Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

What are you packing? Homeland security to scan payment cards at borders and airports

wireless electronic card reader
© USDATypical wireless electronic card reader
Travelers leaving or entering the United States have long had to declare aggregated cash and other monetary instruments exceeding $10,000. Now, under a proposed amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act, FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) will also require travelers to declare the value of prepaid cards that they are carrying, known now as "tangible prepaid access devices."

Expected to be finalized by the end of this year, the cross-border reporting modifications stem from a broader October 2011 definition of payment methods and form factors that replaced the term "stored value" with the term "prepaid access" in an effort to more accurately describe the process of accessing funds held by a payment provider.

Enforceability falls to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection both within the Department of Homeland Security, which is already developing advanced handheld card readers that can ascertain whether a traveler is carrying a credit card, debit card, or prepaid card. This differentiation is important because only prepaid card balances will need to be added to declaration report forms.

Acknowledging that many questions still remain and that enforcement may not be straightforward, Cynthia Merritt, assistant director of the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, had this to say about the handheld readers:
Furthermore, according to the comments, the enforcement challenge is not new, nor is the concept of a device or document that can be used to access value. The current challenges are similar to those presented in the past with other monetary instruments such as checks, money orders, and traveler checks.
Merritt also stated that, "When law enforcement takes possession of a cash or monetary instrument at the border, they are effectively holding the funds, but not so with a prepaid card or other device. Holding the card does not provide access to the underlying funds."

Blackbox

Petraeus scandal develops as another general is under investigation

Allen
© CNNAllen is a four-star general and the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
Gen. David Petraeus is the latest in a long line of powerful men in Washington whose career has been marred by an affair; Clinton and Lewinsky, Schwarzenegger and his love child - or for that matter, Edwards and his love child, Spitzer and the call girl.

The FBI alleged Gen. John Allen had "inappropriate communications" with Jill Kelley, the woman who reportedly received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, according to the Associated Press.

Allen is a four-star general and the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer, was identified as the woman who Petraeus had an affair with and the cause of his resignation.

An official told the AP that 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other communications between Allen and Kelley since 2010 are under review.

The official added the emails are not believed to be sexual in nature, and Allen has denied any wrongdoing.

Comment: Quite a clean-out of top military personnel with Petraeus and Allen, there is also Gaouette:
In an unusual move, the Navy has replaced an admiral commanding an aircraft carrier strike group while it is deployed to the Middle East. The replacement was prompted by an Inspector General's investigation of allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.

Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette, the commander of the USS John C. Stennis strike group, is being returned to the United States for temporary reassignment.
and Sinclair:
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair's court-martial, which kicked off Monday morning at Fort Bragg, for offenses including "forcible sodomy." The hearing represented a first glimpse into a case that the Pentagon and the Army have gone to surprising lengths to keep quiet - lengths they haven't gone to in other high-profile cases, including the one against a sergeant charged with much more serious crimes who also begins his court-martial on Monday.



Vader

Former British MP Sir Cyril Smith 'sexually abused boys', MP tells Commons

Cyril Smith
the grotesque former MP Cyril Smith - at the pedophile safe haven of Westminster!
Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Smith's former constituency in Rochdale, described him as a "29 stone bully" who "imposed himself" on his victims whom he "humiliated and terrified".

The allegations were investigated by Lancashire Police in the 1960s but no action was taken.

Mr Danczuk said some alleged victims had only now come forward in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal and it was time to find out "why was this allowed to happen".

Smith's brother, Norman, said he was "staggered" the MP was blackening the name of Sir Cyril, who died in 2010, adding that the police found at the time that there was no case to answer.

Barry Fitton, a former resident of the Cambridge House hostel in Rochdale, told the website politicshome.com that when he was 15 Smith would make him strip, smacked his bare bottom and then stroked his buttocks.

Vader

Israel posing threat to entire region

Image
© UnknownAhmed Bilal Osman
Sudan's Minister of Culture and Information Ahmed Bilal Osman described Israel as a serious threat to the entire region, reminding that Tel Aviv's blatant disrespect for all international rules was displayed in its recent aggression against Khartoum.

"Israel is the greatest threat posed to the Arab countries and the entire region," Osman told Sudan official TV network, adding that Tel Aviv has sought to start war with Sudan since 1982.

He said the recent military attack by Israel on Sudan was not aimed at the ruling system but was meant to serve as the start of a colonial move to loot his country's resources.

Osman further said that Sudan has initiated diplomatic and international moves to disclose the Israeli aggression against Khartoum to the public in every dimension, adding that his country has also filed a complaint at the UN Security Council.

Earlier, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir called Israel his country's number one enemy and repeated Khartoum's assertion that Tel Aviv carried out an October airstrike on the Sudanese capital.

"Israel is our enemy, our number one enemy, and we will continue calling Israel our enemy," he said in Riyadh where he has received medical treatment.

On October 24, Osman informed the media that four Israeli warplanes had attacked Yarmouk Ammunition Factory in Khartoum and killed at least two people.

Hundreds of Sudanese staged a demonstration in Khartoum on the same day to condemn the strike.

Sudan has also asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel for violating the country's sovereignty.

Stormtrooper

US supports sectarian wars in region to serve Israel

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A former deputy head of the Arab League said the US stirs and supports sectarian wars in the region in a bid to help materialize Israel's interests.

"The US policies about Israel should change and Washington should desist from supporting sectarian wars which are to the benefit of the Zionist regime since all the sectarian wars in Islamic countries serve the interests of that regime," Former Arab League Deputy Secretary-General for Palestinian Affairs Saeed Kamal told FNA on Tuesday.

Asked if the US will change its foreign policy with regard to Israel, he said Washington and Tel Aviv will be separated in all but the Palestinian issue, and the US will fully support and obey Israel against the Palestinian nation.

In relevant remarks in August, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei warned about the enemies' plots to stir sectarian strife among the regional nations.

During the meeting held on the sidelines of the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) here in Tehran at the time, the Supreme Leader cautioned against the dangerous attempts made to sow discord and stir clashes between different religious sects in the Muslim nations, specially between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and said, "These actions are carried out through the support of certain powers and by means of their hirelings, whose instances can be seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan now."

"The Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were created with the support of the US allies in the region, while the US is bombing countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting them," said the Leader, and added, "But their main goal is hegemony over these countries."

He further warned the Indonesian official to take precautions about such dangerous plots against Muslims in Indonesia, Egypt and Libya, and underlined the necessity of increased cooperation among Islamic states.

USA

The Greatest Obama Scandal of the Century, Arming Al-qaeda in Syria

The CIA has been funding, training and arming the terrorists that allegedly attacked the US on 9/11.


USA

There's a reason why all of the reports about Benghazi are so confusing

At this point it's clear that the U.S. had something to hide at Benghazi, and that's why reports coming out of the Libyan city have been so confusing.

Two key details about the the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans cannot be underestimated.

"The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation," officials briefed on intelligence told the Wall Street Journal, and there's evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to Syrian rebels.

WSJ reports that the State Department presence in Benghazi "provided diplomatic cover" for the previously hidden CIA mission, which involved finding and repurchasing heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals. These weapons are presumably from Muammar Gaddafi's stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles, the bulk of which were SA-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles.

USA

How U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens may have been linked to jihadist rebels In Syria

The official position is that the US has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria.

But there's growing evidence that U.S. agents - particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens - were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group - a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens' life.

In November 2011 The Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, "met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey" in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.

Last month The Times of London reported that a Libyan ship "carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria ... has docked in Turkey." The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Those heavy weapons are most likely from Muammar Gaddafi's stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles - the bulk of them SA-7s - that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc. Reuters reports that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.

The ship's captain was "a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organization called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support," which was presumably established by the new government.

USA

U.S. state department official killed in Libya was a top online gamer

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The avatar "vile rat" of U.S. state department official, Sean Smith who was killed in Benghazi
Sean Smith, the U.S. state department official killed along with the U.S. ambassador to Libya and two others last night, was a top player in the online game EVE.

Smith was reportedly speaking with fellow gamers when the attack occurred and his friends online were the first to identify him as among the dead.

Known online as Vile Rat, Smith played the game since 2006 and intermittently served on the sci-fi massively multiplayer online (MMO) game's player-elected Council.

In PC Gamer fellow player Marsh Davies described Smith as a "senior figure who held many of the strings that made the game's universe dance."

A player named The Mittani, who said he was a friend of Smith "both in real life and in internet spaceships" for more than six years, wrote a heartfelt blog post that said Smith started out "as one of my agents and [grew] to become the single most influential diplomat in the history of Eve" as he "touched every aspect of EVE in ways that 99% of the population will never understand."

He goes on to say that it seems "kind of trivial to praise a husband, father, and overall badass for his skills in an internet spaceship game but that's how most of us know him, so there you go."

Alarm Clock

REPORT: It was a NATO mortar that killed 5 Turkish civilians last week

Turkey's Yurt Newspaper is reporting that the mortar used in a deadly bombing of a Turkish border town was specific to NATO and given to Syrian rebels by Turkey, according to RT.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told state-run television on Oct. 6 that the five civilian deaths in a Turkish border town on Oct. 3 were caused by a D30 type, 122mm artillery shell, which is used by the Syrian army.

But Yurt's Editor-in-Chief, Merdan Yanardag, cited "information from a reliable source" who claimed that the mortar was given to Turkey by NATO and subsequently passed along to rebels fighting to topple Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The incident has led to seven consecutive days of mortar exchanges between the former allies.