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 2009 by Signs of the Times. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:38:08 -0500 http://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net http://www.sott.net http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196354-Babies-are-found-to-cry-in-their-mother-tongue They may not be old enough to talk, but babies less than a week old know how to cry in their native language. Researchers have known that infants have the ability to mimic speech starting around 12 weeks of age. Babies also show a preference for spoken language that mirrors the rhythm, melody and intensity patterns of their mother tongue. But when they're too young to control their vocal cords or the muscles that shape the mouth to make specific sounds, how can babies demonstrate that they're tuned in to the chatter around them? Through their cries, suggests a team of European scientists. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196354-Babies-are-found-to-cry-in-their-mother-tongue Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:37:37 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196353-7-Afghans-killed-during-missing-U-S-troops-search KABUL (Reuters) - NATO forces mistakenly killed seven Afghan soldiers and police in an air strike during a battle while searching for two missing American soldiers in Afghanistan, the Afghan Defense Ministry said on Saturday. The NATO-led force said none of its troops were killed but five were wounded, along with at least 20 Afghans, in a battle that took place on Friday during a manhunt for the two soldiers who went missing on Wednesday. "Yesterday, in a NATO air strike, seven Afghan (soldiers and police) were martyred in Badghis province," Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zaher Azimy said, adding that other members of the Afghan security forces were wounded. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196353-7-Afghans-killed-during-missing-U-S-troops-search Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:31:50 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196352-US-boy-10-allegedly-shot-father-in-head A recording of a six-minute call to emergency dispatchers obtained today reveals the moments after a 10-year-old boy allegedly shot his father in the head. "Just get a doctor over here!" the boy is heard to say. "Please hurry up. It looks like he's dying." His father, 42-year-old Byron Hilburn, was found on the floor, still breathing, when police arrived at the family home in Belen, south of Albuquerque, on 27 August. He died that night in hospital. The boy faces a charge of first-degree murder, but will not face adult sanctions as he is under 14. He remains in the custody of his mother, and his name is being withheld because of his age. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196352-US-boy-10-allegedly-shot-father-in-head Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:17:18 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196351-Families-Suffer-From-Problem-Gambling Many people perceive gambling to be a harmless recreational activity. However, it is estimated that six to eight million people in the United States personally suffer from a gambling related problem. This problem seems to grow tentacles, extending out to wreak havoc and can profoundly impact the physical, emotional, and financial health of the family (spouses, children, extended). As stated in this month's issue of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the most common treatment models for problem gambling are focused on meeting the needs of gamblers but do not address the needs of couples and families whose lives have been negatively impacted by someone else's gambling. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196351-Families-Suffer-From-Problem-Gambling Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:09:31 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196350-Physical-Education-Key-To-Improving-Health-In-Low-income-Adolescents School-based physical education plays a key role in curbing obesity and improving fitness among adolescents from low-income communities, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley. The study, which identifies opportunities for adolescents to improve their health based on routine daily activities, finds that regular participation in PE class is significantly associated with greater cardiovascular fitness and lower body mass index. "We took an incredibly comprehensive look at all of the opportunities kids have throughout their day to engage in physical activity and determined which are the most strongly linked to fitness and weight status," said first author Kristine Madsen, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF Children's Hospital. "Obesity continues to be a major public health concern, particularly in low-income communities, so it is imperative that we develop targeted interventions to improve the health of at-risk youth." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196350-Physical-Education-Key-To-Improving-Health-In-Low-income-Adolescents Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:03:17 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196349-Warmer-Homes-Mean-Better-Health-For-Poor-People-Study-Suggests Being warm enough at home might lead to better health, according to a new review appearing online in theAmerican Journal of Public Health. Hilary Thomson, of the Medical Research Council's Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, Scotland, and her colleagues combined the results of 40 studies from the 1930s through 2007. Improvements in general, mental, and respiratory health followed increases in warmth of a person's housing, studies showed. Positive effects included reductions in breathing-related concerns such as cold and flu symptoms, first diagnosis of nasal allergies and wheezing and dry coughs at night. Better heating also appeared to have on impact on first diagnosis of high blood pressure and heart disease, and there were also indications of less depression or anxiety. "Those who live in poor housing are at a greater risk of developing chronic disease and premature death," Thomson said. "For the public health community there is the potential to use investment to improve housing conditions as a means to improve the health of the worst off." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196349-Warmer-Homes-Mean-Better-Health-For-Poor-People-Study-Suggests Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:59:18 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196348-The-Evil-Empire The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that "our" government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire. Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion "defense" spending that goes to private companies. In American "capitalism," an amazing amount of taxpayers' earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about "socializing" health care. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196348-The-Evil-Empire Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:51:23 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196347-Unusual-meteorite-found-by-time-lapse-camera-observatory An unusual meteorite with an interesting orbit has been tracked to the ground using a photographic observatory that records time-lapse images of fireballs traveling across the sky. The network of cameras is in the Nullabor Desert in Western Australia. It allows scientists to track a fireball path, formed by a meteorite as it travels through Earth's atmosphere, and then work out where the meteorite comes to rest. The fireball camera network project was set up by Dr Phil Bland from Imperial College London and scientific associate of the Natural History Museum, along with colleagues from Ondrejov Observatory in the Czech Republic, and the Western Australia Museum, in 2006. This is the first meteorite recovered using the network. The cameras recorded the fireball that ultimately produced the meteorite in 2007, and the fragments that fell to Earth were named Bunburra Rockhole after a local landscape feature near to where they landed. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196347-Unusual-meteorite-found-by-time-lapse-camera-observatory Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:35:46 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196346-Surviving-Fort-Hood-shooting-suspect-arrested-at-golf-course-officer-says A senior officer who was playing golf Thursday near Fort Hood, Texas, told CNN he witnessed the arrest of one of the two surviving suspects of the shooting at the Army installation. Shortly after the shooting, the officer said, military police told him to clear the course and he saw other MPs surround the building that held the golf carts, he said. The senior officer said he ducked into a nearby house for cover as 30 to 40 cars carrying MPs approached. He said he saw a soldier in battle-dress uniform, his hands in the air. The MPs ordered him to lie on the ground and open his uniform, presumably to ensure he was not carrying explosives, the senior officer said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196346-Surviving-Fort-Hood-shooting-suspect-arrested-at-golf-course-officer-says Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:15:20 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196345-Return-to-the-Middle-Ages When you read a news story saying that "the United Nations called on Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes and put an end to the policy of forced evictions in East Jerusalem, warning that there are 60,000 Palestinians threatened of becoming homeless," you cannot but wonder about the role of the international organization today and about the goal for which it was created on the eve of the victory of the forces of freedom against Nazism and Fascism and whether it is the same organization authorized by history and the world's peoples to guarantee the right to 'self determination'? Is it the same organization charged with "putting an end to colonialism"? Is it the same organization which believes in the right of all peoples to freedom without discrimination in terms of race or religion? If it is the same organization, why does it allow Palestinian civilians suffer from the brutality of armed settlers? The evasive and shameful language of the UN's call comes in the context of the submission of the Security Council to the Zionist will, and consequently commits a historic disgrace in the form of ignoring the legitimate political, civil and human rights of the Palestinian people including their right to life and freedom. For the UN not to take any initiative or measure which leads to giving the Palestinian people the right to self determination will remain a disgrace in the history of the organization which will never be removed. The Palestinians have been under a racist settler form of colonialism for over sixty years; and they are targeted with a campaign of ethnic cleansing launched by armed gangs of settlers supported by Israel's police and army. This is unparalleled in the 21st century in terms of the crimes which include siege, murder, food poisoning, starvation, assassination, demolishing houses, scorching crops, destroying farms, raping prisoners, trafficking in the organs of captives and preventing Palestinians from moving between their villages, farms and schools. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196345-Return-to-the-Middle-Ages Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:13:27 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196344-Was-life-founded-on-cyanide-from-space-crashes- Life may have been built on a foundation of cyanide formed in the fiery wakes of asteroids plunging through Earth's atmosphere, high-speed impact experiments suggest. Earth was probably not born with much in the way of organic material - the complex molecules containing carbon that life requires. It formed too close to the sun for such compounds to condense from the swirling primordial disc of gas and dust. One possibility is that organic matter formed on Earth after the planet coalesced, for example in chemical reactions induced by lightning arcing through the atmosphere, as experiments by Stanley Miller at the University of Chicago in the 1950s suggested. But the chemical reactions in this process could happen only in an early atmosphere full of methane and hydrogen, and later studies of the ancient geological record have suggested that was unlikely. Others have suggested the building blocks came from comets and asteroids that struck Earth, because these objects are known to contain high concentrations of organic material. But the tremendous heat of impact would have burned up much of that material, converting it into simpler molecules like carbon dioxide. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196344-Was-life-founded-on-cyanide-from-space-crashes- Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:51:09 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196343-Picking-up-mates-at-the-white-shark-caf- Great whites aren't all alike. Even though the sharks travel all over the Pacific Ocean to hunt, they tend to mate with others from the same area, forming genetically distinct groups. That's what local great whites revealed to Barbara Block of Stanford University in California and her colleagues. The team headed out into the Pacific to find the sharks, which they lured to the surface using a silhouette of a seal. They then used a pole to attach two different tags to the sharks and took a sneaky biopsy at the same time. See the biologists tagging white sharks here. GPS tags were used to track the long-distance movements of the creatures, allowing the team to follow their migration during the colder months from coastal areas to the deep ocean. The other tags gave off sonic "pings" that were picked up by sensors moored in coastal areas, providing more precise location fixes than the satellite measurements, so that the team could tell if the sharks returned to the same areas. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196343-Picking-up-mates-at-the-white-shark-caf- Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:42:43 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196342-Quakes-from-the-1800s-still-shaking-planet Some earthquakes can leave a legacy of aftershocks that last for centuries. Low-level seismic rumbles appear to foreshadow many quakes. Yet not always: the 2008 Sichuan quake in China came out of the blue. These rumbles may not be precursors but aftershocks - readjustments at a fault following a larger event, in some cases centuries earlier. Seth Stein of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and colleagues analysed the rate of fault slip in various tectonic settings. At plate boundaries, motion rapidly "reloads" a fault with new stress and changes conditions there, so tremors that can be clearly identified as aftershocks typically end within a decade, they found. Far away from plate boundaries, however, fault reloading is much slower, and aftershocks can continue for hundreds of years. The New Madrid fault in Missouri, for instance, may be experiencing aftershocks from a quake in the early 1800s (Nature, DOI: link). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196342-Quakes-from-the-1800s-still-shaking-planet Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:15:42 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196341-Mass-extinction-blamed-on-fiery-fountains-of-coal Fossil fuels have a new crime to live down. A frenzy of hydrocarbon burning at the end of the Permian period may have led to the most devastating mass extinction Earth has ever seen, as explosive encounters between magma and coal released more carbon dioxide in the course of a few years than in all of human history. Around 250 million years ago, the so-called "Great Dying" saw 70 per cent of species wiped out on land and 95 per cent in the oceans. A clue to what may have triggered this disaster lies in solidified magma from this time, which is widespread in an area of Siberia where coal is also abundant. One suggestion is that the heat of the magma could have baked many billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the coal over a geologically brief period of a few thousand years (New Scientist, 8 December 2007, p 42). The ensuing climate change and ocean acidification would account for the extinctions. Now Norman Sleep and Darcy Ogden, both of Stanford University in California, think the trigger for the Great Dying may have been even swifter and more terrifying. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196341-Mass-extinction-blamed-on-fiery-fountains-of-coal Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:06:42 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196338-Papers-please-Ukraine-parliament-backs-government-s-border-control-plan The Verkhovna Rada has ratified the Law "On Border Control," which was submitted by the Yulia Tymoshenko government. The law identifies the legal framework for border control, procedures and conditions for crossing the state border of Ukraine. According to the law, passports and other documents of Ukrainian citizens, foreigners and stateless persons who are crossing the state border are checked by authorized officials of the State Border Service of Ukraine to establish that they are authentic and belong to the given person. They also determine the presence or absence of grounds for temporarily refusing a border crossing. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196338-Papers-please-Ukraine-parliament-backs-government-s-border-control-plan Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:37:12 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196337-Profit-in-crisis-Ukraine-may-delay-presidential-elections Ukraine may delay its presidential elections until May 2010 because of the flu epidemic, the deputy head of President Viktor Yushchenko's secretariat was reported by Itar-Tass news agency as saying on Friday. "If the government fails to establish control over the situation with the influenza epidemic, the possible imposition of an emergency situation in the country and the postponement of the elections to May 30 (2010) are not excluded," the official, Igor Popov, was quoted as saying. The elections are due to take place on Jan. 17, 2010. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196337-Profit-in-crisis-Ukraine-may-delay-presidential-elections Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:29:07 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196336-Ukrainian-Presidential-candidate-Sergiy-Tigipko-Flu-epidemic-being-used-to-distract-public-attention-from-real-problems The Ukrainian authorities are using hysteria over the flu outbreak in the country in order to distract the attention of citizens from economic and social problems, presidential candidate Sergiy Tigipko has said. "The seasonal flu epidemic has completely pushed off the agenda the fight against the economic crisis and other really urgent social issues," the politician's press service quoted him as saying on Thursday. "The mission of the World Health Organization is planning to study the situation in Ukraine for another two weeks, and only then draw a conclusion about the danger of the epidemic. However, our authorities have created a sensation, although they in fact appeared to be unprepared for an annual seasonal flu epidemic," Tigipko said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196336-Ukrainian-Presidential-candidate-Sergiy-Tigipko-Flu-epidemic-being-used-to-distract-public-attention-from-real-problems Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:25:37 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196335-Ukraine-President-s-schizoidal-address-to-the-nation-over-non-existent-flu-epidemic Dear fellow citizens! I address you in performance of my constitutional duty under the Article 106 of the Basic Law of the state. The reason is the emergency epidemic situation in the country. Infections of viral origin, including the A/H1N1 flu, are rapidly spreading across Ukraine. The emergency is evident in the scale of the epidemic: the speed and the geography of its spreading, rapid progress of the illness and the exceptional number of deaths. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196335-Ukraine-President-s-schizoidal-address-to-the-nation-over-non-existent-flu-epidemic Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:15:29 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196334-Instead-of-the-cross-the-Albatross-About-my-neck-was-hung-Message-from-the-Gyre These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking. To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196334-Instead-of-the-cross-the-Albatross-About-my-neck-was-hung-Message-from-the-Gyre Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:10:10 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196333-Polish-PM-Poland-not-buying-swine-flu-vaccination-unless-it-has-been-properly-tested Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday that his government won't buy vaccines for swine flu that have not been properly tested or from producers who won't take responsibility for possible side effects. Tusk told reporters that vaccine producers were pressuring governments to buy, but were also demanding that all responsibility and compensation for possible negative side effects fall upon government shoulders. "Today we are dealing with great pressure from pharmaceutical firms ... we are dealing with expectations that hundreds of millions of zlotys (dollars) will be spent on vaccine while no one wants to guarantee that it has no side effects," he said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196333-Polish-PM-Poland-not-buying-swine-flu-vaccination-unless-it-has-been-properly-tested Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:47:13 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196332-Our-terrorists Islamic fundamentalist militants are the enemies of Israel and Western governments, right? Think again. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reports. Once upon a time, the CIA trained, financed and supported Osama bin Laden and his mujahidin networks in Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the end of the Cold War, bin Laden turned against the West and we no longer had any use for him. His persistent terrorist attacks against us for more than a decade, culminating in 9/11, provoked our own response, in the form of the 'War on Terror'. This is the official narrative. And it's false. Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War; they continued to do so even after 9/11. The CIA's jihad The story begins in the summer of 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, when the CIA had already begun financing elements of an emerging Islamist mujahidin force inside Afghanistan. The idea, according to former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates, was to increase the probability of a Soviet invasion, and entrap 'the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire'.1 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196332-Our-terrorists Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:43:37 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196331-Carbon-Atmosphere-Discovered-On-Neutron-Star Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object. "The compact star at the center of this famous supernova remnant has been an enigma since its discovery," said Wynn Ho of the University of Southampton and lead author of a paper that appears in the November 5 issue of Nature. "Now we finally understand that it can be produced by a hot neutron star with a carbon atmosphere." By analyzing Chandra's X-ray spectrum -- akin to a fingerprint of energy -- and applying it to theoretical models, Ho and his colleague Craig Heinke, from the University of Alberta, determined that the neutron star in Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, has an ultra-thin coating of carbon. This is the first time the composition of an atmosphere of an isolated neutron star has been confirmed. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196331-Carbon-Atmosphere-Discovered-On-Neutron-Star Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:08:46 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196330-Mission-Accomplished-Let-the-Looting-Begin-ExxonMobil-led-consortium-nets-supergiant-Iraq-oil-field Group wins bid to develop west Qurna as Baghdad signs up slew of big contracts Baghdad - An ExxonMobil-led consortium has beaten rival Russian, French and Chinese groups to bag initial rights to develop Iraq's West Qurna field, the Oil Ministry said, adding momentum to Iraq's bid to unlock its oil riches. With reserves of 8.7 billion barrels, West Qurna is among the prized Iraqi fields eyed by Western oil majors as they face flat or lower output at home and stiff competition from Chinese and Indian oil companies in bidding for oilfields elsewhere. "The consortium led by ExxonMobil, which includes Shell, won the contract to develop West Qurna Phase One oilfield," Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said. The initial deal was signed in Baghdad on Thursday but needs Cabinet approval before it can be finalized. The 20-year contract is part of a raft of deals Iraq is close to formalizing in a bid to catapult itself to the world's third largest oil producer after decades of war and economic decline. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196330-Mission-Accomplished-Let-the-Looting-Begin-ExxonMobil-led-consortium-nets-supergiant-Iraq-oil-field Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:05:07 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196329-Rare-virus-poses-new-threat-to-troops Kandahar, Afghanistan | U.S. military officials sent a medical team to a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died from an Ebola-like virus. Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196329-Rare-virus-poses-new-threat-to-troops Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:04:26 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196328-J-Street-is-just-another-Israel-advocacy-group As readers of Antiwar.com certainly are aware, J Street was created a year and a half ago to serve as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). J Street supports creation of a viable Palestinian state that would exist side-by-side in peace with Israel. Unlike AIPAC, J Street advocates first negotiating issues rather than dropping bombs and it rejects the view that American Jews should close ranks and reflexively and unconditionally support every government in Israel. J Street targets liberal minded American Jews who are troubled by the Israel Lobby's right wing-Likud orientation. It promotes itself as pro-Israel, pro-American, and pro-peace, maintaining that it is possible to support Israel without having to endorse all Israeli government actions. It has recently concluded its first Washington conference which attracted a smattering of politicians. General James Jones, President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser, was a featured speaker. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196328-J-Street-is-just-another-Israel-advocacy-group Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:57:02 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196327-Hezbollah-Iran-and-Syria-disown-arms-shipment Israel displays hundreds of tonnes of weapons it says were bound for Lebanese militia disguised as bulldozer parts Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian backers have flatly rejected Israeli claims that a shipment of arms and ammunition intercepted at sea was destined for the Lebanese militia group. As Israel moved quickly to exploit the propaganda value of the find to highlight the role of Iran, Hezbollah "categorically" denied any connection to the case. The Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, said he hoped the weapons seizure would be a "wake-up call to those few in the international community who up until now have still held illusions about the true character of the extremist, radical regime in Tehran". Arab commentators and Iran suggested Israel's announcement of the weapons find was an attempt to undermine or divert attention from the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of war crimes in its attack on Gaza this year. Israel is working to highlight the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that could challenge its own nuclear monopoly. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196327-Hezbollah-Iran-and-Syria-disown-arms-shipment Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:50:12 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196326-Canadian-forces-prepare-for-Afghan-withdrawal-in-2011 Preparations have begun for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, as the 2011 deadline for that withdrawal draws closer. A government official confirmed media reports that General Walter Natynczyk, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has ordered preparations to get under way that would involve the return of the thousands of troops and their equipment from the troubled country. "A Chief of Defence Staff directive has been issued to begin planning preparations for the 2011 end of combat mission," the official told The Globe and Mail Friday. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196326-Canadian-forces-prepare-for-Afghan-withdrawal-in-2011 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:36:32 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196325-Nanoparticles-could-damage-DNA-at-a-distance-study-suggests Nanoparticles of metal can damage the DNA inside cells even if there is no direct contact between them, scientists have found. The discovery provides an insight into how the particles might exert their influence inside the body and points to possible new ways to deliver medical treatments. The preliminary work also raises questions about the safety of nanoparticles - which are a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair and used in everything from sunscreens to electronics - though the researchers point out that the doses they used in their study were higher than anything a person might come into contact with. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196325-Nanoparticles-could-damage-DNA-at-a-distance-study-suggests Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:30:19 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196324-Tens-of-thousands-protest-against-Irish-austerity-measures Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators rallied across Ireland on Friday to protest government plans for tough austerity measures, police and reports said. The protests were called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) to back its 10-point plan to spread belt-tightening -- ordered to deal with a ballooning gap in public finances -- over the next eight years instead of four. Rallies took place in Dublin and seven other centres. Unions also threaten a national strike on November 24. In February 120,000 people took to the streets in Dublin in a similar protest before an emergency budget in April. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196324-Tens-of-thousands-protest-against-Irish-austerity-measures Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:23:40 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196323-UN-chief-to-bring-Goldstone-report-before-Security-Council-after-General-Assembly-vote UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday said that he will transmit the Goldstone report to the UN Security Council at the request of the General Assembly. "As requested by the General Assembly, I will transmit the report of the Fact Finding Mission to the Security Council," Ban told reporters here after he briefed 15-nation Security Council on the current situation in Afghanistan. "I know that all of you have recently followed the vote yesterday in the General Assembly concerning the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict that was led by Justice (Richard) Goldstone," a former prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, he added. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196323-UN-chief-to-bring-Goldstone-report-before-Security-Council-after-General-Assembly-vote Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:16:03 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196322-Toxic-overload-A-third-of-U-S-youth-too-fat-sickly-to-serve More than a third of American youth of military age are unfit for service, mainly because they are too fat or sickly, the Army Times reports, quoting the latest Pentagon figures. Most of the rest are too dumb or have used too many drugs to qualify, the study shows. The report says 35% of the 31 million Americans aged 17 to 24 are unqualified because of physical and medical issues. "The major component of this is obesity," Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accessions, tells the Times. "We have an obesity crisis in the country. There's no question about it." He also said young people, by and large, can't do push-ups. "And they can't do pull-ups," Gilroy says. " And they can't run." The Times says the Pentagon gets its data from the Centers for Disease Control, which has found that the percentage of youth 18 to 34 who are considered obese has jumped from 6% in 1987 to 23% now. Here's the Pentagon's breakdown of the ineligible population, according to the Times: Medical/physical problems, 35%. Illegal drug use, 18%. Mental Category V (the lowest 10% of the population), 9%. Too many dependents under age 18, 6%. Criminal record, 5%. Update at 1:06 p.m. ET: The Times reports that Education Secretary Arne Duncan and a group of retired military officers will issue a report on Thursday warning that the situation is so dire it amounts to a threat to national security. That study will show that when all factors are considered, 75% of military-age youth are not eligible to serve. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196322-Toxic-overload-A-third-of-U-S-youth-too-fat-sickly-to-serve Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:12:44 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196321-Cry-Weapons-Smuggling-And-Let-Slip-The-Dogs-Of-Deception The recent alleged discovery by Israel of a boatload of "Iranian weapons destined for Syria and Hizb'allah" is designed to distract from growing global public awareness that Israel is a terrorist state guilty of the most despicable war crimes. The UN fact finding mission on the Israeli attack on Gaza from Dec 27th 2008 to Jan 18th 2009, aka "The Goldstone Report" was released on September 15th 2009. Initially the scope of the investigation was limited to violations of international and human rights law by Israeli forces alone. The official wording was: to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196321-Cry-Weapons-Smuggling-And-Let-Slip-The-Dogs-Of-Deception Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:53:10 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196319-AIG-posts-profit-of-455-million New York - Bailed out insurance giant AIG on Friday announced a profit of 455 million dollars in the third quarter, a massive turnaround from a 24.4 billion dollar loss in the same period last year. The earnings from group, the largest recipient of US government aid during the financial crisis, were better than expectations. Excluding special items, the profit was 2.85 dollars per share, compared with a market forecast of 1.98 dollars per share. It was the second consecutive quarterly profit for American International Group after the prior quarter's earnings of 1.8 billion dollars. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196319-AIG-posts-profit-of-455-million Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:21:08 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196318-Report-237-millionaires-in-Congress Talk about bad timing. As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress. Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That's 44 percent of the body - compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196318-Report-237-millionaires-in-Congress Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:55:15 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196317-California-power-company-seeks-higher-rates-for-energy-efficient-customers Think it's keen to be green? Not if you're California's Pacific Gas & Electric, according to a recent report. Utility provider PG&E, in documents filed with the state, is seeking a five percent rate increase for its most energy-efficient customers. The increase is reportedly so the company can give it's highest-volume customers a price break. "[The] company, with profits up 4.6 percent in the third quarter of this year, said they're just trying to be fair," California blog Mission Local noted. "It's necessary to avoid the continued shifting of costs associated with utility services to a limited set of residential customers," PG&E spokesperson told blogger Heather Duthie. That "limited set of residential customers" the company refers to are those who use between 131 and 300 percent of average customers, Mission Local added. Under the proposal, they can expect future savings between 2.5 and 5.7 percent on their electric rates. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196317-California-power-company-seeks-higher-rates-for-energy-efficient-customers Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:37:00 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196316-Invisibility-Uncloaked In race to make things disappear, scientists gain ground on science fiction Ulf Leonhardt is riding high these days, with a new award from the Royal Society of Great Britain to further develop his ideas on how to make things in plain sight disappear. Born in East Germany and now occupying the theoretical physics chair at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, Leonhardt is among the leaders of the worldwide race to realize an old dream of science fiction: cloaking devices. They would steer light or other electromagnetic waves around them like water around a stone in a smooth stream, leaving nary a ripple of difference in the flow. Such things, letting light swish past like a boxer ducking every punch, would be invisible. "Cloaking device" is a common term in technical literature. It also deliberately evokes myth and popular fiction. Allusions include the Romulan technology that first amazed TV viewers of the old Star Trek in the episode "Balance of Terror," when hostile Bird of Prey fighting vessels just disappeared, poof. One finds cloaking in J.K. Rowling's novels about the young wizard Harry Potter with his invisibility cape. Farther back, H.G. Wells' novel The Invisible Man (and the movie of the same name, along with its sequel The Invisible Woman) toyed with much the same idea. J.R.R. Tolkien assigned similar power to The One Ring in his tales of hobbits. Inspiration for the ring apparently came from way back - the magical ring that the shepherd Gyges recovered from an earthquake-spawned chasm in Plato's The Republic. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196316-Invisibility-Uncloaked Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:27:45 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196315-Propaganda-Alert-Top-GOP-recruit-says-Ft-Hood-shooting-shows-enemy-is-infiltrating-our-military- A top Republican congressional recruit said on Friday that the shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas yesterday by a solider allegedly sympathetic to suicide bombers shows that the "enemy is infiltrating our military." Allen West (R-Fla.), a retired military colonel who served as a commander at the Texas base, said in a release that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's attack may indicate a broader effort by Islamic extremists to recruit downtrodden members of the military. "This enemy preys on downtrodden soldiers and teaches them extremism will lift them up," West said in a statement. "Our soldiers are being brainwashed." The release added that West claims "the horrible tragedy at Fort Hood is proof the enemy is infiltrating our military." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196315-Propaganda-Alert-Top-GOP-recruit-says-Ft-Hood-shooting-shows-enemy-is-infiltrating-our-military- Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:26:26 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196314-Brainwashing-Fox-Host-Alleged-Ft-Hood-shooter-s-name-tells-us-a-lot- "This is going to get very dark," reads the headline of a blog posting late Thursday by TalkingPointsMemo's Josh Marshall. Marshall was referring to news reports stating that the alleged primary shooter killed in today's rampage at the army base in Fort Hood, Texas, has a "Muslim-sounding" name -- and what that will mean for the political debate surrounding the shooting in post-911 America. "The fact that the primary assailant has an Arabic name and is presumably, though we don't know this yet, of Muslim extraction if not a practicing Muslim, is going to be the focus of attention," Marshall wrote. And indeed, no sooner had Marshall made his prediction than Fox News made that prediction come true. In an interview with US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Fox host Shepard Smith asked: "The names tells us a lot, does it not, senator?" http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196314-Brainwashing-Fox-Host-Alleged-Ft-Hood-shooter-s-name-tells-us-a-lot- Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:17:05 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196313-Ex-Blue-Cross-spokesman-says-health-insurance-worst-product-in-American-history- Teaming with the liberal Brave New Films, a former Blue Cross pitchman is now pitching against Blue Cross. Andy Cobb, who once tried to sell Floridians on a Blue Cross health insurance plan, says he's fed up with the industry. "I was a spokesman for BlueCross and Blueshield of Florida," Cobb says. "Call me a spokesjerk. People who make money for buying things you don't need. And we're telling you lies." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196313-Ex-Blue-Cross-spokesman-says-health-insurance-worst-product-in-American-history- Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:54:20 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196248-Connecting-the-Dots-The-Mass-Poisoning-Begins-the-Secret-Team-s-Tricks-Continue-and-the-Dollar-s-Supremacy-Heads-for-its-End Terrorism has been defined as "a criminal act that influences an audience beyond the immediate victim". We agree, but the question is, what entity today has the greatest capacity to carry out criminal acts and influence an audience beyond the immediate victim? Figure that one out, and you've got the real terrorists. But first, let's look at some of the influences we've all come under during the month of October. Vaccination season has kicked off in US, Canada and UK and Obama has declared the swine flu a national emergency! Well, if Mr. Charm, Change and Hope says so, it must be true! Right? Read on and we'll take you through the talking points... http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196248-Connecting-the-Dots-The-Mass-Poisoning-Begins-the-Secret-Team-s-Tricks-Continue-and-the-Dollar-s-Supremacy-Heads-for-its-End Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:51:20 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196312-Two-Earthquakes-Strike-Taiwan-Island Two earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 5.4 on the Richter Scale struck the central part of Taiwan island. They were felt across Taiwan. The cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen in the Chinese mainland's Fujian Province and Hong Kong also felt the tremors. The earthquakes are the worst to hit Taiwan in ten years. The epicenter was in Nantou County, about 200 kilometers south of Taipei, with a depth of 7 and 6 kilometers respectively. The tremors reminded Nantou residents of the September 21st quake in 1999. A local resident of Nantou County said, "I was scared. I was the victim of the September 21st earthquake. That earthquake damaged our houses. So I ran out of the house immediately after I felt it shake. I was sitting there, and ran out immediately." Many residents tried to make phone calls to their family and friends but communications had been cut off. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196312-Two-Earthquakes-Strike-Taiwan-Island Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:49:52 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196311-Shame-Humiliation-as-Kerik-Pleads-Guilty-8-Times Former NYPD Commish pleads guilty to lying to White House, Tax Crimes Former New York City police commissioner Benard Kerik gave up and copped a plea deal, and could now spend the next three years in prison for lying to the White House and the IRS. Kerik stood before Judge Stephen Robinson and pleaded guilty to eight felony crimes, mired in shame and humiliation eight years after standing with Rudy Giuliani on 9/11 and five years after standing with President Bush at the White House. "It's just the most dramatic fall from the pinnacle of power," said Ben Gershman of Pace Law School. "It's just kind of breathtaking how quickly and how far this man fell." Gershman, a former prosecutor, said it's a stunning fall, two years after Kerik vowed to clear his name. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196311-Shame-Humiliation-as-Kerik-Pleads-Guilty-8-Times Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:40:55 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196310-Florida-Wife-Faked-Own-Abduction-to-Scam-Hubby A wealthy health care executive came home one night in September to find a terrifying note from his wife, Quinn Gray: The 37-year-old housewife and mother of two had been abducted from her posh Florida beach community. "There are three men holding me right now and they want $50,000 cash," Gray wrote. "Do not do anything stupid. NO COPS!" Authorities say the 25-year-old mechanic charged with trying to extort thousands from Gray's husband wasn't her captor - but her accomplice and lover. Her husband, however, has stuck by his wife's side. Gray said she went along with her captor's demands, eventually having audiotaped sex with him. Gray says she wasn't scheming, but went insane and started to believe the kidnapper's claims that her husband wanted her dead. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196310-Florida-Wife-Faked-Own-Abduction-to-Scam-Hubby Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:35:39 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196309-Israel-May-Begin-New-War-in-Lebanon-in-Spring-2010 Israel could begin a new military operation in Lebanon in spring 2010, Jordan's Ad-Dustour daily wrote on Friday, citing French parliamentary and military sources. According to anonymous sources in the French parliament, plans of possible military operation in Lebanon in spring 2010 were discussed in France, at a meeting of French, U.S. and Israeli military experts. The paper said a recent report from the UN secretary general could serve as an indirect indicator of a possible military operation in Lebanon. The report concerns the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which prohibits storing weapons in the security zone between the Litani River and the Blue Line, which is the Lebanese-Israeli border. The area is under the observation of UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). In the report, "only [Shiite armed group] Hezbollah is accused" of violating the provisions of the resolution, while "Israel is freed from any responsibility." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196309-Israel-May-Begin-New-War-in-Lebanon-in-Spring-2010 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:19:39 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196308-Signature-of-Antimatter-Detected-in-Lightning Fermi telescope finds evidence that positrons, not just electrons, are in storms on Earth. Designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has now recorded some more down-to-Earth signals. During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial lightning storms. The flashes occurred just before, during and immediately after lightning strikes, as tracked by the World Wide Lightning Location Network. During two recent lightning storms, Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could only have been produced by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. The observations are the first of their kind for lightning storms. Michael Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville announced the puzzling findings November 5 at the 2009 Fermi Symposium. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196308-Signature-of-Antimatter-Detected-in-Lightning Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:16:49 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196307-Four-sentenced-to-hang-for-killing-albino-in-Tanzania A court sentenced four people to death in northern Tanzania for the killing of an albino man who was targeted for body parts believed to have special powers, authorities said Friday. The four were found guilty of killing the 50-year-old albino in the Shinyanga region and sentenced to die by hanging for removing his body parts, said Lucca Haule, assistant commissioner of police. So far, seven people have been sentenced to death for the killing of more than 50 Tanzanian albinos, including children, in the past two years, Haule said. Dozens more are awaiting trial. Albinism is a genetic condition that leads to little or no pigment in the eyes, skin and hair. Body parts of albinos are sought in some regions of Tanzania and other African countries, where some believe they bring wealth and good luck. Attackers chop off limbs and pluck out organs, selling them to witch doctors. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196307-Four-sentenced-to-hang-for-killing-albino-in-Tanzania Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:43:19 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196306-Europe-Still-Divided-20-Years-After-Berlin-Wall-Fell Europe's dividing lines survive even 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia's PACE delegation head said on Friday. November 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the 160-km concrete barrier between East and West Berlin, the symbolic demarcation line between the socialist camp in Eastern Europe and the West. Konstantin Kosachyov said Russia and Europe had retained most of their differences, "which means the dividing lines in Europe have survived the fall of the Berlin Wall." Kosachyov, who also heads the international affairs committee at the lower house of Russia's parliament, referred to visa restrictions and certain "indirect" limitations for Russian businesses. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196306-Europe-Still-Divided-20-Years-After-Berlin-Wall-Fell Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:35:40 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196305-China-909-000-Hit-by-Drought A drought since September had affected 909,000 people in east China's Jiangxi Province, a spokesman for the provincial flood control and drought relief office said yesterday. The drought had cut off normal water supplies in some rural areas. "Villagers in Fengxin, Jing'an and Leping counties have to carry drinking water by trucks," said Sun Xiaoshan, deputy director of the office. "The water levels of four of the province's five main rivers hit record lows and are still dropping. "The self-cleaning ability of rivers has decreased significantly due to the drastic fall of volume, posing a threat to public health." The provincial government had stepped up monitoring and supervision over enterprises that may cause pollution, Sun added. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196305-China-909-000-Hit-by-Drought Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:30:49 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196304-British-Airways-to-Cut-More-Jobs-After-a-Heavy-Loss British Airways (BA) said on Friday that it plans to cut a further 1,200 jobs after reporting a heavy loss in the first-half of its financial year. The further job cut means that the airline will have shed a total of 4,900 positions by March 2010. The company suffered a loss before tax of 292 million pounds (about 485 million dollars) for the six months to the end of September, compared with profits of 52 million pounds a year earlier. It is also the first loss in first half of its financial year. The first half of BA's financial year is usually stronger because it covers the summer holiday season. BA said revenue over the six-month period was down by 13.7 percent to 4.1 billion pounds, compared with 4.75 billion pounds in the same period of 2008. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196304-British-Airways-to-Cut-More-Jobs-After-a-Heavy-Loss Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:28:37 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196303-Two-US-soldiers-drown-in-Afghanistan In a rare fatal incident, two American troops have drowned in Afghanistan, while trying to recover equipment from a northwestern river, security officials say. The soldiers died on Wednesday, while trawling in the Badghis province's Bala-Murghab River for lost supply packages, the area's Deputy Police Chief Mohammed Jabbar told a Press TV correspondent. The supplies were lost as a US aircraft was dropping caissons and food parcels on the troops' base. The present US contingent in cooperation with local military and police force have set out on a rescue operation. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Taliban, Ghari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that the militants had attacked the soldiers as the aircraft was on the supply mission, killing one of the soldiers while four others drowned themselves in the river. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196303-Two-US-soldiers-drown-in-Afghanistan Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:24:15 -0500