Censored 2012 (28 page)

Corporate Sources:
Scherer, “Locating Osama bin laden,”
USA Today Magazine
139, no. 2788 (2011): 22–25; “Report: Bin Laden Already Dead,”
FoxNews.com
, December 26, 2011,
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41576,00.html
; Nate Jones, “The ‘Official Story’ of bin Laden’s Death: A Timeline,”
Metro
, May 5, 2011,
http://www.metro.us/newyork/international/article/851858—the-official-story-of-bin-laden-s-death-a-timeline
.

Sources:
“9/11 Family Group Releases TV Ad Calling for World Trade Center Building 7 Investigation,” PR Newswire, November 2, 2010,
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/911-family-group-releases-tv-ad-calling-for-world-trade-center-building-7-investigation-106506548.html
; Manal Alafrangi, “Gulf News: Expert points to strong evidence of Bin Laden presence in country,”
Gulf News
, November 3, 2010,
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/expert-points-to-strong-evidence-of-bin-laden-presence-in-country-1.705680
; “US: Have no information about Osama’s hideout,”
Economic Times
, October 20, 2010,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-10-19/news/27595119_1_zawahiri-top-al-qaeda-leaders-al-qaeda
; Rob Crilly, “Bin Laden living in comfort in Pakistan: NATO,” October 19, 2010,
Edmonton Journal
, A16; “Pakistan denies presence of bin Laden,”
McClatchy—Tribune Business News
, October 18, 2010; “FBI Raids Homes of Antiwar and Pro-Palestinian Activists in Chicago and Minneapolis,”
Democracy
Now!, September 27, 2010,
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/27/fbi_raids_homes_of_anti_war
; “ ‘BuildingWhat?’ on Geraldo At Large,”
BuildingWhat.org
, 2010,
http://buildingwhat.org/buildingwhat-appears-on-geraldo-at-large-on-fox-news/
; Alex Jones, “Benazir Bhutto said Osama bin Laden was dead,” Infowars, December 28, 2007,
http://www.infowars.com/articles/world/pakistan_bhutto_said_osama_bin_laden_was_dead.htm
; “Osama Bin Laden Believed Dead By Pak Intel,” People’s Voice, April 29, 2009,
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2009/04/29/osama-bin-laden-believed-dead-by-pak-int
; Eric Hananoki, “Fox host Napolitano is a 9–11 Truther: ‘It couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us,’ ” Media Matters for America, November 24, 2010,
http://mediamatters.org/mobile/blog/201011240019
; for an in-depth account on the controversies surrounding bin Laden and his many reported deaths, see David Ray Griffin,
Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
(Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009), 1–17.

Update by Alexandre Silva

Personal products you may use daily and think are harmless—cosmetics, suntan lotion, socks, and sports clothes—may all contain atom-sized nanotech particles, some of which have been shown to sicken and kill workers in plants using nanotechnology. Known human health risks include severe and permanent lung damage, and cell studies indicate genetic DNA damage. Extremely toxic to aquatic wildlife, nanoparticles pose clear risks to many species and threaten the global food chain.

Original Sources:
Carole Bass, “Tiny Troubles: Nanoparticles are Changing Everything From our Sunscreen to our Supplements,”
E Magazine
, June 30, 2009,
http://www.emagazine.com/archive/4723
; Janet Raloff, “Nanoparticles’ Indirect Threat to DNA,”
Science News
, November 5, 2009,
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49191/title/Science_+_the%20_Public_Nanoparticles_indirect_threat_to_DNA
; L. Geranio, M. Heuberger, and B. Nowack, “The Behavior of Silver Nanotextiles During Washing,”
Environmental Science & Technology
43, no. 21 (2009): 8113–18; Paul Eugib, DVM, and Wendy Hessler, “Silver Migrates From Treated Fabrics,”
Environmental Health News
, January 7, 2010,
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/silver-migrates-from-nanoparticle-treated-fabrics
; David Rejeski, “Nanotech-enabled Consumer Products Top the 1,000 Mark,”
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies
, August 25, 2009,
http://www.nanotechproject.org/news/archive/8277/
; Y. Song, X. Li, and X. Du, “Exposure to Nanoparticles Is Related to Pleural Effusion, Pulmonary Fibrosis and Granuloma,”
European Respiratory Journal
34, no. 3: 559–567; “Health Risks of Nanotechnology: How Nanoparticles Can Cause Lung Damage, and How the Damage Can Be Blocked,”
Science Daily
, June 11, 2009,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090610192431.htm
; “Nanotechnologies and Food, House of Lords Media Notice,” Science and Technology Committee, January 8, 2010,
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-archive/lords-press-notices/pn080110st/
; Ian Sample, “Attack of the Tiny Nano Particles—Be Slightly Afraid,” Organic Consumers Association, November 15, 2008,
http://www.organic-consumers.org/articles/article_15621.cfm
; George John, “Silver Nanoparticles Deadly to Bacteria,” Physorg, March 10, 2008,
http://www.physorg.com/news124376552.html
; Nanowerk Spotlight, “Problematic New Findings Regarding Toxicity of Silver Nanoparticles,” Nanowerk, June 6, 2008,
http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=5966.php
; R. J. Aitken et al., “Nanoparticles: An Occupational Hygiene Review,” Institute of Occupational Medicine, Health and Safety Executive (Edinburgh), March 2, 2004,
www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr274.pdf
.

Update:
The corporate mainstream press have not widely covered the health risk that nanoparticles present to the human race, but there have been plenty of new findings in data released from recent research. In a study by the State University of New York, Stony Brook, they have found that gold nanoparticles from products that are known to contain them penetrate human cells. Although it is not precisely clear as to the amount of damage the gold nanoparticles present to human cells, it is known that gold enters the human cell and can remain there for a long period of time. According to another study by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, they found that silver nanoparticles, once injected in rats, quickly distribute themselves throughout the major organs of the subject’s body. Given that rats have the same basic biological constitution that humans have, there is a high probability that silver nanoparticles also enter the human body.

A recent report found that printers, via the toners, produce an aerosol form of carbon based nanoparticles that can be inhaled and pose severe respiratory health risks. This adds to a growing list of problems with nanoparticles, a list which includes permanent lung damage, debilitating skin effects, and long term genetic damage.

Sources:
“Studies from National Institute for Public Health and the Environment provide new data on nanoparticles,”
Drug Week
, 2010; “Findings from State University of New York in apoptosis reported,”
Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week
, September 25, 2010; “Researchers from University Hospital, Institute of Pathology Report on Findings in Nanotechnology—Nanoparticles,”
Women’s Health Weekly
, February 3, 2011, 2023.

Update by Sy Cowie

Story #18 in
Censored 2011
covered, with specific reference to the Chevron corporation, the ongoing and unadvertised costs of oil extraction to the environment, economic needs, politics, and health of the world’s population. The story covered the effects of Chevron’s operations in places such as Nigeria, Angola, Ecuador, Chad, Cameroon, and Myanmar. The importance of this story concerned the hidden costs of the maintenance of the North American standard of living.

Original Source:
Antonia Juhasz, “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report,” True Cost of Chevron, May 27, 2009,
http://truecostofchevron.com/report.html
.

Update:
The coverage of the costs to local populations in the areas where resource extraction occurs continues to be lacking in the corporate media in the US. Coverage of issues surrounding resource extraction often appears only in the business press. The stories covered in these venues are consistently framed to fit the perspective of the business interests who are the typical consumers of information from these sources. Occasionally the consequences for local populations of major resource extraction projects do find their way into the corporate media. The set of court cases involving Chevron and local populations residing in the area of former Texaco extraction operations in Ecuador is one such occasion (Texaco was acquired by Chevron in 2001).

The legal, political, and public relations battles over who is responsible for environmental damage caused by oil extraction in the formerly Texaco-operated fields in the Oriente region of Ecuador took what might seem to be an odd turn when Chevron filed a civil RICO suit against the legal team and hired consultants of the plaintiffs in the case. The purpose of this suit is to call into question the validity of the ruling of the Ecuadoran courts in the eyes of the US court system. The Ecuadoran courts must rely on the US court system to enforce the settlement because Chevron has no assets in Ecuador. Among the allegations included in the RICO lawsuit are charges that the lawyers for the plaintiffs conspired to falsify environmental impact reports and intimidate the presiding judge. It is Chevron’s position that the legal proceedings in Ecuador have been tainted from the beginning of the process and the RICO suit is the legal reflection of that position.

What this fight over liability for environmental damage in Ecuador fails to address are the larger issues of energy consumption in the developed world and the frontier settlement policy in the developing world. Resource extraction companies exist as a result of a materialist culture that every year consumes greater and greater quantities of energy and resources. That Petroecuador, Texaco, and a variety of other European, Chinese, North and South American resource extraction companies are responsible for pollution in the Ecuadoran Amazon is not a matter for honest dispute. However, it is a lifestyle that hundreds
of millions of people choose to live which is ultimately responsible for the excesses of the extraction industry and its effects on local populations. The true cost of Chevron is, in reality, the true cost of the excesses of the so-called “western” lifestyle.

Corporate Source:
Lawrence Hurley, “Chevron’s RICO Lawsuit in Pollution Case Part of Wider Legal Strategy,”
New York Times
, February 2, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/02/02greenwire-chevrons-rico-lawsuit-in-pollution-case-part-o-68778.html
.

Sources:
Martha Niel, “Chevron Shifts Gears, Files Civil RICO Suit Against Plaintiffs,”
ABA Journal
, February 3, 2011,
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/chevron_rico_suit_says_plaintiffs_law_firm_falsified_expert_reports/
; Maria Kielmas, “All Could Lose in Ecuadorian Judgement Against Chevron,” Suit101, February 16, 2011,
http://www.suite101.com/content/all-could-lose-in-ecuadorian-judgement-against-chevron-a348321
.

Update by Kelli Baumgartner

Charter schools continue to stratify students by race, class, and sometimes language, and are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country. Charter schools are often marketed as incubators of educational innovation, and they form a key feature of the Obama administration’s school reform agenda. But in some urban communities, they may be fueling
de facto
school segregation and undermining public education.

Original Sources:
E. Frankenberg, G. Siegel-Hawley, and J. Wang, “Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards,” Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, University of California, Los Angeles,
http://www.civil-rightsproject.ucla.edu/news/pressreleases/pressrelease20100204-report.html
; Danny Weil, “Obama and Duncan’s Education Policy: Like Bush’s, Only Worse,”
Counter Punch
, August 24, 2009,
http://counterpunch.org/weil08242009.html
; Michelle Chen, “Equity and Access in Charter School Systems,”
Race Wire
, August 19, 2009,
http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/08/special_education_equity_and_a_1.html
; Paul Abowd, “Teacher Reformers Prepare for Battle Over Public Education,”
Labor Notes
, October 13, 2009,
http://www.labornotes.org/node/2472
.

Update:
While there has been some coverage on segregation in charter
schools in independent sources, there has been very little coverage throughout the corporate media.
Newsweek
had an article regarding charter schools featured in their June 2010 magazine. The article starts by praising charter schools for comprising fifteen out of the top one hundred public high schools while the population of charter schools is only at 4 percent of all public schools. A study was conducted by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes which found that “37 percent of charter schools produce academic results that are worse than public schools, while only 17 percent perform significantly better. Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, made a priority of opening new charters in the $4 billion Race to the Top competition for federal funding.” The
Newsweek
article suggests that there is a problem in the academic role of charter schools; however, it fails to address the additional problem of segregation in charter schools.