Puppet MastersS


Bomb

US chemical battalion in South Korea


Press TV
Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:33 UTC
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Soldiers of the US Army 23rd chemical battalion pictured on April 4, 2013 while showing their equipment.
The United States has deployed a battalion equipped to deal with nuclear, biological and chemical attacks in South Korea after North Korea threatened to attack the US with 'nuclear weapons.'

Reports say about 250 soldiers from the US Army 23rd chemical battalion have returned to South Korea. The troops are stationed at Camp Stanley in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul.

Meanwhile, North Korea's Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) has said that the deployment is a revelation of the criminal attempt of the United States to impose nuclear disasters on the Korean nation.
"During the Korean War, the US indiscriminately used germ and chemical weapons against the Korean people, stunning the world," the CPRK stated on Wednesday. "The US now seeks to make such crimes against humanity repeat."
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Bad Guys

Italy seizes Mafia-tied clean energy assets


Aljazeera
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:30 UTC
Mafia Boss
© EPAThe assets belonged to a businessman with ties to fugitive Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro (pictured).
Italian police have seized assets worth $1.7bn from a Sicilian renewable energy developer in the biggest ever seizure of mafia-linked assets.

The police said on Wednesday that the assets, which include 43 wind and solar energy companies, 98 properties and 66 bank accounts, belonged to Vito Nicastri, a 57-year-old businessman nicknamed the "Lord of the Wind" for his prominent role in the business.

"This is a sector in which money can easily be laundered," Arturo de Felice, head of Italy's anti-Mafia agency, told SkyTG24 news channel.

"Operating in a grey area helped him build up his business over the years," De Felice said.
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Eye 2

Rep. Peter King: U.S. could make preemptive strike on North Korea

Justin Sink
The Hill
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:58 UTC
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© AP Photo/J. Scott ApplewhiteRep. Peter King
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday that the United States had the right to take preemptive military action against North Korea if there was "solid evidence" that Kim Jon Un planned to attack the U.S. or South Korea.

"If we have good reason to believe there's going to be an attack, I believe we have the right to take preemptive action," King said on CNN's "Erin Burnett Outfront."

"I don't think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way," he continued. "I'm not saying we should be rushing into war, don't get me wrong, but if we have solid evidence that North Korea's going to take action, then I think we have a moral obligation and an absolute right to defend ourselves."

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Question

Why Do G.M.O.'s Need Protection?

Mark Bittman
New York Times
Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:24 UTC
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© foodsafetynews.com
Genetic engineering in agriculture has disappointed many people who once had hopes for it. Excluding, of course, those who've made money from it, appropriately represented in the public's mind by Monsanto. That corporation, or at least its friends, recently managed to have an outrageous rider slipped into the 587-page funding bill Congress sent to President Obama.[1]

The rider essentially prohibits the Department of Agriculture from stopping production of any genetically engineered crop once it's in the ground, even if there is evidence that it is harmful.

That's a pre-emptive Congressional override of the judicial system, since it is the courts that are most likely to ask the U.S.D.A. to halt planting or harvest of a particular crop. President Obama signed the bill last week (he kind of had to, to prevent a government shutdown) without mentioning the offensive rider [2] (he might have), despite the gathering of more than 250,000 signatures protesting the rider by the organization Food Democracy Now!

Comment: A Government of Monsanto, by Monsanto, and for Monsanto
With help from the FDA and USDA, the biotech industry is set to completely take over our food supply with genetically modified ingredients, irregardless of the wishes of "we the people." Through collusion, subterfuge, and a bit of back-door manipulation, Monsanto can write it's own ticket with the U.S. Federal Government's stamp of approval. If the rules get in the way, then change the rules, or at least their interpretation, to fit the situation.

It appears that instead of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, our Federal Government should more accurately be described as a government of Monsanto, by Monsanto, and for Monsanto.


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Stormtrooper

Sam Harris, the New Atheists and anti-Muslims - A cover for U.S. militarism

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:56 UTC
Sam Harris
© David Levene for the GuardianSam Harris: "We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim"
A long overdue debate breaks out about whether rational atheism is being used as a cover for Islamophobia and US militarism

Two columns have been published in the past week harshly criticizing the so-called "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens: this one by Nathan Lean in Salon, and this one by Murtaza Hussain in Al Jazeera. The crux of those columns is that these advocates have increasingly embraced a toxic form of anti-Muslim bigotry masquerading as rational atheism. Yesterday, I posted a tweet to Hussain's article without comment except to highlight what I called a "very revealing quote" flagged by Hussain, one in which Harris opined that "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists."
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USA

U.S. sending defensive missiles to Guam


CNN
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:55 UTC
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The defense system includes missiles, a truck-mounted launcher and radar
The U.S. military is sending a land-based missile defense system to Guam to defend against possible North Korean ballistic missile launches, according to a news release from the Department of Defense.

The statement said the missiles, a truck-mounted launcher, and radar and target acquisition systems will be deployed in the "coming weeks."
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Gold Seal

Syria is a battle for Palestine

Nadezhda Kevorkova
RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:25 UTC
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The poster with Ahmad Djibril's portrait in the Palestinian camp
One of the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command is located in a basement in central Damascus.

All secrecy measures are there: one cannot drive through the area; hidden guerillas everywhere, and several dozen CCTV cameras. This is the Palestinian group whose headquarters and weapons were seized in December last year by the Syrian militants in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria near Damascus.

Several people are sitting in a small room. These are: member of the PFLP GC Political Bureau Anwar Raja, editor in chief of the Palestinian Forward magazine, Tahsin Al Hаlabi, and about five other companions who come and go while we speak.

Anwar Raja was born in Jaffa. He was ten when the Palestinians were thrown out of the Holy Land. He experienced all the tribulations of the Palestinian struggle firsthand. And Tahsin Al Hаlabi was only 10 months old when his family had to leave their home.

'I was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in an Israeli prison for the right to see my home. During my time in Nablus prison I learned English, French, German, and Italian. And I speak Hebrew better than settlers in Israel', he laughs.

'In order to free him from captivity, we seized three Israeli soldiers', recalls Anwar Raja.

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In a reserve staff in Damascus, at the left - the member of the politburo of Anwar Raja, on the right - Tahsin al Halabi, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the PFLP front
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Arrow Down

Green Success - Afghanistan joins The Kyoto Protocol

Tory Aardvark
Tory Aardvark
Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:33 UTC
Kyoto Protocol
© Tory AardvarkAfghanistan now it has joined the Kyoto Protocol is an ideal environment for rich countries to invest in solar and wind farms, as this quiet pastoral scene shows.
When this story first surfaced, the initial reaction was, April Fools day joke, how could a country with one of the lowest per capita emissions signing up to a treaty that expired on December 31st 2012 be hailed as a Green success story.

The world's only treaty for fear of CO2, the Kyoto Protocol ended along with 2012 on December 31st, attempts to keep it alive at COP18 failed, an attempt at a new Kyoto 2 was ignored by most of the world, except the EU and grasping hands of the small islands states demanding their climate justice money.

All search engines confirm this story to be true, such is the state of decline of Big Green these days that a negligible emitter joining a now defunct treaty is a cause for celebration:
Afghanistan has taken another step towards implementing its national climate strategy by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

The move makes it the 192nd country or regional economic integration organization to sign up to the treaty, which will come into force for Afghanistan on June 23 this year.

Classed as a developing or Non-Annex I country, it will not have to adopt any binding emission targets, but will be required to draw-up plans to develop a low carbon energy and transport system.

Joining Kyoto also allows the country to take part in the UN's international emissions trading programmes; raising the prospect of richer nations investing in renewable energy and similar low carbon schemes in Afghanistan.
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Health

Syria war: March was conflict's deadliest month


YouTube
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:05 UTC
More than 6,000 people died in Syria in March, the deadliest month since protests against the government began two years ago, activists say.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group, said it recorded 6,005 deaths last month.
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Bizarro Earth

2,000-year-old Damascus synagogue destroyed


RT
Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:56 UTC
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© Screenshot from youtube.com @Jobar Revo
The holiest Jewish site in Syria - the 2,000-year-old Jobar Synagogue in Damascus - has been looted and burned, and its roof blown off. The Syrian army and rebel forces have both blamed each other for the demolition of the historic landmark.

It is believed that the Jobar Synagogue, one of the world's oldest, was built atop a cave where the Prophet Elijah once hid from persecution. One of the earliest historical mentions of the synagogue can be found in the Talmud.

According to Israel Radio, the rebels claimed that the Syrian government looted the synagogue before burning it to the ground. Meanwhile, the government alleged that the rebels had burned down the synagogue. It has also been claimed that "Zionist agents" stole historic artifacts from the holy site as part of a planned operation, Al-Manar Television reported.

Earlier this year, the Jobar synagogue was damaged by shells reportedly fired by Syrian government forces. A video uploaded by the Syrian opposition in early March exposed the damage done to the structure.
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