Puppet MastersS


Bomb

3 Small Explosions in Colombia on Eve of Americas Summit, No Damage or Injuries Reported

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© William Fernando Martinez /The Associated Press An Attorney General Office agent stands guard at the site where a small explosive device went off in the area where the U.S. embassy and public offices are located in Bogota, Colombia, Friday April, 13, 2012. No deaths or injuries were reported.
Cartagena, Colombia - Colombian officials are reporting no injuries or damage from three small explosions as Western Hemisphere leaders arrived for a summit.

Two of the low-intensity blasts occurred in Cartagena where the summit is being held and one was close to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.

The explosions occurred as more than 30 presidents and prime ministers arrived for the sixth Summit of the Americans.

A senior military official says two bags of gunpowder exploded in a vacant lot about a quarter mile (400 meters) from Cartagena's bus station Friday evening. The official spoke only on condition he not be further identified.

Bogota security officials say the third explosive device was set off near a tree in a drainage ditch near the U.S. Embassy, which is heavily fortified.

Source: The Associated Press

Comment: Sott wonders if there is a connection between these "3 explosions" and the recent events involving US secret service and the US military in Cartagena, Colombia.

Obama Secret Service Agents Sent Home from Colombia Over Alleged Misconduct

Prostitution Scandal: 5 Members Of U.S. Military Accused Of Misconduct At Same Hotel As Secret Service


Dollar

Harper's Baseball Trip Hit Taxpayers with $45,000 Tab

Stephen Harper
© Tom MurroPrime Minister Stephen Harper, in the white shirt and khakis, signs an autograph for a baseball fan at Yankee Stadium last fall.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Labour Day-weekend trip to Manhattan last fall, which included coveted tickets to a New York Yankees game and a Broadway show, cost Canadian taxpayers at least $45,000, documents reveal.

Documents obtained under Access to Information reveal only some of the trip's cost. They include $34,633 for the use of the Challenger Jet and another $11,026 for the expenses of four staffers who joined the prime minister during the private family trip.

However, government officials have declined to provide CBC News with other costs linked to the trip last September, such as expenses incurred by the prime minister, two more aides and a defence attaché who took part in the three-day excursion.

Costs were not provided related to the RCMP officers who accompanied the prime minister on this personal trip. RCMP officials say the documents detailing those expenses can't be released because they contain sensitive information that could affect security and the conduct of international affairs. RCMP are required to accompany Harper for security reasons even on personal travels.

MIB

Prostitution Scandal: 5 Members Of U.S. Military Accused Of Misconduct At Same Hotel As Secret Service


Cartagena, Colombia -- The U.S. military says five service members supporting the Secret Service in advance of President Barack Obama's visit may have been involved in inappropriate conduct and have been confined to quarters. Obama is in Colombia for a Summit of the Americas.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the incident with the military personnel stems from the same episode involving about a dozen members of the Secret Service who were called back to the U.S. for an investigation into possible misconduct.

Carney referred questions about the episode, which includes allegations that U.S. personnel procured prostitutes, to the Secret Service and to the military.

Carney said the president retains confidence in the Secret Service and said the incidents under investigation, which preceded Obama's arrival, had no impact on presidential security.

Source: The Associated Press

Eye 1

CISPA, aka SOPA 2.0, Pushed Forward By For-Profit Spying Lobby

internet spy graphic
© n/a
A cyber security bill moving swiftly through Congress would give government intelligence agencies broad powers to work with private companies to share information about Internet users. While some critics are beginning to organize online against the legislation, defense contractors, many already working with the National Security Agency on related data-mining projects, are lobbying to press forward. Like many bad policy ideas, entrenched government contractors seem to be using taxpayer money to lobby for even more power and profit.

The proposal, H.R.3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, introduced by Congressmen Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), provides companies and the government "free rein to bypass existing laws in order to monitor communications, filter content, or potentially even shut down access to online services for 'cybersecurity purposes.'" Though the bill has been compared to SOPA given its potential to smother free speech on the Internet, the ill-fated copyright legislation that inspired an intense lobbying battle earlier this year, much of the tech community has has joined with copyright interests to support CISPA.

Attention

Propaganda Alert! US Drone Kills 7 al-Qaida Members in Yemen

drone
© Reuters
Sanna, Yemen - A U.S. drone strike killed seven suspected al-Qaida members believed to be heading toward a restive province where Yemeni forces have been intensely battling the terror group, Yemeni officials said.

The unmanned U.S. drone targeted a vehicle in the province of Bayda, south of the capital of Sanaa, killing the seven people inside on the spot, according to two Yemeni military officials.

A statement from the Ministry of Defense said only that a jet fired a missile at a vehicle carrying al-Qaida members, destroying it and the people inside. The statement did not clarify whether the strike was American or Yemeni. The discrepancy could not be immediately clarified.

One of the Yemeni officials said the militants were heading to Abyan province where government forces are engaged in ongoing clashes with militants. Yemeni officials said more than 200 militants have been killed in fighting in the province over the last week, as Yemen tries to bring the restive area back under its control.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials, but Washington has carried out deadly airstrikes in Yemen in the past. Last year, an American drone strike killed U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and a second American, Samir Khan, an al-Qaida propagandist.

Airplane

Airlines Cancel Activists' Flights to Israel

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© The Associated Press/Dan BaliltyAn Israeli Security guard rides an escalator at the arrival terminal in Ben Gurion Air Port in Tel Aviv, Saturday, April 14, 2012.
A Palestinian activist said Saturday that a number of international airlines canceled flights for at least 100 people scheduled to arrive in Israel's main airport for a mass fly-in of pro-Palestinian activists, while Israel said those activists who manage to make it to the airport would be deported.

Campaign organizer Amira Musallam said activists from around the world notified her by email that Lufthansa, Jet2.com and Air France canceled their flight reservations.

EasyJet also announced it would refuse to fly passengers which Israel has marked on a no-entry list. Airline spokeswoman Anna Knowles said only a small number of passengers were affected.

Israeli television reported most airlines would not fly activists to Israel and only a trickle would arrive, though Musallam, the Palestinian organizer, said she still expects hundreds of activists to arrive beginning Saturday evening and continuing through Sunday.

The "Welcome to Palestine" project seeks to raise attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas.

Visitors can only reach the West Bank through Israeli-controlled land crossings or Israeli airports. At any given time, hundreds of foreigners are in the West Bank, including activists, aid workers, volunteers, tourists and religious pilgrims. Israel limits entry through its border crossing to the Gaza Strip to foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers only.

Travelers who wish to visit the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank often report being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours, by Israeli border authorities - unless they fib about their intended destination.

Israel is nervous about a large influx of pro-Palestinian activists, following a series of deadly run-ins with such activists in recent years.

Stormtrooper

UN Security Council votes to send troops to Syria to enforce ceasefire

Un peacekeeper
© United Nations Photo / FlickrUN peacekeeper
The UN security council has voted unanimously to send to 30 military observers to Syria to monitor the country's fragile ceasefire.

Russia and China joined the other 13 security council members and voted in favour of the draft resolution on Saturday. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, made it clear Moscow would only support limited action from the UN.

"Out of respect for the sovereignty of Syria we have cautioned against destructive attempts at external interference or imposing any kind of illusory fixes," he said.

Sources at the UN said that the observers were poised to leave for Syria in the next couple of days.

Question

Is Oil Smuggling and Organized Crime the Cause of Greece's Economic Crisis?

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Oil smuggling is embedded into the social, political and economic fabric of Greece, with annual revenues generated from illegal fuel smuggling reaching €3 billion euros as of 2008, and some sources say that although Greece imports up to 99 percent of its fuel needs, it still manages to export more than it imports.

Greece thrives on its shipping industry and one of its main contraband markets is petroleum. Greek regulations have shipping oil priced at one-third the price of automotive and home heating oil. In response, smugglers transform low-cost "shipping oil" into higher-priced home and automotive oil, generating huge profits. The practice requires a vast criminal infrastructure including illegal depots near ports and major cities for the storage of the shipping oil, which is adulterated and resold as home and automotive oil.

An estimated 20 percent of fuel oil sold in the Greek market comes from illegal trade. Gas stations in Greece are said to offer fuel that is a more lucrative blend of legally purchased fuel and black market fuel, allowing retailers to realize higher profits and avoid excise duties.

Though Greece shows a mathematically impossible volume of petroleum exports to neighboring countries, the bills of laden do not add up, with oil tankers departing for their expressed destinations but then turning around and rerouting the ships back home for illegal sale on the domestic market.

Comment: Interesting angle on it, but we think people shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the dominant cause of the Greek/EU financial crisis remains Goldman Sachs and Wall Street malfeasance:

Bankers Have Seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over

What price the new democracy? Goldman Sachs conquers Europe

Jon Stewart Blames the Greek Crisis on Goldman Sachs

What Chase & Goldman Sachs did to Greece


Arrow Down

Sarkozy's Comeback Hopes Crumble, Polls Show

Nicolas Sarkozy
© unknown
France, Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy defended his economic record on Friday as a slew of opinion polls suggested his prospects of re-election were crumbling just over a week from round one of a vote where Socialist Francois Hollande is the clear frontrunner.

Four polls published in less than 24 hours showed Hollande extending his lead, with the conservative incumbent's modest gains of the past month starting to evaporate ahead of a two-round contest taking place on April 22 and May 6.

A CSA poll showed Hollande winning the May 6 run-off with 57 percent of the vote. Three other polls also indicated that his chances of becoming France's first left-wing president since Francois Mitterrand were improving.

Sarkozy maintained that he had helped France weather economic crisis over the past four years far better than countries such as Greece or Spain, and he renewed warnings of market turmoil if Hollande won power.

"What fires up the financial markets and speculation is when a country does not repay its debts, reneges on its commitments and embarks on a path of ill-considered spending," Sarkozy told TV news channel i>TELE.

"Mr Hollande, by promising to raise spending without any commitment to cutbacks, is setting the stage for a confidence problem (in financial markets)," he said.

Hollande, who says he can slash the public deficit but also promote jobs and education as he hikes tax on the rich, stuck to his line in three newspaper interviews published on Friday. He said austerity would be self-defeating if not accompanied by efforts to promote economic growth in France and Europe.

"This I say clearly: financial markets will not lay down the law in France," he told the business weekly La Tribune.

MIB

Obama Secret Service Agents Sent Home from Colombia Over Alleged Misconduct

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© Enrique Marcarian/ReutersColombia's President Juan Manuel Santos and his wife Maria Clemencia Rodriguez receive U.S. President Barack Obama as they arrive at the San Felipe Castle for a state dinner before the start of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena April 13, 2012.
A dozen Secret Service agents sent to Colombia to provide security for President Barack Obama at an international summit have been relieved of duty over alleged misconduct.

A caller who said he had knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press the misconduct involved prostitutes in Cartagena, site of the Summit of the Americas. A Secret Service spokesman did not dispute that.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity, put the number of agents sent home at 12. Secret Service was not releasing the number of personnel involved.

The incident threatened to overshadow Mr. Obama's economic and trade agenda at the summit and embarrass the U.S. The White House had no comment, but also did not dispute the allegations.