Puppet MastersS


Newspaper

Deadline approaches for US State Department to answer to Indian PM Narendra Modi's human rights violation charges

Alex Ellefson
Alternet
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
A small human rights group refuses to let India's Prime Minister walk free for the 2002 Gujarat riots

Modi
© Wikimedia Commons
In 2002, the Indian province of Gujarat experienced one of the bloodiest instances of religious violence in the country's history. Following a train fire that killed 59 Hindus, riots erupted across the province that targeted the local Muslim minority. More than 300 mosques and other religious sites were destroyed. Muslim women were chased through the street, raped and burned alive. After three days of unrest, at least 1,000 people died and more than 16,000 Muslims were driven from their homes and became refugees.

A 2005 report by Amnesty International revealed that police stood by or even joined in the violence. And some suggest that police may have even been ordered by their superiors not to intervene.

Some of the blame has been directed at Gujarat's then-Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and India's National Human Rights Commission have accused Modi of not acting to stop the riots.

The accusations against Modi were enough for the United States to deny him a visa in 2005.

Comment: Modi may be guilty for the 12 year old communal violence -- so are countless other Indian politicians -- and he may pay the price for it in the future. That may come as a his failure to control his own hardline Hindu nationalist elements.

It's amazing how far United States is willing to go in prosecuting foreign political leaders -- who may, in fact, have committed crimes, but who also just happen to stand in the way of key American 'interests' -- when its own leaders are guilty of installing brutal dictators and are responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world.

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Dollar

GOP plans to rig U.S. Congress to embrace trickle-down 'voodoo economics'

Joshua Holland
Billmoyers.com
Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
Paul Ryan
© AP Photo/ Evan VucciHouse Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) laughs as he walks to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Oct. 11, 2013.
Republicans are signaling that when they take control of the Senate in January, they'll try to change the way a key government watchdog does math. If they get their way, it will effectively put a thumb on the scale of all future legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) informs virtually all of our political debates. Made up of non-partisan career technocrats, the CBO's most important function is to "score" proposed legislation, projecting how a bill would impact future budgets if it were passed. When the CBO concludes that a piece of legislation will increase future deficits, it provides a powerful argument against the measure. When they project that a proposal will shrink the government's debt, it allows proponents to claim that it's the "fiscally responsible" thing to do. Key findings from the CBO's reports are eagerly consumed and broadly disseminated by politicians, pundits and political reporters.

A number of Republicans have called for the CBO to incorporate what US News & World Report calls a "gimmick" that would result in tax cuts magically paying for themselves in future CBO scores. In fact, it would likely result in the CBO claiming that even deep tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy would result in more revenues coming into the government's coffers. We could have our cake and eat it, too!

Comment: In the post-911 era, it became normal for the U.S. government and Wall Street to change the criteria for economic indicators and to print currency whenever they want. The end result: the U.S. is no longer the world's largest economy.
The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in "real" terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion - compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.

As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese.


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Stop

Border, airport screening exempt from new U.S. profiling rules: Washington Post


RT
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 21:54 UTC
TSA checkpoint
© AFP
New federal restrictions on racial profiling will still allow some officials to use the controversial practice along the southwestern U.S. border and in screening of airline passengers, the Washington Post said.

The rules will ban racial profiling from national security cases for the first time and will bar the FBI from considering religion and national origin when opening a case, the newspaper said.

The guidelines have been the subject of sharp debate within President Barack Obama's administration concerning which agencies would be covered, the Post said. The FBI was concerned that they would hamper investigations while Department of Homeland Security officials argued that airport screeners and immigration and customs officials needed to consider many factors for the sake of security.

Comment: How many terrorists have the TSA captured with the racial profiling or invasive screening? Almost none. They are using these laws to remind the people that there is a 'security' problem, why? So that the security industrial complex can enrich itself. One more freedom down the drain, all in service of the great American pursuit of making a buck.

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Pills

We are Big Pharma's guinea pigs: 8 drugs used by millions before being pulled for dangerous side-effects

Martha Rosenberg
Alternet
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
gun pills
© Unknown
Blockbuster drugs like Viagra, Lipitor, Prozac and Nexium have made Big Pharma one of the nation's top industries. Even before direct-to-consumer advertising on TV, there were blockbuster drugs like Ritalin, Valium, Tagamet and Premarin. To be a blockbuster a drug has to 1) be usable by almost everyone; 2) be used every day; 3) be used indefinitely; 4) solve an everyday health problem like heartburn or high cholesterol; 5) have a fun or memorable ad campaign; 6) get social buzz; and 7) be sold to a large number of people quickly.

The last qualification - quick sales to millions - is crucial because Big Pharma has a small sales window before a patent runs out. But it's also dangerous because many risks don't emerge until millions take the drug so the public serves as unwitting guinea pigs. In fact, the "early user/guinea pig" factor is what sunk Vioxx 10 years ago.

Because of patent pressure, minor drug risks are often only admitted when the patent runs out, a ruse AlterNet has written about. But when risks can't be ignored, even if the drug is selling briskly, the drug will be unceremoniously withdrawn and seldom mentioned again. Here are some blockbusters in the drug graveyard that Big Pharma hopes we will forget about.

Comment: Whatever challenges the pharma (or any other) business may face, when their products continue to hurt customers, it becomes criminal activity. In fact, the Western world is ruled by psychopathic criminals funded by criminal corporations in pursuit of profit at the expense of everybody else.

What can be done? Knowledge can protect in unexpected ways. How did our ancestors survive without any modern-day medicine? Look for more information and make a conscious choice about your medicine, instead of blindly believing in the doctors and health authorities who are influenced by corporations. For more health articles, search Sott.net or visit our Health & Wellness section.

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Stop

Turkish-Russian deal taking effect? Turkey blocks 7000 ISIS supporters from entering Syria and Iraq


RT
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:21 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo/Adem AltanTurkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
Turkey has banned the entry of over 7,000 suspected foreign jihadists en route to Iraq and Syria, the country's Foreign Minister has announced.

At a two-day Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conference in Basel, Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu told his counterparts that Turkey's "no enter" list now includes some 7,200 names, reports the Andalou Agency. Turkish authorities have deported more than a thousand suspected foreign terrorists since 2011, the Minister said on Friday.

Cavusoglu noted that despite Turkey's efforts at keeping Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants out, they continue to breach the country's borders. IS leaders claim to have created an Islamic caliphate across large swaths of Iraq and Syria over the past year.

Comment: Remember Turkey? The country caught allowing supplies to cross the border to ISIS? Remember Erdogan, the country's president, to whom U.S. VP Joe Biden had to apologize after alleging Erdogan was allowing ISIS fighters to cross into Syria? Well just who do you think was arranging such actions to begin with? The Americans!

So, now that Russia has seemingly offered Turkey a better deal, are we in the process of seeing Turkey essentially pull a Nuland and say, "F*** the U.S."? Turkey has already refused to go along with the bovine NATO herd in their latest round of sanctions.

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Phoenix

Syria takes a stand: Moscow meetings with opposition planned, coalition with Russia forming


RT
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:01 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo/RaveendranBouthaina Shaaban, a cabinet-level adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
Syria's government and opposition will hold talks in Moscow on the resolution of the Syrian crisis, advisor to the Syrian president Bouthaina Shaaban told RT Arabic.

Syria and Russia agreed that the "intra-Syrian dialogue will begin in Moscow," Shaaban told RT Arabic during an interview in Damascus on Thursday.

She elaborated that Damascus has been in consultations with Moscow regarding "the starting point of this dialogue, its objectives, and mechanisms for its implementation, as well as the composition of its participants".

Prospects for using Moscow as a venue for contacts between the two sides of the Syrian conflict were in focus of talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary General's special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Thursday, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. During the meeting which took place in Switzerland's Basel the two parties agreed the top priority in the intra-Syrian talks anti-terrorism efforts.

Comment: Here we go! Syria is finally standing on its own two feet and unequivocally denouncing the U.S. airstrikes as illegal. In any sane world, such a blatant violation of another country's sovereignty would be considered a declaration of war. And yet the United States has the utter shamelessness and temerity to declare Russia a threat to world peace? It's enough to drive a thinking person mad.

This latest statement from Syria comes on he heels of Assad's recent interview to French media where he took a similar stance, which itself came after the top-level meeting with al-Moualem. It looks like Ziad Fadel's analysis in that last link may be very close to the mark!

It looks like Russia has once again taken the lead as the world's conscience, acting for real truth and justice. It's just a matter of how far the psychopathic U.S. is willing to drag the world down as it continues its mad rush to chaos, war, murder and rapacity. The U.S. is a complete disgrace, it's days are numbered, and its end cannot possibly come soon enough. The fate of the world depends on it.

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Chess

No surprise! Extra 1,000 US troops to stay in Afghanistan next year


RT
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 23:38 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Mark Wilson / PoolUS Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (L) speaks during a joint news conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the Presidential Palace in Kabul on December 6, 2014.
The US defense secretary Chuck Hagel on a visit to the Afghan capital Kabul has said that up to 1,000 US troops will not be withdrawn from Afghanistan as planned.


Comment: Is this Hagel's last hurrah in preparation for Ashton?


The extra troops will cover a temporary shortfall in NATO forces as the vast majority of them leave Afghanistan for good at the end of 2014.

"President Obama has provided US military commanders the flexibility to manage any temporary force shortfall that we might experience for a few months as we allow for coalition troops to arrive in theatre," Hagel told reporters.

Hagel's visit, which was unannounced, came just weeks before the official end to the NATO-led combat mission in the country, which began in 2001.The call comes during the worst spike in violence since 2001 and a number of bloody attacks on the capital.

"I have confidence that the Afghan security forces have the capacity to defend Kabul," Hagel told reporters before landing in Kabul.

Comment: And so it goes on and on and on. Obama signs secret order that expands US combat operation in Afghanistan

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Gold Seal

Uruguay's Mujica repeats offer to take in 'kidnapped' Gitmo prisoners


RT
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 19:13 UTC
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica
© AFP Photo / Rodrigo BuendiaUruguayan President Jose Mujica
The Uruguayan president has restated his offer to assume responsibility for six detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention center, while urging the White House to end the decades-long embargo on Cuba.

In an open letter published on his presidential website, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica called on President Barack Obama release the prisoners at Guantanamo, many who are being held without any charges, saying it would be a humanitarian gesture for "human beings who were suffering an atrocious kidnapping at Guantanamo."

Mujica initially made the offer in March that the South American country would receive the detainees, thus helping Obama fulfill his long-delayed pledge to shutter the facility, which Amnesty International once dubbed, "the Gulag of our times."


Comment: The new National Defense Act does not include the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.


Comment: Nice to know there are some leaders with human compassion.

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Arrow Up

'New war in Europe? Not in our name!' Germans fed-up with anti-Russian stance file petition


RT
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 14:27 UTC
Merkel and Putin
© AFP Photo / Yuri KadobnovGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin
A group of prominent Germans are urging their country and the West to open dialogue with Russia. They believe this is essential to ensure peace in Europe, rather than further isolate Moscow, which they say would be "dangerous for the world."

The petition named 'New war in Europe? Not in our name!' was signed by 60 people from Germany's politics, economy, culture and media sectors - among them former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and film director Wim Wenders.

The group, led by former Chancellor advisor Horst Teltschik, former Defense Secretary Walter Stutzle and the former Vice President of the Bunderstag, Antje Vollmer, said that just because Russia and the West are experiencing differences at the moment, it "does not mean that the progress that we have achieved over the last 25 years with Russia should be terminated," Telschik said.

Comment: As the German economy continues to suffer from sanctions imposed on Russia, and Russia is successfully countering the Western moves to isolate her, it seems more people are waking up to reality and daring to speak out. Let's hope this trend continues.

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Gem

Venezuela 'seizing' diamonds, precious metals to boost reserves


RT
Fri, 05 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
venezuela_daimond
© Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
The Central Bank of Venezuela is adding diamonds, gold and other precious stones and metals to its foreign reserves which have fallen to an 11-year low.

The bank said in a statement issued Thursday it intends to use a broader range of assets to increase international reserves, it will also include freely convertible foreign currencies.

Venezuela may also use Chinese loans in yuan to bolster its international reserves. Finance Minister Rodolfo Marco traveled this week to China to discuss potential deals.

The country's reserves are now at about $21.7 billion, after falling 28 percent in the last three years, that's despite a previous $4 billion loan from China.

Comment: Venezuela is one of the countries that is acquiring precious metals to bolster its reserves after Russia, China, Netherlands, France.

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