SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Society's ChildS
© UnknownJailed: Keith Smith was convicted of child porn offences after thieves found his laptop in the back of a car they'd stolen
The sequence of events which led to the arrest of 58-year-old Keith Smith began when the burglars broke into a house where he was staying, took his car keys and driven off in his vehicle.
When the burglars looked at the computer left in the car, they were so 'spooked' by its contents that they passed it to an adult to give to the police, Manchester Crown Court heard.
The burglary remains unsolved and the youths have never been identified. The 'go-between' was not linked to the crime.
Raids were then carried out at a series of addresses linked to Smith which turned up 15,000 child porn images, as well as a photo of a dog being abused by a woman.
Smith, who is from Levenshulme, a suburb of Manchester, was arrested and later admitted 18 sample charges of downloading indecent and extreme images.
Kate Hammond, prosecuting, told the court that in September 2009 a man had walked into a police station and handed in an external hard drive, two pen drives and five memory cards, which he said had been stolen in a burglary.
© unknownAnwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was a so called radical cleric and one of the most influential al-Qaeda operatives wanted by the U.S., was killed in September in an airstrike in northern Yemen.
"To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It's nonsense," said Nasser al-Awlaki, a former Yemeni agriculture minister who was Anwar al-Awlaki's father and the boy's grandfather, speaking in a phone interview from Sanaa on Monday. "They want to justify his killing, that's all."
The teenager, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was born in Denver in 1995, and his 17-year-old Yemeni cousin were killed in a U.S. military strike that left nine people dead in southeastern Yemen.
The young Awlaki was the third American killed in Yemen in as many weeks. Samir Khan, an al-Qaeda propagandist from North Carolina, died alongside Anwar al-Awlaki.
© Morten Hyaal Rapport Press Newscom
American troops may be leaving Iraq before the end of the year, but U.S. contractors aren't going anywhere soon.
ABC News reports that the State Department "is expected to have about 5,000 security contractors in Iraq as of January 2012 (they already have about 3,000 in country)." There will also be 4,500 "general life support" contractors to provide food and medical services.
Still, there'll be a pretty big reduction in the contracting fleet. The Defense Department currently has 9,500 security contractors in Iraq in addition to several thousand general life contractors, said ABC News. At one point, in June 2009, the DOD had 15,200 security contractors in the country.
© Flickr/Creative CommonThe economic crisis in Athens has sparked a surge in suicides.
Suicide rates are skyrocketing in a country already beset by massive job cuts, austerity spending, slashed pensions, and soaring taxes.
The economic numbers are stark.
Greece's gross domestic product declined more than 7 percent year-over-year in the second quarter. Spending cuts and tax hikes amount to about one-fifth of the GDP.
Even after two huge multi-billion-euro bailouts, the average Greek household has seen its income plunge by half, according to the Guardian newspaper of the UK.
"We Put The U.S. Treasury Up For Auction And Goldman Sachs Was The Highest Bidder!"
© cnbc.com
When Tunisian Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire, he ignited a fire of revolution for social justice that will eventually engulf every corrupt government on earth. This fire won't die until we the people of planet Earth unite in revolution and take back our respective governments from the elite oligarchs who now own and control them.
Soon this fire will burn hot in America, the world's epicenter of corrupt government. Each year, lobbyists transfer millions in legal bribes from corporate special interests to our government "representatives" in return for billions of our tax dollars. For example, last year alone, big oil, the richest industry on earth, gave our "representatives" $28,000,000 in return for $3,800,000,000 in tax breaks.
The elite oligarchs are getting fabulously rich while a record 44,000,000 Americans live in poverty, a record 40,000,000 Americans rely on food stamps, 30,000,000 Americans are unemployed or underemployed, a record 6,000,000 Americans have given up looking for a job, millions of Americans have lost their homes to foreclosure by the same banksters bailed out by billions of our tax dollars, and, unlike our privileged "representatives" in Washington, 51,000,000 Americans have no health insurance. America is ripe for revolution.
© NPRLisa Simeone
Lisa Simeone, the host of the nationally syndicated World of Opera show, and former weekend host of All Things Considered, is a freelancer working for WDAV, NPR's Davidson, N.C., affiliate, where "World of Opera" originates. She also was the host for the weekly D.C. show Soundprint on NPR's WAMU affiliate.
Simeone confirmed on Thursday that she had been fired from the Soundprint show; NPR is "in conversations" about her role as both World of Opera host and Occupy D.C. protester.
"We recently learned of World of Opera host Lisa Simeone's participation in an Occupy D.C. group," NPR communications SVP Dana Davis Rehm wrote in a memo to affiliates. "We're in conversations with WDAV about how they intend to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously."
© Jenelle Schneider/PNGProtesters gather outside the Surrey Regional Economic Summit Oct, 19, 2011 at the Sheraton Hotel in Surrey.
Derrick O'Keefe, co-chair of Stop War, said the chances of having Bush arrested are slim, but he hopes other countries take notice: "Especially the countries where Bush's policies killed hundreds of thousands of people, we hope somewhere in Iraq someone will know that here in Canada, we took a stand, we did what we could," he said.
"It's our sincere belief that these efforts will keep up and ... someday, somewhere, George Bush will either be prosecuted or it will get to the point where he just can't leave his ranch in Texas," he added.
David Ansermino , a Grade 12 student who had participated in a similar protest when former U.S president Dick Cheney was in Vancouver earlier this year, said it's unlikely Bush will be arrested.
"As Canadians we don't feel he's welcomed here at all and we just like to have our voices heard," said Ansermo, who came with a small group of classmates. "I believe that after today, Canada will think twice before ever allowing these guys here again."
Comment: The stress and hopelessness that the Greeks are feeling at this time are understandable, but there is a simple way to help us distress so that we can see what solutions lie ahead of us and act towards helping ourselves and those we care about, despite any national financial crisis. If you, or someone you know, live in Greece, direct them to this website, where they can learn how to bring their nervous system in a relaxation mode and healing to their mind and soul, using breathing and meditation techniques. The site can viewed in Greek and the program is online for free.
As Greek poet Odysseas Elytis said in his Nobel Prize speech in 1979: We can start by constructing healthy selves: in body, mind and heart.