are we going to witness what is happening to children in our world, or not?

1. Slowly, the awful truth emerges

UK News Paper, the News of the World:

Exclusive Report on Jersey Child Abuse disaster.

Today’s edition of the News of the World, a UK newspaper, leads with an exclusive report on the States of Jersey Police investigation into child abuse in Jersey.

...
Innocent children WERE raped, murdered and their bodies then BURNT in a FURNACE at the Jersey House of Horrors, says a top-secret police report into the scandal.

News of the World investigation reveals cops have shocking new evidence of how the killings were COVERED UP at the Haut de la Garenne care home.

Our chilling revelations come as officers prepare to hand over their damning dossier from Britain's biggest ever child abuse probe to the island's States of Jersey authorities.

read more @ stuart syvret blog


2. NOBODY CAME - the story of brothers abused in a Jersey care home

At Haut de la Garenne, "Robbie finds himself in a nightmarish world of casual brutality, where physical and sexual bullying is commonplace and where the depraved lusts of certain members of staff are given free rein in ritualistic orgies of abuse...

"There are unexplained disappearances, and one of Robbie's friends is driven to suicide." - Nobody Came by Robbie Garner and Toni Maguire, a review

"The two boys were eventually transferred to Haut de la Garenne, a place where sick twisted minds had devised even more tortuous methods of sexually abusing the helpless.

read more @ aangirfan


3. poor staff vetting at children's homes

Almost a third of children's residential centres inspected by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) last year had not vetted all their staff properly, according to a new report.

The report, published today by Hiqa, said residential centres must obtain three references for all staff prior to them commencing work in the childcare sector and all employees must also get Garda clearance.

During inspections of 38 centres during 2008, Hiqa found 12 of them did not have three references on file for all employees and three centres did not have Garda clearance for a number of employees before they started work.

read more @ irish times

4. child prostitution rampant on Brazilian highways

At least 1,819 places on Brazilian highways have been identified by the police where minor girls and teens offer sex to truck drivers, says a new report.

The report based on a police study added Tuesday that every 26.7 km stretch along these highways have spots where minors offer sex for as little as 2 reais ($1.10).

A map prepared with the help of the International Labour Organisation shows the likely places for child prostitution. It includes all the petrol pumps, bars, restaurants and night spots along the highways. Many minors have been caught offering sex at these spots, the report said.

read more @ brazil news


do you get that? MINORS have been caught OFFERING sex. Bad minors, bad bad bad. Why would they do that hmmn??? WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO PAY FOR THE SEX???? HAVE THEY BEEN CAUGHT TOO????? - ed.

5. campaign to combat sexism, improve men's health care launched in Brazil

A campaign aimed to combat sexism and improve men's health care was launched on Tuesday in Brazil's northeastern city of Recife.

The campaign, entitled "Machismo and Health don't Match", encourages men to seek health care when symptoms appear in a bid to facilitate early diagnosis of diseases, said campaign coordinator Mariana Azevedo.

"Some men do not seek the service when disease appears. They allow the disease to become more severe and do not go to the doctor because they don't want to admit they feel pain or weakness", she said, adding that health services need to treat men differently.

The campaign, which will last until Wednesday, has drawn some 6,000 participants, including students, health professionals and researchers.

source


6. pedophile beheaded in Saudi Arabia

A man in Saudi Arabia is to be beheaded and crucified after he raped five children and left one of them, a three-year-old boy, to die in the desert.

An appeal court in the capital Riyadh approved the death sentence handed down in June by judges in the northwestern oasis city of Hail where the convicted 22-year-old man carried out his crimes.

The rapist - who was not named - was arrested several weeks ago as he tried to seize another boy after offering him a ride home from school. The seven-year-old - who escaped unharmed - helped identify the culprit.

The man’s victims were aged between three and seven. He was said to have lured them into his car as they left school at midday and then drove them to remote desert locations to rape them.

read more @ daily mail

EU: the unstoppable train to someplace not good

1. Czech president Klaus signs Lisbon treaty

PRAGUE, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Tuesday signed the Lisbon Treaty shortly after the country's top court approved the pact, removing the last obstacle to full ratification of the treaty.
...
Klaus, who likened the treaty and the EU reform to "an unstoppable train," said he would sign it after an EU summit allowed an opt-out for the Czech Republic from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

read more @ chinaview



2. 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU is a reincarnation of the former Soviet Union

By Hans Vogel

Now that the Czech Republic has announced it will ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the EU will be even closer yet to becoming a unified monster state, with more than half a billion inhabitants. Inhabitants is the correct term, since “citizens” would indicate a set of political rights. The people living in the EU should rather be called “subjects,” since they have no influence whatsoever on the constitution of the centralized European government, the “European Commission.” The Europeans are allowed to vote for members of the European Parliament, but this body has about as much political power as the ineffectual German parliament meeting at Frankfurt in 1848. Political power in the EU is firmly in the hands of the European Commission, which is set to obtain even more power under the Lisbon Treaty. This infamous treaty does not hold the peoples of Europe in high regard. As a matter of fact, it is only halfway through the treaty (originally presented as a “Constitution”) that one finds the first references to the people.

read more @ pravda

3. Swedish relief, let's get started dishing out the perks

The Swedish EU presidency can begin its hunt for a new EU Council president after Czech President Vaclav Klaus put pen to paper on Tuesday to make his country the last in the union to sign the Lisbon Treaty.

...

The Swedish PM, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, added that he would call an EU summit shortly and would "now begin name consultations" among the 27 member states on who to choose as the first EU Council president and the foreign policy high representative which the treaty creates.

read more @ the local

4. Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder, by R.J. Rummel

This is my fourth book in a series on genocide and government mass murder, what I call democide. The previous works concentrated on the four regimes that have committed the most democide, specifically the Soviet Union, Nationalist China under Chiang Kai-shek, communist China, and Nazi Germany.¹ This study includes the core results of those works in addition to all other cases of democide in this century up to 1987.²

Given the extent and detail of these books, the reader may be surprised that the primary purpose was not to describe democide itself, but to determine its nature and amount in order to test the theory that democracies are inherently nonviolent. They should have no wars between them, the least foreign violence and government related or directed domestic violence (revolutions, coups, guerrilla war, and the like), and relatively little domestic democide. I have substantiated the war, foreign, and domestic violence parts of this theory in previous works³ and took up the research associated with this book and its three predecessors in order to test the democide component. As will be seen, the results here clearly and decisively show that democracies commit less democide than other regimes. These results also well illustrate the principle underlying all my findings on war, collective violence, and democide, which is that the less freedom people have the more violence, the more freedom the less violence. I put this here as the Power Principle: power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.

read more here

it's almost funny how bad these people behave

1. Israel preparing public for new war in Gaza

Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, director of Military Intelligence, announced Tuesday that Hamas launched a rocket some 60 kilometers into the sea, apparently as an experiment. Such a rocket, if fired from the northernmost point of the Gaza Strip, could strike the southern cities of the Gush Dan area - including Rishon Letzion, Holon and Bat Yam - and possibly reach as far as Tel Aviv itself.

Although Yadlin didn't specify the type of the weapon used, it appears to be a standard, foreign-made rocket smuggled into Gaza. Yadlin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Israeli Defense Committee that Hamas has accumulated an arsenal of rockets slightly larger than the arsenal it possessed before last winter's Operation Cast Lead.

...
Israeli military sources claimed that despite the improved rockets, Hamas' ability to launch missiles into central Israel is limited, but added that it was only a matter of time before this ability is improved, with Iran's support.

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The rocket was fired in rough weather, apparently in an attempt to hide the experiment from Israeli eyes. But Israel's radar installations registered the launch, even if the exact spot where the missile hit the sea is unknown. Israel believes Hamas considers the new rocket a strategic asset, a "doomsday weapon" of sorts, and therefore avoided publicizing the experimental launch, in the hope of using the weapon as a surprise during some later confrontation.

perhaps you might consider apparently reading more, possibly, @ al manar tv



2. Obama: Iran "must choose" it's future path - (from the one option we are providing wink wink)...and if Iran doesn't "choose" the "right path" we will have "no choice" but to look at all our "options" which will be "on the table"

Iran "must choose" whether to open the door to opportunity and prosperity, President Barack Obama said Wednesday in a statement marking 30 years since the storming of the US embassy in Tehran. "We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for," Obama said. "It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity and justice for its people."

read more @ al manar tv


3. pure psyops: SITE: qaeda blasts Saudi king

RIYADH - The US-based SITE reported that Yemen-based branch of Al-Qaeda has slammed Saudi King Abdullah for launching the kingdom's first mixed public university.

"The father of the daughter or the brother of the sister or the husband of the wife, how can they accept that these (women enroll) in this university," said Ibrahim al-Rubaish, a Saudi member of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), according to a transcript issued late on Tuesday by SITE, a US-based monitoring group.

read more @ middle east online

AQ bad, Saudi king good according to SITE. ok? ok. check. - ed.


4. Steny Hoyer really really doesn't like that Goldstone report

The US House of Representatives was expected to easily approve a sharply worded resolution Tuesday denouncing a UN report that Israel and Palestinian militants committed war crimes in the Gaza war.

...
"I'm going to vote emphatically for it," said Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "I think the UN report is unbalanced, and unfair, and inaccurate. "It's unfortunate that the United Nations deals with Israel, in my opinion, in a totally biased and unbalanced way. And it is the only country in the world, Israel, that has a special focus by the United Nations," he added.

...
The resolution, crafted by Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, expressed support for the Obama administration's condemnation of the report and urges opposition to its findings in any international forum.

...Hoyer claimed that rocket fire from Palestinian fighters in Gaza had placed Israel in "an unfortunate position" and stressed that Israel "is as careful a government as there is in terms of prosecuting its own defense" officials.

read more @ al manar tv


5. Syria visiting Iran, Iran visiting Saudi Arabia

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hassan Qashqavi, announced on Wednesday that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem will visit Tehran on Wednesday.

Qashqavi said that the Syrian FM’s visit to Iran is in line with the “ongoing communication and coordination on the regional level between high-level officials in the two countries,” describing Syrian-Iranian relations as “brotherly and strong.”

The Iranian news agency Mehr also reported on Wednesday that Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki is expected to visit Saudi Arabia this week to resolve the issue of Iranian pilgrims after calls have been made not to politicize Hajj.

source: al manar tv


6. Israel raided German ship

Israeli Navy captured a German ship Francop in the Mediterranean. Among its hundreds of containers, the ship transported a few with weapons, allegedly transported from Iran to Syria.

The US spotted the ship, but allowed Israel to intercept it to avoid disrupting Obama’s dialogue with Tehran.

Technically, Israeli actions constitute a blatant act of piracy, which once again testifies to idealism and inapplicability of international law in time of war.

Hijacking a foreign ship for routine deliveries of small arms and Katjyusha rockets would be too much. The explanation lies in a terse official announcement that the cargo included anti-aircraft batteries “not seen in the region before.”

source: http://samsonblinded.org/news/israel-raided-german-ship-14463

Africa up next, count on it

1. FIMA 2009: the new international fashion trend will be African

The seventh edition of the International Festival of African Fashion (FIMA) 2009, ended Sunday in Niger. This latest edition focused on the professionalism and talent of African designers, as it also marks the beginning of a much needed awareness about the urgency of promoting the economic role of the fashion industry.

African fashion is doing well and is gearing up to hit the international scene. This leitmotiv has become the driving force for both established designers and young artists alike who took part in the "L’Afrique est à la mode — Africa is fashionable," competition, organized by Culturesfrance, at the 2009 International Festival of African Fashion (FIMA). A flood of creativity and know-how flooded "La Pilule", the chosen site for the seventh edition of FIMA, situated at the Gorou Kirey village, 15 km outside Niamey, the capital of Niger.

read more @ afrik.com


2. scramble for Africa: Brazil gaining on China

By Ed Cropley, African Investment Correspondent

China is leading the pack in the 21st century 'scramble for Africa' but anybody who thinks Beijing has the continent sewn up need only glance at the passport of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

By the time he first visited the European Union in 2007, four years after coming to office, Lula had racked up six trips to Africa, covering 16 countries.

Then, in July, he was guest of honour at an African Union summit in Libya, a reminder to Beijing ahead of its second Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Egypt on November 8-9 that it is not alone in courting the continent and its raw materials.

Reflecting Lula's push, Brazil's annual trade with Africa has jumped from $3.1-billion (R24,5-billion) in 2000 to $26.3-billion last year, a rate of growth outpaced only by China, which has seen two-way commerce soar tenfold this decade to $107-billion.

China has now eclipsed the United States as the continent's biggest trading partner.

"The balance of commercial power has shifted entirely," said Martyn Davies of Frontier Advisory, a South Africa-based consultancy for investors in emerging African markets.

"This is not something new - it's just been accelerated by the economic crisis. It's towards inter-emerging market trade, rather than the traditional north-south trade."

It is not only Brazil and China that are muscling in on Africa. The two other members of the so-called BRICs grouping - India and Russia - are also setting up stall in a region that for generations European powers regarded as their own back yard.

read more @ iol

working the knobs

1. control over NYC: Bloomberg wins third term as mayor

NEW YORK, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg won a third term on Tuesday after defeating his Democratic challenger Bill Thompson.

Bloomberg, an independent candidate, had successfully persuaded the City Council to amend a law that would have restricted him to two terms, and spent some 90 million dollars of his personal fortune on his campaign.

It was the fifth straight defeat for the Democrats, who, despite a massive registration advantage, have not captured the mayorship since 1989. Bloomberg, born on Feb. 14, 1942, is the richest man of New York City with a fortune of 16 billion dollars. He is also the founder and 88-percent owner of Bloomberg L.P., a financial news company.

source: chinaview


2. control over the food supply chain: Buffett buys out second largest US railroad company

NEW YORK, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Renowned investor Warren Buffett has put his biggest bet on Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp (BNSF), second largest U.S. railroad company, according to a statement released on Tuesday.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will pay 100 dollars per share in cash for the 78 percent of BNSF that it has not already owned, which comes to a total of 34 billion U.S. dollars. The price is 31.5 percent premium on BNSF's closing price on Monday.

read more @ chinaview

3. control over ideas: a personal interest in creating and fostering international academic links

He’s a New York Jew who speaks fluent Irish and is an expert in the anthropology of Irish Catholicism. Now, he’s making international connections for NUI Maynooth, writes GRÁINNE FALLER

excerpts:

A well-known anthropologist and writer, Taylor quickly made his mark in the office and, after a year as dean, was promoted to vice president at the beginning of this academic year. Universities are now working on a global stage. Smaller universities in particular can punch well above their weight in certain areas thanks to collaborations and partnerships with international counterparts. “That was a signal to the universities and the people he goes to see that he truly can speak on behalf of the university,” commented one source.

In many ways, the job could have been made for Taylor. As an anthropologist, he was accustomed to dealing with people and different cultures. He had a large amount of international experience under his belt and importantly, according to those who know him, Taylor makes friends easily and recognises the importance of personal friendships and connections in the larger business of university collaboration.

...
Learning the Irish language was just one element that allowed him to get under the skin of the community, but it was an important one. He developed a fascination in particular with the role of the Catholic Church and the priest in the community and gradually, that took over as his main area of research.

...
By the time he reached Maynooth, Taylor’s research focus had shifted from Ireland to the US-Mexico border, an area in which he is still working today.


read more @ irish times

accidentally on purpose

1. Delaware, Cayman Islands and London City among "most secretive tax havens"

A league table of the world’s most secretive tax havens has been compiled by campaigners seeking greater transparency about the operation of ‘offshore’ finance centres. The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) analyses the level of secrecy each haven offers, and the extent of their reluctance to co-operate with other countries tax authorities.

These factors give each haven an ‘Opacity Score’ which is then combined with a weighting that reflects the scale of the cross-border financial activity the haven hosts, to determine its ‘financial secrecy’ ranking. According to the index, the most secretive havens are: (1) USA (Delaware); (2) Luxembourg; (3) Switzerland; (4) Cayman Islands; (5) United Kingdom (London).

h/t incoming

read more @ merco press


2. Knesset agrees: Jews must not work

As if some 360,000 migrant workers were not enough for the country, the Knesset Committee for Foreign Workers promised to expedite visas for additional scores of Thai workers.

The state pays unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands Israelis.

source: http://samsonblinded.org/news/knesset-agrees-jews-must-not-work-14471


3. piles of stolen airport bags found in US couple's house

Two people suspected of stealing up to 1000 pieces of luggage from baggage claim carousels at Phoenix's airport have been arrested by police who found heaps of the stolen bags strewn throughout their home.

There were so many suitcases that Phoenix police could only give a rough estimate of their number as they pulled them out one by one and gathered them in the yard of Keith Wilson King and Stacy Lynne Legg-King's suburban residence.

"A piece of luggage here, a piece of luggage there, I would imagine gets stolen out of airports all the time," Phoenix police Detective James Holmes said. "This is a livelihood. There's a lot of luggage and there's a lot of victims."

King, 61, and Legg-King, 38, were arrested on Monday local time, and each was booked into jail on charges of theft of property and possession of stolen property. Legg-King also was arrested on suspicion of tampering with evidence. It was not immediately clear how the two are related.

read more @ independent


4. Swedish intelligence agency hit by IT attack

A cyber attack knocked out the website of a Swedish intelligence agency on Monday, just days after several Swedish media outlets and the police were hit by similar attacks.

The National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt – FRA) was bombarded with email sent from a large number of computers in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.
...
While FRA’s primary mission is to help other government agencies avoid cyber attacks, Bölenius denied that the attack against FRA constituted an embarrassment for the agency. “No, it’s not the least bit embarrassing. DoS attacks are almost impossible to defend against,” she told TT.

The agency’s chief spokesperson warned that such attacks are happening with increasing frequency.

read more @ the local


5. teenager killed by mast of millionaire's boat in freak car accident

A millionaire businessman killed a teenage girl when the mast of a boat he was towing struck her in the head like a 'lance in a medieval joust', a court heard today. Sarah James, 19, suffered horrific injuries when the 'loose' 20ft dinghy mast smashed through the windscreen of the car she was travelling in, a jury was told.

Company director Mark Tissiman, 48, had attached the boat to a trailer behind his £40,000 Range Rover Sport after a sailing compeition on the idyllic Chelmarsh Reservoir, in Shropshire.

...

'The mast should have been secured to the dinghy so it wouldn't come away, but the standard in which this boat was prepared falls far below what a competent person would do in this case.'

Tissiman, an experienced sailor, had bought the boat just four weeks before the accident, the court heard.

The jury was told that he did not use enough rope to tie it to the trailer. The clutch, a mechanism to keep the dinghy in place, was also slack, it was alleged.

Tissiman only realised there had been a crash when he looked in his mirror 100 yards down the road, the court heard.

read more @ daily mail

flu mutating in Ukraine??

1. reports of mystery illness ripping through Ukraine

Tonight the nation of Ukraine is in an absolute state of panic as a mystery illness rips through that country. Some reports are claiming that this mystery illness is a more virulent form of the H1N1 swine flu. Other reports are linking the mystery illness with typhus, ebola hemorrhagic fever or even the pneumonic plague. What all the media reports do agree on is that an epidemic is devastating Ukraine tonight and that a wave of panic is sweeping over that nation. The following is a list of many of the most recent reports that we have received regarding this outbreak. Hopefully there will be additional reports that will clarify the situation in Ukraine over the next 24 hours...

read more @ the bird flu pandemic


2. aangirfan: flue and elections in Ukraine

The Ukraine has flu and elections.

Flu has meant that campaigning for Ukraine's presidential contest in January 2010 has been postponed.

"Observers said the far-reaching moves to combat the illness are partly rooted in the political rivalry between Victor Yushchenko, president, and Yulia Tymoshenko, his prime minister, with each trying to outdo the other in the handling of the outbreak." (Ukraine acts to fight swine flu)

On 2 November 2009, dprogram reported "An order from President Yushchenko is expected soon that will effectively place Ukraine under 'martial law'." (Panic in Ukraine, Authorities deny aircraft are spraying aerosols over cities, Martial Law expected)

Yushchenko is seen as being pro-USA and anti-Russia.

read more @ aangirfan


3. Brother Nathanael: Obama's prelude to Martial Law - 'swine flu emergency'

putting the eggs in Klaus's basket didn't work out so good - go tell the judge - ooh nevermind!

1. grassroots backlash over EU

David Cameron was facing a backlash today over plans to scrap holding a referendum on the controversial Lisbon Treaty if the Tories win power.

The Tory leader is expected to set out his plans tomorrow after the Czech Constitutional Court finally cleared the treaty, removing the last legal obstacle to ratification.

The country's hardline Euro-sceptic President Vaclav Klaus has yet to sign - but Mr Cameron appeared resigned to the fact that it now was little more than a formality.

'I'm very disappointed about that,' he told London's LBC Radio.

...

Two years ago, Mr Cameron offered a 'cast iron guarantee' that the party would put the treaty - the successor to the abandoned European constitution - to a vote in a referendum.

But he has repeatedly refused to say what he would do if - as now seems almost certain to be the case - the treaty has been fully ratified by the time a Tory government takes office, saying only that he would 'not let matters rest'.

read more @ daily mail


2. more of the same... how did this happen?????

excerpt:

The Conservative leader made his move following a decision from the Czech constitutional court that is likely to lead to the treaty being implemented throughout the European Union within days.

Saying that he was "very disappointed" by the Czech court decision, Cameron implied that, if the treaty does come into force, the Tories will drop their proposal to put it to a referendum.

...

The Eurosceptic MP Richard Shepherd also urged Cameron not to abandon his plans for a referendum. "It's a matter of principle, honour and trust," Shepherd told the London Evening Standard.

"The political class seem indifferent to allowing the people to express their own view on something as profound as the development of Europe."

read more @ guardian


3. oh those judges! sometimes they can be corrupt you know.

The immigration judge who had a 'chilli hot' affair with his illegally-employed Brazilian cleaner has died just a day after he retired.

Mohammed Ilyas Khan, 64, was forced to stand down after a blackmail case revealed he was involved in a love triangle with Roselane Driza, 40, and a woman judge.

The lurid trial, which included allegations of sex videos and drug-taking, led to calls for him to be sacked for bringing the judiciary into disrepute.

The judge, from North London, retired on Saturday and died a day later, it emerged today.

read more @ daily mail

miscellaneous craziness

1. Israeli police name murderer of family of six

TEL AVIV, November 3 (RIA Novosti) - Israeli police have arrested the murderer of a family of six, a police spokesman told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

Thirty-eight-year-old Russian immigrant Dmitry Karlik has confessed to killing six members of the Usherenko family, including a three-month-old baby and his four-year-old sister, in Rishon LeZion on October 17.

Karlik (whose surname means 'dwarf' in Russian) hails from Russia's Urals city of Chelyabinsk.

The Usherenkos had moved from Tajikistan and had been running a restaurant. Karlik, a former employee in the family's business, was fired in 2007 over the theft of alcoholic drinks.

Karlik has already confessed to the murder. His wife and sister have also been taken into custody. The latter is suspected of having passed the key from the Usherenkos' house to her brother.

The investigation into the case, one of the most horrific murders in the history of modern Israel, has been under personal control of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch.

o_O WHY????

source: ria novosti

2. 1.5 million evangelicals march in Brazil

SAO PAULO — About 1.5 million evangelical Christians joined Brazil's annual "March for Jesus" on Monday, an event sponsored by a church whose leaders recently returned after being imprisoned in the U.S. for money smuggling.

Now in its 17th year, the march unites faithful from hundreds of evangelical churches and attracts dozens of Christian bands, preachers and local celebrities.

It is organized by the powerful Reborn in Christ Church, whose leaders said they had hoped to draw 5 million people to gather around a central Sao Paulo plaza where the main stage was located.

Hundreds of thousands followed Estevam Hernandes Filho and his wife, Sonia Haddad Moraes Hernandes, along the 2.5-mile route of the march, and still more gathered at the plaza.

...The couple returned to Brazil in August after serving five months in prison, five months under house arrest in Florida and two months of probation for not declaring $56,000 in cash they were carrying on a flight from Sao Paulo to Miami. The money was hidden a child's backpack and a Bible case, among other bags.

read more @ deseret news

nobody should be surprised at this "development" in the Middle East "peace" "process"

1. Obama team loses face on Israeli settlements

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration must devise a fresh plan to restart Arab-Israeli peace talks after losing face with a backtracking on its demands for a full Jewish settlement freeze, analysts said Monday.

President Barack Obama's team has disappointed many Palestinians and other Arabs who long for it to fulfill both its initial tough stance on settlements and a broader pledge to improve ties with the Muslim world, they said.
...
Obama, in failing to deliver on settlements, seems to have reinforced the Arab narrative that the "Americans are all in the pockets of the Zionists," according to Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"It's not going to be easy, but we need to find some way to change topic," Clawson said when asked about how the US can revive talks.


OH YES! Changing the topic always does the trick, doesn't it? That's what THIS is for: http://www.newsweek.com/media/70/tip_report.pdf - ed.

read more @ middle east online


2. US about faces on Israeli-Palestinian "peace" approach

JERUSALEM, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli and Palestinian publics are now well aware that there is a new reality on the ground: the Americans believe it is time for the Palestinians to show good faith and come to the negotiating table. This became unmistakably clear during the latest visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the region over the weekend.

Washington is placing less pressure on the Israelis over the much-hyped settlements issue, while expecting the Palestinians to make the next move. For the best part of the year, the U.S. government under President Barack Obama had sided with the Palestinians in calling for a total freeze of Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Analysts are now trying to understand what brought about the Obama administration's U-turn, and also being examined is the role the media is playing in the labyrinthine peace process.

God what a sick joke they make out of people's lives. read more @ chinaview


3. Israel's unspoken nuclear leverage - analysis

excerpt:

Would Israel actually go so far as to nuke Iran? Izziehuggers say no. Lovers of Israel cherish their blinders and work hard to keep them functioning. Here are some facts about Zionism and Israel stripped of the inspiring Exodus soundtrack.

Israel is based on ideological and religious fanaticism which is backed by radical Judaism. Islamic radicals have nothing on Jewish radicals. The Jews were the first to bring modern terror tactics to the Mideast. They started in Palestine in the 1920s with terrorist bombings and assassinations and graduated to kidnapping people and publicly executing them to the cheers of their fellow Zionists.

...

I observe and report. I do not explain. Many true things cannot be explained logically. Facts remain facts explained or not.

If you believe the ideological, religious fanatics in Iran would nuke Israel then you must also believe the ideological religious fanatics in Israel would do the same.

read the whole thing @ political theatrics

UK-Russian ties fester - links back to Georgia the Israeli puppet state

1. Miliband met by icy reception on debut mission to Moscow

As Mr Miliband and Mr Lavrov met yesterday there was pointedly no talk of "pressing the reset button" with Russia in the same way that the administration of Barack Obama has done since the US President took office. It was instead made clear that the important differences between the countries would not simply go away, but that focus should be put on the areas – most notably the economy – where common interests are aligned.

Not only does Britain have the worst relationship with Russia of any major Western country, but there is also little love lost between the two ministers themselves. Mr Lavrov was alleged to have subjected Mr Miliband to an obscenity-filled tirade over the telephone, shortly after Russia's war with Georgia last year.

read more @ independent


2. David Miliband's tour of Moscow - opinion

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) - An attempt to add a bit more warmth to the relations between Russia and Britain during the visit of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to Moscow and his talks with Sergei Lavrov on November 2 seems to have gotten off on the wrong foot. From all appearances, Russian-British relations will remain in limbo until next summer.

...

The personal relationship between Mr. Miliband and Mr. Lavrov could not be worse. The British even assert that last September Mr. Lavrov allegedly lashed out at Mr. Miliband saying he would not listen to his preaching and reprimands in a telephone conversation initiated by his British counterpart right after the war in South Ossetia started. Moscow asserts this never happened. Knowing Mr. Lavrov as a diplomat, this hardly seems likely. In the diplomatic community, he is considered experienced and skillful. However, knowing Mr. Lavrov as a person, it's very easy to believe.

read more @ ria novosti


also see several stories at pravda - this seems to be covered better from the Russian side

corruption in Thailand linked to bigger picture

1. a bank's insolvency, in retrospect - opinion

The writer is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. This two-part article will conclude tomorrow.

excerpts:

Had Mr Krirkkiat and his BBC lieutenants concentrated on debt recovery, consolidated their loan portfolios and emphasised quality lending from around 1988 onwards, the BBC's crisis in the 1990s could have been averted. Yet the bank's financial position and operational performance were chronically weak because it traditionally served a handful of elite, well-connected families.

...

In some cases, the overdrafts were also obtained by politicians to purchase obscure provincial land plots, whose prices were then inflated and put up as collateral at the BBC for yet more loans. The overvaluation of land was a by-product of the country's property boom at the time.

In other cases, such as the City Trading Corp., BBC loans were simply redirected to off-shore personal bank accounts.

During the three years after the Song scandal until late 1995 when the BBC's problematic balance sheets came into the public spotlight, the bank's financial schemes both on-shore and off-shore developed into a complex web of bank loans extended to questionable local and foreign individuals and companies for the share price manipulation of the SET and other fraudulent transactions both in Thailand and abroad.

read more @ bangkok post

2. no simplistic solution to the southern conflict - opinion

excerpt:

Gen Chavalit seems too optimistic, too certain that the southern problem can be easily solved with just the idea of giving some sort of local self-government to the people down there. Moreover, despite all the recent hype about semi-autonomy as suggested by the Malaysian premier, which was accepted in principle by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, and now embraced by Gen Chavalit, we are yet to hear the voices of the people in the three southernmost provinces. Do they really support the idea? Do they truly believe it would bring an end to the spiraling violence?

Then there are the militants themselves. No one seems to have a clue who their bosses are, or about their real objectives.

Would these violence-pronet trouble-makers accept the idea of a semi-autonomus Pattani City, or would they demand a totally independent state for the largely Muslim region?

We are yet to hear their voices on this or any other settlement proposal.

And then there are the other criminal elements who also prey on the people in the far South and are responsible for much of the violence -- to the extent that it is difficult to deferentiate which incidents are committed by separatist militants and which by criminal thugs pushing their own agenda..

read more @ bangkok post

3. surveillance plan grounded

Equipping the airship bought in the US for patrol and surveillance work in the lower South with a pair of state-of-the-art spy cameras will face further delays, the army says.

Spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd yesterday said deployment had been complicated by the US reluctance to supply the two high-resolution surveillance cameras for the plane-shaped balloon.

"High-definition security cameras are considered to be warfare equipment and can't be acquired without going through strict procedures," Col Sansern said.

"The US first needs to be confident that the cameras will not be misused or fall into the wrong hands when they arrive." Internal coordination between the manufacturer of the airship and the US administration is required before the endorsement for the export of the cameras.

The army signed a contract for the purchase of the airship with Aria International Inc this year. The deal was announced on April 30.

An army source yesterday said the army would consider terminating the purchase if the cameras could not be delivered

read more @ bangkok post

about Aria International: http://www.aria-int.com/company/about.html

Aria International Incorporated is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aria International Holdings, Inc. (“Aria”). Aria is focused on providing specialized surveillance and communications solutions to a global customer base. Aria operates as a solutions provider, systems integrator, and operator of surveillance and communications systems. Working closely with our clients in a flexible and responsive manner, we are able to provide highly effective solutions that respond well to our customers' defense and security requirements.

The founders of Aria previously supported surveillance and communications projects with the U.S. Department of Defense. They possess vast experience designing, executing, and operating security and surveillance projects in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Thailand. Collectively, they bring this unique experience and knowledge that well supports Aria’s growth in the increasing global marketplace for homeland defense, surveillance and communications systems.

4. no penalty for Swedish man who filmed naked children and fled to... THAILAND

A 29-year-old counselor caught secretly filming naked children at a Swedish summer camp won’t be punished for his crimes. The man was arrested in June 2007 after being discovered making recordings of children while they were taking saunas at a summer camp in the archipelago outside of Norrtälje, north of Stockholm, the Metro newspaper reports.

But just before prosecutors brought formal charges against the 29-year-old, he managed to slip out of the country and escape to Thailand.

Since then, the man has been hiding out in the Asian paradise, ignoring repeated summons and waiting until the statute of limitations for his crime expired.

And just a few hours after the former camp counselor could no longer be charged with a crime, prosecutors had no choice but to grant his request that they return the recording equipment and computer confiscated when he was arrested.

“Obviously, you can get upset over how easy someone can have criminal suspicions against them written off,” prosecutor Eva Thunegard told the newspaper.

The man was able to leave the country so easily in part because he had a protected identity due to having been the subject of earlier threats.

According to Metro, the man currently works as a school teacher in another country.

"It’s disgraceful that it’s so easy to avoid a trial and possible conviction,” a parent of one of the children filmed by the counselor told the newspaper.

source

little fish and big fish and fish food

1. little fish: drugs, guns and war in Myanmar

BANGKOK - Mounting tensions between Myanmar's military government and ethnic groups with which it has ceasefire agreements in the country's northern regions have spurred a surge in drug trafficking. Driven by militias' growing demand for weapons to counter anticipated government offensives, a narcotics fire-sale is raising concerns of greater instability along the borders of several neighboring countries, including China.
...
Since a 1989 mutiny that broke up the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) and spawned several ethnic armies in the north - including the UWSA, NDAA and the Kokang group - the drug trade has steadily expanded in the region. The military government has both permitted and profited from the groups' drug production and trafficking, despite official claims to lead an internationally assisted counter narcotics campaign and disingenuous pledges by several of the insurgent groups to be drug-free.

read more @ asia times



2. little fish: "godmother" of underworld in SW China gets 18 years in jail

CHONGQING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Organized crime boss Xie Caiping, labeled the "godmother of the underworld" in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, was sentenced 18 years in prison Tuesday.

The other 21 people, including officials who offered protection to gang members, were given jail terms ranging from one to 13 years in sentences handed down at the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People's Court.

Xie was convicted of organizing and leading a criminal organization, running gambling dens, illegal imprisonment, harboring people taking illegal narcotics and giving bribes to officials.

read more @ chinaview


3. big fish: France expresses full support for Karzai

PARIS, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed on Monday France's full support to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was assured of the final victory earlier in the day in the troubled presidential election in the Central Asian nation.

"I assure you (Karzai) the full support of France to you and your government," said Sarkozy in a congratulatory letter to Karzai.

France will help Afghanistan reconstruct the democratic institution, to eliminate violence, to improve security, economic and social situation, he promised.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also expressed congratulations for Karzai's re-election at a joint press conference in Paris with visiting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.

read more @ chinaview


4. big fish: neocon ex-congressman Don Ritter and his laundering business in Afghanistan

excerpt:

Don Ritter, former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania from 1979 until 1992, is known to have received positions and benefits due to his consistent and heavy involvement in Afghanistan related operations and activities, starting when Brzezinski’s vision was put in practice in 1979. He authored the “Material Assistance” to Afghanistan legislation in the Congress, created the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan to promote such material assistance of all kinds to the Afghan resistance (including the Bin Laden Group), and held numerous meetings on Afghanistan with representatives of the State Department, CIA, and DIA to enhance U.S. assistance to the Mujahideen (which included now-evil Osama Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistani ISI). These are only the ‘known’ activities of Mr. Ritter during his years in Congress. Now let’s look at what he’s been busy with since he left the Congress in 1992.

read more @ kenny's sideshow


5. fish food: child labor photos from Bangladesh

To abolish child labour you have to make it visible.

For the last four years I have been working on child labor in Bangladesh.

Child labor has been forbidden in Bangladesh since 1992. In December 2005 I visited a garment factory in Narayanganj, which is the center of the garment industry in Bangladesh. I took a picture of the owner beating a 12-year-old boy because he had been too slow sewing t-shirts.

According to the U.N. Children’s Fund report, more than 6.3 million children under 14 are working in Bangladesh. Many of them work under very poor conditions; some of them even risk their life. Factory owners pay them about 400 to 700 taka (10 USD) a month, while an adult worker earns up to 5,000 taka per month.

It is widely known, yet for a long time nobody seemed to mind. With my work I want to confront the people with the problem of child labor and motivate the people who begin to think about it — in Bangladesh where children are employed and in the rich countries of the Western world where products are sold that have been produced by children.

My intention is not only to show the children at work as victims of bad bosses exploiting them, but I want to show the complexity of the situation: The parents who send their little boy to work in a factory because they are poor; the child who has to work to earn a living for the family; the boss of the factory who is being pushed by big garment companies to produce for less money; and the Western consumers as clients who buy cheap clothes.

I think it is impossible to abolish child labor completely in Bangladesh in a very short time, but I am sure it is possible to improve the working conditions for the children and to bring more from factory work into the schools.

read more, see photos here, check out the comment thread

things are getting messier for the US

1. US goofs the Afghan election

Abdullah Abdullah's refusal to take part in the Afghan presidential election runoff on November 7 is a watershed event. From his point of view, the former foreign minister did the sensible thing, having carefully assessed he had no stake whatsoever in a runoff that he had zero chance of winning.

President Hamid Karzai has also shown the door to Abdullah's Western sponsors. They had approached in hopes of gaining a last-minute "deal" that would see Abdullah, their protege, gain some position in the future administration. Abdullah saw that from this point onward, the law of diminishing returns would be at work if he kept pecking at Karzai.

...
The latest broadside in the New York Times, portraying his brother, Wali Karzai, as a drug trafficker, has taken matters to a point of no return. American officials who spoke out of turn have done colossal damage to US interests in Afghanistan. It was probably meant as a desperate, last-ditch attempt to sling some more mud at Karazi. Hopefully, Washington will not order an inquiry into the New York Times story, as John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reportedly sought.

Any such inquiry will only end up bringing out of the cupboard skeletons that neither Kerry nor US President Barack Obama will want to see.

Washington must take serious note that the response to the New York Times report has come from none other than the Afghan Minister of Counter-Narcotics, General Khodaidad Khodaidad. The minister has brought into public debate Afghanistan's best-kept secret: the role of foreign troops in drug trafficking.

read more @ asia times


2. C. Story latest report: German arrests mask major Bush syndicate bust

excerpt:

His investors’ funds were placed in life insurance annuities offered by an associate of Seuss, Thomas R. Meyer, a US citizen and German nation (dual citizenship) based in Omaha, Nebraska.

The original main reports containing this information can be accessed here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/1305438.html?storylink=omni_popular

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&;sid=arF4rW9G1Ot8

TRANSLATION: A MAJOR 'BUST' OF THE BUSH-41 MONEY-LAUNDERING NEXUS
The arrested and mentioned perpetrators cited in these skeletal reports ARE ALL GERMAN.

read the report here


COINCIDENCE that Chinese general was in Nebraska on 10/28 for STRATCOM meeting?:

Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC described Xu's visit to US STRATCOM as possibly enabling a discussion between the US and China on space and cyber issues, in addition to nuclear issues. Because Major General Yin Fanglong, director of the political department of the Second Artillery Corps, which commands China's missile and nuclear forces, was also part of the delegation, nuclear strategy and policy-related issues may well have been on the agenda in Nebraska, too.

3. Moscow news to relaunch Arabic version

LONDON, November 2 (RIA Novosti) - RIA Novosti will relaunch the Moscow News paper in Arabic in the next few days after a 17-year break, the editor-in-chief of the Russian news agency said.

To begin with, MN in Arabic will be a monthly publication with a circulation of 150,000 copies in 15 Arab countries and Israel. If it proves a success, the paper could switch to weekly or even daily editions, Svetlana Mironyuk said on Sunday.

The move is part of a new strategy the Russian government has drafted to consolidate relations with the Arab world in all spheres, primarily in politics and the economy.

read more @ ria novosti


4. keep your hands inside the coaster, we are at the top of the second hill

It is becoming more and more evident, to the astute observer of realistic economics, that the second dip in the "W" global recession is coming up quickly. This is of course, identical to what took place between the 1929 collapse and the 1931 final landing. The world economy fell hard, bounced high and than fell into a deep black hole, that it took it thirty years to climb out of. This time will be worse, at least for the Anglos and more specifically the Americans.

read more @ pravda

flu psyops ramping up?

1. Merck scientist admits cancer & AIDS came from vaccines




2. has Baxter released a biological weapon?

Evidence appears to suggest that Baxter International is responsible for a new deadly outbreak of viral pneumonia in Ukraine.

In February of 2009 Bloomberg reported that Baxter "accidentally" send vaccine material containing both live Avian bird flu and seasonal influenza to multiple laboratories worldwide. A laboratory decided to test the vaccine on it's ferrets, but the ferrets all unexpectedly died. It must be noted that Baxter has made a "mistake" like this before. Blood products produced by Baxter once containd HIV. Thousands of haemophiliacs died due to this, and many went on to infect their spouses.

Later in the year, a bizarre story emerged on the internet. The Huffington Post reported on a a man named Joseph Moshe who was arrested after a hours long standoff with the police because he had supposedly made threats against the White House. The man was able to withstand multiple rounds of tear gas.

read more @ david rothscum reports



3. panic in Ukraine - authorities deny aircraft are spraying aerosols over cities, martial law expected

Authorities in Kiev, Ukraine, deny spraying of “aerosolized medication” by aircraft over city.

The office of Emergency Response in the district of Desniansko, Kiev, are tonight (30th Oct.) strongly refuting reports that light aircraft were spraying a substance over the city intended to counter a “swine flu pandemic” in Ukraine.

It was reported that light aircraft were seen over the Forest market area of the city (close to the Forest metro station) and they were spraying an aerosol substance intended to “counter swine flu”, this of course would constitute forced medication of the population.

read more @ pimpin turtle


4. UK: Nutt's sacking provokes mass revolt against Alan Johnson

The home secretary faces mass resignations from the government's drug advisory body over his decision to force out its chairman, who accused ministers of distorting scientific evidence on cannabis.

Two members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned today in protest at Alan Johnson's treatment of Professor David Nutt. Another member told the Guardian that the experts were "planning collective action" against Johnson, adding: "Everybody is devastated. We're all considering our positions."

Nutt said today that there was "no future" for the council in its present form and it is thought the group's members may use a meeting next Monday to announce a mass resignation.

read more @ guardian

miscellaneous corruption news

1. russian oligarch has very expensive lunch, i think in NYC, with someone, i don't recall who, and i wanted to post it but the story is gone now



2. get your tissues, Alex W now suicidal says his mum

Berlin -- The man on trial for murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in Germany in a frenzied anti-Islamic attack, is suicidal, his mother said in a press interview on Sunday.

"He no longer wants to live," Larissa Wiens told the mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "He says: 'In a computer game you can press reset and start all over again. But not in real life.'"

The paper cites a policeman as saying that Russian-born Alex Wiens, 28, said when he was arrested after the murder of Marwa al-Sherbini on July 1: "Please shoot me."

...
"Alex must have got his image of Islam, his hate, from television," Larissa Wiens, 55, told Bild. "I am so sorry for this woman, for her unborn child, for her son who had to watch it all happen."

A verdict is expected on November 11.

read more @ expatica


3. 12 policemen arrested in Brazil for killing 5 people IN THE PATROL CAR - obviously they were really worried about getting caught

Twelve Military Police officers have been arrested in connection with the killings of five young men in Curitiba, the capital of Brazil's Parana state, the official AEN state news agency said.

The Military Police arrested the officers, who allegedly committed the murders Sep 10 in Curitiba's Alto da Gloria neighbourhood, AEN said.

Thirteen officers pursued a stolen vehicle and decided to execute the five young men when they surrendered, AEN reported, citing the Military Police Command.

The 12 officers arrested Saturday and one who is still at large are also being investigated by prosecutors, who may charge them with murder in the civil court system, Parana Public Safety Secretary Luiz Fernando Delazari said.

The young men were killed inside a police patrol car, Delazari said.

source

one big happy family - chinese edition

1. Chinese general on a long march

The United States and China are warming up - at least symbolically - their military ties ahead of United States President Barack Obama's first official visit to China in mid-November. In late October, General Xu Caihou, the second-highest ranking officer in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), started a long trip to the US. At the age of 66, Xu serves as vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), and as a member of the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

Xu visited a few US military bases as well as the US Naval Academy, and at the Pentagon he met with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for the second time. They met once before in Beijing during the first trip that Gates made to Asia as secretary of defense in 2007.

Among other things, after leaving Washington DC, Xu flew to the headquarters of the US Strategic Command (US STRATCOM) outside Omaha, Nebraska, on October 28, when he became the first PLA officer to enter that US military base. Air Force General Kevin Chilton, commander of US STRATCOM, held discussions with Xu and later hosted a dinner for him.

Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC described Xu's visit to US STRATCOM as possibly enabling a discussion between the US and China on space and cyber issues, in addition to nuclear issues. Because Major General Yin Fanglong, director of the political department of the Second Artillery Corps, which commands China's missile and nuclear forces, was also part of the delegation, nuclear strategy and policy-related issues may well have been on the agenda in Nebraska, too.

read more @ asia times


2. US fleet commander visits Chinese "Zhoushan" warship in Gulf of Aden

Scott Sanders (L), commander of the U.S. 151 Task Formation Fleet, shakes hands with Wang Zhiguo, commander of the Chinese third convoy fleet to the Gulf of Aden, on China's "Zhongshan" warship Nov. 1, 2009. Scott Sanders and his entourage paid a visit to "Zhongshan" warship at the invitation of Wang Zhiguo on Sunday local time. (Xinhua/Guo Gang)

see photo @ chinaview


3. China's PLA eyes future in space, air: air force commander

BEIJING, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- China will develop an air force with integrated capabilities for both offensive and defensive operations in space as well as in air, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force Commander Xu Qiliang said Sunday.

Calling militarization in the space and in air "a threat to the mankind," Xu said China must develop a strong force in the two arenas in order to face challenges of that threat.

"Only power could protect peace," the 59-year-old air force commander said in an interview with Xinhua, 10 days ahead of 60th anniversary of the founding of the PLA air force.

Superiority in space and in air would mean, to a certain extent, superiority over the land and the oceans, Xu said.

"As the air force of a peace-loving country, we must forge our swords and shields in order to protect peace," he said.

read more @ chinaview


4. US Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu

Dr. Steven Chu, distinguished scientist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997), was appointed by President Obama as the 12th Secretary of Energy and sworn into office on January 21, 2009.

Dr. Chu has devoted his recent scientific career to the search for new solutions to our energy challenges and stopping global climate change – a mission he continues with even greater urgency as Secretary of Energy. He is charged with helping implement President Obama’s ambitious agenda to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Chu was director of DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California. He successfully applied the techniques he developed in atomic physics to molecular biology, and since 2004, motivated by his deep interest in climate change, he has recently led the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies. Previously, he held positions at Stanford University and AT&T Bell Laboratories.

more @ Dept of Energy
http://www.energy.gov/organization/dr_steven_chu.htm


5. amazing pictures, pollution in China

October 14, 2009, the 30^th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China."

see photos here

arab politics

1. Assad sucking up to US - it's not your fault Israel is crazy kinda thing

Syrian President Bashar Assad said that the Unites States cannot be blamed for the deadlock in the Mideast talks. “The current Israeli government does not want peace. There is no partner for peace in Israel. The (U.S.) broker can therefore not do anything or be blamed if the Israeli side does not want peace," he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with journalists who accompanied him to Croatia. Assad stressed Syria’s demand to get back its occupied territories was not a precondition but a rightful demand.

The Syrian president also told reporters that Damascus wants to improve Arab-Arab ties adding that what has happened so far with regards to US-Syrian ties was change of approach and replacement of dictations with dialogue.

read more @ al manar tv


2. Israeli war on Lebanon continuing through spies

In an interview with Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa on Sunday, Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Nawwaf Moussawi said that Israel’s war on Lebanon is taking place through security breaches and espionage, including assassination operations and intelligence gathering.

He said that the Resistance is increasing its defensive capabilities to confront an Israeli aggression before it happens and to defend Lebanon in a way that helps maintain the country’s political and military objectives.

He described UN Secretary General’s envoy on the implementation of Resolution 1559 Terje-Roed Larsen, as “suspicious” and as “an Israeli employee, who violates the UN.”

According to Moussawi, “Larsen seeks to distort Hezbollah’s image at the international level and to conceal Israeli violations and attacks on Lebanon by making suggestions that do not serve Lebanon’s interests, namely disarming Hezbollah, even though the Taif Accord differentiates between militias and Resistance.”

read more @ al manar tv


3. Gamal Mubarak set to succeed father, both loathed by the Egyptian people and play by US rules

CAIRO - Gamal Mubarak, younger son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, cast himself as a defender of the poor on Sunday in a speech seen by many as an attempt to hone his prospects of succeeding his father.

The 45-year-old former investment banker heads the powerful policy committee in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and is widely tipped as the next president, although he has never admitted having presidential aspirations.

Addressing the party convention a day after his father pledged a "clean and free" presidential election in 2011, Mubarak held forth for more than an hour on the NDP's aims in what resembled a stump speech and attacked the opposition as contrarians without any programmes.

He detailed the party's social and economic programmes and said it will step up efforts to explain its policies to Egyptians.

The NDP "will especially pay attention to the poor, orphans and widows and women," he said.

mm hmm. read more @ middle east online

so many terrorists

1. 1600 are suggested daily for FBI's list

by Walter Pincus

Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation's terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.

During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a "reasonable suspicion," according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.

FBI officials cautioned that each nomination "does not necessarily represent a new individual, but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously watchlisted person."

The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government's "no fly" list.

read more @ washington post

WHICH IS JUSTIFIED BECAUSE.....

2. smaller-scale terrorism plots pose new and worrisome threat, officials say [WINK WINK]

by David Johnston and Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON — After disrupting two recent terrorism plots, American intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that extremist groups in Pakistan linked to Al Qaeda are planning smaller operations in the United States that are harder to detect but more likely to succeed than the spectacular attacks they once emphasized, senior counterterrorism officials say.

The two cases — one involving two Chicago men accused this week of planning an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Mohammad, the other a 24-year-old Denver shuttle bus driver indicted in a plot to use improvised explosives — are among the most serious in years, the officials said.

In both, the officials said, the main defendants are long-term residents of the United States with substantial community ties who traveled to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where they apparently trained with extremist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda. The officials, from American military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the cases.

read more @ nyt

3. the stuff the officials don't tell you

On 2 October 2009, "A U.S. plane that featured in a European Parliament report into the 'extraordinary rendition' of terror suspects was met by two SAS helicopters in a secret operation at one of Britain's biggest airports.

"The Gulfstream jet landed at Birmingham International Airport on Friday, October 2, having flown in from an undisclosed location, and was seen by a member of staff being met minutes later by the Special Forces regiment aircraft." - Jet named in torture flight report is met by SAS at British airport

read more @ aangirfan

i guess it's the front groups, the spying, the hasbara that bug me

1. Realite EU: front group for the Washington based Israel project?

Spinwatch has uncovered evidence that an apparently London based organisation offering expertise on Iran to journalists and politicians is a covert propaganda operation run by a pro-Israel organisation in the United States.

The organisation, which is called Réalité-EU, has direct connections to the Israel Project, a hardline pro Israel organisation based in Washington DC. Both Réalité-EU and the Israel Project also appear to be connected to a Jewish organisation – B’nai B’rith International, which is also active in pro Israel campaigning

read more @ aletho news


2. Mantiq al-Tayr: a question for the FBI

1. Hi FBI guys. I have a question. How many of you are allowed to moonlight for a foreign corporation and add at least 25K a year to your salary?

Stewart Nozette was allowed to do this for 10 years while holding shit-loads of security clearances. Oh, one other thing about this allegedly highly talented scientist that I’m sure readers of this little blog would like to hear about. No, I’m not talking about his taking the bait like a starving piranha presented with kosher matza when the FBI folks correctly ambushed this loyalty-challenged asshole. (I hope the agent or agents involved get promoted. Somehow I suspect that won’t be the case. A little birdie makes me think this.)

No, the other thing is that according to this report Nozette admitted to the FBI person or persons who should get promoted but won’t that he had ALREADY sold out this country to Israel. So this extra bit of moonlighting he wanted to do was just gravy. Kosher gravy.

No wonder Nozette thought that he was double dipping since he told the FBI agent who was working diligently to stop this traitor:

“I thought I was working for you already. I mean that’s what I always thought, [the foreign company] was just a front.”

Soooooooooooooooooooo Israel Aerospace Industries is just a front? Wow, who the hell else in the United States with super high security clearances [Nozette has claimed he has a Q clearance - it apparently was really a Star of David clearance] works for Israel Aerospace Industries? Hey FBI dudes, that would be a really cool thing to look into.

read more @ mantiq al-tayr

3. 2009 Hasbara Guide by Frank Luntz, the Global Language Dictionary, or 'how to talk to the goyim'

All of the material in this document is new or updated based on research conducted in 2008 and
2009. Some of the language will be familiar; most of the “Words That Work” boxes come from Israeli representatives and spokespeople. But, the polling, strategic recommendations and guidance are all based on the current situation. I hope that advocates for Israel will benefit from the massive amount of work that went into the creation of this booklet. I also hope that this will be the last Israel Language Dictionary I ever have to craft.
And remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.
Dr. Frank Luntz

http://www.newsweek.com/media/70/tip_report.pdf