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Megaphone

Julian Assange Calls on US to Release Bradley Manning, Charged With Leaking Classified Info


ABC News
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:00 UTC
Julian Assange calls on US to release Bradley Manning, charged with leaking classified info.


Source: The Associated Press
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Attention

Racing Towards a Fiscal Cliff - Former U.S. Comptroller General's chilling new warning to Americans

Jon Talton
Seattle Times
Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:53 UTC
I haven't written about the so-called fiscal cliff because, against increasing evidence, I hold to Abba Eban's quote, "When all else fails, men turn to reason." But maybe not in today's America.The fiscal cliff is the set of budget cuts and tax increases that would automatically kick in next year. That is, unless Republicans and Democrats, the Congress and the White House, can agree to new tax and budget provisions, especially the shape of extending the Bush tax cuts. If we fall off the cliff, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the total effect could mean a 3.9 percent contraction in the growth rate of gross domestic product next year.

The fiscal cliff is replacing the eurozone crisis as the big deal facing the U.S. economy. As the New York Times reports, businesses are reducing their investments for fear that reason won't prevail. "Executives at companies making everything from electrical components and power systems to automotive parts say the fiscal stalemate is prompting them to pull back now, rather than wait for a possible resolution to the deadlock on Capitol Hill."

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Bell

Julian Assange defies British Government to make statement from balcony of Ecuadorian embassy


The Telegraph
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:49 UTC
Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, is set to defy the British Government as he makes a dramatic public statement on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.


Mr Assange, 41, was due to make his first public statement this afternoon, two months after he walked into the central London building seeking asylum.

Australian - born Mr Assange is facing extradition to Sweden, where he is accused of the sexual assault of two women, which he denies.

Mr Assange remains at the centre of a diplomatic row involving six countries on five continents, having skipped bail to avoid extradition.

He is currently in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, which, under the terms of the Vienna Convention, British police cannot enter.

His legal adviser Balthasar Garcon emerged from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and said: "I have spoken to Julian Assange and I can tell you he is in fighting spirits and he is thankful to the people of Ecuador and especially to the president for granting asylum.
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Vader

War by other means: NATO's Libyan campaign enters new phase as car bomb attacks kill two


The Guardian
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 08:43 UTC
Image
© Mahmud Turkia/AFPThe 'Ulster Method' comes to Libya: car bombs are a favoured tactic of Western intelligence agencies to justify and prop up their puppet regimes.
Three car bombings close to security buildings in Tripoli are the first deadly attacks since Muammar Gaddafi's fall last year

At least two people were killed when three car bombs exploded near interior ministry and security buildings in the Libyan capital on Sunday, the first lethal attack of its kind since Muammar Gaddafi's fall last year, security sources said.

Ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scenes of the blasts and large numbers of police cordoned off the sites before starting to remove the damaged vehicles.

The first bomb blew up near the interior ministry's administrative offices in Tripoli but caused no casualties, the sources said. On arriving at the site of the explosion, police found another car bomb that had not blown up.

Minutes later, two car bombs exploded near the former headquarters of a women's police academy, which the defence ministry has been using for interrogations and detentions, the sources said, killing two people, both civilians, and wounding two.

Comment: Is Reuters referring to the same "peaceful transfer of power" in which NATO murdered 40,000 people from the air?

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USA

US Government Spies on Federal Staffers


RT
Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
Several federal agencies have purchased an advanced software application that allows administrators to see every single action, item, mouse click and more performed on their employees' computers. Some say it's being implemented to end whistleblowing.

In the midst of a witch-hunt that has targeted anyone accused of leaking documents, the US federal government has been linked to a massive acquisition of spyware that allows the higher ups to get ahold of essentially any communiqué and comment made by its employees on any electronic device. Some agents with the Food and Drug Administration insist that their personal conversations were unlawfully monitored by their higher-ups using the program, citing their superiors' fears that whistleblowers will continue to come to lawmakers to voice concern over dangerous practices within the FDA.

"We are looking for what we call indicators of compromise," Joy Miller, deputy assistant secretary for security at the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA's parent agency, says to the Washington Post. "We're monitoring a system, not everybody in that environment."

Journalists with the Post penned an article this week that examines the use of Spector 360, monitoring software made by the SpectorSoft group, within the FDA and other agencies.
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Cell Phone

Police Allowed to Track Cell Phones in US Without Court Warrants


RT
Sat, 18 Aug 2012 00:00 UTC
police, cell phone
The US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy when carrying cell phones, allowing police to track GPS signals without a warrant or probable cause.

The decision came the court ruled in United States v. Skinner that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) abided by the Constitution by using a drug runner's cellphone data to track his location and determine his identity.

Melvin Skinner, also known by his false name as "Big Foot," was a drug mule with more than 1,100 pounds of marijuana in his Texas motorhome.

The throwaway mobile phone he was using was registered under a false name, so agents did not know the identity of the drug trafficker.

By using GPS data from his disposable phone, police learned that "Big Foot" was planning to deliver a large shipment of marijuana from Arizona to Tennessee in his mobile home.
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Beaker

US Army Grants $3 Million for Anti-Suicide Nasal Spray Research


RT
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:00 UTC
soldier, PTSD
© Agence France-Presse/Paul J. Richards
For those feeling down in the dumps, the US military now has a solution: an anti-suicidal nasal spray that delivers antidepressant chemicals to the brain.

­The US Army has awarded a scientist at the Indiana University School of Medicine $3 million to develop a nasal spray that eclipses suicidal thoughts. Dr. Michael Kubek and his research team will have three years to ascertain whether the nasal spray is a safe and effective method of preventing suicides.

The research grant comes after the Army lost 38 of its soldiers to suspected suicide in July, setting a record high. So far in 2012, the Army has confirmed 66 active duty suicides and is investigating 50 more, making a total of 116 cases.

The Army's suicide rate is at the highest level in history, with more American soldiers taking their own lives than being killed by the Taliban. The Pentagon reported in June that suicides among soldiers averaged one per day this year, surpassing the rate of combat fatalities.

But the naturally occurring neurochemical thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) could slow the rising suicide rate. The chemical has a euphoric, calming, antidepressant effect. TRH has been shown to decrease suicidal ideas, depression and bipolar disorders.
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Top Secret

Feds move to strike lewd details from Homeland Security sexual-discrimination lawsuit

Geoff Earle
New York Post
Sat, 18 Aug 2012 08:18 UTC
Janet Napolitano
© n/aJanet Napolitano
The feds have asked a judge to strike from the public record the most "scandalous" details of a bombshell sexual-discrimination lawsuit against Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security that refer to oral sex and an odd bathroom prank.

The lewd details are included in senior law-enforcement official James Hayes' suit claiming retaliation anti-guy bias.

The filing claims top immigration aide Suzanne Barr "humiliated" a male employee by calling him in his hotel room and screaming that she wanted his "c--k in the back of [her] throat."

It also states that Barr, a close adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, who went on leave this week after the suit appeared, "rewarded those male employees who would play along with her sexually charged games."
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Airplane

Drone strike kills five more in Pakistan


The Times of India
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:00 UTC
drones espías‎
© hispantv.com
Islamabad - At least five people were killed in a US drone strike launched early Sunday morning in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan, said media reports.

Xinhua, citing Urdu TV channel Dawn, said two drones fired four missiles at two vehicles suspected of carrying militants in the Shawal area in Miranshah, a town in North Waziristan, early Sunday morning, killing at least five people on the spot.

This is the second strike launched by US drones in the same area since Saturday noon, when drones launched a strike in the same area, in which four missiles were fired at two targets of a house and a vehicle, killing at least six suspected militants and wounding two others.

US drones have launched a total of 25 strikes in Pakistan this year, killing at least 182 people.

Source: IANS
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Dominoes

U.S. says Iraqis help Iran skirt sanctions over nuclear program

James Risen & Duraid Adnan
The New York Times
Sat, 18 Aug 2012 19:15 UTC
Blind eye allegedly turned toward smuggling, trade, financial flow
Image
© Unknown
When President Obama announced last month that he was barring a Baghdad bank from any dealings with the American banking system, it was a rare acknowledgment of a delicate problem facing the administration in a country that American troops just left: for months, Iraq has been helping Iran skirt economic sanctions imposed on Tehran because of its [alleged] nuclear program.

The little-known bank singled out by the United States, the Elaf Islamic Bank, is only part of a network of financial institutions and oil-smuggling operations that, according to current and former American and Iraqi government officials and experts on the Iraqi banking sector, has provided Iran with a crucial flow of dollars at a time when sanctions are squeezing its economy.

The Obama administration is not eager for a public showdown with the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki over Iran just eight months after the last American troops withdrew from Baghdad.

Still, the administration has held private talks with Iraqi officials to complain about specific instances of financial and logistical ties between the countries, officials say, although they do not regard all trade between them as illegal or, as in the case of smuggling, as something completely new. In one recent instance, when American officials learned that the Iraqi government was aiding the Iranians by allowing them to use Iraqi airspace to ferry supplies to Syria, Mr. Obama called Mr. Maliki to complain. The Iranian planes flew another route.

Comment: "American and Iraqi oil experts say..." Which experts, how long have they been in the field, what are their credentials, do they have names...?

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