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Middle East at Boiling Point as Western Interference in Syria Spills Over Into Lebanon

John Ray
NBC News
Wed, 23 May 2012 12:40 UTC
Image
© Omar Ibrahim/Reuters
A man hides behind sandbags amid clashes in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Thursday.
It only takes a two minute stroll down Syria Street to see why so many people are so worried about what might happen next in Lebanon.

A hole punched through the wall of the local mosque by a rocket or mortar shell, smoke blackened masonry, shops and apartments bearing the pock marks of fierce gun battles.

Syria Street is the aptly named thorough-fare that separates rival factions in Lebanon's second city.

For much of the past week, the two sides have been waging a mini-civil war.

It is a direct spill over from the chaos in neighboring Syria.

One side of the street is home to a hard-line Sunni Muslim militia who run guns to rebels across the border.


Comment: ...guns, tanks and other weapons which originate in the US and Israel and end up in the hands of 'rebels' flown into Syria after serving NATO in Libya.


"President Assad is trying to destroy us," says Sheik Bilal Masri, by way of explanation. "They cause trouble here to take the pressure of[f] them in Damascus."
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Gear

The Facebook IPO: Shareholders Weren't Invited to the Real Party

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
Wed, 23 May 2012 12:00 UTC
A suit has been filed by Facebook shareholders against Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Morgan Stanley and others. It's based on a very simple concept: when internal analysts learned that Facebook's numbers were going to be worse than expected, the company and its bankers didn't tell everyone, but just "selectively disclosed" information to a small group of "preferred investors."

Henry Blodget, who unfortunately should know about these things, gave a good summary of it all on CBS This Morning:


I was on the phone last night with a former hedge fund CEO who was talking about this. "Facebook," he said, "is a colossal example of a complete clusterfuck where everybody wins except the ordinary investor."

His point was that virtually every week now we see stories like this that hint at a kind of two-tiered market system - in which most of the real action takes place inside an unregulated black-box network of connected insiders who don't disclose their relationships or their interests, while everyone else, i.e. the regular suckers, live in the more tightly-policed world of prospectuses and quarterly reporting and so on.
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Heart - Black

Survivors Recall Horror of Night Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales Allegedly Shot up Afghan Village

Jon Stephenson
Kansas City Star
Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Jon Stephenson
A young Afghan villager named Sadiqullah was wounded in his right ear when he was shot allegedly by U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales at the home of his father, Haji Mohammad Naim
It was early in the morning, perhaps 2 a.m., when gunfire awoke 14-year-old Rafiullah.

He looked outside the house he'd been sleeping in with his grandmother, an aunt, two cousins and his sister, and he saw a man with a weapon walk to a shed that housed the family cow and open fire, shooting the animal dead.

"I told the women inside our room: 'Let's run! Let's get out of here,' " recalled Rafiullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name.

In the next compound, a short distance from the house where Rafiullah had been sleeping, Haji Mohammad Naim awoke to the sound of dogs barking wildly in the street.

"Then there was shooting, and the dogs stopped barking," said Naim, who's in his 50s.Shortly afterward, there was pandemonium at Naim's front door as Rafiullah and a handful of terrified women and children poured into his yard, seeking shelter. Minutes later, another woman and a young girl emerged from the darkness.

"She was screaming and crying," Naim said of the woman. "She said, 'My husband has been martyred,' " meaning that he'd been killed.

Suddenly a silhouette appeared, moving rapidly behind a bright light. Naim thought that U.S. forces were raiding his village, and he expected a squad of soldiers to arrive. Instead, he saw just one man.

"He got closer, and then he started shooting at me," Naim said.

Comment: It is indeed curious that these witnesses are claiming that there was only one shooter. Another child witness who was interviewed in March had a different version of the story. See here:
Child witnesses to Afghan massacre say Robert Bales was not alone
For more information, also read the Sott Focus: US Soldiers Look Deep Inside Their Souls - Find Vacuum - Decide To Kill Afghan Villagers by Joe Quinn.

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MIB

US Secret Service prostitution scandal wider than previously believed

Alicia A Caldwell and Laurie Kellman
Associated Press
Wed, 23 May 2012 05:45 UTC
Image
© Agence France Presse/Manuel Pedraza
View of the Hotel Caribe, in Cartagena, Colombia. Two more Secret Service agents have resigned over the Colombia sex scandal and one more will have his security clearance permanently revoked, the elite presidential protection outfit said Tuesday.
Several small groups of Secret Service employees separately visited clubs, bars and brothels in Colombia prior to a visit by President Barack Obama last month and engaged in reckless, "morally repugnant" behavior, Sen. Susan Collins says.

She says the employees' actions during the stunning prostitution scandal could have provided a foreign intelligence service, drug cartels or other criminals with opportunities for blackmail or coercion that could have threatened the president's safety.

In remarks prepared for the first congressional hearing on the matter Wednesday, Collins, R-Maine, also challenged early assurances that the scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident. She noted that two participants were Secret Service supervisors - one with 21 years of service and the other with 22 years - and both were married. Their involvement "surely sends a message to the rank and file that this kind of activity is tolerated on the road," Collins said.

"This was not a one-time event," said Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "The circumstances unfortunately suggest an issue of culture."

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the committee's chairman, said, "I want to hear what the Secret Service is doing to encourage people to report egregious behavior when they see it."
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Airplane

U.S. Terror Drone 'Kills Four in Pakistan'


Tehran Times
Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00 UTC
Attack drones
© Unknown
Attack drones with missles
U.S. missiles launched from a terror drone killed four people in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said.

A drone targeted a compound near Miranshah, the main town of the tribal district of Pakistan.

"The drone fired two missiles on a house in the Tabai area near Miranshah," one of the security officials told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, adding that four suspected militants were killed.

"It is not immediately known if an important target is among those killed," he said.

The area is a stronghold of the Haqqani network -- Afghan insurgents blamed for a series of spectacular attacks on Western targets in Kabul -- and Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

Islamabad denies any support for Haqqani activities.
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Info

Hollande Pushes EU to Talk about Joint Euro Bonds

Nick Vinocur and Brian Love
Reuters
Wed, 23 May 2012 10:27 UTC
Hollande
© Reuters
French President Francois Hollande, standing firm in the face of stiff German opposition, said on Wednesday that European leaders should broach the possibility of jointly-issued euro bonds and that no option to resolve the bloc's crisis should be taboo.

Hollande, due to join other European Union leaders later on Wednesday for talks over dinner, said all options should be put on the table because the gathering was about exchanging views before a decision-making summit at the end of June.

"This is not about entering into conflict with others," the Socialist president told a news conference in Paris. "Everyone should go into this in the best spirit."

Hollande, who held the news conference jointly with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after the two met, reiterated that he was committed to debt and deficit reduction but that helping economic growth was a necessary part of that objective.

He said he would raise a panoply of ideas including the role of the European Central Bank and the European Financial Stability Fund on the one hand as well as euro bonds.
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Star of David

"Citizen Journalism" Focuses on Israeli Occupation

Noah Browning
Reuters
Wed, 23 May 2012 05:16 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Mohamad Torokman
Video of an incident filmed on Saturday by Ibrahim Makhlouf (not pictured) is displayed by his son in the West Bank village of Aseera al-Qibliya village near Nablus May 22, 2012.
Amateur video of Israeli soldiers appearing to watch idly as settlers opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones has emphasized the growing power of "citizen journalism" in the occupied West Bank.

Shaky footage, captured on Saturday from two angles by residents of Aseera al-Qibliya village, shows bearded residents from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar aiming a hand gun and assault rifle at the crowd, followed by sounds of gunfire.

A bloodied youth shot in the face was shown being carried away on the shoulders of fellow villagers. The video was soon posted on the Internet.

Teacher Ibrahim Makhlouf, who filmed the incident, lives by the brush scorched in the clashes on the village's edge, beneath the gaze of the prefabricated suburbs of Yitzhar, which lie outside the official settlement boundary.

"We want the whole world to see what Israel and the settlers do to us. They steal our land and they attack us, and the world said we were the terrorists and criminals," he said.

"Now we can make it clear who's the aggressor and who's attacking whom. The truth contradicts their claims about our situation."
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Padlock

Pakistani Doctor Who Helped US 'track down Osama bin Laden' Sentenced to Prison

Riaz Khan
The Associated Press
Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00 UTC
Shakil Afridi
© unknown
Dr. Shakil Afridi
Peshawar, Pakistan - A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden was convicted of high treason Wednesday and sentenced to 33 years in prison, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country's relationship with Washington.

Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the al-Qaida chief last May. The operation outraged Pakistani officials because they were not told about it beforehand.

Senior U.S. officials have called for Afridi to be released, saying his work served Pakistani and American interests. His conviction comes at a sensitive time because the U.S. is already frustrated by Pakistan's refusal to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The supply routes were closed six months ago in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Afridi also was ordered to pay a fine of about $3,500 and will spend an additional three and half years in prison if he does not, said Nasir Khan, a government official in the Khyber tribal area, where the doctor was arrested and tried.

Comment: For more information on Osama Bin Laden's death, please read:

New Sott Report: US Government Psy-Ops - The 'Killing' of Osama Bin Laden
Bin Laden died of natural causes: Former CIA agent

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USA

Calculating the True Cost of America's Spending on National Security

TomDispatch
Opposing Views
Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
As the country's big wars on the Eurasian continent wind down, American war-making and war preparations fly ever more regularly under the radar. There has, for instance, been much discussion about the Obama administration's policy "pivot" to Asia -- the only warlike act in the region so far has, however, been a little noted drone strike in the Philippines.

At the same time, remarkably little attention has been paid to a massive build-up of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, and -- though both seem to be underway (and connected) -- who talks about the "pivot" to the Western Indian Ocean or the "pivot" to Africa?

For those keeping a careful eye out, U.S. drone (and air) bases in the region have been proliferating -- in the Seychelles Islands, in Ethiopia, and at an unidentified site on the Arabian peninsula, among other places.

Recently, however, Wired's Danger Room website reported that an Italian blogger had put the pieces together and offered impressive evidence of a larger war-making effort in the region, involving not only drones but F-15E fighter jets, possibly being used to bomb Yemen. Meanwhile, there are U.S. drone strikes in Yemen almost daily and at least 20 special forces operatives are reportedly now on the ground there, helping direct some of the fighting and even taking casualties.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Africa Command (Africom), set up in 2007, has been gaining clout. In 2011, 100 special operations troops, mainly Green Berets, were moved into Central Africa, officially to aid in the hunting down of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.

Comment: Which is why there is never enough money for education, job creation, repairing the crumbling US infrastructure or extending jobless benefits, as well as other social programs that might actually benefit people.
US: Congress Cuts Winter Heating Aid For The Poor While Boosting The Defense Budget
Obama on the Budget: "Target the Military? No, I'm gonna hit the working poor, the middle class and students"
A New Record is Set for Military Spending: The Shame of Nations

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Crusader

Missing girl 'buried in murdered mobster's tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties', claims Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest

Nick Pisa
DailyMail.co.uk
Tue, 22 May 2012 16:49 UTC
Image
© AFP/Getty Images
Outspoken: Father Gabriel Amorth said the 15-year-old was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties
The Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest has sensationally claimed a missing schoolgirl thought to be buried in a murdered gangster's tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties.

Father Gabriel Amorth, 85, who has carried out 70,000 exorcisms, spoke out as investigators continued to examine mobster Enrico De Pedis's tomb in their hunt for Emanuela Orlandi.

Last week police and forensic experts broke into the grave after an anonymous phone call to a TV show said the truth about Emanuela's 1983 disappearance would be 'found there'.

And although bones not belonging to the mobster were recovered they have not yet been positively identified as hers.

However Father Amorth, in an interview with La Stampa newspaper, said: 'This was a crime with a sexual motive.

'It has already previously been stated by (deceased) monsignor Simeone Duca, an archivist at the Vatican, who was asked to recruit girls for parties with the help of the Vatican gendarmes.
      Read More...
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