© REUTERS/AFP
Mr Netanyahu, Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Obama

Iran has claimed that the Obama administration has "completely different" views on the Islamic Republic to Israel and the US Republican Party, according to an intelligence ministry report.

The report, posted on the ministry's newly launched website vaja.ir, claimed that the Democrats had "pinned their" hopes on a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear threat, and that there was "open confrontation between President Barack Obama and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue.

It was apparently prepared before Mr Obama's re-election victory on Tuesday over Mitt Romney.

"The Republican party has a more severe confrontational approach towards Iran ... and its proposed policies are close to those of the Zionist (Israel) regime," it said according to an AFP report.

Mr Obama's "Democratic party's position is completely different" on Iran, it added.

California's Proposition 37, which would have required labeling of GMO foods, died a painful death last night. Despite polling in mid-September showing an overwhelming lead, the measure lost by 53 to 47 percent, which is relatively close considering the No side's tactics.

As I've been writing about, the opposition has waged a deceptive and ugly campaign, fueled by more than $45 million, mostly from the leading biotech, pesticide, and junk food companies. Meanwhile, the Yes side raised almost $9 million, which is not bad, but being outspent by a factor of five is tough to overcome.

While we can always expect industry to spend more, the various groups fighting GMOs for years probably could have been better coordinated. I was dismayed and confused by all the fundraising emails I received from different nonprofits on Prop 37 and wondered why they weren't pooling their resources.

But would more money and better strategy have made a difference? Given the opposition's tactics, it seems unlikely. I am not easily shocked by corporate shenanigans but the No on 37 campaign is my new poster child for propaganda and dirty tricks. It's worth recapping the most egregious examples.

Not even a full day had passed before newly reelected President Obama ordered another drone strike in Yemen. Huffington Post:

On Wednesday morning, as many Americans sifted through the voter data and exit poll numbers of President Barack Obama's reelection the night before, the Twitter feeds of close watchers of Yemen lit up with reports of another sort of presidential event: an apparent U.S. drone strike had killed several individuals in that country.

There was no way of being certain if the strike was indeed American, or for that matter if it was a drone strike at all, although it had all the markings of one.

"All signs (after dark, suspicions of locals, target) point to Sanhan strike being a US drone," Yemen-based freelance journalist Adam Baron wrote on Twitter.

Several other analysts concurred.

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. If it were a American strike, of course, it would have to have been authorized by Obama.

The same party wins every time. Duopoly power rules. America is a one party state with two wings. Each replicates the other. On major issues mattering most, not a dime's worth of difference separates them.

The late Gore Vidal explained it as well as anyone. Some of his best comments included:

"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."

"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so."

"By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over."

"Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be."

"The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return."

"We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth."

The amount of fraud in America has reached astounding levels. On the CBS Evening News on 9-10-2001 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that neither he nor his Comptroller Rabbi Dov Zakheim could trace the whereabouts of 2.3 trillion dollars missing from the DOD. Also on that same night persons unknown backed up a few trucks to World Trade Center Towers 4 and 5 and took about a billion dollars in gold and silver bullion from the Canadian Nova Scotia bank vault and from the COMEX metals exchange vault next door. Also on 911 all ENRON documents in the SEC offices at WTC 7 were destroyed which saved Wall Street a few billion dollars in lawsuits. Also on 911 Dr Jim Willie says Cantor Fitzgerald offices in the North Tower which had all of the documentation on the sale of 3.5 trillion dollars in fraudulent Treasury bonds was destroyed when the North Tower collapsed. He compared the deficit announced by the Treasury to the monthly sale of US Treasury bonds and found that 3.5 trillion dollars more had been sold than the Treasury needed to fund the deficit. Fortunately for the men who participated in these frauds no pesky reporters from the mainstream press have bothered to ask anyone in Washington about any of the above criminal acts.

You might remember Jim Willie as the man who said 40,000 tons of gold allocated in customer accounts had been stolen. We know that NATO also stole 144 toms of Libyan gold and 98 billion dollars in cash and securities. Now Germany and the Netherlands have been asking the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England if their gold is still there.

But we are now entering a whole new era of extreme fraud where the amounts involved have become staggering. The total Gross Domestic Product of the world is a mere 50 trillion dollars. The total level of fraud is even greater than that. That means that the bankers are going to steal everything and leave you with nothing if your assets are either pieces of paper or credit entries in a computer.

Russia's Federal Security Service has identified members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is officially designated a terrorist organization, in the Russian capital, the FSB said on Wednesday.

Russia designated Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) a terrorist organization in 2003.

The service has established the identities of its activists and their places of residence "where documents pointing to their illegal activity may be kept," an FSB spokesman said.

Amnesty International raised concerns about the sale of British weapons to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

British Prime Minister David Cameron used his three-day tour to help sell 100 Typhoon jets to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

On the first day of his controversial money-making tour to the region, the Prime Minister insisted that flogging military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates was "legitimate".

He made the remarks in Dubai where he launched a major push to sell British jets but the comments were slammed by human rights campaigners who believe that the arms sales would instigate regional rivalries and confrontations and meantime strengthen the tough stance of Arab dictatorial regimes against their nations.

It appears that the big advertising push by big food companies defeated the California's Proposition 37, a ballot initiative to require labeling of genetically modified foods (GMOs).

The last few weeks has seen a stunning reversal of poll numbers in favor of Prop 37. Nationwide polls consistently show around 90% of Americans support GMO labeling, and a month ago California polls showed over 60% supported labeling.

Then, large food conglomerates pooled their funds to oppose to the measure and outspent the citizens Right to Know campaign nearly 6-to-1 ($45 million to $8 million).

Here is the list of the top donors that opposed labeling:

MONSANTO COMPANY $8,112,069
E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & CO. $5,400,000
PEPSICO, INC. $2,145,400
GROCERY MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION $2,002,000
BASF PLANT SCIENCE $2,000,000
BAYER CROPSCIENCE $2,000,000
DOW AGROSCIENCES LLC $2,000,000
SYNGENTA CORPORATION $2,000,000
KRAFT FOODS GLOBAL, INC. $1,950,500
NESTLE USA, INC. $1,461,600
COCA-COLA NORTH AMERICA $1,455,500
GENERAL MILLS, INC. $1,230,300
CONAGRA FOODS $1,176,700
KELLOGG COMPANY $790,700
SMITHFIELD FOODS, INC. $683,900
DEL MONTE FOODS COMPANY $674,100
CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY $598,000

Hackers from China increasingly targeting U.S military computers and defense contractors.

According to a leaked draft of a Congressional report, China poses the largest threat in cyberspace, with hackers continuously targeting U.S military computers and defense contractors.

The report obtained by Bloomberg, which was produced by the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission, found that China's advances in its hacking activities over the past year pose a considerable threat to information systems and users.

Attempts by Chinese hackers apparently includes blinding or disrupting U.S. intelligence and communications satellites, weapons targeting systems, as well as navigation computers, so says an anonymous U.S. intelligence official.

Although the attacks are essentially through basic techniques, the volume of the activity is what poses a threat to the United States. Intrusions are predominately designed to collect information as opposed to attacking systems.

Scheduled for a release on November 14, the report urges Congress to develop methods of punishing and penalizing firms who have been found to have engaged in industrial espionage.