June 28th: Anniversary Of The End Of World War I

On June 28, 1919, the Allied leaders signed the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I, writes Business Insider.

With hardly any German involvement, the principal architects of the treaty – Britain’s David Lloyd George, Italy’s Vittorio Orlando, France’s Georges Clemenceau of France, and America’s Woodrow Wilson – adjusted Germany’s borders and demanded steep war reparations.

Germany finally paid off its World War I debt in 2010, according to Business Insider and the German magazine Der Spiegel.

That treaty, known as the “unhappy compromise,” had harsh terms laid out in 15 parts and 440 articles.

Those harsh terms reportedly gave rise to more German nationalism, which in turn gave Nazi leader Adolf Hitler a political platform, according to Business Insider.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-treaty-of-versailles-was-signed-96-years-ago-today-2015-6

Obama Administration Gets Rid Of Trans Fats

The FDA issued a final decision on trans fats Tuesday that will phase out partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the main source of trans fat.  The food industry has three years to do so, according to Politico.

Partially hydrogenated oils are are still used in a wide variety of products from microwave popcorn to cake frosting, writes Politico.

The government’s goal is to prevent cardiovascular disease, writes Politico.  Advocates are cheering the move as a historic win for public health.

Class-action attorneys may use the ruling even before it takes effect to file lawsuits against deep-pocketed food companies that have continued to use trans fat, writes Politico.

Politico states that “the rest of the industry has reduced its use of trans fat by some 85 percent.”

According to Politico, food industry lawyers are poring over the document to see if FDA said anything that could help shield them from litigation.

The FDA on Tuesday ruled that trans fat is not “generally recognized as safe” for use in human food, according to CNN.

The department gave food manufacturers three years to remove the partially hydrogenated oils, or PHOs, from their products.

Companies can petition the FDA for a special permit to use it, but no PHOs can be added to human food unless otherwise approved by the FDA, claims CNN.

Eating a diet rich in trans fat is linked to higher body weight, heart disease and memory loss, states CNN.

It has been shown to raise the “bad,” or LDL, cholesterol in the blood, which can lead to cardiovascular disease — the leading cause of death in the United States.

(Updated article)

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/obama-bans-trans-fat-119050.html#ixzz3dLgfiWKx

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/16/health/fda-trans-fat/

Dolphin Deaths In Gulf Of Mexico Relate To Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Large numbers of bottlenose dolphins have been washing up on the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to theverge.com.  It was the largest spill to take place in US waters.  The dolphins actually started washing up in elevated levels two months before the spill, potentially because of a cold winter.

“The evidence to date indicates that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused the adrenal and lung lesions that contributed to the deaths of this unusual mortality event,” said Stephanie Venn-Watson, a researcher with the National Marine Mammal Foundation who was the lead author of the report, writes the New York Times.

“We reached that conclusion based on the accumulation of our studies including this paper,” she added.

The deaths have continued into 2015.

In the latest study, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration point to serious health issues in washed-up dolphins that are linked to petroleum product exposure, strengthening the link between dolphins’ deaths and the BP-owned well’s spill, writes theverge.com.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/dolphin-deaths-linked-to-2010-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill/

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126538

New ‘Half-Scandal?’ There May Be New Details Of Bin Laden’s Death

Does this mean that bin Laden isn’t dead? No, it just means there is a new report about the circumstances behind his death.

According to Democracy Now!, the new report written by Seymour Hersh for the London Review of Books says the Obama administration gave a false account of the hunting and killing of Osama bin Laden. It is normally claimed that bin Laden was shot dead four years ago this month in a U.S. raid on his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Hersh is an American investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. According to Wikipedia, he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award.

He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War.

In his article, Hersh cites interviews with “a retired senior intelligence official” and American sources who “had access to corroborating information,” writes Slate magazine.

Hersh says top Pakistani military leaders knew about the operation and provided key assistance. The U.S. also claimed it helped locate bin Laden by tracking his personal messenger. But Hersh reports a former Pakistani intelligence officer identified his whereabouts in return for the bulk of a $25 million U.S. bounty. Pakistani intelligence was reportedly aware of bin Laden’s location and held him “prisoner” at the Abbottabad compound since 2006.

The White House claimed at the time the U.S. operatives entered from Afghanistan without Pakistan’s knowledge.

Hersh’s article also questions the U.S. account of bin Laden’s shooting, saying there was never a firefight inside the compound and that bin Laden himself wasn’t armed.

A retired American official says U.S. claims of finding information from bin Laden’s computers and documents was a “hoax” to give the false impression he was still operationally important.

Questions were also raised about whether bin Laden was actually buried at sea, as the U.S. claimed.

The White House has denied the accounts given by Seymour Hersh, and the CIA has called the Hersh article “nonsense.”

(Updated article)

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/11/headlines

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/10/seymour_hersh_in_london_review_of_books_obama_lied_about_bin_laden_raid.html

UNT Women’s Basketball Player Death Ruled A Suicide

University of North Texas basketball player Eboniey Jeter committed suicide in her dorm room, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office report released yesterday, May 8th.

She was a forward on the UNT women’s team.

The Denton Record-Chronicle newspaper states the report by Dr. Nizam Peerwani, chief medical examiner, revealed how Ms. Jeter took her own life.

The Record-Chronicle decided not to include the details of the suicide out of respect to her grieving family.

The newspaper was unable to reach family members Friday afternoon for comment.

(Updated article)

http://www.swishappeal.com/2015/5/8/8574125/north-texas-forward-eboniey-jeters-ruled-a-suicide

U.S. Justice Department Will Investigate Baltimore Police Over Freddie Gray Treatment

The U.S. Justice Department will investigate whether the Baltimore Police Department engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional policing, said law enforcement officials on Thursday.

A request was made by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for the Justice Department to investigate.

This came soon after the Baltimore state’s attorney filed criminal charges against six officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray.

Gray died April 19 after being injured while in police custody. Gray’s death set off large demonstrations, arson and looting.

At a policing conference earlier on Thursday, the Baltimore police commissioner, Anthony W. Batts, said he did not object to an outside investigation, and said that he was committed to reforming the Police Department.

He said he recognized that Baltimore residents did not trust the city to make changes voluntarily, states the New York Times.

“I am willing to do anything it takes to win that trust back,” he said. “If it’s D.O.J., whatever it takes.”

The situation has dominated Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch’s first days in office, as the riots broke out in Baltimore on her first day on the job.

“The situation in Baltimore involves a core responsibility of the Department of Justice — not only to combat illegal conduct when it occurs, but to help prevent the circumstances that give rise to it in the first place,” said Ms. Lynch on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

If the Justice Department finds that there was a “pattern or practice” of discriminatory policing, it will ask that the police department make sweeping changes.

If the police department declines to do so, the matter could land in front of a federal judge, who could force changes within the department, writes ABC News.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/freddy-gray-doj-announces-federal-probe-entire-baltimore/story?id=30899279

Did John Kerry Make A False Statement?

Wikipedia states that The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (commonly known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers) is a now-defunct militant organization that was based in northern Sri Lanka.

It was founded in May 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran, and waged a secessionist nationalist insurgency to create an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka for Tamil people.

The military engagement led to the Sri Lankan Civil War, which ran from 1983 until 2009, when the LTTE was decisively defeated.

Recently, the publication Lankaweb pointed out a petition to urge John Kerry to retract a statement he made about Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers.

“In remarks made February 12, 2015, welcoming Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera to Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry referred to a war that never took place: Sri Lanka’s 30-years of war with the Tamils.” Regretfully, Minister Samaraweera failed to point out this distortion and we, the undersigned, hasten to request that it be corrected.

“Sri Lanka’s 30-year turmoil can best be summed up using President Obama’s ISIS analogy: it was a war on a terrorist group, not on the people it claimed to represent.

“The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) waged a brutal and lengthy armed campaign for a separate state, and the Sri Lankan government responded with military force, eventually eliminating it.

“Any serious effort by the US or others to help Sri Lanka on its path to further reconciliation must start with this recognition: Sri Lanka was no more at war with its Tamil population than the American people with Muslims. The distinction is fundamental to the narratives of both nations.”

(Updated photo)

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/04/27/petition-%C2%B7-urge-secretary-kerry-to-retract-distorted-statement-on-sri-lanka-%C2%B7-change-org/

Are Generic Drugs Regulated Differently Than Brand-Name Drugs?

Ring of Fire Radio

Companies who make generic drugs are not allowed to change their warning label if a new problem is found with the drug.  However, brand-name drugs are required to change their warning label if a new problem is found with the drug, states Ring of Fire Radio.

The FDA was supposed to issue new rules last year to make generic drugs safer for consumers and change their regulations.  However, so far, they’ve failed to take any action, which is leaving patients at risk and lets pharmaceutical companies go free.

Here, Farron Cousins discusses this with attorney Howard Nations.

What Is The Truth With Arsenic In Inexpensive Wine?

Ring of Fire Radio.

Ring of Fire Radio claims that only the worst winemakers are worried about the arsenic lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in California against some wineries for having high arsenic levels in their wines. Some of these include huge-selling wines by Menage A Trois, Sutter Home, Beringer and Fetzer.

Ring of Fire claims the “bottom feeders” in the wine industry have taken advantage of the increased popularity of wine as they cut corners to raise their profits.  Lawyer Mike Papantonio discusses the dangers inside cheap wines with attorney Mike Burg.

Did The Daily Show Hold Corporate Media Accountable?

Ring of Fire Radio

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were instrumental in showing us how dysfunctional the corporate news has become.

They are both moving on, and a void has been created that needs to be filled with the same kind of poignant broadcasting that will keep young viewers interested in the world.

Lawyer Mike Papantonio discusses this with Lee Camp, who is doing similar work on his show Redacted Tonight on RT, found at rt.com.