SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Puppet MastersS
This 80-minute documentary focuses on the growing "wealth gap" in America, as seen through the eyes of filmmaker Jamie Johnson, a 27-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Johnson, who cut his film teeth at NYU and made the Emmy®-nominated 2003 HBO documentary Born Rich, here sets his sights on exploring the political, moral and emotional rationale that enables a tiny percentage of Americans - the one percent - to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States. The film Includes interviews with Nicole Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich, Ralph Nader and other luminaries.
© ReutersIraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has faced months of protests in the country's Sunni heartland, which shares a border with Syria
At least nine people have been killed and 17 wounded after insurgents detonated an oil tanker packed with explosives inside a government compound in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, police said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Sunni Muslim insurgents linked to al-Qaida have been increasing their efforts this year to undermine Iraq's Shia-led government and foment inter-communal conflict.
The attack took place in central Tikrit, 150km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, 15 minutes after insurgents dhad driven the tanker inside a compound housing governmental administrative offices. It killed nine people, including seven police officers.
© Yorgos Karahalis/ReutersA Golden Dawn rally in Athens in February. The group's success is being linked to a rise in racially motivated attacks on immigrants in Greece.
Emboldened by its meteoric rise in Greece, the far-right Golden Dawn party is spreading its tentacles abroad, amid fears it is acting on its pledge to "create cells in every corner of the world". The extremist group, which forged links with British neo-Nazis when it was founded in the 1980s, has begun opening offices in Germany, Australia, Canada and the US.
The international push follows successive polls that show Golden Dawn entrenching its position as Greece's third, and fastest growing, political force. First catapulted into parliament with 18 MPs last year, the ultra-nationalists captured 11.5% support in a recent survey conducted by polling company Public Issue.
The group - whose logo resembles the swastika and whose members are prone to give Nazi salutes - has gone from strength to strength, promoting itself as the only force willing to take on the "rotten establishment". Amid rumours of backing from wealthy shipowners, it has succeeded in opening party offices across Greece.
It is also concentrating on spreading internationally, with news last month that it had opened an office in Germany and planned to set up branches in Australia. The party's spokesman, Ilias Kasidiaris, said it had decided to establish cells "wherever there are Greeks".
© desconocido
The hunger strike is the Guantanamo detainees' cry for attention. Why should Americans care? After all, haven't members of Congress told the public that the detainees are terrorists who would kill us in our sleep if they got the chance? That is the reason lawmakers have given for enacting legislation that has made it virtually impossible to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo, to the United States or anywhere else. The American people have been led to believe that the detainees are all too dangerous to release or transfer, and that we must keep them at Guantanamo to protect our security.
That line may play well politically, but it is simply not true, and it is costing us dearly.
© www.vlastnihlavou.cz
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who voted against war in Iraq, has joined 76 senators in co-sponsoring a bill that would put the Senate on record urging military, diplomatic and economic support if Israel were to decide to attack Iran. (As of this writing, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., has not co-sponsored the bill.) This bill is the most egregious in a string of congressional actions that could form the building blocks for a war that could make Iraq look like a walk in the park.
History teaches us that the run-up to war is often not one dramatic event, but a slow burn that suddenly turns into a blazing fire. History is now repeating itself on Capitol Hill.
© Unknown2009 North Korean rocket launch
Last week, two nuclear-capable US B-2 stealth bombers flew non-stop from America to South Korea, and then home. These 'invisible' aircraft can carry the GBU-43/B MOAB 13,600kg bomb that is said to be able to blast through 70 meters of reinforced concrete, putting North Korea's underground nuclear facilities and its leadership's command bunkers under dire threat.
Earlier this month, US B-52's heavy bombers staged mock attack runs over South Korea - within minutes flying time of the North - rekindling memories of the massive US carpet bombing raids that devastated North Korea during the 1950's Korean War. US-South Korean-Australian war games in March were designed to train for war with the North. The US media ignored these provocative exercises, but, as usual, North Korea went ballistic, foolishly threatening to attack the US with long-ranged missiles it does not yet possess.
We have grown jaded over the years by North Korea's threats and chest-beating. But its recent successful nuclear test and work on a long-ranged missile have begun to add muscle to Pyongyang's threats. No sooner was the new young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in power than the US, South Korea and Japan began testing him.
© KEN MURRAY/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSState Senator Eric Adams leaves federal court after testifying at stop and frisk trial.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said blacks and Hispanics are targeted for "stop-and-frisks" by police as part of the city's program to get guns off the streets, a state lawmaker testified Monday in court.
State Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn)said Kelly made the surprise statement in 2010 during a meeting that included three other public officials - former Democratic Gov. David Paterson, State Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) and former Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn).
Adams told Manhattan Federal Court Judge Shira Scheindlin Monday that he raised concerns with Kelly at the 2010 meeting that blacks and Hispanics were disproportionately selected by cops for "stop and frisks."
The Commissioner responded by defending the controversial practice, saying it was an important tool for the department, Adams testified.
© Stringer/EPACustomers outside the Laiki Bank Limassol in Cyprus.
Professor of Political Economy at the University of Nicosia, Andreas Theophanous, is sure that Cyprus is not only in a financial crisis, but also 'is already having a major political crisis", as the credibility of the system - "both economic and political is at very low level at this point."
RT: There are allegations that the Cypriot President's inner circle is linked to a multi-million euro outflow of money... Are these claims being investigated - or is it mud-slinging?
Andreas Theophanous: It's true that we've seen reports about capital outflows. There will be a full investigation, but obviously the point that I would like to make is that in addition to the economic crisis, Cyprus is already having a major political crisis as well. There will be report, there will be investigations, but in any case the credibility of the system - both economic and political is at very low level at this point.
RT: Are these claims being investigated?
AT: Of course, economics and politics are related. There will be full investigation and again I am pointing out that the fundamental points - the respective of weather some political parties are trying to take advantage. At the same time it's true that there have been acts that made people very suspicious. The issue is that credibility is at a very low level today.
© Mr Fish
These apologists, however, acted not only as cheerleaders for war; in most cases they ridiculed and attempted to discredit anyone who questioned the call to invade Iraq. Kristof, in The New York Times, attacked the filmmaker Michael Moore as a conspiracy theorist and wrote that anti-war voices were only polarizing what he termed "the political cesspool." Hitchens said that those who opposed the attack on Iraq "do not think that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy at all." He called the typical anti-war protester a "blithering ex-flower child or ranting neo-Stalinist." The halfhearted mea culpas by many of these courtiers a decade later always fail to mention the most pernicious and fundamental role they played in the buildup to the war - shutting down public debate.
A file photo showing a militant in Syria
Haaretz has recently published an exceptionally revealing article, confirming that the Brooking Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" report - a plan for the undermining and destruction of Iran - had indeed been set in motion, and that the current Syrian conflict is a direct result of Syria and Iran defying the West and disrupting what was to be a coup de grâce delivered to Tehran.
The article is titled, "Assad's Israeli friend," appears at first to be a ham-handed attempt to portray Syrian President Bashar Al Assad as somehow allied with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead, it actually reveals that Israel had attempted to execute verbatim, the strategies prescribed in the Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" report, where Israel was to lure Syria away from Iran ahead of a US-Israeli strike and subsequent war with Tehran.
Syria obviously did not fall into the trap, and as a result, has been plunged into a destructive, spiteful war of proxy aggression by the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and their regional allies.
