Image via WikipediaOld Media, Meet New Media
It looks like we might see an announcement as early as tomorrow morning that Tina Brown will be heading up the newly merged Daily Beast/Newsweek.
America conducts subversive activities in friendly territories
The United States found itself embroiled in a major spy scandal. As many as five countries caught the Americans illegally spying on their citizens.Nobody would think it was strange if we were talking about the citizens of Russia, China, Iran, Syria and Venezuela. With these five countries, everything is clear: U.S. officials constantly refer to them as those presenting threats to the national security. But this time the U.S. was caught by quite friendly countries of Northern Europe – Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
A group of Americans have been doing surveillance on 15 to 20 Norwegian subjects – mostly participants of various kinds of rallies. The report stated that the purpose of the surveillance was supposedly to prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies. Nordic Governments were not informed of such actions.
( The quintessential cry of disbelief should apply to this excuse : " A Likely Story" )
What happened in Europe's secret CIA prisons?
The secret transfer of CIA prisoners is said to have taken place in both Poland and Lithuania - a region where, only a generation ago, people were subject to arbitrary detention and torture at the hands of Communist secret police.
Now, seven years on, the full story of Poland's secret detention site is emerging.Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Commissioner on Human Rights, said he now believed detainees had been subjected to "intense torture" and called for prosecutions.
At the heart of the counter-terrorism programme launched in the wake of 9/11, believed to be codenamed Greystone, was a decision to use secret detention sites to hold what it termed "high-value detainees".
Dick Marty's reports have described them as a "global spider's web" of clandestine sites, linked by secret rendition flights.
The BBC has seen logs which confirm that executive jets leased by the CIA landed at the isolated Szymany airstrip in north-east Poland between December 2002 and September 2003.
"I was approached by the head of the State Security Department in the summer of 2003," Rolandas Paksas, Lithuania's president at the time, told the BBC. "He asked for my permission to allow our foreign partner to bring people in secret to Lithuania and hold them here."
Mr Paksas says he refused. Soon afterwards, he was impeached on corruption charges. A Lithuanian parliamentary inquiry found that following Paksas' refusal, a detention facility was built that was equipped to hold detainees. This was after the country had joined the European Union.
Amnesty Says EU 'Failing' Over CIA Renditions
Amnesty International has accused the EU of failing to hold its members to account for their role in the detention of terrorism suspects by the CIA.
![[Amnesty International has accused the EU of failing to hold its members to account for their role in the detention of terrorism suspects by the CIA. (AFP/File/Paul J. Richards)
]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/amnesty_eufailing_renditions.jpg "amnesty_eufailing_renditions.jpg")
Amnesty International has accused the EU of failing to hold its members to account for their role in the detention of terrorism suspects by the CIA. (AFP/File/Paul J. Richards) Many suspects are alleged to have been taken to other countries where they were tortured or disappeared.
In a report entitled Open Secret: Mounting Evidence of Europe's Complicity in Rendition and Secret Detention, published on Monday, Amnesty compiles what it says is the latest evidence of European countries' involvement in the CIA's programmes.
"The EU has utterly failed to hold member states accountable for the abuses they've committed," said Nicholas Berger, director of Amnesty International's European institutions office.
Leaked DOJ report reveals Nazi 'safe havens' in US
Senior DOJ lawyer Mark Richard, responsible for editing the final version, convinced then-attorney general Janet Reno [official profile] to commission the report in 1999. Although Richard urged senior officials to make the report public until his death, the DOJ has resisted releasing the report since 2006. Director of the National Security Archive [official website] Tom Blanton, said:
Embarrassment suffered by public officials is the price they pay for public power. It goes with the territory, but here, their coverup is not nearly as bad as the crime, which was to shelter Nazi war criminals in the name of national security. This the public needs to know and has a right to know.
Germany Presses US to Remove Nukes
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called Thursday for the United States to remove its nuclear weapons from German soil.In a parliamentary debate on defence policy a week before the NATO summit in Lisbon, Westerwelle also welcomed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) committing itself to arms control.
Neither the United States nor Germany have ever officially confirmed where the nuclear weapons are kept or how may there are, but it is generally believed there are 10 to 20 nuclear bombs under 24-hour guard at Buechel air force base in western Germany.
The minister said the objective of a nuclear-free world set out by US President Barack Obama was "very long term."
"A decisive objective is for NATO to devote itself to the topics of disarmament and arms control," he said.
Petraeus warns Afghans about Karzai's criticism of U.S. war strategy
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the coalition military commander in Afghanistan, warned Afghan officials Sunday that President Hamid Karzai's latest public criticism of U.S. strategy threatens to seriously undermine progress in the war and risks making Petraeus's own position "untenable," according to Afghan and U.S. officials.
Officials said Petraeus expressed "astonishment and disappointment" with Karzai's call, in a Saturday interview with The Washington Post, to "reduce military operations" and end U.S. Special Operations raids in southern Afghanistan that coalition officials said have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban commanders in recent months.( Is THAT what it takes ? I've been posting ridicule of such as being any such thing as a 'strategy' for years. That would mean a plan that - unlike COIN - might have a chance to meet clearly defined objectives in a place of starving and murdered hillbillies driven hither and yon in a purported hunt for enemies. What's that ? There are no objectives ? Oh, well then. No problem. We'll just make people desperate to avoid being killed take any opposition opportunity that presents itself : even Saudi Arabia's extremist mercenary guerilla cadres referred to as 'jihadis'. )
Image by Chris Devers via FlickrOpposition blasts Afghan mission extension
The training mission is supported by Canada's main opposition Liberals. ( Naturally. The other main corporate enabler is the party that started Canada's involvement in Afghanistan without even the formality of debate in the House. )
New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton on Monday accused Harper of "breaking a promise that was made to Canadians" to "bring our troops home in 2011" and seek parliamentary approval to extend the mission.
"Unilaterally extending the military mission in Afghanistan is the wrong thing to do," he said, echoed by Bloc Quebecois MPs."This is a sad deterioration in the level of democratic accountability that Canadians have come to expect."
( Rot. This the is the standard of NON electoral accountability Canadians have come to expect...and that the global public is recognizing as standard worldwide. )
Image via WikipediaNato summit to outline Afghanistan withdrawal plan
( Am I the only one who thinks it asinine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is planning its exit from land war in Asia ? 50 ways to leave It is, after all, a matter of self determination since there is no given threat to Atlantic shipping - except from Israel )
U.S. diplomatic offensive tightens strategic encirclement of China
Washington’s aggressive diplomatic campaign in Asia over the past two weeks has amounted, in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to “a full court press” against China, with the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean emerging as potential future theatres of war.
President Barack Obama’s visits to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, and Clinton’s trips to Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, sought to either strengthen existing alliances or create new partnerships for a U.S.-led strategic encirclement of China.Obama fervently courted India, China’s regional nuclear-armed rival. He urged New Delhi to become a “world power” and backed its bid to become a U.N. Security Council permanent member.
Censorship And The Yugoslav Civil Wars
(Swans - May 5, 2008) The Kosovo debacle continues to haunt Western governments, especially the U.S., and has already exacerbated a number of conflicts in Turkey, China, Spain, and the Caucasus regions. The illegal recognition of Kosovo's "independence" by mostly Western nations (less than 40 out of 192) has encouraged terrorists that they can successfully alter the borders of sovereign nations via force. Though the Kosovo case is called "special" by many Western foreign policy "experts," in reality, it is the tremendous misreporting and censorship of the Serbian side of the tragic Yugoslav civil wars which condoned and justified mistreatment of Serbians that is unique and has encouraged Western imperialism elsewhere via the "humanitarian" intervention "concept."
Recently, Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte wrote a book wherein she detailed a macabre international trafficking ring involving the harvesting of organs from live Serbian prisoners during 1999 organized at the highest levels of Kosovo Albanian leadership and her extreme difficulty in prosecuting these criminals due to Western lack of interest in prosecuting crimes committed against Serbian civilians. The government of Switzerland banned her book.This is the Judeo Masonic, US-Israeli cabal at work..... They hate Christians and want to destroy Christianity, from Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt, P
False flag operations are a specialty of the regiment called Kopassus....similar to Al-CIAda operations in IRAQ, PAKISTAN, LEBANON and elsewhere....
Kopassus has had close links to the Pentagon, Australian special forces, Israel's Mossad, and UK special forces.
Obama boasts of aiding Kopassus.
Secret Files Show Kopassus, Indonesia's Special Forces, Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians. Documents Leak from Notorious US-Backed Unit as Obama Lands in Indonesia.
Indonesian Armed Forces Chief Confirms, Defends, Targeting Civilians.
The men behind Barack Obama part 1Pro-Israeli lobbyists desperate to silence anti-Apartheid icon in South Africa
Lobbyists behaving as aggressively as war criminals to shield Israel from public censure and while raising false innuendos to deflect from the horrors that live visuals brought home, seemed to lose all sense of humanity....In their enthusiasm for deflecting negative sentiments against Israel, they seem foolishly oblivious of the fact that many Israeli historians and commentators have exposed the myths and propaganda narratives that deny Israel’s responsibility in 1948 and thereafter for producing, in effect, the Palestinian Nakba!"
Herein lies the paradox confronting groups who purport to represent SA Jewry while the sum total of their domestic politics can be summed up as defenders of a foreign entity characterized by a strange mix of colonialism and apartheid.The reality of intolerance as a cardinal tenet within the Zionist movement’s propaganda armoury has unfortunately become an unchallenged facet of life within sectors of government, media and commerce.
To illustrate this, look at the angry rebuttals issued by elements within the pro-Israel lobby each time government finds the need to issue statements critical of Israel.
The most recent example is the open letter addressed to Archbishop Tutu asking him to desist from campaign for sanctions against Israel. It’s a long-winded plea filled with distortions, misrepresentations and untruths seeking Tutu to desist from his iconic support for Palestinian justice.
Final Status in the Shape of a Wall
Conservative Radio Show Hosts Stoke up Hatred
"Hatred sells, and as such, many of these red-necked, half-educated, and yet arrogant hosts draw six to eight figure salaries. Their programs are sponsored and produced by many neo-conservative tycoons who believe in American exceptionalism and that America is (and should be) at war with the world of Islam. They distaste President Obama’s overture that America is not and will never be at war with Islam....Many of these Islamophobes have been popularizing the claim that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but (nearly) all terrorists are Muslims.” The reality, however, is quite different. The official FBI records show that only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Muslim extremists. The remaining 94% were from other groups -- 42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups (note: outside the 1993 and 9/11 attacks on the WTC, there was hardly any terrorist attack linked to Muslims)."
Graham became close with every American President from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush, who said it was a conversation with Graham that led him to become a born-again Christian. He was an unabashed supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the blacklists and American red scare of the 1950s.
Interactive map: Europe's immigrants under pressure
The plight of Europe's Roma
They are not the smallest nation of Europe, but they are among its most discriminated-against people. Events in south Belfast last week pointed up once more the plight of the Roma, who face discrimination and violence in some half-dozen countries of the EU.This month's European parliamentary elections saw the return of two members of Hungary's Jobbik party on a blatantly anti-Roma ticket – though they phrase their appeal as being against "Gypsy crime". Though the Roma have inspired generations of musicians in Hungary, violence against the Roma community there has become steadily more pronounced since the end of the cold war. In the early 1990s a Budapest punk band used to strut its stuff to such lyrics as "The flamethrower is the only weapon I need / All Gypsy adults and children we'll exterminate".
Citizen Rights Don't Apply to Roma
BUCHAREST, Aug 7 (IPS) - All major European countries plan mass expulsions of Roma or demolitions of Roma settlements. Rights groups warn that these measures entail the criminalisation of an entire ethnic group, and break EU law.
The French executive announced Jul. 29 that 300 illegal Roma camps would be demolished in the next three months. According to the President's office, the camps are "sources of illegal trafficking, profoundly shocking living standards, exploitation of children for begging, prostitution and crime."
Targets of evictions and demolitions are also "travelers", groups of people who often have Western European nationality but maintain a traveling lifestyle in keeping with their culture. Between 300,000-500,000 travelers (gens de voyage) are estimated to be living in France, while the UK is thought to host around 18,000 Roma and traveler caravans.
Human rights groups say that some Western politicians are keen on blurring the lines between travelers and Roma (itself a highly heterogeneous population made up of mostly sedentary groups but also of nomads) in order to give the impression that Roma are difficult to integrate.
Additionally, claim the activists, politicians are emphasising crimes committed by some Roma to create a sense that entire communities of Roma are threats to public safety, thus creating grounds for mass expulsions.
Roma poverty a major issue for EU
In eastern Hungary poverty is so endemic - with the Roma blamed for widespread petty theft - that the head of the Hungarian Poultry Board recently complained that people are no longer raising hens in several counties.
The Scapegoats of Europe
The Persecution of the Roma
A rather unusual situation emerged in Romania where Roma have lived for hundreds of years, where to this day they appear in abundant variation, from people who have resumed migratory lives to people who have been settled at the margins of villages, towns, and cities for as long as anyone can remember. In Romania, Roma were enslaved and indentured for centuries. They played important roles as musicians, miners, and in producing objects necessary for an agrarian society, crafting metals and wood objects. Today, those that we call Roma, were involved in all sorts of labor, agricultural workers and house servants.
Some may no longer speak their Sanskrit based language, or if they do they speak it with lexical-items borrowed from Turkish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Russian, and so on. In Romania, many no longer speak Romani. In Romania, Roma may identify themselves with this “national” identity, or they may identify as “tsigani,” how others have named them. This is a term of derision. Some Roma have integrated themselves into the mainstream of Romanian society and melted into the Romanian ethnic identity. Some Roma sustain their identity and have experienced upward mobility in many different fields.
Roma were persecuted in the Nazi era, large numbers of whom lost their lives; their population decimated in great proportions to their total numbers, referred to as Prajmos. Oddly enough, when mentioned at all as a persecuted population in Germany’s ethnic cleansing effort they are lumped in with Jews, rather than being mentioned outright as a population. No museums exist for them and if there are memorials for them, I do not know of them. They have no homeland with which they can identify. There is no Israel that was created for them as it was for Jews. Their identities are claimed as citizens of their countries of origin.
Since the 1990s, the people who are being displaced and resettled are the ones who are poor. These are not the migratory Roma. Much like low-income migrants from all over the world, Roma are looking to gain a better life for themselves and their children. While Roma are increasingly being organized into a mass movement within their respective countries of origins and in the European Union, local events cause them to be persecuted as a maligned, racialized, and stereotyped minority if they are lucky or as unwanted outsiders and criminals. Roma from Eastern Europe and the Balkans are leaving their countries as a result of the persecution that is so virulent there that it has caused death and destruction of settlements not unlike pogroms of centuries past. For example, in Cluj, a university city in Romania’s multi- ethnic Transylvania region, a large Roma settlement is being displaced and moved into a more remote and environmentally marginal area. The Roma have not been given any recourse. They appear not to have any civil rights. Roma have been attacked in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic. These attacks include fire bombings, shootings, stabbings, beatings and murders.
Very much like blacks in the United States, the Roma still receive improper and poor education, have limited access to resources for development, whose cultures are disrespected and even loathed. They find it difficult to gain access to housing acceptable to the authorities and often enough do not know how to live in such housing when obtained.
US officials have charged 73 people over what is thought to be the largest ever attempt to defraud the country's medical insurance system.
Prosecutors say a network of Armenian gangsters and their associates set up fake clinics using stolen identities to make false claims for treatment.Investigators said more than $35m (£22m) was paid out.
A US Attorney said the scheme's scope and sophistication put the traditional mafia to shame.
The group, most of whom are of Armenian origin, are accused of setting up some 118 clinics across the US, most of which existed only on paper or were "nothing more than shams, shells, and storefronts", said US Attorney Preet Bharar.
They allegedly stole the identities of real doctors and beneficiaries of Medicare - the US federal insurance programme for the elderly - and "submitted bill after bill for treatment that no doctor ever performed and that no patient ever received," he added.
In addition, the gang were accused of carrying out "a raft of rackets, extortion, credit card fraud, identity theft, immigration fraud, and even the distribution of contraband cigarettes and stolen Viagra".
( Ah. But government run healthcare programs are subject to abuse - so say the representatives of the 'insurance' rackets. )
Image via WikipediaSenior boom begins amid economic bust Legal aid cuts would remove free advice for thousands of people - UK
Proposals, published in a consultation paper today, suggest the removal of whole areas of law from the scope of public funding. Divorcing couples will no longer be able to receive free legal representation for court cases, other than in cases where there is domestic violence or forced marriage, in a change ministers say should encourage mediation.
Government figures estimate the move will reduce the number of cases by 265,000 per year. People facing homelessness, housing disrepair and antisocial behaviour will still be able to gain free legal advice.But people with other housing problems will no longer get state help, despite a government statement acknowledging that these people are "more likely to be ill or disabled". This move means some 38,000 people per year will no longer able to access free legal help.
Other areas of legal advice previously covered by legal aid will be removed from public funding completely, including debt advice, social welfare and employment. Critics were swift to respond, saying the measures would hit the most vulnerable in society and prevent them from defending civil rights affected by cuts elsewhere.
"Inevitable" Budget Cuts Anger Unions
Mar 28 (IPS) - Trade unions in Romania and Bulgaria are embarking on a spring of protests in response to the governments’ anti-crisis measures involving considerable cuts in budget expenditure.
( A harbinger of things to come. )
Hungary's Defiance of IMF and European Authorities Scares the Guardians of Austerity in Europe
"The IMF should hold the line," shouted the Financial Times in an editorial [1] the day after Hungary sent the IMF packing in July. "With so many countries in vulnerable positions, it cannot be seen to be a soft touch. Showing a few yellow and red cards is a good way to send a signal to other governments that might be tempted to flirt with indiscipline."
This is the great fear among the defenders of European "pro-cyclical" policies [2] - that is, policies that weaken the economy during a recession or when it is barely growing. Hungary's defiance could conceivably spread to other governments currently being squeezed by the IMF and European authorities.
Tainted PG&E groundwater plume again threatens residents of Hinkley, Calif.
more than a decade ago an underdog battle with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spawned a multimillion-dollar settlement and the Oscar-winning film "Erin Brockovich."
The border of the plume has shifted 1,800 feet beyond a containment boundary set up by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in 2008, spreading higher levels of a cancer-causing heavy metal isotope
Unilever says sustainability key to new business model
Consumer products giant Unilever has unveiled a "new business model" putting sustainability at the heart of its global operations.
It pledged to halve the environmental impact of its products while doubling sales over the next 10 years.National Geographic Magazine - African Elephant Migration Wallpaper HT Digg
Hidden in Plain Sight: Researchers Find Galaxy-Scale Bubbles Extending from the Milky Way
A group of astrophysicists has located two massive bubbles of plasma, each extending tens of thousands of light-years, emitting high-energy radiation above and below the plane of the galaxy. The researchers found the structures in publicly released data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, which was launched in 2008 to investigate sources of extremely energetic photons—namely, gamma rays, which have higher frequencies than x-rays.
Imagine a computer equipped with shock-proof memory that's 100,000 times faster and consumes less power than current hard disks. EPFL Professor Mathias Kläui is working on a new kind of "Racetrack" memory, a high-volume, ultra-rapid non-volatile read-write magnetic memory that may soon make such a device possible.
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