Tuesday, 06 July 2010 07:04 'The organization charged with helping BP plug and clean up a leaking oil drill hole in the Gulf is also providing aid in another way: buying hundreds of millions of dollars of its oil. Despite heated rhetoric from President Barack Obama -- and the forced creation of a $20 billion fund to pay claims related to the disaster -- the US military is still buying much of its oil from BP. The Pentagon is the largest user of oil in the world, more than any other single nation or corporation.' Read more: Pentagon Buys $82 Million a Month in Fuel From BP, Despite Spill Tuesday, 06 July 2010 06:56 Privacy rights advocates and civil liberties campaigners in Europe are raising the alarm about a new surveillance system that monitors conversations in public. The surveillance system, dubbed Sigard, has been installed in Dutch city centers, government offices and prisons, and a recent test-run of the technology in Coventry, England, has British civil rights experts worried that the right to privacy will disappear in efforts to fight street crime. The system's manufacturer, Sound Intelligence, says it works by detecting aggression in speech patterns. "Ninety percent of all incidents involving physical aggression are preceded by verbal aggression," the Sound Intelligence Web site says. "The ability to spot verbal aggression before it turns into a violent outbreak delivers valuable time to security personnel and enables speedy intervention".' Read more: Spy Tech That ‘Monitors Conversations’ Being Launched in Europe Tuesday, 06 July 2010 06:50 'New research shows that the insect-repelling chemical deet actually functions in the same way as deadly nerve gases and dangerous pesticides, by attacking the nervous systems of both insects and mammals. "These findings question the safety of deet, particularly in combination with other chemicals," said researcher Vincent Corbel of Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement in Montpellier. The chemical known as deet (for N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) is found in nearly every commonly used mosquito repellent in the world, and eight billion doses have been applied since its introduction to the consumer market in 1957. The chemical was originally developed as an insect repellent by the U.S. Army in 1946, following experience with jungle warfare in World War II.' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------- Tuesday, 06 July 2010 06:10 'US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticized Russia for establishing military bases in Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. At a joint press conference with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi on Monday, she urged Moscow to abide by the ceasefire agreement with Tbilisi and to end its military presence in the country. "We continue to call for Russia to abide by the August 2008 ceasefire commitment… including by ending the occupation and withdrawing Russian troops from South Ossetia and Abkhazia to their pre-conflict positions," AFP quoted her as saying. "The United States is steadfast in its commitment to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she added.' Monday, 05 July 2010 08:11
Clinton Tells Russia to Leave South Caucasus
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Posts
