By BENEDICT CAREY and GARDINER HARRIS
The New York Times
Published: July 12, 2008

It seemed an ideal marriage, a scientific partnership that would attack mental illness from all sides. Psychiatrists would bring to the union their expertise and clinical experience, drug makers would provide their products and the money to run rigorous studies, and patients would get better medications, faster.

But now the profession itself is under attack in Congress, accused of allowing this relationship to become too cozy. After a series of stinging investigations of individual doctors’ arrangements with drug makers, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is demanding that the American Psychiatric Association, the field’s premier professional organization, give an accounting of its financing.

The association is the voice of establishment psychiatry, publishing the field’s major journals and its standard diagnostic manual.

“I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions,” Mr. Grassley said Thursday in a letter to the association.

In 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, the drug industry accounted for about 30 percent of the association’s $62.5 million in financing. About half of that money went to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting, and the other half to sponsor fellowships, conferences and industry symposiums at the annual meeting.

This weekend in Chicago, the psychiatry association’s board will meet behind closed doors, in part to discuss how to respond to the increasingly intense scrutiny and questions about conflicts of interest.

“With every new revelation, our credibility with patients has been damaged, and we have to protect that first and foremost,” said Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, a former president of the association and now president of the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore. “I think we need to review all arrangements between doctors and industry and be very clear about what constitutes a conflict of interest and what does not.”

One of the doctors named by Mr. Grassley is the association’s president-elect, Dr. Alan F. Schatzberg of Stanford, whose $4.8 million stock holdings in a drug development company raised the senator’s concern. In a telephone interview, Dr. Schatzberg said he had fully complied with Stanford’s rigorous disclosure policies and federal guidelines that pertained to his research.

Blocking or constraining researchers from trying to bring medications to market “will mean less opportunities to help patients with severe illnesses,” Dr. Schatzberg said, adding, “Drugs that are helpful may not be developed by big pharmaceutical companies, for a variety of reasons, and we need some degree of communication between academia and industry” to expand options for patients.

Commercial arrangements are rampant throughout medicine. In the past two decades, drug and device makers have paid tens of thousands of doctors and researchers of all specialties. Worried that this money could taint doctors’ research plans or clinical judgment, government agencies, medical journals and universities have been forced to look more closely at deal details.

In psychiatry, Mr. Grassley has found an orchard of low-hanging fruit. As a group, psychiatrists earn less in base salary than any other specialists, according to a nationwide survey by the Medical Group Management Association. In 2007, median compensation for psychiatrists was $198,653, less than half of the $464,420 earned by diagnostic radiologists and barely more than the $190,547 earned by doctors practicing internal medicine.

But many psychiatrists supplement this income with consulting arrangements with drug makers, traveling the country to give dinner talks about drugs to other doctors for fees generally ranging from $750 to $3,500 per event, for instance.

While data on industry consulting arrangements are sparse, state officials in Vermont reported that in the 2007 fiscal year, drug makers gave more money to psychiatrists than to doctors in any other specialty. Eleven psychiatrists in the state received an average of $56,944 each. Data from Minnesota, among the few other states to collect such information, show a similar trend.

In both states, individual psychiatrists are not top earners, but consulting arrangements are so common that their total tops all others. The worry is that this money may subtly alter psychiatrists’ choices of which drugs to prescribe.

An analysis of Minnesota data by The New York Times last year found that on average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs appear to have written three times as many prescriptions to children for the drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none. The drugs are not approved for most uses in children, who appear to be especially susceptible to the side effects, including rapid weight gain.

Senator Grassley’s investigations have not only detailed how lucrative those arrangements can be but have also shown that some top psychiatrists failed to report all their earnings as required.

After The Times reported on such an arrangement involving Dr. Melissa P. DelBello of the University of Cincinnati, Mr. Grassley asked the university to provide her income disclosure forms and asked AstraZeneca, the maker of the antipsychotic Seroquel, to reveal how much it paid her.

In scientific publications, Dr. DelBello has reported working for eight drug makers and told university officials that from 2005 to 2007 she earned about $100,000 in outside income, according to Mr. Grassley.

But AstraZeneca told Mr. Grassley it paid her more than $238,000 in that period. AstraZeneca sent some of its payments through MSZ Associates, an Ohio corporation Dr. DelBello established for “personal financial purposes.”

The University of Cincinnati agreed to monitor those payments more closely.

In early June, the senator reported to Congress that Dr. Joseph Biederman, a renowned child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, and a colleague, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, had reported to university officials earning several hundred thousand dollars apiece in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 when in fact they had earned at least $1.6 million each.

Another member of the Harvard group, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley’s investigators. The Harvard psychiatrists said they took conflict-of-interest policies seriously and had abided by disclosure rules.

In late June, after Mr. Grassley singled out Dr. Schatzberg, Stanford disputed some of the numbers in the report and has denied that Dr. Schatzberg violated any research rules devised to police such conflicts.

In an interview on Wednesday, Dr. Nada L. Stotland, president of the psychiatric association, said the group had studied Mr. Grassley’s letter and Stanford’s response and agreed with Stanford. Dr. Schatzberg will take over as president of the association as planned, she said.

“The larger issue here is that there’s a revolution going on” in how medicine handles industry money, said Dr. Stotland, a psychiatrist at Rush Medical College in Chicago. “That’s good, that’s what we need, and I believe we’ve been on the cutting edge of that revolution in many ways.”

Dr. Stotland said that the association began reviewing the income it received from pharmaceutical companies last March, to identify potential conflicts. Doctors and academic researchers generally worked at arm’s length from industry until the early 1980s, when Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act. This legislation encouraged closer collaboration between researchers and industry to bring products to market more quickly. The act helped foster the growth of the biotech industry, and soon professors and universities were busy obtaining patents and building relationships with industry.

Some psychiatrists have long argued that consulting with a company — to help design a rigorous drug trial, for instance — benefits patients, as long as the researcher has no financial stake in the product and is not paid to speak about the drug to other doctors, like a traveling pitchman.

Others say industry and academic researchers are now so deeply intertwined that exposing doctors’ private arrangements only stokes suspicion without correcting the real problem: bias.

“Having everyone stand up like a Boy Scout and make a pledge isn’t going to quell suspicion,” said Dr. Donald Klein, an emeritus professor at Columbia, who has consulted with drug makers himself. “The only hope to rule out bias is to have open access to all data that’s produced in studies and know that there are people checking it” who are not on that company’s payroll.

Studies have shown that researchers who are paid by a company are more likely to report positive findings when evaluating that company’s drugs. The private deals can directly affect patient care, said Dr. William Niederhut, a psychiatrist in private practice in Denver who receives no industry money.

Dr. Niederhut said company-sponsored doctors had spread the word that new and expensive drugs were better in treating bipolar disorder than lithium, the cheaper old standby treatment.

“It’s a sales pitch, and now it’s looking like a whole lot of people would have done better if they’d started on lithium in the first place,” Dr. Niederhut said in a telephone interview. “The profession absolutely has to come clean on these industry deals, and soon.”

Tighter rules, stronger statements and more debate may not make much difference, if Mr. Grassley’s findings are any guide. Universities have rules requiring that faculty members disclose their outside income so that conflicts of interest in research or patient care can be managed. But some of the psychiatrists named in the investigations apparently ignored the rules.

“I think we may be coming to a point where hospitals and medical schools have to get serious about sanctioning,” said Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, director of the division of psychiatry, medicine and the law at Columbia. “You can suspend doctors’ privileges, or suspend their right to treat patients; both have a huge impact on income and career. But if you’re serious about these disclosure policies, you have to be willing to back them up.”

Editorial
The New York Times

After watching wholesale lots of the Bush administration’s most important e-mails go mysteriously missing, Congress is trying to legislate against any further damage to history. The secrecy-obsessed White House is, of course, threatening a veto — one more effort to deny Americans their rightful access to the truth about how their leaders govern or misgovern.

The House approved a measure last week that would require the National Archives to issue stronger standards for preserving e-mails and to aggressively inspect whether an administration is in compliance. The Archives needs spine stiffening. Congressional investigators found that its staff backed off from inspections of e-mail storage after the Bush administration took office.

We fear we may never find out all that has gone missing in this administration, although we urge Congressional investigators to keep trying. What we do know is that the Bush gaps of missing e-mails run into hundreds of thousands during some of the most sensitive political moments. Key gaps coincide with the lead-up to the Iraq war — and the White House’s manipulation of intelligence — as well as the destruction of videotapes of C.I.A. interrogations and the outing of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

Missing e-mails include entire blank days at the offices of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Also mysteriously wiped from the record are e-mails from Karl Rove, the president’s political guru, and dozens of other White House workers who improperly conducted government business on Republican Party e-mail accounts. The White House now claims that nothing has been lost, though officials previously acknowledged large-scale purging, claiming they were accidental.

An administration with nothing to fear from the truth would be in the forefront of protecting the historical record. The Senate must stand with the House and ensure that at least future administrations are stopped from doing wholesale damage to history.

They want all the privacy in the world while they tap our phones, and read our mail, credit card bills and email.  Screw you, washington dc.

Editorial
The New York Times

Anyone who has doubts that this country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers should read an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Iowa.

The essay chillingly describes what Dr. Camayd-Freixas saw and heard as he translated for some of the nearly 400 undocumented workers who were seized by federal agents at the Agriprocessors kosher plant in Postville in May.

Under the old way of doing things, the workers, nearly all Guatemalans, would have been simply and swiftly deported. But in a twist of Dickensian cruelty, more than 260 were charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and most were sentenced to five months in prison.

What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them.

Dr. Camayd-Freixas’s essay describes “the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see” — because cameras were forbidden.

“Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.”

He wrote that they had waived their rights in hopes of being quickly deported, “since they had families to support back home.” He said that they did not understand the charges they faced, adding, “and, frankly, neither could I.”

No one is denying that the workers were on the wrong side of the law. But there is a profound difference between stealing people’s identities to rob them of money and property, and using false papers to merely get a job. It is a distinction that the Bush administration, goaded by immigration extremists, has willfully ignored. Deporting unauthorized workers is one thing; sending desperate breadwinners to prison, and their families deeper into poverty, is another.

Court interpreters are normally impartial participants and keep their opinions to themselves. But Dr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, said he was so offended by the cruelty of the prosecutions that he felt compelled to break his silence. “A line was crossed at Postville,” he wrote.

Angry puffer fish goes nuts

The Sydney Morning Herald

A Cambodian teenager was recovering in hospital after a puffer fish attacked him in the groin, local media reported on Tuesday.

The Khmer-language Koh Santepheap daily ran a picture of the unnamed 13-year-old in a hospital bed with heavy strapping around his testicles, saying he was lucky to be alive.

The paper quoted the boy's father, Sok Ly, as saying the fish had become enraged when it was accidentally trapped in the boy's net and, when it was freed, had attacked the boy's scrotum.

Cambodian legend has it that the bite of the fish is even more dangerous than its poisonous spines, especially for boys, and Cambodian boys are traditionally advised not to swim in waters where the fish is common.

The victim, from Prek Pneuv commune outside Phnom Penh, was expected to recover from yesterday's attack, the paper said, but the extent of the damage had yet to be determined.

DPA

security theater comes to the metro. er, i mean metrolink

By Wil Wheaton

As gas prices leave the “um, really?” territory and speed into the “are you fucking serious?” range, a whole lot of Angelenos are finally considering using our fair city’s subway commuter rail system.*

That’s awesome. Getting cars off the road is great for the environment, and anything we can do to reduce congestion on our over-crowded freeways is always a good idea. The metro doesn’t really go to as many places as you’d expect (thanks, City Council Board of Supervisors!) and it doesn’t run as late as it does in . . . well, every other city in the world, but you go to work on the metro you have, not the metro you wish you had.

Sure, it’s a little inconvenient to take the metro, but with a some sacrifice and extra planning, it can be a pretty pleasant experience (as long as you don’t want to take pictures, you goddamn terrorist-fist-jabbing America hater) and it’s certainly cost effective.

However, the experience of riding the metro is about to become as annoying and frustrating as trying to get on an airplane, because security theater is coming to town:

In June 2008, Metrolink’s Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Bureau will begin deploying its Passenger Random Baggage Search Program to further strengthen rail security and discourage and deter violent criminals from carrying weapons, explosives, or other dangerous items onto Metrolink trains. According to the Transportation Security Administration, random baggage inspections are an effective security tool for deterring individuals who may pose a threat to passengers on board commuter trains.

If the Transportation Security Administration says it’s an effective security tool, you know that shit is seriously vetted, dogg. Remember, according to the Transportation Security Administration, 3.1 or more ounces of any liquid is deadly (3.0 is fine, though), shoes are dangerous, we should be scared shitless all the time, everywhere we go, and people who aren’t too keen on having some guy shove his fist up their ass to take a look around whenever you want to ride in a plane, train, or bus is worthy of tremendous suspicion. In fact, those people probably want to take pictures of things while they’re in public! OMG TERRORISTS! OH NOES! EVERYBODY PANIC!

The MTA tells us that this the best thing since cupcakes. It’s going to keep us safe because it’s totally random and the big scary bad guys won’t know where the cops will be stopping and searching people. See, when they don’t know where the cops will be, they won’t be able to plan . . . uh, what are we scared of today? I haven’t watched cable news in a long time, so I’m going to use a reliable old standby: the suitcase nuke that takes 3.2 ounces of toothpaste and a pair of tweezers to activate!!!1!

Being random is the opposite of being predictable, so that’ll make this really effective. The Terrorists (OMG) will never know where the security will be, so they’ll take their bomb vests and go home. This makes a lot of sense, right?

Wrong. This isn’t even random like it is at the airport, where everyone goes through the same checkpoint, and someone randomly wins the “I’m not a criminal, I’m just being treated like one” lottery when they’re late for a flight. This particular bit of security theater randomly moves from station to station, where:

Prior to initiation of a screening event, signs will be posted at all entrances to the station parking lots and platforms to notify passengers that the deputies are present and the random security screening will be conducted.

GENIUS! Let’s schedule random searches, but make sure everyone knows exactly where the random searches will happen! Good thing criminals and terrorists don’t know how to read signs and go to a different station! Oh, wait, they don’t have to read. All they have to do is refuse to be searched:

Any passenger may refuse to permit an inspection of his or her baggage. A refusal to permit inspection will result in the individual’s not being permitted to access the Metrolink system. Deputies will request that the passenger leave the station facility.

Now, this may seem like it’s kind of a stupid idea. It may seem like the police could use this as an excuse to harass people who aren’t doing anything wrong, but might be . . . undesirable. It may seem like this is just happening so people are constantly afraid. It may seem like this is happening to justify the existence of a giant government bureaucracy that’s really pretty pointless.

Yes, it may seem like any or all of those things, but I’m here to remind you that we have to do things like this prevent THE TERRORISTS from taking away our precious freedoms, like the freedom to ride the subway without being subject to constant surveillance and random security theater. And if you think this is a stupid idea, maybe you should just stare at the terror alert warning for a moment until you remember that it’s your patriotic duty to shut up, keep shopping, and vote for McCain.

God bless America! Fuck yeah!

(Terrorist fist-jab to Opher Banarie.)

*Bert Green points out in the comments that this random screening is coming to Metrolink, not Metro. Metrolink is, of course, the train service that runs from city to city, while MTA (Metro) is the Green, Gold, Red, Orange, Blue, etc. lines that still don’t serve Dodger Stadium. I regret the error, but still scoff at the security theater.

Sunday, 15 June 2008

More confidential government files were found on a commuter train earlier this week, it has been revealed.

The Independent on Sunday says it was handed the documents, which cover fighting global terrorist funding, drugs trafficking and money laundering.

The files were found on the same day as the BBC was handed top secret papers on al-Qaeda. A Treasury spokesman said the government was "extremely concerned".

The Tories are calling for controls to protect secret official information.

The documents, about a meeting of financial crime experts, apparently include briefing notes for a meeting of the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to be held in 11 Downing Street next week.

The papers were found on train bound for London Waterloo on 11 June, the same day that another batch of papers relating to intelligence assessments of Iraq and al-Qaeda were handed to the BBC after being left by a senior official on a train.

Our enemies don't even need to hack into our computers, they apparently just need to travel on public transport Keith Vaz, Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Previous cases of missing data

The Cabinet Office and the Metropolitan Police launched inquiries into the documents handed into the BBC - the latest in a series of blunders involving sensitive official information.

But Scotland Yard said it was not involved in investigating the latest case.

BBC political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg said it was uncertain whether the latest documents were also top secret.

The documents seen by the BBC should not have left Whitehall but it is not yet clear if the new files were permitted to have been taken out, our correspondent added.

"Some of the information is already on the public domain, but another lapse is deeply embarrassing for the government," she said.

A Treasury spokesman said: "We are extremely concerned about what has happened and we will be taking steps to ensure that it doesn't happen in the future."

Documents returned

The Independent on Sunday said it had returned the documents and would not be divulging any details contained in them.

The confidential files were said to include details of how trade and banking systems could be manipulated to finance illicit weapons of mass destruction in Iran.

They also discussed methods of terrorist funding and the potential fraud of commercial websites and international internet payment systems.

The government needs to get a grip in order to protect this sort of sensitive information and the British public Dame Pauline Neville-Jones Tory shadow security spokesman

Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, said people would be "alarmed" at this latest revelation.

He said that until an inquiry had established how the leaks happened, "no official no matter how senior, should be allowed to take classified or confidential documents outside their offices for whatever reason.

"Our enemies don't even need to hack into our computers, they apparently just need to travel on public transport."

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, Conservative shadow security spokesman, said: "We've now had eight major breaches that we know of in six months.

"The government needs to get a grip in order to protect this sort of sensitive information and the British public."

She called for "cleared and trusted" supervisors appointed to "supervise handling of government information inside the machinery of government on a daily basis".

The FATF conference is due to begin on Monday at the QE2 Conference Centre in Westminster, opposite the Houses of Parliament.

The FATF was established by the 1989 G7 summit in Paris to spearhead efforts to counter the use of the international financial system by criminals.

It has since expanded to 34 members.

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Police are investigating a "serious" security breach after a civil servant lost top-secret documents containing the latest intelligence on al-Qaeda.

The unnamed Cabinet Office employee apparently breached strict security rules when he left the papers on the seat of a train.

A fellow passenger spotted the envelope containing the files and gave it to the BBC, who handed them to the police.

The official was later suspended from his job, the Cabinet Office announced.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith now faces demands for an official inquiry.

Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the powerful Home Affairs select committee told the BBC: "Such confidential documents should be locked away...they should not be read on trains.

"I will be writing to the Home Secretary to establish an inquiry into the affair."

The Conservatives backed calls for an inquiry, with their security spokeswoman, Baroness Neville-Jones, describing the loss as the latest in a "long line of serious breaches of security."

Home Office minister Tony McNulty told the BBC he was awaiting the results of the police investigation.

'Damning assessment'

The two reports were assessments made by the government's Joint Intelligence Committee.

One, on Iraq's security forces, was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence. According to the BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, it included a top-secret and in some places "damning" assessment of Iraq's security forces,

The other document, reportedly entitled 'Al-Qaeda Vulnerabilities', was commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office.

Just seven pages long but classified as "UK Top Secret", this latest intelligence assessment on al-Qaeda is so sensitive that every document is numbered and marked "for UK/US/Canadian and Australian eyes only", according to our correspondent.

According to reports, this document may have contained details of names of individuals or locations which might have been useful to Britain's enemies.

MISSING SECRETS November '07: Discs containing child benefit records of 25m people lost December '07: Driving Standards Agency contractor loses records of 3m people January '08: 600,000 details of would-be recruits lost by Naval officer

However, it appears that in a serious breach of the rules, the papers were taken out of Whitehall by an unnamed official and left in an orange cardboard envelope on the seat of a Surrey-bound train from London Waterloo on Tuesday.

When a fellow passenger saw the material inside the envelope, they gave it to the BBC.

Not suspended

Reports suggest that the official, described as a senior male civil servant, works in the Cabinet Office's intelligence and security unit, which contributes to the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

His work reportedly involves writing and contributing to intelligence and security assessments, and that he has the authority to take secret documents out of the Cabinet Office - so long as strict procedures are observed.

Once the documents were reported missing, a full-scale search had been launched by the Metropolitan Police, amid fears that such highly sensitive material could have fallen into the wrong hands.

Our correspondent said that across several departments in Whitehall on Wednesday evening there is said to be "horror" that top-secret documents could have been so casually mislaid.

Inquiry

Any inquiry is likely to focus on the Cabinet Office, and the security procedures that made it possible for sensitive information to be allowed out of a secure environment.

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: "Two documents which are marked as 'secret' were left on a train and have subsequently been handed to the BBC.

"There has been a security breach, the Metropolitan Police are carrying out an investigation."

The spokesman declined to discuss the contents of the documents.

One Whitehall source sought to play down the impact of the breach: "The embarrassment of the loss is greater than the embarrassment of the contents of the documents.

"We don't believe there is a threat to any individuals in what was in these documents if they had got into the wrong hands."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We are making inquiries in connection with the loss of documents on June 10."

By Jane Corbin
BBC News
Tuesday, 10 June 2008

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

War profiteering

While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.

"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."

In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.

Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.

Missing billions

The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in west London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.

Judge Radhi al Radhi: "I believe these people are criminals."

He and his associates siphoned an estimated $1.2bn out of the ministry. They bought old military equipment from Poland but claimed for top-class weapons.

Meanwhile they diverted money into their own accounts.

Judge Radhi al-Radhi of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity investigated.

He said: "I believe these people are criminals.

"They failed to rebuild the Ministry of Defence, and as a result the violence and the bloodshed went on and on - the murder of Iraqis and foreigners continues and they bear responsibility."

Mr Shalaan was sentenced to two jail terms but he fled the country.

He said he was innocent and that it was all a plot against him by pro-Iranian MPs in the government.

There is an Interpol arrest warrant out for him but he is on the run - using a private jet to move around the globe.

He stills owns commercial properties in the Marble Arch area of London.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The "Longest Walk" for Native American rights and environmental protection, a spiritual walk from San Francisco to D.C., Northern Route, was walking this prayer through Columbus on Monday, June 2, when police squad cars and arrest wagons arrived. Without discussion of the purpose of the prayer walk, or verifying that the Ohio Department of Transportation had been notified of the prayer walk, police attacked the walkers.

Longest Walk scheduled to arrive in Maryland and DC
July 6-7: York to Towson, Interstate 83 South
July 8-10: Towson to Baltimore, Interstate 83 South
July 11: The Longest Walk 2 Arrives Washington D.C., Highway 1 South

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Unprovoked Columbus, Ohio police attacked Long Walkers, by first pointing a taser at the head of Michael Lane and then forcing Luv the Mezenger to the ground and handcuffing him.

The Longest Walk Northern Route was walking this prayer through Columbus on Monday, June 2, when police squad cars and arrest wagons arrived. Without discussion of the purpose of the prayer walk, or verifying that the Ohio Department of Transportation had been notified of the prayer walk, police attacked the walkers.

Michael Lane of New Zealand's Maori Nation, who walks with his wife Sharon Heta and their children, was targeted by police with a taser.

As dozens of police came at the walkers, a police officer held a taser three feet away from Lane’s head.

Luv the Mezenger from Los Angeles went to the aid of Lane. At that point, police officers threw Luv on the ground and handcuffed him. Luv has been on the walk since it left California in February, using snowshoes over a stretch of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Lane, who has a law degree from the Arizona State University, said the worst part of being targeted by a police officer with a taser was that it terrified his daughters who only knew that a gun was being pointed at their father’s head.

Across the North American continent, police-induced deaths from tasers have increased.

Luv suffered minor injuries from the police attack. Police placed Luv under arrest and in the paddy wagon before releasing him. (Listen to Luv and Lane interviews at www.earthcycles.net and posted below.)

Govinda Dalton, broadcasting on the live Longest Walk Talk radio on Earthcycles web radio, said, “They came to arrest the walkers with paddy wagons without even having a discussion as to what the walk is about, or the fact that the Ohio Department of Transportation has already been contacted.”

The harassment by Ohio police continued.  Tuesday, June 3, police ordered Longest Walk drummers off an area at the Ohio State Capitol. However, the Long Walkers continued with their press conference and aired statements on their loud speaker at the capitol.

It has been almost four months since the prayer walk began on Alcatraz, on Feb. 11. Until June 2, there had been no attacks on the walkers. The majority of the governors in the states through which the northern route has been walked have issued proclamations of support for the Longest Walk 2.

The Longest Walk 2 for Mother Earth and protection of sacred places is being walked thirty years after the original 1978 Longest Walk, a prayer walk for Indian rights and the recognition of the inherent sovereignty of Native people and Indian Nations.

Earthcycles’ Longest Walk Talk Radio has archived 400 interviews with walkers and people along the route since the walk left Alcatraz, on issues all across America.

The radio topics, voiced by people across America, have included the rise of the police state in the United States; the targeting of American Indians by city, state and federal police; the rise of xenophobia and the television-fueled, fear-mongering by the Bush administration. As a result of the fear-mongering, the Bush administration has found it easy to void federal laws, including waivers of more than 30 federal laws to build the US/Mexico border wall and seize private lands by way of eminent domain for the border wall. Across America, people are alarmed that the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, including free speech, have been violated.

On the Yankton Indian Nation, about 50 South Dakota police units recently swarmed a group of Yankton peacefully standing in defense of their sovereign land from a corporate hog farm under construction near the Head Start. About 40 Dakota from Yankton were arrested in two waves of arrests. The arrests and construction are now being challenged in court, but the construction of the disease-producing hog farm has accelerated.

The radio topics include global climate change, nuclear testing and gold mining on Western Shoshone lands and violations of treaty rights. Another issue is the loss of Paiute traditional hunting and gathering rights. Scientists are battling Paiutes for 10,000 year old Spirit Cave Man. Paiutes have gone to federal court in an effort to rebury the remains with respect. In Kansas, the Kickapoo are a nation without water and must haul all their water.

Other interviews focus on the proliferation of censored news concerning Navajo coal mining and relocation, Nazi-type forces at the US/Mexico border and the destruction of Tohono O’odham ancestors’ remains for the border wall. The news has also been censored on ceremonial and religious rights denied to Native inmates in U.S. prisons.

Those interviewed include Mohawks at the northern border; Navajo from Big Mountain, Arizona; Apache and Tohono O’odham from the southern border and Maori from New Zealand. Indigenous Peoples also discuss the continual oppression of Native Peoples, particularly from the four countries who refused to vote for adoption of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia did not vote for the Declaration, which was adopted by the U.N. in 2007 and recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their traditional territories. Following the U.N. vote, New Zealand police raided and arrested Maori in the sovereignty movement there, and new mining and disease-producing energy developments have proliferated in Indigenous territories around the globe.

The newest threat to Indigenous Peoples survival is carbon credits, a fictional concept which allows polluters to continue polluting. The carbon market is a scheme which has created millionaires and increases the attacks and displacement of Indigenous Peoples. The World Bank and large corporations are seizing Indigenous lands for new projects, particularly in South America. Indigenous Peoples were assassinated in Colombia as land was cleared for a wind project.

On the Longest Walk Talk Radio, there are also interviews on the economic collapse and war profiteering in the United States, the proliferation of power plants to enrich Bush’s corporate donors, profiteering by private security contractors such as Blackwater and the rapid expansion and construction of private prisons to imprison migrants for profit. At the Hutto migrant prison in Taylor, Texas, women, children and babies are imprisoned. Women have been sexually assaulted and children are deprived and abused. The United States denied entry to the prison by a United Nations Rapporteur documenting abuses of migrants.

Another reality voiced on the radio talk show is the cost of the bogus war in Iraq. American Indians and people of color, along with poor whites, are considered expendables to die in Iraq.

Meanwhile on the Longest Walk northern route, Wednesday, June 4, the walkers were all safe and well, but with a great deal of wet camping gear, after another night of lightning and rain in an eastern Ohio campground. During the past four months, walkers have camped in below freezing temperatures in the west and then camped in weeks of rain and winds from tornados in the Midwest.

Walkers on the northern route converge with walkers on the southern route, now in Alabama, to march into Washington on July 11. A four day Cultural Survival Summit is planned for July 8 – 11 and rallies and events for July 12 – 13.

Listen to the latest interviews about the prayer walkers attacked by Ohio police:
www.earthcycles.net/

Earthcycles: Listen to interviews on Ohio police attack on Long Walkers
2008-06-04_luvthemezzenger.mp3
One hour 9 min….
h31.9 Mb
2008-06-02_arrestnews.mp3
01:451.62 Mb
2008-06-02_clara.mp3
14:0512.9 Mb
2008-06-03_columbusterrorism.mp3
14:4313.47 Mb
2008-06-03_columbus.mp3
34:3231.48 Mb

The Earthcycles audios are available for broadcast by radio stations. Please let us know if you broadcast the programs: govinda (at) earthcycles.net

By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
Jun 11, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.

"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the "orgy of speculation" on oil markets.

But Republican leaders said the Democrats' plan would do harm rather than good - and they kept the legislation from being brought up for debate and amendments.

On world markets, oil prices retreated a bit Tuesday but remained above $131 a barrel. Gasoline prices edged even higher to a nationwide record average of $4.04 a gallon.

At the Capitol, Democratic leaders needed 60 votes and they got only 51 senators' support, including seven Republicans who bucked their party leaders. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state tied closely to the oil industry, was the only Democrat opposing the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted in favor of the measure, but for procedural reasons changed his vote to "no" so that he could bring it up again.

"We are hurting as a country. We're hurting individually as Americans ... and the other side says, `Do nothing. Don't even debate the issue,'" complained Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

"Average citizens are scratching their heads and saying, what's wrong with Washington," said Schumer.

GOP opponents argued that little was to be gained by imposing new taxes on the five U.S. oil giants: Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and ConocoPhillips Co.

While these companies may be huge, they don't set world oil prices and raising their taxes would discourage domestic oil production, the Republicans said of the Democrats' plan.

"In the middle of what some are calling the biggest energy shock in a generation ... they proposed as a solution, of all things, a windfall profits tax," Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky chided the Democrats. He called their proposal "a gimmick" that would not lower gasoline prices and only hold back domestic oil production.

"The American people are clamoring for relief at the pump," agreed Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., but "they will get exactly what they don't want" under the Democrats' plan - higher prices and an increase in oil imports.

The bill's supporters argued that their proposal was different from the windfall profits taxes of the early 1980s that thwarted domestic production and led to a rise in imports. The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their "windfall" to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said.

Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. Again Democrats couldn't get the 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Neither Republican presidential candidate John McCain nor his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, were in Washington to cast votes on the energy issue on Tuesday.

Obama, in a statement, said Republicans had "turned a blind eye to the plight of America's working families" by refusing to take up the energy legislation. Obama has supported additional taxes on the oil companies. McCain is opposed to such taxes and has proposed across-the-aboard tax reductions for industry as a way to help the economy.

Election-year politics hung over the debate. Democrats know their energy package has no chance of becoming law. Even it were to overcome a Senate GOP filibuster - a longshot at best - and the House acted, President Bush has made clear he would veto it.

But there was nothing to lose by taking on Big Oil when people are paying $60 to $100 to fill up their gas tanks.

The oil companies have been frequent targets of Congress. Twice this year, top executives of the largest U.S. oil producers have been brought before congressional committees to explain their huge profits. And each time the executives urged lawmakers to resist punitive tax measures, blaming high costs on global supply and demand.

In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats' bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.

In an attempt to dampen oil market speculation, the legislation would require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and would provide authority to regulate U.S.-based trading in foreign markets. And it would make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.

After Tuesday's defeat, Democrats did not rule out pushing the issue again.

"This was politics at its worst," complained Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "This was a refusal to debate the biggest problem confronting the American people. ... That takes nerve."

"Nerve"? It's not nerve, it's evil.

Also: why on Earth couldn't the democrats get a filibuster going? What's wrong with these people?