cryptogon.com

The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based.

One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft.

A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or “sole source” contracts because of the company’s classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations.

NewEra, previously known as Western Precision Inc. and located in Hildale, Utah, also received a $900,000 loan in 2005 from the federal Small Business Administration, the data show.

The president and chief executive of the company is John. C. Wayman, identified as an FLDS leader and a close associate to Warren Jeffs, the sect’s “prophet,” who was convicted last year as an accomplice to rape for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.

When Jeffs, who was one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the summer of 2006, he was driving Wayman’s late-model red Cadillac Escalade, government officials say.

Wayman did not return phone calls seeking comment.

On NewEra’s Web site Wayman says the company is “an honorable and valuable asset to our country” in helping build military and commercial airplanes that carry people throughout the world. He does not mention its ties to the FLDS.

Steve Barlow, human resources manager for NewEra, said last week that it would be inappropriate to comment, “Given everything that’s going on. I could only give you the company motto: ‘Good parts on time.’. ”

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that deals with issues of defense, military and homeland security, said she is surprised that the federal government is doing business with a group accused of mistreating women and children.

“It makes me very uneasy,” Granger said. “It needs to be investigated without a doubt.”

To begin with, she added, federal authorities should look into NewEra’s financial records.

John Nielsen, who worked for the company when it was Western Precision in Hildale, said in a 2005 affidavit that he and other FLDS members were made to work for little or no wages, even as the company was bringing in lucrative government contracts and other work.

At the same time, $50,000 to $100,000 in company profits were going each month to FLDS “and/or” Jeffs, Nielsen said in the affidavit, filed as part of a civil lawsuit.

He said he and other sect members thought their working for free or for extremely low wages would bring them redemption. Instead, Nielsen said in the affidavit, he was found to be “wanting” by the sect’s leadership, ordered off the property and separated from his five young children and his wife. She was “reassigned” to another man, becoming the fourth of his six wives.

“It broke my heart,” Nielsen said in the affidavit. He declined to comment when reached by phone Friday.

In Texas, authorities raided the FLDS’ sprawling YFZ Ranch near Eldorado on April 3, beginning an exhaustive search of its 1,691 acres. Authorities were acting on a tip from a 16-year-old girl inside the compound who said she had been beaten and raped by a 50-year-old man whom she was forced to marry.

Since then, a state district court judge has ordered the removal of 416 children, many of them young girls who have children or are pregnant after forced encounters with their “spiritual” husbands in the sect’s towering white limestone temple, officials say.

“There’s a lot of bad shit in there,” said a high-ranking official with the federal Justice Department who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case. On Tuesday, the Justice Department executed a sealed FBI search warrant at the ranch.

While the men of the sect have held close rein on their “plural wives” and children, seldom allowing them to associate with the outside world, the male leaders have fanned out into successful public business ventures. They work as government defense contractors, dairy farmers, engineers, construction contractors, log-cabin homebuilders and suppliers of lanyards, the cords used on eyeglasses or nametags.

In addition, JNJ Engineering, a company owned and operated by FLDS leaders, has made millions of dollars in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in September. The company won $11.3 million in contract work from the Las Vegas Valley Water District; all but one of the project workers came from the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., where most of the sect’s 10,000 members live.

Jethro Barlow, a former accountant for the FLDS whom Warren Jeffs excommunicated in 2003, said Jeffs ordered sect members, their families and the companies they operated to “give till it hurts….

“And people did.”

Jeffs was able to rally church members to tithe heavily, even if it hurt them financially, because he had convinced them that they had to prepare for the end of the world, Barlow said.

The fever-pitched preparation continued, even after several apocalyptic deadlines had passed. It motivated the rapid construction of the temple at the YFZ Ranch and the erection there of manufactured cabin-like homes made by sect members in Canada, he said.

Barlow, who remains in Hildale, said he believes he and his family were kicked out of the FLDS because they were not among the favored ones in Jeffs’ flock.

Although Jeffs is now behind bars, sect members still consider him their leader and prophet, said Bruce Wisan, a nonmember appointed by the state of Utah to replace Jeffs as manager of a the FLDS’ trust. Established in 1942 to “preserve and advance the religious doctrines” of the church, it is now estimated to be worth between $100 million and $150 million.

Under Jeffs’ direction, Wisan said, sect households are required to tithe at least 10 percent of their gross income to the church, plus an extra $1,000 a month.

Tim Bodily, an assistant attorney over the tax division of the Utah attorney general’s office, said Wisan has received little cooperation from those within the sect, which has traditionally shown distrust for outsiders.

The article, based on documents unearthed in lawsuits over the pain drug Vioxx, provides a rare, detailed look in the industry practice of ghostwriting medical research studies that are then published in academic journals.

The article cited one draft of a Vioxx research study that was still in want of a big-name researcher, identifying the lead writer only as “External author?”

Vioxx was a best-selling drug before Merck took it off the market in 2004 over evidence linking it to heart attacks. Last fall, the company agreed to a $4.85 billion settlement to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by former Vioxx patients or their families.

The lead author of Wednesday’s article, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said a close look at the Merck documents raised broad questions about the validity of much of the drug industry’s published research, because the ghostwriting practice appears to be widespread.

“It almost calls into question all legitimate research that’s been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry with the academic physician,” said Dr. Ross, whose article, written with colleagues, was published Wednesday in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. and posted Tuesday on the journal’s Web site.

And although it might not attract the likes of Margo and Jerry to move to the area, an entire village is trying its hand at the Good Life.

In a bid to become less dependent on supermarkets, the residents of Martin are working together to become as self-sufficient as possible.

The Hampshire village is now home to hundreds of real life versions of the characters played by Felicity Kendall and Richard Briers, who lived off the land in the 1970s BBC comedy.

They work on a rota system and raise their own chickens and pigs and grow potatoes, garlic, onions, chillis and green vegetables on eight acres of rented land.

Of the 164 families who live in Martin, 101 have signed up as members of Future Farms for an annual £2 fee, although the produce can be sold to anyone who wants to buy it.

The “community allotment” sells 45 types of vegetables and 100 chickens a week, and is run by a committee which includes a radiologist, a computer programmer and a former probation officer.

Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons.

Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions.

Ablin said the DNA collection would be subject to the same privacy laws applied to current DNA sampling. That means none of it would be used for identifying genetic traits, diseases or disorders.

Roger Bergendorff, who authorities allege began making ricin a decade ago, was arrested upon his release from the hospital where he had been treated since Feb. 14.

He is charged with possession of a biological toxin and two weapons offenses stemming from materials authorities said were found Feb. 26 and Feb. 28 in his room at an extended-stay motel several blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.

Speaking from a wheelchair, Bergendorff told a federal judge in his initial court appearance that it was “not in my blood” to use the deadly poison.

“I didn’t use that stuff,” Bergendorff said as his court-appointed lawyer advised him not to say more, “because I couldn’t.”

The charges carry a possible penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a $750,000 fine. The judge ordered that Bergendorff, 57, remain in custody until a preliminary hearing May 2.

Prosecutors said in a six-page complaint that Bergendorff told investigators he first made ricin in San Diego in the late 1990s, and later made the substance while living in Reno and in the basement of his cousin’s house in Riverton, Utah.

The complaint said that a June 2002 receipt for castor bean seed, purchased from a Michigan company, was found in an Utah storage locker rented by Bergendorff. The listed purchaser, “Roger’s Patio and Garden,” was apparently a fictitious business created by Bergendorff, the complaint said.

Cancer research is the only legal use for ricin, which has no antidote and can be lethal in amounts the size of the head of a pin.

Authorities do not allege Bergendorff’s possession of ricin had anything to do with terrorism, according to court documents.

“Bergendorff characterized the production of ricin as an ‘exotic idea,'” the complaint said.

Over the course of several interviews with the FBI, “Bergendorff admitted that there have been people who have made him mad over the years and he had thoughts about causing them harm to the point of making some plans,” the complaint said. “However, he maintained that he never acted on those thoughts or plans.”

Bergendorff and his lawyer, Paul Riddle, acknowledged the seriousness of the charges, which carry a possible penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a $750,000 fine.

Officials say Bergendorff’s symptoms were consistent with ricin exposure, but it may never be certain that the toxin sickened him because all traces of the substance are eliminated from the body within days, and the ricin in his motel room was found well after he got sick.

Riddle denied Bergendorff was sickened by ricin.

“His poor health is not a result of exposure to ricin,” Riddle told the judge. He said Bergendorff fell ill in February with pneumonia and kidney failure, resulting from a mental and emotional downturn after his older brother died in January.

Bergendorff’s cousin Thomas Tholen, 54, was charged this month in Salt Lake City with misprision of felony, which means failing to report a crime.

The complaint said Tholen told investigators that Bergendorff had talked to him about how easy it would be to make ricin, and that Bergendorff showed him a vial or beaker with a powder he believed to be ricin in December 2005.

Tholen declined to comment when reached by telephone Wednesday. His lawyer Greg Skordas denied Tholen knew Bergendorff had ricin.

“Tom always maintained that he was unaware of Bergendorff ever producing or possessing or manufacturing ricin while they were together,” Skordas said.

Roger Bergendorff’s brother, Erich Bergendorff, said he spoke with him Tuesday by telephone.

“He just said he wasn’t going to face charges, but I don’t think that was based on fact,” said Erich Bergendorff, who lives in Escondido, Calif. “It’s my impression that he didn’t understand the hazard he posed.”

Bergendorff, who lived with his dog and two cats, summoned an ambulance to his Las Vegas motel room Feb. 14, complaining of respiratory distress. He spent almost four weeks unconscious at a Las Vegas hospital. Family members said he also was treated for kidney failure.

Tholen was collecting Bergendorff’s belongings from the motel room Feb. 28 when he gave a motel manager a plastic bag containing several vials of what turned out to be ricin powder.

The complaint refers to the substance as “crude” and 2.9 percent “active ricin.”

“That’s not pure,” said Andrew Ternay Jr., founder of the Rocky Mountain Center for Homeland Defense at the University of Denver and author of “The Language of Nightmares,” a glossary of terms for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

“But it is deadly no matter,” Ternay said. “It’s just that it would take more to kill someone.”

Police and homeland security officials have said they found no ricin contamination in any place Bergendorff stayed.

“Significantly higher potash prices and extraordinarily tight supply have become much more firmly entrenched since China’s previous contract was signed 14 months ago,” said Potash chief executive Bill Doyle.

Saskatchewan’s offshore marketing company, Canpotex Ltd., is jointly owned by Potash, Agrium Inc. and Mosaic Co., all of which have potash operations in Saskatchewan.

As millions of Chinese join the middle class, their diets are changing to include meat and dairy products. This has in turn spurred demand for grains to feed livestock. As grain production rises, so does demand for fertilizer and the potash used to make it.

Rice and corn prices soared to records on U.S. markets and wheat jumped to its highest in a week after Kazakhstan, the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter, and Indonesia, a major rice producer, became the latest nations to impose export bans. The price increases further inflated global food costs that already had surged 48 per cent since the end of 2006.

The device, which functions as a mini laboratory on a chip, can screen and identify multiple classes of pathogens and genes in a single diagnostic test within two hours, unlike other tests available on the market that can detect only one strain at a time and require days or weeks to obtain results.

The chip can differentiate human strains of the Influenza A and B viruses, drug-resistant strains and mutated variants, including the Avian Flu or H5N1 strain.

There have been 236 human deaths globally from the H5N1 strain, according to the World Health Organisation, though it remains mainly a bird virus.

“ST sees new high growth opportunities in the healthcare market, especially in areas like patient care,” said Francois Guibert, STMicro’s Asia Pacific chief executive, at a briefing in Singapore on Monday marking the commercial launch.

The VereFlu Chip was developed by the Franco-Italian chipmaker together with Singapore’s privately held Veredus Laboratories after more than a year of research. The application underwent extensive evaluation trials at Veredus Chief Executive Rosemary Tan said the company had obtained “very promising” sales orders from hospitals and non-hospital customers, but declined to provide details.

Another big potential market is the screening of travelers at airports and border checkpoints, Tan said.

The Prirazlomnoye oil well of Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos’ main production unit in western Siberia.

The news is adding to market jitters with oil prices headed for new highs Tuesday. Analysts played down the significance of Russia’s first drop in oil production since 1998.

A recent report by the International Energy Agency says Russia saw a 1 percent drop from January through March compared with the same period last year.

IEA oil analyst David Fife said Tuesday the agency is not yet changing its forecast on Russia’s oil output this year because the results may be anomalous.

Artyom Konchin is an analyst with Aton Capital in Moscow. He puts Russia’s oil supply lull down to high taxes and insufficient reinvestment, not a shortage of oil.

Energy traders rewrote the record books again Tuesday, pushing oil futures past $114 a barrel as gasoline and diesel prices struck new highs of their own at the pump.