Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

Criminalising journalism: Obama administration facing widespread backlash over seized phone records

Nikhil Kumar
The Independent
Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Doug Mills/The New York TimesAttorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. defended the seizure of journalists’ telephone records, calling an article one of “the top two or three most serious leaks” in decades.

The Obama administration has been accused of criminalising the press, as US lawmakers called for an independent investigator to look into the way the Justice Department conducts cases involving reporters.

President Barack Obama is facing widespread criticism for the aggressive way in which his government investigates leaks, after it emerged that officials had secretly seized phone records from the Associated Press and monitored personal emails of the Fox News reporter James Rosen.

Mr Obama last week directed his Attorney General, Eric Holder, to review the Justice Department's procedures. Mr Holder is due to report back in July - but his position as the head of the department at the centre of the controversy has led lawmakers to question whether he is the right person to lead the review.
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Arrow Down

Illinois illegally seizes bees resistant to Monsanto's Roundup; Kills remaining Queens


Global Research News
Fri, 24 May 2013 16:54 UTC
Rope Test for Foulbrood
© GlobalResearchNews
The Illinois Ag Dept. illegally seized privately owned bees from renowned naturalist, Terrence Ingram, without providing him with a search warrant and before the court hearing on the matter, reports Prairie Advocate News.

Behind the obvious violations of his Constitutional rights is Monsanto. Ingram was researching Roundup's effects on bees, which he's raised for 58 years. "They ruined 15 years of my research," he told Prairie Advocate, by stealing most of his stock.

A certified letter from the Ag Dept.'s Apiary Inspection Supervisor, Steven D. Chard, stated:
"During a routine inspection of your honeybee colonies by ... Inspectors Susan Kivikko and Eleanor Balson on October 23, 2011, the bacterial disease 'American Foulbrood' was detected in a number of colonies located behind your house.... Presence of the disease in some of your colonies was confirmed via test results from the USDA Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland that analyzed samples collected from your apiary...."
Ingram can prove his bees did not have foulbrood, and planned to do so at a hearing set in April, but the state seized his bees at the end of March. They have not returned them and no one at the Ag Dept. seems to know where his bees are.
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Eye 1

'See Something, Say Something' Propaganda: DHS Pushes Fear on Indy 500

Melissa Melton
Activitst Post
Mon, 27 May 2013 00:00 UTC
Homeland Security is quickly taking over all our major sporting events. What's next? Shopping malls? Hospitals? Grocery stores? (Terrorists gotta eat, after all). Your porch? The TSA has caught a lot of terrorists you know (or none ever).

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Dollar

IMF chief Lagarde avoids charges in French payout scandal


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 27 May 2013 09:14 UTC
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Do as I say, not as I do
IMF chief Christine Lagarde avoided immediate charges Friday but was named an "assisted witness" after French prosecutors grilled her for two days over a state payout to a disgraced tycoon when she was finance minister.

"My status as assisted witness is not a surprise," she told reporters.

"I have always acted in the best public interest and in accordance with the law."

The status of assisted witness falls between that of simple witness and being placed under formal investigation and implies there is some evidence against the person questioned.

"My explanations came as a response to the doubts that had been brought up regarding the decisions I had taken at the time," Lagarde said, adding that she was heading back to Washington to brief the board of the International Monetary Fund.

Lagarde, 57, was questioned for a total of 24 hours by prosecutors working for a court that probes cases of ministerial misconduct over her 2007 handling of a row that resulted in 400 million euros ($515 million) being paid to controversial business figure Bernard Tapie.

Had she been charged Lagarde's future would have been in question, though the IMF expressed confidence in its first woman leader.
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Dollar Gold

Flashback The interests behind France's intervention in Mali

Rachel Baig
DW
Wed, 16 Jan 2013 09:05 UTC
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French soldiers, mercenaries for Areva and other French monopolists
France has intervened in Mali in an effort to stop the advance of Islamist rebels - at the request of the government in Bamako and with the UN's blessing. But critics accuse Paris of pursuing a neo-colonialist agenda.

It's unclear how long France's military campaign in Mali will last, since preventing radical Islamists from taking control of the country requires stabilizing the region for the long term. The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), a Göttingen-based NGO, has called on France to present a realistic plan for achieving its goals.

"After all, the Islamists will use their old strategy and pull back quickly in order to regroup with the protection of mountains and caves," explained STP spokesperson Ulrich Delius.

Officially, President Francois Hollande's government says that security interests explain its decision to intervene, and Paris insists it wants to act early to prevent the rebels in Western Africa from becoming a danger to Europe.

Comment: Make no mistake about it; just as France and friends created 'the terrorist threat' in Libya and Syria, so they did in Mali and Niger.

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Bomb

Self-inflicted wound: Car bombings in Niger target French-run uranium plant, army base as Hollande vows to 'destroy' attackers


Naharnet
Thu, 23 May 2013 08:43 UTC
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What better way to fight a war on terror than to create and control the terrorists to do exactly what you need them to do?
Twin car bombings at an army base and a French-run uranium mine in northern Niger killed at least 10 people Thursday, in unprecedented attacks claimed by an Islamist group fighting French-led troops in neighboring Mali.

The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) claimed the bombings, calling them punishment for Niger's participation in a French-led military offensive against Islamist extremists who had seized control of northern Mali last year and ruled it under a brutal version of Islamic law for some 10 months.

"Thanks to Allah, we have carried out two operations against the enemies of Islam in Niger," MUJAO spokesman Abu Walid Sahraoui told Agence France Presse.

"We attacked France and Niger for its cooperation with France in the war against sharia (Islamic law)."

Comment: Fomenting terrorism: Mysterious fatal crash offers rare look at U.S. commando presence in Mali (July 9, 2012)

French special forces 'to protect' Niger uranium mines (Jan 24, 2013)

The U.S. was operating in Mali months prior to French incursion: Meet the "intelligence and security command"

Blonde haired, blue-eyed American and Canadian 'terrorists' led international 'al Qaeda' brigade in siege on BP gas plant in Algeria, while 'English-speaking Islamic militants of European appearance' roam Mali

France launches war in Mali in bid to secure resources, stamp out national rights struggles

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Dollars

French government ministers implicated in scandal to use police to protect themselves from tax evasion


The Local
Tue, 21 May 2013 08:35 UTC
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© AFPDo as we say, not as we do
High ranking ministers in the French government can expect a grilling in the coming days as an investigation into a tax fraud scandal got underway on Tuesday. The probe was set up after the former budget minister admitted having a secret bank account.

France's parliament on Tuesday kicked off a high-profile public probe into a major tax fraud scandal that has shaken the Socialist government and the squeaky-clean image it is seeking to project.

The special parliamentary commission will examine whether the government mishandled the scandal, in which former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac repeatedly lied about owning an undeclared foreign bank account.

Political heavyweights such as Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, Interior Minister Manuel Valls and Justice Minister Christiane Taubira will be given a grilling, as will Cahuzac himself.

On Tuesday, journalists at investigative news website Mediapart - which broke the story in December - kicked off proceedings by alleging police interference in the case.
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Star of David

An endless "Peace Process" for Palestine

David Swanson
War Is Crime
Mon, 27 May 2013 04:56 UTC
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The United States balances its endless war of terrorism with the institution of an endless "peace process" for Palestine, a process valuable for its peaceyness and interminability.

Josh Ruebner's new book, Shattered Hopes: The Failure of Obama's Middle East Peace Process, could just as easily have been called "Fulfilled Expectations: The Success of Obama's Middle East Peace Process," depending on one's perspective. Its story could be summarized: Obama's performance in this area has been of a piece with his performance in every other. Some people became very hopeful about his rhetoric and then very dejected about his actions.

In this case, among those getting hopeful were Palestinian negotiators. But they didn't just grow depressed and despondent. They felt no obligation to behave like Democratic voters. They swore off the Hopium and went to work on an international approach through the United Nations that has begun to pay off.

Obama began his "peace process" efforts "naively unprepared for the intensity of the pushback from Israel and its supporters in the United States to its demand that Israel freeze settlements," Ruebner writes. But evidence of Obama's mental state is hard to pin down, and I'm not sure of the relevance. Whether Obama began with naive good intentions or the same cynicism that he was, by all accounts, fully immersed in by his second or third year in office, the important point remains the same. As Ruebner explains, Obama employs an all-carrots / no-sticks approach with Israel that is doomed to failure.
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Vader

Best of the Web: Memorial Day THIS

David Swanson
War Is Crime
Mon, 27 May 2013 04:53 UTC
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Imagine if at some point during the 1990s or 1980s the President of the United States had given a speech. And this was his speech:
My fellow Americans, I've been regularly shooting missiles into people's houses in several countries. I've wiped out families. I've killed thousands of people. Hundreds of them have been little children.

I've killed grandparents, wives, daughters, neighbors. I've targeted people without knowing their names but because they appeared to be resisting an occupation of their country. I've killed whoever was too near them. Then I've shot another missile a few minutes later to kill whoever was trying to help the victims.

I don't charge these people with crimes. I don't seek their extradition. I don't even try to kidnap them. And I don't do this to defend against any imminent threat. I don't make you safer by doing this. It goes without saying (although the people in the countries I target keep saying it) that I'm generating more new enemies than I'm killing. But I urge you to remember this: All but four of the people I've killed have been non-U.S. citizens.
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Bomb

We've moved on from the Iraq war - but Iraqis don't have that choice

John Pilger
The Guardian
Sun, 26 May 2013 13:00 UTC
iraq
© ReutersIraq's ministry of social affairs estimates 4.5 million children have lost one or both parents. This means 14% of the population are orphans.
Like characters from The Great Gatsby, Britain and the US have arrogantly turned their backs and left a country in ruins

The dust in Iraq rolls down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming children kicking a ball; and it carries, according to Dr Jawad Al-Ali, "the seeds of our death". An internationally respected cancer specialist at the Sadr teaching hospital in Basra, Dr Ali told me that in 1999, and today his warning is irrefutable. "Before the Gulf war," he said, "we had two or three cancer patients a month. Now we have 30 to 35 dying every month. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48% of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long after. That's almost half the population. Most of my own family have it, and we have no history of the disease. It is like Chernobyl here; the genetic effects are new to us; the mushrooms grow huge; even the grapes in my garden have mutated and can't be eaten."

Along the corridor, Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician, kept a photo album of the children she was trying to save. Many had neuroblastoma. "Before the war, we saw only one case of this unusual tumour in two years," she said. "Now we have many cases, mostly with no family history. I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. The sudden increase of such congenital malformations is the same."
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