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The environmental activism group Greenpeace, no stranger to controversy, is at it again. In conjunction with the start of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Denmark, the group has teamed up with TckTckTck to plaster the Copenhagen airport with advertisements featuring drastically altered images of famous world leaders participating in the summit. Though some industry observers have labeled the campaign "lame" and "dour," the group says the reaction to the ads thus far has been "phenomenal."

After a rough spring that saw as many as 20 to 40 percent of New Yorkers exposed to H1N1, subway riders have resorted to defending themselves with their fists. Violence struck on a southbound D train Monday morning after two women got into an argument over one's refusal to cover her mouth while coughing. It ended with her spitting on the other, a punch, and the second woman dragging the first to the floor of the car by her hair. Here's the play-by-play account, as witnessed firsthand by The Business Insider's Lawrence Delevingne: "No one got the conductor --...

WASHINGTON — White House officials and Democrats in Congress say the fears of older Americans about possible rationing of health care are based on myths and falsehoods. But Medicare beneficiaries and insurance counselors say the concerns are not entirely irrational.

Spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters on Thursday that remarks made by deputy spokesman Robert Wood earlier this week had been "misinterpreted." Asked at a press briefing on Tuesday whether the US was considering putting financial pressure on Israel to get it to comply with US demands, Wood had said: "It's premature to talk about that."

The fear on the street is palpable. Ever since the election of Barack Obama as President of these United States in November 2008, coupled with the election of a democrat party majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, concern for the United States and personal safety has ignited like a fire in dry grass. Sales of guns – black guns, rifles, shotguns and handguns (particularly 9mm) everywhere, have gone through the roof. AR15s have literally flown off of dealer shelves, and only now in the spring of 2009, have I seen the display samples of ARs begin to reappear...

NEW YORK — Esti Lamonaca's illness started with a high fever, a cough and achy bones, just a couple of days after she returned from a spring break trip on the beach in Cancun with friends. By the weekend, her voice was hoarse and she was wearing a surgical mask. The 18-year-old senior was one of a dozen students from several New York City high schools who traveled to Mexico earlier this month, and she thinks she has swine flu. Health officials have confirmed that eight students from her school have been infected with the strain, which has caused a...

MEXICO CITY – A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic. The worrisome new virus — which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before — also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S. "We are very, very concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham...

Timlin, owner of the Smoke N Gun Shop in Mount Vernon, New York, as well as a gun training school, security company, and shooting ranges, says his store is struggling to meet demand. "Common stuff that normally wouldn't be on a waiting list handguns, ammunition, assault rifles, pretty much anything there's a good chance you're going to be waiting for it." But the demand is not, Timlin insists, coming from what some on the Left may label a "fringe element." It's homeowners, businesspeople, many who have never owned a gun before. And they aren't "stomping their feet and screaming." "They...

(IsraelNN.com) The number of Arab party Members of Knesset will decline from nine to four following the February 10 elections, according to a new poll carried out by Geocartographia for Globes. The survey reflects a growing trend among Israeli Arabs to boycott the Israeli democratic process and ally with radical anti-Israel groups, most notably the Islamic Movement headed by Sheikh Raad Salah. Known Arab terrorist organizations also are getting openly involved in Israel. Police on Friday shut down the Maidan Theatre in Haifa, where the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group was planning a rally for...

The Drudge Report blared the New York Post report by Charles Hurt that President Obama told the Republicans in Congress that they should go along and get along, and stop listening to Rush Limbaugh: "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." Obama is clearly worried that Rush Limbaugh is going to be the GOP Speaker of the House, so to speak. Over at Radio Equalizer, talk-radio guru Brian Maloney is amused: Beyond the absurdity of a Democrat barking orders at his political opposition, he's especially foolish to air his fear of Limbaugh and talk radio in...

PARIS – Government officials and Jewish leaders are concerned the conflict in Gaza may spill over into violence in Europe, with attacks reported against Jews and synagogues in France, Sweden and Britain. Assailants rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, in southwest France, Monday night. A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, was attacked Monday night by someone who "broke a window and threw in something that was burning," said police spokesman Leif Nilsson. And on Sunday slogans, including "murderers ... You broke the cease-fire," were daubed on Israel's Embassy in Stockholm.

Investors this summer have been placing their bets on an Obama presidency, and for the most part that hasn't been good for the market. Without giving him a chance to explain himself in detail on the campaign trail or at the Democratic National Convention, they are voting with their shares by tossing financial, health insurance, manufacturing and high-dividend stocks into the ash can, and are growing skeptical about energy companies as well. It's not that major institutional investors don't like the man -- far from it. He has many backers among the financial elite, including multibillionaires George Soros and Ron...

With senator Barack Obama poised this week to clinch his party's nomination for President, there are growing fears in some quarters that the Democratic party may not be choosing its strongest candidate to beat Republican John McCain. Senator Hillary Clinton has been making that argument for weeks. Now some recent polls and analysis, looking particularly at vital battleground states and support among white voters, have bolstered her case - even as Obama looks certain to become the nominee. Obama supporters reject this argument and point to his record of boosting Democratic voter turnout, especially among the young. But sceptics in...

OKLAHOMA CITY - A call from death row inmate Terry Lyn Short interrupted a meeting in the office of his attorney, James Rowan. Short wanted a promise that, after he is put to death next month, he won't end up in a pauper's grave in the cemetery that contains the bodies of many of those hanged, electrocuted and lethally injected at the 100-year-old Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Rowan told his 47-year-old client not to be concerned about that. "It's not going to cost you anything, so don't worry about it. That's the least of your worries," he said. What worries Rowan...

Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Last Updated: 7:29pm BST 19/09/2007 Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East. "This is a very dangerous situation for the dollar," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas. "Saudi Arabia has $800bn (£400bn) in their future generation fund, and the entire region...

German nuclear plant fire raises safety fears By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/07/2007 A row has erupted in Germany after the extent of an accident at a nuclear power station was allegedly concealed, opening bitter political divisions in Europe's most energy-conscious nation. Initial news flashes a week ago seemed alarming. An ageing nuclear reactor near the northern German city of Hamburg was on fire. But fears were quickly calmed by reassurances that the blaze was limited to an electricity substation, and had not spread to the reactor. In fact, the reactor was affected. The fire...

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) - Fears for thousands of civilians caught in the Lebanese army's siege of Islamist militants grew Sunday as those brave enough to escape told harrowing tales of survival. The United Nations made an urgent appeal for the safety of children among an estimated 10,000 mainly Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, where the Islamist gunmen are holed up. Lebanese troops encircled the camp a week ago, when fighting broke out with Fatah al-Islam militants that has killed 78 people, forced thousands to flee and trapped thousands more in unbearable conditions....

RICHMOND, Va. - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain (news, bio, voting record) said Monday he fears an offensive by Iraqi insurgents similar to the Tet offensive by the Viet Cong that sent U.S. casualties soaring in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago. McCain, a Vietnam war veteran who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war, said in an interview with The Associated Press that it's not the U.S. presence in Iraq that upsets voters but rather the number of casualties and the possibility those numbers could rise. The U.S. death toll is more than 3,100 in the nearly four-year-old...

BIRMINGHAM, England - Police attempted on Thursday to allay Muslim anxieties after a raid in this city in which nine men were arrested on terrorism charges. The British media have reported the men were plotting to kidnap a British Muslim soldier, torture and behead him, and broadcast the imagery on the Internet — but this has not been confirmed by police. Some Muslims questioned if the arrests were another mistaken high-profile operation, like last year's raid in east London during which police shot and wounded one of two Muslim brothers who were later released for lack of evidence linking them...

Privacy Fears Intensified by Tech That Knows Where You Are Jennifer Cutraro for National Geographic News It's 10 p.m. Does your laptop know where you are? As location-based technology advances, your computer, cell phone, and other mobile devices may soon be able to pinpoint and transmit your exact location as you travel. And developers hope that an emerging network dubbed the geospatial web will tie these devices together to create a unique new user experience. People tapped into this new web will be able to communicate instantly with nearby users, participate in digital community activities, and get advertising for businesses...

Indian state battles fever fears By John Mary Trivandrum, Kerala Mosquitoes are blamed for spreading the disease Authorities in India's southern state of Kerala say they are battling a fever outbreak that has claimed many lives. Since July, at least 70 people have died - most, it is suspected, from the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus. A team of experts from the World Health Organisation have arrived in Kerala to examine the outbreak of the disease. Separately, Indian authorities are fighting an outbreak of dengue fever in the country's north - 28 people have died of the disease in recent weeks. Cases...

'Dirty' bomb fears over world's most insecure nuclear facility By Bojan Pancevski in Vienna (Filed: 17/09/2006) More than two tons of radioactive material stored in a rundown research facility in Serbia is an easy target for terrorists seeking to build a "dirty" bomb, according the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. Nuclear inspectors have branded the lightly-guarded store of highly enriched uranium, from a Communist-era reactor which closed 22 years ago, the world's most dangerous disused nuclear site – because of the potency of the material present, and because some is prone to leaking. Experts warn that the facility could be targeted...

THE Muslim world's scathing reaction to Pope Benedict's comments on Islam is the biggest challenge to face the pontiff yet and raises concerns over his security, diplomatic and Church sources said today. "My personal reaction was: 'This is a striking statement. Was it a rare slip-up?'" one of the sources said about the Pope's speech in Germany last Tuesday.

Growing fears over North Korea nuclear test Jonathan Watts in Beijing Wednesday August 30, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Kim Jong-il. Photograph: AP International concerns about a possible North Korean nuclear test increased today with reports that Kim Jong-il may have crossed the border into China to explain his military provocations to uneasy allies in Beijing. According to the South Korean media, satellites have tracked a special North Korean train, the usual form of transport for Mr Kim, entering Chinese territory. If confirmed, it would be his second trip to Beijing in less than a year - an unheard-of flurry of...

Terror fears as radicals reopen vital port By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi (Filed: 25/08/2006) Islamic radicals who have seized most of southern Somalia yesterday celebrated the reopening of Mogadishu's main seaport, a key gateway between the Horn of Africa and the Arab world. The strategically crucial harbour had been largely unused for 11 years. A Kenyan registered cargo ship, Ronja, is the the first ship to dock in Mogadishu's seaport Now it is in the hands of radical clerics whose leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, appears on an American "watchlist" for suspected terrorists. His alliance, the Supreme Council of Islamic...

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate in Mexico’s presidential elections, refused on Thursday night to accept defeat at the hands of his centre-right rival, Felipe Calderón. He called instead on his supporters to gather for a mass rally in the capital on Saturday. “It is clear that there was manipulation [of the counting],” Mr López Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution party (PRD), said, hours after Mr Calderón had taken a wafer-thin lead. “We are not going to sit back with our arms crossed.” With 99.9 per cent of the vote counted last night, Mr Calderón, of the ruling National...

Iran's place at summit raises fears of anti-West alliance By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 15/06/2006) Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arrived in China last night for a summit of Asian states and Russia that Washington fears is forming a new anti-western alliance. Mr Ahmadinejad will seek support for his country's nuclear programme, fuelling US concern that Iran is being protected by its growing friendship with Russia and China, who both sit on the UN Security Council. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in China for the summit He is also believed to be pushing to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which...

Gary McKinnon leaves Bow Street Magistrates' Court yesterday after a judge recommended that he be extradited to the US (DAVID BEBBER) A BRITISH man accused of the biggest military hacking operation yet faces trial in the US after a judge recommended him for extradition yesterday. Gary McKinnon believes that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay and tried by a military tribunal if his extradition goes ahead. He said that he was “practically already hung and quartered” if US government claims that he would face a federal court in Virginia proved correct. Mr McKinnon, 40, is alleged to have caused...

Fears that chicken farm's 'safe' bird flu virus could mutate By David Sapsted (Filed: 28/04/2006) As ministry vets prepared to gas 35,000 chickens to curb an outbreak of bird flu, a prominent virologist warned the government not to be sanguine over this supposedly "safe" strain of the disease. Prof Albert Osterhaus, a Dutch virologist, said that the H7 strain found in the flock just outside Dereham, Norfolk, had the potential to mutate into a form just as hazardous as the H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 100 people in Asia. The farm in Hockering, Norfolk, where 35,000 chickens are...

CORINTH, Maine - The Maine Department of Public Safety has no plans to change the state's Web-based sex offender registry despite the killings of two sex offenders whose addresses were apparently obtained online. A Canadian man used the registry to obtain personal information about the victims, authorities said, renewing fears that such lists expose ex-convicts to vigilante violence. "The events of the weekend will obviously be reviewed, but there are no plans to change the Web site at this point," Stephen McCausland, Maine Public Safety spokesman, said Monday. The gunman, Stephen A. Marshall, a 20-year-old from Nova Scotia's Cape Breton,...

Iran's secret talks with Iraqi militants spark fears of proxy war Harry de Quetteville (Filed: 19/03/2006) Iran held secret talks with Shia militant leaders from Iraq and Lebanon only days before the country's nuclear negotiators threatened America with "harm and pain", independent sources in Teheran have revealed. The Iraqi firebrand cleric, Moqtadr al-Sadr and the chief of the armed Shia group Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, held separate consultations with leading officials in Teheran. Al-Sadr commands thousands of fighters in Iraq, with the power to destabilise further the country and target British and American troops, while Hizbollah's missile-wielding fighters are...

'Revolution' fears over Hong Kong cardinal By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 11/03/2006) The ''official'' Catholic Church in Beijing has accused Hong Kong's newly-appointed cardinal of trying to do to China what the late Pope did to Poland. "Why would you appoint someone who doesn't support communism as a cardinal?" said Liu Bainian, the vice-chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, in a direct attack on Cardinal Joseph Zen. "Is it like Poland? Didn't the Church play a big role in Poland?" Mr Liu, whose organisation controls all of China's state-sanctioned Catholic churches, was speaking on Hong Kong radio after...

(March 2) -- Special Agent Frank Marwood was showing a visitor the half-mile long, 80-foot deep smuggler's tunnel his agents discovered beneath the U.S.-Mexican border at Otay Mesa when his cellphone interrupted. An agent was reporting in with a startling new find: another tunnel, this one shorter and more crudely built, but big enough to provide yet another subterranean port of entry into the USA. These are busy days for the men and women who guard the nation's border - particularly for the team of federal agents charged with rooting out border tunnels.

FEARS FOR ANCIENT REMAINS BELOW WAVESBy Martin Neville DIVERS face a desperate race against time to recover 8,000-year-old artefacts from the bottom of The Solent before they are lost forever. The underwater site, off Bouldnor, is the only one yet discovered in Britain and dates from when the sea level was 12 metres lower than today, when the IW would have been much larger and The Solent was a dry coastal valley. It remains because it was covered in silt and protected from erosion as the sea rose above it. Most Stone Age sites on land have lost all associated...

A BRITISH al-Qaeda suspect told a judge who ordered his extradition to the United States on terror charges yesterday that he fears he will be sent to Guantanamo Bay and tortured. Lawyers for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who was brought up in Yorkshire, said that they would appeal against the ruling, which could delay any decision on his removal for many months. The FBI claims that the former street-market trader tried to set up a terrorist training camp in the backwoods of Oregon for US and British recruits before the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Freedom fears as the DNA database expands By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor (Filed: 05/01/2006) The government was accused last night of compiling a national DNA database "by stealth" as police reported a rapid increase in genetic profiling in recent years. New Home Office figures estimate that by 2008, the samples of some 4.2 million people - seven per cent of the population - will be contained on a central criminal database, which is growing by about half a million a year. Damian Green: Alarmed at how fast the database has grown The system, which held only 700,000 samples when...

New Tamiflu-resistant bird flu cases stir fears 14:29 22 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Shaoni Bhattacharya New England Journal of Medicine Fears have been raised over more evidence suggesting that the deadly H5N1 avian influenza can mutate into strains resistant to the frontline flu drug Tamiflu. Two more patients with drug-resistant bird flu have been documented by researchers in Vietnam. The two patients, of eight studied, died from H5N1 influenza A, despite treatment with Tamiflu (oseltamivir) having been started early in one of them. The first case of Tamiflu-resistant bird flu was reported in October 2005 . Although the case...

Race riot fears turn Bondi into no-go zone By Nick Squires In Sydney (Filed: 17/12/2005) Australian police warned visitors to stay away from Bondi and other famous beaches in Sydney this weekend amid fears of another flare-up of race violence between gangs of white and Middle Eastern youths. The warning, unprecedented in a country in which the beach forms a central part of the national psyche, extended to two other cities in New South Wales. A young surfer carries her board outside a Sydney surf club Bondi was declared a virtual no-go zone for the weekend, along with other popular...

Despite late efforts by fiscal conservatives to delay — or derail — it, the Medicare prescription drug benefit train has left the station. Now, with the registration process a few weeks old, the only talk of delay on Capitol Hill has to do with pushing back the May 15 deadline for seniors to sign up.

Fears for industry in gas 'crisis' By Christopher Hope, Industry Editor (Filed: 23/11/2005) The prospect of factories sending workers home for a long Christmas break grew last night as the cold spell sent wholesale gas prices to record highs. Prices jumped 40 per cent to £1.70 a therm yesterday, almost five times the price at the beginning of the month. Jeremy Nicholson, of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which speaks for steel, glass and paper manufacturers, said: "If prices stay at these levels it is difficult to see how industry can continue without closing some plants." Sir Digby Jones, the...

Beijing Poultry Markets Shut on Bird Flu Fears Monday, November 07, 2005 BEIJING — Authorities ordered all live poultry markets in China's capital to close immediately and went door-to-door seizing chickens and ducks from private homes, as the government dramatically beefed up its fight against bird flu (search) on Monday. Beijing also announced that 6 million birds had been slaughtered around the site of China's most recent bird flu outbreak, and the World Health Organization (search) said it had been asked to help in the reopened investigation of the country's possible first human cases of the virus. The escalation of...

China fears girl died of bird flu China has been hit by four bird flu outbreaks in three weeks China has asked the World Health Organization to examine the cause of death of a little girl who lived near the site of a bird flu outbreak. He Yin, 12, died with flu symptoms in Hunan while her brother and a teacher were also infected but survived. A mass cull of poultry has been under way in Liaoning Province where bird flu killed nearly 9,000 chickens. It is China's fourth outbreak of bird flu in three weeks but the country has...

<p>Nine months before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, three emergency-preparedness officials from Louisiana were indicted, accused of obstruction and lying in connection with the mishandling of $30.4 million in disaster-relief money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has tried unsuccessfully to recover the money following an investigation of a program to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas.</p>

NEW ORLEANS - Outer bands of rain from Hurricane Rita began falling in New Orleans on Thursday, and forecasts of between 3 and 5 inches of rainfall in the coming days raised fears the patched levee system could fail and flood the city all over again. A direct hit from Hurricane Rita was still unlikely, but the Category 5 storm veered on a more northerly course toward a Saturday landfall in Texas that put New Orleans on the eastern edge of tropical storm warning. The rainfall Rita could bring to New Orleans put it dangerously close to the predictions that...

Malta fears it will sink under growing tide of migrants from Africa By David Rennie in Valletta (Filed: 21/09/2005) The holiday island of Malta is in the grip of an accidental tragedy: it is directly in the path of a growing and potentially vast flow of asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa to southern Europe. Caught: exhausted boat people from Africa await their fate Its proximity to Libya, 180 miles to the south, threatens the identity and culture of the islanders. Thousands of refugees have made the crossing in recent months. Libya has said that there are 1.5 million sub-Saharan Africans...

You know the scene: A black dorsal fin slices through the surf toward a solitary swimmer. From the crowded beach come cries of "Shark!" But it's too late. That's vintage Jaws, of course, and it's become a staple of summertime pop culture since the first Jaws film, released 30 years ago, stirred up shark hysteria worldwide. Even in Canada, where there has never been a recorded shark attack fatality, swimmers looked at the water with new suspicion. Over the next 12 years, the studios churned out three progressively more terrible Jaws instalments until, in the final film, a descendant of...

West fears nuclear talks with Iran are doomed to failure By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 25/05/2005) Make-or-break talks between Europe and Iran are doomed to failure and US military action will only delay, not halt, Teheran's suspected nuclear weapons programme, a leading think-tank predicted yesterday. In a gloomy assessment, the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies said America had no simple military way of stopping Iran going nuclear. It said the West's best hope was to buy time through diplomacy. IISS expressed alarm at the "erosion" of counter-proliferation measures, saying it could lead ultimately to terrorist groups such...

LOS ANGELES, May 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A hate message scrawled on the inside cover of a Qur’an copy has rekindled fears of increasing discrimination against American Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. “I was taken back to 9/11, my fear that somebody is going to hurt me,” Azza Basarudin, a graduate student, told a news conference at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles, reported Los Angeles Times on Thursday, May 19. She had discovered a “Death to all Muslims” message on the inside cover of a Qur’an copy she ordered from...

Professor Steven Calabresi of Northwestern University Law School maintains that the Democrats’ unprecedented filibuster of federal appellate-court nominees is driven by the party’s imperative to retain its political advantage with minorities and women. Professor Calabresi notes that nominees such as “Miguel Estrada, who is Hispanic, Janice Rogers Brown, who is African American, Bill Pryor, a brilliant young Catholic, and two white women, Priscilla Owen and Carolyn Kuhl.” are victims of Democrats’ determination “not to allow any more conservative African-Americans, Hispanics, women or Catholics to be groomed for nomination to the High Court with court of appeals appointments.” On the other...

Egypt tries to calm fears after bombing By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent (Filed: 02/05/2005) About 200 suspected Islamist sympathisers were arrested in Egypt yesterday following Saturday's terrorist attacks in Cairo, as the authorities moved to reassure thousands of foreign tourists that Egypt is safe to visit.The Foreign Office updated its Egypt travel advice by recording the latest incidents in which a male bomber blew himself up, and two women, his sister and fiancée, committed suicide after shooting at a tourist bus. "You should be aware of the global risk of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, which could be against civilian targets,...