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Saber-Rattling: U.S. Defense Secretary warns Japan-China territorial spat could lead to war


Inquirer News
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:48 UTC
Image
© AP/Larry Downing, Pool
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, left, listens to a question from U.S. military personnel stationed at Yokota in Japan Monday, September 17, 2012.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called for diplomatic efforts to resolve a worsening territorial spat between Japan and China on Monday, the day after warning disputes could draw East Asia into war.

Speaking after meetings in Tokyo with senior Japanese figures, Panetta urged "calm and restraint on all sides" in a row over disputed islands that has rapidly escalated in the last week into sometimes violent protests in China.

"Obviously we're concerned by the demonstrations and the conflict over the Senkaku islands," Panetta said, referring to the Japanese-administered archipelago that China claims and calls Diaoyu.

"It is extremely important that diplomatic means on both sides be used to try to constructively resolve these issues," he said, adding a resolution of the dispute has to be based on "clear principles" and international law.

"It's in everybody's interest for Japan and China to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid further escalation," said Panetta, pounding the podium for emphasis.

Panetta arrived in Tokyo on Sunday evening after days of anti-Japanese protests had rocked cities across China, with diplomatic missions being targeted in some instances.
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Syringe

Cattle Call: U.S. Plans Trial Distribution of Anthrax Vaccine in Early 2013

Diane Barnes
Global Security Newswire via Yahoo News
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 08:54 UTC
The United States could move forward early next year with a planned trial initiative to offer anthrax vaccine to select nonmilitary emergency personnel, a senior Homeland Security Department official told lawmakers last week.

The plan, details of which were reported by Global Security Newswire in April, would give participating state and local emergency personnel the option of accepting a course of anthrax vaccination doses from the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of medical countermeasures. The project would examine the potential to more widely distribute the countermeasure to first responders on a voluntary basis.

The department is putting the "final touches" on preparations for "soliciting groups who would be interested in participating in this pilot project," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Garza said on Thursday at a joint hearing convened by two House Homeland Security subcommittees.

Garza said that the department was still fielding questions on the project from state agencies, local offices, and nongovernmental groups. Homeland Security was working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recruit two federal offices and two state offices in the trial initiative, according to earlier reporting.
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Stormtrooper

50 US Troops Deployed in Sana'a, Yemen


Press TV
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 05:39 UTC
The Yemeni government says the United States has deployed 50 Marines in Sana'a to boost security at the US Embassy in response to the recent violent upheavals over an anti-Islam movie.
Image

Yemeni riot police stand guard during a demo at a crossroad leading to the US Embassy in Sana’a.
"We would not accept any foreign forces, but the unit in the US Embassy is an exceptional case," the government said in a statement issued late on Sunday.

The statement added that the Marines will leave the country as soon as the security situation improves.

On Friday, the Pentagon announced that it had sent Marines to Yemen after demonstrators stormed the US Embassy in Sana'a in protest over an anti-Islam film made in the US.
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Bomb

Propaganda Alert! 9 Foreign Civilians Among 12 Killed in Kabul Bus Bombing

Eltaf Najafizada
Bloomberg Businessweek
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:35 UTC
Image
© Agence France-Presse/Getty Images/Massoud Hossaini
Afghanistan investigators inspect the site of a suicide attack in Kabul on September 18, 2012. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said a bomber struck on the main highway leading to the airport and that there were no military casualties.
A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a minivan near the airport in Afghanistan's capital Kabul today, killing nine foreign civilians and three Afghans, according to police.

The Hizb-e-Islami, a militant group led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allied to the Taliban, carried out the attack in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that has triggered deadly protests across the Muslim world, Zubair Siddiqi, a spokesman for Hizb-e-Islami, said by phone. He said the bombing was carried out by a 22-year-old woman named Fatema.

General Mohammad Zahir, the head of Kabul police's crime investigation department, confirmed in a phone interview that foreigners had been the target of the attack. Those who died worked at the international airport, Associated Press reported, citing Zahir. Ayub Salangi, Kabul's police chief, said the dead may include citizens of South Africa, France and Russia.

Militants have threatened to step up their attacks in Afghanistan after the movie that ridicules the Prophet Muhammad was posted to the Internet. Hizb-e-Islami's fighters are mainly based in Afghanistan's northeast. Its chief, Hekmatyar, is a former Afghan prime minister and Mujahideen leader during the country's civil wars of the 1990s when he helped end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan with support from Pakistan.
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Arrow Down

Walmart's Human Trafficking Problem

John Sifton
Human Rights Watch
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Walmart
© Dystopos
Americans love shrimp, there's no doubt about it. Per capita consumption in the United States stands at about four pounds a year, the country's most consumed seafood. The popularity stems from multiple qualities: its durability when frozen, ease of cooking, and culinary versatility, articulated famously by Bubba in the movie Forrest Gump: "pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp."

Shrimp is also very easy to farm. Although there was a time when most shrimp consumed in the United States was caught by shrimpers working the coast of Louisiana, today most of it comes from aquaculture farms in Asia. According to the USDA, the leading country of origin is now Thailand, and the United States is Thailand's largest export market.

But the American appetite for shrimp now poses challenges for U.S. companies that import it.
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Dollar

Financial parasitism and looting are the "new normal:" Latest moves by Fed and European Central Bank

Nick Beams
World Socialist Web Site
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:44 UTC
Ben Bernanke
© REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announcing new indefinite round of quantitative easing.
Financial parasitism and looting are the "new normal."

The decision by the US Federal Reserve Board to provide indefinite support to financial markets under a third round of so-called quantitative easing (QE3), announced last week, coupled with the earlier decision by the European Central Bank (ECB) to intervene in the bond markets, marks a new stage in the breakdown of the global capitalist economy that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The moves by the world's major central banks to pump more money into the global financial system signify that four years after financial markets stood on the brink of collapse in September 2008, there is no prospect of a return to what were once considered "normal" conditions.

Far from lessening its support to the banks and financial institutions, the Fed is increasing it. The earlier interventions were implemented with time limits. In its latest decision, the Fed has given an indefinite commitment. As the headline of one article in the Financial Times put it, "Fed Sets Its Sights on Infinity and Beyond."
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Dollar

Behind the Curtain: Romney Caught Expressing His Thinking on Secret Video from Fundraiser

David Corn
Mother Jones
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:23 UTC

During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax.
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Bizarro Earth

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Predicts U.S. War with Iran in Early 2013


RT.com
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:42 UTC
Martin Indyk
© AFP Photo / Karim Jaafar
Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel
The former US Ambassador to Israel predicts that war between with Iran is likely to occur in early 2013.Martin Indyk, the former Ambassador, said there may be about six months left to negotiate a solution that would avoid war - but he thinks this is unlikely. Joining a roundtable of foreign policy experts to discuss the latest Middle East protests and Israel's concern over Iran, Indyk's predictions were dire.

"There is still time, perhaps six months, even by Prime Minister Netanyahu's own time table to try to see if a negotiated solution can be worked out," he said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday. "I'm pessimistic about that. If that doesn't work out - and we need to make every effort, exhaust every chance that it does work - then I am afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we're going to have a military confrontation with Iran."

While Indyk said that Iran does not have nuclear weapons at this point, it is only a matter of time before the US will need to take military action.

Comment: When will we see that needed 'red line' drawn for the U.S. and Israeli governments?

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Arrow Up

France to Maintain Ban on GMO Crops

Marion Douet
Planetark.org
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:05 UTC
Image
© clatl.com
France banned Monsanto's MON810 maize cultivation in 2008.
France is to maintain a temporary ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday, dealing a blow to farmers and seed companies who say the move is unjustified and economically harmful.

The ban, which targets Monsanto's MON810 maize, the only genetically modified organism (GMO) currently allowed in Europe, was introduced in March after a previous moratorium was annulled by France's top court last November.

"The government is keeping its moratorium on the cultivation of GMO seeds currently authorized in the European Union," Ayrault told an environmental conference in Paris.
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Question

Benghazi Demonstration: He says, She Says, Who Says?

Catherine Herridge, James Rosen and Pamela Browne
FOX News
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Benghazi
© FOX News
Libyan guard stands watch at U.S. Consulate in Benghazi
An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to last week's attack -- challenging the Obama administration's claims that the assault grew out of a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam film.

"There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous," the source said, adding the attack "was planning and had nothing to do with the movie."

The source said the assault came with no warning at about 9:35 p.m. local time, and included fire from more than two locations. The assault included RPG's and mortar fire, the source said, and consisted of two waves.

The account backs up claims by a purported Libyan security guard who told McClatchy Newspapers late last week that the area was quiet before the attack.

"There wasn't a single ant outside," the unnamed guard, who was being treated in a hospital, said in the interview.
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