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U.S. sold bunker-busting bombs to Israel: report


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:45 UTC
bunker busting bombs Israel
© Unknown
President Barack Obama secretly authorized the sale of 55 powerful bunker-busting bombs to Israel, Newsweek magazine reported Friday.

Israel first asked to buy deep-penetrating GBU-28 bombs in 2005, but were rebuffed by then-president George W. Bush. At the time the Pentagon had frozen joint US-Israeli defense projects, fearful that Israel was transferring advanced military technology to China, Newsweek said.

However in 2007 Bush informed then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that the bombs would be ready for delivery in 2009 or 2010, even though the Israelis wanted them immediately.

Obama released the bombs in 2009, the magazine reports, citing unnamed officials familiar with the still-secret decision.
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Popcorn

Politics as usual: Putin 'accepts nomination' for Russian presidential run

Miriam Elder
The Guardian
Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:25 UTC
Image
© Ivan Sekretarev/AP
Surprise! Vlad and his poodle at the United Russia party congress in Moscow.
Confirmation that Putin will run for presidency announced at United Russia party conference in Moscow

Vladimir Putin has agreed to run for the presidency of Russia again in a move that could see him lead the country until 2024.

In what could be the ulimate political job swap, his United Russia party also approved his proposal that the current president Dmitry Medvedev will take over Putin's role as prime minister.

Putin ruled Russia as president for two terms 2000 to 2008 with a steely command that was widely criticised in the west as a retreat from democracy.

Constitutional rule changes have subsequently extended the presidential term from four years to six, Putin, if he won the election, could be in power for 12 years from next year. It would also mean he would have lead the country for almost quarter of a century.
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Cult

MIVILUDES: Some Truth and Lies in France's witch-hunt against 'subversives'


CAP-LC
Sun, 05 Dec 2010 09:04 UTC
MIVILUDES (Mission Interministérielle de VIgilance et de LUtte contre les DÉrives) is an agency of the French government tasked with seeking and harassing, and ultimately prosecuting, any group it deems to be 'fond of ideas not commonly shared by society'. And who decides which ideas are and are not 'commonly shared by society'? The MIVILUDES, of course...

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Pharoah

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
Wed, 16 Feb 2011 04:48 UTC
Image
© Victor Juhasz
Financial crooks brought down the world's economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them

Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

"Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that."

I put down my notebook. "Just that?"

"That's right," he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there."

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth - and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.
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Cult

Background to the Witch Hunt against SOTT: French-led FECRIS, key player behind increasing intolerance in Europe


fecris.tripod.com
Sun, 25 Sep 2011 05:10 UTC
Image

'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'
  1. Rising religious discrimination in Europe
  2. Definition of religious discrimination and the subcategory "sectophobia"
  3. Documentation of governmental reports on sects
  4. Documentation of French anti-sect law
  5. The European network of anti-religious groups and their role in the French anti-religious law going European
  6. FECRIS view upon religious freedom and the risk for a Europe of "thought-police" with FECRIS-groups as the masters
  7. Documentation of the role of European anti-religious groups in creation of discrimination, restriction of liberty and violence from anti-religious groups
  8. Objective sources of information and dialog
  9. The need for investigation of religious discrimination in Europe
1. A rising religious discrimination in Europe

Several human rights bodies have reported a rise in religious intolerance in Europe the last ten years. Europe is very sensitive towards religious discrimination, due to the history of this continent and due to the fact that Europe is by many considered an opinion leader in the field of human rights in the world. Legislation and government actions towards religious minorities in Europe, therefore causes repercussions all over the world. On the other hand there is also a rising awareness and protest about the discrimination against minority groups that is arising. Here is an excerpt from a hearing in CSCE (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe), from 5 years ago.

Comment: A hard lesson that Europe seems destined to repeat. Since the above report was published, FECRIS have gone on to firmly embed themselves within the highest policy-making bodies in Europe and beyond.

Their Wikipedia page says:
As of 2003 the government of France provided funding to the organization.[8] In March 2005, the Council of Europe's Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly granted FECRIS advisory status.[5] In 2009, FECRIS was granted "ECOSOC Special Consultative Status" by the United Nations.[9]
In typically psychopathic fashion this organisation has insinuated itself into the EU and UN legislative structure with hysterical McCarthyite claims of 'cultists' infiltrating every organ of state in order to do precisely the very thing they accuse others of - manipulating legislation that was originally intended to protect people's human rights, in particular preventing the rights of people to freedom of thought, conscience and religious association - all done on behalf of their backers in mainstream churches who feel that the new 'cults' are encroaching on their turf!

The current president of FECRIS, incidentally, is Tom Sackville, an Eton and Oxford-educated aristocrat and former Tory Home Office Minister of John Major's conservative government in the 1990s.

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Chess

Russia to build sea-based 'missile shield' - diplomat


RIA Novosti
Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:21 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti. Michail Fomichev
Russia to build sea-based 'missile shield'
Russia is planning to develop its own sea-based missile defense system, a Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday.

"According to our analysis, this system will be very efficient and meet the norms of international maritime law," said Vladimir Kozin, a deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's information and press department.

Kozin did not give any further details on the future missile defense system. He was speaking at a video conference between Moscow and Kiev on European security.
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Calculator

European Sovereign Debt - Can't We All Just 'Net' Along?

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:16 UTC
It is seemingly clearer and clearer that with the current structure and membership, the Euro does not work. The market seems to be driving the change in the direction of membership changes (via restructurings and temporary devaluations - e.g. GRE CDS and WI Drachma) while the euro-zone-'management' seem prone to structural changes (i.e. EFSF umbrella, Euro-bonds, and fiscal union). While the cost of either approach is likely extremely high, some research from early Summer by ESCP Europe suggests a non-trivial approach that reduces aggregate debt for the European sovereign complex by almost 64% is possible. The solution:- bi- & tri-lateral netting, and free-trading.

Clearly, there will be winners and losers in this 'free exchange', and the game-theoretical bargaining process of 17 self-indulgent, self-interested career politicians is unlikely to resolve in an optimal direction. However, if nothing else, it is evident just how Gordian-knot-like any resolution is likely to be.
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No Entry

Israel rejects French compromise on Palestinian state

Nasser Abou Bakr
Agence France-Presse
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:45 UTC
palestinians,un
© AFP
Palestinians in Beirut demonstrate outside the European Union representation office.

Israel on Friday rejected a proposal by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to upgrade the Palestinians' UN status and admit them as a non-member state, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

"This may seem like a good idea on the surface but in reality you can't cut corners by giving the Palestinians a state, however you describe it, which does not come from an agreement with Israel," Yigal Palmor told AFP.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was just hours from submitting a historic request to the United Nations to admit Palestine as a member state despite fierce Israeli and US opposition.
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Bad Guys

US to expand drone hits with secret new bases

Daniel Howden
The Independent
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:52 UTC
Washington's decision to develop new bases will greatly expand the drone's strike range
© GETTY
Washington's decision to develop new bases will greatly expand the drone's strike range

'Ring of steel' around terror groups revealed in leaked cables

The US is building a ring of secret military bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula as it steps up the use of unmanned drone aircraft to strike at groups linked to al-Qa'ida.

A base has been built on the Indian Ocean island chain of the Seychelles, according to leaked diplomatic cables. Another is being established in Ethiopia, The Washington Post reported.

The US has been launching assassination missions in Somalia targeting the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab, which publicly supports al-Qa'ida, for some time. Washington already has a base in neighbouring Djibouti. Drones were used in two days of attacks near the Shabaab-controlled port city of Kismayo in southern Somalia last week. Unconfirmed reports suggest that up to 26 people were killed.
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Bad Guys

US: Exxon Mobil To Restart Montana Pipeline

Matthew Brown
Huffington Post
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:18 UTC
Billings - A failed Exxon Mobil pipeline that spilled an estimated 42,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River was expected to restart operations on Saturday after federal officials approved repairs meant to prevent another accident.






A quarter-mile segment of the 12-inch pipeline was replaced by drilling a new passage an estimated 60 to 70 feet beneath the riverbed. That change makes it far less likely that the Silvertip pipeline will fail a second time, Montana Department of Environmental Quality Director Richard Opper said.

"There were a lot of eyes on this from our federal partners," Opper said of repairs to the line. "It was done right. It's a lot safer pipeline now, at least crossing the river."

The 20-year-old line broke near Laurel on July 1 after flooding scoured the river bottom and exposed the pipe, which had been buried just five feet deep in some areas. Released oil fouled dozens of miles of riverbank, contaminated crops and pastureland and was blamed for killing birds, reptiles and other wildlife.
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