Vatican employees who have been leaking embarrassing letters about corruption and nepotism in the tiny city state are to be hunted down by a crack squad of cardinals led by a senior member of the religious group Opus Dei.

Irritated by the anonymous release of documents to the press this year, Pope Benedict has named Cardinal Julian Herranz, 82, to lead a three-man team which will haul in members of staff for questioning and rifle through files until they catch the perpetrators of what has been dubbed ''Vatileaks''.

A statement on the front page of the Vatican's daily newspaper warned the team had a full ''pontifical mandate'' to ''shed complete light'' on whistleblowers, who have lifted the lid on alleged theft and false accounting.

Latin American High Weirdness: The Cults Part I

Since the end of the second World War Latin America has become something of a playground for the Cryptocracy. Cults, medical experiments, UFOs, drugs, Nazi war criminals, and the like have been in abundance in this region of the world in an especially bizarre fashion for over a half century. The isolation of many parts of Latin America coupled with its close proximity to the United States are a big reason for this. I also suspect that its potent mixture of religious practices make it an especially fertile region for PSYOPs.

The 'New World', being in relative isolation from the Old, maintained some very ancient religions practices up to the time of the arrival of the Spanish. Even then ancient native American rituals, such as those involving entheogens, continued to be practiced amongst isolated tribes up to modern times. Into this stew was then added African folk traditions courtesy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in addition to Catholic mysticism and European occultism. Some nations are even more diverse - Brazil features the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, for instance. Naturally, their religious practices followed.

It was into this stew that the sorcerers of the US intelligence community and their allies in Europe (including former Nazis) boldly entered in the wake of World War II. For instance, our old friend Andrija Puharich, when he wasn't busy developing chemical and ELF weapons for the US military or contacting the Nine for some very artistocratic families, managed to make several pilgrimages to Latin America in the 1950s and 60s. During the first, in 1956, Puharich was accompanied by the Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos and the enigmatic inventor, paranormal enthusiast, and possible US intelligence asset Arthur Young (much more on Puharich and Young can be found here and here). Hurkos described the visit as an archaeological project but many believe that these men were in fact searching for the mushroom cults that had inspired some R. Gordon Wasson's theories on the role of the magic mushroom in religion. Puharich himself would go on to author a book on the magic mushroom called The Sacred Mushroom a few years later.

Last year I broke down a report from the Homeland Security Policy Institute which not only lent support for increasingly harsh and widespread police state measures, but also served to shift attention away from the supposed threat posed by foreign terrorist groups towards the alleged threat of domestic terrorists.

One of the prime targets for demonization by both the establishment media and law enforcement has been the so-called "sovereign citizen" movement, something which I have written about previously here at End the Lie.

This is all part of a concerted effort to turn almost everything into a sign of potential terrorist activity while breeding a culture of delusional paranoia, citizen spying and ubiquitous surveillance.

Now U.S. government officials have said that al Qaeda's core organization cannot carry out another attack like the horrific events of September 11, 2001 and the likelihood of a chemical, biological, atomic or radiological attack over the next year are minimal.

Interestingly, this view expressed by the deputy director of U.S. National Intelligence Robert Cardillo conflicts with the ludicrous claims made recently about al Qaeda potentially planning another 9/11 in an attempt to justify an extended American military presence in Afghanistan.

Cardillo and other anonymous U.S. officials described their assessments on a conference call with journalists during which they claimed that the Arab Spring is also helping weaken the "core" al Qaeda organization.

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) is an organization of eight West African states. It was established to promote economic integration among countries that share the Communauté Financière d'Afrique (CFA) franc as a common currency. The currency is issued by the Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (BCEAO), located in Dakar, Senegal, for the members of the UEMOA. The union administers the West African CFA franc, now a Euro-pegged currency that is used in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

UEMOA was created by a Treaty signed in Dakar on 10 January 1994, by the heads of state and governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. On 2 May 1997, Guinea-Bissau became the organisation's eighth (and only non-Francophone) member state.

On 20 January 2011, the UEMOA announced that it was drafting a code that will state how member states can negotiate investments with China, as reported by the Dakar-based newspaper ^{Sud Quotidien}, citing the union's commissioner, Joseph Marie Dabré. The report said that the code would require Chinese state companies to receive approval from the Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso-based union before investing in any of the zone's eight individual states. Mining agreements between China and countries in the union would fall under the terms of the code, according to Sud Quotidien.

However, you do not have to look too far to notice that the UEMOA countries' French-controlled CFA franc is just slavery and colonialism by another name. It therefore beggars belief that the UEMOA should draft a new trade code for Chinese investments and not for the French ones in the first place!

The ultimate victims of mind control at Jonestown are the American people. If we fail to look beyond the constructed images given us by the television and the press, then our consciousness is manipulated, just as well as the Jonestown victims' was. Facing nuclear annihilation, may see the current militarism of the Reagan policies, and military training itself, as the real "mass suicide cult." If the discrepancy between the truth of Jonestown and the official version can be so great, what other lies have we been told about major events?

History is precious. In a democracy, knowledge must be accessible for informed consent to function. Hiding or distorting history behind "national security" leaves the public as the final enemy of the government. Democratic process cannot operate on "need to know." Otherwise we live in the 1984 envisioned by Orwell's projections and we must heed his warning that those who control the past control the future.

The real tragedy of Jonestown is not only that it occurred, but that so few chose to ask themselves why or how, so few sought to find out the facts behind the bizarre tale used to explain away the death of more than 900 people, and that so many will continue to be blind to the grim reality of our intelligence agencies. In the long run, the truth will come out. Only our complicity in the deception continues to dishonor the dead.

Somewhere in the concrete canyons of New York City a recently formed rock group is using the name Jim Jones and the Suicides. Irreverent and disarming, the name reflects the new trend in punk rock, to take social issues head on. Cynicism about the Jonestown deaths and its social parallels abound in the lyrics of today's music. The messages are clear because we all know the story.

In fact, people today recognize the name "Jonestown" more than any other event, a full 98% of the population.¹ The television and printed media were filled with the news for more than a year, even though the tale read like something from the National Enquirer tabloid. But despite all the coverage, the reality of Jonestown and the reasons behind the bizarre events remain a mystery. The details have faded from memory for most of us since November 18, 1978, but not the outlines. Think back a moment and you'll remember.

Pakistan deported the family of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia on Friday, their lawyer and a diplomat said, nearly a year after U.S. special forces killed the world's most wanted man in a northwestern Pakistani town.

The move ended months of speculation about the fate of the three widows and 11 children, who were detained by Pakistani security forces after the May 2 raid.

A Pakistani court sentenced the women to 45 days in prison this month for entering Pakistan illegally and ordered their deportation after the end of the prison term, which began on March 3 when they were formally arrested.

"The plane carrying Amal and (her brother) Zakariya al-Sadeh and the rest of the family is heading to (the Saudi Red Sea city of) Jeddah," Ambassador Abdo Ali Abdulrahman told Reuters by telephone from Islamabad early on Friday. "This chapter that has continued for a year is now closed."

The family lawyer, Aamir Khalil, said they had departed on a "special flight".

Saudi officials declined immediate comment.

Two bombs, which would have caused devastation, were defused in Northern Ireland.

Two bombs planted in Northern Ireland by militant nationalists were defused on Saturday, said the police, according to Reuters.

One of the bombs which was left in an abandoned vehicle in Newry was 600 pounds and was packed with enough explosives to have killed anyone in a 50-yard radius.

Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson said, "The device contained two blue barrels with 125 kilograms of homemade explosives in each one, and a detonator - all the equipment which meant this device was ready to go," according to AFP. He added, "If this had exploded it would have caused devastation."

The Guardian noted that the bomb was 200 pounds bigger than the explosive device which devastated Omagh, the single largest attack in Northern Ireland which claimed the lives of 29 people in 1998.

Seattle - The U.S. government's unmanned drones patrolling the U.S.-Canadian border are venturing into Washington state's airspace.

In testimony before a U.S. Senate panel this week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said northern border surveillance using unmanned aerial aircraft now expands from North Dakota to eastern Washington.

The two 10,000-pound Predator-B unmanned aircrafts based in Grand Forks, N.D., have a 950-mile coverage range and "they do enter Washington airspace, in the vicinity of Spokane," said Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Gina Gray on Thursday.

The unmanned aircrafts "can stay in the air for up to 20 hours at a time, something no other aircraft in the federal inventory can do," Gray said. "In this manner it is a force multiplier, providing aerial surveillance support for border agents by investigating sensor activity in remote areas to distinguish between real or perceived threats, allowing the boots on the ground force to best allocate their resources and efforts."

Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed a handful of drones around the country, with some based in Arizona, Florida, North Dakota, and Texas -- with more planned for the future. Operations out of North Dakota first began in 2011.

Most people do not know that petroleum is infinite. It is a common misperception that oil was created from a decaying process from ancient forests and dinosaurs, but it is simply not true, according to a new book, The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the U.S. Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil from the American People by New York Times bestselling author Dr. Jerome Corsi.

Does Oil Come From Dinosaurs?

Some believe in the abiotic theory for the origin of oil, which asserts oil is "a natural product the Earth generates constantly rather than a 'fossil fuel' derived from decaying ancient forests and dead dinosaurs." "For decades, the confiscated German documents remained largely ignored in a United States where petro-geologists and petro-chemists were convinced that oil was a 'fossil fuel' created by ancient decaying biological debris," as reported by WND.

Corsi suggests that the US government and Big Oil conspired to bury their findings "because they didn't want the public to know that the planet naturally produces oil, abundantly on a deep earth level." It is no surprise that the "fossil fuel" explanation for oil persists.

CISPA may have cleared the U.S. House of Representatives, but the fight isn't over. It's shifted to the U.S. Senate. Here's CNET's FAQ on what you need to know about this particularly controversial Internet bill.

It took a debate that stretched to nearly seven hours, and votes on over a dozen amendments, but the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act on April 26.

Passions flared on both sides before the final vote on CISPA, which cleared the House by a comfortable margin of 248 to 168.

CISPA would "waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity," Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, said during the debate. "Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on."

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and author of CISPA, responded by telling his colleagues to ignore "all the things they're saying about the bill that are not true." He pleaded: "Stand for America! Support this bill!"

While CISPA initially wasn't an especially partisan bill -- it cleared the House Intelligence Committee by a vote of 17 to 1 last December -- it gradually moved in that direction. The final tally was 206 Republicans voting for it, and 28 opposed. Of the Democrats, 42 voted for CISPA and 140 were opposed. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said afterward on Twitter that CISPA "didn't strike the right balance" and Republicans "didn't allow amendments to strengthen privacy protections."

The ACLU, on the other hand, told CNET that the amendments -- even if they had been allowed -- would not have been effective. "They just put the veneer of privacy protections on the bill, and will garner more support for the bill even without making substantial changes," said Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the ACLU.

Keep reading for some more details from CNET's FAQ about what you need to know about CISPA.