World-News

Center for Public Integrity: Broken Government
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/10



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Center+for+Public+Integrity

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/10-6



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Deborah+Zabarenko

Robin Willoughby, Share The World's Resources: "The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be rightly lauded as a landmark in international attempts to formalize the rights and responsibilities between governments and their citizens. If we ask if the Declaration has proven a success, however, we need only glance at a few statistics; almost three billion people live in poverty on less than US$2.50 a day, and the number of hungry people actually increased this year to nearly one billion people. As the world reaped record levels of harvests in 2008, the most basic right to food is still denied to around 1 in 6 people on the planet. But how did we get to this situation?"

http://www.truthout.org/121008F

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Climate Change is an Issue of Human Rights
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/10-11

Human Rights Violations in Our Own Backyard
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/10-4

ACLU Marks 60th Anniversary of Landmark Human Rights Document
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/10-3



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=human+rights+violation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=ACLU
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robin+Willoughby
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mary+Robinson
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Sumayyah+Waheed

Dec 11 2008 by Andrew Pugh, Neath Guardian

CONTROVERSIAL plans to build a powerful mobile phone mast near two schools have been given the green light – despite fears children will be blasted by cancerous radiation.

The new 3G mast will be placed 200 metres from Crynallt Junior and Infant schools in Cimla and 16 metres from an existing mobile phone mast.

The latter was rejected by the planning department five years ago following an 800-name petition, but it went ahead in August 2003 after the Assembly overturned the decision on appeal.

Read More...
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/south-wales-news/neath/2008/12/11/community-s-fears-fail-to-block-mast-91466-22442547/



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=school+mast

Am 17. Dezember stimmt das Europäische Parlament über zwei Gesetzesvorlagen ab – die Erneuerbare-Energien-Richtlinie sowie die Richtlinie über die Kraftstoffqualität. Beide Gesetze beinhalten umfangreiche und langfristig bis zum Jahr 2020 ausgerichtete Regelungen zu Agrosprit, die über die darin festgelegten Agrospritziele eine massive Ausweitung der Produktion von Agrokraftstoffen bedeuten.

Da die Produktion in der EU kaum noch erhöht werden kann, soll vor allem aus den Tropenländern massenhaft Agrosprit in Form von Palm-, Soja- und Jatrophaöl sowie Ethanol aus Zuckerrohr importiert werden - auf Kosten der Menschen, Regenwälder, Biodiversität und des Klimas.

Bitte nehmen Sie an der nachfolgenden Protestbriefaktion teil, und bitten Sie die AbgeordnetenINNEN des Europaparlaments, gegen diese Gesetzestexte zu stimmen, es sei denn, alle Maßnahmen, die Agrosprit fördern, können noch in letzter Minute gestrichen werden. (Start: 05.12.2008)

Nein zur Agrospritpolitik der EU
http://www.regenwald.org/protestaktion.php?id=340



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Agrosprit
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Regenwald
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Biodiversität

Alister Doyle and Anna Mudeva, Reuters: "The United States and other rich nations must pledge by the end of next year specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to win agreement on a U.N. climate pact, the UN's top climate official said on Tuesday. Some analysts say that President-elect Barack Obama may not be ready to set formal emissions targets for 2020 within a year, and that economic recession could delay an end-2009 deadline by 190 nations for agreement on a new UN global warming pact. 'We have to have numbers on the table from industrialized countries (by the end of 2009) otherwise the other dominoes won't fall,' Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said during December 1-12 talks on global warming."

http://www.truthout.org/121008O



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=greenhouse+gas
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Yvo+de+Boer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alister+Doyle
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Anna+Mudeva

Agence France-Presse: "Fragments of bricks, engraved with cuneiform characters thousands of years old, lie mixed with the rubble and sandbags left by the US military on the ancient site of Babylon in Iraq. In this place, one of the cradles of civilisation, US troops in 2003-2004 built embankments, dug ditches and spread gravel to hold the fuel reservoirs needed to supply the heliport of Camp Alpha. Today, archaeologists say a year of terracing work and 18 months of military presence, with tanks and helicopters, have caused irreparable damage."

http://www.truthout.org/121008L

Wildlife-friendly ranchers like Larry and Bette Haverfield have worked hard to preserve the American grasslands that they own and lease. That’s why they volunteered their land for the reintroduction of the once-thought-to-be-extinct black-footed ferret.

But last week, commissioners in Logan County, Kansas put the ranchers on notice: forced prairie dog poisonings could happen as early as this Monday, December 15th -- a move that would destroy the state’s largest prairie dog town and effectively end black-footed ferret recovery in the state.

Write Kansas Governor Sebelius today and urge her to stop the needless poisonings on the prairie.

http://tinyurl.com/684ggt



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=prairie+dog

The phone mast off Smithy Lane in Bardsey back in 2003. Numerous mobile phone comapnies have attempted to erect masts around the village.

Published Date: 10 December 2008

BARDSEY residents continue to be blighted by a continuous buzzing noise they claim is coming from a mobile phone mast situated near their homes.

Orange was refused permission by Leeds City Council in the summer to keep its 15m mast on land at Sarsdale Ridge following hundreds of objections from Bardsey home owners.

But despite this refusal, the communications company has now chosen to use temporary planning laws to keep the mast up and it's appealed to The Government Planning Inspectorate in Bristol.

Read More...
http://www.wetherbynews.co.uk/wetherby/Barsey-phone-mast-conitinues-to.4778766.jp

International Relations and Security Network (ISN) (Zurick)
by Shaun Waterman

12/09/08

The last time the US embarked on a major war in the Middle East, in 1990, the legacy included a generation of veterans who were victims of Gulf War Syndrome, and who had to wage a long fight against bureaucracy to get their disease officially acknowledged.Now some fear the latest US war there is also leaving a generation of veterans sick in ways they will have to fight to get recognized and treated for. …. there are fears that a new generation of veterans will face similar official indifference to a new generation of disabling conditions resulting from the unique conditions of their own conflict.In the case of these veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the “invisible wounds” are Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other stress-related conditions...

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?ots591=4888CAA0-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=94549


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=traumatic+brain+injury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=PTSD
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gulf+War+Syndrome
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=veterans

Foundation for Economic Education
by Robert P. Murphy

12/09/08

On Sunday, September 7, the United States government took control of more than half the U.S. mortgage market, through its seizure—and that is the word used in mainstream press accounts—of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two colossal government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), hybrid organizations owned by private individuals yet created by the government. The likes of this and other recent actions taken by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have not been seen since the 1930s. Will the GSE takeover someday be viewed as a decisive step in bringing state socialism to the United States?

http://tinyurl.com/6qahnt


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Republicans Bring Socialism to America

Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "Let the record show that it was George W. Bush, the rich Texas Republican, who brought socialism to America, so don’t blame it on that African-American Chicago Democrat community organizer who made it into the White House. The government takeover of the banking and automobile industries not only happened on President Bush’s watch, it was also the deregulatory mania of this president’s family, beginning with his father, which took this country into such starkly unfamiliar territory."

http://www.truthout.org/121008D



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mortgage
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fannie+Mae
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Freddie+Mac
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GSEs
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Treasury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paulson
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bernanke
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Federal+Reserve
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+P.+Murphy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Scheer

Capitalist blasphemy?

Tom Paine/Our Future
by Tom Sullivan

12/07/08

Until recently, any suggestion that we should prevent corporations from becoming too big to fail was capitalist blasphemy. As the Federal Reserve considers printing money to support more government bailouts, an already old acronym has been reborn: TBTF (Too Big To Fail). In all the discussion of reckless corporate decision-making and financial industry bailouts, there has been little discussion of whether any corporation should be allowed to become TBTF. The global financial system needs retooling. There have even been calls for a Bretton Woods II, but with no consensus on what direction it might take...

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008124907/capitalist-blasphemy


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Federal+Reserve
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=financial+system
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Sullivan

Liberty For All

12/09/08

The following resolution was passed by the Libertarian National Committee on Dec. 7, 2008 at its quarterly board meeting: RESOLUTION CONDEMNING DOMESTIC DEPLOYMENT OF THE U.S. MILITARY WHEREAS, the domestic deployment of 20,000 uniformed military personnel planned by the United States government undermines the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which forbids the use of the military for domestic policing...

http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=1675


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=domestic+security

Die Energie- und Klimawochenschau: Führende EU-Politiker klammern sich angesichts der Wirtschaftskrise an überkommene Strukturen, gefährden damit den Klimaschutz und versäumen den Umbau der Industriegesellschaft.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29305/1.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wirtschaftskrise
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Klimaschutz
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Industriegesellschaft

Nach dem Bericht der Gemeinsamen Konferenz Kirche und Entwicklung sind die deutschen Rüstungsexporte im letzten Jahr gegenüber 2006 um 13 Prozent gestiegen.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29302/1.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rüstungsexport

Deswegen sind sie ein Warnsignal für andere EU-Staaten.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29310/1.html

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/09-5



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=ACLU

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/brown-c5.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=/brown

http://lewrockwell.com/north/north668.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/north

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-a-battle-for-the-planet-1059458.html


From APFN daily update



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=climate+change
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Poznan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+McCarthy

London-based GFC Economics is making a frightening prediction: By spring 2009, the United States could be facing more than 1 million layoffs every successive month.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Coming_soon_to_U.S._1_million_1207.html



Economy bad all over, even before current crisis

New census data shows that throughout the first half of the decade, the slumping economy touched nearly every community in the country. Incomes dropped while poverty and unemployment rose in the vast majority of the nation's cities and towns.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Economy-bad-all-over-even-apf-13780442.html



10 clues: A new bubble is blowing

Bet on Wall Street hyping a recovery, big earnings, new bull in 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/6pqelj


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=job+loss
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=poverty
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=unemployment
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wall+Street

The Bank said a deep global recession could not be ruled out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7774199.stm


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=World+Bank
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recession

From his office in clouded cuckoo land

Iraq has gone from an enemy of America to a friend of America, from sponsoring terror to fighting terror, and from a brutal dictatorship to a multi-religious, multi-ethnic constitutional democracy.

http://tinyurl.com/579bsj


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Middle+East
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=dictatorship
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=cuckoo

George W. Bush promised Tuesday to "do what is necessary" to blunt any terrorist threats originating from suspected extremist havens in Pakistan's remote tribal areas.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081209/pl_afp/usattacksbushpakistan



Demonizing Pakistan

Pakistan is a 'failed state', says US Congressman:

Condemning the Mumbai carnage, senior US Congressman Frank Pallone has said the terrorists involved in the attack tried to give the impression that they were local Indian Muslims.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=18895


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pakistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=tribal+areas

By Gideon Rachman

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21424.htm



Breaking the Stranglehold on Middle East News Coverage?

By Joshua Frank

Joshua Frank talks with Press TV correspondent Afshin Rattansi.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21426.htm

--------

Beware the new globalism

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

12/10/08

Gigantism is the handmaiden of modernity, or so we have been led to believe. In literature, future utopias are almost always characterized by a world government, on the grounds that presumably the people of earth have evolved beyond the narrow confines of nationalism and ethno-cultural particularities. Everybody wears a white tunic or body-stocking and flies around on jet-packs. Conversely, literary dystopias habitually depict a world riven by savagery and decentralized politico-economic units, e.g., The Shape of Things to Come, by H.G. Wells, in which an aspiring world government of technocrats battles the medieval remnants of local warlords. ‘We are the world’-ism is rife in liberal circles, and World Federalism has long been a cult, albeit a very small and uninfluential one, on the Left. However, the world government idea is — I predict — going to gain new traction in the coming years, and this is especially on account of the economic crisis currently roiling world markets...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13882


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=world+government
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Middle+East
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=economic+crisis
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afshin+Rattansi
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gideon+Rachman
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joshua+Frank
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/justin

By Ben Protess

New details emerge of Emanuel's days as an investment banker.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21427.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rahm+Emanuel
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ben+Protess

Gitmo Military Prosecutor Breaks His Silence

Video Report From The BBC

Former Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former U.S. prosecutor at Guantanamo, told BBC yesterday in his first interview since resigning earlier this year that Guantanamo detainees were treated in a "wrong, unethical and finally, immoral" manner. Watch BBC's segment.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21425.htm

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Is the army forcing out a Gitmo whistleblower?

Mother Jones
by Daniel Schulman

05/31/10

For an Army officer, criticizing the military commissions at Guantanamo as a perversion of justice probably isn’t the best career move. That goes double if you also happen to be a former top military prosecutor at Gitmo. That’s why Lt. Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, a US army reservist with nearly 20 years of service under his belt, fears the worst when a military promotion board renders its decision in his case this week. Theoretically, the military brass reviewing his record could reward his distinguished service — to which various awards and commendations attest — and bump him up to full-bird colonel. Or, they could derail his military career. Vandeveld has reason to believe the board may attempt the latter — forcing into retirement the officer who, in a July 2009 congressional hearing, declared that ‘the military commission system is broken beyond repair’...

http://tinyurl.com/359bpq9


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Guantanamo
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gitmo
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+commissions
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+prosecutor
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Darrel+Vandeveld
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=detainee
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Daniel+Schulman

Whether Bush Can Grant His Administration Pre-emptive Pardons on Torture, a Dicey Area of the Law

By Daphne Eviatar

Obama's advisers are encouraging him to look to the future and avoid the appearance of seeking vengeance for past practices. But many legal experts insist it's as important not to let those responsible for diminishing America's moral stature get away scot-free.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21421.htm



Torturing Democracy

The Documentary PBS Does Not Want You to See Before Jan 21, 2009

Video and Transcript

"Torturing Democracy" is a new documentary which details how the government set aside the rule of law in its pursuit of harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21422.htm



Everyone Should See 'Torturing Democracy'

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

If we want to know what torture is, and what it does to human beings, we have to look at it squarely, without flinching. That's just what a powerful and important film, seen by far too few Americans, does.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22767.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=pre-emptive+pardon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=harsh+interrogation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Daphne+Eviatar
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Moyers
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+Winship

By Yvonne Ridley

The western leaders can either choose to remain in denial and send in more troops while listening to pompous civil servants, politicians and diplomats who say only what they think their masters want to hear, or they can sit down and read the ICOS report and act upon it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21428.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Yvonne+Ridley

Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

US Officials Must Be Held Accountable for Sending Arar to Torture in Syria
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/09-15

No Justice for Canadian Rendition Victim Maher Arar
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/02-8



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Maher+Arar
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=rendition
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Center+for+Constitutional+Rights

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/09-0



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Naiman

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/09



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Benjamin+Dangl

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/09-2



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stimulus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=James+K.+Galbraith

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/09-9



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Marcia+Yerman

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/09-2



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/09-5



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Urmee+Khan

Isabel Reynolds, Reuters: "Greenpeace launched a campaign to turn Japan against whaling on Tuesday, with directors of the group from around the world delivering a letter to Prime Minister Taro Aso, urging him to halt the hunts."

http://www.truthout.org/120908EA



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=whaling

Huw Morris, PlanningResource, 9 December 2008

East Renfrewshire Council's planning convener is calling to the Scottish and UK governments to examine health concerns around mobile phone masts.

Read More...
http://www.regen.net/news/login/868453/



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=health+concerns

Camillo "Mac" Bica, Truthout: "Soldiers are legally obligated to sometimes disobey superior orders. US chief prosecutor Robert K. Jackson at the NMT declared in 1948: '[T]he very essence of the [Nuremberg] Charter is that individuals have intentional duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state.'"

http://www.truthout.org/120908R



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Nuremberg
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Camillo+%22Mac%22+Bica