Monday, Dec 08th
Last update05:28:14 AM GMT
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission exists to police, not promote, the domestic nuclear industry -- but diplomatic cables show that it is sometimes used as a sales tool to help push American technology to foreign governments.
The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party, shed light on the way in which U.S. embassies have pulled in the NRC when lobbying for the purchase of equipment made by Westinghouse and other domestic manufacturers.
The U.S. nuclear industry is turning up the power on old reactors, spurring quiet debate over the safety of pushing aging equipment beyond its original specifications.
The little-publicized practice, known as uprating, has expanded the country's nuclear capacity without the financial risks, public anxiety and political obstacles that have halted the construction of new plants for the last 15 years.
Poul Thorsen, the principal coordinator of multiple studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used to deny a vaccine/autism link was indicted on April 13th on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money-laundering. The charges relate to funding for work he conducted for the CDC, which claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.
SafeMinds first voiced concerns in 2003 regarding a series of epidemiology studies out of Denmark and under the jurisdiction of Thorsen that provided the basis for the Institute of Medicine's claim that there was no association between thimerosal and autism. That claim has been responsible for the continued unsafe use of mercury in influenza vaccines in the United States and infant vaccines around the world.
"To know means to believe based on sufficient evidence. So I know, not just believe, that 9/11 was a false-flag attack, that many individuals at or near the top of the US Executive Branch, military, and intelligence apparatus were complicit in the attack, and that the state of Israel and its American agents were heavily involved. This is the inescapable conclusion of anyone who reads David Ray Griffin's books on the subject, alongside Bollyn's Solving 9/11, with an open mind."
At a November 2009 meeting, top Iranian security officials allegedly discussed staging a student takeover of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran, much as students had seized the U.S. Embassy there three decades earlier, according to a State Department cable.
But Ali Larijani, a powerful politician and speaker of Iran's parliament, urged caution as Iranian-Saudi tensions rose. Referring to the 1979-81 U.S. hostage crisis, Larijani told his colleagues that "one experience occupying a foreign embassy is enough — in fact we have not yet extricated ourselves from the last experience."
A series of protests against Israeli policy and its support by AIPAC are planned in May to coincide with the AIPAC conference in the U.S. capital and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech there.
The protests, under the heading "Move over AIPAC," will include demonstrations opposite the building where Netanyahu will speak and Congress, and a series of lectures and meetings with critics of Israel, including veteran journalist Helen Thomas who lost her place in the White House press room after saying Jews should leave Palestine and go back to Poland, Germany and the United States.
The state of Louisiana has reported 415 cases of health problems linked to the spill, with symptoms including sore throats, irritated eyes, respiratory tract infections, headaches and nausea.
But Bernard Goldstein, an environmental toxicologist and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the US government's method of collecting health data on the workers is flawed.
The president of the World Bank has warned that the world is "one shock away from a full-blown crisis". Robert Zoellick cited rising food prices as the main threat to poor nations who risk "losing a generation".
He was speaking in Washington at the end of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, G20 finance chiefs, who also met in Washington, pledged financial support to help new governments in the Middle East and North Africa.
Today more than 600 million people have Facebook accounts. The average user spends seven hours a month posting photos, chatting with friends, swapping news links and sending birthday greetings to classmates.
Now the Palo Alto company is looking to cash in on this mother lode of personal information by helping advertisers pinpoint exactly whom they want to reach. This is no idle boast. Facebook doesn't have to guess who its users are or what they like. Facebook knows, because members volunteer this information freely — and frequently — in their profiles, status updates, wall posts, messages and "likes."
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