Puppet MastersS


Stock Down

French budget minister faces tax fraud probe

Image
© Reuters
French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac has come under investigation for possible tax fraud. A media report had claimed he once held an undeclared account in Switzerland which the minister keeps denying.

Prosecutors in Paris announced on Tuesday that French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac was under investigation for alleged tax evasion. The country's Mediapart news website had reported the minister once owned an undeclared UBS account in Geneva, Switzerland, which he subsequently moved to Asia.

Cahuzac himself is in charge of combating tax fraud. He kept denying the website report on his offshore accounts, dismissing them as "crazy claims" and adding that the investigations underway would surely prove his innocence.

Light Sabers

India says 2 soldiers killed by Pakistani troops in Kashmir

Image
© Reuters/Mukesh Gupta/FilesIndia's Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers patrol the fenced border with Pakistan near Jammu February 25, 2010.
Two Indian soldiers died in a firefight with Pakistani army troops in the disputed Kashmir region, the Indian army said Tuesday, amid heightened tensions in the region following a deadly clash two days ago.

India said a group of Pakistani troops had crossed the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the region, and entered the Indian-controlled side of the Himalayan territory.

According to the Indian military, the Pakistani troops had taken advantage of thick fog in a wooded area to intrude into the Mendhar sector of Poonch district, but were spotted by a routine Indian patrol.

After a firefight lasting about 30 minutes the Pakistani troops retreated to their side of the Line of Control, the Indian military said, leaving two Indian soldiers dead.

Propaganda

Pakistan: Officials say U.S. drones kill 8 militants

Image
© AP Photo/Ishtiaq Mahsud, FileIn this Friday, April 20, 2007, file photo, the commander of a tribal militia, Maulvi Nazir, center, flanked by his bodyguards, speaks to journalists at Wana, the main town of Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan, along the Afghan border. Intelligence officials said suspected American drones fired several missiles into three militant hideouts near Afghan border on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013, the third suspected strike in five days, killing at least nine Pakistani Taliban fighters.
Several missiles fired from American drones slammed into a compound near the Afghan border in Pakistan early Tuesday, killing eight suspected militants, Pakistan officials said.

The two intelligence officials said the compound was located near the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal area.

One of the officials said an al Qaeda operative was believed to have been killed in the strike.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

North Waziristan, the area where the strike occurred, is considered a stronghold for insurgent groups operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is one of the few parts of the tribal areas that border Afghanistan in which the Pakistani military has not conducted a military operation to root out militants, despite repeated pushes to do so from the American government.

Bad Guys

Aurora shooting suspect 'was out of it' after arrest, police officer tells court

Image
James Holmes, accused of killing 12 people in Colorado cinema, was not showing normal emotions, says arresting officer.

The man accused of shooting dead 12 people inside a Colorado cinema was relaxed but "out of it" in the moments after the massacre, a court has heard .

James Holmes, who is alleged to have sprayed the audience of a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises with bullets, wounding 58 people, appeared unmoved as he "stared into space", the police officer who arrested Holmes told the hearing.

"It was like there weren't normal emotional responses", officer Jason Oviatt said, according to a report of proceedings by the Denver Post. The testimony came as prosecutors in the US began laying out their case against Holmes, watched by family members of those who were killed.

The session, at the Arapahoe county justice centre, will decide if the suspect is sent to trial over the killings. Holmes, 25, is charged with more than 166 separate offences relating to the mass shooting of 20 July in Aurora, including first degree murder.

If convicted, and prosecutors decline to pursue a death penalty sentence, he would face a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

The Arapahoe court is expected to hear the case against Holmes for the first time. Many of the details of the police investigation into the events surrounding the massacre have been kept out of the public domain until now.

Arrow Down

Supreme Court considers limits on class-action suits

Image
© Evan Vucci/APThe issue is whether plaintiff lawyers for class-action lawsuits offer low-ball estimates of the damages they seek or take advantage of procedural loopholes to keep their cases in state courts, where Justice Antonin Scalia said “generous juries” and “very favorable judges” can be common.
The Supreme Court on Monday considered what limitations could be placed on class-action lawsuits, an increasingly active battleground for consumer advocates and corporate interests.

The issue is whether plaintiff lawyers offer low-ball estimates of the damages they seek or take advantage of procedural loopholes to keep their cases in state courts, where Justice Antonin Scalia said "generous juries" and "very favorable judges" can be common.


Comment: Maybe the juries are generous and judges favorable because they realize corporations are, more and more often in today's world, acting in greedy and selfish manners which aim to take advantage of their customers. The fact that many defendants want to force class action suits into federal courts so they can avoid the more aware and full of conscience juries and judges makes that clear.


Cases that seek less than $5 million and deal with state law and regulatory issues generally remain in state courts. If a lawsuit seeks $5 million or more, a 2005 law requires that the case be transferred to federal courts, where conditions are more favorable for the corporate defendants.

Corporations and their trade associations are asking the court to interpret the Class Action Fairness Act to keep plaintiff lawyers from either underestimating the damages or breaking the litigation into less-than-$5-million pieces. Even with such stipulations, businesses say, lawyers can use the suits to demand higher settlements in lieu of years of legal wrangling.

USA

Best of the Web: State of Fear

Image
© Mr. Fish
Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the United States, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her. McLeish's story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps more - whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus - overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama - that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, said in a written statement about the released files: "This production [of information], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement. These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The FBI documents are not only a chilling example of how widespread this surveillance and obstruction has become, they are an explicit warning by the security services to all who consider dissent. Anyone who defies corporate power, even if he or she is nonviolent and acting within constitutional rights, is a suspect. These documents are part of the plan to make us fearful, compliant and disempowered. They mark, I suspect, a government attempt to end peaceful mass protests by responding with repression to the grievances of Americans. When the corporate-financed group FreedomWorks bused in goons to disrupt Democratic candidates' town hall meetings about the federal health care legislation in August 2009, Eric Zuesse of the Business Insider notes, "there was no FBI surveillance of those corporate-organized disruptions of legitimate democratic processes. There also were no subsequent FreedomWorks applications for Freedom of Information Act releases of FBI files regarding such surveillance being used against them - because there was no such FBI campaign against them."

The combination of intimidation tactics by right-wing fringe groups, which speak in the language of violence and hate, with the state's massive intrusion into the personal affairs of the citizen is corporate fascism. And we are much farther down that road than many of us care to admit.

Arrow Down

Could Obama be the first three-term president since FDR?

US Constitution
© Reuters / Yuri GripasA huge copy of the United States Constitution.
A United States congressman has introduced a bill that would repeal the 22nd Amendment, which currently limits the president to serving only two terms as commander-in-chief.

Should the bill become a law, it could allow President Barack Obama to run for reelection yet again in 2016.

The bill, H.J. Res. 15, offers "an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President."

New York Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano reintroduced the measure on January 4, after it did not make it to a floor vote in January 2011, the Daily Caller reports. Serrano has attempted to repeal the amendment for decades and proposed similar bills in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007.

Rep. Serrano's initiatives are not dependent on any particular party, since he has tried to get the measure passed under the presidencies of both Democrats and Republicans. But if the bill makes it to the floor for a vote this year, President Obama, a Democrat, might have a chance at a third term in the White House, which would make him the first president to possibly seek a third term since Franklin Roosevelt.

Star of David

Sen. Rand Paul calls for reduction in foreign aid to Israel

Image
© AFP Photo / Mark WilsonU.S. Sen. Rand Paul.
During his first trip to Israel, US Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) called for a reduction in foreign aid for Jerusalem, admitting that he was expressing a minority opinion but making a statement with high shock value nevertheless.


Comment: It's depressing to note that any discussion of reducing America's aid to Israel has "high shock value" in which the speaker "is in the minority", but it certainly speaks to the hold the Zionist lobby holds over politicians and media in today's world. Speak sensibly about reducing America's foreign aid to Israel and the politicians and media will be "shocked, shocked!!" by such a suggestion. Simply pitiful.


Receiving $3 billion for its military each year, Israel is one of America's top foreign aid recipients and the largest cumulative recipient since World War II.

The country receives about one-fifth of the US foreign aid budget. To date, the US has given Israel $115 billion in bilateral assistance, most of which went to the country's military.

While Sen. Paul believes Congress is unlikely to cut foreign aid from Israel, he told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies that the US is only hurting itself by doing so. By "borrowing from one country to give to another," the Kentucky senator expects the US will only face dire economic consequences down the line and burden itself with greater debt.

"It will be harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process," Paul told the think-tank. "I think there will be significant repercussions of running massive deficits . . . you destroy your currency by spending money you don't have."

Even though Paul called for cutting aid to Israel, one of America's strongest allies, he did acknowledge that Washington should first cut aid to countries with tense relationships to the US, such as Pakistan and Egypt.

The senator added that providing so much foreign aid was helping create an arms race in the Middle East that could ultimately harm Israel instead of helping it.

Megaphone

Chinese hold anti-censorship protest outside newspaper

Image
© REUTERS/James PomfretDemonstrators gather along a street near the headquarters of Southern Weekly newspaper in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, January 7, 2013.
Hundreds of supporters of one of China's most liberal newspapers demonstrated outside its headquarters on Monday, backing a strike by journalists against interference by the provincial propaganda chief.

The rare anti-censorship protest happened in Guangzhou, capital of wealthy Guangdong, China's most liberal province and birthplace of the reforms, begun three decades ago, that propelled China to become the world's second-largest economy.

The outcry began late last week when reporters at the influential Southern Weekly newspaper accused censors of replacing an original New Year's letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece lauding the party's achievements.

Police allowed the demonstration, suggesting the Guangdong government, led by newly appointed Hu Chunhua, a rising political star, may want to tread carefully in tackling public discontent over censorship.

The protesters, many of them youths, held signs with slogans such as "Freedom of expression is not a crime," and "Chinese people want freedom". Others made speeches defending the paper an laid chrysanthemums, a flower used in Chinese funerals, to symbolically mourn the death of press freedom.

Cult

Gerard Depardieu meets Putin, receives Russian passport

Image
© ReutersGerard Depardieu and Vladimir Putin met in the Russian resort of Sochi
French actor Gerard Depardieu has met President Vladimir Putin and has been handed his new Russian passport.

The actor had announced he was seeking Russian citizenship after the French government criticised his decision to move abroad to avoid higher taxes.

Mr Depardieu met Mr Putin in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Mr Depardieu was then given his new passport, although the president's spokesman said Mr Putin did not hand it over personally.

Mr Depardieu and Mr Putin shook hands and hugged each other at the meeting in Sochi.

The actor was later invited to set up home in the central Russian region of Mordovia, known for its Stalin-era prison camps.

Local governor Vladimir Volkov said Mr Depardieu could choose an apartment or a place to build a house, Interfax news agency reported.

After arriving in Mordovia's main city of Saransk, the actor showed of his new passport, saying: "I am very happy, it's very beautiful here. Beautiful and soulful people live here."

Earlier this week, Mr Putin signed the decree granting Russian citizenship to Mr Depardieu.