News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
Approaching death can be a long descent into pain and fear. [For some,] the misery is so profound that little helps. Alternative medicine is increasingly accepted as part of palliative care and some studies show music is one method to ease pain and stress at the end of life. One of these methods includes live harp music, played at the bedside by a certified music practitioner. Carol Joy Loeb, a former opera singer, is a certified music practitioner and registered nurse. When she arrives at a patient's bedside, she's prepared to alleviate misery. "I use the music to bring a calmness to them," Loeb says. "It helps with pain and agitation. And in the case of those who are actively dying, it helps them to go peacefully." She even uses the music to open communication between family members at the end of a person's life. Last year, she worked with a dying woman on Hospice care. "This was a woman in congestive heart failure, she was in acute distress," Loeb says. Just before she arrived, the patient had received a dose of morphine but didn't get the necessary relief. When Loeb started playing, the dying woman began to relax. "Within 10 minutes her respirations were almost not there," Loeb recalls. "Her daughter was in the kitchen with the Hospice chaplain. And she came in and took her mother's hand and she said, 'Mama, it's okay to go, go to God. Take the hand of God and go to God.' And within one minute, she was gone."
The provincial government will announce tomorrow that Ontario is embracing more nuclear power plants. Premier Dalton McGuinty has privately spoken of his government's plans to confidants for days, insiders say. In an off-the-record speech on Saturday night in Ottawa to the secretive Bilderberg group, McGuinty discussed the pros and cons of more nuclear plants. The premier privately admitted the public will officially learn of the plans tomorrow. Insiders told the Star he was unequivocal in private conversations about his support for the controversial electricity source. McGuinty's staff deliberately omitted any mention of his speech Saturday to the Bilderberg session...from his public itinerary. The group, named for the Dutch hotel the organization first met at in 1954, holds its sessions behind closed doors amid tight security. Because participants in Bilderberg sessions are sworn to secrecy under threat of ex-communication from the group, politicians tend to lower their guard and speak candidly. It was the kind of power-broker audience the premier, who sat with Pataki, Reisman and Queen Beatrix, would want to reach when delivering a message about investing in Ontario — and massive investment will be required to pay for $40 billion in nuclear plants.
Note:If the above link fails, click here. If the Bilderbergers truly support the interests of all of us, why the need for so much secrecy? Why is there no website? Why until just a few years ago was there virtually no reporting on the influential Bilderberg Group at all in the major media?
Four days after they arrived quietly at a Kanata hotel, the world's rich and powerful left just as mysteriously, in limos and SUVs with blacked-out windows. The Bilderberg Group, a secretive organization of politicians and business leaders from around the world, gave no public statements. With private security guards and metal barriers keeping outsiders on the street, the Bilderbergers met privately and then whisked themselves away in ones and twos, mostly to the airport. What they talked about at the Brookstreet Hotel is still a secret. The group meets annually, and is usually rumoured to discuss international politics and business, from Middle East crises to oil prices. They emerged singly yesterday -- Bilderberg president Etienne Davignon of Belgium, American David Rockefeller, Italian economist Mario Monti, European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes from the Netherlands, and, watchers thought, Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi. Protesters on the sidewalk have their own version of the agenda: world domination, a merger of Canada with the United States and Mexico, hiding the cure for cancer, suppression of cars that get 200 miles per gallon of fuel, [and] an invasion of Iran.
Note: This article lists the names and descriptions of 21 participants of this Bilderberg meeting. If you read through them, you will see that they are clearly among the most powerful and wealthy people in the world.
Greeted at the airport by limousine drivers holding single-letter "B" signs, global luminaries such as Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands began quietly slipping into Ottawa yesterday for the annual gathering of the ultra-secretive Bilderberg Group. The group's discreet approach was evident as attendees arrived yesterday at the Ottawa Airport. Outside the airport, a phalanx of limousines lined up to ferry guests to the Brookstreet. Approached by a Citizen reporter upon his arrival, former U.S. defence policy adviser Richard Perle shot down criticism about the secrecy of the group's meetings. "It's a private organization," he said. He denied the charge, advanced by Bilderberg critics, that the organization crafts public policy behind closed doors. "It discusses public policy," he stressed. Mr. Perle also dismissed suggestions that the group's heavy representation from the oil industry gives it influence over energy prices. Also seen arriving yesterday were Jorma Ollila, chairman of Royal Dutch Shell [and] World Bank president James Wolfenson. According to an unsigned press release sent by fax yesterday, presumably by Bilderberg organizers, attendees will also include New York Governor George Pataki, deputy prime minister of Iraq Ahmad Chalabi, the heads of Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, [and] the Royal Bank of Canada. "The meeting is private to encourage frank and open discussion," said the release. "There will be no press conference."
Note: To see photos of this article on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pictures/Jun06/110606bbg_media_ottawa_citizen.jpg
http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pictures/Jun06/110606bbg_tucker_paper_cover.jpg
For a video clip of reporters trying trying to get close, click here and go to the "Video" section on the right.
An excellent meeting starting today in Hawaii featur[es] a former Canadian defense minister, diplomats, international law experts and others. The topic? "Whether extraterrestrial civilizations are visiting the earth, how diplomacy might be conducted with them and the impact on world peace." The keynote speaker, according to a news release from the Exopolitics Institute, is former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer, who we're told "will be discussing whether humanity is up to the diplomatic task of achieving peace with extraterrestrials." Another dignitary expected to attend the three-day conference is John W. McDonald , who has represented the United States at "four United Nations conferences" and is now head of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy. His topic, naturally, will be "how diplomatic initiatives, some involving private citizens, might be conducted when and if extraterrestrials visit earth." And retired Air Force Capt. Robert Salas will discuss a 1967 incident in which "UFOs shut down a Strategic Air command facility" in Montana and disabled its Minuteman nukes. The Exopolitics Institute was founded by Michael E. Salla, a professor and researcher in international peace and conflict resolution at American University from 1996 through 2004.
Note: For lots more reliable information on this topic, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/ufocover-up
Members of the Bilderberg Group will descend on the upscale Brookstreet Hotel for the three-day meeting, several police sources confirmed yesterday. When asked about police plans for the event, a police spokeswoman referred the Citizen to Alan Bell of Globe Risk Holdings. Reached by phone, Mr. Bell -- who is listed as president of Globe Risk Holdings in Toronto and a former SAS paratrooper commando -- said he hadn't heard of the Bilderberg Group and denied that his firm has been hired to guard this week's conference. "Never heard of that conference. What is it?" said Mr. Bell before politely cutting the conservation short. But according to the company's website, Globe Risk Holdings specializes in "strategic planning and counter-measures," recruits its consultants primarily from elite military counter-terrorist and special forces units, and has "undertaken consultancy and project work worldwide in areas of high risk". "The consultants at Globe Risk Holdings have proven backgrounds in military, special forces, law enforcement and government organizations with real life expertise in the areas of international security...close protection, sabotage prevention, and military/law enforcement," reads the company website.
Note: Denial and lying seem to be standard protocol for those involved with the Bilderberg group. What does that say about what is being discussed in their secret meetings?
The meetings of a secretive global think-tank would bring 100 of the world's most powerful and influential figures to Ottawa next month [for] deliberations on such weighty issues as the direction of global oil markets and potential military action against Iran. Reports circulating on the Internet say this year's Bilderberg Conference will be held June 8-11 at the Brookstreet Hotel - a rumour the hotel would not confirm. Patrice Basille, general manager of the Brookstreet Hotel, said no event associated with the Bilderberg group has been formally booked. "'What is the Bilderberg?" he asked. "This is the first I've heard about it." Journalists aren't allowed to attend the sessions, and staff at the host hotels are told not to confirm or deny any event is scheduled. But, if a gathering in Ottawa is anything like past Bilderbergs, invitees will be drawn from the pages of International Who's Who, with a emphasis on political and corporate leadership and strong representation of the oil and banking industries. The Bilderberg has been accused of being everything from a Zionist cabal building a single global government to a secret star-chamber that seeks to fix the price of oil and presidential elections. Even some rational critics suspect the Bilderberg's meetings set the economic and political agenda for much of the industrialized world without any public oversight or accountability. They denounce the Bilderberg as elitist and overly secretive, calling it an anti-democratic gathering of "the high priests of globalization."
During your next routine medical checkup you have at least a 43 percent chance of undergoing an unnecessary medical test, a new study shows. It's not like you're getting something for nothing. If you're not having symptoms, and your doctor has no reason to suspect you have a problem, U.S. guidelines advise against giving you a routine urinalysis, electrocardiogram, or X-ray. "This has more harm than benefit," says Dan Merenstein, M.D., director of research in family medicine at Georgetown University. "The problem is, there are so many false-positive results from these tests. They lead to other things, like biopsies." The tests are meant to help doctors explore specific symptoms that are troubling patients or raise suspicion of a problem. If you're a healthy person who's just getting a routine checkup, there's only a tiny chance the tests will find disease. But Merenstein points out there's a good chance the tests will get a slightly abnormal finding. That means further costly tests — maybe even a painful biopsy — to show that you were, indeed, perfectly healthy to begin with. Aside from the costs in time and the potential for unnecessary suffering, these procedures add up to big money. Merenstein's modest estimate of the cost of just these three simple tests is $47 million to $194 million a year. And that doesn't include the cost of follow-up tests.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country. This database affects as many as 200 million Americans. AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the NSA program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 'We have reached a privacy crisis,' said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-MA, the ranking Democrat on the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee. 'The N.S.A. stands for Now Spying on Americans.' Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Channel: "The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?" The Justice Department has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the NSA refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility [said] they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.
Note: Who gave the NSA power to stop the Justice Department from performing an inquiry?
As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as "top secret" or "confidential," one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt. Explaining why the vice president has withheld even a tally of his office's secrecy when such offices as the National Security Council routinely report theirs, a spokeswoman said Cheney is "not under any duty" to provide it. By keeping secret so many directives and actions, the administration has precluded the public--and often members of Congress--from knowing about some of the most significant decisions and acts of the White House. Starting in the early weeks of his administration with a move to protect the papers of former presidents, Bush has clamped down on the release of government documents. That includes tougher standards for what the public can obtain under the Freedom of Information Act and the creation of a broad new category of "sensitive but unclassified information."
Hundreds of dead dolphins washed up Friday along the shore of a popular tourist destination on Zanzibar's northern coast, and scientists ruled out poisoning. The bottleneck dolphins, which live in deep offshore waters, had empty stomachs, meaning that they could have been disoriented and were swimming for some time to reorient themselves. They did not starve to death and were not poisoned. In the United States, experts were investigating the possibility that sonar from U.S. submarines could have been responsible for a similar incident in Marathon, Florida, where 68 deep-water dolphins stranded themselves in March 2005. A U.S. Navy task force patrols the East Africa coast as part of counterterrorism operations.
Federal marine specialists have concluded that Navy sonar was the most likely cause of the unusual stranding of melon-headed whales in a Hawaiian bay in 2004. The appearance of as many as 200 of the normally deep-diving whales in Hanalei Bay in Kauai occurred while a major American-Japanese sonar training exercise was taking place. The report is the latest in a series of scientific reviews linking traditional mid-frequency naval sonar to whale strandings. The active sonar used by navies sends out loud pings of sound that seem to frighten and disorient whales. The effect was documented off Greece in 1996 and established later during naval exercises in the Bahamas, off the Canary Islands and off Spain. In the 2000 Bahamas stranding, a local marine biologist collected some of the whales that died onshore and froze them for later study -- which helped NOAA conclude that sonar was the likely cause. Michael Jasny, a senior consultant with NRDC, said the NOAA report was worrisome. "Once again, the Navy's denial has been contradicted by the official government investigation. It's time for the Navy to stop this needless infliction of harm."
High crude oil prices aren't the only reason you're paying $3.15 for a gallon of regular. For America's giant gasoline refiners...this is a golden age. By California state estimates, refinery profit margins have more than doubled in 2006, though that figure doesn't take into account some key expenses. Meanwhile, oil prices have risen by 14 percent. Oil industry critics hunting for proof of price gouging point to refineries' expanding profit margins as evidence. Critics say the companies deliberately closed many U.S. refineries years ago as a way to drive up their margins. The country now has 144 refineries, down from 324 in 1981. "The refining business used to be pretty lousy, but they took very aggressive actions to correct that," said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the Public Citizen watchdog group. "They're choosing not to build new refineries because it's not in their economic interest." Exact profit margins for the industry are difficult to track, because the companies involved don't reveal financial details. The California Energy Commission publishes a loose weekly estimate, measuring the difference between what the state's 21 refineries pay for crude oil and what they charge for their products. Since the start of the year, that figure has jumped 130 percent, from 30 cents for each gallon of finished gasoline to 69 cents last week. During the same time, the price refiners pay for crude oil has increased 14 percent.
The National Archives signed a secret agreement in 2001 with the Central Intelligence Agency permitting the spy agency to withdraw from public access records it considered to have been improperly declassified, the head of the archives, Allen Weinstein, disclosed on Monday. Mr. Weinstein, who began work as archivist of the United States last year, said he learned of the agreement with the C.I.A. on Thursday and was putting a stop to such secret reclassification arrangements, which he described as incompatible with the mission of the archives. The disclosure of the secret agreements provides at least a partial explanation for the removal since 1999 of more than 55,000 pages of historical documents from access to researchers at the archives. The removal of documents, including many dating to the 1950's, was discovered by a group of historians this year and reported by The New York Times in February. In a brief interview, Mr. Weinstein said he was particularly disturbed that the archives had agreed not to tell researchers why documents were unavailable. The C.I.A. agreement said archives employees would "not attribute to C.I.A. any part of the review or the withholding of documents."
The longest sentence for any member of the American military linked to a torture-related death of a detainee in Iraq or Afghanistan has been five months, a human rights group reported Wednesday. In only 12 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for the confirmed or suspected killings, said the group, Human Rights First, which is based in New York and Washington. Beyond those cases, in almost half of 98 known detainee deaths since 2002, the cause was never announced or was reported as undetermined. "In dozens of cases documented here, grossly inadequate reporting, investigation and follow-through have left no one at all responsible for homicides and other unexplained deaths," it said in the report, based on military court records, news reports and other sources. The Pentagon says it conscientiously investigates such deaths. When asked Wednesday for a status report on investigations and prosecutions in individual cases of abuse, the Pentagon said it could not offer a comprehensive compilation because the information was too scattered. Army lawyers at the Pentagon do not "have access to the information because other Army commands have the documents," Maj. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman, said.
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs ... warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors. Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. A former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Note: Though I don't agree with these doomsday scenario predictions (the Pentagon tends to focus on worst-case scenarios), the suppression of this report clearly does not serve the public.
In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department. The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton. It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks. But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy -- governed by a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even from saying which agencies are involved -- it continued virtually without outside notice until December. Historians say the program is removing material that can do no conceivable harm to national security. They say it is part of a marked trend toward greater secrecy under the Bush administration, which has increased the pace of classifying documents, slowed declassification and discouraged the release of some material under the Freedom of Information Act. "I think this is a travesty," said Dr. Nelson. "I think the public is being deprived of what history is really about: facts."
Note: More on this in the National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB179
They have always had their critics, but corporations are having an especially hard time making friends of late. Scandals at Enron and WorldCom destroyed thousands of employees' livelihoods, raised hackles about bosses' pay and cast doubt on the reliability of companies' accounts. Big companies such as McDonald's and Wal-Mart have found themselves the targets of scathing films. Labour groups and environmental activists are finding new ways to co-ordinate their attacks on business. But those are just the enemies that companies can see. Even more troubling for many managers is dealing with their critics online -- because, in the ether, they have little idea who the attackers are. One of the main reasons that executives find bloggers so very challenging is because, unlike other 'stakeholders', they rarely belong to well-organised groups. That makes them harder to identify, appease and control. When a company is dealing directly with a labour union or an environmental outfit, its top brass often take the easy route, by co-opting the leaders or paying some sort of Danegeld. Until a couple of decades ago, that meant doling out generous union contracts and sticking shareholders, taxpayers or consumers with the bill. Increasingly, companies are learning that the best defence against these attacks is to take blogs seriously and fix rapidly whatever problems they turn up.
A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood. U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the destruction of the World Trade Center. "No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," the judge said. She called Whitman's actions "conscience-shocking," saying the EPA chief knew that the collapse of the twin towers released tons of hazardous materials into the air. In her ruling, Batts noted that the EPA and Whitman said repeatedly beginning just two days after the attack that the air appeared safe to breathe. The EPA's internal watchdog later found that the agency, at the urging of White House officials, gave misleading assurances.
There’s an oil boom going on right now. Not in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or any of those places, but...in Alberta, Canada. The oilmen up there are...digging up dirt -- dirt that is saturated with oil. They’re called oil sands, and if you’ve never heard of them then you’re in for a big surprise because the reserves are so vast in the province of Alberta that they will help solve America’s energy needs for the next century. Within a few years, the oil sands are likely to become more important to the United States than all the oil that comes to us from Saudi Arabia. There are 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves here. That’s second to Saudi Arabia’s 260 billion but it’s only what companies can get with today’s technology. The estimate of how many more barrels of oil are buried deeper underground is staggering. "We know there’s much, much more there. The total estimates could be two trillion or even higher," says Clive Mather, Shell's Canada chief. "This is a very, very big resource." Very big? That’s eight times the amount of reserves in Saudi Arabia.
Note: For those who fear oil shortages and an energy crisis, here's yet another example of huge, untapped energy reserves. For many other, cleaner options, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/newenergyinformation
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.