Walled Horizons is narrated by and features Roger Waters (founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd), who visits the Wall in the Palestinian territories and comments on his observations as a musician and a songwriter who has written on walls. The film explores how Palestinians in urban and rural areas have been impacted by the Walls construction since the International Court of Justices Advisory Opinion in 2004, which declared the Wall's route in the West Bank illegal. Several senior Israeli security officials are interviewed in the film, two of whom were directly responsible for planning the Wall route and who explain the Israeli position for constructing it. The film was made by the United Nations Jerusalem. http://www.ochaopt.org
30 Apr 2010
Spaceship Moon Theory
The Spaceship Moon Theory, also known as the Vasin-Shcherbakov Theory, is a pseudoscientific theory that claims the Earth's moon may actually be an alien spacecraft. The theory was put forth by two members of the then Soviet Academy of Sciences, Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, in a July 1970 article entitled "Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?".
Vasin and Shcherbakov's thesis was that the Moon is a hollowed-out planetoid created by unknown beings with technology far superior to any on Earth. Huge machines would have been used to melt rock and form large cavities within the Moon, with the resulting molten lava spewing out onto the Moon's surface. The Moon would therefore consist of a hull-like inner shell and an outer shell made from metallic rocky slag. For reasons unknown, the "Spaceship Moon" was then placed into orbit around the Earth.
Spaceship Moon Theory on Wikipedia
Who Built the Moon? - An Interview With Christopher Knight
The Death Star is a fictional moon-sized space station and superweapon appearing in the Star Wars movies and expanded universe. It is capable of destroying a planet with a single destructive beam emitted from the large indentation on its surface. (Wikipedia)
journalist death toll soared to shocking new levels
The worldwide journalist death toll has soared to shocking new levels on the eve of World Press Freedom Day 2010. Seventeen news media staff have died violently this April -- one every 1.5 days, according to incidents recorded by the International News Safety Institute. Nine have been killed in the past 12 days.
It was the bloodiest April recorded for the news media in the past five years and the worst month in a year that has suffered 42 deaths in 22 countries so far, surpassing the 37 counted over the first four months of last year. And 2009 eventually turned out to be one of the worst years on record with 133 deaths.
At least 27 deaths were confirmed connected with the victims' work as journalists. Fifteen more fatalities appeared to be linked but that was unconfirmed. All but a handful of the victims were murdered.
"As World Press Freedom Day approaches, this is a stark reminder of the terrible price we pay for our news around the globe," said INSI Director Rodney Pinder.
International News Safety Institute
Photo of Kenji Nagai dying after being shot by Burmese troops has won a Pulitzer Prize
27 Apr 2010
New Russian Legislation Increases FSB's Authority
The Russian government has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would allow the Federal Security Service (FSB) to take "preventive measures" against individuals suspected of engaging in "extremist" activity.
The bill, which was sent to the lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma, on April 24, also allows the FSB to punish citizens who do not comply with what it describes as the service's "legitimate demands."
Current legislation allows the FSB to impose official warnings and fines on organizations whose activities it deems extremist. Until now, however, the FSB has not been allowed to target individual citizens.
The FSB says the bill -- which comes in the aftermath of the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow that killed dozens of rush-hour commuters -- is necessary due to what it describes as a sharp rise in extremist activity in recent years.
But rights activists and opponents of the government say it will give the security services a free hand to intimidate citizens and harass political rivals.
US extradites Noriega to France
Manuel Noriega, the former military leader of Panama, has been extradited from the US to France where he has been convicted of money laundering.
The former army general and one-time CIA informant, now 76-years-old, was taken from his jail cell and put on board an Air France flight from Miami which was due to arrive in Paris on Tuesday morning.
Noriega has been convicted in absentia in France of laundering money from cocaine profits. He was imprisoned in the US for drug trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy in 1992 after US troops invaded Panama in 1989 to arrest him.
Despite finishing his prison sentence two years ago, Noriega has since remained in a Florida jail where he has been fighting extradition.
Also see Wikipedia and U.S. Was Accomplice To Noriega's Crimes (THE BOULDER DAILY CAMERA)
26 Apr 2010
Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People
Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.
The book, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus. The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.
The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe," they said. "Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere."
Slum clearance, South Africa-style
Waving iron bars and pickaxes, the Red Ants, a rented mob of thugs in bright red overalls and crimson helmets, used the half-light of dawn for cover as they marched into the slum. Stamping out the first cooking fires of the day with heavy boots, they spread out in a long line. Then they attacked.
Bleary immigrant women dropped plastic water containers and ran in panic towards their corrugated iron homes. “Grab the children,” they screamed. By sunrise their shacks on the outskirts of Johannesburg had been razed. They were forced to watch as their few possessions were burnt.
The Red Ants, described as state-sponsored mercenaries by their critics, have become a growing force in the past few months as South African cities have begun a campaign of “beautification” before the World Cup begins in June. This means clearing away unsightly immigrant squatter camps.
More stunning SA-pics by Halden Krog here
Those bullish red ants! - Urban Joburg thinks that the name 'Red Ants' is likely to strike fear into any inner-city dweller, particularly those who, due perhaps to circumstances beyond their control, have taken to squatting illegally in apartment blocks that have been hijacked by unscrupulous landlords. (Urban Joburg)
After the Red Ants apparently beat a man to death, for trying to stop them assaulting his wife during an eviction, the illegal residents of Edenpark went on the rampage. They really wanted to attack the Red-Ants, the crowd consisted mostly of older woman, rough young girls, some really young drunk looking boys and a lot of really drunk looking men, but I'll tell you, the Red-Ants were lucky the cops were there, these people were so wound up that they wanted to tear the Red-Ants apart... and to tell the truth, I reckon they would have done it quite easily. (Neil McCartney)
25 Apr 2010
Rethink Afghanistan
Brave New Foundation's Robert Greenwald spoke with Sayid Mohammed Mal, survivor of the Feb. 12 special forces night raid in Gardez, who's asking for your help to ensure justice for his family. Sign the petition calling for an independent investigation into the raid and the cover-up here
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Eddie Izzard
Kevin Pollak's Chat Show - streaming live every Sunday at 5 PM PDT. Each episode, Kevin has in depth interviews with one or two guests from the entertainment industry.
Also see Eddie Izzard.com
18 US veterans kill themselves every day
The suicide rate among war veterans is extraordinary, new data reveals. Thirty try to commit suicide each day, on average, reports the Army Times. Eighteen succeed, roughly five of whom receive medical care from Veterans Affairs, rated one of the best health programs in the country.
"Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are acts by veterans,'' said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki at a VA-sponsored suicide prevention conference in January, Inter Press Service reported. More on Raw Story
Also see: Iraq Veterans Against the War
Pope 'condom' gaffe: UK Foreign Office apologises
The Foreign Office was last night forced to issue a public apology after an official document suggested Britain should mark the Pope's visit this year by asking him to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a range of Benedict-branded condoms.
In a note, the official responsible for sending out the memo – a junior civil servant in his 20s – said: "Please protect; these should not be shared externally. The 'ideal visit' paper in particular was the product of a brainstorm which took into account even the most far-fetched of ideas."
Foreign secretary David Miliband was said to be "appalled", and Britain's ambassador to the Vatican, Francis Campbell, has met Holy See officials to voice the government's regret.
24 Apr 2010
Bulldozers return to destroy children’s playground in Beit Jala
Israeli bulldozers today destroyed a garden and children’s playground in Beit Jala, and 100 fruit and olive trees in Al Walaja, both in the Bethlehem district, to make way for the continued construction of their illegal apartheid wall. Soldiers present used violent force to remove Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who attempted to prevent the destruction. Two Israelis were arrested immediately, and six internationals were later arrested.
In Beit Jala, this is the second time that this particular garden and playground has been bulldozed. A legal injunction preventing further destruction expired this week. Following the previous demolition, in early March, local Palestinian residents and international supporters rebuilt the playground and planted new olive trees in the garden. All these were today destroyed.
New Arizona law targeting illegal immigration
Arizona's governor vows the state's tough new law targeting illegal immigration will be implemented with no tolerance for racial profiling, but at least two advocacy groups were preparing legal challenges and Mexico has warned that the law could affect cross-border relations.
Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill that supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation's busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico and home to an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants.
The law makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. It also requires local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants; allows lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws; and makes it illegal to hire illegal immigrants for day labor or knowingly transport them.
The voice they cannot silence
For some of the political prisoners held in Burma's wretched jails, the hardest thing to bear is the pain and horror of being physically tortured. For others, held away from fellow inmates, it is the isolation and the creeping sense of despair. Some think about their families, others about the seemingly hopeless cause for which they fought. For the relatives and friends of those incarcerated, there is the struggle of trying to make regular visits and the constant, aching worry as to whether a loved one will ever be freed.
Win Tin, a senior colleague of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, served more than 19 years in jail – almost all of them in solitary confinement – before being released in 2008. "The hardest thing was the separation from other people," says the lively 80-year-old, speaking from his home in Rangoon. The former journalist was routinely beaten, kept in a dog kennel and on one occasion interrogated for five days straight. And yet it was the separation from other people that he now remembers as causing him the greatest distress. He recalls: "Even when I was in hospital I was put in a different room ... You long to have a discussion with your friends. You feel as if you are losing your mind."
23 Apr 2010
Did Ancient Aliens Visit Earth?
Remarkably, ancient cultures seemed to understand a lot about astronomy, to be very advanced. They practised astronomy. They understood that the sun was the centre of our planetary system, they knew the planets in it, they calculated time and seasons using the stars. They navigated the seas, which requires certain knowledge of planet Earth’s position within the universe. Come to think of it, the sky was more important to them than the Earth - we could say that they were more advanced in astronomy than in other areas of life.
Something must have happened that caused them to have this orientation and beliefs. For example: what if the notion that the Gods visited Earth as some sort of astronauts is not a religious notion, not a fantasy of primitive peoples? Maybe some ancients actually saw them? Maybe they actually interacted with them, maybe they had things done to them? More on Talkatics
Pedophile scandal engulfs Church in Latin America
The pedophile priests scandal shredding the Catholic Church's reputation worldwide has been especially savage in Latin America, where half the religion's faithful live. Ecclesiastical authorities from the region have either been begging for forgiveness as they tried to reassure their nervous flock -- or echoing the Holy See's line that the Church was being persecuted by mysterious forces.
Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon, for instance, Thursday said he would "never" regret his support for a French bishop who did not denounce a pederast priest, and claimed Freemasonry was behind a smear campaign. "I'm not afraid to say that in some cases there are, within the Masons, enemies united against the Church," said the cardinal, who was appointed by the late pope John Paul II. "It is a shame there are such idiots working up this type of persecution."
But a Peruvian cardinal who is also Lima's archbishop, Juan Luis Cipriani, also stepped up to defend the Church's claim to victimhood in the scandal. "This is the work of the devil, even if that makes journalists laugh," said Cipriani, who is also a high-ranking Opus Dei figure in Latin America.
But also see: The Order of Malta in Peru
22 Apr 2010
Netanyahu: We won't stop east Jerusalem settlement building
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has reportedly told the US administration that his government will not stop settlement construction in east Jerusalem, despite US pressure and long-running deadlock in peace talks.
Earlier this week Netanyahu insisted again that construction in east Jerusalem would continue. "The Palestinian demand is that we prevent Jews from building in Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem. That is an unacceptable demand. If we made it in London or made it in New York or in Paris, people would cry foul," he told US television network ABC (YouTube). Source: The Guardian
Map of Jerusalem
1 Gilo: 850 homes approved for publication and planning objections in Nov 2009
2 Pisgat Zeev: 600 homes approved for publication and planning objections in Jan 2010
3 Sheikh Jarrah: Several Palestinian families evicted in past 18 months to make way for Jewish settlers after court ruled in ownership dispute
4 Ramat Shlomo: 1,600 homes approved for publication and planning objections in Mar 2010
5 Silwan: Demolition orders on 88 Palestinian homes built without difficult-to-get permits – Israel planning controversial renewal project
6. West Bank barrier: Making Palestinian movement between West Bank and Jerusalem harder – Israel says it’s for security
Jerusalem Master Plan and more on Zimvi.com
Lenin’s 140th anniversary
It is 140 years since the father of Russian communism, Vladimir (Ulyanov) Lenin, was born and although it's being marked in Russia and worldwide, Lenin's mark on 20th century history remains deeply divisive.
The Russian Communist party will mark the date by laying flowers at Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square. However, opinions about Lenin vary in broader society. To some, he changed the world for the better, but others insist his totalitarian state destroyed millions of lives. Russia Today
See for more on The Russian Revolution here or on Wikipedia
Neanderthals may have interbred with humans
Archaic humans such as Neanderthals may be gone but they're not forgotten — at least not in the human genome. A genetic analysis of nearly 2,000 people from around the world indicates that such extinct species interbred with the ancestors of modern humans twice, leaving their genes within the DNA of people today.
The discovery, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 17 April, adds important new details to the evolutionary history of the human species. And it may help explain the fate of the Neanderthals, who vanished from the fossil record about 30,000 years ago. "It means Neanderthals didn't completely disappear," says Jeffrey Long, a genetic anthropologist at the University of New Mexico, whose group conducted the analysis. There is a little bit of Neanderthal leftover in almost all humans, he says.
Bolivian President blames transgenic food for homosexuality and baldness
Bolivian President Evo Morales surprised the attendants to the inauguration of the climate change summit by declaring that genetically engineered food is the one to blame for homosexuality and baldness, El Tiempo newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The Bolivian President defended his remarks by stating that these were not lies but proved facts. President Morales also provided examples of his ideas. He said that chickens that were fed with female hormones have consequences in men and women alike.
Regarding transgenic food and baldness, President Morales declared that in fifty years all the world population will be bald. “Baldness, which seems normal, is a disease in Europe, almost everyone is bald and it’s related to the food they eat. Among the indigenous people there are no bald men, because we eat different things,” said President Evo Morales as he showed his fifty-year-old hair.
The Bolivian President continued to attack occidental medicines, potatoes, soda and even the plates that are used by saying that in Bolivia plates are made of mud, so they can be destroyed and returned back to mother Earth in contrast to the occidental plastic plates.
21 Apr 2010
Mercenaries circling Haiti
A Haiti conference was held in Miami last month for private military and security companies to showcase their services to governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the earthquake devastated country of Haiti.
On their website for the Haiti conference, the trade group IPOA (ironically called the International Peace Operations Association until recently) lists 11 companies advertising security services explicitly for Haiti. Even though guns are illegal to buy or sell in Haiti, many companies brag of their heavy duty military experience.
Triple Canopy, a private military company with extensive security operations in Iraq and Israel, is advertising for business in Haiti. According to human rights activist and investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, Triple Canopy took over the Xe/Blackwater security contract in Iraq in 2009. Scahill reports on a number of bloody incidents involving Triple Canopy, including one where a team leader told his group, “I want to kill somebody today … because I am going on vacation tomorrow.”
Nicarguan opposition under attack
In Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, supporters of the president have attacked a hotel where opposition legislators had gathered ahead of a controversial congressional vote.
Crowds of supporters of Daniel Ortega shot home-made mortars at the building and blocked access to congress to prevent the legislators from voting on a bill that would weaken presidential powers.
The Story of Your Enslavement
We can only be kept in the cages we do not see. A brief history of human enslavement - up to and including your own. From Freedomain Radio, the largest and most popular philosophy conversation in the world.
Argentina's last dictator jailed for 25 years
Reynaldo Bignone has been convicted over torture and kidnappings committed during the nation's 1976-1983 military regime and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Bignone, 82, was convicted along with five other former military officers for 56 cases involving torture, illegal detentions and other crimes in one of Argentina's largest torture centres, the Campo de Mayo military base.
Human rights groups say that of the 4,000 dissidents taken to the base, about 50 emerged alive. The army-run base also had a clandestine maternity centre where detained dissidents gave birth and officials took their babies to be adopted by military families.
Bignone was de facto president from 1982 to 1983, but the crimes he was convicted of were committed between 1976 and 1978, when he was a commander at the Campo Mayo base.
20 Apr 2010
US school accused of using laptops to spy on pupils
The row over a Philadelphia school district accused of secretly spying on pupils through laptop cameras escalated today after it acknowledged capturing more than 56,000 images of its students, many of them in their homes.
When the scandal first broke, it was believed that only a few pictures had been taken of one pupil, Blake Robbins. But court papers released this week showed that thousands of images were taken of Robbins and other students.
Robbins and his parents have filed an action against the school district of Lower Merion in an affluent suburb of Philadelphia. Court papers from the Robbins's lawyers said that at first it was thought that the laptops' "peeping tom" technology had produced a few images but they found more than 400 of Robbins, including images "showing him partially undressed and sleeping".
There were images of other students in their homes as well.
US to launch secret 'space warplane'
The United States Air Force has announced that it will launch a secret space plane that has sparked speculation about the militarization of space.
The Pentagon has set April 21 as the date for the launch of the robotic space plane known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), which is a reusable unmanned plane capable of long outer space missions at low orbits.
Since the nature of the project is shrouded in mystery, defense analysts allege that the US military is building the first generation of US 'space Predator drones' that will build up the United States' space armada, the Christian Science Monitor wrote in a recent article.
Military experts argue that the US Department of Defense would not have saved NASA's costly X-37B project, which had been scrapped, if it did not have a military application.
They say the US wants to maintain a leading role in space via the development of the new 'space weapon' at a time when other countries like China are expanding their space programs.
See Press TV for more
Iranian cleric 'blames quakes on promiscuous women'
Promiscuous women are responsible for earthquakes, a senior Iranian cleric has said. Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi told worshippers in Tehran last Friday that they had to stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves. "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he said.
Tens of thousands of people have died in Iran earthquakes in the last decade. Mr Sedighi was delivering a sermon on the need for a "general repentance" by Iranians.
"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes," he said.
Also see: Pat Robertson, meet Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi (Zen Yenta 2.0)
Ugandan king turns 18, takes full control
One of Uganda's last remaining kings turned 18 in a boisterous four-day ceremony that ended Sunday and allowed him to take full control of his kingdom in the western part of the country. King Oyo is among the world's youngest reigning monarchs. He ascended to the throne at age 3 after his father died in 1995. As a minor, kingdom officials had appointed a board of advisers to help him rule.
The board was disbanded to mark his birthday, which means the teen can now make major kingdom decisions on his own without consulting with his advisers. "He needs to use this opportunity to help us help ourselves," said Sarah Namara, 25. "He has a lot of work to do especially in ensuring people our age have businesses opportunities."
19 Apr 2010
Al-Qaeda Chief In Iraq: Captured, Killed, Never Actually Existed, Re-Captured, Now Killed Again
U.S. and Iraqi officials have today announced that two “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” leaders have been killed in an air strike carried out by American troops. A major flaw in the story that seems to have been overlooked, is that both of the men have already been reported captured and killed on several occasions, with U.S. officials also having previously declared one of them a “fictional character” that was invented by the other!
Bizarrely, Reuters quotes the Iraqi prime minister pinpointing the location of the raid as “a house in Thar-Thar, a rural area 50 miles west of Baghdad that is regarded as a hotbed of Qaeda activity”, however, the Washington Post report quotes U.S. officials saying the raid occurred “a few miles southwest of Tikrit”. If you look at a map of Iraq, those two descriptions do not entirely add up, unless you consider “a few miles” to be over 100. Certainly a more specific location could have been given.
Anyone who reads the news should be feeling a profound sense of déjà vu, because almost a year ago to the day, al-Baghdadi was reported captured by Iraqi security forces. His arrest was confirmed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the same man now purporting that Baghdadi has been killed in a raid.
Al-Baghdadi was the replacement al-CIA-da boogie man for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was also previously reported captured and killed on several occasions, after al-Zarqawi was laid to rest for good by the PR arm of the Pentagon in 2006.
Steve Watson for Prisonplanet.com
Now we know the truth. The financial meltdown wasn't a mistake – it was a con
The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the bankers' colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread, systemic fraud.
Friday's announcement that the world's most famous investment bank, Goldman Sachs, is to face civil charges for fraud brought by the American regulator is but the latest of a series of investigations that have been launched, arrests made and charges made against financial institutions around the world. Big Finance in the 21st century turns out to have been Big Fraud.
More by Will Hutton on The Observer
See also The Huffington Post
Pope falls asleep during Mass
Pope Benedict XIV dozed off between his bishops during Mass in Malta yesterday. - mirror.co.uk
Videocracy: a documentary about Italy
This is Italy of today. It is the documentary by Erik Gandini, which already make people reflect and, surely, will attract attention in Venice as the movies of the most famous directors. It is the power of TV.
18 Apr 2010
Yeti: Myth or Reality
Myth or reality!!! Yeti is a mystery which lies hidden in the depth of time, amortizing modern technology in its legacy of stories and lore’s. Moreover, with the propagandas surrounding its presence of a furred humanoid image, the yeti still excites people in luring them to the far ends of the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet.
The existence of this nature’s illusion has been controversial as well as mysterious where it has established itself as a popular icon. The controversies over existence of Yeti are warming the industry with various vague encounters and evidences brought back from the sites of remote alpine villages.
Recently, on October 20, 2008, a team of seven Japanese adventurers photographed footprints of Yeti. Yoshiteru Takahashi, the team leader of the expedition and the Yeti Project Japan, said, “ The footprints were about 20 centimeters (eight inches) long and looked like human’s foot print. We are convinced; it was real, as we saw it walking on two legs like a human and was about 150 centimeters tall.” Takahashi claims to have observed Yeti on a 2003 expedition and is determined to capture the creature on film.
The Manifestation of Protagonist - The UnMuseum - Yeti evidence is 'convincing' says wildlife expert Sir David Attenborough (Mail Online) - Wikipedia
The Love Police reporting for the Obscurati
The English Defence League planned a march through central London. A group called United Against Fascism turned up to counter-protest.
The helmet came in very handy. Towards the end of the big dance, a bottle was thrown at us and I deflected it with the helmet, and a Police Sergeant gave me a hug (without me asking him for one - I think he recognized me from the Love Police work. Wish I was filming at the time. Oh well...
dubstep track is Nneka - Heartbeat (Chase & Status Remix)
US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.
The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies.
“Despite earlier reports we have determined that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale, a Nato spokesman. The coalition continued to deny that there had been a cover-up and said that its legal investigation, which is ongoing, had found no evidence of inappropriate conduct.
17 Apr 2010
Destruction of CIA tapes sparked concerns
The destruction of nearly 100 videotapes showing the harsh interrogation of two al Qaeda detainees in 2005 triggered concerns within the CIA over whether it was adequately cleared, according to newly released documents.
Then-White House counsel Harriet Miers also was "livid" about not being informed about the action in advance, the documents show. The documents -- with large sections blacked out -- were released Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Internal e-mails include one alleging that Porter Goss, then CIA chief, agreed with the decision after the fact. "PG laughed and said that actually, it would be he, PG, who would take the heat," one e-mail reads. "PG, however, agreed with the decision."
16 Apr 2010
Move to Ban Gender Specific Bathrooms and Sports Teams in Schools
FoxNews.com reported last week that The Maine Human Rights Commission proposal to ban schools from enforcing gender divisions in sports teams, school organizations, bathrooms and locker rooms, saying forcing a student into a particular room or group because of their biological gender amounts to discrimination.
The Maine Human Rights commission now appears to be backing off of a proposal to ban schools from enforcing gender divisions in sports teams, school organizations, bathrooms and locker rooms.
“They made a decision not to move forward at this time with the guidance,” Patricia Ryan, executive director of the Maine Human Rights Commission, told the Bangor Daily News. “They are feeling that they want some time. There are cases coming before them and they want to figure out the best way to receive public input.”
Cash to be used in fewer than half transactions by 2015
Last year 59 per cent of the 37 billion transactions were done with cash, a sharp decline from the 73 per cent of transactions that were made with cash just 10 years ago.
According to the Payments Council, a trade body representing the banks, card and cash machine industry, this proportion will fall to below 50 per cent by 2015, and to 45 per cent by 2018.
The figures have alarmed some campaigners, who gave warning that banks should not encourage the march towards a cashless society.
15 Apr 2010
Goldstone banned by SA Zionists
Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge, has been effectively banned from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah which is to be held in Johannesburg next month.
Goldstone, who authored a UN report on the war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, has been barred by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) from attending the event, South African and Israeli newspapers reported on Thursday.
"A very ugly feature of the response to the Goldstone report has been personal attacks like this on him and his family over a sustained period," Doron Isaacs, a Jewish South African, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.
"This should not be seen as an isolated incident."
DC nuclear summit was “a smokescreen”
Obama is masking the real issues over nuclear weapons by presenting the idea that nuclear terrorism is a major threat, shared Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization.
“What is disturbing about this summit in Washington is the fact that the real threat to global security is nuclear war between countries. It is not Al-Qaeda which in any event is not able to constitute intelligence as set by the CIA,” Chossudovsky acknowledged. “It is an elusive network of organizations. The real threat is the threat of nuclear war and particularly the threat of a nuclear attack by the United States and Israel directed against Iran.”
“At this stage the US administration is not interested in negotiating, it is interested in creating an environment which will justify a possible nuclear attack on Iran,” concluded Chossudovsky.
Bettie Page, FBI Consultant
Bureau once tapped pin-up queen's expertise during obscenity probe.
Though J. Edgar Hoover's minions often probed the interstate transportation of obscene material featuring Bettie Page, the notorious pin-up model was nonetheless willing to help agents when it came to FBI inquiries about the production of certain "flagellation and bondage pictures," according to bureau records.
When a 1957 police drug raid on a Harlem apartment turned up a cache of obscene magazines and photos, paddles, a riding crop, a whip, and lengths of chain, rawhide, and rope, FBI agents contacted Page for some expert guidance. Specifically, they wanted to know if the apartment was a photo studio where obscene material was produced.
To Serve and Protect
The University of Maryland student whose beating was caught on video plans to sue the police officers he has accused of assaulting him, his lawyer said today. John McKenna's attorney wants to make sure officers are held accountable.
John McKenna, 21, is still recovering from the physical injuries he received last month when he got caught up in a celebration of his school basketball team's win over Duke. Newly released video shows three Prince George's County police officers in riot gear ramming the student and then beating him with batons.
Left unconscious in the street, McKenna suffered a concussion and defensive-type bruises on his arms. He needed eight staples in his skull to close his head wound.
14 Apr 2010
Club Of Rome Behind Eco-Fascist Purge To Criminalize Climate Skepticism
The British lawyer who last week called for introducing international laws through the United Nations which would make it a crime against humanity to question the reality of man-made global warming has close ties with the Club of Rome - the ultra elitist organization which openly bragged of how it invented the climate change scare as a means of manipulating the global population to accept world government.
British lawyer-turned-campaigner Polly Higgins (pictured top) recently launched an initiative to have the UN put pressure on national governments to pass laws that would declare the mass destruction of ecosystems a crime against peace, punishable by the International Criminal Court.
Under the guise of going after big corporations and polluters for the war crime of emitting the gas that humans exhale and plants breathe, the proposal would actually target individuals and people who merely express skepticism towards man-made global warming.
"Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute "climate deniers" who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change," reported the London Guardian.
13 Apr 2010
The Military Industrial Complex
What did Eisenhower mean when he warned of the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex and the scientific elite? Those powers are alive and well in the era of globalization; they and their international partners work behind the cloak of national security. CIA shotgun-weddings with narcotraffickers and complex negotiations with Cold War enemies has ensured that, in our most sensitive government areas, our dealings with foreign nations and corporate influence has become more, not less, entangled.
Invisible Empire details the complex dirty laundry lying beneath the rhetoric of the New World Order and international harmony covert war, cocaine smuggling, money laundering, arms dealing, assassinations, coup detats and more.
Vatican's secretary of state links paedophilia to homosexuality
The Vatican's second highest authority said on Monday that the sex scandals haunting the Catholic Church were linked to homosexuality, rather than vows of celibacy, among priests.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, asserted that "many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia." But he added that others had shown "that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia," and "that is the problem."
12 Apr 2010
Kissinger cable heightens suspicions about 1976 Operation Condor killings
A newly declassified document has added to long-standing questions about whether Henry Kissinger, while secretary of State, halted a U.S. plan to curb a secret program of international assassinations by South American dictators.
The document, a set of instructions cabled from Kissinger to his top Latin American deputy, ended efforts by U.S. diplomats to warn the governments of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina against involvement in the covert plan known as Operation Condor, according to Peter Kornbluh, an analyst with the National Security Archive, a private research organization that uncovered the document and made it public Saturday.
In the cable, dated Sept. 16, 1976, Kissinger rejected delivering a proposed warning to the government of Uruguay about Condor operations and ordered that "no further action be taken on this matter" by the State Department.
Five days after Kissinger's message, Chilean exile Orlando Letelier and an American colleague were killed in Washington's Embassy Row in a car bombing later tied to Chilean secret police working through the Condor network. The killings are considered one of the most brazen attacks ever carried out in the capital.
U.S. Approves Targeted Killing of American Cleric
The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.
Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and spent years in the United States as an imam, is in hiding in Yemen. He has been the focus of intense scrutiny since he was linked to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, and then to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25.
SA police investigate sex link to Terreblanche killing
South African police are investigating allegations of sexual assault prior to the killing of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche.
A lawyer for one of the two accused men said Terreblanche tried to have sex with at least one of the defendants.
Mr Terreblanche's body was found on a bed with his trousers pulled down. Police had initially said the killing was over a wage dispute, but are now exploring the possibility that the killing was an act of self-defence.
Puna Moroko, the lawyer representing one of the accused men - 28-year-old Chris Mahlangu - told South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper the attack was triggered by a sexual assault.
"My instructions from my client are that there was some sodomy going on and it sparked the murder of Mr Terreblanche," he said.
Plan to have Pope Benedict arrested over 'crimes against humanity'
Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, are seeking advice from human rights lawyers as to what legal action can be taken against the pope over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
It emerged this weekend that in 1985 when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases, the pope signed a letter arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys.
Dawkin and Hitchens believe he should face criminal proceedings because his "first instinct" was to protect the church rather than the children in its care.
They are hoping to exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, on a Spanish warrant when he visited Britain in 1998.
Bishop 'blames Jews' for criticism of Catholic church record on abuse
A furious transatlantic row has erupted over quotes that were attributed to a retired Italian bishop, which suggested that Jews were behind the current criticism of the Catholic church's record on tackling clerical sex abuse.
A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is.
The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers."
11 Apr 2010
The Boers prepare for War once more
It was the lesser, fourth charge facing Eugene Terre'Blanche's alleged killers that has caught Chris van Zyl's attention. "They pulled down Mr Terre'Blanche's pants after they killed him. That was an act of humiliation and it is one of the factors that show us that the murder was politically motivated," said the retired major-general.
New allegations that a used condom was found in the farmhouse where Terre'blanche was murdered suggest a sexual dimension to the killing is just as likely. But Major-General Van Zyl is unlikely to listen to scurrilous speculation. He now trains white South African farmers in self-defence, deep in the Afrikaner heartland of the former Transvaal. A member of the 6,000-strong Transvaal Agriculture Union (TAU), he was not expecting a drop-off in demand for his expertise.
AgriSA, the main farmers' union, recorded 1,541 murders and 10,151 farm attacks between 1994 and last year. "The real problem is President Jacob Zuma," said Bennie van Zyl. "He cannot be trusted. We have been to him five times," he added, handing over a pile of unanswered letters, covering South Africa's failed land redistribution programme, farm killings and cattle rustling. "Zuma is under pressure from the left wing of the government alliance and he does not know how to stand up to people like Malema. He is allowing land to become a political issue, like Mugabe. But farming is about food security, not politics”.
Operation Release
In 1994, the NAVS rescued six beagles following their undercover investigation into UK animal experiments.
A NAVS undercover investigation of Toxicol Laboratories in Herefordshire, had revealed that beagle puppies were force-fed weedkiller that had already been tested on animals previously, and had been passed as safe under UK and international legislation, and which has been on sale for 20 years. The beagles at Toxicol were supplied by two dealers - Consort in Herefordshire and Interfauna in Cambridgeshire.
To read more about the investigation and the rescue, see More Here.