For decades, the world’s major companies have been increasingly successful in telling governments to keep out of their way. They have demanded that environmental problems be dealt with on a voluntary basis using market forces, and corporate lobby groups have said over and over again that customer demand will solve problems and that firms can rise to the green challenge through choice rather that regulatory requirement. In short, green rules have been deemed to be red tape that would damage competitiveness and stifle innovation. Suddenly, there is a real change of tone. Last week, the Confederation of British Industry published a climate change report that called on the government to deploy the full policy and legal armoury of the state to cut emissions. The next day, legal firm Clifford Chance published a survey of leading corporate executives, to reveal that more than four-fifths believe more regulation, not less, is needed for them to tackle climate change successfully. Then, perhaps most importantly of all, came the initiative launched by the Prince of Wales’s business leaders’ group, pressing governments to collectively agree a tough, science-based and legally binding treaty to reduce emissions in Bali. This is new […]
WASHINGTON – Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It’s expanding by about $1.4 billion a day - or nearly $1 million a minute. What’s that mean to you? It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States. Even if you’ve escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That’s because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion. And like homeowners who took out adjustable-rate mortgages, the government faces the prospect of seeing this debt - now at relatively low interest rates - rolling over to higher rates, multiplying the financial pain. So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind. But the interest payments keep compounding, and could in time squeeze out most other government spending - leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services […]
New hope for patients with aggressive breast cancer may come in the form of an isolated compound found in cannabis, said researchers at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, a nonprofit Sutter Health affiliate. The study, released in the medical journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, discovered that the CBD compound found in cannabis can slow the activity of a gene that causes the spread of cancer cells. Researchers announced the finding with hope that the compound could be part of a non-toxic treatment for metastatic breast cancer. ‘Right now we have a limited range of options in treating aggressive forms of cancer,’ said Dr. Sean McAllister, lead author of the study. ‘Those treatments, such as chemotherapy, can be effective but they can also be extremely toxic and difficult for patients. This compound offers the hope of a non-toxic therapy that could achieve the same results without any of the painful side effects.’ CBD is not like THC, found in marijuana, and can be used without the psychoactive side effects of marijuana so its use does not violate anti-drug laws, according to researchers. Researchers remind patients that, ‘this is not a recommendation for people with breast […]
In a radical about-face, White House officials suddenly ‘discovered’ Monday, Dec. 3, that Iran had halted it nuclear weapons program four years ago, but has continued to enrich uranium and could have enough material to build a bomb between 2010 and 2015. This ‘discovery’ appeared in the latest National Intelligence Estimate, together with the comment that Iran seems less determined to develop nuclear arms than previously believed and is more vulnerable to international pressure. This finding caused astonishment and dismay in Israeli political and military circles, particularly in the light of the close Israel-US rapport over last week’s Annapolis conference on the Middle East and the close Olmert-Livni-Barak lineup behind the Bush vision of Palestinian statehood. Monday, too, even the ‘moderate’ Arab turnout at the Middle East conference proved to be an illusion when Saudi King Abdullah walked into the GCC conference hall in Doha hand in hand with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian president was invited to the Gulf summit for the first time. The ‘moderate’ Arab front against Iran, proudly presented by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and prime minister Ehud Olmert, melted away to nothing. Presenting the NIE, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley […]
America has told Britain that it can ‘kidnap’ British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America. Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the ‘extraordinary rendition’ of terrorist suspects. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington. Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate. The […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
