According to the Huffington Post, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) plans to introduce an amendment in Washington that would repeal Section 735 from the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, a provision that has put St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto in the sights of environmentalists around the world.Deep within the nearly 600-page spending bill, Section 735 includes language that lets biotech companies that experiment with genetically-engineered and genetically-modified crops test and sell lab-made products even if legal action is taken against them.“The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards,” dozens of farmers wrote the House of Representatives before the bill was passed in March. “Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks.”But despite pleas from agriculturalists around the world, both the Senate and House approved the spending bill — with Section 735 in tow — and the act was signed into law just days later by US President Barack Obama.Since being passed in late March, the spending bill has attracted immense criticism from all different sectors, including small-time farmers, Tea Party activists and even members of Congress. According to Huffington Post, however, Sen. Merkley is expected to be the first lawmaker in Washington to walk into the Capitol with a plan to repeal the amendment. HuffPo reported on Thursday that Merkley is planning to introduce an amendment on a separate farm bill going up to vote shortly that will reverse the so-called ‘Protection Act.’Should the prediction prove correct, it would suggest a change of heart for Sen. Merkley. According to the Vote Smart Project, Merkley was one of 73 senators that voted in favor of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act when it went up for vote on March 22. Only 26 senators voted ‘nay’ during that hearing, and the House approved it shortly thereafter.Monsanto has called Section 735 “a positive step to ensure US farmers and our food chain are shielded from supply disruptions caused by litigation over procedural issues unrelated to sound science or the safety of biotech crops.” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) told Politico earlier this year that he co-authored the language of the amendment along with Monsanto. Previously, Blunt received $64,250 from Monsanto to go towards his campaign committee between 2008 and 2012.Demonstrations are scheduled in 36 countries on six continents later this month for anti-Monsanto activists to come together and protest the company. Speaking to Bloomberg this week, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant said his critics exercise a “strange kind of reverse elitism” fueled by social media campaigns to condemn his company.“Most of the people that become motivated to engage the political issues have become convinced that going down the road of genetically engineered foods is not the way to meet the needs of a food insecure population,” Grant said. “There is space in the supermarket shelf for all of us.” … Read More
US weakens fracking rules
The US Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Thursday released its proposed update to hydraulic fracturing regulations, which would be the first update in three decades.The proposal would require companies to have a water-management plan for fluids that flow back to the surface. Fracking companies would be required to prevent toxic chemicals from leaking into groundwater.Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the new rules, calling them an initiative of a pro-energy Obama administration policy.“As the president has made clear, this administration’s priority is to continue to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production,” Jewell said in a BLM press release. “In line with that goal, we are proposing some commonsense updates that increase safety while also providing flexibility and facilitating coordination with states and tribes.”The 171-page document requires companies to verify that wells are drilled properly so that groundwater does not become contaminated, submit plans for managing drilling wastewater, and disclose injected chemicals.But environmental groups quickly accused federal officials of creating weak rules that contain dangerous loopholes that may be a risk to water supplies across America.“The rules protect industry, not people,” Natural Resources Defense Council president Frances Beinecke told the Denver Post. “This draft is a blueprint for business-as-usual industrialization of our landscapes.”The proposed regulations allow fracking companies to keep some of their chemicals exempt from disclosure, calling them ‘trade secrets’. Environmentalists have criticized the BLM for this, arguing that fracking companies could use dangerous chemicals near local communities that could pose an unknown risk, without having to report what they use. They also fail to require an evaluation of the security of cement barriers in individual wells. Oil and gas companies need only to have one of their wells tested for safety, and the government then assumes that the other wells are similar. “After reviewing the draft rules, we believe the administration is putting the American public’s health and well-being at risk, while continuing to give polluters a free ride,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, told EcoWatch. “The draft BLM rules ignore the recommendations of the president’s own shale gas advisory committee, which called for transparency, full public chemical disclosure, environmental safeguards, and pollution monitoring.”Environmentalists are particularly concerned about the potential contamination of drinking water across the US, and have criticized Secretary Jewell for letting them down.The federal government last year proposed a set of rules that called for full disclosure of fracking chemicals, but these rules were heavily criticized by Republicans and the fracking industry. By taking away the provision requiring full disclosure, the rules have a better chance of going into effect, but they don’t address the most serious concern held by environmentalists.“Comparing today’s rule governing fracking on public lands with the one proposed a year earlier, it is clear what happened: the Bureau of Land Management caved to the wealthy and powerful oil and gas industry and left the public to fend for itself,” Jessica Ennis of Earthjustice told EcoWatch.“Our public lands – and the people who live near them – deserve the highest level of protection,” she added. “Today’s rule could have set the gold standard. Instead the BLM is settling for shoddy protections peddled by the oil and gas industry.” … Read More
Apple Fights Back in Antitrust Case Over E-Book Prices
Amazon and five other publishing companies were already contemplating a move to a different pricing model before Apple entered the e-book business, Apple says in its defense against an antitrust lawsuit accusing it of conspiring to fix prices on electronic books,. … Read More
Big business eyes Iceland’s Arctic treasures
http://www.youtube.com/v/_YjA9qdRsnw?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Source: Big business eyes Iceland’s Arctic treasures
Cross-dressing at 30,000 feet: British billionaire dons skirt, lipstick to honor bet (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
The Virgin Group founder honored the bet by playing the role of a flight attendant, shaving his legs, and even putting on lipstick and a red skirt. The AirAsia flight – a company owned by Fernandes – took off in Perth, Australia, and landed near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The airline boss was also a passenger on the flight.Fernandes gave a harsh review of Branson’s skills as a flight attendant: “Out of 10, maybe one, for a bit of humor,” he told reporters.The Malaysian businessman then fired the new flight attendant after the tycoon deliberately knocked over a tray with a glass of orange juice directly onto Fernandez.”He looked at me, I said, ‘don’t you dare,’ and the next thing I know, he tipped the whole tray on me,” Fernandes said.Fernandes had to take his pants off to dry them. “He and the girls mopped it up, but I was walking around the flight in my underwear for a while because I didn’t bring another pair of trousers,” the head of Malaysia’s main low-cost carrier added.Upon landing, the tycoons took a picture together, but Fernandes said that he “wanted to kill him actually” for spilling the juice.”I always wanted to be an air hostess, but it looks like I have to get back to normality,” Branson told reporters.Branson lost the bet to Fernandes three years ago: In 2010, they wagered on which of their Formula One racing teams would finish ahead of the other by the end of the season. Fernandes’ Lotus team placed two spots ahead of Branson’s Virgin, which eventually finished in 12th place.The 62-year-old Branson is the 4th richest citizen of the United Kingdom, according to the Forbes 2012 list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion. His Virgin Group encompasses more than 400 companies, including record stores, airlines, railway companies, a radio station and a racing team. The tycoon is also famous for his multiple attempts to break world speed records. The flight helped raise money for an Australian foundation for hospitalized children. Each ticket reportedly cost around $400; 25 percent of the revenue will be given to charity. … Read More
San Francisco surrenders in fight over cell phone radiation law
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors said Wednesday that they will no longer pursue a years’ long fight to force cell phone retailers into warning customers of potential health risks.Had the ordinance gone into effect, it would have been the first of its kind in the country: retailers would be required to inform customers over the radiation emitted by mobile devices and possible links to cancer.After the “Right to Known” ordinance was approved by the Board in 2010, the city quickly found itself in court with cell phone industry reps determined to fight the decision. Telecom companies responded by getting a preliminary injunction against the ordinance, and a federal appeals court agreed to uphold that decision in 2012. San Francisco was considered challenging that ruling in yet another round of legal battles, but on Wednesday the city said they would retire that fight and would instead settle with the relentless wireless industry.Supervisor David Campos told the Associated Press that by not settling, the city could have been liable for more than a half million dollars in legal fees if they lost in court. In exchange for dropping the case, however, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association waived their right to force the city into paying any legal fees they would have incurred.”I think the legal reality is that if we don’t approve the settlement, we’re talking about having to pay $500,000 in legal fees,” Campos told reporters.For some, though, that’s a small price to place for some added security. “This is just a terrible blow to public health,” Ellen Marks, an advocate for the measure, told Reuters this week. Marks said her husband suffers from a brain tumor on the side of his head he holds his phone to.In an email to CNET, Marks — who also serves as director of the California Brain Tumor Association — blamed leadership in San Francisco on abandoning the fight.“The dynamics have changed in the chambers of City Hall,” she wrote. “Many other states and cities wanted to follow San Francisco’s lead.”CTIA Vice President John Walls hailed the news this week. “The US Court of Appeals in San Francisco has found that the FCC ‘has established limits of radiofrequency energy exposure, within which it has concluded using cellphones is safe,’” he wrote in a statement sent to the media. “Moreover, as the Federal District Court observed, ‘San Francisco concedes that there is no evidence of cancer caused by cellphones.’ The ordinance would have compelled retailers to make statements to consumers that the federal courts found were ‘misleading.’”Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule in 1996 requiring all cell phones sold in the United States to meet certain radiation levels, but according to the National Cancer Institute, research on the hazards posed are largely divided. The organization acknowledges on their website that the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers the radiofrequency fields (RF) emitted by phones “possibly carcinogenic to humans,” while the American Cancer Society believes evidence is not strong enough to be considered causal and needs to be investigated further.“The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) states that the weight of the current scientific evidence has not conclusively linked cell phone use with any adverse health problems, but more research is needed,” they add.On their website, the FCC says, “If there is a risk from these products–and at this point we do not know that there is–it is probably very small.” Others, though, are still insisting that more research needs to be completed before a determination could be made for certain.”If the nation’s experience with tobacco taught us anything, it is that it is dangerous to wait until there is scientific consensus about a potential health threat before providing consumers with information on how they can protect themselves,” Environmental Working Group researcher Renee Sharp told Reuters. … Read More
Obama to support Internet wiretapping program
The FBI has been considering solutions to their so-called “Going Dark” problem as intricate methods of encryption and advances in technology have made it increasingly difficult for the federal government and law enforcement to gain access to online communications conducted in the shadows of the Web. Should the latest efforts of the FBI move forward, though, Internet companies that act as any conduit for correspondence of any kind would be heavily fined if they don’t include in their infrastructure a way for the government to eavesdrop on that dialogue in real time.At a press conference in Washington, DC in March, FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said the Department of Justice was determined to have the means to wiretap any online communication by 2014 and called it “a huge priority for the FBI.” Further developments last month revealed that the FBI was considering a fine-based model under which Internet companies would be forced to comply or risk being penalized beyond repair.On Tuesday, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage cited Obama administration officials as saying the president “is on the verge of backing” that very plan.Savage explained that while companies would be allowed to operate without giving the government backdoor access, the fees would likely limit the number of entities willing to challenge the order. As RT reported last month, a company that doesn’t comply with the FBI’s orders would be fined $25,000 after 90 days. Additional penalties would then be tacked on every day an Internet service provider, website or other company fails to comply — with the price of the penalty doubling each day they don’t assist investigators.“While the FBI’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders,” wrote Savage. “The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.”Savage quoted a statement in his article from Weissmann in which the FBI attorney said, “This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority.” Instead, said Weissman, “None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.”“This always requires a court order,” he said.Coincidently, that same issue has had major developments in its own right this week. On Wednesday morning, CNET reporter Declan McCullagh wrote that the Justice Department circulated memos in which they insisted that obtaining a search warrant isn’t necessary to eavesdrop on Internet communication of any sort.“The US Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don’t need a search warrant to review Americans’ e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages and other private files, internal documents reveal,” wrote McCullagh, citing a government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET.According to McCullagh, those documents include very specific instructions from high-importance officials that demonstrate the Justice Department’s disinterest in applying established law when it comes to eavesdropping on Americans. While Weissmann made the argument that the FBI plan reportedly backed by the president won’t change what rules the DoJ operates by, the memos obtained by McCullagh paints the Obama White House as an administration unwilling to work with the already broad surveillance powers provided to it.In one memo unearthed by the ACLU, McCullagh said the US attorney for Manhattan instructed his office that an easy-to-obtain legal paper that requires no judicial oversight is all that’s needed to obtain personal correspondence.“[A] subpoena — a piece of paper signed by a prosecutor, not a judge — is sufficient to obtain nearly ‘all records from an ISP,’” McCullagh wrote.In another instance, McCullagh said the US attorney in Houston, Texas obtained the “contents of stored communications” from another ISP without getting a judge to sign a warrant.One current law that limits how and when authorities can obtain a suspect’s email pursuant to a criminal investigation, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, provides that while a warrant is needed for relatively recent correspondence, a comparably easier to get administrative subpoena is all that’s required to get communication older than 180 days. Provisions of the ECPA have been largely unchanged since it was passed in the mid-1980s, but last month a Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment that would require a warrant in all instances.In advocating for fewer restrictions when obtaining store communication, the FBI’s Wessmann said in April that another law, 1994’s Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, needs to be expanded so investigators can leap over current hurdles that keep them from conducting real time wiretaps of online discussions.“You do have laws that say you need to keep things for a certain amount of time, but in the cyber realm you can have companies that keep things for five minutes,” he said. “You can imagine totally legitimate reasons for that, but you can also imagine how enticing that ability is for people who are up to no good because the evidence comes and it goes.”In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, renewed calls across the country have been made to make it easier for investigators to quickly conduct surveillance — in and off the Web. A recent poll found that roughly two-thirds of Americans favored more surveillance cameras in public places, and now the nation’s top law officials are asking for increased spy power not just on the streets but on the Web.Earlier this month, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said at a discussion in Washington, “When you come across an advocate for one thing — an advocate for security, and advocate for privacy — they’re often arguing from a position without understanding that it’s a two-edged sword.”“For example, very strong encryption would allow you and I to have a very, very secure communication: If we were criminals, if we were dissidents, if we were martyrs or if we were just doing a little business,” he said. “If you could figure out a way to ban very strong encryption from evil people and only allow good people…then this would be easy,” he said. … Read More
