NATO would protect its member countries and populations with an anti-missile shield if Iran got its hands on a nuclear bomb, the alliance’s secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday.

Speaking in Berlin before a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Rasmussen said: “First, let me stress that NATO as such is not a part in the international endeavours to put pressure on Iran right now.”

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“I do hope that we, through diplomatic and political pressure, are able to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability,” he added.

If Tehran were to become nuclear armed, however, “it might of course eventually become NATO business as well, because then it is a question of protecting our territories and our populations against a potential threat.”

Full story here.

Canada is still investigating an unusually high rate of a side effect known as anaphylaxis from a batch of GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s swine flu vaccine, health officials said today.

Anaphylaxis occurred at a rate of about 4 per 100,000 shots in one lot of 172,000 doses of the vaccine, David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer, said at an Ottawa news conference. Typically, about 1 person in 100,000 will suffer such a reaction. Anaphylaxis is an acute allergic reaction that includes swollen tongues, throats and respiratory distress.

Glaxo, the sole supplier of swine flu shots to Canada, has shipped 7.5 million doses of the Arepanrix vaccine to the country, the company said this week. For all batches, the rate of side effects is 0.32 per 100,000, health officials said today.

The higher rate from one batch may be a statistical anomaly, Butler-Jones said. About 15,000 shots from the batch that still haven’t been used are being held back while investigators look into the matter, officials said. There were no obvious glitches in the manufacturing process, Butler-Jones said.

Full article here

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Fall Of The Republic – Buy the DVD here

 

Hmmmm……

A trainee spy for Israel’s secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.The young trainee was spotted by a female passer-by as he planted a fake bomb under a vehicle in the city.

The authorities have refused to comment on the story although Israeli media outlets have expressed their surprise.

Are they sure it was fake? And is this an admission that Mossad is still planting car bombs, seeing as this act was apparently part of a training exercise?

Wow, Australia’s parliament just imploded over discord due to emissions trading scheme being pushed by opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull (website here). Here’s the news from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

click image for the news story 

Pretty heavy stuff when Liberal MP’s resign rather than vote for a cap and trade scheme. The vote seems rather difficult now.

The United States Congress has begun the process of investigating the leaked climate change e-mails from the University of East Anglia, which means all attempts to suppress and shut down the scandal have failed. Already aides to Representative Darrell Issa (Republican, California), who is the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, have begun analysing the correspondence exposed by hackers.

At the same time, in the upper house, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has been told by Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) that unless it acts promptly on the matter he will call for an investigation into the state of climate science. The e-mails are of huge interest to American legislators because one of them was sent by White House Science Adviser Dr John Holdren, in 2003, when he was at the Woods Hole Research Center, Massachusetts, to support Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University.

In his own e-mail, which he has defended and not denied, Mann suggested colleagues should be encouraged to stop submitting papers to the journal Climate Research, as it had published a paper to which he objected. The involvement of a White House adviser has given the controversy political traction on Capitol Hill, where legislators are considering the Obama administration’s plans for cap and trade laws, just when Obama has committed himself to restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and personal attendance at the Copenhagen climate summit in a month’s time.

At this most sensitive moment the whole climate scare is threatening to unravel with literally immeasurable consequences. The seriousness with which the Americans are treating this has highlighted just how pivotal the CRU at East Anglia is to the global warming hype. As American newsmen are pointing out, East Anglia claims the world’s largest temperature data set and its findings and mathematical models were incorporated into the IPCC’s 2007 report, which the US Environmental Protection Agency admits it “relies on most heavily” in deciding that carbon dioxide emissions must be curbed.

Full article here

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Fall Of The Republic – Buy the DVD here

 

Tony Blair was told Saddam Hussein may not have been able to use his chemical weapons ten days before war was declared, the Iraq Inquiry was told today.

The second day of public hearings heard the Foreign Office had no evidence Saddam was trying to supply chemical or biological weapons to terrorists.

The inquiry also heard Iraq was only the fourth most dangerous rouge state trying to develop weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion.

Officials were more alarmed by developments in Libya, Iran and North Korea, the Foreign Office’s head of counter-proliferation said.

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Sir William Ehrman, who was director of international security at the Foreign Office, defended the war, claiming there was very little “contradictory” evidence that Saddam lacked weapons of mass destruction.

When it was pointed out that UN weapons inspectors failed to find chemical or biological stocks in many sites, Sir William said: “Four out of 10 as a strike rate is pretty good.” Sir Lawrence Freedman, for the inquiry, interrupted: “Not when you are going to war.”

Sir William added that ministers had been repeatedly warned that the intelligence on Iraq’s chemical and biological programmes had been “patchy”.

Full story here.

Adrian Gibbs, the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings today, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.

The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the U.S. in April, may be the product of three strains from three continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal. The authors analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature.

Their study, published in a free, online journal reviewed by other scientists, follows debate among researchers six months ago, when Gibbs asked the World Health Organization to consider the hypothesis. After reviewing Gibbs’ initial three-page paper, WHO and other organizations concluded the pandemic strain was a naturally occurring virus and not laboratory-derived.

“It is important that the source of the new virus be found if we wish to avoid future pandemics rather than just trying to minimize the consequences after they have emerged,” Gibbs and colleagues John Armstrong and Jean Downie said in today’s eight- page study.

Full article here

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Fall Of The Republic – Buy the DVD here

 

GlaxoSmithKline PLC said Tuesday that they have notified Canadian doctors to discontinue using a batch of 170,000 swine flu vaccines following six reports of serious allergic reactions among recipients.

Health officials regularly monitor vaccines for any signs of potential problems, including the occasional allergic reactions that do rarely occur each year.

GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Gwenan White said that the pharmaceuticals company advised Canadian medical personnel last week to immediately stop using one specific batch of the vaccine while they proceed with investigations into the cause of the odd number of allergic reactions.

According to the AP, ix people in Canada had suffered an allergic reaction, said Tim Vail, the spokesman for Canada’s health minister. The batch contained about 170,000 doses. It was not immediately clear how many had been administered, although Vail said the majority had been.”

“We’re not seeing any thing wild or spooky or crazy about our vaccine at all,” Vail said.

White said no other doses of the vaccine around the world are part of the vaccines that are to be discontinued..

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Fall Of The Republic – Buy the DVD here

 

Gerald Warner has just posted about the BBC’s wobble on Climategate: Newsnight reported on the scandal in a relatively even-handed manner. But, as I write, the BBC website is still offering only this:

UK climate unit’s e-mails hacked

The e-mail system of one of the world’s leading climate research units has been breached by hackers.

E-mails reportedly from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), including personal exchanges, appeared on the internet on Thursday.

A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.

An investigation was underway and the police had been informed, he added.

“We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites,” the spokesman stated.

“Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all of this material is genuine.

“This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation.

“We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved the police in this enquiry.”

Which is a bit like reporting another scandal as:

Watergate: ‘loose latches’ blamed

Security problems persist at a building complex in Foggy Bottom, Washington DC, following a burglary that reportedly caused the resignation of a leading political figure last night.

Full article here

Dr. Debra Parsons, a pediatrician at Kid Care West in Cross Lanes, was met with reactions of doubt from local health officials last month when she said two flu tests had come back positive for H1N1, or swine flu.

Parsons first came down with the virus, complete with all the telltale symptoms, in August.

Her son became ill at the same time with the same symptoms. Figuring they had the same bug, Parsons tested herself to see what it was.

The test came back positive for Influenza A, so the lab at Charleston Area Medical Center sent it to be sub-typed. Parsons was positive for H1N1.

Parsons and her son recovered, but in October they started having the same symptoms, but they became much worse.

They were both tested this time, and the results were the same — they were positive for Influenza A and then H1N1.

“It was swine flu both times,” Parsons said.

The above comments on lab confirmed re-infection of two family members two months apart by swine H1N1.  These confirmations are supported by many anecdotal reports of similar re-infections.  The timing of these infections allowed for easy identification, because at the time there was no seasonal flu, so identification of infections was straight-forward.  Moreover, such infections in school aged children and parents are common because H1N1 infections exploded when school began.

At the time however, the H1N1 virus was evolving slowly, reflecting an ease of infection of a naïve population.  The jump from swine H1N1 into humans allows for infections with low doses of virus.  Low concentration of virus produces a mild infection and a weak antibody response.  The rapid spread creates widespread antibody, but the low level allows for re-infection from individuals with a higher viral load.  A higher viral load can be created in a school environment, where some students could be infected multiple times because of frequent contact with infected students.

Thus, the increased viral load could overcome the weak immune-response and re-infect those infected earlier, leading to a second wave.  However, the higher viral load leads to more serious infections, especially for these not infected in the first wave.  Consequently more previously health young adults develop more serious symptoms, leading to an increase in hospitalizations and deaths.  The higher viral load, especially when combined with receptor binding domain changes such as D225G can lead to the type of cases seen in Ukraine, where a high percentage of young adults develop infections that destroy both lungs in a matter of  a few days.

In many areas, including Ukraine, this wave is subsiding, but the holiday season will lead to new infections by viruses with regional markers, leading to a third wave in early 2010.