface is going to last a couple days, and then it’s going to be a long slog.”
McAteer noted that with current technology, there’s no reason the trapped miners have to be isolated from their families and society during their confinement.
“These miners are resilient people, but I think also it’s a new era,” he said.
“And I see no reason why you couldn’t pass cell phones down to them, or computers, tethered down to them. So, we’re in a new day. And something will need to be done to divert their attention. … How do you come up with things for them to do and arrange things so that they can get their attention diverted from just sitting there waiting?”
Added Penhaul: “The families on the surface will also play a role as well, establishing communication with their family members to tell them to keep strong, but above all, to stay patient. They could be down there until Christmas.”
CNN’s Karl Penhaul, Jim Kavanagh and the CNN Wire contributed to this report.
From Karl Penhaul, CNN
August 27, 2010 — Updated 2029 GMT (0429 HKT)
Copiapo, Chile (CNN) — The 33 miners trapped inside a Chilean mine since August 5 have been told for the first time that they could be stuck underground for as long as four months, the head of the rescue operation said Friday.
But Andre Sougarret, the mines manager for the state mining company, and Chilean government representative Jimena Matos also said they are working on a “Plan B,” which could help speed up the rescue process.
“Last night, a third probe reached where the miners are and that probe, or the bore hole made by that probe, could form the basis of our plan B,” said Sougarret, declining to offer specifics.
Officials expect drilling on a rescue shaft, a process that workers have said could take four months to complete, to begin this weekend.
Still, even under the best-case scenario, the trapped miners will be underground for quite some time — posing a host of practical and psychological problems. To help solve them, Chilean officials are looking in unlikely places.
An official at NASA, the U.S. space agency, said on Friday the organization has been asked by Chile to help provide nutritional and behavioral health support to the miners. A four-person team, including two physicians and a psychologist, are planning to go to Chile next week, said Michael Duncan, NASA’s lead on the Chile effort.
NASA has a long history in dealing with isolated environments and thinks experiences in space and underground are not too different, he said.
“It’s an opportunity to us to bring the space-flight experience back down to the ground,” said Duncan.
The workers, trapped 2,300 feet below the surface, have been trying to keep their spirits — and the spirits of their loved ones — from flagging. They sent a video message to their families Thursday in which they expressed thanks for the efforts under way to free them and displayed occasional flashes of humor and patriotism.
“We know what you’ve all been doing for us,” said one man. “You haven’t left us alone. We want to send applause to you.” At that, the men broke into applause.
Throughout the 25-minute, high-definition video, one miner guided the hand-held camera ahead of him, its path illuminated by the light on his mining helmet. The video views were grainy and sometimes out of focus.
The video showed the 50-square-meter (about 540-square-foot) living space occupied by the men since they were trapped by the collapse of a mine shaft. Some appeared heavily bearded, all of them were stripped to the waist. A thermometer showed 29.5 degrees Celsius, (about 85 degrees Fahrenheit), a little cooler than officials had estimated.
Some of the men were standing, others were lying down. “Oh, you’re sleeping on a box-spring bed,” joked one man to another, who is sprawled out on a pile of rocks.
On a crate sat a set of dominoes; on a wall were two first-aid boxes. Nearby were two stretchers.
One miner said to his family: “Be calm. We’re going to get out of here. And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your efforts.” At that, the other miners broke into applause again.
The tenor of most of the comments was calm, though one man’s emotion cut through. “Thank you to everybody,” he said. “I send you a big hug in the name of our Lord.” As he spoke, his voice cracked.
Out of the view of the camera, as one miner finished his message, another could be heard saying, “Get us out of here soon.”
Family members who saw the video in a private screening said their loved ones appeared thin, but healthy and in good spirits. Several said many of the relatives cried as they watched and listened.
Doctors have given the miners advice about how to keep their limited living space clean: Portions of a 1-meter-high (3.3 feet), 40-meter-long (about 130 feet) shaft are being used as a latrine.
It is connected to the main cabin, which is being used for sleeping, washing and praying.
The men’s sole lifeline to the outside world is a tube approximately 8 centimeters (3.2 inches) in diameter, through which food, water, clothing, video and radio equipment and whatever else is needed are stuffed.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich told reporters Thursday that, on average, each man has lost 22 pounds (10 kilograms) since they became trapped three weeks ago, and dehydration remains a threat. But a survey of the men indicates that at least nine miners are still too overweight to fit through the proposed rescue shaft, he said.
Three or four of the miners are showing signs of anxiety and depression, Manalich added.
August 27th, 2010 10:19 AM ET
 Red tape marks the trap door through which an inmate falls as he or she is hanged.
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries with the death penalty, showed one of its execution chambers to the media for the first time Friday.
Reporters were shown the death chamber at the Tokyo Detention Facility, one of seven used across the country, according to a report in the Mainichi Daily News.
 Pressing a button in another room releases the trap door.
The unprecedented media access was ordered by Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who after witnessing the deaths of two condemned prisoners last month, said she wanted to have a national debate on capital punishment in Japan, Mainchi reported. Chiba has previously spoken against the death penalty.
Execution in Japan is carried out by hanging.
The chamber showed to the media on Friday had no noose suspended from the ceiling but showed a trap door outlined in red. The condemned fall to a room below the execution chamber where their deaths are confirmed.
Reporters were not shown that room out of “consideration for the inmates’ family and wardens,” according to the Mainichi report.
 A room where inmates are told they are about to be executed and can meet with a chaplain.
They did see other areas involved in the execution process, including the room where a button is pushed to release the trap door, a room where the condemned can get religious last rites or an entry room where inmates are told they are about to be executed.
In an accompanying article in Mainichi, prison officials described Japan’s execution process, long shrouded in secrecy.
The two men executed on July 28, Ogata Hidenori, 33, and Shinozawa Kazuo, 59, were the first put to death since the August 2009 elections in Japan, according to Amnesty International. The organization says 107 prisoners remain on death row in Japan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 25, 2010; 7:12 PM
Stashing cash in spare tires, engine transmissions and truckloads of baby diapers, couriers for Mexican drug cartels are moving tens of billions of dollars south across the border each year. U.S. border and customs agents at crossings such as this one in Laredo, Tex., inspect vehicles for drug money in an effort to catch the bulk cash before it makes it into Mexico.
LAREDO, TEX. – Stashing cash in spare tires, engine transmissions and truckloads of baby diapers, couriers for Mexican drug cartels are moving tens of billions of dollars in profits south across the border each year, a river of dirty money that has overwhelmed U.S. and Mexican customs agents.
Officials said stemming the flow of this cash is essential if Mexico and the United States hope to disrupt powerful transnational criminal organizations that are using their wealth to corrupt, terrorize and kill.
Despite unprecedented efforts to thwart the traffickers, U.S. and Mexican authorities are seizing no more than 1 percent of the cash, according to an analysis by The Washington Post based on figures provided by the two governments.
The major Mexican drug organizations write that off as the cost of doing business – losing a percentage far smaller than the fees for an ordinary wire transfer or ATM withdrawal, Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials said.
The Obama administration recently proposed a $600 million surge in spending and personnel, including additional gamma-ray scanners and money-sniffing dogs, as part of an intensifying effort to capture the dollars going from U.S. drug consumers to Mexican mafias.
The drug traffickers and their Colombian suppliers smuggle $20 billion to $25 billion in U.S. bank notes across the southwest border annually as they seek to circumvent banking regulations and the suspicions aroused by large cash deposits, studies by federal officials, regulators and academics show.
“If we fail to curtail these money flows, the confrontation with organized crime will generate more violence and more corruption,” Carlos Pascual, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said at a border conference in El Paso this month.
Most of the money is smuggled in plastic-wrapped bricks of $20 bills. Often the bank notes retain the sticky residue or fine powder generated by the marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine sold to the most voracious consumers in the world.
“Cash is the ultimate challenge for us,” John Arvanitis, chief of financial operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in an interview. “It moves so rapidly, so fluidly. It crosses borders. It moves in bulk. It is stored in warehouses. It is moved into business. They have multiple, multiple options. They can hide a million dollars in a tractor-trailer, or they can carry it across the border in a handbag.”
Since the two countries pledged to bolster joint operations in March 2009 and began searching more vehicles heading south, customs agents have seized record amounts of cash – not only in vehicles but also hidden in children’s toys, loaves of bread and body cavities.
But authorities are barely making a dent in the cartel profits. U.S. agents captured $85 million in illicit cash along the southwest border last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Mexican inspectors have seized $31 million in suspicious cash at all ports of entry into the country over the past three years, according to figures provided by the Mexican customs agency. In two years of undercover operations targeting Mexican cartels in the United States, the DEA seized $216 million, although it is unclear how much of that would have been smuggled south.
“We see mostly small seizures, in small denominations. It doesn’t mean that much to them,” said a senior Mexican official who investigates financial crimes, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of security protocols. “To really hurt the criminal organizations, we would have to be confiscating much, much more.”
Asked how much more, the official said, “a billion dollars.”
T.J. Bonner, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents, said seizing cash in southbound traffic is extremely difficult.
“Throw a backpack of cash over the fence into Mexico, and what are we going to do?” he said. “Charge someone with littering in a foreign country?”
Mexican officials say a greater percentage of drug profits remain in the United States than U.S. officials acknowledge. Former attorney general Eduardo Medina Mora said that, based on the U.S. notes Mexican banks return to the United States, about $10 billion “does not have an explanation and could be attributed to the flow of drug trafficking money.”
That figure does not include the billions never deposited in Mexican banks but quickly smuggled farther south – to Central America, to pay transport costs, and to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, to purchase more cocaine.
‘No paper trail’
Cash smuggled across the border is a leading source of foreign currency in Mexico, surpassed only by petroleum sales and about equal to the dollars earned from tourism and official remittances from Mexicans working in the United States.
“There’s no paper trail when you smuggle $400,000 or $500,000 over the border in a hidden compartment on one car,” said David Gaddis, deputy chief of operations for the DEA.
U.S. bank notes are easily spent in Mexico, where 67 percent of commercial transactions are made with cash – often dollars – as opposed to 21 percent in the United States.
Since late 2006, when President Felipe Caldern launched his U.S.-backed military-led offensive against the traffickers, police and soldiers have confiscated $411 million in U.S. currency but only $23 million in Mexican pesos, according to Mexico’s intelligence service.
In the United States, cash from the wholesale distribution of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana is consolidated in several key cities, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area, before it moves south.
“What we are seeing is the professionalization of the movement of bulk cash,” said an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security protocols. “We are seeing specialists in money movement. That’s all they do. They prefer to lose drugs versus money because drugs are so much easier to replace.”
ICE agents said cartels pay couriers about 2 or 3 percent to smuggle cash, far more than they lose to law enforcement.
At the crossing
At the busy border crossing in Laredo, U.S. customs agents search hundreds of southbound vehicles a day. Pickups and vans filled with household goods bought in the United States slow to a stop as agents ask the occupants whether they are carrying weapons, ammunition or more than $10,000 in cash. Almost everyone says no.
Many cars are just waved through. Others are briskly inspected. The officers tap on the vehicle panels with rubber mallets, searching for hidden compartments; open trunks and glove boxes; use mirrors to examine the undercarriage; hold a density meter next to the gas tank; and pop open the hood and inspect the running engine.
“We’ve seen hidden compartments in oil pans, with cars running on two quarts of oil instead of five,” said Gene Garza, director of the Port of Laredo for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
If agents detect anything suspicious – if a car with Arizona plates has no bugs on its windshield or a woman who claims to be the driver’s wife looks nervous – the vehicle is inspected a second time, with cash-sniffing dogs. The vehicle might then be scanned by X-ray machines and disassembled.
In a typical seizure here last month, 50 bundles containing $607,629 were found in a spare tire of a Ford pickup. A few days earlier, $506,057 was discovered in a false compartment of a car’s front bumper. The drivers face charges of cash smuggling, with a typical prison sentence of a year or two if convicted.
At the Laredo port alone, 22,000 cars cross into Mexico every day, plus 12,000 pedestrians and 6,000 tractor-trailers. They all can’t be searched, officials say, and $1 million in $100 bank notes could almost fit in a shoe box.
Once the couriers cross, the risk of being caught is even slimmer, even as Mexico tries to overhaul its customs agency with help from the $1.6 billion in U.S. aid in the anti-narcotics Merida Initiative. Mexico has fired more than 1,000 customs agents and hired 2,300 since 2007, doubling their base salaries in an effort to ward off corruption. Inspectors are subjected to lie-detector tests, job rotations and monitoring by surveillance cameras.
But former agents say drug cartels continue to corrupt and intimidate inspectors. In Ciudad Juarez, across the river from El Paso, more than 30 agents have resigned in recent months after several co-workers were killed.
In Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican customs official said his inspectors have seized “maybe a million dollars” in the past year.
“It’s not enough,” said the senior officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns. “They keep telling us to find more and more, but it’s very hard.”
boothb@washpost.com miroffn@washpost.com
The New York Times
Men stood in flood waters near Jacobabad, Pakistan, last Friday. The area, normally a part of the route to supply the Kandahar air base in southern Afghanistan, is completely cut off, surrounded by water and accessible only by air.
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: August 24, 2010
SUKKUR, Pakistan — The immense floods that have inundated swaths of Pakistan and cut roads and railways have also disrupted the main supply lines for United States and NATO military forces in Afghanistan.
Trucks carrying United States military vehicles under blue tarpaulins were caught in a 50-kilometer traffic jam on the main motorway from the southern port of Karachi to the capital Islamabad at the weekend where floodwaters had broken the road and reduced traffic to single file.Those trucks were far from their usual routes to Afghanistan through western Pakistan, which have been completely cut because of the floods. Supply trucks are now having to take the much longer route through the center of the country to Islamabad and then on to Peshawar and the Afghan border. Roads to Peshawar in the northwest have also been cut and delayed traffic.
The bulk of supplies for the United States military, including fuel for its bases across southern Afghanistan, passes through Pakistan from the southern port of Karachi along two routes to Afghanistan, both of which have been cut off by the floods, Pakistani officials here said.
The southernmost route used to supply the Kandahar air base in southern Afghanistan goes through this town of Sukkur, then to the town of Jacobabad and then to Quetta, crossing the Afghan border at Chaman. That road is under water and has been washed away in some areas, and the town of Jacobabad is completely cut off, surrounded by water and accessible only by air, Ejaz Jakaharani, member of parliament from Jacobabad, said.
The other route trucks use to reach the Afghan capital Kabul and Bagram air base is the Indus Highway, which runs along the right bank of the Indus River from Karachi up to Dera Ismail Khan, providing the shortest route to Peshawar and the Afghan border crossing at Torkham.That road is under water north of the town of Shikarpur and is impassable, said Ali Nawaz, an inspector for the National Highway Authority, who was supervising work on the road outside Shikarpur. Trucks carrying United States military supplies have been forced to use much longer routes, south along the coast of Baluchistan, and up through the center of the country as far as the capital, he said.
As workers laid down truckloads of quarried stone to shore up the road, Mr Ali said it would take six days just to open the 30 kilomters of road to Jacobabad since the water was still flowing fast. “We are doing our utmost to make the road motorable,” he said.
Work would only really start properly once the waters had receded, and it would take months longer to repair and reopen the many other smaller roads throughout the district, he said.
Thousands of miles of roads and railway lines have been damaged or swept away in the floods, Pakistan’s worst in living memory.
8月23日の旭川時事英語研究会のtextです。スーパーモデル ナオミ・キャンベルのスキャンダルを取り上げます。
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 19, 2010 — Updated 1428 GMT (2228 HKT)
Naomi Campbell testifies at the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor in The Hague August 5 about diamonds she reportedly received.
Johannesburg, South Africa (CNN) — The man who accepted three uncut diamonds from supermodel Naomi Campbell and held them privately for years is stepping down as a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, the fund said.
Jeremy Ractliffe will not run for reelection as a trustee at the end of this month, the fund said Wednesday. He is also resigning immediately as a board member with the U.S. affiliate of the fund, it said.
Ractliffe came under international scrutiny in early August when Campbell testified at the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. She was asked about reports that Taylor gave her uncut diamonds in 1997, a story that prosecutors hoped to use as evidence to prove Taylor used “blood diamonds” to fund a brutal civil war in Sierra Leone.
While Campbell said she didn’t know whether Taylor was the source of the diamonds, she testified she gave them the next day to Ractliffe, a friend who at the time was the head of the children’s fund.
Ractliffe said in a statement afterwards that he kept the diamonds to protect the reputations of both Campbell and the charity. He handed the diamonds over to South African police after Campbell’s testimony.
“Mr. Ractliffe regrets his omission to inform the chairperson, CEO, and the rest of the board of trustees of the NMCF of his receipt of the uncut diamonds until now and acknowledges that had he done so, he and the board could have found a better and lawful way to manage the situation,” the fund said in the statement. “He has apologised to the chairperson, CEO, the board, and the NMCF for the anxiety and possible reputational risk his conduct may have caused to the NMCF.”
Under South African law, the possession of uncut or rough diamonds is restricted to permit-holding producers, cutters, and toolmakers. Any other person who finds or receives unpolished diamonds is required to take them to a police station immediately.
“Mr. Ractliffe has stated that he acted in what he sincerely believed to be in the best interest of the NMCF and its founder and realizes that he has left himself open to possible prosecution,” the fund said in its statement. “For these reasons, he considers it correct and proper for him not to make himself available for reelection as a trustee.”
Conflict or “blood” diamonds are diamonds that are illegally traded to fund conflict in war-torn areas, particularly in central and western Africa, according to the World Diamond Council, which represents the commercial diamond trade.
The United Nations defines conflict diamonds as “diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council.”
They are generally in rough form, meaning they have recently been extracted from the earth and not yet cut.
At the height of the civil war in Sierra Leone, it is estimated that conflict diamonds represented approximately four percent of the world’s diamond production.
By Kenneth M. Pollack The Washington Post
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Early Thursday, less than two weeks before the president’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending American combat operations in Iraq, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division crossed the border from Iraq into Kuwait. With the departure of this last combat brigade, the U.S. military presence in Iraq is now down to 50,000 troops, fewer than at any time since the 2003 invasion. The shift offers a useful moment to take stock of both how much has been accomplished and how much is left to be done in what is fast becoming our forgotten war.
1. As of this month, the United States no longer has combat troops in Iraq.
Not even close. Roughly 50,000 American military personnel remain in Iraq, and the majority are still combat troops — they’re just named something else. The major units still in Iraq will no longer be called “brigade combat teams” and instead will be called “advisory and assistance brigades.” But a rose by any other name is still a rose, and the differences in brigade structure and personnel are minimal.
American troops in Iraq will still go into harm’s way. They will still accompany Iraqi units on combat missions — even if only as “advisers.” American pilots will still fly combat missions in support of Iraqi ground forces. And American special forces will still face off against Iraqi terrorist groups in high-intensity operations. For that reason, when American troops leave their bases in Iraq, they will still, almost invariably, be in full “battle rattle” and ready for a fight.
What has changed over the past 12 to 18 months is the level of violence in Iraq. There is much less of it: The civil war and the insurgency have been suppressed and the terrorists have been marginalized, so American troops have been able to pass the majority of their remaining combat responsibilities to the Iraqi security forces. Most U.S. troops now have little expectation of seeing combat in Iraq. Instead, they are spending more time acting as peacekeepers, protecting various personnel and facilities, and advising Iraqi formations. But that didn’t start this month: It’s more or less what they have been doing since the “clear and hold” operations to take back the country from militias and insurgents ended back in 2008.
2. Thanks to the troop “surge,” Iraq is secure enough that it will not fall back into civil war as U.S. forces pull out.
Security in Iraq has improved enormously since the darkest days of 2005-2006, but the jury is still out on what will happen in the months and years ahead.
Extensive research on intercommunal civil wars — that is, civil wars that, like Iraq’s, were caused by a breakdown in governance that prompted different communities to fight one another for power– finds a dangerous propensity toward recidivism. Moreover, the fear, anger, greed and desire for revenge that helped propel Iraq into civil war in the first place remain just beneath the surface.
Academic studies of scores of civil wars from the past century show that roughly 50 percent of the time, war will recur within five years of a cease-fire. If the country has major “lootable” resources such as gold, diamonds or oil, the odds climb higher still. The important bright spot, however, is that if a great power is willing to make a long-term commitment to serving as peacekeeper and mediator (the role the United States is playing in Iraq today), the recidivism rate drops to less than one in three. This is why an ongoing American commitment to Iraq is so important.
It’s also worth pointing out that a civil war doesn’t recur because the public desires one. Most average people recognize that civil war is a disaster. Instead, such wars flare up again and drag on because leaders still believe they can achieve their objectives by force. Until they are convinced otherwise — ideally, by a great power’s military forces — they will revert to fighting.
3. The United States is leaving behind a broken political system.
If some on the right want to claim (wrongly) that the surge stabilized Iraq to the point that civil war is impossible, their counterparts on the left try to insist (equally incorrectly) that the change in U.S. tactics and strategy in 2007-2008 had no impact on Iraq’s politics whatsoever.
Partisans will debate the impact of the surge for years to come, and historians will take up the fight thereafter. However, Iraqi politics are fundamentally different today than they were in 2006. The nation’s political leaders have been forced to embrace democracy — in many cases very grudgingly, but embrace it they have. Party leaders no longer scheme to kill their rivals but to outvote them. They can no longer intimidate voters; they have to persuade them. And the smart ones have figured out that they must deliver what their constituents want, namely, effective governance, jobs, and services such as electricity and clean water.
Yes, Iraqi politics remain deadlocked and deeply dysfunctional, and yes, long-term stability and short-term economic needs depend on further political progress. But it is now possible to imagine Iraq muddling on toward real peace, pluralism and even prosperity — if it gets the right breaks and a fair amount of continuing help from the United States, the United Nations and its neighbors.
4. Iraqis want U.S. troops to stay. Or they want them leave.
Be very, very careful with Iraqi public opinion. Polls are rarely subtle enough to capture the complexity of Iraqi views. Typically, they show a small number of Iraqis who want the Americans out immediately at any cost, a small number who want them to stay forever and a vast majority in the middle — determined that U.S. troops should leave, but only after a certain period of time. When Iraqis are asked how long they believe our troops are needed, their answers range from a few months to a few years, but are strongly linked with however long the respondent believes it will take Iraq’s forces to be able to handle security on their own.
One typically hears the same from people across Iraq and throughout its social and political strata. Iraqis are nationalistic, and they resent the American military presence. Many also feel deep bitterness over the mess that the United States made by invading and then failing to secure the country or to begin a comprehensive rebuilding process, failures that led to civil war in 2005-2006. Most Iraqis are relieved to have been rescued from that descent and are frightened that it will resume when the Americans leave. This is because their security forces are still untested and their political process has yet to show the kind of maturity that provides Iraqis confidence that they are safe from the threat of more civil war. Consequently, a great many people are both determined to see all American troops leave — and terrified that they actually will.
5. The war will end “on schedule.”
Much as we should all want the Obama administration to succeed in Iraq, this statement by the president in a speech to veterans this month should also make us wary. If uttered in the first act of a Greek tragedy, it is exactly the kind of claim that would end in a Sophoclean fall.
As George W. Bush learned to his dismay, once you start a war, a lot of bad, unpredictable things can happen. No war has ever ended precisely according to schedule, not even the most dramatic victories, such as Israel’s Six-Day War or America’s victory over Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. What’s more, war’s aftereffects linger for many years.
Going forward, America’s involvement in Iraq can (and hopefully will ) be much reduced, but the need for a U.S. presence will endure for many years. Iraq has demonstrated great potential, but at this point it is only potential. The country still holds great peril as well — not just for Iraqis, but for our interests in one of the world’s most strategically important regions.
For these reasons, Obama was right to also warn that the United States will need to remain deeply involved in Iraq and will probably face casualties therein the years to come, regardless of how we label our mission there.
Kenneth M. Pollack is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. His most recent book is “A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East.”
旭川時事英語研究会の宮口です。
今日は私がまぐまぐから発行しているメルマガ
－先人の知恵に学ぼう！驚くほど役に立つ「名言集」－からの抜粋させていただきます。
登録はこちらから ⇒ 先人の知恵に学ぼう！驚くほど役に立つ「名言集」
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♪北海道を応援します♪
★カニ市場 『北国からの贈り物』
★花畑牧場★人気No1の生キャラメル！
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2010.08.20-Vol.0429
—————————————————————–
■先人の知恵に学ぼう！驚くほど役に立つ「名言集」■
—————————————————————–
★今日の名言★
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種を蒔けば、刈り取らねばならない。
人を殴れば、苦しまねばならない。
人に善をなせば、君も善をなされるであろう。
＜エマーソン＞
======================================================
◆一口豆知識◆◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇広辞苑より◇◇◇◇
因果応報（いんがおうほう）・・・
〔仏〕過去における善悪の業（ごう）に応じて現在における幸不幸の
果報を生じ、現在の業に応じて未来の果報を生ずること。
======================================================
※喫煙室（雑談コーナー）
エマーソンの名言に次のようなものがある。
「誰であれ、他人を誠実に助けようとすれば
かならず自分自身をも助けることになるというのは、
人生の最も美しい報酬の一つである。」
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life
that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping
himself.
エマーソンの言葉を待つまでも無く、この「蒔いた種を刈り取る」と
いう言葉は聖書の中にも出てくる言葉でもあり古来から多くの賢人達
が教え説いた黄金律でもあるのだ。
Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows,
that he will also reap. (Galatians 6:7)
＜聖書＞ガラテヤの信徒への手紙 / 6章 7節
思い違いをしてはいけません。神は、人から侮られることはありませ
ん。人は、自分の蒔いたものを、また刈り取ることになるのです。
ところで「黄金律」とは何なのだろう？
-Wikipedia-からに抜粋してみたい。
黄金律（おうごんりつ）は、多くの宗教、道徳や哲学で見出される「
他人にしてもらいたいと思うような行為をせよ」という内容の倫理学
的言明である。現代の欧米において「黄金律」という時、一般にイエ
ス・キリストの「為せ」という能動的なルールを指す。
●イエス・キリスト：「人にしてもらいたいと思うことは何でも、あ
なたがたも人にしなさい」（マタイによる福音書7章12節）
●孔子：「己の欲せざるところ、他に施すことなかれ」（論語 巻第八
衛霊公第十五 二十四）
●ユダヤ教「あなたにとって好ましくないことをあなたの隣人に対し
てするな。」（ヒルレルの言葉 ヒルレルはダビデの末裔を称したフ
ァリサイ派のラビ）
●ヒンドゥー教「人が他人からしてもらいたくないと思ういかなるこ
とも他人にしてはいけない」（『マハーバーラタ』5:15:17）
●イスラム教「自分が人から危害を受けたくなければ、誰にも危害を
加えないことである。」(ムハンマドの遺言)
残念ながら、人間とは欲得に大きく左右される自分自身が一番大切な
生き物でもあるだ。
講道館の嘉納治五郎師範の教えを思い出す。
「精力善用」「自他共栄」という言葉である。
欲望を善く利用して共に栄える、という教えをもう一度噛み締めてみ
たい。
☆——————————☆
ラルフ・ワルド・エマーソン
ラルフ・ワルド・エマーソン（Ralph Waldo Emerson、1803年5月25日
- 1882年4月27日）は、アメリカ合衆国の思想家、哲学者、作家、詩
人、エッセイスト。 ラルフ・ウォルド・エマーソン、ラルフ・ウォル
ドー・エマーソン、ラルフ・ワルド・エマソン、とも呼ばれる。 英語
では、エマーソンのエにアクセントがあり、エマソンに近くなる。
アメリカ合衆国マサチューセッツ州ボストンに生まれる。 18歳でハー
バード大学を卒業し21歳までボストンで教鞭をとる。 その後ハーバー
ド神学校に入学し、伝道資格を取得し、牧師になる。
フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
◆ラルフ・ワルド・エマーソンの本
◆自己啓発書のベストセラー
——————————
今日は、ABC Newsの記事を取り上げます。
性格と病気との関連など昔から指摘されていますが、研究者とは面白い研究をしているものですね。しかし、心身症など心と身体の相関関係に関する研究は民間療法や宗教などに比べて遅れているような気がするのは何故でしょうね？
研究によると、敵対的で怒りっぽい性格傾向を持つ人は、心臓発作や脳卒中を起こし易い・・・今まで、そうかも知れないと感じていたことを、動脈壁の厚さと関連付けて理論的に解明出来たのでしょうか？
An Antagonistic Personality Might Increase Your Risk For Cardiovascular Disease
20 comments By JOHN GEVER, MedPage Today Senior Editor
Aug. 17, 2010
People with antagonistic or disagreeable personalities have thicker arterial walls that may make them more prone to heart attacks and strokes, researchers said.
The carotid artery lining was significantly thicker in people who rated low on a scale of agreeableness, reported Angelina Sutin of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues.
In a study of 5,614 residents of the Italian island of Sardinia, those ranking in the lowest 10 percent of agreeableness were 1.4 times as likely to have thickening in their lining of their carotid artery, the researchers found. This held true even after the researchers adjusted for cholesterol levels, smoking status and other risk factors.
The researchers also found that an antagonistic personality predicted increased thickening over approximately three years of follow-up.
“Antagonistic individuals, especially those who are manipulative and aggressive, have greater increases in arterial thickening, independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors,” Sutin and colleagues wrote in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.
The effect of personality appeared to be greater in women than in men, the researchers found. The carotid artery lining thickness in women with disagreeable personalities was similar to the average in men, who normally have significantly thicker arterial walls.
Previous studies have linked cardiovascular disease with certain personality types, notably the hard-charging “Type A” personality. Subsequent research showed that hostility was a major contributor to these findings, Sutin and colleagues reported.
They also cited some earlier studies linking various antisocial behavior patterns to arterial thickening. But these focused on specific populations, including poor young adults, women transitioning to menopause and men with untreated high blood pressure.
“Large, population-based samples are needed to test whether these associations hold across different demographic groups,” Sutin and colleagues wrote.
Their sample came from an ongoing, prospective study in Sardinia designed to uncover genetic and environmental factors associated with complex and age-related health problems. Approximately 62 percent of the population in four towns has participated in the study.
One of the questionnaires included in the study was the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Italian translation), a self-assessment that includes 48 items covering six traits associated with agreeableness: trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tendermindedness. Each is rated on a five-point scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”
Carotid artery thickening was assessed by ultrasound at the time of enrollment and approximately three years later. The follow-up measurement was performed in 83 percent of participants.
Other risk factors included in the statistical analysis were age, sex, education, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, LDL and HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting plasma glucose and insulin, smoling status, and use of antihypertensive, statin, or diabetic medications.
Sutin and colleagues found that agreeableness scores were significantly associated with initial arterial thickness and with changes during the three-year follow-up. The specific traits of straightforwardness and compliance were most strongly associated with the arterial thickness.
On the other hand, when the researchers looked at the risk of being in the top quartile of arterial thickness, high agreeableness scores did not appear to have a protective effect in participants from either gender.
Dr. Redford Williams of Duke University in Durham, N.C., who was not involved with the study, commented that the findings highlight the largely unappreciated role of psychological factors in cardiovascular disease risk.
“Psychological and social factors are just as strong, as this study clearly documented, in putting people at higher risk of heart disease and other health problems,” he said in an interview.
Williams noted the degree of cardiovascular event risk suggested by the study findings as associated with antagonistic personality traits was comparable to that of high LDL cholesterol, hypertension, or smoking.
“We really need, in this country and around the world, to begin to focus on ameliorating the effect of psychosocial risk factors just as we are on the physical risk factors,” he said.
He suggested that patients with these traits should consider anger-management training, though he cautioned that cardiovascular benefits remain uncertain.
“I think we need the clinical trials — carefully done, randomized clinical trials — to make sure the kinds of anger-management training we might employ really are not only reducing anger, but reducing the rate of disease development. That’s the gold standard we have to hit,” Williams said.
But he adds, “It’s certainly not going to hurt you to learn how to manage anger better.”
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