cryptogon.com

Thousands of police and interior troops are on alert in Moscow, after one of the biggest opposition rallies in the city centre for years.

Police made 300 arrests as protesters chanted “Russia without Putin”.

Among those held was Alexei Navalny, a top anti-corruption campaigner and fierce critic of Mr Putin.

A counter-demonstration by Putin supporters was held beside Red Square on Tuesday amid reports that opposition supporters were planning a new protest.

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Interior ministry spokesman Oleg Yelnikov told AFP news agency that “as many [troops] as required” would police Moscow.

He said security forces would remain on a “heightened regime” of alert until all the votes in the election were counted, adding that some 11,500 interior ministry troops would ensure order across the country.

At a hearing in a New Orleans’ court, BP said Halliburton had “intentionally” destroyed test results on its cement product used at the Macondo well.

The case arose from an episode in 2006 at a mall in Beaver Creek, Colo. A Secret Service agent said he heard Steven Howards say into a cellphone that he planned to ask Mr. Cheney “how many kids he’s killed today.” Mr. Howards later approached Mr. Cheney and said the administration’s “policies in Iraq are disgusting.” Mr. Howards then touched Mr. Cheney on the shoulder in a gesture variously described as an open-handed pat, a slap and a strike that caused the vice president’s shoulder to dip.

Confronted by the Secret Service, Mr. Howards denied touching Mr. Cheney and said, “If you don’t want other people sharing their opinions, you should have him avoid public places.” Agents arrested Mr. Howards for assault and turned him over to local authorities. He was charged with harassment under state law, but those charges were later dropped.

We produce so much military equipment that inventories of military robots, M-16 assault rifles, helicopters, armored vehicles, and grenade launchers eventually start to pile up and it turns a lot of these weapons are going straight to American police forces to be used against US citizens.

Benjamin Carlson at The Daily reports on a little known endeavor called the “1033 Program” that gave more than $500 million of military gear to US police in 2011 alone.

The euro area’s six AAA rated countries are among the nations to be placed on a negative outlook, and their credit ratings may be cut depending on the result of a summit of European Union leaders on Dec. 9, S&P said today in a statement. The euro reversed its gains and U.S. Treasuries rose earlier today after the Financial Times reported that the credit-ranking firm planned to reduce six AAA outlooks.

A group led by Isao Tanihata, a professor at Osaka University’s Research Center for Nuclear Physics, and Kozi Nakai, a former professor at the Tokyo University of Science, said the best way to get rid of the radioactive soil is to place it in noncorrosive, pressure-tight vessels and dumping them at least 2,000 meters deep near Japan.

“The sea, away from all residents, would pose no problem,” Tanihata told about 30 researchers at a study meeting at Osaka University on Dec. 3.

The participants, including nuclear physicists and researchers at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, did not object to the proposal from a scientific point of view.

But former education minister Akito Arima, who was also present, said, “The sea is common property of all humankind, and the key is whether fishermen and the general public will support the proposal.”

Tanihata and Nakai, who have been involved in compiling the science ministry’s soil contamination map, drafted the proposal as the government faces difficulties finding a final disposal site for soil contaminated with radioactive materials from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The group plans to submit a formal proposal to the government.

At a mental health forum on “Depression in Rural Ireland” in Ennistymon, Co Clare, Dr Moosajee Bhamjee said that “there is growing scientific evidence that adding trace amounts of the drug lithium to a water supply can lower rates of suicide and depression”.

Lithium is used by doctors as a mood stabiliser in the treatment for depression.

Dr Bhamjee said: “A recent article in the British Journal of Psychiatry found the beneficial uses of lithium when it was added to the water supply in parts of Texas.”

He said the Government should consider a pilot project for a town in Ireland where lithium salts could be added to the water in very small doses and examine the results.” He said there was already strong precedent for governments intervening in the operation of public water supply for health benefits by adding fluoride.

Dr Bhamjee said that a community would not get “hooked” on lithium “because the doses would be so small”.

Die Welt cited sources close to the negotiations as saying the euro zone central banks could pay at least 100 billion euros ($134.2 billion) into a special fund that could be used for programs for nations struggling to control their debts.

The variety of rifles and shotguns on sale here at Cabela’s, the national sporting goods chain, is a testament to America’s enduring gun culture. But, to a surprising degree, it is also a testament to something else: Wall Street deal-making.

In recent years, many top-selling brands — including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics — have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group — and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the American commercial gun industry today.

Never heard of it?

You’re not alone. Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy theories. In the realm of consumer rifles and shotguns — long guns, in the trade — it is unrivaled in its size and reach. By its own count, the Freedom Group sold 1.2 million long guns and 2.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the 12 months ended March 2010, the most recent year for which figures are publicly available.