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| Syria Uprising |
 IN
an interview with The Wall Street Journal in January, Syria´s
president, Bashar al Assad, said that his main objective was
to address his people´s "closed-mindedness".
He made it clear that this alone impeded reform, and it might
be another generation before Syria is ready for real change.
Dictators (including Assad´s father, Hafez) have long
presented themselves as suppressors of extremism in the region
generally, and Syria in particular. They said democracy would
usher in fundamentalists inherently opposed to modernity, civil
dialogue, international community legitimacy and civilised human
political and economic relations. Perhaps because of this fear... |
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| THE POWER OF MOCKERY |
| THE juiciest story behind the Middle East
uprisings doesn´t concern Colonel Moamer Qadhafi´s
"voluptuous" Ukrainian nurse or CIA bags of cash.
Rather, it´s the tale of how a nonviolent revolutionary
strategy crafted by Serbian students and an octogenarian American
scholar came to challenge dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain
and many other countries. This "uprising in a bottle"
blueprint was developed by the Serbian youth movement, Otpor,
to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. One of Otpor´s
insights was that the most effective weapon against dictators
isn´t bombs or fiery speeches. It´s mockery. Otpor
activists once put Milosevic´s picture on a barrel that
they rolled down the street, inviting people to hit it with
a bat. Otpor´s strategy mirrors... |
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FAA issues rules to keep air controllers awake
REUTERS
WASHINGTON The US Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday issued new work rules aimed at preventing air traffic controllers from falling asleep on the job during overnight hours.
Six separate incidents have alarmed regulators and safety advocates in recent weeks, including a lone controller at Washington’s Reagan National Airport who fell asleep on March 23 with two jetliners en route.
The new rules give controllers an extra hour of rest time between shifts and require FAA managers to work more early-morning and late-night hours.
The changes, which the FAA said would be fully in force by the end of this week, do not reduce tower operations or alter airline flight schedules.
“I don’t know when I’ve ever been madder,” US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told “Fox News on Sunday”.
“On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps.
They are going to be paid for the job they are trained to do, which is to guide planes safely.” The scandal prompted the resignation last week of the FAA official responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the 15,000 air traffic controllers at more than 400 airports.
The biggest airports, including in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, have more than one controller on duty at all times.
But some of those have not been immune to problems, including Miami, where one of 12 controllers on duty one night was found sleeping.
The new FAA rules give air traffic controllers at least nine hours of rest between shifts, instead of the current eight hours.
“Research shows us that giving people the chance for even an additional one hour of rest during critical periods in a schedule can improve work performance and reduce the potential for fatigue,” FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement.
The rules prevent controllers from swapping midnight shifts unless the updated schedule includes an adequate period of rest.
Controllers also will no longer be able to take an unscheduled midnight shift after a day off.
Babbitt and Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, were scheduled to follow up the rules’ with visits to six airports beginning in Atlanta on Monday.
Senior FAA and union officials were scheduled to visit other airports over the next few weeks.
As part of the new effort to keep controllers awake, the FAA said it would also develop a fatigue education program and commission an independent review of the training curriculum and qualifications required of controllers.
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