Dutch crown-prince's bribes Mozambique officials to build holiday home

The Dutch socialists have today raised parliamentary questions about the holiday home which crown-prince William-Alexander wants to build for himself and wife Maximá in Mozambique.
The Socialist Party's MP Ewout Irrgang cites reports stating that local Machangula regional councillors, police and tribal chiefs were 'bribed with free houses' by the South African project developers. They wanted to know whether the prince was really involved in this project on the Machangula peninsula- and if he was, he should have his head read for supporting such bribery practices. They cited reports from today's influential publication Haagsche Post/De Tijd.

See World Bank Report for a 'tourism-development project loan', for 2005-2008 -- and which described this Peninsula as one of the most beautiful, pristine natural areas still left in the world: Read the report here
Plans for the place now are running at full clip however -- with thirty houses already built and massive plans for foreigners' luxury holiday-homes and a five-star hotel, schools and a harbour. More here and here.

The HP/deTijd writes that the local tribal chief, his assistant, the local government official and the police chief each were given a free house from the project-developer.
The anti-corruption organisation Transparency International says that while this is 'not unusual in Africa, it remains bribery.'

• Irrgang wanted to know from the minister of development aid Bert Koenders of the co-ruling labour party whether the royal couple were really involved in the Machangulo project -- and noted that this would be 'very unwise. '
• "This reeks of corruption and bribery from all sides. If Western companies can use the excuse of 'African culture' as an excuse to pay bribes, Africa's corruption will just get worse.'

The Dutch government's information website also noted that 'more than thirty houses have been built for local government functionaries, teachers, nurses and chiefs on the peninsula.'

Censorbugbear reports

U.N.: Desperate Haitians Eating Mud

People in Haiti have become so desperate for food that many are eating mud, U.N. officials said.

U.N. officials say that food is available in the impoverished Caribbean nation, The Guardian reported. But prices are rising so fast that the Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that food will cost 80 percent more at the end of the year than it did in January.

The high prices come in a country where much of the population is already living on the edge. The United Nations says that two-thirds of Haitians live on less than $1 a day.

In normal times, pregnant women use mud cakes as a source of calcium. Now, they are famine food.

"It stops the hunger," said Marie-Carmelle Baptiste, who makes mud cakes. "You eat them when you have to."

The cakes' raw material comes from a clay deposit outside Port-au-Prince. Baptiste said they have become more expensive to make, but she does not want to raise her prices until she has to because she knows that, for her customers, the cakes are the last resort.  102.5 KNIX

Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach - Read more on The Guardian

Prince Phillip upsets China

A bit old, but still fun...

Quotes from Prince Philip like "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."

Also see a LIST OF FAMOUS ILLUMINATI MEMBERS

U.N.: Millions Hungry in North Korea

With shriveled harvests and a cutback in imports, North Korea has slipped back into a serious food shortage that is causing millions of people to go hungry, the United Nations announced Wednesday.

The main U.N. aid agency in North Korea, the World Food Program, will resume emergency operations there in the next two weeks to help feed more than 5 million people over the next 15 months at a cost of $500 million, according to Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the agency's country director in Pyongyang.

"The situation is indeed very serious," de Margerie said at a news conference in Beijing.  washingtonpost.com

China to censor Internet during Games

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.

"During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

 

He confirmed, however, that journalists would not be able to access information or websites connected to the Falungong spiritual movement which is banned in China.

Other sites were also unavailable to journalists, he said, without specifying which ones.  Breitbart.com

Italy deploys troops to fight crime

The Italian government launched on Tuesday a scheme that will deploy 3,000 troops in major Italian cities to help patrol the streets, local media reported.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni and Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa unveiled the six-month pilot scheme, which will start on Monday. They said the army, air force, navy and Carabinieri would work alongside police.

A total of 2,000 troops will be placed at the disposal of 16 mayors to guard black spots and immigration holding centers in cities including Rome, Milan and Naples. Some units will watch "sensitive" sites in Rome, Milan and Naples -- 51 in the capital, 20 in Milan and one in Naples. The remaining 1,000 will patrol the streets of Bari, Catania, Milan, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Padua, Rome, Turin and Verona. Xinhua

Beijing Olympics taking water from the countryside

The Beijing Olympics will open shortly. Most of the locations for the events are ready, and the authorities in the Chinese capital have planted millions of trees in recent years to make sure these games are also 'green'. But all that greenery needs water, and that has to be imported from other Chinese provinces.

Prominent Chinese journalist Dai Qing - whose work has been banned from publication in China since 1989, and who is best known for her opposition to the Three Gorges dam project - has the explanation: "Why is this? Because there simply isn't enough water."

Recently, a report on the water situation was published. It was written by Ms Dai together with Probe International, a Canadian environmental group, and a number of Chinese experts who prefer to remain anonymous. Ms Dai writes in the report:
"The Beijing water crisis is the result of decades of short-sighted policies. The map of Beijing shows more than 200 rivers and streams, but in reality they are nearly all dry. And the Beijing water sources, once known for their sweet-tasting water, have all disappeared."

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

We lie and bluster about our nukes - and then wag our fingers at Iran

The permanent members of the UN security council draw a distinction between their "responsible" ownership of nuclear weapons and that of the aspirant powers. But over the past six years, the UK, US, France and Russia have all announced that they are prepared to use their nukes pre-emptively against a presumed threat, even from states that do not possess nuclear weapons. In some ways the current nuclear stand-off is more dangerous than the tetchy detente of the cold war.

The danger has been heightened by the US government's current offensive. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, is demanding that other countries accept her plans to destroy the last remaining incentive for states to abide by the NPT. The treaty grants countries which conform to it materials for nuclear power on favourable terms. It's a flawed incentive - as the spread of civil nuclear programmes makes the proliferation of military material more likely - but an incentive nonetheless. Now Rice insists that India should have special access to US nuclear materials despite the fact that it has not signed the NPT and has illegally developed nuclear weapons.

More on The Guardian and www.monbiot.com

A Video Threat to the Olympics?

A previously little known group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party claims it carried out several fatal bombings in the country in recent months. The group's self-described military commander, Seyfullah, said it was responsible for incidents in Shanghai in early May and in the southern city of Kunming on July 21 that killed a total of five people.

The three minute video, which was obtained under unspecified circumstances by the Intelcenter, a Washington D.C. company that specializes in collecting counter terrorism information, was greeted with skepticism both in and out of China. Police in Shanghai and Kunming said the blasts weren't related to opposition to Chinese rule by ethnic Uighur Muslims in the country's far western province of Xinjiang. Police in Guangdong province also said they had no record of an explosion on the date mentioned in the video.

"My hunch is that this is a media driven operation, " says Nicholas Bequelin, chief China researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "The goal is to help it to recruit people to the cause or attract attention" at a time when the eyes of the world are focused on China. "I don't think they seriously are claiming responsibility." Says terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, "The threat is to change the mood rather than to mount an attack in the Olympic Venue. However, attacks elswhere, small to medium, are likely in the lead up and during the event." Becquelin, who wrote his Ph D. dissertation about the situation in Xinjiang, said the group had released several videos previously, but "they've never presented any evidence that they are operational."

TIME - See the video on You Tube

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Olympics: Wary China readies for some patriot games

In the concrete and glass shopping centre in the heart of Zhengzhou thousands of spectators, many wearing red-and-white "I love China" T-shirts and waving national flags, roar in approval as they gaze up at images of the Olympic torch on a giant TV screen.

Many concerns focus on China's nationalist youth. A generation of fenqing (angry youth) has started furious online campaigns against what are seen as China's enemies - these include Nicolas Sarkozy, Sharon Stone, Steven Spielberg, the Carrefour supermarket chain, CNN, the BBC and countless other media groups. After the Tibet unrest in March at least 10 foreign journalists received death threats.

A new assertiveness is evident in the country. "In the future we will get better, we'll beat you," says Gao Yang, an insurance clerk and Chelsea supporter in Taiyuan. "We're getting stronger. Hong Kong has been returned to us. Foreigners are not as powerful as before."

This emotion is a double-edged sword for the authorities, according to Victor Cha, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, who has published a book about the politics of sports in Asia. "There is a lot of nationalism now because of these games. The Chinese leadership knows that sometimes nationalism can be useful, but it can also be dangerous because it can turn against the government at any time."  The Guardian

"Working Class Hero"

Marianne Faithfull Live at "Sessions at West 54th"

 

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and class less and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Ancient Technology

Part 2

All air passengers to give their fingerprints ... but is it for security or to raise profits for the duty-free shops?

Heathrow, UK: Millions of passengers flying from British airports will be fingerprinted from next year under the latest controversial Government anti-terror plans.

The measures, which will apply to both domestic and international passengers, are being introduced despite opposition from the Information Commissioner, Britain’s privacy watchdog. The Commissioner forced Heathrow to abandon a similar plan earlier this year after warning that it was potentially illegal under data protection laws.

Critics say the main reason for the scheme is that airport operators want to maximise profits by ensuring all passengers are able to spend money in ‘duty-free’ shops.

Mail Online

New Delhi, India: From next month, Delhiites will get smart cards for driving licences that will contain much more than just their photograph, signature and address. The smart cards will contain the proposed driver’s fingerprint and a record of his or her record of traffic violations, if any. And the transport department will deliver these cards at your doorstep through courier like passports are. MSN News

It's a hi-tech lunch ticket, and it's coming to several schools in our region this fall.

USA: A finger scanning program has been implemented for students who eat at school in Wayne County.

We see the eye scans and fingerprint identifications in the movies, but now that technology is coming to our local schools.

“As children go through the lunch line, they lay a finger on a scanner and will have their lunch number and be charged with that meal,” Food and Services Director Brenda Arrowood said.

When a finger is scanned for breakfast or lunch at school, you won't see a finger print. Rather, you will see the measurement between points of a fingerprint. The reason for the hi-tech lunch ticket is so the school will know who's getting lunch. WSAZ.Com

Globalists Angle to Hijack Children with “Pre-K Education” Bills

Two bills now in the US House of Representatives provide further evidence the government wants to tell you how to raise US children. The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) aim to micromanage families in the military and those that fall below the poverty line.

According to Chelsea Schilling, writing for WorldNetDaily, the two bills “could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems.” The proposed legislation supposedly aims to prevent child abuse, evaluate medical conditions, and “close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children.”

Article continues on Prison Planet.com

Indian Condom Commercial

Really Weird Indian Condom Commercial - Watch more free videos

Italian sunbathers ignoring dead gipsy girls... But now Italy is showing a chilling interest in Roma children

It was the week's most shocking picture: gipsy girls dead on a beach ignored by sunbathers... Now there is more chilling evidence of how Italy's brutal crackdown on the Roma has sick echoes of the country's fascist past.

She looks like any teenager the world over. Wearing a denim skirt, pink designer T-shirt, and with long hair tied back from her face, Samantha is a child who would make any parent proud.

Yet just a few days ago, this bubbly 14-year-old found herself taking part in an excercise that would seem unthinkable in a modern, civilised European country.

She was ordered to line up at the local community hall near her home in Naples, Italy, and dab her right forefinger in black ink before placing it on a government census form.

The bodies of Cristina, 12, and Viola, 11, were left on the sand after they drowned in rough seas as holidaymakers carry on sunbathing nearby

Samantha was photographed and given an identity code - F43 - as officials asked for her full name, address, age, religion and where she was born.

Most controversially of all, she was told to state her ethnic background.

Every detail, including the fact that her parents are immigrant Roma gipsies from Serbia, was catalogued and put on a national computer system.

She was mortified. Her eyes bright with anger, Samantha said she felt like a villain in the only country she has ever known.

'That same day, the Italian kids started calling me "gyppo" in the streets.

They pointed at me and laughed. I felt like shouting back and saying: 'I am Italian just like you. I was born here too.

'But I didn't dare, in case I started a riot.'

More on the Mail Online

China Jails Internet Dissident Prior To Olympic Games

China has returned a dissident to jail who was to end his parole four days before the August Olympic Games.

Du Daobin, sentenced in 2004 for subversion, would have ended his parole Aug. 4, less than a week before the Aug. 8 start of the games.

A human rights organization said six security officers hustled Du Monday from his job. The local court had no comment.

Police charged Du with posting writings on foreign Web sites and failed to inform authorities about his activities, the Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

In early July, Amnesty International asked Chinese President Hu Jintao to release political prisoners before the start of the Olympics.

In 2003, Du was sentenced to three years for what Chinese authorities charged was "incitement to subvert state power."

AHN, and more on Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders

The Pharmacratic Inquisition

Osama art controversy

 

The head of Australia's Islamic Council believes a statue of the Virgin Mary shrouded in a burqa is not offensive, because it shows a key female figure of Islam in the modest fashion required of all Muslim women.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday described as "gratuitously offensive" the statue and another artwork depicting a holographic image of Osama bin Laden that morphed into an image of Jesus Christ.

The artworks were entries into the Blake Prize for religious art.

More on The Sydney Morning Herald

Propaganda: Streamlined Killer Drone Begins Combat Operations in Iraq

It looks more Star Wars than Iraq War, an unmanned aerial killer ready to fly its first combat mission in Iraq. But the MQ-9 Reaper is more than just a stunning sight — it may represent the future of combat aviation.

The Reaper's streamlined form stands out in its hangar in Balad Air Base in central Iraq, now the busiest in the world for the Department of Defense, with F-16s and cargo planes taking off and landing every few minutes.

The Reaper looks like its predecessor, the Predator drone, which was originally built as a reconnaissance plane and is already widely in use in Iraq and Afghanistan in support of troops on the ground.

But the Reaper was built with offense in mind. It can carry four Hellfire missiles (the Predator carries only two), and it is equipped with a pair of 500-pound laser-guided bombs.

FOXNews.com

The Road to Serfdom

Video by Vlad Tarko, Based on book by F.A. Hayek

Rising food prices pushing east Africa to disaster

More than 14 million people in the east Africa region require urgent food aid due to drought and spiralling cereal and fuel prices, aid agencies say.

In an emergency appeal launched today, Oxfam warns that millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Djibouti and Kenya are fast being pushed "towards severe hunger and destitution". Earlier this week the UN said it needed £200m to avert a humanitarian disaster.

The hunger crisis is worse than the last regional emergency in 2006, when drought caused 11 million people to need assistance, because of the added impact of the global food price increases. Poor families are struggling to buy staples such as maize and wheat, which have more than doubled in price over the past 12 months.

"In previous droughts most people on the margins found ways to cope," said Peter Smerdon, of the World Food Programme. "But the simultaneous increase in food prices this time around means they are cutting down on meals and taking their kids out of school in order to try to get by. More people are falling over the edge."

More on The Guardian

'June 18, 2004: Madrid Bomber Shown to Have Curious Link to Spanish Government Bomb Squad'

It is revealed that the man accused of supplying the dynamite used in the March 2004 Madrid train bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004) was an informant who had the private telephone number of the head of Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad. Emilio Suarez Trashorras, a miner with access to explosives, as well as an associate named Rafa Zouhier both regularly informed for the Spanish police, telling them about drug shipments. London Times, 6/19/2004

“The revelation has raised fresh concerns in Madrid about links between those held responsible for the March bombings, which killed 190 people, and Spain’s security services, and shortcomings in the police investigation.” London Times, 6/19/2004

See this site for a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event.

Also see:

A Spanish court has cleared four men of crimes related to the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which left 191 people dead and injured more than 1,800.

The four were among 21 people jailed in October last year for involvement in the attacks.

The supreme court also upheld the acquittal of Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, who during the 2007 court case was accused of being one of the instigators behind the bombings. More on AlJazeera

US advertising: McNews

Fox 5 News anchors Jason Feinberg and Monica Jackson and the McDonald’s coffee, filled with fake ice

The tentacle-like growth of clandestine advertising in American TV shows in the form of product placement has taken another controversial step with the introduction of McDonald's products into regional news programmes.

Several TV outlets have begun to sell the fast-food giant the right to place cups of its iced coffee on to the desks of news anchors as they present morning current affairs shows.

Typical is Fox 5 News in Las Vegas, an affiliate of Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network. Two cups of coffee, their cubes of ice glinting in the studio lights, now daily stand before the channel's morning presenters. The presenters conspicuously do not drink from the cups, which is just as well - the cups contain a bogus fluid and fake ice to prevent the cubes melting.

More on US advertising: McMorning Las Vegas, here's the news - The Guardian

Bohemian Grove 2008 Guest List

Activists from truthaction.org have obtained the official guest list for Bohemian Grove's 2008 midsummer encampment along with a map of the Grove's facilities. According to the guest list, this year's attendees include George H. W. Bush, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and several former CIA directors. Also attending are two members of the Grateful Dead, one of whom is camping with the elder Bush. During an action at the entrance of the elite retreat, several 9/11 truth information packs were accepted by Bohemian Grove campers and taken into the grove, including one by former CIA Director James Woolsey's bunkmate.

More on truthaction.org and on Infowars.com

Alex Jones, DARK SECRETS: INSIDE BOHEMIAN GROVE

Since 1873, the Global Elite Has Held Secret Meetings in the Ancient Redwood Forest of Northern California. Members of the so-called "Bohemian Club" Include Former Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan. The Bush Family Maintains a Strong Involvement. Each Year at Bohemian Grove, Members of This All-Male "Club" Don Red, Black and Silver Robes and Conduct an Occult Ritual Wherein They Worship a Giant Stone Owl, Sacrificing a Human Being in Effigy to What They Call the "Great Owl of Bohemia." Now, for the First Time in History, an Outsider Has Infiltrated Bohemian Grove with a Hidden Digital Video Camera and Caught the Ritual on Tape.

Tour de France - Kraftwerk

Obama outlines policy of endless war

Any misconception that Barack Obama is running in the 2008 election as an “antiwar” candidate should have been cleared up Tuesday in what was billed by the Democratic presidential campaign as a “major speech” on national security and the US war in Iraq.

Speaking before a backdrop of massed American flags at the Reagan Building in Washington, Obama made it clear that he opposes the present US policy in Iraq not on the basis of any principled opposition to neo-colonialism or aggressive war, but rather on the grounds that the Iraq war is a mistaken deployment of power that fails to advance the global strategic interests of American imperialism.

What emerges from the speech by the junior senator from Illinois is that the November election will not provide the American people with the opportunity to vote for or against war, but merely to choose which of the two colonial-style wars that US forces are presently fighting should be escalated.

As in his op-ed piece published in the New York Times on Monday, his call on Tuesday for the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq was linked to the proposal to dispatch as many as 10,000 troops to Afghanistan to escalate the war there.

Global Research

Finding Karadzic: WE GOT HIM!!

"I began searching for Radovan Karadzic over six years ago. The day we've all been waiting for came today with the news of Karadzic's arrest in Serbia.
The world is a better place today than it was yesterday. Those of us interested in international criminal justice sometimes grow weary at the unfairness and impunity that are often the end results of the worst misconduct in the world by some of the worst people in the world.
But not today. Radovan Karadzic now will begin the process that will see him face the charges listed in his indictment of instigating genocide and intentionally killing thousands of Muslims in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995." Finding Karadzic

Serbian officials said on Tuesday Karadzic was arrested on Monday near Belgrade. They showed reporters a photograph of an unrecognizable Karadzic, thin and with a long, white beard and flowing hair.

He was working for a private doctor, posing as a specialist in alternative medicine, said Rasim Ljajic, Serbia's point man for cooperation with The Hague war crimes tribunal.

Officials said he had been living in New Belgrade.

"He happily, freely walked around the city," Serbia's war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told reporters. "Even the people he rented a flat from were unaware of his identity." Reuters

Blacks bullied in Beijing as Olympics approach

Add Africans and Mongolians to the groups Beijing's Olympic organizers want to push out of the capital before the games begin.

Chinese police officials have been forcing some bar owners in Beijing to sign secret pledges to ban blacks and Mongolians from entering their premises during the Olympic games next month, according to the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper.

While police denied any such activity, and most bars denied knowing about the prohibition, African residents in the city say that harassment by the authorities and discrimination at the bars has increased.

The Post quoted a co-owner of a bar who said his business had been visited by police with an order "not to serve black people or Mongolians." In the Sanlitun bar district, some owners were forced to sign pledges to prohibit dancing and serving black customers.

WND has reported on a "blacklist" of people and groups of people China has been targeting specifically because of the coming publicity that will accompany the Olympic Games in August. Those targeted include religious leaders.

WND has also reported on China's apparent crackdown on Christians and Christianity in advance of the 2008 Games, including the expulsion of more than 100 foreign Christians in China in just a 90-day period, the biggest assault on the presence of Christianity in China since 1954.

Blacks bullied in Beijing as Olympics approach

Also see China’s Expansion Into Africa

Israeli soldier fired 'rubber' bullet at Palestinian detainee from close range

 

Today, B'Tselem is publishing a video clip documenting a soldier firing a rubber coated steel bullet, from extremely close range, at a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee. The shooting took place in the presence of a lieutenant colonel, who was holing the Palestinian's arm when the shot was fired.

The incident took place on 7 July, in Nil'in, a village in the West Bank. A Palestinian demonstrator, Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, was stopped by soldiers, who cuffed and blindfolded him for about thirty minutes, during which time, according to Abu-Rahma, they beat him. Afterwards, a group of soldiers and border policemen led him to an army jeep. The video clip shows a soldier aim his weapon at the demonstrator's legs, from about 1.5 meters away, and fire a rubber coated steel bullet at him.   B'Tselem - Press Releases

The devil riders of Darfur

A doctor in the lawless region of Sudan, witnessed the atrocities of the Janjaweed; and then became a victim of the militia’s terrible revenge

"It was barely two months since the ministry of health had transferred me to this village, Mazkhabad, in the remote north of Darfur. Although I hadn’t finished my medical training and was reluctant to go, I was at least among my own people, the Zaghawa. But there was a war on between the African Zaghawa and the Janjaweed Arab militia. Within a month of my arrival wounded Zaghawa fighters had started coming to the clinic. The local Arab police chief had threatened me in a rage when I’d refused to name them.

And now this. I took the first of the little girls and laid her bloodied form on the bed. She’d been hit in the face with a blunt instrument — probably a rifle butt — and needed stitches. But there were other, more urgent priorities. I checked her eyes: they were dead and glazed with shock. Unseeing. But at least she was still conscious. I felt for her pulse: it was racing and fearful. Yet it was strong. She would live — as long as I could stop the bleeding.

As gently as I could, I tried to prise apart her shaking, bloodied knees. The soft child’s skin of her thighs was crisscrossed with cut marks, as if a pack of wild animals had been clawing at her. I felt her body stiffen, her leg muscles tightening and resisting. Her wailing rose to a terrified scream.

“I’m sorry, little sister, but I have to look. It’s Dr Halima, from the medical clinic. I have to look, I have to . . . But I won’t hurt you or do anything nasty, I promise.”

I glanced around. The room was seething with traumatised girls and grieving parents. The youngest girl was seven, the oldest 13. They had been repeatedly attacked with unimaginably brutal sexual violence.

It was early evening by the time I had finished stitching up the last of them. More than 40 girls had been brought to the clinic, but I knew there were more rape victims than that. In some cases their parents were so ashamed that they had taken their daughters home, and would be treating them privately with traditional cures. In that way they hoped to keep the violation of their loved ones secret."

Read more about The devil riders of Darfur on Times Online

WORLD WAR 3 SECRETS

Also see the links on You Tube at More Info

Lyndon LaRouche address in Washington, D.C., on May 7th. These are just clips from the Tragedy & Hope address where LaRouche talked about Obama getting the nomination. The Lisbon Treaty before Ireland voted No, but now Ireland is being ignored and the Treaty is being forced throw. The Biofuel scam of Prince Philip. that is reducing the worlds population. Its now been exposed biofuel has caused food crisis.

Blackwater expands its fleet of airships

Blackwater Worldwide is building up its own Air Force.

Airmen might soon find Blackwater blimps patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan skies in addition to its helicopter and light transport aircraft already flying thousands of missions in theater.

According to Blackwater Worldwide CEO Erik Prince, eight Blackwater CASA 212 light transport aircraft flew 11,000 sorties in Afghanistan last year supporting 38 combat outposts over 19,000 square miles. Its aircraft transported more than 40,000 personnel and 9.5 million pounds of supplies last year.

“We moved about 40,000 passengers, and our total costs, our total invoice for that mission is about what the U.S. Air Force is paying for one new C-27,” he said.

“So the idea of outsourcing versus having government do it, that’s a pretty simple math question for me.”

Prince said he isn’t looking to replace the Air Force — simply fill a void where his company is needed.  Air Force Times

Also see:

Blackwater bodyguards promised immunity

State Department gave protection to all guards in deadly Iraq incident

Bhutan King signs New Constitution in Golden Ink

Bhutan's Parliament has endorsed the country's first constitution, formally turning the former absolute monarchy into a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy.

The 27-year-old king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, signed the first copy of the constitution, using a wooden pen dipped in golden, ink inside a 17th century fortress after Parliament had ratified it.

His father, Bhutan's fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, not only surrendered power without a struggle, but actually imposed democracy against the will of many of his subjects before abdicating in favour of his Oxford-educated son in 2006.

The Himalayan nation held its first general election in March, and the result shocked Bhutan after the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa won 45 seats, leaving the People's Democratic Party, run by the king's relatives by marriage, with only two seats.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Use Pepper Spray to Fight Breast Cancer

SABRE will make a donation to the NBCF for every unit sold.
The Quick Release with detachable key chain allows immediate access to your defense spray when unlocking a door or driving an automobile. The most popular SABRE style, the Quick Release, is a powerful 0.54 oz container delivering a ballistic stream which reduces wind blow-back about 8-10 feet. Approximately 25 shots are contained in the canister.

PepperSpray.com Personal & Home Safety

International Bankers to Dominate the World

This (not so well made, but interesting) video reveals the plans of the international bankers to dominate the entire world both economically and politically. This charge is validated by video clips from C-SPAN, showing David Rockefeller, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright & Warren Christopher, and White House Councelors Mac McLardy & David Gergen describing what they have in mind for the U.S. and the rest of the world, as well. This is a 10 minute preview. To watch the full video for free, visit bigsmallvillage.com

S&M Barbie is lashed by Christians

BARBIE’S new S&M look has whipped up a storm – with protesters dubbing it “filth”.

The doll’s image is transformed with kinky fishnets, motorcycle jacket, black gloves and boots.

Makers Mattel say Black Canary Barbie, out in September, is based on a DC comic superhero of the same name.

But religious group Christian Voice said: “Barbie has always been on the tarty side and this is taking it too far.

A children’s doll in sexually suggestive clothing is irresponsible – it’s filth.”  The Sun

The credit crisis explained in black and white

Mystified by how 'sub-prime' debt engulfed Wall Street's smartest and now threatens the wider global economy? The following comic strip may help explain how the story started.

Read the rest on the Telegraph

Malaysia braced for riots after sodomy arrest of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim

The Malaysian authorities were braced for mass protests today after the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader, for allegedly sodomising a male acquaintance – the same charge that provoked riots when it was first made ten years ago.

Road blocks were set up and water cannons and helicopters were mobilised around the police station in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, where Mr Anwar was taken after being arrested today.

A statement posted on a website run by his office said: “Anwar Ibrahim … calls upon his supporters and the people of Malaysia to remain calm and to reject any attempts at provocation, which will give a pretext for an emergency situation to be declared.”

A warrant for the arrest of Mr Anwar the leader of the People’s Justice Party (PKR), was issued yesterday, and he was making his way to the police station voluntarily when a convoy of vehicles seized him in front of his house.

“As he entered the neighbourhood of his home, a contingent of ten police cars, half unmarked and half-patrol, forced the two cars in Anwar Ibrahim’s entourage to stop,” the New Straits Times newspaper reported on its website.

“There was a contingent of 20 balaclava-clad masked commandos who accosted him, reminiscent of the forces sent to arrest [him] at his home in September 1998.”

Times Online

Anniversary to Hague Ruling: Repression and Resistance in Israel Intensifies

Four years after the International Court of Justice published an advisory ruling against Israel's Apartheid Wall, without a change on the ground, the Palestinian popular resistance intensifies in actions, courtrooms, and prisons.

In Bilin, Ramallah area, Israeli settlers and army expand illegal settlement on Bilin's land, in contempt of a ruling by Israel's High Court from more than a year ago, leaving Bilin residents to commence legal proceedings against profiting Canadian companies. Like other areas, Bilin has also seen an upsurge in army violence during weekly demonstrations aimed at the fence, a month ago Ibrahim Burnat was shot by three live bullets in the thigh, and is still in hospital.
Nilin village, neighbouring Bilin, has been holding nearly daily demonstrations for several weeks and this week faced a full on siege (video) by Israel's army. Curfew and closure were imposed Friday to Tuesday by Israeli soldiers in an attempt to stop protests against annexation of the village's lands under the illegal excuse of needing to wall off a settler-only apartheid road that runs through the village deep in the West Bank.

On Monday (video) and Tuesday (video) demonstrators broke the siege, then continued with demonstrations marking 4 years to the Hague ICJ ruling Wednesday and Thursday (video).

IMC Israel

Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib

Aside from Botero, surprisingly few major artists have taken on the subject of torture at Abu Ghraib. One notable exception is Richard Serra, who translated the iconic image of the hooded prisoner with outstretched arms into a crude grease-stick drawing framed by the slogan "Stop Bush." It may be that the incidents in Iraq have yet to be culturally digested. And perhaps some artists also feel that the photographs taken by the American guards and later released to the press are themselves the most powerful visual indictments of the crimes committed there.

Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib on Slate.com

Canada to deport U.S. war deserter

U.S. army deserter Robin Long is slated to be deported back to his army base in Fort Knox, Ky., Tuesday, which would make him the first resister to the U.S. war effort in Iraq to be sent out of Canada.

Madam Justice Anne Mactavish of the Federal Court of Canada cleared the way for the deportation late Monday, dismissing a last-ditch attempt to delay the process while the 25-year-old pursued further appeals.

“I was just shocked at some things in [the] ruling,” Bob Ages, a spokesman for an informal group called Vancouver War Resisters Support Campaign, told reporters outside the courtroom. “It just flies in the face of everything that we and every Canadian know about the reality of what is going on.”

Mr. Ages said the court misunderstood the situation facing Mr. Long upon his return.

“I do not think there is any doubt someone being up in Canada, and a vocal opponent to the war, will be treated harshly by the American military … there is no question he will be court-martialed and will receive severe punishment.”

globeandmail.com

Also see War Resisters Support Campaign Website

US Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names

The nation's terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government's own reported numbers for the size of the list.

"Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other 'suspicious characters,' with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon."

Fredrickson and Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, spoke today along with two victims of the watch list: Jim Robinson, former assistant attorney general for the Civil Division who flies frequently and is often delayed for hours despite possessing a governmental security clearance and Akif Rahman, an American citizen who has been detained and interrogated extensively at the U.S.-Canada border when traveling for business.

"America's new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for what's wrong with this administration's approach to security: it's unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives of millions of travelers in this country," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. "It must be fixed without delay." American Civil Liberties Union

Also see Terrorist Screening Center homepage

Olympic China: Forced labour, beatings, verbal abuse

THE ORION CONSPIRACY

Download the Video from the official website THE ORION CONSPIRACY

Bush and Cheney's Cousin Obama

Cheney says they are related...!!

 

China Executes Two Uyghurs for Alleged Terror Links

Uyghurs, like Tibetans, have a long history under Beijing’s heavy-handed rule-which has at times erupted in violence. But exiled Uyghurs deny the existence of an organized terrorist campaign and say previous incidents have been fabricated or exaggerated to secure international support for a crackdown.

Chinese riot police organized to attack people in the Xinjiang region. Some insiders say the people being attacked and executed did nothing wrong, and that the so-called terrorist charges are more similar to George W. Bush's imaginary WMD's. In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese frontier guards with police dogs are ready for orders in the suburb of Yining, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in 2006.

Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imin were originally handed death sentences by the Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court on November 9th 2007, according to a November 11th 2007 report by China's official Xinhua news agency.

Referring to them by their Chinese names, Xinhua said Muhetaer Setiwalidi and Abuduwaili Yiming were sentenced to death for separatist activities, training at a terrorist camp, and illegally manufacturing explosives.

They were sent to be executed after a public announcement of their sentences July 9th in Yengi Sheher county, Kashgar, Uyghur sources and a local official said.

Authorities ordered county residents to attend the meeting but police banned cameras, lighters, and recording devices, the sources told RFA’s Uyghur service.

Authorities also announced that three others Uyghurs had been handed two-year suspended death sentences and the rest were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 10 years to life, the sources said. All 17 defendants were charged as members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing accuses of terrorist ties. ETIM denies the allegation. Salem-News.Com

Also see the EAST  TURKISTAN  INFORMATION CENTER

Srebrenica

Being Opinionated in America

New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman in conversation with UC Berkeley professors Cynthia Gorney and Mark Danner.

(skip the intro, gets very interesting)

McCain Get's Awkward About Women's Health Care Issues

Presumptive Republican Presidential Candidate, John McCain, worms out of answering a reporter's question as to whether or not he believes that health insurance companies should be required to cover birth control for women, particularly considering they cover viagra for men.
McCain has long held radical positions on reproductive issues, having consistently voted AGAINST:
*Ensuring women's access to birth control
*Providing educational information for teens on birth control
*Requiring health insurance companies to cover birth control
McCain has stated that Roe vs. Wade "must be overturned." His position is that abortion should be not legal even in cases of rape, incest or life threatening conditions for the mother.
Despite his long standing extremely conservative position on women's reproductive rights, McCain can't remember whether or not he voted against requiring health insurance companies to cover birth control for women.  You Tube

Sarkozy welcomes Assad in Paris

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has welcomed his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, to the Elysee Palace.

The meeting marks a return to the world stage for the Syrian president, after France accused Damascus of involvement in ex-Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri's death.

The talks are already producing results, with Mr Sarkozy saying Syria and Lebanon had agreed to open embassies in each others' capitals.

Diplomatic ties between the two nations ceased after Hariri's killing in 2005.

In a joint statement issued after the meeting, Mr Assad also said he wanted France and the US to contribute to peace efforts between Syria and Israel.

But, according to Reuters news agency, Mr Sarkozy added that conditions were not yet right for direct Syria-Israel talks. BBC NEWS

Manipulated Iran Missile Photo

It was an arresting image: Four missiles arcing skyward in near perfect symmetry, perhaps a prelude to war. It was ominous. It was also a fake.
Newspapers and Web sites around the world were duped into running a propaganda photo handed out by the Iran Revolutionary Guard that turned out to have been digitally manipulated. The missile launch was real, but one of the four missiles in the image apparently wasn't.
The problematic image was distributed Wednesday by Agence France Presse, which said it obtained the photo from Sepah News, the house organ of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Video footage shot from the same angle and a second photo that is nearly identical show just three missiles, not four. AFP issued a correction Thursday saying, "The 2nd Right missile has apparently been added in digital retouch to cover a grounded missile that may have failed during the test."

PDN Online: Newspapers Plan Corrections Over Iran Missile Photo

Also see Photo Tampering Throughout History

China quiets a voice for quake victims

Three weeks after the earthquake in Sichuan Province, five bereaved fathers whose children died in collapsed schools sought help from a local human rights activist named Huang Qi.

The fathers visited Huang at the Tianwang Human Rights Center, an informal advocacy organization in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where Huang worked and lived. They told him how the four-story Dongqi Middle School had crumbled in an instant, burying their children alive.

Huang soon posted an article on his center's Web site, 64tianwang.com (offline now), describing their demands. They wanted compensation, an investigation into the schools' construction and for those responsible for the building's collapse to be held accountable - if there indeed was negligence.

A week later, plainclothes officers intercepted Huang on the street outside his home and stuffed him into a car. The police have informed his wife and mother that they are holding him on suspicion of illegally possessing state secrets.

International Herald Tribune

Sudanese Leader to Be Charged With Genocide

The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

The action by the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, will mark the first time that the tribunal in The Hague charges a sitting head of state with such crimes, and represents a major step by the court to implicate the highest levels of the Sudanese government for the atrocities in Darfur. More on t r u t h o u t

Though you wouldn't know it from the media, there aren't really that many dictators left in this world. All of Latin and South America is now democratic, as well as all of Europe, and even significant chunks of Africa.

See more Leaders in Uniform \ Contemporary Dictators here

Beijing recyclers discarded in Games security sweep

Liu Yang is among tens of thousands of migrant workers who scour Beijing bins for sellable scraps. But he won't be recycling any trash this August as Beijing's garbage pickers are being pushed out of town.

A relentless campaign by Beijing to present a sanitised, modern city to millions of Olympic Games visitors has led to a government shut down of scores of garbage recycling centres that provide these migrant workers with an income.

As the Olympic Games approach, the number of garbage pickers has visibly dropped across Beijing including at Qianbajia, a recycling station where about 200 households live among towering piles of plastic, building materials and scrap metals.

Almost half of the tenants have left for home provinces. Yang and his young family are still hoping to stay in the dank room next to reeking piles of trash where they have made a home.

guardian Sport

American Airlines

Your Wake Up Call

EU tells Italy to stop Roma crackdown

Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni argues that the measure is designed to 'prevent phenomena such as begging'. But critics believe gypsy minorities are being unfairly targeted by the new, right-wing government led by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The European Commission has called for an investigation into the measures. Meanwhile, the European Parliament has just adopted a resolution that asks the Italian government to halt its plans. Euro MPs say it is unacceptable "to violate [gypsies'] fundamental rights and to criminalise them." 
The European Commission has called for an investigation into the measures. Meanwhile, the European Parliament passed a resolution today that asks the Italian government to halt its plans. Euro MPs say it is unacceptable "to violate [gypsies'] fundamental rights and to criminalise them."

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Cow farts collected in plastic tank for global warming study

Experts said the slow digestive system of cows makes them a key producer of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public attention than carbon dioxide.

In a bid to understand the impact of the wind produced by cows on global warming, scientists collected gas from their stomachs in plastic tanks attached to their backs.

The Argentine researchers discovered methane from cows accounts for more than 30 per cent of the country's total greenhouse emissions. More at the Telegraph