2012 among the 10 warmest years on record, figures show

2012 among the 10 warmest years on record, figures show

Nasa and NOAA scientists say 2012 global temperature records further consolidate a pattern of global warming

2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record, rising above the long-term average for the 36th year in a row, according to data released on Tuesday.

Temperature records compiled separately by Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global surface temperatures rose 1.03F above the long-term average last year, but did not match America's record-breaking heat. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4F since 1880.

By Nasa's records, that makes 2012 the ninth hottest year on record globally. NOAA's data set put it at the 10th hottest year. The agencies use different methods to analyse data.

In both cases, scientists said the 2012 global temperature records further consolidate a pattern of global warming. Each year of the 21st century has ranked among the 14 hottest since record keeping began in 1880.

"One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant," Nasa climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said. "What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

Temperature anomalies, or changes, by region in 2012. Reds and blues show how much warmer or cooler each area was in 2012 compared to an averaged base period from 1951-1980. Photograph: GISS/NASA

With 36 years of above-average temperatures, nobody born since 1976 has lived through a colder than average year.

By far, the most extreme heat for 2012 was in the contiguous United States, which smashed through all previous temperature records by 1F.

Tom Karl, director of NOAA's national climatic data centre, told a reporters' conference call the US temperatures were "remarkable".

Scientists said the rise in temperatures was due to carbon dioxide emissions.

"The planet is out of balance and therefore we can predict with confidence that the next decade is going to be warmer," James Hansen, a Nasa climate scientist, said.

Aside from the US, and South America, most of Europe, Africa, western, southern, and far north-eastern Asia experienced above-average temperatures.

Other parts of the world were unusually cooler than average, including most of Alaska, far western Canada, and central Asia, NOAA said. Britain also experienced slightly below average temperatures, at 0.2F below the 1981-2010 average, which was attributed to the cool summer and autumn. Britain also experienced its second wettest year since records began in 2010.

Other records highlighted by NOAA included the extreme drought across the mid-western United States, and other important farming regions including parts of Russia and Ukraine.

The Arctic experienced record low sea ice throughout the year, with sea ice cover dropping to 1.32m square miles, the lowest value ever recorded, in September 2012.

Indians migrated to Australia 4,000 years ago, genes show

Indians migrated to Australia 4,000 years ago, genes show

NEW DELHI: Indian genes had got mixed with that of Australian aboriginals more than 4,000 years ago — centuries before the Europeans colonized Down Under.

Dingo, the Australian wild dog, may have also been an Indian export besides stone tool technologies that changed the way Australian aboriginals lives their lives.

Latest scientific evidence published on Tuesday has found that Australian aboriginal and Indian genes were mixed.

A study by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has now confirmed evidence of substantial gene flow between Indian population and Australia aboriginals about 4,000 years ago.

Interestingly, the study also suggests that this migration coincided with several changes in the archaeological record of Australia, which include a sudden change in plant processing and stone tool technologies, with microliths appearing for the first time, and the first appearance of the dingo in the fossil record.

Speaking to TOI from Germany, lead researcher Irina Pugach said, "Since we detect inflow of genes from India into Australia at around the same time, it is likely that these changes were related to this migration."

She explained, "We have estimated the amount of Indian contribution to Australian genomes at around 10%, but this number doesn't tell us anything about how many individuals might have migrated. This number depends on the size of the Australian population at the time, and we don't know how big it was. The amount of Indian ancestry could have become inflated through the process known as genetic drift, especially if the Australian population was small."

"Out of the populations considered in the study, Dravidian-speaking groups are the best match to be the source populations for this migration, but this does not mean the ancestors of these groups actually were the source population. It is possible, that there is another group which we didn't sample yet. Another possibility is that this group doesn't even exist anymore," she added.

Australia holds some of the earliest archaeological evidence for the presence of modern humans outside Africa, with the earliest sites dated to at least 45,000 years ago, making Australian aboriginals one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa.

Now, researchers have analyzed genetic variation from across the genome from aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, island south-east Asians and Indians.

Dr Pugach said, "Our findings suggest substantial gene flow from India to Australia 4,230 years ago — during the Holocene and well before European contact. Currently the accepted view is that Australia has been completely isolated for almost 45 thousand years following its initial colonization in the late 1800s. Yet Australian archaeological record documents some changes which occur in Australia around — 4,000 years ago, which could have been potentially brought in from the outside."

"In principle, mid-Holocene is a period of expansion in trade interactions in the region of greater Australia, and some suspected Island Southeast Asia as a potential source of the observed cultural shift in Australia. Some previous genetic studies also hinted at possibility of gene flow from India. The significance of our work is that we examined this question with much more genetic data and were able to firmly establish a signal of gene flow from India to Australia. We were also able to date this gene flow to 4,000 years ago," she added.

The study said that though the DNA of dingoes appears to have a south-east Asian origin, "morphologically," the dingo most closely resembles Indian dogs.

It cited genetic and archaeological evidence to suggest that anatomically modern humans expanded from Africa and colonized all corners of the world, replacing with limited gene flow local archaic Homo populations. The expansion of modern humans apparently proceeded via two routes: the northern dispersal that gave rise to modern Asians 23,000-38,000 years ago and an earlier southern dispersal, which followed the coast around the Arabian Peninsula and India to the Australian continent. It has been suggested that the ancestors of aboriginal Australians diverged from the ancestral Eurasian population 62,000-75,000 years ago and, based on archaeological evidence, reached Sahul — the joint Australia-New Guinea landmass — by at least 45,000 years ago.

The prevailing view is that until the arrival of the Europeans in the late 18th century, there was little, if any, contact between Australia and the rest of the world although some chromosomal studies suggested some gene flow to Australia from the Indian sub-continent during the Holocene (around 12,000 to 11,500 years ago).

"Here, we analyze genome data and find a significant signature of gene flow from India to Australia, which we date to about 4,230 years ago," the study said.

Australian scientist claims major breakthrough in AIDS cure

Australian scientist claims major breakthrough in AIDS cure

An Australian scientist said on Wednesday he had discovered how to turn the HIV virus against itself to stop it progressing to AIDS, describing it as a major breakthrough in finding a cure for the disease.

David Harrich, from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, said he had successfully modified a protein in HIV that the virus needed to replicate and instead made it inhibit virus growth.

"I have never seen anything like it. The modified protein works every time," said Harrich.

"If this research continues down its strong path, and bear in mind there are many hurdles to clear, we're looking at a cure for AIDS."

Harrich said the modified protein, which he had named Nullbasic, had shown a "remarkable" ability to arrest HIV growth in a lab environment and could have exciting implications both in curbing AIDS and treating existing HIV sufferers.

He described it as "fighting fire with fire".

"The virus might infect a cell but it wouldn't spread," said Harrich of his study, published in the latest edition of the journal Human Gene Therapy.

"You would still be infected with HIV, it's not a cure for the virus, but the virus would stay latent, it wouldn't wake up, so it wouldn't develop into AIDS," he added.

"With a treatment like this, you would maintain a healthy immune system."

The fact that a single protein could be so effective could spell an end to onerous multiple drug regimes for HIV patients, he added, meaning better quality of life and lower costs to individuals and governments.

"In that respect, this is a world-first agent that's able to stop HIV with a single agent at multiple steps of the virus lifecycle," Harrich told ABC Radio.

"You either have to eliminate the virus infection or alternatively you have to eliminate the disease process and that's what this could do, potentially for a very long time."

Animal trials of the protein are due to start this year, with any treatment using it likely to be some years away.

According to the latest UN figures, the number of people infected by HIV worldwide rose to 34 million in 2011 from 33.5 million in 2010.

The vast majority (23.5 million) live in sub-Saharan Africa, with another 4.2 million in South and Southeast Asia.

Nurses arrested while protesting in Bangalore

Nurses arrested while protesting in Bangalore

Bangalore: Around hundred members of a city-based Nurses Association were on Wednesday arrested as they tried to lay a siege to the Bangalore Medical College demanding regularisation of their services, police said. 

Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute Stipendiary Staff Nurses Welfare Association members, who were on a relay fast at Bannappa Park for about a week, marched to the BMC raising slogans against the managements of four hospitals, police said. 

They were arrested when they tried to barge into the BMC, police said. 

The stipendiary nurses had been working for the past five to six years in the four hospitals coming under BMCRI on a monthly stipend of Rs 7,000.

BMCRI has been demanding regularisation of their services for the last few years. 

Artery blockage likelier during IVF pregnancies

Artery blockage likelier during IVF pregnancies

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is associated with an increased risk of pulmonary embolism - blockage of the main artery of the lung - and venous thromboembolism - blood clots - during the first trimester of pregnancy, researchers say. 

IVF has been used since 1978 for the 10 percent of couples worldwide affected by infertility. Approximately five million individuals have so far been born after IVF. 

It is well known that the risk of blood clots is increased during normal pregnancy, affecting around one in 1000 in the early 1990s. 

Blood clots have been reported in more IVF pregnancies than normal pregnancies, but so far there is no information on the risk of artery blockage following IVF, which is important since this is a leading cause of maternal deaths. 

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden therefore compared the risk of both pulmonary embolism (PE) and venous thromboembolism (VTE) in women undergoing an IVF pregnancy (23,498) and women undergoing normal pregnancy (116,960). Women were matched for age and time period (births between 1990 and 2008). The women had an average age of 33 for both groups. 

The proportion of IVF women who were diagnosed with VTE was 4.2 in 1000 compared with 2.5 in 1000 of the unexposed women. 

Risk was increased during the first trimester (1.5 in exposed and 0.3 in unexposed). There was no difference in risk prior to pregnancy or during the year after delivery. 

Researchers identified 19 women with PE in the IVF group compared with 70 women in the unexposed group. The risk of PE in the IVF women was increased during the whole pregnancy and particularly in the first trimester. 

Absolute risks for PE were low however with 2-3 additional cases per 10,000 IVF women. However, the researchers say that PE is a difficult condition to diagnose and still represents a leading cause of maternal death and so these findings are important to physicians. 

Results were not affected when adjustments were made for: maternal age, calendar years of delivery, BMI, parity, smoking, country of birth, family situation and education. 

The researchers concluded that there is an increased risk of blood clots and importantly an increased risk of artery blockage in pregnancy after IVF. 

According to them, all physicians should be aware of these results as it is a potentially fatal condition and recommend that "efforts should focus on the identification of women at risk". 

The study has been recently published in bmj.

Quit by tonight: Pak cleric's ultimatum to govt

Quit by tonight: Pak cleric's ultimatum to govt

Islamabad: Thousands of protesters led by Canada-returned cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri, rallied in Islamabad for the third day in a row today, giving the government time till tonight to quit and dissolve the national and provincial assemblies to pave the way for electoral reforms. 

Qadri, who marched into Islamabad with his supporters on Monday and began a protest near parliament, outlined four demands during his speech this afternoon, including electoral reforms according to the Constitution before polls and reconstitution of the Election Commission. 

He said there should be no secret compromise between the ruling Pakistan People's Party and main opposition PML-N on forming a caretaker government to oversee the next general election and the immediate dissolution of the national and provincial assemblies. 

"The government should decide by tonight (on these demands)," said Qadri, the head of the Tehrik Minhaj-ul-Quran who returned to Pakistan last month after living in Canada for the past seven years. 

"This so-called democratic government will end today or tomorrow, God willing...Now we can't accept corruption anymore in this country. We want true democracy," he said. 

In a rambling three-hour speech loaded with religious imagery, Qadri repeatedly attacked politicians of both the ruling and opposition parties. 

At one stage, he urged his supporters to be ready to disrobe corrupt leaders and expose their "tattoos".

He incited officials to defy the government, saying it would be removed in a day or two. 

Qadri's protest received a shot in arm yesterday, when the Supreme Court issued an order to arrest Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf over graft charges linked to power projects just as the cleric was making a fiery speech against "corrupt and incompetent" politicians. 

During his speech today, Qadri said the government and the premier had lost their moral authority after the Supreme Court's order to arrest Ashraf and could not be allowed to continue. 

Despite Qadri's claims that he is being supported by "millions", the crowd at Jinnah Avenue in the heart of Islamabad has been gradually thinning since yesterday. Though this is the largest demonstration in Islamabad in several years, TV anchors dismissed the cleric's claim and quoted authorities as saying that 25,000 to 50,000 people were at the protest. 

As Qadri today urged Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan to join his protest, footage on television showed large gaps in the crowd listening to the cleric. He also said his followers should be prepared for a crackdown by authorities. 

"Our chests are ready for your bullets...The first shot should be fired at me and not my followers," Qadri said, sitting inside his special bulletproof container. Qadri's supporters have set up tents on Jinnah Avenue, Islamabad's main boulevard that runs from the presidency to the commercial district of Blue Area, and brought in stocks of food and firewood. 

The entire area was covered with litter. The sudden re-emergence of the cleric months ahead of Pakistan's general election has triggered fears in political circles that he is acting as a front for the military to delay the polls and prolong the duration of a caretaker administration. 

However, Qadri said he had no interest in heading an interim administration as he was the "caretaker of the nation and of 180 million people".

The timing of the apex court's order to arrest the premier fuelled speculation about a judicial-military intervention. 

India, Pak agree to de-escalate tension on LoC

India, Pak agree to de-escalate tension on LoC

Pakistan Director General of Military Operations on Wednesday confirmed to his Indian counterpart that orders have been passed onto his troops to observe ceasefire strictly and exercise restraint. 

The DGMOs of India and Pakistan held talks at 10am on Wednesday over LoC issue and they lasted for 10 minutes, reports said.

There has been an understanding between both DGMOs that situation should not be allow to escalate.

Mixed response to Delhi court's verdict

Mixed response to Delhi court's verdict

The conviction of opposition leader and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) supremo Om Parkash Chautala and his legislator son Ajay Singh Chautala by a CBI court in New Delhi in the Junior Basic Trained (JBT) teacher recruitment scam has evoked a mixed response. Senior youth INLD leader Jatinder Balhara and former district president of the party, Dharam Pal Makdoli, said that Congress party had falsely implicated their leaders to settle political scores. 

Balhara alleged that the Congress misused power and influenced the Central Board of Investigation in framing Chautalas. Both the leaders, however, reposed faith in the judiciary and hoped that their leaders would come clean after challenging the verdict in upper courts.

On the other hand, Naveen Jaihind of Aam Aadmi Party hailed the Rohini CBI court's decision. Jaihind said that conviction of Chaultalas would strengthen the public faith in the judiciary.

Casting aspersions on the functioning of the Congress government in Haryana, he said, "recruitments done during the Hooda government were equally biased." While demanding an inquiry into all the recruitments done during the current Congress government by a retired Supreme Court judge, he claimed that a scam of much bigger level would come to fore.

Meanwhile, Haryana CPM state secretariat welcomed the Rohini CBI court's decision in the JBT recruitment scam case.

The party reiterated its demand for an effective and independent lokpal at the Centre and lokayukat in the state.

Notably, Om Prakash Chautala and his legislator son Ajay Chautala, along with 53 others, were convicted on Wednesday by a Delhi court for the illegal recruitment of over 3,000 JBT teachers in the state in year 2000, during the INLD rule. The court has fixed January 22 for pronouncing the quantum of sentence. 

Mali: a guide to the conflict

Mali: a guide to the conflict

Malians have welcomed France's decision to commit forces but there are fears conflict could spread in fragile Sahel region

The issue at a glance

France last week launched air strikes against Islamist camps and mobile forces in Mali, its former colony, to stop a rebel offensive and "safeguard" Mali's existence. President François Hollande said France intended to "destroy" the Islamists or take them captive if possible. Islamists have warned that French troops will become bogged down for years.

Brief history

After gaining independence in 1960, Mali endured decades of instability until Alpha Oumar Konaré was elected president in the country's first democratic election in 1992. He was succeeded in 2002 by Amadou Toumani Touré, a former army lieutenant-colonel who ruled until a coup launched last year by a group of young officers angry at the military's failure to stop Islamist insurgents.

Why is Mali politically significant?

The west and Mali's neighbours fear that the Islamists, who took over northern Mali, an area the size of France of desert and rugged mountains, will use the country to destabilise the rest of west Africa, including neighbouring Niger, France's main source of uranium for its nuclear industry. Nigeria already faces a growing Islamist threat in Boko Haram; its president, Goodluck Jonathan, has said: "We can no longer surrender any part of the globe to extremism." Bamako, the capital, is also home to about 6,000 French citizens.

How did the rebels get so far?

Relations between the north and south have been historically fraught. The north has chafed under southern rule; the region has seen major rebellions from the Tuareg – nomadic – communities who feel marginalised in an already poor country. There have been rebellions in the 1990s, 2006-08 and the one last year that precipitated the present crisis. According to the International Crisis Group, a Brussels thinktank, deep resentment was caused by stories of massacres, the poisoning of wells and forced exile from 1963, score-settling by pro-government militias against Tuareg civilians in the 1990s. The 2012 rebellion was partly an unintended consequence of Muammar Gaddafi's downfall in Libya. The Libyan "blowback" took the form on an influx of Libyan weapons and the return of Tuaregs who formerly fought for the Libyan dictator. Those weapons and the presence of seasoned fighters tipped the balance. In early 2012, the rebels swept aside government troops in the north and started imposing sharia law. They banned smoking and music and made women wear headscarves. Timbuktu proved a key moment in the rebellion, as the hardline Islamist groups MUJWA and Ansar Dine, backed by AQIM, al-Qaida's north African wing, took the ascendancy over the more secular group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). In a move reminiscent of the destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Islamist militants damaged Sufi tombs inside a 15th-century mosque in Timbuktu. Ansar Dine displaced MNLA as the main rebel group, thanks to AQIM's financial support. It has managed to recruit some elements of the MNLA by paying them.

What was the effect of the rebel success on the south?

The initial rebel gains were the final straw for an already disgruntled military. Junior officers had long been unhappy with Touré as they were passed over for promotion in favour of officers from Touré's generation. The increasing number of western hostages captured in neighbouring countries and whisked to northern Mali, described as AQIM's sanctuary, further damaged Touré's reputation. At the end of 2010, AQIM had reportedly received €50m worth of ransom money since 2003, with each western hostage worth around €2.5m to the countries that paid up. In March 2012, a junta consisting of junior officers led by Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo attacked the presidential palace just weeks before scheduled elections. The mutineers said they acted because of the government's failure to provide adequate equipment to the army to defend the country's territorial integrity. A massacre of about 20 soldiers at Aguelhoc in particular incensed the officers. Before the coup, the rebels needed only two months to capture several positions, including Tessalit and Amachach. After the coup, an increasingly disorganised army abandoned three regional capitals, Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao.

What happens next?

Despite bombardments from French warplanes and helicopters, the insurgents pushed south towards the capital, Bamako, and overran the central town of Diabaly, 250 miles to the north, where French troops are heading. The French defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, described the Islamists as heavily armed, very determined and very well organised – a French helicopter was shot down on the first day of the strikes. France, which plans to deploy 2,500 soldiers, says the offensive against the rebels could take some time, and the current French level of involvement could last weeks.

France's move has won the unanimous backing of the UN security council and its force has been deployed under UN security council resolution 2085. Passed in December, it allows for a 3,000-strong African-led mission to intervene in Mali in the absence of any negotiated solution.

Paris wants troops from Ecowas, the west African regional grouping, to deploy as quickly as possible, rather than September – the original timetable for the 3,300-strong UN-sanctioned African force – to be backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services. However, Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has warned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, their training and equipping will take more time. One senior government adviser in Nigeria said the Mali deployment was stretching the country's military, which already has peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan. "The whole thing's a mess," he told Reuters. "We don't have any troops with experience of those extreme conditions, even of how to keep all that sand from ruining your equipment. And we're facing battle-hardened guys who live in those dunes."

Key issues 

For now, the rebels have fled Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, but the concern is whether the government can exert lasting control and provide security as the Islamists, experienced and highly motivated desert fighters, resort to hit-and-run tactics. Analysts say that Mali needs credible brokers rather than President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, who is distrusted by Malians. There is not much faith either in Romano Prodi, the former Italian prime minister and UN envoy of the Sahel crisis, who does not speak French and is not an expert in the region. Algeria is a key player as it is in the position of putting the most pressure on armed groups based there and its intelligence services have longstanding relations with Ansar Dine's leader, Iyad Ag Ghali. It also has long history with AQIM, as many of the group's fighters are former Algerian rebels. A big fear among analysts such as the International Crisis Group is that Mali will be seen through a "war on terror" prism, sidelining the fundamental issue of how to reconcile north and south. The north feels the south never lived up to the "national pact" of the 1990s, with its plans of gradual demilitarisation of the north, integration of rebels into special units of the national forces and economic plans to narrow the gap between north and south.

Key players

François Hollande

The French president, whose decision has received broad political support for now, felt he had little choice but to intervene given the real possibility of the Islamists taking over all of Mali. So Hollande is following in the footsteps of his predecessors from Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy by intervening in a former French African colony. So far the public is backing him, but that can soon change if French troops suffer heavy casualties or if intervention drags out. Security has been increased at Parisian landmarks at the Eiffel Tower and outside the Louvre.

Dioncounda Traoré

The interim president is viewed with some suspicion by Malians as he was an ally of the unpopular deposed president Touré. Traoré has been unable to work effectively with the junta behind the coup to lay the groundwork for the deployment of African troops.

Al-Qaida in the Maghreb (AQIM)

AQIM is the successor to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which came out of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, itself a product of the Algerian civil war. It numbered only a few hundred until early 2012, but they are experienced fighters, some of whom received military training in Afghanistan. Their ranks have probably grown since the takeover of the north.

Ansar Dine

Ansar Dine is not fighting for independence but wants sharia across the whole country. Its leader, Iyad Ag Ghali – a Tuareg noble and longtime thorn in the side of Bamako – and his supporters follow the Wahhabi sect of Islam, and are opposed by those Tuaregs who describe themselves as secularists, while most Malian Muslims belong to the rival Sufi tradition.

MNLA

The MNLA was created in 2011 by Tuareg activists after their former leader, Ibrahim ag Bahanga, was killed in a "car accident". The MNLA is a coalition of various groups, and its military leader is Mohamed Ag Najim, a Malian Tuareg who served under Gaddafi as a senior officer until the regime collapsed. It seeks independence for the Tuaregs' northern homeland, which it calls Azawad.

Key facts

Mali is a vast landlocked country located in the heart of the Sahel, a region threatened by drought and desertification. The vast majority of the people rely on the environment for their livelihoods through herding, farming, or fishing.

Population: 15,839,538 (2011)

GDP: $10,589,925,352 (2011)

GDP growth: 2.6% (2011)

Inflation: 2.8% (2011)

(World Bank)

Economic overview

According to government estimates and a recent household survey, the poverty headcount fell from 55.6% in 2001 to 47.5% in 2006 and 43.6% in 2010. Income poverty remains a largely rural phenomenon, with the rural population representing 78% of the total population. The incidence of rural poverty dropped from 65% in 2001 to 51% in 2010. Farmers, who make up 62% of the population, are the poorest, with a 57% poverty rate. Households headed by women tend to be less poor than those headed by men. Extreme poverty has dropped at the national level from 32% in 2001 to 22% in 2011, with clear regional variations.

According to the most recent data made available by the World Bank, 77.1% of Malians lived under the international poverty line in 2006 (earning less than $2 per day). It is among the world's poorest 25 countries. Despite the global financial crisis of 2008, Mali enjoyed two recent years with a growth rate of 4.7% and 5.1% (respectively 2009 and 2010).

(World Bank)

In greater depth

An International Crisis Group report in July 2012, Mali: Avoiding Escalation, provides invaluable background to the present crisis, rich in detail and insight.

In favour of intervention

Gregory Mann argues that French intervention was necessary to stop the Islamists from taking the town of Sevaré, which would have meant the loss of the only airstrip in Mali capable of handling heavy cargo planes, apart from that in Bamako. But he warns that France faces a determined and sophisticated foe.

In this interview (in French) with Jeune Afrique, Prof Mathieu Guidère of Toulouse University argues that Mali would have fallen to the Islamists without French intervention.

Against

In an article before the French intervened, Abdelkader Abderrahmane, senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa, argued that Ecowas troops would be unable to defeat the Islamists. He favours a dialogue with the MNLA and Ansar Dine to take into account the legitimate claims of the Tuaregs.

Caution

An editorial in Libération (in French) lists the ambiguities in France's intervention.

Bérangère Rouppert, a Sahel expert, highlights the risks that the intervention, although popular now, will take on a neocolonial tinge.

Meet Facebook's Graph Search Tool

Meet Facebook's Graph Search Tool

Facebook downplays Google as competitor as it launches "internal" search tool that helps you find people, photos, places and interests inside Facebook using established privacy settings.

Facebook on Tuesday introduced an internally-focused social search engine called Graph Search as a way to help people make connections within Facebook's user-defined privacy settings.

Speaking before several dozen members of the media at his company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that Graph Search had been built with privacy in mind.

"The search we wanted to build is privacy-aware," he said. "...You can only search for content that has been shared with you."

Zuckerberg described Graph Search as "a completely new way for people to get information on Facebook" and said it represented one of Facebook's three pillars, the other two being Timeline and News Feed.

[ A library limited to e-readers? Believe it: A Digital Public Library Without Paper Books. ]

For example, the Graph Search, "friends who like Star Wars and Harry Potter," would return a list of friends who have "liked" each of those movies (among other search signals) in a context that has not been hidden through Facebook's privacy controls.

Graph Search might improve privacy for Facebook users because it brings new privacy tools to help people understand who can view the content they've shared and to restrict access to that content. For example, Facebook is providing a way to untag photos in which you have been tagged, along with a way to contact people who have tagged you in their photos to request a photo's removal.

At the same time, the availability of Graph Search could make privacy more of a liability. It might encourage Facebook users to share more information about themselves and their affinities, in order to make social search more useful for their friends and for themselves. Being invisible on Facebook could impose an opportunity cost.

For example, Tom Stocky, director of product management at Facebook, suggested that Graph Search could be useful for recruiting. He demonstrated how the service could be used to find connections who had been both product managers and startup founders, on the belief that those who found companies have a talent for product management.

If recruiting through Facebook becomes popular, as it is on social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook users might feel pressure to disclose more information about their accomplishments and past employment in order to increase their visibility to those who might be hiring.

Graph Search is being rolled out gradually, and is being offered in what Zuckerberg characterized as a "limited beta." Facebook users who visit facebook.com/graphsearch will be presented with the option to join a waiting list to try the service.