VATICAN CITY, VATICAN – JULY 10: US President Barack Obama (L) meets with Pope Benedict XVI in his library at the Vatican on July 10, 2009 in Vatican City, Vatican. Obama was meeting with The Pope for the first time as President following the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy. Getty Images

Bloomberg | Jul 10, 2009

By Lorraine Woellert

President Barack Obama visits the Vatican today as a papal call for a new era of global economic justice has landed at the center of a U.S. political debate over the government’s reach into the economy.

U.S. labor unions and some Roman Catholic politicians are using a July 7 economic message from Pope Benedict XVI to push more financial-services regulation, expanded workers’ rights, limits on pollution and greater access to health care.

The Pope “has provided a road map for how we can move ahead to accomplish economic justice,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. She is a Catholic member of the House Democratic leadership who has a 100 percent rating from the Washington-based Americans for Democratic Action, which describes itself as the “nation’s oldest independent liberal political organization.”

DeLauro and Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts yesterday opened a campaign of Catholic Democrats called “Pope Greets Hope” to draw a link between Church doctrine and Obama’s policy agenda. Obama will discuss the pontiff’s economic message with the Pope today, said White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs.

‘Real Teeth’

The Pope’s 150-page encyclical to bishops, released to coincide with a meeting of the Group of Eight nations in Italy, urged leaders to create a “true world political authority” to give “real teeth” to global economic and financial regulatory institutions.

“Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end,” wrote Benedict, 82. “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

DeLauro, 66, likened Benedict’s views on capitalism “to what the president is trying to do domestically by prioritizing health-care reform, global warming and education.”

The economic-justice movement championed by many U.S. Catholics has its roots in the early 20th Century and aims to improve the plight of the neediest. It helped put Catholic voters behind Democrats for decades, starting with an allegiance to President Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal.

Shift to Republicans

In the 1980s, the U.S. Church’s leaders began aligning with conservative Republicans on issues such as opposition to abortion, gay rights and stem-cell research.

Catholics make up about one-quarter of the U.S. adult population, according to the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In November, Obama received 54 percent of the Catholic vote, while the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, got 44 percent. A majority of Catholics backed President George W. Bush in 2004.

“The Catholic vote is the most important swing constituency today,” said Steven Wagner, who led Republican Party efforts to woo Catholics in the 2000 election.

Republicans have largely kept silent about the Pope’s encyclical. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism in March and this year called Obama’s policies “anti-Catholic values,” focused on social issues in an interview yesterday.

Democrats who support abortion rights “have so many issues to be defensive about that” using the Pope’s encyclical to buttress their position “verges on silly,” he said.

‘At Variance With the Teaching’

“Ask them on any of a half-dozen social issues where they stand, and on every one of them they’ll be at variance with the teaching of the Church,” Gingrich said.

Obama’s policies have been the focus of controversies involving Catholics several times since he took office. In May, his invitation to speak at the University of Notre Dame, near South Bend, Indiana, sparked protests because it occurred about the same time he lifted a ban on federal funding for abortion providers overseas. On July 6, Obama increased federal spending limits on embryonic stem-cell research, altering a Bush administration policy favored by many Catholics.

Some Catholic health-care providers said they are less inclined to support Obama’s effort to overhaul the U.S. health- care system because it includes a plan to weaken legal protections for medical workers who object to abortion or birth control. Catholic health-care providers, who provide about 15 percent of U.S. hospital beds, want to maintain a Bush-era “conscience clause” that shields those who refuse to perform the procedures.

Obama supporters said the Pope’s call for economic justice gives Democrats a chance to highlight the failings of the free- market ideals of the Republican Party.

Union Campaign

The Service Employees International Union and other labor groups are using the encyclical to try to win support from Catholic senators such as Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana for a bill that would make it easier for unions to represent workers, said Mary Kay Henry, executive vice president of the 2 million-member SEIU.

The Pope “offers a much-needed reminder that to create an economy that works for everyone it is critical to protect workers’ fundamental right to join together,” said John Sweeney, president of the 11 million-member AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. federation.

Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, a Catholic, said any effort by Democrats to use the Pope’s remarks to push their agenda would fail.

Most people “would rather go to work than be on welfare,” said Boehner, 59. “We think our economic agenda will do more for Americans.”

A form of Ebola virus has been detected in pigs for the first time, raising concerns it could mutate and threaten humans, scientists report.

Telegraph | Jul 10, 2009

Reston ebolavirus (Rebov) has only been seen in monkeys and humans previously and, unlike other types of Ebola, it is not known to cause illness in people.

Researchers say it is theoretically possible for the virus to mutate in pigs into a form that might sicken people.
 
The Philippines had tested 141 people, the researchers said, and six of them who either worked on pig farms or with swine products were found with antibodies to the Ebola-Reston virus, which means they might have been infected by pigs at some time.

However, they showed no signs of illness.

Rebov belongs to the family of filoviruses which target primates. These viruses cause viral haemorrhagic fevers, which result in bleeding and coagulation, and can lead to death.

In their study, the scientists examined blood and tissue samples taken from pigs suffering unusually severe respiratory infections in different parts of the Philippines and found they contained widely varying strains of the virus.

This suggests that the virus may have circulated widely in pigs even before it was first discovered in monkeys exported to the United States from the Philippines in 1989, the scientists said.

The discovery of Rebov in pigs in the Philippines is reported in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

It’s been more than 100 years since Boston has been this cold in June. AP Photo

Average High Temperatures Coldest In Decades

WCVB | Jul 10, 2009

BOSTON — If you think you’ve never seen such a cool start to the summer, you are right: It’s been more than 100 years since Boston has been this cold in June.

For the period of June 1 through July 8, Boston, Providence and Worcester have had the coolest high temperature on record, according to StormTeam 5’s JC Monahan.

The average high temperature for Boston for that time period was 69.7 degrees. That tied the record set in 1903. In Worcester, the average was 69.3 degrees — the coolest since 1972, and Providence’s average high was 72.3 degrees — the coolest since 1916.

Earlier this week, the editor of the Farmers’ Almanac, which predicted a wet summer in the Northeast, said June’s temperatures were cooler than he expected.

More of the same weather is predicted for the rest of the summer. The almanac’s forecast for July and August has scattered showers, lightning, thunderstorms, wind and rain.

Local businesses are also feeling the brunt of the wet weather. In years past, D&D Mulch and Landscaping made about 30 deliveries a day during June. This year, it was only two or three.

“If we can get through the weather and economy, we’ll be all set. This year we’re offering free delivery, and we lowered our prices a little bit,” said Sarkis Sarkisian, of D&D Mulch and Landscaping.

Businesses who rent canoes and kayaks on the Charles River said that they also had a tough June.

“The temperature isn’t as critical as when the sun in shining. That’s when people want to be outside,” said Larry Smith, of Charles River Canoe.

Details remain classified, but are referred to in a newly released report

MSNBC | Jul 10, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program.

It’s unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday.

President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the “President’s Surveillance Program.”

The report describes the program as unprecedented and raises questions about the legal grounding used for its creation. It also says the intelligence agencies’ continued retention and use of the information collected under the program should be carefully monitored.

Many senior intelligence officials believe the program filled a gap in intelligence. Others, including FBI, CIA and National Counterterrorism Center analysts, said intelligence gathered by traditional means was often more specific and timely, according to the report.

The Bush White House acknowledged in 2005 that it allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without court orders.

The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 government officials and private sector personnel, including former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Five former Bush administration officials refused to be interviewed, including former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The others: former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former top Cheney aide David Addington; and John Yoo, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general.

The IG report said an unnamed White House official inserted a paragraph into the first threat assessment prepared by the CIA after the Sept. 11 attacks, which was used to justify the extraordinary intelligence measures.

The paragraph said that the “individuals and organizations involved in global terrorism possessed the capability and intention to undertake further terrorist attacks within the United States,” according to the report. It also said that the president should authorize the NSA to conduct the surveillance activities.

The memos were revised and renewed thereafter every 45 days. The report said that the president consistently gave that authorization for the surveillance activity, and that both CIA chief Tenet and his successor, Porter Goss, never withheld their signatures from threat assessment memoranda.

The report also questions the legal advice used by President Bush to set up the program, pinpointing omissions and questionable legal memos written by Yoo at the Justice Department.

The report suggests Yoo ignored an explicit provision in the FISA law designed to restrict the government’s authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime. And it said flaws in Yoo’s memos later presented “a serious impediment” to recertifying the program.

Congress required the review of the so-called warrantless wiretapping program last year when it revised the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA is a 30 year-old law that created a secret court to oversee government electronic surveillance.

The inspectors general of the CIA, Justice Department, Defense Department, National Security Agency and Office of the National Intelligence Director also reviewed the Bush-era surveillance program.

Global Research | Jul 8, 2009

by Stephen Lendman
 
Although international law prohibits the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, America has had an active biological warfare program since at least the 1940s. In 1941, it began secret developmental efforts using controversial testing methods. During WW II, mustard gas was tested on about 4000 servicemen. Biological weapons research was also conducted. Human subjects were used as guinea pigs in various other experiments, and numerous illegal practices continued to the present, including secretly releasing toxic biological agents in US cities to test the effects of germ warfare.

The Hague Convention of 1907 banned chemical weapons usage, and the 1928 Geneval Protocol prohibited gas and bacteriological warfare. The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) “Prohibit(ed) the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction.” The 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act “implement(ed the) Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction….”

In 2001, the Bush administration rejected the 1972 BWC, took advantage of a loophole allowing “prophylactic, protective or other peaceful uses,” continued a secret Clinton administration bioweapons initiative, and asserted its right to spend multi-billions illegally to develop, test and stockpile “first-strike” chemical and biological weapons that potentially can kill millions.

In his August 14, 2008 article titled, “The Pentagon’s alarming project: Avian Flu Biowar Vaccine,” F. William Engdahl cited:

“alarming evidence accumulated by serious scientific sources that the US Government is about to or already has ‘weaponized’ Avian Flu. If reports are accurate, this could unleash a new pandemic on the planet that could be more devastating than the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic which killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide before it eventually died out. Pentagon and NIH experiments with remains in frozen state of the 1918 virus are the height of scientific folly” unless something more nefarious is afoot in collaboration with Big Pharma to produce weaponized viruses and/or dangerous mandatory vaccines that, at the least, can cause serious autoimmune diseases or, as some allege, a Swine Flu or other viral pandemic.

Alarming News about Baxter International

On February 27, 2009, various news agencies including Helen Branswell in the Canadian Press, reported:

Baxter International that “released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed (today) that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.” The WHO said the incident occurred at the company’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria, but claimed “that public health and occupational risk is minimal” thus far. What’s not known, however, “are the circumstances” behind the incident that, according to some, raise suspicions while others call it a willful criminal act. More on that below.

The contaminated product, “a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 (Avian Flu) viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company….Avir Green Hills Biotechnology.” It then “sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.”

The problem was discovered when The Czech Republic company discovered that ferrets innoculated with the product died. “Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.” Public health authorities called it a “serious error” that showed “the H5N1 virus in the product was live.” But Baxter “has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.” Christopher Bona, the company’s global bioscience communications director, did confirm that the material was a “live….experimental virus” made at the Orth-Donau research laboratory.

Security experts expressed alarm that something this serious could happen, calling the co-mingling (or reassortment) of human H3N2 with H5N1 avian viruses a dangerous practice that should never occur because of the potentially devastating effects to human health. “If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people,” who, in turn, could transmit it to enough others to potentially cause a pandemic. So far, nothing this extreme has happened, but a future threat remains.

As Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, Dr. Rima Laibow warns about dangerous, toxic drugs and vaccines. On March 6, 2009, she posted a “Pandemic Flu Emergency Action eAlert on her healthfreedomusa.org web site stating:

“World media (outside America) are reporting that Baxter Pharmaceuticals has admitted that it ‘accidently’ contaminated various vaccine batches with Avian Flu viruses. These batches were shipped to 18 countries. Clearly, either 1. stupidity and incompetence (are to blame) or 2. intentional contamination of flu vaccine lots was at work.”

Many Avian Flu vaccines compete with each other, yet they’re “profitable ONLY if used in huge numbers.” Although “Avian Flu has been slow to be become pandemic by ‘jumping the species barrier’ to humans in large numbers,” might Baxter’s “accident” be a way to do it? If so, Big Pharma will score “One of the biggest wins in history.”

In fact, it already has after the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) reported that Congress (in mid-June) “approved $7.65 billion for battling pandemic influenza, more than three times what the House and Senate had earlier proposed.” Unsurprisingly, it was part of “a $106 billion (Iraq and Afghanistan war) supplemental appropriation bill” to open a new front at home in the form of dangerous vaccines – perhaps to be mandated for everyone.

Laibow sees a “manipulated disaster of unprecedented magnitude precipitated by unprecedented avarice and greed,” and adds that “Baxter International Inc. is no stranger to recalls and lethal contaminations.” Its record includes producing faulty infusion and volumetric pumps, HIV-2 tainted Albumin Buminate 5 percent, faulty dialysis machine tubing and blood-cleaning filters, and various other products that should make everyone leery of its soon-to-be-released Swine Flu vaccine. Along with similar ones from other pharmaceutical companies, these drugs cause serious autoimmune diseases and absolutely should be avoided, even if mandated.

Laibow expresses great alarm in stating:

“Baxter mixed a virus which has a hard time infecting people (H5N1 Avian flu) with one that infects them easily (”Seasonal Flu”) in a medium which can promote mutations of the H5N1 virus into a type which can infect us easily. What will be in the vaccine you are forced/coerced/threatened into allowing into your body? Who knows?”

What is known are our constitutional and Nuremberg Code rights. The Fifth Amendment protects against abusive government authority in stating that “No person shall….be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….” The Eight Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” Depriving someone of health is tantamount to the latter as well as life by harming and potentially shortening it.

The Nuremberg Code requires voluntary consent of human subjects without coercion, fraud, deceit, and with full disclosure of known risks. It also affirms that experiments should avoid “all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury,” and should never be conducted if there’s “an a priori reason to believe death or disabling injury will occur” or harm to human health.

The FDA as an Industry Front Group

As stated on its web site, the FDA is mandated to protect human health and well-being.

As an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.”

Run by officials of the industries it “regulates,” it fails on all counts. Byron J. Richards is a clinical nutritionist and founder of Wellness Resources. In his book “Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America,” he discusses FDA complicity with Big Pharma, dangerous drugs worth billions of dollars to the industry, and the serious risks to people who use them. He states:

“The FDA has put into mothballs its federal mandate to protect the public. In order to foster drug sales, the FDA hides important medical data from the public and from doctors, including the risks of heart attacks, suicide, seizures, and serious mental-health debility. Even worse, the FDA has changed sides. They are actively undermining the rights of citizens to claim damages if injured by drugs. And they are seeking to remove safety barriers to drug testing. They are planning to expose many individuals to unproven drugs, a new form of human experiment” that may rise to a higher level if HHS mandates dangerous Swine Flu vaccines for all Americans despite no forensic evidence of an outbreak or even a single proved death attributable to H1N1.

Yet, in advance of what looks to be coming, on June 11, the WHO declared that “The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic (in) decid(ing) to raise (its) influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to (its highest) phase 6″ level.

Dr. Laibow advises that everyone has a “right to say “NO!” to vaccinations and other treatments that (they) do not want. The Police Power of the State ENDS at my skin and yours!” If a pandemic erupts, as a longtime natural health practitioner, she advises what she’ll use herself – Nano Silver as well as vitamins, minerals, and herbs like echinacea that boost the immune system, unlike dangerous vaccines that destroy it. For more information, she directs individuals to the web site: www.nutronix.com/naturalsolutions.

WHO, CDC, and Canada’s Public Health Agency (PHAC) Fearmongering Misinformation

Besides declaring its highest Level 6 influenza pandemic alert on June 11, the BBC reported on July 3 that WHO’s Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, warned that the spread of swine flu is “unstoppable” while admitting that most cases are mild and many people recover unaided.

On June 25, Daniel DeNoon in WebMD Health News reported that CDC’s influenza surveillance chief, Dr. Lyn Finelli, said: “Right now, we are estimating over 1 million (Swine Flu) cases in the US” in 2009 affecting about 6% of households in major cities. She, too, admitted that the vast majority of cases have been mild but avoided the fundamental issue – that no forensic evidence attributes a single death globally to Swine Flu and all or most known instances may be ordinary viral influenza or common colds, bad enough to cause fever (at times high) and discomfort, last several days and then pass for most people.

With no proof, Finelli cited 3065 Swine Flu hospitalizations and 127 deaths. In a June 26 telebriefing, Dr. Anne Schachat, CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases director, cited no verifiable forensic documentation in saying:

“The novel H1N1 (Swine Flu) influenza is continuing to spread here in the United States and around the globe. The key point is that this new infectious disease is not going away. In the US, we’re still experiencing a steady increase in the number of reported cases (and they’re just) the tip of the iceberg.” She added that vaccines are being hurriedly produced. No decisions have been made about “which populations” will need them, but “it’s very important for states and communities to begin intensifying their efforts on planning to administer a vaccine should such be necessary in the fall,” especially for “young people including school children, pregnant women, babies, and adults, particularly younger adults with those underlying conditions….” That said, it “doesn’t mean we’ve finalized any vaccine recommendations.”

On June 21, Canada’s National Post published Sharon Kirkey’s Canwest News Service report headlined, “Vaccinate Canadians under 40 and (aboriginal) natives first: experts.” She added that “Under Canada’s official pandemic plan, the entire population would ultimately be immunized against H1N1 swine flu,” but not at once as vaccines will only be available in batches.

Canada’s Public Health Agency (PHAC) “is working on a priority list,” effective for all provinces and territories. Gymnasiums will be used for mass vaccinations of school children, but no final decisions have been made.

In a June 26 news release, PHAC reported that “The Government of Canada today launched a three-year public education campaign to encourage parents to have their children immunized against certain diseases before the age of two. The Honorable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, made the announcement at the annual meeting of the Canadian Paediatric Society” saying that “Immunization is one of the best tools we have to protect the health of our children.”

In fact, all vaccines are dangerous and should be avoided. They contain squalene-based adjuvants that cause a menu of autoimmune diseases in test subjects. In humans they include chronic fatigue, various type rashes, chronic headaches, anemia, aphthous ulcers, seizures, weakness, neuropsychiatric problems, ALS, Raynaud’s phenomenon, and multiple sclerosis, among other illnesses and diseases, some causing death.

It’s why Dr. Laibow says “No insurance company in the world will insure against” their risks. In America, a special fund “has paid out over 2 billion dollars to parents of children killed or maimed by vaccinations.” However, the vast majority of those harmed are never compensated, and US law ‘immunizes’ drug companies from lawsuits.

Laibow adds:

“In fact, vaccines are explicitly acknowledged NOT to protect against diseases they supposedly are designed to prevent (read the Package Inserts for vaccines, available on line and in your doctors’ offices if you doubt that) and often” cause them.

Yet they continue in use because they’re so “immensely, enormously and hideously profitable,” and Big Pharma has enough clout to proliferate products that “in a rational society (should) be banned forever.”

Bioterrorism Criminal Charges Filed

On June 10, Austrian journalist Jane Burgermeister filed sweeping criminal charges with the FBI in addition to earlier ones on April 8 with the Vienna State Prosecutor’s Office against Baxter AG, Baxter International and Avir Green Hill Biotechnology AG, “for manufacturing, disseminating, and releasing a biological weapon of mass destruction on Austrian soil between December 2008 and February 2009 with the intention of causing a global bird flu pandemic virus and of intending to profit from that same pandemic in an act that violates laws on international organised crime and genocide.”

Baxter operates Biosafety Level 3 (BLS-3) labs that take strict precautions to assure no possibility of accidental H3N2 and H5N1 co-mingling contamination unless something more nefarious is afoot.

BLS-3 personnel are trained in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents and are supervised by competent scientists with extensive experience with them. In addition, these labs have specially engineered design features for added safety.

Full Story

SMH | Jul 9, 2009

Prince Charles has warned of environmental catastrophe, saying the world must “urgently confront” pressing green issues to avoid destroying “our children’s future”.

Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, warned on Wednesday that today’s consumer society comes at an enormous cost to the planet and we must “face up to the fact” that it is no longer sustainable.

He also said that preserving and maintaining the world’s ecosystems was inextricably linked to the economic wellbeing of nations.

The Prince, who has campaigned on safeguarding the rainforests and is known for his strong environmental views, set out his vision for tackling the threats facing the planet in a major speech at St James’s Palace in London.

Prince Charles said we were “at an historic moment – because we face a future where there is a real prospect that if we fail the earth, we fail humanity”.

“To avoid such an outcome, which will comprehensively destroy our children’s future, we must urgently confront and then make choices which carry monumental implications,” he said.

“We are standing at a moment of substantial transition where we face the dual challenges of a world view and an economic system that seem to have enormous shortcomings, together with an environmental crisis – including that of climate change – which threatens to engulf us all.”

Prince Charles described the effect mankind was having on the planet, from causing the thinning of the Arctic sea ice to threatening the world’s rainforests, which have reduced by a third since the 1950s.

Delivering the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture in honour of the veteran broadcaster, Prince Charles said it appeared that, if the world continued on its present path, it would lead to a “depleted and divided planet”.

“But for all its achievements, our consumerist society comes at an enormous cost to the earth and we must face up to the fact that the earth cannot afford to support it,” he said.

“Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts – and paradoxically also facing calls for a return to so-called ‘old-fashioned’ traditional thinking – so nature’s life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts we have built up there too.”

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 08: HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales laughs as he is taken on a tour of St Pancras Almshouses on July 8, 2009 in London, England. The Prince of Wales, patron of The Almshouse Association, presented the. Patron’s Awards and met residents and community leaders to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Almshouses. Getty Images

It’s probably very much in the Prince’s interests that we should all be rendered so poor that we can’t even afford to run our cars any more.

Telegraph | Jul 9, 2009

By James Delingpole

For those of us who still believe in logic, reason, empiricism, rationality, commonsense, economy reality and our inalienable right not to have trillions and trillions of our pounds, euros and dollars flushed down to the toilet to no purpose whatsoever, listening to the Prince of Wales’s pronouncements on “man made global warming” is becoming an increasingly trying experience.

In the Spectator today, I interview an Australian geology professor called Ian Plimer whose brilliant new book – Heaven And Earth – is rightly being hailed as the one that is going to nail once and for all the crazy myth that man’s contribution to “climate change” is remotely significant, let alone something we should worry about or waste money trying to stop.

As Professor Plimer observes with characteristic Aussie bluntness: “CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is plant food.”

Yet so many of the ruinously expensive policies being formulated on our behalf by everyone from Barack Obama to EU president (and former Maoist) Jose Manuel Barroso to Ed Miliband to (God help us) David Cameron’s Conservatives are based on the scientifically groundless urban myth that human generated CO2 (quite minuscule, anyway, compared with the quantities of greenhouse gases volcanoes belch or even cows fart) is the most dangerous substance on earth.

Prince Charles is fond of telling us that we only have 100 months left to save the earth. (Apparently down to 96 now, or so he claimed in his recent Dimbleby lecture). But I’d say the time we have left to save the world is quite significantly less than that. Not from the perfectly natural process of climate change, of course, but the far far greater threat of climate change alarmism.

Unless those of us with more than half a brain cell unite and act soon, the earth is going to fall prey to  the most destructive, expensive, suicidally pointless taxation and regulation and protectionism in global economic history. We simply cannot afford any longer to allow the likes of the Prince Of Wales, Al Gore, NASA activist James Hansen, Lord Stern and their amen corner in the mainstream media to go on pushing their ludicrous scare story unchallenged.

Right now, out there in the real world, are numerous genuine ecological challenges that urgently need addressing: the decline of fish (thanks European Union fisheries policy!); pollution; diminishing water tables; deforestation; overpopulation; and the great eco-disaster that are bio-fuels. The Quixotic quest to arrest “climate change” – something that has been happening for 4,567 million years regardless of man’s input – is a silly and expensive distraction.

What’s particularly galling about the most outspoken supporters of climate change taxation and regulation is that many of them either are rich enough not to be affected by it or – worse – stand to make vast fortunes as a result of it.

The Prince of Wales is a case in point. When you’re on a salary of £18 million, as he is, you’re probably not going to be bothered overmuch by tiny details such as your gas and electricity bills doubling because of green taxes on carbon emissions. You’re not even going to mind, that much, that if Barack Obama’s new $7.4 trillion cap and trade tax on carbon emissions is introduced the global economic recovery is going to be set by a generation. Indeed, it’s probably very much in the Prince’s interests that we should all be rendered so poor that we can’t even afford to run our cars any more. It will leave Britain’s roads free for Charlie to pootle about as freely as he wishes in his bio-ethanol-powered Aston Martin.

Poop! Poop!

AIM Column | Jun 25, 2009

By Cliff Kincaid

The reference to being “appropriated privately” was, of course, a dig at global capitalism and the concept of private property.

Armed with a new sex scandal that can further damage Republican opponents of the Obama Administration, our media haven’t found much time to cover the U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis underway at the world organization’s headquarters in New York. But the Obama White House is working hand-in-glove with a Communist Catholic Priest who gave a bizarre speech on Wednesday devoted to saving “Mother Earth” from evil capitalists.

A performance as gripping as that of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admitting to adultery was turned in by Miguel D’Escoto, the President of the U.N. General Assembly, when he declared that “There is a growing awareness that we are all sons and daughters of Earth and that we belong to her.” He urged “a planetary civilization” that is “more respectful of Mother Earth, more inclusive of all people and with more solidarity with the poorest, which is more spiritual and full of reverence for the splendor of the universe and which is much happier.”

D’Escoto, who was suspended from his priestly functions by the anti-communist Pope John Paul II, is an advocate of Marxist-oriented Liberation Theology and received the Lenin Peace Prize.

He said the U.N. must become a Noah’s Ark to save humanity.

D’Escoto is the same U.N. figure who recently dismissed the Iranian president’s threat to wipe Israel off the map by saying, “Words don’t kill.”

But words do mean something, and D’Escoto masked his call for global socialism in fancy and flowery words and phrases. He made it clear with his talk of protecting “Mother Earth” that environmentalism would be the ticket to the creation of the new international socialist order.

D’Escoto declared that “We still need to recognize that the globalized means of production, in their industrial voracity, have in large measure devastated the Earth and thus have also damaged the common good of Earth and humanity. We must urgently seek other paths that are more humane and more favorable towards life: the paths of justice and solidarity which lead to peace and happiness.”

Capitalism cannot be reformed, he said, adding that “…controls and corrections of the existing model, while undoubtedly necessary, are insufficient in the medium and long term. Their inherent ability to address the global crisis has proven to be weak. Stopping at controls and corrections of the model would demonstrate a cruel lack of social sensitivity, imagination and commitment to the establishment of a just and lasting peace. Egotism and greed cannot be corrected. They must be replaced by solidarity, which obviously implies radical change. If what we really want is a stable and lasting peace, it must be absolutely clear that we must go beyond controls and corrections of the existing model to create something that strives towards a new paradigm of social coexistence.”

The solution, he went on, involves the affirmation of a “global ethic” for “safeguarding the common good of the Earth and humanity.”

He explained, “We will start with the assumption that the community of peoples is simultaneously a community of common goods. These cannot be appropriated privately by anyone and must serve the life of all in present and future generations and the community of other living beings.”

The reference to being “appropriated privately” was, of course, a dig at global capitalism and the concept of private property.

If we don’t replace capitalism with international socialism, he said that “we could arrive at the same destiny which has already befallen the dinosaurs.”

In fact, Soviet-style communism went the way of the dinosaurs but its adherents, such as D’Escoto, are very much alive, and working with the Obama administration through the U.N. That was evident in the opening remarks to the conference provided by Obama’s very good friend and close adviser, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan E. Rice.

She said that the United States had “placed the highest priority” on the conference and that “President Obama understands that our collective response to the crisis will make up an important moment in world history.”

Committing to more foreign aid from hard-pressed U.S. taxpayers, Rice went on to say that “the United States understands that we have an economic, security, and moral obligation to extend a hand to the countries and the people who face the greatest risks today. That is why we have supported substantial increases in resources to boost the emergency lending capacity of the IMF. That is why we have backed increases to help regional development banks accelerate lending of their own.

The theme of a new international socialist order was predictably echoed by Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz of Communist Cuba, who said that the U.N. conference “must define the mandates, duties, governance structure, and management procedures of the new international monetary and financial institutions” that are supposed to come into being.

Making it clear that the U.S. would lose its sovereignty and standing in this process, he added that “…it must lead us to a pattern of monetary reference not depending on the economic stability, legislation or political decisions of only one country.” He called for “an international economic order based on sustainable development and the generation of wealth on the basis of justice.” This new system will have institutions “subordinated to the United Nations system,” he said.

Almost as bizarre as some of the opening remarks, the United Nations University has produced a special “conversation series” in connection with the conference with such notables as American leftist Professor Noam Chomsky, a leader of the Communist Party spin-off group, the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. The United Nations University describes Chomsky as being among “the most important intellectual and policy voices from around the globe.”

The “conversation” with Chomsky consists of links to his various media appearances, including on the far-left “Democracy Now!” radio program hosted by Amy Goodman, and Iranian television.

There’s no doubt that in urging the creation of something akin to a world government, he has established a landmark for his papacy and for Catholicism.

NY Daily News | Jul 8, 2009

Pope Benedict’s encyclical on economic justice, delivered amid the global financial meltdown, is an extraordinary document, both in its tough challenges and in the remarkably radical solutions it prescribes.

The pontiff focuses on moral dimensions of markets, globalization, consumerism, environmental protection, the role of technology, workers’ rights and more. To call the document sweeping is an understatement.

Individually, many of Benedict’s teachings are profound ethical and social statements. A few examples:

- “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

- “… there is no doubt that foreign workers, despite any difficulties concerning integration, make a significant contribution to the economic development of the host country.”

- “What is meant by the word ‘decency’ in regard to work? It means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children. …”

- “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”

Cumulatively, Benedict’s diagnoses of global economic ills lead to a call for nothing short of “a profoundly new way of understanding human enterprise.”

He would move toward markets geared to “redistribute” wealth from advanced to poorer countries and sees “urgent need of a true world political authority” to, among other tasks, “manage the global economy.”

As we said, Benedict’s encyclical, titled “Charity in Truth,” is stunningly radical, notably in its prescriptions for the temporal order. There’s no doubt that in urging the creation of something akin to a world government, he has established a landmark for his papacy and for Catholicism.

Chinese paramilitary police patrol in Urumqi, western China’s Xinjiang province, Wednesday, July 8, 2009. China flooded the capital of western Xinjiang province with security forces Wednesday after ethnic riots left at least 156 dead.

Xinhua | Jul 8, 2009

by Zhou Yan, Wang Pan & Pan Ying

BEIJING/GUANGZHOU/URUMQI, July 8 (Xinhua) — The teenager at the center of allegations of sexual assault that sparked the deadly violence in western China’s Xinjiang region Wednesday said the incident was nothing more than an “unintentional scream.”

A brawl between Han and Uygur workers at a toy factory in the southern Guangdong Province on June 26 is said to have sparked Sunday’s riot that left 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured thousands of kilometers away in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

But the people at the center of the conflict believed it was just a row between young men.

The brawl in Shaoguan City was said to have flared up over allegations of a “sexual assault on a Han girl by a Uygur worker” that left two people dead and more than 100 injured.

The “Han girl,” a 19-year-old trainee who had worked at the factory less than two months, said she only found out hours later that she was the cause of the violence.

“I was lost and entered the wrong dormitory and screamed when I saw those Uygur young men in the room,” said Huang Cuilian, originally from rural Guangdong.

Huang said she had no idea why exactly she was scared. “I just felt they were unfriendly so I turned and ran.”

She remembered one of them stood up and stamped his feet as if he would chase her. “I later realized that he was just making fun of me.”

She spent the night with a school teacher who accompanied her and her schoolmates to the job, not knowing her screams had stirred a fight between Han and Uygur workers.

Other ethnic Uygurs working at the factory say they will continue to work in Guangdong.

Atigul, 21, says she takes a manual, “900 Phrases of Commercial Chinese,” wherever she goes and the bloodshed has not put her off working there.

“I’m ready to stay here for at least a year. After all, my folks back home need to work hard for a whole year to earn what I make in a month,” Atigul said through an interpreter. Her monthly wage averages 1,400 yuan, almost equal the annual income she earned in her hometown.

Her co-worker, Yossef, 19, felt more comfortable because he spoke fluent Mandarin, but could not write. “I learned Mandarin at primary school.”

Guangdong Province had hired about 800 workers from Xinjiang from May to fill its labor shortages, said Li Xiuying, an official in charge of ethnic and religious affairs in Guangdong.

“Most of them are Uygurs aged from 18 to 29 and are eager to learn. But their distinct lifestyles, culture and poor Mandarin isolate them to some extent from their Han colleagues,” she said.

China’s booming coastal region is attracting an increasing number of ethnic minorities from the poor west. Guangdong alone is host to 1.5 million workers of ethnic minorities.

“The fight in the toy factory was just an isolated incident, but unfortunately, the separatists have made use of it to create chaos,” said Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government.

The rioting in Urumqi forced Chinese President Hu Jintao cut short his European trip and returned to Beijing Wednesday, skipping a G8 meeting with leaders from other developing countries that is expected to cover the economic crisis and climate change among other global issues.

A statement on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website said Hu’s trip was cut short “in light of the current situation in Xinjiang”.

This change of schedule was the first overt public response by the central leadership to the deadliest riot in six decades in the far western region that covers a sixth of China’s territory and has a population of 21 million.

Xinjiang police said they had evidence that the separatist World Uygur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer masterminded the riot.

“Those rioters by no means represented the Uygur people. They were incited by separatists from abroad and deviated from the spirit of the Koran,” said Abdul Rehep, vice president of Xinjiang Islam Association.

About 60 percent of Xinjiang residents are “ethnic minorities,” meaning Chinese nationals other than the most populous Han group. They represent 47 ethnic groups including the Uygur, Kazak, Hui, Mongolian, Kirgiz, Tajik, Ozbek, Manchu, Tatar and Russian.

The central government has been implementing a policy that offers many privileges to minorities. These include easier access to colleges and certain jobs and at least two children per family instead of one for Han families in urban areas.