cryptogon.com

Because of the complex ethical issues involved in conducting ethnographic fieldwork for occupying military forces in war zones, the Human Terrain Program is viewed by most anthropologists as being highly problematic. In November 2007, the American Anthropological Association’s Executive Board produced a statement condemning the Human Terrain program for its inattention to basic anthropological ethical concerns for voluntary informed consent and the well-being of studied populations.

…

Mayer also talked about Google’s use of user data created by actions on Wiki search to improve search results on Google in general. For now that data is not being used to change overall search results, she said. But in the future it’s likely Google will use the data to at least make obvious changes. An example is if “thousands of people” were to knock a search result off a search page, they’d be likely to make a change.

“The failure rate is going to go up, the closure rate is going up, and the merger rate is going up,” IGS Chief Executive Officer John Godden said in an interview in London. “It’s going to be a 30 percent wipe out.”

There have been 12,636 notices of delivery. The shorts have until December 31 to make delivery. Normally they deliver early to take in cash and earn the interest. They must be delaying. As I understand the situation, that represents about 40 percent of the gold available at the Comex, and of course someone could enter the scene late, buy February gold, and then spread into December, which would stun the shorts.

My broker friend said his back office said this sort of alert is highly unusual and that the concern is real, not only for gold, but for other commodities too, like copper and palladium, as there is a good deal of talk of taking deliveries there too. But gold is the one for which the advice to cover went out.

Ashleigh Cave suffered dizziness and headaches soon after the vaccination at her school and then deteriorated rapidly, collapsing several times over the following days.

A week later she was admitted to hospital after losing all strength in her legs and, two months on, there has been no improvement.

Her mother Cheryl, 37, from Aintree, Merseyside, is blaming her daughter’s condition on the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab, which was introduced in Britain in September as part of a government-funded vaccination programme.

All girls aged 12 and 13 are being offered vaccinations with Cervarix, a drug that stimulates the body to defend itself against HPV, to protect against the later onset of cervical cancer which is linked to the virus.

In America, where an immunisation programme using a similar product, Gardasil, began more than a year earlier, there have been dozens of serious “adverse events” reported in which a link to the vaccinations is suspected.

They included 30 deaths in addition to cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an auto-immune disease that can cause paralysis. The American authorities have said, however, that there is no evidence the HPV jabs caused these reactions.

Ashleigh’s case has been logged with Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency as an instance of possible Guillain-Barré syndrome, although her doctors have now apparently ruled it out as the cause.

The agency has also indicated that the illness was probably not caused by the jab. Ashleigh’s doctor at Alder Hey children’s hospital, Liverpool, where she is undergoing tests, has said she did not have a “pathological reaction” to the vaccine.

Cheryl Cave said that she found the timing of her daughter’s symptoms impossible to ignore.

She said that within 30 minutes of Ashleigh having the jab at Maricourt Catholic high school on the morning of October 15, she was complaining of severe headaches and dizziness. Over the next 48 hours her condition worsened and she collapsed five times. Two days later they set off to visit friends in Hampshire but the schoolgirl collapsed again on the train.

She was admitted to Frimley Park hospital in Camberley, Surrey, where doctors gave the initial diagnosis of “vertigo and generalised myalgia, probably due to recent vaccinations”.

On October 22, a week after she was given the HPV jab, she was admitted to Alder Hey hospital, where she has remained ever since.

Her mother said: “At first they tried to tell us she was imagining it because she was being bullied . . . they will not mention her illness and the vaccine in the same sentence.”

A spokesman for the medicines agency said: “Guillain-Barré syndrome naturally occurs in the population. There is no good evidence to suggest that the Cervarix vaccine can cause [it].”

Police officers from the Special Investigation Group (SIG) have carried out surveillance and used a paid informer to gather information not just about planned protests but the personal lives and sexual relationships of group members.

The police informer, Christchurch man Rob Gilchrist, whose activities are revealed in today’s Sunday Star-Times, was a key member of various community groups during the past decade.

He helped arrange protests and was close friends with leading campaigners, and advocated radical and illegal activities by the groups.

Last week he said he was embarrassed and sorry for what he did. The people he spied on were not security threats. “I know they are good people trying to make a better world.”

Wellington human rights lawyer Michael Bott said the surveillance of peaceful groups was repugnant and “has shades of Big Brother and Soviet Russia”. Surveillance of the personal lives of members of peaceful groups meant the basic right to privacy was being eroded. “It just appears fundamentally abusive and wrong.”

Gilchrist was unmasked recently when his animal rights and Labour Party activist girlfriend Rochelle Rees was helping him fix his computer. She stumbled across signs of him passing information about protest groups to an anonymous email address.

This address has since been traced to two SIG officers based at the Christchurch central police station, Detective Peter Gilroy and Detective Sergeant John Sjoberg. Gilchrist privately referred to them as “Uncle Pete” and “Uncle John”.

Melbourne newspaper The Age reported a similar case three months ago, where an undercover police officer had infiltrated community groups. He worked in Animal Liberation Victoria, taking part in a midnight raid on a battery hen farm, and helped organise anti-Iraq war demonstrations.

He worked for Australia’s similarly named Security Intelligence Group, which is also officially focused on terrorism.

Auckland human rights lawyer Tim McBride said the surveillance was “outrageous in a country that goes off to the United Nations and prattles on about our proud human rights record”.

Greenpeace campaign director Carmen Gravatt said the surveillance was “totally unnecessary in a country like New Zealand. It undermines the openness of groups, it undermines the relationships within the groups and it undermines the relationships they have with the police”.

Mark Eden, of the Wellington Animal Rights Network, said it was outrageous to consider that the network’s campaign against battery hen farming was terrorism and that the group was somehow like al Qaeda.

“We have gone in and filmed the farms and discovered the cruelty. But instead of doing the democratic thing and stopping it, which is what the public want, they have responded by sending in the secret police. That’s the most shocking thing about it.”

Police national crime manager Detective Superintendent Win Van Der Velde said the police “will neither confirm nor deny the identity or existence of any informant within any group”. Police operated paid informants for gathering intelligence about criminal activity.

Police Minister Judith Collins said: “This government wants to ensure [the police] have the tools and the support they need to keep the public safe.

“From time to time it may be necessary to use paid informants. I think most New Zealanders would find it reassuring that the police are out there keeping a watch on the whole community. That’s what they’re there for.

“I trust the police to exercise sound judgement and professionalism when deciding where and when to use paid informants.”

Opposition leader Phil Goff, who as justice minister helped set up the SIG, said he would want to know why anyone employed to look after counter-terrorism and national security would focus on Greenpeace.

Greenpeace had a history of non-violent protest which was “perfectly legitimate in our society”.

Goff said that as minister he had no knowledge of the SIG’s operational details. “That’s not something that comes across the minister’s desk.”

Announcing the SIG teams in 2004, Goff said they were to boost New Zealand’s counter-terrorism capacity. The teams would work under the Strategic Intelligence Unit, which officials had recommended following the September 11 attacks to “focus on terrorism and transnational activity such as people-smuggling, identity fraud and money laundering”.

There are now SIG teams in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch that, according to the police 2006 Statement of Intent, “are dedicated to the investigation of national security-related crime including terrorism”.

SIG documents obtained by the Sunday Star-Times reveal that in 2007:

* SIG officers requested details about the personal lives and sexual relationships of members of animal rights groups.

* An SIG officer asked Gilchrist in writing for information about “anti-war/anti-American groups”, climate change groups in Auckland and names of any campaigners travelling to protest at Apec and vivisection conferences in Australia.

The Star-Times reported last year that Auckland private investigators Thompson and Clark had hired students to spy on most of the same protest groups. Many groups were being infiltrated simultaneously by both private investigator and police spies.

Ecuador’s dollar-denominated debt prices plunged on news of its second default in a decade and the first in Latin America since Argentina in 2002, although the decision was not expected to lead to similar moves around the region.

Correa, a U.S.-trained economist and ally of Venezuela’s anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, refused to make a $31 million interest payment due on Monday on 2012 global bonds, saying the debt was contracted illegally by a previous administration.

“I gave the order not to pay the interest and to go into default,” Correa said. “We know very well who we are up against — real monsters.”

Separately, on the high street, bailiffs are getting ready for their busiest Christmas ever, with a slew of retailers expected to go into administration.

Supermarket chain Asda, led by Andy Bond, is working on ‘worst-case scenarios’ across the board – combing its supplier base and examining alternatives to them. ‘Suppliers are under a lot of pressure and there will be casualties,’ said a senior executive at another store chain, which has already stepped in to pay troubled suppliers ahead of schedule. ‘We need each other, it is not a zero-sum game.’

The need for alternative supply lines has been brought into focus by the collapse of Woolworths and its distribution arm, EUK, which supplied the supermarkets as well as Zavvi, the former Virgin Megastores, with CDs. However, cracks have been showing in other areas, with milk processor Dairy Farmers of Britain in the midst of a restructuring that will see two dairies close and up to 640 jobs lost.

The damage a collapsed supplier can do is laid bare at Zavvi, which has been destabilised during the most important sales weeks of the year. It has been forced to suspend its website with former parent Virgin stumping up a £5m ‘fighting fund’ to keep shelves filled in the key trading days left between now and Christmas. But with no obvious successor to step into the void left by EUK, Zavvi faces a grim outlook in 2009.

Tesco said it was supporting suppliers that needed extra help by giving an indication of future orders. ‘The worst thing for a supermarket is for a supplier to go under, because you are left with a big hole and investing in a new one is a big deal,’ said a Tesco spokesman.

Analysts say the supply of ready meals is vulnerable. Major players include the heavily indebted Premier Foods and Icelandic group Bakkavor. The latter has £140m trapped in collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing, although it says its UK operation, which supplies all the major grocers, is not affected.

Relationships between supermarkets and suppliers are often tense at the best of times. Suppliers hoping for additional protection from the powerful supermarkets – who have been accused of making unreasonable demands in price negotiations – look set to be disappointed as the Competition Commission’s plan to create an ombudsman looks doomed. Asda will not sign up to the scheme, so the matter looks set for referral to the government’s business department in the new year.

The collapse of Woolworths has come to symbolise the dire state of the high street, where retailers are facing the worst trading conditions in a generation. And with a spate of administrations expected early in the new year, bailiffs are gearing up for a festive feeding frenzy around ‘quarter day’ – when even struggling retailers must find three months’ rent – which falls on Christmas Day.

‘We have had more instructions than ever before and I’ve been in this career for 21 years,’ said Jon Dawkins, chief executive of bailiffs’ firm Dawkins, whose clients include the Crown Estate, Transport for London, asset managers Prudential and Threadneedle, as well as all the major property agents.