❤❀☮☪✞Teenage Odyssey✡☯☮❀❤

kateoplis:

The Quiet War Against Wyoming’s Wild Horses

How can a state promote its wild horses as a tourist attraction while it seeks to decimate herds?

The Wyoming Tourism Board wants you and your family to come see the wild horses in Sweetwater County, but you better go quick. Beginning next month, federal officials and local contractors will roundup and remove approximately 700 of those horses (about 70 percent of the herd) to satisfy the complaints of the cattle and sheep ranchers in the area who don’t want to share land with federally-protected horses. The “cherished,” “living examples” of Wyoming’s western heritage will be penned in and then given up for adoption or sold at auction. 

Many will soon die. Some may even be slaughtered for meat. All will likely be gone from view in Sweetwater County. You and your family, having traveled to southwestern Wyoming, may be plum out of luck.

discoverynews:

Is This the End of Salmon?

A warming climate is likely to wipe out spring-run Chinook salmon in at least one California watershed by the century’s end, found a new study.

Read more

discoverynews:

Martian Life’s Last Stand

If there was life on Mars, scientists may have found its final resting spot.

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dallasclayton:

My marker habit is getting heavy.

israelfacts:

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times:

The streets were mostly empty. I stopped to photograph some settlers marking the Jewish holiday of Purim. They were passing around a bottle of wine, toasting the holiday, nothing out of the ordinary. I noticed a Palestinian woman walking along the shut-down stores. A group of settlers were walking in the middle of the street in the opposite direction when one of them took a step towards her. I instinctually raised the camera.

She didn’t scream or stop, she hurried up the street and vanished around the corner. I was left angered and saddened — as if the wine hit me.

bulletinaweave:

THE ‘OTHER SIDE’ OF SANDY NOT SEEN ON TV OR IN NEWSPAPERS. Sandy also struck CUBA, HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Images that you will not see in the newspapers or on TV. There are now many more homeless people in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic suffering from the ravages of hurricane Sandy passing through their respective nations, prior to the hurricane also pummeling the east coast of the United States. In solidarity with all people, in light of the loss of their homes and loved ones, we must also speak out for them. Pain and suffering does not care about borders and true compassion has no flag to wave. Our hearts are with all who are impacted by this international tragedy. Please become more informed and support the efforts of groups attempting to help lives everywhere, who know no borders. Image of Orlando Barria (EFE) in the La Barquita, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, October 26, 2012 (A.E.L.L.A.)

israelfacts:

The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear programme for inspection.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 174 to six with six abstentions, calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) “without further delay” and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting against were Israel, the US, Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.

Resolutions adopted by the 193-member general assembly are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion and carry moral and political weight. And the resolution adds to pressure on Israel as it facescriticism over plans to increase settlement in the West Bank, a move seen as retaliation for the assembly recognising Palestinian statehood.

Israel refuses to confirm or deny possessing nuclear bombs though it is widely believed to have them. It has refused to join the non-proliferation treaty along with three nuclear weapon states: India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Israel insists there must first be a Middle East peace agreement before the establishment of a proposed regional zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Its rivals in the region argue that Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal presents the greatest threat to peace in the region.

While the US voted against the resolution, it voted in favour of two paragraphs in it that were put to separate votes. Both support universal adherence to the NPT and call on those countries that aren’t parties to ratify it “at the earliest date”. The only no votes on those paragraphs were Israel and India.

The vote came as a sequel to the cancellation of a high-level conference aimed at banning nuclear weapons from the Middle East. All the Arab nations and Iran had planned to attend the summit in mid-December in Helsinki, Finland, but the US announced on 23 November that it would not take place, citing political turmoil in the region and Iran’s defiant stance on non-proliferation. Iran and some Arab nations countered that the real reason for the cancellation was Israel’s refusal to attend.

Just before Monday’s vote, the Iranian diplomat Khodadad Seifi told the assembly “the truth is that the Israeli regime is the only party which rejected to conditions for a conference”. He called for “strong pressure on that regime to participate in the conference without any preconditions”.

The Guardian

Despite not having any nuclear warheads or even the capability to produce them, Iran has come under intense international pressure and sanctions — which affects civilians and is causing food insecurity and mass suffering. In comparison, Israel, who has at least 200 nuclear warheads and does not allow inspectors into its secretive nuclear weapons program, has not been hit by any sanctions nor has come under any substantial international pressure.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.