The GE Stockholders’ Alliance (GESA) believes the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdowns, explosions and continuing dispersal of radioactive waste could have been prevented if design deficiencies of the GE Mark I reactors, recognized in the early 1970s, would have been acted upon, instead of ignored.

A stockholder proposal submitted by the GE Stockholders’ Alliance (GESA) is on the agenda for the General Electric annual meeting, to be held 10 am EDT April 25, 2012 at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center, in Detroit, MI. The GESA is particularly alarmed that 23 of the same aging GE Mark I reactors are currently operating in the U.S. All but one has received a 20-year license extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The only exception, the Fermi 2 atomic reactor located 35 miles south of Detroit in Frenchtown Township near Monroe, is expected to apply for an extension in 2014. Almost all the Mark Is have also been granted “power uprates,” meaning they are being run harder and hotter than originally designed, despite their age-related degradation.

Enough is enough. Many of the basic rights women have fought to acquire and maintain are under assault thanks to the GOP’s unabashed war on women. Since January 2010, over 400 bills have been introduced throughout the United States attacking our reproductive rights and stripping away the freedom to make our own medical decisions.

The first generation of biotech crops has failed. And failed badly. In the last year alone, new studies have shown that Monsanto’s genetically-engineered Bt insecticide corn has not only created a new breed superbugs tolerant of the plant’s genetically engineered insecticide, but that those Bt toxins have also been found in the blood of 93 percent of woman and 80 percent of fetal blood samples in a Canadian study, despite Monsanto's claims that this was not be possible.

At the same time, Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn and soybeans and their flagship herbicide have been linked to an increase in crop disease and livestock infertility. If that weren't enough, the excessive use of Roundup has led to the rampant rise of superweeds, which have grown tolerant to the herbicide and have infested millions of acres of farmland, threatening the livelihoods of America’s farmers.

Now, Dow Chemical is petitioning the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the approval of a new genetically engineered “Agent Orange” corn that tolerates the extremely toxic chemical herbicide 2,4-D, a major component of the Vietnam War era defoliant Agent Orange.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- An outraged Muslim female photographer in Thailand says "the French government is crazy" to punish women who hide their face and body underneath a burqa in public.

Demanding "liberty" for Islamic fashionistas, Ampannee Satoh, 28, has created photographs of herself posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and elsewhere in France while concealed in the enveloping cloth.

"I don't like the law in France," Ampannee said in an interview in Bangkok.

"The government rule, I don't like because I have liberty to choose a hijab or burqa or anything, because everybody has liberty," she said.

"There are those who do not understand, and who see that a burqa represents terror and lack of freedom."

She said "Muslim women are bullied" in France and their "freedom" is "stolen" by the law which went into effect on April 2011.

"The French Republic lives in a bare-headed fashion," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon declared while announcing the law.

Under the law, the public wearing of a burqa, niqab, or similar face covering is punishable by a 150-euro fine.

The future of nuclear power now hangs on a single decision by President Obama---and us.

His Office of Management and Budget could cave to the unsustainable demands of reactor builders who cannot handle the standard terms of a loan agreement.  

Or he could defend basic financial procedures and stand up for the future of the American economy.

You can help make this decision, which will come soon. 

It's about a proposed $8.33 billion nuke power loan guarantee package for two reactors being built at Georgia's Vogtle.   Obama anointed it last year for the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power.  Two other reactors sporadically operate there.  Southern just ravaged the new construction side of the site, stripping virtually all vegetation.