Clearly I can't get enough. This time, exploring the government's least favorite secret tunnels, the oil sands of Canada, spy planes that fight fires, Coca Cola's 'free fertilizer' for India, and, among all the usual suspects, Google and Nortec at the border...
...

At Camp Bucca, "a desert moonscape of 130-degree temperatures and howling winds" detainees in Iraq's exploding prison population secretly excavated a 357 foot underground escape tunnel, with "flashlights built from radio diodes," and walls "sculpted smooth and strong as concrete" with buckets and milk. The insurgency hardly unequipped even in one of the most unforgiving detention camps in all of Iraq. "Undetectable to the naked eye, the field's changing color was picked up by satellite imagery. The excavated dirt was also clogging the showers and two dozen portable toilets. The dirt was showing up under the floorboards of tents; some guards sensed that the floor itself seemed to be rising. Mysteriously, water use in the compound had spiked." A couple of hundred inmates moved 100 tons of soil in about eight weeks, creating a bunker for what would erupt into full scale urban riot that would last 4 days. (pics)



In Washington, DEA official are filling one half of a tunnel with concrete, that stretched across the border of British Columbia and Washington state, apparently built to smuggle marijuana. The 110-metre tunnel was the fist covert passage ever discovered between the U.S. and Canada, "and was equipped with electricity, ventilation and sump pumps to ensure water didn't gather." (more)




milit_urb


- Iraq reconstruction shows 'limited progress.' Need for extra security, money lost to corruption, hinder rebuilding efforts.
- U.S. Military Releases Nearly 1,000 Prisoners in Iraq
- The soul of resistance: civil war parallels in US and Iraq. An 'insurgency' kept America dangerous and divided for 100 years.
- Militarization of Politics; Politicization of the Military
- Changes Recommended by Base Closing Panel
- VP Dick Cheney is going to Alberta next month to visit the Canadian oil sands, touted as having the largest oil reserves outside of Saudi Arabia.. Alaska, however, is cashing in.
- Underground Land Values (updated via planetizen)
Very often, underground land values appear to be a missing factor in land economics and planning.
- The Inland Empire | Chelyabinsk, Russia (updated)
- Asia's nuclear boom Twenty-five nuclear power plants are under construction worldwide. Sixteen of these are in Asia. China, which has nine nuclear power plants, is the most ambitious in its plans. It aims to add 30 new plants over the next 15 years, at a cost of US$50 billion. India plans to add eight.


surveill_mapping


- "Marijuana crop-spying cameras" in Warren County
- Bahrain has decided to set up high-tech surveillance cameras in several areas
- Smog Cops to Look for Emissions of Guilt
- Ferry passengers from Marin County to San Francisco are the testers for a new gadget that scans for explosives in name of counterterrorism.
- MTA Approves Security Cameras for L.A. Subway and Light-Rail
- One Wilshire: Hotel Cyberspace
- Manhattan Transformations is a 3D interactive look at the building development of Manhattan over time.

Google Earth as Terrorist Tool? | Disputed Borders and Names

- High-tech spy planes might fight fires
- Rumble in the Mojave: racing autonomous military robots in the desert.
- Surveillance drones, mimicking gulls, alter wing shape for agility
- Global Aerial Surveillance intends to capitalize on what the company sees as an opportunity in the civilian and military markets to provide Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for a myriad of potential applications.


squatt_citi


- Chicago Public Radio's broadminded international issues and analysis show, devoted its August 24th broadcast to the world's squatter cities talking with R Neuwirth.
- India: Everything Gets Worse With Coca-Cola: In the end it was the ‘generosity’ of Coca-Cola in distributing cadmium-laden waste sludge as ‘free fertilizer’ to the tribal aborigines who live near the beverage giant’s bottling plant in this remote Kerala village that proved to be its undoing."
- Orangi, one of the biggest of Karachi's 539 squatter settlements--built through the illegal occupation and subdivision of state land--was once a stinking township with a primitive, almost non-existent sanitation system. Substandard housing, open sewers and alleys filled with garbage and human ordure, Orangi was once considered an eyesore by officials. Today, almost 25 years later, they show-case it as a success story to local and foreign urban planners, donor agencies, non-government organisations (NGOs) working in water supply and sanitation, and even anthropologists.
- Near Downtown's Glitter Lies a Civic Problem:In the shadow of downtown Los Angeles' glittering Bunker Hill skyscrapers is a 50-block area of grime, despair, struggle and hope known as skid row.
- Death of 17 Immigrants in Paris Fire Prompts Broad Inquiry: The fire was the second in four months to strike substandard housing in Paris. In April, 24 people died in a similar blaze that brought new attention to the plight of immigrants who live in overcrowded and decrepit conditions while waiting sometimes for decades for subsidized housing.


borderzone


- The Nortec Collective has released a new album, The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 3. I love these dudes. Read about it. Do el Mash-up: Latin alternative, the place for effortless musical miscegenation
- Buildings to be bulldozed in Mexican border town: to help improve security in the area Gov. of New Mexico is overseeing the bulldozing of Mexican village Las Chepas, where 60 to 100 people are said to live and is allegedly a bunker for drug/human trafficking.
- Homeland Security Chief Tells of Plan to Stabilize Border
- America's border troubles, north and south


isR_Pal

Palestinians' Big Plans for Gaza, With a Bit of Doubt: Where the Israeli settlement of Netzarim once drew rage and mortar fire, Palestinian planners envision a cultural center and museum. In place of the settlement of Morag they see an agricultural research facility.
- Israel Confirms Plan to Seize West Bank Land for Barrier
- State: W. Bank settler population grew by 12,800 in past year
- Jewish population in West Bank expanding rapidly
- Palestinians insist Gaza still occupied
- Mofaz: Rafah border terminal should be used for exits only
- Next up for Israeli bulldozers: outposts?
- Settlement expansion plans would spell the end of 'road map' negotiations
- Next month in NYC, catch Designing Palestine: An Evening with Architect Doug Suisman