| Friday, June 24, 2005 |  |
| ABC News to Kill Kennedy Jr. Interview on vaccines | 0 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 17:47 ABC News Killed Interviews with Robert Kennedy on Mercury in Children's Vaccines Posted 6/24/05 ABC corporate executives at the network's highest levels ordered three interviews with Robert Kennedy Jr. pulled from ABC News programming. The interviews all centered around Mr. Kennedy's investigation of thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, used in vaccines given to children and believed to be responsible for increasing cases of neurological diseases including autism. Mr. Kennedy's interviews were slated for prime shows ABC World News Tonight, 20/20, and Good Morning America. Salon.com and Rolling Stone Magazine have exclusive rights to Mr. Kennedy's article and they embargoed his story on other networks because of his arrangement with ABC. Mr. Kennedy's article was published today only in Rolling Stone and on Salon.com. The article links the CDC, FDA and Bill Frist to major drug companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth, and Aventis Pasteur that continued to include thimerosal in their vaccines despite studies showing the damage - and death - it caused in humans. In the 1990s the CDC and FDA recommended three additional children's vaccines laced with thimerosal, totaling twenty two federally recommended immunizations. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 from pharmaceutical companies, tacked on the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" as a rider to a 2002 homeland security bill. The protection act was later repealed by Congress after a public outcry. Senator Frist is making another attempt to harbor big pharmaceuticals from families with infected children. He is appropriating the war on terror again by attaching a provision to the "Protecting America in the War On Terror" bill introduced to Congress this past January. A 2001 Emory University Study watched ABC, CBS, and NBC in the Atlanta area for one week and found 907 advertisements for over-the-counter drugs and 428 advertisements for prescription drugs. |
| The Rich Nations (G8) Summit: Making Poverty Inevitable | 0 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 17:44 The Rich Nations (G8) Summit: Making Poverty Inevitable LOTS MORE ABOUT THIS HERE In the build up to the G8 summit, where the world's most powerful leaders will gather to decide the global agenda, much of the talk has been about how this event will be an opportunity to promote development in Africa and so alleviate poverty and hunger. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is anxious to demonstrate his compassionate leadership, and along with a massive public "Make Poverty History" campaign by development agencies such as Oxfam, is calling for debt relief and more aid to Africa. Blair's apparent proof of his sincerity was the setting up of a "Commission for Africa", who held 4 consultations in Africa with civil society, and have written a report which will be presented to the G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland, which will be held from the 5th-8th July. The Commission's report was ostensibly to advise policy for pulling Africa out of poverty. Building up the public momentum for support for the "Make Poverty History" campaign have been two highly prominent rock stars, Bob Geldof (who created the massive "Live Aid" concerts to raise money for famine-struck Ethiopia 20 years ago) and Bono of the band U2. The two of them have been using every opportunity to emphasize the importance of the campaign, and how Africa urgently needs public pressure on the world leaders to make commitments for aid, debt relief, and an end to unfair trade practices. They have succeeded in getting a great deal of UK public support for the campaign, and are organizing a series of high-profile concerts. They have managed to make caring about Africa cool. But while this all sounds very positive on the surface, the campaign is in fact based on an over-simplistic and deceptively convenient understanding of the problems facing the continent. In fact the reality is that the "Make Poverty History" campaign plays right into the agenda of the G8 leaders' plans to further exploit Africa all they can. The model of "Development" promoted by Blair, the African Commission and Oxfam, can only see a focus on export-led agriculture as a solution to Africa's problems. This completely ignores the repeated assertions of many development NGOs that Africa's priorities for dealing with hunger should focus on growing food for her citizens, and not growing export products that they cannot eat and that get ever-decreasing prices as they compete on the world market. Furthermore, it seems that any concessions that the G8 countries are willing to make on debt relief or aid come at an unacceptably high cost. The conditionalities set by the recent and widely celebrated agreement for debt relief, force countries to open up to privatization by Western companies. Aid conditionalities are likely to be the same. Calls for "Development" in Africa are likely to be seized upon as more opportunities for the West to dictate policies that allow them to exploit all they can from the continent, both in terms of resources and agriculture, and through privatizing services that will generate millions for multinational corporations. This is not a model of development that will feed Africans. Nor will it end poverty, protect the environment, provide affordable and necessary services or increase sovereignty, democracy and grassroots people power. Blair¹s commitment to "Making Poverty History" is shallow and deceptive, for instead it will only serve to make poverty inevitable. |
| Gizoogle | 3 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 05:23 http://gizoogle.com "I started the site a few weeks ago," says Beatty, a 28-year-old Web designer. "I was talking to my buddy on AOL Instant Messenger and he always talks in that izzle-speak, and I do it to my wife all the time and she hates it. I was thinking that it might be cool if there was a site that searched and all of the answers came up in that format." It started as a joke and a homage to Snoop Dogg for bringing izzle-speak back to the hip lexicon. But now the Web site is clocking 60,000 hits a day, according to Beatty. In February, the site landed at No. 4 on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List." Only U2's "All Because of You" video, Patricia Arquette in "Medium" and the movie "Aliens of the Deep" were rated cooler. In geek-speak, here is how the site works: Using a programming language called PHP, the program counts the syllables and vowels and adds "izzle" whenever possible and also throws in some of Snoop's lyrics. As a homage to Snoop's show, "I made it so that television pops up as televizzle every time," says Beatty, whose full-time job is running Originalicons.com, a Web site that provides instant-messaging buddy icons. The Gizoogle site also offers a translator called a "textilizer." If you input the words to something, say, sweet and innocent, such as the "Barney" theme song, and hit enter you get something like: I love you / you love me / we're one stoked family / witta bootylicious big hug and a kiss fizzle from me ta you / won't you say you love me, too? The Gizoogle site mirrors Google's multicolored lettering, but the O's in Gizoogle are filled with chromed-out wheel rims. "When I first put the site up, I had these crappy gold spoke rims on there and then my friend was like, you have got to get some spinners on there," Beatty says. Google officials aren't commenting, but this isn't the first time Google has had to deal with folks biting its style. In 2004, lawyers for Google challenged Booble, a porn search engine. Booble changed its look and is still up and running. And Beatty isn't the only one out there izzilating. The master himself, Snoop Dogg, has his own version on his Web site, SnoopDogg.com. "After I put the site up, someone called me and told about Snoop's thing," Beatty says. Gizoogle "is a parody site," he says. " . . . I think that the people at Google have a pretty good sense of humor. It is all in good fun. . . . I look at this like a science project. I am just trying to see how far I can take it." More > |
| Organic Cotton | 2 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 02:43 DID YOU KNOW... _Globally, cotton production uses 25 percent of the agricultural chemicals and 3 percent of the cropland. _Demand for cotton grown without chemicals has grown 300 percent since 2002. _Celebrities have boosted the profile of organic and fair-trade apparel. Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, launched a fair-trade organic sportswear line earlier this year. Retailers who offer merchandise to ethically motivated consumers are a very small part of the commerce picture. The Internet has become both an alternative marketplace and shopping guide for much of the merchandise. Here is a small sample of the many Web sites that offer such clothing and accessories. Some can also be found in retail stores. _No Sweatshop (www.nosweatshop.com); Offers sportswear made in union shops. Adam Neiman, president, says the idea was conceived by friends and family around the kitchen table in 2000. It launched in late 2002. A new sneaker in 2004 helped put the brand on the map. _Global Girlfriend (www.globalgirlfriend.com); Sold only on the Internet. Colorado-based founder Stacey Edger started the company two years ago on a $2,000 tax rebate. Offers a marketplace for women artisans in cooperatives and nonprofit groups in low-income areas such as India and Africa. Has a wide range, from handmade jewelry to soap to handbags. She calls it a "women's rights" business. _People Tree (www.peopletree.com); The London-based company works with 70 producer groups in 20 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to offer organic cotton and hand-woven fabrics. The selection includes striking prints and colorful, trendy items. The line is said to be favored by actresses Minnie Driver and Sienna Miller. _Indigenous Designs (www.indigenousdesigns.com); The 11-year-old California-based company works with knitting cooperatives and other artisans in many communities around the globe. Offers assistance in quality control and planning management to market ecologically friendly fair trade apparel on the Web and in retail stores. More > |
| Genetically Engineered Trees Pose Risks to Natural Forests | 0 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 02:39 Genetically Engineered Trees Pose Risks to Natural Forests Transgenic Trees Pose Risks for Natural Foresters, Orchardists PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, June 21, 2005 (ENS) - Participants at BioDemocracy 2005, the alternative conference to the Biotechnology Industry Organization's yearly gathering, are demanding a ban on the release of genetically engineered (GE) trees into the environment. "Genetically engineered trees are already being researched in the field, and industry is moving rapidly toward commercialization without regard for the predictable and inevitable impacts they will have on ecosystems and communities," four conservation groups said in a statement today. The Sierra Club, the Global Justice Ecology Project, Southern Forests Network and STOP GE Trees Campaign say there has been little risk assessment on the impacts of gene drift from genetically modified trees, and they charge that regulatory agencies are acting as facilitators for industry rather than champions of the public interest. "Gene drift has caused widespread contamination of non-GE seeds in farm crops less than a decade after commercialization," said Alyx Perry, coordinator of the Southern Forests Network. "GE trees will much more quickly contaminate forests with traits that could make them incapable of producing sawtimber and unable to support wildlife," said Perry. Test plots of genetically engineered in the Southeast threaten to contaminate the forests of Pennsylvania and the entire east coast of the United States and Canada, the groups warn. "Transgenic forestry focuses on native trees species that have pollen and seeds historically known to travel for hundreds if not thousands of miles," they said today. Legal concerns are being raised about the potential escape of genetically modified tree pollen or seeds into native trees. The conservationists cite the Canadian case of canola farmer Percy Schmeiser who was successfully sued by Monsanto for patent violations when his crops were contaminated by Monsanto's transgenic canola. Schmeiser lost his canola crop and had to pay $160,000 in legal fees. "This opens the very serious question about who will own trees on public or private lands that become contaminated by GE tree pollen, and what will be the legal and financial ramifications for the owners of that land," the groups said. Proponents of transgenic trees say they offer potential solutions to forestry problems. In a 2004 study, Roger Sedjo of Resources for the Future, says, "Transgenic trees could increase the productivity of industrial wood, and benefit the environment by taking the pressure off of old-growth and natural forests." Sedjo says other benefits include restoration of certain diseased or damaged tree species, as well as toxic cleanup and bioremediation, by creating trees to remove heavy metals and other toxics from contaminated soils in places where other forms of cleanup are too expensive. "Just as in agriculture, biotechnology and transgenics are controversial topics in forestry," Sedjo acknowledges. There are many aspects to the controversy, as today's comments of the conservation groups indicate. "In addition to GE trees threatening Pennsylvania's native forests, GE apple trees, being researched in nearby Cornell University, threaten the millions of conventional and organic apple trees in production in Pennsylvania," said Dr. Neil Carman of the Sierra Club. "GE contamination could lead to economic disaster for Pennsylvania's apple growers in much the same way that GE papaya in Hawaii has wiped out many conventional and organic papaya farmers there. The only solution is to ban the release of GE trees into the environment," Carman said. "While the genetic engineering PR spin doctors are cranking out propaganda about how GE trees will solve our problems, the fact is GE trees will cause massive new problems, some of which we can't possibly foresee," said Orin Langelle, coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign, an alliance of 13 organizations from the U.S. and Canada committed to banning transgenic trees. |
| Global Commercial Whaling Ban Upheld | 0 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 02:37 Global Commercial Whaling Ban Upheld ULSAN, South Korea, June 21, 2005 (ENS) - There will be no legal commercial whaling at least for another year, the International Whaling Commission has decided. Member governments voted today to uphold the 19 year old global whaling moratorium, handing a defeat to Japan and other pro-whaling nations. Japan's proposal to resume commercial whaling needed a three-fourths majority to succeed, but it failed to achieve even a simple majority. Commission members voted 29 to 23 against the proposal, with five abstentions. s "This is a win for whales," said Australian Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell, a delegate at the meeting. "It's also a win for the people of Australia and other like-minded nations, who were determined that the world would not take a step back towards the re-opening of commercial whaling." "This morning, the world stood at the edge of an abyss," Campbell said. "If pro-whaling nations had succeeded, we would have moved back toward the dark ages of commercial whaling. Instead, the world moved forward into an era where conservation and the environment are the winners." Humpback whale in the Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary (Photo by Stan Butler courtesy NOAA) The International Whaling Commission (IWC) member nations voted on Japan¹s proposed Revised Management Scheme, a set of regulations that would govern any resumption of commercial whaling, banned worldwide since 1986. Even IWC countries that are sympathetic to commercial whaling, such as China and Korea, withheld their support by abstaining from the vote. Japan pleaded support for the Revised Management Scheme, saying that approval would restore the IWC to its original function, the management of whaling. "This deadlock serves the sustainable whaling interests," said Rune Frovik, secretary of the High North Alliance, a pro-whaling organization based in Norway's Lofoten Islands. ³There is no willingness to compromise. In such a situation, the whaling nations are perfectly capable of responsibly managing their whaling operations outside of IWC control.² Norway conducts the world's only commercial whaling season, by taking a reservation to the IWC ban. Japan, Norway and Iceland advocate what they term "sustainable use" of whales, and are expected to kill at least 1,500 whales of six species this year. Critics of the moratorium say Japan should leave the IWC and invite Iceland and Norway to join it in forming a new body that will regulate whaling and set sustainable whaling quotas, functions they say were the original purpose of the IWC. On Monday, Japan introduced a plan to more than double its annual "scientific research" kill of minke whales to 935 from 440 this year under a scientific whaling program allowed under the IWC rules. The new plan adds humpback and fin whales to the kill list, which already includes sperm, sei and Bryde's whales that Japan has taken since 2002. Environmentalists and conservation countries say this is commercial whaling in disguise. "The whales won this one," said Dr. Joth Singh, director of Wildlife and Habitat for the International Fund for Animal Welfare at the IWC meeting. "We're heartened that the pro-conservation majority at the IWC has rejected the Japanese plan. But the harsh reality is that thousands of whales will still be killed later this year when Japan sends its fleet out to kill whales in the name of science." "This vote exposed the countries whose only mandate at the IWC is to vote with Japan, along with Russia, Norway and Iceland," said Nicola Beynon of the Humane Society International at the meeting. Benyon says her organization fears that resolutions will come forward Wednesday to expedite a compromise with Japan at next year's meeting. Such resolutions would only require a simple majority to succeed. On Wednesday, the meeting will discuss sanctuaries and scientific whaling. Brazil and Argentina are putting forward their proposal for a South Atlantic sanctuary, while Japan is planning to abolish the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. Australia will forward a resolution condemning scientific whaling Wednesday, while Japan will propose a resolution to endorse it. A ceremony at the Ulsan Whale Festival, in Ulsan, South Korea, during the IWC meeting. June 19, 2005. (Photo © Greenpeace/Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert) Greenpeacers who have been in Ulsan campaigning against whaling since April were delighted with the vote. But they decried Ulsan's Whale Festival which celebrates Ulsan's history of whaling. It is legal to eat whale meat in Korea if the whale is caught and killed accidentally while fishing, known as bycatch. "By some amazing coincidence," Greenpeace said, several minke whales have been "accidentally" caught just in time for the Festival. One juvenile minke whale, caught two days ago, was sold for about US$31,000. Greenpeace obtained video footage of the purchase of a whaling harpoon in an ordinary fishing tackle store, showing, the group says, "that some accidents aren't accidental." Countries voting for the Japanese commercial whaling proposal: Antigua & Barbuda, Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Gabon, Grenada, Guinea, Iceland, Japan, Mauritania, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Norway, Palau, Russia, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Suriname, and Tuvalu. Countries voting against the Japanese proposal: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Portugal, San Marino, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Countries abstaining: China, Denmark, Kiribati, Korea, Morocco |
| USDA Asked to Bring Organic Food Regulations Into Compliance with 1990 Law | 0 comments |
| 24 Jun 2005 @ 02:36 USDA Asked to Bring Organic Food Regulations Into Compliance with 1990 Law Posted 6/23/05 USDA Organic Regs Violate 1990 Law USDA asked to bring organic food regulations into compliance with 1990 law Court Ruling Finds Some Current Regulations Violate "Organic Foods Production Act" WASHINGTON < (NATURALWIRE) < Six agriculture, retail and food safety groups have petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to update organic food labeling rules following a judge¹s ruling in the case of Harvey v. Johanns, which found that existing regulations concerning the use of synthetic substances in food products labeled "organic" and the feeding of new dairy cows violated the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990. The petitioners are asking for a number of regulatory changes designed to ensure the long-term integrity of the "organic" label, to create an equitable and consistent standard that aids dairy farmer transition to organic, and to bring the current National Organic Program (NOP) regulations into compliance with the federal court's January 2005 ruling. "The Organic Foods Production Act is strong as it stands and needs to be defended against weakening through interpretation or unwarranted tinkering," said Joseph Mendelson, legal director for Center for Food Safety. "Our petition to USDA is intended to resolve inconsistencies between the law and the organic program regulations without opening up the law to wholesale changes. Regulatory changes to the National Organic Program should be pursued and exhausted before any attempt is made to amend the law." In October 2002, just days after the rules governing organic under NOP were implemented, Maine blueberry farmer Arthur Harvey filed suit against USDA claiming that the USDA regulations governing foods labeled "organic" contravened several principles of the OFPA. Having initially lost on all counts, Harvey prevailed in January 2005 when the Court of Appeals ruled in his favor on the three counts finding: 1. Synthetic substances are not permitted in processing of items labeled as "organic," and only allowed in the "made with organic" labeling category. 2. Provisions allowing up to 20-percent non-organic feed in the first nine months of a dairy herd's one-year conversion to organic production are not permitted. 3. All exemptions for the use of non-organic products "not commercially available in organic form² must be reviewed by National Organic Standards Board, and certifiers must review the operator¹s attempt to source organic. "We are calling on USDA to ensure the integrity of food products labeled organic," said Jay Feldman, executive director of Washington-based Beyond Pesticides. "As greater numbers of people flock to food produced without synthetic chemicals, it becomes ever more essential to guard our organic standards against constant and corrosive reinterpretation." The petition filed today by the Center for Food Safety, Beyond Pesticides, National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, National Cooperative Grocers Association, National Organic Coalition and Rural Advancement Foundation International USA, provides the USDA with specific corrections that will correct the illegalities currently found in the USDA regulations. "Both consumers and retailers whom we represent view the outcome of the Harvey lawsuit as an opportunity to strengthen the regulations within the USDA's National Organic Program and to further differentiate organic products in the marketplace," noted Robynn Shrader of the National Cooperative Grocers Association. Michael Sligh, from Rural Advancement Foundation International, and founding chair of the USDA¹s National Organic Standards Board concluded: ³We believe that consumer and farmer rights and expectations under OFPA should be preserved and defended, and that the organic industry must be willing to adopt practices that maintain the integrity, high standards, and market viability of the organic label in the long term.² Petitioners are asking USDA to make the proposed regulatory changes complete within 12 months of June 9, 2005 |