12/23/01
4:21:09 PM

FBI Declines to Release Hijack Flight Cockpit Tape

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The FBI (news - web sites) has turned down family requests that it release the cockpit voice recording from an airliner hijacked on Sept. 11 that crashed in a Pennsylvania field, saying the horror captured on the tape would do little to assuage their grief.

``(FBI) Director (Robert) Mueller has personally listened to the recording from the hijacked flight and advised that the FBI will not be releasing the tape at this time,'' FBI spokesman John Collingwood said in a letter to U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (news - bio - voting record) that the congresswoman's office released on Thursday.

``While we empathize with the grieving families, we do not believe that the horror captured on the cockpit voice recording will console them in any way,'' Collingwood said.

Tauscher, a California Democrat, had written to the FBI on behalf of Deena Burnett, whose husband Thomas was among those aboard the plane when it was hijacked on Sept. 11.

Unlike three other passenger jets hijacked that day that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites), United Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, apparently brought down amid a passenger revolt against the hijackers.

Burnett and several other relatives of Flight 93 passengers have asked the government to release the cockpit voice recorder, saying they hoped it would reveal what really happened during the final minutes before the plane crashed, killing all 45 people aboard.

The Justice Department (news - web sites) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to release even an edited transcript of Flight 93's cockpit voice recorder, saying that it is evidence in a criminal investigation.

The FBI's Collingwood repeated that the tape was being held as evidence, and said Mueller believed that the families would gain nothing from listening to the tape.

``While we share your interest in providing Mrs. Burnett with peace of mind, we do not believe that any of the victim's families would find comfort in the recording,'' Collingwood said. ``Furthermore, the voices are, for the most part, indistinguishable.''

A number of other recordings, made by other aircraft and air traffic control, have surfaced that appear to support the belief that passengers clashed with the hijackers in the final minutes of the flight.

Collingwood said that while the FBI would not accede to the families' request for the tape, ``we hope that they will take comfort in knowing that all of America embraces the passengers and flight crew of Flight 93 as heroes.''

Source: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011220/ts/attack_hijack_recording_dc_1.html

12/23/01
4:18:35 PM

Forgiveness: The Harsh and Dreadful Precursor To Justice

by Mike Miles

"You have heard it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him also the other...You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."

It may well be that in the human experience, more difficult words have never been uttered. The practicality of these instructions seem to defy all logic -- how could one ever imagine circumstances that would call for such a response? Perhaps in an ideal, or better yet, in a perfect world, one could give consideration to these seemingly impossible teachings. But then in a perfect world how could evil ever gain a foothold, or disputes that would create enemies even exist?

No, in these words rest the wisdom of ages present, the remedy for the human condition, the power to undo Hiroshima. In these words we learn forgiveness -- not surrender, certainly not capitulation, but, as Dostoyevski put it, the harsh and even dreadful reality which becomes the heart of love in action.

I have had the privilege to stand in the presence of forgiveness in situations of incalcuable loss and have been awed by its transforming power. I have walked beside Amber, Ryan, and Barry Amundson, wife and brothers of Craig Scott Amundson who was killed at his post in the Pentagon on that dreadful September morning. I have shared stories and laughter with David Potorti whose brother Jim died in the World Trade Center. They, along with other families of victims of 9/11, have become a moral compass to the nation as they issue a clarion call for justice without revenge, peace without war, an end to perpetual cycles of violence.

I have stood with families in hospital wards in Baghdad watching their children suffer and die for lack of simple medicines and clean water -- their plea to us being that no other families experience the horrors, the sorrows, they have known. I have been witness to farmers in Iraq whose son and brother was killed by an American cluster bomb while watching his family's sheep on yet another clear, blue morning. They gave our humbled delegation the only photograph they had of young Omran so we could continue to tell his story to anyone willing to listen--a story of innocence lost in the collision of empire and ideology.

I have read the report by Robert Fisk, reporter and Middle East expert, as he was being beaten to death by a crowd of Afghani refugees -- how he understood why they felt the need to lash out at anyone from the West and the shame he experienced as he escaped to safety.

This depth of understanding, of compassion, of forgiveness, is not unique to these exceptional individuals and families. It is a thread that runs through us all as children of a common Creator. Some have experienced it on a personal level with friends and family. Others have seen how it can transform social structures and even nations.

It is a power that is neither sentimental nor without cost -- witness the assassinations of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Oscar Romero; the murders of countless human rights workers -- Dorothy Kazel, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jafar Siddaq Hamzah; the imprisonment's of Aung San Su Kyi, Philip Berrigan, Angie Zelter, Mubarak Awad.

Forgiveness has been the lifeblood of the movement to free South Africa from apartheid. Love of enemies fueled those who led the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines, the liberation of East Timor, and the dissolution of communist block countries in the late eighties. In East Germany hundreds of thousands gathered regularly at the church of St. Nicholas in Leipzig to reflect on the Sermon on the Mount. Holding their candles, surrounded by the STASI (East German Secret Police) people demanded democracy and free elections. After the government of Erich Honecker had fallen, Horst Sindermann, a member of the Central Committee of the GDR remarked, "We had planned everything. We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayer."

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there was a time when evil had so multiplied that God unleashed the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, a flood that destroyed virtually everyone in the world. When that didn't work and evil reestablished itself, God chose forgiveness as the cornerstone for saving us from ourselves. Even Jesus forgave his murderers in the midst of his execution The strength, the wisdom, the purity, of forgiveness as the precursor to justice seems to have eluded us for over two thousand years now.

As Christians approach the celebration of the birth of the One whose counsel often sticks in our throats, we would do well to consider the words of G. K. Chesterton: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." We believe, help us in our unbelief. Lord have mercy.

Mike Miles lives at Anathoth Community Farm, a center for the study of Nonviolence and Sustainability in northern Wisconsin. He has traveled to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness and recently accompanied the Walk for Healing and Peace with the National Mobile Peace Center--formerly known as the Remembering Omran Bus Tour.

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1220-04.htm

12/23/01
4:15:35 PM

Published on Thursday, December 20, 2001 by Common Dreams We Are Also in the World: A Bulls-Eye View of Baghdad by Ramzi Kysia

Baghdad does not know it's a city under a death sentence.

The sun still shines here. The date palms and poplars still line the Tigris river. The streets are still full of cars, and buses, and taxicabs searching for fares. When night falls, the mosques are full of people praying, and the sidewalks jam with families enjoying the festive Ramadan atmosphere of street vendors, sweets dealers, and restaurateurs roasting chickens in the open air. And with smuggling at an all time high, the shops are full of pretty things to look at - even if most people still can't afford to buy them.

Walking the streets of Baghdad you notice the architecture - the boarded-up buildings, the crumbling sidewalks. This is what happens after 11 years of economic ruin. But then you also notice the new, box-like structures being built, with huge archways, intricate brickwork, and jutting columns, balconies, and facades. It's a striking mix of old and new, of socialist sensibility and Babylonian splendor - Frank Lloyd Wright meets Lawrence of Arabia. These buildings are beautiful, and you have to wonder how many of them will be standing in six months if the U.S. does decide to massively bomb this country.

As America's "new war" winds down into civil disorder and lawlessness in Afghanistan, the focus is shifting to Iraq. President Bush has put Iraq on notice: let weapons inspectors back into the country, or face the consequences. Media speculation that Iraq will be hit next is rampant. Rabid might be a better word. With this conflict, the media has all but erased the line between speculation, reporting, and enthusiastic encouragement.

There are facts that everyone at home seems to be forgetting. In 1998 there was a year-long series of conflicts with Iraq over weapons inspections. The Iraqi government claimed that the U.S. was using the inspectors to "spy" on the regime, and the U.S. claimed that Iraq was making up stories to hide an active weapons program. In December 1998, this conflict culminated in "Desert Fox," an intense, three-day bombing campaign against Iraq that marked the end of weapons inspections.

According to earlier Pentagon estimates, it also likely resulted in over 10,000 deaths.

In January 1999, both the Washington Post ("Annan Suspicious Of UNSCOM Role," 1/6/99) and the Boston Globe ("US used UN to spy on Iraq," 1/6/99) reported that the Iraqi charges were in fact true, and that the U.S. had been lying and had used the weapons inspection program to spy on the regime.

This is significant.

People cannot be punished for the failures of a government they only happen to live under. Nor can a government be punished because it refuses to assist in its own self-destruction. Nor can the United Nations be subverted to attempt to overthrow its member states. All of these things are gross violations of international law.

U.S. pundits and politicians are forgetting other uncomfortable facts. Primary among these is the devastation that has already been wrought throughout Iraq. In 1991, during the six-week Gulf War, the U.S. dropped over 88,000 tons of explosives on a country 2/3 the size of Texas. This was more firepower than was used by all sides during World War II. It compelled Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait. It also devastated the country.

The Jordanian Red Crescent Society estimated the number of civilian dead at 113,000. This means that the ratio of U.S. soldiers killed by Iraqi fire, to Iraqi soldiers and civilians killed by U.S. fire, was roughly 1:1,000. In a press conference at the time, then Gen. Colin Powell said that wasn't "a number I'm particularly interested in." That wasn't particularly surprising. When the ratio of dead in a conflict is 1:1,000, you don't usually call it a war -you call it a massacre.

After Desert Storm, the international blockade was kept in place to force the Iraqi government to comply with Security Council dictates, including weapons inspections. Let's be blunt: linking the well being of a civilian population, suffering in the immediate aftermath of a devastating bombing campaign, to the vagaries of a brutal dictator - this was madness. It was and is an act of collective punishment. It is illegal, immoral, and, at the very least, it has been spectacularly unproductive at doing anything other than killing massive numbers of human beings.

To some degree, sanctions are crumbling now. Smuggling is widespread. Walking the streets of Baghdad you see more shops than before. But you also see young children, in torn and dirty clothes, searching through the garbage by the side of the road - looking for a meal. Street children are a new phenomenon in Iraq. This is a country where, before the war, childhood obesity used to be the biggest problem pediatricians complained about.

The problem is that sanctions have already devastated Iraq's economy, causing hyperinflation, chronic unemployment, and the collapse of critical civilian infrastructures -including the public health care and educational systems - resulting in the virtual destruction of Iraq's once prosperous middle class. Crumbling or not, economic sanctions, by design, damage economies.

If smuggling cannot take the place of normal economic activity, then neither can a handout. The Oil-for-Food program is at best a band-aid, and at worst an excuse to maintain sanctions. Despite having sold more than $50 billion worth of oil over the 5 years of this program, Iraq has only received some $16 billion worth of supplies through it. This is an average of $150 per person per year - making Iraq, by deliberate design, one of the poorest nations in the world.

In this conflict, the Iraqi people are caught between a dictator and a democracy - neither of which seem to give a damn how many of them die.

The central, shattering truth of this conflict is that hundreds of thousands of innocents have already died, and thousands more continue to die every month. According to the UN's own figures, more children have died in Iraq due to the sanctions than all U.S. combat deaths during all the wars of the 20th Century.

The suffering of the Iraqi people may not impress either the U.S. or Iraqi governments, but it has fragmented the international coalition against Saddam that once existed. And the vision of U.S. warplanes now routinely bombing Iraqi civilians, while U.S.-led sanctions impoverish them, has worked to rehabilitate Saddam's image throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

If Americans can't understand how that's possible, then maybe they can understand this: according to UN agencies and relief organizations in Iraq - organizations such as UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross - sanctions have caused at least 500,000 excess deaths among children under the age of 5. That's a children's 9-11 every month for the last 11 years: 250 World Trade Towers, full of babies and toddlers, crashing to the ground.

Mr. Bassel manages the Zahrat al-Kaleej Apartments in the heart of Baghdad. Like most of the older people here, he treated me with kindness and warm hospitality despite my nationality. He remembers a time when Iraq was a part of the world - and demonized, demoralized and seemingly discarded.

"Americans don't know anything about the world," Bassel told me. "They are on top. They first in technology. They first in military. Everything belong to them. But they should not think they are the only people in the world." Said Bassel, "we are also in the world."

He spoke those words to me as a plea, in the hope of reconciliation between our two peoples. But as America becomes drunk on war fever, we would do well to look at the devastation we have already wrought in Iraq, and to remember one of primary lessons of 9-11: 'We are also in the world' can be a plea - and it can be shout delivered in raging blood. l

Ramzi Kysia is a Muslim-American peace activist, and serves on the board of directors for the Education for Peace in Iraq Center

http://www.saveageneration.org

He is currently in Iraq as part of a Voices in the Wilderness peace delegation trying to stop the war

http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw

12/23/01
4:11:42 PM

The Making Of A Movement

Getting Serious About Media Reform

by Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols

No one should be surprised by the polls showing that close to 90 percent of Americans are satisfied with the performance of their selected President, or that close to 80 percent of the citizenry applaud his Administration's seat-of-the-pants management of an undeclared war. After all, most Americans get their information from media that have pledged to give the American people only the President's side of the story. CNN chief Walter Isaacson distributed a memo effectively instructing the network's domestic newscasts to be sugarcoated in order to maintain popular support for the President and his war. Fox News anchors got into a surreal competition to see who could wear the largest American flag lapel pin. Dan Rather, the man who occupies the seat Walter Cronkite once used to tell Lyndon Johnson the Vietnam War was unwinnable, now says, "George Bush is the President.... he wants me to line up, just tell me where."

No, we should not be surprised that a "just tell me where" press has managed to undermine debate at precisely the time America needs it most--but we should be angry. The role that US newsmedia have played in narrowing and warping the public discourse since September 11 provides dramatic evidence of the severe limitations of contemporary American journalism, and this nation's media system, when it comes to nurturing a viable democratic and humane society. It is now time to act upon that anger to forge a broader, bolder and more politically engaged movement to reform American media.

The base from which such a movement could spring has already been built. Indeed, the current crisis comes at a critical moment for media reform politics. Since the middle 1980s, when inept and disingenuous reporting on US interventions in Central America provoked tens of thousands of Americans to question the role media were playing in manufacturing consent, media activism has had a small but respectable place on the progressive agenda. The critique has gone well beyond complaints about shoddy journalism to broad expressions of concern about hypercommercial, corporate-directed culture and the corruption of communications policy-making by special-interest lobbies and pliable legislators.

Crucial organizations such as Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), the Institute for Public Accuracy, the MediaChannel, Media Alliance and the Media Education Foundation have emerged over the past two decades. Acting as mainstream media watchdogs while pointing engaged Americans toward valuable alternative fare, these groups have raised awareness that any democratic reform in the United States must include media reform. Although it is hardly universal even among progressives, there is increasing recognition that media reform can no longer be dismissed as a "dependent variable" that will fall into place once the more important struggles have been won. People are beginning to understand that unless we make headway with the media, the more important struggles will never be won.

On the advocacy front, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting and People for Better TV are pushing to improve public broadcasting and to tighten regulation of commercial broadcasting. Commercial Alert organizes campaigns against the commercialization of culture, from sports and museums to literature and media. The Center for Digital Democracy and the Media Access Project both work the corridors of power in Washington to win recognition of public-interest values under extremely difficult circumstances. These groups have won some important battles, particularly on Internet privacy issues.

In addition, local media watch groups have surfaced across the nation. Citizens' organizations do battle to limit billboards in public places and to combat the rise of advertising in schools--fighting often successfully to keep Channel One ads, corporate-sponsored texts and fast-food promotions out of classrooms and cafeterias. Innovative lawsuits challenging the worst excesses of media monopoly are being developed by regional groups such as Rocky Mountain Media Watch and a national consortium of civic organizations, lawyers and academics that has drawn support from Unitarian Universalist organizations. Media activists in Honolulu and San Francisco have joined with unions and community groups to prevent the closure of daily newspapers that provided a measure of competition and debate in those cities.

Despite all these achievements, however, the media reform movement remains at something of a standstill. The sheer corruption of US politics is itself a daunting obstacle. The Center for Public Integrity in 2000 issued "Off the Record: What Media Corporations Don't Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas"--an alarming exposé of the huge lobbying machines employed by the largest communications corporations and their trade associations, as well as the considerable campaign contributions they make. According to the center, the fifty largest media companies and four of their trade associations spent $111.3 million between 1996 and mid-2000 to lobby Congress and the executive branch. Between 1993 and mid-2000, the center determined, media corporations and their employees have given $75 million in campaign contributions to candidates for federal office and to the two major political parties. Regulators and politicians tend therefore to be in the pockets of big-spending corporate communications lobbies, and--surprise, surprise--the corporate newsmedia rarely cover media policy debates. Notwithstanding all the good work by media activists, the "range" of communications policy debate in Washington still tends to run all the way from GE to GM, to borrow a line from FAIR's Jeff Cohen.

At this very moment, for example, the FCC is considering the elimination of the remaining restrictions on media consolidation, including bans on cross-ownership by a single firm of TV stations and newspapers in the same community, and limits on the number of TV stations and cable TV systems a single corporation may own nationwide. The corporate media lobbying superstars are putting a full-court press on the FCC--which, with George W. Bush's imprint now firmly on its membership, is now even more pro-corporate than during the Clinton years. The proposed scrapping of these regulations will increase the shareholder value of numerous media firms dramatically, and will undoubtedly inspire a massive wave of mergers and acquisitions. If the lessons of past ownership deregulation--particularly the 1996 relaxation of radio ownership rules--are any guide, we can expect even less funding for journalism and more commercialism. All of this takes place without scrutiny from major media, and therefore is unknown to all but a handful of Americans.

The immensity of the economic and political barriers to democratic action has contributed to demoralization about the prospects for structural media reform and an understandable turn to that which progressives can hope to control: their own media. So it has been that much energy has gone into the struggle over the future of the Pacifica radio chain, which looks at long last to be heading toward a viable resolution. The Independent Press Association has grown dramatically to nurture scores of usually small, struggling nonprofit periodicals, which are mostly progressive in orientation. And dozens of local Independent Media Centers have mushroomed on the Internet over the past two years. These Indy Media Centers take advantage of new technology to provide dissident and alternative news stories and commentary; some, by focusing on local issues, have become a genuine alternative to established media at a level where that alternative can and does shift the dialogue. We have seen the positive impact of the IMC movement firsthand--in Seattle, in Washington, at the 2000 Democratic and Republican national conventions, at the three lamentable presidential debates later that year, during the Florida recount and in the aftermath of September 11 in New York and other cities. It is vital that this and other alternative media movements grow in scope and professionalism.

Yet, as important as this work is, there are inherent limits to what can be done with independent media, even with access to the Internet. Too often, the alternative media remain on the margins, seeming to confirm that the dominant structures are the natural domain of the massive media conglomerates that supposedly "give the people what they want."

The trouble with this disconnect between an engaged and vital alternative media and a disengaged and stenographic dominant media is that it suggests a natural order in which corporate media have mastered the marketplace on the basis of their wit and wisdom. In fact, our media system is not predominantly the result of free-market competition. Huge promotional budgets and continual rehashing of tried and true formulas play their role in drawing viewers, listeners and readers to dominant print and broadcast media. But their dominance is still made possible, in large part, by explicit government policies and subsidies that permit the creation of large and profitable conglomerates. When the government grants free monopoly rights to TV spectrum, for example, it is not setting the terms of competition; it is picking the winner of the competition. Such policies amount to an annual grant of corporate welfare that economist Dean Baker values in the tens of billions of dollars. These decisions have been made in the public's name, but without the public's informed consent. We must not accept such massive subsidies for wealthy corporations, nor should we content ourselves with the "freedom" to forge an alternative that occupies the margins. Our task is to return "informed consent" to media policy-making and to generate a diverse media system that serves our democratic needs.

In our view, what's needed to begin the job is now crystal clear--a national media reform coalition that can play quarterback for the media reform movement. The necessity argument takes two forms.

First, the immense job of organizing media reform requires that our scarce resources be used efficiently, and that the various components of a media reform movement cooperate strategically. The problem is that the whole of the current media reform movement is significantly less than the sum of its parts. Isolated and impoverished, groups are forced to defend against new corporate initiatives rather than advance positive reform proposals. When they do get around to proposing reforms, activists have occasionally worked on competing agendas; such schisms dissipate energy, squander resources and guarantee defeat. More important, they are avoidable. Organizers of this new coalition could begin by convening a gathering of all the groups now struggling for reform, as well as the foundations and nonprofits willing to support their work. "All the issues we talk about are interlinked. We are fighting against a lot of the same corporations. The corporations, while they supposedly compete with one another, actually work together very well when it comes to lobbying," explains Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. "We need to link up the activists and start to work together as well as the corporations do for the other side." Will every possible member organization get on the same media reform page? No. But after years of working with these groups in various settings, we have no doubt that most will.

Second, a coherent, focused and well-coordinated movement will be needed to launch a massive outreach effort to popularize the issue. That outreach can, and should, be guided by Saul Alinsky's maxim that the only way to beat organized money is with organized people. If the media reform movement stays within the Beltway, we know that we will always lose. Yet, so far, outreach beyond the core community of media activists has been done on a piecemeal basis by various reform groups and critics with very limited budgets. The results have, by and large, been predictably disappointing. As a result, says Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., "the case for media reform is not being heard in Washington now. It is not easy to make the case heard for any reform these days. That's why we need to do more. I hear people everywhere around the country complaining about the media, but we have yet to figure out how to translate those complaints into some kind of activist agenda that can begin to move Congress. There has to be more pressure from outside Washington for specific reforms. Members have to start hearing in their home districts that people want specific reforms of the media."

That will only happen if a concerted campaign organized around core democratic values takes the message of media reform to every college and university, every union hall, every convention and every church, synagogue and mosque in the land. To build a mass movement, the new coalition must link up with organized groups that currently engage in little activity in the way of media reform but that are seriously hampered by the current media system. Organized labor, educators, progressive religious groups, journalists, artists, feminists, environmental organizations and civil rights groups are obvious candidates.

These groups will not simply fall into place as coalition partners, however. Media corporations do not just lobby Congress; they lobby a lot of the groups that suffer under the current system. Some of those groups have been bought off by contributions from foundations associated with AOL, Verizon and other communications conglomerates; others--particularly large sections of organized labor--have been convinced that they have a vested interest in maintaining a status quo that consistently kicks them in the teeth. Building a broad coalition will require a tremendous amount of education and old-fashioned organizing that will inevitably involve pressure from the grassroots on major institutions and unions in order to get the national leadership of those organizations to engage. Movement-building will require that able organizers like Chester, Cohen, FAIR's Janine Jackson and Media Alliance executive director Jeff Perlstein--who have already been engaged in the struggle--be provided with the resources to travel, organize and educate.

All the organizing in the world won't amount to a hill of beans, however, unless there is something tangible to fight for, and to win. That's why we need reform proposals that can be advocated, promoted and discussed. Media reform needs its equivalent of the Voting Rights Act or the Equal Rights Amendment--simple, basic reforms that grassroots activists can understand, embrace and advocate in union halls, church basements and school assemblies. And there has to be legislation to give the activism a sense of focus and possibility.

Fortunately, there are several members of Congress who are already engaged on these issues: Senator Fritz Hollings has emerged as a thoughtful critic of many of the excesses of media monopolies; Senator John McCain has questioned the giveaway of public airwaves to communications conglomerates; Representative John Conyers Jr., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has been outspoken in criticizing the loss of diversity in media ownership and the failure of the FCC to battle monopolization and homogenization; Representative Louise Slaughter has introduced legislation mandating free airtime for political candidates; Senator Paul Wellstone has expressed an interest in legislation that would reassert standards for children's programming and perhaps adopt the approaches of other countries that regulate advertising directed at young children; and Jesse Jackson Jr. has expressed a willingness to introduce legislation aimed at broadening access to diverse media, along with a wide range of other media reform proposals. If an organized movement demands it, there are people in Congress with the courage and the awareness to provide it with a legislative focus.

Ultimately, we believe, the movement's legislative agenda must include proposals to:

§ Apply existing antimonopoly laws to the media and, where necessary, expand the reach of those laws to restrict ownership of radio stations to one or two per owner. Legislators should also consider steps to address monopolization of TV-station ownership and move to break the lock of newspaper chains on entire regions.

§ Initiate a formal, federally funded study and hearings to identify reasonable media ownership regulations across all sectors.

§ Establish a full tier of low-power, noncommercial radio and television stations across the nation.

§ Revamp and invest in public broadcasting to eliminate commercial pressures, reduce immediate political pressures and serve communities without significant disposable incomes.

§ Allow every taxpayer a $200 tax credit to apply to any nonprofit medium, as long as it meets IRS criteria.

§ Lower mailing costs for nonprofit and significantly noncommercial publications.

§ Eliminate political candidate advertising as a condition of a broadcast license, or require that if a station runs a paid political ad by a candidate it must run free ads of similar length from all the other candidates on the ballot immediately afterward.

§ Reduce or eliminate TV advertising directed at children under 12.

§ Decommercialize local TV news with regulations that require stations to grant journalists an hour daily of commercial-free news time, and set budget guidelines for those newscasts based on a percentage of the station's revenues.

We know from experience that many of these ideas are popular with Americans--when they get a chance to hear about them. Moreover, the enthusiasm tends to cross the political spectrum. Much of our optimism regarding a media reform movement is based on our research that shows how assiduously the corporate media lobbies work to keep their operations in Washington out of public view. They suspect the same thing we do: When people hear about the corruption of communications policy-making, they will be appalled. When people understand that it is their democratic right to reform this system, millions of them will be inclined to exercise that right.

What media policy-making needs is to be bathed in democracy. The coalition we envision will have its similarities to the civil rights movement or the women's movement--as it should, since access to information ought to be seen as a fundamental human right. It will stand outside political parties and encourage all of them to take up the mantle of democratic media reform, much as Britain's impressive Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom has done. Although its initial funding may well come from large grants, this reform coalition ultimately must be broad-based and member-funded, like Greenpeace or, dare we say it, the National Rifle Association. Activists must feel a sense of ownership and attachment to a citizen lobby if it is to have real impact. We understand that success will depend, over the long term, upon a rejuvenation of popular politics and, accordingly, a decrease in corporate political and economic power. At the same time, we are certain that a movement that expands the range of legitimate debate will ultimately change not just the debate but the current system. "I am convinced that when people start talking about these big issues, these fundamental issues, when they start to understand that they have the power as citizens in a democracy to take on the powers that be and change how things are done, then change becomes inevitable," says Jackson. "The challenge, of course, is to get people to recognize that they have that power."

Even before it gets down to the serious business of reforming existing media systems, the coalition we propose can lead an organized resistance to corporate welfare schemes like the proposed FCC deregulation. And it might even be able to prevent the complete corporatization of the Internet [see Jeffrey Chester and Gary O. Larson, "Something Old, Something New," in this issue]. The key is to have a network of informed organizations and individuals who are already up to speed on media issues and can swing into action on short notice. Currently that network does not exist. The heroic public-interest groups that now lead the fight to oppose corporate domination of FCC policies find themselves without sufficient popular awareness or support, and therefore without the leverage they need to prevail. The movement we propose will be all about increasing leverage over the FCC and Congress in the near term, with an eye toward structural reform down the road.

But is it really possible that such a coalition can take shape in the months and years to come and begin to shift the debate? History tells us that the possibility is real. At times of popular political resurgence throughout the twentieth century, media activism surfaced as a significant force. It was most intense in the Progressive Era, when the rise of the modern capitalist media system was met with sustained Progressive and radical criticism from the likes of Upton Sinclair, Eugene Victor Debs and Robert La Follette. In the 1930s a heterogeneous movement arose to battle commercial broadcasting, and a feisty consumer movement organized to limit advertising in our society. In the postwar years, the Congress of Industrial Organizations attempted to establish a national FM radio network, one of the first casualties of the war on independent labor and the left that marked that period. In the 1960s and '70s the underground press provided vital underpinning for the civil rights, antiwar and feminist movements.

In short, we are building on a long tradition. And there is considerable momentum at present to coalesce. In November some thirty-five media activists from all over the nation met for a day in New York to begin coordinating some of their activities on a range of issues, from local and national policy matters to creating alternative media. Leading media scholars and educators are forming a new national progressive media literacy organization, one that will remain independent of the media conglomerates that bankroll existing groups. We are excited by speculation that Bill Moyers, who has done so much to drum up funding for reform initiatives, will in 2002 use his considerable influence to convince progressive foundations to make a genuine commitment to this fundamental democratic initiative.

The bottom line is clear. Until reformers come together, until we create a formal campaign to democratize our communications policy-making and to blast open our media system, we will continue to see special issues of The Nation like this one lamenting our situation. We need no more proof than the current moment to tell us that the time to build a broad coalition for media reform has arrived.

Robert W. McChesney, who teaches at the University of Illinois, is the author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy (New Press) and, with John Nichols, of It's the Media, Stupid (Seven Stories). John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent, has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. He is the author, with Bob McChesney, of It's the Media, Stupid (Seven Stories), which features introductions by Ralph Nader, Barbara Ehrenreich and Paul Wellstone, and Jews for Buchanan, on the 2000 presidential election, published in November 2001 by New Press.

Source: http://www.TheNation.com

12/23/01
4:06:11 PM

t r u t h o u t | 12.23

RANGEL Delivers Democratic Response to the President

http://www.truthout.com/12.23A.Rangel.Radio.htm

Afghan Convoy Controversy Grows

http://www.truthout.com/12.23B.Afghan.Convoy.htm

U.S. Special Forces Aiding Philippine Fight Against Rebels

http://www.truthout.com/12.23C.US.Philippine.htm

Senate Approves Feinstein Terrorist US Small Arms Provision

http://www.truthout.com/12.23D.Small.Arms.htm

Body of Missing Harvard Biologist Found in Mississippi River

http://www.truthout.com/12.23E.Body.Biologist.htm

Navy Sonar Likely Killed Whales

http://www.truthout.com/12.23F.Navy.Whales.htm

12/23/01
4:02:12 PM

Everybody's Got Their Own Terrorist

by Al Martin

According to the Friendly Colonel, one of his friends who retired from the FBI and became a local police chief has told him that even in the small city jail he runs they're holding eight suspects under the terrorism act. They're being kept in a separate wing. It's interesting the way it works. The federal government picks up the tab. The sheriff told him that the detainees are not allowed to have any visitors, not even family. They're not even allowed to call a lawyer or have any contact with a lawyer. They can't send out mail or receive mail. As a matter of fact, they're not even allowed to put these guys' names in the computer to say they're holding them. Their names are kept on a separate hand written piece of paper that the sheriff has to keep locked up in his safe. These people are being kept "at the special request" of the Office of Homeland Security.

Some of the "detainees" have been arrested locally by the local nickel and dime police guys. They keep getting lists of names of people that are "wanted." The county sheriff's office is large enough so they have the ability to get "pink" cables from the Department of Justice. In other words, they keep getting classified cables with seemingly endless lists of names. He said there are thousands of names.

The sheriff's department isn't obligated to go out and grab them - only if they notice them in their jurisdiction. Thus far, the only thing that's paid for is a per diem for keeping these guys -- and that only circuitously because Washington has to jump through hoops to get them the money and it has to come under the guise of some sort of special funding program that doesn't really exist. They're not getting paid anything extra to go out and look for them, but he has said they have received notification as late as last week that indicated that as soon as "things settle down" and certain remaining pieces of legislation are passed and incorporated into the USA Patriot Act that the locals will be paid to go out and get the people.

And what nationality are these "detainees"? Perhaps aliens with green cards, or maybe people who wear turbans? Not at all, the former FBI agent admitted that where the nervousness is coming from at senior levels in federal law enforcement is that there are thousands and thousands of people who are being secretly detained in the United States. There are an awful lot of names on this list that are not Arabs. There are an awful lot of names on the list like "Smith" and "Jones" and "Johnson" and "Nelson." And there's no paper trail. Their names are being kept off computers. Even their families don't know where they are.

The Bush Administration is jumping the gun because even with the authority already given them and with the bills already passed to date to augment that authority, they don't have all the authority necessary to detain people and to do what they're doing, that is, detaining so many people and keeping them incommunicado. They're supposed to wait for the remaining pieces of legislation that are still outstanding to be passed. Then they'll have the authority to do what they're doing - but for right now, they don't. And what the FBI is nervous about is that if this gets dribbled out into the media or gets exposed in a big way, somebody in Washington is going to duck for cover and it's going to leave a lot of local guys with a lot of explaining to do. And they're not going to have any paperwork in their hands to say, "This is what I was told to do."

Other sheriffs have done the same thing. They're getting these confidential lists of names of people they're supposed to place under detention. They've been ordered to shred them right after. He knows that he (and a hell of a lot of other sheriffs in this nation, are beginning to keep these lists because people are getting concerned about covering their own ass.

There's a lot of nervousness about who's covering whose ass. As of now, the Department of Justice is not giving out bounties, just a per diem comp, just the standard fee which isn't much. They're not paying them anything extra yet, but they've been told that that's coming, that supposedly they will be getting paid extra for doing this. One thing that the feds have to be careful about is that most of the local jails and the county sheriffs are on a very tight budget.

They have a special wing of the jail they're using at Huntsville. It's a special wing devoted to this that used to be their "dry-out tank."

The media has circulated rumors before that there are far more people being detained both domestically and overseas than what the US Government has admitted, but the information in this column is an exclusive report on the details.

Like the sheriff said, "How many guys with the last name of Smith and Jones can have immigration or green card problems?"

Of course, even though he's a former FBI agent, he doesn't exactly know the intent of holding all these people who most likely don't have anything to do with terrorism or most likely aren't even connected to it. In other words, people are being held who couldn't possibly have any connection with terrorism. He thinks that a lot of the people they're holding are "potentially vocal people." He didn't go on to explain that. Then he said, "How do you think the government has gotten away with holding so many people for so long with names like Smith or Jones, completely incommunicado, yet nobody is running to the media. Why isn't there pressure building? Why aren't family members running to the local newspapers saying what's happened?"

The answer is that the people being held are, in some cases, people who have worked in very sensitive capacities for the US Government before and perhaps they know enough that they could be a problem down the line if they started to talk. By and large, these are people who don't have much family or may be very disconnected from family life. In other words, they come from family circumstances where they are used to being missed for months and sometimes years. That would be a normal course of events for them.

The FBI is generally familiar with Arabs that the CIA has associated with, including Arabs in the United States who are considered to be friendly. What it looks is a massive operation by the CIA to cover its ass, to distance itself from its own Arab connections. If they're in prison, they can't talk and say anything if they're held incommunicado.

It's like the sheriff said - if somebody from the Department of Justice or even the Department of Defense showed up tomorrow with DoD or DoJ credentials with a writ signed from the judge for the production of these eight people, I'd have to release them. I'd have no idea where they would go after that. All I need to see is the little stamp of Office of Homeland Security and that's it.

The sheriffs, when asked to release the detainees, would not even have the right to be informed as to the ultimate destination where the people are going.

The speculation from the FBI old-timers is that there are probably a variety of reasons why there are so many people being detained, the least of which is "terrorism." What they suspect is that by the number of Arab nationals being detained (knowing who these guys are and knowing their involvement with US intelligence in the past) that the CIA is doing a lot of housecleaning and covering its own ass.

He said, "How do you define terrorism?" You need new definitions - when everything is so interconnected.

Terrorists, for example, who went out and killed people or blew up buses full of kids, and who also had relationships with the CIA - are they then strictly "terrorists"?

The ambiguity of state-sponsored terrorism, or domestic terrorism, or international terrorism, then becomes one big muddle.

The FBI is arresting all these Arabs; then the CIA comes and grabs them and either lets them go or gets them out of the country and the FBI isn't even told where they've gone. This is why the FBI is nervous - because of the chaos of the situation. The FBI old timer says, "The CIA grabs people from us. The Department of Defense grabs guys from us that we're arresting. The British show up and we find out that this terrorist had actually been working with MI6. The French DST shows up and says, 'hey this of one of our terrorists.'"

They're not only protecting their own assets, but they're covering their own asses. Regarding the processing office at the National Intelligence Division of the FBI, they had a luncheon for some of the retired guys who were talking with some of the active duty guys getting close to retirement and they were laughing at how it looks like a mini-U.N. The British show up to claim their terrorists. The French show up to claim their terrorists. And then the CIA comes in to get their terrorists. He says, pretty soon we got nobody left, who actually is supposed to be a terrorist. He says I thought we had a war on terrorism and we were supposed to be declaring war on terrorism. But what a selective war it seems to be when all the supposed enemy targets and would be terrorists get whisked away by various intelligence agencies of different countries trying to cover their political liabilities. Everybody in the world shows up to claim them. He laughs and says that even the Russians have been there.

It really makes you wonder, though, how all this is getting financed --holding all these people in detention. Millions are being spent looking for all these people that represent a liability to the United States or one of our allies. Then you look at these appropriation bills getting jammed through Congress, and Congress is in complete chaos. They're getting bills passed just about every day. A former Washington insider says that he doesn't know any member of the House or Senate that has actually read them.

What is happening apparently is the old Bushonian trick of appropriating $20 million, $15 million, or $50 million here and there for, in some cases, little esoteric subdivisions of divisions of departments, some of which haven't even been in operation in 40 years. That's the best scam -appropriating money for defunct agencies. There are legions of little office buildings outside of the crescent of Washington from Silver Springs over to Fort Mead and down into McLean, Virginia and Reston. There are row after row of little office buildings, and they're all leased by different agencies of the government.

There was one that was called something like the Appalachian Relief and Corn Investigation Bureau that was phased out in 1947 and they still have an office with a sign on the door. There's nothing in it. It's completely vacant and there's no furniture in it anymore, but they still rent the office for like $150 per month.

It reminds me of another story about the way government accounting works. If the media ever asked any questions, they can always say, "Oh yes we're aware that that bureau got closed down in 1947, but its functions were then assumed by Bureau 317-A of the Department of Agriculture." The when the media goes there and finds out that that was shut down in 1963. Then they say, "Oh yes, but then their functions were assumed by this other bureau." And the government can get away with it because a lot of the appropriations, if they're under $10 million per year for these esoteric little offices, they just come out as block spending authority, which isn't specifically listed by bureau because the government claims that the cost of the paperwork is too high. So the way it works is there are slush funds within slush funds. But it's a neat trick the way it's done.

Only God knows how much money is sucked out of the federal budget.

Here's another way money is sucked out for purposes other than what the appropriations have been designated - by using little arcane one man or two man bureaus, a subdivision of a subdivision of an agency that has long since been shut down - but continue to get funded.

Congressman Bill Alexander actually stumbled into this little bureau that was supposed to be part of the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) that was actually shut down in the 1940s. It supposedly had to do with the restocking of wildlife and reforestation planning, but it didn't do anything. It was what they called a "field planning office." He tracked it down and it ended up that $1.9 million annually still gets appropriated for it, but it's actually being used to subsidize a variety of exclusive congressional luxury golf course retreats. Of course, they're not called that. They're called "congressional study and research retreats."

In other news, it is interesting to report that when the final 50 odd pieces of legislation related to the USA PATRIOT bill are passed by Congress, more than likely under administration pressure before the need of this congressional term, the United States of America will no longer meet the legal definition of being a "free democratic state" in accordance with the definition, as put forth by our own Supreme Court.

The old American Republic now falls as Benjamin Franklin predicted it might -- not with a bang but with a whimper -- of naivete, apathy and blind "patriotism."

Hail the New Imperial Republic. . .

Source: http://www.almartinraw.com/column42.html

12/23/01
3:53:43 PM

t r u t h o u t | 12.22

TOM DASCHLE Responds to Ari Fleischer

http://www.truthout.com/12.22A.Daschle.Fleischer.htm

Pentagon, Justice Dept. Battle Over Handling Of American Taliban

http://www.truthout.com/12.22B.CBS.Walker.htm

Senate Confirms Two Bush Nominees | Again Rejects Otto Reich

http://www.truthout.com/12.22C.Senate.Confirms.htm

Flight Trainer Blew Whistle on Moussaoui

http://www.truthout.com/12.22D.Trainer.Whistle.htm

Hunt for Osama Bin Laden Highlights Problems in U.S.-Saudi Relations

http://www.truthout.com/12.22E.US.Saudi.OBL.htm

GENE LYONS | Magic Carpet Jihad

http://www.truthout.com/12.22F.Lyons.Jihad.htm

12/23/01
3:47:29 PM

US Navy Admits Its Sonar Killed Whales

By Cat Lazaroff Environment News

WASHINGTON, DC (ENS) - The U.S. Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service have released a report acknowledging the role that the Navy's experimental sonar played in the deaths of 17 marine mammals in the Bahamas last year. The report is the agency's first official admission that sonar may contribute to whale beachings.

The interim report finds that the March 2000 stranding of 16 whales and a dolphin on Bahamian beaches was caused "by the unusual combination of several contributory factors acting together."

The Navy and NMFS concluded that the presence of the whales in a restrictive ocean channel, during calm water conditions which reflect and amplify sounds, caused the Navy's sonar to damage the whale's ears, leading them to beach themselves.

"Review of passive acoustic data ruled out volcanic eruptions, landslides, other seismic events, and explosive blasts," the agencies reported. "The unusual extended use of Navy midrange tactical sonars operating in the area is the most plausible acoustic source."

The report says that the Navy's experimental Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS), which has been implicated in other whale strandings, was not involved in this incident.

Instead, the whales were injured because the calm water and the underwater topography concentrated sound in the top 200 meters of the ocean - just where the whales and dolphins would have been swimming.

"The calm seas did little to stop the reflection and caused fewer air bubbles, which dissipate sound energy," the report notes.

On March 15 and 16, 2000, nine Cuvier's beaked whales, three Blainville's beaked whales, two unidentified beaked whales, one spotted dolphin, and two Minke whales were reported stranded along the Northeast and Northwest Providence Channels on the Bahamian Islands. The strandings took place within 24 hours of the intensive use of active midrange sonar by U.S. Navy ships as they passed through the Northeast and Northwest Providence Channels.

The Navy says that multiple sonar units were used over an extended period of time.

Six of the whales died after stranding on beaches. One dolphin stranded and died of unrelated causes. Ten whales were returned to the sea alive.

Specimen samples were collected from four dead whales. Three of these whales showed signs of bleeding in the inner ears and one whale showed signs of bleeding around the brain.

Whale biologists determined that the most likely cause of the bleeding was either a blow to the head or exceptionally loud noises.

"The investigation team concludes that tactical mid-range frequency sonars aboard U.S. Navy ships that were in use during the sonar exercise in question were the most plausible source of this acoustic or impulse trauma," the report concludes.

The investigation team recommended that future research focus on identifying where combinations of ocean and undersea conditions might combine to create similar problems in the future.

"This research, along with other research on the impacts of sonar sounds on marine mammals, increased knowledge of marine mammal densities, increased knowledge of causes of beaked whale strandings, increased knowledge of beaked whale anatomy, physiology and medicine, and further research on sonar propagation, will provide valuable information for determining which combinations of factors are most likely to cause another mass stranding event," they conclude.

Little is known about deep sea whales like this Blainville's Beaked Whale (Photo courtesy Cetacea)

The team recommended that the Navy continue to investigate how sonar affects marine mammals and to develop measures to protect animals "to the maximum extent possible and not jeopardize national security."

The Navy said it will include, when possible, Bahamian scientists and other qualified individuals in future surveys involving marine mammal research in Bahamian territorial waters.

The interim report is available online at:

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/prot_res/overview/Interim_Bahamas_Report.pdf

Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21-07.html

12/23/01
3:45:23 PM

Fox News Pulls Its Four-Part Israeli US Phone Spying Series Michael Rivero rivero@whatreallyhappened.com 12-22-1

Fox News just yanked the four part story about the phone spying scandal.

This has become absurd.

Here the FBI has just uncovered the largest spy ring ever discovered in our country, and the government that owns and operates that spy network is able to tell Fox News NOT to report the story?

Will someone explain to me what is going on when the nation that owns the largest spy ring ever discovered inside the United States is, even AFTER that spy ring is discovered and arrested, able to tell Fox News what stories they can and cannot run?

We need to get this to as many people as possible. Clearly, the Mossad has a huge network of people able to call and complain to Fox News to remove the story. We must muster an even greater number of people to call Fox News and DEMAND the full and complete story be put back on the web site and on the air.

Please email everyone on your activist list and post the news about this most egregious censorship, about Fox caving in on this story, to every public forum you can.

Have everyone on your activist list call Fox News to demand the return of the story, then phone ten of their activist friends and have THEM phone Fox News.

Source: http://www.rense.com/general18/spypull.htm

12/23/01
3:39:51 PM

White Christmases Becoming More A Dream Than A Reality

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 20, 2001 – In 1942, Bing Crosby crooned about a white Christmas, and a dream is just what a snowy Dec. 25 has become in several parts of the United States, according to statistics provided by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Looking at 16 cities – mainly in the north -- since 1960, the number of white Christmases per decade declined from 78 during the 1960s to 39 in the 1990s. People in Chicago, for example, saw the number of white Christmases – defined as at least one inch of snow on the ground – drop from seven in the 1960s to two during the 1990s. In New York, the number declined from five in the 1960s to one this past decade, and Detroit had just three white Christmases in the 1990s vs. nine in the 1960s.

But in several cities, the number of white Christmases has been fairly constant. Looking at the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and’90s, Tahoe City, Calif., had eight, seven, eight and nine white Christmases, respectively. Salt Lake City’s number of white Christmases per decade were seven, seven, eight and eight. Minneapolis/St. Paul had eight white Christmases in the 1960s, seven in each of the following two decades and eight in the 1990s.

In Tennessee, Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville/Oak Ridge had several white Christmases in the 1960s – three in Memphis, two in Nashville and four in Knoxville/Oak Ridge -- but none in the 1980s or 1990s.

As defined for this survey, Atlanta hasn’t had a white Christmas since the record-keeping process began in 1896.

Following are metropolitan areas used in the study followed in parentheses by the number of white Christmases for each of the last four decades:

Seattle (2, 0, 0, 0) Tahoe City, Calif. (8, 7, 8, 9) Salt Lake City, Utah (7, 7, 8, 8) Denver (4, 4, 7, 2) Minneapolis/St. Paul (8, 7, 7, 8) Kansas City, Mo. (4, 0, 6, 2) Chicago (7, 5, 4, 2) Detroit (9, 7, 5, 3) Cincinnati (3, 0, 2, 2) Boston (8, 5, 5, 2) New York City (5, 1, 1, 1) Washington, D.C. (4, 0, 0, 0) Memphis (3, 0, 0, 0) Nashville (2, 0, 0, 0) Knoxville/Oak Ridge (4, 1, 0, 0) Atlanta (0, 0, 0, 0)

The snowfall analysis was performed by Dale Kaiser, a meteorologist with the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Kevin Birdwell, a meteorologist in the lab’s Computational Science and Engineering Division.

For many cities, the weather described by the data is actually what was recorded at a suburban station several miles away, Bob Cushman, director of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, noted. For example, the weather for Washington, D.C., was actually recorded at Glen Dale, Md.

Cushman advised against reading too much into the analysis, saying, "After all, we’re only looking at one aspect of weather on one specific day each year. Whether there is snow on the ground on Dec. 25 may or may not relate to the larger issue of whether the U.S., or any region in the country, is experiencing an overall warming trend."

The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/), which includes the World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases, is the primary global change data and information analysis center of the Department of Energy. The center responds to requests for data and information from users from all over the world.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a Department of Energy multiprogram research facility managed by UT-Battelle.

Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory http://www.ornl.gov

12/23/01
3:36:58 PM

NEW STUDY SHOWS EARLY SIGNALS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN EARTH'S COLD REGIONS

Global mean temperatures have risen one degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, with more than half of the increase occurring in the last 25 years, according to University of Colorado at Boulder Senior Researcher Richard Armstrong.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210163124.htm

LUNGS DEVELOP BETTER IN KIDS WHO MOVE AWAY FROM POLLUTION

When children living under polluted, hazy skies move away to communities with cleaner air, their lungs begin to grow more quickly, according to a study by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011217082728.htm

GEOPHYSICIST STUDIES LIFE IN THE EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM

The early Earth may have been an interrupted Eden - a planet where life repeatedly evolved and diversified, only to be sent back to square one by asteroids 10 or 20 times wider than the one that hastened the dinosaurs' demise. When the surface of the Earth finally became inhabitable again, thousands of years after each asteroid impact, the survivors would have emerged from their hiding places and spread across the planet - until another asteroid struck and the whole cycle was repeated.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011217082959.htm

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER NEW MATERIAL THAT EXPANDS UNDER PRESSURE

Most materials get compacted or fall apart under pressure, but scientists working in an international collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and the School of Chemical Sciences at Englands University of Birmingham have discovered some that expand. These unusual materials may have applications as "molecular sponges" for soaking up chemical pollutants or even radioactive waste.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011214081600.htm

NEW PICTURE OF INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS THE OVERLOOKED ROLE OF VISUOSPATIAL ABILITIES

When we say that people know their way around, we really mean theyre smart. Now, psychologists have evidence that strong visuospatial skills and working memory may be at least as good as verbal skills and working memory as indicators of general intelligence. New research correlates visuospatial abilities, less extensively explored than verbal abilities in intelligence research, with the brains executive function, the central cognitive command and control that may lie at the heart of smarts.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011217082547.htm

ENGINEERS CREATE TINY, WIGGLING FANS TO COOL FUTURE ELECTRONICS

Research engineers at Purdue University are developing tiny, quiet fans that wiggle back and forth to help cool future laptop computers and other portable electronic gear. The devices remove heat by waving a small blade in alternate directions, like the motion of a classic hand-held Chinese fan. They consume only about 1/150th as much electricity as conventional fans, and they have no gears or bearings, which produce friction and heat.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011217083503.htm

PRIMITIVE MICROBE OFFERS MODEL FOR EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS A microorganism whose evolutionary roots can be traced to the era of the first multicellular animals may provide a glimpse of how single-celled organisms made a critical evolutionary leap.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218072534.htm

ENGINEERED STRATEGIES TO MITIGATE GLOBAL WARMING COULD INFLUENCE BIOSPHERE

Blocking the sun may not be such a cool way of counteracting climate change, scientists at the University of Illinois say. Potential effects upon the biosphere could be important to agriculture and forest production, and also could create secondary feedback mechanisms that may further change the climate.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011213084601.htm

NASA BIDS FAREWELL TO THE SUCCESSFUL DEEP SPACE 1 MISSION

NASA's adventurous Deep Space 1 mission, which successfully tested 12 high-risk, advanced space technologies and captured the best images ever taken of a comet, will come to an end Dec. 18, 2001.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218073701.htm

RELATIVISTIC HEAVY ION COLLIDER BEGINS COLLIDING HIGH-ENERGY POLARIZED PROTONS; EXPERIMENTS WILL PROBE SPIN STRUCTURE OF PROTONS AND THE NATURE OF THE STRONG FORCE

The newest and largest particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory is taking a break from recreating the conditions of the early universe to investigate another fundamental question that has puzzled physicists: Where do protons get their spin, a property of elementary particles as basic as mass and electrical charge? To begin to answer the question, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has accelerated beams of polarized protons to the highest energy ever, and will begin colliding the beams this week.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218073117.htm

NEW PUBLIC-DOMAIN DATABASE COULD ADVANCE HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION THROUGH SOUND

Researchers in California have created a new, publicly available database of acoustic measurements of human subjects that may help engineers build personalized sound systems for computers that could rival or even exceed the experience of listening to a high-end home theater system.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218072852.htm

SCENT OF A LOBSTER

No question about it spiny lobsters arent pretty. Keith Ward, chair of ONRs Biomolecular and Biosystems Science and Technology Group, doesnt particularly like their looks either, but he knows their sense of smell is astounding. Researchers funded by Ward figure that a lobsters extraordinary ability to sniff out all kinds of odor trails in the water is just what the Navy would like an unmanned vehicle to be able to do.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218072745.htm

ANTARCTIC MUD REVEALS ANCIENT EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Scientists concerned about global warming are especially troubled by dramatic signs of climate change in Antarctica - from rapidly melting glaciers to unexplained declines in penguin populations. Records show that average winter temperatures are 10 degrees higher in parts of Antarctica today than they were 50 years ago. If that warming trend continues, say many climate experts, the vast Antarctic ice sheets could melt, causing catastrophic coastal flooding as the world`s oceans rise.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011219062844.htm

WORLD'S SMALLEST ATOM STORAGE RING IS FIRST TO GUIDE ULTRA-COLD NEUTRAL ATOMS; A STEP TOWARD "ATOM FIBER OPTICS"

In a development that could lead to dramatic improvements in aircraft guidance systems and open new areas of study in basic physics, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated the first storage ring able to confine and guide the flow of ultra-cold neutral atoms in a circular path.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011219062506.htm

NASA TECHNOLOGY MELTS ICE, KEEPING TRANSIT SYSTEM SAFE

A NASA-developed, environmentally friendly anti-icing fluid that can make railroad and commuter travel safer and more reliable during snowy conditions is now available for commercial applications.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218073836.htm

BATTLING THE BARNACLE

For as long as we’ve been building boats and putting them in the water, we’ve been battling those pesky little ocean critters that want to attach themselves to our boats for a free ride. The ubiquitous, determined barnacle not to mention tubeworms, oysters, algae, and an array of other invertebrates has long been the bane of many a fleet and flotilla. Pitch, copper sheaths, oils and gums, pesticides, silicone, arsenic over the centuries all have been tried, and none have completely solved the problem.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011219062137.htm

IBM'S TEST-TUBE QUANTUM COMPUTER MAKES HISTORY; FIRST DEMONSTRATION OF SHOR'S HISTORIC FACTORING ALGORITHM

Scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center have performed the world's most complicated quantum-computer calculation to date. They caused a billion billion custom-designed molecules in a test tube to become a seven-qubit quantum computer that solved a simple version of the mathematical problem at the heart of many of today's data-security cryptographic systems.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011220081620.htm

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND VOLCANOLOGISTS ANALYSIS OF 1883 KRAKATAU ERUPTION HELPS ASSESS VOLCANIC HAZARDS

Large-scale explosive eruptions from volcanoes located close to the sea often generate tsunamis that can carry volcanic fallout or flow material from such events onto distant coastal areas. URI Graduate School of Oceanography volcanologists Steven Carey, David Morelli, and Haraldur Sigurdsson and Butikno Bronto of the Volcanological Survey of Indonesia have studied the processes of tsunami deposition of past major eruptions to better understand how these volcanic deposits are important components of volcanic hazards assessment in coastal areas.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011218072639.htm

HOT GALACTIC ARMS POINT TO VICIOUS CYCLE TRIGGERED BY BLACK HOLE

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed the aftermath of a titanic explosion that wracked the elliptical galaxy known as NGC 4636. This eruption could be the latest episode in a cycle of violence triggered by gas falling into a central massive black hole.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221082136.htm

ANTIBIOTIC MAY BE A POTENTIAL THERAPY FOR MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

A common antibiotic, long used to treat infections in humans, may have potential as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, a devastating disease of the central nervous system, according to a new study.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221080824.htm

PENN TEAM FINDS "MOLECULAR CHAPERONES" CAN HALT PROGRESS OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE IN FRUIT FLIES AND POSSIBLY HUMANS

Using fruit fly models of Parkinsons disease, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that a class of proteins known as "molecular chaperones" can block the progression of neurodegenerative disease in Drosophila melanogaster. In addition, the group has found evidence that similar pathways may operate in Parkinsons disease and possibly other neurodegenerative disorders in humans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081755.htm

RESEARCHERS DISCOVER HOW BODYS INTERNAL CLOCK GENERATES DAILY RHYTHMS; SIGNALS FROM RETINA AND BODY CLOCK RECEIVED BY SAME MESSENGER

Harvard Medical School researchers have gained one of the first glimpses of how the bodys circadian clocka tiny cluster of nerve cells behind the eyessends out the signals that control natural daily rhythms. The newly discovered pathway, reported in the December 21 Science, opens a long-closed door to research that could ultimately lead to new treatments for circadian disturbances such as certain sleep disorders.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081605.htm

PROTEIN DISCOVERY TIED TO DNA MASTER SWITCH

A new cellular protein discovered by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill appears to be a crucial molecular component of a master switch that turns genes on and off.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081457.htm

NEW INSIGHT INTO SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) usually affects infants during their first six months of life. The incidence of this disease in Sweden increased during the 1980s and was approximately one death in 1000 live births in 1990 and was considerably greater in some other countries. After 1992-1993 the incidence of this disease has decreased to a level of approximately one third of that in 1990.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081106.htm

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON RESEARCH BOOSTS UNDERSTANDING OF HOW HYDROGEN TRANSFER WORKS

During the last 40 years, chemists have developed an understanding of how an electron transfers from one group to another to create new compounds. Now a team of University of Washington chemists has found that the same ideas apply to transferring a hydrogen atom an electron and a proton together. That understanding could prove important to scientists trying to devise new classes of chemical reactions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081705.htm

RARE SQUID FOUND IN GULF OF MEXICO

Texas A&M University oceanographer William Sager spotted and photographed an unusual squid while investigating natural oil seeps deep in the Gulf of Mexico. The results of his serendipitous encounter will appear in the Dec. 21 edition of the prestigious research journal Science.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081841.htm

WHITE CHRISTMASES BECOMING MORE A DREAM THAN A REALITY

In 1942, Bing Crosby crooned about a white Christmas, and a dream is just what a snowy Dec. 25 has become in several parts of the United States, according to statistics provided by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011221081413.htm

12/23/01
3:13:05 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

SONAR KILLED WHALES, NAVY ADMITS

WASHINGTON, DC, December 21, 2001 (ENS) - The U.S. Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service have released a report acknowledging the role that the Navy's experimental sonar played in the deaths of 17 marine mammals in the Bahamas last year. The report is the agency's first official admission that sonar may contribute to whale beachings.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21-07.html

USDA SUED OVER ELEPHANT ABUSE DOCUMENTS

WASHINGTON, DC, December 21, 2001 (ENS) - Three animal protection groups have filed suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeking information about how much the agency knew, and when, regarding the mistreatment of elephants at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. The lawsuit comes as famous circus trainer Mark Oliver Gebel faces a criminal trial for elephant abuse in San Jose, California.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21-06.html

EUROPE INVITES RUSSIA TO STRENGTHEN GREEN TEAMWORK

BRUSSELS, Belgium, December 21, 2001 (ENS) - The European Union and Russia should strengthen cooperation on environmental issues over "a broader strategic agenda," the European Commission said this week. The executive branch of the European Union is proposing increased contacts between the two sides within the framework of existing agreements.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21-01.html

RARE GIANT SQUID FOUND IN GULF OF MEXICO

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, December 21, 2001 (ENS) - A giant squid seen and photographed in the Gulf of Mexico last year was just the latest in a string of eight sightings around the world of what may be a whole new class of the strange creatures. The Mystery Squid, as it has been dubbed, has turned up west of Africa, in the Indian Ocean and in Hawaii, at depths ranging from 6,300 to 15,390 feet.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21-03.html

HEALING OUR WORLD: WEEKLY COMMENT

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

How Can We Possibly Change Things?

The shortest day of the year - and the longest night - is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice. To the ancients, it was initially a time of great stress as the people wondered if the days would keep getting shorter and shorter until the Sun went out for good. We can only imagine the great relief that spread over the land as the days became longer and longer again and the warmth of the Sun returned.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21g.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: DECEMBER 21, 2001

Santa Gets Help from NOAA

Are White Christmases Just a Memory?

Making the Holidays Pet-Safe

Some Christmas Toys Called Naughty to Animals

Caviar Not on Green Gift Lists

Nation's Living Christmas Tree Hosts Hundreds of Visitors

Last Great Places Photos Available Online

Sierra Club Offers Answers for Holiday Arguments

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-21-09.html

12/23/01
3:09:40 PM

TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

WOMEN'S BODIES: THE NEXT AFGHAN BATTLEFIELD

Equality for Women Depends on Access to Reproductive Healthcare

by Martha Campbell

"An Afghan woman has a one in 60 chance of dying every time she has a baby. Over her lifetime, she has a one in 12 chance of dying in childbirth. That mortality rate far exceeds most battlefields where men fight."

http://205.252.23.176/opinion/2001/12/19/1.html

A MISSISSIPPI MEDITATION

The Radiant Memories of a Grateful Interloper

by Robert Montague

Forbidden to go near the black church down the dirt road, Robert Montague used to sneak there anyway. His reward: the gospel spirit enriched the white boy who crouched beneath the church windows.

http://205.252.23.176/opinion/2001/12/19/2.html

CHECK IT OUT!

Tips, Leads and Links by The TomPaine.com Staff

Misogynist Heritage... PATRIOTs Across the Pond... Perry Messes with Texas Death Penalty... You Go, Girl!... and more!

http://205.252.23.176/news/2001/12/20/index.html

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Our Readers React by The TomPaine.com Staff

Fooling the Voters... What Goes Around... Welfare for the Rich... Feedback on Publicus... and more!

http://205.252.23.176/news/2001/12/20/1.html

12/23/01
3:04:10 PM

Manifesto 2000 For A Culture Of Peace And Non-Violence

The Manifesto 2000 for a culture of peace and non-violence, was drafted by a group of Nobel Peace Prize, to translate the resolutions of the United Nations into everyday language and to make them relevant to people everywhere.

The Manifesto 2000 was made public in Paris on March 4th 1999, during a press conference at the Eiffel Tower and is open to signatures from the wider public throughout the world.

The Manifesto 2000 does not appeal to a higher authority, but instead it is an individual commitment and responsibility.

Because the year 2000 must be a new beginning, an opportunity to transform - all together - the culture of war and violence into a culture of peace and non-violence. ecause this transformation demands the participation of each and every one of us, and must offer young people and future generations the values that can inspire them to shape a world based on justice, solidarity, liberty, dignity, harmony and prosperity for all. ecause the culture of peace can underpin sustainable development, environmental protection and the well-being of each person. ecause I am aware of my share of responsibility for the future of humanity, in particular to the children of today and tomorrow.

I pledge in my daily life, in my family, my work, my community, my country and my region, to:

Respect the life and dignity of each human being without discrimination or prejudice;

Practice active non-violence, rejecting violence in all its forms: physical, sexual, psychological, economical and social, in particular towards the most deprived and vulnerable such as children and adolescents;

Share my time and material resources in a spirit of generosity to put an end to exclusion, injustice and political and economic oppression;

Defend freedom of expression and cultural diversity, giving preference always to dialogue and listening without engaging in fanaticism, defamation and the rejection of others;

Promote consumer behaviour that is responsible and development practices that respect all forms of life and preserve the balance of nature on the planet;

Contribute to the development of my community, with the full participation of women and respect for democratic principles, in order to create together new forms of solidarity;

Please sign at: http://www.unesco.org/manifesto2000

12/23/01
2:46:38 PM

Dear friend of MoveOn,

Today is the Winter Solstice, the day when long nights begin to recede and sunlight starts to return.

Attached below is a message of hope from 9-11peace.org. 9-11peace.org, founded by Eli Pariser on September 12th, is now supported by MoveOn.org. We are very proud of the work of this campaign, including the excellent weekly bulletin, a sample of which is attached below.

If you'd like to subscribe to this bulletin, go to:

http://www.9-11peace.org/bulletin.php3

We wish you a happy and peaceful New Year.

Sincerely,

- Wes, Joan, Carrie, Peter, David, Eli & Susan MoveOn.org and 9-11peace.org December 21st, 2001

THE HOPE FOR PEACE

Read online, subscribe, or unsubscribe at:

http://www.9-11peace.org/bulletin.php3

INTRODUCTION: WHY HOPE?

At one time it seemed that slavery had always been a part of human history and always would be. But through the courage, sacrifice, and hard work of thousands of people, slavery was abolished in most countries. Apartheid ended. The Berlin wall came down. Women were enfranchised in many nations.

Activism is contingent on a kind of tough optimism, a stubborn belief that our power is our own and that it is enough to change the world. In other words, activism and social change must be preceded by hope. This hope is necessary if we are ever to escape the cycles of violence between nations and create a lasting peace.

Hope is not always easy to come by. Despite our best efforts, governments wage war, conflicts rage on, and innocent people are killed. At least, this is often how it seems.

This week we devote ourselves to the good news. There ARE positive signs that efforts for peace world-wide are working and growing. Below are our favorites, but because these initiatives rarely draw attention to themselves, there are thousands more that we haven't heard of. In the new year, it is our hope that we can build on these successes. The customary season's greeting is too appropriate to pass up: Let there be Peace on Earth, and Goodwill toward All.

Note: The next issue of the bulletin will come out during the second week of January.

TOP FIVE REASONS TO HOPE -------------------- The top five reasons to hope for world peace.

75 Million People Commit to Work for Peace

In 1999, UNESCO and several Nobel Peace Laureates launched the Manifesto 2000 signature campaign. The Manifesto 2000 is not a petition; rather, it's a commitment by each person who signs it to follow the six principles of a culture of peace in his or her daily life, family, work and community:

1) respect all life

2) reject violence

3) share with others

4) listen to understand

5) preserve the planet

6) rediscover solidarity

The Manifesto 2000 has been signed by a staggering 75 million people worldwide, with more people signing every day.

UNESCO's Director-General Matsuura stated that: "It is a sign of hope that decision-makers, gathered at the Millennium Summit, and civil society, represented by the millions of signatories of the Manifesto 2000, share the same commitment. For peace cannot be brought about by decree. Whilst political, economic or military settlements are necessary to establishing peace, they are not enough. Each individual must uphold the commitment in practice, in his or her daily life, through the simplest of acts. I am delighted to see that the world movement for a culture of peace is gathering momentum. During the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World, we will increase our efforts so that it triumphs."

You can sign the Manifesto here:

http://www.9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=58

12/23/01
2:41:32 PM

Happy holidays from the Greenpeace Clean Energy Now! campaign's weekly update - POSITIVE ENERGY!!!! This is the last issue of the year, but don't be sad, we will be back the second week of January!

STOP GLOBAL WARMING THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

Native Energy puts a new spin on gift giving this holiday season! For $120, or $11 per month, you can buy a one-year Wind Builders membership that supports the installation of new wind farms. By giving the gift of clean energy, you can educate your friends and family about the greatest environmental threat facing the world while offering them a solution - clean energy now! According to Native Energy, a Wind Builders membership effectively cuts the average household's one-year CO2 emissions to zero.

For more information, go to:

http://www.nativeenergy.com/windbuilders.html

TAKE ACTION TO GET SOLAR PANELS ON NEW BUILDINGS IN CALIFORNIA Take a minute to urge the California Energy Commission to add Photovoltaic systems to the updated version of the Title 24 Building Efficiency Standards that will come into effect in 2005. Title 24 is what helped to make California one of the most energy efficient states in the Nation. Now it is time for the commission to take the next step and begin accounting for the benefits of solar systems on buildings. Once photovoltaic systems are accepted into the Title 24 standards we are one step closer to having all new buildings in California generate their own electricity!

Go to http://www.cleanenergynow.org/bin/takeaction.pl?action_id=100 to fax the commissioners and urge them to add solar photovoltaics to the updated standards.

SHARP TO TRIPLE SOLAR PANEL PRODUCTION

Sharp, the world's largest producer of solar panels based in Japan, has recently decided to increase its manufacturing capacity outside of its home country to meet increasing overseas demand. Last year the company produced 300,000 KW of solar cells, but expects to triple its production by 2003, including a 30% increase in its share of the world market. They expect that the average household solar-power generation system to drop dramatically in price from approximately $22,000 to $10,000 within the next six years.

Imagine if Californians keep increasing the demand for solar at the same rate as we have this year? Solar companies will be pushing the natural gas suppliers out of the market in no time. Goodbye fossil fools!!!

http://www.solaraccess.com/news/story.jsp?storyid=1229

The "Positive Energy" newsletter and website, will give you good news about ways to achieve clean air, climate justice and renewable energy solutions to our current energy crisis.

http://www.cleanenergynow.org

Want to do more? Become a Greenpeace member today!

http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/join2/cen.htm

12/23/01
2:38:22 PM

FAIR

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Media analysis, critiques and news reports

ACTION ALERT: FCC Moves to Eliminate Cable Ownership Cap; Move Would Also Impact Internet

The Federal Communications Commission is moving to eliminate one of the few remaining vestiges of public interest regulation on media concentration-- the rules that limit the percentage of the national audience that a single cable company can reach. If existing rules limiting a single company to 30 percent of the national market are abandoned, the country's cable TV industry, now dominated by just eight companies, could be controlled by as few as two. Such consolidation threatens the diversity not just of cable TV but also of the Internet, since cable is likely to eventually be the way most people get Internet access.

Just two days after the September 11 attacks, the FCC moved to review both the cable ownership cap and the "cross-ownership" rules that keep a single company from owning both a newspaper and a TV station in the same geographic area.

See FAIR Action Alert, http://www.fair.org/activism/ownership-comment.html

FCC reviews include a mandatory public comment period to give Americans a chance to weigh in on proposed regulations. The public comment period for the cross-ownership rules closed on December 3, 2001, but the public has until January 4 to weigh in on the cable ownership cap.

Cable mega-companies like AOL Time Warner have aggressively moved to eliminate even the most modest of public interest regulations, claiming that any such rules impinge on their First Amendment rights. Despite the dubious idea of a "right" that only two giant corporations could take advantage of, a D.C. Court of Appeals accepted that argument, striking down the federal limit on the size of cable companies in March 2001; on December 3, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review that decision.

Several recent court rulings have favored media corporations' desire to grow ever larger and more concentrated; the FCC could resist, by offering justification for its regulations, but few observers expect the agency to do so. "If the Federal Communications Commission is heading in the direction many predict that it is, a new era of mega-media mergers may be on its way," reports the New York Law Journal (10/4/01). "The way to bet here is that they will loosen the rules," adds analyst and former FCC official Blair Levin.

"Looser" rules will very likely also mean higher cable rates for consumers; since the deregulatory Telecommunications Act of 1996, cable rates have risen nearly three times as fast as inflation.

Those concerned about preserving the democratic potential of the Internet should take heed: "AOL Time Warner and other cable companies are seeking to dramatically overturn the limits on cable system ownership precisely so they can control the key access point for the Internet marketplace," explains the Center for Digital Democracy. The FCC needs to hear from the public now, the CDD's Jeff Chester told CounterSpin (12/21/01), in order "to assure openness and diversity in cable and in the internet's future."

ACTION: Please let the FCC know that allowing further media consolidation by lifting the cable ownership cap will not serve the public interest.

The Center for Digital Democracy has created a special form that allows citizens to automatically file comments with the FCC. To access that form, go to:

http://www.democraticmedia.org/getinvolved/fccfiling2.html

For more details on the FCC's efforts to weaken ownership rules, see the Center for Digital Democracy's in-depth resources:

http://www.democraticmedia.org/issues/mediaownership/index.html

Source: http://www.FAIR.org

12/23/01
2:33:09 PM

MAINSTREAM EXTREMISTS

Here we begin our annual review of the key events of 2001.

September 11 took everyone by surprise, but what has struck us most forcefully is how quickly right-wing mainstream extremists in the U.S. moved to capitalize on the World Trade Center atrocities.

The day after the attacks, U.S. Senator Don Young (R-Alaska) announced that there was a "strong possibility" that "eco-terrorists" based in Seattle had hijacked the airplanes that brought down the twin towers in New York. "If you watched what happened in Genoa, in Italy, and even in Seattle, there's some expertise in that field," Young told the ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS. "I'm not sure they're that dedicated but eco-terrorists -- which are really based in Seattle -- there's a strong possibility that could be one of the groups," Senator Young said.[1]

The next day the Reverend Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister and White House adviser, blamed the Republican right's favorite enemies. Speaking on Pat Robertson's TV show, "The 700 Club," Mr. Falwell said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U. [American Civil Liberties Union] , People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.''' Mr. Robertson chimed in, "I totally concur."[2] Mr. Robertson is a Republican party fundraiser and strategist, and the founder of the Christian Coalition.[3]

Less than 3 weeks later, Congressman Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) and six of his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives insinuated a link between mainstream environmentalists and terrorism. "Some people have turned a blind eye [to ecoterrorism] because this destruction, this terrorism, is being activated under the so-called cloak of protecting the environment," Mr. McInnis said on the floor of the House October 3. Mr. McInnis subsequently wrote letters to the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the League of Conservation Voters, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, Earthjustice Defense, and Natural Resources Defense Council, giving them a deadline of Dec. 1 to publicly "disavow ecoterrorism."[4]

For a decade, hundreds of abortion clinics and offices of Planned Parenthood have been receiving envelopes in the mail containing white powder and a note identifying it as anthrax. Recently the volume of these terrorist threats (none of them, so far, real anthrax) has increased substantially. More than 200 medical clinics and Planned Parenthood offices have received such threats by mail since Sept. 11, according to the LOS ANGELES TIMES.[5] A fundamentalist Christian group calling itself the Army of God claims responsibility. Congressman McInnis did not give Mr. Falwell or Mr. Robertson a deadline for disavowing anthrax terrorism.

The Reverend Donald Spitz of Chesapeake, Virginia, claims membership in, and maintains a web site for, the Army of God, and he openly applauds sending anthrax threats by mail, calling them a "good thing" and a "brilliant move."[5,6] The Army of God was recently featured in a TV documentary in which various members boasted how their group had murdered physicians, fire-bombed medical clinics, and purchased truckloads of raw materials for making explosives.[7] The FBI has made no arrests in any of these hundreds of anthrax-terrorism cases going back a decade, and Congressman McInnis and his six Republican colleagues have not given the Reverend Mr. Spitz a deadline for disavowing terrorism.

These hooded Christians provide a dangerous -- and terrifying -- side-show, diverting attention away from the main event in Washington, where the White House and corporate lobbyists have used Sept. 11 to aggressively roll back environmental protections and dole out billions of federal dollars to major polluters, many of whom are major donors to the Republican party.

As the NEW YORK TIMES reported November 18, "Before the attacks, environmentalists seemed to have political momentum in casting President Bush as unfriendly to the environment and his administration as beholden to the extractive industries. But in the last two months, environmentalists have been stymied for fear of appearing unpatriotic or even petty in the face of a national crisis."[8] Sensing hesitancy and confusion among environmentalists, since 9/11 the President and his corporate lieutenants have taken the offensive to:

** Abandon negotiations for a treaty to control global warming;[8]

** Shelve a plan to reduce air pollution from coal-burning power plants because a nation engaged in a war-without-end against terrorism can't risk power shortages;[8]

** Reverse a Clinton administration policy that stopped road-building, oil and gas leasing, and most new logging in 60 million acres of nearly-untouched national forests;[8,9]

** Reverse the phase-out of snowmobiles in national parks;[8]

** Grease the skids for mining corporations to dig for gold, copper, zinc and lead on public lands. Under rules set during the Clinton administration, the government could stop new mines "likely to cause substantial irreparable harm to water quality and other natural resources." No longer.[8,10]

** Ease energy-conservation standards for air conditioners;[8]

** Make it easier for home-builders and commercial developers to eliminate wetlands;[8]

** Prevent the re-introduction of grizzly bears in the Northwest;[8]

** Cut funding 50% for research and development into renewable sources of energy, and provide $34 billion in additional subsidies to the oil, coal, gas, and nuclear industries.[10]

** Drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.[8]

Mr. Bush's most far-reaching achievements, however, are these:

** The House of Representatives suspended its rules of debate on Nov. 27 to rush through a reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act which severely limits the nuclear industry's liability for radioactive errors, oversights, slips, goofs, flubs, blunders, leaks, releases, discharges, mishaps, misadventures, accidents or catastrophes (including "energetic disassemblies," the nuclear industry's own term for explosions), placing most of the liability for such human foibles on the taxpayer. Excusing the nuclear corporations from liability for their own behavior would "dramatically improve security at our Nation's nuclear power plants in response to the widespread concerns over terrorist threats," said Congressman Joe Barton (R-Tex), a key Republican strategist in the House. And so it passed.[11]

** The President won a major "free trade" victory over labor and environmentalist opposition Dec. 6, using anti-terrorist arguments. By a vote of 215 to 214 the House of Representatives gave the President the right to negotiate "free trade" agreements around the globe without amendment or debate from Congress. It's called "fast track authority" and President Clinton twice failed to win it. President Bush won it "for several reasons," the NEW YORK TIMES reported: "The first is that his argument about trade as a weapon against terrorism, while a stretch, actually worked."[12]

But even these major opportunistic accomplishments pale in comparison to the strategic vision that right-wing mainstream extremists are developing now. They see Sept. 11 as an opportunity to attack the entire civil sector of American society and paint citizen participation in democratic decision-making as wasteful, inefficient, misguided, deceitful, destructive, unpatriotic, and a danger to the civilized world.

The Washington Legal Foundation -- a mainstream extremist think tank -- let this snarling little cat out of the bag Nov. 26 in an ad on the Op-Ed page of the NEW YORK TIMES, titled, "Wanted: Public Interest Reality."[13] In it, they said that, prior to September 11, "ideological lawyers" have "wasted decades" "treating our military and America's business community with contempt as if they were the enemy." And, "We are now paying the price for those years of frivolous activism," as if citizen activism had somehow led to the atrocities of Sept. 11. The ad contains a simple agenda for the post-9/11 world:

1. Get rid of "right to know" laws because they provide "a road map for terrorists." Strategic message: Limit citizens' access to information to curb citizen activism.

2. The reason we don't have vaccines against smallpox is not because smallpox was eradicated[14] world-wide in 1971 but because "inefficient FDA bureaucrats" have brought the production of life-saving vaccines to a standstill, the ad says. Strategic message: Get government off our backs, unleash corporations.

3. Why are we dependent upon Middle Eastern oil? Not because the vast majority of the world's oil resides there and we've neglected alternatives, but because "wave after wave of laws, regulations, and novel lawsuits" have enabled "radicals" to prevent oil drilling in "a remote area of frozen Alaskan wasteland," the ad says. Strategic message: Get government off our backs, end citizen lawsuits, end citizen activism.

4. The "Naderite food police" slowed the licensing of food irradiation, which is now "nearly unavailable" to kill anthrax being sent through the mail. Strategic message: End citizen activism, get government off our backs, unleash corporations.

5. The Endangered Species Act has allowed "uncompromising elites" to "obsess" over "plant and insect subspecies" and thus block housing construction and economic development, thereby endangering "jobs, prosperity, investments, and consumer welfare." Strategic message: End citizen lawsuits, get government off our backs.

6. "Self-indulgent activists spent the frivolous 90's [sic] squandering our resources and opportunities chasing phantom risks, ridiculous 'public interest' causes, and bogus consumer scares" like electromagnetic radiation and genetically engineered foods. Strategic message: End citizen activism.

7. "In the post-September 11 world, we can no longer afford to put the narrow agendas of a 'public interest' elite ahead of our own national interests." Strategic message: End citizen activism because it's now unpatriotic.

So there you have it: Active citizens who want their government to protect the natural assets of their communities against corporate plunder are unpatriotic elitists squandering valuable resources for silly purposes, endangering our entire civilization by keeping us enslaved to Middle Eastern oil, slowing the introduction of civilization-saving technologies like food irradiation, placing the needs of endangered species like the San Diego fairy shrimp ahead of the needs of prosperous investors and important men of means.

"As a united America labors to rebuild our wounded economy, the silly muddle of 'public interest' advocacy now seems irrelevant.... Can the professional activists understand that free enterprise is the very heart and soul of America?" the ad asks.

No, actually, they probably can't. If there's any one thing that September 11 taught us, it is that the heart and soul of America is not mean-spirited, small-minded opportunists who twist the truth for private gain. The heart and soul of America is ordinary people sacrificing for the public interest, rolling up their sleeves and pitching in to help.

Happy New Year!

Peter Montague

Source: http://www.Rachel.org

12/23/01
2:22:07 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

PERMANENT SHUTDOWN ORDERED FOR FAST FLUX REACTOR

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, December 20, 2001 (ENS) - The Department of Energy has decided to permanently close the Fast Flux Test Facility, a research reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state. The decision was applauded by anti-nuclear activists and environmental groups that have spent nearly a decade battling against a proposed restart of the controversial nuclear reactor.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-20-06.html

SELLAFIELD MOX PLANT BEGINS PLUTONIUM COMMISSIONING

LONDON, United Kingdom, December 20, 2001 (ENS) - British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. today began the first stage of active plutonium commissioning of the Sellafield MOX Plant on the Irish Sea in Cumbria. This involves introducing plutonium bearing material in order to start testing the plant and equipment as a precursor to the manufacture of mixed uranium plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-20-01.html

HOUSE PASSES BROWNFIELDS REFORM BILL

WASHINGTON, DC, December 20, 2001 (ENS) - At the end of a marathon, all night session, the U.S. House of Representatives early this morning passed legislation aimed at making it easier to reuse lightly contaminated industrial sites, known as brownfields. The measure is expected to help revitalize aging urban areas and curb the growing trend toward suburban sprawl.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-20-07.html

NINE EUROPEAN CITIES TO GET FUEL CELL BUSES

BRUSSELS, Belgium, December 20, 2001 (ENS) - The famous red double decker buses on the streets of London will soon be joined by zero emissions fuel cell powered buses. London is one of nine European cities wishing to introduce fuel cell powered buses into their public transport systems that have received a funding boost from the European Commission.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-20-02.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: DECEMBER 20, 2001

Cleaner Air Makes Stronger Lungs

Warmer Climate Could Disrupt Water Supplies

EPA Bans Unregistered Anti-Anthrax Products

Coalition Seeks Ban on Toxic Wood Preservatives

Honda Introduces Second Hybrid Car

Dow Chemical Fine Will Fund Green Cars

Americans May Move Toward Smaller Cars

Massive Fish Collection Goes Online

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-20-09.html

12/23/01
2:15:57 PM

Bin Laden Translation Omitted Sections

By John Miller ABCNEWS.com

A new ABCNEWS translation of the Osama bin Laden videotape released last week reveals information that may be embarrassing to Saudi Arabia, a very important U.S. ally. • Bin Laden Hunt Strains U.S-Saudi Relations • Excerpts of the Bin Laden Video Weigh In • Poll: Americans Believe Toughest Battles Ahead

When the videotape of Osama bin Laden talking about the Sept. 11 terror attacks was released by the United States government on Dec. 13, administration officials spoke at length about the extensive effort to achieve a full and accurate transcript.

The translation commissioned by ABCNEWS, however, reveals new elements that raise questions about what the government left out of the official version and why.

The new translation uncovers statements that could be embarrassing to the government of Saudi Arabia, a very important U.S. ally. Bin Laden's visitor, Khalid al Harbi, a Saudi dissident, claims that he was smuggled into Afghanistan by a member of Saudi Arabia's religious police.

He also tells bin Laden that in Saudi Arabia, several prominent clerics — some with connections to the Saudi government — made speeches supporting the attacks on America.

"Right at the time of the strike on America, he gave a very moving speech, Sheikh Abdulah al Baraak," bin Laden said on the tape. "And he deserves thanks for that."

Sheikh al Baraak, to whom the visitor refers, is a professor at a government university and a member of an influential council on religious law.

"It shows that bin Laden's support is not limited to the radical side of Islam but also among the Saudi religious establishment," says Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern studies at Sarah Lawrence College. "And that is bad news for Saudi Arabia."

The new translation reveals bin Laden's intimate knowledge of the hijackers themselves. Bin Laden mentions not just the ring leader Mohamed Atta but several of the hijackers by name, including the al Hazmi brothers: "So these young men, may God accept their action, Nawaf Al Hazmi, Salim Al Hazmi …"

A member of the team that translated the tape for the U.S. government said the ABCNEWS translation is consistent with portions of the government's transcript that have not been released to the public.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/abc/20011220/ts/obltape_missing011220_1.html

12/23/01
2:10:44 PM

Does the president have the constitutional authority to can the ABM?

By BRUCE ACKERMAN- professor of constitutional law at Yale

NEW HAVEN -- President Bush has told the Russians that he will withdraw from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which gives both countries the right to terminate on six months' notice. But does the president have the constitutional authority to exercise this power without first obtaining Congressional consent?

Presidents don't have the power to enter into treaties unilaterally. This requires the consent of two-thirds of the Senate, and once a treaty enters into force, the Constitution makes it part of the "supreme law of the land" - just like a statute.

Presidents can't terminate statutes they don't like. They must persuade both houses of Congress to join in a repeal. Should the termination of treaties operate any differently?

The question first came up in 1798. As war intensified in Europe, America found itself in an entangling alliance with the French under treaties made during our own revolution. But President John Adams did not terminate these treaties unilaterally. He signed an act of Congress to "Declare the Treaties Heretofore Concluded with France No Longer Obligatory on the United States."

The next case was in 1846. As the country struggled to define its northern boundary with Canada, President James Polk specifically asked Congress for authority to withdraw from the Oregon Territory Treaty with Great Britain, and Congress obliged with a joint resolution. Cooperation of the legislative and executive branches remained the norm, despite some exceptions, during the next 125 years.

The big change occurred in 1978, when Jimmy Carter unilaterally terminated our mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Senator Barry Goldwater responded with a lawsuit, asking the Supreme Court to maintain the traditional system of checks and balances. The court declined to make a decision on the merits of the case. In an opinion by Justice William Rehnquist, four justices called the issue a political question inappropriate for judicial resolution. Two others refused to go this far but joined the majority for other reasons. So by a vote of 6 to 3, the court dismissed the case.

Seven new justices have since joined the court, and there is no predicting how a new case would turn out. Only one thing is clear. In dismissing Senator Goldwater's complaint, the court did not endorse the doctrine of presidential unilateralism. Justice Rehnquist expressly left the matter for resolution "by the executive and legislative branches." The ball is now in Congress's court. How should it respond?

First and foremost, by recognizing the seriousness of this matter. If President Bush is allowed to terminate the ABM treaty, what is to stop future presidents from unilaterally taking America out of NATO or the United Nations?

The question is not whether such steps are wise, but how democratically they should be taken. America does not enter into treaties lightly. They are solemn commitments made after wide-ranging democratic debate. Unilateral action by the president does not measure up to this standard. Unilateralism might have seemed more plausible during the cold war. The popular imagination was full of apocalyptic scenarios under which the nation's fate hinged on emergency action by the president alone. These decisions did not typically involve the termination of treaties. But with the president's finger poised on the nuclear button, it might have seemed unrealistic for constitutional scholars to insist on a fundamental difference between the executive power to implement our foreign policy commitments and the power to terminate them.

The world now looks very different. America's adversaries may inveigh against its hegemony, but for America's friends, the crucial question is how this country will exercise its dominance. Will its power be wielded by a single man - unchecked by the nation's international obligations or the control of Congress? Or will that power be exercised under the democratic rule of law?

Barry Goldwater's warning is even more relevant today than 20 years ago. The question is whether Republicans will heed his warning against "a dangerous precedent for executive usurpation of Congress's historically and constitutionally based powers." Several leading senators signed this statement that appeared in Senator Goldwater's brief - including Orrin Hatch, Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, who are still serving. They should defend Congress's power today, as they did in the Carter era.

If they join with Democrats in raising the constitutional issue, they will help establish a precedent that will endure long after the ABM treaty is forgotten. Congress should proceed with a joint resolution declaring that Mr. Bush cannot terminate treaty obligations on his own. And if the president proceeds unilaterally, Congress should take further steps to defend its role in foreign policy.

We need not suppose that the president will respond by embarking on a collision course with Congress. His father, for example, took a different approach to constitutionally sensitive issues. When members of Congress went to court to challenge the constitutionality of the Persian Gulf war, President George H. W. Bush did not proceed unilaterally. To his great credit, he requested and received support from both houses of Congress before making war against Saddam Hussein. This decision stands as one precedent for the democratic control of foreign policy in the post-cold war era. We are now in the process of creating another.

Source: http://www.NYTimes.com

12/23/01
2:05:59 PM

2001 to be second hottest year since records began: UN

GENEVA (AFP) Dec 18, 2001

The average temperature of the world's surface will have been higher in 2001 than in any other year except 1988, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Tuesday, quoting provisional estimates based on data spanning a century and a half.

WMO Deputy Director-General Michel Jarraud said he believed the high average temperature, which was expected to be 0.42 of a degree Celsiusof a degree Fahrenheit) above the world average for the 30 years from 1961 to 1990, was due to so-called "global warming."

He added that the last decade of the 20th century, including the year 2000, had seen nine of the 10 hottest years, in terms of world averages, since reliable records began back in 1860.

During the whole of the 20th century, average world temperatures rose by 0.6 of a degree Celsius (1.08 of a degree Fahrenheit), with much of the rise concentrated in the last quarter century after 1976.

Jarraud said final figures for 2001 would be released next year.

Many scientists believe the earth is gradually heating up due to the industrial activities of man, mainly the production of vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

They believe the carbon dioxide leads to the creation of a heat trap, which prevents excess energy from escaping from the atmosphere, thereby heating up the globe. The phenomenon has been dubbed "global warming."

http://spacedaily.com/news/011218170359.mcuy7wxv.html

12/23/01
2:04:16 PM

Fatal Police Shooting Shocks Church

By DAVID GRAM, Associated Press Writer

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) - He went before the congregation just as the service was to begin. Weeping, he asked for help, for "political sanctuary."

But All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church - which has long welcomed the downtrodden and the mentally ill - couldn't offer sanctuary to Robert A. Woodward on Sunday.

Gently asked to take a seat or leave, Woodward pulled a knife. Police were called. After making what authorities called threatening moves with the blade, he was gunned down at the altar and died at a hospital.

The police shooting in a church known for its peace activism left the congregation in shock. And it left many of the roughly 10,000 residents of a community known for its left-leaning politics, where a faded "Question Authority" bumper sticker is not an uncommon sight, doing just that. People wanted to know why the officers fired seven shots with their semiautomatic pistols rather than just one, or why they didn't subdue Woodward with the pepper spray they carry, or just tackle him.

"It appears as though there will have to be a high burden on those who pulled the trigger to show that there were no other means to deal with this situation," said Benson D. Scotch, director of the Vermont office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

State authorities are investigating the shooting to determine whether it was justified.

It remained a mystery why the 37-year-old man would drive 25 miles from his apartment in Bellows Falls to seek help in a church hidden from the road on a pine-topped knoll - a church where he was a complete stranger.

Woodward's mother, Joanne Woodward of Bozrah, Conn., told the Brattleboro Reformer that her son had no history of mental problems. And investigators said it appeared he did not have a criminal record.

Woodward, who was single and had no children, worked most recently with foster children at a community mental health organization in Vermont, his mother said.

"I would just like to stress for you that he was a very peaceful person," she said. "He never would have injured anyone else. He was a loving, caring person and very gentle."

The West Village Meeting House, a 1970s chalet-style building with brown-stained shingles, is home to both the Unitarian Universalist church and to a Jewish congregation.

Investigators said it was clear when Woodward went into the church that he wanted to be heard. The chief source of the agitation that led to Woodward's shooting appeared to be that members of the congregation were getting up to leave.

Woodward handed out blank checks with statements written on the backs of them, State's Attorney Dan Davis said. Davis would not reveal their contents.

As Woodward grew more agitated, someone announced it was time for Sunday school, and the 15 children among the roughly 70 people in the church were escorted out to the parking lot. A congregation member used a cell phone to call police.

A church member began talking with Woodward and placed some cellular phone calls for him. Woodward put his knife away. But when someone suggested that the 15 or 20 members of the congregation who remained leave, Woodward grew angry and pulled out his knife again. Davis said it was a folding knife, with a blade 4 to 5 inches long.

"There was a movement with the knife itself and movements made by Mr. Woodward that the officers perceived as a threat to themselves and-or the congregation," Davis said on Monday.

Two officers opened fire; a third officer did not shoot.

Norman Hunt, an 85-year-old member of the congregation, said that Woodward did not verbally threaten anyone other than himself.

"He did tell us he was afraid of the police and afraid if they caught him they'd kill him," Hunt said. "He held a small pocketknife and held it against his right eye and said that rather than being captured he'd kill himself."

12/23/01
1:58:23 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

IN SEARCH OF THE WORLD'S WORST WRITERS

by Joe Lockard, Bad Subjects

-- A compilation of the world's worst writers provides a historical glimpse into literature that deserves to be remembered for its awfulness.

ABU-JAMAL'S DEATH SENTENCE OVERTURNED: JURY INSTRUCTION CONFUSING, DISTRICT COURT RULES

by Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer

-- U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr.'s decision to overturn Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence is a major victory for prosecutors--not for Abu-Jamal.

RIGHT-WING BIOLOGICAL DREAD: THE SUBHUMANS ARE COMING! THE SUBHUMANS ARE COMING!

by Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine

-- In a frantic effort to derail biotechnological research, conservative intellectuals have spun unrealistic tales of genetic abuse, such as the creation of monkey-girls and pig-boys.

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

12/22/01
3:55:50 PM

How the WTC fell - BBC (Sep 13, 2001)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1540000/1540044.stm

Did US jet fire missile into WTC as Ft 175 crashed into Sth Tower?

http://www.memes.org/article.php?sid=743&mode=&order=0

12/22/01
2:37:42 PM

Pentagon Releases Videotape Of Bin Ladin About The Attacks

Tape marked by bad sound and picture

Story from Al Jazeera

* The English translation of the tape attributes to Bin Laden his saying that he did not expect a complete collapse of the two trade center towers and that those who carried out the attacks did not know their mission until they were about to board the hijacked planes.

* A researcher in Islamic affairs tells Al-Jazeera that the tape is fabricated and that the words of congratulation on it come from the occasion of the marriage of Bin Laden's child.

* Christopher Ross, a US State Department consultant, admits the English translation is not accurate, confirming that he replayed the tape fifty times while working on the translation.

The US Department of Defense has released a videotape "proving" that Osama bin Laden was involved in the September 11 attacks on the United States. According to the tape, which has very bad sound and picture quality, bin Laden says he expected that only three or four stories of the world trade center towers in New York would be destroyed, not expecting the complete collapse of the two towers.

In the tape, which was broadcast with muffled sound accompanied by English translation, bin Laden said that he believed that the fire in the plane would result in the collapse of the iron infrastructure of the world trade center and consequently the part of the building above where the plane crashed would collapse.

Bin Laden, who seems to be speaking to his assistants, added that he anticipated the number of "enemy" killed because of his field experience. According to the tape, he confirmed that those who carried out the September 11 attacks did not know the details of the operation until they were boarding the planes they hijacked, saying that Muhammad Atta was the one in charge of the group which carried out the attacks.

Bin Laden said in the tape that he told his associates when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York that they should be patient, revealing his knowledge of other hijacked planes. He said that he had been informed in advance of the operation's date and that after work, he listened to the radio with his assistants. He said that it was half past five local time in Afghanistan when he heard news about the plane crashing into the World Trade Center tower and he began to listen to the broadcast where the crash was announced at the end of the bulletin.

Analysts Comment

Aljazeera hosted a number of analysts to comment on the content of the tape which the US navy found in Afghanistan, according to Washington. [Note: the "find" has been variously attributed to the US Army, the Navy, the "military" and of course to the CIA, which is operating in military drag in Afghanistan, and which is undoubtedly the true source of this Crusade Production.- NY Transfer.]

One specialist in Islamic affairs, Hani Al Sibaei, described the video tape as "fabricated and a scandal for the greatest democratic country in the world."

In a telephone call with Al-Jazeera from London, he noted the congratulatory wishes on the tape and bin Laden's happy expression, and said that this segment of the tape was taken from a tape of Osama bin Laden being congratulated on the marriage of his child to the child of Aiman Al-Zawaheri -- an event that took place four years ago.

The expert said that it boggles the mind that an organization like Al-Qaeda would create such simple-minded videotapes and then leave them behind in a private home. He added that bin Laden has twice denied involvement in the attacks and said that he had sworn to Mullah Mohamed Omar, leader of the Talban movement, that the Al-Qaeda organization pledged it would not plan attacks against other countries from inside Afghanistan.

In contrast, Christopher Ross -- a consultant hired by the US State Department -- says that the tape is genuine and not a fabrication. In a conversation with Al-Jazeera, he acknowledged he had to replay the tape tens of times in order to hear the conversation because the sound was so bad. He also indicated that in order to improve the translation, he then replayed the tape another 50 times with the translator. He confirmed that the translation is not literal, because of the poor quality of the original tape's sound. Ross said that he considered the tape "proof" that bin Laden had considerable knowledge of the details of the attacks on America, and that he was shocked when he saw bin Laden rejoicing over the attack on the buildings and the murder of people.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.net/news/america/2001/12/12-13-3.htm

12/22/01
2:31:23 PM

Al Jazeera on the Tape: A Bad Cut & Paste Job?

The Osama Show: Bad Disinformation, Poorly Produced

[It is bizarre that this videotape -- real or fake -- is the best that the US Government can do after months of ignoring constant pleas from all over the world for their "compelling evidence" of bin Laden's guilt, all the while bombing innocent Afghans. After initially promising the world they would produce their so-called "evidence," they stonewalled and instead assigned the British Government to manufacture a long document that is short on facts but heavy on inneuendo. That is not "evidence." If this tape is "evidence," and it's the best they've got, then they have nothing. Far from compelling, it's not even very "credible."

On the same day they release this videotape, which we are supposed to believe was miraculously found by the CIA in a private home in Jalalabad, the US Government is refusing to release to the US Congress documents on all kinds of other criminal investigations -- unrelated to bin Laden-- which were subpoenaed by a bi-partisan group of Congressional representatives. Bush Junior has now stepped into the role of Nixon II, invoking "executive privilege" to deny the legislative branch of the Government information it requires to do its job. Rep. Dan Burton, a member of the illegitimate President's own party, has threatened to take Bush to court for contempt of congress over this outrageous behavior.

If anyone cares to look at their piece of embarrassingly bad video disinformation, go see it at abcnews.com. Decide if you can hear it or, for that matter, if you can even identify the major player with any confidence as Osama bin Laden.

12/22/01
2:27:11 PM

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

Explosive series exploding the lies told by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld about the US Air Force on 9-11. As the controversy grows, read the latest developments on this explosive story. In the newest installment see the government documents that prove that if no fighters responded to protect the Pentagon, it was because they were ordered not to. Remember Payne Stewart?

http://www.tenc.net

GUILTY FOR 9-11: BUSH, RUMSFELD, MYERS

http://www.copvcia.com/stories/nov_2001/911murder.html

Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation just 10 miles from the Pentagon. On 11 September there were two entire squadrons of combat-ready fighter jets at Andrews. Their job was to protect the skies over Washington D.C. They failed to do their job. Despite over one hour's advance warning of a terrorist attack in progress, not a single Andrews fighter tried to protect the city. The FAA, NORAD and the military have cooperative procedures by which fighter jets automatically intercept commercial aircraft under emergency conditions. These procedures were not followed.

OPERATION NORTHWOODS

Read the Top Secret documents describing the Pentagon's plan to attack Americans in order to start a war with Cuba. And you think they wouldn't do it to the World Trade Center?

http://www.copvcia.com/stories/nov_2001/operation_northwoods.html

12/22/01
2:18:35 PM

My Country Right Or Wrong Questioning September 11th

Please take a look at my investigative report http://www.MyCountryRightOrWrong.net

Questioning September 11th

Thank you Mark Elsis http://www.Lovearth.net

NOTE FROM JEAN: This is a detailed analysis of some aspects of the 9-11 plane attacks, including why NORAD, which had almost an hour and a half to do so, did not scramble any F-16 jets from Langley Air Force Base to protect Washington D.C. and the Pentagon, what would have happened if the target had been Indian Point with 3 nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of New York City, and whether the September 11 attacks were staged by the G8/global elite as a pretext for their New World Order Globalization hostile take over campaign, plus a number of other observations already networked to this list over the past couple months.

12/22/01
2:12:34 PM

Refugees Meeting Hears Proposal To Register Every Human

by Maria Hawthorne

Every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and people smuggling outlined at a United Nations meeting today.

The plan was put forward by Pascal Smet, the head of Belgium's independent asylum review board, at a roundtable meeting with ministers including Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock this afternoon.

Mr Smet said the European Union was already considering a Europe-wide system, using either fingerprints or eye scanning technology, to identify citizens.

But he said the plan could be extended worldwide.

"There are no technical problems. It is only a question of will and investment," he said.

"If you look to our societies, we are already registered from birth until death. Our governments know who we are and what we are. But one of the basic problems is the numbers of people in the world who are not registered, who do not have a set identity, and when these people move with real or fake passports, you cannot identify them.

"It's a basic rule of management that if you want to manage something, you measure it. It's the same with human beings and migration.

"But instead of measuring it, you have to register them."

Mr Smet said the scheme would give people dignity by giving them an identity if their papers had been lost or destroyed.

And he said it would allow countries to open their borders to genuine travellers or asylum seekers, because they would be able to prove the identity of any over-stayers and deport them without argument from their home country.

Mr Ruddock appeared unconvinced by the merits of the plan.

"In principle we would be supportive of a system which would crack down on multiple asylum claims, but a universal identification system would be taking it too far," he said through a spokeswoman.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/breaking/2001/12/14/FFX058CU6VC.html

12/22/01
1:58:22 PM

The innocent dead in a coward's war Estimates suggest US bombs have killed at least 3,767 civilians

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,622000,00.html

Reeling From Riots, Argentina Declares a State of Siege

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/20/international/americas/20ARGE.html

Argentinian finance minister resigns (And now the Prime minister has also just resigned) 16 die in riots over economy. How much responsibility do the IMF and World Bank have in this crisis? Is this a foretaste of what is yet to come around the world as the crippled world economy continues to shrink?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/argentina/story/0,11439,623174,00.html

Israelis Discuss Security Matters With Arafat's Military Although it declared Yasir Arafat irrelevant a week ago, the Israeli government signaled today that perhaps there was a little relevance left in him after all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/20/international/middleeast/20MIDE.html

Refugees meeting hears proposal to register every human in Every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and people smuggling outlined at a United Nations meeting today.

http://www.smh.com.au/breaking/2001/12/14/FFX058CU6VC.html

12/22/01
1:52:40 PM

"A spell is a story we tell ourselves that shapes our emotional and psychic world. The media, the authorities tell a story so pervasive that most people mistake it for reality. We're fighting a righteous war against the Source of All Evil, and everyone supports Bush, and corporate control is the only way to be safe and to provide what we need, and to question is Evil, too."

- Starhawk <stella@mcn.org>

"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the l990s it triumphed over democracy."

- David Korten, The Post-Corporate World

"They (the corporations) are counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to stand at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket."

- Bill Moyers

"When they took the fourth amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I was quiet because I was innocent. When they took the second amendment, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun. Now they've taken the first amendment, I'm quiet 'cause I can't say nothing."

- Author unknown

"The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it."

- Edward Dowling

"In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena. In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times."

- Robert W. McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy

"Remember Pearl Harbor? 1941. It is now accepted that this wasn't simply a Japanese "surprise attack" but was part of a larger agenda. Known and allowed at the highest levels, this "infamous shock" effectively did arise a wave of patriotic fury and thus did permit the swift entry of the USA

- EarthKeeper

"CIA stands for Capitalism's Invisible Army"

- Buckminster Fuller

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man, who has once proclaimed violence as his method, is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."

- Alexander Solzhenitzyn

12/22/01
1:10:24 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

HAIL GEORGE, CONQUEROR OF EVILDOERS!

Michael Moore, AlterNet

Whoopin' the Taliban, bailing out corporate cronies, protecting the NRA with the help of Big Sheriff John Aschroft -- hats off to George, Jr. for a job well done!

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12130

THE P.U.-LITZER PRIZES FOR 2001

Norman Solomon, AlterNet

The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year. This year, the competition was especially fierce.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12076

VERBAL WEAPON

Michelle Chihara, AlterNet

Actor Danny Glover is getting slammed by right-wing talk show hosts as "un-American" after saying that no one should receive the death penalty, not even Osama bin Laden.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12121

PHOTO MANIPULATION

Ben Schiller, AlterNet

War normally stimulates technology. But now that the Pentagon has bought up every satellite image of the conflict in Afghanistan, it threatens to quash a nascent industry.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12131

HEROIN, DRUG WARLORDS REAPPEAR ON AFGHAN SCENE

Peter Dale Scott, Pacific News Service

Engaged in the shooting war, Washington may be turning a blind eye to a favorite income source of its allies -- bad news for those who want to reduce global heroin production.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12124

BUSH'S INTERNATIONAL CHARADE

Richard Falk, AlterNet

Bush claims that the War on Terrorism has united America with the world. But by rejecting treaties and thumbing his nose at international law, he proves exactly the opposite.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12134

HUFFINGTON: THE ENRON SCANDAL-- WHY WAS NO ONE MINDING THE STORE?

Arianna Huffington, AlterNet

Where were all these guardians of the public interest when Enron's executives were playing fast and loose with the books while bilking employees and investors out of their life savings?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12117

WARTIME MEDIA: NO WOMEN ALLOWED

Jennifer L. Pozner, AlterNet

If women had equal access to the oped pages and the Sunday morning talk shows, we'd have heard a significant difference between men and women's perspectives on terrorism and war.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12119

BLACKS, BET AND BOYCOTTS

Lee Hubbard, AlterNet

National Pan-Hellenic Council, the umbrella organization for nine major black fraternities and sororities, may lead a boycott of BET to protest certain aspects of its programming.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12129

LIFE FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL?

A judge has overturned the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and has demanded a re-sentencing trial. AlterNet has published two stories about the decision. - Steve Rosenfeld interviews an attorney familiar with the case:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12115

- Geov Parrish on Mumia activism (the good, the bad and the nutty):

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12128

CONGRESS COMMITTEE TOXIC TO SCHOOL PESTICIDE BILL

Frank Lingo, AlterNet

When politicians proclaim the importance of our children during the next congressional campaign, remember this story.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12133

HUTCHINSON: BUSH NOT STANDING UNITED BEHIND BLACK LEADERS

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet

Despite Black leaders' support in the wake of 9/11, Bush has spurned their latest request for a meeting. It was their fourth request since September.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12118

WEISBROT: AMERICA'S LARGEST BANKRUPTCY

Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet

Enron's demise leaves us with another huge, ostentatious symbol of the once-vaunted "New Economy" going belly up, and the inevitable year-end question: what lessons will be learned?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12132

12/22/01
1:04:17 PM

MOJOURNAL

http://www.motherjones.com/

NEW ON MOTHERJONES.COM

* A Victory for the Star Wars Lobby * - Web Exclusive: Opinion: President Bush's decision to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was based as much on ideology as on his support for a missile defense program.

http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/commentary/opinion/abm_treaty.html

* America's Lonely Drug War * - Web Exclusive: Opinion: With the confirmation of John Walters as the new drug czar, the US is committing itself to a punishment-based War on Drugs -- even as most of its allies are declaring cease-fires.

http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/commentary/opinion/walters.html

* A Face in the Crowd * - Magazine: Is surveillance software turning police into Robocops?

http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/ND01/surveillance.html

* Daily Briefing * - Web Exclusive: India, Pakistan on the brink?; Mumia sentence overturned; Al Qaeda on the run; Al Qaeda defeated; more ...

http://motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/index.html

* Capitol Beat * - Web Exclusive: Economic stimulus at an impasse, farm bill stuck in Senate, the education bill; pork-barrell spending; what to do about Condit?; Tom DeLay's big move; more ...

http://motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/capitol_beat.html

* Discuss * - Victim of unilateralism?: Was President Bush's decision to abandon the ABM treaty based on his administration's support for a missile defense plan or its basic antipathy for multi-lateral agreements which can limit US policies?

http://motherjones.com/cgi-bin/WebX?50@@.ee9a13e

GREEN PARTY US

A donor will match every $1 you donate by 12/31, up to $10,000! Build the only party fighting for justice *and* peace! Recognized as a national party by the FEC ! Most elected Greens in history (124)!

http://www.greenpartyus.org

12/22/01
1:01:01 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Conoco to spend up to $110 mln at oil refineries - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13798/story.htm

US senator seeks to stop leaky underground tanks - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13799/story.htm

FuelCell Energy reports loss, sees larger loss - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13806/story.htm

Weekly Mexico "Hot Bites" report - USDA attache - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13808/story.htm

House passes brownfields bill but Senate unclear - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13813/story.htm

UPDATE - UK BNFL says starts up Sellafield nuclear plant - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13800/story.htm

Uganda approves Bujagali power dam construction - UGANDA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13807/story.htm

Environment summit in South Africa to battle poverty - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13811/story.htm

Japan's TEPCO finds small radioactive leak in reactor - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13805/story.htm

Court hands French activist jail term for GM strike - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13810/story.htm

Brazil GM-free corn exports seen at record - Safras - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13812/story.htm

FACTBOX - Non-polluting ethanol increases in demand for blending with gasoline - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13801/story.htm

12/22/01
12:58:28 PM

t r u t h o u t | 12.21

BURTON Seeks Probe Into Bush Justice Department

http://www.truthout.com/12.21A.Burton.Probe.htm

Daschle | Briefing, Stimulus Standoff

http://www.truthout.com/12.21B.Daschle.Stim.htm

RUMSFELD to NATO Defense Ministers : Prepare for Cruise Missile Attacks

http://www.truthout.com/12.21C.Rumsfeld.NATO.htm

ABC News | Friends in High Places Bankrupt Enron Held Sway With Current Bush Administration

http://www.truthout.com/12.21D.ABC.Enron.htm

CLINTON'S Struggle With Bin Laden - PART II

http://www.truthout.com/12.21E.Clinton.OBL.II.htm

WALKER | Journey to Taliban Began in S.F.

http://www.truthout.com/12.21F.Walker.Marin.htm

Bush to Halt Mechanics Strike at United

http://www.truthout.com/12.21G.Bush.Strike.htm

12/22/01
12:56:43 PM

*NEW FEATURES* DECEMBER 20, 2001 - JANUARY 3, 2002

WORLD IN CRISIS, MEDIA IN CONFLICT In this war without borders, how can we trust media pressured by censorship, bias and propaganda? And if we cannot, how can we understand the conflict, the responses and the alternatives? Our special coverage continues, including: * The Fairy-Tale War's Invisible Victims * Antiterrorism And The Silencing Of Free Speech * Why Some Doubt The "Smoking Gun" * And much, much more... http://www.mediachannel.org/atissue/conflict/new.shtml

COVERING THE COVERAGE: HITS AND MISSES MediaChannel readers, affiliates and advisors give News Dissector Danny Schechter their picks for best and worst of 2001. http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#2001

MEDIA CHALLENGES IN AFRICA In a time of emerging democracies, globalized economies and new technologies, African communities need a free, legitimate, diverse and critical media more than ever. PLUS: introducing MediaChannel: Africa, a media support and information network launching in 2002. http://www.mediachannel.org/atissue/africanmedia

THE CANADIAN CASE AGAINST CONCENTRATION Is Canadian media policy eroding press freedom and public debate? U.S. activists fight media deregulation while the story in Hungary shows that the formula for free media is not as easy as some might suggest. PLUS: Communications workers on the dangers of the AT&T-Comcast cable mega-merger, and FCC comments on cable rules are due. http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#own

+++++++++++++++ Donate to MediaChannel.org and get a Global Media Ownership Poster! http://www.mediachannel.org/giving +++++++++++++++

MEDIA READER The best media about the media. MediaChannel's international, biweekly, multimedia magazine * Iran's Divided Media * Egypt's Hebrew Broadcast * What Hollywood Did To Harry Potter And much, much more... Plus: Streaming audio and video http://www.mediachannel.org/news/mediareader

POW! RACE AND SEX WHERE CHILDREN PLAY Overwhelmingly violent, full of unhealthy gender stereotypes and with little racial diversity, what are video games teaching our kids? (From Children Now, Media Education Foundation, Center For Media Education) http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#video

TRUTH AND GREEN JOURNALISM The debate over Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist" continues as one of the book's supporters defends his position. http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#bjorn

MEDIACULTURE A collaboration between MediaChannel and Alternet exploring the currents, crises and cultures of American media. New features include: * Lamenting The Music Industry * Tolkein Homeland Defense * Fat America And Fast Food Ads And much, much more... http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#mediaculture

WHAT YOU'RE SAYING: VOICES FROM THE FORUM * CNN newscasters show a blatant disregard for objectivity... * The Washington Post and Disney Nazis... * How do you decide which media to trust? Join the discussion! http://64.225.103.105/forum/

12/22/01
12:51:59 PM

The Nation

The emergence of the AT&T Comcast Corporation and Vivendi Universal Entertainment in the last few days vividly illustrates the way that the news media have come to be dominated by entertainment conglomerates looking to boost ratings and profits at the expense of the public interest.

The Nation's special media issue - the fifth in a running series on the "National Entertainment State" -- examines the issue of media concentration in illuminating detail. Highlighted by a four-color, centerfold pullout chart detailing the vast holdings of the "Big Ten" media giants, this special issue also includes reflective comments by Phil Donahue, Ani DiFranco, James Fallows, Danny Goldberg, Danny Schechter and Al Franken, among many others.

The chart - a dramatic visual representation of media concentration -- is available in a special digital format currently at:

http://www.thenation.com/bigten

And read these specially-selected remarks at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=replies

There are also numerous other related articles and editorials of interest in this very special issue:

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: What's Wrong With This Picture?

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=miller

JOHN NICHOLS & ROBERT MCCHESNEY: The Making of a Movement

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=mcchesney

JEFFREY CHESTER & GARY O. LARSON: Something Old, Something New

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=chester

MARK DOWIE: A Teflon Correspondent

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=dowie

MARIANNE MANILOV: The Right in the Classroom

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=manilov20011220

LAUREN SANDLER: Ms Heads West

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=sandler

And, don't miss a very special feature where Nation readers detail for us their favorite alternative media outlets. Currently available at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=letter

12/22/01
12:49:01 PM

New at TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

LIFE FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL?

On Tuesday, a federal judge overturned the 1982 death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Attorney Angus Love talks about the case and its implications.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/19/9.html

LEGENDS IN OUR OWN MINDS

Ideology Makes Christmas Shopping So Much Fun! by Naomi Klein

"It's an idea we've heard from many quarters since September 11, a return of the great narrative: chosen men, evil empires, master plans, and great battles. All are ferociously back in style."

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/19/3.html

SELFISH, ARROGANT, BLIND, AND DEAF:

A PASTORAL LETTER

by Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler

In this time of "joy to the world," we need to look deep into the contradictions of celebrating the season of light while we drop bombs and send "hunt and kill" teams into Afghanistan.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/12/19/index.html

WHY A LOSER GETS TO RUN THE COUNTRY

The Case for Instant Runoff Voting

by Rob Richie

Chads and butterfly ballots grabbed headlines, but the country's biggest electoral flaw was barely discussed. Nor is Congress fixing it.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/18/index.html

TomPaine.commentary

DID THE GRINCH STEAL ENRON?

by M. W. Guzy

Cindy Lou Who, all grown-up and working for Enron, is facing a grim Christmas due to a different Grinch this time.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/12/18/index.html

Dispatch: Refinery Row

NOT A NORMAL NEIGHBORHOOD

If Bush Guts the Clean Air Act, No One Will Breathe Easy

From Exxon, Shell and Chevron's mirrored Houston skyscrapers, the thick, sulfurous emissions wafting from the refineries' huge smokestacks smell like money. Here in Baytown, they smell like death.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/12/index.html

12/22/01
12:41:51 PM

Public Citizen

Partial Release of Presidential Records Insufficient; Lawsuit Not Affected

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today's belated announcement that the Reagan Presidential Library will release 8,000 pages of presidential records is a step in the right direction, but thousands of pages are still being withheld pending an improper review under an unlawful executive order, Public Citizen said today.

The records are among 68,000 pages of materials that were supposed to be released in January under the Presidential Records Act. The release was delayed by the White House for several months while it prepared the new executive order that purports to give former presidents and vice presidents veto power over the release of their papers. Public Citizen and a coalition of individuals and groups representing historians and journalists filed a lawsuit in late November to force the release of the 68,000 pages and to strike down the executive order.

"It's clear that the pressure from the lawsuit, together with criticism from members of Congress, scholars and journalists, has spurred the White House to try to release documents before the government has to respond to the suit," said Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney Scott Nelson, who filed the suit.

In announcing the release of the materials, the National Archives and Records Administration stated that neither the former president nor President Bush had exercised the veto power given them by the executive order. "It looks as if they're nervous about whether the executive order will hold up in court and are trying to avoid the issue by not claiming executive privilege," Nelson said.

About 60,000 pages of Reagan documents are still undergoing review under the executive order. In addition, vice presidential records of former President George Bush, which are held at the Bush Presidential Library, are also being withheld from the public pending review under the executive order.

"The legality of the executive order is still very much a live issue, and one we will continue to press regardless of the release of particular documents," Nelson said. "We're happy that keeping up the pressure has sprung these documents, and we expect that others will follow between now and late January, when the Justice Department has to respond to the lawsuit. But we shouldn't have had to wait this long for these documents, and we shouldn't have to wait to get the rest of them, either."

The Public Citizen Litigation Group is the legal arm of the national consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and specializes in, among other things, open government cases. To read Public Citizen's complaint in the presidential records case, please go to:

http://www.citizen.org/litigation/briefs/FOIAGovtSec/articles.cfm?ID=6515

12/22/01
12:32:01 PM

The Nation

http://www.thenation.com

ON CIVIL LIBERTIES:

ARTICLE | Executive Obstruction

BY BRUCE SHAPIRO

Boston and its local Osama bin Laden, a mobster named Whitey Bulger, reveals the extent of the White House's mania for secrecy.(web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=shapiro20011219

ARTICLE | Up Against Ashcroft

BY DAVID CORN

Democratic criticism of the Attorney General has been extraordinarily muted. (web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=corn20011211

ARTICLE | Ashcroft Skates

BY DAVID CORN

The ballyhooed face-off between John Ashcroft and Senate Democrats was more fizzle than sizzle. (web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=corn20011206

EDITORIAL | National Security State

BY DAVID COLE

Due process has given way to detention. Public scrutiny to secret trials. And we're only two months into this thing. (from the December 17, 2001 issue)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011217&s=cole

ON THE MIDDLE-EAST:

ARTICLE | Darkness Covers the Land

BY ROBERT I. FRIEDMAN

While Ariel Sharon continues to place obstacles in the path of negotiations, the situation on the ground has reached crisis proportions. (from the December 24, 2001 issue)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011224&s=friedman

ON AFGHANISTAN:

ARTICLE | Where Are the Women?

BY SARA AUSTIN

The notion that Afghan women are too depleted to play a leading role in government should be forever dispelled after Brussels. (from the December 31, 2001 issue)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011231&s=austin

ARTICLE | War Without End

BY A.C. THOMPSON

Few have considered the devastating environmental consequences of the conflict in Afghanistan. (web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=thompson20011202

EDITORIAL | Post-Taliban Afghanistan

NATION EDITORS

The rise of bin Ladenism reflects the failure of reactionary Arab states to provide for their citizens' basic needs. (from the December 10, 2001 issue)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011210&s=editors

ARTICLE | The Other Ground Zero

BY ARAM ROSTON - It's no secret that the Taliban were tolerated by the West because they stabilized a violent country by smothering it. (web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=roston20011130

ARTICLE | New World, Old Order

BY JERRY W. SANDERS

A crucial test of US commitment to multilateralism involves the endgame in Afghanistan. (web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=sanders20011129

ON NUCLEAR DANGER:

ARTICLE | Bush's Nuclear Brinksmanship

BY MATT BIVENS

There are still 2,000 nuclear weapons aimed at various Russian targets and poised for launch on extremely short notice. (web only)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=bivens20011212

12/20/01
6:29:55 PM

Humans extinct by 2040, says BT boffin By Chris Lee [19-12-2001] The human race will be extinct by 2040 unless it puts serious controls on its own technological advances, according to BT 'futurologist' Ian Pearson. Speaking exclusively to vnunet.com, Pearson, of the telco's BTexact development arm, said that scenarios envisioned by science fiction movies such as Terminator were no longer mere fantasy.

"In 1900 there were only a few ways for the planet to be wiped out: comet, disease etc. But in the last few decades we have amassed a whole plethora of possibilities: nuclear, environmental, biological, and a lot of future threats will come from computing," he said.

According to Pearson, artificial intelligence (AI) will soon make robots that are more intelligent than humans, and which will pre-empt human actions and possibly assume control of critical assets.

"We've managed to get ourselves into a position where the statistical chances of extinction will soon exceed one per cent. It means that sometime in the next 100 years the human race will be wiped out somehow," he said. "By 2011 we estimate that an AI body will have passed GCSEs, A Levels and gained a degree." "Given this and the rate of technological advancement, I think the human race could be extinct within the next 30 to 40 years," he concluded.

All in the name of scientific vanity. What the world needs now is love, as someone once said.

Source: http://www.vnunet.com/News/1127864

12/20/01
3:44:36 PM

A Holy Day Story

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.

"No", she replied. "He's out."

"Then we cannot come in", they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.

"Go tell them I am home and invite them in!"

The woman went out and invited the men in"

"We do not go into a House together," they replied.

"Why is that?" she asked.

One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"

Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"

"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife.

"Go out and invite Love to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"

The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"

Have a happy, safe, and healthy holiday season and new year.

12/20/01
2:06:16 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

ANTHRAX VACCINE OFFERED TO CIVILIANS

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, December 19, 2001 (ENS) - Members of Congress and others who may have been exposed to anthrax from contaminated letters will be offered a controversial anthrax vaccine, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday. The vaccine, formerly available only to members of the military, will be administered as part of an experimental study.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-19-06.html

BITTERROOT TIMBER SALE PUT ON HOLD

MISSOULA, Montana, December 19, 2001 (ENS) - A federal district judge has ordered a temporary halt to the U.S. Forest Service's plans to log almost 44,000 acres in the Bitterroot National Forest. The decision came just days after U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Mark Rey announced his decision to approve the massive sale and exempt the project from administrative appeal.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-19-07.html

RUSSIAN NUCLEAR WASTE REFERENDUM BID WINS OVERSEAS SUPPORT

MOSCOW, Russia, December 19, 2001 (ENS) - Environmental groups from seven countries today urged the governor and members of the local parliament in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia to support polling the voters in a local referendum on nuclear waste. Public groups in the region are now attempting to collect enough signatures for a referendum on the import of foreign nuclear waste for storage and reprocessing in Krasnoyarsk.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-19-01.html

ZIMBABWE'S FARM WORKERS FACE ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS

By Singy Hanyona

LUSAKA, Zambia, December 19, 2001 (ENS) - Land redistribution and resettlement programs in the southern African country of Zimbabwe were supposed to solve the problems of black landless families by giving them land confiscated from white farmers.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-19-02.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: DECEMBER 19, 2001

Real Estate Company Contributed to Girl's Death

Corps Asks for Input on Wetlands Mitigation

EPA Wins $3.5 Million from Landfill Polluters

States Support Federal Standards for Cleaner Diesel

Congress Considers Banning Canned Hunts

MTBE Exposure Can Stymie Breathalyzer Tests

$3.1 Million Helps Protect Long Island Sound

Online Quiz Measures Ecological Footprints

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-19-09.html

12/20/01
1:37:45 PM

German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals

By Erik Kirschbaum

PIRMASENS, Germany (Reuters) - German computer experts are working round the clock to unlock the truth behind an unexplained surge in financial transactions made just before two hijacked planes crashed into New York's World Trade Center on September 11.

Were criminals responsible for the sharp rise in credit card transactions that moved through some computer systems at the WTC shortly before the planes hit the twin towers?

Or was it coincidence that unusually large sums of money, perhaps more than $100 million, were rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded?

A world leader in retrieving data, German-based firm Convar is trying to answer those questions and help credit card companies, telecommunications firms and accountants in New York recover their records from computer hard drives that have been partially damaged by fire, water or fine dust.

Using a pioneering laser scanning technology to find data on damaged computer hard drives and main frames found in the rubble of the World Trade Center and other nearby collapsed buildings, Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings.

``The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start,'' said Convar director Peter Henschel.

``Of course it is also possible that there were perfectly legitimate reasons for the unusual rise in business volume,'' he told Reuters in an interview.

PROFITING FROM DISASTER?

``It could turn out that Americans went on an absolute shopping binge on that Tuesday morning. But at this point there are many transactions that cannot be accounted for,'' Henschel said.

``Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that. There is a suspicion that these were possibly planned to take advantage of the chaos.''

Nearly 3,300 people were killed in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center.

Some 30,000 people in the buildings, symbols of America's financial might, were able to escape between the time the planes crashed and about an hour later when they collapsed -- even though many of the unmanned computers continued working.

The United States blames the al Qaeda group led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) for the attack and has since waged war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (news - web sites) that sheltered them.

ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE OF ATTACK?

There are several data retrieval companies in the United States and Europe, but Convar said it has won the lion's share of the contracts from the World Trade Center because of its laser scanning technology.

Convar developed the laser scanner two years ago that made it possible to retrieve data from badly damaged computers.

With a staff of 30 in its high-security facility in Pirmasens near the French border, the firm has worked with the U.S. armed forces in Germany as well as German federal police for the last 15 years.

Its offices in Pirmasens, a town of 36,000 still suffering from the departure of some 4,000 American soldiers stationed here during the Cold War, are closely guarded behind high fences and monitored by dozens of security cameras.

Inside the building, an endless series of code-operated door locks keeps unwelcome visitors away. In the center of the facility is a 120 square meter (1,292 square foot), dust-free ''clean room'' where the damaged computer drives are coaxed back to life.

Citing client privacy, Henschel declined to say which companies Convar is working for, or provide details about the data retrieved so far. But he said the raw material, up to 40 gigabytes per computer hard drive, is sent immediately by satellite or courier back to New York.

MONEY TRAIL

Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at the company, said illegal transfers of more than $100 million might have been made immediately before and during the disaster.

``There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million,'' Wagner said. ``They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.''

The companies are paying between $20,000 and $30,000 for each computer recovered, Henschel said.

The high recovery costs are one reason why only a limited number of hard drives are being examined. Convar has turned down a request by one British newspaper to try to recover personal last hour e-mails sent by someone trapped in the doomed building.

Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI (news - web sites) to piece together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination of the dubious transactions would one day be tracked down.

``We have been quite surprised that so many of the hard drives were in good enough shape to retrieve the data,'' he said.

``The contamination rate is high. The fine dust that was everywhere in the area got pressed under high pressure into the drives. But we've still been able to retrieve 100 percent of the data on most of the drives we've received.

``We're helping them find out what happened to the computers on September 11 as quickly as possible. I'm sure that one day they will know what happened to the money.''

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011216/ts/attack_wtc_germany_dc.html

12/20/01
1:32:03 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Second US serviceman loses foot in mine blast - AFGHANISTAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13776/story.htm

Argentina steps up fight to wipe out fruit flies - ARGENTINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13791/story.htm

Australian scientists warn of new car illness - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13792/story.htm

EU protests over possible US duties on uranium - BELGIUM http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13779/story.htm

Brazil population gets older, more urban - census - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13788/story.htm

Overhaul Canada's Pacific forest industry - report - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13781/story.htm

EU farm ministers agree sheep sector reform - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13784/story.htm

Fortum declines comment on oil spill report - FINLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13789/story.htm

Demasz to spend on efficiency, environment - HUNGARY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13769/story.htm

Rampaging wild elephants kill four in India - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13785/story.htm

Norway offers landmine clearers for Afghanistan - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13778/story.htm

Ireland and Norway discuss Sellafield "monster" - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13780/story.htm

Slovenia and Croatia ink accord on nuclear plant - SLOVENIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13775/story.htm

Thailand sees golfing paradise in minefield - THAILAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13777/story.htm

UK Ofgem sets guidelines for green power tariffs - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13773/story.htm

UK BNFL say to start controversial n-plant in days - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13771/story.htm

UPDATE - US FERC won't block Williams LNG plant reopening - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13772/story.htm

Teck Cominco settles Alaska air-quality charges - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13770/story.htm

NYPA buys 8 fuel cell power plants for NY City - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13774/story.htm

Agriculture website angers farmers, fails to sway Congress - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13783/story.htm

Pneumonia infection may lead to asthma - US study - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13795/story.htm

US circus trainer did not stab elephant - lawyer - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13786/story.htm

US nuclear lab slows plans for biowarfare center - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13787/story.htm

YEARAHEAD - US food safety confronted by "bioterror" threat - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13790/story.htm

USDA says no change in salmonella tests - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13793/story.htm

US meat firm recalls chicken due to contamination - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13794/story.htm

Survey says grain elevators prefer GMO segregation - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13782/story.htm

12/20/01
1:29:07 PM

NY's Tally Of WTC Dead, Missing Drops

by the AP

NEW YORK (AP) -- The city's tally of people killed or missing in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center has fallen to 3,000 -- down from its high of 6,700 in September.

City officials have said there are a number of reasons for the steadily declining number: names listed more than once on missing person-reports, overestimates from some foreign consulates and families who filed early missing reports but neglected to notify police when loved ones turned up safe.

As of Tuesday, the city medical examiner's office had issued 529 death certificates, based on identifications made from remains. Another 1,977 death certificates have been issued at the request of victims' families. The rest are still considered missing.

Independent tallies maintained by news organizations have consistently been lower than the city's toll.

An ongoing Associated Press tally of people confirmed dead and those reported dead or missing in the trade center attack stood at 2,787 Tuesday. That number excludes those killed at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, and the hijackers themselves.

The AP list is based on information collected from the Defense Department, medical examiners, the courts, AP foreign bureaus, companies, families, member newspapers, funeral homes and places of worship.

Source: http://www.truthout.com/12.20G.wtc.3000.htm

12/20/01
1:24:38 PM

United States Won't Back New Marshall Plan

WASHINGTON (AP) - 12.17.01 | An official in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government failed to win the backing of the Bush administration in an effort to launch a new Marshall Plan to help the world's poorest nations.

Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, discussed the proposal in a meeting Monday with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in O'Neill's office.

In a statement, the U.S. Treasury said that O'Neill and Brown both shared a deep concern over the plight of the world's poor. O'Neill, however, ``would like to see evidence of what works before making new commitments'' on the part of the United States, the statement said.

Brown wants rich countries including the United States and Britain double the aid they give the world's poor nations to $100 billion annually as part of an effort to cut world poverty in half by 2015.

Brown has said the program is modeled after the U.S. Marshall Plan, the successful plan advanced by George C. Marshall, secretary of state in the Truman administration, to provide American assistance to help rebuild Europe following World War II.

Brown's effort is intended to address the growing gap between wealthy and poor countries, a disparity that many feel is fueling political tensions and terrorism.

Brown first raised his proposal during meetings sponsored by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Ottawa, Canada, last month.

Source: http://www.truthout.com/12.20F.Bush.no.Blair.htm

12/20/01
1:21:27 PM

t r u t h o u t | 12.20

SENATE Launches First Enron Investigation

http://www.truthout.com/12.20A.Enron.Hear.1.htm

The Clinton White House Was Poised to Kill bin Laden

http://www.truthout.com/12.20B.Clinton.OBL.htm

GEHHARDT-RANGEL The Battle Over the "Stimulus"

http://www.truthout.com/12.20C.Gep.Rang.Stim.htm

DASCHLE on Republicans Voting to Kill the Farm Bill

http://www.truthout.com/12.20D.Daschle.Farm.htm

India Government Discussing War

http://www.truthout.com/12.20E.India.Talk.War.htm

Bush Snubs Blair on Aid to World's Poor

http://www.truthout.com/12.20F.Bush.no.Blair.htm

NY's Tally of WTC Dead, Missing Drops

http://www.truthout.com/12.20G.wtc.3000.htm

12/20/01
1:19:30 PM

Avoiding a generation of terrorism: 10 lessons from Sri Lanka

by Shariff Abdullah

The Sri Lanka government has been fighting terrorists for almost two decades, with no end in sight. On the other hand, the American "war on terrorism" is only three months old. Is there anything the U.S. can learn from the conflict in Sri Lanka? Can America head off 20 years of bloody suffering by looking for lessons in Sri Lanka? Can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved?

I work with Sarvodaya, a 40-year-old self-help development organization based on Gandhian and Buddhist principles. In my time in Sri Lanka, I've learned a few things that can be applied to a "war on terrorism":

1. The war could go on forever. Violence never resolves anything.

2. What each side says about the other is true. What they say about themselves is not. Help both sides understand that their actions are part of the problem, and that all sides, including "the enemy," are part of the solution.

Read all 10 of Abdullah's "lessons," with commentary:

http://www.commonway.org/CWI911-17.html#avoidingtop

12/20/01
1:18:11 PM

The way to make amends: pay up.

by David Corn, Washington editor, The Nation.

WASHINGTON - "We mourn every civilian death," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said at a recent Pentagon briefing, responding to news reports that scores of Afghan civilians were killed by U.S. bombs in villages near Tora Bora. Rumsfeld then discounted those reports as mere "Taliban accusations," even though they had been based on the accounts of local anti-Taliban officials (who were working with American forces), civilian eyewitnesses and actual victims. U.S. regret met U.S. denial.

The complete article can be viewed at:

http://www.latimes.com/la-000099589dec16.story

12/20/01
1:17:06 PM

3,500 civilians killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs

More than 3,500 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs, according to a study by Marc W. Herold, professor of economics and international relations at the University of New Hampshire.

Professor Herold has been gathering data on civilian casualties since October 7 by culling information from news agencies, major newspapers, and first-hand accounts. "I decided to do the study because I suspected that the modern weaponry was not what it was advertised to be. I was concerned that there would be significant civilian casualties caused by the bombing, and I was able to find some mention of casualties in the foreign press but almost nothing in the U.S. press," said Herold.

Read more about Herold's data at:

http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

12/20/01
1:15:55 PM

Why does the Arab world mistrust us?

by David Batstone

The past 15 months have been a disaster for Israeli- Palestinian relations. Since Sept. 29, 2000, more than 1,000 people have died, over 800 of whom have been Palestinians. While violent attacks on each side are justified under the rubric of "self-defense," they in reality are inhumane acts that violate civilians and do little more than fuel the flames for a counter-attack. They are locked in moral combat.

When hopes for a reasoned negotiation have devolved - as is certainly the case in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle - a third party with political and moral muscle must play a mediating role. No single nation- state can play that role at the moment, given the polarized politics that have enveloped the region historically. Despite its problems, the United Nations is the sole international body with legally binding powers and one that can be instrumental in constructing a peace in the region.

Efforts toward that goal were torpedoed by the United States this last week, however. On December 15, the United States vetoed the United Nations Security Council Resolution to establish a monitoring force in the West Bank and Gaza (the "Occupied Territories") - the fact that this item was largely ignored by the mainstream U.S. media is shameful. The U.N. Resolution "demands the immediate cessation of all acts of violence," "resumption of negotiations," "condemns all acts of terror...extra-judicial executions [and] excessive use of force," and the "resumption of negotiations." Can you think of any more positive steps that would need to be taken to end the conflict?

I can't, and evidently neither can most of the rest of the world. The latest U.N. resolution was supported by 12 members of the Council, with the UK and Norway abstaining. U.N. observers or monitoring forces in the region have been supported by a plethora of human rights groups and international bodies, including the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights, Mary Robinson, the G-8 Summit, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. Of course, any one member country can block a Security Council Resolution. It was the second time in the last year that the U.S. has vetoed this particular resolution, and the 24th time that the U.S. has used its veto on the question of Palestine - far more than any other member of the Security Council.

After September 11, Americans asked why so many people in the Arab world harbored animosity toward the United States. The foolish answer: they are jealous of our freedoms, our democratic way of life. I think it's more accurate to say that our lack of support for democracy and fairness outside the boundaries of the U.S. - blind support of Israel and almost complete disregard of the plight of dispossessed Palestinians - eviscerates our moral standing and makes enemies out of potential allies.

Siurce: http://www.SoJo.net

12/20/01
11:58:18 AM

What's Not In The News

Why We Aren't Hearing the Whole Story from Afghanistan

by Steven Rosenfeld

Medea Benjamin is Founding Director of the San Francisco-based human rights organization Global Exchange and was the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate from California in 2000. A four-person women's delegation organized by Global Exchange went to Pakistan and Afghanistan from November 20 to December 3. Click here for their report. Steve Rosenfeld interviewed Medea Benjamin for TomPaine.com.

TomPaine.com: You and a delegation associated with Global Exchange recently went to Afghanistan and Pakistan. What was the purpose?

Medea Benjamin: We were concerned that we were not getting the full picture in the news. We were not getting any reports about numbers of civilian casualties, stories about what happened to those families. We didn't know if the tens and tens of thousands of new refugees that were being created by the U.S. bombing had access to food and blankets and shelter. So we really felt that we needed to find out for ourselves what was happening.

TP.c: What did you find that you had not seen reported in the U.S. press?

Benjamin: Well, I didn't know that massive numbers of people were not getting food aid because the U.S. was blocking an international force from coming in to open up the roads so that aid could get in. And I also had no idea to the extent of innocent victims, who were killed by U.S. bombs, until I realized that everywhere we went, we found people who had stories to tell of loved ones who were killed in the bombing. And then, in terms if women, I realized the issue was not the burqa, but the issue was jobs and education, which meant that their question was, how much money is the international community going to invest in rebuilding Afghanistan, rather than destroying it?

TP.c: I'm sure you saw American reporters there, and I'm sure you got to talk to some of them. Did any tell you about their priorities for coverage, particularly about these issues you just mentioned --innocent victims, and what kind of aid might actually be there for women.

Benjamin: Well, many of the press people we met on the ground were extremely frustrated, because they wanted to do stories about these issues, like the innocent victims, like their colleagues were doing in Europe and in the Arab and other press, but found that the stories were not wanted back in the U.S. Either they would do them and they'd never make it to the air or in print, or they were just plain out told, we don't want those stories.

TP.c: What kind of news organizations are we talking about here?

Benjamin: We're talking about everyone from the mainstream TV, to the most widely read papers in the United States, but particularly, I think, the frustration we found was among the TV people.

TP.c: Tell me a conversation that's an example of this, that you might have had with a producer from one of the networks.

Benjamin: Well, there was an incident outside of Jalalabad, where dozens and dozens of villagers were killed in a stray bomb that was meant for the Tora Bora area, where the caves of Al Qeada are. And a producer for one of the networks was very anxious to cover that story, actually was there with a crew, and then was told from headquarters in the U.S. that they didn't want that story.

TP.c: Upon hearing these kinds of reports from the reporters, what conclusions did you draw? What did it make you think?

Benjamin: Well, it made me think that our press is in lockstep with the government, and that we're not hearing what the rest of the world is hearing, and it makes us so much less able to understand why there are so many people around the world that hate us. If we can't cover the results of the U.S. bombing campaign, if we can't hear that the United States is stopping food aid from getting to people who are starving and cold, then we're not getting the real story and the U.S. people will continue to think that the United States have liberated the people of Afghanistan and they're all overjoyed with us.

TP.c: I heard that you also were interviewed by Al Jazeera reporters [the Arabic language television network]. What kind of questions did they ask?

Benjamin: Well, first let me say when I went to Washington after our trip, I found that many of the press people were not interested in covering our story because it was critical of the United States. And in fact, I had one editor of a major newspaper give back a report that had I handed to him, and said, "If you are here to tell us that the U.S. is part of the problem in Afghanistan, we don't want to hear it." I have since been on radio shows, like I was on one last night, where before going on the show they came and told me, please tone down anything negative you might say about the U.S. government, because we've been getting in a lot of trouble here for questioning the U.S. military campaign.

So I find that back in the United States it was very hard to get on major TV shows or get in some of the major media, and, in fact, as we went around, calling and asking to get coverage, one of the only TV venues where we found a positive response was Al Jazeera. And they asked me the kinds of questions that came out in the report that we had produced. They asked why we thought the U.S. was not interested in making sure the roads were cleared and people would be able to receive humanitarian aid that would stop them from starving. They asked us what we saw on the ground. What were the impressions that people had about the U.S. bombing campaign? They asked what we felt that the international community should be doing in terms of reconstruction for Afghanistan. They asked some of the most basic questions that you'd think any decent reporter would ask.

TP.c: So, at this stage, having made this trip, and coming back and trying to talk about it, obviously -- or talk about your findings -- what do you think U.S. citizens need to know that they don't know?

Benjamin: Well, first they need to know that the press is censored in the United States. It might very well be self-censorship by the higher-ups in the news media, but that we are not getting the story of what is really happening on the ground, because the news media is more concerned with having a good relationship with the Bush administration, than with telling the real story about what's happening in Afghanistan. And that's very scary.

That means that we will, quote, leave Afghanistan with the sense of great success, and then potentially move on to the next venue, like Iraq. That would be really disastrous, not knowing how so many people in the Muslim world feel about the U.S. bombing campaign, feel about the fact the U.S. feels that it can go in and bomb villages, mosques, kill what is probably thousands of innocent civilians, and feel no sense of responsibility for helping these people -- the families go on with their lives. I think the American people will not understand why there continues to be a lot of rage against the United States.

TP.c: Is it really thousands [of civilian deaths]?

Benjamin: Well, it's impossible to know because nobody has done a real investigation. There is a professor from the University of New Hampshire that did a tally based on press reports from around the world, and came up saying there were 3,700 innocent people killed. When we were there, we certainly got the impression that we're talking about over a thousand -- just from the fact that we met with people, where in one village, there had been 80 people killed. Another village, 43 people killed. If you add these up you are certainly getting past the thousand mark and potentially into several thousand.

Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com

Source: http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/12/13/1.html

12/20/01
11:50:37 AM

Announcing The P.U.-Litzer Prizes For 2001

The Stinkiest Media Performances of the Year

by Norman Solomon

The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.

As each winter arrives, I confer with Jeff Cohen of the media watch group FAIR to sift through the large volume of entries. This year, the competition was especially fierce. We regret that only a few journalists can win a P.U.-litzer.

And now, the tenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2001:

"Love a Man In A Uniform" Award -- Cokie Roberts of ABC News "This Week"

On David Letterman's show in October, Roberts gushed: "I am, I will just confess to you, a total sucker for the guys who stand up with all the ribbons on and stuff, and they say it's true and I'm ready to believe it. We had General Shelton on the show the last day he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and I couldn't lift that jacket with all the ribbons and medals. And so when they say stuff, I tend to believe it."

Protecting Viewers from the News Prize -- CNN Chair Walter Isaacson

"It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan," said Isaacson, in a memo ordering his staff to accompany any images of Afghan civilian suffering with rhetoric that U.S. bombing is retaliation for the Taliban harboring terrorists. As if the American public may be too feeble-minded to remember Sept. 11, the CNN chief explained: "You want to make sure that when they see civilian suffering there, it's in the context of a terrorist attack that caused enormous suffering in the United States."

Protecting Readers from the News Prize -- Panama City News Herald

An October internal memo from the Daily in Panama City, Florida, warned its editors: "DO NOT USE photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. Our sister paper ... has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening e-mails... DO NOT USE wire stories which lead with civilian casualties from the U.S. war on Afghanistan. They should be mentioned further down in the story. If the story needs rewriting to play down the civilian casualties, DO IT."

Best Embrace of Terrorist Mindset Award -- columnist Ann Coulter

This category had many candidates -- pundits apparently trying to sound as fanatical as the terrorists they were denouncing -- but it was won by Coulter, who wrote in September: "We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Runner-up: Thomas Woodrow and The Washington Times, for a column headlined "Time to Use the Nuclear Option," which asserted: "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilities should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice."

Tortuous Punditry Prize -- Jonathan Alter of Newsweek

In the Nov. 5 edition, under the headline "Time to Think About Torture," Newsweek's Alter wrote: "In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to ... torture. OK, not cattle prods or rubber hoses, at least not here in the United States, but something to jump-start the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history.... Some people still argue that we needn't rethink any of our old assumptions about law enforcement, but they're hopelessly 'Sept. 10' -- living in a country that no longer exists."

Child Warnography Award -- Bob Edwards, NPR News

On a Nov. 26 broadcast, the longtime anchor of "Morning Edition" interviewed a 12-year-old boy about a new line of trading cards marketed "to teach children about the war on terrorism" by "featuring photographs and information about the war effort." The elder male was enthusiastic as he compared cards. "I've got an Air Force F-16," Edwards said. "The picture's taken from the bottom so you can see the whole payload there, all the bombs lined up." After the boy replied with a bland "yeah," Edwards went on: "That's pretty cool."

"Wild About That Madman" Award -- Thomas Friedman of The New York Times

"I was a critic of Rumsfeld before, but there's one thing ... that I do like about Rumsfeld," columnist Friedman declared on Oct. 13 during a CNBC appearance. "He's just a little bit crazy, OK? He's just a little bit crazy, and in this kind of war, they always count on being able to out-crazy us, and I'm glad we got some guy on our bench that our quarterback -- who's just a little bit crazy, not totally, but you never know what that guy's going to do, and I say that's my guy."

"History is for Wimps" Prize -- Newsweek

When Newsweek published a Dec. 3 cover story on George W. and Laura Bush, it was a paean to "the First Team" more akin to worship than journalism. Along the way, the magazine explained that the president doesn't read many books: "He's busy making history, but doesn't look back at his own, or the world's.... Bush would rather look forward than backward. It's the way he's built, and the result is a president who operates without evident remorse or second-guessing."

Blame Certain Americans First Prize -- televangelist/pundits Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson

On the national "700 Club" TV show, with host Robertson expressing his agreement, Falwell blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on various Americans who had allegedly irritated God: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

America United Except for Those Decadent Traitors Award -- Andrew Sullivan of The New Republic and Sunday Times of London

Columnist Sullivan, as if trying to prove that a gay rights advocate can be as hysterically right-wing as a Falwell, wrote in mid-September: "The middle part of the country -- the great red zone that voted for Bush -- is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead -- and may well mount a fifth column."

Sheer O'Reillyness Award -- Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and Catherine Seipp of MediaWeek

A February profile of O'Reilly in MediaWeek quoted the TV host's claim that The Los Angeles Times had never named the woman who'd accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978: "They never mentioned Juanita Broaddrick's name, ever. The whole area out here has no idea what's going on, unless you watch my show." After it was pointed out that O'Reilly was wrong and that Broaddrick had been repeatedly mentioned in the L.A. Times, the writer of the MediaWeek profile, Catherine Seipp, commented that she would likely have caught the error "if I hadn't been so mesmerized by O'Reilly's sheer O'Reillyness. There's just something about a man who's always sure he's right even when he's wrong."

Norman Solomon is the author of The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media. He writes "Media Beat," a nationally syndicated column.

Source: http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/12/17/index.html

12/20/01
11:41:10 AM

Dispatch: Refinery Row Not A Normal Neighborhood

If Bush Guts the Clean Air Act, No One Will Breathe Easy

by Michael May is a writer living in Austin, Texas

The view of the ship channel from the Fred Hartman bridge just minutes from downtown Houston can take your breath away. Oil refineries and chemical plants stretch for fifty miles along the channel, blanketing the shoreline with an elaborate maze of storage tanks, pipes and smokestacks. In the distance rises downtown Houston, where the mirrored skyscrapers that house Exxon, Shell and Chevron shine like bars of freshly minted silver. From this height, cocooned in an air-conditioned car, the gleaming landscape appears futuristic and exotic, like a high-tech outpost on some inhospitable planet.

But across the channel from Houston, rows of humble ranch-style houses huddle against the fence line of ExxonMobile's mammoth Baytown refinery. Huge smokestacks tower above the dwellings, puffing out a noxious cocktail of benzene, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the residents to breathe. In downtown Houston, they say the thick, sulfurous emissions that waft over the channel smell like money. Here in Baytown, they smell like death.

Hilton Kelly grew up in a poor, African-American refinery neighborhood and, for as long as he can remember, has had a chronic cough. He says he didn't even realize that it was the air in his neighborhood that made him sick until he moved away. But, despite this, he has moved back to the neighborhood for good. He says he is tired of the oil companies making him feel insignificant, and is organizing his community to stand up to the polluters. A bitter look flashes over his face as he motions to a silent park in Baytown. "In a normal neighborhood, you would see kids playing outside, enjoying this beautiful day," he says. "Not in our communities. The pollution is so bad that kids often get sick outdoors, so we keep them indoors."

During the Clinton administration, the Environmental Protection Agency launched a crackdown on refineries that failed to meet pollution standards. The initiative had begun to clear the air in communities like Kelly's. But when President George W. Bush unveiled his energy plan last May, he cited industry concerns that the crackdown has hindered energy production. He told the EPA and the Department of Justice to "evaluate" the program, and environmentalists say he has stopped enforcing it. The administration plans to release its evaluation at the end of the year, and environmentalists suspect it will propose "reforming" the Clean Air Act.

Bush is not the first politician to allow oil companies to write their own loopholes. In fact, one of America's dirty secrets is that key parts of the Clean Air Act have never really been enforced at oil refineries.

Texans know what these "reforms" might look like. Faced with an air pollution crisis when he was governor, Bush reformed a state clean air bill in 1999. But he quickly took the legislation out of the hands of the state EPA and instead let Exxon, a major campaign contributor, write it. Rather than enacting new regulations, the bill asked industry to reduce air pollution voluntarily. As expected, it has failed to reduce air pollution in Texas by even 1 percent. "He sold out the health of all Texans to his biggest campaign contributors," says Peter Altman of the Texas Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. "His energy plan is the same story all over again. This time industry would like him to gut the heart and lungs out of the federal Clean Air Act."

Business as Usual

Bush is not the first politician to allow oil companies to write their own loopholes. In fact, one of America's dirty secrets is that key parts of the Clean Air Act have never really been enforced at oil refineries. Refineries built before 1977 were "grandfathered" by the Act, under the assumption that they would not likely be used much longer (although many still operate today). But a set of regulations called New Source Review (NSR) required modified or expanded refineries (and other plants) to install modern pollution control equipment.

Since the 1970s, oil companies closed small refineries and expanded their largest. But the Clinton EPA found that many oil refiners had modified their facilities without upgrading pollution controls. Some of these violations were egregious. In July 2000, the EPA reached the largest settlement ever with BP Amoco and Koch Petroleum Group, who promised to spend $600 million to reduce air pollution at 12 refineries nationwide. Although the EPA has investigations pending at other refineries, these would most likely be dropped if Bush eases NSR regulations.

According to Bob Slaughter, the general counsel for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, the Clinton-era EPA interpreted New Source Review regulations too strictly. "Bush understands that NSR regulations are too abstract and open to interpretation," he said. "We need to reform these laws so that refineries can get on with business." Industry proposes replacing NSR with plant-wide emissions caps that would free them from installing costly pollution control equipment.

Environmentalists say this is a subterfuge. NSR regulations are the only way to protect local communities from being exposed to more and more toxic emissions, says John Walke of the Natural Resource Defense Council. Under industry's proposal, limits would be determined plant-by-plant and could be set artificially high, says Walke. That would provide no incentive for plants to reduce air pollution over time. More importantly, it would do little to address "fugitive emissions" at refineries.

"Refineries have literally thousands of points where pollution can escape," says Walke. "There are flanges, gaskets, and sealings spread over acres of piping. These emissions, by the EPA's own admission, are impossible to measure. NSR regulations don't require that emissions are quantified, only that industry updates and maintains their equipment."

Communities Take Action

From across the fenceline, grandfathered refineries look old and decrepit. The piping, which carries petroleum-based chemicals to huge holding tanks, appears rusted and worn, and everything is covered with a layer of black grime.

Fugitive emissions from this shabby hardware cause some of the worst health problems in refinery neighborhoods, say environmentalists, because they are released at ground level and are ever-present. Communites are also subjected to frequent "upsets," or unexpected toxic emissions that can blanket the surrounding areas. These upsets are legal when they occur in order to vent a dangerous build-up of explosive material. However, the "upset clause," says Altman, is frequently abused by refineries in order to bypass pollution controls.

"Last month, a valve blew open and a noxious smell wafted through the neighborhood ... I got really sick. I felt a cool sensation deep in my lungs, like breathing ammonia, my heart rate kicked up and I broke out in chills."

A study conducted in December of 2000 by chemist Wilma Subra (winner of a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship) showed that neighborhoods in Beaumont/Port Arthur, Texas were exposed to accidental upsets an average of five times a week. Industry's own records, says Subra, show that 75 percent of these upsets would have been avoided if up-to-date pollution control technology and new valves had been installed. Enforcing NSR -- which would require such equipment -- would be a big step toward solving the problem.

"Last month, a valve blew open and a noxious smell wafted through the neighborhood," says Hilton Kelly, who lives a block from a refinery in Port Arthur. "I got really sick. I felt a cool sensation deep in my lungs, like breathing ammonia, my heart rate kicked up and I broke out in chills. I went to the hospital, but they are largely funded by the refineries and just told me it was something I ate."

Refinery dollars have bought a lot of silence in city government over the years, says Kelly, because, in places like Beaumont/Port Arthur, industry provides the bulk of the jobs. Since agencies often wait for complaints before investigating violations, the reluctance of community members to threaten their jobs by stepping forward has made enforcement difficult. When they do file complaints, community members often have to rely on industry's own monitoring to know which chemicals they were breathing.

Until recently, air sampling was unaffordable for these communities. Now, a new inexpensive device lets residents monitor their own air quality. With a few samples, they can often force agencies to crack down on illegal emissions. "This is the first time communities have been able to take a simple snapshot of what goes into their lungs," says Denny Larson of the SEED coalition. "With just a few samples we can collapse the house of cards erected by industry which says this air is safe to breathe."

While enforcement is essential, the monitoring efforts themselves have also had an impact. Wilma Subra says that plants often lower their emissions when they know someone is watching. "When I first began to sample the air quality in the [Beaumont/Port Arthur] neighborhood, there were dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in the air almost every day," she says. "After two months, emissions had dropped considerably. When industry knows the community is watching, suddenly they are able to handle their waste more appropriately." Earlier this year, Subra released a report proving that the air in Beaumont/Port Arthur was unsafe to breathe. The companies promised to have a solution in 30 days, but, almost nine months later, the community is still waiting.

Bush received nearly $2 million from the oil and gas industry, more than any other federal candidate in the past decade. Walke: "To the detriment of the breathing American public, he plans to give industry what it wants."

Hilton Kelly is not giving up. "These plants seem to always be located in black and brown communities," he says, "because that is the path of least resistance. Well, those days are over. This is our home, and we are tired of suffering. We are organized, and we are not just going to take no for an answer."

Kelly has no illusions that it will be an easy fight. Bush's plan to weaken NSR regulations, if implemented, will strip the community of their strongest enforcement tool. Unfortunately, the president has a strong incentive to do so. In the past election, Bush received nearly $2 million from the oil and gas industry, more than any other federal candidate in the past decade. "The energy sector brought Bush into office," says Walke of Natural Resources Defence Council. "And now, to the detriment of the breathing American public, he plans to give industry what it wants."

Source: http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/12/index.html

12/20/01
11:16:36 AM

Hunger Basics: Who's Going Hungry In The U.S.?

Bread for the World is a nationwide Christian citizens movement seeking justice for the world's hungry people by lobbying our nation's decision makers. Click here to visit their Web site.

Is hunger really a problem in the United States?

When Americans think about hunger, we usually think in terms of mass starvation in far-away countries, but hunger too often lurks in our own backyards. Even in the most prosperous times, 31 million people, including 12 million children, in the United States did not have access to enough food for an active healthy life, and were often forced to choose between relying on emergency food sources or going hungry.

The economic downturn has further complicated the efforts of millions of poor people to simply get by. In October alone, the U.S. unemployment rate jumped from 4.9 percent to 5.4 percent, the largest one-month jump in two decades. The 0.5 percent increase represents 415,000 more people in the ranks of the unemployed. November saw the unemployment rate jump again, this time to 5.7 percent. For a family already struggling to make ends meet, losing a job can be catastrophic.

Who is going hungry in the United States?

Although most people think of hungry people and homeless people as the same, the problem of hunger reaches far beyond homelessness. While the thought of 31 million people being hungry or at risk of hunger may be surprising, it is the faces of those 31 million individuals that would probably most shock you.

The face of hunger is the older couple who has worked hard their entire lives only to find their savings wiped out by unavoidable medical bills; or a single mother who has to choose whether the salary from her minimum wage job will go to buy food or pay the rent; or a child who struggles to concentrate on his schoolwork because his family couldn't afford dinner the night before. A December 2001 survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated that 54 percent of those requesting emergency food assistance were either children or their parents.

Aren't most of the people going to soup kitchens to blame for their own situation?

A recent study commissioned by America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest network of food banks, found almost 40 percent of households seeking emergency food banks' assistance had one or more family member currently employed. Hunger is becoming a growing problem among the working poor.

Food banks have had to fill the gap left since eligibility requirements for the Food Stamp Program were changed in 1996, leaving millions of poor people without a place to turn for food. Indeed, America's Second Harvest served an estimated 23 million people last year, while only 17 million received government food stamps.

If people are willing to work, why are they still at risk of going hungry?

There are various reasons many working Americans are unable to feed their families. From a broader economic perspective, we can point to the fact that the United States has the highest wage inequality of any industrialized nation (Hunger in a Global Economy: Hunger 1998, Bread for the World Institute). People can work full-time, low-skill jobs and still not make enough money to maintain a basic standard of living -- buying food, paying their rent and medical bills, buying clothes for their children and affording a car so that they can travel to work.

Just providing food seldom gets to the roots of hunger. In the United States, food pantries provide urgently needed help. But food assistance is less important to overcoming hunger than job opportunities. Empowering people, providing them with opportunities or helping them cultivate an awareness of what they can do to improve their lives, is one of the most important ways of overcoming hunger and poverty.

How does hunger affect children?

According to a July 2001 study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, of the 4.1 million food stamp households that included an able-bodied, non-elderly adult, 77 percent also included children.

Child poverty is more widespread in the United States than in any other industrialized country; at the same time, the U.S. government does less than any industrialized country to pull its children out of poverty (What Governments Can Do: Hunger 1997, Bread for the World Institute).

We have long known that the minds and bodies of small children need adequate food to develop properly. But science is just beginning to understand the full extent of this relationship. As late as the 1980s, conventional wisdom held that only the most severe forms of malnutrition actually alter brain development. The latest empirical evidence, however, shows that even relatively "mild" undernutrition -- the kind of hunger we have in the United States -- produces cognitive impairments in children which can last a lifetime, according to Dr. J. Larry Brown, director of the Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy at Tufts University.

By taking youngsters and subjecting them to hunger, we rob them of their God-given potential, Dr. Brown continues. "We then deliver them to the schoolhouse door with one arm tied behind their backs and expect teachers to perform an often-impossible task. This, in turn, results in the waste of billions of dollars we invest in the education of our children because hunger prevents so many of them from getting the full value of their educational experience."

Editor's note: This excerpt is from Bread for the World's fact sheet, Hunger Basics: Frequently Asked Questions.

http://www.Bread.org

Source: http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/17/index.html

12/20/01
11:08:56 AM

TomPaine.com

http://www.TomPaine.com

ARMIES OF COMPASSION LOSING GROUND

The Coming Crunch in American Charity

Hunger and homelessness, already on the rise since 1997, increased sharply in the last year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors just reported. It's going to get worse. The "armies of compassion" who run soup kitchens, food pantries and homeless shelters are losing ground, but few of our leaders in Washington will talk about it.

READ OUR OP AD...

http://www.TomPaine.com/opad

LET THEM EAT CAKE

The Coming Crunch in American Charity

by Susan Jacoby

President Bush has praised the "armies of compassion" who serve the nation's hungry and homeless. The commanders of those armies now report that they can't keep pace with the growing need for their services. The crisis reveals a fallacy of the welfare "reform" movement's fundamental tenet - that private charity can step in when government cuts social spending.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/17/1.html

HUNGER BASICS

Who's Going Hungry in the U.S.?

A factsheet from Bread for the World.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/17/index.html

END HUNGER WITH YOUR BARE HANDS

A Local Activist Shows How Much of a Difference Can Be Made

by Dan Zukergood

"My students and I will never be the same after experiencing these successes. They will never again be able to say that they cannot make a difference."

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/18/1.html

FOCUS ON HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS

Tips, Leads and Links to Give, Learn, Volunteer, and Act

by The TomPaine.com Staff

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/18/2.html

Dispatch: Refinery Row

NOT A NORMAL NEIGHBORHOOD

If Bush Guts the Clean Air Act, No One Will Breathe Easy

by Michael May

From Exxon, Shell and Chevron's mirrored Houston skyscrapers, the thick, sulfurous emissions wafting from the refineries' huge smokestacks smell like money. Here in Baytown, they smell like death.

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/12/index.html

ANNOUNCING THE P.U.-LITZER PRIZES FOR 2001

The Stinkiest Media Performances of the Year

by Norman Solomon

The Protecting Viewers from the News Award, the Best Embrace of Terrorist Mindset Award, the Sheer O'Reillyness Award... and more.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/12/17/index.html

WHAT'S NOT IN THE NEWS

Why We Aren't Hearing the Whole Story from Afghanistan

by Steven Rosenfeld

An activist goes to Afghanistan and finds widespread civilian casualties, the U.S. military blocking refugee aid, and reporters whose editors don't want the story.

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/12/13/1.html

PUNDIT PICKERS PREFER MEN

Is Woman the Opposite of Newsmaker?

by Jennifer L. Pozner

When news outlets ignore half the population, they homogenize and distort public debate, failing women and America. Can't find prominent women newsmakers for your talk show? Paging Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein...

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/12/14/index.html

CHECK IT OUT!

Tips, Leads, and Links

by The TomPaine.com Staff

Running from the Law... Farm Bill Fallacies... Pat Robertson's Business Buddies... McCarthyism... Exporting Poison... and more.

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/12/18/index.html

...And if you missed Colin Woodard's story last week, be sure to read it today...

THE TABLOID ENVIRONMENTALIST

How a Pseudo-Scientist Duped the Big Media -- Big Time

by Colin Woodard

Bjorn Lomborg's new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, brings us glorious news. The world's environment is getting better, not worse. If this sounds too good to be true, that's because it is.

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/12/07/index.html

12/20/01
11:04:24 AM

U.S. Approves Timber Sale, Prompting Court Challenge

by Katharine Q. Seelye

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 < The Bush administration cleared the way today for a gigantic sale of trees charred last year by fires in a national forest in Montana and Idaho, prompting two environmental groups to go to court to challenge the move.

The administration action is a victory for the timber industry, which has pushed for salvaging of the wood, from the Bitterroot National Forest, before it rots or cracks and loses its value. The administration says it intends to use the proceeds from the sales to restore some of the forest's watershed areas by replanting trees, closing roads and protecting stream beds. Officials also say quick removal of the timber will help prevent fires next year.

More than 300,000 acres in the forest burned in the fires last year. Some environmental groups argue that removing the wood will disrupt the natural cycle of decomposition and promote runoff of sediment that could harm fish. And they are worried about the method of today's decision, essentially, just the signature of an administration official, eliminating the public appeal process and forcing opponents to lodge their protests in court.

They are seeking an injunction in Federal District Court in Missoula, Mont., to block the sale, which the government has set to begin at noon on Wednesday.

The plan calls for logging 181 million board feet of timber from more than 46,000 acres of ponderosa pine trees that are dead or dying because of the fires. The sale, which covers 30 sites within the forest, amounts to one of the biggest salvage logging operations in the nation's history.

The decision, announced and put in effect as of today, was signed on Sunday by Mark Rey, under secretary for natural resources and environment in the Agriculture Department and a former timber industry lobbyist.

Mr. Rey said he agreed with Dale Bosworth, chief of the United States Forest Service, "that immediate implementation of the projects will reduce unacceptable risks to public safety, private property and the national forest system resources."

He and Mr. Bosworth have said there is no need to go through the customary 45-day public appeals process because the timber needs to be salvaged quickly and because environmental groups are already planning to sue. Mr. Rey said the decision to bypass the appeals period was legal.

Mr. Rey was expected to announce the decision last Friday but postponed doing so, telling reporters he wanted to review how the salvaging would affect downstream land and the local economy. He said the Forest Service had estimated that the projects would generate 4,000 jobs and pump more than $75 million into the economy. While he was not disputing those figures, he said, he wanted to make sure that a "significant portion" of that money would help the local economy.

In today's four-paragraph announcement, he provided no details about the economic effects, saying only that "these restoration projects provide significant local economic benefit opportunities."

He did discuss the process, asserting that the method of decision did not set a precedent and was "an exception and not the rule."

But environmental groups said the action set a dangerous precedent.

"This is the first step down a slippery slope of shutting the public out," said Bob Ekey, the Northern Rockies director of the Wilderness Society. "We fear they are going to do away with appeals on controversial projects in the future. They haven't indicated what the threshold is that they'll use, and why this is the exception and not the rule."

Mr. Ekey said the scope of the plan was excessive, with the number of board feet being more than all timber logged in the Bitterroot over the last 15 years.

"Some restoration projects in this are good, but we don't want them to use those good restoration projects as an excuse to go in and do more damage to the landscape through logging," he said.

Doug Honnold, a lawyer with EarthJustice, a nonprofit law firm representing the two environmental groups going to court, the Wilderness Society and American Wildlands, is seeking an immediate injunction to block the sale. He said the Department of Justice lawyers had agreed not to start the sale until noon Wednesday.

"It buys us 36 hours," Mr. Honnold said. "But if the Forest Service is not willing to allow the public to take administrative appeals, we will take that issue to a federal judge and let him decide."

His legal argument is focused solely on the appeals process and does not take up the environmental issues.

The service filed its first draft environmental impact statement on May 24 and a final one on Oct. 10. It then modified its proposal and issued its decision today. The only formal comment period was in May, "long before the real nuts and bolts of what they were planning to do was disclosed," Mr. Honnold said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/politics/18FORE.html?todaysheadlines

12/19/01
12:51:07 PM

IN THE NATIVE WAY

by Tom Goldtooth* National Director, Indigenous Environmental Network

Spirituality plays a very important role in the work our network does in environmental protection. It frames who we are. I believe that as Native people, we are the land and the land is us. Those of us in the environmental justice movement have started to educate the larger environmental movement that our work protecting the environment is spiritual work.

When we talk about the environment, very often we are talking about sacred elements. We're talking about air, which is a gift from the Creator. From the day that we're born, we take that first gasp of air and that's the life giver. Some day that breath of life is going to leave our body, thus completing its cycle.

Water is a sacred element. From the time the unborn is swimming around in the womb of its mother, we need water to sustain us. Throughout our lifetime, that water that flows through the veins of our Mother Earth remains connected to all life throughout the world.

The soil, the earth itself, that skin of Mother Earth is also one of the sacred elements.

And we have the sun that comes up in the morning every day that gives us warmth, that gives us the understanding. That's the fire, and fire is very sacred.

Some of the prophecies of our various tribes talk about a time when technology and development will be so far out of balance that it may affect the future of our planet. The Six Nations in the eastern Great Lakes area have prophecies about the time when the trees will start dying from the top down, and I understand that's happening. We've got glaciers in the Andes that are receding. We've got thinning ice in Alaska that is affecting the subsistence culture of the Alaska Natives. I hear that aquifers are starting to dry out. Climate change and global warming are impacting our people.

Our elders talk about the spiritual battle that's been going on for a long time. Industrialization has always wanted to control the land, control the people. That's going on today. I believe that globalization is part of that. Globalization places no value in people, no value in religious and spiritual principles, no value in the protection of the commons. Spiritual values tie us to the importance of protecting the Mother Earth, the plants, all animate and inanimate things. When we lose that understanding, industry, development, and globalization can do what they want to do, because there are no values behind their structures. Globalization has created a system of corporate ownership above the importance of plants, living things, and humans.

Back in the Old World -- Europe -- there were Crusades and Inquisitions, which did away with Earth-based religions. This practice rewrote history. Industrialization further killed off the Old World tribes, their identification, their traditional form of governance and replaced them with kingdoms and peasants. They've lost their connections to the land and who they are.

That's why I've always believed it's very important to carry on our traditions and our culture as Native peoples, to make sure our children know who they are and have that identification with the sacredness of our Mother Earth. Native peoples, especially those who are trying to practice ways that have been given to them since time immemorial, are an endangered species. Acculturation and assimilation -- which are products of colonization -- have been very effective. As Native peoples, we're still trying to hang on to what little we have left, our language, so we can practice our ceremonies, and our sacred areas. Western forms of development have gradually destroyed many of those sacred places.

The elders tell us that we're a tribal society of givers living in a society of takers. They say, "Go and do what you can to talk to people, try and educate them about these things." In the Native way, we respect people's own spirits. They have to come through their own self-realization to take responsibility for their actions.

A meeting of the tribes

Unfortunately, non-Native peoples no longer have traditional tribal systems, so we can't meet with them tribe to tribe. That was how we used to meet to deal with these kinds of issues. There were always ceremonial leaders, woman leaders, mechanisms for approaching these things. But that's not there anymore. Tribalism has been killed off.

As a practitioner of our traditional ways, I've been taught to put prayer first, to put the sacred Pipe first. These teachings provide me with the discipline to put the Creator first in everything I do. When I don't put the Creator first, then I start getting into trouble. I was taught that we're given a mind and a heart, and when we start to use the mind too much we get out of balance. We have to maintain a balance. Anytime I put prayer aside and try to do paperwork or do politics too much, I get myself in trouble.

In our traditional societies, we had political leaders, but political leaders maintained a balance with the spiritual leadership in the village. Various tribes had clan mothers or matrilineal clan systems that kept the menfolk in check. Our connection to the sacredness of the female creative principle of Mother Earth really means a lot, and that's something a lot of people don't understand. We always say that Mother Earth is sacred. She's the creative principle that allows life to go on, and that's why in our traditional values as Native peoples we have the most respect and reverence for the female. We're taught to take care of the Mother Earth and to take care of our women, our mothers, our aunts, our grandmothers, our sisters, our daughters in the same way we take care of the Earth.

I need to say that there are many different tribes and many different ways, but there are many similarities when I talk about the sacredness of Mother Earth and our relationship to the woman. Any time we start to lose that understanding, that's when we start getting into trouble as men.

Men have big egos. Men can easily lead religions and societies into warfare. That's why we always have to take direction from our women, from our matrilineal clan systems, because they understand the importance of that relationship. That was always the balance.

The men's role is also very important. The man is the protector of our villages and our women. I think that the men's and women's roles are out of balance in the same way that life is out of balance right now. I believe that men have to somehow find out what our role is in the modern world. The woman still carries forth the children, still understands that creative principle, still has that connection to the Earth and the powers of the moon. Their role is more easily defined. But I find a lot of brothers, no matter what race, are out of balance, searching to find out who they are as a man. We must not forget that Father Sky and Mother Earth need one another as part of the creative principle.

That goes back to the work that we do with the environment. When I talk to white environmentalists about the importance of the spiritual aspects of their work, they have no understanding of that --especially the men. The women seem to have a better understanding. Very often, the closest the non-Natives can understand about the sacredness of the Earth is the concept of stewardship -- which is good but still has ownership attached to it. But we can work with stewardship as a beginning.

Sharing ceremonies

A lot of the prophecies of the various tribes have said the time will come when the younger brother and the younger sister who have come from across the ocean will start to look towards the Native peoples for direction. But in my younger years, I was very resistant to the new agers coming into our lands and into our ceremonies.

My youth led me into Native activism -- what we called Red Power. I was one of those foot soldiers demanding the recognition of our treaty rights with my fists in the air, demanding justice. I talked to my grandmother once, and she said, "You've got a lot of anger in you. What's wrong?" So I started talking about what was going on, about people being killed. She said, "You need to go into ceremony. You've got a lot of anger."

As the years went on, I started to see more non-Native people, basically white people, coming to our ceremonies looking for answers, and I struggled with that. It seemed to me they were continuing the same old practice of taking things away from us without giving back. Now it was our ceremony and knowledge.

An uncle on the Dakota Reservation in Prairie Island, Minnesota, asked me to help him in the sweat lodge in the mid-1980s. He had a dream that the four colors of man would be coming to his ceremonies. Sure enough, soon people started coming down from the Twin Cities on Friday nights, carloads of them, and there I was helping him with all these people. I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't asked. But he needed help; he was getting tired. I really had to work this out for myself, because I couldn't take my anger into the sweat lodge. I started to learn about compassion.

I feel people in this country as well as in Europe are searching. I've been to a German sweat lodge, which was given to them by a full-blood Cherokee man in the '70s. In 2000 in Germany I was sitting in the sweat lodge with these German people. They said they had lost their ways from the Crusades a long time ago, and this Native sweat lodge was all they had to help them make their way back to who they were. I saw they had respect and humility about these spiritual ways. They demonstrated compassion for each other, love, and faith in the Higher Power -- they have everything that we need to live and survive. Who's to say that what they're doing is wrong? I started to see that this spiritual understanding is to be shared with all people, regardless of race.

Back in the 1980s, I met some people with the Rainbow tribe. The Rainbow tribe is mostly white folks, but there are some black people, Latinos, and Asians. I had my own stereotypes about the Rainbow tribe -- basically hippie-type folks who smoked marijuana, partied, and tried to have a connection with the Earth. I thought there was something out of balance, and I usually stayed away from the Rainbow gatherings. But I met some elders who came to the ceremonies that my uncle was running at the Prairie Island Dakota reservation. I sat down and talked with them. I learned they didn't want to be disrespectful to Native peoples or our ways. I talked about the importance of keeping things in context and not mixing things up. They understood. They said there was no structure in the Rainbow tribe to address this. They do the best they can -- basically they allow different people to do what they want to do.

I started to pray about that. An understanding came to me that God is very compassionate and loving to everyone. When people come together searching for answers for themselves, like the Rainbow tribe, if they are sincere and have patience, a way will come to them that is for them. It may not be Native as we define it, but it is something that comes in a sacred manner and it will be for them. That is the power of this Creation working through all people of all races and all tribes.

It is my prayer that when all humans go through this transformation, it will help them to re-identify their relationship to the sacredness of the land, Mother Earth. When this comes, we will have peace and a clean and safe future for our future generations.

Source: http://www.Rachel.org

12/19/01
12:42:52 PM

MONSANTO ATTACKS!

A Canadian Farmer Takes on a Seed Giant

(Percy Schmeiser interview) By Chris Womack

In 1998, Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto, the multinational agribusiness company, for illegally growing a genetically engineered variety of canola that Monsanto has been aggressively marketing for the past five years. The plant, known as Roundup Ready Canola, is resistant to Roundup, Monsanto's popular herbicide. Monsanto argued, successfully, that Schmeiser had violated the company's patent on the product by obtaining and growing the seed without its permission. In fact, Schmeiser claimed, it was Monsanto who was in the wrong. Either through cross-pollination or via wind-borne seeds, a neighbor's Roundup Ready Canola crop had invaded his own canola fields, genetically contaminating his own carefully bred variety of canola, which Schmeiser had personally developed through natural methods. Schmeiser is appealing Monsanto's first-round victory.

A major producer of genetically engineered crops (often called GE crops or GMOs, for genetically modified organisms), Monsanto has become the second-largest seed supplier in the world through rapid purchase of smaller seed companies. As the controversy over genetic contamination grows, Schmeiser's case is being carefully watched by all sides in the worldwide fight over the spread of genetically modified food and, ultimately, control of the food supply.

http://saynotogmos.org/activities_events_monsanto_attacks.htm

12/19/01
12:41:17 PM

DEAD SCIENTISTS, EBOLA, ANTHRAX & THE LOST TRIBES

From Dr. Patricia Doyle

Over the past few weeks several world acclaimed researchers specializing in infectious diseases, as well as DNA sequencing have been found dead or missing. I believe that these scientists were unaware of their participation in the developing of a genetic bioweapon that will wipe out as much as one third of the population on planet earth.

In November, Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist working on infectious diseases like HIV was found comatose outside of his lab at the Miami Medical School. Within a week of Dr. Que's assault, Dr. Don C Wiley, foremost infectious disease researcher was declared missing. His rental car was found with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. His disappearance made to look like a suicide.

According to colleagues and Dr. Wiley's family, the Harvard Scientist associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Inst. would NEVER commit suicide. Associates who attended the St. Jude's Children Research Advisory Dinner with Dr. Wiley, just hours before he disappeared, said that he was in good spirits and not depressed.

On Nov. 23rd, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, foremost Soviet Biopreparat scientist who was responsible for aerosolizing plague and successful developer of binary weapons known as the Novichok group of weapons was found dead. Dr. Pasechnik defected from the Soviet Union in 1989 while visiting the UK where he lived until his death in November. There were NO media reports of his death for one week. At that time an official from the UK Intel community announced that Dr. Pasechnik had a stroke. No autopsy or further details were forthcoming.

On Dec. 10th Dr. Robert M. Schwartz was found murdered in his secluded farmhouse in Leesberg, Va. Dr. Schwartz was a well known DNA sequencing researcher. He founded the Virginia Biotechnology Association where he worked on DNA sequencing in his lab for 15 years.

Halfway around the world in December, a microbiologist killed at CSIRO's animal diseases facility in Geelong had logged 15 years' experience with the unit.

Victoria Police said Set Van Nguyen, 44, appeared to have died year after entering an airlock into a storage laboratory filled with nitrogen. His body was found when his wife became worried after he failed to return from work.

I believe that there is a cabal in the US, responsible for the anthrax hoax mailings of 1998 and the recent anthrax mailings of 2001. This cabal exists in the highest levels of Government, Military and Biotech Industry.

There is a clandestine plan to develop a virulent infectious disease and quite possibly a 21st century version of the 1918 Spanish flu or other virus. This pathogen is going to be genetically altered to only infect a certain group of people. I believe that Dr. Wiley's research of immunity factors of viruses, bacterias and mycoplasmas will be used to create a pathogen that will NOT infect a designate genetic type. This portion of the genetic target weapon was no doubt developed with research from Dr. Schwartz. In essence, a doomsday bioweapon can be released with guarantee that the genetic code of certain individuals and the virus itself, will protect these individuals from infection.

If an unaltered pathogen were released, such as a virulent strain of Ebola or other level 4 bioweapon, those who release it would also fall victim to the pathogen. A type of MAD, mutually assured destruction that has prevented, thus far, release of level 4 pathogens. However, if there was a bioweapon that would NOT kill those who release it, then we would see a worldwide pandemic with a target group unaffected by the pandemic or "plague."

It has been stated throughout the Bible that when the lost 10 tribes of Israel return to their homeland to fight and win the battle of Armadeddon and Solomon's temple is rebuilt, the return of the Messiah and end of the world as we know it will be at hand.

9 of the 10 tribes have been found. They have been found in areas of the world now involved in the Afghan war. One of the missing tribes is thought to be Pathan peoples of Afghanistan. Other tribes have been found in Uzbekistan, in India on the border of Burma as well as in Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan. A tribe that consists only of direct descendants of Biblical priests has been found on an island off the coast of Tunisia. There is but one tribe to be found, that is the tribe of Asher.

I believe that we are going to see the prophecy of the return of lost tribes to Israel fulfilled this year. At that time, there will be a release of the genetic bioweapon created in the US under the auspices of a cabal who take orders from the Antichrist.

Before the year 2001 ends, there will be more leading scientists murdered as well as those who try to bring public attention to this plot. The year 2002 will usher in the year of "Asher." The last lost tribe will be found, and the progeny of the 10 lost tribes will return to Israel to fulfill biblical prophecy.

I am not a visionary, but, I do recognize the situation at hand. The deaths of world acclaimed scientists in the field of infectious diseases is a warning that the last days are here. By connecting the dots, so to speak, with regard to each scientists specialized field, we can conclude that a major bioweapon is in the process of development and will soon be unleashed upon the world.

Furthermore, I believe that the anthrax (hoax) mailings of 1998 as well as the anthrax mailings of 2001 were perpetrated by the cabal working on the ultimate genetic bioweapon. The purpose of the mailings was not to kill people, at this time. The purpose was twofold. The mailings were intended to panic the public into allowing the Government to subvert the constitution and take away many of our freedoms. Additionally, it also created a way to force mass vaccinations of the public.

Moreover, the mailings were intended to create an influx of monetary recompense to the biotech industry that was needed to develop the ultimate bioweapon.

The panic caused by the anthrax mailings also inculcated in the Government, Congress, Military as well as the public, a relaxed attitude regarding our involvement in offensive bioweapons research. It enabled the bioweaponeers to proceed with their plans to create a genetic bioweapon without large outcry.

There is still time, and we, the public, can stop those who plot against humanity and God. We can contact our representatives in Congress and demand some answers regarding the source of the anthrax mailings, as well as demand an investigation into the recent deaths of major infectious disease researchers. It was obvious that the supply of anthrax used in the recent mailings originated in Ft. Detrick's biowar lab. I believe that the anthrax was actually part of the "destroyed" bioweapons store that should have been destroyed in the 1970s. Becton Dickinson Co. was hired as an outside contractor by Ft. Detick and given the responsibility of destroying our stores of bioweapons. It is my opinion that some of the bioweapons had been diverted to other agencies.

Please write to your representatives and demand some answers to the above theory.

Thank you,

Patricia Doyle

Source: http://www.rumormillnews.com

12/19/01
12:38:06 PM

Engineers Study WTC Destruction

By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Inadequate fireproofing may have contributed to the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, engineers studying the destruction of the buildings said Wednesday.

Inspections performed during the 1990s indicate that at least some of the steel rods supporting the floors of the twin towers were not covered with enough fireproofing insulation, fire safety expert Frederick W. Mowrer told his colleagues during a meeting on the buildings' collapse. Those floor joists are thought to have been the first parts of the buildings to fail as intense fires heated and weakened them.

``This is something that is going to have to be factored into the analysis,'' said Mowrer, a professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park.

Building codes required that each of the 7/8-inch-thick steel rods making up the floor joists at the World Trade Center be coated with 2 inches of fire protection. But some photographs taken during the inspections show only a spattering of spray-on fireproofing.

``Do we have vulnerabilities that are beginning to emerge?'' Cornell University structural engineer Thomas O'Rourke wondered after seeing the photographs.

But Hyman Brown, an engineer who supervised the construction of the World Trade Center, said the fireproofing met the highest standards and was not a factor in the collapse.

``It lasted the amount of time it was supposed to last and 95 percent of the people got out,'' said Brown, who is now a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder. ``To say that it wasn't adequate when it did its job, I don't understand.''

Mowrer, a professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland, said it is too early to say definitively whether the inadequate fireproofing played a part in the buildings' collapse. But he said his research so far indicates it should be seriously considered.

``I think that's one of the tracks. One of the good, solid tracks,'' agreed Abolhassan Astaneh-asl, an engineering professor at the University of California in Berkeley.

Astaneh-asl has examined twisted and broken steel beams from the twin towers in the New Jersey scrap yard where they are being recycled.

His observations indicate the airplanes damaged or completely severed 40 percent of the columns holding up the buildings. They even penetrated into the ring of columns at the structures' cores, as evidenced by a steel beam Astaneh-asl found that had been pierced by a jet engine.

``It's like a bullet hole,'' he said.

The buildings simply redistributed their loads onto the intact columns when the airplanes hit. But as the fires burned, the floor joists were the first elements of the buildings' structures to fail. Their failure pulled the buildings' exterior columns inward, initiating complete collapse of the structures.

``If you didn't have the fires you would be fine,'' Astaneh-asl said.

Mowrer's calculations indicate the planes' fuel, initially assumed to have made the World Trade Center fires much more intense than a conventional building fire, may not have played such a significant role. His calculations show that much of the fuel was burned up in the fireballs that could be seen outside the buildings just after the planes hit. What was left inside the buildings would have been consumed within about 10 minutes.

Other high-rise buildings have survived intense multi-floor fires. In 1988 five floors of the 62-story First Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles burned for 3 1/2 hours without causing the building to collapse. Three years later, the upper nine floors of Philadelphia's One Meridian Plaza burned until sprinklers eventually extinguished the flames.

``We need to look at the difference between the World Trade Center and these other fires,'' Mowrer said. ``We need to do the analysis and not just assume that just because it was hit by jet planes that (collapse) was inevitable.''

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011212/us/attacks_fireproofing_1.html

12/19/01
12:32:23 PM

WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

US in Secret Move to Widen War on Terror

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0112/11/world/world102.html

Fear of US Strikes Grips Somalia

http://allafrica.com/stories/200112110090.html

Kabul Deal Promotes Regional Stability?

http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200112_92_1_eng.txt

US Ties to Saudi Elite May Be Hurting War on Terrorism

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/americas_new_war/saud12102001.htm

Engineers Study WTC Destruction

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011212/us/attacks_fireproofing_1.html

CIVIL LIBERTIES

Review of new biometric products

http://www.gcn.com/20_34/news/17626-1.html

Antivirus Firms: FBI Is Out of Line

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5100528,00.html

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-8134814.html

McCarthyism Watch (everyone please grow up!)

http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc120801.html

Conservatives Set Sights on Senator Leahy (this is so vile)

http://www.thehill.com/121201/leahy.shtm

Here is one of the alerts (you wouldn't know from it that they've already given him massive authority)

http://www.conservativehq.com/activist/60second/action/12-12-01.htm

OTHER SUBJECTS:

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/abmpage.html

Recent Safety Hazards at Aging Nuclear Plants

http://www.ocregister.com/sitearchives/2001/12/9/news/nukeax01209cci5.shtml

DOE Amends Rules on Nevada Nuclear Waste Site

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22799-2001Dec10.html

United States Lawmakers Set to Strike Out at Global Tribunal

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1211-01.htm

Public Information Network (resources for environmental activists)

http://www.endgame.org/

More on "The Skeptical Environmentalist"

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/12/07/

http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/11/1.html

12/19/01
12:29:45 PM

Up Against the Beast - High-level Drug Running

An imprisoned former US Green Beret is suing the CIA, George Bush and others, to draw attention to their complicity in government-sanctioned drug-trafficking operations and cover-ups.

PART I. BILL TYREE'S LAWSUIT: DRUG PROFITS ALLEGEDLY FUNDED FEMA

Speculation about the mysterious origin and funding of the so-called US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has continued for decades. Most recently, the history of FEMA as an illegal, unconstitutional entity has been exposed in an unprecedented lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its alleged drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations.

"In the mid-1970s, while serving in Panama, Tyree and other Green Berets were led into Colombia under the command of Green Beret Colonels Cutolo and Baker to plant radio beacons, so that planeloads of cocaine could fly below Colombian and US radar and land undetected in Panama," writes former LAPD officer Mike Ruppert in his newsletter, From the Wilderness (PO Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, USA, website http://www.copvcia.com

"Orders for these missions came from the CIA's Ed Wilson and Tom Clines," continues Ruppert. "Tyree had been a part of many secret missions and was losing his taste for it. His wife was keeping a diary [for which she was presumably murdered, after which the diary was confiscated and later disappeared].

Read the rest at http://www.nexusmagazine.com/beast1.html

12/19/01
12:27:08 PM

Side-by-side comparison photos of the real Osama bin Laden from previous video and the "Smoking Gun" video, "doctored" and released by the U.S. Government. Plus, a variety of comments and quotes regarding the video's authenticity.

http://www.angelfire.com/ab6/waragainstislam/contradiction.htm

12/19/01
12:12:42 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

BUSH MADE TALIBAN A TARGET AFTER ROVE MET WITH RAZOR-INDUSTRY EXECS

by Dennis Hans, Common Dreams

-- Did the Taliban became a target in the war on terrorism as a ploy to satisfy the American razor industry?

HELP GROW NEW WIND FARMS

Web site review by Sara Buckwitz, NativeEnergy.com

-- If you want to give environmentally responsible gifts, consider NativeEnergy.com. Your gift donations generate more wind and solar electricity.

UNANIMOUS SENATE VOTES TO SANCTION MUGABE

by Charles Cobb Jr., AllAfrica.com

-- The House and Senate unanimously voted to suspend bilateral trade with Zimbabwe and impose personal sanctions on President Mugabe in retaliation for the breakdown of law.

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

12/19/01
12:10:32 PM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

2001 THE SECOND WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD

GENEVA, Switzerland, December 18, 2001 (ENS) - The year 2001 is projected to be the second warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said today. Record floods and record droughts across the globe accompanied this year's high temperatures.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-18-01.html

BITTERROOT LOGGING PROPOSAL PROMPTS LAWSUITS

WASHINGTON, DC, December 18, 2001 (ENS) - Agriculture Department Undersecretary Mark Rey, a former top timber industry lobbyist, has approved logging on 46,000 acres of forest on Montana's Bitteroot National Forest. Opponents of the plan, who have filed suit to stop the logging, say the decision sets a dangerous precedent for massive timber projects on national forests.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-18-06.html

NEVADA CHALLENGES REVISED YUCCA MOUNTAIN GUIDELINES

CARSON CITY, Nevada, December 18, 2001 (ENS) - The state of Nevada sued the Department of Energy on Monday to block approval of a controversial permanent repository for nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain. The state charges that the agency has changed its own rules in order to declare the Yucca Mountain site suitable for nuclear storage.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-18-07.html

ITALIAN LAWMAKERS URGE TOUGH TERMS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME

ROME, Italy, December 18, 2001 (ENS) - A cross-party group of Italian members of parliament has revived proposals to crack down on illegal activities causing environmental damage. The lawmakers want to create a new definition of environmental crime in Italy's penal code and strengthen penalties for violations.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-18-03.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: DECEMBER 18, 2001

UN Official Criticizes Chemical Exports

U.S.-Russia Team Tackles Radwaste Disposal

Commission Seeks Tighter Ballast Water Rules

$260 Million Funds Bioenergy Programs

Lawsuit Challenges Imperial Valley Air Quality Rules

Court Ruling Protects Florida Black Bear

Water Could Be Safe, Inexpensive Solvent

Southern California Considers Stricter Smog Checks

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-18-09.html

12/19/01
12:05:33 PM

The FBI's House Calls

Emil Guillermo

If you want to know how strange it's getting in America, talk to Barry Reingold.

Reingold is a 60-year-old retired phone-company worker from the Bay Area who's old enough to withdraw from his IRA without penalty.

His parents are Jewish. But Reingold prefers to be known as your basic, average American.

Reingold works out every day at a gym in San Francisco, and has done so for the last six years.

Since Sept. 11, he's been exercising not only his muscles but also his right to free speech. Reingold recalls conversations he's had with people in the weight room about the war.

"It gets pretty heated," he told me over the phone last week. "People say what dogs those terrorists are. But I've said, 'Look at what a dog George Bush is.'"

That's not exactly a popular position to take these days.

"Look at all the hundreds of thousands of workers being laid off in the United States," Reingold continued. "This war is not just about getting terrorists. It's also about money and corporate oil profits."

Ahem. This is the kind of talk that gets people's heartbeats racing even without a Stairmaster.

"People question my loyalty," Reingold continued. "They say, 'You don't support America.' And I say, 'Sure I do. I work here. I was born here. I pay taxes. I just have a problem with the ruling class.'"

Reingold's not sure, but he's next to positive that his First Amendment workout got him a visitation from the FBI.

The FBI, you will recall, has begun knocking on the doors of an estimated 85 people in the Bay Area who are among 5,000 in the nation singled out as "potential witnesses." They are men ages 18-33 who possess visas and passports from Arab and Muslim countries where there are known Al Qaeda operatives.

As it turns out, the list of 5,000 is a much smaller subset of an even larger group of people being interviewed. From Sept. 11 to November alone, the FBI received more than 435,000 tips.

And, as Reingold found out, you don't have to be Arab or Muslim to get nominated for a house call.

"I have a speaker downstairs in my apartment building to let people in," Reingold said. "One afternoon, someone buzzes. And I said, 'Who's there?' And they say, 'The FBI.' And I'm thinking, 'Why is the FBI here?'"

He buzzed them into the building and met them in the hallway. There were two young men, one white, one black, apparently in their 20s. Reingold asked them for ID, and the two flashed him their badges.

"And so I asked them what this was all about," Reingold recalled. "And they asked me if I was a member of the gym [in San Francisco]. And I said yes.

"And then they said someone in the gym had reported that I had been talking about terrorism and Sept. 11, oil profits, capitalism and Afghanistan," Reingold said. "And I said, 'Oh, really.'"

Reingold didn't think about calling a lawyer. "At the time, I was sort of shaken up," he admitted to me. "If I were in my right mind, I probably would have met them outside the building, where I could have witnesses for all to see this. Or at least have pencil and paper to take the agents' names and notes."

But he didn't.

"And then the FBI guy said, 'You know you have the right to freedom of speech,'" Reingold recalled. "And I said, 'Yes, I know I do, don't I? And that's the end of the conversation. I don't wish to talk to you any further.'"

What did they say to that?

"That they had to write a report," said Reingold. "And I said, 'I'm sorry.' And they said, 'But we really have to write a report.' At that point I just closed the door, and that was it."

The agents didn't force the issue, nor were they coercive. But Reingold was bothered and upset. Here he was, just a regular guy expressing his opinion. You know, one of those freedoms we are supposedly defending in the war.

Reingold confronted the gym about his privacy having been violated, but the gym manager at the 24 Hour Fitness Center on Folsom Street in San Francisco never officially responded. When I called the club, manager Chris Robinson responded to inquiries with a chilly, "No comment."

The only thing Reingold has done to date is file an affadavit with an attorney to commemorate the FBI visitation. It wasn't until then that he understood the true nature of what had happened to him.

"It's like we're becoming a police state," Reingold said.

Reingold firmly believes that had he been Arab or Muslim, it would have been much worse for him. He's certain he would have been taken in for more vigorous questioning, maybe even jailed. Then, he said, he'd have to decide which was worse, fascism or racism.

Reingold isn't sure what recourse he has now, if any. But at the very least, his story should serve as a cautionary tale for those concerned about what's happening on the domestic front in this war on terror.

Lucas Gutentag of the National ACLU's Immigrant Rights Project believes most people aren't concerned about what's going on with internal security in this nation because they're under the impression that the FBI is targeting and profiling mainly noncitizens.

"It camouflages the full effects of the [Justice Department's] policies because [citizens] don't feel directly affected, " Gutentag said. "But the principles the government is relying on result in the same kind of practices against everyone."

If you don't think it can happen to you in America, just ask Barry Reingold, an average American with a strong opinion. ___

Emil Guillermo's book, "Amok," won an American Book Award 2000. He hosts "NCM-TV: New California Media," seen on PBS stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Email him at emil@amok.com.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/

12/19/01
12:03:09 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Elephant abuse charge puts Big Top on trial - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13759/story.htm

Mice produce malaria vaccine in milk - report - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13761/story.htm

Ecogen to challenge UK govt on wind farm ban - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13755/story.htm

More children in UK getting cancer - researchers - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13757/story.htm

E-cards take over corporate Christmas greetings - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13758/story.htm

Animal activists to talk Tofurky in Downing Street - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13762/story.htm

Ireland and Norway discuss Sellafield "monster" - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13756/story.htm

Japan Grain - Yen, mad cow put lid on corn buying - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13768/story.htm

Rome fosters feline frolics in the forum - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13764/story.htm

Germany says GM crop output decision one year away - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13765/story.htm

UK, Ireland submit Mox plant reports to UN tribunal - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13767/story.htm

Nuclear waste-heat to warm Finnish vineyard - FINLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13763/story.htm

China turns corn into ethanol as fuel supply wanes - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13766/story.htm

INTERVIEW - Argentine GM crop area to grow by 1.5 mln hectares - ARGENTINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13760/story.htm

12/19/01
12:01:27 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

FUTURE TENSE: A PATH OUT OF THE NIGHTMARE OF 9/11

Don Hazen, AlterNet

Paranoia has gripped America since 9/11, hijacking social progress and undermining freedoms. AlterNet.org's executive editor charts a sensible way to move beyond the fear and build a strong and secure nation.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12091

MUMIA DEATH SENTENCE THROWN OUT

A federal judge threw out Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence, ruling that the former journalist and Black Panther is entitled to a new sentencing hearing.

*In HumanRights USA: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=22

BRING IN THE PEACEMAKERS

Loren King, Boston Phoenix

The oldest question about global conflict is why can't we all just get along? But the second-oldest has to be what if women were in charge?

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12089

THE MORE BUSH GROWS, THE MORE HE STAYS THE SAME

David Corn, AlterNet

In the face of war, Bush may seem more "presidential," but he hasn't grown out of stiffing the poor, exploiting the environment and shoving unilateral decisions down the world's throat.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12086

DETAINED

David Morton, Cleveland Free Times

Eleven Israelis were rounded up, questioned and left to rot for weeks in Cleveland area jails. In post 9-11 America, it's not just the usual suspects caught in the government's dragnet.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12092

KANDAHAR

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

A stark and beautiful film traces an Afghan woman's journey across a landscape we may never understand.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12094

NEWT GINGRICH: THE 80-HOUR WORK WEEK

Sharon Basco, TomPaine.com

Former "family values" frontman Newt Gingrich recently advised interns to work 80 hours a week, saying "if you work 60, that's barely marginal." Two experts discuss what value workaholism holds for families and community.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12090

HUFFINGTON: 2001 POLITICAL BLUNDERS

Arianna Huffington, OverthrowTheGov.com

>From shark attacks to Al Gore's beard, 2001 has been a very weird year in American politics.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12095

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY: MEDIA RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org

When journalists from different regions met to debate news versus propaganda at the U.N., they realized human rights and responsibilities go together.

*In MediaCulture: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=19

ENDANGERED SPECIES: NOW OR NEVER

Jill Bielawski and Nicole Rosmarino, IMPACT Press

The removal or disappearance of just one or several species can irreversibly damage ecosystems. In comes the Endangered Species Act to the rescue...or not...an estimated 80 to 300 species have gone extinct while awaiting ESA protection.

*In EnviroHealth: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=18

CAN DEPO-PROVERA DESTROY YOUR SEX LIFE?

Tom Grant, Local Planet

Thousands of women blame Depo-Provera, a long-lasting birth control injection, for ruining their libidos and causing deep depression.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12087

HUTCHINSON: THE GHOST OF COINTELPRO

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet

Attorney General John Ashcroft has made a public pitch to dump the guidelines put in place in the 1970s that ban FBI spying on domestic organizations.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12084

12/19/01
11:57:41 AM

t r u t h o u t | 12.19

Pursuing Bin Laden Into Pakistan Tough

http://www.truthout.com/12.19A.Pursuit.Pakistan.htm

Bush May Use Recess To Install Nominees

http://www.truthout.com/12.19B.Bush.Recess.htm

Chinese-Made Ammo in al Qaeda Caves

http://www.truthout.com/12.19C.Chinese.Ammo.htm

Washington Friends Desert Enron Chief

http://www.truthout.com/12.19D.Desert.Enron.htm

German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals

http://www.truthout.com/12.19E.Probe.wtc.Deals.htm

Homeland Defense of the Constitution

http://www.truthout.com/12.19F.Home.Constitution.htm

9-11 a Windfall for Corporations at Taxpayer Expense

http://www.truthout.com/12.19G.911.Windfall.htm

12/19/01
11:55:00 AM

FDA Ignoring Evidence that New Chemicals Created in Irradiated Food Could Be Harmful

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ignored growing evidence that a new class of chemicals formed when food is irradiated could be harmful, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and the Center for Food Safety.

The groups are urging the FDA to refrain from legalizing irradiation for any additional types of food until the new chemicals are tested for safety.

The chemicals, called cyclobutanones, do not occur naturally anywhere on Earth. They recently were found to cause genetic damage in rats, and genetic and cellular damage in human and rat cells.

The groups' report, Hidden Harm, details how the FDA has ignored this unique class of chemicals, which are created in many irradiated foods that the agency has legalized for sale in this country -- including beef, pork, chicken, lamb, eggs, mangoes and papayas. It is expected that cyclobutanones also would be formed in many other foods the FDA is currently considering to legalize for irradiation.

The organizations today also released a sworn affidavit of toxicologist William Au, who was retained by the groups to independently review the risks posed by cyclobutanones and other chemicals formed by irradiation that could cause genetic damage.

Along with a letter outlining numerous health concerns caused by food irradiation, the groups filed Hidden Harm and Au's affidavit with the FDA to oppose pending petitions to legalize irradiation for processed foods, which comprise 37 percent of the typical American's diet; molluscan shellfish, such as clams and oysters; crustacean shellfish, such as lobsters and shrimp; and meat products.

A fifth petition seeks to double the maximum dose of radiation to which poultry can legally be exposed.

"The risk that the FDA is taking with the health of the American people cannot be overstated," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "If government officials knowingly allow people to eat food that contains these chemicals, they are courting a major public health disaster."

Though federal regulations require the FDA to determine whether food additives proposed for human consumption are likely to cause cancer, birth defects or other health problems, the agency has not done so for cyclobutanones, nor have agency officials explained why they have failed to do so. Under federal law, irradiation is considered a food additive.

Americans likely are unwittingly eating irradiated foods containing cyclobutanones.

Though most irradiated food sold in stores must be labeled, there is no such requirement for restaurants, schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other institutional settings. And there is no labeling requirement for foods with irradiated ingredients, except those containing irradiated meat. Moreover, due to a lack of reporting requirements for food companies, it is unknown how much irradiated food is sold in the US, or where.

"Children are likely to be especially vulnerable to the risks of these untested chemicals in their food," said Peter T. Jenkins, policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety. "It is beyond me why the FDA would take a chance by exposing American children in this way. The science is against it."

Au, an environmental toxicology professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, is internationally recognized for his work on the toxicological mechanisms that induce human disease. For more than 20 years he has taught, published peer-reviewed research and served on expert committees. He has received numerous awards, and has published or co-published more than 100 articles.

"An emphasis should be placed on the products that are unique to the irradiation process and that are potentially mutagenic, e.g. 2-DCB [2-dodecylcyclobutanone]," Dr. Au wrote in the affidavit. "Without conclusive evidence regarding the safety of these products, the safety of irradiated food cannot be assured." Au urged the FDA to "seriously and explicitly" consider "repeated observations" of genetic damage and reproductive toxicity in feeding experiments.

Though cyclobutanones were first identified in irradiated food in 1971, it was not until 1998 that German government scientists discovered that one type of cyclobutanone, 2-DCB, caused genetic damage in rats, and genetic and cellular damage in human and rat cells.

Subsequently, the scientists found that two other types of cyclobutanones -- 2-TCB and 2-TDCB -- caused genetic and cellular damage in human cells. Rat feeding studies of these two chemicals are expected to be completed soon.

Despite these findings, the FDA not only has failed to publicly acknowledge the potential risks posed by cyclobutanones, but the agency proceeded to legalize irradiation for three classes of food even after the first two German studies were made public.

Last year, the FDA legalized the irradiation of eggs, juice and sprouting seeds despite the fact that several high-ranking agency officials four months earlier had attended an international conference in Beijing at which the 2-DCB toxicity findings were presented and discussed.

Ironically, cyclobutanones are so easily detectable and have been known to remain in food for such lengthy periods - more than a decade - that they are commonly used as "markers" to determine whether food has been exposed to ionizing radiation.

The groups are calling on the FDA to take several steps:

refrain from legalizing irradiation for any additional foods until comprehensive, published, peer-reviewed research is conducted on cyclobutanones; conduct a comprehensive analysis of the cyclobutanone levels in foods covered by irradiation petitions already approved by or pending before the FDA; convene public hearings to thoroughly explore the potential health effects of cyclobutanones.

Hidden Harm can be viewed

http://www.citizen.org/documents/HiddenHarm_-_PDF.pdf

Au's affidavit is available

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/articles.cfm?ID=6516

12/19/01
11:47:38 AM

The Key Question No One Seems To Be Asking...

From Miri Santos

Note - Only a few other people have mentioned this since the video was released. If the tape is genuine, who informed bin Laden? -ed

When I heard Bin Laden say, "We found out 5 days before the attack." I immediately wondered how did Bush let this slip by?

I thought the next day's news would be all about it...'found out' from whom???

Do they really want to find out who was the main man behind the attacks? Obviously, no one cares. I havent even heard the question raised by anyone, anywhere.

What a nation of hypocrites. Could people really be that stupid not to raise the question? Am I the only one who still has a brain that works? For me, this is a strange world indeed...as if everyone is an alien. It's like being in a world full of robots. People are stupid and strange at the same time.

Source: http://www.rense.com/general18/kk.htm

12/19/01
11:44:22 AM

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE

http://ens-news.com

DEFENSE BILL AUTHORIZES CONTINUED VIEQUES BOMBING

WASHINGTON, DC, December 17, 2001 (ENS) - A planned referendum on the future of Navy training on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques will be canceled by the 2002 Defense Authorization bill reported by the U.S. House and Senate this week. The measure, which maintains live fire training on the island indefinitely, was denounced by the protest groups who have risked arrest to block the Navy's exercises.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-17-06.html

JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER TEST DRIVES FUEL CELL CARS

TOKYO, Japan, December 17, 2001 (ENS) - After test driving four new fuel cell cars, the Prime Minister of Japan has declared fuel cell powered cars important for the energy safety of his country and is encouraging his Cabinet ministers to drive them when they come on the market.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-17-05.html

GERMAN NUCLEAR PHASE OUT LAW APPROVED

BERLIN, Germany, December 17, 2001 (ENS) - Germany's controversial plan to abolish nuclear power passed its last major legislative hurdle on Friday with approval in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-17-02.html

MOZAMBIQUE PROTECTS VAST MARINE NATURE RESERVE

MAPUTO, Mozambique, December 17, 2001 (ENS) - Translucent waters, unique coral reefs and rare marine species off the East African nation of Mozambique now have a new level of protection. The entire Bazaruto Archipelago was declared a national marine nature reserve by the government of Mozambique on Friday.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-17-03.html

WHALERS HIT GREENPEACE PROTESTERS WITH WATER CANNONS

SOUTHERN OCEAN, December 17, 2001 (ENS) - Greenpeace has released photos of Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean attempting to drive their whale hunt protesters away with high powered water cannons.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-17-04.html

ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: DECEMBER 17, 2001

Forest Service Distributes $384 Million in County Payments

Appeals Court Restores Protection to Oregon Coho

New York Restoring Train Service to Lower Manhattan

Clean, Energy Efficient Manufacturing Projects Funded

Chemical Company Guilty of Polluting Connecticut Waters

Almost $11 Million Pledged for Agricultural Conservation

Louisiana Bayou Getting $6.4 Million Restoration

California Cattle Ranch Dumped Dead Cows in Streams

For full text and graphics visit:

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-17-09.html

12/19/01
11:41:45 AM

Aaron McGruder, creator of "The Boondocks"

The controversial cartoonist calls Bush a moron, says Americans shouldn't worry about bin Laden and says he might leave the country.

By Stephen Lemons

Long before the war in Afghanistan becomes just a twinkle in the eye of an old general, Aaron McGruder may well be living in exile in Canada. The 27-year-old creator of the daily hip-hop comic "The Boondocks," which features the escapades of a group of young African-American kids growing up in the almost-all-white suburbs, has wrenched the torch of scathing satire from the Boomer King of Cartoon Controversy, Garry Trudeau, and set off on an Olympic-style sprint for infamy. Since Sept. 11, McGruder has been setting fire to the funny pages with incendiary panels of political humor mocking everything from Attorney General Ashcroft's anti-terrorist dragnet and the public's fear of anthrax to FBI wiretaps and the nation's ongoing orgy of patriotism.

McGruder's 4-year-old strip does garner laughs, but not without an accompanying sting. The point man in the strip is the pint-size Black Panther-in-spirit Huey Freeman, who recently has been as busy as an anarchist at a WTO meeting. Among his many subversive acts, Freeman has called the FBI tip line to report Ronald Reagan as aiding and abetting terrorism, suggested that the terrorists may be making their bucks these days manufacturing flags and has pointed out the parallels between George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden during a Thanksgiving meal prayer. About the only thing Huey hasn't done yet is strap on a Kalashnikov and set off for Kandahar. But now that John Walker's bearded mug is on the front page of dailies worldwide, anything's possible.

A number of the 250 publications that carry "The Boondocks" have taken exception to the sardonic sedition of McGruder's characters. The New York Daily News dropped the strip for about a month and a half, Newsday in Long Island chose not to run Sept. 11-inspired strips the first week they started coming out and the Dallas Morning News has moved the strip to a separate section altogether from other comics. None of this fazed McGruder. In response, he temporarily "replaced" the strip with "The Adventures of Flagee and Ribbon," where the two symbols sing the National Anthem and talk tough about the U.S. kicking tail.

Angry letter writers have suggested McGruder emigrate, and McGruder admits that he's so disgusted with his native land he may eventually do just that. Recently, he tore himself away from ranting at the tube in his Los Angeles digs long enough to rant to Salon about the state of the nation.

Your strips post-9/11 have touched a raw nerve with some folks. Did you anticipate all the attention you've gotten because of them?

It's become a story because of timing. You know, the New York Daily News temporarily pulls the strip, and in the middle of this wartime situation, it became a story about freedom of speech and all that. The reality is I get pulled all the time from various newspapers for different reasons. And it's been that way since the strip started.

Why did you decide to target the post-Sept. 11 displays of patriotism in the strip, and essentially mock them with those two characters Flagee and Ribbon?

Because it wasn't genuine. I thought it was very faddish, and there was no real weight behind it. You know, we just came off an election that was a mess. We still don't know if the president won the election. We do know that he got less votes nationwide. There's no question about that. And he may not even have won, legitimately, the electoral contest. There were reports of the massive disenfranchisement of African-Americans in Florida, which went totally unreported in this country, but was covered widely by the foreign press. There were black people in Florida yelling and screaming, trying to get somebody to pay attention to them. They were saying that they had their rights taken away from them, and they were not allowed to vote. And nobody in this country cared. Where was the flag then?

Where was this embracing of American ideals when people had their rights ripped from them so unjustly? We have a president who was appointed by the Supreme Court, and there was none of this talk about freedom and love of country at that time. So I feel like the deaths of 4,000 people had really nothing to do with love of country or not. This country made giant mistakes and failed to protect its people. We don't need to be rallying around the government and supporting it, we need to be holding it accountable and being very critical so this type of thing doesn't happen again. So there are a number of reasons why I was uncomfortable with the whole flag thing.

A lot of folks would argue that no matter what our disagreements are internally, if we're attacked from the outside, we have to come together and support the current administration even if we have problems with it. How do you respond to that argument?

I don't think that's true. Look, they're telling us these people are bad because they hate us, and they hate our way of life. And they hate our way of life because they hate freedom, and they hate the fact that we have freely elected officials. This is what the president said. Well, he wasn't elected! We really have to think about that. Considering that people around the world, other people, people "over there," "bad" people will always try to do bad things, that's kind of outside of your control. The only thing you can be responsible for is what goes on here. The American people have no control over what the military does. We have no say in American foreign policy. None. The only thing we can exercise some will on is what happens here domestically. So I think the focus is wrong.

I don't think the American people should be worried at all about Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or anybody, because our government is going to do what it wants to do to them regardless of what we want them to do or not. All we can control is what happens here. And what happened here is what allowed those attacks to take place. The intelligence community failed. Security failed. The military failed. Everybody failed at the same time. I can be really nice to them and say, "You guys really messed up and need to check yourself." Or I could be not nice and say, "You know, I don't think it's really probable that all the systems can fail at the same time, which means something far more insidious took place." People are really afraid to get into that.

Are you suggesting some collusion on the part of our government in the Sept. 11 attacks?

I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying I'm not going there. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're idiots, and not that they had something far more nefarious in mind. However, history does teach us that the government has done things like that before, particularly with Pearl Harbor, where there's an overwhelming amount of evidence that [FDR] was aware of it and lured the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. He literally left it undefended. There's some new evidence that has just come out about the CIA planning terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in the '60s and how they were going to set up Castro for it in order to get America behind a war in Cuba. That's not even a conspiracy theory. The CIA drew up the plans, even though it never happened. So if I were to go that route, I wouldn't be crazy. But I'm not going to go that route. I'm just going to say that the American people need to be concerned about what happens here. Forget what happens overseas. That's out of your control. Be concerned with what happens here. Because honestly, if our game is tight here, we can't be attacked. If our intelligence community and airports and military are doing what they're supposed to do, then we should be relatively OK.

This reminds me of the strip where Huey calls the FBI terrorist hotline, tells them he's got a tip on someone who helped the terrorists, and it's Ronald Reagan. Do you think there's been enough coverage of the support our leaders have given the mujahedin in the past?

The media have reported on it. But it's not so much [that] they said it or not, it's the way they've said it. When the news wants to tell you something is important, they put dramatic theme music behind it. They scare you into watching the story. Like, anthrax -- very, very important. Pay attention, it's scary. When they report on the U.S. creation of these people, these terrorists, it's all very matter of fact. Like, oh yeah, we gave them a whole bunch of money, and now on to sports. So a lot of it is not necessarily an issue of it being covered up. In fact, it can't be covered up -- it's well known. But to me, it's not given the right emphasis. The question is to what extent is the government culpable for creating the people who have done this? And to what extent should they be held responsible for the actions of terrorists that they have supported in the past? That's what this is all about. I'm talking about Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., their whole crew, up until the crew that's in there today. After the embassy attacks in Africa, they were well aware of Osama bin Laden. They were well aware of his location in Afghanistan, his protection by the Taliban, and this Bush administration gave them $43 million this year! And nobody talks about it, and nobody holds them accountable, and that's wrong.

To be fair, though, I believe even the Clinton administration supported the Taliban in the beginning because they were viewed as a stabilizing force.

Well, to hell with Clinton, too. I'm not a Democrat. I don't give a damn about Clinton. Hold these people responsible! You know, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have supported individuals and regimes that have slaughtered millions across the globe. And they need to be held accountable for that.

Your depiction of the news media in your strip makes it out to be almost a cheerleader for the government. Is that a fair assessment of your opinion?

They've absolutely been playing cheerleader for the government, to the extent that even they've had to admit it. I watch news shows, and they're like, "Yeah, we're treating Bush differently now." I don't want the news to be patriotic. I don't want to see flags on the lapels of the anchors. I don't want any of that. I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism. They've thrown that out the window. And because they've all thrown it out the window at the same time, it's supposedly acceptable. No! It's ridiculous. I don't need to see that.

This is war. It's serious. People are dying on both sides. How dare the media just give in when the government says don't air any of Osama bin Laden's video messages! What is this? He's going to rub his nose and something is going to blow up over here? Like terrorists don't have satellite television, and they can't watch foreign news and get the same messages. That's insane. It's totally and thoroughly irresponsible behavior by the entire institution of the media.

Don't hold back, Aaron.

I won't. I was talking to some television journalists about this who gave me some interesting insight. Right now, they're scared to be critical of the government. Everything is about access. Reporters are afraid that the administration will cut them off. Decades ago, the mark of a good reporter was how much dirt you could dig up. Like the Watergate scandal. They were actively trying to find out what was going on and report the truth to people. Now it's the exact opposite. Nobody wants to say anything that makes the government mad, and that's ridiculous. Also, after the attacks, now people think it's unpatriotic to say anything critical of the government.

Come on, Bush is a moron. There is no doubt about it. And they really didn't have a problem going there before. But now, nobody wants to call him on it. People get excited because he can speak well. What world is this? When we're happy that the president can articulate well. That's something they only used to say about black men. "Oh, you speak so well." That's nuts. You don't say that about the president. We're supposed to have higher standards. The media are a big part of shaping the perception of the country, and right now, they're not asking the tough questions. They're not exploring, for example, the Bush administration's financial ties with Afghanistan. The fact that George Bush Sr. has financial investments in the area, and those investments become much more valuable when the Taliban government is removed. I'm not talking about getting into a whole bunch of conspiracies. Report what's actually happening, and challenge the government to explain itself. Why didn't they ask more questions? Like, how did this happen? How did four planes get hijacked in one day? And who got fired? That's the question I want to know the answer to, because a whole bunch of people should have gotten fired for what happened on Sept. 11. Report on the fact that G. W. Bush is sealing presidential papers. Indefinitely. His, his father's, Reagan's. It's totally unconstitutional. Why don't they talk about that?

On the topic of George W's I.Q., I think that idea is pretty threatening to people right now, because like it or not, we're stuck with him.

Yes, but living in denial doesn't help the situation. We have to confront the very scary fact that the president is a moron. He's really dumb. He's got some really smart people around him, and people weren't afraid to say that before. They said it in a nice way, but they said it. It was like, he's dumb, but he's got Cheney and he's got Powell, so we'll probably be OK. But now they act like he's done something great. You know, he's called [the terrorists] "evil." That's really some childish stuff. They're bad, we're good. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's so incredibly stupid. What do you think they do? They call us "evil." I just see so many parallels between both sides in this war, and it's really uncomfortable. You know, they kill civilians, we kill civilians. They say they're justified, we say the same thing. This is gang warfare on an international level. That's all it is. And when gang warfare happens in American cities, we say it's wrong. When somebody loads a gun, goes 20 blocks and kills the guy who killed his brother, it's not justifiable homicide or self-defense, it's murder and we put people in jail for it. Why is it acceptable that we do it now?

Do you support the war at all?

I don't support the killing of innocent people, and that's what's happening. What's worse is that we're killing innocent people out of retribution for the killing of innocent people. It's wrong. It's really wrong.

But assuming that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida are responsible, we have to go in and get them. How do we go in and get them without taking over that country?

I don't know. But I would ask, how many bombs can we drop to bring these people back? We can't drop enough bombs to bring 4,000 people back, and we can't drop enough bombs to ensure that it never happens again. Is it really about Osama bin Laden, or are we narrowing this? The people that hijacked the planes and crashed them are dead. If there's a terrorist network or a man responsible, yes, we should get them, but when you construct it like a police action or an investigation, and not like a war, then you're forced to respect the lives of innocents, even if it's a pain in the ass. I say it's not worth innocent people dying, even if it takes years and you have to keep sending SEAL teams or whatever in there. What the hell? That's what they're trained to do. That's why they exist. Drop them in there to get one guy. F-18s exist to wipe out towns. It may take longer the other way, but that's too bad.

But I'm sure you've seen pictures of Germany after World War II, and that country was flattened. Japan too. There were countless innocent lives lost.

World War II was 60 years ago. I mean, just in terms of technology, we're not fighting wars the same way. They had special ops, but it was the beginnings of special ops. They didn't have satellites that could listen to a conversation from space or pinpoint and read a newspaper headline from miles in the air. We didn't have that. You went to war, carpet-bombed and a whole lot of civilians died. And you know what? World War II was fucked up. How many millions of people died good and bad? Could World War II have been fought differently? I don't know.

There are few wars where innocent people don't die.

I don't know why this had to become a war. A war on whom? This feels like the war on drugs. When does it end? When you declare war on Japan or Germany, you know you can stop when those countries are flattened. When you declare war against the word "terrorism," when is that over? What does that mean? Stopping terrorism is like stopping rape or burglary, it's an individual action. Anyone with a gun can go out and commit an act of terrorism, even without a political affiliation. It never ends. So it's like the war on drugs, and what has that accomplished? Not a goddamn thing but a whole lot of black men in jail for nonviolent crimes, millions of dollars spent and nothing else. And that's what the war on terrorism is going to do -- we're going to lose countless amounts of money, people are going to die and get locked up, but that's it. There's going to be no good coming out of it. We're going to lose our civil rights, and they're going to be gone forever.

You don't buy the argument that the curtailing of certain civil liberties is temporary, that it's been necessary in previous wars, and that eventually those rights will be restored?

It's not temporary. Once you give up rights, they're not going to give them back. This is a war that will never end. When are they going to say they've defeated terrorism? No one is stupid enough to say that. Because then when something blows up, they look like dickheads. They can never again come out and say America is safe. They'd be idiots if they did. So given that they've set the situation up as a war they can't win, they're never giving the rights back. Literally, someone will have to be elected who doesn't agree with this shit and gives us our rights back. Someone, I don't know who, will have to get into power and say, "You know, this was all bullshit, and we're changing the laws."

What do you think we'll have to go through for that to happen?

America will really have to understand how corrupt its system is, and they'll have to get so fed up that they're ready to make change. And I don't think that'll happen because the media are so in line with the government and so invested in the status quo. We have, essentially, a worthless democracy. I hate to sound so extreme, but things are that bad. There's nothing we have to share with the rest of the world. We don't even have one man, one vote. And we have so much legal corruption in our political system that no one even thinks about it anymore.

You say that, but would you want to live anywhere else?

I tell you what, I visited Canada, and I liked it. I liked it a lot. This idea that there's no better place in the world to live, I don't buy that.

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2001/12/07/mcgruder/index_np.html

12/19/01
11:37:12 AM

What's Our National Identity?

by Duncan Frissell

Excerpts : A National ID card is *not* really about identity. It is about authorization.

A modern National ID System will:

* Require Americans to obtain federal government authorization to travel, work, rent or buy housing, obtain medical care, use financial services, and make many purchases.

* This federal authorization could be denied for many reasons including database errors, a suspicious transaction profile, being a deadbeat parent, failure to pay taxes or fines, and any other social control measures Congress wishes to hang on the system.

* The system will almost certainly create an outlaw class - as large as 10 to 20% of the population - cut off from "normal" life in America. This class will include political refuseniks as well as those whose behavior has caused the system's software to deny their transactions. This outlaw class will sustain the underground economy for the use of future terrorists (and ordinary criminals).

These effects are easy to predict because they've already happened on a lesser scale.

Previous National ID proposals covered such activities as travel, work authorization, national health care, and licensing of drivers. All of these proposed systems were meant to deny access to air travel, work, medical care, and driving to those who were not authorized for these activities. The events of September 11th mean that many more transactions will require a National ID. It is likely that the ID will be required for the purchase of alcohol, tobacco, Rx drugs, firearms, ammunition, knives, fertilizer, flying lessons, or any other goods or services the government considers dangerous. Additionally, in order to track the movement of potential terrorists, the New Improved National ID Card will have to control all transportation including car rentals and purchases, accommodations and financial services. A large chunk of our lives.

When you present your National ID to complete a transaction, you will actually be asking the Federal Government for its permission. It converts most significant transactions that you make from private ones to public ones. It creates a government license for all jobs, all travel, all medical care, and many purchases. This is a profoundly troubling departure from American traditions.

Beyond federal licensing there are all the reasons that the system will reject your proposed transaction. A National ID System can't control terrorists or illegals unless it uses software based on credit card fraud detection software to block suspicious transaction and then deny the use of the ID Card and notify the appropriate authorities.

To understand how this will work, you have to understand how modern credit card software works. A credit card authorization system performs a large number of checks to decide whether or not to authorize a proposed transaction. First, it checks to see if the card is in the system, has not been reported stolen, and has adequate credit for the transaction. But then it goes further. It checks the customer's transaction history, it checks the exact nature of recent transactions and of the proposed transaction to see how they fit the customer's profile and the profile of fraudulent transactions that it has stored in its system. It then produces a "score" which it uses to determine whether or not to authorize the transaction. This is real "profiling".

But even if you are you, the ID card is valid, and your transactions aren't suspicious; your right to travel, work, and buy will still likely be blocked by social control measures added by Congress or the administrative bureaucracy. We know that this will happen because that is exactly what *has* happened with drivers licenses. A drivers license once meant that your state considered you a safe driver. Today, you can be denied a license for failing to pay child support, failure to pay traffic and other fines (including library fines), being a non-resident alien, and for hundreds of other "offenses".

State legislatures could not resist the temptation to leverage the drivers license system to control their populations. Their actions were based on the idea that "driving is a privilege not a right." The future abuse of the National ID Card will be based on the idea that "living is a privilege not a right."

When your National ID Card is denied (for whatever reason), you will find yourself in a very uncomfortable situation. But you will not be alone. In America today, some 20% of the population does not use credit cards or bank accounts because they are unwilling or unable to perform the financial management tasks necessary to maintain such accounts. Similarly, the National ID card will produce a population of political or life-style refuseniks who will or cannot use it. Such populations do not disappear. They continue to survive as best they can and support a robust underground economy with its well-known negative effects on tax collection, obedience to law, and social cohesion.

As convenient as a National ID card seems for law enforcement, it is an unamerican notion. It comes from a political system explicitly rejected by those men who founded this country. The English language has a word for a system in which the central government of a country must authorize in advance all of its citizen's activities. That word is totalitarian.

Duncan Frissell is an Attorney working in New York City. His Social Security card reads "For Social Security and tax purposes--not for identification."

Source: http://sierratimes.com/archive/files/dec/06/eddf120601.htm

12/19/01
11:32:07 AM

Euro Intel Experts Dismiss 'War On Terrorism' As Deception

by Christopher Bollyn

European intelligence experts dismiss the Bush "war on terrorism" as deception and reveal the Realpolitik behind the aggression against Afghanistan.

Berlin - In Germany, where war plans for Afghanistan were already being discussed in July and where several of the "Arab hijackers" lived and studied, intelligence experts say the terror attacks of September 11 could not have been carried out without the support of a state secret service.

Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, Verfassungsschutz, told AFP that "the deathly precision" and "the magnitude of planning" behind the attacks of September 11 would have needed "years of planning."

Such a sophisticated operation, Werthebach said, would require the "fixed frame" of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a "loose group" of terrorists like the one allegedly led by Mohammed Atta while he studied in Hamburg.

Many people would have been involved in the planning of such an operation and Werthebach pointed to the absence of leaks as further indication that the attacks were "state organized actions."

Andreas von B'low served on the parliamentary commission which oversees the three branches of the German secret service while a member of the Bundestag (German parliament) from 1969 to 1994, and wrote a book titled Im Namen des Staates (In the Name of the State) on the criminal activities of secret services, including the CIA.

Von B'low told AFP that he believes that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the September 11 terror attacks. These attacks, he said, were carried out to turn public opinion against the Arabs, and boost military and security spending.

"You don't get the higher echelons," von B'low said, referring to the "architectural structure" which masterminds such terror attacks. At this level, he said, the organization doing the planning, such as Mossad, is primarily interested in affecting public opinion.

The architectural level planners use corrupt "guns for hire" such as Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist who von B'low called "an instrument of Mossad," high-ranking Stasi (former East German secret service) operatives, or Libyan agents who organize terror attacks using dedicated people, for example Palestinian and Arab "freedom fighters."

The terrorists who actually commit the crimes are what von B'low calls "the working level," such as the 19 Arabs who allegedly hijacked the planes on September 11. "The working level is part of the deception," he said.

"Ninety-five percent of the work of the intelligence agencies around the world is deception and disinformation," von B'low said, which is widely propagated in the mainstream media creating an accepted version of events. "Journalists don't even raise the simplest questions," he said adding, "those who differ are labeled as crazy."

Both Werthebach and von B'low said the lack of an open and official investigation, such as congressional hearings, into the events of September 11 was incomprehensible.

AFP asked von B'low about the Taliban's ban on opium production: "Seventy percent of the drug trade is licensed by the intelligence agencies," von B'low said, and they are interested in keeping the drug traffic "running through their mills."

"The BND (German secret service) is steered by the CIA and the CIA is steered by Mossad," von B'low said.

Horst Ehmke, who coordinated the German secret services directly under German prime minister Willi Brandt in the 70s, predicted a similar terrorist attack in his novel, Torches of Heaven, published last year, in which Turkish terrorists crash hijacked planes into Berlin.

EERIE PREDICTIONS

Although Ehmke had long expected "fundamentalist attacks," when he saw the televised images from September 11, he said it looked like a "Hollywood production."

"Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with 4 hijacked planes without the support of a secret service," Ehmke said, although he did not want to point to any particular agency.

"The most important thing in the struggle against terrorists, who are abusing religion, is the battle for the soul of the people and the nations," Ehmke said. "If this isn't resolved successfully, the 21st Century could be bloodier than the last."

A former Stasi agent who had warned the German secret service of terror attacks in America between September 10-20 told AFP that a high ranking Stasi chief named J'rgen Rogalla, who is "an airplane terror specialist," was probably involved in the attacks of September 11 along with Abu Nidal.

Both Nidal and Rogalla work with the Mossad, the former agent told AFP. Nidal, was said to be in Baghdad, and is a "leading officer for some Mossad agents." The agent said that Nidal was "involved directly" in the events of September 11.

September 11 was preparation for a larger attack on the United States, which is part of "an old plan," the agent said. Based on prior knowledge of this plan, the agent said that more attacks are imminent and that aircraft carriers may be targeted next. Rogalla is also strongly anti-religious and attacks on cathedrals or places of religious significance before Christmas are likely.

Rogalla was responsible for "turning NATO men" to spy for the East. One of the East's NATO spies, Reiner Rupp, known as "Topaz," provided Stasi and the Russians with the organization's highest secrets until he was discovered in 1993 by the BND. A CIA agent known as "Frank Lindsey" worked with Rogalla, according to the former Stasi agent.

TERROR INVESTIGATION BLOCKED

Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the administration of George W. Bush blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.

In a recently published book, Bin Laden, la verite interdite (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest due to official obstruction of his investigation of terrorism.

O'Neill had been in charge of national security in New York. While with the FBI, O'Neill led an investigation of Osama bin Laden and had forecast the possibility of an organized attack by terrorists operating from within the country.

O'Neill had investigated the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1995, FBI agents working under O'Neill captured Ramzi Yousef, a suspected lieutenant of bin Laden, who later was among those convicted for the World Trade Center bombing.

O'Neill was considered a top-notch investigator and was known for his pugnacity. He was barred by U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine from that country. That dispute reportedly involved a struggle between the State Department, which sought to preserve relations with Yemen, and the FBI, represented by O'Neill, who wanted access to Yemeni suspects.

O'Neill, 49, was hired as chief of security at the World Trade Center following a 25-year career with the FBI and died on Sept. 11, the first day of his new job. O'Neill reportedly died after reentering the building to assist others.

Brisard said O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it."

EARLY WARNINGS

Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military strikes against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, according to The Guardian (UK).

The warnings to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The meetings took place under the arbitration of Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN secretary general Kofi Annan, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The three Americans at the Berlin meeting were Tom Simons, former US ambassador to Pakistan, Karl "Rick" Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, and Lee Coldren, who headed the office of Pakistan, Afghan and Bangladesh affairs in the state department until 1997.

There were other meetings arranged by Vendrell in which "representatives of the U.S. government and Russia, and the six countries that border with Afghanistan were present," according to the French authors. "Sometimes, representatives of the Taliban also sat around the table."

The Berlin conference was the third meeting since November 2000 arranged by Mr. Vendrell. As a UN meeting, its official agenda was supposedly confined to trying to find a negotiated solution to the civil war in Afghanistan, ending terrorism and heroin trafficking, and discussing humanitarian aid.

CARPET OF GOLD--OR BOMBS

The U.S. government's primary objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia, the French authors wrote.

Until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia," from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean, they said.

"The oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that," the book says. When the Taliban refused to accept U.S. conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one."

"The Americans indicated to us that in case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, who attended the meetings.

On French television, Naik said during the "6+2" meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around "the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid."

"And the pipe lines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come," he added.

Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the U.S. representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan.

"Simons said, 'either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. The words Simons used were 'a military operation'," Naik said.

"At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs'," Brisard said in an interview in Paris.

According to the book, the government of Bush began to negotiate with the Taliban immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad.

To polish their image in the United States, the Taliban even employed a U.S. expert on public relations, Laila Helms. The authors claim that Helms is also an expert in the works of U.S. secret services, for her uncle, Richard Helms, is a former director of the CIA.

by Christopher Bollyn American Free Press bollynkaskel@yahoo.com

Source: http://www.rense.com/general17/eurointelexperts.htm

12/19/01
11:24:41 AM

Euro Intel Experts Dismiss 'War On Terrorism' As Deception (and reveal the Realpolitik behind the aggression against Afghanistan)

http://www.rense.com/general17/eurointelexperts.htm

Above the Law - Bush's Racial Coup D'Etat and Intell Shutdown "Did Jeb Bush fix the Florida election long before any votes were cast? Did President Bush shut down the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies investigations into terror networks prior to 9-11, leaving America wide open to the attacks? In a conversation with GNN Executive Editor Anthony Lappe, journalist Greg Palast breaks down two of the biggest scoops you've never heard and explains how they, and other groundbreaking stories, are ignored by most mainstream news outlets."

http://www.guerrillanews.com/counter_intelligence/231.html

Ebola May Spread From Gabon, Health Officials Warn Health authorities fighting an Ebola outbreak in Gabon said on Saturday they feared the deadly virus could spread to neighboring countries.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011215/sc/health_gabon_ebola_dc_5.html

Anthrax Probe Points to U.S. Source

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011217/ts/attacks_anthrax_13.html

Americans are 'evil' too

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=12468

The Real bin Laden http://www.newyorker.com/FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/ARCHIVES/?010917fr_archive07

A detailed sketch of the life of the Islamic terrorist.

How the Taliban Stole Christmas

http://AlterNet.org/story.html?StoryID=12029

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

http://www.fair.org

12/19/01
11:16:04 AM

Egypt's Mubarak Warned US Of Attack 12 DAYS Before 911

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says he warned the United States that "something would happen" 12 days before the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.

In an interview published Friday by the left-wing Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, Mubarak also said it would be a grave mistake if Israeli forces were to kill Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Mubarak did not reveal how he learned in late August of a possible terror attack on the United States. He said he was taken aback by the scale of the Sept. 11 attacks, when hijackers seized four U.S. airliners and crashed two into New York's World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside during an apparent struggle in the cockpit.

"We expected that something was going to happen and informed the Americans. We told them," Mubarak said. He did not mention a U.S. response.

"But nobody expected the event would be of such enormity. We did not know that they would hit this target or that, and we were all surprised when planes with passengers on board hit the twin towers," Mubarak said.

Washington has said that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA issued a warning that bin Laden was pressing for terrorist action against Americans. The warning was based on new intelligence but did not have specific information on the type of attack, a date or a location.

Mubarak also commented on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Recent Israeli airstrikes have hit targets within 100 yards of Arafat's offices.

Mubarak said that if Israel were to kill Arafat, it would create a vacuum in the Palestinian leadership that none of the "six to eight contenders" would be able to fill.

"Leaderships would emerge that would vie for popularity and compete in staging violent operations, internally and externally, against Israel, plunging (the region) into chaos. They (Israel) should understand this and know that it is dangerous," Mubarak said.

"And what would happen after Arafat? Who would Israel hold responsible for (acts of violence) - the leaders of Hamas or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine?" Mubarak said, referring to two militant Palestinian factions.

Hamas has claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed 25 people and wounded scores in Jerusalem and Haifa last weekend. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the assassination of the Israeli tourism minister in October.

Source: http://www.truthout.com/12.18C.Egypt.Warn.htm

12/19/01
11:13:08 AM

t r u t h o u t | 12.18

CLINTON | The Struggle for the Soul of the 21st Century

http://www.truthout.com/12.18A.Clinton.21.htm

India Preparing Response to Attack

http://www.truthout.com/12.18B.India.Response.htm

Egypt's Mubarak Warned US Of Attack 12 DAYS Before 911

http://www.truthout.com/12.18C.Egypt.Warn.htm

Pentagon : Bin Laden's Location Unknown

http://www.truthout.com/12.18D.OBL.Unknown.htm

Daschle Predicts Denial of Scalia Nomination

http://www.truthout.com/12.18e.Daschle.Scalia.htm

12/19/01
11:08:25 AM

TOURISM, TERRORISM, AND TOMORROW

As fewer overseas travelers pack their bags this holiday season, millions of tourism industry workers worldwide are losing their jobs. Before September 11th, travel and tourism was the world's largest industry, accounting for one in every 12 jobs. When the massive $3.6 trillion industry almost ground to a halt after the terrorist attacks, the ripple effects extended well beyond the United States, exposing the vulnerability of countries too dependent on international tourism, reports the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental research organization.

"The aftermath of September 11 has shown us how important travel and tourism are to the global economy, but also how over-dependence on tourism can devastate lives and derail economies," says Worldwatch Staff Researcher Lisa Mastny, author of "Traveling Light: New Paths for International Tourism." "Now, more than ever, it is time to put issues of sustainability at the top of the global tourism agenda."

In the paper, Mastny discusses ways that countries can redirect their tourism activities to make them more socially beneficial and environmentally sound. She highlights a wide range of positive efforts underway to minimize tourism's negative impacts and to boost its benefits for local communities and the environment.

Revenues from tourism have been especially important in the developing world, which stands to suffer severe economic losses from the slowdown. "Tourism is the only economic sector where developing countries consistently run a trade surplus," says Mastny. "It's especially significant in poorer countries that have few other options: for the world's 49 so-called least developed countries, tourism is the second largest source of foreign exchange after oil."

Businesses in the developing world are particularly worried about the sharp drop in bookings as the winter high season nears:

* India and Nepal, which are close to Afghanistan, are already feeling the effects of a drop in demand. * In October, resort company Club Méditerranée was forced to close 15 of its holiday villages in the Caribbean, Central America, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. * Operators in Costa Rica report a 30 percent decline in bookings from last year. * International tourism is now expected to grow by only 1.5 to 2 percent in 2001, compared with the robust 7.4 percent rise in 2000. * The International Labour Organization estimates that as many as 9 million of the world's 200 million hotel and tourism workers could lose their jobs in the wake of the attacks. Nearly three quarters of these positions are outside the United States and Europe, many in countries with weak social safety nets.

Even in the best of times, the consequences of tourism's rapid growth have not always been positive. On average, as much as 50 percent of tourism earnings ultimately "leak" out of the developing world-in the form of profits earned by foreign-owned businesses, promotional spending abroad, or payments for imported goods and labor. And uncontrolled tourism development-on mountaintops, along coastlines, or in remote jungle areas-stresses many fragile ecosystems and cultures.

"Tourism does not have to have such negative impacts," Mastny says. "Many governments and businesses, local communities, and tourists themselves are already paying more attention to the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of their activities."

Such changes can save money as well. Some hotels, tour operators, and other businesses are taking formal steps to restructure their management and operations along environmental lines-often at considerable cost savings. Between 1988 and 1995, for example, Inter-Continental Hotels reduced its overall energy costs by 27 percent, saving $3.7 million in 1995 alone. The Green Hotels Association reports that hotels that have adopted such conservation measures and green practices have been better able to weather the revenue loss, falling occupancies, and higher energy costs in the aftermath of the September attacks.

In the paper, Mastny also examines the role of ecotourism, or responsible tourism in natural settings, in protecting and enhancing environmentally fragile areas. If done well, ecotourism can bring benefits to both local communities and conservation. The ecotourism sector had been growing even faster than the tourism industry as a whole (20% vs. 7%). But Mastny cautions that some businesses are "greenwashing" their operations, slapping on the ecotourism label without actually changing their practices. -END-

*************************************

3. Fact Sheet

QUICK FACTS: Worldwatch Paper 159 Traveling Light

* Between 1950 and 2000, international tourist arrivals increased nearly 28-fold, to 698 million. They are expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2020.

* The number of people taking cruises worldwide nearly doubled between 1990 and 1999, to 9 million passengers annually. In 2001 some 53 new vessels were on the order books.

* Each year, up to 5,000 hectares of the Earth's land surface-an area half the size of Paris-is cleared for golf courses. One 18-hole course can consume more than 2.3 million liters of water daily.

* The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan practices a policy of "high-value, low-volume" tourism and accepted only 7,500 visitors in 2000, at a cost of $250 each per day.

* Nearly 80 percent of international tourists come from Europe and the Americas, while only 15 percent originate in East Asia and the Pacific and 5 percent in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia combined.

* The share of international tourists traveling to Asia and the Pacific rose from just 1 percent in 1950 to 16 percent in 2000. By 2020, Asia will be the most popular destination after Europe, attracting a quarter of world tourist traffic. China is expected to unseat France as the most visited country and to become the fourth largest source of tourists.

* In 1999, international tourist spending abroad accounted for nearly 8 percent of world exports of goods and services, surpassing trade in such items as food, textiles, and chemicals. Tourism is also the most rapidly growing export in the services sector, representing more than 40 percent of world services exports.

* In some small island nations in the Caribbean and Pacific, tourism generates more than 40 percent of GDP.

* On average, women account for 46 percent of workers in the hotel, catering, and restaurant sectors-a much higher share than in labor markets overall.

* The passenger jet is overtaking the automobile as the primary means of tourist travel. An estimated 43 percent of international tourists now fly to their destinations, while 42 percent travel by road and 15 percent use either rail or ship.

* In 1992, aircraft emissions contributed roughly 3.5 percent of human-generated greenhouse gases-and this share is expected to rise steadily as air travel increases.

* A 1997 study found that roughly 83 percent of the American public supported green travel services, and that people were willing to spend 6 percent more on average for travel services and products provided by environmentally responsible companies.

http://www.WorldWatch.org

12/19/01
11:05:19 AM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Capitol Hill anthrax "not from CIA lab" - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13748/story.htm

UPDATE - Fumigation of US Senate Hart Building suspended - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13750/story.htm

US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13751/story.htm

Sithe terminates power plant project in New York - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13752/story.htm

UPDATE - Norsk Hydro says to pull out of Indian alumina plan - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13746/story.htm

German retail power bills seen up 6 pct from January - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13745/story.htm

Brazil Petrobras cranks up long-delayed rig - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13753/story.htm

Australia takes plunge with ethanol, weighs costs - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13743/story.htm

Greenpeace raids nuclear reactor - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13747/story.htm

12/19/01
11:01:08 AM

Winds Over European Waters harnessed For Electricity

By Environmental News Network

The winds blow fast and cold across the waters of northern Europe, and power hungry Europeans are not about to let them go to waste. Offshore wind energy is set for a dramatic explosion in northern Europe but its potential is under threat from proposed cuts in European Union research grants, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

At a conference about offshore wind prospects held in Brussels this week, the industry association forecast an increase in installed capacity from just 86 megawatts (MW) today to 50,000 MW by 2020.

By then, experts predict, energy generated by wind turbines placed out in coastal waters would represent one-third of all European wind power. At a time when security of energy supply and action to tackle climate change are high on the agenda, it is not surprising that there is such interest in offshore wind energy.

This is a good situation for the EWEA whose task is to strengthen wind energy's position in the market place.

"European seas present a huge resource for indigenous, emissions free electricity generation," the industry association said just before the conference.

EWEA cites studies that estimate the offshore wind energy potential of Europe could be as large as 3,000 terrawatt hours of electricity per year, an amount equivalent to the total electricity consumption in the 15 nation European Union.

Projects already in the pipeline are expected to increase capacity to 5,000 MW by 2010. A megawatt is enough electricity to power 1,000 typical homes. But the association and other industry groups claimed that a new European Union research framework proposal currently under discussion by governments could cut the budget for wind energy by up to 40 percent and jeopardize progress.

During the conference, Belgian Energy Minister Olivier Deleuze used his keynote address to announce government plans to support wind farm construction off Belgium's North Sea coast. The draft plan combines elements of Germany's financial support system and the green certificates method used in The Netherlands.

Offshore wind energy generators would receive green certificates for the electricity they produce and utilities would be obliged to buy them in amounts equal to two percent of the electricity they supply by 2002.

That figure would rise to six percent by 2006. Fines would apply to energy companies for not acquiring enough certificates to cover the obligation starting next year.

Generators will also be able to sell green certificates to the grid operator at a fixed rate per kilowatt-hour. The operator would then sell the certificates on the open market.

In April, the United Kingdom granted 18 offshore wind farm developers leases to build on the sea bed. Each site would typically have 30 wind turbines producing three megawatts each. The turbines would be about 200 feet tall and about three miles offshore.

The British Wind Energy Association estimates the 18 offshore wind farms could supply the annual electricity needs of more than 1.1 million households. In July, wind energy in Europe got a political boost when the European Parliament voted to promote electricity from renewable energy sources.

Dr. Klaus Rave, president of the European Wind Energy Association said the new law is a historic landmark for the wind energy industry.

"For the first time the EU, after having a long history of steel, coal and nuclear, acknowledges that renewable energies are a vital player in the international energy market," he said. "Now we have to create a stable investment climate for sustainable development."

The European Wind Energy Association represents manufacturers, utilities, project developers, research and development institutes, and financiers - over 15,000 members.

http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2001/12/12172001/winds_45871.asp

12/17/01
6:56:17 PM

UTNE WEB WATCH

The Best of the Alternative Web

FILING E-WASTE

by Kristine Hansen, Shepherd Express

-- The continual need to upgrade personal computers has created a nationwide problem that could seriously damage the environment if the 300 million machines aren't disposed of properly.

A SKEPTICAL LOOK AT 'THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST'

from Grist Magazine

-- Bjorn Lomborg's recent book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' caused a huge stir in activist circles, and was embraced with open arms by the major media. Grist has just published a series of essays by E.O. Wilson, Lester Brown, and others that give Lomborg's argument a much-needed dose of skepticism.

SCRIPTING BIN LADEN'S LAST ACT

by Richard Blow, TomPaine.com

-- Though the military and Bin Laden have yet to enter the end game, the script has already been written, says author Richard Blow in TomPaine.com.

Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch

12/17/01
6:48:17 PM

TINY PARTICLES OF POLLUTION MAY CARRY LARGE CONSEQUENCES FOR EARTH'S WATER SUPPLY

According to a United Nations Population Fund report released Nov. 7, water use has grown six-fold over the past 70 years. "Water may be the resource that defines the limits of sustainable development," the report notes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011207065930.htm

EXPLORING THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE WITH EUROPE'S ASTROPHYSICAL VIRTUAL OBSERVATORY; VAST DATABANKS AT THE ASTRONOMERS' FINGERTIPS

A new European initiative called the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) is being launched to provide astronomers with a breathtaking potential for new discoveries. It will enable them to seamlessly combine the data from both ground- and space-based telescopes which are making observations of the Universe across the whole range of wavelengths - from high-energy gamma rays through the ultraviolet and visible to the infrared and radio.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011206073412.htm

NIST MINIATURE REFRIGERATOR FLIES ABOARD CURRENT SHUTTLE MISSION

When Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted into space this past Wednesday, December 5, it carried aboard the world's smallest version of a relatively new type of refrigerator -- a pulse-tube cryocooler. The device was designed, built and tested under an agreement between the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Boulder Laboratories, Lockheed Martin Corporation and NASA's Ames Research Center.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210072013.htm

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO RESEARCHERS IDENTIFY SWITCH THAT CONTROLS AGING IN WORMS

Two University of Colorado at Boulder researchers working with GenoPlex Inc. in Denver have identified a biological switch that controls lifespan in tiny worms, a finding that could have applications for mammals, including people.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210162845.htm

ULTRACOLD PLASMAS ARE A CHILLING PUZZLE

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technologys Physics Laboratory have created ultra cold plasmas with the electrons about a degree above absolute zero by cooling neutral atoms to within a hundred-thousandth of a degree of absolute zero and then zapping them with just enough laser energy to separate the electrons and ions to achieve the plasma state.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210071925.htm

TRIMMING THE CHRISTMAS TREE OR LIGHTING MENORAH CANDLES TOGETHER MAY STRENGTHEN YOUR MARRIAGE

Couples that participate in and find meaning in religious holiday rituals such as decorating the home for the holidays or lighting candles may be making their marriages stronger. That's according to a new study which finds that couples were more satisfied with their marriages when they found meaning in shared religious holiday rituals.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210164044.htm

METHANE EXPLOSION WARMED THE PREHISTORIC EARTH, POSSIBLE AGAIN

A tremendous release of methane gas frozen beneath the sea floor heated the Earth by up to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) 55 million years ago, a new NASA study confirms. NASA scientists used data from a computer simulation of the paleo-climate to better understand the role of methane in climate change. While most greenhouse gas studies focus on carbon dioxide, methane is 20 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210163439.htm

NEW NIST IMAGING TOOL HAS X-RAY EYES

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a new way of seeing with X-ray eyes no less. Using its novel instrument, the NIST team can clearly glimpse minute voids, tiny cracks and other sometimes indiscernible microstructural details over a three-dimensional expanse in a wide range of materials, including metals, ceramics and biological specimens.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210164509.htm

A LITTLE LARCENY COMES NATURALLY TO NORTHWESTERN CROWS

Crows and ravens are depicted as being clever and tricky animals in countless American Indian stories and legends. Those characterizations apparently are right on the mark, according to a pair of University of Washington researchers who have found a species of crow that is constantly looking for opportunities to steal food from other members of its flock.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210163210.htm

LIVERMORE SCIENTISTS TO PRESENT GLOBAL WARMING MITIGATION TOOL FOR RIDDING THE ATMOSPHERE OF EXCESS CARBON

Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory today will present evidence that a new method for capturing carbon dioxide from power plants and placing it in the ocean has less impact on marine life than atmospheric carbon dioxide release or other global warming mitigation methods, such as direct injection and ocean fertilization.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011213084731.htm

NEW NIST TEST SAYS "Y" BE UNCERTAIN ABOUT DNA IDENTIFICATION

When researchers sought to learn whether President Thomas Jefferson had a child with a slave, they used a Y chromosome test that showed the boy was fathered by someone from the Presidents family. Such tests indicate both the presence of male DNA in a blood or tissue sampleonly males have Y chromosomesand the family it came from, because the markers (particular chemical sequences) identified in the test are inherited.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210164421.htm

THE SUN'S CHILLY IMPACT ON EARTH

A new NASA computer climate model reinforces the long-standing theory that low solar activity could have changed the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1400's to the 1700's and triggered a "Little Ice Age" in several regions including North America and Europe. Changes in the sun's energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period, but have since been superceded by greenhouse gases due to the industrial revolution.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011210164606.htm

TWO NEW METHODOLOGIES CAN HELP OWNERS IMPROVE SECURITY OF NATION'S DAMS AND POWER SYSTEMS

Operators of U.S. dams, hydroelectric facilities, and power transmission systems can make their sites less attractive targets to terrorists using new step-by-step security assessment processes developed by the Interagency Forum on Infrastructure Protection (IFIP), a team of government dam owners, transmission system operators, and anti-terrorism experts.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011213085036.htm

NOVEL DEVICE TAKES OVER WHERE LEECHES LEAVE OFF

After millennia of service, the medicinal leech may finally have met its mechanical match, a novel device that effectively performs the same function as the medicinal leech - promoting the flow of blood to compromised tissue - without the unpleasantness of having a blood-sucking parasite attached to your body.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011213084919.htm

THE PAST SAYS ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE IN OUR FUTURE

Past climates changed abruptly, suggesting that abrupt changes in the future will also occur, according to a Penn State geoscientist.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011214081853.htm

RESEARCHERS FIND CLOSEST LIVING RELATIVE OF FIRST LAND PLANTS

By studying gene sequences of common fresh water algae, a team of University of Maryland researchers, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has identified a group of algae that are the closest living relatives of the first land plants. The scientists have moved a step closer to understanding how land plants evolved and came to dominate the terrestrial biosphere.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011214080951.htm

MAN-MADE HURRICANE HITS SOUTH CAROLINA COAST MONDAY

Clemson University engineers destroyed more houses on the U.S. mainland than hurricanes did this summer and Tim Reinhold wouldnt want it any other way.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011214081118.htm

12/17/01
6:28:14 PM

“Oh Lucy! – You Gotta Lotta ‘Splainin To Do”

A TIMELINE SURROUNDING SEPTEMBER 11TH - IF CIA AND THE GOVERNMENT WEREN’T INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS WHAT WERE THEY DOING?

Bin Laden Met with the CIA in July and Walked Away

by

Michael C. Ruppert

[© COPYRIGHT 2001, All Rights Reserved, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. May be copied and distributed for non-profit purposes only.]

FTW, November 2, 2001 – 1200 PST [Revised, Nov 27, 2001] -- On October 31, the French daily Le Figaro dropped a bombshell. While in a Dubai hospital receiving treatment for a chronic kidney infection last July, Osama bin Laden met with a top CIA official - presumably the Chief of Station. The meeting, held in bin Laden’s private suite, took place at the American hospital in Dubai at a time when he was a wanted fugitive for the bombings of two U.S. embassies and this year’s attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Bin Laden was eligible for execution according to a 2000 intelligence finding issued by President Bill Clinton before leaving office in January. Yet on July 14th he was allowed to leave Dubai on a private jet and there were no Navy fighters waiting to force him down.

In 1985 Oliver North – the only member of the Reagan-Bush years who doesn’t appear to have a hand in the current war -sent the Navy and commandos after terrorists on the cruise ship Achille Lauro. In his 1991 autobiography “Under Fire,” while describing terrorist Abu Abbas, North wrote, “I used to wonder: how many dead Americans will it take before we do something?” One could look at the number of Americans Osama bin Laden is alleged to have killed before September 11 and ask the same question.

It gets worse, much worse. A more complete timeline listing crucial events both before and after the September 11th suicide attacks, which have been blamed on bin Laden, establishes CIA foreknowledge of them and strongly suggests that there was criminal complicity on the part of the U.S. government in their execution. It also makes clear that the events which have taken place since September 11th are based upon an agenda that has little to do with the attacks.

One wonders how these events could have been ignored by the major media or treated as isolated incidents. Failing that, how could skilled news agencies avoid being outraged, or at least even just a little suspicious?

1.1998 and 2000 - Former President George H.W. Bush travels to Saudi Arabia on behalf of the privately owned Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the U.S. While there he meets privately with the Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family. [Source: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 27, 2001. See also FTW, Vol. IV, No 7 – “The Best Enemies Money Can Buy,” - http://www.copvcia.com/members/carlyle.html. ] 2.January, 2001 – The Bush Administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to “back off” investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden’s relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who were living in Falls Church, VA – right next to CIA headquarters. This followed previous orders dating back to 1996, frustrating efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. [Source: BBC Newsnight, Correspondent Gregg Palast – Nov 7, 2001]. 3.Feb 13, 2001 – UPI Terrorism Correspondent Richard Sale – while covering a trial of bin Laden’s Al Q’aeda followers - reports that the National Security Agency has broken bin Laden’s encrypted communications. Even if this indicates that bin Laden changed systems in February it does not mesh with the fact that the government insists that the attacks had been planned for years. 4.May 2001 – Secretary of State Colin Powell gives $43 million in aid to the Taliban regime, purportedly to assist hungry farmers who are starving since the destruction of their opium crop in January on orders of the Taliban regime. [Source: The Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2001]. 5.May, 2001 – Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a career covert operative and former Navy Seal, travels to India on a publicized tour while CIA Director George Tenet makes a quiet visit to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf. Armitage has long and deep Pakistani intelligence connections and he is the recipient of the highest civil decoration awarded by Pakistan. It would be reasonable to assume that while in Islamabad, Tenet, in what was described as “an unusually long meeting,” also met with his Pakistani counterpart, Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad, head of the ISI. [Source The Indian SAPRA news agency, May 22, 2001.] 6.June 2001 – German intelligence, the BND, warns the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists are “planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture.” [Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14, 2001.] 7.July, 2001 – Three American officials: Tom Simmons (former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs) and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia), meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in Berlin and tell them that the U.S. is planning military strikes against Afghanistan in October. A French book released in November, “Bin Laden - La Verite? Interdite,” discloses that Taliban representatives often sat in on the meetings. British papers confirm that the Pakistani ISI relayed the threats to the Taliban. [Source: The Guardian, September 22, 2001; the BBC, September 18, 2001.The Inter Press Service, Nov 16, 2001] 8.Summer 2001 - According to a Sept. 26 story in Britain’s The Guardian, correspondent David Leigh reported that, “U.S. department of defense official, Dr. Jeffrey Starr, visited Tajikistan in January. The Guardian’s Felicity Lawrence established that US Rangers were also training special troops in Kyrgyzstan. There were unconfirmed reports that Tajik and Uzbek special troops were training in Alaska and Montana.” 9.Summer 2001 (est.) – Pakistani ISI Chief General Mahmud (see above) orders an aide to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, who was according to the FBI, the lead terrorist in the suicide hijackings. Mahmud recently resigned after the transfer was disclosed in India and confirmed by the FBI. [Source: The Times of India, October 11, 2001.] 10.Summer 2001 – An Iranian man phones U.S. law enforcement to warn of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9th. German police confirm the calls but state that the U.S. Secret Service would not reveal any further information. [Source: German news agency “online.ie”, September 14, 2001.] 11.August 2001 – The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key member of bin Laden’s network and the FBI learns that he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Source: Reuters, September 13.] 12.Summer 2001 – Russian intelligence notifies the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots have been specifically training for suicide missions. This is reported in the Russian press and news stories are translated for FTW by a retired CIA officer. 13.July 4-14, 2001 – Osama bin Laden receives treatments for kidney disease at the American hospital in Dubai and meets with a CIA official who returns to CIA headquarters on July 15th. [Source: Le Figaro, October 31st, 2001.] 14.August 2001 – Russian President Vladimir Putin orders Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government “in the strongest possible terms” of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings. [Source: MS-NBC interview with Putin, September 15.] 15.August/September, 2001 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops nearly 900 points in the three weeks prior to the attack. A major stock market crash is imminent. 16.Sept. 3-10, 2001 – MS-NBC reports on September 16 that a caller to a Cayman Islands radio talk show gave several warnings of an imminent attack on the U.S. by bin Laden in the week prior to 9/11.

17. September 1-10, 2001 – In an exercise, Operation “Swift Sword” planned for four years, 23, 000 British troops are steaming toward Oman. Although the 9/11 attacks caused a hiccup in the deployment the massive operation was implemented as planned. At the same time two U.S. carrier battle groups arrive on station in the Gulf of Arabia just off the Pakistani coast. Also at the same time, some 17,000 U.S. troops join more than 23,000 NATO troops in Egypt for Operation “Bright Star.” All of these forces are in place before the first plane hits the World Trade Center. [Sources: The Guardian, CNN, FOX, The Observer, International Law Professor Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois.]

18.September 6-7, 2001 – 4,744 put options (a speculation that the stock will go down) are purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only 396 call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the UAL puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard. [Source: The Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, http://www.ict.org.il/, September 21; The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal.] 19.September 10, 2001 - 4,516 put options are purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. [Source: ICT – above] 20.September 6-11, 2001 - No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to those experienced by UAL and American. The put option purchases on both airlines were 600% above normal. This at a time when Reuters (September 10) issues a business report stating, “Airline stocks may be poised to take off.” 21.September 6-10, 2001 – Highly abnormal levels of put options are purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re(insurance) which owns 25% of American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are directly impacted by the September 11 attacks. [Source: ICT, above; FTW, Vol. IV, No.7, October 18, 2001, http://www.copvcia.com/members/oct152001.html. ] 22.It has been documented that the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs reported to be descended from Promis software. This is to alert national intelligence services of just such kinds of attacks. Promis was reported, as recently as June, 2001 to be in Osama bin Laden’s possession and, as a result of recent stories by FOX, both the FBI and the Justice Department have confirmed its use for U.S. intelligence gathering through at least this summer. This would confirm that CIA had additional advance warning of imminent attacks. [Sources: The Washington Times, June 15, 2001; FOX News, October 16, 2001; FTW, October 26, 2001, - http://www.copvcia.com/members/magic_carpet.html; FTW, Vol. IV, No.6, Sept. 18, 2001 - http://www.copvcia.com/members/sept1801.html; FTW, Vol. 3, No 7, 9/30/00 -www.copvcia.com/stories/may_2001/052401_promis.html. 23.September 11, 2001 – Gen Mahmud of the ISI (see above), friend of Mohammed Atta, is visiting Washington on behalf of the Taliban. [Source: MS-NBC, Oct. 7.] 24.September 11, 2001, For 35 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM, with it widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have been simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, no one notifies the President of the United States. It is not until 9:30 that any Air Force planes are scrambled to intercept, but by then it is too late. This means that the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had occurred – an event that has never happened in history. [Sources: CNN, ABC, MS-NBC, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times.] 25.September 13, 2001 – China is admitted to the World Trade Organization quickly, after 15 years of unsuccessful attempts. [Source: The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2001.] 26.September 15, 2001 – The New York Times reports that Mayo Shattuck III has resigned, effective immediately, as head of the Alex (A.B) Brown unit of Deutschebank. 27.September 29, 2001 – The San Francisco Chronicle reports that $2.5 million in put options on American Airlines and United Airlines are unclaimed. This is likely the result of the suspension in trading on the NYSE after the attacks which gave the Securities and Exchange Commission time to be waiting when the owners showed up to redeem their put options. 28.October 10, 2001 – The Pakistani newspaper The Frontier Post reports that U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain has paid a call on the Pakistani oil minister. A previously abandoned Unocal pipeline from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, to the Pakistani coast, for the purpose of selling oil and gas to China, is now back on the table “in view of recent geopolitical developments.” 29.Mid October, 2001 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average, after having suffered a precipitous drop has recovered most of its pre-attack losses. Although still weak, and vulnerable to negative earnings reports, a crash has been averted by a massive infusion of government spending on defense programs, subsidies for “affected” industries and planned tax cuts for corporations.

Now, let’s go back to the October 31 story by Le Figaro – the one that has Osama bin Laden meeting with a CIA officer in Dubai this June.

The story says that, “Throughout his stay in the hospital, Osama Bin Laden received visits from many family members [There goes the story that he’s a black sheep!] and Saudi Arabian Emirate personalities of status. During this time the local representative of the CIA was seen by many people taking the elevator and going to bin Laden’s room.

“Several days later the CIA officer bragged to his friends about having visited the Saudi millionaire. From authoritative sources, this CIA agent visited CIA headquarters on July 15tth, the day after bin Laden’s departure for Quetta…

“According to various Arab diplomatic sources and French intelligence itself, precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including its own territory.”…

“Extremely bothered, they [American intelligence officers in a meeting with French intelligence officers] requested from their French peers exact details about the Algerian activists [connected to bin Laden through Dubai banking institutions], without explaining the exact nature of their inquiry. When asked the question, “What do you fear in the coming days?’ the Americans responded with incomprehensible silence.”…

“On further investigation, the FBI discovered certain plans that had been put together between the CIA and its “Islamic friends” over the years. The meeting in Dubai is, so it would seem, consistent with ‘a certain American policy.’”

Even though Le Figaro reported that it had confirmed with hospital staff that bin Laden had been there as reported, stories printed on November 1 contained quotes from hospital staff that these reports were untrue. On November 1, as reported by the Ananova press agency, the CIA flatly denied that any meeting between any CIA personnel and Osama bin Laden at any time.

In the most ironic twist of all, FTW has learned that Le Figaro is owned by the Carlyle Group, the American defense contractor which employs George Bush Sr., and which had as investors – until they sold their stake on October 26 - the bin Laden family.

Who do you believe? In coming stories FTW will prove to you that this war, which according to Dick Cheney, may not end in out lifetimes, has been in the works for at least four years.

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mailto:mruppert@copvcia.com

http://www.CopvCIA.com

12/17/01
6:20:03 PM

t r u t h o u t | 12.17

Marc Ash | Radical in the White House

http://www.truthout.com/12.17A.Radical.WH.htm

Saudis Say : No Evidence

http://www.truthout.com/12.17B.Saudis.No.htm

The White House Connection : Saudi 'Agents' Close Bush Friends

http://www.truthout.com/12.17C.Saudi.Friends.htm

The President's Papers Are the People's Business

http://www.truthout.com/12.17D.Peoples.Papers.htm

Refugees Start Returning Home | Officials Worry Large Repatriation May Overwhelm Afghanistan

http://www.truthout.com/12.17E.Refuge.Return.htm

UN Official Warns on Child Sex Trade

http://www.truthout.com/12.17F.Child.Trade.htm

12/17/01
6:18:05 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Democratic senators request NSR documents from EPA - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13725/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

New Hampshire trying to cut MTBE use in gasoline - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13729/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Britney Spears won't strip for fur - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13741/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

FERC may block Williams LNG plant reopening - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13731/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Bonneville to double wind-powered electricity - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13732/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Access to Rockies would up US natgas supply 7 pct - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13737/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Russia's Putin meets Ukraine's Kuchma, talk energy - UKRAINE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13736/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

China GM cotton acreage doubles - ISAAA - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13738/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Lithuania signs 18.58 mln euro PHARE memo with EU - LITHUANIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13735/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Honda to start selling hybrid-electric sedan - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13742/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Tiger population stabilises in India's Sunderbans - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13724/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

German renewable energy groups slam econ min report - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13733/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

UPDATE - France mulls beef ruling, to protect consumers - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13739/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

EU leaders commit to nuclear power monitoring - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13730/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

Bulgaria N-plant gets ready to close old reactors - BULGARIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13734/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

UPDATE - Austria loses cherished BSE-free tag - AUSTRIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13740/newsDate/17-Dec-2001/story.htm

12/17/01
6:09:18 PM

MINUTE FOR PEACE DAY

December 22, 2001

World Trade Center Tragedy and What To do.

The horrific event on 9-11 showed us the power of hate. But love is more powerful than hate and December 22 provides a special opportunity to prove it.

"Hatred does not cease by hatred. Hatred ceases only by love." Gandhi, and others, have demonstrated non-violent methods of opposing what was wrong.

Martin Luther King described the power of love in his book "Strength To Love" -- and gave his life to prove it. Now, strength to "kill" is being advocated as the way to stop violence.

Actions good or bad begin in the mind. Here is a way to reverse the damage done to people's thinking by media's headlines for violence and silence about the proven benefits of forgiveness, compassion and cooperation for common goals. The World Trade Center tragedy was the result of media failure to feature the work of the Franciscans and many other groups who were seeking the peaceful nurture of people and planet.

December 22 is just three days before Christmas. In our new millennium Christmas is of increasing importance, with its message of "Peace and Good Will."

A Minute for Peace Day brought global attention for the way to peace back in 1963. December 22, 1963 was when we ended the period of mourning for President Kennedy with a global minute of silent prayer for peace on our planet. That special minute (1 p.m. in Dallas, 1900 GMT worldwide) affected people all over the world and inspired efforts that later resulted in Earth Day with its emphasis on peace, justice and the care of Earth.

Let's turn the tables on 9-11 by joining worldwide in Minutes for Peace all day on December 22 -- just three days before Christmas. Christmas can then be a turning toward peace, with our neighbor and our world.

Earth Trustees

A new idea that came from Minute for Peace and Earth Day, was the idea that we can now all think of ourselves as Trustees of Earth. In this age of Space exploration we know -- more than former generations -- that we are one human family and have only one Earth. With care and use of new technology we can now eliminate poverty, pollution and violence. All we need is a clear vision of our goal and reports on Internet - and in the media - of every successful effort to think and act as Trustees of Earth -- in ecology, economics and ethics. This course of action can appeal to the most people on our planet and do the most good.

Then a new spirit of cooperation will engulf the world. With half the money we spend on wars we can make our planet a Garden of Eden.

As we honestly work together we will see all around us the waste of wealth and its unfair monopolization by those in power. The solution is not to condemn the few in positions of power, but to demonstrate solutions and win their support -- not by the power of money or military might -- but by the power of truth, of good ideas and good will.

Then with the power of the words "Love one another" we will reverse the direction of "9-11"and welcome the beginning of an era of peaceful progress in the new millennium.

On December 22, talk peace, think peace, pray for peace, have faith for peace all over the world - in the home, at work in global relations of countries and corporations -- in all human institutions.

Let every radio and TV station fill the day with minutes of music and words that inspire peaceful actions. Help us unite as one human family in new understanding and care for this wonderful nest in the stars: Planet Earth, our home.

By Founder of Earth Day

John McConnell

mailto:TrusteeOne@aol.com

http://www.EarthSite.org