Puppet MastersS


Bell

Yemen's Food Crisis: 10 Million Starving

Omar Mashjari
Huffington Post
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:41 UTC
With the world's media attention focused on Yemen's fight against Al-Qaeda, you would probably be forgiven for not knowing that Yemenis are facing the worst hunger crisis since records began. The term 'food insecurity' is increasingly being associated with the once self-sufficient but improvised Yemen. In fact over 44% of Yemen's population will face a lack of food to eat this year alone and the UN says that 5m Yemenis are considered "extremely food insecure". The causes of this crisis range from a lack of political stability caused the 2011 revolution, failure to control and plan on behalf of the Yemeni government and the inability of donors states such as the US to view Yemen beyond the 'terrorism goggles'.

As it currently stands there are no two ways about it, Yemen is no longer on the brink of a catastrophic food crisis, but rather is now in the midst of a food catastrophe. Oxfam last September warned that Yemen was at breaking point, today one can freely admit that Yemen has broke. For example in al Hodeidah and Hajjah, one in three children are malnourished, which is double the standard emergency level. While the UN estimates that 267, 000 Yemeni children are facing life threatening levels of malnutrition. Yemen's food crisis presents a number of challenges to Yemenis across the political, economical and social spectrum. The previously already poor are on the verge of death, the once slim middle class are finding it hard to pay for life necessities, whilst the rich and often elite, find it much easier to spend their wealth.But it is children who bear the brunt of Yemen's food price escalation, as mothers are reportedly taking their children out of school to beg on the streets.
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Laptop

Australian government to collect all citizens' Internet records

Bianca Hall
Sydney Morning Herald
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:37 UTC
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Modelled on the US example, the Australian psychopathic regime is doing its part for Global Pathocracy
Laws passed today will allow authorities to collect and keep Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the laws would help police track cyber-criminals around the globe, and would give authorities the power to find people engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property.

The laws will also allow Australia to accede to the Council of Europe Convention on Cyber-crime, which has 34 members.

''Cyber-crime is a growing threat that touches all aspects of modern life,'' Ms Roxon said. ''It poses complex policy and law enforcement challenges, partly due to the transnational nature of the internet.''
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Footprints

Belize misses $23m interest payment as default looms


BBC
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:34 UTC
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Belize is in danger of defaulting on its debt after it missed a $23m (£14.6m) bond payment due on Monday.

The government still has a 30-day grace period to pay the interest, but said it was unlikely to be able to do so.

Creditors accuse Belize of trying to force a Greek-style debt restructuring on holders of the $550m bond, which represents half its public debt.

The row has drawn attention to Caribbean countries' growing debt burden amid falling tourism revenues.

Much of the region depends on tourists from Europe and the US for its income, but the global financial crisis has cut visitor numbers severely.
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Book

Propaganda Alert! Navy SEAL to Release Book on bin Laden Raid


CNN
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:48 UTC
Osama bin Laden
© Getty ImagesChildren are seen walking through a field near to the compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed.
A book company said Wednesday that it will release on September 11 a firsthand account of the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Christine Ball, director of marketing and publicity for Dutton, a subsidiary of Penguin Group USA, said the book was written by a Navy SEAL under a pen name.

The book is entitled No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden.

A Department of Defense official said the SEAL is no longer on active duty.

U.S. Special Operations Command has not reviewed the book or approved it, the official said. Officials only recently became aware the former SEAL was writing a book but were told it encompasses more than just the raid and includes vignettes from training and other missions.

They would like to see a copy, the official said, to make sure no classified information is released or the book contains any information that might out one of the team members.

Officials have been told that some of the profits are going to charity.
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Bad Guys

Tilling the Ground for the Seeds of Terrorism

Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Information Clearing House
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:03 UTC
al-qaeda members
After more than 10 years of war against al Qaeda and the accompanying global "war on terrorism," we have failed to learn that our actions create reactions. Our presence creates destabilization, then radicalization. Occupations create insurgencies. In Afghanistan, we have fueled the very insurgency we struggle to fight.

Al Qaeda had relatively little if any presence in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the subsequent destruction and violence, enabled al Qaeda to flourish. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are now conducting an accelerated campaign of relentless attacks and suicide bombings in Iraq.

Last year's intervention in Libya is another example. The U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies spurred a civil war, taking sides despite persistent questions about the nature of the opposition. The war and the chaos that followed have allowed radical groups to gain another foothold.
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USA

Best of the Web: Why the US is Out to Get Julian Assange

Seumas Milne
The Guardian
Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:56 UTC
flag gag
© Oli Scarff/Getty

Considering he made his name with the biggest leak of secret government documents in history, you might imagine there would be at least some residual concern for Julian Assange among those trading in the freedom of information business. But the virulence of British media hostility towards the WikiLeaks founder is now unrelenting.

This is a man, after all, who has yet to be charged, let alone convicted, of anything. But as far as the bulk of the press is concerned, Assange is nothing but a "monstrous narcissist", a bail-jumping "sex pest" and an exhibitionist maniac. After Ecuador granted him political asylum and Assange delivered a "tirade" from its London embassy's balcony, fire was turned on the country's progressive president, Rafael Correa, ludicrously branded a corrupt "dictator" with an "iron grip" on a benighted land.

The ostensible reason for this venom is of course Assange's attempt to resist extradition to Sweden (and onward extradition to the US) over sexual assault allegations - including from newspapers whose record on covering rape and violence against women is shaky, to put it politely. But as the row over his embassy refuge has escalated into a major diplomatic stand-off, with the whole of South America piling in behind Ecuador, such posturing looks increasingly specious.

Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm?
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Chess

Russia warns Obama against violation of international law over Syria


NBC News
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:45 UTC
Russia rebuffed President Barack Obama's threat of unilateral action against Syria Tuesday, as officials said 2,500 refugees fled across the border into Turkey in just 24 hours - one of the highest daily refugee flows of recent weeks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking after meeting China's top diplomat, said Moscow and Beijing were committed to "the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law ... and not to allow their violation".

Obama on Monday threatened "enormous consequences" if his Syrian counterpart used chemical or biological arms or even moved them in a menacing way.

The president used some of his strongest language yet to warn Assad not to use chemical or biological weapons - after Syria acknowledged for the first time that it had such weapons and could use them if foreign countries attacked it.

Comment: Could Western media be more complicit in fanning the flames and justifying U.S. intervention?

The reference to Iraq and Saddam by Russia's Lavrov is weak in stating facts. It could be the media who isn't expressing his words or it could be Lavrov isn't sharing the obvious. Saddam got his WMD's from the United States to fight against Iran well before the first Gulf war.

"..Still had the receipts.."



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Arrow Down

Risk of US double-dip recession rises, warns Standard & Poor's


The Extinction Protocol
Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:37 UTC
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The odds the United States will slip back into recession next year have risen, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said, citing risks from the European debt crisis and budget tightening at year-end. The US ratings firm raised the chance of the US falling into recession to 25 percent, up from a 20 percent chance estimated in February, as the world's largest economy struggles to recover from a severe 2008-2009 slump.

It also pointed to the looming possibility of the government being forced by existing law to severely cut spending and increase taxes on January 1, the so-called fiscal cliff that would crunch the economy. "Economic activity has downshifted sharply from earlier this year," S&P said in a report on North American credit conditions amid global uncertainty, dated August 20. "At the same time, possible contagion from the European debt crisis, the potential so-called 'fiscal cliff', and the risk of a hard landing for China's economy have added greater uncertainty to US economic prospects," it said.
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Stormtrooper

Economic collapse fears lead Governments to remove civilian protections from military; Germany is latest

Kenneth Shortgen Jr.
examiner.com
Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:35 UTC
riot police
© subrealism.blogspot.com Riot Police
On Aug. 17, Germany became the latest country to remove longstanding protections for civilian populations from military intervention in domestic conflicts. In a new court ruling, which repealed laws created out of the Nazi era in Germany, the government can now use the military against citizens in extreme cases, joining the U.S. and other nation states who have removed the dividing line between civilian and military policing.
The German military will in future be able to use its weapons on German streets in an extreme situation, the Federal Constitutional Court says.
The ruling says the armed forces can be deployed only if Germany faces an assault of "catastrophic proportions", but not to control demonstrations. - BBC

Comment: Remember this?

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Alarm Clock

Iran Ups Military Production by 21%


Fars News Agency
Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:50 UTC
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© Fars News AgencyIranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced on Tuesday that the number of military products manufactured by the Iranian Defense Ministry has witnessed a 21% growth this year.

Addressing a ceremony on the occasion of the National Day of the Defense Industry today, Vahidi said that defense products in Iran are unique in terms of quantity and variety, irrespective of all the pressures and restrictions imposed against Iran in the global market.

"We in Iran's defense industry have 1,436 different products with an almost limited market and that means we have been able to commercialize through indigenization," the minister underlined.

He announced that the defense ministry produced 192 products in the last Iranian year (ended on March 19), and added, "We at the defense ministry had a 21% growth in production, 178% increase in technology and inventions, 286% growth in academic projects and a 138% boost in the number of the industrial projects which have been accomplished."
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