Monday, Jan 12th
Last update09:57:40 AM GMT
US aircraft manufacturer Boeing received at least $5.3bn (£3.3bn) in unfair aid from Washington, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has concluded.
The subsidies included money for research and development from the Nasa space agency, a panel of international trade judges has ruled. Last year the WTO said that Boeing's arch rival Airbus had received illegal aid from European governments.
As if U.S. troops serving in Iraq didn’t face enough risk to life and limb already, these servicemen and women are putting their long-term health at risk because the air in Iraq is so polluted.
A study begun in 2008 is finding that much of the air pollution in Iraq is of the most insidious sort – the very small dust particles that can make their way deep into the lungs and stay there. The study’s preliminary findings were presented late Wednesday at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim.
The Bush administration was so intent on keeping Guantanamo detainees off U.S. soil and away from U.S. courts that it secretly tried to negotiate deals with Latin American countries to provide "life-saving" medical procedures rather than fly ill terrorist suspects to the U.S. for treatment, a recently released State Department cable shows.
The U.S. offered to transport, guard and pay for medical procedures for any captive the Pentagon couldn't treat at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba, according to the cable, which was made public by the WikiLeaks website. One by one, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Mexico declined.
It looks like a giant potato in space. And yet, the information in this model is the sharpest view we have of how gravity varies across the Earth. The globe has been released by the team working on Europe's Goce satellite.
It is a highly exaggerated rendering, but it neatly illustrates how the tug we feel from the mass of rock under our feet is not the same in every location.
Gravity is strongest in yellow areas; it is weakest in blue ones.
While the nuclear crisis in Japan has focused attention on the risks of spent fuel piling up at the U.S.'s reactors, one curious fact has gone largely unnoted: There is $24 billion sitting in a "nuclear waste fund" that can't actually be used to pay for a safer way to store the waste at reactors.
In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and the federal government effectively struck a deal with the nuclear industry: Reactor operators and their customers would pay a tax on the waste they produced, and the government would use the money to create a safe place to store it for generations.
House Republicans will introduce legislation, likely by the end of this week, that would make it so that if Congress is unable to come to an agreement over an operating budget, the GOP’s version would simply become law of the land.
The bill, titled “The Government Shutdown Prevention Act,” is designed for the purposed described in its title. In terms of partisan equity, it’s lacking.
Belgium's parliament on Wednesday called for an independent arbitration committee to deal with years of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy and possible compensation for victims.
A special parliamentary committee unanimously approved a report, which also urges to extend the time for victims to come forward with their complaints to 15 years after adulthood instead of 10.
“I hope we can contribute to better relations between the two countries,” Jimmy Carter said describing his mission in visiting Havana this week. At a remarkable press conference as he left to return to the United States today he issued a powerful, resounding, call for major changes in US policy toward Cuba.
riefing reporters at the Palacio de Convenciones in Havana, Carter touched on virtually every key aspect of US-Cuban relations: the embargo, the case of imprisoned AID contractor Alan Gross, the Cuban Five, Cuba’s inclusion on the terrorism list and the need for greater freedoms—not only for Cubans but for American citizens who are restricted from traveling to the island.
AARP lobbied for the new health care law and now it stands to profit, Republican lawmakers charged Wednesday as they called for the IRS to investigate whether the powerful interest group representing older Americans should be stripped of its federal tax exemption.
Three veteran GOP representatives released a report that estimates the seniors lobby could make an additional $1 billion over 10 years on health insurance plans whose sales are expected to pick up under the new law. They also questioned seven-figure compensation for some AARP executives.
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