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U.S. Economy Expands at Faster Pace

Alex Kowalski
Bloomberg
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:44 UTC
The U.S. economy grew in the third quarter at the fastest pace in a year as gains in consumer spending and business investment helped support a recovery on the brink of faltering.

Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced, rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate, matching the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and up from a 1.3 percent gain in the prior quarter, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Household purchases, the biggest part of the economy, increased at a more-than-projected 2.4 percent pace.

Americans last quarter cut savings to boost purchases as incomes dropped by the most in two years, calling into question the sustainability of the acceleration in sales. With the lack of jobs holding back wages, the Obama administration and Federal Reserve policy makers have proposed additional measures aimed at stimulating growth and hiring.
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Card - VISA

European Stocks Advance on Sovereign Debt-Crisis Deal; Banks Lead Gains

Adria Cimino
Bloomberg
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:41 UTC
European stocks rallied to the highest in 12 weeks after the region's leaders agreed to expand a bailout fund to halt the sovereign debt crisis.

BNP Paribas SA, France's biggest bank, and Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's largest, surged at least 15 percent as policy makers boosted the firepower of the European rescue fund to 1 trillion euros ($1.4 trillion). PPR SA, the French owner of the Gucci luxury-goods brand, jumped 5.4 percent after third-quarter sales surpassed analyst estimates.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose 3.5 percent to 249.25 at the close in London, the highest since Aug. 3. The index has rallied 16 percent from this year's low on Sept. 22 amid growing speculation that policy makers would agree on a solution to the region's debt woes.

"Some of the fear, which has been the dominant factor in the market, has been removed," said Pierre Mouton, a fund manager who helps oversee $7.5 billion at Notz Stucki & Cie. in Geneva. "Europe came to an agreement and has a plan. This allows financial stocks to rise because there is no longer the specter of nationalization. There is a sense of relief for the banking sector."
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Stormtrooper

Google: US law enforcement tried to get videos removed from YouTube

Josh Halliday
Guardian UK
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:23 UTC
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© Walter Bieri/Associated PressGoogle office
The technology giant's biannual transparency report reveals a 70% rise in takedown requests from US government or police

Google faced down demands from a US law enforcement agency to take down YouTube videos allegedly showing police brutality earlier this year, figures released for the first time show.

The technology giant's biannual transparency report shows that Google refused the demands from the unnamed authority in the first half of this year.

According to the report, Google separately declined orders by other police authorities to remove videos that allegedly defamed law enforcement officials.
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Stormtrooper

Google asked to remove 135 YouTube videos for 'UK national security issues'

Josh Halliday
Guardian UK
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:10 UTC
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© YouTube Google revealed figures for YouTube content removal requests in its biannual transparency report
British police authorities ordered the removal of 135 videos from YouTube in the first half of this year because of a perceived threat to national security, according to figures published by the video sharing website's owner Google.

The US technology giant reported a 71% rise in content removal requests from the UK government or police, compared with the final half of 2010, with almost 200 YouTube videos requested to be taken down following complaints about privacy, security or hate speech.

Google revealed the figures in its biannual transparency report, part of an effort to highlight online censorship across the world.

The report shows that private information about 1,443 British users or accounts was demanded by law enforcement agencies between January and June this year. It is the first time Google has revealed how many users the data requests relate to.
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Display

Anonymous Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites, Leak Users' Names

Matt Liebowitz
SecurityNewsDaily
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:30 UTC
ans
© SecurityNewsDaily
Members of the Anonymous hacktivist movement are claiming responsibility for taking down more than 40 secret child-pornography websites and leaking the names of more than 1,500 members of one of the illegal sites.

The Anonymous campaign began Oct. 14, when members of the hacktivist group found a cache of child-pornography websites while browsing a secret website called the Hidden Wiki, a guidebook to hundreds of underground websites invisible to search engines and regular Internet users. The hackers singled out Lolita City, a file-sharing site used by pedophiles, and leaked the names of the site's 1,589 active members to Pastebin on Tuesday (Oct. 18), the Examiner reported.
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Bad Guys

The Triumph of America's Supranational Emergency State

Saman Mohammadi
The Excavator
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:57 UTC
Psychopaths
© SOTT.net
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the American Constitution. On October 26, 2001, the Bush administration and U.S. Congress passed the Patriot (Traitor) Act and used the false flag 9/11 attacks to sell it to the American people.

The prediction that the Traitor Act would help the U.S. National Security State completely take over American society has come true. Useless government agencies like the TSA, FBI, IRS, DEA and CIA have been given carte blanche to spy on Americans and crush dissent.

In the last few years, illegal TSA checkpoints have been set up across America to control the movement of people and create a false sense of security in the public mind. Their intent is to get Americans to slowly conform to the new totalitarian society in which government officials treat people like mindless cattle and monitor the individual's every move.

It is wrong to call America's totalitarian beast "a National Security State." It does not provide security and it is not even national. A more fitting term is "Supranational Emergency State." Let me explain.

America's Emergency State depends on national emergencies like the 9/11 attacks to strengthen its authority and justify its unconstitutional powers. America has been in a state of national emergency since September 23, 2001, when President Bush issued Executive Order 13224 to declare a national emergency.
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Laptop

'Rogue Websites' Bill Introduced in US House


Agence France Presse
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:43 UTC
internet control graphic
© Greenberg
Washington - US lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.

The Stop Online Piracy Act has received bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.

The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US law enforcement to unilaterally shut down websites, including foreign sites, without due process.
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War Whore

Fidel Castro: NATO: the Brutal Alliance

Fidel Castro
Counterpunch
Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:30 UTC
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Fidel Castro
NATO's brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind.

NATO took on that global repressive role as soon as the USSR, which had served the United States as an excuse for its creation, ceased to exist. Its criminal purpose became obvious in Serbia, a Slavic country, whose people had so heroically fought against Nazi troops in WW II.

When in March of 1999 the countries of this ill-fated organization, in its efforts to disintegrate Yugoslavia after the death of Josip Broz Tito, sent their troops in support of the Kosovar secessionists, they ran into strong resistance from that nation whose experienced forces were still intact.
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Chess

US-backed Kenyan forces invade Somalia

Eddie Haywood
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:10 UTC
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© Associated PressMarching across ... Kenyan troops crossing into Somali territory.
Kenya sent military forces into Somalia last week, vowing to fight al-Shabaab militants it blamed for a spate of abductions of foreign nationals in recent weeks in northern Kenya, near the Somali border. The operation, involving 1,600 soldiers, is the first foreign intervention carried out by Kenya in its history.

Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage warned Kenya: "We know fighting more than you and defeated other invaders before... We shall inflict on you the same damage you inflicted on us. You have to see what happened to the other aggressors, like [Ugandan President Yoweri] Museveni and his country when they invaded us. We hit them in their country."

The intervention by Kenyan military forces was requested and welcomed by the US-backed Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu. Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said: "The governments of Kenya and Somalia are now cooperating in the fight against al Shabaab, which is an enemy of both countries."

US officials said last week that they have been pressuring Kenya to "do something" in response to a string of security incidents along the Kenya-Somalia border, while at the same time maintaining that the Kenyan invasion into Somalia caught them by surprise.
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Chess

Kenya blasts kill 1, injure 20

Christabelle Fombu and Jack Maddox
CNN
Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:58 UTC
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A Kenyan security officer secures the scene of a grenade attack in Nairobi, on October 24.
Separate blasts rocked the capital of Kenya on Monday, killing at least one person and injuring 20, officials said.

The second explosion took place at a crowded bus station in downtown Nairobi. One person was killed and eight wounded, according to the Kenyan police and Red Cross.

"This is a time when a lot of people would have been going home from work -- more or less rush hour," said Robert Nagil, a journalist in Nairobi.

Charles Owino, a deputy police spokesman, confirmed the explosion and said he was awaiting more details.
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