Top U.S. commanders are meeting this week to plan for the next phase of the Afghanistan war. In Iraq, meanwhile, gains are tentative and in danger of unraveling.
[Eric Prince, the founder of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater International, has reached a deal to sell the company to a small group of investors with close ties to him, the New York Times reported Friday, December 17, 2010.]Eric Prince, the founder of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater International, has reached a deal to sell the company to a small group of investors with close ties to him, the New York Times reported Friday, December 17, 2010.
Both wars have been fought with the help of private military and intelligence contractors. But despite the troubles of Blackwater in particular - charges of corruption and killing of civilians-and continuing controversy over military outsourcing in general, private sector armies are as involved as ever.
Without much notice or debate, the Obama administration has greatly expanded the outsourcing of key parts of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East and Africa, and as a result, for its secretive air war and special operations missions around the world, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on a new breed of specialized companies that are virtually unknown to the American public, yet carry out vital U.S. missions abroad.
Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue. They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.
Some observers fear that the widespread use of contractors for U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa could deepen the secrecy surrounding the American presence in those regions, making it harder for Congress to provide proper oversight.
Even in Iraq, where the U.S. has ended combat operations, the government is "greatly expanding" its use of private security companies, creating "an entirely new role for contractors on the battlefield," Michael Thibault, the co-chairman of the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting, recently warned Congress.
Among the companies getting contracts is Blackbird, which is staffed by former CIA operatives, and is a key contractor in a highly classified program that sends secret teams into enemy territory to rescue downed or captured U.S. soldiers.
Glevum, meanwhile, fields a small army of analysts in Iraq and Afghanistan who provide the U.S. military with what the company opaquely describes as "information operations and influence activities."
And K2 is a highly sought-after subcontractor and trainer for the most secretive units of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, including the SEAL team that rescued the crew of the Maersk Alabama from a gang of pirates last year. It is based near the Army's Special Forces headquarters in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was founded by Lane Kjellsen, a former Special Forces soldier.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander of conventional and special forces in the war zones, is using contractors because "he wants an organization that reports directly to him," said a former top aide to the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, the umbrella organization for all Special Forces. "Everyone knows Petraeus can't execute his strategy without the private sector." The former aide spoke on the condition that he not be identified, saying his career could be jeopardized if he went public. The International Security Assistance Force, the general's home command, did not respond to a request for comment.
The use of contractors could become a serious problem if controversies about them are not addressed, a senior British official warned during a recent visit to Washington. Pauline Neville-Jones, the U.K.'s minister of state for security and counterterrorism (and a former executive with QinetiQ PLC, a major intelligence contractor), told an audience at the Brookings Institution that "we have something of a crisis in Afghanistan" partly because of the "largely unregulated private sector security companies performing important roles" there.
The Pentagon's Central Command had nearly 225,000 contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas at last count, doing tasks ranging from providing security to base support. Intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency field thousands more under classified contracts that are not publicly disclosed, but extend into every U.S. military command around the world. (According to reports in The Nation and elsewhere, Blackwater, which is now known as Xe, has contracted to send personnel into Pakistan to fight with the Joint Special Operations Command, although a command spokesman said the reports were "totally wrong.")
More at source : http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/19
Monday, December 20, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Deputy FM: Israel won't apologize for Gaza flotilla raid
Israel has no intention of apologizing to the Turkish government for the Israel Defense Forces raid on Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May that left nine Turkish citizens dead, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the Knesset on Wednesday.
Ayalon, a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, spoke to the Knesset in the wake of recent reports that Israel and Turkey have been in negotiations to end the diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
Danny Ayalon- Tess Scheflan- March 8, 2010
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon
Photo by: Tess Scheflan
Earlier this week, it was reported that the negotiations have become deadlocked because of Israel's refusal to apologize for the killings of Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara and Turkey's refusal to promise to abstain from legal action against Israeli soldiers and declare that the soldiers acted in self-defense.
An Israeli official told Haaretz that the talks are "stuck" and that "differences are still great." Nonetheless, he said it is still early to declare the talks dead and expects further discussions very soon. A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman also stated last Friday that the talks will resume soon.
According to previously published reports, Israel has offered $100,000 to each Turkish family that lost a family member during the takeover of the Mavi Marmara. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, however, called these figures "pure speculation."
A senior Turkish source told Haaretz that the disagreement now revolves over the wording of the Israeli apology and not the issue of compensation.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/deputy-fm-israel-won-t-apologize-for-gaza-flotilla-raid-1.330813
Ayalon, a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, spoke to the Knesset in the wake of recent reports that Israel and Turkey have been in negotiations to end the diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
Danny Ayalon- Tess Scheflan- March 8, 2010
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon
Photo by: Tess Scheflan
Earlier this week, it was reported that the negotiations have become deadlocked because of Israel's refusal to apologize for the killings of Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara and Turkey's refusal to promise to abstain from legal action against Israeli soldiers and declare that the soldiers acted in self-defense.
An Israeli official told Haaretz that the talks are "stuck" and that "differences are still great." Nonetheless, he said it is still early to declare the talks dead and expects further discussions very soon. A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman also stated last Friday that the talks will resume soon.
According to previously published reports, Israel has offered $100,000 to each Turkish family that lost a family member during the takeover of the Mavi Marmara. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, however, called these figures "pure speculation."
A senior Turkish source told Haaretz that the disagreement now revolves over the wording of the Israeli apology and not the issue of compensation.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/deputy-fm-israel-won-t-apologize-for-gaza-flotilla-raid-1.330813
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown surrenders to Zionist pressure
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced plans to block private groups from seeking arrest warrants against visiting foreign officials suspected of war crimes or crimes against humanity, such as Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and other suspected Israeli war criminals.
In December 2009 former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was forced to cancel a trip to Britain after a UK court issued an arrest warrant against her on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Under Brown’s proposals, the Crown Prosecution Service will take over responsibility for prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law. Currently, magistrates have to consider the case for an arrest warrant to be issued.
Brown wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “As we have seen, there is now significant danger of such a provision being exploited by politically-motivated organizations or individuals who set out only to grab headlines knowing their case has no realistic chance of a successful prosecution.”
"Clearly, the Israeli lobby has much more influence within the British cabinet than the USA. This isn’t a big surprise for us, considering our foreign secretary, David Miliband, is a listed 'Israeli Hasbara [Propaganda] Author'."
Brown must explain to the nation why arresting genocidal war criminals like Livni, Olmert or Barak is a “politically motivated” act. He should also explain to us all why he is convinced that a case against Livni wouldn’t stand a chance in court. As far as the UN-appointed judge Richard Goldstone is concerned, the case against Israel and its leadership is actually watertight.
According to the Daily Mail, Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state and a leading player in the Iraq war, has also reportedly expressed alarm about the prospect of arrest in Britain. Yet, no one in Britain politics rushed to appease the American politician or to amend the application of universal jurisdiction laws in Britain just for him. Clearly, the Israeli lobby has much more influence within the British cabinet than the USA. This isn’t a big surprise for us, considering our foreign secretary, David Miliband, is a listed “Israeli Hasbara [Propaganda] Author”.
Brown said: “There is already growing reason to believe that some people are not prepared to travel to this country for fear that such a private arrest warrant - motivated purely by political gesture - might be sought against them.” Surely, this is good news. Criminals such as Livni or Barak should never dare to step on a plane. Instead, they should stay in their Jewish ghetto and stare at the separation walls they erected around themselves.
Gordon Brown said he wanted legislation putting jurisdiction for war crimes and similar offences under the Crown Prosecution Service to be brought in “as soon as possible”. This is indeed what you would expect from a government that is so heavily funded by the Jewish lobby. Such a move would allow attorneys such as Lord “Green Light” Goldsmith to open Britain’s gate to Israeli genocidal murderers.
Yet Brown failed to tell the British people what it is that stops magistrates from taking the right decisions regarding war criminals. Let us face it, if Brown doesn’t trust Britain’s magistrates, then he had better let them go. He can always hire some rabbis to look after Britain legal system. If Britain is about to give up on its universal jurisdiction laws, it better be prepared to let some tribal experts look after its ethical stand.
Source - http://www.redress.cc/stooges/gatzmon20100305
In December 2009 former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was forced to cancel a trip to Britain after a UK court issued an arrest warrant against her on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Under Brown’s proposals, the Crown Prosecution Service will take over responsibility for prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law. Currently, magistrates have to consider the case for an arrest warrant to be issued.
Brown wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “As we have seen, there is now significant danger of such a provision being exploited by politically-motivated organizations or individuals who set out only to grab headlines knowing their case has no realistic chance of a successful prosecution.”
"Clearly, the Israeli lobby has much more influence within the British cabinet than the USA. This isn’t a big surprise for us, considering our foreign secretary, David Miliband, is a listed 'Israeli Hasbara [Propaganda] Author'."
Brown must explain to the nation why arresting genocidal war criminals like Livni, Olmert or Barak is a “politically motivated” act. He should also explain to us all why he is convinced that a case against Livni wouldn’t stand a chance in court. As far as the UN-appointed judge Richard Goldstone is concerned, the case against Israel and its leadership is actually watertight.
According to the Daily Mail, Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state and a leading player in the Iraq war, has also reportedly expressed alarm about the prospect of arrest in Britain. Yet, no one in Britain politics rushed to appease the American politician or to amend the application of universal jurisdiction laws in Britain just for him. Clearly, the Israeli lobby has much more influence within the British cabinet than the USA. This isn’t a big surprise for us, considering our foreign secretary, David Miliband, is a listed “Israeli Hasbara [Propaganda] Author”.
Brown said: “There is already growing reason to believe that some people are not prepared to travel to this country for fear that such a private arrest warrant - motivated purely by political gesture - might be sought against them.” Surely, this is good news. Criminals such as Livni or Barak should never dare to step on a plane. Instead, they should stay in their Jewish ghetto and stare at the separation walls they erected around themselves.
Gordon Brown said he wanted legislation putting jurisdiction for war crimes and similar offences under the Crown Prosecution Service to be brought in “as soon as possible”. This is indeed what you would expect from a government that is so heavily funded by the Jewish lobby. Such a move would allow attorneys such as Lord “Green Light” Goldsmith to open Britain’s gate to Israeli genocidal murderers.
Yet Brown failed to tell the British people what it is that stops magistrates from taking the right decisions regarding war criminals. Let us face it, if Brown doesn’t trust Britain’s magistrates, then he had better let them go. He can always hire some rabbis to look after Britain legal system. If Britain is about to give up on its universal jurisdiction laws, it better be prepared to let some tribal experts look after its ethical stand.
Source - http://www.redress.cc/stooges/gatzmon20100305
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Syria massacres Kurds aided by Turkey's Israel-made drones
Syrian troops and Kurdish tribesman are locked in fierce battle since the Syrian army blasted four northeastern Kurdish towns and neighborhoods at the end of June, debkafile's military and intelligence sources report. Hundreds of Kurds are reported dead.
The Syrian campaign is backed by Heron (Eitan) spy drones Israel sold Turkey, made accessible on the personal say-so of Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Turkey therefore becomes the first NATO member to make advanced Western military technology available for the use of a strong ally of radical Iran and an active sponsor of terrorists. Following intense exchanges between Jerusalem and Washington, the NATO command was urged to put Ankara on the carpet - with no response as yet.
The drones are being used to track Kurds in flight across Syria's borders, mainly into Lebanon, where Hizballah is helping Syria hunt the refugees down. The accessibility to Damascus of the unmanned aerial vehicles is in direct breach of the Israel-Turkish sales contracts which barred their use - and the use of other Israeli high-tech items sold to Turkey during years of close military collaboration - in the service of hostile states or entities.
Extending their sphere to Syrian and Lebanese skies gives the Syrian army and Hizballah (Iran's external arm) a unique opportunity to study the Heron (Eitan)'s sophisticated attributes in real combat conditions at close hand and adjust their own tactics accordingly to outwit them.
debkafile's intelligence sources have no doubt that Iranian intelligence officers stationed in Damascus and Beirut jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the Israeli wonder-drones.
Regarding the crackdown on the Kurds, our military sources report that three large-scale Syrian military operations against the Kurdish people are in progress under the guidance of Turkish generals based at Syrian staff headquarters in Damascus:
1. Syrian elite forces are battling suspected Kurdish members of the Turkish PKK in at least four northeastern Syrian towns near the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border triangle: the big Kurdish town of Qamishli, the mixed Kurdish-Assyrian town of Al Asakah and two others, Qaratshuk and Diwar. All four and their outlying villages are under massive Syrian army siege after complete residential blocks were blasted - acting as the trigger for the current fighting.
Not all the victims are PKK fighters by any means. Most were civilians. Turkish intelligence sources tried to justify the Syrian massacre and their government's complicity by claiming that 2,000 of the 6,000 PKK fighters conducting terrorist attacks in Turkey from North Iraqi havens are Syrian Kurds or providers of alternative bases for their Turkish comrades to strike Turkish military positions from a second direction.
While until Saturday, July 17, Damascus was tight-lipped about its grim campaign against its Kurdish community, Turkish military sources were more vocal. They placed the number of Kurdish dead in battle at 185 and another 400 taken captive, many of whom will be turned over to Ankara. Our sources estimate the number of dead as much higher - more than 300, with at least 1,000 injured.
2. Large Syrian contingents are sealing the Iraqi border against the flight of Syrian Kurds - but also to block the entry of PKK reinforcements for aiding their beleaguered brethren.
3. The Syrian-Lebanese frontier is similarly sealed to keep Kurdish fighters from fleeing the country. debkafile's military sources report that on this border, Syrian and Hizballah units are working together, with the latter forcibly blocking the roads to Lebanese cities.
Source - http://www.debka.com/article/8916/
The Syrian campaign is backed by Heron (Eitan) spy drones Israel sold Turkey, made accessible on the personal say-so of Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Turkey therefore becomes the first NATO member to make advanced Western military technology available for the use of a strong ally of radical Iran and an active sponsor of terrorists. Following intense exchanges between Jerusalem and Washington, the NATO command was urged to put Ankara on the carpet - with no response as yet.
The drones are being used to track Kurds in flight across Syria's borders, mainly into Lebanon, where Hizballah is helping Syria hunt the refugees down. The accessibility to Damascus of the unmanned aerial vehicles is in direct breach of the Israel-Turkish sales contracts which barred their use - and the use of other Israeli high-tech items sold to Turkey during years of close military collaboration - in the service of hostile states or entities.
Extending their sphere to Syrian and Lebanese skies gives the Syrian army and Hizballah (Iran's external arm) a unique opportunity to study the Heron (Eitan)'s sophisticated attributes in real combat conditions at close hand and adjust their own tactics accordingly to outwit them.
debkafile's intelligence sources have no doubt that Iranian intelligence officers stationed in Damascus and Beirut jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the Israeli wonder-drones.
Regarding the crackdown on the Kurds, our military sources report that three large-scale Syrian military operations against the Kurdish people are in progress under the guidance of Turkish generals based at Syrian staff headquarters in Damascus:
1. Syrian elite forces are battling suspected Kurdish members of the Turkish PKK in at least four northeastern Syrian towns near the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border triangle: the big Kurdish town of Qamishli, the mixed Kurdish-Assyrian town of Al Asakah and two others, Qaratshuk and Diwar. All four and their outlying villages are under massive Syrian army siege after complete residential blocks were blasted - acting as the trigger for the current fighting.
Not all the victims are PKK fighters by any means. Most were civilians. Turkish intelligence sources tried to justify the Syrian massacre and their government's complicity by claiming that 2,000 of the 6,000 PKK fighters conducting terrorist attacks in Turkey from North Iraqi havens are Syrian Kurds or providers of alternative bases for their Turkish comrades to strike Turkish military positions from a second direction.
While until Saturday, July 17, Damascus was tight-lipped about its grim campaign against its Kurdish community, Turkish military sources were more vocal. They placed the number of Kurdish dead in battle at 185 and another 400 taken captive, many of whom will be turned over to Ankara. Our sources estimate the number of dead as much higher - more than 300, with at least 1,000 injured.
2. Large Syrian contingents are sealing the Iraqi border against the flight of Syrian Kurds - but also to block the entry of PKK reinforcements for aiding their beleaguered brethren.
3. The Syrian-Lebanese frontier is similarly sealed to keep Kurdish fighters from fleeing the country. debkafile's military sources report that on this border, Syrian and Hizballah units are working together, with the latter forcibly blocking the roads to Lebanese cities.
Source - http://www.debka.com/article/8916/
Activist from Spain file suit against Israel in flotilla attacks
Two Spanish activists and a journalist arrested in a raid by Israel on a Gaza-bound flotilla are filing charges against Israel's prime minister.
The three accuse Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, six cabinet ministers and the navy commander of illegal detention, torture and deportation.
The UN has meanwhile named a team of experts to investigate the raid.
Gaza Flotilla Clash
* Q&A: Israeli deadly flotilla raid
* Guide: Eased Gaza blockade
* Israeli raid: What went wrong?
* Focus on Gaza blockade
Earlier, Israel said it would return the three Turkish vessels it had seized during the interception on 31 May.
Nine Turkish activists died when Israeli marines attacked the flotilla, sparking an international outcry.
The pro-Palestinian convoy was carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid for Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's blockade of the territory.
Laura Arau, Manuel Tapial and David Segarra, who were on the Mavi Marmara ship, say they were held illegally in international waters by Israeli forces, tortured and forcibly deported to Turkey.
They claim the move contravened international law.
Spanish courts are yet to accept the case.
'No conditions'
The UN Human Rights Council has appointed three independent experts to investigate whether the raid violated international law, after the 47-member forum voted last month for an inquiry.
These include Sir Desmond de Silva from Britain, Karl Hudson-Phillips from Trinidad and Tobago, and Mary Shanthi Dairiam from Malaysia.
Israel has said it is undertaking its own investigation, but critics say it will not be impartial.
Israel announced earlier on Friday that it will return three ships that were part of the convoy to Turkey, Israeli public radio has reported.
Turkey had already been informed of the decision by the inner cabinet in Jerusalem, the report said.
BBC Reports - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10741416
The three accuse Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, six cabinet ministers and the navy commander of illegal detention, torture and deportation.
The UN has meanwhile named a team of experts to investigate the raid.
Gaza Flotilla Clash
* Q&A: Israeli deadly flotilla raid
* Guide: Eased Gaza blockade
* Israeli raid: What went wrong?
* Focus on Gaza blockade
Earlier, Israel said it would return the three Turkish vessels it had seized during the interception on 31 May.
Nine Turkish activists died when Israeli marines attacked the flotilla, sparking an international outcry.
The pro-Palestinian convoy was carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid for Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's blockade of the territory.
Laura Arau, Manuel Tapial and David Segarra, who were on the Mavi Marmara ship, say they were held illegally in international waters by Israeli forces, tortured and forcibly deported to Turkey.
They claim the move contravened international law.
Spanish courts are yet to accept the case.
'No conditions'
The UN Human Rights Council has appointed three independent experts to investigate whether the raid violated international law, after the 47-member forum voted last month for an inquiry.
These include Sir Desmond de Silva from Britain, Karl Hudson-Phillips from Trinidad and Tobago, and Mary Shanthi Dairiam from Malaysia.
Israel has said it is undertaking its own investigation, but critics say it will not be impartial.
Israel announced earlier on Friday that it will return three ships that were part of the convoy to Turkey, Israeli public radio has reported.
Turkey had already been informed of the decision by the inner cabinet in Jerusalem, the report said.
BBC Reports - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10741416
Federal records show steady stream of oil spills in gulf since 1964
Many policymakers think that the record before the BP oil spill was exemplary. In a House hearing Thursday, Rep. John J. "Jimmy" Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) said, "It's almost an astonishingly safe, clean history that we have there in the gulf." Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the industry's "history of safety over all of those times" had provided the "empirical foundation" for U.S. policy.
But federal records tell a different story. They show a steady stream of oil spills dumping 517,847 barrels of petroleum -- which would fill an equivalent number of standard American bathtubs -- into the Gulf of Mexico between 1964 and 2009. The spills killed thousands of birds and soiled beaches as far away as Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Altogether, they poured twice as much as oil into U.S. waters as the Exxon Valdez tanker did when it ran aground in 1989.
The industry's record had been improving before the BP spill. In 2009, the largest one was about 1,500 barrels, about what BP's damaged well was leaking every hour before it was capped last week. But at least a handful of spills take place annually as a result of blowouts, hurricanes, lax pipeline maintenance, tanker leaks and human error, according to figures kept by the Minerals Management Service, now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Moreover, in at least one key instance, the official statistics understate the actual quantities of oil that have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. MMS statistics say that a 1970 blowout on a Shell Oil well that killed four people triggered a spill of 53,000 barrels. But Robert Bea, a University of California, Berkeley professor who at that time worked for Shell tracking the oil spill, says that the spill was 10 times that size and contaminated shorelines on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"I see the numbers, and I shrug my shoulders," said Bea, who contributed to a report issued last week on the April 20 Deepwater Horizon accident. The 1970 Shell blowout happened on a production platform, he notes. "We knew what the production rates were," he said.
ad_icon
Today regulators rely heavily on company estimates, although some environmentalists fear that the spill size might be underestimated.
Full Story - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072305603.html?hpid%3Dtopnews
But federal records tell a different story. They show a steady stream of oil spills dumping 517,847 barrels of petroleum -- which would fill an equivalent number of standard American bathtubs -- into the Gulf of Mexico between 1964 and 2009. The spills killed thousands of birds and soiled beaches as far away as Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Altogether, they poured twice as much as oil into U.S. waters as the Exxon Valdez tanker did when it ran aground in 1989.
The industry's record had been improving before the BP spill. In 2009, the largest one was about 1,500 barrels, about what BP's damaged well was leaking every hour before it was capped last week. But at least a handful of spills take place annually as a result of blowouts, hurricanes, lax pipeline maintenance, tanker leaks and human error, according to figures kept by the Minerals Management Service, now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Moreover, in at least one key instance, the official statistics understate the actual quantities of oil that have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. MMS statistics say that a 1970 blowout on a Shell Oil well that killed four people triggered a spill of 53,000 barrels. But Robert Bea, a University of California, Berkeley professor who at that time worked for Shell tracking the oil spill, says that the spill was 10 times that size and contaminated shorelines on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"I see the numbers, and I shrug my shoulders," said Bea, who contributed to a report issued last week on the April 20 Deepwater Horizon accident. The 1970 Shell blowout happened on a production platform, he notes. "We knew what the production rates were," he said.
ad_icon
Today regulators rely heavily on company estimates, although some environmentalists fear that the spill size might be underestimated.
Full Story - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072305603.html?hpid%3Dtopnews
Monday, July 19, 2010
America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer
With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years?
I hallucinate easily, a hangover from time spent in an acid-rock commune in London in the fevered 60s. Most evenings when I switch on the television 6.30 news with its now cliched pictures of deep sea oil spurting from BP's pipe rupture, I see not bleeding sludge but human blood surging up into the Gulf of Mexico.
I've learned to trust my visions as metaphors for reality. The same news programmes, often as a dutiful throwaway item, will show a jerky fragment of Afghan combat accompanied by the usual pulse-pounding handheld shots of snipers amid roadside bomb explosions, preferably in fiery balls. My delusional mind converts this footage into a phantasmagoria where our M60 machine guns are shooting ammunition belts full of $1,000 bills.
Blood, oil, bullets … and cash.
Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to "nation-build" in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty – one in five kids – that would put the world's poorest nations to shame?
Iraq was George Bush's war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, "Afghanistan is Obama's war of choice", and a losing proposition. Historically, Bush and Dick Cheney merely toyed with Afghanistan while visiting shock and awe on Iraq. But President Obama is really, really serious about it. He told us so on his campaign trail, but most of us refused to believe him. We told ourselves: oh, he's a closet pacifist, or he'll somehow find a way out of the impasse, thus sealing a devil's pact with our own consciences.
Obama's "way out" is to dig deeper in so that he'll be able to get out, it's said. Where have we heard that before? Exit strategy, my foot. Obama is a willing prisoner of his generals, the latest four-star foot-in-mouther being General George Casey, army chief of staff, who a few days ago confessed to CBS News that the US could face another "decade or so" of persistent conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. (He then fudged it, but the cat was out of the bag.)
Our Afghanistan war, which began in 1980 under the Democrats (by weaponising Afghan resistance to the Soviets), and is now truly a bipartisan war, is as bankrupt as our economy. No connection? None that I can hear from Republicans or Democrats and the "liberal base". The war without purpose or common sense is simply a given, like the weather. Other than a few lonely members of Congress, like Florida's Alan Grayson (who introduced a bill titled "The War Is Making You Poor"), the antiwar Texas libertarian Ron Paul and Illinois's Tim Johnson, hardly anybody in public life dares to make a connection between teachers' pink slips, personal bankruptcies (6,000 a day now), our rotting infrastructure, lengthening queues at unemployment offices, child poverty … and the war. Source
I hallucinate easily, a hangover from time spent in an acid-rock commune in London in the fevered 60s. Most evenings when I switch on the television 6.30 news with its now cliched pictures of deep sea oil spurting from BP's pipe rupture, I see not bleeding sludge but human blood surging up into the Gulf of Mexico.
I've learned to trust my visions as metaphors for reality. The same news programmes, often as a dutiful throwaway item, will show a jerky fragment of Afghan combat accompanied by the usual pulse-pounding handheld shots of snipers amid roadside bomb explosions, preferably in fiery balls. My delusional mind converts this footage into a phantasmagoria where our M60 machine guns are shooting ammunition belts full of $1,000 bills.
Blood, oil, bullets … and cash.
Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to "nation-build" in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty – one in five kids – that would put the world's poorest nations to shame?
Iraq was George Bush's war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, "Afghanistan is Obama's war of choice", and a losing proposition. Historically, Bush and Dick Cheney merely toyed with Afghanistan while visiting shock and awe on Iraq. But President Obama is really, really serious about it. He told us so on his campaign trail, but most of us refused to believe him. We told ourselves: oh, he's a closet pacifist, or he'll somehow find a way out of the impasse, thus sealing a devil's pact with our own consciences.
Obama's "way out" is to dig deeper in so that he'll be able to get out, it's said. Where have we heard that before? Exit strategy, my foot. Obama is a willing prisoner of his generals, the latest four-star foot-in-mouther being General George Casey, army chief of staff, who a few days ago confessed to CBS News that the US could face another "decade or so" of persistent conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. (He then fudged it, but the cat was out of the bag.)
Our Afghanistan war, which began in 1980 under the Democrats (by weaponising Afghan resistance to the Soviets), and is now truly a bipartisan war, is as bankrupt as our economy. No connection? None that I can hear from Republicans or Democrats and the "liberal base". The war without purpose or common sense is simply a given, like the weather. Other than a few lonely members of Congress, like Florida's Alan Grayson (who introduced a bill titled "The War Is Making You Poor"), the antiwar Texas libertarian Ron Paul and Illinois's Tim Johnson, hardly anybody in public life dares to make a connection between teachers' pink slips, personal bankruptcies (6,000 a day now), our rotting infrastructure, lengthening queues at unemployment offices, child poverty … and the war. Source
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Netanyahu says he will oppose conversion bill
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he would oppose a conversion bill that has rekindled the age-old debate over who is a Jew — and provoked an angry response among liberal Jewish groups abroad whose support is critical to the Jewish state.
Last week, an Israeli parliamentary committee gave preliminary approval to a draft legislation that would give Orthodox rabbis in Israel more control over conversions.
The more religiously liberal Reform and Conservative movements that represent the vast majority of Jews outside Israel contend the new legislation would be a dangerous blow to religious pluralism.
Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that he feared the bill would create a rift in the Jewish world and that if he couldn't find a compromise solution, he would ask his coalition partners to vote against it.
Under the current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel, but people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel's chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion is legitimate.
The group most likely to suffer would be immigrants who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.
The bill touches a raw nerve in the Reform and Conservative movements, whose presence is marginal in Israel, where Orthodox rabbis have a near monopoly over religious practices such as marriage and burial.
While staunch backers of Israel, these groups look worriedly at the prospect of the country's Orthodox religious establishment further entrenching its control, and in effect being the arbiter of Jewish identity. Passage of the bill would also be a blow to the legitimacy of non-Orthodox rabbis the world over.
Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Washington-based Religious Action Center of the Union of Reform Judaism, said the bill, if passed, would mark a "crisis of the first order." "It would be an enormous blow to the unity of the Jewish people and the principle of religious freedom in Israel," said Saperstein, who is visiting the country to lobby lawmakers to drop the bill.
"The American Jewish community will remain strongly engaged in Israel, but the message will be sent that the government of Israel does not accept our rabbis and our movement as legitimate, and it would make all our work much more difficult." Of the world's roughly 13 million Jews, half live in Israel and most of the rest are concentrated in North America.
Israeli religious authorities' skepticism about the legitimacy of overseas conversions has been cited as one of the main causes of a growing rift between Israel and world Jewry. Source
Last week, an Israeli parliamentary committee gave preliminary approval to a draft legislation that would give Orthodox rabbis in Israel more control over conversions.
The more religiously liberal Reform and Conservative movements that represent the vast majority of Jews outside Israel contend the new legislation would be a dangerous blow to religious pluralism.
Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that he feared the bill would create a rift in the Jewish world and that if he couldn't find a compromise solution, he would ask his coalition partners to vote against it.
Under the current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel, but people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship like other Jews. The proposed legislation would give Israel's chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion is legitimate.
The group most likely to suffer would be immigrants who converted to Judaism abroad and could now be denied Israeli citizenship.
The bill touches a raw nerve in the Reform and Conservative movements, whose presence is marginal in Israel, where Orthodox rabbis have a near monopoly over religious practices such as marriage and burial.
While staunch backers of Israel, these groups look worriedly at the prospect of the country's Orthodox religious establishment further entrenching its control, and in effect being the arbiter of Jewish identity. Passage of the bill would also be a blow to the legitimacy of non-Orthodox rabbis the world over.
Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Washington-based Religious Action Center of the Union of Reform Judaism, said the bill, if passed, would mark a "crisis of the first order." "It would be an enormous blow to the unity of the Jewish people and the principle of religious freedom in Israel," said Saperstein, who is visiting the country to lobby lawmakers to drop the bill.
"The American Jewish community will remain strongly engaged in Israel, but the message will be sent that the government of Israel does not accept our rabbis and our movement as legitimate, and it would make all our work much more difficult." Of the world's roughly 13 million Jews, half live in Israel and most of the rest are concentrated in North America.
Israeli religious authorities' skepticism about the legitimacy of overseas conversions has been cited as one of the main causes of a growing rift between Israel and world Jewry. Source
Why the world need to stay away from Nuclear Arms
Nuclear Explosions
Nuclear Power is a power not to be tampered with so lightly. Powers believe this is the ultimate weapon and the excuse of aliens cannot be justified. It was used to justify the nuclear program under the Regan era in which he addressed the nation and spoke of uniting the world ect.
Friday, July 16, 2010
The Rageh Omaar Report - Thailand: A Year of Living Dangerously
Rageh Omaar travels to the scarred city of Bangkok to find out what happened the day the protests ended, and what will happen to Thailand now.
The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It
The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It
071610_goldman_sachs_kaufman
While Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. We speak to Harper’s contributing editor Frederick Kaufman
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, while Goldman Sachs agreed Thursday to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008, when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. The article is titled "The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It."
AMY GOODMAN: The author of the article, Frederick Kaufman, joins us now. He’s a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine.
Well, explain. We’re talking about Goldman Sachs today, this—they call it a landmark settlement, but they made more after-hours in trading last night than they will have to pay. So let’s look at Goldman Sachs and its record overall.
FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Yeah, this is really—it’s really outrageous. And on a certain level, this reform bill is really a sham, because it does not cover, in any way, shape or form, what Goldman Sachs—and really, let’s be honest here, it wasn’t just Goldman; it was Goldman, and it was Bear, and it was AIG, and it was Lehman, it was Deutsche, it was all across the board, JPMorgan Chase—what these banks were able to do in commodity markets, really which reached its peak from 2005 to 2008, in what is now known as the food bubble. And as Juan points out, this is unconscionable what happened, in the sense that their speculation and their restructuring of these commodity markets pushed 250 million new people into food insecurity and starving, and brought the world total up to over a billion people. This is the most abysmal total in the history of the world.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, what were these commodities markets like before the Wall Street firms got involved? And you have a haunting picture, especially of the Minneapolis Exchange, what it was before, what it was like. Could you talk about how things operated and then what Goldman Sachs did precisely?
Source - http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street
Study: Global Warming to Bring Increased Heat Waves to US
Following last week’s record-breaking East Coast heat wave, a new study by Stanford University climate scientists says as global warming continues, such heat waves will be increasingly common in the future. The study found exceptionally long heat waves and other hot events could become commonplace in the United States in the next thirty years, posing serious risks to agriculture and human health.
Source - http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/15/study_global_warming_to_bring_increased
BP Says Oil Flow Has Stopped as Cap Is Tested
Oil stopped flowing around 2:25 p.m. when the last of several valves was closed on a cap at the top of the well, said Kent Wells, a senior vice president for BP.
The announcement came after a series of failed attempts to cap or contain the runaway well that tested the nation’s patience. Mr. Wells emphasized that pressure tests were being conducted to determine the status of the well, which is now sealed like a soda bottle. BP and the government could decide to allow the oil to flow again and try to collect all of it; they could allow the oil to flow and, if tests show the well can withstand the pressure from the cap, close the well during hurricanes; or they could leave the well closed permanently.
The last option seems unlikely, but whatever the decision, the cap is an interim measure until a relief well can plug the leak for good.
“I am very pleased that there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico,” Mr. Wells said, “but we just started the test and I don’t want to create a false sense of excitement.”
That was not much of a risk along the Gulf Coast, where countless livelihoods have been put in jeopardy and fishermen frequently and gloomily remark that Prince William Sound has never been the same since the Exxon Valdez disaster.
“It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a dead man in my opinion,” said Jeff Ussury, 48, who considers his days as a crabber over for good. He doubted the news of the capping was even true.
“I started out kind of believing in them,” he said, “but I don’t believe in them at all anymore.”
Whether it was just the eye of the hurricane or the morning after the storm, the moment was a time to take stock of just how much damage had already been done since the deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on the night of April 20.
For weeks, the BP spill camera — which along with terms like “top kill,” “containment dome” and “junk shot” made up a growing list of phrases that many people wish they had never learned — had shown a horrible chocolate plume of oil pouring upward from the broken blowout preventer, a symbol of government and corporate impotence. The plume has been a constant presence in the corner of TV screens, mocking reassurances from officials on the news programs who describe the latest attempt to stop the gushing.
But the view on Thursday afternoon was eerily tranquil, just the slate blue of the deep interspersed with small white particles floating across the screen. Though the exact amount of the oil that has poured out of the well may never be known, it was suddenly and for the first time a fixed amount. The disaster was, for a little while at least, finite.
At the White House, President Obama called the development a “positive sign,” though he cautioned that the operation was still in the testing phase. In statements, Louisiana officials, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, said they were “cautiously optimistic.”
Officials at all levels played down expectations. Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who is coordinating the spill response, told reporters on Thursday that the cap was primarily meant to be used to shut the well during extreme weather.
“The intention of the capping stack was never to close in the well per se,” he said. “It creates the opportunity if we have the right pressure readings to shut in the well. It allows us to abandon the site if there is a hurricane.”
He said that after the test, the cap would be used to capture oil through surface ships — two that are on the site now and two more that will be in operation in a week or two. With all four collection ships in place, BP could capture all of the oil, estimated at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day.
Mr. Wells cautioned that the test could take 48 hours or more, as scientists study pressure readings from the cap. If pressure rises and holds, that would be a sign that the casing — the 13,000-foot string of pipe that lines the well bore — is undamaged.
But if the pressure stays low or falls, that would suggest the well is damaged. In that case, Mr. Wells said, the test probably would be stopped well ahead of schedule, valves would be reopened and collection systems that had been shut down for the test would start again.
“Depending on what the test shows us, we may need to open this well back up,” he said.
The test had been delayed by about two days, first when the government ordered a last-minute review of the procedure out of concern that, by allowing the buildup of pressure, the test itself might harm the well. A particular fear, experts said, was that it might cause a shallow blowout — damaging the well lining close to the seabed, which could allow oil and gas to escape into the gulf outside the well, making the spill worse.
By Wednesday afternoon, those concerns had been allayed and preparations were made to begin the test. But late that night, a hydraulic leak was discovered in part of the choke valve equipment, and the test was scrubbed.
Thursday afternoon the test began again, first with the shutting down of pipes that funneled oil and gas to two surface ships.
In even the most optimistic case, the BP oil spill is far, far from over.
Source -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/us/16spill.html
The announcement came after a series of failed attempts to cap or contain the runaway well that tested the nation’s patience. Mr. Wells emphasized that pressure tests were being conducted to determine the status of the well, which is now sealed like a soda bottle. BP and the government could decide to allow the oil to flow again and try to collect all of it; they could allow the oil to flow and, if tests show the well can withstand the pressure from the cap, close the well during hurricanes; or they could leave the well closed permanently.
The last option seems unlikely, but whatever the decision, the cap is an interim measure until a relief well can plug the leak for good.
“I am very pleased that there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico,” Mr. Wells said, “but we just started the test and I don’t want to create a false sense of excitement.”
That was not much of a risk along the Gulf Coast, where countless livelihoods have been put in jeopardy and fishermen frequently and gloomily remark that Prince William Sound has never been the same since the Exxon Valdez disaster.
“It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a dead man in my opinion,” said Jeff Ussury, 48, who considers his days as a crabber over for good. He doubted the news of the capping was even true.
“I started out kind of believing in them,” he said, “but I don’t believe in them at all anymore.”
Whether it was just the eye of the hurricane or the morning after the storm, the moment was a time to take stock of just how much damage had already been done since the deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on the night of April 20.
For weeks, the BP spill camera — which along with terms like “top kill,” “containment dome” and “junk shot” made up a growing list of phrases that many people wish they had never learned — had shown a horrible chocolate plume of oil pouring upward from the broken blowout preventer, a symbol of government and corporate impotence. The plume has been a constant presence in the corner of TV screens, mocking reassurances from officials on the news programs who describe the latest attempt to stop the gushing.
But the view on Thursday afternoon was eerily tranquil, just the slate blue of the deep interspersed with small white particles floating across the screen. Though the exact amount of the oil that has poured out of the well may never be known, it was suddenly and for the first time a fixed amount. The disaster was, for a little while at least, finite.
At the White House, President Obama called the development a “positive sign,” though he cautioned that the operation was still in the testing phase. In statements, Louisiana officials, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, said they were “cautiously optimistic.”
Officials at all levels played down expectations. Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who is coordinating the spill response, told reporters on Thursday that the cap was primarily meant to be used to shut the well during extreme weather.
“The intention of the capping stack was never to close in the well per se,” he said. “It creates the opportunity if we have the right pressure readings to shut in the well. It allows us to abandon the site if there is a hurricane.”
He said that after the test, the cap would be used to capture oil through surface ships — two that are on the site now and two more that will be in operation in a week or two. With all four collection ships in place, BP could capture all of the oil, estimated at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day.
Mr. Wells cautioned that the test could take 48 hours or more, as scientists study pressure readings from the cap. If pressure rises and holds, that would be a sign that the casing — the 13,000-foot string of pipe that lines the well bore — is undamaged.
But if the pressure stays low or falls, that would suggest the well is damaged. In that case, Mr. Wells said, the test probably would be stopped well ahead of schedule, valves would be reopened and collection systems that had been shut down for the test would start again.
“Depending on what the test shows us, we may need to open this well back up,” he said.
The test had been delayed by about two days, first when the government ordered a last-minute review of the procedure out of concern that, by allowing the buildup of pressure, the test itself might harm the well. A particular fear, experts said, was that it might cause a shallow blowout — damaging the well lining close to the seabed, which could allow oil and gas to escape into the gulf outside the well, making the spill worse.
By Wednesday afternoon, those concerns had been allayed and preparations were made to begin the test. But late that night, a hydraulic leak was discovered in part of the choke valve equipment, and the test was scrubbed.
Thursday afternoon the test began again, first with the shutting down of pipes that funneled oil and gas to two surface ships.
In even the most optimistic case, the BP oil spill is far, far from over.
Source -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/us/16spill.html
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Peace process interrupted by Israeli bulldozers - East Jerusalem
Israeli bulldozers have destroyed six buildings in occupied East Jerusalem, resuming the demolition of Palestinian property after a halt aimed at encouraging peace talks, provoking Palestinian anger and US "concern".
Tuesday's demolitions were the first since a halt in October aimed at encouraging so-called peace talks, and Palestinians said they proved the Israeli government was not committed to the negotiations. The demolitions come just a week after Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, pledged to take "concrete steps that could be done now - in the coming days, in the coming weeks - to move the peace process further along in a very robust way" after meeting Barack Obama, the US president, at the White House.
Obama had called for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to be restarted before the partial suspension on the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land expires in September.
"My hope is that once direct talks have begun, well before the moratorium [on settlements] has expired, that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success," Obama had said last Tuesday, adding that he hoped mutual confidence-building moves would pave the way to negotiations.
The White House meeting had come as Obama and Netanyahu tried to downplay recent tensions between their countries over Israel's continuing construction of settlements, which is illegal under international law.
US opposes 'unilateral actions'
But on Tuesday the latest demolitions threatened to turn ties frosty again, with the US joining the EU and UN in expressing concern over them.
PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, urged Israel to refrain from actions that could undermine negotiations with Palestinian leaders.
"Obviously we are concerned about reports today of a number of buildings in East Jerusalem being demolished," he said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
"The US has made it clear that it disagrees with some government of Israel actions in Jerusalem that affect Palestinians in areas such as housing, including home demolitions, and has urged all parties to avoid actions that could undermine trust.
"We continue to oppose and we will make clear to the government of Israel that we oppose unilateral actions that prejudge negotiations.
"The status of Jerusalem and all other permanent status issues must be resolved by the parties through negotiations," he said.
Volatile issue
Jerusalem demolitions are a volatile issue because of conflicting Israeli and Palestinian claims to the city's eastern sector.
Israel, which captured the sector in the 1967 Middle East war, sees it as part of its capital city, while Palestinians want it returned for the capital of their future state.
Israel says it is only enforcing the law against building violations, but Palestinians say discriminatory planning practices make it impossible for them to get permits, leaving them no choice but to build illegally and risk demolition.
About a third of Jerusalem's 750,000 residents are Palestinian. They have residency status in Jerusalem and receive Israeli social benefits, but do not hold Israeli citizenship.
Tuesday's bulldozing of the buildings was carried out by a court order, none of the structures razed were homes and all had been illegally built and uninhabited, the Jerusalem municipality said in a statement.
But Palestinians disputed those claims, saying three of the demolished structures were homes and one was a warehouse.
Two daybeds and bags crammed with children's clothing and kitchen utensils were strewn outside one of the buildings.
Basem Isawi, 48, an unemployed contractor, stood stony-faced amid the rubble of his unfinished home, forbidding his six children to come out of the nearby house where they currently live to see what had happened to it.
Isawi said he built the almost-finished home illegally for about $25,000 because he was convinced the municipality would deny him a permit.
He had been notified of the impending demolition but did not know when it was set to happen, he said. Read More
Tuesday's demolitions were the first since a halt in October aimed at encouraging so-called peace talks, and Palestinians said they proved the Israeli government was not committed to the negotiations. The demolitions come just a week after Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, pledged to take "concrete steps that could be done now - in the coming days, in the coming weeks - to move the peace process further along in a very robust way" after meeting Barack Obama, the US president, at the White House.
Obama had called for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to be restarted before the partial suspension on the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land expires in September.
"My hope is that once direct talks have begun, well before the moratorium [on settlements] has expired, that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success," Obama had said last Tuesday, adding that he hoped mutual confidence-building moves would pave the way to negotiations.
The White House meeting had come as Obama and Netanyahu tried to downplay recent tensions between their countries over Israel's continuing construction of settlements, which is illegal under international law.
US opposes 'unilateral actions'
But on Tuesday the latest demolitions threatened to turn ties frosty again, with the US joining the EU and UN in expressing concern over them.
PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, urged Israel to refrain from actions that could undermine negotiations with Palestinian leaders.
"Obviously we are concerned about reports today of a number of buildings in East Jerusalem being demolished," he said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
"The US has made it clear that it disagrees with some government of Israel actions in Jerusalem that affect Palestinians in areas such as housing, including home demolitions, and has urged all parties to avoid actions that could undermine trust.
"We continue to oppose and we will make clear to the government of Israel that we oppose unilateral actions that prejudge negotiations.
"The status of Jerusalem and all other permanent status issues must be resolved by the parties through negotiations," he said.
Volatile issue
Jerusalem demolitions are a volatile issue because of conflicting Israeli and Palestinian claims to the city's eastern sector.
Israel, which captured the sector in the 1967 Middle East war, sees it as part of its capital city, while Palestinians want it returned for the capital of their future state.
Israel says it is only enforcing the law against building violations, but Palestinians say discriminatory planning practices make it impossible for them to get permits, leaving them no choice but to build illegally and risk demolition.
About a third of Jerusalem's 750,000 residents are Palestinian. They have residency status in Jerusalem and receive Israeli social benefits, but do not hold Israeli citizenship.
Tuesday's bulldozing of the buildings was carried out by a court order, none of the structures razed were homes and all had been illegally built and uninhabited, the Jerusalem municipality said in a statement.
But Palestinians disputed those claims, saying three of the demolished structures were homes and one was a warehouse.
Two daybeds and bags crammed with children's clothing and kitchen utensils were strewn outside one of the buildings.
Basem Isawi, 48, an unemployed contractor, stood stony-faced amid the rubble of his unfinished home, forbidding his six children to come out of the nearby house where they currently live to see what had happened to it.
Isawi said he built the almost-finished home illegally for about $25,000 because he was convinced the municipality would deny him a permit.
He had been notified of the impending demolition but did not know when it was set to happen, he said. Read More
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
War on Terror - Big blow to US forces in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR: Eight American troops died in attacks in southern Afghanistan, including a car bombing and gunfight outside a police compound in Kandahar, officials said Wednesday as the Taleban push back against a coalition effort to secure the volatile region.
In the southern city of Kandahar, a suicide attacker slammed a car bomb into the gate of the headquarters of the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police late Tuesday night, a NATO statement said. Minutes later, insurgents opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Three US troops, an Afghan policeman and five civilians died in the attack, but NATO said the insurgents failed to enter the compound.
The special police unit, known as ANCOP, had only recently been dispatched to Kandahar to set up checkpoints along with international forces to try to secure the south’s largest city, the spiritual birthplace of the Taleban.
The dead civilians included three Afghan translators and two security guards, Kandahar provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
Taleban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi telephoned reporters Wednesday to claim responsibility for the attack. The insurgents, however, claimed 13 international troops and eight Afghan security forces died in the raid.
Four more American troops were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in the south, while one more US service member died the same day of wounds from a gunbattle.
So far in July, 45 international troops have died in Afghanistan, 33 of them Americans.
Also Wednesday, a senior army officer identified the Afghan soldier who turned against his British allies and killed three of them as Talib Hussein, age 22 or 23, from the eastern province of Ghazni.
Hussein is a Hazara, a Shiite Muslim minority, said Gen. Ghulam Farook Parwani, the deputy corps commander for southern forces including those in Helmand.
The identity of the soldier deepened the mystery of his motive, since the Hazara were persecuted by the Taleban — who are made up mostly of ethnic Pashtun Sunnis. Very few Hazaras are known to have joined the Taleban insurgency.
Parwani said Hussein was recruited into the army only about eight or nine months ago and had spent most of his time posted in Helmand. He added that initial investigations indicate Hussein was a habitual hashish smoker.
In other attacks around the country, nine Afghan civilians died in the south when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the volatile district of Marjah in Helmand province, the Ministry of Interior said. Another homemade bomb killed two security guards traveling on a road in eastern Paktika province.
Two suspected Taleban also died in Helmand’s Lashkar Gar district when the roadside bomb they were trying to plant exploded prematurely, the ministry said.
US General David Petraeus, who assumed command of NATO troops this month, said it was vital to ensure that the trust between Afghan and international forces “remains solid in order to defeat our common enemies.”
In the southern city of Kandahar, a suicide attacker slammed a car bomb into the gate of the headquarters of the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police late Tuesday night, a NATO statement said. Minutes later, insurgents opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Three US troops, an Afghan policeman and five civilians died in the attack, but NATO said the insurgents failed to enter the compound.
The special police unit, known as ANCOP, had only recently been dispatched to Kandahar to set up checkpoints along with international forces to try to secure the south’s largest city, the spiritual birthplace of the Taleban.
The dead civilians included three Afghan translators and two security guards, Kandahar provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
Taleban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi telephoned reporters Wednesday to claim responsibility for the attack. The insurgents, however, claimed 13 international troops and eight Afghan security forces died in the raid.
Four more American troops were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in the south, while one more US service member died the same day of wounds from a gunbattle.
So far in July, 45 international troops have died in Afghanistan, 33 of them Americans.
Also Wednesday, a senior army officer identified the Afghan soldier who turned against his British allies and killed three of them as Talib Hussein, age 22 or 23, from the eastern province of Ghazni.
Hussein is a Hazara, a Shiite Muslim minority, said Gen. Ghulam Farook Parwani, the deputy corps commander for southern forces including those in Helmand.
The identity of the soldier deepened the mystery of his motive, since the Hazara were persecuted by the Taleban — who are made up mostly of ethnic Pashtun Sunnis. Very few Hazaras are known to have joined the Taleban insurgency.
Parwani said Hussein was recruited into the army only about eight or nine months ago and had spent most of his time posted in Helmand. He added that initial investigations indicate Hussein was a habitual hashish smoker.
In other attacks around the country, nine Afghan civilians died in the south when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the volatile district of Marjah in Helmand province, the Ministry of Interior said. Another homemade bomb killed two security guards traveling on a road in eastern Paktika province.
Two suspected Taleban also died in Helmand’s Lashkar Gar district when the roadside bomb they were trying to plant exploded prematurely, the ministry said.
US General David Petraeus, who assumed command of NATO troops this month, said it was vital to ensure that the trust between Afghan and international forces “remains solid in order to defeat our common enemies.”
CIA report: Israel will fall in 20 years
A study conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has cast doubt over Israel's survival beyond the next 20 years.
The CIA report predicts "an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region."
The study, which has been made available only to a certain number of individuals, further forecasts the return of all Palestinian refugees to the occupied territories, and the exodus of two million Israelis — who would move to the US in the next 15 years.
"There is over 500,000 Israelis with American passports and more than 300,000 living in the area of just California," International lawyer Franklin Lamb said in an interview with Press TV recently, adding that those who do not have American or Western passport, have already applied for them.
"So I think the handwriting at least among the public in Israel is on the wall...[which] suggests history will reject the colonial enterprise sooner or later," Lamb stressed.
He said CIA, in its report, alludes to the unexpectedly quick fall of the apartheid government in South Africa and recalls the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, suggesting the end to the dream of an 'Israeli land' would happen 'way sooner' than later.
The study further predicts the return of over one and a half million Israelis to Russia and other parts of Europe, and denotes a decline in Israeli births whereas a rise in the Palestinian population.
Lamb said given the Israeli conduct toward the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip in particular, the American public — which has been voicing its protest against Tel Aviv's measures in the last 25 years — may 'not take it anymore'. Some members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee have been informed of the report.
Source
The CIA report predicts "an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region."
The study, which has been made available only to a certain number of individuals, further forecasts the return of all Palestinian refugees to the occupied territories, and the exodus of two million Israelis — who would move to the US in the next 15 years.
"There is over 500,000 Israelis with American passports and more than 300,000 living in the area of just California," International lawyer Franklin Lamb said in an interview with Press TV recently, adding that those who do not have American or Western passport, have already applied for them.
"So I think the handwriting at least among the public in Israel is on the wall...[which] suggests history will reject the colonial enterprise sooner or later," Lamb stressed.
He said CIA, in its report, alludes to the unexpectedly quick fall of the apartheid government in South Africa and recalls the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, suggesting the end to the dream of an 'Israeli land' would happen 'way sooner' than later.
The study further predicts the return of over one and a half million Israelis to Russia and other parts of Europe, and denotes a decline in Israeli births whereas a rise in the Palestinian population.
Lamb said given the Israeli conduct toward the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip in particular, the American public — which has been voicing its protest against Tel Aviv's measures in the last 25 years — may 'not take it anymore'. Some members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee have been informed of the report.
Source
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Becoming A Leader- The Right Leader
Contrary to what most people believe, leadership is not about power. It is not about harassing people or driving them using fear. It is about encouraging others towards the goal of the organization. It is putting everyone on the same page and helping him or her see the big picture of the organization. You must be a leader not a boss.
People follow others when they see a clear sense of purpose. People will only follow you if they see that you know where you are going. If you yourself do not know where you're headed to, chances are people will not follow you.
Being a leader is not about what you make others do. It's about who you are, what you know, and what you do. You are a reflection of what you're subordinates must be.
Studies have shown that one other bases of good leadership are the trust and confidence your subordinates have of you. Trust and confidence is built on good relationships, trustworthiness, and high ethics.
Once you have their trust and confidence, you may now proceed to communicate the goals and objectives you are to undertake.
Communication is a very important key to good leadership. The knowledge and technical expertise you have must be clearly imparted to other people. You must be able to assess situations, weigh the pros and cons of any decision, and actively seek out a solution.
Leaders are not do-it-all heroes. You should not claim to know everything, and you should not rely upon your skills alone. You should recognize the skills and talents your subordinates have. Only when you come to this realization will you be able to work as one cohesive unit.
Remember being a leader takes a good deal of work and time. It is not learned overnight.
.
People follow others when they see a clear sense of purpose. People will only follow you if they see that you know where you are going. If you yourself do not know where you're headed to, chances are people will not follow you.
Being a leader is not about what you make others do. It's about who you are, what you know, and what you do. You are a reflection of what you're subordinates must be.
Studies have shown that one other bases of good leadership are the trust and confidence your subordinates have of you. Trust and confidence is built on good relationships, trustworthiness, and high ethics.
Once you have their trust and confidence, you may now proceed to communicate the goals and objectives you are to undertake.
Communication is a very important key to good leadership. The knowledge and technical expertise you have must be clearly imparted to other people. You must be able to assess situations, weigh the pros and cons of any decision, and actively seek out a solution.
Leaders are not do-it-all heroes. You should not claim to know everything, and you should not rely upon your skills alone. You should recognize the skills and talents your subordinates have. Only when you come to this realization will you be able to work as one cohesive unit.
Remember being a leader takes a good deal of work and time. It is not learned overnight.
.
Fight Cancer by Drinking Green Tea
For thousands of years, the Chinese and the Japanese have long been drinking green tea.
Only recently, green tea has been introduced in the west. And, people love them. Most people say that they never felt healthier in their entire lives, and health buffs even said that this tea is a miracle drink. Ever since then, the entire world is now drinking green tea on a daily basis.
So, is green tea really that wonderful? Does it really fight off cancer?
For starters, green tea has a lot of benefits. The main benefit of this brew is that it has antioxidants which are known to fight off cancer cells. So, to answer the question on whether green tea can prevent cancer, the answer is yes. It gets rid of free radicals from your body which leaves it free from toxins that can contribute to cancer.
This brew is full of the antioxidant called epigallocatechin-3 gallat or what is more known as EGCG. Unlike black tea, green tea is not fermented, which preserves EGCG. Because of this fact, this brew is much more beneficial than black tea and has a more positive effect in fighting diseases, which includes cancer.
You have to remember that when free radicals enter our body, it will have an effect to our cells. If this happens, it will make abnormal cells, which can result in cancerous cells that can reproduce all over your body creating tumors.
Free radicals can enter the body in different ways. It can be because of exposure to cigarette smoke, pollution, and it can even be because of exposure to excessive sunlight.
Whatever it is, it is important that we should get rid of free radicals from our body in order to keep it healthy and cancer free. Although some of the food we eat contains antioxidant, you have to remember that it is not really enough to fight off the amount of free radicals that enter our body. The best way to counter free radicals is by taking in more antioxidants in your body. This is where green tea comes in.
Because green tea has a high concentration of antioxidants, it will be able to fight off free radicals more effectively. With just three to four cups a day, you can be sure that you will be able to keep your body healthy and cancer free.
In fact, green tea is so effective that even the National Cancer Institute conducted studies on this so-called miracle brew and found that it does help in preventing cancer. Today, scientists are now looking at green tea as a key part of creating a cure for cancer. In time, thanks to this century-old brew, we will now see a cancer cure for the very first time.
One study even found that the antioxidants found in green tea was able to shrink tumors and prevented it from reproducing more cancerous cells and growing.
As you can see, green tea does help in preventing cancer. With the scientific studies being done with green tea today, it is only a matter of time that we will be able to see a cure for cancer
Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/316104_green-tea-miracle-herb-used-for-thousands-of-years-and-can-help-fight-cancer#ixzz0tQ5bWRpx
Only recently, green tea has been introduced in the west. And, people love them. Most people say that they never felt healthier in their entire lives, and health buffs even said that this tea is a miracle drink. Ever since then, the entire world is now drinking green tea on a daily basis.
So, is green tea really that wonderful? Does it really fight off cancer?
For starters, green tea has a lot of benefits. The main benefit of this brew is that it has antioxidants which are known to fight off cancer cells. So, to answer the question on whether green tea can prevent cancer, the answer is yes. It gets rid of free radicals from your body which leaves it free from toxins that can contribute to cancer.
This brew is full of the antioxidant called epigallocatechin-3 gallat or what is more known as EGCG. Unlike black tea, green tea is not fermented, which preserves EGCG. Because of this fact, this brew is much more beneficial than black tea and has a more positive effect in fighting diseases, which includes cancer.
You have to remember that when free radicals enter our body, it will have an effect to our cells. If this happens, it will make abnormal cells, which can result in cancerous cells that can reproduce all over your body creating tumors.
Free radicals can enter the body in different ways. It can be because of exposure to cigarette smoke, pollution, and it can even be because of exposure to excessive sunlight.
Whatever it is, it is important that we should get rid of free radicals from our body in order to keep it healthy and cancer free. Although some of the food we eat contains antioxidant, you have to remember that it is not really enough to fight off the amount of free radicals that enter our body. The best way to counter free radicals is by taking in more antioxidants in your body. This is where green tea comes in.
Because green tea has a high concentration of antioxidants, it will be able to fight off free radicals more effectively. With just three to four cups a day, you can be sure that you will be able to keep your body healthy and cancer free.
In fact, green tea is so effective that even the National Cancer Institute conducted studies on this so-called miracle brew and found that it does help in preventing cancer. Today, scientists are now looking at green tea as a key part of creating a cure for cancer. In time, thanks to this century-old brew, we will now see a cancer cure for the very first time.
One study even found that the antioxidants found in green tea was able to shrink tumors and prevented it from reproducing more cancerous cells and growing.
As you can see, green tea does help in preventing cancer. With the scientific studies being done with green tea today, it is only a matter of time that we will be able to see a cure for cancer
Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/316104_green-tea-miracle-herb-used-for-thousands-of-years-and-can-help-fight-cancer#ixzz0tQ5bWRpx
Battle Against Poverty In Bangladesh
It was this vision of change that spurred Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, to set up Grameen Bank in Bangladesh during the 1970s. Yunus had two major drives for his vision of the future: “to make credit a human right so that each individual human being will have the opportunity to take loans and implement his or her ideas so that self exploration becomes possible. And second: that it will lead to a world where nobody has to suffer from poverty – a world completely free from poverty.”
The Bank’s philosophy was simple: to lend out small loans, averaging under $400 per person, to those who had no access to credit facilities, creating growth opportunities for entrepreneurship. To date, the Bank has lent out almost $9 billion in microcredit loans, making a difference to over 8 million of Bangladesh’s poor.
Meeting life’s needs
Emergencies, weddings, funerals, theft or injury are often definitive events for the poor in developing countries. In “The Poor and their Money,” Stuart Rutherford cites several needs such as lifecycle needs, personal emergencies and disasters. These are all events that can devastate a family already mired in poverty and struggling to make a living, like that of Ibu Samsariah from Indonesia.
A canal fisherwoman and oyster gatherer in the village of Ruko, Ibu Samsariah’s husband worked as a mini van driver. Her two sons worked as day labourers when there were jobs to be found. Their four combined incomes allowed them to meet their basic needs until the 2004 tsunami hit the shores of Ruko, sweeping Ibu Samsariah’s husband, their home and all their possessions out to sea. With no husband, no father, no home, no fishing tools and no income, Samsariah struggled to survive.
In 2006 she formed a borrowers group and received a $100 loan from Yayasan Mirtra Dhuafa (YAMIDA). Using this loan, she bought fishing equipment to re-start her business. She found buyers for her oysters at the local market, repaid her loan and is now looking to apply for a larger amount to open her own stall.
Without access to microcredit, Samsariah’s fate would have been far different. With no means to regain a source of income after the tsunami disaster, it seems likely that she would have spent the rest of her life struggling to make ends meet. Now, Samsariah has big plans and dreams; profits from her oyster stall will allow her to hire an assistant to fish and shell the produce, thereby increasing both profit and employment in her small community.
A leg up
Almost by definition, the poor have very little money and therefore little chance of investing in opportunities or of improving their circumstances. Without credit, they are unable to expand their business, improve their housing or buy assets. Kofi Annan, erstwhile leader of the United Nations, believes that “poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge,” and that microcredit is a way to “bring people in from the margins and give them the tools with which to help themselves.”
Small loans can transform the lives of the poor, give them social mobility, secure the future of their children and improve their social standing. In male-dominated societies, the practice of lending money predominantly to women also helps to drive equality and social change.
Charity Kulola, from Kenya, does not dispute the power of microcredit to change lives. Married off at 16 into a polygamous marriage, then expelled for not bearing a son, Charity had no income and no way of supporting herself or her daughters. An initial loan of $64 given by the Yehu Microfinance Trust was used to open a coconut stall in the seaside village of Charareli. As sales took off, Charity took out a second loan, then a third to invest in a retail shop and to diversify her business. Instead of merely being the third wife to a man not of her own choosing, Charity is now a successful entrepreneur, intent on sending her daughters to school so that they can have a better future.
Alleviating poverty
Although micro lending is not the definitive answer to ending poverty, it is an effective tool for breaking the poverty cycle. Micro finance is “not a charity. This is business; business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty” (Muhammad Yunus). Unlike handouts or charity, microcredit helps to empower the poor and encourages them to lift themselves out of poverty.
In rural Haiti, Dieula Calixte worked as a servant, sometimes starving for days when she couldn’t find work. Often ill and unable to hold down a steady job, Dieula applied for a $68 loan from Esperanza International and started her own business selling snacks. Within six months, she had paid off her loan in full and increased her capital to $69. She now earns almost $2 a day and is financing a second loan to expand her business. The income from her work allows Dieula to obtain the medications she requires and puts food on the table each day. She is enthusiastic about the role of microfinance in her community, acknowledging that without the initial loan, she would still be hungry, poor and ill, condemned to the cycle of poverty. Source
The Bank’s philosophy was simple: to lend out small loans, averaging under $400 per person, to those who had no access to credit facilities, creating growth opportunities for entrepreneurship. To date, the Bank has lent out almost $9 billion in microcredit loans, making a difference to over 8 million of Bangladesh’s poor.
Meeting life’s needs
Emergencies, weddings, funerals, theft or injury are often definitive events for the poor in developing countries. In “The Poor and their Money,” Stuart Rutherford cites several needs such as lifecycle needs, personal emergencies and disasters. These are all events that can devastate a family already mired in poverty and struggling to make a living, like that of Ibu Samsariah from Indonesia.
A canal fisherwoman and oyster gatherer in the village of Ruko, Ibu Samsariah’s husband worked as a mini van driver. Her two sons worked as day labourers when there were jobs to be found. Their four combined incomes allowed them to meet their basic needs until the 2004 tsunami hit the shores of Ruko, sweeping Ibu Samsariah’s husband, their home and all their possessions out to sea. With no husband, no father, no home, no fishing tools and no income, Samsariah struggled to survive.
In 2006 she formed a borrowers group and received a $100 loan from Yayasan Mirtra Dhuafa (YAMIDA). Using this loan, she bought fishing equipment to re-start her business. She found buyers for her oysters at the local market, repaid her loan and is now looking to apply for a larger amount to open her own stall.
Without access to microcredit, Samsariah’s fate would have been far different. With no means to regain a source of income after the tsunami disaster, it seems likely that she would have spent the rest of her life struggling to make ends meet. Now, Samsariah has big plans and dreams; profits from her oyster stall will allow her to hire an assistant to fish and shell the produce, thereby increasing both profit and employment in her small community.
A leg up
Almost by definition, the poor have very little money and therefore little chance of investing in opportunities or of improving their circumstances. Without credit, they are unable to expand their business, improve their housing or buy assets. Kofi Annan, erstwhile leader of the United Nations, believes that “poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge,” and that microcredit is a way to “bring people in from the margins and give them the tools with which to help themselves.”
Small loans can transform the lives of the poor, give them social mobility, secure the future of their children and improve their social standing. In male-dominated societies, the practice of lending money predominantly to women also helps to drive equality and social change.
Charity Kulola, from Kenya, does not dispute the power of microcredit to change lives. Married off at 16 into a polygamous marriage, then expelled for not bearing a son, Charity had no income and no way of supporting herself or her daughters. An initial loan of $64 given by the Yehu Microfinance Trust was used to open a coconut stall in the seaside village of Charareli. As sales took off, Charity took out a second loan, then a third to invest in a retail shop and to diversify her business. Instead of merely being the third wife to a man not of her own choosing, Charity is now a successful entrepreneur, intent on sending her daughters to school so that they can have a better future.
Alleviating poverty
Although micro lending is not the definitive answer to ending poverty, it is an effective tool for breaking the poverty cycle. Micro finance is “not a charity. This is business; business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty” (Muhammad Yunus). Unlike handouts or charity, microcredit helps to empower the poor and encourages them to lift themselves out of poverty.
In rural Haiti, Dieula Calixte worked as a servant, sometimes starving for days when she couldn’t find work. Often ill and unable to hold down a steady job, Dieula applied for a $68 loan from Esperanza International and started her own business selling snacks. Within six months, she had paid off her loan in full and increased her capital to $69. She now earns almost $2 a day and is financing a second loan to expand her business. The income from her work allows Dieula to obtain the medications she requires and puts food on the table each day. She is enthusiastic about the role of microfinance in her community, acknowledging that without the initial loan, she would still be hungry, poor and ill, condemned to the cycle of poverty. Source
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Is Obama anti-Semitic? Netanyahu brother-in-law causes ruckus.
At the height of the worst Israel-US crisis in decades, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to distance himself Wednesday from the views of his brother-in-law, who called President Obama "anti-Semitic" over the airwaves this morning.
Skip to next paragraph
Photo Gallery
Israeli settlements
.Related Stories
US Israel settlements fight marks lowest point since 1970s: ambassador
Can Israel tamp down Jerusalem clashes?
Netanyahu faces 'moment of truth' after US slams Israel 'insult'
.In an interview with Israel Army Radio on Wednesday, Hagai Ben Artzi, the brother of Netanyahu's wife Sara, reportedly said: "it needs to be said clearly and simply: There is an anti-Semitic president in the US. It's not that Obama doesn't sympathize with [Mr. Netanyahu]. He doesn't sympathize with the people of Israel."
Netanyahu's office swifty published a condemnation: "I entirely reject the remarks of Hagai Ben Artzi."
IN PICTURES: Israeli settlements
Family ties?
Mr. Ben Artzi, who has a history of controversial remarks, is family in more than one way.
The hardliner – who's held positions as a bible lecturer at a religious college in Jerusalem, and in the Education Ministry, and has a doctorate in Israel thought and philosophy from Hebrew University in Jerusalem – also represents the family of hawkish nationalists who support Netanyahu and for whom any movement on the peace process is going to stir tension.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Knesset Member Michael Ben Ari of the far-right National Union party recently hung a poster with a picture in which Obama looks like he is bowing to a Gulf prince, underneath a headline, "Caution! [Palestine Liberation Organization] Agent in the White House!''
Suspicion of Obama
So how widespread are those views of Obama in Israel?
The opinions recall suspicions voiced about Obama in Israel during his run for the presidency that were based on his Muslim relatives and a former pastor whose sermons occasionally included remarks considered anti-Semitic.
Mitchell Barak, a pollster who used to work with Netanyahu, says there is widespread alienation among Israelis regarding Obama, whom many consider the US president most unsympathetic to Israel for decades.
That said, both Ben Artzi and Ben Ari represent fringe opinions, says Mr. Barak.
"The problem with the extremist right groups," he says, "is that they can't recognize anyone that doesn't shares the opinions of their own group.''
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0317/Is-Obama-anti-Semitic-Netanyahu-brother-in-law-causes-ruckus
Skip to next paragraph
Photo Gallery
Israeli settlements
.Related Stories
US Israel settlements fight marks lowest point since 1970s: ambassador
Can Israel tamp down Jerusalem clashes?
Netanyahu faces 'moment of truth' after US slams Israel 'insult'
.In an interview with Israel Army Radio on Wednesday, Hagai Ben Artzi, the brother of Netanyahu's wife Sara, reportedly said: "it needs to be said clearly and simply: There is an anti-Semitic president in the US. It's not that Obama doesn't sympathize with [Mr. Netanyahu]. He doesn't sympathize with the people of Israel."
Netanyahu's office swifty published a condemnation: "I entirely reject the remarks of Hagai Ben Artzi."
IN PICTURES: Israeli settlements
Family ties?
Mr. Ben Artzi, who has a history of controversial remarks, is family in more than one way.
The hardliner – who's held positions as a bible lecturer at a religious college in Jerusalem, and in the Education Ministry, and has a doctorate in Israel thought and philosophy from Hebrew University in Jerusalem – also represents the family of hawkish nationalists who support Netanyahu and for whom any movement on the peace process is going to stir tension.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Knesset Member Michael Ben Ari of the far-right National Union party recently hung a poster with a picture in which Obama looks like he is bowing to a Gulf prince, underneath a headline, "Caution! [Palestine Liberation Organization] Agent in the White House!''
Suspicion of Obama
So how widespread are those views of Obama in Israel?
The opinions recall suspicions voiced about Obama in Israel during his run for the presidency that were based on his Muslim relatives and a former pastor whose sermons occasionally included remarks considered anti-Semitic.
Mitchell Barak, a pollster who used to work with Netanyahu, says there is widespread alienation among Israelis regarding Obama, whom many consider the US president most unsympathetic to Israel for decades.
That said, both Ben Artzi and Ben Ari represent fringe opinions, says Mr. Barak.
"The problem with the extremist right groups," he says, "is that they can't recognize anyone that doesn't shares the opinions of their own group.''
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0317/Is-Obama-anti-Semitic-Netanyahu-brother-in-law-causes-ruckus
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Overcoming Zionism a new book coming our by joel kovel
Joel Kovel, author of Overcoming Zionism, said, "What we don't have is any kind of real debate on this subject in our country at this time ... basically these Zionist repression groups have had pretty much a free hand ... that's why I wrote the book. I mean, I wanted to -- I disregarded all the taboos, that you're not supposed to talk about Israel in any depth in this country."
[The distributor dropped his book after receiving threatening emails from a Zionist pressure group.] "They panicked this summer when they dropped my book. I mean, they were pressured by this Zionist watchdog team." [But the Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism
was able to convince them to continue distributing it.] "We have a committee forming, Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism, codz.org. And we're planning a conference and all. But the committee leapt into action, and we were amazed at just how eloquent and, you know, basically fed up a lot of people were with being intimidated by these kinds of tactics. They just want to suppress an open discussion of this subject. ... I grew up in a very conventional Jewish home, except for the fact that there was a lot of division on this subject, so I think from an early age I learned to take a certain distance from it and to think critically about it."
"The Jewish people have been, you know, very largely deprived of a real opportunity to look at what's going on in the state of Israel."
"The notion of Zionism, as that there is this kind of destiny of the Jewish people to have their own state, is just the wrong idea. And it's an idea that requires signing onto imperialism. It means signing onto ethnic cleansing. It means -- despite everything that has been said about it, it means basically becoming a racist situation, where you're oppressing an indigenous population and depriving them of their right to existence ... I join hands with those people who feel that the time has come to basically think of Israel in the same category as South Africa, as a state that just has gone wrong and needs replacement ... the comparison was interesting, because Tutu and other leaders of the freedom struggle in South Africa who visited Palestine have always been asked, well, how does it compare? And he says, well, it's not the same thing, Israel is actually worse. He actually said, Israel is a worse place than Apartheid South Africa was."
http://tinyurl.com/36dqpw
"This is much worse than apartheid." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
see link
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10...
University of Michigan Press to Continue Publishing Joel Kovel's "Overcoming Zionism" After Initially Dropping Book Due to Rightwing Criticism
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/2...
Friday, April 2, 2010
Israeli air raids wound children
Three Palestinian children have been wounded after Israeli planes and helicopters launched a string of air attacks on the Gaza Strip overnight.
The Israelis claimed that the air raids were in response to rocket fire from Gaza, but Hamas which runs the Palestinian enclave blamed the Israelis for the escalating tensions.
According to Palestinian medical sources, at least seven missiles targeted various Gaza sites.
Four air attacks early on Friday destroyed two caravans near the town of Khan Younis. A fifth missile hit a cheese factory in Gaza City, setting it on fire, witnesses and Hamas officials said.
Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza, said three Palestinian children - aged two, four and 11 - were hit by flying glass in the raid.
Hamas condemnation
Helicopters struck twice in the central refugee camp of Nusseirat, destroying a metal foundry, but no one was injured.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the attacks, saying they had targeted two weapons-manufacturing plants and two arms caches. There was no independent confirmation of the Israeli claim.
in depth
Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, blamed Israel for the increase in tensions.
"We in the Palestinian government condemn this escalation and call on our Arab brothers in particular and the international community in general to intervene in order to stop targeting our people and the escalation against them everywhere, particularly in the Gaza Strip," he said.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera that Hamas held the Israeli government led by Binyamin Netanyahu responsible for the "escalation" and said the air raids had been expected because of threats by Ehud Barak, the defence minister, and other ministers.
He also blamed "the international community and the Arabs" for failing "to do anything about the situation in Gaza".
"The absence of the international community and the Arabs has allowed the Israelis to escalate the situation," he said.
A Palestinian man inspects the damage at a cheese factory hit by Israel [AFP]
But Silvan Shalom, Israel's deputy prime minister, adopted a defiant stand and warned of more attacks on Gaza.
"If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas," Shalom told public radio on Friday.
"We won't allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation," he said.
Israel's air attacks came after a rocket fired from Gaza landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon late on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the army said.
Hamas leaders say they have contacted armed groups in the coastal territory accused of firing rockets in an apparent bid to calm tensions with Israel.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for maintaining security in Gaza and halting the rocket attacks.
Source
The Israelis claimed that the air raids were in response to rocket fire from Gaza, but Hamas which runs the Palestinian enclave blamed the Israelis for the escalating tensions.
According to Palestinian medical sources, at least seven missiles targeted various Gaza sites.
Four air attacks early on Friday destroyed two caravans near the town of Khan Younis. A fifth missile hit a cheese factory in Gaza City, setting it on fire, witnesses and Hamas officials said.
Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza, said three Palestinian children - aged two, four and 11 - were hit by flying glass in the raid.
Hamas condemnation
Helicopters struck twice in the central refugee camp of Nusseirat, destroying a metal foundry, but no one was injured.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the attacks, saying they had targeted two weapons-manufacturing plants and two arms caches. There was no independent confirmation of the Israeli claim.
in depth
Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, blamed Israel for the increase in tensions.
"We in the Palestinian government condemn this escalation and call on our Arab brothers in particular and the international community in general to intervene in order to stop targeting our people and the escalation against them everywhere, particularly in the Gaza Strip," he said.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera that Hamas held the Israeli government led by Binyamin Netanyahu responsible for the "escalation" and said the air raids had been expected because of threats by Ehud Barak, the defence minister, and other ministers.
He also blamed "the international community and the Arabs" for failing "to do anything about the situation in Gaza".
"The absence of the international community and the Arabs has allowed the Israelis to escalate the situation," he said.
A Palestinian man inspects the damage at a cheese factory hit by Israel [AFP]
But Silvan Shalom, Israel's deputy prime minister, adopted a defiant stand and warned of more attacks on Gaza.
"If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas," Shalom told public radio on Friday.
"We won't allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation," he said.
Israel's air attacks came after a rocket fired from Gaza landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon late on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the army said.
Hamas leaders say they have contacted armed groups in the coastal territory accused of firing rockets in an apparent bid to calm tensions with Israel.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for maintaining security in Gaza and halting the rocket attacks.
Source
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Oilmen Fund Anti-Global Warming Groups
The Young Turk lays it down about global warming, its doubts and its funders.
Who has to gain from denying it?
Why are solar caps melting ?
To much toxins in the air and not enough Trees to recycle it, We are killing the planet slowly, but when push, come to shove, the planet will get rid of us in seconds.God wrath on earth is witness by millions, from all nations and colors.
When will we understand that the earth works on a delicate system which must be nurished and taken care of,as it takes care of us 99.5 % of the time.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
2012: The Fall of the Aztecs.Mayan Calendar. The Serpent god of the Cross Returns.
We are commonly asked about the buildings which remain standing. Most were destroyed. What we see are those in remote areas and those which were so incredibly massive in size it was impossible to destroy them, even with the use of cannons. However, the entire Aztec capital was destroyed, and in its place is the capital of Mexico, Mexico City, and its hundreds of Catholic churches and cathedrals.
We are also asked if we believe the world will end in 2012? The answer is: "no." The next cycle of the Mayan calendar ends on 2012. Does this mean the Maya's believed the world end on 2012? No. It means the calendar ends. Yet, there is also a warning, and we must learn from the past, so let those with eyes, see.
Aztec Doomsday End of World?
The Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of every 5126-year era. A previous cycle ended 13,363 years ago--during the age of Leo, at the same time when the Earth was struck by comets and asteroids. The next cycle ends on 2012. Does this mean the world end on 2012? No. It means the calendar ends. Yet, there is also a warning, so let those with eyes, see. .
A documentary film by Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D. http://BrainMind.com
Osama Bin Laden - Dead since 2001
Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.
Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.
Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.
But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.
Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.
Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.
But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
Nuclear footage - Must see
Nuclear War: Atomic Explosions. Hydrogen Bombs Hiroshima: World War III. A film by Rhawn Joseph. Ph.D. "Many of the nuclear scenes from this film, including nuclear blasts that did not appear in this film, can also be seen in the spectacular film "Trinity and Beyond" directed by Peter Kuran. We highly recommend this film." By Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D.
http://BrainMind.com
World War One a brief explaination-1914 - 1918 Map
Amazing how a few countries can influence the ENTIRE WORLD.
The Total amount of soldiers involved in conflict 73 million, total lives lost has no exact figures, but you can imagin it indeed a very large number.
THE JEWS OF IRAQ - TESTIMONY OF A FORMER ZIONIST
THE JEWS OF IRAQ - TESTIMONY OF A FORMER ZIONIST
The following article, The Jews of Iraq, is the result of an interview conducted by The Link on March 16, 1998. The article was published in the [?] edition of The Link. The interviewee, Naeim Giladi, an Iraqi Jew and a former Zionist is the author of "Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews".
In his book, Ben Gurion's Scandals, Mr. Giladi discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import raw Jewish labor. Newly-vacated farmlands had to be plowed to provide food for the immigrants and the military ranks had to be filled with conscripts to defend the illegitimately repossesed lands.
Mr. Giladi couldn't get his book published in Israel, and even in the U.S. he discovered that he could do so only by personally funding the project.
The Giladis, now U.S. citizens, live in New York City. By choice, they no longer hold Israeli citizenship. "I am Iraqi," he told The Link, "born in Iraq, my culture still Iraqi Arabic, my religion Jewish, my citizenship American."
The Link, honored in 1998 by the International Writers and Artists Association, is published by Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU).
In the [?] edition of The Link, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe looked at the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians whose lives were uprooted to make room for foreigners who would come to populate land confiscated by the Zionists. Most were Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. But over half a million other Jews came from Islamic lands. Zionist propagandists claim that Israel "rescued" these Jews from their anti-Jewish, Muslim neighbors. One of those "rescued" Jews, Naeim Giladi, knows otherwise.
Naeim Giladi: "I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first Prime Minister of Israel called 'cruel Zionism'. I write about it because I was part of it."
John F. Mahoney, Executive Director, AMEU: "The Link interviewed Naeim Giladi, a Jew from Iraq, for three hours on March 16, 1998, two days prior to his 69th birthday. For nearly two other delightful hours, we were treated to a multi-course Arabic meal prepared by his wife Rachael, who is also Iraqi. "It's our Arab culture," he said proudly".
http://judaismorzionism.blogspot.com/2010/02/jews-of-iraq-testimony-of-former.html
The following article, The Jews of Iraq, is the result of an interview conducted by The Link on March 16, 1998. The article was published in the [?] edition of The Link. The interviewee, Naeim Giladi, an Iraqi Jew and a former Zionist is the author of "Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews".
In his book, Ben Gurion's Scandals, Mr. Giladi discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import raw Jewish labor. Newly-vacated farmlands had to be plowed to provide food for the immigrants and the military ranks had to be filled with conscripts to defend the illegitimately repossesed lands.
Mr. Giladi couldn't get his book published in Israel, and even in the U.S. he discovered that he could do so only by personally funding the project.
The Giladis, now U.S. citizens, live in New York City. By choice, they no longer hold Israeli citizenship. "I am Iraqi," he told The Link, "born in Iraq, my culture still Iraqi Arabic, my religion Jewish, my citizenship American."
The Link, honored in 1998 by the International Writers and Artists Association, is published by Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU).
In the [?] edition of The Link, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe looked at the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians whose lives were uprooted to make room for foreigners who would come to populate land confiscated by the Zionists. Most were Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. But over half a million other Jews came from Islamic lands. Zionist propagandists claim that Israel "rescued" these Jews from their anti-Jewish, Muslim neighbors. One of those "rescued" Jews, Naeim Giladi, knows otherwise.
Naeim Giladi: "I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first Prime Minister of Israel called 'cruel Zionism'. I write about it because I was part of it."
John F. Mahoney, Executive Director, AMEU: "The Link interviewed Naeim Giladi, a Jew from Iraq, for three hours on March 16, 1998, two days prior to his 69th birthday. For nearly two other delightful hours, we were treated to a multi-course Arabic meal prepared by his wife Rachael, who is also Iraqi. "It's our Arab culture," he said proudly".
http://judaismorzionism.blogspot.com/2010/02/jews-of-iraq-testimony-of-former.html
Face to Face a child with a rock vs soldier with gun
This video demonstrates that, No gun or weapon built can ever contain whats in the HEART. There is a truth which is worth dieing for and there are falsehoods which are not. It's clear who is the oppressor and who is running, it's not running from certain death, for the blow of a small rock thrown by a child will not inflict that much damage. It's running of fear that I don't belong here, and this is an unjust fight. Maybe the soldier truly believes in God and at that moment he was overwhelmed with fear as this child looked like something else.
Palestine and it's struggle will be victories, because Justice is on their side.
Why the settlements under pressure
Why are we asking this now?
Because the US administration appears to be serious about getting Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Previous US administrations said they wanted a freeze but in practice allowed Israel to continue with at least some building.
How did the settlements come about?
Related articles
•Israel rejects US plea to halt settlement building
Search the news archive for more stories
In the aftermath of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day War, which left it in control of Gaza and the West Bank (as well as the Golan Heights) successive governments gradually allowed, and eventually effectively managed, the creation of more and more civilian Israeli communities in occupied territory.
Several forces converged to encourage this growth: religious Zionists and others on the ideological right who believed in a greater Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean and that the West Bank – or Judaea and Samaria, as they invariably call it – had been "liberated" by the Six Day War; elements in the military establishment who believed it would enhance Israeli security; and politicians who believed that it made sense to grab as much territory as possible for Jewish residents, to improve Israel's bargaining position in any future peace talks.
Source
Because the US administration appears to be serious about getting Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Previous US administrations said they wanted a freeze but in practice allowed Israel to continue with at least some building.
How did the settlements come about?
Related articles
•Israel rejects US plea to halt settlement building
Search the news archive for more stories
In the aftermath of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day War, which left it in control of Gaza and the West Bank (as well as the Golan Heights) successive governments gradually allowed, and eventually effectively managed, the creation of more and more civilian Israeli communities in occupied territory.
Several forces converged to encourage this growth: religious Zionists and others on the ideological right who believed in a greater Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean and that the West Bank – or Judaea and Samaria, as they invariably call it – had been "liberated" by the Six Day War; elements in the military establishment who believed it would enhance Israeli security; and politicians who believed that it made sense to grab as much territory as possible for Jewish residents, to improve Israel's bargaining position in any future peace talks.
Source
Israeli army embarrassed by video - Watch, see Why
JERUSALEM - The Israeli army has expressed a note of contrition after a television station aired a videotape showing an army assault on a Palestinian home in which a mother of five children died.
When CBC News spoke with Ismail Hawarjeh at Bethlehem's hospital earlier this month, there was no way to verify the story he told about how his wife had died, until Israel's Channel 2 broacast the tape last weekend"
Prophesies revealed 1400 years ago of judgment day
* Camels will no longer be used as a means of transport;
* People will ride on saddles that aren't saddles (cars?)
* The distance on earth will become short;
* Horses will not be used in wars;
* Muslims will defeat the Byzantines which will end with the conquest of Constantinople( Istanbul)
* The Jews will gather again to live in Bilad Canaan;
* Very tall buildings will be built;
* The disappearance of knowledge and the appearance of ignorance, with much killing;
* Adultery will become widespread, and the drinking of wine will become common;
* The number of men will decrease and the number of women will increase until there are 50 women to be looked after by one man.
* Islam will become worn out like clothes are, until no one will know what fasting, prayer, charity and rituals are;
* Allah will send a disease to fornicators that will have no cure (Aids?);
* People will begin to believe in the stars and reject AL QADAR (THE DIVINE DECREE OF DESTINY);
* Men will pass by people's graves and say: 'Would that I was in his place'; (large amount of suicidal deaths?)
http://mo5lim.blogspot.com/2010/03/prophesies-revealed-1400-years-ago-of.html?
* People will ride on saddles that aren't saddles (cars?)
* The distance on earth will become short;
* Horses will not be used in wars;
* Muslims will defeat the Byzantines which will end with the conquest of Constantinople( Istanbul)
* The Jews will gather again to live in Bilad Canaan;
* Very tall buildings will be built;
* The disappearance of knowledge and the appearance of ignorance, with much killing;
* Adultery will become widespread, and the drinking of wine will become common;
* The number of men will decrease and the number of women will increase until there are 50 women to be looked after by one man.
* Islam will become worn out like clothes are, until no one will know what fasting, prayer, charity and rituals are;
* Allah will send a disease to fornicators that will have no cure (Aids?);
* People will begin to believe in the stars and reject AL QADAR (THE DIVINE DECREE OF DESTINY);
* Men will pass by people's graves and say: 'Would that I was in his place'; (large amount of suicidal deaths?)
http://mo5lim.blogspot.com/2010/03/prophesies-revealed-1400-years-ago-of.html?
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Jews Mossad Israel 911 Box Cutter Video
Jews Mossad Israel 911 Box Cutter Video 10
World trade center towers & building 7 collapsed at free fall speed. Pancake theory is not only impossible, it is an insult to the intelligence of the world. Pancaking floors, arabs with box cutters, vaporizing airplanes, airplanes missing from airplane crash sites, alive hijackers, flying inches above the ground at the pentagon, flight 93 shot down. 911 was an inside job!
World Trade Center, Pentagon, Building 7, WTC, 911. September 11th, World Trade Center, George Bush, Pentagon, Flight 77, Flight 93, Flight 175, Flight 11, New World Order, inside job, Palestine,Zionist,Organization of America, Chaim Weizmann, Palestine, Zionism, September 11th, 911, 9/11, Israel, Israeli, Jewish, John Sack, Alfred Lilienthal, Noam Chomsky, Israel Shahak, Benjamin Freedman, Victor Ostrovsky, Neturei Karta, Anti Defamation League, anti Semite, Germany, Austria, Ottoman Turks, Bernard Baruch, Louis Brandeis, Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff, Woodrow Wilson, Lusitania incident, Treaty of Versailles, Balfour Declaration, Benjamin Freedman, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Jabotinksy, Lord Beaverbrook, Poland, Great Britain, France, Charles Lindbergh, Pearl Harbor, Japan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Zionist lobby, Law of Return, Judaism, Khazars, Arabs, Lavon Affair, USS Liberty, Mossad, Henry Ford, Admiral Thomas Moorer, Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, AIPAC, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglass Feith, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Ari Shavit, Bill Clinton, 1967 war, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Sabra Shatila refugee camps, West Bank, Gaza, Deir Yassin, World Trade Center, Pentagon,Bombing Former Mossad agent describes various Mossad missions. Israel False flag Mossad Zioinist Jewish Jew USS Liberty, Lavon affair, Tripoli, Reagan, George Bush, Frame, Covert, sayanim, World Trade Center, Pentagon, Building 7, WTC, 911. September 11th, World Trade Center, George Bush, Pentagon, Flight 77, Flight 93, Flight 175, Flight 11, New World Order, inside job, On the 4th day of the 6 day war Israeli Fighter jets and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 and wounding 171. This documentary contains the Israeli version of events along with the survivors version of events. This should go a long way in determining who is not telling the truth. It also shows how the US government places israel's interests above that of their own military personnel Israel, mossad and 911. 9/11 September 11th 2001 & The Attacks on the World Trade Center North Tower, South Tower, Building 7 or 7 World Trade Center along with Flight 77 at the Pentagon and Flight 93 (Lets Roll) Loose Change, Lose Change, World Trade Center, Pentagon, Building 7, WTC, 911. September 11th, World Trade Center, George Bush, Pentagon, Flight 77, Flight 93, Flight 175, Flight 11, New World Order, inside job
Friday, March 19, 2010
Why the west should heed Japan's economic lead
So Japan's a regimented country, with a cowed people fearful of breaking rules? Hardly. I've never seen so many people laughing, smiling and relaxed. Japan is the most equal society on earth. The top 10% of earners have 4.5 times the income of the bottom 10%. In Britain the top 10% grab 13.8 times the share taken by the lowest 10%.
I suppose I was experiencing a street-level view of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's superb book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Yet in a week spent visiting companies, speaking to economists and interrogating investment analysts, I think I was supposed to reach a rather different conclusion.
The Anglo-American school of capitalism scoffs at Japan. It's a bubble economy that burst and which, two decades later, still can't revive. Companies won't shed labour or cut costs. Runaway public spending floods into pork-barrel construction projects creating a fiscal deficit that makes even Greece look prudent. The country is, they say, quite literally on a road (and a bridge, and a tunnel) to nowhere. Meanwhile in the west – but especially in the US – dynamic capitalism destroys but then renews.
If your head never left the pages of right-wing economic textbooks (and you swallow the guff that manufacturing doesn't matter any more) you might believe all this. Indeed, World Bank figures show that back in 1995, Japan's nominal GDP was $5.3tn (£3.5tn), or not that far short of the US's $7.3tn. Since then, Japan's nominal GDP has actually fallen to $5.1tn, while the US is now at $14.3tn. The economic evidence is clear: Japan is a basket case, and the US is our only model.
Yet there are no Detroits in this supposedly failing economy. Instead you realise the price we pay for winner-takes-all capitalism. Arriving back in Britain, I came through BAA's gruesome Heathrow terminal three (thank you, the money makers behind its debt-laden takeover). In the underground, I shoved coins into the ticket vending machine. Of course it was broken. The District, Circle and Jubilee lines were all out of action (thank you, public/private partnership). At Victoria, I boarded a depressingly dirty train (thank you, train-leasing financiers).
Japan has its problems, not least its 200%-plus public sector debt. But it has a lot to teach us about social cohesion, while still producing world-class companies – and bosses who take pay cuts rather than make redundancies.
Source 1
I suppose I was experiencing a street-level view of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's superb book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Yet in a week spent visiting companies, speaking to economists and interrogating investment analysts, I think I was supposed to reach a rather different conclusion.
The Anglo-American school of capitalism scoffs at Japan. It's a bubble economy that burst and which, two decades later, still can't revive. Companies won't shed labour or cut costs. Runaway public spending floods into pork-barrel construction projects creating a fiscal deficit that makes even Greece look prudent. The country is, they say, quite literally on a road (and a bridge, and a tunnel) to nowhere. Meanwhile in the west – but especially in the US – dynamic capitalism destroys but then renews.
If your head never left the pages of right-wing economic textbooks (and you swallow the guff that manufacturing doesn't matter any more) you might believe all this. Indeed, World Bank figures show that back in 1995, Japan's nominal GDP was $5.3tn (£3.5tn), or not that far short of the US's $7.3tn. Since then, Japan's nominal GDP has actually fallen to $5.1tn, while the US is now at $14.3tn. The economic evidence is clear: Japan is a basket case, and the US is our only model.
Yet there are no Detroits in this supposedly failing economy. Instead you realise the price we pay for winner-takes-all capitalism. Arriving back in Britain, I came through BAA's gruesome Heathrow terminal three (thank you, the money makers behind its debt-laden takeover). In the underground, I shoved coins into the ticket vending machine. Of course it was broken. The District, Circle and Jubilee lines were all out of action (thank you, public/private partnership). At Victoria, I boarded a depressingly dirty train (thank you, train-leasing financiers).
Japan has its problems, not least its 200%-plus public sector debt. But it has a lot to teach us about social cohesion, while still producing world-class companies – and bosses who take pay cuts rather than make redundancies.
Source 1
Ai Weiwei: 'Life is never guaranteed to be safe'
Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist who will soon take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, on why he wants to tell people that it's OK to speak out
Video
Video
The 445 Million Year Old Crab
As you can see, the horseshoe crab isn’t the most captivating wildlife star in terms of looks. But then I guess a lot of creatures that pre-dated the dinosaurs weren’t going for looks. The angular part of their shell above their eyes makes it seem like they have a permanent scowl. Horseshoe crabs actually belong to an animal group called chelicerates, which are closer to spiders than crabs.
Horseshoe crabs have more amazing features than just their looks. Their blood has hemocyanin in it instead of the common hemoglobin. This means that their blood really is blue unlike ours, which only looks blue until it touches air. The females provide the energy source that fuels America’s greatest wildlife spectacle: eggs (60,000-120,000 apiece to be specific).
Eggs are super-nutritious and humans aren’t the only species that know this. Birds know it too. They also know that horseshoe crab spawning climaxes during the last new or full moon of May. This is when the tides are the strongest and crabs can get the farthest onshore. Almost one million birds converge on the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States.
Red knots, the star migratory bird species, travel the farthest. Coming all the way from Chile, with no breaks since Brazil, the birds arrive at the point of starvation. They spend a few weeks fattening up and then fly on to their breeding ground in Canada. All told, they’ll cover over 10,000 miles.
Unfortunately, the migration has lost some of its intensity in the past two decades. Horseshoe crabs have been overharvested for use as bait, fertilizer, and blood for drugs. Fewer horseshoe crabs meant fewer eggs, and thus more hungry birds, which either didn’t reproduce or died. Red knot population numbers have plummeted from over 100,000 to 25,000. With new protections for horseshoe crabs, hopefully these numbers will rebound, but because horseshoe crab females take 10 years to reach a reproductive age, we’ll have to be patient like the birds and wait for the right time to see results.
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/millions-year-old-crab/20893
Horseshoe crabs have more amazing features than just their looks. Their blood has hemocyanin in it instead of the common hemoglobin. This means that their blood really is blue unlike ours, which only looks blue until it touches air. The females provide the energy source that fuels America’s greatest wildlife spectacle: eggs (60,000-120,000 apiece to be specific).
Eggs are super-nutritious and humans aren’t the only species that know this. Birds know it too. They also know that horseshoe crab spawning climaxes during the last new or full moon of May. This is when the tides are the strongest and crabs can get the farthest onshore. Almost one million birds converge on the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States.
Red knots, the star migratory bird species, travel the farthest. Coming all the way from Chile, with no breaks since Brazil, the birds arrive at the point of starvation. They spend a few weeks fattening up and then fly on to their breeding ground in Canada. All told, they’ll cover over 10,000 miles.
Unfortunately, the migration has lost some of its intensity in the past two decades. Horseshoe crabs have been overharvested for use as bait, fertilizer, and blood for drugs. Fewer horseshoe crabs meant fewer eggs, and thus more hungry birds, which either didn’t reproduce or died. Red knot population numbers have plummeted from over 100,000 to 25,000. With new protections for horseshoe crabs, hopefully these numbers will rebound, but because horseshoe crab females take 10 years to reach a reproductive age, we’ll have to be patient like the birds and wait for the right time to see results.
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/millions-year-old-crab/20893
Bluefin tuna loses out simply because scarce fish make a profit
Idiots. Morons. Blockheads. Numbskulls. Nothing quite captures the mind-withering stupidity of what has just happened in Doha. Swayed by Japan and a number of other countries, some of them doubtless bought off in traditional fashion, the members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) have decided not to protect the Atlantic bluefin tuna.
Those who opposed suspending trade in the species argued that the temporary ban proposed by Monaco would devastate their fishing industries. There is some truth in this: for the years in which bluefin stocks would have been allowed to recover, the export ban would have put people out of work and reduced the output of their industry. But the absence of a ban ensures that, after one or two more seasons of fishing at current levels, all the jobs and the entire industry are finished forever, along with the magnificent species that supported them. The insistence that the fishing can continue without consequences betrays Olympic-class denial, a flat refusal to look reality in the face.
One of the commenters on a Guardian thread this week, who lives in Japan and uses the tag Kimpatsu, related his experiences of trying to discuss these issues.
"the Japanese policy towards both Bluefin tuna and whales has two engines of motivation. The first is the fact that the average Japanese is in denial about the imminent extinction of these creatures; the thought runs that as they have always eaten these animals (and many Japanese mistakenly think that the whale is a fish) since time immemorial, they will be able to continue doing so indefinitely into the future. When pressed on the subject of hunting to extinction, they grow aggressive. (I know from personal experience.) The second reason is the low-grade paranoia that informs all Japanese interaction with the outside world; the notion of Nihon tataki (Japan-bashing) is omnipresent. If you protest against whaling or tuna fishing, you're a cultural imperialist. If you point out that some Japanese are members of Greenpeace or oppose whaling (my GP is one), then "you don't understand Japanese mind so much". Remember: all your actions against whaling and overfishing are driven by a deep-seated, irrational hatred of Japan. Consequently, when you push, they push back."
I have no idea how representative this is, but the attitudes Kimpatsu describes were powerfully represented in The Cove, the film about the secret dolphin slaughter in Japan which won the 2010 Oscar for best documentary. The massacre it exposed is pointless, counter-productive and profoundly damaging to Japan's international image, but it was fiercely defended by what seemed to be the entire political establishment. Denial is evident everywhere on earth, but in the Japanese fishing and whaling industries it seems to have been raised to an art-form.
Source 1
Those who opposed suspending trade in the species argued that the temporary ban proposed by Monaco would devastate their fishing industries. There is some truth in this: for the years in which bluefin stocks would have been allowed to recover, the export ban would have put people out of work and reduced the output of their industry. But the absence of a ban ensures that, after one or two more seasons of fishing at current levels, all the jobs and the entire industry are finished forever, along with the magnificent species that supported them. The insistence that the fishing can continue without consequences betrays Olympic-class denial, a flat refusal to look reality in the face.
One of the commenters on a Guardian thread this week, who lives in Japan and uses the tag Kimpatsu, related his experiences of trying to discuss these issues.
"the Japanese policy towards both Bluefin tuna and whales has two engines of motivation. The first is the fact that the average Japanese is in denial about the imminent extinction of these creatures; the thought runs that as they have always eaten these animals (and many Japanese mistakenly think that the whale is a fish) since time immemorial, they will be able to continue doing so indefinitely into the future. When pressed on the subject of hunting to extinction, they grow aggressive. (I know from personal experience.) The second reason is the low-grade paranoia that informs all Japanese interaction with the outside world; the notion of Nihon tataki (Japan-bashing) is omnipresent. If you protest against whaling or tuna fishing, you're a cultural imperialist. If you point out that some Japanese are members of Greenpeace or oppose whaling (my GP is one), then "you don't understand Japanese mind so much". Remember: all your actions against whaling and overfishing are driven by a deep-seated, irrational hatred of Japan. Consequently, when you push, they push back."
I have no idea how representative this is, but the attitudes Kimpatsu describes were powerfully represented in The Cove, the film about the secret dolphin slaughter in Japan which won the 2010 Oscar for best documentary. The massacre it exposed is pointless, counter-productive and profoundly damaging to Japan's international image, but it was fiercely defended by what seemed to be the entire political establishment. Denial is evident everywhere on earth, but in the Japanese fishing and whaling industries it seems to have been raised to an art-form.
Source 1
Tories criticise UK for failing to support 20-year ban on African ivory sales
The Conservatives today criticised the government for failing to support proposals from a number of African countries to impose a 20-year ban on any legal sales of ivory.
The plan, led by Kenya, is being discussed at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in a bid to tackle the poaching of elephants and rhino.
It counters a bid by Tanzania and Zambia to hold one-off sales of their legally held ivory and "downlist" their elephants from the highest level of protection.
The UK government said it was initially "sympathetic" to the Kenyan proposals, subject to a review after 10 years of the scheme, but the EU, which votes as a bloc at Cites, decided not to back it. But on a Cites vote this week on whether to ban the international trade in bluefin tuna, the UK acted alone rather than as a bloc with Europe and chose to support the Monaco proposal of opposing the ban.
There are concerns that, if the one-off sales of ivory from four African countries in 2008 results in a lower demand for illegal ivory, a 20-year moratorium would not be a positive step.
But conservationists have raised fears over a rise in illegal trade and poaching following the sales, which they believe stimulate the market and provide a cover for traders to offload illegal stocks.
Shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert said the government had "shamefully" refused to support the Kenyan proposal for a ban on sales and continued to back stockpiling of legal ivory - for example from animals which had died naturally.
"Instead of flooding the market with more ivory and legitimising the trade, these stockpiles should be destroyed. We should be choking demand for ivory, not stoking it," he said.
The plan, led by Kenya, is being discussed at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in a bid to tackle the poaching of elephants and rhino.
It counters a bid by Tanzania and Zambia to hold one-off sales of their legally held ivory and "downlist" their elephants from the highest level of protection.
The UK government said it was initially "sympathetic" to the Kenyan proposals, subject to a review after 10 years of the scheme, but the EU, which votes as a bloc at Cites, decided not to back it. But on a Cites vote this week on whether to ban the international trade in bluefin tuna, the UK acted alone rather than as a bloc with Europe and chose to support the Monaco proposal of opposing the ban.
There are concerns that, if the one-off sales of ivory from four African countries in 2008 results in a lower demand for illegal ivory, a 20-year moratorium would not be a positive step.
But conservationists have raised fears over a rise in illegal trade and poaching following the sales, which they believe stimulate the market and provide a cover for traders to offload illegal stocks.
Shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert said the government had "shamefully" refused to support the Kenyan proposal for a ban on sales and continued to back stockpiling of legal ivory - for example from animals which had died naturally.
"Instead of flooding the market with more ivory and legitimising the trade, these stockpiles should be destroyed. We should be choking demand for ivory, not stoking it," he said.
Game Called Muslim Massacre
Computer games in which players aim to kill as many people as possible are, sadly, pretty common. But what sets "Muslim Massacre - the game of modern religious genocide" - apart from the others is that an American soldier sets out to "wipe out" the entire Muslim race. Worse still, the game is available free on the internet, with no restrictions to prevent children and the vulnerable from accessing it.
The world wide web is one area that the law still struggles to regulate.
Some may see the game as a parody of American foreign policy and point out that it is aimed at adults, rather than children. After all, the average US video game player is a 35-year-old man.
But the game reaches a new low in bad taste and contains a blatantly destructive message. The game's premise is that the US has declared war on Islam and invites players to take control of the American "hero" who will wipe out the Muslim race with "an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons".
The "hero" uses machine guns and rocket launchers to kill as many Muslims as possible - ranging from terrorists and what appear to be civilians to Osama bin Laden, Muhammad and Allah.
The game's creator, a freelance programmer called Sigvatr, describes the game as "fun and funny" and says to his critics: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is."
He says: "Ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (slang for a common swear word) out of Arabs…I don't even know how to interpret it myself anymore. The bottom line is that I enjoyed making it and it's fun to play."
Later he adds: "The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims.
"If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim."
That's not the way some Muslim groups see it. The Ramadhan Foundation says the game is "unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/sep/11/technologygames
The Ramadhan responce
The Ramadhan Foundation expresses its deep condemnation and anger at the computer game released called Muslim massacre. This game is glorifying the killing of Muslims in the Middle East and we urge ISP providers to take action to remove this site from their services as it incites violence towards Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims.
We have written to the British Government today to urge an inquiry into this game and take action to shut down the site; this is not satire but a deliberate attempt to demonise Muslims.
Mr. Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Foundation comments:
“Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.
'There is an increase in violence in this country and some of it comes from video games.
'When kids spend six hours a day on violent games they are more likely to go outside and commit violence.
'If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so.
I would urge ISPs to take action against sites like this and there can be no justification for this sort of video game, I hope the person who made this game thinks again.
http://www.ramadhanfoundation.com/muslimmassacre.htm
The world wide web is one area that the law still struggles to regulate.
Some may see the game as a parody of American foreign policy and point out that it is aimed at adults, rather than children. After all, the average US video game player is a 35-year-old man.
But the game reaches a new low in bad taste and contains a blatantly destructive message. The game's premise is that the US has declared war on Islam and invites players to take control of the American "hero" who will wipe out the Muslim race with "an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons".
The "hero" uses machine guns and rocket launchers to kill as many Muslims as possible - ranging from terrorists and what appear to be civilians to Osama bin Laden, Muhammad and Allah.
The game's creator, a freelance programmer called Sigvatr, describes the game as "fun and funny" and says to his critics: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is."
He says: "Ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (slang for a common swear word) out of Arabs…I don't even know how to interpret it myself anymore. The bottom line is that I enjoyed making it and it's fun to play."
Later he adds: "The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims.
"If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim."
That's not the way some Muslim groups see it. The Ramadhan Foundation says the game is "unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/sep/11/technologygames
The Ramadhan responce
The Ramadhan Foundation expresses its deep condemnation and anger at the computer game released called Muslim massacre. This game is glorifying the killing of Muslims in the Middle East and we urge ISP providers to take action to remove this site from their services as it incites violence towards Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims.
We have written to the British Government today to urge an inquiry into this game and take action to shut down the site; this is not satire but a deliberate attempt to demonise Muslims.
Mr. Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Foundation comments:
“Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.
'There is an increase in violence in this country and some of it comes from video games.
'When kids spend six hours a day on violent games they are more likely to go outside and commit violence.
'If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so.
I would urge ISPs to take action against sites like this and there can be no justification for this sort of video game, I hope the person who made this game thinks again.
http://www.ramadhanfoundation.com/muslimmassacre.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)