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SCI-TECH News:
 Al
Gore -  Barack
Obama -  Global
-  Climate
- Technology
-  Money
-  Environmental
-  Emissions
-  Law
-  Politics
- San
Francisco -  California
"Gore urges US to try for 100% renewable energy within a decade." ... "[Democratic President-Elect] Barack Obama should set drastic targets to force the US [United States] to switch to renewable energy in an effort to slow down climate change, according to the former [Democratic] vice president Al Gore. Gore said that one of Obama's first acts as US president should be to demand a move to 100% renewable energy within 10 years." ... ""We can do that," he said during the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco [California] last Friday. "The declaration from [Democratic] President [John F] Kennedy that we would land a man on the moon and bring him back safely was thought by many to be impossible."" ... "During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to invest $150bn (£96bn) in renewables over 10 years as part of the plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also cutting carbon emissions. Many hope to see those policies enacted with a far-reaching climate-change bill that would bring the US back into the global environment fold." -By Bobbie Johnson -Guardian.co.uk
 Nuclear
- Technology
-Industry
-  Factories
-  Government
-  New
Mexico
"Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes." ... "Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos [New Mexico], the US [United States] government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb." ... "The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground." ... "The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.'" ... "The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023." ... "The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years." -By John Vidal and Nick Rosen -Guardian.co.uk
 Chinese
- Hackers
-  US
- Government
-  E-Mail
-  Network
-  Military
- Technology
-  Intelligence
- Politics
"Chinese hack into White House network." ... "Chinese hackers have penetrated the White House computer network on multiple occasions, and obtained e-mails between government officials, a senior US [United States] official told the Financial Times." ... "On each occasion, the cyber attackers accessed the [Republican President Bush] White House computer system for brief periods, allowing them enough time to steal information before US computer experts patched the system." ... "US government cyber intelligence experts suspect the attacks were sponsored by the Chinese government because of their targeted nature. But they concede that it is extremely difficult to trace the exact source of an attack beyond a server in a particular country." ... "The official said the Chinese cyber attacks had the hallmarks of the “grain of sands” approach taken by Chinese intelligence, which involves obtaining and pouring through lots of - often low-level - information to find a few nuggets." ... "Some US defence companies have privately warned about attacks on their systems, which they believe are attempts to learn about future weapons systems." ... "The National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, a new unit established in 2007 to tackle cyber security, detected the attacks on the White House. But the official stressed that the hackers had only accessed the unclassified computer network, not the more secure classified network." ... "The US has increased efforts to tackle cyber security, particularly since Chinese hackers believed to be associated with the Peoples’ Liberation Army last year perpetrated a major attack on the Pentagon." ... "US military computer experts battled for weeks against a sustained attack that eventually overcame the Pentagon’s defences. The cyber attackers managed to obtain information and emails traffic from the unclassified computer system that supports Robert Gates, the defence secretary. Pentagon IT technicians were forced to take the network down for days to conduct repairs." -By Demetri Sevastopulo -FT.com
Barack
Obama -  John
McCain -  Sarah
Palin -  Fashion
- Money
- Internet
- Hacking
- Federal
-  Investigation
- 2008
Election - Technology
- Politics
- US
-  Russia
- China
"Hackers and Spending Sprees." ... "The computer systems of both the [2008 Election Presidential Candidates] Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown "foreign entity," prompting a federal investigation, NEWSWEEK reports today." ... "At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of "phishing," a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign's computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved." ... "Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.)" ... "NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost." (1, 2) -Newsweek 
Voting
Machines - Political
-  Electronic
- Technology
- 2008
Election -  Texas
-  West
Virginia -  Tennessee
"Texas Voters Urged to Avoid Straight-Party Option, After Vote-Flip Complaints." ... "A number of voters in several Texas counties have been complaining that voting machines they used to cast early votes flipped their votes from Democratic choices to Republican ones." ... "Voters have reported that when they tried to vote a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine flipped their choices to Republican candidates instead. In some cases, voters reported a problem only with the presidential race; in other cases voters reported the entire ballot being marked Republican by the machine." ... "The counties where the problems were reported use different kinds of voting machines from three of the top voting machine companies -- Election Systems & Software [ES&S], Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) and Hart InterCivic." ... "The same ES&S machines are at the center of stories in West Virginia and Tennessee where voters also reported the machines flipping their votes, though the scenario in those states was slightly different since voters there weren't trying to vote a straight-party ticket when the problem occurred." ... "Complaints so far have come in from at least seven Texas counties -- Collin, Dallas, El Paso, Galveston, Harris, Jefferson, and Palo Pinto." ... "Collin County uses Diebold paperless Accu-Vote touch-screen machines; Dallas uses ES&S paperless iVotronic machines; El Paso uses Diebold paperless Accu-Vote touch-screen machines; Galveston uses Hart InterCivic paperless eSlate machines, which use a dial-and-click system that doesn't require voters to touch the screen; Harris uses Hart InterCivic paperless eSlate machines; Jefferson and Palo Pinto Counties use ES&S paperless iVotronic touch-screen machines." -By Kim Zetter -Wired
Voting
Machine - Technology
- Politics
-  Video
- West
Virginia - Tennessee
- 2008
Election - Obama
- McCain
"Video: Recalibrated Machine in W. Virginia Appears to Record Vote Inaccurately." ... "Video the Vote has a video showing [West Virginia's] Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright demonstrating how votes cast on uncalibrated touchscreen machines can jump from one candidate to another. This is the kind of problem that voters reported having in several West Virginia counties last week on touchscreen machines made by Election Systems & Software. Voters in Tennessee also complained about the same problem on ES&S machines." ... "In the video, after Waybright demonstrates the phenomenon on the uncalibrated machine, he calibrates the machine and votes again. But even though the machine is supposed to be fixed at that point, it appears to record a vote incorrectly." ... "In the first part of the video demonstrating an uncalibrated ES&S iVotronic touchscreen machine, Waybright touches the screen to cast a vote for [2008 Election] Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, but a check mark appears three boxes below Obama's name in the slot for Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin." ... "When he touches the box next to Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney's name, the machine sends him to a new screen where a box and keyboard are displayed for filling in a write-in candidate's name. When he selects the option for voting a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine shows a check mark in the box next to [2008 Election] Republican presidential candidate John McCain's name." -By Kim Zetter -Wired  WATCH:
"WV Vote Flipping Caught on Tape" - VideoTheVote
Political
- Science
-  Psychology
-  DNA
- Nature
-  Nurture
-  Nebraska
"Are you a born conservative (or liberal)? A new study suggests that your political attitudes are wired in from the beginning." ... "It's literally in their DNA." ... "People with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful than staunch liberals after the effects of gender, age, income and education were factored out." ... "Kevin B. Smith, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a study author, said conservatives were more vigilant to environmental threats, and he speculated that this innate tendency led them to support policies that protect the social order." ... "Fowler said the study added to the growing research suggesting that over millions of years, humans have developed two cognitive styles -- conservative and liberal. Cautious conservatives prevented societies from taking undue risks, while more flexible liberals fostered cooperation." ... ""For the species to survive, you need both," he said." ... "But Jon Krosnick, a political science professor at Stanford University, said it was impossible to draw any conclusions from a study with so few people, all from a small Midwestern town." ... "The study is the latest to challenge the long-standing dogma that upbringing and environmental factors determine political attitudes." -By Denise Gellene -LAtimes 
Psychological
- Science
-  People
- 2008
Election
"The Power of Political Misinformation." ... "As the [2008 Election] presidential campaign heats up, intense efforts are underway to debunk rumors and misinformation. Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation." ... "But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked -- even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information." ... "A variety of psychological experiments have shown that political misinformation primarily works by feeding into people's preexisting views." ... "[Yale University political scientist John] Bullock and others have also shown that some refutations can strengthen misinformation, especially among conservatives." ... "In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation." -By Shankar Vedantam -WashingtonPost
Sarah
Palin -  Rove
-  Abramoff
- E-Mail
- Secrecy
- Government
-  Archive
- Politics
- Legal
- Investigation- Computer
- Internet
- Tech
-  Alaska
- 2008
Election
"Even before VP nomination, Palin's e-mail use questioned." ... "Moments after [2008 Election Republican Vice Presidential Candidate and Alaska Governor] Gov. Sarah Palin's first speech as Republican [2008 Election Presidential Candidate] John McCain's running mate, she sat with her kids backstage, thumbing one of the two BlackBerrys that are always with her." ... "The tech-savvy governor has one of the devices (which allow users to read and send e-mails) for state business and another for personal matters, but those worlds intertwine." ... "Palin routinely uses a private Yahoo e-mail account to conduct state business. Others in the governor's office sometimes use personal e-mail accounts, too." ... "The practice raises questions about backdoor secrecy in an administration that vowed during the 2006 campaign to be "open and transparent."" ... "Even before the McCain campaign plucked Palin from Alaska, a controversy was brewing over e-mails in the governor's office. Was the administration trying to get around the public records law through broad exemptions or private e-mail accounts?" ... "The governor's Yahoo account is "the most nonsensical, inane thing I've ever heard of," said Andree McLeod, who is appealing the administration's decision to withhold e-mails." ... ""The governor sets the tone and the tone that has been set by this governor is beyond the pale," McLeod said. "Common sense tells you to use an official state e-mail account for official state business."" ... "State lawyers say that the governor's e-mails about public business should be treated like any other public record, even if she's sent them through a private account such as Yahoo." ... "Some of her aides also routinely use Yahoo, but even messages sent from one private account to another should be public, if they concern public business, said Dave Jones, an assistant attorney general." ... ""The difficulty is finding out they exist," Jones said." ... "The [Republican President] Bush administration has drawn heat over revelations that more than 80 White House aides, including senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, used private GOP e-mail servers for government business. The controversy surfaced during congressional investigations into White House contacts with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and into the firings of U.S. attorneys." -By Lisa Demer -ADN.com via -McClatchyDC.com
Sarah
Palin - Science
- Politics
- Global
- Climate
- Atmosphere
- 2008
Election - John
McCain - Alaska
-  Arizona
"Palin Not Convinced on Global Warming." ... "Some scientists believe Alaska will be among the first to feel the impact of global warming, but [2008 Election Republican Vice Presidential Candidate] Sarah Palin told voters there she wasn't sure climate change wasn't simply part of a natural warming cycle." ... ""I will not pretend to have all the answers," Palin said about global warming, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Her spokesman clarified at the time that "she's not totally convinced one way or the other. Science will tell us . . . She thinks the jury's still out."" ... "Palin shared her views in the run-up to the 2006 governor's race, at an Alaska Federation of Natives convention, where delegates passed a resolution calling for a mandatory reduction in pollution affecting the atmosphere." ... "Answering a question from the Daily News, Palin cautioned against "overreaction."" ... "Those were among the comments that brought condemnation today from Greenpeace to her selection as [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain's running mate on the Republican ticket. The environmental group's Alaska Global Warming Campaigner, Melanie Duchin, described Palin as "one of the most anti-environment records of any governor in the United States." -By Matthew Mosk and Juliet Eilperin -WashingtonPost 
John
McCain - Sarah
Palin - Science
-  Education
- Politics
- Law
-  History
- 2008
Election - Alaska
- Tennessee
"McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School." ... "[2008 Election] Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in science classes." ... "In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-to-be governor of Alaska said of evolution and creation education, "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."" ... "Asked by the Anchorage Daily News whether she believed in evolution, Palin declined to answer, but said that "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class."" ... ""I'm not going to pretend I know how all this came to be," she said." ... "The battle between evolution and creationism -- specifically, Christian creationism -- in U.S. classrooms dates back to the 1925 Scopes trial, when a Tennessee court banned the teaching of evolution. Since then, state and federal courts have repeatedly rejected so-called creation science in public schools, calling it religion rather than science." ... "The latest courtroom defeat came in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover case, when the superficially religion-neutral theory of intelligent design was classified as religious creationism. The Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that teaching creationism violated the separation of church and state." ... "Nevertheless, pro-creationism education initiatives driven by Christian conservatives have flourished, and defenders of evolution -- and, more broadly, scientific integrity -- worry that Palin's pick will give momentum to this church-over-state push." ... ""It's unfortunate McCain would pick someone who shares those particular anti-science views, but it's not a surprise," said Barbara Forrest, a Southeastern Lousiana University philosophy professor and prominent critic of creationist science. "She's a choice that pleases the religious right. And the religious right has been the chief force against teaching evolution."" -By Brandon Keim -Wired
John
McCain - Sarah
Palin - Science
- Politics
-  Oil
-Money
-  Wildlife
- History
- Global
- Climate
-  Ice
- Law
- Alaska
- Arizona
- 2008
Election - US
-  Canada
"McCain VP Pick No Friend to Polar Bears." ... "Alaska [Republican] Governor Sarah Palin has ignored research showing that polar bear populations are declining in the quest to plumb new sources of energy, according to scientists, and environmental groups who fought to put the bears on the endangered species list." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential candidate Friday. Palin is only the second woman to be on a major party's ticket as VP -- the first was Geraldine Ferraro, who ran with Democrati Walter Mondale in 1984." ... "The 44-year-old Palin, a beauty pageant winner and former mayor of a small town in Alaska, is an advocate of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has infuriated environmentalists for her support of the aerial shooting of wolves as a way to build up herds of moose and caribou. She's also sued the Interior Department for putting polar bears on the endangered species list." ... "In the lawsuit, filed this month in federal district court in the District of Columbia, Palin argues that the government's move to list polar bears as endangered is not based on sound science, and restricts oil and natural gas development. The Interior Department had put the bears on the list in response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups, who argued that the bears are being threatened by global warming." ... "In an interview on the conservative CNN talk show hosted by Glenn Beck earlier this year, Palin said that she was worried that environmentalists are using the Endangered Species Act to block the extraction of oil and gas." ... ""In fact, the number of polar bears has risen dramatically over the past 30 years," she said. "Our fear (is) that extreme environmentalists will use this tool, the ESA, to eventually curtail or halt the North Slope production of very rich resources that America needs."" ... "But biologists who have studied polar bear populations counter that the facts simply do not support Palin's assertion that polar bear populations are on the rise." ... ""Polar bear populations have not been increasing for the past 30 years, and that's a well-known fact," said Ian Stirling, an emeritus scientist with Canada's Department of the Environment and an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta in an interview. Stirling has studied polar bears for 37 years -- the longest of anyone." ... "In fact, the polar bear population has actually declined by 20 percent in Alaska's Southern Beaufort Sea since the mid-1980s, he says, referring to peer-reviewed research that he's conducted with other scientists for the US Geological Survey. The reason: Loss of their habitat in the form of melting ice." -By Sarah Lai Stirland -Wired
Global
- Climate
- Ice
- Science
- History
"Arctic ice shrinks to second-lowest level ever." ... "Arctic sea ice, which melts partly during each polar summer, has shrunk more this year than in any on record except for 2007, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has found." ... "Scientists said the data provided more ominous indications that a global warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is now at its second lowest level in about 30 years." ... "With several weeks left of the melting season, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported yesterday that sea ice in the Arctic now covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles, measured on Sept. [September] 16, 2007." ... "Declining ice as a result of warmer temperatures in the air and ocean threatens to amplify global warming because the sea is darker than ice and absorbs more sunlight." -Newsday.com 
 Hillary
Clinton -  Women's
-  Medical
- Science
- Abortion
- Language
- Politics
- Family
- Federal
- Money
-  New
York
"Clinton vows to fight "insulting" abortion plan." ... "A [Republican President] Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women and faces tough opposition, [New York Democratic Senator] Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday." ... "The former Democratic presidential candidate joined family planning groups to condemn the proposal that defines abortion to include contraception such as birth control pills and intrauterine devices." ... "It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are obligated to offer legal abortion and contraception to women." ... ""We will not put up with this radical, ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women's rights," the New York senator told a joint news conference with New York [Democratic Representative] Rep. Nita Lowey, also a Democrat, at Bellevue Hospital." ... ""Women would watch their contraceptive coverage disappear overnight," said Clinton." (1, 2) -By Michelle Nichols with contributions by Ellen Wulfhorst and Eric Beech -Reuters
Secret
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Prisons
- US
- Guantanamo
-  Cuba
- Chinese
-   Korean
- History
- Medical
- Science
- Psychological
- Military
-Intelligence
- Politics
- Investigators
"China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo." ... "The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay [Cuba] in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”" ... "What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners." ... "The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency." ... "Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by [Republican] President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods." ... "Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed." ... "But committee investigators were not aware of the chart’s source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity." ... "The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities." ... "Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured." ... "In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners." ... "The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”" (1, 2) -By Scott Shane -NYTimes PDF Documents via NYTimes: "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From the Air Force Prisoners of War (pdf) [September 1957 article by A. D. Biderman, Bull, N.Y. Acad. Med, Vol. 33, No.9, pp 616-625. 10 pages. NB: p. 4 (619), Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance]." "Documents Released at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on SERE Tactics (pdf)." 
Disaster
- Environment
- Human
-  Agriculture
-  Land
- Science
-  Iowa
- History
- Weather
"Iowa Flooding Could Be An Act of Man, Experts Say." ... "[Cedar Falls, Iowa college professor and City Council member Kamyar] Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa, suspects that this natural disaster wasn't really all that natural. He points out that the heavy rains fell on a landscape radically reengineered by humans. Plowed fields have replaced tallgrass prairies. Fields have been meticulously drained with underground pipes. Streams and creeks have been straightened. Most of the wetlands are gone. Flood plains have been filled and developed." ... ""We've done numerous things to the landscape that took away these water-absorbing functions," he said. "Agriculture must respect the limits of nature."" ... "Officials are still trying to understand all the factors that contributed to Iowa's flooding, and not everyone has the same suspicions as Enshayan. For them, the cause was obvious: It rained buckets and buckets for days on end. They say the changes in land use were lesser factors in what was really just a case of meteorological bad luck." ... "But some Iowans who study the environment suspect that changes in the land, both recently and over the past century or so, have made Iowa's terrain not only highly profitable but also highly vulnerable to flooding." ... "" (1, 2) -By Joel Achenbach with contributions by Kari Lydersen -WashingtonPost
Military
- Tech
-  Safety
- Investigation
- Government
-  Accounting
- Politics
- US
-  Taiwan
"US N-weapons parts missing, Pentagon says." ... "The US military cannot locate hundreds of sensitive nuclear missile components, according to several government officials familiar with a Pentagon report on nuclear safeguards." ... "Robert Gates, US [Republican President Bush's] defence secretary, recently fired both the US Air Force chief of staff and air force secretary after an investigation blamed the air force for the inadvertent shipment of nuclear missile nose cones to Taiwan." ... "According to previously undisclosed details obtained by the FT, the investigation also concluded that the air force could not account for many sensitive components previously included in its nuclear inventory." ... "One official said the number of missing components was more than 1,000." ... "The disclosure is the latest embarrassing episode for the air force, which last year had to explain how a bomber mistakenly carried six nuclear missiles across the US." -By Demetri Sevastopulos -FT.com
War
Crimes - Criminal
- Politicians
- US
-  Iraq
-  Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Prison
- Torture
- Human
- Human
Rights - Law
- Medical
- Psychological
- Science
"General who probed Abu Ghraib says [Republican President] Bush officials committed war crimes." ... "The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the [Republican President] Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account." ... "The remarks by [Major General] Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that [United States] U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices." ... ""After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."" ... "Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote." ... "The group Physicians for Human Rights, which compiled the new report, described it as the most in-depth medical and psychological examination of former detainees to date." ... "Also this week, a probe by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed how senior Pentagon officials pushed for harsher interrogation methods over the objections of top military lawyers. Those methods later surfaced in Afghanistan and Iraq." -By Warren P. Strobel -McClatchyDC.com 
Torture
- Crimes
- Unlawful
- US
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Prison
-  Terrorism
- War
Crimes - Politics
- Human
- Rights
- Medical
- Psychological
- Science
"Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US." ... "About: Broken Laws, Broken Lives shows the human consequences of harsh and unlawful US interrogation practices. This landmark report reveals the excruciating pain and continued suffering of men who, never charged with any crime, endured torture at US detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay [Cuba]. Based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims, the report documents practices used to bring about long-lasting pain, terror, humiliation, and shame for months on end." -Physicians for Human Rights -BrokenLives.info |
