Iraq Resistance Grows Under Military Boot

The Pentagon war to annex Iraq as a profitable region of U.S. capital’s empire is still raging, long after the fragile pretexts for invasion have torn like tissue. The sheer brutality and colonial-style character of the occupation have unleashed a firestorm of resistance that enjoys widespread support in the Iraqi population.

War correspondents in Iraq are either “embedded”—stenographers for the military brass—or their lives are in danger. Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley said May 20 that the U.S. military is deliberately killing reporters, particularly Arab journalists, in Iraq.

The big-business media is aiding and abetting imperialist efforts to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shias. But the insurgency is so tenacious and so strong that even some of the brass hats themselves are, well, down. Many years and many more troops are the best that even the most optimistic of the “unnamed” officials are willing to venture it would take to “stabilize” Iraq.

Animal Rights Activists Face Trial as Terrorists

Federal prosecutors plan to use the expanded federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a 2002 law that defines domestic terrorism, against seven members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty who go on trial in Trenton, NJ next week.

The charges allege that SHAC's website posted tactics for use in a long-running battle with Huntingdon Life Sciences including threats, harassment and destruction of property. The defendants face counts of stalking and conspiracy to commit stalking, potentially resulting in five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

But, SHAC spokeswoman Andrea Lindsay on Thursday called the charges 'absolutely trumped-up.' She said a list of tactics was listed on the SHAC Web site with a disclaimer noting that SHAC did not encourage those activities. The defendants argue that they were not directly involved in any of the acts, merely exercising their First Amendment rights.

One motion for dismissal of the charges against a defendant says that 'no individual defendant ... is alleged to have been involved in those acts, which the indictment attributes generally to unnamed 'individuals' or 'protesters.''

In 1998, Huntingdon was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 23 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including a failure to ensure that procedures were performed with appropriate anesthetics or sedatives. The company agreed to pay $50,000 to settle the charges.

CDC Backs New Meningitis Shot for Kids

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics on Thursday recommended that more than 8 million U.S. children — 11- to 12-year-olds, students entering high school and college freshmen headed for dorm life — get a new meningitis vaccination.

'This is a very bad disease,' said the academy's Dr. Carol J. Baker, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. 'It's very rapidly progressive in adolescence. You can have an adolescent in a shopping mall at 2 in the afternoon, in the emergency room at 6 in the evening, and death by midnight.'

That comment is pretty typical of the way parents are to be scared into vaccinating millions of children against a disease which is terminal in around 750 persons per annum -mostly because of lack of awareness of symptoms and failure to act immediately.

Fresh Clashes in Fallujah

What are described as 'fresh clashes' broke out in the Iraqi town of Fallujah late Thursday night between rebel forces and joint Iraqi and American patrols. Some areas of Fallujah were sealed off as fighting raged on throughout the night. But a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital said it was treating 18 people injured in the fighting, most of whom were women and children.

Bush to Clip Drug War Grants

Efforts to end a grant program could indicate a change in the administration's approach. Funds are set to be cut to the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program, which since 1988 has earmarked federal money for local war on drugs.

Indeed, many contend that the current allocation of resources has not been effective. Although prisons around the country are bulging under 1.5 million drug arrests per year, the price of drugs has never been lower, and the purity has never been higher.

"The structure of these task forces is so flawed that they create more problems than they solve," says Scott Henson, director of the Police Accountability Project for the ACLU of Texas. "They are federally funded, state managed, and locally staffed. There is no accountability."

Toxin in plastics is harming unborn boys

(The Guardian) - Scientists in America have found the first evidence that common chemicals used in products as diverse as cosmetics, toys, clingfilm and plastic bags may harm the development of unborn baby boys.

Tests showed that women with higher levels of four different phthalates were more likely to have baby boys with a range of conditions, from smaller penises and undescended testicles to a shorter perineum, the distance between the genitals and the anus. The differences, say the authors, indicate a feminisation of the boys similar to that seen in animals exposed to the chemicals.

The discovery poses a huge problem for the chemical industry, which is already embroiled in a battle with the government over EU proposals on chemical safety. Several types of phthalates have been banned, but many are still produced in vast quantities.

Andreas Kortenkamp, an expert in environmental pollutants at the School of Pharmacy in London, said: 'If it's true, it's sensational. This is the first time anyone's shown this effect in humans. It's an indicator that something's gone seriously wrong with development in the womb and that's why it's so serious.'

He added: 'These are mass chemicals. They are used in any plastic that is pliable, whether it's clingfilm, kidney dialysis tubes, blood bags or toys. Sorting this out is going to be an interesting challenge for industry as well as society.'

US Stealth Intro of Global ID Cards

The world just lurched much closer to a global ID card standard with news that the United States wants Britain's proposed identity cards to have the same microchip and technology as the ones used on American documents.

The aim is to "ensure compatability". But this will mean that information contained in the British cards can be accessed across the Atlantic. So what about European IDs? Will they be compatible too? Leading to a de facto Global Standard ID?

Michael Chertoff, the newly appointed US Secretary for Homeland Security, said Thursday: 'It would be very bad if we all invested huge amounts of money in biometric systems and they didn't work with each other.' He proposed that British citizens wishing to visit the US should consider entering a 'Trusted Traveller' scheme to allow 'fast- tracking' through the US immigration system. A pilot scheme is already scheduled to start within months between the US and the Netherlands, allowing Dutch visitors to use a Trusted Traveller card.

The American government has said it wants 27 countries whose citizens do not need visas to enter the US for short stays to issue new passports by 26 October this year containing a computer chip and a digital photograph.

Mr Chertoff said compatability and the checking system was intended purely to track down 'terrorists and criminals' and the main aim was to provide a 'fair and reasonable system'.

Lies, Damm Lies and WhatReallyHappened

Spreading disinformation is lot like herding sheep. And the CIA/NSA have used classic sheep herding techniques to establish their disinfo outlets. Here's how.

I don't know if you ever did any actual sheep work, but it's really straightforward. Approach some sheep in a field and put them under a little pressure. They begin to move away.

Come a bit closer. Now they're looking left and right for an exit. Come closer still. Now they're desperate for a way out. That's when you have a friend open a gate. And lo and behold, the relieved sheep flow out through the open gate like a river seeking lower ground. You can herd them from field to field -and they will always move in the direction which eases the pressure. Get it?

The information managers use the same technique. First -clamp down the media so there is no outlet for the truth. That's how you create the field around the sheep. Now they are boxed in. Then put them under a little presure -like say... 9/11. Now, you got them looking for an outlet. An outlet which eases the pressure. Any outlet.

So you provide one. And hey presto, They head straight for it.

We all feel the need for some media outlet to reflect our world view. It's a need which has been ruthlessly exploited to create many faux news outlets. One distinguishing characteristic is that they tell us what we want to hear -and then some. They rant. They rave. It's called emotional release. Or it's called -letting the peasants blow off some steam. And it's relatively harmless in political terms. Especially when the little venting of truth is mixed liberally with plenty of confusing disinformation.

As an investigator, I know this. So I wait. And I have. Waited. Waited until they discredit themselves. Which whoever is behind WhatReallyHappened has just done.

Many know I have written extensively about so-called 'Saddam before. Back when he was 'captured': Saddamplicity. Then recently I wrote new articles about the fake 'Saddam'.

The first: Liar Liar, Saddam's Pants on Fire on Friday, May 20, 2005; and the second: Crazy Saddam to Dismiss Lawyers -Prediction on Monday, May 23, 2005.

The very next day, May 24th -Michael Rivero at WhatReallyHappened claimed that by sheer coincidence: "earlier today a reader sent me the following image." You'll never guess? It was an image of Saddam. I knew then, that WhatReallyHappened were about to provide the disinfo crew response to what I had just written.

And they blew it.

First, to bolster his street cred, Rivero claimed to be having entirely coincidental new doubts about Saddam because a 'reader' had just emailed him two photos showing 'New Saddam's' teeth were uneven -whereas 'Old Saddam's' teeth were perfect. [Pic] Then later that day he reveals the true reason for raising the issue with an update to say that more research has 'discovered' another photo showing that 'New 'Saddam's' teeth are perfect after all. [Pic] So they must be the same guy. Voila! [Article]

Now I'd like to draw your attention to something. Nowhere. Not Ever. Not once, even, have I ever referred to 'Saddam's teeth. Go check. From the article published hours after they supposedly caught him, I wrote about half a dozen, and I never mention the teeth once. Never.

There's a good reason why. I already knew the teeth were the official red herring planted to confuse the issue. The photos seeming to show uneven teeth were digitally degraded to look that way.

Let me make this very clear: U.S. Psyops altered a few of the military-supplied photos of 'Saddam' so that this disinfo crew could use that later to confuse the doubters. Plenty of other photos would show the teeth are nice and even. So it was a no-risk red herring. Perfect.

I knew this from way back. My suspicions were confirmed when Joe Vialls, on July, 3rd, 2004 made a big deal of one of the digitally altered teeth photos: Here. The reason that helped confirm my thoughts, is because I had long before figured out, like a lot of others -that Vialls is pretty clumsy disinfo.

(By the way, like WhatReallyHappened, Vialls is a relentless anti-Zionist ranter. It plays well at the emotional level. But, that's something else they have in common -besides Saddam's teeth and their common employer.)

Saddam's teeth are a run-of-the-mill misdirection gambit. There are plenty of legitimate, substantial questions about 'Saddam' that don't involve teeth. I have covered them all. WhatReallyHappened ignores them all and promotes the misdirection psyop instead.

The same techniques of planted red herrings, and ignored real evidence have been used in the 9/11 coverup, so technical 9/11 analysts should take note.

(See: 'The 9/11 Minority Report' Why the 9/11 Movement was created by, and is fostered by the very people who carried out the attacks --by Fintan Dunne)

I'm not even going to warble on about the 'Peak Oil' rubbish that Rivero has been pushing for over a year. That's another story again. I'm not going to even bother discrediting Rivero further -he's doing a great job himself.

Rivero is just the tip of the iceberg. They have a frikkin' alt-media empire of 'alternative' websites and broadcast outlets. It's the kind of vast disinfo effort befitting the coverup of the murder of over 3,000 people and the subsequent slaughter of 100,000+ Iraqis. And so the disinfo show rolls on at all political levels, left, right and center. It's infotainment for bewildered sheep. And they got all the gates covered. Every shade of political and media opinion. Like a demented version of niche marketing.

But, you know that. Which is why you are here.

Let's give the last word to Rivero. He's good at digging holes:

"I have to admit, I was very sceptical when some of our readers expressed doubt that that was the real Saddam pulled out of that hole in Iraq. In these cynical times, one must be careful about false information planted in the path of citizen investigators trying to find the truth, so I was cautious." [Source]

See Also:
Liar Liar, Saddam's Pants on Fire
Crazy Saddam to Dismiss Lawyers -Prediction
Saddamplicity

Conan Nails Aspartame

U.S. TV host/comedian Conan O'Brien in a recent comedy article on the future of television, couldn't resist a nasty swipe at aspartame -one of the health 'secrets' well known inside the corporate media:

"One of TiVo's best loved features—its ability to provide viewers with commercial-free television—will inevitably force TV advertising to go extinct. As a result, celebrities will be forced to find new and creative ways to compromise their integrity. (At this moment, the writer pauses to slake his thirst with a delicious Diet Peach Snapple... now with less aspartame!)"

Torture Inc. - America's Brutal Prisons

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals,
Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

By Deborah Davies

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for BBC Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

These were exactly the kind of pictures from inside Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that shocked the world this time last year. But there is a difference. These prisoners are not caught up in a war zone. They are Americans, and the video comes from inside a prison in Texas

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for Channel 4 that will be broadcast next week....

We Become Silent - The End of Health Freedom

Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Kevin Miller is wading into the battle to preserve health choices with a new movie 'We Become Silent: The End of Health Freedom'. It details the ongoing attempts orchestrated by international pharmaceutical interests to limit complimentary herbs, vitamins and therapies.

A previous early 1990's movie by Miller, 'Let Truth Be The Bias', narrated by James Earl Jones, successfully mobilized public support behind the DHSEA legislation which defended U.S. consumers' rights to health alternatives. The hard-hitting film exposed the government's role in suppressing the truth about the effectiveness of complementary medicine.

Health activists hope his new movie will similarly energise public sentiment about the use of CODEX and supplements legislation to circumvent free health choices by consumers worldwide. The film is now in final editing, with a short version scheduled for release in early June, 2005 and the full film soon after.

Miller told BreakForNews.com that the film's title 'We Become Silent' was inspired by the words of Martin Luther King -who famously said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Meanwhile, following a legal case by the UK-based Alliance for Natural Health, a European Court of Justice ruling is now only a few weeks away on whether the EU Food Supplements Directive may be invalid under EU law. But a raft of other legislation and guidelines in the pipeline by way of the EU Food Supplements Directive and global Codex Guidelines on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements are part of a bigger plan to regulate natural health.

Audio Interview with Kevin Miller
by Fintan Dunne BreakForNews.com
Listen on streaming mp3:
DSL audio or 56k audio

13 U.S. Soldiers Killed Since Sunday

Three more U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday in central Baghdad when a car bomb exploded next to their convoy at about 1:30 p.m., according to the U.S. military.

About a half-hour later, a U.S. soldier sitting in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle at an observation post was shot to death by gunmen in a passing car.

In the last two days, the military announced that 13 American troops have been killed since Sunday.

Those reports came as insurgents carried out a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings around the country that also killed 49 Iraqis. At least 620 people, including 57 U.S. troops, have been killed since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new Shiite-dominated government.

Insurgents Kill Iraq's Counter-Insurgency Chief

The assassination on Monday of Iraq's new counter insurgency coordinator is a sign of either how inept, or now undermanned is the fledgling Iraqi security administration:

An insurgent squad shot dead the commander of Iraq's new counter-insurgency headquarters as he drove to work Monday in Baghdad, as US and Iraqi troops conducted a massive sweep for insurgents.

Major General Wael Rubaye, the new commander of a special operations room recently set up by the ministry for national security to coordinate the fight against insurgents, and his driver were shot dead by insurgents in the capital early Monday, the cabinet office said in a statement. Insurgents killer squads have repeatedly targetted senior police and army officers, along with civil servants, in the capital over the past weeks. [Middle East Online]

If they can't protect him, what kind of mess are they in?

The Arab media report above makes quite clear the pivotal role of Rubaye in counter-insurgency, but scrambling to downplay the severity of the blow, the London Independent describes Rubay merely as a 'security advisor':

The commander of an Iraqi counter-terrorism unit has been assassinated in a further demonstration of the insurgency's penetration of government structures on a day that saw massive loss of life across Iraq.

Maj-Gen Wael al-Rubaye, a security adviser to the Iraqi cabinet was shot dead while being driven to work.... [Independent]

Displaced Iraqis Simmer with Anger

by Dahr Jamail - Amman, Jordan - It isn’t difficult to find Iraqis in Amman nowadays. The word on the street is that somewhere around half a million have come to Jordan over the last couple of years, seeking security and/or jobs, since they have neither at home in Iraq.

Mohammed arrived in Amman four months ago, and is as angry at the current Iraqi government as at the interim government that preceded it.

“I want to ask Jalal Talabani to solve this problem for us,” he tells me while we talk at a square in central Amman where many Iraqis congregate on this sunny Friday morning. “What did Ayad Allawi achieve during his time as president?” he asks, displaying his contempt for the new National Assembly: “So what do we think this new government will achieve? Nothing!”....

Out Damn Spot--Oil Prices !

by William Bowles - Damn! I hit a sore spot with my last piece on ‘peak oil’ that unleashed a stream of invective from all manner of people that I feel compelled to address yet again. Now whether this was due to my inadequate presentation of my case apropos ‘peak oil’ or the refusal of certain people to face the facts, I don’t know. In all likelihood, it’s a combination of the two. Be that as it may, I will once more attempt to address what I view as the main objections to my trashing of the ‘peak oil’ hypothesis.

I was extremely lucky whilst at art school to have a lecturer, Keith Critchlow, who worked with Buckminster Fuller and who introduced me to the ideas of Fuller and who even got me involved in working on designing and building geodesic domes and other, even more daring design conceptions. And although I had problems with Fuller’s technocratic approach, he most definately convinced me that there is no problem that we, as a species, can’t overcome given that we collaborate on finding solutions, the operative word of course being collaborate.

So why has the ‘left’ (not to mention the Greens) embraced the ‘peak oil’ hypothesis so uncritically and, as one writer informed me, has sought such ‘strange bed fellows’ to use Lenin’s famous phrase, as an advisor to the major corporations who back Bush?....

Five US Soldiers Killed in Iraq, Sunday

Five U.S. soldiers were killed in northern Iraq on Sunday, the U.S. military said. Three soldiers were killed in Mosul, northwest of Baghdad. A fourth soldier died of wounds sustained in 10 a.m. car bomb attack against his combat patrol just north of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. A fifth soldier was fatally injured in a vehicle accident near Kirkuk. The cause of the accident was under investigation.

Crazy Saddam to Dismiss Lawyers -Prediction

by Fintan Dunne,
Editor, BreakForNews.com

I got one response from an alternative news site, doubting our story showing that 'Saddam' -whom the world has only ever seen on U.S. military video/photo- is a barely passable double playing the part with all the flair of a ham actor.

My correspondent pointed to the fact that 'Saddam' has an international team of lawyers who would surely know if such as deception was taking place.

The links below show exactly why they wouldn't know.

The easiest option for the U.S. is to have the fake 'Saddam' go a little crazy from a combination of his demotion, incarceration, and isolation and refuse legal representation when it comes to the trial. He can represent himself -just like Slobodan Milosevich. Haughty silence in distain of the proceedings would play well. The U.S. can write punchy handouts from 'Saddam' for the media.

Ever since Slobodan did a star turn at his trial on war crimes, having a real dictator defend himself is an embarassment the U.S./NATO crew is keen to avoid repeating. The stand-in will do fine.

The following links detail some interesting facts about the credibility of the 'Saddam on Trial' Psyop. Read between the lines as appropriate:

1/06/2005
Despite circumstantial evidence that it enjoys significant funding, [Saddam's legal] committee insists that it works for free. The committee's lead attorney, a dignified, gray-haired Jordanian named Ziad al-Khasawneh, recently told me.. that the tsunami of last December had wiped out 20,000 U.S. soldiers whose deaths had been hidden by the Pentagon; ...that Yasser Arafat had been fatally poisoned by the CIA.... that the American toll in Iraq is much higher than has been acknowledged, and that dead soldiers are routinely stripped of their valuables and identities and dumped from low-flying aircraft into the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. He said that you can go to certain places at night and see the body bags falling. He said that he knows of a goatherd who discovered the secret place in the desert where the valuables are dumped, and who has since become rich by harvesting all the watches and rings.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200506/langewiesche

19/05/2005
Only witness on Saddam mass graves killed
Insurgents in Al-latifhya city gunned down ”Hussein Saffer Ali” who was the only witness on Saddam’s mass graves on his way back from Baghdad to Najaf after he gave his testimony to the inquiry which is dealing with the former regime’s crimes against humanity. Ali was the only survivor and escaped death from one of Saddam’s mass graves near al-Najaf . His relatives say that he went to Baghdad to give his testimony in front of the inquiry, on his way back to Al-najaf using public transportation bus, gunmen near Al-latifhya blocked the road, stopped the bus and killed Ali.

People aware that a mole inside the inquiry tipped the insurgents about Ali’s travel route because he told no one only his close relatives. http://www.iraq4allnews.dk/viewnews.php?id=86115 also here

15/05/2005
Saddam’s mental breakdown
Saddam’s attorney (Khalil Al-Dulaimi) met Raghad (Saddam’s daughter) lately in Amman Jordan to inform her about Saddam’s health condition in his last meeting with him.

People witnessed the meeting said that the attorney told her that Saddam was crying frightened from execution in his last meeting with him, he told her that Saddam urinated several times during the interview... Al-Dulaimi said in many occasions he cried without a reason which was very clear that he suffer from psychological disturbances and he asked repeatedly about either he will get a death conviction or he will set free.... http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2005/05/16/315/ also here

4/15/2005
In an interview with the MSNBC’s “The Abrams Report”, Ramsey Clark, said: "He has not seen a lawyer; he has not seen his family. He's kept completely incommunicado." Saddam's lawyers say that they have been denied access to the toppled leader and that they don’t even know where he is.
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=7873

3/06/2005
What good are lawyers if you’re not allowed to talk with them? Curtis Doebbler, a respected human rights attorney, has been hired by Saddam’s family to represent the former dictator. He is one of the lead attorneys in an international group numbering more than 20. AFP asked Doebbler when the last time he visited Saddam and if he could relate what kind of mental and physical condition he was in.

"We have not been allowed to visit him in an appropriate manner that allows the facilitation of his defense,” he said. “The single visit of one of the lawyers took place on Dec. 16, 2004. This visit, however, was conducted with guards present and it was impossible to discuss the details of the case with our client."

For more than one year Mr. Saddam Hussein continues to be denied access to lawyers of his choosing. Doebbler told AFP that former Attorney General Ramsey Clarke has not been able to have contact with Saddam in order to mount a proper defense." “At the moment, we are simply instructed by the family,” said Doebbler
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/saddam_denied.html

20/01/2005
For more than one year, and despite statements by United States and Iraqi government officials that huge amounts of evidence exist, no access to any of this evidence has been granted to defense counsel. http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/02-11-05/discussion.cgi.71.html

2/10/2004
Saddam lawyer's tribe leader murdered - One foreign intelligence report cites a recent incident in which members of the al-Dulaimi tribe, previously known for their antagonism to the coalition and the new government in Iraq, shot dead a number of Islamic militants from outside Iraq, whom they believed responsible for killing a senior al-Dulaimi sheikh [Col. Sulaiman Ahmed Dulaimi, the Iraqi National Guard commander for Ramadi and Fallujah]. Although the sheikh was a senior police official and thus a 'collaborator', tribal elders felt that his death had to be avenged...

Isn't that interesting. That's the same incident that the Post covered, but in such a way that you couldn't make heads or tails out of it. At least in relationship to what it meant for the clan's relationship to the coalition and the new government.
[The Iraqi lawyer who has met 'Saddam is Khalil al-Dulaimi] http://www.rantingprofs.com/rantingprofs/2005/week12/

See Previous Article: Liar Liar, Saddam's Pants on Fire

Bush Ignores Abuse Outrage in Address

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai was last night on his way to the US, promising to confront George Bush over the growing scandal about American abuse of Afghan prisoners. However, Bush in his weekly radio address yesterday, while heaping praise on Afghanistan's post-Taliban government, did not acknowledge the outrage over prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo.

'We're helping Afghanistan's elected government solidify these democratic gains and deliver real change. A nation that once knew only the terror of the Taliban is now seeing a rebirth of freedom, and we will help them succeed,' Bush said. He added that he believed Islamic militants had been dealt a series of 'devastating blows' in recent encounters with American troops.

Sunshine Is Good Again - Prevents Many Cancers

Scientists are excited about a vitamin again. The vitamin is D, nicknamed the "sunshine vitamin" because the skin makes it from ultraviolet rays. The evidence is strong and keeps growing that sun avoidance may actually cause far more cancer deaths than it prevents.

Harvard professor Edward Giovannucci claims that his research suggests that sunshine-induced vitamin D might prevent much more general cancer cases than it causes skin cancer cases, by a factor of 30 to 1. In the last three months alone, four separate studies found it helped protect against lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, lung and, ironically, the skin. The strongest evidence is for colon cancer.

Animal studies find that vitamin D promotes death of tumor cells. Epidemiological studies find elderly people with low vitamin D tend to get more cancers; black people with black pigments absorbing ultraviolet rays and reducing vitamin D synthesis have more cancers; and people in the North who get less sunshine have more cancers.

Fish oil, particularly fish liver oil, can be a good source for vitamin D, but sunshine is cheap and readily available.

The Truth about McDonald's and Children

Every waking moment of our lives, we swim in an ocean of advertising, all of it telling us the same thing: consume, consume. And then consume some more. The epidemic of overconsumption begins with the things we put in our mouths.

But the truly shocking thing is that we've taught our kids how to be fat, too. In the past 20 years, the rate of obesity has doubled in children and trebled in teenagers. Kids are starting to clock in as obese as early as the age of two. If we find that surprising, we shouldn't.

Ray Kroc, the man behind the McDonald's empire, understood from Day McOne that youngsters were his target market. He had no sooner bought the company from the McDonald brothers than Ronald McDonald was brought in to attract the kiddies to the burgers and shakes.

But to this day you'll never see Ronald McDonald eating the food; not in any commercial. He dances and sings, grins and giggles, and smiles at the kids while they stuff their faces, but he never touches the grub. Why? Presumably because, as the late Eazy-E said in the song "The Dopeman": "Don't get high off your own supply."

Kroc also understood the value of promoting McDonald's as a caring, family-friendly sort of place, a place with a heart, not heart disease. Thus the Ronald McDonald House Charities were born.

Talking of which, one of the most shocking things I saw during my McMonth was a McDonald's in Texas Children's Hospital. In fact, hospitals across the US have fast-food franchises in them. The top-ranked pediatric hospital in the country, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has a McDonald's outlet....

Rainforest loss shocks Brazil

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest last year was the second worst ever, figures released by the Brazilian government have shown. Satellite photos showed more than 10,000 square miles had been felled by ranchers, loggers and especially soy bean farmers.

The figures shocked Brazil's environment minister, Marina Silva, who told delegates to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre earlier this year that she believed that increases in deforestation had been stemmed and that illegal deforestation was under control....

Galloway ally sold encryption chips to Iraq

The Jordanian businessman at the centre of claims that George Galloway secretly bought oil from Saddam Hussein has a major contract to sell US military technology in Iraq.

A firm run by Mr Fawaz Zureikat, 51, and other members of his family, has the exclusive rights to sell highly sensitive military encryption technologies made by a US firm in Iraq. Their company, was awarded the contract in January 2004 to sell US-made chips to the Iraqi military, police and government. The same chips are heavily used by the US army, other major US federal agencies and other secret military clients in the Middle East.

Last night, Mr Galloway's spokesman claimed the revelation about Mr Zureikat's military contract suggested he was a far more credible and substantial figure than the US Senate Sub-Committee had alleged.

Thousands of UK Troops to Reinforce Afghanistan

UK Defence chiefs are planning to rush thousands of British troops to Afghanistan, according to newspaper Scotland on Sunday.

Ministers have been advised that 5,500 extra troops will be needed within months if the situation continues to deteriorate. The looming crisis in Afghanistan is a serious setback for the US-led 'War on Terror'.

Defence analysts say UK forces are already so over-stretched that any operation to restore order in Afghanistan can only succeed if substantial numbers of troops are redeployed from Iraq, itself in the grip of insurgency. The UK contribution to the Nato-led force in Afghanistan presently stands at fewer than 500, compared with their 8,000 troops in Iraq.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due in Washington this week to discuss the deteriorating situation and widespread unrest over abuse of his countrymen by their US captors in Iraqi jails.

U.S. Army Invades Video Game Expo

Despite video games, helicopters and humvees,
the Army says it's not out to recruit gamers.

The U.S. Army is out in full force at the video gamers E3 Expo in Los Angeles this week.

In a tent outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Army is offering video game enthusiasts the chance to stand atop a Humvee and use a modified machine gun while playing a part of the America's Army - Special Forces game, projected on three walls at the expo.

Earlier this week, the Army released the latest version of the game, which has more than 5 million registered players.

The game is used to "educate the American public about the U.S. Army and its career opportunities," according to the game manual.

At the Expo every morning, a group of "Golden Knights" parachutists jump from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter at 2500 feet into nearby parking lot. And each afternoon, actual Special Forces soldiers run through a "grab mission" with "real equipment, weapons, and uniforms," the Army's Major Chris Chambers says.

Inside, the Army booth "looks like a mud-brick fortress that you might find in central Asia," Chambers says. Gamers don real-world equipment, including Kevlar vests and helmets, and M4 assault rifles. After a combat briefing, "we let them kick the door in, and they're jumping through this room and the enemy is shooting at them," Chambers says. Of course, that shooting is coming from projected screens, again from a part of the America's Army game.

The Army is giving away the game at E3. It can also be downloaded at no cost from the Army's Web site. This expensive show, run by a team of 30, is not a recruiting event, Chambers insists.

"We intend to be a major player in this industry for a long time," he says.

Sunnis Form Alliance, 12 Iraq Forces Killed

Iraq’s Sunnis yesterday formed a nationwide alliance of tribal, political and religious groups which will open its first office in Baghdad with branches later in other cities. The Sunni Endowment. a charitable organization was one of three main Sunni groups to back the formation of the new organization. The others were the influential Association of Muslim Scholars and the Iraqi Islamic Party.

“We condemn raids and detention done under the cover of the law against imams and mosques. We demand an independent committee be formed to verify if detainees were killed or tortured and demand the resignation of the interior minister,” the Sunnis said in a statement announcing the formation of their organization.

Meanwhile, members of an elite Interior Ministry force known as the Wolf Brigade, which at least one Sunni leader has implicated in sectarian killings, were killed in towns north of Baghdad on Saturday, in retaliation attacks. Six commandos were killed in bomb and rocket attacks in Samarra, 125km north of the capital. In Baiji, further north, six other commandos were shot dead in intense fighting that broke out in the key oil refinery town's industrial zone.