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20080514
• John McCain - Secrecy - Sudan - People -  - International - US - 2008 Election - "McCain's wife urged to release tax returns." ... "[2008 Election] Republican presidential candidate John McCain came under criticism on Wednesday for his wife Cindy's refusal to release her tax returns." ... ""The candidate should get his wife to reconsider," The Washington Post wrote in an editorial on Wednesday. "The last thing the country needs in a new president is more secrecy."" ... "The McCain campaign also confirmed that Cindy McCain sold more than $2 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that do business in Sudan." ... "McCain has been a strong advocate for imposing international financial sanctions on Sudan because of the 5-year-old Darfur conflict, in which U.N. [United Nations] officials estimate as many as 300,000 people may have been killed." (1, 2) -By Steve Holland and Caren Bohan with contributions by Peter Cooney -Reuters 

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20080420
• Corporate - Government - Psychological - Military - Intelligence - Television - Radio - Media - Politics - Classified - US - History - Guantánamo - Prison - Cuba - Human Rights - Justice -  - Iraq - Terrorism - Cheney - Gonzales - "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand." ... "In the summer of 2005, the [Republican President] Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay [US military prison in Cuba]. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure." ... "The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo." ... "To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-[September]Sept. 11 world." ... "Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found." ... "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air." ... "Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized." ... "Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." ... "Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley." ... "In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access." ... "A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis." ... "Many also shared with Mr. Bush’s national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war." ... "This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam." ... "“We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” — using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.”" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, DOCUMENTS) -By David Barstow -NYTimes 

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  WATCH - "How the Pentagon Spread Its Message." ... "David Barstow, an investigative reporter for The Times, examines primary source documents detailing the Pentagon’s response to criticism of then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld by a group of prominent retired generals." -By David Barstow -NYTimes 

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20080414
• Emergency - Economy - Politics - Haiti - Bangladesh - Egypt - United States - World - Poor - People - Historical -  - Children - Health - Mind - "Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket." ... "Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday." ... ""This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute." ... ""The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States."" ... "World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty." ... ""The international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap identified by the U.N.'s [United Nations] World Food Programme to meet emergency needs," he said. "Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now."" ... ""In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."" ... "The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said -- meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food." ... ""This is not just about meals forgone today or about increasing social unrest. This is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth," Zoellick said." -CNN 

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20080412
• Bill Richardson - Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama - 2008 Election - New Mexico - US -  - International - "Why Gov. Bill Richardson didn't endorse Clinton: The New Mexico governor says he was dismayed by pressure from the Clinton camp, and impressed by Obama's optimism. Besides, 'you don't transfer loyalty to a dynasty.'" ... "Before he endorsed [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Barack Obama, before he drew the wrath of the Clintons [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband, former Democratic President Bill Clinton] and was likened to Judas, [former 2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate and current Governor of] New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson nearly endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president." ... "But Richardson hesitated, and as the Democratic campaign turned ugly, he grew angry." ... "There was that "3 a.m." TV ad, in which Clinton questioned Obama's personal mettle. "That upset me," Richardson said." ... "There were some ham-fisted phone calls from Clinton backers, who questioned Richardson's honor and suggested that the governor, who served in President Clinton's Cabinet, owed Hillary Clinton his support. "That really ticked me off," Richardson said." ... "Still, even as he moved from Clinton toward Obama -- "the pursuit was pretty relentless on both sides" -- Richardson wrestled with the question of loyalty. After 14 years in Congress and a measure of fame as an international troubleshooter, Richardson was named Clinton's U.N. [United Nations] ambassador, then Energy secretary: "two important appointments," Richardson said." ... "He finally concluded that he had settled his debt to the former president: He had worked for Clinton's election in 1992, helped pass the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his administration, stood by him during the Monica S. Lewinsky sex scandal, and rounded up votes to fight impeachment." ... ""I was loyal," Richardson said during an extended conversation over breakfast this week at the governor's mansion in Santa Fe [New Mexico's capital]. "But I don't think that loyalty is transferable to his wife. . . . You don't transfer loyalty to a dynasty."" ... "He was impressed by the mostly positive tone of Obama's campaign, and grew to appreciate the substance and depth of their private conversations." (1, 2) -By Mark Z. Barabak -LAtimes

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20080403
• Global - Climate - Atmosphere - Science - Antarctic - Ice - History - UN - San Diego - California - Iowa - US - "Dust plays huge role in climate change: Tiny particles heat up the atmosphere faster than scientist once believed. The good news is this dust can be cleaned up fairly quickly." ... "Scientists know that dust affects climate. Tiny particles create veils that reflect sunlight and cool the atmosphere. Dark particles absorb sunshine and warm things up. But as scientists look deeper into the dust-climate connection, they find that they have underestimated its importance." ... "Research published April 3 in Nature reveals the tight linkage between atmospheric dust flows and Antarctic temperatures during ice ages over the past 800,000 years. A research review published March 23 in Nature Geoscience online shows that black carbon particles in the atmosphere have a more powerful global-warming effect than any of the greenhouse gases except carbon dioxide. And these particles are 60 percent as effective as CO2 itself. That's far more powerful than the estimate in last year's report of the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)." ... "The good news is that black carbon particles such as diesel soot or wood-stove smoke only stay airborne for weeks. (It takes a century to get rid of today's CO2 emissions.) This fact offers an opportunity for instant payback, say study authors V. Ramanathan at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego [California] and Gregory Carmichael at the University of Iowa in Iowa City [Iowa]. In an announcement from Scripps, the authors note that commercially available technologies exist to cut back soot emissions substantially. Using them would rapidly reduce black-carbon warming. " -By Robert C. Cowen -CSMonitor 

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20080331
• Food - Crisis - World - People - Farmers - Land - Fuel - Money - Politics - History - Weather - Drought - China - UN - "Tensions rise as world faces short rations." ... "Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it's already boiling over." ... "Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century." ... "Plundered by severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, the world's wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food." ... "Drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors." ... "World population is set to hit 9 billion by 2050, and most of the extra 2.5 billion people will live in the developing world. It is in these countries that the population is demanding dairy and meat, which require more land to produce." ... "In 2007 alone, according to the U.N. [United Nations] Food and Agriculture Organization's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent." [see also: Agflation] (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By Russell Blinch and Brian Love with contributions by Ayesha Rascoe, Missy Ryan, Alistair Thomson, Ho Binh Minh and Eddie Evans -Reuters 

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20080323
• US - Iraq - Chile -  - Military - History - Book - "U.S. Pushed Allies on Iraq, Diplomat Writes: Chilean Envoy to U.N. [United Nations] Recounts Threats of Retaliation in Run-Up to Invasion." ... "In the months leading up to the U.S.[United States]-led invasion of Iraq, the [Republican President] Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat." ... "The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Muñoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month." ... ""In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Muñoz writes. " -By Colum Lynch -WashingtonPost 

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20080310
• US - Iraq - Military - Osama bin Laden - Terrorism - Intelligence - Archives - History - Declassification -  - "Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida." ... "An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network." ... "The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime." ... "The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report." ... "[Republican] President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." ... "Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship." ... "Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence." ... "As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq. "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims," he said." ... "The new study, entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents", was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review." -By Warren P. Strobel -McClatchyDC.com

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20080213
• Food- Agriculture - History - Illinois - Minnesota - US - World - Droughts/Water - Weather - United Nations - "In Price and Supply, Wheat Is the Unstable Staple." ... "With demand soaring abroad and droughts crimping supply, the world’s wheat stockpiles have fallen to their lowest level in 30 years, and stocks in the United States have dropped to levels unseen since 1948." ... "On Tuesday, prices for a sought-after variety, spring wheat, jumped to $16.73 a bushel on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange [Minneapolis, Minnesota], the latest of several records." ... "Though this week’s prices were nominal records, the inflation-adjusted record for wheat was set in the mid-1970s, when it exceeded $20 a bushel in today’s dollars after huge sales to the Soviet Union." ... "The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that world wheat production will rise this year to nearly 664 million tons, from about 655 million tons — not enough to replenish stocks and push down prices." -By David Streitfeld -NYTimes 

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20080212
• Sudan - Chad - Military - Politics -  - "New wave of Darfur refugees flee into Chad." ... "Fighting in the volatile Sudanese region of Darfur has sparked a another wave of refugees into Chad and left a Red Cross employee dead, according to international agencies." ... "The U.N. [United Nations] High Commissioner for Refugees said on Monday that more than 12,000 people have fled militia attacks over the last few days from Sudan's Darfur region to neighboring Chad, still recovering from a recent attempt by rebels there to topple the government." ... "Before the latest flight into Chad, the UNHCR and its partner groups "were taking care of 240,000 Sudanese refugees in 12 camps in eastern Chad and some 50,000 from Central African Republic in the south of the country." Up to 30,000 people in Chad fled the country for Cameroon during the rebel-government fighting." ... "The United Nations says "more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million others forced to flee their homes since fighting began in 2003 among government forces, rebel groups and allied militia groups known as the Janjaweed."" -CNN

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20080208
• United States - Torture - War Crimes - Criminals -  - Human Rights - Politics - Mexico - "U.N. says waterboarding should be prosecuted as torture." ... "The controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding and used by the United States qualifies as torture, the U.N. [United Nations] human rights chief said on Friday." ... ""I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City [Mexico]." ... "Violators of the U.N. Convention against Torture should be prosecuted under the principle of 'universal jurisdiction' which allows countries to try accused war criminals from other nations, Arbour said." -By Mica Rosenberg with contributions by Patricia Zengerle -Reuters

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• Secretive - Iraqi - Religious - Law - Terrorism - Women - Torture - Executions -  - Human Rights - Police - Politics - "Violations of 'Islamic teachings' take deadly toll on Iraqi women." ... "The images in the Basra [Iraq] police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture." ... "The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce." ... ""Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."" ... "Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN [Integrated Regional Information Networks], the news branch of the U.N.'s [United Nation's] Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs." ... "Amnesty International has raised concern about the increasing violence toward women in Iraq, saying abductions, rapes and "honor killings" are on the rise." ... ""Politically active women, those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women [who are] human rights defenders were increasingly at risk of abuses, including by armed groups and religious extremists," Amnesty said in a 2007 report." -By Arwa Damon -CNN 

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20080119
• Food - Oil - Money - Poverty -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - "A New, Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories." ... "Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material." ... "This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food." ... "The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37 percent last year. That was on top of a 14 percent increase in 2006, and the trend has accelerated this winter." ... "In some poor countries, desperation is taking hold. Just in the last week, protests have erupted in Pakistan over wheat shortages, and in Indonesia over soybean shortages. Egypt has banned rice exports to keep food at home, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs." ... "According to the F.A.O., food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen." ... "A startling change is unfolding in the world’s food markets. Soaring fuel prices have altered the equation for growing food and transporting it across the globe. Huge demand for biofuels has created tension between using land to produce fuel and using it for food." ... "Cooking oil may seem a trifling expense in the West. But in the developing world, cooking oil is an important source of calories and represents one of the biggest cash outlays for poor families, which grow much of their own food but have to buy oil in which to cook it." (1, 2, 3) -By Keith Bradsher with contributions by Andrew Martin, Anand Giridharadas, and Michael Rubenstein -NYTimes 

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20080109
• US - Iraq - Military -  - World - Health - Science - Accounting - "Study: 151,000 Iraqis died in 3 years after U.S. invasion." ... "About 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the three years after the United States invaded, concludes the best effort yet to count deaths — one that still may not settle the fierce debate over the war's true toll on civilians and others." ... "The estimate comes from projections by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government, based on door-to-door surveys of nearly 10,000 households. Experts called it the largest and most scientific study of the Iraqi death toll since the war began." ... "Its bottom line is far lower than the 600,000 deaths reported in an earlier study but higher than numbers from other groups tracking the count." ... "The new estimate covers a period from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2006. It closely mirrors the tally Iraq's health minister gave in late 2006, based on 100 bodies a day arriving at morgues and hospitals." ... "Les Roberts, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in an even earlier survey in 2004 when he was at Johns Hopkins, believes the new toll is too low." ... ""This is consistent with family members not wanting to tell the government about violent deaths," he said." -AP via -USATODAY 

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