"The Media-Lobbying Complex": Investigation Exposes Undisclosed Corporate Ties of Network Political Pundits

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to an investigation into the powerful interests behind the talking heads pontificating on cable news channels all day and night. They are routinely called upon to comment on everything from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the recession, the environment and healthcare reform.

Too often these pundits are identified as political strategists or by their former positions in Congress, in government or the military. But what’s rarely disclosed is that many of them are closely tied to corporate interests and lobbying firms with powerful stakes in the very issues that these talking heads claim to be independent experts about.

A four-month investigation into the covert corporate influence on cable news by The Nation magazine found that since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials have repeatedly appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure that they’re paid by corporate interests.

We’re joined right now by Sebastian Jones. His cover story in the latest issue of The Nation magazine is called “The Media-Lobbying Complex.”  Read more and watch video of interview...

Do Toxins Cause Autism?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Suspicions of toxins arise partly because studies have found that disproportionate shares of children develop autism after they are exposed in the womb to medications such as thalidomide (a sedative), misoprostol (ulcer medicine) and valproic acid (anticonvulsant). Of children born to women who took valproic acid early in pregnancy, 11 percent were autistic. In each case, fetuses seem most vulnerable to these drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy, sometimes just a few weeks after conception.
So as we try to improve our health care, it’s also prudent to curb the risks from the chemicals that envelop us.  Read more...

Massive earthquake strikes Chile

A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 has hit central Chile, killing at least 78 people, ministers say.

The quake struck at 0634 GMT about 115km (70 miles) north-east of the city of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital, Santiago.  Read more...

President Michelle Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in affected areas and appealed for calm.

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Earthquake rocks northern Japan

A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 has hit Japan's north-east coast, injuring at least 40 people.

A tsunami alert was issued by Japan's meteorological agency, but later lifted after two small waves a few centimetres high hit the coastline.
The quake's epicentre is thought to have been 20km (12.4 miles) below the ocean off Miyagi prefecture, striking at around 1146 (0246GMT).  Read more...

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The Madness of Health Care Reform

It's sad that greed and lobby pay-offs to elected officials are allowed to exist, but the is the America in which we live.  Greed, vanity and inordinate self interest rules the day in Babylon USA.

The Insurance Companies have crafted hot iron catch  phrases, like Death Panels.  Which is nothing more than going before a panel of experts who can 'advise' you on choices you have and the consciences of your choice.

The mix up, what is a very serious family decision, with lingo and images of high insurance rates and a doomed health care system.  What they, the GOP, the 'wholly-owned subsidiary of the Insurance Industry,' fail to understand is that for the majority of Americans the health care system has never worked.

Below are two video clips that point out the absurdity of America's health care system.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Weiner: Every GOPer I Know Is A 'Wholly-Owned Subsidiary Of The Insurance Industry'

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shortage of Black Doctors Rooted in Social, Economic Ills

Most of the disparity in the number of blacks and whites entering health professions can be traced to factors that occurred much earlier in the educational system, including parents' education level, students' attending schools with lower per-pupil spending, high poverty rates and lower average scores on standardized tests, the researchers determined.

"The flow of blacks into the health care professions has been reduced at an early stage in the educational pipeline, so we must go back in the pipeline to open up that spigot," lead author Jessica Howell, an associate professor of economics at California State University in Sacramento, said in a news release. "This research and other research confirm that you have to go back further in the pipeline than many people realize."  Read more...

Is the American Military Too Christian?

Katie Drummond

The Pentagon has been pushing religious tolerance for decades, but several separate incidents in recent months are reinvigorating advocates who worry that the U.S. military is being controlled by a small but powerful subculture of evangelical Christians.

Last year, former NFL player Terry Bradshaw starred in an official military video that espoused "the importance of faith" in combating post-deployment depression. In January, news broke that a Michigan company had been inscribing coded references to the New Testament on high-powered rifle sights sold to the U.S. military. Weeks later, a giant cross was placed in the center of a newly constructed pagan worship site at Colorado's Air Force Academy, built to accommodate practicing Wiccans.

And those are only the incidents that have gone on within our borders.  Read more...

Hate 2.0 (Islamaphobia)

by Barnabe F. Geisweiller

The Internet is considered by many to be an information Wild West, where anyone can publish stories, often anonymously, and no matter how derogatory their opinions may be. False stories and hateful opinions about Muslims abound on the Internet and have begun to appear prominently in the mainstream discourse, say American Muslims and groups that monitor the media. Many worry that what one sociologist has termed "respectable racism" is having a corrosive effect on American society, and that hate expressed online has real-world implications. Rightwing extremist ideology is now the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Read more…

Gadhafi: Obama fears Israel will assassinate him like it did JFK

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said on Wednesday that U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's expressed support for Israel stems from his fear that the Mossad would assassinate him, just as it did President John F. Kennedy.


"We suspect he may fear being killed by Israeli agents and meet the same fate as Kennedy when he promised to look into Israel's nuclear program," Gadhafi said.  Read more…

The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth -- What's It Going to Take to Get It Back?

By David DeGraw
 

The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis -- and it's gotten even worse.

The Economic Elite have escalated their attack on U.S. workers over the past few years; however, this attack began to build intensity in the 1970s. In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Due to technological advancements, production and profit levels exploded from 1970 - 2000. With the lion's share of increased profits going to the CEO's, this pay ratio dramatically rose to $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker.  Read more...

Was Mossad 'Dagger' Unit Behind Hamas Assassination?

By SIMON MCGREGOR-WOOD

The headlines get more lurid with each passing day. Friday's Israeli paper Maariv declared on its front page: "Dubai Plans Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu."

Thursday the head of the Dubai police investigation, General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said he was almost certain Israel's intelligence organization Mossad was responsible for the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al Mabhouh. It is well-known in Israel that all such operations by Mossad must receive final approval from the prime minister.  Read more...

Also read:
Zionism unmasked

Catholic Church accused of denying justice to Blacks abused by priests

By Ashahed M. Muhammad

Mr. Aaron, a legal representative for dozens of Black men who allegedly were sexually abused by Catholic priests while in their teens, is leading the charge on behalf of his clients, who claim the religious hierarchy was slow to respond to their complaints, and once responding, were uneven in their dispensation of financial compensation and subsequent counseling services that were made available to White victims.

“Somebody had to help these guys,” Atty. Aaron told The Final Call “I think that I would die if I didn't.”  Read more...

Nation of Islam marks 80 years in North America at Saviours' Day 2010

By Ashahed M. Muhammad

With America in the grips of the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, Black youth crime and violence at high levels, and a political reality rife with contradictions, guidance from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the implementation of programming and solutions to serve the needs of Black people are needed now more than ever.
This year's Saviours' Day convention marks the 80th year of the Nation of Islam's existence in North America. Each year, to commemorate the birth of its founder Master W. Fard Muhammad, members from around the world make the journey to Chicago, Illinois during the last week of February for a weekend of fellowship, networking, information dissemination and spiritual renewal.  Read more...


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Download Study Guide 21 (Free)

Also Download Study Guide 21

Suicide third cause of death among black male youth

University group hopes to raise awareness, curb problem

There long has been a belief in the community that black men are too “macho” to take their own lives and that black woman are too strong and resilient to crack under pressure. But, a number of studies indicate that suicide is a growing problem in the black community. For example, according to information disseminated by the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), in 2006, suicide was the third leading cause of death among African American youth ages 10 through 19 after homicides and accidents. Citing statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide (NOPCAS), AAS pointed out that in 2006, 1,954 African Americans committed suicide in the U.S.—1,669 of them were male. Those deaths, some say, could and should have been prevented.  Read more...

Austin man with grudge against IRS crashes plane, leaves behind Internet suicide note

He apparently left behind a multipage manifesto ranting about his troubles with the government and the IRS, complaining that "I have just had enough."
He also raged about U.S. tax policies, the healthcare system and even his business failings and tax problems in Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
"I am finally ready to stop this insanity," Stack wrote in a posting at a website, embeddedart.com, which has since been taken down in compliance with a request from the FBI. "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
The posting was signed: Joe Stack (1956-2010) and dated on Feb. 18. Read the entire letter here. Read more...





Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act


If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?”  The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.  The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken.  Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it.  I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head.  Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy.  Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all.  We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers.  Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”.  I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood.  These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind.  Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?  Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.  Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”.  It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system?  Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand.  Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand.  The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is.  If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s.  Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English.  Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions.  In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.  We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God).  We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living.  However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0.  It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie.  It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father.  I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker.  Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement.  Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement.  All she had was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time.  When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me).  I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread.  I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made.  I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

Watch Aaron Ruso's: America: Freedom to Fascism - Director's Authorized Version

Adviser to Americans admits link to Salvador case

By BEN FOX

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — The former legal adviser to a group of American missionaries jailed in Haiti on child kidnapping charges is now the focus of a manhunt in the Dominican Republic.

Dominican police and U.S. agents are seeking to detain Jorge Puello, who acknowledged Monday that he is wanted in El Salvador for alleged involvement in a human smuggling ring in the Central American country.

In a call from an unknown location, Puello told The Associated Press he was innocent of the accusations and that he and his Salvadoran wife had taken in young women from the Caribbean and Central America who had been abandoned by smugglers.  Read more...
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Libya bars Europeans in Swiss row

Libya has stopped issuing visas to citizens from many European nations, in apparent retaliation for alleged Swiss measures against the Gaddafi family.

Diplomats say Libya has barred people from the Schengen zone - which includes 25 European countries.

Reports say the measure is already in force at Tripoli's main airport.

It follows an extended row that began with the arrest of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son and daughter-in-law in Switzerland in July 2008.  Read more...

Collapse of the euro is ‘inevitable’

Sam Fleming and Tim Shipman

The European single currency is facing an ‘inevitable break-up’ a leading French bank claimed yesterday.
Strategists at Paris-based Société Générale said that any bailout of the stricken Greek economy would only provide ’sticking plasters’ to cover the deep- seated flaws in the eurozone bloc.
The stark warning came as the euro slipped further on the currency markets and dire growth figures raised the prospect of a ‘double-dip’ recession in the embattled zone.  Read more...

Marvel Comics' depiction of Tea Party inspires anger, apology "Angry White Folks" and "Archie Bunkers"?

Brett Michael Dykes

Issue 602 of the comic features Captain America investigating a right-wing anti-government militia group called "the Watchdogs". Hoping to infiltrate the group, Captain America and his African-American sidekick The Falcon observe an anti-tax protest from a rooftop.  The protestors depicted are all white and carry signs adorned with slogans almost identical to those seen today in Tea Party rallies like "tea bag libs before they tea bag you" and "stop the socialists."  Read more...


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   Click on image to view page

'Slow path' to closing black (Australia's Aboriginal)-white gulf: PM

MISHA SCHUBERT

PROGRESS has been slow in bridging the gulf between black and white living standards in the two years since Australia's historic apology to the stolen generations of indigenous children, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has conceded.

And despite setting ambitious targets for slashing disadvantage, his government has revealed it still has almost no data to measure if it is on the right track.

In his annual indigenous speech to Parliament, Mr Rudd said death rates for Aboriginal babies were falling, pre-school and school attendances were up and literacy had improved slightly since he vowed to end Aboriginal disadvantage by 2030. Transformation had begun, he said, but it was ''a slow path to change''.  Read more...

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Are You Ready for Mind Games?

by Emru Townsend

If you thought eye control was freaky, you'd better sit down: San Francisco startup Emotiv Systems has developed a controller (the pictured headset is the developer version) that use sensors to read your thoughts. No more fiddling with a d-pad; just think "frag that alien with my grenade launcher" and you're blowing up bug-eyed monsters before you know it.  Read more...

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Mind Control Game

Study: Charter Schools Increasing Racial Segregation in Classrooms

AMY GOODMAN: While the charter school movement is growing, some concerns are being raised about the system.

A new study by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project suggests charter school growth is increasing classroom segregation. Seven out of ten black charter school students attend schools with extremely low numbers of white students. Black students account for 32 percent of charter school enrollment nationwide, twice the percentage enrolled in public schools. The UCLA report is entitled “Charter Schools’ Political Success is a Civil Rights Failure.”

Gary Orfield joins us now on the telephone. He’s co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, author of many books including School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back? and Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education.

Gary Orfield, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain the results of your study.   Read transcript

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• Study: Good Teachers Leave Black Students

Chilling aerial photos of 9/11 attack released

By ULA ILNYTZKY and COLLEEN LONG

A trove of aerial photographs of the collapsing World Trade Center was widely released this week, offering a rare and chilling view from the heavens of the burning twin towers and the apocalyptic shroud of smoke and dust that settled over the city.

The images were taken from a police helicopter — the only photographers allowed in the airspace near the skyscrapers on Sept. 11, 2001. They were obtained by ABC after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency that investigated the collapse.  Read more…


Check out the photos here

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Report: Hundreds forced into labor, sex in Ohio

By MATT LEINGANG

About 1,000 American-born children are forced into the sex trade in Ohio every year and about 800 immigrants are sexually exploited and pushed into sweatshop-type jobs, a new report on human trafficking in the state said Wednesday.

Ohio's weak laws on human trafficking, its growing demand for cheap labor and its proximity to the Canadian border are key contributors to the illegal activity, according to a report by the Trafficking in Persons Study Commission.  Read more…

Supreme Court ruling fuels voter ire

By JEANNE CUMMINGS

According to a bipartisan poll released Monday, voters oppose by a 2-to-1 ratio the court’s ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Citizens United that cleared the way for corporations and unions to run political advertising.
The poll suggests that the ruling has reinforced voters’ sense of disconnect with Washington and fueled the frustration that boiled to the surface in last year’s tea party protests and in elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.
Asked if special interests have too much influence, 74 percent of respondents said yes. Asked if members of Congress are “controlled by” the groups and people who finance their political campaigns, a whopping 79 percent said yes.
Only 24 percent of the voters said ordinary citizens can still influence politicians, and just 18 percent agreed with the notion that lawmakers listen to voters more than to their financial backers.  Read more...

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Electorate already lost faith in democracy, Supreme Court finishes things off

Big Brother May Have Your Baby's DNA

by Tom Henderson

Some parents are creeped out by the Orwellian image of the government keeping babies' DNA without their parents' knowledge or consent and they're filing lawsuits. Members of the Texas Legislature felt the same chill down their spines last year.
They passed a law that allows doctors in the state to keep and use the DNA samples for research, but requires parents be informed. The law also gives parents the option of having their children's leftover blood samples destroyed after screening.

Doctors have 60 days to destroy the blood samples after receiving the official notification form from the parents.

Most states don't have such laws. CNN reports DNA samples are still stored indefinitely in Florida. And genetic testing continues to be done without parents' consent, Brad Therrell, the director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center, tells CNN.  Read more...

Watch these video on the topic 

• Illegal Baby DNA Profiling at Birth Without Parental Consent - Newborn 
• CCHC: Protect Baby DNA Press Conference
• Government takes and keeps your baby's DNA, even without consent 
• Your Baby's DNA Secretly taken per Order of Government

WE SHOULD OPENLY CONFRONT RACISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

by ANC Youth League President, Julius Malema

It was in 1994 that Nelson Mandela told the world that "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world." But 15 years later we are still struggling to get rid of racism in South Africa. Despite the many progressive strides that have been recorded in the new democratic dispensation, a significant legacy of racism exists in all spheres of society.

Racist attitudes, stereotypes and actions continue to characterise our society. Only a few weeks ago the incident at the University of the Free State showed its face again, more than a year-and-a-half after African workers were shamefully humiliated by white racist students. But racism is not confined to the Free State, and it is not only alive in schools and institutions of higher learning. It exists in the workplace and in the corporate sector. It is evident in every city and town all over the country. It is building stereotypes every single day. What is revealed in the media only tells a very small part of the story because the majority of our people continue to suffer in silence and isolation all the time.   Read more...

Fluoride Poisoning of the American People

DID GOVERNMENT APPROVE CITIZENS AS TOXIC WASTE SITES?  ARE WE BEING POISONED?

It has been a long established joke about not drinking the water in Third World countries. Now it is here in America that the water has been declared unsafe to drink, and it is no joke. Whereas the greatest problem with water in the underdeveloped nations is usually such as amoebic dysentery, serious but reversible, in the U.S. it is rat poison one gets in the drinking water--and it is no accident.

Extensive studies, ignored with a yawn by those who believe they are being served well by the media and various dental associations, have shown that the consumption of fluoride in drinking water and prescription doses is extremely harmful and deleterious in a number of ways.  Read more…

 

Oppenheimer Warned by ANC Youth on Mines Takeover (Update1)

By Nasreen Seria

Nicky Oppenheimer, Africa’s richest man, and De Beers, the company his family built into the world’s biggest diamond producer, must prepare for the nationalization of their South African assets, the Youth League of the ruling African National Congress said.

The league, which has proposed nationalizing the country’s mines and metal smelters, dismissed comments by Oppenheimer made in support of Susan Shabangu, South Africa’s mines minister, who this week said the country’s mines won’t be nationalized in her lifetime.  Read more…

• History of the Oppenheimer Dynasty
• A Brief History of Blood Diamonds

The Diamond Empire
NARRATOR: Today, a century after it began, the diamond cartel still controls the production, the marketing and the pricing of rough diamonds around the world. But that world is changing and there are new threats to the Oppenheimers' dominance of the diamond trade.
In its largest market, the United States, the cartel cannot operate openly. Its monopolistic control of the worldwide diamond trade violates U.S. anti-trust laws.
Prof. ADAMS: Section I of the Sherman Act says, "Every contract combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade is hereby declared to be unlawful." The Sherman Act, in effect, says that as long as you have enough competitors and as long as they act independently, the public interest will be protected, but once you have conspiracy among them, the public interest will be undermined.
NARRATOR: Four times since the 1940s the U.S. government has investigated De Beers and its associates under the Sherman act, but bringing a South African company to American justice has proved almost impossible.