| Too often, where we need water we find guns instead.”
U.N. Secretary-General, urging the world to put the looming crisis over water shortages at the top of the global agenda this year. “He was certainly there but he didn't call the FBI. I have no idea why he received the reward." Hugh Sims Pan Am flight instructor, on a $5 million reward paid to a colleague for providing authorities with information that led to the arrest and conviction of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. “The more we are squeezed, the more we will explode." Badr Abu Rekaa A 52-year-old woman from Gaza, on Israel's attempt to restrict the movement of people and goods in and out of that territory. .
Come clean on criminal teachers
Sadly, the same level of public accountability does not apply to 128 new classroom teachers with criminal records who have been hired for government schools. The public - in particular parents of the children in these schools - have every right to know the backgrounds of these teachers entrusted with the care of young students. In six months between November 2006 and May last year 263 applicant teachers in NSW were found during screening checks to have criminal pasts - and almost half of them were given a job. But under an agreement with the criminal history checking agency CrimTrac, all teachers' police files are destroyed by the department after 180 days. The reasons advanced for this extraordinary secrecy - protection of teachers' privacy and fears that publicising details could prejudice the flow of personal information to departmental chiefs - just do not wash.
Big Pharma Faces Grim Prognosis
Over the next few years, the pharmaceutical business will hit a wall. Some of the top-selling drugs in industry history will become history as patent protections expire, allowing generics to rush in at much-lower prices. Generic competition is expected to wipe $67 billion from top companies' annual U.S. sales between 2007 and 2012 as more than three dozen drugs lose patent protection. That is roughly half of the companies' combined 2007 U.S. sales. .
Radio Talk
When Al Gore proposed launching a progressive TV network, a Fox News executive told Advertising Age (10/13/03): "The problem with being associated as liberal is that they wouldn't be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in…. If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat." (See Extra!, 11-12/03: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2595) FAIR's call to the ABC contact person listed on the memo, to ask if similar "blackout" lists exist for other shows, including conservative-leaning programs, has not been returned. FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986.
Fifty Nine years of Independence - Reminiscences
After this our Sinhala kings together with their armies were able to chase all the aliens from Ceylon and establish a unitary country for over three centuries. By the convention of March 2, 1815 we became a colony under the British. As a result of the joint and collective efforts of all the leaders who were agitating for independence Ceylon was freed from the colonial rule in 1948. The last struggle of the Sinhalese against the British in 1848 which the historians describe as the Matale rebellion was supported by some leading Burghers of the day. Chief among them was the then Chief Justice Sir Anthony Olipahant. He condemned the acts of military panel which shot Ven. Kudapola and Puran Appu. Kings counsel H. C. Selby, Dr. Elliot, A. M. Fergusion Richard Morgan and Laurance Oilphant were among this Burgher community.
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