Puppet MastersS


Gold Coins

Yemen: Al-Qaida offers bounty for U.S. ambassador

Ahmed Al-Haj
ABC News
Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
Sanaa - Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen has offered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or an American soldier in the country.

An audio produced by the group's media arm, the al-Malahem Foundation, and posted on militant websites Saturday said it offered three kilograms of gold worth $160,000 for killing the ambassador, Gerald Feierstein.

The group said it will pay 5 million Yemeni riyals ($23,000) to anyone who kills an American soldier inside Yemen.

It said the offer is valid for six months.

The bounties were set to "inspire and encourage our Muslim nation for jihad," the statement said.

The U.S. Embassy in Sanaa did not respond to an Associated Press phone call asking for comment.

Washington considers al-Qaida in Yemen to be the group's most dangerous branch.
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Evil Rays

Hillary Clinton hospitalized with blood clot

Dana Hughes
ABC News
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:02 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Secretary Hillary Clinton was hospitalized today after a doctors doing a follow-up exam discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago.

She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours, Deputy Assistant Secretary Philippe Reines said.

Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required, Reines said.

Clinton, 65, originally fell ill from a stomach virus following a whirlwind trip to Europe at the beginning of the month, which caused such severe dehydration that she fainted and fell at home, suffering a concussion. No ambulance was called and she was not hospitalized, according to a state department official.
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Gear

Senate renews controversial surveillance legislation

Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:03 UTC
Congress approved a measure Friday that would renew expansive U.S. surveillance authority for five more years, rejecting objections from senators who are concerned that the legislation does not adequately protect Americans' privacy.

The bill passed the Senate, 73 to 23. The House approved it in September, and President Barack Obama is expected to sign it before the current authority expires Monday.

The lopsided Senate vote authorized a continuation of the government's ability to eavesdrop on communications inside the United States involving foreign citizens without obtaining a specific warrant for each case. The surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, has been credited with exposing several plots against U.S. targets, but it also has drawn fire from civil liberties advocates.
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Heart - Black

After Islamophobic hate crime in New York City, mayor wants public to 'keep death in perspective'

Annie Robbins and Alex Kane
Mondo Weiss
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:02 UTC
Sunando Sen
© Christie M. Farriella / New York Daily NewsThe Passport photo of 46-year-old Sunando Sen, pushed to his death because a woman thought he was Muslim
A horrific crime if we've ever seen one--and a reminder that Islamophobia affects many communities outside Muslim ones.

From the AP:
A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform into the path of a train because she hates Muslims and thought he was one was charged Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said.
.....

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up," Menendez told police, according to the district attorney's office.

.....

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday urged residents to keep Sen's death in perspective as he touted new historic lows in the city's annual homicide and shooting totals.

"It's a very tragic case, but what we want to focus on today is the overall safety in New York," Bloomberg told reporters following a police academy graduation.
What kind of perspective is Bloomberg referencing? If someone said "I shoved a Jew in front of a train because I hate Jews," would Bloomberg be touting drops in the city's annual homicide and shooting totals? Quite an insensitive comment, at the very least.
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Radar

Anatomy of an air attack gone wrong

Letta Tayler
The Ledger
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 12:20 UTC
Image
The villagers who rushed to the road, cutting through rocky fields in central Yemen, found the dead strewn around a burning sport utility vehicle. The bodies were dusted with white powder - flour and sugar, the witnesses said - that the victims were bringing home from market when the aircraft attacked. A torched woman clutched her daughter in a lifeless embrace. Four severed heads littered the pavement.

"The bodies were charred like coal. I could not recognize the faces," said Ahmed al-Sabooli, 22, a farmer whose parents and 10-year-old sister were among the dead. "Then I recognized my mother because she was still holding my sister in her lap. That is when I cried."

Quoting unnamed Yemeni officials, local and international media initially described the victims of the Sept. 2 airstrike in al-Bayda governorate as al Qaida militants. After relatives of the victims threatened to bring the charred bodies to the president, Yemen's official news agency issued a brief statement admitting the awful truth: The strike was an "accident" that killed 12 civilians. Three were children.

Nearly four months later, that terse admission remains the only official word on the botched attack. A Washington Post article, published on Dec. 24, reports that "U.S. officials in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said it was a Defense Department aircraft, either a drone or a fixed-wing airplane, that fired" on the vehicle. But the people of al-Bayda still have received no official word as to who was responsible for the deaths - the United States, which in the past year has accelerated its covert targeted-killing program against Yemeni-based al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula; or the Yemeni government, whose new president, Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi, was installed with Washington's help.
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MIB

Flashback Best of the Web: Evidence of multiple shooters at Aurora Theater massacre covered up

Michael Kelley
Business Insider
Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:37 UTC
Image
A blood trail leading TO the exit of the Aurora theater. Also see the white car where police found Holmes locked inside.
At a July 20 press conference Aurora police Chief Dan Oates said investigators were confident that James Holmes acted alone in the largest mass shooting in U.S. history by casualties and that authorities were "not looking for any other suspects."

But doubters are citing official evidence to question that Holmes was the only shooter, or a shooter at all.

The argument of the skeptics can be split into three categories: the discovery of Holmes, the real-time testimony on police radio transmissions and the extra evidence at the scene.

The discovery of Holmes

During the press conference, Oates said that Holmes was "apprehended outside his White Hyundai parked in the back of the theater" and that he "surrendered without any significant incident."

According to police radio transmissions (at 6:15), an officer found "a suspect in a gas mask" and another officer asked "Is that the dude in the white car you're by?" After a few transmissions, an officer asks (at 6:49) "That white car in the rear of the lot - is that a suspect?" The response is "Yes! We've got rifles, gas mask, he's detained right now, I've got an open door going into the theater."

Skeptics cite this exchange as evidence that Holmes was found in his locked car with a gas mask on and heavily drugged - not outside the car as Oates said - which would have forced first responders to break the passenger side window and get a white stretcher board in preparation to transport him.

Comment: Clearly the conclusion to be drawn from their withholding the court records is that it directly contradicts the lone gunman narrative. This would mean that a cover-up has taken place thanks to the collusion of government and media. The logical reason for this cover-up is that it was done to protect the real perpetrators. Coupled with the evidence we've seen of a cover-up underway concerning the the Sandy Hook school massacre, it appears that some element high up within the US power structure is sending out death squads to terrorise people into submitting to their rule and accepting the encroaching police state.

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Bomb

Pakistani Shia Muslims killed after alleged Sunni suicide bomber targets pilgrims


The Guardian
Sun, 30 Dec 2012 05:25 UTC
Image
© Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty ImagesA Pakistani security official stands beside the destroyed bus that was carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims, in Mastung.
Nineteen dead, according to officials, as killer smashes truck laden with explosives into Baluchistan bus bound for Iran

A suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives rammed into a bus carrying Shia Muslim pilgrims in south-west Pakistan on Sunday, killing 19 people, a government official and witnesses said.

Earlier on Sunday, 21 tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot dead in Pakistan's troubled north-west tribal region, government officials said.

Pakistan has experienced a spike in killings over the last year by radical Sunni Muslims targeting Shias who they consider heretics. The violence has been especially pronounced in Baluchistan province, where the latest attack occurred.

In addition to the 19 people killed in the bombing in Baluchistan's Mastung district, 25 others were wounded, many of them critically, said Tufail Ahmed, a local political official. The blast completely destroyed the bus that was hit and damaged a second bus carrying Shias that was close by.
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Newspaper

French court rejects 75 percent millionaires' tax

Emile Picy and Catherine Bremer
Reuters
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:25 UTC
Francois Hollande
© Reuters/Christian HartmannFrance's President Francois Hollande speaks at a news conference at the end of the first session of a two-day European Union (EU) leaders summit in Brussels October 19, 2012.
France's Constitutional Council on Saturday rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate to be introduced in 2013 in a setback to Socialist President Francois Hollande's push to make the rich contribute more to cutting the public deficit.

Paris - The Council ruled that the planned 75 percent tax on annual income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million) - a flagship measure of Hollande's election campaign - was unfair in the way it would be applied to different households.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government would redraft the upper tax rate proposal to answer the Council's concerns and resubmit it in a new budget law, meaning Saturday's decision could only amount to a temporary political blow.

While the tax plan was largely symbolic and would only have affected a few thousand people, it has infuriated high earners in France, prompting some such as actor Gerard Depardieu to flee abroad. The message it sent also shocked entrepreneurs and foreign investors, who accuse Hollande of being anti-business.

Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the rejection of the 75 percent tax and other minor measures could cut up to 500 million euros in forecast tax revenues but would not hurt efforts to slash the public deficit to below a European Union ceiling of 3 percent of economic output next year.
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Heart - Black

Security video of killing of Hebron circus student shows claim of 'toy gun' fraudulent

Saed Bannoura
International Middle East Media Center News
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
An Israeli security video recently leaked to the media shows that a Palestinian teenager who was killed at a checkpoint on December 12th was actually walking away from soldiers when he was shot in the back. The video shows absolutely no indication of the boy carrying any object that could be mistaken for a gun, as the Israeli military originally claimed.
Image
© PCS photoMohammed at the circus school (bottom center)
After originally releasing an edited version of the security footage on December 17th, some journalists tried to get the Israeli military to release a full, unedited copy of the video. An unedited version was leaked by Israeli channel 10 television on Wednesday December 26th, which includes 19 seconds that was edited out - including the final (probably fatal) of the three shots fired at Mohammed Abu Salaymeh, which hit him in the back when he was already doubled over from the impact of the first two shots.

Abu Salaymeh, 17, was a student at the circus school in Hebron, and was killed while on his way to get his birthday cake. He was killed on his 17th birthday. In a statement issued the day after Mohammed's death, the Palestinian Circus School (PCS) issued a statement saying,
"Mohammed Salaymeh, 17 years old, our beloved student at the Palestinian Circus School since one and a half years, was brutally killed by the Israeli army in Hebron yesterday. Rest in Peace, dear Mohammed. You will always stay in our hearts. Today we can only be sad, and be close to the family in our thoughts and prayers."
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Bad Guys

U.S. kills 12 civilians and destroys a community

Letta Tayler
Information Clearing House
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:30 UTC
Image
© FP
Anatomy of an air attack gone wrong

Sanaa, Yemen - The villagers who rushed to the road, cutting through rocky fields in central Yemen, found the dead strewn around a burning sport utility vehicle. The bodies were dusted with white powder -- flour and sugar, the witnesses said -- that the victims were bringing home from market when the aircraft attacked. A torched woman clutched her daughter in a lifeless embrace. Four severed heads littered the pavement. "The bodies were charred like coal. I could not recognize the faces," said Ahmed al-Sabooli, 22, a farmer whose parents and 10-year-old sister were among the dead. "Then I recognized my mother because she was still holding my sister in her lap. That is when I cried."

Quoting unnamed Yemeni officials, local and international media initially described the victims of the Sept. 2 airstrike in al-Bayda governorate as al Qaeda militants. After relatives of the victims threatened to bring the charred bodies to the president, Yemen's official news agency issued a brief statement admitting the awful truth: The strike was an "accident" that killed 12 civilians. Three were children.
Read More...