"They handle viruses that could kill tens of millions of people"

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

 

Flu lab nears completion

UW-Madison's $12.5 million Institute for Influenza Viral Research, nearing completion at University Research Park, will have a collection of safety and security features the university hasn't seen before.

Many people will be watching the work of the institute, to be directed by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka.
The observers include health officials, who want a better understanding of the bird flu virus that is threatening a global flu epidemic. They include scientists, who are competing with Kawaoka to make discoveries about bird flu and other flu viruses.

They also include critics, who have charged Kawaoka with circumventing safety rules.
Critics objected three years ago to Kawaoka's research at UW-Madison involving the deadly 1918 flu virus, saying his safety measures were not strict enough.

This September, they revealed that the university halted his work on components of the Ebola virus last year after the National Institutes of Health said the studies must be done in a lab more secure than any on campus.
Without proper precautions, the critics say, such viruses can escape...

 

~ continue reading ~

GM Freeze Welcomes Suspension of GM Crops in France

GM Freeze has warmly welcomed the statement by French President, Nicholas
Sarkozy, that the commercial planting of GM crops in France has been
suspended.

The announcement was made at a national conference on the environment held
this week [1].

Previous refusals by French governments to approve commercial licenses for GM
herbicide tolerant oilseed rape allowed time for new evidence to emerge about
the long term harm the crop would cause to farmland wildlife [2].

Yesterday, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas announced his intention
to ban two GM maize varieties resistant to insect pest (Syngenta Bt11 maize
and Pioneers 1507 maize) because of concerns about the Bt toxins they produce
harming the non target species such as butterflies [3].

Commenting Pete Riley of GM Freeze said

"The French Government has clearly listened to concerns about the uncertainty
surrounding the health and environmental safety of GM crops and we warmly
welcome this announcement. It is another clear message to the biotech industry
that Europe will not accept poorly tested GMOs. The Sarkozy announcement
should kick start a debate on whether the GM intensive farming model is the
right way forward  for agriculture in Europe and the rest of the world. Many
people now recognize that the long term care of the land, biodiversity and
natural resources and the production of high quality food is the way forward.
Let's hope Number 10 and Defra are also listening."


Notes

1.  See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7062577.stm

2. In 1997 the French Government refused to sign commercial marketing
consents for two GM oilseed rape varieties produced by Plant Genetics Systems
(since taken over and now part of Bayer CropScience) after a qualified vote in
favour in December 1996. The Farm Scale Evaluations in the UK (1999-2003)
found that GM herbicide tolerant spring and winter oilseed rape both
significantly reduced the amounts of weeds and weed seeds in arable fields
this reducing the supply of food for farmland birds and other species.

3. See http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRU00606620071025

Reuters: 'Japan minister mulls "tranquil" executions'

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said on
Wednesday he wanted to consider more 'tranquil' methods of execution.

Japan generally executes several convicts a year, always by hanging.

"I am fully aware that 'death by hanging' is written in the criminal
code," Hatoyama said after a parliamentary committee meeting, Kyodo news
agency said.

"A square part of the floor opens up and they fall with a thud," he said.
"I honestly wonder if there isn't a more tranquil way of doing this,"
Kyodo quoted him as adding.

It was not clear what other methods he was considering...

 

~ full article ~

war protests: why no coverage?

From the Christian Science Monitor:

 

Newspapers have a duty to inform citizens about such democratic events.

By Jerry Lanson

from the October 30, 2007 edition

...it seems remarkable to me that in some of the 11 cities in which protests were held – Boston and New York, for example – major news outlets treated this "National Day of Action" as though it did not exist. As far as I can tell, neither The New York Times nor The Boston Globe had so much as a news brief about the march in the days leading up to it. The day after, The Times, at least in its national edition, totally ignored the thousands who marched in New York and the tens of thousands who marched nationwide. The Globe relegated the news of 10,000 spirited citizens (including me) marching through Boston's rain-dampened streets to a short piece deep inside its metro section. A single sentence noted the event's national context.

As a former newspaper editor, I was most taken aback by the silence beforehand. Surely any march of widespread interest warrants a brief news item to let people know that the event is taking place and that they can participate. It's called "advancing the news," and it has a time-honored place in American newsrooms.

With prescient irony, Frank Rich wrote in his Oct. 14 Times column, "We can continue to blame the Bush administration for the horrors of Iraq.… But we must also examine our own responsibility." And, he goes on to suggest, we must examine our own silence.

So why would Mr. Rich's news colleagues deprive people of information needed to take exactly that responsibility?...

~ full article ~

 

 

 

US accused of torture

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

 

THE United States's willingness to resort to harsh interrogation techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says.

Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US's standing and importance meant it was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison.

Mr Nowak was speaking after releasing his finding that the use of torture was routine and widespread in Sri Lanka ,despite laws against it.

"I am very concerned about the undermining of the absolute prohibition of torture by interrogation methods themselves in Abu Grahib, in Guantanamo Bay and others, but also by rendition and the whole CIA secret places of detention. All that is really undermining the international rule of law in general and human rights but also the prohibition of torture," said Mr Nowak...

~ continue reading ~

 

 

CIA director defends interrogation techniques

31 Oct 2007

 

[JURIST] CIA Director Michael Hayden [official profile] defended the CIA's interrogation tactics Tuesday in the wake of the refusal [JURIST report] of US Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey [WH profile] to say whether waterboarding [JURIST news archive] constitutes torture. In an address [CCGA materials] to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Hayden called the CIA's interrogation programs "as lawful as they are valuable." AP has more.

Both Democrats and Republicans [JURIST reports] have said they will oppose Mukasey's nomination if he does not unequivocally state that waterboarding is torture. The US military forbids waterboarding - a technique that simulates drowning, but the CIA will not confirm whether it has banned the practice. Former CIA director George Tenet has repeatedly denied [JURIST report] that waterboarding has been used during interrogations of terror suspects.

 

~ Link ~

'The Neo-Cons Unfettered Access to Americas Secrets'

Sep. 18, 2005
 
EXCLUSIVE REPORT: THE DEMISE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY

By Wayne Madsen

During the Cold War, if the United States suffered a massive
compromise of its own cryptographic security and, at the same, time
experienced a thorough penetration of its communications intelligence
yielding the sensitive sources and methods whereby the U.S.
intelligence community tapped and decrypted the communications of
its adversaries, the Soviet Union would have been able to dictate
surrender terms for America and its allies.

For years, the National Security Agency (NSA) maintained highly
classified back doors into the encrypted communications of worldwide
foreign ministries, military commands, banks, international
organizations, and even the Vatican, the International Committee
of the Red Cross, and the United Nations. In addition, the United
States spent billions of dollars to develop highly secure cryptographic
systems to protect its military, intelligence, and diplomatic
communications from the prying ears and eyes of its enemies.

However, according to U.S. intelligence sources with connections
to both the Reagan and Clinton administrations, Americas most
sensitive communications security and cryptologic secrets have been
totally compromised by a Fifth Column embedded within the recent
past and current administrations  the group generally identified
as neo-conservatives, political ideologues rooted in a peculiar
blend of Trotskyism and fascism -- ideologues who are neither new
nor conservative in ideology but whose intentions are to weaken
Americas national security to a degree that ruins the very foundations
on which the nation was built.

One of the major NSA success stories since its establishment on
October 24, 1952 was the rigging of the encryption machines of the
Swiss company Crypto AG in a secret deal cut between NSAs William
Friedman and Boris Hagelin, the developer of the Hagelin cipher
machine used by the Allies in World War II. In 1958, Hagelin, who
founded Crypto AG in 1950, agreed to the deal with NSA. It was the
height of the Cold War.

For U.S. intelligence, the Hagelin-NSA deal was an intelligence
coup on the level of the U.S. breaking of Germanys Enigma code and
Japans Purple code in World War II. Neutral nations trusted a Swiss
company to sell encryption machines as highly-reliable as Swiss
watches and as trusted as Swiss bank accounts....

 

~ full article ~

 

Secrecy threatens historical record, State Dept is told

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 108
November 1, 2007

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Broad classification restrictions on the disclosure of historical
intelligence information are making it difficult or impossible to
accurately represent the record of U.S. foreign policy, an official
advisory committee warned the Secretary of State last summer.

By law, the Department of State is obliged to publish "a thorough,
accurate and reliable documentary record" of United States foreign
policy in its official Foreign Relations of the United States series.

But due to official secrecy, "the credibility of the series... remains
in the balance," according to the newly disclosed report of the State
Department's Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation.

For example, "The blanket denial by the CIA of the right to quote or
cite from the President's Daily Briefs of the Nixon years and beyond
will make it difficult to give a full and accurate rendering of the
effect of intelligence assessments on the foreign relations of the
United States.... [T]he continued exemption of the President's Daily
Briefs may cause serious harm to the intellectual integrity of the
Foreign Relations series."

Similarly, the Committee complained, the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board "has not allowed the historians of the
[Foreign Relations] series access to its records [which] need to become
accessible to the staff of the [State Department] Office of the
Historian and be made available for inclusion in appropriate volumes of
Foreign Relations of the United States."

In short, "Committee members believe that unless policies consistent
with respect for the right of the American people to be fully informed
about their government's conduct of foreign policy are adopted and
implemented by the Executive Branch, it may become impossible for The
Historian [of the State Department] to carry out his duties or for the
committee to carry out its Congressionally mandated obligations."

See "Report of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic
Documentation, January 1-December 31, 2006," transmitted to the
Secretary of State on June 19, 2007:

     http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/hac2006.pdf