04/17/12

Permalink Nasrallah to Assange: Hezbollah talked to Syria opposition; we want dialogue, US & Israel want civil war

Hezbollah urged the Syrian opposition to engage in dialogue with Assad's regime, but they refused. Hezbollah leader Sayyid Nasrallah confirmed this in his first interview in six years, the world premiere of Julian Assange’s The World Tomorrow on RT.

Watch the full show on RT's video page

Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah told Assange that Hezbollah supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as Syria supported resistance in Lebanon and “hasn't backed down in the face of Israeli and American pressure.” Nasrallah, a freedom fighter to millions though a terrorist to the US, Israel, Canada and the Netherlands, says Assad’s regime “served the Palestinian cause very well.” This is why Hezbollah supported the so-called Arab Spring in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and elsewhere, but when it came to Syria, Hezbollah urged the opposition to engage in dialog with President Bashar al-Assad.


Permalink Leaked CIA memo exposes US terror suspect torture as 'war crimes'

The US is refraining from defining waterboarding and other questionable interrogation methods it used to apply to terrorist suspects as torture, possibly with a view to using them once again someday. - Years after the Bush administration left office, many feel President Obama is not doing enough to make up for America's past mistakes. This includes torture treatment of terrorist suspects by the US investigators. Such torture techniques include waterboarding, stress positions and other methods of interrogation welcomed into American secret service after 9/11 paved the way for the War on Terror. Former US President George W. Bush once soothed the nation that “The American people need to know we're using techniques within the law to protect them.” Two years after George W. Bush left the White House, the former commander-in-chief admitted his stamp of approval for the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding, dubbed inhuman and illegal under US law and the Geneva Conventions.


Permalink TSA Creates 'Privileged Flyers' as Part of Larger Program

Is the TSA's efforts to create a privileged "flying class" part of a larger elite strategy to create a group of entitled corporate and government workers? - We've written about this before in terms of "corporate cities" being developed in India and elsewhere. These experiments are being carried out in the developing world because they would arouse much suspicion in the West, but they are taking place. There is evidently and obviously a power elite that is funded via their control of central banking around the world. They not only seek global governance, they apparently also want to organize the world in certain ways. They seek a system, it seems, in which a handful of "chosen ones" work directly with them while other government workers and knowledge workers also receive special benefits and privileges. Within this context, we can perhaps place the TSA's attempts at creating a privileged class of pre-approved flyers. Such a privileged class is supposed to be seen as a natural outgrowth of 9/11 and subsequent security measures.chosen ones.

Gonzalo Lira: You Are Free To Travel—If The IRS Lets You


Permalink Israeli soldier clubs Danish protester with rifle

Danish ambassador to Tel Aviv Liselotte Plesner merely asks Israeli government for an "explanation". - Denmark has demanded an explanation from the Israeli government for video footage showing a senior Israeli army officer striking a Danish activist in the face with an M16 rifle, an act which has been sharply criticised by the Israeli prime minister, president and chief of staff. In the video, Lt Col Shalom Eisner, deputy commander of the Jordan Valley territorial brigade, is clearly seen slamming his rifle into the face of Andreas Ias. There was no obvious reason for the assault in the clip, which was broadcast on Israeli television and posted on YouTube. The soldier was suspended by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) pending an investigation. The video emerged on the same day as Israel launched a security operation to prevent hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists entering the country en route to the West Bank, claiming they were provocateurs and were planning acts of violence. The assault on the Danish man and the operation to block the entry of Palestinian sympathisers have led to questions about whether Israel's response to activists is excessively heavy-handed and will damage its image.


Permalink NewScientist: Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance. The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power. The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.


Permalink Blacks are murdered with impunity in US, Malcolm X’s grandson says

Malcolm X’s grandson, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, says that Blacks are murdered with impunity in the United States because the system is unjust, Press TV reports. - In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Monday, Shabazz commented on the murder of Black teenager Trayvon Martin, saying, “There are hundreds of Black Americans who are being murdered in the United States every year with impunity. And police officers serve no time. They always get off.” Shabazz said this occurs because there is institutionalized racism in the United States. “The United States has more people incarcerated than anywhere else in the world. It has more people incarcerated than China, and China has the most people in the world,” he noted.


Permalink 'Let Cuba In!' Sixth Summit of Americas sends ultimatum to US

When the heads of both Americas met for their Sixth Summit in Colombia, a key issue was finally put squarely on the table: either Cuba is invited to the next Summit or… there will be no next Summit. - Officially sponsored by the Washington-based OAS – Organization of American States – these “Summits” are held every three years or so since 1994.For the most part, they have been instruments promoting US hegemony over its “backyard” South of the Rio Bravo. As with most multilateral political, economic and financial institutions – the UN, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, NAFTA, or the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) – the OAS is one of many instruments used by the Global Power Masters deeply embedded inside the public and private power structures of the United States, to wield political, financial, even legal control over all of the Americas. During this Summit in Colombia, however, at least some key issues were addressed which is why no final official declaration could be agreed upon by all participants, mainly because the United States and its few regional allies fully oppose even addressing these issues.


Permalink Nanny State: Frederiksberg Council to wake up school children

Council employee will enter homes to wake up children and get them to school. - Frederiksberg Council is set to introduce a new 'wake up' programme in order to combat truancy, Berlingske newspaper has reported. The move comes after the success of Nyborg Council’s wake-up system, which was implemented last year and has resulted in a significant decrease in absenteeism. Similar to Nyborg, Frederiksberg will hire an employee whose job will be to ensure that school children attend school regularly and on time.

“We feel just like several other schools where kids are failing to turn up,” Margit Ørsted, the chairman of Frederiksberg’s teaching committee, told Berlingske newspaper. “A council ‘waker’ will function as an authority and show up at the child’s address and make both the parents and the child aware that they should attend school.”


Permalink Anders Breivik: I would have done it again

Norway killer has defended his massacre of 77 people, insisting he would do it again. He called his bomb-and-shooting rampage the most “spectacular” attack by a nationalist militant since World War II and demanded to be freed.

In a prepared statement Breivik lashed out at Norwegian and European governments for embracing immigration and multiculturalism. "Is it democratic that the people of Norway have never been consulted by referendum on whether or not more foreigners should be accepted?” he asked the court. Maintaining he acted out of “goodness not evil” to prevent a wider civil war, Breivik vowed that he “would have done it again.” Breivik insisted that the youngsters that he killed on the Utoya Island were no innocent children. He compared them to Hitler Youth and said they were brainwashed to promote multicultural values, a very unlikely thing for the Hitler Youth to do. He stressed he acted in self-defense to protect Norway from Muslims. He also forecast a “war between internationalists and nationalists in Europe” within a decade. “We do not accept that we are made to be a minority in our own country,” he says. “The attacks on July 22 were preventative attacks, and I can therefore not acknowledge criminal guilt.” “I demand that I be freed,” Breivik concluded after speaking for more than an hour.

BBC: In pictures: Breivik trial
Bob Altemeyer: The Authoritarians [PDF]
Aftenposten: Dette sa Breivik i talen til retten
AWIP: Norway puts Anders Behring Breivik on trial for murder


Permalink Fire prompts evacuation at nuclear research lab in Idaho

A welder's torch ignited a small fire on the roof of a building at a nuclear research laboratory in Idaho on Monday, prompting an evacuation. No one was hurt and no radioactive material was involved [?], lab officials said. Nearly 100 employees were cleared from the building, part of a complex that includes facilities housing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory, the U.S. Energy Department's leading facility for nuclear reactor technology.


Permalink Michigan government unleashes armed raids on small pig farmers, forces farmer to shoot all his own pigs

NaturalNews can now confirm that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment, conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County. Staging raids involving six vehicles and ten armed men, DNA conducted unconstitutional, illegal and arguably criminal armed raids on these two farms with the intent of shooting all the farmers' pigs under a bizarre new "Invasive Species Order" (ISO) that has suddenly declared traditional livestock to be an invasive species.


Permalink Press Release: "50 Peace Activists In Israeli Jails Decalre Hunger Strike"

50 international peace supporters and peace activists detained by Israel and imprisoned at the Givon Prison, near Tel Aviv, declared hunger strike in support of the Palestinian political prisoners and rejecting the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. - About forty French participants of the mission Welcome to Palestine, and a dozen other internationals, were jailed Monday morning at Givon (near Tel Aviv), because they refused to be deported on their arrival, and not because they committed any offense or crime, quite the contrary. According to the score that we could perform on the night of Sunday to Monday, there were 27 men and women who arrived in Tel Aviv on an Easyjet flight from Geneva, and 10 or 11 others arrived on board an Air France flight from Nice. Some have managed not to get caught with their mobiles, and were able to sendto the outside world (to us, to relatives in France) a few new SMS: the morale is high. They maintain their right, elemental, to be able to travel in occupied Palestine and they are prepared, if necessary, to declare hunger strike, especially because this Tuesday April 17th is a day of general mobilization of thousands Palestinians languishing in the jails of the apartheid regime.


Permalink PCHR remembers Italian activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, on the first anniversary of his death in Gaza

[On] 15 April 2012, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) remember[ed] Italian activist, Vitttorio Arrigoni, on the first anniversary of his death in the Gaza Strip.

Arrigoni was kidnapped and murdered by an armed group who are entirely unrepresentative of the people in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian values and traditions. Arrigoni had been working in Gaza since 2008, when he arrived on board the "Free Gaza" flotilla, organized to break the Israeli illegal closure imposed on the Gaza Strip. He devoted himself to the Palestinian cause and participated in a number of peaceful and solidarity activities against violations of Palestinian civilians’ human rights by Israeli occupation authorities, including the illegal closure and “buffer zone” imposed on the Gaza Strip. Arrigoni’s genuine commitment towards the human rights of Palestinian civilians, particularly fishermen and peasants in the Gaza Strip -who are amongst those most affected by the Israeli illegal practices and policies-, is his legacy to the free world.

Those suspected to be responsible for Arrigoni’s kidnapping and killing are being tried by the Permanent Military Court in Gaza. Lawyers from PCHR follow the case on the basis of a power of attorney given to them by Arrigoni’s family and in coordination with the latter’s representative, Attorney Gilberto Pagani. PCHR calls for a comprehensive and genuine resolution of Arrigoni’s case, including all circumstances relating to his death, by the Gaza judiciary.


Permalink A WEEKEND IN PALESTINE …. IF YOU CAN GET THERE (PART TWO)

Palestinian and international cyclists were brutally attacked by the Israeli occupation forces on Saturday as they attempted to bike up Route 90, the main North-South highway running through the Jordan Valley. The cyclists were demonstrating against Israeli apartheid policies in the Jordan Valley, which limit Palestinian access to roadways as part of an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Bedouin communities of the Valley.


Permalink Freedom of the press: Secret Service detains reporter who asked Gingrich about Fox

The United States Secret Service detained a North Carolina reporter over the weekend after he asked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich about recent comments that were critical of Fox News. - The Daily Tarheel’s Memet Walker hoped to get a reaction from the candidate when he sat down with him in Greensboro, North Carolina on Saturday. “His aide gave no preconditions; no topics were off limits,” Walker wrote. “That’s why I was so surprised when, before I had finished asking my first question, that same aide cut the interview short and prompted Secret Service to grab and briefly detain me as the former speaker was led away.” The reporter explained that he had been detained after questioning the candidate about Ailes.


Permalink Researchers develop stem cells that attack and destroy HIV

Scientists from the University of California Los Angeles have found that genetically engineered human stem cells can suppress HIV in living mice, raising the hope for a breakthrough cure for HIV patients. - In a recent study from the journal PLoS Pathogens, researchers wanted to go further than previous studies that used vaccines to slow HIV progression. They cloned a molecule that controls “killer” T cells, white blood cells that recognize and kill HIV-infected cells. The molecule was then injected with human blood stem cells inside of mice to control those cells for observation. Over a month after injecting the cells into the mice, researchers found an increase in the amount of T-cells needed to fight HIV cells. The study revealed for the first time that engineered cells were capable of developing and migrating to the organs to fight infection there. Lead researcher Scott G. Kitchen, an assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, was pleased with the results.


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