Puppet MastersS


Bug

Disaster capitalist anti-smoking ex-New York mayor Bloomberg named U.N. climate envoy

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© Karly Domb Sadof/AP
Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was appointed on Friday to be the U.N. special envoy for cities and climate change, a position that will give the billionaire businessman and philanthropist an international stage to press for action to combat global warming.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon chose Bloomberg, who made combating climate change a major focus of his 12 years as mayor and was very outspoken on how cities should be run to cope with ever increasing populations without harming the environment.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Bloomberg will assist the U.N. chief in his consultations with mayors and other key parties 'to raise political will and mobilize action among cities as part of his longer-term strategy to advance efforts on climate change.'

The secretary-general also wants Bloomberg to bring 'concrete solutions' to the climate summit he is hosting in New York onSept. 23 to try to galvanize action to combat climate change, Haq said.

Bloomberg, 71, tweeted that he was 'honored' by the appointment.

Comment: Goldman, Bloomberg and crony capitalism
Capitalising on disaster: NYC Mayor Bloomberg endorses Obama, citing climate change
Fascist New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg donates quarter billion dollars to global anti-smoking crusade
Michael Bloomberg announces New York City anti-tobacco legislation


Dollars

Banks cleared to accept marijuana business


The U.S. government issued rules on Friday for the first time allowing banks to legally provide financial services to state-licensed marijuana businesses.

The Justice Department issued a memorandum to prosecutors that closely follows guidance last August largely limiting federal enforcement priorities to eight types of crimes.

These include distribution to children, trafficking by cartels and trafficking to states where marijuana isn't legal. If pot businesses aren't violating federal law in the eight specific priorities, then banks can do business with them and "may not" be prosecuted.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued guidelines that Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said was intended to signal that "it is possible to provide financial services" to state-licensed marijuana businesses and still be in compliance with federal anti-money laundering laws.

The guidance falls short of the explicit legal authorization that banking industry officials had pushed the to government provide.

Stop

French state claims monopoly on drones as it takes teenager to court for unauthorized drone flight

A French teenager was flying high after an aerial video he shot of his hometown using a small drone went wild on social media. But he's since been brought back down to earth. In a landmark case prosecutors charged him with "endangering people's lives."

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© Screengrab/YouTubeA French high schooler is in hot water after he used his drone to film his hometown
"Nancy seen from the air" (Nancy vu du ciel) a stunning short film put together by 18-year-old Nans Thomas quickly racked up some 400,000 views in a matter of days after it was posted on the online video sharing site Vimeo.

The beautiful images of spires, churches and plazas of the historic north-eastern French town were captured in a unique way by attaching a go-pro camera to a drone.

At one point the video was reportedly even hosted on the social interactive site of the regional council of Lorraine.

But unfortunately for the teenager the success also caught the eye of French civil aviation authorities, who ordered an investigation, TF1 TV reported. It turns out the teenager violated two key provisions of the law according to Nancy's top prosecutor Thomas Pison.

First, drone operators in a France have to complete a training course similar to the ones pilots must take. Then, a drone flight over an urban area requires specific written approval. Unfortunately for Thomas, he had neither.

Magic Hat

'Oops': Several prominent Al-CIA-da members escape in Yemen prison assault

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© Reuters / Mohamed Al-SayaghiWorkers rebuild the main prison wall after an explosion outside the central prison in Sanaa February 14, 2014.
Several convicted members of Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen were among the more than two dozen prisoners who escaped from the Central Prison in Sanaa on Thursday night following an attack on the prison.

Armed militants exchanged fire with soldiers and set off two car bombs just after sunset to begin the attack on the prison. One blast opened a hole in the prison wall near a holding area for inmates convicted of terrorism offenses. By the time reinforcements arrived to control the assailants, 29 inmates had escaped, 19 of which had been convicted on terror charges, Yemen's Interior Ministry said. The siege killed seven, McClatchy news service reported.

At least three escaped inmates were being held on charges associated with an assassination attempt on Yemen's president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, early in 2013. Four escapees, including Hisham Mohamed Assem, were convicted and sentenced to death for a 2010 attack on an oil company in Sanaa. Another escapee facing a death sentence was Saleh Al Shawish, a skilled bomb-maker who vowed to exact revenge at his 2010 sentencing.

"It's a disaster," a Yemeni official told McClatchy on the condition of anonymity. He said the escapees included "operational figures."

Headphones

Irish government caught spying on police ombudsman's office

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The Dublin government has been rocked by shocking revelations of a 'black ops' spy operation at the headquarters of the police ombudsman's office, the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC).

The furore erupted after a Sunday newspaper report that London security specialists hired by the GSOC last autumn had discovered evidence that its Dublin headquarters had been breached. That private report was leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper.

The GSOC is tasked with supervising the actions of the 26-County Garda police, and since its foundation in 2007 has chalked up a history of bitter disputes with Garda police chiefs on corruption within the force -- initially over the handling of drug-dealing Garda informers, and, more recently, over the handling of Garda whistle-blowers.

GSOC chairman Simon O'Brien appeared before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday to explain how phones and emails at the watchdog's Dublin offices could have been intercepted last year using three separate spy technologies. The report said that the advanced and extensive nature of the surveillance operation, including the deployment of a fake [British] mobile phone network, pointed to government-level technology.

Handcuffs

79-year-old Irish writer, actress, playwright and film director Margaretta D'Arcy jailed for protesting U.S. military's use of Shannon Airport as refuelling station

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© Andrew DownesMargaretta D'arcy
Margaretta D'Arcy, the acclaimed Irish writer and peace activist, is serving a three-month prison sentence in Ireland for her protests at the US military use of Shannon airport.

She could have avoided the jail term if she had agreed to sign a bond to uphold the law and stay away from unauthorised zones at Shannon. She refused to do so and was taken into custody last Wednesday (15 January).

But the Irish authorities have been confronted with a torrent of protest, and a measure of embarrassment, since D'Arcy, who is 79 and suffering from cancer, was incarcerated in Limerick prison.

She has been visited by Sabina Higgins, wife of Ireland's president, Michael D Higgins. And protests on behalf of D'Arcy have been growing day by day. Some 240 artists have called for D'Arcy's release, including journalist Nell McCafferty, film-maker Lelia Doolan and former UN assistant secretary-general Denis Halliday.

Quenelle

Ray Nagin found 'guilty of corruption' thanks to 'secret evidence' - Maverick ex-New Orleans' Mayor facing up to 20 years' imprisonment for 'taking bribes'

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Has Nagin been bush-whacked by the Southern Mob?
A jury convicted former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Wednesday on 20 of 21 federal corruption counts, including bribery, marking a stunning fall for the feisty official who gained a national profile following Hurricane Katrina.

The 57-year-old Democrat, who led his city through the aftermath of the 2005 storm, was found guilty of charges that he accepted bribes, free trips and other gratuities from contractors in exchange for helping them secure millions of dollars in city work while he was in office.

He will remain free on bond while he awaits sentencing. Each of the charges carries a sentence from three to 20 years, but how long he would serve was unclear and will depend on a pre-sentence investigation and various sentencing guidelines. No sentencing date was set.


Comment: Charging and convicting a politician in the USA with taking bribes is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. A man in his position would be expected to accept bribes; failure to do so would have raised suspicion and flagged him for extra scrutiny. If anyone wants to do well for his community in the US, he must play the game. In fact, in today's America, for someone to be charged with taking bribes, it probably means they were diverting money in order to be able to do good with it.

So the question is; why Nagin? Could it be because he interfered with certain developers' plans for post-Katrina N.O.? Could it be because he was actually a rare case of a good politician that he has been sent down for more than most murderers get in the U.S.? Somebody clearly wanted to eliminate this man from the game.

Curiously, the evidence used against Nagin is 'secret' and won't be made public.... 'just temporarily', they say, but everyone will have forgotten about it once he begins rotting in prison.

From his Wiki page we learn that:
Shortly after Katrina devastated New Orleans, some started making bold public demands for socially reengineering New Orleans during its recovery. There were repeated calls for moratoriums on rebuilding certain neighborhoods with developers eager for cheap land. Two weeks after Katrina struck, Nagin took a weekend trip to Dallas to reunite with his family. While there, he was asked to meet with leading New Orleans businessmen to discuss the city's future. Nagin made it clear at the meeting that everyone had a right to return home, a claim contradicted by some businesspersons in attendance. He also asserts his plans were to rebuild a bigger and better New Orleans where diversity, equity, and fairness ruled. Nagin traveled the country presiding over 170 town hall-style meetings to inform displaced New Orleanians of the status of the city's recovery.
...and those "some businesspersons" are no doubt among those implicated in the deliberate sabotaging of the city's flood defenses during Hurricane Katrina, along with the deliberately delayed federal response and the barbaric handling of refugees in the city and across the country.

Despite all that, Nagin still managed to turn the city around for one of the fastest ever urban recoveries from a major disaster.

It seems to us that they put a decent man away because he wasn't a psychopath like them.

See also:

It was the levees, not the hurricane, that flooded New Orleans


Bad Guys

Saudi Arabia to supply Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles - report

Rebel fighters in Syria
© brown-moses.blogspot.ru
Frustrated by the deadlock of the second round of Geneva 2 talks, Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered to supply the rebels with anti-aircraft missiles. Meanwhile Russia has accused the US of once again hijacking peace talks and pushing for regime change.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Russian-made antitank guided missiles and Chinese man-portable air-defense systems are up for grabs, already waiting in warehouses in Jordan and Turkey.

An Arab diplomat and several opposition figures with knowledge of the Saudi efforts have told WSJ that these supplies are likely to tip the battlefield scales, as the rebels will become capable of taking on the government's air power and destroying heavy armored vehicles.

"New stuff is arriving imminently," a Western diplomat with knowledge of the planned weapons deliveries told the American publication.

Leaders of the Syrian opposition said they don't yet know the total amount of military aid that will be shipped. The new weapons are expected to reach southern Syria from Jordan while the opposition in the north will get arms from Turkey, the Western diplomat said.

Attention

Fascists unleash violence in Venezuela as gunfire, clashes leave 3 dead

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© Angel VillarroelLara @avillarroellaraCaracas photo of burned police units in the city center
4:38 PM - 12 Feb 2014
At least three people have died in violent protests in the Venezuelan capital, officials have confirmed. President Nicolas Maduro has condemned the unrest as an attempt at a coup d'état orchestrated by extremist members of the political opposition.

Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the Venezuelan capital on Wednesday in the worst unrest since Nicolas Maduro assumed the presidency last year. Demonstrators from several different political factions clashed in Caracas, leaving at least three people dead and over 20 injured.

Venezuela's top prosecutor confirmed the death of 24-year-old student Bassil Dacosta Frías, who was shot in the head and died later in hospital. Officials said that a government supporter was also assassinated in what they decried as an act of "fascism." A third person was killed in the Chacao neighborhood in the East of the Venezuelan capital.

Stock Down

Twitter tanks 20 percent, loses $7.7 billion market cap - threatens to sue Obama administration

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© Twitter
Twitter focus on engagement and growth: Analyst Thursday, 6 Feb 2014 | 10:03 AM ET "One of our primary concerns has been related to user and engagement growth," says Scott Kessler, senior equity analyst at S&P Capital IQ, and Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst at RW Baird, discuss Twitter's downside and concerns.

Shares of Twitter dropped about 24 percent Thursday - a paper loss of $8.7 billion - after it reported sluggish user growth. The selloff was a sign that the social network will have a tough time regaining its stature with advertisers, at least until it releases better numbers, a senior tech analyst told CNBC.

"To us, when you're talking about opportunities relative to communicating with advertisers, you want to lead with a large and growing and increasingly engaged user base," Scott Kessler of S&P Capital IQ told "Squawk on the Street." "And Twitter doesn't seem to have the data to support that proposition."

Twitter closed Wednesday's trading session at $65.97 a share before posting earnings after the bell, the first quarterly report since it went public in November. Shares reached a low of $50 during trading Thursday, on pace for Twitter's worst day on record. The formerly red-hot stock had zero room for error, said Colin Sebastian, a senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.

Despite a rocky trading session Thursday, Twitter's stock remained up 99 percent from its IPO price of $26 a share.