World-News

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0731-19.htm



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2:30pm Thursday 31st July 2008

A LOWER Gornal councillor said he is “over the moon” after council planners refused a mobile phone mast proposed for the village.

Mobile phone company O2 had submitted plans to Dudley Council proposing to build a 12.5m pole and radio base station in the middle of the Abbey Road roundabout - just a few a hundred yards away from another mast.

Following protests from residents, businesses and councillors, the mast was refused as it would be “unduly prominent and visible within its surroundings.”

Planners also turned down the application as it would cause traffic chaos on the road when it was being installed and maintained.

Read More...
http://www.dudleynews.co.uk/news/local/3561040.Joy_at__no__to_mast/

Richard B. Schmitt, The Los Angeles Times: "Congress has been awash in corruption scandals, the latest being the indictment of long-serving Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, but prospects for legislation to make questionable practices like Stevens's alleged acceptance of gifts illegal in their own right appear grim. A year after a bipartisan group of senators proposed giving the Justice Department important new clout in pursuing official misconduct, the Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act is apparently blocked in Congress."

http://www.truthout.org/article/in-congress-no-anti-corruption-legislation-sight



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Matt Apuzzo, The Associated Press: "President Bush's top advisers are not immune from Congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches. The House Judiciary Committee wants to question the president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and former legal counsel Harriet Miers, about the firing of nine US attorneys. But President Bush says they are immune from such subpoenas. They [Miers and Bolten] say Congress can't force them to testify or turn over documents. US District Judge John Bates disagreed, saying there's no legal basis for that argument and that Miers must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person."

http://www.truthout.org/article/us-judge-white-house-aides-can-be-subpoenaed



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Peter S. Goodman, of The New York Times, reports: "The number of Americans who have seen their full-time jobs chopped to part time because of weak business has swelled to more than 3.7 million - the largest figure since the government began tracking such data more than half a century ago. The loss of pay has become a primary source of pain for millions of American families, reinforcing the downturn gripping the economy. Paychecks are shrinking just as home prices plunge and gas prices soar, furthering the austerity across the nation."

http://www.truthout.org/article/a-hidden-toll-employment-cut-part-time



Mounting Job Losses Point to More Economic Troubles

Kevin G. Hall, reporting for McClatchy Newspapers, writes: "Employers shed jobs in July for the seventh consecutive month and the national unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday."

http://www.truthout.org/article/mounting-job-losses-point-more-economic-troubles



Automakers Race Time as Their Cash Runs Low

Bill Vlasic, reporting for The New York Times, writes: "The downturn in the American auto industry is rapidly becoming a full-blown fight for survival among Detroit's big automakers. In the latest sign of the deepening troubles."

http://www.truthout.org/article/automakers-race-time-their-cash-runs-low



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Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write for Truthout: "Like the largesse he spread so bountifully to members of Congress and the White House staff - countless fancy meals, skybox tickets to basketball games and U2 concerts, golfing sprees in Scotland - Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving. The notorious lobbyist and his cohorts (including conservatives Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed) shook down Native American tribal councils and other clients for tens of millions of dollars, buying influence via a coalition of equally corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds. A report earlier this summer from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform builds on an earlier committee investigation that detailed some 485 contacts between Abramoff and the Bush administration. According to the new report, 'Senior White House officials told the Committee that White House officials held Mr. Abramoff and members of his lobbying team in high regard and solicited recommendations from Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues on policy matters.'"

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-wave-capitol-crimes-continues



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ANGRY Heanor Road residents have accused mobile phone bosses of being sneaky after a phone mast was put up opposite their homes at 5am last week.
But they also reserved some of their anger for Erewash Borough Council who they said were naive and incompetent in allowing the installation to go ahead.

Read More...
http://www.ilkestonadvertiser.co.uk/news/Mobile-phone-bosses-and-council.4345886.jp

By Kernan Andrews

An Bord Pleanála’s refusal to grant planning permission to Meteor to retain mobile phone masts on a house in Newcastle has been hailed as a “major victory for the Newcastle community” by Labour Cllr Billy Cameron.

ABP has refused to grant planning permission to Meteor Mobile Communications Ltd for retention of three antennae and one telecommunications dish at 16 Upper Newcastle.

The mast was erected by Meteor in November 2006, but according to Cllr Cameron, this was done without planning permission. Local residents brought it to his attention in August 2007 and the Labour man recognised that legislation forbids masts being erected on private dwellings or on a residential apartment complex.

Read More...
http://www.galwayadvertiser.ie/content/index.php?aid=13185

By Kevin Doyle

Thursday July 31 2008

IS this swimming pool "Ireland's biggest phone mast"?

Around 50 mobile phone and telecommunication devices on top of a Dublin swimming pool are a "serious health risk" and "an eyesore", it was claimed today.

The sheer quantity of masts at the Coolock pool is "shocking and scary", according to Fine Gael TD Terence Flanagan.

"The pool at the Northside Shopping Centre must be the largest phone mast in the country," he said.

According to Deputy Flanagan there is widespread concern in the area about "the massive cluster of mobile phone masts".

Read More...
http://www.herald.ie/national-news/health-fears-over-phone-masts-at-pool-1444009.html

CounterPunch
by Dave Lindorff

Time is short, but even at this late date, it would be a simple matter to impeach the president on some issues. As several of Friday’s witnesses pointed out, President Bush has essentially dared Congress to act, admitting that he openly violated the FISA law — a felony, and openly admitting that he has refused to enact laws passed by the Congress, claiming a power — unitary executive authority — not even mentioned in the Constitution. He has openly admitted to having known about, and approved, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ devised by his subordinates — techniques like waterboarding which clearly violate the Geneva Conventions and US law. No hearings would be required to establish these high crimes and misdemeanors. They could simply be voted on by an Impeachment Committee and sent to the full House for a vote. Even if there were no time for a Senate trial, the simple act of impeaching the president for one or more abuses of power would serve notice on future presidents that future such abuses would not be tolerated. Failure to do so, and allowing this administration to leave office unimpeached, would send the opposite message: that Congress is no longer a co-equal branch of government, but is merely a consultative body, at best, and that a president is in effect a dictator...

http://counterpunch.org/lindorff07302008.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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Charlotte Observer

07/30/08

President Bush approved an order Wednesday that rewrites the rules governing spying by U.S. intelligence agencies, both in the United States and abroad, and strengthens the authority of the national intelligence director, according to a U.S. official and government documents. Executive Order 12333, which lays out the responsibilities of each of the 16 agencies, maintains the decades-old prohibitions on assassination and using unwitting human subjects for scientific experiments, according to a power point briefing given to Congress that was reviewed by The Associated Press...

http://tinyurl.com/552hch



Spying in defense of liberty

Crosscut Seattle
by Knute Berger

07/30/08

Barry Goldwater famously said that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” But I suspect even the late Arizona senator and 1964 GOP presidential candidate might be creeped out if he knew about the privatization of Big Brother. Is it OK for private groups to infiltrate domestic citizen’s groups? Is spying in defense of liberty a virtue or a vice?A recent revelation is in a new story from Mother Jones that reveals that a leading gun control advocate, Mary McFate, is apparently the same person as Mary Lou Sapone, “a self-described ‘research consultant,’ who for decades has covertly infiltrated citizens groups for private security firms hired by corporations that are targeted by activist campaigns. For some time, Sapone also worked for the National Rifle Association.” She was active in anti-gun groups...

http://www.crosscut.com/blog/mossback/16343/Spying+in+defense+of+liberty/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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Mit dem Abschwung drohen weitere Kreditausfälle und weitere Bankenzusammenbrüche.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/28/28434/1.html



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He said the U.S. Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates 200 basis points by the end of 2009 as a result.

http://tinyurl.com/6xzw6s



America's house price time bomb

With the American housing market in its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Bush is authorising new legislation to pave the way for massive new government intervention designed to slow the slide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7529277.stm



Property economist warns of 25-year slump

Bearish analyst Capital Economics said house prices would fall 35% over the next three years and provided the market was stabile, prices would not reach 2007 levels until 2036.

http://tinyurl.com/5o2a89



Consumer confidence plunges near historical low: ABC

American consumers' confidence plummeted in the latest week, with only 10 percent of respondents in a recent poll having a positive view on the economic outlook, a report showed on Tuesday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2937351620080729?rpc=401&


From Information Clearing House



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By Robert Scheer

Both of our leading presidential candidates are scrambling to enlist not only the big-dollar contributions but, more frighteningly, the "expertise" of the very folks who advocated the financial industry deregulations at the heart of this meltdown.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20382.htm



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By Bennet Kelley

The Iraqi's have rejected this invitation to be an American colony as "arrogant" and an affront to their sovereignty, but the White House is playing hardball and recently cost the Iraqi's $5 billion by blocking the transfer of certain Iraqi currency reserves out of the declining dollar.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20380.htm



Defeated in Iraq?

By Mike Whitney

Look for it at the pawn shops, the homeless shelters, and the growing number of empty sub-divisions.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20384.htm



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By Eric Margolis

It is unfortunate that Obama has adopted President George Bush's misleading terminology, "war on terror," to describe the conflict between the United States and anti-American groups in the Muslim world. Like many Americans, he and his foreign policy advisors are sorely misinformed about the reality of Afghanistan.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20386.htm



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The Associated Press: "A chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists said Tuesday. Derek Mueller, a researcher at Trent University, was careful not to blame global warming, but said the event was consistent with the theory that the current Arctic climate isn't rebuilding ice sheets."

http://www.truthout.org/article/seven-square-mile-ice-sheet-breaks-loose-canada



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Bill Moyers Journal: On Friday, Bill Moyers Journal revisits the Abramoff scandal and "examines the web of relationships, secret deals and political manipulation that expose the use and abuse of power in American politics. In this update of a report that aired in 2006, Moyers and his colleagues untangle e-mails, reports, interviews and facts on the record to reveal an astonishing pattern of criminal and political chicanery."

http://www.truthout.org/article/abramoff-lobbying-scandal



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Rory Carroll, The Guardian UK: "The global food and fuel crisis has hit Haiti harder than perhaps any other country, pushing a population mired in extreme poverty towards starvation and revolt. Hunger burns are called 'swallowing Clorox,' a brand of bleach. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization predicts Haiti's food import bill will leap 80 percent this year, the fastest in the world."

http://www.truthout.org/article/half-haitians-face-starvation



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Interview with Dennis Kucinich (Iimpeachment)
http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/a1f1784c5cb597?hl=en



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