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POPSThe IWC Fails to protect whales.
Under Japan's special permit whaling programs, in 2007, a total of 551 Antarctic minke whales were taken under the JARPA II program, while 207 common minke, 100 sei, 50 Bryde's and three sperm whales were taken under the JARPN II program in the North Pacific. The issue of special permit whaling deeply divides the Commission and as in previous years, strong statements both in favor and against lethal research programs were made. The Japanese delegation said it is "strongly convinced" that the current situation is undesirable for all members and that the IWC must be normalized. "Japan commends and appreciates the tremendous efforts Chair-Hogarth has put in over the past year in order to once again make the IWC an effective organization that can fulfill its own mission, the conservation and management of whale resources," Japan said in a statement. Japan is of the view that "due to serious disagreements among different groups within the IWC, there has been a paucity of constru
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POPSData Entry Services | Word 2 Excel Conversion | Excel 2 PDF Conversion Telegenisys Inc offers a broad spectrum of Data Entry related services. Some of the recent projects undertaken by Telegenisys include creating and updating editorial calendars for the print media, claims processing for leading insurance companies and many others. Trained professionals at Telegenisys use the latest hardware and software technologies for accurate and rapid Data Entry. The data entry operators are trained in PDF conversion as well as other data conversion such as Excel to XML, doc format to Excel, etc.
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POPSVolunteer and Travel! I'm in! I was looking at Happy News today and they featured an article on "Hands Up Holiday." Why not do both - volunteer at a worthwhile event and take a holiday. Seriously, this is one of the coolest things I've seen yet!
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POPSObscene Military Budget is much biger than Reported Legally see the article for the cuts behind the figures here: Now, imagine that, due to a little more Pentagon/Bush administration wizardry, even this black budget estimate is undoubtedly a low-ball figure. One reason is simple enough: The proposed $541 billion Pentagon 2009 budget doesn't even include money for actual wars. George W. Bush's wars are all paid for by "supplemental" bills like the $162 billion one Congress will soon pass -- so the Department of Defense's $34 billion black budget skips "war-related funding." This means that even the overall figure for that budget remains darker than we might imagine (as in "black hole"). The Pentagon not only produces stealth planes, it is, in budgetary terms, a stealth operation. If honestly accounted, the actual Pentagon yearly budget, including all the "military-related" funds salted away elsewhere, is probably now more than $1 trillion a year.
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POPSFlorida Gov.Crist Calls For End To Feds Moratorium On Drilling
Public opinion started to move in favor of oil drilling off Florida after Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 forced many Floridians to wait in long lines for gas, said David Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, a lobbying group. Jeanne and other powerful hurricanes that battered Florida in 2004 and 2005 left millions of Floridians struggling to fill their gas tanks because of a lack of electricity to pump the fuel and difficulties getting fresh supplies into Florida. A business group that supports oil drilling release a survey on Thursday saying 61 percent of Florida respondents support increased exploration and production of oil and natural gas off the Florida coasts. "Public opinion is supportive .... t's time to give it a try (drilling) and watch it very closely,'" Mica said. Environment Florida, an anti-drilling advocacy group, said it got an unprecedented response from supporters to a write-in campaign after Crist changed his position.
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POPSWhen Journalist LIE, Innocence Dies! Rarely since the WW2 has a people been so vilified as the Palestinians. Rarely has a people been so frequently excused and placated as the Israelis. Israeli embassies are now buttonholing editors around the world, saying that it's not fair to call Israel's PM "hard-line". And the reporters are falling into line. ... R Fisk I think he should know.
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POPSThe power and the glory The market for energy is huge. At present, the world’s population consumes about 15 terawatts of power. (A terawatt is 1,000 gigawatts, and a gigawatt is the capacity of the largest sort of coal-fired power station.) That translates into a business worth $6 trillion a year—about a tenth of the world’s economic output—according to John Doerr, a venture capitalist who is heavily involved in the industry. And by 2050, power consumption is likely to have risen to 30 terawatts.
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POPSDrug-Related Violence Hurts Tourism in Mexico This story focuses on what's happening in Tijuana as a result of increased drug and gang violence. I have not been to Mexico for nearly two years, but even then I noticed stories about the violence in the papers. Have you thought twice about traveling to Mexico as a result of increased violence or at least the perception of it?
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POPSSound Bites And Sloganeering Just Won’t Cut It Anymore even including such environmentally sensitive countries as the United Kingdom, Norway and France—to limit oil and gas exploration to this extent. Gulf of Mexico that hold billions of barrels of oil and gas are inaccessible for purely political reasons. Appeasing Florida’s real-estate and tourism industries has been more important than U.S. energy security. In addition, politicians throw red meat to the crowd by promising to punish the oil industry for its huge profits, overlooking the small problem that much of this profit is not even made in the United States. In fact, it is not the oil companies, but producing countries like Venezuela, Mexico, Iran and Russia that are provoking the pending production crunch through lack of investment. National oil companies now control nearly 80 percent of worldwide reserves, leaving major Western multinationals with full access to only 6 percent.