Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
The UIF (Howard’s Uranium Industry Framework), plan, which Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane was expected to receive next month, complements a private enterprise bid by the Nuclear Fuel Leasing Group, a four-member group pushing to develop an enriched uranium export business based on Olympic Dam’s reserves in South Australia, reported The Australian Financial Review, (16/6/2006), p. Continue Reading →
Iran’s National Oil Company signed a declaration allowing Russia’s Lukoil oil producer to launch talks on further exploitation of the Azar oilfield in western Iran. The Azar field has reserves estimated at two billion barrels of oil. Full article
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-06/15vltchek.cfm
By Andre Vltchek
Plain of Jars, Laos. "It is terrible when the bomb kills the cow," says my guide and translator, Mr. Van Lorn, as we are leaving Phonsavan in Plain of Jars, driving east, towards Vietnam. "Cows like to chew on stones. Very often they dig out some old bombie and then it goes off in their mouth, tearing off the entire head of the animal."
Mr. Van Lorn belongs to the Hmong minority, and he is too young to remember the war. He seems to be indifferent to the fact that his tribe used to support the US Secret War in this country. His allegiances lie entirely with Laos and he is talking with great compassion about those who lost their lives in the most savage bombing campaigns in the history of mankind.
Experts confirm that Iran’s president did not call for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.
By Jonathan Steele
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steele/2006/06/post_155.html
06/14/06 " The Guardian" — — My recent comment piece explaining how Iran’s president was badly misquoted when he allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has caused a welcome little storm. The phrase has been seized on by western and Israeli hawks to re-double suspicions of the Iranian government’s intentions, so it is important to get the truth of what he really said.
Sarah Boseley, health editor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1799772,00.html
Guardian
A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.
Ophthalmologists around the world, on their own initiative, are injecting tiny quantities of a colon cancer drug called Avastin into the eyes of patients with wet macular degeneration, a common condition of older age that can lead to severely impaired eyesight and blindness. They report remarkable success at very low cost because one phial can be split and used for dozens of patients.
But Genentech, the company that invented Avastin, does not want it used in this way. Instead it is applying to license a fragment of Avastin, called Lucentis, which is packaged in the tiny quantities suitable for eyes at a higher cost. Speculation in the US suggests it could cost £1,000 per dose instead of less than £10. The company says Lucentis is specifically designed for eyes, with modifications over Avastin, and has been through 10 years of testing to prove it is safe.
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=15095 The government has hired defense subcontractor Lockheed Martin to design and develop an enormous blimp that will be used to spy on Americans, according to the Athens News. Government agencies such as the NSA are anticipating that as early as 2009 the blimp will be operational and begin supporting new ways of monitoring everything Continue Reading →