Month: June 2008

California faces water rationing due to drought

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Californians could face mandatory water rationing unless they drastically reduce consumption because of a state-wide water crisis, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said.

The warning came as he declared the first official drought in California in 17 years, citing two years of arid conditions that threaten the state’s massive agriculture industry and increase the risk of wildfires such as those that destroyed 1,500 homes last October.


Kern River in California is dry and is expected to remain so

The governor called for a state-wide reduction of 20 per cent and issued an executive order commanding water officials to direct supplies to the driest areas, help districts conserve and aid stricken farmers who have already suffered huge losses.

Mr Schwarzenegger said mandatory restrictions could follow if residents and water authorities failed to make cutbacks and another dry winter ensued.

“We must recognise the severity of the crisis that we face,” the Republican governor said.

California has never resorted to statewide water rationing to cope with shortages. Since the last drought, however, its population has shot up as water supplies have decreased.

The governor himself does not have the authority to impose statewide rationing but the Department of Water Resources could slash water supplies to local authorities, who in turn would have to enforce limits.

Some regions already impose rationing with the threat of punitive measures for violators and many areas have appealed for conservation. Restrictions on outdoor water use, such as bans on washing cars or driveways, are in force in some cities along with orders stopping restaurants from automatically serving drinking water.

This week, Los Angeles approved a fleet of “drought busters” to patrol residential areas and enforce a ban on some types of outdoor water use. More districts are expected to impose limits of some kind as the long, hot days of summer loom.

This spring, the driest on record, follows two years of below average rainfall. The situation has been exacerbated by reduced mountain snow packs, which normally provide much of the state’s supply, and a court order limiting the amount of water that can be taken from a key river delta to protect a threatened fish.

“We’re suffering the perfect storm, if you will,” said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies.

The prospect of cuts alarmed some sectors of the business community who feared it could harm productivity and increase the chance of full-blown recession.

Read moreCalifornia faces water rationing due to drought

Bush misused Iraq intelligence: Senate report

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President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein’s links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq’s arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

The report shows an administration that “led the nation to war on false premises,” said the committee’s Democratic Chairman, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia. Several Republicans on the committee protested its findings as a “partisan exercise.”

The committee studied major speeches by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials in advance of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and compared key assertions with intelligence available at the time.

Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said.

It said that Bush’s and Cheney’s assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence.

Read moreBush misused Iraq intelligence: Senate report

D.C. Police to Check Drivers In Violence-Plagued Trinidad

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“My reaction is, welcome to Baghdad, D.C.,” said Arthur Spitzer, legal director for the ACLU’s Washington office. “I mean, this is craziness. In this country, you don’t have to show identification or explain to the police why you want to travel down a public street.”
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D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers’ identification and ask whether they have a “legitimate purpose” to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative is the latest crime-fighting attempt by Lanier and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who have been under pressure from residents to stop a recent surge in violence. Last weekend was especially bloody, with seven slayings, including three in the Trinidad area.

“In certain areas, we need to go beyond the normal methods of policing,” Fenty (D) said at a news conference announcing the action. “We’re going to go into an area and completely shut it down to prevent shootings and the sale of drugs.”

Read moreD.C. Police to Check Drivers In Violence-Plagued Trinidad

America’s Medicated Army

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“Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs — overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft.”

Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad’s dangerous roads – acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them – he found himself growing increasingly despondent. “We’d been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me,” LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. “You don’t always know who the bad guys are,” he says. “When you search someone’s house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there’s little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor – things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would.”

So LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. “It’s not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they’re having over there for a variety of reasons,” LeJeune says. “If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills.”

Read moreAmerica’s Medicated Army

Top two Air Force officials resigning

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The two are asked to step down after a mistaken warhead shipment

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force’s top officials Thursday, holding them to account in a historic military shake-up for failing to ensure the security of sensitive materials, including nuclear missile warhead fuses that were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan.

Gates announced at a Pentagon news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne – a highly unusual double firing.

Gates cited two embarrassing incidents in the past year. In one, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country without anyone realizing nuclear weapons were aboard.
In the other, four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads were mistakenly sent to Taiwan in the place of helicopter batteries. Gates said an internal investigation found a common theme in the B-52 and Taiwan incidents: “a decline in the Air Force’s nuclear mission focus and performance.”

Read moreTop two Air Force officials resigning

China takes on the US – in space

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SYDNEY – Chinese military experts believe a confrontation in space, probably with the United States, is inevitable. What they haven’t said is whether they expect to win.

Two disarmament officials with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) this week accused Washington in an assessment of the global weapons buildup of fueling an arms race aimed at controlling “the commanding heights”.

“In the not too distant future, outer space will certainly become a stage for struggle between countries,” charged Xu Nengwu, of China’s National Defense Science and Technology University.

Simialry, Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of staff of the PLA, speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore at the weekend, was less than subtle. He did not mention the US at all (other than including Hurricane Katrina in the list of recent natural disasters), but did identify “expansion of military alliance” and “development and expansion of missile defense system” among the major security challenges the region faces.

Read moreChina takes on the US – in space

Infowars Team Harassed at Marriott Covering Bilderberg

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Related article: Bilderberg Announces 2008 Conference

Listen to Alex’s Bilderberg report

Calling into his show today from the Bilderberg confab in Chantilly, Virginia, Alex Jones told stand-in Jason Bermas that the Infowars team — bearing press credentials and obviously part of the media — were incessantly and repeatedly harassed by security personnel at the Westfield Marriott where the Bilderberg meeting is scheduled to take place.

Weimar Republic
Infowars records the coming and going of the Bilderbergers and their security goons at the Westfield Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia.

As noted earlier, this campaign of harassment and intimidation was timed to interrupt Alex’s interview with Coast to Coast AM last night. At approximately the moment Alex was scheduled to begin the interview with George Noory, a fire alarm went off in the Marriott. Fifteen minutes prior to this oddly timed event, Alex had an encounter with the head of night security in the lobby of the hotel. “Hey, have you every heard of people pulling fire alarms?” the head of security asked, adding that people often pull fire alarms in hotels as a diversion in robbery attempts. Alex believes security was attempting to set him up, but admitted he was unable to confirm this.

Upon exiting the building in response to the fire alarm, the head of security, noticing the Infowars team had cameras, “ran up and said, ‘I’m gonna f— you both up if you video tape, do you hear me Alex and Rob?’” Meanwhile, other hotel guests exiting the building in response to the fire alarm were shooting video and taking photos and they were not approached by the head of security, who specifically singled out Alex and Rob Jacobson.

Hotel
Bilderberg car with the letter “B” in the window.

As Alex noted, it was peculiar the head of security would address Rob by name, as his name was not registered with the hotel. Aaron Dykes had registered with the hotel and had not mentioned Rob by name. “He knew our names, he knew everything. He said, ‘I’ve called the police, they are coming, and they are going to f— you up.’” At this point Alex pointed out that other guests were videotaping and the security man repeated his threat.

Earlier in the evening, as they sat in a restaurant at the Hilton, where Alex had secured a room for the safe stowage of equipment, they were approached by a man, a “big guy who looked just like, acted just like a cop,” who attempted to provocateur them into “infiltrating some federal buildings” and asked if they wanted “to get really serious and go into the State Department.” Alex told him he is non-violent and are reporters in Virginia to cover the Bilderberg event, not engage in violence.

Weimar Republic
Limos and security arrive at the Marriott.

The following morning, security continued its orchestrated campaign of harassment, approaching Alex and telling him they knew who he was and declaring they would throw the Infowars crew out of the hotel before check-out at noon. In addition, the security goon made a point of threatening them with arrest.

At noon check out, black sedans began arriving with large letter B’s affixed to the windows, a sign that the limousines were delivering Bilderberg security to the hotel. When Alex and crew left the hotel grounds in their rented van, security followed close behind. “Coming out the main entrance, we saw about seventy five great infowarriors out there videotaping, police everywhere… there is just like a fog of infowarriors out there totally overwhelming them, there are all these huge army intelligence guys, average six foot two, six foot three, two hundred fifty, two hundred seventy pounds, running around with earpieces everywhere in suits and in plain clothes watching us, following us, they’re all over the streets… this is a complete spectacle.”

As the experience with security at the Marriott demonstrates, minions of the Bilderbergers have absolutely no respect for freedom of the press or the First Amendment — that is unless the press is corporate and following the New World Order script consisting of obfuscation and diversion. Over the years, the corporate media has refused to acknowledge the existence of the Bilderbergers, but now that the cat is out of the bag and the agenda of our globalist rulers increasingly faces the light of day due to the work of Alex Jones and others, the lapdog corporate media declares the annual Bilderberg meetings be nothing more than business people harmlessly gathering to talk shop and refuse to cover their events, an absurd joke now revealed for the world to see.

Kurt Nimmo
June 5th, 2008

Source: Infowars

Sheep and Cow flatulence inoculation developed

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New Zealand scientists claim to have developed a “flatulence inoculation” aimed at cutting down on the massive amount of methane produced by its sheep and cows.

Such animals are believed to be responsible for more than half of the country’s greenhouse gases, causing huge environmental problems.

But Phil Goff, New Zealand’s trade minister, told an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in Paris yesterday that a solution was in sight.

“Our agricultural research organisation just last week was able to map the genome … that causes methane in ruminant animals and we believe we can vaccinate against” flatulent emissions, Mr Goff said.

Scientists in New Zealand have been working around-the-clock to reduce emissions from agriculture, such as changing the way fertilisers are used on pasture land, Mr Goff added.

Sheep, cattle, goats and deer produce large quantities of gas through belching and flatulence, as their multiple stomachs digest grass.

Ruminants are responsible for about 25 per cent of the methane produced in Britain, but in countries with a large agricultural sector, the proportion is much higher.

The 45 million sheep and 10 million cattle in New Zealand burped and farted about 90 percent of that country’s methane emissions, according to government figures.

Read moreSheep and Cow flatulence inoculation developed

Masons are after the DNA of children

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“Masons Work to Protect Children”

WALTON COUNTY – Nothing can strike fear into the heart of a parent faster than the thought of a missing child.

While Walton County’s Masonic lodges cannot do much to prevent a child from going missing, they can provide parents with valuable tools if such a tragedy might happen.

As part of the Georgia Child Identification Program, or GACHIP, sponsored by the Grand Lodge of Georgia, Freemasons across Walton County are working to help parents avert their worst nightmare.

“There are thousands of children every year who are abducted,” said Julian Hayes, with Generous Warren Masonic Lodge No. 20, and associate to the Mason district director. “Sometimes a child just wanders off and gets lost. We just want to protect our children.”

The GACHIP initiative will allow Walton’s Masons – lodges in Campton, Monroe, Loganville, Social Circle and around the edges of the county – in partnership with the Loganville Ladies Auxiliary with the American Legion Post 233, to take a child’s fingerprints, photograph, tooth impressions and DNA from saliva to create a small, comprehensive package, complete with informational CD, that parents can provide to law enforcement in the case of a missing child.

Read moreMasons are after the DNA of children

US banks fear $5 trillion balance impact

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Accounting changes could force US banks to take thousands of billions of dollars back on to their balance sheets in the coming months in a move that is likely to curb further their lending and could push them into new capital raisings, analysts have warned.

Analysts at Citigroup said a planned tightening of the rules regarding off-balance sheet vehicles would force banks to reconsider arrangements and could result in up to $5,000bn of assets coming back on to the books.

The off-balance sheet vehicles have been used by financial institutions to keep some assets off their balance sheets, thereby avoiding the need to hold regulatory capital against them.

Birgit Specht, head of securitisation analysis at Citigroup, said: “We think it is very likely that these vehicles will come back on balance sheet.

“This will not affect liquidity because [they] are funded, but it will affect debt-to-equity ratios [at banks] and so significantly impact banks’ ability to lend.”

Ms Specht told a seminar at a conference on asset-backed securities in Cannes that the uncertainty about what might change was making banks uneasy about their investments. “Banks are not investing [in assets] right now because of funding issues and regulatory uncertainty.”

Read moreUS banks fear $5 trillion balance impact

Indicted Saudi Gets $80 Million US Contract

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The Financier Has Been Indicted For His Alleged Role in a Scandal Costing US Taxpayers $1.7 billion

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.

The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.

Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush’s first business venture, Arbusto Energy.

A spokesman for the FBI said Pharaon was not wanted in connection with the French report, but confirmed he was still sought by the US Justice Department.

“Ghaith Pharaon is an FBI fugitive indicted in both the BCCI and CENTRUST case,” said Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI. “If anyone has information on his location, they are requested to contact the FBI or the US Embassy.”

The US military purchases jet fuel from Attock through the contractor Supreme Fuels, according to a US government website. The $80 million contract for 2008 was posted this week on a US government website . Attock supplied the US military more than $40 million in jet fuel in 2007, according to another spreadsheet posted on the site.

An official at Attock, who did not wish to be named, confirmed the refinery was supplying thousands of tons of jet fuel to the US base at Bagram Air Base every month.

The US military has not responded to requests for comment.

Pharaon could not be reached for comment.

By GRETCHEN PETERS
June 4, 2008

Source: abc News

German government backs enhanced surveillance

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Wolfgang Schauble, Minister of the Interior for Germany, at the First International Security Forum of Ministers of Interior and Public Security in Jerusalem on May 29. (Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse)

BERLIN: Despite strong criticism from the opposition and even its own coalition partners, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government agreed Wednesday to give Germany’s police forces greater powers to monitor homes, telephones and private computers, maintaining that an enhanced reach would protect citizens from terrorist attacks.

But opposition parties and some Social Democrats who share power with Merkel’s conservative bloc criticized the measures in the draft legislation, saying they would further erode privacy rights that they contend have already been undermined, after revelations of recent snooping operations conducted by Deutsche Telekom, one of the country’s biggest companies.

Deutsche Telekom had for some time been monitoring calls of its employers, despite federal regulations on strict data protection.

The proposed legislation would for the first time give federal police officers the right to take preventive measures in cases of suspected terrorism.

The bill, for example, calls for video surveillance of private apartments, online computer searches and phone monitoring.

But the nature of the surveillance, which would require the approval of the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, has worried many Germans, with some commentators recalling the Nazi past and its vast machinery of spying. They also point to the more recent role of the Stasi, the hated secret police in the once Communist-ruled East Germany, which established a pervasive system of keeping tabs on almost everyone in the country.

The draft law was fashioned after months of intense debate led by Wolfgang Schäuble, the conservative interior minister, who has long wanted the security forces to be given more leeway for surveillance.

Read moreGerman government backs enhanced surveillance

Expect new drugs to treat aging, researchers say

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Resveratrol, substance found in red wine, benefits health

NEW YORK — Is 90 the new 50?

Not yet, aging researchers say, but medical breakthroughs to significantly extend life and ease the ailments of getting older are closer than many people think.

“The general public has no idea what’s coming,” said David Sinclair, a Harvard Medical School professor who has made headlines with research into the health benefits of a substance found in red wine called resveratrol.

Speaking on a panel of aging experts, Sinclair had the boldest predictions. He said scientists can greatly increase longevity and improve health in lab animals like mice, and that drugs to benefit people are on the way.

“It’s not an if, but a when,” said Sinclair, who co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to pursue such drugs. The company, which is testing medicine in people with Type 2 diabetes, was recently bought for $720 million by GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second-largest drug maker.

Read moreExpect new drugs to treat aging, researchers say

Army: Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change

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The Army is weighing in on the global warming debate, claiming that climate change is not man-made. Instead, Dr. Bruce West, with the Army Research Office, argues that “changes in the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to … the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles.”

In an advisory to bloggers entitled “Global Warming: Fact of Fiction [sic],” an Army public affairs official promoted a conference call with West about “the causes of global warming, and how it may not be caused by the common indicates [sic] some scientists and the media are indicating.”

In the March, 2008 issue of Physics Today, West, the chief scientist of the Army Research Office’s mathematical and information science directorate, wrote that “the Sun’s turbulent dynamics” are linked with the Earth’s complex ecosystem. These connections are what is heating up the planet. “The Sun could account for as much as 69 percent of the increase in Earth’s average temperature,” West noted.

It’s a position that puts West at odds with nearly every major scientific organization on the planet. “The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling,” Science magazine observes. So has the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, for their work on global warming.

West acknowledges that the IPCC and other scientific groups have “conclude[d] that the contribution of solar variability to global warming is negligible.” He argues that these groups have done a poor job modeling the Sun’s impact, however, and that’s why they have “significantly over-estimated” the “anthropogenic contribution to global warming.”

Read moreArmy: Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change

Billions pledged at food summit, but more needed UN chief says

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Pledges of almost three billion dollars of emergency aid were made at a food price crisis summit on Wednesday but UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned up to 20 billion dollars a year would be needed to avoid disaster.

“We simply cannot afford to fail,” the UN secretary general said at the food security summit. “Hundreds of millions of people expect no less.”

The extra resources that might be as required will cost between 15 billion and 20 billion dollars (10-13 billion euros) a year, Ban told a news conference.

New funding totalling some 2.7 billion dollars was announced on the second day of the summit in Rome, where Ban has already demanded a 50 percent increase in food production by 2030.

The UN World Food Programme announced 1.2 billion dollars in new food aid to help “the tens of millions of people … hardest hit by the crisis.”

Read moreBillions pledged at food summit, but more needed UN chief says

Company led by former Bush official wins September 11 contract

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Related article: Feds Censor Sept. 11 Health Disaster

WASHINGTON (AP) – A company headed by former Bush administration Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has won an $11 million contract to treat some of the workers exposed to toxic debris from the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contract was awarded to Logistics Health, where Thompson is president. It’s aimed at tracking the health of 4,000 to 6,000 workers who live outside the New York City area.

New York Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney says it’s ironic that Thompson’s company won the contract — given what she calls “the history of delay from the Bush administration when he was secretary and now.”

When he was Bush’s health chief, Thompson was accused of not doing enough to help those exposed to toxic debris.

The company will provide annual exams to the World Trade Center responders and diagnose and treat their 9/11-related conditions.

Read moreCompany led by former Bush official wins September 11 contract

Up to 25,000 on Wall St. face the axe, report says

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NEW YORK-New York City’s financial sector might only slice 15,000 to 25,000 jobs in the current downturn, which could prove shorter than the mayor has predicted, the city comptroller said.

In contrast, the financial sector that is such a vital part of the city’s economy slashed 40,200 jobs in the previous 2000 to 2003 retreat that straddled the Sept. 11, 2001 air attacks, Comptroller William Thompson said in a report.

Battered by profit-gouging subprime mortgage loans, New York Stock Exchange member firms that do business with the public lost $7.3 billion (U.S.) last year, and the current job-losing cycle that began in August 2007 should run through March 2009, Thompson added.

Read moreUp to 25,000 on Wall St. face the axe, report says

And the winner is … the Israel lobby

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Related article: Israel Gives America Go-Ahead To Invade Iran

WASHINGTON – They’re all here – and they’re all ready to party. The three United States presidential candidates – John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Madam House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most US senators and virtually half of the US Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. And a host of Jewish and non-Jewish political and academic heavy-hitters among the 7,000 participants.

Such star power wattage, a Washington version of the Oscars, is the stock in trade of AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the crucial player in what is generally known as the Israel lobby and which holds its annual Policy Conference this week in Washington at which most of the heavyweights will deliver lectures.

Few books in recent years have been as explosive or controversial as The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, written by Stephen Walt from Harvard University and John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago, published in 2007. In it, professors Walt and Mearsheimer argued the case of the Israeli lobby not as “a cabal or conspiracy that ‘controls’ US foreign policy”, but as an extremely powerful interest group made up of Jews and non-Jews, a “loose coalition of individuals and organizations tirelessly working to move US foreign policy in Israel’s direction”.

Walt and Mearsheimer also made the key point that “anyone who criticizes Israeli actions or says that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle East policy stands a good chance of being labeled an anti-Semite”. Anyone for that matter who “says that there is an Israeli lobby” also runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism.

All the candidates in the House say yeah
Republican presidential candidate McCain is opening this year’s AIPAC jamboree; Clinton and Obama are closing it on Wednesday. Walt and Mearsheimer’s verdict on the dangerous liaisons between presidential candidates and AIPAC remains unimpeachable: “None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the US ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. And those who do will probably fall by the wayside.”

Take what Clinton said in February at an AIPAC meeting in New York: “Israel is a beacon of what’s right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism.” A year before, Clinton was in favor of sitting and talking to Iran’s leadership.

Read moreAnd the winner is … the Israel lobby

Italy is stealing cars

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Italy has begun confiscating the cars of people driving under the effect of drugs or alcohol in the latest attempt to lower one of western Europe’s highest rates of road casualties.

Two drivers in their early 20s, a woman under the influence of alcohol and a man who had smoked a cannabis joint, have had their cars seized in northern Italy since the legislation came into effect at the end of last month.

The new legislation states that any driver who tests positive for any illegal drug or has blood alcohol levels exceeding set limits can have their car confiscated, as well as toughening fines and jail sentences.

The cars are to be auctioned off or used by the police, as is already the case for vehicles confiscated from mafia offenders and drug dealers.

Breathalyzer testing is not frequent in Italy, where 5,669 people died on the roads in 2006, the most recent data available. National statistics bureau ISTAT said the authorities must focus on curbing drunken driving to make the roads safer.

Wed Jun 4, 1:09 PM ET

Source: Reuters

Lehman hedges lose $500m to $700m

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Lehman Brothers lost $500m-$700m on certain hedging positions in the second quarter, contributing to what is expected to be a larger-than-anticipated loss that may lead the bank to raise more capital by selling a stake to an outside investor.

People close to the matter said Lehman had opened talks with potential investors including asset managers and Asian banks.

Read moreLehman hedges lose $500m to $700m

Why are the police using surveillance on journalists?

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Police should stop routine surveillance of reporters and photographers covering demonstrations in London, the National Union of Journalists has told Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear made the call in a letter to Smith after receiving complaints that journalists, particularly photographers, were facing what amounted to harassment by members of the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT).

Dear said the NUJ had serious concerns about the FIT’s activities in monitoring and recording the activities of bona fide journalists, especially photographers.

“A number of members have alleged that the police’s surveillance action amounts to virtual harassment and is a serious threat to their right to carry out their lawful employment,” he said.

Read moreWhy are the police using surveillance on journalists?

400,000 Troops needed For Afghanistan

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No, that’s not a typo. The outgoing US commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan says it would require 400,000 troops to secure that country.

ISAF Commander McNeill has said himself that according to the current counterterrorism doctrine, it would take 400,000 troops to pacify Afghanistan in the long term. But the reality is that he has only 47,000 soldiers under his command, together with another 18,000 troops fighting at their sides as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, and possibly another 75,000 reasonably well-trained soldiers in the Afghan army by the end of the year. All told, there is still a shortfall of 260,000 men.

Gen Dan McNeill is one of the straight-shooters of the US military, he says what he means and says it when it needs said. Four hundred thousand troops. As opposed to the less than 200,000 sent to Iraq for the Surge.

Worse, it costs the U. S. three times to maintain a soldier in Afghanistan that it costs it to maintain a soldier in Iraq. Consequently, the U. S.’s maintaining a force of 400,000 in Afghanistan would cost us nearly ten times what we’re spending in Iraq right now.

But as Brandon Freidman points out today, the alternative – what is happening right now – is that the US is losing on the central front of the poorly named “War On Terror”.

Read more400,000 Troops needed For Afghanistan

Fishermen clash with police at EU

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Riot police confront fishermen in Brussels

Police have clashed with hundreds of fishermen protesting against the high cost of fuel outside the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels.

Several windows in EU buildings were broken and at least one car was overturned during the demonstration.

Riot police responded by firing water cannon and launching baton charges.

The fishermen have said they will go out of business unless the EU allows national governments to give them more financial aid and subsidise their fuel.

French fishermen have been on strike for several weeks over the price of diesel, which has risen by 240% in the past five years.

In recent days they have been joined by members of fleets from the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy, who have blockaded ports across Europe, and truck drivers.

Restructuring

With foghorns, flags and flares, hundreds of mainly French and Italian fishermen stopped traffic on the main road in the European district of the Belgian capital.

We came here… to tell Europe to stop getting in the way of the French government trying to help us
Philippe Margoud

In pictures: Fuel protests

After several hours of stand-off, the protest turned violent. A car was overturned, bins were set on fire and windows were smashed by flares.

Riot police lined up behind a barbed-wire barricade in front of the European Commission responded by attempting to disperse the crowd with water cannons and baton charges.

Earlier, a delegation of fishermen met senior EU officials briefly outside the Commission’s headquarters to explain their grievances and demand emergency aid from both the EU and their countries’ governments.

Read moreFishermen clash with police at EU

McCain: I’d Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

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If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president’s wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

McCain’s new tack towards the Bush administration’s theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies’ cooperation with President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, before he’d support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity.

As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted stricter rules on how the nation’s telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for any lawbreaking before winning amnesty.

But Monday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed those statements, and for the first time cast McCain’s views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush’s.

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. […]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush’s longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration’s analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001.

Read moreMcCain: I’d Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

UK: Compulsory microchipping of dogs

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Related article: CASPIAN RELEASES MICROCHIP CANCER REPORT

The Government is being urged to consider the compulsory microchipping of dogs to reduce the number of strays and help combat irresponsible owners.

If that failed to solve the problems, mandatory licences could be the solution, David Bowles, the RSPCA’s head of external affairs, said.

“Why do we still have a stray animal problem? Why do we have an increasing dangerous dog problem? The answer has to come down to education, enforcement of legislation and, in certain cases, microchipping and dog licensing,” he said.

Read moreUK: Compulsory microchipping of dogs