U.S. Material Support Laws: The Next Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell?

In late September the United States formally ended its “Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy for gays and lesbians in military service, ending a policy criticized for many years as discriminatory and leading to unequal enforcement. But the DADT concept appears to be alive and well. U.S. enforcement policy on the extremely broad definition of prohibited material support to terrorism in the context of humanitarian aid and efforts to end violent conflict is quickly evolving into a DADT approach

Moving on from the ‘War on Terror’

Ten years have passed since the tragic events of September 11th 2001. Over 3,000 people died in the brazen assault on New York’s Twin Towers. Lives were shattered, families torn asunder and a nation lay shocked in the debris of that day. Within twenty-four hours President Bush had declared a `war on terror’. With the underlying threat implicit in his words `you are either with us or against us’, the US government rapidly put pressure on countries to declare their support for the USA. It was clear already at this early stage that this was not going to be a quick operation, a side-line activity to be undertaken by the usual set of security agencies such as the CIA, special forces, FBI and military. As Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State said, “It isn’t going to be solved with a single counter-attack against one individual, it’s going to be a long term conflict.

Muslim Charities and the War on Terror: Top Ten Concerns and Status Update February 2006

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S.-based charities have become targets in the government's war on terror financing. This development makes little sense. U.S. charities support efforts to stop the violence of terrorism, and financing terror is contrary to the sector's mission of promoting the public good, providing humanitarian relief, protecting human rights and assisting with conflict resolution around the world. Despite the sweeping implications for all domestic nonprofit organizations, the lion's share of the burden of increased scrutiny, suspicion, and pre-emptive action has fallen on Muslim groups. This imbalanced campaign raises significant legal and ethical questions.This paper lists issues that the charitable sector and the public must address in order to correct an unfair process and make the war on terror most effective. Part 1 lists our top ten concerns about the way the war on terror has impacted U.S. Muslim charities, and Part 2 provides an update on charities that have been shut down by the Treasury Department or made the target of official investigations

Continuing Attacks on Nonprofit Speech: Death by a Thousand Cuts II

OMB Watch has published Continuing Attacks on Nonprofit Advocacy: Death by a Thousand Cuts II, which documents a pattern of attempts to limit the policy voice of nonprofits by the Bush administration and its conservative allies. The federal government has used audit powers, funding cuts and other tactics to take action against nonprofits that exercise their right to advocate on issues. See the Executive Summary and download the full report (in pdf format)

Genome Sequence of Staphylococcus saprophyticus DPC5671, a Strain Isolated from Cheddar Cheese

The draft genome sequence of Staphylococcus saprophyticus DPC5671, isolated from cheddar cheese, was determined. S. saprophyticus is a common Gram-positive bacterium detected on the surface of smear-ripened cheese and other fermented foods. GENOME ANNOUNCEMEN

Beneficial modulation of the gut microbiota

peer-reviewedThe human gut microbiota comprises approximately 100 trillion microbial cells and has a significant effect on many aspects of human physiology including metabolism, nutrient absorption and immune function. Disruption of this population has been implicated in many conditions and diseases, including examples such as obesity, inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer that are highlighted in this review. A logical extension of these observations suggests that the manipulation of the gut microbiota can be employed to prevent or treat these conditions. Thus, here we highlight a variety of options, including the use of changes in diet (including the use of prebiotics), antimicrobial-based intervention, probiotics and faecal microbiota transplantation, and discuss their relative merits with respect to modulating the intestinal community in a beneficial way.C.J.W, C.M.G. and P.D.C are supported by a SFI PI award “Obesibiotics” (11/PI/1137

Atypical Listeria innocua strains possess an intact LIPI-3

peer-reviewedBackground: Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne pathogen which is the causative agent of listeriosis and can be divided into three evolutionary lineages I, II and III. While all strains possess the well established virulence factors associated with the Listeria pathogenicity island I (LIPI-1), lineage I strains also possess an additional pathogenicity island designated LIPI-3 which encodes listeriolysin S (LLS), a post-translationally modified cytolytic peptide. Up until now, this pathogenicity island has been identified exclusively in a subset of lineage I isolates of the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. Results: In total 64 L. innocua strains were screened for the presence of LIPI-3. Here we report the identification of an intact LIPI-3 in 11 isolates of L. innocua and the remnants of the cluster in several others. Significantly, we can reveal that placing the L. innocua lls genes under the control of a constitutive promoter results in a haemolytic phenotype, confirming that the cluster is capable of encoding a functional haemolysin. Conclusions: Although the presence of the LIPI-3 gene cluster is confined to lineage I isolates of L. monocytogenes, a corresponding gene cluster or its remnants have been identified in many L. innocua strains.This work was funded by the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation fund, a programme which is co-financed by the EU through the ERDF. This work was also supported by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan, through Science Foundation Ireland Investigator awards; (06/IN.1/B98) and (10/IN.1/B3027)

Organic nurseries : an interview based study with a focus on growing systems

Trots att efterfrågan på ekologiska produkter ökar finns idag få ekologiska plantskolor i Sverige. Examensarbetet omfattar en intervjustudie av ekologiska plantskolor och rådgivare för plantskolor samt en litteraturstudie. Utifrån intervjuerna beskrivs hela odlingssystemet i frilands och containerproduktion; bevattning, ogräshantering, näringstillförsel, substrat, jordbearbetning, plantförökning och växtskydd liksom försäljningskanaler, marknaden och val av kulturer. De utmaningar som framkommer genom intervjuerna är växtskydd, ogräsrensning i frilandsproduktion och substrat och näringstillförsel i containerproduktion. Dessa utmaningar granskas i litteraturstudien och råd till ekologiska plantskolor presenteras i slutet av arbetet.Despite the fact that the demand for organic products is increasing in Sweden, there are very few organic nurseries operating in the country today. This thesis is built around interviews with both organic nurseries and advisers to organic nurseries as well as studies of contemporary literature on the subject. The thesis contains descriptions of the complete growing systems in both field and container production. These include watering, weeding, nutrient management, potting media, soil preparation, plant propagation and plant protection. Descriptions of sales outlets, the market and the choice of products are included. The challenges facing this industry, that are revealed in the interviews, are plant protection, weed control in field production and potting media and nutrient management in container production. The study of the literature has examined how these challenges could be met. The final section of this paper gives advice to organic nurseries about how to meet these challenges