Puppet MastersS


Nuke

Report: Japan's Government "Collapsed" During Fukushima Nuke Crisis

Lucy Craft
CBS News
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:17 UTC
Members of Japan Self-Defense Force
© APMembers of Japan Self-Defense Force practice during a decontamination exercise at the Yokota Air Base in Tokyo.
The one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan is less than two weeks away, but details about the nuclear meltdown that happened that tragic day are just beginning to emerge.

On Feb. 27, a news helicopter was allowed close enough to get a good glimpse of the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. Today, a report revealed the chaos between Japan's leaders during the crisis.

"The normal lines of authority completely collapsed," Tetsuro Fukuyama, the prime minister's adviser, told investigators.

CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reported that in the hours after the tsunami struck the nuclear plant, Japanese officials huddled in an emergency bunker struggled to grasp the size of the catastrophe.

"As we listened to our top nuclear experts, we politicians had no idea what they were talking about. Was anyone going to suffer radiation contamination? Would this be another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? No one could give us a straight answer," Fukuyama recalled in the report.
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Heart

Best of the Web: Asma Al-Assad, Diana of the Middle East: Syria's First Lady on Gaza


CNN
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:52 UTC
Wife of Syrian President, Asma Al-Assad, speaks out about the despicable Israeli abuses against Palestinians in this interview with CNN, recorded three years ago. Are we beginning to see why the Al Assads have been targeted for elimination? Conscientious leaders of just societies must be removed to make way for barbaric 'democrazi' and total world domination of, by and for psychopaths.

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Bizarro Earth

Syrian Activists: 64 Bodies Found Near Homs in One of the Worst Mass Killings

Liz Sly
The Washington Post
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:59 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press/Rodrigo AbdA boy stands in front of a shop destroyed by Syrian army shelling in the center of Idlib on Monday.
Beirut - The bodies of dozens of men were found dumped on wasteland on the outskirts of the stricken city of Homs on Monday in what appeared to be one of the worst instances of mass killing since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last March.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said that the bodies of 64 men were taken to the National Hospital in Homs and that an unknown number of women and children who had been with them are missing. Activists said they thought that the men had been trying to flee the violence with their families when they were stopped and gunned down by security forces.

The details available were murky, however, and the bodies had not been identified, making it difficult to establish exactly how or why the men died.

The discovery came as Syria's state media announced that a big majority of Syrians had voted to approve a new constitution that would allow Assad to remain in power until 2028. U.S. and European leaders have condemned the exercise as meaningless, since it seemed designed primarily to ensure Assad's survival rather than to implement genuine reforms.

The apparent mass killing in Homs spoke to the rising ferocity of the violence engulfing many parts of Syria as the government seeks to quell the revolt and the once-peaceful protest movement increasingly resorts to arms to resist the onslaught, stirring fears of a civil war that could ignite a wider regional conflict.

Comment: To get a better picture of what's really going on in Syria, please read the Sott Focus "Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution - A Distraction?"

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Star of David

Warmongers: Israelis Reportedly Don't Plan to Notify US if Decision Made to Strike Iran


Fox News
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© ReutersMarch, 30, 2009: Israeli air force A-4 jets are seen in the background as personnel prepare an F-16 fighter jet at Hatzerim air base, southern Israel.
Israeli officials say they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions told the Associated Press. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.

Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack. The U.S. has been working with the Israelis for months to persuade them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of top-level U.S. visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top U.S. lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the U.S. over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Netanyahu delivered the same message to all the Americans who have traveled to Israel for talks, the U.S. official said.
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Pistol

From Baghdad To Bogota: The Global Reach Of Modern Mercenaries

David Santa Cruz
Worldcrunch
Sun, 26 Feb 2012 22:20 UTC
Blackwater contractors in Iraq (2006)
© scuba_heathBlackwater contractors in Iraq (2006)
Mexico's bloody drug wars could mean new opportunities for private military companies like XE Services, better known as Blackwater, which became infamous in Iraq. Latin America provides such firms with both quality recruits and new business opportunities.

Mexico City -- The Iraqi resistance nicknamed him "Al-Shaitan" (the devil) and put a hefty bounty on his head. In the United States, he has been decorated as a hero. Newspapers there call him the "deadliest sniper in U.S. history." During his various missions as a Navy SEAL he officially killed 150 people. The Texan himself counts his kills at 255.

These days, however, 37-year-old Chris Kyle is too busy running his own business to add to his "legendary" kill count. In 2009, after completing his military service - with full honors - he founded Craft International, a company that offers private military and security services and specializes in training sharpshooters. The company forms part of a new trend in military outsourcing, a business model that has quickly spread across the globe, including into Latin America, where modern mercenaries are being put to work in everything from mining to coca eradication.

Craft International is by no means the first such for-profit paramilitary venture. In 1997, another former SEAL, Erik Prince, used his generous inheritence to set up a large private facility specialized in training police and soldiers. Prince, whose wealthy family has close ties to the Republican Party, called his operation Blackwater and staffed the new company with a long list of experienced and skilled trainers.
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Bad Guys

Bin Laden Death Coverup Continues: Compound Demolished

Brit Dee
Resistance Radio
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:54 UTC
demolition 'Bin Laden compound'
© n/a
The compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which authorities claim was Osama Bin Laden's home for several years before his supposed killing by a US special forces team last May, has this weekend been totally demolished. Pakistani authorities began tearing down the house on Saturday night, working under floodlights, with the local population subject to a strict curfew and Pakistan Army soldiers and police personnel reportedly deployed in large numbers.

The high security surrounding the building since last May, coupled with its sudden and secretive demolition, have naturally led to suspicions that this weekend marked the successful completion of a brazen coverup - journalists have never been allowed to enter the building, and were banned from going anywhere near it very soon after Bin Laden's supposed killing. The total destruction of the death scene makes it much less likely independent verification of the official narrative will ever be established, though considering that no evidence proving Bin Laden was actually killed in the compound has ever been provided by the authorities, this weekend's events are hardly surprising.

The official account stretched credulity from the outset and changed significantly in the days and weeks following the Navy Seals' attack. At first we were told that Bin Laden had offered resistance by firing a weapon at the Seals, but it was soon admitted that the person shot had not in fact been armed. If the unarmed individual shot dead posed no threat, then it is hard to view his death as anything other than a cold-blooded execution. The claim that Bin Laden cowered behind his wife, who was initially reported to have been killed whilst her husband used her as a human shield, also had to be retracted.
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Arrow Down

3 Doomsaying Experts Who Foresee Economic Devastation Ahead

Adam Shell
USA Today
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Thinkstock
Behind the mainstream Wall Street happy talk about more stable financial markets and an improving economy are grim warnings of tough times ahead from a small cadre of doomsayers who warn that the worst of the financial crisis is still to come.

Harry Dent, author of the new book The Great Crash Ahead, says another stock market crash is coming due to a bad ending to the global debt bubble. He has pulled back on his earlier prediction of a crash in 2012, as central banks around the world have been flooding markets with money, giving stocks an artificial short-term boost. But a crash is coming in 2013 or 2014, he warns. "This will be a repeat of 2008-09, only bigger, when it finally hits," Dent told USA TODAY.

Gerald Celente, a trend forecaster at the Trends Research Institute, says Americans should brace themselves for an "economic 9/11" due to policymakers' inability to solve the world's financial and economic woes. The coming meltdown, he predicts, will lead to growing social unrest and anti-government sentiment, a U.S. dollar with far less purchasing power and more people out of work.
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Bad Guys

No Justice! Judge Dismisses Organic Farmers' Case Against Monsanto

Eliza Barclay
National Public Radio
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:31 UTC
Farmer Alan Madison fills a seed hopper with Monsanto hybrid seed corn near Arlington, Illinois, U.S. A group of organic and other growers say they're concerned they'll be sued by Monsanto if pollen from seeds like these drift onto their fields.
© Daniel Acker/LandovFarmer Alan Madison fills a seed hopper with Monsanto hybrid seed corn near Arlington, Illinois, U.S. A group of organic and other growers say they're concerned they'll be sued by Monsanto if pollen from seeds like these drift onto their fields.

A New York federal court today dismissed a lawsuit against agribusiness giant Monsanto brought by thousands of certified organic farmers. The farmers hoped the suit would protect them against infringing on the company's crop patents in the future.

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and several other growers and organizations do not use Monsanto seeds. But they were betting that the judge would agree that Monsanto should not be allowed to sue them if pollen from the company's patented crops happened to drift into their fields.

Instead, the judge found that plaintiffs' allegations were "unsubstantiated ... given that not one single plaintiff claims to have been so threatened." The ruling also found that the plaintiffs had "overstate[d] the magnitude of [Monsanto's] patent enforcement." Monsanto brings an average of 13 patent-enforcement lawsuits per year, which, the judge said, "is hardly significant when compared to the number of farms in the United States, approximately two million."
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Bad Guys

America's Missing Foundations

Linh Dinh
Common Dreams
Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:33 UTC
bag lady
© Linh Dinh
Americans are living on borrowed time, economically. Like air conditioners, copper pipes and aluminum siding of a foreclosed home, what remains of our prosperity will be violently stripped away. There is no economic recovery because the foundations for such are simply not there. Jobs still leave the country, and the only way we can compete with foreign slaves is to become slaves ourselves, and don't think for a moment that this isn't by design.
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Whistle

Doxed for telling truth? Stratfor report on Syria propaganda


Stratfor Global Intelligence
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:08 UTC
Image
© JERRY LAMPEN/AFP/Getty ImagesSyrian blogger Amjad Balazy at the Foreign Ministry in The Hague on Dec. 9
Missteps in the Syrian Opposition's Propaganda Effort

Syrian opposition groups are mounting a propaganda campaign to create the impression that the Alawite community is splintering and that the Syrian regime is internally cracking. While the opposition has done a better job of organizing itself in recent months, the propaganda effort has been hampered by recent missteps and suffers from a lack of credibility and coordination.

Analysis

Syrian opposition groups are engaged in an aggressive propaganda drive to promote the perception that the Alawite community is splintering and that the Syrian regime is cracking from within. Most of the opposition's more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue, thereby revealing more about the opposition's weaknesses than the level of instability inside the Syrian regime.

The continuity of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime depends on his ability to maintain unity within a few groups: his own al Assad clan, the Alawite-dominated army and the wider Alawite community. Were his patronage networks to unravel and the regime's powerful figures to start viewing each other as liabilities worthy of elimination, the demise of the regime would not be far off.
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