Inside job #1: Cable casts doubt on US account of 9/11 02 Feb 2011 A U.S. State Department cable recently released by WkiLeaks supports the idea of Washington systematically covering up the 9/11 by disclosing that the U.S. government had secretly interrogated three Qatari suspects in relation with the attack. The year-old cable described three Qatari men who were under investigation for activities in the months prior to the attacks. According to the cable, which is viewable at WikiLeaks.ch, the men entered the U.S. on Aug. 15, 2001, and visited "the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and various areas in Virginia" before flying on to Los Angeles.

WikiLeaks/The Telegraph: DEMARCHE IN SUPPORT OF U.S.CANDIDACY FOR IMO

The United States threatened to take military action against China during a secret "star wars" arms race within the past few years, according to leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph. The two nuclear superpowers both shot down their own satellites using sophisticated missiles in separate show of strength, the files suggest. The American Government was so incensed by Chinese actions in space that it privately warned Beijing it would face military action if it did not desist. The Chinese carried out further tests as recently as last year, however, leading to further protests from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, secret documents show. Beijing justified its actions by accusing the Americans of developing an “offensive” laser weapon system that would have the capability of destroying missiles before they left enemy territory. The disclosures are contained in the latest documents obtained by the Wikileaks website, which have been released to The Telegraph. They detail the private fears of both superpowers as they sought mastery of the new military frontier.

Earlier today, Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl, a 17-year-old youth from Beit Ommar who has worked very closely with PSP over the years, was shot in the head by settlers and he is currently brain-dead in Hebron hospital. Yousef attended nearly every unarmed Saturday demonstration, was frequently around the PSP house, and anticipated in both the Freedom Flotilla Summer Camp, and the photography class organized by the Center for Freedom and Justice. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Please consider holding solidarity actions or events in your communities to demand his killers be brought to justice, and for Yousef to be the last victim of an ongoing brutal occupation.

Friday, January 28th 2011, 9am: Around 100 settlers from Bat Ayn settlement descended upon the Palestinian villages of Saffa and nearby Beit Ommar in the southern West Bank, shooting 17-year-old Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl in his head, leaving him critically injured. Doctors have announced that Yousef is currently brain-dead in a Hebron hospital. Settlers also shot 16-year-old Bilal Mohammad Abed Al-Qador with live ammunition in his arm.

The large group of armed settlers began shooting towards Palestinian homes in Saffa at around 9am, leaving Bilal injured. At the same time, a second group of settlers attacked an area of Beit Ommar called Jodor. Yousef was shot in the head in this area while he was standing in grapes vines he had planted on his family´s land. Dozens of Palestinians from Beit Ommar and the nearby village of Surif began coming to the area to defend their communities. Seven jeeps of Israeli Forces also arrived in the area and escorted the settlers back to Bat Ayn.

Yousef Fahkri Ikhlayl is from the village of Beit Ommar and has worked on initiatives with the Palestine Solidarity Project, an ant-occupation organization in Beit Ommar. In the summer of 2010, Yousef attended the Center for Freedom and Justice´s Freedom Flotilla Summer Camp where he engaged in educational projects, community service, and unarmed demonstrations against the Israeli occupation. In the fall of 2010 Yousef was a participant in a youth photography class also sponsored by the center.

“Iceland did the right thing by making sure its payment systems continued to function while creditors, not the taxpayers, shouldered the losses of banks,” says Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York. “Ireland’s done all the wrong things, on the other hand. That’s probably the worst model.” Ireland guaranteed all the liabilities of its banks when they ran into trouble and has been injecting capital -- 46 billion euros ($64 billion) so far -- to prop them up. That brought the country to the brink of ruin, forcing it to accept a rescue package from the European Union in December.

The airship was the very last thing Charles and David Koch expected when they arranged for 200 of their most wealthy and influential friends to spend the weekend in the desert east of Los Angeles. Sponsored by Greenpeace, it hovered over the luxury spa where they had gathered. On its side were pictures of the billionaire brothers along with a words "dirty money".

Then there was the angry mob. Around a 1,000 liberal activists spent Saturday and Sunday outside the gates of the Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs. Most waved placards condemning "corporate greed" and "crimes against the environment". By close of play, 25 had been arrested, for trespassing.

It was a circus all right. But a fascinating and quite possibly game-changing one: the trade unionists, environmentalists and assorted lefties assembled outside the resort were staging the first major public protest against the Koch Brothers. They are two of the most influential men who, until now, you may very well have never heard of.

Asked if the west had not been an obstacle to change, Blair defended the policies of his and other governments. Tony Blair has described Hosni Mubarak, the beleaguered Egyptian leader, as "immensely courageous and a force for good" and warned against a rush to elections that could bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. [Muslim Brotherhood = red herring] The former prime minister, now an envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, praised Mubarak over his role in the negotiations and said the west was right to back him despite his authoritarian regime because he had maintained peace with Israel. But that view is likely to anger many Egyptians who believe they have had to endure decades of dictatorship because the US put Israel's interests ahead of their freedom. Blair said [...] there should not be a rush to elections in Egypt.

Gilad Atzmon: The Man With The White Yarmulke - Three days ago Jerusalem urged its ‘Western allies’ to support Mubarak. Yesterday war criminal Tony Blair complied submissively suggesting that “Mubarak is immensely courageous and a force for good.” The former British PM, who lied to us all, launched an illegal war based on a false dossier and made all of us complicit in the murder of 1.5 million Iraqis, praised the Egyptian president over his role in ‘peace negotiations’. Blair seems to follow the Israeli instructions and warns “against a rush to elections that could bring Muslim Brotherhood to power.” It seems as if Blair managed to succumb to Zio-Talmudic supremacy.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a highly controversial figure in US politics, suggested this week that President Barack Obama's handling the revolution in Egypt "correctly," despite objections from Israel. "We have been acting correctly," he told Bloomberg TV during a Tuesday broadcast. "We have been playing catch-up, but so is everybody else."

Turkey has finally broken its silence over the Egyptian crisis after major newspapers criticised the government for its inexplicable silence on the issue. Addressing members of his AKP party in parliament, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, has thrown his weight completely behind the protesters in Egypt. Erdogan appealed to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president: "You have to listen to the wishes of the people in order to create security and stability. First you must take steps that are good for Egypt. You must take steps that satisfy the people." Erdogan said on Tuesday that he was putting off a visit to the Egyptian capital of Cairo next week, but would go once Egypt returns to normal. Turkey is hailed as the only democratic country in the Muslim world.

Objects are burned at a roadblock in protest of the
fatal shooting of a Bedouin protester. (Reuters)

It should surprise no one that some if not all of the violent pro-Mubarak forces are plain clothes police officers. The Guardian notes:

Sharif Kouddous, a prolific Egyptian tweeter and blogger in Cairo, describes "a brutal and coordinated campaign of violence" by the Mubarak regime, in an article posted on Democracy Now's website:

"Suddenly, rocks started falling out of the sky," said Ismail Naguib, a witness at the scene. "Rocks were flying everywhere. Everywhere." Many people were hit. Some were badly cut, others had arms and legs broken. The mob then charged in; some rode on horseback and camels, trampling and beating people. Groups of them gathered on rooftops around Tahrir and continued to pelt people with rocks.

Some of the attackers were caught. Their IDs showed them to be policemen dressed in civilians clothes. Others appeared to be state sponsored "baltagiya" (gangs) and government employees. "Instead of uniformed guys trying to stop you from protesting. You've got non-uniformed guys trying to stop you from protesting," Naguib said.

This is just like when the British police attacked the non-violent protesters led by Gandhi, or the police in towns in the South of the United States attacked the peaceful protesters led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Note: The police were also the ones doing most, if not all, of the looting. See this and this.

Al Jazeera: Live Stream
flickr: ID Cards of Arrested Thugs in Tahrir Square February 2nd
Raw Story: Protesters run Mubarak thugs out of Tahrir Square: reports
KavkazCenter/Al Jazeera: Mubarak sends in his police thugs dressed in civilian clothes. Clashes break out
Reuters: Mubarak supporters open fire at demonstrators in Cairo
Daily Mail: Secret police blamed as peace protesters are gunned down in the siege of Cairo
Twitter: Soldiers given orders NOT to protect protestors

Al Jazeera: Live blog Feb 3 - Egypt protests - One of our Web producers reports that almost everyone in the square seems injured, is bandaged and limping. The mood there is "pretty fatalistic" with the anti-government protesters certain that the pro-Mubarak forces are "there to eliminate them".

Belfast Telegraph: 'Fighting was so terrible we could smell the blood' - It was vicious and ruthless, bloody and well planned, a final vindication of all Mubarak's critics and a shameful indictment of the Obamas and Clintons who failed to denounce this faithful ally of America and Israel.

LA Times: Death toll grows in Egypt protests (Video) "I wanted to remove my president." she whispered. "Now I will become a terrorist."

At least six anti-government protesters have been killed and more than 830 others injured in the early hours of the 10th day of revolution in Egypt. Clashes continued into the tenth consecutive day on Thursday in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo as the crackdown on demonstrators calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak is turning more violent. Supporters of embattled Mubarak opened fire at people in Tahrir Square in central Cairo in the early hours of Thursday, dpa reported. According to Witnesses, the latest victims were anti-government protesters who died from gunshots.

PressTV: Right groups condemn Egypt crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in Egypt

Anonymous, a group of hackers from all over the world, gathered some 500 supporters in coordinated on-line forums and used software tools to bring down the websites of the Ministry of Information and President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. The websites were unavailable on Wednesday evening. In January Anonymous shut down the websites of the Tunisian government in support of the uprising that forced the dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country. The group stated - "we are sick of oppressive governments encroaching on people.”

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh described conditions for local TV networks, and said that many coastal cities are enduring power outages. In Cairns, only 34% of homes had electricity. Townsville, south of Cairns, only has power in about 15% of homes. Farther down the Queensland coast, electricity is out in half of Mackay and Proserpine, and the entire town of Ingham was without power.

Tropical Cyclone Yasi is now a Category 2 storm, significantly diminished but still able to bring strong winds and heavy rain into interior areas of the country, according to CNN meteorologist Jenny Harrison. Yasi is moving toward the west. Wind speeds could reach up to 77 miles per hour (125 kilometers per hour) and very heavy rains could cause localized flooding Thursday and in days to come, she said.

In a shocking new interview, Donald Trump has gone farther than he ever has before in discussing a potential economic collapse in America. Using phrases such as "you’re going to pay $25 for a loaf of bread pretty soon" and "we could end up being another Egypt", Trump explained to Newsmax that he is incredibly concerned about the direction our economy is headed.

After four years and tens of thousands of dollars, college graduates hope that they're on their way to a sustainable job or career. In a challenging economy, the right skills are however necessary to beat out competitors vying for the same jobs. But researchers from Harvard University say institutions are leaving students ill-equipped. A two-year study shows that current curriculums are not giving the right skills to the students. Researchers say that about one-third of the jobs created in the future are expected to need a bachelor's degree or higher. But the problem is experts say the US education system focuses heavily on high school graduation and not enough on occupational instruction. Right now, only 30 percent of young adults in the United States successfully complete a bachelor's degree.

Video Information: PLEASE Download the free E-BOOK by Charlotte Iserbyt who was the former Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education under Reagan This book is selling for $100 USED on Amazon, but you can download a FREE PDF version at this link.

This video was originally created to be part of an art exhibit for Exposed the Art Project, a multimedia collaboration raising awareness of social issues. The group decided that the message in the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America shouldn't be put on hold. So here it is. The other artists of Exposed the Art Project are: painters Barry Gross and Viktor Safonkin, and photographers Adela Holmes and Presscott McDonald. We picked four themes for our premier—Social Commentary, Spirituality, Metamorphosis and Time and Chance. This is my contribution for Social Commentary. Learn more at: http://chinesehealthandfitness.com/MaritimeLaw.html