HADITHA, Iraq – The Marines call it a necessary evil — taking over houses and buildings for military use. For the Iraqis who become unwilling hosts, it can be anything from a mild inconvenience to a disruption that tears apart lives.

In a recent offensive in Haditha, the headmaster of one school where Marines were based pressed them for a departure date so he could resume classes. At another school, Marines fortified the building with blast walls and sandbags for long-term use.

A trembling woman wept when Marines tried to requisition her home to set up an observation post with a view of a nearby road where a bomb had been planted. The Marines quickly left, using her neighbor’s rooftop instead.

“We try to be respectful and not destroy anything in their homes,” said Cpl. Joseph Dudley of Los Gatos, Calif., with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. “We just borrow their house and try to complete our missions.”

Requisitioning homes or other buildings has been widespread in Iraq for U.S. troops on missions who stay far away from bases, sometimes for several days or weeks. During major offensives, the temporary bases deep inside cities allow troops to send out more patrols and respond quickly to attacks rather than going all the way back to bases on the outskirts of town.
news.yahoo.com

Gee I guess that new Iraqi constitution doesn’t contain a US-style Bill of Rights…

“We all knew it was contrary to the Geneva Conventions. And we were told that this – these instructions were being given by Secretary Rumsfeld”
informationclearinghouse.info

Dozens of Abu Ghraibs
U.S. human rights groups have denounced before the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there are perhaps dozens of secret detention centres around the world where Washington is holding an unknown number of prisoners as part of its “war on terror”.

This week in Geneva, the Committee began to examine the United States’ compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly with regard to its anti-terrorism activities.

On Monday, the members of the Committee, made up of 18 independent experts with recognised competence in the field of human rights, heard presentations from U.S. non-governmental organisations that accuse Washington of grave rights violations.

Priti Patel, an attorney and representative of the New-York based group Human Rights First, reported to the Committee members on the secret detention centres for individuals allegedly linked to terrorism.

“There are locations you know about, like Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram in Afghanistan,” commented Patel, “but there are other locations which you know exist, but you don’t know exactly how many or where they are.”

According to Patel, these are transient facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan that are close to conflict zones, but move around, to wherever the United States decides.

“There are around 20 of them in Afghanistan, but you don’t know how many people are being held there, and you don’t know how they are being treated,” Patel told IPS.

“And then there is the worst case scenario, which is you don’t know even their location,” she added.

For example, Patel remarked, “we don’t know if people have been held in Diego Garcia (a small island in the Indian Ocean, home to a U.S. military base), but we have enough credible reports to make us believe it.”

And while the United States refuses to deny or confirm the existence of these secret detention centres, “we know that at least 36 people have been held in secret locations,” she stressed.

…Should he accept this challenge the film star, who was elected a politician on the promise of making a difference, has an opportunity to deliver on his pledge; should he fail California will have taken a further step towards permanently forfeiting its place among the 12 civilised states of the union that do not have the death penalty.

For the third time since he became governor a year ago, Schwarzenegger will consider a request for clemency from a prisoner facing execution.

The last time clemency was granted to a murderer in California was by that other Hollywood Republican Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967. But this is a case like no other: it has a gangster-turned-educator, a 51-year-old man who has already served 24 years in prison; it involves a flawed trial and a questionable conviction; the man behind bars has been nominated for Nobel prizes and is the subject of a Hollywood movie; and he also recently received a commendation from President Bush.

That the case of Stanley “Tookie” Williams has come to Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk is the result of one of the first acts of the US supreme court under Chief Justice John Roberts. In mid-October, the court refused to consider an appeal from Williams against his death sentence for the 1981 murder of a convenience store worker. He was also convicted of the murders of three other people.
guardian.co.uk

George Galloway faces fresh allegations of benefiting from Saddam Hussein’s regime in a report into corruption in the United Nation’s oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

An independent investigation by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker has charged that the MP received an allocation of 18 million barrels of oil from the regime. It also claims that $120,000 (£67,000) in revenues from oil sales was paid into the bank account of Mr Galloway’s estranged wife.

The money allegedly paid to Amineh Abu Zayyad is a separate sum from the $150,000 that another investigation, by the US Senate, claimed she had received from oil sales.

As Mr Volcker’s report was published in New York yesterday, the former government minister Denis MacShane demanded a joint committee of the House of Commons and US Congress should inquire into the “serious allegations” against Mr Galloway.

…Mr Galloway said last night: “How many times must I repeat this; I’ve never had a penny through oil deals and no one has produced a shred of evidence that I have.

“I have never asked anyone to act for me, as Fawaz Zureikat, who is alleged to be my intermediary, has said repeatedly. This is all a tissue of lies and a lie doesn’t become a truth through repetition.”
independent.co.uk

…Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries’ arsenals of so-called “non-lethal” weapons.

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head _ either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.

The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation _ essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.
breitbart.com

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) rewrote the corporate record books Thursday as the oil company’s third-quarter earnings soared to almost $10 billion and it became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion. Anglo-Dutch competitor Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) wasn’t far behind, posting a profit of $9 billion for the quarter.
apnews.myway.com

The first genetic “map” of human diversity is published today by scientists who describe it as a landmark achievement that will revolutionise medicine.

More than 200 researchers from six countries have spent three years and more than £80m deconstructing the human genome to discover the precise genetic differences between people. Whereas the human genome – the basic genetic blueprint – showed that everyone shares 99.9 per cent of their genes, it is the 0.1 per cent difference that can hold clues to illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, dementia, heart disease and cancer.

Scientists have completed the first phase of an ambitious project to tease apart these minute differences to begin to explain why some people develop serious diseases while others with a similar lifestyle remain healthy.

The map of human diversity could also be used to identify patients who respond better to certain drugs as well as explaining the evolutionary origins of humankind by shedding light on the ancient migrations of our ancestors from Africa.
independent.co.uk

…Geoengineering is defined as ‘intentional large scale manipulation of the global environment’, e.g. by altering climate with the primary intention of reducing undesired climate change caused by human influences. ‘Geoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use; for example by placing shields in space to reduce the sunlight incident on the Earth.’ (Keith D.W. 1999. Geoengineering, Encyclopedia of Global Change, New York).

In relation to ‘geoengineering’, the ‘Climate Change 2001’ report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that it ‘includes the possibility of engineering the earth’s climate system by large-scale manipulation of the global energy balance. It has been estimated, for example, that the mean effect on the earth surface energy balance from a doubling of CO2 could be offset by an increase of 1.5% to 2% in the earth’s albedo, i.e. by reflecting additional incoming solar radiation back into space…. Teller et al. (1997) found that ~107 t of dielectric aerosols of ~100 nm diameter would be sufficient to increase the albedo of the earth by ~1%. They showed that the required mass of a system based on alumina particles would be similar to that of a system based on sulphuric acid aerosol…(They) demonstrate that use of metallic or optically resonant scatterers can, in principle, greatly reduce the required total mass of scattering particles required.”

If, as very many indications suggest, such programmes and such ideas are already under implementation on a very large scale and outside the framework of international law, then they must either be stopped or legalized.

There is no point in ecological organizations disagreeing with them ‘behind closed doors’ and in public confining themselves to objections at the ‘philosophical’ level.
globalresearch.ca

The fundamnetal issue is who owns the intellectual property rights over Tamiflu. The media reports suggest that the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche will make billions.

While the drug is produced by Roche, it was developed by Gilead Sciences Inc.which owns the intellectual property rights. Gilead, which has maintained a low profile, has outsourced the production to Roche.

Donald Rumsfeld was appointed Chairman of Gilead Sciences, Inc. in 1997, a position which he held in the years prior to becoming Secretary of Defense.in the Bush adminstration. Rumsfeld had been on the Board of Directors from the establishment of Gilead in 1987.
globalresearch.ca

Men are lonelier living on their own than women and less likely to appreciate the freedom and lack of compromise it brings, research has shown.
independent.co.uk