REVOLUTIONARY∞RESOURCE

Saturday, December 14, 2002

NIH plans labs to study deadly germs
Some scientists say the facilities will increase the odds for bioterrorism.

By JEFF NESMITH
Cox News Service

WASHINGTON – The National Institutes of Health is moving ahead with plans to build three large laboratories for research on the deadliest known microbes, despite warnings from some scientists that the facilities will increase the odds that a disease like Ebola could escape - or be deliberately released - into the general population.

One or two of the facilities, which are known as biosafety level 4 laboratories, or BSL-4s, would be operated by private interests, such as a university-based consortium, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, which is providing funds for construction and research. Two more would be operated by the government.

In addition, the government plans to fund construction of up to six less-secure BSL-3 laboratories.

"This is a recipe for disaster," Eileen Choffnes, a program manager at the National Academy of Sciences Committee for International Security and Arms Control, declared last month in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Choffnes, whose article bore a notation that it represented her views only and not those of the academy, is one of several scientists to warn that building additional facilities will spread the availability and access that would-be terrorists might have to deadly pathogens.

"These laboratories might become a pathogen-modification training academy or a biowarfare agent 'superstore,'" Choffnes wrote. "The physical tools and technology of bioterror are relatively cheap. It's the knowledge and experience of working with pathogens that's priceless."

NIAID officials said the need to better understand potential biological weapons and to develop vaccines and therapeutics for them comes at a time when existing BSL-4 labs are being used.

"The new experiments that need to be done in order to find new vaccines and new anti-virals or new antibiotics for the agents that are associated with those diseases require work done under BSL-4 facilities," said Carole Heilman, director of the NIAID division of microbiology and infectious diseases, which will oversee the laboratories.

Dump the Dollar, China State TV Tells Viewers
http://www.cnbc.com/id/21829883 (Nov. 17th 2007)

Chinese lunchtime television on Friday gave ordinary people a basic tip on how to play the currency markets: sell the dollar!

A state news program, quoting unnamed "wealth management experts," told residents with dollar accounts on the mainland to convert their holdings into yuan or a range of other foreign currencies, including the pound and the euro.

The prospect of ordinary Chinese ditching the dollar should be less alarming than reports that have roiled global markets of Beijing diversifying its official foreign exchange reserves.

[The U.S. dollar is the world's most important reserve currency primarily because all nations need dollars to buy oil (hence the common term 'petrodollar'). If foreign holders of dollar reserves decided to shift holdings to other currencies on a mass scale, there would be tragic consequences for the deficit-heavy U.S. economy. In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would cease to take dollars, and accept only euros. Though Iraq is now back to the petrodollar, a clutch of other energy-rich nations including Russia, Iran and Venezuela are currently leading a movement to diversify out of dollar acceptance and usage, thereby setting the clock ticking for U.S. hegemony.]


Oil leaders' private debate televised by mistake
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2212899,00.html (Nov. 18th 2007)

'Kill the cable, kill the cable,' shouted the security guard as he burst through the double doors into the media room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, followed by Saudi police. It was too late.

On Friday night, during what the participants thought were private talks, Venezuela's oil minister Venezuela Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel.

They said Opec should formally express its concern about the weakness of the dollar when the cartel makes its official declaration at the close of the summit today. But the Saudis, the world's largest oil producers and de facto head of Opec, vetoed the proposal. Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, warned that even the mere mention to journalists of the fact that leaders were discussing the weak dollar would cause the US currency to plummet.

[President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela manages the largest remaining oil deposits on the planet, and supplies the U.S. with 10% of its imports on the condition of no more aggression (the CIA were behind 2002's illegal, and unsuccessful military coup). By enforcing OPEC production quotas, Chavez is responsible for a part of today's high price but of course has no say in the big picture: Peak Oil. Meanwhile, the Saudis are still jockeying for their Imperial masters, although Matthew Simmons will tell you that their giant fields are faltering and about to enter decline (which would be a decisive sign that the world has already peaked). But Venezuela's heavy-sour crude in the Orinoco Belt was only made profitable to extract when barrel prices rose about $50, so the vast majority of Venezuelan oil is barely touched.]