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Why Iran's Twitter revolution is unique The government's tight control of the Internet has spawned a generation adept at circumventing cyber roadblocks, making the country ripe for a technology–driven protest movement. By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Istanbul, Turkey - Before Iran, there was Moldova, which had its own (unsuccessful) "Twitter Revolution" back in April, when young activists used online tools to coordinate protests against the country's dubiously reelected Communist government. In Egypt, meanwhile, a new generation of activists has come to embrace Facebook and Internet-based social networking applications to protest (again, mostly unsuccessfully) their repressive government. [more] |
Can America’s West stay wild?Policy on vast public lands has favored ranchers. Demographics and economics may alter that equation now. In 1993, Washington State classified its Columbia Basin Pygmy rabbit, a burrowing one-pound resident of sagebrush thickets, as endangered. Farming and other human activity had greatly limited the deep-soil habitat available to the bunny. In 2001, the US Fish and Wildlife Service designated the rabbit, one of only two burrowing species in North America, as “endangered.” Alarmed by the animal’s continuing decline, that year state officials captured 16 rabbits and began a captive-breeding program to try to ensure the rabbits’ continued existence. By 2003, fewer than 30 rabbits lived in the wild, down from 250 in 1995. By 2004, they were all gone. [more] |
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America’s future wind web?
Wind power could feed 20 percent of the US energy diet. But first, the country needs a new energy network. MADISON, S.D. - Out across this wind-swept, wheat-growing state, Jeffrey Nelson sees a new crop rising – electricity from the world’s largest wind-turbine farms sending electrons thousands of miles east to Chicago or Boston. But it’s a vision the South Dakota Wind Energy Association president says will never happen without something far larger, more controversial, and even more expensive: gigantic new high-voltage transmission lines. Depending on whom you talk to, emerging plans to build 765,000 volt transmission lines to bring power from the “Saudi Arabia of wind” in the Dakotas to population centers in the Midwest and East Coast are either vital to the nation or a boondoggle waiting to happen. [more] |
Janet Napolitano, master multitaskerHomeland defense one moment, swine flu the next. She juggles the disparate needs of a cabinet conglomerate. By Peter GrierWASHINGTON - As a child, Janet Napolitano played clarinet in the Albuquerque Youth Symphony. She loved music and thought she might become a band director when she grew up. In a way, she has. As President Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security, Ms. Napolitano’s biggest job is to get the many parts and functions of her conglomerate cabinet department to work together. It’s not an easy task. Homeland Security’s subgroups include the Secret Service, US Customs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Coast Guard. Napolitano’s day can touch on everything from border control to hurricane preparation and protection for the nation’s cyber resources. [more] |
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