"Stephen Leahy" - Europe Sowing the Seeds of Hunger

Published on Thursday, May 26, 2011 by Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/26-3

by Stephen Leahy

LEIPZIG, Germany - Europe is facing a hungry future unless it changes agricultural policies and makes farmers the main participants in agriculture research, a new report has found. And there is little hope of meeting Europe's recently announced goal of reducing the loss of biodiversity in ten years without making those changes.

"The kind of farming that makes most money in the shortest time is absolutely at odds with the kind of farming that could feed us, and that could continue to feed us," writes biologist and author Colin Tudge. France is suffering a severe drought but Europe's seed laws prevent farmers from using a wider variety of seeds that could help them cope, says Michel Pimbert of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), non-profit research institute based in London.

"Our seed laws enforce uniformity. France can only plant approved seeds and those new varieties need a lot of water," Pimbert, the author of the report told IPS.

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"Nesrine Malik" - Dubai's Skyscrapers, Stained by the Blood of Migrant Workers

Published on Friday, May 27, 2011 by the Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/27/dubai-migrant-worker-deaths

Dubai seems to be a place where the worst of western capitalism and Gulf Arab racism meet in a horrible vortex

by Nesrine Malik

Visiting Dubai on a work trip, I was wandering the resplendent hallways of my a hotel searching for an ATM when a commotion occurred. Some of the hotel staff were scurrying about, looking obviously distressed. I asked one of them if there was any trouble and he responded with a glossy smile. There was no trouble, madam, and was there anything he could help me with?

A few hours later, I discovered that there had indeed been trouble. A man – an Indian worker – had jumped from Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and a symbol of Dubai's prowess. It is a needle-shaped skyscraper which impales the bleak Dubai sky.

Originally known as Burj Dubai, the building was planned during the city's orgiastic construction phase, where the sky was the limit, but completed after the bubble had burst. It was then renamed in honor of Abu Dhabi's ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, who rescued Dubai from its debt crisis.

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"Nick Macfie" - Greenpeace Slams Japan Response to Nuclear Crisis, Cites Sea Radiation

Published on Friday, May 27, 2011 by Reuters

by Nick Macfie

TOKYO - Environmental group Greenpeace on Thursday slammed Japan's "continued inadequate response" to the nuclear disaster at a power plant after new data showed seaweed radiation levels 50 times higher than official limits.

The new intormation raised "serious concerns" about long-term risks from contaminated seawater, it said, more than two months after the Fukushima-Daiichi plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami.

"In contrast, Japanese authorities claim that radioactivity is being dispersed or diluted and are undertaking only limited marine radiation monitoring," it said.

"Our data show that significant amounts of contamination continue to spread over great distances from the Fukushima nuclear plant," a statement quoted radiation expert Jan Vande Putte as saying.

"Despite what the authorities are claiming, radioactive hazards are not decreasing through dilution or dispersion of materials, but the radioactivity is instead accumulating in marine life. The concentration of radioactive iodine we found in seaweed is particularly concerning, as it tells us how far contamination is spreading along the coast, and because several species of seaweed are widely eaten in Japan."



"David DeGraw" - Divided and Conquered America: How “Independent” Media Undermines Mass Movements For Meaningful Change

http://ampedstatus.org/divided-and-conquered-america-how-independent-media-undermines-mass-movements-for-meaningful-change/

May 26, 2011

By David DeGraw, 

After much research you realize that there are very few people who know our current system of power well enough to critique it in a meaningful and effective way. There are very few people who are brave and courageous enough to boldly speak their hard-earned truth to power. Once you understand how the powerful function to divide and conquer us, you break free from the groupthink partisanship that is pivotal in preventing any meaningful mass movements for structural change. It is at this point that you learn to appreciate the all-too rare “truth-tellers.” It doesn’t matter what their individual political leanings are — most often they defy any pre-existing ideology. Ultimately, you respect the fact that they are exposing the deeper and more meaningful truths that are necessary for critical thinking and the evolution of your own perspective. In this regard, Chris Hedges is one of our leading truth-tellers. He courageously refuses to be pinned down into a partisan cage. He most often comes from a progressive perspective, but he has no hesitation in exposing the destructive role the Democratic party and “liberal establishment” play in our demise.

Here are two brief quotes from Hedges ^[4] that I would like to call attention to:

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"Josh Gerstein and Charles Hoskinson" - House Wrestles Over War-on-Terror Measure

Published on Thursday, May 26, 2011 by Politico.com

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55737.html

by Josh Gerstein and Charles Hoskinson

House Republican leaders will attempt Thursday to beat back an effort by Democrats and at least a few GOP lawmakers to defeat a legislative proposal that critics contend will expand and indefinitely extend the war on terror.

The update to the Authorization for Use of Military Force — passed three days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — is part of the annual defense policy bill that the House Armed Services Committee approved 60-1 earlier this month.

The fate of the new use-of-force provision could signal whether the U.S. intends to press on with a largely military approach to the war on terror in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, or whether lawmakers are prepared to gradually rein in the conflict.

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"Douglas A. McIntyre" - The Most Dangerous Cities in America

by Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter and Charles B. Stockdale
Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Earlier this week, the FBI trumpeted the news that violent crime dropped 5.5% in 2010 while reported property crimes fell 2.8% during the depths of the worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The news, though, is far from positive.

Though most regions of the U.S. saw declines, the Northeast saw an increase in murders (8.3%), forcible rapes (1.4%) and aggravated assaults (0.7%). Why that region was affected by crime more than others isn't clear. Perhaps it was because of the grinding poverty found in some of the area's cities and their high cost of living.

The Police Executive Research Forum polled 233 local law enforcement agencies in 2009, and found that the link between poverty and crime was inextricable. A prolonged recession would only make matters worse, the research showed. After reviewing the data, PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler told Reuters, "We are not saying there is going to be a crime wave, but we are saying this is a wake-up call and we anticipate the situation will continue to deteriorate."

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"Medline Plus" - Study Finds Almost 1 in 5 Young Adults Has High Blood Pressure

Rate is much higher than was previously reported in 24- to 32-year-olds in U.S.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_112467.html (*this news item will not be available after 08/23/2011)

Medline Plus Wednesday, May 25, 2011

WEDNESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- About 19 percent of U.S. adults aged 24 to 32 have high blood pressure, but many of them are unaware that they have the potentially life-threatening condition, new research reveals.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is associated with a slew of health problems, including coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke and kidney failure. The study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), found the risk for this condition among young adults is actually greater than previously thought.

Researchers analyzed the blood pressure readings of more than 14,000 young adults who took part in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

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"Ira Chernus" - Israel and the Palestinians Through the Looking Glass

The Myths That Underpin the Failure of American Policy in the Middle East
By Ira Chernus

Posted on May 26, 2011, Printed on May 26, 2011
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175397/

Tuches aufn tish: Buttocks on the table. That’s the colorful way my Yiddish-speaking ancestors said, “Let’s cut the BS and talk about honest truth.” It seems like a particularly apt expression after a week watching the shadow-boxing between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that brought no tangible progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The truth, like the table, is usually hard and uncomfortable. President Obama’s carefully hedged public call for a two-state solution along Israel’s 1967 borders may indeed represent a new step. Maybe it will even prove part of some long-range game plan that will eventually pay off.  But here’s the problem: as of now, Obama shows no inclination to back his words with the power the U.S. government could wield. Until he does, those words won’t provoke any change in Israel’s domination of the Palestinians.

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"Julianne Escobedo Shepherd" - US Has Fourth-Highest Income Inequality Rate in the World

By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, AlterNet
Posted on May 26, 2011, Printed on May 26, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/599266/us_has_fourth-highest_income_inequality_rate_in_the_world

A recent report issued by Paris\'  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development analyzes the countries around the world with the highest income inequality rate, per capita. And guess where the United States sits? At number four -- right after Chile, Mexico and Turkey. Given our country\'s unemployment rate -- noted today to have jumped unexpectedly last week --compared to our proportion of billionaires (of the richest people on the planet, the US claims four of the top ten), this doesn\'t come as a huge surprise. But it does underscore what happens to a country in which the wealthy live on the backs of the poor -- for evidence, check these Mother Jones charts that illustrate why Congress is friendlier to Wall Street than Main Street.

List below; read more at the Huffington Post.

Highest Income inequality Rates in the World

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"www.sciencedaily.com" - Chlorine and Childhood Cancer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110525083735.htm

ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — A significant positive association between the risk of childhood leukemia and levels of chlorine-containing chemicals in the atmosphere has been found by researchers in Portugal. Details are reported in the current issue of the International Journal of Environment and Health.

Maria do Carmo Freitas of the Technological and Nuclear Institute in Sacavém, Portugal, and statistician Maria Martinho of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, USA, emphasise that potential emissions from paper-related industry, forest fires, pesticides manufacturing, heavy chemical industry and fossil fuel power stations may lead to higher levels of chlorine-containing carcinogens in the air.

Freitas and colleague have investigated the correlation between atmospheric pollution levels of 22 chemical elements, including arsenic, nickel, lead and mercury, as gleaned from an analysis of lichens used as biomarkers of these pollutants and looked at the leukemia deaths in 275 counties across Portugal.

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