For years, activist groups in Europe thought that Manfred Schlickenrieder was a leftist sympathizer and filmmaker. He traveled around Europe, interviewing a broad spectrum of activists, and even produced a documentary video, titled Business As Usual: The Arrogance of Power, about human rights groups and environmentalists campaigning against the Shell oil company. In reality, Schlickenrieder was a spy, and Shell was one of his clients. His film and his activist pretensions were merely cover designed to win the confidence of activists so that he could infiltrate their organizations and collect "inside information" about their goals and activities.
The ugly truth about doctors, PR firms, drug companies and the "worrying" case of Paxil
You can't buy it yet, but a drug is being developed in labs in Australia and the US that may prove to be the ultimate lifestyle enhancer - you'd get a fantastic tan and a highly active libido, with a slim figure and clear skin as possible side-effects. It's been tagged 'the Barbie drug', but has serious origins as a treatment for skin cancer and sexual dysfunction.
Percentage of Americans who would sign away their right to sue the maker of a pill that could make part of their body bigger : 3
Percentage who say they would do so for the maker of a pill that could make part of their body smaller : 6
Chance that a prescription drug approved by the FDA will be recalled or require relabeling within 25 years of its release : 1 in 5
Chances an American believes the government should regulate comedy routines that make light of terrorist attacks : 2 in 5
Number of references to Israeli "retaliation" on U.S. network nightly newscasts between September 2000 and March 2002 : 118
Number of references to Palestinian "retaliation" : 14
Homeland security chief Tom Ridge says the threat of terrorism may force government planners to consider using the military for domestic law enforcement, now largely prohibited by federal law.
Former President George Bush puts his hands to his face while talking about his recent dermatological treatment for sun-induced keratosis, as he finished a round of golf with his son President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, Saturday, Aug. 03, 2002. The lesions, caused by sun exposure over the years, are not skin cancers and are effectively eliminated though treatment, but can leave the skin inflamed.
Aug 04, 2002
As the debate about a U.S. invasion of Iraq continues in Washington, President George W. (PRNewswire)
Bush's administration is quietly getting ready for a fight, Newsweek reports in the current issue. U.S. munitions plants have put on extra shifts to rebuild arsenals depleted during the Afghan war, and a few hundred uniformed personnel are working as advance teams in Jordan and elsewhere, assessing the need for new airstrips, wider roads and the like, Newsweek reports. And even before Saddam Hussein became a priority target, the U.S. Department of Energy was working to get America's strategic petroleum reserve up to its full capacity of 700 million barrels -- enough to meet U.S. energy needs for more than 80 days in a crunch, report National Security Correspondent John Barry and Diplomatic Correspondent Roy Gutman in the August 12 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, August 5).
(Washington Post)
July 30, 2002
JERUSALEM, July 29 -- Backing out of a concert performance with the legendary conductor Zubin Mehta is like skipping a golf date with Tiger Woods or a dinner with Julia Child. But the unthinkable is becoming epidemic here as the world's great musicians take a pass on Israel because they fear for their security or disagree with the government's policies.
"Fifty percent or more of the foreign artists have canceled," said Mehta, music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In the current production of Richard Strauss's opera "Salome," he said, "we've had eight cancellations in the cast."
The orchestra announced today that it was forced to cancel an eight-concert tour in the United States next month because no insurance company would cover the performances due to concerns about possible terrorist attacks, said a spokeswoman for the orchestra, Dalia Meroz.
"They think our orchestra is a target for terrorism," Meroz said.
Israel also used to be a regular stop on the pop music circuit, hosting the likes of Madonna, Eric Clapton, R.E.M. and Santana. But it has been more than a year since a mega-star played here. In some cases, Israeli artists have been disinvited from playing abroad. And the Tel Aviv film festival was canceled this year because the organizers feared no stars would come.
The problem goes beyond the arts. In March, the European football federation suspended soccer matches in Israel, citing security concerns. Israeli home games are scheduled to be played in Cyprus.
Influential academics, angry at the Israeli government's actions against Palestinians, are pushing a boycott of Israel that hundreds of university professors have joined. And on the economic front, some Norwegian supermarkets label Israeli products with stickers so customers can decide whether to buy them.
"Israel is not the flavor of the month, that's for sure," Mehta said. "The world is turning against it."
While there is little evidence of an internationally coordinated anti-Israel boycott of the sort aimed at South Africa in the 1980s, a sense of isolation is taking hold here, along with a concern that Israel is being shunned, dealing a blow to its national psyche and its decades-long drive for acceptance.
"Israel has always wanted to be integrated. It's an obsession," said Calev Ben-David, managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, who complained that "even the traditional supporters of Israel are not coming" these days.
"Never since the worst days of the Lebanon war has Israel felt so alone and isolated," he said, referring to the Israeli invasion of its northern neighbor in 1982. "We're not looking just for integration anymore. We're looking for any sign of solidarity and acceptance we can get. We really need a boost. We'd give the Palestinians a state if Bruce Springsteen would come."
Many artists have canceled appearances because of concerns about Palestinian suicide bombers who have attacked buses, hotels, restaurants and nightclubs. There is also a growing fear here and abroad of a large terrorist attack like those in New York and at the Pentagon on Sept. 11.
But many Israelis say that while security concerns are almost always the sole reason given for the cancellations, they believe many people are not coming because they oppose Israel's actions in the conflict with Palestinians but do not want to say so publicly.
"During the wars, there were always cancellations for reasons of personal security, but this time it's a very different story," said a Hebrew University philosopher and political scientist, Yaron Ezrahi.
"There is a moral issue about coming to [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's Israel when it is engaged in actions which appear to be excessive," he said. "This excommunication only reinforces the idea that the whole world is against us because we're Jews."
Such was the case last month at the Israel Festival, one of the country's biggest cultural events. Three groups -- a dance troupe from Belgium and orchestras from Germany and Italy -- canceled at the last moment.
The groups from Germany and Italy cited security concerns. But the Belgian group -- a 34-member troupe called Rwanda '94 that stages performances about the massacre of more than a half million ethnic Tutsis -- said its reasons were overridingly political.
"There was genocide of the Jews, then there was genocide in Rwanda, and now Israel is trying to get rid of the Palestinians," said the group's music director, Gareth List, explaining that most of the people in his troupe "oppose the way Palestinians have been treated for the last 54 years."
Similar concerns prompted more than 200 painters, photographers, poets and other artists to endorse an Internet petition calling on their peers to "cancel all exhibitions and other cultural events that are scheduled to occur in Israel" because "the art world must speak out against the current Israeli war crimes and atrocities."
Many people, however, are genuinely concerned about their safety, event organizers said. Others cite personal or professional conflicts or medical excuses, which organizers said they sometimes read as a tip-off that the real problem is political.
"Nobody says it openly," Mehta said. "At the moment they say, 'Look, my family just won't let me go.' That's usually what they do."
But the security concerns are real, he said, and apparently have played a role in the decision of many stars not to come.
"I say, 'I'm going, and I cannot force you,' " said Mehta, 66, the former director of the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics, who spends about nine weeks a year in Israel. "I cannot guarantee them 100 percent safety. My mother sits in Los Angeles and is shaking every day. If I don't call twice a day, she's nervous."
"My parents, my uncle in Kalamazoo, my good friends all along kept saying they wished I would cancel," said Susan Anthony, an up-and-coming American soprano who took over the title role in "Salome" when opera great Jane Eaglen canceled for security reasons. "There was a bombing less than a mile from my hotel three days ago, and the cast was on the phone with each other -- turn on CNN! -- and then the families try to get through to make sure you're not down there."
Lia van Leer, founder and director of the Jerusalem Film Festival, said her event typically draws as many as 200 foreign actors, directors and other film industry people, but this year attracted only about 60, and no one of the stature of such past attendees as Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Kirk Douglas.
"It's awkward. They have another agenda, they're starting another film, they have a vacation scheduled -- and I can't blame them," she said. But for the most part, "it's not a boycott for political reasons, it's only a boycott because people are afraid to come here."
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which hosts chamber music performances, had so many cancellations by foreigners this year that it recently decided to book only local artists for its next concert season. And the Tel Aviv film festival, which was canceled this year for the same reason, has been postponed indefinitely, said Edna Fainaru, the festival's founder.
The pop music scene has been particularly hard-hit, said the Jerusalem Post's Ben-David, who has covered the arts scene in Israel for more than 10 years.
"Rock stars who live totally on the edge are afraid to come here," he said. At the same time, "the rock community tends to veer toward a left, politically correct line, and to some degree it has become politically impossible in that community" to perform in Israel.
"Before, any big band coming from the U.S. to Europe would drop by Israel. That's over," said Shuki Weiss, a top concert producer who has brought David Bowie, Bob Dylan and other top acts to Israel.
"The general idea for the last 20 years was to put Israel on the map, and with all modesty, we succeeded very well," he said. "But now, when you see all the familiar big names going to Europe or on world tour and you are not considered, it's a strange feeling of isolation. It's set us back six years."
Not only are international artists shunning Israel. In a few cases, Israeli artists have been disinvited from performing abroad, including in Europe and the United States -- once again, usually because of security.
Chava Alberstein, an Israeli folk singer, and singer-songwriter David Daor were asked not to perform at European concerts this year, their agents said.
"Those who canceled did not make anti-Semitic remarks. It was mainly a security thing," said Pazit Daor, David Daor's wife and manager. "In Detroit, they were scared they would need to protect the whole place."
Aug 04 2002
New York – A bold plan for the U.S. to attack al Qaeda was delayed by a Bush administration "policy review process" and was approved just a week before September 11, a TIME special report reveals. The plan, developed in the last days of the Clinton administration, was passed along to the Bush administration in January 2001 by Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke, a career bureaucrat who had served in the first Bush administration and risen during the Clinton years to become the White House’s point man on terrorism. In the words of a senior Bush administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we’ve done since 9/11."
TIME’s special report offers the fullest account of how ambitious the plan was, and how the Bush administration delayed the plan.
On Dec. 20, 2000, Clarke presented a strategy paper to Berger and the other national security "principals." But Berger and the principals decided to shelve the plan and let the next administration take it up. With less than a month left in office, they did not think it appropriate to launch a major initiative against Osama bin Laden. "We would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office on Jan. 20," says a former senior Clinton aide. "That wasn’t going to happen." "If we hadn’t had a transition," says a senior Clinton Administration official, "probably in late October or early November 2000, we would have had [the plan to go on the offensive] as a presidential directive." Now it was up to Rice’s team to consider what Clarke had put together.
The plan became a victim of the transition process, turf wars and time spent on the pet policies of new top officials. The Bush administration chose to institute its own "policy review process" on the terrorist threat. Clarke told TIME that the review moved "as fast as could be expected." And Administration officials insist that by the time the review was endorsed by the Bush principals on Sept. 4, it was more aggressive than anything contemplated the previous winter. The final plan, they say, was designed not to "roll back" al-Qaeda but to "eliminate" it, TIME reports.
By last summer, many of those in the know—the spooks, the buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen countries—were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack against American interests was imminent. And in a bureaucratic squabble, nobody in Washington could decide whether a Predator drone—the best possible source of real intelligence on what was happening in the terror camps—should be sent to fly over Afghanistan. So the Predator sat idle from October 2000 until after Sept. 11, TIME reports.
TIME’s Special Report also reveals:
Berger wanted Ground Troops: On Nov. 7, 2000, Berger met with William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, in the Pentagon. Berger wanted "boots on the ground"—U.S. special ops forces deployed inside Afghanistan on a search-and-destroy mission targeting bin Laden. Cohen said he would look at the idea, but he and General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were dead set against it. They feared a repeat of Desert One, the 1980 fiasco when special ops commandos crashed in Iran during an abortive mission to rescue American hostages.
Bush official denies being handed a formal plan: A senior Bush Administration official denies being handed a formal plan to take the offensive against al-Qaeda, and says Clarke’s materials merely dealt with whether the new Administration should take "a more active approach" to the terrorist group. (Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present.) Other senior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations dispute that account, saying that Clarke had a set of proposals to "roll back" al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, "Response to al Qaeda: Roll back."
Clinton frustrated: By early 2000, Clinton was becoming infuriated by the lack of intelligence on bin Laden’s movements. "We’ve got to do better than this," he scribbled on one memo. "This is unsatisfactory."
Submarines were ready to attack bin Laden: For all of 2000, Clinton ordered two U.S. Navy submarines to stay on station in the northern Arabian sea, ready to attack bin Laden if his coordinates could be determined, sources tell TIME.
CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan: The CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan who might be persuaded to take on bin Laden; contingency plans had been made for the CIA to fly one of its planes to a desert landing strip in Afghanistan if he was ever captured. (Clinton had signed presidential "findings" that were ambiguous on the question of whether bin Laden could be killed in such an attack.)
Plans to capture bin Laden tied up in politics: After the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, the secretive Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., drew up plans to have Delta Force members swoop into Afghanistan and grab bin Laden. But the warriors were never given the go-ahead; the Clinton Administration did not order an American retaliation for the attack. In fact, despite strong suspicion that bin Laden was behind the attack in Yemen, the CIA and FBI had not officially concluded that he was, and would be unable to do so before Clinton left office. That made it politically impossible for Clinton to strike—especially given the upcoming election and his own lack of credibility on national security. "If we had done anything, say, two weeks before the election, we’d be accused of helping Al Gore," a former senior Clinton aide told TIME.
(by Eveline Lubbers for PRwatch.org -spin of the day)
For years, activist groups in Europe thought that Manfred Schlickenrieder was a leftist sympathizer and filmmaker. He traveled around Europe, interviewing a broad spectrum of activists, and even produced a documentary video, titled Business As Usual: The Arrogance of Power, about human rights groups and environmentalists campaigning against the Shell oil company.
In reality, Schlickenrieder was a spy, and Shell was one of his clients. His film and his activist pretensions were merely cover designed to win the confidence of activists so that he could infiltrate their organizations and collect "inside information" about their goals and activities.
Schlickenrieder's cover was blown when the Swiss action group Revolutionaire Aufbau began to distrust him. Its investigation uncovered a large pile of documents, many of which were put online at the beginning of 2000 (www.aufbau.org).These documents proved that Schlickenrieder was on the payroll of Hakluyt & Company Ltd., a London-based "business intelligence bureau" linked closely to MI6, the British foreign intelligence service. In addition to spying on behalf of multinational corporations, the documents also indicate strongly that Schlickenrieder was working simultaneously for more than one German state intelligence service.
Among the documents was detailed e-mail correspondence between Schlickenrieder and Hakluyt. There was also a DM 20,000 (US$9,000) invoice to Hakluyt for "Greenpeace research" including expenses, "to be paid according to agreement in the usual manner." Confronted with this material, Hakluyt reluctantly admitted that Schlickenrieder was an employee. When the Sunday Times of London broke the story in July 2000, both BP and Shell acknowledged having hired the firm, but claimed they had been unaware of its tactics.
Schlickenrieder's exposure put the spotlight on a firm that prefers to operate secretly in the shadowy area of former state intelligence specialists-turned-private spies. Members of Parliament accused MI6 of using the firm as a front to spy on green activists.
A freelance spy
Schlickenrieder had apparently built up spying experience during years of working for Germany's domestic and foreign intelligence services, Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz and Bundesnachrichtendienst. Documents found at his home indicated he had had access to reports from them as well as the French and Italian secret services. None of the spy agencies acknowledged publicly that Schlickenrieder had been working for them, but informed sources agreed that the agent's exposure had been a blow for the German intelligence community, as several newspapers reported. Furthermore, the Schlickenrieder case was discussed in the prime minister and parliamentary committee's weekly meeting with the German secret services.
Though there is evidence that the government agencies paid Schlickenrieder, it is not known whether he was actually on their payrolls; he may have been a freelance spy. The fact that he wrote detailed proposals for the government, suggesting new fields of research within the radical leftist movement, points in this direction. Whichever it was, the rewards of espionage seem to have included a spacious flat overlooking a park in Munich and a BMW Z3, the model of sports car driven by James Bond in Goldeneye. His monthly expenses were calculated at $4,500.
He got good at delivering different kinds of intelligence, from broad overviews to assessments to insider mood reports. Taking advantage of activists' trust, he developed a knack for piecing together bits and pieces of information to compile a fairly accurate picture.
Schlickenrieder frequented meetings of radical leftist groups including the Red Army Faction (RAF) from the early 1980s until his cover was blown, and he made a documentary about violent resistance with solidarity groups and relatives of convicted comrades which featured the RAF. He claimed to be working on another film, about Italy's Red Brigades, which was never finished. But stills from his video footage served as a photo database, accompanied by personal details about everybody he had met.
Schlickenrieder's ways of working for state and business were similar. In fact, there seemed to be no boundaries between the two. He sometimes compiled reports for Hakluyt without being asked. For instance, in a September 1997 e-mail to Hakluyt, he explained how he had "used the opportunity of visiting Hamburg to talk to two separate people within Greenpeace." In closing, he wrote: "That was your free 'mood report' supplement from Hamburg."
The MI6 connection
Hakluyt, named after a 16th-century geographer and economic intelligence specialist, started in a one-room office in 1995. Its founders, Christopher James and Mike Reynolds, are both former members of the British foreign service. The company's purpose, according to James, was "to do for industry what we had done for the government." By 2001 its clients included one-quarter of the companies listed in the United Kingdom's leading stock market index, the FTSE 100.
Reynolds founded MI6's counterterrorism branch and was the foreign service's head of station in Berlin. The newly appointed head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, is a close friend of his.
"The idea was to do for industry what we had done for the government."
-- Hakluyt cofounder Christopher James
James led a section of MI6 that liaised with British firms. Over his 20-year career he got to know the heads of many of Britain's top companies. In return for a few tips that helped them compete in the market, he persuaded them to provide intelligence from their overseas operations.
Hakluyt's management board is a display case for the kind of reputation the company is aiming for. One member was Ian Fleming's model for James Bond -- the former soldier, spy and diplomat Sir Fitzroy Maclean. And the company is linked to the oil industry through Sir William Purves, CEO of Shell Transport and chairman of Hakluyt; Sir Peter Holmes, former chairman of Shell and current president of the Hakluyt foundation (a kind of supervisory board); and Sir Peter Cazalet, the former deputy chairman of BP, who helped to establish Hakluyt before he retired in 2000. BP itself has longstanding ties to MI6: its director of government and public affairs, John Gerson, was at one time a leading candidate to succeed Sir David Spedding as chief of MI6.
A Hakluyt brochure promises to find information for clients that they "will not receive by the usual government, media and commercial routes." The company tries to distinguish itself from other business intelligence consultants and clipping services. "We do not take anything off the shelf, nothing off the Net--we assume that any company worth its salt has done all of that," Hakluyt's Michael Maclay explained at a 1999 conference in the Netherlands. "We go with the judgment of people who know the countries, the elites, the industries, the local media, the local environmentalists, all the factors that will feed into big decisions being made."
Manfred Schlickenrieder apparently was one of those people who "knew the local environmentalists."
Spying on Greenpeace
Shell International turned to Hakluyt for help when the oil conglomerate's reputation came under fire during the Brent Spar PR crisis and the Nigerian government's execution of writer-activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Using his cover as a filmmaker, Schlickenrieder traveled around Europe, interviewing on film a broad spectrum of people campaigning for Nigeria's Ogoni people. He spent months questioning all sorts of groups and wrote to organizations ranging from Friends of the Earth to the Body Shop, asking about their ongoing campaigns, their future plans and the impact of their work.
In addition to Shell, oil companies were scared to death of becoming Greenpeace's next target. BP turned to Hakluyt for help after it got wind that Greenpeace was planning its Atlantic Frontier campaign to stop oil drilling in a new part of the Atlantic. The company asked Schlickenrieder to deliver details about what was going to happen.
Hakluyt used material from other sources to complement the information about Greenpeace's plans Schlickenrieder provided. It claimed to have laid its hands on a copy of "Putting the Lid on Fossil Fuels," the Greenpeace brochure meant to kick off the campaign, even before the ink was dry. BP used this inside information to polish its press and PR communications. "BP countered the campaign in an unusually fast and smart way," Greenpeace Germany spokesperson Stefan Krug told the German daily Die Tageszeitung. Since BP knew what was coming in advance, it was never taken by surprise.
BP also used Hakluyt to plan a counterstrategic lawsuit against Greenpeace. In a May 1997 e-mail message to Schlickenrieder, Hakluyt's Director Mike Reynolds inquired about the possible impact of suing the environmentalists. He asked his German spy for information on whether Greenpeace was taking legal steps to protect its assets against seizure in the event it was sued by an oil company. When Greenpeace subsequently occupied BP's Stena Dee oil installation in the Atlantic Ocean, the company sued Greenpeace for DM4.2 million in damages (almost $2 million). BP got an injunction to block Greenpeace UK's bank accounts, which caused the group serious financial problems. This was one of the first times an injunction was used to threaten activists with possible arrest. It has since become an increasingly popular way to stop a campaign.
Oil activism was not Schlickenrieder's only field of activity. The Aufbau group discovered leads about research he did for Hakluyt on banks and financial takeovers. And in 1996 he started mapping resistance against Rio Tinto, which calls itself the "world leader in finding, mining and processing the Earth's mineral resources." He continued to bill Hakluyt for this research until at least spring 1999.
A New Terrain for Intelligence
The massive 1999 demonstrations in Seattle were a watershed event for both the growing anti-globalization movement and for the corporate and government authorities that benefit from globalization. State and private security agencies felt they were caught off guard in Seattle, where a large, diverse group of demonstrators, using sophisticated methods and technology, effectively shut down the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference.
Some governments now see anti-corporate activities as a serious threat to social stability. And their intelligence services see securing that stability as a primary task.
The first indication of this interest was a widely circulated secret report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, "Anti-Globalization--A Spreading Phenomenon." The CSIS report used quotes from Naomi Klein's book, No Logo, to assess the threat posed by anticorporate protests to the Summit of the Americas in Quebec which was coming up in April 2001.
In May 2000, the France-based Intelligence Newsletter published a report, based on information from sources close to the spy community, on the work of state intelligence units to gather information on anti-globalization militants. It noted that the US Army Intelligence and Security Command and the Pentagon helped the police keep an eye on demonstrators during the April 16, 2000, World Bank protests in Washington, DC. Perhaps when the US Attorney's office praised the DC police for their "unparalleled" coordination with other police agencies during the spring 2000 IMF protests, it was thinking of these bodies. The FBI reportedly had held seminars on the lessons of Seattle for police in other protest cities to help them prepare for demonstrations. Now it had paid off. "The FBI provided valuable background on the individuals who were intent on committing criminal acts," the US Attorney's office declared, according to an article by Abby Scher in the Nation.
Scher warned of an intensifying crackdown on opponents of corporate globalization, pointing to unusually close collaboration between police and intelligence services including the FBI before and during the DC protests. This collaboration harks back to the heyday of J. Edgar Hoover and his illegal Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Back then, the FBI relied on local police and even private right-wing spy groups for information about antiwar and other activists. The FBI used that information and its own agents provocateurs to disrupt the activities of the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society, Puerto Rican nationalist groups and others.
Targeting organizers and letting activists know they are under surveillance are two time-honored tactics of local intelligence units and the FBI. Preventive detention, spreading fear of infiltration, and disseminating false stories to the press were also used during the dark days of COINTELPRO. Now, the first reports have emerged documenting similar police strategies aimed at protesters in 2000 and 2001.
In 2001 the FBI listed "anarchist and extremist socialist groups" such as the Workers' World Party, Reclaim the Streets and Carnival Against Capitalism as a "potential threat" to the United States. Reclaim the Streets is actually more a tactic than a movement or organization. In 1996, activists in England decided to hold the first RTS "street party," a daytime rave with a political spin, complete with sound system, dancing, and party games, in the middle of a busy intersection. The party aimed to temporarily "reclaim" the street from cars and point out how capitalism and car culture deprive people of public space and opportunities for festivals.
The fact that dancing in the street could become terrorism in the eyes of the FBI can only be explained by the aftershock of Seattle, where, according to the FBI, "anarchists, operating individually and in groups, caused much of the damage." This statement, made on May 10, 2001, mentioned these groups as part of "The Domestic Terrorism Threat," soon after a section on "The International Terrorist Situation" featuring Osama bin Laden and individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda. The attacks on the World Trade Center four months later illustrate the enormous disproportion between the two "threats."
Categorizing "anarchist groups" like Reclaim the Streets as terrorist organizations provides a legal pretext for the FBI's interest in the antiglobalization movement. Although inclusion on such a list can be taken to mean such groups are gaining influence, it also increases the likelihood of government-sponsored involvement, such as infiltration or frame-ups based on planted evidence.
Intelligence agencies in most Western countries already had broad powers to track and surveil suspected activists and political organizations. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, triggered further antiterrorist legislation everywhere, encouraging repressive police and intelligence tactics. Only the future can tell how these new laws will effect the maneuvering space for anticorporate activism.
The Department of Dirty Tricks
Besides being spied upon, activists risk being manipulated or threatened, too. Consulting companies like KPMG and security firms like Control Risks Group have reasons to monitor NGOs, as an article in Intelligence Newsletter stated: ostensibly, corporate clients want to be informed of destabilization campaigns that could affect them well in advance. "But they also want to fend off indirect attack," the magazine went on. "To be sure, some firms feel a strong temptation to 'channel' the fury of NGOs like Export Credit Agencies, Public Citizen or ATTAC towards some of their business competitors," the magazine said. It quoted intelligence expert Roy Godson as predicting that manipulating NGOs would become one of the most effective means for companies to destabilize rivals and adversaries in the future.
Intelligence Newsletter hints at the endless time and effort NGOs spend in the perpetual quest for "ideal" companies to take on. "Only by targeting a known corporate name can they be sure to enhance their own profile, distinguish from other NGOs and compete with them for media attention." Apparently this early stage of campaigning is seen as the best moment to intervene.
How? One possibility springs to mind: imagine your group gets a dedicated new member with ideas for a new campaign against a company you haven't paid much attention to so far. Perhaps he's been sent by another company you've been successfully campaigning against for years, or are intending to target in the near future.
NGOs' taste for media attention can be their Achilles' heel, which makes it relatively easy to feed them disinformation they'll rush to publicize. The East German secret service apparently understood this back in the 1970s: Godson claimed it used this weakness for publicity against Amnesty International during the Cold War. This is another kind of manipulation easy to envision a company using.
Manipulating internal differences is another strategy to cripple an activist coalition. For example, someone wishing to disrupt an organization, could work to divide the "radicals" from the "moderates" or could attempt to discredit the organization by using provocateurs to incite violence which could then be blamed on activists. A number of reports suggest that this may be what occurred during the anti-globalization protests that occurred in in Genoa, Italy in July 2001.
It is not paranoid to suspect that corporations and governments will use these sorts of tactics. They have been used in the past, and history suggests that if the stakes are high enough, targeted companies resort to "special operations."
This story is adapted from Battling Big Business: Countering Greenwash, Front Groups and Other Forms of Corporate Deception, edited by Eveline Lubbers. To order, call 1-800-497-3207 or mail order to Common Courage Press, Box 702, Monroe, ME 04951.
July 30, 2002
The Guardian
Word of the hidden epidemic began spreading in spring last year. Local news reports around the United States reported that as many as 10 million Americans suffered from an unrecognised disease. Viewers were urged to watch for the symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, nausea, diarrhoea, and sweating, among others. Many of the segments featured soundbites from Sonja Burkett, a patient who had finally received treatment after two years trapped at home by the illness, and from Dr Jack Gorman, an esteemed psychiatrist at Columbia University.
The disease was generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), a condition that, according to the reports, left sufferers paralysed with irrational fears. Mental-health advocates called it "the forgotten illness". Print periodicals were awash with stories of young women plagued by worries over money and men. "Everything took 10 times more effort for me than it did for anyone else," one woman told the Chicago Tribune. "The thing about Gad is that worry can be a full-time job. So if you add that up with what I was doing, which was being a full-time achiever, I was exhausted, constantly exhausted."
The timing of the media frenzy was no accident. On April 16 2001, the US food and drug administration (FDA) had approved the antidepressant Paxil, made by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, for the treatment of Gad. But it was a little-known ailment; according to a 1989 study, as few as 1.2% of the US population merited the diagnosis in any given year. If GlaxoSmithKline hoped to capitalise on Paxil's newapproval, it would have to raise Gad's profile.
That meant revving up the company's public-relations machinery. The widely featured quotes from Burkett were part of a "video news release" the drug maker had distributed to TV stations around the country; the footage also included the comments of Gorman, who has frequently served as a paid consultant to GlaxoSmithKline. On April 16 - the date of Paxil's approval - a patient group called freedom from fear released a telephone survey which revealed that "people with Gad spend nearly 40 hours per week, or a 'full-time job,' worrying". The survey mentioned neither GlaxoSmithKline nor Paxil, but the press contact listed was an account executive at Cohn & Wolfe, the drugmaker's PR firm.
The modus operandi of GlaxoSmithKline - marketing a disease rather than selling a drug - is typical of the post-Prozac era. "The strategy [companies] use - it's almost mechanised by now," says Dr Loren Mosher, a San Diego psychiatrist and former official at the national institute of mental health. Typically, a corporate-sponsored "disease awareness" campaign focuses on a mild psychiatric condition with a large pool of potential sufferers. Companies fund studies that prove the drug's efficacy in treating the afiction, a necessary step in obtaining FDA approval for a new use, or "indication". Prominent doctors are enlisted to publicly affirm the malady's ubiquity, then public-relations firms launch campaigns to promote the new disease, using dramatic statistics from corporate-sponsored studies. Finally, patient groups are recruited to serve as the "public face" for the condition, supplying quotes and compelling stories for the media; many of the groups are heavily subsidised by drugmakers, and some operate directly out of the offices of drug companies' PR firms.
The strategy has enabled the pharmaceutical industry to squeeze millions in additional revenue from the blockbuster drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a family of pharmaceuticals that includes Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Luvox. Originally approved solely as antidepressants, the SSRIs are now prescribed for a wide array of previously obscure afflictions - Gad, social anxiety disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and so on. The proliferation of diagnoses has contributed to a dramatic rise in anti-depressant sales, which increased eightfold between 1990 and 2000.
For pharmaceutical companies, marketing existing drugs for new uses makes perfect sense: a new indication can be obtained in less than 18 months, compared to the eight years it takes to bring a drug from the lab to the pharmacy. Managed-care companies have also been encouraging the use of medication, rather than more costly psychotherapy, to treat problems such as anxiety and depression.
But while most health experts agree that SSRIs have revolutionised the treatment of mental illness, a growing number of critics are disturbed by the degree to which corporate-sponsored campaigns have come to define what qualifies as a mental disorder and who needs to be medicated.
When Paxil hit the market in 1993, the drug's manufacturer, then known as Smith-Kline Beecham, lagged far behind its competitors. Eli Lilly's Prozac, the first FDA-approved SSRI, had already been around for five years, and Pfizer had beaten Smith-Kline to the punch with Zoloft's debut in 1992. With only a finite number of depression patients to target, Paxil's sales prospects seemed limited. But SmithKline found a way to set its drug apart from the other SSRIs: it positioned Paxil as an anti-anxiety drug - a latter-day Valium - rather than as a depression treatment.
SmithKline was especially interested in a series of minor entries in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM), the psychiatric bible. Published by the American psychiatric association since the 1950s, the DSM is designed to give doctors and scientists a common set of criteria to describe mental conditions. Entries are often inuenced by cultural norms (until 1973, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder) and political compromise: it is written by committees of mental-health professionals who debate, sometimes heatedly, whether to include specific disorders. The entry for GAD, says David Healy, a scholar at the college of medicine at the University of Wales and author of the 1998 book The Antidepressant Era, was created almost by default: "Floundering somewhat, members of the anxiety disorders subcommittee stumbled on the notion of generalised anxiety disorder," he writes, "and consigned the greater part of the rest of the anxiety disorders to this category."
Critics note that the DSM process has no formal safeguards to prevent researchers with drug-company ties from participating in decisions of interest to their sponsors. The committee that recommended the Gad entry in 1980, for example, was headed by Robert L Spitzer of the New York state psychiatric institute, which has been a leading recipient of industry grants to research drug treatments for anxiety disorders.
SmithKline's first forays into the anxiety market involved two fairly well-known illnesses - panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then, in 1998, the company applied for FDA approval to market Paxil for something called social phobia or "social anxiety disorder" (SAD), a debilitating form of shyness the DSM characterised as "extremely rare".
Obtaining such a new approval is a relatively simple affair. The FDA considers a DSM notation sufficient proof that a disease actually exists and, unlike new drugs, existing pharmaceuticals don't require an exhaustive round of clinical studies. To show that a drug works in treating a new disease, the FDA often accepts in-house corporate studies.
With FDA approval for Paxil's new use virtually guaranteed, SmithKline turned to the task of promoting the disease itself. To "position social anxiety disorder as a severe condition", as the trade journal PR News put it, the company retained the New York-based public-relations firm Cohn & Wolfe. (Representatives of GlaxoSmithKline and Cohn & Wolfe did not return my phone calls.)
By early 1999 the firm had created a slogan, "Imagine Being Allergic to People", and wallpapered bus shelters nationwide with pictures of a dejected-looking man vacantly playing with a teacup. "You blush, sweat, shake-even find it hard to breathe," read the copy. "That's what social anxiety disorder feels like." The posters made no reference to Paxil or SmithKline; instead, they bore the insignia of a group called the social anxiety disorder coalition and its three non-profit members, the American psychiatric association, the anxiety disorders association of America, and freedom from fear.
But the coalition was not a grassroots alliance of patients in search of a cure. It had been cobbled together by SmithKline Beecham and Cohn & Wolfe handled all media inquiries on behalf of the group.
The FDA's advertising regulations also helped the Cohn & Wolfe strategy. "If you are carrying out a disease-awareness campaign, legally the company doesn't have to list the product risks, notes Barbara Mintzes, an epidemologist at the University of British Columbia's centre for health services and policy research. Because the "Imagine Being Allergic to People" posters did not name a product, they did not have to mention Paxil's side effects, which can include nausea, decreased appetite, decreased libido, and tremors.
Cohn & Wolfe's strategy did not end with posters. The firm also created a video news release, a radio news release, and gave journalists a press statement stating that SAD "affects up to 13.3% of the population," - one in eight Americans -and is "the third most common psychiatric disorder in the United States, after depression and alcoholism." By contrast, the diagnostic and statistical manual cites studies showing that between 3-13% of people may suffer the disease at some point in their lives, but that only 2% "experience enough impairment or distress to warrant a diagnosis of social phobia".
Cohn & Wolfe also supplied journalists with eloquent patients, helping to "put a face on the disorder", as account executive Holly White told PR News. Among the patients most frequently quoted in stories about social anxiety disorder was a woman named Grace Dailey, who had also appeared in a promotional video produced by Cohn & Wolfe.
Also on that video was Jack Gorman, the Columbia University professor who would later make the rounds on Paxil's behalf during the GAD media campaign, appearing on numerous television shows, including ABC's Good Morning America.
Gorman was not a disinterested party in Paxil's promotion. He has served as a paid consultant to at least 13 pharmaceutical firms, including SmithKline Beecham, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer. Another frequent talking head in the SAD campaign, Dr Murray Stein of the University of California at San Diego, has also served as a Smith-Kline consultant, and the company funded many of his clinical trials on SAD.
Cohn & Wolfe's campaign on SAD paid immediate dividends. In the two years preceding Paxil's approval, fewer than 50 stories on social anxiety disorder had appeared in the popular press. In May 1999, the month when the FDA handed down its decision, hundreds of stories about the illness appeared in US publications and television news programmes, including the New York Times, Vogue, and Good Morning America. A few months later, Smith-Kline launched a series of ads touting Paxil's efficacy in helping SAD sufferers brave dinner parties and public speaking. By the end of last year, Paxil had supplanted Zoloft as the nation's number-two SSRI, and its sales were virtually on par with those of Eli Lilly's Prozac. (Neither Prozac nor Zoloft has anapproval for SAD.)
The success of the Cohn & Wolfe campaign didn't escape notice in the industry: trade journals applauded GlaxoSmithKline for creating "a strong anti-anxiety position" and assuring a bright future for Paxil. Increasing public awareness of SAD and other disorders, the consulting firm Decision Resources predicted last year, would expand the "anxiety market" to at least $3bn by 2009.
This is an edited excerpt from an article in Mother Jones magazine.
What's next, they create a disease and then market the anti-dote?
(ScienceDaily)
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A dramatic statistical correlation between the prevalence of diabetes and air pollution levels has been demonstrated by a University at Buffalo researcher who publishes his observations in the August issue of the journal, Diabetes Care.
The correlation appears in the "Letters: Observations" column of the journal in which researchers report information often as a way of suggesting areas in which further, rigorous studies should be done.
Alan Lockwood, M.D., professor of neurology and nuclear medicine in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, and the author of the letter, stated that while the statistical analysis does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between diabetes and air pollution, the correlation is strong enough to warrant further research.
"The significance of this relationship demands attention," he said. "The correlation between the two was striking. The probability that these two variables are not related is approximately five chances in 100,000."
It's estimated that diabetes affects more than 15 million Americans, one-third of whom are undiagnosed. The cost of the disease has been put at more than $98 billion; with diabetes accounting for 1 out of every 7 health-care dollars spent in the U.S.
Lockwood compared data showing the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) for each U.S. state with data showing the prevalence of diabetes in the states. He found a significant relationship between TRI emissions and the prevalence of diabetes. Some heavily industrialized states, such as Ohio, for example, had high levels of TRI emissions --147 million pounds of emissions -- and a high prevalence of diabetes -- 7.5 percent of the state's population. Conversely, states with low TRI emissions -- such as Alaska, which had 2.6 million pounds of emissions and 4.4 percent prevalence of diabetes -- showed a low prevalence of the disease.
Diabetes prevalence has risen substantially over the past 10 years, according to Lockwood's letter, which cites the 49 percent increase in the disease reported in the 2000 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System published by the Centers for Disease Control. Many recent studies and reports have investigated the connection between the increase in obesity and the increase in the disease. In addition, Lockwood's letter notes, "environmental toxins, notably dioxins, also have been suggested as contributing factors.
"The nature of the relationship between air pollutants and diabetes remains to be determined, but there is a potentially plausible link," he said. "What may happen is that some pollutants, such as dioxins, are being concentrated in the fat of obese people and these then may contribute to the development of diabetes. That is the hypothesis."
Lockwood became interested in a possible correlation between diabetes and air pollution while examining the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a list of the discharge of air pollutants over certain levels that industry must report, and which are available on the Web site of the Environmental Protection Agency.
He was studying the TRI data as part of his duties as a member of the national group, Physicians for Social Responsibility. Lockwood chairs its committee on the environment and health.
Around the same time, he said he happened to read an article in The New York Times about the geographic distribution of diabetes in the U.S. The article was accompanied by a map that showed areas in the U.S. where the prevalence of the disease was highest in 2000.
"It occurred to me that the map in The Times looked a lot like the map of the TRI data," said Lockwood.
He then tracked down the source of the data in The Times map, which was the Journal of the American Medical Association; downloaded the 1999 TRI data off of the Environmental Protection Agency Web site, and plugged these data into a popular statistics software package.
I wonder how a map of childhood vaccinations would compare?
You can't buy it yet, but a drug is being developed in labs in Australia and the US that may prove to be the ultimate lifestyle enhancer - you'd get a fantastic tan and a highly active libido, with a slim figure and clear skin as possible side-effects. It's been tagged 'the Barbie drug', but has serious origins as a treatment for skin cancer and sexual dysfunction.
(UKIndependent)
31 July 2002
The sun may be shining brightly now, but cast your mind back to winter. Or the dismal British spring. You were pasty, probably a little overweight, and your libido was nowhere to be found, as if washed down the plughole of your shower with what remained of your hair. What were you to do? Take a trip to a tanning-salon, or to Ibiza, perhaps, and pop out the Viagra?
Viagra is all well and good – although possibly not if you have a heart condition. But wouldn't it be fabulous if the medical community could come up with a revved-up version of that blue lozenge? How about a drug that would make you brim over again with sexual desire and simultaneously turn you into an object of desire – by restoring that all-over tan, for instance?
Sounds ridiculous? Well, assorted pharmaceutical companies around the world are quietly conducting trials right now on different versions of a compound called Melanotan, which has the power to do both those things. The press has already dubbed it the "Barbie drug", after that improbably perfect physical specimen; but at the moment it's men, those who would like to look like her boyfriend, Ken, who look set to benefit. This innocent-looking white substance – an artificial version of a naturally occurring hormone – should be able to deliver a rich tan and impressive tumescence all at once. But Barbie and Ken are thin, you may protest. Believe it or not, Melanotan holds promise as an appetite suppressant, too.
What we are speaking of here, in fact, is the lifestyle drug par excellence. The only hurdle in its way is the regulatory authorities around the world. You can see why they might balk. Ageing males donning the skimpiest trunks to parade their new golden hues on Brighton beach might suddenly find themselves also parading that other physiological effect of the drug. Oh, dear. Moreover, sales of Viagra, owned by Pfizer, as well as of plane seats to the Med, might plummet. If you can tan that way, why bother with sand between your toes?
No wonder, then, that those involved in developing Melanotan on two continents have been relatively quiet about it. Johnnie Johnson, spokesman for Competitive Technologies Inc, CTT, the US company that sold the technology to the different drug companies to manufacture and market Melanotan, points to the conservative mindset of the US Food and Drug Agency. "The FDA is always reluctant to license anything that could be called a 'party drug'," he says. (Well, FDA, shape up. We want it! Now!)
Assuming any of us do ever get our hands on the stuff – and, no, sadly, there were no test samples made available for this writer – we will have researchers at the University of Arizona to thank. Interestingly, the multiple characteristics of Melanotan were stumbled upon almost by mistake. Originally, the team in Tucson, headed by Mac Hadley, a professor of cell biology and anatomy, was interested in Melanotan only as a tan inducer and a new weapon against skin cancer. It was only when men among his first guinea-pig patients reported a startling side-effect, namely a raging reaction down under, that attention was paid to the possibility of administering the drug to those of us who suffer from what the medical world coyly calls "erectile dysfunction".
That the substance – a synthetic version of a cell-activating hormone called alpha-MSH – was effective on darkening the skin quickly became evident. In early tests, green frogs turned an ominous inky colour in 40 seconds. It even worked on animal hair. "If you inject it into a golden retriever, its hair comes out black," Professor Hadley reported on those early trials in the mid-1990s. The human subjects started turning a natural-looking brown in about six days, suffering only from occasional flushing of the face as a side-effect. It works by triggering production of the melanin pigment in your skin – the stuff that turns you brown.
But then the erectile issue came up. "It so happens that one very astute observer who took this drug reported to us that he was developing spontaneous erections," recalled Dr Norman Levine, a dermatologist involved in those early trials. And so a urologist at the University of Arizona, Dr Hunter Wessells, was asked to conduct separate trials. He developed a variation on the tanning compound and called it Melanotan II. It instantly seemed to hold promise. Among his subjects at the time was Jim, who had begun to suffer from impotence at 42, when he was dating – with nervousness, he admitted – a new girlfriend. "The Melanotan, the first time, was absolutely amazing," Jim reported. "I knew something was going on. It was a very large effect."
CTT, a firm specialising in investing in innovative technologies, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, subsequently bought the patents from the university and set about awarding licences to interested drug companies. (It expects to get whopping royalty payments when Melanotan, in its different forms, hits the market. Assuming it eventually does.) The licence to manufacture Melanotan I, the tanning compound, went to a company in Australia called EpiTan. Melanotan II was taken on by a New Jersey biotech firm called Palatin.
Remember that, in the interest of winning government approval, the game here is not to stress the vanity aspects of the drug. The FDA must be shuddering now that Botox has become the de rigueur treatment for removing crow's-feet from the faces of America's newsreaders and Upper East Side social flit-abouts. (Where once you might have been invited to a Tupperware soirée in this town, today it is more likely to be a Botox party.) The message attached to Melanotan I is that it will combat skin cancer. It was smart, therefore, to direct that particular licence to Australia, the country with the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world. The beach-loving Aussies suffer from a rate of skin cancer that is 600 per 100,000 of the population. Of all the cancer cases reported in Australia, 80 per cent are skin cancers.
Getting brown to stop the damage seems almost counter-intuitive. But the idea is very simple. As EpiTan points out, the skin turns brown – when the natural alpha-MSH hormone in the body triggers the melanin – precisely to protect you from harmful UVA rays, but always too late. "When the skin is burnt, the body belatedly produces alpha-MSH, racing against the clock – a race it always loses," notes EpiTan's chief executive, Wayne Millen. "We deliver Melanotan to you ahead of your holiday, so that in the absence of sunlight, you are protected in advance." And Melanotan delivers 1,000 times more alpha-MSH than occurs naturally.
EpiTan announced in May this year that it had successfully completed a first round of human trials at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and that it was on course to bring the drug to the market, barring problems with government bureaucrats, in about three years. While so far, it has been administering the substance via injections, the company hopes to develop a pellet that will be inserted beneath the skin to keep the subject glowing nicely for six months at a time. EpiTan, which has had to raise capital on the markets, boasts of a potential market of $1bn a year.
There is no less a sense of excitement over at the headquarters of Palatin in New Jersey, which is exploring its own variant of Melanotan II, the version that is most effective at stirring desire. It also is well into its cycle of human trials and all is going well, not least because the drug seems to stimulate sexual lust in women as well as men. And while Viagra works in a cardiovascular way, raising the blood flow into the male sexual organ – which is what makes it a no-no for anyone with a dicky heart – this drug works on the central nervous system. More specifically, Melanotan II seems to target receptors in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain where our arousal on-off switches are located. "We are trying to develop a drug that will be safe for men with cardiac problems and have a more natural effect on the pathways to normal sexual arousal," Dr Annette Shadiack, director of biological and preclinical research at Palatin, explained this week.
Talk of a "Barbie drug" makes everyone involved nervous. While EpiTan and Palatin are working on slightly different versions of the Melanotan compound first developed at the University of Arizona, you might ask if they could be recombined to offer both benefits at once, the tan and the tumescence. And don't forget the weight-loss potential of the substance. That is something that Palatin is also exploring with Melanotan, and word is that Merck, the global drug company, is also looking at developing it as an appetite reducer.
In a technical tutorial that had this non-expert reeling, Dr Shadiack explained that Melanotan seems to act on five different categories of cell receptors in the body, both in the brain and in the skin. Indeed, there may be possible applications not yet entirely understood. As if skin colour, levels of libido and numbers on the bathroom scales were not enough, there are indications that it will work to reduce inflammation, combat diabetes and eradicate acne as well. It may be primarily aimed at "Ken", but clearly it wouldn't be bad for "Barbie" either.
"It would be more difficult to get a drug like that approved," Dr Shadiack cautions. "Because what would you call the effect of such a drug and the side-effect?" Never mind that many of us dumpy mortals wouldn't care less what is a side-effect and what isn't. The bare mention in my office of a possible wonderdrug that could answer all of our insecurities of sexual performance and physical appearance in one small dose had everyone drooling. Where can I get it? Is it out yet? Can you get us any?
What about the versions of Melanotan already under development in New Jersey and Melbourne? Everyone, it seems, is striving to develop a strain of the drug that will exhibit only one of its potential characteristics, precisely because of approval worries. But is everyone sure they can do it? Certainly, no one at EpiTan has seen fit yet to explain to the men of Australia that sporting a Melanotan tan on Bondi Beach could bring unexpected erectile embarrassment. Nor has Palatin spoken about the risk that patients looking for renewed libido might also have to explain to co-workers that they have not just spent their weekend in the Caribbean.
"I don't know whether the sexual dysfunction folks have tried to negate the tanning, although I don't think that's possible, nor do I think that the EpiTan folks have disabled the sexual arousal," noted Mr Johnson of CTT. "It's all about what you are allowed to sell it as."
At Palatin, Dr Shadiack is more circumspect. But, adopting a more scientific vocabulary, she almost agrees. "If you have a compound that is triggering one of those receptors and you give enough of it, it could activate other receptors. If you deliver high amounts, it could trigger some cross-reactivity." Isolating one effect from the other may therefore be difficult. She does note that EpiTan may have a particular problem with its ambition of inserting a pellet beneath the skin to keep the Melanotan working for six months in one stretch. None of us, surely, however frustrated, could sustain a high level of sexual arousal for that length of time?
So – to return to the billion-dollar question – would it be possible deliberately to deliver a form of Melanotan that would indeed offer all the promised effects at once? In other words, would it be possible to give us the "Ken-and-Barbie drug" that so many of us would surely crave? "You could," she replied, quickly.
Get ready for bliss-on-Earth, where even the saddest among us will have a chance to be that Mattel doll. Our skins will be bronzed and a new firmness will return to our acne-free complexions – and to other parts. Too good to be true? Hey, welcome to the bright new biotech world
Percentage of Americans who would sign away their right to sue the maker of a pill that could make part of their body bigger : 3
Percentage who say they would do so for the maker of a pill that could make part of their body smaller : 6
Chance that a prescription drug approved by the FDA will be recalled or require relabeling within 25 years of its release : 1 in 5
Chances an American believes the government should regulate comedy routines that make light of terrorist attacks : 2 in 5
Number of references to Israeli "retaliation" on U.S. network nightly newscasts between September 2000 and March 2002 : 118
Number of references to Palestinian "retaliation" : 14
Richard Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, has written a letter protesting the U.S. State Department's "slipshod, deceptive, and, now, even thuggish" treatment of one of its reporters. Richard Mowbray was detained by State Department personnel in an apparent attempt to intimidate him into giving up the identity of a whistleblower who has provided Mowbray with confidential documents about "Visa Express," the controversial policy through which citizens of Saudi Arabia (including three of the 9/11 hijackers) have been able to obtain expedited U.S. visas. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mowbray's harassment "is of a piece with State's refusal to press Saudi Arabia on the plight of American women held in that country against their will. State's instinct is always to attack Americans who raise questions, instead of pressuring the Saudis on behalf of U.S. interests." Source: National Review, July 15, 2002
-An American journalist is detained because he questioned Foggy Bottom's Saudi policies.
(WSJ)
July 15, 2002
Now we know: The State Department can get tough when it wants to, if only against fellow Americans.
National Review writer Joel Mowbray had the temerity at Friday's press briefing to question State spokesman Richard Boucher about "Visa Express," a program that has made it easier for Saudi Arabian citizens to enter the U.S. without interviews. Mr. Boucher had denied that the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh wanted to terminate Visa Express, even though a classified cable had clearly said otherwise. Mr. Mowbray called the spokesman on his spin, and when the reporter went to leave the building he was detained and questioned by security officers for about 30 minutes.
State's line is that Mr. Mowbray was detained because he'd quoted from classified material, as if that's any justification. It's no crime to report such news, only to leak it, and the cable's contents were reported in both National Review and the Washington Post. Mr. Mowbray's reporting has embarrassed State, and its officers were clearly engaging in intimidation to dig up the source. It's the kind of thing they do in, well, Riyadh.
Mr. Boucher also continues to humiliate himself by defending Visa Express. Never mind the ambassador's cable, and Colin Powell's sacking last week of Mary Ryan, the career diplomat in charge of consular affairs. The firing was a clear effort to placate Congress, which is angry about Visa Express and had threatened to yank State's visa authority.
The Boucher response here is of a piece with State's refusal to press Saudi Arabia on the plight of American women held in that country against their will. State's instinct is always to attack Americans who raise questions, instead of pressuring the Saudis on behalf of U.S. interests. All the women need to leave under Saudi law is the permission of their husbands or fathers, which surely the House of Saud can arrange, if the State Department ever bothered to ask. But apparently it's too busy harassing American journalists.
Homeland security chief Tom Ridge says the threat of terrorism may force government planners to consider using the military for domestic law enforcement, now largely prohibited by federal law.
(The Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (Aug. 4) - War against Iraq is likely, said a senator exploring U.S. options, and other lawmakers joined him Sunday in pressing the Bush administration to make the case to Congress before any attack.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., led hearings last week that highlighted both the gravity of the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the difficulty of replacing him with stable leadership.
''I believe there probably will be a war with Iraq,'' said Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ''The only question is, is it alone, is it with others and how long and how costly will it be?''
Similar sentiment was expressed by other lawmakers appearing on the talk shows. Like Biden, they said the administration must do far more to sell Americans, allies and Iraq's neighbors on the need for force.
They also said Bush must seek congressional approval if he decides on war and heal splits among his own advisers over how best to meet his goal of replacing Saddam.
Administration officials were absent from the airwaves, letting lawmakers drive the debate.
Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Saddam is not likely to launch an attack with biological or chemical weapons unless he is provoked by a U.S. move against him.
''Does he love himself more than he hates us?'' he asked on CBS' ''Face the Nation.'' ''And I think the answer is probably yes.
''And if that's true, then it would be unlikely that he would initiate an attack with a weapon of mass destruction because it would be certain that he would be destroyed in response.''
But Biden said divining the Iraqi leader's plans ''is like reading the entrails of goats.'' What matters is his capacity to unleash the weapons, whatever his intentions, Biden said on NBC's ''Meet the Press.''
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Congress must weigh in before America goes to war. ''I don't think the president has the authority to launch a full-force effort'' without congressional approval, said Daschle, D-S.D.
''We all support strongly a regime change,'' Daschle said on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''But I think we have to get our ducks in order. Do we have the support of our allies? Do we have an appropriate plan?''
The administration has invited Iraqi opposition groups to Washington, possibly this month, to explore what they might be able to do to unseat Saddam. So far, they have not been considered an effective force.
Ahmed Chalabi, head of a London-based umbrella organization representing the fractious opposition figures, said thousands of lightly armed Iraqis in the north, south and Baghdad want to move against Saddam but need training and equipment.
Congress authorized Bush in the fall to use all necessary force against nations or groups that aided the Sept. 11 hijackers or harbored such terrorists.
Few if any solid leads have come out linking Saddam to the al-Qaida terrorist network and the debate remains unsettled over whether Bush must come to Congress specifically to get approval to attack Iraq.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said earlier it would be ridiculous for Bush to lay out a war plan in public view. And he recalled the bitterness of some of the congressional debate that preceded the last war against Iraq.
But on Sunday he acknowledged, too, the need to engage the public. Lott said he would probably support a resolution urging the administration to bring the matter to Congress.
''While you may not have to come to Congress, America needs to be united,'' he said. ''We need to understand what our problem is, what our goals are. We need to try to bring the world in.''
Biden, citing expert testimony in his hearings, said it is clear Iraq has chemical and biological weapons of some sort. Less certain is whether Saddam has the means yet to use them effectively, he said.
''We have no choice but to eliminate the threat,'' he said. ''This is a guy who's an extreme danger to the world.''
Does that mean war? ''I think that's where we end up,'' Biden said.
He said the United States, acting alone if necessary, probably could oust Saddam but America would then face a long rebuilding job in Iraq.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who favors a hard line on Saddam, said leaks from the administration have betrayed splits among Bush's advisers over his tough policy.
''I think we're at a point where it's critically important for the president, as commander in chief, to take hold here,'' said Lieberman, D-Conn. ''He's got obvious disagreement within his administration.''
Lieberman told ''Fox News Sunday'' that ''every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States.''
Like Bush, Biden brushed off an Iraqi offer to negotiate over the return of weapons inspectors. ''I think it's important we push for real inspections,'' he said, and not negotiate over a faint offer.
AP-NY-08-04-02
Sat Aug 3, 2002
CHICAGO (AP) - The daughter of Sen. Joseph Biden , D-Del., was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a police officer early Saturday, police said.
Ashley Blazer Biden, 21, of Wilmington, Del., was with a group of people on a North Side street where several bars are located when someone else threw a bottle at a police officer, police said.
When officers went to arrest another person, Biden blocked the officer's path and made intimidating statements, Officer JoAnn Taylor said.
Biden was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police officer. She was released from custody and is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 20.
Sen. Biden's spokeswoman, Margaret Aitken, declined to comment Saturday, calling it a private, family matter.
(Los Angeles Times)
July 15, 2002
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is pushing a series of sweeping proposals that would weaken congressional oversight of the Pentagon. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Pentagon officials also are drafting proposals to ban strikes by contract workers, eliminate federal personnel rules protecting civilian workers at the Pentagon and bypass environmentalists in Congress. Some proposals are more provocative. They include allowing the Pentagon to send its initiatives directly to Capitol Hill before other agencies could review them. Once there, the legislation would require Congress to vote quickly, with only limited debate." Cindy Williams, a former director of national security studies for the Congressional Budget Office, notes that these proposals are coming from "an administration that for a year and a half has been consistently secretive about everything, and has a record of trying to preserve their secrets even from people within the government who should know them, so this has to be seen within that context."
(UKIndependent)
31 July 2002
Researchers hope that the prototype unmanned "scramjet", built partly with British technology, will have reached more than 5,000mph – or seven times the speed of sound – during a flight over the Australian desert.
The experimental hypersonic engine, which is called HyShot, could revolutionise travel by sending passengers into the stratosphere at extremely high speeds for the fraction of the current cost of flying. Blueprints for the scramjet were produced in the Forties but scientists have so far struggled to turn the technology, which has no moving parts, into working reality.
Last year, the American space agency Nasa watched its attempt to harness the power of the scramjet fail dramatically when its £100m prototype, the X-43A, went out of control and was destroyed over California.
But experts at the University of Queensland claimed success early yesterday when the HyShot was blasted 190 miles into sky above Woomera in the Australian outback. A small scramjet attached to a conventional rocket was activated for the final few seconds of a 10-minute flight as the vehicle plummeted back to earth. It was the first time that one of the jets, which operate by sucking oxygen from the atmosphere through specially shaped intakes into a combustion chamber, has fired in the open atmosphere.
Dr Allan Paull, the leader of the five-nation HyShot project, said: "It was a world first in what it attempted to do and we certainly did what we attempted. We've just got to analyse the data sent back during the flight to assess what happened within the scramjet, but I'm feeling pretty confident."
The scramjet develops such thrust that its speed is measured in kilometres per second rather than per minute. Moments before it was obliterated in the desert, scientists believe the HyShot would have reached 2.4km/sec, equivalent to 5,340 mph or Mach 7. The fastest military jets can now reach Mach 3.
QinetiQ, formerly Britain's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, one of the partners in the project, provided onboard monitoring equipment for yesterday's flight.
If scientists can now turn propelling a scramjet to the ground into a workable technology, the resulting aircraft would transform long-haul travel, making it possible to travel almost anywhere in two hours with the only by-product being water.
The engine can be propelled into the outer reaches of the Earth's atmosphere without a large fuel load, which would cut the cost of space travel from £3,000 per kg of cargo to £30.
But such a goal remains a long way from reality. Scramjets, which mix forced oxygen with hydrogen fuel to create the massive thrust, only work effectively at Mach 5, which means they have to be attached to conventional rockets to function. Even then, the friction caused by such vast speed would heat the fuselage to more than 1,000C.
Passengers in a scramjet might be able to travel from New York to Tokyo in only 70 minutes but they would have to do so without any windows.
QinetiQ said yesterday that the next step in the Australian trials would be to fly a scramjet horizontally for two minutes before it crashes back to earth.
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