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US ship in China spat was hunting subs

Anne Gearan
Huffington Post
Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:20 UTC
Image
© Associated Press/ US Navy
The military Sealift Command ocean surveillance ship USNS Impeccable is seen underway on Monday, March 9, 2009.
The U.S. Navy ship that got into a scrape with five Chinese vessels last weekend in the South China Sea was looking for threats such as submarines, presumably Chinese, in waters that China claims as its own, defense officials acknowledged Tuesday.

The United States maintains that the unarmed USNS Impeccable was operating legally in international waters when it was surrounded and harassed by the Chinese. Beijing responded hotly to a U.S. protest over Sunday's incident, and neither nation is backing down, even as they prepare for a much-anticipated first meeting between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao next month.

Although they would not be specific about the Impeccable's mission when it was intercepted by the Chinese ships, two defense officials said the ship is designed and equipped for sub-hunting work and was part of a calculated U.S. surveillance operation in the disputed South China Sea.

Comment: Wow, a somewhat different perspective from the bluster displayed in this article about the same event. Seems the US were not squeaky clean after all, spying on Chinese submarines in Chinese waters.

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Bad Guys

Breaking the Taboo on Israel's Spying Efforts on the United States

Christopher Ketcham
AlterNet
Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:41 UTC
Mossad logo
Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S., yet public discussion about it is almost nil.

Scratch a counterintelligence officer in the U.S. government and they'll tell you that Israel is not a friend to the United States.

This is because Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S.. The fact of Israeli penetration into the country is not a subject oft-discussed in the media or in the circles of governance, due to the extreme sensitivity of the U.S.-Israel relationship coupled with the burden of the Israel lobby, which punishes legislators who dare to criticize the Jewish state. The void where the facts should sit is filled instead with the hallucinations of conspiracy theory -- the kind in which, for example, agents of the Mossad, Israel's top intelligence agency, engineer the 9/11 attacks, while 4,000 Israelis in the Twin Towers somehow all get word to escape before the planes hit. The effect, as disturbing as it is ironic, is that the less the truth is addressed, the more noxious the falsity that spreads.


Comment: Interesting that after writing "Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S." Mr. Ketcham then writes that the Mossad engineering the 9/11 attacks is hallucinations of conspiracy theory.

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Document

The Obama-Holder-Panetta Legal Disconnect

William Fisher
OpEdNews
Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:25 UTC
Barack Obama, Eric Holder and Leon Panetta are all lawyers, And Holder and Panetta both work for Obama. Wouldn't that suggest that they would agree on really important issues - at least in public?

Well, apparently they don't. And Obama's recent interview with the New York Times editorial board provides lots of examples.

During that session, President Obama stated categorically:

"We ultimately provide anybody that we're detaining an opportunity through habeas corpus to answer to charges."
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Arrow Down

Dalai Lama: China has created 'hell' in Tibet

Dean Nelson
The Telegraph
Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:17 UTC
The Dalai Lama has accused China of creating "hell on Earth" in Tibet on the 50th anniversary of the uprising that led to his exile.

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Propaganda

France hits Iran on 'suspicious' no-response


Press TV
Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:45 UTC
France accuses Iran of not fully cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog, once again calling on Tehran to suspend its disputed nuclear work.

"Iran must respond to requests from the IAEA to prove that their nuclear program is not military. They have not done that yet," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in an interview with Le Figaro on Monday.

Kouchner said it was 'suspicious' that Iran did not respond to the International Atomic Energy Agency requests, insisting that it was 'essential' for Iran to abandon its nuclear work.
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Nuke

Israel believes Iran can build nukes

Mark Lavie
NineMSN
Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:46 UTC
iran
© unknown
Israel fears that a nuclear power plant in Bushehr will give Iran independent nuclear capability.
Iran is now able to produce atomic weapons, Israel's top military intelligence officer told his country's cabinet on Sunday, sounding the highest-level warning that Israel's arch-enemy has achieved independent nuclear capability.

Participants in the cabinet meeting said the chief of military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, did not say Iran already has the bomb. However, he said, Iran has "crossed the threshold" and has the expertise and materials needed to make one.

The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the cabinet meeting was closed. They said Yadlin told them Iran continues to accumulate uranium for enrichment and hopes to exploit the Obama administration's intention to open a dialogue as a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

Comment: The war drums are building to a crescendo over Iran. First the US Admiral Mike Mullin claims Iran has enough material to build a bomb and now Israel is repeating it. This might be an attempt to put pressure on Obama or it might be an indication that Israel is going to take unilateral action. Either way it does not bode well for peace in the Middle East.

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Vader

MI5 'colluded in scalpel torture'

David Leppard
The Sunday Times
Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:35 UTC
Secret MI5 memos reveal how the intelligence service colluded in the torture of a British resident and former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, it was claimed last night.

Binyam Mohamed, who returned to Britain after his release last month, said the MI5 memos showed that British spies orchestrated his questioning while he was being tortured with a scalpel in Morocco. He cited one MI5 memo which, he said, was headed "Request for further detainee questioning".

Speaking for the first time about his 6½ years held as a CIA terror suspect in prisons in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Morocco and Guantanamo Bay, Mohamed gave a graphic account of "nightmarish tortures" that led him to come "close to insanity". He said one interrogator in Morocco took his penis in his hand and cut it up to 30 times.
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Magnify

Finding ways to stay in Iraq: Obama's troop withdrawal is nothing but a sham

Scott Horton
Antiwar.com
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:19 UTC
Those who bought into the slogans "Hope" and "Change" last fall should have read the fine print. We were warned. Over and over during the campaign for the presidency Barack Obama made it clear that "withdrawal" from Iraq on his flexible 16-month timetable meant only the removal of "combat forces." He has also made it clear all along that "combat forces" means whatever he wants it to mean - until he decides to change his mind.

At least he's honest.

On Friday, Obama announced in a speech at Camp Lejeune that 16 months have become 18, and that 50,000 soldiers and Marines will be continuing the occupation until 2012 under the guise of training Iraqi army and police forces, "counter-terrorism," and force protection.
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Coffee

What does North Dakota have that other states don't? A $1.2 billion surplus (and its own bank)

Ellen Brown
Global Research
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:56 UTC
Playing the Banking Game - How Cash Starved States can Create their Own Credit
"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." Francis Bacon
On February 19, 2009, California narrowly escaped bankruptcy, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger put on his Terminator hat and held the state senate in lockdown mode until they signed a very controversial budget.1 If the vote had failed, the state was going to be reduced to paying its employees in I.O.U.s. California avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.2

One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction - North Dakota. As Michigan management consultant Charles Fleetham observed last month in an article distributed to his local media:

"North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000, known for cold weather, isolated farmers and a hit movie - Fargo. Yet, for some reason it defies the real estate cliché of location, location, location. Since 2000, the state's GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. This year the state has a budget surplus of $1.2 billion!"

What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don't? The answer seems to be: its own bank. In fact, North Dakota has the only state-owned bank in the nation.
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Coffee

Destabilising Pakistan: The US-India-Mossad Connection

Asif Haroon Rajar
Pakistan Daily
Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:18 UTC
Both Israel and India aspire to become unchallenged military powers of Middle East and South Asia respectively. USA provides requisite backup support to accomplish their ambitions. In order to retain their regional ascendancy both have laid particular attention towards modernising conventional and unconventional military means far outmatching their neighbours. Apart from building their military power it becomes necessary for the duo to ensure that none of its neighbours acquires any weapon system superior to its own or is in a position to flex muscles or group together to pose a credible challenge.

Above all, they over ensure that no Muslim country possess nuclear capability and be in a position to avert blackmailing and bullying tactics. In other words, both desire weak and subservient states doing their biddings. Nuclear capability with any country is a death knell for their megalomaniac aspirations and hence a binding necessity to prevent its acquisition.
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