February 4, 2002
February 11, 2002
February 18, 2002
February 25, 2002
Whole Body Health
IRS, DoJ Back Out of Long-Planned Parley with Patriot Anti-Tax Group
After much public pressure, bureaucrats from the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice agreed to a confrontation over the legality of the income tax - but now they're running for cover - scared to death of that can of worms.
A long-standing agreement by Washington bureaucrats to confront a patriotic organization over the legality of the federal income tax has been broken by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice.
However, despite the absence of federal bureaucrats, the We the People Foundation will hold its scheduled meeting Feb. 27-28 at the Washington Marriot.
For years the federal bureaucrats, fearful of the We the People Foundation's arguments that the tax is illegal, had resisted meeting with the taxpayers. Finally out of public embarrassment, they agreed to meet. Now, they've pulled out again.
The meeting was originally scheduled for Sept. 25-26 last year but was cancelled because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It was rescheduled for this Feb. 27-28.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) helped arrange the breakthrough, signing an agreement with Assistant Attorney General Dan Bryant to hold a recorded, congressional-style meeting in a public forum of Capitol Hill in Washington.
IRS and DoJ officials were to respond to the questions the foundation and other patriotic groups have raised for many years over the legality of the income tax.
But on Jan. 17, Bartlett backed off anf the confrontation was cancelled. In a letter to Bob Schulz, Bartlett said he was "dismayed at the tone of your web page."
Bartlett specifically objected tot he foundation suggestion to "Wait to File Until the Trial."
"Come off it, congressman," Schulz responded. "There is nothing in this campaign that wasn't stated clearly in the full=page ads run by the same organization a year ago. What is it you're afraid of?"
Schulz was referring to a series of full-page ads the foundation ran a year ago in USA Today and The Washington Times, the preferred newspaper for Republicans in Washington.
The ads made the case that neither the IRS not any federal agency has a right to collect a personal income tax or require employers to withhold such a tax. Copies of these ads are available on the foundation's web site: www.givemeliberty.org.
"We've got to conclude that the government has no valid defense and would take any excuse...to avoid answering the allegations," Schulz said. "Our government servants have lost the battle by refusing to show up. They have no answer to the charges. Isn't that obvious?"
Once again armed storm troopers from the Food and Drug Administration have raided law-abiding scientists who are seeking and successfully experimenting with alternative treatments for cancer. As a consequence of the latest FDA assault on a clinic in Tamps-St. Petersburg, Fla., people who were responding favorably to their experimental treatments are now facing certain death. This is not the first time such a thing has happened and unless government policies are changed, it will not be the last time it happens.
The victim of the latest FDA assault on medical freedom of choice, Joseph DiStephano, founder of the Medical Center for Preventative and Nutritional Medicine in Tampa-St. Petersburg was the guest on the Dec. 9 broadcast of Radio Free America, the weekly call-in talk forum sponsored by American Free Press and featuring host Tom Valentine.
What follows is an edited transcription of that interview. Valentine's questions start with a "Q". DiStephano's replies start with an "R".
Q. Please explain the background that led to the terrorist attack by the FDA on your clinic.
R. We've operated a preventive health care center in Tampa-St. Petersburg for some 36 years. We had the first chelation center in Florida. We've treated more than 28,000 patients.
About four years ago I needed continuing education for my license as a clinical nutritionist and Dr. Ivan Danoff was a keynote speaker at the center offering the continuing education. He's a professor at one of the universities in Texas where I had taken courses and I met him. After the meeting, we talked concerning his studies of the aloe vera plant and of an extract from that plant.
Dr Danoff had spent many years extracting various sized molecules from the plant and helped in the initial research that go approval for a product that is being used in a veterinary product.
Through a specialized technique, Dr. Danoff was able to extract from this plant an extremely large molecule which seems to have the ability to destroy cancers and other autoimmune diseases such as AIDS and will help break Chrone's disease. Myriad problems seem to be alleviated. This molecule is called albarin.
Danoff asked if we would help him in his further research. We have a non-profit center providing services for those who can't afford it and decided this was something the public could use. This is the process of IND, which means "investigative new drug," which is filed with the Food and Drug administration (FDA), so that they can monitor what we are doing.
We began our program about three years ago and initially took Phase IV cancers with people who had been told that they had two-to-six months to live. Of the first 100 patients or so, we've only lost six of them and we've seen some remarkable results.
Three years passed and we were presenting our data to Dr. Danoff so that he could move to his next phase when some unknown parties complained to the FDA, saying that we were using an unapproved drug.
On Oct. 11, the FDA decided to act and they sent 40 storm troopers into my home and 40 troopers into each of our clinics. They had no arrest warrants, only search warrants. They set everyone down for six to eight hours and went through everything that they could get their hands on. Then they left, saying that we were using an unapproved drug and that we couldn't do it any longer. At the same time they hit Dr. Danoff's office in Texas and id the same thing to him.
Generally there are two divisions of the FDA: their general division, so to speak, that comes in and asks questions and the FDA's storm troopers from the criminal division.
We thought we had approval, under Dr. Danoff's arrangement with the FDA, but they are saying we did not. But in any respect, the FDA decided to send in the storm troopers, the division that usually handles people who are making cocaine in their bathtubs. They treated us like criminals.
Q. This was one month to the day after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and our government was acting like the tyrants that we are supposed to be fighting in the war against terror.
R. About a week prior to that the chief investigator for the FDA had been in our garbage can. We found him, without a search warrant, trespassing. He told us that he was "looking for boxes," but I told him that no one looks for boxes at 12 o'clock at night with rubber gloves on.
I started taking his license number down and said I was going to call the police and he said, "That's not going to help you any." I told them that they could not leave without picking up the garbage they had all over the street so they picked it up. He was very upset. One week later he arranged to have the storm troopers come in.
Q. Were you using this drug as part of your experiment to determine the validity of Dr. Danoff's research?
R. Yes, we were working under the assumption that we had the authority from the FDA to conduct this Phase II cancer study. We were using an intravenous transfusion. It is strictly a medical procedure that takes about 35 minutes. We were treating people for four days in a row and we saw very little side effects.
The major thing we did see was that the cancerous tumors were shrinking. We found that it worked extremely well for most forms of cancer, except when there was an amount of fluid in the abdominal area. For some reason or other, the aloe was ineffective in the presence of this fluid. In brain tumors, it was only 50 percent effective in those that we treated.
Over three years we had been treating close to 200 people and now the government has confiscated the records of our treatments along with all of the records of our work for the past 36 years.
So for our patients who are coming in for other treatments (other than the one that was of immediate concern to the FDA), we don't have any of their records. We are open for business, but we are not allowed to do our work with the aloe vera.
The major problem we have is that many of those patients who were taking the aloe vera were taking advantage of their "last chance," so to speak. They were at Phase IV, in hospices, suffering severe pain and had no place else to go. Conventional physicians had given up on them, but the patients had responded very well to our treatment.
In a short time they have been able to come off the morphine pain killers because our treatment does indeed relieve the pain. And to emphasize the fact: we have seen the cancerous tumors shrink from out treatment.
We are not able to get the drug mack into our hands right now and we will lose our patients who have been responding in a positive fashion.
On man who came down had less than 30 days to live, according to his doctors, and came into the program in a wheelchair. But he ws walking after three months of our treatment and was able to sit up and read books. However, now that he's off our treatment, thanks to the FDA, he's back in bed and not doing very well.
So we're trying our hardest to get enough people together to lobby Congress to pressure the FDA to get our material back in our hands to at least continue treating those who were getting treatment.
In order for the judge to have issued the search warrant for our clinics and my home in the first place, I'm certain that there had to be some sort of lies told by the FDA because there was ho real reason. They didn't have an arrest warrant.
And they took all of our records, not just the records of the albarin experimentation. Under the judge's order, they didn't have to tell us what the complaint was for at least 120 days. Basically they are just trying to find excuses to bring charges against us.
Now it is costing us money to defend ourselves. The initial attorney we approached wanted $50,000 in hand before he would pickup a pencil. However, our current attorney is willing to take it piecemeal as we raise funds. We're not very wealthy to begin with, especially since we give away our services for free in many cases.
Q.Is there a fund people can contribute to?
People can call my office at (727) 572-6745 for further information.
The bottom line is that if the FDA wins this case, it is another notch in their gun in relationship to freedom of choice in medicine. They can use our case as a precedent to stop further research in other areas.
Our patients are saying, "If we don't get this treatment,
we will die," but the chief FDA investigator told them, "It's
not my problem. I'm just doing my job."
|Top|
An insider trading incident involving Germany's major banks and insurance companies suggests that the Enron Bankruptcy is just a part of a larger "global worldwide scandal."
The collapse of Enron, the single largest bankruptcy in world history, is likely to become the financial and political scandal in American history, but it may only be the most visible aspect of a larger systemic problem - a kind of Alien "virus" that has infected the global nexus of financial and political power.
Enron, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as an investment bank, became a virtual "energy company." It was Enron that was at the center of the energy deregulation scheme that exacerbated the electricity crisis in California, costing consumers, and the Golden State, billions of dollars.
The company has close ties with the Bush administration.
Enron and its chairman, Kenneth Lay, have been generous contributors to political campaigns of both Democrats and Republicans, giving a reported $2 million. Enron officials sought and obtained the support of former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore for the Kyoto treaty because it would generate immense profits for the company's trendy energy-saving products. On taking office, Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty.
The integrity of the government investigation into the company's activities may be compromised because the officials leading the investigation, including the FBI, are themselves connected to the Chicago-based accounting firm Arthur Andersen.
Andersen, one of the world's biggest accounting firms, with 85,000 employees in 84 countries, reportedly approved falsified Enron financial statements concealing almost $20 billion of debt from stock and bond holders, regulatory agencies and Enron employees.
The current chairman of the SEC, Harvey Pitt, and the head of the congressional investigative arm, the General Accounting Office (GAO), David Walker, came to government positions after working for Arthur Andersen.
The Observer, a British newspaper, reported on Jan. 20 that "more than $5 billion" disappeared from Enron's balance sheet into a "black hole" - much of it apparently into off-shore "shell companies" in the Cayman Islands, set up by Andrew Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer.
Investigators are examining a series of undeclared transactions between Enron and two Cayman Islands firms - LJM1 and LJM2.
Fastow disappeared before Christmas and the financial press reported that he had probably escaped to Israel via Canada. He eventually resurfaced in New York in the company of highly paid lawyers.
Enron was reportedly Arthur Andersen's second biggest account - earning the company some $52 million last year.
Andersen now has a $1 million contract to review FBI operations, thanks to Attorney General John Ashcroft, to conduct a "management assessment study" on the very government agency that is investigating its involvement in the Enron collapse.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said that this could give Arthur Andersen access to sensitive information about the FBI's investigation of Enron.
"Arthur Andersen now has access to some very sensitive things in the FBI, at the same time I'm going to be calling on the FBI to help my committee investigate why Arthur Andersen destroyed material," Leahy said.
For months, Andersen destroyed important electronic and paper documents related to Enron.
SEC Chairman Pitt, who took office last August, after the Enron implosion had already begun, was according to a Jan. 9 report by the Center for Public Integrity representing Arthur Andersen as a partner in the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris Shriver and Jacobson.
U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the GAO, was until Nov. 9, 1998, a partner, board member and global managing director at Andersen.
Walker is reported to have been on the board of Andersen for almost two years while Enron was "cooking the books and Andersen was signing off on it."
Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and a past managing director of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read said Enron's trading patterns, Internet money movements and other activities were consistent with a large-scale money laundering operation.
"I will bet every last dollar I have that Enron was the largest laundromat of stolen and tax evading dollars in American history and that the Department of Justice's primary goal is a cover-up - to make sure that the money trail disappears forever," Fitts told Michael C. Ruppert of the newsletter From The Wilderness.
There were "huge orders" of "put structures" on Allianz and Münchner Rückversicherung, two of Germany's largest insurance companies and well-known "global players" in the weeks before Sept. 11. "Put structures" are derivative options to sell a stock at a higher price - if the value of the stock falls.
Andrea Fuchs is a Frankfurt-based financial trader for Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank (DG-Bank), who discovered that a bank director had illegally exchanged information about an important trade in the insurance industry. Her discovery led to her being fired.
Fuchs challenged the legality of her dismissal and refused to accept the bank's offer of 1.5 million DM ($700,000) in February 1998, and accept blame. The bank sent the workers union representative to meet Fuchs to try and resolve the matter.
After refusing the bank's offer, Fuchs was told by the union representative: "We have a Scientology problem within the bank. Be careful"
Fuchs said that this was the first time she had heard Scientology mentioned in connection with the bank, but she had noticed that contracted Andersen employees affiliated with Scientology had been hired as auditors and consultants at the bank.
In Germany, Scientology is not classified as a church, but as a business.
Andersen and Scientology have both been under investigation by Germany's Verfassungsschutz, or domestic intelligence agency, for years. Germany has been criticized in the American media as being intolerant for not accepting Scientology as a religion.
Renate Vegol is a German journalist based in Bonn.
|Top|
The truth behind the mainstream media reports on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and earlier disasters continues to emerge through alternative sources.
How could a hijacker armed with a box cutter dispatch the crew, especially two strapping pilots up front in cramped quarters? How were the towers—plus three other buildings —actually brought down? These are among many important questions that have yet to be answered by the government's official 9-11 theory.
Let's look at the pilots of those Sept. 11 flights:
John Ogonowski, captain of American Airlines flight 11, took off from Logan Airport in Boston at 7:59 a.m., with 81 passengers and 11 crew and crashed into the World Trade Center at 8:45 a.m.
Ogonowski was an Air Force fighter pilot in Vietnam and joined American Airlines 23 years ago. He lived on his farm north of Boston which was purchased and cultivated by his Polish grandfather 100 years ago. Ogonowski was big, burly and physically strong. His co-pilot, Tom McGuinness, was also in excellent physical condition.
LeRoy Homer, first officer of United Airlines flight 93, departed Newark for San Francisco at 8:01 a.m. with 39 passengers and seven crew. Many people believe that it was taken out by an Air Force F-16. It crashed in Somerset County, Pa., at 10:10 a.m. Homer, muscular and agile, was a former Air Force pilot.
Victor Saracini, another former fighter pilot of the Vietnam era, was captain of UAL Flight 175; which left Boston for Los Angeles at 8:14 a.m., with 56 passengers and nine crew but crashed into a second WTC tower at 9:03. Saracini was in superb physical shape, with a quick and alert mind.
Chic Burlingame was a graduate of Naval Academy, flew F-4s in Vietnam, left the Navy 28 years ago and joined American Airlines. Burlingame was captain of AA flight 77. He departed Washington Dulles at 8:10 am and crashed into the Pentagon at 9:41. Burlingame was a health nut, jogger and exceptionally competent pilot.
No one, whether armed with razor or handgun, is going to take the controls away from these guys, much less overpower two of them.
Their absolute best defense would have been to roll the airplane over, using the eight-click "barrel roll." At fourth click, you are inverted; at eighth click, you are once again upright and straight and level. The total maneuver time is 10 seconds. A forced takeover could never have happened inside one of their cockpits.
My group of aviation experts has several clips of raw video footage showing the two aircraft strikes on the towers and their subsequent collapse.
Especially revealing is a Fox 5 News tape depicting the sudden implosion of the two towers, the first of which took place at 10 a.m.
The crucial segment is from 9:58 a.m. to 10:03 a.m. At 10 a.m., the screen goes blank and, a few seconds later, a great white cloud of smoke and dust rises from the base of the tower.
The news anchor exclaims: "There is an explosion at the base of the building . . . white smoke from the bottom . . . something has happened at the base of the building . . . then, another explosion. Another building in the WTC complex [has blown up] . . ."
The above reveals only a few of the many unanswered questions
surrounding the worst terrorism America has experienced. That
there is at this time still no thorough congressional investigation
of the events of 9-11 is itself a major unanswered question. But
with government cooperation or without, the historical truth will
be uncovered.
|Top|
There's often more information in what America's controlled press chooses to omit than what it actually prints.
In a series of exclusives for AFP, Michael Collins Piper exposed a powerful group of pro-Israel belligerents, known as the "Wolfowitz cabal," and their behind-the-scenes efforts to push America into war with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
However, contrary to what this group may want Americans to believe, not everyone agrees with the group's hawkish agenda.
In a glaring omission on the part of the U.S. press—only worthy of mention by Xinhau, China's official news agency—18 former high-ranking U.S. military leaders, intelligence analysts, diplomats, academics and heads of think tanks have come forward urging President Bush to "resist military actions against Iraq and focus on capturing the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks."
In a letter, the top officials warned Bush that "a new war would increase instability inside Iraq," lead to more deaths among Iraqi civilians and cause "an increase in anti-American sentiments in the Middle East and in Muslim countries."
Signatories to the letter include Navy Adm. Eugene Carroll (ret.), former National Intelligence Officer of the CIA William Christison, former Chief of Mission to Iraq Ed Peck, former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Atkins and former Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.).
Several current and former U.S. officials whose signatures were not on the letter have also publicly stated that an attack on Iraq would be "a dangerous mistake," including Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Al Gore's former National Security Advisor Leon Feurth.
Contrarily, the powerful band of Washington pols, power brokers and political commentators pressing for war has been led by Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.). Echoing their war cry are Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, publisher William Kristol and political advisor Richard Perle.
The common thread binding the Wolfowitz cabal together is that
all of the members maintain emotional and ethnic ties to Israel.
|Top|
America's War on Terror is being expanded at an alarming rate by the Bush administration, sending U.S. servicemen on wild goose chases - first in Afghanistan, then Yemem, now in the Philippines - in ill-considered attempts to root ouut terrorism. All the while, the truth behind what really happened on Sept.11 remains unanswered.
Are there really terrorists in the hills of the Philippines who could lash out against America? Or could this be a desperate ruse on the part of the White House to keep us distracted so we don't demand to know who was behind the worst terrorist attack on American soil and - just as importantly - who knew this tragedy was going to happen but failed to prevent it.
Instead, the Bush administration directs the Army, the Marines, the Air Force and the Navy around the world, risking the lives of our brave servicemen, to chase suspected terrorists on bad intelligence reports issued by blood-thirsty Afghan war lords and would-be Third World despots eager to profit from our government's frenzy.
THE CONTROLLED PRESS is being kept busy craunching the numbers on who profited from the Enron scandal and evaluating what American Taliban John Walker Lindh thinks about his leftist upbringing in California.
Where has Congress been during all of this? Why have our craven congressmen and senators refused to press for a thorough investigation of the worst terror attack in American history, the world's largest skyscraper collapse and the greatest number of U.S. Civilians to be killed during peacetime?
Clearly, our top officials do not want to provide these vital details to the American people for fear that it will expose deep-seated problems in U.S. policy; namely, the way in which the government conducts its affairs and its allegiances.
AFP - alone among all the other news outlets in the United States - is putting the pieces together and reporting back to the American people.
In addition, at a conference sponsored by the historical magazine, The Barnes Review, the weekend of June 14-16, a panel of experts, some of whom are AFP writers, will be dissecting what happened on Sept. 11 and the events leading up to it. See page 16 of this issue for more information on this significant meeting.
An open congressional investigation is long overdue into the many unanswered questions about the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade center and the Pentagon, including who had advance knowledge of the tragic events and who failed to prevent it from happening.
If Americans fail to discover the whole truth about 9-11 our
vulnerability will become fatal. Let's get to the bottom of this
terrible event so we can lay to rest, once and for all, AMERICA'S
WAR ON TERROR.
|Top|
The Enron-Andersen scandal has spread to Britain, Australia, India and beyond and may have played a significant role in the planning of the Afghan war.
The scandal of Enron and the involvement of Arthur Andersen (and its spin-off firms) has now tainted the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labor Party.
Questions are being asked about the company's contributions of some $51,000 to events for Blair's party and whether Enron had bought influence in order to effect a change in British energy policy to abandon its moratorium on gas-fired power stations in April 2000.
A former Labor Party minister, Peter Kilfoyle, told the BBC, "I am embarrassed for the Labor Party that it should be put in a position where it has taken money from such eminently fraudulent people as Enron."
Vice President Dick Cheney is unwilling to reveal the details of the role that Enron executives played in creating the U.S. energy policy, but the Bush White house is reported to have played a role in amending a State Department document to bolster energy use in India, which would have benefitted Enron in its dispute with the Indian government over Enron's gas-fueled Dabhol plant near Bombay. The dispute centers on Enron overcharging the state for the energy it generates, as it did in California last year.
The fact that Enron was involved in the planning of gas pipelines to transport the immense reserves of Central Asia across Afghanistan to India, where it owns a gas-fueled power plant in the nation's most populous state must raise serious questions of how far Enron's influence reached.
The close ties between the British Labor party and Andersen have also come under scrutiny. Andersen had been banned from government work in Britain by the government of Margaret Thatcher because of its involvement in a previous scandal in Belfast in the 1980s. The ban was lifted shortly after Labor came to power in 1997.
Andersen reportedly advised the Labor party on "flagship projects" such as the windfall tax, the privatization of utilities and the railroad, and the air traffic control sell-off.
Some questions of the British government's links to Andersen have been tabled according to a report in The Financial Times, which revealed that the current trade and industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was a research director for Andersen Consulting.
In Australia, officials are investigating what responsibility Andersen bears in the collapse of HIH, which imploded in March. HIH filed for bankruptcy protection with some $2.75 billion in liabilities. Andersen had previously "blessed" HIH's books for the year ending June 30,2000, when HIH said it had nearly $500 million in net assets.
The close ties between HIH and Andersen reached to the boardroom where three board members were former Andersen partners. At least two top finance executives at Enron had also previously worked at Andersen.
As the collapse of Enron in the United States, the failure of HIH was the largest corporate meltdown in Australian history, according to USA Today.
Another Andersen client, Global Crossing, a "Wall Street giant" filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 28. The insolvency of the Bermuda-based telecom company was reported to be the fourth largest in U.S. history. Andersen acted as both auditor and consultant for Global Crossing, as it did for Enron.
Global Crossing's founder, Gary Winnick, was a former colleague
and confidant of the disgraced financier Michael Milken. Winnick
had boasted in the past that he was the "richest man in Los
Angeles."
|Top|
Congress could strike a bold blow against terrorism by reforming immigration laws so that new "citizens" are loyal to this country and no other.
The urgency of the need for Congress to dramatically overhaul immigration laws was stressed by a new report showing America being overwhelmed with "citizens" whose loyalties lie with other countries.
Most of the debate over immigration reform in Congress has concentrated on protecting the shores and borders from terrorists but the Center for Immigration Reform's report released Jan. 31 points up the threat of "dual citizenship."
Millions of American "citizens" remain loyal to their country of origin despite swearing allegiance to the United States, the report said. Among them could be "sleeper" terrorists waiting for the signal to conduct terrorist attacks on the scale of 9-11
More than one million people immigrate to the United States each year—nearly 90 percent from countries that allow dual citizenship, the center said. The largest immigrant-sending country is Mexico.
CONFLICTING IDENTITIES
"Is it possible to be a fully engaged and knowledgeable
citizen of several
countries?" the report asked. "Is it possible to follow
two or more very different cultural traditions? Is it possible
to have two, possibly conflicting, core identifications and attachments?
And, assuming such things are possible, are they desirable?"
Stanley Renshon, Ph.D., professor of political science at City University of New York and author of the study, answered his own questions:
• "No country can afford to have large numbers of citizens with shallow national or civic attachments. Further, no country facing divisive domestic issues arising out of increasing diversity, as the United States does today, benefits from large-scale immigration of those with multiple loyalties and attachments.
• "The process of being attached to one's country of origin begins early and immigrants, understandably, often are conflicted in this regard. Today, governments of immigrant-sending countries around the world actively take steps to ensure that these old loyalties and attachments are maintained and even stimulated.
• "The United States traditionally has accepted immigrants with the assumption that they and their children would eventually become anchored to an American identity. This assumption has increasingly come under attack from those who reject America's inclusive pluralism in favor of a ‘multicultural manifesto' that equates assimilation with domination."
Immigration Service official figures for 1994-1998 show that 17 of the top 20 immigrant-sending countries (85 percent) allow some form of multiple citizenship. Of the more than 2.6 million immigrants from the top 20 countries, more than 2.2 million (86 percent) are multiple-citizenship immigrants.
The report makes clear that a "dual citizen" cannot be 100 percent loyal to any country. If a citizen is 100 percent loyal to America, there is no loyalty left for another country. It made the point that earlier immigrants came to this country to seek opportunity, made a lifetime commitment, assimilated, became 100 percent loyal and their descendants are loyal Americans.
In acknowledging that all Americans are immigrants or descendants of immigrants the report approached but failed to confront the dual loyalty of Americans who apply for and obtain Israeli citizenship while maintaining their U.S. citizenship.
"In the annals of lobbying, the efficacy of those lobbying for the state of Israel is legendary and a model for those who wish to use their dual citizenship to emulate it," the report said.
Normally, when an American applies for and obtains citizenship in another country it is considered an automatic renunciation of U.S. citizenship. If the American becomes a citizen by the unilateral action of the other country—for example, if an American marries a French citizen in France, he is a French citizen whether he likes it or not—he retains U.S. citizenship.
But Americans, under an obscure provision of the 1953 Immigration
Reform Act, who apply for and obtain Israeli citizenship retain
their U.S. citizenship. How is their 100 percent loyalty divided?
How do these "citizens" act when the interests of the
United States and Israel are in conflict?
|Top|
Obscure provisions of NAFTA have allowed lawyers to rob taxpayers of billions of dollars - and there is nothing U.S. courts will do about it.
A telling PBS documentary Feb. 5 detailed little-known provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that allow multi-national corporations to dispute official trade policy in an international governing body, wresting national sovereignty from the signatories and handling it over to a global bureaucracy.
Under NAFTA's so-called Chapter 11 provisions, the trade pact has granted multinational corporations the power to sue the three NAFTA countries - the United States, Mexico and Canada - in an international court if official trade policies cut into profits and demand that taxpayers compensate them for damages, according to Bill Moyers Reports, PBS's investigative television journal.
However, instead of being tried in their respective countries, reports Moyers, the NAFTA cases are heard in global trade tribunals which meet secretly without public participation or oversight.
The international court, whose rulings are binding under NAFTA, can require the country's taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in claims to the company without the hope for an appeal, in violation of U.S. law.
Ongoing cases examined by Moyers include a $970 million claim filed by a Canadian company, Methanex, against the United States, alleging that U.S. environmental policy prevented the company from being able to sell its product in the United States.
Other cases, many of which have already been concluded, have resulted in billions of dollars of claims paid by taxpayers from Mexico, Canada and the United States.
Claims are so huge in these cases, reports Moyers, that a whole new culture is growing among the top U.S. law firms, which are creating new divisions to specifically go after Chapter 11 suits.
In the United States, Moyers says, many of the same lawyers, who worked for the U.S. government - namely the U.S. Trade Representative's office - wrote and negotiated NAFTA, have now joined the nation's largest law firms and are filing chapter 11 claims with the international tribunal.
Despite the fact that these clandestine courts are in direct violation of the Constitution, Congress approved this sovereignty-stealing internationalist pact in November 1993.
Congress is now poised to pass Fast Track legislation which
will grant President Bush the mandate to press for expansion of
NAFTA across the continent in the name of the Free Trade Area
of the Americas. If Fast Track passes, Congress will only be able
to vote the trade bill up or down but will not be able to alter
it.
|Top|
Hopefully signs that the United States may be pulling back from an irrational Mideast policy are not hollow gestures.
President Bush and Secretary of state Colin Powell have given the world clear signals that a significant change in Middle East policy may be emerging. The first signal came when Bush talked of the future state of "Palestine" while addressing the United Nations. No president had ever used the name that would be appended a future Palestinian state. He became the first president to clearly call for a Palestinian state.
Powell followed up with a clear call for Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, which Israel expanded with surprise attacks on Egypt and Gaza.
In what the White House billed as a major policy address on Nov. 19, Powell called for Israel to end its practice of expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying it "cripples chances for real peace and security." He urged Israel to lift its economic blockade of Palestinian areas. Powell explicitly identified the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands as a source of widespread grievance that has sparked the uprising.
"Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been the defining reality of the Palestinians' lives there for over three decades, longer than most of the Palestinians living there have been alive," Powell said. "The overwhelming majority of the Palestinians in the west Bank and Gaza have grown up with checkpoints and raids and indignities." Powell called it a viable Palestinian state."
PUBLIC REPROACH
While Powell stopped short of criticizing Israel's atrocities - which, according to Amnesty Internatiional and Human Rights Watch, include the systematic killing and torturing of Palestinian women and children - his words were the strongest public reproach of any American administration.
The United Nations committee Against Torture also denounced Israel for "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment."
In a demonstration of how confident Israel is that it will continue receiving billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year through various conduits regardless of its actions, the following various conduits regardless of its actions, the following day the government announced that new homes would be built in the occupied territories.
Israel announced it would build new homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron. Israel also demolished 18 homes of Palestinians in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza.
Israel said it would replace trailer houses in the Jewish settlement in Hebron with permanent, concrete structures.
Recently, a Dutch group visited the ruins of the Gaza seaport, which ongoing Israeli military operations have all but destroyed several European companies played roles in developing the small port on the Mediterranean, which Palestinian officials had hoped would decrease Arabs' dependency on Israel for access to the sea.
However, a series of assaults by the Israeli military have
left the port inoperable, forcing the Palestinians to rely on
Israel for ocean shipping.
|Top|
The Bush administration's unquestioning support for Israeli aggression against the Palestinian Authority has widened the chasm between the United States and its European allies - and is leading to isolation.
The U.S. financial political, and military support that allows Israel to use American-made combat aircraft, missiles, and weapons on a daily basis to kill Palestinian civilians and destroy their homes, buildings and struggling economy is preventing a political solution in the Middle East and isolating the United states in its "war on terrorism."
The besieged Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, clearly articulated the Palestinian position in a full page ad in the New York Times on Feb.3, titled the "Palestinian Vision of Peace" in which he called for a just peace "based on the complete end of the occupation."
The piece, in which Arafat condemned terrorism, said "The cycle of violence has led many to conclude that peace is impossible, a myth borne out of ignorance of the Palestinian position. Now is the time for the Palestinians to state clearly, and for the world to hear clearly, the Palestinian vision.
"Palestinians are ready to end the conflict." Arafat said. "We are ready to sit down now with any Israeli leader, regardless of his history, to negotiate freedom for the Palestinians, a complete end of the occupation, security for Israel and creative solutions to the plight of the refugees while respecting Israel's demographic concerns."
Arafat's urgent appeal for a peace settlement apparently fell on deaf ears at the White House as the U.S. government continues to castigate and blame the besieged Palestinian leader for the 16 months of violence which has left some 17,000 Palestinians injured and taken the lives of nearly 1,000 more.
European governments, however, have responded to the crisis with a unified call for a Palestinian state, elections, and negotiations to resolve the conflict.
Israel's apparent response to Arafat's appeal for peace was to increase its bombing of Palestinian infrastructure, notably prisons.
On Feb. 11, as Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, returned from his fourth meeting with President Bush, Israel used American-made Apache helicopter gun ships to fire six missiles into the main Palestinian prison in downtown Gaza City, the second such attack in Gaza within 24 hours.
The midday attack came as the streets were crowded with school children who ran from the explosions screaming in panic. Buildings nearby were set ablaze.
The BBC reported that a half hour after the midday helicopter attack on the prison, Israeli forces using American-made F-16 fighter jets struck the prison a second time injuring dozens of civilian rescue personnel, firefighters, and journalists - four critically.
Three Palestinian journalists and an American photographer, George Kochaniec, from The Rocky Mountain News were among the injured.
The first Israeli attack also damaged the offices of the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, injuring two of his staff. Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat and architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accord, condemned the air strike: "It is outrageous that Israel deployed weapons of heavy tonnage in such close proximity to civilian areas and UN facilities."
"It's totally unacceptable to use that kind of weaponry which puts civilian lives and U.N. personnel at peril," Larsen told Israel Army Radio. The attack that damaged Larsen's office and destroyed a nearby kindergarten.
Larsen strongly criticized the Israeli policy of bombing the Palestinian Authority as counter-productive stressing that the core issues of occupation, land confiscation, refugees and human rights have to be addressed, adding, "There can be no military solution to this conflict."
A senior member of Sharon's Likud Party, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defended the strikes saying, "There can only be a military solution." Natanyahu also said Arafat should be removed: "If you get rid of this regime, you are telling the person who comes next, watch out."
In the face of Israel's escalating aggression, bush's condemnation of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union speech has opened a political chasm between the United States and Europe. The Bush speech "reads like a blueprint for U.S. policy designed by Ariel Sharon," Quentin Peel of Financial Times wrote.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress that the president is set on a "regime change" in Iraq and warned that the United States "might have to do it alone." Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) joined the war hawks and emphasized "unequivocal support" for the overthrow of the Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein.
A chorus of European leaders have strongly rejected military action against the three countries.
Germany led the protests, sending a clear signal that it would not join any attack on Iraq.
Berlin's deputy foreign minister, Ludgedr Vollmer said: "There is no indication, no proof that Iraq is involved in the terrorism we have been talking about for the last few months...this terror argument cannot be used to settle old scores."
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine urged Europeans to speak up when they disagree with U.S. foreign policy, citing the Middle East conflict and U.S. support for Sharon, which he said was "mistaken" and "dangerously simplistic."
Europeans "are friends of the United States and will remain so," Vedrine said. "We are threatened today by a new simplism which consists in reducing everything to the war on terrorism. We cannot accept that idea. You have got to tackle the root causes, the situations, poverty and injustice."
Vedrine said Europeans were "unanimous in not supporting the Middle East policy of the White House" and said it is a "mistake to blindly accept the Israeli policy of pure repression."
The Israeli and American attempts to marginalize Arafat and the Palestinian Authority are leading to "a strategic impasse." in the Middle East, Vedrine said.
France sponsored a proposal passed during a meeting of European foreign ministers in Caceres, Spain, on Feb. 10. The proposal calls for an immediate Palestinian state, elections in the Palestinian territories, and a negotiated peace settlement.
Russia denies there is evidence to link Iran, Iraq, or North Korea to global terrorism. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke out recently against any U.S. military action against Iraq, saying that the Iraqi situation was different from Afghanistan and that only the U.N. security council could sanction and attack.
Putin said he objected to Bush's inclusion of the three nations in his "axis of evil" speech. U.S. officials have suggested that Iraq could be the next country attacked in the "war on terrorism."
"We oppose the drawing up of black lists," Putin said. "Such problems cannot be solved by one country alone."
Lionel Jospin, the French prime minister, urged the U.S. government not to reduce all foreign policy issues to the struggle against terrorism and to resist "unilateralism."
France supports the united States' right to strike back at those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, but is wary of Bush's determination to extend the war beyond Afghanistan.
Vedrine expressed criticism of what has become known as the "Bush Doctrine" a decision by Washington to subordinate all foreign policy to the needs of the "war against terrorism."
The United States, he said, acts "unilaterally, without consulting others, taking decisions based on its own view of the world and its own interests...refusing any multilateral negotiation that could limit their decision-making, sovereignty and freedom of action.
The Bush administration's foreign policy ignores outside views, Vedrine said. "On taking office the administration's tendency was to approach world affairs unilaterally, without consulting others, acting on its own interpretation and its own interests," he said.
Vedrine said Europe has a duty to stand up to the U.S. "Hyperpower" over the globalization of the free market and over policy toward the Middle East, calling for an end to the isolation of Arafat.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said U.S. allies were following with "worry and attention" the possibility that the United states might widen the current conflict. Berlusconi said Italy would continue working with both Iran and North Korea, arguing that dialogue was the best way to avoid misunderstandings between peoples.
Berlusconi urged Israelis and Palestinians to return to the negotiating table, warning that the conflict could spread to neighboring states. "We are in a situation that could cause the entire Islamic world to explode," he said.
EU officials say they will resist any U.S. attempt to make an enemy of Iran in the widening war on terrorism. Europe believes trade, cooperation and support for the reform process and opposition moderates is the best way forward for Iran.
Britain's Chris Patten, former chairman of the Conservative Party, said Washington was more interested in "stamping out" terrorism that addressing its root causes. When you're addressing that agenda, frankly, smart bombs have their place but smart development assistance seems to me even more significant."
Patten criticized the Bush administration's "go-it-alone approach" to international relations. "However mighty you are, even if you are the greatest superpower in the world, you cannot do it all on your own," he said.
The United Nations is stealthily claiming vast lands in the United States and working its will on the people.
The National Park Service (NPS) has established 23 National Heritage Areas (NHA) since 1984 in various locations but citizens and property owners are mostly unaware of this.
The government is trying to establish seven more and plans to have 200 NHAs covering America in about 2010. After 200 such areas blanket America, NPS wants them to become United Nations World Heritage Areas; 23 of them are already so designated.
NPS conducts an almost covert study for a desired NHA, baiting local municipalities to pass resolutions of support by offering federal grants.
The National Heritage Areas bring federal zoning and controls. The NPS has created problems of river access and prohibited hunting in some areas of existing NHAs.
A small group called ASPIRE (Association Supporting Individual Rights for Everyone) has been resisting government efforts to establish an NHA blanketing New Jersey. It's based in New Jersey Pinelands which has been under the National Park Service as a National Reserve since 1978. The Pinelands was made a UN International Biosphere Reserve by NPS in 1983.
ASPIRE has gained signatures on petitions opposing this and given them to the NPS study project leader and municipalities, pointing out that the UN land-grab will bring federal zoning and controls, and other problems to property owners and sportsmen.
Representatives of ASPIRE have met with local, county and state officials and congressmen to show the problems and opposition to these 10th Amendment violations.
Americans should be on the alert for the NPS attempts to bring
a NHA into their state and should keep in contact with their congressman.
|Top|
A Massachusetts town has refused to allow water, chemically-treated with the poison fluoride, to be shoved down their throats.
Last November in Worcester, Massachusetts the city voted a resounding "no" to fluoridating the city water thanks to the efforts of the Worcester Citizens for Total Health.
The measure, which was supported by a half-million dollar campaign spearheaded by The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, went down to defeat by a 56 to 44 margin.
The Worcester Citizens spent less than $10,000 in their effort to defeat the measure, which was the fourth time the establishment has proposed the issue for the city. One citizen, Anthony P. Hmura, donated newspaper ads costing $3,500.
The Worcester Citizens group gathered 15,000 signatures to put the referendum before the voters after the city Board of Health had authorized fluoridation without an election last Spring.
In his letter to American Free Press reporting on the victory, Hmura suggested that those few who want fluoridated water should be the one responsible for getting citizens to sign petitions rather than those opposed. He especially resented the fact the city had put the fluoridation equipment into place years ago without a vote - a fact that clearly illustrates the arrogance of those with the agenda.February 24, 2002
Some of the comments reported in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette after the election defeat for the Board of Health are encouraging to Americans who are sick and tired of the fluoridation agenda being rammed down unsuspecting throats.
Devorah Moore, a leader of the opposition was quoted: "I think what this means is you can try to buy votes with money, but you can't buy the truth. People used their gut instincts. They don't want a chemical in their water and are very angry that their rights to control their own medication would be violated."
Now, if more Americans can only be stimulated to action on
several fronts where monopolistic, erroneous institutional thinking
is carrying out a self-serving agenda, prospects for the future
would improve.
|Top|
Environmental chemicals creeping into our bodies may be the cause of increasing cases of Parkinson's disease.
Parkinson's disease, formerly also called Paralysis Agitans or Shaking Palsy, is a disease of the central nervous system. Characteristic symptoms are tremors or shaking of one or both arms and sometimes of other muscles. Generally muscles are weak and rigid, movements slow and the face expressionless, also the voice becomes weak.
Typically the walk is with slow, short, shuffling steps, the arms held stiffly at the sides and the trunk slightly bent forward. The patient may spontaneously break into a shuffling run.
Onset of the disease is gradual and progression of symptoms usually slow. It may start with a mild shaking of the hands or involuntary nodding of the head. The mental abilities usually remain unimpaired; however, as the disease progresses there may be frequent mood changes, withdrawal and depression.
The disease commonly starts in middle-aged and elderly individuals and seems to affect predominantly males. However, high exposure to environmental chemicals and drugs, such as certain tranquillizers and anti-hypertensives, inorganic iron, aluminum and carbon monoxide can induce an early onset of Parkinson-like symptoms. The symptoms of Parkinson's disease are partly due to a loss of brain cells in specific areas and partly to a lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine that helps to transmit signals across the tiny gaps between neighboring nerve cells.
The medical cause of these brain changes is not known. The main medical treatment consists in providing a drug, L-dopa or levodopa, which can be converted in the brain to dopamine. In addition, there are a rariety of dopamine-sparing drugs and others that stimulate dopamine receptors. However, this treatment is not always effective, especially in advanced conditions and the long-term deterioration continues unchecked or may even be speeded up. Side effects include involuntary jerky movements, hypotension, nausea, anorexia, vomiting and disturbance of the mental equilibrium. Long-term treatment may result in neurotic and psychotic symptoms. These are probably due to an oxidation product of L-dopa, dopachrome, accumulating in the brain. For a similar reason schizophrenics deteriorate when given L-dopa.
Evidence is now accumulating which supports the view that Parkinson's disease can originate from long-term damage to the nervous system from environmental chemicals. Initial reports linked the development of some forms of Parkinson's disease mainly to medical drugs and to industrial workers exposed to chemicals. This includes especially the exposure to industrial solvents. Further evidence indicates that aerosol sprays may have an exacerbating or trigger effect in inducing Parkinson's.
More recent reports also show a link between the use of pesticides and herbicides on farms and this disease. Development of symptoms due to low-level chronic exposure is gradual. For instance the symptoms of a farmer ascribed to chemical spraying progressed over an eight year period to bilateral Parkinsonism. It has been suggested by researchers that long-term exposure to sub-toxic levels of chemicals is much more likely to lead to neurological disorders, such as Parkinsonism, than to physically based diseases.
A recent study found that mice developed symptoms of Parkinson's disease when injected with low levels of two common farm chemicals, the herbicide paraquat and the fungicide maneb. Neither of these on their own caused any problems.
A study at Stanford University reported in May 2000 questioned 496 individuals during their diagnosis for Parkinson's disease about pesticide exposure in the home. It was found that people who had been exposed to pesticides were twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as people not exposed to pesticides.
Further brain deterioration can be caused by accumulations of the heavy metals cadmium, lead and mercury. Of these, mercury is generally the greatest brain hazard, coming mainly from amalgam tooth fillings. Organic mercury compounds are strong nerve poisons which may kill nerve cells, cause tremors and reportedly also symptoms of multiple sclerosis. The problem is worse with two or more different kinds of metal in the mouth which cause micro-currents that interfere with nerve functions, and also the presence of different toxic metals in the brain greatly increases their harmful effects. Finally, iron overload, especially in inorganic form, can intensify Parkinson problems.
Parkinson's disease is strongly linked to pesticides and food additives, especially synthetic coloring. Therefore, make an overall effort to live as chemical free as possible, but in addition have a test period for several weeks where you are very strict in avoiding all potentially harmful influences. Buy and use only organically grown food and use filtered or distilled water. Minimize any chemical air pollution, including cigarette smoke. Instead of taking colored tablets, use capsules with white powder.
Try to obtain unsprayed fruit and vegetables and use unprocessed foods without added chemicals. Try to have the main part of your diet as fresh and raw food with only as much cooked food added to a meal as you need for flavoring. In addition have extended periods on fresh raw food only. Use plenty of sprouted seeds. Use one or two raw egg yolks most days as in salad dressings, but only free-range eggs, egg white rarely. Unheated extra-virgin olive oil, herbs and spices may be used for flavoring.
Sea fish and other seafood are fine but not out of tins or from contaminated coastal areas. Often prepare salads with unflavored gelatin or, better still, with the broth from boiled fish heads. Simmer for several hours, possibly with the addition of some cider vinegar, and refrigerate or freeze as cubes, use some with most meals or juices. As protein can interfere with the absorption of levodopa, it is best to have a protein meal in the evening after taking the last levodopa of the day. If meat is being used, do so sparingly and in an easily digestible from, such as a broth rather than swallowing whole pieces.
To improve the blood flow to the brain try sleeping with the head lower than the feet, e.g. raise the foot end of the bed by the height of one or two bricks. Also build or acquire a slant-board on which you can rest and meditate with the head considerably lower than the strapped feet. Alternatively, you may acquire inversion equipment to hang upside down.
Frequently do deep breathing-tensing exercises: inhale deeply while tensing all muscles, hold for several seconds and exhale while fully relaxing. Repeat this frequently during the day. Another important exercise is to circle the head 10-20 times in each direction, also try to let the head drop with a jerk to each side.
Preferably have your neck vertebrae and spine checked by a chiropractor and adjusted if required. Intentional vigorous shaking exercises help to reduce involuntary shaking or tremors. You may do it with the arms, head and torso, but also in a sitting or lying position with the legs in addition. At the same time breathe very deep and fast. This will release a lot of built-up tension. However, when you are resting, it helps you to relax if you intentionally breathe deeply but very slowly with a long drawn-out exhalation and a pause between inhalation and exhalation.
Then you imagine doing various tasks that are usually causing
problems. Visualize doing these tasks in a perfect way as you
would like to do them, that is without any tremors and with good
muscle coordination. During the day, whenever you encounter problems,
or want to perform a difficult task, close your eyes for a short
period and several times envisage performing the task in a perfect
way. Then actually do it.
|Top|
A little too late, a German scientist has been proven right about the dangers of "clean air." worse, he warned us about it over 30 years ago.
The truth will come out - even though it may take a long, long time to do so. Back in the mid-1970s, when catalytic converters were new technology designed to help curb auto exhaust pollution, the late dr. Hans Nieper of Germany warned everyone who would listen that this was a bad idea.
"These things will emit platinum particles into the environment and that heavy metal pollution will do damage to people's lungs," Nieper claimed. "The rates of lung cancer and asthma and other chronic lung disease will get worse," he warned.
Of course the catalytic converters became standard parts of new automobiles and as such became economically important thereby making any campaign to eliminate them extremely difficult. The powers-that-be really did not want to even study the matter.
Now a research project to verify the length and breadth of the platinum and other heavy metal pollution caused by catalytic converters may be under way. Clive Neal, director of the Inductively Couple Plasma-Mass Spectrometry Research facility at the University of Notre Dame has already verified that markedly increased amounts of platinum, palladium and rhodium from catalytic converters has accumulated in roadside dirt along an Indiana highway.
While researchers are not yet describing platinum and the other two metals as the lung disease problems cited by Dr. Nieper, they have admitted that platinum is an allergen and suspected contributor to asthma. Catalytic converters use the three exotic metals to catalyze reactions that convert carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in auto exhaust into less noxious emissions.
However, despite helping to improve air quality, the converters have been contributing the heavy metals to the environment so that Notre Dame researchers in their first test location found up to 10 times the normal back-ground levels of platinum particles. Dr. Neal mused: "Is it getting into the food crops? We don't know."
The Notre Dame geologist has proposed to conduct a wider survey and more comprehensive study to determine the extent of the platinum pollution and the potential consequences.
Dr. Neal suggested that the first sample taken in Roseland, Ind. Was probably minimal next to the amounts of metals that might be discovered alongside Chicago freeways. He suggested that in some sites the dirt might be "scooped up" and the platinum reclaimed.
The Notre Dame researcher also suggested that the study take advantage of the school's environmental research facility located in the pristine countryside near Land O' Lakes, Wis. just to see the levels of platinum in a clean environment.
Charles Kulpa, a biologist and director of Notre Dame's Center for Environmental Science and Technology, said the issue is especially timely because the EPA is considering the use of catalytic converters on smaller engines such as lawnmowers.
The study proposal to the American chemical Society is for
a project that would run through the year 2005.
|Top|