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Cover-up News Summary
February 13, 2005



Cancer, Chemicals and History
The Nation, Jan. 20, 2005
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050207&s=wiener

Twenty of the biggest chemical companies in the United States have launched a campaign to discredit two historians who have studied the industry's efforts to conceal links between their products and cancer. In an unprecedented move, attorneys for Dow, Monsanto, Goodrich, Goodyear, Union Carbide and others have subpoenaed and deposed five academics who recommended that the University of California Press publish the book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner.
 
Iraqi Refugee's Tale of Abuse Dissolves Upon Later Scrutiny
New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005
 
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20C11FC3A5C0C728EDDA80894DD404482 - $2.95
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012505K.shtml - free copy

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July 2003 about the rebuilding of Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the story of Jumana Michael Hanna, an Iraqi woman...with a tale of her horrific torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime. Hanna's tale - more than two years of imprisonment that included being subjected to electric shocks, repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted - was unusual in that she was willing to name the Iraqi police officials who participated in her torture, "information that is helping us to root out Baathist policemen who routinely tortured and killed prisoners," Wolfowitz said. But Hanna's story, which 10 days before Wolfowitz's testimony had been the subject of a front-page article in the Washington Post, appears to have unraveled. Esquire magazine, in this month's issue, published a lengthy article, by a writer who was hired to help Hanna produce a memoir, saying that her account had all but fallen apart.

Commandos Get Duty on U.S. Soil
New York Times, Jan. 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/nationalspecial3/23code.html?ex=1107838800&en=99185a9d16428e44&ei=5070&oref=login
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012405F.shtml - free copy

Mr. Arkin, in the online supplement to his book (codenames.org/documents.html ), says the contingency plan, called JCS Conplan 0300-97, calls for "special-mission units in extra-legal missions to combat terrorism in the United States" based on top-secret orders that are managed by the military's Joint Staff. Mr. Arkin provided The New York Times with briefing slides prepared by the Northern Command, detailing the plan and outlining the military's preparations for the inauguration. Three senior Defense Department and Bush administration officials confirmed the existence of the plan and mission, but disputed Mr. Arkin's characterization of the mission as "extra-legal."

THE COMING WARS, by Seymour M. Hersch
The New Yorker, Jan. 24, 2005
http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/050124fa_fact

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign." The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. "The Pentagon doesn't feel obligated to report any of this to Congress," the former high-level intelligence official said. "They don't even call it 'covert ops'–it's too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it's 'black reconnaissance.' They're not even going to tell the cincs"–the regional American military commanders-in-chief.

Free trade leaves world food in grip of global giants

Guardian, Jan. 27, 2005

http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,1399480,00.html

Global food companies are aggravating poverty in developing countries by dominating markets, buying up seed firms and forcing down prices for staple goods including tea, coffee, milk, bananas and wheat, according to a report to be launched today. Two companies dominate sales of half the world's bananas, three trade 85% of the world's tea, and one, Wal-mart, now controls 40% of Mexico's retail food sector. It also found that Monsanto controls 91% of the global GM seed market.

The UFO Phenomenon -- Seeing Is Believing
ABC, Feb 4, 2005

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=468496&page=1

Almost 50 percent of Americans, according to recent polls, and millions of people elsewhere in the world believe that UFOs are real. For many it is a deeply held belief. For decades there have been sightings of UFOs by millions and millions of people. On Feb. 24, "Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs – Seeing Is Believing" takes a fresh look at the UFO phenomenon. "As a journalist," says Jennings, "I began this project with a healthy dose of skepticism and as open a mind as possible. After almost 150 interviews with scientists, investigators, and with many of those who claim to have witnessed unidentified flying objects, there are important questions that have not been completely answered – and a great deal not fully explained." "Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs – Seeing Is Believing" airs Thursday, Feb. 24 from 8-10 p.m. ET on ABC.

Microchips Counter Andes Alpaca Smuggling
AP/ABC, Feb. 5, 2005
(More news trying to convince us that microchipping is a good thing)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=474567

Peruvian alpaca herders are turning to technology to thwart a growing problem of the high Andes Mountains: the smuggling of prize-winning, wool-producing alpacas to neighboring countries. An association of alpaca farmers is surgically implanting microchips into hundreds of alpacas as part of an effort to reduce illegal transport of the animals. A herd of 700 Alpacas had microchips implanted in their neck muscles beneath their ears on Friday in the high plains of Peru near the town of Nunoz, about 540 miles southeast of Lima.

Students ordered to wear tracking tags
MSNBC, Feb. 9, 2005
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6942751/

The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will rob their children of privacy. InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school.

U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
Los Angeles Times, Feb. 10, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation
More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says. More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business.

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