In The News

A US leader in his second term should have the power to rein in Israel. But George Bush is no ordinary president

Of all the curious things that have been written about Israel's assault on Lebanon, surely the oddest is contained in Paddy Ashdown's article on these pages last Saturday. "There is only one solution to this crisis, and it is the same solution we have to find in Iraq: to go for a wider Middle East settlement and to do it urgently. The US cannot do this. But Europe can."

The US cannot do this? What on earth does he mean? At first sight his contention seems plain wrong. While Israel intends to sustain its occupation of Palestinian territory, a wider settlement is impossible. It surely follows that the country that has the greatest potential leverage over Israel is the country with the greatest power to broker peace. Israel's foreign policy and military strategy is dependent on the approval of the United States.

BOMBS destined to be used by Israel are being flown via Scotland only because the Irish government refused to allow them to land on its soil.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that after the conflict in Lebanon began three weeks ago, Ireland turned down a United States request for planes carrying 600lb so-called bunker busters to refuel at Shannon airport in Co Clare.

As a result, cargo planes carrying the bombs, which the Israeli army is using in its offensive against the Hezbollah, are being flown via Prestwick airport in Ayrshire.

Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon.

One day before the Israeli air strikes, the main partners and shareholders of the BTC pipeline project, including several heads of State and oil company executives were in attendance at the port of Ceyhan. They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the plush surroundings of the ��ra�an Palace.

Also in attendance was British Petroleum's (BP) CEO, Lord Browne together with senior government officials from Britain, the US and Israel. BP leads the BTC pipeline consortium. Other major Western shareholders include Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, France's Total and Italy's ENI. (see Annex)

Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was present at the venue together with a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The UN Security Council by Tim Witcher United Nations (AFP) Jul 27, 2006 China on Thursday blasted the UN Security Council's failure to agree a statement condemning the killing of four UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, amid signs of a backlash on other key negotiations. An important meeting scheduled for Thursday of six major powers on a resolution against Iran's nuclear programme was postponed indefinitely -- the first apparent victim of the Security Council deadlock over the Israeli attack that led to the deaths.

The United States blocked any attempt to condemn the attack or criticise Israel, diplomats said.

Mobile phone effects on children's event-related oscillatory EEG during an auditory memory task

Comparison of 864 MHz and 935 MHz microwave radiation effects on cell culture

About health problems with microwave and problems with the unregulated proliferation of microwave transmitters

Current developments in industry and science concerning the health effects of non-ionizing radiation

About the biological hazards of EMF and the link between microwave dosimetry and the rise of illnesses

What happened to T Mobile who were caught putting up 3G phone masts illegally?

Smoke signals from the battle of Bint Jbeil send a warning to Israel

Is it possible - is it conceivable - that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?

From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a "terrorist centre" .

To my left smoke rises too, over the town of Khiam, where a smashed United Nations outpost remains the only memorial to the four UN soldiers - most of them decapitated by an American-made missile on Tuesday - killed by the Israeli air force.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1199348.ece

Outcry as border guards seize British 'dirty bomb' lorry heading for Iran

Border guards seized a British lorry on its way to make a delivery to the Iranian military - after discovering it was packed with radioactive material that could be used to build a dirty bomb.

The lorry set off from Kent on its way to Tehran but was stopped by officials at a checkpoint on Bulgaria's northern border with Romania after a scanner indicated radiation levels 200 times above normal.

The lorry was impounded and the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NPA) was called out.

On board they found ten lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iranian Ministry of Defence. Inside each box was a soil-testing device, containing highly dangerous quantities of radioactive caesium 137 and americium-beryllium.

The soil testers had been sent to Iran by a British firm with the apparent export approval of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Judge Denies Bail, Adjourns Trial of Medical Workers Accused of Infecting Libyan Children With HIV After Defense Witnesses Fail To Appear

Judge Mahmoud Haouissa, the presiding judge on the three-member tribunal of the Tripoli Criminal Court, on Tuesday adjourned until Aug. 8 the retrial of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian physician accused of intentionally infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV after subpoenaed defense witnesses did not appear before the court, Reuters South Africa reports (Sarrar, Reuters South Africa, 7/25). The six medical workers were sentenced to death by firing squad in May 2004 for allegedly infecting 426 children through contaminated blood products at Al Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. They also were ordered to pay a total of $1 million to the families of the HIV-positive children. The Libyan Supreme Court in December 2005 overturned the medical workers' convictions and ordered a retrial in a lower court. The health workers say they are innocent of the charges, claiming that they were forced to confess and that they were tortured by Libyan officials during interrogations. According to Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesperson Dimitar Tsanchev, the defense has provided the court with a list of 211 instances of psychological torture measures taken against the health workers based on the U. N.'s Istanbul Protocol, which declares psychological torture a crime (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 7/10). Haouissa earlier this month read out the charges that the health workers knowingly infected 393 children at the Benghazi hospital with HIV, and the defendants all pleaded not guilty to the charges

Study: Autistic brains have fewer neurons

U. S. scientists say they've determined the autistic brain has fewer neurons in an area related to emotion and social behavior.

The study at the University of California provides quantitative evidence linking autism to an abnormality of the part of the brain called the amygdala, especially its lateral nucleus -- a major emotion-processing area with connections to parts of the brain responsible for higher cognitive functions.

British arms exports to Israel double in a year

Britain has almost doubled the value of arms exports to Israel, according to official figures released yesterday. Arms exports to Israel approved by the government totalled �22.5m last year, almost twice the amount in 2004, according the latest annual report on strategic export controls published by four government departments.

The report was released as the Liberal Democrat Leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, yesterday urged Tony Blair to suspend any further arms exports to Israel. "In light of disproportionate military action by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza the UK government must suspend any further arms exports to Israel," Sir Menzies wrote to the prime minister.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1828246,00.html

'Secret' Euro meetings under fire

Peers expected the G6 meetings to attract widespread interest Ministers from the UK and the EU's largest states have come under fire for holding meetings on issues about terrorism and immigration "in secret". The UK House of Lords EU Committee says the public has a right to know what goes on behind closed doors.

The peers claim important decisions are reached, yet no report is ever made to Parliament and no publicity is given about them by the Home Office.

However, the Home Office insists that meetings of the G6 are "transparent".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5191746.stm

New Scientist 29.7.06 "DICING WITH DEATH" - "THERE'S A GOOD CHANCE THE PILLS YOUR DOCTOR PRESCRIBED WILL DO YOU NO GOOD & EVEN HARM YOU"

Drugs prescribed for irregular heart beat in 1980s were later found to double or triple the risk of death. Pharmacologist Raymond Woosley of Arizona Uni, said "It took a long time for people (doctors) to stop prescribing them because they just couldn't believe it." The conclusion of a study is that the heart drugs killed 50,000 people. One fifth of drugs prescribed in US are "off-label" meaning that they are prescribed for medical conditions which the FSA have not approved the drugs for. Off-label prescribing has not been studied in the UK. It is agreed that vigorous improvements in surveillance of drug prescribing & the effects on patients are essential to drag drug prescribing towards a more evidence-based footing.

D. Mail 27.7.06 "THE ASTHMA DRUGS THAT ARE PUTTING LIVES AT RISK"

Asthma sufferers could be risking their lives by using drugs that treat the most severe forms of the condition, doctors warned yesterday. Around half a million UK asthmatics using the medication may increase the risk of severe heart attacks. Writing in the "Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine" Dr. Vassilis Vassiliou & Dr. Christos Zipitis from Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambs. expressed fears about the drugs salmeterol & formoterol. A US trial of these drugs showed a 3-fold rise is the risk of death.

New Scientist 29.7.06 "MILITARY TEST VETERANS SUFFER "GULF WAR" EFFECT"

Veterans of chemical weapons tests at Porton Down have a lower quality of life than the general population, reports research at Oxford Uni. They suffer similar symptoms to 1991 Gulf War veterans including headaches, fatigue, sleep problems etc.

Calling UK Borreliosis / Lyme disease sufferers

Can you help BADA-UK to raise awareness of this potentially devastating condition?

Do you live in a city / town and suffer from Borreliosis, or are you a carer for someone with this condition?

Are you prepared to talk openly about how it affects you, or your loved one?

BADA-UK is working on a media project about Borreliosis over the coming weeks, and we are looking for people who are prepared to be interviewed about their experiences. We especially want to hear from you, if you have previously been told that you have ME/CFS, but have later been diagnosed with a Borrelia infection. We also especially want to hear from you, if you think that you contracted Borreliosis within an urban area (city / town parks, gardens or suburban recreational areas).

You must be willing to talk about your experiences live on air, and have your story published, although you can do this without using your real name, or identifying the exact area where you live.

We most urgently need to hear from people from the Nottingham, Sheffield or Doncaster area, but we still want to hear from you if you live elsewhere.

Click to download document: Calling UK Borreliosis / Lyme disease sufferers

Please send us your story, along with your name, the area where you live, and a contact telephone number, to:

press@bada-uk.org

This is your chance to be heard!

BADA-UK - Registered charity No: 1113329.
Company number 5539748
http://www.bada-uk.org

D. Telegraph 26.7.06 "PUBLIC WARNED AS HEAT BRINGS AIR POLLUTION TO DANGER LEVELS"

A health warning has been issued after Satellite tracking of temperatures showed that nitrogen dioxide & ozone from traffic fumes reacting with sunlight, have reached dangerous levels in the air in many UK areas. "In Germany hospital A&E admissions are up 25% & I think mortality rates (in UK) will rise sharply" said a Met Office spokesman. Dr. Gary Corlett of Leicester Uni said the pollution can cause breathing difficulties.

A critically ill UK ex-serviceman, exposed to nuclear radiation in past weapons tests has been awarded compensation by the US, even though the Min. of Defence in UK refused him any money. Roy Prescott, 66, is awarded �40,000 by the US for his lung cancer, which was caused by the nuclear tests.

Evening Standard. 25.7.06 "AS NUCLEAR POWER GETS GO-AHEAD - LINKS WITH BROWN'S LOBBYIST BROTHER"

Critics accuse the Govt. of caving in to the nuclear propagandists, who include Gordon Brown's brother, Andrew, & a string of lobbyists with high-levels links to Labour. Between them their companies have donated tens of thousands of pounds to the Labour Party in the past decade & spent fortunes to persuade ministers to embrace nuclear energy.

More Than Seven Hours of Sleep Per Night Increases Your Risk of Brain Disease

A study from the National Institutes of Health found that those who sleep nine hours or more each night are almost twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as those who sleep six hours or less.

The health of 80,000 nurses, none of whom had Parkinson's disease at the beginning of the study, were tracked for 24 years. Analysis of the 181 women who developed Parkinson's during the course of the study showed that the longer they slept, the greater risk they had of developing the illness.

Nurses who slept at least nine hours a night were 80 percent more likely to receive a Parkinson's diagnosis, while eight hours elevated the risk by 60 percent and seven hours increased it by only 10 percent.

Scientists warned on 23 July 06 that the drug Glivec, known in the US as Gleevec, which is used to treat stomach cancer & some forms of leukaemia, can damage the heart & lead to heart failure. Research by Prof. Thomas Force of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia.

Diamorphine used to relieve the pain of cancer, heart attacks & severe injuries is still in short supply 18 months after the Govt. warned of serious shortages. There are reports of patients crying out & dying in agony because of a production problem at private drug companies Chiron & Wockhardt UK. (My comment: surely the Govt. could have sourced other suppliers?)

letter from Dr Caroline Lucas MEP (shortened) New Labour has ignored public opinion & led us down a dangerous path. GM is bad for biodiversity & may pose a direct threat to humans & wildlife. Millions in UK don't want to take that chance. If GM farmers can't prevent contamination of non-GM crops this could spell the end for the booming organic industry. What was the point of the Govt. holding the "GM Nation" public GM consultation in 2003, if it is now going to ignore the result? In that survey only 2% of people said they would be happy to eat GM food.

Fareshare is setting up a scheme to reduce the 7 million tonnes of food dumped in UK landfills each year. A quarter of this is perfectly edible but companies, including supermarkets, don't know what else to do with it. Fareshare would like it given to homeless & vulnerable people.

Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians.

Do you know that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel�s attacks on civilian residential districts are children? That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN. He says it is impossible for help to reach the wounded and those buried in rubble, because Israeli air strikes have blown up all the bridges and roads. Considering how often (almost always) Israel misses Hizbollah targets and hits civilian ones, one might think that Israeli fire is being guided by US satellites and US military GPS. Don�t be surprised at US complicity. Why would the puppet be any less evil than the puppet master?

Of course, you don�t know these things, because the US print and TV media do not report them.

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran�s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

Billions of pounds are being wasted giving NHS patients operations they don't need, the chief medical officer has warned.
6,000 hysterectomies could be avoided, 8,000 tonsil removals avoided & many heart bypasses could be replaced by less invasive angiopasty. Prof. Sir Liam Donaldson blamed doctors for failing to keep up to date with the latest research or simply being stuck in their ways.

Georgina Downs had suffered for years from illnesses similar to Parkinson's or MS. At age 19 her weight was down to 6 stone. She used to wave to a tractor spraying a mist around on crops outside her home. Suddenly she realised it must be spraying out all kinds of toxic chemicals. Her doctor had put her illnesses down to "a virus." Her father found which chemicals the farmer was using & they looked up the side-effects & she finally identified the cause of her ill-health. Medical tests later confirmed that her body fat contained the most powerful cocktail of pesticides they had ever come across. They included highly dangerous Lindane organochlorine - linked to breast cancer & a chlorobenzine. Other chemicals had clustered around nerve cells. The Health & Safety Executive said the farmer could spray as near to her house as he liked & wasn't even required to tell her when or what he was about to spray. She videoed the spraying & questioned officials. She then spotted the mathematical flaw in the experts' calculation of the spray risk to bystanders. She says "It was based on an imaginary person who is very occasionally exposed for just a few minutes, to 1 chemical. But the reality is very different. People who live or work near farms are often exposed repeatedly, over a long period of time, to a mixture of chemicals. It seems none of these scientists in their ivory towers had ever thought of that." Thanks to Georgina the "bystander assessment risk" has been completely revised.

This is obviously the outcome of the newly emerged Hebraic arithmetic laws. For 2 kidnapped Israeli soldiers who are still kept alive, 500,000 innocent Lebanese civilians are displaced. For 2 abducted Israeli soldiers, Lebanon, a sovereign state, is brought back down on its knees. Its civil infrastructure is �gone�. Some of its capital�s residential quarters and southern villages are already wiped out. Indeed, �two equals half a million� is the new arithmetic the Israelis insist upon imposing on the region. Is it that surprising? Not at all, as predicted by Gershon Sholem already in the 1930�s: once the Jews start to speak Hebrew, it won�t take long before they consider themselves to be God.

The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement announced on Wednesday that its guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. "Implementing our promise to free Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, our strugglers have captured two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon," a statement by Hezbollah said.

"The two soldiers have already been moved to a safe place," it added. The Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were captured as they "infiltrated" into the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border. [Hindustan Times 7/12/06]

The Lebanese Hezbollah movement announced Wednesday the arrest of two Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. Lebanese police said that the two soldiers were arrested as they entered the town of Aitaa al-Chaab inside the Lebanese border. Israeli aircraft were active in the air over southern Lebanon, police said, with jets bombing roads leading to the market town of Nabatiyeh, 60 kilometers south of Beirut. [Bahrain News Agency 7/12/06]

TRANSLATION: According to the Lebanese police force, the two soldiers were captured in Lebanese territory, in the area of A�ta Al-Chaab close to the border, whereas Israeli television indicated that they had been captured in Israeli territory. [fr. news. yahoo 7/12/06

Corporate Corruption of Science and its Effects on Workers and the Environment

A letter to EU to complain about the installation of DECT, WLAN and other wireless systems in public places

La Pr�sidente du Tribunal de Namur d�signe un m�decin expert pour enqu�ter sur l'�tat de sant� des Riverains d'antennes relais

Jim Wright is put on Trial by the MHRA for Selling Low Price Vitamins and Alternative Remedies

In Port Talbot, Wales, Jim Wright is put on Trial by the MHRA for Selling Low Price Vitamins and Alternative Remedies

while Merck�s drug VIOXX kills over 30,000 but British Claimants are Denied Legal Aid) by Martin J Walker

THE number of children suffering from autism and related disorders may be twice as high as thought, with the condition likely to affect one per cent of British children. A study by scientists at Guy�s and St Thomas� hospitals indicates that the prevalence of autism is much higher than current rates suggest. They said that improved diagnosis, a broader definition of the condition or an increase in the number of children affected could be responsible for the rise.

A third of family doctor practices working to a new Government contract have stopped providing vaccinations to children.

The contract allows doctors to opt out of giving immunisations, leading to fears that parents may find it harder to get their children vaccinated against life-threatening diseases such as meningitis and measles.

Department of Health statistics, provided in a Parliamentary answer, show that last year 36.7 per cent of practices working to the General Medical Contract refused to give jabs for MMR, whooping cough, diptheria, meningitis and tetanus.

Patients are dying because young doctors no longer receive adequate training in prescribing drugs, leading pharmacologists said yesterday.

Four eminent specialists said knowledge of how to use drugs was alarmingly low among medical students and junior doctors at a time when increasingly complicated medications were being taken by more people.

�Any attack on freedom is the business of every American. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is time to stand up and fight for our health.� --Byron J. Richards, author of Fight for Your Health � Exposing The FDA�s Betrayal of America

Most people think that The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was created to protect the public from harm and to make sure that manufacturers followed the law in developing, testing and marketing their products. With the almost daily revelations about the corruption in medical research and drug development that have been splattered across the pages of the public press over the last year, a topic Dr. Carolyn Dean and I first wrote about in our column, The Constant Gardener � Does Art Imitate Life?, it is now dawning on people that they can�t believe everything they hear from the FDA about the safety of the products it approves for sale in the marketplace.

Taking 1 gram of calcium in a supplement everyday while pregnant halves the risk of developing pre-eclampsia. It also reduces the risk of high blood pressure by 30%, found Cochrane Collaboration who reviewed 112 studies.

The number of people suffering allergies has risen dramatically, with about 1 in 3 people (around 20m) suffering an allergy at some point in their lives. A review found inadequate & uncoordinated NHS services, with just 33 allergy specialists in the whole country. Allergy UK wants specialist doctor training & clinics. There has been an increase in hospital admissions for allergy & in serious anaphylactic allergic reactions, which can be fatal.

Guardian 21.7.06 "MINISTERS PAVE WAY FOR GM CROPS, AS ZERO POLLINATION RULED OUT"

Ministers yesterday paved the way for GM crops to be grown commercially in UK from 2009, & warned consumers that they will have to put up with some GM contamination even in organic food. The Soil Assoc. condemned this Govt. action & said it could damage the future of organic food. At the moment organic food is not allowed to contain GM contamination.

D. Telegraph 21.7.06 "PLANS TO ALLOW GM FARMING IN SECRET ARE IRRESPONSIBLE"

GM crops could be grown in secret under Govt. plans announced yesterday. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors said it could blight land & was irresponsible. GM farmers would normally be under no obligation to notify neighbouring gardeners, allotments or beehive keepers that they are growing GM crops nearby. The Govt has ruled out a public register of GM schemes. Lord Melchett of Soil Assoc. said this will deny consumers the right to choose non-GM.

The journal "Science" reports that in 100s of sites studies they found the range of wild bees has fallen by 80% since 1980. The flowers which are pollinated by bees are also in decline & could disappear, including primroses, cowslips & bellflowers. Study by Dr. Biesmeijer of Leeds Uni.

South Africa's leading AIDS activism group is back in court using its weapon of choice, the law, in its fight for the adequate provision of treatment to South Africa's five million people who are HIV positive.

The group is suing a manufacturer of vitamins, who has fallen foul of regulators in the United Kingdom and the United States, to stop him claiming that his vitamins are more effective than antiretroviral drugs for people with AIDS. They also want him to stop claiming that antiretroviral drugs are too toxic for people with AIDS to take.

The group, Treatment Action Campaign, is claiming damages against the vitamin manufacturer for his assertion that the group is a front for the drug industry. The case is expected to last several months.

The vitamin manufacturer, Matthias Rath, has run large advertising campaigns in South African newspapers as well as in the US telling people with AIDS that his vitamins would be better for them than products made by drug companies.

The doctor at the centre of the MMR vaccine controversy might not face misconduct charges after all, despite a long-running investigation by the medical watchdog.

Dr Andrew Wakefield, the first doctor to suggest a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella jab, has been the subject of a 20-month inquiry into alleged serious professional misconduct.

But the General Medical Council admitted last night that it might not proceed with the charges - and there is 'no guarantee' there will ever be a hearing.

The admission was welcomed by Dr Wakefield's supporters. Jackie Fletcher, of the pressure group Jabs, said: "It is appalling that they can have the power to hold this over someone's head for close on two years. It has been an absolute witch-hunt.

"All he was guilty of was listening to what parents said, clinically investigating the children and then reporting his findings. All he did was hold up a red flag and say, 'There's something going on that needs to be investigated further'."

The recent scare about the rising numbers of whooping cough cases in the UK seems to have overlooked one very important detail. In virtually every case, the child had been vaccinated.

Research by Oxford University suggests that whooping cough is 'widespread' among children in the UK - and, despite the rising number of cases being reported, many others go undiagnosed because doctors assume the vaccine is doing its job.

As it is, 237 cases were reported in 2004, and 289 cases in 2005. Most of the children had been vaccinated against the disease.

But the real picture is very likely much worse. The Oxford researchers interviewed doctors, who viewed whooping cough as affecting only the very young who had not been vaccinated. On that basis, most cases of whooping cough are going unreported.

The Oxford researchers discovered that, of 172 cases of children who went to their doctor with a bad cough, 64 of them had recently been vaccinated against pertussis infection, and 55 had been fully immunised.

Despite this, lead researcher Dr Anthony Harnden is adamant that the vaccine works. "The immunisation is very effective - we know that because very few infants die of whooping cough."

True, but surely the vaccine is also supposed to protect against infection. Once established, the course of the disease is then determined by many other factors, too, such as nutritional status.

The Health Protection Agency, which pronounces on all such things of moment, says the vaccine has only a short life, and its protection soon wears off.

Morning sickness seems to come with the territory for some women in the first few months of pregnancy. And scientists now reckon they know the reason.

It could all be down to the woman's diet - it's the body's way of protecting the fetus from a 'bad' diet. A woman who eats healthily is more likely to sail through the first few months of pregnancy without any of the unpleasant symptoms of morning sickness, unlike the woman whose diet is predominantly made up of processed and fast foods.

A research study has discovered that women are far more likely to suffer if they eat large quantities of sugars, sweeteners, and fried foods.

Researchers analysed 56 studies on morning sickness, collated from 21 countries, and found a link with diets that were high in sugars, sweeteners and oil crops used in frying foods. Other suspect foods include large amounts of meat, and stimulants such as coffee and alcohol. Conversely, cereals and pulses reduced the risk of morning sickness.

The old saying has it that if you have a hammer, you can only see nails. Similarly, if you visit a surgeon, he'll suggest an operation.

An extreme example of this old adage has been uncovered at a hospital in California, which has been carrying out numerous cardiac operations that were completely unnecessary.

Forty agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the hospital in 2002 following reports of up to 769 unnecessary procedures.

The hospital is owned by Tenet Healthcare, the second largest health provider in the USA, which has agreed to pay $500m compensation to settle claims from patients and their families.

Perhaps we need to adapt the adage. If you have health insurance, you're getting an operation.

It's not just Israel's security that the decision-makers in the Bush administration have in mind in their decisions to back its actions, but also America's.

WASHINGTON - Across from UN headquarters in New York, Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York) stood at a small podium adorned with the symbol of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to give a speech in praise of Israel. Behind her and at her sides - a group of men in gray: Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents, Malcolm Hoenlein, the Israeli Consul General in New York, Arye Mekel. Mummified in their neckties in the sweltering heat of the east coast, serious of mien, nodding. "We will stand with Israel, because Israel is standing for American values as well as Israeli ones," Clinton said. Here you have it - the whole foreign relations Torah on one slightly perspiring foot.

Nazareth hit the international headlines for the first time in this vicious war being waged by Israel mostly on Lebanese civilians. Reporter Matthew Price, corseted in a blue flak jacket in Haifa, told BBC viewers that for the first time Hezbollah had targeted Nazareth late on Sunday. "Nazareth is a mostly Christian town," he added, managing to cram into a single sentence of a few words two factual mistakes and a disturbing hint of incitement.

Whatever the precision of its rockets (and Nazareth's residents are certainly worried enough about that), Hezbollah struck not at Nazareth but at a site some distance from Nazareth � a site of strategic significance to Israel, though I cannot say more than that as we are now officially under martial law in the country's north.

Matthew Price was also wrong about Nazareth being a "mostly Christian town." During the 1948 war in which Israel's army ethnically cleansed much of the surrounding area of Palestinians, Muslim villagers fled to Nazareth in search of sanctuary. Today, two-thirds of the city's 75,000 inhabitants are Muslim � or at least they are by the religious classification system imposed on all citizens by the Israeli authorities.

Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields � protection for Israel's war machine.

Robert Fisk in Beirut: Israeli Assault on Lebanon Inflicting "Mass Punishment on a Whole People"

The Israeli attack on Lebanon has entered its second week and the death toll now stands at about 300, nearly all Lebanese civilians. We go to Beirut to speak with Robert Fisk, chief Middle East correspondent for the London Independent. Fisk discusses the assault on Lebanon, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, the role of Syria and Iran in the crisis, embedded reporters in the Israeli military and more. [includes rush transcript]

I don�t know what has happened to Cpl. Gilad Shalit. I don�t know if he was captured, or, if he was, I don�t know how he was captured. Frankly, I don�t even know that he actually exists apart from the pictures of him that we have all seen. One hopes that these are all questions that will eventually be answered.

I do know, however, that there is something extraordinarily odd about the story the Israeli Defence Force claim is behind his disappearance. In particular it�s the part about the tunnel which I can�t get to grips with.

I have to post these images, because, as an American, I am responsible for this. All Americans are responsible for this

In the last few days, we have learned that the Gentle Wind Project - a 'healing organisation' based in Maine, USA, which was heavily criticised in past issues of the Truth Campaign - have been served with a lawsuit by the Maine Attorney General. It would appear that the Maine AG shares most of the same concerns that we expressed, and has called for the Gentle Wind Project to be disbanded, with financial penalties, return of what GWP describe as 'donations' for their 'healing devices', and backdated taxes to be paid on such 'donations', which the AG sees as actual purchases of products.

After publishing articles, heavily critical of the GWP, their 'healing devices', and their financing arrangements, in both the Truth Campaign and on GWP's internet forum, Steve Gamble (also Equilibra) and I (also The Truth Campaign) were served with a lawsuit in 2004 alleging a conspiracy and racketeering in concert with ex-GWP members and several cult awareness experts to deliberately benefit from a campaign to deliberately damage GWP. This lawsuit cost Steve and I several thousand pounds and nearly destroyed the Truth Campaign. I am still paying back the money borrowed to fund our legal fees, which came at a time when we were for the first time starting to make financial progress as an organisation and managing to pay off the debts and loans that have been necessary over the years to keep us going.

The legal fees were simply too overwhelming, and we ultimately had to enter a mutual agreement in order to be dismissed from the lawsuit. The agreement was actually something of a minor miracle, and left both Steve and I with only minor modifications to make in our material, and with mutual restrictions on what the GWP could publish about us. For a summary of our agreement see www.equilibrauk.com/lawsuit.htm

The GWP then launched a new lawsuit in civil court against the remaining defendants, which is yet to go to trial.

However, in light of this recent move by the Maine AG, one wonders if that will now take place.

AUGUSTA, Maine -- The Maine Attorney General's Office has filed a lawsuit against a controversial Kittery-based nonprofit group. The Gentle Wind Project designs and sells what it calls "healing instruments" that it said solve a variety of physical and emotional ailments. Others said the group is a scam.

The attorney general's office accused the group of falsely claiming that their products had healing qualities and of considering the income from their sale as charitable donations rather than sales proceeds.

Prosecutors want the Gentle Wind Project to liquidate its assets, pay the state's legal fees and refund anyone who bought items between 2000 and the present.

The Scotsman Wed 19 Jul 2006 - 340 dead ... so why were two tsunami alerts ignored

INDONESIA received alerts from two regional agencies that Monday's undersea earthquake could trigger a tsunami, but officials made no attempt to alert threatened communities, a government minister admitted yesterday.

Kusmayanto Kadiman, the science and technology minister, said bulletins came from the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and Japan's meteorological agency, but "we did not announce them".

Even if the government had attempted to phone, radio or e-mail local authorities, it is unclear how the word would have been spread to residents or tourists on the beach, with no alarm systems in place.

Here are the key events of the last 19 days that have pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional crisis:

100s of patients are dying needlessly because young doctors are not being properly trained to prescribe medicines. Some of Britain's leading doctors yesterday issued a stark warning that many young doctors' knowledge on prescribing drugs is alarmingly low. Closure of university pharmacology depts & downgrading of the subject in medical training is the reason. Official estimates suggest serious reactions to medicines account for 1 in every 15 hospital admissions & errors in prescribing are likely to cause 100s of deaths a year. Prof. Mike Rawlins, chair of NICE confirmed this to be true. Prof. Jeffrey Aronson of Oxford Uni said that errors may include prescribing the wrong drug, or the wrong dose, or not taking into account how the drug might react with other drugs the patient is already using. The cost to the NHS of drug prescribing errors to is estimated to be �466million.

The west appears to insist that only one side in the conflict is able to intervene militarily across borders. That will never be accepted

Much has been made in recent days - at the G8 summit and elsewhere - of Israel's right to retaliate against the capture of its soldiers, or attacks on its troops on its own sovereign territory. Some, such as those in the US administration, seem to believe that Israel has an unqualified licence to hit back at its enemies no matter what the cost. And even those willing to recognise that there may be a problem tend to couch it in terms of Israel's "disproportionate use of force" rather than its basic right to take military action.

But what is at stake here is not proportionality or the issue of self-defence, but symmetry and equivalence. Israel is staking a claim to the exclusive use of force as an instrument of policy and punishment, and is seeking to deny any opposing state or non-state actor a similar right. It is also largely succeeding in portraying its own "right to self-defence" as beyond question, while denying anyone else the same. And the international community is effectively endorsing Israel's stance on both counts.

The Middle East is boiling over yet again. Israel is resorting to the one strategy it has perfected since the day it was created, murdering civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure.

The Israeli defense doctrine, old as Israel itself, considers bombing of civilian targets a means for pressuring �militants� and uncooperative governments. So Israel bombs bridges and villages in South Lebanon, power plants in Gaza, orchards, fields, schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, beach barbecue parties, etc. Everything is a legitimate target. Israeli ministers announce publicly that their chief strategy is to cause civilian suffering. Every day sees its Guernica, and the U. N., which proudly displays a reproduction of the painting, is mum in the face of a hundred Guernicas.

To be clear, Israel�s actions fit the very definition of terrorism. Doubly so now, since the bombing campaign is a response to attacks on Israeli soldiers, not civilians. The ever more morally bankrupt �international community� sees nothing, hears nothing, and says nothing. Don�t take my word for it. An aide of the Israeli PM said recently: �We are acting there [in Gaza] in an unprecedented manner; we�re firing hundreds of artillery shells, attacking from the air, sea and land and the world remains silent.�

Ever since the Israelis ended their occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, this weak and diminutive country has enjoyed an almost unmarred respite from the turbulence of the region to which it so easily and habitually falls victim. But overnight it has been plunged back into the role it endured for a quarter century and more - that of hapless arena for other people's wars, as well as pawn in the ambitions and machinations of regional players far more powerful than itself.

Hundreds of Palestinian 'suspects' have been kidnapped from their homes and will never stand trial

It's the wee hours of the morning, still dark outside. A guerrilla force comes out of nowhere to kidnap a soldier. After hours of careful movement, the force reaches its target, and the ambush is on! In seconds, the soldier finds himself looking down the barrel of a rifle.

A smash in the face with the butt of the gun and the soldier falls to the ground, bleeding. The kidnappers pick him up, quickly tie his hands and blindfold him, and disappear into the night.

This might be the end of the kidnapping, but the nightmare has just begun. The soldier's mother collapses, his father prays. His commanding officers promise to do everything they can to get him back, his comrades swear revenge. An entire nation is up-in-arms, writing in pain and worry.

Nobody knows how the soldier is: Is he hurt? Do his captors give him even a minimum of human decency, or are they torturing him to death by trampling his honor? The worst sort of suffering is not knowing. Will he come home? And if so, when? And in what condition? Can anyone remain apathetic in the light of such drama?

Guardian 15.7.06 "PORTON DOWN CHEMICAL WEAPONS TESTS UNETHICAL, SAYS REPORT"

Over 400 military personnel were deliberately exposed to chemical weapons in Govt.-run experiments, which seriously breached ethical standards, an official report has concluded. Prof. Sir Ian Kennedy, an expert in scientific ethics has evaluated the experiments. He found they were exposed to painful nerve & mustard gas which were "uncontrollably dangerous" & "went too far" & he doubted they consented to the experiments. Some suffered serious burns & their eyes were also experimented on. A total of 11,000 servicemen were exposed to mustard & nerve gas experiments between 1939 & 1981 & some claim they suffered long-term damage. Ronald Maddison died after nerve gas was dripped onto his arm.

Guardian 15.7.06 "DOCTORS TO FACE INDEPENDENT REVIEW IN CASES OF MISCONDUCT"

Radical proposals to overhaul the GMC, which regulates & disciplines doctors, is planned by Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer. The self-regulation doctors have enjoyed for decades would be watered down. At the moment the GMC prosecutes & judges errant d