The Skull and Bones of Geronimo

Harlyn Geronimo and family filed suit against the Yale secret society, Skull & Bones, for the return of what are purported to be the skull, one or more bones, and funerary items of their ancestor, the legendary Apache medicine man, Geronimo.

The suit was filed on the hundredth anniversary of Geronimo’s death -- he died in 1909 at Fort Sill, OK, as a prisoner of war.  In fact, a number of Apache prisoners are buried at Fort Sill.  The lawsuit also names officials of the U.S. government with a demand for the return of remains so they may be reburied with appropriate rites in Apache home land. 

Why is this coming up now?  Well, the secrecy of the tiny but very elite Skull & Bones Society is well known – and there was more rumour than proof that Geronimo’s bones were taken to the society’s “Tomb” headquarters – until recently a 1918 letter turned up that discussed the theft of  human remains by some “Bonesmen” who were stationed at Fort Sill during WWI.  In the letter, is clear that the thieves believed the skull and bones belonged to Geronimo.  Whether or not they actually are is a matter for investigation.  Or did the letter tell a fantasy?  Regardless, if "Bonesmen" took bones from Fort Sill to New Haven, whether the bones are from Geronimo's body or not they are likely Apache remains and the Geronimo family wants a proper burial for them.

One of the alleged thieves was Prescott Bush, paternal grandfather of former President George W. Bush.

More on Street Prophets: Burial Rights – Geronimo

AwakenToTheTruth.com: Secret Societies

Cool Fish

Controlling Our Food

US to boycott UN racism conference

The United States has decided to boycott an upcoming UN conference on racism unless its final document is changed to drop all references to Israel.

The Conference Against Racism, to be held in Geneva in April, is a follow-up to the conference held in the South African town of Durban in 2001.

On Friday, a US delegation taking part in the preparatory talks in Geneva, said the draft resolution was unacceptable.

The US and Israeli delegations then walked out of the meeting in protest against the resolution which likened Zionism - the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state - to racism.

Israel and Canada have already announced they will boycott the conference, which is known as Durban II.

Al Jazeera

911truth.ch : The Rise of the Jewish Empire in North

Gay group tackles football homophobia

The first gay and lesbian football supporters' group to be officially accepted by a Spanish club has pinned its shield to the wall of Barcelona's stadium and vowed to fight prejudice in one of the world's most homophobic sports.

When England's football players took on Spain in Seville a fortnight ago, journalists were watching home fans so hard for racist abuse that they failed to notice how David Beckham was subjected to a barrage of homophobic insults. "They spent more than a minute chanting 'Beckham maricón' ('Beckham faggot'), said the peña's spokesman, Josep Ribes. "We lodged a complaint about that."

It is a complaint that has since made its way to England's Football Association, which also did not notice the abuse, and on to the sport's global governing body, Fifa. Countering the sort of homophobia shown in the Beckham chants is just one reason why Ribes and friends have founded the country's first gay peña, as the official supporters' groups of Spanish clubs are known.   The Guardian

Stop Circus Suffering

The Truth About The Treatment of Animals In Circuses Filmed by Animal Defenders International

Vatican's stance on UN drugs policy 'risks lives'

The Vatican has been accused of putting the lives of thousands at risk by attempting to influence UN drugs policy on the eve of a major international declaration.

The Vatican's objection to "harm reduction" strategies, such as needle exchange schemes, has ignited a fierce debate between the US and the EU over how drugs should be tackled.

A new UN declaration of intent is due to be signed in Vienna on 11 March. However, there are major disagreements between member countries over whether a commitment to "harm reduction" should be included in the document, which is published every 10 years.

Now the Vatican has issued a statement that claims that using drugs is "anti-life" and "so-called harm reduction leads to liberalisation of the use of drugs". The Vatican's last-minute intervention appears to have led to Italy withdrawing from the EU consensus on the issue and thrown the talks over the declaration into confusion.  More on The Guardian.

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors

"Oil Smoke & Mirrors" offers a sobering critique of our perceived recent history, of our present global circumstances, and of our shared future in light of imminent, under-reported and mis-represented energy production constraints.
Through a series of impressively candid, informed and articulate interviews, this film argues that the bizarre events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, and the equally bizarre prosecution of the so-called "war on terror", can be more credibly understood in the wider context of an imminent and critical divergence between available global oil apply and and global oil demand.

Oil Smoke & Mirrors Website

Israeli License Plates

Remember when the Nazis forced the jews to wear the star of david to distinguish them from the rest of society. How is this any different?  LiveLeak.com

Obama’s War Machine Needs $800 Billion For 2009

Barack Obama’s election promise to bring “change” to Washington and reverse the juggernaut of the Bush war machine has proven to be nothing more than a cruel hoax, emphasized by his recent actions on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and his latest demand for a total of around $800 billion in war funds and subsidiary costs just to cover the rest of 2009.

“According to the US defense officials, Obama needs USD 75.5 billion for 2009 to cover the cost of the additional troops deployed in to Afghanistan this year and an another USD 130 billion for the rest of fiscal 2009,” reports Press TV.

An additional $534 billion is required for the Defense Department, added to another figure of $65.9 billion that has already been approved by Congress, bringing the total figure to over $805 billion dollars.  infowars.com

Obama's 2010 Budget: Trillion's the New Billion - Up to $3.6T budget includes $750B for more bank bailouts, and $634B as down payment on universal health care, ends Bush tax cuts - Fox

Obama unveils budget plans – AlJazeera.net

Mugabe splashes out on birthday bash as cholera spirals out of control

Cholera is one of the most visible signs of Zimbabwe's collapse. It has claimed thousands of lives, infected tens of thousands of other people and left millions of impoverished, half-starved Zimbabweans living in fear of their own drinking water.

But Robert Mugabe has tried to make cholera an invisible disease, hiding the dying in hastily erected treatment centres, behind barbed wire and police guards, and burying the victims away from prying foreign eyes. The president declared the epidemic over even as the numbers of dead were growing ever more rapidly, and claimed the spread of the disease was all a British plot.

Now a new Guardian film, smuggled out of the country, reveals what Zimbabwe's autocratic leader does not want seen: the stark reality of life, and death, in the midst of a cholera outbreak that Médecins Sans Frontières only last week called part of a "massive medical emergency that is spiralling out of control".

The Guardian - VIDEO

Fight against terror must mean the end of ordinary people's privacy, says ex-security chief

Personal data of innocent citizens must be made available to the UK Government to combat terrorism, according to an influential former security chief.

Sir David Omand, Whitehall's former and security and intelligence coordinator, called for unprecedented Big Brother powers to allow access to private details - including phone records, emails and travel information - to be given to the intelligence services.

His 17-page report calls for the creation of a vast state database to gather information about terrorist groups which are increasingly recruiting and operating online.

But he argued that a citizen's right to privacy would have to be sacrificed to allow 'intrusive' intelligence techniques.

'Finding out other people's secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules', he wrote.

More on Mail Online

1984 Unit - Rachael Holden

Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage

Urban warfare training drills are taking place across the USA as top analysts as well as officials predict a potential “summer of rage” across Europe and America as civil unrest from the economic fallout builds.

Earlier this month, 150 U.S. troops from the U.S. Special Operations Command whizzed around the streets of New Orleans in military helicopters and even dropped bombs in what officials described as a “training event”.

An Iowa National Guard training exercise in Arcadia, Iowa, scheduled for April was originally billed as an “invasion” before public opposition caused the drill to be scaled back. The exercise included Guard troops patrolling streets, searching houses and confiscating firearms.

No less than 2,200 U.S. Marines were also involved in urban operations training in Richmond, Virginia, throughout January, drills that involved landing troops in populated areas, allowing military pilots to “familiarize themselves with the area.”  More on infowars.com.

The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay

"I Met the Walrus"

In 1969, 14-year-old Beatles fan Jerry Levitan tracked his idol, John Lennon, from a Toronto airport to his room at the King Edward Hotel. Inside, he convinced Lennon to do an impromptu interview. Thirty-eight years later, Levitan teamed with director Josh Raskin to create and edit a five-minute short film entitled I Met the Walrus based on the interview. Amazing, right?  t r u t h o u t

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. This conclusion has been made by the United Nations (UN). According to UN report, today the number of people actually living in the slave position, exceeds the number of "live goods", existed at any other time in human history.

Several million of people become the victims of human trafficking around the world every year. Most often they are forced to become prostitutes, participate in creating products of a sexual content, were forced to difficult and dangerous low-wage labor, begging, or used as donors of human organs and tissues for illegal operations.

Kavkazcenter.com

Brzezinski warns of riots in US

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has warned that the US could witness riots if economy continues its downward spiral.

"There's going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots!" said Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, in a recent interview with NBC.
"In 1907, when we had a massive banking crisis, when banks were beginning to collapse, there were going to be riots in the streets," he added.
At least 3.6 million jobs have been wiped out throughout the US since the recession began in December 2007. The jobless rate officially reached a 16-year high of 7.6% (11.6 million people) last month.  Press TV

‘We need a pay rise’ bankers demand

Senior City bankers are demanding pay rises of up to 10 per cent this year to make up for the clampdown on the bonus culture, a senior City head-hunter has told The Independent.

“Base salaries are being increased by somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent, by rule of thumb, to compensate for an overall fall in the remunerative package,” said Mr Springer.

“This is being done in recognition of perhaps a long-term change, in which one can envisage basic salaries in the long term doubling or tripling or quadrupling compared to where they are today and bonuses falling by as much as 80 per cent.”

The Independent

Police warn that Britain faces summer of rage due to recession

Police are preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.

Britain's most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming "footsoldiers" in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police's public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become "viable targets". So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

The G20 meeting of leading and developing nations in London in April is expected to be a focus of protests.

The Guardian – BBC - Telegraph.co.uk

Contemporary Russia Gets Remixed

This is a very fascinating compilation and social commentary on current day Russian society.

Illimunati infiltrate Hip Hop Scene

Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when hip-hop was in its embryonic stages, most rap and hip-hop tracks had a happy-go-lucky vibe, with lyrics that talked about such things as who was the best MC or DJ. There were more serious rappers, like Grandmaster Flash, who rapped about life in the ghetto. But even then, the songs had an overall positive vibe and the lyrics, although sometimes a bit deep and serious, usually tried to positively educate the young listener by speaking to them on their level and using terms that they can relate to.

Now hip-hop has reached the stage where it is being used to predicatively program the minds of today’s youth. In addition, many of today’s top hip-hop artists are clearly involved to some degree in secret fraternal orders. They even have the audacity to flash Masonic symbols all over the place. To me, this is an insult to the people who buy their music, and it shows that freemasonry has infiltrated just about every part of society, right down to the grassroots levels. I mean, if you can’t even buy an album from your favourite rap artist without being predicatively programmed and bombarded with Masonic symbols and terms, then what is the world coming to?

More on ExoMatrix Radio & TV, Need2Know.eu

Guantánamo 'is within Geneva conventions'

A Pentagon review ordered by President Barack Obama into conditions at Guantánamo Bay has concluded that prisoners are being treated in line with international standards demanded under the Geneva conventions, according to US officials.

Admiral Patrick Walsh, the vice-chief of naval operations who carried out the inquiry, is to hand over the 85-page report to Obama this weekend. Human rights groups said they feared the review ordered by Obama could turn out to be a whitewash.

The Pentagon report looked into various allegations of abuse. But Walsh's report contains only two major recommendations for improving the prisoners' lives: allowing them more opportunities to communicate with one another and to pray together.

Obama promised on the day of his inauguration to close the Guantánamo detention centre, which has become synonymous worldwide with human rights abuses, within a year. Since his announcement he has faced criticism, mainly from former members of the Bush administration, saying closure of the camp was not that easy. Walsh's conclusions are basically the view espoused by the Pentagon over the last few years, which is that the international image of Guantánamo is based on the treatment and condition of prisoners when they first began to arrive seven years ago.

The Guardian

Cardinals turn on Pope Invisible

IN the hushed Apostolic Palace off St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI starts the day with a 7am mass in his private chapel, followed by a lone breakfast. No press summary is brought to him. He meets a few visitors in the morning and then, after a lunch served on gold-rimmed plates bearing his seal, retires to his study to write speeches and read theological works throughout the afternoon and evening.

The Pope’s daily routine, as described by Vatican insiders, is being blamed for a series of blunders that have prompted a rare show of dissent from exasperated cardinals. Critics claim he is leading the church and its 1.2 billion faithful like a monarch cut off from the world outside his palace windows, helped only by loyal but inept advisers.

“People feel disoriented,” a senior Vatican official confided last week. “It’s a feeling common to both traditionalists and reformers. Our impression is that there isn’t anyone at the wheel.”

The Sunday Times

Obama Backs Bush On Bagram Detainees

The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

"The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. "We all expected better."

The Supreme Court last summer gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq, courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released.

The Huffington Post

Also see:

Obama’s Gitmo?

“We’re talking about the exact same situation as Guantanamo,” said Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the four detainees in conjunction with law clinics from Stanford and Yale law schools. “People are removed from whatever country or jurisdiction they happen to be in and taken to a place for the purpose of evading any legal requirements or obligations.”

The Washington Independent

To Serve and Protect…

(Music by System of a Down)

'Supporters of European integration are just like communists of the Soviet-era', says Czech President

Czech President Vaclav Klaus today compared supporters of greater European Union integration to Soviet-era communists. As leader of the Czech Republic he holds the EU's rotating presidency, but that did not stop Mr Klaus kicking aside diplomatic niceties to tell EU lawmakers their parliament intervened too much in people's lives.

The controversial Lisbon Treaty, meant to streamline the bloc's creaking institutions, would only make things worse, he said.

In his attack, delivered at the European Parliament in Brussels, he branded the EU an undemocratic and elitist project comparable to Soviet dictatorships that forbade free thought.

He added: 'Here in the European Parliament there is only one single alternative, and those who dare think about a different option are labelled as enemies of European integration.'

Mail Online – You Tube

Putin Warns US About Socialism

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”

Putin also cautioned the US against using military Keynesianism to lift its economy out of recession, saying, “in the longer run, militarization won’t solve the problem but will rather quell it temporarily. What it will do is squeeze huge financial and other resources from the economy instead of finding better and wiser uses for them.” Putin’s comments come in sharp contrast to Russia’s own military build-up and expansion.

The Right Perspective

'Atlantis' spotted on ocean floor off Africa

This is the amazing image which could show the fabled sunken city of Atlantis.

It shows a perfect rectangle the size of Wales lying on the bed of the Atlantic Ocean nearly 3½ miles down. A host of criss-crossing lines, looking like a map of a vast metropolis, are enclosed by the boundary.

They seem too vast and organised to be caused naturally. And last night the possibility of an extraordinary discovery had oceanographers and geophysicists captivated.

The site lies 620 miles off the west coast of Africa near the Canary Islands — a location for Atlantis seemingly suggested by the ancient philosopher Plato.

The Sun

Chechen brothers cleared of murdering Kremlin critic

A court in Moscow has acquitted four men accused of involvement in the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, in a verdict that was greeted with dismay by human rights activists.

We demand and need the real murderer, and we will achieve this," said Karina Moskalenko, a lawyer for Politkovskaya's family, outside the courtroom. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it respected the jury's decision to acquit the defendants based on the evidence state prosecutors presented, "but we are disheartened by the continued impunity in this momentous case. No prosecution will be complete until the triggerman and mastermind are in the dock."

The Novaya Gazeta journalist was noted for her criticism of the Kremlin and her illumination of human rights abuses in Russia's restive region of Chechnya. Rights groups suspect that the murder may have been ordered by figures within Russia's security services, or by Chechnya's pro-Moscow president Ramzan Kadyrov. But the Kremlin has suggested that the murder was part of a plot to discredit Russia, financed from abroad.

The Independent

Kyrgyzstan votes to shut U.S. base

Astronomer devises giant sun shield to reverse global warming

Professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade.

Each lens will have a diffraction pattern etched onto it which will cause the sun's rays to change direction. He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space. If work was started immediately Prof Angel thinks the sunshield could be operation by 2040. He said: “Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic.”

Researchers at the University of Victoria, Canada, have started experiments using computers to test the idea. Climate scientists are beginning to imagine options like the sunshield as a way of halting climate change.

Telegraph

The Obama Deception trailer

The Obama Deception, a film by Alex Jones, will be the first hard-hitting film to expose Obama, his agenda & handlers cutting through all the media hype, side-issues and Left/Right rhetoric. Alex has made several films exposing the Bush agenda and will approach the Obama Administrations plans from the same non-partisan point of view looking past the frontman in the White House to the real owners on Wall Street, in the Bilderberg group and at the Federal Reserve.

The Obama Deception hits the Internet on March 15.

The Obama Deception - A Film by Alex Jones

Alice

Moby featuring Aynzil of the 419 Squad. Director Andreas Nilsson demonstrates the hypnotic effects of television.

Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

Drug violence spins Mexico toward 'civil war'

A shootout in a border city that leaves five alleged drug traffickers sprawled dead on the street and seven police wounded. A police chief and his bodyguards gunned down outside his house in another border city. Four bridges into the United States shut down by protesters who want the military out of their towns and who officials say are backed by narcotraffickers.

"The grisly portrait of the violence is unprecedented and horrific," said Robert Pastor, a Latin America national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.

Pastor calls the problem in Mexico "even worse than Chicago during the Prohibition era" and said a solution similar to what ended that violence is needed now.

"What worked in the U.S. was not Eliot Ness," he said, referring to the federal agent famous for fighting gangsters in 1920s and '30s. "It was the repeal of Prohibition."

CNN.com - Also see Mexico’s civil war on Macleans.ca

Mexico’s Drugs Wars - Photo Essay - Photographer Anthony Suau documents the surging influence of the drug cartels in Northern Mexico and the efforts by police to maintain law and order - Time

Hidden Spy Camera & Mic Found Inside Digital TV Box

A popular video circulating on You Tube shows the discovery of a spy camera and a microphone hidden inside a digital TV converter box. Such devices are part of a government and industry surveillance program that is undoubtedly connected to the forced digital TV switchover being rolled out in the Europe and US.

“I could not believe my eyes,” states the blurb accompanying the video clip, “I have a friend who is kind of a conspiracy theorist. He was trying to convince me that many of the digital TV convert boxes that are coming out have microphones and cameras built into them. Knowing a bit about electronics I bought one of these devices opened it up fully intending on proving him wrong. To my surprise he was right. This device has both a miniature camera lens and what looks like a microphone. I was so shocked I took pictures and video. Please send this out to everyone you know who is using one of these devices.”

PrisonPlanet.com

Pill to erase bad memories: Ethical furore over drugs 'that threaten human identity'

A drug which appears to erase painful memories has been developed by scientists.

The astonishing treatment could help sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder and those whose lives are plagued by hurtful recurrent memories.

But British experts said the breakthrough raises disturbing ethical questions about what makes us human.

They also warned it could have damaging psychological consequences, preventing those who take it from learning from their mistakes.

Dr Daniel Sokol, a lecturer in medical ethics at St George's, University of London, said: 'Removing bad memories is not like removing a wart or a mole. It will change our personal identity since who we are is linked to our memories.

More on Mail Online

Future of Food

This documentary explores the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled grocery store shelves for the past decade. It also examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multi-national corporations seek to control the world's food system.

Confessions of a Guantanamo guard

Detention. Humiliation. Torture. The world can only guess at the horrors of Camp X-Ray. But now Brandon Neely, a former guard, wants to tell the shocking story of what happened there – and why it shames America.

I am very ashamed to admit it and tell you that I was involved in the very first IRFing (internal reaction force) incident at Camp X-Ray. On the first day we had been taking detainees from the in-processing centre to their cages for quite a while when myself and the guy that was my escorting partner grabbed the next detainee to be taken. He was probably in his mid to late fifties – short and kind of husky build. I remember grabbing him and then starting to walk first through the rocks and then through the sally port [a long walkway with gates on both sides] heading towards Alpha Block. Then I noticed he was really tense, shaking really bad, and not wanting to walk or move without being forced to do so. We made our way to Alpha Block, to the cage he would be placed in. He was instructed to go to his knees, which he did.
My partner then went down and took off his leg shackles. I still had control of his upper body, and I could still feel him tensing up. Once the shackles were off my partner started to take off the handcuffs. The detainee got really tense and started to pull away. We yelled at him: “Stop moving!” Over and over. Then he stopped moving, and when my partner went to put the key in that first handcuff, the detainee jerked hard to the left towards me. Before I knew it, I threw the detainee to the ground and was on top of him holding his face to the cement floor.

At this time my partner had left the cage. The block NCOIC [Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge] was on the radio yelling code red, which meant emergency on the block. Before I knew, I was grabbed from behind and pulled out of the cage by the IRF team. They grabbed this man and hog-tied him. He laid there like that for hours before he was released from that position.

A couple days later, I found out from a detainee who was on that block that the older detainee was just scared and that when we placed him on his knees he thought he was going to be executed. He went on to tell me that this man had seen some of his friends and family members executed on their knees. I can remember guys coming up to me after it was over that night and said: “Man, that was a good job; you got you some.”

The Independent

US to boost troops in Afghanistan

President Barack Obama has authorised the deployment of up to 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan, saying they are to "meet urgent security needs".

Two brigades - one army and one marine - are to be sent, Mr Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

This first major troop deployment under Mr Obama comes as his administration reviews US policy in Afghanistan. He has vowed to focus US military efforts on fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan, rather than on Iraq.

The additional troops to be sent to Afghanistan had originally been scheduled to go to Iraq. "The fact that we are going to responsibly drawdown our forces in Iraq allows us the flexibility to increase our presence in Afghanistan," Mr Obama said.

BBC NEWS (see clip on this website)

Old and frail, Comrade Duch faces his victims 34 years on

Survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime today came face to face with one of its senior leaders as the "Killing Fields" court started hearing the case against him for crimes against humanity.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Comrade Duch, who headed the notorious Tuol Sleng prison where around 14,000 people were killed, took the stand as Cambodia's genocide trial got under way 34 years after the brutal regime swept to power. Among those in the crowded courtroom in the capital Phnom Penh was Vann Nath, an artist and one of no more than a dozen people to have survived the prison. Mr Nath, 63, escaped being sent for execution because Duch spotted his skill and ordered him to produce drawings of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot.

The Independent

Also see: The Lost Executioner By Ron Gluckman

Who's Keeping Burger King Workers Below the Poverty Line?

What would you do with an extra $18,000 in your pocket?
That's the amount of extra cash each and every Burger King employee in America would have received last year if Goldman Sachs (one of the fast-food chain's largest owners) had shared its bailout billions with rank-and-file workers. Instead, Goldman Sachs squandered 6.5 billion of our taxpayer dollars on bonuses for their financial staff. These were some of the highest bonuses on Wall Street! Meanwhile, Burger King workers earn wages averaging just $14,000 a year -- well below the federal poverty line for a family of three.

WarOnGreed.org

Stimulus Pork?

Mark Fiore's Animated Cartoon Site

Australian Media cops a blast

It almost looks like ratings are far more important than people. A look at how the Aussie media reported the fires.

LiveLeak.com

UK risks becoming a police state, says former MI5 chief

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has warned that the fear of terrorism is being exploited by the Government to erode civil liberties and risks creating a police state.

Dame Stella accused ministers of interfering with people’s privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists.

“Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people’s privacy,” Dame Stella said in an interview with a Spanish newspaper.

“It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said.

Dame Stella, 73, added: “The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.” She said the British secret services were “no angels” but insisted they did not kill people.

Telegraph.co.uk

Found: Robert Mugabe’s secret bolthole in the Far East

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace have secretly bought a £4m bolt-hole in the Far East while his country struggles with hyper-inflation, mass unemployment and a cholera epidemic.

The Mugabes’ house, in an exclusive residential complex in Hong Kong, was purchased on their behalf by a middleman through a shadowy company whose registered office is in a run-down tenement block. When a reporter and a photographer called at the house last week, they were attacked by the Zimbabwean occupants. The assailants were questioned by the police.

The property came to light during a Sunday Times investigation into the Mugabes’ financial interests in Asia, where a web of associates has helped them to spend lavishly on luxuries and stash away millions in bank accounts. In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, inflation has reached 231m%, unemployment stands at 94% and 3,467 people have died in recent months from cholera.

According to sources in Zimbabwe and Asia, Grace Mugabe has splashed out £55,500 on marble statues in Vietnam and £8,700 on a handbag in Singapore. She and her husband have enjoyed some of the region’s finest hotels.

Times Online

Google PowerMeter

Googlers talk about a prototype product that will allow you to see detailed home energy information right on your computer.
Big Brother likes it!

Make love the green way

Ridiculous Green Propaganda:

OK, so you've reduced the amount of waste you produce, reuse things whenever you can, and recycle them when you can't. You've bought organic cotton sheets. What about going green between the sheets?

The ethical hedonism trend is growing. Eco-sex is hot -- and you can be, too -- by converging sexiness, style and ecological sustainability. Environmental activist group Greenpeace says "you can be a bomb in bed without nuking the planet" and has released a Guide to Environmentally-Friendly Sex to that lists strategies for "getting it on for the good of the planet."

Eco-friendly toys

Whenever possible, buy rechargeable toys or use rechargeable batteries for toys that are battery-operated.

You can even buy solar-powered toys such as the Solar Vibe or Sonic Purple Bullet. If you don't know the composition of a toy you already own, you can put a condom over them for protection.

Sympatico / MSN Green

the Sensual Vegan

US army 'wants more immigrants'

The United States army is to accept immigrants with temporary US visas, for the first time since the Vietnam war, according to the New York Times.

Until now immigrants have had to have permanent residency - a "green card" - in order to qualify for the services.

But those with temporary visas will be offered accelerated citizenship if they enrol, the Times says. The Pentagon hopes the scheme will cover shortages in areas like medical care and language interpretation.

Many temporary immigrants will have been granted visas on the basis of their education or skills, so the defence department expects the new recruits to be more qualified than applicants who are US citizens - and in particular to have languages useful in combat zones like Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The American army finds itself in a lot of different countries where cultural awareness is critical," said Lt-Gen Benjamin C Freakley, the top recruitment officer for the army.

BBC NEWS – New York Times

12,491 phone taps during the 2nd half of 2007 in the Netherlands

In the letter of 13 November 2007 (Tweede Kamer, vergaderjaar 2007-2008, 30517, nr. 5) I promised to send you the tapping statistics, as discussed in the letter, considering the second half of 2007.

The Unit National Interception from the National Police Department facilitates the interception for all police departments, the Special Investigations Bureau and the Royal Constabulary and since the middle of 2007 it functions as only body to talk to concerning interception of telecommunication for investigation.

In the second half of 2007 the Attorney General ordered the tapping of 12,491 phone numbers. Of these 84% of the cases considered a mobile phone number and in 16% a tap on a land line. In this period there was a daily average of 1681 active taps.

bit-byters.net

Blackwater Worldwide Changes Its Name to Xe; Same Mercenaries, but Now with More “Aviation Support”

The scandal-ridden security firm Blackwater USA is officially changing its name effective immediately as the company moves to rebrand itself after being fired last month by the State Department from its job protecting diplomats in Iraq.

The company will now be known as Xe and hopes to be a "one-stop shopping source for world class services in the fields of security, stability, aviation, training and logistics", according to a memo sent by company president Gary Jackson to employees today.  (ABC News)

Jake Washbourne, a contractor known as "J-Dub," fired into the windshield of an Iraqi taxi for amusement, according to three colleagues cited in "Big Boy Rules." (Courtesy Of Isireli Naucukidi / Xe Watch)

Blackwater has probably been used for U.S. Government narcotics trafficking operations before, but it looks like that is going to be a major component of their business going forward.

Aviation support is synonymous with narcotics trafficking. If you read, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, this will all make much more sense.

Also note the mention of West Africa as a venue for increased Blackwater/Xe activity. In this context, see: Global Cocaine Trade Moves to Africa (cryptogon.com)

Wikipedia - Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

XE WATCH (Blackwater Watch)

Turkey : Violent Clashes Between Police And PKK Supporters.

Kurds angry at alleged abuses against jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan clashed with police for a second day running Sunday despite a Turkish government pledge he had not been mistreated.

Arrested in Kenya in February 1999, Ocalan was condemned to death by a Turkish court but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty.

LiveLeak.com (Raw)

Wikipedia Threatens to Delete List of Bilderberg Attendees

The lords of Wikipedia have announced they will delete the Bilderberg attendees list entry on the site because it is allegedly a “totally un-reliably-sourced list [and] possibly defamatory towards living persons.” The announced deletion will occur five days from 2009-02-18 at 14:53.   (Infowars.com)

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial annual invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of politics, business and banking.

The elite group meets annually at luxury hotels or resorts throughout the world — normally in Europe, and once every four years in the United States or Canada. It has an office in Leiden in the Netherlands. The 2008 conference took place in Chantilly, Virginia.

Jonathan Duffy, writing in BBC News Online Magazine states "No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted... In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg."  Wikipedia

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Infowars.com and Bilderberg.org

In Romania, bribery is a health problem

Alina Lungu, 30, says she did everything necessary to ensure a healthy pregnancy in Romania: She ate organic food, swam daily and bribed her gynaecologist with an extra €200 in cash, paid in monthly increments of €25 handed over discreetly in white envelopes.

Another bribe of €25, or about $32, went to a nurse to guarantee an epidural. Even the orderly reaped an extra €10 to make sure he didn't drop her from the stretcher.

But on the day of her delivery, she says, her gynaecologist never arrived. Twelve hours into labor, she was left alone in her room for an hour. When a doctor appeared, the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her baby's head and had nearly suffocated him. He was blind and deaf and had suffered severe brain damage.

Now, Alina and her husband, Ionut, despair that if they had paid a larger bribe to the doctor, then Sebastian would perhaps be a healthy baby. "Doctors are so used to getting bribes in Romania that you now have to pay more in order to even get their attention," she said.

International Herald Tribune – cotidianul.ro

The Prince of hypocrites: Charles embarks on 'green' crusade... aboard a private jet

Prince Charles was accused of hypocrisy last night for using a private jet on an 'environmental' tour of South America.

The prince will travel to the region next month in a visit costing an estimated £300,000 as part of his crusade against global warming.

He will use a luxury airliner to transport himself, the Duchess of Cornwall and a 14-strong entourage to Chile, Brazil and Ecuador on a 16,400-mile round trip.

Mail Online

Anger over Menezes review

No police officers will be prosecuted over the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, Crown prosecutors Service say.

It follows a review of new evidence which came to light at his inquest. Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead by police at Stockwell Tube station in south London after he was mistaken for one of the failed 21 July 2005 bombers.  BBC NEWS

See this revealing video-clip of CCTV footage of the event:

Jean Charles de Menezes: Shot, then slandered and still no justice - Socialist Worker

The origins of Illuminati..

Short video on the origins of the hierarchical power structure of the world, known as the Illuminati.

YouTube

KRS-ONE to Obama: Which Side Are You On?

Hip Hop legend and Peace Activist KRS-One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone) sits down to discuss the Obama phenomenon and the New World Order agenda.

Tactical Briefing

We have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it is coming apart at the seams. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. Organized resistance is scattered and incoherent. The global justice movement is a shadow of its former self. For the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain perpetual growth on a finite planet, it’s possible that in a generation or so capitalism will no longer exist. Faced with this prospect, people’s knee-jerk reaction is often fear. They cling to capitalism because they can’t imagine a better alternative.

Much more by David Graeber on Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters