News for March 13, 2006

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Hamas Uses A Mask Of Sweet Talk (March 6, 2006) - Hamas officials are going all out to mask their group’s violent intentions towards Israel in the language of “moderation” so as to realign deteriorating Western support behind the “Palestinian cause.” Speaking to reporters in Moscow Sunday [March 5] after three days of talks with their Russian hosts, senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal said: “Hamas must change its manners. We know that very well. But what we are saying is that we want a response from the Israelis. If you want Hamas to change its policies, you must also request that the Israelis change their policies.” The changes Israel must make, spelled out on several occasions by Hamas leaders, constitute a complete surrender to all current Arab demands: Israel back to pre-1967 borders, Judea and Samaria free of Jews, control of the eastern half of Jerusalem, and doors open to four to six million “Palestinian refugees.” Reading between the lines, Hamas is saying that if Israel allows itself to be flooded with Arabs, then Hamas will of course cease its “military” activity since the Jewish state will be no more and there will be no one to fight. Israeli leaders have engaged in efforts to prevent their ostensible allies in the West from being taken in by the terrorists’ sweet talk. “Hamas is trying to mislead the international community, to sweet-talk it and to exhibit an appearance of responsibility,” said Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to visiting United States State Department envoy David Welch. Israel’s efforts in this area, however, seem as doomed to failure as past efforts to keep Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization on the world’s blacklists, as an increasing number of nations invite Hamas for official talks. (Excerpts from an article by Ryan Jones, Jerusalem Newswire, March 6, 2006)

Moscow Goes Overboard For Hamas Jerusalem Post (March 5, 2006) - The Hamas delegation received a royal welcome in snowy Moscow on Friday [March 3]. The visit drew an enormous amount of attention among the foreign and local media. More then 400 journalists lined up for strict security checks in front of the RIA Novosty news agency building in the city center, to attend the press conference held by the delegation, headed by the organization’s chief, Khaled Mashaal. “Only President Reagan’s visit [in 1988] was covered as extensively as Hamas’s visit,” said a veteran Russian reporter. He said, “Not even half of these people would show up for Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas], were he to hold a press conference today.” Since early Friday morning [March 3], every TV news report, newspaper headline and radio broadcast in Moscow has begun with Hamas. There was no pattern to the reports, but rather a great deal of confusion as to how this unusual visit should be covered and how the delegation should be addressed. Russian President Vladimir Putin said shortly after Hamas’s election victory that “Russia had never seen Hamas as a terrorist organization,” but many local newspapers and news agencies regularly refer to the organization and its leaders as terrorists. Few dared to use that word regarding the current delegation. Many struggled to find a formula that would not offend anyone while still implying that Hamas was still quite an ambiguous player. The security arrangements could not have been any tighter: In addition to elite Russian guards, there were a dozen of Mashaal’s own security men, imported from Syria. Joking with journalists, Mashaal projected firmness, optimism and confidence. “We are welcoming the attention to our visit by the Russian and foreign media, and ready to answer any question,” said Mashaal. He expressed his deepest gratitude to the Russian government and nation, “which always enjoyed excellent relations with Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and is about to play a great role in the Middle East nowadays.” (Excerpted from an article by Ksenia Svetlova, Jerusalem Post, March 5, 2006, with contributions by Gil Hoffman and AP.)

Japanese Make Gasoline from Cow Dung (March 3, 2006) - MyWay News reports that scientists in energy-poor Japan said Friday they have found a new source of gasoline - cattle dung. Sakae Shibusawa, an agriculture engineering professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, said his team has successfully extracted gasoline from cow dung by applying high pressure and heat. “The new technology will be a boon for livestock breeders”, Shibusawa said, adding that they hope to improve the technology so that it can be used commercially within five years. more...

Mubarak urges Israel-Hamas dialogue (March 13, 2006) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Israel and Hamas on Monday to talk to each other once the radical Palestinian group forms a new government, saying both sides must change hard-line positions to avoid further violence and chaos. Mubarak also appealed the international community to continue financial aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian government, declaring the cutting off such support would cause further suffering and increase terrorism in the region. Mubarak spoke to reporters after meeting with President Heinz Fischer as part of a European tour that took him to Germany on the weekend for discussions that focused on Hamas and concerns over Iran’s nuclear program. He was scheduled to meet with Pope Benedict XVI later Monday evening returning home. At a meeting in Cairo earlier this month, Egypt and the rest of the Arab League countries urged the Hamas leadership to adhere to a 2002 Arab initiative that suggested a trade of peace for land with the Jewish state. As a second step, said Mubarak, Hamas “would have to renounce violence” against Israel, expressing confidence that the group “will accept all solutions” set down by the international community as conditions for recognition and further support. The EU on Friday threatened to cut off aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian government “unless it seeks peace by peaceful means.” But Mubarak said any such move would mostly hurt average Palestinians who depend on such support to send their children to school and to provide medical care for the family. more...

Raging Texas Wildfire Blamed for 6 Deaths (March 13, 2006) - A raging 300,000-acre wildfire in the Texas Panhandle was blamed for six deaths, including two victims who were trying to escape their burning home, officials said. Four people died in a multi-vehicle crash on an interstate when the dense smoke reduced visibility, the Texas Forest Service said. Six people were injured. Northeast of Amarillo near the town of Borger, two people died trying to escape a grass fire that consumed their home, fire Capt. Mike Galloway said. “The brush fire overtook their house and yard and got them,” he said. “The flames just spread so fast.” The blaze - which rivals in size the fires that blackened thousands of acres of grassland and killed three people in late December and early January - forced the evacuation of eight towns, said Warren Bielenberg, a spokesman for the Texas Forest Service. The crash involved nine vehicles on Interstate 40 near Groom, about 40 miles east of Amarillo. “Somebody stopped because of the smoke and, of course, another vehicle hit them and another vehicle hit them,” said Daniel Hawthorne, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety in Childress. After the crash, officials closed an 89-mile stretch of Interstate 40 because of the low visibility, Hawthorne said. Traffic was initially diverted to U.S. 287 but that highway was later closed because of fires as well, he said. Winds gusting upward of 55 mph kept water-dropping planes and helicopters grounded when the blazes began Sunday morning, Bielenberg said. Mandatory evacuations were issued for the cities of Lefors, Skellytown, Miami, Wheeler, Hoover, McLean and Old and New Mobeetie, he said. “This is probably one of the biggest fire days in Texas history,” Bielenberg said. more...

3 Killed As Storms Rip Across Midwest (March 13, 2006) - Severe storms across the Midwest packed winds that knocked over airplanes, ripped roofs off homes and spawned tornadoes that killed three people. A twister, which roared up to a half mile wide, killed a woman seeking shelter in her mobile home and displaced about 150 residents in western Missouri on Sunday night, officials said. Six people were injured and two were missing after the tornado cut a path more than 16 miles long through the town of Sedalia, said Rusty Kahrs, Pettis County presiding commissioner. Sheriff Kevin Bond described the damage he saw as “large amounts of power lines down, many buildings that are simply no longer there, and a tremendous amount of debris.” Tornadoes also touched down Sunday in Arkansas and in central Illinois. There were no immediate reports of injuries in either state. Storms rolled through northeastern Kansas earlier in the day with fierce winds that lifted a cargo container off the airfield at the Kansas City International Airport, authorities said. At the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, some private airplanes tied down on the airfield were “spun around,” spokesman Joe McBride said. The University of Kansas in Lawrence canceled classes Monday after 60 percent of its buildings were damaged by the storm, school officials said. The roof of the nondenominational Danforth Chapel, which has been the site for thousands of weddings on campus, was torn off almost completely. more...

Tornadoes Rip Across Midwest, Killing Two, Snow Storm in San Francisco Kills two (March 12, 2006) - Powerful tornadoes ripped across southern Missouri and southern Illinois during the night, destroying homes along a path of more than 20 miles and killing two people, officials said Sunday. Several other people were injured as the storm system pounded the central Mississippi Valley with hailstones as big as softballs, high wind and torrential rain. It was not immediately clear how many tornadoes struck the area straddling the Mississippi River from Missouri into Illinois. The twisters were part of a long line of stormy weather that stretched from the southern Plains up the Ohio Valley. The worst damage was along a rural stretch of Highway 61 near St. Mary in Perry County, about 80 miles south of St. Louis, emergency management director Jack Lakenan said. A twister caught a pickup truck on the highway and hurled it beneath a roadside propane tank, killing both people in the vehicle, Lakenan said. The wreckage of the pickup was wedged beneath the tank. Also near St. Mary, mobile homes were tossed and a brick ranch house was split in half. Several people were injured and two were taken to a hospital in St. Louis. more...

Three-day alert declared on Israel’s northern border from Sunday Lebanese Hizballah poised for major attack (March 12, 2006) - The IDF has rushed large forces to the border region, thrown up roadblocks on main highways and deployed mobile units. People living in the border zone were advised to open their secure rooms and shelters and refrain from going out to work in their fields and orchards. DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Lebanon’s 14-party national conciliation commission holds a crucial conference Monday, March, 12. Israeli generals are divided over how this will affect border security. According to one school of thought, Hizballah might find it more prudent to refrain from aggression against Israeli targets in view of the eleventh-hour deal its leader Hassan Nasrallah has struck with Lebanon’s majority leader in parliament, Saad Hariri. Under this accord, Hariri and his faction will abstain for backing the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s demand for the Hizballah to disarm and disband its armed militia, in according with a UN security council resoltuion. Some Israeli military chiefs do not believe that with this deal in his pocket, Nasrallah will call attention to his organization by attacking Israel. A second group of Israeli generals, led by OC northern command Maj.-Gen Udi Adam, believes that Lebanon’s domestic politics do not determine Hizballah’s tactical decisions. more...

Scientists Generate Unimaginable Heat in Lab Experiment (March 12, 2006) - A particle accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories has heated a swarm of charged particles to a record 2 billion degrees Kelvin, a temperature beyond that of a star’s interior. Scientists working with Sandia’s Z machine said the feat also revealed a new phenomenon that could eventually make future nuclear fusion power plants smaller and cheaper to operate than if the plants relied on previously known physics. “At first, we were disbelieving,” said Chris Deeney, head of the project. “We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result and not an ‘Oops!’” Sandia’s experiment, which held up in tests and computer modeling in the 14 months since it was first done, was outlined in the Feb. 24 edition of Physical Review Letters. The authors also presented a theoretical explanation of what happened by Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines, a physicist at Imperial College in London. The achievement will not mean fusion in the near future, but it’s another step toward that goal, said Neal Singer, a Sandia spokesman. Sandia’s Z machine, housed in a warehouse-sized laboratory, is designed to generate tremendous amounts of energy. It normally passes 20 million amps of electrical current through a cluster of tungsten wires about the size of a spool of thread. The massive electrical pulse instantly vaporizes the wires into a cloud of charged, superhot particles known as plasma. At the same time, the Z machine compresses the plasma in a powerful magnetic field. Almost instantly, the particles smash together in a collision that can emit temperatures in the millions of degrees. more...

Turkey says EU must protect Islam (March 12, 2006) - The European Union risks damaging its image worldwide if it does not do more to protect Islam against insults, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told Reuters in an interview on Saturday. Gul said that was the message he gave EU counterparts in the Austrian city of Salzburg at a meeting called to draw lessons from the controversy over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad. “The laws are already there but they should cover all religions,” Gul said, referring to existing European laws to protect religions from insult. Drawings first published last year in a Danish newspaper and reprinted by other European media sparked worldwide protests by Muslims who believe it is blasphemous to depict the Prophet. At least 50 people were killed. EU foreign ministers meeting in Salzburg discussed ways of rebuilding trust with the Muslim world, and Gul told them in a speech that existing laws should be reviewed “to ensure that ... restraints apply to all religions equally, including Islam”. He told Reuters there was a risk Europe’s image would be damaged if the 25-nation bloc did not show clearly that it treated defamation of all religions in the same way. more...

Olmert: Israel would not act alone against Iran (March 11, 2006) - Israel remains part of an international coalition against a nuclear Iran, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in comments broadcast Saturday on Israel Radio, suggesting Israel would not act alone against Tehran. Olmert spoke after former Israel Defense Forces chief Moshe Ya’alon said Israel and the West have the ability to launch a military strike that could set back Iran’s nuclear program for years. Ya’alon was widely criticized for the remarks, with some saying he was drawing unnecessary attention to Israel’s capabilities. Olmert said that Israel is part of an international alliance against Iran. “In the end, we want to cause the international community to prevent the Iranians from developing non-conventional capabilities,” he said. In an appearance before a Washington think tank, Ya’alon said Thursday that Israel definitely has a military option to counter the Iranian nuclear threat, and that this fact must be taken into consideration. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told reporters Friday that Ya’alon’s comments were “unnecessary” and said that officials who have occupied high-profile posts within the defense establishment carry with them extensive information that obligates them to take caution in their words and actions. “I don’t understand all the fuss [the statements triggered] in Israel,” Ya’alon said Friday and added that his intention was to refute the claim that the West has no military option at its disposal in its efforts to deter Tehran. “I spoke about the West’s military option, which includes the armies of the United States, NATO, and even the IDF in this context,” Ya’alon said. “I didn’t reveal a military secret, and none of what I said is meant to harm the security of the state of Israel nor did I accentuate Israel within the framework [of a military option].” “To me, it is mind boggling that so many responses have been issued without anyone talking to me or asking me what I said exactly,” Ya’alon said. more...

City to seize church by eminent domain (March 11, 2006) - The city of Long Beach, Calif., is using the power of eminent domain bolstered by last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling to condemn a Baptist congregation’s church building. The city wants to remove the Filipino Baptist Fellowship’s building to make way for condominiums, the Baptist Press reported. The city will hold a hearing March 13 and vote on a resolution authorizing the city attorney to begin condemnation proceedings. Last June, the a high court ruled in Kelo v. City of New London the municipal government could seize the homes and businesses of residents to facilitate the building of an office complex that would provide economic benefits to the area and more tax revenue to the city. Though the practice of eminent domain is provided for in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, the case was significant because the seizure was for private development and not for “public use,” such as a highway or bridge. The Long Beach church’s pastor, Roem Agustine, said in a segment on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” March 3 none of the alternative sites proposed by the city are acceptable. One of the proposed relocation sites was a bar. more...

Islamic websites carry al-Qaida’s ‘last warning’ (March 11, 2006) - Islamic websites yesterday posted a “last warning” warning by Rakan Ben Williams, who describes himself as an “al-Qaida undercover soldier” in the U.S., threatening two major operations designed to bring Americans “to your knees.” According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Global Islamic Media Front was responsible for posting the threat. Williams is a mystery man, who, according to the London Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, is an English convert to Islam. The threat suggests the attack will be far greater in magnitude than Sept. 11, 2001, because following this one, “there will be no one to analyze and investigate, because the mind and the heart will be unable to comprehend it. ... This will not be a single operation, but two; one bigger than the other, but we will begin with the big one and postpone the bigger one, in order to see [how] diligent the American people is [in preserving] its life. If it chooses life, [it must] carry out the demands of the Muslims, and if it chooses death, then we are its best perpetrators.” The warning appeared in Arabic and in English.

“Do not put your hopes on Bush and his clan, they are incapable of protecting you, and if they think they are, let them foil or stop the two upcoming operations, and punish those who are responsible for them,” says the statement. “But if they could not identify and foil the devastating events coming your way, you must ask yourselves: How long will we continue allowing ourselves to be slaughtered with full advance knowledge of our fate? “Let me now inform you why we opted to inform you about the two operations and your inability to stop them before they are carried out. The reason is simple: You cannot uncover or stop them except by letting them be carried out. Furthermore, the best you could do would be to accelerate the day of carrying out the operations. In other words, if we schedule the operation to take place tomorrow, the best you could do is to make it happen today.” more...

A Mystery Malady in Chechnya (March 11, 2006) - It started just after the midafternoon recess. As they lined up to return to class, Zareta Chimiyeva saw a girl in front of her collapse and begin convulsing wildly. Only a few minutes later, Zareta was at her desk when she smelled “a bad smell,” and started feeling ill. She rushed out of the classroom but made it only as far as the stairs. “Darkness surrounded me, and there was darkness in my eyes, and I fell,” said the 12-year-old from this small town in eastern Chechnya. When Zareta woke up in a hospital, it took three adults to hold her down. She was thrashing and clutching her throat, unable to get a breath, screaming in terror. She wasn’t alone. Thirteen other girls were in nearby hospital rooms, also saying they were unable to breathe, many of them shrieking and crying. The next day, 23 students and seven teachers in a neighboring village fell ill with similar symptoms. About the same time, four dozen children in two towns a little farther away also began clutching their throats, screaming and convulsing. They have yet to get better. The outbreak began Dec. 16, and doctors and parents say the children are still suffering fits day and night. The list of victims has grown to 93, including several teachers and janitors, with a small number of cases reported as far away as the Chechen capital, Grozny, and Urus-Martan, 60 miles to the southwest. With the diagnosis caught up in the suspicion, politics and fear that surround most of what happens in this fractured separatist republic, the answer to what happened to Shelkovskaya’s children may never be fully known. What is clear, officials say, is that a new generation has fallen victim to the unexpected and devastating effects of a war that began before many of them were born. After exhaustive chemical and radiation tests, authorities with the Moscow-backed government announced that the culprit was not poison, but a form of mass hysteria. The whole episode was triggered, most doctors now believe, by the extreme and chronic levels of stress among children who have experienced a war with Moscow that lasted more than 10 years and its devastating economic aftermath. more...

Strong 2012 sunspot cycle is forecast (March 10, 2006) - Government scientists say the next sunspot cycle will be 30-percent to 50-percent stronger than the last one, and begin as much as a year late. The unprecedented forecast was made using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Scientists predict the next cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5 percent of the visible surface of the sun. The cycle is projected to reach its peak about 2012, one year later than indicated by alternative forecasting methods that rely on statistics. By analyzing recent solar cycles, the scientists also hope to forecast sunspot activity two solar cycles -- 22 years -- out. The team expects to issue within a year the forecast of Cycle 25, which will peak in the early 2020s. The researchers expect that predicting the sun’s cycles years in advance will lead to more accurate plans for solar storms, which can slow satellite orbits, disrupt communications, and bring down power systems. The research results were published on-line in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Mashaal: Olmert’s border plan is ‘declaration of war’ (March 10, 2006) - Hamas leader abroad, Khaled Mashaal, said Friday that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan to create Israel’s permanent borders by 2010 is “a declaration of war” on the Palestinian people. According to Mashaal, “this is not a peace plan, rather a declaration of war that would enable Israel to hold on to a large portion of the West Bank and Jerusalem, keep the wall, the settlements, and delay the right of return. Olmert is in the process of committing the same mistakes as Ariel Sharon.” Olmert told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that Israel’s permanent borders will be set within the next four years, a period during which construction will also begin in the controversial E1 section between Ma’aleh Adumim. more...

US trade deficit widens to record $68.5 billion (March 10, 2006) - The US trade deficit ballooned to a record $68.5bn in January, far surpassing expectations and raising the prospect of a large drag on economic growth in the first months of the year. The sensitive bilateral trade deficit with China climbed to $17.9 billion in January from $16.3 billion, a figure that is likely to hinder administration efforts to contain mounting frustration in Congress over the rising deficit, and create a tense backdrop for the official visit of Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, next month. With President George W. Bush facing a revolt from congressional Republicans over the Dubai ports deal, the administration could find itself in a weakened position in its long-standing efforts to stave off punitive trade legislation against China. The Republican chairman of the Senate finance committee said last month he would begin drawing up a bill to deal with the growing array of US trade frictions with China. “The American people need a Congress and an administration that will get tough on trade policy to rein in these runaway deficits,” said Benjamin Cardin, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives subcommittee on trade. “When you look at trade deficits in the context of growing foreign ownership of our national debt, you see that we’re increasingly beholden to the very countries whose markets we’d like to open to American goods. Unless we reverse this dangerous trend, we’ll soon find ourselves without negotiating leverage to promote our trade agenda.” more...

U.N. Report: Jews are Terrorists, Not Palestinians (March 9, 2006) - Jewish settlers are terrorizing Palestinians with impunity, attacking children on their way to school and destroying farmers’ trees and crops, a U.N. expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict said in a report. John Dugard, a South African lawyer, called the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip last summer a positive step. But the Jewish state effectively controls Gaza through targeted killings and sonic booms from warplanes flying over the region, Dugard said in a report prepared ahead of next week’s annual meeting of the 53-member U.N. Human Rights Commission. Itzhak Levanon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, rejected Dugard’s allegations as “misinformed and inaccurate.” Dugard’s report “is guided by a clear political agenda, and bears little relation either to the facts or existing principles of international law,” Levanon said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press. Israel has previously rejected Dugard’s reports on the Palestinian-Israeli dispute as being one-sided, noting that he has been assigned only to investigate violations by the Israeli side. Dugard said settler violence has been particularly egregious in the West Bank city of Hebron. His 22-page report made no reference to Palestinian terrorism, but said Hebron settlers “terrorize the few Palestinians that have not left the old city and assault and traumatize children on the way to school.” “It seems that settlers are able to terrorize Palestinians and destroy their trees and crops with impunity,” Dugard said, adding that he himself was a victim of settler abuse while visiting the city in June 2005. Dugard prepares regular reports for the U.N.’s human rights watchdog during visits to the region, but receives no cooperation from the Israeli government. more...

Midwest Twisters Kill 10 (March 13 , 2006) - Swarms of tornadoes killed at least 10 people across the Midwest, shut down the University of Kansas and damaged so much of Springfield on Monday that the mayor said “every square inch” of town suffered some effects. The violent weather started during the weekend with a line of storms that spawned tornadoes and downpours from the southern Plains to the Ohio Valley. On Monday, a second line of storms raked the region, with rain, hail and fierce wind tearing up trees and homes from Kansas through Indiana, and blizzards to the north cutting off power to thousands and shutting down schools in South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Illinois’ capital was hit hard twice in 24 hours, first by a tornado and then strong wind early Monday that blew debris through the city. Power lines were down across Springfield, trees uprooted and windows blown out. more...

Earthquake In Ohio (March 13, 2006) - A small earthquake shook northeast Ohio for a few seconds Saturday, the fourth and largest quake to hit the area this year, according to the Ohio Seismic Network. The quake was centered about three miles off of Mentor beneath Lake Erie, said Mike Hansen, the network’s coordinator. The earthquake had a magnitude of 3.0 and was felt in the Mentor, Mentor-on-the-Lake, Eastlake and Willoughby areas east of Cleveland, he said. There were no reports of damage from the quake, which struck at 7:27 a.m., he said.

Iran to Build Power, Cement Plants in Cuba (March 13, 2006) - Iran and Cuba signed an agreement based on which Iran will build a cement plant in this Latin American country. In addition to the $200m agreement concluded for building the cement production plant, Iran has also agreed to construct a power plant aimed at generating at least 500 to 1,500 megawatts of electricity in this island of the Greater Antilles. Also, the Islamic Republic will supply the raw materials and chemicals needed for rubber and plastic production in Cuba, the report quoted an official at the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Industries and Mines as saying. Moreover, based on a short-term agreement Iran has undertaken providing tractors needed by Cuba through its tractor manufacturing plant in Venezuela, Mohsen Shaterzadeh said here, on Friday. Trade volume between Iran and Caribbean island state has increased from the earlier $20m to about $90m, he commented predicting that, “The trade volume between the two countries is expected to hit $600m soon.”

Bering Sea Ecosystem Responding To Changes In Arctic Climate (March 12, 2006) - Physical changes--including rising air and seawater temperatures and decreasing seasonal ice cover--appear to be the cause of a series of biological changes in the northern Bering Sea ecosystem that could have long-range and irreversible effects on the animals that live there and on the people who depend on them for their livelihoods. In a paper published March 10 in the journal Science, a team of U.S. and Canadian researchers use data from long-term observations of physical properties and biological communities to conclude that previously documented physical changes in the Arctic in recent years are profoundly affecting Arctic life. The northern Bering Sea provides critical habitat for large populations of sea ducks, gray whales, bearded seals and walruses, all of which depend on small bottom-dwelling creatures for sustenance. These bottom-dwellers, in turn, are accustomed to colder water temperatures and long periods of extensive sea ice cover. However, “a change from arctic to sub-arctic conditions is under way in the northern Bering Sea,” according to the researchers, and is causing a shift toward conditions favoring both water-column and bottom-feeding fish and other animals that until now have stayed in more southerly, warmer sea waters. As a result, the ranges of region's typical inhabitants can be expected to move northward and away from the small, isolated Native communities on the Bering Sea coast that subsist on the animals. more...

Human Medical Experimentation in the United States (March 12, 2006) - Introduction by the Health Ranger: The United States claims to be the world leader in medicine. But there’s a dark side to western medicine that few want to acknowledge: The horrifying medical experiments performed on impoverished people and their children all in the name of scientific progress. Many of these medical experiments were conducted on people without their knowledge, and most were conducted as part of an effort to seek profits from newly approved drugs or medical technologies.

Today, the medical experiments continue on the U.S. population and its children. From the mass drugging of children diagnosed with fictitious behavioral disorders invented by psychiatry to the FDA’s approval of mass-marketed drugs that have undergone no legitimate clinical trials, our population is right now being subjected to medical experiments on a staggering scale. Today, nearly 50% of Americans are on a least one prescription drug, and nearly 20% of schoolchildren are on mind-altering amphetamines like Ritalin or antidepressants like Prozac. This mass medication of our nation is, in every way, a grand medical experiment taking place right now.

But to truly understand how this mass experimentation on modern Americans came into being, you have to take a close look at the horrifying history of conventional medicine's exploitation of people for cruel medical experiments.

WARNING: What you are about to read is truly shocking. You have never been told this information by the American Medical Association, nor drug companies, nor the evening news. You were never taught the truth about conventional medicine in public school, or even at any university. This is the dark secret of the U.S. system of medicine, and once you read the true accounts reported here, you may never trust drug companies again. These images are deeply disturbing. We print them here not as a form of entertainment, but as a stern warning against what might happen to us and our children if we do not rein in the horrifying, inhumane actions of Big Pharma and modern-day psychiatry.

Now, I introduce this shocking timeline, researched and authored by Dani Veracity, one of our many talented staff writers here at Truth Publishing. Read at your own risk. - The Health Ranger more...