Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

Afghan investigators today accused US-led troops of dragging ten civilians from their beds and shooting them dead during a night raid.

Officials said that eight children and teenagers were among the dead and all but one of the victims were from the same family. The reports led to angry protests in Kabul and Jalalabad, with children as young as 10 chanting “Death to America” and demanding foreign forces leave Afghanistan.

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in Kunar province, after reports emerged of a massacre. “The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane on Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said.

Asked if the people were shot outside their homes, the President’s spokesman Waheed Omar said: “That is our understanding.” Local elders confirmed that ten people were killed, but their accounts of raid differed.

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children « Aletho News

Danger Room’s Top 10 Stories From a World Gone Nuts

The past year took Danger Room’s team of reporters from Afghanistan to Israel to Georgia, and from the Pentagon to a clandestine air base in Southwest Asia, in what has to be one the wildest years ever on the international stage. Here are our choices for the most important stories of 2009.

First up: The drone war over Pakistan. This time last year, it was most definitely underway. But in 2009, it kicked into high gear. The Obama administration launched more than 50 reported robotic strikes, killing several hundred people. Compare that to 2008, when there were just 36 drone attacks.

See the other 9 stories on Danger Room | Wired.com

Sea Shepherd attacks Japanese whalers with laser

A Sankei News video shows a ship belonging to the radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd as it fires what appears to be a green laser at Japanese whalers:
Crew from the Japanese “research” whaler Shonan Maru No 2 said they had been subjected to three hours of harassment by Ady Gil in Antarctic waters.

Read more about Operation Waltzing Matilda on Sea Shepherd

U.S. Had Early Signals of a Terror Plot, Obama Says

President Obama was told Tuesday about more missed signals and uncorrelated intelligence that should have prevented a would-be bomber from boarding a flight to the United States, leading the president to declare that there had been a “systemic failure” of the nation’s security apparatus.

Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the attacker was not named, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared to information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to blow up an American passenger jet on Christmas Day.

The government also had more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were before boarding the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. Some of the information was partial or incomplete at the time, and it was not obvious that it was connected, one senior administration official said, but in retrospect it now appears clear that had it all been examined together it would have pointed to the pending attack.

NYTimes.com

Dutch to use full-body scanners

The Dutch government has said that it will commence using full-body scanners on flights to the US within three weeks, after a failed Christmas Day airline bomb attack.

The interior ministry made the announcement on Wednesday after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, managed to board a flight from Lagos to Detroit in the United States, via Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, with a highly explosive material sewn into his underwear.

An investigation by the Dutch government will look into the incident, but a preliminary inquiry said that the plot was of professional standard but its execution was "amateurish".

"It is not to say the world has escaped a disaster," Guusje Ter Horst, the interior minister, said.

Al Jazeera

Thailand repatriates 4,000 Hmong to Laos

Thai troops have repatriated more than 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos amid criticism from the US and other nations that the returnees could face persecution by the government there.

The repatriation process all but ended the Hmong's three-decade search for asylum following their alliance with the US during the Vietnam War.

The US and rights groups have said the Hmong could be in danger if returned to the country that they fought, unsuccessfully, to keep from falling into communist hands in the 1970s.

The European Union said it was "deeply dismayed" by the forcible deportation and issued a statement that urged Laos to ensure the Hmongs' human rights are protected and international observers are granted "unfettered access" to them.

The Press Association (UKPA)

Rohingya to be sent back to Myanmar

Myanmar has agreed to take back some 9,000 Muslim Rohingya refugees currently living in camps in Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi foreign minister has said.

Mohamed Mijarul Quayes said after meeting his Myanmar counterpart that the two sides had agreed to begin returning the Rohingya to Myanmar as soon as possible.

Human rights groups have said the Rohingya face religious persecution and abuses from Myanmar's military government which does not recognise the group as an ethnic minority.

Al Jazeera

More about Burmese boat people on Mirror.co.uk

Israeli nuclear whistleblower under house arrest

Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in prison after he revealed Israel's secret nuclear programme, has been placed under house arrest pending criminal charges for allegedly breaching the terms of his 2004 release, which includes a ban on contacts with foreigners.

A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Vanunu was accused of meeting with "a number of foreigners". The spokesman, however, did not specify who the foreigners were or where they came from. Vanunu's lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, said his client had been arrested because his romantic attachment to an unnamed Norwegian woman had come to the attention of the authorities.

"Vanunu was arrested [for] a relationship between a man and a woman, with a Norwegian citizen," he told Reuters. "He is not being accused of giving any secrets. She is not interested in nuclear business – she's interested in Mordechai Vanunu [and he] is probably interested in her."

guardian.co.uk

al Qaeda Leaders Behind Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.

Here some disinformation:

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials. ABC News

Its Bad For Ya

On request: The Whole George Carlin HBO Special 2008 Its Bad For Ya. (1:08:56 minutes)

Arab Dictatorships Take 4 of Top 5 Spots in Purchase of U.S. Weapons and Services

Most of the leading buyers of American military hardware in 2008 had two characteristics in common: they speak Arabic and their governments are opposed to democracy and basic freedoms. Information compiled by the Congressional Research Service revealed that the biggest recipients of U.S. arms sales last year were (in order): the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq and Egypt. With the exception of the popularly-elected government in Baghdad, all of these American military partners are ruled by autocratic or theocratic regimes.

The leading defense contractors manufacturing the weapons for these governments are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Raytheon.

Earlier this month, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of the potential for $2.2 billion of new weapons sales to Arab dictatorships, in particular $1.2 billion worth to Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt for air-to-surface missiles, anti-ship missiles, aircraft engines, and Fast Missile Crafts (FMC). The rest of the proposed weapons sales are for the royal families of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

AllGov

Iranian Protesters freeing Prisoners from being Hanged

Shocking!! Sirjan, Iran Dec 24th 2009

Underpants bomb is revealed

This is the singed underpants bomb that terrorist Umar Abdulmutallab used in his deadly bid to blow up a Christmas Day jet.

The charred underwear contained a packet of high explosive strong enough to blow a hole in the side of the plane, it was claimed. More details on The Sun.

Capture of Anti-riot Police by People

More video on freedommessenger20

Demonstration against Israel's siege of Gaza

Demonstration by Anarchists Against the Wall near Gaza border against the Israeli siege of Gaza.

Launching a one week long international campaign against the siege on Gaza, on the occasion of the first anniversary to Israel's war on Gaza, 500 Palestinian and Jewish demonstrators marched the streets of Jaffa Saturday night. On the very next morning, Sunday, 25 Israeli activists tried to directly breech the siege by marching south towards the Gaza Strip on the Israeli beach of Zikim. 16 were arrested. AATW

Evidence Clearly Indicates Staged Attack on Detroit Flight

Evidence is emerging that clearly indicates Abdulmutallab was more than just a Nigerian extremist carrying out his anger through an ill-conceived plot to ignite a powdery explosive substance on-board a flight to the United States. Eyewitness testimony pointing to a man helping the accused terrorist board without a passport, along with an unusual cameraman documenting the attempted attack on board the plane raise more than red flags– they point towards an intelligence operation, run as a drill, meant to conjure up public support for a number of fronts in the continuing ‘War on Terror.’

CNN interviewed key flight witnesses during their Dec. 28 program who raised these very points, making clear that the full story is still emerging and that wider-connections to intelligence handlers is evident.

More on PrisonPlanet and on Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities' By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org (That page will be updated!)

You have No Rights!

Remember George Carlin? See his website! (Opening his site is already fun!)

Vietnam sentences pro-democracy activist to jail

A Vietnamese court Monday sentenced a long-serving military officer turned pro-democracy campaigner to five and a half years in jail for attempting subversion against the communist regime.

Tran Anh Kim, 60, a former lieutenant-colonel, was convicted after a half-day trial at a court in the northern town of Thai Binh on charges that potentially carried the death sentence.

"It is a particularly serious case as it harmed national security," the president of the court Tran Van Loan said as he delivered the verdict. "He threatened the stability of the people's regime."

Another four Vietnamese, including a prominent lawyer, are to face trial in January on similar subversion charges, a sign of an increasingly hard line by the authorities against dissidents. Kim was accused of having major roles in "reactionary and illegal" political organisations, the Democratic Party of Vietnam and the pro-democracy bloc known as "8406".

The court ordered that after serving his jail sentence, Kim must be put under house arrest for three years. (AFP)

On the other hand: The Vietnam Industrial Construction Corporation (VINAINCON) has organised an inauguration ceremony for the Quang Son cement factory (more + nice picture here)

Everything Is OK In Amsterdam

The Love Police do it in Amsterdam -Operation Mind Seed

The 20,000 UK Snooper Army

As many as 20,000 town hall snoopers have assumed powers to enter people's homes without a warrant and search for information, a survey revealed last night.

The research details for the first time how a raft of intrusive laws has allowed council staff to barge into homes and businesses uninvited.

The bureaucrats are benefiting from the 1,043 state powers of entry in primary and secondary legislation – more than 400 of which have been created by Labour.

These include checking for fridges which do not have the correct eco-friendly energy rating, making sure a hedge is not too high and inspecting a property to ensure 'illegal or unregulated hypnotism' is not taking place.

Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, which carried out the research, said: 'Once, a man's home was his castle. Today, the Big Brother state wants to inspect, regulate and standardise the inside of our homes.

Mail Online (also see: March of the dustbin Stasi)

Cats and dogs banned from new UK housing estate 'to protect wildlife'

For many people, owning a cat or a dog is one of life's greatest joys.

But that simple pleasure will be denied home-buyers on a new housing development in a controversial move under European legislation to protect local wildlife.

Both cats and dogs are forbidden on a new estate in Farnborough, Hampshire because of rare bird species on heathland more than a mile away.

Mail Online

Tehran: People taking over a police station

Four protesters have been killed amid violence between anti-government crowds and police in Iran's capital, Tehran.

Opposition sources said the nephew of former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was among those killed when police opened fire.  (more on BBC)

Turkish soldiers get jail terms over capture by PKK

A Turkish military court on Friday ordered jail terms of up to 30 months for eight defendants who were captured by the PKK in 2007 while serving in the army, judicial sources said.

The court in the eastern city of Van jailed one defendant for 30 months for insubordination and encouraging insubordination, the sources said. The others received jail terms of 15 and 20 months for negligence and insubordination, but their sentences were suspended.

The soldiers were abducted by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who ambushed a military unit at the village of Dağlıca, near the Iraqi border, on October 21, 2007, killing 12 troops. They were accused of failing to resist the terrorists, who took them to PKK bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Critics of the trial said the troops are being punished for "not having died."

Hurriyet

Peruvian Journalist Suggests Napalming Amazonian Natives

An article implying that Peruvian natives should be bombed with napalm has been named by London-based Survival International as the ‘most racist article’ published in the last year by the mainstream media.

The article, published by daily El Correo, was written the newspaper’s Director and columnist, Aldo Mariátegui.

In his column, Mariátegui refers to Amazon natives as “savages,” “Paleolithic,” and “primitive,” and writes that in protests that have recently engulfed much of Peru’s Amazon, they were manipulated by “communist excrement.”

“For those of you who still think of these “ethnic groups” as “good,” “naïve” and “pure,” I will remind you that it was these same people who perfected the art of shrinking the heads of their enemies and wearing them on the belts holding up their loincloths,” wrote Mariátegui. “If the “natives” didn’t shrink the heads of the policemen they killed (in the recent protests) and eat their remains, it was only because there wasn’t time.”

Mariátegui concluded by adding: “I don’t know what keeps the president from providing the air force with all the napalm necessary.”

More on Kim MacQuarrie’s Peru & South America Blog

An Excuse to Expand the Bogus War On Terror

Yemen is a new front in the war against the manufactured enemy al-Qaeda. Not only is the United States providing assisstance to the Yemeni government to bomb supposed al-Qaeda bases in the southern part of the country, but Saudi Arabia conducted airstrikes against targets in the north. Mohamed al-Anisi, the Yemeni national security chief, told told the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz that his forces were cooperating with Washington on attacks and accused Iran of aiding Houthi Shiite rebels. Earlier this week, a Saudi Ministry of Defense official said 73 Saudis were killed fighting the Houthi rebels, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Earlier this week al-Qaeda exploited an anti-government rally in Sanna. “Al Qaeda militants made a rare public appearance in restive south Yemen on Monday, telling an anti-government rally that the group’s war was with the United States and not the Yemeni army, residents said,” Reuters reported on December 23. “The West and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda will take advantage of the Yemeni government’s focus on a Shi’ite rebellion in the north and rising secessionist sentiment in the south to spread its operations to the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter.” An explosion during the demonstration killed three people.

The Yemeni government raids killed 23 children and 17 women, not al-Qaeda, according to a report filed by AlJazeera.

The failed bombing of Flight 253 provides an excuse to expand the GWOT into Africa. “The alleged bomber’s nationality and his apparent origination in Nigeria raised immediate questions about airport security in Africa’s most populous country, where corruption, organized crime and crumbling infrastructure have long hobbled an otherwise oil-rich government,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “The alleged attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound jet by a Nigerian national Friday raises new concern over possible extremist Islamic activity in Nigeria and West Africa, a corner of Africa where al Qaeda so far hasn’t put down significant roots

Read the full report  by Kurt Nimmo on Infowars.com

1,500 injured UK soldiers could face discharge

The scale of army casualties sustained in Afghanistan has been exposed in an internal memo discussing the possible discharge of 1,500 troops whose injuries are so severe that they cannot return to the front line.

The Ministry of Defence document, dated 30 October, identifies the equivalent of about three infantry battalions of injured soldiers that the army "may not be able or wish to retain".

Although senior army officers have previously suggested that those injured would be found alternative roles, moves are being made to release large numbers of injured who are deemed unfit to be redeployed to the front line.

With the army nearly at full strength for the first time in a generation, as the recession boosts recruitment, officials believe that releasing injured troops will allow the recruitment of more fit troops. Until that happens, sources suggest that the number of soldiers who cannot be deployed means the army will be operating below strength at a time of war.

The Observer – Telegraph (John Major, July 2009)

Have a nice few days

More about Christmas

The U.S. Military is One of the World's Largest Sources of C02

In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -- with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets -- it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions?

By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.

The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.

IACenter.org

Osama bin Laden's family living safe in Iran since 9/11 attacks

Eight years of uncertainty over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden's closest family members has been blown open by a relative's admission that they are living in a secret compound in Iran.

One of the terror mastermind's wives, six of his children and 11 of his grandchildren are living in a high-security compound outside Tehran.

Mail Online

Sick demand for Nazi memorabilia

Last week's theft of the infamous sign over the Auschwitz Nazi death camp shocked millions.

And while the 16ft-long ironwork has since been recovered, the crime highlights the perverse hunger for Third Reich memorabilia that still exists today.

Police believe the sign, which bears the words Arbeit Macht Frei - "work sets you free" - and under which 1.1million people marched to their deaths, was stolen for the twisted pleasure of a private collector.

And had it not been found, it would have been just a drop in the ocean of Nazi memorabilia traded every year.

Last year British Holocaust denier David Irving set up a website selling Nazi memorabilia, which he claimed included a piece of bone from Hitler's body and strands of his hair.

The Sun

"Hot'n'cold"

Cover of KATY PERRY "Hot'n'cold" by Ukrainian Polka band

Amazing Speech by US War Veteran

Watch this!!

“Our real enemy is not the ones living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us” - Mike Prysner

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Santa is a Dick

mattpaleboy (in 2006) tells the truth about Santa Claus.

Priest advises congregation to shoplift

Poor people who are desperate for cash have been advised to go forth and shoplift from major stores - by an Anglican priest.

The Rev Tim Jones said in his Sunday sermon that stealing from successful shops was preferable to burglary, robbery or prostitution.

He told parishioners it would not break the eighth commandment 'thou shalt not steal' because it 'is permissible for those who are in desperate situations to take food that they might not starve'.

But his advice was roundly condemned by police and the local Tory MP. Father Jones, 42, was discussing Mary and the birth of Jesus when he went on to the subject of how poor and vulnerable people cope in the run-up to Christmas.

'My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift,' he told his stunned congregation at St Lawrence and St Hilda in York.

Mail Online

British Army 'waterboarded' suspects in 70s

Evidence that the British army subjected prisoners in Northern Ireland to waterboarding during interrogations in the 1970s is emerging after one of the alleged victims launched an appeal against his conviction for murder.

Liam Holden became the last person in the United Kingdom to be sentenced to hang after being convicted in 1973 of the murder of a soldier, largely on the basis of an unsigned confession. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he spent 17 years behind bars. The jury did not believe Holden's insistence that he made the confession only because he had been held down by members of the Parachute Regiment, whom he says placed a towel over his face before pouring water from a bucket over his nose and mouth, giving him the impression that he was drowning.  ( The Guardian )

Attacks halt Iran dissident cleric's memorial service

Opponents of Iran's most senior dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri stopped his memorial service in a tumultuous day in Qom on Monday which saw huge protests and some shots fired, websites said.

The car of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi was attacked by "plainclothes men" on motorbikes as he was returning to Tehran from the service in Qom and one member of his entourage was injured, one of the websites said.

The incidents came after huge crowds of Iranians marked Montazeri's funeral in the holy city, 125 km (80 miles) south of Tehran. Websites reported scuffles between mourners and police, with one saying warning shots were fired.

"Around 2,000 of Montazeri's opponents arrived at Azam mosque and halted his memorial service. The assailants tore placards," the conservative Ayande website said, referring to a prominent Qom mosque. Reuters

Wildlife Photographer of the year winner allegedly faked wolf image

The Natural History Museum is today investigating allegations that the winner of their acclaimed Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition faked his image. The stunning first prize picture shows an Iberian wolf leaping over a fence, its eyes intent on a tasty meal in the next field.

Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez gave the impression he had discovered a farmer who was willing to allow a wild wolf on his land and then left meat by the fence to tempt one of the elusive creatures onto his property.

However, the competition organisers have received alleged evidence that the wolf could be tame and is held in captivity. The rules give clear preference to pictures of wild animals over captive ones. Mr Rodriguez faces being stripped of his title if the allegations are proved to be true.

Mail Online

Obama ordered US air strikes on Yemen

US President Barack Obama personally issued the order for US air strikes in Yemen last Thursday which killed scores of civilians, including women and children.

US warplanes used cruise missiles against alleged Al Qaeda camps in the Abyan village of al Maajala, some 480 kilometers southeast of the capital Sana’a, and in the Arhab district, 60 kilometers to the northeast of Sana’a. The US strikes were apparently coordinated with the US-backed dictatorship of Yemen President Ali Abdallah Saleh, whose military forces attacked the bombed towns as well as a third village, resulting in the deaths of some 120 people, according to Yemen opposition spokesmen.

WSWS.org

Israel admits to organ thefts

Israel has admitted that it harvested organs from the dead bodies of Palestinians and Israelis in the 1990s, without permission from their families.

The admission follows the release of an interview with Jehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel's forensic institute, in which he said that workers at the institute had harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers.

In the interview, which was conducted in 2000 when Hiss was head of Tel Aviv's Abu Kabir forensic institute, he said: "We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who conducted the interview, told Al Jazeera on Monday that Hiss had said the "body parts were used by hospitals for transplant purposes - cornea transplants. They were sent to public hospitals [for use on citizens]. Al Jazeera

More on PressTV Israel

Killing In The Name Of

Rage Against The Machine video made by Jashan06

China welcomes Uighur deportations

China has praised a Cambodian decision to deport 20 ethnic Uighurs who had sought asylum after fleeing unrest in China's troubled western region of Xinjiang.

In a statement the Chinese foreign ministry welcomed the move as a model of international cooperation and said the deportees would be treated "in accordance with the usual practices".

The 20 Uighurs were deported on Saturday on a flight back to China, in a decision that was criticised by human rights groups and the US government.

The Cambodian government said the Uighurs were being deported for breaking immigration laws and entering Cambodia illegally.

The decision came ahead of a visit to Cambodia on Monday by Xi Jinping, China's vice president. Cambodian officials are hoping the visit will boost commercial ties with China, which is already Cambodia's biggest single investor.

Al Jazeera – The Hindu

Nine executed over ethnic Uighur unrest in Xinjiang - France24

Italian town where a White Christmas is a police matter

In Coccaglio (Italy), a town of 8,000 inhabitants between Milan and Venice, the approach to Christianity's most sacred festival has been marked in a very special way. On orders from the local council, controlled by the conservative Northern League, police have been carrying out house-to-house searches for illegal immigrants in an action dubbed Operation White Christmas. The operation is due to finish on December 25.

Some 3,000 people have marched through the town in protest at the operation, which the Vatican called "sad and distressing". But it has been endorsed by Silvio Berlusconi's government. Visiting nearby Brescia, where he announced the opening of a detention camp for suspected illegal immigrants – a so-called centre for identification and expulsion – Berlusconi's interior minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the League, complimented Coccaglio's mayor.

"Operation White Christmas has been carried out in other towns with other names and without arousing the same kind of clamour," he said. "These are initiatives that serve to check and combat the phenomenon of illegal immigrants. So there is no 'story' and no racism."

The Guardian

The Berlusconi Attack

Comment  by ben on previous Berlusconi post:

listen, the whole thing is a hoax. from outside italy i can understand that people's reaction to my saying that is 'come on, berlusconi wouldn't really go that far, would he?' but basically, that's what people have been saying in italy for 15 years, and every time we say it, he promptly shows that he willingly would.

i was dubious about the real feasibility of it all being a hoax at the start, but the following things swung it for me:
1) in terms of attack management, there is no country in the world that would allow its security services to behave like that - the public figure is immediately under the control of security at the slightest risk of bodily harm - "i'll just get out the car again and show everyone my bleeding nose a sec" is absolute pie in the sky.
2) especially when he didn't have a bleeding nose when he got into the car. and when he gets out his henchman has a strange little cannister in his hand, which could plausibly be a kind of red stage paint.
3) he's got so much to gain at this time from public sympathy! he's basically being fingered as a mafia man (by the mafia!), his ex-wife wants €4.5 million a year in maintenance, he didn't manage to block his various trials with ad personam legislation...
4) curiously, tartaglia doesn't actually remember throwing anything at berlusconi.
5) there is a fuzzy video showing someone who might be tartaglia waving a statue around for quite a long time before chucking it. but if he was being videoed, why didn't whoever was videoing him alert security immediately?
6) to be honest, in that fraction of a second in which he seems to be hit by a statue, the flying statue really looks like its going a lot lower than his face. it doesn't necessarily appear even to hit him at all. he then gets in the car without any blood on his face at all.

i would be so pleased to see all this shit come unstuck. all in all, it shows that he is a desperate man in a desperate situation.

Comment on The Berlusconi Attack and its Potential to Breed Conspiracy Theory

LIFE: Year In Pictures 2009 Slideshow

Music: Beethoven; Piano Sonata #14 In C Sharp Minor, Op. 272, Moonlight - Adagio Sostenuto

FARC allegedly runs abortion camp

The FARC run a camp in the north of Colombia where female recruits are forced to undergo abortion, a deserted guerrilla said Saturday.

The "abortion camp" is located on a mountain in the Magdalena medio region and has been used for more than a 100 abortions, Sara Morales, currently taking part in a government reintegration program, told Caracol Radio.

According to the former guerrilla, all minors, except those who are pregnant of guerrilla commanders, are forced to abort pregnancies. The aborted phoetuses are thrown in a hole in the ground, the 21-year old Morales said.

According to the deserted guerrilla, she was forced to join the guerrillas when she was eleven years old and became pregnant for the the first time two years later after having been raped. Colombia reports

Sri Lankan guards 'sexually abused girls' in Tamil refugee camp

Tamil women interned after escaping the horrors of the civil war in Sri Lanka were sexually abused by their guards who traded sex for food, a British medic has revealed.

Vany Kumar, who was locked up behind barbed wire in the Menik Farm refugee camp for four months, also claims prisoners were punished by being made to kneel for hours in the hot sun, and those suspected of links to the defeated Tamil Tigers were taken away and not seen again by their families.

Kumar, 25, from Essex, was released from internment in September, but has waited until now to reveal the full scale of her ordeal in the hope of avoiding reprisals against friends and family held with her. They have now been released after the Sri Lankan government bowed to international pressure this month and opened the camps.

The Sri Lankan government confirmed to the Observer that it had received reports from United Nations agencies of physical and sexual abuse within the camps, but maintained that it had not been possible to substantiate the allegations. It denied that prisoners had disappeared. In response, a UN spokesman accused Colombo of "doing everything it could" to obstruct attempts to monitor the welfare of the hundreds of thousands interned in the camps.

The Observer

The Berlusconi Attack and its Potential to Breed Conspiracy Theory

Some reports are mumbling that Berlusconi was warned about the risk of attack before the rally by his security team, and he immediately told reporters that he, "almost saw this coming." This wouldn't seem all that strange, except for the fact that the Italian press has scrutinized the security at the event for being inadequate. The PM, who's usually surrounded by a convoy of S.U.V.s and guards armed with automatic weapons, was permitted to re-exit his car immediately after the attack and stand outside of it for a few seconds, unexposed, as this video shows.

There's also the fact that while the assailant has a history of psychological treatment, Tartaglia has no criminal record and has yet to offer a motive for the assault besides that he doesn't really like Berlusconi's politics.

Before yesterday, Berlusconi's biggest problem was his entanglement in longstanding charges of corruption -- his political allies have launched an attempt to pass legislation that would automatically end the corruption trials and clear his name. Bloomberg reported that yesterday's assault and the subsequent "outpouring of sympathy" could help push the legislation forward and end the trials.

Carrie Battan - Big Think

Norway Spiral

David Wilcock talks to Project Camelots Kerry Cassidy about HAARP, UFO Disclosure, DNA Upgrade, 2012 and the Norway Spiral.

Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway – MailOnline – The Huffington Post

Climate accord sparks anger

A non-binding accord that developing nations say will condemn them to future catastrophe is being debated at the climate summit in Copenhagen.

The United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa forged the agreement on Friday following a day of frenzied talks at the 193-nation global warming summit in the Danish capital.

Barack Obama, the US president, hailed the agreement between the five nations as a success and said it would provide the framework for future talks. "Today we have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen," he said. "This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go."

Sideline negotiations revealed deep divisions between rich and poor, entrenched in a textual battlefield over how to curb carbon emissions and raise funds to fight climate change.

Al Jazeera

Amid all the mainstream media reports of the talks in Copenhagen “limping” to a close and having failed, Lord Christopher Monckton, reporting from the summit, has stated that the only goal of the conference was to implement the framework and the funding for a world government – which he asserts has been achieved.

Prinsonplanet.com

North Korean arms plane 'has links to New Zealand'

The mystery surrounding the missile-laden plane seized in Bangkok en route from North Korea deepened today as it emerged that the aircraft had links to a company based in New Zealand.

Officials in Georgia, where the plane is registered, told AFP news agency that the aircraft, which was carrying 35 tonnes of missiles and explosives, including rocket propelled grenades, was leased from its owner, Air West, by SP Trading, in Auckland.

The plane’s crew, from Kazakhstan and Belarus, were arrested last Friday after they made an emergency refuelling stop at Bangkok airport. They claimed that the plane was carrying oil drilling equipment but a tip-off from foreign intelligence services prompted a search of the plane that revealed the weapons. The five crew members continue to deny any knowledge of the weapons.

Times Online

Danish Police

Fox News Covers Mass Drugging of Society with Lithium

In the remarkable Fox News report posted below, Dr. Archelle Georgiou, described as a well-recognized physician leader who “helps consumers make better health care decisions,” argues the case for adding lithium to the water supply. Georgiou is affiliated with the Center for Health Transformation, an organization founded by the notorious neocon Newt Gingrich.

Fox News nonchalantly discusses the forced drugging of the masses. “Lithium in the Water Supply: America has been adding fluoride to its public water supplies for decades to help prevent reduce tooth decay. Now researchers from Japan suggests expanding the list to lithium,” is how how Fox News 9 describes the segment.

Kurt Nimmo on Infowars.com

Bohemian Rap City

Artist - Gemineye - Sons of Zadok - Conspirituality
Music – BigBrother / Directed by Stuey Kubrick

US drones hacked by Iraqi insurgents

One of America's most sophisticated weapons in the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the unmanned drone, has been successfully penetrated by insurgents using software available on the internet for $26 (£16).

Insurgents in Iraq intercepted live video feeds from the drones being relayed back to a US controller and revealing potential targets. A US official said the flaw was identified and fixed in the past 12 months.

The problem only came to light after the US found many hours' worth of videotaped recordings on militant laptops late last year and earlier this year.

The insurgents used software programmes such as Skygrabber, developed by a Russian company and originally intended to download music and videos from the internet.

The Guardian

Who represents the Kurds?

It seems the Turkish constitutional court's decision to ban the pro-Kurdish party - the DTP - has only made the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) stronger.

Many Kurds now believe Prime Minister Tayeb Erdogan - the man who promised more rights for Kurds - wasn’t serious and his aim had more to do with regaining popularity lost to the DTP in the southeast. There is a growing sense of frustration and disillusionment in the Kurdish heartland - but at the same time anger.

Saban Karakas, resident in the city told Al Jazeera that the Kurdish question cannot be solved without a fight. Many lost faith in the democratic process.

"We hoped that by sending our representatives to parliament we would find a peaceful solution but the government doesn’t care about us," Enver Toktas said. There is no doubt where loyalties lie here – the majority of Diyarbakir is behind the now banned DTP. The leadership was given hero's welcome when they arrived

They came to their stronghold to take a crucial decision - either continue its struggle for Kurdish rights in parliament or take its fight to the street.

Al Jazeera Blogs

Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan

Armed Response to 'Climategate' question

Journalist Phelim McAleer ('Mine Your Own Business', 'Not Evil Just Wrong') asks Prof Stephen Schneider from Stanford University an Inconvenient Question about 'Climategate' emails. McAleer is interrupted twice by Prof Schneider's assistant and UN staff and then told to stop filming by an armed UN security guard.

Everything Is OK On The Red Carpet

The Love Police at the ‘Lovely Bones’ film premiere, Leicester Square, on a mild winter’s evening.

Operation Mind Seed - Everything Is OK On The Red Carpet (Part 2)

U.N. Climate Talks Deadlocked as Clashes Erupt Outside

Clashes both diplomatic and violent punctuated the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen on Wednesday, as major disputes threatened to derail plans for world leaders to sign an agreement that continues to elude negotiators.

While baton-wielding police outside battled protestors in the streets, a series of setbacks and continued roadblocks in negotiations left some of the meeting’s most important nations saying the conference was in trouble.

"The process is not transparent," complained a high-ranking official with the Chinese delegation, one of the conference's most important players. "We are opposed to the proceeding."

The Chinese were referring to the text of a new draft document that was reportedly being circulated by the Danish delegation, which is host to the conference. But there was confusion even on that point, as some denied even the existence of the new text.

FOXNews.com

Internet Censorship Plan Approved In Australia

The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.

But critics, including the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said the trial results were not surprising and the policy was still fundamentally flawed.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year's elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.

The Age – WA today

Also see No Cleen Feed - Although the initiative is intended and marketed as a tool to help protect children from the dangers of the Internet, this paternalistic scheme raises some troubling issues that affect all Australians. As a source of daily information, the Internet increases in importance every day. Do we really want the Government of the day deciding what Australian adults can and can't see? Do we want Australia to join a censorship club in which Burma, China and North Korea are the founding members?

Iranian banknotes uprising

(Long live freedom) 

Anti-government activists are not allowed to express themselves in Iranian media, so theses activists have taken their expressions to another high circulation mass-medium, banknotes. The Central Bank of Iran has tried to take these banknotes out of circulation, but there are just too many of them, and gave up. For the activists’ people it’s a way of saying “We are here, and the green movement is going on”.

See more banknotes at Payvand.com

UK court issued warrant for Tzipi Livni

A British court reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Israel's former foreign minister on charges relating to Israel's 22-day war on Gaza, before apparently withdrawing it after it was found she was not in the country.

Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima party, had been expected to travel to London this week for an event organised by the Jewish National Fund, followed by meetings with British government officials.

Livni cancelled the visit two weeks before the event was due to take place.
Israeli media reported on Monday that Livni had called off the trip fearing that she would be arrested after a pro-Palestinian group won a warrant for her arrest.

Al Jazeera

Also see: The secret life of Tzipi Livni - How the woman set to be Israel’s new leader earned her spurs as an agent working for a covert cell in an elite spy unit. Times Online

Tzipi Livni is Israel's Barack Obama – Haaretz.com

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor," he said.

More on The Observer

China's Secret Prisons Revealed

Chinese authorities are using psychiatric wards and mental hospitals as dumping grounds as a way to silence protest.

LiveLeak.com

US fighter jets attack Yemeni fighters

Yemen's Houthi fighters say the US fighter jets have launched 28 attacks on the northwestern province of Sa'ada. The US has used modern fighter jets and bombers in its offensive against the Yemen fighters, Houthis said in a statement.

According to the statement, the US fighter jets have launched overnight attacks on the Yemeni fighters, Arabic Almenpar website reported. The development comes as The Daily Telegraph on Sunday reported that the US has sent its special forces to Yemen to train its army. The reports of the US military intervention in Yemen come as Saudi Arabia is also lending full support to the Yemeni government's crackdown on Yemen's Houthi minority.

Press TV

Danish police clash with protesters in Copenhagen

Danish police clashed with protesters in Copenhagen on Sunday as hundreds marched through the city planning to block the harbor.  LiveLeak.com

Italian PM Berlusconi spends settled night after attack

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi spent a settled night in hospital after being hit in the face by an attacker, Italy's Ansa news agency said.

The agency said Mr Berlusconi's first request upon waking up in the hospital in Milan was to see some newspapers. The PM, 73, suffered a broken nose, two broken teeth and a cut lip after being hit with a souvenir model of Milan cathedral following a rally in Milan. A 42-year-old man was arrested and has been charged with aggravated assault.

BBC News - Ansa

Koalas in Australia dying from AIDS and habitat loss

A recent recent report by the Australian Koala Foundation backs up those beliefs. It claims the national population has dropped from 100,000 to fewer than 43,000 in the past six years and if nothing is done to stop the decline, koalas could be extinct within 30 years.

"I can promise you after being on Government committees for years and lobbying minister after minister, I see nothing in our country being done to protect koalas," said Australia Koala Foundation president Deborah Tabart.

Besides Chlamydia, there is another disease plaguing these marsupials -- and there is no vaccine or cure and it's spreading rapidly.

Koala AIDS or KIDS (Koala Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is similar to AIDS in humans. The immune system of the animals is weakened and they are made susceptible to cancer and other deadly infections.

The hospital's head veterinary scientist, Dr. Jon Hanger, discovered the retro virus causing the condition and says it's just as severe as AIDS in humans but affects koalas more quickly. "It's knocking off a large proportion of koalas that come into this hospital and that means a large number in the bush are dying from it too."

CNN.com

The koala wars - It's cute and it's cuddly. And in 30 years, campaigners say, the koala will be extinct. But this emblematic animal has a curious history – and its fate is mired in politics (The Guardian)