Six In The Morning

Big Brother Meets McCarthyism

Israeli parliament backs 'McCarthyite' investigation into human rights groups
A right-wing proposal to investigate some of Israel's best-known human rights organisations for "delegitimising" its military was approved by the country's parliament yesterday amid left-wing charges of McCarthyism.

After a highly charged and noisy debate, the Knesset approved by 41 votes to 16 the plan for a parliamentary panel of inquiry into the funding of a series of organisations which have criticised and documented human rights abuses by Israeli authorities, mainly in the occupied Palestinian territories. The vote is a political victory for the hard-line nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party led by the country's controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, one of whose Knesset members, Faina Kirshenbaum, introduced the proposal and is likely to chair the panel.

China And Its Sad Industrial Safety Record

Battery factory poisons 24 children in China
Twenty-four children, aged between nine months and 16 years old, have been hospitalised for lead poisoning caused by battery factories in their east China village, state media said, marking the latest in a string of battery-related poisonings in recent years.

The official Xinhua News Agency said that local authorities had shut two battery factories in Anhui province's Huaining county after tests found that at least 200 local children had elevated lead levels, with 24 of them requiring hospitalisation.

We Live In The Kingdom Of Fear: America

Private memo exposes US fears over Wikileaks
The White House has instructed every US government department and agency to create "insider threat" programmes that will ferret out disgruntled or untrustworthy employees who might be tempted to leak the sort of state secrets recently made public by the website WikiLeaks.

A 13-page memo detailing the new policy urges senior civil servants to beef up cyber security and hire teams of psychiatrists and sociologists who can "detect behavioural changes". They will then monitor the moods and attitudes of staff who are allowed to access classified information.

They Felt The Stupid Burn And Liked It

US oil spill: 'Bad management' led to BP disaster

In a 48-page report the presidential commission wrote that the failures were "systemic" and likely to recur without industry and government reform.

But it said BP did not have adequate controls in place to ensure safety.

The April blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.

The Macondo well, about a mile under the sea's surface, eventually leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, damaging hundreds of miles of coastline before it was capped in July.

Working For Peace In A Difficult Region

Psychiatrist in Gaza wins Palme prize for his dedication to peace
GAZA-BASED psychiatrist Eyad al-Sarraj has won Sweden’s Olof Palme prize for his dedication to reconciliation and peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

The Olof Palme memorial fund cited his “indefatigable struggle for common sense” as a key factor in its decision. In his work, he “stood on the side of the individual human being, regardless of nationality, gender or position”.

“He has brought into the light the destructive influence of repression on mental health. He has shown the connections arising between confinement, hopelessness, desperation and violence, and how this is neglected by both Palestinian and Israeli authorities.”

Like Too Many Rocky Sequels

UN seeks more troops for Côte d'Ivoire
The West African country has been in turmoil since the November 28 poll that Western powers and African states say was won by Gbagbo's rival, Alassane Ouattara, leading to a stand-off that has killed more than 170 people and raised fears of civil war.

UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told Reuters the UN would formally request between 1 000 and 2 000 additional troops for Côte d'Ivoire from the 15-nation Security Council, and said he hoped they could be deployed within weeks.