By Lee Silver
Newsweek International
June 4, 2007 issue - It last happened about 3.6 billion years ago. a tiny living cell emerged from the dust of the Earth. It replicated itself, and its progeny replicated themselves, and so on, with genetic twists and turns down through billions of generations. Today every living organism—every person, plant, animal and microbe—can trace its heritage back to that first cell. Earth's extended family is the only kind of life that we've observed, so far, in the universe.
This pantheon of living organisms is about to get some newcomers—and we're not talking about extraterrestrials. Scientists in the last couple of years have been trying to create novel forms of life from scratch. They've forged chemicals into synthetic DNA, the DNA into genes, genes into genomes, and built the molecular machinery of completely new organisms in the lab—organisms that are nothing like anything nature has produced.
The people who are defying Nature's monopoly on creation are a loose collection of engineers, computer scientists, physicists and chemists who look at life quite differently than traditional biologists do. Harvard professor George Church wants "to do for biology what Intel does for electronics"—namely, making biological parts that can ...   more »

by JASON LEWIS -
The Government has established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health laws
The Government has established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health laws.
The revelation is set to reignite the row over the Government's use of draconian measures to deal with terror suspects amid accusations they are abusing human rights.
The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) was quietly set up last year to identify individuals who pose a direct threat to VIPs including the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Royal Family.
It was given sweeping powers to check more than 10,000 suspects' files to identify mentally unstable potential killers and stalkers with a fixation against public figures.
The team's psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to order treatment - including forcibly detaining suspects in secure psychiatric units.
Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of appeal.
Until now it has been the exclusive decision of doctors ...   more »

Kissinger, Rockefeller, media moguls among those scheduled to attend
Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld
The super-secret Bilderberg Group, an organization of powerful international elites, is set to meet this week somewhere in Turkey – but even the precise location is a mystery.
The meeting begins Thursday and continues through Sunday.
Those expected to attend include Donald Graham, chairman and chief executive officer of the Washington Post, Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, John Vinocur, senior correspondent of the International Herald Tribune, Paul Gigot, editor of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Beytout, editor-in-chief of Le Figaro, George David, chairman of Coca-Cola, Martin Feldstein, president and chief executive officer of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Vernon Jordan, senior managing director of Lazard Freres & Co., Anatole Kaletsky, editor at large of the Times of London and General William Luti, the new "war czar."
According to reports from Turkey, Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions and global energy issues will be on the agenda – but only invitees know for sure.
Welcome to the mysterious world ...   more »

Halliburton's former engineering and construction subsidiary has a contingency contract with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency, according to WND columnist Jerome Corsi.
As Corsi reported last week, President Bush recently signed a little-reported National Security and Homeland Security Directive granting extraordinary powers to the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.
Houston-based KBR was awarded an initial $385 million contract in January 2006 for one year, with four one-year options extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005.
ICE spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback told Corsi the primary intent of the contract was to build temporary detention facilities that could be used in the event of a mass migration crisis, but she confirmed the facilities could be employed in national emergencies, including natural disasters.
"The idea of the KBR contract is to support the Army Corp of Engineers in case we experienced a sudden mass immigration and we had to respond quickly," she said. "We would need immediate detention facilities in the form of temporary housing that would enable us to determine if the large ...   more »

On Monday, Bank of Canada Gov. David Dodge told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that North America could one day move toward a euro-style currency.
Dodge's comments add to a growing list of comments from Canadian economists, academics and government officials supporting the idea of creating the amero as a North American common currency.
Dodge argued a common North American currency would help buffer the adverse effects of exchange rate fluctuations between the Canadian dollar and the U.S. dollar.
Currently, the Canadian dollar has surged to a 30-year high against the U.S. currency, a move Dodge noted makes Canadian products a lot less competitive for export to the U.S., Canada's major foreign market.
"In the past two months alone," Dodge told the group in Chicago, "the Canadian dollar is up about 8 percent against the U.S. dollar, and is now worth more than 91 cents (U.S.)."
In October 2006, El Universal, a Mexican newspaper published in Spanish, reported in a little-noticed article the then-president-elect of Mexico and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in their first meeting together shared a vision of a future North America united under a common currency.
El Universal reported Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the ...   more »