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* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta? * What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore? * How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?
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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! WHAT DID ISRAEL KNOW IN ADVANCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS? * Those Celebrating "Movers" and Art Student Spies
* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta?
* What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore?
* How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?At last, the answers. Read Christopher Ketcham's exclusive expose in CounterPunch special double-issue February newsletter. Plus, Cockburn and St. Clair on how this story was suppressed and ultimately found its home in CounterPunch. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
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Today's Stories February 8, 2007 John V. Walsh February 7, 2007 Daniel Wolff Tao Ruspoli Tony Swindell Sharon Smith Ken Couesbouc Jeff Cohen Col. Dan Smith Tom Kerr Joshua Frank Adam Elkus Stephen Fleischman Website of
the Day
February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff William Blum Mike Ferner CP News Service Evelyn Pringle Christopher Brauchli Alan Cabal Website of the Day
Dave Zirin Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts Newton Garver Bruce Anderson Saul Landau Ralph Nader James T. Phillips Mike Whitney Kenneth Rexroth Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Jeffrey St.
Clair Patrick Cockburn P. Sainath Sen. Russell Feingold Diane Christian Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Timothy J. Freeman Conn Hallinan John Ross Greg Moses Missy Beattie Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Stephen Fleischman Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Chris Kutalik R. Gibson /
E. W. Ross Pam Martens John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Ronald Bruce
St. John Mitchel Cohen Website of
the Day
Diane Farsetta Marjorie Cohn Mark Scaramella Ranni Amiri Christopher Ketcham Winston Warfield Corporate Crime Reporter Thomas P. Healy Website of the Dau
January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Jean Bricmont Tao Ruspoli James T. Phillips William Johnson Tim Wilkinson Evelyn Pringle Joshua Frank Ramzy Baroud Mickey Z. Website of the Day
Werther Kathy Kelly Uri Avnery Franklin Spinney William S. Lind Pariah Mike Whitney Rev. William
E. Alberts Fran Shor Anthony Arnove Website of the Day
Nurit Peled-Elhanan Patrick Cockburn JoAnn Wypijewski Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Reza Fiyouzat Pat Williams Website of the Day
January 27 / 28, 2007 Diana Johnstone Eliza Ernshire Patrick Cockburn David Rosen Greg Moses Bernard Chazelle Tao Ruspoli Hermán
Uribe Ralph Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Fred Gardner Brian Cloughley James Abourezk John V. Whitbeck Seth Sandronsky Alan Cabal Pam Martens Website of
the Weekend
Charlotte Laws Mike Ely /
Linda Flores Joe DeRaymond Phil Donahue Zia Mian Jeb Sprague Evelyn Pringle Missy Beattie Martha Rosenberg Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn John Ross Jeremy Scahill Frida Berrigan Paul Craig Roberts Jason Yossef
Ben-Meir Christopher Brauchli Holger W. Henke Dave Lindorff Julia Landau Website of the Day
January 24, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Paul Craig
Roberts Lt. Gen. William Odom Sharon Smith Brian M. Downing Heather Gray Ron Jacobs James Brooks Robert Day Website of
the Day
Trish Schuh Robert Bryce
Stephen Soldz John Blair Gloria La Riva Joshua Frank Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Uri Avnery Website of the Day
January 22, 2007 Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Jen Marlowe George McGovern Paul Craig
Roberts Norman Solomon Amira Hass Mike Whitney Ramzy Baroud John Walsh Website of
the Day
January 20/21 2007 Alexander Cockburn
Gail Dines
Newton Garver
Gilad Atzmon
Seth Sandronksy
Raphaelle Bail
Jim Goodman Larry Portis
Website of
the Weekend
Jonathan Cook
Glen Ford Dave Lindorff
Larry Portis
Website of
the Day
William Peace
Virginia Tilley
Michael Donnelly
B.R. Gowani
Larry Portis
Jason Hribal
Website of
the Day
Franklin Spinney John Ross Susan George Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank David Lindorff
Col. Sam Gardiner
Marjorie Cohn
Saul Landau
Ron Jacobs
Susan Block Ken Couesbouck Website of
the Day
Roger Morris Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly William Blum Ralph Nader Saul Landau January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn David Rosen William S.
Lind Laith al-Saud Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross George Ciccariello-Maher Christopher Brauchli Robert Buzzanco Evelyn Pringle Peter Rost,
MD. Mike Whitney Yifat Susskind Saul Cohen Missy Beattie Stephen Lendman Website of
the Weekend
January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Jeff Leys Richard W.
Behan Col. Douglas MacGregor Website of
the Day Speech of the Day
Peter Linebaugh Robert Fantina Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Ben Tripp Evelyn Pringle Ron Jacobs Mike Ferner Dave Zirin Website of
the Day Bootleg of the Day
R. T. Naylor Jonathan Cook Mike Ely and Linda Flores Joshua Frank Norman Solomon Sen. Russell
Feingold Joe Allen James T. Phillips Brian Concannon Leonard Peltier Website of the Day
January 8, 2007 Werther Jeff Leys Paul Craig Roberts Shulamit Aloni Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor Seth Sandronsky Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Franklin C.
Spinney Paul Craig
Roberts Ralph Nader Walden Bello Marleen Martin Brian Cloughley Uri Avnery Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Joseph Nevins William S. Lind Gary Leupp Elisa Salasin George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Michael Leonardi Richard Rhames Jeffrey St. Clair Barbara LaMorticella Website of the Weekend Song of the
Weekend
Jorge Mariscal John Walsh Christopher Brauchli Travis Sharpe Tom Barry Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese Tiffany Ten Eyck Mahmoud El-Yousseph Lucinda Marshall Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Winslow T.
Wheeler M. Shahid Alam Raed Jarrar Bert Sacks Kathy Rentenbach Stephen Fleischman George Bisharat Peter Rost, MD Evelyn Pringle Website of the Day
January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Paul Craig
Roberts William Johnson Stan Cox Trita Parsi Declan McKenna Joe Bageant Nicola Nasser Missy Beattie Website of
the Day
Michael Watts Amina Mire James Brooks Alevtina Rea Al Krebs Peter Rost Niranjan Ramakrishnan John Stanton Website of the Day
January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Joshua Frank
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February 8, 2007 Oil Company's University Liaison Raises QuestionsBP Beds Down with BerkeleyBy JUDITH SCHERR Seven years ago, the Atlantic Monthly published "The Kept University," a story about a $25 million five-year liaison between the giant Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and California's premier public university, UC Berkeley. Today, critics say the university has not sold itself so cheap, having announced last week that it sealed a $500 million deal with BP (formerly know as British Petroleum), ignoring a 2004 Michigan State University report on the Novartis-university experiment that cautioned the university against entering into future agreements with industry involving large groups of researchers. The 10-year partnership with the oil giant, whose 2006 net income was $22.5 billion, also includes Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (which the University of California runs for the Department of Energy) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.UC Berkeley/LBNL will get $400 million over four years for the new Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) and the University of Illinois will receive $100 million. "In launching this visionary institute, BP is creating a new model for university-industry collaboration," said UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor for Research Beth Burnside, professor of molecular and cell biology, quoted in a UC Berkeley press statement. The project is "dedicated to long-term research into the production of alternative fuels, converting fossil fuels to energy with less environmental damage, maximizing oil extraction from existing wells in environmentally sensitive ways, and finding ways to store or sequester carbon so that it does not get into the atmosphere," the UC Berkeley statement says. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, at UC Berkeley for Thursday's ceremonial announcement, said the state would kick in another $40 million to construct a building for EBI, proposed for the Strawberry Canyon area of campus, near, but not within, the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs property. The funds would come from bonds that would have to first be approved by the legislature. (Other politicos present to cheer on the partnership included the mayors of Berkeley and Oakland, State Sen. Don Perata and Assemblymember Loni Hancock.) The deal raises a host of questions for UC Anthropology Professor Laura Nader: "Do they have academic freedom?" Nader asked in an interview with the Daily Planet Friday. Nader's concern was that if some scientists were to begin their research at the institute in one direction, they might not be free to shift gears to follow their inquiry in another direction, if they came to believe that more appropriate. "The university has more to give BP than BP has to give the university," Nader added, noting that the link to the university is "one way for BP to clean up its reputation. BP is in legal trouble from Texas to Alaska." Nader was referring to a March 2005 explosion at a Texas refinery that killed 15 people and injured 170. BP accepted full responsibility for the blast. And she was talking about BP's March 2006 leakage of 200,000 gallons of crude oil in Alaska, one of the state's largest oil spills. BP's reputation has been further tarnished:
"BP made $5.3 billion in profits in the first three months of the year. African Americans are major consumers in the U.S. market that BP controls. But they aren't in on the rewards. BP has 800 gas distributors who now own more than 10,000 gas stations around the United States. None are African American," he wrote. "Of 1,200 senior managers in the United States, BP has zero African Americans. Of 33 vice presidents, zero African Americans. BP does some $16 billion in procurement each year-less than one-third of 1 percent of which goes to African-American businesses." British Petroleum, originally known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company when it was established about 100 years ago, merged with Amoco, formerly Standard Oil of Indiana, in 1998 and renamed itself BP in 2000 at which time it adopted the tagline "Beyond Petroleum." Arco is a subsidiary of BP. Ignacio Chapela, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, is another faculty member questioning the wisdom of the new partnership. Chapela was one of the chief critics of the Novartis deal. "I feel bad about this," Chapela told the Daily Planet. "I feel like a broken record. Ten years ago, Novartis tried to do the same thing." Just like the announcement a decade ago, this one came as a surprise, he said. "There was no discussion." Among the questions that need to be raised, in addition to the independence of academic research, is whether the university will be used by BP to shield it in questions of legal responsibility, he said. "The university is under a lot less scrutiny" than companies standing on their own. "How come nobody asked these questions?" he asked. In addition to legal protections involving BP research and product development, the university also shields private corporations in other ways: the public-private institute, on university property and exempt from city zoning regulations, will come under less strict environmental review when it constructs its building. It will also be exempt from city property and business taxes. William Drummond, professor of journalism and chair of the Academic Senate, said he is happy Nader and Chapela are raising questions about researchers' academic freedom. "I don't want a repeat of Novartis," he said. "Their concerns are valid." However, he supports the venture. "This area of research is important to our future," he said. "It's good for the campus, for the students and for the planet." Drummond asked, "What is the alternative? Wait for the glaciers to melt?" Still, Drummond said he doesn't have an idealistic view of BP. "What do you expect of capitalists? They do bad things," he said. "We need to protect ourselves so that they don't steal the farm." One safeguard will be the vetting of new hires for the project through the Academic Senate. A professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Miguel Altieri shares many of Chapela's concerns, further pointing out possible environmental devastation that could be caused by the need for corn production for corn-based ethanol, the major alternative fuel to be studied in the project. Because there's not enough land in the United States for production, companies would go to foreign countries to grow the crop, using herbicides and pesticides and depleting the land, he said. "It would cause huge environmental damage, including deforestation," Altieri said. "We need an open discussion of this new deal." Pratap Chatterjee, executive director of CorpWatch in Oakland and author of Iraq, Inc., said by putting money into research for alternative fuels, BP is "greenwashing" its reputation. While it is not a bad thing to try to develop alternative fuels, he added, BP won't be funding the critical need. "What we really need is public transportation-more buses and trains," he said. "Producing ethanol is not going to make a big difference-it's just a diversion." This article originally appeared in the Berkeley Daily Planet Judith Scherr can be reached at: jescherr99@earthlink.net
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CounterPunch Books / AK Press The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.  The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn           Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                  |
