http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090429/ap_on_he_me/med_swine_flu
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer – 14 mins ago
WASHINGTON – A 23-month-old Texas toddler became the first confirmed swine flu death outside of Mexico as authorities around the world struggled to contain a growing global health menace that has also swept Germany onto the roster of afflicted nations. Officials say the death was in Houston.
Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Houston Health and Human Services Department, said Wednesday that the child had traveled with family from Mexico to Brownsville in South Texas. The child became ill in Brownsville and was taken to a Houston hospital and died Monday night, she said.
"Even though we've been expecting this, it is very, very sad," Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday of the infant's death. "As a pediatrician and a parent, my heart goes out to the family."
President Barack Obama said this morning that Americans should know the government is doing all it can to control virus. Obama also says schools should consider closing if the spread of the swine flu virus worsens.
Canada, Austria, New Zealand, Israel, Spain, Britain and Germany also have reported cases of swine flu sickness. Deaths reported so far have been limited to Mexico, and now the U.S.
As the United States grappled with this widening health crisis, Besser went from network to network Wednesday morning to give an update on what the Obama administration is doing. He said authorities essentially are still "trying to learn more about this strain of the flu." His appearances as Germany reported its first cases of swine flu infection, with three victims.
"It's very important that people take their concern and channel it into action," Besser said, adding that "it is crucial that people understand what they need to do if symptoms appear.
"I don't think it (the reported death in Texas) indicates any change in the strain," he said. "We see with any flu virus a spectrum of disease symptoms."
Asked why the problem seems so much more severe in Mexico, Besser said U.S. officials "have teams on the ground, a tri-national team in Mexico, working with Canada and Mexico, to try and understand those differences, because they can be helpful as we plan and implement our control strategies."
Sixty-six infections had been reported in the United States before the report of the toddler's death in Texas.
The world has no vaccine to prevent infection but U.S. health officials aim to have a key ingredient for one ready in early May, the big step that vaccine manufacturers are awaiting. But even if the World Health Organization ordered up emergency vaccine supplies — and that decision hasn't been made yet — it would take at least two more months to produce the initial shots needed for human safety testing.
"We're working together at 100 miles an hour to get material that will be useful," Dr. Jesse Goodman, who oversees the Food and Drug Administration's swine flu work, told The Associated Press.
The U.S. is shipping to states not only enough anti-flu medication for 11 million people, but also masks, hospital supplies and flu test kits. President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to help build more drug stockpiles and monitor future cases, as well as help international efforts to avoid a full-fledged pandemic.
"It's a very serious possibility, but it is still too early to say that this is inevitable," the WHO's flu chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, told a telephone news conference.
Cuba and Argentina banned flights to Mexico, where swine flu is suspected of killing more than 150 people and sickening well over 2,000. In a bit of good news, Mexico's health secretary, Jose Cordova, late Tuesday called the death toll there "more or less stable."
Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities, has taken drastic steps to curb the virus' spread, starting with shutting down schools and on Tuesday expanding closures to gyms and swimming pools and even telling restaurants to limit service to takeout. People who venture out tend to wear masks in hopes of protection.
The number of confirmed swine flu cases in the United States rose to 66 in six states, with 45 in New York, 11 in California, six in Texas, two in Kansas and one each in Indiana and Ohio, but cities and states suspected more. In New York, the city's health commissioner said "many hundreds" of schoolchildren were ill at a school where some students had confirmed cases.
The WHO argues against closing borders to stem the spread, and the U.S. — although checking arriving travelers for the ill who may need care — agrees it's too late for that tactic.
"Sealing a border as an approach to containment is something that has been discussed and it was our planning assumption should an outbreak of a new strain of influenza occur overseas. We had plans for trying to swoop in and knockout or quench an outbreak if it were occurring far from our borders. That's not the case here," Besser told a telephone briefing of Nevada-based health providers and reporters. "The idea of trying to limit the spread to Mexico is not realistic or at all possible."
"Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global economy.
Authorities sought to keep the crisis in context: Flu deaths are common around the world. In the U.S. alone, the CDC says about 36,000 people a year die of flu-related causes. Still, the CDC calls the new strain a combination of pig, bird and human viruses for which people may have limited natural immunity.
Hence the need for a vaccine. Using samples of the flu taken from people who fell ill in Mexico and the U.S., scientists are engineering a strain that could trigger the immune system without causing illness. The hope is to get that ingredient — called a "reference strain" in vaccine jargon — to manufacturers around the second week of May, so they can begin their own laborious production work, said CDC's Dr. Ruben Donis, who is leading that effort.
Vaccine manufacturers are just beginning production for next winter's regular influenza vaccine, which protects against three human flu strains. The WHO wants them to stay with that course for now — it won't call for mass production of a swine flu vaccine unless the outbreak worsens globally. But sometimes new flu strains pop up briefly at the end of one flu season and go away only to re-emerge the next fall, and at the very least there should be a vaccine in time for next winter's flu season, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health's infectious diseases chief, said Tuesday.
"Right now it's moving very rapidly," he said of the vaccine development.
Besser appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," CNN and CBS's "The Early Show."
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
US flu deaths seen as likely as outbreak spreads
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_he_me/med_swine_flu
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Write
WASHINGTON – More fell ill with swine flu in the U.S. and deaths seem likely as governments around the world on Tuesday intensified steps to battle the outbreak that has killed scores in Mexico.
President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to fight the fast-spreading disease. Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where public life is being altered dramatically by illness.
The Los Angeles County coroner's office was investigating the recent deaths of two men for links to swine flu. So far, no deaths linked to the disease have been reported outside Mexico. And the number of students who have fallen ill at a New York City school hit by the outbreak climbed to several hundred, officials said.
"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection," Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta.
Besser said the U.S. has 64 confirmed cases across five states, with 45 in New York, one in Ohio, two in Kansas, six in Texas and 10 in California.
But states are reporting more illnesses that could be linked to the flu.
New York has the largest number of swine flu cases, with a heavy concentration at a Catholic school in Queens section of New York City, where students recently went on a spring break trip to Mexico.
Several hundred students have fallen ill at that school, city officials said Tuesday.
There also were indications that the outbreak may have spread beyond the school, with two people hospitalized and officials closing a school for autistic kids down the street. Those two hospitalizations are in addition to the five hospitalizations announced by the CDC, including three in California and two in Texas.
"It is here and it is spreading," New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said. "We do not know whether it will continue to spread."
Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where swine flu is believed to have killed more than 150 people. Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities, cracked down even further on public life, closing gyms, swimming pools and pool halls and ordering restaurants to limit service to takeout. Earlier, the city shut down schools, state-run theaters and other public places.
But for all the government intervention, health officials around the world suggested the flu virus strain was spreading so fast that efforts to contain it might prove ineffective.
"Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work," World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global economy.
Obama's request for $1.5 billion in emergency funds would help build drug stockpiles and monitor future cases as well as help international efforts. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the flu outbreak requires "prudent planning" and not panic.
Cuba was the first country to impose an outright travel ban. But the United States and a number of other countries, including Canada, Israel, France and the European Union's disease control agency have warned against nonessential travel to Mexico.
The swine flu already has spread to at least six countries besides Mexico, prompting WHO to raise its alert level on Monday but not call for travel bans or border closings.
Around the world, officials hoped the outbreak would not turn into a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that spreads across a wide geographical area.
"It's a very serious possibility, but it is still too early to say that this is inevitable," the WHO's flu chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, told a telephone news conference.
Flu deaths are nothing new in the United States or elsewhere. The CDC estimates that about 36,000 people died of flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the United States.
But the new flu strain is a combination of pig, bird and human viruses for which humans may have no natural immunity.
New Zealand reported that 11 people who recently returned from Mexico had contracted the virus. Tests conducted at a WHO laboratory in Australia confirmed three cases of swine flu among 11 members of the group who were showing symptoms, New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall said.
Israel's Health Ministry confirmed two swine flu cases in men who recently returned from Mexico. One has recovered and the other was not believed to be in serious danger, health officials said.
Meanwhile, a second case was confirmed Tuesday in Spain, Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez said, a day after the country reported its first case. The 23-year-old student, one of 26 patients under observation, was not in serious condition, Jimenez said.
With the virus spreading, the U.S. stepped up checks of people entering the country and warned Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.
"We anticipate that there will be confirmed cases in more states as we go through the coming days," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday.
On Capitol Hill, a Senate panel held an emergency meeting on the disease.
"Based on the pattern of illness we're seeing, we don't think this virus can be contained. ... But we do think we can reduce the impact of its spread, and reduce its impact on health," Rear. Adm. Anne Schuchat, the CDC interim science and public health deputy director, told a Senate Appropriations health subcommittee.
"There's a lot of anxiety right now across the country," subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said.
"It's important for people to know there's a lot that we can do," Schuchat told Harkin. "The investments that have been made in preparedness are making a difference."
Still, she warned, not only might the disease get worse, "it might get much worse."
"We don't have all the answers today," she added.
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Write
WASHINGTON – More fell ill with swine flu in the U.S. and deaths seem likely as governments around the world on Tuesday intensified steps to battle the outbreak that has killed scores in Mexico.
President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to fight the fast-spreading disease. Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where public life is being altered dramatically by illness.
The Los Angeles County coroner's office was investigating the recent deaths of two men for links to swine flu. So far, no deaths linked to the disease have been reported outside Mexico. And the number of students who have fallen ill at a New York City school hit by the outbreak climbed to several hundred, officials said.
"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection," Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta.
Besser said the U.S. has 64 confirmed cases across five states, with 45 in New York, one in Ohio, two in Kansas, six in Texas and 10 in California.
But states are reporting more illnesses that could be linked to the flu.
New York has the largest number of swine flu cases, with a heavy concentration at a Catholic school in Queens section of New York City, where students recently went on a spring break trip to Mexico.
Several hundred students have fallen ill at that school, city officials said Tuesday.
There also were indications that the outbreak may have spread beyond the school, with two people hospitalized and officials closing a school for autistic kids down the street. Those two hospitalizations are in addition to the five hospitalizations announced by the CDC, including three in California and two in Texas.
"It is here and it is spreading," New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said. "We do not know whether it will continue to spread."
Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where swine flu is believed to have killed more than 150 people. Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities, cracked down even further on public life, closing gyms, swimming pools and pool halls and ordering restaurants to limit service to takeout. Earlier, the city shut down schools, state-run theaters and other public places.
But for all the government intervention, health officials around the world suggested the flu virus strain was spreading so fast that efforts to contain it might prove ineffective.
"Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work," World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global economy.
Obama's request for $1.5 billion in emergency funds would help build drug stockpiles and monitor future cases as well as help international efforts. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the flu outbreak requires "prudent planning" and not panic.
Cuba was the first country to impose an outright travel ban. But the United States and a number of other countries, including Canada, Israel, France and the European Union's disease control agency have warned against nonessential travel to Mexico.
The swine flu already has spread to at least six countries besides Mexico, prompting WHO to raise its alert level on Monday but not call for travel bans or border closings.
Around the world, officials hoped the outbreak would not turn into a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that spreads across a wide geographical area.
"It's a very serious possibility, but it is still too early to say that this is inevitable," the WHO's flu chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, told a telephone news conference.
Flu deaths are nothing new in the United States or elsewhere. The CDC estimates that about 36,000 people died of flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the United States.
But the new flu strain is a combination of pig, bird and human viruses for which humans may have no natural immunity.
New Zealand reported that 11 people who recently returned from Mexico had contracted the virus. Tests conducted at a WHO laboratory in Australia confirmed three cases of swine flu among 11 members of the group who were showing symptoms, New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall said.
Israel's Health Ministry confirmed two swine flu cases in men who recently returned from Mexico. One has recovered and the other was not believed to be in serious danger, health officials said.
Meanwhile, a second case was confirmed Tuesday in Spain, Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez said, a day after the country reported its first case. The 23-year-old student, one of 26 patients under observation, was not in serious condition, Jimenez said.
With the virus spreading, the U.S. stepped up checks of people entering the country and warned Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.
"We anticipate that there will be confirmed cases in more states as we go through the coming days," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday.
On Capitol Hill, a Senate panel held an emergency meeting on the disease.
"Based on the pattern of illness we're seeing, we don't think this virus can be contained. ... But we do think we can reduce the impact of its spread, and reduce its impact on health," Rear. Adm. Anne Schuchat, the CDC interim science and public health deputy director, told a Senate Appropriations health subcommittee.
"There's a lot of anxiety right now across the country," subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said.
"It's important for people to know there's a lot that we can do," Schuchat told Harkin. "The investments that have been made in preparedness are making a difference."
Still, she warned, not only might the disease get worse, "it might get much worse."
"We don't have all the answers today," she added.
Monday, April 27, 2009
US declares public health emergency over swine flu outbreak
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/US_de..._over_0426.html
Agence France-Presse
Published: Sunday April 26, 2009
The United States declared a swine flu outbreak a public health emergency Sunday as officials confirmed 20 cases in five US states and warned that they expected more in the coming days.
President Barack Obama is monitoring the spreading virus and has reviewed US capabilities to counter the deadly flu outbreak, which has killed up to 81 people in Mexico, White House homeland security advisor John Brennan told reporters.
Obama has ordered a "very active, aggressive, and coordinated response," Brennan said.
Richard Besser, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a White House press conference that there were eight confirmed US cases in New York City, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio.
"As we look for cases of swine flu, we are seeing more cases of swine flu. We expect to see more cases of swine flu," said Besser.
"We're responding aggressively to try and learn more about this outbreak" and to implement measures to control its spread, he added.
"We've ramped up our surveillance around the country to try and understand better what is the scope, what is the magnitude of this outbreak."
Although there the government has not issued a warning against travel to Mexico, Besser said warnings could be increased "based on what the situation warrants."
Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano said the US government would officially declare a public health emergency later on Sunday in response to the outbreak, adding that the declaration was "standard operating procedure."
The move allows government agencies to free up federal, state and local agencies and their resources in preventing the spread of the virus.
The declaration also allows officials to use medication and diagnostic tests and releases funds to purchase additional antiviral medication.
"All persons entering the United States from a location of human infection of swine flu will be processed through all appropriate CDC protocols," she added.
Suspected swine flu cases were being tested in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, after the new strain gain attention out of Mexico last week.
Health officials in Canada have reported a total of six confirmed cases of the potentially deadly virus.
World Health Organization (WHO) officials warned that the new strain, apparently born when human and avian flu viruses infected pigs and became mixed, could further mutate.
US immigration officials are looking for people with flu symptoms, said Napolitano.
"Travelers who do present with symptoms, if and when encountered, will be isolated per established rules," she said.
"They will be provided both with personal protective equipment and we'll continue to emphasize universal hand washing."
Similar emergency health declarations were issued for floods in recent months in the US states of Minnesota and North Dakota and President Barack Obama's inauguration in January.
Napolitano said the government intends to release a quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million doses of the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. The drugs would be made available to all US states, especially those with confirmed cases of the flu.
The Pentagon, she added, "has procured and strategically pre-positioned" seven million treatment courses of the flu drug Tamiflu.
In Mexico, President Felipe Calderon urged citizens to consult a doctor if they present flu-like symptoms.
Speaking at a National Health Council event on Sunday, Felipe Calderon said it was necessary for Mexicans to "move fast, but to maintain calm and cooperate with the authorities."
Agence France-Presse
Published: Sunday April 26, 2009
The United States declared a swine flu outbreak a public health emergency Sunday as officials confirmed 20 cases in five US states and warned that they expected more in the coming days.
President Barack Obama is monitoring the spreading virus and has reviewed US capabilities to counter the deadly flu outbreak, which has killed up to 81 people in Mexico, White House homeland security advisor John Brennan told reporters.
Obama has ordered a "very active, aggressive, and coordinated response," Brennan said.
Richard Besser, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a White House press conference that there were eight confirmed US cases in New York City, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio.
"As we look for cases of swine flu, we are seeing more cases of swine flu. We expect to see more cases of swine flu," said Besser.
"We're responding aggressively to try and learn more about this outbreak" and to implement measures to control its spread, he added.
"We've ramped up our surveillance around the country to try and understand better what is the scope, what is the magnitude of this outbreak."
Although there the government has not issued a warning against travel to Mexico, Besser said warnings could be increased "based on what the situation warrants."
Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano said the US government would officially declare a public health emergency later on Sunday in response to the outbreak, adding that the declaration was "standard operating procedure."
The move allows government agencies to free up federal, state and local agencies and their resources in preventing the spread of the virus.
The declaration also allows officials to use medication and diagnostic tests and releases funds to purchase additional antiviral medication.
"All persons entering the United States from a location of human infection of swine flu will be processed through all appropriate CDC protocols," she added.
Suspected swine flu cases were being tested in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, after the new strain gain attention out of Mexico last week.
Health officials in Canada have reported a total of six confirmed cases of the potentially deadly virus.
World Health Organization (WHO) officials warned that the new strain, apparently born when human and avian flu viruses infected pigs and became mixed, could further mutate.
US immigration officials are looking for people with flu symptoms, said Napolitano.
"Travelers who do present with symptoms, if and when encountered, will be isolated per established rules," she said.
"They will be provided both with personal protective equipment and we'll continue to emphasize universal hand washing."
Similar emergency health declarations were issued for floods in recent months in the US states of Minnesota and North Dakota and President Barack Obama's inauguration in January.
Napolitano said the government intends to release a quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million doses of the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. The drugs would be made available to all US states, especially those with confirmed cases of the flu.
The Pentagon, she added, "has procured and strategically pre-positioned" seven million treatment courses of the flu drug Tamiflu.
In Mexico, President Felipe Calderon urged citizens to consult a doctor if they present flu-like symptoms.
Speaking at a National Health Council event on Sunday, Felipe Calderon said it was necessary for Mexicans to "move fast, but to maintain calm and cooperate with the authorities."
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Governments on alert as swine flu threat goes global
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Governments_on_alert_as_swine_flu_0426.html
HONG KONG — Asian health officials went on alert Sunday as a flu strain that has killed dozens of people in Mexico appeared to have spread to New Zealand, underscoring warnings of a potential pandemic.
Governments across the region, which has in recent years been at the forefront of the SARS and bird flu epidemics, stepped up checks at airports and urged the public to be on guard for symptoms of the new multi-strain flu.
Ten New Zealand students who recently traveled to Mexico are "likely" to have contracted swine fever, Health Minister Tony Ryall said Sunday -- the first suspected cases in the region of more than three billion people.
They were among a group of three teachers and 22 students from Auckland who returned home on Saturday. Thirteen students and one teacher had displayed flu-like symptoms and were quarantined in their homes while undergoing tests.
"Ministry of Health officials advise me there is no guarantee these students have swine influenza, but they consider it likely," Ryall said.
Samples from the students, who already tested positive for influenza A, were being sent to a World Health Organisation (WHO) laboratory in Melbourne, Australia to determine whether they had swine flu, Ryall said.
Mexican officials said the death toll from the new strain had probably risen to 81, while 10 people were believed infected in the United States and there were two possible cases in France.
The WHO warned Saturday that the virus had the potential to become a pandemic, labeling the current outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern."
In Japan, airports tightened checks on passengers arriving from Mexico, with quarantine officials giving out face masks and using thermography imaging cameras to screen passengers for signs of fever.
Health officials handed out leaflets to those headed for Mexico and the United States, urging them to wear face masks and wash their hands regularly, while a health ministry hotline attracted some 400 calls.
Agriculture minister Shigeru Ishiba appealed for calm, saying that the drug Tamiflu "is very effective. We have enough stockpiles in Japan."
South Korea followed suit, ordering all passengers on flights from virus-hit nations to pass through a strengthened quarantine check with a test kit at the airports.
Authorities also put Mexican and US pork in quarantine to check for the disease.
Australia urged people who had recently returned from Mexico and had developed flu-like symptoms to seek medical advice.
China and Hong Kong bore the brunt of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 that killed nearly 800 people, most of them in Asia, bringing air travel here to a near-standstill and battering the region's economies.
The same year, the H5N1 strain of bird flu re-appeared in Asia.
It has since killed 257 people, according to the World Health Organisation, and officials have long warned that the virus could become a global pandemic if it mutates into a form that is easily transmissible between humans.
The Chinese health ministry said it was "paying close attention" to the situation, studying inspection and quarantine measures to guard against the spread of the latest flu strain.
In Hong Kong, health officials said checks at border crossings had been stepped up and that airlines had been asked to broadcast messages on all flights coming direct from affected areas.
Indonesia, which has recorded the most deaths from bird flu of any country, said it was checking that thermoscanners were working at all ports and airports.
Thailand's Public Health Minister, Witthaya Kaewparadai, said authorities were "monitoring the epidemic closely" and advised people travelling to Mexico and the United States to take advice from the ministry.
Highlighting the potential role of international air travel in spreading the virus, a British Airways cabin crew staff member was being treated in a London hospital with flu-like symptoms after arriving on a flight from Mexico City.
HONG KONG — Asian health officials went on alert Sunday as a flu strain that has killed dozens of people in Mexico appeared to have spread to New Zealand, underscoring warnings of a potential pandemic.
Governments across the region, which has in recent years been at the forefront of the SARS and bird flu epidemics, stepped up checks at airports and urged the public to be on guard for symptoms of the new multi-strain flu.
Ten New Zealand students who recently traveled to Mexico are "likely" to have contracted swine fever, Health Minister Tony Ryall said Sunday -- the first suspected cases in the region of more than three billion people.
They were among a group of three teachers and 22 students from Auckland who returned home on Saturday. Thirteen students and one teacher had displayed flu-like symptoms and were quarantined in their homes while undergoing tests.
"Ministry of Health officials advise me there is no guarantee these students have swine influenza, but they consider it likely," Ryall said.
Samples from the students, who already tested positive for influenza A, were being sent to a World Health Organisation (WHO) laboratory in Melbourne, Australia to determine whether they had swine flu, Ryall said.
Mexican officials said the death toll from the new strain had probably risen to 81, while 10 people were believed infected in the United States and there were two possible cases in France.
The WHO warned Saturday that the virus had the potential to become a pandemic, labeling the current outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern."
In Japan, airports tightened checks on passengers arriving from Mexico, with quarantine officials giving out face masks and using thermography imaging cameras to screen passengers for signs of fever.
Health officials handed out leaflets to those headed for Mexico and the United States, urging them to wear face masks and wash their hands regularly, while a health ministry hotline attracted some 400 calls.
Agriculture minister Shigeru Ishiba appealed for calm, saying that the drug Tamiflu "is very effective. We have enough stockpiles in Japan."
South Korea followed suit, ordering all passengers on flights from virus-hit nations to pass through a strengthened quarantine check with a test kit at the airports.
Authorities also put Mexican and US pork in quarantine to check for the disease.
Australia urged people who had recently returned from Mexico and had developed flu-like symptoms to seek medical advice.
China and Hong Kong bore the brunt of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 that killed nearly 800 people, most of them in Asia, bringing air travel here to a near-standstill and battering the region's economies.
The same year, the H5N1 strain of bird flu re-appeared in Asia.
It has since killed 257 people, according to the World Health Organisation, and officials have long warned that the virus could become a global pandemic if it mutates into a form that is easily transmissible between humans.
The Chinese health ministry said it was "paying close attention" to the situation, studying inspection and quarantine measures to guard against the spread of the latest flu strain.
In Hong Kong, health officials said checks at border crossings had been stepped up and that airlines had been asked to broadcast messages on all flights coming direct from affected areas.
Indonesia, which has recorded the most deaths from bird flu of any country, said it was checking that thermoscanners were working at all ports and airports.
Thailand's Public Health Minister, Witthaya Kaewparadai, said authorities were "monitoring the epidemic closely" and advised people travelling to Mexico and the United States to take advice from the ministry.
Highlighting the potential role of international air travel in spreading the virus, a British Airways cabin crew staff member was being treated in a London hospital with flu-like symptoms after arriving on a flight from Mexico City.
Protesters, police clash near IMF meetings in DC
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Protesters_police_clash_near_IMF_meetings_0425.html
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Seven people were arrested near the International Monetary Fund's Washington headquarters on Saturday as they tried to stop meetings taking place inside, police said.
"Six people were detained for vandalism offenses and a seventh was detained for assaulting a police officer," Washington police spokesman Quentin Peterson told AFP.
Two banks were attacked in disturbances that began early on Saturday morning and were aimed at disrupting the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank.
Police did not offer an estimate for the number of people involved in the disturbances, but organizer David Combs of the the Global Justice Action group said protesters numbered 300. Local media put the figure at closer to 100.
"The aim of the protests was to express outrage at the IMF's long-standing (habit) of ignoring human rights and environmental concerns," Combs said.
Protesters carried banners berating the Bretton Woods institutions and calling for an end to capitalism.
They carried placards stating that "Capitalism is Crisis" and shouted slogans calling for the IMF to be shut down, before clashing with police.
Law enforcers had earlier announced road closures around the IMF -- which lies in central Washington, not far from the White House -- until Sunday when meetings are scheduled to conclude.
The World Bank on Saturday launched a 55-billion-dollar infrastructure investment program as part of efforts to help developing countries weather the worst global slump in decades.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Seven people were arrested near the International Monetary Fund's Washington headquarters on Saturday as they tried to stop meetings taking place inside, police said.
"Six people were detained for vandalism offenses and a seventh was detained for assaulting a police officer," Washington police spokesman Quentin Peterson told AFP.
Two banks were attacked in disturbances that began early on Saturday morning and were aimed at disrupting the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank.
Police did not offer an estimate for the number of people involved in the disturbances, but organizer David Combs of the the Global Justice Action group said protesters numbered 300. Local media put the figure at closer to 100.
"The aim of the protests was to express outrage at the IMF's long-standing (habit) of ignoring human rights and environmental concerns," Combs said.
Protesters carried banners berating the Bretton Woods institutions and calling for an end to capitalism.
They carried placards stating that "Capitalism is Crisis" and shouted slogans calling for the IMF to be shut down, before clashing with police.
Law enforcers had earlier announced road closures around the IMF -- which lies in central Washington, not far from the White House -- until Sunday when meetings are scheduled to conclude.
The World Bank on Saturday launched a 55-billion-dollar infrastructure investment program as part of efforts to help developing countries weather the worst global slump in decades.
Senate report: Rice, Cheney OK'd CIA use of waterboarding
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04....waterboarding/
4/23/2009
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Bush administration officials gave the CIA approval to use waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique, as early as 2002, a Senate intelligence report shows.
On July 17, 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who later became secretary of state, said the CIA could proceed with "alternative interrogation methods," including waterboarding, when questioning suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
The decision was contingent on the Justice Department's determining the method's legality. A week later, Attorney General John Ashcroft had determined the "proposed interrogation techniques were lawful," the report said.
The same techniques also were used in the interrogations of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the first person charged in the United States in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
The release of the report, prepared by the attorney general's office at the request of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, details and declassifies the advice given to the CIA regarding its interrogation techniques.
The techniques again gained the endorsement of the Bush administration in spring 2003 when the CIA asked for a "reaffirmation of the policies and practices in the interrogation program."
In a meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney, CIA Director George Tenet, Ashcroft, Rice and their legal counsels, "the principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy," the report said.
President Obama has called waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- torture and last week released a series of Bush-era memos on interrogation tactics.
One memo showed that CIA interrogators used waterboarding at least 266 times on Zubaydah and Mohammed.
In a 2008 interview with ABC, Cheney defended the practice of waterboarding, now banned by the Obama administration, particularly in the case of Mohammed.
"Did it produce the desired results? I think it did," Cheney said. Watch what Hillary Clinton says about Cheney »
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ... provided us with a wealth of information. There was a period of time there, three or fours years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source.
"So it's been a remarkably successful effort," he said. "I think the results speak for themselves."
More recently, Cheney said some people are more interested in reading terrorists their rights than protecting the United States, a dig at the new administration.
Cheney this week called Obama's release of the Bush memos "disturbing" and said the administration is sitting on other CIA memos that show that the interrogations helped stop terror attacks. Watch what Cheney says about Obama »
"They didn't put out the memos that show the success of the effort, and there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity," Cheney told Fox News on Monday. "They have not been declassified."
4/23/2009
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Bush administration officials gave the CIA approval to use waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique, as early as 2002, a Senate intelligence report shows.
On July 17, 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who later became secretary of state, said the CIA could proceed with "alternative interrogation methods," including waterboarding, when questioning suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
The decision was contingent on the Justice Department's determining the method's legality. A week later, Attorney General John Ashcroft had determined the "proposed interrogation techniques were lawful," the report said.
The same techniques also were used in the interrogations of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the first person charged in the United States in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
The release of the report, prepared by the attorney general's office at the request of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, details and declassifies the advice given to the CIA regarding its interrogation techniques.
The techniques again gained the endorsement of the Bush administration in spring 2003 when the CIA asked for a "reaffirmation of the policies and practices in the interrogation program."
In a meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney, CIA Director George Tenet, Ashcroft, Rice and their legal counsels, "the principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy," the report said.
President Obama has called waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- torture and last week released a series of Bush-era memos on interrogation tactics.
One memo showed that CIA interrogators used waterboarding at least 266 times on Zubaydah and Mohammed.
In a 2008 interview with ABC, Cheney defended the practice of waterboarding, now banned by the Obama administration, particularly in the case of Mohammed.
"Did it produce the desired results? I think it did," Cheney said. Watch what Hillary Clinton says about Cheney »
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ... provided us with a wealth of information. There was a period of time there, three or fours years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source.
"So it's been a remarkably successful effort," he said. "I think the results speak for themselves."
More recently, Cheney said some people are more interested in reading terrorists their rights than protecting the United States, a dig at the new administration.
Cheney this week called Obama's release of the Bush memos "disturbing" and said the administration is sitting on other CIA memos that show that the interrogations helped stop terror attacks. Watch what Cheney says about Obama »
"They didn't put out the memos that show the success of the effort, and there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity," Cheney told Fox News on Monday. "They have not been declassified."
Yes, Aspartame is TOXIC and don't think otherwise
Since i am not as well versed on the subject of aspartame as some i decided to do some digging around about John E. Garst Phd (he posted a rather well written response to my last post). I just want to say whats up doc? It appears you have been arguing that aspartame is not harmful with anyone who says otherwise on the net since at least 06...a simple google search will show that. Anyways i am going to go ahead and continue to post info against the sweetener since it gives me severe headaches when i consume it. Thanks for dropping by though. The following is another posting about aspartame that i believe he tried to discredit in late 08'.
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/yes-aspartame-is-toxic-and-dont-think.html
Yes, Aspartame is TOXIC and don't think otherwise
UPDATE: Dec 18
Please read this important article by Bill Deagle, MD if you need more facts about the toxicity of aspartame, yet another substance originally approved as an insecticide -
ASPARTAME IS NEUROTOXIC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This morning I received an anonymous post in response to the many articles I have posted both on my original website and Natural Health News. The post came with a signature of John E. Garst.
I was not willing to post the comment because it is submitted anonymously, which is the antithesis of our policy. We will post comments if they are submitted with your name and request it be posted without your name, and it is salient to the topic.
Whoever the Garst fellow is I found his attack on my background offensive as he states the following:
John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Nutrition)
(FYI, I have absolutely no financial or biasing connection with the aspartame, the soft drink or related industries. However, I am just tired of people who have no understanding of the the sciences of pharmacology and toxicology trying to pass judgment by hearsay on something that they know nothing about.)
I have an extensive understanding of pharmacology, toxicology, and nutrition, as well as human physiology, biochemistry and medicine.
Obviously the sender failed to read ABOUT....
Aspartame is toxic, it is an insecticide. If you want to ingest insecticide, just like Splenda as well, then do so at your own risk.
And if you don't want insecticides in the food you purchase or ingest I'd encourage you to write you Member of Congress and demand it be taken off the market.
However if you want the science, please read on.
ASPARTAME FLACK TRIES TO MISLEAD NEW MEXICO LEGISLATURE
John Garst brags that he played a major role in obliterating efforts to ban aspartame in 06. Hes trying to do it again by bombarding legislators with complicated lingo only a biochemist can comprehend. Its a vacuous bluff with hot air said James Bowen MD. who is a physician, surgeon, biochemist, and an aspartame victim with Lou Gehrigs.
New Mexico lawmakers are expected to take Garth's word for it and do what he wants. This last-minute blast is an ambush in bad faith, like yelling fire in a crowded theater so the legislature will run for the exits. Garst wants a stampede!
Good faith requires him to come forward in time for his assertions to be examined. But then he would be exposed. With no time for deliberation the legislators are expected to just accept his say-so.
At the say-so level: R G Walton M.D. Chairman, Center for Behavioral Medicine at NE Ohio College of Medicine analyzed 92 peer-reviewed studies not funded by aspartame industry. 92% found PROBLEMS!
There were also 74, sponsored by NutraSweet, which said its safe as rain. Dr. Walton concluded Serious questions have been raised about the reliability of industry-sponsored studies of the safety of synthetic chemicals. Aspartame, in particular, has been the focus of significant ongoing controversy Walton named numerous adverse clinical events including seizures, mood disorders, headaches and brain tumors.
In 95 the FDA listed 92 reactions from 10,000 volunteered complaints, including death.
H. J. Roberts, M.D., FACP a diabetic specialist has produced 20 books and his first text on medical diagnosis was used by 60,000 doctors to prepare for their Board examinations. In his response to Garst's allegation that aspartame sensitivity reflects folate deficiency, he wrote to the members of the New Mexico Legislature:
You have received correspondence concerning folate deficiency as the purported cause of aspartame disease. While folate plays a role in the metabolism of methanol (methyl alcohol), the severity and widespread nature of reactions to aspartame products suggest that this assertion must be tempered by the following:
*The methyl alcohol in aspartame is FREE (rarely found as such in nature.)
*The assertion that methanol concentrations never are very high after aspartame ingestion is erroneous. I devoted an entire chapter to methanol toxicity in my text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic (pp 668-685), and show in Figure XXI-1 the dose-related blood levels of methanollasting 8 or more hours.
*The assertion that many New Mexicans suffer from a folate deficiency is challenged. While I discussed such a theoretical deficiency in my text, there is no evidence that folate deficiency is widespread among Americans. For example, a Mayo Clinic study involving thousands of blood assays concluded that it was rare. Garst ignores the major roles of phenylalanine and aspartic acid in aspartame disease.
Enormous effort has gone into this constructive attempt to ban aspartame products. I believe that it constitutes an imminent health hazard for New Mexicans. You are to be congratulated for coming this far in the face of severe corporate resistance.
H. J. Roberts, M.D., FACP, FCCP
Dr. Maria Alemany, Departament du Nutricio I Bromatologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, who was the researcher for the damning Trocho Study wrote that he was deeply insulted by Garsts propaganda. Remember that Dr. Alemanys study proved the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol embalms living tissue and damages DNA. As we know when you damage DNA you can destroy humanity. So concerned for the public was Dr. Alemany that after his study he reported it to the authorities. He told me personally that he was concerned aspartame could kill millions and I said has killed millions. After all aspartame can trigger all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases and tumors and can precipitate diabetes. Even the FDA found many types of tumors and brain cancer on original studies and the Ramazzini Study in 2005 confirmed FDA findings reporting the study showed aspartame to be a multipotential carcinogen. Dr. Alemany is a hero to the world and proved beyond a shadow of doubt what aspartame experts believed for years.
Dr. Alemany said: First, Garst suggests that perhaps aspartame just affects people with a metabolic deficit. If that were the case (I doubt it, deficits may just enhance the effect of aspartame), why then has it not been studied? In the case of cyclamate, the ban on its use is based on the deleterious effects on only a fraction of the population
Second. Dr. Garst accepts that aspartame yields formaldehyde... then, why not give formaldehyde to the people to help them synthesize methyl groups? Did I understood well (after speaking of the double helix which has very little to do here unless for the binding of formaldehyde to its strands to induce mutation) that Dr. Garst suggests that aspartame may be beneficial because its derived formaldehyde may supply one-carbon units for methylations through the folate pathway? If that were the case, why not get the FDA approval for aspartame as a drug/vitamin substitute? This is an outright fallacy (or better said bull-manure).
Third. Please, not again the tale of the methyl-esters of pectins! It has been proved to nausea that most of the methyl-alcohol esters of uronic acids remain esterified through intestinal passage, and that freed in the large intestine by the action of the flora is majoritarily and keenly used by these microbes for their profit. The remaining methyl alcohol leaving the intestine is largely detoxified by the liver (this is a physiological mechanism well known and proved effective for millennia). Aspartame, however, is not fully hydrolyzed in the intestine, being absorbed in part intact. After the intestine-portal vein-liver trap is surpassed, the body protection against methanol wanes, and the tiny liberation of methanol in tissues yields little amounts of formaldehyde that cause serious damage, precisely because it behaves very differently from the natural products methanol. Even in cases of wood-alcohol (methanol) intoxication, the liver helps to stem the overflow of toxic. Methanol inhalation or injection is much more dangerous, because it goes directly into the bloodstream and tissues jumping the liver barrier. This is explained in elementary physiology and biochemistry courses, it is unbelievable that this is maintained as a "serious" scientific position by somebody that got a PhD, unless this is not a discourse of science but of economy.
Theories are nice, but have to be proved true. The one Dr. Garst exposes here is that maintained by pro-aspartame fellows for decades. This is how they explained the incorporation of aspartame label into protein and DNA in the earliest experiments on aspartame using tracers that were published (none was published by this group thereafter). This theory fits very well with the story of a harmless aspartame, but it has been proven untrue. We did it, and this is why our study was so damaging. If the theory recycled by Dr. Garst were true, then, the carbon of the methyl alcohol of aspartame would enter the one-carbon path mediated by tetrahydrofolate, this can be done via formaldehyde or via formate. These one-carbon units may be processed (depending on demand) to methyl groups, such as those found in carnitine, thymine and methionine (the only amino acid that can get back methyl groups in mammals), thus explaining the presence of label in protein (methionine) or DNA (thymine). We gave labeled aspartame to rats, and got their DNA and protein from a number of tissues, and found large proportions of label. So far no differences with the Aspartame-lovers theory. However, we hydrolyzed the protein and DNA and looked for label in thymine in DNA and methionine in protein. We found none. Instead, the label was in unknown spots in the chromatograms, which plainly indicates that the incorporation of label into DNA and protein was NOT through the incorporation of methyl groups, i.e. the one-carbon folate pathway. Other ways of label incorporation should explain the attachment of the label. The most logical explanation (justified by innumerable studies that show that formaldehyde attaches to protein and other molecules) was that aspartame-derived formaldehyde was chemically bound to protein and DNA, inactivating (embalming, in fact) proteins and altering DNA structure causing mutations.
The experimental studies show that the theory is faulty. No counter-experiments were published showing our possible "errors", nor the theory of folate pathway incorporation has been proved experimentally (it is fairly easy to demonstrate, it only needs to be true, however). This is why I felt insulted. It is an insult to the intelligence of anybody with even a thin varnish of scientific knowledge to discard proven facts and stick to self-fulfilling harebrained theories. If what the aspartame lovers say about the fate of aspartame carbon is true, why nobody has proved it experimentally? It is easy to carry out and much less expensive than hiring lawyers to defend bad science with top dollar legal expertise
I used as heading the famous initial words of the second Catilinary by Cicero, which I remember from my early high-school Latin. Since probably most Americans were lucky enough not to study Latin when 10-11 years old, I provide an approximate translation: "Up to when do you, Catilina, will abuse our patience?", substitute Catilina for the present aspartame producers and probably it fits very well the picture.
Good luck on the banning of this menace to our collective health.
Best regards,
--------------------------
Dr. Maria Alemany
Departament de Nutrici i Bromatologia
Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona
Av. Diagonal, 645
08028 Barcelona. Espanya / Espaa / Spain
Today in Dr. Roberts medical text there is a page on pre-embalming thanks to the work of the courageous Dr. Maria Alemany
--------------------------
Dr. James Bowen was extremely upset that John Garst tried to deceive the legislature, especially the day before the discussion and said, This is a brazen attempt to violate every due process procedure with respect to all scientific and legal hearings.. Dr. Garth's ambush is only an attempt to win against the health and welfare of the people of New Mexico, by unlawful and unscientific ambush and by utilizing brazen pseudo science lying.
He hopes to impress by using impressive Big Words from science! This is merely science trash I will mention one case of his falsity: abuse of science and scientific process. Dr. Garst says that the folate issue is one reason not to disturb the present commerce of aspartame. This causes a highly synergized form in human metabolism, obligatory: methanol to formaldehyde to formic acid to carbon monoxide toxic axis! Molecule for molecule, the deadly formic acid congener (formate) from aspartame metabolism consumes (molecule per molecule) one molecule of folic acid (folate) to eliminate the formate without creating subsequent carbon monoxide poisoning.
Aspartame has caused many years of folate iatrogenic deficiency, already causing many human illness epidemics, fetal deformities. When in l984 I called the FDA about this, because they had concurrent with their licensure of aspartame, abandoned their 50 year standard of folic acid ingestion by pregnant women (1 mg), leading to grievous fetal defects, they like Dr. Garst lied their way out saying: We have already checked all that out. There just aren't any problems at all. But neural tube, bladder defects and cardiac deformities escalated within our newborn population victimized by aspartame. Birth defects are a major epidemic caused by aspartame, with full protection and avid cooperation from the US FDA. James Bowen, M.D.
Mark Gold of the Aspartame Toxicity Center says this short document answers all of the aspartame industrys claims about aspartame and formaldehyde poisoning: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/methanol.html
Dr. John Garst is a Ph.D and its obvious he knows he is publishing false information. His modus operandi is to use his credentials to deceive others because he cant debate true experts who can easily take apart his nonsense.
The New Mexico legislature has better sense to even consider Garst's claptrap. Aspartame manufacturers must sit up at night thinking of ways to deceive. Families all over the world have been destroyed by this poison causing male sexual dysfunction, cancer and diabetes and sudden death. Enough is enough. Aspartame must be banned from the planet to save the human race.
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770 242-2599
www.wnho.net and http://www.dorway.com
Aspartame Toxicity Center, http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
Aspartame Information List, http://www.mpwhi.com
Aspartame Documentary: Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/yes-aspartame-is-toxic-and-dont-think.html
Yes, Aspartame is TOXIC and don't think otherwise
UPDATE: Dec 18
Please read this important article by Bill Deagle, MD if you need more facts about the toxicity of aspartame, yet another substance originally approved as an insecticide -
ASPARTAME IS NEUROTOXIC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This morning I received an anonymous post in response to the many articles I have posted both on my original website and Natural Health News. The post came with a signature of John E. Garst.
I was not willing to post the comment because it is submitted anonymously, which is the antithesis of our policy. We will post comments if they are submitted with your name and request it be posted without your name, and it is salient to the topic.
Whoever the Garst fellow is I found his attack on my background offensive as he states the following:
John E. Garst, Ph.D. (Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Nutrition)
(FYI, I have absolutely no financial or biasing connection with the aspartame, the soft drink or related industries. However, I am just tired of people who have no understanding of the the sciences of pharmacology and toxicology trying to pass judgment by hearsay on something that they know nothing about.)
I have an extensive understanding of pharmacology, toxicology, and nutrition, as well as human physiology, biochemistry and medicine.
Obviously the sender failed to read ABOUT....
Aspartame is toxic, it is an insecticide. If you want to ingest insecticide, just like Splenda as well, then do so at your own risk.
And if you don't want insecticides in the food you purchase or ingest I'd encourage you to write you Member of Congress and demand it be taken off the market.
However if you want the science, please read on.
ASPARTAME FLACK TRIES TO MISLEAD NEW MEXICO LEGISLATURE
John Garst brags that he played a major role in obliterating efforts to ban aspartame in 06. Hes trying to do it again by bombarding legislators with complicated lingo only a biochemist can comprehend. Its a vacuous bluff with hot air said James Bowen MD. who is a physician, surgeon, biochemist, and an aspartame victim with Lou Gehrigs.
New Mexico lawmakers are expected to take Garth's word for it and do what he wants. This last-minute blast is an ambush in bad faith, like yelling fire in a crowded theater so the legislature will run for the exits. Garst wants a stampede!
Good faith requires him to come forward in time for his assertions to be examined. But then he would be exposed. With no time for deliberation the legislators are expected to just accept his say-so.
At the say-so level: R G Walton M.D. Chairman, Center for Behavioral Medicine at NE Ohio College of Medicine analyzed 92 peer-reviewed studies not funded by aspartame industry. 92% found PROBLEMS!
There were also 74, sponsored by NutraSweet, which said its safe as rain. Dr. Walton concluded Serious questions have been raised about the reliability of industry-sponsored studies of the safety of synthetic chemicals. Aspartame, in particular, has been the focus of significant ongoing controversy Walton named numerous adverse clinical events including seizures, mood disorders, headaches and brain tumors.
In 95 the FDA listed 92 reactions from 10,000 volunteered complaints, including death.
H. J. Roberts, M.D., FACP a diabetic specialist has produced 20 books and his first text on medical diagnosis was used by 60,000 doctors to prepare for their Board examinations. In his response to Garst's allegation that aspartame sensitivity reflects folate deficiency, he wrote to the members of the New Mexico Legislature:
You have received correspondence concerning folate deficiency as the purported cause of aspartame disease. While folate plays a role in the metabolism of methanol (methyl alcohol), the severity and widespread nature of reactions to aspartame products suggest that this assertion must be tempered by the following:
*The methyl alcohol in aspartame is FREE (rarely found as such in nature.)
*The assertion that methanol concentrations never are very high after aspartame ingestion is erroneous. I devoted an entire chapter to methanol toxicity in my text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic (pp 668-685), and show in Figure XXI-1 the dose-related blood levels of methanollasting 8 or more hours.
*The assertion that many New Mexicans suffer from a folate deficiency is challenged. While I discussed such a theoretical deficiency in my text, there is no evidence that folate deficiency is widespread among Americans. For example, a Mayo Clinic study involving thousands of blood assays concluded that it was rare. Garst ignores the major roles of phenylalanine and aspartic acid in aspartame disease.
Enormous effort has gone into this constructive attempt to ban aspartame products. I believe that it constitutes an imminent health hazard for New Mexicans. You are to be congratulated for coming this far in the face of severe corporate resistance.
H. J. Roberts, M.D., FACP, FCCP
Dr. Maria Alemany, Departament du Nutricio I Bromatologia, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, who was the researcher for the damning Trocho Study wrote that he was deeply insulted by Garsts propaganda. Remember that Dr. Alemanys study proved the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol embalms living tissue and damages DNA. As we know when you damage DNA you can destroy humanity. So concerned for the public was Dr. Alemany that after his study he reported it to the authorities. He told me personally that he was concerned aspartame could kill millions and I said has killed millions. After all aspartame can trigger all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases and tumors and can precipitate diabetes. Even the FDA found many types of tumors and brain cancer on original studies and the Ramazzini Study in 2005 confirmed FDA findings reporting the study showed aspartame to be a multipotential carcinogen. Dr. Alemany is a hero to the world and proved beyond a shadow of doubt what aspartame experts believed for years.
Dr. Alemany said: First, Garst suggests that perhaps aspartame just affects people with a metabolic deficit. If that were the case (I doubt it, deficits may just enhance the effect of aspartame), why then has it not been studied? In the case of cyclamate, the ban on its use is based on the deleterious effects on only a fraction of the population
Second. Dr. Garst accepts that aspartame yields formaldehyde... then, why not give formaldehyde to the people to help them synthesize methyl groups? Did I understood well (after speaking of the double helix which has very little to do here unless for the binding of formaldehyde to its strands to induce mutation) that Dr. Garst suggests that aspartame may be beneficial because its derived formaldehyde may supply one-carbon units for methylations through the folate pathway? If that were the case, why not get the FDA approval for aspartame as a drug/vitamin substitute? This is an outright fallacy (or better said bull-manure).
Third. Please, not again the tale of the methyl-esters of pectins! It has been proved to nausea that most of the methyl-alcohol esters of uronic acids remain esterified through intestinal passage, and that freed in the large intestine by the action of the flora is majoritarily and keenly used by these microbes for their profit. The remaining methyl alcohol leaving the intestine is largely detoxified by the liver (this is a physiological mechanism well known and proved effective for millennia). Aspartame, however, is not fully hydrolyzed in the intestine, being absorbed in part intact. After the intestine-portal vein-liver trap is surpassed, the body protection against methanol wanes, and the tiny liberation of methanol in tissues yields little amounts of formaldehyde that cause serious damage, precisely because it behaves very differently from the natural products methanol. Even in cases of wood-alcohol (methanol) intoxication, the liver helps to stem the overflow of toxic. Methanol inhalation or injection is much more dangerous, because it goes directly into the bloodstream and tissues jumping the liver barrier. This is explained in elementary physiology and biochemistry courses, it is unbelievable that this is maintained as a "serious" scientific position by somebody that got a PhD, unless this is not a discourse of science but of economy.
Theories are nice, but have to be proved true. The one Dr. Garst exposes here is that maintained by pro-aspartame fellows for decades. This is how they explained the incorporation of aspartame label into protein and DNA in the earliest experiments on aspartame using tracers that were published (none was published by this group thereafter). This theory fits very well with the story of a harmless aspartame, but it has been proven untrue. We did it, and this is why our study was so damaging. If the theory recycled by Dr. Garst were true, then, the carbon of the methyl alcohol of aspartame would enter the one-carbon path mediated by tetrahydrofolate, this can be done via formaldehyde or via formate. These one-carbon units may be processed (depending on demand) to methyl groups, such as those found in carnitine, thymine and methionine (the only amino acid that can get back methyl groups in mammals), thus explaining the presence of label in protein (methionine) or DNA (thymine). We gave labeled aspartame to rats, and got their DNA and protein from a number of tissues, and found large proportions of label. So far no differences with the Aspartame-lovers theory. However, we hydrolyzed the protein and DNA and looked for label in thymine in DNA and methionine in protein. We found none. Instead, the label was in unknown spots in the chromatograms, which plainly indicates that the incorporation of label into DNA and protein was NOT through the incorporation of methyl groups, i.e. the one-carbon folate pathway. Other ways of label incorporation should explain the attachment of the label. The most logical explanation (justified by innumerable studies that show that formaldehyde attaches to protein and other molecules) was that aspartame-derived formaldehyde was chemically bound to protein and DNA, inactivating (embalming, in fact) proteins and altering DNA structure causing mutations.
The experimental studies show that the theory is faulty. No counter-experiments were published showing our possible "errors", nor the theory of folate pathway incorporation has been proved experimentally (it is fairly easy to demonstrate, it only needs to be true, however). This is why I felt insulted. It is an insult to the intelligence of anybody with even a thin varnish of scientific knowledge to discard proven facts and stick to self-fulfilling harebrained theories. If what the aspartame lovers say about the fate of aspartame carbon is true, why nobody has proved it experimentally? It is easy to carry out and much less expensive than hiring lawyers to defend bad science with top dollar legal expertise
I used as heading the famous initial words of the second Catilinary by Cicero, which I remember from my early high-school Latin. Since probably most Americans were lucky enough not to study Latin when 10-11 years old, I provide an approximate translation: "Up to when do you, Catilina, will abuse our patience?", substitute Catilina for the present aspartame producers and probably it fits very well the picture.
Good luck on the banning of this menace to our collective health.
Best regards,
--------------------------
Dr. Maria Alemany
Departament de Nutrici i Bromatologia
Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona
Av. Diagonal, 645
08028 Barcelona. Espanya / Espaa / Spain
Today in Dr. Roberts medical text there is a page on pre-embalming thanks to the work of the courageous Dr. Maria Alemany
--------------------------
Dr. James Bowen was extremely upset that John Garst tried to deceive the legislature, especially the day before the discussion and said, This is a brazen attempt to violate every due process procedure with respect to all scientific and legal hearings.. Dr. Garth's ambush is only an attempt to win against the health and welfare of the people of New Mexico, by unlawful and unscientific ambush and by utilizing brazen pseudo science lying.
He hopes to impress by using impressive Big Words from science! This is merely science trash I will mention one case of his falsity: abuse of science and scientific process. Dr. Garst says that the folate issue is one reason not to disturb the present commerce of aspartame. This causes a highly synergized form in human metabolism, obligatory: methanol to formaldehyde to formic acid to carbon monoxide toxic axis! Molecule for molecule, the deadly formic acid congener (formate) from aspartame metabolism consumes (molecule per molecule) one molecule of folic acid (folate) to eliminate the formate without creating subsequent carbon monoxide poisoning.
Aspartame has caused many years of folate iatrogenic deficiency, already causing many human illness epidemics, fetal deformities. When in l984 I called the FDA about this, because they had concurrent with their licensure of aspartame, abandoned their 50 year standard of folic acid ingestion by pregnant women (1 mg), leading to grievous fetal defects, they like Dr. Garst lied their way out saying: We have already checked all that out. There just aren't any problems at all. But neural tube, bladder defects and cardiac deformities escalated within our newborn population victimized by aspartame. Birth defects are a major epidemic caused by aspartame, with full protection and avid cooperation from the US FDA. James Bowen, M.D.
Mark Gold of the Aspartame Toxicity Center says this short document answers all of the aspartame industrys claims about aspartame and formaldehyde poisoning: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/methanol.html
Dr. John Garst is a Ph.D and its obvious he knows he is publishing false information. His modus operandi is to use his credentials to deceive others because he cant debate true experts who can easily take apart his nonsense.
The New Mexico legislature has better sense to even consider Garst's claptrap. Aspartame manufacturers must sit up at night thinking of ways to deceive. Families all over the world have been destroyed by this poison causing male sexual dysfunction, cancer and diabetes and sudden death. Enough is enough. Aspartame must be banned from the planet to save the human race.
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770 242-2599
www.wnho.net and http://www.dorway.com
Aspartame Toxicity Center, http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
Aspartame Information List, http://www.mpwhi.com
Aspartame Documentary: Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World
Thursday, April 23, 2009
ASPARTAME: lots of info from a pdf i found- this stuff is horrible
http://www.mpwhi.com/aspartame_sidebars.pdf
Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by a scientist working for pharmaceutical behemoth G.D. Searle and
Company. Recognizing a potential cash, G.D. Searle and Co set about gaining FDA approval for their
entry into the lucrative artificial sweetener market. In a 1970 internal memo, company officials laid out a
strategy of “bringing the FDA into a subconscious spirit of participation.” Our approach …should be to try
to get them to say “Yes,” to rank the things that we are going to ask for, so we are putting first those
questions we would like to get a "yes" to, even if we have to throw some in that have no significance,
other than putting them in a yes saying habit.
The first scientists who conducted clinical studies on aspartame, biochemist Dr. Harry Waisman and
neuroscientist Dr. John W. Olney, gave it thumbs down. Searle’s only reaction to their findings was to use
their own scientists — or those of their favorite contractor — throughout the rest of approval process.
Waisman’s results, when reported to the FDA, were falsified, while Olney’s were hidden from sight,
techniques the company would continue to use in all their dealings with the FDA and other government
and consumer agencies concerning aspartame.
Searle’s slight of hand was noted early on by a number of FDA scientists and officials, but in July of 1974,
the director of the FDA approved aspartame for limited use. Before it could go on the market, however,
Dr. Olney and James Turner Esq. filed a formal objection, stating they believed that aspartame had the
potential to cause brain damage, and that they were particularly concerned about its effects on children.
Searle’s nonresponse
to the subsequent questions about their methodology set off a controversy within
the FDA, and a special inhouse
Task Force was convened to examine the key studies done on
aspartame and a number of pharmaceuticals.
The task force’s preliminary findings caused the FDA to put a hold on aspartame’s approval. Further
obfuscation by Searle led FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill to recommend a grand jury be convened to
investigate Searle — a recommendation that ran into a brick wall when presiding U.S. Attorney Sam
Skinner left his job to work for Sidley & Austin, G.D. Searle’s law firm. Following Skinner’s departure,
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Conlon convened a grand jury, but let the statue of limitations run out on
the complaint. Fifteen months later he, too, went to work for Sidley & Austin.
In 1977, amidst continued rumblings about the company’s fraudulent research, Searle brought out the Big
Gun. Donald Rumsfeld, former Chief of Staff in the Ford administration — and current Secretary of
Defense — was hired as president of the company. Though it took nearly four years, Rumsfeld eventually
proved to be worth his weight in artificial sweetener. The day after Ronald Reagan took office in 1980,
G.D. Searle reapplied for FDA approval of aspartame. At that time, according to a former Searle
employee, Rumsfeld told his sales force that, “he would call in all his markers and that no matter what, he
would see to it that aspartame would be approved that year.” Six months later, it was approved (for use in
dry foods only) by the new, Reaganappointed
Commissioner of the FDA.
Soon after, an amendment was attached to the Orphan Drug Act which extended Searle’s patent on
aspartame by 5 years, 10 months and 17 days. The bill passed, speeded along by Utah Senator Orrin
Hatch, who later received $2,500 from the soft drink political action committee, and $1,000 each from
William and Daniel Searle and a Searle brotherinlaw
and William Searle. Since then, Hatch has been an
outspoken advocate for the sweetener, possibly due to his holdings in Twin Lab, a health supplement
company that uses aspartame in a number of their products. Between 1979 and 1982, four FDA officials
who assisted in the aspartame approval process landed jobs in artificial sweetener industry.
In 1983, aspartame was approved for use in carbonated beverages. Shortly after, the Commissioner of
the FDA, Arthur Hayes, left the FDA under charges of impropriety, and was hired as a consultant with
Searle’s public relations firm, Burson Marsteller [at $1,000 a day]. That same year, James Turner, Esq.
filed a petition with the FDA on behalf of himself and Community Nutrition Institute objecting to the
approval of aspartame. Three months later, the FDA denied the request “because public interest did not
require it.”
In May of 1985, the U.S. Senate heard testimony relating to an amendment put forth by Senator Howard
Metzenbaum requiring the quantity of aspartame used in products to be labeled. Senator Orrin Hatch led
the fight against the labeling amendment, which was defeated. Three months later, Metzenbaum
introduced the Aspartame Safety Act of 1985, another attempt at labeling, that also mandated a
moratorium on new uses of aspartame until independent research could be conducted by the National
Institutes of Health. The bill died in the Senate.
Also in 1985, G.D. Searle sold the NutraSweet Company (the subsidiary formed by Searle to market
aspartame) to the Monsanto Company, over the objections of Monsanto’s stockholders, who were leery
of the legal liabilities associated with the product.
In November, 1987, a hearing was held in a U.S. Senate Committee to address aspartame safety and
proposed labeling. Senator Orrin Hatch once again blocked the proceedings.
The patent for aspartame expired in December of 1992, opening up the market to other companies, such
as the Holland Sweetener Company.
In 1996, the FDA approved aspartame for “general use,” allowing it to be used in baking and cooking.
In 1999, Brand Week magazine named NutraSweet one of the top 100 brands of the century. NutraSweet
brand aspartame is sold in more than 100 countries and used in approximately 5,000 products by 250
million people on a regular basis.
In May 2000 The J.W. Childs company purchased the NutraSweet Company from Monsanto for $440
million in cash. The sale includes the sweetener business, the NutraSweet brand name and rights to the
company’s new sweetener, neotame.
“The NutraSweet Company revolutionized the sweetener industry in 1981 with the introduction of
aspartame," says Nick Rosa, the new president and CEO of the NutraSweet Company, "and we intend to
do it again with neotame when we receive approval from various regulatory agencies around the world.” •
OTHER NONCALORIC
SWEETENERS
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits six lowcalorie
sweeteners to be
used as food additives: Saccharin, aspartame (known around the world as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonfuls,
Canderel, Bienvia, NatraSweet and Miwon), acesulfame K, (sold under the brand name Sunett),
sucralose (marketed as Splenda), trehalose and tagatose.
Saccharin
Discovered in 1879, saccharin was initially used as an antiseptic and a food preservative. Its use as a
sweetener developed slowly until World Wars I and II, when sugar rationing caused its popularity to
boom. The FDA has allowed the makers of saccharin to make a selfdetermined
Generally Recognized
As Safe (GRAS) declaration, claiming exemption from the premarket or food additive approval
requirements, although the FDA also lists it as an "anticipated" human carcinogen. All saccharinsweetened
products must bear a label stating: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This
product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."
AcesulfameK
(Sunette)
AcesulfameK
(5,6dimethyl1,2,3oxathiazine4(
3H)one2,2dioxide)
is approximately 200 times sweeter
than sucrose. It has been approved by the FDA in 1988 for use in baked goods, refrigerated and frozen
desserts, alcoholic beverages, yogurt, dry dessert mixes, confections, hard and soft candies, tabletop
sweeteners, bulk sweeteners, chewing gum, dry dairy analog bases, syrups, sweet sauces and toppings.
Acesulfame K, produced by Hoechst Food Ingredients in Germany, is often used in combination with
other artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame and saccharin. The Center for Science in the Public
Interest, a food watchdog agency, has repeatedly expressed concern that acesulfame K is a potential
carcinogen, and that the FDA has failed to require the manufacturer to conduct highquality
tests of the
artificial sweetener.
According to CSPI, testing done on acesulfame K “ followed inadequate protocols, which are greatly at
variance with current standards for test design, execution and reporting required for the National
Toxicology Program's bioassays.”
Sucralose (Splenda)
Sucralose (trichlorogalactosucrose) was approved by the FDA in 1988 as a tabletop sweetener and for
use in a number of desserts, confections, and nonalcoholic beverages. Sucralose is produced by
chlorinating sucrose (sugar); three chlorine atoms are substituted for three three hydroxyl groups.
According to Consumers Research Magazine , some concern was initially raised about sucralose being a
chlorinated molecule, as chlorinated molecules also serve as the basis for pesticides such as D.D.T., and
accumulate in body fat. However, the manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson emphasized that “sucralose
passes through the body unabsorbed."
Research animals fed sucralose exhibited the following symptoms: Shrunken thymus glands (up to 40%
shrinkage), enlarged liver and kidneys, atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus, reduced
growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, hyperplasia of the pelvis, extension of the pregnancy period ,
aborted pregnancy, decreased fetal body weights and placental weights and chronic diarrhea.
In the wake of the continued controversy over aspartame, many pharmaceutical and health food
manufacturers — including Pro Lab, Twin Lab and Ross Products, makers of Pedialyte) — have switched
over to sucralose.
Tagatose & Trehalose
Like saccharin, both of these sweeteners have slipped through the FDA with a Generally Recognized As
Safe (GRAS) status.
The Calorie Control Council — which enthusiastically endorses the use of all artificial sweeteners —
describes tagatose as “a naturally occurring reducedcalorie
sweetener that can be found in some dairy
products” and “commercially produced via a patented process.” Less sweet than sugar, tagatose also
“browns” more readily than sucrose in baked goods, and has been shown to cause diarrhea and gas.
Nonetheless, manufacturers plan to use tagatose in chocolate, caramel, chewing gum, ice cream, soft
drinks, cereals and meal replacements.
Trehalose is almost half as sweet as table sugar, and is said to occur naturally in honey, mushrooms,
lobster, shrimp and foods produced using baker's and brewer's yeast. It is approved for use in beverages,
including fruit juices, purees, fillings, nutrition bars, dehydrated fruits and vegetables and white chocolate
for cookies or chips. though because of its low sweetness rating, trehalose is most often used as a
preservative.
And On the Horizon…
Alitame,
Discovered by Pfizer, Inc., alitame (brand name Aclame) is 2,000 times sweeter than sugar. Like
aspartame, it is made from amino acids, including aspartic acid, Dalanine
and a novel amine.
Alitame has the potential to be used in almost all areas where sweeteners are presently used —e.g.,
baked goods and baking mixes, hot and cold beverages, dry beverage mixes, milk products, frozen
desserts and mixes, fruit preparations, chewing gums and candies, tabletop sweeteners, toiletries and
pharmaceuticals.
Pfizer applied for FDA approval of alitame in 1986, but it has yet to be granted. It is, however, available in
other countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China.
Neotame
Neotame contains all the dangerous elements of aspartame and more: the amino acids Laspartic
acid
and Lphenylalanine,
and two organic functional groups: one known as a methyl ester group and the
other as a neohexyl group. These components are joined together to form an incredibly sweet (8,000
times sweeter than sugar) and potentially dangerous compound.
The FDA was petitioned in 1997 to approve neotame for use as a tabletop sweetener. Approval is still
pending. The NutraSweet Company, which owns the right to neotame, plans to use the sweetener in
chewing gum, carbonated soft drinks, refrigerated and nonrefrigerated
readytodrink
beverages, frozen
desserts and novelties, puddings and fillings, yogurttype
products, baked goods and candies.
Cyclamate
Cyclamate was first introduced as a sweetener in the early 1950s, and dominate the artificial sweetener
market though much of the ‘60s. In the late 60s, however, concerns arose over cyclamate’s potential to
cause genetic damage, testicular atrophy and cancer, and in 1970, the FDA imposed a total ban on its
use. Under pressure from the sweetener industry, the FDA is said to be considering reapproval of
cyclamate, which is still in use in 50 other countries. In many products made overseas and shipped to the
United States, cyclamate, AcesulfameK
and aspartame are blended together to create a “super
sweetener.” •
Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by a scientist working for pharmaceutical behemoth G.D. Searle and
Company. Recognizing a potential cash, G.D. Searle and Co set about gaining FDA approval for their
entry into the lucrative artificial sweetener market. In a 1970 internal memo, company officials laid out a
strategy of “bringing the FDA into a subconscious spirit of participation.” Our approach …should be to try
to get them to say “Yes,” to rank the things that we are going to ask for, so we are putting first those
questions we would like to get a "yes" to, even if we have to throw some in that have no significance,
other than putting them in a yes saying habit.
The first scientists who conducted clinical studies on aspartame, biochemist Dr. Harry Waisman and
neuroscientist Dr. John W. Olney, gave it thumbs down. Searle’s only reaction to their findings was to use
their own scientists — or those of their favorite contractor — throughout the rest of approval process.
Waisman’s results, when reported to the FDA, were falsified, while Olney’s were hidden from sight,
techniques the company would continue to use in all their dealings with the FDA and other government
and consumer agencies concerning aspartame.
Searle’s slight of hand was noted early on by a number of FDA scientists and officials, but in July of 1974,
the director of the FDA approved aspartame for limited use. Before it could go on the market, however,
Dr. Olney and James Turner Esq. filed a formal objection, stating they believed that aspartame had the
potential to cause brain damage, and that they were particularly concerned about its effects on children.
Searle’s nonresponse
to the subsequent questions about their methodology set off a controversy within
the FDA, and a special inhouse
Task Force was convened to examine the key studies done on
aspartame and a number of pharmaceuticals.
The task force’s preliminary findings caused the FDA to put a hold on aspartame’s approval. Further
obfuscation by Searle led FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill to recommend a grand jury be convened to
investigate Searle — a recommendation that ran into a brick wall when presiding U.S. Attorney Sam
Skinner left his job to work for Sidley & Austin, G.D. Searle’s law firm. Following Skinner’s departure,
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Conlon convened a grand jury, but let the statue of limitations run out on
the complaint. Fifteen months later he, too, went to work for Sidley & Austin.
In 1977, amidst continued rumblings about the company’s fraudulent research, Searle brought out the Big
Gun. Donald Rumsfeld, former Chief of Staff in the Ford administration — and current Secretary of
Defense — was hired as president of the company. Though it took nearly four years, Rumsfeld eventually
proved to be worth his weight in artificial sweetener. The day after Ronald Reagan took office in 1980,
G.D. Searle reapplied for FDA approval of aspartame. At that time, according to a former Searle
employee, Rumsfeld told his sales force that, “he would call in all his markers and that no matter what, he
would see to it that aspartame would be approved that year.” Six months later, it was approved (for use in
dry foods only) by the new, Reaganappointed
Commissioner of the FDA.
Soon after, an amendment was attached to the Orphan Drug Act which extended Searle’s patent on
aspartame by 5 years, 10 months and 17 days. The bill passed, speeded along by Utah Senator Orrin
Hatch, who later received $2,500 from the soft drink political action committee, and $1,000 each from
William and Daniel Searle and a Searle brotherinlaw
and William Searle. Since then, Hatch has been an
outspoken advocate for the sweetener, possibly due to his holdings in Twin Lab, a health supplement
company that uses aspartame in a number of their products. Between 1979 and 1982, four FDA officials
who assisted in the aspartame approval process landed jobs in artificial sweetener industry.
In 1983, aspartame was approved for use in carbonated beverages. Shortly after, the Commissioner of
the FDA, Arthur Hayes, left the FDA under charges of impropriety, and was hired as a consultant with
Searle’s public relations firm, Burson Marsteller [at $1,000 a day]. That same year, James Turner, Esq.
filed a petition with the FDA on behalf of himself and Community Nutrition Institute objecting to the
approval of aspartame. Three months later, the FDA denied the request “because public interest did not
require it.”
In May of 1985, the U.S. Senate heard testimony relating to an amendment put forth by Senator Howard
Metzenbaum requiring the quantity of aspartame used in products to be labeled. Senator Orrin Hatch led
the fight against the labeling amendment, which was defeated. Three months later, Metzenbaum
introduced the Aspartame Safety Act of 1985, another attempt at labeling, that also mandated a
moratorium on new uses of aspartame until independent research could be conducted by the National
Institutes of Health. The bill died in the Senate.
Also in 1985, G.D. Searle sold the NutraSweet Company (the subsidiary formed by Searle to market
aspartame) to the Monsanto Company, over the objections of Monsanto’s stockholders, who were leery
of the legal liabilities associated with the product.
In November, 1987, a hearing was held in a U.S. Senate Committee to address aspartame safety and
proposed labeling. Senator Orrin Hatch once again blocked the proceedings.
The patent for aspartame expired in December of 1992, opening up the market to other companies, such
as the Holland Sweetener Company.
In 1996, the FDA approved aspartame for “general use,” allowing it to be used in baking and cooking.
In 1999, Brand Week magazine named NutraSweet one of the top 100 brands of the century. NutraSweet
brand aspartame is sold in more than 100 countries and used in approximately 5,000 products by 250
million people on a regular basis.
In May 2000 The J.W. Childs company purchased the NutraSweet Company from Monsanto for $440
million in cash. The sale includes the sweetener business, the NutraSweet brand name and rights to the
company’s new sweetener, neotame.
“The NutraSweet Company revolutionized the sweetener industry in 1981 with the introduction of
aspartame," says Nick Rosa, the new president and CEO of the NutraSweet Company, "and we intend to
do it again with neotame when we receive approval from various regulatory agencies around the world.” •
OTHER NONCALORIC
SWEETENERS
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits six lowcalorie
sweeteners to be
used as food additives: Saccharin, aspartame (known around the world as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonfuls,
Canderel, Bienvia, NatraSweet and Miwon), acesulfame K, (sold under the brand name Sunett),
sucralose (marketed as Splenda), trehalose and tagatose.
Saccharin
Discovered in 1879, saccharin was initially used as an antiseptic and a food preservative. Its use as a
sweetener developed slowly until World Wars I and II, when sugar rationing caused its popularity to
boom. The FDA has allowed the makers of saccharin to make a selfdetermined
Generally Recognized
As Safe (GRAS) declaration, claiming exemption from the premarket or food additive approval
requirements, although the FDA also lists it as an "anticipated" human carcinogen. All saccharinsweetened
products must bear a label stating: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This
product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."
AcesulfameK
(Sunette)
AcesulfameK
(5,6dimethyl1,2,3oxathiazine4(
3H)one2,2dioxide)
is approximately 200 times sweeter
than sucrose. It has been approved by the FDA in 1988 for use in baked goods, refrigerated and frozen
desserts, alcoholic beverages, yogurt, dry dessert mixes, confections, hard and soft candies, tabletop
sweeteners, bulk sweeteners, chewing gum, dry dairy analog bases, syrups, sweet sauces and toppings.
Acesulfame K, produced by Hoechst Food Ingredients in Germany, is often used in combination with
other artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame and saccharin. The Center for Science in the Public
Interest, a food watchdog agency, has repeatedly expressed concern that acesulfame K is a potential
carcinogen, and that the FDA has failed to require the manufacturer to conduct highquality
tests of the
artificial sweetener.
According to CSPI, testing done on acesulfame K “ followed inadequate protocols, which are greatly at
variance with current standards for test design, execution and reporting required for the National
Toxicology Program's bioassays.”
Sucralose (Splenda)
Sucralose (trichlorogalactosucrose) was approved by the FDA in 1988 as a tabletop sweetener and for
use in a number of desserts, confections, and nonalcoholic beverages. Sucralose is produced by
chlorinating sucrose (sugar); three chlorine atoms are substituted for three three hydroxyl groups.
According to Consumers Research Magazine , some concern was initially raised about sucralose being a
chlorinated molecule, as chlorinated molecules also serve as the basis for pesticides such as D.D.T., and
accumulate in body fat. However, the manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson emphasized that “sucralose
passes through the body unabsorbed."
Research animals fed sucralose exhibited the following symptoms: Shrunken thymus glands (up to 40%
shrinkage), enlarged liver and kidneys, atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus, reduced
growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, hyperplasia of the pelvis, extension of the pregnancy period ,
aborted pregnancy, decreased fetal body weights and placental weights and chronic diarrhea.
In the wake of the continued controversy over aspartame, many pharmaceutical and health food
manufacturers — including Pro Lab, Twin Lab and Ross Products, makers of Pedialyte) — have switched
over to sucralose.
Tagatose & Trehalose
Like saccharin, both of these sweeteners have slipped through the FDA with a Generally Recognized As
Safe (GRAS) status.
The Calorie Control Council — which enthusiastically endorses the use of all artificial sweeteners —
describes tagatose as “a naturally occurring reducedcalorie
sweetener that can be found in some dairy
products” and “commercially produced via a patented process.” Less sweet than sugar, tagatose also
“browns” more readily than sucrose in baked goods, and has been shown to cause diarrhea and gas.
Nonetheless, manufacturers plan to use tagatose in chocolate, caramel, chewing gum, ice cream, soft
drinks, cereals and meal replacements.
Trehalose is almost half as sweet as table sugar, and is said to occur naturally in honey, mushrooms,
lobster, shrimp and foods produced using baker's and brewer's yeast. It is approved for use in beverages,
including fruit juices, purees, fillings, nutrition bars, dehydrated fruits and vegetables and white chocolate
for cookies or chips. though because of its low sweetness rating, trehalose is most often used as a
preservative.
And On the Horizon…
Alitame,
Discovered by Pfizer, Inc., alitame (brand name Aclame) is 2,000 times sweeter than sugar. Like
aspartame, it is made from amino acids, including aspartic acid, Dalanine
and a novel amine.
Alitame has the potential to be used in almost all areas where sweeteners are presently used —e.g.,
baked goods and baking mixes, hot and cold beverages, dry beverage mixes, milk products, frozen
desserts and mixes, fruit preparations, chewing gums and candies, tabletop sweeteners, toiletries and
pharmaceuticals.
Pfizer applied for FDA approval of alitame in 1986, but it has yet to be granted. It is, however, available in
other countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China.
Neotame
Neotame contains all the dangerous elements of aspartame and more: the amino acids Laspartic
acid
and Lphenylalanine,
and two organic functional groups: one known as a methyl ester group and the
other as a neohexyl group. These components are joined together to form an incredibly sweet (8,000
times sweeter than sugar) and potentially dangerous compound.
The FDA was petitioned in 1997 to approve neotame for use as a tabletop sweetener. Approval is still
pending. The NutraSweet Company, which owns the right to neotame, plans to use the sweetener in
chewing gum, carbonated soft drinks, refrigerated and nonrefrigerated
readytodrink
beverages, frozen
desserts and novelties, puddings and fillings, yogurttype
products, baked goods and candies.
Cyclamate
Cyclamate was first introduced as a sweetener in the early 1950s, and dominate the artificial sweetener
market though much of the ‘60s. In the late 60s, however, concerns arose over cyclamate’s potential to
cause genetic damage, testicular atrophy and cancer, and in 1970, the FDA imposed a total ban on its
use. Under pressure from the sweetener industry, the FDA is said to be considering reapproval of
cyclamate, which is still in use in 50 other countries. In many products made overseas and shipped to the
United States, cyclamate, AcesulfameK
and aspartame are blended together to create a “super
sweetener.” •
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Torture Was The Only Crime? I Think Not
http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20578
Jon Gold
4/22/2009
Has anyone else noticed that the media, and Congress is acting as though torture is the only crime committed by the Bush White House (with the possible exception of illegal wiretapping)?
Why has everyone forgotten the other crimes perpetrated by the Bush White House? Crimes like stealing the 2000, and 2004 elections. Proveable crimes concerning the 9/11 attacks like obstruction of justice, and criminal negligence. Crimes like lying this country into war. Crimes like violating the Constitution. The list of crimes committed by the Bush Administration just goes on and on.
Today, it was reported that torture artchitect John Yoo was blasted with cries of "war criminal" at a recent debate held Chapman Univeristy in California. During the debate, he made the following argument:
"Three thousand of our fellow citizens had been killed in a deliberate attack by a foreign enemy," he told a crowd at Chapman University. "That forced us in the government to have to consider measures to gain information using presidential constitutional provisions to protect the country from further attack."
That doesn't sound so bad does it? They were just trying to protect the people of America "from further attack." In the eyes of America, and the world, with the use of spin media, this argument will make the Bush White House and America appear "less evil" than if they were to acknowledge the previously mentioned crimes. If they were to acknowledge the previously mentioned crimes, and tried to hold people accountable for them, then there would be a massive series of arrests in Washington D.C. Not only would Bush Administration officials be held accountable, but everyone that enabled them to commit their crimes would be as well. Making torture the sole crime of the Bush White House, in my opinion, will allow the "powers that be" in Washington D.C. maintain the "status quo." It will allow them to maintain the system that brought us to where we are today.
We must hold them accountable for EVERY crime they committed. If we don't, then we deserve whatever happens to us in the future.
Jon Gold
4/22/2009
Has anyone else noticed that the media, and Congress is acting as though torture is the only crime committed by the Bush White House (with the possible exception of illegal wiretapping)?
Why has everyone forgotten the other crimes perpetrated by the Bush White House? Crimes like stealing the 2000, and 2004 elections. Proveable crimes concerning the 9/11 attacks like obstruction of justice, and criminal negligence. Crimes like lying this country into war. Crimes like violating the Constitution. The list of crimes committed by the Bush Administration just goes on and on.
Today, it was reported that torture artchitect John Yoo was blasted with cries of "war criminal" at a recent debate held Chapman Univeristy in California. During the debate, he made the following argument:
"Three thousand of our fellow citizens had been killed in a deliberate attack by a foreign enemy," he told a crowd at Chapman University. "That forced us in the government to have to consider measures to gain information using presidential constitutional provisions to protect the country from further attack."
That doesn't sound so bad does it? They were just trying to protect the people of America "from further attack." In the eyes of America, and the world, with the use of spin media, this argument will make the Bush White House and America appear "less evil" than if they were to acknowledge the previously mentioned crimes. If they were to acknowledge the previously mentioned crimes, and tried to hold people accountable for them, then there would be a massive series of arrests in Washington D.C. Not only would Bush Administration officials be held accountable, but everyone that enabled them to commit their crimes would be as well. Making torture the sole crime of the Bush White House, in my opinion, will allow the "powers that be" in Washington D.C. maintain the "status quo." It will allow them to maintain the system that brought us to where we are today.
We must hold them accountable for EVERY crime they committed. If we don't, then we deserve whatever happens to us in the future.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Government apologizes for torture cover-up
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...icle6122797.ece
David Leppard and Kevin Dowling
THE government has apologised to two High Court judges after discovering that an MI5 officer misled them over the case of a British terrorist suspect allegedly tortured while in America’s extraordinary rendition programme.
Lawyers for David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said it was “a matter of great regret” that during “a full and independent review of the case” they had uncovered 13 new documents suggesting that the official account of Britain’s knowledge of what was happening to Binyam Mohamed was inaccurate.
The documents reveal as false the claim by a senior MI5 manager, known as witness A, in the High Court last year that the last information MI5 received from the CIA about Mohamed’s whereabouts was in February 2003. One letter says: “A sentence in the open witness statement of witness A, which stated the last interview report received by the Security Service was in February 2003, is incorrect.”
Mohamed, 31, has always claimed British intelligence officers were complicit in his treatment. His lawyers have forced the government to hand over 42 secret documents that support his assertions, including that MI5 officers interviewed him in Pakistan.
The government solicitors’ letter to Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones continues: “Their disclosure at this stage is a matter of great regret. We offer our apologies on behalf of all concerned.”
Mohamed, a British resident, flew home to Britain in February after release from Guantanamo Bay prison. He had been detained in the US extraordinary rendition programme since being arrested in Pakistan in 2002 on a false British passport.
He is considering legal action against the UK government over his claims that he was tortured in Pakistan with the complicity of MI5. He spent time in “dark prisons” in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo in September 2004.
MI5 told the High Court last year that after February 2003 it had no knowledge of Mohamed’s whereabouts. At that time Mohamed was in a prison in Morocco, where he says his testicles were cut with a razor as part of a long and humiliating series of torture sessions.
The new documents were unearthed after detailed questioning of MI5 by the Intelligence and Security Committee. Two documents were initially discovered, prompting government lawyers to order further searches of MI5 and MI6 files.
Last month the attorney-general, Baroness Scotland, ordered an investigation by Scotland Yard into allegations that MI5 officers had tortured Mohamed.
David Leppard and Kevin Dowling
THE government has apologised to two High Court judges after discovering that an MI5 officer misled them over the case of a British terrorist suspect allegedly tortured while in America’s extraordinary rendition programme.
Lawyers for David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said it was “a matter of great regret” that during “a full and independent review of the case” they had uncovered 13 new documents suggesting that the official account of Britain’s knowledge of what was happening to Binyam Mohamed was inaccurate.
The documents reveal as false the claim by a senior MI5 manager, known as witness A, in the High Court last year that the last information MI5 received from the CIA about Mohamed’s whereabouts was in February 2003. One letter says: “A sentence in the open witness statement of witness A, which stated the last interview report received by the Security Service was in February 2003, is incorrect.”
Mohamed, 31, has always claimed British intelligence officers were complicit in his treatment. His lawyers have forced the government to hand over 42 secret documents that support his assertions, including that MI5 officers interviewed him in Pakistan.
The government solicitors’ letter to Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones continues: “Their disclosure at this stage is a matter of great regret. We offer our apologies on behalf of all concerned.”
Mohamed, a British resident, flew home to Britain in February after release from Guantanamo Bay prison. He had been detained in the US extraordinary rendition programme since being arrested in Pakistan in 2002 on a false British passport.
He is considering legal action against the UK government over his claims that he was tortured in Pakistan with the complicity of MI5. He spent time in “dark prisons” in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo in September 2004.
MI5 told the High Court last year that after February 2003 it had no knowledge of Mohamed’s whereabouts. At that time Mohamed was in a prison in Morocco, where he says his testicles were cut with a razor as part of a long and humiliating series of torture sessions.
The new documents were unearthed after detailed questioning of MI5 by the Intelligence and Security Committee. Two documents were initially discovered, prompting government lawyers to order further searches of MI5 and MI6 files.
Last month the attorney-general, Baroness Scotland, ordered an investigation by Scotland Yard into allegations that MI5 officers had tortured Mohamed.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Is Obama listening to Dick Cheney?
http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder....24/1014/OPINION
NAT HENTOFF • April 17, 2009
Very soon after taking office, President Barack Obama ringingly pledged: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented openness in government. ... Openness will strengthen our democracy." However, as with an increasing number of his promises to repair the Bush-Cheney administration's deep cracks in our rule of law, Obama is giving defenders of the Constitution less and less hope they can believe in.
For a glaring example, with regard to the pervasive secrecy of his predecessors, Obama has stunningly not only continued to invoke "state secrets" to order judges to close down lawsuits. He has gone further than Bush by actually claiming total government immunity from litigation by citizens protesting illegal spying on our communications by the National Security Agency.
On April 3, Obama's Department of Justice filed an answer to a federal lawsuit against warrantless wiretapping of Americans brought by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been the lead litigator concerning lawless Bush, and now Obama, violations of our privacy.
In Jewel v. NSA, five plaintiffs charge that their telecommunications carrier, AT&T, gave the National Security Agency - with its vast surveillance technology - information about their communications. (There are also other lawsuits by indignant Americans in state courts against telecoms cooperating with NSA.)
Attorney General Eric Holder - who certainly didn't act on his own initiative - began Obama's response by insisting that just allowing the case to continue "would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security." But Obama, during his presidential campaign, vigorously complained that the Bush administration "invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other administration to get cases thrown out of civil court."
But now the Obama administration - explains Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation - "has for the first time claimed sovereign immunity against the privacy-protecting Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. In other words, this administration is arguing that the U.S. can NEVER be sued for spying that violated federal surveillance statutes, whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Wiretap Act or the Stored Communications Act."
Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer, has become a persistently valuable analyst of the insatiable unconstitutional overreaching of the executive branch for the past eight years - and during Obama's first few months. On April 6 in salon.com, Greenwald confronted this "brand-new 'sovereignty immunity' claim of breathtaking scope - never before advanced even by the Bush administration - that the Patriot Act: Bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is 'willful disclosure' of the illegally intercepted communications" by the government.
What does that mean? We have to prove somehow that the Obama team has "willfully" disclosed information it has lawlessly obtained on us? But how can we know that it has? All of this dragnet electronic surveillance is secret!
Another startled analyst of this brand-new Obama invention, Marc Ambinder on the April 7 Atlantic Web Site, reminds us that "domestic communications are monitored holistically, with computers searching for patterns among the metadata. ... The NSA continues to work with telephone companies; it has enlisted the cooperation of companies that operate major Internet hubs, as a good chunk of foreign Internet traffic flows through routers controlled by American companies."
As James Bamford documents in "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping of America" (Doubleday), hundreds of thousands (at least) of our calls are continually monitored and, if "patterns" indicate, are put into bottomless government databases.
Obama's solemn vow that his administration will be the most "transparent" in our history qualifies him, through his trumping of George Orwell's "1984" - in this and other invocations of absolute government secrecy - for the Donald Rumsfeld Obfuscation Prize. For another example of this "new' Obama, to be followed up here later, we still have CIA "renditions" of terrorism suspects to other countries - with their assurance they won't torture the suspects we send.
That's the very same false promise Condoleezza Rice used to ritualistically intone.
NAT HENTOFF • April 17, 2009
Very soon after taking office, President Barack Obama ringingly pledged: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented openness in government. ... Openness will strengthen our democracy." However, as with an increasing number of his promises to repair the Bush-Cheney administration's deep cracks in our rule of law, Obama is giving defenders of the Constitution less and less hope they can believe in.
For a glaring example, with regard to the pervasive secrecy of his predecessors, Obama has stunningly not only continued to invoke "state secrets" to order judges to close down lawsuits. He has gone further than Bush by actually claiming total government immunity from litigation by citizens protesting illegal spying on our communications by the National Security Agency.
On April 3, Obama's Department of Justice filed an answer to a federal lawsuit against warrantless wiretapping of Americans brought by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been the lead litigator concerning lawless Bush, and now Obama, violations of our privacy.
In Jewel v. NSA, five plaintiffs charge that their telecommunications carrier, AT&T, gave the National Security Agency - with its vast surveillance technology - information about their communications. (There are also other lawsuits by indignant Americans in state courts against telecoms cooperating with NSA.)
Attorney General Eric Holder - who certainly didn't act on his own initiative - began Obama's response by insisting that just allowing the case to continue "would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security." But Obama, during his presidential campaign, vigorously complained that the Bush administration "invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other administration to get cases thrown out of civil court."
But now the Obama administration - explains Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation - "has for the first time claimed sovereign immunity against the privacy-protecting Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. In other words, this administration is arguing that the U.S. can NEVER be sued for spying that violated federal surveillance statutes, whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Wiretap Act or the Stored Communications Act."
Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer, has become a persistently valuable analyst of the insatiable unconstitutional overreaching of the executive branch for the past eight years - and during Obama's first few months. On April 6 in salon.com, Greenwald confronted this "brand-new 'sovereignty immunity' claim of breathtaking scope - never before advanced even by the Bush administration - that the Patriot Act: Bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is 'willful disclosure' of the illegally intercepted communications" by the government.
What does that mean? We have to prove somehow that the Obama team has "willfully" disclosed information it has lawlessly obtained on us? But how can we know that it has? All of this dragnet electronic surveillance is secret!
Another startled analyst of this brand-new Obama invention, Marc Ambinder on the April 7 Atlantic Web Site, reminds us that "domestic communications are monitored holistically, with computers searching for patterns among the metadata. ... The NSA continues to work with telephone companies; it has enlisted the cooperation of companies that operate major Internet hubs, as a good chunk of foreign Internet traffic flows through routers controlled by American companies."
As James Bamford documents in "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping of America" (Doubleday), hundreds of thousands (at least) of our calls are continually monitored and, if "patterns" indicate, are put into bottomless government databases.
Obama's solemn vow that his administration will be the most "transparent" in our history qualifies him, through his trumping of George Orwell's "1984" - in this and other invocations of absolute government secrecy - for the Donald Rumsfeld Obfuscation Prize. For another example of this "new' Obama, to be followed up here later, we still have CIA "renditions" of terrorism suspects to other countries - with their assurance they won't torture the suspects we send.
That's the very same false promise Condoleezza Rice used to ritualistically intone.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
US ship captain is freed when snipers kill pirates
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/piracy
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy And Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writers – 6 mins ago
MOMBASA, Kenya – U.S. Navy snipers opened fire and killed three pirates holding an American captain at gunpoint, delivering the skipper unharmed and ending a five-day high-seas hostage drama on Easter Sunday.
The pirates were pointing AK-47s at Capt. Richard Phillips and he was in "imminent danger" of being killed when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order his men to shoot, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said.
Phillips' crew, who said they had escaped the pirates after he offered himself as a hostage, erupted in cheers aboard their ship docked in Mombasa, Kenya. Some waved an American flag and fired flares in celebration. A lawn sign in the captain's hometown of Underhill, Vermont that read "Pray for Captain Phillips' release and safe return home" was changed to read, "Capt. Phillips rescued and safe."
The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said Phillips, 53, was resting comfortably after a medical exam on the San Diego-based USS Boxer in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia. Gortney said the captain had been "tied up inside the lifeboat" over much of the ordeal.
"I'm just the byline. The real heroes are the Navy, the Seals, those who have brought me home," Phillips said by phone to Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John Reinhart, the company head told reporters. A photo released by the Navy showed Phillips unharmed and shaking hands with the commanding officer of the USS Bainbridge.
U.S. officials said a fourth pirate had surrendered and was in military custody. FBI spokesman John Miller said that would change as the situation became "more of a criminal issue."
The rescue was a dramatic blow to the pirates who have preyed on international shipping and hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 sailors from a variety of nations. But it also risked provoking retaliatory attacks.
"This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," said Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told The Associated Press from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl, that, "our friends should have done more to kill the captain before they were killed. This will be a good lesson for us."
"From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," he said. France and India have both taken deadly military action against pirates in recent months and seen no significant retaliation, however.
The Defense Department twice asked President Barack Obama for permission to use military force to rescue Phillips, most recently late Friday evening, U.S. officials said. On Saturday morning, Obama signed off on the Pentagon's request, as he had a day earlier, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
"I share the country's admiration for the bravery of Capt. Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew," Obama said in his first comments on the situation. "His courage is a model for all Americans."
He added that the United States needs help from other countries to deal with the threat of piracy and to hold pirates accountable.
A spokeswoman for the Phillips family, Alison McColl, said Phillips and his wife, Andrea, spoke by phone shortly after he was freed.
"I think you can all imagine their joy and what a happy moment that was for them," McColl said outside of the Phillips home in Underhill. "They're all just so happy and relieved. Andrea wanted me to tell the nation that all of your prayers and good wishes have paid off because Capt. Phillips is safe."
The Navy said Phillips was freed at 7:19 p.m. local time.
When Phillips' crew heard the news aboard their ship in the port of Mombasa, they placed an American flag over the rail of the top of the Maersk Alabama and whistled and pumped their fists in the air. Crew fired two bright red flares into the sky from the ship.
"We made it!" said crewman ATM Reza, pumping his fist in the air.
"He managed to be in a 120-degree oven for days, it's amazing," said another of about a dozen crew members who came out to talk to reporters. He said the crew found out the captain was released because one of the sailors had been talking to his wife on the phone.
Crew members said their ordeal had begun Wednesday with the Somali pirates hauling themselves up from a small boat bobbing on the surface of the Indian Ocean far below.
As the pirates shot in the air, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crew members said.
Phillips was then held hostage in an enclosed lifeboat that was closely watched by U.S. warships and a helicopter in an increasingly tense standoff.
Capt. Joseph Murphy, the father of second-in-command Shane Murphy, thanked Phillips for his bravery.
"Our prayers have been answered on this Easter Sunday," Murphy said. "If not for his incredible personal sacrifice, this kidnapping and act of terror could have turned out much worse."
Murphy said both his family and Phillips' "can now celebrate a joyous Easter together."
Talks to free Phillips began Thursday with the captain of the Bainbridge talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board the U.S. destroyer. The pirates had threatened to kill Phillips if attacked.
Phillips jumped out of the lifeboat Friday and tried to swim for his freedom but was recaptured when a pirate fired an automatic weapon at or near him, according to U.S. Defense Department officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the unfolding operations.
Elsewhere off the Somali coast Friday, the French navy freed a sailboat seized off Somalia by other pirates, but one of the five hostages was killed.
Three U.S. warships were within easy reach of the lifeboat and early Saturday, the pirates holding Phillips in the lifeboat fired a few shots at a small U.S. Navy vessel that had approached, a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The official said the U.S. sailors did not return fire, the Navy vessel turned away and no one was hurt. He said the vessel had not been attempting a rescue.
The district commissioner of the central Mudug region said talks on freeing Phillips had gone on all day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and through a translator with Americans, but collapsed Saturday night.
Phillips' crew of 19 American sailors reached safe harbor in Kenya's northeast port of Mombasa about the same time under guard of U.S. Navy Seals.
The U.S. Navy had assumed the pirates would try to get their hostage to shore, where they could have hidden him on Somalia's lawless soil and been in a stronger position to negotiate a ransom.
"The Somali government wanted the drama to end in a peaceful way, but any one who is involved in this latest case had the choice to use violence or other means," Abdulkhadir Walayo, the prime minister's spokesman, told the AP. "Any way, we see it will be a good lesson for the pirates or any one else involved in this dirty business."
Residents of Harardhere, another port and pirate stronghold, were gathering in the streets after news of the captain's release, saying they fear pirates may now retaliate against some of the 200 hostages they still hold.
"We fear more that any revenge taken by the pirates against foreign nationals could bring more attacks from the foreign navies, perhaps on our villages," Abdullahi Haji Jama, who owns a clothes store in Harardhere, told the AP by telephone.
Pirates are holding about a dozen ships with more than 200 crew members, according to the Malaysia-based piracy watchdog International Maritime Bureau. Hostages are from Bulgaria, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, Tuvalu and Ukraine, among other countries.
A spokesman for the German anti-piracy operation told the AP that the U.S. did not give any clue as to its plans in regard to the ship captain.
He had no details on the fate of the German freighter Hansa Stavanger, which was captured earlier this month or on the fate of its 24 crew of five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians, two Filipinos and 12 Tuvalu residents.
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy And Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writers – 6 mins ago
MOMBASA, Kenya – U.S. Navy snipers opened fire and killed three pirates holding an American captain at gunpoint, delivering the skipper unharmed and ending a five-day high-seas hostage drama on Easter Sunday.
The pirates were pointing AK-47s at Capt. Richard Phillips and he was in "imminent danger" of being killed when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order his men to shoot, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said.
Phillips' crew, who said they had escaped the pirates after he offered himself as a hostage, erupted in cheers aboard their ship docked in Mombasa, Kenya. Some waved an American flag and fired flares in celebration. A lawn sign in the captain's hometown of Underhill, Vermont that read "Pray for Captain Phillips' release and safe return home" was changed to read, "Capt. Phillips rescued and safe."
The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said Phillips, 53, was resting comfortably after a medical exam on the San Diego-based USS Boxer in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia. Gortney said the captain had been "tied up inside the lifeboat" over much of the ordeal.
"I'm just the byline. The real heroes are the Navy, the Seals, those who have brought me home," Phillips said by phone to Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John Reinhart, the company head told reporters. A photo released by the Navy showed Phillips unharmed and shaking hands with the commanding officer of the USS Bainbridge.
U.S. officials said a fourth pirate had surrendered and was in military custody. FBI spokesman John Miller said that would change as the situation became "more of a criminal issue."
The rescue was a dramatic blow to the pirates who have preyed on international shipping and hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 sailors from a variety of nations. But it also risked provoking retaliatory attacks.
"This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," said Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told The Associated Press from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl, that, "our friends should have done more to kill the captain before they were killed. This will be a good lesson for us."
"From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," he said. France and India have both taken deadly military action against pirates in recent months and seen no significant retaliation, however.
The Defense Department twice asked President Barack Obama for permission to use military force to rescue Phillips, most recently late Friday evening, U.S. officials said. On Saturday morning, Obama signed off on the Pentagon's request, as he had a day earlier, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
"I share the country's admiration for the bravery of Capt. Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew," Obama said in his first comments on the situation. "His courage is a model for all Americans."
He added that the United States needs help from other countries to deal with the threat of piracy and to hold pirates accountable.
A spokeswoman for the Phillips family, Alison McColl, said Phillips and his wife, Andrea, spoke by phone shortly after he was freed.
"I think you can all imagine their joy and what a happy moment that was for them," McColl said outside of the Phillips home in Underhill. "They're all just so happy and relieved. Andrea wanted me to tell the nation that all of your prayers and good wishes have paid off because Capt. Phillips is safe."
The Navy said Phillips was freed at 7:19 p.m. local time.
When Phillips' crew heard the news aboard their ship in the port of Mombasa, they placed an American flag over the rail of the top of the Maersk Alabama and whistled and pumped their fists in the air. Crew fired two bright red flares into the sky from the ship.
"We made it!" said crewman ATM Reza, pumping his fist in the air.
"He managed to be in a 120-degree oven for days, it's amazing," said another of about a dozen crew members who came out to talk to reporters. He said the crew found out the captain was released because one of the sailors had been talking to his wife on the phone.
Crew members said their ordeal had begun Wednesday with the Somali pirates hauling themselves up from a small boat bobbing on the surface of the Indian Ocean far below.
As the pirates shot in the air, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crew members said.
Phillips was then held hostage in an enclosed lifeboat that was closely watched by U.S. warships and a helicopter in an increasingly tense standoff.
Capt. Joseph Murphy, the father of second-in-command Shane Murphy, thanked Phillips for his bravery.
"Our prayers have been answered on this Easter Sunday," Murphy said. "If not for his incredible personal sacrifice, this kidnapping and act of terror could have turned out much worse."
Murphy said both his family and Phillips' "can now celebrate a joyous Easter together."
Talks to free Phillips began Thursday with the captain of the Bainbridge talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board the U.S. destroyer. The pirates had threatened to kill Phillips if attacked.
Phillips jumped out of the lifeboat Friday and tried to swim for his freedom but was recaptured when a pirate fired an automatic weapon at or near him, according to U.S. Defense Department officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the unfolding operations.
Elsewhere off the Somali coast Friday, the French navy freed a sailboat seized off Somalia by other pirates, but one of the five hostages was killed.
Three U.S. warships were within easy reach of the lifeboat and early Saturday, the pirates holding Phillips in the lifeboat fired a few shots at a small U.S. Navy vessel that had approached, a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The official said the U.S. sailors did not return fire, the Navy vessel turned away and no one was hurt. He said the vessel had not been attempting a rescue.
The district commissioner of the central Mudug region said talks on freeing Phillips had gone on all day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and through a translator with Americans, but collapsed Saturday night.
Phillips' crew of 19 American sailors reached safe harbor in Kenya's northeast port of Mombasa about the same time under guard of U.S. Navy Seals.
The U.S. Navy had assumed the pirates would try to get their hostage to shore, where they could have hidden him on Somalia's lawless soil and been in a stronger position to negotiate a ransom.
"The Somali government wanted the drama to end in a peaceful way, but any one who is involved in this latest case had the choice to use violence or other means," Abdulkhadir Walayo, the prime minister's spokesman, told the AP. "Any way, we see it will be a good lesson for the pirates or any one else involved in this dirty business."
Residents of Harardhere, another port and pirate stronghold, were gathering in the streets after news of the captain's release, saying they fear pirates may now retaliate against some of the 200 hostages they still hold.
"We fear more that any revenge taken by the pirates against foreign nationals could bring more attacks from the foreign navies, perhaps on our villages," Abdullahi Haji Jama, who owns a clothes store in Harardhere, told the AP by telephone.
Pirates are holding about a dozen ships with more than 200 crew members, according to the Malaysia-based piracy watchdog International Maritime Bureau. Hostages are from Bulgaria, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, Tuvalu and Ukraine, among other countries.
A spokesman for the German anti-piracy operation told the AP that the U.S. did not give any clue as to its plans in regard to the ship captain.
He had no details on the fate of the German freighter Hansa Stavanger, which was captured earlier this month or on the fate of its 24 crew of five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians, two Filipinos and 12 Tuvalu residents.
Heated Controversy: Do firefighters believe 9/11 conspiracy theories?
http://www.slate.com/id/2215703/
By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at 5:18 PM ET
In the new season of the FX drama Rescue Me, firefighter Franco Rivera espouses the belief that 9/11 was "an inside job." According to a Sunday New York Times article, the show's writers added this assertion because actor Daniel Sunjata is a "truther"; but the real firefighters on set—who work as script advisers—were offended by his allegations. This got the Explainer wondering: Do any firefighters believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories?
There's no evidence that firefighters buy into 9/11 conspiracy theories at higher rates than the rest of the population. (A 2007 Zogby poll found that 26 percent of Americans believe the government "let it happen." A 2006 Scripps-Howard poll found it was more than a third.) But some firemen do believe the government was behind 9/11 and use their status as first responders to draw attention to their statements.
The most common conspiracy theory held by firefighters is that the Twin Towers—as well as a third building, 7 World Trade Center—collapsed not because planes crashed into them but due to a "controlled demolition." On Sept. 11, an NBC reporter quoted New York Fire Department Chief of Safety Albert Turi as saying he believed there were explosives planted in one of the towers. After the attacks, the New York Fire Department interviewed firefighters to create an oral history of 9/11. These tapes—which were not released until 2005—contain numerous references to explosions heard just before the buildings fell. Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, a Web site started in 2008, says the government destroyed evidence that 7 World Trade Center was blown up and hosts a petition asking Congress to look into the possibility that "exotic accelerants" destroyed the buildings. (The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, concluded that "blast events inside the building did not occur and found no evidence supporting the existence of a blast event.")
Another common theory is that federal agents found three of the planes' four black boxes and then hid or destroyed them because they contained incriminating evidence. Nicholas DeMasi, a firefighter formerly with Engine Company 261 in Queens, was quoted in a 2003 book saying that he was there when federal agents made the discovery. Another first responder corroborated his account. Although his allegations are contradicted by The 9/11 Commission Report, which says the boxes were never found, many truthers choose to believe there was a cover-up.
Do other professions marshal their own expertise to poke holes in the official story? Absolutely. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth point to the physics of the towers' collapse—its "free fall" pace, the "lateral ejection" of steel, the "mid-air pulverization of concrete"—as evidence that they could not have fallen exclusively because of the planes' impact. Pilots for 9/11 Truth have their own set of theories that focus on the planes' black boxes and flight paths, arguing, for example, that the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 would have had to perform an extremely difficult aerial maneuver to hit the Pentagon where they did. Lawyers for 9/11 Truth conclude that the 9/11 Commission investigation was inadequate. There's also Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (not to be confused with its rival, Scholars for 9/11 Truth), which tackles scientific aspects of the towers' collapse, such as the alleged residue of explosive materials like thermate in the dust at Ground Zero. One notable group that does not have its own 9/11 truth group is the police force.
By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at 5:18 PM ET
In the new season of the FX drama Rescue Me, firefighter Franco Rivera espouses the belief that 9/11 was "an inside job." According to a Sunday New York Times article, the show's writers added this assertion because actor Daniel Sunjata is a "truther"; but the real firefighters on set—who work as script advisers—were offended by his allegations. This got the Explainer wondering: Do any firefighters believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories?
There's no evidence that firefighters buy into 9/11 conspiracy theories at higher rates than the rest of the population. (A 2007 Zogby poll found that 26 percent of Americans believe the government "let it happen." A 2006 Scripps-Howard poll found it was more than a third.) But some firemen do believe the government was behind 9/11 and use their status as first responders to draw attention to their statements.
The most common conspiracy theory held by firefighters is that the Twin Towers—as well as a third building, 7 World Trade Center—collapsed not because planes crashed into them but due to a "controlled demolition." On Sept. 11, an NBC reporter quoted New York Fire Department Chief of Safety Albert Turi as saying he believed there were explosives planted in one of the towers. After the attacks, the New York Fire Department interviewed firefighters to create an oral history of 9/11. These tapes—which were not released until 2005—contain numerous references to explosions heard just before the buildings fell. Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, a Web site started in 2008, says the government destroyed evidence that 7 World Trade Center was blown up and hosts a petition asking Congress to look into the possibility that "exotic accelerants" destroyed the buildings. (The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, concluded that "blast events inside the building did not occur and found no evidence supporting the existence of a blast event.")
Another common theory is that federal agents found three of the planes' four black boxes and then hid or destroyed them because they contained incriminating evidence. Nicholas DeMasi, a firefighter formerly with Engine Company 261 in Queens, was quoted in a 2003 book saying that he was there when federal agents made the discovery. Another first responder corroborated his account. Although his allegations are contradicted by The 9/11 Commission Report, which says the boxes were never found, many truthers choose to believe there was a cover-up.
Do other professions marshal their own expertise to poke holes in the official story? Absolutely. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth point to the physics of the towers' collapse—its "free fall" pace, the "lateral ejection" of steel, the "mid-air pulverization of concrete"—as evidence that they could not have fallen exclusively because of the planes' impact. Pilots for 9/11 Truth have their own set of theories that focus on the planes' black boxes and flight paths, arguing, for example, that the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 would have had to perform an extremely difficult aerial maneuver to hit the Pentagon where they did. Lawyers for 9/11 Truth conclude that the 9/11 Commission investigation was inadequate. There's also Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (not to be confused with its rival, Scholars for 9/11 Truth), which tackles scientific aspects of the towers' collapse, such as the alleged residue of explosive materials like thermate in the dust at Ground Zero. One notable group that does not have its own 9/11 truth group is the police force.
Obama requests $83.4 billion more for war spending
Defense Secretary Gates argues that the additional money is needed to prevent abrupt troop withdrawals. The administration says it's 'the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan.'
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...0,7040091.story
By Julian E. Barnes
April 10, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- President Obama is seeking an additional $83.4 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a request that will drive the cost of the two wars to nearly $1 trillion since 2001.
The budget request, to cover operations for the remainder of 2009, comes on top of $67.2 billion approved last fall as a down payment for the year. However, the annual total, about $150 billion, is lower than the amount spent in 2008, after the conclusion of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq.
Obama has criticized the use of such emergency funding measures, called supplemental appropriations, to pay for the war. The president's first budget, for 2010, will move more of the wars' costs into the main Pentagon spending plan.
"This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman. "The process by which this has been funded . . . will change."
The U.S. has spent $859 billion on military operations and foreign assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The additional money will raise the total to $942 billion.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that without the funding, the U.S. would be forced to make sudden withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"And I don't know anybody who thinks that's a good idea," he said.
The $83.4-billion request includes $75.8 billion for military operations. An additional $7.1 billion will go to diplomatic efforts and foreign aid, including $1.6 billion for Afghanistan, $1.4 billion for Pakistan and $700 million for Iraq.
In February, the Obama administration estimated that it would need $75.5 billion. The extra money will be used in part for $400 million to increase security on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The proposal also includes an additional $3.6 billion for Afghanistan's forces and $400 million to help fund counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan.
The supplemental request will have $600 million for four additional F-22 fighter jets, the last the Pentagon plans to purchase as it switches to other planes. However, the switch is controversial, and Congress could require the Pentagon to continue adding F-22s to the fleet.
The supplemental includes $8.8 billion to replace equipment damaged or lost during combat, including a range of new attack and transport helicopters.
The Pentagon is also seeking $3.8 billion for military intelligence, including equipment for counter-terrorism teams and additional airborne surveillance.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...0,7040091.story
By Julian E. Barnes
April 10, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- President Obama is seeking an additional $83.4 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a request that will drive the cost of the two wars to nearly $1 trillion since 2001.
The budget request, to cover operations for the remainder of 2009, comes on top of $67.2 billion approved last fall as a down payment for the year. However, the annual total, about $150 billion, is lower than the amount spent in 2008, after the conclusion of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq.
Obama has criticized the use of such emergency funding measures, called supplemental appropriations, to pay for the war. The president's first budget, for 2010, will move more of the wars' costs into the main Pentagon spending plan.
"This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman. "The process by which this has been funded . . . will change."
The U.S. has spent $859 billion on military operations and foreign assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The additional money will raise the total to $942 billion.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that without the funding, the U.S. would be forced to make sudden withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"And I don't know anybody who thinks that's a good idea," he said.
The $83.4-billion request includes $75.8 billion for military operations. An additional $7.1 billion will go to diplomatic efforts and foreign aid, including $1.6 billion for Afghanistan, $1.4 billion for Pakistan and $700 million for Iraq.
In February, the Obama administration estimated that it would need $75.5 billion. The extra money will be used in part for $400 million to increase security on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The proposal also includes an additional $3.6 billion for Afghanistan's forces and $400 million to help fund counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan.
The supplemental request will have $600 million for four additional F-22 fighter jets, the last the Pentagon plans to purchase as it switches to other planes. However, the switch is controversial, and Congress could require the Pentagon to continue adding F-22s to the fleet.
The supplemental includes $8.8 billion to replace equipment damaged or lost during combat, including a range of new attack and transport helicopters.
The Pentagon is also seeking $3.8 billion for military intelligence, including equipment for counter-terrorism teams and additional airborne surveillance.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Romania blamed over Moldova riots
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7989360.stm
Moldova's president has accused neighbouring Romania of stoking the protests that erupted into violence in the capital Chisinau on Tuesday.
Romania has rejected the accusation as a "provocation".
Thousands of young protesters thronged Chisinau, fighting police and ransacking parliament, in protest at the results of Sunday's election.
Official results gave the ruling Communists about 50% of the vote in the Romanian-speaking ex-Soviet republic.
International observers said the vote appeared to have been fair, though one told the BBC she had her doubts.
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, a Communist, was quoted by Russian agency Interfax saying: "We know that certain political forces in Romania are behind this unrest. The Romanian flags fixed on the government buildings in Chisinau attest to this."
He ordered that Romania's ambassador be expelled, and recalled the Moldovan envoy from Bucharest.
There were also reports that Moldova was preventing non-Moldovans from crossing the border.
Earlier the president described the violence as "a coup d'etat".
Some of the protesters on Tuesday had carried Romanian flags and called for the unification of Moldova with Romania, its bigger neighbour.
Russia's foreign ministry said there was a plot aimed at undermining "the sovereignty of Moldova".
But Romania's foreign ministry said: "This accusation is a provocation aimed at the Romanian state."
It is "unacceptable that the Communists in power in Chisinau shift the blame for internal problems in Moldova onto Romania and the Romanian people", the statement added.
Summoned on Twitter
The streets of Chisinau were quiet on Wednesday morning. Protesters had left the scene of the rioting on Tuesday night, and police retook control of parliament.
But opposition leaders said protests would continue.
Vlad Filat, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, called the demonstrations "a spontaneous action by protesting young people".
He said the opposition had tried to prevent excesses, like the attacks on parliament, but said: "We are not scared of arrests or intimidation. The people do not want to live like this and want to live free and without fear."
Word of the demonstrations was spread by text message, via the internet, and on social networking tools.
"We sent messages on Twitter but didn't expect 15,000 people to join in. At the most we expected 1,000," Oleg Brega, of the activist group Hyde Park told the Associated Press news agency.
'Manipulation' suspected
Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, a member of the Liberal Party, said: "The elections were fraudulent, there was multiple voting."
The opposition have called for ballots to be recounted or the vote to be reheld - a request rejected so far by the government.
A report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe on Sunday's vote gave a mostly positive assessment of the poll.
But a British member of the OSCE's observation team questioned that conclusion.
Baroness Emma Nicholson said she found it "difficult to endorse the very warm press statement" from the head of the OSCE.
"The problem was that it was an OSCE report, and in the OSCE are, of course, the Russians, and their view was quite different, quite substantially different, for example from my own," she told BBC News.
She said she and other observers had a "very, very strong feeling" that there had been some manipulation, "but we couldn't find any proof".
Moldova, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, is the poorest country in Europe, where the average wage is just under $250 (£168) a month.
The people speak Romanian and the country shares many cultural links with Romania. However it was annexed by the Soviet Union in World War II and gained independence in 1991.
There remains an unresolved conflict with the breakaway region of Trans-Dniester, which has run its own affairs, with Moscow's support, since the end of hostilities in a brief war in 1992.
Moldova's president has accused neighbouring Romania of stoking the protests that erupted into violence in the capital Chisinau on Tuesday.
Romania has rejected the accusation as a "provocation".
Thousands of young protesters thronged Chisinau, fighting police and ransacking parliament, in protest at the results of Sunday's election.
Official results gave the ruling Communists about 50% of the vote in the Romanian-speaking ex-Soviet republic.
International observers said the vote appeared to have been fair, though one told the BBC she had her doubts.
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, a Communist, was quoted by Russian agency Interfax saying: "We know that certain political forces in Romania are behind this unrest. The Romanian flags fixed on the government buildings in Chisinau attest to this."
He ordered that Romania's ambassador be expelled, and recalled the Moldovan envoy from Bucharest.
There were also reports that Moldova was preventing non-Moldovans from crossing the border.
Earlier the president described the violence as "a coup d'etat".
Some of the protesters on Tuesday had carried Romanian flags and called for the unification of Moldova with Romania, its bigger neighbour.
Russia's foreign ministry said there was a plot aimed at undermining "the sovereignty of Moldova".
But Romania's foreign ministry said: "This accusation is a provocation aimed at the Romanian state."
It is "unacceptable that the Communists in power in Chisinau shift the blame for internal problems in Moldova onto Romania and the Romanian people", the statement added.
Summoned on Twitter
The streets of Chisinau were quiet on Wednesday morning. Protesters had left the scene of the rioting on Tuesday night, and police retook control of parliament.
But opposition leaders said protests would continue.
Vlad Filat, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, called the demonstrations "a spontaneous action by protesting young people".
He said the opposition had tried to prevent excesses, like the attacks on parliament, but said: "We are not scared of arrests or intimidation. The people do not want to live like this and want to live free and without fear."
Word of the demonstrations was spread by text message, via the internet, and on social networking tools.
"We sent messages on Twitter but didn't expect 15,000 people to join in. At the most we expected 1,000," Oleg Brega, of the activist group Hyde Park told the Associated Press news agency.
'Manipulation' suspected
Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, a member of the Liberal Party, said: "The elections were fraudulent, there was multiple voting."
The opposition have called for ballots to be recounted or the vote to be reheld - a request rejected so far by the government.
A report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe on Sunday's vote gave a mostly positive assessment of the poll.
But a British member of the OSCE's observation team questioned that conclusion.
Baroness Emma Nicholson said she found it "difficult to endorse the very warm press statement" from the head of the OSCE.
"The problem was that it was an OSCE report, and in the OSCE are, of course, the Russians, and their view was quite different, quite substantially different, for example from my own," she told BBC News.
She said she and other observers had a "very, very strong feeling" that there had been some manipulation, "but we couldn't find any proof".
Moldova, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, is the poorest country in Europe, where the average wage is just under $250 (£168) a month.
The people speak Romanian and the country shares many cultural links with Romania. However it was annexed by the Soviet Union in World War II and gained independence in 1991.
There remains an unresolved conflict with the breakaway region of Trans-Dniester, which has run its own affairs, with Moscow's support, since the end of hostilities in a brief war in 1992.
Growing unease about dollar as US deficits grow
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009.../ap6261566.html
4/7/2009
There's growing unease about the dollar around the world as the United States struggles to right itself from its worst recession in decades.
The prospect that massive stimulus spending will produce ballooning budget deficits - on top of years of red ink in trade balances - has many forecasting a bleak future for the greenback. Is the dollar in danger of losing its global glitter?
Pessimists like U.S. analyst Peter Schiff, president of the Euro Pacific Capital brokerage, believe the dollar could plummet in value against other currencies and lose its dominance in trade, foreign reserves and commodity pricing.
"I think the dollar will continue to drop," Schiff said in an interview. "Based on what we've done, it could lose 70 to 80 percent of its value over the next five to 10 years.
"The dollar is no longer as good as gold. It's no longer better than any other currency."
Other analysts counter that it's too early to write off the dollar, noting that it has strengthened against other currencies this year - including Europe's euro and the Japanese yen - in part because the Obama administration is moving aggressively to boost U.S. credit markets and stimulate the economy.
"The dollar continues to be best of breed of the major currencies," said economist Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research Inc. "Despite all of our flaws and faults and economic and financial woes, the dollar still looks as though it should remain a strong currency relative to the euro, the yen, the British pound and other currencies."
The dollar's current strength hasn't kept officials in China and Russia from dropping strong hints that the world needs to look for alternatives. Both developed and developing nations are especially concerned about their reserves, which are essentially national savings invested in gold and foreign currencies, mainly dollars.
China has used its massive profits from foreign trade to become the world's largest investor in the United States, with an estimated $1 trillion in holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and other government-backed notes.
Last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he was "concerned about the safety of our assets," making it clear China is loathe to see its dollar holdings drop in value. His central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, went further, advocating creation of a new global currency to end the dollar's dominance.
Zhou's suggestion: a synthetic currency created by the 185-nation International Monetary Fund.
Also in March, Igor Panarin, a dean at the Russian Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats, suggested that the United States may implode amid deepening financial and credit crises, leaving Russia and China as the backbones of a new world economic order.
What has China, Russia and other countries spooked is the massive deficits that are likely because of U.S. government spending to prop up faltering banks and insurance companies and to stimulate economic growth.
The U.S. budget deficit is projected to shoot up to $1.8 trillion this year and moderately decrease to $1.4 trillion next year, while the national debt rises to $8 trillion in 2009 and $12.6 trillion five years later.
One worry is that the United States could eventually let the dollar depreciate to reduce its costs of paying off such massive debt. Another is that the stimulus and deficit spending will set off inflation and make the dollar less valuable.
Either way, the value of foreign nation's dollar holdings would drop.
On the other hand, if the Obama administration's massive $787 billion recovery package works, the U.S. may come out of its recession faster than other nations. That will give the U.S. a head start in getting its financial house back in order and strengthen the dollar, at least in the short run.
C. Fred Bergsten, a former U.S. Treasury official who is director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., points out that after losing about 25 percent of its value on a trade-weighted basis from 2002 to early 2008, the dollar has regained about 12 percent in the past year.
It has gained even more against Europe's currency - the euro now fetches $1.34, down from $1.60 a year ago. And the dollar is up more than 10 percent against the yen since mid-December.
Bergsten predicts the dollar will go up "for a while" as the U.S. trade deficit narrows because of recession-reduced demand for imports and there's less spread between U.S. interest rates and those in other countries, including Europe, where the central bank has been slower to bring rates down than the Federal Reserve.
"In the longer run, as the trade deficit moves back up ... it depends on how that compares with the other major countries," Bergsten said.
Bernard Baumohl, executive director of The Economic Outlook Group, believes the dollar will be vulnerable in 2011 and 2012, as other countries begin to come out of the global downturn.
"They'll need capital to finance their recovery, and that will draw some foreign capital away" from the United States, he said. "And there's likely to be new concern about the (budget) deficit here in the United States and the enormous demand for the Treasury to borrow from foreigners."
Still, Baumohl doesn't expect the dollar to disappear soon as a global reserve.
"I liken the dollar to an aging boxing champ in terms of being a reserve currency," he said. "It survives because there's no other contender out there."
4/7/2009
There's growing unease about the dollar around the world as the United States struggles to right itself from its worst recession in decades.
The prospect that massive stimulus spending will produce ballooning budget deficits - on top of years of red ink in trade balances - has many forecasting a bleak future for the greenback. Is the dollar in danger of losing its global glitter?
Pessimists like U.S. analyst Peter Schiff, president of the Euro Pacific Capital brokerage, believe the dollar could plummet in value against other currencies and lose its dominance in trade, foreign reserves and commodity pricing.
"I think the dollar will continue to drop," Schiff said in an interview. "Based on what we've done, it could lose 70 to 80 percent of its value over the next five to 10 years.
"The dollar is no longer as good as gold. It's no longer better than any other currency."
Other analysts counter that it's too early to write off the dollar, noting that it has strengthened against other currencies this year - including Europe's euro and the Japanese yen - in part because the Obama administration is moving aggressively to boost U.S. credit markets and stimulate the economy.
"The dollar continues to be best of breed of the major currencies," said economist Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research Inc. "Despite all of our flaws and faults and economic and financial woes, the dollar still looks as though it should remain a strong currency relative to the euro, the yen, the British pound and other currencies."
The dollar's current strength hasn't kept officials in China and Russia from dropping strong hints that the world needs to look for alternatives. Both developed and developing nations are especially concerned about their reserves, which are essentially national savings invested in gold and foreign currencies, mainly dollars.
China has used its massive profits from foreign trade to become the world's largest investor in the United States, with an estimated $1 trillion in holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and other government-backed notes.
Last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he was "concerned about the safety of our assets," making it clear China is loathe to see its dollar holdings drop in value. His central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, went further, advocating creation of a new global currency to end the dollar's dominance.
Zhou's suggestion: a synthetic currency created by the 185-nation International Monetary Fund.
Also in March, Igor Panarin, a dean at the Russian Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats, suggested that the United States may implode amid deepening financial and credit crises, leaving Russia and China as the backbones of a new world economic order.
What has China, Russia and other countries spooked is the massive deficits that are likely because of U.S. government spending to prop up faltering banks and insurance companies and to stimulate economic growth.
The U.S. budget deficit is projected to shoot up to $1.8 trillion this year and moderately decrease to $1.4 trillion next year, while the national debt rises to $8 trillion in 2009 and $12.6 trillion five years later.
One worry is that the United States could eventually let the dollar depreciate to reduce its costs of paying off such massive debt. Another is that the stimulus and deficit spending will set off inflation and make the dollar less valuable.
Either way, the value of foreign nation's dollar holdings would drop.
On the other hand, if the Obama administration's massive $787 billion recovery package works, the U.S. may come out of its recession faster than other nations. That will give the U.S. a head start in getting its financial house back in order and strengthen the dollar, at least in the short run.
C. Fred Bergsten, a former U.S. Treasury official who is director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., points out that after losing about 25 percent of its value on a trade-weighted basis from 2002 to early 2008, the dollar has regained about 12 percent in the past year.
It has gained even more against Europe's currency - the euro now fetches $1.34, down from $1.60 a year ago. And the dollar is up more than 10 percent against the yen since mid-December.
Bergsten predicts the dollar will go up "for a while" as the U.S. trade deficit narrows because of recession-reduced demand for imports and there's less spread between U.S. interest rates and those in other countries, including Europe, where the central bank has been slower to bring rates down than the Federal Reserve.
"In the longer run, as the trade deficit moves back up ... it depends on how that compares with the other major countries," Bergsten said.
Bernard Baumohl, executive director of The Economic Outlook Group, believes the dollar will be vulnerable in 2011 and 2012, as other countries begin to come out of the global downturn.
"They'll need capital to finance their recovery, and that will draw some foreign capital away" from the United States, he said. "And there's likely to be new concern about the (budget) deficit here in the United States and the enormous demand for the Treasury to borrow from foreigners."
Still, Baumohl doesn't expect the dollar to disappear soon as a global reserve.
"I liken the dollar to an aging boxing champ in terms of being a reserve currency," he said. "It survives because there's no other contender out there."
Caller tells Limbaugh he is a 'brainwashed Nazi'
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Radio_caller_tells_Limbaugh_hes_brainwashed_0408.html
Rachel Oswald
Published: Wednesday April 8, 2009
A self-identified Republican and U.S. veteran called into Rush Limbaugh's radio show yesterday to castigate the conservative host for being "brainwashed" and having "sour grapes" over the fact that Barack Obama was now president.
"No matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you're brainwashed," said the caller, who identified himself as Charles from Chicago. "You're just -- and I hate to say it -- but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who could believe in torture just has got to be - there's got to be something wrong with them."
Media Matters has the full transcript of the conversation and audio here.
The caller claimed he voted for John McCain for president but said it was because of people like Limbaugh that the GOP lost the election.
"First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue is the -- was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people," criticized the caller. "This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, or North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you kept harping about it -- 'It's OK,' or 'It's not really torture.' And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners were killed under torture."
Unsurprisingly, Limbaugh shot back against the caller's chastisements and accused him of not really being a Republican.
"You know, you're just plain embarrassing and ludicrous," Limbaugh said, adding, "But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you've said here."
Limbaugh also claimed that he did not "know of anybody who died from torture."
While Limbaugh may think that, the group Human Rights First has issued a report that states that due to government handling, nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody since 2002.
Additionally, in 2004, The New York Times published a report on two pictures it had obtained from Abu Ghraib that showed the bodies of two dead detainees with serious wounds. The story raised questions about whether the two men were beaten to death while in U.S. custody.
Blogger Dr. Sammy, writing at Scholars & Rogues, surmises Limbaugh's defense of himself to the caller's criticisms:
"*If you disagree with Rush, it’s 'sour grapes.'
*If you disagree with Rush, you’ve been 'brainwashed.'
*People who oppose torture are 'stupid' and 'ignorant.'
*If you don’t agree with Rush, you 'don’t know diddly-squat.'
*If you disagree with Rush, 'you’re no Republican at all.'
"The new Republican leadership has drawn a line in the sand. Then dug it out and filled it with concrete. Rush Limbaugh is the One True Voice of God. Dissent and other forms of thinking will not be tolerated."
Rachel Oswald
Published: Wednesday April 8, 2009
A self-identified Republican and U.S. veteran called into Rush Limbaugh's radio show yesterday to castigate the conservative host for being "brainwashed" and having "sour grapes" over the fact that Barack Obama was now president.
"No matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you're brainwashed," said the caller, who identified himself as Charles from Chicago. "You're just -- and I hate to say it -- but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who could believe in torture just has got to be - there's got to be something wrong with them."
Media Matters has the full transcript of the conversation and audio here.
The caller claimed he voted for John McCain for president but said it was because of people like Limbaugh that the GOP lost the election.
"First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue is the -- was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people," criticized the caller. "This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, or North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you kept harping about it -- 'It's OK,' or 'It's not really torture.' And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners were killed under torture."
Unsurprisingly, Limbaugh shot back against the caller's chastisements and accused him of not really being a Republican.
"You know, you're just plain embarrassing and ludicrous," Limbaugh said, adding, "But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you've said here."
Limbaugh also claimed that he did not "know of anybody who died from torture."
While Limbaugh may think that, the group Human Rights First has issued a report that states that due to government handling, nearly 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody since 2002.
Additionally, in 2004, The New York Times published a report on two pictures it had obtained from Abu Ghraib that showed the bodies of two dead detainees with serious wounds. The story raised questions about whether the two men were beaten to death while in U.S. custody.
Blogger Dr. Sammy, writing at Scholars & Rogues, surmises Limbaugh's defense of himself to the caller's criticisms:
"*If you disagree with Rush, it’s 'sour grapes.'
*If you disagree with Rush, you’ve been 'brainwashed.'
*People who oppose torture are 'stupid' and 'ignorant.'
*If you don’t agree with Rush, you 'don’t know diddly-squat.'
*If you disagree with Rush, 'you’re no Republican at all.'
"The new Republican leadership has drawn a line in the sand. Then dug it out and filled it with concrete. Rush Limbaugh is the One True Voice of God. Dissent and other forms of thinking will not be tolerated."
Cheney refuses to turn over his records to Bush library
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Chene...cords_0407.html
David Edwards and John Byrne
Published: Tuesday April 7, 2009
It appears that Vice President Dick Cheney's penchant for keeping things close continues even beyond his term.
The former deputy commander-in-chief won't even turn his records over to the library of President George W. Bush, though he originally appeared to be willing to do so.
"As the Republican Party searches for meaning in the political minority, one of the men who put them in the political memory, Dick Cheney, does not want his records out of his clutches, especially if they were to go to the George W. Bush presidential library in Dallas anytime soon," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported Monday evening.
Bush's number two says he needs his records to stay in Washington so he can tap them for his memoirs.
Last year, one of the architects of Bush's library wrote to the National Archives that "we received a call from [George W. Bush Foundation president] Mark Langdale that the Vice Presidential holdings will now be located at the GWBPL [George W. Bush Presidential Library]" and asked for assistance in revising the library's blueprints.
But according to the Dallas News, there was a "miscommunication."
Keeping vice presidential records at the National Archives is not unusual -- Al Gore opted for his records to remain there after leaving office. But Cheney's obsession with secrecy and control have raised liberal eyebrows over the revelation. A 2007 article in The Washington Post revealed that Cheney's obsession with controlling information goes so far as to involve the purging of Secret Service visitor logs.
"Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency," the Post's Barton Gellman wrote. "Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs.
MSNBC's Maddow delivered the news tongue-in-cheek.
"This means that the space set aside for Vice President Cheney's official and personal records in the Bush library will remain empty, a void where information should be," she remarked. "You know, that's how I'll always think of him."
"It made more sense and was more convenient to keep them in D.C.," a Cheney spokesman told the Dallas News.
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Apr. 6, 2009.
Video At Source
David Edwards and John Byrne
Published: Tuesday April 7, 2009
It appears that Vice President Dick Cheney's penchant for keeping things close continues even beyond his term.
The former deputy commander-in-chief won't even turn his records over to the library of President George W. Bush, though he originally appeared to be willing to do so.
"As the Republican Party searches for meaning in the political minority, one of the men who put them in the political memory, Dick Cheney, does not want his records out of his clutches, especially if they were to go to the George W. Bush presidential library in Dallas anytime soon," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported Monday evening.
Bush's number two says he needs his records to stay in Washington so he can tap them for his memoirs.
Last year, one of the architects of Bush's library wrote to the National Archives that "we received a call from [George W. Bush Foundation president] Mark Langdale that the Vice Presidential holdings will now be located at the GWBPL [George W. Bush Presidential Library]" and asked for assistance in revising the library's blueprints.
But according to the Dallas News, there was a "miscommunication."
Keeping vice presidential records at the National Archives is not unusual -- Al Gore opted for his records to remain there after leaving office. But Cheney's obsession with secrecy and control have raised liberal eyebrows over the revelation. A 2007 article in The Washington Post revealed that Cheney's obsession with controlling information goes so far as to involve the purging of Secret Service visitor logs.
"Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency," the Post's Barton Gellman wrote. "Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs.
MSNBC's Maddow delivered the news tongue-in-cheek.
"This means that the space set aside for Vice President Cheney's official and personal records in the Bush library will remain empty, a void where information should be," she remarked. "You know, that's how I'll always think of him."
"It made more sense and was more convenient to keep them in D.C.," a Cheney spokesman told the Dallas News.
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Apr. 6, 2009.
Video At Source
Drone attacks fuel extremism, Pakistan warns US
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pakis..._fuel_0407.html
4/8/2009
Pakistan told US envoys Tuesday that drone attacks fueled extremism in the nuclear-armed nation and called for mutual trust to allow the implementation of a sweeping new strategy against militants.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard Holbrooke, envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, held two days of talks with Pakistani leaders on a new US strategy to defeat Al-Qaeda and its allies.
Holbrooke said that while the United States was suffering from intelligence failures in the region, he and Mullen had emphasized the two countries faced the same enemy and would have to work together.
"We believe that... the United States and Pakistan face a common strategic threat, a common enemy and a common challenge and therefore a common task," Holbrooke told a news conference in Islamabad.
But Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said drone attacks -- to which Pakistan is publicly opposed -- work to the advantage of the extremists and flagged up "red lines" in Pakistan's cooperation with Washington.
"We did talk about drones and let me be very frank. There's a gap. There's a gap between us and them," Qureshi told the news conference.
Pakistan is deeply opposed to the drone attacks, around 37 of which have killed over 360 people since August 2008, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the populace.
"My view is that they are working to the advantage of the extremists. We agree to disagree on this. We will take it up when we meet again in Washington," Qureshi added, referring to talks scheduled for May 6-7.
The visit by Mullen and Holbrooke, who are scheduled to fly on to India later Tuesday, is the first top-level US mission to Pakistan since President Barack Obama put the nuclear-armed Muslim country at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda.
"The bottom line is the question of trust. We are partners and we want to be partners," Qureshi said.
"We can only work together if we respect each other and we trust each other. There is no other way. Nothing else will work," he added.
Tuesday's talks came as the New York Times reported that the United States intended to step up drone attacks on militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, which border Afghanistan, and might extend them deeper inside Pakistan.
The cash-strapped country is keenly awaiting a US aid package that aims to triple economic assistance to 7.5 billion dollars over five years.
Pakistan has called for military equipment and drones for its armed forces in order to better attack the Islamist extremists themselves, and so save the government from the furious anti-US backlash that officials say fuels extremist violence.
But Washington demands that Pakistan's powerful intelligence services -- which have a history of supporting Islamist militants to fight in Indian-controlled Kashmir and in Afghanistan -- sever ties with extremists.
"It's important for us to seek a surplus of trust," Mullen told the news conference when asked what was preventing Washington from handing over drones to Pakistan to carry out the air strikes.
Acknowledging the complexity of the enemy, Holbrooke told reporters he was "very, very dissatisfied" by US intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The level of knowledge that we have is not where it should be," he said.
He said a key US priority was to encourage cooperation between the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence agencies, militaries and the two countries, which have traditionally had fraught relations.
In a statement issued after talks with the envoys late Monday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari emphasized the gravity of the threat, saying that the country was "fighting a battle for its own survival".
Pakistan has paid dearly for its alliance with the US in its "war on terror." Militant attacks have killed more than 1,700 people since July 2007.
Pakistan rejects criticism that it does not do enough to counter Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants holed up on the Afghan border, pointing to the deaths of more than 1,500 troops at the hands of Islamist extremists since 2002.
4/8/2009
Pakistan told US envoys Tuesday that drone attacks fueled extremism in the nuclear-armed nation and called for mutual trust to allow the implementation of a sweeping new strategy against militants.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard Holbrooke, envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, held two days of talks with Pakistani leaders on a new US strategy to defeat Al-Qaeda and its allies.
Holbrooke said that while the United States was suffering from intelligence failures in the region, he and Mullen had emphasized the two countries faced the same enemy and would have to work together.
"We believe that... the United States and Pakistan face a common strategic threat, a common enemy and a common challenge and therefore a common task," Holbrooke told a news conference in Islamabad.
But Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said drone attacks -- to which Pakistan is publicly opposed -- work to the advantage of the extremists and flagged up "red lines" in Pakistan's cooperation with Washington.
"We did talk about drones and let me be very frank. There's a gap. There's a gap between us and them," Qureshi told the news conference.
Pakistan is deeply opposed to the drone attacks, around 37 of which have killed over 360 people since August 2008, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the populace.
"My view is that they are working to the advantage of the extremists. We agree to disagree on this. We will take it up when we meet again in Washington," Qureshi added, referring to talks scheduled for May 6-7.
The visit by Mullen and Holbrooke, who are scheduled to fly on to India later Tuesday, is the first top-level US mission to Pakistan since President Barack Obama put the nuclear-armed Muslim country at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda.
"The bottom line is the question of trust. We are partners and we want to be partners," Qureshi said.
"We can only work together if we respect each other and we trust each other. There is no other way. Nothing else will work," he added.
Tuesday's talks came as the New York Times reported that the United States intended to step up drone attacks on militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, which border Afghanistan, and might extend them deeper inside Pakistan.
The cash-strapped country is keenly awaiting a US aid package that aims to triple economic assistance to 7.5 billion dollars over five years.
Pakistan has called for military equipment and drones for its armed forces in order to better attack the Islamist extremists themselves, and so save the government from the furious anti-US backlash that officials say fuels extremist violence.
But Washington demands that Pakistan's powerful intelligence services -- which have a history of supporting Islamist militants to fight in Indian-controlled Kashmir and in Afghanistan -- sever ties with extremists.
"It's important for us to seek a surplus of trust," Mullen told the news conference when asked what was preventing Washington from handing over drones to Pakistan to carry out the air strikes.
Acknowledging the complexity of the enemy, Holbrooke told reporters he was "very, very dissatisfied" by US intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The level of knowledge that we have is not where it should be," he said.
He said a key US priority was to encourage cooperation between the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence agencies, militaries and the two countries, which have traditionally had fraught relations.
In a statement issued after talks with the envoys late Monday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari emphasized the gravity of the threat, saying that the country was "fighting a battle for its own survival".
Pakistan has paid dearly for its alliance with the US in its "war on terror." Militant attacks have killed more than 1,700 people since July 2007.
Pakistan rejects criticism that it does not do enough to counter Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants holed up on the Afghan border, pointing to the deaths of more than 1,500 troops at the hands of Islamist extremists since 2002.
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