Al Jazeera published a report Wednesday based on an extensive scientific investigation of the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat. Though he was 75 years old when he died, many noted the marked deterioration in his appearance in his final weeks and speculated that he was poisoned or that he had AIDS. An Israeli journalist who interviewed Ariel Sharon noted that the Israeli leader refused to deny Israeli involvement in Arafat's demise:

[Maariv journalist Uri] Dan reveals a little and conceals much when he hints that Arafat's death was not caused by any illness. He himself suggested to Sharon that Arafat be captured and brought to trial in Jerusalem, like Eichmann, but Sharon reassured him that he was dealing with the problem in his own way. Then Arafat fell ill, was flown to Paris for treatment and died. Was Sharon involved? This is what Dan wrote then in Maariv - that in the history books, prime minister Ariel Sharon will be remembered as the man who eliminated Yasser Arafat without killing him. Let every reader figure it out for himself.

Now, a team of researchers has tested personal artifacts provided by Arafat's widow, Suha, and found highly elevated doses of polonium (in some cases 10 times the expected dose) in many of these objects. They found a type of polonium not occurring naturally that could only be produced in a nuclear reactor. Suha Arafat is asking that the PA exhume her husband's body and test it for polonium. What they find will determine whether the element killed him or not.

This news returns us to 2006, when elements of the Russian intelligence services arranged to poison a former agent, Alexander Litvinenko, with polonium. It was the first known instance in which someone was killed by polonium poisoning. If the Al Jazeera report is correct, then the Russian may have to cede pride of place to Arafat, who would now become the unfortunate record-holder.

An amazing letter sent on the orders of Adolf Hitler informing his Gestapo thugs to leave a single Jew alone during his reign of terror has been found in Germany. The Jew in question was Ernst Hess, a judge, whom the Führer ordered not to be 'persecuted or deported' because he had been his commanding officer in the trenches during the First World War.

Some six million Jews - including Hess's sister - would be murdered in the Holocaust set in motion by Hitler. But because the German leader looked back on his experiences as a corporal in the war with pride and deep fondness, Hess was allowed to live.

Hitler would later renege on his protection agreement, but it saved Hess at a time when the round ups of German Jews were at their most fierce. The document was turned up by the recently opened Jewish Voice from Germany newspaper.

Hess came close to being deported after the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 - the meeting which set the mass murders in extermination camps in occupied Poland in motion - but was finally saved due to his marriage to a gentile.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney keeps at least $30 million, probably more, in the tax-free Cayman Islands, Vanity Fair reported on Tuesday.

The Romney campaign claims that the candidate has not exploited offshore havens to avoid paying necessary U.S. taxes, but the Vanity Fair report detailed how Romney continues to have interests in at least 12 of the 138 funds, organized by his company Bain Capital, in the Cayman Islands.

Cayman Islands investments are hidden behind confidentiality disclaimers, making the total amount of Romney's true wealth virtually impossible.

Romney also holds a Swiss bank account, with $3 million in it, according to 2010 tax returns, and other money in tax havens such as Bermuda, according to the report in the August issue of Vanity Fair.

Former Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill wrote on the web site ExScientologyKids.com that Katie Holmes has reason to be afraid of what could happen to her daughter Suri.

Miscavige Hill, who is the estranged niece of Scientologist church leader David Miscavige, wrote: "My experience in growing up in Scientology is that it is both mentally and at times physically abusive. As a mother myself, I offer my support to Katie and wish for her all of the strength she will need to do what is best for her and her daughter."

According to the New York Daily News, Miscavige Hill recalled how she endured forced labor at a Scientology boarding school, confessions, detention and isolation from her excommunicated parents.

However, Miscavige Hill did not mention that Holmes was fully aware of Cruise's ties to Scientology, but chose to date, marry and have a child with him regardless.

Holmes, who filed for divorce in New York, is seeking sole legal custody of Suri.

An Illinois beekeeper whose bee hives were stolen and allegedly destroyed by the Illinois Department of Agriculture has stirred up a hornet's nest with his questions on why the state did this, and most importantly, what they did with his bees.

The state claims the bees were destroyed because they were infected with a disease called foulbrood.

But when the 58-year apiary keeper had his hearing - three weeks after the removal of his bees without his knowledge - the state's "evidence" had disappeared, leaving more questions than answers about the raid on the beekeeper's hives.

Some people, including the beekeeper, Terrence Ingram, suspect the raid has more to do with Ingram's 15 years of research on Monsanto's Roundup and his documented evidence that Roundup kills bees, than it does about any concerns about his hives.

Interestingly, the state's theft targeted the queen bee and hive he'd been using to conduct the research.

When reading the stories of child sexual abuse and how Scientology management tried to cover them up, then remember there's a Scientology policy stating that scientologists who are "upstat" - those doing very well, and/or making a lot of money for Scientology - should never be punished, while those who are "downstat" should be investigated. Gabriel Scott Williams reportedly was such an "upstat" person who was making lots of money for Scientology and so victim Jennifer was to be stopped filing a complaint about the gruesome sexual and psychological abuse of Gabe Wiliams.

Source: HCOPL 1 September 1965, "Ethics Protection":

In short a staff member can get away with murder so long as his statistic is up and can't sneeze without a chop if it's down. ... When people do start reporting a staff member with a high statistic, what you investigate is the person who turned in the report.

Child rapist Gabriel Williams
Scientology Sex Assault Nightmare
New York Post, 2 October 2005

A former Scientology staffer is breaking her silence about being sexually assaulted 100 times at ages 16 and 17 by the church supervisor [Gabriel Williams] she was "ordered" to live with, and then receiving threats and intimidating phone calls when she reported the abuse... In a related civil suit brought by Stewart against Williams and the church, she recently received as part of the settlement a "generous monetary resolution," said her attorney. Although the church admitted no wrongdoing, it forked over about $700,000, sources say.

Gabriel Scott Williams' California Registered Sex Offender Profile Display. Other files which were placed on this page temporally and the police files about the harassment the Gorman family received plus copies of the complaint against scientologist rapist Gabriel Williams, who was convicted of sexual battery and sodomy, are now collected on a dedicated page.

Australia's Channel 7 reporter Brian Seymour did a brilliant expose on the Church of Scientology's long-standing child labor abuse, and their wide-spread deprivation of education to children of staff members. The expose, done in conjunction with an ex-child Sea Org member, exposes children being forced to work over 40 hour weeks and not providing these children with basic education.

Of course Scientology's response to the report was typical. They accused the reporter of being an agent who is working with Anonymous, because of course, no one in their right mind would question a sinister cult which seeks to undermine families, rob people of their money AND their dignity, and violate both moral and legal codes of conduct. Right?

WRONG. Thank you to Brian Seymour for having the courage and to Channel 7 for backing him up. Also, many thanks to WS for forwarding this story.

Also, Anonymous will be staging their SIXTH protest this weekend, Saturday, July 12th. Clearly, their efforts are hammering away at the crumbling facade of deception Scientology has precariously built on its web of lies.

Glosslip will have more on the next protest later this week.

In the late 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard's son (Ron deWolf) disclosed the extensive criminal activity, occult practices, pedophilia, illegal drug-taking and human sacrifices perpetrated by his father and his minions in the Cult of Scientology. Here is an excerpt of the interview he gave to US TV show Morning Break on WDVM-TV in Washington, D.C.:

Hot Air Day is upon us. On July 4 hot air will spew forth all over the country as dignitaries deliver homilies to our "freedom and democracy" and praise "our brave troops" who are protecting our freedom by "killing them over there before they come over here."

Not a single one of these speeches will contain one word of truth. No speaker will lament the death of the US Constitution or urge his audience to action to restore the only document that protects their liberty. No speaker will acknowledge that in the 21st century the Bush/Obama Regime, with the complicity of the Department of Justice, federal courts, Congress, presstitute media, law schools, bar associations, and an insouciant public have murdered the Constitution in the name of the "war on terror."

As in medieval times, American citizens can be thrown into dungeons and never accounted for. No evidence or charges need be presented to a court. No trial is required, and no conviction.

As in tyrannies, US citizens can be executed at the sole discretion of the despot in the Oval Office, who sits there drawing up lists of people to be murdered.

Protestors exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association are attacked by armed police, beaten, tasered, tear-gassed, pepper sprayed, and arrested.

Whistleblowers who report the government's crimes are prosecuted despite the statute that protects them.

The people aren't powerless in the face of extreme inequality.

In the coming weeks, millions of Americans will take to the streets as part of the "99 Percent Spring," echoing last year's "Arab Spring."

At the root of this discontent are the extreme inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity that have emerged over the last four decades.

The richest 1 percent now owns over 36 percent of all the wealth in the United States. That's more than the net worth of the bottom 95 percent combined. This 1 percent has pocketed almost all of the wealth gains of the last decade.

In 2010, the 1 percent earned 21 percent of all income, up from only 8 percent in mid-1970s. The 400 wealthiest individuals on the Forbes 400 list have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

These trends among the 1 percent are bad for the rest of us. Concentrated wealth translates into political clout -- the power to use campaign contributions to rent politicians and tilt the rules of the economy in their favor.

Websites dramatizing the "We are the 99 percent" movement are full of personal stories of young people who are saddled with debt and no futures, and middle class families that have seen the American Dream collapse around them, losing jobs, homes, and hopes for the future.

"I used to dream about becoming the first woman president," one woman wrote. "Now I dream about getting a job with health insurance."

Reading these stories, I'm struck that the underlying conditions that have squeezed millions of Americans aren't going away. The current political system, captured by large corporations and the wealthy, is incapable of responding to their needs.