Hundreds Protest FBI Raids on Anti-war Activists
September 27, 2010
The Associated Press
By: Steve Karnowski
Protesters gathered outside FBI offices in Minneapolis and Chicago, bearing signs and shouting chants condemning the agency’s searches of anti-war activists in both cities.
About 150 people protested in Minneapolis on Monday, holding signs reading: “Stop FBI harassment. Opposing war is not a crime.” Roughly 120 people marched in Chicago.
Search warrants had indicated investigators were looking for connections between the anti-war activists and radical groups in Colombia and the Middle East.
Many of those searched tell The Associated Press they’ve had ties to activist groups and have traveled in the Middle East or Colombia. All denied contributing any money to terrorist groups.
A leader of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, Jess Sundin, says at least 13 people have been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago.
Click here for the full report from the Associated Press
Pentagon Silent About Nuke Virus
September 27, 2010
Fox News
By: Justin Fishel
The Pentagon is refusing to comment on widespread accusations that it is responsible for coordinating a cyber-attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Earlier this month the Iranians acknowledged the “Stuxnet Worm” had invaded software it uses at multiple nuclear production plants.
Pentagon Spokesman Col. David Lapan said Monday the Department of Defense can “neither confirm nor deny” reports that it launched this attack.
The Stuxnet worms enters networks through USB portals and is designed specifically to attack software made by Siemens, the German owned industrial corporation. German intelligence agencies have been known to cooperate closely with the United States. Combine this fact with that the United States and Israel both have a vested interest in stopping the Iranians from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and you have the three main suspects behind the worm: the U.S., Israel, and Germany.
It’s also important to note that researchers have determined the worm originated sometime in early 2010. Therefore if it was initiated by the United States it would have been done under the Obama administration.
Last year the Pentagon was attacked by a virus that temporarily shut down email services in the Pentagon. That worm also entered the system through commonly used flash drives, or portable hard drives, that plug into USB ports. Since that attack the Pentagon has banned the use of flash drives throughout the Department of Defense, and that ban remains in place today.
The Department of Homeland Security said last week it is taking precautions to defend the U.S. against the Stuxnet worm.
Click here for the full report from FOX News
Computer Worm Hits Iran Nuclear Plant
September 26, 2010
Associated Press
By: Nasser Karimi
A complex computer worm capable of seizing control of industrial plants has affected the personal computers of staff working at Iran’s first nuclear power station weeks before the facility is to go online, the official news agency reported Sunday.
The project manager at the Bushehr nuclear plant, Mahmoud Jafari, said a team is trying to remove the malware from several affected computers, though it “has not caused any damage to major systems of the plant,” the IRNA news agency reported.
It was the first sign that the malicious computer code, dubbed Stuxnet, which has spread to many industries in Iran, has also affected equipment linked to the country’s nuclear program, which is at the core of the dispute between Tehran and Western powers like the United States.
Experts in Germany discovered the worm in July, and it has since shown up in a number of attacks — primarily in Iran, Indonesia, India and the U.S.
The malware is capable of taking over systems that control the inner workings of industrial plants.
In a sign of the high-level concern in Iran, experts from the country’s nuclear agency met last week to discuss ways of fighting the worm.
The infection of several computers belonging to workers at Bushehr will not affect plans to bring the plant online in October, Jafari was quoted as saying.
The Russian-built plant will be internationally supervised, but world powers are concerned that Iran wants to use other aspects of its civil nuclear power program as a cover for making weapons. Of highest concern to world powers is Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility in the city of Natanz.
Iran, which denies having any nuclear weapons ambitions, says it only wants to enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for producing fuel for power plants. At higher levels of processing, the material can also be used in nuclear warheads.
The destructive Stuxnet worm has surprised experts because it is the first one specifically created to take over industrial control systems, rather than just steal or manipulate data.
The United States is also tracking the worm, and the Department of Homeland Security is building specialized teams that can respond quickly to cyber emergencies at industrial facilities across the country.
On Saturday, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported that the malware had spread throughout Iran, but did not name specific sites affected.
Click here for the full report from the Associated Press
European Central Banks Halt Gold Sales
September 27, 2010
CNBC.com
By: Jack Farchy
Europe’s central banks have all but halted sales of their gold reserves, ending a run of large disposals each year for more than a decade.
The central banks of the euro zone plus Sweden and Switzerland are bound by the Central Bank Gold Agreement, which caps their collective sales.
In the CBGA’s year to September, which expired on Sunday, the signatories sold 6.2 tons, down 96 per cent, according to provisional data.
The sales are the lowest since the agreement was signed in 1999 and well below the peak of 497 tons in 2004-05.
The shift away from gold selling comes as European central banks reassess gold amid the financial crisis and Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.
In the 1990s and 2000s, central banks swapped their non- yielding bullion for sovereign debt, which gives a steady annual return. But now, central banks and investors are seeking the security of gold.
The lack of heavy selling is important for gold prices both because a significant source of supply has been withdrawn from the market, and because it has given psychological support to the gold price. On Friday, bullion hit a record of $1,300 an ounce.
“Clearly now it’s a different world; the mentality is completely different,” said Jonathan Spall, director of precious metals sales at Barclays Capital.
European central banks are unlikely to sell much more gold in the new CBGA year, according to a survey by the Financial Times.
Although many central banks declined to detail their sales plans, the responses of some, along with numerous interviews with bankers and consultants, suggest it is unlikely there will be a return to the trend of the past decade, when CBGA signatories sold on average 388 tons a year.
The central banks of Sweden, Slovakia, Ireland and Slovenia said they had no plans to sell, while Switzerland reiterated a previous statement to the same effect.
The CBGA was first signed after gold miners protested that central banks’ rush to sell was depressing prices.
In previous years signatories haggled for individual allowances to sell under the CBGA, but the most recent renewal of the agreement in 2009 contained no such quotas, according to Darko Bohnec, vice governor of Slovenia’s central bank.
Click here for the full report from CNBC.com
FTC Goes After POM’s Health Claims
September 28, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 27, 2010
Los Angeles Times
By: P.J. Huffstutter and Andrew Zajac
Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington — The Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against Los Angeles-based pomegranate juice maker Pom Wonderful and its billionaire owners, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, alleging that they violated federal law by making “false and unsubstantiated claims” about the health benefits of their products.
Since its launch in 2002, the garnet-red juice in the curvy little bottle gave way to a marketing craze of flavored fruit teas, martinis and salad dressings â a culinary boom bolstered by Pom’s products advertised as helping to treat conditions including heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction. The company, according to its website, has spent more than $34 million to back pomegranate-based scientific research.
In a complaint filed Monday, however, the commission was skeptical. It questioned the scientific methods used in the studies and alleged they did not find evidence showing the products to be effective against certain diseases.
“Any consumer who sees Pom Wonderful products as a silver bullet against disease has been misled,” David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.
The complaint â which also named Pom’s parent company, Roll International Corp., and company President Matthew Tupper â marks the latest salvo in an ongoing campaign by the federal agency to uncover false health claims in food advertising.
In recent months, the commission forced Nestle to halt an ad campaign for a drink called Boost Kid Essentials that claimed it would keep children from getting sick and missing school. It also required Kellogg Co. to stop making claims that nutrients in its Rice Krispies cereal improved kids’ immunity and that its Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20%.”
With Pom, the FTC cited a number of advertisements as being misleading on its websites, in national print outlets and elsewhere. The commission also pointed to Lynda Resnick, the driver behind the company’s marketing juggernaut, and raised concerns over comments she made during media interviews.
On “The Martha Stewart Show,” Resnick said Pom was “the magic elixir of our age and of all ages, and we know that it helps circulation, it helps Alzheimer’s, it helps all sorts of things in the body.” She reportedly told a Newsweek reporter, “It’s also 40% as effective as Viagra.”
Click here for the full report from the Los Angeles Times
Rahm Emanuel to Leave White House
September 28, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
September 27, 2010
ABC News
By: Jake Tapper & Sunlen Miller
Although no final decision has been made because of family considerations, ABC News has learned that White House officials are preparing for Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to announce on Friday — as Congress adjourns for recess — that he is leaving his post to explore a run for mayor of Chicago.
White House officials expect that President Obama will also name an interim chief of staff, perhaps senior adviser Pete Rouse, at the announcement.
Sources close to Emanuel cautioned that he has yet to pull that last trigger on the decision.
Emanuel’s likely departure is not a surprise; his mayoral aspirations are well known.
Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s announcement earlier this month that he would not seek reelection created the opportunity that Emanuel has long been seeking.
The former Chicagoan has never been coy about his desire to head the proverbial City With Shoulders.
“One day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago. … That’s always been an aspiration of mine, even when I was in the House of Representatives,” Emanuel said in April to Bloomberg’s Charlie Rose. With Daley’s announced exit, ambitious Chicago Democrats quickly began angling to replace him, creating pressure for Emanuel to make a decision on his White House position soon, even coming from the president himself.
“I think that Rahm will have to make a decision quickly, because running for mayor of Chicago is a serious enterprise,” President Obama said Monday on NBC’s “Today Show.” “He hasn’t told me yet. But as soon as he does, I’m sure that we’ll announce it.”
The president has been clear that Emanuel has his blessing when the job opened, aides calling it an “unbelievably attractive opportunity” for anyone that the president would support.
The president has said that Emanuel would make an “excellent” and “terrific” mayor, but would not answer if he would offer up a presidential endorsement yet.
Emanuel has to declare his intent to enter the race by Nov. 22, the filing deadline in Chicago. Candidates need to collect 12,500 signatures by that day to qualify for a Feb. 22, 2011 Democratic primary. Emanuel came to the White House with a reputation and political identity in-and-of himself. The feisty four-term former congressman from Illinois is a veteran of the Clinton administration and a close Obama political ally from the president’s early days in Chicago.
Emanuel brought experience and knowledge of Capitol Hill to the White House when he started in January 2009, as well as a sense of loyalty to the president, who had been in his inner circle for years.
Sources close to Emanuel say that the decision on whether to run for mayor has not been easy decision for him, because family considerations — uprooting his wife Amy and three children for the second time in as many years — weighed heavily on him.
Emanuel delayed his original decision to give up his seat in Congress and run the White House staff. At the time, Emanuel held aspirations of being the first Jewish speaker of the House, an accomplishment that now seems more likely to be achieved by Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.
After much personal prodding by then President-elect Obama, Emanuel decided to join the administration, where he remained for 21 months.
During his time in the West Wing, Emanuel helped shepherd the health care act through Congress, pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and pass financial regulation.
While others in the White House, like senior adviser David Axelrod, are the voice of the liberal conscience, Emanuel was often the brass tacks pragmatist. Many progressives and liberals held him responsible for not pushing harder — or at all — for a public option in the health care legislation, or for criminal trials for Guantanamo defendants linked to the 9/11 attacks.
Known for his brash personality, Emanuel began each day before the sun, often by swimming a mile, and was perhaps the hardest worker in the White House, a requirement for the all-consuming job of chief of staff.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs this month joked about one of Emanuel’s favorite phrases, summing up his work ethic during his time at the White House.
“As Rahm sometimes jokes,” Gibbs recalled, “if it’s Saturday, there’s just two more full workdays until Monday.”
Replacing Rahm
Emanuel’s likely departure comes at a critical time for the White House and for Obama. Just five weeks before the crucial midterm elections when Democrats in races across the country face possible defeat, the administration is also balancing tough poll numbers.
The most recent ABC/Washington Post poll from early September shows the president’s approval ratings at 46 percent, with a 52 percent disapproval rate.
A new incoming chief of staff could bring in energy and fresh ideas, and help the White House retool operations, as the administration picks up the pieces of what could be a difficult election night for Democrats. Obama is known for his loyalty, maintaining a tight inner circle, and is not liking to bring outsiders into his administration, so it is likely that the next pick for chief of staff would come from someone with experience inside the administration and a relationship with the president.
Vice President Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain, Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina are all said to be on the list of candidates from within the president’s inner circle and already working at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Yet the choice may also be made to appoint someone from outside the administration to capitalize on some fresh blood and new ideas within the administration.
Former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, are both said to be on the list of names to be considered from outside the administration.
A Larger Shakeup?
Emanuel’s departure is just of many departures the White House has faced recently, including many from the president’s economic team.
Last week the White House announced that National Economic Council director Larry Summers is expected to leave the administration after the mid-term elections.
Earlier this month Christina Romer resigned as the chairwoman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.
And Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orzsag resigned over the summer as well.
The White House has been working hard to downplay the departures.
“I think there’s no doubt that there will be people that return to their lives and their families,” Gibbs said of the typical turnover that occurs within presidential administrations. “But we’ve got a while before that. We’ve got at least two months before this election — or about two months before this election before we get to a lot of those decisions.”
Early on in the administration Ellen Moran, the first communications director; Anita Dunn, the second communications director; and Desiree Rogers, the social secretary, also resigned.
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Healthy Lifestyles Cause Employees To Be More Productive
September 28, 2010
The Telegraph
By: Rebecca Smith
An unhealthy workforce affects a company’s output and boosts sick leave, according to Dutch research published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise and smoking accounted for more than one in ten days off sick, it was found.
However drinking ten glasses of alcohol a week or more was associated with a reduction in sick leave.
Obese workers were 66 per cent more likely to be off work sick for ten to 24 days and 55 per cent more likely to be off for longer than that when compared with normal weight workers.
Many large companies in Britain encourage healthy lifestyles through cycle to work schemes, offering gym membership and on-site medical staff in order to improve the overall health of their workforce.
Click here for the full report from The Telegraph
Texting & Driving Has Killed at Least 16,000 in US
September 27, 2010
AOL News
By: Katie Drummond
Sending text messages while driving was the culprit in the deaths of an estimated 16,000 people from 2001 to 2007. Even more sobering, researchers warn that fatalities have shot up significantly since 2005.
An analysis of federal data on road fatalities, published this week in the American Journal of Public Health, concluded that deaths due to “distracted driving” surged from 4,572 in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008. That’s a 28 percent increase in three years.
Many of the deaths involved collisions with roadside objects, as drivers typing on their cell phones veer off-track and into poles, traffic lights or other items.
“Distracted driving is a growing public safety hazard,” the study reads. “Specifically, the dramatic rise in texting volume since 2005 appeared to be contributing to an alarming rise in distracted driving fatalities.”
Thirty states now have legislation enacted to prohibit texting while driving, but anecdotal evidence suggests the bans often go unenforced.
“We’re back where we were when we started going after drunk drivers,” Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said during this year’s Distracted Driving Summit in Washington.
Not to mention that while it might be easier for a police officer to spot a driver talking on the phone in states with hands-free mandates, it’s tougher to catch them leaning over to type out a text message.
And as Linda Stamato at NJ.com points out, car companies aren’t exactly keeping the risks of distracted driving in mind when designing their next-generation vehicles.
Ford, for example, is already rolling out Twitter and Pandora apps as part of a dashboard console entertainment “hub” that also seems like a recipe for distracted disaster.
“Distracted driving has reached epidemic proportion. It is a disease that we can control,” Stamato writes. “We need to strengthen laws and beef up enforcement. We need to encourage better driving practices, in all contexts, by all age groups.”
Click here for the full report from AOL News
Doctors May Have Been Responsible for HIV Epidemic
September 28, 2010
Natural News
By: Jonathan Benson
A new report challenges many of the popular theories surrounding how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) came to become a worldwide pandemic, infecting more than 33 million people as of 2008. According to researchers from the Universite de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Can., early 20th century French colonial doctors using bad needles may be to blame for its massive spread.
Dr. Jacques Pepin and his team from the university traveled to central Africa to investigate the situation further, surveying local villagers who had been exposed to a sleeping sickness epidemic that occurred there between 1936 and 1950. Using hepatitis C infection as a model, they found that those who had been treated for sleeping disease before 1951 were three times as likely to be infected as those who were not treated, indicating that tainted needles used in treating the disease may have been the culprit in HIV’s spread.
“What happened is that for a long time, the needles and syringes used to administer the intravenous drugs were not single-use,” explained Pein to Reuters Health. “There were a lot of patients and not a lot of needles, so the sterilization of needles was not very efficient.”
One of the most widely held mainstream theories about how HIV was first transmitted to humans was that it came from chimpanzees. Humans allegedly contracted the disease from the animals, and it morphed from simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) to HIV. But how it spread across the world so rapidly, and why it continues to ravage populations, has been unclear to many scientists.
But some now say that the new research lends some credence to the notion that infected needles are at least partially to blame. After all, the number of remaining villagers age 65 or older who had been treated for sleeping sickness is six times lower than it should be, which supports the hypothesis that many of them have already died from AIDS.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Stink Bugs Challenge Bed Bugs as Year’s Worst Pest
September 26, 2010
The New York Times
By: Ken Maguire
When they retreated from the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate troops passed by the area that is now Richard Masser’s orchards. If only the latest enemy — the brown marmorated stink bug — would follow suit.
Damage to fruit and vegetable crops from stink bugs in Middle Atlantic states has reached critical levels, according to a government report. That is in addition to the headaches the bugs are giving homeowners who cannot keep them out of their living rooms — especially the people who unwittingly step on them. When stink bugs are crushed or become irritated, they emit a pungent odor that is sometimes described as skunklike.
Suddenly, the bedbug has competition for pest of the year.
Farmers in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other states are battling a pest whose appetite has left dry boreholes in everything from apples and grapes to tomatoes and soybeans. Stink bugs have made their mark on 20 percent of the apple crop at Mr. Masser’s Scenic View Orchards here. Other farmers report far worse damage.
“They’re taking money out of your pocket, just like a thief,” said Mr. Masser, flicking stink bugs off his shirt and baseball cap as he overlooked his 325 acres, a few miles south of the Pennsylvania border. “We need to stop them.”
No one seems to know how. Government and university researchers say they need more time to study the bug, which has been in the United States since about 1998. Native to Asia, it was first found in Allentown, Pa., and has no natural enemies here.
Some people noticed an increase in the stink bug population last year, but all agreed that this year’s swarm was out of control. Researchers say the bugs reproduced at a faster rate this year, but they are unsure why.
“These are the hot spots right now, but they’re spreading everywhere,” Mr. Masser said. “They even found them out in Oregon.”
Populations of the brown marmorated stink bug — different from the green stink bugs that are kept in check by natural predators here — have been found in 15 states, and specimens in 14 other states, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
The bug travels well, especially as it seeks warm homes before the onset of cold weather.
“It’s an incredible hitchhiker,” said Tracy Leskey, an entomologist with the Agriculture Department’s Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, W.Va. “The adults are moving and looking for places to spend the winter.”
The research station is among three laboratories looking for a solution. Government and university researchers also formed a working group this summer. But Kevin Hackett, national program leader for invasive insects for the Agriculture Department’s research arm, said no immediate solution was in sight.
“We need to do considerable more research to solve the problem,” he said. “We don’t even have a way to monitor the pests. I’m confident that we have excellent researchers. I’m not confident we’re going to find a solution immediately.”
The department is spending $800,000 this fiscal year on stink bug research, double last year’s budget, Mr. Hackett said. But he estimated that seven more full-time researchers were needed, at a cost of about $3.5 million a year for salaries and research expenses.
In Asia, a parasitic wasp helps control stink bug populations by attacking their eggs. Unleashing those wasps here, however, is at least several years away because they would first need to be quarantined and studied.
There has been limited success using black pyramid traps in orchards, Ms. Leskey said. The traps contain scents that trigger sexual arousal. The nymphs, or young bugs, respond seasonlong, Ms. Leskey wrote in a recent report, but adults respond only late in the season, in late August.
Representative Roscoe G. Bartlett, Republican of Maryland, convened a meeting last week of officials from the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. He is pushing to have the stink bug reclassified, which would allow farmers to use stronger pesticides, and is advocating that the Agriculture Department reallocate $3 million of its budget for research.
A problem that can arise when more pesticides are used, experts and farmers say, is that many years’ worth of effective “integrated pest management” can be ruined in the process. Farmers kill some pests but allow others to live because they prey on yet other pests. Wasps, for example, eat worms that otherwise would kill crops.
“It is a way to use nature’s own defenses against pests in orchards,” said Steve Jacobs, an urban entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. “That’s been finely tuned and works well. This brown marmorated stink bug blows all that out the window. You kill them today, new ones come tomorrow. So this is a serious problem.”
Meanwhile, homeowners in the region are coping with this latest nuisance.
Vicky Angell of Thurmont, Md., said she first noticed the stink bugs last year, but “not in flocks” like this summer. She kills about six a day and suspects that they get inside her home when she leaves the door open to let the dog out.
Ms. Angell said she flushes them down the toilet after catching them in a napkin. Other people use their vacuum. And many have turned to exterminators.
Stink bugs, whose backs resemble knights’ shields, do not bite humans and pose no known health hazards — even the fruit they have gotten to is edible, once the hardened parts are cut out. They leave small craters on the surface of an apple or pear, and the inside can get brown and corklike. Females can grow to nearly the size of a quarter. “Marmorated” refers to their marbled or streaked appearance.
Still, sometimes they are just too close for comfort. Ms. Angell said she got a surprise when she put on her pants Friday morning, having washed them and left them to dry in her laundry room.
She felt something in the right rear pocket.
“I thought I left a piece of paper in them when I washed them,” she said.
But it was not paper.
“Pulled it out. He was alive. Stink bug. Flushed him down the toilet,” she said. “I thought, I’m glad I didn’t sit on that.”
Kelli Wilson of Burkittsville, Md., said her home had been overrun by the bugs, especially in the past week. In the afternoon sun, the north-facing exterior of the house “is black with stink bugs,” she said. “It looks like the wall is crawling.”
Mrs. Wilson’s husband, Raymond, skipped services on Sunday at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Burkittsville to remove stink bugs from the house. Mrs. Wilson discovered a little hitchhiker as she and her children arrived at the church. “I just pulled into the parking lot and there’s one on my purse,” she said. “They travel with me now.”
Mr. Jacobs, the urban entomologist, said the response to stink bugs so far is not an overreaction. “I’m standing here in my living room watching some of them crawl up my walls,” he said. “The best thing to do is make your house as tight as possible. Use masking tape to seal around sliding glass doors, air-conditioners.”
Mr. Masser, the Sabillasville farmer, said that he had not yet raised his prices to offset losses, but added that it was a possibility next year if a solution to the stink bug invasion was not found.
“Stink bugs are going to destroy a lot of food — it’s just starting,” he said. “When Joe Blow starts hollering because he can’t find the food he wants, they’ll respond then.”
Click here for the full report from the New York Times
