“John Lichfield” - G8 summit expected to approve aid package for 'Arab Spring' states

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/g8-summit-expected-to-approve-aid-package-for-arab-spring-states-2289765.html

Industrialised nations will promise cash to support democracy in the Middle East

By John Lichfield in Deauville

Friday, 27 May 2011

Leaders of the world's richest nations will promise today to provide loans and cash to shore up the economies of the so-called Arab Spring countries, where people have risen up against authoritarian leaders, but they might stop short of accepting the sweeping "Middle East Marshall Plan" which some had called for.

Leaders of the G8 group of industrial nations are expected to approve the principle of a special aid package for Egypt and Tunisia at the end of the two-day summit in Deauville, Normandy, today. But the final summit statement is expected – partly as a result of US opposition – to avoid the specific cash and loan promises that the newly democratised Arab countries had hoped for.

British officials said that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, was ready to promise £110m in aid for such countries over four years. The initial beneficiaries would be Tunisia and Egypt. Both have struggled to restore stability after pro-democracy protests which removed Tunisia's president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt a month later.

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“Greg Guma” - Truth Decay: Conspiracy Theories and Hoaxes Are Blurring Reality

Maverick Media / By Greg Guma

How about some accountability for the false prophets, gross opportunists, and irresponsible rumor-mongers who threaten society with truth decay?

May 25, 2011  

After his End Times prediction failed last week millionaire radio prophet Harold Camping eventually came up with an excuse.  During his show "Open Forum" in Oakland on May 23, he explained that the world will still end in October. It’s a process and we’re just getting started. That’s a relief. At first I thought millions of people had just wasted days of time and energy fussing over some hairbrained idea.

There are so many theories out there. Obama is a secret Muslim – millions of people believe that, secular humanists want to repress religion, and liberals are plotting to confiscate people’s guns and push a “gay agenda.” At the opposite end of the political spectrum, there's the assertion that 9/11 was an inside job and all that this entails. No offense meant. I’ve been called a “conspiracy nut” myself, specifically for saying that we should know more about the attack on the Twin Towers. Still, a modern-day Reichstag fire at multiple locations does qualify as a radical conclusion.

I usually resist the urge to challenge the controversial theories of fellow travelers, at least in mixed company. The other night, for example, during a discussion about Al-Qaeda after Osama, a speaker casually asserted that President Roosevelt knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor in advance and let it happen. No one said a word. I considered questioning the notion but let it pass.

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“Tom Laskawy”- Groups sue FDA to stop Big Ag antibiotic abuse—and it just might work

http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-05-25-groups-sue-fda-to-stop-big-ag-antibiotic-abuse-just-might-work

by Tom Laskawy

25 May 2011

A growing weight of research links routine antibiotic use on factory farms to the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria -- which are showing up in more and more places worldwide (including, according to recent studies, in your local supermarket). Doctor groups, from the American Medical Association to the American Society of Microbiology, have appealed to the government and industry to restrict the practice, lest critical antibiotics become useless for human treatments.

Over the past couple of years, the FDA changed its tune and has finally begun to respond to the threat. Top officials at the FDA have testified of the dangers to Congress. The agency itself is developing "voluntary guidance" that would restrict the practice -- which currently sees 80 percent of all antibiotics used in this country given to food animals.

Sadly, though, the FDA is still whistling when it should be belting its song to the rafters. In fact, the meat industry has successfully resisted, and in the case of the antibiotic Cephalosporin, turned back via "midnight regulations" by outgoing Bush administration FDA officials, specific measures meant to address this threat to public health.

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“Tom Philpott” - Now that the FDA itself has found BPA in canned foods, will it regulate the poison?

http://www.grist.org/scary-food/2011-05-26-now-that-the-fda-itself-has-found-bpa-in-canned-foods-will-it-it

by Tom Philpott

26 May 2011

Oh, yes we can: It's time for the FDA to act on its own information regarding canned foods and BPA.The next time an FDA panel convenes to discuss whether to ban BPA, the endocrine-disrupting industrial chemical used in can liners, it will have new data to consider -- a study by the agency's own scientists. In a just-released report, they tested a range of commonly used canned foods, from peas to chili, and found "detectable" levels of BPA in 71 of 78 samples.

Given that millions of Americans consume these foods daily and that the dangers of BPA have been known for years now, you might think there's a broad range of studies looking at the question of BPA leaching into everyday foods. Not so. The FDA researchers surveyed the literature, and found a glaring hole. They write:

It was clear that there were no large scale studies of the U.S. market and that there were significant data gaps for highly consumed canned foods, such as chili, pastas and pork and beans.

So now the gap has been filled and we know that a broad swath of the public is exposed regularly to a toxin known to cause harm at extremely low levels. Will the FDA now act to banish it?

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“Stephen Leahy” - Europe Sowing the Seeds of Hunger

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

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

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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“Guy Adams” - Slash and Burn: Brazil Shreds Laws Protecting Its Rainforests

n a move described as "disastrous" by conservationists, the nation's congress backed a bill relaxing laws on the deforestation of hilltops and the amount of vegetation farmers must preserve. (AFP/Getty Images) In a move described as "disastrous" by conservationists, the nation's congress backed a bill relaxing laws on the deforestation of hilltops and the amount of vegetation farmers must preserve. The law also offers partial amnesties for fines levied against landowners who have illegally destroyed tracts of rainforest. The legislation, which must still be passed by the Brazillian Senate and approved by President Dilma Rousseff, aims to help owners of smaller farms and ranches compete with under-regulated rivals in countries such as the USA and Argentina.

At present, under Brazil's forest code passed in 1965, 80 per cent of all property in the Amazon basin is supposed to be left as untouched forest. In other parts of the country, that figure ranges from between 20 and 35 per cent, depending on the ecosystem of the particular region.

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“Sahil Kapur” - Dick Cheney: ‘I Worship the Ground That Paul Ryan Walks On’

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/26-5

Published on Thursday, May 26, 2011 by Raw Story

by Sahil Kapur

Former vice president Dick Cheney heaped praise on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), author of the GOP’s budget blueprint to phase out Medicare and replace it with a subsidies system for seniors to buy private insurance.

“I worship the ground the Paul Ryan walks on,” Cheney said Wednesday at a Houston event hosted by the KPMG Global Energy Institute. “I think he’s an enormously talented individual and he’s trying to do the right thing. And he deserves the support, all the support we can provide him.”

“We need to get serious about dealing with [our] debt problem,” the former vice president explained.

Most of the government’s $14.3 trillion debt is a result of Bush-era policies, such as tax cuts for the wealthy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Cheney’s concern for the deficit appears to be relatively new. He famously said in 2004, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” according to President Bush’s first Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill.

Watch the video, clipped by ThinkProgress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siYAdl5hvJI&feature=player_embedded

“Andrew Taylor” - Tom Coburn: John Ensign Ethics Report 'Inaccurate'

Andrew Taylor

May 26, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/26/tom-coburn-john-ensign-_n_867711.html

WASHINGTON — Sen. Tom Coburn on Thursday decried as "totally inaccurate" an account by the Senate ethics panel of his role in negotiations involving disgraced colleague Sen. John Ensign and the husband of the woman with whom Ensign was having an affair.

Coburn said an account by another key witness – who said Coburn took an active role in negotiations between Ensign and former aide Doug Hampton over relocating Hampton and a potential payout – "is not an accurate reflection of what happened."

In an interview taped for C-SPAN's Newsmakers, Coburn said he was proud of the role he played in helping break off the affair between Ensign and Hampton's wife Cynthia.

"What I did I would do exactly the same way again," Coburn said. "And there's nothing unethical in what we did."

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“Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster” - Building Bridges of Freedom: The Interfaith Movement to End Slavery

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster

May 26, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-rachel-kahntroster/building-bridges-of-freed_b_865969.html

What do a minister, a rabbi and a nun have in common? In the case of myself, Reverend David Schilling of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sister Estrella Castalone of Talitha Kum, it is the fierce desire to see an end to modern slavery. David's organization harnesses the power of socially responsible investing and shareholder resolutions to demand that corporations eliminate slavery from their supply chains. Sister Estrella heads an international coalition of orders of religious women who fight trafficking and bring comfort and support to its survivors. And Rabbis for Human Rights-North America is the moral conscience of the American Jewish community, mobilizing our members to speak out against this largely invisible human rights atrocity.

Last week, thanks to the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and St. Thomas University, we spoke together in Rome to ask how faith communities, government, non-profits and the business sector can work together to end slavery. "Building Bridges of Freedom: Public-Private Partnerships to End Modern Slavery" brought together leaders from all these constituencies to share knowledge, promote best practices, and to stratigize about coalitions to fight human trafficking and modern slavery. We were challenged: How can faith communities do more than just provide services to victims? What corporations are leaders for transparency in supply chains and what legislation is needed to ensure that others follow? How do we engage the human rights community at large to focus more on the problem of slavery? How can we work together to be most effective in a time when resources are stretched?

Let's not use euphemisms when talking about the problem. Not slave-like conditions, not low wages or lack of benefits, but slavery. Slavery may be illegal everywhere, including for nearly 150 years here in the United States, but it flourishes. More than 800,000 to 2 million people are trafficked across borders each year, including nearly 20,000 to the United States. Add to this number the millions of people held as forced prostitution, child soldiers, indentured domestic servants and debt laborers within their own countries, and estimates of the number of modern slaves rises to a range of 12 million to 27 million people -- and some of the activists I have spoken with think these estimates are conservative. There are more people enslaved today than at any other point in human history. And human life is cheap: You can easily buy another person for $50 to $100, a price point that makes it more effective to buy a new person than to heal a sick one. As Ambassador Luis CdeBaca said, "Human trafficking is not a crime of movement, but of exploitation."

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“Dr. Mercola” - Why Eating Red Meat May Cause Cancer

Dr. Mercola

May 26, 2011

http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2011/05/26/why-eating-red-meat-may-cause-cancer.aspx

A recent study looked at meat consumption and the risk of esophageal and gastric cancers.  The researchers discovered that people with a high intake of red meat -- about 5 oz. per day -- were 80 percent more likely to develop esophageal cancer.

Meat cooked at high temperatures releases chemical compounds called heterocyclic amines that are considered carcinogenic.  In addition, iron, which is present in large quantities in red meant, has been shown to cause cancer in animal studies.

According to FYI Living:

“Evidence that red meat is linked to other cancers besides esophageal is stronger, including colorectal and liver cancers.”