July 8, 2008

Paul: Congress supports bombing Iran
Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says members of Congress have voiced support for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran. "I hear members of Congress saying 'if we could only nuke them'," said the congressman Thursday. "If we do (attack) it is going to be a disaster," he told the Alex Jones Show. The 72-year-old veteran politician added that the atmosphere in Congress indicates that a military strike on Iran has already been condoned.
Read article on the Press TV website (Iran)

July 4, 2008

Judge orders Google to give YouTube user data to Viacom
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A US judge has ordered Google to expose to Viacom the video-viewing habits of everyone who has ever used YouTube in a decision condemned by the Internet giant and privacy advocates.
Read AFP news story at google.com
Comment: The ruling, which could have serious privacy implications for internet users worldwide, orders Google to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses.

July 3, 2008

Judge Rejects Bush's View on Wiretaps
WASHINGTON - A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the "exclusive" means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government's claim that the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

July 2, 2008

US Admiral Warns Against Israeli Strike On Iran
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday warned against the possible Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, saying that it would plunge the already volatile area into deeper chaos and added that it would be very stressful on the United States. "My strong preference, here, is to handle all of this diplomatically with the other powers of governments, ours and many others, as opposed to any kind of strike occurring," Admiral Mullen told reporters at a Pentagon press conference on Wednesday. "This is a very unstable part of the world. And I don't need it to be more unstable," he added.
Read news report on the RTT News website (USA)

July 2, 2008

U.S. hopes for missile defense deal with Poland soon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States expects to reach a deal soon on basing 10 missile interceptors in Poland as part of its European missile defense project, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Read news report at reuters.com

July 2, 2008

Are you being heard? Eavesdropping and wiretapping in Europe and the USA
The Swedes, through a narrow parliamentary majority, voted through last month one of the most severe invasions on privacy, the signal surveillance or wiretapping law. The Germans have been up in arms over data retention policies that came in on the back of a 2006 EU Directive. This also has a remit that is meant to protect Germans from crime and terrorism - but it also hands over data that can be used by the government for numerous other purposes! Meanwhile, the US government, and the Department of Homeland Security in particular, is doing its darndest to finalise a US-European pact to give it the right to access private data of European citizens.
Read article by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) analyzing the latest attacks on personal privacy in Europe and the USA

July 1, 2008

Accord Could Give U.S. Government Access to Private Data on EU Citizens
Treaty could redraw privacy climate on both sides of the Atlantic
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may soon have access to private data on European citizens, thanks to a new transatlantic treaty nearing the long road towards ratification. Brokered by "high-level contact groups" between U.S. and European security officials, the data-sharing pact could give DHS officials access to credit card, travel and even internet browsing histories of EU citizens for antiterrorism purposes, such as screening airline manifests for suspicious passengers. An internal report seen by the New York Times says that the treaty was drawn up due to the stark differences in privacy laws between the United States and EU member nations. Strict data-sharing regulations in Europe make it difficult for American investigators to hunt for suspicious activity, creating heady disputes that "frayed" diplomatic relations and "required difficult negotiations to resolve."
Read article at dailytech.com

June 20, 2008

EU to lift sanctions against Cuba
The European Union is to lift sanctions imposed on Cuba in 2003 in protest at the imprisonment of more than 70 Cuban dissidents by the Castro government.
Read article at BBC News (UK)

June 20, 2008

Pharmaceutical industry spent $3.6M lobbying in 1Q
WASHINGTON - The pharmaceutical industry's main trade group spent more than $3.6 million lobbying the federal government in the first quarter, according to a recent disclosure form. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, whose members include Pfizer, Amgen Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co., lobbied on how prices are set for seniors' medications, rules governing drug imports and other issues.
Read article at forbes.com

June 19, 2008

Kucinich threatens 60 impeachment articles if Judiciary doesn't act
Rep. Dennis Kucinich warned the House Judiciary Committee that it would be wise not to ignore the 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush last week. If the committee does not act within a month, he plans to introduce even more articles.
Read article at globalresearch.ca

June 18, 2008

Mr. Bush v. the Bill of Rights
In the waning months of his tenure, President Bush and his allies are once again trying to scare Congress into expanding the president's powers to spy on Americans without a court order.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)

June 14, 2008

Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says
MIAMI - From "Scarface" to "Miami Vice," Florida's drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit. An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

June 13, 2008

House votes to send impeachment resolution to Judiciary Committee
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to send articles of impeachment against President Bush to the Judiciary Committee for review. The impeachment resolution's sponsor, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, requested a recorded vote on the motion around 3 p.m. Wednesday, and 24 Republicans joined nearly all Democrats in voting to send the impeachment measure to the committee.
The motion passed 251-166.
Read article at globalresearch.ca
Comment: The Judiciary Committee already has before it articles of impeachment aimed at Vice President Dick Cheney, which it received in November 2007. Given that it has done nothing with these, it would appear extremely unlikely that the House will proceed with impeachment hearings before Bush leaves office.

June 11, 2008

Reminder Bill Raises Privacy Concerns In California
Privacy concerns have been raised about a bill moving through the California Legislature that would let pharmacies partner with drugmakers to send reminder letters to patients to refill their scrips, The Sacramento Bee reports. The senate bill is sponsored by a medical information company facing an invasion of privacy class-action suit, which alleges some of the same practices the legislation would make legal.
Read article at pharmalot.com

June 10, 2008

Rep. Kucinich introduces Bush impeachment resolution
WASHINGTON - Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush. Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was "off the table." Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war.
Read Associated Press news story at google.com

June 6, 2008

Adviser Says McCain Backs Bush Wiretaps
WASHINGTON – A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

June 6, 2008

Bush Overstated Evidence on Iraq, Senators Report
WASHINGTON – A long-delayed Senate committee report endorsed by Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq's weapons programs and Saddam Hussein's links to Al Qaeda.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

June 2, 2008

President Hugo Chavez Warns of US Plan to Divide Venezuela
President Hugo Chavez warned today of a separatist plan orchestrated by the United States to take control of natural and other economic resources in several states in the west of Venezuela. "To be united is our best emblem. We must be alert to the attempts made by counterrevolutionary forces to promote division in this country," pointed out Chavez at a political rally with Socialist Party members in the state of Zulia.
Read article at globalresearch.ca (Canada)

May 30, 2008

Corrs guitarist: 9/11 was an inside job
Corrs guitarist Jim Corr has claimed that there was overwhelming evidence that the 9/11 attacks in America were carried out by "rogue elements" of US President George Bush's "neo-con administration". In a rare intervention into the political arena, the male singer with The Corrs band also came out against the Lisbon Treaty claiming that it is "tip-toe totalitarianism in the West". In an interview with Matt Cooper on Ireland's Today FM's 'Last Word', Corr made the case for voting 'No' to Lisbon, claiming it could introduce the death penalty to Ireland and contribute to a "new world order".
Read article in the Belfast Telegraph (Northern Ireland)

May 29, 2008

Ex-Bush spokesman: White House fed war propaganda to a "complicit" media
In a stunning blow to what very little remains of the Bush administration's political credibility, the president's former press secretary Scott McClellan has published a book indicting the White House for launching an "unnecessary" war in Iraq based on false "propaganda." Even more telling, particularly coming from an official who was in charge of dealing with the press, is McClellan's harsh indictment of the American media as a servile and willing accomplice in this process.
Read article at globalresearch.ca (Canada)

May 29, 2008

Bolton dodges attempted 'war crimes' arrest
The environmental campaigner George Monbiot last night tried and failed to make a citizen's arrest of the former Bush administration official John Bolton over alleged "war crimes" committed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, ended an hour-long discussion at the Hay festival, Monbiot, who had earlier challenged him for alleged breaches of the postwar Nuremberg Principles, defining war crimes, moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet. But security staff intervened and bundled Monbiot out of the tent as 20 supporters chanted "war criminal" and waved placards.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
Comment: Monbiot's Charge Sheet for the attempted arrest of John Bolton specifically cites the WWII International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg's ruling that "to initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime".

May 28, 2008

Bush 'plans Iran air strike by August'
The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Read article on the Asia Times Online website

May 23, 2008

South America creates regional union
A new South American union was born Friday as leaders of the region's 12 nations set out to create a continental parliament. Some see the new organization, Unasur, as a regional version of the European Union. Summit host Brazil wants it to help coordinate defense affairs across South America and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez calls it a counterweight to the United States. "The number one enemy of the union of the south is the empire of the United States," Chavez said, claiming that the U.S. is "trying to generate wars in South America" to "divide and conquer."
Read Associated Press news story at google.com
Comment: The Unasur members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. Modelled on the European Union – a regional supergovernment that has now been almost totally subverted by corporate interests – and mirroring efforts in North America for the creation of a North American Union, the formation of the South American Union marks the culmination of efforts to unite the region's two main trading groups, Mercosur and the Andean Community, into a single bloc.

May 19, 2008

Democracy and the Web
Users of the Internet take for granted their ability to access all Web sites on an equal basis. That could change, however, if Internet service providers started discriminating among content, to make more money or to suppress ideas they do not like. A new "net neutrality" bill has been introduced in the House, which would prohibit this sort of content discrimination. Congress has delayed on this important issue too long and should pass net neutrality legislation now.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: To learn more about the need for net neutrality and internet freedom, click here.

May 12, 2008

Quiet US Confession: Weapons Were Not Made In Iran After All
Longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq
In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq, the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all. According to a report by the LA Times correspondent Tina Susman in Baghdad: "A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was cancelled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin. When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all."
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website (Canada)

May 8, 2008

Parliament denies Canadians mandatory labelling of GE foods
Ottawa, Canada - A private member's bill giving consumers the right to know if the food sold in Canada contains genetically engineered (GE) ingredients was defeated in the House of Commons today by a vote of 101 to 156. The defeat of Bill C-517 effectively protects the economic interests of GE companies like Monsanto over the rights of Canadians to know what they eat.
Read news story on the website of Greenpeace Canada

May 1, 2008

Justice Dept. Will Share Interrogation Opinions
In a partial concession to Congressional pressure, the Bush administration agreed on Wednesday to show the Senate and House Intelligence Committees secret Justice Department legal opinions justifying harsh interrogation techniques that critics call torture. The decision, announced at a Senate hearing where Democrats sharply criticized the administration's secrecy on legal questions, did not satisfy other members of Congress who have pushed for the documents for several years, notably Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A spokesman for the Justice Department said officials were discussing whether to share part or all the opinions with Mr. Leahy's panel.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

April 30, 2008

Afghan 'health link' to uranium
Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years. Some scientists say the rise is linked to use of weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) by the US-led coalition that invaded the country in 2001. A Canadian research group found very high levels of uranium in Afghans during tests just after the invasion.
Read article at BBC News (UK)

April 25, 2008

Malaysia's ex-PM Mahathir wants Iraq war leaders on war crimes charges
LONDON (AFP) - Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has called for an international tribunal to try Western leaders with war crimes over the war in Iraq, a spokesman for the organisers said. In a speech at Imperial College, London, Mahathir called for a tribunal to try US President George W. Bush plus former prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and John Howard of Australia for their part in the conflict, said a spokesman for the Muslim group the Ramadhan Foundation, which set up the event. Spokesman Mohammed Shafiq told AFP that Mahathir, who was in office from 1981 to 2003, wants to see the trio tried "in absence for war crimes committed in Iraq.
Read AFP news story at yahoo.com

April 23, 2008

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations'
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes - from writing bad checks to using drugs - that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: The United States is currently holding 2.3 million behind bars, more than any other nation. This works out at 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 of the population. If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up. But it doesn't have to be this way and - especially in the case of violent and anti-social behaviour - there are alternatives.

April 21, 2008

List of McCain Fund-Raisers Includes Prominent Lobbyists
Senator John McCain has staked his campaign for the presidency in large part on his reputation as a reformer intent on curbing the influence of money in politics. But an examination by The New York Times of a list of 106 elite fund-raisers who have brought in more than $100,000 each for Mr. McCain found that about a sixth of them were lobbyists.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)

April 20, 2008

The Torture Sessions
Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality? The answer, we have learned recently, is that - with President Bush's clear knowledge and support - some of the very highest officials in the land not only approved the abuse of prisoners, but participated in the detailed planning of harsh interrogations and helped to create a legal structure to shield from justice those who followed the orders.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)

March 24, 2008

US military death toll in Iraq hits 4,000
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The death toll of US soldiers in the five-year Iraq conflict has hit 4,000 in what the US military said Monday was a "tragic" loss of lives after four troops were killed in a Baghdad bombing. The four soldiers died when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb while on patrol late Sunday in southern Baghdad, bringing the overall toll to 4,000, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org. Another soldier was wounded in the attack, a military statement said. The chaotic and brutal conflict which is now in its sixth year has also wounded more than 29,000 American soldiers, according to icasualties.org.
Read AFP news report at google.com
Comment: At least 97 percent of these 4,000 deaths occurred after US President George W. Bush announced the end of "major combat" in Iraq on May 1, 2003

March 14, 2008

Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest
EPA Scrambles To Justify Action
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA. EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

February 29, 2008

U.S. Imprisons One in 100 Adults, Report Finds
For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: Results emerging from studies at the cutting edge of the debate on crime and punishment increasingly suggest that criminal behavior may be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies. To learn more, click here.

February 20, 2008

The EU Reform Treaty: A Threat to the Transatlantic Alliance
After French President Nicolas Sarkozy's and Ger ­ man Chancellor Angela Merkel's successful visits to Washington, D.C., U.S. policymakers might be for ­ given for thinking that U.S. strategic interests are now in safe hands in continental Europe. However, this optimism discounts the enormous threat posed by the Reform Treaty, which was signed in Lisbon on December 13 and is little more than the European Constitution with a cosmetic makeover. Under Chancellor Merkel's personal leadership, the European Union breathed life back into the rejected European Constitution, recasting it as the Reform Treaty. It still contains the building blocks of a United States of Europe and will shift power from the member states of the EU to Brussels in crit ­ ical areas of policymaking, including defense, secu ­ rity, and energy--areas in which the United States finds more traction on a bilateral basis. The treaty is a blueprint for restricting the sovereign right of EU member states to determine their own foreign poli ­ cies, and it poses a unique threat to the British- American Special Relationship. Above all, the treaty underscores the EU's ambi ­ tions to become a global power and challenge Ameri ­ can leadership on the world stage.
Read study by Sally McNamara on the website of The Heritage Foundation (USA)
Comment: This study is particularly notable for the fact that it recommends the United States should support calls for the United Kingdom and other European Union member states to hold referenda on the Lisbon Treaty.

February 19, 2008

La Revolucion del Castro
Fidel Castro, the Cohiba smoking, side-arm wearing, international symbol for revolution, uprising, and thumbing your nose at American hubris formally resigned the Cuban presidency today after nearly 50 years in office. Castro was the longest sitting president of any nation in modern times, having wrested away power from western puppet General Fulgencio Batista in 1959, after a 3 year guerrilla campaign waged alongside the now immortalized Argentine communist revolutionary (and sex symbol?) Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Ask just about any Cuban ex-patriot living in Miami today about Fidel Castro, and they'll likely paint a picture of a man that nationalized their lands and infrastructure, curtailed their freedoms, executed or imprisoned dissidents, and in many cases exiled them from their homeland. This is also the picture you're likely to have painted by members of the American government who have fought normalizing relations with the small communist country, even though such normalization would likely benefit American business interests. While this portrait is accurate on many levels, it fails to address much of what made Castro so seminal, both in the eyes of many of the Cuban people, as well as the rest of the world. Specifically, the rest of the world's poor and disenfranchised.
Read article at capazoo.com
Comment: To read Fidel Castro’s resignation message, click here.

February 13, 2008

Senate Votes for Expansion of Spy Powers
After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants. One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

February 11, 2008

How the spooks took over the news
In his controversial new book, Nick Davies argues that shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to manipulate public opinion – and that the media simply swallow it wholesale.
Read article in the Independent (UK)

February 8, 2008

Corporations Given ‘Human Rights,’ Humans Are Denied Them
In evaluating allegations that U.S. military forces deprived four British men of human rights during two years they were held captive in Guantanamo Bay prison, a U.S. appeals court found an innovative way to let the Bush administration off the hook. Two of three judges ruled the men — because they are not U.S. citizens and, technically, were not imprisoned in the U.S. — were not legally “persons” and, therefore, had no rights to violate. While those judges were defying common sense and decency by denying legal personhood to living human beings, an appeals court in Boston has been reviewing an April 2007 decision by Federal Judge Paul Barbadoro that engaged in a different form of judicial activism — granting human rights to corporations. Barbadoro struck down a New Hampshire law that prevented pharmaceutical corporations from learning exactly what drugs doctors prescribe and how much they prescribe. The law aims to protect doctors and, indirectly, their patients, from drug companies pressuring doctors to choose their products. The judge’s grounds? He claims corporations, as legal persons, have “free speech rights” that would be infringed by such a measure.
Read article at commondreams.org

New poll shows deep pessimism about direction of U.S. and Europe
While Americans have been saying for more than four years that their country is headed in the wrong direction, a poll shows that people in five major European countries share that pessimism about their own countries. The poll, conducted by Harris Interactive for the International Herald Tribune and France 24, shows a broad range of discontent in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States, especially focused on the economy. "This poll reveals an overall deep crisis of confidence in Europe and the United States," Patrick van Bloeme, chief executive of Harris Interactive France, said.
Read article in the International Herald Tribune

February 4, 2008

Rule by fear or rule by law?
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs." Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees. According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
Read article in the San Francisco Chronicle (USA)
Comment: Previously dismissed by many people as an “internet conspiracy theory”, the San Francisco Chronicle’s publication of these plans would appear to suggest that the US government could indeed be making contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens.

Poland Agrees to Host U.S. Shield
The United States and Poland reached "an agreement in principle" on missile defense Friday, prompting an angry reaction from Russia over the weekend. Poland agreed to let the U.S. military install missile interceptors on its territory after Washington consented to a demand by Warsaw's new center-right government to beef up the country's air defenses.
Read editorial in the Moscow Times (Russia)
Comment: Moscow has adamantly opposed the plans of U.S. President George W. Bush to install 10 interceptors in Poland and a radar installation in the Czech Republic, which Washington says are meant to protect against an attack by Iran or other "rogue states." The Kremlin - which believes the U.S. missile shield is directed against Russia - has threatened to target the Polish and Czech sites and to deploy missiles in the Kaliningrad region, which borders Poland.

January 30, 2008

The Fine Print
With President Bush, you always have to read the footnotes. Just before Monday night's State of the Union speech, in which Mr. Bush extolled bipartisanship, railed against government excesses and promised to bring the troops home as soon as it's safe to withdraw, the White House undermined all of those sentiments with the latest of the president's infamous signing statements.
Read editorial in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: Signing statements are documents that earlier U.S. presidents generally used to trumpet their pleasure at signing a law, or to explain how it would be enforced. Over the last seven years, however, Mr. Bush has issued hundreds of these insidious documents declaring that he had no intention of obeying a law that he had just signed. As this New York Times editorial explains, this week's signing statement provides yet more evidence that Mr. Bush never intended to end the war in Iraq – a reality that Dr. Rath has been aware of all along.

January 22, 2008

Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
Comment: So long as the political stakeholders of the oil and drug cartel have direct access to nuclear arsenals, the world will continue to be in danger.

January 16, 2008

Warsaw ups ante for U.S. shield
The United States is headed for tough negotiations with Poland over a planned missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, with Warsaw now demanding that Washington pour hundreds of millions of dollars into improving its defense capabilities. The Bush administration considered the deal almost done under Poland's previous government, but the recently elected Prime Minister Donald Tusk has raised serious questions about the costs and benefits from the missile system for his country.
Read article in the Washington Times (USA)

January 9, 2008

Health Spending Rises to 15% of Economy, a Record Level
Health spending accounts for nearly 15 percent of the nation's economy, the largest share on record, the Bush administration said on Thursday. The Department of Health and Human Services said that health care spending shot up 9.3 percent in 2002, the largest increase in 11 years, to a total of $1.55 trillion. That represents an average of $5,440 for each person in the United States. Hospital care and prescription drugs accounted for much of the overall increase, which outstripped the growth in the economy for the fourth year in a row, the report said.
Read article in The New York Times (USA)
Comment: Despite the fact that most prescription drugs don't work for most people, spending on them accounted for 10.5 cents of every dollar spent on health care in the United States in 2002. The only beneficiaries from this expenditure are the pharmaceutical industry and the Investment 'Business With Disease'.

January 8, 2008

Big Pharma And Its Presidential Bets
These are the figures as compiled by OpenSecrets. Hillary Clinton received $269,436 from the pharma/healthcare sector, while Barak Obama garnered $261,784. Right behind was Mitt Romney, with $260,535. One caveat: this is as of Oct. 29. As an aside, it's interesting to contrast the contributions with the rhetoric. Last week, Clinton said: "I've taken on the drug companies. I've taken on the health insurance companies. I've taken on the oil companies, and I intend to keep doing it." Perhaps, she meant take them on until they contribute still more.
Read article at pharmalot.com

January 7, 2008

Poland Signals Doubts About Planned U.S. Missile-Defense Bases on Its Territory
Signaling a tougher position in negotiations with the United States on a European antiballistic-missile shield system, Poland's foreign minister says his country's new government is not prepared to accept American plans to deploy missile-defense bases in Poland until all costs and risks are considered.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)