A device found in the U.K. on a United Parcel Service Inc. plane bound for Chicago on Friday was designed to go off on the aircraft, Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday. U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May added that the device was powerful enough to bring down the aircraft.
The U.K. doesn't believe it was being targeted in the incident because the attackers couldn't have known the route of the plane.
In California's battle to legalize marijuana, former Mexican President Vicente Fox has picked a side, announcing in a recent radio interview that he favors Prop. 19.
"How great it would be for California to set this example," he said, speaking to the W radio network on Wednesday. "May God let it pass. The other U.S. states will have to follow step." The quote was first snagged stateside by McClatchy Newspapers.
The former president also criticized his successor's violent campaign against the drug cartels, suggesting that the country's path has been ultimately destructive.
"Violence never resolves violence," he said.
6 year old ,Alani dos Santos, a "child healer" better known as the Missionarinha or Little Missionary has been reported as being capable of working miracles with the touch of her hands.She is reported to be one of Brazil's miracle child healers.
It seems like people are coming from far and wide in Brazil to be touched by this young girl in search of a miracle.This trend the Guardian reports is "a sensation in the rundown dormitory town of São Gonçalo, the Little Missionary is part of a growing number of infant evangelists in Brazil: child healers, miracle workers and preachers who have become big crowd pullers in this increasingly evangelical nation."
A total of 101,248 stops and searches were made under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in 2009/10, but only one in every 200 led to an arrest and none of these were terror-related, the figures released by the Home Office showed.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, ordered a review of the controversial stop and search powers earlier this year, saying she wanted to correct ''mistakes'' made by the Labour government which, she said, was allowed to ''ride roughshod'' over civil liberties.
The powers allow officers to stop anyone in a specified area without the need for reasonable suspicion.
Undercover Guardian investigation reveals plan by English Defence League to hit racially sensitive areas in attempt to provoke disorder over summer.
More on The Guardian and more video here
In today's technological age - is heavy manual labour disappearing or is it just becoming invisible?
Physical work was once celebrated with hymns of praise. But workers today must be content with encouraging one another that their hard work is better than no work at all.
This series looks at the state of physical work in today's world. Work that is dreary, demanding and at time dangerous. See Al Jazeera for other parts
UN funding is being used to run a brutal internment camp for the destitute in Cambodia where detainees are held for months without trial, raped and beaten, sometimes to death, former inmates have told the Guardian.
The Prey Speu facility, 12 miles from Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, is officially described as a "social affairs centre" offering education and healthcare to vulnerable people.
But human rights groups and former inmates say the centre is an illegal, clandestine prison, where people deemed "undesirable" by the government – usually drug users, sex workers and the homeless – are held for months without charge.
Men, women and children are housed together in a single building and are regularly beaten with planks, whipped with wires or threatened with weapons, according to witnesses.
It is alleged that guards have beaten three detainees to death and gang-rapes by the same body of men are reportedly common.
The UN's own Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has described the conditions at Prey Speu as "appalling" with people "illegally confined and subject to a variety of abuses of power by the staff that included sub-humane conditions of detention, extortion, beating, rape, sometimes resulting in death and suicide".
Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais, Ross Noble, Dylan Moran, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Billy Connolly
Russia’s arms exports are expected to exceed $10 billion this year, Director General of the country’s state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaikin, said.
He added that last year Russia exported arms worth of $8.5 billion. By now, Rosoboronexport has achieved nearly $15 billion deals with Libya and Saudi Arabia. Russia also supplies small arms to the Afghan police. In general, Russia exports arms to over 70 countries.
If an asteroid were on a collision course with Earth, would we be ready to defend against its destructive impact or would we be helpless and defenceless?
NASA, America's space agency, is being charged with leading the way to protect not only the U.S. but the entire world in the event of such a horrifying scenario. And a top White House science adviser says we have to be prepared.
In separate 10-page letters to the House Committee on Science and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP, outlines plans for "(A) protecting the United States from a near-Earth object that is expected to collide with Earth; and (B) implementing a deflection campaign, in consultation with international bodies, should one be necessary."
Chinese police seized a woman from her house in the middle of the night after she tweeted her intention to demonstrate with a banner congratulating jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo on winning the Nobel peace prize, a friend said today.
The news comes amid a crackdown on Liu's friends and supporters that has raised questions about who will collect his award next month.
His wife Liu Xia, who is under house arrest, has invited more than 140 dissidents, activists and celebrities to accept the prize because she fears she will be unable to go.
Zhang Shijie, a blogger in Chongqing, tweeted that officers had taken Mou Yanxi at about 2.30am.
Another Twitter user, @newsinchina, said Mou had returned home but police had kept her mobile phone and computer, adding: "Reminder for those who want to send her DM, emails or text messages – be cautious."
Mou's mobile phone was still switched off this evening. An officer at the police station she was reportedly taken to denied knowledge of the case.
Mou, a freelance designer thought to be in her 20s, had tweeted: "If there is really an anti-Japanese demonstration in Chongqing, I will carry a banner saying 'Congratulations, Uncle Xiaobo!' "
The war on illegal drugs has failed and people who use them should no longer be criminalised, according to the UN's independent investigator on physical and mental health.
On Monday Anand Grover told the general assembly committee dealing with rights issues that "the current international system of drug control has focused on creating a drug-free world, almost exclusively through use of law enforcement policies and criminal sanctions.
"Mounting evidence, however, suggests this approach has failed," Mr Grover observed.
He said that while the use of illegal drugs "may have a pernicious effect on individual lives and society, this excessively punitive regime has not achieved its stated public health goals, and has resulted in countless human rights violations."
Mr Grover advocated the decriminalisation of drug use.
This short film is about a piece of footage found by George Clarke behind the scenes in Charlie Chaplins film The Circus Attending the premiere at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, CA – the scene shows a large woman dressed in black with a hat hiding most of her face, with what can only be described as a mobile phone device – talking as she walks alone studying this film for over a year now – showing it to over 100 people and at a film festival, yet no-one can give any explanation as to what she is doing The only theory – as well as many others – is simple a time traveler on a mobile phone See for yourself and feel free to leave a comment on your own explanation or thoughts about it
American forces decapitated an Iraqi last year on the order of their higher-up, show recently-exposed US military documents.
The troops operated under the command of an unnamed US major, who had been involved in the rape of an Iraqi female, showed one such document posted on the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
The incident took place after the victim, the brother of the raped female, reportedly killed a military official in reprisal for the indecent assault.
To enable the May incident in the city of Haditha of the western Iraq province of Al Anbar, the major said he was undertaking the transfer of two prisoners, including the victim.
WikiLeaks has released around 400,000 documents on the 2003-present US-led invasion of Iraq. The founder of the website, Julian Assange, has hailed the disclosure as one "about the truth" behind the war.
In the past few months major media outlets in the US have begun reporting on Obama’s “shadow” war in Yemen. Underpaid researchers in dark basement offices have probably been spending their nights scouring the internet for evidence of drone, cruise missile, or specter gunship attacks in the most remote parts of Yemen. The director of Yemen’s security forces, General Yahya Muhammad Saleh, is now denying he ever said to CNN in an interview last Wednesday that he was open to US strikes in Yemen after CNN reported as such.
Phrases like “secret mission” are being used by the New York Times to describe an American drone strike on May 25th against suspected al-Qaeda militants in Marib. This particular super-duper-secret drone strike wound up killing the deputy governor of Marib province, Sheikh Jaber al-Shabwani, along with a number of his relatives. Sheikh al-Shabwani was often praised by the Yemeni government for his diligent work in dissuading a great number of young men from joining al-Qaeda and focusing their attention on bettering their own villages and communities.
Picking up where the bestselling and controversial The Christ Conspiracy leaves off, Suns of God leads the reader through an electrifying exploration of the origin and meaning of the world's religions and popular gods. Over the past several centuries, the Big Three spiritual leaders have been the Lords Christ, Krishna and Buddha, whose stories and teachings are curiously and confoundingly similar to each other.
The tale of a miraculously born redeemer who overcomes heroic challenges, teaches ethics and morality, performs marvels and wonders, acquires disciples and is famed far and wide, to be persecuted, killed and reborn, is not unique but a global phenomenon recurring in a wide variety of cultures long before the Christian era.
More about Osiris, the original Jesus here
It was a brutal massacre even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug war: 72 migrant workers gunned down by the "Zetas" - arguably the country's most violent cartel - and left rotting in a pile outside a ranch in Tamaulipas state near the US border in late August.
The Zetas have a fearsome reputation, but the real surprise comes not in their ruthless use of violence, but in the origins of where they learned the tricks of their bloody trade.
Some of the cartel's initial members were elite Mexican troops, trained in the early 1990s by America’s 7th Special Forces Group or "snake eaters" at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, a former US special operations commander has told Al Jazeera.
“They were given map reading courses, communications, standard special forces training, light to heavy weapons, machine guns and automatic weapons,” says Craig Deare, the former special forces commander who is now a professor at the US National Defence University.
The Mexican personnel who received US training and later formed the Zetas came from the Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), which is considered an elite division of the Mexican military.
See Los Zetas on Wikipedia and "The Sad Reality Of Los Zetas" on Borderland Beat
Lord Haw-Haw was the nickname of several announcers on the English language propaganda radio program Germany Calling, broadcast by Nazi German radio to audiences in Great Britain on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States. The program started on 18 September 1939 and continued until 30 April 1945, when Hamburg was overrun by the British Army. The nickname generally refers to William Joyce, who was German radio's most prominent English language speaker and to whom it gradually came to be exclusively applied.
… a good inspiration for Lady Gaga??
This is the impact of Frago 242. A frago is a "fragmentary order" which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, "only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ".
Ministers were accused last night of deliberately driving poor people out of wealthy inner cities as London councils revealed they were preparing a mass exodus of low-income families from the capital because of coalition benefit cuts.
Representatives of London boroughs told a meeting of MPs last week that councils have already block-booked bed and breakfasts and other private accommodation outside the capital – from Hastings, on the south coast, to Reading to the west and Luton to the north – to house those who will be priced out of the London market.
Councils in the capital are warning that 82,000 families – more than 200,000 people – face losing their homes because private landlords, enjoying a healthy rental market buoyed by young professionals who cannot afford to buy, will not cut their rents to the level of caps imposed by ministers.
The New York Times, The Guardian newspaper of London, German magazine Der Spiegel and French newspaper Le Monde reported Friday that secret U.S. military documents about the war in Iraq detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
These are the same documents - part of the largest publication of secret material in history - that Pentagon officials have been urging the website WikiLeaks and the media not to publish. They first appeared on the Arab network Al Jazeera.
Among the details from the approximately 400,000, collected from field reports sent in by American units in the field between 2004 and 2009, and leaked to the news outlets are that:
- U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
- Americans often turned a blind eye to Iraqis being tortured and abused by other Iraqis in secret prisons.
- Iran's military - to a further extent than previously known - intervened aggressively in support of Shiite combatants, offering weapons, training and sanctuary.
- A U.S. helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
- According to one tabulation, there have been 100,000 civilian causalities - greater than the numbers previously made public, many of them killed by American troops but most of them were killed by other Iraqis.
The Symphony of Science is a musical project headed by John Boswell, designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form. Here you can watch music videos, download songs, read lyrics and find links relating to the messages conveyed by the music.
At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.
After caving to deficit hysteria, the Australian government began strategizing to reduce the budget and one of the ways they cut spending was by outsourcing detention center services. As a result, Villawood is run by a company called Serco, which Daniel calls "Australia's Blackwater," meaning it's a very large private company that performs a typically public service -- incarcerating human beings.
Serco is based in the United Kingdom and provides electronic tagging devices for offenders and asylum seekers. The company runs four prisons and two "Immigration Removal Centres" in Britain in addition to Hunfeld Prison in Germany, Acacia Prison in Western Australia and Borallon Correctional Facility in Queensland.
Today in Westminster Village, the media circus / PR exercise is over the new Coalition of the Loser's spending "cuts".
To that end, a number of bananas were strategically placed around Westminster to await tha arrival of the Conservatives court jester, the grandly titled, "Chancellor", Mr Osbourne.
An interesting chapter called The War, Oil and the Economy (pages 238 -243) in a book by Joseph Stiglitz called 'The Three Trillion Dollar War' goes a long way to concisely explaining what most of us have probably guessed is going on.
Basically by waging war, with its accompanying effects, big business has cleaned up big time, financially, both at home and abroad.
In the UK people may 'pay' for war and it's consequences through their pockets, but overseas, millions of innocent civilians have 'paid' for 'war', with their lives.
The pilot who stands to lose his job for refusing to submit to an airport full body scan said today that the scanners and full body pat-downs infringe on his rights and amount to "multiple layers of absurdity."
"It's an outrage. The Fourth Amendment is there for a reason," Michael Roberts, 35, told "Good Morning America," referring to the Constitution's amendment which protects Americans against "unreasonable searches and seizures." "It's not dispensable for the sake of security, just to make us feel better or that something's being done."
"I was admitted to hospital on 23rd September 2010, with breathing trouble. Tests show a tumour. I am having more tests, then treatment.
In my enforced absence, Babs Tucker is Captain of the Good Ship Parliament Square Peace Campaign. Please give her all the help possible.
I will be back and able to cry out again for those denied a voice.
God save the Kids, the People."
US President Barack Obama has released a video to draw attention to the pressures facing gay teenagers, lending his weight to a campaign that has attracted more than 2,000 video contributions and 10m views on YouTube.
The campaign, prompted by a spate of gay American teenagers killing themselves in recent weeks, received the backing of the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on Tuesday, when she posted her own two-minute video.
In his video posting, the president draws parallels with his own upbringing. "I don't know what it's like to be picked on for being gay. But I do know what it's like to grow up feeling that sometimes you don't belong," he says. "It's tough.
A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says in a new book that while Bill Clinton was in the White House, a key component of the president's nuclear launch protocol went missing.
"The codes were actually missing for months. This is a big deal," says General Hugh Shelton. "We dodged a silver bullet."
In his book "Without Hesitation," the retired Army general writes, "Even though movies may show the President wearing these codes around his neck, it's pretty standard that they are safeguarded by one of his aides, but that aide sticks with him like glue." He adds that President Clinton "assumed, I'm sure, that the aide had them like he was supposed to."
What apparently was missing was a card with code numbers on it that allows the president to access a briefcase -- called the "football" and kept by an aide always near the president -- containing instructions for launching a nuclear attack.
A pilot scheme in China's most advanced city will give GPS devices to 35 families to track their elderly relatives.
If the seniors move a certain distance away from their home, a text message with their exact position is sent to their families.
The device can also inform relatives if its wearer has been motionless for longer than ten hours.
"Protecting elderly people, especially those with mental health problems, by keeping them from wandering off, is a major challenge. We often get reports that old people are lost, or that they have wandered off," said Gong Linglin, the deputy head of the office in charge of ageing-related issues, who said the scheme particularly targeted people suffering from Alzheimer's disease and memory loss.
If the pilot is successful, the scheme will be rolled out across the city, with each device costing roughly £80 to £100.
The United States plans to sell up to $60 billion worth of military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday in a move designed to shore up a region overshadowed by Iran.
Andrew Shapiro, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told a news conference the U.S. administration did not anticipate any objections to the sale from Israel, traditionally wary of arms sales to nearby Arab countries.
"We think it will enhance regional security and stability rather than diminish it," Shapiro told a news conference.
Dylan Ratigan let loose an epic rant on "Morning Joe" this morning (10/15/10) regarding terrorism in the Middle East which seemed to attack all corners, including the media.
A man has the right to discipline his wife and children provided he does not leave physical marks, the Saudi-Arabian Federal Supreme Court has ruled. The judgment was made in the case of a man who slapped and kicked his daughter and slapped his wife.
The wife suffered injuries to her lower lip and teeth, and the daughter had bruises on her right hand and right knee. The court ruled that the bruises were evidence that the father had abused his Sharia right.
According to Islamic law, a man has the "right to discipline" his wife and children, which can include beating them after he has exhausted two other options: admonition and then abstaining from sleeping with his wife. Although scholars differ in their definition of "beating", all agree it must not be severe.
The Pentagon has assembled a 120-member team to prepare for the expected publication of some 400,000 Iraq war documents on the Wikileaks website.
The documents are thought to concern battle activity, Iraqi security forces and civilian casualties.
Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said the timing of the leak remained unclear but are preparing for it to be as early as Monday or Tuesday - a possibility raised in previous WikiLeaks statements.
The Pentagon said on Sunday it wants the documents back to avoid "potentially damaging" information being released.
Lapan said the files were from an Iraq-based database that contained "significant acts, unit-level reporting, tactical reports, things of that nature".
If confirmed, the leak would be much larger than the record-breaking release of more than 70,000 Afghan war documents in July, which stoked debate about the nine-year-old conflict but did not contain major revelations.
Spencer Ackerman, a journalist who has covered Wikileaks extensively, told Al Jazeera this particular release of documents would dwarf Wikileaks' July publication of more than 70,000 Afghan war files.
31 video's in the playlist above
Is Orwell's nightmare coming true? While watching the first clip, ask yourself if it's sincere or if 10:10 is being pranked on by skeptics. Keep watching the clips until you can decide. Miscellaneous over the top eco scare videos included.. For more info see Watts Up With That?
Also see previous post Global Warming Propaganda 10-10 No Pressure
Snuggly the Security Bear is back! This time he's updating you on Internet privacy and other civil liberty fun. See what happens when you're perfectly safe and secure! A Mark Fiore political animation. MarkFiore.com
Better late than never, a very senior Palestinian official in Ramallah, Yasser Abed Rabbo, found the right way to challenge Israel and the U.S. As reported by AFP on 13 October, he said, "We officially demand that the US administration and the Israeli government provide a map of the borders of the state of Israel which they want us to recognise."
That’s a completely logical and totally reasonable demand.
IF Israel was interested in peace on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept, the map provided would show Israel with borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war. An accompanying note would say that, subject to agreement in final negotiations, Israel seeks minor border adjustments here and there. The note would also propose that Jerusalem should be an open, undivided city and the capital of two states.
If such a map with the note as above was presented, it would open the door to peace.
But the implementation of such land-for-peace deal would require the IDF to confront and forcibly remove illegal Jewish settlers who refused to leave; and that would open the door to a Jewish civil war – the price Israel’s Jews would have to pay for 62 years of contempt for and defiance of international law.
In the publicity sheet that St. Martin's Press has been sending out to spur interest in General Hugh Shelton's new memoir, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, the last highlight is a doozy: "A high-ranking cabinet member suggests intentionally flying an American airplane on a low pass over Baghdad so as to guarantee it will be shot down, thus creating a natural excuse to reltaliate and go to war."
Turns out the incident took place during the Clinton administration, and Shelton's response to the suggestion...well, let's just say it more than lives up to the title of the memoir.
Seeks a measure of order in physical, mathematical or social phenomena that are characterized by abundant data but extreme sample variability. The surprising esthetic value of many of his discoveries and their unexpected usefulness in teaching have made him an eloquent spokesman for the "unity of knowing and feeling."
Benoit B. Mandelbrot website – Wikipedia (This page is currently protected from editing until October 19, 2010 or until disputes have been resolved.)
In Operation Vigilant Guard, a Prison Planet.tv exclusive, Infowars.com reporters and filmmakers Rob Dew and Jason Douglass venture to Chicago, Illinois, to document the militarization of domestic response during disasters and terrorist events in the United States.
It is not simply the U.S. military -- specifically the National Guard federalized under the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act -- and Homeland Security along with local police participating in exercises held state-wide in Illinois, but the Polish and Latvian military as well.
The National Guard told the media that foreign soldiers would be "observers," but as this Prison Planet.tv exclusive video reveals Polish soldiers participated in the activities, including a raid on what appeared to be a meth lab but is described as a weapons of mass destruction facility.
More on InfoWars.com - National Guard website
There is a yearning by tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement, to destroy the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They seek out of ignorance and desperation to create a utopian society based on “biblical law.” They want to transform America’s secular state into a tyrannical theocracy. These radicals, rather than the terrorists who oppose us, are the gravest threat to our open society. They have, with the backing of hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate money, gained tremendous power. They peddle pseudoscience such as “Intelligent Design” in our schools. They keep us locked into endless and futile wars of imperialism. They mount bigoted crusades against gays, immigrants, liberals and Muslims. They turn our judiciary, in the name of conservative values, over to corporations. They have transformed our liberal class into hand puppets for corporate power. And we remain meek and supine.
The huge amount of taxpayer money doled out to Wall Street, investment banks, the oil and natural gas industry and the defense industry, along with the dismantling of our manufacturing sector, is why we are impoverished. It is why our houses are being foreclosed on. It is why some 45 million Americans are denied medical care. It is why our infrastructure, from public schools to bridges, is rotting. It is why many of us cannot find jobs. We are being fleeced. The flagrant theft of public funds and rise of an obscenely rich oligarchic class is masked by the tough talk of demagogues, themselves millionaires, who use fear and bombast to keep us afraid, confused and enslaved.
In its main editorial Sunday, the New York Times, the major voice of what passes for liberalism in America, openly defends the right of the US government to assassinate anyone it pleases. The only restriction the Times suggests is that the president should be required to have his selection of murder victims rubber-stamped by a secret court like the one that now approves 99.99 percent of all electronic eavesdropping requests.
The apologia for killing begins with a blatant lie about the US assassination program using missiles fired from CIA-operated drone aircraft flying along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Times claims, citing official US government sources: “The drone program has been effective, killing more than 400 Al Qaeda militants this year alone, according to American officials, but fewer than 10 noncombatants.”
Actually, Pakistani government officials estimated the number of civilians killed by drone attacks in 2009 alone at more than 700, with an even higher figure this year, as the Obama administration has rained missiles and bombs on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.(See “US drone missiles slaughtered 700 Pakistani civilians in 2009” .)
A report in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn concluded, “For each Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities.”
The Times editors cannot be unaware of these well-established figures, since their own journalists have reported a civilian death toll from US missile strikes in Pakistan of some 500 by April 2009, and 100 to 500 more through April 2010. They lie shamelessly and deliberately in order to conceal the significance of their endorsement of such widespread killing.
The editorial claims that US drone missile attacks are legal under international law as self-defense, but this is flatly rejected by human rights groups and legal experts, except those who work as paid apologists for the CIA and Pentagon. The United States is not at war with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, but US missiles have struck the territory of all these countries and annihilated their citizens.
A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater's Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State "security services," that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.
Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training - for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.
One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.
BBC In 1998 it was revealed the plane had been carrying the ingredients needed to make the nerve gas, sarin. There were claims of a cover-up.
It is later learned that the plane, a Boeing 747, was carrying several tons of chemicals, including hydrofluoric acid, isopro-panol and dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP)—three of the four chemicals used in the production of sarin nerve gas. The shipment of chemicals—approved by the US commerce department—reportedly came from Solkatronic Chemicals Inc. of Morrisville, Pennsylvania and its final destination was the Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) in Ness Ziona near Tel Aviv, Israel
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned a court-ordered halt of a ban on openly gay military personnel could have "enormous consequences".
A day after a judge halted the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, Mr Gates said he preferred that Congress, not a court, settle the issue.
Under the policy, gay people can serve in the military but face expulsion if their sexuality is revealed.
A legislative bid to overturn the ban failed in the US Senate last month.
"I feel strongly this is an action that needs to be taken by the Congress and that it is an action that requires careful preparation, and a lot of training," Mr Gates said. "It has enormous consequences for our troops."
Twenty-three senior members of the Chinese Communist Party have called on the government to lift the restrictions on freedom of speech in China.
In an open letter dated October 1, the members who earlier held senior positions either in the party or in government apparatus, pointed out that though the country's constitution guarantees freedom of speech, it is not allowed to be exercised.
The letter circulated online on October 11 comes days after Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned Chinese dissident, was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Liu, a 54-year-old literary critic, is now in the second year of an 11-year prison term after being convicted of inciting subversion over his role in writing an influential 2008 manifesto for political reform.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Nicholas Bequelin, a China expert with Human Rights Watch, said that the Chinese elders have timed their call for more freedom of speech because of the publicity surrounding the jailed Xiaobo.
"It's not coincidental, they decided to go ahead and make this bold call for freedom of the press and freedom of expression precisely because all the attention is on Liu Xiaobo serving a prison term while he just received a Nobel Peace Prize."
The Syrian president has sharply blasted Israel for a new law that forces non-Jewish people to take an oath of allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish state."
"The decision... expresses the Israeli fascism that appears in the killing and such decisions," Bashar al-Assad said on Monday.
He also criticized Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for hindering talks between Damascus and Tel Aviv.
"The Arab side really wants the peace process and the Israeli side is working in the opposite direction," Assad said.
The son of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is reportedly missing after two foreign nationals, believed to be German journalists, were arrested after trying to interview him. The lawyer for the woman, 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, also has not been heard from.
Iran's chief prosecutor, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, called the two people detained "foreign tourists" and said they lacked correct media credentials, according to a statement published today on the semi-official Mehr News website.
The son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery pictured here in an undated photo, are reported missing.
But an Iranian human rights activist, based in Germany, who said she arranged the interview told AOL News today that the Iranian government has also arrested the son of Ashtiani and her longtime lawyer. The government has not confirmed the arrests or detention of Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, or her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian. But sources connected to the case said neither of them returned to their homes Sunday night, nor have they answered their phones.
The latest “UFO drill” took place Wed, Sept 29, at Sandford Primary School in the UK. The kids were treated to a full UFO crash scenario that included wreckage, police tape, and real police officers. (Perhaps it was only lacking men from the government telling the children not to talk about what was seen.)
What’s interesting is that “police were on hand to show the children how to properly investigate the UFO crash site.” Um, were any of the officers speaking from experience?
A news article at The Weston Mercury elaborates on the role played by the officers:
Teacher and organiser Victoria Shepherd said: “PCSO Wright and PC Church were brilliant. They helped the children secure the scene and talked about what to do in an emergency, how they gathered evidence, how to interview witnesses etc.”
Are UFO drills becoming something of a routine part of the curriculum in the UK? It’s certainly becoming more and more of a common event. Each time, it’s a joint exercise put in place by the school and local law enforcement.
A similar drill took place in Feb of 2009 when Lanchester Endowed Parochial Primary, in County Durham, staged a surprise “crash” behind the school. In Sept 2008 “children from an Edgware school were made to believe aliens had landed in their playground by teachers and police.” Again, each time it was conducted by the school system and police — teaching children what to do in event of a UFO event. Afterward, the kids are asked to write about their experience.
Dutch FARC guerrilla Tanja Nijmeijer is being positioned to present the image of the group internationally, according to an e-mail message quoted by the Colombian government. 
The text was found on one of the laptops recovered after the bombing in which guerrilla chief Mono Jojoy was killed.
Pictures of Tanja Nijmeijer were published on the website of the Colombian president's office. At a meeting in the city of Medellin President Juan Manuel Santos quoted these words from one of the recovered e-mails, dated April 2010: "Brotherly greetings to everyone in your company. In the middle of this tragedy, the appearance of Alexandra [Nijmeijer's guerrilla pseudonym] is good news. The idea to have her work with the international committee is wonderful. I'm certain it will give FARC a boost, given her capacities and professional linguistic skills."
The message had been written by Carlos Antonio Lozada, commander of the Antonio Nariño section, to Mono Jojoy, commander of the Eastern section, one of the FARC's most important. Mono Jojoy was Nijmeijer's immediate superior.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide – FARC website – Columbian President website
Since 1967 countless artifacts have been unearthed and removed from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many are displayed in Israeli museums and private collections, while others are sold to tourists.
For Israel, archeology has been a key tool in buttressing its territorial claims to historic Palestine. Archeological findings are used to assert ownership and to rename the territories they occupy. Palestinians see the cultural heritage of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza as a central part of their ancestral birthright and ownership is key to building an economy based on pilgrimage and tourism.
Filmmakers: Mariam Shahin and George Azar
Is the removal of historic treasures from the occupied territories a case of cultural preservation or stealing a heritage? What role has the science of archeology played in the Arab-Israeli dispute? Al Jazeera searches through the evidence, unearthing the facts and exposing a power struggle in which every stone has meaning.
More than just property, the control of a cultural legacy is at stake.
British aid worker Linda Norgrove may have been killed by a grenade thrown by US troops trying to rescue her from Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan, David Cameron said today.
The prime minister announced that a full UK-US investigation was now being launched into the circumstances surrounding Norgrove's death on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference today, Cameron said that General David Petraeus, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, had contacted his office this morning to say a review of the rescue operation had revealed she "may not have died at the hands of her captors" as originally thought.
Speech from the movie Ghandi
Non-compliance.
The tried and tested solution to tyranny.
http://www.davidicke.com
This is the full speech by Richard Dawkins at the "Protest The Pope" rally, 18th September 2010. (unedited)
The conservative Republican candidate to be governor of New York told Orthodox Jewish leaders on Sunday he doesn't want children "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality" is acceptable.
While Carl Paladino, a multimillionaire developer from Buffalo, has stated that he is opposed to gay marriage, his most recent comments were striking because they came hours after eight people were arraigned in an attack on a gay man and two gay teens in the Bronx on Oct. 3. From FoxNews.com
Gang members used an anti-gay slur to ask two teen boys and a 30-year-old man about their sexuality before brutally torturing and beating them last week in a working-class Bronx neighborhood, authorities said in court, where eight suspects stood with drooped heads at their first appearance as their relatives wept behind them. More on Salon.com
"And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God..." (Deuteronomy 13: 5)
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;" (Deuteronomy 13: 6)
"Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people." (Deuteronomy 13:8-9)
"Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword." (Deuteronomy 13:15)
These severe laws commanded the members of the Hebrew religion to murder even their own children if they did not worship Yahweh (God).
These Bible words can justify, to a fanatical fundamentalist believer, the killing of friends or family simply because they may fail to change their beliefs.
Why anyone today would accept these words, much less allow them to exist in a sacred book goes against the nature of any tolerant and loving people.
