Link: http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/over-462-trillion-becquerels-fukushima-strontium-pacific-ocean-seafood-risk?CID=examiner_alerts_article

After Japanese Prime Minister declared the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe under control Friday, Japan's The Asahi Shimbun newspaper released calculations Monday showing at least 462 trillion becquerels of radioactive strontium have leaked into the Pacific Ocean since Fukushima's No. 1 nuclear power plant catastrophe began, making it one of the world's most severe marine pollution cases in history. According to Greenpeace independent research, Government and retailors are not adequately protecting the public from dangerous radioactive contaminated Pacific seafood, still sold unlabeled in Japan and on the international market, including to the United States due to a secret pact between Secretary Clinton and the Japanese Prime Minister.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30032.htm

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, took a hard line over the possibility of Iran building its own nuclear weapon, saying that all options should be open to the United States and other Western powers, including military action. "I would have every alternative and option on the table, because Iran must never have a nuclear weapon," Bachmann said during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153504/making_citizens_enemy_combatants%3A_glenn_greenwald_on_bradley_manning_and_the_ndaa/

Constitutional lawyer and blogger Glenn Greenwald speaks to Amy Goodman about the Manning hearings and the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. AMY GOODMAN: We go right now to Rio, Brazil, where we’re joined by the Salon.com writer, blogger, attorney, Glenn Greenwald, who has expressed criticism of Adrian Lamo for revealing the contents of his correspondence with Manning to the military.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/12/19/lori_berenson_allowed_to_come_to_us_for_holidays_with_her_son_hear_1999_interview_with_democracy_now

Berenson was tried by a hooded military judge, and prosecutors used secret evidence against her. For three years, she was held in the frigid Yanamayo prison in the Andes mountains in an unheated, open-air cell without running water, where her hands swelled like boxing gloves from the cold, and she developed gastric and eye problems. She was later transferred to the warmer Socabaya prison, but she was held in complete isolation there for many months. She ultimately served three-quhttp://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/admin.php?ctrl=items&action=new&blog=3arters of her 20-year prison term.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/18-3

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades. Nicholas Stern estimated that capping climate change would cost around 1% of global GDP, while sitting back and letting it hit us would cost between 5 and 20%. One per cent of GDP is, at the moment, $630bn. By March 2009, Bloomberg has revealed, the US Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks. That is just one government's contribution: yet it amounts to 12 times the annual global climate change bill. Add the bailouts in other countries, and it rises several more times.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d19.shtml

The persecution of whistleblower Bradley Manning is a stark warning to the entire working class. Now facing a military pretrial hearing on charges carrying a maximum sentence of death, the 24-year-old Army private is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of government and military documents. The vindictive treatment of this courageous young man is aimed at intimidating all opposition to American imperialism.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/budg-d19.shtml

The budget agreement passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama Saturday puts in place cuts for the current fiscal year that target social spending, particular energy assistance and education. One of the biggest single cuts comes in low-income heating assistance, which is slashed 25 percent, or $1.2 billion, compared to last year’s figure. This cut is particularly cruel, coming at the onset of winter, and insuring that tens of thousands of poor and elderly people will face the danger of hypothermia and potential death.

Link: http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/putin-accuses-us-in-murder-of-ghadafi/

Russia’s Vladimir Putin implicated Washington today in the killing of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and launched a tirade against Senator John McCain in an extraordinary attack on US policies.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/19/scientists-warn-against-eating-packaged-cookie-dough/

Next time you have the urge to eat cookie dough, it’s something that you may want to strongly reconsider. Scientists from the journal Clinical-Infectious Diseases found in a recent study of the 2009 E.coli outbreak that 77 people in 30 states became ill after eating Nestle’s Toll House raw cookie dough.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/19/tougher-drug-laws-mean-nearly-13-arrested-by-age-23/

Nearly one in three Americans will already have been arrested by the age of 23, recent research suggests. A study analyzing data from the federal government’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that 30.2 percent of 23-year-olds reported being arrested for something more serious that a traffic violation.

Link: http://www.truthout.com/four-occupations-planet-earth/1324307132

On the streets of Moscow in the tens of thousands, the protesters chanted: “We exist!” Taking into account the comments of statesmen, scientists, politicians, military officials, bankers, artists, all the important and attended to figures on this planet, nothing caught the year more strikingly than those two words shouted by massed Russian demonstrators.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30038.htm

In March 2003, the United States of America launched an entirely unprovoked act of military aggression against a nation which had not attacked it and posed no threat to it. This act led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It drove millions more from their homes, and plunged the entire conquered nation into suffering, fear, hatred and deprivation.

Link: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/medical-journal-article--14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-135859288.html

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count. WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.

Link: http://naturalsociety.com/banned-in-27-countries-monsanto-rbgh-dairy-milk-products/

milk1 210x131 Banned in 27 Countries, Monsantos rBGH Inhabits Many U.S. Dairy ProductsAre you consuming Monsanto’s genetically engineered growth hormone known as rBGH? The synthetic hormone is created using molecules and DNA sequences that are a result of molecular cloning, which has been linked to breast and gastrointestinal cancer. Unfortunately, it is estimated that around 1/3 of cows in the United States are injected with this synthetic hormone, which means that you have most likely been highly exposed to rBGH if you live in the U.S. or have eaten U.S. dairy products.