Blame Game Begins on Capitol Hill

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! "A Free Trade, Free Market, Free Corporate, Unregulated Economy run like Al Capone's Casino Joint, and Policed by Al Capone". Is this the best University MBA/PHD Masters and Government Regulators can provide? PEOPLES LIVES DEPEND UPON THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM. The economic system is not singularly a tool for profit, and the hell with Life. "We now have to pay for the greed and recklessness of those who should have known better.” It is time, Mr. Schumer said, for the American economy to be revived as the “engine of prosperity,” rather than as a “casino” for high-rollers in the realm of finance.

How, in a world of exploding human population, with unparalleled needs, wants and desires, can the economy keep falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry... this can only be termed Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price for all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

What factors changed Market Supply & Demand Fundamentals to Freakohnomics gone berserk? From cheaper goods and services available to all through continual advances in science, technology and mass production, to 'Whatever The Market Will Bear' depending on how great the need for sustaining Life?

The answers lie in Power, Greed, and Stagnant Energy Science

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



Blame Game Begins on Capitol Hill
Lehman Brothers Execs Tell Congress They Didn't Keep Documents
By RHONDA SCHWARTZ
September 26, 2008—
While the country waits anxiously for Congress and the White House to agree on a plan to prevent economic collapse, others on the hill are already searching for whom to blame.
House Oversight Committee Democrat Henry Waxman has already summoned the former chief of Lehman Brothers, the failed investment bank whose collapse stunned the nation last week, to testify under oath before his committee next week.
And late today, Waxman publicly blasted the former Wall Street titans for not cooperating with requests for documents and emails, saying Lehman's counsel has told the committee "although these documents did exist at one time, they were typically "discarded.""
"It is difficult to understand how Lehman Brothers is unable to produce a single internal document that went to or from the CEO's office over the past six months," the letter stated. "It is also difficult to understand why there is no log, file, or other record documenting where these internal documents went."
Lehman Brothers did not immediately return a call from ABC News seeking comment.
Separately, an audit requested by Republican Senator Charles Grassley was released Friday, offering a highly critical report of the Security and Exchange Commission's own leadership.
The audit said officials failed to act in the face of potential red flags or take action against Bear Stearns' "concentration of mortgage securities, high leverage, shortcomings of risk management in mortgage-backed securities and lack of compliance with the spirit of certain" international standards.
"It is indisputable that the CSE program failed to carry out its mission in its oversight of Bear Stearns," the report said. "The audit found that procedures and processes were not strictly adhered to."
Grassley responded Friday said the report is "another indictment of failed leadership."
All this comes before an agreement on how to save the nation's economy has even been settled.
Click Here for the Investigative Homepage.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled Collapse

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! "A Free Trade, Free Market, Free Corporate, Unregulated Economy run like Al Capone's Casino Joint, and Policed by Al Capone". Is this the best University MBA/PHD Masters and Government Regulators can provide? PEOPLES LIVES DEPEND UPON THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM. The economic system is not singularly a tool for profit, and the hell with Life. "We now have to pay for the greed and recklessness of those who should have known better.” It is time, Mr. Schumer said, for the American economy to be revived as the “engine of prosperity,” rather than as a “casino” for high-rollers in the realm of finance.

What factors changed Market Supply & Demand Fundamentals to Freakohnomics gone berserk? From cheaper goods and services available to all through continual advances in science, technology and mass production, to 'Whatever The Market Will Bear' depending on how great the need for sustaining Life?

The answers lie in Power, Greed, and Stagnant Energy Science. In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price for all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



NYT September 27, 2008
S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled Collapse
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down.
The S.E.C.’s oversight responsibilities will largely shift to the Federal Reserve, though the commission will continue to oversee the brokerage units of investment banks.
Also Friday, the S.E.C.’s inspector general released a report strongly criticizing the agency’s performance in monitoring Bear Stearns before it collapsed in March. Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said he agreed that the oversight program was “fundamentally flawed from the beginning.”
“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate” of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added.
Mr. Cox and other regulators, including Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, have acknowledged general regulatory failures over the last year. Mr. Cox’s statement on Friday, however, went beyond that by blaming a specific program for the financial crisis — and then ending it.
On one level, the commission’s decision to end the regulatory program was somewhat academic, because the five biggest independent Wall Street firms have all disappeared.
The Fed and Treasury Department forced Bear Stearns into a merger with JPMorgan Chase in March. And in the last month, Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs changed their corporate structures to become bank holding companies, which the Federal Reserve regulates.
But the retreat on investment bank supervision is a heavy blow to a once-proud agency whose influence over Wall Street has steadily eroded as the financial crisis has exploded over the last year...full text

President Issues Warning to Americans

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! “We were told that markets knew best, and that we were entering a new world of global growth and prosperity,” Mr. Schumer said as the committee greeted Mr. Bernanke, who is testifying on Capitol Hill for a second consecutive day. “We now have to pay for the greed and recklessness of those who should have known better.” It is time, Mr. Schumer said, for the American economy to be revived as the “engine of prosperity,” rather than as a “casino” for high-rollers in the realm of finance.
What factors changed Market Supply & Demand Fundamentals to Freakohnomics gone berserk? From cheaper goods and services available to all through continual advances in science, technology and mass production, to 'Whatever The Market Will Bear' depending on how great the need for sustaining Life? The answers lie in Power, Greed, and Stagnant Energy Science. In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




NYT September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON — President Bush urged the American people and their lawmakers on Wednesday night to support his administration’s vast economic-recovery package, saying that a failure to do so could plunge the United States into “a long and painful recession.”
“Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen,” the president said in a speech from the White House.
Mr. Bush sought to rally the country in the kind of bipartisan effort he said was needed, not just to preserve American investment firms and big businesses but the savings and aspirations of millions of citizens in cities and on farms across the country.
“This rescue effort is not aimed at preserving any individual company or industry,” Mr. Bush said. “It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.”
The $700 billion plan his administration has put forth would normally be anathema to him, Mr. Bush said, because he typically would adhere to his philosophy that “companies that make bad decisions ought to be allowed to go out of business.”
But these are not normal times, he said, warning that without quick action, “America could slip into a financial panic.”
The president’s address, about 15 minutes long, was at once a plea for political action, an appeal to ordinary Americans that he understands their frustration and anger and a reaffirmation of his basic faith in capitalism.
One cause of the current problems, he said, is that for years foreign money poured into the United States because it is such a good place to do business. But he conceded what has become obvious in recent months: that confidence led to excessive optimism about the prices of houses, excesses by borrowers and lenders alike and, ultimately, far too much faith in complex mortgage-backed securities.
“We cannot risk an economic catastrophe,” the president said at the outset. Later, he said that “the irresponsible actions of some” should not undermine the financial security of all. ...full text

Upheaval on Wall St. Stirs Anger in the U.N.

“We must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,” said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in an opening speech that reflected the tone of the gathering." US World Image Projection Continues to Fade: "for the corporation, by the corporation, of the corporation", "above the law, bought the law, creates the law", I concede! These are not conspiracies! As all the experts have screamed, "these are market fundamentals". What else can be expected with deliberate design flaws in the Economic & Judicial systems rules and laws which ignore Reality, lopsidedly benefiting corporate greedy guts? Where science and facts play second fiddle to the power of the Mouth backed by money? Is the current status quo in energy science the best 21st Century Intelligence has to offer?

There is not an intelligent being alive that could not understand Natural Capitalism with justice and economics based on natural laws, facts and unfettered science; where human life comes first and foremost, the primary factor upon which justice and profit is gaged: the greater the health and prosperity of all, the greater the justice and profits for all (simple numbers game). So who CHOKED THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM, where trickle down became waterfall up - an economic system topped with scientific suppression of advanced energy systems from the late 1940's? (i.e., Advanced Energy Systems without which Human Life Cannot Continue to Evolve and Survive)

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life.

September 24, 2008
Upheaval on Wall St. Stirs Anger in the U.N.
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED NATIONS — Wall Street and the Bush administration’s record of financial oversight came under attack at the United Nations on Tuesday, with one world leader after another saying that market turmoil in the United States threatened the global economy.
“We must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,” said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in an opening speech that reflected the tone of the gathering.
The annual opening of the General Assembly habitually casts a shadow over New York every September, snarling traffic and tempers. But this year it is New York, or at least Wall Street, projecting its shadow back across the United Nations. Virtually every president or monarch from around the globe made some reference to the financial upheaval, and the looming cloud was also the buzz of the back corridors.
With a pillar of American power — its financial leadership — so badly shaken, there was a certain satisfaction among some of the attendees that the Bush administration, which had long lectured other nations about the benefits of unfettered markets, was now rejecting its own medicine by proposing a major bailout of financial firms.
But there was also serious concern that the United States had not policed its markets carefully enough to prevent the damage to its economy and others, making it much harder to raise money for the world’s most vulnerable people.
“The global financial crisis endangers all our work,” said the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who used his opening remarks at the General Assembly to question the reliance on free markets. “We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less uncritical faith in the ‘magic’ of markets.”
President Bush, making his eighth and last address to the United Nations, with which he has had a troubled relationship, sought to reassure world leaders that his administration was taking “bold steps” to stanch the economic crisis in the United States, which, he said, “would have a devastating effect on other economies around the world.”
Amid a long ode to the importance of continuing the fight against terrorism, he devoted one paragraph to the rescue plan. “We’ve promoted stability in the markets by preventing the disorderly failure of major companies,” Mr. Bush said. He noted that many were watching how the United States responded because economies were “more closely connected than ever before.”
But for some leaders, the Bush bailout plan seemed hypocritical given the tough course Washington has often advised struggling nations to take.
“What you are seeing here is the letting off of some political steam,” said Mark Malloch Brown, a British cabinet minister and former senior United Nations official. “They are all remembering the very hard, unforgiving advice that they got from American financial institutions” to “deflate your economy, let your banks go to the wall,” he said. “There is a resentment at what they would see as a further evidence of double standards.”
The General Assembly has long served as a handy megaphone for American foes like Fidel Castro of Cuba or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran — who this year delivered his standard diatribe against the evils of America and Zionism. The extraordinary nature of the outpouring on Tuesday, however, was that it came from some of America’s closest allies and trading partners — not from those the United States would label political outcasts, but from mainstream countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France described the crisis as the worst financial mess since the Depression of the 1930s and the financial system as “insane.” He called for a summit meeting in November to determine how to address the problems and to develop greater international regulations of financial markets. Many leaders echoed that latter demand.
Mr. Sarkozy also said that at a news conference he had talked with Wall Street bankers, but that they claimed not to know who was responsible for the mess. When banks and hedge funds hand out fat bonuses, they are all willing to gloat about their success, Mr. Sarkozy said, “but when there are deficits we don’t know who is responsible.”
During a brief appearance with Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zarbari, Mr. Bush acknowledged that world leaders gathering in New York had questioned him about the turmoil and the administration’s response to it, “wondering whether or not the United States has the right plan to deal with this economic crisis.”
The American ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he was not hearing complaints about the financial crisis at his meetings, and suggested that the world leaders accepted that the United States was facing the issue. “We are very agile and we are moving very quickly to deal with it,” he said.
Mr. Malloch Brown, the British minister, also noted that if the leaders lambasting the United States from the podium consulted with their finance ministers, they would be likely to find them very happy that Washington was planning a huge bailout.
Yet doubts were being raised not just at the United Nations but farther afield, with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, among the most outspoken. She said that at last year’s meeting of the Group of 8, she had strongly urged both the United States and Britain to be more rigorous in supervising financial activities, and even offered specific proposals to be applied to banks and other institutions.
But the United States was not interested, she said. She also seemed to express a certain exasperation that the United States was now asking Europe for help, after inflicting damage on the rest of the world that could have been avoided.
“We did what we were supposed to do,” she said in an interview with Münchner Merkur, a German newspaper. “We adopted a decent E.U. regulation on the national statute books,” but “when it came to it, the Americans said, ‘That’s not for us.’ ”
The theme promoted for this year’s General Assembly is the development of the world’s poorest nations, laid out in eight targets, including universal primary education and the elimination of maternal mortality, known collectively as the Millennium Development Goals.
Mr. Ban had been hoping that member states would renew their commitment to the tune of $72 billion annually, and evidently the turmoil in the markets threw that into question. He told a meeting of business executives on the side of the General Assembly that if the United States could promise $700 billion for Wall Street in one week, then $72 billion should not be such a stretch.
There was a certain amount of shellshock left from the wave of bad financial news, but African leaders in particular were holding out the importance of continuing aid.
“You cannot but talk about it,” said Elizabeth Ohene, Ghana’s minister of state for education, science and sport, trying to remain optimistic that the huge bailout plan for Wall Street meant there would be plenty of money to go around.
It would be far better to invest in the education of children, she told a luncheon gathering, than to use a bunch of fancy financial engineering to bail out Wall Street and other global financial centers. “Believe me,” she said, “it will be much cheaper.”
Michael Cooper, Steven Lee Myers and Larry Rohter contributed reporting.

Patent system 'stifling science'

Perpetual Freedumb Toward a Devastatingly Lethal Climax - or a Return to Freedom, Life, Liberty, Health, with Limitless, Unbounded Potential for all, in a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires?

"Where is the courage and responsibility to Freedom and Survival to support a science without secrets, without suppression, and without borders"



Science & Technology had the capacity to promise us the latter back in the late 1940's- Life, Liberty, Health, Unbounded Potential for all - with the revolutionary advanced definitions of Space, Time, Mass, Matter, Energy, Gravity (StarSteps) springing forth from an extended view of E=MC2 embracing the Radius of Curvature of All Natural Law.

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




Patent system 'stifling science'
By James Morgan Science reporter, BBC News
Life-saving scientific research is being stifled by a "broken" patent system, according to a new report.
"Blocking patents" are delaying advances in cancer medicine and food crops, says the Canada-based Innovation Partnership, a non-profit consultancy.
The full benefits of synthetic biology and nanotechnology will not be realised without urgent reforms to encourage sharing of information, they say.
Their findings will be reported next week to UK policymakers and NGOs.
The report is compiled by the Innovation Partnership's International Expert Group on Biotechnology, Innovation and Intellectual Property.
It cites examples of medical advances which have been delayed from reaching people in need - in both the developed and developing world.
These include HIV/Aids drugs and cancer screening tests.
In pharmacy, we no longer see much discovery - we see firms playing safe and holding onto their turf Pat Mooney, ETC Group
The authors offer guidelines for a transition from "Old IP" to "New IP", in which companies, researchers and governments recognise that sharing information is mutually beneficial.
"If we are to turn the atoms of publicly funded discovery into molecules of innovation... we have to make sure research avenues stay open," said the report's lead author, Professor Richard Gold.
"That doesn't mean there will be no patents. It simply means that patents don't become a barrier to early stage research.
"We do not want to end up in the same situation with nanotechnology that we are in with genetics."
Fortress IP
The traditional view is that strong patent protection stimulates innovation, reassuring companies that it is safe to invest in research without fear of being stung by rivals.
Under this "old" model of intellectual property (IP), biotech firms raced to file a "fortress" of patents around newly discovered genes, closing off avenues of research for their competitors.
But this strategy is ultimately counter-productive for both industry and consumers, argues the report, not least because it deters grass roots research in universities.
Work on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that can cause breast cancer has been held up by legal disputes over patents held on the genes by Myriad Genetics, a biotech firm based in Utah, US.
Meanwhile, patients in European countries were denied access to the cancer screening kits, because national health services were unwilling to meet the cost.
The Myriad case is "an anatomy of old IP gone wrong", said Dr Gold, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at McGill University in Montreal.
"Myriad is not the exception - it is the rule. Others are following and will continue to follow, unless we drastically change things."
To facilitate sharing of information, he believes companies should be encouraged to form "patent pools", allowing them to cross-license their technologies without losing out on royalties.
An example is the pool established by the international partnership Unitaid to provide HIV patients in developing countries with access to affordable anti-retroviral drugs.
Partnerships
Governments should develop public-private partnerships to conduct early stage research, and seek other ways to encourage innovation - via tax credits, for instance.
Meanwhile, patent offices must standardise their information gathering and do more to help firms in developing countries gain access to accurate patent information, the report recommends.
Reform now would ensure that society feels the full benefit of new fields such as synthetic biology, a discipline that could lead to cells with novel genomes which perform useful functions, such as making biofuels or absorbing greenhouse gases.
Dr Craig Venter, the man who led the private sector effort to sequence the human genome, has already raised eyebrows by applying to patent the method he plans to use to create a "synthetic organism".
Fears that these patents may be too broad have been raised by the ETC Group, which campaigns for the reform of biotech patenting.
"The patenting system is not functioning. It is more of a barrier than an incentive," said Pat Mooney, the organisation's executive director.
"In pharmacy, we no longer see much discovery - we see firms playing safe and holding onto their turf.
"Meanwhile, in nanotechnology, we have seen some dangerously broad patents, which cut off whole areas of research.
"Patent offices must get up to speed with new areas of science, so they know exactly how much they are giving away."
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7632318.stmPublished: 2008/09/24 08:56:10 GMT© BBC MMVIII

Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike, 60 Children Killed, Gates Offers Regrets

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies - control and protection of the oil regions, wherever they may be, at all costs.....
As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension would eliminate the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike, 60 Children Killed, Gates Offers Regrets
Gates Offers Regrets for Afghan Civilian Casualties
Defense secretary Says U.S. Tries to Avoid Civilian Death, but Needs to Do More
By JONATHAN KARL
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 17, 2008 —
In a solo press conference after a "frank and productive" meeting with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he offered Afghan officials "personal regret" for civilians killed in coalition airstrikes.
Gates said the U.S. takes great effort to avoid civilian casualties, but "it is clear we need to do more."
"I offer all Afghans my sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition air strikes," Gates said. "While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is clear that we have to work even harder."
Gates said he asked for detailed briefings today on the use of coalition air power (close air support) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
But Gates said it is the Taliban that intentionally targets civilians.
"All they seek is death and destruction and the power to impose their will. And they will fail," he said.
Gates also met with Air Force pilots along the flight line at Bagram Air Field and heard about the steps the Air Force takes to avoid civilian casualties from Brigadier Gen. Mike Holmes.
Speaking in front of an Air Force A-10 with sharp teeth painted on its nose cone, Gates told reporters that he is changing the way the military deals with incidents involving civilian casualties here. Now, when there are reports of civilian casualties, the military will first apologize, second compensate victims and then conduct an investigation. In the past, they often waited for the investigation before taking those first two steps.
"I think the key for us on those rare occasions when we do make a mistake, when there is an error, is to apologize quickly, to compensate the victims and then to carry out an investigation," he said.
He said he hopes this change in approach will help persuade the Afghan people that the U.S. is serous about avoiding civilian casualties.
2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

NYT August 24, 2008
Afghan Leader Assails Airstrike He Says Killed 95
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned on Saturday a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghans — including 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing measures to prevent the loss of civilian life in the future.
Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat Province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest airstrikes on civilians in nearly seven years of war.
The American military said Saturday it was investigating the attack.
The Karzai government has expressed outrage over recent airstrikes that have led to civilian deaths, as popular support for the coalition presence in Afghanistan dwindles. The tension comes at a delicate time for the American-led coalition, which is facing a resurgent Taliban with a perceived shortage of troops, leading it to rely more on air power to battle militants.
Mr. Karzai also denounced the coalition after an airstrike on July 6 killed 27 people in a wedding party — most of them women and children, ... full text

U.S. Arms Sales Climbing Rapidly

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies - control and protection of the oil regions, wherever they may be, at all costs..... “This is not about being gunrunners,” said Bruce S. Lemkin, the Air Force deputy under secretary who is helping to coordinate many of the biggest sales. “This is about building a more secure world.” This is what they said in Rome. This is what they said throughout all of history. Apparently WWII was not big enough!

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension would eliminate the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

NYT September 14, 2008
U.S. Arms Sales Climbing Rapidly
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.
From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005.
The trend, which started in 2006, is most pronounced in the Middle East, but it reaches into northern Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and even Canada, through dozens of deals that senior Bush administration officials say they are confident will both tighten military alliances and combat terrorism.
“This is not about being gunrunners,” said Bruce S. Lemkin, the Air Force deputy under secretary who is helping to coordinate many of the biggest sales. “This is about building a more secure world.”
The surging American arms sales reflect the foreign policy tides, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader campaign against international terrorism, that have dominated the Bush administration. Deliveries on orders now being placed will continue for several years, perhaps as one of President Bush’s most lasting legacies.
The United States is far from the only country pushing sophisticated weapons systems: it is facing intense competition from Russia and elsewhere in Europe, including continuing contests for multibillion-dollar deals to sell fighter jets to India and Brazil.
In that booming market, American military contractors are working closely with the Pentagon, which acts as a broker and procures arms for foreign customers through its Foreign Military Sales program.
Less sophisticated weapons, and services to maintain these weapons systems, are often bought directly by foreign governments. That category of direct commercial sales has seen an enormous surge as well, as measured by export licenses issued this fiscal year covering an estimated $96 billion, up from $58 billion in 2005, according to the State Department, which must approve the licenses.
About 60 countries get annual military aid from the United States, $4.5 billion a year, to help them buy American weapons. Israel and Egypt receive more than 80 percent of that aid. The United States has also recently given Iraq and Afghanistan large amounts of weapons and other equipment and has begun to train fledgling military units at no charge; this assistance is included in the tally of foreign sales. But most arms exports are paid for by the purchasers without United States financing.
The growing tally of international weapon deals, which started to surge in 2006, is now provoking questions among some advocates of arms control and some members of Congress.
“Sure, this is a quick and easy way to cement alliances,” said William D. Hartung, an arms control specialist at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute. “But this is getting out of hand.” .... full text

When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! "In the past, discovery for its own sake provided academic motivation, but today’s universities function more like corporate research laboratories. Rather than freely sharing techniques and results, researchers increasingly keep new findings under wraps to maintain a competitive edge. What used to be peer-reviewed is now proprietary. “Share and share alike” has devolved into “every laboratory for itself.”In trying to power the innovation economy, we have turned America’s universities into cutthroat business competitors, zealously guarding the very innovations we so desperately want behind a hopelessly tangled web of patents and royalty licenses." So the Trouble With Physics Continues, as the Standard Model Idles and humanity marches down the road to nuclear hell for Profit's Sake.

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



NYT September 7, 2008
Unboxed
When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder
By JANET RAE-DUPREE
“It is the policy and objective of the Congress to use the patent system to promote the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research or development” and “to promote collaboration between commercial concerns and nonprofit organizations, including universities.”
— The Bayh-Dole Act, a k a the University Small Business Patent Procedures Act
THE law of unintended consequences is perhaps less a “law” than a simple statement of fact: We cannot accurately predict all the results of our actions. We may do something with the best of intentions, and sometimes even accomplish the good toward which we aim. Yet, at the same time, we are all too often surprised by results that didn’t occur to us beforehand.
The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 started out with the best of intentions. By clearing away the thicket of conflicting rules and regulations at various federal agencies, it set out to encourage universities to patent and license results of federally financed research. For the first time, academicians were able to profit personally from the market transfer of their work. For the first time, academia could be powered as much by a profit motive as by the psychic reward of new discovery.
University “tech transfer” offices have boomed from a couple dozen before the law’s passage to nearly 300 today. University patents have leapt a hundredfold. Professors are stepping away from the lab and lecture hall to navigate the thicket of venture capital, business regulations and commercial competition.
None of these are necessarily negative outcomes. But more than a quarter-century after President Jimmy Carter signed it into law, the Bayh-Dole Act, sponsored by the former Senators Birch Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, and Robert Dole, Republican of Kansas, is under increasing scrutiny by swelling ranks of critics. The primary concern is that its original intent — to infuse the American marketplace with the fruits of academic innovation — has also distorted the fundamental mission of universities.
In the past, discovery for its own sake provided academic motivation, but today’s universities function more like corporate research laboratories. Rather than freely sharing techniques and results, researchers increasingly keep new findings under wraps to maintain a competitive edge. What used to be peer-reviewed is now proprietary. “Share and share alike” has devolved into “every laboratory for itself.”
In trying to power the innovation economy, we have turned America’s universities into cutthroat business competitors, zealously guarding the very innovations we so desperately want behind a hopelessly tangled web of patents and royalty licenses.
Of course, there is precedent for scientific secrecy, notes Daniel S. Greenberg , author of “Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards and Delusions of Campus Capitalism” (University of Chicago Press, 2007). When James Watson and Francis Crick were homing in on DNA’s double-helix structure in the 1950s, they zealously guarded their work from prying eyes until they could publish their findings, to be certain that they would get the credit for making the discovery.
“They didn’t try to patent it,” Mr. Greenberg notes, “but somebody doing the same work today would certainly take a crack at patenting the double helix.”
In fact, it was the life sciences — in particular, biotechnology — that started universities down the slippery commercial slope in the first place. Even before the Bayh-Dole Act, pharmaceutical companies were eagerly trolling campuses, looking for projects to finance. After the law was passed, they stepped up their efforts, but now with renewed zeal for keeping potential trade secrets from competitors.
While patients have benefited from the growing supply of new medications, the universities have obtained patents not only for the actual substances but also for the processes and methods used to make them, potentially hampering discovery of even more beneficial treatments.
“Bayh-Dole tore down the taboos that existed against universities engaging in overtly commercial activity. Universities really thought that they were going to make it rich,” said Jennifer Washburn, author of “University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education” (Basic Books, 2005). “Each school was convinced that if they came up with that one blockbuster invention, they could solve all their financial problems.”
Ms. Washburn says that was “extremely wrong-headed.” Initially reacting to the law by slapping patents on every possible innovation, universities quickly discovered that patents were an expensive proposition. The fees and legal costs involved in obtaining a single patent can run upward of $15,000, and that doesn’t count the salaries of administrative staff members. Instead of bringing home the bacon, university tech transfer offices were throwing money into the void with little hope of returns.
To date, Ms. Washburn says, data gathered by the Association of University Technology Managers, a trade group, show that fewer than half of the 300 research universities actively seeking patents have managed to break even from technology transfer efforts. Instead, two-thirds of the revenue tracked by the association has gone to only 13 institutions.
Part of the problem has been a lingering misunderstanding about where the value lies in innovation. Patenting a new basic science technique, or platform technology, puts it out of the reach of graduate students who might have made tremendous progress using it.
Similarly, exclusive licensing of a discovery to a single company thwarts that innovation’s use in any number of other fields. R. Stanley Williams, a nanotechnologist from Hewlett-Packard, testified to Congress in 2002 that much of the academic research to which H.P. has had difficulty gaining access could be licensed to several companies without eroding its intellectual property value.
“Severe disagreements have arisen over conflicting interpretations of the Bayh-Dole Act,” he said. “Large U.S.-based corporations have become so disheartened and disgusted with the situation, they are now working with foreign universities, especially the elite institutions in France, Russia and China.”
THE issue is further clouded by “reach through” licenses, complex arrangements used by many tech transfer offices. A reach-through lets the patent holder claim a share of any profits that result from using, say, an enabling technology, even if those profits come several steps down the market transfer line. Several universities are already embroiled in messy lawsuits trying to sort out who is entitled to what.
Perhaps the most troublesome aspect of campus commercialization is that research decisions are now being based on possible profits, not on the inherent value of knowledge. “Blue sky” research — the kind of basic experimentation that leads to a greater understanding of how the world works — has largely been set aside in favor of projects considered to have more immediate market potential.
In academia’s continuing pursuit of profit, the wonder of simple serendipitous discovery has been left on the curb.
Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley

Russian Prez Puts West On Notice

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies - control and protection of the oil regions, wherever they may be, at all costs.....
"President Dmitry Medvedev declared Saturday that "Russia is a nation to be reckoned with" following its war with Georgia, again putting the West on notice that Moscow is prepared to use it military and economic might. Medvedev's comments were another reminder that the Kremlin views last month's war as the start of a new era in Russian assertiveness. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, said "the truth is on our side" and likened the situation in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia with Srebrenica - the Bosnian town that was the site of Europe's worst mass carnage since World War II. Putin has suggested the United States was to blame for the war for helping the Georgian military rebuild"

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension would eliminate the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Russian Prez Puts West On Notice
MOSCOW, Sept. 6, 2008
(CBS/ AP) President Dmitry Medvedev declared Saturday that "Russia is a nation to be reckoned with" following its war with Georgia, again putting the West on notice that Moscow is prepared to use it military and economic might. With a U.S. Navy ship unloading aid off Georgia's Black Sea coast within shooting distance of Russian troops, Medvedev's comments were another reminder that the Kremlin views last month's war as the start of a new era in Russian assertiveness. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, said "the truth is on our side" and likened the situation in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia with Srebrenica - the Bosnian town that was the site of Europe's worst mass carnage since World War II. In France, the European Union's 27 foreign ministers were reluctant to provoke Moscow, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner saying the EU did not plan to impose sanctions against Russia. "Russia must remain a partner, it's our neighbor, it's a large country and there is no question to go back to a Cold War situation, that would be a big mistake," Kouchner said. In the weeks since Russian forces routed the Georgian army and seized the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, Russian officials have used bellicose language toward the West. Putin has suggested the United States was to blame for the war for helping the Georgian military rebuild. At a meeting Saturday of the State Council, Medvedev said the world had changed since the beginning of fighting in Georgia last month. "We have reached a moment of truth. It became a different world after Aug. 8," he said. "Russia will never allow anyone to infringe upon the lives and dignity of its citizens. Russia is a nation to be reckoned with from now on," Medvedev told the council, a government consultative body of largely regional governors. Medvedev criticized the United States and other Western nations, though not by name, for challenging Russia's intervention. "Millions of people supported us, but we've heard no words of support and understanding from those who in the same circumstances pontificate about free elections and national dignity and the need to use force to punish an aggressor," he said. The United States has moved to counter Russia, both lambasting Moscow for what it called a disproportionate military response and providing humanitarian and economic aid to Georgia. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, at an economic meeting Saturday in Italy, blasted Russian actions in the war as an "affront to civilized standards" and said Moscow has given "no satisfactory justification" for invading Georgia. During a visit to North Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that "the time isn't right" for the U.S. to move forward on a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday. Her comment increased speculation that President Bush is planning to punish Moscow for invading Georgia, a former Soviet republic, by canceling the agreement. Such a move is being planned, according to senior Bush administration officials, but is not yet final. U.S. warships have delivered much of the aid and Russian officials have questioned whether the aid is a cover for weapons shipments. At Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, Russian forces watched closely Saturday as the U.S. naval ship USS Mount Whitney delivered 17 tons of aid for Georgians displaced by the fighting. U.S. naval officers said a Russian warship had trailed the Mount Whitney - the flagship of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet - across the Black Sea. Russian forces onshore were also scrutinizing the ship from a position just 3 miles away from its anchorage off Poti. "They're clearly watching us very, very closely, and I think they'll be very happy when we leave," the ship's commanding officer, Capt. Owen Honors, told The Associated Press. Capt. John Moore, the commander of the task force that has brought some 450 tons of aid to Georgia on three U.S. ships and numerous planes, said the Russian frigate Ladnyy had trailed the Whitney about 4,000 yards away for the entire Black Sea trip. The Russian boat remained in international waters after the U.S. ship crossed Friday into Georgian waters 12 miles from Poti, he said. In an echo of the cat-and-mouse games that Soviet and American forces played in the Cold War, Moore said the two countries' naval forces had had little contact except for a brief exchange between the Ladnyy and another U.S. ship, the USS McFaul. "I think it was on the 24th August, when the Ladnyy contacted the bridge and very courteously said 'Hey, welcome to the Black Sea', and we responded in kind 'thank you very much'," he told AP. At one Russian position on the shore near Poti, several light tanks and armored personnel carriers bearing peacekeeping insignias could be seen Saturday behind a high earthen berm and a razor-wire fence. An excavator dug new holes nearby. These dug-in Russian troops were still on Georgian territory weeks after an EU peace deal required them to leave. Soldiers refused to let an Associated Press reporter enter the post and said the commander was not there, but an officer acknowledged the Russians had seen the ship. Georgia, a South Caucasus nation long dominated by Russia, sits astride a strategic corridor for Caspian Sea and Central Asian oil and gas. Georgia's desire to join NATO and move closer to the West has angered Russia. Since the war, Russia has recognized South Ossetia and another separatist province, Abkhazia, as independent nations despite protests from the European Union, the United States and Georgia. Putin, who often appears to taunt the West, insisted in an interview broadcast late Saturday, that Russia was justified in its intervention in South Ossetia. He said there would be no cooling of ties with the West because the West is dependent Russia's oil, gas and mineral wealth. "We are convinced that the truth is on our side," he said in the interview with state-run TV. He also drew parallels between South Ossetia and Srebrenica, the town where Serb troops in 1995 killed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys. He said the European peacekeepers there at the time - mainly Dutch soldiers, operating under a U.N. mandate - stood aside as the massacre took place. In the French city of Avignon, EU foreign ministers met to figure out how the bloc can mediate a long-term solution to the standoff. Kouchner insisted the EU's aim was also to improve relations with Russia, despite current disagreements. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was heading to Russia on Monday to meet with Medvedev and clarify parts of the EU peace deal, especially the terms for withdrawing troops.
MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc.