World-News

Muslim, Arab and South Asian passengers are being profiled by Homeland Security officers at Kennedy Airport, civil liberties groups said Wednesday, citing a New Jersey family that was detained and interrogated after a flight from Dubai last week.

http://tinyurl.com/nyysu


From Information Clearing House

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/15344904.htm


From Information Clearing House

Video

Has the military become too important in American life?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8494.htm

Now cited as evidence of weapons activity, facility was provided to Shah's government.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14683.htm

New consultations might be needed to discuss Iran's response to international proposals to resolve the dispute over Tehran's controversial nuclear program, but Russia remains committed to dialogue, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060823/53026516.html


From Information Clearing House

The US-led "war on terror" has bolstered Iran's power and influence in the Middle East, especially over its neighbour and former enemy Iraq, a thinktank said today.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14669.htm

A senior U.S. military spokesman says Iranian forces have infiltrated Iraq to provide training, money and equipment to Shi'ite extremists and fuel their insurgency. The officer went farther than others have in detailing Iran's alleged role in Iraq's violence.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-08-23-voa58.cfm


From Information Clearing House

A force of around 4,000 British troops will stay behind in Iraq for an indefinite period, even after all provinces controlled by the UK are handed over to the Baghdad government in nine months' time, senior defence sources said yesterday.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14671.htm

By Jason Miller

Wage slaves and sweat shop laborers have supplanted serfs and chattel slaves. Five major corporations comprise 90% of the mass media in the United States. What are their specialties? Shaping public opinion to maintain the illusion that one of the world’s most rapacious and bellicose nations is a “benevolent superpower”.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14664.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The House of Representatives “must impeach President Bush for war, lying about war, and threatening more wars,” a distinguished international legal authority at the University of Illinois College of Law, Urbana-Champaign, contends. The Bush Administration “demonstrates little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international law, international organizations, and human rights, let alone appreciation of the requirements for maintaining international peace and security,” writes Professor Francis A. Boyle in a just published article. “What the world has watched instead is a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international legal order by a group of men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian in their perception of international relations and in their conduct of both foreign policy and domestic affairs,” Boyle wrote in “The Long Term View: a Journal of Informed Opinion” published by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. Claiming President Bush’s policies “represent a gross deviation from those basic rules of international deportment and civilized behavior” the U.S. once stood for, Boyle said America’s foreign policies today “constitute ongoing criminal activity under well-recognized principles of both international law and U.S. domestic law, and in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles.” Boyle called it a “great irony” in that six decades ago the U.S. participated in the prosecution of Nazi officials “for committing some of the same types of heinous international crimes that members of the Bush Jr. administration currently inflict upon people all around the world.” Boyle also charged the Administration with “grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1907 Hague Regulations on land warfare, torture, disappearances, and assassinations.” The legal authority pointed out that Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land” and that this “Supremacy Clause” applies to international executive agreements by the President such as the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. As an example, Professor Boyle noted that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when White House Counsel authorized the CIA to transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation, “a practice that contravenes the Geneva Conventions---and subsequently led to widespread abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.” The torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Boyle goes on to write, makes President Bush accountable under U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 as he is Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. The alternative to impeachment of President Bush and his accomplices, Boyle writes, “is likely to be an American Empire abroad, a U.S. police state at home, and continuing wars of aggression to sustain both --- along the lines of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984.” Professor Boyle, who received his J.D. degree magna cum laude from Harvard, was a teaching fellow there and Associate at its Center for International Affairs before joining the faculty at Illinois. Professor Boyle drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was approved unanimously by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. He has written eight books including “Destroying World Order”(Clarity Press) and “Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law.” He has served as legal counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the Blackfoot Nation of Canada, and as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations. #

(Further Information: fboyle@law.uiuc.edu; or Sherwood Ross, Media Consultant to Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, 305 205-8281)



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

An experimental variety of genetically engineered bentgrass has escaped from its test plot in Oregon and has been found growing in the wild as far as three miles away, according to scientists from the U.S. EPA. The biotech plant, designed for golf courses, has not been approved by the USDA, but has already been found dispersing among native grasses in six different locations. Scientists say they don't know how will behave in the wild but admit it may have a strong advantage over native grasses, and could therefore irreversibly damage the ecosystem as it spreads. According to Tom Stohlgren, an ecologist at the US Geological Survey's National Institute of Invasive Species Science, the experimental bentgrass "can tend to outcompete other species...It doesn't need to sexually reproduce - it's like The Blob. It could potentially hit rare species or national parks."

Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1575.cfm

The coalition, founded by Pat Robertson, became politically powerful under Executive Director Ralph Reed, who left in 1997. Reed lost an election in Georgia last month after being linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "The sooner the organization goes completely away, the better," says Steve Scheffler, who led the breakaway of the coalition's Iowa chapter. "They're a total disgrace."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406F.shtml

"By linking Iraq with the war on terror," writes Sidney Blumenthal, "Bush has created a dynamic that threatens to destroy him."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406D.shtml

Even before Iran gave its formal counter-offer to ambassadors of the P5+1 countries Tuesday, the Bush administration had already begun the process of organizing sanctions against Iran. A day later, a Congressional report warned that the US was facing "significant gaps" in its intelligence on Iran that could be as serious as the shortcomings in its pre-war knowledge about Iraq, leaving Washington ill-prepared to assess Tehran's military capabilities.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406C.shtml

Ken Silverstein interviews CIA Veteran Michael Scheuer: "Every time we interfere in Muslim countries, they get more support. In the long run, we're not safer, because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406B.shtml

Only as journalists stop cowering and start reporting on the basic flaws of the "war on terror" concept will the body politic benefit from the free circulation of ideas and information - the lifeblood of democracy. And only then will there be appreciable media space to really explore why so many people have become violently angry with America.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406A.shtml

An analysis of the nation's most important labor-market survey concludes that official estimates of the number of Americans living in poverty and without health insurance may significantly underestimate the true number of poor and uninsured. According to the study, conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the measurement problems with the Current Population Survey (CPS) have been growing, making it difficult to assess changes in economic well being over time.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406P.shtml

"Somehow political power has fallen into the hands of people who want to dismantle everything that works, and conduct business as if they were running a medieval duchy - or a third world tin-pot dictatorship. (Yes, contractors in Iraq really did receive duffel bags filled with $100 bills.) And it turns out that they can do immense damage in a very short time," writes Paul Krugman. "Remember that FEMA was regarded as one of the best agencies in the federal government at the end of the Clinton years."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406O.shtml

Michael Hirsh writes, "This is as dangerous an August as I can recall, at least since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait 16 years ago. It is the sort of moment when peace and history could be hanging in the balance for a generation to come - the kind of tipping point when American presidents can no longer leave the negotiating to underlings. They must take the world stage themselves to find a new way out, simply because no one else has the globo-oomph to do so. George W. Bush is going to Kennebunkport, where he'll test his golf skills with Poppy."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406M.shtml

The Marine Corps is planning to call up as many as 2,500 Marine reservists for combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, dipping into a rarely used pool of troops to fill growing personnel gaps in units scheduled to deploy in coming months, officials said yesterday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406L.shtml

The United States is headed for a recession that will be "much nastier, deeper and more protracted" than the 2001 recession, says Nouriel Roubini, president of Roubini Global Economics.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082406K.shtml

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5014/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Take action:
http://action.wilderness.org/ct/T12JOVY1ucFc/teshekpuk

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Four City San Francisco Supervisors have put their pens to a document that will allow the city's 421,000 registered voters an up or down vote on the merits of impeaching both President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney this November 7th. The San Francisco Impeachment Ballot Initiative, like the Berkeley Impeachment Ballot Initiative approved on June 27th, 2006, was drafted in close coordination with Constitution Summer, a nonpartisan, national coalition of students at the nation's law schools and universities. Champaign and Urbana, Illinois quietly approved the first municipal presidential impeachment initiatives in American history on April 11th, 2006.

http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=12246

TTYL

http://if.you.overreach.we.must.impeach.googlepages.com/


Informant: Scott Munson



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/10/18295990.php


Informant: Scott Munson



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Coca-Cola
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=aspartame

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5013/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1856820,00.html

By Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian

By linking Iraq with the war on terror, the president has created a dynamic that threatens to destroy him.

http://ga3.org/ct/q720pgF1cmun/

by Neil Weare and Erika Wood, TomPaine.com

The reason that felons, American terrorities and D.C. have no voting rights is tied directly to our racist past.

http://ga3.org/ct/a720pgF1cmu9/

By Richard Lyons

This is Local London

25.08.06

A group of Wallington residents are fighting moves to have their homes turned into a potential health risk without their consent after the property owners and a phone company agreed to erect an antennae.

The mobile phone company Hutchison 3G has struck a deal with landlord Playfield Properties to erect a mobile phone mast on a block of flats in the Albany, Woodcote Road.

According to current planning laws, the size of the proposed mast means it can be installed as long as the flat owners agree.

Steve Cunningham, chairman of the Albany Residents' Association, said: "We are worried about the health risk. We have two blocks of flats here and the other block already has a mast on it. continued...

"We are overloaded already without having another one. There should be more say for people who actually live in the area rather than it being forced upon them."

The proposed mast, which will be put on top of a five-story block, is less than four metres high meaning it is subject to very few planning restrictions.

Hutchison 3G has notified Sutton Council of the plans but there is nothing the local authority can do to stop it as long as the property owner agrees.

In a bid to prevent the mast being erected, the residents together with local councillors, Colin Hall and Jayne McCoy, have collected a petition of more than 100 signatures.

Councillor Hall said: "What local people are upset about is that the owners of the building haven't consulted them and neither has Hutchison 3G.

"The contract is between the mast company and the owners. Someone stands to make some money out of this but it won't be the residents who have to live with the noise and health worries the mast will create."

Gareth Coombes-Olney, corporate affairs manager for Ericsson, which is building the mast on behalf of Hutchison 3G, said residents had been informed of the plans by letter.

He added: "In this instance, it is a difficult situation in that the relevant legislation is quite clear. It can just go ahead as long as the owner of the land is happy and it complies with the planning requirements and we have written to the local authority."

By Jo Rostron

PEOPLE power has won the day in a Leeds suburb after plans for a 15-metre mobile phone mast were rejected by the city council.

Johanne Walters was one of a stream of opponents to the mast, fearing it could trigger health troubles for her two-year-old daughter, Emma, who has Down's syndrome.

T-Mobile was behind plans to site the mast on green belt land near Cookridge Hall Golf Club.

But Leeds City Council said the mast would be "highly prominent" and "intrusive."

Mrs Walters, of Hawthorne Gardens, told the YEP: "I first objected due to the fact something that tall would be an eyesore and spoil the lovely view.

"But the fact it is for T-Mobile is the worrying bit as my daughter has a heart condition, suffers with chest infections and is more likely to get leukaemia than other children and there is very little information about what the masts emit and the likely effects on your health.

"I would want T-Mobile to guarantee that my daughter would not suffer adverse health effects before I would want one anywhere near the house."
Jack and Phyllis Franks, of Kingsley Drive, have been in their home nearly 50 years and it is just yards from the site of the proposed mast.

Jack, 85, said: "We don't want any mast at all, but certainly not one with the power of this one – we would be slowly cooking. We have a human right to continue our lives with a sense of security about our health."

Neighbour Jackie Moore, 42, said: "It would not fit in at all. It was not particularly the radiation we were worried about, it would just be completely odd looking out at this thing towering above everything else."

T-Mobile submitted plans for a 15m high mast with six antennae and one dish in open countryside next to Cookridge Hall Golf Club.

Plans were to have a cypress tree style mast, allowing it to blend in with a group of eight metre-high deciduous trees which would have surrounded it.

Adam Frontal-Gay, owner of the club, said: "There is no financial gain to Cookridge Golf Club. The land is leased out to us. We don't want to offend residents. This mast will more than likely have to go somewhere in the vicinity."

Coun Barry Anderson (Con, Adel & Wharfedale) said: "The mast was set to be positioned in the green belt, in what is classified as an area of special landscape. Planners are 100 per cent correct to seek to protect landscapes like this."

A spokesman for T Mobile said: "We are looking at correspondence from the local authority, the grounds for refusal and what options are available to us."

The mast would be for third generation telecommunications to enhance broadband access for T-Mobile customers.

He added that the firm had to adhere to strict guidelines.

"The World Health Organisation produced a fact sheet in May saying that considering the very low exposure levels and research, results to date showed there is no convincing, significant evidence that the weak radio frequency signals from base stations and wireless networks cause adverse health effects."

Omega this is not true. See under:
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Cancer+Cluster
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_science.html

jo.rostron@ypn.co.uk

24 August 2006

All rights reserved © 2006 Johnston Press Digital Publishing.

http://www.leedstoday.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=39&ArticleID=1718257

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman

08/23/06

It is always amusing to watch conservatives react to court decisions they don't like. They were firmly in character last week when Federal District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the Bush administration broke the law and violated the Constitution when it began wiretapping, without warrants, international phone calls between Americans and 'suspected terrorists'...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0608g.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

MSNBC

08/23/06

The U.S. intelligence community is ill-prepared to assess Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities and its intentions for developing weapons of mass destruction, a congressional report said Wednesday. Noting 'significant gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the various areas of concern about Iran,' the House Intelligence Committee staff report questioned whether the United States could even effectively engage in talks with Tehran on ways to defuse tensions...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14489338/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5006/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

A message from Charles W. Sanders:

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/sanders/pnum459.php

Please join me in defending our Constitutional rights against illegal wiretapping which will be expressly permitted if Dick Cheney and Arlen Specter get their way. What is ironic about Cheney's obsession is that a U.S. District judge in Detroit has already ruled that wiretapping was in fact, illegal.

This fear-mongering pair, if they are not stopped, would use current Senate Bill 2453 to totally absolve their misguided conspirators and themselves of any legal wrongdoing, should they win approval. I was in a Third District assembly which included U.S. Representative John Conyers who expressed his displeasure with wiretapping and other improper incursions by the Bush and Cheney.

Please display your righteous indignation by submitting this action page so we can rally opposition to this blatant over reach on behalf of the Bush administration. If passed, this legislation would usurp any semblance of recourse through the ordinary remedies available through due process. As your representative in Congress I would vote it down. In the meantime we can speak out together against this conniving dosier. Don't allow your fourth Amendment Constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure to be swept away.

My name is Charles W. Sanders and I am running in Ohio's Third Congressional district in a special election on September 15, 2006, to become the Democratic nominee. Your submissions of my action page on the Voting Rights act had a definite impact on the renewal of this historic measure back into law earlier this year.

However, Senator Arlen Specter has worked closely with Vice President Cheney to develop a bill that would cede even more power to the executive branch -- and tries to strip us of our Fourth Amendment right not to be wiretapped without a warrant.

Specter's bill, S. 2453, would give the Administration new authority to obtain blanket "warrants" for its domestic wiretapping program - as well as for any other wiretapping programs it desires. Once it obtains this blanket permission, the Administration would apparently be exempt from the Fourth Amendment's requirement to show a reason for each wiretap and obtain a warrant. (The legislation does not directly address the fact that the wiretapping program was just declared unconstitutional in a U.S. District Court.

S. 2453 would also:

Send all court cases involving warrantless surveillance - including cases currently pending in Federal courts -- to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which is completely off-limits to lawyers without the highest security clearances. Allow these cases to be dismissed for "any reason" with no chance for appeal. Remove other protections, enabling the White House to freely conduct data-mining of your private information.

Thank you for speaking out, Charles W. Sanders

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/sanders/pnum459.php

We NEED candidates like Charles Sanders to stand up and make an issue of the repeated trangressions of the current administration. Charles needs your help to get his message out for all of us. Please make a contribution now to enable Charles to go to Congress and fight for you on the issues you care about.

DONATIONS LINK: http://www.charleswsanders.org/donations3.html

How many times have you felt helpless and wished you could influence the votes of representatives in other districts to prevail on a critical vote in Congress, but thought you could not do so effectively because you were not one of their own constituents? How much more would you support Charles if you do live in his district?

Here we have a courageous candidate who will fight for all the issues you care about, if only he is given the chance to make the run. Please donate whatever you can to help Charles get on the radio to recruit and mobilize even more people to speak out so we can have a real impact on these policy decisions now and for the future. What would you give to have a whole legislature of people like Charles Sanders? Won't you give him your support now to make that a reality?

We have been valiantly speaking out with action alerts based on one fundamental premise --- either our representatives in Congress would listen to and heed the voices of their people --- or else we would work to replace them in the next election.

The time for the replacement action is NOW.

DONATIONS LINK: http://www.charleswsanders.org/donations3.html

If each of us will just contribute what we can, to the most worthy candidates we can find, it will make a real difference in the kind of Congress we will all have to deal with in 2007. Most importantly, strong showings NOW by candidates who DO have a backbone, and WILL stand up and fight, can send a powerful message to the rest that they better start shaping up or we will ship them out too. Make your donation today and it will have cascading positive effects in many other races for months to come.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2006, Patent pending, All rights reserved

****please circulate widely****

CALL, FAX, AND EMAIL TEXAS AUTHORITIES TELL THEM „STOP THE EXECUTION OF JUSTIN FULLER! EXECUTION DATE SET FOR AUGUST 24

SEND AN AUTOMATED FAX OR EMAIL AT: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/tmn/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4941&t=cedp.dwt

GOV. RICK PERRY PHONE: 512-463-2000 FAX: 512-463-1849

CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AT: http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

TEXAS BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES PHONE: 512-406-5852 FAX: 512-467-0945

My friend Justin Fuller is scheduled to be executed on August 24th. Justin and I have been writing for about 8 years and visiting for at least 6 years. Over the years we have grown to know one another well. He has been a good friend to me and I hope I have been to him. He is a smart, generous and beautiful young man. I'd like to do whatever I can to try to save his life, and I want you all to help me do that.

His case has numerous problems, like most death row cases. The main issues in the case have to do with incompetent or ineffective assistance of counsel. I have attached a fact sheet that Justin and I put together so that folks can get some idea of the issues. The two things that stand out are 1) the fact that the prosecution offered Justin a plea before trial and his defense lawyers never told him about it and 2) his state habeas lawyer filed a writ for Justin that was actually a writ he had done for a previous client named Henry Dunn. He didn't even change the name to Justin's in parts of the writ, and it contained facts that had to do with Henry's case, not Justin's.

Justin has admitted his involvement in the crime that landed him on death row. But he has always maintained that he was not the triggerman in the murder. Four people took part in a robbery, including Justin, a man named Samhermundre Wideman and a young woman named Elaine Hays. Justin claims Wideman was the shooter, a claim substantiated by Hays. She has stated that she believes Wideman was the shooter. She says that after Fuller and Wideman returned to the vehicle, where she had been waiting for the two men, Wideman said, „It felt good to shoot someone. The state of Texas denied Justin‚s appeal arguing that the state can still execute „non-triggermen.

The case is at the U.S. Supreme Court right now. So far all the state and federal courts have denied all of Justin's claims. The Supreme Court will only decide if they will hear his case when they come back into session. If they do, Justin will get a stay If they don't, the case goes back down to the state courts for the 11th hour appeals. If that happens, Justin‚s lawyers will file a claim about lethal injection as well, and there could be a stay based on that.

If Justin's execution goes forward, he has asked me to be a witness. This means I would travel to Huntsville and have to will have to watch them put my friend to death, something I cannot even imagine. When I visited him this week, he told me about how he had to ask his parents to begin to make funeral arrangements. Meanwhile, this is a healthy man, only 28 years old. It is so sick, I can hardly stand to think about it.

I am asking everyone to please send a fax / call / email to the Governor of Texas and the Board of Pardon and Parole, asking them to stop this execution. If there isn't a stay, I am asking folks in Austin and Huntsville to participate in a protest against Justin's execution

Please take the time to contact these people. The phone numbers are listed below, as well as an option to send a fax and/or and email requesting a stay. In addition, please check out an interview with Justin conducted by fellow activist and Texas death row prisoner Tony Ford at: http://www.myspace.com/tonyegbunaford999075

And sign a petition for Justin at: http://www.ncadp.org//about_us.html

--Lily Mae Hughes,
Campaign to End the Death Penalty,
Austin, Texas

------ End of Forwarded Message


Informant: Julien Ball

Author Jane Smiley calls for a return to regulation: "The fact is, the day Ronald Reagan was elected and the corporations decided to roll back the regulations that limited their power, greed, and egomania was the day they doomed themselves and all of us, because it was the day they began living the lie that there are no consequences to corporate activities."

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082306HA.shtml

"If America were like the little pig who built his house of bricks, the nation would be getting ready for the post-carbon world. But we are the pig who built his house of straw, scoffing at the existence of the wolf of scarcity who is coming to blow our house in," writes Nicholas von Hoffman. Cuba, he says, offers us the example of a different approach.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082306ED.shtml

Forests in the interior of British Columbia are changing color, turning from green to red as they become infected by the pine bark beetle, and then from red to gray once they are dead. In the words of retired US Forest Service scientist Jesse Logan, "There is a continental-scale event waiting to happen."

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082306EC.shtml

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Bush administration plan to allow commercial logging inside the Giant Sequoia National Monument violates environmental laws. Environmental groups had sued the US Forest Service over its plans for managing the 328,000-acre preserve, home to two-thirds of the world's largest trees.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/082306EB.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Sequoia+National+Monument
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=logging
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=US+Forest+Service

Iran urged Europe on Wednesday to pay attention to what it called "positive" signals in its counterproposal to a nuclear incentives package aimed at persuading Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Russia and China backed Iran's call for negotiations to end the standoff.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082306R.shtml

BBC News

August 22, 20065

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5271502.stm

Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests.

Researchers found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers.

The disease occurs naturally in many parts of the world, and the team hopes its findings will help officials limit the risk of future outbreaks.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The bacterium Yersinia pestis is believed to have triggered the Black Death that killed more than 20 million people in the Middle Ages.

Rodent hosts

The international team of scientists, who focused their research on Kazakhstan, said the disease was widespread among rodent populations.

Writing in the paper, co-author Nils Stenseth from the University of Oslo said: "The desert regions of Central Asia are known to contain natural foci of plague where the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) is the primary host.

"Plague spread requires both a high abundance of hosts and a sufficient number of active fleas as vectors transmitting plague bacteria between hosts," the Norwegian scientist added.

Fleas became active when the temperature exceeded 10C (50F), so a warm, frost-free spring led to an early start to breeding.

The flea population continued to grow when the spring was followed by a wet, humid summer, the researcher wrote.

The combination of the two seasons' climatic conditions led to an increase in the number of the insects feeding off the great gerbils, resulting in a greater transmission of plague.

The study showed that just a 1C (1.8F) rise in the springtime temperature led to a 59% increase in the prevalence of the disease.

The greater prevalence of plague in the region's wildlife increased the risk of local people becoming infected.

Each year, up to 3,000 cases of humans contracting bubonic plague are reported in Asia, parts of Africa, the US and South America.

The researchers studied data on infected gerbils, flea counts and climate patterns from 1949 to 1995.

Professor Stenseth added that their findings also helped shed light on two of the world's worst plague outbreaks: the medieval Black Death and the Asian pandemic in the 19th Century, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of people.

"Analyses of tree-ring proxy climate data shows that conditions during the period of the Black Death (1280-1350) were both warmer and increasingly wet.

"The same was true during the origin of the Third Pandemic (1855-1870) when the climate was wetter and underwent an increasingly warm trend," he added.

The researchers hope their findings will help health officials put measures in place to limit the impact of future outbreaks.

But Professor Stenseth warned that recent changes to the region's climate suggested that warmer springs were becoming more frequent, increasing the risk of human infections.


Informant: NHNE

Zur Petition von Armin Kammrad vom 09.04.2006 - siehe http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/realpolitik/zwang/rechtsbruch.html - dokumentieren wir heute:

Stellungnahme des Bundesministeriums für Arbeit und Soziales vom 1. August 2006 (pdf) http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/realpolitik/zwang/rechtsbruch3.pdf

Die Antwort von Armin Kammrad hierauf vom 21.08.2006 http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/realpolitik/zwang/rechtsbruch4.html

Aus dem Text: „…So bestehen die ersten beiden Seiten der Stellungnahme des Bundesministeriums für Arbeit und Soziales nur aus der Aneinanderreihung von Allgemeinplätzen, ohne jeden Bezug zur gesellschaftlichen Realität; diese bleibt völlig ausgeblendet. Teilweise werden sogar reine Absichtserklärungen für die Zukunft abgegeben („Das wird aber sozial ausgewogen geschehen“, S.2 BMAS, „Zu dieser Anstrengung will die Bundesregierung Mut machen“, S.2 BMAS, usw. usf.). (…) Denn nicht die verfassungsrechtlich garantierten Grundrechte, nicht die Verteidigung des Sozialstaates, sondern die „Veränderungsprozesse in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft müssen zum Ausgangspunkt genommen werden“ (S.2 BMAS). Deutlicher kann man kaum sagen, dass die sog. „Arbeitsmarktpolitik“ sich zuerst an den Renditeerwartungen der Wirtschaft orientiert; die Orientierung an das Sozialstaatsgebot des Grundgesetzes wird dem also eindeutig nachgeordnet. (…) Die Stellungnahme des BMAS widerlegt also nicht meine Behauptung von einem Zwei-Klassen-Recht, sondern bestätigt sie. Ändern will man daran sowie so nichts. Die ganze sog. „Fortentwicklung von SGB II“ baut darauf auf, dass rechtwidriges Verhalten nur bei den ALG II-Bezieher anzunehmen sei, was allein schon ein verfassungswidriges Vorgehen darstellt. Denn die Rechtsbrüche der staatlichen Stellen selbst werden völlig ignoriert, sind eben für den Gesetzgeber „nicht existent“…“


Aus: LabourNet, 24. August 2006

“Nach den Kofferbombenfunden in Deutschland und den darauf folgenden Fahndungserfolgen fordern verschiedene Politiker erneut eine Ausweitung der Anti-Terror-Maßnahmen. Diese Forderungen gehen in eine Richtung, bei der erneut die Bürgerrechte und die Freiheit des einzelnen Bürgers beschnitten werden…“ Pressemitteilung vom 23.08.2006
https://stop1984.com/content/view/428/145/lang,de/


Nach Kofferbombenfunden - mehr Videoüberwachung gegen den Terror? Ein Glossar zu einem viel diskutierten Thema

„Zwei gefundene Kofferbomben in Deutschland - und ein Tatverdächtiger festgenommen. Die Jagd nach den Tätern hat Erfolg und nicht zuletzt wegen der Kameras, die auf den Bahnhöfen installiert waren. Politiker jeder Couleur rufen nach einem Ausbau der Kameras zur Terrorabwehr - und ganz leise auch gegen die Kriminalität und das schwindende Sicherheitsgefühl der Bürger. Dabei fallen immer wieder Argumente und Begriffe, die vielleicht einer Einordnung bedürfen, da diese oft Falsches oder zumindest Widersprüchliches erzählen. Ein kleines Glossar der Begriffe rund um die Videoüberwachung soll Klarheit und Ordnung schaffen…“ Artikel von Nils Zurawski in telepolis vom 22.08.2006 http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/23/23376/1.html



Aus: LabourNet, 24. August 2006

VIDEO
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/240806soundbites.htm


Informant: shane_digital

PLAYGROUP'S fight against a mobile phone mast appears to have been lost, with the company admitting it is not concerned about residents' health fears.

In June, the Banbury Guardian reported that Drayton Playgroup could be forced to close as a result of O2's plans, with parents worried a nearby mast could increase the risk of cancer and leukaemia in their young children.

This week O2 communication manager Jim Stevenson said: "We took the decision last Wednesday and it is definitely going ahead now."

Commenting on parents' health fears, he added: "It's not something we really concern ourselves too much with. There have been a lot of studies done on mobile phone mast emmisions and they have found nothing at all that does any harm. But we will keep an eye on that."

Omega this is not true. See under:
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Cancer+Cluster
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_science.html

Parents, residents and Banbury MP Tony Baldry have all opposed the mast being so near a playgroup and Drayton School.

Playgroup supervisor and parent Diane Bates said she thought worried parents may start removing their children from the popular 20-year-old group.

"I'm worried about it; they shouldn't be putting our children at risk.

"02 claims it sent us a letter about the plans but we never received it and they never followed it up in any way.

"We will have to wait until September now to find out if people will remove their children or not."

She said she would probably cancel her own mobile contract with O2.

The 15metre-high mast is due to be put up within the next month and will be disguised as a telegraph pole and shared between O2 and Hutchison 3G.

It is being located on Oxfordshire County Council-owned land next to Trinity Close and is O2's second attempt to site a mast in the area, after it abandoned similar attempts last year at the junction of Stratford and Warwick Road following a public outcry.

Mr Stevenson said: "There were some alternative site options in Banbury but owners refused us permission to site the mast on their land.

"We have tried quite hard to make sure everyone knows what we are doing."

But the playgroup and residents believe the company's failure to communicate properly with local people could void its application.

They are now taking legal advice on whether they can still stop the mast being put up.

O2's planning application was approved by Cherwell District Council, but the authority can only object to masts of up to 15m high on siting and appearance and not on health grounds.

Protester Mary Jenvey said: "We do not want to give up when the mast has not been sited yet."

24 August 2006

All rights reserved © 2006 Johnston Press Digital Publishing.

http://www.banburyguardian.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=687&ArticleID=1717370

A leading event for the animal protection movement to be held on September 2-5 in Washington DC. Sponsored by leading organizations, Taking Action for Animals is designed to motivate, inform and inspire activists nationwide.

http://www.takingactionforanimals.com/



Join Us for the National Day for Horses

We hope you will be joining us for the upcoming Taking Action for Animals conference Sept 2-5th. However, even if you are not able to participate in the entire weekend's activities, we would still like to invite you to join us for an important Lobby Day event on Capitol Hill.

When: September 5, 2006 What Time: 10:00am - 11:00am Where: at Cannon platform at the corner of Independence Ave. and New Jersey S.E. on the Capitol grounds

It's the National Day for Horses, and we'll be coming together for a rally on the Hill for horses, designed to welcome Congress back to its first day of work and spotlight a critical piece of legislation needed to protect America's horses.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503) the first week of September. This legislation would stop the shameful slaughter of nearly 100,000 American horses for human consumption overseas.

To ensure passage of H.R. 503, we need your help — and your active participation the week of the conference.

Visit the Taking Action for Animals website for further details about this critical event. We look forward to seeing you on September 5 as we raise our collective voices for America's horses.

More information on H.R. 503 can be found on the Humane Society of The United States website page, End The Slaughter of America's Horses.
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2006_horses_cosponsorhouse2

Additional information on other Lobby Day activities September 5th, can be found at the Taking Action for Animals Schedule page.
http://www.takingactionforanimals.com/program.php

It's more important than ever that we have as many animal advocates join together on Tuesday as possible. We'll give you everything you need to be effective - so please make it a priority to attend any or all of the day's events and help us push for legislative reforms for animals.

The prestigious National Research Council has determined that it's necessary to entirely redo the Bush administration's proposed revamping of the rules by which federal agencies decide whether chemicals and other products pose risks to human health.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011207HA.shtml

by Byron Richards, CCN

Are you willing to stand in line for a virus-laden sandwich? How do you like the idea of buying virus-infested food for your family? The first virally contaminated foods entering our food supply with the blessings of the FDA will be luncheon meat and poultry. Live viruses will be sprayed on foods such as cold cuts, sausages, hot dogs, sliced turkey, and chicken.....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron7.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=G2V1UDZAS5GETQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/opinion/2006/08/23/do2304.xml


Informant: Lew Rockwell

http://www.harpers.org/sb-seven-michael-scheuer-1156277744.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell