Saturday, Nov 08th
Last update10:03:42 AM GMT
The first of more than 100 countries have begun signing a treaty to ban current designs of cluster bombs, at a conference in Oslo, Norway. Campaigners are hailing the treaty as a major breakthrough.
But some of the biggest stockpilers, including the US, Russia and China, are not among the signatories.
TVNL Comment: The strongest military powers in the world, including Israel, refuse to sign. How is this a 'major breakthrough' rather than a 'major failure'?
The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.
For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.
Security experts say focus is shifting from analyzing the content of carry-ons to analyzing the content of passengers' intentions and emotions.
"We are seeing a needed paradigm shift when it comes to security," says Omer Laviv, CEO of ATHENA GS3, an Israeli-based security company.
"This 'brain-fingerprinting,' or technology which checks for behavioral intent, is much more developed than we think."
TVNL Comment: How is that for freedom and liberty? Are our troops going to protect us from this violation of our freedom and liberty?
A Muslim American contends that he was tortured and beaten into confessing to a terrorism-related charge while the security services of the United Arab Emirates held him for nearly three months, allegedly at the U.S. government's request, his brother said Tuesday.
Hossam Hemdan, of Los Angeles, said he received a predawn telephone call from his brother, Naji Hamdan, who he said detailed his treatment by the security services of Abu Dhabi, one of seven oil-rich UAE sheikdoms that have cooperated in the Bush administration's fight against Islamic extremism since 9/11.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that will allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining.
The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years.
About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work.
Najlaa International Catering Services, a subcontractor to KBR, an engineering, construction and services company, hired the men, who're from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. On Tuesday, they staged a march outside their compound to protest their living conditions.
Brand-name drugs used to treat cardiovascular disease are no better than generics, a new review of available evidence shows.
Yet a number of editorials in medical journals, written by specialists, have urged against substituting the less expensive generics for their designer counterparts.
The United Nations expressed concern Tuesday about overcrowding and "grave human rights violations" of detainees in Iraqi custody - in one case, 123 men crammed into a single cell.
The warning comes as the U.S. prepares to turn over control to the Iraqis of thousands of security detainees in its custody under a new security pact that would end the U.S. mission here by 2012.
TVNL Comment: Heckuva job, UN. Where've you been for the last six and a half years?
There's a strong link between media exposure and childhood obesity, smoking and sexual activity, according to U.S. researchers who reviewed 173 studies on media and health conducted over the past three decades.
According to the review, 80 percent of the studies concluded that higher amounts of television and other media exposure were associated with negative health effects in children and adolescents. The strongest association was between media and obesity. Of the 73 studies that examined media/childhood weight, 86 percent showed a significant association between increased media exposure and obesity.
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