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Happy and harmonious Lunar Year of the Dragon 2012!
"Build a School For a Dollar" - In the past 5 years, Jackie's fans have donated over US $90,000 and Jackie has matched this donation for a total of over US $180,000, enough to build 2-3 schools...

Jackie Chan's Diary January 17, 2012 "...a story that I wanted to share with you. Maybe you remember the little boy, Will Shadley, who starred in "The Spy Next Door" with me several years ago. He's twelve years old now and living in California and has been spending a lot of his time doing charity work..."

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Salute to fearless volunteers - Sea Shepherd sent vessels to the area for the 7th year this season.. its 801-metric-ton Bob Barker vessel had trailed the 8,044-metric ton Nisshin Maru ship for 2,000 miles (3,220 kilometers) near the Southern Ocean, and cut off Supplies to the Japanese Whaling Fleet.. As a result, the whalers caught 170 minke whales out of a planned 850 and 2 fin whales from a planned 50. Japan has no choice but to abandon its whale hunt for the first time in four years. Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd and captain of its fleet, said: “I have a crew of 88 very happy people from 23 different nations including Japan,” he said. “And they are absolutely thrilled that the whalers are heading home and the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is now indeed a real sanctuary.”  read more »

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Eric Larsen – New World Record Created. After over 44 days on Mount Everest, Polar explorer Eric Larsen announced on October 15, 2010 that he was able to summit Everest, making him the first-ever human to successfully reach the South Pole, North Pole and summit of Mt. Everest in a continuous 365-day period: “I have been to the ‘front lines’ of Global Warming during my journeys to the North and South Poles,” Larsen says. “We can save the poles and our planet if we act now.” On January 6, 2010, Larsen and his team successfully completed a 750-mile, 48-day ski traverse to the Geographic South Pole. Larsen and a separate team reached the Geographic North Pole on April 22nd, Earth Day, after a 51-day, 500 mile push that included snowshoeing and skiing across shifting sea ice and sometimes even swimming across open water sections of the Arctic Ocean. His purpose for the Save the Poles expedition is to connect people with our last great frozen places and the environmental issues that are impacting them. Larsen uses these expeditions to promote individual action and national legislation on climate change issues.  read more »

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Warmer Arctic spells colder winters. 'Unicorn' whales do scientists favor by taking Arctic temp
It's no secret that the proverbial canary in the climate change mine is the Arctic. As National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator Jane Lubchenco noted when her organization launched its annual Arctic Report Card last week,“To quote one of my NOAA colleagues, ‘whatever is going to happen in the rest of the world happens first, and to the greatest extent, in the Arctic.’”

But, even as the Arctic warms, seemingly irrevocably, it is still a formidable environment in which to operate, particularly in the winter. The coasts of Greenland, in particular, act as pathways for ice from the Arctic Ocean, as a result of which winter research expeditions can require icebreaking vessels that cost millions of dollars to charter.

Consequently, in some areas, such as Baffin Bay, a large area between northeast Canada and southwest Greenland, winter data have been scarce -- or, in the words of Mike Steele of the University of Washington, "there was this gigantic, embarrassing hole."

Narwhal_satellite That hole is now being filled - thanks to narwhals, medium-size whales, endemic to the Arctic, known as unicorns of the seas because of the single, spiralling tusk found in males.  read more »

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Valles Garcia, who is the mother of a baby boy, said she took the job to change her community. "We're all afraid in Mexico now. We can't let fear beat us," she said after being sworn in. The district has 9,148 inhabitants, and a police force of nineteen. Valles Garcia says she intends to hire more women, and focus on community outreach and prevention. In the near city of Juarez, she's called by locals "La Adelita", a suitable nickname since it was the iconic figure of courageous women in times of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

CNN: 20-year-old woman becomes top cop in violent Mexican municipality. Valles Garcia, a criminology student, became the police chief this week of Praxedis G. Guerrero, one of the most violent municipalities in the border state of Chihuahua. She was the only person who accepted the top job in a police force whose officers have been abducted and even killed.

"Yes, there is fear," Valles Garcia said Wednesday in an interview with CNN en Español. "It's like all human beings. There will always be fear, but what we want to achieve in our municipality is tranquility and security."

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Residents observe the rescue of the miners trapped in the San Jose mine, on a large screen in a public square in Copiapo October 12, 2010.

The capsule carrying a rescued miner arrives to the surface from the collapsed mine where he was trapped with 32 other miners for over two months near Copiapo, Chile on Oct. 13, 2010.

Family members approach the capsule containing miner Richard Villaroel as he is rescued from the collapsed mine.

Miner Luis Urzua, the last miner to be rescued, center wearing green, celebrates next to Chile's President Sebastian Pinera after being rescued from the collapsed San Jose mine on Wednesday Oct. 13, 2010. The 69-day underground ordeal reached its end Wednesday night after 33 trapped miners were hauled up one by one in a cage through a narrow hole drilled through 2,000 feet of rock.

Trapped miner Esteban Rojas kneels to pray after reaching the surface to became the 18th to be rescued from the San Jose mine in Copiapo October 13, 2010.  read more »

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Interview: “Blood Dolphins” Star Lincoln O’Barry

Ric O'Barry has been a leader against the cruelty inflicted upon dolphins since his days working with them during the 1960s television series "Flipper." One of the areas of the world that O'Barry, along with his son Lincoln, have targeted over the past few years is Taiji, Japan where a spot called "The Cove" became the basis of an Academy Award-winning 2009 documentary about their efforts to stop the slaughtering of dolphins. With their new three-part Animal Planet mini-series, "Blood Dolphins," the O'Barrys pick up where "The Cove" left off with the team again trying to save the lives of innocent dolphins from senseless slaughter. Besides Taiji, the men travel to the Solomon Islands, which has been labeled one of the worst areas in the world for killing dolphins for profit. Our Jim Halterman talked with Lincoln O'Barry earlier this week about the dangers of bringing cameras to further document the dolphin trade as well as how one part of the dolphin - its teeth - is viewed in some regions as more valuable than actual currency.

Jim Halterman: Your dad has been involved with saving dolphins for decades and now you're involved with his activism. Was this never a question that this was your path in life?  read more »