President Obama Argues His Unconstitutional Assassination Program Is A ‘State Secret’

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Dylan Ratigan Show: President Obama ‘Has A Hit List Of American Citizens Like YOU targeted For Assassination’

US government can execute its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence!

Rep. Ron Paul on Obama seeking to assassinate ‘US citizens’ he labels as terrorist


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(updated below)

At this point, I didn’t believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record.  In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki’s father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims.  That’s not surprising:  both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality.  But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is “state secrets”:  in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.

A very intense case of food poisoning in New York on Thursday, combined with my traveling home all night last night, prevents me from writing much about this until tomorrow (and it’s what rendered the blog uncharacteristically silent for the last two days).  But I would hope that nobody needs me or anyone else to explain why this assertion of power is so pernicious — at least as pernicious as any power asserted during the Bush/Cheney years.  If the President has the power to order American citizens killed with no due process, and to do so in such complete secrecy that no courts can even review his decisions, then what doesn’t he have the power to do?  Just for the moment, I’ll note that The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage, two weeks ago, wrote about the possibility that Obama might raise this argument, and quoted the far-right, Bush-supporting, executive-power-revering lawyer David Rivkin as follows:

The government’s increasing use of the state secrets doctrine to shield its actions from judicial review has been contentious. Some officials have argued that invoking it in the Awlaki matter, about which so much is already public, would risk a backlash. David Rivkin, a lawyer in the White House of President George H. W. Bush, echoed that concern.

“I’m a huge fan of executive power, but if someone came up to you and said the government wants to target you and you can’t even talk about it in court to try to stop it, that’s too harsh even for me,” he said.

Having debated him before, I genuinely didn’t think it was possible for any President to concoct an assertion of executive power and secrecy that would be excessive and alarming to David Rivkin, but Barack Obama managed to do that, too.  Obama’s now asserting a power so radical — the right to kill American citizens and do so in total secrecy, beyond even the reach of the courts — that it’s “too harsh even for” one of the most far-right War on Terror cheerleading-lawyers in the nation.  But that power is certainly not “too harsh” for the kind-hearted Constitutional Scholar we elected as President, nor for his hordes of all-justifying supporters soon to place themselves to the right of David Rivkin as they explain why this is all perfectly justified.  One other thing, as always:  vote Democrat, because the Republicans are scary!

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The same Post article quotes a DOJ spokesman as saying that Awlaki “should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions.”  But he’s not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any.  The President has been trying to kill him for the entire year without any of that due process.  And now the President refuses even to account to an American court for those efforts to kill this American citizen on the ground that the President’s unilateral imposition of the death penalty is a “state secret.”  And, indeed, American courts — at Obama’s urging — have been upholding that sort of a “state secrecy” claim even when it comes to war crimes such as torture and rendition.  Does that sound like a political system to which any sane, rational person would “surrender”?

Marcy Wheeler has more on other aspects of the DOJ’s arguments, and I’ll have more tomorrow as well.

UPDATE:  As a reminder:  Obama supporters who are dutifully insisting that the President not only has the right to order American citizens killed without due process, but to do so in total secrecy, on the ground that Awlaki is a Terrorist and Traitor, are embracing those accusations without having the slightest idea whether they’re actually true.  All they know is that Obama has issued these accusations, which is good enough for them.  That’s the authoritarian mind, by definition:  if the Leader accuses a fellow citizen of something, then it’s true — no trial or any due process at all is needed and there is no need even for judicial review before the decreed sentence is meted out, even when the sentence is death.

For those reciting the “Awlaki-is-a-traitor” mantra, there’s also the apparently irrelevant matter that Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution (the document which these same Obama supporters pretended to care about during the Bush years) provides that “No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”  Treason is a crime that the Constitution specifically requires be proven with due process in court, not by unilateral presidential decree.  And that’s to say nothing of the fact that the same document — the Constitution — expressly forbids the deprivation of life “without due process of law.”  This one sentence from the Post article nicely summarizes the state of Obama’s civil liberties record:

The Obama administration has cited the state-secrets argument in at least three cases since taking office – in defense of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, surveillance of an Islamic charity, and the torture and rendition of CIA prisoners.

And now, in this case, Obama uses this secrecy and immunity weapon not to shield Bush lawlessness from judicial review, but his own.

Read morePresident Obama Argues His Unconstitutional Assassination Program Is A ‘State Secret’

Paul Craig Roberts – It’s Official: The US Is A Police State

See also:

Paul Craig Roberts: Death of the First Amendment – The Nazification of the United States


Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

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On September 24, Jason Ditz reported on Antiwar.com that “the FBI is confirming that this morning they began a number of raids against the homes of antiwar activists in Illinois, Minneapolis, Michigan, and North Carolina, claiming that they are ‘seeking evidence relating to activities concerning the material support of terrorism.‘”

Now we know what Homeland Security (sic) Secretary Janet Napolitano meant when she said on September 10: “The old view that ‘if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won’t have to fight them here’ is just that-the old view.” The new view, Napolitano said, is “to counter violent extremism right here at home.”

“Violent extremism” is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning’s FBI’s foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience, it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with “the material support of terrorism,” just as conservatives equated Vietnam era anti-war protesters with giving material support to communism.

Anti-war activist Mick Kelly, whose home was raided, sees the FBI raids as harassment to intimidate those who organize war protests.

I wonder if Kelly is under-estimating the threat. The FBI’s own words clearly indicate that the federal police agency and the judges who signed the warrants do not regard antiwar protesters as Americans exercising their Constitutional rights, but as unpatriotic elements offering material support to terrorism.

“Material support” is another of those undefined police state terms. In this context the term means that Americans who fail to believe their government’s lies and instead protest its policies, are supporting their government’s declared enemies and, thus, are not exercising their civil liberties but committing treason.

As this initial FBI foray is a softening-up move to get the public accustomed to the idea that the real terrorists are their fellow citizens here at home, Kelly will get off this time.  But next time the FBI will find emails on his computer from a “terrorist group” set up by the CIA that will incriminate him.

Under the practices put in place by the Bush and Obama regimes, and approved by corrupt federal judges, protesters who have been compromised by fake terrorist groups can be declared “enemy combatants” and sent off to Egypt, Poland, or some other corrupt American puppet state-Canada perhaps-to be tortured until confession is forthcoming that antiwar protesters and, indeed, every critic of the US government, are on Osama bin Laden’s payroll.

Read morePaul Craig Roberts – It’s Official: The US Is A Police State

GM Salmon Nears US Approval

US: GM Salmon May Go On Sale:

Among the considerations by the FDA is whether, if the fish is approved for consumption, it must be labelled as genetically engineered.


Consumer groups fear green light for engineered species will bring environmental disaster to the oceans

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A genetically modified salmon, rear, and a non-genetically modified salmon, foreground. Photograph: AP

Buried in a prospectus inviting investors to buy shares in a fledgling biotech company is an arresting claim attributed to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

“Commercial aquaculture is the most rapidly growing segment of the agricultural industry, accounting for more than $60bn sales in 2003. While land-based agriculture is increasing between 2% to 3% per year, aquaculture has been growing at an average rate of approximately 9% per year since 1970.”

Read moreGM Salmon Nears US Approval

US Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

See also:

Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins

Interview With Gerald Celente: The Gestapo of Food

RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers


(NaturalNews) Beware of Senate bill 3767, the so-called Food Safety Accountability Act. This dangerous legislation, if passed, would criminalize nutritional supplement manufacturers who tell the truth about their products or link to published scientific studies describing the biological benefits of their products. Based on language in the bill, health proponents who sell supplements could be criminalized and convicted to ten years in prison.

The Life Extension Foundation recently published an important warning piece about this, complete with some call to action items for which we need your help.

Here’s what was written by William Faloon and published at LEF (http://www.lef.org/featured-article…). I agree with every word written here and urge you to read this and take this message seriously, then do your part to oppose this new legislative tyranny that seeks to criminalize dietary supplement manufacturers.

Congress Seeks to put Dietary Supplement Makers in Jail for Ten Years!

by William Faloon, LEF.org

Pharmaceutical companies are once again interfering with your ability to access information about dietary supplements.

The Senate is debating a bill that will enable the FDA to put vitamin supplement makers in jail for ten years if they cite findings from peer-reviewed published scientific studies on the label of their dietary supplements or their web site.

The pretext for these draconian proposals is a bill titled the Food Safety Accountability Act (S. 3767). The ostensible purpose of the bill is to punish anyone who knowingly contaminates food for sale. Since there are already strong laws to punish anyone who commits this crime, this bill serves little purpose other than enriching pharmaceutical interests.

The sinister scheme behind this bill is to exploit the public’s concern about food safety. Drug companies want to convince your Senators that an overreaching law needs to be enacted to grant the FDA powers to define “food contamination” any way it chooses.

Read moreUS Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

Jewish Billionaire George Soros Funds J-Street

After months of denial, heads of pro-Israel, pro-peace US Jewish organization compelled to admit George Soros contributed to its establishment

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WASHINGTON – After months of denial, leaders of the pro-Israel organization J-Street have been compelled to admit their activities are partly funded by Jewish billionaire George Soros who, in his own words, refuses to be part of activities in support of Israel.

The pro-peace organization was founded in 2008 as a counterweight to the rightward-leaning AIPAC (America Israel Public Affairs Committee) lobby. At the time, there were rumors that the group was supported by Soros, a Holocaust survivor originally from Hungary, but J-Street denied this stridently – and for good reason.

Soros has been strongly critical of the US and Israel. In Jewish circles in America he is considered a controversial figure, especially since his interview with the New Yorker 15 years ago, in which he stated he did not want to be part of any activity in support of Israel, even if he did not deny Jews’ right to have their own state.

Keeping his connections with J-Street a secret worked in his interest, because J-Street has repeatedly declared itself to be pro-Israel and pro-peace. On its website the organization denies that Soros is its main funder, stating that Soros did not found J-Street and that he has publicly stated his wish to avoid being involved as such involvement may work against the organization.

Read moreJewish Billionaire George Soros Funds J-Street

Italy: Riots over plans to build rubbish dump on slopes of Mt Vesuvius

Police and protesters clashed in Naples over plans to build a new rubbish dump on the slopes of Mt Vesuvius.

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Italian policemen remove a protester from the road leading to a landfill in Terzigno Photo: EPA

Around 2,000 stone-throwing locals set fire to rubbish trucks and waste compactor machines into the early hours of Friday.

At least one protester was arrested and a senior police officer had to have stitches after being hit in the face by a rock, in the third consecutive night of violence.

Using tear gas and batons, police cleared a path through the demonstrators so that the rubbish trucks could reach the dump in the town of Terzigno, south of Naples.

Read moreItaly: Riots over plans to build rubbish dump on slopes of Mt Vesuvius

How Hyperthermia Helps in Cancer Treatment

Commentary:

Special prepared sweat lodges work very well with Lyme disease.

Cancer is also caused by parasites. Hyperthermia is (a small) part of many successful therapies to treat cancer and other diseases, like Lyme disease.

Once you remove the parasites from the body,  it sends the (immortal!) cancer cells into apoptosis and the cancer is gone.

Chemotherapy and radiation are the worst therapies I can think of  if you want to heal cancer.

Usually after a ‘successful‘ chemotherapy treatment the ‘cured’ cancer comes back violently within months or years.

The parasites  never left, they just went into hiding.

Chemotherapy destroys the immune system that was fighting those parasites and turns the body into a acidic paradise for parasites and cancer.

The second round of chemotherapy will not ‘work’ anymore and the Big Pharma concentration camp patients die, earning millions for the medical industrial complex.  Mission accomplished!

Cancer can be cured, but not with standard western gulag medicine.


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Some cancer patients may receive heat treatment alongside chemotherapy (Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Heat – whether from a carefully created and controlled fever or from hyperthermia delivered by microwaves, radio frequency or ultrasound – is increasingly being used as a cancer treatment.

There are two theories as to why this might work. First, a fever within the body produces a state in which the immune system becomes hypersensitive, detects that the cancer cells are not normal and attacks them. It may be that, if we have a strong immune system, it is destroying cancer cells every day but, on occasion, some cells are missed and cancer develops. In the USA scientists are experimenting with giving cervical cancer patients a bio-engineered form of listeria (not the actual disease) – both it and salmonella are instantly recognisable by the body as enemy bacteria – thus hoping to spark the immune system into rising up to fight it and the cancer.

The second theory, which ties in with several stories recently about patients whose cancers have simply disappeared overnight, is that it is the high temperature itself which destroys the cancer. Also in the USA, cancer patients are being placed in an infra-red “hot box” for eight hours – under sedation – two days after chemotherapy and having taken immune system boosting drugs. This treatment is much gentler than radiotherapy, means less chemotherapy is required and, therefore, the patient will have fewer side-effects. It appears that primary malignant tumours have a bad blood circulation, which makes them more sensitive to changes in temperature. So, the experimental theory is that a 40 degree centigrade controlled fever will wake-up the immune system.

Read moreHow Hyperthermia Helps in Cancer Treatment

FBI Raids War Protesters’ Homes

Minneapolis agents search for connections to Colombia, Mideast terrorists

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The FBI raided the homes of five political activists and an office Friday in Minneapolis as part of an investigation into possible links between local anti-war activists and terrorist groups in Colombia and the Middle East.

An FBI spokesman said agents were “seeking evidence related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

“There is no imminent threat to the community, and we’re not planning any arrests at this time,” said FBI Special Agent Steve Warfield of the Minneapolis office.

The homes of Anti-War Committee organizers Mick Kelly, Jess Sundin and Meredith Aby were among those searched. The organization’s office also was searched.

“I have no idea what all this is about,” said Kelly’s attorney, Ted Dooley. “Mr. Kelly is an activist; he’s a socialist or perhaps a communist and has been forever. He never hides his political views. They’re fishing. They’re casting big nets into the sea of political activism.”

Sundin said none of the people whose homes were raided had provided material support for terrorism.

“They can harrass us until the cows come home but we will not stop,” she said Friday at a news conference outside her home amid about 50 supporters carrying signs – with statements that included “Stop FBI harassment” and “Working for justice is not a crime.”

Read moreFBI Raids War Protesters’ Homes

Army Reveals Afghan Biometric ID Plan; Millions Scanned, Carded by May

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Scanning prisoners’ irises is just Step 1. In Afghanistan, local and NATO forces are amassing biometric dossiers on hundreds of thousands of cops, crooks, soldiers, insurgents and ordinary citizens. And now, with NATO’s backing, the Kabul government is putting together a plan to issue biometrically backed identification cards to 1.65 million Afghans by next May.

The idea is to hinder militant movement around the country, and to keep Taliban infiltrators out of the army, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan commander Lt. Gen. William Caldwell tells Danger Room. “The system allows the Afghans to thoroughly screen applicants and recruits for any potential negative past history or criminal linkages, while at the same time it provides an additional measure of security at checkpoints and major facilities to prevent possible entrance and access by malign actors in Afghanistan,” Caldwell e-mails.

It’s a high-tech upgrade to a classic counterinsurgency move – simultaneously taking a census of the population, culling security forces of double agents and cutting off guerrilla routes. (Plus, bombs and weapons can be swabbed for fingerprints to build files on insurgent suspects.) Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of the Afghan war effort, relied heavily on biometrics during his time in command of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Twenty to 25 Afghans a week are currently caught in the biometric sweep, military officials estimate. That number could grow significantly in the months to come. The “population registration division” of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior is “embarking on a program to develop, print and distribute biometrically enabled national ID cards,” e-mails Col. Craig Osbourne, the director of NATO’s Task Force Biometrics.

Read moreArmy Reveals Afghan Biometric ID Plan; Millions Scanned, Carded by May

Queen Tried to Use State Poverty Fund to Heat Buckingham Palace

Ministers were asked if money earmarked for schools, hospitals and low-income families could be used to meet soaring fuel bills

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Documents disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces

The Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster, documents disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to “adverse publicity” for the Queen and the Government.

Aides complained to ministers in 2004 that the Queen’s gas and electricity bills, which had increased by 50 per cent that year, stood at more than £1m a year and had become “untenable”.The Royal Household also complained that the £15m government grant to maintain the Queen’s palaces was inadequate.

In search of more money-saving schemes, the Queen’s deputy treasurer wrote to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to ask whether the Royal Household would be eligible for a grant to replace four combined heat and power (CHP) units at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

He asked: “Community Energy can fund up to 40 per cent of the capital costs of implementing a community heating scheme… Since we are already grant-in-aid funded [the Queen receives £15m a year for the upkeep of her palaces] we would like to know whether the Household [would] be able to benefit from these grants. I look forward to your comments.”

Click the following links to see the Palace request for a poverty grant: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7

Under this scheme administered by the Environment department, schools, hospitals, councils and housing associations have been awarded £60m for heating programmes which benefit people on low incomes.

Taxpayers already contribute £38m to pay for the Royal Family. Yet some of the buildings which would have benefited from the energy grant were occupied by minor royals living in grace and favour accommodation on the royal estates. Surprisingly the Government offered no resistance to the proposed application and cleared the way for the Queen to take advantage of the handout.

Read moreQueen Tried to Use State Poverty Fund to Heat Buckingham Palace

Gold Climbs to Record $1,300 an Ounce, Silver at 30-Year High

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Gold is heading for its 10th consecutive annual gain, the longest winning streak since at least 1920.

Gold futures rose to a record $1,300 an ounce in New York as investors sought a protection of wealth and an alternative to a weakening dollar. Bullion traded at an all-time in London and silver reached the highest price since 1980.

The dollar headed for a weekly drop against the euro on concern the Federal Reserve is moving closer to boosting debt purchases, while European equities declined. Gold, which usually moves inversely to the greenback, advanced to a record for the fourth day this week. Silver, which is used in industrial applications, headed for a fifth weekly advance in London.

“Gold is showing there is no confidence in the dollar,” said Bernard Sin, head of currency and metal trading at bullion refiner MKS Finance SA in Geneva. Recent “data has been showing signs of a troubled economy. That’s why we’ve seen this huge buying for investors as a safe haven.”

Read moreGold Climbs to Record $1,300 an Ounce, Silver at 30-Year High

New ‘Intelligent’ CCTV Camera Scans People Like A Human Eye

The ‘intelligent’ CCTV camera that works like a human eye to scan a crowd for potential trouble

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The Smart Eyes system can focus on areas of action which differ from the norm or which have been flagged up as being potential trouble


Separating jubilant fans from scuffling hooligans at a football match is difficult even for the most experienced security personnel.

And  constantly scanning live CCTV footage looking for trouble can be tiring.

But a new ‘intelligent’ CCTV camera that works just like the human eye promises to be able to spot trouble in large crowds.

The Smart Eyes device records and analyses a scene in real time and flags up anything that is out of the ordinary to a human operator.

Just like the human eye Smart Eyes is able to distinguish different objects, even if they are moving on front of a busy background.

‘That is invaluable for video surveillance of public buildings or places’, said Dr. Martina Kolesnik, research scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology, which developed the system.

‘In certain circumstances the capabilities of a human observer are limited.

‘Ask someone to keep an eye on a certain stand in a football stadium and they are bound to miss many details.

‘That same person can only carefully monitor certain sections of the whole area and will quickly get tired. That’s where Smart Eyes clearly comes into its own.

Read moreNew ‘Intelligent’ CCTV Camera Scans People Like A Human Eye

How the CIA Ran A Secret Army Of 3,000 Assassins

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President Barack Obama and Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus depart the White House Oval Office

The US Central Intelligence Agency is running and paying for a secret 3,000-strong army of Afghan paramilitaries whose main aim is assassinating Taliban and al-Qa’ida operatives not just in Afghanistan but across the border in neighbouring Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to Bob Woodward’s explosive book.

Although the CIA has long been known to run clandestine militias in Afghanistan, including one from a base it rents from the Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s half-brother in the southern province of Kandahar, the sheer number of militiamen directly under its control have never been publicly revealed.

Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, describes these forces as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qa’ida and Afghan Taliban havens there. Two US newspapers published the claims after receiving copies of the manuscript.

The secret army is split into “Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams”, and is thought to be responsible for the deaths of many Pakistani Taliban fighters who have crossed the border into Afghanistan to fight Nato and Afghan government forces there.

There are ever-increasing numbers of “kill-or-capture” missions undertaken by US Special Forces against Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters, who hope to drive rank-and-file Taliban towards the Afghan government’s peace process by eliminating their leaders. The suspicion is that the secret army is working in close tandem with them.

Read moreHow the CIA Ran A Secret Army Of 3,000 Assassins

UN warned of major new food crisis at emergency meeting in Rome

I have warned you of a major ‘engineered’ food crisis by the elite before.


Environmental disasters and speculative investors are to blame for volatile food commodities markets, says UN’s special adviser

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July’s wildfires in Russia have led to a draconian wheat ban, pushing up prices. Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA

The world may be on the brink of a major new food crisis caused by environmental disasters and rampant market speculators, the UN was warned today at an emergency meeting on food price inflation.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) meeting in Rome today was called last month after a heatwave and wildfires in Russia led to a draconian wheat export ban and food riots broke out in Mozambique, killing 13 people. But UN experts heard that pension and hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and large banks who speculate on commodity markets may also be responsible for inflation in food prices being seen across all continents.

In a new paper released this week, Olivier De Schutter, the UN’s special rapporteur on food, says that the increases in price and the volatility of food commodities can only be explained by the emergence of a “speculative bubble” which he traces back to the early noughties.

“[Beginning in ]2001, food commodities derivatives markets, and commodities indexes began to see an influx of non-traditional investors,” De Schutter writes. “The reason for this was because other markets dried up one by one: the dotcoms vanished at the end of 2001, the stock market soon after, and the US housing market in August 2007. As each bubble burst, these large institutional investors moved into other markets, each traditionally considered more stable than the last. Strong similarities can be seen between the price behaviour of food commodities and other refuge values, such as gold.”

Read moreUN warned of major new food crisis at emergency meeting in Rome

CIA Used Illegal, Inaccurate Software ‘Hack’ To Direct Secret Assassination Drones In Afganistan and Pakistan

Still wonder why civilian deaths spike in Afghanistan and Pakistan?


‘They want to kill people with software that doesn’t work’

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The Predator B

The CIA is implicated in a court case in which it’s claimed it used an illegal, inaccurate software “hack” to direct secret assassination drones in central Asia.

The target of the court action is Netezza, the data warehousing firm that IBM bid $1.7bn for on Monday. The case raises serious questions about the conduct of Netezza executives, and the conduct of CIA’s clandestine war against senior jihadis in Afganistan and Pakistan.

The dispute surrounds a location analysis software package – “Geospatial” – developed by a small company called Intelligent Integration Systems (IISi), which like Netezza is based in Massachusetts. IISi alleges that Netezza misled the CIA by saying that it could deliver the software on its new hardware, to a tight deadline.

When the software firm then refused to rush the job, it’s claimed, Netezza illegally and hastily reverse-engineered IISi’s code to deliver a version that produced locations inaccurate by up to 13 metres. Despite knowing about the miscalculations, the CIA accepted the software, court submissions indicate.

IISi is now seeking an injunction to ban Netezza and the CIA from using the software or any derivative of it, in any context.

Read moreCIA Used Illegal, Inaccurate Software ‘Hack’ To Direct Secret Assassination Drones In Afganistan and Pakistan

Make Bono History

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Bono: ‘guilty of stadium-filling hypocrisy’ (Photo: PA)

There was a humdinger of a story about Bono in the New York Post earlier this week that the Mail has picked up on this morning. According to the Post, Bono’s anti-poverty ONE foundation received $14,993,873 in donations from philanthropists in 2008, of which just $184,732 was distributed to three charities. (ONE is an “advocacy organisation” whose main purpose is to change policies, not support charities, it says.) So what happened to the rest? More than $8 million was spent on executive and employee salaries.

This isn’t gossip. The Post‘s figures are taken directly from the organisation’s 2008 tax return, the latest year for which records are available. This story follows hot on the heels of the revelation that Edun, Bono’s fashion label, has shifted some of its production base from Africa to China. A perfectly acceptable business decision, were it not for the fact that Edun is an “ethical” fashion house that was set up to aleviate poverty in … Africa.

This isn’t common-or-garden, run-of-the-mill hypocrisy, this is hypocrisy on an epic scale – stadium-filling hypocrisy. Bono browbeats Western governments for not spending more money on aid – taxpayers’ money – while doing his best to avoid paying tax himself. He chastises the private sector for not investing in African businesses, then moves his own business out of Africa. He persuades kind-hearted souls to donate money to charity, then stands by while his own foundation pays its employes 43 times as much as it gives to good causes.

Not long ago, I proposed to my writing partner Lloyd Evans that we write a modern version of The Man Who Came to Dinner, Kaufman and Hart’s classic comedy. In the original, a famous literary critic is invited to dine at the house of a rich industrialist, injures his hip on the front steps and ends up staying for several weeks. The tycoon and his family are initially tickled pink to have such a distinguished house guest, but the scales gradually fall from their eyes as they realise what a monstrous egotist he is. In our version, the literary critic would become a philanthropic rock star, but otherwise we would stick closely to the original.

Read moreMake Bono History

Study: Breast Cancer Cases Fell As HRT Use Dropped

Another study and nothing will change, because the cancer industry is big business.

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Study makes stronger case HRT causes breast cancer

New study firmly ties hormone use to breast cancer

Breast Cancer Diagnosed In 10-Year-Old Girl


Breast cancer rates fell as women turned away from hormone replacement therapy, a study has shown, boosting understanding of how the two are linked.

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Breast cancer rates fell as women in Canada shunned hormone replacement therapy, research has found. Photo: CORBIS

Use of HRT to combat the effects of the menopause halved in Britain after studies suggested it could increase the risk of breast cancer.

A study conducted in Canada has now found that as use of the treatment dropped, the number of cases of breast cancer detected also reduced.

However after several years breast cancer rates began to increase again which, researchers said, suggests that not using HRT simply led to their tumours growing more slowly.

The hormone, oestrogen, contained in some forms of HRT can fuel certain types of breast cancer.

So the research suggests that the link between breast cancer and HRT is due to the treatment causing tumours to grow more rapidly and so be detected on tests. Whereas when fewer women use HRT, the tumours grow more slowly and so take longer to be detected and show up in official rates.

The findings were published online in Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Read moreStudy: Breast Cancer Cases Fell As HRT Use Dropped

US Government ‘Hiding True Amount of Debt’, Engages in ‘Enron Accounting’

Prepare for collapse and the Greatest Depression.


Sept. 20 — THE actual figure of the US’ national debt is much higher than the official sum of $US13.4 trillion ($14.3 trillion) given by the Congressional Budget Office, according to analysts cited on Sunday by the New York Post.

“The Government is lying about the amount of debt. It is engaging in Enron accounting,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and co-author of The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future.

“The problem is we’re seeing an explosion in spending,” added Andrew Moylan, director of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union.

In 1980, the debt – the accumulated red ink incurred by the Federal Government – was $US909 billion.

This represented some 33 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Thirty years later, based on this year’s second-quarter numbers, the CBO said the debt was $US13.4 trillion, or 92 per cent of GDP.

The CBO estimates the debt will be at $US16.5 trillion in two years, or 100.6 per cent of GDP.

But these numbers are incomplete.

They do not count off-budget obligations such as required spending for Social Security and Medicare, whose programs represent a balloon payment for the Government as more Americans retire and collect benefits.

In the case of Social Security, beginning in 2016, the US Government will be paying out more than it is collecting in taxes.

Without basic measures – such as payment cuts or higher payroll taxes – the system could be on the road to bankruptcy, according to officials.

“Without changes,” wrote Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, “by 2037 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted. There will be enough money only to pay about $US0.76 for each dollar of benefits.”

Mr Kotlikoff and Mr Moylan agree US national debt is much more than the official $US13.4 trillion number, but they disagree over how to add up the exact number.

Mr Kotlikoff says the debt is actually $US200 trillion.

Mr Moylan says the number is likely about $US60 trillion.

That is close to the figure quoted by David Walker, the US Comptroller General from 1998 to 2008.

He launched a campaign to convince Americans that the federal spending and debt is a greater threat than terrorism.

Read moreUS Government ‘Hiding True Amount of Debt’, Engages in ‘Enron Accounting’

Lyme Disease Now In Australia, GP Dr Peter Mayne Says He Has Absolute Proof

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A LAURIETON doctor says he has “absolute proof” two of his patients have a tick-borne disease that health authorities say does not exist in Australia.

GP Dr Peter Mayne said two of his patients had the bacterial illness Lyme disease.

He urged medical colleagues to keep an eye out for the infection.

“I’ve taken tissue samples at the bite sites, and sent them off for DNA analysis, and they were positive,” Dr Mayne said.

Debate continues about whether Australian ticks can carry Lyme disease.

“There are perceptions that Lyme disease doesn’t exist here in Australia, and the medical profession have been lulled into thinking that they don’t have to worry about Lyme disease,” Dr Mayne said.

In its later stages, the infection can spread through the bloodstream and affect the brain, heart and joints.

Earlier symptoms can include a rash, fever, headaches, tiredness and joint pain.

Lyme disease made headlines this month after an autopsy showed a Sydney man had the disease when he died.

The dead man’s wife planned to launch a class action against NSW Health, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Dr Mayne said he had a list of about 30 patients – from Newcastle to Coffs Harbour – with the disease.

It was “incredibly difficult” to diagnose, he added.

Read moreLyme Disease Now In Australia, GP Dr Peter Mayne Says He Has Absolute Proof

Mao Zedong ‘Killed 45 Million In Four Years’, The Greatest Mass Murderer In World History

Mao’s Great Leap Forward ‘killed 45 million in four years’

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Mao Zedong presided over a regime responsible for the deaths of up to 45 million people

Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday.

Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing “one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known”.

Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million.

Mr Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago. He argued that this devastating period of history – which has until now remained hidden – has international resonance. “It ranks alongside the gulags and the Holocaust as one of the three greatest events of the 20th century…. It was like [the Cambodian communist dictator] Pol Pot’s genocide multiplied 20 times over,” he said.

Between 1958 and 1962, a war raged between the peasants and the state; it was a period when a third of all homes in China were destroyed to produce fertiliser and when the nation descended into famine and starvation, Mr Dikötter said.

His book, Mao’s Great Famine; The Story of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, reveals that while this is a part of history that has been “quite forgotten” in the official memory of the People’s Republic of China, there was a “staggering degree of violence” that was, remarkably, carefully catalogued in Public Security Bureau reports, which featured among the provincial archives he studied. In them, he found that the members of the rural farming communities were seen by the Party merely as “digits”, or a faceless workforce. For those who committed any acts of disobedience, however minor, the punishments were huge.

State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death.

Read moreMao Zedong ‘Killed 45 Million In Four Years’, The Greatest Mass Murderer In World History

India: Twins Die Minutes After Measles Vaccination

A third baby died after receiving a BCG shot in Ghaziabad:

More infant deaths linked with vaccines (Times of India):

LUCKNOW: Death of infants in Ghaziabad and that of a newborn in Ghazipur district kept the health department officials on their toes on Thursday. All three deaths were linked with vaccination. While a newborn died within 24 hours of receiving BCG shot in Ghazipur, twin-sisters died in Ghaziabad after getting measles vaccines at a private nursing home.

Director general, medical health, Dr SP Ram maintains that health department is answerable in connection with the incident in Ghazipur. In this regard, he said, “prima facie it does not appear to be a case of adverse event following vaccination. Still, I have asked the chief medical officer of the district to submit a report in this regard.” About the mishap in Ghaziabad, he said, “this did not happen in a government health sector so what can I say about it.”

See also:

3 Babies Die Within Hours After They Were Vaccinated:

BANGLADESH – Three babies died within hours after they were vaccinated against measles under Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) at Kalikapur Community Health Clinic of Guabaria union in the district’s Hizla upazila early yesterday.

Update: Twin sisters deaths: Doctor still missing (Indian Express)


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Avika and Anika were nine months old

Police book absconding doctor for culpable homicide

Sunil Sharma can’t believe his twin daughters Avika and Anika are no more. The textile merchant from Ghaziabad had never imagined that a measles vaccine at a private nursing home in the town would take the life of the his nine-month-old daughters.

Sunil claims his daughters died minutes after being administered the vaccine, usually given when a baby is nine months old, at Divya Nursing Home. Akhil Sharma, an uncle of the twins, said: “I took them for the vaccination around 6 pm on Wednesday. They were given the vaccination around 7.15 pm. In 15 minutes, the children started breathing heavily. We rushed to the doctor who gave them oxygen. But the babies had died by them. Still Dr Satyaveer Singh referred them to Sarvodya Hospital.”

“My wife fainted on hearing about the death of our daughters. She could not believe the news,” said Sunil, who stays in Swarnjayanti Puram.

Read moreIndia: Twins Die Minutes After Measles Vaccination

‘Putin in 2012’ Websites Registered By The Kremlin

A secretive Russian government agency has reserved a batch of internet domain names for Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, in a move which strongly suggests he is planning a return to the presidency in 2012.

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The move strongly suggests Vladimir Putin is planning a return to the presidency in 2012 Photo: EPA

Russia’s Federal Protection Service, an elite government agency that traces its roots back to the Soviet KGB, reserved twenty two Russian-language internet domain names in late August for the 57-year-old former KGB spy including the Cyrillic equivalent of Putin-2012.rf and Putin2012.rf.

The move fuelled speculation that Mr Putin is planning to contest a presidential election in 2012 which opinion polls show he would be sure to win. The Russian prime minister has stopped short of saying he will definitely return to a job that he did for eight years from 2000-2008 but has made it clear he wants to continue to play a frontline role in national politics.

Many analysts believe he has already begun his election campaign in order to prepare public opinion for a comeback even though, in the eyes of many Russians, he never left. Indeed, Mr Putin spent the summer burnishing his macho man-of-action credentials hanging out with bikers, piloting a fire fighting plane, and completing a rugged road trip across Russia’s Far East.

By contrast, President Dmitry Medvedev, the loyalist Mr Putin handpicked to succeed him in 2008, has looked more like a sedentary Soviet-style bureaucrat. However, Mr Putin’s spokesman strongly denied the move to reserve the internet domain names for Mr Putin meant his boss would definitely run for president in 2012. He said it was merely a measure to prevent ill-wishers abusing the domain names for malicious purposes.

Read more‘Putin in 2012’ Websites Registered By The Kremlin

Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins

In the New World Order, planned by elite criminals, the people are about to lose everything.


It’s almost a done deal. We are about to see herbal preparations disappear, and the ability of herbalists to prescribe them will also be lost.

Big Pharma Scores Big Win: Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU

Big Pharma has almost reached the finish line of its decades-long battle to wipe out all competition. As of 1 April 2011-less than eight months from now-virtually all medicinal herbs will become illegal in the European Union. The approach in the United States is a bit different, but it’s having the same devastating effect. The people have become nothing more than sinks for whatever swill Big Pharma and Agribusiness choose to send our way, and we have no option but to pay whatever rates they want.

Big Pharma and Agribusiness have almost completed their march to take over every aspect of health, from the food we eat to the way we care for ourselves when we’re ill. Have no doubt about it: this takeover will steal what health remains to us.

If you want to skip the text and find out what you can do, click here.

It Begins Next April Fools Day

In the nastiest April Fool’s Joke of all time, the European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products (THMPD) was enacted back on 31 March 2004.(1) It laid down rules and regulations for the use of herbal products that had previously been freely traded.

This directive requires that all herbal preparations must be put through the same kind of procedure as pharmaceuticals. It makes no difference whether a herb has been in common use for thousands of years. The costs for this are far higher than most manufacturers, other than Big Pharma, can bear, with estimates ranging from £80,000 to £120,000 per herb, and with each herb of a compound having to be treated separately.

It matters not that a herb has been used safely and effectively for thousands of years. It will be treated as if it were a drug. Of course, herbs are far from that. They’re preparations made from biological sources. They aren’t necessarily purified, as that can change their nature and efficacy, just as it can in food. It’s a distortion of their nature and the nature of herbalism to treat them like drugs. That, of course, makes no difference in the Big Pharma-ruled edifice of the EU, which has enshrined corporatism in its constitution.

Dr. Robert Verkerk of the Alliance for Natural Health, International (ANH) describes the problem of requiring drug-like compliance on herbal preparations:

Getting a classical herbal medicine from a non-European traditional medicinal culture through the EU registration scheme is akin to putting a square peg into a round hole. The regulatory regime ignores and thus has not been adapted to the specific traditions. Such adaptation is required urgently if the directive is not to discriminate against non-European cultures and consequently violate human rights.(2)

Trade Law

To best understand how this can be happening, one needs to see that trade laws have been at the center of the moves to place all aspects of food and medicine under the control of Big Pharma and Agribusiness.

Read moreMedicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU, Big Pharma Wins