10 Jul 2012
'It was a craft that did not come from this planet'
A long-serving CIA agent has spoken out on the 65th anniversary of the Roswell Incident to reveal a hidden CIA file on the 'UFO' that was supposedly found at the site - and says, 'It really happened.'
Conspiracy theorists believe that alien bodies from the crashed 'disc' were autopsied - and that modern technologies have been built on discoveries from inside the craft. Chase Brandon, an agent who served 25 years with the agency, said that the information is concealed in a hidden vault within the agency's Langley headquarters.
'It was in a vaulted area - there was one box that really caught my eye. It had one word on it: Roswell. I rummaged inside it, put the box on the shelf and said, "My God, it really happened." It was not a weather balloon - it was what people first reported,' says Chase Brandon, a CIA agent who served 35 years with the agency. 'It was a craft that did not come from this planet.'
Brandon spoke out on the 65th anniversary of the Roswell incident - and claims to have seen direct evidence of the 'alien' visitation in a high-security area of the CIA's Langley headquarters. For twenty-five years Brandon served in the Agency’s elite Clandestine Service as an undercover, covert operations officer carrying out foreign assignments involving international terrorism, counterinsurgency, global narcotics trafficking and weapons smuggling.
Read more on Mail Online
Roswell New Mexico UFO Crash ABC Radio Original 1947 Broadcast on benjaminkanarekblog.com
9 Jul 2012
What Did Reagan Know About the Argentine Dictatorship's Baby Thefts?
An Argentine court has convicted two of the nation’s former right-wing dictators, Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, in a scheme to murder leftist mothers and give their infants to military personnel often complicit in the killings, a shocking process known to the Reagan administration even as it worked closely with the bloody regime.
Testimony at the trial included a videoconference from Washington with Elliott Abrams, then-Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, who said he urged Bignone to reveal the babies’ identities as Argentina began a transition to democracy in 1983.
Abrams said the Reagan administration “knew that it wasn’t just one or two children,” indicating that U.S. officials believed there was a high-level “plan because there were many people who were being murdered or jailed.” Estimates of the Argentines murdered in the so-called Dirty War range from 13,000 to about 30,000, with many victims “disappeared,” buried in mass graves or dumped from planes over the Atlantic.
Accused Afghan woman executed in public
Internet footage of an Afghan woman being executed in front of villagers by a suspect Taliban gunman is being investigated by authorities in Kabul. The 22-year-old woman from a village in Parwan province, north of the Afghan capital where there is little government control, was reportedly accused of adultery.
"Viewer Discretion Is Advised"
'A 22-year old woman was shot in the head by the Taliban insurgents one week ago in Shinwari district of Parwan province,' a local government official who asked not to be named said on Sunday. Parwan has recently seen a rise in violence, with Taliban insurgents taking over villages in at least two districts.
'The villagers from where she was killed gave us a 37-second video, which shows the woman sitting in a field and about 100 villagers are there to watch her execution,' the official said. The villagers say a local Taliban commander had an illegitimate relationship with the woman and that his colleagues killed her to save his reputation.
South Sudan faces economic disaster as cost of independence bites
One year after the euphoria of independence, South Sudan faces economic disaster that could reverse recent development gains after it shut down oil production in a dispute over pipeline fees with Sudan.
Preying on people's minds in Juba is the thought that the government is about to run out of money – shutting down vital services in an already impoverished country. A few months ago, some thought the government would run out of cash to pay teachers and health workers as early as August; now the prediction is September or the end of the year.
Khartoum is feeling the economic and political heat as well. Taking a leaf out of South Sudan's book, Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, is cutting the number of cabinet posts from 31 to 26. However, other austerity measures – a rise in transport costs and a doubling of fuel and food prices following cuts in subsidies – have provoked demonstrations and calls for Bashir to step down.
Analysts say the calamitous economic situation in both countries could force Juba and Khartoum – with prodding from outside, particularly the US and China – to cut a deal to start the oil flowing again.
"The fiscal picture in South Sudan is terrible, the socio-economic stress is harsh, there are protests in Sudan, there are border tensions," said Jason Mosley, an associate fellow at the Africa programme at Chatham House, the international affairs thinktank. "The economic picture is so bad it could push both sides towards some sort of compromise."
8 Jul 2012
Saudi Arabian Princess claims asylum in the UK
She was Saudi Arabia’s “Barbie” princess; the pampered granddaughter of the Kingdom’s founder and daughter of one of his most powerful and favoured sons. Princess Sara bint Talal bin Abdulaziz, however, is claiming political asylum in the UK over fears for her safety back home. The claim, the first ever made by such a senior member of the ruling family’s inner circle, will embarrass the Saudi dynasty and threatens a diplomatic row.
Princess Sara, 38, accuses senior Saudi officials of plotting to kidnap her and smuggle her back to Riyadh, having subjected her to a “well orchestrated and malicious campaign of persecution”. She currently occupies a suite and several rooms in a five-star London hotel with her four children and two dogs, guarded by a private security team.
“I am very scared right now,” she told The Sunday Telegraph at a secret location. “They know I can’t go back now. There is a threat. That’s a slap in the face of the Kingdom. “I’ve been physically abused. I’ve been mentally abused. My assets have been frozen. They’ve accused me of being in opposition [to them] with Iran, they haven’t left anything. I’ve been crucified in every way.” Princess Sara has lived in the UK since 2007 after she fell out with her 80-year-old father, Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, known as The Red Prince. She says of her relationship with him: “Everything goes back to a certain aspect that I don’t discuss in public. Something happened with my father and he didn’t take it lightly. He retaliated against me and wanted to crush me. I had been his closest; I had been his favourite. It shook my world.”
Paraguay Coup has all the Hallmarks of the CIA
Is the CIA somehow behind or connected to the impeachment – in a trial that took just a few hours – of the president of Paraguay? For Ecuador’s El Telegrafo, columnist Nancy Bravo de Ramsey speaks for many on the Latin American left when she ascribes the removal of office of President Fernando Lugo, a former priest who was trying to resolve a 140-year imbroglio over land reform, to U.S. machinations. In Paraguay, one percent of the population owns 77 percent of the arable land.
For El Telegrafo, Nancy Bravo de Ramsey writes in part:
The powerful country to the north, with the help of the traitors that are always on hand in Latin America, seems to have returned to its old ways. And this time the victim is Paraguay. The events of Saturday, June 23rd have all the hallmarks of the CIA and the pungent odour of a coup d’état, planned and hatched in the Paraguayan parliament.
Without putting any evidence on the table – “because the facts are a matter of public record and there is no need to present them,” they said – without observing due process, leaving only a few hours for the preparation of a defense and without identifying the crimes of the accused, the representatives of the purest elements of the Paraguay oligarchy put an end to a historic presidency that had made possible the greatest ever economic growth of the Guaraní people [the indigenous inhabitants of Paraguay].
7 Jul 2012
Iran blames France, Germany for hits on nuclear scientists
Iran’s spy chief accused German and French intelligence agencies on Friday of involvement in assassinations of its nuclear scientists, sticking to a hard official line as sanctions imposed over its disputed atomic ambitions bite harder. The Islamic Republic has previously accused Israel, the United States and Britain of plotting the killings to set back its uranium enrichment program, which Western powers suspect is being used to develop nuclear weapons capability.
Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi spread the blame to France and Germany, after days of hawkish rhetoric and missile tests by Tehran that helped push benchmark Brent crude oil prices above $100 for the first time since June.
“In these two networks (involved in the assassinations) we saw connections with the information services in Germany, France, Britain, Israel, the United States and regional intelligence agencies,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Moslehi as saying. He did not name the other countries. In Berlin, a German government spokesman said: “We decline to comment on such fanciful accusations.”
At least four scientists associated with Iran’s nuclear program have been assassinated since 2010, most recently in January this year. Washington has denied any role in the killings, while Israel has declined to comment.
The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.
6 Jul 2012
The Syria Files
Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012. This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture. At this time Syria is undergoing a violent internal conflict that has killed between 6,000 and 15,000 people in the last 18 months. The Syria Files shine a light on the inner workings of the Syrian government and economy, but they also reveal how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another.
5 Jul 2012
United Arab Emirates seeks to recruit 3000 Colombian soldiers
The United Arab Emirates is seeking to enlist 3,000 Colombian soldiers in the oil-rich Arab country's armed forces, weekly Semana reported Sunday. According to the weekly, 842 Colombian soldiers and retired soldiers have already joined the UAE army which is paying salaries up to ten times what the Colombian state pays the members of its armed forces.
The transfer of soldiers to the foreign army is causing unease among Colombia's military commanders because the military fears the higher salaries abroad are draining the army of its best men and women. "They have recruited soldiers with a lot of combat experience, valuable men with years of service in which the Army invested a lot in terms of training," an anonymous general told Semana. "Without a doubt, this is a loss for the army, but there isn't much we can do because it is by no means illegal," the military official added.
According to the weekly, the Colombians are making in between $2,800 and $18,000 in the UAE depending on the rank. In Colombia, a soldier earns $530 a month on average. The New York Times reported in May 2011 that the UAE hired Colombian soldiers as mercenaries through a company led by Erik Prince, the founder of controversial private security company Blackwater.
Secrets of the CIA
The hour-long show, Secrets of the CIA, produced by Princess Productions, takes the form of a chronological countdown of the 20 most unfortunate and embarrassing incidents in the US intelligence agency's history.
Wallace will pay particular attention to scenarios including the CIA's role in bringing the Taliban to power in Afghanistan and providing arms and specialist training to Osama Bin Laden.
4 Jul 2012
The American People Are Angry
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives. Sanders also served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, and has praised European social democracy (though he has also criticized its contemporary "Third Way" departure). He is the first person elected to the U.S. Senate to identify as a socialist. Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments, but because he does not belong to a formal political party, he appears as an independent on the ballot. He was also the only independent member of the House during much of his service there.
3 Jul 2012
Arafat poisoned with polonium
It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.
Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.
A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.
More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat’s blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.
“I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” said Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute.
Tank Man
Tank Man is the nickname of an anonymous man who stood in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks the morning after the Chinese military forcibly removed protestors from in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident.
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese, were a series of popular demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing beginning on 15 April 1989. The protests ended with military suppression on 4 June.
In the late 1970s, the Chinese leadership of Deng Xiaoping abandoned Maoist-style planned collectivist economics, and embraced market-oriented reforms. Due to the rapid pace of change, by the late 1980s, grievances over inflation, limited career prospects for students, and corruption of the party elite were growing rapidly. Communist governments were also losing legitimacy around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe. In April 1989, triggered by the death of deposed Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, a liberal reformer, mass gatherings and protests took place in and around Tiananmen Square. At its height, some half a million protesters assembled there. The largely student-run demonstrations called for continued economic reform, freedom of the press, accountability from officials, and political liberalization. Peaceful protests also occurred in other cities, such as Shanghai and Wuhan, while looting and rioting broke out in Xi'an and Changsha.
Anderson Cooper: "The Fact Is, I'm Gay."
Last week, Entertainment Weekly ran a story on an emerging trend: gay people in public life who come out in a much more restrained and matter-of-fact way than in the past. In many ways, it's a great development: we're evolved enough not to be gob-smacked when we find out someone's gay. But it does matter nonetheless, it seems to me, that this is on the record. We still have pastors calling for the death of gay people, bullying incidents and suicides among gay kids, and one major political party dedicated to ending the basic civil right to marry the person you love. So these "non-events" are still also events of a kind; and they matter. The visibility of gay people is one of the core means for our equality.
All of which is a prelude to my saying that I've known Anderson Cooper as a friend for more than two decades. I asked him for his feedback on this subject, for reasons that are probably obvious to most. Here's his email in response which he has given me permission to post here:
Recently … I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something - something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.
I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.
The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.
I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don't think it's anyone else's business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don't give that up by being a journalist.
Whole story on The Dish By Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast – Anderson Cooper 360° blog
2 Jul 2012
Balochistan: Crossroads of Another US Proxy War?
The United States views Balochistan, an area that encompasses western Pakistan, eastern Iran, and a piece of southern Afghanistan, as critical to the maintenance of US hegemony in the Middle East and Central and South Asia. Conversely, China regards the region as necessary for its own economic and political evolution into a world superpower. Seen in this way, Balochistan becomes central to the development of geopolitical power in the 21st Century.
Balochistan is located in one of the most geographically and politically significant places anywhere in the world. Not only does the region sit astride three countries which have become central to Western political and military power projection, it is also central to the development and export of energy from Central Asia, access to the Indian Ocean, and a host of other geopolitical imperatives for both the West and the SCO/BRICS countries. Because of this, the region has grown exponentially in importance to all the major powers of the world.
Though the land seems, on the surface, to be inhospitable, it also holds great wealth just beneath the soil. Aside from what is believed to be a large quantity of natural gas and/or oil, the earth under the feet of the Baloch people holds vast quantities of minerals necessary for economic development. Because of this, the conflict raging in the region takes on the added dimension of being a resource war, on top of a geographical and political one.
Balochistan’s location has another crucial element that makes it geopolitically necessary: it sits at the crossroads of the most important trade routes between West and East. Although, in the public mind, trade crossroads seem to be a thing of the past (one might imagine the Silk Road being travelled by camel), in fact, they are essential to development. Land-based trade, something the Chinese understand to be a linchpin of their economic and political evolution into a superpower, is impossible without a stable and dependable Balochistan, and this is precisely what the United States and the West seeks to prevent.
This focus on land-based access to trade should always be seen in the context of energy. China’s insatiable thirst for oil and gas makes the development of pipelines from Central Asia, Iran, and elsewhere invaluable to them. The Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, and other projects all serve to increase the importance of Balochistan in the eyes of the Chinese. Additionally, the Chinese-funded, Pakistani Gwadar Port is the access point for Chinese commercial shipping to the Indian Ocean and on to Africa. With all of this as a backdrop, one can begin to see just why Balochistan is so significant to the Chinese and, conversely, why the United States and its Western puppets seek to destabilize it.
1 Jul 2012
Richard Dawkins on CNN
Richard Dawkins featured on CNN's "Out In The Open" panel, a part of Paula Zahn Now on Monday, February 12, 2007.
Russians join in call for Pussy Riot trio's release
Artists and musicians around the world have called for their release. Now, nearly four months after three women were arrested for performing a protest anthem inside Moscow's most important Orthodox church, Christ the Saviour cathedral, a growing number of Russians are joining calls for their freedom.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alehina – all members of the anarchic Pussy Riot punk band – have been in prison since March, held on charges of hooliganism which could eventually mean a seven-year sentence. Many Muscovites were happy enough to see a tough response to the band's irreverent act of rebellion, which was aimed at President Vladimir Putin. But with no trial date set, no signs that they will be released and opposition to Putin spreading, support for the trio has grown, even among those who at first condemned them.