Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Eco Watch:
"Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal.
More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young people—nearly 200,000 kids—tested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating.

More than 120 childhood cancers have been indicated where just three would be expected, says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.

The nuclear industry and its apologists continue to deny this public health tragedy. Some have actually asserted that 'not one person' has been affected by Fukushima’s massive radiation releases, which for some isotopes exceed Hiroshima by a factor of nearly 30. But the deadly epidemic at Fukushima is consistent with impacts suffered among children near the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, as well as findings at other commercial reactors."

-->The NYT is one of the chief deniers of public health dangers of nuclear disasters. In their pro-corporate "Science Section," nuclear energy, GMO farming, and chemical herbicides are always given the benefit of the doubt. It didn't print this story. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html?ref=topics&_r=0

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Common Dreams:
"Israeli forces on Friday killed six Palestinians, including at least two teenagers, who were taking part in a demonstration along the Gaza border. Hundreds of protesters were gathered there in solidarity with Palestinians residing in the West Bank, where a spate of violence in recent weeks has added to fears of growing unrest.

An Israeli army spokesperson said there were 200 demonstrators, and that 'Forces on the site responded with fire toward the main instigators to prevent their progress and disperse the riot.' According to the army, the protesters were throwing rocks and rolling burning tires toward the military forces.

'The Israeli army uses snipers, and most of the wounds are in the head and throat,' Haaretz reports Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry, as saying.

Joel Greenberg writes for the Financial Times that an 'Israeli spokeswoman could not explain why troops had not instead used non-lethal crowd control weapons.' "

-->The NYT doesn't use the word "sniper" when describing Israeli troop actions. It didn't print this article, although it carried a Reuters story dealing with Palestinian deaths in its on-line edition. 

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The Guardian UK:
"African-American citizens are being failed by the US criminal justice system because of ingrained racial bias in the way suspects are treated, according to the head of the United States’s largest legal professional body. Paulette Brown, who became the first black female president of the American Bar Association (ABA) in August, is determined to transform the negative image that many people hold of lawyers. ...

But after going to Ferguson, Missouri, and other places where there have been protests over the treatment of black suspects, she has also become more concerned about the way defendants are processed through US courts. 'One in 16 African Americans are subjected to the criminal justice system,' Brown explained, 'compared to one in 106 of white people. A lot of that is drugs. The evidence, however, shows that black people don’t use drugs any more [than white people].'

'But they are being arrested for it and charged with it [more frequently] and some of that is implicit bias - particularly on the part of prosecutors. Prosecutors are overcharging.' She added: 'Ninety-five percent of all prosecutors are white; 88% of all lawyers in US are white.' "

--> Paulette Brown's words have to be read in a foreign paper, however. The NYT didn't think this story about American bias in its criminal justice system was worthy of printing.