Is this a real-life 'light saber?'

Is this a real-life 'light saber?'

By Mimi Hall and Eric Moreno, USA TODAY

The Homeland Security Department is aiming to arm federal agents with a light-saber-type weapon that emits a dazzling strobe capable of subduing criminals, terrorists and even unruly airline passengers.

It's the latest government effort to develop a non-lethal weapon — in this case, a powerful beam of light that temporarily blinds anyone who looks into it.

"The light could be used to make a bad guy turn away or shut his eyes, giving authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the cuffs, all while sparing the lives of passersby, hostages or airline passengers," according to a description of the device from the Homeland Security Department's science and technology division.

Program manager Gerald Kirwin says Homeland Security has invested $1 million for testing of the LED (light-emitting diode) Incapacitator. It is being developed by a Torrance, Calif., company, Intelligent Optical Systems, and it will be tested on volunteers at Pennsylvania State University's Institute of Non-Lethal Defense Technologies this fall.

If all goes well, the Homeland Security Department says it "could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents and National Guardsmen" by 2010. Kirwin says it also would be used by air marshals, border patrol agents, other officers with the Transportation Security Administration and customs officers.

The device works by temporarily blinding and disorienting a person, says Bob Lieberman, president of Intelligent Optical. Once aimed at someone's eyes, a series of light pulses and colors can be triggered and the subject's eyes can't adjust quickly enough to see.

"It's like someone shooting off a flashbulb in your face every few seconds," Lieberman says. "Because of the wavelengths and frequencies we use, there are psychophysical effects — a real disorientation. The reaction can range through vertigo to nausea."

That's why The Register, an irreverent online publication that covers the information technology industry, dubbed it the "puke-ray."

What the flashlight-size device doesn't do, however, is use lasers or permanently blind people, Lieberman says. In 1995, the United States signed on to a United Nations agreement that banned blinding weapons.

"We're taking great care to make sure the intensities we're using fall within eye-safe limit," Lieberman says. "We're doing medically supervised tests."

But some immigration and human rights groups say they're still concerned, particularly with the idea that the devices might be used on illegal immigrants.

"It gives me pause, particularly in regards to Mexico. Mexico is a very important economic partner of ours," says Deborah Notkin, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"I would imagine that Mexico wouldn't be particularly happy with us using a device that would be more appropriate for criminals, not just for people trying to get across the border who are looking for better opportunities."

Peter Herby, head of the mines-arms unit's legal division at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, says he's not familiar with Homeland Security's new weapon. But he says many of the same issues are likely to crop up as with more dangerous, laser-based blinding weapons — called "dazzlers" because they blind people with intense light.

Among the issues: If the devices are mass-produced and fairly inexpensive, they're likely to be sold on the black market.

"Once they're in the hands of bad guys," Herby asks, "are the police going to have to wear protective gear to prevent them(selves) from being dazzled?"

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-07-lightsaber_N.htm

Longtime spy decides to unmask

Longtime spy decides to unmask

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the CIA's top spooks has come out of the shadows.

With little fanfare, Jose Rodriguez, who heads the National Clandestine Service, had his cover lifted about a month ago. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the driving factor was his interest in publicly participating in minority recruitment events. He's also retiring later this year after more than three decades with the agency.

Rodriguez is the most important man in the U.S. spy game whose name you probably never knew. When he was mentioned publicly before now, he was referred to only as "Jose."

Rodriguez became head of the CIA's clandestine service in November 2004. With the creation of the National Clandestine Service the following year as part of an intelligence reorganization, Rodriguez rose to be chief of "human intelligence" operations, overseeing the classic spycraft that takes place at a variety of U.S. spy agencies.

Unlike his recent predecessors, Rodriguez elected to stay undercover as he ordered some of the CIA's most sensitive cloak-and-dagger operations that get little if any public oversight. He believed the head of the clandestine service shouldn't have a high profile.

In national security circles, however, Rodriguez's identity wasn't a well-kept secret. Wikipedia users even created an entry about him last year, although the page contains inaccuracies.

This much is known: Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico, spent much of his career in Latin America, including in Mexico.

Some officials, who spoke on condition that they not be identified while discussing Rodriguez's past, have said he got into trouble during the 1990s while trying to help a friend who was arrested for narcotics in the Dominican Republic. The Justice Department looked into Rodriguez's actions, but never brought charges.

Although the incident led to his removal as head of the CIA's Latin America Division, his espionage career continued. He served overseas and took over as head of the CIA's counterterror center less than a year after Sept. 11, 2001.

"Jose built a reputation for leadership in the field and here at headquarters, and he guided some of the agency's greatest counterterror victories," CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a statement.

"He has done much to protect our country by strengthening its Clandestine Service," Hayden added.

Next week, Rodriguez will make his first public appearance when he speaks about diversity at a border security conference in El Paso — the hometown of the gathering's Democratic host, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes.

Rodriguez has not set a firm date for his retirement, and a replacement has not yet been announced.

Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-08-spy_N.htm

U.S. to unveil new anti-drug strategy for Afghanistan

Wed Aug 8, 2007 6:50PM EDT

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans on Thursday to unveil a strategy to fight Afghanistan's drug trade by giving provincial governors more money to eradicate poppy crops and pursue economic development, U.S. officials said.

The effort also aims to better coordinate counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency work in Afghanistan, which in the past 18 months has seen its bloodiest fighting since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban movement in 2001.

U.S. officials said the new strategy for Afghanistan, which is the source of about 90 percent of the world's opium, would include a public education campaign against growing opium poppies, the key ingredient for heroin.

A State Department official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because the strategy is not yet public, said the new approach seeks to grapple with the fact that the insurgency and the drug trade are increasingly intertwined.

It also reflects the belief that provincial governors are often better at cracking down on poppy cultivation than the federal government and should be given incentives to do more.

"In provinces where the governor has established effective control, poppy is going down ... Much of the decline in provinces where there is good governance has been through governor-led eradication," the official said.

"The first step is to provide more incentives and support for provinces -- for governors -- that take effective action ... and to give them money to spend on (economic development)."

A congressional aide said the plan would include the implicit threat that governors who did not take on the drug trade would get less money for development.

"They are going to roll out a plan that's heavy on carrots and sticks," said the aide, saying the message boiled down to "you have got to do less opium if you want more projects."

UNREALISTIC GOALS?

A report by the State Department's inspector general last week said U.S. goals for eradicating Afghan opium poppies were unrealistic and that this year's crop may exceed last year's. According to a U.N. estimate, opium production in Afghanistan rose by as much as 50 percent in 2006.

The report found "no realistic possibility of outspending economic incentives in the narcotics industry" and said the $420 million spent by the United States on eradication in Afghanistan last year was dwarfed by the estimated $38 billion "street value" if the poppy crop were converted to heroin.

The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan under strict principles of Islamic law, drastically reduced poppy growing throughout the country before it was ousted in 2001.

But in recent years poppy growth has increased dramatically, especially in southern provinces where the Taliban has encouraged it.

Afghanistan has seen a rise in Taliban suicide bombings, roadside bombs and attacks in recent months. More than 6,500 people have been killed in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001.

One aspect of the new U.S. strategy is to better coordinate counter-narcotics work with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

This could include closer cooperation on intelligence sharing as well as better coordination on efforts to eradicate poppy crops and to interdict drug shipments.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0838601520070808?pageNumber=2

Pakistan 'may declare emergency'

Pakistan 'may declare emergency'

President Musharraf has pulled out of a meeting in Afghanistan

Pakistan's government is considering imposing emergency rule, the country's information minister has said.

Tariq Azeem conceded that the issue was being discussed, as Pakistani TV channels reported that a declaration state of emergency was imminent.

An emergency would limit the role of the courts, restrict civil liberties and curb freedom of expression.

Earlier, Pakistan's president said he would not attend a tribal council in Afghanistan on combating the Taleban.

General Pervez Musharraf pulled out of the three-day council, or jirga, citing commitments in Islamabad.

Gen Musharraf faces a volatile political and security situation after a siege at a radical Islamabad mosque and protests by lawyers angry at the sacking of the country's chief justice.

Opposition to Mr Musharraf's rule has also increased.

"The possibility of the enforcement of emergency, like other possibilities, is under discussion," Information Minster Tariq Azeem said, although he said an emergency might not eventually be declared.

He admitted US threats to launch an operation in the tribal areas and the recent targeting of Chinese nationals had played a role in the issue being discussed.

"In addition, the situation on the borders and the suicide attacks are also a concern," Mr Azeem added.

Hostile judiciary

A meeting of senior government officials headed by President Musharraf was expected to be held on Thursday to decide the issue.

The emergency is a big step and the government should think twice before enforcing it, Benazir Bhutto Opposition leader

Under an emergency, powers to detain citizens would be extended and parliament could extend its tenure by a year.

Observers believe if Gen Musharraf opts for emergency rule it would primarily affect the powers of the increasingly hostile judiciary.

Additionally, it would allow the president to postpone national elections due to be held later in 2007.

This could enable him to continue in his role as chief of Pakistan's powerful military.

Opposition political parties, like Pakistan's largest party, the PPP, want Gen Musharraf to give up the role.

"The emergency is a big step and the government should think twice before enforcing it," says former Prime Minister and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.

"I hope such a drastic step will not take place.

"It will be a retrogressive step taking the country backwards."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6937907.stm

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
London Telegraph
Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.

The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decicions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".

She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.

Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.

"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles," he said.

A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.

The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.

Henry Paulson, the US Tresury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation".

Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.

New EU treaty is old constitution in disguise, warns Hague

KIRSTY WALKER
UK Daily Mail
Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

Gordon Brown faced fresh Tory pressure for a referendum on the new EU treaty yesterday after William Hague described it as 'overwhelmingly' similar to the old constitution.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary published research showing that only ten out of the 250 proposals contained in the document rejected by French and Dutch voters had changed.

He suggested the 'unreadable' treaty had been designed to confuse the public and accused the Prime Minister of trying to push it through on the 'quiet'.

Mr Hague warned that once MPs return from Parliament's summer recess they will have only nine working days to debate the treaty before it is signed off by Mr Brown in October.

His party boosted its campaign for a referendum by publishing a pamphlet entitled The EU Treaty in Plain English.

Mr Hague accused Labour of handing sovereignty to Brussels as the treaty creates a powerful EU president and foreign minister.

He said Britain is losing vetoes in some 60 policy areas including transport, energy and migration and warned that new powers are being handed to the European Commission, Court of Justice and Parliament.

Mr Hague added that a little-noticed 'ratchet clause' in the treaty would allow the EU to abolish vetoes in almost all other areas. Member states would simply have to 'notify' MPs of what was happening.

He said: "There has been limited public debate about this issue and it is important for people to have a clear understanding of it. The plan all along has been to keep the substance and change the presentation.

"The EU treaty is overwhelmingly the same as the EU constitution. It is in large measure and predominantly the same thing with the same effect. I think in a way Gordon Brown wants to get this out of the way with as little public

Attacking the document's complicated language, Mr Hague cited a passage which says: "As far as the content of the amendments to the existing treaties is concerned, the innovations resulting from the 2004 IGC will be integrated into the TEU and the Treaty on the functioning of the Union, as specified in this mandate.

"Modifications to these innovations introduced as a result of the consultations held with member states over the past six months are indicated below."

Mr Hague explained: "That is really taking everything that was agreed in the European constitution and using it as a starting base for the treaty."

In another passage, the treaty says: "Articles 29 to 39 of Title VI of the EU Treaty, which related to judicial cooperation in criminal matters and to police cooperation, shall be replaced by Articles (111-257 to 111-264 and 111-270 to 111-277) of the Treaty on the function of the union."

The Tory pamphlet paraphrases this as: "EU judges will now be able to rule on EU agreements over criminal justice and policing."

In Labour's 2005 general election manifesto, Tony Blair had promised voters a referendum on the EU constitution that was eventually shelved that year.

Mr Brown has refused to hold one on the new treaty after insisting that the Government had protected its four 'red lines' on tax, human and social rights, foreign policy and benefits.

However, Mr Hague pointed to a stream of remarks from prominent EU leaders admitting that the new treaty is the constitution by a different name. Spanish foreign minister-Miguel Angel Moratinos has said that '98 per cent of the content' of the old constitution has survived.

Mr Hague denied that the Tories are returning to an 'old agenda' or playing to the party's disaffected Right-wing by focusing on Europe.

"This cannot be the Conservative Party returning to an old agenda when a referendum was promised in the last Labour manifesto," he said.

He added that an EU treaty referendum would be key to the Conservatives' general election campaign if an early poll was called by Mr Brown.

Investigators Probe Whether Government Lab Deliberately Released Virus

Foot and mouth outbreak another act of biological terrorism against British farming community?

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Investigators are seriously probing whether a British government lab and an American pharmaceutical company colluded to deliberately release the foot and mouth virus in an act of biological terrorism against the farming community.

The source of the recent foot and mouth outbreak is highly suspected to have originated from the government's Pirbright research facility, which is shared by American vaccine maker Merial Animal Health.

Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported that the release of the virus came after an "international drill" last month that was held at Pirbright Laboratory, in which live virus was used. Real attacks are always shadowed by drills to provide culpable deniability.

"A PROBE into Britain's new foot and mouth disease outbreak has focused on whether staff at an animal vaccine firm may have spread the virus, possibly deliberately," reports the Herald Sun.

"A preliminary report into the outbreak said yesterday it was a "real possibility'' that human movement spread the disease to two nearby farms, with Merial coming increasingly under suspicion."

The motive of Merial Animal Health Limited is clear - providing they remained undetected as having been the culprits for the outbreak - another mass foot and mouth scare would result in record purchases of their vaccine from panic stricken farmers across the country.

The British government also has a deeply ingrained political agenda to sabotage the stability of a rural power bloc - The Countryside Alliance - that forms its most influential foe and brought half a million people to London in 2002 to protest the government's wide-ranging abuse and abandonment of the middle class.

The Labour government, now led by Blair clone Gordon Brown, has a deep disdain for the farming community and has sought to debase the agricultural industry at every turn in the last ten years, as well as outlawing traditional countryside pursuits such as shooting and hunting.

All 102 of farmer John Gunner's Charolais and Sussex cows were culled after his farm became the second site to register positive for foot-and-mouth disease.

"It was a Leitmotif of the Blair government that it hated the countryside," writes Simon Heffer in today's London Telegraph, "There could be no other explanation for much of its behaviour. John Prescott, when he still held office, saw power as a vehicle for the propagation of class hatred: and, in his profound ignorance, he saw rural England especially as a place populated and exploited solely by his class enemies."

"Just after the last outbreak, when the Government was trying (in another helpful pro-countryside measure) to limit the legal use of shotguns for sporting purposes, an MP asked how many fatalities or woundings had been caused by legally held weapons. The answer was that all, or almost all, such incidents appeared to have been farmers shooting themselves amid the wreckage of their livelihoods."

The latest outbreak has already cost the farming industry tens of millions of pounds, heaped on top of the misery wrought by recent flooding, which many also accuse the government of deliberately botching the recovery efforts.

As we have previously reported, the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, which completely devastated the farming industry nationwide, began after a vial of the virus was "stolen" from the government's Porton Down bio-weapons laboratory.

Coupled with reports of the government making inquiries to timber merchants and sign makers (before closing public footpaths), it is inconceivable that an animal rights activist, as we are led to believe, could have penetrated a level 4 bio-weapons facility that also houses anthrax and ebola and is protected by armed guards of the Ministry of Defence Police and the Military Provost Guard Service. The individual who stole the vial must have had full security clearance to enter the facility. Why would an animal rights activist release a virus that would kill four million animals?

Patricia Doyle, PhD also reported that Foot and Mouth exercises, mirroring the drills in the current case, were being run by the British government immediately before the outbreak was made public.

With all the evidence beginning to strongly suggest a criminal plot was formulated by the American vaccine company, possibly in collusion with the government lab, to engage in a deliberate act of bio-terrorism directed against the farming community, it's probably time for the government to call in their chief whitewasher Lord Stevens or another establishment puppet to sweep the entire mess under the carpet.

Change Confronts Mayor Bloomberg on Subway

Mike Knarr
WeAreChange.org News
Wednesday Aug 8, 2007

Related: Revised Rules Coming on Filmmaking and Photography, After Uproar

Related: Bloomberg Confronted as Camera Ban Set for Enforcement

Related: Protesters Turn Lens on Mayor's Office Over NY Film Ban

Bloomberg Takes the Ride of His Life.

Mayor Bloomberg takes the subway periodically, about once a month according to his staff, so that he can be with the people. Unfortunately he picked the day when WeAreChange.org and Infowars.com reporters were outside City Hall. The ride lasted about 15 minutes and Luke, Tom, Nate and several other concerned citizens used every minute to bring up questions from parking tickets to 9/11.

Luke started in with an attack on the Ground Zero Memorial. Why are you disrespecting the family members by moving the memorial off the grounds of the World Trade Center? Read a great article about this and the massive money spent by Pataki and Bloomberg after 9/11 here by Debra Burlingame. www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008478

Debra Burlingame is the sister of Captain Charles “Chic” Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. He participated in the very pentagon drill which envisioned just such an attack and his daughter Wendy died under mysterious circumstances in a fire later. It’s all just a coincidence.

Luke moved on by adding that 45% of the remains have not been found, why do you want to build on holy ground? By the way family members this year are just asking to go down the ramp but Bloomberg said in an earlier interview ,“It doesn't work. And you know we just have to get used to the fact that there's a lot of construction going on there.” I guess everyone is supposed to move on and stop bugging the government about trivial issues like this. Why are you ignoring the rescue workers who are sick and dieing? How did building 7 come down? The EPAs lies are causing the deaths of thousands of first responders. Still no response from the Mayor.

With the film ban going into effect there was plenty of questions about the constitutionality of it all. Even Keith Olbermann said it was the worst constitutional attack he could think of. Questions came fast and furious like, why do you want to destroy the constitution? You want to run for President, aren't you concerned with destroying the constitution? Nate was right on the mark when he added, "If it's unconstitutional it's null and void, you know we will win in court don't you?" Luke reminded Mayor Bloomberg that he has money invested in a media company and doesn't he see the conflict of interest, "you want to ban filming?"

Other points were made like, your just trying to put fear into us hoping we won't film, we will continue to film even if you declare martial law. Your making criminals out of ordinary citizens by arresting bicycle riders (See the Critical Mass Video by WeAreChange) and now people with cameras. Stop selling out to the corporate banks, sir. There's lots of questions, It's you opportunity as mayor to actually address these questions.

The Mayor’s goons make a big deal about the fact that our reporters do not have official New York City issued press passes. However this does not excuse the Mayor from not answering the questions put forth even if they are from his constituency. However this just shows that the media is controlled and if they were to ask these questions they might fear having their passes revoked.

Tom Foti said it best when he said "Until we get answers, this is how it’s going to be"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7442487916618413779&hl=en
Watch what happens at the end with an NYPD officer. You have to see it to believe it!

Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab

Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab

Microbes locked in Antarctic ice for as much as eight million years have been "resuscitated" in a laboratory.

Researchers melted five samples of ice from the debris-covered glaciers of Antarctica which range in age from 100,000 years to eight million years.

When given nutrients and warmth, the microbes resumed their activity - although younger microorganisms grew more successfully than the older ones.

Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings raise the possibility that ancient bugs, long frozen in ice, will return to life as climate change causes the glaciers to melt, flushing their genetic material into the oceans.

However, experts say this process has been going on for billions of years, and is unlikely to cause human disease.

Kay Bidle of Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, and colleagues extracted bacteria from ice found between three and five metres beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica.

"The ice sheets are continually undergoing accumulation, so they are flowing outward and the ice is lost through sublimation or calving into the ocean," explained co-author David Marchant of Boston University, US.

"What you have to do to get very old ice is go to secluded, very cold areas, where small alpine glaciers are covered by debris."

The combination of slow-moving glaciers with a debris covering that prevents ice from subliming - or evaporating - means that very ancient ice is preserved in these regions.

The ice gets older as it flows away from the headwall, where the snow and ice of the glacier first accumulates.

The researchers took five samples that were between 100,000 and eight million years old and were able to extract DNA and microbes from them. More organisms were found in the young samples than in the old.

Radiation damage

"We tried to grow them in media, and the young stuff grew really fast," Dr Bidle explained.

"We recovered them easily; we could plate them and isolate colonies."

The cultures grown from organisms in the 100,000-year-old ice doubled in size every seven days on average.

By contrast, microbes from the eight million-year-old ice grew much more slowly, doubling every 30-70 days.

This suggested some microorganisms in this old ice were alive, but only just. Their DNA had been severely damaged by long exposure to cosmic radiation. This radiation is stronger at the poles, where the Earth's protective magnetic field is weakest.

The researchers were unable to identify them as they grew, because their DNA had degraded so much.

The researchers found that DNA in the five samples examined showed an exponential decline in quality after 1.1 million years.

'Gene popsicles'

In the younger samples, the team found evidence of some of the most common bacteria around today, including the firmicutes, proteobacteria and actinobacteria.

But the team also compared genetic sequences extracted from the ice to known genes of modern bacteria. Curiously, there were few matches, meaning the ancient microbes may have had genes that were new to science.

Dr Bidle and his colleagues describe the glaciers as "gene popsicles" containing DNA that can be acquired by existing organisms when it is thawed.

Eske Willerslev, of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who was not involved in the research, described the work as "very significant".

But he cautioned that, as with most claims of ancient microbes being revived, contamination of samples with genetic material from modern microbes was always a possibility.

"These results show patterns that you can't easily explain by contamination," he told ScienceNow, "But I would feel more comfortable with the results if they had been replicated in two independent labs."

Dr Marchant said temperatures in the Beacon and Mullins valleys were so cold that any liquid melting on the surface only penetrated about 5cm into the ice. Samples were retrieved from below this depth in all cases.

"There's really no chance for modern contamination," he explained.

The team suggests that because DNA in the old ice samples had degraded so much in response to exposure to cosmic radiation, life on Earth is unlikely to have hitched a ride on a comet or on debris from outside the Solar System - as some scientists have suggested.

"Given the extremely high cosmic radiation flux in space, our results suggest it is highly unlikely that life on Earth could have been seeded by genetic material external to this Solar System," they wrote in their scientific paper.

Dr Marchant added: "The other thing that's interesting about this is the connection to Mars. There's near-surface ice on Mars where the surface landform looks identical to what you'll see in Beacon Valley."

On Saturday, Nasa launched its Phoenix spacecraft on a nine-month journey to the Red Planet. It will dig below the surface of Mars' northern plains to collect samples of soil and near-surface ice for analysis.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6935146.stm

FEMA suspends use, sales of ‘toxic’ trailers

FEMA suspends use of 'toxic' trailers

Residents can get refund, new housing while agency tests for formaldehyde

By Alex Johnson

Reporter

MSNBC

Updated: 7:32 p.m. ET Aug 7, 2007

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done an about-face and will immediately stop using, buying and selling disaster-relief trailers because they could be contaminated with formaldehyde.

The order, which went into effect July 31, is an interim measure while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs test the air quality in the estimated 120,000 travel trailers FEMA provided to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005.

The agency most recently sent about 40 of the trailers to Miami, Okla., where residents were forced out of their homes because of flooding.

CDC workers began collecting samples last week from FEMA trailers in Louisiana and Mississippi, where more than 56,000 trailers are still occupied. Residents will be offered assistance finding new housing anywhere in the country, FEMA said in an internal memo, while buyers of surplus FEMA trailers will be offered full refunds.

“Nothing is as important to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security as ensuring that disaster victims have a safe and healthy place to reside during their recovery,” the agency said in a statement.

Formaldehyde is the airborne form of a chemical used in a wide variety of products, including composite wood and plywood panels in the travel trailers FEMA purchased after Katrina. It is considered a human carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

MSNBC.com disclosed in July 2006 that many of the trailers harbored potentially harmful levels of formaldehyde, but testimony last month before a House subcommittee revealed that FEMA was aware of the problem several months earlier, after many of its own employees came forward with concerns.

As recently as late last month, FEMA said it would continue using the trailers, but congressional leaders were outraged after documents revealed that FEMA lawyers had advised the agency to downplay the concerns to “prevent ownership of the problem” and limit exposing the agency to liability issues.

Summer heat aggravates exposure
The congressional hearing was convened last month after Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Bobby Jindal, D-La., blasted FEMA for its seeming disregard of occupants’ complaints.

“This takes the cake,” Landrieu told NBC affiliate KPLC-TV of Lake Charles. “Now people living in the trailers have to worry if their children are breathing fumes that could cause cancer or some other disease.”

Many residents say that when they have complained about the risk, FEMA advised them to leave the windows open. But “the heat makes the formaldehyde very noticeable, and even though we’ve been here as long as we have, we still notice it,” said Nancy Sonnier, whose family has been living in one of the trailers in Vinton, La., since their home was destroyed by Hurricane Rita.

“My husband and I both have some health problems that we hadn’t had prior to the storm, and when they first started I really chalked it up to the stress,” Sonnier told KPLC, describing respiratory, sinus and intestinal problems, along with skin rashes, insomnia and headaches — all potential signs of formaldehyde poisoning.

“I usually spend my time outside,” said 7-year-old Mason Sonnier, “because of that stuff that my grandma talks about.” Evangeline Sonnier, 9, added: “It’s that toxic stuff. It can get you really sick.”

Trailers only, not mobile homes
FEMA Administrator David Paulison stressed in the memo that the directive applied only to recreational-style vehicles, such as trailers and larger park homes, which are designed for short-term housing, and not to mobile homes, which are regulated and tested by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Paulison said any occupant of a FEMA trailer could request replacement or alternative housing. The agency will refund the price of a trailer purchased within the past 12 months; authorize rental assistance, plus travel expenses, up to the fair market rate anywhere in the continental United States; offer residency in a mobile home, if available; or pay for hotels or motels until suitable housing can be found.

The order is likely to put a strain on FEMA, which said “additional temporary land will be immediately required within the Gulf Coast Recovery Office area of operation to meet ballooning capacity needs.”

The agency said that if necessary, it would exercise its authority under the 1988 Stafford Disaster Relief Act to take over as much as 1,300 acres of land to store 70,000 returned trailers in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, most likely by forcing the closing or downsizing of recreational vehicle sites.

NBC affiliate KPLC of Lake Charles, La., contributed to this report.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20165754/

Brown grows gray as siege drags on

DAN TUOHY
New Hampshire Union Leader
Monday Aug 6, 2007

Ed Brown's neighbors are growing anxious. Ed Brown is growing gray.

The gun-toting tax dodger turned 65 on July 22, according to his "Oath of Allegiance to the New Hampshire Republic" filed in county tax records. He's now eligible for Medicare, an odd milestone since he hunkered down in his fortified home in Plainfield some seven months ago.

Other anniversaries may come and go: Ed and Elaine Brown say they will not leave without a fight and U.S. Marshal Stephen R. Monier insists federal forces will not storm their compound off Center of Town Road.

As the standoff continues without end in sight, the federal government is giving financial assistance to the town to defray the cost of extra police patrols and related details, Selectman Robert W. Taylor said.

"It's definitely been an added expense," said Taylor, who did not have an estimate last night. "It's pretty much a stalemate at this point."

Federal authorities have cut off power and telephone service to the Brown property, hoping to make life difficult for them and have them give up. Monier said Friday his team continues to reach out to the Browns and encourage them to end the conflict peacefully. "We do have open lines of communications with them and continue to encourage them to turn themselves in," he said. "A lot of good people are working on this."

Full article here

Google And The Personalized Search -- All's Well.. Or Orwell

Scott Buresh
Post Chronicle
Monday Aug 6, 2007

You go to Google and enter your search term. Big Brother, the totalitarian character from George Orwell's novel 1984, watches with detached interest. You see, to Big Brother, you are only a number - but he'd like to know as much about you as he can. Knowing you allows Big Brother to do many things - both good and evil.

Alright, enough of the "Big Brother" comparison - it's been done many times before (and done many times better). However, there is an important central point to be made about personalized search. Google is now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users, and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to "Do No Evil," as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the trust is well-placed, or if people are willing to trust search engines with this type of data at all.

The basic principle behind personalized search is simple. When you go to Google and type in a search query, Google stores the data. As you return to the engine, a profile of your search habits is built up over time. With this information, Google can understand more about your interests and serve up more relevant search results.

For instance, let's say that you have shown an interest in the topic of sport fishing in your search queries, while your neighbor has shown an interest in musical instruments in his search queries. Over time, as these preferences are made clear to the engine, your personalized search results for the term "bass" will largely be comprised of results that cover the fish while your neighbor's results for "bass" will be comprised of results that primarily cover the musical instrument.

At present, you need to have signed up for a Google service for your results to be personalized. Such services include Gmail, AdWords, Google Toolbar, and many others. By default, as long as you are signed in to one of these programs, your personal search data will be collected. The term "at present" is used because Google certainly could implement personalized search on any user of the engine, regardless of whether he or she has a Google account. Google already places a cookie, or unique identifier, on the machine of anyone who types in a search query on Google - it would not be hard for them to use that information, rather than the Google account, to collect individual user data and personalize results. It is quite possible that Google is testing the waters of personalized search with people who have opted in to one of its services, and will expand the system to all users if there is limited uproar or government intervention.

For search engine optimization firms, the major shift brought about by personalized search will be in how they report on Google ranking data to clients. When collecting this data, they will have to run from a "clean" machine - that is, one that has no Google programs or cookies on it. The baseline results that are reported to the client will essentially be a snapshot of what a search engine user would see if they had no Google software installed. The good news is that Google account holders who have shown an interest in certain products and services will likely have results more favorable to the client than the baseline results indicate since personalized search assures that their search histories will be reviewed and the results likely skewed toward the client's industry. The bad news is that the search engine optimization firm will be hard-pressed to demonstrate this - not to mention that the results that the client using a Google program has on its own personal machines will almost certainly not match up with the results that the firm is reporting (although the client machines should have better results, for the same reasons cited above).

Some people find the practice of storing information for personalized search purposes disturbing; others find the end result to be useful (still others find themselves experiencing an odd combination of both reactions). In defense of the engines, it is not as if they are building a dossier on individuals - again, you are only a number to them. However, the potential for misuse of the data is fairly high.

There are many advertising firms out there already that go through the cookies on your machine to figure out which ads will have the best effect on you. If you've ever been on a website and seen a banner ad that is directly related to something you have been doing research on lately, it is most likely not a coincidence. The ad platform simply browsed through the cookies on your machine to find out what topic held your interest, and dropped in a related ad once it determined what that topic was. Search engines have been buying firms with this technology lately; notable recent purchases include that of DoubleClick by Google and aQuantive by Microsoft. There seems to be little doubt that your search history will be combined with existing ad-serving technology to deliver even more relevant ads. Whether this constitutes misuse seems to be debatable - some people seem to have no problem with it, while it makes many others fairly uneasy.

Privacy issues that arise from personalized search are also a big question. The EU recently announced that it is probing into how long Google stores user information (this probe was subsequently extended to include all search engines). AOL recently committed a serious blunder when it released search data from 500,000 of its users, and it was discovered that it was fairly easy to identify many people by the search terms that they use (anybody ever "ego surf" - that is, type your own name into a search engine to see what comes up? If so, you wouldn't be hard to spot). In addition, since the IP address of the computer creating the query is also reportedly tracked, a court order forcing the engine and the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to provide specific search data on individuals is a distinct possibility - the technology required to deliver upon such a demand is already in use.

Unless the government intervenes, the question will probably be decided by personal preference. As it becomes more common knowledge that Google (and other engines) store this type of data to enable personalized search, many users will take measures to block its use.

Are the search engines that collect this data "Doing No Evil?" The answer, I believe, will depend on each individual's definition of evil. In the meantime, don't be surprised when you type in a search query, and the engine seems to be reading your mind. It isn't, really - it's merely parsing through your memories.

190,000 weapons 'missing in Iraq'

190,000 weapons 'missing in Iraq'

The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Pentagon cannot track about 30% of the weapons distributed in Iraq over the past three years.

The Pentagon did not dispute the figures, but said it was reviewing arms deliveries procedures.

About $19.2bn has been spent by the US since 2003 on Iraqi security forces.

GAO, the investigative arm of the US Congress, said at least $2.8bn of this money was used to buy and deliver weapons and other equipment.

Correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq.

Discrepancies

The GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005.

MISSING IN IRAQ AK-47 rifles: 110,000 Pistols: 80,000 Body armour pieces: 135,000 Helmets: 115,000

During this period, security training was led by Gen David Petraeus, who now commands all US forces in Iraq.

The GAO reached the estimate - 111,000 missing AK-47s and 80,000 missing pistols - by comparing the property records of the Multi-National Security Transition Command for Iraq against records maintained by Gen Petraeus of the arms and equipment he ordered.

Deputy Assistant Defence Secretary Mark Kimmitt told AFP the Pentagon was "reviewing policies and procedures to ensure US-funded equipment reaches the intended Iraqi security forces under the Iraq program".

Weapons delay

The report comes as a political battle rages in Washington over the progress of the war in Iraq.

Gen Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are scheduled to report to Congress by mid-September on the success of efforts to halt sectarian violence and return Iraq to viable self-governance.

Meanwhile, at the end of July, the US Defence Department admitted that the US-led coalition in Iraq had failed to deliver nearly two-thirds of the equipment it promised to Iraq's army.

The Pentagon said only 14.5m of the nearly 40m items of equipment ordered by the Iraqi army had been provided.

The US military commander in charge of training in Iraq has asked for help in speeding up the transfer of equipment.

Iraq's ambassador to the US said the delays were hindering the fighting capacity of its armed forces.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6932710.stm

Published: 2007/08/06 09:35:40 GMT

Olbermann on Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal

You Tube
Friday Aug 3, 2007

"Assassination of Russia" False flag Govenment sponsored terrorism Russian style

Google Video
Friday Aug 3, 2007

Russian FSB are caught planting bombs in buildings to blame on the Chechens.

http://eng.terror99.ru/publications/056.htm

A French ... all » Documentary Alleges Kremlin Involvement in Russia's 1999 Apartment Bombings

BY YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW

Friday, Apr. 19, 2002. Most Russians are unlikely to see The Attempt on Russia, a French documentary shot with the help of tycoon Boris Berezovsky, now self-exiled to London. The film alleges involvement of Russian secret services in the Moscow and the Volgodonsk apartment bombings in the fall of1999. The terrorist attacks claimed 247 lives and paved the way for a new Chechen war that helped install Vladimir Putin as Russian President. While denying the claim, the Kremlin made sure that Russian TV would not show the footage, screened by human rights groups to limited audiences.

Still, such allegations have been the talk of the country ever since the tragedy. This week, VTSIOM (the Public Opinion Studies Center) released its polls on public reaction to them. The results show that 38% of those polled firmly deny that Russian secret servihuch an involvement should not be ruled out; and 19% are undecided. The polls hardly bode well for Putin.

http://eng.terror99.ru/explosions/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Apartment_Bombings

Ron Paul Leads Republicans in Web Traffic by a Whopping 45%

Christopher Costigan
Gambling911.com
Friday Aug 3, 2007

If web traffic has any relevance in determining which candidate becomes the next US President, Ron Paul has just won....by a long shot.

A recent review by ClickZ.com has the Texas Republican representative with 45.38% of the overall market share, followed by Mitt Romney at a distant 13.93%. Ron Paul gained 6 percentage points over the previous week. Both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain lost around 4 percentage points.

Among the Democrats, Barack Obama continues to be a strong front runner, though he lost 6 percentage points following the CNN/YouTube Debate while Hillary Clinton at 24.14% gained nearly 5 percentage points.

Interestingly, Ron Paul has taken the lead from Obama among all web searches (Democrat and Republican) this week.

So who are the bottom feeders in both parties?

Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd barely have 2% of the overall market among Democrats while Tommy Thompson and Jim Gillmore lag far behind on the Republican side.

Web traffic also suggests that Mike Gravel was helped the most by the recent CNN/YouTube Debate. His web market share jumped from 1.50% to 8.15% following the debate.

Congress ponders surveillance proposals

AP
Friday Aug 3, 2007

Congress struggled Thursday over giving the government more power to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, bogged down by concerns about the man who would oversee the plan: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats and Republicans alike said they wanted to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 before leaving Washington at week’s end for a monthlong break.

Gonzales “is clearly one of the concerns that has been expressed by the Democratic leaders,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters.

“But at the end of the day, there has to be a way for our intelligence and counterintelligence agencies to collect data from known terrorists. And we shouldn’t let personalities get in the way of protecting the American people.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said that lawmakers scoff when “they say Gonzales should do the reviews, because nobody believes he has any independence.”

The law generally requires court review of government surveillance of suspected terrorists in the United States.

It does not, however, specifically address the government’s ability to intercept messages thought to come from suspects who are overseas, opening what the White House considers a significant gap in protecting against attacks by foreigners who are making targets of the U.S.

Democrats, who control Congress, would allow the messages from foreign targets to be intercepted, but only after a review by the special FISA court to make sure that the surveillance does not focus on communications that might be sent to and from Americans.

Pay as you drive 'threat to privacy'

David Millward and Brendan Carlin
London Telegraph
Friday Aug 3, 2007

Motorists may reject pay as you drive road pricing because of worries that it threatens their privacy, MPs warn in a report today.

Fears that the public will not accept the monitoring of their movements required to make road pricing work have been highlighted by the Commons transport select committee.

The Government has sought to reassure motorists that the introduction of road pricing - possibly with the aid of "spy in the sky satellites" - would not threaten or intrude upon motorists.

But the committee, previously a strong supporter of road pricing, claims that present laws are inadequate to guarantee that drivers' privacy would not be undermined.

"Road pricing schemes have to be put in place with the agreement of the public," said Gwyneth Dunwoody, the committee chairman.

The Government's strategy to run pilot studies within urban centres, rather than on dual carriageways and motorways, has also come under attack from the MPs. "A range of town and city centre pricing schemes will not tell us a great deal about the impact of road pricing on inter-urban routes and major trunk roads," the committee warns.

Mrs Dunwoody also highlighted the dangers of motorists becoming confused if they were confronted with a patchwork of road pricing systems scattered across the country.

According to the committee, local authorities used as guinea pigs in the road pricing trials could be left facing huge debts, lasting up to 30 years. In the case of Greater Manchester, the one area which has confirmed that it is ready to run a trial, the bill would be £3 billion.

The Government has also come under attack over its decision to remove the legal requirement on local authorities to consult before introducing trials. The committee recommend that these proposals should be ditched and the requirement to consult the local population should remain.

The Department for Transport insisted that it would take action to guarantee motorists' privacy and added that it would not support any road pricing scheme that had "unacceptable social impacts."

The Liberal Democrats, while insisting that they backed the principle of road pricing, have admitted that the technology to make it work is still some way in the future.

Susan Kramer, the party's transport spokesman, has instead called for Britain to follow the example of Germany and press ahead with a lorry road charging scheme - an idea ditched by the Government - using the money raised to pay for public transport improvements.

Expert Suspiciously Reverses Stance On Doctored Al-Qaeda Tapes

Expert Suspiciously Reverses Stance On Doctored Al-Qaeda Tapes Who are you gonna believe? Spook infested Pentagon propaganda arm IntelCenter or your lying eyes?

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Friday, August 3, 2007

After unwittingly exposing the fact that IntelCenter, a private intelligence group made up of Pentagon affiliated ex-spooks, was doctoring and releasing so-called Al-Qaeda propaganda tapes, computer expert Neal Krawetz has now suspiciously reversed his position, despite the fact that he appeared on camera and re-affirmed his research when directly asked.

As we reported yesterday, Krawetz's most telling discovery came in the form of a detail contained in a 2006 Ayman al-Zawahiri tape. From his analysis he concluded that the As-Sahab logo (the alleged media arm of Al-Qaeda) and the IntelCenter logo (a U.S. based private intelligence organization that "monitors terrorist activity") were both added to the video at the same time.

This clearly indicates IntelCenter itself is directly creating or at least doctoring the Al-Qaeda tapes before their release. After all, why would Al-Qaeda terrorists be interested in branding their videos with the logo of a U.S. based organization that is run by individuals with close ties to the military-industrial complex?

In an update to the original Wired News article on the subject, Krawetz recanted his research that the two logos had been added at the same time after Ben Venzke of IntelCenter denied that his organization added the As-Sahab logo.

"I was finally able to reach Neal Krawetz at the BlackHat conference to respond to the questions about the IntelCenter and As-Sahab logos (Krawetz doesn't have a cell phone on him so finding him at the conference took a while). He now says that the error levels on the IntelCenter and As-Sahab logos are different and that the IntelCenter logo was added after the As-Sahab logo. However, in a taped interview I conducted with him after his presentation, he said the logos were the same error levels and that this indicated they were added at the same time. Additionally, after I'd written the first blog entry about his presentation, I asked him to read it to make sure everything was correct. He did so while sitting next to me and said it was all correct. He apologizes now for the error and the confusion it caused," writes Wired blogger Kim Zetter.

The skepticism of the writer in response to Krawetz's reversal, when Krawetz himself had affirmed the findings of his research on two previous occasions and presented them to a live conference audience, is clearly evident.

It seems entirely possible that, having unwittingly exposed the fact that IntelCenter itself is doctoring and directly releasing the Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, Krawetz fears for his livelihood and has reversed his position to avoid potential consequences.

The military-industrial complex, to which IntelCenter is basically married, do not play games and one can imagine the kind of paranoia that is generated when you cross them, therefore we do not blame Krawetz for his back-peddling. However, all our previous experience suggests that it's much safer to be out in the light and rather than hide from his findings, Krawetz should blow this whole can of worms wide open.

IntelCenter's denial of of this whole episode should be taken with a pinch of salt, for it was Ben Venzke's company that knowingly re-released 6 years old footage of Bin Laden that many quarters of the media treated as new. IntelCenter itself had released the same footage in October 2003 and it still appears dated as such on their own website. Their credibility has already been shot to pieces.

IntelCenter: Al-Qaeda's most accommodating propaganda outlet.

They were also behind the so-called "laughing hijackers" tape, which was passed off as originating from Al-Qaeda's media arm, but was later exposed as being secret surveillance footage filmed by U.S. intelligence in 2000.

At upwards of $4,000 dollars a year in intelligence packages that are sold on their website, IntelCenter has a lucrative financial motive to keep the supply of Al-Qaeda tapes rolling.

As William M. Arkin of the Washington Post wrote in his article Counter-Terrorism Profiteers, With Your Money, IntelCenter has turned Al-Qaeda into a business and business is good.

Allied to the political motive of the Bush administration, and the fact that so-called Al-Qaeda tapes are routinely released at the most expedient times to benefit the U.S. government, the mutually beneficent relationship between the two when added to the evidence that the tapes have been doctored leads to an obvious conclusion.

Only the most naive observer could now deny that Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden tapes are not being used as a means of disseminating crude propaganda and fearmongering - and not exclusively by the "terrorists," but by IntelCenter and the Bush administration itself.

News Corp., Dow Jones monitor linked

News Corp., Dow Jones monitor linked

News Corp. supported charity run by editorial independence panelist

Reuters

Updated: 6:59 p.m. ET Aug 2, 2007

BOSTON/NEW YORK - Dow Jones & Co. Inc. said on Thursday it did not know that one of the people named to protect its editorial independence after it becomes part of News Corp. runs a foundation that received $2.5 million in funding from Rupert Murdoch’s global media conglomerate.

News Corp. selected Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Nicholas Negroponte to be part of the five-member special committee that will oversee the editorial independence of Dow Jones’s news operations. The move was part of its $5.6 billion deal to buy the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

When asked if the donation compromised Negroponte as an independent member of a group designed to safeguard Dow Jones’ editorial integrity, a spokeswoman for Dow Jones said it had confidence in him.

“We are confident of the capability of the individuals to make independent decisions,” said Dow Jones spokeswoman Linda Dunbar, adding that the company had not been aware of the donation.

In an interview with Reuters conducted by e-mail in May, Negroponte described Murdoch as a personal friend and a key backer of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) foundation that makes inexpensive laptop computers for poor children.

News Corp. is one of 11 parties, including Google Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc, that each committed to donate $2.5 million to the organization, Negroponte said.

Objectivity questioned
News Corp.’s donation now raises issues over Negroponte’s objectivity, a journalism expert said.

“If in fact Nicholas’ foundation is receiving money from News Corp., that creates the perception and, quite possibly, the reality of a conflict,” said Louis Ureneck, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University.

“Is a person truly independent if a decision he makes puts at risk a significant grant to his foundation? It strikes me that there is a conflict,” Ureneck added.

It was not immediately clear if members of Dow Jones’ controlling Bancroft family, who negotiated and agreed upon the structure of the independent board, were aware of the payment.

A Bancroft family representative was not immediately reachable. Some members of the family had opposed the deal out of fear that Murdoch would interfere with Dow Jones’s news operations to further his business interests.

To be sure, another member of the independent committee, Thomas Bray, has ties to Dow Jones. Bray, the former Detroit News editorial page editor, has written for Dow Jones’s OpinionJournal.com. The Wall Street Journal reported that he will serve as chairman of the committee.

Asked if News Corp. saw any conflicts of interest in Negroponte’s appointment, the company said no and defended his integrity.

News Corp. defends choice
“Nicholas Negroponte enjoys tremendous support and respect across the media industry, and both Dow Jones and News Corp. are proud to have him as an independent member of the special committee,” a News Corp. spokesman said.

He added: “OLPC is a well-respected charity with very broad corporate support. We would hope more corporations would get involved to bring affordable laptops to every child in the world.”

Negroponte declined comment on Thursday, saying he had been asked to refer all media inquiries to News Corp.

Dow Jones agreed on Wednesday to be sold to News Corp. for $5.6 billion including debt.

During the interview in May, Negroponte said he had known Murdoch since 1986 and worked with him on various projects since then.

“More recently I have come to know (his wife) Wendi and consider Rupert to be one of OLPC’s chief strategists,” Negroponte said. “I ask his advice all the time. He asks mine on matters related to computers and communications. I would like to think I have been an influence on his distinctly digital life these days.”

In September 2006, Murdoch entertained the foundation’s board of directors at a New York restaurant and the group held its board meeting at News Corp. headquarters the next day.

Last month Negroponte’s foundation disclosed that News Corp.’s MySpace social networking Web site is developing an Internet community for the poor children who receive the group’s laptop computers.

News Corp. Executive Vice President Jeremy Philips, who oversees Internet investments for the company, holds a seat on the OLPC board.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20097651/