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TYLER PERRY'S MADEA'S WITNESS PROTECTION (1 hr., 45 min.; R for violence throughout and brief sexuality) Madea's wit-LESS protection is more like it, am I right? Anyone? Is this thing on? Eugene Levy is the latest untutored plebe to fall under the life-lesson-dispensing benefaction of filmmaker Tyler Perry's cross-dressing alter-ego. This film was not screened for critics.

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER (1 hr., 45 min.; R for violence throughout and brief sexuality) Fourscore and seven minutes of your time is at least fourscore and six minutes more than you ever need spend contemplating this dippy historical thriller. The special effects are decent and the acting is OK, but that's not nearly worth emancipating the cost of tickets-plus-popcorn from your bank account. [D]

BATTLESHIP (2 hrs., 11 min.; PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, action and destruction, and for language) Weighed down by the general dumb-cluck-ery and stupidity of its plot and parameters, this board-game-inspired alien invasion story sinks like a stone. The special effects are decent and the acting are satisfactory, but there's just too much leaden ridiculousness. [D]

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Capsule Reviews of Films Playing at Local Theaters

Lindsay Kus Anchor/Reporter

6:12 p.m. EDT, June 27, 2012

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich

From the eye-catchingimage of President Gerald R. Ford on snow skis spray-painted off I-196, to the gang messages popping up on homes and businesses, neighbors in Grand Rapids are seeing more graffiti.

"I have seen an increase, even just driving around. No matter what it is, it is all considered vandalism," said Captain Daniel Savage with the Grand Rapids Police Department. Most of the tagging is popping up on business storefronts.

"It is very frustrating," explained Synia Jordan, owner of Samaria J's Salon located at 701 Grandville Ave SW. Her salon has been tagged twice this year. On Wednesday, young employees spent the afternoon power washing the siding where dark spray paint coated the white.

"We paint, they come back. It is not so much the cost, but the time spent cleaning. The West Grand Neighborhood Organization is one group trying to get the word out about cleaning up the vandalism.

"Something needs to be done, it is very frustrating.Businesseswant to be here because of all the graffiti," said Nola Stetekee, Director of TheWest Grand Neighborhood Organization, is backing a product made by Omega Environmental Services that specializes in graffiti removal with a spray product and deterrent.

"What it is is a combination of chemicals that are water-based and that react to heat and pressure to remove the product from the wall," said Timmy Sanders with Omega Environmental Services.

He says their product not only takes off the graffiti, but doesn't damage the brick or other surfaces by leaving behind marks.

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Graffiti Up In GR; Company Offers Clean Solutions

At least 15 people were killed in landslides in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar districts in southeastern Bangladesh amid heavy downpour yesterday.

Much of the port city, Chittagong, went under knee-deep to waist-deep water.

Eleven of the victims -- five of them children aged between two and 12 -- died in separate landslides in different parts of Chittagong.

In Cox's Bazar, four persons were killed as large chunks of earth fell on their hillside homes in different areas of Maheshkhali upazila, police said.

Several people in the port city were reported missing following a number of avalanches at Uttar Pahartali and Banshkhali areas.

All domestic and international flight operations to and from Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport were declared suspended at 4:30 p.m. as the runway was inundated.

Train services on the Dhaka-Chittagong route were cut off as a railway bridge at Bhatiari collapsed around 8:00 p.m., presumably due to the downpour.

As the monsoon torrent kept lakhs of people stranded at home throughout the day since early morning, business in the country's commercial capital came to a near halt.

With most of the areas of the city submerged, at least 11 areas experienced total power blackout for about 12 hours since 8:00 a.m. Power connection was restored in some of the areas after 8:30 p.m.

The Power Development Board snapped the connections fearing accidents resulting from short circuits, said Md Moniruzzaman, public relations officer of Chittagong PDB.

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Landslides kill 15 in southeastern Bangladesh

Arvind Subramanian: Katherine Boo, India and China Boo's reportage on a Mumbai slum highlights the Indian state's inability to provide the basics Arvind Subramanian / Mar 28, 2012, 00:41 IST

The even-handedness that stems from Katherine Boos natural and abundant empathy is one of the many appeals of Behind the Beautiful Forevers, her gorgeous book on one of Mumbais slums, Annawadi. Thus, both cassandras-cum-state interventionists such as Amartya Sen and hope purveyors-cum-market enthusiasts such as the late management guru C K Prahalad can claim vindication in the book.

And yet, Indias generalised economic dynamism, which allows the books teenage protagonist, Abdul, to support a family of 11, leavens life with hope and entrepreneurial possibilities. Prahalads point was that the poor had exploitable purchasing power, and the explosive sales of cheap and small-sized sachets of washing powder, paan and other consumables over these last few decades seemed corroborative evidence. Boos book shows that the Prahalad strategy works in part because the poor can acquire purchasing power in unlikely ways.

First, by hustling in waste: one might say that for many Annawadi residents, life is all about crap and scrap. In a nice twist, globalisation plays a key positive role in this hustling. When global commodity prices boom, so does the value of commodity-related waste aluminium, plastic, copper, steel the scavenging for which provides sustenance for the slum dwellers. Similarly, when foreign tourist traffic slows down, the supply of waste declines, thus depressing slum incomes. Blinkered to the lives of the marginalised, we instinctively equate globalisation with the free flow of goods, forgetting that bads such as detritus which are not bad at all for the poor are globalised too.

Second, the poor acquire purchasing power by partaking of the venality and corruption of those in power. The book is a reminder that the perpetrators of corruption are not its exclusive beneficiaries. As Boo writes: For the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained.

The trickle-down of public funds looted is a source of income for some of the poor. Electoral politics compels venal politicians to share their loot even if, or especially because, it is ill-gotten. After all, Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi have spread TV ownership in Tamil Nadu despite their motives and means being thoroughly dubious. Trickle-down must also occur because of the pseudo-accountability required of poverty interventions. To allow donors to feel good about themselves, they must see first-hand the changing reality on the ground. Some collateral benefit, even if cosmetic, is unavoidable.

But the most important and depressing development insight that Behind the Beautiful Forevers offers is this: the related pathologies we variously call weak public institutions, ineffective governance, and corruption are especially costly, and most difficult to escape from, for the poorest.

Boo perceptively notes that succumbing to the narrative of jugaad the creative entrepreneurial spirit associated with circumventing regulation and corruption growth-addled India is in danger of overlooking the colossal costs for the poor of deteriorating Indian governance. And her explanation of these costs is novel. It is not just that navigating, say, the Indian judicial system can be time-consuming, financially draining, and livelihood-destroying. The Indian system severs the link between effort and result, engendering deep despair: We try so many things, as one Annawadi girl put it, but the world does not move in our favour.

Worse, since life at the bottom has a dog-eat-dog quality, a collective action trap condemns the poor to coping with, rather than having any chance of reforming, Indias institutions. Instead of uniting, poor people competed ferociously with one another for gains as slender as they were provisional, Boo writes. As a result, the gates of the rich, intermittently rattled, remained unbreached... The poor took down one another and the worlds great cities soldiered on in relative peace.

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Arvind Subramanian: Katherine Boo, India and China

Here is another Pinay making us all proud. Amazing singer and more power to her!

That should have been NY Times ESOL 2008 Teacher of the Year.

Anyway, congratulations kuya Chito!

I really like her song that goes like this: Panahon na Panahon na Man, thats quite incomplete but I really like that song!

Shes reliving the music of Filipinos the jazz way! I have listened to some of it and they were really good!

Way to go ate Charmaine!

For how many years are they going to clean our Manila Bay?

As a family, we have seen her concert and performance at and are very proud of her accomplishments. Her rendition of Dahil Sa Iyo is the best and another song that I love to play and made her quite famous and is played in mainstream radio is Minamahal Kita.

Yes, please listen to her music and if you love jazz her music is indeed something to be proud of as a Filipino.

Mabuhay!

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Candice Adea wins Ballet’s Top Prize at Helsinki Competition

Here is another Pinay making us all proud. Amazing singer and more power to her!

That should have been NY Times ESOL 2008 Teacher of the Year.

Anyway, congratulations kuya Chito!

I really like her song that goes like this: Panahon na Panahon na Man, thats quite incomplete but I really like that song!

Shes reliving the music of Filipinos the jazz way! I have listened to some of it and they were really good!

Way to go ate Charmaine!

For how many years are they going to clean our Manila Bay?

As a family, we have seen her concert and performance at and are very proud of her accomplishments. Her rendition of Dahil Sa Iyo is the best and another song that I love to play and made her quite famous and is played in mainstream radio is Minamahal Kita.

Yes, please listen to her music and if you love jazz her music is indeed something to be proud of as a Filipino.

Mabuhay!

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De Ocampo receives from UK’s QE II Order of the British Empire

Interviewee: Thomas Bollyky, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development, Council on Foreign Relations Interviewer: Toni Johnson, Senior Editor/Senior Staff Writer June 22, 2012

The Rio+20 conference on sustainable development is unlikely to deliver the sweeping international environmental mandates that followed the original high-level environmental summit of 1992 in Rio, which set the international agenda for the next two decades. Much has changed since then, from the rise of emerging economies to increasing urbanization, the global financial crisis and "summit fatigue," says CFR's Thomas Bollyky, who also notes that Rio+20 comes "on the heels of a series of global summits that produced little." He says that there is possible space to negotiate on sustainable technology cooperation and transfer and lowering trade barriers to environmental services. "Relative success, or at least a somewhat positive outcome, would be a perception of the Rio+20 conference that does not entirely sap the momentum around sustainable development and small-scale initiatives that create momentum for the future," he says. "We may see tangible, productive proposals emerging at the national, city, and state level."

How would you compare the 2012 Rio summit with the one twenty years ago?

The original Rio conference introduced the concept of sustainable development and made climate change a standing issue on the world's agenda for world leaders to discuss. It produced treaties and multilateral institutions to help shape international cooperation on climate change, biodiversity, desertification, and global funding to address these challenges. It was really met, at the time, with tremendous optimism. The 1992 conference was attended by [then] President George H.W. Bush, and environmentalism was an issue in the U.S. presidential election; more European leaders were there as well.

The situation now is quite different, and a much more difficult terrain. There is has been tremendous population growth; unprecedented urbanization, particularly in low- and middle- income countries; and a rise of emerging economies, all combining to put pressure on the environment and social systems. Energy needs are predicted to grow 50 percent by 2035 and water demand to grow about the same rate over the same period. Cities in China and India alone will add five hundred million people to their urban populations in the next twenty years. Throw that into the mix with the gloomy economic situation, and major leaps forward at this conference were just non-starters.

There's tremendous fatigue with summits and a lack of consensus, particularly on these broad, systemic issues.

The one other element is summit fatigue. There's just not a good history of a global summit of this kind, with a broad agenda, actually delivering change in how the world does its economic or energy business. It is also coming on the heels of a series of global summits that produced little, including the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 and similar gatherings in Cancun and Durbin. It's coming on the heels of a UN general assembly on non-communicable diseases last year, which was also meant to replicate what was perceived as a successful summit on HIV years ago. There's tremendous fatigue with summits and a lack of consensus, particularly on these broad, systemic issues, on how responsibilities and costs should be shared by major powers.

What's significant in terms of what's on the table in the communiqu to be debated?

First, there will be a recasting of the notion of sustainable development, broadening it to encompass the concepts of poverty eradication and social inclusion--which is really about income and wealth disparity, which is growing throughout the world, in middle income countries in particular.

The other strong theme in this communiqu is setting up a process to negotiate sustainable development goals, which are meant to mirror or complement the Millennium Development Goals when they expire in 2015. These goals are intended to provide a yardstick for this conversation as it proceeds around sustainable development, a framework for that discussion, and a flag to rally civil society supporters around. These goals are expected to cover topics connected to sustainable consumption and production, particularly with regard to oceans, food security, agricultural production, access to water, and sustainable cities. It will be a challenge to negotiate though. These issues are complex and politically contentious, and you'll need these goals to be both universal--to apply to both developed and developing countries--and comprehensive.

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Nuclear Power Safety Concerns

ALISTAIR Campbell has been working the media to flog his latest book, The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq The Alastair Campbell Diaries. He did not download it off the internet in 45 minutes. But on the web (here) can read thethe full transcript from last nights book launch at Queen Mary, University of London, where Campbell was interviewed by John Rentoul Independent on Sunday columist and Queen Mary History Fellow, and introduced by Alun Evans of the Cabinet Office.The event was hosted by the Mile End Group.

Campbell talks about:

- The Vanity Fair journalist who said, can I ask you about your faith. Campbell stepped in and said David, we dont do God. That is how it started. He put I, in his piece, on like page 25. The Daily Telegraph picked it up and ran it on like page seven. And it then just sort of went whoosh. And now I get asked about it all the time.

- Tony Blairs time in office: Tony had only a small group around him who he could completely trust. Trust in the obvious sense but also trust to say what we think. I thought one of his huge strengths as a leader was that he was surrounded by people who werent at all deferential, we would always say what we thought and he would then kind of weigh that up.

- Blairs decision to sack Gordon Brown in 2003. He obviously thought that was the right thing then but very quickly he got in to the mindset of thinking actually its not black and white and you cant quite predict what will happen if I do, and so he didnt.

- Having to read his diary, in full, to a complete stranger for the Hutton Inquiry: I did read the really personal bits in there and I did at one point break down in tears saying I just cant do this, I dont see why and I having to do this?. And he said: look I know this is really, really hard but the Prime Minister has set up an inquiry, you are a key advisor to the Prime Minister, youve got to cooperate in every which way. Now, Im glad I took the advice. Because with Lord Hutton I think my diaries actually helped rather than hindered.

First-year Queen Mary geography student, Temitayo Akindeinde caused much hilarity from the rest of the audience when she asked Campbell which of his legs was longer than the other? He took off his shoes to pull out his orthotics, revealing that the right leg was shorter. Campell told Temitayo that her question was something no one had ever asked him, and he bought her a copy of his diaries at the book-signing afterwards.

The full transcript:

John Rentoul:

I have read all of the fourth volume, I am pleased to say I have defaced and damaged the book, turned down most of the corners and scrawled in the margins. Im not really middle class as you can tell; youre not supposed to do that to books.But its fascinating stuff, as you would expect because this was really the turmoil years of the Blair Government, 2001 to 2003. Youve got everything from 9/11 to the Iraq War, which, of course, was the sort of turning point for Blair Government.What is absolutely amazing reading this is that Tony Blair carried on being Prime Minister for four years after all this happened, and after he lost Alastair Campbell, who was such a huge supporter.And there are all sorts of very important things in this, such as one of Alastair Campbells legs is longer than the other. I dont know what that signifies but it makes running marathons pretty difficult.But let me start by asking Alastair, if you could just tell us how you wrote this? How often did you write this? How long did you spend writing it? Was it done on the computer or was it hand written?

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The Alistair Campbell Interview and highlights from ‘The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq – The Alastair Campbell ...

ELLSWORTH Jaspers restaurant in Ellsworth is marking 55 years in business this Saturday, June 23, with live music from 2 p.m. till closing.

Troy Adams, the third generation of the family to own and operate the popular restaurant, observed that June 23 is, coincidentally, Jasper Tildens birthday.

Three live bands will perform outdoors and indoors on Saturday. The local rock group Whoopie Kat will play outdoors at 2. At the same time, Jaspers will put on a barbecue. The price for a single serving will be $10; all you can eat is $15.

The band Skyscaper will take over from 5:30-8 p.m. and then the party moves indoors for open mike and the music of the Fairmoans.

My grandfather ran this place from 1957 to 1980, then my mother ran it from 1980 to 2000 and Ive run it since 2000, Adams said. He started it on fried clams and here we are.

Among the many anniversary specials will be fried clams at $5.55 for a lunch portion and $19.57 dinner specials.

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Jasper’s Celebrates 55th Anniversary

Published on June 21, 2012

The so-called Green economy will intensify the plunder of the worlds remaining natural wealth and the privatization of critical services, technologies and products through Public-Private Partnerships and similar market-driven mechanisms. Frances Quimpo, Kaliakasan Partylist

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO Bulatlat.com

MANILA Hundreds of environmental activists in the Philippines held a protest action in front of the United States Embassy to show solidarity with peoples from other countries during the June 20 Global Day of Action. The Global Day of Action coincided with the opening of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development. In Brazil, Filipino environmentalists, agrarian reform advocates, womens rights leaders and progressive economists also led parallel activities at the conference site in Rio de Janeiro.

The Rio+20 conference is the follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit also held in Rio de Janeiro that promoted the concept of Sustainable Development. The Agenda 21 was the summits resultant action plan, which was adopted by the 178 participating governments.

The groups led by the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) and Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) challenged world leaders to reverse the prescribed natural resource and industry privatization and commercialization schemes packaged as the greening of key economic sectors, a business-as-usual approach that benefit top polluter nations led by the US.

Trying to save face after destroying global ecology

In a statement from Brazil where he is attending counterpart activities to Rio+20 Conference, Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE, said the worlds advanced capitalist nations are trying to save face after 20 years of global ecological destruction and socio-economic crisis under the banner of sustainable development.

The green economy paradigm peddled in the United Nations has given nothing but public-private investments and other market-based mechanisms in reducing the ecological and carbon footprints of industries, he said. The transition to a Green Economy, according to its architects, calls for financing from international financial institutions, speculators, conditional loans and other market-driven forces. It is clear from our two decades of experience under the corporatization of such sectors as energy, water and mining that public development standards are never met when project implementers are profit-oriented, he said.

The activities are sponsored by Ibon International, Rights for Sustainability and Cupula dos Povos.

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‘Greening’ of economy, a business ploy