Archive for June 4th, 2010

WHO swine flu experts ‘linked’ with drug companies

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found.

The British Medical Journal says the scientists had openly declared these interests in other publications yet WHO made no mention of the links.

It comes as a report from the Council of Europe criticised the lack of transparency around the handling of the swine flu pandemic.

A spokesman for WHO said the drug industry did not influence its decisions on swine flu.

Guidelines recommending governments stockpile antiviral drugs were issued by WHO in 2004.

The advice prompted many countries around the world into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.

A year after the swine flu pandemic was declared, stocks are left unused in warehouses and governments are attempting to unpick contracts.

BBC News

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War in Afghanistan and Iraq costs America $1trillion

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Washington, USA – On May 30th at 10:06 the United States reached the point where they have spent $1trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a war that that cost over 1 million people their lives and was also admitted at one point to be purely for oil (in Iraq).

America’s war is bankrupting their people.

In 2002, Barack Obama stated . . .

“I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income—to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.”

From the Old

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Los Angeles Students to Be Taught That Arizona Immigration Law Is Un-American

Friday, June 4th, 2010

The Los Angeles Unified School District school board wants all public school students in the city to be taught that Arizona’s new immigration law is un-American.

The school board president made the announcement Tuesday night after the district’s Board of Education passed a resolution to oppose the controversial law, which gives law enforcement officials in Arizona the power to question and detain people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally when they are stopped in relation to a crime or infraction.

Critics of the law say it will result in racial profiling.

[Presumably the students will be required to read the legislation.]
Continue reading “Los Angeles Students to Be Taught That Arizona Immigration Law Is Un-American” »

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BP and Feds Withheld Videos Showing Massive Scope of Oil Spill

Friday, June 4th, 2010

New videos show more clearly than ever how BP, with little resistance from the Coast Guard or other federal agencies, kept the public in the dark about just how bad things were beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

On May 1, 11 days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, and nine days after oil began spilling into the Gulf, the Coast Guard had still only released a single image of oil leaking a mile beneath the surface — a fuzzy photograph of a broken pipe spewing oil.

But inside the unified command center, where BP and federal agencies were orchestrating the spill response, video monitors had already displayed hours of footage they did not make public. The images showed a far more dire situation unfolding underwater. The footage filmed by submarines showed three separate leaks, including one that was unleashing a torrent of oil into the Gulf.

ABC News

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BP Among the Companies Vying for Iraq’s Oil

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Iraq has a dream: it wants to be bigger than Saudi Arabia. In seven years, Baghdad envisions itself overtaking its neighbor to the south as the world’s largest petroleum producer. That means Baghdad must ramp up output from the current 2.4 million barrels per day to more than 12.5 million. To do that, it is seeking billions in investment from foreign oil companies — among them BP, the British company fighting to contain an oil spill in another gulf halfway across the globe.

To help promote the cause, the U.S. government organized a field trip last week to the deserts of southern Iraq, where the landmines of 20th century wars are being cleared and massive modern rigs are being brought in. This is the region that produces 80% of the country’s oil. Major General Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. forces in southern Iraq, towered over dozens of fellow visitors on a recent dusty morning in the Rumaila oil field in Iraq’s oil capital Basra province. With U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill nearby, Brooks chatted up the president of Iraq operations for BP. In November BP signed a contract along with Chinese partners to develop the field. Rumaila was first drilled by BP a half century ago, but the company, along with other foreign oil companies, was kicked out in the 1970s when Iraq nationalized its oil sector.

Time

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White House: Obama may use executive privilege to withhold Kagan documents

Friday, June 4th, 2010

In a letter to Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee Republican, Robert Bauer, counsel to Obama, implied the president may use executive privilege to hide some memos Elena Kagan wrote when she served in the Clinton White House.

“President Obama does not intend to assert executive privilege over any of the documents requested by the Committee,” Bauer writes.

Kagan Watch

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Why did Goldman Sachs dump BP share two days before spill?

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Move brings charges that BP oil spill was a staged event to push “energy agenda.”

Firm’s stock sale nearly twice as large as any other institution; Represented 44 percent of total BP investment

The brokerage firm that’s faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.

If Goldman had sold these shares today, their investment would have lost 36 percent its value, or $96 million. The share sales represented 44 percent of Goldman’s holdings — meaning that Goldman’s remaining holdings have still lost tens of millions in value.

CNN News reported that Obama is using the crisis to push his “energy initiative,” aka Global Warming Carbon Tax.

The president also used the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico to advance his alternative energy agenda Wednesday, calling it a warning that America needs to transition away from dependence on fossil fuels.

“The catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf right now may prove to be a result of human error — or corporations taking dangerous shortcuts that compromised safety,” he said.

“But we have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth — risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. Just like we have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and grandchildren.”

There is no mention of tapping vast oil reserves on land. We could not locate a story on the BP Stock sale on their web site.

The sale of stock just prior to the spill has led some to allege that Goldman Sacs knew of the pending “accident” that caused the oil spill. The “accident” would give added public opinion for the cap-and-trade bill proposed by Kerry and others.

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