Earlier this summer, a group of scientists spent two weeks in Indonesia atop a glacier called Puncak Jaya, one of the few remaining tropical glaciers in the world. They were taking samples of ice cores to study the impacts of climate change on the glacier.
Lonnie Thompson, a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, led the team and what he witnessed shocked him: The glacier was literally melting under their feet.
Scientist Watches Glacier Melt Beneath His Feet
Outgoing NATO deputy regrets early optimism on Marjah
NATO commanders were overly optimistic when they predicted quick success taking the key Taliban-held town of Marjah last winter, the outgoing deputy commander said.
There are now fledgling signs of a turnaround, but burned once by Marjah's unpredictability, the military will be more restrained in forecasting success, British Lt. Gen. Nick Parker told reporters Saturday at the headquarters of the NATO-led force.
Federal grand jury indicts associates of Beverly Hills firm in human-trafficking case
In what authorities call the largest human-trafficking case in U.S. history, a federal grand jury in Honolulu this week indicted the owner and four employees of Global Horizons Manpower Inc., along with two Thai labor recruiters, on charges of engaging in a conspiracy to coerce the labor of those workers and about 400 other Thai nationals.
"The case is mind-boggling," said Chanchanit Martorell, executive director of the Thai Community Development Center, which has worked on the case for seven years and played a pivotal role in half a dozen other human-trafficking cases involving Thai workers. "It is by far the largest and most protracted case we've ever worked on."
Bid to suspend California global-warming law gets $1 million from Koch brothers' firm
The fight over a November ballot initiative to suspend California's global warming law has escalated sharply with the Koch brothers, oil billionaires and "tea party" backers, making a million-dollar entry into the fray.
The contribution to the campaign for Proposition 23 came Thursday from a subsidiary of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest private company (after the agribusiness giant Cargill). A spokeswoman for the subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources, said the company "may consider additional support." The Kochs' company has estimated annual revenues of $100 billion, owns refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota, and controls about 4,000 miles of oil pipelines.
Powell: Iraq invasion was avoidable, regrets false WMD intelligence
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told the Mainichi he believes the Iraq War -- which began while he was in office in 2003 -- could have been averted.
Powell also stated during an Aug. 24 telephone interview that he regretted the false intelligence that led the United States to claim the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which Powell presented to the United Nations and which underpinned the U.S. case to invade Iraq.
Flying the Flag; Faking the News
Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, "Propaganda," published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the "intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society" and that the manipulators "constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country." Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism "public relations."
Former Egg Farm Employees Say Their Complaints Were Ignored: Report
Two former workers at one of the two Iowa egg farms implicated in the massive recall of salmonella-contaminated eggs said federal inspectors who worked at the two farms ignored complaints about conditions at one of the sites, the Associated Press reported Friday.
The two workers, employed at Wright County Egg facilities, said they reported problems such as leaking manure and dead chickens to U.S. Department of Agriculture employees, but nothing was done, the news service reported.
Blackwater Won Contracts via Web of Companies
Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.
While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.
Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography
The Pentagon declined to investigate more than 200 employees or contractors who purchased child pornography online, according to a report from Yahoo! News.
According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service identified 264 Defense employees or contractors who used their credit cards or Paypal to purchase pictures online of children in sexual situations in 2006. But DCIS investigated only 52 of those suspects, and only 10 were ever charged with viewing or purchasing child pornography, the report said.
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