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MI5 accused of trying to gag justice at 7/7 inquests

Esther Addley
The Guardian
Thu, 17 Feb 2011 04:40 UTC
Lawyers for the families of those killed in the bombings argue coroner should be allowed to go into detail about murders.

July 07 bombing
© Martin Godwin for the Guardian
The families of those killed do not want 'a sterile, bare conclusion' to the inquests, their lawyers have said.
MI5 has been accused of attempting to gag justice by restricting the verdicts of the inquests into the victims of the 7 July attacks.

The families of those killed in the bombings do not want "a sterile, bare conclusion" to the inquests, their lawyers said, arguing instead that the coroner should be allowed to go into much greater detail about how the 52 victims were murdered.

MI5's legal team argued that by law only "brief, neutral and factual" verdicts can be recorded. But Patrick O'Connor QC, for the relatives, said that the bereaved families would be disappointed and the public "quite astonished if ... we were literally kept to the kind of one, one-and-a-half, two-sentence verdict in the inquisition that is suggested by some." He added: "The state of justice is very often depicted blindfolded, but never gagged."

The families are concerned that the coroner could deliver a brief verdict that their loved ones were unlawfully killed but fail to rule on whether the security agencies could have prevented the atrocities or whether the emergency services could have saved more lives.
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Vader

Defiant Gaddafi vows to die as martyr, fight revolt


Reuters
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:22 UTC
Tripoli - A defiant Muammar Gaddafi said on Tuesday he was ready to die "a martyr" in Libya, vowing to crush a growing revolt which has seen eastern regions break free of his 41-year rule and brought deadly unrest to the capital.

Swathed in brown robes, Gaddafi seethed with anger and banged the podium outside one of his residences that was damaged in a 1986 U.S. bombing raid that attempted to kill him. Next to him stood a monument of a fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet.

"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," Gaddafi said on state television, refusing to bow to calls from his own diplomats, soldiers and protesters who braved a fierce crackdown to clamour in streets for him to go.
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Bad Guys

Gaddafi's Next Move: Sabotage Oil and Sow Chaos?

Robert Baer
Time
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:13 UTC
Image

There's been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya's rebellious tribes: It's either me or chaos.

Two weeks ago this same man had told me the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt would never touch Libya. Gaddafi, he said, had a tight lock on all of the major tribes, the same ones that have kept him in power for the past 41 years. The man of course turned out to be wrong, and everything he now has to say about Gaddafi's intentions needs to be taken in that context.

The source went on and told me that Gaddafi's desperation has a lot to with the fact that he now can only count on the loyalty of his tribe, the Qadhadhfa. And as for the army, as of Monday he only has the loyalty of approximately 5,000 troops. They are his elite forces, the officers all handpicked. Among them is the unit commanded by his second youngest son Khamis, the 32nd Brigade. (The total strength of the regular Libyan army is 45,000.)
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Cult

Supreme Court rejects vaccine lawsuit

Jan Crawford
CBS News
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:07 UTC
supreme court
© Tim Sloan /AFP/Getty Images
The justices of the US Supreme Court sit for their official photograph on October 8, 2010 at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today gave vaccine manufacturers greater protection from lawsuits by parents who say vaccinations harmed their children, ruling that Congress had blocked those types of claims against drug makers.

In a 6-2 decision, the justices said Congress had effectively shut the courthouse door to these lawsuits in 1986, when it created a special vaccine court designed to compensate victims of vaccine injuries.

The decision immediately was hailed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said it would safeguard the nation's vaccine supply by protecting vaccine makers from potentially crippling legal liability--which could have driven manufacturers out of the vaccine market.
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Smoking

Honduras law lets police be called on home smokers


Associated Press
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:48 UTC
Image

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - The last refuge is vanishing for besieged smokers - at least in Honduras. A new law that took effect Monday says family members can call in the police on people who smoke at home.

The new measure bans smoking in most closed public or private spaces and orders smokers to stand at least six feet away from nonsmokers in any open space.

The law explicitly bans smoking in schools, gas stations, nightclubs, restaurants, bars, buses, taxis, stadiums and cultural centers but it doesn't clearly ban smoking at home.

Comment: Health Benefits of Smoking

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Heart - Black

Outrageous! Petraeus Accuses Afghan Parents of Burning Kids to Make US Look Bad

Jason Ditz
AntiWar.com
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:26 UTC
Attempt to Downplay Kunar Massacre Sparks Outrage

One would think that the effort to downplay the killings of as many as 64 civilians, including a large number of children, would be enough to spark considerable anti-US outrage, but apparently saw an opportunity to make things even worse, and took it.

Gen. David Petraeus
© Unknown
Gen. David Petraeus
In a closed door meeting aimed at explaining why they had killed so many civilians, Gen. Petraeus actually accused parents in the region of burning their own children in an attempt to raise the death count and make the US look bad.

Of course if there is one thing the occupation forces don't need any help with, it's looking bad, and the shocking accusation sparked considerable anger amongst the Karzai government. It was quickly dismissed by provincial officials, of course, but did immeasurable damage to US credibility on the matter of the rising civilian toll.
The US has a long history of making up ridiculous hypotheticals that might explain away massive civilian death tolls, including the May 2009 Farah Province massacre, in which the US initially claimed the Taliban had "pre-killed" a large number of civilians and stored them in buildings before tricking the US into bombing them, scattering the bodies. They later admitted the claim was entirely made up.

The US has also regularly accused Afghan civilians of "making up" stories of dead relatives in an effort to claim the paltry reparations that the military offers for accidently killing a civilian. This appears, however, to be the first time they actually accused parents of killing their children just to make the US occupation look bad.
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Heart - Black

Japan unearths site linked to human experiments

Justin McCurry
The Guardian
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:17 UTC
Image
© Itsuo Inouye/AP
Toyo Ishii, a former military nurse, broke her 60-year silence about Unit 731 in 2006 Toyo Ishii, a former military nurse, broke her 60-year silence about Unit 731 in 2006.
Former Tokyo medical school site is linked to Unit 731, branch of imperial army which used prisoners in germ warfare programme

Authorities in Japan have begun excavating the former site of a medical school that may contain the remains of victims of the country's wartime biological warfare programme.

The school has links to Unit 731, a branch of the imperial Japanese army that conducted lethal experiments on prisoners as part of efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The Japanese government has previously acknowledged the unit's existence but refused to discuss its activities, despite testimony from former members and growing documentary evidence. In 2002 a Japanese court said Tokyo was under no obligation to compensate victims.

The government agreed to launch a ¥100m (£741,000) investigation after Toyo Ishii, a former nurse, said she had helped bury body parts on the site as the US occupation forces moved into Tokyo at the end of the second world war. Officials said so far there was no evidence the site had been used for experiments.
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Chess

Why Monsanto Always Wins

Mike Ludwig
TruthOut
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:26 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The recent approval of Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa is one of most divisive controversies in American agriculture, but in 2003, it was simply the topic at hand in a string of emails between the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Monsanto. In the emails, federal regulators and Monsanto officials shared edits to a list of the USDA's questions about Monsanto's original petition to fully legalize the alfalfa. Later emails show a USDA regulator accepted Monsanto's help with drafting the initial environmental assessment (EA) of the alfalfa and planned to "cut and paste" parts of Monsanto's revised petition right into the government's assessment.

 It's unclear if such internal cooperation continues under the current administration, but regulators still openly rely on data and research provided by the biotech industry when approving GE technology.

A federal judge temporarily banned the alfalfa in 2007 as a result of the CFS lawsuit, but last summer, the Supreme Court ruled that the USDA could reconsider deregulating the GE alfalfa after completing an environmental impact statement (EIS). The USDA fully deregulated the alfalfa on January 27, 2011.
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Red Flag

Genetic Engineering: Scientists Warn of Link Between Dangerous New Pathogen and Monsanto's Roundup

Rady Ananda
Global Research
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:36 UTC
Image
© globalresearch.com
Urges USDA to rescind approval of genetically engineered alfalfa: "In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency."

A plant pathologist experienced in protecting against biological warfare recently warned the USDA of a new, self-replicating, micro-fungal virus-sized organism which may be causing spontaneous abortions in livestock, sudden death syndrome in Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy, and wilt in Monsanto's RR corn.

Dr. Don M. Huber, who coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens committee of the American Phytopathological Society, as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System, warned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that this pathogen threatens the US food and feed supply and can lead to the collapse of the US corn and soy export markets. Likewise, deregulation of GE alfalfa "could be a calamity," he noted in his letter (reproduced in full below).

On January 27, Vilsack gave blanket approval to all genetically modified alfalfa. Following orders from President Obama, he also removed buffer zone requirements. This is seen as a deliberate move to contaminate natural crops and destroy the organic meat and dairy industry which relies on GM-free alfalfa. Such genetic contamination will give the biotech industry complete control over the nation's fourth largest crop. It will also ease the transition to using GE-alfalfa as a biofuel.
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Heart - Black

Starving N. Korea begs for food, but U.S. has concerns about resuming aid

Chico Harlan
The Washington Post
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:12 UTC
Image
© Unknown
A medley of human suffering in North Korea
North Korea recently took the unusual step of begging for food handouts from the foreign governments it usually threatens.

Plagued by floods, an outbreak of a livestock disease and a brutal winter, the government ordered its embassies and diplomatic offices around the world to seek help.

The request has put the United States and other Western countries in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to ignore the pleas of a starving country or pump food into a corrupt distribution system that often gives food to those who need it least.

The United States, which suspended its food aid to North Korea two years ago amid concerns about transparency, "has no plans for any contributions at this time," said Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top East Asia official.

Meanwhile, the U.N. World Food Program, responsible for much of the food aid in North Korea, said its current food supply could sustain operations in the communist country for only another month.
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