British interrogation camp that turned prisoners into living skeletons

CSDIC, a division of the War Office, operated interrogation centres around the world, including one known as the London Cage, located in one of London's most exclusive neighbourhoods. Official documents discovered last month at the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, show that the London Cage was a secret torture centre where German prisoners who had been concealed from the Red Cross were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with execution or with unnecessary surgery.

As horrific as conditions were at the London Cage, Bad Nenndorf was far worse. Last week, Foreign Office files which have remained closed for almost 60 years were opened after a request by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act. These papers, and others declassified earlier, lay bare the appalling suffering of many of the 372 men and 44 women who passed through the centre during the 22 months it operated before its closure in July 1947.

They detail the investigation carried out by a Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Tom Hayward, following the complaints of Major Morgan-Jones and Dr Jordan. Despite the precise and formal prose of the detective's report to the military government, anger and revulsion leap from every page as he turns his spotlight on a place where prisoners were systematically beaten and exposed to extreme cold, where some were starved to death and, allegedaly, tortured with instruments that his fellow countrymen had recovered from a Gestapo prison in Hamburg. Even today, the Foreign Office is refusing to release photographs taken of some of the "living skeletons" on their release.

More on The Guardian – Also: Revealed: victims of UK's cold war torture camp on The Guardian

The London Cage on The Shady Old Lady and Wikipedia

Nothing On T.V. Is Real

Stargate Digital's Virtual Backlot™ is a proprietary technology that gives filmmakers unparalleled access to any location through a variety of techniques. These can range from totally immersive sequences shot entirely on green screen to simple set extensions that marry into principal photography.

Stargate Studios

Alles Neu

Peter Fox - Die offizielle Homepage

The truth about the Mossad

Founded in 1948 along with the new Jewish state, the Mossad largely stayed in the shadows in its early years. Yitzhak Shamir, a former Stern Gang terrorist and future prime minister, ran operations targeting German scientists who were helping Nasser's Egypt build rockets – foreshadowing later Israeli campaigns to disrupt Iraqi and (continuing) Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear and other weapons.

The Mossad's most celebrated exploits included the abduction of the fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was later tried and hanged in Israel. Others were organising the defection of an Iraqi pilot who flew his MiG-21 to Israel, and support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels against Baghdad. Military secrets acquired by Elie Cohen, the infamous spy who penetrated the Syrian leadership, helped Israel conquer the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war.

It was after that that the service's role expanded to fight the Palestinians, who had been galvanised under Yasser Arafat into resisting Israel in the newly occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The 1970s saw the so-called "war of the spooks" with Mossad officers, operating under diplomatic cover abroad, recruiting and running informants in Fatah and other Palestinian groups. Baruch Cohen, an Arabic speaker on loan to the Mossad from the Shin Bet internal security service, was shot in a Madrid cafe by his own agent. Bassam Abu Sharif, of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was badly disfigured by a Mossad parcel bomb sent to him in Beirut.

More on The Guardian

List of Israeli assassinations (Wikipedia)

Propaganda in North Korea

"Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist." Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda And Persuasion

Niger president seized in military coup

Mutinous troops led by an army colonel captured Niger's President Mamadou Tandja after a gun battle on Thursday, and said they were suspending the constitution and dissolving all political institutions.

Tensions had been high in the west African uranium exporter since Tandja changed the constitution to extend his rule last year, a move that drew widespread criticism at home and led to international sanctions.

"We, the security and defence forces, have decided to take responsibility for putting an end to the tense political situation that you are already aware of," a spokesman for the military junta, which called itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), said in a statement on state television late on Thursday evening.

The statement made no mention of Tandja, but military sources said he had been seized along with several ministers.

They said soldiers led by Colonel Adamou Harouna had stormed the presidential palace in a four-hour gun battle in the heart of the capital, Niamey.

Reuters

The Bankers Manifesto of 1892: History Repeated

Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. (click for his Nazi connections) revealed the Bankers Manifesto of 1892 to the U.S. Congress somewhere between 1907 and 1917.

“We (the bankers) must proceed with caution and guard every move made, for the lower order of people are already showing signs of restless commotion. Prudence will therefore show a policy of apparently yielding to the popular will until our plans are so far consummated that we can declare our designs without fear of any organized resistance.”

“The courts must be called to our aid, debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.

When, through the process of law, the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of the government applied to a central power of imperial wealth under the control of the leading financiers.

People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. History repeats itself in regular cycles. This truth is well known among our principal men who are engaged in forming an imperialism of the world. While they are doing this, the people must be kept in a state of political antagonism.”

Whole Truth Coalition

First ever visit by a French president to their former Slave Colony

Staying in Haiti for less than four hours, Sarkozy greeted French embassy staff and aid workers and took a helicopter tour to see the extent of damage left by last month's quake.

Later speaking alongside Rene Preval, the Haitian president, Sarkozy said he wanted to turn the page in France's long history of troubled relations with its former colony.

But for many Haitians, Sarkozy's visit highlighted the bitter legacy of the price paid by Haiti to secure its freedom from French rule.

Following a succesful revolt in 1804, Haiti was forced to pay compensation to France – a debt that took more than half a century to pay off. In today's money the payments amount to more than $20bn.

For many Haitians those payments are what set the seal on Haiti's endemic poverty and at a demonstration on Wednesday hundreds of Haitian protesters called on France to pay back the money.

"France has played an important role in the way the country is suffering economically, and it has a clear responsibility to pay reparations," Camille Chalmers, a Haitian economist, told Al Jazeera.

During his visit Sarkozy acknowledged that France and Haiti had had a troubled relationship, saying he was conscious that France "did not leave a good legacy" in its former colony.

Al Jazeera

Redemption Song

Bob Marley

Laura Magdalene Eisenhower outs secret Mars colony project

In a public statement, Laura Magdalene Eisenhower, great-granddaughter of former President Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969), has exposed her attempted recruitment from April 2006 through January 2007 by a secret Mars colony project.

Ms. Eisenhower’s account of her targeting by time travel surveillance and attempted manipulation by trained intelligence agents attached to a Mars colony project were revealed in an ExopoliticsRadio.org interview, and in an extensive written statement at Ms. Eisenhower’s website.
Ki’ Lia, a Stanford-educated artist, futurist and colleague of Ms. Eisenhower, has provided a corroborating first hand witness account of her and Ms. Eisenhower’s attempted recruitment into a secret human survival colony on Mars, available at Ki’ Lia’s website.

Examiner.com

Malawi police launch operation against high-profile gay and lesbian people

Police in Malawi have launched an operation to hunt down and arrest high-profile gays and lesbians in the southern African state.

Fears of an anti-gay backlash across Africa are intensifying after the prosecution of the first gay couple to seek marriage in Malawi, and thousands of Ugandans demonstrated this week in support of a bill proposing the death penalty for some offences involving homosexual acts. Last week five men were arrested at an alleged gay wedding in Kenya.

Steven Monjeza, left, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga face up to 14 years in jail after being arrested for conducting a gay wedding. Photograph: Eldson Chagara/Reuters

Dave Chingwalu, a spokesman for police in Malawi, said a 60-year-old man was arrested yesterday and charged with sodomy. Chingwalu said he received a complaint from a young man that he had been asked to undress by the older man and was then sodomised. Police investigations had uncovered a network of high-profile people involved homosexual acts, investigations were under way "and we will arrest them all", Chingwalu said.

Malawi has been criticised by international groups for the prosecution of Steven Monjeza, 26, and 20-year-old Tiwonge Chimbalanga, jailed in December for holding a wedding ceremony. The men were charged with unnatural acts and gross indecency and could be imprisoned for up to 14 years if found guilty.

More on The Guardian website

Dawkins speaks with Youself

I knew this guys voice sounded familiar. This guy was in Richard Dawkins' - http://richarddawkins.net/godDelusion

US to build two new nuclear power stations

President Obama has announced more than $8bn of federal loan guarantees to help build the first new nuclear power stations in the US for 30 years.

Two new plants are to be constructed in the state of Georgia by US electricity firm Southern Company. President Obama said the plants would be "safe and clean" and were needed to meet the country's future energy needs.

There have been no new nuclear power plants built in the US since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.

More on BBC News

Future police: Meet the UK's armed robot drones

Police forces all over the UK will soon be able to draw on unmanned aircraft from a national fleet, according to Home Office plans. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers, and will be in place in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Surveillance is only the start, however. Military drones quickly moved from reconnaissance to strike, and if the British police follow suit, their drones could be armed -- but with non-lethal weapons rather than Hellfire missiles.
The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by Essex police, to BAE System's new HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan. The drones are cheaper than police helicopters -- some of which will be retired -- and are as wide as 12m in the case of HERTI.
Watching events on the ground without being able to act is frustrating. Targets often got away before an unarmed drone could summon assistance. In fact, in 2000 it was reported that an airborne drone spotted Osama bin Laden but could do nothing but watch him escape. So the RAF has been carrying out missions in Afghanistan with missile-armed Reapers since 2007. From the ground these just look like regular aircraft.

Future police: Meet the UK's armed robot drones

CCTV footage: The assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai

Dubai Police are hunting 11 suspects with European passports, including a woman, for the murder in a Dubai hotel room of a top militant of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, the Gulf emirate's police chief said on Monday.
The hit team which killed Mahmud al-Mabhuh last month was made up of six British passport holders, three with Irish passports, including the woman, and the holders of a German and a French passport, Dhafi Khalfan said.

The National - Police show footage of al Mabhouh suspects

Also see the links on the Wikipedia page

Pope meets Irish bishops over abuse

Pope Benedict XVI has met Ireland's 24 Roman Catholic bishops to discuss a scandal over the sexual abuse of children by members of the country's clergy.
Monday's meeting between the pope and the bishops opened with a prayer and fraternal kisses in what Ireland's senior bishop called a first step toward repentance.

Cardinal Sean Brady, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, told Vatican Radio that the two-day meeting was part of a "journey of repentance, reconciliation and renewal" for the Irish Church.
Two judicial reports published in Ireland last year revealed that church leaders had protected child-abusing priests from the law, while many fellow clerics turned a blind eye.

The reports, which shocked the nation, documented decades of sexual, physical and psychological abuse in Catholic-run schools, workhouses and orphanages.

Al Jazeera

Sea Shepherd Captain Detained Onboard Japanese Whaling Vessel

Sea Shepherd Captain Peter Bethune of the vessel Ady Gil, which was sunk by the Japanese security ship Shonan Maru 2, boarded the whaling ship to conduct a citizen’s arrest of the skipper of the Shonan Maru 2.

Captain Bethune boarded the whaling ship under cover of darkness from a Jet Ski as the Shonan Maru 2 was travelling at 14 knots in the Southern Ocean. His first attempt failed when he fell into the frigid waters, but despite this the crew of the Shonan Maru 2 failed to see him and he successfully boarded the whaler without detection.

Captain Bethune’s breaching the security of the whaling fleet security vessel remained undetected for one and a half hours. At 0800 Hours, once the sun had risen, Captain Bethune calmly knocked on the bridge wing door, entered the wheelhouse, and presented himself to the Captain of Shonan Maru 2 where he informed the skipper that he was under arrest for the sinking of the Sea Shepherd ship Ady Gil on January 6th, 2010.

All radio communications with Peter Bethune ceased at 0805. The Shonan Maru 2 did acknowledge that Bethune was onboard.

More on Sea Shepherd

Israel is waging covert war across the Middle East

Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities. Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging assassinations across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

The current spate of killings began in December when a “tourist bus” carrying Iranian officials and Hamas members exploded outside Damascus. The official report by Syria claimed that a tyre had exploded but photographs surfaced showing the charred remains of the vehicle — prompting speculation that a much larger explosion had taken place.

Times Online

North Korea's Own Personal Jesus

By Hillboy1973

Civilians die in second day of Afghan offensive

Twelve civilians were killed during a major coalition assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan Sunday, prompting an apology from the head of NATO-led forces in the country..

"We deeply regret this tragic loss of life," Ineternational Security Assistance Force commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in a statement which said he had conveyed his regret to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"The current operation in Central Helmand is aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It's regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost."

CNN.com

Climategate U-turn: There Has Been No Global Warming Since 1995

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Mail Online

How stupid can you be? US Rep. Nancy Elliott

Homophobic NH State Representative Nancy Elliott, R-Merrimack, speaking in the executive session on HB 1590, to repeal same-sex marriage. (2/9/2010) - YouTube

Inside North Korea: the ultimate package tour

The strangest of all the very strange things about the strangest place on earth, North Korea, is that it's surprisingly easy to go there. Or at least, not as hard as it somehow ought to be. I'd always thought that it was only marginally less difficult than going to the moon or, say, Eton, but my amazing revelation is this: type "North Korea" and "tourism" into Google, and you'll find Koryo Tours, a British-run, Beijing-based travel firm. A couple of clicks and a certain amount of cash later, and you, too, could find yourself on a vintage Russian jetliner heading towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It's impossibly exciting. And when Paul, the Australian sitting next to me, remarks, casually, that Air Koryo is considered unairworthy by the EU, it becomes, perhaps, just a little too exciting. But then some rousing martial music strikes up over a crackling intercom, and air stewardesses wearing what looks like jet-age vintage – white gloves, natty hats, red lipstick – bring around the in-flight reading material: the Pyongyang Times. The highlight of a recent firework spectacular, I learn, was a sky-writing display that read "Down With Imperialism", although the top story concerns a visit by Kim Jong Il to the new September 26 Breeding Pig Farm. "The country's economy is growing remarkably through a series of big events in the flame of the new revolutionary upsurge," he notes.

The Observer – Picture by Eric Lafforgue

Vancouver Olympic Blues

The city of Vancouver is picking up most of the price tag for the Olympic games. Many people are angry about this because most of the prices told to the people of Vancouver were under estimated. Many social services have to be cut because the city is trying to pick up the tab for the games. RussiaToday

Anonymous to Australia

To the members of the Australian government,
This is a message concerning the recent actions directed at high profile government websites by members of the organization that has become known as anonymous. We are delivering this message to inform you of the reasoning behind these actions, to enlighten you to the mistakes that you have made. Your attempts to construct a government mandated blacklist has been under our watchful eyes for quite some time, but your steps to finalize this plan have finally allowed us to take action. Your choice to ban material under the guise of the good of your people, your notions of right and wrong have forced us to remind you of the purpose behind the internet.

See more info on YouTube - Operation Titstorm--ED-Resource-Center