Puppet MastersS


Heart - Black

Guantanamo Ex-Prisoner Reveals Torture


Press TV
Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:32 UTC
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© unknownAlgerian Guantanamo Bay ex-detainee Saber Lahmar
A former inmate at the US detention center of Guantanamo Bay has disclosed details of humiliation and torture he suffered during eight years in the prison.

Saber Lahmar explained that he was deprived of sleeping and food and there was constant noise from a motor outside his door.

"You couldn't walk, move, talk -- it was forbidden," said the 42-year-old Algerian, who successfully appealed for freedom in a civilian court in Washington in 2008.

The court found no evidence of Lahmar's alleged crimes or that he was a threat to the United States.

Lahmar, who arrived in the prison in January 2002, also said that he was subjected to electric shocks and there were drugs in his food, which stopped him sleeping.
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Boat

Royal Navy Sends Its Mightiest Ship to Take on the Iranian Show of Force in the Gulf

Thomas Harding
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:00 UTC
Image
© PAThe £1 billion destroyer carries the world's most sophisticated naval radar, capable of tracking multiple incoming threats from missiles to fighter jets
The Royal Navy's most formidable warship is being sent to the Gulf for its first mission as tensions rise in the strategically vital region, it can be disclosed.

Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, which served as the conduit for 17 millions barrels of oil every day last year.

Naval commanders believe the deployment of HMS Daring, a Type 45 destroyer, will send a significant message to the Iranians because of the firepower and world-beating technology carried by the warship.

Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, has publicly warned Iran that any blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would be "illegal and unsuccessful".

The Daily Telegraph understands that HMS Daring has been fitted with new technology that will give it the ability to shoot down any missile in Iran's armoury. The £1 billion destroyer, which will leave Portsmouth next Wednesday, also carries the world's most sophisticated naval radar, capable of tracking multiple incoming threats from missiles to fighter jets.

Daring, with its crew of 190, will transit through the Suez Canal and enter the Gulf later this month to replace the Type 23 frigate currently on station.
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USA

US: Pro-Settler Santorum Claims Mexico and the West Bank

Saree Makdisi
Salon
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:30 UTC
Unraveling the GOP candidate's baffling statements about Israel and the Palestinians
Rick Santorum
© Phelan Ebenehack / ReutersRick Santorum's Manifest Destiny

Following Rick Santorum's sudden and unanticipated rise to prominence during the Iowa caucuses, there has been a rush to review the earlier and more obscure phase of his presidential campaign to see what newsworthy tidbits might have been overlooked when the spotlights were all shining on Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

One of Santorum's gems in the rough was initially uncovered back in November by the ThinkProgress blogger Eli Clifton and Philip Weiss, and returned to this week by a blogger at The Jewish Week . Santorum said, among other things, "all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they're not Palestinians."

It was a reminder that two weeks before Newt Gingrich claimed that Palestinians are an invented people, Santorum had also denied their existence.

But whereas Gingrich's vilification of the Palestinians was merely a nasty example of crude cynicism, Santorum's seemed both more sincere and more intimately tied up with his ignorance not only of the question of Palestine but - more alarmingly perhaps - of American history as well.
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Vader

US: Rick Perry: Re-Invade Iraq

Alexander Burns
Politico
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:03 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Elise AmendolaTexas Gov. Rick Perry answers a question during a Republican presidential candidate debate at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, N.H.
Rick Perry endorsed deploying American forces to Iraq again in Saturday night's GOP debate, saying that the United States cannot afford to "allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country."

The Texas governor accused President Barack Obama of cutting and running from the conflict in Iraq too early, in order to placate Democrats.

"This president wants to kowtow to his liberal, leftist base and move out those men and women," Perry said. "He could have renegotiated that time frame."

Perry's fellow Republicans declined to join him in calling for a return of U.S. troops to Iraqi soil.
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Chess

Ahmadinejad Seeks Stronger Latin American Ties

Jim Wyss
San Francisco Chronicle
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,Hugo Chávez
© ANPMahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chávez
Under pressure at home and facing a fresh wave of economic sanctions, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seeking the company of friends - in Latin America.

Starting today, Ahmadinejad will be on a four-nation tour that includes U.S. antagonists Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.

The trip comes as the United States and the European Union are increasing economic sanctions on Iran in hopes of forcing it to halt its nuclear program. Iran insists its aims are peaceful, but many fear the regime has military ambitions. The sanctions come as Ahmadinejad's party is facing parliamentary elections - the first vote since the 2009 presidential race that led to bloody protests.

"As responsible nations toughen sanctions on Iran and the regime becomes increasingly isolated, it makes sense that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would seek a helping hand from fellow dictators and human rights abusers," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who has dubbed the visit the "Tour of Tyrants."
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Attention

Argentina's Fernandez Sent Home, Never Had Cancer

Hugh Bronstein and Maximiliano Rizzi
Reuters
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:27 UTC
Cristina Fernandez
© unknownArgentine President Cristina Fernandez
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez never had cancer despite being diagnosed with the disease last month and having her thyroid gland removed on January 4, her spokesman said on Saturday.

The government announced just after Christmas that the recently re-elected leader had thyroid cancer.

The operation to remove the gland went well, but when it was later analyzed it turned out to have never contained cancerous cells, said spokesman Alfredo Scoccimaro.

"The original diagnosis has been modified," he told a news conference. "The presence of cancer cells was discarded."

Fernandez was originally diagnosed with papillary carcinoma.

Buenos Aires-based thyroid cancer expert Eduardo Faure, who is not on the president's medical team, said a small number of such cases turn out to be "false positives," meaning that no cancer is present.
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Bad Guys

Flashback How Stephen Harper's Neo-Cons Destroyed Canada's International Reputation and Cost Us a Seat at the Security Council

Minister Faust
The Paltry Sapien
Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00 UTC
Stephen Harper
© unknownStephen Harper
Like many people around the planet, Canadians spent much of this millennium's first decade mocking the US for being led by a group of war-mongering, anti-environment, Judeo-Christian fundamentalist, hypersecretive neoconservatives.

But since 2005, Canada has had its own version bunkered inside the PMO: the Stephen Harper neo-cons. Owing to particularly effective political craft, the minority government has successfully outmanoeuvred every political party in the country. And according to Yves Engler, author of books such as The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Harper's international swaggering has cost Canada its reputation and a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

But how?

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most materially rich countries on the planet, and has been under colonial occupation and genocide, neo-colonial dictatorship or war and civil war for a century and a half. Foreign companies, including Canada's First Quantum, have exploited the DRC's instability to win mining concessions; First Quantum drew UN censure for doing so. The DRC has since been attempting, against great odds, to put its house back in order, including by asserting energy sovereignty.
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Vader

Canada: Harper Decries Threat of Iran to World Peace, Says Sanctions Working

Mike Blanchfield
The Canadian Press
Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Stephen Harper
© unknownStephen Harper
Stephen Harper has called the escalating standoff between Iran and the West the greatest threat to world peace.

The prime minister offered that assessment of the growing tensions in the Persian Gulf during an interview Thursday on an Alberta radio program.

"Your listeners should be under no illusion, Iran is a very serious threat to international peace and security. In my judgment, it is the world's most serious threat to international peace and security," Harper said during an appearance on the Rutherford Show, an Alberta-wide radio call-in program.

Harper also said he has no doubt Iran wants a nuclear weapon and would be prepared to use one.

"This is a regime that wants to acquire nuclear weapons ... and has indicated some desire to actually use nuclear weapons," he said.

Harper's remark about Iran expressing a desire to use a nuclear weapon appears to fly in the face of the facts, said one expert.
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Book

Michelle Obama Fought with Top Aides in the White House, New Book 'The Obamas' Says


New York Daily News
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:51 UTC
Michelle Obama was at odds with former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary Robert Gibbs: book
Obama
© Pete Souza/White HousePresident Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama pay tribute to outgoing Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel at a reception on the Truman Balcony of the White House with senior staff, Oct. 1, 2010.

First lady Michelle Obama is a behind-the-scenes force in the White House whose opinions on policy and politics drew her into conflict with presidential advisers and who bristled at some of the demands and constraints of life as the president's wife, according to a detailed account of the first couple's relationship.

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, in a book to be published Tuesday, portrays a White House where tensions developed between Mrs. Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, The Obamas, Friday evening and The Times posted a 3,300-word adaption on its website that appeared to capture its most revealing accounts. The book is based on interviews with 30 current and former aides, though President Barack Obama and the first lady declined to be interviewed for the book.

The book portrays Mrs. Obama as having gone through an evolution from struggle to fulfillment in her role at the White House but all the while an "unrecognized force" in pursuing the president's goals.
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Play

US: New Ron Paul South Carolina Ad Hits Santorum on 'Betrayal'

Emily Schultheis
Politico
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:59 UTC
Ron Paul's campaign is out with this new ad in South Carolina, which hits Rick Santorum on his "record of betrayal."

"One serial hypocrite exposed," the ad says, showing clips of Newt Gingrich. "Now another has emerged: Rick Santorum, a corporate lobbyist and Washington politician. A record of betrayal."

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