Britain's organic food scam exposedBritain's organic food revolution was facing its first serious test last night after an Observer investigation revealed disturbing levels of fraud within the industry.
Farmers, retailers and food inspectors have disclosed a catalogue of malpractice, including producers falsely passing off food as organic and retailers failing to gain accreditation from independent inspectors. The findings raise concerns that consumers paying high premiums for organic food are being ripped off.
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Bird Flu Suspected at Big Russian FarmRussian officials have quarantined a large poultry farm in Siberia because of a suspected outbreak of bird flu, news reports said Saturday. If confirmed, it would be the first major occurrence of the lethal virus among birds in Russia, and international health officials expressed concern that the disease had spread closer to Western Europe.
About 142,000 birds are being monitored at a commercial farm in the Omsk region of Siberia, 1,400 miles east of Moscow, the Russian news agenc... (more)
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Menezes family rejects $1m offerThe parents of the Brazilian man gunned down by police at London's Stockwell Tube station have reportedly turned down a one million US dollars compensation offer from Scotland Yard for his mistaken shooting.
Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head by police marksmen on July 22, but his parents Matozinho and Maria de Menezes are believed to have rejected the offer as an insult.
They told the Daily Mail newspaper: "We will not be bought off. We w... (more)
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America: Destroyed By DesignFIND OUT HOW THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE US IS BEING SUBORDINATED TO GLOBAL INTERESTS: FOUNDATIONS AT THE PRESIDIO, UNITED NATIONS, CHINESE INTERESTS, PANAMA CANAL.
SEE HOW THE UNITED NATIONS INDOCTRINATES OUR CHILDREN. SEE INTERVIEWS WITH WITNESSES OF OKLAHOMA BOMBING... MORE...
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Pennsylvania legislators vote to give themselves 36-percent pay raise at 2:00 a.m. with no public debate on the issueCLARION - "I understand people are upset and I think they have a reason to be," state Rep. Fred McIlhattan (R-63) said this week of the July 7 pay raise the state legislature voted for itself.
McIlhattan voted against the 16 to 34 percent pay raise and told the Clarion News he is not using a legal loophole to collect the raise a year and a half early in the form of unvouchered expenses.
"I believe I am adequately compensated," McIlhattan said when asked about his vo... (more)
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Elm Springs Police Officer ArrestedAn Elm Springs police officer was arrested Friday, on charges he extorted money from drivers.
Timothy Payne, 40, 2415 N. Mountain Road, Springdale, was arrested Friday on a theft of property, criminal attempt to commit theft of property and abuse of office warrant, according to a Arkansas State Police probable cause affidavit filed in Benton County.
Payne resigned from the Elm Springs Police Department on Aug. 15.
Payne stopped individuals, the affida... (more)
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Former Head Of Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project Says Thousands Of Troops Are Sick And Dying From Illegal DU Use And Military's Failure To Admit ResponsibilityAfter Maj. Doug Rokke went public in 1997 exposing the military's flawed DU program, his life has been threatened but he still continues to search for solutions in order to save the lives of those afflicted.
Army Major Doug Rokke has been shot at, run off the road, threatened, harassed, black- balled, intimidated, called a liar and treated like a “hated enemy†not by opposition forces in Iraq, but by ‘secret opsâ€&... (more)
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Twin Cities turning deaf ear to political talk radio showsTwin Cities listeners have been tuning out political talk radio.
Locally, conservative-talk icon Rush Limbaugh's show has lost 43 percent of its audience among 25- to 54-year-olds in the past year. Sean Hannity's show is down a whopping 63 percent. The shift is serious enough that "we're weighing where these shows fit for us in the future," according to Todd Fisher, general manager at KSTP (1500 AM), which carries both syndicated programs.
Many Americans also are sw... (more)
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Break on Foreign-Profit Tax Means Billions to U.S. FirmsPrompted by a one-time tax holiday on profits earned abroad, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. announced early this year that it would bring home $8 billion to boost research and development spending, capital investments and other job-creating ventures.
Six months into the year, Lilly's R&D spending had increased by 10 percent. But that $134 million is only a small fraction of the $8 billion that is boosting the company's coffers.
For proponents of the tax holi... (more)
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Jordanians Find Rocket Launcher Used in Attack on U.S. ShipsJordanian authorities found the launcher that fired three Katyusha rockets from a hilltop warehouse, including one that narrowly missed a U.S. naval ship docked at this Red Sea resort, Jordan's Interior Minister Awni Yirfas said Saturday.
The most serious strike against the U.S. Navy since the USS Cole bombing in Yemen nearly five years ago killed a Jordanian soldier Friday, wounded another and sparked a nationwide manhunt for the culprits involved.
Two other rocket... (more)
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No one can tell us what to do: IranIranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday rejected international demands for suspension of nuclear activities.
"No country has the right to tell Iran what to do. We will not make any concessions over our legitimate right. We are not afraid of anybody and we have the power to defend our rights," Khamenei said at Friday prayers in Tehran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called last week on Iran to close down its reopened uranium conversion ... (more)
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Techno-generation Cash, card or microchipAt a bar in Barcelona, select clientele can pay for drinks and access the VIP lounge at the scan of a tiny implanted digital tag. Julius Purcell goes where the chip crowd go
On a warm summer night in Barcelona, the dance floor of the Baja Beach Club is a writhing mass of locals and tourists. The normal punters here still have to go through the tiresome rituals of queuing for entry, waiting at the bar, fumbling for change, and fretting about the safety of their wallets. But for the... (more)
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CIA Report on 9/11 Is CompleteThe CIA inspector general's report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has finally been completed -- nearly two years after its congressionally set deadline -- but has yet to be sent to Capitol Hill because CIA Director Porter J. Goss is still deciding how to respond to its findings, according to administration and congressional sources.
Inspector General John L. Helgerson's voluminous report, triggered in December 2002 by a recommendation of the House-Senate inquiry into the... (more)
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Family of slain Brazilian refuses compensation offer: Police attempting to buy their silenceThe parents of the Brazilian man killed mistakenly by British anti-terror police in south London have reportedly turned down a compensation offer of 1 million pounds (1.8 million US dollars).
Matozinho and Maria de Menezes, parents of 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes, have reportedly rejected the offer as an insult, Sky news reported on Saturday.
"We will not be bought off. We will not be silenced. This is not about money, this is about justice," they told the Da... (more)
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Menezes reports 'needed clarity'Police should have clarified misleading reports about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority has said.
Leaked investigation papers seemed to contradict initial police statements and witness accounts of the shooting.
Green authority member Jenny Jones said it should have been "an immediate priority" for police to clarify the information after the 22 July shooting.
Meanwhile, police say there has been no compensat... (more)
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Troops undergo extreme torture trainingElite Australian soldiers are being blindfolded, stripped naked and threatened by savage dogs during extreme torture training exercises.
The regime has been approved at the highest level of government and is about to be upgraded in response to the threat from enemies who do not abide by the Geneva Conventions, the Weekend Australian newspaper reports.
Defence Minister Robert Hill confirmed that soldiers were threatened with physical and sexual abuse during simulated... (more)
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Police rethink shoot to kill policyBritain's top police officers are reviewing the controversial shoot to kill policy after its first use ended in the gunning down of an innocent man, the Guardian has learned.
The review by the Association of Chief Police Officers comes amid a continuing dispute around the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, over his handling of the killing of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes.
A senior police source and member of Acpo said: "The review is not theoretica... (more)
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China creates crack unit to crush poverty protestsCHINA has established elite police squads equipped with armoured vehicles and helicopters under orders to quell riots in a country where a protest erupts every seven minutes.
The squads are to be stationed in 36 cities, but the largest deployments are in Beijing and Shanghai as the Communist Party asserts its hold on power and gears up for the 2008 Olympic Games.
The latest team was inaugurated this week in the city of Zhengzhou, in central Henan province, China&aci... (more)
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Police in 5 states sue Taser in past 2 weeksPolice officers in five states filed lawsuits against Scottsdale-based Taser International over the past two weeks claiming they were seriously injured after being shocked with the electronic stun gun during training classes.
Among them is a Missouri police chief who says he suffered heart damage and two strokes when he volunteered to be shocked while hooked up to a cardiac monitor as a way to demonstrate the safety of the Taser to his officers.
Four of the suits we... (more)
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China sets up squads to combat terrorismChina has set up a new police force in large cities, equipped with helicopters and armoured vehicles, to combat the threat of terrorism and the rising incidence of rioting and social unrest across the country.
The squads, to be stationed in 36 large cities, reflect the need for a more professional police force amid concerns that it is currently ill-equipped to manage such issues, scholars and analysts said on Thursday.
Combating urban and rural rioting has tradition... (more)
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One in four adults say books aren't for them.Victoria Beckham says she has never read a book in her life. It's a common trait - one in four adults say books aren't for them.
"I haven't read a book in my life," the ex-Spice Girl has told a Spanish journalist. "I haven't got enough time. I prefer to listen to music, although I do love fashion magazines."
Posh is not alone in her rejection of books. For every three Britons with their noses in a bestseller, there's one adult in the UK who does not read books at al... (more)
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Bill would let police monitor your e-mailThe federal cabinet will review new legislation this fall that would give police and security agencies vast powers to begin surveillance of the Internet without court authority.
The new measures would allow law-enforcement agents to intercept personal e-mails, text messages and possibly even password-secure websites used for purchasing and financial transactions.
University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, a law and privacy expert involved in consultations over th... (more)
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