There are many organizations working on disaster relief. Here’s some links to organizations to consider: American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org/ Building on AFSC programs and contacts in Asia, AFSC will help provide relief and longer-term recovery, particularly to those who might be overlooked by other agencies or relief programs. Network for Good http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/international/earthquake/tsunami122604.aspx People across [...]
Archive For December, 2004
Justice Dept Rewrites Torture Memo
[Associated Press] The Justice Department released a rewritten legal memo on what constitutes torture, backing away from its own assertions prior to the Iraqi prison abuse scandal that torture had to involve “excruciating and agonizing pain.” The 17-page memo omitted two of the most controversial assertions made in now-disavowed 2002 Justice Department documents: that President [...]
Gates pledges $3 million in aid; Amazon.com raises another $3.5 million
Without comment. -RS By Associated Press SEATTLE – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $3 million and Amazon.com has raised more than $3.5 million in online donations to aid South Asian countries devastated by tsunamis. Millions of U.S. dollars were flowing to relief agencies around the world to supply food, water, shelter and [...]
The Politics of Aid: “The Hand That Gives, Rules
From the blog Critical Montages A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the west coast of northern Sumatra (on the interface of the India and Burma plates) set off a terrifying tsunami, killing tens of thousands. A majority of the dead are from poor fishing villages, and more than a third of them are children (Seth Mydans, [...]
Tsunami Aid
[J-Walk Blog] I saw this Reuters story: U.S. to Pledge $15 Million for Tsunami Aid. The United States expects to provide an initial $15 million in aid for victims of the devastating tsunami in Asia and has already released $400,000, the assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development said Monday. $15 million is [...]
HEALTH CARE: If They’re Safe, They’re Coming
[American Progress] Christmas came early this year for the pharmaceutical industry. A Bush administration task force took the drug industry’s talking points opposing drug re-importation and gift wrapped them in a 130-page report released yesterday. Instead of making substantive recommendations about how to provide Americans access to cheaper prescription drugs, the report exaggerates the costs [...]
National Institutes of Health on the Take
From the LA Times At least 530 government scientists at the NIH [National Institutes of Health], the nation’s preeminent agency for medical research, have taken fees, stock or stock options from biomedical companies in the last five years, records show. NIH Director Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni has told Congress that outside work should be allowed [...]
UK: Shredded: Hundreds of Thousands of Government Documents
From the London Independent: Hundreds of thousands of government documents are destroyed in the great Freedom of Information Act scandal By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent 23 December 2004 Hundreds of thousands of secret Whitehall files are being shredded before the public gains the right to see them under the Freedom of Information Act on [...]
Military Lab Proposed Gay-Aphrodisiac Chemical Weapon
Thanks to a FOIA request from the Sunshine Project, a fascinating document has now come to light. In June 1994, the US Air Force Wright Laboratory wrote a proposal titled “Harassing, Annoying, and ‘Bad Guy’ Identifying Chemicals.” While listing the categories of chemical weapons they planned to develop, the military scientists wrote: Chemicals that effect [...]