Thursday, May 02nd
Last update03:34:48 AM GMT
"... We worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it."
—President George W. Bush
TVNL Comment: The real question should be is why does the media allow Bush to lie without pointing it out to the public?
CNN, the Cable News Network, announced yesterday that it will cut its entire science, technology, and environment news staff, including Miles O’Brien, its chief technology and environment correspondent, as well as six executive producers.
“We want to integrate environmental, science and technology reporting into the general editorial structure rather than have a stand alone unit,” said CNN spokesperson Barbara Levin. “Now that the bulk of our environmental coverage is being offered through the Planet in Peril franchise, which is produced by the Anderson Cooper 360 program, there is no need for a separate unit.”
TVNL Comment: More blurring of "news" with "editorial", infusing more opinion over facts in their reporting.
A dozen retired generals met with President-elect Barack Obama's top legal advisers Wednesday, pressing their case to overturn some of the Bush administration's terrorism-fighting policies. Obama has criticized practices that he says amount to torturing detainees during interrogations and has promised to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Among those who met with Eric Holder, Obama's pick to be attorney general, and Greg Craig, the incoming White House counsel, were Gen. Charles Krulak, a former Marine Corps commandant, and retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, former chief of the Central Command.
The first of more than 100 countries have begun signing a treaty to ban current designs of cluster bombs, at a conference in Oslo, Norway. Campaigners are hailing the treaty as a major breakthrough.
But some of the biggest stockpilers, including the US, Russia and China, are not among the signatories.
TVNL Comment: The strongest military powers in the world, including Israel, refuse to sign. How is this a 'major breakthrough' rather than a 'major failure'?
The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.
For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.
Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers' intentions and emotions.
"We are seeing a needed paradigm shift when it comes to security," says Omer Laviv, CEO of ATHENA GS3, an Israeli-based security company.
"This 'brain-fingerprinting,' or technology which checks for behavioral intent, is much more developed than we think."
TVNL Comment: How is that for freedom and liberty? Are our troops going to protect us from this violation of our freedom and liberty?
A Muslim American contends that he was tortured and beaten into confessing to a terrorism-related charge while the security services of the United Arab Emirates held him for nearly three months, allegedly at the U.S. government's request, his brother said Tuesday.
Hossam Hemdan, of Los Angeles, said he received a predawn telephone call from his brother, Naji Hamdan, who he said detailed his treatment by the security services of Abu Dhabi, one of seven oil-rich UAE sheikdoms that have cooperated in the Bush administration's fight against Islamic extremism since 9/11.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that will allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining.
The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years.
About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work.
Najlaa International Catering Services, a subcontractor to KBR, an engineering, construction and services company, hired the men, who're from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. On Tuesday, they staged a march outside their compound to protest their living conditions.
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