Ranked by share of world exports:
1. Germany
2. USA
3. China
4. Japan
5. France
6. Netherlands
7. Italy
What happened to Tony Blair's United Kingdom?
~~
Source: Guardian, 14 December 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
The Tories are doomed
Is this why the oligarchs are deperate to attack the UK Liberal-Democrats and Charles Kennedy their anti-war leader? The oligarchs do not want the Liberal Democrats to replace David Cameron's pro-war Conservative Party as Britain's main opposition party.
The Conservatives (the Tories) do not look in a strong position and some of the wiser journalists think that they are doomed.
~~
The Tories are doomed.
By Peter Hitchens
14 December 2005
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1666735,00.html
...David Cameron's Conservative party is empty of oppositional ideas and organisationally hollow. The Grim Reaper gently escorts many thousands of Tories off the electoral roll each year. Few are replaced. Outside the tiny layer of professional political careerists typified by David Cameron, young Tories are rare and eccentric. There are now only 450 active associations, and nearly half of them have fewer than 100 members.
In Wales and Scotland Toryism is more a memory than a movement. In England the parliamentary boundaries are heavily biased against it... The tiny Tory "revival" of last May resulted mainly from Labour defections to the Liberal Democrats...
Labour and the Tories are like a pair of corpses, stiff with rigor mortis, propping each other up. They no longer represent the true divisions in British society, which is why Labour can win only 22% of the popular vote, and the Tories a mere 20%. It is astonishing to think that neither of the major parties opposed the Iraq war...
Had it not been for pressure and ridicule from conservative journalists, the Tory party would even now support identity cards and all the accompanying repressive rubbish pursued in the name of the "war on terror"...
The word that sums up the Cameron Tories is vacancy - a great sky-blue-pink gap where the government's adversary ought to be, an emptiness deliberately created so as to offend nobody but the thoughtful and independent of mind.
· Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday
The Conservatives (the Tories) do not look in a strong position and some of the wiser journalists think that they are doomed.
~~
The Tories are doomed.
By Peter Hitchens
14 December 2005
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1666735,00.html
...David Cameron's Conservative party is empty of oppositional ideas and organisationally hollow. The Grim Reaper gently escorts many thousands of Tories off the electoral roll each year. Few are replaced. Outside the tiny layer of professional political careerists typified by David Cameron, young Tories are rare and eccentric. There are now only 450 active associations, and nearly half of them have fewer than 100 members.
In Wales and Scotland Toryism is more a memory than a movement. In England the parliamentary boundaries are heavily biased against it... The tiny Tory "revival" of last May resulted mainly from Labour defections to the Liberal Democrats...
Labour and the Tories are like a pair of corpses, stiff with rigor mortis, propping each other up. They no longer represent the true divisions in British society, which is why Labour can win only 22% of the popular vote, and the Tories a mere 20%. It is astonishing to think that neither of the major parties opposed the Iraq war...
Had it not been for pressure and ridicule from conservative journalists, the Tory party would even now support identity cards and all the accompanying repressive rubbish pursued in the name of the "war on terror"...
The word that sums up the Cameron Tories is vacancy - a great sky-blue-pink gap where the government's adversary ought to be, an emptiness deliberately created so as to offend nobody but the thoughtful and independent of mind.
· Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Violent Video Games - New Scientist - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Violent video games alter brain's response to violence
New Scientist/Helen Phillips December 12 2005
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/121205gamesalter.htm
A brain mechanism that may link violent computer games with aggression has been discovered by researchers in the US. The work goes some way towards demonstrating a causal link between the two - rather than a simple association.
Many studies have concluded that people who play violent video games are more aggressive, more likely to commit violent crimes, and less likely to help others. But critics argue these correlations merely prove that violent people gravitate towards violent games, not that games can change behaviour.
Now psychologist Bruce Bartholow from the University of Missouri-Columbia and colleagues have found that people who play violent video games show diminished brain responses to images of real-life violence, such as gun attacks, but not to other emotionally disturbing pictures, such as those of dead animals, or sick children. And the reduction in response is correlated with aggressive behaviour.
The brain activity they measured, called the P300 response, is a characteristic signal seen in an EEG (electroencephalogram) recording of brain waves as we register an image. The P300 reflects an evaluation of the emotional content of an image says Bartholow, being larger if people are surprised or disturbed by an image, or if something is novel.
Violent scenes
The team recruited 39 experienced gamers, and used questionnaires to assess the amount of violent games they played. They then showed them real-life images, mostly of neutral scenes, but interspersed with violent or negative (but non-violent) scenes, while recording EEGs.
In subjects with the most experience of violent games, the P300 response to the violent images was smaller and delayed. “People who play a lot of violent video games didn’t see them as much different from neutral,” says Bartholow. They become desensitised. However, their responses are still normal for the non-violent negative scenes.
This may not be surprising - video games have been used to desensitise soldiers to scenes of war. But when the players were subsequently given the opportunity to “punish” a fake opponent in another game, those with the greatest reduction in P300 brain responses meted out the most severe punishments.
Even when the team controlled for the subjects’ natural hostility, assessed by standard questionnaires, the violent games experience and P300 response were still strongly correlated with aggressiveness. “As far as I’m aware, this is the first study to show that exposure to violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behaviour,” says Bartholow...
Craig Anderson of Iowa State University in Ames, who has studied the effect, says: “These brain studies corroborate the many behavioural and cognitive studies showing that violent video games lead to increases in aggression.”
The work will appear early in 2006 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
~~
New Scientist/Helen Phillips December 12 2005
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/121205gamesalter.htm
A brain mechanism that may link violent computer games with aggression has been discovered by researchers in the US. The work goes some way towards demonstrating a causal link between the two - rather than a simple association.
Many studies have concluded that people who play violent video games are more aggressive, more likely to commit violent crimes, and less likely to help others. But critics argue these correlations merely prove that violent people gravitate towards violent games, not that games can change behaviour.
Now psychologist Bruce Bartholow from the University of Missouri-Columbia and colleagues have found that people who play violent video games show diminished brain responses to images of real-life violence, such as gun attacks, but not to other emotionally disturbing pictures, such as those of dead animals, or sick children. And the reduction in response is correlated with aggressive behaviour.
The brain activity they measured, called the P300 response, is a characteristic signal seen in an EEG (electroencephalogram) recording of brain waves as we register an image. The P300 reflects an evaluation of the emotional content of an image says Bartholow, being larger if people are surprised or disturbed by an image, or if something is novel.
Violent scenes
The team recruited 39 experienced gamers, and used questionnaires to assess the amount of violent games they played. They then showed them real-life images, mostly of neutral scenes, but interspersed with violent or negative (but non-violent) scenes, while recording EEGs.
In subjects with the most experience of violent games, the P300 response to the violent images was smaller and delayed. “People who play a lot of violent video games didn’t see them as much different from neutral,” says Bartholow. They become desensitised. However, their responses are still normal for the non-violent negative scenes.
This may not be surprising - video games have been used to desensitise soldiers to scenes of war. But when the players were subsequently given the opportunity to “punish” a fake opponent in another game, those with the greatest reduction in P300 brain responses meted out the most severe punishments.
Even when the team controlled for the subjects’ natural hostility, assessed by standard questionnaires, the violent games experience and P300 response were still strongly correlated with aggressiveness. “As far as I’m aware, this is the first study to show that exposure to violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behaviour,” says Bartholow...
Craig Anderson of Iowa State University in Ames, who has studied the effect, says: “These brain studies corroborate the many behavioural and cognitive studies showing that violent video games lead to increases in aggression.”
The work will appear early in 2006 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
~~
Sunday, December 11, 2005
MI6 and CIA torture produced false confession?
Souks you, Sir Why stay at home with the wife and family when you can jet off to sunny Morocco
MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'
An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was signed after beatings, reports David Rose in New York
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer
An Ethiopian student who lived in London claims that he was brutally tortured with the involvement of British and US intelligence agencies.
Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'.
In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.
After his capture in Pakistan, Mohammed says British officials warned him that he would be sent to a country where torture was used. Moroccans also asked him detailed questions about his seven years in London, which his lawyers believe came from British sources.
Western agencies believed that he was part of a plot to buy uranium in Asia, bring it to the US and build a 'dirty bomb' in league with Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Mohammed signed a confession but told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, he had never met Padilla, or anyone in al-Qaeda.
Padilla spent almost four years in American custody, accused of the plot. Last month, after allegations of the torture used against Mohammed emerged, the claims against Padilla were dropped. He now faces a civil charge of supporting al-Qaeda financially.
A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international political storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary rendition' - transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. 'The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA's clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said. 'They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don't have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they're thinking about trying to resign altogether.'
Already 22 CIA officers have been charged in absentia in Italy for alleged roles in the rendition of a radical cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, seized - without the knowledge of the Italian government - on a Milan street in February 2003.
The intense pressure on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, coupled with Friday's condemnation of the use of evidence extracted under torture by the House of Lords, has intensified concerns within the CIA. The official said: 'Renditions and torture aren't just wrong, they also expose CIA personnel and diplomats abroad to enormous future risk.'
Mohammed arrived in Britain in 1994. He lived in Wornington Road, North Kensington, and studied at Paddington Green College. For most of this time, said his brother, he rarely went to a mosque. However, in early 2001 he became more religious.
The Observer has obtained fresh details of his case which was first publicised last summer. He went to Pakistan in June 2001 because, he says, he had a drug problem and wanted to kick the habit. He was arrested on 10 April at the airport on his way back to England because of an alleged passport irregularity. Initially interrogated by Pakistani and British officials, he told Stafford Smith: 'The British checked out my story and said they knew I was a nobody. They said they would tell the Americans.'
He was questioned by the FBI and began to hear accusations of terror involvement. He says he also met two MI6 officers. One told him he would be tortured in an Arab country.
The interrogations intensified and he says he was taken to Islamabad; then, in July 2002, on a CIA flight to Morocco. His description of the process matches independent reports. Masked officers wore black. They stripped him, subjected him to a full body search and shackled him to his seat wearing a nappy.
In Morocco he was told he had plotted with Padilla and had dinner in Pakistan with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of 9/11, and other al-Qaeda chiefs. 'I've never met anyone like these people,' Mohammed told Stafford Smith. 'How could I? I speak no Arabic... I never heard Padilla's name until they told me.'
During almost 18 months of regular beatings in Morocco, Mohammed says he frequently met a blonde woman in her thirties who told him she was Canadian. The US intelligence officer told The Observer this was an 'amateurish' CIA cover. 'The only Americans who historically pretended to be Canadian were backpackers travelling in Europe during the Vietnam war. Apart from the moral issues, what disturbs me is that, as an attempt to create plausible deniability, this is so damn transparent.'
According to Mohammed, he was threatened with electrocution and rape. On one occasion, he was handcuffed when three men entered his cell wearing black masks. 'That day I ceased really knowing I was alive. One stood on each of my shoulders and a third punched me in the stomach. It seemed to go on for hours. I was meant to stand, but I was in so much pain I'd fall to my knees. They'd pull me back up and hit me again. They'd kick me in the thighs as I got up. I could see the hands that were hitting me... like the hands of someone who'd worked as a mechanic or chopped with an axe.'
Later he was confronted with details of his London life - such as the name of his kickboxing teacher - and met a Moroccan calling himself Marwan, who ordered him to be hung by his wrists. 'They hit me in the chest, the stomach, and they knocked my feet from under me. I have a shoulder pain to this day from the wrenching as my arms were almost pulled out of their sockets.'
Another time, he told Stafford Smith: 'They took a scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Then they cut my left chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute watching. I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was screaming... They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. There was blood all over.'
In September he was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he has been charged with involvement in al-Qaeda plots and faces trial there by military commission. Stafford Smith said: 'I am unaware of any evidence against him other than that extracted under torture.'
The Foreign Office, the Moroccan Embassy and the CIA refused to comment yesterday.
~~
The master minds behind the terrorism are the fascists and mafia-types within the security services of certain western and pro-western countries. Their aim is to keep certain elites in power.
Al Qaeda is Al CIA-da.
The media works for the CIA
Operation Gladio
Fake terror in Algeria; the US military in Algeria; oil in Algeria.
The use of the Muslim Brotherhood by MI6 and the CIA in Egypt, Syria and Iran
MI6 and the bombing of Rainbow Warrior
http://www.politicos.co.uk/item.jsp?ID=5388Amazon.com: 9/11 Revealed : The Unanswered Questions: Books ...
Security services reportedly involved in carrying out bombings in Turkey
Turkey, terror bombs, the CIA and Mossad
Updated - Jordanian security forces evacuated Israelis from hotel before the bombing - according to Haaretz.
Schoolgirls beheaded by ninjas - Updated
Bali bomb 'mastermind' al-Farouq allowed to escape?
Lord Fraser: my Lockerbie trial doubts
Christian gangsters, the American-trained military and terror
German TV exposes CIA, Mossad links to 1986 Berlin disco bombinghttp://www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug1998/bomb1-a27.shtml
Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
Bush, Bin Laden, Drugs....
Tony Blair, bin Laden, Carlyle Group, Halliburton.
David Lange says US threatened to kill him.
LOCKERBIE BOMB - LONDON BOMBS
Lockerbie Bomb and Ecuador and New Zealand
THE BALI BOMB AND THE MILITARY
The police and the Madrid Bombs
9 11
9 11
9 11 Revealed - The Daily Mail
Egypt - Operation Suzannah, John Darling, Sharm el-Sheikh
~~
MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'
An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was signed after beatings, reports David Rose in New York
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer
An Ethiopian student who lived in London claims that he was brutally tortured with the involvement of British and US intelligence agencies.
Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'.
In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.
After his capture in Pakistan, Mohammed says British officials warned him that he would be sent to a country where torture was used. Moroccans also asked him detailed questions about his seven years in London, which his lawyers believe came from British sources.
Western agencies believed that he was part of a plot to buy uranium in Asia, bring it to the US and build a 'dirty bomb' in league with Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Mohammed signed a confession but told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, he had never met Padilla, or anyone in al-Qaeda.
Padilla spent almost four years in American custody, accused of the plot. Last month, after allegations of the torture used against Mohammed emerged, the claims against Padilla were dropped. He now faces a civil charge of supporting al-Qaeda financially.
A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international political storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary rendition' - transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. 'The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA's clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said. 'They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don't have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they're thinking about trying to resign altogether.'
Already 22 CIA officers have been charged in absentia in Italy for alleged roles in the rendition of a radical cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, seized - without the knowledge of the Italian government - on a Milan street in February 2003.
The intense pressure on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, coupled with Friday's condemnation of the use of evidence extracted under torture by the House of Lords, has intensified concerns within the CIA. The official said: 'Renditions and torture aren't just wrong, they also expose CIA personnel and diplomats abroad to enormous future risk.'
Mohammed arrived in Britain in 1994. He lived in Wornington Road, North Kensington, and studied at Paddington Green College. For most of this time, said his brother, he rarely went to a mosque. However, in early 2001 he became more religious.
The Observer has obtained fresh details of his case which was first publicised last summer. He went to Pakistan in June 2001 because, he says, he had a drug problem and wanted to kick the habit. He was arrested on 10 April at the airport on his way back to England because of an alleged passport irregularity. Initially interrogated by Pakistani and British officials, he told Stafford Smith: 'The British checked out my story and said they knew I was a nobody. They said they would tell the Americans.'
He was questioned by the FBI and began to hear accusations of terror involvement. He says he also met two MI6 officers. One told him he would be tortured in an Arab country.
The interrogations intensified and he says he was taken to Islamabad; then, in July 2002, on a CIA flight to Morocco. His description of the process matches independent reports. Masked officers wore black. They stripped him, subjected him to a full body search and shackled him to his seat wearing a nappy.
In Morocco he was told he had plotted with Padilla and had dinner in Pakistan with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of 9/11, and other al-Qaeda chiefs. 'I've never met anyone like these people,' Mohammed told Stafford Smith. 'How could I? I speak no Arabic... I never heard Padilla's name until they told me.'
During almost 18 months of regular beatings in Morocco, Mohammed says he frequently met a blonde woman in her thirties who told him she was Canadian. The US intelligence officer told The Observer this was an 'amateurish' CIA cover. 'The only Americans who historically pretended to be Canadian were backpackers travelling in Europe during the Vietnam war. Apart from the moral issues, what disturbs me is that, as an attempt to create plausible deniability, this is so damn transparent.'
According to Mohammed, he was threatened with electrocution and rape. On one occasion, he was handcuffed when three men entered his cell wearing black masks. 'That day I ceased really knowing I was alive. One stood on each of my shoulders and a third punched me in the stomach. It seemed to go on for hours. I was meant to stand, but I was in so much pain I'd fall to my knees. They'd pull me back up and hit me again. They'd kick me in the thighs as I got up. I could see the hands that were hitting me... like the hands of someone who'd worked as a mechanic or chopped with an axe.'
Later he was confronted with details of his London life - such as the name of his kickboxing teacher - and met a Moroccan calling himself Marwan, who ordered him to be hung by his wrists. 'They hit me in the chest, the stomach, and they knocked my feet from under me. I have a shoulder pain to this day from the wrenching as my arms were almost pulled out of their sockets.'
Another time, he told Stafford Smith: 'They took a scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Then they cut my left chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute watching. I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was screaming... They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. There was blood all over.'
In September he was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he has been charged with involvement in al-Qaeda plots and faces trial there by military commission. Stafford Smith said: 'I am unaware of any evidence against him other than that extracted under torture.'
The Foreign Office, the Moroccan Embassy and the CIA refused to comment yesterday.
~~
The master minds behind the terrorism are the fascists and mafia-types within the security services of certain western and pro-western countries. Their aim is to keep certain elites in power.
Al Qaeda is Al CIA-da.
The media works for the CIA
Operation Gladio
Fake terror in Algeria; the US military in Algeria; oil in Algeria.
The use of the Muslim Brotherhood by MI6 and the CIA in Egypt, Syria and Iran
MI6 and the bombing of Rainbow Warrior
http://www.politicos.co.uk/item.jsp?ID=5388Amazon.com: 9/11 Revealed : The Unanswered Questions: Books ...
Security services reportedly involved in carrying out bombings in Turkey
Turkey, terror bombs, the CIA and Mossad
Updated - Jordanian security forces evacuated Israelis from hotel before the bombing - according to Haaretz.
Schoolgirls beheaded by ninjas - Updated
Bali bomb 'mastermind' al-Farouq allowed to escape?
Lord Fraser: my Lockerbie trial doubts
Christian gangsters, the American-trained military and terror
German TV exposes CIA, Mossad links to 1986 Berlin disco bombinghttp://www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug1998/bomb1-a27.shtml
Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
Bush, Bin Laden, Drugs....
Tony Blair, bin Laden, Carlyle Group, Halliburton.
David Lange says US threatened to kill him.
LOCKERBIE BOMB - LONDON BOMBS
Lockerbie Bomb and Ecuador and New Zealand
THE BALI BOMB AND THE MILITARY
The police and the Madrid Bombs
9 11
9 11
9 11 Revealed - The Daily Mail
Egypt - Operation Suzannah, John Darling, Sharm el-Sheikh
~~
Explosions: Hemel Hempstead, Flixborough, Chernobyl
Large explosions at fuel depot north of London
11 December 2005: A series of explosions and a massive fire erupted at a fuel depot north of London before dawn on 11 December and sent a large column of black smoke into the sky, witnesses said.
"There was an explosion in the vicinity of Buncefield depot at about 6:04 a.m. British time, a Hertfordshire police spokeswoman said.
The Buncefield oil depot supplies petrol and fuel oils for a large part of southeast England. Oil is brought to the depot, near the town of Hemel Hempstead, in an underground pipeline from tankers unloading on Britain's east coast.
Several other witnesses reported a series of explosions.
~~
1974 Flixborough UK.
The Flixborough disaster was an explosion at a chemical plant next to Flixborough near Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, in the UK, on 1 June 1974. 28 people were killed.
The chemical plant was owned by Nypro.
Two months before the explosion, a leak was discovered in a reactor. A temporary pipe was installed to bypass the faulty reactor. This allowed continued operation of the plant while repairs were made.
The temporary pipe broke. The bypass had been designed by engineers who were not experienced in high-pressure pipework. The bypass was inadequately tested. The bypass was mounted on temporary scaffolding poles that allowed the pipe to twist under pressure.
~
In 1986 the World's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had 4 reactors and whilst testing reactor number 4 numerous safety procedures were disregarded.
Scottish farms still contaminated by Chernobyl fallout - [Sunday ...
NEARLY 20 years after the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine exploded and showered Europe with radioactivity, farms in Scotland are still paying the price.
Eleven farms covering 11,300 hectares in Ayrshire and the central belt are still so contaminated by the accident that their sheep are considered unsafe to eat.
The concentrations of caesium-137 from Chernobyl in the animals exceed the safety limit of 1000 becquerels of radioactivity per kilogram. Farmers have to mark radioactive sheep with indelible paint, and can’t have them slaughtered for food until they fall below the limit.
The revelation came in response to questions asked in the Scottish parliament by the Scottish National Party chairman, Bruce Crawford MSP. “After all these years, Scotland is still suffering the after-effects of Chernobyl,” he told the Sunday Herald.
“In these circumstances it is utterly ludicrous that the Blair government seems intent on foisting a new generation of nuclear power stations on this country. We must learn the lessons of last century and must not repeat past mistakes.
“No matter how much technology might have improved, radioactive waste is still produced, leaving a deadly inheritance for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said.
~~
11 December 2005: A series of explosions and a massive fire erupted at a fuel depot north of London before dawn on 11 December and sent a large column of black smoke into the sky, witnesses said.
"There was an explosion in the vicinity of Buncefield depot at about 6:04 a.m. British time, a Hertfordshire police spokeswoman said.
The Buncefield oil depot supplies petrol and fuel oils for a large part of southeast England. Oil is brought to the depot, near the town of Hemel Hempstead, in an underground pipeline from tankers unloading on Britain's east coast.
Several other witnesses reported a series of explosions.
~~
1974 Flixborough UK.
The Flixborough disaster was an explosion at a chemical plant next to Flixborough near Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, in the UK, on 1 June 1974. 28 people were killed.
The chemical plant was owned by Nypro.
Two months before the explosion, a leak was discovered in a reactor. A temporary pipe was installed to bypass the faulty reactor. This allowed continued operation of the plant while repairs were made.
The temporary pipe broke. The bypass had been designed by engineers who were not experienced in high-pressure pipework. The bypass was inadequately tested. The bypass was mounted on temporary scaffolding poles that allowed the pipe to twist under pressure.
~
In 1986 the World's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had 4 reactors and whilst testing reactor number 4 numerous safety procedures were disregarded.
Scottish farms still contaminated by Chernobyl fallout - [Sunday ...
NEARLY 20 years after the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine exploded and showered Europe with radioactivity, farms in Scotland are still paying the price.
Eleven farms covering 11,300 hectares in Ayrshire and the central belt are still so contaminated by the accident that their sheep are considered unsafe to eat.
The concentrations of caesium-137 from Chernobyl in the animals exceed the safety limit of 1000 becquerels of radioactivity per kilogram. Farmers have to mark radioactive sheep with indelible paint, and can’t have them slaughtered for food until they fall below the limit.
The revelation came in response to questions asked in the Scottish parliament by the Scottish National Party chairman, Bruce Crawford MSP. “After all these years, Scotland is still suffering the after-effects of Chernobyl,” he told the Sunday Herald.
“In these circumstances it is utterly ludicrous that the Blair government seems intent on foisting a new generation of nuclear power stations on this country. We must learn the lessons of last century and must not repeat past mistakes.
“No matter how much technology might have improved, radioactive waste is still produced, leaving a deadly inheritance for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said.
~~
Friday, December 09, 2005
Torture in the United Kingdom
~
CIA torture technique, as referred to in 'a classified CIA Inspector General's report':
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866&page=1
Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him.
Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.
~~
In the United Kingdom, the number of scientific experiments on animals rose by 63,000 last year to just over 2.85m, according to data released by the Home Office yesterday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1663418,00.html
~~
From The Guardian 8 May 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html
The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers...
One former British special forces officer ... said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.
~~~
CIA torture technique, as referred to in 'a classified CIA Inspector General's report':
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866&page=1
Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him.
Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.
~~
In the United Kingdom, the number of scientific experiments on animals rose by 63,000 last year to just over 2.85m, according to data released by the Home Office yesterday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1663418,00.html
~~
From The Guardian 8 May 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html
The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers...
One former British special forces officer ... said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.
~~~
Jewish Godfather Boris Berezovsky and the failed revolution in Ukraine
BBC2 has a series on Russian Godfathers which began on 8 December 2005. The first programme told us about Boris Berezovsky pouring millions into the orange revolution in the Ukraine.
From an article in http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n6p13_Michaels.html
Most Russians have suffered terribly during the Yeltsin years. According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era.
Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish," the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27.)
Almost certainly the most important of the "oligarchs" is Boris A. Berezovsky
From the Scotsman review of the BBC2 programme on Berezovsky http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=2374152005
BORIS Berezovsky became a billionaire in Yeltsin's chaotic Russia (shot of mob waving little McDonald's flags). He invited ordinary folk to invest in a privatised car factory he was buying. He got his factory, they allegedly got nothing back in return.
That, according to Russian Godfathers, was how he got started. He ended up in Yeltsin's cabinet but got the heave when Putin took over. Accused of corruption, he sought asylum in Britain and, here, butlers bring him beverage as he sits plotting Putin's downfall. In the home counties, he owns big posh hooses, guarded by Foreign Legion veterans.
He also owns Russia's equivalent of the *Financial Times, which is edited by a man in a black polo-neck. He told a man in a sweatshirt, who edits Russia's main opposition paper, that he'd only been behind protests in Ukraine "in spirit". But, in secret, he'd poured material millions into the opposition...
Boris stirred things up in Latvia by calling a press conference to denounce Putin. The Russians went doolally and threatened to cut off Latvia's energy supplies, which plunged the government into chaos. Another day another dollar for Boris. He left in his private jet.
For a few dollars more, he soon returned, this time with a new software business partner: Neil Bush, brother of George.
~
According to http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1380456
Yushchenko campaigned partly on a promise to pull Ukraine's troops out of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, but the Bush administration quickly adopted him as a democratic darling. The Ukrainian leader visited the White House in April.
Many Ukrainians now express disappointment at their nation's failure to improve living standards and battle corruption since the dramatic days of the street protests.
There have been no demonstrable improvements in poverty rates, and Yushchenko's approval ratings have plunged.
~~~
From an article in http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n6p13_Michaels.html
Most Russians have suffered terribly during the Yeltsin years. According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era.
Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish," the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27.)
Almost certainly the most important of the "oligarchs" is Boris A. Berezovsky
From the Scotsman review of the BBC2 programme on Berezovsky http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=2374152005
BORIS Berezovsky became a billionaire in Yeltsin's chaotic Russia (shot of mob waving little McDonald's flags). He invited ordinary folk to invest in a privatised car factory he was buying. He got his factory, they allegedly got nothing back in return.
That, according to Russian Godfathers, was how he got started. He ended up in Yeltsin's cabinet but got the heave when Putin took over. Accused of corruption, he sought asylum in Britain and, here, butlers bring him beverage as he sits plotting Putin's downfall. In the home counties, he owns big posh hooses, guarded by Foreign Legion veterans.
He also owns Russia's equivalent of the *Financial Times, which is edited by a man in a black polo-neck. He told a man in a sweatshirt, who edits Russia's main opposition paper, that he'd only been behind protests in Ukraine "in spirit". But, in secret, he'd poured material millions into the opposition...
Boris stirred things up in Latvia by calling a press conference to denounce Putin. The Russians went doolally and threatened to cut off Latvia's energy supplies, which plunged the government into chaos. Another day another dollar for Boris. He left in his private jet.
For a few dollars more, he soon returned, this time with a new software business partner: Neil Bush, brother of George.
~
According to http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1380456
Yushchenko campaigned partly on a promise to pull Ukraine's troops out of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, but the Bush administration quickly adopted him as a democratic darling. The Ukrainian leader visited the White House in April.
Many Ukrainians now express disappointment at their nation's failure to improve living standards and battle corruption since the dramatic days of the street protests.
There have been no demonstrable improvements in poverty rates, and Yushchenko's approval ratings have plunged.
~~~
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Stormont spy ring a concoction of the police?
Stormont spy case collapses... The following is taken from the blog by Slugger O'Toole, Ireland
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4268/
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Stormont spy case collapses...
Bad news for the PSNI. The case against the so-called Stormont spy ring, the impetus for the collapse of the local devolved Assembly, has itself collapsed in court. See the BBC News site for the latest details.
Mick Fealty
~
How strange!! All the Unionist furore all the psni statements and private briefing to damage these mens creditibility all for nothing.
And the TV directed raid by heavily armed PSNI men and their 20-30 landrovers, all for what.
How can anyone expect Nationalists to truely believe that the PSNI works in an impartial fashion.
Maybe now the Psni should listen to one of the few within the Nationalist community who gaves credence to this force, Alastair McDonnell who recently stated that the Psni was starting to lose the support from the Nationalist quarter which supports it.
Political policing, it hasn`t gone away you know.
Now remind me who robbed the Northern Bank!!!!!
Posted by Eloot O` Regguls on Dec 08, 2005 @ 12:43 PM
~~
Ahh, yes,...that would be the good ol’ PSNI that we are all to put our trust in.
So, there was no Stormont spy ring.
It was all a concoction of the police and media?
My ,my, whoever would have thunk it? Should we ask for an apology that they have been engaged in blatant political policing? Should all those unionist politicians and others who so happily bleated about republican guilt come out now and apologise? Will they now admit that the basis of them pulling out of Stormont was fallacious?
The PSNI tried to save David Trimble’s bacon. It’s as simple as that. It didn’t work. We now have had years of political stagnation as a result as well as the DUP crowned as the largest unionist party. So, all in all, I’d say the raid was a success… Public relations as policing, the 6 county way…
Are we still to believe that the PSNI has reformed? This just adds more weight to the argument that policing and justice powers be transferred immediately to local control.
I see also that this story is tucked away from public view...a bit different from the media circus that appeared at Stormont on the day. Funny that…
seabhac siulach on Dec 08, 2005 @ 12:46 PM
~~~
After several years of “over-hype” by the media regarding the “acheivements” of the Chief Constable, it will be interesting to see how this farce will re-define media and public perceptions of Hugh Orde. Let’s not forget it was Orde who admitted afterwards that the public ‘storming’ of Stormont by the PSNI during their searches had been a mistake. Well that is but small fry compared to the collapse of this entire enquiry. This is an enquiry that brought down a government. Somebody will have to pay for this.
Posted by macswiney on Dec 08, 2005 @ 02:08 PM
~~~
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4268/
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Stormont spy case collapses...
Bad news for the PSNI. The case against the so-called Stormont spy ring, the impetus for the collapse of the local devolved Assembly, has itself collapsed in court. See the BBC News site for the latest details.
Mick Fealty
~
How strange!! All the Unionist furore all the psni statements and private briefing to damage these mens creditibility all for nothing.
And the TV directed raid by heavily armed PSNI men and their 20-30 landrovers, all for what.
How can anyone expect Nationalists to truely believe that the PSNI works in an impartial fashion.
Maybe now the Psni should listen to one of the few within the Nationalist community who gaves credence to this force, Alastair McDonnell who recently stated that the Psni was starting to lose the support from the Nationalist quarter which supports it.
Political policing, it hasn`t gone away you know.
Now remind me who robbed the Northern Bank!!!!!
Posted by Eloot O` Regguls on Dec 08, 2005 @ 12:43 PM
~~
Ahh, yes,...that would be the good ol’ PSNI that we are all to put our trust in.
So, there was no Stormont spy ring.
It was all a concoction of the police and media?
My ,my, whoever would have thunk it? Should we ask for an apology that they have been engaged in blatant political policing? Should all those unionist politicians and others who so happily bleated about republican guilt come out now and apologise? Will they now admit that the basis of them pulling out of Stormont was fallacious?
The PSNI tried to save David Trimble’s bacon. It’s as simple as that. It didn’t work. We now have had years of political stagnation as a result as well as the DUP crowned as the largest unionist party. So, all in all, I’d say the raid was a success… Public relations as policing, the 6 county way…
Are we still to believe that the PSNI has reformed? This just adds more weight to the argument that policing and justice powers be transferred immediately to local control.
I see also that this story is tucked away from public view...a bit different from the media circus that appeared at Stormont on the day. Funny that…
seabhac siulach on Dec 08, 2005 @ 12:46 PM
~~~
After several years of “over-hype” by the media regarding the “acheivements” of the Chief Constable, it will be interesting to see how this farce will re-define media and public perceptions of Hugh Orde. Let’s not forget it was Orde who admitted afterwards that the public ‘storming’ of Stormont by the PSNI during their searches had been a mistake. Well that is but small fry compared to the collapse of this entire enquiry. This is an enquiry that brought down a government. Somebody will have to pay for this.
Posted by macswiney on Dec 08, 2005 @ 02:08 PM
~~~
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
American wars and UK job opportunities?
According to Private Eye (UK), August 2005:
Sir Robert Walmsley, former head of UK defence procurement, procured himself a job as director of US arms firm the EDO Corporation.
Admiral lord Boyce, the chief of the UK defence staff who retired in 2003, became an adviser to the American Computer Sciences Corporation in 2004. Boyce told Private Eye that he advised CSC on its bid for a £6 billion defence contract.
~~
Sir Robert Walmsley, former head of UK defence procurement, procured himself a job as director of US arms firm the EDO Corporation.
Admiral lord Boyce, the chief of the UK defence staff who retired in 2003, became an adviser to the American Computer Sciences Corporation in 2004. Boyce told Private Eye that he advised CSC on its bid for a £6 billion defence contract.
~~
CIA, Wilkes, Cunningham, Abramoff, cocaine, Iran-Contra, Clinton, Bush, Money Laundering....
The following is taken from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
CUNNINGHAM SCANDAL FIGURE LINKED TO IRAN CONTRA COCAINE TRAFFICKING
San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes, a key figure in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal—as well as the Justice Department investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff—worked in Honduras during the 1980’s for a company accused by federal prosecutors of deep involvement in cocaine trafficking.
Over the weekend the San Diego Union-Tribune, Cunningham’s hometown paper, reported that Brent Wilkes has a two decade long history of close links with the CIA. Posted Dec 7, 2005 07:53 AM PSTCategory: POLITICS/CORRUPTION
The Iran-Contra scandal shaped current American politics. Run out of the Reagan/Bush White House, the US end of the pipeline was originally in Mena, Arkansas, protected by then governor Bill Clinton. After Eugene Hassenfuss' plane went down and the lid was ripped off the scandal, Bush Sr. had to leave the White House after just one term, but arranged for Governor Clinton to succeed him in order to keep the lid on the really darker parts of the scandal, which was government sanctioned drug running and money laundering/growing using the S&L debacle.
Here is how the scam worked. First President Bush (Sr) raised the insurable deposit limit from $10,000 to $100,000 for S&Ls. Cash from CIA cocaine smuggling was mixed with the cash proceeds from legitimate cash based businesses such as convenience stores, multi-screen cinemas, office supply stores, etc. then after taxes were paid, brokered into individual accounts, all under $100,000, in a targeted S&L.
A phony business front would be set up by the CIA drug smugglers, and would approach the S&L for a loan, using overvalued (flipped) real estate as collateral. Since proceeds from a loan are non-taxable, the money could be sent anywhere in the world, laundered, ready to use for anything. The phony business front would collapse, and the S&L would find itself holding land that was worth far less than had been loaned on it, and collapse.
BUT, the CIA operatives were still on the books for their original deposit, even though they had already "borrowed" it out of the S&L. So, Bush (Sr.) set up the Resolution Trust Company that went around with a checkbook writing checks to the original depositors; again money that was clean and could be spent anywhere.
This little scan would not only launder the CIA's drug money, but almost double it at the same time, all inside the US, with no risk, and all on the backs of the US Taxpayers.
Sounds pretty wild, right? And here is what is wilder. Its happening again. We just got our of a round of land flipping that artificially inflated land prices, and Bloomberg is already reporting that the bubble is starting to burst. And here we have one of the original Iran-Contra CIA operatives, clearly involved in illegal activity, and running a string of phony PO Box phony business fronts.
~~
CUNNINGHAM SCANDAL FIGURE LINKED TO IRAN CONTRA COCAINE TRAFFICKING
San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes, a key figure in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal—as well as the Justice Department investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff—worked in Honduras during the 1980’s for a company accused by federal prosecutors of deep involvement in cocaine trafficking.
Over the weekend the San Diego Union-Tribune, Cunningham’s hometown paper, reported that Brent Wilkes has a two decade long history of close links with the CIA. Posted Dec 7, 2005 07:53 AM PSTCategory: POLITICS/CORRUPTION
The Iran-Contra scandal shaped current American politics. Run out of the Reagan/Bush White House, the US end of the pipeline was originally in Mena, Arkansas, protected by then governor Bill Clinton. After Eugene Hassenfuss' plane went down and the lid was ripped off the scandal, Bush Sr. had to leave the White House after just one term, but arranged for Governor Clinton to succeed him in order to keep the lid on the really darker parts of the scandal, which was government sanctioned drug running and money laundering/growing using the S&L debacle.
Here is how the scam worked. First President Bush (Sr) raised the insurable deposit limit from $10,000 to $100,000 for S&Ls. Cash from CIA cocaine smuggling was mixed with the cash proceeds from legitimate cash based businesses such as convenience stores, multi-screen cinemas, office supply stores, etc. then after taxes were paid, brokered into individual accounts, all under $100,000, in a targeted S&L.
A phony business front would be set up by the CIA drug smugglers, and would approach the S&L for a loan, using overvalued (flipped) real estate as collateral. Since proceeds from a loan are non-taxable, the money could be sent anywhere in the world, laundered, ready to use for anything. The phony business front would collapse, and the S&L would find itself holding land that was worth far less than had been loaned on it, and collapse.
BUT, the CIA operatives were still on the books for their original deposit, even though they had already "borrowed" it out of the S&L. So, Bush (Sr.) set up the Resolution Trust Company that went around with a checkbook writing checks to the original depositors; again money that was clean and could be spent anywhere.
This little scan would not only launder the CIA's drug money, but almost double it at the same time, all inside the US, with no risk, and all on the backs of the US Taxpayers.
Sounds pretty wild, right? And here is what is wilder. Its happening again. We just got our of a round of land flipping that artificially inflated land prices, and Bloomberg is already reporting that the bubble is starting to burst. And here we have one of the original Iran-Contra CIA operatives, clearly involved in illegal activity, and running a string of phony PO Box phony business fronts.
~~
Monday, December 05, 2005
Severe poverty in the UK - no improvement in recent years.
Tony Blair was allegedly a right wing agent of the security services whose job was to spy on the Labour party. The Truth Seeker - Tony Blair – Former MI5 Informant?
David Cameron's policy coordinator may be Oliver Letwin, who has worked for the Rothschilds.
New Statesman: Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor, cannot expect ...
Neither is likely to help the one million British children living in dire poverty.
From The Daily Mail, 5th December 2005:
British children without 'hot meal or warmth' this winter
One in ten children in England, Scotland and Wales live in homes so poor they will go without a coat, a pair of shoes or even a hot meal this winter, a major children's charity has revealed.
Save the Children has found no real improvement in the number of children living in severe and long-term poverty since they reported in 2003 that up to a million were in dire need.
And unless urgent action is taken the government is on course to miss its target of ending child poverty by 2020, claims the report out today.
Families in severe long term poverty are getting by on about £132 a week sometimes for years on end, said the charity.
They are less likely to afford new clothes, replace worn out furniture, and eat meat or fish every other day, the report found.
The poorest families find it very difficult to save more than £8 a month and two-thirds of children in long-term poverty had parents who were unable to save anything in a year.
Save the Children Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said: "People find it difficult to accept there is poverty in Britain. But the reality is one in ten children are experiencing severe poverty - that means going without a winter coat, a pair of shoes or a hot meal and with little hope of doing well at school."
The report, Britain's Poorest Children Revisited, calls on the government to get an accurate picture of how many people need help by measuring severe poverty.
It needs to help young families take up work and escape the poverty trap by assisting with the cost of childcare and increasing Child Tax Credit for large families, says the report
The report also recommends the setting up of an independent minimum income commission by the end of 2010 to set a bottom threshold below which no family should fall.
~~
In parts of Britain, poverty can mean a father earning around £5 per hour.
But, poverty can also mean violent schools, violent streets, violent homes and violence on BBC TV.
Poverty can mean people being brainwashed and controlled by fear.
What is the answer? Never ever vote for the deluded fools, or the secret fascists, in either the New Labour Party or the Conservative Party.
~~
I wonder if it was Oliver Letwin who once said to me that it was a pity about the poor, but, there wasn't much one could do about them?
That was said to me by a Conservative Party candidate in Hampstead, London, some time in the 1980s.
~~
The Scots would be as rich as the Swiss if they became independent. But, so many of the Scots have sold their souls to New Labour.
~~
David Cameron's policy coordinator may be Oliver Letwin, who has worked for the Rothschilds.
New Statesman: Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor, cannot expect ...
Neither is likely to help the one million British children living in dire poverty.
From The Daily Mail, 5th December 2005:
British children without 'hot meal or warmth' this winter
One in ten children in England, Scotland and Wales live in homes so poor they will go without a coat, a pair of shoes or even a hot meal this winter, a major children's charity has revealed.
Save the Children has found no real improvement in the number of children living in severe and long-term poverty since they reported in 2003 that up to a million were in dire need.
And unless urgent action is taken the government is on course to miss its target of ending child poverty by 2020, claims the report out today.
Families in severe long term poverty are getting by on about £132 a week sometimes for years on end, said the charity.
They are less likely to afford new clothes, replace worn out furniture, and eat meat or fish every other day, the report found.
The poorest families find it very difficult to save more than £8 a month and two-thirds of children in long-term poverty had parents who were unable to save anything in a year.
Save the Children Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said: "People find it difficult to accept there is poverty in Britain. But the reality is one in ten children are experiencing severe poverty - that means going without a winter coat, a pair of shoes or a hot meal and with little hope of doing well at school."
The report, Britain's Poorest Children Revisited, calls on the government to get an accurate picture of how many people need help by measuring severe poverty.
It needs to help young families take up work and escape the poverty trap by assisting with the cost of childcare and increasing Child Tax Credit for large families, says the report
The report also recommends the setting up of an independent minimum income commission by the end of 2010 to set a bottom threshold below which no family should fall.
~~
In parts of Britain, poverty can mean a father earning around £5 per hour.
But, poverty can also mean violent schools, violent streets, violent homes and violence on BBC TV.
Poverty can mean people being brainwashed and controlled by fear.
What is the answer? Never ever vote for the deluded fools, or the secret fascists, in either the New Labour Party or the Conservative Party.
~~
I wonder if it was Oliver Letwin who once said to me that it was a pity about the poor, but, there wasn't much one could do about them?
That was said to me by a Conservative Party candidate in Hampstead, London, some time in the 1980s.
~~
The Scots would be as rich as the Swiss if they became independent. But, so many of the Scots have sold their souls to New Labour.
~~
Israelis killed Zia, suspects ex-US ambassador
Israelis killed Zia, suspects ex-US ambassador
Taken from The Daily Times Monitor, 3 December 2005:
The Israeli secret agency Mossad most probably killed Gen Zia ul Haq, suspects John Gunther Dean, who was the American ambassador to India in 1988, according to an article in the latest issue of World Policy Journal by Barbara Crossette, who was the South Asia Bureau Chief of the New York Times from 1988 to 1991.
When Mr Dean expressed his views to the State Department at the time and insisted on a thorough investigation of the Israeli-Indian axis, he was accused of mental imbalance and relieved of his duties.
Dean was a distinguished diplomat who has garnered more ambassadorships than most envoys. He had strong opinions and years of valuable experience. As an independent thinker, he often had problems being a good “diplomat”.
Dean believes that the Israelis wanted to stop Pakistan’s military from making nuclear weapons. They had attacked Iraq’s nuclear facilities at Osirak in 1981 and believed Gen Zia when he declared in 1987 that Pakistan was a “screwdriver’s turn away from the bomb”.
Dean, now 80, has remained silent for nearly 20 years but is now collecting his papers and is ready to share his thoughts.
He was declared mentally unfit for demanding an investigation into the crash. He lost his medical clearance and security clearance because of his views and was forced to seek retirement in 1988.
After he made the charge following the air crash in which the then US ambassador to Pakistan, Arnie Raphel was also killed, he was sent to Switzerland to “rest” for six weeks and only then allowed to return to New Delhi to pack his bags and quit.
He is now opening the case because he wants to clear the charge of “mental imbalance” and ask the questions that have long remained buried about the aircrash that killed Gen Zia.
Dean says that when he was ambassador to India, various pro-Israel Congressmen and other US policy makers constantly asked him why he wasn’t cooperating with the Israelis to thwart Pakistan’s nuclear programme and demonise Pakistan. He says he was asked to persuade the Indians to be more pro-Israel too.
He is on record as having alleged that the Israelis tried to kill him in 1980 when he was US ambassador to the Lebanon because he disagreed with Israeli policies.
He was accused of being “pro-Palestinian” in the Israeli Knesset (parliament).
The US did not allow the FBI or any other agency to carry out a full-fledged investigation into the crash.
~~
Taken from The Daily Times Monitor, 3 December 2005:
The Israeli secret agency Mossad most probably killed Gen Zia ul Haq, suspects John Gunther Dean, who was the American ambassador to India in 1988, according to an article in the latest issue of World Policy Journal by Barbara Crossette, who was the South Asia Bureau Chief of the New York Times from 1988 to 1991.
When Mr Dean expressed his views to the State Department at the time and insisted on a thorough investigation of the Israeli-Indian axis, he was accused of mental imbalance and relieved of his duties.
Dean was a distinguished diplomat who has garnered more ambassadorships than most envoys. He had strong opinions and years of valuable experience. As an independent thinker, he often had problems being a good “diplomat”.
Dean believes that the Israelis wanted to stop Pakistan’s military from making nuclear weapons. They had attacked Iraq’s nuclear facilities at Osirak in 1981 and believed Gen Zia when he declared in 1987 that Pakistan was a “screwdriver’s turn away from the bomb”.
Dean, now 80, has remained silent for nearly 20 years but is now collecting his papers and is ready to share his thoughts.
He was declared mentally unfit for demanding an investigation into the crash. He lost his medical clearance and security clearance because of his views and was forced to seek retirement in 1988.
After he made the charge following the air crash in which the then US ambassador to Pakistan, Arnie Raphel was also killed, he was sent to Switzerland to “rest” for six weeks and only then allowed to return to New Delhi to pack his bags and quit.
He is now opening the case because he wants to clear the charge of “mental imbalance” and ask the questions that have long remained buried about the aircrash that killed Gen Zia.
Dean says that when he was ambassador to India, various pro-Israel Congressmen and other US policy makers constantly asked him why he wasn’t cooperating with the Israelis to thwart Pakistan’s nuclear programme and demonise Pakistan. He says he was asked to persuade the Indians to be more pro-Israel too.
He is on record as having alleged that the Israelis tried to kill him in 1980 when he was US ambassador to the Lebanon because he disagreed with Israeli policies.
He was accused of being “pro-Palestinian” in the Israeli Knesset (parliament).
The US did not allow the FBI or any other agency to carry out a full-fledged investigation into the crash.
~~
Sunday, December 04, 2005
David Brooks, flawed body armour and a bat Mitzvah
DAVID BROOKS
Tycoon spends £6m on daughter's party David Brooks, the New York body armour tycoon has spent £6 million on his 12-year-old daughter's coming-of-age party, flying in Tom Petty, Aerosmith and the rapper 50 Cent for the evening.
50 Cent, the War Profiteer and the $10 million Bat Mitzvah
According to United for a Fair Economy, Brooks and Co. have made a tidy profit outfitting our nation’s fighting men and women in body armor that allegedly can’t take a hit from a 9mm round.
Taken from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
In 1999, Point Blank was losing millions for its parent company DHB Industries. Things didn't get much better until the events of 9/11 sent the United States to war.
In 2001 and 2002 the lucrative DOD contracts provided to the Florida-based company boosted its profits to $10.1 million and $16 million respectively on a combined $228.3 million in revenue, according to industry sources. Soon after the company received another $9.2 million contract in 2002 to produce body armor for Army engineers charged with disposing of landmines a labor dispute revealed that company was allegedly putting profits before quality.
In all, the Marine Corps accepted about 19,000 Interceptor outer tactical vests from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. that failed government tests due to “multiple complete penetrations” of 9mm pistol rounds, failing scores on other ballistic or quality-assurance tests, or a combination of the two.
For workers at Point Blank Body Armor’s unionized factory here, there is not much controversy surrounding the sale of what the U.S. military has labeled as faulty protective equipment. Most oppose what they describe as company profiteering that has resulted in production of thousands of bulletproof vests sent to GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan that were recalled earlier this year. The U.S. Marines returned about 5,000 of these vests after the media reported they had failed government tests.Posted Dec 4, 2005 07:24 AM PST
The Pentagon’s body armor scandal
http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=8278
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-832873.php
~~
Tycoon spends £6m on daughter's party David Brooks, the New York body armour tycoon has spent £6 million on his 12-year-old daughter's coming-of-age party, flying in Tom Petty, Aerosmith and the rapper 50 Cent for the evening.
50 Cent, the War Profiteer and the $10 million Bat Mitzvah
According to United for a Fair Economy, Brooks and Co. have made a tidy profit outfitting our nation’s fighting men and women in body armor that allegedly can’t take a hit from a 9mm round.
Taken from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
In 1999, Point Blank was losing millions for its parent company DHB Industries. Things didn't get much better until the events of 9/11 sent the United States to war.
In 2001 and 2002 the lucrative DOD contracts provided to the Florida-based company boosted its profits to $10.1 million and $16 million respectively on a combined $228.3 million in revenue, according to industry sources. Soon after the company received another $9.2 million contract in 2002 to produce body armor for Army engineers charged with disposing of landmines a labor dispute revealed that company was allegedly putting profits before quality.
In all, the Marine Corps accepted about 19,000 Interceptor outer tactical vests from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. that failed government tests due to “multiple complete penetrations” of 9mm pistol rounds, failing scores on other ballistic or quality-assurance tests, or a combination of the two.
For workers at Point Blank Body Armor’s unionized factory here, there is not much controversy surrounding the sale of what the U.S. military has labeled as faulty protective equipment. Most oppose what they describe as company profiteering that has resulted in production of thousands of bulletproof vests sent to GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan that were recalled earlier this year. The U.S. Marines returned about 5,000 of these vests after the media reported they had failed government tests.Posted Dec 4, 2005 07:24 AM PST
The Pentagon’s body armor scandal
http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=8278
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-832873.php
~~
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The use of the Muslim Brotherhood by MI6 and the CIA in Egypt, Syria and Iran
The Chicago Sun-Times reported, 28 November 2005:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-egypt28.html
Egypt, the world's most populous Arab country, is suddenly roiling with a wide-open, combative election that seems certain to end with the country's main Islamic group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, as a big winner.
The country's rulers, longtime American allies, are starting to show signs of panic: Police have barred voters from polls and thugs have attacked Brotherhood supporters in recent days in an apparent effort to blunt the group's growing momentum.
Even before the final round of voting Thursday, Brotherhood loyalists have increased their seats in parliament fivefold. That's not enough to unseat the ruling party, but is still seen as a slap to President Hosni Mubarak.
The following is taken from http://www.redmoonrising.com/Ikhwan/BritIslam.htm
Prior to World War II British Intelligence cultivated ties with the Brotherhood through agent Freya Stark, the British adventurer and writer (1). These covert connections were used to keep track of the growing German presence in North Africa and to stay informed of the many different political movements that were springing up. The Muslim Brotherhood spread throughout the Muslim world and has evolved into something like a Muslim equivalent of the West's Masonic brotherhood. It became one of the first Islamic Fundamentalist terror organizations...
"According to CIA agent Miles Copeland, the Americans began looking for a Muslim Billy Graham around 1955... When finding or creating a Muslim Billy Graham proved elusive, the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim mass organization founded in Egypt but with followers throughout the Arab Middle East... This signalled the beginning of an alliance between the traditional regimes and mass Islamic movements against Nasser and other secular forces." (1)
The CIA was following the example of British Intelligence and sought to use Islam to further its goals. They wanted to find a charismatic religious leader that they could promote and control and they began to cooperate with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. With the rise of Nasser the Brotherhood was also courted more seriously by the pro-Western Arab regimes of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They needed all the popular support that they could muster against the rise of Nasser-inspired Arab nationalism to keep their regimes intact.
The Muslim Brotherhood was an obvious ally against Nasser, because he had abolished it from Egypt after it was involved in a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1954. The Brotherhood rejected Nasser's policy that, for the most part, kept religion out of politics. Officially the Brotherhood was an outlawed organization, but it remained influential and active within Egypt working against the secular regime, often hand-in-hand with British Intelligence. In June of 1955 MI6 was already approaching the Brotherhood in Syria to agitate against the new government that showed strong left-wing tendencies and a desire to merge with Egypt (2). The Brotherhood became an even more important asset after Nasser announced the Egyptian takeover of the Suez...
In Syria, in 1982, there was a major conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian government at the city of Hamma that resulted in 20,000 casualties. In the aftermath Syria's President Asad revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood forces were armed with US-made equipment...
Israel, forever inclined to back divisive movements, surfaced as another supporter of Islam and began to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas." (8)
The most noteworthy success of the Islamic movement during this time was of course the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the installation of the Ayatollah Khomeini as the Islamic dictator. British Intelligence had used their contacts with Iran's mullahs and ayatollahs to help overthrow Mossadegh and install the Shah back in 1953, and these contacts were maintained and used again to overthrow the Shah when his regime fell out of favor.
The Establishment history of Iran's Islamic Revolution is that Khomeini's revolt was spontaneous and populist, and that it overthrew a repressive dictatorship that was hated by the people but supported wholeheartedly by the United States. It is true that the Shah's government was not a democracy and that his secret service, trained by the CIA, was one of the most effective intelligence organizations in the world. But what is not reported is that prior to the British-sponsored massive public relations campaign on behalf of the Ayatollah the government of the Shah was loved by the vast majority of the population.
After taking over from Mossadegh the Shah began to push forward a number of nationalist policies that increased his popularity at home but, in some cases, worried the Anglo-American Establishment. First, he signed petroleum agreements with ENI, the Italian oil company. Then in 1963 he pushed forward on a series of popular reforms that became known as the White Revolution. The Shah evolved into a nationalist whose path paralleled that of Nasser far too much for the Establishment's liking:
- He bought land from the upper classes and, along with the crown's own land, sold it back cheaply to tenant farmers, allowing over one a half million people to become land owners and ending the old feudal system.
- He allowed women the right to vote, and brought an end to the wearing of the veil, which were "Westernizing" moves unwelcomed by the religious sector.
- He pushed forward on a $90 billion nuclear power program.
- He moved to shut down the lucrative opium industry that had been created during the days of British Empire control that had been running for a hundred years. (9)...
The attack on the Shah's government came through the Muslim Brotherhood and through the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran, supported and manipulated by British Intelligence...
Dr. John Coleman, a former British Intelligence agent... states in his report on Iran's Islamic Revolution (11) that the Muslim Brotherhood was created by "the great names of British Middle East intelligence" ...and that their mission was to "keep the Middle East backward so that its natural resource, oil, could continue to be looted..."
Dr. Coleman writes that in 1980 the broadcasts of Radio Free Iran divided the enemies of the Shah into four categories: 1. Iranian politicians bought by the Israeli Shin Bet, 2. The CIA's network of agents, 3. The feudal landowners, 4. The Freemasons and the Muslim Brotherhood (viewed as the same enemy).
In his report Dr. Coleman writes that in Iran, "At one time there was even a joke about the mullahs being stamped 'made in Britain.'" When the Shah introduced his plan for modernization in 1963 the Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as the leader of the religious opposition. Up until his exile from Iran in 1964, Khomeini was based at the religious city of Qom. Dr. Coleman relates that Radio Free Iran claimed that while at Qom Khomeini received a "monthly stipend from the British, and he is in constant contact with his masters, the British."
Notes http://www.redmoonrising.com/Ikhwan/BritIslam.htm
~
It would seem that the UK and US military like governments to be fundamentalist because then things are easier to control.
~
Monday, November 28, 2005
MI6 and the bombing of Rainbow Warrior
The 11 July 1985 bombing of Rainbow Warrior killed Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.
Mitterrand had authorised the bombing. He wanted to stop Greenpeace disrupting French nuclear weapon tests in the Pacific.
Sections of the French media claimed that French secret agents had bought the dinghies used to plant the bombs from people close to MI6 and that MI6 knew of the planned sabotage. By late August the Sunday Times was telling the Foreign Office that "French official sources were briefing freely to 'anyone who would listen' about British involvement".
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,9061,1652392,00.html
~~
Published on June 17, 2001 in The Sunday Times of London (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0617-01.htm )
MI6 'Firm' Spied on Green Groups
by Maurice Chittenden and Nicholas Rufford
A PRIVATE intelligence firm with close links to MI6 spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for oil companies, including Shell and BP.
MPs are to demand an inquiry by Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, into whether the secret intelligence service used the firm as a front to spy on green activists.
The firm's agent, who posed as a left-wing sympathizer and film maker, was asked to betray plans of Greenpeace's activities against oil giants.
He also tried to dupe Anita Roddick's Body Shop group to pass on information about its opposition to Shell drilling for oil in a Nigerian tribal land.
The Sunday Times has seen documents which show that the spy, German-born Manfred Schlickenrieder, was hired by Hakluyt, an agency that operates from offices in London's West End.
~~
Mitterrand had authorised the bombing. He wanted to stop Greenpeace disrupting French nuclear weapon tests in the Pacific.
Sections of the French media claimed that French secret agents had bought the dinghies used to plant the bombs from people close to MI6 and that MI6 knew of the planned sabotage. By late August the Sunday Times was telling the Foreign Office that "French official sources were briefing freely to 'anyone who would listen' about British involvement".
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,9061,1652392,00.html
~~
Published on June 17, 2001 in The Sunday Times of London (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0617-01.htm )
MI6 'Firm' Spied on Green Groups
by Maurice Chittenden and Nicholas Rufford
A PRIVATE intelligence firm with close links to MI6 spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for oil companies, including Shell and BP.
MPs are to demand an inquiry by Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, into whether the secret intelligence service used the firm as a front to spy on green activists.
The firm's agent, who posed as a left-wing sympathizer and film maker, was asked to betray plans of Greenpeace's activities against oil giants.
He also tried to dupe Anita Roddick's Body Shop group to pass on information about its opposition to Shell drilling for oil in a Nigerian tribal land.
The Sunday Times has seen documents which show that the spy, German-born Manfred Schlickenrieder, was hired by Hakluyt, an agency that operates from offices in London's West End.
~~
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Turkish parliament orders inquiry into bombing
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23765149.htm
Turkish parliament orders inquiry into bombing
23 Nov 2005
ANKARA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Turkey's parliament gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for an investigation into a bookshop bombing in Turkey's troubled southeast that many blamed on security forces and sparked weeks of violence.
One person was killed in the Nov. 9 bombing in the town of Semdinli and several more died in clashes it triggered between pro-Kurdish protesters and security forces.
It is rare for parliament to launch probes into incidents allegedly involving the military or police and the vote in parliament was taken by raising hands during a special session.
But Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu told parliament it was the government's duty to find out what happened in Semdinli.
The parliamentary commission was approved by the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party and the main opposition parties.
Bombing suspects detained by police turned out to be intelligence agents of the gendarmerie -- a paramilitary force responsible for rural security -- fuelling suspicions that men in uniform may be taking the law into their own hands.
A top Turkish general has angrily rejected claims that bombers acted on the orders of senior military commanders, the Hurriyet daily said on Wednesday.
"I strongly reject (the claims that the order came from Ankara)," General Yasar Buyukanit told Hurriyet in the first detailed public response by Turkey's powerful military.
Buyukanit, who heads Turkey's Land Forces, said he believed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) carried out the bombing, along with others in the region in recent weeks, but declined to comment further as a legal process is now under way.
"We respect the decision of the court," Buyukanit said.
He also denied any attempt to cover up what happened, noting that two gendarmes released by prosecutors after initial questioning would still stand trial over their alleged role.
Critics of Turkey's authorities say the bombing may have been engineered by hardliners as a "provocation" to help create the atmosphere for a crackdown on Kurdish groups in the region. The bookshop was reported to be owned by a former PKK member.
~
Turkish parliament orders inquiry into bombing
23 Nov 2005
ANKARA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Turkey's parliament gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for an investigation into a bookshop bombing in Turkey's troubled southeast that many blamed on security forces and sparked weeks of violence.
One person was killed in the Nov. 9 bombing in the town of Semdinli and several more died in clashes it triggered between pro-Kurdish protesters and security forces.
It is rare for parliament to launch probes into incidents allegedly involving the military or police and the vote in parliament was taken by raising hands during a special session.
But Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu told parliament it was the government's duty to find out what happened in Semdinli.
The parliamentary commission was approved by the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party and the main opposition parties.
Bombing suspects detained by police turned out to be intelligence agents of the gendarmerie -- a paramilitary force responsible for rural security -- fuelling suspicions that men in uniform may be taking the law into their own hands.
A top Turkish general has angrily rejected claims that bombers acted on the orders of senior military commanders, the Hurriyet daily said on Wednesday.
"I strongly reject (the claims that the order came from Ankara)," General Yasar Buyukanit told Hurriyet in the first detailed public response by Turkey's powerful military.
Buyukanit, who heads Turkey's Land Forces, said he believed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) carried out the bombing, along with others in the region in recent weeks, but declined to comment further as a legal process is now under way.
"We respect the decision of the court," Buyukanit said.
He also denied any attempt to cover up what happened, noting that two gendarmes released by prosecutors after initial questioning would still stand trial over their alleged role.
Critics of Turkey's authorities say the bombing may have been engineered by hardliners as a "provocation" to help create the atmosphere for a crackdown on Kurdish groups in the region. The bookshop was reported to be owned by a former PKK member.
~
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Peretz, Rajapakse, Bachelet, Obrador, Morales.
The following is taken from http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
November 21, 2005 ... Israel's Labor Party dumped the pedantic Shimon Peres and replaced him with social democratic labor union firebrand Amir Peretz, a decision welcomed in Damascus, Cairo, and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Peretz is an Arabic-speaking native of Morocco and is on very good terms with Israel's one million-strong Arab community, especially the Arab working class.
He says he will scrap the ridiculous pro-Likud American "Road Map" and negotiate directly with the Palestinian Authority...
Look for Peretz to squeeze the Russian-Ukrainian-Israel Mafia of wealthy Russian and other former Soviet gangsters who have seized control of Israel through their alliance with the corrupt Likud Party.
Sharon obviously read the tea leaves and is jumping a sinking corrupt right wing ship dominated by gangsters and religious fanatics (sounds a lot like the Bush administration). Sharon is forming his own "centrist" political party with the ousted Shimon Peres, deeply fracturing the Israeli Right and consolidating the left around Peretz's Labor Party.
The purge of Peres from Labor is being echoed in the U.S. Democratic Party, where Rep. Jack Murtha's anti-war speech last week is putting the spotlight on leading Democrats who oppose a withdrawal from Iraq -- namely, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Lieberman and Representatives Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer. All are "neo con lite" and quickly becoming irrelevant as the Democratic Party finds its anti-war footing thanks to Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, and others.
In Sri Lanka, leftist Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse won the presidency on a platform of nationalization of the economy, a direct slap in the face of the World Bank of Paul Wolfowitz, which abhors state control of any portion of any national economy. His defeated opponent was a free market proponent. Sri Lanka now joins neighboring India (and its ruling Congress Party) in an emerging bloc of leftist governments in South Asia. Seven opposition parties have held talks with Communist rebels in Nepal with a view that Nepal may soon relegate its fascist pro-American King to the ash heap of history...
In Europe, British Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a rebellion in his own Labor Party and possible impeachment over the Iraq war...
Italy's neo-fascist Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is on the electoral ropes from Italy's leftist coalition, including the Communists. In Norway, the Socialists beat a conservative Prime Minister with ties to the Christian Right in the United States.
It is Latin America that is leading the global progressive resurgence. Michelle Bachelet, tortured by the U.S.-supported Pinochet regime is the front runner to become the next President of Chile. After Pinochet's coup and after being tortured, she moved to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) to rebuild the Chilean Socialist Party. Bachelet is 24 percentage points ahead of her conservative and global neocon-backed rival.
In next year's Mexican presidential election, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is the front runner to succeed conservative Vicente Fox. The election is scheduled for next July 2.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is as strong as ever and continues to berate Bush, calling him "Mr. Danger." Chavez and a phalanx of Latin American leaders of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil blocked Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas pro-corporate contrivance at the recent Americas summit in Argentina.
In Bolivia, coca growers' union leader Evo Morales leads in polls for the Dec. 18 presidential election. He will reverse privatization and begin a policy of state control of the energy industry. In Nicaragua, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega stands a good chance of becoming the country's president after elections next year.
The signs are unmistakable that the progressive left is on the march throughout the United States and around the world. Meanwhile, Bush couldn't make it out of a door in Beijing.
~
November 21, 2005 ... Israel's Labor Party dumped the pedantic Shimon Peres and replaced him with social democratic labor union firebrand Amir Peretz, a decision welcomed in Damascus, Cairo, and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Peretz is an Arabic-speaking native of Morocco and is on very good terms with Israel's one million-strong Arab community, especially the Arab working class.
He says he will scrap the ridiculous pro-Likud American "Road Map" and negotiate directly with the Palestinian Authority...
Look for Peretz to squeeze the Russian-Ukrainian-Israel Mafia of wealthy Russian and other former Soviet gangsters who have seized control of Israel through their alliance with the corrupt Likud Party.
Sharon obviously read the tea leaves and is jumping a sinking corrupt right wing ship dominated by gangsters and religious fanatics (sounds a lot like the Bush administration). Sharon is forming his own "centrist" political party with the ousted Shimon Peres, deeply fracturing the Israeli Right and consolidating the left around Peretz's Labor Party.
The purge of Peres from Labor is being echoed in the U.S. Democratic Party, where Rep. Jack Murtha's anti-war speech last week is putting the spotlight on leading Democrats who oppose a withdrawal from Iraq -- namely, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Lieberman and Representatives Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer. All are "neo con lite" and quickly becoming irrelevant as the Democratic Party finds its anti-war footing thanks to Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, and others.
In Sri Lanka, leftist Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse won the presidency on a platform of nationalization of the economy, a direct slap in the face of the World Bank of Paul Wolfowitz, which abhors state control of any portion of any national economy. His defeated opponent was a free market proponent. Sri Lanka now joins neighboring India (and its ruling Congress Party) in an emerging bloc of leftist governments in South Asia. Seven opposition parties have held talks with Communist rebels in Nepal with a view that Nepal may soon relegate its fascist pro-American King to the ash heap of history...
In Europe, British Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a rebellion in his own Labor Party and possible impeachment over the Iraq war...
Italy's neo-fascist Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is on the electoral ropes from Italy's leftist coalition, including the Communists. In Norway, the Socialists beat a conservative Prime Minister with ties to the Christian Right in the United States.
It is Latin America that is leading the global progressive resurgence. Michelle Bachelet, tortured by the U.S.-supported Pinochet regime is the front runner to become the next President of Chile. After Pinochet's coup and after being tortured, she moved to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) to rebuild the Chilean Socialist Party. Bachelet is 24 percentage points ahead of her conservative and global neocon-backed rival.
In next year's Mexican presidential election, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is the front runner to succeed conservative Vicente Fox. The election is scheduled for next July 2.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is as strong as ever and continues to berate Bush, calling him "Mr. Danger." Chavez and a phalanx of Latin American leaders of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil blocked Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas pro-corporate contrivance at the recent Americas summit in Argentina.
In Bolivia, coca growers' union leader Evo Morales leads in polls for the Dec. 18 presidential election. He will reverse privatization and begin a policy of state control of the energy industry. In Nicaragua, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega stands a good chance of becoming the country's president after elections next year.
The signs are unmistakable that the progressive left is on the march throughout the United States and around the world. Meanwhile, Bush couldn't make it out of a door in Beijing.
~
Bush wanted to bomb Arab ally Qatar
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397945&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=closedown--name_page.html
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=CultureAndMedia&loid=8.0.231468005&par=0
London, 22 Nov. (AKI) - A "Top Secret" document from the British prime minister's office shows that US president George W. Bush planned to bomb the satellite TV station Al Jazeera, despite it being owned by the Qatari government, a key US ally.
The British newspaper The Mirror revealed details of the leaked memo, and said Bush was talked out of the plan by British premier Tony Blair, who said such an action would cause "a worldwide backlash".
While the newspaper reported one government official as dismissing the president's suggestion as "humorous, not serious", another source told the paper: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."The information came from a five page transcript of a conversation between the two leaders during talks in April last year, when Blair visited Bush in Washington.
The prime minister's office is now under pressure to publish the full transcript.
Former Labour Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle told journalists: "It's frightening to think that such a powerful man as Bush can propose such cavalier actions. I hope the Prime Minister insists this memo be published. It gives an insight into the mindset of those who were the architects of war."
The memo turned up last year at the constituency office of Labour MP Tony Clarke, who handed it back to the prime minister's office. Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh has been accused under the Official Secrets Act of passing it to Leo O'Connor, who used to work for Clarke. Both men are due to appear in court next week.Al Jazeera has angered many governments with its coverage, particularly the Bush administration, which has accused the station of fuelling the insurgency in Iraq.
It has been criticised for its reports from behind rebel lines, as well as showing pictures of dead soldiers and civilians, and broadcasting video messages issued by Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.
In 2001, the Al Jazeera's office in the Afghan capital Kabul was hit by two "smart" bombs.
Two years later, correspondent Tareq Ayyoub was killed when US missiles hit Al Jazeera's Baghdad office, and his colleague - former Kabul correspondent Taysir Allouni, who is currently appealing a seven year jail sentence in Spain after being found guilty of being a member of al-Qaeda - narrrowly escaped.
~~
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=CultureAndMedia&loid=8.0.231468005&par=0
London, 22 Nov. (AKI) - A "Top Secret" document from the British prime minister's office shows that US president George W. Bush planned to bomb the satellite TV station Al Jazeera, despite it being owned by the Qatari government, a key US ally.
The British newspaper The Mirror revealed details of the leaked memo, and said Bush was talked out of the plan by British premier Tony Blair, who said such an action would cause "a worldwide backlash".
While the newspaper reported one government official as dismissing the president's suggestion as "humorous, not serious", another source told the paper: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."The information came from a five page transcript of a conversation between the two leaders during talks in April last year, when Blair visited Bush in Washington.
The prime minister's office is now under pressure to publish the full transcript.
Former Labour Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle told journalists: "It's frightening to think that such a powerful man as Bush can propose such cavalier actions. I hope the Prime Minister insists this memo be published. It gives an insight into the mindset of those who were the architects of war."
The memo turned up last year at the constituency office of Labour MP Tony Clarke, who handed it back to the prime minister's office. Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh has been accused under the Official Secrets Act of passing it to Leo O'Connor, who used to work for Clarke. Both men are due to appear in court next week.Al Jazeera has angered many governments with its coverage, particularly the Bush administration, which has accused the station of fuelling the insurgency in Iraq.
It has been criticised for its reports from behind rebel lines, as well as showing pictures of dead soldiers and civilians, and broadcasting video messages issued by Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.
In 2001, the Al Jazeera's office in the Afghan capital Kabul was hit by two "smart" bombs.
Two years later, correspondent Tareq Ayyoub was killed when US missiles hit Al Jazeera's Baghdad office, and his colleague - former Kabul correspondent Taysir Allouni, who is currently appealing a seven year jail sentence in Spain after being found guilty of being a member of al-Qaeda - narrrowly escaped.
~~
Promoting child abuse and violence
Grant Mitchell? Bournemouth? Ecstasy? Read on.....
~~
The UK Labour Party
The UK Conservative Party
The BBC
The UK media
The UK Criminal Justice System
The UK military
Think about advertising slogans that might be appropriate.
Which of the following might suit one or more of the above institutions :
promoting sleaze and violence
working for the Pentagon and killing children
promoting alcohol abuse, drug abuse and child abuse
rigging the evidence
promoting torture
the mint with a hole
~~
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/23/npub123.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/23/ixnewstop.html
From The Telegraph (UK) 23 November 2005:
The new licensing laws were condemned as "ineffective" yesterday after a pub with a history of violence won its campaign to stay open.
The Walkabout, an Australian-themed bar in Bournemouth, faced closure when the borough council rejected its licence application in September after police objections. But at an appeal on Monday, believed to be the first of its kind under the Licensing Act 2003, magistrates in Blandford, Dorset, granted the licence.
~~~
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397942&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=tv-yobs--are-role-models-to-bullies---name_page.html
From the Mirror (UK) 22 November 2005:
TV YOBS 'ARE ROLE MODELS TO BULLIES'
By Adrian Shaw
EASTENDERS hardmen Phil and Grant Mitchell were blamed yesterday for turning children into bullies in the playground.
University academic Dr Sally Henry claimed young thugs copied the violence of the TV soap characters, played by Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden.
Dr Henry said: "Kids learn how to deal with difficult situations from adult role models, like their parents.
"But in the absence of parental guidance, kids will look to other role models, for example male characters in soap operas.
"With around 35 million people a week viewing soap operas like EastEnders, Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Hollyoaks, this is a real problem."
Research by Brunel University in West London also showed that girls not only used psychological bullying but were becoming more violent.
~~~
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1604610,00.html
Ecstasy:
Mike Linnell from the charity Lifeline told The Observer that children as young as 10 were bingeing on the pills, taking up to 20 a day.
'We are seeing kids of 12 and 13 who are buying it very cheaply - between 50 pence and £1 - and using it on a fairly regular basis."
~~
~~
The UK Labour Party
The UK Conservative Party
The BBC
The UK media
The UK Criminal Justice System
The UK military
Think about advertising slogans that might be appropriate.
Which of the following might suit one or more of the above institutions :
promoting sleaze and violence
working for the Pentagon and killing children
promoting alcohol abuse, drug abuse and child abuse
rigging the evidence
promoting torture
the mint with a hole
~~
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/23/npub123.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/23/ixnewstop.html
From The Telegraph (UK) 23 November 2005:
The new licensing laws were condemned as "ineffective" yesterday after a pub with a history of violence won its campaign to stay open.
The Walkabout, an Australian-themed bar in Bournemouth, faced closure when the borough council rejected its licence application in September after police objections. But at an appeal on Monday, believed to be the first of its kind under the Licensing Act 2003, magistrates in Blandford, Dorset, granted the licence.
~~~
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397942&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=tv-yobs--are-role-models-to-bullies---name_page.html
From the Mirror (UK) 22 November 2005:
TV YOBS 'ARE ROLE MODELS TO BULLIES'
By Adrian Shaw
EASTENDERS hardmen Phil and Grant Mitchell were blamed yesterday for turning children into bullies in the playground.
University academic Dr Sally Henry claimed young thugs copied the violence of the TV soap characters, played by Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden.
Dr Henry said: "Kids learn how to deal with difficult situations from adult role models, like their parents.
"But in the absence of parental guidance, kids will look to other role models, for example male characters in soap operas.
"With around 35 million people a week viewing soap operas like EastEnders, Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Hollyoaks, this is a real problem."
Research by Brunel University in West London also showed that girls not only used psychological bullying but were becoming more violent.
~~~
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1604610,00.html
Ecstasy:
Mike Linnell from the charity Lifeline told The Observer that children as young as 10 were bingeing on the pills, taking up to 20 a day.
'We are seeing kids of 12 and 13 who are buying it very cheaply - between 50 pence and £1 - and using it on a fairly regular basis."
~~
Sunday, November 20, 2005
UK troops were trained to use white phosphorus to kill Iraqis.
Colonel Tim Collins's autobiography Rules of Engagement describes how UK troops were trained to use white phosphorus to kill Iraqis.
Article two of Protocol Three of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons bans the use of the weapon against civilians and also military targets located within civilian areas. Although the US is not a signatory of the convention, Britain is.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/20/nphos20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/20/ixportal.html
According to Sean Raymont, Defence Correspondent, in the Sunday Telegraph, 20 November 2005:
Colonel Tim Collins, former UK Iraq war commander, trained his troops to fight with white phosphorus.
The revelation in Collins's autobiography Rules of Engagement, contradicts claims by the Ministry of Defence that the chemical was only ever used to create a smokescreen.
According to The Telegraph, British troops also used white phosphorus to kill Argentinian troops during the Falklands conflict.
In his book, Col Collins describes how he trained 1bn Royal Irish Regiment for an attack codenamed Operation Fury planned for April 2003.
Collins said that he "directed" the men to "perfect" house-to-house fighting skills in preparation for the battle.
Collins wrote:
"The star of the show was the new grenade which had only been on issue since the previous summer. It absolutely trashed the inside of the room it was put into.
"I directed the men to use them where possible with white phosphorus, as the noxious smoke and heat had the effect of drawing out any enemy from cover, while the fragmentation grenade would shred them."
According to The Telegraph:
Col Collins' tactics mirror the United States army "shake and bake" technique which involves forcing troops out of cover with white phosphorus and then killing them with artillery rounds.
The furore surrounding the weapon emerged last week after Lt Col Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, used almost identical phraseology to Col Collins, when he confirmed that "shake and bake" was a recognised American tactic.
In an interview with the BBC, Col Venable said: "When you have enemy forces in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on, one technique is to fire white phosphorus into the position because the combined effects of the fire and smoke will drive them out so that you can kill them with high explosives."
He confirmed: "It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants."
White phosphorus has been used by the British Army for decades to create instantaneous smokescreens during battle. In contact with skin, however, it burns to the bone and the gas it produces, phosphorus pentoxide, is poisonous.
Article two of Protocol Three of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons bans the use of the weapon against civilians and also military targets located within civilian areas. Although the US is not a signatory of the convention, Britain is.
But there is now increasing debate as to whether the use of the weapon should instead fall under the United Nations Convention on Chemical Weapons.
Last week John Reid, the Defence Secretary, maintained the British troops had only ever used white phosphorus as a battlefield smokescreen. His department continued to stress that troops had never used it as "an incendiary weapon, against either civilians or even enemy combatants".
Although Operation Fury was cancelled, it remains unclear whether British troops went on to use white phosphorus against Iraqi forces, putting Col Collins' style of attack into action.
Prof Paul Rogers, of Bradford University's peace studies department, said he believed that most soldiers would use all weapons at their disposal.
He said: "There is a presumption among certain members of the population that wars are clean. They are not."Pentagon spokesman
~
Article two of Protocol Three of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons bans the use of the weapon against civilians and also military targets located within civilian areas. Although the US is not a signatory of the convention, Britain is.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/20/nphos20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/20/ixportal.html
According to Sean Raymont, Defence Correspondent, in the Sunday Telegraph, 20 November 2005:
Colonel Tim Collins, former UK Iraq war commander, trained his troops to fight with white phosphorus.
The revelation in Collins's autobiography Rules of Engagement, contradicts claims by the Ministry of Defence that the chemical was only ever used to create a smokescreen.
According to The Telegraph, British troops also used white phosphorus to kill Argentinian troops during the Falklands conflict.
In his book, Col Collins describes how he trained 1bn Royal Irish Regiment for an attack codenamed Operation Fury planned for April 2003.
Collins said that he "directed" the men to "perfect" house-to-house fighting skills in preparation for the battle.
Collins wrote:
"The star of the show was the new grenade which had only been on issue since the previous summer. It absolutely trashed the inside of the room it was put into.
"I directed the men to use them where possible with white phosphorus, as the noxious smoke and heat had the effect of drawing out any enemy from cover, while the fragmentation grenade would shred them."
According to The Telegraph:
Col Collins' tactics mirror the United States army "shake and bake" technique which involves forcing troops out of cover with white phosphorus and then killing them with artillery rounds.
The furore surrounding the weapon emerged last week after Lt Col Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, used almost identical phraseology to Col Collins, when he confirmed that "shake and bake" was a recognised American tactic.
In an interview with the BBC, Col Venable said: "When you have enemy forces in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on, one technique is to fire white phosphorus into the position because the combined effects of the fire and smoke will drive them out so that you can kill them with high explosives."
He confirmed: "It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants."
White phosphorus has been used by the British Army for decades to create instantaneous smokescreens during battle. In contact with skin, however, it burns to the bone and the gas it produces, phosphorus pentoxide, is poisonous.
Article two of Protocol Three of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons bans the use of the weapon against civilians and also military targets located within civilian areas. Although the US is not a signatory of the convention, Britain is.
But there is now increasing debate as to whether the use of the weapon should instead fall under the United Nations Convention on Chemical Weapons.
Last week John Reid, the Defence Secretary, maintained the British troops had only ever used white phosphorus as a battlefield smokescreen. His department continued to stress that troops had never used it as "an incendiary weapon, against either civilians or even enemy combatants".
Although Operation Fury was cancelled, it remains unclear whether British troops went on to use white phosphorus against Iraqi forces, putting Col Collins' style of attack into action.
Prof Paul Rogers, of Bradford University's peace studies department, said he believed that most soldiers would use all weapons at their disposal.
He said: "There is a presumption among certain members of the population that wars are clean. They are not."Pentagon spokesman
~
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