Infowars.com
May 18, 2013

Alex Jones describes the history of directed energy weapons and tests them on a small scale.

The government is developing lasers for use against the public, but will we see development of civilian laser defense market?

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 9:40 am

Tags: gun rights

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Matthew Humphries
Geek.com
May 18, 2013

Garden cress is a fast growing and edible herb that will sprout in just a small amount of slightly alkaline water. But there is one exception to that rule, and is has scientists scratching their heads.

A group of 5 girls have carried out a science experiment at Hjallerup School in North Jutland, Denmark that saw garden cress seeds placed in 12 tubs and split into two batches. Both batches were placed in different rooms that remained the same temperature, and were given the same amount of water and sunlight over the course of 12 days.

You’d expect both batches of 6 tubs to grow equally well, but one set didn’t even germinate. The reason? They were placed next to two routers. Although it’s unclear exactly why this happened, it is thought that the radiation produced by the routers is what stopped the seeds germinating.

Read full article

Tunisian police guard a checkpoint on May 02, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

The U.S. military base in Kosovo was constructed in 1999 without consulting with the government of Serbia and is the largest U.S. military base built outside of the U.S. since the Vietnam War. The site was apparently used for extraordinary renditions and has been referred to as a “little Guantanamo”.

This is a very little known fact as NATO, the U.S., the European Union and the West are in the process of forcing Serbia to effectively give up Kosovo, and indicates the real motive for the West’s support of the Kosovo Liberation Army which it had deemed a terrorist organization in the past.

Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of Stop NATO spoke about this and more in an interview with the Voice of Russia.

Hello! This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Rick Rozoff, the owner of the stop NATO website and international mailing list.

Robles: Hello Rick. How are you?

Rozoff: Very good John. Thanks for having me on.

Robles: It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you. How much importance would you give to the 200 US-NATO troops being stationed in Italy? And why US-NATO troops? These troops are being stationed for possible operations in Libya. How do you think that reflects on the operations to remove Muammar Gaddafi by the US?

Rozoff: It’s a continuation of that policy, of course. And as it is now, you know, two years ago and two months, 26 months ago that the military campaign against Libya was launched, initially, as we have to recall, by US Africa Command (AFRICOM) that began it for the first 19 days and then it was taken up by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for six months thereafter. And this was meant to signal and meant in fact to be the first activation of AFRICOM as a war-fighting force on the African continent, and also NATO’s first open military incursion into Africa and certainly not the last. This was meant to be an opening salvo and not an isolated incident.

What is significant about the impending deployment of what is minimally, and I think we should emphasize that, 200 US Marines, and some reports estimate up to 500, these are members of what the US Marine Corps refers to as the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force that only recently was moved into Spain, and then it is being transitioned from Spain into Italy for use in North Africa. So, I think we can see the push to the south and the east, to employ State Department slogan or expression of few years ago, where the US is going to deploy very shortly four guided missile cruisers to the Naval Station Rota in Spain, a Marine expeditionary strike force, really, of the sort we are talking about going to the Sigonella base in Sicily.

This is the same base that the US has another Marine Corps detachment already deployed to. And this is actually a separate one that has already been assigned to the same naval station Sigonella. We should also recall that in the beginning of this year, in January, the governor of Sicily put a stop to plans that the US had for putting a satellite surveillance facility in Sicily, on the island.

You know, big plans are afoot and the US was going to move in something called the Mobile User Objective System, global satellite facility, to Sicily. That seems to have been stopped but troops are coming in, with the avowed purpose, John, of intervening in Libya — Benghazi or elsewhere — as the U.S. sees fit.

Robles: What exactly is that system that you just mentioned?

Rozoff: The photographs I’ve seen of it suggest that it truly is mobile, I mean it is something comparable to some of the Patriot Advanced Capability missile systems that the US has put in Poland and Turkey and Israel. It is described as being a satellite communication system. I’m not sure what precisely it was meant to monitor in Sicily, but I would guess the entire Mediterranean Sea, perhaps most notably part of the eastern Mediterranean. But as to the precise range and purpose of the missile system, I’m not familiar with that.

Robles: I see. So, this is some new technology?

Rozoff: Yes. There are similar ones, that are called Mobile User Objective Systems, deployed in Australia, as well as in the US states of Hawaii and Virginia. But I’m not sure how they are integrated with other military capabilities.

Robles: What else has happened with NATO in the last month that you think our listeners should know about?

Rozoff: They’ve had a series of meetings of foreign ministers, of chiefs of defense staff and others in recent months. The focus, according to NATO of course, is wrapping up the Afghan mission which I don’t think will ever be definitively finished. But the drawing down or the eventual phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, the continuation of the operation in Kosovo, the Serbian province (the province wrenched from Serbia), and continued naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea, what is called Operation Active Endeavour, and ongoing, presumably permanent, naval operations in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, so-called Operation Ocean Shield.

So, NATO is still in ways that we have discussed on many an occasion in the past continuing permanent military operations way outside the area of the North Atlantic Ocean, ultimately globally. Nothing outstanding in any particular regard but the continuation of these policies.

Robles: How many bases was NATO going to leave in Afghanistan? And what can you tell us about Kosovo, can you give us some details on that as well?

Rozoff: The statement about the US maintaining military bases in Afghanistan after the complete withdrawal of US-NATO troops, well, we can’t say complete — I mean there are estimates that as many as 14,000 US NATO troops will stay in the country — but after the bulk, at one time 152,000 US and other NATO troops, in Afghanistan are withdrawn, according to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan the US has clearly indicated to him, I think the word “demanded” would not be too strong a word, that the US or the Pentagon wants to maintain nine military bases inside the country. And they are situated in the north, south, east and west, and that is near the borders of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, but also Iran and Pakistan, and in some cases not terribly far from the narrow strip of land that connects Afghanistan to China.

And they include of course the major, arguably, at any point in future, strategic air bases like Bagram and Kandahar and Shindand and elsewhere in the country. As we’ve talked about on many occasions, I think any sensible person has figured out that the US and its Western allies don’t intend to vacate the South-Central Asian region in the imminent future, if at all.

Robles: You just mentioned Karzai. I was just reminded about his recent revelation that he’d been receiving garbage bags full of money from the CIA for over a decade. Can you comment on that as far as NATO goes? And regarding US-NATO troops, do you think there is any specific reason why only US-NATO troops are going to be staying in Afghanistan?

Rozoff: Let me start with the second one first because I think it is the easiest. The facts are fairly incontestable, It is not going to be only US troops. The US will maintain nine military bases evidently, that’s what it intends to do. But NATO itself is transitioning from what is currently known as the International Security Assistance Force, initially it was presented, if you can believe this, under the rubric of a peacekeeping force in the early part of this century, and it quickly devolved into a warfighting force and to a combat force. And once that mission, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), is finished, then NATO will continue in Afghanistan training the Afghan National Army and other security personnel basically to be a Western proxy army in the South-Central Asian region. That’s the easy part.

The question about Mr. Karzai being lavished with a good deal of American largesse, that shouldn’t surprise anybody. It is to be assumed, I suppose, that the US buys off foreign leaders, certainly those it’s implanted in power, like Mr. Karzai, who is not a foreigner, is not an alien to American shores. One of his brothers for example ran, for years, a restaurant pretty much in my neighborhood here in Chicago. And the family, I’m sure, already has mansions set up in this country to flee to when they have to and to take as much of the CIA cash as they can with them back home — repatriate it if you will.

Robles: You mentioned Kosovo a few minutes ago. You said that NATO had met regarding Kosovo and KFOR. Anything new there?

Rozoff: The US and its Western allies, in the latter case I’m talking about people in Brussels whether they are wearing the European Union or the NATO hat, it doesn’t seem to matter much, but I’m sure they employed all their typical subversive powers of persuasion to convince the coalition government in Belgrade, in Serbia, to acknowledge the independence of Kosovo, if not formally, practically. And NATO has pretty substantially withdrawn its troops in Kosovo because they turned the province over to their proxy forces there, the former leaders of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, whose leaders are heading up the Kosovo Security Force, which is a fledgeling army being trained by NATO.

So, once the country is turned over to surrogates, the NATO troops can clear out and go on to the next war zone which is effectively what happened since 1999. At one point, in June of 1999, there were 50,000 troops in Kosovo under NATO command or under KFOR, the Kosovo Force. And that number has dwindled down to perhaps a tenth of that right now. But the US still maintains Camp Bondsteel and Camp Monteith. The first, Camp Bondsteel, is reportedly the largest overseas U.S. military base built since the war in Vietnam. And there is no indication that it intends to vacate that base. As to what it is doing with it, that’s a question worth pursuing.

Robles: Where is that base?

Rozoff: In Kosovo.

Robles: And you say that’s the largest foreign base that the U.S. has?

Rozoff: What I’ve read and, given the acreage, the size of the base, it seems to be the case. It is the largest base that the U.S. has built overseas since the war in Vietnam. Since the 1960s.

Robles: And that’s in Kosovo?

Rozoff: That’s in Kosovo. It was constructed in 1999, I think it was with Kellog, Brown & Root, that built bases almost everywhere else. It’s in Kosovo and it is a fairly mammoth complex. Camp Monteith is a sister base considerably smaller than Bondsteel. But Bondsteel, which is by the way named after a US serviceman who was killed in Vietnam, there’s been speculation that Camp Bondsteel could have been used for extraordinary renditions during the so-called global war on terrorism.

There’s also been discussion from the sources in Russia amongst other places that should the US want to deploy strategic resources in Camp Bondsteel. And by that we mean either interceptor missiles or perhaps even nuclear weapons. Who would be the wiser and who in the inner circle of Hashim Thaci in Pristina would say “no”.

Robles: When was this base built?

Rozoff: In 1999 it was constructed and it’s been operating ever since. So, you are talking about 14 years now. And there is no indication, you know, unless you accept the US and NATO line — matters have been stabilized in Kosovo and they are going to step down troops, again, which I think they have I think about 90% of the initial deployment, amount of troops rather, 50,000 troops have been withdrawn but Camp Bondsteel — is still there. It is in the eastern part of Kosovo. And in addition to being a US military base it is also NATO headquarters for what’s called Multinational Brigade East.

I am looking at the exact size of the place: it is 955 acres. That’s pretty sizeable. And it was built on Serbian land without consulting with the government of Serbia. I guess the KLA official in Pristina rubber stamped it. By August of 1999, two months after the US and other NATO troops came into Kosovo, the construction of the base was pretty much under way. Apparently 52 helipads were constructed and shortly thereafter franchise restaurants were added.

Robles: Right there at the beginning, was it like that it was already constructed as if it would be a permanent fixture?

Rozoff: By all indications exactly that. I cannot see what the motivation would be to build something that large which is still operative to this day…

Robles: You said they had “franchise restaurants” and things like that in there?

Rozoff: I’m looking at it on the computer now. You know, Burger King, Taco Bell and so forth built in there. Gymnasiums, health clubs. It is a whole city practically. And evidently, somebody with the Council of Europe, Álvaro Gil-Robles (There’s a name for you, John!), human rights envoy to the Council of Europe, referred to Camp Bondsteel in 2005, and this is a quote, as a “smaller version of Guantanamo” after visiting the facility. So, evidently the US did use it for extraordinary renditions, and so-called black operations or black sites.

Robles: So, that would give us a very, very, very clear and undisputable reason why the West is so interested in guaranteeing the independence of Kosovo.

Rozoff: Right. And that was the statement made by many of us who opposed the war against Yugoslavia in 1999. When the US constructed that base, it was almost began immediately after NATO coming into Kosovo, that it was ex post facto proof that the US had military designs in the region and that the war against Yugoslavia was simply an opportunity to expand its military into the region.

Robles: I see.

Rozoff: Which in fact is what has ensued.

You were listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and mailing list.

You can find part 2 on our website at english.ruvr. ru

Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/stopnato/ messages

Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Earlier this week, the CIA’s Russian outpost was deeply humiliated when (in a calculated move following accusations that the US had not gotten appropriate Russian information on the two Boston bombers, and following the visit of John Kerry whose primary objective was to, unsuccessfully, get Russia to relent on Syria) Russia’s FSB exposed and broadcast on live TV the arrest of its agents caught while attempting to recruit a Russian spy.

Back then we suggested to “expect a prompt retaliation by the US” however it turns out Russia was not nearly done with embarrassing the US in what is becoming an obvious campaign to humiliate the US intelligence service, this time by going where very few clandestine operations go, at least during peacetime detente: by publicly exposing the head counterparty US spy. As Telegraph reports, “Russia’s Federal Security Service has publicly revealed the identity of a man it calls the CIA station chief in Moscow, in what experts say is a serious breach of intelligence protocol.”

Speaking to Russian media about the recent capture of an alleged CIA spy in a wig in Moscow, an FSB spokesman named the CIA “rezident”, or station chief, in the capital.

A diplomat of the same name is listed as a Counsellor in the US Moscow embassy in the autumn-winter 2012-13 edition of a directory of foreign diplomatic, media and business offices in the city.

With tensions between the US and Russia already at high levels, and with both countries having sent naval support in the vicinity of Syria which is increasingly looking like the next powder keg, the US will not be happy with this dramatic and unexpected escalation in diplomatic warfare:

The naming of the top CIA figure working in Russia is likely to provoke an angry response in Washington, and damage important bilateral links in the struggle against global terrorism.

It is common practise for US and Russian intelligence agencies to identify to each other their top officials in their respective embassies, but they are not identified publicly.

The exposure appears to be a calculated snub to Washington, a month after the two countries agreed to share intelligence over the Boston Marathon bombing, which was allegedly carried out by two men with roots in Russia’s North Caucasus region.

RT has more on the official statement:

As early as by autumn 2011, the FSB was aware that the CIA was pursuing a goal to get an informer within the Russian special services, the agent told RT.

“Those were not one-off events, which caused our concern,” the operative pointed out. “Therefore, we decided to warn our American colleagues and ask them to stop these activities.”

At a time, the FSB did not make public any information they knew about the CIA operations in Moscow, but held a meeting with the head of their station’s chief in Moscow, Stephen Holmes.

“We hoped our American colleagues would hear us, given that we also presented to them precise information about CIA officers making recruitment attempts in Moscow and who exactly was doing that,” the source added.

In particular, back then, the FSB named such American agents as Benjamin Dillon, third secretary of the American Embassy in Moscow. Last year, “Dillon got into the same story as Fogle” and was expelled from Russia in January, the source said.

“Hoping that the CIA would make necessary conclusions from the incident, we did not make that case public,” he said. Apparently, the Americans did not appreciate the FSB’s “correct attitude towards professional ethics.”

The FSB was aware that Ryan Fogle worked for the CIA since his arrival in Moscow in April 2011. Russian intelligence, “keeps an eye on” representatives of all foreign special services and the American intelligence agency is no exception to the rule, the source noted.

“The point of such an approach is to terminate all possible actions by foreign intelligence that could pose a threat to Russia’s security,” the operative said. “This, certainly, does not refer to diplomats who do their duties on behalf of the US State Department.”

Curiously, and hinting that this action was in response to recent escalations in Syria, the language used by Russia was a carbon copy replica of that used by Obama recently to decry Syrian use of chemical weapons, which is the populist lynchpin of the US narrative in obtaining public support for eventual military escalation:

An FSB spokesman told the Interfax news agency on Friday that the US had “crossed a red line” with Mr Fogle’s actions, because the CIA had already been warned to stop trying to recruit Russian citizens.

“In October 2011, the FSB officially warned the station chief of the CIA in Moscow, …… that in the case of continuing provocative recruitment actions with regard to employees of the Russian special services, the FSB would take symmetrical actions with regard to CIA officers,” the spokesman said.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Moscow was not immediately available for comment on Friday afternoon.

Just like Israel continues to bombard Syria without any consequences, so Russia continues to use the US State Department as a punching bag without fear of retaliation.

Will the US continue taking it, or will it, as the Telegraph suggests, “provoke an angry response in Washington, and damage important bilateral links…” And how long until Israel conducts another overnight raid in Syria, only this time a Syria which as the NYT reported has now received advanced Russian Yahkonts missiles whose main difference from all prior Syrian armaments is that they are outfitted with “offensive radar” and can be used for more than just self-defense.

Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian military a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes.

So with Israel suddenly facing the prospect of actual casualties should it engage in more air raids over Syrian airspace, just what avenues are left for telegraphing superiority and supremacy in the latest middle eastern hotbed of future escalation? Or does this mean the days of foreplay are over.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

In testimony before the US Senate Thursday, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller continued the official cover-up of the advance warnings and extensive contacts between the FBI and other intelligence and security agencies and the suspects in the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon.

The detonation of two bombs in downtown Boston resulted in three deaths and the wounding of more than 160 runners and spectators. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed by police in a shootout four days after the bombings. His younger brother Dzhokhar is being held in a prison hospital in Massachusetts on charges of using a weapon of mass destruction.

The bombings were used as the pretext for an unprecedented police-military lockdown of Boston and its suburbs, in which civil liberties were effectively suspended and federal, state and local forces tested out techniques for dictatorial rule.

Mueller’s appearance before the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee did nothing to shed light on the staggering and unexplained failure of the FBI, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security to alert local and state police in advance of the marathon, an event that attracts tens of thousands from around the world, of their contacts with Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family and multiple reports of his terrorist sympathies.

One week before Mueller’s Senate appearance, the Boston police commissioner and a top Massachusetts Homeland Security official told the Homeland Security Committee of the US House of Representatives that the FBI never informed them that in 2011 it had conducted an investigation of the elder Tsarnaev brother for suspected jihadist sympathies, including the interrogation of Tsarnaev and his parents, after Russian authorities had warned the agency that Tsarnaev was a radical Islamist Chechen separatist. Nor did the FBI tell them that Tsarnaev had spent six months in Russia’s North Caucasus in 2012.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis also told the House committee that an officer of US Customs and Border Protection, a unit of the US Department of Homeland Security, who served on the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Boston and had knowledge of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s travels, did not inform any of the four Boston police officers assigned to the group.

Russian security officials also alerted the CIA about the elder Tsarnaev brother in November of 2011, and he was placed on at least two US terror watch lists. There are also reports that in November 2012, Russia gave the FBI a case file on Tsarnaev detailing his contacts with Islamist separatist militants during his stay in Dagestan, and that Saudi Arabian officials sent a report the same year to the Department of Homeland Security warning that Tamerlan Tsarnaev might be planning a terrorist attack.

At Thursday’s hearing of the Senate subcommittee, nominally called to discuss the FBI’s $8.4 billion 2013 budget request, Mueller offered no explanation for these ostensible security lapses, which recall those that occurred on his watch in connection with the events of September 11, 2001. Nor was there any desire on the part of committee members, Democratic or Republican, to press him.

In her opening statement, Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (Democrat of Maryland) followed what has become the universal pattern of US politicians since the Boston bombings, hailing the lockdown of the city as a triumph of post-9/11 counterterrorism planning. “There were well-coordinated law enforcement resources–the police and the FBI–through the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” she said.

Gingerly raising what she called “investigatory gaps,” she echoed the official line that the failure to prevent the bombings was the result of Tamerlan Tsarnaev having “slipped through the cracks.” She further promoted the official story by suggesting that the two suspects were “lone wolf” terrorists, with no connections to outside groups. She then suggested that the FBI needed broader powers to track and interrogate suspects and more money to keep “ahead of the bad guys.”

She also announced that the morning hearing would recess at 11 AM and move to a classified session, “where we can talk more fully about Boston and other key national security threats like cybersecurity.”

Knowing he had nothing to fear from the committee, Mueller nonchalantly defended the FBI’s handling of the Tsarnaevs and its failure to alert state or local authorities. He declared, “As a result of this, I would say, thorough investigation, based on the leads we got from the Russians, we found no ties to terrorism.”

Beyond this bald and implausible assertion, Mueller descended into double-talk and outright gibberish. “To the extent that we go back and look and scrub and see what we could have done better,” he said, “this is an area where we’re looking at and scrubbing it and doing better.”

In his prepared remarks to the committee, the FBI director reiterated the official line of the Obama administration that the Boston bombing was the work of isolated terrorists with no ties to outside organizations. “It is increasingly likely,” he said, while offering no substantiation, “that the Boston attacks may prove to be the latest example of homegrown extremism.”

From the outset, the administration and the various intelligence and police agencies have promoted this line, evidently motivated by an eagerness to foreclose a serious investigation into the connection between the bombings, the Tsarnaevs and the domestic and foreign activities of the US government.

The official story–that the Tsarnaevs were “lone wolf” actors and the failures of US police and security agencies were merely the result of mistakes or inadvertence–is the least plausible of all explanations. It is far more likely that US intelligence agencies, including the FBI, were using, or planned to use, Tamerlan Tsarnaev to further their operations with Islamist separatist forces in Chechnya and Dagestan, with whom they have been working for years.

That the American state secretly maintains extensive relations with known or suspected terrorists was underscored on Thursday with the release of a public summary of a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general on the handling of terrorists enrolled in the government’s Witness Security Program. The report revealed that the US Marshals Service, a unit of the Justice Department that runs the witness protection program, has given scores of terrorists new identities over recent decades and shielded them from other state security agencies.

The report summary–the actual report remains classified and has not been shown to members of Congress–noted that the witness protection program did not turn over the new names of terrorist protectees to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center. As a result, individuals who had been tagged in the past for extra scrutiny at airports or placed on the no-fly list were allowed to fly on commercial flights.

The report also noted that witness protectees included people known or suspected by the government to have been terrorists trained in aviation and the making of explosives, and individuals who plotted bomb attacks or conspired to murder US officials.

Another development points to the intensive and sinister involvement of the FBI and CIA with anti-Russian terrorist elements in the Caucasus. Last Monday, Russian authorities announced that they had caught a CIA officer attempting to recruit a Russian intelligence agent who specializes in the region that includes Chechnya and Dagestan.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Large doses of teargas, paintballs, and water cannon were fired as protesters clashed with police in the Turkish-Syrian border town of Reyhanli. The mass demonstration comes a week after twin car bomb explosions a week ago, which killed 46 people.

Protesters waved red banners, and lobbed stones and bottles at
the officers as the intensity of Saturday’s clashes escalated.

Riot police made attempts to disperse the crowds, marching in
solidarity with the victims of last week’s attacks.

Police prevented the protesters from reaching the center of the
town, where the bombs exploded by the city hall and post
office.

Pockets of the marchers also clamored for a change of government as
many people in the town are angry at the government’s response to
the attack. They also blame Turkish authorities for decision to
take in Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in their country,
saying it has made them a target for attacks.

Barriers were broken down, with some detained, and others suffering
injuries, according to a local tweet.

The parade began with more than 1,000 participants. Local reports
stated that the count could have even stood at over 10,000.
However, it quickly fragmented, with the number of attendees
dwindling to the hundreds. The clashes calmed down after
approximately an hour.

Last Saturday’s fatal car bombs in Hatay province on the
Turkey-Syria border also injured a further 100 when they exploded
outside a community hall and a post office in the center of town of
Reyhanli. A third, unconnected explosion – likely an accident –
also took place in a building containing some Syrian refugees.

Residents of the town harbored frustration at the government’s
immediate response, also saying that the country shouldn’t be
accommodating refugees from Syria.

Turkey had been quick to blame Syria for the devastating attacks,
with Ankara warning it would take

“all retaliatory measures
necessary,” raising the prospect of an escalation in the
conflict.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came in for criticism for
traveling to the United States this week, instead of visiting the
town to display support in the wake of its tragedy.

Immediately following the blasts, approximately 100 of the city’s
residents took to the streets outside Turkey’s Foreign Ministry,
calling for Erdogan’s resignation and accusing him of a failed
policy towards Syria which they believe led to the assault.

This article originally appeared on : RT

Testifying before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services on Thursday, Pentagon officials claimed that “war on terror” legislation gives them sweeping powers to wage war anywhere in the world, including inside the United States, without Congressional authorization.

Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan argued that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks, constituted effective Congressional authorization for future wars waged under the rubric of the “war on terror.” In his view, the Pentagon can continue its global campaign of drone assassination strikes and launch further wars under the heading of the “war on terror,” without renewed authorization from Congress.

“At this point, we’re comfortable with the AUMF as it is currently structured,” Sheehan said. “Right now … it serves its purpose.”

Sheehan made clear that he believed that this authorization of war extended into the indefinite future. He said, “In my judgment, this is going to go on for quite a while, yes, beyond the second term of the president … I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years.”

Sheehan’s position represents a flagrant rejection of the US Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies: “The Congress shall have power … to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” However, top Pentagon officials are effectively asserting that Congress’ power will be indefinitely superseded by the President and the military, which can launch limitless wars at will.

While the issue is publicly presented as a debate over revising the AUMF, powerful sections of the American ruling class are in fact moving to suspend key provisions of the US Constitution and install a presidential-military dictatorship. In response to questioning from friendly Senators, the Pentagon officials indicated that they believe the AUMF allows the executive to unilaterally invade other countries and wage war inside the United States.

Senator Lindsey Graham asked whether the current AUMF gave US President Barack Obama the authority to put “boots on the ground” in Yemen in the Middle East, or the Congo in Africa. The Pentagon’s acting general counsel, Robert Taylor, said that it did.

“Would you agree with me, the battlefield is anywhere the enemy chooses to make it?” Graham asked.

Sheehan replied, “Yes sir, from Boston to FATA,”—referring to Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a key target of US drone strikes, and the decision to put the entire city of Boston on lockdown after the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings.

In his prepared testimony, moreover, Sheehan wrote that “being a US citizen does not immunize a member of the enemy from attack” by US forces. With this comment, Sheehan was again aligning the Pentagon with the US drone assassination of Anwar al-Awlaqi, a US citizen, on September 30, 2011. Washington gave no evidence that Awlaqi was planning or executing any attack on the United States before murdering him with a Hellfire missile.

This follows public speculation earlier this year by US Attorney General Eric Holder about possibly extra-judicially murdering US citizens on US soil, during counter-terrorism operations.

The entire framework of the Senate hearing testified to the deep decay of American democracy. The AUMF itself is an anti-democratic document, authorizing the President to use force against any “nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations.”

While the AUMF was cynically presented as being directed against Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, Washington took it as a blank check to wage unpopular wars and order assassinations throughout the world.

This pretext was fundamentally fraudulent, in that these policies were not primarily directed at Al Qaeda. They aimed to install neo-colonial rule in the Middle East, where most countries played no role in launching the September 11 attacks, in order to seize control of key oil resources and strengthen Washington’s geo-strategic position vis-à-vis other major powers. They also were aimed at suppressing popular opposition to such policies in the American working class by installing a climate of fear and intimidation.

The shifting needs of US imperialist policy over the last 12 years have exploded the pretext that its wars are justified by the AUMF. Many Al Qaeda-affiliated groups Washington is attacking, such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, did not exist in 2001 and played no role in the September 11 attacks. Washington even uses others, such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group or the Al Nusra Front in Syria, as allies of convenience in its wars for regime change in these countries.

The Pentagon has responded by asserting that the AUMF also grants it the authority to wage war on “associated forces,” referring to Al Qaeda, though the term does not appear in the text of the AUMF. This provoked questions and even certain criticisms from the Senators.

Senator Angus King noted, “You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here … You guys have invented this term, associated forces, and it renders the war powers of Congress null and void.” He added, “I’m just a little old lawyer from Brunswick, Maine, but I don’t see how you can possibly read this to be in comport with the Constitution.”

Senator John McCain said that, when the Senate voted for the AUMF in 2001, “None of us could have envisioned [granting] authority [for war] in Yemen and Somalia … For you to come here and say we don’t need to change [the AUMF] or revise it, I think is, well, disturbing.”

Senator Joe Donnelly raised Al Nusra in the Senate hearing and asked whether by affiliating to Al Qaeda—as Al Nusra has done—a group automatically could be considered a threat to the United States.

Sheehan replied, “Yes sir, although it’s a bit murky, I hate to say, because there are groups that have openly professed their affiliation with Al Qaeda yet, in fact, as a government we haven’t completely grappled with that as of now.”

Nonetheless, all the Senators stressed their basic agreement with the fraudulent framework of the “war on terror.” King stressed, “I don’t disagree that we need to fight terrorism.”

McCain told the Pentagon officials, “I don’t blame you because basically you’ve got carte blanche as to what you are going to do around the world.”

These comments expose the political reality that the only constituency for democracy in the United States is to be found in the working class. Even as the AUMF and the “war on terror” are publicly exposed as pretexts for the US military to unconstitutionally seize immense powers, the political establishment continues to support the Pentagon, in order to further the strategic interests of US imperialism.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Protesters in a demonstration against the closure of A&E and maternity services at Lewisham Hospital on January 26, 2013

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Latest data have revealed that the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey is increasing following Tel Avivâ„¢s apology to Ankara over the 2010 killing of nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound aid ship.

According to the latest statics released by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey has increased over 111 percent since January, the English-language daily Todayâ„¢s Zaman reported.

The report added that the number of Israeli tourists increased 111.2 percent between January and March 2013 compared to the corresponding period last year, when the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey reached 20,268.

Turkish Association of Travel Agents (TURSAB) Chairman Basaran Ulusoy said they expect the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey to greatly increase in the coming days, and that the number of Israeli tourists should exceed 1 million by the end of 2014.

On March 22, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized in a phone call to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a deadly naval raid against a Gaza-bound international flotilla.

The rapprochement was brokered by US President Barack Obama during a visit to Israel.

Netanyahu pledged compensation to the bereaved and agreed to ease a six-year blockade on the besieged Gaza.

Erdogan announced that the gestures met his conditions for normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.

MP/SS

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

China’s film market is the world’s second-largest, just behind the US, but those shooting a movie in China inevitably come to grips with state censorship. Industry insiders say it’s killing the multi-million dollar film business.

China recently became the largest foreign market for Hollywood.
According to a report by Motion Picture Association of America, box
office takings for American films have grown by 36 per cent last
year. A number of film buffs meanwhile say that the US regards the
Asian country as its biggest competitor.

“China, without a doubt. They look at Russia as a market
that’s growing its business. They look at China as becoming Number
1 film market in the world within the next 10 years,” US film
industry expert Sperling Reiсh told RT at Cannes, where an
International Film Market is in full swing on the French
Riviera.

There’s no escaping censorship in China: the government censors
all movies before they are allowed to be released. It’s a system of
protection making sure that anti-communist and anti-Chinese films,
as well as those deemed overly vulgar and violent, are banned from
screening.

Part of the ambiguity is that the ‘rules of the game’ are not
clearly stated, and officials censor films by their own judgment.
Each time US filmmakers release their multi-million-dollar
productions in China, they end up running up against one and the
same obstacle: strict censorship. Western films have to meet a set
of unstated expectations and requirements to be among the 34
Hollywood films officially allowed in China each year.

Django Unchained: ‘Nothing to replace China’s state censorship
with yet’

Last month Quentin Tarantino’s slavery-revenge/action adventure
Django Unchained was pulled from theaters in China, allegedly for
‘technical reasons’, with Hollywood insiders saying cuts
were ordered by the local authorities.

The latest installment of James
Bond saga, Skyfall, also had several ‘sensitive scenes’ cut
out.

Some say censorship is the ‘least of the worries’ that
foreign filmmakers shooting on location in China may be facing.

“The biggest problem has been getting the film in and the box
office out. Usually during the release there will be censorship as
there are only two distributors in the country, China Film Group
being the main state-owned one. But the biggest problem is that
there are no rules. I heard one studio executive recently saying
that the issue with China is that there’s always an issue in China.
It’s never very straight,” Reiсh said.

“One thing that the Chinese government and film industry is
miscalculating is that US studios are run by giant corporations
that have shareholders to please. Rules have to be made clear,
” Reich added.

The all-time box office record in China was set by Avatar, which
grossed nearly $225 million in 2010. The highest-grossing Hollywood
release in 2012 was the 3D version of another James Cameron hit,
Titanic, which raked in $150 million, making China the world
record-holder for sales of tickets of the film.

However, the version of Titanic shown to Chinese cinema-goers
censored nudity in the movie — a shot was changed to show the nude
Rose (Kate Winslet) from only her neck up. China’s State
Administration of Radio, Film, and Television altered the film’s
nude scenes over fears that audiences would try to reach out and
‘touch’ Winslet in the 3D version.

That same scene — where Winslet’s character poses nude as Jack
(Leonardo DiCaprio) draws her — was censored in China during the
debut release of ‘Titanic’ in 1998, the Hollywood Reporter said.
However, many in China managed to watch the original version on
pirated copies; the nude scenes quickly became the talk of the
town.

An international publisher for China’s G-W Pictures, Oliver
Dong, says that there’s “nothing to replace this [censorship]
system yet with. If we change it suddenly, we will be daunted.”
According to Dong, there’s a “huge gap between China and the US,
in every single aspect.”

“There’s some 20-30-year time gap between the two, with each
country’s economy being highly related to psychology. Economy-wise
you can be rich, but spiritually – not so well-off.”

“I don’t think that the only competitor for the US is China;
every country can be a competitor. It’s just that they don’t think
another country can be better than they are. Several decades ago
the US regarded Russia as its competitor, their enemy…” Dong
told RT.

China challenged to cooperate ‘not just with America’

A film expert from China’s Huanxia Film Distribution company says
collaboration is much better than competition, at least when doing
business together.

“It’s important for China to cooperate not just with America, but
with all other countries. All audiences, no matter where they come
from, have something in common,” Ma Fang told RT.
 

In 2012, the box office of
films released by Huanxia Film Distribution reached 5.4 billion
yuan (over $860 million), increasing by 500 per cent of that of
2008. The company says it has also boosted its investment in
co-production films. Since 2012, 10 films have been approved for
co-production with France, Australia, Canada and Japan, while 21
are set to be co-produced with by China and the US.

When asked about censorship, Fang suggested changing the subject
however, saying he would “rather not talk about censorship.”
“We are a state-owned company, Fang explained, I hope the system
gets better.” In the first quarter of 2013, Chinese films
fetched a combined $570 million for a 69 per cent market share,
leaving less than a third for the market for Hollywood, according
to Variety.

The low-budget Chinese comedy Lost in Thailand, as well as films
like Finding Mr Right and So Young, generated over $488 million at
the box office, according to Hollywood Reporter. The domestic
market accounted for nearly three-thirds of ticket earnings last
year.

China also boasts the largest number of 3D movie screens in the
world, at nearly 7,500. By 2020, the country is expected to
overtake the US as the world’s biggest box office marketplace, with
25,000 screens set to go up over the next five years, according to
Ernst and Young.

China’s film industry ‘not affected by global economic
crisis’

The CEO of Montecristo International, Cindy Nelson-Mullen, told RT
that while many fellow US filmmakers have been hitting their heads
trying to take bite out of the Chinese market share, her company
has been lucky doing business with a number of Chinese companies
without a hitch.

“We’re small independent distributors, and our relationship
with China has been on the production side. Our partners are a Hong
Kong-based production company called Visual Magic. They are
exceptional partners with tremendous amount of talent. They also
look at it as an opportunity to get involved in the US market, as
it’s not a market that they’ve been able to crack,” she
explained.

Speaking of which, the biggest problem of the US film business
is that it’s a conglomerate, according to Nelson-Mullen.

“The US film business is owned by five companies. An
independent filmmaker has a very difficult task and a tougher road
to face. Everybody is struggling, it’s a difficult time.” But
her partner from the Hong Kong-based Film Magic, Kirsty Fung,
reassures that China “hasn’t been affected by the economic
crisis so far.” “The money is there,” the ambitious Chinese
producer who studied in the US told RT. It’s the matter of finding
and matching the right investors, finding the right theme and then
creating a good product. It’s the same game, with an only exception
that China is just more restrictive than others,” she
explained.

Fung says the real challenge for the US filmmakers is to create
films that relate to audiences China. “I can’t say that the
Americans and the Chinese are so different. Business is
business,” she added.

“If you look at China as a state, it’s been through a lot.
It’s a country that’s not easy to match, with its own culture and
its own diversity. There are over 1.3 billion people there, many of
them are uneducated. To manage them is really difficult. The
cultural transition within the society could take some 20-30
years,” Fung predicted.

US film companies battle Chinese censorship with own
restrictions

According to the producers from US movie company The Asylum, the
Chinese film market has already begun to change.

“When we started dealing with Chinese film companies seven
years ago, we came against censorship and the practice that those
we were working with just didn’t pay the bill. Later we’ve
instituted our own restrictions. We had no problems since we’ve
started asking to see a copy of the censorship failure letter
explaining that this doesn’t pass the censorship because it doesn’t
have any artistic value,” Paul Bales told RT.
Bales and his
partner David Rimawi believe that although the economic crisis in
America has stepped back, other countries are not immune to the
echoing consequences of the global slowdown.

“From our perspective, the worst is over for the US. Economy
has recovered to an extent; business has stabilized. But now
recession that we were in a couple of years ago is reaching the
rest of the world, and Europe,” Bales said.

In 2012 box office revenues reached $10.6 billion in North
America; attendance rose 6 per cent for the first time in many
years. Meanwhile, box-office revenues in Italy went down by 8 per
cent and 6.5 per cent in Spain, according to the European
Audiovisual Observatory.

Film buffs from The Asylum note that while everyone is talking
about business opportunities of doing business with BRIC countries
— Brazil, Russia, India and China – with their lucrative emerging
markets, they are in fact “more difficult to work with than any
others.” “I wonder whether when the US started off in the
1700s everyone said, ‘Oh gosh, the Americans… they are the
worst!’” Bales said.

Valeria Paikova, RT, Cannes

This article originally appeared on : RT

Leaders from 11 Native American tribes stormed out of a meeting with US federal officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which they say will lead to ‘environmental genocide.’

Native Americans are opposed to the 1,179-mile (1,897km)
Keystone XL project, a system to transport tar sands oil from
Canada and the northern United States to refineries in Texas for
various reasons, including possible damage to sacred sites,
pollution, and water contamination.

Although the planned pipeline would not pass directly through
any Native American reservation, tribes in proximity to the
proposed system say it will violate their traditional lands and
that the environmental risks of the project are simply too
great.

Russ Girling, CEO of TransCanada, the company that hopes to
build the pipeline, has promised in the past that Keystone XL will
be “the safest pipeline ever built.”

The Indian groups, as well as other activist organizations,
doubt the claim, saying the risks involved in the project are too
high.

In an effort to ease their concerns, officials from the
Department of State agreed to meet with tribal leaders on Thursday
in the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City, Michigan.

Before the talks could begin, however, tribal leaders walked
out, angered that the government had sent what they considered
low-level representatives.

In a press conference following the walkout, tribal leaders took
turns criticizing the project, as well as the Obama
administration.

“I will only meet with President Obama,” Bryan Brewer,
president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, told the Rapid City
Journal.

Others mentioned environmental concerns with the proposed
pipeline, which echo the concern of environmental groups across the
country.

Casey Camp-Horinek, an elder with the Southern Ponca Tribe based
in Oklahoma, compared the pipeline and other environmental damage
to the historical events that had decimated her people during
European colonization.

“We find ourselves victims of another form of genocide, and
it’s environmental genocide, and it’s caused by the extractive
industries,” she said.

Charles LoneChief, vice president of the Pawnee Business
Council, headquartered in Oklahoma, said the public was misinformed
about the pipeline’s environmental risks.

Unlike a traditional crude oil pipeline, Keystone XL will pump
oil that is collected from tar sands. To turn this substance into a
transportable liquid, oil companies must add chemicals that
environmental groups warn are highly toxic.

“That gets into our waterways, our water tables, our
aquifers, then we have problems,” LoneChief said.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that
the Keystone XL pipeline will increase annual US carbon pollution
emissions by up to 27.6 million metric tons — the impact of adding
nearly 6 million cars on the road, according to the Environment
News Service.

Robin LeBeau, a council representative for the Cheyenne River
Sioux Tribe based in South Dakota, pledged to protest against any
construction, even if that meant standing in front of
bulldozers.

“What the State Department, what President Obama needs to
hear from us, is that we are going to be taking direct action,”
she said.

I believe this is going to be one of the biggest battles we are
ever going to have, LeBeau added.

This is not the first time that Native American groups have
spoken out on the project.

Leaders from ten Canadian and US indigenous groups gathered in
Ottawa, Ontario in March to protest the construction of
pipelines.

“Tar sands pipelines will not pass through [our] collective
territories under any conditions or circumstances,” the tribes
said at a press conference.

This article originally appeared on : RT

By Colin McKay

To address the problem of “systemically important” banks, “without exposing the taxpayer to the risk of loss,” our puppet politicians have agreed to confiscate … the savings of taxpayers.

November 11-12, 2010. Armistice Day. That is when all the major governments of the G20 first agreed to implement the new, Cyprus-style “bail-in” regime, at the direction of the internationalist Financial Stability Board under its new, GFC-enabled “broadened mandate” –

CLICK TEXT TO ENLARGE

One cannot help but laugh at the Orwellian doublespeak slogans used by the architects of this new regime.

To address the problem of “systemically important” banks, “without exposing the taxpayer to the risk of loss,” our puppet politicians have agreed to confiscate … the savings of taxpayers.

You may be thinking that this excerpt from an FSB press release does not prove that the G20 have specifically agreed to confiscation of bank deposits. And you would be correct.

As with all such schemes, it is not intended that the public will easily discover what has been planned. You have to wade carefully through all the verbose (and deliberately obtuse) technocrat-ese, and cross-reference the supporting documents (and their annexes), in order to discover just what our G20 attendee politicians — geniuses like “World’s Greatest Treasurer” Wayne Swan — have actually signed up to.

And to find the smoking gun.

One with the word B A I L — I N stamped clearly on its barrel.

First, in the FSB press release of 4 Nov 2011 we are told that the G20 allegedly “asked the FSB to develop a policy framework to address the systemic and moral hazard risks associated with systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs).”

Next, in Seoul 2010, “G20 leaders endorsed this framework and the timelines and processes for its implementation.”

That framework is set out in the FSB’s “Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes for Financial Institutions” (pdf).

In the preamble of that document, we learn that one of the objectives is to make it possible for “unsecured and uninsured creditors to absorb losses.” Meaning, if your savings are not covered by some form of government guarantee or federal insurance (for all that is worth) — or if, as in Australia, the government bank deposits guarantee is limited to an amount significantly less than (ie, 1/10th) the total of actual bank deposits held by the public — then your bank account can be made to “absorb losses”. And as we will see shortly, this can be done entirely without your consent –

In the sub-points of the preamble, we see that G20 governments are expected to “have in place a recovery and resolution plan (“RRP”) … containing all elements set out in Annex III.” –

Each jurisdiction is required to set up a “Resolution authority”, which is to be “responsible for exercising the resolution powers over firms…” –

The Resolution authority’s powers are most interesting. For example, we can all applaud the idea that such an authority could (not that they actually would) “claw-back” bankers’ bonuses –

What is of serious concern though, is its power to “transfer or sell assets and liabilities, legal rights and obligations, including deposit liabilities and ownership in shares, to a solvent third party,” … without consent –

This is confirmed in Key Attribute 3.3, where it is clearly stated that any transfer of a bank’s assets or liabilities (ie, deposits) by the authority “should not require the consent of any interested party or creditor to be valid”, and, that any such action will not be deemed a “default” of the bank’s legal obligations –

Now if you are still sceptical that all this means the G20 have specifically agreed to a new regime that might include provisions for a Cyprus-style “bail-in” using depositors’ savings, then perhaps it is because you — like me — would be looking for this exact phrase in order to be fully convinced.

Yes, it is there.

Lucky number (ix) in the “powers” (page 7-8) of the Resolution authority that each of the G20 governments agreed to establish, back in 2010 –

Note that not only can the Resolution authority use a “bail-in” to support “continuity of essential functions” of a failing bank; it can also do so in order to finance the setting up of a new third party or “bridge” institution, into which the failed (“non-viable”) bank’s assets or liabilities (ie, your savings) can be transferred. Not so you can get your money back, but for the purpose of “capitalising” the new institution.

At that other elite lucky number (xi), we see another power; to shut banks, suspend payments to customers (except for payments to “central counterparties”, ie, to central banks, quelle surprise), and impose a “stay” on actions by creditors (eg, deposit holders) to “collect money” –

 You may have noticed that the “bail-in” power at (ix) referenced Key Attribute 3.5. There, we see that the power to carry out a bail-in “should” (how comforting) be performed “in a manner that respects the hierarchy of claims in liquidation.” This no doubt will reassure the more gullible reader that there is nothing nefarious in this plan; that it is clearly intended that the traditional hierarchy of claims in a bank insolvency would be respected –

So, what exactly is the “hierarchy of claims” under this new FSB-dictated regime? Again we have to refer to another section (Key Attribute 5.1) to find the answer. Which does indeed appear to support the traditional hierarchy of claims. Except for this stunning caveat –

It is worth repeating –

“Resolution powers should be exercised in a way that respects the hierarchy of claims while providing flexibility to depart from the general principle of equal (pari passu) treatment of creditors of the same class…”

Moral relativism at its finest.

This is what has happened in Cyprus. While the final details are still evolving as to exactly how much Cypriot depositors holding more, or less, than €100k will have stolen from them, what is clear is that this FSB template for bail-ins in G20 nations or “jurisdictions” (EU), is the one being followed.

What is also clear, especially in light of recent revelations that Canada has expressly identified “bail-in” procedures in their 2013 Budget, is that all Western governments have, unbeknown to their citizens and without their consent, agreed to the imposition of the same new regime for managing insolvent banks.

A regime devised, and dictated by, an unelected central body.

Feel free to check these documents for yourself, here (pdf) and here (pdf).

Are you wondering who and what is the Financial Stability Board?

According to their website:

The FSB has been established to coordinate at the international level the work of national financial authorities and international standard setting bodies and to develop and promote the implementation of effective regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies. It brings together national authorities responsible for financial stability in significant international financial centres, international financial institutions, sector-specific international groupings of regulators and supervisors, and committees of central bank experts.

 A list of institutions represented on the FSB can be found here .

 The FSB is chaired by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada. Its Secretariat is located in Basel, Switzerland, and hosted by the Bank for International Settlements.

 A kind of “super regulator”. Chaired currently by a Goldman Sachs man. With membership comprising the central bankers, treasury department heads, and prudential regulators of 24 nations, along with the IMF, World Bank, and a cavalcade of others.

Including — and “hosted by” — the central bank of central banks.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

According to its Articles of Association, the FSB is also funded by the BIS –

According to its updated Charter (pdf), the FSB received its original mandate from the central bankers and Finance Ministers of the G7 nations in 1999.

It then received a “broadened mandate” from the “Heads of State and Government of the Group of Twenty” at a meeting in London on April 2, 2009 –

At the same meeting, another now-infamous Goldman Sachs alumnus and current President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, was appointed Chairman of the FSB –

 So… the hapless G20 heads of government, panicking in the midst of the GFC, gave the fonts of central banking wisdom at the FSB a “broadened mandate”, and “asked” them “to develop a policy framework to address the systemic and and moral hazard risks associated with systemically important financial institutions”, did they?

And under the consecutive chairmanships of Goldman Sachs men, these unelected bankers and bureaucrats — not one of whom warned of the approaching GFC — devised this “bail-in” policy for the whole of the G20, to solve the problem of Too-Big-To-Fail banks?

As the Machiavellian-minded so often say:

“Never let a good crisis go to waste”

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Protesters chant anti-government slogans as Turkish riot police block them in the town of Reyhanli, Hatay Province, on May 18, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

A week from now it will be one year since the world first heard about the horrors of a place in Syria called “Houla.” On the afternoon and evening of Friday, May 25, 2012, a reported 108 civilians were massacred there. They were executed inside their homes, with guns and “sharp tools,” and maybe a little bit from shelling as well. As the reader might recall, most of the victims were entire families, included some 49 younger children and even babies.

Anyone who had to watch the video results might recall having the bottom drop from their stomach with dread, and the lingering depression after. Many people, naturally, wanted revenge for that.

According to activists, all of the victim families were Sunni Muslim. It was of course blamed on the Syrian Arab Army — the only ones with artillery, if blades aren’t so clear – and their allied “Shabiha,” militias from surrounding villages, of the same Alawite faith of president Assad. None of these features was completely new, but this was by many measures the worst, most massive, most unambiguous massacres of innocents to date.

Western and Gulf Arab states took the events in Houla as clarifying the urgency of toppling the perpetrators; they expelled Damascus’ diplomats and otherwise moved to isolate Syria in the kill box. U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said it had become clear that the “wheels were coming off” of Kofi Annan’s peace plan. The same point was made more aggressively by rebels shaking dead babies on video — no compromise was possible after this. Military aid to the rebels and talk of increasing it increased.

The opposition wanted a no-fly zone and a swift enforced victory, Libya-style. But the war has continued for a year after that “turning point,” stumbling along with no decisive aid yet delivered, and the widely-supported government seems to be winning. There will now be anniversary lamentations about how this massacre failed to move the world adequately. And quite possibly “the regime” will surprise us with a similar slaughter to remind the world how evil they remain. It might be wise, therefore, to brush up on what happened in Taldou last year, to get a clearer idea of how to best approach whatever its anniversary brings.

While official Western and U.N. investigations easily decided to blame Damascus, a more independent, de-centralized, citizen-led investigation (of sorts) was underway from the start. This has by and large reached much different conclusions, with public work that can be verified. Some of the sharper findings from that have been compiled into a report released on Wednesday by the Citizen’s Investigation into War Crimes in Libya (since mid-2012, they have turned their attention to Syria, but without a name change). Official Truth, Real Truth, and Impunity for the Syrian Houla Massacre of May 2012 (PDF, 79 pages — CIWCL download page) compiles seven previously published essays by four authors in three countries, edited, updated, and in two cases translated for the first time to English. Together, they cast unusually harsh light across the murky details of this pivotal event.

As usual, both sides initially blamed each other for the killings in Houla. More precisely, they happened in and around the southern half of Taldou, the southernmost town of the Al-Houla area, which was otherwise under rebel control by mid-2012. Damascus accused “terrorists,” their usual phrase for people who would slaughter little kids just to blame someone else. In the version lodged by the Syrian government (and and at least a dozen local witnesses on record), rebels moved on May 25 to secure total control. In a pre-planned, multi-front attack, 600-800 armed fighters from the region and overseas hit all five security posts around Taldou. They came in waves with mid-heavy weapons, pinning the soldiers down in defensive mode or completely overrunning their posts. Over the afternoon and early evening, many Syrians say, the rebels took over the town.

Some evidence in the report suggests this is just what happened. The damage to buildings given as from distant regime artillery shelling, seems instead to be from RPGs and heavy machine guns, on Taldou’s main street itself. Instead of holes in roofs, we see primarily walls holed and peppered with horizontal fire. Among the most heavily “shelled” places are all the government security posts along main street. The U.N.’s investigators acknowledged that the northernmost “one or two” posts were overrun by rebels in what might have been a “premeditated attack.” (p. 55) However, they somehow managed to play this down as irrelevant.

In this version with at least some evidence behind it, the opposition simply lied about the victims of the ensuing massacre. Rather than neutral-to-anti-government Sunnis, they were Shi’ites, perhaps Alawites, and Sunnis who rejected the rebellion and remained loyal to the “Alawite regime.” One of the Sunni families was said to be related to the new speaker of the Syrian parliament, the People’s Assembly — selected the day before the massacre of his kin. (see p. 25)

A compromised UN “investigation” (Commission of Inquiry, CoI) arrived at their blame target by listening carefully to some alleged witnesses and experts (usually via Skype) and scoffing at others behind their backs. Led by Karen Koning AbuZayd, an American Middle East think tank director, the CoI established with its reports the closest thing there is to the world’s official truth. The mainstream media delivered the context for receptive audiences, world leaders led, groups for good things concurred, and little surprise, the world public and the public record came out blaming the rogue regime that needed to be changed like a dirty diaper.

In case it matters, deeper investigation shows that the alleged witnesses this mythology is based on are grossly unreliable, or reliable at delivering lies. An essay by Alfredo Embid explores the disparate voices and the psychology of speaking up in post-massacre Taldou. (see p. 29) For whom is telling the truth going to mean “certain death”? Certainly not for rebel fighters, who were a prime source of evidence used to exonerate the rebels. One of these is FSA Farouk Brigade commander Abdul Razzaq Tlass of nearby ar-Rastan; he’s been seen leading U.N./Arab League monitors around by the hand (p. 34) and, Embid argues convincingly, probably informed them on the Houla events. On the other hand, Tlass was reported as himself leading a large unit of fighters involved in the massacre, or at least the connected battle of Taldou (p. 31).

An essay by myself scrutinizes the 11-(or 8?)-year-old boy survivor Ali al-Sayed. (p. 20) He has striking consistency in blaming the Shabiha with “Alawite accents” for killing his family, and in demanding foreign intervention, compared to his bizarre confusion over everything else between different accounts. For example, Ali is not sure whether the men were killed right away, or only after they were found hiding, without a peep, while everyone else (except Ali) was killed. Also, the names of these men shift all over in a strange manner. The alleged father of this family is Aref Mohammed al-Sayed, but Ali says his dad is named Ali Adel or Shaoqi. It’s his brother, Ali says, that’s named Aref — or Shaoqi — while his uncle is Aref, Abu Haider, or Oqba. It’s worth noting that the family he refers to so inconsistently is the one said to be related to the People’s Assembly secretary, although Ali insists the relation is too distant to matter.

The U.N.’s CoI spoke to Ali via Skype and found, without comparing accounts like I have, that all child witnesses “remained consistent … despite the fact that [interviews] were conducted over an extended period of time” and with “different investigators.” This is just plain false.

The other alleged witnesses, saying they faced a death sentence for doing so, spoke up and blamed the rebels. In contrast to Ali and those with similar stories, these were simply ignored by most media reports, and unfairly minimized and sidelined by the U.N.’s CoI. This decided there were only two such witnesses on record, both aired by Syrian state broadcaster SANA. In fact, there are somewhere over a dozen, from a variety of sources. (p. 37) They identified a few possible “inconsistencies” and, citing a lack of direct access to Syria, said “those inconsistencies could not be further explored.” Why it couldn’t be done remotely by Skype, like with the witnesses they wanted to hear from, is not explained. They dismissed the two witnesses, standing in for all of them, as “unreliable.”

 In another essay (p. 44), Ronda Hauben explains how other witnesses of this class also spoke to monitors with UNSMIS (U.N. Special Mission in Syria), and so should have been on file. Unlike the CoI, UNSMIS had people on the ground, led by Major-General Robert Mood. Cryptically, he told the press on June 15 that UNSMIS had been to Houla and interviewed locals, some of whom “told one story” and some of whom told “another story.” Comparing them, he said, it “still remains unclear to us” which was truthful. He offered to support a deeper investigation, but instead, the mission was shut down at the end of July. The UNSMIS report with conflicting accounts, Mood said, was handed to headquarters in New York. It’s acknowledged as existing but has never had its contents mentioned, referenced, or seen anywhere.

In the absence of U.N. info they would cite, the two SANA witnesses alone were easy for the CoI to dismiss. As Marinella Correggia rightly points out (p.17)

“This interference that fuels violence is justified — by governments and the mainstream media — by the need to “help the armed opposition groups to stop the massacres by the regime and to protect civilians.” […] For this story to hold, it’s required to systematically deny the international right to speak and bear witness to a large portion of the population, that would launch different or contrary accusations. And so it is discriminated against by the media, NGOs and UN experts.”

Even if their process was distorted, it’s possible the CoI happened to slant things towards the truer witnesses. This doesn’t appear to be the case, however.

The available video evidence offers a few opportunities to actually test the two witness sets for consistency with the more reliable “digital witnesses.” The final essay summarizes a detailed analysis which managed to place numerous videos of May 25, all gleaned from opposition sources, in specific locations around Taldou, and to give each a rough time stamp. Seven aspects of the alleged rebel attack are then explained with their video supports, with select stills and a detailed reference map helps the reader visualize along. For example, where a witness cited rebels shooting at the central security post from the northwest at about 1:30 PM, two rebel videos show … exactly that (p. 57).

Even where video is absent — the main six hours of the attack and the massacres — is a clue of something afoot on the side practicing video silence that ended precisely just before sunset. Collectively, this is a surprisingly consistent picture of deceit from the hard-to-deny realm of direct video evidence. There is nothing in it to support the rebel version of flight from shelling (nor any footage of the attackers, from any distance). In its place there is something unsettlingly close to visual proof that they stuck around though their own barrage and were thus best placed to be behind the killings after all.

U.S. ambassador Robert Ford, who knows a few things about death squads and such, said a few days after the massacre that it was “the most unambiguous indictment of the regime to date,” based on the alleged use of heavy artillery, which the rebels did not have. In fact, even before the detailed exposition began, it was never a particularly clear event. It was, however, the “big one” they really wanted to make very sure was perceived a regime crime. After more analysis, this desire seems ill-founded, and Mr. Ford’s statement sounds incredibly sad. Houla has been shown beyond a doubt to be extremely ambiguous at best, and at worst a fairly obvious crime of the U.S.-supported Syrian Contras.

The best evidence says rebels clobbered Taldou before the slaughter, but they were able to whitewash right over that victory, with nothing but alleged witnesses talking on the phone and on Yotube. And so after their homicidal rampage through Shi’ite bedrooms, Syria’s Sunni rebel extremists garnered an outpouring of support. That works by no magic of their own; it’s all on loan. It’s their golden shovel. Any corpse that rebels bury with it carries just the lessons they attribute to it.

In recent months, moral confusion has grown with increasing awareness of extremely heinous rebel actions. The more massive crimes of total cruelty, like the Houla massacre, ensure that at best people will perceive two sides no better than each other. How much less confusing it would be if it became clear Houla, if not other crimes like it, were also from the rebel side. Houla is far from the only such incident,” some might protest. “It’s unfair to pick on just one example.” But of course worthwhile answers can never appear until one gets this specific, and with this example, many thinkers have picked the fairest one. It was, after all, pre-highlighted by the blame-Assad crowd. The research done quietly to date arguably takes this high ground, and inverts the example it sets. Consider the other huge and shocking massacres vying for the notoriety of Houla — Qubeir, Daraya, Aqrab, Jdeidat al-Fadl, al-Bayda and Baniyas, etc. — most of them, like Houla, coming just before U.N. security Council meetings on Syria and the like. It’s worth asking honestly which of those happened as reported by the opposition, and which was, instead, more like the famous Houla massacre they apparently lied to us about?

As one portion of the report explains (p. 73-75), many of these others feature rebel battle deaths passed off as innocents, to massively pad the numbers into the triple digits. But at least one shocking December, 2012 event without such ambiguity seems to be Houla rebels getting one-sided revenge on neighboring “Shabiha” — and their families — in Aqrab. At least 125 Alawite men, women, and children, gone missing and apparently snuffed out, were passed off by rebels as more victims of “Shabiha” and the Army. This was done with nowhere near the success they had back in May, thanks to on-site report by Alex Thomson for UK Channel 4. (p. 74) But neither was anyone punished or called out for it, nor were the missing Alawites — or answers — asked after. The story of what happened in Aqrab got “murky” and then really quiet as soon as it looked like a rebel crime. That it was by some of the same criminals credibly blamed for the battle and massacre that gave them Taldou, is worth pondering on.

Those who believe in the golden shovel, and those under the sway of powerful people who do, are apparently bound to recognize what its holder says. However, as this report again reaffirms, that’s magic doesn’t work on everyone. The leadership of a majority of the world’s people were never convinced about what happened at Houla (see pages 11-12) Besides China and Russia, for example, India’s Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, asked that atrocities, “including the recent incident in El Houleh, are fully investigated and their perpetrators brought to justice.” This is nothing unusual, but he didn’t blame the government and, for context, as Ronda Hauben points out,

“[Puri] noted that the attacks against civilians and security forces in Syria “have intensified over the last few weeks and have taken a significant toll.” Also he drew attention to the sharp increase in the number of terrorist attacks in different parts of the country.” He “condemned all violence, irrespective of who the perpetrators are,” and called for the “cessation of all outside support for armed groups and serious action against the terrorist groups in Syria.”

The questions recognized as standing on May 26, 2012 can and should be revisited a year later, because a year later is now, and it seems that the questions weren’t answered right the first time. This report will hopefully add to the effort to end the magic spell that’s spilled so much blood, and let truth finally get its chance to be the basis upon which the world acts.

 Official Truth, Real Truth, and Impunity for the Syrian Houla Massacre of May 2012 Authors : Marinella Correggia, Alfredo Embid, Ronda Hauben, Adam Larson

(PDF, 79 pages — CIWCL download page)

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

An earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale has struck the southern Iranian province of Hormuzgan.

According to the Iranian Seismological Center, the earthquake hit near Goharan town, 81 kilometers southeast of Minab, located in Hormuzgan on Saturday at 14:33 local time (GMT 1003).

No casualties have yet been reported.

Over the past months a series of earthquakes have struck Iranâ„¢s southern parts. On May 17, an earthquake measuring 4 on the Richter scale hit 87 kilometers southeast of Minab.

On May 11, A 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck the port city of Jask in the southern Iranian province of Hormuzgan, killing one and injuring dozens of others.

Head of the Rescue and Relief Organization of Iran’s Red Crescent Society (IRCS) Mahmoud Mozaffar said at least five villages were destroyed in the quake-stricken area.

On May 7, two earthquakes hit the town of Kaki near Iranâ„¢s southern city of Bushehr. No casualties or damages were reported.

A major quake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale shook a sparsely-populated rural area between the cities of Saravan and Khash in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province at a depth of 95 kilometers on April 16. The quake was unprecedented in the past 50 years.

On April 9, a 6.1-magnitude quake hit rocked the town of Kaki, some 90 kilometers southeast of Bushehr, on April 9, at a depth of 12 kilometers

At least 37 people were killed and more than 1,050 others were injured. The quake also destroyed 3,100 houses. The strong quake was followed by many aftershocks, which also jolted the nearby city of Khour-Mowj.

MYA/HGH

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

The 1998 QE2 asteroid has the physical mass to potentially deliver life on Earth a knockout punch, being 2.7km in length. It is to buzz our planet on May 31, aweing the stargazing community.

Officially known as Asteroid 1998 QE2, the ‘minor planet’, as
astronomers refer to these space objects, is about nine times the
length of its name-sharing ocean liner, Queen Elizabeth 2.

The incoming space object is not named in honor of Queen Elizabeth
II, however, nor the 12-deck QE2 luxury liner. It’s simply the
designation assigned by the US Minor Planet Center in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, based on an alphanumeric code for naming
newly-discovered asteroids.

Aside from the asteroid’s hulking mass, another thing that
intrigues astronomers about QE2 is that nobody can say with any
certainty where it came from.

One clue to its origins, however, is that its surface is said to be
covered with a sticky, black residue, suggesting that it may be the
remains of a comet that came in close proximity to the sun, Amy
Mainzer, a researcher at Jet Propulsion Laboratory at La Cañada
Flintridge, California, told the Los Angeles Times.

Another explanation is that QE2, discovered on August 19, 1998 by
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was originally part of
the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, she
said.

QE2’s nearest approach happens on May 31 at 20:59 GMT, bringing the
huge space rock to within 3.6 million miles (5.8 million km) of
Earth — about 15 times the distance to the Moon. While this may
seem a great distance, in astronomical terms it is a mere stone’s
throw away.

Mainzer emphasized the significance of the asteroid, drawing
parallels with a past celestial event that had devastating
consequences for the entire planet.

“This is a really big asteroid, similar in size to the one that
killed off the dinosaurs, and it’s getting very close to us,”
she told the Times. “Fortunately we’ve been tracking its orbit
very carefully so we know with great certainty it won’t hit
us.

We don’t need to panic, but we do need to pay attention, she
added.

Since the threat of a doomsday scenario seems unlikely, astronomers
will be given an opportunity to study the physical characteristics
of asteroids, as well as their history.

“Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an
important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to
understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what
they can tell us about its origin,” radar astronomer Lance
Benner, the principal investigator for the Goldstone radar
observations from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California, said in a statement.

Observers will take advantage of radar technology to measure the
asteroid’s distance and velocity to improve the calculation of its
orbit and compute its motion farther into the future than we could
otherwise, he added.

The next arrival of Asteroid 1998 QE2 following its near-miss on
May 31 will not occur again for another two centuries.

For millions of years, Earth has been occasionally pounded by space
objects both large and small. Russia, due to its sprawling
landmass, has played an unwitting host to many of these celestial
bodies.

In 1908, a comet explosion over a largely uninhabited area of
Siberia flattened some 80 million trees. The so-called Tunguska
Event is recognized as the largest impact event on or near Earth in
recorded history: The explosion was about 1,000 times more powerful
than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

More recently, on February 15 this year, a meteor exploded in the
sky over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The shock waves from the
explosion shattered windows and damaged buildings, injuring more
than 1,500 people, mostly from flying glass and other debris.

Following the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which is the largest known
space object to have entered Earth’s atmosphere since the Tunguska
Event, NASA chief Charles Bolden gave advice on how to handle an
asteroid that was on a collision course with Earth “if it’s coming
in three weeks”: Pray.

While NASA is tracking about 95 per cent of the largest objects
flying near Earth, only about 10 per cent of an estimated 10,000
asteroids with a diameter of 50 meters (165 feet) or more have been
identified.

Meanwhile, mankind continues the search for ways to counter future
space objects deemed dangerous.

Just days after the Russian meteor struck, the European Space
Agency (ESA) announced a joint mission between Europe and the US
that aims to strike an asteroid with a spacecraft.

The Joint European/US Asteroid impact and Deflection Assessment
mission (AIDA) is preparing to intercept the asteroid Didymos in
2022, when it is about 6.5 million miles (11 million km) from
Earth.

Didymos, which poses no immediate threat to Earth, is actually a
binary system, in which an 800-meter-wide asteroid and a smaller
150-meter space rock orbit each other.

The AIDA mission – designed to test the theory that governments can
protect the planet from a space object on a collision course with
the planet – will target the smaller asteroid with a rocket at
about 14,000 mph (22,539 kph) in an effort to knock the object off
course.

This article originally appeared on : RT

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara has not yet made any decision on cutting oil imports from Iran, despite US pressure to hinder the Tehran-Ankara energy cooperation.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Friday, the Turkish premier said the level of oil imports from Iran depends on his country’s energy demand.

The United States granted 180-day waivers on Iran oil sanctions to Turkey for the second time on December 7, 2012 after Ankara made initial cuts to its Iran oil imports.

Å“…As to whether we would cut back any further, it will depend on our need. Time will tell,” Erdogan added.

Shipping data on May 3 showed that Turkey raised its crude oil imports from Iran to average 140,000 barrels per day (bpd), in April hitting an eight-month high.

Turkey has been importing an average of 100,000 bpd between September 2012 and February 2013, and in March increased purchases of Iranian oil to 114,000 bpd, despite US sanctions against Iran’s energy sector.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iranâ„¢s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

PG/HGH

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara has not yet made any decision on cutting oil imports from Iran, despite US pressure to hinder the Tehran-Ankara energy cooperation.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Friday, the Turkish premier said the level of oil imports from Iran depends on his country’s energy demand.

The United States granted 180-day waivers on Iran oil sanctions to Turkey for the second time on December 7, 2012 after Ankara made initial cuts to its Iran oil imports.

Å“…As to whether we would cut back any further, it will depend on our need. Time will tell,” Erdogan added.

Shipping data on May 3 showed that Turkey raised its crude oil imports from Iran to average 140,000 barrels per day (bpd), in April hitting an eight-month high.

Turkey has been importing an average of 100,000 bpd between September 2012 and February 2013, and in March increased purchases of Iranian oil to 114,000 bpd, despite US sanctions against Iran’s energy sector.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iranâ„¢s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

PG/HGH

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Afghan security forces inspect the site of a bomb attack in Khost city, eastern Afghanistan. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Afghan security forces inspect the site of a bomb attack in Khost city, eastern Afghanistan. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

A new app aims to become an engine for consumer activism, helping users spend money on products from companies they share causes with, boycotting those they don’t. The prime targets at the moment are Monsanto and Koch brothers.

The power that new technology gives to grassroots movements
comes into focus occasionally. It did when people rallied to the
protection of internet freedoms from SOPA/PIPA bills on the call
from online giants. It did when Egyptian anti-government protesters
or London rioters coordinated their action through Facebook and
Twitter.

The people behind Buycott, a new app for Apple devices,
apparently eye the same direction. The program combines a simple
barcode scanner with a database of corporate ownership and a
website for user-suggested activism campaigns.

A campaign lists companies that support some cause, like
opposing factory farming or lobbying for the big oil, which
supporters of the campaign would love or hate. When a barcode is
scanned, the application tracks the product to the parent company
that will ultimately profit from the purchase and checks against
your selected campaigns. If there is a match, the app green-lights
or red flags the product.

Buycott is by no means the first mobile app to promote activism through boycotting or buying something. But
it’s apparently the first one aiming to remain neutral and giving
the users the choice of which cause they want to champion. At the
moment the most popular campaigns denounce the conservative
businessmen Charles and David Koch and promote GMO labeling, with
both sporting more than 20,000 supporters, but there is no reason
why opposite campaigns wouldn’t become popular too. Campaigns for
opposing goals do exist even now.

“I don’t want to push any single point of view with the
app,” Ivan Pardo, the man behind it, told Forbes. “For me,
it was critical to allow users to create campaigns because I don’t
think it’s Buycott’s role to tell people what to buy. We simply
want to provide a platform that empowers consumers to make
well-informed purchasing decisions.”

The Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer spent the
last 16 months to develop the app. It debuted in iTunes and Google
play in early May, but since then the Android version had been
suspended, because Buycott was caught unprepared for the sudden
popularity and the technical difficulties it cause.

“I simply didn’t set up the servers to be prepared to handle 10+
new users every second. I was expecting a more manageable rise,”
Pardo explained

Apart from managing the workload on servers and fixing glitches
the company is busy updating its corporate database. The multitier
ownership structure is quite intricate, and some brands do not
quite link to their parent companies at the moment. They are also
asking users to give info on products that are missing in their
database.

This article originally appeared on : RT

A new app aims to become an engine for consumer activism, helping users spend money on products from companies they share causes with, boycotting those they don’t. The prime targets at the moment are Monsanto and Koch brothers.

The power that new technology gives to grassroots movements
comes into focus occasionally. It did when people rallied to the
protection of internet freedoms from SOPA/PIPA bills on the call
from online giants. It did when Egyptian anti-government protesters
or London rioters coordinated their action through Facebook and
Twitter.

The people behind Buycott, a new app for Apple devices,
apparently eye the same direction. The program combines a simple
barcode scanner with a database of corporate ownership and a
website for user-suggested activism campaigns.

A campaign lists companies that support some cause, like
opposing factory farming or lobbying for the big oil, which
supporters of the campaign would love or hate. When a barcode is
scanned, the application tracks the product to the parent company
that will ultimately profit from the purchase and checks against
your selected campaigns. If there is a match, the app green-lights
or red flags the product.

Buycott is by no means the first mobile app to promote activism through boycotting or buying something. But
it’s apparently the first one aiming to remain neutral and giving
the users the choice of which cause they want to champion. At the
moment the most popular campaigns denounce the conservative
businessmen Charles and David Koch and promote GMO labeling, with
both sporting more than 20,000 supporters, but there is no reason
why opposite campaigns wouldn’t become popular too. Campaigns for
opposing goals do exist even now.

“I don’t want to push any single point of view with the
app,” Ivan Pardo, the man behind it, told Forbes. “For me,
it was critical to allow users to create campaigns because I don’t
think it’s Buycott’s role to tell people what to buy. We simply
want to provide a platform that empowers consumers to make
well-informed purchasing decisions.”

The Los Angeles-based 26-year-old freelance programmer spent the
last 16 months to develop the app. It debuted in iTunes and Google
play in early May, but since then the Android version had been
suspended, because Buycott was caught unprepared for the sudden
popularity and the technical difficulties it cause.

“I simply didn’t set up the servers to be prepared to handle 10+
new users every second. I was expecting a more manageable rise,”
Pardo explained

Apart from managing the workload on servers and fixing glitches
the company is busy updating its corporate database. The multitier
ownership structure is quite intricate, and some brands do not
quite link to their parent companies at the moment. They are also
asking users to give info on products that are missing in their
database.

This article originally appeared on : RT

File photo shows a US-made unarmed Reaper surveillance drone.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Activists rallying on the fourth anniversary of Sean Riggâ„¢s death on August 21, 2012

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Dave Bohon
New American
May 18, 2013

As the White House announced May 15 that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would resign in the wake of revelations that the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, news has surfaced that the tax-exempt status of prominent Christian organizations had also been targeted.

Fox News reported that while President Obama announced the resignation of Miller, what he conveniently left out was the fact that, according to an official close to Miller, the IRS head was “set to resign the position of acting commissioner as of early June.” The anonymous official told Fox that Miller was planning to leave the IRS entirely a “couple of months later, regardless of the current controversy.”

Fox reported that the convenient way in which Miller was being ousted was “not mentioned by the president as he announced Wednesday evening Miller was resigning. Obama spoke following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other top department officials in which they reviewed a highly critical inspector general’s report on the practice. The report concluded poor management allowed agents to improperly target Tea Party and other groups for more than 18 months, starting in 2010.”

In his statement Obama declared that “Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it.” The president claimed that his administration would enact “new safeguards to make sure that this kind of behavior cannot happen again.”

Even as the president was assuring the American people, more revelations were coming out about the extent of the targeting of organizations that could be broadly categorized as opposing the Obama agenda. Among the organizations the IRS investigated and audited were the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and the 180-year-old Baptist newspaper the Biblical Recorder, published by the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. The IRS reportedly also targeted the humanitarian relief group Samaritan’s Purse. Both it and the BGEA are run by Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelical preacher Billy Graham.

In the run-up to last year’s presidential election, the BGEA took out ads in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers encouraging Christians to vote in line with biblical values. Shortly after the ads were published, both the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse were notified that they were being audited by the IRS.

On May 14 Franklin Graham shot off a letter to President Obama concerning the targeting of the organizations he oversees, telling the president that he believes “someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’” Added Graham: “I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence – or justifiable.”

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for the BGEA, told Fox News that it was the first time the ministry had been audited in its then 62-year history. “These certainly appear to be politically motivated since the ministry had run some newspaper ads – not mentioning any candidates – simply urging people to vote for candidates with biblical values,” DeMoss said.

The Baptist Biblical Recorder appears to have been targeted because of a now-famous interview it ran with with the Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy in which Cathy boldly spoke out in favor of traditional marriage and families. In the interview Cathy said that he and his fast-food chain were “guilty as charged” in their support “of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

The comments enraged homosexual activists, who saw it as a direct challenge to their militant efforts to normalize homosexuality and same-sex “marriage.”

Shortly after the interview was published, the paper’s editor, Allan Blume, began getting phone calls from the IRS. He told Fox News that the calls definitely “raised some red flags and made me wonder why we were being targeted for an audit when we have been around since 1833 and have never been audited before. Putting it all together made me wonder.”

Blume said the timing of the investigation, right after the Cathy interview as well as the paper’s running of the BGEA ads, appeared to be more than just coincidence. “There seems to be a very anti-Christian bias that has flowed into a lot of government agencies,” he told Fox News, “oppression literally against Christian organizations and groups. It makes you wonder what’s going on.”

He added that while the paper was eventually given a clean bill by the IRS, the whole investigation represented “a lot of time and energy that we didn’t have. It took some of our staff literally several weeks of doing nothing but that [audit].”

Similarly, both the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse were cleared by the tax bureaucracy, but, as Franklin Graham pointedly explained to Obama, the cost was great to both organizations. “Unfortunately, while these audits not only wasted taxpayer money, they wasted money contributed by donors for ministry purposes,” wrote Graham, “as we had to spend precious resources servicing the IRS agents in our offices.”

Graham ended his letter by asking Obama to make things right. “Mr. President, the IRS has already publicly acknowledged it operated in a less than neutral and non-partisan way,” Graham wrote. “We also now know that the target of their improper actions was much wider than political or Tea Party organizations. Will you take some immediate action to reassure Americans we are not in a new chapter of American history – repressive government rule?”

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:39 am

Tags: government corruption

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Fox News
May 18, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service allegedly told two pro-life to reveal the content of their prayers and prayer meetings, according to the Thomas More Society.

An IRS office in California ordered Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County, Texas to explain the content of prayers “as if they were engaging in highly offensive or criminal behavior,” the Thomas More Society charged.

Agents also ordered Coalition for Life of Iowa to provide detailed information about the group’s prayer meetings.

Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) demanded that outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller answer questions about the incidents during Friday’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing. “Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.’”

Shock wanted to know if that was an appropriate question for the IRS to ask.

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:40 am

Tags: government corruption

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Cease Fire
May 18, 2013

A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.

In a recent  book Classified Woman, Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI, describes how the Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001. Her memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia.

In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.

According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had been confirmed by senior Pentagon and MI6 officials as part of a four-part investigative series that were supposed to run in 2008. The Sunday Times journalists described how the story was inexplicably dropped under the pressure of undisclosed “interest groups”, which, they suggest, were associated with the U.S. State Department.

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:37 am

Tags: terrorism

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Christina Sarich
Prison planet.com
May 18, 2013

The laughable insistence by the Department of Agriculture this past Friday that it needs more time to look at the data for Monsanto and other biotech companies who are poisoning our food supply is further evidence that our government institutions are bought and paid for with corporate cash. And instead of keeping a watchful eye over the public’s food supply, it was recently detailed by Anthony Gucciardi how they specifically use our tax dollars to push Monsanto’s agenda.

As Dow pushes for its new corn called “Enlist” to be approved by regulatory bodies, the USDA is saying it needs ‘more time’ to conduct environmental studies. It will come down to a battle of the public’s insistence verses the coffers of mega-billionaire companies, and we will either see new GMO alternatives or regulatory action. It’s more than this one crop that hangs in the balance, though. Dow first wants to roll out Enlist corn, followed by soybeans and cotton to be used in combination with its new Enlist herbicide that combines the weed-killers 2,4-D and glyphosate.

Since the USDA seems to need some help in making their decision, let’s have a gander at just some of the studies coming out in the past months about the negative impact of GMO on the environment as well as our health. I encourage you to share this article with as many people as you can to get the word out, as well as March on Saturday, May 25^th in the March against Monsanto to help convince our government agencies that we’ve had enough of GMOs . Whether it’s from Monsanto, Dow, or anyone.

Here’s but some of the latest:

• The US Environmental Protection Agency has recently been slapped with a lawsuit because GMO agricultural practices and pesticide use is killing off our bees, a viral part of the ecosystem that helps to pollinate crops.
• GMO corn and the high fructose corn syrup which it is often used to make is killing us at staggering rates. Diabetes and cancer rates as well as obesity can all be traced back to GMO crops.
• The funky DNA in GMO crops is creating super bugs that then warrant more and more chemical fertilizers. When will it ever stop?
• GMOs are hiding in all kinds of foods since our government won’t support labeling, so the cereals you eat, the meals you dine on in restaurants, and even the ‘health’ food you consume is often laden with GMO.
• Organic farming can feed the world, even though we’ve been told otherwise.

The list goes on, ad infinitum. What other proof does the USDA need?

This post originally appeared at Natural Society

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:38 am

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Haaretz
May 18, 2013

Israel prefers the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria to continue than see a takeover of the country by rebel Islamist militants, The Times of London reported Friday, quoting an Israeli intelligence official.

“Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos, and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,” the official said, according to the report.

According to the Times, the senior intelligence officer in the north of Israel said a weakened but stable Syria under Assad is not only better for Israel but for the region as a whole.

Another defense official was quoted saying it is more likely than initially estimated that Assad will remain in power.

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:38 am

Tags: foreign affairs, terrorism, war

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Greg Campbell
Daily Caller
May 18, 2013

A consortium of plaintiffs led by 54 of Colorado’s 62 elected county sheriffs filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state Friday in an effort to overturn two new gun control bills that are set to go into effect on July 1.

The plaintiffs have in their sights one law that effectively bans all firearm magazines, and one that requires a background check for every gun transfer when the gun will be in the possession of someone other than the owner for more than 72 hours.

“On one hand, I’m proud to be part of this historic case,” said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, who spoke on behalf of 18 sheriffs who attended a press conference announcing the suit.

“But on the other hand, it saddens me that we have to be here at all,” he added. “It should never have gotten to this point in the first place.”

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 6:39 am

Tags: gun rights

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Presiding Judge, “he knew about everything that was going on and he did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it from being carried out.” US President Ronald Reagan also had the power, greater power, to stop the massacres being perpetrated by dictator General and President Ríos Montt.  Instead visited him in Guatemala City and praised Rios Montt as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment. Who was more guilty?

José Efraín Ríos Montt began his political and military career as a young officer taking part in the bloody successful CIA-organized coup against the first democratically elected president in Guatemalan history that was ordered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954. Two years earlier he had attended what peace activists call, the ‘US School for Assassins,’ namely, the long infamous School of the Americas.  He ended his career a few days ago, convicted of genocide by the Guatemalan court he once controlled as president and dictator.

Associate Press reported,

‘The three-judge panel essentially concluded that the massacres followed the same pattern, showing they had been planned, something that would not be possible without the approval of the military command, which Rios Montt headed. In delivering the verdict, Presiding Judge Yassmin Barrios said, “he knew about everything that was going on and he did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it from being carried out.” ‘

US President Ronald Reagan also had the power, greater power, to stop the massacres being perpetrated by dictator General and President Ríos Montt. Reagan must have been aware of them, known enough about them, and could have stopped those year-and-half-long massacres with far less effort than President Eisenhower had made in ordering the bloody and merciless overthrowing of a popularly elected president, a democratic president, who in making land reform, had gotten in the way of the massive United Fruit Company that owned more than half of Guatemala.[1] In the case of the President of Guatemala and in President Reagan’s case, there was no room for sentiment. It was just business.

Prosecutors argued that Ríos Montt oversaw the massacres of Mayan Indians when he ruled Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983. Ríos Montt held his great power as dictator of Guatemala for the financial and political and military backing he was receiving from US President Ronald Reagan’s administration, and the administrations of US presidents before him, all of whom represented the interests of the financial consensus that really rules in America.

Midway through the eighteen months of horrific massacres, December of 1982, President Ronald Reagan visited President-General Ríos Montt in Guatemala City and in a press release, praised the dictator,

“President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment….I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.”

These were the first years of President Ronald Reagan’s administration during which CIA was organizing, funding and overseeing the sickening terrorist attacks on rural areas of nearby Nicaragua from across the border of US ally Honduras, planning sabotage of industries and mining Nicaragua’s ports (which brought a US conviction by the International Court of Justice when Nicaragua sued in 1984). Reagan had let it be known he didn’t approve of the popular revolution that had overthrown a brutal thieving dictator whose father had been installed by the US Marines as they were ending their twenty-one year old occupation of Nicaragua ordered by President Woodrow Wilson.[2] In El Salvador, despite evidence that by 1984, 65,000 civilians had been murdered by the National Guard and right-wing paramilitary forces, President Reagan’s national Bipartisan Commission on Central America justified massive military support.

As yet, there has never been a trial in the United States of US officials and their financial backers for bribery, for CIA crimes like assassinations, promoting massacres, arranging destabilizing violence, for armed intervention or the treat of armed intervention in a foreign nation in peace time. Investigations, yes, but to this writers knowledge never a prosecution. After a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigated the CIA in the 1974, a bill was passed forbidding (future) assassinations of government officials. (American school books cite Admiral Perry’s 1854 ultimatum to the Japanese government to sign a treaty of commerce or see Yokohama reduces to ashes by his flotilla’s cannons, as Perry’s achievement ‘The Opening up of Japan’ .)

Once the US is no longer omnipotent, and Americans no longer enjoy immunity as an exceptional race, their crimes against humanity will be prosecuted as was the genocide committed by Ríos Montt, a loutish butcher employed by who and what everyone knows. Everyone! If one of Al Capone’s triggermen was on trial for murder, who was more importantly guilty, the triggerman, who was only one of the Mafia Don’s many triggermen convicted, or Mafia don Al Capone himself?

Eventually, if not sooner, given the fact that there is no time limitation on prosecution of genocide, and the coming inevitable restitution of logic and law in public affairs, one can expect prosecution of Americans, and not just Americans in high office serving that “financial element in the circles of power that has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson” as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt quipped to his friend Colonel House in 1932. (One might also like to recall that at the time FDR, in confidence, noted his secondary importance to that “financial element,” a tightly inclusive group of his of his friends and acquaintances and captains of industry and banking were, as a block, investing in the cheap labor of a financially prostate Nazi Germany and building its Wehrmacht up to number one military force in the world in full knowledge of Hitler’s plan for the Soviet Union and European Jews.)

If one confines oneself to researching the well published documentation of crimes against humanity during the administrations of the presidents that followed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the last American president, who, as an aristocrat, had some influence among his wealthy peers, it becomes very clear why eminent historian Prof. Noam Chomsky of M.I.T. can say over and over again, without provoking much negative outcry, “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.” Prof. Chomsky followed this statement with listing the crimes against humanity of each of these presidents he had condemned to the gallows, and has since occasionally updated the list to include subsequent new US presidents. A hard rain is going to fall in America one day.

But the conviction of Ríos Montt portends more immediate future prosecution of similar criminally traitorous servants of the last of the white world colonial powers that have overseen massacres and slower forms of death throughout the Americas and especially in Central America and Mexico. And they are innumerable, so great is the reach of the corporatist government of the US superpower run by automaton legal thieves incapable of factoring death and misery, even deaths of children, into their mindless calculator-machine-like adherence to capital accumulation by the commodification of planet and life on Earth. (Two popular American axioms come to mind: ‘Business is business’ and ‘good guys don’t win ball games.’)

Those known for direct and immediate forms of genocide in the name of maintaining the maximum profitability of US and European predatory investments, are mentioned in encyclopedias and honest history books,

e.g., Fulgencio Batista of Cuba, General Humberto Branco of Brazil, Raoul Cedras, Duvalier, Francois, Duvalier, Jean Claude of Haiti, Vinicio Cerezo and Ríos Montt of Guatemala, Roberto Suazo Cordova of Honduras, Alfredo Christiani of El Salvador, General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez of El Salvador, General Manuel Noriega of Panama, General Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Anastasio Somoza Sr. and Anastasio Somoza Jr. of Nicaragua, General Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, General Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina, just to mention those who made themselves notorious by being responsible for mass murder.

The list of thugs inflated in importance to infamous lethal monsters created by the United States and allied colonial powers in Africa and Asia is more than twice as long as the one for Latin America. For every one of these household names of horror from immediate genocide through the use of military or paramilitary, there are dozens of local presidents in the nations that make up the non-white majority mankind, that have arisen from the comprador class or military. They have represented their own people only nominally, while enforcing the infinitely broader in victims slow genocide of starvation and years of life lost from early death through malnutrition, treatable deceases, infant mortality and the mortality within all age groups, that results from populations having lost control natural resources needed to sustain life. The lands, natural resources and human resources of this majority of Mankind have for centuries  belonged to the plundering speculating investors of the First World, by internationally recognized ‘colonial law’ enforced by firepower.

Because the convictions of Presidents and Generals Ríos Montt, Pinochet, and Videla impact Latin Americans more, we can focus on how these convictions will spread consciousness of the slow genocide caused by the parasitical economic hegemony of the US over the nearly six hundred million human beings living south of the US-Mexican border. Mexico and Haiti, perhaps for proximity to the Yankee trader in lives of human beings, have suffered far and away the most from a merciless economic subjugation of their populations by the world’s single superpower.

The most recent tragic and enormous loss of life in Haiti, a slow genocide, was recently officiously apologized for by ex-Presidetn Bill Clinton claiming he meant well in turning Haiti over to agro-exploitation by the US business world. As  U.N. special envoy to Haiti — he publicly apologized for championing policies that destroyed Haiti’s rice production.  Clinton in the mid-1990s had ‘encouraged’ (read ‘forced’) the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice. “It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. “I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

Mexicans suffered the third massive crime of the United States in history: invasion and appropriation of half of its country at the point of guns and cannons.  And since then Mexicans have witnessed the remaining half of their country occupied and exploited by the American world of business, with the cooperation of Mexico’s wealthy and managed elections. (The first being the enslavement and murder of Africans, the second, the murderous subjugation and theft of the lands of the Native nations of America.)

Quoting from a study made by a distinguished Mexican writer and journalist, Gustavo Esteva:

“For some time now the social fabric and soul of Mexico has been torn away. One third of Mexicans are actually living outside of the country —one of the greatest migrations in history. Since the signing of the NAFTA agreement, 20 million Mexican citizens have emigrated, the majority of them, to the United States and Canada, but some to countries as distant as Japan. Most of them are trying to escape from unbearable conditions in their place of origin or to support their families and communities from abroad. (The amount of remittances to Mexico, 22 billion dollars per year, is the second most important source of foreign income for Mexico, after oil).

Mexico no longer operates under a state of law. The violation of human rights, especially rights of some fifty ethnic groups, is a constant. There is also continual persecution of human rights activists, environmentalists, journalists, and particularly, those struggling for social change. There is a regression of democracy, a structural “deviation of power,” and the co-optation of the law by distinct corporatist factions. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights defined this as “the use of the powers of the State to persecute and hinder the civil rights of the people.” …  According to Amnesty International, the torture practiced by Mexican security forces is a “generalized and systematic” practice that in recent years has “reached scandalous levels.” Impunity for these sadistic acts of violence, or human rights violations is practically absolute.

More than 60 million Mexicans (of 115 million total) are living below the poverty line. 50 million live with food insecurity, 12 million can’t afford basic or essential foods, 28 million are suffering from hunger, and 3 million face famine. [statistics from documentation gathered by the People’s Permanent Tribunal]

Policies that interfere the internal production of corn deteriorate the economy directly in the indigenous communities, and can be seen as one of the main factors determining migration. The attack on ancestral peasant farming systems, introduction of genetically altered variants and privatization of commons so crucial to native seeds devastates rural life and weakens communities.  For the invasion of peasant and indigenous territory for mega projects, mining operations, privatization of water, monoculture plantations, deforestation, and the expropriation of territory via programs for the mercantilization of nature, agro-ecological balance is lost;

The government through dispossession is trying to “clear” people off their communal lands, already given in 50-years concessions to private corporations. These lands occupy more than 30% of Mexico. The owners of the lands, mainly indigenous people are resisting. The Zapatistas poetically embody this resistance.

The pace of environmental destruction is unprecedented. Corrupt deregulation initiatives and massive land concessions handed over to private interests have greatly accelerated the environmental devastation, which in some cases, has resulted in irreversible damage. The air, water, soil/sub-soil, forests, beaches, rivers, lakes, and oceans, all have been subject to rape and degradation through the commodification of nature by corporations.

In short, since the 1990’s, Mexico has adopted, in a systemic and institutionalized way, policies and strategies that have produced a progressive decline in the living conditions of the Mexican people and in their possibility to access legal protection when their rights are violated. The government alienates its citizens and marginalizes the rights of the people in the name of macro-economic stability and in order to serve corporate or private interests in larger part those of American speculative investment banking.”

Convictions like that of Ríos Montt will help unmask the Washington-Wall Street domination of elections and hold over unscrupulous politicians not only to the degree of mass homicide, but a slower and greater genocide in Mexico and the many nations to its South.

Good people in general and activists in particular throughout the hemisphere recognize the economic occupation and terrorism by Uncle Sam and are calling for its prosecution as a crime against humanity. Cuba fought for, and got its freedom from economic occupation and slow genocide. Today Cubans enjoy a longevity even a bit higher than that in the US and a lower infant mortality rate than in US.

Americans of good conscience must condemn their nations economic occupation and economic terror in neighboring Mexico and elsewhere.

Forty-seven years ago Martin Luther King Jr. cried out,

“Look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the country. This is a role our nation has taken, … refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that comes from the immense profits of overseas investments. This is not just.” … The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.”

King said “purveyor” not cause, for he held America, Americans, in anguish including himself, responsible, because the American people are capable of making their economic and military criminal aggression no longer acceptable and inoperable through non-participation, non-support, non-acquiescence and conscientious objection.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

This week, we learned that the Obama Justice Department seized two months of records of at least 20 phone lines used by Associated Press reporters. These include phone lines in the AP’s New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn offices as well as the main AP number in the House of Representatives press gallery, the private phones and cell phones belonging to AP reporters and a fax line in one AP office.

The government effected this massive seizure “sometime this year” according to a letter from the Justice Department to AP’s chief counsel this past Friday (May 10).

The letter cites relevant “permission” clauses in its “investigative guidelines” and makes clear that it considers the action legal and necessary.

Locking Horns: AP’s Gary Pruitt and Attorney General Eric Holder

In many ways, this is the most blatant act of media information seizure in memory. It affects over 100 AP journalists and the countless people those journalists communicated with by phone during those two months. It violates accepted constitutional guarantees, the concept of freedom of the press and the privacy rights of literally thousands of people. Predictably and justifiably, press, politicians and activists have expressed outrage.

But as outrageous as the admitted facts are, the story’s larger implications are even more disturbing. It’s bad enough that the Obama Administration has grossly violated fundamental constitutional rights, acknowledged the violation and defended their legality. Even worse is that likelihood that the intrusion will probably be ruled legal, that it has been ongoing against other targets for some time and that this is only the tip of the intelligence-abuse iceberg.

The facts are still tumbling out daily but here’s what we know. While the Justice Department’s letter of notice to AP didn’t provide the reason for the seizure, the date of the seizure or the dates of the data seized, the timing hints strongly that this is tied to a major investigation of “whistle-blowing”. Last year, the AP used unnamed sources in a story about a Central Intelligence Agency effort to disrupt a Yemen-based terrorist plot to bomb an airliner. The AP, at the government’s request, held that story for several days but published it on May 7, 2012 after it was confident the plot had been foiled. Because the AP’s story ran a day before Federal officials were scheduled to announce their “victory”, it’s logical to assume Associated Press honchos knew the government would be unhappy.

So they were probably not surprised that, led by the U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, federal investigators spent a year aggressively searching for the people who leaked the information. That’s vintage Obama. With six government “whistle-blowers” in jail or being prosecuted, federal law-enforcers have prosecuted twice as many whistle-blowers as all previous Administrations combined over the course of two and a quarter centuries. But until now, the media-savvy Obama people have been careful to restrain their pursuit of the corporate press, limiting confrontations to an occasional request or demand for one source revelation.

That’s why these revelations are so shocking to media professionals and advocates. As AP’s CEO Gary Pruitt told Attorney General Eric Holder in his letter of complaint this week , “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-months period, provide a road map to AP’s news gathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

There, in a nutshell, is the problem. For the corporate media, there is still such a concept as “no conceivable right to know”. Up to now, part of Obama’s information policy has been that mainstream media qualifies for First Amendment protection but “alternative” journalists and the news organizations they work for, as well as bloggers, activists, writers and others who work independently of major news organizations and who use the Internet as the free vehicle of communications it was invented to be have absolutely no protections. Since 2009, this government is known to have taken action against Internet activists and truth-tellers: seizing servers, email records and virtually all forms of on-line communications and then prosecuting people in over a dozen cases based on some of those seizures. There’s been very little action taken against the corporate press, which for its part has largely ignored or blacked out any reporting on the government attacks on its smaller media competitors.

This “favored status” commercial media has enjoyed has now been trashed. The “protected press” is as exposed as the rest of us. In answering Pruit’s letter, the Justice Department said as much. “We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation,” U.S. Attorney’s Machen spokesman William Miller explained, in a remark that went way beyond the traditional exemption for protecting lives. He added, “…we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws.”

In fact, there was no urgency involved in the government’s assault on AP’s news operation – the incident in question was over – and seizure of this kind of information has traditionally been allowed only if a court-ordered subpeona is issued, after the targeted media parties have had a chance to challenge the government intrusion in court. The courts, after all, constitute one of the protections of privacy and free speech we citizens have. Under our Constitution, the courts, not the government, are supposed to decide what is “the right balance,” as Miller put it.

Most of us lost those protections with the Patriot Act and the Justice Department’s updated guidelines which allow the government to engage in secret seizure if its investigators believe there is a real “security threat”. In fact, it is only required to announce that seizure when “it is determined that such notification will no longer pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” In other words, they can seize anything without a subpeona if they think they should seize it without a subpeona.

That I have learned personally and this is either a disclaimer or a claim to authenticity. Last year, the FBI snatched a server co-located at May First/People Link (my organization) from its location. We believe they were investigating some nut using anonymous servers (servers that don’t maintain records of who used them) to mail threatening emails to students at the University of Pittsburgh. We co-locate one such server for our colleagues at Rise-Up .

The AP case applies the suspension of our rights to the “established” media, finalizing a remarkably swift collapse of balance of power protections by removing the courts from the equation.

It’s a moment described in the famous Civil Rights Movement saying, quoted by Angela Davis: “If they come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you at night.” After years of chipping away (largely without protest or even acknowledgement from the mainstream corporate media), at the rights of what the Administration considers the most dangerous and uncontrollable information source – the Internet and the activists and independent journalists who thrive on it like Wikileaks or Mayfirst, the web hosting service I helped found – they’ve now knocked on the door of the mainstream media.

To get a feeling for how dangerous this is, all one must do is trace how these investigations unfold and visualize the investigative web that is developing.

First, they get the phone records. In this case, the phone companies apparently just gave it to them. Protestations that these include “only” phone numbers called and nothing else collapse upon careful examination. Seized cell phone records (and their logs of emails, websites visited and texts sent) are now in the Justice Department’s hands along with all the numbers called by over 100 reporters on 20 phone lines. Starting with the phone numbers called, investigators can then go to commercial email providers (like Google’s Gmail) and seek records of everyone who the reporters contacted. After all, they can now search the providers’ databases against the acquired names and phone numbers!

Email on AP’s servers wasn’t seized – that could never be done “secretly”. But some AP reporters probably use their non-company email as well and investigators can go after that. Internet providers are under enormous pressure to give up those records and many, like Google, will do so voluntarily upon official government request. They’ve already done it for the Chinese government to help it go after its critics.

So anybody who gets a phone call from one of the seized lines during this period can now be investigated more aggressively without subpeonas using the powers of investigation the government already has and information it has already gathered in secret from reporters who had promised them anonymity.

Where is the limit? Without a court hearing, there is none. If an AP reporter called your phone or emailed you from a targeted cell phone, the government now knows it and your phone number (and possibly email address) is now part of the investigation. That gathered information now includes your name, address, phone number, calls you received and calls you made. If they got to the email, all of that is theirs. No matter what those phone calls or email messages from your cell phone are about, they are a part of a government investigation into a major security leak.

Once you’re in the mix, the government can then declare you an investigation “target” and legally seize and read all your email and seize all the email of anybody your wrote. All of this activity is legally covered and, based on past government practice, can be done without informing you.

What’s more there are now indications that the government isn’t stopping there. According to the Washington Post, you don’t even need to be part of an investigation.

“Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications,” the Post reported in its extraordinary series on government intelligence. “The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases.”

The Guardian’s Glen Greenwald argues that such numbers are only possible if the government is recording every phone call, text and email being transmitted in this country. Several FBI whistle-blowers and former agents, he points out, have attested to that scope of activity.

To say you will be part of a prosecution or that the investigation would reach such lengths may, at this point, border on paranoia. But not long ago most of us would have considered paranoid the idea that such collection of data is even taking place. “Mass surveillance is the hallmark of a tyrannical political culture,” Greenwald wrote. To deny the danger in all this is to trust that the government won’t abuse this power or consider your completely legal activities to be dangerous.

Does the Obama Administration deserve that trust? Its stated position is that the government can collect and use any information of this type if there is a security reason to do so. The issue is what is a “security reason” and, since courts have been effectively removed from the process, that definition is completely in the hands of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, the FBI and the National Security Agency. If one of those agencies says you have no right to privacy, you don’t.

There are many people in this country working in opposition to the government. Many of them oppose policies and challenge laws. Many of them have relationships with similar activists in other countries and take up issues that affect those other countries. Should we really feel comfortable giving some government functionary the power to decide if our activities are “dangerous” or “pose a threat”? This is an Administration that has criminally charged Internet activists for violating terms of service agreements, smeared the reputations of countless legitimate activists in all kinds of movements and kept scores of people in Guantamo’s prison for years without charges, in most cases knowing and even conceding that they are innocent of any. Does that track record offer any assurance that they will be judicious and restrained with your information?

Should we trust them with the powers they have amassed? Clearly not, because, given the facts we already know, mistrust isn’t paranoia; it’s knowing the facts.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Former Iraqi oil minister Issam al-Jalabi says that although Iraq is an oil-rich country, it still imports petroleum products from abroad to meet its needs 10 years after the US-led invasion of the country.

Jalabi, an international energy expert, told Azzaman that annual imports of oil derivatives reached $6 billion a few years after the occupation.

He said the total spent by Iraqi governments on the import of oil derivatives and gas during the past 10 years is $30 billion.

Jalabi said that total could have paid for five or six giant refineries in Iraq. He said no new refineries have been constructed or are planned, adding that the government is still signing contracts to import oil derivatives.

He said this means that Iraq will spend another $30 million to import oil derivatives.

The former minister told Azzaman that corruption involved in the import of derivatives is the reason new refineries are not being built.

Jalabi said that former Iraqi oil minister and current Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, when summoned to parliament, told legislators that Iraq has reached self-sufficiency from derivatives, but that this was not true.

Jalabi spoke about oil derivatives in the context of the UN oil-for-food program instituted in 1995 and formally ended in 2010. Jalabi told Azzaman: “Despite the failure to adhere to the instructions of the oil-for-food program, which did not allow the export of derivatives, Iraq has since February 2003 exported four types of oil derivatives, including gasoline, gas oil, white and kerosene and liquefied gas through land to Turkey, Jordan and Syria, and by sea via the Arabian Gulf.”

He said Iraq became an importer of petroleum products beginning in June 2003.

Jalabi also said that until the end of last year, Iraq’s oil output did not did not match its pre-invasion production rates.

Jalabi said Iraq’s oil output before the invasion and during the implementation of the oil-for-food program reached 2.8 million barrels per day, and exports 2.4 million barrels per day, despite the blockade, international sanctions and the 1991 war. Production this year reached about 3 million barrels per day, of which 2.5 million barrels are exported.

He said no major oil pipelines have been built, except for two small ones from Basra to al-Faw. He said no new export capabilities have been provided except for two fleets at the Basra port in the third quarter of 2012.

Jalabi said the Iraqi oil sector is in a state of confusion in its refining and distribution sectors due to its failure to provide new refinement capabilities or improve the quality of derivatives.

He said that differences between the Ministry of Oil and companies in southern Iraq have surfaced. This, and its differences with the Kurdistan region, has forced the ministry to cut derivative production.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

[unable to retrieve full-text content]An earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale has struck the southern Iranian province of Hormuzgan.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Mere months after it emerged some 14.7 million pounds (US$22.4 million) was spent on gagging UK Health Service employees, a report has exposed 13 police forces across the country signed over 300 compromise agreements with staff, spending millions.

The gagging clauses are being widely used across UK police
forces, leading to concerns they are being used to ensure the
silence of police employees. This would prevent them from speaking
out over issues of public interest, according to a Freedom of
Information survey, reported in the Telegraph.

Stephen Barclay, a Conservative member of the Public Accounts
Committee, told the paper that the practice was “very
concerning,” going on to state that “these agreements have a
clear effect beyond those who sign them because other officers with
ambition will see what has happened to those who have concerns and
decide to stay silent.”

The 13 forces which responded to the requests for information were
only the ones which agreed to provide details, meaning the actual
number enforcing the confidentiality agreements is likely to be
significantly higher.

The Freedom of Information requests showed that some 200 officials
and civil servants put their name to compromise agreements over the
course of two years, costing some 14 million pounds. Additionally,
4,500 local authority workers entered similar arrangements.

Lancashire Constabulary had the highest incidence, reporting 34
signings. Surrey Police’s 28 agreements over the course of three
years have cost the taxpayer some 614,000 pounds.

Greater Manchester Police confirmed to the paper that 14
agreements had been signed in the past three years, with a further
17 being signed by Nothumbria Police.

London’s Metropolitan Police is also implicated, having gagged
230 of its police officers over a seven year period, with its
former head of human resources, Martin Tiplady, being handed
259,462 pounds after he put his name to one of the agreements. The
former commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson received 176,838 pounds in
a single payment: more than 1.8 times his annual salary.

James Patrick, a constable in the Metropolitan Police, was
investigated for gross misconduct and told not to use Twitter or
his blog last December, after he expressed concerns over the impact
of the cuts on the force.

“This is someone who has tried to raise his concerns through
the legitimate channels, but was not able to do so,” his lawyer
Karen Todner told the Guardian at the point of investigation.

“They are gagged in the NHS, arrested in our police forces
and blacklisted in many industries,” Cathy James, chief
executive of the charity Public Concern at Work told the Guardian
earlier this week, prompting calls for a review of legislation.

In the case of the NHS, potential whistleblowers have been
gagged, threatened and stopped from raising concerns pertaining to
patient safety.

Barclay told the Daily Mail earlier this year that NHS gagging
clauses were having “having a chilling effect on
whistleblowers,” saying that “hundreds of potential
whistleblowers may have been prevented from speaking out for fear
of legal action.” The former chief of United Lincolnshire
Hospitals Trust, Gary Walker, revealed in February that he received
a 500,000-pound ‘super gag’ in 2010. The money was offered in
exchange for keeping silent regarding his belief that his hospital
was a threat to patient safety.

This article originally appeared on : RT

Activists are to call for Israel sports boycott on UEFA annual congress in London on May 24, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Iranian presidential hopeful Kamran Baqeri Lankarani says he has no intention of stepping aside in favor of any other hopeful in Iranâ„¢s June presidential election.

Principlist Lankarani said that the central council of the Perseverance Front has picked him as the frontrunner hopeful for the June 24 vote.

He dismissed speculations that he has withdrawn his bid for presidency in favor of another member of the group, Saeed Jalili, who is the secretary of Iranâ„¢s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

A total of 686 hopefuls registered from May 7 to 11 for the Islamic Republicâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the hopefuls, approving or not approving them for official candidacy.

Guardian Council Spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said on Friday that the final list of candidates will be announced by May 21.

Lankarani also criticized some presidential hopefuls for raising the possibility of holding direct talks with the United States.

He said any compromise with Washington regarding Iranâ„¢s nuclear energy program will only bring shame and humiliation upon the nation.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Using the unfounded allegation as a pretext, the US and the EU have imposed illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran rejects the allegation over its nuclear energy activities, maintaining that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

SF/NN/HJL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

A North Korean vehicle carrying a new missile passes by during a mass military parade in Pyongyang to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, April 15, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Syriaâ„¢s Golan Heights can be liberated: Iran cmdr.

This file photo shows the line that separates Syria from the Israeli occupied lands on Golan Heights.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

A police officer stands guard outside a secondary school in Strasbourg, France, on May 17, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

May 16, 2013
 |

There’s so much that’s upside-down and ill-informed about the “IRS scandal” unfolding in Washington, starting with the fact that no one has pointed a finger at the people who created these abuses in the first place: senior political consultants and lawyers. And doesn’t anyone see the hypocrisy of the GOP for calling out the IRS for targeting groups (that lied about being charities) when that party has been targeting black and brown voters for years via every imaginable “voter-fraud” law?

It would be stunning if the current “scandal” led to an informed discussion about the lies and loopholes and campaign law-evading tactics used by both parties in the post- Citizens United era, where lawyers exploited legal ambiguities to run campaigns with little or no accountability. However, that’s not going to happen when too many of the politicians screaming scandal were elected using these dark money deceits.

Let’s go through some of the most maddening aspects of this evolving episode, with an eye to identifying the real scandal and the real culprits.

1. The IRS made mistakes with both parties. The scandal mongers have said that the IRS went too far in pressing Tea Party groups for information when applying for federal non-profit tax status. Lost in this fine print is a critical fact. As Bloomberg.com reported, IRS staffers sent the same questionaire to Democratic groups suspected of not being charities but political as well. So it’s not just an “attack” on Republicans.

2. The real issue is the IRS isn’t doing its job. On Wednesday, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse gave a speech in the Senate where he laid out the fictions used by political groups to masquarade as charities. He pointed out that industry groups–like PhRMA, the drug company lobby–file reports to IRS and Federal Election Commission filled with contradictory information about their political activities. “Making a material false statement to a federal agency is not just bad behavior, it’s a crime,” he said. But “the Department of Justice won’t prosecute false statements… unless the case has been referred by the IRS… [and] the IRS never makes a referral.” 

“So it is very wrong that the IRS required additional information from a number of organizations based on a screen incorporating their Tea Party orientation,” Whitehouse said. “Picking on the little guy is a pretty lousy thing to do; rolling over for the powerful and letting them file false statements is pretty lousy too.”

3. Team Obama’s hysterical overreactions. The adminstration’s reactions, from the president to Attorney General Eric Holder, have fed the hysteria and given the GOP a green light to turn the Tea Party into victims. Not only did the firing of the IRS acting director come prematurely, but Obama’s overreaction cements the notion that many local Tea Party groups–frequently funded by the Koch brothers–were entitled to be treated the same under tax law as the March of Dimes. Moreover, Holder’s statement that he was recusing himself while announcing the FBI investigation just picks another fight between the administration and congressional Republicans. What Obama could have done was take the risk of explaining how the system really works–what’s broken–and the solutions, even though he has been a beneficiary of it.

4. Charities are not political front groups. The question of who turned charities into political front groups has barely been discussed. The answer, of course, is the same as it always has been: election lawyers and campaign consultants who look for loopholes in the law so clients can run for office using any tactic with little or no accountability.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

File photo shows demonstrators marching during a protest against austerity measures in Italyâ„¢s capital, Rome.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

The German city of Hamburg likely avoided a major technological disaster on May 1, when a freighter ship caught fire. It had several tons of radioactive material and explosives among its cargo, it was revealed.

It took 200 firefighters working for several hours to douse the
fires on the Atlantic Cartier. The ship’s most visible cargo was
some 70 cars, 30 of which were damaged in the incident. But now it
was revealed that the vessel also had highly dangerous substances
on board as well, which posed the threat of radioactive
contamination to the area.

Fire broke out the ship several hours after it arrived in the
port of Hamburg. Three tugs and two fireboats were involved in
fighting with the blaze, as firefighters unloaded shipping
containers while cooling down the hull of the vessel with water.
The ship was seriously damaged by the fire and remains in
Hamburg.

The Atlantic Cartier was transporting around 9 tons of uranium
hexafluoride, a radioactive highly violate and toxic compound most
commonly used as an intermediate material in the production of
nuclear fuel. The vessel also had 180 tons of flammable ethanol and
4 tons of explosives at the time the fire broke out.

The news of the averted disaster in Hamburg was broken by the
opposition Green Party. It criticized the city authorities for not
reporting the full details of the incident on its own
initiative.

“It is an outrage that the Senate has not informed the public
about this near catastrophe,” Greens’ member of the Hamburg
parliament Anjes Tjarks said. “Here one must speak of a
cover-up.”

The city responded by saying that the firefighters were informed
of the dangerous nature of the cargo promptly, which is the reason
why the containers in question were quickly removed from the
ship.

“Thanks to the quick intervention, the harbor and the people
in the area suffered from no hazard,” said city spokesman Frank
Reschreiter. “There was no leak of the dangerous
material.”

Hamburg regularly receives shipments of radioactive material,
German media report. It is a convenient transit point to deliver
them to the uranium-enriching facility in Lingen, Lower Saxony.

This article originally appeared on : RT

ËœHackers attack Saudi govt. websitesâ„¢

Several government Internet sites have come under “coordinated and simultaneous” cyber attacks.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will leave Tehran for Thailand to attend a summit on water security and the water-related threats of climate change.

Heading a delegation, the Iranian chief executive will set off for the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai on Sunday to participate in the 2nd Asia-Pacific Water Summit (APWS), Fars news agency reported.

Iranâ„¢s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Head of the Iranian Department of Environment Mohammad Javad Mohammadizadeh will accompany the president during his trip.

The summit, organized by the Thai government, will mark another step forward in efforts by the leaders of the Asia-Pacific region to work in solidarity to identify and adopt solutions to water issues and challenges in the region.

The participants are scheduled to discuss the crucial issues of water security and water resources management under the guiding theme of Å“Water Security and Water-related Disaster Challenges: Leadership and Commitment.”

The forum is aimed at finding ways to facilitate interaction and networking among leaders of countries, intergovernmental organizations, and the business sector within and outside the Asia-Pacific region concerned with water security and water-related disaster challenges in the region.

SF/NN/HJL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Afghan policemen inspect the site of a car bombing in front of the police chief’s office in the southern city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province on July 31, 2011.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

A number of various nomadic handicrafts has been showcased during an exhibition mounted in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Press TV has reported.

Many nomad artists and carpet weavers from 23 Iranian provinces have flocked to the exhibition to showcase their art works.

The 10-day event displays nomadsâ„¢ sculptures, clothes, hand-woven baskets, rugs and carpets.

Nomadâ„¢s materials for weaving carpets and rugs are natural and provided by their own animals.

As the most beautiful oriental carpets in history, Persian carpets are famous for their intricately detailed design which is characteristic of all Iranian art.

Persian carpets have been inspired by geometric patterns and natural scenes of animal and plant wildlife.

Iran has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world and their lifestyle has become an inseparable part of the countryâ„¢s culture.

Iran is also home to one of the world’s oldest civilizations as well as having its first dynasty established in 2800 BCE.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The top general in the US Armed Forces says Washington is facing a crisis due to the rising number of sexual assaults in the country’s military.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Ryan Fogle (shown) sits during detention at Russia Federal Security Services, May 13, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

An earthquake with a magnitude measured at 5.9 by Japan’s Meteorological Agency has struck the northeast of the country. The epicenter was close to the Fukushima coast and only 200km from Tokyo, causing buildings in the capital to shake.

The quake struck at 2:48 pm (05:48 GMT) in the Pacific Ocean,
approximately 50km (31 miles) from land. The United States
Geological Survey recorded the earthquake as being of magnitude
6.1, with a depth of 33km (20.5 miles).

No tsunami warning has been issued, despite the offshore quake’s
close proximity to Fukushima prefecture, where the magnitude 9.0
quake in March 2011 instigated the Tsunami, which led to the deaths
of at least 16,000 people and nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima
Daiichi plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s two nuclear plants in the prefecture
reported no immediate irregularities as a result of the quake,
according to the local Kyodo news agency.

Miyagi prefecture, further north, suffered the strongest impact
from the quake. No information has been released on potential
injuries. However, its Onagawa nuclear plant also recorded no
irregularities, according to its operator Tohoku Electric Power
Co.

“We have received no reports of damage so far,” an official
from Fukushima prefecture told AFP.

This article originally appeared on : RT

The death toll from rainstorms that battered southern China this week has reached 55 with at least 14 others missing, Chinese authorities say.

The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said Saturday that storms and flooding and landslides have hit at least nine provinces in the country since Tuesday.

It said Guangdong province was the hardest, with 36 deaths and 10 missing people, followed by Jiangxi province, where six people are reported dead and four more missing.

The Guangdong Provincial Flood Prevention and Drought Relief Headquarters have said that over 2,600 houses were destroyed and some 650,000 people in the province were affected by the heavy rains.

In July 2012, at least 12 people were killed and one went missing in flooding caused by torrential downpours which hit most areas of southwestern and northern China.

Twenty-four people lost their lives and 40 others were injured after torrential rains struck the Minxian county in China’s northwestern Gansu Province in May 2012.

MSH/HN

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

The photo shows Andrea Rebello in the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Iranian Minister of Industries, Mines and Trade Mehdi Ghazanfari says Iran and Bangladesh have agreed to triple bilateral trade over the next three years.

Å“It was decided that the current USD 100-million trade volume increase two- to three-fold in the next three years,” said the minister upon his return from a visit to Bangladesh on Friday.

Ghazanfari had travelled to Bangladesh to participate in the fifth meeting of the Iran-Bangladesh Joint Economic Commission.

The Iranian minister said that, during the discussions he had with Bangladeshi officials, several rail industry projects were assigned to Iranian contractors.

The two sides also had fruitful talks on commercial transactions through banking systems and barter, said the top official.

Under the agreements, a delegation of Bangladeshi merchants plan to meet Iranian businessmen in Tehran to explore ways of exchanging goods, Ghazanfari further said.

It was also agreed that a delegation of Bangladeshi petroleum experts hold meetings with Iranian Oil Ministry officials to discuss mutual transactions in oil, gas and petrochemical industries, he pointed out.

ASH/NN/HJL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

This frame grab from a video released by Fox News showing Israeli special forces on a mission inside the Syrian soil.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

This article originally appeared on : RT

France has planned to keep a military presence in Mali indefinitely, the countryâ„¢s defense minister says.

Franceâ„¢s Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian made the comment as he was speaking at a US think-tank in Washington DC on Friday.

This comes two days after Le Drian told London that her country would keep 1,000 troops in Mali for an “undetermined period.”

Meanwhile, French media have reported that France will purchase two medium-altitude Reaper drones from the United States, for use in Mali.

France launched a war in Mali on January 11, 2013 under the pretext of halting the advance of rebel fighters in the country.

The French-led war in Mali has caused a serious humanitarian crisis in the northern areas of the country and has displaced thousands of people, who now live in deplorable conditions.

On February 1, Amnesty International said Å“serious human rights breaches” — including the killing of children — were occurring in the French war in Mali.

Franceâ„¢s Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reaffirmed in April that the country would keep 1,000 troops in Mali even after the arrival of over 12,000 UN peacekeepers later this year.

Some political analysts believe that Maliâ„¢s abandoned natural resources, including gold and uranium reserves, could be one of the reasons behind the French war.

MSH/HN

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Argentine-French actress Bérénice Bejo (L) and Iranian actor Ali Mosaffa in a scene from ˜The Past™

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

May 6, 2013
 |

The following is an excerpt from Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner’s new book, “Clash!: 8 Cultural Conflicts That Make Us Who We Are” (Hudson Street Press, 2013).

The conservative Protestants vying for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination left many mainline Protestants wondering what had happened to their religion, not to mention their country. For most of the United States’ history, science had been the helpmate of Protestants, who viewed it as a gift from God to help them learn about their world and make more pious choices. Those years of persecution back in Europe had also impressed upon them the benefits of building a high wall between religion and government.

Yet here was Ron Paul, a Southern Baptist, rejecting evolution as just “a theory.” Rick Perry, who attends a Southern Baptist church, similarly told a schoolboy that evolution is “a theory that is out there– and it’s got some gaps.”3 Michele Bachmann, an evangelical Lutheran, dismissed not only evolution, but also climate change, calling it “voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax.”4 Rick Santorum, a conservative Catholic with a stalwart conservative Protestant following, also called climate change “a hoax.” Mitt Romney, a Mormon, acknowledged that the weather is getting weird, but wondered whether humans were causing the change. And though he sometimes seems to believe in both climate change and evolution, Newt Gingrich, an evangelical Lutheran turned Southern Baptist now Catholic, nevertheless betrayed the scientific community by implying that researchers kill children for stem cell research.

Meanwhile, conservative Protestants were wondering what had happened to their religion and their country. Unlike their mainline brethren, conservative Protestants consider the Bible the inerrant word of God, seek “born again” experiences that bring them closer to that God, aim to convert other people, and think that religious teachings should guide daily life, including education and politics. 8 Understanding the United States to be “one nation, under God,” these Americans want their laws to reflect Christian values and beliefs, rather than scientific findings and theories. Yet here was their president saying that two men should be able to legally wed, even though the Bible often does not smile upon such configurations. Here was a Supreme Court upholding abortion, even though the Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill.” And here were legions of lawmakers enforcing the separation of religion and government, following in the footsteps of America’s only Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, who said, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” Santorum reported that when he first read these words, he “almost threw up.”

How is it that the two sides of the Protestant coin are now diametrically opposed? At the heart of their acrimony, we see yet another clash between in dependence and interdependence. Although both groups sail under the Protestant flag, their culture cycles make and mirror decidedly different selves. On the one hand, the group that came to be known as mainline Protestants were the original independent selves in the United States. Firing up the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth- century Germany, their ancestors ditched the popes and priests of the Catholic Church in favor of direct relationships with a personal god. (See chapter 2 for more about the Protestant Reformation.) The Puritans brought their zest for independence with them when they settled the United States, where they formed the first of the mainline Protestant branches, which now include the Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Anglican/ Episcopal churches. For some four centuries, mainline Protestant groups were the most popular religions in the country, and now claim some 18.1 percent of the population.

On the other hand, the sects that came to make up conservative Protestantism took a turn for interdependence. In the conservative Protestant tent you’ll find evangelical and fundamentalist groups such as the Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, Church of God in Christ, and Pentecostal churches. Compared with their mainline counterparts, these interdependent selves have a greater yen for warm family relations, tight community bonds, clear social hierarchies, and traditional moral codes. Conservative Protestants also want more God in their lives, more of the time, than do mainline Protestants. Their God is the kind of deity you want to have around. As anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann relates in her book When God Talks Back, He is “a deeply human, even vulnerable God who loves us unconditionally and wants nothing more than to be our friend, our best friend, as loving and personal and responsive as a best friend in America should be.” The conservative Protestant relationship with this God is not like the distant, abstract ties that many mainline Protestants maintain with their God. Instead, it is “the free and easy companionship of two boys swinging their feet on a bridge over a stream.” But just as conservative fathers both hug and spank their children more than mainline fathers,17 the conservative God is at once warmer and more wrathful than the mainline God. In their book America’s Four Gods, sociologists Paul Froese and Christopher Bader recount that many conservative Protestants think of their God as angrier and more punishing, while many mainline Protestants conceive of their deity as more benevolent and forgiving. The conservative God uses his stormy side for interdependent ends, keeping His flock from wandering too far from traditional roles and rules.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 14, 2013
 |

You might be familiar with Reefer Madness , the drug war film from the 1930s that has become a cult classic because of its over-the-top scare tactics about marijuana. Generations have laughed at the film’s cartoonish hysteria, with young students portrayed committing acts of violent lunacy after smoking a joint with their friends. Rather than educating young people about marijuana, Reefer Madness is widely seen as the epitome of unreliable and exaggerated propaganda.

The District of Columbia’s Department of Health seems to have a taken a page directly from Reefer Madness for its new advertising campaign, suggesting a synthetic form of marijuana known as “K2” or ”Spice” will turn people who use it into “zombies.” The ads recently made their debut on the DC Metro, and are wacky enough to look like a parody. Teenagers — presumably under the influence and grotesquely made up to look like “Walking Dead” extras — pose in various stages of decay with captions like “No One Wants to Take a Zombie to the Prom.” Seriously?

Just about everyone agrees that teenagers should be discouraged from taking drugs and warned about potential health risks. But decades of exaggerated claims and egg frying commercials have taught us that wild and fictitious notions about drugs do very little to generate confidence, trust and safety among young people. Research by the Government Accountability Office, in fact, has found that these sorts of tactics are ineffective at reducing teen drug use rates.

There may be legitimate health concerns associated with synthetic marijuana, a chemical compound created to imitate the still-prohibited plant. Like any drug, “fake weed” should be carefully studied to better understand its effect on humans, and regulated accordingly. Giving teens access to information grounded in science and health is a much more sensible alternative to preparing them for the zombie apocalypse.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 15, 2013
 |

The new “Punk: Chaos to Couture” exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is sort of like its very own Costume Institute Gala co-chair, Rooney Mara. You know: the type who’d sport some fake tattoos, a new haircut, a blank look, and pretend to be a hacker anarchist within the glamorous context of cinema, when in actuality her family owns the New York Giants and she’s probably never dipped so much as a pinkie toe into the Pirate Bay to acquire what she can’t afford to buy, let alone honed her skills to hack it like Anonymous.

And that’s what this exhibit at the Met is: “punk” for people who never had to safety pin anything themselves. Perhaps this fashion spectacle is what Guy Debord–famed Situationist thinker and influence on Malcolm McLaren in his molding of the punk movement–was talking about all along: a world of spectacle where “all that was once directly lived has become mere representation.” We’ve come to the Met to see “Clothes for Heroes,” as promised on the door of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s 1970s London shop at 430 King’s Road, but what we get are clothes for rich people. Really stunning ones, though.

At the entrance of the exhibit, we are presented with a confrontation: one mannequin, clad in revolutionary-red bondage pants–a staple of the Westwood/McLaren shop in the 1970s–faces off with a second mannequin in head-to-toe glitzy Dior from the 2006-2007 collection. The Westwood/McLaren mannequin gestures lewdly at her Dior adversary. The audio is the Sex Pistols versus Rossini. Clearly, this means war.

This confrontation between ’70s punk and modern couture sets the tone for the displays that follow, and it’s worth noting that throughout the exhibit, pre-runway Westwood/McLaren ensembles are the sole examples of punk’s “then” in the then-now comparison, or I suppose the “Chaos” part of “Chaos to Couture.” There is no display of actual DIY clothing from actual punk individuals of the late 1970s to represent the bulk of punk’s adherents, who existed outside of the fashion business. The works of these nameless creators might have stood in sharper contrast to the inventions of the couture fashion houses that adopted punk’s DIY ideas and spun them out, but this exhibit prefers to compare fashion with fashion.

While Westwood and McLaren started out clothing punk rock’s brightest stars, instead of runway models and social elites, they were marketing what was, and still is, a fashion business. There was little chaos about it; in fact, their marketing seems to have been pretty direct when you consider that the style and aesthetic of the clothing, as well as the careers of some of the punk rock stars who wore the clothing, were both under McLaren’s management.  

So “Chaos,” as it is applied to this exhibit, is a misnomer. To confuse the alternative marketing strategy employed by Westwood and McLaren with chaos is like confusing anarchy itself with chaos, when in fact, the lack of formal government does not mean the same thing as chaos, or disorder, at all. Even Guy Debord and the original Situationists, from which Malcolm McLaren derived much of his inspiration as the impresario of punk, were not proponents of chaos. And McLaren, as impresario, by definition and by his actions was an organizer of spectacle, not a disorganizer of it. One man’s disruption is his seditionary’s well-strategized plan, and for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, the SEX/Seditionaries shop was always a boutique business with a street look. Those vintage Westwood duds in the exhibit’s main room have silk fringe and mohair knits. Boutique to Couture: this is the real comparison. And there’s nothing wrong with that, so why not call it what it is?

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 16, 2013
 |

In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain and France famously created the modern Middle East by carving up what had been the Ottoman Empire. The borders of new states such as Iraq and Syria were determined in keeping with British and French needs and interests. The wishes of local inhabitants were largely ignored.

Now, for the first time in over 90 years, the whole postwar settlement in the region is coming unstuck. External frontiers are no longer the impassable barriers they were until recently, while internal dividing lines are becoming as complicated to cross as international frontiers.

In Syria, the government no longer controls many crossing points into Turkey and Iraq. Syrian rebels advance and retreat without hindrance across their country’s international borders, while Shia and Sunni fighters from Lebanon increasingly fight on opposing sides in Syria. The Israelis bomb Syria at will. Of course, the movements of guerrilla bands in the midst of a civil war do not necessarily mean that the state is finally disintegrating. But the permeability of its borders suggests that whoever comes out as the winner of the Syrian civil war will rule a weak state scarcely capable of defending itself.

The same process is at work in Iraq. The so-called trigger line dividing Kurdish-controlled territory in the north from the rest of Iraq is more and more like a frontier defended on both sides by armed force. Baghdad infuriated the Kurds last year by setting up the Dijla (Tigris) Operations Command, which threatened to enforce central military control over areas disputed between Kurds and Arabs.

Dividing lines got more complicated in Iraq after the Hawaijah massacre on 23 April left at least 44 Sunni Arab protesters dead. This came after four months of massive but peaceful Sunni protests against discrimination and persecution. The result of this ever-deeper rift between the Sunni and the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is that Iraqi troops in Sunni-majority areas behave like an occupation army. At night, they abandon isolated outposts so they can concentrate forces in defensible positions. Iraqi government control in the northern half of the country is becoming ever more tenuous.

Does it really matter to the rest of the world who fights whom in the impoverished country towns of the Syrian interior or in the plains and mountains of Kurdistan? The lesson of the last few thousand years is that it matters a great deal. The region between Syria’s Mediterranean coast and the western frontier of Iran has traditionally been a zone where empires collide. Maps of the area are littered with the names of battlefields where Romans fought against Parthians, Ottomans against Safavids, and British against Turks.

It is interesting but chilling to see the carelessness with which the British and French divided up this area under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The British were to control the provinces of Baghdad and Basra and have influence further north. The French were to hold south-east Turkey and northern Syria and the province of Mosul, believed to contain oil. It turned out, however, that British generosity over Mosul was due to Britain having promised eastern Turkey to Tsarist Russia and thinking it would be useful to have a French cordon sanitaire between themselves and the Russian army.

Sykes-Picot reflected wartime priorities and was never implemented as such. The British promise to give Mosul to France became void with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and the Bolsheviks’ unsporting publication of Russia’s secret agreements with its former French and British allies. But in negotiations in 1918-19 leading up to the Treaty of Versailles, only the most perfunctory attention was given to the long-term effect of the distribution of the spoils.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 17, 2013
 |

A lot has happened in the last week. The Earth hit the 400 parts per million CO2 threshold for the first time in human history. Scientists tell us this is bad news if we want to prevent runaway climate change. “If we continue to burn fossil fuels at accelerating rates, if we continue with business as usual, we will cross the 450 parts per million limit in a matter of maybe a couple decades,” scientist Michael Mann told Democracy Now! “We believe that with that amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, we commit to what can truly be described as dangerous and irreversible changes in our climate.”

If you didn’t know this already, we should be listening to Mann and to other scientists. I thought this was settled a long time ago, but someone keeps giving print space to climate deniers, so a new survey of 12,000 peer-reviewed studies on the climate was just completed and the not-so-shocking conclusion was this, as Mother Nature Network reports: 

Published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the analysis shows an overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that humans are a key contributor to climate change, while a “vanishingly small proportion” defy this consensus. Most of the climate papers didn’t specifically address humanity’s involvement — likely because it’s considered a given in scientific circles, the survey’s authors point out — but of the 4,014 that did, 3,896 shared the mainstream outlook that people are largely to blame.

In light of this news, it makes it even more infuriating to see that the Obama administration has spent the week prostrating to the fossil fuel lobby. Here are four disturbing things the administration’s been up to.

1. Moniz Hearts Fracking

Obama tapped nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz to head the Energy Department and the Senate gave a big thumbs-up to Moniz on Thursday. Many environmental groups had concerns that Moniz was too pro-fracking, and those concerns are clearly warranted. Moniz’s first order of business Friday was to clear the way for 20 years of liquified natural gas exports via Freeport LNG Terminal on Quintana Island, Texas.

Of course, we’ve already been sold the story that we’re suposed to frack the crap out of the country in the name of energy security, but we knew all along it was for industry profit, right? Brad Jacobson recently detailed for AlterNet about how Congress members are clamoring for export plans to be fast-tracked — although what Americans will get out of the deal will be higher gas prices and less energy security.

2. Thanks for Nothing, Sally

While the nomination of Moniz disappointed many environmentalists, some were cheered by REI exec Sally Jewell taking over the Interior Department. Those same folks might not be cheering after Jewell announced the Bureau of Land Management’s newest regulations (or lack thereof) for fracking on our public lands.

As Sierra Club’s Michael Brune reported Friday:

The new rules are disappointing for many reasons: Drillers won’t be required to disclose what chemicals they’re using, there is no requirement for baseline water testing, and there are no setback requirements to govern how close to homes and schools drilling can happen. Once again, though, the policy documents an even bigger failure to grasp a fundamental principle: If we’re serious about the climate crisis, then the last thing we should be doing is opening up still more federal land to drilling and fracking for fossil fuels.

3. No Time for Farmers

The group Bold Nebraska reported this week that Obama turned down an invitation to hear from Nebraska farmers and ranchers about their concerns that the Keystone XL pipeline could destroy their livelihoods. Of course, the President is a busy guy, right? And besides, the White House said he was not “taking any meetings on the pipeline.”

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 17, 2013
 |

This article first a ppeared at Not Safe for Work Corporation.

There’s a rumor going around that the Koch brothers are interested in buying up the Tribune Company, which includes the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun… And there’s a lot of speculation about what would happen if they did.

Some worry, and rightly so, that the Kochs–whose combined wealth makes them the biggest billionaires on the planet–would integrate the Tribune Co. with the rest of their free-market thinktank-industrial complex, and turn its newly acquired news media property into a gigantic business propaganda machine. Half the reporters at the Los Angeles Times even took a vote saying they’d quit if the Kochs bought the paper.

Others are positively enthusiastic about the possible takeover. Slate’s Matthew Yglesias, for one, argued that “America would be better off for it” because the Kochs would spent lots of money building a better “conservative media product.”

But while the country’s media commentators busy themselves trying to predict what Koch ownership would mean for newspapers, many of them are overlooking one important fact: We already know. Because the Koch family has a long history of newspaper ownership.

The Kochs and newspapers go waaay back, right back to their grandfather Harry Koch (yep, that’s a real name), who emigrated to America from the Netherlands in 1888 and bought a newspaper in a podunk railroad town in North Texas called Quanah. With the power of the press behind him, ol’ Harry Koch went on to make a fortune for himself and his brood by aggressively rah-rahing on behalf of railroad and banking interests, fighting organized labor and savaging New Deal programs.

Not much is known is known about Harry Koch. Charles and David Koch don’t like to talk about him much. And when they do talk about Grandpa Harry, they don’t tell the truth. Like a lot of billionaires, they want the public to think they’re self-made, that they came from humble beginnings, and so they portray their grandpa as if he was a po’ immigrant who lived on the edge of poverty, barely scratching out an existence from his tiny newspaper business.

“The whole area was very poor and people didn’t have the money to pay for their subscriptions. So they would pay in produce or chickens or eggs,” Charles Koch recalled.

When I travelled to Quanah for the Texas Observer in 2011 to investigate the life of Harry Koch, and to understand the environment that spawned the most powerful brother-oligarchs of our time, I discovered that the truth is much more interesting than Charles’ tale. Quanah, Texas, is the world as Harry Koch made it, through his newspapers and railroad. His sons have been remarkably true to the Darwinian-capitalist views Harry ceaselessly proclaimed in his newspaper. So, if you want to know what the Koch brothers have in mind for our country, start by taking a look at the newspaper that their Grandpa Harry Koch ran.

***

Harry Koch was born in Holland in 1867 into a wealthy family that owned farmland, ran a linseed oil mill and operated a shipping business that ran sailboats between his seaside hometown of Workum, and Amsterdam. Harry Koch’s mother died when he was a child, and his father remarried a much younger woman–the daughter of a local banker–and had seven new kids with her.

Life at home didn’t satisfy young Harry. As soon as he turned 21, he emigrated to the United States, hoping to get in on the railroad boom of the late 19th C.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 17, 2013
 |

From BillMoyers.com: 

INTRO: Science can be a battleground – witness the politics of climate change, the teaching of evolution, the uncharted terrain of genetic modification and stem cell research, among other contentious issues. But when industries release untested chemicals into our environment – putting profits before public health – our children are the first to suffer. Nowhere is this more troubling than in the ongoing story of lead poisoning.

Bill talks with David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, public health historians who’ve been taking on the chemical industry for years – writing about the hazards of industrial pollution and the neglect of worker safety – despite industry efforts to undermine them. Their latest book,  Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children, is the culmination of 20 years of research. Markowitz and Rosner warn that, for young children, there’s no safe level of exposure to this dangerous toxin still lurking in millions of homes.

The authors discuss thwarted efforts to hold the lead industry accountable, failed attempts to find cheap solutions, and the cost to the future of our children. As long as the chemical industry and its powerful lobbies prevail in blocking efforts to reform outdated laws, Markowitz and Rosner say, we will continue to float in a soup of toxins – inhaling, drinking, and absorbing chemicals that we may learn, years later, have put us all in harm’s way.

***

BILL MOYERS: At the end of a week that reminded us to be ever vigilant about the dangers of government overreaching its authority, whether by the long arm of the IRS or the Justice Department, let’s pause to think about another threat, from too much private power over public policy.

All too often, instead of acting as a brake, government becomes the enabler of corporate power and greed, undermining the very rules and regulations intended to keep us safe.

Think of inadequate inspections of food and those infections which kill 3,000 Americans each year and make many millions sick. Think of the 85,000 industrial chemicals available today. Only a handful have been tested for safety. Think of the explosion of perhaps as much as half a million pounds of ammonium nitrate in that Texas fertilizer plant. People can die when government winks at bad corporate practices.

As long as there are insufficient checks and balances on big business and its powerful lobbies, you and I are at their mercy. Which is why their ability to buy off public officials is an assault on democracy and a threat to our lives and health. Keep that in mind as I introduce you to David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz.

Some years ago, their book, Deceit and Denial, told how the chemical industry tried to conceal the truth about untested and unregulated chemicals in our food, water, and air. Twenty companies responded with a vicious campaign to smear their reputations. That proved hard to do, actually, impossible.

Gerald Markowitz is a distinguished professor of history at both John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. David Rosner is co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University where he also teaches science and history.

This is their new book, which revisits a chemical menace you might have thought was behind us, but isn’t: Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children.

BILL MOYERS: Gerald Markowitz, David Rosner, welcome.

DAVID ROSNER: Thank you.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

May 17, 2013
 |

Here’s what the news reported: An area man murdered his former girlfriend in the upper-level apartment of his split-level home. He sat with her body for 20 to 40 minutes, then phoned the local police, claiming a complete mental breakdown. I don’t know what just happened, he said, but you need to come quick. He waited for police on the sidewalk with his hands behind his head, and officers lowered him into their squad car just past dawn without incident.

What they did not say is this: I was his close friend. He walked me home before it happened. Kevin Schaeffer liked pizza and history and music, and most especially the band Dr. Dog. He wanted to move away – to Nashville, to San Francisco – and in every memory I have of him, he wears a purple sweat shirt, one I’m not certain he even owned. He was president of the college radio station, a Dean’s Honors student, and a history major who also liked writing. He could draw a very convincing Rastafarian. The year prior, he’d attempted suicide by lining a bathtub with electronics, but returned to our college campus just five days later, where we assumed he was receiving treatment. He was not receiving treatment. He had been suffering from long-term, severe depression and suicidal ideation for over a year on the night he killed her, and yet our conversation was pleasant: We talked that night about the Badlands, canine rain boots, an upcoming potluck, a tie-dyed cake. I’d learned how to do it online, I told him – it just involved food dye and a little patience.

“That sounds amazing,” he said, nodding. “I’d eat that cake for sure.”

It was April of 2009, just four weeks before our graduation at Gettysburg College, and we were just 22. I never thought I’d know a murderer. Certainly Kevin never thought he’d be one. My biggest concern that night was packing: how in the world I’d fit a swivel chair into the back of my Toyota Camry.

“That’s easy,” Kevin had told me. “You just put it in on a diagonal.”

Then 12 hours passed, and I sat in my living room, watching “The Price Is Right” in my pajamas, while blocks north, police combed through Kevin’s apartment, stripped him of his possessions, and told him to look into the camera.

“Straight ahead,” they might have said, and then they pressed his inky finger to a pad of paper.

* * *

Kevin and I had been friends at that point for nearly four years, since the first week of freshmen year. Gettysburg College was a private school of just over 2,000 students, and it sat surrounded by the historic battlefields that had once served as the turning point of the Civil War. Forty-six thousand men died on the fields surrounding our private campus, but we ever only knew the college green, the library, an Irish bar, a Dairy Queen. That evening, we’d gone for drinks at a bar that had once been used as a makeshift hospital, but I only joked about the bodies: how undoubtedly their blood once soaked and permeated into the floors.

To me it was funny: the subtext of violence in everything. I couldn’t see the bodies or the men strapped to leather gurneys. I couldn’t hear their cries or the gunfire or the hulking cannons. I ordered a Bay Breeze with extra limes, and then Kevin walked me home.

So when the newspapers announced what happened, I sat down and wrote a letter. He was my friend and was now in prison; everything else seemed arbitrary.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the Washington-based Brookings Institution on Friday.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and presidential hopeful Saeed Jalili

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

French President Francois Hollande has signed into law a bill legalizing gay marriages and child adoption by same-sex couples, making France the 14th country to legalize same-sex marriages.

Hollande signed the bill on Saturday, a day after the Constitutional Council approved the bill through a ruling, rejecting a challenge by the right-wing opposition.

Å“I will ensure that the law applies across the whole territory, in full, and I will not accept any disruption of these marriages,” said Hollande.

Last month, the French parliament approved the bill after several days of stormy debates.

The bill was immediately challenged on constitutional grounds by main right-wing opposition UMP party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France has experienced huge protests against the same-sex marriage bill.

Late on Friday, between 200 and 300 protesters gathered in central Paris to condemn the ruling in favor of the bill by the Constitutional Council and calling on Hollande to resign.

The opponents of the law have planned another major protest rally in Paris on May 26.

French churches have also condemned the bill, calling gay marriages Å“a sham” that would Å“shake one of the foundations of our society.”

Hollande had promised to throw his weight behind the bill as the proposed legislation was one of his presidential campaign promises.

European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, and Denmark have also legalized same-sex marriages.

YH/HN/HJL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Bahraini demonstrators hold pictures of Bahraini senior Shia cleric Sheikh Issa Qassem during a protest against the regime and to show solidarity with the cleric in the village of Abu Saiba, west of Manama, on May 17, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving alleged suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings (file photo)

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Fifth intl. sculpture symposium wraps up in Tehran

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Iranâ„¢s Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei has urged a swift end to the violence and the breach of human rights against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

In a meeting with the ambassadors of the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Khazaei said suppression and violence against Muslims are taking place despite Myanmarâ„¢s claims of democratization and reform.

He criticized a lack of consensus and coordination among Muslim countries to adopt a resolution in condemnation of the atrocities against the Muslims in Myanmar, stressing the importance for Myanmarâ„¢s government to take effective measures to stop the violence.

Å“At a time when Muslim countries are concerned about the situation in Myanmar, the political whim of certain Western states to establish better relations with Myanmarâ„¢s government has weakened the process of looking into the situation of Muslims in the country, and Muslim countries, unfortunately, are not using all their means [to push for an end to the violence],” Khazaei said.

The Iranian envoy further stated that the silence and inaction of the international community have resulted in the further violation of the Muslimsâ„¢ rights in the Southeast Asian country.

He urged the UN General Assembly to hold a special meeting on Myanmar and pass a resolution to stop the brutalities against the Muslims.

He also called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to dispatch an independent fact-finding mission to Myanmar to probe human rights abuses and identify the perpetrators behind the acts of violence there.

The OIC countries should urge Myanmarâ„¢s government to arrest and punish the violators of human rights and the perpetrators of violence against the Muslims, he pointed out.

Rohingya Muslims have faced torture, neglect, and repression in Myanmar for many years.

About 800,000 Rohingyas in the western state of Rakhine are deprived of citizenship rights due to the policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of citizenship and made them vulnerable to acts of violence, persecution, expulsion, and displacement.

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands of others displaced in recent attacks by extremist Buddhists.

SF/NN/HJL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

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Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian

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This article originally appeared on : World Socialist Web Site

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Al Jazeera
May 17, 2013

Activists demanding the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison have marked the 100th day of a hunger strike there by submitting a petition to the White House containing some 370,000 signatures.

A group of activists wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods like those used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay gathered outside the White House on Friday to call for the immediate closure of the controversial jail.

“Immoral, illegal, ineffective,” a banner read.

Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said that “years of detention without charge or trial have created a sense of desperation and hopelessness among the men at Guantanamo, which has led over 100 of them to join a hunger strike”.

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

[unable to retrieve full-text content]French President Francois Hollande has signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriages and child adoption.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Britain should be a player in the EU, but can’t ‘cherry pick’ what part of Europe to take or to leave, Denis MacShane, former UK Minister for Europe told RT, as the debates of the nation’s membership in the union continue.

Addressing the euro skepticism growing throughout the UK,
British Prime Minister says he intends to let British citizens
decide if they want to be members of the EU in a vote in
2017. 

French President Francois Hollande, criticizing Britain’s
antipathy, reminded the UK that France, Germany and other nations
made up the European Economic Community (EEC) long before Britain
signed on fully in January 1973. 

“Europe existed before Britain joined it,” Hollande said
during a nearly three-hour press conference Thursday. 

MacShane stressed that the current EU is worse than a
“playground” with the way nations continue to blame each
other for the coalition’s troubles. 

No member state has ever left the EU, although the British did
hold a referendum on whether to continue their membership in 1975,
two years after the country’s initial entry into the collective.
Imminent structural change to the EU, spearheaded by France’s
Hollande, has reignited British debate over the country’s place in
the bloc.

RT: The French President had harsh words for
Britain… deserved, do you think?

Denis MacShane: I think you’d find a lot of British
politicians who’d agree with him, that Britain would be better off
outside of the European Union. And almost every day you see papers
writing here or go and listen to debates in the House of Commons
where people are lecturing the French and everybody else in Europe
on what to do. Sadly, the EU at the moment is a giant blame game,
finger pointing – ‘it’s you’, it’s not me, I’m the ‘good boy, I’m
going to get better!’ Brits blame the French, the French blame the
Germans, the Germans blame the Spanish. Frankly, playgrounds have
got more adults these days then the top leadership of
Europe.

RT: In the past you’ve called for Britain to join the
Eurozone – what’s your position on that now?

DM: We should be fully integrated. We have a heavily
devalued pound and yet the balance of trade, what we export, is
getting worse and worse. Either we should be properly in, or
perhaps, I’m coming to the conclusion and many people are in this
country, thanks to the kind of political leadership we’ve had in
the recent years, it’s likely we may decide to leave.  And
then Europe will be split asunder and every European country, not
just Britain will be much weaker as a result. 

RT: You’ve been an outspoken Europe-supporter for
years, are you actually supporting exit now?

DM: Not at all. I think Britain should be a player, we
can be a player. A lot of the points put forward by Mr. Cameron and
other British political leaders have a lot of good sense in them,
but I also think that points put forward by Mrs. Merkel and
François Hollande have sense – that Britain can’t ‘cherry pick,’
Britain can’t come in and say we take this little bit of Europe not
all the rest. We are moving after the catastrophe of the banking
crisis where the banks were run by all these people who destroyed
the economy in 2008 and we are still living with the disasters of
their incompetence. I think we should have more banking
supervision, what is called a banking union. I think Britain should
be part of that.

RT: In the past, you’ve said the Euro would not lead
to a European super-state – but doesn’t the European Central Bank
now having oversight over Eurozone banks contradict this?

DM: No, what I’m saying is that we need a much tougher
regulatory systems for banks. We’ve got them in place for trade. We
had them in place 60 years ago for the coal and steel industries of
Europe. Britain said no to that. It made no difference; it wasn’t
the arrival of a super state. What Europe needs, what we all need
around the world is to do away with tax havens, tax dodging, to do
away with people parking their money in London, Switzerland,
Luxemburg or whatever to dodge taxes – we need to have  much
tougher supervision. More broadly speaking, my country, Britain has
been going through 20 years of non-stop campaigning. We have just
seen the death of Mrs. Thatcher, she contributed to this, and Mr.
Cameron and all of the political leadership at the moment on the
conservative side are the children of Mrs. Thatcher.  And
they’ve been telling us for years that Europe is a terrible thing
with awful people and we have to do as little with it as possible.
Now, I think the British people are believing it and saying, ‘ok,
give us a vote, maybe we’ll leave the EU’. And France, Germany,
Poland and France are saying ‘ok, we’d rather you stay, but if you
really want to go — bye-bye!’

This article originally appeared on : RT

Two of America’s medium-altitude Reaper drones will be sold to France as backup for the country’s operations against Islamist rebels in Mali.

The news comes from the ‘Air et Cosmos’ specialist magazine,
which reported online that a deal had been reached between France
and the United States for the sale of two non-armed MQ-9 units.

The French air force had already deployed a European-made Harfang
drone to Mali, with the country now wishing to acquire more modern
models quickly, although any purchase of the US Reapers directly
from the manufacturer (as was done with Harfang) is expected to
delay delivery by seven months.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is presently on a visit
to the US, where he is expected to make the announcement, according
to Air et Cosmos. The defense ministry has declined to comment.

In a bid to curb the spread of extremism and Al Qaeda-linked
militants in the northern parts of its former colony, France
started a military operation in January of this year. The
anti-government Islamists had spread Sharia law everywhere they
went, and it is widely feared that if they are successful in Mali,
the country will become a hotspot for extremism and the launching
of terrorist attacks against European and other African
nations. 

French efforts have since pushed the militants into mountain and
desert hideouts. However, this changed the rules of the game in
such a way that they now launch sporadic guerrilla attacks.

Operation ‘Serval’ started with a deployment of 2,500 troops and
the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declaring on January 30
that they would be out of there “quickly”. Since that time, that
number has risen to 4,000, while the departure date had been moved
up. Currently, the idea is that half will leave by July, when Mali
holds their presidential election.

Although Paris has begun withdrawal from the West African nation,
ahead of the security handover to the International Mission for
Support to Mali (MISMA), Le Drian’s recent visit to London paints a
different picture, whereby 1,000 French troops will stay in Mali
indefinitely, in case further problems arise.

“This is the reason why France will remain with roughly 1,000
troops on Malian territory for an undetermined period of time to
carry out counter-terrorism operations if necessary,” said Le
Drian.

As the battle against extremism in Mali shows no signs of abating,
international donors have pledged €3.25bn to its rebuilding, as
currently the country is in a state of complete destitution.

This article originally appeared on : RT

A report has revealed that USD 88,000 worth of Israeli taxpayersâ„¢ money was spent in 2012 alone for the upkeep of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private seaside property.

According to the report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the luxurious property located in the exclusive Caesarea resort is used by Netanyahu only during holidays and some weekends.

Netanyahuâ„¢s controversial spending comes as a draft austerity budget was finalized by the Israeli regime and is set to go before its parliament.

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities on May 11 to protest against the painful austerity measures, which would raise income and value-added taxes and cut welfare benefits.

Public outcry against Tel Avivâ„¢s economic policies has been growing as reports surface about Netanyahuâ„¢s overspending on luxuries.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu spent USD 127,000 on a controversial sleeping cabin installed on a plane for a five-hour flight from Tel Aviv to London to attend the funeral of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that a large portion of Israeli taxpayers’ money was being spent on the Netanyahu familyâ„¢s ice-cream and makeup cravings.

The Israeli prime minister has awarded a contract valued at about USD 2,716 to his favorite ice cream shop to keep him supplied with vanilla and pistachio ice-cream.

It was also reported that some USD 8,960 a year is also paid to the people who do the makeup for the Netanyahu family.

Public anger over the austerity cuts and the so-called Å“bedgate” affair was further stoked on Tuesday by reports that the expenses of the premier’s official residence rose from 1.89 million shekels (USD 520,000) in 2009 to 3.29 million (USD 905,000) in 2012 – an increase of nearly 75 percent.

There has long been a total lack of transparency with regard to the expenses of the Israeli prime ministerâ„¢s residence and office.

PG/HJL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

The site of twin car bomb attacks carried out in Reyhanli, southern Turkey, on May 11, 2013 (file photo)

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Gold miners pass mud along a human chain in an open pit at the Chudja mine in the Kilomoto concession near the village of Kobu in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. (file photo)

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

 At a Quebec City celebration of the 70th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic last weekend, Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, Steven Blaney, responded to a question about Canadian military sacrifice with the statement: “There would be no ‘Gangnam Style’ if it had not been for the sacrifice of Canadians, and members of the United Nations who fought off Communism.”

While I enjoy Psy’s South Korean hit as much as Minister Blaney to say it was worth one of the most brutal and least understood wars of the 20^th century is a bit of a stretch.

After the Communists took control of China in 1949 the US tried to encircle the country. They supported Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, built military bases in Japan and backed a right-wing dictator in Thailand. One of Washington’s early objectives in Vietnam was to “establish a pro-Western state on China’s southern periphery.” The success of China’s nationalist revolution also spurred the 1950-53 Korean War in which eight Canadian warships and 27,000 Canadian troops participated. The war left as many as four million dead.

At the end of World War II the Soviets occupied the northern part of Korea, which borders Russia. US troops controlled the southern part of the country. A year into the occupation, a cable to Ottawa from Canadian diplomats in Washington, Ralph Collins and Herbert Norman, reported on the private perceptions of US officials: “[There is] no evidence of the three Russian trained Korean divisions which have been reported on various occasions … there seems to be a fair amount of popular support for the Russian authorities in northern Korea, and the Russian accusations against the conservative character of the United States occupation in civilian Korea had a certain amount of justification, although the situation was improving somewhat. There had been a fair amount of repression by the Military Government of left-wing groups, and liberal social legislation had been definitely resisted.”

Noam Chomsky provides a more dramatic description of the situation: “When US forces entered Korea in 1945, they dispersed the local popular government, consisting primarily of antifascists who resisted the Japanese, and inaugurated a brutal repression, using Japanese fascist police and Koreans who had collaborated with them during the Japanese occupation. About 100,000 people were murdered in South Korea prior to what we call the Korean War, including 30-40,000 killed during the suppression of a peasant revolt in one small region, Cheju Island.”

In sharp contrast to its position on Japan and Germany, Washington wanted the (Western dominated) UN to take responsibility for Korea in 1947. The Soviets objected, claiming the international organization had no jurisdiction over post- WWII settlement issues (as the US had argued for Germany and Japan). Instead, Moscow proposed that all foreign forces withdraw from Korea by January 1948. Washington demurred, convincing member states to create the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) to organize elections in the part of Korea occupied by the US. For its part, the Soviet bloc boycotted UNTCOK. Canada joined UNTCOK even though Prime Minister Mackenzie King noted privately “the [US] State Department was simply using the United Nations as an arm of that office to further its own policies.”

The UN sponsored election in South Korea led to the long-term division of that country and Canada’s involvement in a conflict that would cause untold suffering. On May 10, 1948 the southern part of Korea held UNTCOK sponsored elections. In the lead-up to the election leftwing parties were harassed in a campaign to “remove Communism” from the south. As a result leftwing parties refused to participate in elections “wrought with problems” that “provoked an uprising on the island of Cheju, off Korea’s southern coast, which was brutally repressed.”

After the poll Canada was among the first countries to recognize the Republic of Korea in the south, effectively legitimizing the division of the country. External Affairs minister Lester Pearson sent Syngman Rhee, who became president, a note declaring “full recognition by the Government of Canada of the Republic of Korea as an independent sovereign State with jurisdiction over that part of the Korean peninsula in which free elections were held on May 10 1948, under the observation of the United Nations Temporary Commission.” Conversely, Ottawa refused to recognize the North, which held elections after the South, and opposed its participation in UNTCOK reports. For Pearson the South held “free elections” while those in the North “had not been held in a democratic manner” since the Soviets did not allow UNTCOK to supervise them. After leaving office Pearson contradicted this position, admitting “Rhee’s government was just as dictatorial as the one in the North, just as totalitarian. Indeed, it was more so in some ways.”

The official story is that the Korean War began when the Soviet-backed North invaded the South on June 25, 1950. The US then came to the South’s aid. As is the case with most official US history the story is incomplete, if not downright false. Korea: Division, Reunification, and US foreign Policy notes: “The best explanation of what happened on June 25 is that Syngman Rhee deliberately initiated the fighting and then successfully blamed the North. The North, eagerly waiting for provocation, took advantage of the southern attack and, without incitement by the Soviet Union, launched its own strike with the objective of capturing Seoul. Then a massive U.S. intervention followed.”

Korea was Canada’s first foray into UN peacekeeping/peacemaking and it was done at Washington’s behest. US troops intervened in Korea and then Washington moved to have the UN support their action, not the other way around.

The UN resolution in support of military action in Korea referred to “a unified command under the United States.” Incredibly, United Nations forces were under US General Douglas MacArthur’s control yet he was not subject to the UN. Canadian Defence Minister Brooke Claxton later admitted “the American command sometimes found it difficult to consider the Commonwealth division and other units coming from other nations as other than American forces.”

After US forces invaded, Ottawa immediately sent three gunboats. Once it became clear US forces would not be immediately victorious, Canada sent thousands of grounds troops into an extremely violent conflict.

Two million North Korean civilians, 500,000 North Korean soldiers, one million Chinese soldiers, one million South Korean civilians, ten thousand South Korean soldiers and 95,000 UN soldiers (516 Canadians) died in the war. The fighting on the ground was ferocious as was the UN air campaign. US General MacArthur instructed his bombers “to destroy every means of communication and every installation, factory, city and village” in North Korea except for hydroelectric plants and the city of Rashin, which bordered China and the Soviet Union, respectively.

A New York Times reporter, George Barrett, described the scene in a North Korean village after it was captured by UN forces in February 1951:“A napalm raid hit the village three or four days ago when the Chinese were holding up the advance, and nowhere in the village have they buried the dead because there is nobody left to do so. This correspondent came across one old women, the only one who seemed to be left alive, dazedly hanging up some clothes in a blackened courtyard filled with the bodies of four members of her family. The inhabitants throughout the village and in the fields were caught and killed and kept the exact postures they had held when the napalm struck – a man about to get on his bicycle, fifty boys and girls playing in an orphanage, a housewife strangely unmarked, holding in her hand a page torn from a Sears Roebuck catalogue crayoned at Mail Order No. 3,811,294 for a $2.98 ‘bewitching bed jacket – coral.’ There must be almost two hundred dead in the tiny hamlet.”

Canadian troops denigrated the “yellow horde” of North Korean and Chinese “chinks” they fought. One Canadian colonel wrote about the importance of defensive positions to “kill at will the hordes that rush the positions.” A pro-military book notes dryly that “some [soldiers] allowed their Western prejudices to develop into open contempt for the Korean people.”

Cold War Canada summarizes the incredible violence unleashed by UN forces in Korea: “The monstrous effects on Korean civilians of the methods of warfare adopted by the United Nations – the blanket fire bombing of North Korean cities, the destruction of dams and the resulting devastation of the food supply and an unremitting aerial bombardment more intensive than anything experienced during the Second World War. At one point the Americans gave up bombing targets in the North when their intelligence reported that there were no more buildings over one story high left standing in the entire country … the overall death toll was staggering: possibly as many as four million people. About three million were civilians (one out of every ten Koreans). Even to a world that had just begun to recover from the vast devastation of the Second World War, Korea was a man-made hell with a place among the most violent excesses of the 20th century.”

But, it was all worth it, according to the Conservative government. After all South Korea has given us ‘Gangnam Style’.

Yves Engler’s latest book is The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s foreign policy. For more information visit yvesengler.com

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Paul D. Shinkman
US News & World Report
May 17, 2013

The skies over Pakistan have remained conspicuously clear during the recent election season, according experts on drone strikes in that part of the world.

The last recorded U.S. drone strike in or near Pakistan occurred on April 17, open source data indicates, or roughly a month before the Pakistani election that reestablished Nawaz Sharif as prime minister for the third time.

Specifics of this notoriously reclusive drone program remain top secret within the U.S. military and intelligence communities, though experts on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and Pakistani politics say the U.S. has likely eased up on the joystick for what has become a popular local talking point.

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

To understand the complex web of deceit aimed at luring the American people and the rest of the world into accepting a military solution which threatens the future of humanity, get your copy of the international bestseller:

America’s “War on Terrorism”
by Michel Chossudovsky

“The livelihood of millions of people throughout the World is at stake. It is my sincere hope that the truth will prevail and that the understanding provided in this detailed study will serve the cause of World peace. This objective, however, can only be reached by revealing the falsehoods behind America’s “War on Terrorism” and questioning the legitimacy of the main political and military actors responsible for extensive war crimes.”
—Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

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SYNOPSIS: America’s “War on Terrorism”

In this expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 bestseller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The this special edition, which includes twelve additional chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarization of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalization is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Reviews

“Chossudovsky starts by dispelling the fiction that the US and Al Qaeda have been long-term adversaries. [He] also probes US oil policy, which is obviously of particular concern to George W. Bush. Chossudovsky argues that the US has a much different relationship between Russia and China than is ever indicated in the mainstream (or progressive) press. Simply put, the US is moving into the countries which neighbor Russia and China in order to plunder natural resources and expand the reach of the US Empire. Pakistan?s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been playing a key role in destabilizing the region as well as offering support in other intelligence matters… War and Globalization is full of surprises, even for those of us who consider ourselves well-informed. Chossudovsky is examining the true nature of US foreign policy and arguing that the terrible events of 9/11/01 have changed little of it… Material this provocative and well-researched is ignored by the left at great peril.”
– Scott Loughrey, The Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel

“Canadian professor of economics Michel Chossudovsky contains that rare gift of a writer who can compile massive documentary evidence, then propound it in a succinct, lucid manner. In this illuminating work the host of the critically acclaimed Global Research website takes widely acclaimed and often repeated media assumptions and sharply refutes them, providing a chronology and road map behind 9-11 and related events… A large part of the book involves a necessary topic area that has been nervously glossed over by conventional American media sources for good reason; it hits too close to home and indicts the largest international energy conglomerates. The author spends much time examining the link between big oil and public policy. In terms of providing vital information, this compact volume provides more valuable information in one chapter than so many contemporary volumes do with many pages on 9-11 and related events… Chossudovsky demonstrates that the frequently repeated and fallacious Bushie shibboleths of getting Saddam before he gets us are rhetorical sallies designed to inflame public opinion by skirting around the important truths that only a few courageous authors such as himself dare reveal… Its bullseye clarity cuts through the morass of Bush verbage, daring readers to examine the pure, unvarnished truth of a nation using its military and intelligence capabilities to control the global oil market on the pretext of making the world a safer place.”
– William Hare, Florida United States

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As a multitude of hazardous wireless technologies are deployed in homes, schools and workplaces, government officials and industry representatives continue to insist on their safety despite growing evidence to the contrary. A major health crisis looms that is only hastened through the extensive deployment of “smart grid” technology.

In October 2009 at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) solar energy station President Barack Obama announced that $3.4 billion of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act would be devoted to the country’s “smart energy grid” transition. Matching funds from the energy industry brought the total national Smart Grid investment to $8 billion. FPL was given $200 million of federal money to install 2.5 million “smart meters” on homes and businesses throughout the state.[1]

By now many residents in the United States and Canada have the smart meters installed on their dwellings. Each of these meters is equipped with an electronic cellular transmitter that uses powerful bursts of electromagnetic radiofrequency (RF) radiation to communicate with nearby meters that together form an interlocking network transferring detailed information on residents’ electrical usage back to the utility every few minutes or less. Such information can easily be used to determine individual patterns of behavior based on power consumption.

The smart grid technology is being sold to the public as a way to “empower” individual energy consumers by allowing them to access information on their energy usage so that they may eventually save money by programming “smart” (i.e, wireless enabled) home appliances and equipment that will coordinate their operability with the smart meter to run when electrical rates are lowest. In other words, a broader plan behind smart grid technology involves a tiered rate system for electricity consumption that will be set by the utility to which customers will have no choice but to conform.

Because of power companies’ stealth rollout of smart meters a large majority of the public still remains unaware of the dangers they pose to human health. This remains the case even though states such as Maine have adopted an “opt out” provision for their citizens. The devices have not been safety-tested by Underwriters Laboratory and thus lack the UL approval customary for most electronics.[2] Further, power customers are typically told by their utilities that the smart meter only communicates with the power company “a few times per day” to transmit information on individual household energy usage. However, when individuals obtained the necessary equipment to do their own testing they found the meters were emitting bursts of RF radiation throughout the home far more intense than a cell phone call every minute or less.[3]

America’s Telecom-friendly Policy for RF Exposure
A growing body of medical studies is now linking cumulative RF exposure to DNA disruption, cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and autoimmune diseases. Smart meters significantly contribute to an environment already polluted by RF radiation through the pervasive stationing of cellular telephone towers in or around public spaces and consumers’ habitual use of wireless technologies. In the 2000 Salzburg Resolution European scientists recommended the maximum RF exposure for humans to be no more than one tenth of a microwatt per square centimeter. In the United States RF exposure limits are 1,000 microwatts per centimeter, with no limits for long term exposure.[4] Such lax standards have been determined by outdated science and the legal and regulatory maneuvering of the powerful telecommunications and wireless industries.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ceased studying the health effects of radiofrequency radiation when the Senate Appropriations Committee cut the department’s funding and forbade it from further research into the area.[5] Thereafter RF limits were codified as mere “guidelines” based on the EPA’s tentative findings and are to this day administered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

These weakly enforced standards are predicated on the alleged “thermal effect” of RF. In other words, if the energy emitted from a wireless antenna or device is not powerful enough to heat the skin or flesh then no danger is posed to human health.[6] This reasoning is routinely put forward by utilities installing smart meters on residences, telecom companies locating cellular transmission towers in populated areas, and now school districts across the US allowing the installation of cell towers on school campuses.[7]

The FCC’s authority to impose this standard was further reinforced with the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that included a provision lobbied for by the telecom industry preventing state and local governments from evaluating potential environmental and health effects when locating cell towers “so long as ‘such facilities comply with the FCC’s regulations concerning such emissions.’”[8]

In 2001 an alliance of scientists and engineers with the backing of the Communications Workers of America filed a federal lawsuit hoping the Supreme Court would reconsider the FCC’s obsolete exposure guidelines and the Telecom Act’s overreach into state and local jurisdiction. The high court refused to hear the case. When the same group asked the FCC to reexamine its guidelines in light of current scientific studies the request was rebuffed.[9] Today in all probability millions are suffering from a variety of immediate and long-term health effects from relentless EMF and RF exposure that under the thermal effect rationale remain unrecognized or discounted by the telecom industry and regulatory authorities alike.

Growing Evidence of Health Risks From RF Exposure
The main health concern with electromagnetic radiation emitted by smart meters and other wireless technologies is that EMF and RF cause a breakdown in the communication between cells in the body, interrupting DNA repair and weakening tissue and organ function. These are the findings of Dr. George Carlo, who oversaw a comprehensive research group commissioned by the cell phone industry in the mid-1990s.

When Carlo’s research began to reveal how there were indeed serious health concerns with wireless technology, the industry sought to bury the results and discredit Carlo. Yet Carlo’s research has since been upheld in a wealth of subsequent studies and has continuing relevance given the ubiquity of wireless apparatuses and the even more powerful smart meters. “One thing all these conditions have in common is a disruption, to varying degrees, of intercellular communication,” Carlo observes. “When we were growing up, TV antennas were on top of our houses and such waves were up in the sky. Cell phones and Wi-Fi have brought those things down to the street, integrated them into the environment, and that’s absolutely new.”[10]

In 2007 the BioInitiative Working Group, a worldwide body of scientists and public health experts, released a 650-page document with over 2000 studies linking RF and EMF exposure to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, DNA damage, immune system dysfunction, cellular damage and tissue reduction.[11]

In May 2011 the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer categorized “radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless cellphone use.”[12]

In November 2011 the Board of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM), a national organization of medical and osteopathic physicians, called on California’s Public Utilities Commission to issue a moratorium on the continued installation of smart meters in residences and schools “based on a scientific assessment of the current available literature.” “[E]xisting FCC guidelines for RF safety that have been used to justify installations of smart meters,” the panel wrote,

“only look at thermal tissue damage and are obsolete, since many modern studies show metabolic and genomic damage from RF and ELF exposure below the level of intensity which heats tissues … More modern literature shows medically and biologically significant effects of RF and ELF at lower energy densities. These effects accumulate over time, which is an important consideration given the chronic nature of exposure from ‘smart meters.’”[13]

In April 2012 the AAEM issued a formal position paper on the health effects of RF and EMF exposure based on a literature review of the most recent research. The organization pointed to how government and industry arguments alleging the doubtful nature of the science on non-thermal effects of RF were not defensible in light of the newest studies. “Genetic damage, reproductive defects, cancer, neurological degeneration and nervous system dysfunction, immune system dysfunction, cognitive effects, protein and peptide damage, kidney damage, and developmental effects have all been reported in the peer‐reviewed scientific literature,” AAEM concluded.[14]

Radiating Children
The rollout of smart meters proceeds alongside increased installation of wireless technology and cell phone towers in and around schools in the US. In 2010 Professor Magda Havas conducted a study of schools in 50 US state capitols and Washington DC to determine students’ potential exposure to nearby cell towers. A total 6,140 schools serving 2.3 million students were surveyed using the antennasearch.com database. Of these, 13% of the schools serving 299,000 students have a cell tower within a quarter mile of school grounds, and another 50% of the schools where 1,145,000 attend have a tower within a 0.6 mile radius. The installation of wireless networks and now smart meters on and around school properties further increases children’s RF exposure.[15]

Many school districts that are strapped for cash in the face of state budget cuts are willing to ignore the abundance of scientific research on RF dangers and sign on with telecom companies to situate cell towers directly on school premises. Again, the FCC’s thermal effect rule is invoked to justify tower placement together with a disregard of the available studies.

The School District of Palm Beach County, the eleventh largest school district in the US, provides one such example. Ten of its campuses already have cell towers on their grounds while the district ponders lifting a ban established in 1997 that would allow for the positioning of even more towers. When concerned parents contacted the school district for an explanation of its wireless policies, the administration assembled a document, “Health Organization Information and Academic Research Studies Regarding the Health Effects of Cell Tower Signals.” The report carefully selected pronouncements from telecom industry funded organizations such as the American Cancer Society and out-of-date scientific studies supporting the FCC’s stance on wireless while excluding the long list of studies and literature reviews pointing to the dangers of RF and EMF radiation emitted by wireless networks and cell towers. [16]

The Precautionary Principle / Conclusion
Surrounded by the sizable and growing body of scientific literature pointing to the obvious dangers of wireless technology, utility companies installing smart meters on millions of homes across the US and school officials who accommodate cell towers on their grounds are performing an extreme disservice to their often vulnerable constituencies. Indeed, such actions constitute the reckless long term endangerment of public health for short term gain, sharply contrasting with more judicious decision making.

The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment & Development adopted the precautionary principle as a rule to follow in the situations utilities and school districts find themselves in today. “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”[17] In exercising the precautionary principle, public governance and regulatory bodies should “take preventive action in the face of scientific uncertainty to prevent harm. The focus is no longer on measuring or managing harm, but preventing harm.”[18]

Along these lines, the European Union and the Los Angeles School District have prohibited cell phone towers on school grounds until the scientific research on the human health effects of RF are conclusive. The International Association of Fire Fighters also interdicted cell towers on fire stations pending “’a study with the highest scientific merit and integrity on health effects of exposure to low-intensity [radio frequency/microwave] radiation is conducted and it is proven that such sitings are not hazardous to the health of our members.’”[19]

Unwitting families with smart meters on their homes and children with cell towers humming outside their classrooms suggest the extent to which the energy, telecom and wireless industries have manipulated the regulatory process to greatly privilege profits over public health. Moreover, it reveals how the population suffers for want of meaningful and conclusive information on the very real dangers of RF while the telecom and wireless interests successfully cajole the media into considering one scientific study at a time.

“When you put the science together, we come to the irrefutable conclusion that there’s a major health crisis coming, probably already underway,” George Carlo cautions. “Not just cancer, but also learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and psychological and behavioral problems–all mediated by the same mechanism. That’s why we’re so worried. Time is running out.”[20]

Notes

[1] Energy.gov, “President Obama Announces $3.4 Billion Investment to Spur Transition to Smart Energy Grid,” October 27, 2009,
http://energy.gov/articles/president-obama-announces-34-billion-investment-spur-transition-smart-energy-grid

[2] Ilya Sandra Perlingieri, “Radiofrequency Radiation: The Invisible Hazards of Smart Meters,” August 19, 2011, GlobalReserach.ca, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26082

[3] Dr. Bill Deagle, “Smart Meters: A Call for Public Outrage,” Rense.com, August 30, 2011, http://www.rense.com/general94/smartt.htm. Some meters installed in California by Pacific Gas and Electric carry a “’switching mode power-supply’ that ‘emit sharp spikes of millisecond bursts’ around the clock and is a chief cause of ‘dirty electricity.’” See Perlingieri, “Radiofrequency Radiation: The Invisible Hazards of Smart Meters.” This author similarly measured bursts of radiation in excess of 2,000 microwatts per meter every 30 to 90 seconds during the day, and once every two-to-three minutes at night.

[4] Magda Havas, BRAG Antenna Ranking of Schools, 2010,
http://electromagnetichealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/BRAG_Schools.pdf

[5] Susan Luzzaro, “Field of Cell Phone Tower Beams,” San Diego Reader, May 18, 2011,
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2011/may/18/citylights2-cell-phone-tower/?page=1&

[6] FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety

[7] Luzzaro, “Field of Cell Phone Tower Beams”; Marc Freeman, “Cell Towers Could Be Coming to More Schools,” South Florida Sun Sentinel, January 5, 2012,
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-01-05/news/fl-cell-towers-schools-palm-20120105_1_cell-towers-cellular-phone-towers-stealth-towers

[8] Amy Worthington, “The Radiation Poisoning of America,” GlobalResearch.ca, October 9, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7025

[9] Worthington, “The Radiation Poisoning of America.”

[10] Sue Kovach, “The Hidden Dangers of Cell Phone Radiation,” Life Extension Magazine, August 2007, http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2007
/aug2007_report_cellphone_radiation_01.htm

[11] Susan Luzzaro, “Field of Cell Phone Tower Beams”; Bioinitiative Report: A Rationale For a Biologically-based Public Exposure Standard For Electromagnetic Fields, http://www.bioinitiative.org/freeaccess/report/index.htm.

[12] World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer, “IARC Classifies Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields as Possibly Carcinogenic,” May 31, 2011, www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf; Joseph Mercola, “Be Aware: These Cell Phones Can Emit 28 Times More Radiation,” Mercola.com, June 18, 2011,
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/06/18/finally-experts-admit-cellphones-are-a-carcinogen.aspx.

[13] American Academy of Environmental Medicine, “Proposed Decision of Commissioner Peevy [Mailed 11/22/2011] Before the Public Utilities Commission of the State of California,” January 19, 2012. www.aaemonline.org

[14] American Academy of Environmental Medicine, “The American Academy of Environmental Medicine Calls for Immediate Caution regarding Smart Meter Installation,” April 12, 2012, http://www.aaemonline.org/

[15] Havas, BRAG Antenna Ranking of Schools, 31-38.

[16] Donna Goldstein, “Health Organization Information and Academic Research Studies Regarding the Health Effects of Cell Tower Signals,”Planning and Real Estate Development, Palm Beach County School District, January 30, 2012.

[17] Havas, BRAG Antenna Ranking of Schools, 17.

[18] Multinational Monitor, “Precautionary Precepts: The Power and Potential of the Precautionary Principle: An Interview with Carolyn Raffensperger,” September 2004, http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/09012004/september04interviewraffen.html.

[19] Luzzaro, “Field of Cell Phone Tower Beams.”

[20] Kovach, “The Hidden Dangers of Cell Phone Radiation.”

James F. Tracy is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University. He is an affiliate of Project Censored and blogs at memorygap.org.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

Park Police arrest protesters outside of the White House on May 17, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

NASA.gov
May 17, 2013

For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. “Lunar meteor showers” have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year.

They’ve just seen the biggest explosion in the history of the program.

“On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we’ve ever seen before.”

Anyone looking at the Moon at the moment of impact could have seen the explosion—no telescope required. For about one second, the impact site was glowing like a 4th magnitude star.

Ron Suggs, an analyst at the Marshall Space Flight Center, was the first to notice the impact in a digital video recorded by one of the monitoring program’s 14-inch telescopes. “It jumped right out at me, it was so bright,” he recalls.

The 40 kg meteoroid measuring 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide hit the Moon traveling 56,000 mph. The resulting explosion1 packed as much punch as 5 tons of TNT.

Cooke believes the lunar impact might have been part of a much larger event.

An artist illustration of a meteor impacting the moon and resulting in an explosion that can be visible from Earth skies.
Credit: NASA

“On the night of March 17, NASA and University of Western Ontario all-sky cameras picked up an unusual number of deep-penetrating meteors right here on Earth,” he says. “These fireballs were traveling along nearly identical orbits between Earth and the asteroid belt.”

This means Earth and the Moon were pelted by meteoroids at about the same time.

“My working hypothesis is that the two events are related, and that this constitutes a short duration cluster of material encountered by the Earth-Moon system,” says Cooke.

One of the goals of the lunar monitoring program is to identify new streams of space debris that pose a potential threat to the Earth-Moon system. The March 17th event seems to be a good candidate.

Controllers of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have been notified of the strike. The crater could be as wide as 20 meters, which would make it an easy target for LRO the next time the spacecraft passes over the impact site. Comparing the size of the crater to the brightness of the flash would give researchers a valuable “ground truth” measurement to validate lunar impact models.

Unlike Earth, which has an atmosphere to protect it, the Moon is airless and exposed. “Lunar meteors” crash into the ground with fair frequency. Since the monitoring program began in 2005, NASA’s lunar impact team has detected more than 300 strikes, most orders of magnitude fainter than the March 17th event. Statistically speaking, more than half of all lunar meteors come from known meteoroid streams such as the Perseids and Leonids. The rest are sporadic meteors—random bits of comet and asteroid debris of unknown parentage.

U.S. Space Exploration Policy eventually calls for extended astronaut stays on the lunar surface. Identifying the sources of lunar meteors and measuring their impact rates gives future lunar explorers an idea of what to expect. Is it safe to go on a moonwalk, or not? The middle of March might be a good time to stay inside.

“We’ll be keeping an eye out for signs of a repeat performance next year when the Earth-Moon system passes through the same region of space,” says Cooke. “Meanwhile, our analysis of the March 17th event continues.”

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 8:52 pm

Tags: science

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Al Jazeera
May 17, 2013

Police say bombings in two separate mosques in northwest Pakistan have killed at least 12 people.

Sources tell Al Jazeera that 50 have been wounded and many are in critical condition.

Both of the Sunni Muslim mosques were badly damaged, and the roof of one of them collapsed, said tribal police officer Badshah Rehman. The mosques were located in Baz Darrah village in the Malakand district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 9:18 pm

Tags: foreign affairs

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

The headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Emergency workers arrive at the scene of a train collision in Fairfield, Connecticut, on May 17, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has reaffirmed Berlin’s support for the Israeli regime in what he calls Å“challenging times.”

Westerwelle made the remarks on Friday during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in al-Quds (Jerusalem).

“I want to underline that in these challenging times, Germany stands alongside its Israeli partners,” said the German foreign minister, calling his host a “dear friend.”

“We want to work together, we want to support you and this is what our friendship is about,” he added.

“I’m using the word friendship, which is from our understanding more than a partnership. This is not only a strategic alliance; this is a friendship between societies, between peoples, and between governments,” Westerwelle said.

He also stated that Germany supports the international efforts to establish peace between Israelis and Palestinians, saying, “We believe that the Middle East peace process and the work on a two-state solution should be revived now, and we will do what we can to support security and a peaceful and sustainable development for Israel and the whole region.”

Westerwelle is in the Middle East for a two-day visit.

He has already held talks with President Shimon Peres, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and other Israeli officials and is scheduled to meet Palestinian officials on Saturday.

GJH/HGL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

May 17, 2013
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Every week we are inspired by the many people throughout the country who are doing excellent work to challenge the power structure and put forward a new path for the country. The popular resistance to plutocracy, concentrated wealth and corporatism is decentralized, creative and growing.

One growing series of protests has been the “Moral Monday” demonstrations in North Carolina. They do not have ‘one demand’ but rather are challenging the systemic corruption, undermining of democracy and misdirection of a state government that puts human needs second to corporate profits — which they have dubbed ‘Robin Hood in Reverse.’  This week 49 of 200 protesters inside the capitol were arrested singing, chanting and echoing many of the same concerns that demonstrators have for the past three Mondays. Last week there were 30 arrests, the week before 17. Among those arrested was an 83 year old retired minister, Vernon Tyson, who was merely a spectator, but he gave a great interview cheering on the protests after his release. And, a group of historians were among those arrested who put these protests in the context of US history.

Another courageous protest involved seven undocumented immigrants who blocked the Broadview Detention Center where immigrants are being incarcerated. They blocked the doors to the detention facility, linking arms together using pipes, chains, and locks. They were protesting the record-high deportations under President Obama, and the lack of leadership from Illinois representatives to call for a suspension of deportations. On the West coast, the always creative Backbone Campaign supported allied faith communities with a giant banner lift over the private for-profit immigration detention center asking “Who Would Jesus Deport?” and an inflatable lady liberty exposing the unjust policies that break up families.

There was a recent victory for Seattle teachers and students that resulted from their citywide protests against standardized testing. The school district announced that testing in the high schools would not occur next year. The teachers said they will keep protesting until the tests are banned from lower grades as well.

We hope the Chicago teachers, who won a major battle with Mayor Rahm Emanuel earlier this year when they went out on strike, have great success this weekend when three days of marches are held against the mass school closings in Chicago. The teachers union has developed a great organizing strategy that unites teachers with students, parents and communities. This battle is one of many across the country to stop the thinly veiled corporatization of education.

In another education protest, the students @FreeCooperUnion continue to occupy the office of the president after one week. They are painting the walls black until he agrees to step down, and are highlighting his $750,000 annual salary. They are protesting a plan to begin to charge tuition at the university; this plan will not affect these students, but future students who attend Cooper Union.

The heart of the conflict faced in the United States is the inequity of an unfair economy supported by a corrupt two party system. This week there was a very creative protest in New York City against the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim of Mexico. He’s made his billions with the help of government allowing a monopoly on phone service resulting in Slim gouging the public. Now he gives a small percentage of that wealth back in philanthropy and people applaud him. But, the protesters were very effective, laughing out loud whenever he spoke. They responded when someone asked “Why is everyone laughing?” with “Because Slim’s philanthropy is a joke!” and followed with mocking kazoos.

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet

Two trains collided in Bridgeport, Connecticut after what was described as a major derailment about an hour outside of New York City on Friday, with some 60 passengers injured in one of the region’s major commuter corridors.

“60 people have been taken to the hospital. There are five
people in critical condition, one in very critical condition,” said
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy via Twitter on Friday
evening.

Friday evening Amtrak announced the indefinite suspension of
service from New York City to Boston due to the rail obstruction
caused when a train heading south from New Haven derailed and
struck an inbound train around 6:10pm Eastern Time. The resulting
impact caused some of the cars on the second train to derail as
well.

Witnesses at the scene immediately began posting images of
emergency response vehicles, and some of the injured being taken
away by ambulances. Though no fatalities were reported, one
passenger described a graphic scene following the accident, and
officials had confirmed 60 people were injured, with five in a
critical condition and one considered very critical.

“I saw this one car and it was completely destroyed and they were
pulling people out of the car,” said Brian Alvarez, a 
witness to the crash who spoke to CNN. “… They were all bloody,”
he added.

Rob Oliver, a passenger on board the train that was struck, told
ABC News that he heard, “a tremendous amount of metal and just an
extremely loud sound.”

“We suddenly were screeching to a stop, but you knew it wasn’t a
screech-normal stop … because there was just an awful burning smell
and the cabin was filling with smoke,” said Oliver.

The US National Transportation Safety Board was reported to be
sending a team to investigate the incident, and was to take charge
going forward.

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch later told reporters that the crash
would seriously disrupt travel for the communities serviced by the
rail line.

“This is our pipeline to New York City, and it’s going to be shut
down for some time,” said Finch.

“And it’s going to cost this region a great deal of money, frankly,
not just to repair it but the lost wages and the lost economy,” he
added.

According to the mayor, workers will need remove the stricken
trains, as well as the tracks, mend the rail bed, then lay down the
tracks again.

This article originally appeared on : RT

Presidential hopeful Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf says he will solve Iranâ„¢s problems within two years if elected president.

Å“I will restore tranquility and stability to the country within two years,” Qalibaf said in a speech in Rasht, the capital of the northern province of Gilan, on Friday, the Fars News Agency reported.

He added that people should vote for the new president based on his accomplishments rather than his plans and programs.

The principlist hopeful, who is currently the mayor of Tehran, also said that mismanagement is the only cause of the weak situation of Gilanâ„¢s agricultural industry, and the countryâ„¢s agricultural industry needs a fundamental transformation.

He went on to say that the policies of the current administration have caused high unemployment among the youth.

Qalibaf is a member of the principlist Coalition of Three. The other members are former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who is a senior advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, and MP Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel.

A total of 686 individuals registered from May 7 to 11 for the Islamic Republicâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates based on their qualifications.

Guardian Council Spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said on Friday that the final list of candidates will be announced by May 21.

MHB/HGL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Brian Rogers
Chron.com
May 17, 2013

Harris County authorities and the Texas Department of State Health Services are investigating a local doctor accused Wednesday by an anti-abortion group of performing late-term abortions in 2011.

“We have several people looking into the allegations,” said Sara Marie Kinney, a spokeswoman for the Harris County District Attorney.

In an email, DSHS spokeswoman Carrie Williams said the agency, which monitors abortion facilities across the state, is “aware of the allegations, and we are investigating.” Added Williams: “This is a very high priority for us.”

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 8:11 pm

Tags: domestic news, eugenics

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla has died in prison, where he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.

Videla, who ruled Argentina during the Dirty War, died of natural causes in the Marcos Paz prison, which is located southwest of Buenos Aires, on Friday at the age of 87.

“Last night he didn’t feel well. He didn’t want to eat and this morning they found him dead in his cell,” Cecilia Pando, the president of the Association of Family and Friends of Political Prisoners, told reporters.

According to a medical report, he was found “without a pulse or pupillary reflex, so an EKG was performed confirming his death at 0825 (1125 GMT) on this date.”

Videla came to power in a 1976 coup against President Isabel Peron and led the military junta that controlled the country until 1981. The junta stayed in power until 1983.

The Dirty War — a campaign against the left and anyone thought to be connected with socialism — started during his rule. Between 13,000 and 30,000 people were kidnapped and “disappeared” by the military from 1976 to 1983.

The Dirty War was part of Operation Condor, under which Argentina’s military cooperated with dictatorships in Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay to share intelligence and assist to arrest each other’s political enemies. The CIA also played a part in Operation Condor by providing lists of suspects and other intelligence information to the military regimes.

On Tuesday, in a public appearance, Videla assumed “full military responsibility for the actions of the army in the war against terrorism.”

He was sentenced to life in prison in 1985 for a series of abuses under his regime, but was pardoned in 1990 by then President Carlos Menem.

In 2010, Videla was sentenced to life in prison for the disappearance of 31 prisoners. Later in 2012, he was sentenced to another 50 years for abducting children born to female prisoners and ordering that they be given to other families.

Videla expressed little regret for the abuses that took place during his rule.

“Let’s say there were seven thousand or eight thousand people who had to die to win the war against subversion,” Videla said recently in a prison interview.

1980 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who publicized the junta’s abuses, said Videla “never repented of the crimes, and he is taking a lot of information with him.”

IA/HGL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Sky News
May 17, 2013

BP wants to stop paying out millions of dollars in what it calls spurious compensation claims stemming from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.

The oil company has reportedly warned that the excessive claims could damage its financial prospects.

It is said to be seeking a US court injunction, arguing that businesses on the Louisiana coast are pursuing multi-million dollar claims for “non-existent, artificially calculated losses”.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 7:56 pm

Tags: energy

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Bahraini demonstrators hold pictures of senior Shia cleric Sheikh Issa Qassem during a protest against the regime and to show solidarity with the cleric in the village of Abu Saiba on May 17, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Syrian refugee boys stand outside a tent after heavy rain at the Zaatari refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria. (file photo)

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Israeli forces have shot and injured nine Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank, Press TV reports.

Palestinian paramedics said the men were hit in the legs near the city of Ramallah.

Earlier in the day, Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian demonstrators protesting against Tel Avivâ„¢s plans to expand an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Scores of Palestinians marched toward the Efrat settlement near Bethlehem to express their outrage over Tel Avivâ„¢s expansion project, which would see more land taken away from the Palestinians in the village of al-Masaara.

Israeli troops fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, witnesses said.

The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.

The presence and continued expansion of these settlements has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

Israel agreed to freeze settlement construction under the Roadmap for Peace plan in 2002. But it has failed to comply with that commitment despite repeated and widespread international condemnation.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israelâ„¢s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.

MP/HGL

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

RT
May 17, 2013

Investigators have discovered a half-inch long crack around a nozzle on one of the tanks of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, and have attributed the crack to the water leakage that spilled radioactive water into Lake Michigan on May 5.

The plant, which is located on the shore of the great lake and operated by Entergy, was shut down after the water tank exceeded its site threshold and leaked. Authorities say the crack led to about 79 gallons of “slightly radioactive water” spilling from the Palisades plant into the lake, WOOD-TV reports.

The leak came from a 300,000-gallon injection and refueling tank, which floods and cools the nuclear reactor with borated water during refueling outages. It also removes heat from the reactor when there is a loss of coolant by sourcing the safety injection system.

This month’s incident marks the second time the injection and refueling tank leaked, and caused the ninth shutdown of the plant since September 2011. Since 2012, the plant shut down six times as a result of leaks.

It took operators about a week and a half to find the source of the leak. But even though authorities acknowledged that the leaking water was radioactive, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission claims that this poses no risk to the local community, since it is was diluted.

“The NRC’s radiation dose limits are based on scientific studies and have not been shown to cause harmful health effects,” NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng told MLive. “The NRC regularly reviews new information to make sure the agency’s limits are optimal for protecting public health. But this was an unplanned release that should not have happened.”

The NRC says the assessed dose to the public was 0.002 percent of the federal limit. The maximum dose to the public is limited to 0.1 rem per year. But because the Palisades plant has been shut down nine times since September 2011 and has frequently leaked in the past, Americans have expressed deep concern over the lack of safety that repeatedly causes problems in the lakeside Covert Township, Mich.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ nuclear safety project, told MLive that it is unacceptable for the plant to suffer repeated leaks, and that Entergy should repair it properly rather than continuously patching up leaks. The NRC mandates plant owners to find and fix all safety hazards.

“Applying Band-Aid fixes every few months is not complying with this federal regulation,” he said. “The NRC must take steps to ensure that a federal regulation developed to protect public health and safety is consistently being met rather than consistently being violated. ‘Patch and restart’ may be great for generating revenue, but it is very bad for public safety.”

Congressman Fred Upton, the chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,on Mondaytook a tour of the plant and announced that it will remain shut down until officials are sure it is safe to re-start. He said 10 of the tank’s nozzles are currently being upgraded and he will return to re-examine the plant before it is restarted.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 6:41 pm

Tags: domestic news, radiation

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Associated Press
May 17, 2013

Congress is rethinking the broad authority it gave the president to wage a war on terror after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in light of how President Barack Obama has used the power to target suspected terrorists with lethal drone strikes.

Senior Pentagon officials insisted on Thursday that the law should remain unchanged as the nation remains locked in armed conflict with al-Qaida and its affiliates, a fight that will rage for another decade or two. But Republicans and Democrats fear that they have given the president a blank check for using military force worldwide.

Read full article

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 6:39 pm

Tags: 9/11

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Despite a feeling of relative calm given by both the media and the American and Japanese financial markets going from record to record, the world economy is slowing down badly and a widespread recession is looming. The various players are fully aware of it and, in the face of the challenges of an imminent collapse, countries or regions are putting various strategies in place to try and limit the consequences. Whilst some seem dictated by desperation or last chance solutions, others on the contrary bear witness to a real adaptation to the world’s current changes. And it’s no surprise that, in the first category, we find the “powers of the world before” which no longer have any real options.

This article originally appeared on : Global Research

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Nigerian military says it has launched airstrikes on Boko Haram militant training camps in the northeast of the country and dozens of militants have been killed.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

Mark Dewey
KEYE/CBS
May 17, 2013

A weapons company began this week rolling out a groundbreaking “smart” rifle that can target and track a moving object from long distance.

Trackingpoint began shipping the guns to customers Wednesday and also held a demonstration that Texas Gov. Rick Perry attended.

The rifle is precision guided with “lock and launch” technology similar to a fighter jet. It allows the shooter to designate a target using a digital scope with a ballistic calculator and multiple sensors. It can provide an accurate shot on moving targets for up to 1,200 yards.

Read full article

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:59 pm

Tags: constitution, gun rights

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

BBC
May 17, 2013

More than 60 people have been killed and dozens hurt in several bomb attacks apparently targeting Sunnis, in Iraq’s worst day of violence for months.

In the first attack, in Baquba, about 50km (30 miles) north of Baghdad, at least 41 people were killed when two bombs detonated outside a Sunni mosque.

Later, police said at least eight died at a Sunni funeral in Madain, and 14 more in two blasts in western Baghdad.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 6:05 pm

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

CBS News
May 17, 2013

The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn’t plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used that even has one of its inventors calling it too intrusive. Her 60 Minutes report will be broadcast Sunday, May 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Professor Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon, who researches how technology impacts privacy, stunned Stahl with an experiment. He photographed random students on the campus and in short order, not only identified several of them, but in a number of cases found their personal information, including social security numbers, just using a facial recognition program he downloaded for free. Acquisti says smart-phones will make “facial searches” as common as Google searches in the future. And nearly everybody can be subject to such prying, even those who are careful about their Internet use.

“One of the participants, before doing the experiment, told us, ‘You’re not going to find me because I’m very careful about my photos online.’ And we found him,” says Acquisti, “Because someone else had uploaded a photo of him.”

Watch the Segment

Read full article

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:32 pm

Tags: big brother, domestic spying

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

CBS News
May 17, 2013

The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn’t plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used that even has one of its inventors calling it too intrusive. Her 60 Minutes report will be broadcast Sunday, May 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Professor Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon, who researches how technology impacts privacy, stunned Stahl with an experiment. He photographed random students on the campus and in short order, not only identified several of them, but in a number of cases found their personal information, including social security numbers, just using a facial recognition program he downloaded for free. Acquisti says smart-phones will make “facial searches” as common as Google searches in the future. And nearly everybody can be subject to such prying, even those who are careful about their Internet use.

“One of the participants, before doing the experiment, told us, ‘You’re not going to find me because I’m very careful about my photos online.’ And we found him,” says Acquisti, “Because someone else had uploaded a photo of him.”

Watch the Segment

Read full article

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:32 pm

Tags: big brother, domestic spying

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Sarah Kessler
Fast Company
May 17, 2013

When Jason Sosa started work on a webcam technology that detects, in real time, the age, gender, attention time, and glances of the people looking at it, he thought he was solving an advertising problem. It’s turned out to be much more.

His startup’s first product was a digital billboard that changes the ads it displays depending on who looks at them—showing, for instance, an ad for a toy to a child and an ad for aftershave to a man.

It wasn’t long, however, before requests started pouring in from other industries eager to use the technology:

In a car, one request proposed, real-time facial detection could monitor a driver’s attention, alerting him if he falls asleep.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:39 pm

Tags: big brother, domestic spying, technology

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Sarah Kessler
Fast Company
May 17, 2013

When Jason Sosa started work on a webcam technology that detects, in real time, the age, gender, attention time, and glances of the people looking at it, he thought he was solving an advertising problem. It’s turned out to be much more.

His startup’s first product was a digital billboard that changes the ads it displays depending on who looks at them—showing, for instance, an ad for a toy to a child and an ad for aftershave to a man.

It wasn’t long, however, before requests started pouring in from other industries eager to use the technology:

In a car, one request proposed, real-time facial detection could monitor a driver’s attention, alerting him if he falls asleep.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:39 pm

Tags: big brother, domestic spying, technology

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Hackers continued needling Western media outlets this week, briefly compromising the web site and social media presence of the Financial Times on Friday, days after they took credit for launching a similar assault on the New York Times.

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is a hacker collective that has
made its name disrupting media outlets it perceives as against
Syrian President Bashar Assad and sympathetic to Syrian rebel
forces. The anonymous hackers have previously infiltrated the
Associated Press, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and the Onion, a parody news
site. 

Twelve posts were published on the Financial Times’ website
Friday afternoon with the title “Hacked by the Syrian Electronic
Army.” The news organization’s official Twitter feeds bore a
similar message, reading “The Syrian Electronic Army was
here.” One tweet, quickly removed, linked to a YouTube video of
an execution. 

“We have now locked those accounts and are grateful for
Twitter’s help on this,” Robert Shrimsley, the managing editor
of FT.com, said in the Financial Times. “Unfortunately this is
an increasingly common issue for major news
organizations.” 

Earlier this week the New York Times reported it “was
subjected to denial of service attacks,” meaning the outlet’s
web site was “temporarily unavailable to a small number of
users.”

By instigating a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) hackers
falsify Internet users and turn them onto one specific page,
overwhelming that site with traffic. The New York Times would not
reveal whether the SEA or another group was responsible for the
DDoS attack earlier this week. 

Real consequences of an attack showed themselves last month when
the SEA announced, under the guise of the Associated Press’
Twitter, that the White House had been attacked and US President
Barack Obama was injured. Stocks on Wall Street immediately
plummeted before the confusion lifted. 

One SEA hacker, who identified himself as “The3 Pr0” to
the New York Times, said the collective has little difficulty
breaching high profile websites. Their method of choice, in the AP
incident for example, had been to send out a net of duplicitous
emails to reporters requesting log-in information. When the results
come in the SEA simply uses that code to access whatever they can.
The process is known as phishing. 

This article originally appeared on : RT

Hackers continued needling Western media outlets this week, briefly compromising the web site and social media presence of the Financial Times on Friday, days after they took credit for launching a similar assault on the New York Times.

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is a hacker collective that has
made its name disrupting media outlets it perceives as against
Syrian President Bashar Assad and sympathetic to Syrian rebel
forces. The anonymous hackers have previously infiltrated the
Associated Press, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and the Onion, a parody news
site. 

Twelve posts were published on the Financial Times’ website
Friday afternoon with the title “Hacked by the Syrian Electronic
Army.” The news organization’s official Twitter feeds bore a
similar message, reading “The Syrian Electronic Army was
here.” One tweet, quickly removed, linked to a YouTube video of
an execution. 

“We have now locked those accounts and are grateful for
Twitter’s help on this,” Robert Shrimsley, the managing editor
of FT.com, said in the Financial Times. “Unfortunately this is
an increasingly common issue for major news
organizations.” 

Earlier this week the New York Times reported it “was
subjected to denial of service attacks,” meaning the outlet’s
web site was “temporarily unavailable to a small number of
users.”

By instigating a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) hackers
falsify Internet users and turn them onto one specific page,
overwhelming that site with traffic. The New York Times would not
reveal whether the SEA or another group was responsible for the
DDoS attack earlier this week. 

Real consequences of an attack showed themselves last month when
the SEA announced, under the guise of the Associated Press’
Twitter, that the White House had been attacked and US President
Barack Obama was injured. Stocks on Wall Street immediately
plummeted before the confusion lifted. 

One SEA hacker, who identified himself as “The3 Pr0” to
the New York Times, said the collective has little difficulty
breaching high profile websites. Their method of choice, in the AP
incident for example, had been to send out a net of duplicitous
emails to reporters requesting log-in information. When the results
come in the SEA simply uses that code to access whatever they can.
The process is known as phishing. 

This article originally appeared on : RT

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_the_irss_nonprofit_division_got_so_dysfunctional_20130517/

Posted on May 17, 2013

Of the 90,000 employees at the agency last year, only 876 worked in the Exempt Organizations’ division, or less than 1 in 1,000 employees.

Of those, 335 worked in the office that actually handles applications of nonprofits.  

Most of those 2014 about 300 2014 worked in Cincinnati, Streckfus estimates. The rest were at headquarters, in Washington D.C.

In Cincinnati, the employees’ primary job was sifting through the applications of nonprofits, making determinations as to whether a nonprofit should be recognized as tax-exempt. In a press release Wednesday, the IRS said fewer than 200 employees were responsible for that work.

In 2012, these employees received 60,780 applications. The bulk of those 2014 51,748 2014 were from groups that wanted to be recognized as charities.

But the number of social welfare nonprofit applications spiked from 1,777 in 2011 to 2,774 in 2012. It’s impossible to say how many of those groups indicated whether they would engage in politics, or why the number of applications increased. The IRS said Wednesday that it “has seen an increase in the number of tax-exempt organization applications in which the organization is potentially engaged in political activity,” including both charities and social welfare nonprofits, but didn’t specify any numbers.

Source: IRS Data Books

This article originally appeared on : TruthDig

Vermont seemed more likely than ever to become the first US state to mandate the labeling of genetically modified food (GMO) after a bill passed the state house, though legislators worry about a lawsuit threat from biotech giant Monsanto.

Similar bills seeking to provide consumers with labels at the
grocery store that highlight what products contain GMOs have
recently failed. In California, a ballot initiative which bypassed
Congress after receiving 850,000 signatures was defeated in 2012
after a large consortium of biotech companies including Monsanto
spent some $50 million on an ad blitz against the legislation.

As RT reported in late April, a new federal bill which would
mandate the labeling of GMOs, the Genetically Engineered Food
Right-to-Know Act, was introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Though few expect such laws to pass on a
national level, the bill was notable for its inclusion of a wider
base of bipartisan support, with nine Senate co-sponsors and 22
cosponsors in the House.

Though sixty-four other countries, including EU members, China,
Russia, Brazil, India and Japan already have existing regulations
in place to label GMOs for consumers the issue is a highly
contentious one in the US, both at the federal and state level.

According to Senator Boxer, more than 90 per cent of Americans
support the labeling of genetically engineered products. Though the
Food and Drug Administration requires the labeling of over 3,000
ingredients, additives and processes it does not consider GMOs to
be “materially” different
as they cannot be tasted, smelled or identified by consumers by
other means.

Legally, part of the argument for labeling GMOs rests on the US
Patent and Trademark Office determination that GMOs are in actually
materially different and novel, at least for patents filed by the
biotech companies that produce and sell these products.

As for Vermont’s bill, according to coverage by local public
radio no state representatives had any opposition to transparency
in food labeling, though some were concerned by a looming lawsuit
by the biotech industry.

“Nobody else has passed a similar bill. They all seem to be
waiting for Vermont to go first and lead the nation, ” said Representative Tom Koch (R-Barre).

“What they mean is they don’t want to risk their taxpayers’
money; they want us to risk Vermonters’ money. That is a $5 million
to $10 million risk, and one I am not willing to take,” he added.

No representatives on Thursday argued against the concept of
more transparent food labeling. The most frequent point of
opposition voiced on the floor concerned a likely lawsuit from the
biotech or food industries that the Attorney General’s Office
estimates could cost the state more than $5 million.

Vermont’s legislation appears to have been watered down to
partly guard against the threat of legal action taken by companies
like Monsanto, exempting meat, milk and eggs from animals fed or
treated with genetically engineered products, which would include
GMO corn feed and the rBGH cattle hormone.

In the US genetically modified food is widely available. As much
as 90 per cent of corn, sugar beet and soybean crops are
genetically altered, and some 70 per cent of processed foods at a
typical supermarket contain GMOs. Other common GMO items include
tomatoes, potatoes and squash.

If passed by Vermont’s senate and signed into law, the new
labeling requirements would likely not go into effect for another
two years. Activists believe that the legislation stands a good
chance, owing to its wide margin of support 107-37 in the
house.

This article originally appeared on : RT

Brett Wolf
Reuters
May 17, 2013

U.S. authorities have seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the booming Bitcoin digital currency market, Tokyo-based exchange Mt. Gox. The move may prevent the firm from facilitating the purchase and sale of Bitcoins in U.S. dollars at a time when use of the currency and its value has mushroomed.

Bitcoin, which unlike conventional money is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of any central authority, has grown popular among users who lack faith in the established banking system.

The price of the volatile currency ballooned in March as a result of the Cyprus bank crisis. Authorities worry that a lack of regulation has left the currency vulnerable to money launderers and other criminals.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:13 pm

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Infowars.com
May 17, 2013

Appearing before the House Weighs and Means Committee today, exiting IRS chief Steven Miller couldn’t do much more than just squirm in his chair as Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa vented the frustrations felt by millions of Americans.

Miller was immediately intimidated by Kelly’s tone and after a few “erms” and “uh-uh-uhs” Kelly let ‘er rip:

“If you think it’s uncomfortable sitting over there you ought to be a private individual when the IRS is across from you asking you questions!”

Here’s a few of Kelly’s best punches:

“I have a grandson who’s afraid to get out of bed at night because he thinks there’s someone under the bed that’s going to grab him. And I think most Americans feel that way about the IRS.”

“It’s always these are low-level people that pushed the wrong button.”

“Yes or no, does it come back to DC?” (Yes — one of Miller’s few coherent responses.)

“So DC and Cincinnati are pretty well connected?”

“This kind of reconfirms that, you know what, they [the IRS] can do almost anything they want to anybody they want, anytime they want. This is very chilling for the American people.”

“This is a Pandora’s Box that has been opened and I don’t think we can get the lid back on it.”

“I don’t believe that the White House just found out about this in a news report, the president happened to grab a TV shot or just read Mr. George’s report and said, ‘You know.. what… anybody heard about this before?’”

“I got to tell you, where you’re sitting, you should be outraged – and you’re not. The American people should be outraged, and they are.”

“This reconfirms everything the American public believes! This is a huge blow to the faith and trust the American people have in their government!”

“Is there any limit to the scope of where you folks can go?”

“It’s sure as hell intimidating. And I don’t’ know that I got any answers from you today.”

“There’s a heck of a lot more that has to come out in this.”

“I am more concerned today than I was before. The fact that you all can do just about anything you want to anybody. You know, you can put anybody out of business that you want anytime you want.”

“You talk about how you’re a horribly run organization? You’re on the other side of the fence.”

“And when the IRS comes in, you’re not allowed to be shoddy, you’re not allowed to be run horribly, you’re not allowed to make mistakes, you’re not allowed to do one damn thing that doesn’t come in compliance. If you do, you’re held responsible right then.”

“This is absolutely an overreach and this is an outrage for all America!”

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:01 pm

Tags: big brother, domestic news

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Ed Pilkington
The Guardian
May 17, 2013

Hopes that America’s 11 million undocumented migrants might be granted a pathway to US citizenship have risen significantly after a bipartisan group of politicians in the House of Representatives reached a tentative deal on reforming the country’s immigration laws.

The agreement for comprehensive immigration reform brings the House in line with efforts in the US Senate to bring undocumented migrants, who are mainly Hispanics, out of the shadows. Though details of the proposals are yet to be disclosed, they are understood to broadly echo those enshrined in the Senate bill, with a pathway to citizenship coupled with a toughening of security at the Mexican border.

The announcement on Thursday night that a deal in principle had been reached was all the more dramatic because the search for compromise between the four Republican members of the House “group of eight” negotiators and their Democratic counterparts came close to breaking down earlier in the week. The group of eight is highly diverse, with John Carter and Sam Johnson, both of Texas, coming from the right of the Republican party, while Democrats Xavier Becerra of California and Luis Gutierrez of Illinois are both members of the congressional Hispanic caucus.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 5:07 pm

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

News.com.au
May 17, 2013

South African police said they had launched a series of murder inquiries after 23 males died while undergoing circumcision during traditional rites of passage into manhood.

The 23 — aged between 13 and 21 — died in various places across the country’s northeastern Mpumalanga province over the course of a week.

“We have opened 22 cases of murder and one of inquest,” regional police spokesman Leonard Hlathi told AFP.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 4:53 pm

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
May 17, 2013

Alex Jones and Infowars.com received a copy of the form sent to Tea Party and patriot groups. The form queries applicants on the following:

— A detailed narrative on the organization’s political activity

— Who conducted the activity and where

— How organization members were recruited

— Detailed information on political events

— Detailed information on speeches, forums, panels, and speakers (including credentials)

— Names of organization members

— Copies of all communications, pamphlets, advertisements, etc., distributed

— Copies of all radio, television or internet advertisements

Although the corporate media has portrayed the intrusive IRS behavior as harassment, the content the government demanded the organizations turn over to the taxation agency to gain tax-exempt status reveals something far more ominous — the IRS was in the business of collecting sensitive political data on organizations ideologically opposed to the Obama administration.

See the form in PDF format here.

This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Bitcoin threatens both the financial elite’s monopoly over the economy and the online web of payment systems which have been used as a tool to crack down on free speech on the Internet, Amir Taaki, a bitcoin software developer, told RT.

On Wednesday, The US Department of Homeland Security seized a
payment processing account belonging to Mt. Gox, the largest
international Bitcoin trader over claims the monetary exchange
service had falsified financial documents.

The US government has never hidden the fact that it is closely
watching the virtual currency, which international regulators have
thus far failed to keep a lid on.

But while banks and governments have treated the Bitcoin payment
system as an “existential threat” to current financial system,
Taaki argues that the virtual currency epitomizes real free trade
and is a necessary tool to maximize the benefits of a free and open
market.  

RT: You’re at the heart of the Bitcoin system – could
you explain for us in a nutshell how Bitcoin works, and why anyone
would want to take part?

Amir Taaki: The basic gist of it is, there is this
network of people worldwide, and any person that joins the Bitcoin
network is responsible for upholding it. The Bitcoin is
actually a form of money, like the dollar, euro or pound, but it’s
virtual currency on the Internet. It is a type of currency which is
not overseen by central banks, governments or states, and there are
no restrictions on how you can use it. You can send it to anyone,
anywhere in the world. A person can download Bitcoin
software, get set up with it in five minutes, and start accepting
payments from Iran or North Korea. It’s proper free trade, not the
fake kind where you need to register corporations or companies, and
then you’re shut out of the market because of regulations: No! It’s
the kind of money where anybody in the world can participate. It
might be alright in the West, when anybody can set up an account
and get a Visa or Mastercard, but it’s not the same. Paypal alone
is blocking access from over 60 different countries worldwide.
Bitcoin does not have any of these restrictions or limitations. The
payment system is used as a political tool to shut down speech on
the Internet, and that’s why the Bitcoin is so important. 
 

RT: Still, to many people the whole Bitcoin system seems
to be very complex — how do we know that it’s safe and can be
trusted?

AT: The Bitcoin system is a really simple system because
it’s based off this concept of open source. I can download
the source code for Bitcoin and you can read through it. It’s like
how someone [can read] French or Spanish or English — I can read
the source code and see that it does exactly what it says it
does. It’s something really powerful when I have Bitcoins
stored on my computer and I send it over the Internet direct to
someone without any middleman whatsoever using software that I
wrote myself, completely. When I have a bank account, I don’t know
what happens in that bank account. I don’t know who I’m
dealing with or all the middlemen and institutions there. Bitcoin
has none of that. It’s total control over your money.

RT: As we’ve heard, the U.S. government has raided a
business involved in Bitcoin transactions – could it stop BitCoin
althogether, if it was determined to do so?

AT: No, and this is actually great news. So far they’ve been
moving covertly, in the shadows, pushing Bitcoin here and there,
and this is the first time they’ve actually played their hand and
made a move against Bitcoin that’s out there in the public. Bitcoin
is a tool which threatens the powers of all of these institutions
which have the economy rigged [in their favor]. Yesterday, I was in
Canary Wharf, there are these police and they’re not even real
police. They look like police, they dress like police but they’re
not — they’re security guards. And they were going around harassing
us when we were going to the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] to
ask questions. They will make moves against Bitcoin, because it
does threaten this power that they have; this monopoly over the
economy.

But Bitcoin is a tool, which, if done right, cannot be censored.
You can’t stop people from doing trade with each other. It’s a
proper tool for free trade. I’ve been saying for a long time that
we need to build Bitcoin in the underground market and things like
what has just happened in the US prove this is true. We need a
foundation for Bitcoin, and the underground economy doesn’t only
mean drugs or guns or weapons. It means normal things like people
doing trade with each other — local business sending goods to each
other and trading. There’s a lot more to the underground economy
than just the common picture which is painted out there. It’s
something which allows people to progress and to actually create
the kind of wealth and business that should be possible in a truly
free market.

This article originally appeared on : RT

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Israeli troops have shot and injured nine Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank, Press TV reports.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

A criminal case has been opened over repeated beating of children in a far-eastern Russian orphanage by the elder orphans. The children’s ordeal caused outrage after footage of the beatings went viral on YouTube.

A video
uploaded on the video-sharing service, which was apparently filmed
on a mobile phone by one of the offenders, showed several female
adolescents strapping and kicking little boys and shouting “Go
to bed!” at them.

The footage was sent to a local media agency by an unnamed
person, who said it was taken at the Mazanovsky children’s home in
a rural area of the Amur Region, according to RIA.

An investigation was launched and has revealed at least ten
children aged 7 to 9 were “systematically” beaten by several
orphans from the elder group. Three females administered the
beatings, one was underage, the investigators said.

Four suspects have been identified, and two of them detained.
The third offender being just under sixteen could not be
prosecuted, and the girl who was filming the beating is yet to be
questioned by the investigators.

A criminal case the two oldest suspects, born in 1995 and 1996
has been opened, the orphans could spend up to 7 years in prison if
found guilty.

The director of the orphanage has also been suspended from her
job.

There have been calls from the public for not just punishment of
the offenders, but also prosecutions of the responsible local
authorities. According to the investigation, the young boys had
been violently ‘punished’ since February, and it remains unclear if
the orphanage staff had done anything at all to prevent the
brutality.

Russian Ombudsman for Children’s Rights Pavel Astakhov has
joined the public anger, demanding the children’s home to be closed
and an investigation of the people supervising the orphanage.

“This was systematic. There are at least six proven episodes
of child torture in the orphanage. It is practically impossible
that the supervisors had not known about it. And if they knew, and,
even worse, encouraged such ‘relations’ between the elder and the
younger orphans — then, there is another criminal case,”
Astakhov argued.

He said the conditions were “prison-like” and the behaviour
“criminal,” Astakhov urged called for the rehabilitation and
re-education of the children — but not in the same place.

However, Astakhov also blamed the regional authorities, saying
they were responsible for failing to ensure the orphans received a
proper education and decent care, but instead had their “mental
health ruined.”

The actions of Amur Region officials working for the Ministry of
Education, as well as the law enforcement bodies responsible for
child safety will be given “a thorough legal assessment,”
the investigative committee has assured.

Local media also quoted a woman allegedly working in the
orphanage, who said everyone was aware of the repeated beatings.
The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she had tried
to talk with one of the girls caught on the video.

“I had been beaten in the orphanage, and I will beat,”
was the orphan’s alleged response.

The orphanage has so far refused to comment on the matter.

This article originally appeared on : RT

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
May 17, 2013

Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted “disposition matrix”, a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be “disposed of”: indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack:

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism.”

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether the statutory basis for this “war” — the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) — should be revised (meaning: expanded). This is how Wired’s Spencer Ackerman (soon to be the Guardian US’s national security editor) described the most significant exchange:

“Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, ‘At least 10 to 20 years.’ . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today — atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America’s Thirty Years War.”

[…]

The genius of America’s endless war machine is that, learning from the unplesantness of the Vietnam war protests, it has rendered the costs of war largely invisible. That is accomplished by heaping all of the fighting burden on a tiny and mostly economically marginalized faction of the population, by using sterile, mechanized instruments to deliver the violence, and by suppressing any real discussion in establishment media circles of America’s innocent victims and the worldwide anti-American rage that generates.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 4:02 pm

Tags: terrorism, war

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic
May 17, 2013

Prompted by Peggy Noonan’s claim in The Wall Street Journal that “we are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate,” Andrew Sullivan steps forward to defend Pres. Obama’s honor. “Can she actually believe this?,” he asks incredulously. “Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes? Has he traded arms for hostages with Iran? Has he knowingly sent his cabinet out to tell lies about his sex life? Has he sat by idly as an American city was destroyed by a hurricane? Has he started a war with no planning for an occupation? Has he started a war based on a lie, and destroyed the US’ credibility and moral standing while he was at it, leaving nothing but a smoldering and now rekindled civil sectarian war?”

An Obama critic, having overplayed her hand, gave Sullivan an opening to respond with what amounts to, “It isn’t as bad as Watergate, nor as bad as George W. Bush.” Let’s concede those points. I don’t much care what Obama’s Republican critics say about him. The scandals they’re presently touting, bad as two of them are, aren’t even the worst of Team Obama’s transgressions.

I have a stronger critique. Sullivan hasn’t internalized the worst of what Obama’s done, because his notion of scandal is implicitly constrained by whatever a president’s partisan opponents tout as scandalous. If they criticize Obama wrongly, he defends Obama proportionately.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 4:10 pm

Tags: constitution, domestic news, domestic spying, government corruption

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This article originally appeared on : Infowars

Civilians gather at the scene of a car bomb attack in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on May 16, 2013.

This article originally appeared on : Press TV

United States President Barack Obama is encouraging Congress to take up a media shield law that was abandoned at the start of his administration, but critics of the bill say it might make it even easier for journalists to be subpoenaed by the government.

After the Associated Press revealed on Monday that they are the
target of a US Department of Justice probe, Obama asked lawmakers
to consider a would-be media shield law that fell apart in
Washington after the start of his first presidency in 2009.

The AP wrote this week that the Justice Department subpoenaed
two months of phone records likely in an attempt to try and find
out with whom the news agency spoke with before publishing a May
2012 article that exposed a Yemeni terror plot foiled by the
Central Intelligence Agency. Attorney General Eric Holder called
the disclosure of classified information to the AP one of the
biggest leaks ever suffered by the US and said publically that it
put the American people at risk. On Thursday, Pres. Obama commented
that “leaks related to national security can put people at
risk,” but suggested that reviving a media shield law that died
in Congress could perhaps strike the balance between the public’s
right to know and the safety of the nation.

“So the whole goal of this media shield law that was worked
on, and largely endorsed by folks like the Washington Post
editorial page and prosecutors, was finding a way to strike that
balance appropriately,” said the president. “And to the
extent this case … has prompted renewed interest about how do we
strike that balance properly, I think now is the time for us to go
ahead and revisit that legislation. I think that’s a worthy
conversation to have and I think that’s important.”

Now as the White House shifts focus from one scandal to another,
free speech advocates are concerned that the shield law, as
written, wouldn’t do much more than current legislation in terms of
thwarting future subpoenas sent to journalists. Trevor Timm, an
activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a board member
of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in a blog post this
week that the media shield law touted by Pres. Obama during his
days as a senator in Illinois failed to take shape after he secured
his spot in the Oval Office.

“As a Senator, Obama was a vocal supporter of a robust shield
law; he co-sponsored a bill in 2007 and campaigned on the issue in
2008,” Timm wrote. “But when the Senate moved to pass the
bill as soon as Obama came into office, his administration abruptly
changed course and opposed the bill, unless the Senate carved out
an exception for all national security reporters.”

When Obama entered the White House in early 2009, he walked away
from a Senate where a shield law he advocated for had just started
to take shape. Before long, though, his own administration asked
for Congress to make adjustments before it ended up on the
president’s desk. That original law would, in theory, put in place
safeguards that would help prevent journalists from being compelled
to testify who their sources are. Once in the White House, though,
Obama did an about face.

In September 2009, Charlie Savage wrote for the New York Times
that those safeguards “would not apply to leaks of a matter
deemed to cause ‘significant’ harm to national security.”

“Moreover, judges would be instructed to be deferential to
executive branch assertions about whether a leak caused or was
likely to cause such harm, according to officials familiar with the
proposal,” Savage wrote.

One of the bill’s authors, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York),
had sharp words for the president at the time. “The White
House’s opposition to the fundamental essence of this bill is an
unexpected and significant setback. It will make it hard to pass
this legislation,” the senator said. Sen. Arlen Specter
(D-Pennsylvania), a co-sponsor, called the changes “totally
unacceptable.”

“If the president wants to veto it, let him veto it,”
Sen. Specter told the Times in 2009. “I think it is different
for the president to veto a bill than simply to pass the word from
his subordinates to my subordinates that he doesn’t like the
bill.”

Ultimately, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the shield
law after some minor tweaking in December 2009, but as Savage
explained in the Times this week, “a furor over leaking arose
after WikiLeaks began publishing archives of secret government
documents, and the bill never received a vote.”

Speaking to the Washington Post about what the passing of that
version would have done in regards to the AP probe, Sen. Schumer
said, “at minimum, our bill would have ensured a fairer, more
deliberate process in this case.”

“While it is unclear whether the bill would change the
outcome in the AP phone records case since a national security
exception may have applied, the bill would have set up a legal
process for approving the subpoenas that would guarantee
consideration of the public’s interest in protecting the freedom of
the press,” Schumer weighed in. “Prosecutors would have to
convince a judge that the information at issue would “prevent or
mitigate an act of terrorism or harm to national security.”