| 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 Guar |