News: Asia
» 2009
December 30, 2010
Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault
A study examining the causes of a dramatic spike in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Falluja has for the first time concluded that genetic damage could have been caused by weaponry used in US assaults that took place six years ago. The research, which will be published next week, confirms earlier estimates revealed by the Guardian of a major, unexplained rise in cancers and chronic neural-tube, cardiac and skeletal defects in newborns. The authors found that malformations are close to 11 times higher than normal rates, and rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of this year – a period that had not been surveyed in earlier reports.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
December 22, 2010
United States Ratifies Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia
The U.S. Senate ratified a nuclear arms reduction pact with Russia on Wednesday by a strong bipartisan vote of 71 to 26. The New START treaty was one of the last measures approved during a busy post-election, end-of-year session.
Read article on the Voice of America news website (USA)
December 8, 2010
Ex PM Blair Recalled To Iraq War Inquiry
Tony Blair has been recalled to appear at Britain's inquiry into the Iraq War for the second time. The former Prime Minister is likely to give evidence at a public hearing in late January. It is thought Sir John Chilcot and his panel were concerned about gaps and possible inconsistencies in his evidence. Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion, cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell and Lord Turnball, his predecessor, have also been asked to return. Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, is among those the panel has asked to submit written evidence.
Read article on the Sky News website
Comment: Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General at the time of the 2002 invasion of Iraq, openly stated in 2004 that it was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. Significantly, therefore, CNN reports that a total of 33 African nations now want Blair and former U.S. President George W. Bush to be prosecuted for the invasion. We fully support these calls. To read about the Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Blair, Bush and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the ‘business with disease’, war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.
November 24, 2010
China, Russia quit dollar
China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday. Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies. "About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg. The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities. The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.
Read article on the China Daily website (China)
November 13, 2010
Obama Calls Arms Treaty a Priority
YOKOHAMA, Japan — President Obama ended a 10-day diplomatic and economic journey through Asia on a personal note Sunday, visiting a colossal copper Buddha that he had seen as a 6-year-old boy, then headed for Washington to confront the lame-duck Congress on Monday. He told President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia here that his “top priority” on foreign policy for the Congressional session is ratification of their new arms control treaty, which is stalled in the Senate.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
November 2, 2010
India Uprising against GM Crops
Indian farmers have been mobilizing to protest the introduction of genetically modified crops into India and what they see as a takeover of Indian agriculture by Monsanto and other multinational biotech giants. The protesters say the crops are disrupting the domestic seed market and reducing income for all farmers.
Read article on the EIN News website
September 20, 2010
"Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites
Under contemporary capitalism, the illusion of democracy must prevail. It is in the interest of the corporate elites to accept dissent and protest as a feature of the system inasmuch as they do not threaten the established social order. The purpose is not to repress dissent, but, on the contrary, to shape and mould the protest movement, to set the outer limits of dissent. To maintain their legitimacy, the economic elites favor limited and controlled forms of opposition, with a view to preventing the development of radical forms of protest, which might shake the very foundations and institutions of global capitalism. In other words, "manufacturing dissent" acts as a "safety valve", which protects and sustains the New World Order. To be effective, however, the process of "manufacturing dissent" must be carefully regulated and monitored by those who are the object of the protest movement.
Read article by Michel Chossudovsky on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
September 8, 2010
Nuremberg is valid precedent for Iraq trials
Recently in Dublin, anti-war protesters threw eggs and shoes at Tony Blair. During a TV interview, he showed a flash of exasperation when asked to explain why people thought that he was a war criminal. His annoyance at the question is little consolation for the thousands of families who lost loved ones during that illegal war. Blair should be tried under principles established for the Nuremberg trials, together with former president George W Bush and his advisers who orchestrated the Iraq war. The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. Those principles could also be applied today, when judging the conditions that led to the Iraq war and in the process to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country’s infrastructure.
Read article by Dr Cesar Chelala, MD, PhD, in the Gulf Times (Qatar)
August 16, 2010
Mankind is using up global resources faster than ever
The growing world population and increasing consumption has pushed the world into ‘eco-debt’ a month earlier this year, according to the latest statistics on global resources. Think tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) look at how much food, fuel and other resources are consumed by humans every year. They then compare it to how much the world can provide without threatening the ability of important ecosystems like oceans and rainforests to recover. This year the moment we start eating into nature's capital or ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ will fall on 21st August, a full month earlier than last year, when resources were used up by 23rd September.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
August 13, 2010
British Medical Experts Seek Kelly Suicide Inquest, London's Times Reports
A group of leading U.K. medical experts want a full inquest into the death of David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence scientist named by Tony Blair’s government as the source of a leak saying the official dossier justifying the Iraq war had been “sexed up,” according to a letter published in the London-based Times today.
Kelly, a former weapons inspector, was found dead in a wood near his home in 2003 after the government disclosed he was the source of a leak expressing anger within the intelligence service over the way Iraqi arms data had been used to justify the Anglo-American invasion that toppled President Saddam Hussein.
The group, including two coroners and an intensive care specialist, said in their letter it was “extremely unlikely” that Kelly had bled to death from a slit wrist.
Read article at Bloomberg.com
Comment: Some reports suggest that Kelly had been writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death and was intending to reveal that, weeks before the British and American invasion, he had warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq. The reports also suggest Kelly was planning to lift the lid on his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
August 6, 2010
Google accused of betraying internet golden rule in net neutrality row
Google, the internet giant, has been accused of betraying one of the most widely accepted "laws" of the internet called net neutrality; the principle that everyone has equal access. The firm has admitted that it has been in talks with the US communications provider Verizon and even agreed an outline plan on how internet traffic should be carried over networks. However, many have already voiced fears that if the plan becomes public, it could serve as a blueprint for how to carve up the internet and sell the best performance to the highest bidder.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Internet freedom advocates have described this plan as the "doomsday scenario" that "marks the beginning of the end of the internet as you know it". In short, the Google/Verizon pact potentially sets the stage for a corporate takeover of the Internet that could, in future, restrict your freedom to learn about cutting-edge research in natural health, the pharmaceutical business with disease and the Nazi roots of the Brussels EU. To learn about the campaign to protect internet freedom and net neutrality, click here.
August 4, 2010
Blair must be arrested
Having helped destroy other nations far away, our former prime minister — “peace envoy” to the Middle East — is now free to profit from the useful contacts he made while working as a “servant of the people”. Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes; Blair's, which has earned him a £4.6m advance, will appear next month. Now consider the Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless country, of a kind the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime". This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide. In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma.
Read article by John Pilger in the New Statesman magazine (UK)
Comment: We share the sentiments of John Pilger on this issue and continue to call for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be held responsible for war crimes in Iraq. To read about the Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Blair and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the ‘business with disease’, war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.
July 30, 2010
UK former deputy PM doubted Iraq WMD intelligence
Britain's deputy prime minister at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq said on Friday he had doubts about intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, describing some of it as "tittle tattle." John Prescott, who was deputy to Tony Blair during his entire tenure in power, said he thought the intelligence on WMD prior to the war was not "very substantial." Prescott also told an inquiry in London into Britain's role in the conflict that the government's top lawyer had come under great pressure to say whether military action was legal and had not been "a happy bunny."
Read news report at reuters.com
July 27, 2010
Iraq inquiry: Former UN inspector Blix says war illegal
The UN's former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said it is his "firm view" that the Iraq war was illegal.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
July 24, 2010
Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'
The shocking rates of infant mortality and cancer in Iraqi city raise new questions about battle
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents. Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
July 7, 2010
GM-Spin Meltdown in China
Bt cotton in China is often cited as an example of a successful GM crop. In fact, its widespread use has merely replaced the cotton borer with a serious pest that not only attacks cotton but also many other crops.
Read article by Prof. Peter Saunders on the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) website (UK)
July 7, 2010
Western food fuelling SE Asia diabetes boom: researchers
The growing popularity of Western junk food is fuelling a diabetes boom across Southeast Asia, Australian researchers warned on Wednesday.
Read article at physorg.com
June 30, 2010
Iraq inquiry: secret documents showing Tony Blair’s frustration published
Tony Blair’s irritation and frustration at being told that going to war in Iraq would be illegal have been made public with the unprecedented release of top secret Government documents. On one note, written six weeks before the March 2003 invasion, the then-prime minister scrawled “I just do not understand this” alongside a warning from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, that military force would be illegal without a fresh United Nations resolution.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
June 30, 2010
Diplomat questions Blair's handling of Bush in runup to Iraq war
Lord Jay tells Chilcot inquiry Tony Blair gave commitments to US president about British involvement
Britain's senior diplomat at the time of the Iraq war has questioned how Tony Blair conducted his dealings with the then US president, George W Bush, in the runup to the conflict, during this morning's session at the Chilcot inquiry in central London. Lord Jay of Ewelme, who was head of the Foreign Office as permanent secretary there between 2002 and 2006, told the inquiry that the former prime minister gave commitments about Britain's support for the war in advance that he would not have given himself. His evidence also disclosed that there was internal debate and conflict within the Foreign Office about the legality of the war and that its senior legal advisers were strongly opposed to the conflict without a second UN resolution.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
June 29, 2010
Britain's Iraq War Inquiry Resumes
Britain's Iraq war inquiry began again on Tuesday after suspending its hearings for the country's general elections. Former U.N. inspector Hans Blix is among those called to appear before the five-member panel in the coming weeks.
Read article on the Voice of America news website (USA)
June 29, 2010
Sir John Chilcot asks lawyers: Was Iraq war legal?
An official verdict on the legality of the Iraq war crept closer today after the Chilcot inquiry called for international lawyers to submit their views on the conflict. Resuming public hearings after a break for the general election, Iraq Inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot issued an “open invitation” to legal experts to give their judgments on the US-UK invasion in 2003.
Read article in the London Evening Standard (UK)
Comment: Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General at the time of the US-UK invasion of Iraq, openly stated in 2004 that it was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. We share this opinion and continue to call for former U.S. President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be held responsible for the deaths of more than one million people in Iraq and put on trial for genocide and other crimes against humanity.
June 22, 2010
Johnson & Johnson involved in bribery case in China
The US drug giant Johnson & Johnson was exposed in the involvement of an alleged bribery case in China, according to local media reports. Media reports said that the China's former vice director of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), Zhang Jingli, has been involved in cases of bribery in the pharmaceutical field, including the latest of Johnson & Johnson. The company (Johnson & Johnson) declined to comment. Sources close to the SFDA said that Zhang took the bribes in exchange for help in getting the firms drug application numbers and certificate of registration of medical products.
Read article in the Global Times (China)
June 10, 2010
Former Nuremberg prosecutor chides U.S., China, Russia
Kampala, Uganda -- One of the attorneys who prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II cautioned the United States, Russia and China on Wednesday over their opposition to the final inclusion of "crimes of aggression" in the mandate for the International Criminal Court. "Crimes of aggression" were initially included in the court's Rome Statute of 1998, but unlike the other three crimes put under the tribunal's jurisdiction -- genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes -- crimes of aggression were not defined and jurisdictional conditions were not set. A review conference, which began May 31 in Kampala and continues through Friday, hopes to accept a proposal that will finally give the court what it needs to try cases of crimes against aggression. But the United States, Russia and China have balked. "A country should not commit crimes for its own benefit thinking no one will question it," said Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor during the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal that brought top Nazi war officials to justice. "This is the time all nations in the world should come in full support of the crime of aggression to be part of crimes tried by ICC so that we put to past impunity and open a new chapter to accountability," he said.
Read article at cnn.com
Comment: CNN reports that a total of 33 African nations now want former U.S. President George W. Bush and his close ally former British Prime Minister Tony Blair prosecuted for their invasion of Iraq in 2002. In particular, attorneys for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir are urging the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to indict Bush and Blair for lying to the world regarding the existence of weapons of mass destruction to support the invasion.
May 20, 2010
Cannes hears call for ‘war criminals’ Bush, Blair to face trial
CANNES, France — Director Ken Loach, in Cannes with his Iraq war film, called Thursday for the "war criminals" George W. Bush and Tony Blair to be tried for launching the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. "We have to keep pursuing Blair, Bush and the others until we have them in the dock," he said as he arrived for a red carpet premiere of his film "Route Irish" which is in the running for the festival's Palme d'Or top prize. "It's certainly true that the people who started the war, who are war criminals, have not been called to account," said Loach, whose new work probes the murky world of private security contractors in Iraq.
Read article on the Raw Story website (USA)
May 7, 2010
N.Korean leader vows to revive nuclear talks
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il vowed during a visit to China this week to try to revive stalled nuclear disarmament talks, Beijing media said Friday in its first confirmation of the secretive trip. "Kim said that the DPRK (North Korea) will work with China to create favourable conditions for restarting the six-party talks," Xinhua news agency reported, without saying whether he made a firm commitment to return to dialogue.
Read AFP news report at yahoo.com
May 3, 2010
Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant Arab women requires urgent attention
Pregnant Arab women have an "extraordinarily high prevalence" of vitamin D deficiency - a potential health issue for them and their babies, according to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study. The vitamin deficiency is largely due to how Arab women dress outdoors - preventing exposure of the skin to sunlight and subsequent vitamin D intake, according to Adekunle Dawodu, M.D., a physician in the Center for Global Child Health at Cincinnati Children's and lead author of the study. "Vitamin D deficiency is common in Arab women, and its deficiency in pregnancy is detrimental to the health of both mother and child," he says. "The problem can be addressed by either vitamin D supplementation or having expectant mothers expose their skin modestly to sunlight in private, such as the privacy of their own courtyards."
Read article at physorg.com
April 21, 2010
Google releases list of government censorship requests
Internet search giant Google has revealed that Brazil's government has made the most requests for information or censorship. However figures for China, which censors great swathes of online information, have not been revealed. Google could not include requests made by Beijing because the information is regarded as a state secret. Instead, Brazil tops the list, with 3,663 data requests between 1 July and 31 December 2009. The US made 3,580 and the UK came third with 1,166.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: To see
Google’s list of government censorship requests, click here.
April 10, 2010
President Kaczynski is killed in a plane crash: Poland's tragedies continue
Poland has suffered more than is any country’s right. Its story is one of repeated occupations, partitions and tyrannies. Seventy years ago, almost to the day, 21,768 Polish army officers, intellectuals and senior civil servants were murdered by the Soviet NKVD in the forestnear Katyn: an attempt by Stalin to decapitate Poland by liquidating its elite. For years, the crime went unacknowledged: Western governments, reluctant to face up to the reality of the regime to which they had allied themselves, went along with the pretence that the massacre had been carried out by the Nazis. This morning, a few miles from Katyn, another decapitation occurred. A Russian plane crashed near Smolensk, carrying the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and dozens of senior Polish officials.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog entry on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
Comment: President Kaczynski was one of only two EU leaders who bravely stood up for democracy and delayed signing the Lisbon Treaty – the Brussels EU ‘Enabling Act’ – for as long as possible. Following Ireland’s voting ‘No’ in a referendum on the treaty in June 2008, Kaczynski spoke out publicly and stated that he could not accept attempts by other EU states to bully Ireland into approving it. A courageous opponent of the Brussels EU dictatorship, both Poland and Europe will be the worse without him.
April 8, 2010
US and Russian leaders hail nuclear arms treaty
US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, have signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty in the Czech capital, Prague. The treaty commits the former Cold War enemies to each reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 - 30% lower than the previous ceiling. Mr Obama said it was a key milestone, but only the "first step on a longer journey" of nuclear disarmament. Mr Medvedev said the deal would create safer conditions throughout the world. If ratified by lawmakers in both countries, the treaty will replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) of 1991, which expired in December.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
March 4, 2010
Falluja doctors report rise in birth defects
Doctors in the Iraqi city of Falluja are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
February 22, 2010
Dutch to pull troops out of Aghanistan following government collapse
Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said on Sunday (22 February) that his country's troops are likely to be pulled out of Afghanistan by the end of this year, a move he said may prompt other wavering states - including EU members - to think about doing the same. "If nothing else will take its place, then it ends," Mr Balkenende told Buitenhof, a domestic current affairs television programme, reports Reuters. The centre-right leader was speaking a day after his government collapsed over the issue. The Labour Party quit the the coalition on Saturday, saying it could not agree to a Nato request to extend the Dutch mission beyond 2010. The Netherlands is among the top ten contributors to Afghanistan. Twenty-one of its soldiers have been killed there. Currently, there are around 2000 Dutch troops the dangerous Afghan province of Uruzgan. They are due to start leaving the country in August.
Read article at euobserver.com
February 10, 2010
Secret papers could contradict Iraq evidence: Chilcot
Tens of thousands of secret documents could contradict evidence given by members of the Blair government to the inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, has suggested as the former prime minister lashed out at the hunt for a ''scandal'' and a ''conspiracy'' over his controversial decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sir John disclosed that the panel was examining far more documents than previously thought. He said the papers would form the core of the inquiry and show ''what really went on'' in the build-up to the start of the conflict. He said that the inquiry team would examine the documents ''over the next few months'', adding: ''That will enable us to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.''
Read article in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
February 7, 2010
Russia should consider joining the EU and NATO, says Medvedev’s institute
According to a paper released on 3 February by the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR), a think tank headed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia will join NATO and the EU, reduce its military, reintroduce gubernatorial elections and four-year presidential terms and disband its Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, news agencies reported.
Read article on the New Europe website
February 6, 2010
Memo 'shows Blair Iraq war deal with Bush'
The leader of Plaid Cymru's MPs has said he has a memo showing Tony Blair and George Bush struck a secret deal to invade Iraq a year before the 2003 war. Elfyn Llwyd told the BBC's Straight Talk he had written to Iraq Inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot to say he would be prepared to hand the document over. He said the memo, which is marked "Top Secret and Confidential" contradicted statements made by Mr Blair. Mr Blair previously told the inquiry he made no "covert" deal with Mr Bush.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
February 6, 2010
Blix: Straw 'gave incorrect answers' to Iraq inquiry
Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gave some incorrect answers to the UK's Iraq war inquiry, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has said. Mr Blix told the BBC he was "puzzled" by some of the evidence that Mr Straw gave to the panel. He said that Mr Straw had been incorrect to suggest, in 2002, that UN weapons inspectors were not being allowed access to certain sites.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
February 2, 2010
Iraq to sue U.S., Britain over depleted uranium bombs
Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the U.S. over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says. Iraq's Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment. According to the reports, during the first year of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. According to Iraqi military experts, the U.S. and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war. Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq. Iraqi doctors say they' have been struggling to cope with the rise in the number of cancer cases -- especially in cities subjected to heavy U.S. and British bombardment.
Read article in the Tehran Times (Iran)
February 2, 2010
Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair ‘lied’ and misled Parliament, claims Clare Short
Tony Blair 'lied' to his Cabinet and misled Parliament over the war in Iraq, Clare Short, the former international development secretary has said. Giving evidence before the Chilcot Committee into the war, she repeatedly accused the former prime minister of personally “misleading” and “conning” her, and of being “deceitful” with Cabinet, Parliament, and the public. Miss Short claimed that Mr Blair broke the ministerial code by misleading Parliament, and accused Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general who gave the “green light” to war, of failing to tell the Cabinet the truth of his reservations about the legality of an invasion.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
February 1, 2010
Russia to tighten labeling requirements for GMO food products
Russian food producers will be required to label their products with "This product contains GMOs" inscription, according to Russian media reports. Such proposal has recently been introduced by some members of the Russian Parliament. According to the bill, the size of inscription must be at least 20% of the advertising space of the package. Many of the Russian officials believe that the absence of such information confuses the Russian consumer and violates the right of consumers to receive truthful information about the products they use.
Read article at foodbizdaily.com
January 30, 2010
Chilcot War Inquiry: Professor to launch 'Nuremberg' war crimes prosecution against Blair
Plans to bring a war crimes prosecution against Tony Blair based on last week’s bombshell evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry have been launched by a leading law professor. The move could see Mr Blair follow former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic into a dock in The Hague. Professor Bill Bowring says the revelation that the Government rejected Foreign Office warnings not to invade Iraq means there is a good chance Mr Blair can be ‘investigated, at the very least’ for war crimes.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
January 30, 2010
Tony Blair accused of putting war with Iran on the electoral agenda
Former prime minister slammed for trying to shift focus onto threat from Tehran during appearance at Chilcot inquiry
Tony Blair has been accused of warmongering spin for claiming that western powers might be forced to invade Iran because it poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, accused Blair of trying to make confrontation with Iran an electoral issue after the former prime minister repeatedly singled out its Islamic regime as a global threat in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry yesterday. Blair said many of the arguments that led him to confront the "profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic" Saddam Hussein seven years ago now applied to the regime in Tehran.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
January 29, 2010
Bush decided UN backing not necessary, says Blair
United Nations backing for the Iraq war would have made "life a lot easier", Tony Blair said today. But the former prime minister said US President George Bush decided the UN Security Council's support "wasn't necessary".
Read article in the Independent (UK)
January 29, 2010
Protesters call for Blair to face war crimes charges
In the shadow of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and surrounded in all directions by monuments to the British establishment, protesters called Friday for Tony Blair to face war crimes charges as the former prime minister gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry. "Blair lied, thousands died!" and "Tony Blair! War criminal!" chanted the few hundred who had gathered under gray and damp early morning skies, separated from the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre by chain-link fencing and dozens of police officers. Some protesters donned rubber Blair masks and posed behind bars, their hands covered in theatrical blood representing those killed during the war in Iraq. Many said they wanted to see Blair put on trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Read article at cnn.com
January 24, 2010
North Korea accuses South of declaring war
North Korea on Sunday accused the South of declaring war by warning earlier this month that it would launch a preemptive strike if it thought its impoverished neighbor was preparing a nuclear attack.
Read news report at reuters.com
January 23, 2010
David Kelly post mortem to be kept secret for 70 years as doctors accuse Lord Hutton of concealing vital information
Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years. In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence. The move, which will stoke fresh speculation about the true circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, comes just days before Tony Blair appears before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. It is also bound to revive claims of an establishment cover-up and fresh questions about the verdict that Dr Kelly killed himself.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
Comment: Dr David Kelly died days after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC story on the Iraq war, which alleged that evidence against Iraq had been "sexed up" by the British Government in order to justify the 2003 invasion. Some reports suggest that Dr Kelly, 59, had been writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death. Significantly, therefore, convinced that the original verdict of suicide is unsafe and should be overturned, six senior doctors have recently begun legal action in an attempt to force a new inquest into Kelly’s death.
January 13, 2010
Drug firm made to pay for pollution
SHANGHAI: Authorities have made a pharmaceutical company in Zhejiang province pay a compensation of 2.2 million yuan ($322,200) after it dumped more than 1,000 barrels of unprocessed, noxious waste in two counties in neighboring Anhui province last December. Environmental protection authorities held the company, Zhejiang Apeloa Tospo Pharmaceutics, responsible for the pollution in Lixin and Woyang counties, along with its waste processing contractor Xing Binghua, who is now wanted by the police. The chemical waste dumped in the two counties contains dichloromethane methanol and methane, which are categorized as hazardous waste chemicals under national regulations. The chemicals can cause eye diseases, blood poisoning and damage to the central nervous system, experts said.
Read article at chinadaily.com.cn (China)
January 13, 2009
Iraq Inquiry: Lord Goldsmith 'materially' changed legal advice in days before war
Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, "materially" changed his advice on the legality of military action against Saddam Hussein in the final days before the 2003 invasion, the Iraq war Inquiry has been told. Lord Turnbull, who was the Cabinet Secretary at the time, said there were important differences between the final legal opinion Lord Goldsmith presented to the Cabinet and an earlier version he gave privately to Tony Blair.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
January 12, 2010
A sign of empire pathology
Here is a shocking statistic that you won't hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide - more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).
Read article at gulf-daily-news.com (Bahrain)
January 12, 2009
Dutch inquiry says Iraq war had no mandate
An inquiry into the Netherlands' support for the invasion of Iraq says it was not justified by UN resolutions. The Dutch Committee of Inquiry on Iraq said UN Security Council resolutions did not "constitute a mandate for... intervention in 2003". The inquiry was launched after foreign ministry memos were leaked that cast doubt on the legal basis for the war. The Netherlands gave political support to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but has denied having any military role. The report demolishes the Dutch case for supporting the invasion, says the BBC's Europe correspondent Jonny Dymond. It could also be taken to reinforce the international case against the Iraq war, he says.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)