Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

UK Chancellor George Osborne: Government 'has run out of money'

George Osborne
© Press AssociationMr Osborne is under severe pressure to boost growth, amid signs the economy is slipping back into a recession.
The Government 'has run out of money' and cannot afford debt-fuelled tax cuts or extra spending, George Osborne has admitted.
Britain and other leading economies are not ready to fund another eurozone bailout, UK Chancellor George Osborne said on Sunday.

In a stark warning ahead of next month's Budget, the Chancellor said there was little the Coalition could do to stimulate the economy.

Mr Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers.

"The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years," the Chancellor said. "The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector."

Pirates

Armed Terrorist Attacks against Citizens, Law-Enforcement Forces, Oil Pipelines Intensified in Several Areas in Syria

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Terrorist groups continued armed attacks in Homs, Idleb and Damascus countryside targeting civilians and military personnel, and shelled residential areas with mortar shells and vandalized public and private facilities, not sparing even mosques to which citizens turned for protection.

The terrorist groups on Monday attacked citizens and law-enforcement members at several areas in Homs, and the authorities have been pursuing and clashing with them.

An armed terrorist group exploded two explosive devices behind the building of the Technical Services at al-Dablan Neighborhood in Homs.

The terrorists also shelled with mortars several neighborhoods of Homs. They also set off an exploive device in al-Khalidiye neighborhood that caused no injuries or casualties.

Vader

Lizzie Phelan: Massive bombing in Syria is Western response to Russia China veto, Israeli weapons found in Homs

Two explosions have hit Syria's northern city of Aleppo, state-run TV said on Friday. The attack struck the security compounds, killing at least 28 people and wounding 175 The blasts were the first in Syria's largest city. It has not been affected seriously by the Syrian uprising that began in March. Colonel Arif Hamood of the Free Syrian Army claimed responsibility for the two blasts that targeted military and security buildings in the city.


Star of David

Flashback Syria seizes Israeli weapons

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The Syrian envoy to the Arab League, Youssef Ahmad, speaking at an emergency AL meeting in Cairo, Egypt on October 16, 2011
The Syrian security forces have seized Israeli weapons from armed groups responsible for the killing of hundreds of people across the country.

The Syrian envoy to the Arab League (AL) made this announcement at an emergency meeting at the 22-member body's headquarters in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Sunday.

Youssef Ahmad said, "They are Israeli made automatic weapons. This is proven and we'll show it on TV channels," Syrian state television reported.

"These are the weapons used by the armed opposition to kill the sons of our nation."

Not one Arab country has condemned Tel Aviv's role in the internal violence in Syria or censured the killings of members of the Syrian Armed Forces in the unrest, Ahmad noted.

In addition, the envoy called on the Arab nations not to join, what he referred to as, a United States-backed plan to target Syria.

Star of David

Insurgents in Syria being armed from Israel

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The reconstruction of the Kleyate airport in the north of Lebanon has begun, the Arab media report. According to official reports, the airport is being restored to contribute to the country's economic development and to provide more opportunities for the national tourism industry.

But some experts believe that the airport is being reconstructed for other purposes. At present, the international airport in Beirut with passenger turnover of 6 million people a year fully meets the current needs of the country. It takes 2-3 hours to get to the airport from any corner of the country. In addition, Lebanon has one more airport in the north - the Khamat airport, which was built specially for the needs of the tourism industry and also for export of agricultural products. However the airport has never been used for these purposes because of a civil war which took place in Lebanon in the 1970-1990s.

Now, in peaceful times, it would be logical to start using the Khamat airport, located near the sea coast, for the needs of the country's tourism industry rather than the Kleyate airport, which was built in the mountains as a military airport and lacks civil infrastructure. It is difficult and expensive to transport construction materials using roads which run through mountains.

USA

Santorum: No Apology Needed for Quran Burning

Rick Santorum
© unknown
Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum criticized President Barack Obama's apology for the burning of Qurans in Afghanistan, adding that Afghanistan should apologize to the U.S. for the deaths of four U.S. soldiers during six days of violence sparked by the incident.

"There was nothing deliberately done wrong here,'' Santorum said Sunday on ABC's This Week'. "This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake. It was something that deliberate.''

More than 30 people have been killed in clashes since it emerged Tuesday that copies of the Muslim holy book and other religious materials had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn garbage at Bagram Air Field, a large U.S. base north of Kabul. Protesters angry over Quran burnings by American troops lobbed grenades Sunday at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead.

"The response needs to be apologized for by (President Hamid) Karzai and the Afghan people for attacking and killing our men and women in uniform and overreacting to this inadvertent mistake,'' Santorum said on NBC's Meet the Press'. "That is the real crime here, not what our soldiers did.''

Mr. Potato

Santorum stands by John F. Kennedy criticism

Rick Santorum
© Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesGOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Former senator Rick Santorum defended his comment that President John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech about the importance the separation of religion from government "makes him throw up."

"To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?" Santorum said Sunday at a campaign event here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Santorum is locked in a tight race with Mitt Romney in Michigan, whose GOP presidential primary is being held Tuesday.

He made his initial comments about the Kennedy speech during an appearance earlier Sunday on ABC's This Week. "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," he said on the talk-show program.

Dollar

Report: Millions of White House dollars helped pay for NYPD Muslim surveillance

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© Corey Sipkin / New York Daily News

Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA.

Some of that money -- it's unclear exactly how much because the program has little oversight -- has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.

The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials. The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers. The HIDTA grant program is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Pistol

Assassination Bid on Putin Foiled, Ukraine Says

Putin
© © RIA Novosti. Alexei Nikolsky
Russian and Ukrainian security services have foiled a plot to assassinate Vladimir Putin after next week's presidential election, Ukraine's SBU counter-intelligence agency said on Monday.

Russian pro-government Channel One television said Ukrainian special services in the Black Sea port of Odessa had held two men linked to a group seeking an Islamist state in Russia's North Caucasus.

"I can officially confirm that they were preparing an (assassination) attempt on Putin," said Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for the SBU.

Ostapenko said two men were under arrest. One was seized in Odessa after being wounded in an explosion at an apartment in the city on January 4 which also killed another alleged plotter.

The second man, who was on the international wanted list, was arrested a month later after initially escaping, she said.

"We found him in an apartment and detained him without a single shot being fired on February 4," she said.

Attention

"Suicide Attack" Kills 9 Amid Protests in Afghanistan

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© The Associated PressAfghan soldiers secure the scene of a "suicide attack" at the gate of an airport in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, February 27, 2012.
Afghan police say nine people have been killed in a suicide car bombing outside an airport in eastern Afghanistan used for civilian and military flights.

Several others were wounded in the blast early Monday at the gates of Jalalabad airport.

Provincial officials say most of the casualties appear to be civilians. Two airport guards and a soldier were also among the dead.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, which followed days of unrest across Afghanistan in response to the burning of Qurans by NATO personnel at Bagram Air Base. More than 30 people, including four U.S. military personnel, have died in protests since the Quran burning.

On Sunday, Afghan authorities began an intense search for an Afghan intelligence official suspected of killing two U.S. officers Saturday at the Interior Ministry in Kabul.