The UN Environment Program (UNEP) says pollution from everything from gold mining to burning coal in power stations has tripled mercury levels in the air. Mercury gets into the food chain, and can cause brain and nerve damage resulting in impaired coordination, blurred vision, tremors, irritability and memory loss. Klaus Toepfer of UNEP says, “Things could get worse in the coming years, as increases in temperature also appear to help the spread of the mercury.”
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The deadly launch of the Columbia space shuttle could have been aborted in time to save the crew, as soon as NASA spotted the large piece of foam that fell from it, but communications problems prevented the information from getting to the right people.

Retired Navy aviator John Macidull says it was the job of the Range Safety Officer at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to observe the launch and report any problems to mission control. “Certainly the range safety officer would know,” Macidull says. “That’s his job.” But NASA’s engineers weren’t aware of the foam problem until they reviewed the videotape of the launch 24 hours after liftoff.
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Whitley Strieber writes, “Last night I read a document that turned my blood to ice?The first page of the document is marked ‘Confidential?Not For Distribution.’ It is clear that an attempt is being made to conceal this bill from congress until the ‘right moment.’ It is chillingly clear what the moment they are waiting for is: when we are living in abject fear due to a horrible new terrorist attack?and just yesterday, as I write this, the president announced that such an attack could happen at any time.” Don?t miss Whitley’s new Journal!

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In our latest poll, we asked you how you felt after listening to Colin Powell’s address to the UN. Most of you are peaceniks: 45% of you think we should seek a peaceful way to end the crisis. But 36% of you are prepared to go to war, even if we can’t convince the UN. 10% think we should attack Iraq only with UN support and 9% think we should simply walk away.

Earlier poll results showed that most of you were prepared to go to war, with or without UN sanctions, but now opinion is starting to go in the other direction. This reflects how hard it is to decide what should be done in this troublesome situation.

NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.read more