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Many beer drinkers may not know that Anheuser-Busch has the organic blessing from federal regulators even though Wild Hop Lager uses hops grown with chemical fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides. The [USDA] is considering a list of 38 nonorganic ingredients that will be permitted in organic foods. Because of the broad uses of these ingredients — as colorings and flavorings, for example — almost any type of manufactured organic food could be affected, including cereal, sausage, bread and beer. Organic food advocates have fought to block approval of some or all of the proposed ingredients, saying consumers would be misled. "This proposal is blatant catering to powerful industry players who want the benefits of labeling their products 'USDA organic' without doing the work to source organic materials," said Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Assn. of Finland, Minn., a nonprofit group that boasts 850,000 members. With big companies entering what was formerly a mom-and-pop industry, new questions have arisen about what exactly goes into organic food. Many nonorganic ingredients, including hops, are already being used in organic products, thanks to a USDA interpretation of the Organic Foods Protection Act of 1990. In addition to hops, the list includes 19 food colorings, two starches, casings for sausages and hot dogs, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin and a host of obscure ingredients (one, for instance, is a "bulking agent" and sweetener with the tongue-twisting name of fructooligosaccharides). Under the agency's proposal, as much as 5% of a food product could be made with these ingredients and still get the "USDA organic" seal.
Poor people are needlessly dying because drug companies and the governments of rich countries are blocking the developing world from obtaining affordable medicines. Five years to the day after the Doha declaration - a groundbreaking deal to give poor countries access to cheap drugs - was signed at the World Trade Organisation, Oxfam says things are worse. The charity accuses the US, which champions the interests of its giant pharmaceutical companies, of bullying developing countries into not using the measures in the Doha declaration and the EU of standing by and doing nothing. Doha technically allows poor countries to buy cheap copies of desperately needed drugs, but the US is accused of trying to prevent countries such as Thailand and India, which have manufacturing capacity, [from] making and selling cheap generic versions so as to preserve the monopolies of the drug giants. "Rich countries have broken the spirit of the Doha declaration," said Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign. "The declaration said the right things but needed political action to work and that hasn't happened. In fact, we've actually gone backwards. Many people are dying or suffering needlessly." The US has pursued its own free trade agreements with developing countries, tying them into much tighter observance of patent rights than anticipated at Doha. "The USA has also pressured countries for greater patent protection through threats of trade sanctions," the report says.
The Justice Department increasingly has refused to prosecute FBI cases targeting suspected terrorists over the past five years, according to private researchers who reviewed department records. The report being released Monday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University raises questions about the quality of the FBI's investigations. Prosecutors declined to bring charges in 131 of 150, or 87 percent, of international terrorist case referrals from the FBI between October 2005 and June 2006. That number marks the peak of generally steady increases from the 2001 budget year, when prosecutors rejected 33 percent of such cases from the FBI. The data "raise troubling questions about the bureau's investigation of criminal matters involving individuals the government has identified as international terrorists," the report said. It noted that prosecutions in traditional FBI investigations since 2001—including drug cases, white collar crimes and organized crimes—have decreased while the number of agents and other employees has risen. "So with more special agents, many more intelligence analysts, and many fewer prosecutions the question must be asked: What is the FBI doing?" the report said.
Note: With the current administration's frequent claims to be tough on terrorism, does this make any sense? Could it be that some of the accused are being protected from prosecution?
If we believe what we see in the media, the world is on fire. The impression we get is that conflicts are increasing all around the globe while the stockpile of deadly weapons constantly expands. All this is very troubling—and quite untrue. The exhaustive Human Security Report offers a very different picture of our world. The 2005 report finds clear evidence that the world is becoming a more peaceful place. Myth 1: War is spreading. Yes, the number of armed conflicts increased sharply after World War II, but has just as sharply declined since 1991. In the last 15 years...the number of armed conflicts and wars actually fell at least 40 percent. The number of genocides and political murders declined by no less than 80 percent. In 1950, the average conflict claimed the lives of 38,000 people, while in 2002 that figure was 600, a decline of 98 percent. Myth 2: The weapons arsenal is increasing. International arms trade fell 33 percent between 1990 and 2000, and as a percentage of the value of the world economy, defence spending declined from 4.2 to 2.7 percent. Myth 3: Civilians are the vast majority of war victims. In the most recent wars, civilians account for somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of deaths. Myth 4: Women are the primary victims of war. War continues to be waged by men, against men. Ninety percent of the victims are men. Myth 5: Terrorism is the biggest threat in the world. Over the past 30 years, an average of slightly less than 3,000 people have died at the hands of terrorists each year. The chance of being a victim of terrorism remains exceptionally small. Between alleged and real threats, there is often little correlation.
[CNN News anchor Lou] DOBBS: Florida the scene of one of this country's worst election breakdowns ever. Already a series of e-voting glitches have plagued early voting in the state of Florida. KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Voter activists are warning there have been problems with electronic machines in Florida in early voting. Some of the most populous counties...have reported serious problems. In seven percent of precincts, the number of votes didn't match the tally of registered voters. PAMELA HAENGEL, VOTING INTEGRITY ALLIANCE: In Pinellas County in the primaries we found over 150 calibration errors from precinct workers' logs. That's when a voter goes to touch the screen and it hops to a candidate that they didn't necessarily vote for. PILGRIM: Today, Governor Jeb Bush gave his full vote of confidence to the machine. REGINALD MITCHELL, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: Despite all the problems...we have nothing in place for a paper trail in Florida. SUSAN PYNCHON, FLORIDA ELECTION COALITION: The voting started at 8:00. At five minutes before 10:00, the power failed. PILGRIM: That power outage kept the electronic voting machines down for hours and hundreds of voters were turned away. PILGRIM: Another problem, in some places representatives of the voting machines company are in charge of running the software that tabulates the votes. DOBBS: This is one troubling, concerning report on top of another. We are beginning to behave like a Banana Republic. PILGRIM: It's unbelievably shocking this close to the election we're dealing with this. DOBBS: Unbelievable. It's just -- it's incredible.
A panel set up last year to reduce excessive secrecy in government is being labeled toothless after its chairman told lawmakers that he could not act except at the request of the president. "The statute under which we operate provides that [President Bush] must request the board undertake such a review before it can proceed," wrote L. Britt Snider, chairman of the Public Interest Declassification Board. Government transparency advocates say that if the statute is interpreted that way, it makes the board, in the words of Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, "a White House puppet." The board was established in law in 2000..."to promote the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and...activities." But the administration did not appoint any members until September 2004, and no funds were appropriated for it until last year. Now the board says it is stuck in the middle of a tussle about its authority between lawmakers and the White House. "The White House position is they have to request "any review such as that of the Senate committee report," Mr. Snider said. "The senators believe they can ask independently. ... We're kind of stuck in the middle." Mr. Snider said the board was "waiting for guidance from the White House" about how to proceed.
The president has...managed to kill the writ of habeas corpus. Tonight, a special investigation, how that, in turn, kills nothing less than your Bill of Rights. Because the Mark Foley story began to break on the night of September 28...many people may not have noticed the bill passed by the Senate that night. Congress passed the Military Commission’s Act to give Mr. Bush the power to deal effectively with America’s enemies—those who seek to harm the country. He has been very clear on who he thinks that is. GEORGE W. BUSH: For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America. That fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy. OLBERMANN: So, the president said it was urgent that Congress send him this bill as quickly as possible, not for the politics of next month’s elections, but for America. One bit of trivia that caught our eye was the elimination of habeas corpus, which apparently used to be the right of anyone who’s tossed in prison to appear in court and say “Hey, why am I in prison?” COUNTDOWN has obtained a copy of [the] “Constitution” of the United States, and sources tell us it was originally sneaked through the constitutional convention and state ratification in order to establish America’s fundamental legal principles. There’s only one reference to habeas corpus: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
60 Minutes, in collaboration with the National Security News Service, has obtained the secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists and discovered it includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers. The "data dump" of names from the files of several government agencies, including the CIA, fed into the computer compiling the list contained many unlikely terrorists. These include...Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliamentary speaker, and Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. It also includes the names of 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers. But the names of some of the most dangerous living terrorists or suspects are kept off the list. The 11 British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up airliners with liquid explosives were not on it, despite the fact they were under surveillance for more than a year. Even if the list is made more accurate, it won't help thousands of innocent travelers who share a common name on the list and who get detained, sometimes for hours, when they attempt to fly. Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names.
Schizophrenia patients do as well, or perhaps even better, on older psychiatric drugs compared with newer and far costlier medications, according to a study published yesterday that overturns conventional wisdom about antipsychotic drugs, which cost the United States $10 billion a year. The results are causing consternation. The researchers who conducted the trial were so certain they would find exactly the opposite that they went back to make sure the research data had not been recorded backward. The study was requested by Britain's National Health Service to determine whether the newer drugs -- which can cost 10 times as much as the older ones -- are worth the difference in price. While the researchers had expected a difference of five points on a quality-of-life scale -- showing the newer drugs were better -- the study found that patients' quality of life was slightly better when they took the older drugs. There has been a surge in prescriptions of the newer antipsychotic drugs in recent years, including among children. In an editorial accompanying the British study, the lead researcher in the U.S. trial asked how an entire medical field could have been misled into thinking that the expensive drugs, such as Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel, were much better.
Note: Those who have read our two-page health cover-up summary know very well how the entire medical field could have been misled. For those who haven't seen it: http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthcoverup
For all 43 retired generals and admirals, it was a combination of moral outrage and deep disgust over President Bush's proposed legislation on interrogating terrorist suspects that propelled them. "None of us feels comfortable speaking out publicly," said retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000. "That's not the nature of what military officers do. [But we] care very, very much about the country and the military." The group of retired flag officers first came together in 2005, when a dozen of them signed a letter opposing the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general for his role in developing Bush's policies on torture in the war on terror. Late last year, they supported Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) ban on cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody anywhere in the world. The retired officers believe that the negative consequences of the president's anti-terror policies could have been avoided if the administration had followed traditional military practices. No higher-ups were prosecuted for the abuses uncovered at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. What further fuels the officers' outrage is that the policies they believe have undermined the military were mostly formulated by men, like Bush, who have not seen combat. "Cheney made mention in the days after 9/11 that he wanted to operate sort of on the dark side," [Brig. Gen. James] Cullen said. "Here was a guy who never served, and now something terrible had happened, and he wanted to show that he was a tough guy?.So he's going to operate outside the rules of law. Bad message."
Top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received premium bonuses in recent years at the expense of scientists and others who perform much of the agency's scientific work. Those inside the office of the centers' director, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, have benefited the most. From 2002 through mid-2006, William H. Gimson III, the agency's chief operating officer, received bonuses totaling $147,863. Before Dr. Gerberding's appointment, members of the C.D.C. director's inner circle rarely received premium bonuses. Because bonus money is limited...the growing share of premium bonuses for Dr. Gerberding's closest advisers has meant less money is available for some scientists and other workers. In addition to those within Dr. Gerberding's inner circle, the increase in large cash awards within the centers has mostly benefited employees in the agency's financial, computer and human resources departments -- not its scientists. Soon after arriving at the centers, Dr. Gerberding began a comprehensive reorganization of the agency. In its wake, many of the agency's senior scientists and leaders either left or have announced that they are planning to leave. The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have reported on the turmoil at the centers in articles quoting disgruntled former senior scientists who said the changes had undermined the agency.
Note: Could it be that these bonuses are meant to keep top officials in line the the CDC's strong bias towards to pharmaceutical companies? For more vital information on this: http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthcoverup.
CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing. The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The anxieties stem partly from public controversy about a system of secret CIA prisons in which detainees were subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including temperature extremes and simulated drowning. The White House contends the methods were legal, but some CIA officers have worried privately that they may have violated international law. Bush last week called for Congress to approve legislation drafted by the White House that would exempt CIA officers and other federal civilian officials from prosecution for humiliating and degrading terrorism suspects. Agency officials said that interest has been stoked over the years by the $2 million legal bill incurred by CIA officer Clair George before his 1992 conviction for lying to Congress about the Iran-contra arms sales; by the Justice Department's lengthy investigation of CIA officers for allegedly lying to Congress about the agency's role in shooting down a civilian aircraft in 2001 in Peru; and by other events. One former intelligence official said CIA officers have recently expressed concern that lawsuits will erupt if details of the agency's internal probe of wrongdoing related to the September 2001 attacks become public.
Already the world's largest producer of opium, Afghanistan's 2006 output has soared a staggering 59 percent, according to a survey by the U.N.'s drug control program. So this year, the country that the United States invaded five years ago to stabilize will produce 16,000 tons of opium. Drugs now make up more than half of gross domestic product. Top government officials are tied to the drug trade. Corruption runs rampant. Addiction rates in Afghanistan and neighboring Central Asia, Iran and Pakistan are skyrocketing.
Note: How is it possible that the opium production continues to skyrocket in Afghanistan, when it was decimated the year before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan? For a possible answer, click here.
The Transportation Department's inspector general urged the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday to consider disciplinary action against two executives who failed to correct false information provided to the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The acting inspector general, Todd J. Zinser, whose office acts as the department's internal watchdog, found in a new report that the F.A.A. executives...learned after the fact that false information was given to the commission in May 2003 about the F.A.A.'s contacts with the Air Force on the morning of Sept. 11. The inspector general's report, prepared in response to complaints from the independent Sept. 11 commission, found that the three F.A.A. executives failed to act on an "obligation" to correct the false information provided to the commission, which found widespread confusion within the aviation agency and the military on the morning of the attacks. The F.A.A., part of the Transportation Department, declined to identify the three executives, whose names and titles were not revealed in the inspector general's report. Nor did the agency say whether it would consider disciplinary action. Richard Ben Veniste, a commission member, said in an interview on Friday that he was troubled that it had taken the inspector general two years to complete his investigation -- more time than it took the 9/11 commission to complete all of its work -- and that he released the report "on the Friday afternoon before the Labor Day weekend."
Two scholars who created a controversy earlier this year when they wrote that the pro-Israel lobby exerted too much influence over U.S. foreign policy said Monday that the recent Israel-Hezbollah war was yet another example of a dangerous tendency. John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago political science professor, and Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, said the U.S. government's unstinting support for Israel in the war again placed the agenda of what they call the Israel lobby ahead of U.S. strategic interests. The result, they said, was that the U.S. position in the Middle East, already strained because of the Iraq war, had worsened with consequences that were bad for America and Israel. "Iran and Syria are more likely to continue arming and supporting Hezbollah," Mearsheimer said. They blamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a leading pro-Israel lobby, for a failed attempt to slightly amend language in a pro-Israel House resolution to call on the warring parties to protect innocent civilians and infrastructure. "One would think that such language would be unobjectionable if not welcome," Mearsheimer said. "But AIPAC, which was the main driving force behind this resolution to begin with, objected and John Boehner, the House majority leader, kept the proposed language out. The resolution still passed 410-8."
Rice farmers in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and California have sued Bayer CropScience, alleging its genetically modified rice has contaminated the crop. The farmers alleged that the unit of Germany's Bayer AG
Note: Why did no major media report this important story in the U.S.? Only the Christian Science Monitor mentioned it. The media rarely reports anything negative about genetically modified food. To learn about the dangers of GMOs in the food you eat: http://www.WantToKnow.info/deception10pg
It's a dream that's been pursued for years: Mass-producing affordable hydrogen-powered cars that spew just clean water from their tailpipes. So Shanghai's Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies decided to start small. Really small. This month, it will begin sales of a tiny hydrogen fuel-cell car, complete with its own miniature solar-powered refueling station. The toy is a step toward introducing the technology to the public and making it commercially viable. Though prototype hydrogen cars exist, they're far from practical or affordable. Horizon's H-Racer and fueling station solve those problems on a very small scale. The price: $80 for the set. The toy's fuel cell, like those envisioned for real cars, relies on an electrochemical reaction...that powers the gadget's electric motor. The only byproducts are electricity, heat and water. The fuel is supplied by its alarm clock-sized refueling station. A small electric current, generated by the solar cells, extracts hydrogen from water. With the flip of a switch, the car takes off and runs for 4 minutes on a full tank. At Horizon's headquarters...Wankewycz and former Eastman Chemical Co. colleague George Gu demonstrated prototypes of a hydrogen-powered electric bicycle and a golf caddy they are converting from lead acid batteries to hydrogen power. "We're working on the smaller things until the infrastructure is ready," he says. On the Net: Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies: http://www.horizonfuelcell.com
Note: If governments and car companies poured millions into researching this technology, rapid progress could be made. For why this cutting-edge company is located in Shanghai and why they have only $3 million to work with, take a look at http://www.WantToKnow.info/newenergysources
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration. Israel's request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike. The new American arms shipment to Israel has not been announced publicly, and the officials who described the administration's decision to rush the munitions to Israel would discuss it only after being promised anonymity. Pentagon and military officials declined to describe in detail the size and contents of the shipment to Israel.
By all accounts, the group of nine was a religious powerhouse: Their ranks included rabbis, imams and ministers, including the man hailed by some as the next Billy Graham. But as of Thursday, seven of the nine religious leaders serving on a committee created by the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund to disburse money to churches destroyed by Hurricane Katrina had quit their posts, claiming their advice was ignored. Departing members of the interfaith advisory committee say the fund's Washington staff disregarded their advice, cutting checks for Gulf Coast churches without properly investigating the institutions. "I've been in ministry for 30 years and I don't think I've ever resigned from anything. I'm a loyalist to a fault. But what's happened is unacceptable," said [Bishop T.D.] Jakes who was named one of the 25 most influential evangelists by TIME Magazine. Another committee member who resigned, said the Washington staff wanted the religious leaders to "rubber stamp" their decisions. "They had their agenda and that's unacceptable," he said.
For decades now, eyes and sky have met to witness the buzzing of our world by Unidentified Flying Objects, termed UFOs or simply flying saucers. Extraterrestrials have come a long way to purportedly share the friendly skies with us. UFOs remain a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Why so? For one, the field is fraught with hucksterism. It's also replete with blurry photos and awful video. But then there are also well-intentioned and puzzled witnesses. There have been advances in the field of UFO research, said Ted Roe, Executive Director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), based in Vallejo, California. "Physics is leading to new and potentially paradigm shifting understandings about the nature of our universe and its physical properties," Roe said. "These understandings may point the way towards an acceptance of the probability of interstellar travel and communication by spacefaring races." Why is there precious little to show the world of science that UFOs merit attention? "Obviously there is not a simple answer, but part of it is reluctance of the scientific community to support such research," explained Bruce Maccabee, regarded as a meticulous researcher and an optical physicist using those talents to study photographs and video of unexplained phenomena.
Note: This article also includes commentary from several skeptics. Yet for those who have an open mind, don't miss the amazingly solid UFO material available at http://www.WantToKnow.info/ufoinformation
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.