- Signs of the Times Archive for Mon, 09 Jun 2008 -




Sections on today's Signs Page:


SOTT Focus
Signs Economic Commentary for 9 June 2008

Donald Hunt
SOTT.net
2008-06-09 04:55:00

EC090608 NY job seekers
©2008 AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
Job seekers wait in line for a New York job fair on May 28, 2008.

The ten-dollar rise in the price of oil on Friday combined with the almost 400 point drop in the Dow has everybody spooked. The U.S. jobs report for May came out showing an alarming drop in jobs. Rising energy and food prices have people frightened and the mainstream media is doing nothing to stop the panic.

Now, whenever the mainstream media moves all at once in the same direction, it's hard not to be suspicious. It may be that they are trying to channel the anger that U.S. citizens are beginning to feel away from Anglo-American capitalism that has left most people at the mercy of the economic elements and towards rivals to the Anglo-American sphere. As the media tries to explain to U.S. citizens why prices are going up in the midst of a bad recession, they are turning to the "decoupling" thesis...

But what's really going on here?

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The Assassination of Robert Kennedy, Part 4 -- Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole

A. Branson
Psychopaths, psyops and COINTELPRO
2008-06-06 09:01:00

In Part 3 we looked at one way in which people, manipulated by beliefs that have been programmed into them throughout their lives, can become unwitting accomplices in a conspiracy. However, that is the soft side of this subject; there is a hard side, too. Many more people that hold positions of power and trust are very willing accomplices.

RFK at Rockaway
©Unknown


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Book Review: 9-11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press

by Nikki Alexander
SOTT.NET
2008-06-08 10:08:00

The mind of David Ray Griffin is refreshingly clear and logical. With his exceptional gift for discerning significant distinctions he has, once again, produced a meticulous critical analysis of documentary evidence that is astute and compelling. In "9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press,"

Dr. Griffin presents a sequence of irrefutable facts drawn from documents and testimony that demonstrate twenty five internal contradictions in the official 9/11 story. As each contradiction is presented, the author juxtaposes documented timelines and official memos, eye-witness testimony, television broadcasts and news articles that are logically inconsistent with the narrative contrived by the 9/11 Commission.

Griffin objectively questions these contradictory narratives, some of them inherent within individual alibis, and observes that the Commission avoided confronting these inconsistencies by eliminating all mention of them in its report. Facts that could not be logically refuted were strategically omitted, thereby erasing from the historical record all evidence of possible perjury and complicity. Each chapter is devoted to one category of contradictions and ends with the request that Congress and the press investigate this inconsistency.

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Best of the Web
Fat Whores and Money Junkies in a Shake and Bake World

Les Visible
Smoking Mirrors
2008-06-09 08:19:00

My computer has been in the shop for two weeks and I have been loathe to write something on my wife's foreign keyboard. It's like wrestling anacondas in a Vaseline filled bath tub. Still, we'll give it a shot and I won't have to go on shying away from responding to the "Where are you?" emails for the same reason that I haven't written anything here, there or anywhere.

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Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation, Parts V & VI

Dave McGowan
The Center for an Informed America
2008-06-07 13:47:00

Mondo 18
©Unknown


Part V
June 6, 2008


"Call them freaks, the underground, the counter-culture, flower children or hippies - they are all loose labels for the youth culture of the 60s ..."
Barry Miles, author of Hippie



"This is how I remember my life. Other folks may not have the same memories, even though we might have shared some of the same experiences."



So begins David Crosby's autobiography, Long Time Gone (co-written by Carl Gottlieb). As it turns out, quite a few other folks seem to remember some people in Crosby's life who are all but ignored in the lengthy book. The names are casually dropped only once, and not by Crosby but rather in a quote from manager Jim Dickson in which he describes the scene at the Sunset Strip clubs when The Byrds played: "We had them all. We had Jack Nicholson dancing, we had Peter Fonda dancing with Odetta, we had Vito and his Freakers."

Following that brief mention by Dickson, Gottlieb briefly explains to readers that, "Vito and his Freakers were an acid-drenched extended family of brain-damaged cohabitants." And that, in an incredibly self-indulgent 489-page tome, is the only mention you will find of "Vito and his Freakers" - despite the fact that, by just about all other accounts, the group dismissed as "brain-damaged cohabitants" played a key role in the early success of Crosby's band. And the early success of Arthur Lee's band. And the early success of Frank Zappa's band. And the early success of Jim Morrison's band. But especially in the early success of David Crosby's band.

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U.S. News
Flashback: Harper's editor: Six members of Congress caught in prostitute sex scandal - Covered up

Ken Silverstein
Harper's
2006-05-09 16:14:00

Why did CIA chief Porter Goss resign on Friday? There are several theories, and one of the most widely circulated holds that Goss quit after losing a simple turf war with John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. And yes, Negroponte and Goss have been feuding over turf, but it seems unlikely that this is the sole explanation for Goss's exit.

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Fire destroys Texas governor's mansion


Associated Press
2008-06-08 15:42:00

Texas state officials say a four-alarm fire has caused "catastrophic" damage to the Texas Governor's Mansion in Austin.

Governor's spokesman Robert Black says said no one was inside the 150-year-old home when the fire began shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday. He says the cause is not yet known.

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Really? Bush 'impressed' by China's earthquake relief efforts


China View (Xinhua)
2008-06-07 05:16:00

Image
©Xinhua/Zhang Yan
U.S. President George W. Bush speaks during a meeting on China earthquake relief efforts at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, DC, June 6, 2008.


U.S. President George W. Bush said here Friday he is impressed by China's firm response to the earthquake disaster and he is happy with the progress of the relief efforts.

"There's no question this is a major human disaster that requires a strong response from the Chinese government, which is what they're providing," he said during a meeting at the headquarters of American Red Cross focusing on the U.S. response to the May 12 earthquake in China's Sichuan province.

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Illinois: Officials investigate small plane crash near New Douglas


Associated Press
2008-06-07 04:55:00

Investigators are searching for clues at the site of a fatal plane crash in south-central Illinois.

The single-engine aircraft crashed near New Douglas on Friday afternoon, killing the pilot. Federal investigators went back to the site Saturday.

The pilot's identity has not been released. The plane was en route to Louisville, Kentucky, from Denison, Iowa.

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Retired Marine set to testify about risks of toxic base water

Jennifer Hlad
JDNews.com
2008-06-04 04:11:00

A retired Marine whose daughter died of leukemia after drinking contaminated water at Camp Lejeune is headed to Washington to talk to a Congressional subcommittee about the importance of keeping a current database of information about the risks of chemical exposure.

Jerry Ensminger was asked to testify before the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology next week. The subcommittee is examining the integrated risk information system (IRIS), a database established in the '80s to provide a single source of information about the risks associated with specific chemicals, according to a subcommittee press release.


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Lead found in ground venison - 'shocks' processors

Doug Smith
Star Tribune
2008-06-07 04:02:00

The discovery of lead in ground venison has been a surprise for the processors responsible for the contaminated meat.

Brad Bachmann was stunned to learn last week that 11 of 15 samples of ground venison he processed last fall for the state venison donation program had evidence of lead contamination.

That 73 percent rate put him near the bottom of 39 Minnesota meat processing plants whose venison has been tested by the state for lead bullet fragments.

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New York: Man fights to remove sex offender designation


Chron.com
2008-06-08 23:47:00

AUBURN - A former Army sergeant's consensual sexual tryst with an adult female soldier has earned him the designation of "sex offender" in civilian life for the next 20 years.


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'I Was Bees,' Says Hiker Stung 300 Times


kpho.com
2008-06-07 21:51:00

Doctors Worried Kidneys Wouldn't Withstand Toxins

PHOENIX -- A hiker who fell 85 feet off a mountain and into a beehive on the desert floor said he was stung so severely, he thought his kidneys wouldn't withstand the flood of toxins.

Charles Connell was hiking alone on South Mountain three weeks ago and climbing a ravine when he reached his hand to grab a rock and discovered he had disturbed a nest of bees.

"They literally cascaded right at me and down me," Connell said.

The force of the bee attack knocked him down the mountain. He said he tumbled across rocks and cacti with the bees racing after him. He said it seemed like a giant mass of man and insects.

"I 'was' bees," Connell said. "I had bees all over me, and I remember brushing my hair back and tossing dust on my hair and suddenly my arm 'was' bees," he recalled. "The hand that I'm using to knock the bees out of my hair is now a bee hand."

Connell said he began screaming for help but no one responded.



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Flashback: Will the Mossad Assassinate Obama?

Ian Mosley
Israel e News
2008-05-30 20:23:00

Ever since the Middle Ages, there has always been one act which has been strictly prohibited. It is forbidden to speak of the death of the King.

British Communist and Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing is 88 years old, and has either decided she's old enough to disregard the taboo, or else she's gone senile and has forgotten this taboo exists. Lessing told an interviewer for a Swedish newspaper that 'If Barack Obama becomes the next US president he will surely be assassinated.' Obama, who is vying to become the first black president in US history, 'would certainly not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would murder him,' Lessing, 88, told the Dagens Nyheter daily."

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Ohio plane crash kills 6, including ex-legislator


Associated Press
2008-06-08 20:03:00

FREMONT - A small plane crashed Sunday afternoon in a residential area and killed all six people aboard, including the pilot, a former state lawmaker who had offered joyrides to airport visitors after a charity breakfast.


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Flashback: Murdoch says 'rock star' Obama will win election

David Usborne
The Independent
2008-05-30 19:47:00

Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who has a history of subordinating his conservative instincts to pragmatism when it comes to choosing sides in national elections, has spoken up for Barack Obama, terming him a "rock star" who is "likely to win" the White House in November.

Stopping short of offering an actual endorsement, Mr Murdoch made plain his enthusiasm for the Democratic hopeful when speaking on the fringes of a digital conference in California sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, recently acquired by News Corp.

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Financial Times writes editorial on 9-11 Truth Movement

Peter Barber
Financial Times
2008-06-07 01:22:00

The truth is out there

When Cynthia McKinney speaks the words of Martin Luther King Jr, they resound through the church with some of King's cadence. "A time comes," declares the former US congresswoman from Georgia, "when silence is betrayal." The congregation answers with whoops and calls of "That's right!" King was talking about America's war in Vietnam. More than 40 years later, before the packed pews of the Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, McKinney is speaking of the American government's war on its own people. The shock and awe phase of this conflict, we had been told earlier, began on September 11 2001, when the Bush administration launched attacks on New York and Washington, or at least waved them through.

According to a show of hands that February afternoon, several hundred people in the immaculate church believe this to be true. Some came in T-shirts bearing the words "9/11 was an inside job". One wore a badge demanding that you "Examine your assumptions". Quite a few bought the DVDs on sale in the foyer, most of which bore photographs of the Twin Towers spewing smoke. They had all come to hear the message of Architects, Engineers & Scientists for 9/11 Truth, one of the dozens of groups across the US which campaign to persuade us that everything we think we know about 9/11 is wrong.

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Michael Crichton vindicated: 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction now looks on target

Jack Shafer
Slate
2008-05-29 18:55:00

Michael Crichton
©Unknown
Michael Crichton



In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass media - specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.

The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances - "artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page" - swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.

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New York: Skydiver dies after leaving parachute in plane


Associated Press
2008-06-08 18:09:00

A 29-year-old man leaped out of a plane at 3050 metres with a camera but no parachute. His body was found beside a house with a damaged roof, police said.

Sloan Carafello of Schenectady, who was observing on the flight, followed an instructor, student and videographer out the door, wearing no skydiving gear, officials said.

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Texas: Steroid dealer David Jacobs' death ruled a suicide

Tanya Eiserer
The Dallas Morning News
2008-06-07 17:10:00

The tortured life of convicted steroids dealer David Jacobs apparently ended with his turning a gun on himself.

Mr. Jacobs also appears to have kept connections to his old life: Authorities seized from his Plano home 146 vials of steroids, a plastic jar containing suspected steroids and three jars of clear liquid believed to contain steroids, according to court records obtained Friday by The Dallas Morning News.

A preliminary report from the Dallas County medical examiner Friday found that Mr. Jacobs shot himself in the stomach and the head. Authorities also said his on-again, off-again girlfriend, professional fitness competitor Amanda Jo Earhart-Savell, died apparently after she was shot multiple times.

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UK & Euro-Asian News
Case closed: Ex-PC on child porn charges is killed


BBC News
2008-06-09 17:26:00

Geoffrey Harries
©Unknown
Geoffrey Harries moved to the village after protests at his Pembrey home


The family of a former police constable, fatally stabbed while awaiting trial on child porn charges, have described their "anguish".

Geoffrey Harries died after the attack in Trimsaran, Carmarthenshire early on Saturday. A man, 30, has been arrested.

Mr Harries, 49, had been charged with downloading 2,082 indecent images and was due to appear in court next week.

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Flashback: Jersey: Rich paedophile yachtsmen were given children as galley sex slaves at sea

Lucy Panton & Philip Whiteside
News of the World
2008-03-16 12:02:00

CHILDREN from the Jersey House of Horrors were loaned to rich paedophile yachtsmen as galley SEX SLAVES, a News of the World investigation reveals.

The youngsters were told by care staff the boat rides were treats - only to be assaulted and RAPED at sea by pervert toffs.

Details of the sick attacks emerged as we discovered even more blood has been found in a bath in the dungeon underneath the Haut de la Garenne home - and in the drains.

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Sarkozy's EU immigration control agenda 'plain sailing'


EurActive.com
2008-06-05 16:18:00

The European Immigration Pact, to be launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy, has a good chance of becoming a major success for the French EU Presidency, diplomats say.

Enjoying a broad consensus among EU countries after having overcome resistance in the European Parliament and benefiting from the recent nomination of a French Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, France is confidently pushing ahead its agenda to bring immigration in Europe under control.



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Belgian colza fields contaminated with banned GMOs


AFP
2008-06-03 16:04:00

Image
©Unknown
Traces left by acricultural vehicles on a colza field


Fifteen Belgian colza fields, owned by Bayer CropScience, have been contaminated by genetically modified organisms (GMOs) banned in Europe, the country's public health ministry announced Tuesday.

The Bayer subsidiary, which specialises in improving crop yields, informed the Belgian authorities of the contamination, which happened last month during the planting of normal colza -- a crop similar to rapeseed and used in cattlefeed, cooking oil, machinery lubricant and, increasingly, as a biofuel.

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Turkish Airlines jet causes panic over Cyprus capital

Andy Ioannou
Famagusta Gazette
2008-06-09 14:29:00

A Turkish Airlines passenger jet violated Nicosia airspace yesterday afternoon causing panic in many areas as its altitude fell to a dangerously low 2,000 feet over residential districts.

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Elderly nuns chain themselves at Vatican protest


Reuters
2008-06-09 09:36:00

VATICAN CITY - Two elderly Italian nuns chained themselves to a lamp post outside the Vatican on Sunday claiming they had been wrongly expelled from their cloistered convent and wanted Pope Benedict to help them return.

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UK: Pig's blood 'cult' attack on Lord's family chapel


Rugby Advertiser
2008-06-09 06:56:00

Image
©Unknown
Lord Denbigh outside his family chapel.


An historic village chapel near Rugby may have become targeted by cult groups after a pig's liver and blood were found splattered on the door.

In the latest of a series of attacks, the altar was smashed to pieces last week, possibly with a sledgehammer.

The trouble began when the 17th Century chapel - part of a private cemetery in Monks Kirby owned by the Denbighs' family estate in Newnham Paddox - was featured on national websites as a haunted building, attracting many thrill-seekers to the area late at night.

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Clydebank, UK: Residents fear houses will subside as cracks appear

Andrea Fraser
Clydebank Post
2008-06-05 05:01:00

Image
©Unknown


THERE are fresh fears that houses are going to start sinking after continued subsidence near a graveyard.

Despite remedial work to a "crater" which appeared in a busy road last year, more cracks are appearing and panic is spreading about what could collapse next.

Last year a family had to be evacuated from their home in Clydebank's Montrose Street after it started to sink into a giant crater.

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Nepal: Maoists closer to forming govt; agree to amend Constitution

Shirish B Pradhan
Press Trust of India
2008-06-08 03:54:00

Kathmandu - Inching closer to heading a new administration in Nepal, Maoists today agreed to amend the Constitution allowing a government to be formed or dissolved through a simple majority in Constituent Assembly, days after giving up their claim on the post of President.

The former rebels agreed to amend the Constitution to allow a simple majority to change the government during their crucial power-sharing talks with leaders of Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML at Maoist chief Prachanda's residence at Nayabazaar, NC General Secretary Bimalendra Nidhi said.

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UK: 6 suitcases of gold dust found by cops in deposit box raid

Justin Penrose
Sunday Mirror
2008-06-08 23:30:00

Police searching through thousands of safety deposit boxes they suspected were used by gangsters have found £30million and six suitcases of GOLD DUST.

Armed officers raided three safety deposit centres in London's Park Lane, Hampstead and Edgware after a two-year operation.

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Gas blast at Ukrainian mine, 37 missing

Lina Kushch
Reuters
2008-06-08 23:07:00

YENAKIYEVO - Thirty-seven miners were missing after a gas explosion tore through a pit in Ukraine's Donbass coalfield on Sunday, but rescuers clearing a blocked shaft still hoped to bring some of them out alive.

Officials said the blast hit the Karl Marx colliery - in the heart of the coalfield long subject to deadly accidents -- at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) about 1 km (3,300 feet) underground. Mining operations had been suspended and repairs were being conducted.

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Bridgend, UK: Tributes paid to the 20th person found hanged

Sarah Miloudi
Wales on Sunday
2008-06-08 16:55:00

Emotional tributes were last night paid to a young man who is the latest to be found dead in Bridgend.

South Wales Police yesterday confirmed they were investigating the death of Neil Owen - a 26-year-old from the Bettws area of the borough.

Neil, who spent five years working as vice-chairman at his local football club, Bettws FC, lived in the same area where 19-year-old Sean Rees was found hanging in woodlands in April after he had been socialising with friends.

Image
©Unknown


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Flashback: Bridgend suicides: Some stories need to be told

Brian Cathcart
New Statesman
2008-02-21 08:48:00

Press coverage of the Bridgend suicides has caused offence and alarm, but a news blackout is not the answer

suicide
©Unknown


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Trapped coal miners in east Ukraine communicate with rescuers


RIA Novosti
2008-06-08 16:33:00

Hopes of rescuing several dozen miners trapped in a coal mine in eastern Ukraine following an explosion were given a boost on Sunday when rescuers established communication with the workers.

The accident at the Karl Marx mine in the town of Yenakiyevo in the Donetsk Region occurred at 6:00 a.m. Moscow time (02:00 a.m. GMT) on Sunday when a gas and air mixture exploded.

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Russian Medvedev blames US for global financial troubles


Agence France-Presse
2008-06-07 16:26:00

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday blamed the United States for the global financial downturn and said Russia had the energy and food resources to come to the world's help.

"It is precisely the gap between the United States' formal role in the world economy and its real capabilities that was one of the key reasons for the current crisis," Medvedev told a business forum in Saint Petersburg.

"Russia is a global player and understands its responsibility for the fate of the world," he said.

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Around the World
Olmert pushed satellite deal with Venezuela in defiance of the U.S.


World Tribune
2008-06-02 17:25:00

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert secretly promoted the sale of satellite services to Venezuela in defiance of the U.S., a newspaper here reported.

The Israeli daily Maariv said Olmert sought to facilitate the sale of satellite services to the government of President Hugo Chavez by the Israeli firm ImageSat. Olmert, the newspaper said, was blocked by the Israeli Defense Ministry, which did not want to spark a crisis with the Bush administration.

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Global military spending soars 45 pct in 10 years; USA accounts for half of increase


Agence France Presse
2008-06-09 12:33:00

World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditure, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Monday.

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Where did the shelter aid go? Bicol disaster victims ask

Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer.net / Southern Luzon Bureau
2008-06-05 05:42:00

Guinobatan, Albay - Tedea Herrera hung three plastic buckets under the dwelling's thin iron roofing to protect her children from leaks when it rains. Made of coconut lumber and thin, peeling plywood, the cramped room, measuring two meters by four meters, has bare ground as floor but no windows.

"All I want is a decent and permanent house to stay, for me and my children," the 43-year-old woman said. Her house was swept away by gushing floodwaters in Barangay Travesia when Supertyphoon "Reming" roused lahar from Mayon Volcano's slope in 2006. Over 1,000 people were killed or missing.



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Tokyo Slasher Foretold Slaughter in Chilling Internet Messages


Associated Press
2008-06-09 04:39:00

The man suspected of killing seven people in a knifing rampage in Tokyo foretold the mayhem in a series of messages posted to the Internet, including one just before the attack saying, "It's time," police and media reports said Monday.

Tomohiro Kato, accused of ramming pedestrians with a truck on Sunday and then stabbing 17 bystanders in Tokyo's Akihabara district, posted a string of messages on an Internet bulletin board from his cell phone, a police spokesman said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing protocol, refused to release the messages, but news reports said they were posted in a threat titled, "I will kill people in Akihabara," starting hours before the stabbings.

Image
©Unknown
In this image taken by an anonymos predestrian via Kyodo News, Tomohiro Kato, wearing glasses, is detained by police officers in Tokyo's Akihabara district. The 25-year-old man rammed a truck into a crowd of shoppers, jumped out and went on a stabbing spree in Tokyo's top electronics district Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 10 others.


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SOUTH AFRICA: Children in the Path of the Pandemic

Kathryn Strachan
Inter Press Service
2008-06-09 00:02:00

JOHANNESBURG- There is barely a path leading down the steep incline and through the dense bush to the Mabuyakhulu homestead. It would be easy to pass by without finding 13 year old Zanele* and her eight year old sister Andiswa who stay there on their own.

Their father died long ago and their mother is in hospital dying of AIDS. The two girls have been left completely alone to fend for themselves.

Their mother, Hlengiwe, is at the nearby Mosvold Hospital in Ingwavuma, situated in the far northern corner of KwaZulu Natal on the border of Swaziland, and she does not know what will happen to her children when she is gone.

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Atomic Market: What Benazir knew

David Isenberg
Space War
2008-06-08 21:02:00

A new book confirms what has to be one of the more unusual exchanges of nuclear information outside of outright spying and helps explain how Pakistani nuclear weapons knowledge made its way to North Korea.

In late 1993 Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister of Pakistan, carried critical nuclear data on CDs in her overcoat to Pyongyang in 1993 and brought back North Korea's missile information, according to a new political biography, "Goodbye Shahzadi," by veteran Pakistani journalist Shyam Bhatia.

Bhutto was murdered last December after returning to Pakistan from exile in order to win an election once again as prime minister.

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India: Five killed in wall collapse


The Hindu
2008-06-08 16:22:00

Five labourers were killed and six others seriously injured when the wall of a hotel building under construction collapsed this morning near here, police said.

The accident took place in the wee hours, following heavy rains in Porvorim area, when all the construction labourers were fast asleep in a shed built next to the wall, they said.

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Indonesian students stitch lips in fuel protest


Reuters
2008-06-08 16:10:00

Two Indonesian students had their lips stitched and joined a protest rally by about 20 students on a Jakarta campus on Sunday to press the government to reverse a recent rise in domestic fuel prices.

The government raised fuel prices by almost 30 percent last month, sparking protests in a country where millions are already suffering from rising energy and food costs.

While Indonesia still has some of the lowest fuel prices in Asia, the issue of fuel subsidies is politically sensitive. Indonesia is due to hold parliamentary and presidential elections next year.

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13 people dead in 2 Algerian bombings

Aomar Quali
news.yahoo.com
2008-06-08 15:41:00

ALGIERS - Two bombs exploded Sunday at a train station in Algeria, killing 13 people and wounding several others, a security official said.

Both bombs at the station in Beni Amrane, about 60 miles east of the North African nation's capital, were apparently triggered by remote control, the official said.



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Plane with 10 people missing in Chile


Associated Press
2008-06-07 15:10:00

A small airplane carrying 10 people is missing after taking off from an airport in southern Chile, officials said Saturday.

The Cessna 208 Caravan took off Saturday afternoon from the Puerto Montt airport, 650 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of Santiago, en route to the southern town of La Junta in Aysen region, said Air Force Gen. Hugo Pena.

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Ethiopia Faces Worsening Food Shortage Until September Harvest

Peter Heinlein
VOA News.com
2008-06-06 12:40:00

Image
©Save The Children
Four out of five children in Ethiopia do not get life-saving health care when they need it


The United Nations and Ethiopia's government are renewing their appeal for emergency food aid in the face of a rapidly developing child malnutrition and hunger crisis. Official estimates of the number of people in dire need have doubled over the past few months. VOA's Peter Heinlein reports the next few months could be the worst.

The statistics are grim. They show 4.5 million Ethiopians need emergency food assistance and 75,000 children already suffer from what doctors call 'severe acute malnutrition'. And Bjorn Ljunqvist, Ethiopia country director for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, warns the most difficult period lies ahead.

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BBC confirms journalist shot dead in Afghanistan


TFN
2008-06-08 12:07:00

London - The BBC confirmed here Sunday that a journalist working for the corporation had been shot dead in Afghanistan.

The British Broadcasting Corporation said Abdul Samad Rohani went missing Saturday in Lashkar Gar, the capital of the southern Helmand province.

His body was found Sunday and he had been shot in the head, the BBC said in a statement.

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Six dead in Tokyo stabbing spree


BBC News
2008-06-08 05:37:00

Tokyo stabbing
©AP
Rescue workers tend to the injured in Tokyo's Akihabara district. Seventeen ambulances were sent to the scene


A man armed with a knife has killed six people and injured 12 others in central Tokyo, Japanese media say.

The incident occurred in the Akihabara district, a busy shopping area known as Electric Town that is popular with young people and tourists.

A suspect, said to be 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, has been arrested near the scene.

The stabbing came on the anniversary of a 2001 knife attack which killed eight children at a primary school.

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Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd blames mystery illness on fast food snack

Nick Squires
telegraph.co.uk
2008-06-06 00:00:00

He has been criticised for spouting jargon and bureaucratic gobbledegook but prime minister Kevin Rudd resorted to down-to-earth Australian vernacular in describing how a fast food snack left him "driving the porcelain bus" for a day or two.

In what indubitably qualified as a case of too much information, Mr Rudd gave details of how the ill-advised choice of snack laid him low.

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Why White Farmers in Zimbabwe Are Responsible for the Killings in South Africa

Gary Brecher
AlterNet
2008-06-05 01:59:00

South Africans wouldn't be killing Zimbabwean refugees if it weren't for the stranglehold Zimbabwe's whites have on its farmland.



"The native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians of Southern Africa ... I personally prefer land to niggers." -- Cecil Rhodes, Founder of "Rhodesia" (Zimbabwe) (1887)

"We do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests." -- Clare Short, UK Secretary of State for International Development (1997)



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Big Brother
Canada MPs set to recommend RCMP Taser use be reined in


The Canadian Press
2008-06-08 17:11:00

OTTAWA - MPs studying Taser use are expected to urge the RCMP to restrict the powerful weapons to high-risk confrontations - especially when suspects are highly agitated.

The all-party Commons public safety committee will stop short, however, of recommending a moratorium on the 50,000-volt weapons, says a source close to a report expected as early as this week.


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Jury awards against Taser International total $6.22 mln in damages


RTT News
2008-06-07 17:09:00

Stun-gun manufacturer Taser International, Inc. early Saturday revealed that a jury verdict in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California awarded a total of $6.22 mln against it in damages. In the case of Betty Lou Heston, et al. v. City of Salinas, the jury found that the extended duration of a Taser electronic control device or ECD contributed 15% to the arrest related death of Robert Heston on February 19, 2005.

The jury verdict awarded on Friday $1.02 million in compensatory damages and $5.20 million in punitive damages against Taser based on alleged negligent failure to warn.

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NZ Ombudsman: Taser reports "sanitised"


TVNZ.co.nz / One News
2008-06-06 17:04:00

The controversial Taser trial is again under fire with the chief ombudsman saying reports by police about the use of the device have been "sanitised".

The 12-month test of the 50,000 volt Taser stun gun is now over with Police Commissioner Howard Broad due to make his decision on their implementation within months.

But in a letter to Broad, Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakeham says the police wrongly withheld information from its reports about the 20 times the Tasers were fired during the trial period.

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No charges to be filed in fatal Goodyear taser incident


KTKA.com
2008-06-03 17:01:00

The Shawnee County district attorney says charges will not be filed in connection with a man who died after being "tasered" by sheriff's deputies.

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Students Protesting Pesticide Use Tasered

Jill Kimball
Oregon Daily Emerald
2008-06-02 16:58:00

Two University students and a Eugene man were arrested at a downtown rally Friday afternoon on various charges, including resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, after police officers' use of a Taser on one provoked angry reactions from the other two.

Ian George Van Ornum, 18, and Anthony Jameson Farley, 22, both students, were arrested. Friends paid their bail and they were released from Lane County Jail on Friday. The Eugene man, David Alexander Owen, was also released.

Ornum organized the rally as a demonstration against the Oregon Department of Transportation's use of pesticide spray on the highways. Ornum was marching with a sign in Kesey Square at the corner of West Broadway and Willamette Street dressed in a white hazardous materials suit, spraying water from a pesticide can and asking onlookers, "Do you know you're being poisoned?"


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McCain Revises Stance on Warrantless Wiretapping Again

Kurt Opsahl
Electronic Frontier Foundation
2008-06-07 01:13:00

Mere hours after a McCain spokesperson adopted the Bush Administration's flawed legal argument that courts have "recognized the President's constitutional authority to conduct warrant-less surveillance" and that the "courts' findings supported the Bush Administration's efforts in the wake of September 11, 2001," Senator John McCain said that:



"It's ambiguous as to whether the president acted within his authority of not,'' he said, saying courts had ruled different ways on the matter.



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Flashback: It's real and sick: Deputy uses his Taser to shock partygoers


liveleak
2008-03-10 17:50:00



A video that shows a Lee County Sheriff's deputy "tasing" civilians at a party has been released by his ex-finance to the media. The tapes show a man who has been verified by the sheriff's office to be Corporal Michael DeTar, 29, shooting at least two individuals with a Taser as they laugh. The sheriff's office has confirmed it is DeTar, and spokesman Tony Schall said an internal investigation is now under way.

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Flashback: Taser Firing Flying Saucers Now in Production

Alex Zelaya
liveleak
2007-11-29 08:59:00

A French businessman, one of the biggest Taser representatives outside the US has revealed that his company is working on putting TASER stun guns on a flying saucer that could zap protesters, and anyone else that authorities target.

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US: 13 year old tased, mother claims police brutality

Alysha Palumbo
WIVB
2008-06-08 16:28:00

Did Niagara Falls police go too far when they handled a young shoplifting suspect?

News 4 spoke to the suspect, his family and Falls police to get the answer to that question.

This is what happened to 13-year-old Dominic Gualttieri after he says police stopped him outside a laundromat and accused him of shoplifting. (shown on WIVB-TV)

Dominic Gualttieri said, "He asked for my name and I'm like, I'm a kid you don't know, you don't need to know my name because I didn't do anything."

What happened next shocked one man so much he took pictures of the melee.

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Flashback: Outrageous! Judge orders stun gun references removed from autopsies


Associated Press
2008-05-03 05:08:00

Akron, Ohio - A medical examiner must change her autopsy findings to delete any reference that stun guns contributed to the deaths of three people involved in confrontations with law enforcement officers, a judge ruled.

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Axis of Evil
Gates picks new leadership for U.S. Air Force

Kristin Roberts
Reuters
2008-06-09 17:52:00

Defense Secretary Robert Gates named new top civilian and military leaders for the U.S. Air Force on Monday as part of a shake-up triggered by mistakes in managing America's nuclear arsenal.

He also halted cuts to the size of the Air Force to ease the stress from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting the Army is not the only force under pressure after years of war.

Gates chose Gen. Norton Schwartz, a cargo aircraft pilot with special operations experience, as Air Force chief -- a pick that signals the Pentagon wants the force to focus on supporting the two wars, U.S. officials said.

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Drugging kids for cash? Harvard Psychiatrist hides big-pharma funding

Scott Hensley
The Wall Street Journal
2008-06-09 16:42:00

Image
©Massachusetts General Hospital


A controversial Harvard psychiatrist whose research and recommendations have paved the way for the wide use of antipsychotic drugs in kids has received more than $1.6 million in consulting fees from drugmakers since 2000, and he failed to properly disclose much of the funding, the New York Times reports.

Joseph Biederman (pictured) is a polarizing figure in psychiatry. As the Boston Globe put it in a profile last year: "No one has done more to convince Americans that even small children can suffer the dangerous mood swings of bipolar disorder than Dr. Joseph Biederman of Massachusetts General Hospital." When asked in 2007 by the Globe about his drug company funding, he declined to provide it, but said Harvard Medical School and Mass General approved all his income.


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Flashback: Hookers, Spies, Cases Full Of Dollars...How BP [and the British government] Spent £45m To Win 'Wild East' Oil Rights

Glen Owen
Mail On Sunday
2007-05-15 06:16:00

The following report appeared on Sunday 13th May 2007 on the UK daily's Mail on Sunday website. It has since been pulled without explanation. The report is based on the testimony of a former high level BP employee, Les Abrahams, and details how in the 1990's British Petroleum, in league with the British government and MI6, used every scurrilous and immoral tactic imaginable, including orchestrating the overthrow of Azerbaijan's democratically elected governments, to secure the Baku region oil supplies and massive profits for themselves.

The image below is a 'for the record' google screen shot showing that this story was indeed published by the Daily Mail on Sunday last, if only for a few hours. For those few hours, we had a taste of real and responsible reporting, before the cabal of British government, big business and mainstream media stepped in to deny the public the Truth about the corruption and psychopathy that goes to the heart of "political leadership" in the "developed" Western world today. The story follows.



Click here for the google cache of the article.

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Divide and Conquer! How Israel builds its fifth column

Catherine Taylor
Telespy/Christian science Monitor
2008-06-01 14:50:00

Hani knew it was wrong.

But the young Palestinian says he couldn't resist the woman who seduced him in a field near his house two years ago. And he never suspected what was to come.

In the middle of the tryst, the couple was ambushed by Israeli security agents who told Hani (not his real name) that his wife would be informed of the infidelity unless he cooperated. He says he now suspects he was set up, but he admits he was an easy target - wanted for a raft of petty crimes and a wallet full of fake identity cards. Within days he had agreed to trade his freedom for life as a collaborator.

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Flashback: Pedophilia cover-ups a long Bush family tradition

Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen Report
2007-03-27 11:55:00

Rove and Gonzales look out for the interests of NAMBLA in the latest scandal to rock the Bush administration. Bush family continues its long family tradition of promoting and protecting pedophiles.

The GOP Congress and the Justice Department, under orders from the White House, successfully covered up the Pagegate scandal. Similar acts of pedophilia involving sodomy and other sexually explicit conduct with underage males were carried out at the U.S. detention center in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. The Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon, with the support of the White House, covered up those incidents. Pedophilia and the Bush family spans two generations. George H. W. Bush covered up a major prostitution scandal involving underage males in the late 1980s. The scandal involved the use of child prostitutes and congressional pages, some of whom were given midnight tours of the Bush White House by the late GOP lobbyist Craig Spence.


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Flashback: Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests'


ThisIsLondon
2006-09-30 12:47:00

The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.

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Flashback: U.S. Says Pope Immune From Molestation Lawsuit


Associated Press
2005-09-20 12:42:00

The U.S. Justice Department has told a Texas court that a lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian should be dismissed because the pontiff enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See.

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Pope to host Bush in tower as payback

Philip Pullella
Reuters
2008-06-09 12:38:00

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict will unusually host talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in a restored medieval tower on Friday, to repay him for a warm reception at the White House, the Vatican said.

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Guantánamo Bay torturers told to destroy notes, US lawyer claims

Peter Walker
The Guardian
2008-06-09 12:36:00

Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay were told to destroy their notes to stop them potentially being used to highlight the mistreatment of detainees, according to a US military lawyer.

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US/IRAN: Fearing Escalation, Pentagon Fought Cheney Plan

Gareth Porter
IPS
2008-06-07 11:59:00

Washington: Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W. Bush administration official.

J. Scott Carpenter, who was then deputy assistant secretary of state in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, recalled in an interview that senior Defence Department (DoD) officials and the Joint Chiefs used the escalation issue as the main argument against the Cheney proposal.

McClatchy newspapers reported last August that Cheney had proposal several weeks earlier "launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran", citing two officials involved in Iran policy.
Angry Dick Cheney


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Robert Fisk: The West's weapon of self-delusion

Robert Fisk
The Independent
2008-06-09 10:05:00

So they are it again, the great and the good of American democracy, grovelling and fawning to the Israeli lobbyists of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), repeatedly allying themselves to the cause of another country and one that is continuing to steal Arab land.

Will this ever end? Even Barack Obama - or "Mr Baracka" as an Irish friend of mine innocently and wonderfully described him - found time to tell his Jewish audience that Jerusalem is the one undivided capital of Israel, which is not the view of the rest of the world which continues to regard the annexation of Arab East Jerusalem as illegal. The security of Israel. Say it again a thousand times: the security of Israel - and threaten Iran, for good measure.

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US breaks with human rights council over Israel, pulls out

Nick Langewis
Raw Story
2008-06-09 06:27:00

In a State Department briefing on Friday, it was announced that the United States will no longer be regularly attending meetings held by the United Nations' Human Rights Council unless specifically compelled to, citing the Council's stance on relations between Israel and Palestine.

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It's all a matter of timing for Israel's final confrontation with Iran

Damian Lataan
http://lataan.blogspot.com
2008-06-09 06:20:00

It's been a year since Hamas asserted its rightful role as the democratically elected government in the Gaza Strip after corrupt Fatah forces there had unsuccessfully tried to usurp Hamas's governance of the Palestinian enclave. Hamas's victory in the January 2006 elections was not recognised by Israel or the US, the two nations on our planet that scream loudest about the necessity of democracy in the region. Instead, they ensured that the corrupt Fatah organisation under Abbas took control of Palestinian affairs, a move that, while successful in the West Bank, was unsuccessful in the Gaza.

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Flashback: Human trafficking expert warns of risks to children in disaster zones


International Herald Tribune / Associated Press
2008-05-26 05:12:00

Natural disasters such as the cyclone in Myanmar can put children at risk for abuse and exploitation, a human trafficking expert said Monday.

Eva Biaudet, of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said she had no specific information about the situation of children in Myanmar, but noted that similar disasters, as well as conflicts, have put minors at risk of being taken advantage of and abused.

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Without Conscience: Israel's Water Problems

Emanuel A. Winston
Israel E-News
2008-06-09 04:26:00

Politicians cannot solve pressing water issues

Binyamin Ben Eliezer, a not terribly bright politician, has offered various solutions for what is likely to be a water crisis for a long time to come. He wants to build more water desalination plants, apparently to offset his party's famous plans to abandon the Golan Heights, one of Israel's principal water sources.

But Ben Eliezer may not have taken into account the raw sewage sabotage that the Palestinians are implementing by letting untreated sewage run into the sea from Gaza. The prevailing currents push the sewage north, contaminating Israel's coastal areas where more than 70% of Israel's population and Israel's main industrial base in centered.

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Middle East Madness
An Iraqi's tale of woe


Human Rights Tribune
2008-06-08 00:00:00

Hassan Jabir Salman, an Iraqi lawyer who was severely wounded by US security company Blackwater in Baghdad last September, told his story Wednesday (June 4) at the Human Rights Council. 17 Iraqi civilians were killed and 11 of the survivors, including Salman, have filed a civil lawsuit in the United States against Blackwater.

Interview by Pamela Taylor/Human Rights Tribune - On September 16, 2007, Hassan Jabir Salman was driving by Nisoor Square in Bagdad when heavily armed guards from the US security firm Blackwater indiscriminately opened fire. Despite failing health, diabetes and bullets still in his body, Hassan Salman made a grueling 30 hour trip with little sleep to come to Geneva and tell his story to the Human Rights Council.

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Blackwater's Private CIA

Jeremy Scahill
The Nation
2008-06-09 00:00:00

The notorious mercenary company now offers spy "services" to Fortune 500 companies, for the right price.

This past September, the secretive mercenary company Blackwater USA found its name splashed across front pages throughout the world after the company's shooters gunned down seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square. But by early 2008, Blackwater had largely receded from the headlines save for the occasional blip on the media radar sparked by Congressman Henry Waxman's ongoing investigations into its activities. Its forces remained deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and business continued to pour in. In the two weeks directly following Nisour Square, Blackwater signed more than $144 million in contracts with the State Department for "protective services" in Iraq and Afghanistan alone and, over the following weeks and months, won millions more in contracts with other federal entities like the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

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Senegal's president appeals to Israel, Hamas for cease-fire

Sadibou Marone, Diaa Hadid
Associated Press
2008-06-09 15:47:00

Senegal's president appealed to Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas to declare a cease-fire starting Monday to open an avenue for mediation efforts.

"I ask Israel and Hamas to declare an immediate cease-fire from Monday June 9, 2008, at 1200 GMT: no more attacks or Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip and no more shooting by Hamas in the direction of Israel," President Abdoulaye Wade said in a statement released late Sunday.

But beyond the press statement, it appears unlikely Wade actually spoke to the sworn enemies about a truce, which Egypt is currently mediating.

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Israel's Shin Bet Intimidates Top Human Rights Medical Director and His Family


BBSNews
2008-06-04 15:28:00

While many in the United States have been focused on the upcoming general election in November, business as usual is occurring across the world in the Middle East in Israel, with the intimidating interrogation of Physicians for Human Rights Clinics Director Haj Yehya.

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WHO: The flow of untreated sewage to the sea will spread epidemics in Gaza


The Palestinian Information Center
2008-06-09 10:22:00

A report issued by the world health organization (WHO) warned that the increasing flow of untreated sewage from the Gaza Strip to the Mediterranean Sea would spread deadly diseases and epidemics among the Palestinian citizens who visit beaches especially for recreation in the summer.

Untreated Sewage
©Palestinian Information Center




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Israeli invasion of Gaza looms for beleaguered Palestinians


Jerusalem Post
2008-06-09 09:43:00

Israel is likely to conduct a medium-size military operation against the Islamist group before agreeing to a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, senior defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.

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Iraq will not be used against Iran, PM vows


Associated Press
2008-06-09 09:42:00

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought to reassure Iran over a planned security pact with Washington on Sunday, vowing Iraq would never be used as a platform to attack the Islamic republic.

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U.S. Consulate employee dies of heart attack at Israeli checkpoint

Saed Bannoura
International Middle East Media Center
2008-06-09 06:43:00

Mohammed Mousa, 63, who has worked for forty years at the US Consulate in Jerusalem and is an American citizen, died of a heart attack when Israeli soldiers refused to allow him to pass through the checkpoint to work this week.

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Flashback: Israeli foreign minister breaks ranks on Olmert

Jason Koutsoukis
The Age
2008-05-31 20:39:00

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a former Mossad secret service agent, has taken an early lead in the race to succeed embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with two opinion polls published yesterday indicating she is the preferred choice.

Leaders of the Kadima Party, which heads the country's ruling coalition, are to meet next week to decide on the internal election process that will pick Mr Olmert's successor.



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Flashback: Israeli poll finds Netanyahu would win elections if Olmert is toppled


The Associated Press / Herald Tribune
2008-05-30 20:12:00

Hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu would win national elections if a new corruption probe topples Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, according to a poll published Friday.

Netanyahu's opposition Likud Party would receive 29 seats in Israel's 120-seat parliament if new elections were held now, the poll showed. Netanyahu, a former prime minister, is known for his hawkish line toward Israel's Arab neighbors and his election would likely have repercussions for the country's current efforts to reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians and resume negotiations with Syria.

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Palestinians say attacked by masked settlers near Hebron

Efrat Weiss
Ynet
2008-06-08 17:24:00

Four Palestinian shepherds say attacked by hooded Jewish settlers; 68-year-old woman evacuated to Beersheba hospital in series condition; other victims sustain mild wounds.

Four Palestinian shepherds were assaulted Sunday evening by masked assailants near the West Bank settlement of Susya in the south Mount Hebron area. The Palestinians claim the assailants were Jewish settlers.

According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, among the victims was a 68-year-old woman who was evacuated to Beersheba's Soroka Medical Center in serious condition.

The remaining victims, including the woman's 70-year-old husband, sustained mild injuries and were treated by IDF paramedics at the scene. Hebron police were scouring the area in search of the attackers.

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Without Conscience: Palestinian salaries delayed as Israel blocks funds

Wafa Amr
Reuters
2008-06-08 15:18:00

The Palestinian Authority has delayed paying its workers this month after Israel withheld tax funds in anger over Palestinian attempts to block upgraded European Union-Israeli ties, officials said on Sunday.

A senior Palestinian official said the aid-dependent Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank had expected to receive tax revenues on June 2 that Israel collects on its behalf and had planned to pay salaries two days later.

"As of today, we have not received the tax money, so we failed to pay the salaries," the official said.

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Israeli officials: Hamas will suffer before the truce deal takes effect

Ghassan Bannoura
IMEMC
2008-06-08 14:23:00

Israeli army officials told the Israeli Jerusalem Post news paper that the Israeli government will conduct a medium range ground offensive targeting Gaza before any truce deal with the Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza takes effect.


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Flashback: Journalist killed after investigating US-backed death squads in Iraq

James Cogan
World Socialist Web Site
2005-07-01 16:00:00

On June 24, Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi special correspondent for the news agency Knight Ridder, was killed by a single bullet to the head as he approached a checkpoint that had been thrown up near his home in western Baghdad by US and Iraqi troops. It is believed that the shot was fired by an American sniper. According to eyewitnesses, no warning shots were fired.

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Chronology of a Theft and the Response At Tuwani, Palestine


Michigan Peace Team in Palestine
2008-06-01 09:11:00

7:00 a.m. Christian Peacemaker Team [CPT] with MPTer, Martha, met the Tuba schoolchildren being escorted by the Israel military jeep.

Palestinian Story 1
©MPT


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Grand Theft Economics
Saudi seeks meeting to tackle high oil prices


Yahoo!News/Associated Press
2008-06-09 14:43:00

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia will call for a summit between oil producing countries and consumer states to discuss soaring energy prices, Information and Culture Minister Iyad Madani said Monday.

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Oil shortage a myth, says industry insider

Steve Connor
The Independent
2008-06-09 13:17:00

There is more than twice as much oil in the ground as major producers say, according to a former industry adviser who claims there is widespread misunderstanding of the way proven reserves are calculated.

Image
©The Independent




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British police break into safe deposit boxes searching for "criminal" gold


BBC
2008-06-09 12:24:00

Six suitcases packed with suspected gold dust and about £30m in cash have been found during searches of safety deposit centres in London, police say.

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Food banks ask gardeners to grow extra for hungry

Clare Trapasso
Associated Press
2008-06-09 12:22:00

LANGDON, N.H. - Sharon Crossman hadn't tasted fresh fruits or vegetables in a week. Since her husband had two heart attacks and stopped working, she has relied on disability checks and the free food provided by a food pantry.

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Mexico, an oil producer, hasn't benefited from soaring prices

Elisabeth Malkin
International Herald Tribune
2008-06-09 11:17:00

Mexico is the world's sixth-largest oil producer, and the steady climb in the price of oil has reached record highs. The soaring prices should have generated $3 billion above budget estimates for the state oil monopoly, Pemex. But now the government says that windfall just is not there.

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Biotech giants demand a high price for saving the planet

Geoffrey Lean
The Independent
2008-06-08 11:09:00

Companies accused of 'profiteering' as they attempt to patent crop genes

Giant biotech companies are privatising the world's protection against climate change by filing hundreds of monopoly patents on genes that help crops resist it, a new investigation has concluded.

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Indonesia Leaves OPEC, General Motors Downsizes

Humberto Márquez
International Herald Tribune
2008-06-09 00:07:00

CARACAS - Indonesia pulled out of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) almost at the same time as U.S. automobile giant General Motors decided to build fewer pickup trucks and make an electric car.

"We may be seeing the beginning of the end of the reign of oil and OPEC, because the global energy matrix is changing," Elie Habalián, a professor of graduate studies in oil economics and former Venezuelan governor at OPEC, told IPS.

Indonesia joined OPEC in 1962, two years after it was created, and was the only member in southeast Asia. Traditionally, its output was over 1.5 million barrels of crude a day, but that fell this decade to under 900,000 barrels per day (bpd), while domestic consumption is over 1.1 million bpd.

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Farm crisis spooks Argentine economy


Associated Press
2008-06-08 23:18:00

BUENOS AIRES - Argentina, one of the world's biggest breadbaskets, should be rolling in cash as world food prices soar.

Instead, soy, wheat and corn have sat for weeks in silos as farmers protesting new export taxes suspended sales.


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UK oil reserves 'will last decades'

Hayley Millar
BBC News
2008-06-04 18:00:00

North Sea Oil Platform
©Unknown


The North Sea has almost as much oil left as has already been extracted, a BBC Scotland investigation has been told.

Experts believe between 25 and 30 billion barrels could still be recovered over the next 40 years.

Calculating oil reserves is not an exact science and this fact has made it difficult over the years to weigh up the true wealth of oil beneath the North Sea.

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Bank of England holds interest rates amid soaring inflation


Reuters
2008-06-05 17:51:00

The Bank of England on Thursday kept its key lending rate at 5 percent, a move analysts said was designed to dampen high inflation despite slowing economic growth and a slumping property market.

The decision to hold British rates for the second month in a row, in line with market expectations, came shortly before the European Central Bank similarly left its rate at 4.0 percent in a bid to tame record inflation.

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Fed to hold rates even as inflation fears rise

Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
Reuters
2008-06-06 17:39:00

The Federal Reserve will leave interest rates on hold for now as ongoing fears about the economy trump any inclination to tighten monetary policy in order to fight inflation, according to a Reuters poll.

The survey did indicate, however, that concerns about a deeper economic downturn have receded, despite a report on Friday showing the biggest one-month spike in the unemployment rate since the mid-1980s and another record-setting day in the oil markets.

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Disaster Capitalism: IMF suggests steps to fix Vietnam's 'overheating' economy


Agence France-Presse
2008-06-07 01:09:00

The IMF said Friday Vietnam should tighten monetary and fiscal policy to fix its "overheating" economy, which has been battered by double-digit inflation and a widening trade deficit.

The communist government should raise interest rates, cut the budget deficit, improve oversight of the banking sector and push market reforms, said International Monetary Fund (IMF) country chief Benedict Bingham.

The IMF representative was speaking at a twice-yearly meeting between the government and foreign donors, the Consultative Group meet, days after several credit rating agencies downgraded their Vietnam outlook.

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UK Workers 'forced to take pay cuts'


BBC News
2008-06-07 18:34:00

The UK's economy is being affected by a drying up of global credit markets

Workers are being asked to take pay cuts of up to 40% because of the economic slowdown, one of UK's biggest unions has warned.

The GMB told the BBC it had received reports from members about wage reductions of between 30% and 40%.

It says companies are feeling the pain of the credit crunch and are looking at ways to save money.

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The Living Planet
UK: 21 Dolphins die after mass stranding


BBC News
2008-06-09 17:39:00

Twenty-three dolphins have died after becoming stranded on the Cornish coast.

An RNLI lifeboatman described Porth Creek near Portscatho as a "scene of carnage" after 21 dolphins died there. One was believed to be pregnant.

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At least 60, oil-covered penguins on Uruguayan beaches


Associated Press
2008-06-08 16:52:00

At least 60 dead penguins washed up on Uruguay's coast Sunday in an incident that an environmentalist linked to a fuel spill following a boat crash near Montevideo's port days ago.

Another 34 penguins, covered in oil but alive, also appeared on the beaches of this South American nation's southern coast, Richard Tessore of the Fauna Marina environmental group told local online news outlet Observa.

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China Offers Reverse Sterilization to Mothers Who Lost Children in Quake


VOA News
2008-06-09 16:27:00

China is sending a medical team to its earthquake ravaged southwest to offer reverse sterilization surgery for women who lost their only children in the May 12th quake.

China's "one-child" policy limits most families to a single child in most cases and many mothers opt for sterilization surgery after giving birth.

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Moderate earthquake hits central Philippines


www.chinaview.cn
2008-06-08 00:00:00

A magnitude-5.3 earthquake hit Mindoro Occidental province in Southern Luzon, the Philippines, before dawn Sunday, without causing damage or casualties, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

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Moderate earthquake hits Peru


www.chinaview.cn
2008-06-07 00:00:00

An earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale occurred Saturday in the Pacific Ocean waters near the Peruvian capital Lima. No casualties or property losses have been reported so far.

The epicenter was located in the Pacific Ocean waters, some 49 km southeast of the city of Callao, near Lima, a report released by the Peruvian Geophysics Institute said

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Severe weather kills 8; water rises in Indiana

Tom Murphy
Associated Press
2008-06-09 12:06:00

Wicked weekend storms pounded the country from the Midwest to the East Coast, forcing hundreds of people to flee flooded communities, spawning tornadoes that tore up houses and killing at least eight people.

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Earthquake swarm picks up again in northern Nevada

Martin Griffith
Associated Press
2008-06-09 10:57:00

A months-long swarm of earthquakes picked up again Sunday as a string of minor temblors rattled Reno, causing downtown high-rises to sway and knocking items off walls and shelves.

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Colorado, US: Firefighters say fire near NORAD likely sparked by lightning


Associated Press
2008-06-07 04:57:00

Firefighters say a wildfire that broke out in grass and scrub oak near Cheyenne Mountain may have been started by lightning.

Colorado Springs Fire Lt. Brian Keys says the five-acre fire Friday likely was sparked by a lighting strike Thursday that smoldered.

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US: Tornado watch issued for northern Illinois


Chicago Sun Times
2008-06-08 04:16:00

The weekend storms have left thousands of Chicago area residents dealing with power outages, property damage and traffic snarls -- and more dangerous weather is on the way.

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for northern Illinois -- including Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Kankakee, Lake, McHenry and Will counties -- that will remain in effect until 1 a.m. Monday.

Additionally, approaching storms have prompted a lakeshore flood warning that will remain in effect until 9 p.m. because a two-foot drop in Lake Michigan water near Chicago indicates a seiche is in progress across the southern parts of the lake, causing water levels to fluctuate rapidly.

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Landslide kills two in Hong Kong


Terra Daily
2008-06-08 20:56:00

Two people were killed in Hong Kong on Saturday when their hut was crushed in a landslide triggered by the some of the worst rain here since records began, a report said.

The landslide sent a 20-tonne wall crashing onto the hut that the pair, a man and a woman, were sleeping in, local broadcaster RTHK reported on its web site.



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Hong Kong town cut off after severe floods


Terra Daily
2008-06-08 20:54:00

An isolated town in Hong Kong remained cut off Sunday, a report said, a day after torrential rain lashed the territory, killing two people.

All roads to the fishing town of Tai O, well-known for its houses propped up on stilts above the water, were blocked following landslides caused by the downpour, local broadcaster RTHK said.

The town's telephone links were cut off and there was no access to fresh water, the report said. Authorities have dispatched a tanker filled with fresh water to supply the town, which is on the outlying island of Lantau.

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One dead, one missing in flooding in Indiana


Terra Daily
2008-06-08 20:51:00

One person died and another was missing as flooding inundated central Indiana, forcing evacuations and numerous boat rescues, a state official said.

"We have one confirmed casualty," John Erikson, spokesman for the midwestern state's Department of Homeland Security told AFP, saying he did not have more details about the victim.

He also said one person was missing as flood waters swamped areas south and west of Indianapolis on Saturday.

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Lightning strike at Connecticut park injures 5


Associated Press
2008-06-08 19:59:00

MADISON - Five people are in the hospital after lightning struck a pavilion at a Connecticut state park.


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Iowa City at risk for flooding


Chicago Tribune / Associated Press
2008-06-07 17:58:00

Officials warn that the Coralville Reservoir could top its spillway and flood Iowa City by Tuesday.

Levels for the Iowa River are predicted to be similar to those seen in the flood of 1993. Officials say that people whose property was affected in 1993 should assume that situation will repeat itself.

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India: Six killed, 2 injured by lightning


The Telegraph
2008-06-07 17:01:00

At least six women were killed and two injured due to lightning strikes at several villages in Dumri block on Saturday evening.

Among the casualties were three women and three girls. The incident took place around 4pm.

The two girls have been identified as Rinki (8) and Punam (6). They were collecting berries at Kasma-Kurma when the lightning struck.

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Health & Wellness
Foreclosures are increasing West Nile virus danger in U.S.


Associated Press
2008-06-06 17:51:00

Los Angeles - Foreclosures are increasing West Nile virus dangers because of stagnant swimming pools behind abandoned homes.

The foul pools are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which can pass West Nile to humans and horses. The spike in mosquitoes comes earlier than the usual summertime appearance of the pest.

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Prejudice or perception?


University of Toronto
2008-06-09 16:55:00

Expecting to be treated with prejudice may be part of a self-fulfilling prophecy, according to new research led by a University of Toronto psychologist.

The groundbreaking study was done using a series of computer-animated male and female faces expressing a range of looks, from rejection to acceptance. Researchers created a slide show where the expressions on the animated faces morphed from looks of rejection to looks of acceptance, and study participants were asked to identify the point at which the expressions changed.

"Those female participants who told us men stereotyped them and treated them with prejudice saw rejection and contempt on the animated men's faces more readily and for a longer period of time than they did on the women's faces," says lead author Dr. Michael Inzlicht, assistant professor of psychology at U of T. "This shows that a person's level of sensitivity to being stereotyped - their expectation that a person will behave prejudicially towards them - may distort their perception of reality."

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Western Australia premier calls for GM product ban

Annolies Truman
Green Left / Australian News
2008-06-07 17:14:00

On June 2, the West Australian reported that WA Premier Alan Carpenter had called for a nationwide suspension of approvals for foods containing genetically modified (GM) crops until more health research was carried out. Carpenter said the national food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand should not approve any more food for human consumption until independent scientific trials were conducted to better determine the safety of GM foods.

The article quoted Carpenter as saying: "There are still unresolved issues and questions about the effect of genetically modified foods on human beings." He added that GM ingredients could be found in common foods including corn chips, breakfast cereals, taco shells, margarine, biscuits, soy products and oils.

On June 6 WA Conservation Council representative Dr Maggie Lilith presented the Carpenter government with a letter asking it to extend the current ban on GM crops, which will expire in early 2009 at the latest, for a further 10 years.

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CBCP predicts Pope will approve modified foods vs hunger

Jeannette Andrade
Philippine Daily Inquirer
2008-06-01 16:07:00

A Catholic Bishop on Saturday expressed optimism Pope Benedict XVI would issue this month a statement taking a favorable stance toward the use of biotechnology to address world hunger.

In a statement posted on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) website, Malolos Bishop Jose Oliveros, CBCP Episcopal Commission on Bioethics chair, said the Vatican is set to release its statement in early July.

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HPV vaccine's suspected side effects cause concern; CDC says drug is safe

Jessica Meyers
The Dallas Morning News
2008-06-06 02:18:00

Katherine Kimzey started suffering debilitating headaches, fainting spells and arthritis-like stiffness last November.

Six weeks later, the 14-year-old Dallas resident became so dizzy she could barely walk. She was hospitalized and missed three weeks of school. Then, she had a seizure. For weeks, she bounced back and forth between specialists and was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy.

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Former Head of NIH Says Link Between Autism & Vaccines Should Be Investigated

Melanie Phillips
American Free Press
2008-06-09 02:13:00

Good to see that the Telegraph of London has picked up on developments I wrote about here in the U.S., where a head of official steam is building behind the perception that there is a troubling relationship between certain childhood vaccines, including MMR (mumps/measles/ rubella), and autistic symptoms and other damage in a subset of particularly vulnerable children. As I have written, this has been prompted by recent U.S. cases in which multiple vaccinations have aggravated an underlying mitochondrial weakness to produce catastrophic effects, leading Dr. Bernardine Healy, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, to tell CBS News:

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Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey Lead the March over Vaccines and Autism

Jon LaPook
CBS News
2008-06-04 01:57:00

McCarthy and Carey
©Unknown


Led by actors Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, they're marching against the medical establishment that says there's no evidence vaccines cause autism, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports.

"We want to send the message to the CDC and our federal government that vaccinations schedules are not one size fits all for all children and that each child is different," said concerned parent Michael Williamson.

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HPV vaccine recommended for all 12-year-old girls in Ireland

Deborah Condon and Niall Hunter
IrishHealth.com
2008-06-04 01:32:00

Young girls in Ireland should be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus (HPV), as this will reduce their risk of developing cervical cancer, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has said.

HIQA has proposed a school-based national programme of vaccination for all 12-year old girls against the HPV virus, in addition to a once-off HPV vaccine programme for 13 to 15-year old girls.

It says both such vaccination schemes would, along with the new cervical screening programme, help reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in Ireland.

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Blue Zones: locales of the long lived


NPR weekend edition
2008-06-08 21:13:00

Can 'Blue Zones' Help Turn Back the Biological Clock? Dan Buettner spent five years visiting areas of the world where people tend to live longer, healthier lives, areas he calls "Blue Zones

Dan Buettner
©national geographic society
Author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe visiting "Blue Zones," where people tend to live longer and lead healthier lives




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Paxil Babies: The Dangers of Antidepressants

Bruce E. Levine
AlterNet
2008-06-06 18:58:00

Mothers suffering from depression are increasingly pushed into taking pills, at great potential risk to themselves and their infants.

Today in the United States, 11 percent of women take antidepressants, the use of antidepressants by pregnant women has dramatically increased, and postpartum depression -- rare in those cultures in which women receive high levels of social support following childbirth -- has become so staggeringly common among U.S. women that Congress is legislating increased medical treatment.


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The 5 Most Terrifying Rites of Manhood from Around the World

Alexandra Gedrose
Cracked.com
2008-06-08 15:54:00

So what did you do to earn your manhood? At the very worst, some of you had to read a prayer or two from a select holy book, maybe a distant uncle sent you a few bucks. Your parents start bugging you about getting a job and force you to move out by the time you're 20, or maybe 35.

But in some parts of the world, manhood is still something you earn.

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US: 2 in Wisconsin sickened by salmonella, possibly from tomatoes


Star Tribune/Associated Press
2008-06-07 08:50:00

Milwaukee - The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are looking into whether two cases of salmonella food poisoning in Wisconsin might have come from eating raw tomatoes.

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Science & Technology
Weapons lab develops world's fastest computer

H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press
2008-06-09 03:12:00

WASHINGTON - Scientists unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer on Monday, a $100 million machine that for the first time has performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise.

The technology breakthrough was accomplished by engineers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and IBM Corp. on a computer to be used primarily on nuclear weapons work, including simulating nuclear explosions.



Comment: And you all thought for a second that this new technology would be used for the benefit of the human race.



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NASA ties up with universities to develop planet-searching satellite

David Chandler
Domain-b.com
2008-06-07 17:23:00

Mumbai: The NASA Ames Research Center will develop the first of the planet-searching satellites along with scientists from MIT, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, as part of the six proposed spacecraft concepts that NASA has picked for its Small Explorer (SMEX) satellite programme.

The planet-searching satellite would have the potential to discover hundreds of "super-Earth" planets, ranging from one to two times Earth's diameter, orbiting other stars, an MIT release said.

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Water on the Moon?

Brad Dalton
Space.com
2008-06-05 05:06:00

Recent headlines have announced a raging controversy among scientists about whether there is actually water ice in the permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles. Because these permanently shadowed regions are extremely cold (~100K) water ice is expected to be stable there - even in the vacuum of space. If water is present, it will dramatically reduce the cost of a lunar base. The Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission is intended to test for this water by impacting the lunar surface with its empty rocket upper stage, and looking for water in the ejected plume.

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Tunguska, a century later

Sid Perkins
Science News
2008-06-05 04:49:00

Early on the morning of June 30, 1908, a massive explosion shook central Siberia. Witnesses told of a fireball that streaked in from the southeast and then detonated in the sky above the desolate, forested region. At the nearest trading post, about 70 kilometers away from the blast, people were reportedly knocked from their feet. Seismic instruments in the area registered ground motions equivalent to those of a magnitude-5 earthquake.

Effects of the event - often called the Tunguska blast, after a major river running through the area - weren't restricted to Siberia. Sensitive barometers in England detected an atmospheric shock wave as it raced westward and then detected it again after it traveled around the world. High-altitude clouds that formed over the region after the event were so lofty that they caught light from beyond the horizon, illuminating the sky so much that people at locales in Europe and Asia could read newspapers outdoors at midnight.

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Iron-Coated Fossils Hold Clues To Possible Signs Of Martian Life


Space Daily
2008-06-08 21:16:00

Fossil microbes found along an iron-rich river in Spain reveal how signs of life could be preserved in minerals found on Mars. The discovery may help to equip the next generation Mars rover with the tools it would need to find evidence of past life on the planet.

The Rio Tinto arises from springs west of Seville. These springs percolate up through iron ores that were deposited by geothermal activity more than 200 million years ago. Spring water dissolves iron sulfide minerals from the ores, and this stains the river red.

The iron sulfide minerals also dissociate to form sulfuric acid. With a pH between 1.5 and 3, Rio Tinto is as sour as vinegar, yet it supports a surprising variety of life. Bacteria, algae, single-celled organisms called protists and fungi all thrive in the acid headwaters.

Rio Tinto has attracted the attention of exobiologists because this environment can create the iron mineral hematite, which has been found on Mars. On Earth, hematite only forms with liquid water. Since liquid water is seen as a prerequisite for life elsewhere, the mineral's presence on Mars tantalizes those who hope to find signs of life, past or present, on our neighboring planet.



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Will work at Allendale County archaeological dig rewrite human history?

Liz Mitchell
The Island Packet Online
2008-06-08 18:52:00

Topper Dig 2
©Jay Karr/The Island Packet
Cynthia Curry of Charlotte holds up a piece of quartz she discovered at Topper on Wednesday.


More than 13,000 years ago, South Carolina was a wild kingdom alive with all sorts of beasts: saber-tooth tigers, beavers the size of Great Danes, camels, elephants and mastodons.

Until recently, these animals were believed to have vanished before the first Americans -- called the Clovis people -- arrived about 13,000 years ago from Asia via the Bering Sea land bridge.

That view may soon change.

An archaeological dig currently under way at the Topper Site in Allendale County is one of a handful of excavations across the country where evidence is being uncovered that could rewrite America's history.

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German scientists develop bionic eye

Robert Jaques
VNUNet.com
2008-06-02 17:30:00

German researchers today reported that a 12-year project to develop a wireless implant that can restore vision to the blind has been successful.

The researchers unveiled details of a fully implantable visual prosthesis for patients who have lost their sight through diseases of the retina.

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UK: Fraudsters hack into Home Office website

Ben Leach
The Telegraph
2008-06-08 17:06:00

Cunning computer hackers have hijacked the Home Office crime reduction website and used it to carry out an elaborate online scam.

The fraudsters set up a fake page on the website then sent millions of web users a "phishing" email purporting to be from an Italian bank, asking customers to visit the page and confirm their bank details.

Anyone who typed in their password left themselves open to money being stolen from their account.

The security breach began last Sunday and was not resolved until the following morning.

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245 Million Years Old Fossilized Burrows Suggest Lizard-like Creatures Antarctica


Science Daily
2008-06-08 16:51:00

For the first time paleontologists have found fossilized burrows of tetrapods -- any land vertebrates with four legs or leglike appendages -- in Antarctica dating from the Early Triassic epoch, about 245 million years ago.

Image
©Cara Fritz/Oregon State University
Christian Sidor of the University of Washington digs for tetrapod fossils in Allan Hills, part of the southern Victoria Land area of Antarctica, during field work in January 2006.


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Flashback: Beyond Mesopotamia: A New View Of The Dawn Of Civilization


Science Daily
2007-08-03 16:46:00

For decades, school children have learned that human civilization emerged about 5000 years ago along the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia, along the Nile, and along the Indus River.

But archaeologists working in a broad arc from the Russian steppes through Iran and onto the Arabian Peninsula are finding evidence that a complex network of cities may have thrived across the region in roughly the same era, suggesting a dramatic new view of the emergence of human civilization.

In a feature in the 3 August issue of Science, news writer Andrew Lawler details the discoveries by teams of researchers and the emerging multinational effort to piece together the array of new evidence into a unified understanding.

Image
©Map by Science
Archaeologists working in a broad arc from the Russian steppes through Iran and onto the Arabian Peninsula are finding evidence that a complex network of cities may have thrived across the region in roughly the same era as Mesopotamia.


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Process Produces Plastics That Are 10 Times More Stretchable


Science Daily
2008-06-08 16:48:00

Move over, Rumplestiltskin. Researchers in China report the first successful "electrospinning" of a type of plastic widely used in automobiles and electronics. The high-tech process, which uses an electric charge to turn polymers into thin fibers in the presence of electricity, produced plastic mats that can stretch 10 times more without breaking than the original material and could lead to new uses for the plastic, they say.

Image
©American Chemical Society
Scientists report development of a plastic that is 10 times more stretchable than that of the original material. Above is a micrograph of the electrospun nano-sized fibers.


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White Dwarf Lost In Planetary Nebula


Science Daily
2008-06-08 16:44:00

Call it the case of the missing dwarf. A team of stellar astronomers is engaged in an interstellar CSI (crime scene investigation). They have two suspects, traces of assault and battery, but no corpse. The southern planetary nebula SuWt 2 is the scene of the crime, some 6,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Centaurus.

planetary nebula SuWt 2
©NASA, NOAO, H. Bond and K. Exter (STScI/AURA)
This image of the planetary nebula SuWt 2 reveals a bright ring-like structure encircling a bright central star. The central star is actually a close binary system where two stars completely circle each other every five days. The interaction of these stars and the more massive star that sheds material to create the nebula formed the ring structure. The burned-out core of the massive companion has yet to be found inside the nebula. The nebula is located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. This color image was taken on Jan. 31, 1995 with the National Science Foundation's 1.5-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. CTIO is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which has its headquarters in Tucson, Ariz.


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Astronomers Weigh The Coldest Brown Dwarfs With Astronomy's Sharpest Eyes


Science Daily
2008-06-08 16:38:00

Astronomers have used ultrasharp images obtained with the Keck Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope to determine for the first time the masses of the coldest class of "failed stars," a.k.a. brown dwarfs. With masses as light as 3 percent the mass of the sun, these are the lowest mass free-floating objects ever weighed outside the solar system.

binary 2MASS 1534-2952AB
©Dr. Michael Liu (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii)
Infrared image of the very low-temperature binary 2MASS 1534-2952AB, composed of two methane brown dwarfs.


The observations are a major step in testing the theoretical predictions of objects that cannot generate their own internal energy, both brown dwarfs and gas-giant planets. The new findings, which are being presented June 2 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis, show that the predictions may have some problems.

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Origins of the brain


Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
2008-06-08 16:15:00

One of the great scientific challenges is to understand the design principles and origins of the human brain. New research has shed light on the evolutionary origins of the brain and how it evolved into the remarkably complex structure found in humans.

The research suggests that it is not size alone that gives more brain power, but that, during evolution, increasingly sophisticated molecular processing of nerve impulses allowed development of animals with more complex behaviours.

The study shows that two waves of increased sophistication in the structure of nerve junctions could have been the force that allowed complex brains - including our own - to evolve. The big building blocks evolved before big brains.

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Film content, editing, and directing style affect brain activity, NYU neuroscientists show

James Devitt
New York University
2008-06-08 13:14:00

Using advanced functional imaging methods, New York University neuroscientists have found that certain motion pictures can exert considerable control over brain activity. Moreover, the impact of films varies according to movie content, editing, and directing style. Because the study, which appears in Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, offers a quantitative neuroscientific assessment of the impact of different styles of filmmaking on viewers' brains, it may serve as a valuable method for the film industry to better assess its products and offer a new method for exploring how the brain works.

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Our Haunted Planet
California: Satellites Or UFOs Over San Jose?


KTVU.com
2008-06-09 17:52:00

The appearance of at least two fast-moving shining objects in the weekend daytime sky over San Jose has local residents wondering if they were UFOs.

Bob Lochridge, a local resident who recorded the objects, said they streaked across the skies.

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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Spoof Doomsday Cult Prepares For 'Annual' Apocalypse In July 2008


BestSyndication
2008-06-05 06:49:00

Cleveland, Ohio, June 5, 2008: The Church of the SubGenius has announced that the end of the world will take place in precisely thirty days, on X-Day: Saturday, July 5, 2008. In preparation for the fulfillment of this doomsday prophecy, the Church has issued a call to all of its members, to participate in a festival with rock concerts and blasphemous rituals taking place in upstate New York, during the final weekend before the arrival of the apocalypse.

The Church of the SubGenius is a popular organization often seen as a "parody" of religious cults, including Scientology, the Raelians, the Unification Church, and racist hate groups such as Christian Identity. The organization is widely seen as a satire that mocks organized religion, or as the church describes itself, "a cynisacreligion."

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Antarctica base gets 16,500 condoms before darkness


Reuters
2008-06-09 04:11:00

One of the last shipments to a US research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper has reported.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

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Bugs deliver more minerals and healthier fats than beef or pork

William Saletan
Slate Magazine
2008-06-04 22:40:00

Pass the Land Shrimp

Here's something good you can do for your body and your planet: Eat more bugs.

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Cubans guard glasses on Lennon statue after thefts

Will Weissert
Associated Press
2008-06-07 22:44:00

HAVANA -- All he needs is love - and someone to keep an eye on his glasses.
Image
©AP Photo/Javier Galeano
Cuban watchman Juan Gonzalez, smoking a cigar, gestures next to John Lennon statue in Havana Tuesday, June 3, 2008. Ever since thieves twice nicked the round-rimmed wire spectacles from the nose of Havana's bronze John Lenon statue shortly after it was unveiled in 2000, four retirees have worked rotating, 12-hour day and night shifts to ensure they don't go missing again.


Ever since thieves twice swiped the iconic round-rimmed spectacles from Havana's John Lennon statue eight years ago, four retirees have rotated 12-hour, round-the-clock shifts to ensure they don't go missing again.

"You have to be here every day because the day you aren't, there the glasses go," said watchman Juan Gonzalez, an 89-year-old retired filing clerk who smokes up to seven cigars a day guarding the bronze statue from a nearby bench.



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Famous Exorcist: "The devil loves to take over those who hold political office"


Catholic News Agency
2008-06-08 22:42:00

In an interview with the magazine Maria Mensajera, famous Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth said, "Everybody is vulnerable to the work of Satan" and that "the devil loves to take over those who hold political office."


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UK: Dying man wins gamble on his own life


Milton Keynes Today
2008-06-08 15:05:00

A dying man who literally gambled on his own life plans to spend his bookie's winnings on booze, fags and death-defying theme park rides!

"Well, why not?" said pragmatic Jon Matthews who has been living on borrowed time ever since he was diagnosed with an untreatable asbestos-linked cancer more than two years ago.

The 58-year-old widower, who cares for his two elderly parents at his Woburn Sands home, also plans to give away a chunk of his £5,000 winnings to Macmillian cancer care charity and Hula animal sanctuary.

Image
©Unknown
Jon Matthews


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