| 3/8/2008 |
| Protecting All Waters |
| Half of the waters in the United States are at risk of pollution or destructive development because of a wrongheaded Supreme Court decision in 2006; The decision narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act, weakened the law’s safeguards and thoroughly confused the federal agencies responsible for enforcing it;Before things get any worse, Congress should approve the Clean Water Restoration Act; The bill would reaffirm the broad federal protections that Congress intended when it passed the law in 1972 |
| 2/21/2008 |
| Kosovo 'tool kit for separatists' |
| Kosovo's independence has provided a tool kit for secessionist movements in Europe and beyond, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has said;He also said recognition of Kosovo by some EU members would jeopardise Serbia's path to EU membership;His remarks came as Nato troops reopened Kosovo's northern borders, closed after the demolition of two border posts by Serbian protesters |
| 2/6/2008 |
| entagon: The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system" |
| The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap is blunt about the fact that an internet, with the potential for free speech, is in direct opposition to their goals. The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system"; The 2003 Pentagon document entitled the Information Operation Roadmap was released to the public after a Freedom of Information Request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University in 2006A detailed explanation of the major thrust of this document and the significance of information operations or information warfare was described by me here |
| 1/29/2008 |
| Judiciary Committee should move to impeach Bush and Cheney |
| Since mid-December, members of the House Judiciary Committee Robert Wexler (D., Fla.), Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.) have called for hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Cheney;This should not be surprising, given the strength of the case for impeachment. What's surprising is that it took so long for members of this committee, normally tasked with holding impeachment proceedings, to call for them |
| 1/27/2008 |
| A President Like My Father |
| OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president; This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama;My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined; All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children; I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals |
| 1/27/2008 |
| U.S. War Costs In Iraq Up: Report |
| The Iraq war may not dominate U.S. news reports as the carnage drops, but a new report underscores the financial burden of persistent combat that is helping run up the government's credit card; "Funding for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other activities in the war on terrorism expanded significantly in 2007," the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released on Wednesday;War funding, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and President George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008the nonpartisan office wrote |
| 1/15/2008 |
| Europe’s Appetite for Seafood Propels Illegal Trade |
| Fish is now the most traded animal commodity on the planet, with about 100 million tons of wild and farmed fish sold each year; Europe has suddenly become the world’s largest market for fish, worth more than 14 billion euros, or about $22 billion a year; Europe’s appetite has grown as its native fish stocks have shrunk so that Europe now needs to import 60 percent of fish sold in the region, according to the European Union;In Europe, the imbalance between supply and demand has led to a thriving illegal trade; Some 50 percent of the fish sold in the European Union originates in developing nations, and much of it is laundered like contraband, caught and shipped illegally beyond the limits of government quotas or treaties; The smuggling operation is well financed and sophisticated, carried out by large-scale mechanized fishing fleets able to sweep up more fish than ever, chasing threatened stocks from ocean to ocean |
| 1/13/2008 |
| Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles |
| The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war; In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction |
| 12/28/2007 |
| Trouble With Trade |
| hile the United States has long imported oil and other raw materials from the third world, we used to import manufactured goods mainly from other rich countries like Canada, European nations and Japan;But recently we crossed an important watershed: we now import more manufactured goods from the third world than from other advanced economies;That is, a majority of our industrial trade is now with countries that are much poorer than we are and that pay their workers much lower wages |
| 11/28/2007 |
| New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India |
| ight thousand miles from Manhattan, barefoot, shirtless, whip-thin men rippled with muscle were forging prosaic pieces of the urban jigsaw puzzle: manhole covers; As metal pours into ladles, sparks fly, sometimes igniting workers’ clothing;The Shakti Industries foundry is in West Bengal State;Seemingly impervious to the heat from the metal, the workers at one of West Bengal’s many foundries relied on strength and bare hands rather than machinery. Safety precautions were barely in evidence; just a few pairs of eye goggles were seen in use on a recent visit. The foundry, Shakti Industries in Haora, produces manhole covers for Con Edison and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, as well as for departments in New Orleans and Syracuse. |
| 11/23/2007 |
| Steep rise in Europe cocaine use |
| The EU drugs agency (EMCDDA) says the increase in cocaine seizures and quantities also confirms its status as "Europe's stimulant drug of choice";Prevalence of the drug is highest in Spain and the UK but the biggest increases are in Denmark and Italy; About two million Europeans are said to have used cocaine in the past month;The drugs agency bases its figures on information covering 2005; In that year, it says that seizures of cocaine reached record levels; A total of 107 tons of the drug was recovered - up more than 45% on the previous year |
| 11/17/2007 |
| U.N. Report Describes Risks of Inaction on Climate Change |
| Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees;The report carries heightened significance because it is the last word from the influential global climate panel before world leaders meet in Bali, Indonesia, next month to begin to discuss a global climate change treaty that will replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012;It is also the first report from the panel since it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October — an honor that many scientists here said emboldened them to stand more forcefully behind their positions |
| 10/23/2007 |
| Five Easy Ways to Go Organic |
| Switching to organic is tough for many families who don’t want to pay higher prices or give up their favorite foods; But by choosing organic versions of just a few foods that you eat often, you can increase the percentage of organic food in your diet without big changes to your shopping cart or your spending |
| 10/23/2007 |
| An Active, Purposeful Machine That Comes Out at Night to Play |
| The task looks as simple as a “Sesame Street” exercise; Study pairs of Easter eggs on a computer screen and memorize how the computer has arranged them: the aqua egg over the rainbow one, the paisley over the coral one — and there are just six eggs in all;Most people can study these pairs for about 20 minutes and ace a test on them, even a day later;But they’re much less accurate in choosing between two eggs that have not been directly compared: Aqua trumped rainbow but does that mean it trumps paisley? It’s hazy; It’s hazy, that is, until you sleep on it |
| 10/23/2007 |
| The Globalization of Hunger |
| At first, the numbers don't seem to add up. The world produces more food than ever—enough to feed twice the global population; Yet, more people than ever suffer from hunger; and their numbers are rising; Today, 854 million people, most of them women and girls, are chronically hungry, up from 800 million in 1996; Another paradox: the majority of the world's hungry people live in rural areas, where nearly all food is grown |
| 9/23/2007 |
| War Costing $720 Million Each Day |
| The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday; The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes |
| 9/19/2007 |
| Antibiotic Runoff |
| Studying the groundwater around two confinement hog farms, scientists have identified the presence of several transferable genes that confer antibiotic resistance, specifically to tetracycline; There is the very real chance that in such a rich bacterial soup these genes might move from organism to organism, carrying the ability to resist tetracycline with them; And because the resistant genes were found in groundwater, they are already at large in the environment |
| 9/17/2007 |
| Greenspan's shock: oil behind Iraq invasion |
| THE US went to war in Iraq motivated largely by oil, former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says in a memoir to be released today;"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he writes; Mr Greenspan's book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World also criticises President George Bush for not responsibly handling the nation's spending and racking up big budget deficits |
| 9/14/2007 |
| An assassination that blows apart Bush's hopes of pacifying Iraq |
| Last week George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar province; This week General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a model for Iraq;Yesterday Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar |
| 9/14/2007 |
| San Francisco to Offer Care for Every Uninsured Adult |
| An initiative, known as Healthy San Francisco, is the first effort by a locality to guarantee care to all of its uninsured |
| 9/12/2007 |
| Video shows Bin Laden 'in false beard' |
| This report by The Independent, although tacitly upholding the legitimacy of the Bush adminstration's "war on terrorism", nonetheless acknowledges quite explicitly that the most recent Osama videotape is a fake; Who is behind the fake tape? The article fails to address the central role of US intelligence in sustaining, through disinformation and media propaganda, the Osama myth of an "outside enemy of America" |
| 9/9/2007 |
| The Shock Doctrine: New Book from Naomi Klein |
| One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was the late Milton Friedman, grand guru of unfettered capitalism and credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy; Ninety-three years old and in failing health, "Uncle Miltie", as he was known to his followers, found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal three months after the levees broke; "Most New Orleans schools are in ruins," Friedman observed, "as are the homes of the children who have attended them; The children are now scattered all over the country; This is a tragedy; It is also an opportunity";Friedman's radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans' existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions |
| 9/9/2007 |
| The Geography of Religious Experience |
| William James, the American philosopher and brother of the novelist Henry James, following the same route on July 7, 1898, probably labored under a similar combination of suggestion and endorphins. He was 56, two years younger than I was now, and carried 18 pounds — half my load. He, too, started from the Adirondak Loj (though the name of the building that stood there in his day was spelled more conventionally as Adirondack Lodge), and he ended that day in Panther Gorge, on the southeast side of Marcy, by having the kind of transformative experience that his most influential book, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” put forward as the basis of genuine spiritual phenomena |
| 8/22/2007 |
| Islands Emerge As Arctic Ice Shrinks to Record Low |
| Ny Alesund, Norway - Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said; Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts melted far earlier than normal;"Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole; "This acceleration may be faster than predicted" by the U.N. climate panel this year, she told reporters at the August 20-22 seminar; Ny Alesund calls itself the world's most northerly permanent settlement, and is a base for Arctic research |
| 8/2/2007 |
| Keeping Enemies Close--and Saudis Closer |
| Go figure: From the White House comes the news that self-styled anti-terrorism crusader George W. Bush wants to sell $20 billion in high-tech military equipment to Saudi Arabia, the source of most of the financing, and fifteen of the nineteen hijackers, for the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States |
| 8/2/2007 |
| Fred Thompson, Neocon |
| The neoconservatives are not riding high these days; The Iraq War--their number-one cause--is a failure, and the public has turned on the war, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, their top man in the Administration. Meanwhile, the so-called foreign policy realists appear to have the upper hand against the Administration's dwindling neocon cell in many internal policy squabbles. But the neocons are faring rather well when it comes to the presidential race; The leading GOP contenders are all die-hard fans of the war;And the newest star in the show--Fred Thompson, the former Republican senator from Tennessee, onetime lobbyist and TV actor who has all but officially announced his candidacy--might be the most neoconnish of all |
| 8/2/2007 |
| Worse Than You Think |
| The non-stop violence in Iraq is overshadowing a humanitarian crisis, with eight million Iraqis--nearly one in three--in need of emergency aid, says a new report released by the international agency Oxfam and NCCI, a network of about 80 international and 200 local NGOs established in Baghdad in 2003 to help assess and meet the needs of the Iraqi population; The report, based on research from the United Nations, the Iraqi government, and nonprofit organizations Oxfam works with or finances, offers little original data; But it provides one of the most comprehensive pictures to date of the human crisis within Iraq and what it describes as a slow-motion response from Iraq's government, the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union |
| 7/21/2007 |
| U.S. will use surrogates to nuke the Russians |
| Bush II’s capacity to be manipulated by Cheney-Wolfowitz appears to be open ended; with less than (2) years remaining of this genocidal duo rule, a new focus on Russia is now extant, in the form of nuclear shields at her borders; Poland-Chec Republic as prostitutes for the U.S.A. are ready made pawns in nuclear terrorism practiced by the West e.g. “we gottem’ — we use ‘em.” |
| 7/8/2007 |
| U.S. Aborted Raid on Qaeda Chiefs in Pakistan in ’05 |
| A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials. |
| 7/8/2007 |
| Al-Qaeda, the Eternal Covert Operation: British "Terror" Incident latest Product of "War on Terror" Propaganda |
| It is a well-established and deliberately unaddressed historical fact that the CIA created "radical Islam" and Islamic "terrorism" during the Cold War; It is also a documented fact that the US, its allies, and their intelligence agencies (CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, Britain’s MI-6, etc.) have -- from the 1970s to the present day -- continued to use and guide terrorist groups, including "Al-Qaeda," as intelligence and propaganda assets; "Islamic terrorism" is a manufactured weapon of Western geostrategy, serving Anglo-American interests; September 11 was a false flag operation; The Mumbai transit bomb attack was a covert operation carried out by terror cells directly connected to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI (a virtual branch of the American CIA), and the same (alleged "Al-Qaeda") apparatus. |
| 7/2/2007 |
| The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases |
| The Worldwide control of humanity's economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power; Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention;These US sponsored strategies ultmately consist in a process of global subordination |
| 6/23/2007 |
| "SiCKO": The Profits of Life and Death |
| "The release of Michael Moore's "SiCKO" is one of the most important developments in the national debate on our healthcare crisis since the Clintons attempted to pass universal healthcare legislation in 1994." - Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) |
| 6/22/2007 |
| Memo to French Officials: Beware the BlackBerry |
| The U.S. National Security Agency, according to the country's most authoritative newspaper routes BlackBerry data through servers in the United States and its closest ally, Britain;"The risks of interception are real," the newspaper quoted Alain Juillet, head of the government's economic intelligence unit, as saying |
| 6/18/2007 |
| Autism Debate Strains a Family and Its Charity |
| Fissures in the autism community have made their way into the Wright family, where father and daughter are not speaking after a public battle over themes familiar to thousands of families with autistic children;The Wrights’ daughter, Katie, the mother of Christian, says her parents have not given enough support to the people who believe, as she does, that the environment — specifically a synthetic mercury preservative in vaccines — is to blame; No major scientific studies have linked pediatric vaccination and autism, but many parents and their advocates persist, and a federal “vaccine court” is now reviewing nearly 4,000 such claims |
| 6/18/2007 |
| Blair knew US had no post-war plan for Iraq |
| Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that Washington had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country; In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House |
| 6/16/2007 |
| Common Bird Species in Dramatic Decline |
| New data show the populations of some of America's well-known birds in a tailspin, thanks to the one-two punch of habitat fragmentation and, increasingly, global warming;From the heartland's whippoorwills and meadowlarks to the Northern bobwhite and common terns of the nation's coasts, 20 common bird species tracked by the National Audubon Society have seen their numbers fall 54 percent overall since 1967, with some down about 80 percent;Most of the trouble lies with loss of bird habitat, and has for decades, due to expanding agriculture and suburban development |
| 6/9/2007 |
| CIA Ran Secret Prisons for Detainees in Europe, Says Inquiry |
| Despite denials by their governments, senior Polish and Romanian security officials have confirmed to the Council of Europe that their countries were used to hold some of America's most important prisoners captured after 9/11 in secret; None of the prisoners had access to the Red Cross and many were subject to what George Bush has called the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation, which critics have condemned as torture; Although suspicions about the secret CIA prisons have existed for more than a year, the council's report, seen by the Guardian, appears to offer the first concrete evidence;It also details the prisons' operations and the identities of some of the prisoners |
| 6/9/2007 |
| Resource Wars - Can We Survive Them? |
| Near the end of WW II, Franklin Roosevelt met with Saudi King ibn Saud on the USS Quincy;It began a six decade relationship guaranteeing US access to what his State Department called a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history" - the region's oil and huge amount of it in Saudi Arabia; Today, the Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves (around 675 billion barrels) and the Caspian basin an estimated 270 billion barrels more plus one-eighth of the world's natural gas reserves; It explains a lot about why we're at war with Iraq and Afghanistan and plan maintaining control over both countries |
| 6/7/2007 |
| Defeat’s Killing Fields |
| An American defeat in Iraq would throw the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval |
| 6/1/2007 |
| 'High priests of globalization' in Istanbul |
| Whatever it is, the mighty Bilderberg is at our door: The "high priests of globalization," as Will Hutton from The Observer once famously put it, begin their ultra-secretive annual meeting today in Istanbul; While the international media's silence gives rise to yet more conspiracy theories, the Turkish media is going nuts about it: from mass-circulation dailies to well-known weeklies, the media is Bilderberg-busy nowadays; Daily Vatan calls it "the most secretive meeting in the world," announcing:"Bilderberg in Istanbul"; Weekly Aktüel says the "multinational government" is here to determine the fate of the world;It seems the hype will continue until the "high priests" end their Istanbul meeting on Sunday |
| 5/28/2007 |
| City Planet |
| Working with United Nations estimates that predict the world will be 51.3 percent urban by 2010, the researchers [demographers from North Carolina State University and the University of Georgia] projected the May 23, 2007, transition day based on the average daily rural and urban population increases from 2005 to 2010. On that day, a predicted global urban population of 3,303,992,253 will exceed that of 3,303,866,404 rural people |
| 5/27/2007 |
| Al Gore Speaks of a Nation in Danger |
| In “The Assault on Reason” Al Gore excoriates George W. Bush, asserting that the president is “out of touch with reality,” that his administration is so incompetent that it “can’t manage its own way out of a horse show,” that it ignored “clear warnings” about the terrorist threat before 9/11 and that it has made Americans less safe by “stirring up a hornets’ nest in Iraq,” while using “the language and politics of fear” to try to “drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts or the public interest” |
| 5/26/2007 |
| Study: JFK lone-gunman evidence 'not a slam dunk' |
| New testing on the type of ammunition used in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy raises questions about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, according to a study by researchers at Texas A&M University;"We're not saying there was a conspiracy. All we're saying is the evidence that was presented as a slam dunk for a single shooter is not a slam dunk," said Spiegelman, a Texas A&M statistics professor and an expert in bullet-lead analysis |
| 5/21/2007 |
| "Democratic Transition" at the World Bank |
| Accused of nepotism, Dr. Paul Wolfowitz is slated to step down from the helm of the World Bank in the aftermath of an innocuous scandal regarding promotion and salary increases granted to his girlfriend, Shaha Riza; Prior to assuming the presidency of the World Bank, Wolfowitz was Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Bush Junior Administration; He was the main Pentagon architect of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq; He is considered as one of several key Neo-Conservatives, who contributed to shaping the foreign policy agenda of the Bush administration, including the "Global War on Terrorism" |
| 5/16/2007 |
| Blessed Disorder: Paul Hawken's book on Global Civil Society |
| “By conventional definition,” says Hawken, “this is not a movement; Movements have leaders and ideologies; You join movements, study tracts, and identify yourself with a group; You read the biography of the founder(s) or listen to them perorate on tape or in person”;Movements have followers, but this movement doesn’t work that way; It is dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely independent; There is no manifesto or doctrine, no authority to check with”; Hawken sought a name for it, but there isn’t one;After spending years researching this phenomenon, including creating with his colleagues a global database of these organizations, Hawken came to these conclusions: “This is the largest social movement in all of history, no one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye” What does meet the eye is compelling |
| 5/12/2007 |
| INSULZA: ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY FUNDAMENTAL FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF DEMOCRACY |
| The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jos� Miguel Insulza, stressed today that civil society has a vital role to play in defending the legitimacy of democracy; He made the remarks as he addressed the opening of a meeting of member state delegates and representatives of non-governmental organizations from the hemisphere; The two-day meeting is being held to discuss issues to be addressed at the OAS General Assembly to be held in Panama City, June 3-5 |
| 5/12/2007 |
| Statement of Concern Regarding the Proposed Eu-Asean Free Trade Negotiations |
| The decision to launch these trade negotiations has occurred without prior meaningful public consultation, either with elected representatives or civil society in any of the countries concerned; This constitutes a violation of basic principles of democracy and human rights, that the European Union and ASEAN purport to support |
| 5/11/2007 |
| Bush's Zombie Shuffles Off Stage |
| A true creature of the Washington Consensus, Blair was always loyal to the various occupants of the White House; In Europe, he preferred Aznar to Zapatero, Merckel to Schroeder, was seriously impressed by to Berlusconi and, most recently, made no secret of his desire that Sarkozy was his candidate in France;He understood that privatisation/deregulation at home were part of the same mechanism as the wars abroad |
| 5/10/2007 |
| Less Green at the Farmers’ Market ? |
| IN the five years since the last farm bill was passed, the number of farmers’ markets in this country has grown to nearly 4,500 from 2,750; New efforts to encourage food-aid recipients to eat more fruits and vegetables — which are calamitously underrepresented in American diets — could end up shutting out the small farmers who are the backbone of these markets |
| 5/10/2007 |
| Psychiatrists, Children and Drug Industry’s Role |
| When Anya Bailey developed an eating disorder after her 12th birthday, her mother took her to a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who prescribed a powerful antipsychotic drug called Risperdal;Created for schizophrenia, Risperdal is not approved to treat eating disorders, but increased appetite is a common side effect and doctors may prescribe drugs as they see fit;Anya gained weight but within two years developed a crippling knot in her back; She now receives regular injections of Botox to unclench her back muscles; She often awakens crying in pain |
| 5/9/2007 |
| Profiteering at the Pump:The Great Oil Robbery |
| In case you're wondering why crude oil prices are down from last year, hanging around at about $60 a barrel, while gasoline prices have soared past $3.10/gallon nationwide, just check out the latest profit reports from the oil companies; They are at record levels; The answer for this seeming contradiction is simple: Americans are being robbed blind by the oil industry |
| 5/9/2007 |
| Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs |
| Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses;Aggressively Treating Anemia The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size;Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes |
| 5/9/2007 |
| Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus |
| Until this year, only pregnant women 35 and older were routinely tested to see if their fetuses had the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome; As a result many couples were given the diagnosis only at birth; But under a new recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, doctors have begun to offer a new, safer screening procedure to all pregnant women, regardless of age;About 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion |
| 5/8/2007 |
| Hard to Deny: Iraq Is All About the Oil |
| How the U.S. is working to secure Iraq's oil -- one of the most important sources of petrochemical energy on the planet -- and how the Iraqis are resisting |
| 5/8/2007 |
| Anti-U.S. Uproar Sweeps Italy |
| The U.S. government has proposed to make Vicenza, Italy, the largest U.S. military site in Europe, but the people of Vicenza, and all of Italy, have sworn it will never happen |
| 5/8/2007 |
| Activists say sonar kills whales. The Navy isn't listening. |
| The U.S. Navy's antisubmarine warfare strategists probably wish they could emulate the way whales and dolphins navigate the ocean depths; How they can penetrate, with high-pitched clicks, what the light spectrum cannot; How they can detect without touching, see without seeing; How they can ward off predators, stalk their prey, answer their kind across the distant and dark; The Navy has none of these talents; Instead, it relies on various types of man-made sonar to monitor key shipping channels; With the advent of the modern, ultra-quiet enemy submarine, the Navy insists its personnel must be trained in the use of certain types of active sonar - the kind of sonar that blasts a pulse thousands of miles across the water and sends a pressure wave ripping through the lungs and brains of whales and dolphins, that causes deafness, disorientation, acute stress, violent behavior and separation of mother and calf pairs; This is only for starters |
| 5/3/2007 |
| High Energy Thursday: Does Kyoto beckon for Washington? |
| On Wednesday, the World Bank confirmed that what I wrote about last week - Gazprom buying pollution credits from Brazil to sell to Europe - is part of a much wider, general trend; Their new report on the state of the carbon industry, as it’s now known, shows definitively that developing countries are shouldering much of the burden in reducing emissions;Clearly, there is a tremendous transfer of credits from developing to wealthy countries; It’s cheaper for poor countries to invest in cleanliness, and so businesses in wealthy countries are paying businesses in the developing world to absolve them of their environmental sins; All of this is happening under the auspices of the Kyoto Protocol, to which the United States doesn’t belong |
| 4/27/2007 |
| An island made by global warming |
| The map of Greenland will have to be redrawn; A new island has appeared off its coast, suddenly separated from the mainland by the melting of Greenland's enormous ice sheet, a development that is being seen as the most alarming sign of global warming; Several miles long, the island was once thought to be the tip of a peninsula halfway up Greenland's remote east coast but a glacier joining it to the mainland has melted away completely, leaving it surrounded by sea |
| 4/27/2007 |
| Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq |
| George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States |
| 4/16/2007 |
| Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? |
| Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes; The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home; The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives; The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states;The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast; CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned |
| 4/3/2007 |
| The Last of the Global Commons |
| The U.S. military currently possesses command of the global commons;Command of the commons is analogous to command of the sea, or in Paul Kennedy’s words, it is analogous to “naval mastery;” The “commons,” in the case of the sea and space, are areas that belong to no one state and that provide access to much of the globe |
| 4/3/2007 |
| Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services |
| "Today's Web has terabytes of information available to humans, but hidden from computers; It is a paradox that information is stuck inside HTML pages, formatted in esoteric ways that are difficult for machines to process; The so called Web 3.0, which is likely to be a pre-cursor of the real semantic web, is going to change this |
| 4/3/2007 |
| Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching |
| A new company founded by a longtime technologist is setting out to create a vast public database intended to be read by computers rather than people, paving the way for a more automated Internet in which machines will routinely share information |
| 3/27/2007 |
| Fast Food Nation |
| Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe;Rates of obesity and food poisoning spiral upwards, but it seems we just can’t get enough of those tasty burgers and fries; This myth-shattering book tells the story of America and the world’s infatuation with fast food, from its origins in 1950s southern California to the global triumph of a handful of burger and fried chicken chains; In a meticulously researched and powerfully argued account, Eric Schlosser visits the labs where scientists re-create the smell and taste of everything - from cooked meat to fresh strawberries; talks to the workers at abattoirs with some of the worst safety records in the world; explains exactly where the meat comes from and just why the fries taste so good; and looks at the way the fast food industry is transforming not only our diet but our landscape, economy, workforce and culture |
| 3/17/2007 |
| Winter has been world's warmest on record |
| This has been the world's warmest winter since record-keeping began more than a century ago, the U.S. government agency that tracks weather reported Thursday;The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the combined global land and ocean surface temperature from December through February was at its highest since records began in 1880 |
| 3/12/2007 |
| Al-Qaeda: the second coming |
| This weekend Osama bin Laden turned 50, probably on the wild Pakistan border, while Madrid falls silent today to honour its 2004 bomb victims; But what of al-Qaeda? In a major investigation, an expert on terror reveals it is evolving into a potent new threat |
| 2/25/2007 |
| U.S. developing contingency plan to bomb Iran: report |
| Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war withIran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue |
| 2/25/2007 |
| In US, record numbers are plunged into poverty: report |
| The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion;"Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind; At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found;"These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty -- the highest rate since at least 1975; The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades," the report said |
| 2/24/2007 |
| No. 1 milk company says 'no' to clones |
| Although the government has approved meat and milk from cloned animals while it conducts further studies, Dean Foods Co. of Dallas said Thursday that its customers and consumers don't want milk from cloned animals; The $10 billion company owns Land O'Lakes and Horizon Organic, among dozens of other brands; "Numerous surveys have shown that Americans are not interested in buying dairy products that contain milk from cloned cows and Dean Foods is responding to the needs of our consumers," the company said in a statement |
| 2/22/2007 |
| Iran - Ready to attack, American preparations for invading Iran are complete |
| American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran could be implemented any day; They extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran's military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons; British military sources told the New Statesman, on condition of anonymity, that "the US military switched its whole focus to Iran" as soon as Saddam Hussein was kicked out of Baghdad; It continued this strategy, even though it had American infantry bogged down in fighting the insurgency in Iraq |
| 1/28/2007 |
| Unhappy Meals |
| It was in the 1980s that food began disappearing from the American supermarket, gradually to be replaced by “nutrients,” which are not the same thing; Where once the familiar names of recognizable comestibles things like eggs or breakfast cereal or cookies claimed pride of place on the brightly colored packages crowding the aisles, now new terms like “fiber” and “cholesterol” and “saturated fat” rose to large-type prominence; Foods by comparison were coarse, old-fashioned and decidedly unscientific things - who could say what was in them, really? But nutrients - those chemical compounds and minerals in foods that nutritionists have deemed important to health - gleamed with the promise of scientific certainty |
| 1/26/2007 |
| Global warming: the final verdict |
| Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change will warn next week; A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically; Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more preva |
| 1/26/2007 |
| Inside Baghdad: A city paralysed by fear |
| Mr Bush's speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by identifying the Shia militias with Iran;In fact, the most powerful Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian; It is the Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards; In the Arab world as a whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the Iranian threat |
| 1/20/2007 |
| Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test |
| Only two nations — the Soviet Union and the United States — have previously destroyed spacecraft in antisatellite tests, most recently the United States in the mid-1980s;Arms control experts called the test, in which the weapon destroyed an aging Chinese weather satellite, a troubling development that could foreshadow an antisatellite arms race; Alternatively, however, some experts speculated that it could precede a diplomatic effort by China to prod the Bush administration into negotiations on a weapons ban |
| 1/16/2007 |
| 51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse |
| For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results; In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000 |
| 1/16/2007 |
| The Warming of Greenland |
| All over Greenland and the Arctic, rising temperatures are not simply melting ice; they are changing the very geography of coastlines; Nunataks — “lonely mountains” in Inuit — that were encased in the margins of Greenland’s ice sheet are being freed of their age-old bonds, exposing a new chain of islands, and a new opportunity for Arctic explorers to write their names on the landscape; “We are already in a new era of geography,” said the Arctic explorer Will Steger;“This phenomenon — of an island all of a sudden appearing out of nowhere and the ice melting around it — is a real common phenomenon now” |
| 12/21/2006 |
| U.S. and Britain to Add Ships to Persian Gulf in Signal to Iran |
| The United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday |
| 12/20/2006 |
| JFK and 9/11 |
| The things that repeat themselves include the ability of the government to establish a guilty party or parties immediately, and the press and media consumption of that product to the exclusion of all other possibilities;Eventually, in both cases a commission is set up – the Warren Commission in 1963 and the 9/11 Commission this time in 2003;And the starting point for both commissions is to validate what was already decided by the FBI on the day in question |
| 12/5/2006 |
| The World's Mastermind: The Hidden Face of Globalization |
| globalization can be defined as an ideology that identifies the Sovereign Nation-State as its key enemy, basically because the State's main function is (or should be) to prioritize the interests of the Many - i.e., "the People" - over the interests of the Few; Accordingly, the forces of globalization seek to weaken, dissolve and eventually destroy the very foundations of the Nation-State as a basic social institution, in order to replace it with new supra-national worldwide social, political, economic, financial and military management structures |
| 11/27/2006 |
| Revealed: rise of creationism in UK schools |
| Dozens of schools are using creationist teaching materials condemned by the government as "not appropriate to support the science curriculum", the Guardian has learned; The packs promote the creationist alternative to Darwinian evolution called intelligent design and the group behind them said 59 schools are using the information as "a useful classroom resource" |
| 11/17/2006 |
| Gates of Ivory: Langley Overshadows the Pentagon |
| There is much more than meets the eye regarding the appointment of Robert M. Gates; While the media has trumpeted the obvious fact that he has served under six presidents, he has actually served under some of the most pivotal Directors of Central Intelligence in American history, beginning with Richard Helms and ending with William Casey (under whom his career became meteoric) then the relatively unobtrusive and ineffective William Webster and finally rising to the DCI's office himself, the first entry level CIA employee ever to rise to the Director's exalted chair |
| 11/5/2006 |
| "Cold War Shivers": War Preparations in the Middle East and Central |
| It is essential that people across America and around the World take cognizance of the dangers of a Middle East war directed against Iran and act decisively to challenge the US military agenda and reverse the tide of war;The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history; The US has embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity;This article documents recent developments, focusing on military deployment and preparations in the event of a US led war on Iran. This text follows a number of earlier reports published by Global Research pertaining to the War on Iran |
| 10/31/2006 |
| Bush Moves Toward Martial Law |
| In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1); It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States |
| 10/6/2006 |
| More exercise does nothing to stop obesity in youngsters, study finds |
| Extra play and less TV are not enough, results show Heart Foundation insists active childhood still vital |
| 10/6/2006 |
| The battle for brainpower |
| IN A speech at Harvard University in 1943 Winston Churchill observed that “the empires of the future will be empires of the mind;” He might have added that the battles of the future will be battles for talent; To be sure, the old battles for natural resources are still with us; But they are being supplemented by new ones for talent-not just among companies (which are competing for “human resources”) but also among countries (which fret about the “balance of brains” as well as the “balance of power”) |
| 10/6/2006 |
| Revealed: the diversity that defines a nation |
| The most detailed map of ethnic and religious diversity in Britain has been published, showing where different groups live -and how Muslim minorities in particular are at a disadvantage |
| 9/30/2006 |
| New Woodward Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq |
| The book, bought by a reporter for The New York Times at retail price in advance of its official release, is the third that Mr. Woodward has written chronicling the inner debates in the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent decision to invade Iraq;Like Mr. Woodward’s previous works, the book includes lengthy verbatim quotations from conversations and describes what senior officials are thinking at various times, without identifying the sources for the information |
| 9/30/2006 |
| India Digs Deeper, but Wells Are Drying Up, and a Farming Crisis Looms |
| Bhanwar Lal Yadav, once a cultivator of cucumber and wheat, has all but given up growing food; No more suffering through drought and the scourge of antelope that would destroy what little would survive on his fields |
| 9/30/2006 |
| Summer heatwaves may get much worse |
| Simulations based on a range of possible increases in carbon dioxide emissions show peak temperatures across Europe rising as a whole between 4C and 10C above their current highs by 2100 |
| 9/30/2006 |
| Iraq: the week the truth was told (except by Tony Blair) |
| President George Bush is forced to release a secret US intelligence report that says the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism; An MoD think-tank, aided by MI6, says the Iraq war has served as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world |
| 9/30/2006 |
| Take UK troops out of Iraq, senior military told ministers |
| Military chiefs have been losing patience with the slow progress made in building a new Iraqi national army and security services; Significantly, they now say the level of violence in the country will not be a factor determining when British troops should leave |
| 9/4/2006 |
| Why You Can’t Ignore The Changing Climate |
| Look Outside: The Weather Already Is Changing Every year since 1997 has been in the Top 10 list of hottest years, and 2005 set a record; The Earth has warmed about 1.4°F since the late 19th century, and the warming has accelerated during the past four decades |
| 8/23/2006 |
| Poll Shows a Shift in Opinion on Iraq War |
| The poll found that 51 percent of those surveyed saw no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort, a jump of 10 percentage points since June; That increase comes despite the regular insistence of Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans that the two are intertwined and should be seen as complementary elements of a strategy to prevent domestic terrorism |
| 8/23/2006 |
| For 2 Giants of Soft Drinks, a Crisis in a Crucial Market |
| The Center for Science and the Environment announced in August that drinks manufactured by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo in India contained on average more than 24 times the safe limits of pesticides, which could come from sugar, water and other ingredients; When those reports appeared on the front pages of newspapers in India, Coke and Pepsi executives were confident that they could handle the situation; But they stumbled |
| 8/23/2006 |
| US interventions have boosted Iran, says report |
| The US-led "war on terror" has bolstered Iran's power and influence in the Middle East, especially over its neighbour and former enemy Iraq, a thinktank said today; A report published by Chatham House said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had removed Iran's main rival regimes in the region; Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and its invasion of Lebanon had also put Iran "in a position of considerable strength" in the Middle East, said the thinktank |
| 7/26/2006 |
| US and UK Set Israel Up for Media Attack and NATO-Type Intervention |
| We have been misinformed, to put it gently;While claiming to support Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah and Hamas attacks, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have in fact mis-described the current Middle East war in a way that sets Israel up for media demonization, while creating public support for a "robust" (Kofi Annan's word) international intervention in southern Lebanon, an intervention that would, of necessity, constitute a serious and possibly deadly threat to Israel |
| 6/28/2006 |
| Glaciers are melting at their fastest rate for 5,000 years |
| Scientists have warned that human activities over the past 100 years may have nudged the global climate beyond a critical threshold which could see most of the highest ice caps disappearing within the near future; Melting glaciers in South America and Asia not only contribute to rising sea levels, they are also vital sources of freshwater for many millions of people who live within their range at lower altitudes, the scientists said |
| 6/15/2006 |
| We must explore ways to bridge the social divide |
| It comes as little surprise to learn that a majority of Britain's leading media figures were educated at private schools - and that this percentage has risen since a similar survey was carried out 20 years ago |
| 6/15/2006 |
| Mexican presidential elections: The firebrand on Bush's doorstep |
| Mexico's Manuel Lopez Obrador may follow Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales as the next Latin leftist leader;And if he wins a bitterly contested election next month, this time the revolution will be just across the US border |
| 6/15/2006 |
| Iraq: 60 soldiers a month suffer mental illness |
| "This figure has enormous ramifications for the ability of the armed forces to keep up to strength and to maintain the morale of their troops: The people I feel particularly sorry for are members of the Territorial Army, who are plucked out of ordinary life and sent into Iraq, where they perform an invaluable service, and are then expected to fit back into ordinary life" |
| 4/30/2006 |
| The real cost of a bag of salad: You pay 99p. Africa pays 50 litres of fresh water |
| To you it is a bag of salad, dropped into the supermarket trolley with the weekly groceries; But to farmers in Kenya starved of the water extracted by large scale agriculture to grow it, it may spell destitution;The world is running out of water and British supermarket shoppers are contributing to global drought, according to environmental pressure groups |
| 4/30/2006 |
| GM trees are being grown secretly in UK |
| Governments worldwide have issued an unprecedented warning about the greatest biotech hazards so far: GM trees;Trees modified to grow faster, yield better wood, produce whiter paper, resist pests and disease and tolerate herbicides are increasingly being cultivated |
| 4/30/2006 |
| John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Mirror to Society |
| Mr. Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in the history of economics; among his 33 books was "The Affluent Society" (1958), one of those rare works that forces a nation to re-examine its values;He wrote fluidly, even on complex topics, and many of his compelling phrases;among them "the affluent society," "conventional wisdom" and "countervailing power" became part of the language |
| 4/17/2006 |
| 3 degrees: Chief scientist warns bigger rise in world's temperature will put 400 million at risk |
| The world's temperature is on course to rise by more than three degrees Centigrade despite efforts to combat global warming, Britain's chief scientist has warned;Sir David King issued a stark wake-up call that climate change could cause devastating consequences such as famine and drought for hundreds of millions of people unless the world's politicians take more urgent action |
| 4/17/2006 |
| Global warming: Your chance to change the climate |
| Four senior ministers today made one of the most embarrassing admissions of the Labour Government's nine years in office - that the official policy for fighting climate change has failed |
| 4/17/2006 |
| Drugs crisis: Prozac nation |
| Britain is in the grip of a damaging dependence on anti-depressant drugs such as Prozac, prompting calls from mental health experts for a radical rethink in the treatment of the 3.5 million people affected;The prescription of so-called "happy pills" has risen by more than 120 percent in the past decade amid soaring levels of depression and anxiety |
| 4/14/2006 |
| Fifth retired general calls for Rumsfeld's resignation |
| The widening circle of retired generals who have stepped forward to call for the U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation is shaping up as an unusual outcry that could pose a significant challenge to Rumsfeld's leadership, current and former generals said Thursday |
| 4/14/2006 |
| Prisoner of conscience: RAF doctor who refused Iraq service is jailed |
| The conviction and imprisonment of Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, the first member of the armed forces to be charged with disobeying orders to deploy in Iraq, has provoked widespread condemnation;Anti-war groups declared that a man who had shown great moral courage and acted according to his conscience was being pilloried for his beliefs |
| 3/28/2006 |
| Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Says |
| Behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable; During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times |
| 3/19/2006 |
| Global Protests Mark Iraq War Anniversary |
| Anti-war protesters marched in Australia, Asia, Turkey and Europe on Saturday in demonstrations that marked the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with a demand that coalition troops pull out |
| 3/19/2006 |
| Activists Pledge to Fight for Their Water |
| That attitude might seem strange in developed countries, where water flows at the touch of a faucet; But it isn't nearly as accessible in the developing world;And water wars aren't an apocalyptic vision of the future;They're already starting to happen, the protesters say |
| 3/15/2006 |
| Climate change 'irreversible' as Arctic sea ice fails to re-form |
| Sea ice in the Arctic has failed to re-form for the second consecutive winter, raising fears that global warming may have tipped the polar regions in to irreversible climate change far sooner than predicted; Satellite measurements of the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice show that for every month this winter, the ice failed to return even to its long-term average rate of decline |
| 3/15/2006 |
| The competition authorities have been taken over by the superstores |
| After wriggling its way through every possible excuse for inaction, last week the Office of Fair Trading decided to launch an inquiry into the behaviour of the big grocery chains; It's about time; But alongside it we need another one: into whether the OFT, like almost everything else in this country, has itself been taken over by the superstores |
| 3/9/2006 |
| Can our way of living really save the planet? |
| After a week in which Amex launched its red card, David Cameron said he was going for wind power and the Lonely Planet pleaded for less air travel, Robin McKie, Amelia Hill, Juliette Jowit and Nick Mathiason ask if the shopper in the street can make more difference than politicians |
| 3/9/2006 |
| Death rules the delta in battle to control oil |
| Kidnappings and ethnic war in Nigeria have one root cause - oil; The power struggles and corruption that flow from it have claimed thousands of lives;Eleven years after his own father was killed there, Ken Wiwa reports from the Niger Delta on the persistent conflict that is tearing the country apart |
| 3/9/2006 |
| Don't wait for God. We will judge you |
| God will judge Tony Blair on the Iraq war; Think back to another television appearance, this time last year; On that occasion, Mr Blair faced a studio of women and a different ombudsman; History would deliver its verdict on him, he said; His audience denounced his war, but he was certain that no tribunal, divine or temporal, would ever find his judgment wanting; This time, as the third anniversary of the start of war approaches,he looked to me like a man haunted, at last, by what he had unleashed;That shift is partly down to the mothers, wives and partners who have never stopped pointing out the folly of this conflict |
| 3/9/2006 |
| How we move ever closer to becoming a totalitarian state |
| The Prime Minister claims to be defending liberty but a barely noticed Bill will rip the heart out of parliamentary democracy; Watching, I reflected that this was truly how democracy is extinguished; Not with guns and bombs, but from the inside by officials and politicians who deceive with guile and who no longer pretend to countenance the higher interests of the constitution |
| 3/4/2006 |
| Blair: 'God will be my judge on Iraq' |
| Tony Blair has proclaimed that God will judge whether he was right to send British troops to Iraq, echoing statements from his ally George Bush;Contradicting warnings from advisers not to mix politics and religion, the Prime Minister said that his interest in politics sprang from his Christianity and its "values and philosophy" had guided him in public life |
| 3/4/2006 |
| Wal-Mart Extending Dominance of the Grocery Business |
| As Wal-Mart hunts for ways to take costs out of its grocery business and offer popular items that can help bring customers into its stores, the company has become more involved in creating the products it sells, and how those products get onto Wal-Mart's shelves;Wal-Mart has a similar collaboration with Pepsi, and has even pushed Coke to change how it distributes its sports drink, Powerade, to Wal-Mart |
| 3/4/2006 |
| Loss of Antarctic Ice Increases |
| Two new satellite surveys show that warming air and water are causing Antarctica to lose ice faster than it can be replenished by interior snowfall, and thus are contributing to rising global sea levels;The studies differed significantly in estimates of how much water was being added to the oceans this way, but their authors both said that the work added credence to recent conclusions that global warming caused by humans was likely to lead to higher sea levels than previous studies had predicted |
| 2/23/2006 |
| Alaska and Oil Companies Reach Gas Pipeline Deal |
| Three major oil companies and state officials reached agreement Tuesday on a tax proposal aimed at bringing a long-planned $20 billion gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope to the Midwest closer to construction |
| 2/16/2006 |
| Saddam Reportedly Warned U.S. of Terrorism |
| Saddam Hussein told aides in the mid-1990s that he warned the United States it could be hit by a terrorist attack, ABC News reported Wednesday, citing 12 hours of tapes the network obtained of the former Iraqi dictator's talks with his Cabinet;The coming terrorist attack Saddam predicted could involve weapons of mass destruction;"Terrorism is coming;I told the Americans," Saddam is heard saying, adding he "told the British as well" |
| 2/5/2006 |
| Meet Jim Wallis, the Chancellor's religious guru |
| The revealing account by American pastor Jim Wallis, who has developed an unexpected friendship with the Chancellor, offers fresh insight into how both Brown and Blair approached the decision to invade Iraq, the most critical moment of Labour's rule: It will fuel speculation that Brown had some private reservations over an invasion he publicly backed |
| 2/3/2006 |
| Students Confront Sweatshops |
| wave of activism against sweatshops sweeping college campuses, student interest in the morality of their clothing choices can set a standard for the rest of us |
| 2/3/2006 |
| NAFTA at 10 |
| Ten years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement was sold to the people of the United States, Mexico and Canada as a simple treaty eliminating tariffs on goods crossing the three countries' borders; But NAFTA is much more: It is the constitution of an emerging continental economy that recognizes one citizen-the business corporation; It gives corporations extraordinary protections from government policies that might limit future profits, and extraordinary rights to force the privatization of virtually all civilian public services; At the same time, NAFTA excludes protections for workers, the environment and the public |
| 2/3/2006 |
| Gore Vidal, Octocontrarian |
| Marc Cooper interviews Gore Vidal about an America that is increasingly controlled by corporations and suggests that the Gulf Coast hurricanes and the Iraq debacle signal the breakdown of an empire |
| 2/3/2006 |
| The Party of Davos |
| Davos is not the place for secret conspiracies; More than 200 hovering journalists will dispatch to the world's citizens breathless accounts of the chatter and charm of the masters of the economic universe;Davos is rather the most visible symbol of the virtual political network that governs the global market in the absence of a world government;It is more like a political convention |
| 2/3/2006 |
| £13bn: Oil giant announces record UK company profits |
| Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell announced record profits for a UK company of £12.93 billion today;The figure - which equates to almost £1.5 million an hour - was up nearly a third on last year, when it set a UK record with profits of 17.59 billion US dollars (£9.8bn |
| 1/23/2006 |
| Bolivia's Leader Solidifies Region's Leftward Tilt |
| When Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and former head of the Bolivian coca growers union, is sworn in as president on Sunday, it may be the hardest turn yet in South America's persistent left-leaning tilt, with the potential for big reverberations far beyond the borders of this landlocked Andean nation; While mostly vague on details, and recently moderating his tone, Mr. Morales promises to transform Bolivia and "end the colonial and neoliberal model," as he put it on Saturday in an elaborate ceremony at the sacred ruins of this pre-Incan civilization |
| 1/18/2006 |
| Cells That Read Minds |
| When a monkey watches a researcher bring an object-an ice cream cone, for example- to his mouth, the same brain neurons fire as when the monkey brings a peanut to its own mouth; In the early 1990's, Italian researchers discovered this phenomenon and named the cells "mirror neurons" |
| 1/18/2006 |
| Custom-Made Microbes, at Your Service |
| There are bacteria that blink on and off like Christmas tree lights and bacteria that form multicolored patterns of concentric circles resembling an archery target; Yet others can reproduce photographic images;These are not strange-but-true specimens from nature, but rather the early tinkering of synthetic biologists, scientists who seek to create living machines and biological devices that can perform novel tasks |
| 1/18/2006 |
| Why Gaia is wreaking revenge on our abuse of the environment |
| Professor Lovelock visualises it all in the title of his new book, The Revenge of Gaia; Now 86, but looking and sounding 20 years younger, he is by nature an optimistic man with a ready grin, and it felt somewhat unreal to talk calmly to him in his Cornish mill house last week, with a coffee cup to hand and birds on the feeder outside the study window, about such a dark future; You had to pinch yourself |
| 1/18/2006 |
| Green campaigners support Lovelock for sparking fresh debate on global warming |
| Leading British greens have taken a divided view of the prediction by the environmental scientist James Lovelock, featured in The Independent yesterday, that the Earth has passed the point of no return for global warming;Somefully shared his concern for the speed at which global warming appears to be proceeding, and gave credit to his scientific expertise, while finding themselves unable - or unwilling - to agree with the awesome proposition that it may already be too late to stop it |
| 12/27/2005 |
| Below a Mountain of Wealth, a River of Waste |
| Months of investigation by The New York Times revealed a level of contacts and financial support to the military not fully disclosed by Freeport, despite years of requests by shareholders concerned about potential violations of American laws and the company's relations with a military whose human rights record is so blighted that the United States severed ties for a dozen years until November; Company records obtained by The Times show that from 1998through 2004, Freeport gave military and police generals, colonels, majors and captains, and military units, nearly $20 million; Individual commanders received tens of thousands of dollars, in one case up to $150,000, according to the documents |
| 12/25/2005 |
| Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency |
| George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship; Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens;It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming about for decades |
| 12/25/2005 |
| Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report |
| The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials;The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said; It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said |
| 12/20/2005 |
| All eyes on Evo Morales' next step |
| What many analysts are asking now is will he side with Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro in forming a left-wing block against US intervention in Latin America?; Or will he, like the Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, prove to be a pragmatist once in office |
| 12/20/2005 |
| Spying and Lying |
| "This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every American" saidSenator Russell Feingold, December 17, 2005; As reported by the New York Times on Friday, "Months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying" |
| 12/20/2005 |
| The Struggle Against Ourselves |
| Fossil fuels helped us fight wars of a horror never contemplated before, but they also reduced the need for war; For the first time in human history, indeed for the first time in biological history, there was a surplus of available energy;We could keep body and soul together without having to fight someone else for the energy we needed;Agricultural productivity rose 10 or 20 fold; Economic productivity rose 100 fold; Most of us could live as no one had ever lived before;Ours are the most fortunate generations that have ever lived. Ours are the most fortunate generations that ever will;We inhabit the brief historical interlude between ecological constraint and ecological catastrophe |
| 12/20/2005 |
| Cover-up charge over 'cancer-risk' milk |
| Government ministers tried to suppress a health scare over milk potentially contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, the head of Britain's independent food watchdog has revealed; Sir John Krebs said he was put under 'enormous pressure' not to make public the risks which arose from the handling of the foot and mouth outbreak, because of the potential impact on struggling dairy farmers; When the pressure from agriculture ministers failed, he was told that Downing Street would be 'very unhappy' with him |
| 12/20/2005 |
| F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show |
| Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show |
| 12/11/2005 |
| Climate campaigners claim greatest ever success at Montreal |
| The fight against catastrophic global warming scored its greatest success to date yesterday, when negotiators from more than 180 nations unexpectedly agreed to develop far-reaching measures to combat climate change;Humiliation for Bush as last-minute twist means an isolated US is forced to sign up for future talks on global warming |
| 11/24/2005 |
| Shift on Suspect Is Linked to Role of Qaeda Figures |
| The Bush administration decided to charge Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of Al Qaeda; The Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003; The two continue to be held in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency, whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said. |
| 11/16/2005 |
| Seeing Mountains in Starry Clouds of Creation |
| In 1995, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope produced "The Pillars of Creation," an image of stars emerging from biblical-looking clouds of dust that has become an icon of the space age;The new image, appropriately called "Mountains of Creation," shows star-forming pillars in a region known as W5 in the constellation Cassiopeia; These pillars, at heights up to 40 light-years, are 10 times as large as those in the famous Hubble image. |
| 11/16/2005 |
| Storms Put Focus on Other Disasters in Waiting |
| Officials in California worry about the collapse of aging levees in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, which might allow surging seawater to contaminate much of the state's drinking water supply;A major concern in Seattle is the seismic vulnerability of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a busy elevated highway in such peril that weight and lane restrictions were imposed on buses and trucks;In Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, there is the recurring danger of a volcanic eruption at Yellowstone National Park, while in Florida, attention has turned anew to cleaning up Lake Okeechobee, which sends polluted water into nearby rivers during heavy rains and floods |
| 11/13/2005 |
| Children's czar warns of huge leap in bullying |
| In his first major interview as the new Children's Commissioner for England, Al Aynsley-Green said nearly every child was affected by the problem: 'I have no doubt that children are being brought up in a society where violence is the norm in many ways; I include in this the violence on television, in the workplace and in the home |
| 11/10/2005 |
| WTO members acknowldge failure in latest WTO talks |
| The Doha round, launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001, has foundered on deep disagreements on the pace and scope of measures to cut trade-distorting agricultural subsidies in rich countries and to lower import tariffs on farm produce and industrial goods;Powerful developing countries such as Brazil and India argue that subsidies and tariffs in rich nations- the United States and the European Union in particular-- depress global farm prices and prevent growers in poor nations from competing effectively on world markets |
| 11/10/2005 |
| Organic Milk in the US |
| Organic milk accounts for more than 3 percent of all milk sold in the United States; But with an annual growth rate of 23 percent in an era when overall milk consumption is dropping by 8 percent a year, organic milk has made the nation's $10.2 billion-a-year dairy industry take notice |
| 11/10/2005 |
| Farm Issues Stall Talks for a Deal on Trade |
| Any hope of advancing a global trade pact this year all but evaporated on Wednesday, as negotiators from around the world said that they were at an impasse over agriculture;The immediate cause of the breakdown was the refusal of European leaders to offer more than modest reductions in their tariffs on farm products ranging from beef and sugar to dairy products and fruit;The breakdown threatens to sink the first big global trade agreement in 10 years |
| 11/10/2005 |
| China: the true costs of success |
| China executes about 10,000 people a year; Amnesty International says that in any three-month period, it kills more of its people than the rest of the world does over three years; The executed include those found guilty offences such as bribery, embezzlement and stealing petrol; Innocent people are frequently killed; Most executions take place after sentences are imposed at rallies in front of massive crowds |
| 11/10/2005 |
| Rioters shatter Bush's hopes of forging free trade coup |
| A group of left-leaning countries, headed by Brazil, Venezuela and others, opposed the idea, saying it would open their countries to exploitation by large American firms and do little to alleviate poverty` Bush left the summit before it ended as discussions about whether to adopt a clause scheduling FTAA talks for next year continued past a deadline set for a summit declaration |
| 10/30/2005 |
| Special report: Bush faces his Watergate |
| Sleaze, leaks and an indictment add up to the worst presidential crisis since Nixon; And it will get worse; The White House has lost one key man but the whole chain of command may be engulfed by a scandal slowly revealing the lies that led to war |
| 10/30/2005 |
| In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role |
| Many Republicans say that Mr. Cheney, already politically weakened because of his role in preparing the case for war, could be further damaged if he is forced to testify about the infighting over intelligence that turned out to be false; At the least, they say, his office will be temporarily off balance with the resignation of Mr. Libby, who controlled both foreign and domestic affairs in a vice presidential office that has served as a major policy arm for the West Wing |
| 10/22/2005 |
| Hurricane Wilma Is Most Powerful Storm in Atlantic History |
| The 2005 hurricane season reached two more milestones this week: Hurricane Wilma has become the 21st tropical storm of the season and has quickly grown into the most powerful hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin |
| 10/17/2005 |
| Bush to Blair: First Iraq, then Saudi |
| George Bush told the Prime Minister two months before the invasion of Iraq that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea may also be dealt with over weapons of mass destruction, a top secret Downing Street memo shows;The US President told Tony Blair, in a secret telephone conversation in January 2003 that he "wanted to go beyond Iraq" |
| 10/16/2005 |
| Farm trade concessions needed |
| Paul Wolfowitz, speaking on the sidelines of a financial summit of the Group of Twenty industrial and developing nations, urged Japan, the EU, the U.S. and other rich countries to wean themselves off agricultural subsidies to prevent a failure of the Doha round of world trade talks, which has stalled mainly over thorny farm trade issues |
| 10/16/2005 |
| Giving democracy the bird |
| Everything's gone topsy-turvy: The National Guard, charged with keeping order here at home and legally under the control of state governors, has been shipped off to Iraq and Afghanistan, shanghaied by the federal government; Here in the U.S., whatever comes up, the Bush Administration's first reaction is to send in the regular army troops who are supposed to be in Iraq; the Bush Administration is tearing down the traditional wall between overseas military action and domestic law enforcement |
| 10/12/2005 |
| Bush's Veil Over History |
| SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency; Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know; And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent; But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one |
| 10/5/2005 |
| "We could be looking at $10-a-gallon gas this winter" |
| Like the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina stands to become a defining moment in our nation's history; While the precise meaning of such moments remains to be interpreted, Matt Simmons believes the natural disaster may well be remembered as the start of "our great energy war"; "We're almost at the verge of having real energy shortages," Simmons said last Friday, when he issued a wake-up call to a standing-room only audience at the Center for the Arts; "We could be looking at $10-a-gallon gas this winter" |
| 10/5/2005 |
| Official: babies do best with mother |
| One of the longest and most detailed studies of UK childcare has concluded that young children who are looked after by their mothers do significantly better in developmental tests than those cared for in nurseries, by childminders or relatives |
| 9/22/2005 |
| RITA: Storm May Be the Coup de Grace for the American Economy and Many of Us As Well |
| Fully 30% of all US refining capacity is in the target zone; Perhaps most importantly, almost every refinery capable of producing diesel fuel is in immediate danger; This promises (especially in the wake of Katrina) a devastating and irreplaceable shortage of the diesel fuel needed to power America’s harvest of grain and food crops this month and next; Without diesel fuel to power the harvesters and combines, crops may be left to rot in the ground presenting a double whammy: food shortages (with prices that may treble or quadruple) and export defaults negatively impacting the financial markets and trade deficit |
| 9/22/2005 |
| Oil, Gasoline Rise as Platforms in Path of Hurricane Rita Shut |
| Crude oil and gasoline jumped as Hurricane Rita threatened production platforms, refineries and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, less than a month after Hurricane Katrina struck;xxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips are among the companies that have evacuated staff from platforms in the Gulf; Rita is scheduled to reach the coast of Texas on Sept. 24. About 30 percent of U.S. oil production comes from platforms in the Gulf, and 44percent of U.S. refining capacity is in Louisiana and Texas |
| 9/21/2005 |
| Global warming 'past the point of no return' |
| A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover; Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years |
| 9/17/2005 |
| Did global warming power Katrina? |
| A study to be published tomorrow provides striking new evidence linking giant hurricanes such as Katrina which devastated the Gulf of Mexico last month to rising ocean temperatures, scientists say; That, the researchers added, provides new reason to study whether global warming is making hurricanes stronger, as some suspect |
| 9/14/2005 |
| Our last chance |
| This week's United Nations jamboree in New York shows every sign of degenerating into a babel of name-calling, point-scoring and agenda-jacking; But if the summiteers allow themselves to be blown off track by the damning critique of the UN system in the Volker report or if they succumb to a narrow but divisive obsession with the 'war on terror', they will be collectively responsible for a tragedy of historic proportions |
| 9/14/2005 |
| F.A.A. Alerted on Qaeda in '98, 9/11 Panel Said |
| American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a report prepared last year by the Sept. 11 commission; The officials also realized months before the Sept. 11 attacks that two of the three airports used in the hijackings had suffered repeated security lapses |
| 9/14/2005 |
| U.S. won't ban media from New Orleans searches |
| Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans |
| 8/29/2005 |
| Behind Consumption and Consumerism |
| Globally, the 20% of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures - the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%; More specifically, the richest fifth:Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%;Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%; Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%; Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%; Own 87% of the world's vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1% |
| 8/27/2005 |
| F.B.I., Using Patriot Act, Demands Library's Records |
| Using its expanded power under the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, the F.B.I. is demanding library records from a Connecticut institution as part of an intelligence investigation, the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday;Forum: National Security The demand is the first confirmed instance in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation has used the law in this way, federal officials and the A.C.L.U. said; The government's power to demand access to library borrowing records and other material showing reading habits has been the single most divisive issue in the debate over whether Congress should extend key elements of the act after this year |
| 8/25/2005 |
| The end of oil is closer than you think |
| The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner; But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age |
| 8/25/2005 |
| The Breaking Point |
| Two years ago, Simmons went to Saudi Arabia on a government tour for business executives;The group was presented with the usual dog-and-pony show, but instead of being impressed, as most visitors tend to be, with the size and expertise of the Saudi oil industry, Simmons became perplexed; As he recalls in his somewhat heretical new book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," a senior manager at Aramco told the visitors that "fuzzy logic" would be used to estimate the amount of oil that could be recovered. Simmons had never heard of fuzzy logic; What could be fuzzy about an oil reservoir? He suspected that Aramco, despite its promises of endless supplies, might in fact not know how much oil remained to be recovered |
| 8/23/2005 |
| In globalization twist, unions target Wal-Mart worldwide |
| A global coalition of unions is launching an unprecedented campaign to organize workers around the world at US retail giant Wal-Mart, seeking to bring a new level of globalization to the labor movement;The Wal-Mart campaign was set to be officially launched at a meeting in Chicago Monday of Union Network International (UNI), a group that includes 900 unions in some 140 countries |
| 8/23/2005 |
| 600 million Asian children live in poverty despite boom |
| Some 600 million Asian children live in poverty, failing to benefit from the region's economic boom and globalization, children's aid and development agency Plan said on Monday. About 350 million children, or one quarter of the region's youngsters, are severely deprived of two or more basic needs such as food, drinking water, shelter or education, it said in a report;"The vast majority of these children will live in rural areas in South Asia, which has the world's highest levels of child malnutrition, lack of sanitation and girls out of school," it said |
| 8/23/2005 |
| Asians, Americans Show Perceptual Divide |
| Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently; Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene, according to University of Michigan researchers |
| 8/23/2005 |
| America's border crisis |
| Anyone who has been to the border areas in Arizona and New Mexico knows about some of the horrible things that are happening at America's edge; The news is so alarming and the hope for relief from Washington is so dim that the governors of New Mexico and Arizona have finally declared states of emergency in those areas; It is as if those counties bordering on Mexico had been hit by floods or hurricanes or any other natural disaster, except that this is not a natural disaster; The scenes of death, drug smuggling, kidnapping and more are manmade, a security emergency that should be fixed, soon, by politicians in Washington and Mexico City |
| 8/23/2005 |
| U.S. deaths jump in Afghanistan |
| Thirteen American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month, including four soldiers on Sunday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the south; All told, 65 Americans have been killed this year |
| 8/23/2005 |
| Connecticut Takes U.S. to Court Over Bush Education Initiative |
| Connecticut sued the federal government today, arguing that President Bush's education law forces the state to spend millions on new tests without providing sufficient aid or scientific evidence that testing every year rather than in alternate years, which has been Connecticut's practice, helps students; The suit called Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' enforcement "arbitrary and capricious";The lawsuit is the first by any state to challenge Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind Law |
| 8/23/2005 |
| Britain's organic food scam exposed |
| Britain's organic food revolution was facing its first serious test last night after an Observer investigation revealed disturbing levels of fraud within the industry; Farmers, retailers and food inspectors have disclosed a catalogue of malpractice, including producers falsely passing off food as organic and retailers failing to gain accreditation from independent inspectors; The findings raise concerns that consumers paying high premiums for organic food are being ripped off |
| 8/21/2005 |
| The Evolution Wars |
| Sometime in the late fall, unless a federal court intervenes, ninth-graders at the public high school in rural Dover, Pa., will witness an unusual scene in biology class;The superintendent of schools, Richard Nilsen, will enter the classroom to read a three-paragraph statement mandated by the local school board as a cautionary preamble to the study of evolution; It reads, in part: Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered; The theory is not a fact;Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence ... Intelligent design is an explanation of the... |
| 8/21/2005 |
| Treasury committee could put World Bank and IMF in hot seat |
| The proposed investigation raises the prospect that some of the biggest names of the economic community could face a Westminster-style cross-examination; It is conceivable the MPs could ask to interview Paul Wolfowitz, the former US defence secretary who was appointed president of the World Bank amid some controversy earlier this year |
| 8/21/2005 |
| The Trillion-Dollar War |
| THE human cost of the more than 2,000 American military personnel killed and 14,500 wounded so far in Iraq and Afghanistan is all too apparent; But the financial toll is still largely hidden from public view and, like the suffering of those who have lost loved ones, will persist long after the fighting is over; The cost goes well beyond the more than $250 billion already spent on military operations and reconstruction; Even by this simple yardstick, if the American military presence in the region lasts another five years, the total outlay for the war could stretch to more than $1.3 trillion, or $11,300 for every household in the United States |
| 8/7/2005 |
| Car Powered by Water! |
| This Hydro-power BMW It's not just a pretty face;This eco-friendly BMW spews out little more than water vapour from its tailpipe; In pursuit of the monster horsepower that spares the environment, Daily Planet looks under the hood of this 300 km/h hydrogen racer |
| 8/6/2005 |
| Death in the sun |
| You only need to drive for an hour from the centre of Los Angeles before you see them; From a distance they look like coloured markers in the fields; But then, as you draw closer, you realise they are moving; Gradually they take on the form of figures, bobbing up and down in the rows of crops, as if hiding from some unseen sniper; Hunched down in the fields, caps on their heads, cloths draped over their necks, slowly, very slowly, they make their way up and down the fields |
| 7/26/2005 |
| The Chinese won't stop at Longbridge |
| The irony could not be richer; It was Maoist shop stewards at Longbridge in the 1970s engaging in a guerrilla war against capitalism with 'wildcat' strikes who made the then British Leyland unmanageable and helped precipitate its long decline;On Friday night, the vestigial piece of the company, MG Rover, was bought by China's Nanjing Automobile, a company wholly owned by Mao's successors, for £50 million |
| 7/25/2005 |
| Planet of the Retired Apes |
| This past spring, in a secluded patch of forest in northwest Louisiana's Caddo Parish, a singularly bizarre bit of evolution unfolded. There, amid the sun-dappled pines and flitting birds, a pair of 40-something chimpanzees named Rita and Teresa-lifetime research subjects who were originally taken from Africa for use in NASA's space program- became American pioneers of a whole other sort: the first beneficiaries of an inspired piece of retirement legislation passed by the United States government |
| 7/25/2005 |
| How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart |
| Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well;Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder" |
| 7/25/2005 |
| Toyota, Moving Northward |
| Funny, isn't it? Pundits tell us that the welfare state is doomed by globalization, that programs like national health insurance have become unsustainable; But Canada's universal health insurance system is handling international competition just fine;It's our own system, which penalizes companies that treat their workers well, that's in trouble |
| 7/18/2005 |
| The real reasons for hunger |
| Amartya Sen's article in last week's Observer - Why half the planet is hungry - argues that no famine can occur in a democracy, and cites India as an example of the elimination of famines; It is true that famines disappeared immediately in 1947, with independence and multiparty elections. But famine is making a comeback in India; As Mulayam Singh Yada, the leader of a major political party, stated in Parliament:"There is famine in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar, Gujarat; This is a serious matter; The tragedy is that while people starve, the godowns are overflowing |
| 7/18/2005 |
| History's man |
| Few Latin American leaders can say boo to George W Bush. But as the US's biggest oil exporter, Venezuela's president is one; That could change today as his country votes on his future |
| 7/18/2005 |
| Tube bombs 'linked to Iraq conflict' |
| Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the terrorist attacks in London, a respected independent thinktank on foreign affairs, the Chatham House organisation, says today; According to the body, which includes leading academics and former civil servants among its members, the key problem in the UK for preventing terrorism is that the country is "riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war against terror" |
| 7/16/2005 |
| Venezuela Has Oil Money, And Chavez Sings His Tune |
| With sales of 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to the United States, worth as much as $2.7 billion a month, Chavez has increased government spending by 36.2 percent this year; He has poured billions into state-subsidized grocery stores, workers' cooperatives, adult education centers and public health clinics staffed by what government officials say are about 16,000 physicians on loan from Cuba |
| 7/3/2005 |
| An open letter to the G8 leaders |
| Tony Blair UK George W. Bush US Silvio Berlusconi Italy Jacques Chirac France Junichiro Koizumi Japan Paul Martin Canada Vladimir Putin Russia Gerhard Schroder Germany; Hi guys. Just so we’re clear . . . The Live 8 concerts that are happening this weekend will be a wonderful musical occasion; But despite the fact that the world’s greatest popular musicians are playing;they are not the stars of the show; The 8 of Live 8 are not 8 musicians or bands;they are you, the 8 leaders of the G8 |
| 7/3/2005 |
| Is that loud enough for you? |
| IN THE greatest comeback gig ever seen, the world yesterday once again found a voice for the poor of Africa. Twenty years on from Live Aid, eternal rockers and young pretenders sang out for the dispossessed and the destitute, the hungry and the homeless, and the corporate crowd slugging champagne in the VIP area |
| 6/18/2005 |
| G-8 Draft on Global Warming Is Weakened at U.S. Behest |
| The statement, first outlined last month by British officials, is meant to reflect the eight countries' shared concerns and plans regarding climate change. Drafts have been batted back and forth since mid-May;A newly disclosed version, the first showing specifically what changes were sought by the Bush administration, was provided to The New York Times on Friday by someone in Europe involved with shaping the British stance on the issue |
| 6/18/2005 |
| Uzbek Ministries in Crackdown Received U.S. Aid |
| Uzbek law enforcement and security ministries implicated by witnesses in the deadly crackdown in the city of Andijon last month have for years received training and equipment from counterterrorism programs run by the United States, according to American officials and Congressional records |
| 6/18/2005 |
| Antiwar Group Says Leaked British Memo Shows Bush Misled Public on His War Plans |
| Thanks to the Downing Street minutes, we now know the truth," said Ray McGovern, a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years who helped organize a group of other retired intelligence officers to oppose the war;The memo said Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of British intelligence, had said in the meeting that Mr. Bush had already decided on war, "but the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" |
| 6/18/2005 |
| Bush's Support on Major Issues Tumbles in Poll |
| Increasingly pessimistic about Iraq and skeptical about President Bush's plan for Social Security, Americans are in a season of political discontent, giving Mr. Bush one of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency and even lower marks to Congress, according to the New York Times/CBS News Poll |
| 6/18/2005 |
| As Toyota Goes ... |
| Diffusing Toyota's hybrid technology is one of the keys to what I call "geo-green"; Geo-greens seek to combine into a single political movement environmentalists who want to reduce fossil fuels that cause climate change, evangelicals who want to protect God's green earth and all his creations, and geo-strategists who want to reduce our dependence on crude oil because it fuels some of the worst regimes in the world |
| 6/18/2005 |
| Ex-Chief and Aide Guilty of Looting Millions at Tyco |
| L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco International, and his top lieutenant were convicted yesterday on fraud, conspiracy and grand larceny charges, bringing an end to a three-year-long case that came to symbolize an era of corporate greed and scandal; He was convicted of stealing $150 million from Tyco and reaping $430 million more by covertly selling shares |
| 6/9/2005 |
| Hundreds Protest Canada’s Forest Destruction At Global Forest Summit |
| Hundreds of concerned citizens and activists from across Canada and the United States rallied today outside the world’s largest forest industry gathering to demand more forest protection and a shift to ecosystem-based logging practices for all of Canada’s endangered forests and endangered species habitat; Demonstrators, dressed as caribou, salmon and bears, highlighted the discrepancy between the summit’s message of sustainability and the ongoing, widespread forest destruction occurring across Canada |
| 6/9/2005 |
| Ex-oil lobbyist watered down US climate research |
| Former oil industry lobbyist and chief of staff for the White House council on environmental quality, Philip Cooney watered down government scientific papers on climate change and played up uncertainties in the scientific literature. Mr Cooney is a law graduate and has no scientific training |
| 6/9/2005 |
| Urban Archipelago |
| At a time when the federal government is dominated by right-wing Republicans, and when liberal state governments are rare, cities are electing a new generation of progressives--a trend highlighted on May 17when the second-largest city in the country, Los Angeles, replaced a cautious Democratic incumbent mayor with progressive Antonio Villaraigosa |
| 6/9/2005 |
| After Downing Street: A Resolution of Inquiry |
| It's not exactly a news flash that the Bush Administration lied to the public before the invasion of Iraqó;What should be on front pages, though, is new proof of the Bush Administration's lies brought to light by the previously unknown Downing Street Minutes, recently obtained and printed in the Times of London;(The Downing Street Memo is a transcript of minutes of a secret meeting chaired by Tomy Blair in Britain in July of 2002 to discuss preparations and propaganda before going to war; It was marked "Secret and strictly personal--UK eyes only") |
| 6/9/2005 |
| Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming |
| A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents |
| 5/31/2005 |
| C.I.A. Report Finds Its Officials Failed In Pre-9/11 Efforts |
| Internal investigation by Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general John Helgerson concludes that officials who served at highest levels of agency should be held accountable for failing to allocate adequate resources to combating terrorism before 9/11 attacks; his report singles out former director George J Tenet and former deputy director of operations James L Pavitt; findings pose quandary for CIA and for Pres Bush, who last month awarded Medal of Freedom to Tenet |
| 5/31/2005 |
| C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights |
| An analysis of thousands of flight records, aircraft registrations and corporate documents, as well as interviews with former C.I.A. officers and pilots, show that the agency owns at least 26 planes, 10 of them purchased since 2001; The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft |
| 5/26/2005 |
| Bilderberg 2005: The world in the palm of their hands |
| The annual secret meeting of the Bilderberg group determines many of the headlines and news developments you will read about in the coming months; But the Establishment media completely black it out;With the exception of half-a-dozen high-ranking members of the press who are sworn to secrecy, few have ever heard of the exclusive and secretive group called The Bilderbergers |
| 5/20/2005 |
| While some 1 billion go hungry, some of the wealthiest nations waste enormous amounts of food |
| In the United Kingdom, some astonishing 30-40% of all food is never eaten, while in the US, some 40-50% of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten; UK alone sees some £20 billion ($38 billion US dollars) worth of food thrown away each; Furthermore, the additional rotting food creates more of the potent greenhouse gas, methane; Small update added to reflect these statistics in the context of world hunger |
| 5/20/2005 |
| South Koreans Streamline Cloning of Human Embryos |
| The method, called therapeutic cloning, is one of the great hopes of the stem cell field; It produces stem cells, universal cells that are extracted from embryos, killing the embryos in the process, and, in theory, can be directed to grow into any of the body's cell types; And since the stem cells come from embryos that are clones of individuals, they should be exact genetic matches; Scientists want to obtain such stem cells from patients to study the origin of diseases and to develop replacement cells that would be identical to ones a patient has lost |
| 5/20/2005 |
| The Chinese Connection |
| Dollar purchases by China and other foreign governments have temporarily insulated the U.S. economy from the effects of huge budget deficits; This money flowing in from abroad has kept U.S. interest rates low despite the enormous government borrowing required to cover the budget deficit |
| 5/1/2005 |
| A Private Obsession |
| American health care is unique among advanced countries in its heavy reliance on the private sector; It's also uniquely inefficient; We spend far more per person on health care than any other country, yet many Americans lack health insurance and don't receive essential care |
| 4/27/2005 |
| As Poles take jobs, bitterness in Germany |
| With new EU passports in hand, thousands of Poles have set themselves up as self-employed tile-layers, an easy-to-learn profession in wide demand; They are legal because they are not working for German companies; All they have to do is register with local German trade associations and pay their taxes |
| 4/27/2005 |
| GM industry puts human gene into rice |
| Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops in a dramatic extension of genetic modification; The move, which is causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy surrounding it to new heights |
| 4/4/2005 |
| Hillary opens up morality war on violent video games |
| “Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them,” the senator and former first lady said; “This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it’s okay to diss people because they are a woman, they’re a different colour or they’re from a different place”;Clinton, who is expected to seek the Democrats’ presidential nomination in 2008, has teamed up with two archconservative Republican senators, Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback; They want President George W Bush and Congress to launch a $90m (£48m) investigation of the impact of electronic media on children’s “cognitive, social, emotional and physical development |
| 3/19/2005 |
| Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News |
| The Bush administration, eager to sell the country on "personal" Social Security accounts, cannot be all that pleased to see Kenny Boy again; He's the poster boy for how big guys can rip off suckers in the stock market; He also dredges up some inconvenient pre-9/11 memories of Bush family business; Enron was the biggest Bush-Cheney campaign contributor in the 2000 election; Kenny Boy and his lovely wife Linda flew the first President Bush and Barbara Bush to the ensuing Inauguration on the Enron jet; Even as Enron was presiding over rolling blackouts in California, Dick Cheney or his aides had at least six meetings with the company's executives to carve up government energy policy in 2001; Even now what exactly transpired at those meetings remains a secret |
| 3/19/2005 |
| The Ugly American Bank |
| You can say this about Paul Wolfowitz's qualifications to lead the World Bank: He has been closely associated with America's largest foreign aid and economic development project since the Marshall Plan;I'm talking, of course, about reconstruction in Iraq; Unfortunately, what happened there is likely to make countries distrust any economic advice Mr. Wolfowitz might give;Let's not focus on mismanagement; Instead, let's talk about ideology |
| 3/19/2005 |
| In Life on the Mekong, China's Dams Dominate |
| For countless generations, fishermen along the Mekong River have passed their lore and way of life from father to son: the rhythms of the water, the habits of the many kinds of fish, the best nets and traps to use to survive and prosper;But Sri Sumwantha, 70, one of the old men of Asia's majestic river, has left his delicate pirogue tied up at the riverbank for longer stretches than usual; Through green bamboo stands, he has watched the caramel-colored current slow and surge unpredictably and his catch diminish. Now, he worries how much longer his family can live off the river |
| 3/17/2005 |
| Canadian Government to Unleash Terminator Bombshell at UN Meeting: All-out push for commercialisation of Sterile Seed Technology |
| A confidential document leaked today to ETC Group reveals that the Canadian government, at a United Nations meeting in Bangkok (Feb 7-11), will attempt to overturn an international moratorium on genetic seed sterilisation technology (known universally as Terminator);"Even worse, the Canadian government has instructed its negotiators to "block consensus" on any other option;"Canada is about to launch a devastating kick in the stomach to the world's most vulnerable farmers - the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm saved seed," said ETC Group Executive Director Pat Mooney speaking from Ottawa; "The Canadian government is doing the dirty work for the multinational gene giants and the US government; Even Monsanto wasn't prepared to be this upfront and nasty; Canada is betraying Farmers' Rights and food sovereignty everywhere" |
| 2/28/2005 |
| Fixing Argentina |
| The Take, a stirring, idealistic documentary that examines the grass-roots cooperative movement in financially devastated Argentina, raises basic questions about economics, government and human nature; Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, the Toronto-based film makers who directed and wrote “The Take,“ describe themselves as “activist filmmakers“ |
| 2/24/2005 |
| Canada Says It Won't Join Missile Shield With the U.S |
| The Canadian government has refused to take part in a planned North America missile defense system despite personal lobbying by President Bush here last November, United States diplomatic officials said Wednesday;The long-awaited decision from Prime Minister Paul Martin was a symbolic setback for the Bush administration when it is trying to heal rifts with allies that emerged from the invasion of Iraq |
| 2/24/2005 |
| Latin America Regains Control of its Resources |
| The heated backlash against free-market changes -fueled by the sense that they promised more than they delivered while offering overpriced, often flawed services - has at once left governments vulnerable to volatile protests and forced foreign companies to retreat; No companies have been more buffeted than those running public utilities offering water, electrical and telephone services, or those that extract minerals and hydrocarbons, which, like water, are seen as part of a nation's patrimony;Those who resist the trends of globalization have been emboldened by what they see as the success of local people in asserting their control over resources |
| 2/24/2005 |
| Latin America Regains Control of its Resources |
| The heated backlash against free-market changes -fueled by the sense that they promised more than they delivered while offering overpriced, often flawed services - has at once left governments vulnerable to volatile protests and forced foreign companies to retreat; No companies have been more buffeted than those running public utilities offering water, electrical and telephone services, or those that extract minerals and hydrocarbons, which, like water, are seen as part of a nation's patrimony;Those who resist the trends of globalization have been emboldened by what they see as the success of local people in asserting their control over resources |
| 2/1/2005 |
| Nanomedicine's Promise Is Anything but Tiny |
| It was a small wedding. Very small; But big changes are coming from the marriage of medicine and nanotechnology, the new branch of science that deals with things a few millionths of an inch in sizeMore than 60 drugs and drug delivery systems based on nanotechnology, and more than 90 medical devices or diagnostic tests, are already being tested, according to NanoBiotech News, a weekly newsletter that tracks the field; These examples, drawn from recent scientific publications, offer a glimpse of just how small the field of medicine is getting |
| 1/29/2005 |
| Hebrew language is besieged by imports |
| The Hebrew language survived more than 2,000 years of disuse but is now being undermined by imports from its Arab neighbours and the English of its closest ally, the United States;Visitors to an Israeli bar are likely to be greeted with 'Ahlan', an abbreviation of the Arabic greeting 'ahlan wahsahlan', which means welcome; When it is time to leave, they are likely to hear 'Yalla, bye', a combination of the Arabic for 'let's go' and the English goodbye |
| 1/29/2005 |
| The dictator, the saint and the minister |
| After weeks of speculation, the education secretary Ruth Kelly admitted this week that she receives 'spiritual support' from the secretive Catholic sect Opus Dei; But even if reports of bizarre rituals are exaggerated, why would she be involved with the controversial group in the first place? |
| 1/25/2005 |
| Nations Ranked as Protectors of the Environment |
| Finland, Norway and Uruguay held the top three spots in the ranking, prepared by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities; The United States ranked 45th of the 146 countries studied, behind such countries as Japan, Botswana and the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and most of Western Europe; The lowest-ranking country was North Korea. Among those near the bottom were Haiti, Taiwan, Iraq and Kuwait |
| 1/25/2005 |
| Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable |
| Under the surface of that ice profound and potentially troubling changes are taking place, and at a quickened pace; With temperatures climbing in parts of Antarctica in recent years, melt water seems to be penetrating deeper and deeper into ice crevices, weakening immense and seemingly impregnable formations that have developed over thousands of years;As a result, huge glaciers in this and other remote areas of Antarctica are thinning and ice shelves the size of American states are either disintegrating or retreating - all possible indications of global warming |
| 1/21/2005 |
| That Magic Moment |
| Last week Andrew Biggs, the associate commissioner for retirement policy at the Social Security Administration, appeared with Mr. Bush at a campaign-style event to promote privatization; There was a time when it would have been considered inappropriate for a civil servant to play such a blatantly political role; But then there was a time when it would have been considered inappropriate to appoint a professional advocate like Mr. Biggs, the former assistant director of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Privatization, to such a position in the first place |
| 1/21/2005 |
| Food Prices in New York in Biggest Leap in 14 Years |
| The Consumer Price Index for the New York region rose 3.8 percent as an overall average in 2004, the federal government said yesterday, as higher food prices and rising fuel costs drove the largest year-to-year increase in the index since 1990;The figures showed that New Yorkers spent more money last year whipping together salads and slicing bananas into their cereal than the rest of the United States, as local prices for food showed the largest annual increase in 14 years |
| 1/16/2005 |
| Flagship hospital pays heavy price for independence |
| When New Labour came up with the idea that the best hospitals should control their own fortunes, no one foresaw the desperate plight that now faces the ailing Bradford Royal Infirmary |
| 1/16/2005 |
| Abu Ghraib abuse firms are rewarded |
| Two US defence contractors being sued over allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison have been awarded valuable new contracts by the Pentagon, despite demands that they should be barred from any new government work |
| 1/13/2005 |
| Slaves of the 21st century |
| The emergence of a whole new batch of countries from which to source au pairs (hooray for the collapse of communism) has proved a godsend for hard-pressed parents in one of Europe's most expensive cities; Cheap, cheap labour, in the hugely exploitable form of young girls unsure what people in this country consider hard work, and what is frankly no better than abuse, is flooding into London; There are no controls; And complete freedom over a £50-a-week skivvy is going to the heads of my hitherto blamelessly humanitarian friends; One by one, they're turning into the kind of racist, bullying, heartless employers whose appalling behaviour they would indignantly condemn if they came across it in any other walk of life;"I'm getting a Serb from Kosovo," Friend A confided at the end of the summer, with a devilish glint in her eyes |
| 1/11/2005 |
| Toxic Breast Milk? |
| Some of the chemicals I'm mainlining to my 1-year-old daughter will stay in her body long enough for her to pass them on to her own offspring; PCB's, for example, can remain in human tissue for decades. On a body-weight basis, the dietary doses my baby gets are much higher than the doses I get; This is not only because she is smaller, but also because her food -- my milk -- contains more concentrated contaminants than my food; It's the law of the food chain, and it's called biomagnification |
| 1/9/2005 |
| Delivering on Doha's promise |
| THE Doha trade round was supposed to be finished by now; When the world's trade ministers launched the global trade talks in November 2001, they promised to conclude them three years later; By the end of 2004, there was to be an ambitious agreement on freeing trade in farm goods and services, with the emphasis on helping the poorest countries; Three years on, that deal is nowhere in sight |
| 1/9/2005 |
| Mandela left isolated by family deaths |
| A spate of deaths is turning Nelson Mandela, the world's most admired statesman, into one of its loneliest; The death of his only surviving son, Makgatho, 54, to an Aids-related illness last week was the latest bereavement to devastate South Africa's former president;Last year he retired from public life to spend more time with friends and relatives, but for some it has come too late, leaving the 86-year-old to rue the sacrifices of a lifetime in politics |
| 1/6/2005 |
| Blackest day for shocked Swedes |
| In a state of unprecedented collective shock, Swedes saw in the New Year yesterday with flags at half-mast and a national day of mourning as Prime Minister Göran Persson's embattled government admitted that 3,559 of the country's nationals were missing in Thailand in the wake of the tsunami;Persson said the feared final casualty figure - already certain to be the highest for any European country - was likely to make the tsunami disaster the most serious trauma in Swedish history; 'The disaster and all the missing people are going to be noticeable in every sphere of our society,' said Persson |
| 1/6/2005 |
| A country ripped apart, a people daring to hope |
| In Indonesia's Banda Aceh - close to the epicentre of the earthquake - the scale of the carnage was so much greater; On Wednesday night the bodies were still lying in the streets, hundreds of them, 72 hours after the earthquake and tidal waves had swept through the city and along hundreds of miles of the adjoining coast |
| 12/31/2004 |
| Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers |
| Across Latin America, supermarket chains partly or wholly owned by global corporate goliaths like Ahold, Wal-Mart and Carrefour have revolutionized food distribution in the short span of a decade and have now begun to transform food growing, too;The megastores are popular with customers for their lower prices, choice and convenience; But their sudden appearance has brought unanticipated and daunting challenges to millions of struggling, small farmers;The stark danger is that increasing numbers of them will go bust and join streams of desperate migrants to America and the urban slums of their own countries |
| 12/31/2004 |
| Susan Sontag, Social Critic With Verve, Dies at 71 |
| Susan Sontag, the novelist, essayist and critic whose impassioned advocacy of the avant-garde and equally impassioned political pronouncements made her one of the most lionized presences - and one of the most polarizing - in 20th-century letters, died yesterday morning in Manhattan. She was 71 and lived in Manhattan |
| 12/31/2004 |
| Are We Stingy? Yes |
| President Bush finally roused himself yesterday from his vacation in Crawford, Tex., to telephone his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, and to speak publicly about the devastation of Sunday's tsunamis in Asia; He also hurried to put as much distance as possible between himself and America's initial measly aid offer of $15 million, and he took issue with an earlier statement by the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, who had called the overall aid efforts by rich Western nations "stingy" |
| 12/25/2004 |
| US deal offers climate change action |
| Worldwide efforts to put a cap on global warming edged forward yesterday when the United States agreed to participate in a seminar next year to discuss climate issues including the next steps on emission controls; But the US failed to make any commitments to negotiate mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, a position held since President Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001; The modest deal, reached during the final hours of a two-week UN conference on climate change in Buenos Aires, has been seen as small victory by campaigners; 'It's a finger-hold,' said Michael Zammit Cutajar of Malta, a veteran climate negotiator |
| 12/12/2004 |
| As Hawks Circle, All Sides Seek Compromise |
| Government officials, environmental advocates and a representative of a luxury co-op building have agreed to meet tomorrow to discuss new lodgings for Manhattan's most famous homeless couple: two red-tailed hawks, Pale Male and Lola, whose eight-foot nest was removed and destroyed on Tuesday afternoon;Daily protests in front of the building, a public outcry from across the country, and concern from some of the building's own residents prompted the chairman of the building's co-op board, Richard Cohen, on Friday to call the New York City Audubon Society, a group that has helped stoke much of the public reaction |
| 11/27/2004 |
| Apocalypse (Almost) Now |
| The "Left Behind" series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian; The world's Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching"; Gosh, what an uplifting scene!;If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering; We should hold ourselves to the same standard |
| 11/22/2004 |
| Groundhog Day |
| Stop us if you've heard this one before; The Bush administration creates a false sense of urgency about a nuclear menace from a Middle Eastern country; Hard-liners talk about that country's connections to terrorists; They portray European diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions as a feckless attempt to appease a rogue nation whose word can never be trusted anyway; Secretary of State Colin Powell makes ominous-sounding warnings about new intelligence, which turns out to be dubious That is how President Bush rushed the country into an unnecessary conflict with Iraq in his first term, and we have been seeing alarming signs of that approach all week on Iran |
| 11/21/2004 |
| Straw ordered probe weeks before coup bid |
| On 7 March, a group of mercenaries allegedly linked to Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of the former Prime Minister, was arrested in Zimbabwe on charges of plan ning a coup against President Teodoro Obiang;At the time, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe accused Britain, the US and Spain of being behind the coup in an attempt to gain control of the country's oil interests;Last week, The Observer revealed that Straw had been informed of the alleged coup in late January; Now it has emerged that not only did the government know about the plot, but that it also took steps to establish whether British firms and nationals were involved |
| 11/21/2004 |
| Pentagon turns heat up on Iran |
| Pentagon hawks have begun discussing military action against Iran to neutralise its nuclear weapons threat, including possible strikes on leadership, political and security targets; With a deadline of tomorrow for Iran to begin an agreed freeze on enriching uranium, which can be used to produce nuclear weapons, sources have disclosed that the latest Pentagon gaming model for 'neutralising' Iran's nuclear threat involves strikes in support of regime change;Although the United States has made clear that it would seek sanctions against Iran through the United Nations should it not meet its obligations, rather than undertake military action, the new modelling at the Pentagon, with its shift in emphasis from suspected nuclear to political target lists, is causing deep anxiety among officials in the UK, France and Germany |
| 11/21/2004 |
| Britain: a nation 'in grip of drink crisis' |
| The American 'super-cop' brought in by the Home Office to cut Britain's crime rate warned last night that the nation's binge drinking culture was spiralling out of control and fuelling an epidemic of violence outside pubs and clubs that threatened to overwhelm the police; In his first major interview the former Boston police chief, Paul Evans, described scenes he had witnessed in the early hours of the morning in city centres across Britain as chaos; 'I'm not sure it can get much worse,' he said, in response to police fears that new licensing laws allowing 24-hour drinking would lead to increased violence |
| 11/15/2004 |
| U2: The Catharsis in the Cathedral |
| U2's superb new album is about faith; And morality; Not to mention social justice, science and the heroic intimacy of love |
| 11/8/2004 |
| Spend $150 Billion per Year to Cure World Poverty |
| In many ways, Sachs's ideas are a throwback to the 1950's and 60's, when economists believed chronic poverty resulted from a lack of savings and investment -- creating an obvious role for foreign assistance. John F. Kennedy increased aid by 25 percent; under Lyndon Johnson, American foreign assistance reached its apex in real dollars; But the 70's brought more market-oriented theories, and by the late 80's, most economists converged around the ''Washington Consensus'' -- a belief that free trade, low taxes, deregulation and privatization would make all boats rise. Sachs himself bolstered that orthodoxy when he co-wrote a highly influential paper in 1995 that largely blamed protectionist policies for the lack of economic growth in poor countries |
| 11/7/2004 |
| How Bush tapped into a well of faith |
| Many in America now believe there has been a revolution in American politics; At a time of war in Iraq and facing the first net loss of jobs since the Great Depression, it was instead the issue of cultural values that decided the greatest amount of votes; For John Kerry's campaign, which saw the Iraq war or the economy as the deciding factors, it was a huge slap in the face; 'The turnout of the religious right was key to Bush's victory; The new slogan should be: "It's the culture, stupid",' said Mark Rozell, politics professor at George Mason University |
| 11/7/2004 |
| Flood sweat and tears |
| We can't say we haven't been warned - rising temperatures, disappearing coastlines and dire predictions that climate change poses a greater threat than global terror ... Yet still we fly, drive, consume and pollute like never before; Where will it all end? |
| 11/4/2004 |
| U.S. Wants No Warming Proposal |
| The Bush administration has been working for months to keep an upcoming eight-nation report from endorsing broad policies aimed at curbing global warming, according to domestic and foreign participants, despite the group's conclusion that Arctic latitudes are facing historic increases in temperature, glacial melting and abrupt weather changes |
| 10/24/2004 |
| The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket |
| Itis shocking: The Bush Administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names; Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the Congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago;"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the Administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward" |
| 10/24/2004 |
| In Africa, Free Schools Feed a Different Hunger |
| Overnight, more than a million additional children showed up for school last year when Kenya's newly elected government abolished fees that had been prohibitively high for many parents, about $16 a year; Many classrooms are now bulging with the country's most disadvantaged children; Kenya is not alone; Responding to popular demand for education, it is one of a raft of African nations contending with both a wondrous opportunity and nettlesome challenge: teaching the millions of children who have poured into schools as country after country - from Malawi and Lesotho to Uganda and Tanzania - has suddenly made primary education free; Mozambique will join them in January when it abolishes fees; |
| 10/23/2004 |
| Yale Holds Secret Spot in Bush, Kerry Pasts |
| Despite their ideological differences, Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) and Republican George W. Bush share much in common. Each was raised amid wealth and privilege in the northeastern United States, and each attended Yale University in the 1960s where they joined the same secret society: Skull and Bones;Founded more than 150 years ago, Skull and Bones is shrouded in the kind of mystery befitting the Gothic, Ivy League campus where its members meet behind closed doors in a windowless structure known as the tomb |
| 10/20/2004 |
| Organic farming boosts biodiversity |
| Organic farming increases biodiversity at every level of the food chain – all the way from lowly bacteria to mammals; This is the conclusion of the largest review ever done of studies from around the world comparing organic and conventional agriculture; Previous studies have shown that organic farming methods can benefit the wildlife around farms; But “the fact that the message is similar all the way up the food chain is new information”, says agricultural scientist Martin Entz of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada |
| 10/14/2004 |
| A Poverty Issue Left Untouched |
| The Census Bureau's annual figures on family incomes and poverty were bound to become familiar factoids in the Bush-Kerry combat; The numbers seem to confirm what many people feel: The middle class is squeezed; poverty is worsening; In 2003 the median household income dropped for the fourth consecutive year, to $43,318; the official poverty rate rose for the third year, to 12.5 percent of the population; and the number of people without health insurance increased for the third straight year, to 45 million, or 15.6 percent of the population |
| 10/14/2004 |
| Implantable Medical ID Approved By FDA |
| A microchip that can be implanted under the skin to give doctors instant access to a patient's records yesterday won government approval;The tiny electronic capsule, the first such device to receive Food and Drug Administration approval, transmits a unique code to a scanner that allows doctors to confirm a patient's identity and obtain detailed medical information from an accompanying database; Doctors would scan patients like cans of soup at a grocery store; Instead of the price, the patient's medical record would pop up on a computer screen |
| 10/14/2004 |
| How Tax Bill Gave Business More and More |
| On Monday, everybody involved was a winner; The Senate gave final approval to Mr. Grassley's bill, which would shower $137 billion in tax breaks into every corner of industry; While the bill's primary purpose is to bolster American manufacturers, it will also help Chinese ceiling-fan companies by eliminating $44 million in tariffs over the next two years; President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law shortly |
| 10/8/2004 |
| The Battle of the Pump |
| Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none have been worse than their opposition to energy conservation and a gasoline tax; If we had imposed a new gasoline tax after 9/11, demand would have been dampened and gas today would probably still be $2 a gallon; But instead of the extra dollar going to Saudi Arabia - where it ends up with mullahs who build madrasas that preach intolerance - that dollar would have gone to our own Treasury to pay down our own deficit and finance our own schools. In fact, the Bush energy policy should be called No Mullah Left Behind |
| 9/25/2004 |
| Thousands of Taiwan People Protest U.S. Arms Deal |
| Thousands of protesters marched through Taiwan's capital on Saturday, urging the government to scrap a big U.S. weapons package they said would trigger an arms race with China and squeeze social welfare;The weapons package is made up of $4.3 billion for Patriot Advanced-Capability 3 missile defenses, $12.3 billion for eight diesel-electric submarines and $1.6 billion for 12 P-3C Orion submarine-hunting aircraft |
| 9/25/2004 |
| Calif. OKs Toughest Auto Emissions Rules |
| California has adopted the world's first rules to reduce greenhouse emissions for autos, taking what supporters see as a dramatic step toward cleaning up the environment but also ensuring higher costs for drivers;The rules may lead to sweeping changes in vehicles nationwide, especially if other states opt to follow California's example; New York has already said it will follow the regulations, and several other states are expected to do the same |
| 9/24/2004 |
| Troubled Unit of Halliburton May Go on Block |
| The unit, KBR, which provides military and oil field services, has been plagued by losses, by investigations into its activities in Nigeria and Iran and by sizable asbestos claims. Making matters worse, KBR's work in Iraq has not been as profitable as other activities and has contributed to a public relations nightmare for its parent; All of this has happened while KBR is seeking to emerge from bankruptcy protection |
| 9/21/2004 |
| The transatlantic drift |
| No one ever said it was going to be easy to patch up transatlantic relations after months of bitter differences over Iraq; But it is proving far, far harder than many had imagined;In a week that saw further deterioration - with devastating car bombs in Baghdad and Kirkuk, chillingly organised hostage-taking, swelling insurgency and mounting criticism of heavy-handed US military tactics - America and Europe seem as far apart as ever |
| 9/17/2004 |
| Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row |
| Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row; A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq; Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw; The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations; The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz |
| 9/9/2004 |
| Spurred by Illness, Indonesians Lash Out at U.S. Mining Giant |
| First the fish began to disappear. Then villagers began developing strange rashes and bumps. Finally in January, Masna Stirman, aided by a $1.50 wet nurse, gave birth to a tiny, shriveled girl with small lumps and wrinkled skin; "The nurse said: 'Ma'am, the baby has deformities,' " Mrs. Stirman, 39, recalled in an interview; Unable to get any meaningful medical help in this remote fishing village of about 300 people, she watched as her fourth child suffered for months and then died in July; The infant's death came after years of complaints by local fishermen about waste dumped in the ocean by the owner of a nearby gold mine, the Newmont Mining Corporation, the world's biggest gold producer, based in Denver; It also kicked up a political brawl pitting Indonesia's feisty environmental groups against the American mining giant, which has been trailed by allegations of pollution on four continents |
| 9/1/2004 |
| Greedy Black plundered Hollinger, says report |
| Lord Black plundered his former company, Hollinger International, the then owner of the Daily Telegraph, on a vast scale, according to a 500-page report published yesterday` The document, the result of a yearlong internal investigation, embellishes an earlier $1.25bn lawsuit against Lord Black and other former executives of the company, accusing them of extraordinary greed; Lord Black charged the company almost $43,000 (£27,000) for a birthday party he threw for his wife Barbara Amiel at New York's La Grenouille restaurant; Celebrity guests, including Oscar de la Renta, Barbara Walters and Ron Perelman, enjoyed Beluga caviar and lobster;The couple also claimed as expenses $2,463 for Lady Black's handbags, $3,530 for silverware for the Blacks' corporate jet and $24,950 for "summer drinks" |
| 9/1/2004 |
| W.T.O. Authorizes Anti-Dumping Sanctions on U.S. |
| World Trade Organization arbitrators Tuesday authorized the European Union and other leading U.S. trade partners to impose sanctions against the United States in response to antidumping rules;The decision by the WTO in Geneva allows the complainants to fine the United States up to 72 percent of money collected under the Byrd Amendment, which empowers Washington to levy fines against foreign companies judged to be dumping goods on the U.S. market |
| 8/30/2004 |
| Dyke: Blair's world of 'lies and bullying' |
| Greg Dyke, former director-general of the BBC, today lays bare the astonishing inside story of the war waged by the Prime Minister and Downing Street against the BBC over its coverage of the Iraq war and the controversial issue of weapons of mass destruction; In an explosive autobiography which returns the corrosive issue of Iraq to the heart of political debate, Dyke reveals that Tony Blair wrote an unprecedented letter to him and Gavyn Davies, the former BBC chairman, trying to force the corporation to change the tone of its coverage |
| 8/30/2004 |
| New Research Provides The First Solid Evidence That The Study Of Music Promotes Intellectual Development |
| The idea that studying music improves the intellect is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto;The study, led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children |
| 8/23/2004 |
| Bosnia: The Limits of Neocolonial Rule |
| An assertive international presence has attempted to remove obstacles to sustainable peace and democratization, often with little or no regard for the very international human rights norms that are deemed to motivate the international presence in the country; The paradox of this presence over the past decade is exemplified by the idea that democracy and human rights can be imposed through undemocratic means. The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, makes decisions without being accountable for them; Last summer a European think-tank issued a report claiming that Ashdown rules Bosnia as the British ruled India in the 19 th century, creating in effect a “European Raj” |
| 7/30/2004 |
| IMF Says Its Policies Crippled Argentina |
| The International Monetary Fund's handling of the crisis in Argentina three years ago almost certainly deepened a recession that threw millions of Argentines into poverty and sparked political chaos throughout the country, according to a report released yesterday by the IMF's internal audit unit; By overlooking Argentina's growing indebtedness in the 1990s and continuing to lend the country money when its debt burden had become unsustainable, the fund significantly contributed to one of the most devastating financial crises in history, the report concluded |
| 7/30/2004 |
| World Bank Challenged: Are Poor Really Helped? |
| Wealthy nations and international organizations, including the World Bank, spend more than $55 billion annually to better the lot of the world's 2.7 billion poor people; Yet they have scant evidence that the myriad projects they finance have made any real difference, many economists say; That important fact has left some critics of the World Bank, the largest financier of antipoverty programs in developing countries, dissatisfied, and they have begun throwing down an essential challenge; It is not enough, they say, just to measure how many miles of roads are built, schools constructed or microcredit loans provided; You must also measure whether those investments actually help poor people live longer, more prosperous lives |
| 7/30/2004 |
| I.R.S. Says Americans' Income Shrank for 2 Consecutive Years |
| The overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years after the Internet stock market bubble burst in 2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the modern tax system was introduced during World War II, newly disclosed information from the Internal Revenue Service shows |
| 7/26/2004 |
| A love affair that survived even 9/11 |
| Craig Unger's notably intelligent piece of investigative reporting, House of Bush, House of Saud, uncovers the corruption and greed that continues to hinder peace in the Middle East |
| 7/26/2004 |
| Wal-Mars Invades Earth |
| Then it began to grow;By 2000, measures of mere size - bigger than General Motors! richer than Switzerland! - no longer told the whole story; It's the velocity of growth that you need to measure now: two new stores opening and $1 billion worth of U.S. real estate bought up every week; almost 600,000 American employees churned through in a year (that's at a 44 percent turnover rate); My thumbnail calculation suggests that by the year 4004, every square inch of the United States will be covered by supercenters, so that the only place for new supercenters will be on top of existing ones |
| 7/22/2004 |
| British Worry That Drinking Has Gotten Out of Hand |
| Even Prime Minister Tony Blair is worried; "There is a clear and growing problem in our town and city centers up and down the country on Friday and Saturday nights," said Mr. Blair, whose son, then 16, was found vomiting and incoherent on a London street four years ago after an evening of drinking; "As a society we have to make sure that this form of what we often call binge drinking doesn't become the new British disease";By some measures it already has; Cheaper and more readily available alcohol, changing drinking patterns, a steep increase in drinking among young women and a decline in old standards of civility have turned what was once a manageable part of life into a problem that costs society, according to government estimates, $35 billion a year |
| 7/19/2004 |
| Blair should apologise for handling of war, says poll |
| Tony Blair should use tomorrow's Commons debate on the Butler report to repair his damaged reputation by apologising for his handling of the war in Iraq, an opinion poll suggested yesterday, as Michael Howard moved to distance himself from the conflict;The prime minister last week said he took responsibility for errors and had searched his conscience; No 10 aides said an apology would be interpreted as admitting he had been wrong to go to war, which he repeatedly denies |
| 7/16/2004 |
| Isolated and Angry, Gaza Battles Itself, Too |
| GAZA - Some of the women wore smart suits. Many modestly covered their hair; Only one wore the most conservative Islamic dress, cloaking herself head to toe in black;Members of the Women's Affairs Technical Committee of Palestine, they had gathered in June in a hotel conference room in Gaza City for a symposium titled "After the Withdrawal From Gaza";They were not happy with what they were hearing over the crash of the surf beyond the windows; Like Palestinians generally, these women wanted to hear precisely what the Palestinian leadership planned to do; They knew that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, said he would withdraw Israeli settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip next year; They knew that Palestinian factions had begun struggling over who will govern Gaza and how, whether it will be ruled by agreement, by ballot, by force, or not at all |
| 7/15/2004 |
| Machine at Work |
| From a business point of view, Enron is a smoking ruin;But there's important evidence in the rubble;If Enron hadn't collapsed, we might still have only circumstantial evidence that energy companies artificially drove up prices during California's electricity crisis; Now, e-mail and other Enron documents are revealing why Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, is one of the most powerful men in America |
| 7/11/2004 |
| The grieving parents who might yet bring Bush down |
| Parents and spouses are supposed to accept their tremendous losses with stoic patriotism, never asking whether a death could have been avoided, never questioning how their loved ones are used to justify more killing; At Patrick McCaffrey's military funeral last week, Paul Harris, the chaplain of the 579th Engineer Battalion, informed the mourners: "What Patrick was doing was good and right and noble...There are thousands, no, millions, of Iraqis who are grateful for his sacrifice"; But Nadia McCaffrey knows better and is insisting on carrying her son's own feelings of deep disappointment from beyond the grave. "He was so ashamed by the prisoner abuse scandal," Ms McCaffrey told the Independent. "He said we had no business in Iraq and should not be there" |
| 7/11/2004 |
| 'A global intelligence failure' |
| The principal claims justifying the invasion of Iraq - that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons and was developing nuclear weapons - were fundamentally wrong and the result of a "global intelligence failure", a Senate investigation concluded yesterday; "We went into Iraq based on false claims," said Senator Jay Rockefeller, one of the authors of yesterday's report on the debacle, said; He added that he now regretted his vote in October 2002 to support the war;"The fact is that the administration, at all levels ... used bad information to bolster its case for war, and we in Congress would not have authorised that war ... if we knew what we know now," Mr Rockefeller said |
| 7/11/2004 |
| BBC: British PM Blair 'Considered Resigning' |
| British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) considered resigning last month and had to be persuaded to stay on by senior colleagues, the BBC reported Saturday; Blair's office made no comment on the report, saying he had repeatedly insisted when asked about his future that he would lead his ruling Labor party into a third general election expected next year, which analysts predict he would win |
| 7/6/2004 |
| NATO's 'Myth' in Afghanistan |
| A couple of years ago, when the Bush administration's unilateralists were still riding high, a senior official at the Pentagon told me the mocking slogan for the transatlantic alliance then circulating around his building went as follows: "NATO -- keep the myth alive!" No doubt he never imagined that in the run-up to the 2004 election, his boss would be trying to do just that -- only without the sarcasm |
| 7/5/2004 |
| Europe's energy markets are struggling towards freedom |
| “FREE Gulliver!” declared Philippe de Buck at a recent gathering of European regulators, utility bosses and others involved in energy liberalisation; The secretary-general of the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe urged them to “take their hands off the management of the energy business” and added, “Don't turn back the process of deregulation;” Only thus, he argued, will Gulliver be liberated from the thousands of “Lilliputian rules and restrictions that bind him”; His timing was curious, to say the least, for July 1st marked a crucial step in the emergence of the EU as the world's most liberalised large energy market |
| 7/5/2004 |
| NATO chief offers a bleak analysis |
| NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned Friday that Afghanistan and Iraq were doomed to be failed states if the United States and the international community did not find a way to work together to save them;He also sharply criticized the Bush administration as abandoning NATO as an alliance and using it mainly when it suited Washington's interests; "Can we afford two failed states in pivotal regions?" de Hoop Scheffer said in an interview; "It's both undesirable and unacceptable if either Afghanistan or Iraq were to be lost; There would be enormous repercussions for stability, and not only in those regions |
| 7/4/2004 |
| Moore's Public Service |
| And for all its flaws, "Fahrenheit 9/11" performs an essential service;For example, audiences are shocked by the now-famous seven minutes, when George Bush knew the nation was under attack but continued reading "My Pet Goat" with a group of children;Nobody had told them that the tales of Mr. Bush's decisiveness and bravery on that day were pure fiction;Or consider the Bush family's ties to the Saudis;The film suggests that Mr. Bush and his good friend Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador known to the family as Bandar Bush, have tried to cover up the extent of Saudi involvement in terrorism;Wat shocks people, I think, is the fact that nobody told them about this side of Mr. Bush's life |
| 7/4/2004 |
| U.S. Job Growth for June Shows Steep Slowdown |
| The renewed weakness in employment provided unwelcome news to President Bush's re-election campaign, which has been counting on drawing attention to an improving job market to make the case for its economic policies; And it offered fresh ammunition for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, whose criticism of Mr. Bush's economic track record has been undermined since hiring began setting a fast pace earlier this year |
| 7/2/2004 |
| Who Lost Iraq? |
| The Iraq venture may have been doomed from the start — but we'll never know for sure because the Bush administration made such a mess of the occupation; Future historians will view it as a case study of how not to run a country |
| 7/2/2004 |
| Reality Intrudes on Promises in Rebuilding of Iraq |
| More than a year into an aid effort that American officials likened to the Marshall Plan, occupation authorities acknowledge that fewer than 140 of 2,300 promised construction projects are under way. Only three months after L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator who departed Monday, pledged that 50,000 Iraqis would find jobs at construction sites before the formal transfer of sovereignty, fewer than 20,000 local workers are employed |
| 7/2/2004 |
| Abu Ghraib, Stonewalled |
| Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of another issue, the Red Cross reports on Iraq, is the most outrageous example of the administration's bad faith on the prison scandal; The Bush administration has cited Red Cross confidentiality policies to explain its failure to give up the reports; The trouble is, the Red Cross has repeatedly told the administration to go ahead and share the agency's findings with Congress, as long as steps are taken to prevent leaks |
| 7/2/2004 |
| Friends and Foes of 'Fahrenheit' Lobby Everyone |
| The political action committee MoveOn.org organized thousands of parties linked to the release of that film; As of Monday evening, according to online registrations provided by MoveOn, that organization had recruited more than 4,000 supporters to give parties, with at least one in all 50 states and Washington; The highlight was an 8 p.m. conference call and question-and-answer session with Mr. Moore |
| 7/2/2004 |
| Cassini First to Orbit Saturn |
| Locked in the grip of Saturn's gravity and traveling at a speed of 50,331 mph, Cassini-Huygens breached the 15,000-mile-wide gap between the planet's F and G rings at 10:11 p.m; Eastern time on Wednesday, turned its back end forward and fired its main rocket in a 96-minute "burn" to brake its progress; At 10:25 p.m. scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory applauded as the spacecraft, apparently unscathed, sent a radio transmission confirming that it was safely through the rings |
| 7/2/2004 |
| The woman who is taking on Wal-Mart |
| Last week a San Francisco judge ruled that Dukes and 1.5 million current and former employees at Wal-Mart could proceed with a lawsuit alleging that the company discriminated against female employees, bypassing them for promotion and paying them less than their male counterparts; It is the largest civil rights case in US history;'Am I scared of what we are taking on? Fear can hold anyone back - but not me,' says Dukes, who has worked at a Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, California, since 1994;'The way I see it Wal-Mart is an American company and I'm an American who is protected by the laws of my country, which state I have the right to excel in my job, regardless of gender, race or financial status' |
| 7/1/2004 |
| Monsanto profit rises, shares hit 3-year high |
| The St. Louis-based company, whose shares rose to the highest level in three years, attributed the gains to an earlier-than-normal rush by producers to apply herbicide products on North American farm fields, and steady growth in biotech soybeans, corn and other crops;Biotech crops are a hotly debated issue and opposition is stiff in many areas around the globe. But U.S. farmers have embraced genetically modified soybeans, and new Monsanto corn seed and other products are making inroads both inside the United States and abroad, according to the company |
| 6/26/2004 |
| Koreas Sidestep U.S. to Forge Political and Pragmatic Links |
| Quietly ignoring Bush administration efforts to isolate North Korea, South Korea has become North Korea's largest source of aid, trade and tourism; It is also North Korea's most consistent diplomatic advocate;Even though the two Koreas are still technically at war, their athletes will march again under one "Unification" flag at the Athens Olympics in August;The conciliatory stance causes uneasiness — and confusion — in Washington, where the White House tries to keep a united front with South Korea and Japan to induce North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program |
| 6/24/2004 |
| By Way of Deception |
| Moore alleges no conspiracies; He merely says that Bush has motives beyond those he's willing to state' To make this case, Moore begins by showing that the Bush family in general, and George W. in particular, have received lavish support over the years from the Saudi elite, including the bin Ladens, and have offered valuable help in turn. Unlike the actualities footage that Moore uses in the film, these facts are by now widely known--although it was news to me that Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador, dined with Bush at the White House on September 13, 2001; In speculating about this dinner, and about the subsequent airlifting out of the United States of more than a hundred Saudis when everyone else was grounded, Moore goes only so far as to say that the overwhelmingly Saudi makeup of the September 11 attack teams could have proved embarrassing to Bush |
| 6/20/2004 |
| Luxury's new empire |
| Many luxury firms see Chinese shoppers as the new Japanese—a potentially huge group of status-conscious, increasingly wealthy people hungry for brands and fanatical about shopping; But the Japanese, long the industry's stalwart shoppers, are increasingly spending their money on cultural and culinary pleasures;Today's Chinese, above all the young, love to flaunt their status |
| 6/20/2004 |
| Bilingualism may protect the mind |
| IT IS certainly useful to be able to speak more than one language; But, according to a paper by Ellen Bialystok, of York University in Canada, and her colleagues, in this month's issue of Psychology and Aging, it is useful not just for the obvious reason that it makes it possible to talk to more people; Dr Bialystok found that “bilinguals”—individuals who grew up speaking two languages and continue to do so—performed significantly better on a variety of simple cognitive tasks than people who speak only one; Furthermore, the differences between the two groups increased with age, leading her to hypothesise that knowing and using two languages inhibits the mind's decline |
| 6/19/2004 |
| Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands |
| Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year; Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials; This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment;The fact that he has been allowed to publish, albeit anonymously and without naming which agency he works for, may reflect the increasing frustration of senior intelligence officials at the course the administration has taken |
| 6/17/2004 |
| No Iraq link to September 11 plot, US report finds |
| The US commission investigating the September 11 attacks reported yesterday it had found no evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated in the plot or had any sort of "collaborative relationship", bluntly contradicting persistent White House claims |
| 6/16/2004 |
| Travesty of Justice |
| No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history;For this column, let's just focus on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror; Last week Mr. Ashcroft, apparently in contempt of Congress, refused to release a memo on torture his department prepared for the White House almost two years ago; Fortunately, his stonewalling didn't work: The Washington Post has acquired a copy of the memo and put it on its Web site; The memo declares that the federal law against torture doesn't apply to interrogations of enemy combatants "pursuant to [the president's] commander-in-chief authority"; In other words, the president is above the law. |
| 6/16/2004 |
| Climate Change Experts Despair Over US Attitude |
| Climate change experts said yesterday they are frustrated the U.S. government and the public are not taking the risk of global warming seriously; They said even as sea levels rise and crop yields fall, officials argue over whether climate change is real and Americans continue to drive fuel-guzzling SUVs;"There is going to be large change," said atmospheric scientist David Battisti of the University of Washington in Seattle; "The risks are very large" |
| 6/15/2004 |
| 31 Moons, Now Close Enough to Touch |
| The destination is within clear view, and a beckoning sight it is; Saturn and its creamy pastel bands of thick atmosphere shimmer in pale sunlight, and the majestic rings of dust and rock set it apart from the Sun's other worlds; Dancing about in rhythmic orbits are 31 known satellites, of which the most mysterious and inviting is the planet-size Titan;After a nearly seven-year voyage from Earth, the Cassini spacecraft is fast approaching the moment that scientists have dreamed of and planned for over the better part of their careers; The spacecraft is scheduled to swing into the orbit of Saturn on the evening of June 30 |
| 6/15/2004 |
| Waxman Raises New Questions on Cheney |
| As the government prepared for war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a senior political appointee in the Defense Department chose oil services giant Halliburton Co. to secretly plan how to repair Iraqi oil fields, and then briefed Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and other White House officials about the sole-source contract before it was granted;Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said the new details about the $1.8 million contract raise new questions about whether the vice president or his office played any role in decisions to give what became billions of dollars worth of government business to Halliburton, where Cheney was chief executive from 1995 to 2000 |
| 6/14/2004 |
| Errors Are Seen in Early Attacks on Iraqi Leaders |
| The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials |
| 6/12/2004 |
| Tenet Resignation Exposes Accelerating Intrigue Within Bush Administration |
| "They want to use him as a scapegoat for everything that’s gone wrong," one congressional aide said. "But I don’t think that’s going to work; While the CIA obviously fell down in major ways, everyone knows by now that the Pentagon has been at the heart of this whole mess"; Even as Tenet was bidding good-bye, reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has begun interviewing—in some cases with lie detectors—senior Pentagon civilians close to former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi to determine who told him that U.S. intelligence had broken the codes Tehran uses to communicate with its spies dominated newspaper headlines; Those reports came in the wake of a New York Times article on June 4 that said Chalabi had informed Iran’s top operative in Baghdad that the codes had been broken |
| 6/12/2004 |
| 4x4s into Paris won't go - if SUV ban works |
| Oversized, gas-guzzling 4x4s could be banned from the increasingly traffic-clogged streets of Paris within the next 18 months following a resolution passed by the city's council;"Off-road vehicles are just not suited to towns and you have to wonder why people drive them," Denis Baupin, a senior Green party councillor who tabled the resolution, said yesterday; "They're polluters, they're space-occupiers, they're dangerous for pedestrians and other road users. They're a caricature of a car" |
| 6/10/2004 |
| Enron Traders' Calls Gloated About Cheating |
| Enron traders discussed manipulating the California power market in telephone calls in which they gloated about ripping off "those poor grandmothers" in the energy crisis in 2000-2001, according to transcripts of the calls that have been released;The calls were obtained from the government and transcribed by a public utility district near Seattle that wants Enron to forfeit millions of dollars in gains over the scandal; Investigators said the transcripts painted a sordid picture of rigging the market amid widespread blackouts and soaring electricity rates |
| 6/10/2004 |
| An Icy Riddle as Big as Greenland |
| Experts have reported a series of observations in recent months that show that the ice and the waters here are in a state of profound flux; If the trends persist, they could mean higher sea levels and widespread coastal flooding; There is also a small chance that the changes could lead to a sharp cooling in parts of the Northern Hemisphere; This influx of fresh water could block North Atlantic currents that help moderate the weather of the Northern Hemisphere; "If that feedback kicks in," he said, "then the average person will worry";Although nobody expects shifts as rapid or cataclysmic as portrayed in the new movie "The Day After Tomorrow," the cooling could disrupt the relatively stable climatic conditions in which modern human societies have evolved |
| 6/6/2004 |
| Heavy Debt and Drought Drive India's Farmers to Desperation |
| In the past six years, 2,000 to 3,000 farmers (the state has not compiled an official tally) are believed to have committed suicide in this state, Andhra Pradesh, many of them in this arid district; Fifty to 100 have killed themselves since a new state government took office in mid-May, promising farmers relief;India has seen spates of similar suicides in recent years, in states from Punjab to Kerala; In part, the suicides reflect a rural culture in which excess indebtedness becomes a mark of shame, which private moneylenders and public creditors milk to try to collect |
| 6/3/2004 |
| House of Bush, House of Saud |
| In his book, "House of Bush, House of Saud," journalist Craig Unger lays out a compelling case that the Bush family is so inextricably bound up with the Saudi royal family that it could not hold them responsible for the role that many Saudi Arabians played in the 9/11 day of terror;The shell game Bush played meant diverting the American public's attention to Iraq, which had no apparent role in 9/11. Although 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, bin Laden is a member of one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis financed bin Laden, Bush managed to convince most Americans that the majority of 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi and that Saddam Hussein played a key role in the attack |
| 6/3/2004 |
| The Great Escape |
| New evidence shows that the evacuation involved more than the departure of 142 Saudis on six charter flights that the commission is investigating. According to newly released documents, 160 Saudis left the United States on 55 flights immediately after 9/11 — making a total of about 300 people who left with the apparent approval of the Bush administration, far more than has been reported before;The passengers should have been questioned about any links to Osama bin Laden, or his financing; We have long known that some faction of the Saudi elite has helped funnel money to Islamist terrorists —inadvertently at least; Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who has been accused of being an intermediary between Al Qaeda and the House of Saud, boarded one of the evacuation planes in Kentucky; Was he interrogated by the F.B.I. before he left? |
| 6/3/2004 |
| Where Butterflies Rest, Damage Runs Rampant |
| When the butterflies leave each spring, and the hundreds of thousands of tourists go home, this reserve stretching west from the suburbs of Mexico City to the mountains of Michoacán becomes a symbol of the rapid destruction of all the nation's forests, and is overtaken by organized crime and mob justice; Heavily armed mafias chop down the trees at an alarming rate - about 70 mature trees each day, or a small forest a week, Mexican authorities say;The mobs ambush the police and terrorize village leaders who threaten to stop them; Left alone to defend their property, some beleaguered villages take the law into their own hands to fight back against the loggers, often using the same violent tactics; Most villages surrender and sell their trees |
| 5/24/2004 |
| Cocaine deaths double as price crashes |
| With a gram of cocaine - enough for up to 20 lines - now costing £40 compared with £70 a few years ago, the rising death toll has been linked to growing evidence that young professionals are now using it as the weekend drug of choice. Figures show more than 640,000 people used the drug last year - triple the number in 1997;While cocaine has been dubbed the the 'drug without a downside' on account of the lack of a narcotic hangover, doctors warn it can trigger fatal heart attacks and strokes, as well as causing severe long-term depression associated with heavy binges |
| 5/24/2004 |
| What have we done? |
| The horrific images from Abu Ghraib have come to define the ill-starred occupation of Iraq, but what do they really tell us about America? Are they simply the work of a few rogue soldiers, or the result of the new foreign and domestic policies of the Bush administration, which find ready approval in an increasingly brutalised society? Susan Sontag on the ugly face of the war on terror |
| 5/24/2004 |
| Russia's Support for Kyoto Delights, Baffles |
| The United Nations and many environmentalists hailed Putin's decision, which revives the 1997 protocol as the main plan to reduce gases that cause global warming; The protocol stalled after the United States pulled out of the deal in 2001 but Russia's support would enable it to take effect anyway; Speaking after talks with European Union officials, which agreed terms for Russian entry to the World Trade Organization, Putin said Russia would move rapidly to ratify |
| 5/24/2004 |
| Britain Unveils New Center to Cut Animal Testing |
| Earlier this year, plans for a primate research lab in Cambridge were scrapped in the wake of violent animal rights protests. The new center will seek to reduce the numbers of animal experiments and improve standards of welfare by backing the "three Rs" - the replacement, refinement and reduction of animals in research;This will include studying non-animal alternatives such as computer modeling, human volunteers or cultured cells grown in test tubes |
| 5/24/2004 |
| Beautiful minds and ugly truths |
| Wasn't it just weeks ago that we were debating whether we should see the coffins of the American dead and whether Ted Koppel should read their names on "Nightline"? In "Fahrenheit 9/11," we see the actual dying, of American troops and Iraqi civilians alike, with all the ripped flesh and spilled guts that the violence of war entails. We also see some of the 4,000-plus American casualties: those troops hidden away in clinics at Walter Reed and at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where they try to cope with nerve damage and multiple severed limbs; They are not silent;They talk about their pain and their morphine, and they talk about betrayal |
| 5/23/2004 |
| 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Cannes' Top Prize |
| American filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, won the top prize Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival; "Fahrenheit 9/11" was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" in 1956;"What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. Merci," Moore said after getting a standing ovation from the Cannes crowd |
| 5/19/2004 |
| Celltech sale ends Blair's biotech dream |
| Celltech, Britain's largest biotechnology group, yesterday announced it had agreed to a £1.5bn takeover by the Belgian maker of Zyrtec hay fever pills; The cash offer from drugs and chemicals group UCB all but ends Tony Blair's dream of a British firm rivalling US businesses that took an early lead in the emerging biotech sector more than 20 years ago |
| 5/19/2004 |
| Canada's top court to rule on Monsanto case Friday |
| The seven-year fight between Monsanto and Percy Schmeiser has turned the Saskatchewan farmer into a poster-boy for farmers around the world who want to stop the proliferation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs); Monsanto has already won two lower-court judgments against Schmeiser, arguing he used its genetically modified canola without a license; The grain has been genetically modified to be resistant to Monsanto's herbicide Roundup;But Schmeiser says the canola that grew on his farm came from seeds that blew in from other fields or from passing trucks' The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict at 9:45 a.m. (1345 GMT) on Friday |
| 5/19/2004 |
| GM food protesters invade Sainsbury's HQ |
| Greenpeace activists have invaded the headquarters of Sainsbury's in a protest over supermarket sales of milk from animals fed with genetically modified ingredients |
| 5/16/2004 |
| Bush approval rating hits new low, Iraq support falling away: poll |
| The American president's overall job approval rating has fallen to 42 percent, down from a 49 percent rating recorded in an April 8-9 Newsweek poll;For the first time since Bush took office in January 2001, a majority of Americans surveyed by Newsweek (52 percent) disapprove of him |
| 5/15/2004 |
| Remote control |
| Who polices the chemicals added to our food, and who makes the rules? |
| 5/15/2004 |
| Food chained |
| From within the womb to the day we die we consume synthetic chemicals. Much of what we eat is the product of our industrialised world; But we still know very little of its lasting impact |
| 5/15/2004 |
| Breastfeeding Cuts Cardiovascular Risk -Study |
| Breastfeeding reduces the risk of a heart attack or stroke later in life and could prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, researchers said on Friday; Babies who are breastfed suffer fewer childhood infections and allergies and are less prone to obesity; British scientists have now shown that breastfeeding and slow growth in the first weeks and months of life has a protective effect against cardiovascular disease |
| 5/15/2004 |
| U.S. tipped to Holocaust in '42 |
| U.S. intelligence officials learned within months of the U.S. entry into World War II that Nazi Germany planned mass killings to eliminate Jews, scholars reviewing newly declassified reports said Thursday;But the U.S. government gave the information low priority in August 1942, the scholars concluded, not acknowledging that Germany had a plan to exterminate Jews until six months later |
| 5/14/2004 |
| Researchers - Pollution Could Affect Unborn Children |
| Soot and other types of air pollution can not only affect animals and people, but their unborn children, too, researchers reported on Thursday;They found that genetic mutations known to be caused by some pollutants can be passed through sperm to baby mice; Presumably, the same thing could happen to human beings |
| 5/13/2004 |
| General Took Guantánamo Rules to Iraq for Handling of Prisoners |
| General Miller's recommendations were based in large part on his command of the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he won praise from the Pentagon for improving the flow of intelligence from terrorist suspects and prisoners of the Afghanistan war;In Iraq, General Miller's team gave officers at the prisons copies of the procedures that had been developed at Guantánamo to interrogate and punish the prisoners |
| 5/13/2004 |
| Cod Could Be Wiped Out by 2020 |
| The world's cod stocks could be wiped out by 2020 because of overfishing, illegal catches and oil exploration, the environment group WWF World Wide Fund for Nature said Thursday;the world's largest remaining cod stock, in the Barents Sea, is under particular threat |
| 5/11/2004 |
| Monsanto Suspends Biotech Wheat Program |
| Biotech crop pioneer Monsanto Co. yesterday suspended plans to introduce what would be the world's first biotech wheat, bowing to a storm of protest from around the world over the company's scientific tinkering with a key food crop |
| 5/7/2004 |
| An ill wind? |
| It was supposed to be a green solution to the environmental crisis; But Britain's 'wind rush' - the world's fastest expansion of renewable energy - has split the green lobby and whipped up a storm of protest from a powerful coalition of countryside groups; So are wind farms the answer to global warming - or merely a blight on the landscape? |
| 5/7/2004 |
| US president's popularity hits all-time low |
| Americans have given President Bush his lowest approval rating since he came to office and are more dissatisfied with where the country is going than at any time in the last eight years, says a Gallup poll; The survey shows 62% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going, while only 49% approve of the way Mr Bush is handling his job, on a par with the lowest figure he has reached during his presidency |
| 5/7/2004 |
| The Economist: Resign, Rumsfeld |
| YOU are fighting against international terrorists in a battle that both they and you describe as being one about values. You fight a war against Saddam Hussein at your initiative, not his, and you say that it is a war about law, democracy, freedom and honesty; A big metaphorical banner hangs above both wars proclaiming that your aim is to bring freedom, human rights and democracy to the Arab world; All of that sets admirably high standards for the conduct of your forces as well as of your government itself; Now, however, some of your own armed forces are shown to have fallen well below those standards; What do you do? |
| 5/3/2004 |
| EU experts fail to agree on biotech maize approval |
| EU food safety experts failed to muster enough support last week to approve a gene-spliced maize, losing a chance to lift the EU's biotech ban instead of seeing it end by a bureaucratic rubberstamp |
| 5/2/2004 |
| Drought Settles In, Lake Shrinks and West's Worries Grow |
| Continuing research into drought cycles over the last 800 years bears this out, strongly suggesting that the relatively wet weather across much of the West during the 20th century was a fluke; In other words, scientists who study tree rings and ocean temperatures say, the development of the modern urbanized West — one of the biggest growth spurts in the nation's history — may have been based on a colossal miscalculation |
| 5/2/2004 |
| Officer Suggests Iraq Jail Abuse Was Encouraged |
| An Army Reserve general whose soldiers were photographed as they abused Iraqi prisoners said Saturday that she knew nothing about the abuse until weeks after it occurred and that she was "sickened" by the pictures; She said the prison cellblock where the abuse occurred was under the tight control of Army military intelligence officers who may have encouraged the abuse |
| 4/30/2004 |
| US military in torture scandal |
| Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad emerged yesterday from a military inquiry which has left six soldiers facing a possible court martial and a general under investigation; The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees; According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon |
| 4/28/2004 |
| The Siege of Falluja, a Test in a Tinderbox |
| The siege in Falluja is a case study in mistaken assumptions, dashed hopes, rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps, and a tragedy that became a trigger, Pentagon officials, senior officers and independent military analysts said Tuesday |
| 4/27/2004 |
| British Officials Rebuke Policy in Middle East |
| The diplomats, who include former ambassadors to Israel, Iraq and other Middle East capitals as well as senior British envoys to the United Nations, accused both governments of abandoning important principles of impartiality in the Holy Land, while engaging in poor planning and military overkill against Iraqi resistance forces in the Sunni Muslim areas west of Baghdad and in Shiite Muslim strongholds around Najaf |
| 4/25/2004 |
| Boisterous Protest Greets World Financial Leaders |
| Thousands of demonstrators banged pots and pans, blew whistles and beat drums on Saturday in a Latin American-style protest of World Bank and IMF policies in poor countries;Some carried signs reading "people over profits" and "debt relief now" to underscore their message to international lenders holding their spring meetings; The boisterous rally modeled after "cacerolazo" pot-banging protests common in South America led protesters to a park across the street from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund headquarters in downtown Washington;"We need to have people in the street to show that we're paying attention to what the IMF and World Bank are doing," said protester Tito Bourdon, 23, of Virginia |
| 4/24/2004 |
| The Rising Corporate Military Monster |
| A corporate military monster is being created in Iraq; The U.S. government is relying on private military contractors like never before;Approximately 15,000 military contractors, maybe more, are now working in Iraq; The four Americans brutally killed and mutilated in Fallujah March 31 were part of this informal army of occupation; Contractors are complicating traditional norms of military command and control, and challenging the basic norms of accountability that are supposed to govern the government's use of violence and human rights abuses go unpunished |
| 4/23/2004 |
| Reclaiming the Vision of the First Earth Day |
| On the first Earth Day in 1970, 25 million people joined around the country to demand a safer, cleaner and healthier world, starting with the deplorable condition of many of their own neighborhoods; Community activists articulated our collective outrage that day across the country; Charles Hayes, an African-American union leader who went on to represent one of the nation's poorest districts in Congress for 10 years, addressed a huge Chicago rally that day; "What we are discovering is that when poisons are thrown into the air by the steel mills, power plants and oil refineries, it is not just the workers in the plants, or the poor living in the shadow of the plants, who must breathe these poisons; It is all of us" |
| 4/22/2004 |
| Arab Ally Snubs Bush Amid 'Unprecedented Hatred' for US |
| A growing rift between America and the Arab world was exposed yesterday when two Middle Eastern allies delivered damaging rebuffs to President George Bush's policies in the region;King Abdullah of Jordan flew home from the US after abruptly canceling a meeting planned for today with the president in Washington; The king's move came as the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, said there was more hatred of Americans in the Arab world today than ever before |
| 4/22/2004 |
| 'Collective preferences' is an EU attempt to silence domestic critique, says Vandana Shiva |
| The EU's emerging concept of 'collective preferences’ in international trade policy is viewed with scepticism by developing nations; It is an attempt by the EU to “survive the critiques of its own citizens while still managing to push free trade in the South,” said Dr Vandana Shiva, Director of Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, Dehra Dun, India |
| 4/18/2004 |
| A book on Bush's secret rush to war |
| President George W. Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan in 2001 and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, according to a new book on his Iraq policy;Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion |
| 4/14/2004 |
| Inside the fire |
| A brave and harrowing report from inside the besieged city of Falluja where ordinary people are trapped in the cross-fire |
| 4/12/2004 |
| Pre-9/11 Secret Briefing Said That Qaeda Was Active in U.S. |
| The declassification of the document, which was released under pressure from the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, is likely to fan the already fierce debate about whether Mr. Bush and his team acted aggressively enough to confront the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the weeks and months before the Sept. 11 attacks;The president's critics are likely to embrace the specific and unresolved nature of some of the warnings — particularly a reference to "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks" — as a further indication that Mr. Bush had ample information about a domestic threat, and should have pressed for further action after the briefing |
| 4/3/2004 |
| Long Live NATO |
| Seven more nations are joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and three more Central European nations have their applications pending; Although the Bush administration has set an overall course in foreign and military policy of treaty-breaking and unilateralism, it remains a strong proponent of NATO expansion;Founded in 1949 as a security buffer against the Soviet Union, NATO has not only survived the end of the cold war; It is flourishing; Despite criticism that a post-cold war NATO would unnecessarily propagate the West-East security divide that shaped international relations for the four decades of the cold war, the U.S. government has led the drive to energize and expand NATO; In 1999, after contentious debate in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. approved the accession of Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary to NATO; Leading the NATO enlargement lobby was the neoconservative Committee to Expand NATO, which brought together several prominent neocons now serving in the Bush administration, along with conservative Democrats such as Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and the Democratic Leadership Council |
| 4/2/2004 |
| Three Strikes, Is FTAA NAFTA-Expansion Out? |
| Latest Meeting to Revive Free Trade Area of the Americas Collapses in Buenos Aires; Late-April Puebla Negotiations Canceled; 2005 Deadline in Jeopardy;This is the third "save-the-Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) emergency meeting" that has collapsed since the Miami FTAA Ministerial, which itself narrowly escaped a full public implosion;Three strikes and the FTAA is out: Ten years of NAFTA's negative real-life effects have made it politically impossible for most countries to sign up for an FTAA-NAFTA expansion |
| 4/2/2004 |
| 'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes' |
| A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened;She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie"; She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks; There were other cities that were mentioned; Major cities with skyscrapers" |
| 3/28/2004 |
| 9/11 Panel Provokes a Discussion the White House Hoped to Avoid |
| In the summer of 2001, according to witnesses interviewed by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 hijackings, President Bush was told repeatedly of terror warnings pouring into American intelligence agencies, mostly about threats overseas;The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, who briefed Mr. Bush on threats almost daily, "was around town literally pounding on desks saying that something is happening, this is an unprecedented level of threat information," said Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, who was quoted in a Congressional report last yearBut even as the warnings spiked in June and July that year, there appeared to be little sense of alarm at the White House, officials of the Central Intelligence Agency told the commission |
| 3/24/2004 |
| Japanese consumers tell Canada to stop GM wheat |
| Japan will stop buying Canadian wheat if Canada approves a variety of genetically modified wheat, a delegation of Japanese consumer groups warned |
| 3/24/2004 |
| US Pushes to Boost Use of Ozone Damaging Fumigant |
| U.S. fruit growers in Montreal this week will push for an increase in their use of a pesticide known to destroy the ozone layer, claiming that exemptions for developing nations on the chemical are unfair |
| 3/23/2004 |
| Carter Savages Blair and Bush: 'Their War was Based on Lies' |
| Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has strongly criticized George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein based on "lies or misinterpretations"; The 2002 Nobel peace prize winner said Mr Blair had allowed his better judgment to be swayed by Mr Bush's desire to finish a war that his father had started;He said: "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently; That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'" |
| 3/22/2004 |
| New Studies Question Value of Opening Arteries |
| The artery-opening methods, like bypass surgery and stents, the widely used wire cages that hold plaque against an artery wall, can alleviate crushing chest pain; Stents can also rescue someone in the midst of a heart attack by destroying an obstruction and holding the closed artery open; But the new model of heart disease shows that the vast majority of heart attacks do not originate with obstructions that narrow arteries;Instead, recent and continuing studies show that a more powerful way to prevent heart attacks in patients at high risk is to adhere rigorously to what can seem like boring old advice — giving up smoking, for example, and taking drugs to get blood pressure under control, drive cholesterol levels down and prevent blood clotting |
| 3/22/2004 |
| Former Terrorism Official Criticizes White House on 9/11 |
| In a new book, Richard A. Clarke, who was counterterrorism coordinator for President Bill Clinton and President Bush, asserts that while neither president did enough to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has undermined American national security by using the 9/11 attacks for political advantage and ignoring the threat of Al Qaeda in order to invade Iraq;Mr. Clarke, who has spent more than 30 years as a civil servant in Republican and Democratic administrations, issues a highly critical assessment of the Bush White House in "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," which is being released on Monday |
| 3/16/2004 |
| US State Deptartment Promotes Biotech, Garners Critics |
| The U.S. government has launched a new Web site about biotech crops as part of a special taxpayer-funded project to promote such crops worldwide - a move criticized by some consumer and farm groups |
| 3/16/2004 |
| Russian nuclear warheads help to power US |
| Few Americans realize that uranium once intended to destroy their civilization is now helping to keep it very much alive by powering televisions, microwaving dinners and chilling beer; Uranium extracted from Russian nuclear warheads helps supply about 10 percent of U.S. electricity |
| 3/15/2004 |
| All This Progress Is Killing Us, Bite by Bite |
| YOUR great-great grandparents would find it hard to believe the Boeing 747, but perhaps they'd have a harder time believing last week's news that obesity has become the second-leading cause of death in the United States; Too much food a menace instead of too little! A study released by the federal Centers for Disease Control ranked "poor diet and physical inactivity" as the cause of 400,000 United States deaths in 2000, trailing only fatalities from tobacco; Obesity, the C.D.C. said, now kills five times as many Americans as "microbial agents," that is, infectious disease |
| 3/15/2004 |
| G.I. Toll Is Rising as Insurgents Try Wilier Bombs and Tactics |
| Insurgent bombmakers, whose roadside explosives claimed the lives of six more American soldiers this weekend, have adopted new and grimly devious tactics, military officers said Sunday;The tactics include setting multiple charges along convoy routes, disguising bombs inside animal carcasses and planting hollow artillery shells to draw troops into an ambush, they said |
| 3/13/2004 |
| Sorrows of Empire |
| The sorrows of empire are the inescapable consequences of the national policies American elites chose after September 11, 2001; Militarism and imperialism always bring with them sorrows; The ubiquitous symbol of the Christian religion, the cross, is perhaps the world's most famous reminder of the sorrows that accompanied the Roman Empire--it represents the most atrocious death the Roman proconsuls could devise in order to keep subordinate peoples in line; From Cato to Cicero, the slogan of Roman leaders was "Let them hate us so long as they fear us";Four sorrows, it seems to me, are certain to be visited on the United States; Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787 |
| 3/11/2004 |
| C.I.A. Chief Says He's Corrected Cheney Privately |
| George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he had privately intervened on several occasions to correct what he regarded as public misstatements on intelligence by Vice President Dick Cheney and others, and that he would do so again;"When I believed that someone was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it," he said;Mr. Tenet identified three instances in which he had already corrected public statements by President Bush or Mr. Cheney or would do so, but he left the impression that there had been more |
| 3/5/2004 |
| Vote Against Gene-Altered Food Historic |
| The most historic voting Tuesday took place in northern California's Mendocino County, where voters passed the nation's first ban on the raising of genetically engineered plants and animals; Opposition to genetic modification of food is widespread in Europe, where public policy debates about how to control it are common; But the debate has been slow to come to the United States, until now; Biotechnology corporations are rapidly expanding their push to extend the use of genetically engineered seeds; That's why the biotechnology industry, in conjunction with agribusiness interests, spent more than $500,000 to defeat the proposition; But the initiative still won by a solid 56 percent to 44 percent margin, with one of its most prominent backers, organic brew pub owner Els Cooperrider, declaring, "They had the money, we had the people" |
| 3/5/2004 |
| Furor Over Bush's 9/11 Ad |
| The Bush reelection campaign yesterday unveiled its first three campaign commercials showcasing Ground Zero images, angering some 9/11 families who accused President Bush of exploiting the tragedy for political advantage;"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin tower attacks; "It is unconscionable"; Firefighter Tommy Fee in Rescue Squad 270 in Queens was appalled;"It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place; The image of firefighters at Ground Zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics," Fee said |
| 3/5/2004 |
| Cosmic life imitates art |
| Astronomers have released a stunning picture of dust swirling around a distant star that art lovers may find familiar; The scientists say the latest image from the Hubble space telescope bears remarkable similarities to Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night, one of his most famous paintings and renowned for its bold whorls of light sweeping across a raging night sky |
| 3/1/2004 |
| Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start |
| Britain's Army chiefs refused to go to war in Iraq amid fears over its legality just days before the British and American bombing campaign was launched, The Observer can today reveal; The explosive new details about military doubts over the legality of the invasion are detailed in unpublished legal documents in the case of Katharine Gun, the intelligence officer dramatically freed last week after Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, dropped charges against her of breaking the Official Secrets Act |
| 3/1/2004 |
| Top civil servant tells Short to shut up |
| In a move which took her battle with the Blair circle to new heights, Ms Short said: "I've had a letter from the secretary of the cabinet, the threatening letter saying I mustn't give any interviews and otherwise he reserves the right of the Crown to take further action; That's a threat and I'm here because there's so much smearing going on now, I just want to give my account of events";Ms Short then quoted Sir Andrew as saying: "I hope that you will take no further part in interviews on this issue, I also reserve the right of the Crown to take further action as necessary" |
| 2/28/2004 |
| The Trade Tightrope |
| The point is that free trade is politically viable only if it's backed by effective job creation measures and a strong domestic social safety net; Put it this way: there's a reason why the two U.S. presidents who did the most to promote growth in world trade were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, while the two most protectionist presidents of the last 70 years have been Ronald Reagan and, yes, George W. Bush |
| 2/26/2004 |
| UK wind power industry says set for rapid growth |
| Britain's wind power industry said this week it is poised for rapid growth over the next two years as improved financial incentives encourage companies to pour a billion pounds ($1.87 billion) into new projects;Europe's windiest country would nearly triple its capacity, giving Britain enough turbines to supply a million households, or 1.3 percent of total electricity demand, said the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) |
| 2/24/2004 |
| Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order |
| From Washington to Baghdad, the debate over American empire is back; Five new books weigh in, some celebrating the imperial project as the last best hope of humankind, others attacking it as cause for worry; What they all fail to understand is that U.S. power is neither as great as most claim nor as dangerous as others fear |
| 2/23/2004 |
| Microsoft Creates a Stir in Its Work With the U.N |
| The chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, won widespread applause in January when he trumpeted an agreement to give $1 billion in software and cash to the United Nations as part of a job-training program for the developing world; But Microsoft did not seek any attention for a much smaller amount that it contributed earlier to pay some travel expenses for a United Nations business standards group;That payment, critics say, had a much more opportunistic motive than the big donation;Several software industry executives and technologists contend that Microsoft has been moving behind the scenes to undercut support for a set of business-to-business electronic transaction standards jointly developed by the United Nations and an industry-sponsored international standards group |
| 2/16/2004 |
| The Thief of Baghdad |
| In the Ford White House, Dick Cheney's Secret Service name was Backseat, because he was the model of an unobtrusive staffer, the perfect unflashy deputy chief of staff for that lord of the bureaucratic dance, Donald Rumsfeld;As James Mann writes in his new book, "The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet," Mr. Cheney started out supervising such lowly matters as fixing a stopped-up drain in a White House bathroom sink; Back when Dick Cheney was fiddling with salt shakers, Ahmad Chalabi, a smooth-talking and wealthy young Iraqi M.I.T. graduate, was founding the Petra Bank in Jordan |
| 2/16/2004 |
| Chaos and War Leave Iraq's Hospitals in Ruins |
| At Baghdad's Central Teaching Hospital for Children, gallons of raw sewage wash across the floors; The drinking water is contaminated; According to doctors, 80 percent of patients leave with infections they did not have when they arrived;Doctors say they have been beaten up in the emergency room; Blood is in such short supply that physicians often donate their own to patients lying in front of them;"The word `big' is not enough to express the disaster we are facing," said Ahmed A. Muhammad, the hospital's assistant manager |
| 2/12/2004 |
| The Khan Artist |
| I think President Bush has cleared up everything now; The U.S. invaded Iraq, which turned out not to have what our pals in Pakistan did have and were giving out willy-nilly to all the bad guys except Iraq, which wouldn't take it;Bush officials thought they knew what was going on inside our enemy's country: that Iraq had W.M.D. and might sell them on the black market; But they were wrong;Bush officials thought they knew what was going on inside our friend's country: that Pakistanis were trying to sell W.M.D. on the black market. But they couldn't prove it — until about the time we were invading Iraq;"The grave and gathering threat" turned out to be not Saddam's mushroom cloud but the president's mushrooming deficits |
| 2/9/2004 |
| “Green” Finance Campaign Bags Citigroup |
| The world's largest private financial institution, Citigroup, has signed on to a comprehensive environmental policy that sets a new industry standard, says the grassroots group that ran a two-year campaign against the banking giant;Rainforest Action Network (RAN) said the new policy applies to Citi's funding of projects that might have an impact on sensitive ecosystems, logging, indigenous areas, and climate change; The policy also marks an advance over the so-called “Equator Principles,” an agreement signed by Citi and 17 other major international banks last year, committing them to apply the environmental policies of the World Bank's private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to their lending practices |
| 2/9/2004 |
| Britain spied on UN allies over war vote |
| Britain helped America to conduct a secret and potentially illegal spying operation at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war;The operation, which targeted at least one permanent member of the UN Security Council, was almost certainly in breach of the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations, which strictly outlaw espionage at the UN missions in New York; Translators and analysts at the Government's top-secret surveillance centre GCHQ were ordered to co-operate with an American espionage 'surge' on Security Council delegations after a request from the US National Security Agency at the end of January 2003 |
| 2/6/2004 |
| Tenet Says Analysts Never Painted Iraq as Imminent Threat |
| Intelligence analysts never said Iraq presented an imminent threat, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, asserted today in his first public defense of prewar estimates of Iraq's weapons;"They never said there was an imminent threat"rather they painted an objective assessment for our policymakers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests" |
| 2/1/2004 |
| BBC dossier reveals fury at Hutton 'flaws' |
| The war between the BBC and the Government was re-ignited last night after a series of leaked documents revealed growing insistence within the corporation that there are fundamental flaws in Lord Hutton's report; A confidential briefing document taking to task key findings by the Ulster judge reveals that executives throughout the BBC believe that the inquiry report was blatantly one-sided and took little account of the corporation's evidence |
| 1/28/2004 |
| Blair Narrowly Prevails in a Vote to Raise Tuition Fees |
| The close vote, 316-311 in favor of substantially raising tuition fees, gave an important lift to Mr. Blair on the eve of a potentially greater challenge to his government on Wednesday, when Lord Hutton issues the findings of his investigation into the events surrounding the death of Dr. David Kelly. He was the specialist on Iraq's weapons whose privately expressed concerns to the BBC formed the basis of news reports that Mr. Blair and his aides had overstated the intelligence on Iraq's illicit weapons programs to make a stronger case for |
| 1/27/2004 |
| Farm Animals Could Use Alternative Medicines |
| European Union ban on antibiotics in animal feeds could make farmers switch to natural solutions such as plant extracts to keep animals healthy and promote growth, British researchers said yesterday;With a lot of these plant-based treatments, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence and not a lot of science to back it up," he told Reuters; "What we're really trying to do is inject some science into these claims" |
| 1/27/2004 |
| Monsanto Seeks Support for GMO Wheat |
| U.S. wheat industry leaders must fully embrace Monsanto Co's. planned genetically modified wheat and assist the company in gaining market acceptance or the leading biotech developer may abandon its wheat research efforts, a Monsanto official said on the weekend;U.S. Wheat Associates officials have repeatedly warned that many top foreign buyers of U.S. wheat have threatened to stop buying from the United States if a biotech wheat is brought to market |
| 1/27/2004 |
| Cheney 'Waged War' on Blair Iraq Strategy |
| Dick Cheney, US vice-president, "waged a guerrilla war" against attempts by Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to secure United Nations backing for the invasion of Iraq;Mr Cheney remained implacably opposed to the strategy even after George W. Bush, US president, addressed the UN on the importance of a multilateralist approach, according to a new biography of Mr Blair |
| 1/25/2004 |
| The Only Superbad Power |
| It is difficult to believe that George W. Bush has been in the White House for only three years; It seems ages now that we have been living in a new world,in which his administration is closely identified with new passions, new fears, new enemies. Sept. 11, of course,is the dominant reason;it has effectively divided our life into a "before" and an "after," pushing the 20th century with its hot and cold wars, its thickets of nuclear missiles and its arguments into a foggy past; George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton managed the immediate consequences of the collapse of Communism, but they did so when the presumption was still that the main threat to the world had been lifted, when there seemed no pressing need to define a new, post-Communist order |
| 1/25/2004 |
| US sugar barons 'block global war on obesity' |
| Leading scientists accused the Bush administration last night of putting the interests of powerful American sugar barons ahead of the global fight against obesity;Professor Kaare Norum, leader of the World Health Organisation's fight to prevent millions developing diet-related diseases, has sparked an international war of words with a highly critical letter to US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson;In it he tells of his grave concern over American opposition to the WHO's blueprint to combat obesity; He accuses the US of making the health of millions of young Americans 'a hostage to fortune' because it has failed to take action over the fat epidemic as a result of its business interests, particularly the sugar lobby |
| 1/25/2004 |
| Force feeding |
| The food industry spends billions hard selling junk to children; It's time the government stepped in, says Richard Maynard of campaign group FARM |
| 1/25/2004 |
| Loaded! Why supermarkets are getting richer and richer |
| With their bold, block-letter logos and monumental store fronts, they are the new, unshakable linchpins of the British economy - the post-industrial equivalent of the shipyards of the Clyde or the cotton mills of Lancashire; But instead of making steam ships, cloth or steel, the Big Three supermarkets (Tesco, Asda and Morrisons, with Sainsbury's and Safeway now lagging behind) have made their fortunes by changing the way we shop, eat, live and even think; This they have done with chilling business acumen |
| 1/22/2004 |
| Talking Back To the Global Establishment |
| As the Bush administration struggles with setbacks in its global trade and Iraq agendas, the opposition World Social Forum opened festively this week with 150,000 global justice activists primarily from India and South Asia, marking a successful transition for the grassroots experiment from its original site in Brazil;The growing legitimacy of the WSF, formed as a counter to the annual corporate-based World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was reflected by the presence on opening night of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi of Iran, who expressed hope that "there will be a world where globalization will not be synonymous with inequality" |
| 1/21/2004 |
| The Israeli Third Sector -Between Welfare State and Civil Society |
| The Nonprofit Sector in Israel has recently come into prominence because of its multiple societal functions, which include its central role in the development and maintenance of Israel's Welfare State and its contribution to the building of its civil society; Both of these have major social, economic and political implications, and impact the building of the Israeli democracy |
| 1/21/2004 |
| Davos Meetings: Secret Agenda and Participants |
| More than 2,000 representatives from the top 1000 global companies along with state leaders are invited to the meeting, which this year embraces a theme of "security and prosperity"; But only select participants will address the issue of global trade, following the collapse of World Trade Organisation talks in Cancun (Mexico) last year and will meet on january 23 to try to re-start trade talks;"When business leaders claim to be acting in the interests of security and prosperity, they mean security to protect the prosperity of the multinational companies who rule the world rather than the greater peace and security of the world," said Friends of the Earth International Vice Chair Tony Juniper |
| 1/21/2004 |
| Corporations Need Treatment, Documentary Argues |
| Corporations are not only the most powerful institutions in the world, they are also psychopathic, a new Canadian documentary on globalization elegantly argues;While the corporation has the rights and responsibilities of ”a legal person”, its owners and shareholders are not liable for its actions; Moreover, the film explains, a corporation's directors are legally required to do what is best for the company, regardless of the harm created;What kind of person would a corporation be? A clinical psychopath, answers the documentary, which is now playing in four Canadian theatres |
| 1/19/2004 |
| Two new books shed light on the thinking and modus operandi of President Bush and his neocon allies |
| According to Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury secretary for the Bush administration who was forced out of office in late 2002, President George W. Bush ran Cabinet meetings “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people”; The president, said O'Neill in an interview about a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind, demonstrated little interest in taking on challenging questions and forced his staff to make policy based on “little more than hunches about what the president might think” |
| 1/17/2004 |
| The $500 billion fire sale |
| It's 8.40am, and the Sheraton Hotel ballroom thunders with the sound of plastic explosives pounding against metal;No,this is not the Sheraton in Baghdad, it's the one in Arlington, Virginia;And it's not a real terrorist attack,it's a hypothetical one;The screen at the front of the room is playing an advertisement for "bomb-resistant waste receptacles" - this trash can is so strong, we're told, it can contain a C4 blast; And its manufacturer is convinced that, given half a chance, these babies would sell like hot cakes in Baghdad - at bus stations, army barracks and, yes, upscale hotels;Available in Hunter Green, Fortuneberry Purple and Windswept Copper |
| 1/16/2004 |
| Fighting obesity in schools |
| The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a challenge to school boards and educators around the country to take action against excessive weight, which it calls the "the most common medical condition in childhood"; Banning the sale of sugared soft drinks during school hours would send a powerful message that society can begin to transform the environment that encourages children to overeat; Soft drinks constitute the primary source of added sugar in children's diet |
| 1/16/2004 |
| America's Empire of Bases |
| As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize -- or do not want to recognize -- that the United States dominates the world through its military power; Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet; This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire -- an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class; Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order |
| 1/16/2004 |
| Activists Launch Global Offensive Against Water-Guzzling Multinational Companies |
| The People's World Water Forum (PWWF) has launched a global campaign against multinationals Coca Cola and Suez Degremont - and plans to drum up popular support against water privatization at the World Social Forum starting in India's financial capital, Mumbai, Friday;Launching the movement in the Indian capital New Delhi, Vandana Shiva of the NGO, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology alleged, "These two companies are the prime exploiters of global water resources; Suez leads in privatization of water in most countries and Coca Cola leads in having conflicts with local people over groundwater mining" |
| 1/16/2004 |
| "Whitewash': 9/11 Director Gave Evidence to Own Inquiry |
| The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was rocked Thursday by the bizarre revelation that two of its senior officials were so closely involved in the events they are investigating that they have had to be interviewed as part of the inquiry;Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team as the new administration took power, advising his longtime associate and former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, on the structure of the incoming National Security Council |
| 1/15/2004 |
| The WTO, or how patenting crushes Africans |
| Today, Africa’s voice is broken from crying out in front of the world’s great and good about the disastrous situation of our oppressed continent; Here we suffer doubly: from the vast condescension of the capitalist European powers in the past, and from the systemic inequalities of the international economy - supported by Africa’s postcolonial elites - in the present; What must we, Africa’s anti-globalisers, do to convince the world of the justness of the great war which we are waging to recover a dignity that has been denied and ridiculed for four centuries? |
| 1/15/2004 |
| The man who built the WTO: an interview with Peter Sutherland |
| Does international trade help poor people? The man who created the World Trade Organisation, has no doubt: the answer is yes; In a confident interview, Peter Sutherland champions economic integration, welcomes the entry of China, India, Russia and Brazil into the global economy, and claims that the failure of the latest WTO summit at Cancún needn’t be permanent –provided both north and south are committed to multilateralism |
| 1/14/2004 |
| Has fish had its chips? |
| Stacks of salmon steaks and fillets remained on ice at Chapel Street Market in Islington on Friday; Only weeks ago ago they were disappearing at a record rate, destined for millions of festive dinner tables; Now shoppers flashed a concerned glance and passed by; Farmed fish was having its mad cow moment; Just as BSE research prompted an EU ban and shoppers' boycott of beef almost eight years ago, now public confidence was being rocked in the very foodstuff nutritionists have been telling us we must eat more of |
| 1/12/2004 |
| Former Official Describes Bush as Disengaged |
| Paul O'Neill, who was pushed out of the administration as treasury secretary because it was felt he was not a team player, says President Bush was so disengaged during Cabinet meetings that he was like a "blind man in a roomful of deaf people" |
| 1/12/2004 |
| In Blow to U.S. Plans, Top Shiite Demands Direct Elections |
| The most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq said today that members of an interim assembly must be chosen through direct elections, putting at risk White House plans to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis by July 1; His statement came despite continuing efforts to change the cleric's mind on the subject;The cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued an edict last year that urged Iraqis to press for general elections and that forced American officials to scrap their original plans for writing a constitution |
| 1/9/2004 |
| Babies who threaten to topple Israel |
| A looming birthrate crisis could make Jews a minority in their homeland within 20 years;Despite financial incentives for couples who have more children, the population rose last year by 116,000, or 1.7 per cent - its lowest increase since 1990; In the Nineties, annual immigration ranged from 70,000 to 200,000 as around a million Jews from the former Soviet Union - many of them more loosely defined as Jewish than some religious authorities would prefer - flocked to Israel; Forecasts from the United States' Population Reference Bureau show Israel's population doubling in 45 years, that of the West Bank in 21 years and that of Gaza in 15 years; In other words, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and Israeli Arabs will outnumber the Jewish population by 2020 |
| 1/8/2004 |
| Earth is 20% darker, say experts |
| Human activity is making the planet darker as well as warmer, scientists say; They believe levels of sunlight reaching Earth's surface have declined by up to 20% in recent years because air pollution is reflecting it back into space and helping to make bigger, longer-lasting clouds |
| 1/8/2004 |
| An unnatural disaster |
| Climate change over the next 50 years is expected to drive a quarter of land animals and plants into extinction, according to the first comprehensive study into the effect of higher temperatures on the natural world;The results are described as "terrifying" by Chris Thomas, professor of conservation biology at Leeds University, who is lead author of the research from four continents published today in the magazine Nature;Global warming to kill off 1m species; Scientists shocked by results of research; 1 in 10 animals and plants extinct by 2050 |
| 1/5/2004 |
| British Official Sees No Early Exit for Troops From Iraq |
| Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said today that British troops would stay in Iraq for years, perhaps as late as 2007, to help restore that country's security and stabil;American and British officials have been vague about how long troops will be stationed in Iraq, speaking only of a long-term commitment to the country; Making his case for an extended military stay, Mr. Straw said that it was essential for coalition forces to remain in Iraq for years to come to oversee that country's rehabilitation |
| 1/4/2004 |
| Bush is ignoring the political lesson of Vietnam |
| This year will be the year of all the answers; We will learn whether George W. Bush remains president of the United States; His fate will tell us whether the basic shift in American foreign policy he carried out will last beyond November 2004; We will discover whether the electorate supports pre-emptive and preventive war, mounted when a U.S. administration judges this necessaryWe thus will know whether the Bush administration's National Strategy Statement of September 2002 represented a simple lapse in traditional military policy and ethics, or reflects a lasting rupture in how Americans think about the rest of the world |
| 1/4/2004 |
| The great leap of faith as young quit rat race |
| Escaping the rat race and the culture of working long hours will be the priority this year for more Britons than ever before, the Pru says; More than three million people are thinking about downing tools and upping sticks in 2004, a rise of 200,000 on last year; This echoes patterns across Europe, where 12m will consider a similar decision, up from 9.3m in 1997; With a growing number of TV programmes focusing on those who have made the change, such as No Going Back and A Place In The Country, hard evidence that more people than ever are taking similar decisions came last week in figures showing house prices rising faster in the country than in cities |
| 1/3/2004 |
| New York Times’ Safire predicts “major terror attack in the US” on eve of 2004 election |
| In a column published December 31, New York Times columnist William Safire blandly predicts that the “‘October surprise’ affecting our [2004] election” will be “a major terror attack in the US”;This ominous prognostication is given in passing as one of 16 predictions about the new year, in a piece carrying the semi-jocular headline, “Office Pool, 2004”; Safire, Richard Nixon’s former speechwriter and political aide, and a consummate Washington insider, neither explains nor elaborates on his prediction, and gives no sources; But the off-hand manner in which he posits a major attack on US soil “affecting” the presidential election suggests he is merely echoing a common theme of discussions in the corridors of power of the American capital |
| 1/3/2004 |
| Ditching the peace |
| IT IS one of the age-old functions of government: doling out taxpayers’ money to favoured national industries; It is, by contrast, one of the most laudable functions of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to proscribe and police these subsidies; It gives members the right to retaliate against countries that stuff illegal feathers into the beds of their domestic firms; But not all subsidies are equal under the law; Hundreds of billions of dollars of largesse that governments bestow upon their farmers cannot be contested at the WTO. Until now; The so-called “peace clause”, agreed nine years ago, gave most agricultural subsidies immunity from the WTO’s punishments and procedures for settling disputes; But the clause expired on December 31st; The peace is over; is a trade war about to begin? |
| 1/3/2004 |
| Britain Says U.S. Planned to Seize Oil in '73 Crisis |
| The United States government seriously contemplated using military force to seize oil fields in the Middle East during the Arab oil embargo 30 years ago, according to a declassified British government document made public on Thursday;The top-secret document says that President Richard M. Nixon was prepared to act more aggressively than previously thought to secure America's oil supply if the embargo, imposed by Arab nations in retaliation for America's support for Israel in the 1973 Middle East war, did not end; In fact, the embargo was lifted in March 1974 |
| 1/2/2004 |
| Official: shocking scale of crisis in Britain's health |
| The full scale of the health timebomb caused by Britain's descent into lazy lifestyles is to be exposed in a landmark report by the Government's Chief Medical Officer;Sir Liam Donaldson will spell out for the first time how two-thirds of Britons are now so inactive - with most people, particularly women, failing to do even the minimum recommended amount of 'moderate' exercise - that they are at risk of getting cancer, diabetes and heart disease |
| 12/31/2003 |
| Will We Follow Bush to Wal-Mart America? |
| Since Bush took office, the economy has shed more than 2 million jobs; Poverty has increased two years in a row, the first time that has happened in at least a decade;Twenty-five major American cities saw a 19 percent increase in demand for emergency food for the hungry; Health care costs are skyrocketing, with a new study showing more and more employers forcing workers to pick up the tab; In other words, for millions of Americans, the answer is a flat out no, we are not better off |
| 12/31/2003 |
| Military Ends Halliburton Deal To Supply Gasoline to Iraq |
| The Pentagon said yesterday that it will end an arrangement with Halliburton Co. to import fuel to Iraq, a contract that had been criticized by government auditors and Democratic members of Congress;A military unit that already supplies fuel to the armed forces in Iraq will assume control of the import and distribution of gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas into the country and will find new private contractors through competitive bidding, the Defense Energy Support Center announced |
| 12/31/2003 |
| WTO GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING ENDS WITH NO BREAKTHROUGH |
| The special meeting of the WTO General Council ended on 16 December with a statement of the Chairman that there has been no breakthrough, and delegations not saying anything new;He repeated his proposal that work on modalities should continue in the new year on two Singapore issues,but did not mention what would happen to the other two;The meeting only took note of the Chairman’s report and statement, as well as other statements made by the delegations |
| 12/31/2003 |
| Facing Up to the Inevitable, in Search of a Good Death |
| In a 1996 report endorsed by more than 30 health care groups, the American Geriatrics Society listed nine important factors for quality care at the end of life: alleviating physical and emotional symptoms; helping the patient maintain dignity; using treatments that reflect the patient's wishes;avoiding"inappropriateaggressive care"; giving the patient and family quality time together; giving the patient the best possible quality of life; minimizing the family's financial burdens; informing patients about insurance coverage; and helping the family with bereavement;But six years later, a review of care near the end of life published by the geriatrics society revealed "overwhelmingly disappointing results," Ms. Virani and Ms. Sofer reported; Far too many deaths were still marred by unwanted treatment and hospitalization, inadequate relief of pain and other debilitating symptoms, and inept communications |
| 12/30/2003 |
| Our So-Called Boom |
| Commerce Department figures reveal a startling disconnect between overall economic growth, which has been impressive since last spring, and the incomes of a great majority of Americans; In the third quarter of 2003, as everyone knows, real G.D.P. rose at an annual rate of 8.2 percent; But wage and salary income, adjusted for inflation, rose at an annual rate of only 0.8 percent; More recent data don't change the picture: in the six months that ended in November, income from wages rose only 0.65 percent after inflation |
| 12/27/2003 |
| The Farmland Bubble |
| The family farm has been used by special interests to justify policies that cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars for subsidies that do little to aid real small farmers; It has been hijacked as an excuse to betray America's free-market values and hurt developing countries;Poor cotton farmers in places as remote as Burkina Faso know much more about our agricultural policies than most Americans do, and they express confusion about the United States government's stated commitment to small farmers; In reality, the farms that benefit most are on an industrial scale; American small farmers are victims of federal agricultural policies, just like the African cotton growers, who cannot compete against the American product |
| 12/27/2003 |
| Free Trade Accord at 10: Growing Pains Are Clear |
| The North American Free Trade Agreement took hold 10 years ago, after a bruising, arm-twisting debate; Today it is more than ever a politically charged symbol of the promises and perils of free trade;The accord, known as Nafta, brought under one canopy three hugely different economies: the wealthy United States, middle-class Canada and striving Mexico; The disparities made Nafta the boldest gamble ever on the proposition that free trade could benefit all |
| 12/25/2003 |
| Why eyes are on Brazil |
| Call it the Brasília consensus; President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who began his term as president of Brazil on the first of this year, is building a new development model to replace the late, unlamented Washington consensus - the vision of development that emerged from Western advisers in the 80's and 90's; This new strategy is that economic and social progress are inseparable;Can Brazil's new model work? Can a Latin American country progress economically while simultaneously investing in the welfare of its people? In Brazil, early indications are positive |
| 12/25/2003 |
| Court Blocks U.S. Effort to Relax Pollution Rule |
| federal appeals court on Wednesday at least temporarily blocked a Bush administration rule, due to take effect on Friday, that would have relaxed existing regulations and so allowed hundreds of aging power and industrial plants to make upgrades without installing modern pollution controls;"This is an enormously important victory that halts the Bush administration efforts to eviscerate the Clean Air Act," said Eliot Spitzer, attorney general of New York; "Piece by piece, the Bush administration has been undercutting meaningful enforcement of the Clean Air Act. The D.C. court has said it can do so no longer |
| 12/24/2003 |
| Rumsfeld Made Iraq Overture in '84 Despite Chemical Raids |
| As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show |
| 12/24/2003 |
| Administration Is Exempting Alaska Forest From Protection |
| The Bush administration announced on Tuesday that the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the largest in the country, would be exempted from a Clinton-era rule, potentially opening up more than half of the 17 million-acre forest for more development and as many as 50 logging projects;The decision stems from the settlement of a lawsuit between Alaska and the federal government over the so-called roadless rule, which prohibited the building of roads in 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest across the country |
| 12/22/2003 |
| The Socially Responsible Santa |
| Socially responsible Santas will have lots of choices this year for giving gifts that are not made by young women making pennies in sweat shops or drenched in toxic pesticides or bought at dirt-cheap prices from farmers in Third World Countries;Socially responsible, organic, union-made and fair trade products have become increasingly popular with consumers over the past few years, and the holiday season, when even anti-capitalist types give in to the urge to splurge on gifts, is one of the prime times for this movement |
| 12/20/2003 |
| Sharon Threat Seen as Major Problem |
| Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat this week to unilaterally separate Israelis and Palestinians, if negotiations falter, poses a new and significant challenge to U.S. diplomacy in the region, administration officials and analysts said yesterday |
| 12/20/2003 |
| Risky Business in Iraq - by Naomi Klein |
| This is ReBuilding Iraq 2, a gathering of 400 businesspeople itching to get a piece of the Iraqi reconstruction action; They are here to meet the people doling out the cash, in particular the $18.6 billion in contracts to be awarded in the next two months to companies from "coalition partner" countries; The people to meet are from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), its new Program Management Office, the Army Corps of Engineers, the US Agency for International Development, Halliburton, Bechtel and members of Iraq's interim Governing Council; At ReBuilding Iraq 2, held on December 3-4, it seems finally to have dawned on the investment community that Iraq is not only an "exciting emerging market"; it's also a country on the verge of civil war |
| 12/18/2003 |
| Europe summit ends in chaos on constitution |
| The row centred on an argument between Germany and France on one side and Spain and Poland on the other; Germany and France wanted Spain and Poland to have fewer votes at the EU's Council of Ministers, the key decision making body; The latter two countries refused to give ground, arguing that the voting set up had been agreed at the Nice summit in 2000;Blair, who made a desperate appeal for 'unity' as the talks crumbled, sought last night to put the best possible gloss on the fiasco; 'What's bad for Britain is to be in the position where some of those anti-Europeans want us, always on the margins, up in the crowd shouting abuse and not out on the pitch,' he said |
| 12/18/2003 |
| Accord Reached On Free Trade |
| The Bush administration reached a free-trade agreement with four Central American countries yesterday; The trade accord -- reached just weeks before the 10th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement -- would allow more than 80 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial products into Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras duty-free as soon as it went into force; That figure would rise to 85 percent within five years and 100 percent in a decade |
| 12/18/2003 |
| Remember 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'? |
| In the debate over the necessity for the war in Iraq, few issues have been more contentious than whether Saddam Hussein possessed arsenals of banned weapons, as the Bush administration repeatedly said, or instead was pursuing weapons programs that might one day constitute a threat;This week, at a news conference on Monday and in the ABC interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bush's answers to questions on the subject continued a gradual shift in the way he has addressed the topic, from the immediacy of the threat to an assertion that no matter what, the world is better off without Mr. Hussein in power |
| 12/15/2003 |
| EX-DICTATOR DEMANDS BACK PAY FROM BAKER |
| Ex-President Hussein himself told US military interrogators that he had surfaced after hearing of the appointment of his long-time associate James Baker III to settle Iraq's debts. "Hey, my homeboy Jim owes me big time," Mr. Hussein stated He asserted;that Baker and the prior Bush regime, "owe me my back pay; After all I did for these guys you'd think they'd have the decency to pay up";The Iraqi dictator then went on to list the "hits" he conducted on behalf of the Baker-Bush administrations, ending with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, authorized by the former US secretary of state Baker |
| 12/9/2003 |
| A Present for Murdoch |
| The Bush Administration will make sure that no Grinch spoils Rupert Murdoch's holiday season; By the New Year, Murdoch's News Corporation will be in control of the country's largest direct-broadcast satellite service, DirecTV; The takeover of this company, with its 11 million subscribers, will greatly increase Murdoch's power over the American TV landscape; It will also mean that conservatives will have an even greater ability to push their agenda; Both the Justice Department and Michael Powell's FCC are on board to rubber-stamp the arrangement, in deference to the Administration's indebtedness to Murdoch; With Fox News a 24/7 commercial for the Bush White House and with the Weekly Standard's constant cheerleading, Murdoch is an especially valuable friend |
| 12/8/2003 |
| Monsanto sees US bio-wheat approval within 3 yrs |
| The chairman of Monsanto Co (MON.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday that the U.S. government would likely take two to three years to approve the company's controversial proposal to commercialize genetically modified wheat |
| 12/6/2003 |
| Anti-Semitism report issued after criticism |
| Responding to criticism from Jewish groups, European legislators and others, a European Union institute has made available the text of a previously withheld report on anti-Semitism that puts a major share of the blame for the rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Europe on Arab and Muslim extremists |
| 12/6/2003 |
| Wal-Mart Invades Mexico |
| The company that ate America is now swallowing Mexico;In the United States and Western Europe, Wal-Mart has been accused of driving down wages, introducing cut-throat business practices and bankrupting local companies;Wal-Mart's power is changing Mexico in the same way it changed the economic landscape of the United States, and with the same formula: cut prices relentlessly, pump up productivity, pay low wages, ban unions, give suppliers the tightest possible profit margins and sell everything under the sun for less than the guy next |
| 12/5/2003 |
| Brazil Votes to Protect Atlantic Rain Forest |
| After an 11-year fight, Brazil's lower house of Congress on Wednesday voted for tougher protection of one of the world's most endangered rain forests which runs along the nation's tropical Atlantic coastline |
| 12/5/2003 |
| Vietnam, U.S. Discuss Solutions for War-Era Dioxin |
| Dioxin is the toxic component in Agent Orange, which has been blamed for health problems including cancer and birth defects; Million of liters of the defoliant were sprayed over the country from 1962 to 1971 and some areas still have high levels of dioxin in the food chain |
| 12/5/2003 |
| The Chemical Industry's Bhopal Legacy |
| Nineteen years ago this week, families in Bhopal, India were awakened in the middle of the night by terrible burning in their eyes and lungs; Within minutes, children and mothers and fathers staggered into the street, gasping for air and blinded by the chemicals that seared their eyes; As they ran in terror, someone shouted that the Union Carbide pesticides factory had exploded, spewing poisonous gas throughout the city;Soon thousands of people lay dead in the city's main roads; Every truck, taxi and ox cart was weighted down with injured and terrified refugees; No one in the emergency room at the city hospital knew what the toxic gases were or how to treat the thousands of patients that flooded into the hallways;By morning, more than 5,000 people were dead, while a half million more were injured |
| 12/3/2003 |
| Russia to Reject Pact on Climate, Putin Aide Says |
| The treaty, completed in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 after two years of intense diplomatic wrangling, would require major industrialized countries, as a group, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. By 2012, the countries would have to reduce the gases by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels; While 120 countries have ratified the treaty, it can take effect only when approved by enough countries to account for 55 percent of 1990 emissions from the industrialized world; Without Russia or the United States, that threshold cannot be met; In 1990, the United States accounted for 36.1 percent of emissions, and Russia for 17.4 percent |
| 12/2/2003 |
| Critical Collaboration:Empire versus Sovereignty in Iraq |
| The U.S. has shown the Iraqi Governing Council the door, not just because of the need to speed up the transition to self-government, but because the council has become a little too independent for its own good; With the council to be replaced by another set of U.S.-installed Iraqis, the search is on for a new batch of collaborators |
| 12/2/2003 |
| The Unemployment Myth |
| The government's announcement on Tuesday that the economy grew even faster than expected makes the current "jobless recovery" even more puzzling; To give some perspective, unemployment normally falls significantly in such economic boom times; The last time growth was this good, in 1983, unemployment fell 2.5 percentage points and another full percentage point the next year; That's what happens in a typical recovery; So why not this time? Because we have more to recover from than we've been told;The reality is that we didn't have a mild recession; Jobs-wise, we had a deep one |
| 11/30/2003 |
| EU's 'big three' agree on defense |
| Britain, France and Germany have struck a deal on a common European defense, including a guarantee of mutual assistance and a scaled-back plan for a headquarters, officials said here Friday;After months of false starts and concern by Britain over how the move would be viewed by the United States, the agreement was reached Wednesday in Berlin just as negotiations over Europe's constitution reach their final stages |
| 11/30/2003 |
| I’d buy that for a dollar (and two dimes) |
| TIME to hail the almighty euro? During trading on Friday November 28th, the currency was worth $1.20 for the first time in its history; Europe's exporters will bewail (not hail) this development, but for everyone else involved in the European project, the currency's strength will bring some satisfaction; After being introduced at a rate of $1.17 in 1999, the euro slumped to become worth less than 83 cents the following year; But the euro’s weakness in those humiliating days was not evidence of a congenital defect in the new-born currency; Rather, it reflected the unusual strength of its older rival, the dollar; Likewise, the euro’s rise since February 2002 should not be taken as a great vote of confidence in the economies of the euro area; It is, instead, the flipside of the dollar’s fall |
| 11/30/2003 |
| Blair deal on EU defence may offend Bush |
| Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, risks a rift with Washington by making a crucial concession to Jacques Chirac, the French president, on European Union defence co-operation; Britain, France and Germany have hammered out a ground-breaking defence deal that includes European military planners operating outside Nato |
| 11/30/2003 |
| Wal-Mart's Big City Blues |
| Having plundered America's countryside and suburbs for decades, Wal-Mart is now setting its sights on unfamiliar urban territory: a grassy lot in Hartford, Connecticut; But as the mega-corporation expands out of America's conservative strongholds, it must contend with a phenomenon it hasn't previously encountered--an opposition armed with a living-wage ordinance |
| 11/30/2003 |
| The Elvis Of Academia |
| Chomsky's latest book, Hegemony or Survival - a devastating history of American foreign policy since 1945 ('No president in that time, judged on the principles of Nuremberg, would have escaped hanging') as well as a sustained dissection of the motivation and disastrous consequence of the current 'war on terror' - is the newest chapter of this lifetime of compulsive dissent; The transgressive thrill of Chomsky's world view, in which an American elite routinely bombs and terrorises in the name of 'freedom' and in defence of market share, has led fans such as Bono of U2 to describe the 73-year-old professor as the 'Elvis of academia'; In a recent profile in the New Yorker, Chomsky was identified, perhaps more accurately, as the 'Devil's accountant', totting up the foreign corpses sacrificed in America's 'quest for global dominance' |
| 11/30/2003 |
| America's Sugar Daddies |
| The sugar situation hurts American businesses and consumers, but its worst impact is on the poor countries that try to compete in the global agricultural markets; Their farmers might never be able to compete with corn or wheat farmers in the United States, even if the playing field were leveled; But they can grow cotton and sugar at lower prices than we can, no matter how advanced our technology; Our poorer trading partners bitterly resent the way this country feels entitled to suspend market-driven rules whenever it appears they will place American producers at a disadvantage |
| 11/27/2003 |
| U.S. Plan in Iraq to Shift Control Hits Major Snag |
| The American plan to turn over power in Iraq more quickly was thrown into disarray on Wednesday when the country's most powerful cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, made public his opposition to a proposal for indirect elections; Spokesmen for Ayatollah Sistani, who exercises strong influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, said he insisted that the election, planned for June, be a direct ballot and not the caucus-style vote called for in the American plan |
| 11/26/2003 |
| Crimes Against Nature- By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr |
| ush is sabotaging the laws that have protected America's environment for more than thirty years |
| 11/26/2003 |
| Media Silence on 9/11 |
| Conspiracy theories about these events flourish because independently verified information has yet to see the light of day; More importantly no one has been held accountable for any lapses or misjudgments that left our country undefended;Yet, in one of the most serious crimes in this century, there has been no official rush to get all the facts;If a person was shot in front of the World Trade Center, there would be more of an urgent inquiry into that killing than was accorded the murder of thousands of people in broad daylight; There would be a trial, witnesses giving sworn testimony, evidence presented in public for anyone interested to review and discern |
| 11/26/2003 |
| Livingstone named politician of the year |
| The London mayor, Ken Livingstone, was today named politician of the year for his courage in introducing the capital's traffic congestion charge in the teeth of a concerted media campaign against it; Although the success of the £5 fee for motorists in reducing city centre congestion in London is now widely acknowledged, the mayor ran the gauntlet of a sceptical, even hostile press and government in the run-up to its launch |
| 11/24/2003 |
| Iraq War Providing a Boost to al-Qaida |
| The American invasion and occupation of Iraq has provided al-Qaida with a powerful propaganda tool in its holy war against the West, injecting new energy into the worldwide network even though many of its key operatives are in jail or dead, its top leadership is on the run and its sources of money are shrinking, according to international security analysts |
| 11/24/2003 |
| Investors at UN Summit: Disclose Climate Costs |
| State treasurers and pensions funds that help oversee $1 trillion in assets last week urged U.S. regulators and business leaders to force corporations to give investors more information on the financial risks from global climate change |
| 11/24/2003 |
| Solar Hurricane Hits Earth in Repeat of Oct Storm |
| Magnetic solar hurricanes like those that wreaked havoc last month have hit Earth again, confusing satellites and causing aurora borealis displays as far south as Florida, Finnish meteorologists said last week |
| 11/22/2003 |
| Pushing Energy Conservation Into the Back Seat of the S.U.V. |
| The the United States is importing an ever increasing share of its oil needs, 55 percent in the first seven months of this year; That compares with about 28 percent 20 years ago, at the height of the consumer switch to vehicles that are more fuel efficient, and with nearly 35 percent in 1973, before the first Arab oil embargo; Doug MacIntyre, senior oil market analyst for the Energy Information Administration, forecasts that imports will rise to 68 percent of consumption by 2025;Most of it will come from the Persian Gulf region, given that two-thirds of the world's known oil resources are concentrated there Currently, 13 percent of this country's daily oil imports come from the Persian Gulf, compared with less than 5 percent 30 years ago |
| 11/21/2003 |
| Miami Vice- Tom Hayden reportes from FTAA |
| "They finished early because there was nothing to be gained from another day of bad publicity from the streets, and there was nothing to negotiate beyond an agreement to keep negotiating in the future," said Washington-based trade expert Mark Weisbrot; A perplexed Wall Street Journal reporter asked FTAA officials whether "after nine years you've agreed to keep moving forward but with lesser goals than before"; Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim, carefully choosing a word in English said only that the agreement was "enabling" |
| 11/21/2003 |
| Global Warming Gas Seen Increasing Dramatically |
| Worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide, considered a culprit in global warming, are expected to increase by 3.5 billion tonnes, or 50 percent, annually by the year 2020, an executive for ExxonMobil Corp said this week |
| 11/20/2003 |
| 9/11 Commission Orders New York to Hand Over Documents |
| The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks announced today that it had subpoenaed New York City for a variety of police tapes and other material about the attacks; It said that the city's refusal to hand over the material had "significantly impeded the commission's investigation";The 10-member commission said that the subpoena required the city to turn over tapes and transcripts of emergency 911 calls made that day, as well as transcripts of hundreds of interviews of firefighters that were conducted after the terrorist attacks |
| 11/19/2003 |
| Excerpt: The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq |
| From the enormous bait-and-switch operation that, within hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center, tried to link Al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein, to the clumsy attempts by the U.S. military to pacify, reconstruct and democratize a complex Muslim nation on the other side of the world, a new book – jointly published by Seven Stories Press and Akashic Books – razes the house of cards upon which our foreign policy has been built since 9/11 |
| 11/19/2003 |
| U.S. Moves to Limit Textile Imports From China |
| The Bush administration moved on Tuesday to severely restrict the growth of a half-billion dollars' worth of Chinese textile imports and immediately found itself caught between battle cries from the industry for more protectionism and anxiety among global investors who fear it;Under pressure from lawmakers in both parties, and alarmed by the loss of manufacturing jobs from steel states like Pennsylvania to textile states like North Carolina — both political battlegrounds — administration officials have become increasingly strident in demanding that China play "by the rules" |
| 11/18/2003 |
| Germany's Retreat from Nuclear Energy Begins |
| Germany switched off the first of its 19 nuclear power stations on Friday, launching what it calls the world's fastest withdrawal from atomic energy but a policy that may still be reversed if the opposition takes power |
| 11/18/2003 |
| EU to end ban on GM products |
| The European Union will allow a genetically modified food product to go on sale next month in a move which will end the de facto five-year ban on new GM products, the Observer has reported |
| 11/17/2003 |
| Cheney ignored war chaos alert |
| British warnings that America was failing before the war to prepare properly for a crumbling security situation in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was ousted were ignored by Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon;In some of the first direct evidence of serious divisions between the key allies in the run-up to the conflict, the former British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, said the US had failed to focus on what might happen after Saddam had been overthrown |
| 11/16/2003 |
| For Middle Class, Health Insurance Becomes a Luxury |
| The majority of the uninsured are neither poor by official standards nor unemployed; They are accountants like Mr. Thornton, employees of small businesses, civil servants, single working mothers and those working part time or on contract;"Now it's hitting people who look like you and me, dress like you and me, drive nice cars and live in nice houses but can't afford $1,000 a month for health insurance for their families," said R. King Hillier, director of legislative relations for Harris County, which includes Houston |
| 11/15/2003 |
| Ex-Security Chiefs Turn on Sharon |
| Four former chiefs of Israel's powerful domestic security service said in an interview published Friday that the government's actions and policies during the three-year-old Palestinian uprising have gravely damaged the country and its people;The four, who variously headed the Shin Bet security agency from 1980 to 2000 under governments that spanned the political spectrum, said that Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that the government should recognize that no peace agreement can be reached without the involvement of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and that it must stop what one called the immoral treatment of Palestinians |
| 11/15/2003 |
| From Seattle to Miami |
| ine years ago, President Clinton gathered thirty-three of his Western Hemisphere counterparts in Miami for a celebrity-studded gala, a ride aboard a billionaire's yacht and a harmonious discussion of plans for a hemisphere-wide trade deal called the Free Trade Area of the Americas. There was nary a protester in sight;During the week of November 17, Miami will once again host FTAA talks. But this time officials are more likely to spend late nights bickering behind a security barricade surrounded by demonstrators than gallivanting about town with the likes of Patti LaBelle and Liza Minnelli |
| 11/14/2003 |
| Study Links Pesticides with Parkinson's Disease |
| The pesticide rotenone has been shown to cause cell damage that is linked to Parkinson's disease (PD); Now, new lab research indicates that other pesticides can also cause this damage and some are even more toxic than rotenone |
| 11/13/2003 |
| Panel Reaches Deal on Access to 9/11 Papers |
| The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Wednesday that it had reached agreement with the White House to give the panel access to copies of the daily intelligence briefings sent to President Bush's desk shortly before the attacks;The accord was reached after months of talks over the reports, known as the President's Daily Brief, which the Central Intelligence Agency presents to Mr. Bush and his senior aides every morning; The bipartisan commission had threatened to subpoena the reports |
| 11/12/2003 |
| The Professor Takes the Gloves Off |
| Accustomed in economic circles to calling a stupid argument a stupid argument, and isolated (in Princeton, New Jersey) from the Washington dinner-party circuit, Paul Krugman has become the most prominent voice in the mainstream U.S. media to openly and repeatedly accuse George Bush of lying to the American people to sell budget-busting tax cuts and a pre-emptive and nearly unilateral war |
| 11/12/2003 |
| Bush at a trade crossroads |
| In the next few weeks, George W. Bush will have to decide what kind of a trade president he wants to be; After coming to office vowing to aggressively press for new free-trade agreements - and surpass the Clinton record - the Bush administration is now sparring against growing complaints that some of its policies look as much like those of a protectionist as a free trader |
| 11/12/2003 |
| Bring Halliburton Home |
| Those are a few suggestions for slogans that could help unify the growing movement against the occupation of Iraq. So far, activist debates have focused on whether the demand should be for a complete withdrawal of troops, or for the United States to cede power to the United Nations;But the "Troops Out" debate overlooks an important fact; If every last soldier pulled out of the Gulf tomorrow and a sovereign government came to power, Iraq would still be occupied: by laws written in the interest of another country, by foreign corporations controlling its essential services, by 70 percent unemployment sparked by public sector layoffs |
| 11/12/2003 |
| Official: fat epidemic will cut life expectancy |
| The child obesity epidemic caused by poor nutrition and lack of exercise is creating a looming health crisis, with average life expectancy expected to drop for the first time in more than a century;Faced with the prospect of rising death rates as a result of obesity-related illnesses, the Government's most senior adviser on food and health warned for the first time that children growing up today will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents; Sir John Krebs, the chairman of the Food Standards Agency, said that obesity was a 'ticking timebomb' that was one of the most serious issues facing the nation |
| 11/12/2003 |
| Financier Soros puts millions into ousting Bush |
| George Soros, one of the world's wealthiest financiers and philanthropists, has declared that getting George Bush out of the White House has become the "central focus" of his life, and he has put more than $15m (£9m) of his own money where his mouth is;Mr Soros argues that the Bush White House is guided by a "supremacist ideology" that is leading it to abuse US power in its dealings with the rest of the world, and creating a state of permanent warfare |
| 11/12/2003 |
| Brazil's Lula Wants Electricity for All |
| President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched a plan yesterday to bring electricity to 12 million rural Brazilians in a bid to keep young people from leaving the countryside for the lure of city ligh |
| 11/11/2003 |
| The Vision Thing: a response to Cancúnblog |
| One of the great strengths of the neo-conservative approach, and neo-liberalism more broadly, is its all-encompassing vision; For its proponents, trade is just one piece in a much wider jigsaw which is striking in its clarity when fully assembled; It is this vision, drawing on decades of political analysis and practice that inspires political leaders, maintains allegiance and provides strategic direction; Most importantly, the coherence and persuasive nature of the vision allows it to gain hegemony in organisations as diverse as national governments, multilateral organisations and business;the movement for global change will keep on suffering periodic evaporation if it remains obsessed with short-term single-issue campaigns; We need a sustaining long-term vision |
| 11/11/2003 |
| WTO Says U.S. Steel Tariffs Violate Trade Rules |
| The World Trade Organization issued a final ruling Monday that the steel tariffs imposed by President Bush violate international trade rules, escalating the pressure on the president to repeal the tariffs;The decision by the WTO gives the European Union, Japan, Brazil and other countries the right to impose retaliatory tariffs on a host of American exports unless Bush reverses the decision he made in March of last year to give American steel makers protection from imports; The EU has already said it is readying punitive duties that would be applied starting in mid-December on American motorcycles, citrus fruit and farm equipment, among other goods |
| 11/10/2003 |
| Watching Iraq, and Seeing Vietnam |
| Bombings in Baghdad and Falluja and hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on American convoys resemble attacks four decades ago, when Vietcong terrorists and guerrillas were trying to shake the faith of the South Vietnamese in the Saigon government and discourage further American involvement; Instead, President Lyndon Johnson sent half a million men, shuttling them into battle in aircraft like the Chinook helicopter that a missile attack in Iraq brought down last weekend at the cost of 16 American lives |
| 11/9/2003 |
| Written in Private, Energy Bill to Go Public |
| After weeks of mostly secret work, Republicans on Monday will take the wraps off an energy bill loaded with some $16 billion in tax incentives to boost energy production, followed by a House vote later in the week, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said last week;An energy bill is a top priority of the White House, which wants to step up oil drilling, coal production, nuclear power plants and electric transmission grid expansion; The bill also would double use of ethanol, distilled from corn, as fuel |
| 11/9/2003 |
| Between Two Homes and Two Peoples, a Soldier Wanders |
| To his Israeli, Jewish mother, Stella Peretz, and his few friends in Dimona, the Israeli town where he went to high school, the soldier is Yossi Peretz; To his Palestinian, Muslim father, Adel Hussein, and those who knew him in Nur Shams, the Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank where he grew up, he is Muhammad Hussein; To his divorced parents, when they speak of him together — and they seem to speak of little else at such times — he is simply "the child," their only one; It may seem to an outsider that this child of twin identity — at once Muhammad Hussein and Yossi Peretz — was given a rare gift: the ability to understand both Israelis and Palestinians at a depth few reach |
| 11/6/2003 |
| Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War |
| As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal; Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search; The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad; At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections |
| 11/6/2003 |
| Bush Outlines Vision for Expanding Democracy in Mideast |
| President Bush described today a vision of how democracy could unfold in the Middle East and beyond once Iraq is stabilized, challenging Iran, Syria and one crucial American ally in the region — Egypt — to end traditions of authoritarianism;Mr. Bush directly compared what he called a new, "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East" to Ronald Reagan's 1982 declaration in England that Soviet communism had failed, and to American efforts to spread democracy in Asia in the wake of World War II |
| 11/6/2003 |
| How Many Body Bags? |
| On Sunday, 19 more young Americans died in Iraq serving the vanity of an American president who woefully betrayed them and who has no idea where his policies are taking the country;As is now amply clear, this president has systematically lied to the troops and the nation about the reasons for going to war, distorting evidence to claim that the United States was threatened by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks |
| 11/4/2003 |
| Canadian Growers Warn UK Farmers of GMO Crop Risks |
| Canadian farmers with first hand experience growing genetically modified (GMO) crops say the technology will damage Britain's booming organic food sector and leave fields strewn with "super weeds" grown from stray, leftover seeds |
| 11/2/2003 |
| Israel outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace |
| Israel has been described as the top threat to world peace, ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran, by an unpublished European Commission poll of 7,500 Europeans, sparking an international row;The leaking of the results of the poll to El Pais and the International Herald Tribune has sparked a bitter row, with a major Jewish human rights and lobbying group, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, demanding that the EU be excluded from the Israel-Palestinian peace process and accusing Europe of suffering the worst outbreak of 'anti-semitism' since World War Two |
| 11/2/2003 |
| China's Factories Aim to Fill the World's Garages |
| The growth of auto manufacturing in China — the number of cars and light trucks produced has jumped to 3.8 million from 1.8 million over the last three years, compared with 12 million now in the United States, 10 million in Japan and 4.8 million in Germany — has enormous implications not only for this country but for economies around the world; For now, most of the cars and light trucks made here are sold here; But China — already the world's dominant manufacturer of products from toys to facsimile machines to furniture — is laying plans to become a big exporter of cars; Automakers are producing cars here to the same designs that they use in the United States, with Honda making Accords in Guangzhou that are identical to those it manufactures in Ohio |
| 10/31/2003 |
| DEVELOPING COUNTRIES SAY CIVIL SOCIETY CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED |
| A range of developing countries spoke frankly at the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board on 8 October to challenge the attempts of the majors to do finger-pointing for the failure of the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference, and said that not only the substance and processes at Cancun, but also the procedures and processes in the two years at Geneva since the launch of the Doha Work Programme inevitably led to the failure of Cancun; While the majors, and the WTO secretariat, in briefings and internal assessments, are trying to put the blame on civil society, a number of developing countries, big and small, made clear that whether one liked it or not the involvement of civil society, both in the North and the South, in trade negotiations had come to stay |
| 10/31/2003 |
| Darkening of a nation |
| The dirty streak in New Labour's character isn't a corruption of power or a hidden trait which reveals itself only in moments of crisis; It has been a persistent stain on public life since the start of the movement; Basic civil liberties are in dire jeopardy when anti-terrorist laws are used for day-to-day policing |
| 10/31/2003 |
| Personal Voices: Ashcroft's Attack On Greenpeace |
| For years we have worked to end environmental destruction and human rights abuses in Brazil's Amazon rainforest; Destruction of these habitats threatens clean air and water, animal and plant species, and the people and cultures who depend on forests for their way of life; Large criminal enterprises, using bribery, extortion, slavery and murder, continue to ravage the Amazon and export their contraband;Last year, two Greenpeace activists climbed aboard a ship carrying Amazon mahogany wood; They held a banner that said "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging"; Instead of halting the shipment, the government is prosecuting Greenpeace in federal court in Miami; It has charged Greenpeace under an obscure 19th-century law never intended for this purpose; A trial is now set for December |
| 10/30/2003 |
| Fresh Off the Farm |
| From Alaska's Arctic Organics to West Virginia's Flying Ewe Farm, Community supported agricultural farms (CSAs) have sprouted across the nation. Call the trend antiglobalization writ small, a way to connect with neighbors, help small farms and combat the energy waste and pollution of hauling food long-distance; Also, CSAs tap into concerns over homeland security; Says Brian Halweil of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington think tank: "Knowing your farmer brings peace of mind, especially in the face of terrorist threats to the infrastructure, and food-contamination recalls" |
| 10/30/2003 |
| After the flood |
| During the dam's preparatory work, criticism often drowned out the planned benefits, chief of which were the prevention of the devastating Yangtze basin floods, which have killed millions of people, and the hydro-generation of 18,200 megawatts of electricity, supplying a tenth of China's needs and saving the nation from having to construct more than a dozen nuclear power plants or burning 50m tonnes of coal;But has it really been the environmental, human and economic disaster so many people predicted? A trip along the Yangtze showed the immense cost that has been paid, but it suggested that, in these early stages at least, the people and the land are adapting better than many had predicted |
| 10/30/2003 |
| For Ecuador's Party Of the Indigenous, Back to the Streets |
| In the bare headquarters of Pachakutik, the largest political party representing Ecuador's indigenous population, a small altar sits in a corner next to a metal folding chair; From afar it appears similar to antiques found in the graceful centuries-old Catholic churches across this Andean capital, but on closer inspection it is a political statement |
| 10/30/2003 |
| A Growing Number of Video Viewers Watch From Crib |
| Half an hour before bedtime, John Hill-Edgar is in his blue bouncy chair, watching the "Baby Bach" DVD, riveted by the sound of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and the pictures of a toy train, a baby, a bubble-blowing toy bear;He is just 7 months old, too young to talk, but like many other American babies, he has been watching videos from the "Baby Einstein" series almost since birth;In the last five years, there has been an explosion in electronic media for babies and toddlers: "Teletubbies," the first television show for preverbal children; computer "lapware" for babies to play with while sitting in a parent's lap; and hundreds of videotapes and DVD's for even the tiniest infants |
| 10/30/2003 |
| Eyes Wide Shut |
| The war began with Bush illogic: false intelligence (from Niger to nuclear) used to bolster a false casus belli (imminent threat to our security) based on a quartet of false premises (that we could easily finish off Saddam and the Baathists, scare the terrorists and democratize Iraq without leeching our economy);Now Bush illogic continues: The more Americans, Iraqis and aid workers who get killed and wounded, the more it is a sign of American progress; The more dangerous Iraq is, the safer the world is; The more troops we seem to need in Iraq, the less we need to send more troops |
| 10/29/2003 |
| New WTO Agenda Necessary |
| The viability of global trading is at risk, but the WTO shows no sign of abandoning its blind commitment to the liberalization of trade and investment; Rather than expanding the scope of economic liberalization as the WTO leadership proposes, the trade ministers should review and revise its existing rules; Trade can and must be part of a global economy that creates prosperity and alleviates poverty. But the current WTO trade regime, bound to the dictates of wholesale economic liberalization, has converted trade and investment into instruments of impoverishment and corporate market domination; It's time that citizens and concerned governments turn around the failed trade agenda of the World Trade Organization |
| 10/29/2003 |
| G20 will stick together, says Brazil Foreign Minister |
| Brazilian Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, has said that although some countries had left the Group of 20 developing countries (dealing with agriculture issues in the WTO), more countries would join the alliance when the negotiations begin again; Speaking at a press briefing at the WTO on Wednesday evening, Mr Amorim said he was confident the G20 would stick together as it was a pragmatic group with concrete proposals;The group would also reach out to the poorer developing countries and take their concerns on board |
| 10/29/2003 |
| Obesity link to puberty cancer risk |
| Children who are overweight and do little physical activity are more likely to reach puberty earlier which can carry long-term health risks, doctors have warned;Puberty is happening at an earlier stage than ever, largely due to the amount of fat and high-calorie food in the diet; Girls, on average, now start their periods at the age of 12 years and 10 months, eight months earlier than 30 years ago |
| 10/29/2003 |
| Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq |
| Are the ideas of the conservative political philosopher Leo Strauss a shaping influence on the Bush administration’s world outlook? Danny Postel interviews Shadia Drury – a leading scholarly critic of Strauss – and asks her about the connection between Plato’s dialogues, secrets and lies, and the United States-led war in Iraq |
| 10/25/2003 |
| Administration Faces Supoenas From 9/11 Panel |
| The chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks said that the White House was continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that he was prepared to subpoena the documents if they were not turned over within weeks |
| 10/25/2003 |
| Bolivia's Protests of Hope |
| It was the latest, most important installment in the battle raging over privatization and International Monetary Fund-inspired free-market reforms in Latin America; The resignation of Goni now makes Bolivia the third country in the region (Ecuador and Argentina are the others) in which sitting presidents have been pushed out in as many years by a populace angry over neoliberal policies imposed on their countries by Washington;In Bolivia, the "gas war" was only the most recent boiling point for resentment over the economic model; Three years ago Bolivians kicked out the San Francisco-based Bechtel corporation after it took over the city of Cochabamba's water system and raised prices by as much as 200 percent for some residents |
| 10/25/2003 |
| Big Bucks in Iraq |
| Many observers, including even US businessmen and Iraqis who favored "regime change" in Iraq, agree; They say the shock therapy being applied in Iraq will concentrate wealth in the hands of large US and Iraqi corporations, particularly the family-owned businesses that have won the majority of subcontracts from Bechtel and Halliburton; "I like the analogy of Wal-Mart coming into a town," says Timothy Mills, an attorney in the Washington law firm Patton Boggs who represents several US and foreign corporations that have contracted with the US government and are doing business in Iraq; "The downtown dies, Wal-Mart grows and the owners of local businesses are displaced"; With the US Export-Import Bank providing $500 million to insure US investors, he added, "If I was an Iraqi and I was political, I'd say this was a ploy to favor US companies and let them steal the riches of Iraq" |
| 10/24/2003 |
| Syria, Long Ruthlessly Secular, Sees Fervent Islamic Resurgence |
| Two decades after Syria ruthlessly uprooted militant Islam, killing an estimated 10,000 people, this most secular of Arab states is experiencing a dramatic religious resurgence;The widespread sense that the faith is being singled out for attack by Washington has invigorated that appeal, at a time when the violence fomented by radicals had tarnished political Islam |
| 10/24/2003 |
| Texaco Oil Waste Pit in the Amazon |
| A waste pit filled with crude oil left by Texaco drilling operations years earlier lies in a jungle clearing near the Amazonian town of Sacha, Ecuador, October 21, 2003, on the day of the start of a landmark trial where Ecuadoran Indians are seeking to force ChevronTexaco to clean up the environmental contamination left behind from Texaco's operations |
| 10/23/2003 |
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| The dollar fell to fresh multi-year lows against a range of currencies on Thursday, as sharp losses on Wall Street prompted a broad flight from US assets |
| 10/22/2003 |
| China's Boom Adds to Global Warming Problem |
| China's rapid economic growth is producing a surge in emissions of greenhouse gases that threatens international efforts to curb global warming, as Chinese power plants burn ever more coal while car sales soar;Until the last few months, many energy experts and environmentalists said, they had hoped that China's contribution to global warming would be limited; Its state-owned enterprises have become more efficient in their energy use as they compete in an increasingly capitalist economy, and until recently official Chinese statistics had been showing a steep drop in coal production and consumption |
| 10/15/2003 |
| Bolivian Leader Loses Allies as Demonstrations Spread |
| The antigovernment demonstrations began nearly a month ago, initially to protest a proposal to build a $5 billion pipeline to export natural gas to the United States and Mexico via a port in Chile;Groups representing poor Indian peasants who make up a majority of the country's population organized the effort and were soon joined by labor unions, student and community groups and opposition political parties like the Movement Toward Socialism; The forces of globalization have affected every Latin American country in one way or another, but nowhere other than in Bolivia has the conflict erupted with such intensity between the government and the indigenous poor; But as a result of the recent bloodshed, the focus of the protests has now shifted to demanding the resignation of Mr. Sánchez de Lozada, a 73-year-old millionaire businessman |
| 10/15/2003 |
| The Widening Crusade |
| I believe that last week's blitz of aggressive speeches and spin by the president and his chief counselors removed all doubt of his intentions;"As long as George W. Bush is president of the United States," Vice President Cheney told the friendly Heritage Foundation, "this country will not permit gathering threats to become certain tragedies"; The president himself must tell us now what this vow entails |
| 10/14/2003 |
| Norway's Statkraft teams up for hydrogen future |
| "Hydrogen is the world's most easily available fuel, since it is extracted from water using electricity," Statkraft, Norway's top electricity producer, said in a statement;Hydrogen is considered by many to be a fuel of the future as the only emission from hydrogen when used as fuel is water; It is produced by using electricity to split the gas out of water through a process called electrolysis |
| 10/13/2003 |
| EU sets out tough terms for aid to Iraq |
| European Union foreign ministers on Monday set out tough new terms for their assistance in the reconstruction of Iraq, as the US and allies made a last-ditch effort to win support for a United Nations resolution calling for greater international support;At a meeting in Luxembourg, only the UK offered new funding - a €375m ($442m, £265m) commitment, starting from next January and spread over two years - while other countries held back on making public what contributions, if any, they would make at next week's donors conference in Madrid |
| 10/13/2003 |
| In Pioneering Study, Monkey Think, Robot Do |
| In experiments at Duke University, implants in the monkeys' brains picked up brain signals and sent them to a robotic arm, which carried out reaching and grasping movements on a computer screen driven only by the monkeys' thoughts; The achievement is a significant advance in the continuing effort to devise thought-controlled machines that could be a great benefit for people who are paralyzed, or have lost control over their physical movements |
| 10/13/2003 |
| Remembering Neil Postman |
| A professor at New York University known for his sense of humor, Postman founded the Steinhardt School of Education's program in Media Ecology at NYU in 1971; He was chair of the Department of Culture and Communication until 2002; During his career, he wrote 20 books on a wide range of subjects;"The Disappearance of Childhood" examined television's harmful effects on children through the onslaught of information;'Technopoly" explored the tyranny of technology; Over the course of his career, in fact, Postman relentlessly questioned technology's impact on our lives; It was a pursuit that didn't end at the university walls |
| 10/13/2003 |
| Energy Industry to Win Big on Energy Bill |
| After three years of false starts, Congress could soon pass a sweeping energy bill packed with tax breaks and other benefits for oil, natural gas, coal and power companies - a package that could cost taxpayers nearly $53 billion over the next 10 years |
| 10/12/2003 |
| A New Beginning for WTO After Cancun |
| Forget the spin you have been reading about the "failure" of the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun; It was one of the most successful international meetings in years because it redefined how trade can benefit the poor and how the developing world can be real players in these negotiations; In fact, if policymakers and global trade negotiators were paying attention, Cancun could lead to trade talks that actually bring about fair trade, and the benefits to both the developing and the developed world that have long been promised |
| 10/12/2003 |
| Free Trade Is War |
| On Monday, seven antiprivatization activists were arrested in Soweto for blocking the installation of prepaid water meters; The meters are a privatized answer to the fact that millions of poor South Africans cannot pay their water bills;The new gadgets work like pay-as-you-go cell phones, only instead of having a dead phone when you run out of money, you have dead people, sickened by drinking cholera-infested water;On the same day South Africa's "water warriors" were locked up, Argentina's negotiations with the International Monetary Fund bogged down; The sticking point was rate hikes for privatized utility companies; In a country where 50 percent of the population is living in poverty, the IMF is demanding that multinational water and electricity companies be allowed to increase their rates by a staggering 30 percent |
| 10/11/2003 |
| U.S. May Expand Access To Endangered Species |
| The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries |
| 10/9/2003 |
| How Blair Lost by Winning |
| On BBC radio the other morning, there was a poignant moment when the Pentagon adviser Kenneth Adelman was talking about the war in Iraq; "It bothers me that people in Britain don't see it as people in America see it," he said. "We did a beautiful thing";He is quite right in supposing that most people here don't see that. The trans-Atlantic gulf has grown wider since the invasion of Iraq, regardless of what Prime Minister Tony Blair likes to think. And now, with Mr. Blair's popularity at an all-time low, his temporary political success on Iraq looks ever more like a self-inflicted wound |
| 10/9/2003 |
| Divvying up the Iraq Pie |
| The Wall Street Journal describes it as "the largest government reconstruction effort since Americans helped to rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II"; Just how much the rebuilding of Iraq will cost American taxpayers is a figure still too elusive to capture. But the President's request for an additional $87 billion in September, atop the $3.7 billion a month we are already spending, indicates the final figure will be, as one pundit described it, quite "an adult number"; Recent estimates now put the final figure somewhere between $200 billion to as much as half a trillion dollars over the next ten years |
| 10/8/2003 |
| Noodle soup |
| Jealous of China’s surging exports and success in attracting foreign investment, South-East Asian countries plan to band together in a European-style economic community |
| 10/8/2003 |
| A Pregnant Mother's Diet May Turn the Genes Around |
| Scientists have long known that what pregnant mothers eat — whether they are mice, fruit flies or humans — can profoundly affect the susceptibility of their offspring to disease; But until now they have not understood why, said Dr. Randy Jirtle, a professor of radiation oncology at Duke and senior investigator of the study, which was reported in the Aug. 1 issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology;The research is a milestone in the relatively new science of epigenetics, the study of how environmental factors like diet, stress and maternal nutrition can change gene function without altering the DNA sequence in any way |
| 10/7/2003 |
| Infant Study Links Antibiotics and Asthma |
| Antibiotics prescribed for infants within six months of birth may be contributing to increased rates of asthma, scientists say;The results of a new study suggest that babies who receive the medications are more than twice as likely to develop asthma than are children who did not take antibiotics; The findings were presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society in Vienna |
| 10/7/2003 |
| Alaska's climate: Too hot to handle |
| Temperatures have changed more in Alaska over the past 30 years than they have anywhere else on Earth: winters have warmed by a startling 2-3 °C, compared with a global average of 1 °C; That's guaranteed to have dramatic effects in an Arctic landscape, where even small temperature changes can make the difference between freezing and melting; In Fairbanks, a city built on permafrost, the annual mean temperature is just -2 °C; If it pops above zero, residents can say goodbye to the frozen ground beneath their feet, along with the free iceboxes in their basements; The impacts on wildlife, and the people who depend on it for their livelihoods, will be huge |
| 10/7/2003 |
| Agreement in Maine Will Remove Dams for Salmon's Sake |
| Legions of wild Atlantic salmon once surged through Maine's rivers, but for decades their numbers have been shriveling to a hapless handful; Years of efforts to bring them back by banning salmon fishing, stocking the rivers with millions of fish, cleaning up pollution and even tracking fish with transponders have failed time and again;But on Monday an unusual agreement was announced between a coalition of environmentalists and the power company that operates dams on Maine's largest river, an agreement many environmentalists believe stands a good chance of saving the struggling salmon, along with a dozen other species of faltering fish |
| 10/7/2003 |
| An amber light for agri-business |
| In soyabeans, Brazil is a superpower; Within five years, it could become the world's biggest producere; Soya products already account for about 5% of Brazil's total exports; It has achieved this despite banning the use of genetically modified (GM) seed; That has set it apart from the United States, where 80% of the soya is GM, and Argentina, where nearly all of it is; The ban was popular not just with Lula's supporters but also with ordinary Brazilians and biotech-wary consumers in Europe;The waiving of the ban, albeit for only one season, will shock both groups; Lula's traditional supporters are already troubled by his government's orthodox economics; They sense another betrayal; Marilena Lazzarini, head of IDEC, a consumer-advocacy group, accuses the government of succumbing to “pressure from economic interests”; Europeans, accustomed to eating GM-free food without paying much extra for it, may have to choose between their phobias and their wallets |
| 10/7/2003 |
| Bush under fire |
| Leaks, scandal, war and a floundering economy are rocking the foundations of a once invincible White House; Paul Harris reports from New York on why the Democrats suddenly scent victor |
| 10/6/2003 |
| Israel, Jordan Unite in Effort to Save Dying Dead Sea |
| It has shimmered and steamed at the lowest point on Earth since time immemorial; Its silence, seclusion and healing powers have lured people from biblical mystics to modern eco-tourists;But the Dead Sea has been quietly dying for years; And the two states abutting its shrinking shoreline, Israel and Jordan, face formidable economic and ecological challenges in pondering how to save a unique natural wonder of the world |
| 10/6/2003 |
| Putin Says Kyoto Benefits Short-Lived for Economy |
| "Our first concern should be the lofty idea and goals we set ourselves and not short-term economic benefits," Putin said of Kyoto at a World Economic Forum meeting in Moscow; The U.N. pact will enter into force only if Moscow ratifies it |
| 10/5/2003 |
| Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil |
| The Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, according to public records and government officials |
| 10/5/2003 |
| Ex-Minister Says Blair Knew Iraq Had No Banned Arms |
| Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded privately that Iraq did not have the quickly deployable weapons of mass destruction that the British government cited as justification for war, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook asserted today |
| 9/9/2003 |
| Solar Flare Serves Up Antimatter Surprises |
| When scientists want to study antimatter on Earth, they have to speed particles up to dizzying speeds and smash them together to create tiny amounts of it. Solar flares, brilliant explosions among the most powerful in the solar system, are much more efficient at churning it out. The results of the most detailed study yet of a solar flare, which will be published in the October 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, indicate that each burst can create up to a pound of antimatter. Furthermore, the material behaves differently than expected |
| 9/9/2003 |
| Mad in the USA |
| More than 1,000 people attended a rally a few weeks ago in Connecticut to demand fair trade and denounce the sweatshop buying habits of big retailers like Wal-Mart; The speakers were passionate, the crowd pumped; But this rally differed from the usual fair trade gatherings in one key respect: It was not organized by labor, student, or environmental groups; It was organized by an alliance of small and mid-sized manufacturers |
| 9/9/2003 |
| Chileans find solace in big concert for Allende |
| More than just a pair of concerts, it was also a kind of exorcism; To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the bloody coup that overthrew the leftist government of Salvador Allende, some of Latin America's best-known pop, folk and rock stars performed over the weekend at the National Stadium here, the site of some of the worst atrocities committed by the government of General Augusto Pinochet |
| 9/8/2003 |
| Why Are We In Iraq? (And Liberia? And Afghanistan?) |
| In the back alleys of Iraq, the soldiers from the 101st Airborne and First Armored Divisions are hot, dirty and scared; They want to go home, but instead they're pinned down, fighting off hit-and-run attacks and trying to stop sabotage on pipelines, water mains and electric grids; They were told they would be greeted as liberators, but now, many months later, they are an army of occupation, trying to save the reputation of a president who never told them -- did he know himself? -- what they were getting into; The Muslim fighters rushing to join the remnants of Saddam Hussein's loyalists in a guerrilla war to reclaim Iraq have understood all along what the war has been about -- that it was never simply a matter of preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction; rather, it was about consolidating American power in the Arab world; Some in the administration no doubt understood this, too, though no one took the trouble to explain all their reasons for going to war to the American people or, for that matter, the rest of the world |
| 9/7/2003 |
| Brazil's Land Rush Leads to Standoff |
| The crisis in this country of 175 million pits militant peasants and the unemployed against a wealthy minority that owns 90 percent of Brazil's arable land and is increasingly taking up arms and hiring militias to protect its property; So far this year, dozens of ranchers and their families have been chased from their homes and at least 31 squatters have been killed, more than any year in more than a decade; Nearly 166,000 Brazilian families populate squatter camps throughout the country, according to the country's largest anti-poverty organization, the Landless Workers' Movement, known by its Portuguese acronym, MST; That represents 98,000 more families than lived in squatter camps nationwide at the end of last year, a pace that far eclipses anything Brazil has experienced in the MST's 19-year history, according to Simone Tomaz de Paula, the director of the MST's Sao Paulo office |
| 9/7/2003 |
| Day by day, the noose tightens round No 10 |
| Henry Porter, bestselling author of espionage novels, examines the role of intelligence chief John Scarlett and shows how the Hutton inquiry is uncovering a dangerous mix of spies and secrets |
| 9/6/2003 |
| This war on terrorism is bogus, by Michael Meacher |
| All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself; The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am; Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am; Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11; Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002); It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate; Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority? The former US federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, has said: "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence" |
| 9/6/2003 |
| Meacher sparks fury over claims on September 11 and Iraq war |
| Mr Meacher claims in an article in today's Guardian that the war on terrorism is a smokescreen and that the US knew in advance about the September 11 attack on New York but, for strategic reasons, chose not to act on the warnings;He says the US goal is "world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies" and that this Pax Americana "provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis";Mr Meacher adds that the US has made "no serious attempt" to catch the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden;He also criticises the British government, claiming it is motivated, as is the US, by a desire for oil |
| 9/5/2003 |
| Layoffs Rose Sharply Last Month, Report Says |
| The civilian unemployment rate improved marginally last month -- sliding to 6.1 percent -- as companies slashed payrolls by 93,000; Friday's report sent mixed signals about the nation's overall economic health; August was the seventh consecutive month of cuts in payrolls, a survey released by the Labor Department showed, indicating continuing weakness in the job market; But the overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 6.2 percent to 6.1 percent of the labor force, as reflected by a survey of U.S. households |
| 9/5/2003 |
| A Deadly Franchise, by Naomi Klein |
| Many have argued that the War on Terror is the US government's thinly veiled excuse for constructing a classic empire, in the model of Rome or Britain; Two years into the crusade, it's clear this is a mistake: the Bush gang doesn't have the stick-to-it-ness to successfully occupy one country, let alone a dozen; Bush and the gang do, however, have the hustle of good marketers, and they know how to contract out; What Bush has created in the WOT is less a "doctrine" for world domination than an easy-to-assemble toolkit for any mini-empire looking to get rid of the opposition and expand its power |
| 9/4/2003 |
| Bush seeks UN bailout of Iraqi occupati |
| Having written off the United Nations as irrelevant in the days leading up to the US invasion of Iraq and declared as little as two weeks ago that it had no intention of making its occupation of the country an “international operation” backed by a new UN resolution, the Bush administration has been compelled by events to do just that;US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte began sounding out members of the UN Security Council, Germany and other governments Wednesday on a new resolution designed to win the world body’s backing for more troops and money to prop up the failing US military occupation |
| 9/4/2003 |
| Power of Positive Thinking May Have a Health Benefit, Study Says |
| In recent years evidence has accumulated that psychology can indeed affect biology; Studies have found, for example, that people who suffer from depression are at higher risk for heart disease and other illnesses; Other research has shown that wounds take longer to heal in women who care for patients with Alzheimer's disease than in other women who are not similarly stressed; And people under stress have been found to be more susceptible to colds and flu, and to have more severe symptoms after they fall ill; Now a new study adds another piece to the puzzle; Researchers at the University of Wisconsin are reporting today that the activation of brain regions associated with negative emotions appears to weaken people's immune response to a flu vaccine |
| 9/4/2003 |
| For Schooling, a Reverse Emigration to Africa |
| American teenagers have more opportunity to get into trouble than those in Africa, where high levels of independence and materialism are less common, these families say. And the negative consequences of slipping through the cracks in the United States, they say they have observed, often disproportionately affect black children. For their children to realize the American dream, many immigrant parents have decided, it may be best for them to leave the United States for a few years;"During those tender years when so many African-American children are lost, it is seen as a beneficial absence," said Sulayman S. Nyang, a professor of African studies at Howard University; "Parents worry that the negative values of self-denigration that some children fall into here will hamper the quest for social mobility that is part of the immigrant experience" |
| 9/1/2003 |
| Who's Losing Iraq? |
| As Paul Bremer admitted last week, the cost of the Iraq adventure is going to be spectacular: $2 billion for electrical demands and $16 billion to deliver clean water;We're losing one or two American soldiers every day. Saddam and Osama are still lurking and scheming — the "darkness which may be felt";After a car bomb exploded outside a Najaf mosque on Friday, killing scores of people, including the most prominent pro-American Shiite cleric, we may have to interject our troops into an internecine Shiite dispute — which Saddam's Baathist guerrillas are no doubt stoking; With Iraqis in Najaf screaming, "There is no order! There is no government! We'd rather have Saddam than this!," we had one more ominous illustration that the Bush team is out of its depth and divided against itself |
| 8/31/2003 |
| Who Is Losing Iraq? |
| Retreat is not an option, victory is elusive and the cost of staying the course is rising fast; Iraq is our greatest crisis since Vietnam |
| 8/30/2003 |
| Deepening Doubts on Iraq -Los Angeles Times, Editorial |
| Where are the weapons of mass destruction? As President Bush and other administration officials made the case for war with Iraq, their biggest selling point was the claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime possessed chemical weapons; Allegations he had biological weapons were shakier; assertions he had nuclear arms or could build them were even more dubious; There were other ever-shifting official rationales for the Iraq invasion, like Hussein's torture and killing of his own people and promoting Mideast democracy through his ouster; The main justification, however, for sending Americans to die in the desert was Hussein's earlier use of chemical weapons, his continued possession of them and the imminent threat he would inflict them on the United States |
| 8/29/2003 |
| Suburbia USA: Fat of the Land? |
| In the first comprehensive examination of whether suburbs spreading across the U.S. landscape are affecting Americans' health, the researchers studied more than 200,000 people in 448 counties, producing the first concrete evidence supporting suspicions that sprawl is aggravating the nation's growing weight crisis;People who live in the most spread-out areas spend fewer minutes each month walking and weigh about six pounds more on average than those who live in the most densely populated places; Probably as a result, they are almost as prone to high blood pressure as cigarette smokers, the researchers found;"There are lots of other reasons why we should work to contain sprawl," said Reid Ewing of the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth, who led the study; "This could be another important reason" |
| 8/29/2003 |
| Labor Day 2003: Nothing to Celebrate |
| If ever there was a Labor Day for American workers to celebrate, this sure isn't the one; It's now 30 years since the end of the "golden era" for American labor, which by most accounting ended in 1973; Over the past 30 years the productivity of the people whose brain and muscle creates the wealth of the world's richest nation has grown by 66 percent; But the wage of the typical employee – the median wage – has grown by only 7 percent |
| 8/28/2003 |
| Halliburton, Bechtel Win More Iraq Deals |
| Halliburton Co. and Bechtel Group Inc., which have been working to rebuild Iraq after the U.S.-led war, are expected to win more contracts, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday; The Post reported that Halliburton, the world's second-largest oil field service company, could make hundreds of millions more dollars than earlier disclosed for services such as maintaining Iraqi oil fields under a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract, according to documents surveyed by the newspaper |
| 8/28/2003 |
| How Rupert took on the world |
| Rupert Murdoch's media empire spans the globe - but how did it get there? In these exclusive extracts from his new book, author and journalist Bruce Page reveals the political deals and ruthless drive that give Murdoch more power and influence than any press baron in history |
| 8/28/2003 |
| Power to the People |
| In 1992, investor-owned utilities pushed the Democratic House to pass HR776, which granted electric utilities broad powers; The bill was supposed to restructure the electric utility industry to spur competition;Instead, utilities used deregulation to effect a series of mergers limiting competition; In order to accelerate profits, cost cutting ensued, involving the layoff of thousands of utility company employees, including some who where responsible for maintenance of generation, transmission and distribution systems; A number of investor-owned utilities stopped investing in the maintenance and repair of their own equipment, choosing to cut costs to enhance the value of their stock rather than spending money to enhance the value of their service |
| 8/27/2003 |
| E.P.A. Relaxes Clean Air Rules for Power Plants |
| The Bush administration Wednesday revised clean air rules to make it easier for power plants and refineries to repair and upgrade their facilities -- a move environmental groups claim will cause more air pollution;The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule that would let industrial facilities make some upgrades without installing expensive equipment to fight air pollution, the Natural Resources Defense Council said |
| 8/12/2003 |
| Transgenerational Financial Terrorism |
| Media consolidation helps obscure the gross mismanagement of the nation's financial affairs as both parties embraced the University of Chicago's "neoliberal" economic model; As the 1980s began, the national debt was already a hefty $909 billion; After 20 years of leadership by two like-minded, neoliberal-inclined parties, that debt – our debt – is on track to reach $7384 by September 2004; In a 2003 survey on transgenerational accounting, economists working for the U.S. Treasury identify $43 trillion in unfunded government liabilities |
| 8/11/2003 |
| Hot Europe Grows Hotter |
| Britain sweltered through its hottest day on record today, and Alpine glaciers melted as the heat wave that has baked much of Europe for days sizzled relentlessly on; The heat and drought-driven fires across the Continent prompted Pope John Paul II to urge people to pray for rain |
| 8/10/2003 |
| Crime, the world´s biggest free enterprise |
| By allowing capital to flow unchecked from one end of the world to the other, globalisation and abandon of sovereignty have together fostered the explosive growth of an outlaw financial market;Indeed the engine of capitalist expansion is now oiled by the profits of serious crime; From time to time something is done to give the impression of waging war on the rapidly expanding banking and tax havens. If governments really wanted to, they could right this overnight;But though there are calls for zero tolerance of petty crime and unemployment, nothing is being done about the big money crimes |
| 8/10/2003 |
| Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence |
| The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views; The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied |
| 8/10/2003 |
| Sweltering nation on brink of heat record |
| Britain's weathermen remained on sweltering tenterhooks yesterday as temperatures across the country hovered just below the magic mark of 37.1 degrees Celsius (98.8F) - the hottest temperature ever recorded in the British Isles;Temperatures in Surrey and Hampshire reached 36 degrees, while the rest of the country bathed in the searing heat that has swathed Britain for several weeks;Even in the short term, the cost to the taxpayer will be massive, say experts - an early victim being the nation's road and rail networks as well as its electricity grid; All will have to be replaced with materials that can withstand extreme heat and cold, a feature not yet included in the infrastructure as travellers discovered last week when they were stranded by buckled rail tracks and stuck in cars on melting motorways |
| 8/9/2003 |
| Power Trip:U.S. Unilateralism and |
| concise dissection of the new U.S. unilateralism, Power Trip is the first book-length critique of this fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy to consolidate and extend U.S. global control; Exploring the transformation of U.S. foreign policy begun by the Bush administration when it took office in 2001 and implemented with greater ease and heightened zeal after September 11, Power Trip introduces the cast of characters responsible for the new U.S. power trip and wrestles with the consequences of the new trends in U.S. foreign policy |
| 8/9/2003 |
| Oil-rich and starving: Leaders rob Angola's people |
| It is a sad paradox that Angola, potentially one of the developing world's richest countries, is going through a bitter economic and humanitarian crisis; Blame for the crisis can be laid squarely at the feet of the country's corrupt leadership; While malnutrition and disease rage throughout the country, billions of dollars in state revenues have gone missing; President José Eduardo dos Santos cannot avoid responsibility for this situation;Angola, whose huge oil reserves are estimated to be among the largest in Africa, supplies more oil to the United States than does Kuwait; It is estimated that oil represents close to 90 percent of the $3 billion to $5 billion of Angola's state budget, of which more than $1 billion goes unaccounted for every year |
| 8/9/2003 |
| Salt of the Earth |
| When archaeologists excavated the cities of ancient Mesopotamia, they were amazed not just by what they found but by where they found it: in the middle of an unpopulated desert. In "Ur of the Chaldees," Leonard Woolley asked: "Why, if Ur was an empire's capital, if Sumer was once a vast granary, has the population dwindled to nothing, the very soil lost its virtue?" The answer — the reason "the very soil lost its virtue" — is that heavy irrigation in a hot, dry climate leads to a gradual accumulation of salt in the soil; Rising salinity first forced the Sumerians to switch from wheat to barley, which can tolerate more salt; by about 1800 B.C. even barley could no longer be grown in southern Iraq, and Sumerian civilization collapsed; Modern civilization's impact on the environment is, of course, far greater than anything the ancients could manage; We can do more damage in a decade than our ancestors could inflict in centuries |
| 8/9/2003 |
| The US is starting a nuclear fight that will be hard to stop |
| The hawks are gunning for a showdown with North Korea and Iran |
| 8/8/2003 |
| The war of the world: America, GM, and developing countries |
| The spread of GM technology across the developing world is not a neutral process but one shaped by powerful commercial interests and enforced by the weapons of diplomacy; After taking control over one-third of the world’s crude oil supplies and that too after a futile search for ‘weapons of mass destruction’, the United States president, George W. Bush, appears ready to take over the world’s food market; Here too the world is being misled; In this case, the US government is manipulating the world with an argument aimed at our emotions – that genetically-modified (GM) foods are the key to eliminating hunger |
| 8/7/2003 |
| Debate Resumes on the Safety of Depression's Wonder Drugs |
| Warnings by drug regulators about the safety of Paxil, one of the world's most prescribed antidepressants, are reopening seemingly settled questions about a whole class of drugs that also includes Prozac and Zoloft;Doctors are just beginning to react to the finding — reported first by British drug authorities in June and then endorsed the next week by the Food and Drug Administration — that unpublished studies about Paxil show that it carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and children to consider suicide |
| 8/7/2003 |
| Facing a Second Nuclear Age |
| This week, ten minutes by car south of Omaha, Neb., the United States Strategic Command is holding a little-advertised meeting at which the Bush administration is to solidify its plans for acquiring a new generation of nuclear arms. Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers; The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction; Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust |
| 8/7/2003 |
| Meltdown as London record is broken |
| The heatwave which has claimed its first two fatalities reached a record high in London yesterday but fell just short of the national record;As the temperature reached 35.4C (95.7F) on the roof of the London weather centre at 2.59pm and peaked at 35.9C (96.6F) in Gravesend, Kent, it emerged that two teenagers had died on Tuesday while trying to cool down |
| 8/6/2003 |
| Cooking the facts to keep the White House happy |
| The agency's analysts find that they are no longer helping to formulate policy; instead, their job is to rationalize decisions that have already been made; And more and more, they find that they are expected to play up evidence, however weak, that seems to support the administration's case, while suppressing evidence that doesn't;Am I describing the CIA? The Environmental Protection Agency? The National Institutes of Health? Actually, I'm talking about the Treasury Department, but the ambiguity is no coincidence; Across the board, the Bush administration has politicized policy analysis |
| 8/6/2003 |
| Heat and fires scorching Europe |
| Unusually high temperatures and a summer-long dearth of rain have wrought serious damage to crops and weather-related deaths throughout Europe, a continent of increasingly scorched earth |
| 8/5/2003 |
| Let Iraqis Decide What to Privatize |
| The plan of L. Paul Bremer, chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, to sell government-owned companies to private investors assumes two things: that privatization is what free people anywhere prefer, and that it's what's good for them. Neither assumption is true;In fact, when it comes to government ownership, highly developed democracies have made very different choices; Its 10 million American customers may be surprised to learn that the German government owns 44 percent of T-Mobile, the cellular phone service provider; In France the government owns 54 percent of Air France, 21 percent of the company that owns RCA and 27 percent of the car manufacturer Renault, which in turn owns 37 percent of Nissan and 70 percent of Samsung; The British government owns 100 percent of the BBC; In Finland the government is the owner of all the liquor stores and 60 percent of an energy company that owns retail gas stations; In Sweden the government is the owner of all pharmacies and several iron mines; It is clear that no assumption can be made regarding what the people of Iraq would want to do with the companies they own; The answer will be known only when Iraq has a fully functioning democracy |
| 8/5/2003 |
| MI6 chief to quit after split on Iraq |
| Britain's top spymaster has decided to retire early, dealing a damaging new blow to the Government's credibility over its presentation of intelligence on Iraq;Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, is thought to be dismayed by the visible rift between his organisation and Downing Street;The move is likely to worsen MI6's crisis of confidence over Downing Street's alleged manipulation of information over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and to plunge the Prime Minister and the intelligence services into a covert battle over the choice of Dearlove's successor |
| 8/5/2003 |
| The height of summer: heatwave edges close to record |
| The Met Office yesterday predicted that temperatures would soar into the 30s today and tomorrow, beating this year's record high of 33.6C (91F) recorded at Wisley, Surrey, on July 15. They may even set a new all-time record, overtaking the 37.1C (98.8F) recorded in Cheltenham on August 3, 1990; Yesterday's top temperature was 32C, recorded around Heathrow, west London;Warm air floating up from France where temperatures were reaching the mid-30s, combined with high pressure and southerly winds means the heatwave could last into the weekend and early next week - boosting temperatures above Barbados, where Tony Blair is on holiday; One Met Office forecaster said: "It won't be as hot here as it is in France, but there's a 10% chance of breaking the record for the hottest ever day in Britain" |
| 8/5/2003 |
| Wrong kind of sunshine cuts services and slows trains |
| Summer sunshine became the latest meteorological phenomenon to paralyse Britain's railways yesterday, proving as disruptive as the wrong kind of snow, leaves on the line, unexpected condensation and high winds;Network Rail imposed speed restrictions of 60mph across much of southern England and the Midlands, on the grounds that high temperatures could cause rails to buckle. The move, which is likely to stay in force all week, increased journey times from London to Manchester by up to an hour |
| 8/3/2003 |
| Bush's 9-11 Secrets |
| Even though Bush has refused to make parts of the 9-11 report public, one thing is startlingly clear: The U.S. government had received repeated warnings of impending attacks—and attacks using planes directed at New York and Washington—for several years; The government never told us about what it knew was coming; See for yourself; The report lists 36 different summaries of warnings dating back to 1997; Among them: "In September 1998, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information that Bin Laden's next operation might involve flying an explosive-laden aircraft into a U.S. airport and detonating it";"In the fall of 1998, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information concerning a Bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas";"In March 2000, the [Intelligence Community] obtained information regarding the types of targets that operatives of Bin Laden's network might strike; The Statute of Liberty was specifically mentioned, as were skyscrapers, ports, airports, and nuclear power plans" |
| 8/2/2003 |
| Report on 9/11 Suggests a Role by Saudi Spies |
| The classified part of a Congressional report on the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, says that two Saudi citizens who had at least indirect links with two hijackers were probably Saudi intelligence agents and may have reported to Saudi government officials, according to people who have seen the report;People familiar with the report and who spoke on condition of not being named said that the two Saudi citizens, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, operated in a complex web of financial relationships with officials of the Saudi government. The sections that focus on them draw connections between the two men, two hijackers, and Saudi officials |
| 8/2/2003 |
| Lula pressed for action as Brazil faces foreign investment decline |
| Levels of foreign direct investment in Brazil, until recently among the highest for emerging markets, are expected to fall considerably this year;Sobeet, which studies multinational companies and the global economy, is revising its forecasts for FDI this year downward to $8bn from $10bn (€7bn to €9bn, £5bn to £6bn); By comparison FDI, was more than double that last year, at $16.6bn, and four times as much in 2000;The announcement puts renewed pressure on the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to improve investment conditions and help revive a stagnating economy; Mr Lula da Silva's honeymoon with financial markets seemed to wane this week as investors became unnerved by growing social unrest, economic stagnation and uncertainty over the government's pension and tax reforms |
| 8/2/2003 |
| Who is Michael Ledeen? |
| Ledeen's ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz; His views virtually define the stark departure from American foreign policy philosophy that existed before the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001; He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America's manifest destiny; Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimator of the American occupation of Iraq;Now Michael Ledeen is calling for regime change beyond Iraq; In an address entitled "Time to Focus on Iran – The Mother of Modern Terrorism," for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared, "the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon" |
| 8/1/2003 |
| State of Decline |
| From smog to silicon, from the sexual revolution to the tax revolt, the future has usually arrived in California first; Now the Golden State is degenerating into a banana republic. Can the nation be far behind?California's slide into irresponsibility, in which politicians refuse to acknowledge any connection between the government services the public demands and the taxes that pay for those services, is being replicated all across America |
| 8/1/2003 |
| US Hosts 'Earth Observation Summit' |
| Representatives of 35 countries and 22 multilateral organizations met at the State Department yesterday to start work on integrating systems to monitor the weather, oceans, land use and climate change; Such a system would bring together national and multinational surface, airborne and space-based measurements of the earth into a cooperative network of systems," said Secretary of State Colin Powell;"An integrated Earth Observation System would vastly increase our store of knowledge and leverage billions of dollars of worldwide investment," he added |
| 8/1/2003 |
| Europe's Heat Wave Raises Global Warming Concerns |
| The intense heat wave that has baked much of Europe for weeks, fueling deadly forest fires, causing drought and damaging crops, has convinced many people that global warming is a reality |
| 8/1/2003 |
| Monsanto doubles quarterly income on seed sales |
| Agrichemical producer Monsanto Co. MON.N , best known for its Roundup weed killer, said that quarterly earnings doubled on higher sales of biotech and specialty seeds |
| 7/30/2003 |
| The lost decade |
| The widening gulf between the global haves and have-nots was starkly revealed last night when the UN announced that while the US was booming in the 1990s more than 50 countries suffered falling living standards;The UN's annual human development report charted increasing poverty for more than a quarter of the world's countries, where a lethal combination of famine, HIV/Aids, conflict and failed economic policies have turned the clock back |
| 7/30/2003 |
| ICFTU calls for WTO to promote openness and transparenc |
| Trade unions worldwide are urging member countries of the World Trade Organisation to push for more openness in the WTO; The results of WTO negotiations this year at the 10-14 September Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico will have far-reaching implications for the legislation in 146 nations, and yet this free trade club of nations is not only secretive, but suffers from a major deficit in its social dimension |
| 7/30/2003 |
| Worse than under Thatcher |
| Two different worlds in one country; When Labour came to power in 1997, it was expected to change this; It has not happened; And the latest government figures tell a sobering tale; Under Labour to 2001-02, the latest year for which figures are available, the trend to inequality has again revived. The share of the bottom fifth has slipped back to 6%, while the share of the top fifth has moved up to 46%; Therefore, the rich now have a bigger share of the nation's post-tax income than at any time under Mrs Thatcher |
| 7/30/2003 |
| South Africans React to George Bush's Petro-Military-Commerce Mission |
| In addition to the pomp and ceremony associated with the second post-apartheid state visit by a U.S. president, a string of protests greeted George W. Bush when he met South African president Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria on July 9; It was a complicated welcome from many perspectives; South Africa had not joined the "coalition of the willing" against Saddam Hussein, and former president Nelson Mandela remains a staunch opponent of Bush's foreign policy; On the other hand, Pretoria profited nicely from the hostilities, not merely through selling arms but also by taking advantage of Bush's attempt to restore some legitimacy on this trip; Mbeki's muddled reaction to the U.S.-led war on Hussein's Iraq deserves a review, because continuing ambivalence in the political sphere is contradicted by closer U.S.-South African economic relationships that threaten the rest of Afri |
| 7/30/2003 |
| Has the Sea Given Up Its Bounty? |
| More than 70 percent of commercial fish stocks are now considered fully exploited, overfished or collapsed; Sea birds and mammals are endangered; And a growing number of marine species are reaching the precariously low levels where extinction is considered a real possibility;"It's an incipient disaster," said Richard Ellis, author of "The Empty Ocean" |
| 7/30/2003 |
| Senators Assail Bush Aides for Lack of Data on Iraq's Future |
| Senators from both parties assailed two senior Bush administration officials today for failing to give even rough projections on the length, cost and troop levels for the postwar effort in Iraq;The Pentagon has said it is costing $3.9 billion a month to keep nearly 150,000 American troops in Iraq, but the officials refused to say what the costs and troop levels might be needed in the future, or what reconstruction costs might be; The total reconstruction costs in Iraq this year would be $7.3 billion |
| 7/28/2003 |
| UN report says one billion suffer extreme poverty |
| The UNDP report notes that 54 nations are poorer now than they were in 1990. Twenty of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 17 are in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States;Life expectancy has fallen in 34 countries due primarily to HIV/AIDS; Of 59 priority nations 24 suffer from a high incidence of HIV/AIDS and 31 have “unusually high foreign debts”;The populations of 21 countries are hungrier today than in 1990; In 14 countries more children are dying before the age of five and primary school enrolment is declining in 12 nations; According to the BBC the UNDP says of its own report that it documents “an unprecedented backslide... in some of the world’s poorest nations” and, “More than one billion people still live in extreme poverty, and for many living standards are getting steadily worse” |
| 7/28/2003 |
| CENTRAL ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS |
| Central Asia is strategically placed at the crossroads between Europe and China, Russia and Iran; Throughout its history, this has been a both blessing and a curse; Trade between West and East moved through Central Asia along the famed Silk Road, bringing development and prosperity; But the region was also repeatedly invaded by powerful conquerors with imperial ambitions, from the Scythes and Mongols to the Russians;In Central Asia, the Turkic nomads met up with the Muslim and Persian world; Turkish and Persian cultures and languages blended to form a strong local identity |
| 7/28/2003 |
| Red Ink in States Beginning to Hurt Economic Recovery |
| Having already stripped the nation of a source of economic growth, the budget crises in California and in almost every other state are now beginning to drag down the national economy, prolonging the weak, jobless recovery, the latest budget numbers show; Over the past two years, the states have gradually cut between $20 billion and $40 billion — no one knows exactly how much — from their spending; Billions more in cutbacks are coming in the fiscal year that started July 1; In California alone, a tentative budget deal will presumably require the state to rid itself of at least $8 billion in current spending, with the cuts likely to fall most heavily on education and aid to the poor |
| 7/28/2003 |
| Poor Press Brazil's Leader on His Promise of Land |
| The encampments have sprung up along highways throughout this fertile farming region and are expanding rapidly; Precarious clusters of shacks made of wood, cardboard and plastic, they are inhabited by thousands of peasants who have flocked here with a single unwavering demand: a piece of land;In some cases, farms, cattle ranches and sugar mills have been occupied, threatening violent clashes. In other areas, squatters have in recent weeks seized or vandalized government offices, blocked highways, taken hostages and looted trucks to press their demands;The squatters are organized by Brazil's largest and most |
| 7/27/2003 |
| The 9/11 Investigation |
| The final report is an indictment of the intelligence agencies--and, in part--of the administrations (Clinton and Bush II) that oversaw them. It notes, "The intelligence community failed to capitalize on both the individual and collective significance of available information.... As a result, the community missed opportunities to disrupt the September 11 plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at least try to unravel the plot through surveillance and other investigative work within the United States; and, finally, to generate a heightened state of alert and thus harden the homeland against attack. No one will ever know what might have happened had more connections been drawn between these disparate pieces of information.... The important point is that the intelligence community, for a variety of reasons, did not bring together and fully appreciate a range of information that could have greatly enhanced its chances of uncovering and preventing Osama bin Laden's plan to attack the United States on September 11, 2001" |
| 7/27/2003 |
| Questioning the Delphic Oracle |
| Two thousand years ago Plutarch was interested in reconciling religion and science; As priest of Apollo, he had to respond to religious conservatives who objected to the notion that a god might use a fluctuating natural gas to perform a miracle; Why not enter the woman's body directly? Plutarch believed that the gods had to rely on the materials of this corrupt and transitory world to accomplish their works; God though he was, Apollo had to speak his prophecies through the voices of mortals, and he had to inspire them with stimuli that were part of the natural world; Plutarch's careful observations and reporting of data about the gaseous emissions at Delphi show that the ancients did not try to exclude scientific inquiry from religious understanding; The primary lesson we took away from our Delphic oracle project is not the well-worn message that modern science can elucidate ancient curiosities; Perhaps more important is how much we have to gain if we approach problems with the same broad-minded and interdisciplinary attitude that the Greeks themselves displayed |
| 7/25/2003 |
| The real American model, by James Galbraith |
| The US economic model that commands around a third of the world’s wealth fascinates and infuriates Europeans; But both reactions reveal ignorance of its most essential features; The keys to its success lie not in industry, but in those sectors providing social amenities to the middle class – health care, education, housing and pensions: systems of provision that have little to do with the free market |
| 7/25/2003 |
| Chechnya and Iraq: imperial echoes, militant warnings |
| Military occupation, armed resistance, pervasive insecurity, the hunger for religious certainty, a compliant media and oil; The parallels between Russia’s war in Chechnya and America’s in Iraq are uncomfortably close; Will either ‘imperial’ power heed the warning they present? |
| 7/25/2003 |
| Monsanto quietly readies gene-modified wheat |
| From the dusty country road, the secluded wheat field in this rural hamlet appears to be like any other, with slender stalks and ripening heads rustling in the breeze; But the grain growing here belongs to Monsanto Co. MON.N and is key to the company's plan to bring the world its first genetically modified wheat;It is also highly controversial; Monsanto's work in this field in southeast North Dakota, and in dozens of other fields around the U.S., comes at a time of global turmoil over whether genetically modified crops should be grown and consumed |
| 7/24/2003 |
| FBI, CIA Bungled Chances to Catch 2 Sept. 11 Hijackers, Report Says |
| The FBI and CIA bungled chances to capture two key figures in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and possibly stop the catastrophe before it happened, according to a joint investigation by the congressional select committees on intelligence; The two men, conspirators who died when they rammed a hijacked airplane into the Pentagon, had links to as many as 14 people in the United States who had been investigated by the FBI over possible terrorist links; For a time, the two men, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, lived with an FBI informant;Nevertheless, when the CIA belatedly realized that the men were inside the United States and tried to find them in late August and early September of 2001, the FBI agents best positioned to find them never received word |
| 7/23/2003 |
| Why Hospitals Overcharge the Uninsured |
| The 41.2 million Americans without health insurance are often forced to pay up to 70 percent more than insurance companies do for healthcare bills |
| 7/22/2003 |
| Nobel Prize-winning physical chemist |
| Dr. Ilya Prigogine, a Nobel laureate and founder of The University of Texas at Austin’s Ilya Prigogine Center, died today (May 28) at the Hospital Erasme in Brussels, Belgium; Dr. Ilya Prigogine 86, was a leader in the field of nonlinear chemistry whose research helped create a greater understanding of the role of time in biology and the physical sciences. In particular, he contributed significantly to scientists’ ability to analyze dynamical processes in complex systems |
| 7/22/2003 |
| Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Strategy After September 11 </ |