03/07/12

Permalink Wikileaks document reveals: US-led NATO troops operate inside Syria

A document released by the WikiLeaks website has revealed that undercover US-led NATO forces are operating inside Syria against the Syrian government. - WikiLeaks released a confidential email from an analyst working for the US-based intelligence firm Stratfor, in which he claims to have attended a meeting in the Pentagon with several NATO officials from France and Britain in December last year. The analyst says he learned that US-led NATO troops are already on the ground in Syria, training armed gangs. "SOF [special operation forces] teams (presumably from the US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey) are already on the ground, focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces," the analyst claimed in the letter. The Stratfor analyst goes on to say that "the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns" to overthrow the Syrian government. This comes despite claims by the Western military alliance denying the deployment of forces to Syria.

tp://www.a-w-i-p.com/media/blogs/news/News12/NWO_new_middle_east_map.jpg">

Felicity Arbuthnot: Syria and “Conspiracy Theories”: It is a Conspiracy - It was political analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, in November 2006, who wrote in detail(1) of US plans for the Middle East: “The term ‘New Middle East’, was introduced to the world in June 2006, in Tel Aviv, by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East’ “, he wrote. Sanity dictated that this would be a U.S. fantasy rampage too far and vast – until realization hit that the author of the map of this New World, planned in the New World’s “New World Order”, was Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters, who, in one of the most terrifying articles ever published, wrote in 1997: There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines …The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.”(2) (My emphasis.) At the time, Peters was assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he was responsible: “for future warfare.” His plans for Iraq worked out just fine – unless you are an Iraqi. [Map: Barrybar/flickr]

John Glaser: Obama Admin. Decides to Aid Syrian Opposition
Tehran Times: U.S.-led NATO troops operating inside Syria, WikiLeaks says
Russia Today: Mossad, CIA and Blackwater operate in Syria - report
PressTV: Iran has evidence that US, Arab states smuggle arms into Syria: official


Permalink Israel "asks" US for bunker-buster bombs, refueling aircraft

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "requested" the United States to "sell" GBU-28 bunker-buster bombs and advanced refueling aircraft to Israel, reports say.

A top US official said on Tuesday that Netanyahu made the request during a Monday meeting with the US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in Washington. The American official said that US President Barack Obama ordered Panetta to work directly with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the issue, indicating that the US government was inclined to approve the request soon. The US refused to sell bunker-buster bombs and refueling aircraft to Israel during the presidency of George W. Bush, as it estimated that Israel would use them to strike Iran's nuclear energy facilities. Washington provides Tel Aviv with nearly 3 billion dollars in military aid each year.

Jason Ditz: Netanyahu, Obama Pushing Panetta to Rush Bunker Busters to Israel


Permalink Norway: Breivik charged with Terror and 1st degree murder. Prosecution asks for forced psychiatric treatment

Anders Behring Breivik, who confessed to killing 77 people and injuring 151 in Norway, has been formally charged with committing acts of terror. - Defence lawyers went to his prison near the capital, Oslo, to present their client with the charges. Prosecutors have indicated they consider Breivik mentally ill and will seek to have him committed to psychiatric care rather than jailed. Breivik is expected to go on trial on 16 April. He has been charged under a paragraph in Norway's anti-terror law that refers to violent acts intended to disrupt key government functions or spread fears in the population. "The defendant has committed highly serious crimes of a dimension we have no previous experience with in our society in modern times," prosecutor Svein Holden told reporters in Oslo. If convicted, Breivik faces a maximum penalty of 21 years in prison.

AWIP: West media hide Breivik Zionist links - Video
AWIP: Anders Behring Breivik 'not accountable for attacks' - Video
AWIP: Inspiration, interests, initiation and investments in Breivik’s world
Justin Raimondo: Anders Behring Breivik, Mystery Man
Russia Today: Norway murderer Breivik charged with terrorism


Permalink Glenn Greenwald: Attorney General Holder defends execution without charges

In a speech at Northwestern University yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder provided the most detailed explanation yet for why the Obama administration believes it has the authority to secretly target U.S. citizens for execution by the CIA without even charging them with a crime, notifying them of the accusations, or affording them an opportunity to respond, instead condemning them to death without a shred of transparency or judicial oversight. The administration continues to conceal the legal memorandum it obtained to justify these killings, and, as The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage noted, Holder’s “speech contained no footnotes or specific legal citations, and it fell far short of the level of detail contained in the Office of Legal Counsel memo.” But the crux of Holder’s argument as set forth in yesterday’s speech is this: '

Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces. This is simply not accurate. “Due process” and “judicial process” are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

Tom Carter: Military tribunals and assassination


Permalink Romney takes 6 Super Tuesday states, Santorum nets 3

CBS News projects that Mitt Romney will win Ohio's key primary contest Tuesday, after a neck-and-neck race with rival Rick Santorum in the pivotal battleground state. Overall, Romney took six Super Tuesday states, compared to Santorum's three. - With more than 99 percent of precincts reporting in Ohio, Romney has 38 percent support to Santorum's 37 percent. Newt Gingrich is in third place with 15 percent and Ron Paul follows with 9 percent. Mitt Romney also won primaries in Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as the Idaho and Alaska caucuses. Rick Santorum won primaries in Tennessee and Oklahoma, and the North Dakota caucuses. In Georgia, Gingrich clinched his first primary victory since South Carolina's January 21 primary contest. Ron Paul did not win any contests on Tuesday, but he did finish second in four states: Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota and Virginia. CBS News estimates show Romney now has a total of 361 delegates, Santorum has 112, Gingrich has 80 and Paul has 24.


Permalink Anonymous hacks Panda Security in response to LulzSec arrests - Video

Anonymous has retaliated against the arrests of five LulzSec members. The hacktivist group has defaced multiple Panda Security domains as well as stolen the e-mail credentials of 114 employees. - The hacktivist group Anonymous has attacked security firm Panda Security shortly after authorities today arrested five men part of Lulz Security (LulzSec), another hacktivist group loosely associated with the former. 28-year-old Hector Xavier Monsegur (Sabu), the leader of LulzSec, allegedly informed U.S. law enforcement of his fellow comrades’ names: Ryan Ackroyd (Kayla), Jake Davis (Topiary), Darren Martyn (pwnsauce), Donncha O’Cearrbhail (palladium), and Jeremy Hammond (Anarchaos). Now, Anonymous has stolen the account credentials (e-mail address and passwords) of 114 employees working at Panda Security, and posted them online for everyone to see. Internal server details were also revealed. Lastly, they defaced more than two dozen subdomains within “pandasecurity.com” and other several domains owned by the security firm by modifying them to show a video recounting some of LulzSec’s hacking highlights from last year.


Permalink LulzSec leader Sabu was working for us, says FBI

Hacker – real name Hector Xavier Monsegur – helped US authorities bring charges against five others. - The world's most notorious computer hacker has been working as an informer for the FBI for at least the last six months, it emerged on Tuesday, providing information that has helped contribute to the charging of five others, including two Britons, for computer hacking offences. Hector Xavier Monsegur, an unemployed 28-year-old Puerto Rican living in New York, was unmasked as "Sabu", the leader of the LulzSec hacking group that has been behind a wave of cyber raids against American corporations including Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the intelligence consultancy Stratfor, British and American law enforcement bodies, and the Irish political party Fine Gael.

Russia Today: Confirmed: FBI charge LulzSec, Anonymous hackers 'betrayed by insider'
The Telegraph: FBI charges alleged Anonymous hackers after supergrass claims


Permalink Palestinian orphans in solidarity with Hana Shalabi

Unlike the picture anyone is most probably going to draw of an orphan, those orphans are quite different.

“We wanted to send a powerful message,” said Maram Humaid, a young activist and organizer of the painting event, “that despite the fact that the children are orphans, they do not wait for the world to stand in solidarity with them; instead, they themselves speak up in solidarity with others; this is a powerful message for everyone around the world to know, that the Palestinian children are not weak.”

Whenever my feet carry me to Hana Shalabi’s solidarity tent, my eyes fall, before anything else, on a piece of paper attached to huge banner wherein Shalabi grins at those coming to wish her a quick release. That small white piece of paper read “20” today.

The battle of empty stomachs continues. An empty stomach against an entire criminal system; a young woman against armed soldiers; the ones whose orders are higher than any conscience they might possess. Shalabi is a “terrorist,” how dare you defend her?

By Israel’s warped standards, I’m a terrorist too. Perhaps standing with a “terrorist” degrades my status from a student, activist, daughter, friend, call me anything, to a terrorist. Perhaps all of those who support Shalabi’s cause are terrorists, even those Israelis who are clear to be against administrative detention and who have described it as one of the most anti-democratic laws in Israel. Call the kids I met today as terrorists too. It will make no difference; they have always been treated like a threat, like terrorists, and maybe eventually killed.

Stephen Lendman: Hana Shalabi: Day 19 and Counting


Permalink Israel punishes hunger striking prisoners by transferring them to other end of country

Approximately 80 political prisoners have been transferred from Gilboa prison to Nafha prison in the Naqab [Negev] desert, according to the news site Arabs48. The transfer follows a solidarity hunger strike undertaken by the prisoners, which I reported in my blog of 28 February. I wrote that the prisoners in Gilboa prison welcomed the call for an international day of action on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. The prisoners in sections 2, 4 and 5 participated in a one-day hunger strike on 13 February for which they were immediately punished by the prison authorities. The political prisoners from section 4 were transferred to Nafha prison this week. They are residents from Jerusalem, Israel and the occupied Golan Heights. Nafha prison is located in the south of Israel — a large distance from Gilboa prison in the north.


Permalink How Goldman Sachs screwed Greece

Greece’s secret loan from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) was a costly mistake from the start. - On the day the 2001 deal was struck, the government owed the bank about 600 million euros ($793 million) more than the 2.8 billion euros it borrowed, said Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over the country’s debt-management agency in 2005. By then, the price of the transaction, a derivative that disguised the loan and that Goldman Sachs persuaded Greece not to test with competitors, had almost doubled to 5.1 billion euros, he said. Papanicolaou and his predecessor, Christoforos Sardelis, revealing details for the first time of a contract that helped Greece mask its growing sovereign debt to meet European Union requirements, said the country didn’t understand what it was buying and was ill-equipped to judge the risks or costs.

Ellen Brown: How Greece Could Take Down Wall Street
Reuters: Spain replaces Italy as bad boy in euro class


Permalink Germany bemoans "irritating" Irish referendum

In Germany, the country that has had to answer the most requests for financial aid in the debt crisis, plans to hold another referendum in Ireland have been the subject of much comment in the press. “The Irish again!” announces Spiegel-Online. The news website imagines the reaction in in the Berlin Chancellery, where Angela Merkel must be worried by the impact this development will have on decisions in Brussels. Of course, Berlin would have preferred to avoid a popular vote on Europe in Ireland, writes Süddeutsche Zeitung [arrogantly]

...but this time around, the outcome will have a much greater impact on Ireland than it will on the euro community. […] The Irish should accept that the [fiscal] pact is in their national interest. If not we will not be able to help them.

Fintan O'Toole: Is Keynesianism now a thoughtcrime?
PressEurop: Ireland calls surprise referendum


Permalink Six UK troops killed in south Afghanistan

Six British soldiers have been killed when their armored vehicle was caught in a powerful explosion in the troubled southern Afghanistan. - Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that the soldiers were killed on routine patrol northwest of Durai Junction in Helmand province when their vehicle was struck on Tuesday evening. All six soldiers were killed, five from 3rd battalion the Yorkshire Regiment and one from 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. Britain reportedly has around 9,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, making it the second largest force in the country after the United States. The latest deaths bring to 404 the number of British soldiers killed in war-battered Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

Daily Mail: Six British soldiers missing, feared dead, after attack on armoured vehicle


Health topic page on womens health Womens health our team of physicians Womens health breast cancer lumps heart disease Womens health information covers breast Cancer heart pregnancy womens cosmetic concerns Sexual health and mature women related conditions Facts on womens health female anatomy Womens general health and wellness The female reproductive system female hormones Diseases more common in women The mature woman post menopause Womens health dedicated to the best healthcare
buy viagra online