http://www.sott.net Signs of the Times, featuring news and commentary on world events. Never wavering in our unending search for the light of truth in a pathocracy driven world! en-us Original content Copyright 2010 by Signs of the Times. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:03:25 -0400 http://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net http://www.sott.net http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204964-A-third-of-U-S-is-waterlogged-and-ripe-for-flooding One-third of the United States faces the possibility of "historic flooding" in coming weeks, especially the upper Midwest states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, government forecasters said. "Once again we are delivering an urgent message to get ready," John Hayes, director of the National Weather Service, said in a conference call yesterday. "The flood risk is above-average over one-third of the country." The flood potential is driven in part by El Nino, a warming in the Pacific Ocean, which steered storms that have left the ground saturated from record rains and heavy snows. The area designated for above-average risk stretches from New Mexico to Maine, federal maps show. "We are looking at potentially historic flooding in some parts of the country this spring," Jane Lubchenco, administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in the conference call. Many areas of the eastern U.S. have received twice the normal amount of rain in the past three months, said Tom Graziano, a weather service hydrologist. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204964-A-third-of-U-S-is-waterlogged-and-ripe-for-flooding Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:05:27 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204963-Iran-s-Natural-Gas-Riches-US-Knife-to-the-Heart-of-World-Future-Energy The scheduled start of drilling this month by China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) in Iran's South Pars gas field could be both a harbinger and explanation of much wider geopolitical developments. First of all, the $5 billion project - signed last year after years of foot dragging by western energy giants Total and Shell under the shadow of US-led sanctions - reveals the main arterial system for future world energy supply and demand. Critics have long suspected that the real reason for US and other western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is to control the Central Asian energy corridor. So far, the focus seems to be mainly on oil. For example, there have been claims that a planned oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea via Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea is the main prize behind the US's seemingly futile military campaign in those countries. But what the CNPC-Iranian partnership shows is that natural gas is the bigger prize that will be pivotal to the world economy, and specifically the dual flow of this fuel eastwards and westwards from Central Asia to Europe and China. Michael Economides, editor of the Huston-based Energy Tribune, is one of a growing number of industry observers who is convinced that natural gas will supplant oil as the primary energy source, not only in the coming decades but over the next several centuries. He points to the recent forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA), based in Paris, which has dramatically revised its estimates of recoverable global natural gas reserves by 100 per cent. Economides ascribes this huge upgrade to rapid technological improvements in tapping hitherto inaccessible gas fields. He says that the IEA estimates of natural gas amount to 300 years of supply at current world demand. "If one only just fantasizes any future contributions from the orders-of-magnitude larger resource in the form of natural gas hydrates, it is easy to see how natural gas is almost certainly to evolve into the premier fuel of the world economy," he adds. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204963-Iran-s-Natural-Gas-Riches-US-Knife-to-the-Heart-of-World-Future-Energy Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:43:37 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204962-Canada-Dark-side-of-missing-Australian-nuclear-scientist Deep River is a model town: I hate it. For living here has got me down: I hate it. Although the town is trim and neat, With cosy homes on every street, Though saying so is not discreet, I hate it. Deep River was a utopia built to house scientists working on the first atomic bomb, and one of their heirs, Lachlan Cranswick, an Australian scientist missing in the harsh Canadian winter, chose to include this mordant 1958 poem by a local physicist on his personal webpage. The town has a reputation for a kind of tiresome near-perfection made for parody. Not for nothing did the film director David Lynch have Naomi Watts's character in Mulholland Drive explain her difficulties coping with Hollywood. ''I just came here from Deep River, Ontario, and now I'm in this ... dream place,'' she says. ''You can imagine how I feel.'' Deep River was also the name of the apartment block in another Lynch film, Blue Velvet. Mr Cranswick's disappearance has an almost Lynch-like sense of absurdity. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204962-Canada-Dark-side-of-missing-Australian-nuclear-scientist Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:26:57 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204961-US-CHINA-Trade-War-Heats-Up Relations between Beijing and Washington have been far from smooth since the beginning of the year. But a new bill introduced in the U.S. Senate is adding to existing tensions by attacking China's trade practices and proposing legislation which would push the Barack Obama administration to charge China with currency manipulation and could lead to unilateral retaliatory action against Chinese imports. The bipartisan group of senators emphasised what they consider to be unfair trade practices by China, but also the domestic economic conditions which create incentives for protectionist trade policies by the U.S. "We are sending a message to the Chinese government: if you refuse to play by the same rules as everyone else, we will force you to. China's currency manipulation would be unacceptable even in good economic times,'' said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, when announcing the legislation on Tuesday. "At a time of 10 percent unemployment, we simply will not stand for it. There is no bigger step we can take to promote U.S. job creation, particularly in the manufacturing sector, than to confront China's currency manipulation," Schumer continued. Comment: What an amazing concept. With encouragement from the US government, US business has spent the last 10 years exporting its manufacturing jobs to China and India, in order to increase profits. Now it wants to blame China for the lack of US jobs and penalise them. How disingenuous. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204961-US-CHINA-Trade-War-Heats-Up Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:18:39 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204960-Famed-Civil-Rights-Chronicler-Charles-Moore-Dead-at-79 Charles Moore, a photographer whose searing images - including lawmen unleashing dogs and fire hoses against defenseless demonstrators - helped to propel landmark civil-rights legislation, died Thursday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 79. His daughter Michelle Moore Peel said he died of natural causes. Moore's camera documented the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being rudely arrested in Montgomery, Ala., in 1958, and James Meredith courageously integrating the University of Mississippi in the face of a screaming mob in 1962. Moore photographed Bull Connor turning attack dogs and high-pressure hoses on peaceful civil-rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, and recorded a black man being viciously beaten by a white lawman during the "Bloody Sunday" march from Selma, Ala., in 1965. These crisp, fluid black-and-white photographs appeared most prominently in Life magazine at a time when general-interest picture magazines remained such a powerful force that critics now speak of it as the "golden age of photojournalism." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204960-Famed-Civil-Rights-Chronicler-Charles-Moore-Dead-at-79 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:12:04 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204959-National-Research-Council-Canada-Sudden-disappearance-of-Deep-River-scientist-mystifies-colleagues There are still no leads in the case of an eastern Ontario scientist who disappeared without a trace last month, leaving his colleagues mystified. Lachlan Cranswick hasn't been seen since Jan. 18, when he left work at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in Chalk River, northwest of Ottawa. His nearby Deep River house was reportedly left unlocked and his car was in the garage. His wallet, keys and passport have all been accounted for. Media reports indicate police have exhausted all avenues, but still cannot piece together the whereabouts of the 41-year-old physicist. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204959-National-Research-Council-Canada-Sudden-disappearance-of-Deep-River-scientist-mystifies-colleagues Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:11:04 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204958-Orange-Dwarf-Star-Set-to-Smash-into-The-Solar-System Gliese 710 should arrive sometime within the next 1.5 million years A new set of star velocity data indicates that Gliese 710 has an 86 percent chance of ploughing into the Solar System within the next 1.5 million years. The Solar System is surrounded by thousands of stars, but until recently it wasn't at all clear where they were all heading. In 1997, however, astronomers published the Hipparcos Catalogue giving detailed position and velocity measurements of some 100,000 stars in our neighbourhood, all gathered by the European Space Agency's Hipparcos spacecraft. It's fair to say that the Hipparcos data has revolutionised our understanding of the 'hood. In particular, this data allowed astronomers to work out which stars we'd been closer to in the past and which we will meet in the future. It turns out that 156 stars fall into this category and that the Sun has a close encounter with another star (meaning an approach within 1 parsec) every 2 million years or so. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204958-Orange-Dwarf-Star-Set-to-Smash-into-The-Solar-System Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:08:50 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204957-Argentina-threatens-to-ban-firms-operating-in-the-Falklands-as-Royal-Navy-sends-attack-submarine Argentina upped the ante over the Falkland Islands today by threatening to ban firms operating in the British colony. Companies were warned they face having to choose between the Falklands and Argentina under proposed new legislation. Argentine MPs are set to debate a bill imposing a 30-day deadline on firms to axe ties with the Falklands or face being kicked out of the south American country. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204957-Argentina-threatens-to-ban-firms-operating-in-the-Falklands-as-Royal-Navy-sends-attack-submarine Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:01:24 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204956-Yellow-snow-falls-in-Russia-s-Far-East The Amur region in Russia's Far East was hit by yellow snow, Elena Pechkina, a regional meteorologist, told RIA Novosti on Friday. High winds in Mongolia mixed the clouds from a front with dust and sand, crossed northern China, and then dumped the unique-colored snow in Russia. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204956-Yellow-snow-falls-in-Russia-s-Far-East Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:56:07 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204955-French-woman-Celine-Lesage-admits-murdering-six-babies A French woman accused of strangling or smothering to death her six newborn babies has admitted killing the infants. Celine Lesage, 38, admitted before a judge in the Channel town of Coutances to killing the six infants between 1999 and 2007. "I admit to the charges," Lesage said on the first day of her trial. Asked whether the babies were alive when she murdered them, Lesage hesitated and said "I cannot answer" before finally adding, "Yes". Lesage, who has a teenage son, is accused of first degree murder and faces a life jail sentence if convicted, with no possibility of parole for 18 years. She was arrested in October 2007 after her partner and father of one of the murdered babies discovered decomposing infant bodies stuffed in garbage bags in the basement of their apartment building. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204955-French-woman-Celine-Lesage-admits-murdering-six-babies Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:45:51 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204954-Afghanistan-Spy-Contract-Goes-Sour-for-the-Pentagon-Part-1 Mike Furlong, a top Pentagon official, is alleged to have run a covert network of contractors to supply information for drone strikes and assassinations in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the U.S. government. The contract built upon his decade-long experience in running propaganda programmes for the military in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. Officially, Furlong worked in strategic communications for Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command. In reality, Furlong was in charge of a project titled "CAPSTONE" under which he hired former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives who helped him gather intelligence on the whereabouts of "suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps" that was then transmitted to high-ranking Pentagon and CIA officials for "possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan." To do this, Furlong tapped the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organisation, a Pentagon research organisation to reduce the threat from roadside bombs, to provide him with a $24.6 million pot of money via two obscure contracting offices - the Cultural Engagement Group at the Special Operations Command Central in Tampa, Florida, and the Counter Narcoterrorism Technology Programme Office in Dahlgren, Virginia http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204954-Afghanistan-Spy-Contract-Goes-Sour-for-the-Pentagon-Part-1 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:41:25 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204953-Experts-debate-dangers-of-wearing-popular-sheepskin-boots Despite the fact that Uggs and their many knockoff incarnations have long been considered a "fashion don't," lots of women love and continue to wear these suede and sheepskin boots all winter long. They're warm, they're cozy, they're easy to throw on with any outfit, they feel like slippers, and they're a celebrity favorite. Of course this makes the boots very appealing and popular, especially during chillier months. But are they actually good for your feet? Experts say no. In a recent Daily Mail article, professionals spoke out about the health risks of wearing cheap, imitation Ugg boots. Dr. Ian Drysdale, the head of the British College of Osteopathic Medicine, said, "Because these boots are warm and soft, young girls think they are giving their feet a break. In fact, they are literally breaking their feet." Drysdale continued, "Their feet are slipping around inside. With each step, the force falls towards the inside of the foot and the feet splay. This flattens the arch and makes it drop. The result can be significant problems with the foot, the ankle, and ultimately, the hip." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204953-Experts-debate-dangers-of-wearing-popular-sheepskin-boots Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:26:08 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204952-Super-Supernova-White-Dwarf-Star-System-Exceeds-Mass-Limit An international team led by Yale University has, for the first time, measured the mass of a type of supernova thought to belong to a unique subclass and confirmed that it surpasses what was believed to be an upper mass limit. Their findings, which appear online and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal, could affect the way cosmologists measure the expansion of the universe. Cosmologists use Type Ia supernovae-the violent explosions of dead cores of stars called white dwarfs-as a kind of cosmic ruler to measure distances to the supernovae's host galaxies and, as such, to understand the past and future expansion of the universe and explore the nature of dark energy. Until recently, it was thought that white dwarfs could not exceed what is known as the Chandrasekhar limit, a critical mass equaling about 1.4 times that of the Sun, before exploding in a supernova. This uniform limit is a key tool in measuring distances to supernovae. Since 2003, four supernovae have been discovered that were so bright, cosmologists wondered whether their white dwarfs had surpassed the Chandrasekhar limit. These supernovae have been dubbed the "super-Chandrasekhar" supernovae. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204952-Super-Supernova-White-Dwarf-Star-System-Exceeds-Mass-Limit Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:54:14 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204951-Simulations-Solve-A-20-Year-Old-Riddle The birth of the most massive stars - those ten to a hundred times the mass of the Sun - has posed an astrophysical riddle for decades. Massive stars are dense enough to fuse hydrogen while they're still gathering material from the gas cloud, so it was a mystery why their brilliant radiation does not heat the infalling gas and blow it away. New simulations by researchers affiliated with the University of Heidelberg, American Museum of Natural History, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics show that as the gas cloud collapses, it forms dense filamentary structures that absorb the star's radiation when it passes through them. A result is that the surrounding heated nebula flickers like a candle flame. The research is published in the current issue of The Astrophysical Journal. "To form a massive star, you need massive amounts of gas," says Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, a co-author and curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the Museum. "Gravity draws that gas into filaments that feed the hungry baby stars." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204951-Simulations-Solve-A-20-Year-Old-Riddle Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:48:38 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204950-Rush-Limbaugh-advocates-socialized-medicine- Washington - Conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh's model health-care system may be one of Latin America's longest-standing state-run programs, where a 9 percent income tax ensures coverage for 98 percent of the population, no one is required to make co-pays and private insurance is rare. Limbaugh, whose show is heard on about 600 stations, told his listeners March 8 that if Democratic-backed health legislation became federal law, he'd go to Costa Rica. A 2008 American Journal of Public Health study found the Central American nation's health coverage "excellent," with life expectancy second only to Canada in the Western Hemisphere. Jean-Pierre Unger, author of the study, said it was "paradoxical" for a radio host who often warns of the dangers of government involvement in health care to praise Costa Rica. During his program, Limbaugh, 59, said: "If this passes, and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented - I am leaving the country. I'll go to Costa Rica." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204950-Rush-Limbaugh-advocates-socialized-medicine- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:45:39 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204948-Planck-Sees-Tapestry-Of-Cold-Dust Giant filaments of cold dust stretching through our Galaxy are revealed in a new image from ESA's Planck satellite. Analysing these structures could help to determine the forces that shape our Galaxy and trigger star formation. Planck is principally designed to study the biggest mysteries of cosmology. How did the Universe form? How did the galaxies form? This new image extends the range of its investigations into the cold dust structures of our own Galaxy. The image shows the filamentary structure of dust in the solar neighbourhood - within about 500 light-years of the Sun. The local filaments are connected to the Milky Way, which is the pink horizontal feature near the bottom of the image. Here, the emission is coming from much further away, across the disc of our Galaxy. The image has been colour coded to discern different temperatures of dust. White-pink tones show dust of a few tens of degrees above absolute zero, whereas the deeper colours are dust at around -261 degrees C, only about 12 degrees above absolute zero. The warmer dust is concentrated into the plane of the Galaxy whereas the dust suspended above and below is cooler. "What makes these structures have these particular shapes is not well understood," says Jan Tauber, ESA Project Scientist for Planck. The denser parts are called molecular clouds while the more diffuse parts are 'cirrus'. They consist of both dust and gas, although the gas does not show up directly in this image. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204948-Planck-Sees-Tapestry-Of-Cold-Dust Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:40:22 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204947-NASA-s-Spitzer-Unearths-Primitive-Black-Holes Astronomers have come across what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based largely on observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will provide a better understanding of the roots of our universe, and how the very first black holes, galaxies and stars came to be. "We have found what are likely first-generation quasars, born in a dust-free medium and at the earliest stages of evolution," said Linhua Jiang of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Jiang is the lead author of a paper announcing the findings in the March 18 issue of Nature. Black holes are beastly distortions of space and time. The most massive and active ones lurk at the cores of galaxies, and are usually surrounded by doughnut-shaped structures of dust and gas that feed and sustain the growing black holes. These hungry, supermassive black holes are called quasars. As grimy and unkempt as our present-day universe is today, scientists believe the very early universe didn't have any dust - which tells them that the most primitive quasars should also be dust-free. But nobody had seen such immaculate quasars - until now. Spitzer has identified two - the smallest on record - about 13 billion light-years away from Earth. The quasars, called J0005-0006 and J0303-0019, were first unveiled in visible light using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204947-NASA-s-Spitzer-Unearths-Primitive-Black-Holes Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:34:51 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204946-Why-Punish-Iran-for-What-Israel-Has-Already-Done- As the Western powers continue to criticize Iran for its nuclear enrichment program, and while they try to pressure Russia and China to impose stiffer economic sanctions, maybe it would be an opportune time to remember that for decades Israel has developed nuclear weapons and has tried to keep its program a secret. In fact, Israel has produced more than 200 nuclear warheads, a number of which can be deployed on nuclear submarines, long-range aircraft and missiles.1 Starting in the 1950's, Israel begin producing uranium for its nuclear missiles program. It is one of the few nations that has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it has never declared its nuclear weapons program publicly.2 From the Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert to the complex nuclear facilities at Nahal Soreq, Rehovat and Yodefat - which is near the Syrian border - Israel has constructed a number of large-scale nuclear facilities, many of them underground.3 In one incident at Dimona, when American inspectors came to check on the use of their nuclear materials and technologies, the doors to the lower levels were bricked up. A false control room was displayed to suggest the reactor was operating at a lower level than the Israelis admitted.4 Stories abound about how Israeli officials obtained nuclear materials and technologies from illegally diverted ships, by stealing uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation at a plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania.5 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204946-Why-Punish-Iran-for-What-Israel-Has-Already-Done- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:38:55 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204945-Health-ministry-12-deaths-and-25-injuries-in-Gaza-during-three-months The Palestinian ministry of health reported Sunday that the number of victims who have been killed in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli occupation since the start of 2010 and until the ninth of March amounted to 12 Palestinians and the injuries to 25 others. According to a report issued by the ministry's information office, 75 percent of these deaths happened during last January and 91.7 percent of the victims were under age 18. The report also said that most of the victims, who were killed or wounded, sustained injuries all over their bodies while few had injuries either in the head or neck only. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204945-Health-ministry-12-deaths-and-25-injuries-in-Gaza-during-three-months Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:24:56 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204944-Experts-U-S-pays-too-much-to-fight-cancer New York - The rising cost of cancer research and care, which helped reduce death rates by 16 percent over 40 years, is straining the U.S. health system and needs to be restrained, commentators said in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Cancer research has cost the U.S. government $100 billion since 1971 and the price of care, accounting for inflation, has more than doubled to $90 billion since 1990, according to six journal reports that raise key questions about the past and future success of the U.S. "War on Cancer," announced by then-President Richard Nixon in 1971. The reduced death rates result from anti-smoking campaigns, early disease detection and new drugs, which can cost individual patients as much as $100,000 a year. The price of the drugs, and the care tied to their use, can be lowered by shifting to a system in which the cost of drugs, tests and other care are combined in a single provider payment, researchers said. Such a system would push doctors to "shop carefully for the services" patients need, wrote the researchers from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, led by Elena Elkin, in a commentary that was among those included in the special issue. "The expanding financial burden of cancer," including rising incidence rates, "cannot be ignored," the authors wrote. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204944-Experts-U-S-pays-too-much-to-fight-cancer Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:23:13 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204943-The-Lies-of-Karl-Rove Joseph Goebbels, the leading propagandist of the Third Reich, believed in the power of the lie; the greater the lie, the greater the power. Goebbels would have loved Karl Rove's "Courage and Consequences: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight," a pastiche of lies, fabrications and distortions designed to rehabilitate the record of the Bush-Cheney years. There are too many lies to treat in this one column, but his greatest lie is that the Bush administration would not have invaded Iraq if it had known there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) there. Its corollary is that the administration did not lie about the presence of such weapons in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In fact, the Bush administration mounted an intense six-month campaign to make sure that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) produced "evidence" of WMD, and then made sure that such players as National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell parroted the administration's big lie to the American public and to the international community. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their acolytes Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove desperately wanted to go to war against Iraq for reasons that have never been explained. As a result, they created and employed a strategic disinformation campaign to convince Congress and the American people of the need for war. Goebbels would have beamed. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204943-The-Lies-of-Karl-Rove Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:18:06 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204942-In-Heated-Testimony-Holder-Says-Bin-Laden-Won-t-Be-Captured-Alive- The Obama administration does not expect to capture Osama Bin Laden alive. Attorney General Eric Holder told a House appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday that the possibility of catching the Al Qaeda leader alive is "infinitesimal." "Based on the intelligence I've reviewed, the possibility simply does not exist," Mr. Holder said in response to heated questioning by Republican members of Congress. Comment: Maybe that is because Eric Holder knows Osama bin Laden has been dead for years. "He will be killed by us or he will be killed by his own people so that he is not captured alive," Holder said. "We know that." The exchange came amid a barrage of questioning by Republican lawmakers critical of what they suggested was a lackluster approach to terrorism by an Obama administration that they say views the Al Qaeda challenge more as crime fighting than war fighting. Amid hostile questioning, the attorney general also pledged that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would never be released from US custody. He made the assertion after being asked what the administration would do if a civilian judge ordered Mr. Mohammed released. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204942-In-Heated-Testimony-Holder-Says-Bin-Laden-Won-t-Be-Captured-Alive- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:52:57 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204941-Treason-in-America-Conference-stating-the-painfully-obvious-to-save-America If evidence of treason by American political "leadership" was obvious, do you have the integrity and courage to follow your heart and mind's most virtuous expression of what you should do about it as an American citizen? That wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were based on known lies is clear and beyond doubt when anyone of average intelligence examines what our own government has disclosed of the "evidence." It is also clear and beyond doubt that these wars are unlawful upon one hour invested to understand the strict laws to prevent the scourge of war. The reasons for war with Iran are provable and absolute lies. For American political "leaders" to levy war against our US soldiers by sending them to unlawfully invade other countries is legal treason. Five thousand American soldiers have died from this crime, and over one million of our Brothers and Sister Human Beings in other lands. Americans are obligated to pay for these crimes with $3 to $5 TRILLION in long-term known costs. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204941-Treason-in-America-Conference-stating-the-painfully-obvious-to-save-America Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:46:10 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204940-Dynasty-of-Priestesses Evidence of a powerful female bloodline emerges from the Iron Age necropolis of Orthi Petra at Eleutherna on Crete. For a quarter century, Greek excavation director Nicholas Stampolidis and his dedicated team have been unearthing the untold stories of the people buried some 2,800 years ago in the necropolis of Orthi Petra at Eleutherna on Crete. Until now, the site has perhaps been best known for the tomb its excavators dubbed "A1K1," an assemblage of 141 cremated individuals, all but two of whom were aristocratic men who likely fell in battle in foreign lands. Excavated between 1992 and 1996, this elaborate rock-cut tomb was brimming with fantastic burial goods that date from the ninth to the seventh century B.C., including bronze vessels, gold and silver jewelry, and military regalia, as literally befits the burial of Homeric war heroes. Now, two unprecedented discoveries since 2007--three lavish jar burials that contained the remains of a dozen related female individuals and a monumental funerary building where a high priestess and her protégés, also all related, were laid to rest--are adding to our knowledge of Eleutherna's women, and forcing the scholarly community to reevaluate their importance and role in the so-called "Dark Ages" of Greece (see "Top 10 Discoveries of 2009"). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204940-Dynasty-of-Priestesses Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:37:09 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204939-US-Rectangular-UFO-500-feet-over-Mesquite-Texas A Mesquite, Texas, witness reports a slow moving rectangular-shaped, black craft at 500 feet with 4 dim red lights that appeared to be one dimensional on February 16, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database. "I would never have known this thing was above me if I didn't look up," the witness stated. Mesquite is a city in Dallas and Kaufman County, population 124,523. The following is the unedited and as yet uninvestigated report filed with MUFON. Please keep in mind that most UFO reports can be explained as something natural or manmade. If Texas MUFON investigates and reports back on this case, I will release an update. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204939-US-Rectangular-UFO-500-feet-over-Mesquite-Texas Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:29:28 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204938-UK-Musician-Thrown-Off-Train-for-Writing-Band-Name-The-Killers-on-a-List-of-Songs A musician has spoken of his shock at being removed from a train for "behaving suspiciously" by writing a list of songs which included the band name The Killers. Tom Shaw was travelling on a South West Trains when he began writing a list of song titles which his band The Magic Mushrooms would play at a forthcoming gig. But the 25-year-old was approached by two security staff employed by the train company and asked to leave the train at Fareham railway station. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204938-UK-Musician-Thrown-Off-Train-for-Writing-Band-Name-The-Killers-on-a-List-of-Songs Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:26:20 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204937-Huge-Monkey-God-Statue-Found Cairo - Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a colossal ancient statue of the pharaonic deity of wisdom, Thoth, in the shape of a baboon, the council of antiquities said in a statement on Tuesday. The four-metre tall statue was discovered in four pieces along with two statues while workers were lowering ground waters beneath Luxor to help preserve the city's pharaonic temples, the statement said. It dates back to the 18th Dynasty, which ruled Egypt until 1292 BC. 'It is the first time that a statue of Thoth, depicting him as a monkey, of this magnitude has been discovered,' Mansur Boraik, head of pharaonic antiquities in Luxor, told AFP. The statues were discovered near the temple of Amenhotep III, who ruled until 1372 BC. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204937-Huge-Monkey-God-Statue-Found Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:25:01 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204936-US-Parent-son-report-series-of-UFO-sightings-over-Boyne-City-Michigan Two Michigan witnesses watched a group of "six or seven yellow circular lights in a row diagonally near the horizon" hover and then disappear, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database. They watched this type of activity in the sky repeatedly through about 8:30 p.m. along a road near Boyne City. "They were not always in the same exact location but did stay in the southeastern sky and were always close to the horizon," the reporting witness stated. "No way of telling for sure, but they appeared to be a couple miles away which would have made their actual size very large. The lights did not move once they appeared, but would hover in place until their disappearance. I spoke to a neighbor who has said that he has seen the same thing in the southeastern sky before." One photo was submitted with this report. Boyne City is a city in Charlevoix County, population 3,502. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204936-US-Parent-son-report-series-of-UFO-sightings-over-Boyne-City-Michigan Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:22:46 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204935-US-Object-with-no-vapor-trail-seen-near-jets-over-North-Carolina A North Carolina witness is reporting an unusual "third" object in the sky operating near two conventional jets on March 6, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database. "I noticed they (the jets) were flying rather erratically, the witness stated. "Then I saw a third object emerge - this one had no vapor trail." The third object did not show up on either of the two images submitted to MUFON by the witness. The following is the unedited and as yet uninvestigated report filed with MUFON. Please keep in mind that most UFO reports can be explained as something natural or manmade. If North Carolina MUFON investigates and reports back on this case, I will release an update. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204935-US-Object-with-no-vapor-trail-seen-near-jets-over-North-Carolina Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:22:41 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204934-Helicopter-appears-to-chase-possible-UFO-seen-from-San-Jose-California-USA Posted: March 17, 2010 Date: March 16, 2010 Time: 10:10 p.m. Location of Sighting: San Jose, CA. Number of witnesses: 2 Number of Objects: 1 Shape of Objects: Circle. Full Description of Event/Sighting: I went out onto my patio because I heard a military chopper flying over (I am under Moffit Fields Air Base flight path), and I wanted to see it, because it sounded like it was flying faster than usual for them. I looked over in the direction of the AFB and saw a white circular light hovering and around moving in different directions. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204934-Helicopter-appears-to-chase-possible-UFO-seen-from-San-Jose-California-USA Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:22:39 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204933-International-Team-of-Scientists-Reports-Discovery-of-a-New-Planet Santa Barbara, California - - An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is published in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature. The planet, called CoRoT-9b, was discovered by using the CoRoT space telescope satellite, operated by the French space agency, The Centre National d'Études Spatiales, or CNES. The newly discovered planet orbits a star similar to our sun and is located in the constellation Serpens Cauda, at a distance of 1500 light-years from Earth. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204933-International-Team-of-Scientists-Reports-Discovery-of-a-New-Planet Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:15:22 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204932-US-Drone-Strikes-Kill-10-in-Pakistan Pakistani security officials say U.S. drone strikes have killed at least 10 militants in North Waziristan -- the second such round of attacks in two days. The officials say an unmanned aircraft fired five missiles Wednesday at a vehicle carrying militants near North Waziristan's main town Miran Shah. Officials say at least two missiles were fired in a second strike in Madakhel. They say the area is controlled by Hatiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander. Separately, Pakistani officials said a group of militants attacked a security checkpoint in the northwest Wednesday and killed at least five members of Pakistan's security forces. The checkpoint was on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204932-US-Drone-Strikes-Kill-10-in-Pakistan Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:14:36 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204931-Two-new-studies-on-aspartame-and-diet-drinks-confirm-source-of-obesity-cancer-malignant-brain-tumor-epidemics-Neurosurgeon-says-ban-toxin-from-schools- The Cancer Research Center of the European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences in Bologna, Italy reported this week that a long-term study to evaluate the potential carcinogenic effects of aspartame demonstrates the chemical sweetener "induces an increase in lymphomas and leukemias in female rats." The research will be presented at a September international scientific conference, "Framing the Future in the Light of the Past: Living in a Chemical World." Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock M.D. commented: "The new study released in the European Journal of oncology by Morando Soffritti and co-workers should terrify mothers and all those consuming aspartame sweetened products. This was a carefully done study which clearly demonstrated a statistically significant increase in several types of lymphomas and leukemias in rats. Both of these malignancies have increased significantly in this country since the widespread use of aspartame. "This study confirmed the previous study by Dr. Trocho and co-workers, which also found the formaldehyde breakdown product of aspartame to be damaging to cellular DNA and that this damage was accumulative. The type of damage was a duplicate of that associated with cancers. Along with this most recent study, this means that drinking a single diet cola sweetened with aspartame every day could increase one's risk of developing a lymphoma or leukemia. "They also found an increased incidence of malignant brain tumors, even though it was not statistically significant. This does not mean there is no association to brain tumors, since only the animals exposed to aspartame developed the tumors. With children and pregnant women drinking the largest amount of diet colas, this puts their children at the greatest risk of developing one of these horrible diseases. Their study found that even low doses of aspartame could cause these malignancies; yet, the higher the dose, the more cancers that were seen. "Since aspartame can increase obesity and may even cause the metabolic syndrome that affects 48 million Americans, there is no reason to ever consume this product. At the least it should be immediately banned from all schools." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204931-Two-new-studies-on-aspartame-and-diet-drinks-confirm-source-of-obesity-cancer-malignant-brain-tumor-epidemics-Neurosurgeon-says-ban-toxin-from-schools- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:09:59 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204930-Minnesota-psychopath-charged-with-selling-wife-into-prostitution-on-Craigslist A man from Rockford, Minn., has been charged with a felony in Chicago for forcing his wife into prostitution, setting up sexual encounters in eight states. The 32-year-old man was charged with felony pandering by the Cook County, Ill., sheriff's office after being arrested Sunday night at a downtown Chicago hotel. He was arrested when he arrived at the hotel where his wife spent the weekend having sex with strangers, the sheriff's office reported. He was being held on $150,000 bail Wednesday. According to the woman's account to investigators, the man threatened to take away or hurt their 3-year-old daughter to force her into having sex. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204930-Minnesota-psychopath-charged-with-selling-wife-into-prostitution-on-Craigslist Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:58:50 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204929-Climate-Change-Hide-the-decline-and-rewrite-history- Human emissions of carbon dioxide began a sharp rise from 1945. But, temperatures, it seems, may have plummeted over half the globe during the next few decades. Just how large or how insignificant was that decline? Frank Lansner has found an historical graph of northern hemisphere temperatures from the mid 70's, and it shows a serious decline in temperatures from 1940 to 1975. It's a decline so large that it wipes out the gains made in the first half of the century, and brings temperatures right back to what they were circa 1910. The graph was not peer reviewed, but presumably it was based on the best information available at the time. In any case, if all the global records are not available to check, it's impossible to know how accurate or not this graph is. The decline apparently recorded was a whopping 0.5°C. But, three decades later, by the time Brohan and the CRU graphed temperatures in 2006 from the same old time period, the data had been adjusted (surprise), so that what was a fall of 0.5°C had become just a drop of 0.15°C. Seventy percent of the cooling was gone. Maybe they had good reasons for making these adjustments. But, as usual, the adjustments were in favor of the Big Scare Campaign, and the reasons and the original data are not easy to find. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204929-Climate-Change-Hide-the-decline-and-rewrite-history- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:57:28 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204928-More-than-a-third-of-the-US-faces-a-high-risk-of-flooding-this-spring-say-forecasters More than a third of the US faces a high risk of flooding this spring, and Midwesterners may get the brunt of it, according to government forecasters. Heavy rains last fall, thaw from an unusually wet winter, and a potentially wet spring due to El Nino could produce record flooding in some areas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced late Tuesday. "We are looking at potentially historic flooding," said NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco. "It's a terrible case of déjà vu, but this time the flooding will likely be more widespread," she said, referring to the record floods of 2009 in Fargo, N.D.'s Red River valley. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204928-More-than-a-third-of-the-US-faces-a-high-risk-of-flooding-this-spring-say-forecasters Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:52:11 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204927-Orange-UOFs-make-wild-maneuvers-over-Lancashire-England Posted: March 17, 2010 Date: March 12, 2010 Time: 10.30 p.m. Location of Sighting: Upholland, Wigan, Lancashire. Number of witnesses: 0 Number of Objects: 5 Shape of Objects: ? Full Description of Event/Sighting: I was outside my home on a semi cloudy night when I witnessed 4 orange lights approaching in the sky, not very high, quite close, but obviously individual. The lights were sort of in a line, coming from the west, Southport direction. I assumed they were military helicopters flying in convoy, but as they approached, I waited for the associated noise from this kind of craft, but the night was silent. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204927-Orange-UOFs-make-wild-maneuvers-over-Lancashire-England Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:37:05 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204926-V-formation-over-Stevenson-in-Oshawa-Ontario-Canada Posted: March 17, 2010 Date: March 15, 2010 Time: Approx: 9:18 p.m. Hi Brian, thought to pass this one along speaking unidentified. I was walking my dog in a park field near Stevenson in Oshawa, Ontario. I'm not sure what I witnessed last night March 15, 2010 at about 9:18pm. I looked up at the clear night through some trees. Directly above, I noticed something flying in a V formation. The altitude is hard to tell, though maybe in the 1000's feet above. This formation was heading north towards Oshawa Airport. There was a slight low, slight orangey tone of color. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204926-V-formation-over-Stevenson-in-Oshawa-Ontario-Canada Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:37:03 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204925-Glowing-golden-ball-of-fire-over-Nottingham-England Posted: March 17, 2010 Date: March 14, 2010 Time: Approx: 6.30 p.m. Location of Sighting: Nottingham. Number of witnesses: 1 Number of Objects: 1 Shape of Objects: Round. Full Description of Event/Sighting: I was sitting on my back door step, I looked up to the sky and saw what looked like a ball of fire, it was traveling quite fast in a straight line when it was over head it looked perfectly round in shape and was glowing a golden colour, it looked quite large in size, I got up to follow it but it disappeared into the clouds. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204925-Glowing-golden-ball-of-fire-over-Nottingham-England Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:37:00 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204924-Senate-Bill-Wipes-Out-Indian-Tobacco-Industry Handing big tobacco corporations a huge victory, the U.S. Senate has passed the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act - an act tribal leaders say is an attack on tribal sovereignty and economies that will devastate Indian tobacco businesses across the country. The PACT Act passed by unanimous consent without a vote or a hearing late the evening of March 11. The act bans the shipment of cigarettes and certain tobacco products through the U.S. Postal Service, cutting off the only remaining delivery service for Indian retailers who do business through Internet sales. A few years ago, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was ousted in a prostitution scandal, "persuaded" private carriers such as Federal Express and UPS to "voluntarily" stop shipping tobacco products. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204924-Senate-Bill-Wipes-Out-Indian-Tobacco-Industry Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:31:14 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204923-3-ovoid-flames-of-light-over-the-United-Kingdom Posted: March 17, 2010 Date: January 25, 2010 Time: Approx: 9:10 p.m. Location of Sighting: Looking out bedroom window. Number of witnesses: 1 Number of Objects: 3 Shape of Objects: Ovoid, flames. Full Description of Event/Sighting: I was lying in bed, looking out of the window at the dark sky. It was perfectly clear, moonlit, the stars were shining. Two ovoid flames came across the sky, very close to each other, in tandem. Direction SE to NW in straight line. As these passed over another one came by, following the same track, again, an ovoid flame. I looked out and as it passed over the house next to me, its flame suddenly went out. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204923-3-ovoid-flames-of-light-over-the-United-Kingdom Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:18:56 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204922-Thoughts-on-Giant-UFO-Occupants-South-America-s-Giant-Ufonauts News of an alleged three-meter-tall non-human entity shambling toward a roadside in Chile (March 2010) brought back memories of the truly giant UFO occupants that were commonly reported in the 1950s and '60s, usually in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, although cases in Spain and even the USA were reported. As with everything involving UFOs, we must first assume good faith on the part of people who are beyond our reach: the witness, the magazine or newspaper in which the story first appeared, and so forth. These cases were made known to U.S. audiences by Jim and Coral Lorenzen's books on UFOs in the Sixties and Seventies, contributed by a formidable network of correspondents and advisers in other countries. Some reports suggested that their tall stature proved beyond question their non-terrestrial origin, as even humans who will someday be born in a low-gravity environment may attain considerable height. Their purposes seemed centered on "gathering samples", much like their other occupants reported at the time, or sometimes chasing terrified witnesses (potential "samples"? Who knows) who made narrow escapes. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204922-Thoughts-on-Giant-UFO-Occupants-South-America-s-Giant-Ufonauts Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:18:47 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204921-Chile-Post-Earthquake-UFO-Terrified-Bus-Passengers This case could be dismissed as "sensationalistic Internet journalism" were it not for the fact that in the early days of UFO research, Latin America was known as the main source of reports of towering UFO entities - 2 and 3 meter tall beings, not always sanguine. There were numerous reports of UFO activity following the February 27th earthquake -- S. Corrales Date: 03-17-10 In the early hours of March 1, 2010, passengers aboard a bus driving through Iquique were witnesses to a terrifying situation. A woman's screams wakened all of the passengers, who joined her in looking out the window. "A vertical cylindrical object appeared on the coast, resembling a fluorescent bulb. At the same time, a top-shaped structure appeared out of the sea, surrounded by lights. Suddenly, they saw a long-armed, humanoid entity standing nearly three meters tall, issuing light and walking toward the highway. This caused panic," said Enrique Silva to Publimetro. Silva is a UFO expert and is researching this case along with retired Chilean Air Force General Ricardo Bermudez. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204921-Chile-Post-Earthquake-UFO-Terrified-Bus-Passengers Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:18:45 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204920-Biden-I-See-Myself-As-A-Zionist- US Vice President Joe Biden was the first visiting foreign dignitary to lay a wreath at the tomb of Theodor Herzl on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem within the framework of activities to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl. Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Mt. Herzl on Tuesday March 9, 2010. They were accompanied by World Zionist Organization Executive member Adv. Hagai Meirom and Director of the Mount Herzl site Jacob Gispan. The World Zionist Organization is responsible for the maintenance and development of Mt. Herzl and operates the adjacent Herzl Museum and educational center. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204920-Biden-I-See-Myself-As-A-Zionist- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:18:26 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204919-US-Department-of-Justice-Asked-to-Regulate-AIPAC-as-a-Foreign-Agent-of-the-Israeli-Government Washington - The US Department of Justice has been formally asked to begin regulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A 392 page legal filing presented by a four person IRmep delegation in a two hour meeting with top officials of the Internal Security Section substantiated the following case for AIPAC's immediate registration: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204919-US-Department-of-Justice-Asked-to-Regulate-AIPAC-as-a-Foreign-Agent-of-the-Israeli-Government Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:05:53 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204918-Banks-to-stand-trial-over-derivatives-in-Italy A judge in Milan ordered banks JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Depfa, UBS and 13 people to stand trial for alleged fraud in the sale of derivative instruments, the prosecutor told AFP on Wednesday. "JPMorgan, Depfa, Deutsche Bank and UBS have been ordered to stand trial for fraud along with 11 of their managers and two former Milan city officials," said Alfredo Robledo, a prosecutor at the Milan court. The four banks allegedly hid the risks in the derivative financial products they sold to the city of Milan while restructuring its debt, promising that the products would save the city money. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204918-Banks-to-stand-trial-over-derivatives-in-Italy Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:47:07 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204917-Pepsi-announces-plans-to-pull-its-sugary-soft-drinks-from-schools-worldwide PepsiCo plans to remove sugary drinks from schools worldwide, following the success of programs in the U.S. aimed at cutting down on childhood obesity. The company said yesterday that it will remove full-calorie, sweetened drinks from schools in more than 200 countries by 2012, marking the first such move by a major soft-drink producer. Both PepsiCo Inc., the world's second-biggest soft-drink maker, and No.1 Coca-Cola Co., adopted guidelines to stop selling sugary drinks in U.S. schools in 2006. The World Heart Federation has been negotiating with soft-drink makers to have them remove sugary beverages from schools for the past year as it looks to fight a rise in childhood obesity, which can lead to diabetes, heart problems and other ailments. PepsiCo's move is what the group had been seeking because it affects students through age 18, said Pekka Puska, president of the group, a federation of heart associations from around the world. He said he hopes other companies feel pressured to make similar moves. "It may be not so well- known in the U.S. how intensive the marketing of soft drinks is in so many countries," Puska said in an interview from Finland. He added that developing countries such as Mexico are particularly affected by this strong marketing. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204917-Pepsi-announces-plans-to-pull-its-sugary-soft-drinks-from-schools-worldwide Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:41:35 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204916-Was-Iceland-a-Target-for-Economic-Hit-Men- John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, blames Iceland's economic collapse on the tactics of economic hitmen from multi-national corporations. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204916-Was-Iceland-a-Target-for-Economic-Hit-Men- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:38:01 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204915-Nigeria-cabinet-dissolved Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's acting president, has dissolved the country's cabinet, just a month after assuming executive powers. The move on Wednesday does not automatically lead to elections, which are scheduled for 2011, but gives Jonathan the opportunity to introduce his own ministers into the cabinet. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204915-Nigeria-cabinet-dissolved Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:36:31 -0400 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204914-Brazil-s-president-Lula-criticises-Israeli-policies Brazil's president has criticised Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, warning that Israel's separation barrier, its blockade of Gaza and its continued settlement building was extinguishing "the candle of hope". Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made his comments while on a visit to the West Bank where, on Wednesday, he placed a wreath on the tomb Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/204914-Brazil-s-president-Lula-criticises-Israeli-policies Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:26:25 -0400