Six In The Morning

Oil Backed Up, Iranians Put It on Idled Ships

　

By THOMAS ERDBRINK and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
The hulking tanker Neptune was floating aimlessly this week in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, a fresh coat of black paint barely concealing its true identity as an Iranian ship loaded with hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that no one is willing to buy. The ship’s real name was Iran Astaneh, and it was part of a fleet of about 65 Iranian tankers serving as floating storage facilities for Iranian oil, each one given a nautical makeover to conceal its origin and make a buyer easier to find. The Neptune had been floating there for a month, and local fishermen said there were two even larger tankers anchored nearby.

Ukraine police tackle protests over Russian language law
Anger at bill boosting the status of Russian speakers in the former Soviet republic

Thursday 05 July 2012
The Ukrainian parliament backed a controversial law giving higher status to the Russian language – a move that prompted fights inside the chamber and protests on the streets of the former Soviet republic. One MP suffered a broken rib from the mêlée in which police used tear gas against people demonstrating in the capital, Kiev. The law proposed by President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions now just needs his signature to come into force. But the issue has reopened deep wounds in the country, which is split between the Russian-speaking East and the Ukrainian-speaking West.

Where Are the Middle East's Revolutions Heading?
One-and-a-half years after the start of the Arab Spring, Islamists have taken power in some countries, Gulf rulers are suppressing dissent with cash and Syria is descending into civil war.

By SPIEGEL Staff
The rebels advanced into the center of Damascus, even into the garage of the Palace of Justice and a Republican Guard base next to the presidential palace. Syria and Turkey moved tanks and batteries of antiaircraft guns into position, as they faced off on both sides of the country's northern border. "We are at war," Syrian President Bashar Assad said last Tuesday, when he met with his newly appointed cabinet. In Cairo, newly elected President Mohammed Morsi made it clear that he attached no importance to his portrait being hung in Egyptian government offices in the future. The Egyptian stock index rose by 7.6 percent on the day after the election results were announced. It was the biggest gain in nine years.

Illegal Indonesian fires threaten great apes


Michael Bachelard July 5, 2012
THE carbon-rich peat forests of northern Sumatra are burning again as palm oil companies break Indonesian law to clear the land for their plantations. Environmental groups have warned that the local population of critically endangered orang-utans are ''doomed'' unless the fires are stopped. Also, smoke from the burning is at times engulfing cities in Malaysia and Thailand, prompting doctors in Kuala Lumpur recently to warn residents with respiratory problems to wear masks.

Higgs boson: The poetry of subatomic particles
The Higgs boson, which scientists at Cern appear to be homing in on after 45 years, gets its name, as everyone knows, from British physicist Peter Higgs, one of the first to propose its existence.

The BBC 5 July 2012
But what about the other part of this great name - boson? This, in fact, is also named after a physicist, the Indian contemporary of Einstein, Satyendra Nath Bose. Physicists from Russia to California have given lots of curious and sometimes poetic names to the subatomic particles discovered over the last century or so. Here are 10 of them. 1. Higgs boson / God particle The Higgs boson, proposed by Peter Higgs in 1964, if it exists, is what gives matter mass. It has also been named the name God particle by American physicist Leon Lederman. "He wanted to refer to it as that 'goddamn particle' and his editor wouldn't let him," Higgs told the Guardian. So "God particle" it was.

Argentina close to verdict on junta's alleged theft of death-camp babies
Dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone face long sentences for alleged plot over political captives' children

Uki Goni, in Buenos Aires The Guardian, Thursday 5 July 2012
After 12 years and hundreds of hours of testimony an Argentine court is finally poised to pass judgment on former dictators accused of orchestrating the "theft" of hundreds of babies born to political prisoners in the 1970s. Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, dictators who led the bloody military junta that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983, face long sentences for allegedly masterminding what prosecutors hope to prove was a predetermined plan to "rescue" new-born babies from their "terrorist" mothers.