French president, which is facing electoral battle, urges dual nationals living in Israel to vote en masse in second round of presidential elections

With only a week left to the second round of the presidential elections in France, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying everything to close the gap between him and Socialist Party frontrunner Francois Hollande.

The first round has give Hollande an 8% lead.

Sarkozy has reportedly appealed in a letter to dual French-Israeli citizens, urging them to exercise their voting right in the second round, set to be held on Sunday.

Quetta, Pakistan - The beheaded body of a kidnapped British doctor working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was found by the roadside on Sunday in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta, police and Red Cross officials said.

Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was abducted by suspected militants on January 5 while on his way home from work.

"The ICRC condemns in the strongest possible terms this barbaric act," ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord said in a statement. "All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil's family and friends."

Police discovered Dale wrapped in plastic near a western bypass road in the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province where Baluch separatist militants are fighting a protracted insurgency for more autonomy.

His name was written on the white plastic bag with black marker.

"A sharp knife was used to sever his head from the body," said Safdar Hussain, the first doctor to examine the body. "He was killed about 12 hours ago."

Dale had worked for the ICRC and the British Red Cross in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq before coming to Pakistan. He had been managing a health programme for Baluchistan for almost a year when he was abducted, the ICRC statement said.

"We are devastated," Daccord said. "Khalil was a trusted and very experienced Red Cross staff member who significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause."

The mainstream media utilize many words and phrases in reporting that have been specifically chosen, either by the media or a source, to misrepresent or distort the contexts to which they are applied. Unfortunately, the alternate media often picks up those words (or phrases) and uses them in their own reporting, without due consideration for the perpetuation of the distortions and misrepresentations.

Examples include:

"Rubber bullets"

The image presented to the public is one of nice, rubber balls banging into protesters, creating stinging pain for use in crowd control. This is not at all the case, though they are generally categorized as "less lethal", if used correctly e.g. no head shots. For a good perspective, see here¹. At minimum, these should be called rubber-coated bullets. But even the use of "rubber" causes distortion. Better might be "hard-coated steel bullets". I would also observe that with enough muzzle velocity (which the firing rifles usually have) and at close enough range, just about any material can be lethal. The best example would be tornados ramming straws into tree trunks and lumber through building walls.

"Tear gas"

Though "tears" may have been the main human reaction to this gas when it was invented, the toxicity of the current CS gas² is considerably more advanced, causing all sorts of negative reactions in a human's breathing system, eyes, skin, etc. Its "non-lethal" characterization has also been shown to be often untrue. CS gas is the most commonly used and "CS-gas" could be used instead of "tear gas", or perhaps even better, "toxic CS gas".

A French news website has claimed President Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign was partially funded by the government of the late Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

The Paris-based website Mediapart has alleged the Sarkozy campaign was given an estimated US $66 million.

Mediapart also suggested an official of Gaddafi's regime, intelligence chief Moussa Koussa, authorised secret payments.

In France, politicians are banned from taking funding from foreign states.

Last month, when the allegations were first hinted at, President Sarkozy dismissed them as "grotesque."

More than a hundred years after noted historian Baron John Acton coined the phrase 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' scientists claim the saying is biologically true.

The feeling of power has been found to have a similar effect on the brain to cocaine by increasing the levels of testosterone and its by-product 3-androstanediol in both men and women.

This in turn leads to raised levels of dopamine, the brain's reward system called the nucleus accumbens, which can be very addictive.

Cocaine works in a similar way, which can have varied effects from increasing alertness, confidence, energy, feelings of well-being and euphoria, but also anxiety, paranoia and restlessness.

Power has almost identical effects to cocaine and too much of it can produce too much dopamine leading to more negative effects such as arrogance and impatience.

Of the myriad questions surrounding the case of the British codebreaker who was found naked and stuffed into a duffle bag in 2010, today expert witnesses gave at least one answer: he most likely didn't put himself in there.

Gareth Williams, who worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, was discovered nude inside a padlocked duffle bag that had been placed in the bathtub of his London apartment in 2010. After a nearly two-year investigation, Scotland Yard has been unable to solve the case.

A new courthouse inquest is readdressing the case and today video footage was shown of two experts attempting -- and failing -- to lock themselves into a bag identical to the one in which Gareth Williams was found.

Peter Faulding, an expert in rescue from confined spaces, said today he failed to lock himself into the bag after 300 attempts.

Vatican employees who have been leaking embarrassing letters about corruption and nepotism in the tiny city state are to be hunted down by a crack squad of cardinals led by a senior member of the religious group Opus Dei.

Irritated by the anonymous release of documents to the press this year, Pope Benedict has named Cardinal Julian Herranz, 82, to lead a three-man team which will haul in members of staff for questioning and rifle through files until they catch the perpetrators of what has been dubbed ''Vatileaks''.

A statement on the front page of the Vatican's daily newspaper warned the team had a full ''pontifical mandate'' to ''shed complete light'' on whistleblowers, who have lifted the lid on alleged theft and false accounting.

Latin American High Weirdness: The Cults Part I

Since the end of the second World War Latin America has become something of a playground for the Cryptocracy. Cults, medical experiments, UFOs, drugs, Nazi war criminals, and the like have been in abundance in this region of the world in an especially bizarre fashion for over a half century. The isolation of many parts of Latin America coupled with its close proximity to the United States are a big reason for this. I also suspect that its potent mixture of religious practices make it an especially fertile region for PSYOPs.

The 'New World', being in relative isolation from the Old, maintained some very ancient religions practices up to the time of the arrival of the Spanish. Even then ancient native American rituals, such as those involving entheogens, continued to be practiced amongst isolated tribes up to modern times. Into this stew was then added African folk traditions courtesy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in addition to Catholic mysticism and European occultism. Some nations are even more diverse - Brazil features the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, for instance. Naturally, their religious practices followed.

It was into this stew that the sorcerers of the US intelligence community and their allies in Europe (including former Nazis) boldly entered in the wake of World War II. For instance, our old friend Andrija Puharich, when he wasn't busy developing chemical and ELF weapons for the US military or contacting the Nine for some very artistocratic families, managed to make several pilgrimages to Latin America in the 1950s and 60s. During the first, in 1956, Puharich was accompanied by the Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos and the enigmatic inventor, paranormal enthusiast, and possible US intelligence asset Arthur Young (much more on Puharich and Young can be found here and here). Hurkos described the visit as an archaeological project but many believe that these men were in fact searching for the mushroom cults that had inspired some R. Gordon Wasson's theories on the role of the magic mushroom in religion. Puharich himself would go on to author a book on the magic mushroom called The Sacred Mushroom a few years later.

Last year I broke down a report from the Homeland Security Policy Institute which not only lent support for increasingly harsh and widespread police state measures, but also served to shift attention away from the supposed threat posed by foreign terrorist groups towards the alleged threat of domestic terrorists.

One of the prime targets for demonization by both the establishment media and law enforcement has been the so-called "sovereign citizen" movement, something which I have written about previously here at End the Lie.

This is all part of a concerted effort to turn almost everything into a sign of potential terrorist activity while breeding a culture of delusional paranoia, citizen spying and ubiquitous surveillance.

Now U.S. government officials have said that al Qaeda's core organization cannot carry out another attack like the horrific events of September 11, 2001 and the likelihood of a chemical, biological, atomic or radiological attack over the next year are minimal.

Interestingly, this view expressed by the deputy director of U.S. National Intelligence Robert Cardillo conflicts with the ludicrous claims made recently about al Qaeda potentially planning another 9/11 in an attempt to justify an extended American military presence in Afghanistan.

Cardillo and other anonymous U.S. officials described their assessments on a conference call with journalists during which they claimed that the Arab Spring is also helping weaken the "core" al Qaeda organization.

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) is an organization of eight West African states. It was established to promote economic integration among countries that share the Communauté Financière d'Afrique (CFA) franc as a common currency. The currency is issued by the Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (BCEAO), located in Dakar, Senegal, for the members of the UEMOA. The union administers the West African CFA franc, now a Euro-pegged currency that is used in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

UEMOA was created by a Treaty signed in Dakar on 10 January 1994, by the heads of state and governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. On 2 May 1997, Guinea-Bissau became the organisation's eighth (and only non-Francophone) member state.

On 20 January 2011, the UEMOA announced that it was drafting a code that will state how member states can negotiate investments with China, as reported by the Dakar-based newspaper ^{Sud Quotidien}, citing the union's commissioner, Joseph Marie Dabré. The report said that the code would require Chinese state companies to receive approval from the Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso-based union before investing in any of the zone's eight individual states. Mining agreements between China and countries in the union would fall under the terms of the code, according to Sud Quotidien.

However, you do not have to look too far to notice that the UEMOA countries' French-controlled CFA franc is just slavery and colonialism by another name. It therefore beggars belief that the UEMOA should draft a new trade code for Chinese investments and not for the French ones in the first place!