Medvedev Shows Off Future World Money

7.13.09 / Alexandra Odynova / Moscow Times

After months of pushing for a new world currency, President Dmitry Medvedev had more than an idea to tout at his G8 news conference. He had the real thing.

With a broad grin, Medvedev held aloft a shiny gold coin Friday that he said represented a “symbol of unity” and a possible “future world currency.”

“I have some supranational currency in my pocket that I got as a souvenir. This is a test sample of a currency unit under the Unity in Diversity motto,” Medvedev said, holding the coin between two fingers.

“It is called the United Future World Currency. It can already be seen and touched,” he said, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s web site.

Examples of the coin, worth $3,900 and produced by the United Future World Currency, a group backing the idea of a global currency, was presented to all world leaders attending the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

The coin was made by Belgian Luc Luycx, who also designed one side of the Euro coins, and are called “eurodollars” in a symbolic call for a common currency to unite Europe and the United States.

Medvedev pulled out his coin when reporters asked him about new reserve currencies at the news conference that closed the three-day summit. “This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to solve such issues,” Medvedev said.

Russia and China have called for a “super currency” to replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the summit that the dollar’s supremacy as a reserve currency is outdated.

“This has become a regular theme now,” Medvedev said Friday. “We are discussing the creation or, to be more correct, the appearance of new reserve currencies, including the possibility of making the Russian ruble such a currency unit.”

U.S. to require contractors to use E-Verify

Starting Sept. 8, only those firms that use the online program, which checks whether employees are in the country legally and are authorized to work, will be eligible for federal contracts.

7.9.09 / Anna Gorman / LA Times

The Obama administration continued its push for a legal workforce Wednesday with an announcement that federal contractors and subcontractors would soon be required to verify that their employees are eligible to work in the U.S.

Beginning Sept. 8, the government will award contracts only to companies that enroll in E-Verify, an online program that uses federal databases to check whether employees are in the country legally and authorized to work. Businesses receiving money under the federal stimulus program also will be subjected to the rule, adopted under President George W. Bush but never implemented.

Separately, the Senate passed an amendment Wednesday that would mandate the use of E-Verify by federal contractors and subcontractors.

Napolitano’s move comes one week after her department notified more than 650 businesses nationwide of pending audits of their employment records. The department also recently issued guidelines for immigration agents to go after employers rather than just workers.

Supporters of E-Verify said the expansion of the effort to federal contractors and subcontractors would help crack down on illegal immigrants in the workforce and could help stem the flow of migrants across the border. Critics said mandating the program for federal contractors would only slow the country’s economic recovery.

Randel Johnson, vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday that although some employers hadn’t had any problems with E-Verify, others had received inaccurate information from the government’s database.

“It should be rolled out slowly and tested rather than being applied to the employer community immediately,” he said.

The chamber filed a lawsuit in 2008 to prevent the government from implementing the contractor requirement, arguing that the president did not have the authority to mandate a voluntary program.

Other business groups praised the administration for Wednesday’s move but said more needed to be done, such as legalizing undocumented workers.

“We believe, of course, that there has to be a mechanism to verify the legal work status of employees,” said Beto Cardenas, executive counsel to Americans for Immigration Reform, a Houston-based coalition of businesses. “But we also believe that immigration reform has to be brought.”

American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Jenny Chang Newell called the decision to abandon the no-match rule “a victory for all American workers.”

The ACLU was a plaintiff in the suit that prompted the ruling in San Francisco two years ago. But Newell said she had concerns about the E-Verify requirement and its potential to cause discrimination and unlawful firings based on inaccurate databases.

“Rather than punishing American workers for errors in the government’s own databases, the administration should enforce the workplace rights of all workers,” she said.e

Arizona Looks to Outlaw Global Warming Legislation

6.24.09 / Michael Andrews / Dailytech.com

One state looks to ensure its citizens do not have to pay for climate change efforts

Climate change is a controversial topic.  Some believe man is causing the world to warm.  Others point out that the Earth has undergone solar warming and cooling for millions of years and that current temperatures are well within historic levels.  A recent report challenging AGW theory showed significant support with 31,478 U.S. researchers and scientists, many of whom hold Ph.D’s, signing a statement that they believe that man has not played a part in the current warming trend.

Arizona is now close to becoming the first state to outlaw climate change legislation.  The state Senate voted Monday, 19-10 to approve a bill banning the Department of Environmental Quality from enacting or enforcing measures with language pertaining to climate change.  The bill is now awaiting House approval.

The bill will likely pass and be signed into law thanks to a switch in power.  Formerly, Janet Napolitano (D) was governor of the state, but she left to join Barack Obama’s Cabinet.  Napolitano was replaced by Jan Brewer (R), who has not indicated a strong desire to support AGW theorists.

If Senate Bill 1147 passes it will block rules passed by the DEQ that set harsher emission standards.  The proposed increases were hastily pushed through by the former governor, despite complaints from industry leaders.  It would also end work on “cap and trade” carbon legislation, which has been opposed by the utility industry.  Such a scheme could help to raise power prices for the state’s citizens significantly.

A passage could also give the state means to challenge the federal government in court over the proposed Waxman-Markey bill, which would put over $1,600 in yearly costs on American citizens to cut carbon emissions.  The legislation, which has also received criticism for potentially hurting farmers, is currently making its way through a Democrat controlled House and Senate, awaiting Barack Obama’s approval.

Greening the Internet: How much CO2 does this article produce?

7.10.09 / Lara Farrar / CNN

Twenty milligrams; that’s the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article.

How green is your website? Calculating all the factors involved in a website can be tricky.

Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of C02 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

This may not seem like a lot: “But in aggregate, if you consider all the people visiting a web site and then all the seconds that each of them spends on it, it turns out to be a large number,” says Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing.

Wissner-Gross estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one.

As millions more go online each year some researchers say the need to create a green Internet ecosystem is not only imperative but also urgent.

“It is part of the whole sustainability picture,” Chris Large, head of research and development at UK-based Climate Action Group, told CNN.

“Scientists are saying to us that we have 10 years to take some serious action to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change so taking some sort of initiative is absolutely vital.”

A number of studies have highlighted the growing energy demands of computers. A 2007 report from research firm Gartner, for example, estimates the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology generates about two percent of the world’s greenhouse gases — similar to the level produced by the entire aviation industry.

Anti-virus software firm McAfee reports that the electricity needed just to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually equals the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States while producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

“Most people don’t appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much C02 as a sports utility vehicle,” said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization.

“Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable,” added St. Arnaud.

What do you include when working out IT’s carbon footprint?

Calculating the carbon footprint of the entire web however is not as easy as measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of a car.

Data centers — massive buildings housing hundreds, if not thousands, of power hungry servers storing everything from Facebook photos and YouTube videos to company web sites and personal emails — are often labeled as the worst offenders when it comes to harming the environment.

In 2002, global data center emissions amounted to 76 million tons of carbon dioxide — a figure that is likely to more than triple over the next decade, according to a 2008 study by the Climate Group and Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).

The footprint of network infrastructure, which is responsible for transporting information from data centers to personal computers, mobile phones and other devices, is harder to pinpoint.

However the same study estimates fixed broadband accounts for around four million tons of carbon emissions and could account for nearly 50 million tons of emissions by 2020.

The manufacturing, transport and use of personal computers and laptops also has what some say is the most significant impact, producing roughly 200 million tons of emissions in 2002.

As millions of people buy new laptops and computers every year, this figure could triple by the end of the next decade, according to the Climate Group report. And it is also true that, like driving a car compared to taking public transportation, some online activities produce more greenhouse gases than others.

More electricity is needed to store, transmit and download a video compared to a simple email, for example. A single search using Google releases 0.2 grams of C02 into the atmosphere, according to Google.

“And what that includes is the energy that we at Google use to be able to receive your search, process it and then send it back to you,” Erik Teetzel, one of Google’s “green” engineers, told CNN.

“If people are counting things outside the activity that we do, then we don’t have control over that so we don’t factor that into the equation,” said Teetzel.

“We can measure exactly the number of queries that we service and come up with a very accurate estimate and answer from measured results of our actual emissions or energy use per query that we serve.”

The drive for energy efficiency

Citing competitive reasons, Teetzel declined to divulge Google’s annual power bill, yet he said the internet company has been taking steps to make its main six, five megawatt server farms green as well as the other, smaller data centers it has around the world. It is doing this by using more renewable energy, recycled water and efficient software that requires less electricity to run.

“From a business perspective, it makes sense to get the most what you want to call useful work done using the least amount of resources,” said Teetzel.

“Our energy efficiency efforts really did stem from us making our business more competitive.”

A number of other companies are also working to take the various pieces that comprise the infrastructure of the internet in a more sustainable direction. Wissner-Gross of Harvard has a company called C02Stats that enables businesses to monitor and manage the environmental impact of their web sites and then purchase renewable energy certificates based on their sites’ monthly carbon footprint.

Netherlands-based Cleanbits lobbies web sites to go green by either by purchasing carbon offsets or switching to green hosting providers, like AISO.net, a solar-powered data center based in California. And, like Google, Yahoo also incorporates renewable power and other efficiency measures in its data centers.

However as more of the world joins an age characterized by global flows of information and communication, some say the role the internet plays in making the lives of millions not only more efficient but also environmentally friendly should not be discounted.

“I don’t think we’ve done a good deal with articulating the fact that IT is inherently an efficiency tool,” said Teetzel. “That is why you and I use the internet now to find out a lot of information that would have previously been found by us getting in a car and driving somewhere.”

“It is a little bit unfair to say that you have this huge carbon cost of the IT industry without articulating the fact that in many, many cases it offsets what I would call heavier, more carbon intense activities that we do in our daily lives,” he added.

“Moving electrons is far more efficient than moving atoms. It is actually a paradigm change.”

Cymatics and The New Age of Miracles

Including an interview with Sir Peter Guy Manners, M.D.

Susan Barber / The Spirit of Maat

A Re-Soundingly Successful Experiment

Cymatics As Science

In the early 18th century, the German physicist Ernst Chladni, the ”father of acoustics,” covered plates with thin layers of sand, set them vibrating, and observed the patterns that were made in response to different sound stimuli.

In 1967, nearly three hundred years later, Hans Jenny, a Swiss doctor, artist, and researcher, published Cymatics – The Structure and Dynamics of Waves and Vibrations. In this book, published in both German and English, Jenny, like his precursor, showed what happens when one takes various materials like sand, water, or iron filings, and places them on vibrating metal surfaces.

When this is done, shapes and motion-patterns appear. Some of these patterns are nearly perfectly ordered and are stationary. Others develop in a turbulent, organic fashion, and are constantly in motion.

Jenny used crystal oscillators, and invented what he called a ”tonoscope” to set his plates and membranes vibrating. One of the most fascinating discoveries he made was that the vowels of Hebrew and Sanskrit, when toned into his media, formed the actual patterns of the letters themselves! Modern languages did not have this effect. All of which leads to the speculation that there may be some truth in the concept of a ‘’sacred language” — an actual, physical reason why the recitation of sacred mantras and texts may have real healing properties.

Jenny thought that evolution was a result of vibrations, with the vibrations of one level of organization, such as that of cells, each one unique, combining to create glands and organs and so on, each new level being a harmonic of the previous one. Jenny saw that we could heal the body with sound by understanding how different frequencies influence the genes, cells, and organs of the body.

Out of Jenny’s work, and that of other scientists in the late fifties, came the reality of using sound to transmute diseased cells into their healthy counterparts.

Enter the Age of Miracles

It was Sir Peter Guy Manners, British medical doctor, who collated the work that had been done in cymatics research and developed from it the therapy of Cymatics. Stated most simply, Cymatics therapy uses a toning device to transmit into diseased areas of the body the signature vibrations of healthy organs and tissues.

We called Dr. Manners at his academy in Bretforton, England. He told us that he had started off in ordinary medicine, but that a couple years into his training he’d reached a startling realization.

As part of my training, I and my fellow students would observe doctors in the process of treating their patients. And so we are sitting there with this doctor, and some patient comes in with a headache, and the doctor says, ‘Take these two tablets.’ And the patient goes off. But he comes back in a fortnight or so, a couple weeks, and he says, ‘Those tablets did the trick, but now I’ve got a little tummy upset.’ And we watch the doctor give him some different tablets, and he goes off. And then later this same patient is back again, ‘Oh, those tablets were wonderful, but now I’ve got a bit of diarrhea, you see.’

”And I realized, we started out with one patient, and now we’ve got three!”

Knowing that there had to be a better way of healing than what was taught to him in medical school, Dr. Manners traveled all over the world seeking to find out what other options existed for treating patients. He spent time studying with scientists in Germany (”I liked the kind of research they were doing”), Russia, and the United States.

Somewhere in his travels, Manners met up with Hans Jenny. ”He was interested in making forms and shapes with sound, and these coincided with the forms and shapes of anatomy and physiology,” Dr. Manners said. Out of this observation came Cymatics, or Bioresonance, therapy – the use of sound to transform diseased tissue into its healthy counterpart.

Cymatics probes are used to transmit bioresonance energy, in the form of electronic pulses, from the Cymatics instrument directly to human tissue. Another method of application is through fluids. Water or a homeopathic preparation is placed on a Bioresonance Energizer, which imprints the bioenergetic patterns into the solution. Also, there are units which can transmit bioenergy patterns into a bathtub or hydrotherapy unit. Yet another unit combines bioenergetic frequencies with color.

You can see how all of this works by realizing that there is no difference between the energetic pattern of an object and the object itself. We are made of energy. If we transmit a healthy frequency into diseased tissue, we cause it to take on the frequency — and thus, the actuality — of healthy tissue.

When asked what brings people to Cymatics therapy, Dr. Manners said, ”They choose it because a tremendous percentage want to move out of the drug scene.” And he stresses that, at least in the U.K., Cymatics has earned scientific recognition. “Scientists like it because its techniques can be explained and quantified, and the results are predictable. We know scientifically what will happen,” Manners said, ”if we transmit a certain combination of frequencies into the tissue.”

The instrument that is used to transmit sound vibrations into the human body is currently known as the Mark VI. It has replaced Mark I through V. ”This instrument,” Dr. Manners says, ”holds up to 390 commutations of frequencies, sounds which will regenerate organs and tissues in the body.”

Cymatics and the Fountain of Youth

Perhaps the most exciting possible application of Cymatics, as we indicate in the story that leads off this article, is its potential to reverse the aging process.

”When you’re born,” Dr. Manners said, ”every cell multiplies. Then, at puberty, the frequency patterns of the cells change, and instead of multiplying, cell replaces cell. As we age, cells still replace each other, but the tempo slows down.

”Within a few years of time we will be able to prevent this slowing down of cell replacement. And this can all be done with sound. If we take a frequency sample of your DNA at age 18, and save it, then later, if we transmit this frequency to your cells, they will rejuvenate.”

The Future of Advanced Medicine

Sir Peter Guy Manners is an M.D. ”But I don’t administer drugs,” he says. Drugs, he claims, are destructive. The type of medicine he practices is constructive. And although in the United States constructive healing modalities go under the name of ”alternative therapy,” in the United Kingdom they are referred to as Advanced Medicine. And the doctors who practice Advanced Medicine, instead of being hounded by professional and governmental organizations, may even aspire to knighthood.

”It used to be, when doctors didn’t know how to heal an arm or a leg, they just amputated it,” Manners said. ”By the year 2010, medicine as it’s known today will be as out of date as chopping off limbs. Prepare to accept the wonders of technology as established, scientific fact. Miracles will become the natural thing.

”Miracles,” concludes Dr. Manners, ”were simply things people didn’t understand. Today, we can explain miracles. Miracles fit right in with advanced technology.”

There are Cymatics clinics in many countries, and more Cymatics therapists are needed. If you would personally like to pursue Cymatics therapy, as a subject or as a career, Dr. Manners invites you to call or write to him. His contact information, biography, and more information about Cymatics can be found at cymatics.org.uk.

Pope calls for a world authority to lead return to ethical values

7.8.09 / Guy Dinmore / Financial Times

The Pope yesterday condemned the “grave deviations and failures” of capitalism that have been exposed by the financial crisis, calling on the eve of a summit of rich nations for a “true world political authority” to oversee a return to ethical values.

Benedict XVI made his call for stronger government regulation in his third and eagerly awaited encyclical, Charity in Truth, which the Vatican chose to issue ahead of today’s Group of Eight nations summit in Italy.

His attack on unbridled capitalism and unregulated market forces was accompanied by a critique of some international aid agencies, which he accused of encouraging abortion and imposing contraception.

While the pontiff’s call for a new world authority is unlikely to go down well with the G8 heads of government, his plea for financiers to adhere to stronger ethical standards will be reflected in a G8 communiqué urging stronger and more co-ordinated “global standards”.

Pope Benedict’s emphasis on the need for “forms of redistribution of wealth” is likely to stir debate at the summit, which will be attended by 39 heads of government and international institutions, over the failure of rich nations to honour their aid commitments.

Vatican observers noted that the timing of the encyclical, the most important transmission of papal teaching on key issues, demonstrated the readiness of the Pope to intervene directly in political developments. Within Italy, the pontiff has been attacked by secularists for what they see as his unwarranted interference in domestic affairs.

The Pope said that the “true world political authority” would have to “manage the global economy . . . revive economies hit by the crisis . . . [and] avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result”.

The authority would be “regulated by law” and “would need to be universally recognised and . . . vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights”.

“Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity so as to not abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers,” the Pontiff said. Pope Benedict will meet Barack Obama, US president, on Friday at the close of the three-day summit.

Problem-Reaction-Solution. AIG gets trashed by the media, then government has the excuse to do this. AIG is run by crooks of course, but I hope everyone can see where this is going.

AIG Seeks Clearance to Release Bonuses

7.10.09 / Liam Pleven & Deborah Solomon / Wall Street Journal

American International Group Inc. is asking the Obama administration’s new compensation czar whether it should pay previously agreed-to retention bonuses, including about $235 million pending for employees at the insurer’s controversial financial products unit, according to people familiar with the matter.

AIG asked Kenneth Feinberg to weigh in on the bonuses after the last round of multimillion dollar payments in March sparked an outpouring of public frustration amid the financial crisis. Before Mr. Feinberg was appointed, AIG had pledged to try to reduce the overall payments for this year’s performance to a few hundred employees at the financial products unit by 30%.

It had also delayed a much smaller set of payments to 40 high-ranking AIG officials that it is set to begin paying next week — payments for 2008 performance. Mr. Feinberg is expected to issue a decision on the 2008 payments although his primary job with regard to AIG will be to deal with compensation issues going forward, including whether to allow the company to pay bonuses slated for 2009.

The aim of the current negotiations with Mr. Feinberg, according to the people familiar with the matter, is to come to an agreement that lets employees keep enough of the promised bonuses to serve as an effective incentive, but reduces the payments by enough to make them more palatable to the public.

“We have been giving a lot of thought to this,” said an AIG official. “We don’t want there to be any surprises.”

The request from AIG puts Mr. Feinberg and the government in a potentially sensitive position of either having to endorse ongoing payments of whatever amount, or trying to block them and risk setting in motion employee departures that could prove costly to AIG and potentially the broader financial system.

Dealing with AIG is expected to be one of the thorniest tasks for Mr. Feinberg, who has the power to set pay for the top executives and design compensation structures for the most highly compensated 100 employees at seven firms receiving the most aid from the government.

The Obama administration was embarrassed in March after the original AIG bonuses were disclosed. The administration had been looking to rein in excessive pay, at one point proposing a salary cap for top executives.

President Barack Obama pledged to do all he could to recoup the money, but the administration concluded it couldn’t stop the payments because they were contractual obligations. A firestorm ensued, with Congress attempting to tax Wall Street bonuses.

More broadly, compensation has proved one of the most explosive issues amid the financial crisis, with companies scrambling to repay federal aid in part to avoid government scrutiny and control over their pay practices.

Any decision on AIG bonuses — and payments to employees at other firms receiving bailout money — will be scrutinized on Capitol Hill. Indeed, the administration tapped Mr. Feinberg in part to deflect some of the criticism.

The pending $235 million in retention bonuses at AIG’s financial products unit, whose woes were largely responsible for forcing AIG to the brink of bankruptcy court last year, are part of roughly $450 million in retention bonuses for that unit that AIG has previously disclosed. AIG agreed in early 2008 to make those payments, months before it received a government bailout. The first installment of those payments was made late last year, after the bailout.

The second installment came due in March, and it was the preparations to make those payments that set off the prior controversy. The next installment of payments to the financial products unit employees is not due to be paid for months. AIG has argued that it is obligated to make these payments, and that keeping employees in their jobs is crucial to avoiding additional losses on trades that the unit still has in place and is trying to wind down.

The government has said it stepped in to rescue AIG because it feared a collapse of the company could damage the broader financial system. In the bailout, the government has made up to $173 billion in aid available to AIG.

In a statement, Treasury said: “Companies will need to convince Mr. Feinberg that they have struck the right balance to discourage excessive risk taking and reward performance for their top executives. That process is just beginning now, and Mr. Feinberg has begun consulting with those firms about their compensation plans.”

[

ISRAEL ATTACKS JUSTICE BOAT; KIDNAPS HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS; CONFISCATES MEDICINE, TOYS AND OLIVE TREES

Free Gaza Team / 6.30.09 / FreeGaza.org

For more information contact:

Greta Berlin (English)

tel: +357 99 081 767 / friends@freegaza.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Caoimhe Butterly (Arabic/English/Spanish):

tel: +357 99 077 820 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.FreeGaza.org

[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm] – Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey.”

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in despair.” Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel’s December/January massacre are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel’s disruption of medical supplies.

“The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of “Cast Lead”. Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone” said fellow passenger Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated that: “No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters.”

Arraf continued, “Israel’s deliberate and premeditated attack on our unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand our immediate and unconditional release.”

###

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Justice

tel: +972 2646 6666 or +972 2646 6340

fax: +972 2646 6357

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

tel: +972 2530 3111

fax: +972 2530 3367

CONTACT Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office at:

tel: +972 5 0620 3264 or +972 2670 5354

mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

CONTACT the International Committee of the Red Cross to ask for their assistance in establishing the wellbeing of the kidnapped human rights workers and help in securing their immediate release!

Red Cross Israel

tel: +972 3524 5286

fax: +972 3527 0370

tel_aviv.tel@icrc.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Red Cross Switzerland:

tel: +41 22 730 3443

fax: +41 22 734 8280

Red Cross USA:

tel: +1 212 599 6021

fax: +1 212 599 6009

###

Kidnapped Passengers from the Spirit of Humanity include:

Khalad Abdelkader, Bahrain

Khalad is an engineer representing the Islamic Charitable Association of Bahrain.

Othman Abufalah, Jordan

Othman is a world-renowned journalist with al-Jazeera TV.

Khaled Al-Shenoo, Bahrain

Khaled is a lecturer with the University of Bahrain.

Mansour Al-Abi, Yemen

Mansour is a cameraman with Al-Jazeera TV.

Fatima Al-Attawi, Bahrain

Fatima is a relief worker and community activist from Bahrain.

Juhaina Alqaed, Bahrain

Juhaina is a journalist & human rights activist.

Huwaida Arraf, US

Huwaida is the Chair of the Free Gaza Movement and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Ishmahil Blagrove, UK

Ishmahil is a Jamaican-born journalist, documentary film maker and founder of the Rice & Peas film production company. His documentaries focus on international struggles for social justice.

Kaltham Ghloom, Bahrain

Kaltham is a community activist.

Derek Graham, Ireland

Derek Graham is an electrician, Free Gaza organizer, and first mate aboard the Spirit of Humanity.

Alex Harrison, UK

Alex is a solidarity worker from Britain. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Denis Healey, UK

Denis is Captain of the Spirit of Humanity. This will be his fifth voyage to Gaza.

Fathi Jaouadi, UK

Fathi is a British journalist, Free Gaza organizer, and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Mairead Maguire, Ireland

Mairead is a Nobel laureate and renowned peace activist.

Lubna Masarwa, Palestine/Israel

Lubna is a Palestinian human rights activist and Free Gaza organizer.

Theresa McDermott, Scotland

Theresa is a solidarity worker from Scotland. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Cynthia McKinney, US

Cynthia McKinney is an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice issues, as well as a former U.S. congressperson and presidential candidate.

Adnan Mormesh, UK

Adnan is a solidarity worker from Britain. He is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Adam Qvist, Denmark

Adam is a solidarity worker from Denmark. He is traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

Adam Shapiro, US

Adam is an American documentary film maker and human rights activist.

Kathy Sheetz, US

Kathy is a nurse and film maker, traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

###

The Dog Flu Virus: Are You or Your Pet at Risk?

6.29.09 / New York Times

In today’s Science Times, health reporter Donald McNeil writes about a new flu virus circulating in dogs. Mr. McNeil writes:

While fears of a flu pandemic among humans have shifted from the lethal H5N1 avian flu to the relatively mild H1N1 swine flu, the H3N8 canine flu has been a quiet undercurrent in the United States, rarely discussed except among veterinarians and dog owners in the few areas where it has struck hard: Florida, New York City’s northern suburbs, Philadelphia and Denver.

Dr. Cynda Crawford, co-discoverer of the dog flu virus.

This week, Dr. Cynda Crawford, one of the discoverers of the virus and a veterinarian at the University of Florida veterinary school, joins the Consults blog to answers readers’ questions about the dog flu and the first vaccine approved for it.

Read Mr. McNeil’s full story, “New Flu Vaccine Approved — for Dogs.”

Do you have a question about canine flu? Post your questions for Dr. Crawford in the “Add your comments” box below. We will be posting Dr. Crawford’s responses in the coming week. Check back for regular updates.