Free Republic

N.Y. Orders Power Plants to Cut Emissions New York Issues Emergency Order to Cut Acid Rain Emissions, Citing Public Health Emergency ALBANY, N.Y. Aug. 17, 2004 — Citing what they called a public health emergency, New York officials on Tuesday ordered power plants to reduce emissions blamed for acid rain. State Environmental Conservation Commissioner Erin Crotty announced the emergency order aimed at reducing admissions at least temporarily. At the same time, she announced an appeal of the decision by a state judge this spring that had blocked the same regulations from taking effect permanently. "These regulations are critical in order...

Pension Money Flowing to Rogue States NEW YORK — Do you know where your investment cash is going? If you are in a public pension fund, there's a good chance that you may be unknowingly investing in companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states. America's largest and most prominent public pension systems invest between 15 and 23 percent of their portfolios in such companies, according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Security Policy. "One of the things that has been of prominent concern to us as national security professionals is the role that financial, economic, technology and...

Green Wealth: Funding the Enemy Green and animal rights organizations do not subsist on the sale of calendars, books, and stuffed animals. They are wealthy beyond the comprehension of most Americans and others who support them in the belief they are "protecting the environment" and saving animals from "cruelty" and "extinction." You will be astonished to learn that there are more than 4,000 environmental groups in America today. "And the number is growing," warns Ron Arnold of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, "and they are really out to get you." Worse, they have the clout and the...

Posted on Fri, Aug. 13, 2004 Some asylum seekers harassed at U.S. airports, U.N. report says By Rachel L. Swarns NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON - A confidential report conducted by the United Nations in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security has found that airport inspectors with the power to summarily deport undocumented immigrants have sometimes intimidated and handcuffed travelers fleeing persecution, discouraged some from seeking political asylum and often lacked an understanding of asylum law. Homeland Security officials say they have responded to the problems identified in the report, which was completed late last year and obtained this week...

United Nations wages war on capitalism As if our nation's free-market ideal isn't damaged enough -- witness, if you will, the generally lengthy permitting process for businesses and the prevalence of zoning laws, environmental mandates, eminent domain abuses and hefty tax burdens that plague our would-be entrepreneurs and developers in nearly every county, city and state across America. Now comes the United Nations, with its Global Compact Center and its Responsible Investment Initiative. Announced in July at the four-month-long "Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona 2004," both these programs are thinly veiled attacks against capitalism that, left unchecked, will result...

American Petroleum Institute to Act as Principal United Nations Standard Products and Services Code Representative of the Oil and Natural Gas Industry LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 9, 2004--The Uniform Code Council, Inc.(R) (UCC(R)) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) today announced an agreement by which the API will develop the voluntary global classification standards of the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code(R) (UNSPSC(R)) for the oil and natural gas industry. The UCC is a leader in facilitating efficient international business and is the code manager of the UNSPSC. The UNSPSC is a widely adopted global standard for classification of products...

Plans for terrorist plots on US targets found More than 1,000 computer disks holding details of previously unknown terrorist plots on the US were seized during raids by MI5 and police in Britain, according to US intelligence sources. The reports were found during raids in London, Luton, Bushey and Blackburn in which 13 people were arrested. They contain information that officials in Washington say could lead to more security alerts similar to the one which pinpointed five financial targets in Washington and New York. The new information is believed to point to an attempt to attack the US during the...

Immigration suspect taped Texas landmarks By Jack Douglas Jr. Star-Telegram Staff Writer Police in Dallas, Houston and Austin are on increased alert after the arrest of a Pakistani man who had videos of buildings, transit systems and a dam in Central Texas. But state officials said Tuesday there was "no known credible threat" of a terrorist plot in Texas following the July 20 arrest in Charlotte, N.C. of Karman Akhtar, 34, also known by the last name Shaikh. Akhtar has drawn the attention of state and federal terrorism investigators but is being held in North Carolina only on federal charges...

UNITED NATIONS Bribery Inquiry Needs a Year, Its Chief Says aul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve who heads a United Nations-appointed panel investigating charges of corruption in its oil-for-food program in Iraq, said yesterday that he would need at least $30 million, a staff of 60 and probably another year to determine whether United Nations officials took bribes or engaged in other corruption while administering the huge relief program. Speaking at a news conference near the panel's temporary offices next to the United Nations, Mr. Volcker said his staff of 50, more than half of them...

‘Sustainable Development’ is the Evil You Face More Articles On July 23, 2004, Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, addressed the fifth annual Freedom 21 Conference in Reno, Nevada. The following is his address on the agenda, the threat, and the defeat of "Sustainable Development." By Tom DeWeese My friends, we come here today from many walks of life. A wide variety of reasons got each of us started on the road to activism. Some of us started simply because we noticed something funny about our child’s curriculum in school. Some of us were outraged by government trying...

Second Human Mad Cow Blood Case Raises Concerns MORE By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's second suspected case of transmission of the human form of mad cow disease through a blood transfusion could mean more people will become infected with the deadly illness, a medical expert said Friday. Professor James Ironside, of the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh, which monitors and studies the illness, said the case shows blood transfusion is an effective means of transmission and that people with different genetic makeup from previous patients are also susceptible. "The patients we have seen so far may just...

Free trade on track The latest news out of Geneva should give heart to those who have refused to give up on a bigger and better free-trade agreement among the nations of the world. To be sure, the tentative agricultural deal hammered out by negotiators is no breakthrough, but it does represent a significant victory by free-trade proponents over inertia, pessimism and self-interest. In Geneva, the United States and the European Union agreed to reduce and, ultimately, to eliminate agricultural subsidies. These amount to nearly $300 billion worldwide and represent an obstacle to the aspirations of developing countries that want...

Whistleblower explodes 9-11 Commission Report By Ritt Goldstein The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's own September 11 whistleblower has done it again, this time taking aim at the 9-11 Commission itself. Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who has in effect been silenced by the bureau and the US Justice Department, said in an open letter to commission chairman Thomas Kean that the FBI had suffered from a litany of errors and cover-ups of those errors, which had been reported to the 9-11 Commission by Edmonds and others, yet the commission report "contains zero information regarding these systemic problems that led...

Associated Press Study: Wal-Mart Policies Cost Taxpayers Monday August 2, 8:37 pm ET By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer Study: Calif. Taxpayers Pay $86M Annually to Subsidize Wal-Mart Workers' Public Assistance SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s compensation policies cost California taxpayers $86 million annually to provide health care and other public assistance to the retailer's underpaid workers, according to an analysis released Monday. Wal-Mart disputed the study by the University of California Berkeley's Institute for Industrial Relations, contending many of its key findings are badly flawed. The study estimated Wal-Mart employs roughly 44,000 California workers who make an...

Medicare Will Foot the Bill for an Initial Exam at 65 ASHINGTON, July 27 - The Bush administration announced plans on Tuesday to pay for initial comprehensive physical examinations for new Medicare beneficiaries, starting next year, and it said Medicare would also cover screening tests for cholesterol and diabetes for people already in the program. As a result of incremental changes in the last few years, Medicare now covers a wide variety of preventive services. The latest changes, authorized by the new Medicare law, take effect on Jan. 1, a year before outpatient drug benefits will become available. The "welcome...

U.S. Indicts Muslim Charity in Texas U.S. Indictment Charges Texas Muslim Charity, 7 Men With Providing Millions of Dollars to Hamas The Associated Press WASHINGTON July 27, 2004 — A major American Muslim charity and seven of its officers were charged Tuesday with providing millions of dollars in support to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization blamed for dozens of suicide bomber attacks in Israel. The 42-count indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Dallas, alleges that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development provided more than $12.4 million to individuals and organizations linked to Hamas from 1995 to...

When Grozny comes to Fallujah Do not be surprised to see three or four divisions of the Russian army in the Sunni triangle before year-end, with an announcement just prior to the US presidential election in November. Long rumored (or under negotiation), a Russian deployment of 40,000 soldiers was predicted on July 16 by the US intelligence site www.stratfor.com, and denied by the Russian Foreign Ministry on July 20. Nonetheless, the logic is compelling. Russian support for US occupation forces would make scorched earth of Senator John Kerry's attack on the Bush administration's foreign policy, namely its failure to form...

WTO Chief: 'Lot of Work' Needed for Deal GENEVA (Reuters) - World Trade Organization (WTO) chief Supachai Panitchpakdi said on Tuesday "a lot of work" was needed if rich and poorer countries were to reach a key deal this week on shaping a new global trade. Supachai's downbeat comments came as ministers from around 35 countries gathered to reinforce their diplomats in talks aimed at getting the WTO's struggling three-year-old Doha Round of free trade negotiations back on track. "We are expecting countries to adopt a flexible stance ... but we still have a lot of work to do in...

Immigrants unite to gain rights and legal standing With help from advocacy groups, they try to change government footdragging By Lydia Chavez, CORRESPONDENT Meet Emilia Otero, Socorro Campos and Stacy Kono. They are on the front lines of local movements that disregard the esoteric political debate of immigration policy and deal with the reality of an ever-growing immigrant population. Sometimes they are an individualwith a good heart -- Otero; a businessman with a memory of his own hardships -- Campos; or an advocate who works with a nonprofit -- Kono. But, in myriad ways, individuals, alone or through nonprofits and...

Terror in the Skies, Again? By Annie Jacobsen A WWS Exclusive Article Note from the E-ditors: You are about to read an account of what happened during a domestic flight that one of our writers, Annie Jacobsen, took from Detroit to Los Angeles. The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to handle this information and ultimately we decided it was something that should be shared. What does it have to do with finances? Nothing, and everything. Here is Annie's story. On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to...