- Signs of the Times Archive for Wed, 13 Jun 2007 -



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Best of the Web
Lies, Damn Lies, and Lies that Unleash Hell

Jason Miller
Thomas Paine's Corner
2007-06-12 18:44:00



Each day untold millions of US Americans unwittingly immerse themselves in an intellectual, social, cultural, economic, political and spiritual cesspool so rancid and toxic that even microbes with the most voracious appetites for human waste, vomit, and inanimate flesh would shun this infinitely repulsive sewer.


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U.S. News
For Democracy, We Must Consider Impeachment

Midge Miller
Information Clearing House
2007-06-13 17:36:00

The United States democracy is in a struggle for its life. A growing number of writers, generals and other opinion leaders are speaking up to inform and encourage an inattentive public to understand and to make a stand to protect our nation from enemies within and without.

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Democrats new hard-line strategy on 'Iraq surge failure': Writing letters to Bush


AFP
2007-06-13 16:38:00

Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop "surge" policy was a failure.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.

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Army Reservists ordered for screenings

Robert Burns
Associated Press
2007-06-12 19:26:00

For the first time since the Iraq war began, the Army is notifying thousands from a special category of reservists that they must report this summer for medical screening and other administrative tasks.

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The curtain rises, begin Act Two! US Democrats preview new Iraq showdown


AFP
2007-06-12 15:04:00

Anti-war Senate Democrats Tuesday plotted a new showdown with US President George W. Bush over Iraq, but admitted they had erred by making supporters think they could end the war.

"On Iraq, we're going to hold the president's feet to the fire," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, saying debate would start in two weeks time.

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Flashback: Whoa! TB Patient's Relative to Be Investigated

By COLLEEN SLEVIN
Associated Press
2007-06-03 13:35:00

©AP Photo/CDC, James Gathany
This 2005 photo by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Dr. Robert Cooksey, a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of tuberculosis and other bacteria.


DENVER - A federal microbiologist, the father-in-law of the man quarantined with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, will be investigated to see how he was involved in the case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.


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E-mails shed light on kin in TB case


The Boston Globe
2007-06-13 14:25:00

Health officials trying to stop a globetrotting honeymooner with a dangerous form of tuberculosis got little assistance from his lawyer father and his future father-in-law, a TB specialist who not only balked at stopping the Greek wedding, but went to the ceremony himself, according to e-mails.


Some of the 181 pages of e-mails, obtained through a public records request, suggest that the father of 31-year-old Andrew Speaker was clipped and combative in phone conversations with health officials.


E-mails from Fulton County officials portray his father-in-law, CDC microbiologist Robert Cooksey, as initially unhelpful, at least before May 22, when tests showed that Speaker had a more dangerous form of TB than previously understood.


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UK & Euro-Asian News
Chirac denies smear investigation summons


Reuters
2007-06-13 14:16:00

Aides to Jacques Chirac on Tuesday denied the former French president had received a summons from judges investigating an apparent smear campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy, the man who succeeded him as president.


The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine said investigating magistrates Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons had called in the former head of state to discuss the so-called Clearstream case on June 18, two days after his presidential immunity expires.


"President Chirac has received no summons," a spokesman for Chirac's private office told Reuters.


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Police rescue man after 14-year captivity in Chechnya


RIA Novosti
2007-06-13 10:49:00

A Kazakh national was freed by police in Chechnya after spending about 14 years in captivity as a slave, a spokesman for local police said Wednesday.


Anastasiya Yelsukova said the man, who was freed in late May, was abducted in 1993, his documents were taken from him, and he had been forced to work as a fireman and shepherd by four different owners since.


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A Book: Spain's 'Mata Hari' spied on Freemasons for Franco

Graham Keeley
Belfast Telegraph
2007-06-13 10:46:00

Spain had a Mata Hari, who spied on the Freemasons and fed covert reports to the dictator Francisco Franco about the secretive order.


Known only as "Anita de S", she revealed to El Generalissimo plots against his regime in the 1940s, a book, Franco Contra Los Masones (Franco Against the Masons), claims.


General Franco had a hatred for the Freemasons that bordered on the obsessive. He saw them as a threat to his power in the aftermath of the Civil War and blamed them for the loss of the colonies in Africa as well as the rise of secularism.In 1940 he outlawed the organisation, making membership a crime punishable by up to six years in jail.


The enigmatic femme fatale "Anita" was based in Portugal, base for the exiled Spanish Masons. According to the authors, Xavi Casinos and Josep Brunet, she was well-placed to know every move the secretive organisation was making: she was married to a leading Mason.


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China changes the names rules

Richard Spencer
Telegraph
2007-06-13 10:19:00

The world's most populous nation is running out of names, the Chinese government said yesterday in unveiling a review of one of its most cherished traditions.


The list of 100 single-character surnames that most Chinese carry is considered part of the country's cultural heritage, and explains its word for the common man - laobaixing, or "Old Hundred Names".


But the previously scorned double-barrelled name is now being considered as a realistic alternative, the ministry of public security announced yesterday, because of the rising population.


There are so many people who share an identity that it is becoming confusing, said one official. "Such names cause great trouble in daily life," said Guan Xihua, a household registration officer with the Beijing public security bureau, the formal name for the police force.


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UK: 'Chemical castration' option for sex crimes

Richard Ford
The Times
2007-06-13 07:18:00

Sex offenders are to be offered the opportunity for "chemical castration" as part of a series of measures to be published today to tackle child-sex offending.


Convicted child-sex attackers will be able to control their sexual urges by taking a course of the drug Leuproreline. It has the effect of reducing testosterone levels in men and is used in the treatment of sex offenders.


But the Home Office proposal will operate only on a voluntary basis and convicted child-sex attackers will not be forced to have treatment.


The proposal to offer the drug on a voluntary basis is part of a series of measures that John Reid will announce to MPs at lunchtime today.


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UK opposition leader David Cameron calls himself 'Zionist'

Assaf Uni and Amiram Barkat
Haaretz
2007-06-13 06:47:00

The leader of Britain's Conservative party, David Cameron, called himself a "Zionist" Tuesday as he slammed a British initiative for an academic boycott against Israel.

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Around the World
Oh, Hypocrisy! US added 7 nations to trafficking blacklist

Matthew Lee
The Boston Globe
2007-06-13 14:33:00

The Bush administration yesterday added seven nations, including several key US allies in the Middle East, to its human trafficking blacklist for failing to halt what it called the scourge of "modern-day slavery."


Countries on the list are subject to sanctions for not doing enough to stop the yearly flow of some 800,000 people, 80 percent of them female and up to half of them children, across international borders for the sex trade and other forms of forced and indentured labor.


Among US friends getting a failing grade were Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, which along with Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Malaysia joined for the first time perennial offenders like Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria in the State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report."


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Chavez meets Castro on surprise visit to Cuba


AFP
2007-06-13 14:02:00

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez spent six hours talking with convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro after arriving on the Caribbean island on a surprise visit Tuesday, Cuban media reported.


The two allies met in an atmosphere of "fraternity and solidarity" discussing joint development plans, according to a government statement broadcast on Cuban television.


Chavez and Castro, 80, also discussed regional energy plans, the challenge of climate change, and other problems, the report said.


An earlier announcement said that Chavez would also meet with Castro's brother Raul Castro, 76, who took the helm of the country last July 31 when Fidel underwent surgery.


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Canadian Solider Killed, Two Wounded After Roadside Bombing In Afghanistan


CityNews
2007-06-11 10:41:00

A Canadian soldier was killed and two others were wounded after a roadside bombing in Afghanistan on Monday.

The attack occurred about 40 kilometres north of Kandahar City.

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'Kill Anyone Still Alive': American Special Ops in Somalia

Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
2007-06-13 08:55:00

How many people did American forces actually kill when they attacked refugees fleeing from the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia last January? We know from reports by Oxfam, the Guardian, the Associated Press and Reuters that dozens of innocent civilians were slaughtered near the Kenyan border, including villagers and nomadic tribesmen hit by American gunships seeking to kill alleged al Qaeda operatives who may or may not have been among the refugees. But a new story in Esquire magazine -- detailing the creation of America's most recent military satrapy, the Africa Command -- provides disturbing indications that the post-invasion killing by American operatives in Somalia was far more extensive -- and deliberate -- than previously known.



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Defiant Afghan women promised a better life refuse to be victims

Terri Judd
The Independent
2007-06-13 02:39:00

In a filthy corner of a clinic in Lashkar Gah, a heavily pregnant 12-year-old lies wailing at a curt, dismissive doctor. Down the road some of the thousands of widows in the area beg in the mud. In the local hospital, women lie recovering from the horrific burns of failed suicide attempts. The brave new world promised by Tony Blair, President George Bush and Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, appears not to have reached the women of Helmand.

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SA braced for massive strike


BBC
2007-06-12 22:30:00

Thousands of public sector workers are expected to join one of the biggest strikes in South Africa's history on Wednesday.

Public sector trade unions have warned of a total economic shutdown.


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Big Brother
Tony Blair has turned Britain into a land where we are all prisoners

CHRIS ATKINS
Daily Mail
2007-06-13 11:27:00

Even George Orwell would be shocked. He described the sinister machinations of a totalitarian police state in his novel, 1984, and laid bare the danger of eroding our basic civil liberties, including the right to freedom of speech and the right to privacy.

Although he famously coined the phrase 'Big Brother is watching you', even Orwell cannot have foreseen just how prescient those words would prove to be.

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Feeling safer? DNA database agreed for police across EU

Ian Traynor
The Guardian
2007-06-13 02:26:00

A battery of police data-sharing and electronic surveillance measures to tackle trans-national crime and immigration issues was agreed yesterday by governments in Europe, 15 of which also gave the green light to a scheme for the world's biggest biometric system.

The system will store and allow sharing of data such as the photographs and fingerprints of up to 70 million non-EU citizens applying for visas to enter Europe,


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Texas DOT to Install Federally Funded Highway Speed Cameras


thenewspaper.com
2007-06-11 21:48:00

Despite the near-unanimous opposition in the state legislature to the use of speed cameras, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is moving forward on a proposal to deploy photo radar on state highways using federal gas tax funds. Legislation awaiting Governor Rick Perry's signature prohibited only municipalities -- like Marble Falls and Rhome -- from installing automated speeding ticket systems. It was silent on the possibility of a state-run system.

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Man faces 7 years in prison for filming traffic stop


The Patriot News
2007-06-12 19:52:00

Brian D. Kelly, 18, of Carlisle likely isn't the only the person around central Pennsylvania who was unaware that recording a police officer during the commission of a traffic stop constitutes a felony criminal act.

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Axis of Evil
How the Neocons Misread Machiavelli

Firmin DeBrabander
Information Clearing House
2007-06-13 17:32:00

It is said that the now notorious Neo-Cons owe much to that dark prince of political theory, Machiavelli.

Indeed, they invoked classic Machiavellian arguments in lobbying for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq: we must bring the war to the terrorists' doorstep instead of waiting for them to visit us; we must be martially aggressive to reassert our power and economic independence; we must reinforce the image, tarnished after 9-11, that we are a nation not to be provoked.

And yet, while the Neo-Cons now assert that we must stubbornly remain in Iraq for many, many years to come, Machiavelli would most certainly call the troops home. For, this faltering campaign--coupled with the growing disaster in Afghanistan--offends his principles gravely.

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Accusations Pave Way for Assault on Iran

Philip Giraldi
AntiWar.com
2007-06-13 16:51:00

...The Washington Post was silent, as if the general agreement by presidential candidates to use nuclear weapons to bomb a sovereign nation that has not attacked the United States is not newsworthy.

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Former UN Mideast envoy says UN subservient to U.S., Israel


Reuters
2007-06-13 13:51:00

A former UN Middle East envoy quit his job last month with bitter allegations that UN policy in the region had failed because it was subservient to U.S. and Israeli interests, a newly leaked document shows.


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The Silence of the Bombs

Norman Solomon
truthout
2007-06-13 09:11:00

Three years have passed since most Americans came to the conclusion that the Iraq war was a "mistake." Reporting the results of a Gallup poll in June 2004, USA Today declared: "It is the first time since Vietnam that a majority of Americans has called a major deployment of US forces a mistake." And public opinion continued to move in an antiwar direction. But such trends easily coexist with a war effort becoming even more horrific.

In Washington, over the past 25 years, top masters of war have preened themselves in the glow of victory after military triumphs in Grenada, Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. During that time, with the exception of the current war in Iraq, the Pentagon's major aggressive ventures have been cast in a light of virtue rewarded - in sync with the implicit belief that American might makes right.

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Flashback: 'Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy'

Edward Alden
Financial Times
2005-10-20 06:44:00

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

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Barak claims poll victory for Labour leadership

Donald Macintyre
The Independent
2007-06-13 02:54:00

The former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak claimed victory last night in the race to lead the Labour Party after exit polls predicted a narrow victory.

Although the polls, showing Mr Barak gaining narrow majorities of 50.5­52 per cent, were within a margin of error, early results showed him ahead of his rival, the former intelligence chief Ami Ayalon.


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Middle East Madness
False Flag "Iraq Bombers" Topple Samarra Minarets

Charles J Hanley
AP/LiveLeak
2007-06-13 17:26:00

Baghdad - In a bold blow to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected al-Qaida bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra's revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque's Golden Dome was destroyed.

Comment: Funny how a video was released in May of U.S. troops laughing while they brought down a local minaret.




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Anti-Syrian Politician Assassinated, 10 killed in Beirut Bomb


Ya Libnan
2007-06-13 18:55:00

An explosion from a bomb-rigged car rocked Beirut's seafront Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker. Parliamentary Deputy Walid Eido, his son Khaled, and two bodyguards were killed, along with 6 others.



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Israeli Shas MK arrested at airport with tens of thousands in cash and checks

Yair Ettinger and Eti Aflalo
Haaretz.com
2007-06-13 15:35:00

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Wednesday opened an investigation in collaboration with the National Fraud Investigative Unit into MK Haim Amsalam (Shas). Amsalam was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning by tax agents at Ben-Gurion International Airport while carrying a suitcase that contained $40,000 in cash and checks totaling over 130,000 Euros.

According to regulations against fraud, a citizen who enters Israel carrying more than NIS 80,000 must declare the money to customs authorities. Amsalam instead chose to pass through the "green" line reserved for passengers who are not carrying goods they need to declare.

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Hamas offer Fatah conditional cease-fire; 24 dead in day of clashes

Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz.com
2007-06-13 15:30:00

Hamas on Wednesday offered Fatah a conditional cease-fire, after at least 24 Palestinians, including two United Nations aid workers, were killed in fighting between the rival factions in the Gaza Strip throughout the day.

Hamas militants waged an assault on the three main security forces compound in Gaza City, seizing control over most of the Gaza Strip.

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US Military Riding the Perfect (Sine) Wave, bombing Iraqi infrastructure

William S. Lind
AntiWar.com
2007-06-13 15:00:00

Looking idly at the front page of last Wednesday's Washington Post Express as I rode the Metro to work, I received a shock. It showed a railroad station in Iraq, recently destroyed by an American air strike. So now we are bombing the railroad stations in a country we occupy? What comes next, bombing Iraq's power plants and oil refineries? How about the Green Zone? If the Iraqi parliament doesn't pass the legislation we want it to, we can always lay a couple of JDAMs on it.

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Israel's nuke leak threatening Middle East


Press TV
2007-06-13 14:03:00

A Jordanian expert in nuclear physics has warned that radioactive substances leaking from Israeli nuclear reactors are threatening the region.

"Radioactive leak from Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor coupled with the regime's nuclear waste buried in Jordan are posing serious hazards to not only people in Jordan but also in other regional states, including Egypt and Palestine," Iran's Fars news agency quoted Nabil Atoum as saying on Tuesday.


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The Loan Gunmen
Hedge Funds Ask SEC to Look for Subprime Manipulation - want profits from Housing crash

Jody Shenn
Bloomberg
2007-06-13 15:11:00

A group of hedge funds is telling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to be on the lookout for manipulation of bonds backed by subprime mortgages.

Paulson & Co., based in New York, told the SEC that investment banks may pay inflated prices to buy bad loans that are collateral for bonds, said Michael Waldorf, a senior vice president at the hedge fund. Removing delinquent loans may prevent bonds from defaulting and triggering losses in the banks' investments in derivatives, he said. Waldorf declined to name the other hedge funds that also warned the SEC.

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Former Fed official: One of four U.S. jobs headed overseas

George Leopold
EE Times
2007-06-13 14:57:00

Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, told Congress Tuesday (June 12) that one out of four U.S. jobs are vulnerable to offshoring.

Blinder, now an economics professor at Princeton University, told the House Science and Technology Committee that American jobs in science, technology and engineering are most vulnerable to offshoring.

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UK - Mortgage squeeze 'worst for 25 years'

Edmund Conway
telegraph.co.uk
2007-06-13 09:58:00

Families are facing the worst mortgage squeeze since the tail-end of the last house price crash, new figures show.

Home loans are consuming the biggest portion of household incomes since 1992, sparking fears that the housing market is heading towards a full-blown slump.

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Stocks Plunge on Surging Bond Yields

Madlen Reed
AP
2007-06-13 09:56:00

Wall Street plunged Tuesday as investors, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 130 points, grappled with a seemingly relentless rise in bond yields.

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ABN fears world housing crash


Dialy Mail
2007-06-11 09:48:00

Soaring borrowing costs could spark a housing slump on a 'global scale', investment bank ABN Amro has warned.

Families have taken on 'unsustainably large' mortgages, leaving them vulnerable to the sharp increases in bond yields and official interest rates seen in recent weeks, wrote economist Dominic White.

Britain is one of the most exposed markets thanks to rampant speculation over the past decade, though it is by no means alone.

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Oil demand 'rising faster than expected' - market rigging continues

Ed Crooks
Financial Times
2007-06-12 09:35:00

World oil demand is rising faster than previously expected while non-Opec supply is growing more slowly, the International Energy Agency has said in its latest monthly assessment of the market.

The rich countries' energy watchdog warned on Tuesday of growing tightness in oil supplies in the second half of the year, and urged the Organisation of the Petrolem Exporting Countries to raise its output.

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The Living Planet
6.8 Earthquake - Offshore Guatemala


Associated Press
2007-06-13 16:26:00

A powerful earthquake shook Guatemala on Wednesday, U.S. seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the capital.

The magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck at 1:29 p.m. local time (3:29 p.m. EDT) and was centered 70 miles southwest of Guatemala City off the Pacific coast, according to the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

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Plants recognize their siblings, biologists discover


EurekAlert
2007-06-13 12:44:00

The next time you venture into your garden armed with plants, consider who you place next to whom. It turns out that the docile garden plant isn't as passive as widely assumed, at least not with strangers. Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they're accommodating when potted with their siblings.


The study appears today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.


"The ability to recognize and favour kin is common in animals, but this is the first time it has been shown in plants" said Susan Dudley, associate professor of biology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. "When plants share their pots, they get competitive and start growing more roots, which allows them to grab water and mineral nutrients before their neighbours get them. It appears, though, that they only do this when sharing a pot with unrelated plants; when they share a pot with family they don't increase their root growth. Because differences between groups of strangers and groups of siblings only occurred when they shared a pot, the root interactions may provide a cue for kin recognition."


Though they lack cognition and memory, the study shows plants are capable of complex social behaviours such as altruism towards relatives, says Dudley. Like humans, the most interesting behaviours occur beneath the surface.


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Hurricane injures five, causes $86,000 in damage in east Russia


RIA Novosti
2007-06-13 12:38:00

Damage from a hurricane that left five people, including an eight-year-old child, injured in Russia's Far East, has been assessed at 2.25 million rubles ($86,000), a local emergencies ministry spokesman said Wednesday.


The hurricane hit the Amur Region late Monday. Wind gusts of up to 28 meters (90 feet) per second uprooted trees, blocking roads, tore off roofs and downed transmission lines.


Over a thousand people and 125 vehicles are involved in relief operations. Some 140,000 people still remain without electricity. Power supplies are expected to be resumed later in the day, although some private households will get electricity only by the end of the week.


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Cockroaches Can Learn -- Like Dogs and Humans


Reuters
2007-06-13 10:43:00

Cockroaches have a memory and can be taught to salivate in response to neutral stimuli in the way that Pavlov's dogs would do when the famed Russian doctor rang his bell, Japanese researchers found.


Such "conditioning" can only take place when there is memory and learning, and this salivating response had only previously been proven in humans and dogs.


Now, cockroaches appear to have that aptitude too.


Writing in the latest edition of the online journal Public Library of Science, the researchers said they hoped to learn more about the human brain by exploring what goes on in the simpler brain of the cockroach. (Article is freely available on http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0000529)


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Whistler Reports Second Snowiest Winter On Record, BC Canada


ifyouski.com
2007-06-12 09:31:00

Snow sports continue on its glaciers for a few more weeks, but Whistler Blackcomb has reported its 2006-7 season concluded on June 3rd and that it was the world famous resort's second snowiest on record, receiving an accumulative snowfall of 1,416cm (46 feet).

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Flashback: NASA launches GOES-N weather satellite

By TRAVIS REED Associated Press Wed May 24, 2006
By TRAVIS REED Associated Press Wed May 24, 2006
2006-05-25 12:00:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After months of delay, NASA on Wednesday launched a weather satellite that will allow forecasters to better pinpoint severe storms and investigate world climate change.

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Health & Wellness
Sleep-related breathing disorder common among aggressive, bullying schoolchildren


EurekAlert
2007-06-13 13:54:00

Aggressive behavior and bullying, common among schoolchildren, are likely to have multiple causes, one of which may be an undiagnosed sleep-related breathing disorder (SRBD), according to a research abstract that will be presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).


The study, conducted by Louise M. O'Brien, PhD, of the University of Michigan, focused on children in the second through fifth grades who attended school in an urban public school district. Parents completed two well-validated instruments: the Conner's Parent Rating Scale (CPRS) the Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire SDB Scale. Teachers completed the Conner's Teacher Rating Scale (CTRS). The numbers of discipline referrals in the previous 12 months were obtained from the six elementary schools.


A total of 345 CPRS's and 245 corresponding CTRS's were completed. It was discovered, through both methods, that schoolchildren who bully may be more likely to have an SRBD than their peers.


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Study: Discriminating fact from fiction in recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse


EurekAlert / Association for Psychological Science
2007-06-13 13:47:00

A decade or so ago, a spate of high profile legal cases arose in which people were accused, and often convicted, on the basis of "recovered memories." These memories, usually recollections of childhood abuse, arose years after the incident occurred and often during intensive psychotherapy.


So how accurate are recovered memories" The answer is not so clear. In fact, this question has lead to one of the most contentious issues in the fields of psychology and psychiatry.


Elke Geraerts, a postdoc of psychology at Harvard University and Maastricht University, the Netherlands, hoped to settle some of the controversy by enacting a large-scale research study examining the validity of such memories.


Recovered memories are inherently tricky to validate for several reasons, most notably because the people who hold them are thoroughly convinced of their authenticity. Therefore, to maneuver around this obstacle Geraerts and her colleagues attempted to corroborate the memories through outside sources.


The researchers recruited a sample of people who reported being sexually abused as children and divided them based on how they remembered the event. The memories were categorized as either "spontaneously recovered" (the participant had forgotten and then spontaneously recalled the abuse outside of therapy, without any prompting), "recovered in therapy" (the participant had recovered the abuse during therapy, prompted by suggestion) or "continuous" (the participant had always been able to recall the abuse).


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Labelling call over additives in top-selling soft drinks

Alastair Jamieson
The Scotsman
2007-06-12 09:04:00

Food and drinks containing additives linked to behavioural problems in children should carry health warnings similar to those found on medicines, according to experts.

A number of preservatives and colourings, some of which can irritate the skin or cause breathing difficulties, are used in popular brands such as Irn-Bru, Diet Coke, Ribena and Robinsons Orange Squash.

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CDC Investigating Sick Passengers


AP
2007-06-12 21:07:00

Health authorities responded Tuesday to reports that 11 people were ill on a flight from Mexico to Miami International Airport.

The Aeromexico flight from Merida, Mexico, landed at the airport and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was meeting with authorities in Miami to assess the situation, said Von Roebuck, a CDC spokesman. He had no further details.

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Science & Technology
Space station solar panels make debut; shuttle repair eyed

Juan A Lozano
The Boston Globe / AP
2007-06-13 14:30:00

The international space station's newest power source, a set of solar wings, made its debut yesterday.


The solar array is part of a new 17.5-ton space station segment that was connected to the orbiting outpost during a spacewalk Monday.


The solar wings were deployed one at a time, first halfway unfurled and allowed to warm in the sun about 30 minutes. That prevented the solar panels from sticking together.


"We see a good deploy," astronaut James Reilly, who helped connect the new segment on Monday, said after the second wing was unfurled.


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'Gigantoraptor' uncovered in the desert

Roger Highfield
Telegraph
2007-06-13 10:34:00

A 3000 lb "big bird" dinosaur called Gigantoraptor has got scientists into a flap.


The remains of the gigantic, surprisingly bird-like dinosaur - the biggest toothless dinosaur ever found - have been uncovered in the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia, China, and challenge current understanding about the origins of birds.


The find was made when Chinese scientists were being filmed by a Japanese TV crew in Erlian Basin and they thought a nearby bone was an example of a newly discovered long necked dinosaur, called a sauropod.


But as they took a closer look, under the gaze of the camera, they at first thought it came from something like Tyrannosaurus rex, but then realised that they were gazing on a remarkable dinosaur that was new to science.


The animal - which lived in the Late Cretaceous- about 85 million years ago - has surprised palaeontologists as most theories suggest that carnivorous dinosaurs got smaller as they got more bird-like.


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Trickle of Planet Discoveries Becomes a Flood

By Jeanna Bryner
Space.com
2007-06-13 09:57:00

Alien worlds, once hidden from knowledge, are now being discovered in droves, stunning astronomers with their unique features and sheer numbers. The discoveries are so common that more and more don't even get reported outside scientific circles.


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Hidden Planet Pushes Star's Ring a Billion Miles Off-Center


Physorg.com
2007-06-13 07:42:00

A young star's strange elliptical ring of dust likely heralds the presence of an undiscovered Neptune-sized planet, says a University of Rochester astronomer in the latest Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

©University of Rochester
Hubble image of Fomalhaut ring.




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Our Haunted Planet
UFO Sighting In Salt Lake City?


kutv.com
2007-06-13 16:31:00

What's hovering over Salt Lake City?

Is it a rocket? Is it a blimp? Is it a UFO?

A strange object seen in the skies above in Salt Lake City has residents scratching their heads.

What appears to be a huge air balloon was seen floating above the valley Wednesday morning.

©Unk
A strange object seen in the skies above in Salt Lake City has residents scratching their heads.


The silver, rocket-shaped craft was sighted about 8 a.m. and floated about for several minutes before disappearing.

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The Roswell Legacy


Mass Media Distribution Newswire
2007-06-13 07:29:00

In 1986, on his death bed, retired Major Jesse Marcel told his son; "You must tell the world the truth about Roswell. When the military no longer has a hold over you and your family, please set the record straight!"

©n/a


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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
13-year-old boy breaks vow of silence after 10 years


Daily Mail
2007-06-13 17:10:00

Ten years ago Ben Grocock told his mother that if she made him have an operation to remove his tonsils he would never speak again.

And, after coming round from the anaesthetic following surgery, the boy steadfastly stuck to his word - until now.

Ben Grocock, now aged 13, has barely uttered a word throughout most of his life, following the promise he made when he was just three years old.

For a decade he only communicated with his family, friends and teachers with scrawled notes and actions.

Now he has finally broken his self-imposed silence - thanks to a love of fire engines.

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Five-second rule for dropped food? Try 30


CTV.ca
2007-06-13 17:05:00

A man drops a brownie on the floor. If he picks it up within five seconds, should he still eat it? Two U.S. students claim the answer is yes.

In fact, they say he could wait half a minute.

The students, who are seniors at Connecticut College, studied the five-second rule as part of their microbiology class.

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Russian "Ninja" robs Italian villagers at arrow-point


RIA Novosti
2007-06-13 12:42:00

A 31-year-old Russian national has been arrested for attacking and robbing Italian villagers in a province in northeast Italy, dressed head to toe in black and wielding a bow and arrow, Italian police said.


According to police, Igor Vaclavic would dress up in a Ninja outfit come nightfall, don a mask and arm himself with a bow and arrow before setting out for isolated farms near the town of Rovigo.


Having picked out a target, the "Ninja" bandit would attack the owners, threatening to shoot everyone with his medieval weapon and demanding gold, jewelry and money.


Reports of the raids so panicked the district that villagers would barricade themselves inside their farms at night, although that did not save some of them. Vaclavic would reportedly smash windows with a volley of arrows, and break in letting out blood-curdling yells.


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U.S. cartoon satire about Bush to premiere on television


RIA Novosti
2007-06-13 12:31:00

The popular American television channel Comedy Central announced the release Wednesday of an animated satirical show portraying President George W. Bush and his inner circle as a band of mischievous kids.


Lil' Bush relates the fictitious adventures of the current U.S. president, featuring him as a schoolboy, but is set in the real political context of today, except that in the movie, the nation's incumbent Chief Executive is his father, George Bush Sr.


The title character, Lil' George Bush, resides in the White House with his mom and dad and makes mischief with school buddies Lil' Condi, Lil' Cheney, and Lil' Rummy - characters inspired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


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12 animals escape from zoo in Berlin, join rush-hour traffic


Associated Press
2007-06-13 12:19:00

Berlin commuters on Wednesday found themselves sharing the road with escapees from a local zoo - six horses, three camels, two goats and a llama.


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'Cute Knut' Raking in Cash at Berlin Zoo


AP
2007-06-13 11:16:00

"Cute Knut," Germany's celebrity polar bear cub, is turning into a moneymaker for the Berlin Zoo, which expects to bring in $3.3 million more than last year due to a dramatic rise in visitors.

©n/a



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