Iran not building nukes, U.S. intelligence agencies tell Obama
"Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell
Western Media Persists in Propaganda About Iraq’s Purported WMD
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/03/western-media-persists-in-propaganda-about-iraqs-purported-wmd
Just Another American Hit Man, Actor and Journalist Living in Iran
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/just-another-american-hit-man-actor-and-journalist-living-in-iran
How Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal Endangers Us All
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/09/16/how-israel%e2%80%99s-nuclear-arsenal-endangers-us-allhttp://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/09/11/an-interview-with-col-lawrence-wilkerson-part-two/
no more than a couple of dozen of the prisoners at Guantánamo had any serious intelligence value
An Insider’s Window Into U.S. Nuclear Policy
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/178/ARTICLE/11858/2009-09-18.html
Britain’s Unions Commit to a Mass Boycott of Israeli Goods
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/146/ARTICLE/11861/2009-09-18.html
Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the US?
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/31/why-not-crippling-sanctions-for-israel-and-the-us
Freedom of Speech: ‘One-Way Z-Street’
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/freedom-of-speech-one-way-z-street
Blackwater Offers Training to 'Faith Based Organizations'
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/178/ARTICLE/11868/2009-09-18.html
Italian mafia implicated in radioactive waste dumping
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/146/ARTICLE/11866/2009-09-18.html
Analyzing The Inevitable
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2009/09/analyzing-the-inevitable.html
By Steve HyndI promised readers a breakdown of McCrystal's Afghanistan report [PDF] today, but there's been so much good (and bad) stuff written about it this morning that I'm as well outsourcing it rather than go over the same ground.
Spencer Ackerman has a good breakdown of the report from a fairly sympathetic viewpoint. ...
As Michael Cohen writes: "if the Afghan government is riddled with corruption and ISAF doesn't understand how to prosecute a counter-insurgency strategy . . . why exactly are we prosecuting a counter-insurgency strategy"?
Comments
When I buzzed this up, I wasn't nice about the constant harping about the need for everyone 'to do more.' This while plainly saying that won't help!.....
The good general is forwarding comments already made by NATO. Propping up a corrupt regime foisted on the natives by foreigners has problems generating local support : which are not alleviated by shooting up the locals.
Didn't work too well during the American Revolutionary War either!
Posted by: opit | September 21, 2009 at 08:54 PM
Israelis 'train Kurdish forces'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5364982.stm
The revelation is set to cause enormous problems for the Kurds, not only in Iraq but also in the wider region.
Israel is seen as an enemy of Arabs and Muslims, both inside Iraq and elsewhere in Arab and Muslim countries.
'Against Israeli law'
Kurdish politicians will most likely come under pressure to explain what their semi-autonomous government has been up to.
Israeli security experts who spoke to the BBC said they could not have worked inside Kurdistan without the knowledge of the Kurdish authorities.
The news will most probably increase tension between the Kurds and Iraq's Arab population, both Sunnis and Shias, reinforcing fears that the Kurds are pursuing a secessionist agenda.
This would be a serious blow to efforts for national reconciliation at a time when hundreds of Iraqis are killed every month in inter-communal violence.
Iraq's neighbours, too, will be outraged.
Iran and Syria, which have long accused the Kurds of allowing the Israelis to operate on Iraqi territory, will most likely demand an explanation from the government in Baghdad.
The Israeli government says it is conducting an investigation into the BBC report because it is against Israeli law to export military know-how without prior permission.
The World Seed Conference: Good for Farmers?
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/11878/2009-09-18.html
World Seed Conference.
Two clear themes; firstly, the desire of Northern-based business to continue a process of enclosure of key farming inputs such as seeds by way of technology. Secondly, a push by these same companies (supported by the US and EU countries) for an extension and tightening of intellectual property rights on plant genetic resources into the national law of poorer countries.
Under the guise of innovation and progress, breeding companies suggest that seed varieties developed in laboratories in the North and then sold to poorer farmers in the South can raise yields in crops, increase nutritional values, reduce pesticide and fossil fuels use as well as conserve biodiversity. In the words of one participant at the conference, his company utilised ‘the art and science of changing the genetics of plants for the benefit of humankind.’
Advocates from industry argue that to safeguard their investment in these manipulated ‘seed innovations’ governments should use a form of legal construction (intellectual property rights) to prevent farmers from re-using and changing seeds that are a ‘product’ of agribusiness. Industry lobbyists also suggest that such monopoly rights should extend to developed plants varieties that business cannot easily control by technology – for example due to natural reproduction.
However, the patenting of seeds, extension of plant variety protection and rollout of a global regime of intellectual property rights for agricultural inputs could have serious consequences for small-scale farmers in the developing world.
The intellectual property regime that many participants in the Conference wish to tighten and extend to poorer countries (what one participant called ‘the development of a new industry competitiveness on foreign markets’), legally prevents farmers from sharing and saving seeds for later harvests or for future generations.
( Might I note here; that affects a monopoly control of 'Necessities of Life' : a technique of Slavery )
Religion’s Link to Teen Pregnancy
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/religions-link-to-teen-pregnancy
A report this week in the journal Reproductive Health describes what researchers call “a strong association” between the teenage birth rate of a particular state and its “level of religiosity.”The correlation is not what you might expect. The more religious the state, the higher the rates of teen pregnancy.
Is Bagram Obama’s New Secret Prison?
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/172/ARTICLE/11880/2009-09-18.html
On Monday, a day after the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration was planning to introduce tribunals for prisoners held at the US prison at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan, the reason for the specifically-timed leaks that led to the publication of the stories became clear.
The government was hoping that offering tribunals to evaluate the prisoners’ status would perform a useful public relations function, making the administration appear to be granting important rights to the 600 or so prisoners held in Bagram, and distracting attention from the real reason for its purported generosity: a 76-page brief to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, submitted yesterday, in which the government attempted to claim that “Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”
The main reason for this brazen attempt to secure a public relations victory before the appeal was filed is blindingly obvious to anyone who has been studying the Bagram litigation over the last five months. In April, Judge John D. Bates ruled that three foreign prisoners seized in other countries and “rendered” to Bagram, where they have been held for up to six years, had the right to challenge the basis of their detention in US courts.
Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092801763.html
The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.
Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/19/americans-serfs-ruled-by-oligarchs
Americans think that they have “freedom and democracy” and that politicians are held accountable by elections. The fact of the matter is that the US is ruled by powerful interest groups who control politicians with campaign contributions. Our real rulers are an oligarchy of financial and military/security interests and AIPAC, which influences US foreign policy for the benefit of Israel.
Have a look at economic policy. It is being run for the benefit of large financial concerns, such as Goldman Sachs.
Israel-India-US nexus plans to break-up Pakistan
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/israel-india-us-nexus-plans-to-break-up-pakistan
Rehmat’s Delusional World
http://hammond.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/20/rehmats-delusional-world
( 'Commentary' assaulting character : not facts or informed nature of opinions )
Indoctrination & Education: Who’s Really Brainwashing Our Children?
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/09/16/indoctrination-education-whos-really-brainwashing-our-children
Welcome to Shakesville
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/09/actual-headline.html?dsq=17042814
Actual Headline: "'Racist' claims defuse once powerful word."
Actual Subhead: "With the word being used so often, it's harder to define its meaning."
Obama packs ‘em in in MN while Teabaggers lie about the size of their "protest"
That sinking feeling: world's deltas subsiding, says study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090920/sc_afp/scienceclimatewarmingdeltas_20090920192810;_ylt=AvAUh0v.PVJI5y7vHbzrb9SX_aF4;_ylu=X3oDMTE3NDY5Z3VzBHBvcwMxNgRzZWMDTXdfVml0YWxpdHkEc2xrA3RoYXRzaW5raW5nZg--
Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published Sunday.
The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 85 percent of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres (100,000 square miles).Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50 percent this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.
Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.
On a five-tier scale, three of the eleven deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta next to Guangzhou.
The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.
Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas, including the Ganges in Bangladesh, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar (Burma), the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.
These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
On the one side, a range of human activity -- especially over the last half-century -- has caused many delta regions to subside.
Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land.
But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.
Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem, notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
The Chao Phraya delta, for example, has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres (two to six inches) per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal, while a 3.7-metre (12-foot) subsidence of the Po Delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.
Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction" in many of the most vulnerable deltas, according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.
The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.
In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted oceans would rise by 18-59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.6 inches) by 2100.
More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre (39 inches) by century's end.
The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.
In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres (20 feet) above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.
"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the researchers concluded.
"It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."
Dr. John's Hiding Place
Latest blog posts
- Buzz Evans... over the rainbow
- Mars - the mysteries remain...
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What you must know...
- US general warns of Afghan failureUS and Nato efforts in Afghan war "deteriorating" McChrystal says in report.
- Ousted Zelaya returns to HondurasDeposed president shelters at embassy in capital, nearly three months after coup.
- Ex-French PM faces slander trialDominique de Villepin denies smearing Sarkozy in bid to scuttle his presidency bid.
- Afghan president to skip UN meetingOfficials say Hamid Karzai will not attend General Assembly meeting in New York.
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Reinout Meier-Mattern
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Flight simulators - after the demise of MSFS4
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