Puppet Masters

Berlusconi 'paid Mafia bosses millions of euros in pact lasting decades'

Michael Day
The Independent, UK
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 16:22 UTC

Disgraced ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi made a 20-year pact with Mafia bosses to whom he paid millions of euros in exchange for protection and help with his business empire, according to a judicial report.

The tycoon's deal with the mob was described by judges of the Palermo Appeals Court as part of their 476-page reasoning, released on Thursday, behind the jail sentence for his Mafia association given to Berlusconi's close friend Marcello Dell'Utri.

The judges say that Dell'Utri, a Palermo-born former senator in Berlusconi's PDL (People of Freedom) Party, was the mogul's go-between with the Cosa Nostra for 20 years, up until 1992, the year in which the Mafia assassinated two prosecutors in bomb attacks.

The report follows a dreadful summer for the three-time prime minister. In June he was found guilty of paying for sex with an under-age girl and abuse of office in the "Rubygate" affair. In August, he was definitively convicted of tax fraud, for which he is due to serve a year of house arrest or community service, and is also likely to be expelled from parliament.

Political pundit James Walston, of the American University of Rome, described the report as "another nail in the coffin of Silvio Berlusconi".

Verify chemical weapons use before unleashing the dogs of war

Kenneth Timmerman
The Daily Caller
Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:51 UTC

The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.

According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel's famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.

The doctored report was leaked to a private Internet-based newsletter that boasts of close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, and led to news reports that the United States now had firm evidence showing that the Syrian government had ordered the chemical weapons attack on August 21 against a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus.

Comment: Exactly! The Troodos conundrum: Israel fabricated 'intercept' of Syrian government planning chemical attack

Government wants to sequence DNA of all infants born in U.S.

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 07:57 UTC

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun an initiative to discover the viability of sequencing American infant's DNA through the "heel stick" blood drawn screening conducted on newborns in hospitals to determine the propensity toward life-threatening diseases.

This scheme will cost $25 million over 5 years to understand each individual genetic code in lieu of having DNA routinely mapped and stored in a medical record.

Whether this study would have value has not been established. Experts warn that there are ethical questions surrounding such an endeavor.

Using genetic information to direct infant healthcare is a major concern.

The National Institute of Child health and Human Development (NICHHD) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) are collaborating to fund this initiative.

U.S. evacuates non-essential staff from Lebanon, Turkey

Business Standard
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:06 UTC

The US today ordered evacuation of non-emergency staff from Lebanon and Turkey amid an imminent military strike against Syria, as authorities did not rule out similar draw-down from other diplomatic posts in the region.

"The Department of State has ordered a draw-down of non-emergency US Government personnel and family members in Beirut, Lebanon and approved the draw-down of non-emergency personnel and family members who wish to leave Adana, Turkey," State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said.

The evacuations came as the US has been trying to drum up support for a military strike against the embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad for the alleged use of chemical weapons against the civilians last month.

"Given the current tensions in the region, as well as potential threats to US Government facilities and personnel, we are taking these steps out of an abundance of caution to protect our employees and their families, and local employees and visitors to our facilities," she said.

Russia pledges to help Syria in case of U.S. war

Press TV
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:10 UTC

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that his country will help the Syrian government in the event of a foreign military intervention.

Putin made the remarks on Friday at a news conference on the final day of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg.

The Russian president, however, did not elaborate on how Moscow would help Damascus.

It was not clear if Moscow planned to defend Syria and increase military assistance.

"Will we help Syria? We will. We are helping them now. We supply weapons, we cooperate in the economic sphere, and I hope we will cooperate more in the humanitarian sphere ... to provide help for those people - civilians - who are in a difficult situation today," Putin said.

Anger at Americans' global surveillance program: NSA leak might lead to cancellation of Brazil state visit

Tim Johnson and Vinod Sreeharsha
McClatchy
Tue, 03 Sep 2013 11:59 UTC

Revelations of a U.S. spy program that allegedly allows digital surveillance of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico have drawn cries of indignation and anger in both nations, but the fallout may be strongest for U.S.-Brazil relations.

At stake is whether Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will cancel a planned state visit to Washington in October, the first offered by President Barack Obama this year, or will take action on digital security that may affect U.S. companies such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Brazil's O Globo television network reported Sunday night that the National Security Agency had spied on the emails, telephone calls and text messages of Rousseff and President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico. The report was based on documents obtained by journalist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, from Edward Snowden, a fugitive former NSA contractor who's living in Moscow.

Comment:

Latin America condemns U.S. espionage at United Nations Security Council
Miranda's rights: how Europe can learn from Latin America's independence

Hollande announces France will wait for UN report on chemical weapons in Syria

RFI
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 11:55 UTC

French President François Hollande said he is waiting for the report by UN inspectors on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

"We will wait for the report from inspectors while we wait for the US Congress [to make a decision]" said Hollande at the end of the two-day G20 meeting in St Petersburg, Russia.

His announcement comes amidst efforts by France and the US to garner support to prepare for military action in Syria following the use of chemical weapons that killed more than 1400 people.

He added that the UN report will only confirm if chemical weapons were indeed used, but not who used them. Both Paris and Washington maintain they have proof that chemical weapons were used by Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The French president acknowledged that the G20 made evident the rift between the member states with regards to the use of chemical weapons in the Syria.

"The report by the UN inspectors should ideally be delivered as soon as possible, which would be much appreciated by everyone" added Hollande.

American generals stand between war and peace

Wayne Madsen
Veterans Today
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 11:29 UTC

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, General Martin Dempsey, backed by his Joint Staff generals and admirals, stood between a hasty and knee-jerk President Obama who was intent on launching a military attack on Syria and a tenuous peace in the Middle East.

As of the evening of Friday, August 29, President Obama was on track to launch a sustained 72-hour cruise missile and drone attack on pre-selected air defense and other strategic military targets in Syria.

Obama had been convinced by his national security adviser Susan Rice, UN ambassador Samantha Power, and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, all «Responsibility to Protect» advocates, that he could trump congressional approval for his attack by claiming that humanitarian operations do not require approval under the War Powers Resolution or Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.Rhodes, who lacks any military experience, as is also the case with Rice and Power, is in his position because of his family ties. Rhodes's brother, David Rhodes, formerly an executive with Fox News, is the president of CBS News. In addition, the brother of Obama's special adviser, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is Ben Sherwood, President of ABC News. Power is married to Obama's former «information czar» Cass Sunstein, who developed methods to combat information unfriendly to the president through campaigns of «cognitive dissonance».

Fort Knox vault: The biggest government lie in history?

Louis Basenese
Wall Street Daily
Tue, 16 Jul 2013 10:52 UTC

What lies within the walls of Fort Knox?

Welcome to the world's most secure vault...

Completed in 1936, it's encased in 16,000 cubic feet of granite and 4,200 cubic yards of cement.

The vault door weighs an astounding 22 tons and is made of a 21-inch-thick material that's resistant to drills, torches and explosives.

It comes with a bombproof roof, too.

Additional layers of physical security include: video cameras, minefields, barbed wire, electric fences, armed guards - even unmarked Apache helicopter gunships.

Oh, and it's stationed on a 109,000-acre U.S. army post.

So what's inside?

Revealed: Why Gordon Brown sold Britain's gold at a knock-down price

Thomas Pascoe
The Telegraph
Thu, 05 Jul 2012 10:40 UTC

Britain's gold reserves were sold at a ludicrously low price

A great deal of Gordon Brown's economic strategy would strike a sane man as troubling. Not a great deal was mysterious. The orgy of consumption spending, frequent extensions of the cycle over which he would "borrow to invest", proclamations of the "end of boom and bust": these are part of the armoury of modern politicians, of all political hues.

One decision stands out as downright bizarre, however: the sale of the majority of Britain's gold reserves for prices between $256 and $296 an ounce, only to watch it soar so far as $1,615 per ounce today.

When Brown decided to dispose of almost 400 tonnes of gold between 1999 and 2002, he did two distinctly odd things.

Going to get a burger. Thanks In-N-Out!

nor

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Jibrish

The government gets so pissy about people who disobey their nutty orders. It's the same tactic used by Twitter mobs: you're not allowed to be...

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.. .. today's tipped: [Link]

Jibrish

Puppet Masters

Berlusconi 'paid Mafia bosses millions of euros in pact lasting decades'

Verify chemical weapons use before unleashing the dogs of war

Government wants to sequence DNA of all infants born in U.S.

U.S. evacuates non-essential staff from Lebanon, Turkey

Russia pledges to help Syria in case of U.S. war

Anger at Americans' global surveillance program: NSA leak might lead to cancellation of Brazil state visit

Hollande announces France will wait for UN report on chemical weapons in Syria

American generals stand between war and peace

Fort Knox vault: The biggest government lie in history?

Revealed: Why Gordon Brown sold Britain's gold at a knock-down price

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