Much of the United Nations philosophy manifested through its charter and numerous organizations, as well as international treaties, fails to respect American sovereignty.  In many cases, it runs contrary to the Constitution.  Incrementally, the UN is gaining more power.  The recent swine flu pandemic scare demonstrates the influence that it has over American domestic policy.

A Gallup Poll conducted from February 9-12 of this year, found that 65% of Americans believe that the UN is doing a poor job.  Under his tenure as Secretary-General, Kofi Annan was blamed for many of the UN’s problems and failures.  Unfortunately, under the leadership of Ban Ki-moon, nothing has changed.  He did promise reforms with a new era of transparency, accountability and better governance.  The UN cannot be truly reformed as it is rotten to its very core.  It is a bureaucratic nightmare, a cesspool of waste, mismanagement and corruption.  More importantly is the danger it poses to American sovereignty.

No one in government has been more consistent in their position regarding the UN and its continued threat to American sovereignty than Congressman Ron Paul.  On February 24, he reintroduced H.R. 1146, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act.  If passed, it would effectively pull the U.S. out of the UN.  Membership in the UN only serves to undermine American sovereignty. The UN is guilty of dictating environmental, labor, trade, gun and health laws.  Through its system of international treaties, the U.S. finds itself increasingly bound by UN agreements.

An Obama presidency is seen by many as an opportunity for the U.S. to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the Law of the Sea Treaty.  Both would further challenge American sovereignty.  The UNCRC would weaken parental authority and is an example of the UN setting U.S. social policy.  Home school advocate Michael Farris reported that in an attempt to secure a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, the Obama administration has further pledged their support and loyalty to the UN.  Obama is a globalist at heart.  He is no different than some past presidents who have also failed to uphold the Constitution and have surrendered more sovereignty to the UN.

In 2005, President Bush placed the U.S. under UN law in the advent of a health emergency involving the avian flu or a pandemic influenza.  From the beginning of the swine flu outbreak, the UN, through the World Health Organization (WHO), was hyping things up.  The WHO was saying that the world was on the verge of a deadly pandemic that would require global solidarity.  In Mexico where the flu first broke out, the alert has now been lowered and things are returning back to normal.  If things were really as bad as some had suggested, why wasn’t the U.S.- Mexico border closed?  The WHO is still warning that the virus could mutate and return as a more lethal strain in the coming months.  As a result of the fear mongering over the swine flu, drug companies and manufacturers stand to profit.  The hysteria served to scare the population and further ratchet up the police state.  It could have been a trial balloon for a future martial law scenario and a UN global takeover.

Make no mistake about it, the United Nations is the mechanism for world government.  At every turn, it seeks to undermine American sovereignty and override its domestic laws.  National sovereignty remains the greatest obstacle to world government.  Ron Paul sums it up like this, “The choice is very clear: we either follow the Constitution or submit to UN global governance.  American national sovereignty cannot survive if we allow our domestic laws to be crafted by an international body.  This needs to be stated publicly more often.  If we continue down the UN path, America as we know it will cease to exist.”

By Dana Gabriel and Blacklisted news

The Obama administration is considering an unprecedented fall vaccination campaign that could entail giving Americans three flu shots — one to combat annual seasonal influenza and two targeted at the new swine flu virus spreading across the globe.

If enacted, the multibillion-dollar effort would represent the first time that top federal health officials have asked Americans to get more than one flu vaccine in a year, raising serious challenges concerning production, distribution and the ability to track potentially severe side effects.

Another option, said Dale Morse, chairman of the advisory committee on immunization practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is adding to the seasonal flu shot an ingredient targeted at the new virus.

Experts in and out of the administration are evaluating a raft of complicated issues, including who ought to receive an inoculation against the swine flu and whether private vaccine makers can simultaneously manufacture the standard 180 million doses as well as up to 600 million rounds of a new vaccine.

“We are moving forward with making a vaccine,” said Robin Robinson, a director with the Department of Health and Human Services who oversees pandemic response programs. Robinson said that although a formal decision about the swine flu vaccine has not been made, if the government goes ahead, it would probably produce two doses for all Americans. If the threat diminishes, he said, health officials could decide to produce doses for only a portion of the population.

Vaccine and pandemic experts are working with the administration to determine how to produce, test, track and educate the public about two different influenza vaccines in the same flu season.

“They have never tried this before, and there is going to be a great deal of confusion,” said William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Memories of the nation’s earlier experience with a swine flu vaccine present another challenge. In 1976, hundreds of Americans developed neurological disorders after they were vaccinated for a swine flu strain. The public was asked to receive one of two vaccines developed to combat the strain.

Health officials have asked manufacturers to ramp up production of the seasonal vaccine scheduled for rollout this fall to make way for the possible mass production of a swine flu vaccine.

A decision on whether to produce such a vaccine will have to be made soon, because it typically takes five months to produce a new vaccine and authorities would want it available for the next flu season.

Some medical experts said rolling out two vaccines would present additional challenges in terms of testing and tracking adverse reactions. Health officials and manufacturers will need to know what the negative reactions might be for each vaccine on its own and in combination with the other. Initial tests would be done on animals, and then clinical trials would be conducted with people to determine side effects before either vaccine is rolled out.

Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, said officials will have to weigh the risks of the time spent on testing.

“All this takes time, money and organization,” said Fineberg, who led an investigation into the government’s handling of the 1976 swine flu vaccinations.

The greater challenge will be tracking any adverse reactions as millions of Americans get multiple vaccinations in a matter of months this fall and winter.

“There will be adverse effects to any vaccine. That’s just science,” said Michael Hattwick, who ran the CDC’s vaccine-tracking system during the last swine flu scare.

Hattwick said a “real-time” tracking system would need to be established to provide constant updates to the CDC about adverse reactions. That information, he said, should include lot numbers for the vaccines so health officials can trace each side effect to the manufacturer and the date of production. Routine flu vaccinations are not traced with such precision because reporting is voluntary and often delayed, Hattwick said.

Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he does not expect additional adverse reactions with two vaccinations. The traditional flu vaccine is designed to attack the three flu strains health officials believe to be the greatest threats in a regular season, he said.

“In a regular seasonal flu, you get three vaccines. Adding an additional one should not present a problem,” Fauci said.

A record-keeping system would also need to be devised to track which doses patients have received, health experts said.

Without such a system, patients could lose track of which of the three shots they have received or could fail to get the second swine flu inoculation at the proper time.

“We will have to keep them straight and separate,” Vanderbilt’s Schaffner said. “This will be an enormous challenge, and we haven’t figured out how to do it yet. That’s one of the things we are trying to sort out.”

Source: Washington Post

An over-reliance on speed cameras is today blamed for Britain’s road safety record lagging well behind other countries.

Comparisons with 23 other developed nations found that the UK ranks 17th for child pedestrian deaths and 11th for pedestrian deaths overall.

The figures, published by the National Audit Office, show that 646 pedestrians and 136 cyclists were killed in 2007 – most on roads with a speed limit of less than 40mph.

Critics of the cameras welcomed the study, which they claimed showed the speed traps were a ‘dangerous distraction’ to drivers.

A spokesman for the road safety campaign group Safe Speed said: ‘The view is these eyes in the sky are all-singing, all-dancing miracle cures.

‘They may help but they are certainly no replacement for more properly trained police with the authority to act against irresponsible road users.’

The NAO also called on the Government to set new targets to reduce the numbers of those killed and seriously injured on the roads.

A spokesman for the NAO said: ‘Making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists is a key element in encouraging people to walk and cycle more.’

The Department for Transport said: ‘We will continue to promote cycle and pedestrian training to give children the practical skills to keep safe on the roads.’

Source: Daily Mail

Cyber espionage and attacks from well-funded nations or terror groups are the biggest threats to the military’s computer networks, a top US officer said.

Air Force General Kevin Chilton, who heads US Strategic Command, said he worries that foes will learn to disable or distort battlefield communications.

Chilton told reporters that even as the Pentagon improves its network defences against hackers, he needs more people, training and resources to hone offensive cyber war capacity.

At the same time, however, he asserted that the US would consider using military force against an enemy who attacks and disrupts the nation’s critical networks.

“Our job would be to present options. I don’t think you take anything off the table when you provide options” to the defence secretary or president, in the wake of an attack, whether the weapon is a missile or a computer program, he said.

Chilton’s comments shed the most light to date on the Pentagon’s ongoing debate over how to beef up its abilities to wage and defend against cyber warfare.

And they came as the military is planning to set up a new cyber command at Fort Meade not far from Washington that would report to Strategic Command.

In a wide-ranging discussion of the military’s cyber issues, Chilton said the Pentagon’s unclassified networks are probed thousands of times a day, as hackers try to steal information on military programs or planning.

“I worry when I see that important information is taken from our networks,” he said. To date, he said there have been no major attacks against the military’s networks, only intrusions or efforts to steal data.

Asked directly whether probes have been traced to China, al-Qaeda or other groups, Chilton declined to answer.

His biggest fear, however, is that enemies hack into military battlefield systems, and when a US commander sends out an order that says forces should go left, it is changed to say forces should go right. While most systems are classified and walled off, he said there are often ways to cross into those networks.

The other worry is more internal. When a soldier or sailor sits down at a computer, Chilton said “it’s like he’s stepping to the guard gate at his base,” and can open the digital gate and let adversaries in.

Pentagon plans for a new command are a response to concerns that the offensive and defensive cyber operations are currently separate, and not as coordinated as they should be.

Chilton said he needs 2,000-4,000 more workers over the next five years to provide the expertise needed for both offensive and defensive cyber operations. He said it is not clear yet how much additional money he needs.

He said there is no timeline for the creation of a new cyber command, noting that the idea has not gotten final approval from Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

The military, Chilton said, must expand its ability to quickly remedy software problems, change computer configurations and to know who is on the network and what they are doing.

In some war fighting areas the US is dominant, but he said he cannot say the same for the digital battlefield just yet.

While enemies need only a computer to join the fight, the military has improved its defences to the point where it will take larger, more educated, well-funded organisations or nations to pose a real threat.

Source: The Independent