h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'E-mails by several government scientists on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project suggest workers were planning to fabricate records and manipulate results to ensure outcomes that would help the project move forward.'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7361346/



Isn't that nice?

Combat in Turkey:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69AE5DFD-B416-4918-ABC5-AEB5DD8FD5E6.htm

128,000 killed in Iraq.

'An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.

Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.

'Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared. '

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050712-122153-5519r

'The George W. Bush administration may soon resume production of antipersonnel land mines in a move that is at odds with both the international community and previous U.S. policy on the weapons, says a leading human rights organisation.'

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29765

'Suspected Maoist guerrillas triggered a bomb blast in the eastern Indian state of Chhatisgarh late Saturday, killing 23 paramilitary soldiers . . .

Officials blamed the People's War Group, an outlawed ultra-leftist extremist group, for the attack. The mineral-rich, thickly forested region, which is spread over four states, lags behind the rest of the country in developmental indices like per capita income, public health and education.

The People's War Group and other outfits that describe themselves as "naxalites" have been fighting against the government, saying the local people are being denied land and royalty rights.

Thousands of security forces and extremists have died in the conflict. '

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/09/04/india.blast/index.html

'"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas. '



http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197

'Overseas, more than 200 fishermen over the years have been burned by mustard gas pulled on deck. A fisherman in Hawaii was burned in 1976, when he brought up an Army-dumped mortar round full of mustard gas.

It seems unlikely that the weapons will begin to wash up on shore, but last year's discovery that a mustard-gas-filled artillery shell was dumped off New Jersey was ominous for several reasons:

It was the first ocean-dumped chemical weapon to somehow make its way to U.S. shores.

It was pulled up with clams in relatively shallow water only 20 miles off Atlantic City. The Army had no idea that chemical weapons were dumped in the area.

Most alarming: It was found intact in a residential driveway in Delaware.

It had survived, intact, after being dredged up and put through a crusher to create cheap clamshell driveway fill sold throughout the Delmarva Peninsula.

The Army's secret ocean-dumping program spanned decades, from 1944 to 1970.'

http://www.unknownnews.org/0511111103chemicalweapons.html

Been a bit of a while, but the bad news continues:

First, to Madagascar:

'Madagascar has acknowledged the presence of the debilitating mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, which has affected some 180,000 people on the neighbouring Indian Ocean island of Reunion.'

http://allafrica.com/stories/200603060933.html

Yet another mosquito-borne virus starting to spread.


Next, Afghanistan (no, not Canadian soldiers being ambushed with axes):

'A recent survey shows that Afghan farmers are planting more poppy this year than in 2005, in what remains the world’s biggest opium producing country, the United Nations warned on Monday.'

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52042&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

Some of us may remember that one of the few bright spots of Taliban rule was the elimination of opium cultivation.

And, from Iraq (I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news):

'The Ministry of Interior has announced it will increase security measures to protect children from ongoing violence after a recent report cited shocking figures for children killed and injured in the past four months . . .

the report states that 64 children were killed and 57 injured in a total of 417 attacks on educational institutions since November 2005.

Additionally, more than 47 youngsters were kidnapped on their way to or from school for the same period. The report also noted that 311 teachers and government employees had been killed and another 158 wounded in attacks.'

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52018&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ

Oh my.

'Authorities in the Pakistani city of Lahore have banned kite flying after strings laced with glass powder killed seven people, including two children, ahead of an annual festival.'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/809F17A0-B615-46C6-B015-A9790A29CCC2.htm

Oh. Look.


'U.S. Willing to Deploy Combat Troops to Colombia'

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=9&ItemID=10031


hmm.


(of course, is there any place that Mr. Bush is not willing to deploy combat troops?)

I guess this comes under this thread really, though you probably are aware of it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1745489,00.html

"Photographs of victims of a secret torture programme operated by British authorities during the early days of the cold war "
" The men in the photographs are not Nazis, however, but suspected communists, arrested in 1946 because they were thought to support the Soviet Union, an ally 18 months earlier."

did you spot this one?
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/36D8D6BA-7F8C-4993-8FC7-FF6BDE657DDE.htm

"Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, an alarming number of the country's leading academics have been killed. A human rights organisation puts the number at about a thousand and has a documented list of 105 cases. These professors, it says, were not random casualties - they were assassinated."

Missed it.