Sat. July 04, 2009
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Sat, 4 Jul 2009 16:07:34 -0400
by Ceci Connolly President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation. In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to "true" health-care reform. read more
Sat, 4 Jul 2009 13:27:14 -0400
by Aron Heller  Gaza.jpg" /> Jerusalem -- Most members of a group of foreign peace activists seized at sea by the Israeli navy remained in custody Friday, three days after their failed attempt to run Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, relatives and supporters said. In the latest attempt by activists to break a crippling two-year blockade of Gaza, a group called the Free Gaza Movement sent the ship loaded with humanitarian supplies and 21 activists and crew from Cyprus. read more
Sat, 4 Jul 2009 13:02:36 -0400
by Patrick Markey  Honduras1.jpg" /> Tegucigalpa - The Organization of American States prepared to suspend Honduras on Saturday after a caretaker government refused to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya and defiantly renounced the OAS charter in an apparent preemptive move. The measure by Honduras to distance itself from the hemispheric group came after its rulers rejected an OAS demand to restore Zelaya, who was ousted by troops in Central America's worst political crisis since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. read more
Sat, 4 Jul 2009 11:56:03 -0400
by Mike Blanchfield It's springtime in Ottawa, and Barack Obama's nuclear weapons adviser invites a luncheon gathering to join him on an imaginary journey that is more Dr. Strangelove than A Moveable Feast. ``Picture in your mind's eyes your favourite bistro, or some other cherished spot in the city of Paris,'' Dr. Bruce Blair tells the 75 guests picking at a rubber-chicken lunch recently at a downtown Ottawa hotel. read more
Sat, 4 Jul 2009 10:56:04 -0400
by Paul J. Nyden CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Larry Gibson, the well-known, 72-year-old activist against mountaintop-removal mining, will host his annual July 4 music festival at his Kayford Mountain home above Cabin Creek Saturday and Sunday. "I've been having this event, which is open to the public, for 23 years. Everyone is welcome," Gibson said. Maria Gunnoe, a Boone County native, who won this year's international Goldman Environmental Prize in April for her anti-mountaintop-removal activism, is among the many planning to attend. read more
Sat, 4 Jul 2009 10:36:44 -0400
by John Vidal The acquisition of farmland from the world's poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe's farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say. read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 11:42:17 -0400
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 11:31:14 -0400
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 10:28:01 -0400
by Bernie Woodall LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday. read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 10:20:54 -0400
MIAMI - The world's seagrass meadows, a critical habitat for marine life and profit-maker for the fishing industry, are in decline due to coastal development and the losses are accelerating, according to a new study. Billed as the first comprehensive global assessment of seagrass losses, the study found 58 percent of seagrass meadows are declining and the rate of annual loss has accelerated from about 1 percent per year before 1940 to 7 percent per year since 1990. read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:55:35 -0400
by Sophia Gardner A politician who has been described as "the bravest woman in Afghanistan" says that military intervention is not the way to find democracy in the war-torn county. Malalai Joya gained international attention for standing before Afghanistan's constitutional grand assembly and accusing her country's leaders of war crimes, human rights violations and supporting the Taliban. She spent most of her childhood in refugee camps and as a young woman she worked as a women's rights activist under the Taliban. read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 07:55:11 -0400
by Saeed Shah Peshawar, Pakistan - Major Western countries, after applauding Pakistan's military crackdown on Islamic extremists in the Swat Valley in the country's northwest, haven't pledged the money needed to resettle the population now that the fighting is mostly over, and humanitarian organizations fear that 2 million people will be sent back home before it's safe to go. Unless the United States and other allies provide the required money to reconstruct Swat, Pakistan risks losing the "hearts and minds" of those who had to flee the operation that fought the Islamic extremists who'd overrun read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 07:02:08 -0400
by Mike Allen and Michael Calderone Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered Lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper's own reporters and editors. read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:39:49 -0400
by Pamela Hess and Nedra Pickler WASHINGTON - Newly released Defense Department documents and memos about the first years of operation of the jail at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, portray a chaotic and sometimes violent operation that its own commanders described as dysfunctional. President Barack Obama has ordered the detention facility closed next year. It holds more than 200 terror suspects whose cases are undergoing review for their potential release, prosecution or continued confinement. read more
Fri, 3 Jul 2009 06:11:30 -0400
by Kimberly Kindy and Lindsey Layton Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal organic label. Today the same additives, purported to boost brainpower and vision, can be found in 90 percent of organic baby formula. read more
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