June 12, 2007

The Cornucopia Series #6: Keeping Up With (most of) Everything...

Hello everysoul!

As usual I have a hard time in summer to keep up with all incoming emails to all ongoing developments in the Websphere. The following is what really got my attention in the past 2 weeks.

Hoping you can all enjoy some good moments of communion in and with Nature this summer as it is so important to stay grounded within and attuned to our larger family of Life...

Until next time, much Love to all of you ;-)

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator

P.S. Your feedbacks are as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer they are not. Circulating this compilation (or any part of it) and personally inviting your correspondents to subscribe to this list would also help enlarge the circle of people who have access to this material. Please include the following note and the URL address for the archived copy below along with your forwards, so others may have the opportunity to explore the original copy, if they so choose.

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STATS for this compilation: Over 31,000 words and 168 links provided.

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REMINDER ABOUT AN IMPORTANT UPCOMING GLOBAL EVENT

Live Earth - next 7/7/7
http://www.liveearth.org/
Live Earth will use the global reach of music to engage people on a mass scale to combat our climate crisis. Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent series of 9 concerts taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Live Earth will reach this worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels. Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth. Live Earth was founded by Kevin Wall, the Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8, an event that brought together one of the largest audiences in history to combat poverty. Wall formed a partnership with Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection to ensure that Live Earth inspires behavioral changes long after 7/7/07. Live Earth will stage concerts at Giants Stadium in New York; Wembley Stadium in London; Aussie Stadium in Sydney; Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; Maropeng at the Cradle of Humankind in Johannesburg; Makuhari Messe in Tokyo; the Steps of the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai; HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg; and Inonu Stadium in Istanbul. Live Earth concerts will be broadcast to a live worldwide audience by MSN at www.LiveEarth.MSN.com. With support from the U.S. Green Building Council, creators of the LEED Green Building Rating System, Live Earth will implement new Green Event Guidelines. All Live Earth venues will be designed and constructed by a team of sustainability engineers who will address the environmental and energy management challenges of each concert site, as well as the operations of sponsors, partners and other Live Earth affiliates. Each venue will not only be designed to maintain a minimum environmental impact, but will showcase the latest state-of-the-art energy efficiency, on-site power generation, and sustainable facilities management practices. Live Earth is a project of the SOS campaign, which is using a powerful multimedia platform - films, television, radio, Internet, books, wireless and others - to move people to combat the climate crisis. More through http://www.liveearth.org/event.php



THE QUOTES

"But the havoc wrought by war, which one compares with the havoc wrought in nature, is not an unavoidable fate before which man stands helpless. The natural forces which are the causes of war are human passions which it lies in our power to change."

— Ellen Key, (1849-1926) Swedish social feminist


"What is good in humanity will have to fight for its life, if it is to have a future at all. Every form of creative will and intelligence must be called forth from the sleeping soul of humanity, because there is no escape and no going back."

— Diane Harvey, essayist and painter


"When we carry our eyes back through the long records of our history, we see wars of plunder, wars of conquest, wars of religion, wars of pride, wars of succession, wars of idle speculation, wars of unjust interference, and hardly among them one war of necessary self-defence in any of our essential or very important interests."

— Anna Barbauld, English poet, essayist, critic, 1793


"The half of humanity that have never bourne arms is today ready to struggle to make the brotherhood of man a reality. Perhaps the universal sisterhood is necessary before the universal brotherhood is possible."

— Bertha von Suttner, Speech to the Federation of Women of America, 1912


"If brains have brought us to what we are in now, I think it is time to allow our hearts to speak. When our sons are killed by the millions, let us, mothers, only try to do good by going to the kings and emperors without any other danger than a refusal."

— Rosika Schwimmer, Speech at International Congress of Women at the Hague, 1915



CONTENTS

1. Rock stars in last-ditch Africa plea to G8 leaders
2. If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran
3. U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda To Attack Iran
4. Report: Risk of nuclear warfare rising
5. REAL ID Trojan Horse
6. "Good Riddance Attention Whore"
7. San Diego Citizens Grand Jury on Crimes 0f 9/11 in NYC
8. June 2 Message from Matthew
9. The Twelve Main Failures of the Bush-Cheney Administration: A Terrible Legacy
10. Time for the truth about the Liberty
11. Radiation Is Killing the Bees Despite the Cell Phone Industry's Disinformation Campaign
12. 'Noah's Ark' of 5,000 rare animals found floating off the coast of China
13. Rainforest Crunch
14. U.S. Cuts Back Climate Checks From Space
15. My Memorial Day 2007
16. Thought-Provokers
17. Signs



WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION

Check the latest celestial glyphs in the UK
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2007/june2007.html
One of the latest ones (June 7) is absolutely astounding!
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2007/milkhill/milkhill2007a.html
This new one appeared today (Tuesday)
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2007/easternroyal/easternroyal2007.html

New German Crop Formation
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/inter2007/germany/germany2007.html

New Italian Crop Formation
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/inter2007/italy/italy2007.html

Bird Eggs Undamaged in Slovenia Crop Formation (June 2)
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1263&category=Environment

A very profitable war - Privatized warfare -- A MUST SEE!
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/103.html
From "Iraq for Sale"Why does the war in Iraq go on and on? One reason is that it is immensely profitable for the Bush family and its friends. These four minutes from the documentary "Iraq for Sale" were specifically banned by from being shown during a Congressional hearing by concerted action from Republican politicians. Recommended by Sky goldsmith (alchemygold@yahoo.com)

THE DENIAL MACHINE - Excellent documentary! Watch it online through clicking on the little red camera icon.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/
In the past few years, a hurricane has engulfed the debate about global warming. This scientific issue has become a rhetorical firestorm with science pitted against spin and inflammatory words on both sides.Some scientists believe that global warming will not be devastating to the planet. How could scientific fact, which many believe could determine the very future of the planet, become a political battleground, pitting left versus right, environmentalist versus climate change sceptic? Global warming: potential costs? A recent British report estimates that the projected costs of global warming to be as costly as both world wars and the Great Depression added together. Yet, with such consequences, some scientists still insist that climate change, if it is happening at all, could be a good thing. The Denial Machine investigates the roots of the campaign to negate the science and the threat of global warming. It tracks the activities of a group of scientists, some of whom previously consulted for for Big Tobacco, and who are now receiving donations from major coal and oil companies.Who is keeping the debate of global warming alive? The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. Exxon Mobil sought out those willing to question the science behind climate change, providing funding for some of them, their organizations and their studies. The Denial Machine also explores how the arguments supported by oil companies were adopted by policy makers in both Canada and the U.S. and helped form government policy.

Saltwater into fire (John Kanzius) WOW!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lud1qceKqyQ
John Kanzius discovered that his radio frequency generator could release the oxygen and hydrogen from saltwater and create an incredibly intense flame.

What engineers do between real jobs - A MUST SEE - TOTALLY AMAZING!
http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/player.swf?b=10&l=197&u=ILLUMllSOOAvIF//P_LxP92A42lCHCeeWCejXnHAS/c

A Celebration for Earth now being held in the higher realms (June 4th, 2007)
http://lightworkers.org/node/5637
Great news - a major completion for Earth

Global Mind Shift
http://www.global-mindshift.org/
Global Mind Shift promotes an expanded view of what it means to be human based on knowledge of our evolutionary journey.

Is Humanity Growing Up? (Video) MUST SEE! Excellent!
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/GrowingUp/elgin_grow_up.swf
Author, educator and futurist Duane Elgin looks at the human species and asks, What is our collective level of maturity? Toddler? Teenager? Adult? Elder? Find out what most people on the planet think is the answer. Also from Duane Elgin, watch Crash or Bounce at http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/bounce.swf
A powerful video on the choice before us: to pull apart in conflict, or to pull together in cooperation.

1/10,000 of a second
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/10000.swf
If you think of Time as a precious resource, how might that change what you do? What's really important? What really matters? Check out this video for a mind-shifting perspective on Time. -- MANY MORE such short videos through http://www.global-mindshift.org/index3.asp

Star crafts fleet in Lima's sky on May 20, 2007
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dkNdXncScmY

UFOs Santiago, Chile on May 7, 20078 - Full version REAL!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWg8HUsl048&NR=1
UFOs over Santiago chile looks like there going into the mountain maybe a base?

UFO over a volcano in Costa Rica
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/470415/ufo_ovni_during_pyroclastic_volcanic_eruption/

UFO spotter shocked by worldwide interest (29 May 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/2jbu8s
This is related to... Pilot spots 'UFO' over Guernsey (25 April 2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/6591365.stm

More Photographs of Strange Craft Taken at Big Basin
http://www.ufocasebook.com/bigbasin.html

Alternative 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vnh_a8Zgbg&mode=related&search
Recommended by Sal (zadquiel1965@gmail.com) who wrote: "I have had suspicions about it for a long time. The quality of the video is bad, but what matters is what it says. Comments welcome. I have found evidence on the net too at this place - http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/exopolitica/esp_exopolitics_ZLc.htm
(...) Now it has been suggested, among others, by some very responsible people that you - that all of you on the Apollo program - saw far more out there than you have been allowed to admit publicly. What comment do you have to make on that suggestion?The immediate effect on Grodin was electrifying. His face suffused with anger and he shouted: “What are you trying to do, man? Just tell me that! What are you trying to do.” Butler apologized. “I was only...” “You trying to screw me? demanded Grodin. He leaned forward in his chair, glowering into the Boston camera. “That what you want? You want to screw me real good?” “Of course not,” said Butler quickly. “And I’m sorry if...”“Like that dumb bastard Ballantine? Is that what you want to...”He got no further. His voice was chopped in midsentence, his picture on the monitor screen vanished in a haze of white static. “What is going on? asked Butler. “Hell’s teeth...what’s the matter with this...”He was interrupted by Clement’s voice. “We don’t know where he’s gone.” CLIP

Alfred Webre interviews Jim Sparks - Talks about amnesty for disclosure (archive) MOST INTERESTING!
Jim Sparks experiences as described by Dr. John Mack in April 1997: "Jim Sparks found out he had been inducted into a kind of "alien boot camp," a school of training and testing that made heavy use of riddles, ambiguity, paradox and symbolization. The purpose of his school seems to be two-fold: to create a hybrid race as an "insurance policy" for the future and to awaken us to our mindless destructiveness, so that we may halt the devastation we are bringing to Earth. He is unwavering in his conviction that we must heed the beings' warnings in order to stop the destruction of the environment and the death of the planet." Listen to the archived interview at http://www.exopoliticsradio.com/5-26-07.html

Resolving a RubikCube in about one minute ... blindfolded! ASTOUNDING FEAT!
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/595111/cube/

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 - specifically the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe that there is sufficient doubt about the official story and therefore that the 9/11 investigation must be re-opened and must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that may have been the actual cause behind the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers and WTC Building 7. CLIP Documentation at http://www.ae911truth.org/
Recommended by Peter Phillips (peter.phillips@sonoma.edu)

Battle @ Kruger
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM
This video is 8.5 minutes long. Don't stop watching it. The surprises never stop coming.

Crystal Cave of Giants in Mexico
http://www.crystalinks.com/mexicocrystals.html

Photosynth demo - Really amazing software! (Keep watching at the end if it - there's more!)
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129
And then explore http://www.ted.com/ and make SURE to check http://www.perceptivepixel.com/

Joan Ocean and Sasquatch
http://www.joanocean.com/sasquatch.html
(...) Wednesday night and it is nearly dark at 8:00 p.m. I am outside where the full moon is shining brightly between openings in the tall pine trees. The light is beautiful and I savor the total stillness of the forest. Standing unmoving among the trees, I express out loud my appreciation for the beauty of the trees and of the night. There is a sense of timelessness in this moment. The moon looks huge and bright white. As I gaze at it, I wonder if there are U.S. or E.T. bases on the moon. Around me I begin to feel an aura of Love. It is a gentle frequency that expands a hundred feet on all sides. I recognize it as the same welcoming vibration I receive when the dolphin pods approach. Who is it? I wonder? I have the feeling someone is coming. There is something very loving in the air. Could it be the Wise Ones? This is the name for the Sasquatch people who are the most advanced spiritually and intellectually.Glancing outside the open door, I see movement at the edge of the porch. I bring my attention to the area and become aware of two gentle dark eyes looking at me. They are not staring or piercing eyes, but soft, half-closed eyes. I feel the warmth behind them. Widening my gaze, I see the rest of the head, and a form standing just beneath the porch roof. In the fading light, I can see the head is big with curly hair surrounding the face. I hadn't pictured Sasquatch with curly hair. It looks very nice, like a child's favorite teddy bear, well-worn. I look steadily at the face to be sure I am seeing what I think is there. The head of this huge body is framed in the leaves from the trees? It seems to be merging with the leaves. I see a distinct curl over the right eye. There is no obvious neck, a dark outline of massive shoulders, long arms. The lower part of the body is too dark to see in detail, but it blocks out everything behind it, giving me an idea of its size. The eyes continue to stare softly at me. The head is below the height of the roof. I estimate this Sasquatch is more than six feet tall. CLIP

Did You Know; Shift Happens – Size does matter! Globalization - Information Age (6 min 5 sec)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q
TRULY ASTOUNDING STUFF!! Recommended by Suzanna Brown (o-suzanna@mindspring.com)

1,500 Scientists Worldwide Call for Protection of Canada's Boreal Forest
http://www.borealbirds.org/scienceletter.shtml
1,500 highly respected scientists from more than 50 countries around the world call for protection of Canada’s Boreal Forest. The scientists identify the 1.4 billion acre Canadian Boreal Forest as one of the largest intact forest and wetland ecosystems remaining on earth.However, the Boreal Forest is under increasing pressure from corporate logging, mining and oil and gas operations and only 10% has been protected to date, far less than what is scientifically recognized as necessary to sustain the ecosystem over time. The scientists’ letter recommends preserving a minimum of half of Canada’s Boreal Forest in protected areas while allowing only carefully managed development on the rest, in accordance with the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, a plan already endorsed by Canadian conservation groups, 25 Canadian First Nations, and more than 75 major businesses with annual sales of $30 billion. CLIP

Censored Press Conference Shows Bush Losing It (May 31, 2007) - FAKE BUT REVEALING IN SOME WAYS...
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/31/145433/684
I just don't understand why these things don't get reported in the mainstream press. Sometimes I think if we weren't so rich, fat, entitled, and armed to the teeth with every kind of death dealing system known to man, I might actually expect there would be some kind of price to pay for the stupid decisions we make. I'd leave the country, but as my friend Crimmins would say - "Then you'd just become a victim of our foreign policy." In any case, my good friend Barry Lank is a crack reporter, and he was able to get a White House press pass. (It's the Gannon Memorial Day Pass) He asked the tough questions the other reporters are afraid to ask, but did we ever see the footage of this? No. I'm telling you there's a conspiracy of silence around the White House. Check out the embedded video link for the gruesome details.

The Refugees Of The Blue Planet - airs June 12th @ 9:30pm on The Sundance Channel
http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500203156
The Refugees Of The Blue Planet is a beautifully shot environmental documentary that lays bare the fate that has already befallen tens of millions of people around the globe, and stands poised to overwhelm hundreds of millions of people as global warming and environmental degradation takes off with a vengeance. This film does a wonderful job of laying bare the results of sacrificing environment and community for the sake of convenience and profit, without the usual requests for funding and projection of the producers' favored solutions that accompany so many documentary films focused on specific issues. In the end, the reader is left with a clear understanding of the nature of the beast, yet left to draw their own conclusions as to what actions to take - or not take, as they might believe best. Shot on location around the globe, The Refugees Of The Blue Planet shows the direct human results of environmental catastrophes and exploitation in no uncertain terms. Whether the tragedies are engendered by run-amok weather or rampant environmental degradation as a result of industrial activities, the point is clearly driven home. In some cases, the victims or refugees are who you would expect, but in many cases they are not. The viewer is left without the artificial sense of insulation from potential disaster that our disconnected-from-nature industrialized society is so good at fostering. There is a clear impression that anyone could be the next Refugees Of The Blue Planet. The Refugees Of The Blue Planet is the lead of a series of environmental documentaries scheduled to air on The Sundance Channel this June and July. The next feature will be titled "Dead In The Water" and will air on June 19th at 9:30pm. This will be followed by "Five Disasters Waiting To Happen" at 9:30pm on July 10th. Recommended by Daniel Stafford (aqmstaffo@mailbag.com)

Reporter Arrested For Trying to Ask Tough Questions to Giuliani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOerYpJse30
The first amendment is under serious attack following an incident that took place at the GOP presidential debates up here in New Hampshire. Matt Lepacek a member of the activist/alternative media group We Are Change was arrested for simply attempting to question Rudy Giuliani about different issues including the fact that he previously lied to the We Are Change group about his involvement in the events of 9/11. This event shows that we no longer have freedom of speech or freedom of press in this country. Even though Mr. Lapecek was unable to specifically question Giuliani he was able to pepper one of Giuliani's staff members with hard questions. Despite asking these questions in a respectful manner, Mr. Lepacek was escorted out of the building even though he was asking legitimate questions and had press credentials issued to him by the debate organizers. Mr. Lepacek protested his removal from the post-debate press area and demanded to know from police officers why his Constitutional rights were being violated. He attempted to re-enter the building and was subsequently arrested and charged with criminal trespassing for merely exercising his Constitutional rights. What made this even crazier was the fact that most of this was broadcast via a live web camera feed on the We Are Change web site. Hundreds of people witnessed Mr. Lepacek be arrested by the police officers even after he informed them that video of the events were being broadcast live on the Internet. It would be one thing if he intentionally created a disruption during the debate itself or in the post-debate press area but he did nothing of the sort. All he wanted to do was ask Giuliani and other candidates the tough questions that the establishment media is afraid and unwilling to ask. What is really ridiculous is that he didn't even get a chance to question Giuliani and yet he was still escorted out of the building. Do we really have a free press if certain members of the press are selectively escorted away from political figures? We clearly have a situation where the establishment press is a lapdog for the government. A free press that is a watchdog of the government is one of the keys in having a free and open society. It appears clear from Lepacek's arrest that we have neither a free or open society. CLIP More on this from http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2007/060607Arrested.htm and
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2007/060607criminalindictments.htm

Licensed to Pill
http://www.cafeoflifepikespeak.com/Videos/Licensed%20To%20Pill.swf

Where the Rainbow Gathering will be in 2007
http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/sites/annual-site.html
This year the annual North American Rainbow Gathering will be in Arkansas, Oklahoma, or Texas. Much more on this through http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/index.html

A Gathering of the Tribes Peaceful Freedom Assembly -- July 1st ~ 9th, 2007
http://www.welcomehere.org/gathering_of_the_tribes/
All peaceful beings are welcome to come share the gift of harmony and prayers for world peace as we celebrate interdependence day in unity without glorification of war. A circle of silent meditation will commence with the rising sun on the morning of July 4th until noon.

Circle of Light Community Network
http://welcomehere.org/2007/
Happenings in North America, International and Underground -- The Rainbow Family of Living Light, sometimes known as the "Rainbow Tribe", is an international loose affiliation of individuals who have a common goal of trying to achieve peace and love on Earth. Those who participate in, or sympathize with, the activities of this group sometimes refer to their group simply as the "Family". The words: Rainbow Family in the longer title are a reference to the group's inclusiveness of all colors or races. The use of the phrase: Living Light in the longer title is a reference to "living lightly", or living with little mass or impact on the environment. Rainbow family participants make the claim that their group is the "largest non-organization of non-members in the world". In addition to referring to itself as a non-organization, the group's "non-members" also even playfully call the group a "disorganization". There are no official leaders, no structure, no official spokespersons, and no membership. Instead, the Rainbow Family forms community through shared "traditions" of love for the Earth, and gatherings to pray for peace. It is maintained by councils consisting of any "non-member" who wishes to be part of the council. CLIP

Inspiring Ideas to Improve the Quality of Your Life
http://www.WantToKnow.info/qualityoflife
It is not so much what happens to each of us that determines our quality of life, but rather our reaction to what happens. Though we may have no choice in unexpected events that happen to us, we most certainly have choice in how we interpret what happens, and in what we choose to do about it. These choices make all the difference in how we experience our world and very much determine our quality of life. CLIP



ALSO RECOMMENDED

Bloody day in Gaza raises civil war fears (June 12)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070612/ts_nm/palestinians_gaza_dc_27
GAZA (Reuters) - In what looked ever more like civil war, the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas battled supporters of the Islamist prime minister across Gaza on Tuesday, the bloodiest day of factional fighting in months. The largest security force loyal to Abbas, who is favored by Western powers, was ordered on to the streets to defeat what his secular Fatah supporters called a "coup" by Hamas Islamists after Hamas gunmen stormed Fatah bases in the Gaza Strip. Hamas later appeared to have control of one major Fatah base in the north and casualty data suggested it had the upper hand more widely. Fatah leaders threatened to quit a three-month-old unity government with Hamas if there was no immediate truce.At least 24 people were killed and 70 wounded, hospital officials said, taking to 44 the number of dead in the coastal enclave since Saturday. Early on Tuesday, the Gaza homes of both Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas were fired on.The European Union said there was an imminent risk of civil war if fighting went on, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged support for Abbas's efforts "to restore law and order."Haniyeh and Abbas both called for restraint and talks but, as each side accused the other of siding with their Israeli adversaries, there was little sign of fighters paying heed. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, an arch-foe of Hamas, said for the first time that "serious consideration" be given to posting international peacekeepers in the Gaza Strip, from which Israel withdrew troops and Jewish settlers two years ago."If the Gaza Strip ultimately falls to Hamas, this will be of great regional significance," he said, but added Israel could not enter Gaza to fight Hamas to help Abbas's "pragmatists." PLEASE KEEP THIS SITUATION IN MIND DURING YOUR MEDITATIONS SO AS TO HELP BRING ABOUT PEACE WITHIN PALESTINE, AND BETWEEN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL....

Palestinians on verge of civil war, president warns (June 6, 2007)
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6071998?source=rss
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that the Palestinians were on the brink of civil war and that their internal battles were as dangerous to their welfare as has been Israeli occupation, if not more so.

Israelis expand illegal West Bank settlements
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21860007-38201,00.html
AN Israeli settler organisation has expanded several settlements in the occupied West Bank despite commitments by the Israeli Government against such moves, media and the settlers said today.

LIBERTY ATTACK PART OF GRAND SCHEME
http://americanfreepress.net/html/liberty_attack_scheme.html
Newly Uncovered Evidence Indicates Assault May Have Been Pre-Planned ‘Useful Disaster’ - This June 8, 2007, marks the 40-year anniversary of Israel’s bloody attack on the USS Liberty, a lightly armed U.S. Navy ship sailing off the coast of Egypt at the time. Over the years, there have been numerous reports indicating that the unprovoked assault caught the White House and the military by surprise.New information, however, reveals that officials in various agencies in the U.S. government played a key role in setting up the Liberty for the purpose of drawing the Soviet Union into a fight in the Middle East and ultimately igniting World War III. For those who follow the intrigues and explosive events surrounding the relationship between America and Israel over the last four decades it is easy to “get into a rut” so to speak and blame every single catastrophic event solely on the treachery of Israel. The tragedy though (and certainly the hardest part to swallow by patriotic Americans who would sooner take their own lives than betray their fellow countrymen) is that there have been and are players on the American side of the equation whose hands are just as dirty as those of their Israeli counterparts. Whether it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, the bombing of the twin towers in 1993, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995 or the events taking place on 9-11, the only way these could have taken place is if elements within the U.S. government cooperated with the planning, execution and subsequent dissemination of propaganda in the aftermath of these operations. Now, a new and terrible tale has surfaced indicating yet again that elements of the U.S. government were involved at the highest level in even more criminal acts against the very same American people whom it is charged with protecting. The case in question involves the June 8, 1967, attack on the USS Liberty by the air and naval forces of the state of Israel during the height of the Arab-Israeli war that led to the deaths of 34 American servicemen. Long believed that players within the Johnson administration simply assisted in the cover-up of the attack so as “not to embarrass” America’s greatest ally, Israel, it now it appears that American political, intelligence and military persons played a key role in setting up the Liberty for the purpose of igniting WW III in what was code-named “Operation Cyanide.” CLIP

Evidence of video image manipulation in "live" news reports on 9/11
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/108.html

Experts Cast Doubt on Credibility of JFK Terror Plot
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060507P.shtml
US authorities said Saturday they had averted an attack at New York's JFK airport to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines that could have resulted in "unfathomable damage, deaths and destruction." But according to the National Transportation Safety Board, it would have been next to impossible to cause an explosion in the jet fuel tanks and pipelines. It may likely have sparked a fire but little else, and certainly not the mass carnage authorities described.

JFK Airport Plot Has All The Hallmarks Of Staged Terror
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2007/040607stagedterror.htm
Near-retarded "ringleader", paid government provocateur mirrors legion of previous cases - An alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks, terminal buildings and fuel lines running beneath Kennedy International Airport has all the hallmarks of being another staged terror alert, having never advanced beyond a rudimentary planning stage while being prodded and provocateured by a paid government informant.In every single major terror sting we have researched in the west since 9/11, not one single plot has been absent the ingredient of a government provocateur, save the cases that were outright manufactured by imaginative government propagandists in alliance with the corporate media. CLIP

JFK airport plot 'a US setup' (06/06/2007)
http://www.news24.com:80/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2125074,00.html
Port Of Spain - The four suspects in an alleged terror plot to bomb a New York airport were set up in an elaborate plan by the US Republican party to retain hold of the White House, the daughter of an arrested suspect claimed on Tuesday. CLIP

Attacks on US Troops Grow in Lethality, Complexity
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060307Z.shtml
As US troops push more deeply into Baghdad and its volatile outskirts, Iraqi insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated and lethal means of attack, including bigger roadside bombs that are resulting in greater numbers of American fatalities relative to the number of wounded.

UN Warns of Five Million Iraqi Refugees
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061007D.shtml
Across Iraq, millions of people are looking for safer places to live, and not finding them. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported last week that 4.2 million Iraqis have been forced out of their homes.

Iraq's Workers Strike to Keep Their Oil (9 June 2007)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060907A.shtml
The Bush administration has no love for unions anywhere, but in Iraq it has a special reason for hating them. They are the main opposition to the occupation's economic agenda, and the biggest obstacle to that agenda's centerpiece - the privatization of Iraq's oil. At the same time, unions have become the only force in Iraq trying to maintain at least a survival living standard for the millions of Iraqis who still have to go to work every day, in the middle of the war. This week, Iraqi anger over starvation incomes and oil ripoffs boiled over. On Monday, June 4, the biggest and strongest of the Iraqi unions, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, launched a limited strike to underline its call for keeping oil in public hands, and to force the government to live up to its economic promises. Workers on the pipelines carrying oil from the rigs in the south to Baghdad's big refinery stopped work. It was a very limited job action, which still allowed the Iraqi economy to function. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responded by calling out the army and surrounding the strikers at Sheiba, near Basra. Then he issued arrest warrants for the union's leaders. On Wednesday, June 6, the union postponed the strike until June 11. Labor unrest could not only resume at that point, but could easily escalate into shutdowns on the rigs themselves, or even the cutoff of oil exports. That would shut down the income stream that keeps the Maliki regime in power in Baghdad. (....) But one demand overshadows even these basic needs - renegotiation of the oil law that would turn the industry itself over to foreign corporations. And it is this demand that has brought out even the US fighter jets, which have circled and buzzed over the strikers' demonstrations. In Iraq, the hostile maneuvering of military aircraft is not an idle threat to the people below. This standoff reflects a long history of actions in Iraq, by both the Iraqi government and the US occupation administration, to suppress union activity. CLIP Recommended by Richard Keber (srkeber@msn.com) who wrote: "With the support of the US and International Worldwide Labor Movement it has the power to rapidly become THE key to The War and the Bush administration, as well as, over time, an effective answer to Global Corporatism." and who also recommended this: US Labor Against the War at www.uslaboragainstwar.org

The British Army rebels against propaganda (6 June 2007)
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=440
An experienced British officer serving in Iraq has written to the BBC describing the invasion as “illegal, immoral and unwinnable” which, he says, is “the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers”. In a letter to the BBC's Newsnight and Medialens.org he accuses the media’s “embedded coverage with the US Army” of failing to question “the intentions and continuing effects of the US-led invasion and occupation”. He says most British soldiers regard their tours as “loathsome”, during which they “reluctantly [provide] target practice for insurgents, senselessly haemorrhaging casualties and squandering soldiers’ lives, as part of Bush’s vain attempt to delay the inevitable Anglo-US rout until after the next US election.” He appeals to journalists not to swallow “the official line/ White House propaganda”. CLIP

Sudan Is Secret Partner of US
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061207M.shtml
Sudan has secretly worked with the CIA to spy on the insurgency in Iraq - an example of how the United States has continued to cooperate with the Sudanese regime even while condemning its role in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur.

Secret Weapons Reported in Major Media Articles Used to Control Friends and Foes
http://www.WantToKnow.info/070611nonlethalweapons
Few people are familiar with the important military and police term "non-lethal weapons." Although referred to as non-lethal—and indeed used for non-lethal purposes to control both civilians and soldiers—these sophisticated weapons technologies can also be quite deadly. Below are highly revealing one-paragraph excerpts of 12 engaging articles on non-lethal weapons from the major media. Why does the media give so little attention to these disturbing new weapons which raise serious ethical questions? CLIP

Report Confirms CIA Secret Prisons in Europe
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060807J.shtml
The CIA operated secret prisons in Europe where terrorism suspects could be interrogated and were allegedly tortured, a Council of Europe report will conclude today. Despite denials by their governments, senior Polish and Romanian security officials have confirmed to the council that their countries were used to hold America's prisoners in secret.

Powell: Close Guantanamo Now, Restore Habeas
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061007F.shtml
This morning on NBC's Meet the Press, General Colin Powell strongly condemned the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, calling it "a major problem for America's perception" and charging, "if it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo - not tomorrow, this afternoon."She

Appeals Court Orders "Enemy Combatant" Free
(ANOTHER MAJOR BLOW TO BUSH/CHENEY'S CREEPING DICTATORSHIP)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061107I.shtml
President Bush lacks the power to detain an immigrant as an enemy combatant without charge, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

Keith Olbermann: Restoring Habeas Corpus
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061107B.shtml
Keith Olbermann applauds the Senate Judiciary Committee's efforts to restore habeas corpus and discusses this issue with Jonathan Hurley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University.

Bush in "Fantasyland"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060807D.shtml
(...) "President Bush is rushing to deploy a technology that does not work against a threat that does not exist," Cirincione says. "Iran is at least 5 to 10 years away from the capability to build a nuclear weapon and at least that far from having a missile that could hit Europe let alone the US. And anti-missile systems are still nowhere near working despite $150 billion spent since the 1983 Star Wars program started and years of phony tests staged to demonstrate 'progress' and 'success.'" None of this has stopped Bush from continuing to tout his Czech Republic and Poland-based "proposed missile defense system designed to thwart a possible nuclear attack from Iran." Adding to the irony (and the outrage) is the fact that while Bush continues to frame the weapons system as indispensable to democracy - "This is aimed at a country like Iran… so they couldn't blackmail the free world" - the people of the Czech Republic and Poland continue to oppose the plans (as I initially reported here). Recent polls show that over 60 percent of Czechs are opposed and only 25 percent of Poles support the missile defense plan. (...) "While many in the mainstream media swallow the Bush administration talking points on Russian President Vladimir Putin as if once again being spoon-fed pre-war intelligence, other experts on arms control and foreign policy suggest Putin has real reason to worry about the Bush administration's moves." In The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy, published in Foreign Affairs last year, Keir A. Liber and Daryl G. Press wrote: "… the sort of missile defenses that the United States might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one - as an adjunct to a US first-strike capability, not as a stand-alone shield. If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal - if any at all. At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile-defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes…" CLIP

Putin threatens to target Europe with missiles
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070602.wputin01/BNStory/International/home
In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Europe with missiles, including potentially nuclear weapons, in a dramatic escalation of his Cold War-style showdown with the United States. Mr. Putin, in an interview at his summer residence outside Moscow, said he considers U.S. plans to build an eastern European anti-missile site to shoot down Iranian missiles a provocation aimed at Russia. He repeatedly described the anti-missile system as a part of the American"strategic nuclear potential," whose existence he said requires Russia to retaliate to maintain the global "strategic balance." Asked what he might do to retaliate, he said he would return Russia to the Cold War status where missiles were aimed at European targets. "It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States is located in Europe, and according to our military experts will be threatening us, we will have to respond," he said.

400 million people live in "minefields": report (May 16)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070516/wl_nm/arms_cluster_dc
GENEVA (Reuters) - Some 400 million people around the world live and work in what are effectively minefields, at daily risk of death or maiming by cluster bombs, according to a report issued on Wednesday. The report, from the campaign group Handicap International, said over 13,000 civilians are known to have been killed or injured in recent years by the bombs, but that the real figure was probably many times higher.In the wake of armed conflicts "unexploded cluster submunitions turn homes, livelihoods and social areas of 400 million people living in affected countries into de facto minefields," the report said. Nearly 50 states meet in Lima, Peru, on May 23-25, to discuss a draft of a treaty to ban the weapons, which have been used widely in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Russian region of Chechnya. In February, 46 countries meeting in Oslo pledged to aim for an international ban by next year that would prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of the munitions, which can be set off years after they are dropped. But major cluster bomb-producing states, including the United States, Russia and China, were not in Oslo and have made clear they oppose a blanket ban, arguing that they need to keep the option of using the weapon for defense.In March Britain became the biggest military power to ban one variety of the weapons, which are designed to kill large numbers of enemy troops by scattering hundreds of tiny bomblets that spread deadly shrapnel over a wide area. The British government said it would in future use only weapons with self-destruct mechanisms, a decision dubbed insufficient by landmine charities supporting a total ban. Britain and the United States used thousands of cluster bombs during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Israel fired them widely into southern Lebanon last year during fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas. The Handicap International report said that 98 percent of the casualties of the weapons were civilians "killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conflict or while going about their daily tasks to survive."

Fresh setback as Israel-Palestinian summit cancelled (June 6, 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/32cgvz
Palestinian officials said Israel has rejected demands to release hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Palestinian tax revenues, restart peace talks or accept Abbas' proposal for restoring a collapsed ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and extending it to the West Bank.

Cheney's Former Aide Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060507R.shtml
A federal court judge sentenced Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000 Tuesday for obstructing an investigation into the identity leak of then-CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.

Prosecutor Wants Libby Imprisoned Now
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061207B.shtml
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald urged a federal judge on Tuesday not to delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's two-and-a-half-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case.

'Wild-Eyed' Bush Thumped Chest While Repeating 'I Am The President!' (June 2, 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/yqf7zv

Globalization Protesters Riot in Rome
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061107O.shtml
Riot police used tear gas last night against demonstrators who donned face masks and threw bottles, smoke bombs, and other objects after President George Bush's first meeting with the Pope in Rome.

Forecasters: Expect a busy hurricane season (May 23, 2007)
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6550293
WASHINGTON (WIS) - Government forecasts expect a busier than normal hurricane season this year.National Weather Service forecasters say they expect between 13 and 17 tropical storms, with seven to ten of them becoming hurricanes." For the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA scientists predict 13 to 17 named storms, with seven to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which three to five could become major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher," said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.An average Atlantic hurricane season brings 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes. Experts predicted a bad season last year, too, in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. But the unexpected development of El Nino climate conditions, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, helped make for a mild season in 2006. Now that El Nino has ended, the potential again exists for more tropical storms to threaten the East and Gulf coasts. CLIP

Global Warming Bush - How to Call His Bluff
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060507J.shtml
Kelpie Wilson writes: "The reaction of world leaders and environmentalists to Bush's announcement last week that he has a global warming plan (with no targets and no timelines) was mostly skeptical.... His announcement is an attempt to subvert the global effort to fight climate change.... Democrats should pass global warming legislation that repeals Bush's tax cuts for the rich and uses the funds to pay for energy efficiency audits for homes and businesses, rebates and tax incentives for improving energy efficiency, and training for efficiency technicians.... We need to make this kind of public investment, and we need to make it fast."

Cities Act While Bush Administration Lags On Environment
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060907Y.shtml
New York is among a faction of US cities from Boston to Portland, Oregon, that are racing ahead of the federal government in setting carbon emission targets and developing concrete strategies to deal with climate change. Their solutions are already beginning to alter the fabric of life for millions of urban dwellers.

Massacres and Paramilitary Land Seizures Behind the Biofuel Revolution
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060707P.shtml
Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy. Surging demand for "green" fuel has prompted right-wing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia's population of three million displaced people and adding to one of the world's worst refugee crises after Darfur and the Congo.

Logging Threatens Indonesia's Forests
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/060507EC.shtml
Indonesia's rainforests - especially those on Borneo island - are being stripped so rapidly because of illegal logging and palm oil plantations for biofuels that they could be wiped out altogether within 15 years, some environmentalists say.

Melting Ice Will Affect Hundreds of Millions Globally
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/060507EB.shtml
Hundreds of millions of livelihoods will be affected by declining snow and ice cover as a result of global warming. The risks facing people include rising sea levels and losing access to drinking water, a UN study concludes.

Drought: A New Norm Across the Nation?
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/060807EB.shtml
Drought, a fixture in much of the West for nearly a decade, now covers more than one-third of the continental United States. And it's spreading. As summer starts, half the nation is either abnormally dry or in outright drought from prolonged lack of rain that could lead to water shortages, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly index of conditions. "The only good news about drought is it forces us to pay attention to water management," says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a think tank in Oakland that stresses efficient water use. (...) In other parts of the country, welcome rainfall last weekend from Tropical Storm Barry brought short-term relief to parts of the fire-scorched Southeast. But up to 50 inches of rain is needed to end the drought there, and this is the driest spring in the Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Meanwhile, California and Nevada just recorded their driest June-to-May period since 1924, and a lack of rain in the West could make this an especially risky summer for wildfires. Coast to coast, the drought's effects are as varied as the landscapes. CLIP

UN Urges Protection of Animals From Climate Change
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/060407EC.shtml
A senior United Nations official urged a 171-nation UN wildlife forum on Sunday to take action to help protect animals from climate change.

Global Warming Is Speeding Up Ocean Waves
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/061207EC.shtml
Gigantic ocean waves, spanning hundreds of kilometres from crest to crest, have been speeding up because of global warming, a new model suggests.

Conyers Challenges Bush For G8 Action on Vultures
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm
Congressman John Conyers, still in the thick of his hearings on the firing of US Attorneys, is preparing a new target for investigation: Vultures.We're not talking about the feathered birds of prey, but predators with allies in the White House and Swiss bank vaults full of untraceable currency. These speculators buy up the debt of the poorest nations on the planet for pennies on the dollar -- then use legal extortion or less-than-legal bribery to extract payments from these nations - payments equal to five, ten or twenty times what the vultures "invested."Conyers has personally informed George Bush that he expects the President to join the other G8 leaders to put the vultures out of business. "I'm counting on the President to do the right thing," Conyers told BBC reporter Greg Palast. But if the President doesn't, Bush can expect another set of investigations and hearings on the Administration's inaction and ties to vultures. Tonight Palast's BBC investigative team follows up on previous quarry: Michael Francis Sheehan, a.k.a. "Goldfinger." Goldfinger has already won $20 million from Zambia for a debt he "bought" for less than $4 million. How did he do that? We discovered that the deal was greased by payments to the former President of Zambia's "favourite charity". Could the Zambian President's "favourite charity" be himself? BBC travels to the Boutique Basile in Geneva, Switzerland, where Zambia's charity-minded ex-president, Frederick Chiluba, bought one million dollars in finery, including 206 suits, 349 shirts, each monogrammed with his initials –- and each shirt costing as much as the average Zambian earns in a year. The diminutive despot also bought 72 pairs of shoes -- all with extra-high heels.Still, the vulture "Goldfinger" is closing in on Zambia, demanding another $35 million -- while US law enforcement closes in on him -- and Conyers closes in on President Bush.

World's First Air-Powered Car: Zero Emissions by Next Summer
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4217016.html
India’s largest automaker is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008. Barring any last-minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car’s carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours. Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn’t mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian experiment — MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.

IWC update: Japan's commercial whaling scam rejected (29 May 2007)
http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e070529.html
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Anti-whaling countries have rejected a plan which could have seen Japan scale back its Antarctic hunting program in exchange for its return to commercial whaling. Japan had said it would consider scrapping plans to include humpback whales in the catch in return for limited commercial hunting by four coastal communities.But anti-whaling countries at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission rejected the move as "needless act of provocation". The IWC meeting opened in Alaska on Monday. The proposed humpback hunt has been a major issue in anti-whaling countries, notably Australia and New Zealand which both run healthy whale-watching industries with humpbacks as their star turn. Japan plans to add 50 humpbacks next season to its annual Antarctic hunt, which it runs under regulations permitting whaling for scientific research. The hunt currently takes minke and fin whales. CLIP Check also Please Help The Whales at http://www.metacafe.com/watch/566236/please_help_the_whales/

Laptops are crippling millions with back problems (30th May 2007)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=458548&in_page_id=1774
Booming sales of laptops have led to a surge in the number of computer users with back and muscle problems, experts have warned.Girls as young as 12 are being diagnosed with nerve damage caused by slouching over screens, a group of leading chiropractors said.Millions of others are at risk of "irretrievable damage" to their spines, necks and shoulders because of poor posture when using laptops, it was claimed.Back specialists say as many as four in five patients have chronic nerve damage caused by working on portable PCs. (...) A common problem is perching a laptop on the legs so users stare down at the screen and put strain on their necks, spines and legs.London-based chiropractor Michael Durntall was among those calling for more research into the issue.He said he had seen dozens of Xrays showing signs of degeneration in the joints of regular laptop users. CLIP

Worried families ditch their Wi-Fi after watchdog voices health concerns (3 June 2007)
http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article2609317.ece
Schools and families are rushing to remove Wi-Fi systems after the Government's chief health protection watchdog voiced concerns over their safety. Sir William Stewart's call for a "timely" review of the possible effects of the technology - originally reported by The Independent on Sunday in April and featured by the BBC's Panorama programme last month - has led to an unprecedented reaction from the public, according to one large dealer. The London-based Scooter Computer call-out service said last week that it had received hundreds of calls recently. Will Foot, for the company, said: "I have never seen such a reaction. It's completely out of the blue. More than 50 per cent of inquiries were from people worried about Wi-Fi access." He said that the company had already removed 25 systems. (...) Sir William - the chairman of the Health Protection Agency and a former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government - has chaired two inquiries into the effects of mobile phones and their masts. He warned against dangers from them and made safety recommendations, but was largely ignored by ministers. In the past 18 months alone, 1.6 million Wi-Fi terminals have been sold in Britain for use in homes, offices, and a host of other buildings. By some estimates half of all primary schools, and four-fifths of all secondary schools, have installed them. Further browsing: Sir William Stewart's first 2000 report can be read at http://iegmp.org.uk/ -- Recommended by Sky goldsmith (alchemygold@yahoo.com)

Mobile Phones and Vanishing Birds (29/05/07)
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3778251/
Birds near mobile phone base stations do not breed well- The sparrows have disappeared completely from the cities at least four years ago in Britain, as mobile phones grew in popularity. Third generation (3G) mobile phones were introduced in 2003, and there were over 65 million users in the UK by the end of 2005, more phones than people [1]. Did mobile phone transmitters cause the sparrows to disappear [2]? Scientists at the Research Institute for Nature and Forests in Brussels, Belgium, have produced the first evidence that mobile phone base stations are affecting the reproductive behaviour of wild sparrows [3]. This finding comes as mobile phones are held suspect in the massive collapse of bee colonies all over the United States and Europe. CLIP

Birds and bees are hit by phone waves (29 April 2007) http://environment.independent.co.uk/article2494224.ece
First it was bees. Now it is birds and other insects, say reports describing how they are being thrown off-course by "electrosmog". Some even claim that entire migrating flocks can find themselves off-course when faced with mobile phone masts or pylons.Tory councillor Debi Jones from Hightown, Southport, said: "It seems strange that these stories are only now coming out and appear to coincide with the proliferation of mobile phone masts." CLIP

Tara called 'endangered heritage site' (6 June 2007)
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0606/tara.html
The World Monuments Fund has declared the Hill of Tara to be one of the 100 most endangered heritage sites. Two other Irish sites, Vernon Mount in Cork and Richhill House in Armagh city, have also been declared 'endangered'. The independent body said that human activity has become the greatest threat of all to the world's culture and includes Tara under a section entitled 'economic and development pressures'. It added that Tara is at risk because 'cities and suburbs are spreading unchecked'. 'Man is indeed the enemy', said WMF president Bonnie Burnham. She added: 'Just as we caused the damage in the first place, we have the power to repair it, by taking our responsibility as caretakers of the world's cultural heritage seriously.' Campaigners seeking to re-route the M3 motorway around the Hill of Tara believe the WMF designation should lead to a change in Government policy. CLIP Recommended by "Maireid Sullivan (maireid.sullivan@gmail.com) who campaign intensively to help save the Hill of Tara and who seeks "arts practitioners who are promoting events over the next few months, that can be dedicated to raising awareness of Tara." Much more on her excellent initiative through http://www.globalartscollective.org/arts_action.htm

American buys slices of South America (June 9, 2007)
http://tinyurl.com/2bqquj
The American multimillionaire who founded the North Face and Esprit clothing lines says he is trying to save the planet by buying bits of it. First Douglas Tompkins purchased a huge swath of southern Chile, and now he's hoping to save the northeast wetlands of neighboring Argentina. He has snapped up more than half a million acres of the Esteros del Ibera, a vast Argentine marshland teeming with wildlife.Tompkins, 64, is a hero to some for his environmental stewardship. Others resent his land purchases as a foreign challenge to their national patrimony. In an interview with The Associated Press, Tompkins said industrialized agriculture is chewing up big chunks of Argentina's fragile marshland and savanna, and that essential topsoil is disappearing as a result."Everywhere I look here in Argentina I see massive abuse of the soil ... just like what happened in the U.S. 20 or 30 years ago," he said. Tompkins hopes to do in Argentina what he did in Chile — create broad stretches of land protected from agribusiness or industrial development, and one day turn them over to the government as nature reserves. Wealthy foreigners have bought an estimated 4.5 million acres in Argentina and Chile in the past 15 years for private Patagonian playgrounds. Sylvester Stallone, Ted Turner and Italian fashion designer Luciano Benetton all have large holdings set amid pristine mountains and lakes.Tompkins was among the early ones, buying a 35-mile-wide strip of Chile from a Pacific coastal bay to the country's Andean mountain border with Argentina. He said his purchases were intended specifically to protect the environment. Argentine officials took notice and eagerly courted Tompkins' philanthropy, flying him to several areas of ecological significance in the late 1990s — when the government was strapped for cash because of the economic crisis."The land conservation budget was burning a hole in our pocket," Tompkins said. He bought a 120,000-acre ranch in 1998 and has increased his Argentine holdings to nearly 600,000 acres since then. He now owns well over 1 million acres in Chile and Argentina, a combined area about the size of Rhode Island. CLIP

Omega-News Collection 2. June 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3793743/

EMF-Omega-News 2. June 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3793734/

Omega-News Collection 9. June 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3818035/

EMF-Omega-News 9. June 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3818030/

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From: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070607/tts-uk-g8-summit-africa-7c6ab66_2.html

Rock stars in last-ditch Africa plea to G8 leaders

By Madeline Chambers - June 7

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (Reuters) - Rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof launched a last-ditch effort on Thursday to force Group of Eight leaders to honour aid pledges they made to Africa two years ago.

The two, long involved in the campaign to help the world's poorest continent, have held private meetings with world leaders gathered in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm to discuss issues including climate change and development.

Officials are arguing up to the last minute about how specifically to recommit to pledges made at the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, when leaders said they would double development aid by 2010.

"This is about our value system. This is about whether it's okay to break a promise," U2 singer Bono told a news conference in the port of Rostock where about 70,000 people gathered for a concert at which he, Geldof and African singers were performing.

At Gleneagles, leaders vowed to raise annual aid levels by $50 billion (25 billion pounds) by 2010, $25 billion of which was for Africa. Aid agency Oxfam says G8 nations risk missing that pledge by $30 billion, which they say would cost at least five million lives.

Earlier, Bono said talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hosting the summit, were tough.

"The Chancellor has asked us to trust her - and we are tempted, but we cannot risk being let down by the G8 again."

After some resistance from Italy, Canada and Japan, campaigners now believe the G8 declaration will include the same language agreed at Gleneagles on the headline figures.

"We are running to stand still here," said Oxfam policy adviser Max Lawson.

Officials are also arguing over whether commitments for individual countries and for areas like AIDS treatment and education will be spelled out separately.

Canada and Italy have been blocking the inclusion of specific language or numbers, say officials and activists, although Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi signalled to Bono and Geldof late on Wednesday that he would drop his opposition.

Leaders will talk tough about combating AIDS but may back away from 2005 targets to fund universal access to treatment and instead vow to treat five million people with AIDS.

Officials are also arguing over a funding gap in the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria and over whether to agree on a funding target of $6-$8 billion a year by 2010.

Prodi has pledged to pay its Global Fund arrears and $200 million per year for the next two years, said a Fund spokesman.

The United States last week announced plans to double its financial commitment to fight AIDS to $30 billion over five years and Germany is expected to announce $1 billion in new funding for AIDS at some point in coming months.

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Related articles:

Leaders promise action on G8 deals (June 9)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20070609/twl-leaders-promise-action-on-g8-deals-41f21e0_1.html
World leaders are insisting there will be action after the G8 summit.(Advertisement) Promises on global warming and poverty were been made by the after the talks between the world's richest nations in Germany.The G8 leaders promised to pump £30 billion into the fight against aids and other killer diseases in Africa.But campaigners said the financial packages did not go far enough and previous pledges have done little to help combat the problems.Musicians Bob Geldof and Bono, who have championed Africa's causes for more than two decades, criticised G8.Geldof has branded the summit "a political pantomime" and he claimed that "like all pantomimes, it ends in farce".He said: "I don't think we're looking at a success. They'll make it look like a success."They will claim, no matter what, that it is an amazing breakthrough. Don't hold your breath."U2 lead singer Bono said he was "exasperated" by the results.He added: "Do they think we can't read or count? We are looking for accountable language and accountable numbers: we didn't get them today."Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "The important thing about what we have agreed is that we have recommitted ourselves to all the commitments we made a couple of years ago at Gleneagles."The important thing is we have set out how we are going to do them. CLIP

Bush Agrees Only to "Consider" Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060807M.shtml
The United States agreed Thursday to "consider seriously" a European plan to combat global warming by cutting in half worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. However, the agreement did not alter the Bush administration's refusal to accept binding targets for emissions reductions.

G-8 Vows Greenhouse Gas Curbs; US Escapes Targets
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060707C.shtml
Leaders of the Group of Eight main industrial nations vowed a renewed global push to fight rising temperatures, while agreeing not to force the US and Russia to set targets now for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Deal or raw deal? Bush refuses to commit to climate change target (8 June 2007) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2631525.ece
(...) Leaders of the world's richest nations, at their summit in Germany, called for a deal on "substantial cuts" in emissions by the end of 2009 to enable America, China and India to join a "son of Kyoto" agreement.President Bush gave some ground under pressure from Mr Blair and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and summit host. But he watered down Germany's demand for a commitment to a 50 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels. Instead the G8's declaration said the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases should "seriously consider" following the EU, Canada and Japan in seeking to halve emissions by 2050.Mr Bush committed the US to a United Nations-led process but gave himself an important escape clause by making clear his support was conditional on China and India signing up to the worldwide deal. It is also unclear whether the target would be as ambitious as it looks as no baseline was set. Germany and Britain wanted the proposed 50 per cent cut based on 1990 levels but America argued for it to be from this year's - which would amount to a 45 per cent reduction from 1990. (...) Friends of the Earth said yesterday's agreement was "weak and lacked substance". It said all G8 countries except the US and Russia made a non-binding pledge to cut climate change-causing gases by at least half by 2050. Oxfam welcomed the progress at the G8 but added: "It is profoundly disappointing that some members, including the world's leading polluter, the US, have failed to sign up to specific targets or even an indicative global stabilisation goal." CLIP

Dominic Lawson: The summit designed to breathe new life into the Kyoto process has seen it expire (8 June 2007)
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/dominic_lawson/article2631302.ece
This was not so much a cold shower as a diplomatic drenching for Angela Merkel (...) Blair is not exaggerating when he says that China will do nothing to impede its extraordinary growth. It is opening a new coal-fired power station at a rate of one a week. On Monday, the head of China's state economic planning agency, Ma Kai, confirmed that his nation was not prepared to countenance any fixed targets for reducing its CO2 emissions, but also came up with a devilishly clever response to claims that it was not taking this matter seriously. Ma pointed out that his country had for years been taking steps to keep in check its carbon emissions. "Without China's strict family planning policies, the country's population would have increased by 138 million since 1979, resulting in an extra 330 billion tonnes in emissions."I have always thought China's one-child policy to be a repulsive example of state coercion, but Mr Ma has a very good debating point, which doubtless was also made by his President across the table in Heiligendamm yesterday. After all, if you really care about anthropogenic carbon emissions then breathing is a much bigger issue than car exhausts. The burning of fossil fuels sends about seven gigatonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere. That sounds like a lot. Yet the biosphere sends about 1,900 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. The oceans send a further 36,000 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, all of which adds up to one big reason why some of us are sceptical about the extraordinary emphasis put on the role of human fuel-burning in the greenhouse gas effect. CLIP

G8 leaders set to end summit with Africa pledge (June 8)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070607/tts-uk-g8-summit-7c6ab66_1.html
HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (Reuters) - Leaders of the world's major powers will turn their attention to Africa on Friday and are widely expected to announce a $60 billion (30 billion pounds) pledge to fight AIDS and other killer diseases.(Advertisement)The heads of six African nations will press the needs of the poorest continent when they join G8 leaders on the final day of their summit, which produced an agreement on Thursday to pursue "substantial" cuts in greenhouse gases to combat global warming."G8 leaders have just over 24 hours to restore faith in a promise that represents life or death for millions of people across the world," said Stop AIDS Campaign coordinator Steve Cockburn. (...) On Thursday, G8 leaders agreed to pursue substantial but unspecified cuts in greenhouse gases and work with the United Nations to clinch a new deal to fight global warming by 2009. The agreement binds the world's largest polluter, the United States, more closely into international efforts to curb the gases scientists say are causing dangerous changes to world weather patterns. But it does not commit the G8 nations to the firm emissions reduction targets that Merkel had wanted. U.S. President George W. Bush has refused to sign up to numerical targets before rising economic powers like China and India make similar pledges. Convincing them to join the U.N. process will be crucial to halting global warming. CLIP

G8 Leaders Agree Climate Change Deal (June 7)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20070607/twl-g8-leaders-agree-climate-change-deal-3fd0ae9_1.html
World leaders at the G8 summit have agreed to make "substantial" - but unspecified - cuts in greenhouse gases and draw up a post-Kyoto deal by 2009. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there was a consensus that rises in CO2 emissions "must first be stopped and then followed by substantial reductions".She has called for a 50% cut in emissions by 2050.Tony Blair has described the agreement as "a major, major step forward".But the agreement does not commit the G8 nations to the emissions cuts Ms Merkel was hoping for.US President George Bush has always made plain that America would only be part of a deal if it included the developing economies of nations such as China and India.Ms Merkel, who is chairing the G8 summit, said they had agreed to formulate a post-Kyoto deal by 2009."In terms of targets, we agreed on clear language... that recognises that (rises in) CO2 emissions must first be stopped and then followed by substantial reductions," Mrs Merkel said. CLIP

Greenpeace posts leaked US objection to G8 climate statement (May 26, 2007)
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Greenpeace_posts_leaked_US_objectio_05262007.html
Greenpeace on Saturday published a leaked document showing the United States has raised serious new objections to a proposed global warming declaration for next month's Group of Eight summit. In the document, US officials representing the administration of President George W. Bush reject the declaration prepared by Germany. "The United States still has serious, fundamental concerns about this draft statement," the document states. Washington rejects the idea of setting mandatory emissions targets, as well as language calling for G8 nations to raise overall energy efficiencies by 20 percent by 2020. (...) While Germany has offered to alter language identifying a rise in global temperature of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit as a dangerous tipping point and instead accept a Russian proposal that targets a range from 2.7 to 4.5 degrees, the United States has yet to accept the modified language. According to the US document, such proposals "are fundamentally incompatible with the (US) president's approach to climate change". It proposes more general language stating simply that the G8 "is committed to taking strong and early action to balance global carbon circulation". Washington further wants a statement that reads: "We acknowledge that the UN climate process is an appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change" to be scrapped from the declaration. On May 18, senior US lawmakers wrote to Bush expressing deep concern over reports that his administration was seeking to weaken a G8 declaration on climate change."US leadership is critical to tackling this global threat ... But we need an executive branch that engages the rest of the world to solve this problem rather than stubbornly ignoring it," the 15 heads of House committees wrote.

Protesters thrown overboard after police ram Greenpeace vessels (June 8)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2631540.ece
Protests at Germany's G8 summit took a spectacular turn yesterday as police launched a high-speed boat chase through the Baltic and rammed two Greenpeace inflatable speed boats which had breached a maritime security zone, pitching crew members overboard and injuring three.Dramatic television footage of the chase shot from helicopters showed a small armada of Greenpeace inflatable boats driven by outboard motors speeding into a 10-kilometre wide security zone off the seaside resort of Heiligendamm hosting the summit, taking police patrol boats completely by surprise.After some delay, five high-powered police vessels went in hot pursuit of the Greenpeace intruders in a chase worthy of a James Bond film. For at least 10 minutes, the police and Greenpeace played a game of seaborne cat and mouse, churning the deep green waters of the Baltic white with their spiralling boat wakes. The chase was brought to an abrupt halt when the biggest and most powerful police vessel, a 30-foot long Swedish built "Combat boat" capable of 50 knots - rammed and swamped one of the Greenpeace inflatables and pitched all four of the boat's oilskin-clad crew into the sea. Three of the crew were injured in the ramming and had to be taken to hospital.In another encounter, the police boat swamped a second Greenpeace inflatable and stopped it. The activists unfurled a banner reading "G8-act now." Daniel Mittler of Greenpeace Germany said the environmental protest group had wanted to deliver a petition to the G8 leaders by sea. "The G8 countries have caused most climate change and their leaders should face up to their responsibilities. The world is tired of empty words and demands action now," he said. However Greenpeace later denounced the police decision to ram their craft as "totally irresponsible". Greenpeace's success in breaching the summit's security zone marked another defeat for the 16,000 police drafted in from throughout Germany for the meeting of G8 leaders in the Baltic town of Heiligendamm. By the time world leaders had arrived at the summit on Wednesday, thousands of anti-G8 protesters had breached the security zone on the land side and managed to block all roads leading to the venue. CLIP

G8 Protest: More than 10,000 block Heiligendamm (05.06.2007)
http://de.indymedia.org/2007/06/181680.shtml
Lots of pictures at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/372723.html and http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/372740.html and much MORE through http://de.indymedia.org/en/

Anti-globalization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-globalization_movement

Full coverage G8 News
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fc/g8.html

Coal as Motor Fuel - No, We're Not There Yet
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060407P.shtml
"Expanding coal isn't a smart choice for America right now. Although cheap and plentiful, it's dirty. Its environmental byproducts outweigh its benefits. Nevertheless, a bipartisan group of coal-state lawmakers wants to grant billions in taxpayer subsidies to turn coal into liquid fuel to power cars, trucks and airplanes," says The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Stop Liquid Coal
http://pol.moveon.org/stopkingcoal/?r_by=&rc=paste
In the next two weeks, Congress could vote to double the amount of greenhouse gases America produces from cars and planes. It's the greatest single threat to solving the climate crisis in a decade. Coal is the dirtiest energy, and the technology just doesn't exist yet to burn it cleanly. We can't afford this kind of risk. A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your Senators and Representative.

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2.

From: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17834.htm

If You Think Bush Is Evil Now, Wait Until He Nukes Iran

By Paul Craig Roberts

06/06/07 "ICH " -- -- The war in Iraq is lost. This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted occupation. Winning is no longer an option. Our best hope, Gen. Sanchez says, is “to stave off defeat,” and that requires more intelligence and leadership than Gen. Sanchez sees in the entirety of our national political leadership: “I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time.”

More evidence that the war is lost arrived June 4 with headlines reporting: “U.S.-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the military said on Monday.” After five years of war the US controls one-third of one city and nothing else.

A host of US commanding generals have said that the Iraq war is destroying the US military. A year ago Colin Powell said that the US Army is “about broken.” Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn says Bush has “piecemealed our force to death.” Gen. Barry McCafrey testified to the US Senate that “the Army will unravel.”

Col. Andy Bacevich, America’s foremost writer on military affairs, documents in the current issue of The American Conservative that Bush’s insane war has depleted and exhausted the US Army and Marine Corps:

“Only a third of the regular Army’s brigades qualify as combat-ready. In the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the units reaches Baghdad as part of the president’s strategy of escalation, the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve.”

“The stress of repeated combat tours is sapping the Army’s lifeblood. Especially worrying is the accelerating exodus of experienced leaders. The service is currently short 3,000 commissioned officers. By next year, the number is projected to grow to 3,500. The Guard and reserves are in even worse shape. There the shortage amounts to 7,500 officers. Young West Pointers are bailing out of the Army at a rate not seen in three decades. In an effort to staunch the losses, that service has begun offering a $20,000 bonus to newly promoted captains who agree to stay on for an additional three years. Meanwhile, as more and more officers want out, fewer and fewer want in: ROTC scholarships go unfilled for a lack of qualified applicants.”

Bush has taken every desperate measure. Enlistment ages have been pushed up from 35 to 42. The percentage of high school dropouts and the number of recruits scoring at the bottom end of tests have spiked. The US military is forced to recruit among drug users and convicted criminals. Bacevich reports that wavers “issued to convicted felons jumped by 30 percent.” Combat tours have been extended from 12 to 15 months, and the same troops are being deployed again and again.

There is no equipment for training. Bacevich reports that “some $212 billion worth has been destroyed, damaged, or just plain worn out.” What remains is in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under these circumstances, “staying the course” means total defeat.

Even the neoconservative warmongers, who deceived Americans with the promise of a “cakewalk war” that would be over in six weeks, believe that the war is lost. But they have not given up. They have a last desperate plan: Bomb Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney is spear- heading the neocon plan, and Norman Podhoretz is the plan’s leading propagandist with his numerous pleas published in the Wall Street Journal and Commentary to bomb Iran. Podhoretz, like every neoconservative, is a total Islamophobe. Podhoretz has written that Islam must be deracinated and the religion destroyed, a genocide for the Muslim people.

The neocons think that by bombing Iran the US will provoke Iran to arm the Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing rocket propelled grenades and with surface to air missiles and unleash the militias against US troops. These weapons would neutralize US tanks and helicopter gunships and destroy the US military edge, leaving divided and isolated US forces subject to being cut off from supplies and retreat routes. With America on the verge of losing most of its troops in Iraq, the cry would go up to “save the troops” by nuking Iran.

Five years of unsuccessful war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel’s recent military defeat in Lebanon have convinced the neocons that America and Israel cannot establish hegemony over the Middle East with conventional forces alone. The neocons have changed US war doctrine, which now permits the US to preemptively strike with nuclear weapons a non-nuclear power. Neocons are forever heard saying, “what’s the use of having nuclear weapons if you can’t use them.”

Neocons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.

Many US military officers are horrified at what they think would be the worst ever orchestrated war crime. There are reports of threatened resignations. But Dick Cheney is resolute. He tells Bush that the plan will save him from the ignominy of losing the war and restore his popularity as the president who saved Americans from Iranian nuclear weapons. With the captive American media providing propaganda cover, the neoconservatives believe that their plan can pull their chestnuts out of the fire and rescue them from the failure that their delusion has wrought.

The American electorate decided last November that they must do something about the failed war and gave the Democrats control of both houses of Congress. However, the Democrats have decided that it is easier to be complicit in war crimes than to represent the wishes of the electorate and hold a rogue president accountable. If Cheney again prevails, America will supplant the Third Reich as the most reviled country in recorded history.

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Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell

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Related article

Could al Qaeda Attack Trigger War With Iran? Analysis by Gareth Porter
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17843.htm
Following revelations of a George W. Bush administration policy to hold Iran responsible for any al Qaeda attack on the U.S. that could be portrayed as planned on Iranian soil, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi warned last week that Washington might use such an incident as a pretext to bomb Iran.

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3.

From: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2007/280507usesalqaeda.htm">ttp://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2007/280507usesalqaeda.htm

U.S. Government Uses Al-Qaeda To Attack Iran

Bush authorizes group formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind to be bankrolled & armed by CIA for covert regime change

Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson

May 28, 2007

Recent revelations illustrating the fact that the U.S. government is using a Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist group formerly headed by the alleged mastermind of 9/11 to carry out bombings in Iran undermines the entire war on terror as a monumental hoax that is being exploited purely to realize a geopolitical agenda.

"President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert "black" operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs."

"The CIA is giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan," the London Telegraph reported yesterday.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Even if you believe the official story of 9/11 to the letter, the fact that Bush has personally authorized U.S. support for this group completely dismantles the facade of the war on terror.

The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad's government and is also active in Pakistan, having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.

The U.S. government is arming and directing a Sunni Al-Qaeda group to carry out bombings in Iran and yet Bush has the temerity to grandstand during his Rose Garden speech last week and wave the Al-Qaeda bogeyman to strike the fear of God into American citizens.

"As to al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda is going to fight us wherever we are. That's their strategy. Their strategy is to drive us out of the Middle East. They have made it abundantly clear what they want. They want to establish a caliphate. They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks. They're willing to kill the innocent to achieve their objectives, and they will fight us. And the fundamental question is, will we fight them? I have made the decision to do so. I believe that the best way to protect us in this war on terror is to fight them," Bush said on Thursday.

Bush's definition of fighting Al-Qaeda is apparently to lend them all the funds, weapons and tactical know how they need to carry out attacks against innocent civilians in Iran, and let us not forget that America's allies the British have also been caught training insurgents in Iraq to carry out hi-tech bombings that are later blamed on Iran - just as the SAS worked with U.S. special forces to train the KLA in Kosovo, which was also an Al-Qaeda chapter having been financed directly by Bin Laden himself.

But in the world of newspeak and the lowest common denominator propaganda that cloaks the real agenda of the "war on terror", anyone who rises up against occupation, be it a kid who throws a rock in Baghdad or a car bombing on behalf of an increasingly Shiite-led insurgency, the natural enemies of the Sunni "Al-Qaeda," are terrorists and are Al-Qaeda members.

A cruel irony exists whereby anyone and everyone who opposes military occupation is smeared as an Al-Qaeda terrorist and yet the only real Al-Qaeda terrorists are being bankrolled, armed and directed by the CIA itself, with Bush's explicit approval.

Since President Bush didn't know the difference between Sunni & Shiite Muslims until two months before the invasion of Iraq and the incoming chairman of a congressional intelligence committee said Al Qaeda prominently came from the Shia branch of Islam, we can't hold out much hope for Joe Public and this is why the simplest propaganda is always the most effective.

They're the bad guys, we're the good guys - black and white with no shades of gray.

In reality, Al-Qaeda only exists within intelligence circles coordinated by the highest echelons of the U.S. government, and is being used yet again as a tool for destabilization in nations targeted for regime change by the Neo-Cons.

Jundullah is not the only anti-Iranian terror group that US government has been accused of funding in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government.

Multiple credible individuals including US intelligence whistleblowers and former military personnel have asserted that the government is conducting covert military operations inside Iran using guerilla groups to carry out attacks on Iranian Revolution Guard units.

It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.

After a bombing inside Iran in March, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official has blown the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.

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4.

From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_on_re_eu/arms_report;_ylt=AoJA.o6eivhNaIQhuNoa4u.ROrgF

Report: Risk of nuclear warfare rising

By KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writer - June 11, 2007

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The world's top military powers are gradually dismantling their stockpiles of nuclear arms, but all are developing new missiles and warheads with smaller yields that could increase the risk of atomic warfare, a Swedish research institute said Monday.

In its annual report on military forces around the globe, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute also said the rising number of nations with nuclear weapons is raising the risk such arms could be used.
"The concern is that countries are starting to see these weapons as useable, whereas during the Cold War they were seen as a deterrent," said Ian Anthony, a nuclear expert at the institute.

SIPRI for the first time counted North Korea among the world's nuclear countries, because of its underground test explosion of an atomic device last October. While saying it remains unclear whether the communist country has developed a deliverable nuclear weapon, the institute estimated North Korea could have produced about six nuclear bombs, based on its stockpiles of plutonium.

Iran is a potential member of the nuclear club if it decides to turn its uranium enrichment program to military use, Anthony said — something the U.S. and its allies suspect is the Tehran regime's plan but Iranian leaders deny. "Iran could appear on this list, but at the earliest five years from now," Anthony said.

The U.S., Russia, China, France, Britain, Pakistan and India are known to have nuclear weapons, while Israel is thought by most experts to have them.

The report estimated those nations had 11,530 warheads available for delivery by missile or aircraft at the start of 2007, with Russia and the United States accounting for more than 90 percent — 5,614 in Russia and 5,045 in the U.S.

Both countries are reducing their stockpiles as part of bilateral treaties, but are developing new weapons as they modernize their forces. Britain, France and China also plan to deploy new nuclear weapons, the institute said.

India, Pakistan and Israel each have dozens of warheads, but their stockpiles are believed to be only partly deployed, the institute said.

"India and Pakistan are both thought to be expanding their nuclear strike capabilities, while Israel seems to be waiting to see how the situation in Iran develops," it said.

The United States remained the world's biggest military spender last year, devoting about $529 billion to its military forces while China overtook Japan as Asia's top arms spender, the report said. U.S. military spending grew from $505 billion in 2005 mainly because of the "costly military operations" in Iraq and Afghanistan, SIPRI said. "This massive increase in U.S. military spending has been one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of the U.S. economy since 2001," it said.

The U.S. was followed by Britain and France in military spending, while China's expenditures reached nearly $50 billion, making it the fourth biggest arms spender in the world, SIPRI said. Japan was fifth at $43.7 billion.
Russia, which spent $34.7 billion on arms, has used its energy wealth to revive national pride, to restore its influence "in surrounding countries and to maximize its geopolitical power," SIPRI said.
All the numbers were figured in 2005 dollars.

International arms sales have grown since 2002, with China and India being the biggest importers and the U.S. and Russia the two major exporters, the report said. Five Middle Eastern countries were among the top 10 importers of weapons.

"While much media attention was given to arms deliveries to Iran, mainly from Russia, deliveries from the USA and European countries to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were significantly larger," the report said.
___

Associated Press writer Louise Nordstrom contributed to this report.

On the Net:
SIPRI: http://www.sipri.org

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Related article:

Nuclear Weapons Programs Are About Regime Survival
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061107F.shtml
Dilip Hiro writes: "For countries - small, middling or great - acquiring nuclear weapons is all about the most basic requirement: the survival of the regime or nation. Joining the 'nuclear club' has proved an effective strategy for survival. The possession of city-busting, potentially planet-ending weaponry threatens to bring about a MAD - the Cold War acronym for 'Mutually Assured Destruction' - world. While the 'madness' of this strategy is apparent, a rarely mentioned aspect of today's geopolitics is that acquiring nuclear arms has proven a logical step for a regime to take when its survival is at stake."

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5.

From: http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=73

REAL ID Trojan Horse

May 21, 2007

The immigration controversy, and the legislation it has spawned, has become a Trojan Horse for imposing the REAL ID Act on all Americans, and entangling all of us in a bureaucratic nightmare of apocalyptic proportions.

Think for a moment about all the problems there have been with the terrorist watch list. Think about all the innocent Americans who have been placed on this list for no discernible reason, and the trouble people have had getting off this list. Now . . .

Imagine this same kind of bureaucratic nightmare expanding to entangle every job and business in America. This is what the REAL ID provisions of the new Senate Immigration Bill (S. 1348) will bring about.

The offending section is Title III which will require . . .

Every employer in America to pre-screen every worker for every job they're ever offered for the rest of their lives, regardless of the size of the business, or the job.

The cost to the federal government ALONE is estimated by the feds themselves (so you know it's low) at $11.7 billion per year.

The costs to businesses may be even higher. This will raise the cost of hiring new people and foster unemployment. But that's only the beginning of the trouble.

Every American will have to produce a Real ID license to get a job—no exceptions. I think we can see where this is going . . .

Proving our identity, and proving that we are innocent, is about to become a requirement for living.

Taking this approach could certainly solve the problem of prison over-crowding, because under REAL ID deadbeat Moms and Dads, drunk drivers, jaywalkers, and anybody else who does anything wrong at any time, can all be punished simply and quickly, without prison, and perhaps without trial, simply by turning them into a non-person in terms of the required employment background check.

But let's say you don't ever do anything wrong, but you still end up with a black mark next to your name anyway, just like what has happened to people with the terrorist watch list? How long will it take, and how much will it cost, to get your name cleared?

And what if you can't get your name cleared, simply because of bureaucratic inefficiency, like with the terrorist watch list?

Will you starve because you can't get a job? And what about your family? Your kids?

Meanwhile, under these provisions, the black market gets a further government "price support" for fake IDs. Anything can be faked. If a thing can be made by government it can be forged by criminals. This includes birth certificates and other documents required to obtain a so-called REAL ID.

Politicians who talk about tamper proof ID cards are idiots babbling nonsense.

But it gets worse. The federal government is trying to box in the states that have rejected the REAL ID program by making all of the citizens of those states effectively illegal persons!

Plus, new federal funding for state programs will only be given to states that comply with REAL ID. The Feds are trying to both bribe and coerce the states into complying.

What's worse, most of the Senate may not even realize these provisions are in the immigration bill, or what their impact would be. The bill is huge, and complicated. As of this writing it hasn't even been printed yet, and it's very unlikely the Senators will even read the bill before they pass it into law.

You've been warned. If you want to heed the warning please send a message to both the House and Senate telling them to strip out all REAL ID related provisions from any immigration bill they are considering.

• If you've used our Congressional Contact System before just enter your user email address and password, and hit GO. You'll be taken to a screen where you can add your own comments to the message to your elected representatives.


• If you're using our Congressional Contact System for the first time, please fill out the form for new users. This information is used to direct your message to the correct Senators. Please provide your own password. Do not let the system create one for you. Remember your password. It will allow you to use our system easily in the future for other issues. Please use an email address you check regularly so you can receive the Downsizer Dispatch and stay up-to-date on Congressional actions.

The Petition
Below is the text of the letter we will send on your behalf:

CLIP - Go at http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=73 to sign to petition (Only if you are a U.S. citizen of course)...

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Forwarded by Kathleen Roberts (weerkhr@pacbell.net)

THE REAL ID ACT / THE FUTURE IS FINALLY HERE

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength: George Orwell

The real ID act, was first introduced in December, 2005 as an addendum to a spending bill for Afganistan that authorized a national ID system, to take effect 3 years from then, which would track every move that every one of us makes.

Guess what, it's here again as an attachment to the Senate Immigration Bill (S. 1348) which is now working its way through the Senate and currently momentarily stalled ~ but still alive.
It's a nightmare getting ready to happen where every American will now have their electronic papers to present on demand ~ much like Germany in the 1930's.

It certainly makes you rightfully wonder about the reason for the recently staged 'terrorist plot' at JFK which was highly improbable and suspicious with tainted government informants.

Very soon, in this Orwellian Cheney/Bush paranoid world ~ there will be no secrets.
Orwell wrote his book 1984 to underscore the insidious danger of slowly eroded individual liberties and, as such, the eerie parallels with today's America ~ where freedom is slowly becoming slavery and ignorance has already become strength.

We need to realize that this power hungry administration trusts only its own neocon agenda and certainly not the American people.

As such, with this new system, every move we make will be tracked by our government. If we get on a plane, we will be tracked. If we buy anything with a credit card, we will be tracked.

This is what it will feel like, in the not too distant future, when you order a pizza.
Click here : http://www.wimp.com/palace/

Please tell your Congressman that you DO NOT WANT THE REAL ID, and ask them to please vote for the amendments to take out the Real ID from the Immigration Bill.

Come to DownsizeDC.org to learn more and send your petition
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=73

Allen L Roland
http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/06/09.html
OpEdNews columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews and speaking engagementsallen@allenroland.com

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website http://www.allenroland.com/ He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on http://www.conscioustalk.net/

ONLY THE TRUTH IS REVOLUTIONARY

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6.

From: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525

"Good Riddance Attention Whore"

by Cindy Sheehan

May 28, 2007

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.

CindySheehan's diary

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don't find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don't see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person's heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey's brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won't work with that group; he won't attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children's children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Camp Casey has served its purpose. It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too... which makes the property even more valuable.

This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America ... you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it.

It's up to you now.

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Related article:

Interview With Cindy Sheehan: "We'll Come Back Stronger"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060107R.shtml
Prominent anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan tells NOW's David Brancaccio that she plans to rest, spend time with her family, and then continue her struggle against the Iraq war. "We're going to pull back and regroup and figure out a better way to come at this," Sheehan said in a NOW on the News web-exclusive audio interview.

Sheehan to Sell Protest Site to LA Radio Host
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061007G.shtml
Cindy Sheehan will sell her war protest site near President Bush's ranch to Los Angeles radio talk show host Bree Walker, who will preserve it as a peace memorial and keep it open to protesters.

Approval of Congress Lowest in a Decade
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061207L.shtml
Fueled by disappointment at the pace of change since Democrats assumed the majority on Capitol Hill, public approval of Congress has fallen to