Right to Education

Dated: 20th November 2008

Venue: LSE, Classroom H101
Time: 3:00-5:00 pm

The Right to Education Week (17-21 Nov 2008) organized by the LSESU Palestine Society and ActionPalestine had various activities, one of which I attended yesterday. It was a presentation by a group of students from An-Najah, Hebron and Birzeit Universities followed by Q&A.

There were three girls representing each University. The first is from the city of Nablus and a student at An-Najah University, the largest one in Palestine. She's 19 years old and she presented her slides. The University has 18,000 students and 60% live outside Nablus. Given the multiple and continuous checks they are subjected to at every Israeli checkpoint, many of them have to find accommodation within the city. Fifty four percent of the students are females. I must say I respect the young women of Palestine for the determination they have to get an education even in such difficulty circumstances. In 2002, the city witnessed 219 days of 'invasion' by the Israeli army accompanied by curfew (both 'comprehensive and partial'). In 2003, 71 days and in 2004, 16 days. Hence as a student, she described how difficult and at times almost hopeless the situation was for her and other students to attend classes. She also mentioned that 'since 2000, more than 43 students have been killed by the Israeli army'.

She spoke of the first Intafada (Arabic for Rise Up) in 1967 when teaching institutions and the education system was brought to a standstill as the Israeli army made arrests inside the University followed by 'administrative detention' - a tool used by Israel to arrest anyone on suspicion for interrogation and detention. She spoke about the second Intafada (2000) which again disrupted student life. Then came the Apartheid Wall constructed by Israel (10 metres high and 2 metres wide) to separate Israeli and Palestine land. She told how 'village lands belonging to Palestine were confiscated' when the wall was built.

The second girl who presented is from Hebron University (the first University in Palestine established in 1971). There are eight colleges having 48 programmes of study. There are the College of Art, the biggest (estd.1980), College of Science (1986), College of Agriculture (1987), College of Finance and Management (1994), College of Nursing (1998), College of Higher Education (2000). The total number of students in the University is 7500 and 76% are female. The main source of funding for the University comes from Suadi Arabia. Currently 3899 students are denied education as a result of the ongoing tension with Israel leading to economic hardships of the Palestinian people.

She narated about the various checkpoints that students go through and the 'harrasments' they have to undergo. She informed that the students can access only one library as thay are not allowed by the Israeli army to go to other libraries like the one in Bethelem University for reference and research purposes. She also mentioned that between 2000 and 2003, 149 University students have been killed by the Israeli army, and that 3 schools have been converted into military barracks.

The final speaker was a girl with a distinctive American accent. She is from Birzeit University. She highlighted three main tools used by Israel on Palestine that is affecting the lives of students - actions that impede economic capacity, restrict movement and detention and harrassment. She spoke about salaries of teaching staff in her University being halved as a result of decrease in funding from the PA (to economic incapacity). How 3000 students have had to drop out. She stated how administrative detention is affecting the lives of those arrested based on suspicion alone. How they are kept in jails for 6 months not knowing what they are charged for and how they can be detained for another 6 months. She informed that seven previous student council presidents have been arrested. She then narrated the bleak picture that is Gaza where 98% of children suffer debilitating psychological trauma, 78% of the population are now living under the poverty line, 30% of students are without text books, 50% of students could not reach school and even raw materials to make paper and binding material have been banned.

She presented messages from her student friends from Palestine including the present Student Council president. The message that struck the most was the one that says "...they (Israeli army) are taking away the hope and capability to look for joy in our life". She ended with the statement that she and her fellow students are here to bring the hope back for all generation to come.

For me, sitting and listening to these young committed students, makes me believe that there is hope for the students of Palestine. Their collective understanding and will to get their education in all its wholeness is worth appreciating. The politics of the ongoing Israeli-Palestine conflict is deeply complex and at the root of it all, I believe, it comes down to religion!! But politics and religion should not obstruct the way for young minds in conflict areas who seek education.

HIV, TRIM5 and the Red Queen

Dated: 18th November 2008

Venue: Darwin Lecture Theatre, Darwin Building, UCL

Time: 1:15 - 2:00 pm

I was running a bit late and made a dash as soon as I got off the bus. By the time I reached the hall, it was almost full. I quickly settled myself on a seat and tuned my senses to the lecture by Dr. Greg Towers (UCL, Immunology & Molecular Pathology). Its been a long time since I attended a strictly medical science lecture I thought to myself.

Anyway, the lecture was about retroviruses such as HIV that have been infecting mammals for millions of years. Host species have therefore evolved ways to protect themselves but then the virus counter-evolution is leading to an evolutionary arms race, described by the Red Queen hypothesis. Focusing on HIV /AIDS, the speaker discussed about the innate antiviral restriction factors (RFs) and pointed how viruses escape them to cause disease. In immunology, we are taught of three immune system responses - the antibodies, the cytotoxic T cells (together forming Adaptive Immune system) and the Innate Immune system, comprising of natural killer cells, antiviral protiens and RFs.

Currently there are about 33.2 million people living with HIV, and 22.5 million are in sub-Saharan Africa alone!!! So why do humans contract HIV? Well, lets see what is this Red Queen hypothesis. Simply put, it states, If the host changes through evolution, so must the virus in order to catch up with that change. And what are these restriction factors...Well, they are proteins that inactivate viral infection and provide symptom free immunity. The RF, TRIM5 (tripartite motif) works by labelling viral cells for destruction by other RFs. But this HIV destruction occur in certain primate species (Rhesus monkeys, Owl monkey, etc.) and not in humans. The human version of this RF inhibits other kinds of viruses (murine leukemia virus-MLV and equine infectious anemia virus -EIAV). Another RF, Tetherin that is present in humans on the cell membrane surfaces, act by adhereing and causing aggregation of viral duaghter cells, thus making them more easy for killer cells to identify and destroy them. But then as the RFs kill HIV viral particles, the viruses too have started developing new ways to escape detection by the RFs, and they do that by changing the structure of their capsid (HIV core). Hence the Red Queen hypothesis!!!

Currently, human gene therapy for HIV/AIDS is the only treatment that can make a patient symptom free. Dr Greg also cited the news item about an HIV-positive man has been left free of the infection, almost two years after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. He was suffering from leukemia as well, and doctors in Germany replaced his cancer cells with healthy stem cells from a donor who had a natural genetic resistance to HIV (see http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20081113/tuk-bone-transplant-offers-aids-hope-45dbed5.html).

Dr. Greg pointed that only a small amount of change was needed to be applied to RF's structure to enable it to outsmart the viral counter-measure and kill it. So his reasearch is how to make the race (according to the Red Queen hypothesis) be in favour of the RF. Some of the other points I took home were:

> RF mediate potent species specific blocks to viral infection (eg. like in Rhesus monkeys).

> Expression of RF are stimulated by Interferons.

> Both RF and their viral counter-measure are under strong selection pressure to change as proposed by the Red

Queen hypothesis.

Well, it was an exciting lecture.

Navigating Global Economic and Financial Change

Dated: 11 November 2008
Time: 6:30 - 8:00 pm

This LSE public lecture was held at the Sheikh Zayed Theatre in the new academic building of the college. Sheikh Zayed was the late President of the UAE (1971-2004).

The speaker was Mohamed A El-Erian, co-CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, the world's largest bond investor company. He is a widely respected financial analyst of Egyptian origin and has just published a book called 'When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change' in May 2008.

The theatre's capacity of 500 people was nearly filled by the time Mohamed El-Erian arrived. He started with a brief introduction of himself and went straight to the topic with a statement, ''We are witnessing a historic event, one which our grandchildren will talk about later''. I knew that the lecture will contain elements that are beyond my grasp, but fuelled by the basic understanding of what led to the present day financial collapse (thanks to Sandeep, an economist friend), I sat and listened.

He stated that the present crises is because the market & financial system have been hit right at the centre. It has become a crises of the system rather than within the system - the crises is truly global, truly indiscriminate and truly consequential. Big words for a big crises! He went on to say that the crises started with the cardiac arrest of the US financial system on September 12th this year, and that the unthinkable has become thinkable.

WHY this crises?
The financial development and transaction that the world has gone through, especially within the last few years, has led to a creation of new facts on the ground that has altered the institutions - their relationship with the financial system; the balance between the private and public relations - and this has also brought in unpredictable and volatile feedback into the institutions and to the system. By new facts, I understood them as being the different financial instruments and mechanisms that institutions like banks, investment firms, governments, etc. have developed over the years to reap more profits.

With regards to this present crises, he says that every policy response due to it will involve collateral damage (that means the governments will protect some institutions and let others be swept away and drown). Of course some will not drown but will be completely altered (merged), and along with them the entire system will alter to an extent that a reset will be impossible but rather resulting in the system reaching a new destination altogether. He gave the sandhill analogy to depict the current global financial system as a sand hill but having structural weaknesses, one of them being the disequilibrium that seemed stable.

This disequilibrium or imbalance has been magnified by the failure of risk management at every level in the global financial system, failure of the ratings agencies and failure of the regulatory bodies. And so the sandhill crumbled. Whoa!! thats a big failure. Things like structured finance are some of the instruments that contributed to this failure, resulting (for example) in people taking mortgages they cannot afford! And obviously, housing is linked to the stock market which in turn is linked to feedback loops (unpredictable and volatile). So for those people who were using the house as an ATM the sudden realisation that the party is over was a bitter shock.

When the Lehman Brothers went bust, with it, the trust (that most valuable component in banking) it has built for so long was destroyed. A big big OUCH!! So what happens next is the financial sector started to cut loans, sell assets and businesses...people's incomes suffer, there is credit loss, there is no spending...the system undergoes arrest!!

WHY care?
The crise is changing the rules for investors, policy makers and business strategic positions to navigate through this bumpy journey to reach the new destination. The investor can no longer depend on history for asset allocation. For policy makers it is a seriously difficult position to be in - on September 15th the global crises spilled, on October 10th there was a policy paradigm shift (eg. the US$ 700 billion rescue package in the US). But then there is no perfect policy response. As Gordon Brown said its now WIT (Whatever It Takes) policy response.

Imperfect data flow, blunt instruments, collateral damage, political checks and balances, clash of political and financial worlds and blame game all play a part in this crises.

Positioning and Retooling are essential to reach global rebalancing of the financial system. - a financial system with less institutions. He says retooling will not be easy,; it will not be automatic (as some institutions will not like to leave in a hurry what they has always been doing) and and it will involve risks. He also mentioned about the emerging markets which have experienced some financial problem between 1997 - 2002 and have begun to build self-insurance that has led them to have a high level of international return, low indebtednes and fiscal surplus. This part I didn't understand!! Will have to talk to Sandeep about this.

He felt that protectionism would be a major policy mistake at this juncture. He says that those with the will and wallet are in a position to clean up the massive liquidy in the system.

Climate Interactions

Dated: 5th November 2008

Venue: JZ Young Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, UCL

It is always good to attend events that stimulate your interest, awareness and understand of certain issues that then contribute to improvement of knowledge and insight. So it is with the Climate Interactions - an event organised by the UCL Environment Institute with support from UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Graduate School and Arup.

I later came to know that Arup is a global firm that focus on buildings, infrastructure and consulting. Its pretty huge with 10,000 staff working in more than 90 offices in 37 countries and having over 10,000 projects running concurrently at any one time. So it is an engineering firm with a keen interest in climate change issues, because obviously climate change impacts everything, and engineering business (as rightly perceived by Arup) will benefit a great deal from the science and evidence yielded through such events.

The aim of this event is:

1). to showcase the breadth and depth of climate research being undertaken within UCL, and

2). to encourage interdisciplinary climate research within the UCL community and with external policy and research partners.

‘Humans, Energy, Climate: What next?’

Prof. Chris Rapley, Director of the Science Museum and UCL Fellow was the keynot speaker. Some of the points I took home were:

1. Organisms in order to live beyond their means, have to do so with energy, and with humans, the success to acquire this energy and how they use it to gain control has been testified through the ages from using beasts of burden to fossil fuels. The great thing about fossil fuel, like oil, is that 1 barrel produces the same energy as 3500 people cycling for 1 hour.

2. Energy generates prosperity and dependence. There was a graph he showed indicating GDP/capita over KiloWatt/capita - of course countries like Japan, USA, Canada, etc. are at the extreme upper right hand portion of the graph, while most poor countries are scattered towards the lower left hand portion.

3. Over the last 100 years humans have released 500 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Currently CO2 concentrations are around 380 parts per million and projected concentration for the year 2100 is 620 ppm.

4. Decarbonisong humankind - a heading in one of his slides, where he stated that there is no real evidence or knowledge on safety limits of global mean temperatur rise. The on-going rate of CO2 emission is 1-2 million tons per year and the later we leave it the harder it is.

5. AN ABSENT HUMAN HAS NO FOOTPRINT - another catchy line which obviously mean population control. How is the world going to control population growth, which is one of the major contributing factors to climate change.

6. The difficulties in tackling climate change are, 1) the evidence is complicate and methods are very technical; 2) there si still a disconnect (in knowledge and behaviour); 3) there is an inertia in the system in honestly dealing with climate change; 4) and there are vested interest (who sow confusion and doubt); 5) INEQUITY; 6) inadequate instruments and institutions and 7) market mechanism is weak.

7). Cost of inaction > Cost of action (Stern) - So what are the actions to reduce CO2. He presented a triangle - the govt. at the apex, business and people at the two opposite end on the base. Obviously the three have to work together - individuals (especially human ingenuity and enterprise), govt. representatives and businesses. Though 'corporate greenwash' may exist, it is wrong to demonise corporates, rather their engagement is important.

8). Leadership - Lots of rhetoric so far. So what is the Green New Deal that will address the triple crunch - oil, credit and ecological? Another line 'our problems are (hu)man made, they can be solved by (hu)mans' - a J.F. Kennedy quote which he added the (hu).

9). To regulate carbon extraction is the main step (citing the example of CFC) but oil companies and govts. are not interested in that.

Next was a lecture by Dr. Paul Brown, Earth Sciences, UCL, on 'Palaeoclimate - the context for future change'. Well it was interesting when it began but after 7 minutes into the lecture I was kind of lost... the palaeontology concepts were too much for me. But, anyway I did gt some points:

1). 10% of the world's population live within a few metres of the seas and oceans. Hmm.. scary scenario in the context of climate change. Ok.. that was easy.

2). The chalk beneath out feet - Ok.. so the ground on which we stand is made of different layers of soil/sediments/etc. Fine! Coming to chalk, it means that our world was mostly under water about 100 million years ago... Oh! Ok. Now on top of the chalk rest the Clay which then meant it was formed or laid down 50 million years ago. So what he was trying to convey is that scientists (in order to look back at the earth changes) drill the ground/ice/seabed beneath out feet. Ahhh!!! OK!

3). So drilling ice cores and seabeds yield information about climate change that occured over very long periods of time. Then he tells about the Halocene period (Halo what? Err, I've heard of Halloween...) and started comparing climate change events across periods before the Halocene (that began some 10,000 years ago and continuing at present) and the present! Shit!! How deep did he drilled?

4). So the Earth has been switching between Glacial and Non-glacial events before and according to scientific calculations and evidence, the CO2 that we have released and continuing to release is pushing the Earth to a Non-glacial era! Very scary indeed!!!! So by the year 2050, if its business as usual (BAU) now, then the CO2 concentrations will reach 850 ppm ; if controlled , then its 600 ppm and if active measures are implemented , its going to be 450 ppm. And we don't want it to reach 600 and dread intensely 850. The Non-glacial era occured between 542-100 million years ago and the Glacial era was from 80-5 million years ago.

5). The age of the oceans is between 150-160 million years. That's according to geochemistry study of organic matter. Wow!! So scientists are now studying not only ice cores, rock sediments, trees and coral but organic matter and living organisms to know about climate change patterns.

6). Tex86 - this is a bacteria fromt he ocean aving a lipid cellwall which scientists are studying to reconstruct the sea surface temperatures over long periods of time. Really? WoW!!! There is an increasing acidification of the oceans.

7). Life is resilient but the Earth will take more than 170,000 years to regain its original state.

'Predicting Impacts of Climate Change'

Dr. Richard Taylor (Geography), UCL began with, 'we don't know very much how 20%/30%/50% cut in CO2 emissions will result in'... Oh!...

1). Emissions - Concentrations of CO2, methane, etc. - Heat effects (cimate forces) - Climate Change effects (temperature, etc.) - Impacts (food, flood, etc.)

2). He informed about QUEST-GSI (Global Scale Impact), UCL - an alliance to assess the effects of climate policies.

3). Freshwater availability - Warmer atmosphere holds more water (estimated 7% more water for every 1 deg. Centograde rise in temperature) though corrently it is 1-2%. So then there is going to be more water...BUT only above the lattitude. And of course, more very heavy precipitation events (extreme events - floods).

4). Less crop per drop - Research carried out in the river Mubuku in Uganda to explore inter-relationship between precipitation, ground water recharge and run-off. Finding is, storage is more important rather than mean annual river discharge (and river discharge depends on precipitation).

5). What are the impacts of global rise in mean air temperature will be one of the key discussion points in Copenhagen COP-15.

6). He talked about Uncertainty research which deals with predictions. For example quantifying difference in predicted evapotranspiration, uncertain river basin response to more intensive precipitation. The aim would be then to translate uncertainty into policy. Hmm... but assumptions based on uncertainty have always palyed a role in policy right?

It was a dark cold day and it was getting even darker by 5 pm. So I decided to leave. And though I had a bad headache when I came in, I left feeling rather stimulated (intellectually of course).

Moments on air and sand

Dated: 26th April 2008

These pictures were taken by a friend, Mahesh, a physicist with a Nikon D80 DSLR. The place is Råbjerg Mile - a migrating coastal dune between Skagen and Frederikshavn in Denmark - the largest moving dune in Northern Europe.

It has been 6 months and 7 days since I last saw these shots. I got the DVD today, sent from Denmark...Rajiv, thanks bro!!

Footsteps on the sand

Elevation...slightly

The flight sequence

Executing the Chest Bump

Na Cidade Vazia (Hollow City)

Dated: 30th October 2008

The invitation a day earlier read:

"Hello guys,
..... my organisation is having a fundraising film event tomorrow evening. It's the first film by a female Angolan director, see the below link:

http://www.africaeducationaltrust.org/documents/Hollow-City.pdf
We'll be meeting for drinks beforehand at All Bar One in Notting Hill..... It's £10 but £8 for us students!!!

Would be lovely to see you there, but I know it's short notice!

Love Annie x "

It was close to 8 pm when I arrived at the Coronet Cinema. I bought my ticket and then met up with Annie and Latifur at the All Bar One. The movie hall was rather huge with its interiors in dark shade of pink (almost reddish). Resembled more of a theatre hall than a movie hall I thought. So the movie was called Na Cidade Vazia (Portugese for Hollow City).

We followed the story of a young boy, N'dala (played by Roldan Pinto João) from a village, Bie , fleeing the war in Angola who was rescued along with other children by a nun and brought to Luanda by plane. But he hid and avoided going with the other children to where the nun was taking them.We followed his short adventure that he took in the city, all the time his face conveying that sweet innocence that is always a victim of war in the most tragic of ways. I felt happy when N'dala's new found friend, Zé, decided to help find a place for him to sleep. I was laughing when an older intoxicated woman pulled young N'dala to dance Kizomba with her. I was deeply touched by his purity when he tells Zé that he wants to go to Bie to see his parents (who were killed). Zé asked how can he see them when they are already dead, to which N'dala replied "I will see them in the sky in Bie, for the nun told me that they are in the sky".

The ending was tragic, but has conveyed the message. I felt the movie spoke out loud against the injustice that children suffered due to war and portrayed how easy it is to manipulate a child's mind. N'dala's bright eyes and awe-struck expressions will stay in my memory for a long time.

This picture is a scene from the movie, N'dala with his friend Zé sharing stories. Zé's role as a gentle caring person is well portrayed by Domingos Fernandes Fonseca. He also exudes hope of a brigter future and this message is delivered (in the movie) through his pursuit of education. A well chosen movie by those in AET who screened and selected the movie from many others.

I got some information about the director of the movie from the internet:

Maria João Ganga (born in Huambo, Angola, 1964) attended the ESEC Film School in Paris. She was assistant director on several documentaries, including ROSTOV-LUNDA by Abderrahmane Sissako. She has also written and directed for theatre. Hollow City (Na Cidade Vazia) is the first full length movie directed by Maria João Ganga which was released in 2003. The film is one of the first to be produced in Angola since the end of the civil war and the first film produced by an Angolan woman. Filming was done on location in Angola in the capital city of Luanda. International versions of the film are in the Portuguese language with English and French subtitles.