Are some Laser Printers a Health Risk?

Vnunet.com - Fears grow that laser printers can seriously damage health

Some laser printers release tiny particles of toner-like material into the air that people can inhale deep into their lungs where they may pose a health hazard, scientists have warned.

Lidia Morawska, PhD, and colleagues in Australia classified 17 out of 62 printers in a recent study as “high particle emitters” because they released relatively high quantities of particles, which the researchers believe to be toner.

The research is scheduled for publication in the 1 August online issue of the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T).

FDA Scientist Says Avandia Should be pulled from Market

AP - Scientist Tells FDA Diabetes Drug Avandia Should be Pulled From Market

The widely used diabetes drug Avandia should be pulled from the market because of heart risks, a federal scientist said Monday.

Those risks, combined with no unique short-term benefits in helping diabetics control blood-sugar levels, fail to justify keeping Avandia on the market, according to a copy of a slide presentation by Food and Drug Administration scientist Dr. David Graham.

About 1 million Americans with Type 2 diabetes use Avandia to control blood sugar by increasing the body's sensitivity to insulin. That sort of treatment has long been presumed to lessen the heart risks already associated with the disease, which is linked to obesity. News that Avandia might actually increase those risks would represent a "serious limitation" of the drug's benefit, according to the FDA.

Terrorist Attack at Tour de France

Daily Mail - Terror bombs explode on Tour de France route

Two explosions believed to be terrorist bombs have disrupted the Tour de France's Spanish leg.

The devices went off after a bomb threat was received from a caller claiming to represent Basque separatist rebels ETA.

No one was hurt and the race was not called off after the explosions, which came after the caller told a highway authority that ETA had planted several bombs along the route of the Tour de France through the Spanish region of Navarre.

The race had already passed through the area when the blasts occurred, it said.

No police or government officials were immediately available for comment.

ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for traditional Basque lands in northern Spain and southern France, called off a ceasefire in June.

FBI Helped Frame 4 Men for Murder

AP - Judge: FBI Helped Frame 4 Men for Murder

The FBI helped frame four men for a 1965 murder and withheld information that could have cleared them, a federal judge ruled Thursday in ordering the government to pay $101.7 million for the decades they spent in prison.

Army Officers Taking Bribes

AFP - US ex-army officer pleads guilty to taking bribes in Iraq

A former US army reserve major pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from US government contractors while deployed in Iraq, the US Department of Justice said Monday.

John Allen Rivard, 48, faces up to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering at federal court in Austin, Texas, a statement by the department said.

In a similar case, federal agents arrested US Army Major John Cockerham, 41, at a Texas army base late Sunday on charges of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy linked to his role as a contracting officer in Kuwait in 2004 and 2005.

Federal agents also arrested Cockerham's wife Melissa, 40, on charges of money laundering and conspiracy, the Justice Department said Monday in a separate statement.

Turkey Bombs Northern Iraq

AP - Turkey bombards northern Iraq, Iraq says

The Iraqi government said Turkish artillery and warplanes bombarded areas of northern Iraq on Wednesday and called on Turkey to stop military operations and resolve the conflict diplomatically.

The claim occurred amid rising tension and Turkish threats to strike bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, which has been launching attacks against targets in Turkey from sanctuaries in Iraq.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press that the morning bombardment struck areas of the northern province of Dahuk, some 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Col. Hussein Kamal said about 250 shells were fired into Iraq from Turkey. He added that there were no casualties on the Iraqi side of the border.

A previous post: 140 000 Turkish Troops on Iraq Border

Russia Withdraws from Arms Pact with NATO

The Observer - Kremlin tears up arms pact with Nato

President Vladimir Putin yesterday signalled that Russia was on a new and explosive collision course with Nato when he dumped a key arms control treaty limiting the deployment of conventional forces in Europe.

Putin said Moscow was unilaterally withdrawing from the Soviet-era Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty because of 'extraordinary circumstances that affect the security of the Russian Federation', the Kremlin said. These required 'immediate measures'.

The treaty governs where Nato and Russia can station their troops in Europe. Moscow's decision to bin it suggests that Putin's talks earlier this month with President George Bush came to nothing, and that the Kremlin has reverted to its earlier belligerent mood. The Kremlin has for months been bitterly incensed by the Bush administration's decision to site elements of its missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Reuters - U.S. may build shield in Poland in Feb: report

The United States may start building a missile shield in Poland in February 2008, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said in an interview published in a Russian newspaper on Monday.

Washington wants to place interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic to protect the United States and its allies from potential missile attacks from Iran.

Here is my previous post related to the missile shield.

$660 Million Clergy Abuse Settlement

AP - Judge approves $660M abuse settlement

A judge on Monday approved a $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and more than 500 alleged victims of clergy abuse, the largest payout yet in a nationwide sex abuse scandal.

Previously, the Los Angeles archdiocese, its insurers and various Roman Catholic orders had paid more than $114 million to settle 86 claims. Several religious orders in California have also reached multimillion-dollar settlements in recent months, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits.

Conrad Black Found Guilty

AP - Media mogul Black guilty of fraud

Former media mogul Conrad Black was convicted Friday of swindling the far-flung Hollinger International newspaper empire he once ran out of millions of dollars, becoming the latest in a wave of disgraced corporate executives to face prison time for financial fraud.

Black, 62, who once renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a member of the British House of Lords, was found guilty by a federal jury of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice for spiriting documents out of his Toronto office in defiance of a court order.

Black was acquitted of nine other counts ranging from tax fraud to the most serious charge — racketeering. He was also acquitted of fleecing Hollinger shareholders through such perks as taking the corporate jet on a two-week vacation to the island of Bora Bora.

Three other former Hollinger executives, John Boultbee, 65, of Victoria, British Columbia, Peter Y. Atkinson, 60, of Oakville, Ontario, and Mark Kipnis, 59, of Northbrook, Ill., were also convicted of fraud charges.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve to have Black jailed immediately, saying he could face approximately 15 years to nearly 20 years in federal prison for the conviction. But defense attorneys said the actual sentence was likely to be much less.

In contrast to the $84 million in fraud prosecutors blamed on Black when he was indicted two years ago, the jurors found him guilty of a fraction of that — defense attorneys put the amount at $3.5 million.

Euro at New High Against U.S. Dollar

AP - Euro Hits New High Against U.S. Dollar

The euro shot to an all-time high against the U.S. dollar Tuesday on concerns about the American economy that were fueled by discouraging growth forecasts from key U.S. retailers and homebuilders.

The British pound, which has been trading around 26-year highs against the dollar, briefly touched $2.0273 after reports showed British consumer prices were rising at a faster pace than the target set by the Bank of England.

The euro hit a new record of $1.3738 Tuesday, its highest level against the dollar since the 13-nation currency started trading in 1999, before retreating to $1.3729. That was still above the euro's previous high of $1.3682 reached on April 27 and the $1.3623 it bought late Monday in New York.

"The dollar is a basket case," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. "We are going to pay the piper for years of having the underlying fundamentals of our economy disintegrate beneath our feet."

Given the state of the U.S. economy, he said, the dollar could continue to fall in the coming years against the euro, to $2.50 or even $3.

My previous posts about the euro and U.S. dollar:

Iran Replacing Dollar

The Euro

Dollar Down, Gold Up

Euro Displaced Dollar In Bond Markets

China Shifts to Euros for Iran Oil

140 000 Turkish Troops on Iraq Border

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - '140,000' Turkish soldiers line Iraq border

Iraq says Turkey has 140,000 soldiers along its border with the country's north as part of a "great mobilisation".

Turkey's armed forces have urged its Government to allow an incursion into neighbouring, mainly Kurdish northern Iraq to crush up to 4,000 Turkish Kurdish militants who use the region as a base to attack security and civilian targets inside Turkey.

Rumours of a possible Turkish incursion have rattled financial markets and have drawn warnings from the US, Ankara's NATO ally, to stay out of Iraq.

More Cameras in New York

The New York Times - New York Plans Surveillance Veil for Downtown

By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists. British officials said images captured by the cameras helped track suspects after the London subway bombings in 2005 and the car bomb plots last month.

If the program is fully financed, it will include not only license plate readers but also 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, as well as a center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.

Here is my previous post about cameras. The post contains links to posts about cameras from my old blog. One of those is about cameras in New York.

CIA Mind Control Survivor gets Compensation

CP - Gov't settles with CIA brainwashing survivor

A Montreal senior who survived Cold War-era brainwashing experiments picked up a cheque for compensation from the federal government on Tuesday.

Janine Huard, 79, accepted an offer to end her class-action lawsuit against the federal government, which jointly funded the experiments with the Central Intelligence Agency.

The terms of the settlement are confidential, but Huard says it will allow her to live out her days in peace, with some peace of mind.

Lewis Libby Won’t Go to Jail

The Guardian - Saved from prison by Bush's favour: the White House aide who lied to a grand jury

George Bush created a political storm yesterday by intervening to stop the disgraced White House aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, from going to jail. The president, in a statement, said the prison sentence imposed on Mr Libby, who was found guilty of perjury in a complex spy case linked to the Iraq war, was too harsh.

He commuted Mr Libby's jail sentence, but did not grant him a pardon. Mr Libby still faces a $250,000 (£125,000) fine and will remain on probation.

AP - Bush won't rule out full Libby pardon

President Bush on Tuesday refused to rule out an eventual pardon for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, leaving open the chance he may wipe away the former White House aide's criminal record after already erasing his prison sentence.

"I rule nothing in or nothing out," Bush said when asked about whether he might pardon Libby before leaving office in January 2009.

President Clinton pardoned 140 people on his last day in office, including fugitive financier Marc Rich — whose lawyer was Libby.

On Christmas Eve in 1992, just before he left office, the first President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and a CIA official as they awaited trial on Iran-Contra charges, as well as four other administration officials who had pleaded or been found guilty in the affair.

My previous post about Libby can be seen here.

Vanunu Gets 6 Months in Jail

My previous post about him can be seen here.

Reuters - Vanunu gets 6-month jail term for foreign contacts

An Israeli court on Monday sentenced Mordechai Vanunu, who in 2004 completed an 18-year prison term for spilling nuclear secrets, to six more months behind bars after he violated a ban on speaking to foreigners.

U.S. Says Iran is Arming Shiite Militants

AP - U.S. implicates Iran in January attack

The U.S. military accused Iran on Monday of a direct role in a sophisticated militant attack that killed five American troops in Iraq, portraying Tehran as waging a proxy war through Shiite extremists.

The claims over the January attack marked a sharp escalation in U.S. accusations that Iran has been arming and financing Iraqi militants, and for the first time linked the Iranian effort to its ally, Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militia. The allegations could endanger Iraqi efforts to hold a new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran.

U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner said the Quds Force, part of Iran's elite Republican Guards, was seeking to build an Iraqi version of Hezbollah to fight U.S. and Iraqi forces — and had brought in Hezbollah operatives to help train and organize militants.

U.S. Arming Sunni Militia