Signs of the Times2008-05-09T12:05:58ZSigns of the Timestag:sott.net,2008-05-09:/:signsofthetimesRussia's dangerous declinetag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559282008-05-09T11:51:48ZThe United Nations Population Fund projected last week that Russia's population will drop from 142 million today to 100 million in the next 40 to 50 years. The agency's report praised recent government efforts to increase birth rates and extend lives. But not enough is being done to counter stark demographic forces: an impending decrease in the number of women of child-bearing age, poor healthcare, rampant vehicular and industrial accidents, widespread alcoholism, and social conditions that discourage family formation.
FLASHBACK: Blood moon eclipses: 2nd Coming in 2015?tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559272008-05-09T11:19:29ZMinister uses NASA forecasting to study signals of Jesus' return
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559262008-05-09T11:17:00Z
"I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No this is not a drill."
--Brett Arends
There is a time for food, and a time for ethical appraisals. This was the case even before Bertolt Brecht gave life to that expression in Die Driegroschen Oper. The time for a reasoned, coherent understanding for the growing food crisis is not just overdue, but seemingly past. Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, an organization often dedicated to flouting, rather than achieving its claimed goal of poverty reduction, stated the problem in Davos in January this year. 'Hunger and malnutrition are the forgotten Millennium Development Goal.'Mahmoud Abbas - losing his authority and disillusioned?tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559252008-05-09T11:07:13ZUnconfirmed reports in Ramallah this week suggested that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was seriously considering submitting his resignation.
According to the reports, Abbas has reached the conclusion that there is no chance that any kind of an agreement can be reached with Israel before the end of the year. Abbas's belief was enhanced during his last visit to Washington, where he met with US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.FLASHBACK: Climate Change set to fan the HIV firetag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559242008-05-09T10:53:51ZClimate change is the latest threat to the world's growing HIV epidemic, say Australian experts who warn of the "grim" outlook in the fight against the infectious disease.West Coast ports shut down as workers protest Iraq wartag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559232008-05-09T10:45:11Z
Dole Fresh Fruit Co.'s San Diego operation reported a loss of $316,000 because of a work stoppage yesterday by West Coast dockworkers protesting the Iraq war.
Dole's report of losses, mostly in bananas, was the only one disclosed by local companies in the daylong protest, which involved thousands of workers at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle.The Syrian Affair - Damascus in the Crosshairstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559222008-05-09T10:42:31ZA "very odd affair" is how the Financial Times (FT) characterized the Bush Administration's release of intelligence charging that the Syrian building bombed by the Israelis last Sept. 6 was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor just weeks from being operational.
Indeed it was "odd," and sorting through the motives behind the whole business is a little like trying to scope out the politics of ByzantiumThe Market Matrix and Modern Slaverytag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559212008-05-09T10:34:18ZSlavery is in our refrigerators. From fruit to beef, from sugar to coffee, slave labor brings food to our tables. "Miguel," a Mexican slave freed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a US human-rights organization, may have harvested the apples we eat at breakfast. Miguel picked fruit under guard in the United States. He had traveled to el norte to earn the money to pay for treatment for his six-year-old son who has cancer; instead, his employer enslaved him.Contractors Gone Wildtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559202008-05-09T10:26:43ZTheft, hookers, melting down Iraqi gold to make cowboy spurs - all in a day's work for private military contractors in Iraq?Iran accuses US, Israel of provoking Lebanon violencetag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559192008-05-09T10:20:07ZIran on Friday accused the United States and Israel of fueling the deadly sectarian fighting in Lebanon between its Shiite militant Hezbollah ally and the Western-backed ruling majority.
"Adventurous efforts and interventions by the United States and the Zionist regime are the main cause of the continuous chaotic situation in Lebanon," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said.Texas teens say they converted skull into bongtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559182008-05-09T09:56:28ZThree teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a marijuana bong.Scotland hit by scarlet fever epidemictag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559172008-05-09T09:41:11ZCases of scarlet fever in Scotland have soared to the highest level in a decade.
So far this year, 383 people have been diagnosed with the illness - three times more than the same period in 2007.How under-the-gun Iran plays it cooltag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559162008-05-09T09:36:57ZMore than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how President George W Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic contortions that were so familiar in the period before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq. Tornado knocks vehicles around in N. Carolina, kills 1tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559152008-05-09T09:35:49ZAuthorities began combing through the wreckage Friday caused by a reported tornado that killed one person and injured three others in central North Carolina.Obama vows to ensure security of Israeltag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559142008-05-09T09:33:03ZWashington - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said on Thursday the U.S. friendship with Israel was "unbreakable" and vowed to ensure the security of the Jewish state if elected president.
McCain blames bridge collapse on earmarks -- then backs offtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559132008-05-09T09:18:45ZHe had told reporters that a Minnesota span fell 'because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects.' But that may not be the case.Senate panel bans private contractors in CIA interrogationstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559122008-05-09T09:13:21ZWashington - The Senate Intelligence Committee moved on Thursday to ban the CIA from using private contractors to interrogate detainees.
The restriction is part of a bill that authorizes intelligence spending for 2009, which the panel approved on a 10-5 vote, sending it to the full Senate for further action.French flock to answer a call to work . . . by taking the day offtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559112008-05-09T09:07:23ZSchools will shut, business activity will slow and aperitifs will flow in sun-soaked gardens today while the French confirm their status as the world holiday champions with an unofficial day off.
Ignoring the call from President Sarkozy to work harder, millions of employees will down tools to travel to the seaside and the countryside on what is, in theory, an ordinary working day."Torture is terrorism", ex-Guantanamo man tells UStag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559102008-05-09T09:05:54ZKhartoum - Al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj returned home to Sudan on Friday after more than six years in the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison, urging Washington to respect human rights and branding torture as terrorism.
Haj said he and the other Guantanamo detainees had been subjected to all kinds of torture, but the worst had been when his jailers insulted Islam or desecrated the Koran in front of prisoners.
Al Jazeera Cameraman Sami al-Haj Freed From Guantánamotag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559042008-05-09T09:03:37ZKhartoum.- Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj has been released from the U.S.-run military prison at Guantánamo. Arrested in Pakistan in December 2001, al-Haj had spent nearly six-and-a-half years at Guantánamo without charge or trial. He had been on a more than a year-long hunger strike to protest his imprisonment.Philadelphia, US: Police brutality caught on videotag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559092008-05-09T09:02:45ZUS police are investigating a video showing a group of officers in Philadelphia apparently pulling three suspects out of a car and beating them.
The incident was filmed by a TV helicopter overhead. The officers were responding to reports of a shooting nearby, police said.
Al-Hajj says US wanted him to spytag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559082008-05-09T09:00:03ZA celebration has been held in Sudan after the release of Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman, from Guantanamo Bay, with hundreds of well-wishers in attendance.
U.N. Suspends Aid Supplies to Myanmartag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559072008-05-09T08:56:25ZThe United Nations suspended relief supplies to Myanmar on Friday after the military government seized the food and equipment it had already sent into the country.
Earlier, in a statement, Myanmar's military junta said it was willing to receive disaster relief from the outside world but would not welcome outside relief workers. Nearly one week after a devastating cyclone, supplies into the country were still being delayed and aid experts were being turned back as they arrived at the airport.Inside Guantanamo Baytag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559062008-05-09T08:51:46ZThe US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, on a 78-square-kilometre scrap of arid soil, is the oldest US military base outside the US.
National day of mourning to commemorate Palestinian Nakbatag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559052008-05-09T08:50:35ZA national day of mourning will be held across the Palestinian territories on Thursday to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.
Palestinian and black flags will be raised on roof tops of buildings, a partial public strike will be conducted between 12-1 am on Thursday in addition to demonstrations in cities across the West Bank.FLASHBACK: Nicotine and Autism: Another study demonstrates nicotine's neurological benefitstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559032008-05-09T08:31:25ZNicotine Receptors May Play Role In Development of Autism
Cholinergic nicotinic receptors, which have become a hot area for brain researchers, are linked to yet another psychiatric-neurological disorder - autism.
Deep inside the human brain, cholinergic nicotinic receptors are busy plying their trade, and one might view them as triple agents. They release the nerve transmitter acetylcholine from certain nerve ends, they receive it at others, and they can be stimulated by nicotine - yes, from cigarette smoking!Macedonia, US sign declaration on strategic partnershiptag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559022008-05-09T08:07:05ZOn May 7 2008, Macedonia and the US inked a declaration on strategic partnership, world news agencies reported.
The agreement expressed the two countries' intention to develop their cooperation in the fields of security, economy and culture, as well as to extend their military ties.Man dies on UK bound plane from Cyprustag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559012008-05-09T08:04:26ZA flight ended in tragedy last night when a passenger suffered what is believed to have been a heart attack just after take - off.
Hezbollah says Lebanon's US puppet government declares wartag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1559002008-05-09T07:31:26ZThe Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Thursday the U.S.-supported Beirut government had declared war by targeting its communications network.UK: More Sightings of Strange Lights at Saltcoatstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558992008-05-09T07:26:13ZAFTER last week's reports of strange lights over the skies of Saltcoats, the Herald office has been inundated by readers who also spotted the bizarre lights on Sunday, April 27.
Hezbollah seizes large parts of Beiruttag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558982008-05-09T04:35:23ZHezbollah gunmen took control of large areas of Beirut on Friday in a third day of fighting between the pro-Iranian group and fighters loyal to the U.S.-backed governing coalition.
Security sources said at least 10 people had been killed and 20 wounded. The thud of exploding grenades and crackle of automatic gunfire echoed across the city in the worst internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war.
Gunmen loyal to Hezbollah forced the pro-government Future News television off the air, said a senior official at the Beirut station. Future News is owned by Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni politician and leader of the governing coalition.'Missing link' memristor created: Rewrite the textbooks?tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558972008-05-09T03:49:54ZPortland, Oregon -- The long-sought after memristor -- the "missing link" in electronic circuit theory -- has been invented by Hewlett Packard Senior Fellow R. Stanley Williams at HP Labs (Palo Alto, Calif.) Memristors -- the fourth passive component type after resistors, capacitors and inductors -- were postulated in a seminal 1971 paper in the IEEE Transactions on Circuit Theory by professor Leon Chua at the University of California (Berkeley), but their first realization was just announced today by HP. According to Williams and Chua, now virtually every electronics textbook will have to be revised to include the memristor and the new paradigm it represents for electronic circuit theory.Bush's Food Remark Irks Indiatag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558962008-05-09T02:48:59ZNew Delhi - Indian politicians from all parties have joined in criticizing US President George W. Bush's remarks that blamed India for the global food crisis. Although the ruling Congress party has joined the chorus, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has questioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's silence on Bush's remarks. The BJP plans to raise the issue in Parliament today.Palestinians: IAF strikes in Gaza kill 1 militant, wound 13 otherstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558952008-05-09T02:27:50ZIsrael Defense Forces tanks and bulldozers rumbled into the southern Gaza Strip early Wednesday, and Israeli aircraft struck a series of targets. One militant was killed and at least 14 Palestinians, including one civilian, were wounded in the fighting, according to witnesses and medical officials. Prisoners drugged during U.S. interrogations?tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558942008-05-09T01:52:56Z
"The forced medication of detainees without their consent, either for interrogation or as a chemical restraint, is an affront to the very foundations of medical ethics," said Leonard Rubenstein, president of Physicians for Human Rights. "Detainees have a right to consent to modes of treatment, just as others do, and the Department of Defense has indeed recognized this right."More smoke and mirrors: Pelosi says more stimulus needed, Bush "in denial"tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558932008-05-09T01:41:18ZWashington - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday called for a second economic stimulus package and said President George W. Bush is "in denial" about the U.S. economy, drawing a sharp White House response.
Tax rebate checks are in the mail to millions of Americans under a $152 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year and signed into law by Bush.It's About the White Housetag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558922008-05-09T01:41:11ZLike many Americans, we have been intrigued and often exasperated by the long-running Democratic primary and the ever smaller-bore spats between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So we are thankful to Senator John McCain for reminding us Tuesday what this year's presidential race really is about.
On a day when Mr. Obama won a decisive victory in North Carolina and Mrs. Clinton eked out a win in Indiana, Mr. McCain spoke about his judicial philosophy. He is determined to move a far too conservative and far too activist Supreme Court and federal judiciary even further and more actively to the right.When Genes Go Retrotag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558912008-05-09T01:41:06Z
Pssst! I'm going on a tour of the genome - want to come?
I'm going to walk among the coiled spirals of DNA, and ponder the different histories of the different segments. For one of the most remarkable discoveries of recent decades is that genomes are not static, fixed entities that evolve as one; instead, they are highly dynamic. From one generation to the next, stretches of DNA may appear or disappear, or move from one location to another. From time to time, entire new genes appear and become established, thus expanding the organisms' genetic repertoire.Fresno man gets max sentence for killing girlfriendtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558902008-05-09T01:40:09Z
A Fresno man who killed his girlfriend received the maximum sentence Monday morning.
Matthew Sanchez was ordered to spend the next 50 years to life in prison for killing 21-year-old Megan Israelsky in December 2006.Taser use threshold slipping, probe hearstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558892008-05-09T01:13:57ZVANCOUVER - Police across North America have earned the moniker "psychiatrists in blue" for their constant intervention with the mentally ill.
It's for that reason that the Canadian Mental Health Association implored the head of a B.C. public inquiry into the use of Tasers by law enforcement Wednesday to convince police to talk more and use the Tasers less.
Yet an official with the provincial solicitor general's ministry told the inquiry there has actually been "slippage" in the threshold for the use of the shock weapons.
Kevin Begg, assistant deputy minister for the B.C. Solicitor General's Ministry, said police officers seem to be moving too quickly to use force rather than trying to calm the situation.
The Taser was never meant to be used as a compliance weapon, he said, and the government had been contemplating changes even before a man died at Vancouver's airport last year.Videotape shows troopers struggling with Tasered mantag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558882008-05-09T00:55:58ZThe Minnesota State Patrol defended its use of a Taser on a Fridley man. The stun gun was used after he punched a trooper and tried to drive from a crash scene in rush hour.
A State Patrol videotape released Thursday shows troopers struggling to subdue a motorist who died after being shot with a Taser following a car crash in January. See video HERE.
Officers responded after Mark Backlund, 29, crashed into a central median barrier on Interstate 694 in New Brighton. The Fridley man died about 40 minutes after the crash due to mixed drug use and heart problems, the autopsy report said.More Than 43,000 Unfit Troops Deployedtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558872008-05-09T00:47:36ZWashington - More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.
This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.
Cell Phone Spying: Is Your Life Being Monitored?tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558862008-05-09T00:32:38ZIt connects you to the world, but your cell phone could also be giving anyone from your boss to your wife a window into your every move. The same technology that lets you stay in touch on-the-go can now let others tap into your private world - without you ever even suspecting something is awry.
7 more cops pulled from Philly streets over taped beatingtag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558852008-05-09T00:22:44ZPhiladelphia - Seven more police officers were taken off street duty Thursday as investigators look into the videotaped police beating of three shooting suspects during a traffic stop.
'Best Santa ever' arrested in New Jersey on child sex chargestag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558842008-05-09T00:13:24ZNewark, N.J. - A rare international alert seeking a man shown in dozens of raw child porn images quickly led to the arrest of a small-time actor, who painted faces at children's parties and performed as "the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen."London Olympics terror threat used to vastly increase surveillance powerstag:www.sott.net,2008-05-09:/articles/show/1558832008-05-09T00:05:32ZThe threat of terrorism at the 2012 London Olympics is being hyped up in order to justify a vast increase in the surveillance powers of the British state.
According to a memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph, Home Office officials are planning to expand the police DNA database to identify suspects and use greater powers to track individuals through advanced closed circuit television (CCTV) technology and the Oyster card used by millions of people on London's bus and rail network.
US diplomats expelled from Belarustag:www.sott.net,2008-05-08:/articles/show/1558822008-05-08T23:58:04ZMINSK, Belarus - Eleven U.S. diplomats left Belarus on Saturday after being declared persona non grata amid escalating diplomatic tensions between Washington and the ex-Soviet nation, an embassy official said.
US warns China of 'technological isolation'tag:www.sott.net,2008-05-08:/articles/show/1558812008-05-08T23:50:51ZThe United States warned China Thursday that it risked "technological isolation" for developing unique technical standards of its own that also are shutting out foreign competition.
Despite widely accepted international standards, China developed standards mandated by government regulations amid a lack of transparency and due process, said Under Secretary of Commerce Christopher Padilla.
"These requirements certainly provide Chinese domestic companies an unfair advantage, but they also carry great risks for China," he told a conference in Washington on standards and innovation in China.Saturn Does The Wave In Upper Atmospheretag:www.sott.net,2008-05-08:/articles/show/1558802008-05-08T23:46:38ZTwo decades of scrutinizing Saturn are finally paying off, as scientists have discovered a wave pattern, or oscillation, in Saturn's atmosphere only visible from Earth every 15 years.
The discovery of the wave pattern is the result of a 22-year campaign observing Saturn from Earth (the longest study of temperature outside Earth ever recorded), and the Cassini spacecraft's observations of temperature changes in the giant planet's atmosphere over time.
The Cassini infrared results, which appear in the same issue of Nature as the data from the 22-year ground-based observing campaign, indicate that Saturn's wave pattern is similar to a pattern found in Earth's upper atmosphere. The earthly oscillation takes about two years. A similar pattern on Jupiter takes more than four Earth years. The new Saturn findings add a common link to the three planets.Ecuador analyzes Colombia-Ecuador diplomatic crisistag:www.sott.net,2008-05-08:/articles/show/1558792008-05-08T23:46:31ZQUITO -- Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, together with members of the country's Security Council, on Friday analyzed the recent Colombia-Ecuador diplomatic crisis, which was triggered by a unilateral cross-border attack by Colombian troops.