The Truth Is Out There - So They Say

Mousavi was Butcher Of Beirut

2009-06-23T10:11:00.002Z

He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran’s ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.

The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.

“We had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon,” retired Navy Admiral James “Ace” Lyons related by telephone Monday. In 1983 Lyons was deputy chief of Naval Operations, and deeply involved in the events in Lebanon.

“The Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister to have various groups target U.S. personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to carry out a ’spectacular action’ against the Marines,” said Lyons.

“He was prime minister,” Lyons said of Mousavi, “so he didn’t get down to the details at the4 lowest levels. “But he was in a principal position and had to be aware of what was going on.”

Lyons , sometimes called “the father” of the Navy SEALs’ Red Cell counter-terror unit, also fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack.

Bob Baer agrees that Mousawi, who has been celebrated in the West for sparking street demonstrations against the Teheran regime since he lost the elections, was directing the overall 1980s terror campaign.

But Baer, a former CIA Middle East field officer whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie “Syriana,” places Mousavi even closer to the Beirut bombings.

“He dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah,” who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was “the man largely held responsible for both attacks,” Baer wrote in TIME over the weekend.

“When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq,” Baer continued.

“This was the heyday of [Ayatollah] Khomeini’s theocratic vision, when Iran thought it really could export its revolution across the Middle East, providing money and arms to anyone who claimed he could upend the old order.”

Baer added: “Mousavi was not only swept up into this delusion but also actively pursued it.”

Retired Adm. Lyons maintained that he could have destroyed the terrorists at a hideout U.S. intelligence had pinpointed, but he was outmaneuvered by others in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.

“I was going to take them apart,” Lyons said, “but the secretary of defense,” Caspar Weinberger, “sabotaged it.”

Taken from www.infowars.com - Author Jeff Stein

CIA , Iran & The Election Riots

2009-06-22T14:04:00.001Z

At Last, Some Truth About Iraq and Afghanistan by Eric Margolis

2009-05-25T20:25:00.001Z

Interestingly, the same oil companies that used to exploit Iraq when it was a British colony are now returning. As former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Iraq war was all about oil. VP Dick Cheney stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq was about oil, and for the sake of Israel.

Meanwhile, according to Pakistani and Indian sources, Afghanistan just signed a major deal to launch a long-planned, 1680 km long pipeline project expected to cost $ 8 billion. If completed, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) will export gas and, later, oil from the Caspian Basin to Pakistan’s coast where tankers will transport it to the west.

The Caspian Basin located under the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakkstan, holds an estimated 300 trillion cubic feet of gas and 100–200 billion barrels of oil. Securing the world’s last remaining known energy Eldorado is strategic priority for the western powers. China can only look on with envy.

But there are only two practical ways to get gas and oil out of landlocked Central Asia to the sea: through Iran, or through Afghanistan to Pakistan. For Washington, Iran is tabu. That leaves Pakistan, but to get there, the planned pipeline must cross western Afghanistan, including the cities of Herat and Kandahar.

In 1998, the Afghan anti-Communist movement Taliban and a western oil consortium led by the US firm UNOCAL signed a major pipeline deal. UNOCAL lavished money and attention on Taliban, flew a senior delegation to Texas, and also hired an minor Afghan official, one Hamid Karzai.

Enter Osama bin Laden. He advised the unworldly Taliban leaders to reject the US deal and got them to accept a better offer from an Argentine consortium, Bridas. Washington was furious and, according to some accounts, threatened Taliban with war.

In early 2001, six or seven months before 9/11, Washington made the decision to invade Afghanistan, overthrow Taliban, and install a client regime that would build the energy pipelines. But Washington still kept up sending money to Taliban until four months before 9/11 in an effort to keep it "on side" for possible use in a war or strikes against Iran.

The 9/11 attacks, about which Taliban knew nothing, supplied the pretext to invade Afghanistan. The initial US operation had the legitimate objective of wiping out Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida. But after its 300 members fled to Pakistan, the US stayed on, built bases – which just happened to be adjacent to the planned pipeline route – and installed former UNOCAL"consultant" Hamid Karzai as leader.

Washington disguised its energy geopolitics by claiming the Afghan occupation was to fight "Islamic terrorism," liberate women, build schools, and promote democracy. Ironically, the Soviets made exactly the same claims when they occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989. The cover story for Iraq was weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s supposed links to 9/11, and promoting democracy.

Work will begin on the TAPI once Taliban forces are cleared from the pipeline route by US, Canadian and NATO forces. As American analyst Kevin Phillips writes, the US military and its allies have become an "energy protection force."

From Washington’s viewpoint, the TAPI deal has the added benefit of scuttling another proposed pipeline project that would have delivered Iranian gas and oil to Pakistan and India.

India’s energy needs are expected to triple over the next decade to 8 billion barrels of oil and 80 million cubic meters of gas daily. Delhi, which has its own designs on Afghanistan and has been stirring the pot there, is cock-a-hoop over the new pipeline plan. Russia, by contrast, is grumpy, having hoped to monopolize Central Asian energy exports.

Energy is more important than blood in our modern world. The US is a great power with massive energy needs. Domination of oil is a pillar of America’s world power. Afghanistan and Iraq are all about control of oil.

Chasing Bilderberg

2009-05-23T14:40:00.001Z

Vice President Biden is confronted with evidence

2009-05-18T09:36:00.000Z

Gen Stanley MacChrystal, America's new army chief in Afghanistan, under fire over rough tactics and 'prisoner abuse'

2009-05-17T18:55:00.002Z

The general chosen by Barack Obama to run the war in Afghanistan permitted abusive treatment and interrogation of detainees in Iraq, according to human rights investigators.

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Last Updated: 9:12AM BST 17 May 2009 Daily Telegraph

Soldiers have described beatings, psychological torture and other physical mistreatment at a camp near Baghdad where General Stanley McChrystal, then commander of US Joint Special Operations forces in Iraq, was frequently seen.

A tall Irish-American with a deceptively gentle manner, Gen McChrystal was named last week as the next head of Afghan operations. He is currently operations director for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

His special operations unit used Camp Nama, an acronym for "Nasty Ass Military Area", which had a fearsome reputation.

According to Mr Garlasco's report, which was based on soldiers' evidence, inmates at the camp were regularly stripped naked, subjected to sleep deprivation and extreme cold, placed in painful stress positions, and beaten. Gen McChrystal is lionised in the US as a warrior-scholar. Last week the media has carried admiring reports on how he eats just one meal a day and operates on a few hours' sleep. He led Task Force 121, the Special Operations units in Iraq which caught Saddam Hussein and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

His appointment signals a dramatic shift in US tactics, from reaching out to the Taliban in favour of a more aggressive military approach. But critics warn that Gen McChrystal's robust methods may generate more hostility among Afghan civilians to US and other Nato forces.

Roger Carstens of the Center for a New American Security, himself a former special forces officer, said: "Has he ever worked in the counterinsurgency environment? Not really."

Bilderberg discussion on Recession

2009-05-16T23:25:00.002Z

Veteran investigative journalist Jim Tucker has uncovered Bilderberg’s 2009 agenda, which includes the plan for a global department of health, a global treasury and a shortened depression rather than a longer economic downturn.

Tucker confirmed the information first released by Daniel Estulin, that Bilderberg were discussing whether to sink the economy quickly or drag on a long agonizing depression. “Treasury Secretary Geithner and Carl Bildt touted a shorter recession not a 10-year recession….partly because a 10 year recession would damage Bilderberg industrialists themselves, as much as they want to have a global department of labor and a global department of treasury, they still like making money and such a long recession would cost them big bucks industrially because nobody is buying their toys….the tilt is towards keeping it short,” said Tucker.

Tucker concluded by noting that Bilderberg members seemed grim faced at this year’s meeting and that geopolitically, “Things are going bad for them, Americans are responding, Europeans are responding, and their program is being blocked.”

Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off: From My Lai to Bala Baluk

2009-05-16T14:09:00.000Z

MIKE WHITNEY
Counterpunch
Saturday, May 16, 2009

Barack Obama is aggressively stepping up the war in Afghanistan. He’s intensified the cross-border bombing of Pakistan and he is doubling the number of U.S. troops to 68,000 by 2010. He’s also a strong proponent of pilotless drones even though hundreds of civilians have been killed in bombing raid blunders.

On May 4, 2009, 143 civilians were killed in a bombing raid in Bala Baluk, a remote area south of Herat. Obama brushed off the incident with terse apology never intimating that the US policy for aerial bombardment would be reviewed to avoid future mishaps. Patrick Cockburn gave a summary of the incident:

I did not meet survivors but I did talk to a reliable witness, a radio reporter called Farooq Faizy, who had gone to Bala Baluk soon after the attack happened. He (had) some 70 or 80 photographs and they bore out the villagers’ story: there were craters everywhere; the villages had been plastered with bombs; bodies had been torn to shreds by the blasts; there were mass graves; there were no signs of damage from bullets, rockets or grenades.

US military spokesmen denied the news reports and concocted a wacky story about Taliban militants rampaging through the village hurling grenades into buildings. It was a ridiculous narrative that no one believed. The facts have since been verified by senior government officials, high-ranking members of the Afghan military and representatives of the Red Cross. The United States military killed 143 unarmed villagers and then they tried to cover it up with a lie. None of the victims were fighters. After the bombing, the villagers loaded body parts onto carts and took them to the office of the regional governor who confirmed the deaths. The photos of grief-stricken Afghans burying their dead have been widely circulated on the Internet.

From Reuters:

Ninety-three children and 25 adult women are among a list of 140 names of Afghans who villagers say were killed in a battle and U.S. air strikes last week, causing a crisis between Washington and its Afghan allies.

The list, obtained by Reuters, bears the endorsement of seven senior provincial and central government officials, including an Afghan two-star general who headed a task force dispatched by the government to investigate the incident.

Titled “list of the martyrs of the bombardment of Bala Boluk district of Farah Province”, it includes the name, age and father’s name of each alleged victim.

The youngest was listed as 8-day-old baby Sayed Musa, son of Sayed Adam. Fifty-three victims were girls under the age of 18, and 40 were boys. Only 22 were men 18 or older. (”List of 140 Afghan Killed In US Attack Includes 93 Children”, Reuters)

Neither Obama nor anyone in his administration has acknowledged that 93 children were killed by American bombs.

Zeitgeist The Movie

2009-04-26T08:33:00.002Z

"Trust The Police?"

2009-04-21T07:42:00.000Z

OBAMA IS BILDERBURG

2009-04-18T20:57:00.000Z

Obama Bilderberg

Representatives for Senator Barack Obama will not confirm or deny that he attended the Bilderberg Group meeting on June 5, 2008. Reporters were unaware of the secret meeting until they were on the airplane heading to Northern Virginia where the meeting was being held.
Fast Facts

1. Meeting held on June 5, 2008
2. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton met on the day of the meeting
3. Obama spokesperson refused to talk about if Obama attended the meeting
4. Spokesperson would not deny his attendance
5. Meeting held under tight security

Bilderberg Group Meeting

Jim Tucker, Bilderberg Group detective asked Obama's campaign spokesperson if he attended the meeting. The spokesperson refused to discuss the subject any further, but also would not deny his attendance.

The Bilderberg Group is a extremely private group for political figures and world leaders. The groups are held annually and are only for people with invitations.

The Unedited Bilderburg Attendee List

2009-04-04T07:10:00.032Z

What is Obama thinking of? By Jerry Mazza Online Journal Associate Editor

2009-02-14T21:27:00.000Z

Barack, my brother. Mr. President-elect, what is going through your head? Rahm Israel Emmanuel for White House Chief of Staff? Rahm, who fought with the Israeli Army in the Gulf war, whose father Benjamin fought with the Irgun gang, the Zionist terror bombers of the King David Hotel; Rahm, the 2001 Freddie Mac board member involved with campaign scandals and contributions, personally raking in $231,655. I mean, just look in that guy’s eyes, scary. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

You are hanging out with guys whose rap sheets go deeper than anyone you met in South Chicago. Like Larry Summers, key lobbyist for the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act, after his 1999 Clinton appointment, leading the wolf pack to the Financial Services Modernization Act, to gut stock market regulation with all the predatory practices that put us in our present pickle. Larry who, as chief economist for the World Bank, actually wanted to import toxic garbage to poor Third World countries because the people were going to die younger anyway. Can you believe that, brother? David Rockefeller’s boy! Goldman Sachs Consultant, managing director D.E. Shaw Hedge Fund Group (gambling casino).

Jesus, this is the guy you want to run the Treasury? He’s as toxic as Paulson and then some.

And Paul Volker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, 1980s Reagan era major player in kicking off financial deregulations, which ended in major bankruptcies, junk-bond mergers and acquisitions, climaxed by the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash. You want him to straighten out the crooks on Wall Street; him to avoid another crash? Good luck, my brother.

And Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the powerhouse financial institution in America. Tim, former Clinton Treasury official, ex-employee of Kissinger Associations, senior exec at the IMF, shapes finance policy behind the scenes, hangs with the Council on Foreign Relations. Do you really want him around?

Michael Chossudovsky in his article, Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse, said the above boys, along with ”Phil Gramm, Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Rubin, not to mention Alan Greenspan, et al are buddies; they play golf together; they have links to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group; they act concurrently in accordance with the interests of Wall Street; they meet behind closed doors; they are on the same wave length; they are Democrats and Republicans.”

He added, “While they may disagree on some issues, they are firmly committed to the Washington-Wall Street Consensus. They are utterly ruthless in their management of economic and financial processes. Their actions are profit driven. Outside of their narrow interest in the ‘efficiency’ of ‘markets,’ they have little concern for ‘living human beings.’ How are people’s lives affected by the deadly gamut of macro-economic and financial reforms, which is spearheading entire sectors of economic activity into bankruptcy . . .”

I mean the curtain isn’t up on your presidency and the cast is getting trashed by major critics.

Chossudovsky asked, “Where are Obama’s ‘Main Street appointees’? Namely individuals who respond to the interests of people across America. There are no labor or community leaders on Obama’s list for key positions.

“The president-elect is appointing the architects of financial deregulation.

“Meaningful financial reform cannot be adopted by officials appointed by Wall Street and who act on behalf of Wall Street.

“Those who set the financial system ablaze in 1999, have been called back to turn out the fire.

“The proposed ‘solution’ to the crisis under the ‘bailout’ is the cause of further economic collapse.”

Damn it, he’s right. He went on to say . . .

“There are no policy solutions on the horizon.

“The banking conglomerates call the shots. They decide on the composition of the Obama Cabinet. They also decide on the agenda of the Washington Financial Summit (November 15, 2008) which is slated to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a new “global financial architecture.” If this is true, change it.”

And this . . .

“The Wall Street blueprint has already been discussed behind closed doors: the hidden agenda is to establish a unipolar international monetary system, dominated by US financial power, which in turn would be protected and secured by US military superiority.”

Chossudovsky called this . . .

“Neoliberalism with a ‘Human Face’

I mean, do you, Barack Hussein Obama want to be their “face?” Chossudovsky says, “There is no indication that Obama will break his ties to his Wall Street sponsors, who largely funded his election campaign.

“Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bill Gates’ Microsoft are among his main campaign contributors.

“Warren Buffett, among the world’s richest individuals, not only supported Barak Obama’s election campaign, he is a member of his transition team, which plays a key role deciding the composition of Obama’s cabinet.”

Say it isn’t so, Barack. Say it isn’t so.

Reviews like this could stop your administration cold. And those were just one writer’s highlights. Here’s a few from Paul Craig Roberts in his Online Journal article, Conned Again: “Obama’s election was necessary as the only means Americans had to hold the Republicans accountable for their crimes against the Constitution and human rights, for their violations of US and international laws, for their lies and deceptions, and for their financial chicanery.”

This is really rich. Roberts quotes Russia’s major news voice: “As an editorial in Pravda put it, ‘Only Satan would have been worse than the Bush regime. Therefore it could be argued that the new administration in the USA could never be worse than the one which divorced the hearts and minds of Americans from their brothers in the international community, which appalled the rest of the world with shock and awe tactics that included concentration camps, torture, mass murder and utter disrespect for international law.’”

Consider it an honor that Pravda is counting on you to turn things around.

Roberts adds, “But Obama’s advisers are drawn from the same gang of Washington thugs and Wall Street banksters as Bush’s. Richard Holbrooke, son of Russian and German Jews, was an assistant secretary of state and ambassador in the Clinton administration. He implemented the policy to enlarge NATO and to place the military alliance on Russia’s border in contravention of Reagan’s promise to Gorbachev. Holbrooke is also associated with the Clinton administration’s illegal bombing of Serbia, a war crime that killed civilians and Chinese diplomats. If not a neocon himself, Holbrooke is closely allied with them.”

So we have consensus here.

The best and the brightest think you’re hanging with the worst and the weirdest. And the train ain’t out of the station, my man. I mean my President-To-Be. I voted for you, dude, twice, at least; convinced my family and friends. Pumped you up in my articles. Don’t make me look like a horse’s ass. You have the power. You have it in you to provide better than this for the working and middle class families whose butts you want to save. These guys don’t have a clue of what it is to ride the A-train at 8 a.m. or not take a limo or a private jet wherever they’re going. Or go without, period.

You know, the Reverend Wright held your feet to the fire, maybe too much, and you walked away. Okay, he could have been a little cooler but . . . things can heat up as you know pretty fast again. Also, I don’t want to put you between a Rockefeller and a hard place, but you do have an obligation to reach out to better, more honest and more diverse characters than these skunks. (Go ahead, sue me, guys. Your resumes read like Danny Estulin’s The True Story of the Bilderberg Group).

So brother, President Obama if you will, if you’re serious about change, then change. We all thought you were going to bring change, not the foxes in to watch the henhouse. You ran one of the best presidential campaigns I’ve ever seen, bucking all the odds, with an army of 5,000 lawyers to battle voter fraud in your 50-state spread, ceding nothing to McCain. And you won big-time just about all of the battleground states and then some. Don’t go soft on us now when it counts. Don’t lose your liberal base as well as your ethnic base or disillusion all the great college kids (like my son who woke up at 6 a.m. to vote for you, then took his hour and a half subway ride to a Brooklyn community college).

I know I’m guilt-tripping you, but I don’t want to see somebody as innately gifted and brilliant as you tripped up by these vicious clowns. If you can’t dump them, then transcend them. Use your incredible rhetorical gifts to talk them down. Don’t be another Slick Willy. Stick to the truth. Think of your sainted grandma, your grandpa who fought in World War II. This is another battle, trust me, and probably just as tough. Think of all those Kenyans back in your father’s country who are so proud of you they can’t stop running. Think of your mom who taught you right from wrong, who woke you up at 4:30 in the morning to tutor you. My brother, don’t let us down. One Satan per generation is enough.

Remember, Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement. It’s the 45th anniversary of her father’s assassination coming up. And there’s at least one or two in this group that were part of that cadre. Watch your back. We all know this is not easy. Think of Evo Morales, the first full-blooded Indian president of Bolivia. And think of what he means to all the people of his beloved country as he stands up to the Spanish colonizers’ descendants. He’s waiting for the US to melt the thaw. He’s waiting for justice just the way he fought his way to the top. And you, too, are a man of the people, their contender for justice, an honest economy, a fair shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Go for it, my brother. Don’t make me look like another stupid white man. Don’t let them turn you. Don’t break our hearts.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. read his new book, “State Of Shock: Poems from 9/11 on” at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

Pakistan's defiant nuclear scientist AQ Khan released

2009-02-09T12:43:00.001Z

Paul Woodward, Online Correspondent - The National - Abu Dhabi

After being under house arrest for five years Pakistan's nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has been released. Following the judicial order that led to his release, lawyers who have been campaigning for the restoration of Pakistan's Chief Justice Chaudhry and other judges of the superior judiciary who were suspended under the rule of former president Musharraf, are now optimistic that the judges will be reinstated.

When asked by ABC News what he would say to those who suggest he has made the world more dangerous, Dr Khan replied, "I don't care about the rest of the world. I care about my country.

"Obama cares about America - not about Pakistan, or India, Afghanistan, or anyone else," he said. "I have made Pakistan a safer place. That you are standing here and talking, and India not blowing on your neck, this is my contribution."

Time magazine reported: "Although it is unclear whether Pakistan's new civilian government had a hand in his release, Khan offered thanks to President Asif Ali Zardari for lifting the restrictions imposed on him by his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. Zardari may have been averse to the international criticism likely to come from restoring Khan's freedom of movement, but it was a government clarification that was key to the court's decision. A government lawyer told the court some weeks ago that Khan was not under formal house arrest but merely kept under tight security for his own protection. Seizing on that admission, the court said that since there are no charges - and since Khan was pardoned by Musharraf soon after his confession - he should be allowed to move."

ABC News said: "The extent of Khan's international network and the sheer physical presence of some of the materials he sold have led many to believe he was supported by the Pakistani state, something the government have vociferously denied. Khan himself claimed he had sold equipment to North Korea with the full knowledge of the military, then headed by President Pervez Musharraf.

" 'These centrifuges weighed something like half a ton each. You can't put them in your coat pocket and walk away with them,' [Dr. Pervez] Hoodbhoy [chairman of the physics department at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad] said. 'It obviously involved a lot of official support. ... If there were aircraft of the Pakistan air force that flew these centrifuges out - well, obviously there had to be somebody at the top who was also involved.'

"It was not clear whether Khan would be allowed to travel completely freely. He told journalists he would have to seek permission to travel outside the country and said he was free to move around inside. His wife told reporters that the government still held his passport."

In the United States, a state department official said: "We believe AQ Khan remains a serious proliferation risk. The proliferation support that Khan and his associates provided to Iran and North Korea has had a harmful impact on the international - on international security, and will for years to come."

Pakistan's foreign ministry said the government had investigated Dr Khan's past proliferation, shared its findings with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, and put in place tight controls that would prevent anything similar from happening again, the Associated Press reported.

"We have successfully broken the network that he had set up and today he has no say and has no access to any of the sensitive areas of Pakistan," the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Saturday. "AQ Khan is history."

The Washington Post reported: "Nearly five years after Khan's smuggling operation came to light, the international effort to prosecute its leaders is largely in shambles, yielding convictions of only a few minor participants and no significant prison time for any of them.

"Meanwhile, the much-touted cooperation between the United States and its partners in the investigation of the network also is in disarray. In recent weeks, Washington has faced accusations that it withheld crucial documents from key allies and allowed its spies to run covert operations in friendly countries without permission.

"Worst of all, the recent discovery of nuclear weapons blueprints on computers found in Switzerland and Dubai has prompted questions about whether the damage inflicted by the network was truly contained - or even understood. It is possible, US officials concede, that Khan and his allies shared nuclear secrets with still-unknown countries and, perhaps, terrorist groups, as well."

Hail Hitler, Hail Obama

2009-02-07T17:45:00.000Z

The reason why British Companies cant compete for contracts in the UK

2009-02-04T12:49:00.002Z

The Main reason why British Companies can't compete for Contracts in The UK is because British Companies must abide by Health & Safety Laws amongst other laws whereas foreign companies don't.

This means that British companies by law have to automatically add up to 50% on their tenders because of govt. law

Ehud Olmert: Corruption allegations - maybe they thought we'd forget!!!

2009-02-01T16:05:00.002Z

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is alleged to be involved in a number of corruption scandals, and faces a criminal investigation in one case. He denies any wrongdoing in all cases.

THE TALANSKY CASE

Prosecutors are investigating donations to Mr Olmert - reported to amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars - from a New York-based financier, Morris (or Moshe) Talansky.

Olmert denies corruption allegations but says he will resign if charged

Mr Olmert admits taking money, but insists they were legal donations to fund his campaigns for re-election as mayor of Jerusalem and for the leadership of the Likud party.

In a sensational court appearance that outraged media commentators and shocked many Israelis, Mr Talansky said he handed over cash to Mr Olmert amounting to $150,000 to fund political campaigns, as well as - he hinted - a liking for fine hotels, cigars, pens and watches.

Mr Talansky said he was not aware how all the money had been spent, nor did he receive any favours as a result of his fundraising. He did say that he gave a "loan" - never repaid - of $25,000 so Mr Olmert could go on holiday to Italy.

There have as yet been no charges filed in the case. The witness was questioned under oath during a private visit to Israel on 28 May and will be cross-examined on a later date.

The testimony has prompted calls for Mr Olmert to stand down from Ehud Barak of the Labour party, a junior coalition member. Mr Olmert has stressed he will only resign if indicted.

'FRAUD'

In July, police widen the investigation into Mr Talansky's allegations to also look at whether Mr Olmert may have committed fraud.

A statement issued by the police and justice ministry after the prime minister is interviewed for a third time about the corruption allegations says he was also "asked to give his account about suspicions of serious fraud and other offences".

"According to the suspicions, during his tenure as Jerusalem mayor and trade and industry minister, Olmert would seek duplicate funding for his trips abroad from public bodies, including from the state, with each of them requested to fund the same trip," it adds.

Police suspect that the "considerable sums" that remained after the travel expenses were paid for were transferred by Mr Olmert to a special account his travel agency administered for him.

"These monies were used to finance private trips abroad by Olmert and his family," the police statement says.

Mr Olmert later insists he "never took a penny" from any of the public bodies.

'ABUSE OF POWER'

Israel's attorney general has ordered police to investigate decisions taken by Mr Olmert when he was trade and industry minister between 2003 and 2005.

A statement by the attorney general said police would investigate whether Mr Olmert had appointed political associates to the Medium and Small Enterprises Authority and other government bodies.

They will also look into whether Mr Olmert helped secure special funding for a factory represented by his ex-law partner, the statement said.

Mr Olmert's office has denied the allegations, saying: "These are unnecessary investigations. It's clear beyond any doubt that the investigation will yield nothing."

BANK LEUMI

In November, police said there were no grounds to lay charges against Mr Olmert in connection with the privatisation of a bank while he was finance minister in 2005.

Mr Olmert was alleged to have tried to influence the sale of the state's controlling interest in Bank Leumi, Israel's second-largest bank, in favour of a friend.

PROPERTY PURCHASE (OR THE CREMIEUX STREET AFFAIR)

Mr Olmert is facing a criminal investigation by police into his purchase of a Jerusalem property.

A government watchdog found that he paid $325,000 (£162,500) below market value for the house.

The prime minister has insisted the price was fair and the inquiry was "uncalled for".

If police do find that Mr Olmert received favourable terms in return for benefits to the vendor, they will pass the matter to the attorney general to decide whether he is charged.

The case is known as the Cremieux Street affair after the address of the property.

AIDE INVESTIGATED

A senior official in Mr Olmert's office was placed under house arrest as part of an alleged corruption scandal in January 2007.

Shula Zaken, Mr Olmert's personal secretary and a close aide for 30 years, allegedly abused her position to influence the appointment of some tax officials in return for tax benefits.

Ms Zaken has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing. Police have said that there is no direct connection in this case to Mr Olmert.

She has been released from house arrest, but suspended from her job pending investigations.

'CONFLICT OF INTEREST'

Israel's commissioner for standards in public life recommended in April 2007 that police investigate a business deal Mr Olmert made before he became prime minister.

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss alleged that Mr Olmert had arranged investment opportunities for a friend while he was industry minister.

Mr Lindenstrauss alleged that Mr Olmert had placed himself in situation where a conflict of interest arose by dealing personally with issues involving his lawyer, friend and former business partner Uri Messner.

Mr Messner was applying for financial benefits from the state through the Industry Ministry's Investment Centre.

The prime minister's office has said that Mr Olmert did not intervene personally in any way in the application.

Mr Messner has said that his dealings with the industry ministry were "routine" and "businesslike".

At the time of the allegations, a spokeswoman for Mr Olmert accused the state comptroller of unprecedented unprofessionalism and duplicity.

Taking photos of police officers could be considered a crime

2009-01-31T19:41:00.001Z

Taking photos of police officers could be considered a crime

The British Journal of Photography
January 30, 2009

Set to become law on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.

The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who ‘elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.

A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.

The law is expected to increase the anti-terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places. ‘Who is to say that police officers won’t abuse these powers,’ asks freelance photographer Justin Tallis, who was threatened by an officer last week.

Tallis, a London-based photographer, was covering the anti-BBC protest on Saturday 24 January when he was approached by a police officer. Tallis had just taken a picture of the officer, who then asked to see the picture. The photographer refused, arguing that, as a press photographer, he had a right to take pictures of police officers.

According to Tallis, the officer then tried to take the camera away. Before giving up, the officer said that Tallis ’shouldn’t have taken that photo, you were intimidating me’. The incident was caught on camera by photojournalist Marc Vallée.

Tallis is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the British Press Photographers’ Association. ‘The incident lasted just 10 seconds, but you don’t expect a police officer to try to pull your camera from your neck,’ Tallis tells BJP.

"Facebook Group - Sid The Sniper - No Job Too Small"

2009-01-29T15:19:00.000Z

"Yeah admittedly Facebook tried to stop a group who were advocating the assasination of some corrupt Bolivian President, but Big Paws want to see how corrupt Facebook are and how much it will take before they close down this group too!!!!!"

Join Now!!! We Need an American to wreck our Peace Process!!!!

"FACEBOOK BANS ASSASSINATION GROUP"

2009-01-29T09:11:00.000Z

"Well - lets see if we get banned for advertising our mate Sid "

"Ok Conckers - how do they get in contact with Sid The Sniper?"

"Talk to Mat The Cat - he'll let Sid know"

"Mat just reminded me Big Paws..."

"What's that Jason?"

"Sid loves climbing up trees!"

"David Mayer de Rothschild - you've been warned!!!"

USAF moves ahead with UAV training plans

2009-01-23T19:20:00.000Z

The US Air Force (USAF) is making progress with its plan to establish an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) weapons school and specialised career tracks for UAV pilots, according to Lieutenant General Norman Seip, Commander of the 12th Air Force and Air Forces Southern (AFSOUTH). "Over the next five years we'll buy more unmanned vehicles than manned vehicles," the general told reporters on 13 January at a Pentagon briefing

Nice little earners for top Tory team

2009-01-23T10:21:00.002Z

From The Times
February 3, 2004
Nice little earners for top Tory team
By Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent

MICHAEL HOWARD faced criticism that his MPs lacked commitment yesterday as a union-funded magazine revealed that a third of his frontbench team have paid directorships or consultancies outside Parliament.

Analysis of the Register of Members’ Interests by Labour Research found that 31 of 84 Opposition spokesmen declared outside incomes. Some of those with the most extensive business commitments are in the Opposition economics team, despite the decision by Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Chancellor, to resign two directorships with NM Rothschild, the City investment bank.

David Willetts, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, is an economic adviser to the merchant bank Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and chairman of Universal Biosensors.

Howard Flight, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has paid directorships with seven companies, four of them linked to Investec Asset Management.

Mr Flight is also paid as a consultant to the Pep and Isa Managers Association.

Andrew Mitchell, another member of the Tory economics team, has five directorships with Lazard and Co, the investment bank, and is a strategic adviser to Accenture, the management consultancy and services company, for which he receives up to £25,000.

Andrew Tyrie, Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs, is a director of the publicly quoted investment management company BWD Rensburg and the property firm Rugby Estates.

Kevin Brennan, a Labour MP, said: “It becomes very difficult to accept that there is no conflict of interest when people who are supposed to be speaking on behalf of the country from the Opposition front bench have very considerable financial interests in businesses directly affected by their portfolios.”

A Conservative spokesman said: “The Labour Party has got to learn that experience of the real world is what is lacking from Parliament at the moment and having interests outside politics can be a positive thing.”

IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT OLIVER LETWIN NEVER KEPT HIS PROMISE - IF YOU LOOK AT THE REGISTER OF MPS INTERESTS 2009YOU CAN SEE THAT HE IS STILL A NON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Prince William:

2009-01-07T08:44:00.001Z

The early fortunes of the Rothschild family were made through a conjunction of financial intelligence and the wealth of Prince William. In 1785 the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel died, leaving his immense wealth (largely gained through the loan of Hessian mercenaries,not least to Great Britain during the American Revolution) to the young Prince William. During the Napoleonic wars the Prince saw necessary to have his fortune hidden from Napoleon by using his long standing Jewish friend's home in Frankfurt. This money then saw its way through to Nathan Mayer, (N.M.) in London, where it helped fund the British movements through Portugal and Spain. The interest made from this venture was reaped by the budding Jewish bankers, who used it to swiftly develop their fortune and prestige in Europe and Britain. It was not long before their riches outweighed that of their benefactor, the Prince William of Hesse-Kassel. Taken from: Rothschild family

So Gordon Brown sold the UK gold through Rothschilds Gold Bullion Market

2009-01-02T00:24:00.002Z

GATHERED around a table in one of the Bank of England’s grand meeting rooms, the select group of Britain’s top gold traders could not believe what they were being told.

Gordon Brown had decided to sell off more than half of the country’s centuries-old gold reserves and the chancellor was intending to announce his plan later that day.

It was May 1999 and the gold price had stagnated for much of the decade. The traders present — including senior executives from at least two big investment banks — warned that Brown, who was not at the meeting, could barely have chosen a worse moment.

In the room, just behind the governor’s main office, they cautioned that gold traditionally moved in decades-long cycles and that the price was likely to increase. They added that even if the sale were to go ahead, the timings and amounts should not be announced, as the gold price would plunge.

“The timing of the decision was ludicrous. We told them you are going to push the gold price down before you sell,” said Peter Fava, then head of precious metal dealing at HSBC who was present at the meeting. “We thought it was a disastrous decision; we couldn’t understand it. We brought up a lot of potential problems at the meeting.”

Martin Stokes, former vice-president at JP Morgan, who was also present, said: “I was surprised they had chosen the auction method. It indicated they did not have a real understanding of the gold market.”

According to other sources, however, Bank of England officials told those present they had “little say” about what was going to happen and that they were “doing what they were told”. This was a decision made by Brown and his inner circle, who appeared uninterested in their expert advice.

Ian Plenderleith, the senior Bank executive hosting the meeting, is nevertheless understood to have compiled a note on the meeting for the Treasury. It is one of several key documents that are thought to disclose the warnings ignored by ministers.

Eight years on, the advice appears even more pertinent.

The price of gold has almost trebled and the loss to the taxpayer has been calculated by one leading firm of accountants at more than £2 billion.

The decision to sell 400 tons of gold is seen in City circles as a financial bungle on the scale of the Tories’ “Black Wednesday” that cost the taxpayer £3.3 billion, according to Treasury estimates.

Taken from: Goldfinger Brown’s £2 billion blunder in the bullion market

Rothschild to pull out of gold market after 200 years

By James Moore
Last Updated: 12:00PM BST 22 Sep 2005

The investment bank that has chaired the London meetings setting the world gold price since 1919 is quitting the market.

NM Rothschild will withdraw from all its commodity trading activities, which also include an oil trading business set up less than two years ago, as part of a strategic review.

The move brings to an end nearly 200 years of tradition. NM Rothschild was founded in London in 1810 by Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who helped finance the Duke of Wellington's army in the Napoleonic wars through gold trading.

The company hosts and chairs twice-daily meetings which effectively set the world's gold price. The meetings are held in a plush chamber in the bank's offices at St Swithin's Lane in the City. The other four firms involved are Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Canada's Scotia Bank and Societe Generale.

During the fixes, telephone lines are kept open to trading rooms where dealers are in touch with customers. Potential price movements are unlimited and the fix has been known to take up to two hours, although it is usually over in a matter of minutes.

The chairmanship of the meetings is likely to be rotated between the four remaining banks in future. Gold industry sources also predicted that the meetings would be replaced by telephone fixing.

NM Rothschild's withdrawal from the gold market is being seen as one of the first major strategic moves by Baron David de Rothschild.

He set in train the strategic review after taking control of the bank from his cousin, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Sir Evelyn has been a champion of Rothschild's gold trading although a spokesman for the bank said he understood that Sir Evelyn supported the decision.

The bank's finance director Andrew Didham, who conducted the review, said commodities now accounted for just 2.2pc of Rothschild's operating income from 8.8pc in 1999.

"There is always a sadness that a bit of history is over, but we decided that the commodities business did not really fit with our other businesses," he said.

While the gold price has surged, mining companies have become less interested in hedging and trading volumes have fallen. Observers also said rival banks tended to have better links with the hedge which now make up a sizeable proportion of the market.

Simon Weeks, chairman of the London Bullion Market Association, said: "It is very sad to lose such a long-established member of the gold market but we have lost participants before, such as Credit Suisse, and the market will continue."

Rothschild has yet to decide whether to sell or close its commodities business, which employs 40 people. The company hired a number of senior traders when it set up its oil business in 2003. The price of gold fell by $7 to $402 an ounce yesterday.

Taken from: Rothschild to pull out of gold market after 200 years

Why Bilderburg like Project For The New American Century was set up

2008-12-31T16:22:00.002Z

Before we start with the official reason why Bilderburg was officially set up here is a brief list of interesting attendees to the conferences over the years, including dates:

UK

Gordon Brown (1991), current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Paddy Ashdown (1989), former leader of the UK Liberal Democrats
Ed Balls (2001-2003), Economic Secretary to the Treasury 2006 - 2007
Tony Blair (1993), former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
William Hague (1998), former leader of the Conservative Party (UK), current Shadow Foreign Secretary

AUSTRALIA
Rupert Murdoch (1982, 1988)

USA

Keith B. Alexander (2008), current Director, National Security Agency & DIA
Hillary Clinton (1997), current US Senator, also attended the World Economic Forum, the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the Salzburg Global Seminar and the Renaissance Weekend. Member of the Democratic Leadership Council
Bill Clinton (1991),[5] former US President, 1993 - 2001
Condoleezza Rice (2008), current United States Secretary of State
David Rockefeller, original U.S. founding member, life member, and member of the Steering Committee (1954-
Donald Rumsfeld (1975, 2002), Secretary of Defense, 2001 - 2006
Paul Wolfowitz (1990, 1994-1998, 2008), former President of the World Bank

The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from May 29 to May 31, 1954. The meeting was initiated by several people, including Joseph Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures of United States of America and Western Europe.

GERMANY

Angela Merkel (2005), current Chancellor of Germany

SPAIN

Juan Carlos I de Borbón y Borbón (1989), King of Spain
Queen Sofía de Grecia (1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2003-2005), Queen of Spain, wife of Juan Carlos I, King of Spain

Rallies against Israeli raids

2008-12-29T20:12:00.001Z

Thousands of people have attended rallies to express anger at Israel's air raids on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

There have been protests in Indonesia, Iraq, Venezuela and Lebanon.

RIOT police were on standby in London today after pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to storm the Israeli embassy.

Hundreds of officers clashed with hardcore protesters as they drove the demonstrators back from the building in Kensington.

Their anger had been fired by Israel's assault on Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A dozen rioters were arrested as up to 2,000 tried to surround the embassy in Palace Green yesterday. Police closed off neighbouring streets for nearly six hours, resulting in traffic chaos.

Video of the protests can be found at this link: Protests against Israeli raids

Natan Sharansky - a member of Bilderberg

2008-12-28T19:25:00.003Z

Natan Sharansky (Hebrew: נתן שרנסקי‎, Russian: Натан Щаранский, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky (Russian: Анатолий Борисович Щаранский) on 20 January 1948) is a notable former Soviet dissident, Human rights activist, former Prisoner of Zion, Israeli politician and author.

In it, Sharansky argues that freedom is essential for security and prosperity, and every people and nation deserve to live free in a democratic society. Suggesting his "town square test", Sharansky argues that human rights, safety, and stability can only be assured by releasing people from their oppressors and turning them into free societies where each would have the freedom to express his opinion. Therefore, he concludes, the free world must insist of promoting democracy for oppressed people, instead of appeasing dictatorships and doing business with tyrant regimes,

I then explained why democracy was so crucial to international stability and security, why linkage had been so successful during the Cold War, and why the free world had betrayed its democratic principles at Oslo. I outlined my plan to help the Palestinians build a free society and help Israelis and Palestinians forge a lasting peace.[9]

Sharansky takes what many of his critics call a hardline position towards the Palestinians, arguing that there can never be peace between Israel and the Palestinians until the latter rid their society of terrorist groups like Hamas and of anti-Semitism. His critics see an incompatibility between his ardent Zionism and his commitment to the struggle for universal human rights and democracy.

In a recent Ha’aretz interview, he maintained the “Jews came here 3,000 years ago and this is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews are the only people in history who kept their loyalty to their identity and their land throughout the 2,000 years of exile, and no doubt that they have the right to have their place among nations—not only historically but also geographically. As to the Palestinians, who are the descendants of those Arabs who migrated in the last 200 years, they have the right, if they want, to have their own state... but not at the expense of the state of Israel.”

A Full list of Bilderberg attendees is available at the following link: Bilderberg Attendees

"I'M SURE HIS NAME IS BARACK OBAMA"

2008-12-23T12:24:00.000Z

"Yes it is Barack Obama , Big Paws - why did you ask?"

"It's just that when George Bush got into power he started playing lots of golf - infact that's what he was doing on holiday just before the attacks on 9/11"

"well Im sure lots of normal , probably jobless Americans will be happy to know that their future president has time to practise his golf whilst on holiday in Hawaii!"

"Hmmmm - any more harrassment from those Yellow Coats today?"

"Funny you should mention that but i had to go and do some messenger work etc today and the train I got on had the ticket inspectors get on - i was just about to get off the train, map in hand when one demanded i produce my monthly travelcard which is registered in my name and is on a microchipped oyster card - so i did yet again.... And then on the train home a British Transport Police Officer got on exactly where I was sitting - so I took a picture on my phone and emailed it to myself, but for some reason I haven't received it yet - probably tomorrow.."

"Well Jason"

"Yes Conckers"

"You knew this would start to happen "

"They started it - but they seem so desperate now to want it to stop - i heard one announcer at the station saying they were trying to stop public mutiny - but if they started to tell the truth about what they've tried to do and done, then maybe it would stop...until then"

"ROAR ON!!!"

DEFINITE FLOOR FILLER

2008-12-21T22:37:00.000Z

If you don't buy any other cd this year then you should invest in GODSKITCHEN THE ANTHEMS 2009 - CD 3 IS OUR FAVE EVEN THOUGH THE LISTINGS ON THE CD ARE WRONG - THE LISTINGS ON THE BOX ARE CORRECT - WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!

Website Address is GODSKITCHEN

Fact Sheets: Privacy and surveillance

2008-12-15T10:12:00.000Z

1. What is surveillance?

Surveillance is the monitoring of activities of an individual, group or groups of people. New opportunities for mass surveillance are opening up daily with high-speed, networked computers facilitating many of our everyday activities. Surveillance today may be carried out via the Internet, via telephone networks or via the data profiling of individuals. It is carried out for a variety of reasons - by the private sector for commercial ones (such as the protection of intellectual property rights), or by states for security reasons.

Surveillance may be:

Passive – this analyses the trails of information generated by people’s everyday activities. It usually focuses on patterns of activity and includes techniques such as:

* data profiling and dataveillance (often used for market research, direct marketing or political lobbying)
* online monitoring of internet activity (for example, through data communications, information or cookies to track information on which websites are visited by an individual)
* enforcing intellectual property rights (through embedded information which tracks an individual’s use of a particular software or online service)

Directed – this can usually only be used in certain circumstances relating to serious crime. It directly targets and monitors specific individuals. It includes techniques such as:

* tapping communications (including internet data);
* bugging places of work;
* monitoring or infiltrating activities and networks through human agents.

2. How is surveillance covered by law?

Directed surveillance is covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and the Terrorism Act 2000. They update the powers of the state to tap communications and to infiltrate networks or organisations. These laws require that:

* any directed surveillance must be properly authorised by a person empowered to do so;
* this authorisation must be subjected to scrutiny to ensure that it was justified under the relevant law, and that it was correctly applied.

Some kinds of directed surveillance controls are enabled primarily through general powers given to the police to 'maintain order'. The use of surveillance in policing demonstrations is something of a grey area in terms of regulation; although the type of surveillance used does not necessarily target specific individuals, the Security Services Act 1996 and the Police Act 1997 state that concerted action by many people, even if in itself not illegal, may be investigated as 'serious crime'.

The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 strengthens the powers of the state to hold traffic data (see glossary). It also allows government departments to pool their information on terrorism and serious crime as part of their investigations.

Controls over the monitoring of communications data are less restrictive than those for directed surveillance. Communications data is accessible to local government agencies as well as the police or security services.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act widened the scope of powers for surveillance. It introduced a new requirement for telecommunications service providers to install special taps to facilitate blanket surveillance based around the automated collection of traffic data.

The RIP Act provides that communications data may be intercepted:

* in the interests of public safety;
* for the protection of public health;
* the collection of tax or charges payable to a government department; or
* for preventing death or injury.

It requires that message contents, on the other hand, should only be read in cases involving:

* national security;
* the prevention of serious crime;
* the protection of the ‘economic well-being’ of the UK.

The European Cybercrime Convention permits communications data to be routinely databased and held for many years and shared with other states that are signatories to the Convention.

Safeguards for the rights of individuals in terms of the use of their personal data come under data protection laws. The rights of individuals to privacy are defined by the Human Rights Act 1998, which implements the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 8 of the Convention states that:

* Everyone has the right to respect for his(/her) private and family life, his(/her) home and his(/her) correspondence.
* There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Under UK law, therefore, a person has no absolute privacy rights. They are all subject to the exceptions above, so there is a wide range of circumstances in which government and other bodies may argue for such exceptions to be made.

3. Does the use of electronic surveillance threaten civil liberties?

In situations where data has been used (even where information is erroneous) in a way that damages a person's private life, individuals have limited legal rights to prevent further disclosure or to seek redress for the damage caused.

Many Internet privacy activists believe that there may be significant cause for concern on the privacy implications in the use of, for example;

* data profiling;
* the growing number of software tools that can only be registered online;
* internet firewalls and cookies;
* communications traffic data which identifies the source of requests, names of files supplied, dates, times, etc. This can enable the generation of profiles of the activities of groups or individuals;
* the databasing and archiving of that information.

Obama wants Al Gore in govt..

2008-12-10T17:49:00.003Z

CHICAGO (AP) President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday praised former Vice President Al Gore's ideas on the environment as one part of helping the nation's struggling economy recovery.

Obama, Gore and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met privately at Obama's transition headquarters here for almost two hours. Obama said they discussed so-called green jobs as a way to boost employment across the country, improve national security by reducing reliance on foreign oil, and reduce energy costs.

Obama said global warming is "not only a problem, but it's also an opportunity."

"We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way," Obama told reporters and photographers at the end of the closed-door meeting.

"We have the opportunity now to make jobs all across this country, in all 50 states, to repower America. ... We are not going to miss this opportunity," Obama said.

- Advertisement -
The president-elect's comments closely resembled Gore's plan for an environmental economy, outlined in a speech in July, and he echoed the title of Gore's effort, Repower America.

The president-elect's two guests did not speak to reporters.

Gore sought the presidency in 2000 but lost to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in a disputed election that was settled by the Supreme Court. He then became a leader in the movement to draw attention to climate change and global warming. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, and his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award the same year.

He lends Obama instant credibility among environmental activists. Aides also said Obama didn't plan to recruit Gore to become a formal part of his administration.

Obama has pledged to use part of his proposed economic stimulus package to develop alternative energies and green technologies. Obama's aides said the private meeting would help shape the president-elect's economic policies.

In April, as Obama was fighting for the nomination, he lavished praise on the former vice president and said he would play a role in dealing with the environment.

"I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem. He's somebody I talk to on a regular basis," Obama said in Pennsylvania. "I'm already consulting with him in terms of these issues, but climate change is real. It is something we have to deal with now, not 10 years from now, not 20 years from now."

At the time, Gore was one of the most coveted endorsements up for grabs as the primary narrowed to between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gore was vice president under President Bill Clinton, but remained out of the primary contests.

Canadian leader suspends Parliament to stay in power

2008-12-05T09:07:00.002Z

(CNN) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday that Canada's governor general has allowed him to suspend Parliament, postponing a no-confidence vote from his opponents that he was likely to lose.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Parliament will resume on January 26.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Parliament will resume on January 26.

Harper called on his opponents to work with his government on measures to aid the nation's economy when Parliament returns on January 26.

"The first order of business will be the presentation of a federal budget," Harper told reporters outside the governor general's residence in Ottawa, Canada.

"Those who were elected here to serve the interest of Canada as a whole should work together -- at least to some degree -- on planning an economic plan for Canada."

Had Governor General Michaelle Jean -- who represents Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as head of state -- denied Harper's request, Monday's vote would have likely brought down Harper's government, less than two months after his Conservative Party strengthened its minority position in federal elections.

The Liberal Party and the leftist New Democratic Party announced plans earlier this week to form a governing coalition with the support of the Bloc Quebecois, which supports independence for French-speaking Quebec.

Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion, the man who would fill Harper's role under the planned coalition, said the coalition would look to replace Harper unless he makes "monumental change."

"For the first time in the history of Canada, the prime minister of Canada is running away from the parliament of Canada," said Dion, accusing the premier of placing "partisan politics ahead of the interest of all Canadians."

New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said Harper had used a "maneuver to escape accountability."

"He refuses to face the people of Canada through their elected representatives," he said. "The prime minister is choosing to protect his own job rather than focusing on the jobs of Canadians who are being thrown out of work today."

The news comes one day after Harper appealed directly to Canadians for support, vowing in a nationally televised address on the economy to halt his opponents, whom he accused of imposing their own agenda on the Canadian people.

"Unfortunately, even before the government has brought forward its budget, and only seven weeks after a general election, the opposition wants to overturn the results of that election," said the prime minister, whose Conservative Party strengthened its minority position in federal elections on October 14. iReport.com: Outrage brewing in Canada

Harper rejected the idea of a "power-sharing coalition with a separatist party," referring to the Bloc Quebecois, and insisted the country must stand together.

"At a time of global economic instability, Canada's government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together. At a time like this, a coalition with the separatists cannot help Canada," he said Wednesday.

"The opposition is attempting to impose this deal without your say, without your consent, and without your vote. This is no time for backroom deals with the separatists; it is the time for Canada's government to focus on the economy and specifically on measures for the upcoming budget. This is a pivotal moment in our history," he said.

Harper, 49, has served as prime minister since February 2006.

Farm subsidies - lining the pockets of wealthy farmers eg. Rockefeller (Bilderburg)

2008-11-27T19:24:00.002Z

Farm Subsidies - Lining the pockets of wealthy farm owners?
What do Ken Lay, Ted Turner, Sam Donaldson and David Rockefeller all have in common? asks Sacha Zimmerman in this months Reader's Digest.

Years of pocketing lots of money -- your money seems to be the answer.

Amazing as it sounds, your tax dollars have been going to rich guys like these in the form of farm subsidies. That's right, our government is paying big bucks to wealthy individuals who happen to own rural land somewhere, as long as they agree to federal rules about how -- and even whether -- they cultivate their spread.

From 1995 to 2005, Lay, the now-deceased Enron CEO, got $23,326 for conservation land in Missouri; business mogul Turner raked in $590,823 for farms in Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana and Florida; Donaldson supplemented his earnings as a broadcast journalist with $88,308 for a livestock ranch in New Mexico; and Rockefeller, a financier and philanthropist, got $553,782 for two farms in New York.

Appalled that your tax money is going to people who hardly need a handout? Well, it's worse than you think. According to a study by The Washington Post, since 2000 the government has paid people around the country $1.3 billion a year not to farm. That equates to 40 million acres annually -- "the equivalent of making every farm in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio idle," says Brian Riedl, a senior budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

And it's only a small part of the subsidy picture: In 2005 alone, 75 percent of the $20 billion in farm subsidies was paid to farmers for cultivating select crops like corn and soybeans. Among those soaking up the subsidies are well-to-do operators of large industrial farms. Meanwhile, the small, struggling farmer who may actually need assistance is getting squeezed out of business by the big boys lined up at the public trough.

Darling & his Vat Petrol farce

2008-11-24T19:50:00.002Z

BE WARNED: The London Papers and the news programmes this evening forgot to tell you this:

He increased petrol duty to help offset the effect of the VAT cut on fuel consumption. effectively cancelling out the effect of the VAT cut

Taken from: Financial Times : Darling plans tax hit to fund £20bn fiscal stimulus

By Jamie Chisholm

Published: November 24 2008 15:37 | Last updated: November 24 2008 18:02

Who in their right mind would want to work for MI6 anyway?

2008-11-23T14:38:00.002Z

Read this article about Richard Tomlinson before you make up your mind

Rockefeller Reveals 9 11 FRAUD to Aaron Russo

2008-11-23T13:50:00.001Z

Rockefeller Reveals 9 11 FRAUD to Aaron Russo

2008-11-23T13:50:00.000Z

WHO REALLY ARE THE ROTHSCHILD FAMILY?

2008-11-23T12:08:00.000Z

Alex Jones Interviews David Mayer de Rothschild Part 1 of 5

2008-11-23T12:02:00.000Z

Arctic Loses Huge Ice Shelf, but Melt Isn't Expected to Exceed 2007 Record

2008-11-23T11:06:00.002Z

In the summer of 2007, the Arctic melted to a record extent. It then refroze at a record pace in late October and November. The top image shows the ice in mid-November 2007 after refreezing; the bottom in mid-September, at its record low.
Photo: NASA Earth Observatory

A big ice shelf, eight square miles in size, has broken away near Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. It is the biggest ice shelf to deteriorate since 2005, according to Reuters.

The collapse leaves a once-vast ice shelf at just 11% of its original size. Once 3,500 square miles, it is now 400, and stands as one of many symbols of global warming's impact on the Earth's poles.

But overall, the Arctic is faring better than in 2007, when a record melt left vast stretches of open water in the once-icy north. Earlier predictions that the North Pole would become ice-free this summer seem to have been overly pessimistic, though the degree of melting is still well more than the long-term average.

The seasonal melting of Arctic sea ice is watched closely, because the Arctic has demonstrated the clearest signals of climate change's early impacts. What happens in the Arctic is seen as a harbinger for the dramatic changes that could be in store for lower latitudes.

If all the push-and-pull of scientific observation, prediction and analysis gets confusing, don't fret. Remember the overriding message that scientists agree to: Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels is a significant cause of global warming, and climate change is already beginning to have real and negative effects on life on Earth. The consequences of failing to reduce carbon dioxide pollution will be more dramatic weather- and climate-related changes.

New President - same old Bull****?

2008-11-23T00:28:00.000Z

British troops must not be sent in support of US President-Elect Barack Obama's planned "surge" in Afghanistan, the head of the armed forces has said.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, warned that the British military was already over-stretched, and suggested that troops from other Nato countries should be sent to fight.

Mr Obama has spoken of his desire to see a surge in troop numbers in Afghanistan, similar to that which appears to have had success against extremists in Iraq, to finally quell the Taliban insurgency.

But Sir Jock said that British troops were already struggling to cope with fighting in the two theatres of Iraq and Afghanistan, and could not take on more demands.

His words were echoed by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who agreed that other Nato countries should take responsibility for any fresh surge in Afghanistan.

Both men also ruled out sending British troops to the Congo to bolster the United Nations force in central Africa.

There are currently 8,100 military personnel serving Afghanistan, with another 4,100 in Iraq due to withdraw by the middle of next year.

Sir Jock said that they should not be redeployed to Afghanistan once their mission in Iraq ended, adding: "I am a little nervous when people use the word 'surge' as if this were some sort of panacea.

"We welcome more military force being sent to Afghanistan. Everybody needs to do their share, we are very clear on that.

"In the context of what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are shouldering a burden which is more than we are able to shoulder in the long term, so we expect the others to take up their share of that burden."

Appearing with Sir Jock on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Miliband was asked if Mr Obama's proposed surge would require an increase in the size of Britain's commitment there.

He said: "Not necessarily, no. As the second-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan, the first thing we say is that we don't want to bear an unfair share of the burden."

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, also warned that Britain was already making a "disproportionate contribution" to the Nato effort in Afghanistan.

He told Sky News' Sunday Live: "We do need the rest of Nato to play its part in Afghanistan and undoubtedly it seems that Barack Obama does intend to send larger US forces and that is part of what is necessary in Afghanistan.

"We would all take some persuading that there would have to be a much larger British contingent there - there's already a very large British contingent."

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said that the Government should talk to Iranian and Taliban leaders in order to find lasting resolutions to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He added: "Negotiation with both the Taliban and Iran may be unpalatable, but it is the only route to success, and if it doesn't happen now it will be too late."

Another Way to Die

2008-11-22T20:56:00.001Z

Another Way To Die (Feat. Jack White) - Alicia Keys

David Mayer de Rothschild - The environmentalist

2008-11-22T20:24:00.002Z

David Mayer de Rothschild (born 25 August 1978) is a British adventurer and environmentalist, and head of Adventure Ecology, an expedition group raising awareness about climate change. He is the youngest of three children of Victoria Schott (born 1949) and Sir Evelyn de Rothschild (b. 1931) of the Rothschild banking family of England. His middle name "Mayer" is taken from the name of the founder of the Rothschild family banking empire, Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

* 1 Early life
* 2 Charity work
* 3 Adventurer
* 4 Literary work
* 5 References
* 6 External links

Early life

David de Rothschild earned a B.Sc (Honors) in Political Science and Information Systems from Oxford Brookes University, a public university in Oxford, England, and an advanced Diploma in Natural Medicine gained by distance learning. He started out as a businessman, establishing an apparel manufacturing and distributing company for licensed brands. His brother Anthony is Co-managing Director of A7 music and some of the apparel his operation produced was under license from musicians such as The Beatles.

Neither he nor his brother have shown interest in joining the family-owned N M Rothschild & Sons London banking business and when their father stepped down as chairman in 2003, cousin David René de Rothschild of the French branch of the family took over as head of the worldwide Rothschild Group.

Charity work

In 2003 David de Rothschild took up residency for a time in Sydney, Australia where he began writing a series of educational books for children and founded a naturopathic/ecological education center in New Zealand, with the additional goal buying an 1,100-acre (4 km2) farm he used to develop self-sufficient organic-farming techniques. Environmentally conscious, he is also the founder of "Sculpt the Future", a charitable organization that works with environmentally disadvantaged communities.

David founded Adventure Ecology whose stated goal is to promote a greater connection with the natural world through a series of high-profile expeditions. The first mission in the series "Top of the world" Mission 1 expedition began on March 4, 2006. The four-member team included de Rothschild and fellow Briton Martin Hartley, along with two Canadians, Paul Landry and his daughter Sarah McNair Landry. After 100 days traversing the Arctic Ocean from Russia To Canada, David de Rothschild become one of 42 people and the youngest British person to ever reach both geographical poles. David de Rothschild is a National Geographic "Emerging Explorer" for its class of 2007.[1] He was also recently made a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum.

Adventurer

A participant in a number of extreme competitions, de Rothschild won his age group in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. A friend of polar guide Paul Landry, he became involved with eco-adventure and was part of the team that, in June 2005, set a new record for the fastest crossing of the Greenland Icecap. He was a member of the 2004/2005 "Invesco Perpetual Trans-Antarctica Challenge", an expedition that made him the youngest Briton to cross the continent of Antarctica.

Literary work

David wrote the official Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook in 2007, featuring 77 tips to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.[2]

Four at-risk children die from abuse every week

2008-11-21T17:18:00.001Z

From The Times
November 20, 2008

Up to four children die each week in England from abuse or neglect, according to official figures that reveal the alarming scale of the problem.

The damning report by Ofsted makes clear that the death of Baby P was far from an isolated tragedy. It found that 282 vulnerable children – many of them already known to social services – died in the 17-month period to the end of August. A further 136 suffered serious harm or injury.

Two thirds of those killed or hurt were babies less than a year old.

Children’s charities had previously estimated that one child died from cruelty each week.

It is the first time that Ofsted, which regulates children’s services in England, has examined the issue of children at risk. Its findings suggest that hundreds of abused children are at risk because councils are failing to learn promptly from previous deaths.

The report was presented yesterday by Ofsted’s chief inspector, Christine Gilbert. She said: “We are still not learning enough – or fast enough – from serious case reviews which happen when a child has died or been harmed through neglect or abuse.”

She referred to “recent tragic events in Haringey, and Manchester”, where two boys were murdered last week. Their mother has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. On Baby P she said: “I wish I could guarantee something so tragic couldn’t happen again, but I can’t. Although there have been improvements in the past few years, there is absolutely no room for complacency: everyone involved in child protection in any way must take stock of the role they play.”

Ofsted said that of 92 case reviews it had evaluated since April last year, 32 were judged to be inadequate. Only 20 were considered good. One review supposed to last four months had taken four years, Ms Gilbert said. Ofsted is expected publish a detailed report into 50 serious case reviews this month.

Tim Loughton, the Shadow Children’s Minister, said: “The figures for the number of child deaths given in this report are alarmingly high. Despite the avalanche of child protection legislation and reorganisations of social services departments, the underlying problem is no less diminished.”

David Laws, the Liberal Democrats’ children’s spokesman, said: “This report makes some deeply concerning criticisms of child protection services. It is now all too clear that the lessons of the Victoria Climbié case have not been learnt.”

Yesterday Sabah al-Zayyat, the doctor accused of failing to spot Baby P’s broken back and eight broken ribs, said that she had been deeply affected by the circumstances of his death.

A list of stores permanently closing in the USA

2008-11-21T07:04:00.001Z

Didn't take the time to check ALL of these to see if they are actually closing for sure, so I am just passing it on just in case you might have one of these store's gift cards - you may want to use it soon.

Circuit City stores... 150 stores closed

Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide are to be shuttered

Lane Bryant,, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 store nationwide

Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January

Cache will close all stores

Talbots closing down all stores

J. Jill closing all stores

GAP closing 85 stores

Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January

Wickes Furniture closing down

Levitz closing down remaining stores

Bombay closing remaining stores

Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January.

Whitehall closing all stores

Piercing Pagoda closing all stores

Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.

Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ (New Brunswick)

Macy's to close 9 stores after January

Linens and Things closing all stores

Movie Galley Closing all stores

Pacific Sunware closing stores

Pep Boys Closing 33 stores

Sprint/ Nextel closing 133 stores

JC Penney closing a number of stores after January

Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.

Wilson Leather closing down all stores

Sharper Image closing down all stores

K B Toys closing 356 stores

Loews to close down some stores

Dillard's to close some stores.

Bremner, Bird and Fortune: Silly Money - Webpage link

2008-11-20T20:41:00.002Z

A hilarious view on the worlds current economic problems

Click here

UK Public Sector Debt (Official statistics - govt stats)

2008-11-20T15:42:00.003Z

Public Sector
October: £1.0bn current budget surplus

These are graphs showing Public Sector Finance:

In October 2008, the public sector showed a surplus on current budget of £1.0 billion, compared with a surplus of £4.0 billion in October 2007.

Concentrating on one month in isolation can give a distorted picture as movements can be erratic. Focusing on the financial year to date generally provides a better overview. Between April 2008 and October 2008 of the financial year 2008/09, the public sector recorded a deficit of £23.3 billion. At the same stage of the 2007/08 financial year, a deficit of £9.5 billion had been recorded.

More generally, the public sector recorded deficits between 1991/92 and 1997/98 before moving into surplus in 1998/99. Deficits have been recorded since 2002/03.

An alternative measure of the public sector fiscal position is public sector net borrowing. This additionally takes account of capital investment. In October 2008, there was net borrowing of £1.4 billion, which compares with borrowing of £-1.8 billion in October 2007. The Budget forecast for 2008/09 is net borrowing of £43.0 billion.

Public sector net debt, expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was 42.9 per cent at the end of October 2008, compared with 42.6 per cent at end of October 2007. Debt peaked at 44.2 per cent of GDP in 1997, its highest since the mid-1980s. The debt ratio then fell steadily as public sector finances improved, reaching a low of 29.1 per cent in February 2002. Since then it has risen. The Budget forecast for the end of March 2009 is 38.5 per cent.

Net debt was £640.9 billion at the end of October, compared with £607.1 billion a year earlier. The Budget forecast for net debt at the end of March 2009 is £581 billion.

Public sector net debt (excluding Northern Rock)
The most recent figures for public sector net debt excluding Northern Rock are for September 2008, when net debt was £563.1 billion (37.8 per cent of GDP).

Bush sells off the desert to oil company

2008-11-20T15:22:00.002Z

Gale Norton has to be happy. In 2003, Ms. Norton, then President Bush’s secretary of the interior (and now a senior oil executive at Royal Dutch Shell), struck a deal with the governor of Utah that would open about 3 million pristine acres of federal land to oil and gas drilling.

Environmental groups and the courts managed to keep the drillers at bay. No longer. In the last few days, the Bureau of Land Management has completed six long-range management plans for Utah that will expose these acres (and as many as 6 million more) to some form of commercial exploitation.

On Tuesday, the bureau announced that it would soon begin selling oil and gas leases — essentially the right to drill — in some of the most beautiful and fragile areas.

Conservationists are aghast, and rightly so. Apparently without consulting the National Parks Service, one of its sister agencies at the Interior Department, the bureau plans to auction more than two dozen leases adjacent to Arches National Park and very close to Canyonlands National Park, risking the parks’ air and water.

Also on the auction block, among other rare and spectacular vistas, is Desolation Canyon, so named by the explorer John Wesley Powell in 1869 while he traveled down the Green River to the Grand Canyon.

This sort of pillage would be hard to justify even if Utah’s reserves were large enough to make a difference, which they are not. The Energy Information Administration says that Utah has 2.5 percent of the country’s known natural gas reserves and less than 1 percent of its known oil reserves. And even if those reserves were worth going after, it would still be essential to protect areas of special cultural, scenic and recreational value.

The Interior Department’s writ is to manage the public lands for “multiple uses,” a difficult and ambiguous task. The Clinton administration issued many leases but tried hard to balance the competing claims of commerce and nature; the Bush administration heard only the voice of Vice President Dick Cheney and his one-sided mantra of “drill now, drill everywhere.”

This is but the latest of President Bush’s last-minute assaults on the environment. The incoming Obama administration will have to quickly review and reverse these decisions or find ways to mitigate the damage.

New York Times

World Citizen (I Won't Be Dissapointed) - Ryuichi Sakamoto

2008-11-18T15:00:00.001Z

Secret Circles - Hybrid

2008-11-16T08:13:00.000Z

Secret Circles - Hybrid

Hybrid - Until Tomorrow (w/lyrics)

2008-11-16T08:09:00.000Z

The Only Constant is Change - BT

2008-11-15T22:51:00.000Z

The Only Constant is Change - BT

BT - Communicate

2008-11-15T22:42:00.000Z

bt - the revolution

2008-11-15T22:34:00.000Z

Choke - Hybrid (feat. John Graham)

2008-11-15T20:38:00.000Z

Hybrid - Blackout (in stereo)

2008-11-15T17:13:00.000Z

Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus" (album version edit)

2008-11-15T16:52:00.000Z

the orb - blue room

2008-11-15T16:41:00.000Z

Bank of China eyes HBOS bid

2008-11-11T13:18:00.002Z

The Bank of China has emerged as a potential bidder for an alternative takeover of HBOS, it is reported.

The BBC said the bank was in "early talks" with former HBOS executive Jim Spowart and investment company European American Capital over a possible counter bid to the proposed takeover by Lloyds TSB.

Lloyds TSB says it will be able to deliver annual cost savings of more than £1.5 billion by the end of 2011 through its deal.

But there are fears it could lead to widespread job losses at the would-be combined banking giant.

Mr Spowart refused to confirm the report that the Bank of China was the potential backer.

He told The Scotsman: "We took a decision early on to neither confirm or deny which bank was behind any potential bid."

The report emerged as a former bank chief insisted the current offer by Lloyds TSB was "no longer the best deal".

Sir George Mathewson, ex-chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, is trying to convince shareholders they will not benefit from the Lloyds deal.

It emerged at the weekend that he and former HBOS chief executive Sir Peter Burt were seeking to oust the current chairman and chief executive in a move to thwart the Government-backed bid.

It has been resisted by HBOS which said Lloyds TSB offered "certainty".

Peter Gabriel Family Snapshot Live 1986

2008-11-09T15:57:00.000Z

The story of the song most resembles the JFK assasination but don't write that off as being the only objective of the lyrics. Gov. Wallace is part of it also. Gabriel is really illustrating the fanatical assasin's personality disorder which leads him to this disasterous event. Gabriel offers the explanation- the murderer's deep sense of emptiness and neglect as a result of his upbringing; and how his childhood was so deprived of attention and affection, that a personality was created who only saw the world from the outside looking in. The assasin needed this crime, be it on a political figure or celebrity, to make himself exist in a world he never felt a part of. To think some people write songs about holding hands.
- Patrick, NY, NY

BANK OF ENGLAND CUTS BASE RATE BY 1.5% to 3%

2008-11-06T13:13:00.002Z

Last time the Bank of England cut the Base Rate My savings account I have with ING Direct immediately had it's interest rate reduced - Now surely if The Bank of England cuts base rates below the rate of inflation surely this is exactly the same as blatantly saying that even money is becoming valueless?!!!

How much the UK Govt makes every year from the petrol pumps

2008-11-03T09:04:00.002Z

There are 159 litres in a barrel of oil

Going on a price of $60 per barrel.....

a litre therefore costs 0.37$ per litre (1.6$/£)......

Therefore 23 p per litre goes to the Supplier when Petrol is £1 per litre....

7 p per litre goes to the Petrol Stations / oil refineries......

The Government charges (per litre):

53p TAX = 70 p TAX
17p VAT

The USA consumes 21 million barrels a day and has a population of 301 million people. Therefore if the Uk population consumes roughly the same proportion a day then that equates to 4 million barrels a day

So Govt tax = 4million x 159 litres x 0.7 x 365(days)= £163 billion tax a year

Arab money on way to help IMF

2008-11-03T08:23:00.002Z

Gordon Brown predicted "The Saudis will, I think. contribute - so we can have a bigger fund worldwide."

A Senior government source said the Saudis had been concerned about becoming a "milch cow" to prop up "Basket case" economies aound the world

Is The US Dollar being artificially propped up to protect certain countries investments?

2008-10-31T14:44:00.002Z

Some people are saying that The US is having the dollar artificially propped up to protect investments from other countries...

Here's a yahoo question from a couple of months ago...

What American Bank does Saudi Arabia own?

They do not own 100% of any US bank at this time however,Chase Manhattan Bank is participating in the new Saudi Arabian Investment Bank along with Japanese and European banks. The Saudis own 60 percent of this institution. There is also ownership in Chase, merril lynch, and many other investment companies.

They own a 60% interest in Citibank, as Saudi American bank-
Samba Financial Group was formed pursuant to Royal Decree dated 26/3/1400 H. (February 12, 1980), to take over the then existing branches of Citibank, N.A. in Jeddah and Riyadh, which were opened in 1955 and 1966 respectively. Samba was formed in accordance with a program adopted by the Kingdom in the mid-1970s, under which all foreign banks were required to sell majority equity interests to Saudi nationals. Samba commenced business on February 12, 1980 and closed its first fiscal year on December 31, 1980. The US part of citibank owns only 20% of the corporation.

Source(s):
http://www.samba.com/ENGLISH/Common/HTML...

PM 'used crony to fix nuclear power inquiry'

2008-10-27T10:36:00.003Z

Government accused of driving through energy policy by using slanted study

By Ben Russell, Home Affairs Correspondent The Independent
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Sizewell B in Suffolk, one of the plants at the forefront of nuclear power

A public consultation on new nuclear power stations which was run by a company linked to the Prime Minister's personal pollster has been criticised for breaching industry guidelines.

Environmentalists and opposition MPs denounced the exercise as "fixed" after the Market Research Standards Board said some material given to focus groups was "inaccurately or misleadingly presented".

The Conservatives accused ministers of "gerrymandering" and attack-ed them for employing Opinion Leader to run the project, a consultancy linked to Gordon Brown's personal pollster Deborah Mattinson. Opinion Leader runs the Government's citizens' juries and was awarded almost £1m of Treasury contracts when he was Chancellor. Ms Mattinson stood down as the company's joint chairman last year to work for Labour but remains a senior figure in its parent company.

The Market Research Standards Board said: "Information was inaccurately or misleadingly presented, or was imbalanced, which gave rise to a material risk of respondents being led towards a particular answer."

Greenpeace denounced the consul-tation as "a sham and an insult to the people who took part" claiming it would leave the Government's plans in disarray. Examples included focus groups being given material colouring nuclear and renewable power green, with blue for coal oil and gas.

Opinion Leader argued that the standards board was not competent to judge its methods and insisted Ms Mattinson played no part.

The ruling was the second time the Government's attempts to consult the public on new nuclear power stations faced criticism. The first consultation in 2006 had to be repeated after it was condemned by the High Court.

Greg Clark, the shadow energy minister, said: "These revelations call into question for a second time the way the Government is managing its nuclear policy. The standards watchdog for market research has decided that supposedly independent research was biased to give the answer the Government wanted." Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat energy spokesman, added: "This ruling shows that the Government isn't even competent enough to rig its own consultation. It was hardly a secret that ministers had made their decision before their first consultation on new nuclear power."

Downing Street insisted the ruling would have no bearing on Britain's nuclear power programme. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "The outcome of the consultation stands, whatever the view of the Market Research Standards Board."

Viki Cooke, chief executive of Opinion Leader, said: "We do not accept the MRS ruling, which we believe to be incorrect. We do not believe that the MRS – a market research trade body – is competent to assess these new forms of deliberative engagement.

"Opinion Leader is not anybody's pet pollster. It does absolutely no political work whatsoever."

Indian activist: Massacre of Christians planned in advance

2008-10-17T11:01:00.001Z

by Nirmala Carvalho
Lenin Raghuvanshi has visited Orissa as a member of a fact-finding team established by the European commission for the prevention of torture. Hindu radicals have a program for expunging Christians from the region and reconverting tribals and pariahs to Hinduism.

Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) - The campaign of attacks against Christians in Orissa was planned for months. This is the claim of Lenin Raghuvanshi, director of the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights. Mr. Raghuvanshi visited Orisa as part of of a fact-finding team for the European commission for the prevention of torture.

Speaking to AsiaNews, he says that "In the Kandhamal district, it is very clear that a cleansing of marginalized Christian populace is taking place by RSS, BajrangDal and VHP cadres (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad)."

The wave of violence has so far killed 61 people, injured 18,000, destroyed 4,500 homes, and burned and razed 181 churches. It was apparently motivated by the killing of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati, a leader of the VHP, last August 23. He was killed by a group of Maoists, but Hindu fundamentalist groups immediately accused the Christians of the assassination.

"In fact, on August 14," Raghuvanshi explains, "nearly 10 days before the death of Swami Laxamanada, a mob of RSS people came to Sahasipudar village and threatened the people of the perils of following the Christian faith . These extremists also warned the margnisalised Christian community that henceforth the Gita [editor's note: one of the sacred books of Hinduism] was their sacred book."

In Orissa, campaigns to reconvert Christian tribals and pariahs back to Hinduism date back for decades. The swami killed in August was himself a fierce promoter of this. Last December, on Christmas eve, he was the one who had pushed for new attacks against Christians, in which 13 homes were burned and 3 people killed, while thousands of faithful were forced to flee.

"After the December anti-Christian violence," Raghuvanshi says, "three families converted to Hinduism out of fear. It is most unfortunate, in a broken down church the picture of Swami Laxamandanda has been installed."

Mr. Lenin Raghuvanshi recently won the “Acha Peace Star” prize for his efforts for reconciliation among communities in India. Commenting further on the violence in Orissa and on his work with the fact-finding mission, he says: "We were witnesses to most deplorable and inhuman atrocities, most probably, these fundamentalists forces are whipping up communal frenzy with a view to the state elections scheduled next year. Here elections are won at the cost of human lives - how much lower can humanity stoop?"

Mobile phone virus spreads by MMS

2008-10-08T12:02:00.000Z

mobile phone virus with the potential of spreading globally through MMS has been identified. According to security firm F-Secure, CommWarrior can spread by sending messages to contacts listed in the infected phone's address book.

Until now mobile phone viruses have only been able to replicate locally, by using Bluetooth wireless technology.

CommWarrior, which attacks Symbian Series 60 platform phones, is able to do this too, but in a critical evolution in phone viruses, now also has the ability to randomly send an MMS (multimedia messaging service) message to an infected phone's contacts list.

Users must download a file sent with the text in order to infect their phone.

This ability is similar to that seen in e-mail viruses, where the virus replicates by sending itself to e-mail addresses listed in the infected PC's address book. Users are much more likely to open these e-mails, as they often appear to have been sent by someone they know.

"The situation is not critical since we have not received a lot of reports from our customers," said F-Secure's Director for Mobile Operator Solutions, Antti Vihavainen. "However, CommWarrior creates unwanted billing for the owners of infected phones by sending MMS messages without user interaction."

"The phones can be easily protected by using common sense. None of today's mobile viruses can install themselves without the user accepting the standard security warnings," he added.

F-Secure is investigating why the virus, which appears to have come from Russia, is replicating slowly at present.

Malcolm Forbes

2008-10-06T14:59:00.002Z

Anyway Malcolm Forbes was such a great man , that he had to run to Morroco and on several occasions had to use rent boys to satisfy his sexual needs...

How Mrs Thatcher's (Conservative / Tory) sell-off went wrong

2008-09-29T11:27:00.002Z

The Failure of Bradford & Bingley is the final nail in the coffin of one of Margaret Thatcher's most widely felt financial reforms. Its nationalisation marks the end for de-mutualised building societies, all of which have now been taken over or gone bust.
The Iron Lady introduced demutualisation in an 1986 Act, enabling building societies - owned by their members - to turn themselves into public companies. This allowed the likes of Northern Rock, Halifax , Abbey National (Santander) B&B better access to cheaper money; but they all either failed or were gradually snapped up by competitors with more spending power.
B&B demutualised in 2000 and built its business on risky buy-to-let and self-certified mortgage market - a decision which , with banks now super-cautious about lending money, has proved its downfall.

Taken from: The Metro Newspaper Mon Sept 29, 2008

RE - US GOVT's POSSIBLE $3/4 TRILLION BAILOUT

2008-09-25T11:53:00.001Z

Not being really clever at maths , but surely if the US Govt buys all tehse bad debts off the banks then the American Govt will then be stuffed by these bad debts and will have basically given the banks 3/4 trillion dollars?

Secret Service Orders Police to Roadblock Obama Supporters

2008-09-19T11:52:00.000Z

George Bush and his pet goat

2008-09-19T09:33:00.001Z

WHY MOZILLA FIREFOX IS THE SAFEST BROWSER

2008-09-18T10:45:00.003Z

Firefox keeps your personal info personal and your online interests away from the bad guys.

READ WHY HERE

RMT to go on strike on South Eastern Railways 22 - 23 Sept 2008

2008-09-18T07:06:00.002Z

September 17, 2008
Drop the intimidation and negotiate, RMT tells South Eastern on eve of talks

September 17, 2008

SOUTH EASTERN Trains should drop its intimidation tactics against its workforce and negotiate settlements to the disputes that have led to 48-hour strike action being called for next Monday and Tuesday, Britain’s biggest rail union said today.

SEE MORE HERE

THE BIGS PAWS BLOG HAS FINALLY ARRIVED

2008-09-16T17:42:00.005Z

CLICK HERE TO KEEP UP TO DATE ON BIG PAWS AND THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF THE TIGER TRIBE

WARNING : DR KATHY VILLIERS IS VERY BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH

2008-09-15T19:43:00.002Z

TODAY i WENT TO MY DOCTORS AND HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF HAVING A NEW DOCTOR - SHE IS A WHITE SOUTH AFRICAN CALLED DR KATHY VILLIERS - PRESUMABLY SHE HAD TO LEAVE SOUTH AFRICA BECAUSE SHE WAS SO DISLIKED SHE HAD TO MOVE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY.

NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I BEEN SO BADLY TREATED BY ANYONE - SHE MADE ME FEEL SO SMALL AND UNIMPORTANT - SHE DIDNT EVEN HAVE MY MEDICAL NOTES WITH HER - SHE HAD TO ACCUSE ME OF ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN , I PRESUME TO SEE HOW I WOULD REACT AND SHE EVEN LEFT THE DOOR OPEN SO ALL THE OTHER PATIENTS COULD HEAR WHAT WAS BEING SAID.

IM REALLY DISAPPOINTED WITH MY OWN DOCTOR WITH THE WAY HE HAS LET SOME THIS INCOMPETENT WORK FOR HIM AND I WILL MAKE A POINT - IF I EVER GO BACK TO HIS SURGERY OF HAVING HER REMOVED IF NOT STRUCK OFF PERMANENTLY.

Sarah Palin isn't Sure if God Still Wants Us to Kill Iraqis

2008-09-15T08:12:00.000Z

ADVANCE NOTICE - EXPO 2012

2008-09-14T06:57:00.002Z

OFFICAL WEBSITE OF THE EXPO - hmmm Rainy London or Sunny Tangier?

Interesting photo from Olympic Lottery Distributor

2008-09-14T06:10:00.002Z

Bank of England Gives Lenders Estimated $354 Billion

2008-09-03T18:10:00.000Z

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. banks probably have tapped the Bank of England for more than 200 billion pounds ($354 billion) less than two months before its emergency funding plan is scheduled to end, according to UBS AG analysts.

The central bank's so-called special liquidity scheme, established in April and set to close in October, allows banks to swap mortgage-backed securities hurt by the credit squeeze for government bonds. Banks may face insolvency unless central bank Governor Mervyn King succeeds with his plan to put in place a new money-market system, UBS said.

``A permanent solution is needed,'' said the London-based analysts led by Alastair Ryan in a research note to clients dated Sept. 1. Otherwise ``U.K. banks will have perhaps 200 billion pounds of exploding funding'' to refinance within the next three years and would be forced to cut back lending and shrink assets. House prices could decline 40 percent without central bank help, Ryan said.

HBOS Plc, Britain's No. 1 mortgage lender, may be the biggest user of the U.K. central bank's bond plan, ahead of Lloyds TSB Group Plc, Barclays Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc., Collins Stewart analysts led by Alex Potter in London wrote in a note to clients. HBOS relied on money markets to fund more than 50 percent of new mortgage lending before credit markets seized.

``We're not commenting on speculation about the usage of the scheme,'' a central bank official who declined to be identified in line with bank practice said in a telephone interview today. ``As has always been the case, there's no cap on the scheme. The size reflects its use.''

The U.K.'s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported the estimate of central bank funds used earlier today.

Republican National Convention protest arrests tally nearly 300

2008-09-03T17:58:00.002Z

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Police arrests tally nearly 300 following sometimes violent confrontations this week, and more protests were planned for Wednesday and Thursday, the final two days of the Republican National Convention.

Some protest organizers have promised to resume their often confrontational actions near where delegates are meeting in the Xcel Energy Center until the GOP convention ends its four-day run.

Police said Wednesday they had arrested 10 people throughout Tuesday, but they declined to offer specifics about each incident. Total arrests for the week were 294, including 137 felonies.

At least three of the arrests Tuesday came during a march against poverty. The march was tense but neither as widespread nor violent as events a day before, when nearly 300 people were arrested in numerous run-ins in downtown St. Paul.

Police estimated about 2,000 people took part in the poverty march, which lasted about three hours. It ended near the convention arena with police using tear gas and flash-bang grenades to disperse protesters they said were trying to get past security fences, said Tom Walsh, a St. Paul police spokesman.

The arrests Tuesday came a day after violence erupted following a largely peaceful anti-war march by some 10,000 people. Afterward, police blamed a splinter group of about 200 for harassing delegates, smashing windows, puncturing car tires, throwing bottles and starting at least one fire.

The RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist group that has worked for months planning convention disruptions, claimed success in e-mails to its members and media. "The spectacle has been crashed!" read one.

That group wasn't officially connected with the organizers of either march.

Kayak Man hopes he cant reach North Pole

2008-08-31T07:57:00.003Z

Long-distance swimmer Lewis Pugh plans to kayak 1200km (745 miles) to the North Pole to raise awareness of how global warming has melted the ice sheet. The BBC's Jonah Fisher met him at his training camp in Cape Town, South Africa.

Lewis Pugh has spent his life swimming long distances. But after 20 minutes in the freezing water of the Arctic he decided that his future lay above the waves.

"Nobody has ever attempted to kayak to the pole before. In fact, it would have been impossible last year because it was frozen over," he said.

This year, for the first time, scientists predict that the North Pole could briefly be ice free and that has inspired Mr Pugh to try to find a way through.

On Saturday he is due to set off on the 1200km (745 mile) expedition from Norway to the North Pole - a journey expected to take between two and three weeks. A support ship will follow the kayak to provide Mr Pugh with food and respite from the brutal conditions.

"There's one side of me that desperately wants to get to the North Pole to be able to shake the lapels of world leaders to get them to understand what has happened there," he said.

"But then there's the other side of me that says I really hope I don't get there. I hope I fail because if I am able to get there we really are in deep trouble."

Let's Hope Albert Einstein Got It Wrong....

2008-08-30T07:29:00.003Z

Parasites Kill Off A Third of Britain's bees

Honeybees are being killed off in huge numbers by parasites, threatening the crucial pollination of crops.
A record one in three of the 240,000 hives in Britain did not survive the spring and the main cuplrit is the varroa mite.
The mites feed on the blood of honey bees weakening adults and deforming their young.
Other causes of the decline include bad weather and pesticides.
Honey bees pollinate about a third of our home grown food crops aand that , along with the honey they make, mesans they contribute £165m to the UK economy.

Albert Einstein once gave warning that if bees disappeared, man would have only four years left. - A book out this year - "A World without Bees" found that they are dying off across the globe. One cause, a virus called Colony Collapse Disorder, has hit 36% of US hives and spread to Italy, France and Germany.

The Govt. closed its consultation into honeybee health yesterday (28th August 2008) but most people invoved in the industry want more money spent on research, presumably before it's too late.

Computer Virus Infiltrates Laptops at International Space Station

2008-08-30T07:24:00.002Z

A virus designed to swipe passwords from online gamers has inexplicably popped up in some laptop computers aboard the International Space Station.

The low-risk virus was detected on July 25, but did not infect the space station's command and control computers and poses no threat to the orbiting laboratory, NASA officials said.

"This is basically a nuisance," NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com from the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

According to a NASA planning document obtained by SPACE.com, the worm was identified as W32.Gammima.AG. The California-based retail anti-virus software manufacturer Symantec describes it as a Windows-based worm which spreads by copying itself onto removable media. It is capable of stealing passwords for online games and is classified as a very low risk, according to Symantec's Web site.

Humphries said that while NASA security protocols prohibit discussing details of the virus and efforts to combat it, a search is under way to find out how it got on board the space station more than 200 miles above Earth.

"We'll do our best to track down how it got there and close that gateway," Humphries said. "This is not a frequent occurrence but we have had viruses that have made their way on board before."

New flash memory cards due to launch to the station aboard a Russian cargo ship next month have been screened for the virus, the NASA document stated. Not all of the 71 laptop computers currently aboard the station run Windows, and those that do and are vulnerable to viruses could be updated, it went on.

The space station is currently home to three astronauts: Russian cosmonaut commander Sergei Volkov, cosmonaut flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and NASA flight engineer Greg Chamitoff. Volkov and Kononenko are due to return to Earth in October, while Chamitoff is slated to stay until his replacement arrives during NASA's planned November space shuttle mission.

Copyright © 2008 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Good Old George Bush and his democratic USA

2008-08-26T18:53:00.005Z

We should now all be aware of the fact why George Bush kept quiet about China's human right's record at The Olympics - because he's borrowing millions of dollars from The Chinese to subsidise the Iraq War as basically The USA hasnt got the money to keep it going - So yes thats right hes borrowing money from a Communuist dictatorship to help Iraq become "a Democracy"

We also know that Mr Bush is best friends with his oil suppliers who in general operate Sharia Law in their countries as a form of controlling the population (also surely a form of dictatorship?)

And finally South Ossetia has already been recognised by Russia as an independent state from Georgia for several years already so why all of a sudden is now trying to make it look as though this had never happened before and that its already Russia's fault?

Hey but what can i say about democracy? - I live in a country where our current Prime Minister took over from Tony Blair without any vote and where Gordon Brown seems to bringing home the troops, from Iraq, just in time for his First General Election?

WHY I CHANGED MY POWER SUPPLIER FIRST FROM BRITISH GAS , THEN EON AND NOW ATLANTIC

2008-08-25T21:33:00.003Z

IT ALL STARTED THREE MONTHS AGO...
... when I received a letter from British Gas demanding that i phone them up to arrange for a "Safety Inspector " to come and inspect my meter as it hadnt been done for three years and as a result it would by law obtain a court warrant if I didnt phone their customer service team and arrange it.

I therefore did this and was told that an inspector would come to my flat on a particular date in the morning - I asked my father to come to the flat as obviously I would be at work at the time and there was no way I could take time off work myself.

So my dad very generously waited in my flat the whole morning and guess what - NO ONE TURNED UP!!!

I phoned British Gas and asked them why no one had come to the appointment as had been arranged - A Customer Service Representative told me that they had no record of me even phoning to arrange the appointment and then he told me that i should'nt be phoning them as it was a different department who would be dealing with it - I asked why the phone number on the letter was the same as the one I was speaking to him on and he was unable to answer me further...

Seeing that I wasn't getting anywhere very fast I immediately phoned up Eon, who recently took over PowerGen , who my father had turned to after he had also fallen out with British Gas - First of all they put me on The Age Concern Tariff (very interesting as I'm only 36!!!!) BUT WHATS EVEN WORSE IS THAT TWO MONTHS AFTER THEY PROMISED ME THAT I WOULD NO LONGER BE A CUSTOMER OF BRITISH GAS I STILL AM!!!

How Did I find this out???
By receiving a final refund cheque from British Gas for my electricity - OK So this means that British Gas are no longer my supplier of electricity? But according to them they are still my supplier of Gas - NOT ACCORDING TO EON - ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM AT EON EON NOW SUPPLY MY GAS BUT NOT AS OF YET MY ELECTRICITY

CONFUSED ?!!!
I WAS AND EVEN THOUGH I SPENT OVER TEN MINUTES TRYING TO EXPLAIN THIS TO THE AIR HEAD CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE AT EON SHE KEPT ON SAYING THE OPPOSITE TO WHAT I WAS TELLING HER BRITISH GAS HAD TOLD ME!!!!

Seeing I had already sent Eon an email immediately i received the final electricity refund from British Gas I got on the phone again and found out that apparently even though all of the Power Companies in The United Kingdom seem to be running an Oligopoly Atlantic Energy (well actually thats only a trading name of Scottish & Southern Electricity) had a rating of 5 out of 5 for Customer Service

Please if someone knows a company who is actually not part of the con or crap at customer service - not going to invest in Nuclear Power Stations but they'll give you Nectar Points as a bribe if you sign up with them (Sainsburys Energy or EDF as they actually are) let me know !!!!
HEY BUT AT LEAST THEYRE ALLOWED TO BUILD NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS IN THE UK - IN IRAN THEY GET THREATENED WITH SANCTIONS AND INVASION IF THEY DO THIS!!

Financial Times Article proves Georgia Started War With Russia

2008-08-23T16:44:00.001Z

Jan Cienski
Financial Times
August 21, 2008

Georgia did not believe Russia would respond to its offensive in South Ossetia and was completely unprepared for the counter-attack, the deputy defence minister has admitted.

Batu Kutelia told the Financial Times that Georgia had made the decision to seize the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali despite the fact that its forces did not have enough anti-tank and air defences to protect themselves against the possibility of serious resistance.

“Unfortunately, we attached a low priority to this,” he said, sitting at a desk with the flags of Georgia and Nato (to which Georgia does not belong) crossed behind him. “We did not prepare for this kind of eventuality.”

The Georgian military felt there was only a low probability of a massive Russian counter-attack, despite the bloody way in which Russia destroyed Chechnya, on the other side of the Caucasus mountains, in two wars during the 1990s and the fact that separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia had Russian backing.

Georgian forces were unprepared when the Russian counter-strike came, Mr Kutelia said. “I didn’t think it likely that a member of the UN Security Council and the OSCE would react like this,” Mr Kutelia said.

Two arrested in China over pro-Tibet protest

2008-08-15T14:37:00.002Z

Beijing:Two foreign activists were arrested this morning (Fri Aug 15th 2008) this morning after climbing China's state-owned television headquarters near the main Olympic venue and erecting a big "Free Tibet" banner. The protesters , one Briton and one Australian, were led away by police and were expected to be deported from China. Witnesses said that about six people were involved in the demonstration.
Taken from The Times Fri Aug 15th 2008

On Channel Four News yesterday they reported about the "Protest Parks" that had been set up especially for the Olympics - Apparently they do exist but noone is there as all people who have applied have been refused admittance and then harrassed by police ....

SAYING OF THE DAY

2008-08-15T14:16:00.001Z

Our Revenge will be the laughter of our children - Bobby Sands

HYRBID SOUNDSYSTEM 01 - YOU MUST BUY THIS

2008-08-12T11:25:00.003Z

Flu pandemic tops risk register

2008-08-08T10:23:00.003Z

Flooding is among the hazards highlighted in the register

A flu pandemic is the gravest threat to UK security as it could claim up to 750,000 lives, according to a new National Risk Register.

The document, commissioned by the prime minister, aims to publicly set out the potential impact of a range of different risks for the first time.

Other issues examined include terrorism and flooding.

The information had been kept secret up until now. The register will be updated annually by the Cabinet Office.

The report offers an insight into the various dangers faced by the UK and how they are viewed by government advisors.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said that while officials insist the register was not intended to rank dangers in any kind of priority, it is clear that pandemic flu emerges as the gravest threat to national security.

'Mature conversation'

According to the report, while terrorist attacks are the most likely threat, a flu pandemic is overdue and could claim 50,000 - 750,000 lives.

Ian Kearns, who is deputy chair of think tank IPPR's security commission, praised the government for trying to stimulate a "mature conversation" with the public and businesses on the risks facing the UK.

He said the register was particularly aimed at encouraging public and private organisations to think about their response to major emergencies.

"You might want to ask the question, for example, what happens if many of our heavy goods vehicle drivers fell victim to that influenza and weren't able to perform their jobs?

"Do we have enough back-up to be able, for example, to deliver food to the supermarkets?" he said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"These kinds of questions about resilience of supply chains and so on; how essential workers might be affected. These are the kind of things that public and private sector organisations need to think about."

Cyber attacks

The launch of the register, which was commissioned in March, follows the launch of the National Security Strategy, in the same month.

On that occasion, the prime minister said the number of security service staff would rise to 4,000 and that there would be new moves to secure the UK against cyber-attacks.

He also said there would be a 1,000-strong civilian task-force to be sent to troubled areas around the world.

As part of the National Security Strategy, four regional counter-terrorism units and four regional intelligence units would be set up to help the police.

28 Days Later - The Aftermath (Book Synposis)

2008-08-01T14:46:00.003Z

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28 Days Later: The Aftermath

Cover of 28 Days Later: The Aftermath
Publisher Fox Atomic Comics
Date April 3, 2007
Creative team
Writer(s) Steve Niles
Artist(s) Cover:
Tim Bradstreet
Stories 1 & 4:
Dennis Calero
Story 2:
Diego Olmos (Pencils)
Ken Branch (Inks)
Story 3:
Nat Jones
Colorist(s) Dennis Calero

28 Days Later: The Aftermath is a graphic novel continuation of the hit film 28 Days Later written by Steve Niles and distributed by Fox Atomic Comics. It was released on April 3, 2007.

The book bridges the gap between the original film and its sequel 28 Weeks Later. It explores four interconnecting stories and delves deeper into the development of the Rage virus, the battle for survival that ensued once it was unleashed in London, and what it finally took to restore order in the ravaged city.

28 Days Later: The Aftermath was the first graphic novel released by Fox Atomic Comics.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Plot
o 1.1 Stage 1: Development
o 1.2 Stage 2: Outbreak
o 1.3 Stage 3: Decimation
o 1.4 Stage 4: Quarantine
* 2 See also
* 3 External links

[edit] Plot

Aftermath is divided into four stories ranging in setting from shortly before the outbreak to several months afterward. The first three stories each follow separate groups or individuals; the fourth story brings the survivors of these stories together for their ultimate fate.

[edit] Stage 1: Development

The first stage begins an unknown amount of time before the initial outbreak. It opens in parallel fashion to 28 Days Later with a montage of violent acts, which are soon revealed to be video footage on a bank of television screens—in this case, CCTV footage of crimes which had taken place in London the previous night. Two scientists named Clive and Warren are attempting to develop an inhibitor which can be used to control aggressive impulses in humans.

Warren is able to secure a violent criminal as a human test subject by bribing a police captain. When the subject proves uncontrollable, Warren and Clive are forced to kill him and hide his body. Despite his misgivings, Clive is now irrevocably tied to the project.

Warren decides that the only feasible means of widely disseminating their inhibitor is through the use of a contagion. He genetically modifies the Ebola virus to carry the inhibitor, against Clive's strong objections. Weeks later, however, the virus has mutated, reversing the inhibitor's effect—the Rage virus has been born. Frustrated, Warren lashes out at Clive for making a snide comment, and Clive quits on the spot. Later, he makes a call from a public telephone to an eco-terrorist group called the Animal Freedom Front, and then shoots himself in the head. This gives the reader an insight of how infection started and brought the devastation to Britain.

The story then shifts to Warren who is sitting at his desk talking to an unknown person on the telephone. Warren informs him that the inhibitor has had a reverse effect. The man enlightens Warren that this could have "other applications" when the telephone suddenly cuts out. Warren at this moment hears a strange noise coming from down the hall and seems distressed by it. He approaches a door noticing it was left open. Upon entering the door, Warren is abruptly ambushed by an ape who vomits in his face infecting him with "Rage".

[edit] Stage 2: Outbreak

The second story begins the day after the break-in at the laboratory. A family of five is picnicking at a park in Cambridge, bickering over trivial things. Youngest son Liam sees a chimpanzee in a tree; the ape assaults him and vomits blood in his face. The boy's father, Roger, subdues and kills the animal. A team of paramedics happens to be nearby, attending to a bicyclist with a minor injury. They rush to the aid of the boy and load him into their ambulance, instructing the family to follow in their own vehicle as they rush the child to a hospital in London. The family trailing the ambulance witness scenes of carnage along the way; the infection precedes them.

Inevitably, Liam becomes infected and infects the two paramedics riding with him. When the driver opens the ambulance's back doors, Liam and the paramedics assault him, and Liam's family realizes that something is terribly wrong.

Days later, the four surviving family members are hiding out in a barricaded dwelling in London. The news on the radio is dire, but the signal cuts to static. Elder son Sid suggests they try to escape to safety up the Thames. They reach Westminster Bridge with Infected hot on their trail. Parents Roger and Barb urge their children to jump down to the abandoned, but functional, motorboats floating below, promising to follow after. Instead, they remain on the bridge for a last stand, allowing Sid and Sophie to escape upriver undetected. John then gets infected...

[edit] Stage 3: Decimation

The third story takes place 29 to 32 days after the initial outbreak—roughly the same time as the bulk of 28 Days Later. A lone survivor named Hugh, decked out in a mishmash of protective clothing, has inherited London, and he spends his days hunting the Infected with a machete and an SA80 rifle he looted from a military blockade.

The comic begins with an infected attacking a person in silhouette only to find out it is a mannequin doused with perfume. This confirms that the Infected use their sense of smell to track humans and distinguish them from the horde. Among other things, trace amounts of chemical products such as shampoo and perfumes seem to attract the Infected.

Before Hugh can gloat, however, he is attacked by another survivor wearing SWAT gear and a hockey mask. Evading the assailant's hail of fire, Hugh makes for safety and plans to eliminate this apparent threat. Stocking up on ammunition (and perfume), Hugh sets out for the hunt.

After being ambushed by Hugh, the other survivor retreats to his vehicle—a commandeered military transport. Hugh douses the vehicle with about a gallon of perfume from his rooftop perch, and before the other survivor can question the meaning of the act, he is set upon by the horde, who infect him before tearing him apart. Hugh shoots the vehicle until he ignites its petrol tank, killing a large number of Infected. Behind him, though, he hears an unfamiliar sound and turns to see several US Navy F-14 Tomcats making a low pass over central London.

[edit] Stage 4: Quarantine

The final story takes place 38 to 42 days after the initial infection. Sid and his sister Sophie have reached a refugee center and been taken in. Sophie now volunteers at the makeshift hospital, where she meets a new arrival brought in from one of the city hospitals. It is Clive, who has survived his suicide attempt. He initially attempts to explain his involvement directly, but quickly decides to hide his responsibility. Instead, he explains what he can do about the virus, revealing only that he is a scientist himself.

Sid, meanwhile, becomes friends with another new arrival—Hugh. Hugh initially refused to be brought to the camp and he explains his misgivings to Sid. Eventually, Hugh is able to convince Sid, Sophie, and Clive that the military has ulterior motives and that they must escape. They steal some uniforms and weapons and they head for the hills, but they are detected. Sid and Hugh volunteer to remain behind to hold off the soldiers following them; they are both killed in a fusillade of gunfire.

Higher up the hill, Clive stops Sophie and reveals that he was on the team which developed the virus that killed her family and warns that it could possibly mutate again. He tries to ask her to help him find a way to make things right. Instead, Sophie kisses him, then shoots him in the head. Smiling, she drops her pistol, and allows a sniper aboard the pursuit helicopter to kill her with a rifle shot through the head.

Man stabbed and decapitated on bus in Canada

2008-08-01T14:40:00.002Z

A man who witnesses said repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded a male in what was possibly a random attack on a Greyhound bus last night is in custody.

RCMP said the man was arrested without incident by an emergency response team early this morning.

Police have not identified the attacker or victim.

All lanes of traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway remain closed west of Portage la Prairie as the RCMP investigated what they would only refer to as "a major incident" on the bus that was headed from Edmonton to Winnipeg.

The incident happened around 8:45 p.m. while the bus was in motion, about 20 km west of Portage. The driver then stopped the bus and horrified passengers ran out the front exit.

Garnet Caton, one of 37 passengers on the bus, said he witnessed the attack.

"We all heard this scream, this like blood-curdling scream," Caton told CBC Newsworld.

He said the suspect had a "large hunting knife" and repeatedly stabbed the victim "50 or 60 times."

"The attacker was calmy over top of the victim continually cutting him. I think the victim was gone at that point," Caton told the CBC.

He said the victim appeared to be sleeping before the attack and the suspect was not acting out of the ordinary.

The bus was evacuated, but Caton said he was one of a handful of witnesses who saw the suspect trying to behead the body.

The suspect later appeared at the front of the bus, he said.

"He calmly walked up to the front (of the bus) with (the victim's) head in his hand and the knife and then dropped the head in front of us," Caton said, adding he believes the suspect later returned to the back of the bus and was seen later "taunting police with the head in his hand out the window."

Caton said the suspect appeared calm.

"What struck me, it was like he was at the beach or something," he said.

A Sun Media reporter on the scene reported about three dozen people from the bus were standing outside the vehicle on the highway following the incident.

A female passenger said she heard screams and heard "there was a stabbing." "They told us to get off the bus," said the woman who did not provide her name.

Another woman at the scene said the passengers were being evacuated from one bus and loaded onto another waiting Greyhound bus.

At one point, Mounties surrounded the bus with one officer standing just a few feet away from an unidentified man sitting in the driver’s seat.

Abby Wambaugh, a spokeswoman for Greyhound Canada, said late Wednesday a management team would be waiting in Brandon to meet the passengers when they arrived "to take care of any needs they may have," including accommodation, transfers to other buses or even trauma counselling, if necessary.

With files from Canadian Press

A Cheery Poster on a London Bus

2008-07-31T11:21:00.003Z

RE : PREVIOUS POST 18 YEAR OLD BOTTLED

2008-07-30T09:01:00.002Z

You may be interested to learn that i have it on good authority that the reason why there are 51 staples in this person's head is because he needed neuro surgery because he received brain damage from this attack, not as the writer of the previous article states that the bottle attack caused this.

Still it is a pretty horrific attack on someone who merely became seperated from his friends on a night out.

18 YEAR OLD BOY BOTTLED IN MANCHESTER

2008-07-29T09:33:00.003Z

THESE horrific injuries are the result of an unprovoked attack on an 18-year-old boy who needed more than 50 staples to his head after he was viciously beaten with a glass bottle.

Daniel Powell from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was set upon by a gang of thugs after he became separated from his friends on a night out.

It is then believed that the gang cruelly attacked the teenager - without any provocation - with the butt of a glass bottle.

Daniel suffered a fractured skull, bleeding to his brain and needed 51 staples to his head following surgery.

The severity of the teenager's injuries means he cannot provide the police with the accurate information they need to catch his attackers, as he barely remembers the incident.
The teenager needed 51 staples to his head

The 18-year-old victim cannot remember exactly what bar he was in or provide a description of his attackers.

Police believe he was in a bar on Yorkshire Street in Oldham when he was attacked, around 2.45am on Sunday July 20th.

Daniel does remember a woman, who police want to trace, giving him first aid after he collapsed.

Det Con Jed Stubbs, from Greater Manchester Police said: “The victim was enjoying a night out with his friends when he was brutally assaulted with a glass bottle.

Chinese Olympic Football Stadium is where China paraded "traitors"

2008-07-28T18:08:00.002Z

One of Beijing's Olympic stadiums was used for mass sentencing rallies where handcuffed prisoners were paraded in front of jeering mobs before being executed, it emerged today.

Crowds cheered at the Beijing Workers' Stadium as "traitors" to the Chinese Government were humiliated before being removed and shot.

The 64,000 seat venue, which will host the football tournament for the Games, has been hailed as the pride of Beijing, along with several other spectacular arenas across the city.

The venue, which was China's national stadium before the "Bird's Nest" arena was among the stadiums used for rallies during China's Cultural Revolution of 1966 - 1976. The Shows which would last for up to an hour saw prisoners - who were often human rights prisoners - handcuffed , made to bow to officials and sometimes beaten. In 1970, human rights protester Yu Luoke, 27 , was paraded in front of a screaming mob at the Workers' Stadium and executed after leaving the venue.

A West Hampstead Teacher (London) Xia Ze, 52, whose cousin died in the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989, said"As a child I was made to watch sentencing rallies with my school. They were awful. I remember one man who was struggling was kicked by officials"

2 English women try to open door on plane whilst in flight

2008-07-26T17:20:00.003Z

BERLIN (AP) - Two drunken British women went on a rampage on a charter plane, hitting one flight attendant with a bottle of vodka and trying to open a cabin door as the aircraft was cruising over Austria at 10,000 meters (32,800 feet), police said Saturday.
The staff on the flight from Greece to England eventually
forced the women back to their seats and the pilot made an emergency in Frankfurt on Thursday, police told The Associated Press, confirming a statement they had issued on Friday.
The identities of the women, aged 26 and 27, were not released, but police said the 26-year-old may be charged with attempted assault and interfering with air traffic.
Both women were released, police said.
The rampage occurred when a flight attendant denied the women alcohol because they were visibly intoxicated, police said. The 26-year-old took a swipe at a cabin attendant with a bottle of vodka, then attempted to open a cabin door.
«Apparently the 26-year-old wanted to catch some fresh air,» the statement said, apparently attempting to make light of the altercation.
The two women were taken into custody by police at the Frankfurt airport and given a breathalyzer test. Both were legally intoxicated.

After an hour in Frankfurt, the flight continued on to Manchester, England.

The Biggest Foreign Aid Recipient is ....

2008-07-26T12:29:00.002Z

Originally published 09:08 p.m., May 9, 2006, updated 12:00 a.m., May 10, 2006

Which country receives the most in total foreign aid from all donors? The official numbers show Iraq at the top with $3 to $18 billion in aid (depending on how you define "aid") and all the other recipient nations of the world at less than $3 billion per year. However, if you look at which nation benefits most from foreign subsidies, the U.S. would come out on top by a very wide margin.

Yes, I did just say that the U.S. is the world's largest recipient of foreign assistance. Other countries are not sending official government "aid" dollars to help the U.S. but are doing things that have the same effect. For instance, China provides the biggest single subsidy to the U.S.

Many experts argue the Chinese currency is 10 percent to 20 percent undervalued, which means the U.S. consumer is able to purchase Chinese-made goods at a lower price than if the currency traded at its true market value to the U.S. dollar. If an American can buy a Chinese-made product at Wal-Mart for an artificially low price, it means the American consumer has an increase in real income (he or she can buy more with the same income).

In 2005, the U.S. bought (imported) $243 billion worth of goods from China. If these goods were only 10 percent underpriced because of the artificially low Chinese currency, U.S. consumers received a subsidy of about $24 billion.

Other countries' consumers also received the Chinese subsidy to the extent they bought Chinese goods, but the U.S., as China's biggest customer, received the greatest subsidy. The Chinese underprice their currency because they are trying to increase exports to obtain U.S. dollars and other foreign currencies. In turn, China's government uses many of the dollars to buy U.S. government bonds to serve as the reserve for its banking system. If the Chinese had a more efficient banking and capital market structure, they would not need so many dollars.

For now, foreign ownership of U.S. government debt equals about 45 percent of that held by the public (not including U.S. government agencies). Of the little more than $2 trillion held by non-Americans, the Japanese hold about a third and the Chinese about 12 percent. If non-Americans did not buy much U.S. government debt, Americans would need to both save more and consume less to make up the deficit.

To the extent non-Americans are willing to invest in U.S. government debt and other U.S. financial instruments at less than normal market returns because they need a safe haven for their funds, they provide an implicit subsidy to American producers and consumers. Since it costs less for American businesses to borrow money because of the foreign investment, they can expand more rapidly and hire more workers. If American consumers can borrow at lower rates, they can buy bigger houses and more new cars.

There are various approaches to try measuring the size of the implicit foreign subsidy. At a minimum, it would be the difference between the normal rate of interest (approximately 3 percent plus inflation) and what foreign bond holders have been receiving in recent years, which is at least 1 percent to 2 percent below the expected normal rate.

Thus on the U.S. government debt alone, Americans have been receiving a subsidy from non-Americans in the range of $20 billion to $40 billion yearly. This does not count all the feedback effects from the higher investment in productive activities by foreigners in America because of currency flight.

Many commentators and politicians decry the size of the U.S. trade deficit and the level of foreign ownership of U.S. financial assets. Rather than bashing the Chinese, U.S. politicians should thank them for making Americans richer.

In fact, if the U.S. did not serve as safe haven for the world's capital, the world would be far more unstable, and the total global capital stock would be lower. The correct way to look at the situation is that U.S. citizens are getting paid by the rest of the world for providing stronger, more secure, and more transparent capital markets.

The correct "solution" for the problem is for the other nations to strengthen protection of property rights, reduce corruption, stop punishing capital accumulation through excessive taxation and regulation and improve their own capital markets. If this is done, the U.S. trade and capital imbalances automatically will gradually decline.

The IMF has just been given the task to work on trade and capital imbalances. It will be interesting to see if it focuses its energy on helping the capital-flight countries improve their economic policies (by lowering taxes and regulations and improving property-rights protection) or if it tries to force lower tax jurisdictions to adopt capital-destroying tax and regulatory policies.

In the meantime, the lesson is clear: Any economic jurisdiction can obtain "foreign aid," no matter how rich it is, just by providing the rule of law, secure property rights, low taxation and regulation of productive activities, and well-functioning capital markets.

Richard W. Rahn is director general of the Center for Global Economic Growth, a project of the FreedomWorks Foundation.

PICTURES OF MOD AQUILA

2008-07-25T13:56:00.002Z

Returning to the cold interiors of the block we were nosing around, it was a little sobering to discover a decontamination shower at the back of the building. Obviously for quick emergencies, such showers would’ve been lifesavers; and we’d find evidence of the sort of chemicals being used on the site in the next couple of rooms.

More photos can be seen by clicking this link:Simon Cornwell Photos Of MOD Aquila