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Learning from the Nazis: Israel admits secretly injecting Ethiopian Jews with birth control drugs


AfricanGlobe
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 21:53 UTC
Benjamin Netanyahu
© Unknown
Israel’s leaders have recently made hateful speeches against Africans
The director of the Ministry of Health in Israel, Roni Gamzo, has issued a formal directive instructing that gynaecologists should stop injecting Ethiopian women with the contraceptive Depo-Provera without their knowledge or consent.

The directive, issued last week, comes after around 30 Ethiopian Jews who had emigrated to Israel said they had been told that they would not be allowed into the country without receiving the contraceptive drug.

Within Israel, Ethiopian Jews make up the majority of those given the drug, according to a report published in 2010 by Isha le'Isha, a women's rights organization; 57 percent of women who had received the drug in Israel are Ethiopian Jews, although they account for less than 2 percent of the overall population.

"We believe it is a method of reducing the number of births in a community that is Black," Hedva Eyal, the author of the report, told Israeli media. "It is indeed the first time that the state actually acknowledged that this procedure of injecting immigrant women with this drug, when they do not know the side effects and are given no other choice, is wrong."
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Arrow Down

House passes bill cutting $8 billion from 'food stamps' program


Raw Story
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 19:55 UTC
US Capitol
© Agence France-Presse
Members of the House of Representatives enter the US Capitol on Sept. 30, 2013 in Washington, DC.
The US House approved a five-year, nearly $1 trillion farm bill Wednesday reforming the federal government's crop subsidy system but cutting food stamps to pare the deficit.

The mammoth bill, which has been some three years in the making and endured more than one collapse in negotiations in 2013, enjoyed bipartisan support in passing 251-166.

It now heads to the Senate where it could be voted on as early as Friday. It is expected to pass.

The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama would sign the 959-page bill should it reach his desk.

"Overall, this legislation is a positive step forward that invests in rural development, bio-based energy, conservation, and agricultural research and that will provide certainty and stability for families in need, for farming communities, and for our commodity markets," senior House Democrat Steny Hoyer said.

The compromise bill reduces the US deficit by some $23 billion, far less than what was sought by dozens of House conservatives eager to dramatically slash federal spending.
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Bomb

The NSA Fiasco: A carefully choreographed stage show

James Corbett
Global Research
Mon, 27 Jan 2014 19:43 UTC
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As the public finally becomes outraged over the NSA's illegal spying, members of government and the corporate media wage an information war to misdirect that anger to issues of less importance.

To counteract this, a bold new citizen-led initiative to nullify the NSA is now gaining momentum around the United States.

This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.


One of the less-remembered parts of the Osama bin Laden fairytale was that the NSA had a hard time keeping track of his communications with his Al CIAda operatives. Why? Because, as General Michael Hayden told CBS News back in early 2001, bin Laden used standard encryption and off-the-shelf American telecommunication products.

Sound unbelievable? That's because it is. As they go on to admit in that very same report, they were tracking bin Laden's satellite phone after all, and as James Bamford and others have described in exhaustive detail, the NSA was monitoring Al Qaeda's "communications hub" in Yemen for years prior to 9/11, and purposefullly withholding most of that information from the CIA bin Laden unit. But the idea that the NSA just wasn't able to track bin Laden because of his dastardly technology was a key meme for the NSA to implant in the immediate wake of 9/11. That's why the Hayden interview was replayed on CBS less than 48 hours after the attacks, and that's why, as recently declassified documents show, the NSA used 9/11 as an official talking point to justify their illegal surveillance of Americans.
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Snakes in Suits

Junk economists help the rich impoverish the working class

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:35 UTC
Image
Last week, I explained how economists and policymakers destroyed our economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits from jobs offshoring and financial deregulation.

That same week Business Week published an article, "Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It," by Charles Kenny. Kenny expresses the view of establishment economists, such as Brookings Institute economist Justin Wolfers who wants to know "What's with the political fetish for manufacturing? Are factories really so awesome?"

"Not really," Kenny says. Citing Eric Fisher of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Kenny reports that wages rise most rapidly in those states that most quickly abandon manufacturing. Kenny cites Gary Hufbauer, once an academic colleague of mine now at the Peterson Institute, who claims that the 2009 tariffs applied to Chinese tire imports cost US consumers $1 billion in higher prices and 3,731 lost retail jobs. Note the precision of the jobs loss, right down to the last 31.
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Birthday Cake

"Let them eat cake": U.S. Congress to cut food stamps by $9 billion


Press TV
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 06:29 UTC
Image
© Ryan Garza/Flint Journal
More to come?: People line up outside of Riverside Tabernacle in Flint on Tuesday, December 6, 2011, in a food pantry distribution supplied by the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan.
Lawmakers in both chambers of US Congress have reportedly reached a deal to cut almost $9 billion from the food stamp program on which nearly 47 million Americans rely to afford food.

The cuts to the program, which will affect nearly a million households over the next decade, are part of multi-year farm bill which sets spending levels for federal agriculture and food policy.

The giant piece of legislation is expected to get a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, after which it will be subject to a vote in the Senate.

The cuts are a compromise between nearly $40 billion in cuts to the program approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a $4 billion reduction approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has already undergone a $5 billion cut when a temporary increase in food stamp dollar expired on Nov. 1.

A household of three lost $29 in food aid per month as a result of the cuts that left each person to spend an average of $1.40 per meal.
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Yoda

Enough is enough: Fraud-ridden banks are not L.A.'s only option

Ellen Brown
Ellen Brown.com
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Captiolhilloutsider.com
"Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history."

That is how William K. Black, professor of law and economics and former bank fraud investigator, describes the frauds in which JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has now been implicated. They involve more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; failing to disclose known risks, including those in the Bernie Madoff scandal; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud.

So why, asks Chicago Alderwoman Leslie Hairston, are we still doing business with them? She plans to introduce a city council ordinance deleting JPM from the city's list of designated municipal depositories. As quoted in the January 14th Chicago Sun-Times:
The bank has violated the city code by making admissions of dishonesty and deceit in the way they dealt with their investors in the mortgage securities and Bernie Madoff Ponzi scandals. . . . We use this code against city contractors and all the small companies, why wouldn't we use this against one of the largest banks in the world?
A similar move has been recommended for the City of Los Angeles by L.A. City Councilman Gil Cedillo. But in a January 19th editorial titled "There's No Profit in L A. Bashing JPMorgan Chase," the L.A. Times editorial board warned against pulling the city's money out of JPM and other mega-banks - even though the city attorney is suing them for allegedly causing an epidemic of foreclosures in minority neighborhoods.

"L.A. relies on these banks," says the Times, "for long-term financing to build bridges and restore lakes, and for short-term financing to pay the bills." The editorial noted that a similar proposal brought in the fall of 2011 by then-Councilman Richard Alarcon, backed by Occupy L.A., was abandoned because it would have resulted in termination fees and higher interest payments by the city.

Comment: North Dakota is not the only one abandoning the corrupt banking model:
Public banking in Costa Rica: A remarkable little-known model

Ellen Brown elaborates further on public banking here:
Public banks are key to capitalism
Cooperative Banking, Wave of the Future for a Sustainable Form of Banking

      Read More...
Magnify

What's going on in Ukraine?

orwellwasright
Beyond Mainstream
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 00:01 UTC
protesters in Ukraine clash with police
© Unknown
You'd be forgiven for knowing very little about the unrest in Ukraine - the violence, the rioting on the streets, the armed protesters storming government buildings amidst plumes of thick black smoke rising from makeshift barricades. Most of the public have once again been Beibered by the mainstream media - the arrest of this precocious, spoilt physical embodiment of crass corporate culture proving newsworthy enough for an MSNBC host to interrupt an interview with a member of Congress discussing the true scale of NSA spying.

In this climate of superficial distractions and media inanity, you'd be equally forgiven for not really knowing why there is political unrest in Ukraine. Most of the explanations for the violence offered by the mainstream media present the information in simplistic soundbytes - talking points without the relevant wider political and historical context which renders current events coherent.
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Piggy Bank

Russian bank halts all cash withdrawals

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 09:53 UTC
Image
© Coins-world.info
It would appear the fears of a global bank run are spreading. From HSBC's limiting large cash withdrawals (for your own good) to Lloyds ATMs going down, Bloomberg reports that 'My Bank' - one of Russia's top 200 lenders by assets - has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week. While the Ruble has been losing ground rapidly recently, we suspect few have been expecting bank runs in Russia. Russia sovereign CDS had recently weakned to 4-month wides at 192bps.
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Red Flag

TSA gives me PreCheck Access... without asking

Jonathan Corbett
TSA Out of Our Pants!
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 16:24 UTC
You can imagine my surprise when I received this boarding pass yesterday...

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That's right - the guy who sues, publicly humiliates, and fights before Congress the TSA now has TSA PreCheck, meaning that I'll personally almost never encounter a body scanner or pat-down again.

I never asked for it, never opted-in, and had no notice that I was included. I intentionally avoided it because I don't think it's fair that one should have to do anything to avoid being abused by their government. Their inclusion of me in this program is further ironic since in 2010, when I filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would require the TSA not to scan or molest me, the TSA argued that such an "ad hoc" exclusion would devistate the TSA's inpenetrable fortress. But here we are in 2014, and the TSA has done just that.
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Network

UK Spy chief exposed by Snowden leaks will step down at year end‏

Andrew Osborn
Yahoo News
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 17:00 UTC
Iain Lobban
© PA
Iain Lobban, director of GCHQ
The British spy chief whose agency was accused in documents leaked by former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden of playing a principal role in mass Anglo-U.S. surveillance will step down at year end, Foreign Office said on Tuesday.

The leaks detailed the close cooperation of Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), and embarrassed and angered the British government and its spy chiefs.

Iain Lobban, 53, has served as GCHQ's director for six years.

Comment: See also:

GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance
NSA/GCHQ - The New Praetorians and the New Cold War
Somebody's listening: How the NSA, GCHQ, Germany and China have spent decades working together to spy on the whole world

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