KABUL - The Afghan government plans to investigate whether the United States used depleted uranium during its invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and if it might be linked to malformed babies born afterwards.
Parts of Afghanistan, particularly the mountainous region of Tora Bora in the east — the suspected hideout of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden — came under heavy U.S. bombing in late 2001 when the Taliban regime was ousted. Depleted uranium is a heavy metal used in some weapons that can pierce armour. It has small levels of radioactivity associated with it.
Cases of malformed babies delivered in the heavily bombed Afghan areas have come to light, Faizullah Kakar, Afghan deputy public health minister for technical affairs said on Saturday, citing an unnamed U.S. expert.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8401/
Depleted uranium? NY Times readers just don’t know what that even is. The one serious story the NY Times printed about it in the last four years was a letter to the editor (June, 2006).
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Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.
Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.
Israel has been blockading Gaza most of the time since Hamas took control of the impoverished coastal strip in June last year, allowing only basic supplies to enter.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080417/pl_nm/palestinians_carter_dc
That was Reuters. The NY Times buried Carter’s quote towards the end of a long article entitled: “Palestinian Official Says Talks With Israelis Yield Little.” The story left out any reference to “crime,” and failed to describe the the cause of all that suffering. Israeli blockade of Gaza? What blockade?
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Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8405/
Genetically modified food a giant industry scam? Not to readers of the NY Times. The story never made it into print, although the fact that Monsanto’s earnings more than doubled appeared in the business section. In fact, the NY Times has often championed the potential of GM foods, especially in its supposedly unbiased Science Section. One might think the newspaper would at least print irrefutable evidence to the contrary.
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Pentagon Institute Calls Iraq War ‘a Major Debacle’ with Outcome ‘in Doubt’
WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.
The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.
The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/18/8368/
For the NY Times, there is no “major debacle” as long as the story doesn’t get printed. Omissions like this are not made by mistake. The NY Times often leaves out stories critical of the Iraq occupation, no matter how well documented.
