Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Alabama coal billionaire sued for murder for hiring Colombian death squads

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Gustavo Soler knew he was in trouble. It was 2001, and Soler was union president at a coal mine in Colombia owned by Drummond Co., which is controlled by the wealthiest family in Alabama.

Soler's predecessor, Valmore Locarno, and Locarno's deputy, Victor Orcasita, had been killed seven months earlier, and now Soler was getting threats, says his widow, Nubia, in an interview in Bogota. He told his family to pack up. They would leave the area as soon as he got home from the union office in Valledupar, a city in the country's coal belt. He never made it.

Armed men stopped his bus, asked for him by name and abducted him. He was found under a pile of banana leaves with two bullet holes in his head, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its August issue.

War Whore

Best of the Web: Obama's secret kill list - How the 'war on terror' entraps 'database' patsies in the disposition matrix

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When Bilal Berjawi spoke to his wife for the last time, he had no way of being certain that he was about to die. But he should have had his suspicions.

A short, dumpy Londoner who was not, in the words of some who knew him, one of the world's greatest thinkers, Berjawi had been fighting for months in Somalia with al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant group. His wife was 4,400 miles away, at home in west London. In June 2011, Berjawi had almost been killed in a US drone strike on an al-Shabaab camp on the coast. After that he became wary of telephones. But in January last year, when his wife went into labour and was admitted to St Mary's hospital in Paddington, he decided to risk a quick phone conversation.

A few hours after the call ended Berjawi was targeted in a fresh drone strike. Perhaps the telephone contact triggered alerts all the way from Camp Lemmonier, the US military's enormous home-from-home at Djibouti, to the National Security Agency's headquarters in Maryland. Perhaps a few screens also lit up at GCHQ in Cheltenham? This time the drone attack was successful, from the US perspective, and al-Shabaab issued a terse statement: "The martyr received what he wished for and what he went out for."

The following month, Berjawi's former next-door neighbour, who was also in Somalia, was similarly "martyred". Like Berjawi, Mohamed Sakr had just turned 27 when he was killed in an air strike.

Comment: As explained above, "al-Qaida's resilience and ability to spread" is entirely down to US and UK intelligence agencies who understand that the only real threat out there is the threat they face from the masses ever seeing what's really going on and removing them from power.


Dollar

Prince Charles to be challenged by MPs over his tax affairs

Prince Charles
© Press TV
Parliament has had its hands full in recent months, with investigations ongoing into the tax arrangements of various multinational corporation.

Following the tax scandal of several big corporations like Google, Amazon and Starbucks, now the tax affairs of Prince Charles has made the headlines across the country. An influential committee of MPs is going to see whether Prince Charles is paying enough taxes.

The last time Prince Charles's representatives were in front of parliament he was accused of being the recipient of the biggest housing benefit scheme in the country. And Margaret Hodge, chairwoman of the committee stated she was uncomfortable with the prince's tax arrangements.

So what are the numbers? As of 2011, the Duchy was estimated to be worth £762 million with about 131,000 acres of land. The prince was last year paid a record £19million, from which he wrote off almost £11 million as expenses for staff and to the different charities he is a patron of. However he paid only £4.4 million in income tax.

As a crown body, the duchy is exempt from paying corporation tax. The £4.4 million he did pay as income tax is completely voluntary on his part and is paid at the highest rate.

While laudable, would any other citizens be allowed to choose whether they'd like to pay tax or not?

Arrow Down

Pharma giant in bribery scandal in China

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© Desconocido
Beijing -- Senior executives at Britain's largest drugmaker, GlaxoSmithKline, allegedly accepted cash rake-offs and paid bribes to officials and doctors to boost sales and prices of its drugs in China, police said on Monday.

The company allegedly used at least four travel agencies to funnel more than 3 billion yuan ($489 million) in bribes since 2007, said Gao Feng, an economic crimes investigator with the Ministry of Public Security.

Some travel agencies had offered sexual services to senior executives in GSK for four years to maintain business contacts, police said.

This case, a focal event of the industry, is believed by insiders to act as an wake-up call for China's pharmaceuticals sector.

The company said in a statement on Monday it was "deeply concerned and disappointed by these serious allegations of fraudulent behavior and ethical misconduct by certain individuals at the company and third-party agencies.

"GSK has zero tolerance for any behavior of this nature. GSK shares the desire of the Chinese authorities to root out corruption. These allegations are shameful and we regret this has occurred."

It pledged to "cooperate fully" with Chinese investigating authorities and said it had stopped using the travel agencies that have been identified so far.

USA

Best of the Web: Coup d'etat: Americans oppressed by an unconstitutional, illegitimate, psychopathic regime

US empire
© Unknown
The American people have suffered a coup d'etat, but they are hesitant to acknowledge it. The regime ruling in Washington today lacks constitutional and legal legitimacy. Americans are ruled by usurpers who claim that the executive branch is above the law and that the US Constitution is a mere "scrap of paper."

An unconstitutional government is an illegitimate government. The oath of allegiance requires defense of the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." As the Founding Fathers made clear, the main enemy of the Constitution is the government itself. Power does not like to be bound and tied down and constantly works to free itself from constraints.

The basis of the regime in Washington is nothing but usurped power. The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy. Americans are oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force. Those in government see the US Constitution as a "chain that binds our hands."

The South African apartheid regime was more legitimate than the regime in Washington. The apartheid Israeli regime in Palestine is more legitimate. The Taliban are more legitimate. Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were more legitimate.

The only constitutional protection that the Bush/Obama regime has left standing is the Second Amendment, a meaningless amendment considering the disparity in arms between Washington and what is permitted to the citizenry. No citizen standing with a rifle can protect himself and his family from one of the Department of Homeland Security's 2,700 tanks, or from a drone, or from a heavily armed SWAT force in body armor.

Attention

9/11 could be insurance fraud as "trial" of conspiring duo begins in NY today

Twin Towers
© Press TVThe photo shows the Twin Towers in New York on fire after planes hit them on September 11, 2001.
Is this the world's worst case of insurance fraud...ever?

That's what many are saying, as the world's biggest real-estate swindler and the world's most corrupt judge meet in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. At issue: billions of dollars in loot from the demolition of the World Trade Center complex on September 11th, 2001.

World Trade Center owner Larry Silverstein - who confessed on national television to "pulling" World Trade Center Building 7 - will appear in the courtroom of Judge Alvin Hellerstein at 500 Pearl St. in New York City. The non-jury trial, which is expected to last three days, will decide whether Silverstein is entitled to recover $3.5 billion from airlines and airport-related companies, in addition to the $4.9 billion he has already received for his "losses" on September 11th.

The question on everyone's mind is: Why is Silverstein claiming that airliners destroyed his buildings, when he has already confessed to demolishing at least one of them himself? In the 2002 PBS documentary America Rebuilds, Silverstein admitted to complicity in the controlled demolition of WTC-7, a 47-story skyscraper that dropped into its own footprint in 6.5 seconds.

The mysterious destruction of Building 7 has become the Rosetta Stone of 9/11. Virtually all independent experts who have studied the case, including thousands of architects and engineers, agree that the government's explanation - that a few small office fires somehow destroyed WTC-7 - is a non-starter. Building 7, these experts say, was obviously taken down in a controlled demolition, as Silverstein himself admitted. (A nationwide ad campaign called "Re-Think 9/11" will remind millions of Americans about Building 7 this September.)

Stormtrooper

Russian military stages biggest war games since Soviet times

160,000 servicemen, 1000 tanks, 130 planes and 70 ships are taking part in Russia's biggest military drill since Soviet times. The war games will continue in the country's Far East until July 20.


The maneuvers are the latest in series of surprise military checks which performed by Russia, in an effort to reveal and oust flaws in the country's defense program.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu received an order to test the battle readiness of the Eastern command, which unites military forces in the Far East and Trans-Baikal. The request was received from President Vladimir Putin at 01:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Saturday, July 13.

Following the order, 160,000 servicemen were put on high alert and began advancing toward the training sites.

According to the Defense Ministry, around 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130 planes and helicopters, and 70 ships are taking part in the war games.

Military commanders in the Far East and Trans-Baikal learned of the drill's details only after it had begun, receiving a secret parcel from Defense Minister Shoygu.

"The main purpose of the activities is to check the readiness of the military units to perform assigned tasks and evaluate of the level of personnel's training and technical preparation as well as the level of equipment of units with arms and military equipment," the defense ministry said in statement.
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© RIA Novosti / Andrei AleksandrovSu-27 fighter
The statement noted that the drill would require some units to travel more than 3,000 kilometers from their usual deployment sites. Seven hundred flat wagons and 50 railway cars were assigned to perform the transfer.

The ground forces have been given two days to reach their destination. They have been tasked with pitching field camps, masking their positions, and organizing defense strategies upon arrival.

Bomb

Flashback Nigerian ex-official: Government agents behind bombings


The former governor of Abia State in South East Nigeria Orji Uzo Kalu says many Nigerians are aware that security agents were behind some of the bombings in Northern Nigeria but cannot speak for fear of reprisals. Kalu says the security agents are behind these attacks in order to drag fund from the federal government.

However, police has rejected these allegations, saying it will not be distracted from its serious job of protecting lives and property.

Bomb

Egypt-Israel gas pipeline blown up in Sinai (again)

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A pipeline delivering gas from Egypt to Israel burns following an attack on September 27, 2011, near the town of al-Arish in the northern Sinai.
A section of an Egyptian pipeline supplying gas to Israel and Jordan has been blown up in the Lehfin area south of the city of al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula.

The attack on the gas pipeline occurred early on Sunday on two points on the pipeline and started fires, according to Egyptian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The fires were extinguished, but the flow of gas was disrupted, they added.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The pipeline was attacked several times in 2011 and 2012, but this was the first time the energy link was attacked this year.

Bad Guys

Flashback Nigerian terror group Boko Haram executing increasingly sophisticated terror attacks, operations linked to Mossad and the CIA

The geo-strategists' goal, according to one analyst in the following Press TV report, is to split Nigeria into more manageable statelets, then secure the country's vast oil reserves for Western elites.