Friday, December 11, 2009

12:00 p.m. Eastern/ 9:00 a.m. Pacific

The National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Eduation Fund is sponsoring a special two-hour training seminar that will cover how to protect national security employees from retaliation if they blow the whistle or raise concerns about wrongdoing, fraud or discrimination. For more information on the seminar please click http://tinyurl.com/yjmxbof.  read more »

A leaked memo from the Energy Dept. reveals it will withdraw from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Yucca Mountain repository licensing proceeding. The Fiscal Year 2011 draft budget request states “All license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009.” DOE staff would stop responding to technical questions from NRC staff, essentially blocking construction and operating license approval. The $46.2 million request to Congress would go entirely to project termination activities.  read more »

Echoing an earlier op/ed in the New York Times, a “tri-partisan” press conference held by John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) last week announced an effort to find “common ground” in order to advance climate legislation through the U.S. Senate, or to at least create a “framework” which U.S. officials could then brandish to influence pivotal international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark next month.  read more »

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be the theme of events in Portland August 6 and 9 at 11:45 in Post Office Park. Sponsored by a coalition of organizations, Pax Christi, Maine Physicians for Social Responsibility, Maine Council of Churches, Maine Veterans for Peace, the Faith in Action Committee of the First Parish in Portland, Unitarian Universalist, this will be a program of stories and music from 11:45 AM to 1:15 PM. Taking place on both Thursday(which is the day Hiroshima was bombed), and Sunday(the day Nagasaki was bombed).  read more »

BAGHDAD – At least 87,215 Iraqis have been killed in violence since 2005, according to a previously undisclosed Iraqi government tally obtained by The Associated Press. Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and a review of available evidence by the AP, the figures show that more than 110,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.  read more »

The United States can do better! It’s time to “close the spigot” of defense spending.

NORTHAMPTON, MA -– As taxes come due on April 15, taxpayers can take stock of how the federal government spent each 2008 income tax dollar: 37.3 cents went towards military-related spending, while environment, energy and science-related projects split 2.8 cents, according to a new analysis released by National Priorities Project (NPP).  read more »

The media have been given access to the return home of a dead US soldier for the first time since an 18-year ban on coverage was lifted.

Reporters were allowed to witness the ceremony marking the return of the body of Air Force Staff Sgt Phillip Myers, with the permission of his family.

Sgt Myers was killed by an improvised explosive device near Helmand province, Afghanistan on 4 April.

The media ban was first put in place during the 1991 Gulf War.

President George H W Bush, who implemented the media blackout, said it was necessary to protect the families of fallen soldiers.  read more »

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s startling call Friday for a “world without nuclear weapons” brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s idealistic, unfulfilled dream of eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation.

“Even with the Cold War now over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet,” Obama said in Strasbourg, France, in advance of laying out his ambitious goals in a speech in Prague on Sunday.  read more »