tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13394346471305513222023-11-16T09:52:47.942-08:00VesInteL World NewsVesInteL World news, environmental activities, economical opportunities, government procedures and more.VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-86880016362737393952019-01-17T18:44:00.002-08:002019-01-21T07:24:49.851-08:00NYC Federal workers Protest Trump's Government shutdown <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Food stamps, rent aid and the safety net for American’s poorest at risk as shutdown drags on. As the partial government shutdown continues into its third week, the impacts are falling hardest on those who can afford it the least — and the effects will grow even more punishing if key agencies remain paralyzed beyond Feb. 1 and into March. At risk: food on the table for millions of vulnerable households, rental assistance and other safety net programs.<br />
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<b> Trump last week threatened to keep the government partially closed for months, even years, if the impasse over the border wall continues.</b></div>
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Under criticism, the Trump administration this week moved to shore up one of the most important pillars of the social safety net, the food stamp program, which benefits 38 million Americans and whose funding was due to run out at the end of January.<br />
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Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Tuesday that the agency would rely on a little-known budget provision to give states the money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the month of February ahead of time — by Jan. 20 — to circumvent the expiration of federal appropriations.<br />
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Perdue also ensured that other nutrition assistance programs, including school meals and a program for mothers and young children, would be funded through February. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides food, baby formula and breast-feeding support to 7.3 million mothers and children under 5 years old.<br />
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Callie Schneider, 11, fills plastic bags with food that will go to families in need. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)<br />
But officials could not promise that those benefits would continue if the shutdown lasts until March. The food stamp program has a $3 billion reserve, which would cover less than two-thirds of the $4.8 billion in benefits distributed each month.<br />
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Beginning in March, families could experience an average cut of at least $90, or close to 40 percent, assuming the agency spreads the $1.8 billion shortfall evenly across the 19 million households receiving SNAP benefits, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.<br />
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The USDA has not said what it would do in the event the shutdown lasts that long. When the SNAP contingency money runs out in April, the food assistance program will probably be closed altogether, anti-poverty advocates said.<br />
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“At that point, it will take Congress taking some sort of emergency action to fund the program if the government doesn’t reopen,” said Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “We will see hunger in America skyrocket. It’s going to take more than just flipping a switch to make things right after this.”<br />
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[Wisconsin is the GOP model for ‘welfare reform.’ But as work requirements grow, so does one family’s desperation.]<br />
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Already, more than 2,500 grocers and other retailers are no longer accepting food stamps because their SNAP licenses were not renewed before the shutdown started Dec. 22, according to the Food Marketing Institute, an industry group.<br />
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Federal funding has also been shut off for cash welfare benefits, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for 3.4 million of the poorest Americans, the majority of whom are children. For now, states are picking up the financial burden — $4.2 billion they were to have received from the Department of Health and Human Services to cover January through March. States are providing benefits by cobbling together previously unspent federal funds with state dollars.<br />
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“We don’t know at what point states will start to panic and that will start to affect people relying on TANF,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, an expert on the social safety net at the Center for Law and Social Policy.<br />
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If the government does not fully reopen by Feb. 1, nearly 270,000 rural families who receive federal rent subsidies through the USDA would also be at risk of eviction because their landlords would no longer be paid, said Bob Rapoza, executive secretary of the National Rural Housing Coalition.<br />
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“These are the poorest rural people in the country,” Rapoza said. “They’re farmworkers, they’re senior citizens, they’re disabled.”<br />
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An additional 2.2 million low-income households receiving rent assistance could be put in jeopardy in March when funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 voucher program runs out.<br />
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State and local public housing agencies would also stop receiving money to operate more than 1 million public housing units in March.<br />
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And another 100,000 low-income tenants are already at risk because HUD did not have staff in place during the shutdown to renew at least 1,150 affordable housing contracts that expired in December.<br />
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That means apartment owners will not be paid and must now dip into their reserves to cover their mortgages — which they may not be able to do indefinitely.<br />
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HUD officials told The Washington Post this week that furloughed staffers have been called back to work to scour agency accounts for money that could be used to cover contracts that expired before the shutdown. But those that expired after Dec. 22 remain in limbo, with payments possible only after renewal of the earlier batch of contracts. The agency sought to downplay the impact of the expired contracts.<br />
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“No one has ever been evicted because of a shutdown, and the landlords have always been made whole,” said HUD spokesman Jereon Brown.<br />
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But he acknowledged that more contracts expire with each day that the government remains closed. Another 500 contracts are scheduled to expire by the end of January, and 550 in February, the agency said.<br />
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The risk of eviction for low-income tenants grows the longer the government remains closed, housing advocates say.<br />
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“The longer the shutdown continues, the more the lowest income people will be hard hit,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “If we get to March, we’re going to be looking at a potentially significant number of evictions.”<br />
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HUD also announced Wednesday there could be major delays in the disaster relief funding it is sending to Puerto Rico, Florida, and a number of other places because of the shutdown, saying it likely would not be able to meet a timeline set by Congress .<br />
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The shutdown has hit Native American tribes especially hard because so many of their basic services depend on federal funding, as a legacy of their negotiated treaties with the U.S. government.<br />
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U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) — a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and one of two Native American congresswomen newly sworn in this month — said one tribe witnessed a member die during the shutdown because road crews did not plow snow-filled roads and an ambulance could not get through. She did not provide further details, saying she wanted to respect the tribe’s privacy.<br />
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Several tribes have reallocated funds to keep hospitals and clinics open on their lands. But staff at those hospitals has already grown thinner, Davids said.<br />
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“For many in these communities, this is the only way people can access health care,” she said.<br />
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[Already reeling from tariff war, some farmers aren’t receiving government support checks amid shutdown]<br />
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Kerry Hawk Lessard, executive director of Native American Lifelines — a Baltimore-based group that provides health assistance to Native Americans living in urban areas — said she has needed to turn away members seeking rides to doctor’s appointments and halt funding for previously promised eyeglasses as a result of the shutdown.<br />
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Nonprofit groups in Washington say they are making contingency plans after facing an uptick in calls from furloughed federal workers — with 362,000 of them living in the area — as well as families starting to panic about losing a slew of social safety benefits.<br />
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The Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington revamped its website to lead with a tutorial on how to get food during the shutdown. The food bank sought assurances from federal authorities that the government will continue supplies of food and is trying to persuade grocery stores and other partners to help shore up dwindling supplies.<br />
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“We’re hearing from first-timers trying to understand how we work, what the hours are, whether there’s any near their homes,” said Radha Muthiah, the food bank’s president and chief executive.<br />
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Valerie Beaudin, 51, who was furloughed from her job as U.S. Census geographer, spent Tuesday morning handing out supplies at a food pantry in Huntingtown, Md., during a special event for federal workers.<br />
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Some were young, newly hired workers with no savings. Others were couples who both worked for the federal government.<br />
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“They were grabbing everything from luncheon meat to oranges to diapers and baby supplies,” Beaudin said.<br />
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Muthiah said Capital Food Bank has started talking about creating a fund for future shutdowns.<br />
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“We have an emergency cushion we use for natural disasters like floods, tornadoes,” Muthiah said. “We’ve never had to allocate for shutdowns before, but given how things are shaping up, this may be the new norm.”<br />
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<i>Jeff Stein, Damian Paletta and Amy Goldstein and NY Times contributed to this report.</i></div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-19738109452819668982018-09-12T09:16:00.000-07:002018-09-12T09:17:33.887-07:00QA Graphics Releases HTML5 Energy Efficiency Education<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tx_x9t00cnE" width="553"></iframe><br />
QA Graphics, creator of the award-winning Energy Efficiency Education Dashboards®, is proud to announce the release of the HTML5 Energy Efficiency Education Dashboards® (EEED) v6. Built with the latest web technologies, the EEED v6 embraces modern design and can be deployed via any format or device.<br />
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ANKENY, Iowa (PRWEB) September 12, 2018 <br />
QA Graphics, creator of the award-winning Energy Efficiency Education Dashboards®, is proud to announce the release of the HTML5 Energy Efficiency Education Dashboards® (EEED) v6. Built with the latest web technologies, the EEED v6 embraces modern design and can be deployed via any format or device.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUoyRt91Lrv_Ztpw583vGCSVghRhZyJQG1xVFanN5CdJBfJBSep6e9XvjSvfyBNYpIW5XKZgT7yF8e5_yp8T0GngWCJF1ytqnbvWjJR9UIQEHcQbPKrKJvqAmbGHNGQZBooyuuOwCLe2hN/s1600/QA+Graphics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUoyRt91Lrv_Ztpw583vGCSVghRhZyJQG1xVFanN5CdJBfJBSep6e9XvjSvfyBNYpIW5XKZgT7yF8e5_yp8T0GngWCJF1ytqnbvWjJR9UIQEHcQbPKrKJvqAmbGHNGQZBooyuuOwCLe2hN/s320/QA+Graphics.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Over the last decade, QA Graphics has been providing these solutions to numerous businesses, schools, universities, restaurants, and healthcare facilities. The EEEDs are used to help educate occupants and the general public on sustainable building practices. Thanks to the live data collected from the building, occupants can gain insight on how their actions impact their surroundings, creating a sense of personal responsibility to make more sustainable decisions.<br />
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To display real-time data, our solution integrates with existing automation systems and does not require custom software or an internet connection, therefore eliminating security risks. Ownership of the EEED v6 allows the client to control and maintain the building within their IT protocols, and each dashboard comes with a Content Management System (CMS) that’s catered to their needs using a WordPress platform. <br />
A variety of features can be added to the v6, such as calendars, area attractions, sponsor information, school curriculums, social media screen savers, and so on. The device also has several other features that set it apart from the rest of the market:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>No recurring fees or contracts</li>
<li>Resides onsite at your building</li>
<li>Created using HTML5</li>
<li>Customer owns their data</li>
<li>Secure way to display BAS data</li>
<li>Customizable to meet all your needs</li>
<li>No internet connection required</li>
<li>Ability to export data for reporting, comparing, commissioning, or validating purposes</li>
<li>Helps earn credit toward LEED® and other sustainability accreditation and education agendas</li>
</ul>
To learn more about the Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard®, please contact 515.965.3403 or visit qageeed.com.<br />
About QA Graphics—QA Graphics is a leader in the building automation and green building industries. The company specializes in HVAC graphic development services, system graphics, floor plan graphics, and Energy Efficiency Education Dashboards™ (EEEDs). The company also provides custom marketing solutions such as interactive applications, 3D design and animation, UX design, web development, videos, and more. Visit http://www.qagraphics.com to learn more.<br />
<br />
Contact Author<br />
Jessica Johnson <a href="https://www.qagraphics.com/" target="_blank">QA Graphics</a> <br />
+1 515-965-3403<br />
<a href="https://www.prweb.com/EmailContact.aspx?prid=15754637" target="_blank">Email</a> > <br />
Jessica Johnson <a href="https://www.qagraphics.com/" target="_blank">QA Graphics</a> <br />
515.965.3403<br />
<br /></div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-17422718854991642772018-09-09T10:27:00.000-07:002018-09-09T10:33:13.345-07:00Former President Barrack Obama Unleashes on Trump at the GOP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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During a speech in Illinois, Former President Barack Obama said President Donald Trump is "capitalizing on resentment that politicians have been fanning for years" and questioned "What happened to the Republican Party?", in his most pointed rebuke to date of his successor in the White House.<br />
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“Former President Barack Obama re-entered the national political debate on Friday with a scathing indictment of President Trump, assailing his successor as a “threat to our democracy” and a demagogue practicing the “politics of fear and resentment.”<br />
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“In a dramatic break from the normal deference former presidents usually show to incumbents, Mr. Obama ended a long period of public reticence with a lacerating assessment of Mr. Trump. <br />
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“Sometimes by name, sometimes by inference, he accused him of cozying up to Russia, emboldening white supremacists and polarizing the nation.<br />
““None of this is conservative,” Mr. Obama told an auditorium of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.”</div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-70741203398549840092017-01-02T18:25:00.004-08:002017-01-02T18:58:04.948-08:00Gangs operate corruption at University of Nairobi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<script src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-4f272edf05d46053" type="text/javascript"></script> <!-- AddThis Button END --> Police are accusing several university of Nairobi students of turning the halls of residents into dens of crime.<br />
Michael Njenga went behind the scenes and discovered that at least three students gangs have been selling drugs and extorting money from businesses. Here now is that report.<br />
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Citizen TV is Kenya's leading television station commanding an audience reach of over 60% and in its over 12 years of existence as a pioneer brand for the Royal Media Services (RMS), it has set footprints across the country leaving no region uncovered. <br />
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This is your ideal channel for the latest and breaking news, top stories, politics, business, sports, lifestyle and entertainment from Kenya and around the world. <br />
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<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
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</script><b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-7723349567677927592016-02-16T15:45:00.000-08:002016-02-16T15:50:12.761-08:00Russia accused of hospital airstrike killing 22 in Syria <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Rescuers wearing hard hats searched through rubble for survivors in northern Syria Monday after airstrikes hit two hospitals and a school building.<br />
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The attacks killed at least 22 people, according to reports. Eight others are missing and presumed dead.<br />
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Amnesty International said the hospital attacks amounted to war crimes. Critics of the Syrian government warned that the latest violence is yet another troubling sign that a planned "cessation of hostilities" in the war-ravaged country is far from taking hold.<br />
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Fifteen people were killed when a hospital and a school building that was housing displaced people were struck in Azaz, in Syria's Aleppo province, according to a hospital worker on the scene. Up to 40 other people were wounded.<br />
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In Aleppo, one man's story of fear, defiance and survival<br />
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Staff members were evacuating the wounded after the first strike on the Women and Children's Hospital when the complex and a road leading to the Turkish border were struck again, a hospital employee known as Moudhar told CNN. Women and children were among the dead, he said. Another projectile hit the nearby school building, he said.<br />
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Germany: Support for no-fly zone<br />
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung that "in the current situation" she would support the creation of a no-fly zone in Northern Syria to create a safe haven for fleeing families, which could offer at least a partial solution to Europe's refugee crisis.<br />
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"In the current situation, it would be helpful if there were areas there, where no party to the war flew bombing missions -- in other words a kind of no-fly zone," she said in response to a direct question from a reporter about her position on exclusion zones.<br />
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"We can't negotiate with the terrorists from ISIS. But if it were doable to come to such an agreement with the anti-Assad coalition and the Assad supporters, it would be helpful."<br />
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Turkey has long advocated the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Syria, despite bombing Kurdish positions in the region.<br />
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Missile attack on hospital<br />
In a separate attack about 100 km (62 miles away), another horrifying scene played out at a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders at Maarat al-Numan in Syria's Idlib province.<br />
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Missiles struck the hospital four times within minutes, the medical humanitarian organization said.<br />
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Images from the scene showed the hospital reduced to mostly twisted metal and other rubble.<br />
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missing and presumed dead, the organization said. The dead consisted of five patients, a caretaker and a hospital guard, while eight staff members were missing. Patients were also unaccounted for, the statement said, but it's not clear how many.<br />
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"The situation is desperate," said Massimiliano Rebaudengo, Doctors Without Borders' head of mission.<br />
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"This appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure, and we condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms," Rebaudengo said, "The destruction of the hospital leaves the local population of around 40,000 people without access to medical services in an active zone of conflict," he said.<br />
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Who was responsible?<br />
Officials around the world traded accusations over who was behind the attacks.<br />
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The U.S. State Department condemned the airstrikes, blaming the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad for the attack on Azaz.<br />
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The Syrian government has not made a statement about the incident.<br />
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Speaking in Kiev, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed Russia for the strikes in Azaz, which is close to the Turkish border, claiming Moscow had targeted the complex with ballistic missiles fired from the Caspian Sea.<br />
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Turkish defense minister: 'No intention' of sending ground troops into Syria<br />
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Moscow did not immediately respond to the accusation.<br />
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Doctors Without Borders officials said Syrian government-led coalition forces carried out the strikes on the facility in Idlib.<br />
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Syria's ambassador to Russia blamed the United States and coalition forces for the Idlib attack.<br />
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Ambassador Riad Haddad said there is "intelligence information" that proves that coalition warplanes raided the hospital. The United States has said it carried out no military operations in the areas that were hit.<br />
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Airstrikes earlier this month killed three people and wounded at least six at a Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital in Daraa governorate, southern Syria, on February 5, the aid group said.<br />
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Chaos in northern Syria<br />
Northern Syria has been the scene of intense fighting recently, with Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian air power, pursuing a major offensive on the key city Aleppo, and Turkey bombarding Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, near Azaz over the weekend.<br />
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Turkey said it was a response to shelling from YPG positions. Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said Sunday that his country had no intention of sending ground troops into Syria, amid international concern about Ankara's actions.<br />
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The United States and France called on Ankara to halt the bombardment, which killed two Kurdish fighters and wounded seven others, according to a London-based monitoring group, and Syria complained to the U.N. Security Council about the Turkish shelling.<br />
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Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group, while the United States backs it in the fight against ISIS.<br />
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Western powers have also been critical of Russia's actions in Syria, saying it was undermining the prospects of implementing a recently agreed upon cessation of hostilities by bombing civilians. Moscow denies the allegations.<br />
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"The intensified bombings, the displacement, the fact that civilian entities have been hit by the regime and its backers, is of grave concern," U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters Monday. "It does call into question Russia's willingness or ability to implement the agreements achieved in Munich."</div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-14085371568313607032013-02-22T12:21:00.002-08:002014-06-05T16:24:25.971-07:00President Obamas plan of closing Guantanamo Bay halted by 9/11 terrorism trial<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Pre-trial hearings for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind who the Obama administration wanted to try in downtown Manhattan, resumed this week at Guantánamo Bay.<br />
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House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said that bipartisan opposition prevented the administration from closing the prison when Democrats held majorities in both chambers of Congress.<br />
“If he wants to try again, that is his choice,” McKeon, who has helped lead GOP efforts to block transfers of Gitmo detainees in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), said in a statement to The Hill.<br />
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An Obama campaign official said that closing Guantánamo remains a priority for the president, and that he is committed to closing it in a second term.<br />
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The official noted that even while Gitmo remains open, the Obama administration has reduced the detainee population. Mitt Romney supports keeping the prison open and increasing its size, the official said.<br />
Democratic aides in Congress acknowledge it would be difficult to gain enough support to close the military prison while Republicans retain control of the House. But they say that some traction has been made on the issue in the past year.<br />
Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said that the administration’s failed attempts to close the prison have been disappointing. But she believes Obama remains serious and would try again in a second term.<br />
“I don’t think he wants to go down in history as man who promised to go close down Guantánamo and didn’t,” Prasow said.<br />
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Guantánamo opponents say there’s new reason for optimism, as a federal appeals court this week threw out a conviction from Gitmo’s military tribunals of bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdan.<br />
The court tossed the conviction against Hamdan because he was charged with a law created in 2006, and he committed the crime of providing material support to terrorists from 1996-2001.<br />
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Prasow said the ruling could throw into doubt future convictions at Guantánamo’s military tribunals.<br />
“This could very well be the pivotal piece with respect to how Congress and the current administration review what the long-term effect of having Guantánamo remain open will be,” said Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.<br />
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Even if there was a shift in Congress on military tribunals at Guantánamo, however, the question of moving detainees onto U.S. soil is perhaps the trickiest of all.<br />
“It is a political reality, if they come to the U.S. they’re going to have to go into somebody’s congressional district, some senator’s state,” said a Democratic aide who supports closing the prison. “So those are difficult issues.”</div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-27663696181755085482012-08-07T22:04:00.000-07:002012-08-07T22:06:15.257-07:00President Obama discuss America's agricultural drought efforts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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President Obama says that the Department of Agriculture has been working with every other agency across the federal government to make sure that we are taking every single possible step to help farmers and ranchers to fight back and recover from this disaster. <br />
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The Environmental Working Group, joined by Defenders of Wildlife, released it's report "Plowed Under" on the impact of high crop prices and crop insurance subsidies on environmental conservation efforts.<br />
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In a press conference Monday, the group announced that Congress needs "to make basic environmental protections a condition of receiving federal subsidies in the next farm bill and to reject efforts to slash funds for voluntary conservation programs designed to reduce water pollution problems and restore native habitat."<br />
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The federal government last week increased the number of counties that are experiencing a moderate to severe drought this year to include more than half the counties in the country. Many farmers will use their crop insurance policies to offset this year's losses.<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">In the interim, the Administration has put into place a series of actions to respond to the drought (see below). Members of the Rural Council are staff who work on the White House Domestic Policy Council, including </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Rural Affairs Senior Policy Advisor Doug McKalip</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">, as well as representatives from agencies </span><a href="http://whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/rural-council/members" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px; text-decoration: none;"><b>across the federal government</b></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">. But a complete, up-to-date list of all members has not been released for 2012.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Tuesday's meeting will have "a pool spray" for media, meaning the President's press pool will be allowed in briefly to take photos and perhaps get a comment or two. With the threat of a spike in food and fuel prices due to the drought, the Administration's response is now a hot political topic for the President's re-election campaign.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">In a drought update posted on Monday for the week ending August 5, USDA reported that drought conditions are "covering nearly two-thirds of the US," and noted that "as cooler weather and scattered showers arrived across the Corn Belt late last week, Midwestern drought intensity appears to have reached a plateau."</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Still, "well over half (59%) of the nation’s rangeland and pastures were rated in very poor to poor condition—a record for this statistic during the 18-year period of record," USDA said, adding that "recovery from this summer’s extraordinarily hot, dry weather will be a lengthy process, requiring the change of seasons and multiple soaking rainfall events—not just occasional showers."</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Sans the President, Vilsack hosted a drought meeting on the White House campus for Rural Council members and stakeholders on July 27th.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;"><i><b><br />Administration drought response...</b></i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">According to USDA, "following President Obama’s instructions of using existing programs to support struggling farmers and ranchers," the department has responded to the drought by:</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">*</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Streamlining drought disaster declarations directly from Drought Monitor data</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">*</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Allowing nearly 30 million acres under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to be used for emergency haying or grazing</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">*</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Lowering payment reduction for CRP lands that qualify for emergency haying and grazing in 2012, from 25% to 10%</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">*</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.78333282470703px;">Allowing producers to modify current Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) contracts to allow for grazing, livestock watering and other conservation activities to address drought conditions</span><br />
<br /></div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-43596971373553454592012-06-05T10:03:00.004-07:002012-06-05T10:03:42.605-07:00U.S. Department of State Press Briefing Americans killed in Nigeria's plane crash<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Mark Toner leads the Daily Press Briefing at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. June 4, 2012 (LAGOS, Nigeria) -- Police dogs sniffed for dead bodies Monday in the rubble of buildings destroyed when an airliner crashed into them, killing all 153 aboard, as cranes lifted away heavy pieces of debris in the grisly aftermath of Nigeria's worst air disaster in nearly two decades. Rescue officials said they fear many more people may have perished on the ground. The airline involved said an investigation had begun into the cause of Sunday's crash.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Plane crash in Nigeria kills more than 150 on board</b></span></h2>
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A passenger plane carrying more than 150 people crashed in Nigeria's largest city today, killing all passengers and crew aboard, an emergency official said. Several charred corpses could be seen in the rubble of a building damaged by the crash, as firefighters searched for survivors and pulled a dead body from the wreckage.<br />
Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority Harold Demuren said that all aboard today's Dana Air flight had died. He did not say how many were on the flight.<br />
The Lagos state government said in a statement that 153 people were on the flight going from Abuja to Lagos. Yushau Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, said there were likely more casualties on the ground, but the number was unknown. He said they were also still trying to get an official manifest on the flight. Sometimes flights in Nigeria issue paper tickets and don't record all passengers via computer.<br />
The plane did not to appear to have nose-dived into a building, but seemed to have landed on its belly. It first crashed through a furniture shop and then into residential buildings next to the workshop in this densely packed neighborhood.<br />
The nose of the plane was embedded into the three-story apartment building, damaging only one part of the structure. Fire still smoldered everywhere as several thousand people looked on. A group of men stood atop the landing gear that was smoking and took pictures with their mobile phones.<br />
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Praise Richard, a witness, said he was watching a film when he heard a loud explosion that sounded like a bomb. He rushed outside and saw massive smoke and flames rising from the crash site around 3:45 p.m. At the crash site, an Associated Press reporter saw parts of the plane's seat signs scattered around. Firefighters tried to put out the smoldering flames of a jet engine and carried at least one corpse from the building that continued to crumble. Two fire trucks and about 50 rescue personnel were at the site after the plane went down. Some of those gathered around the site helped firefighters bring in the water hoses from their trucks.<br />
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The Nigerian Red Cross arrived, as well as Nigeria's air crash safety investigators.<br />
It was not immediately known what type of plane this was, but Dana Air's website says that the company operates its Lagos to Abuja and Abuja to Lagos flights using a Boeing MD83 aircraft. A military helicopter flew overhead. The sound of the crowd was also occasionally punctuated by the noise of aircraft still landing at the airport.<br />
Lagos' international airport is a major hub for West Africa and saw 2.3 million passengers pass through it in 2009, according to the most recent statistics provided by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.<br />
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In August 2010, the U.S. announced it had given Nigeria the FAA's Category 1 status, its top safety rating that allows the nation's domestic carriers to fly directly to the U.S. The Nigerian government said it also now has full radar coverage of the entire nation. However, in a nation where the state-run electricity company is in tatters, state power and diesel generators sometimes both fail at airports, making radar screens go blank.<br />
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The presidency said in a statement the crash "has sadly plunged the nation into further sorrow on a day when Nigerians were already in grief over the loss of many other innocent lives in the church bombing in Bauchi state."<br />
A suicide car bomber drove into a north Nigeria church's compound today and detonated his explosives as worshippers left an early morning service, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens more, officials and witnesses said.<br />
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<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
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</script><b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.<br />
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Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-68544758024294130192012-05-23T04:36:00.001-07:002012-05-23T05:14:14.510-07:00Facebook stock plummets $16 billion IPO concerns Morgan Stanley investors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Facebook Inc. (FB) (FB)’s initial public offering is getting less friendly with each passing day. Investors and regulators raised new concerns about the $16 billion IPO as Facebook shares (FB) fell a second straight day, extending losses to 18 percent below the $38 offer price.<br />
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Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter, released a statement defending its handling of the May 17 IPO after the Massachusetts security division yesterday subpoenaed the investment bank over its communications with clients. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the brokerage industry’s watchdog both said they may review the offering, and a buyer of Facebook stock sued Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ) (NDAQ) over glitches in opening-day trading.<br />
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The anticipation that preceded history’s biggest technology IPO has been replaced by investor ire, including about whether the offer was priced too high. “Rather than anything illegal or untoward, the valuation was the truly unfathomable part of what’s causing this frenzy,” said Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co, a New York-based investment firm that oversees more than $4 billion.<br />
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Facebook increased the number of shares being sold in the IPO by 25 percent last week to 421.2 million and raised its asking price to a range of $34 to $38 from $28 to $35. The shares closed yesterday at $31 in the U.S. In German trading, the stock today dropped as much as 5 percent to the equivalent of $30.17 and was down 4.4 percent as of 9:19 a.m. in Frankfurt.<br />
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<b>Decision Making</b><br />
Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman was the point person on the deal, while Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg weighed in on major decisions, said people with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified because the process was private. Dan Simkowitz, Morgan Stanley (MS) (MS)’s chairman of global capital markets, was one of the main bankers. Michael Grimes, global co- head of technology investment banking, also played a key role.<br />
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Morgan Stanley, already taking heat for helping price the IPO, received more scrutiny yesterday. The company may face regulatory review over claims an analyst shared negative news about Facebook with institutional investors before the IPO, said Richard Ketchum, chairman and CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the industry watchdog.<br />
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<b>‘Regulatory Concern’</b><br />
Those communications may be a “matter of regulatory concern” to both Finra and the SEC, Ketchum wrote in an e-mail. He wouldn’t say whether the agency is probing Morgan Stanley.<br />
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William F. Galvin, Massachusetts’ secretary of the commonwealth, said separately that his securities division subpoenaed Morgan Stanley to learn more about talks between Scott Devitt, the research analyst, and the firm’s institutional investors about Facebook’s revenue.<br />
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“There is a lot of reason to have confidence in our markets and the integrity of how they operate, but there are issues we need to look at specifically with regard to Facebook,” SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro told reporters in Washington today.<br />
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The New York-based investment bank said its procedures complied with all regulations. “Morgan Stanley followed the same procedures for the Facebook offering that it follows for all IPOs,” Pen Pendleton, a spokesman, wrote in an e-mail.<br />
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Morgan Stanley Procedures<br />
The bank said it sent a copy of a revised prospectus (FB) that Facebook filed May 9 to all of its institutional and retail investors. The filing disclosed that Facebook’s advertising growth hasn’t kept pace with the increase in users.<br />
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Pendleton said many analysts in the syndicate reduced their earnings estimates to reflect that information, and that those revised views were reflected in the pricing of the IPO. Bloomberg News, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, was first to report on May 10 that Facebook was telling analysts sales may not meet their most optimistic projections.<br />
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The IPO was marred on its first trading day when Nasdaq’s platform was overwhelmed by order cancellations and updates that made the stock-market operator unable to finish the auction required to open. The SEC said it will review the trading.<br />
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Phillip Goldberg, a Maryland investor, sued Nasdaq yesterday to claim that the stock exchange “badly mishandled” Facebook trading, failing to cancel orders when requested by customers. In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Goldberg said that he tried to both order and cancel requests for Facebook shares through an online Charles Schwab Corp. account the morning after the May 17 IPO.<br />
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<b>Fall Guy</b><br />
Goldberg is seeking to represent a class of investors who lost money because their buy, sell or cancellation orders for Facebook weren’t properly processed, according to the filing. Robert Madden, a spokesman for Nasdaq, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the suit.<br />
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Nasdaq Chief Executive Officer Robert Greifeld said on May 20 that the opening delay “had no apparent impact on the stock price,” noting the share decline began after all brokers had received confirmation about their trades in the opening auction. Ashley Zandy, a spokeswoman for Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, declined to comment.<br />
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Investors looking for a fall guy will have a tough time, said Daniel Genter, who oversees about $3.9 billion as president of RNC Genter Capital Management in Los Angeles. “Because of the expanded offering and price, everything had to go right,” Genter said. “The fact is, everything didn’t go right. That’s just accentuated the magnitude of the damage.”</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-76576041836051708452012-05-16T13:06:00.000-07:002012-05-19T19:07:57.139-07:00Reports on renewed fears of a Chinese economic slowdown.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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SHANGHAI: Chinese shares closed down 0.6 percent on Monday on worries over a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy after the Chinese central bank cut bank reserve requirements on Saturday. The Shanghai Composite Index ended at 2,380.7 points, extending a 2.3 percent slump over the week last week, the biggest weekly percentage fall in six weeks.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sony to hire 500 people in India in 2012-13</b></span><br />
NEW DELHI: In contrast to its loss making Japanese parent, Sony India today said it is registering "healthy profit" and even plans to increase its headcount by 500 people in the current financial year. "The situation in India is different from the other global markets, where Sony is witnessing pressure. We are having strong growth and healthy profits," Sony India Managing Director Masaru Tamagawa told reporters here.<br />
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Stating that Sony India expects to continue good growth, he said the company plans to ramp up its manpower strength in the near future. "Considering both permanent and contract workers, we are at present employing a total of 3,300 people in India. This number will go up to 3,800 by March, 2013," Tamagawa said. This is contrary to the parent, Sony Corporation reported to have decided to cut 10,000 jobs, probably by the end of this year to reduce loss. In February this year, the Japanese electronics goods major had forecast a consolidated net loss of 220 billion yen for the financial year ending March 31, 2012.<br />
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"Currently the Indian market is contributing 5 per cent of the global revenue and it may rise up to 6 per cent in the next one year. Sony India had a revenue of Rs 5,400 crore in 2010-11," Tamagawa said, adding the company will announce the results for FY'12 in the next few weeks.<br />
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He said the Indian operations is the fifth largest for Sony globally after Japan, the US, China and Brazil. "We are closer to Brazil than the other three markets, which are very large. In the next two years, we may overtake the Brazilian market," he added. Sony India's growth is primarily led by three divisions -- Bravia range of televisions, Vaio branded computers and digital imaging products like Cyber-shot cameras.<br />
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In order to push its growth further, Sony India today launched a series of 34 new digital cameras in the country, priced between Rs 5,490 and Rs 27,990. "With 45 per cent growth last fiscal, we outperformed the digital camera market's rate of 40 per cent. We are targetting to increase our share in the market to 45 per cent in this fiscal from 42 per cent in last fiscal," Tamagawa said.<br />
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According to Sony India, the digital still camera market in the country stood at 33 lakh units in FY'12 and is expected to increase to 42 lakh units by 2012-13. The company is aiming to sell 14 lakh units of these cameras in FY'13 compared to last fiscal's 11 lakh units. Sony to hire 500 people in India in 2012-13</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-49289399721501182552012-05-16T12:23:00.000-07:002012-05-16T12:23:54.976-07:00Search for missing girl's Body leads to mobster Enrico "Renatino" De Pedis Exhumation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The body of mobster Enrico "Renatino" De Pedis was moved to a Rome basilica in the 1990s. Teen Emanuela Orlandi disappeared in 1983. An anonymous caller and his former mistress have linked De Pedis to the disappearance of teenage girl Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a prominent Vatican employee., Investigators at the church of Sant'Apollinare in central Rome opened the tomb of Enrico "Renatino" De Pedis on Monday in the search for clues about what happened, De Pedis will not be reburied at the site <br />
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The 15-year-old vanished without a trace after leaving her Vatican apartment for music lessons on the afternoon of June 22, 1983. The mystery has captivated people throughout Italy and triggered numerous conspiracy theories. In the crypt, in addition to De Pedis' body, investigators found dozens of boxes of human bones, which they are testing.<br />
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At the time of Emanuela's disappearance nearly 30 years ago, a witness reported seeing a girl who fit her description getting into a dark green BMW near the music school, which was adjacent to the Sant'Apollinare church. That lead was never corroborated. In 1981, two years before the girl's disappearance, Turkish national Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II. In the days after Emanuela disappeared, her parents received anonymous phone calls from someone promising the safe return of their daughter if the Vatican released Agca.<br />
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Meanwhile, an anonymous caller told police that Emanuela was kidnapped to keep her father, Ercole Orlandi, quiet. That caller said Ercole Orlandi had stumbled upon sensitive documents that tied banker Roberto Calvi to an organized crime syndicate. Calvi was known as "God's banker" for his close association with both the Holy See and its primary banking facility, Banco Ambrosiano. Orlandi worked in the Vatican's special events office that organizes papal functions and Catholic celebrations. Calvi was found hanged in London in 1982. Speculation turned from suicide to homicide in that case. The tipster to police in Italy said Orlandi's daughter was nabbed to ensure her father's silence. Ercole Orlandi died in 2004.<br />
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In 2005, another anonymous call to an Italian detective said Emanuela was kidnapped on the orders of the then-vicar of Rome, Cardinal Ugo Poletti, and that "the secret to the mystery lies in a tomb in Sant'Apollinare basilica" -- specifically De Pedis' tomb. De Pedis was gunned down in Rome in 1990 and his body was moved to the basilica some time before 1997, presumably either as part of a secret deal for a massive loan De Pedis made to the Vatican or to protect his tomb from being desecrated by rival gang members.<br />
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In 2008, De Pedis' mistress said he was involved in Emanuela's kidnapping and that the girl was buried under the foundation of a house outside of Rome. Investigators searched that house but found that the concrete foundation was poured the year before the girl's disappearance and could not have been connected to the crime. The Vatican has distanced itself from the Orlandi controversy.<br />
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In a three-page letter broadcast on RAI television, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said he asked Vatican cardinals whether the Vatican's failure to collaborate in the original kidnapping probe was "normal and justifiable affirmation of Vatican sovereignty, or if in fact circumstances were withheld that might have helped clear something up." The Vatican cooperated immediately with the exhumation.<br />
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After opening the tomb Monday, investigators found De Pedis' body so well preserved that scientific police were able to confirm his identity through fingerprints. Also inside the crypt were the boxes of bones, according to investigators on the scene. The church has been used for burials for two centuries. Still, all of the bones will be tested to determine whether they are tied to De Pedis or to Emanuela's disappearance. De Pedis will not be reburied in the church, the Vatican said. De Pedis family lawyer Lorenzo Radogna said the remains will either be cremated or reinterred in a public cemetery in Rome.<br />
<br /></div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-61783831726598413032012-05-11T21:40:00.001-07:002012-05-11T21:40:15.130-07:00America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On Tuesday, April 24th, 2012, the nation’s top soldier, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General Martin Dempsey, initiated a truly seminal message. He finally generated the long-overdue, mandatory edict that all training and educational materials throughout the U.S. military must be immediately reviewed within one month’s time to ensure that no anti-Muslim or anti-Islam references or content remain. Henceforth, officers and enlisted members will no longer be taught and institutionally indoctrinated that “the United States is at war with Islam and we ought to just recognize that.”<br />
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According to reports, this unprecedented top-down review is the result of a belated discovery at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) in Norfolk, VA. In the elective class “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism,” officers from all four branches of the military were indoctrinated with vile Islamophobic programs masquerading as “anti-terrorist” education. In June 2007, Islamophobic extremist and shady Lebanese fundamentalist Christian, Brigitte Gabriel, delivered a lecture before the JFSC where she stated that there is no such thing as a “moderate Muslim” and that “America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam.” According to reports, this lecture was presented “as part of the school’s Islam elective.” It is worth noting that Gabriel is a Southern Lebanese Maronite Christian expat and speaker with the pro-Israeli Likudnik Hasbara Fellowships, who has for decades made a career of grossly oversimplifying the contradictions inherent in Middle Eastern affairs as a problem of good people dominated by a monolithic Muslim threat.<br />
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In February 2008, self-proclaimed “ex-terrorist,” “ex-Muslim,” fundamentalist Christian minstrels Walid Shoebat, Zachariah Anani, and Kamal Saleem were paid $13,000 to speak before the 50th Annual Academy Assembly at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, CO on the topic of “Dismantling Terrorism: Developing Actionable Solutions for Today’s Plague of Violence.” At this USAFA conference, as confirmed by many eye witness accounts, Walid Shoebat disgustingly stated “We have to kill Islam.”<br />
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Like Brigitte Gabriel, these bigoted stooges have made lucrative careers for themselves by peddling over-the-top, pathologically prejudiced perspectives on understanding the Muslim and Arab world while selling their own fabricated histories as “reformed” terrorist caricatures. Amazingly, they all claim to have abandoned Islam and embraced fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity. To call this heinous crew of dubious characters “con-artists” would be far too kind. Our civil rights foundation, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which represents approximately 10% of all Muslim American service members, responded by demanding equal time to counter these transparent frauds. This ultimatum resulted in speaking appearances at USAFA for MRFF Advisory Board Member and renowned Islam Scholar Reza Aslan, MRFF Board member and former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and myself, MRFF founder and President Mikey Weinstein.<br />
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What JCS Chairman Gen. Dempsey seeks to investigate is a heinous curriculum of systemic, anti-Muslim hatred that has warped the cultural competence of United Staes service members, leading to grim results in combat theaters within which the U.S. has been engaged since 9/11. In 2012 alone there have been reports of bodies being urinated on by U.S. Marines, the proud and brazen display of the Nazi Waffen-SS banner by U.S. Marines, soldiers posing with corpses, and most insultingly, the burning of copies of the Qur’an at Bagram Air Field. Most recently, the Beaufort, South Carolina-based Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 122 (VMFA-122) renamed themselves the “Crusaders” (a phrase which literally means “taking up the cross”) and adopted the iconography of the crusading, medieval Knights Templar. In a poor, strife-ridden nation such as Afghanistan, people have little to hold on to beyond strong familial and tribal bonds and a firm sense of national, ethnic, cultural and religious dignity. Sadly, racist and dehumanizing indoctrination by America’s own war machine has transformed all too many American war fighters into arrogant, marauding crusaders.<br />
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The long-overdue review of the appalling Islamophobic materials used to train our servicemen and servicewomen is a classic case of the proverbial closing of the barn door long after the farm animals have left. President Obama’s surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 1, 2012 starkly illustrated this fact. The ink had barely dried on the Strategic Partnership Agreement signed by himself and Afghan President Hamid Karzai before car bombs and gunfire rattled Kabul in a daring Taliban attack centered on the high-security Green Village compound. The faux triumphalism of Obama’s visit, meant to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the killing of archfiend Osama Bin Laden, was meant to prop up the illusion of impending “victory” in strife-torn Afghanistan. The foreboding warning of Rudyard Kipling presciently echoes through history and seemingly confounds present American efforts as it damned all others heretofore; “Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.”<br />
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Any casual observer with even a rudimentary understanding of modern military history understands how the Commander-in-Chief’s Kabul pep talk is in stark opposition with the gritty combat reality on the ground. Insurgent Taliban forces, in addition to wearing down the U.S. military in a steady process of attrition, are flat out winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Additionally, attacks on U.S./NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel by allied Afghan soldiers and police officers have been consistently on the rise despite deliberate and pernicious underreporting by NATO officials, with the deaths of 19 ISAF service members this year alone due to “fratricide-murder incidents”. In hindsight, the Department of Defense-sanctioned anti-Muslim training programs have proven to be a quintessentially formidable propaganda asset in the Taliban fight against the “Crusading” NATO forces. Indeed, they provide grist for the mill of regional resentment and strain alliances to a breaking point. Far be it from the graceful and idyllic exit strategy fabricated by the Pentagon and championed by Obama just days ago in Kabul, many of us anxiously anticipate an Afghan departure that, at best, will resemble the Soviets’ feckless abandonment of its puppet “allies” in 1988. At worst, the U.S. exit may yet resemble the humiliating, frenetic scramble to evacuate the U.S. embassy during the Fall of Saigon in 1975.<br />
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Notwithstanding the foregoing, the old adage “better late then never” still applies. Those who allowed for these egregious violations of DoD-sponsored Islamophobia to take place must face stern and swift discipline for their complicity in the dissemination of bigoted disinformation that has placed American lives at dire risk. It is too late to regain lost ground on the Afghan war front. By ordering this comprehensive review for “taught hatred,” General Dempsey is signaling that within the Department of Defense he is apparently and allegedly serious about defending Constitutionally-guaranteed American civil rights and values. The General so signals with the easy currency of words. It’s yet to be seen whether these mere words will be followed, as is rarely the case in these “religious” matters at the Pentagon, with the substantive and true coin of the realm; deeds.<br />
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Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein is president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy. He previously served as White House Counsel in the Reagan administration and general counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corp. He is the author of the recently released book, “No Snowflake in an Avalanche: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Its Battle to Defend the Constitution and One Family’s Courageous War Against Religious Extremism in High Places” (2012, Vireo). Source: Alternet<br />
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UPDATE May 10, 2012<br />
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The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) just sent this update after the information from Spencer Ackerman at Wired was released:<br />
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The Military Religious Freedom Foundation ( http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/ ) is disgusted by the shocking revelation that officers from all four branches of the U.S. Military were instructed at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) in Norfolk, VA, that the “option” of waging total war on civilian populations of the Muslim faith in a manner similar to the “historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” should be openly embraced and explored. The suggestion that the norms of international humanitarian law, as enshrined by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, are no longer relevant is a reprehensible and criminal concept that has no place in U.S. military doctrine.<br />
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U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam: WIRED Danger Room, May 10, 2012: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/total-war-islam/<br />
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“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam’...This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”<br />
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Such phrases, as uttered by JFSC faculty member Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, constitute openly genocidal hate speech—the likes of which have led to some of the worst horrors in modern history. What is most troubling, however, is the fact that such abhorrent sentiments were allowed for years to permeate the lecture halls of the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) in Norfolk, VA (see below link for an Op-Ed on Anti-Muslim course content at JFSC, written on 5/08/12 by MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein). MRFF has long been aware of Islamophobic content taught at JFSC, including the use of pathologically bigoted and sectarian figures such as Walid Shoebat and Brigitte Gabriel, who were allowed to pass off their poisonous hatred as “expertise.” In spite of the recent cancellation of such content, as ordered by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. William Dempsey, the gravity of these new revelations makes one wonder how the culture within the U.S. military’s institutes of higher learning could become acclimated to such murderous concepts as the waging of total war against approximately 1.57 billion Muslim men, women, and children around the globe. Such sufficiently advanced incompetence is completely indistinguishable from willful malice.<br />
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MRFF calls on the Pentagon to expeditiously take concrete steps towards purging itself of exceptionalist, Christian supremacist, and sociopathic ideologies that have been allowed to bewitch influential figures within the highest echelons of military leadership. Firm countermeasures must be put in place to prevent the further propagation of criminal tactics and military strategies, as exemplified by the hypothetical destruction of Mecca and Medina (the paramount holy cities of the Muslim faith), and the reduction of Islam “to cult status” at the hands of a global “anti-Islamist” coalition bizarrely envisioned by JFSC faculty member Lt. Col. Dooley. Warped and racist perspectives which fail to distinguish between peaceful, civilian practitioners of religious faiths and the militant extremist adherents thereof must be decisively rooted out of U.S. military culture and academia. MRFF calls for the immediate dismissal of Lt. Col. Dooley, as well as an immediate condemnation, deeply probing investigation, and swift trial by courts-martial of those responsible for allowing content advocating genocide to be used to indoctrinate future leaders within the U.S. armed forces. It is high time that bloodthirsty, amoral, and nation-destroying concepts be stamped out of the educational institutions of our nation’s military, and that the time-honored, lofty traditions of our armed forces be restored to their proper place.<br />
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Pamela Geller and other Islamophobes are offended that the military is reconsidering such training and that Gen. Dempsey found it inappropriate. Geller goes so far as to say that she sees the pulling of this course as “Islamic supremacist groups and their operatives have infiltrated the senior level of DoD, DoS, DoJ. They are disarming our military and law enforcement, and deceiving the American people through their operatives in the media.”<br />
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Geller’s partner (and fellow leader of SIOA which was designated as a hate group by the SPLC), Robert Spencer is also unhappy that the military is re-evaluating its’ training materials, but his real gripe seems to be with the fact that his name has come up as one of those spewing anti-Muslim hatred disguised as scholarship. Spencer finds no problem with the training material (although he says he hasn’t read it) but is angry that Spencer Ackerman made it public. <br />
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And, if anyone has any doubts about the effect such training materials have on those exposed to it, here is a comment under Spencer’s article:<br />
<br />
“They hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit,” the instructor, Army. Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, said in a presentation last July for the course at Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va. The college, for professional military members, teaches midlevel officers and government civilians on subjects related to planning and executing war.<br />
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This is as accurate statement as any ever made about Islam. Muslims refuse to accept any non-Allah made law, explaining why no Muslim should ever be allowed to become a citizen or serve in the military because each such person is required to take - and mean from the heart - an oath to the US Constitution. Muslim hate for everything we stand for is riddled throughout all of their (Muslim) dealings with us infidels”.<br />
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If anyone has “infiltrated” the military and law enforcement it seems to be the Islamophobes, and they are spreading exactly the same message as al Qaeda. For far too long the military and government have relied in many of their training programs on a veritable who’s who of Islamophobes in America to provide innaccurate and biased information. Gen. Dempsey is correct, such training is “totally objectionable”.<br />
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Devon Chaffee discussed today on the ACLU blog why such anti-Muslim rhetoric aids no one but the real enemy - al Qaeda:<br />
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This is why Paul Stockton, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense, had no patience for members of Congress who pressed him to articulate a so-called “Islamist Extremist Threat” at a hearing last December. Instead Secretary Stockton made clear that any articulation of U.S. enemies as Islamic was harmful to U.S. security stating:<br />
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“I’ll make it as clear as I can. We are not at war with Islam. [ ] Al Qaeda would love to convince Muslims around the world that the United States is at war with Islam… That is a prime propaganda tool. And I’m not going to aid and abet that effort to advance their propaganda goals.”<br />
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Given the blatant disconnect between the materials’ teachings about “total war” with Islam and Secretary Stockton’s strategic analysis, we have to ask: what are government agencies doing to reverse the impact of the anti-Muslim disinformation campaign that infiltrated their training? One would think that it would be in the United States’ interest to take immediate and effective action to remediate the counterproductive effects of biased training.<br />
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Yet, yesterday, FBI Director John Mueller defended the FBI’s recent review of its training materials before the House Judiciary Committee. Mueller minimized the scope of the problem and noted the creation of a new screening process. But for hundreds if not thousands of personnel already subjected to the biased training, the damage has already been done and continues to spread because the FBI has refused to withdraw intelligence products that further the same flawed concepts. Still Mueller, like Pentagon officials, has made no reference to whether he will pursue corrective training to counteract the impact of anti-Islam dogma.<br />
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Nor has any agency undertaking the White House-mandated review of training materials yet indicated that it will take steps to hold those responsible for biased trainings to account. In fact, there are some members of Congress urging agencies to get the bias put back into training materials. If there is no accountability, how will the relevant agencies ensure that trainers who were paid government funds only to propagate racial stereotypes aren’t awarded more training contracts in the future? <br />
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As more and more information about the biased trainings is made public, U.S. officials need to acknowledge that pulling the problematic materials is not, on its own, sufficient to repair the damage these trainings have caused. Corrective training and accountability are needed if these damaging past mistakes are to be remediated and avoided going forward.<br />
<br />
Richard Bartholomew also published an article today that neatly lays out the history of how we got into this situation with anti-Muslim training, and provides numerous links to the original sources. He says<br />
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Dempsey ordered a review of teaching materials last month. The story is now being reported widely – it’s even made its way onto the BBC Radio 4 Today programme (with input from Lawrence Kolb of the Center for American Progress - go to 2hr 46m 25s).<br />
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Yesterday, Wired reported on some of the material included in the course:<br />
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…For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.<br />
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…Dooley lays out a possible four-phase war plan to carry out a forced transformation of the Islam religion… International laws protecting civilians in wartime are “no longer relevant,” Dooley continues. And that opens the possibility of applying “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina[‘s] destruction.”<br />
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Improper training on Islam for military and law-enforcement is a subject that has come under increasing scrutiny over the past year and a half: a critical article appeared in the Washington Post in December 2010, and there was a lengthy article in the Washington Monthly in March 2011 which prompted an expression of concern from Joe Lieberman, in his capacity as Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman. A report by the progressive Political Research Associates also appeared in spring 2011, while the summer saw critical pieces on CNN and NPR, as well as an earlier report in Wired. Wired also ran a second piece in October. This year has seen troubling stories involving the NYPD and the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department in Tennessee.<br />
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The latest Wired piece has details of some of the guest lecturers used by Dooley, with links to original sources:<br />
<br />
Shireen Burki declared during the 2008 election that “Obama is bin Laden’s dream candidate.” In her Joint Forces Staff College lecture, she told students that “Islam is an Imperialist/Conquering Religion.” (.pdf)<br />
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Stephen Coughlin…. suggested [link] that al-Qaida helped drive the overthrow of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. It was part of a scheme by Islamists to conquer the world, he added. And Coughlin mocked those who didn’t see this plot as clearly as he did, accusing them of “complexification.”<br />
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…Former FBI employee John Guandolo told the conspiratorial World Net Daily website last year that Obama was only the latest president to fall under the influence of Islamic extremists… Guandolo’s paper, titled “Usual Responses from the Enemy When Presented With the Truth“ (.pdf), was one of hundreds of presentations, documents, videos and web links electronically distributed to the Joint Forces Staff College students. Included in that trove: a paper alleging that “it is a permanent command in Islam for Muslims to hate and despise Jews and Christians“ (.pdf). So was a video lecture from Serge Trifkovic, a former professor who appeared as a defense witness in several trials of Bosnian Serb leaders convicted of war crimes, including the genocide of Muslims. A web link, titled “Watch Before This Is Pulled,” supposedly shows President Obama — the commander-in-chief of the senior officers attending the course — admitting that he’s a Muslim.<br />
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Most of these names are familiar: in 2010, Coughlin took part in an unofficial “Fort Hood Memorial” event alongside Gen “Jerry” Boykin, Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem, and Robert Spencer; Guandolo was the focus of last summer’s NRP piece, which focused on police training in Ohio. In 2009, Trifkovic took part in a “Preserving Western Civilization” conference organised by Dr Michael H. Hart, an astrophysicist who claims that human history should be interpreted by considering differences in racial IQs – I discussed this here.<br />
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America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.<br />
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As an American Muslim who loves America and loves Islam, I can only pray that the voices that are heard are those of people like Gen. Dempsey, and the Elected Representatives & Government Officials Who HAVE Questioned Islamophobia, and not Islamophobic voices like Ret. Gen. Boykin or Pamela Geller and her fellow bigots. The extremist voices on all sides need to be marginalized. As an American Muslim I am fully committed to a war against al Qaeda, but refuse to participate in a war against Islam. In fact, I see a war against Islam as a war against Muslims, myself included.<br />
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After Rep. King’s hearings on Muslims in the military, I said<br />
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Put this sort of accusation together with:<br />
— the possible indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens, <br />
— Halliburton’s push to outfitFEMA and U.S. Army camps or internment/detention centers around the United States, <br />
— the fact that our law enforcement agencies and personnel have been fed a steady diet of anti-Muslim propaganda, <br />
— the fact that many of our elected representatives have expressed anti-Muslim views including the possibility that Muslims are not protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, <br />
— and Rep. Rick Womick’s call to ban Muslims from the military. <br />
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All of these developments taken together are particularly alarming as they might relate to the American Muslim community. <br />
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I am not only concerned but frightened. It is difficult to maintain any sense of humor with all of this going on, but my husband suggested to me that perhaps we don’t need to worry so much about our retirement as the government may be developing an “American Muslim retirement plan”. <br />
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I am certain that I will not be the only one in the American Muslim community who will be watching how all of this plays out to see just how frightened we should be.<br />
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<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
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First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Sam Kass tell the story of the first garden on White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden during World War II. This new garden was planted in the Spring of 2009 with the help of local elementary school children and has yielded a constant supply fresh produce for the First Family and White House events.<br />
<b style="font-size: x-large;">White House Announces 2012 Spring Garden Tours</b><br />
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The White House will open its gardens and grounds to visitors on Saturday, April 21st from 9:00AM to 4:00PM, and on Sunday, April 22nd from 9:00AM to 3:00PM Visitors can view the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, Rose Garden and the South Lawn of the White House. Additionally, the White House Kitchen Garden – the first vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden – will be accessible to tour guests.<br />
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These Garden Tours are free and open to the public; however, a ticket is required for all attendees (including small children). The National Park Service will distribute free, timed tickets at the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion located at 15th and E Streets on each tour day beginning at 8:00AM. Tickets will be distributed -- one ticket per person -- on a first-come, first-served basis.<br />
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<span dir="auto">Victory garden's History</span></h1>
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In March 1917, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lathrop_Pack" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Charles Lathrop Pack">Charles Lathrop Pack</a> organized the National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign. During <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="World War I">World War I</a>, food production had fallen dramatically, especially in Europe, where agricultural labor had been recruited into military service and remaining farms devastated by the conflict. Pack conceived the idea that the supply of food could be greatly increased without the use of land and manpower already engaged in agriculture, and without the significant use of transportation facilities needed for the war effort. The campaign promoted the cultivation of available private and public lands, resulting in over five million gardens<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a></sup> and foodstuff production exceeding $1.2 billion by the end of the war.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-2" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[3]</a></sup></div>
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Amid regular rationing of canned food in Britain, a poster campaign ("Plant more in '44!") encouraged the planting of victory gardens by nearly 20 million Americans. These gardens produced up to 40 percent of all the vegetable produce being consumed nationally.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-3" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a></sup></div>
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It was emphasized to home front urbanites and suburbanites that the produce from their gardens would help to lower the price of vegetables needed by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_War" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="United States Department of War">US War Department</a> to feed the troops, thus saving money that could be spent elsewhere on the military: "Our food is fighting," one US poster read.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-4" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[5]</a></sup></div>
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One major cause of the food shortages was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Japanese American internment">forced interment of Japanese-Americans</a>. According to the California Farm Bureau, Japanese farmers were responsible for 40% of the vegetables grown in California valued at over $40 million annually. Japanese farmers were forced to leave about 200,000 acres of farmland. The land was transferred to European immigrants or Americans from the Dust Bowl region. Being new to the California climate, they were unable to match the production of the experienced Japanese farmers. As a result of this food shortage, policies encouraging victory gardens were implemented.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-5" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[6]</a></sup></div>
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Although at first the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="United States Department of Agriculture">Department of Agriculture</a> objected to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Eleanor Roosevelt">Eleanor Roosevelt</a>'s institution of a victory garden on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="White House">White House</a> grounds, fearing that such a movement would hurt the food industry,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-6" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[7]</a></sup> basic information about gardening appeared in public services booklets distributed by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="United States Department of Agriculture">Department of Agriculture</a>, as well as by<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agribusiness" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Agribusiness">agribusiness</a> corporations such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Harvester" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="International Harvester">International Harvester</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beech-Nut" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Beech-Nut">Beech-Nut</a>. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted. Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.</div>
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WWI-era U.S. victory poster.</div>
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Victory gardens were planted in backyards and on apartment-building rooftops, with the occasional vacant lot "commandeered for the war effort!" and put to use as a cornfield or a squash patch. During World War II, sections of lawn were publicly plowed for plots in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park,_London" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Hyde Park, London">Hyde Park, London</a> to publicize the movement. In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="New York City">New York City</a>, the lawns around vacant<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_(house)" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Riverside (house)">"Riverside"</a> were devoted to victory gardens, as were portions of <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco,_California" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="San Francisco, California">San Francisco's</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Park" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Golden Gate Park">Golden Gate Park</a>.</div>
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In 1946, with the war over, many residents did not plant victory gardens in expectation of greater produce availability. However, shortages remained in the United Kingdom.</div>
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The Fenway Victory Gardens in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Bay_Fens" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Back Bay Fens">Back Bay Fens</a> of <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Massachusetts" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Boston, Massachusetts">Boston, Massachusetts</a> and the Dowling Community Garden in <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis,_Minnesota" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Minneapolis, Minnesota">Minneapolis, Minnesota</a>, remain active as the last surviving public examples from World War II. Most plots in the Fenway Victory Gardens now feature flowers instead of vegetables while the Dowling Community Garden retains its focus on vegetables.</div>
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Since the turn of the 20th to 21st century, there has existed a growing interest in victory gardens. A grassroots campaign promoting such gardens has recently sprung up in the form of new victory gardens in public spaces, victory garden websites and blogs, as well as petitions to both renew a national campaign for the victory garden and to encourage the re-establishment of a victory garden on the White House lawn. In March 2009, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Lady" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="First Lady">First Lady</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Michelle Obama">Michelle Obama</a>, planted an 1,100-square-foot (100 m<sup style="line-height: 1em;">2</sup>) "Kitchen Garden" on the White House lawn, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's, to raise awareness about healthy food.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden#cite_note-7" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[8]</a></sup></div>
</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-17309709636315980192012-05-03T17:13:00.000-07:002012-05-03T17:13:57.170-07:00Massive sinkhole opened up in a residential neighborhood in Florida.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A Windermere-area family has been forced out of their home after a 100-foot diameter sinkhole opened up in their backyard, according to Orange County Fire Rescue. Officials declared the home unsafe after the massive depression opened just feet away from the home's rear sliding glass doors, said Fire Rescue spokeswoman Genevieve Latham.<br />
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The ground inside bowl-shaped hole caved in about 50-feet deep behind a row of houses in the Summerport subdivision off of Winter Garden Vineland Road. The homeowner told officials she was letting her dog out about 7:11 a.m. when she noticed the hole. Emergency personnel are helping the family of six -- two adults and four children -- move their belongings out of the home. No one was injured, officials said.<br />
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Latham said the property owner is now responsible for managing the problem with insurance agents. Nearby homeowners were notified about the risk that the hole could grow and put their homes in danger, Latham said.<br />
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<img alt="That sinking feeling: A massive sinkhole 100-ft across appeared in the backyard of a Florida family's house" class="blkBorder" height="357" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E8CF47000005DC-998_634x357.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
That sinking feeling: A massive sinkhole 100-ft across appeared in the backyard of a Florida family's house</div>
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<img alt="Wake-up call: The home owner said she noticed the sinkhole around 7am when she let the dog out" class="blkBorder" height="473" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E8CF2F000005DC-165_634x473.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Wake-up call: The home owner said she noticed the sinkhole around 7am when she let the dog out</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The hole ends a mere three feet from the family’s two-storey house,</span><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"> </span><a href="http://www.wesh.com/news/30998292/detail.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #003580; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">WESH </span></span></a><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>reported.</span><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">One of the homeowners discovered the pit in their backyard around 7am this morning when they let the dog out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">When the Orange County Fire Department arrived, they told the family to gather as many personal belongings as they could and evacuate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The house was deemed unsafe to live in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">In total, two adults, four children, a cat, and a dog were evacuated.</span></div>
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<img alt="New home: Lou Lambros' four children posed in front of the lake by their house; they had moved in only two months before" class="blkBorder" height="475" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E93D14000005DC-45_634x475.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
New home: Lou Lambros' four children posed in front of the lake by their house; they had moved in only two months before</div>
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<img alt="Deep and wide: The hole measures around 50-ft deep" class="blkBorder" height="381" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E8CF2B000005DC-894_634x381.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Deep and wide: The hole measures around 50-ft deep</div>
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<img alt="Support system: The Lambros family is reportedly staying with friends and relatives while geologists look into the sink hole" class="blkBorder" height="658" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E93D34000005DC-878_634x658.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Support system: The Lambros family is reportedly staying with friends and relatives while geologists look into the sink hole</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">According to </span><a href="http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Sinkhole-50-feet-in-diameter-opens-in-Windermere/-/1637132/12534994/-/r14vu8/-/index.html?hpt=us_bn5" rel="nofollow" style="color: #003580; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">clickorlando.com</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>, the family is relying on help from friends and relatives and are living in temporary housing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Homeowner Lou Lambros told </span><a href="http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2012/5/3/sinkhole_opens_up_ne.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #003580; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bay News 9</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span> that he and his family had only been living in the home for two months.</span><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">‘The ground was just falling into the hole, and the trees were gone,’ he said. ‘It was happening very rapidly, too.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">According to WESH, geological experts are currently evaluating the hole.</span></div>
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<img alt="Investigating: Geologists are trying to determine what exactly caused the cave-in" class="blkBorder" height="330" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E8CF4C000005DC-94_634x330.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Investigating: Geologists are trying to determine what exactly caused the cave-in</div>
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<img alt="Gone in a second: The father told a local news station that the sinkhole spread rapidly and took several trees with it" class="blkBorder" height="425" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E8CF3F000005DC-982_634x425.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Gone in a second: The father told a local news station that the sinkhole spread rapidly and took several trees with it</div>
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THAT SINKING FEELING: WHAT ARE SINKHOES AND HOW TO THEY OCCUR?</h3>
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<img alt="Watch out: Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania are the states most affected by sinkholes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey" class="blkBorder" height="317" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/03/article-2139137-12E9419B000005DC-786_634x317.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="634" /><div class="imageCaption" style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Watch out: Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania are the states most affected by sinkholes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Sinkholes form when the foundation below the surface layer dissolves. This commonly occurs when the rock below is dissolved by ground water. Limestone, carbonate rock, and salt beds are particular vulnerable to erosion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Meanwhile, the top layer of Earth usually stays intact. </span></div>
<div style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">According to the </span><a href="http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthgwsinkholes.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #003580; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">U.S. Geological Survey</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania are the states most affected by sinkholes.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 1.2em;">While they often occur from natural causes, sinkholes can be man-made and caused by human activity. Groundwater pumping and construction are the most likely culprits.</span><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"></span></div>
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</div>
</div>
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Children are among those reportedly killed by what activists say was a missile strike in the Syrian city of Hama. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the United States should create a “safe haven” for the Syrian opposition but stopped short of urging Washington to arm the rebels, suggesting they were not yet organized enough.<br />
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<br />
The potential Republican vice presidential candidate gave a lengthy foreign policy speech that stressed a more active U.S. role in the world but that echoed U.S. President Barack Obama’s positions in some respects, notably on Syria and Iran.<br />
<br />
Rubio had tart words for Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he “might talk tough, but he knows he is weak,” and for China, saying that “for now, it would be foolish to be confident in the idea that China can be counted on to defend and support global economic and political freedom.”<br />
<br />
Speaking at the Brookings Institution think tank, Rubio urged a more muscular U.S. response on Syria, saying others see it as a test of U.S. leadership and will conclude Washington “is no longer a reliable security partner” if it does not step up.<br />
<br />
“The most powerful and influential nation in the world cannot ask smaller, more vulnerable nations to take risks while we stand on the sidelines,” he said. It may have been the worst-timed, and most tin-eared, magazine article in decades.<br />
<br />
“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic — the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,” writer Joan Juliet Buck began her profile of Syria’s first lady in Vogue last year. Amid descriptions of Assad’s “energetic grace” and Christian Laboutin shoes, Buck wrote: “The 35-year-old first lady’s central mission is to change the mind-set of six million Syrians under eighteen, encourage them to engage in what she calls ‘active citizenship.’ ” <br />
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<br />
Well, perhaps. But just as Buck’s profile appeared, Assad’s husband, Bashar al-Assad, began a bloody crackdown on his opponents. Since then, about 9,000 Syrians have been slaughtered by security forces loyal to Assad, Syria’s hereditary president.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, rather than the progressive, arts-loving, British-educated banker of Buck’s telling, Asma al-Assad has emerged as the Marie Antoinette of the Arab Spring. E-mails leaked by Syrian opposition groups last month showed that she was involved in shopping online for jewelry, chandeliers and designer shoes in boutiques in Paris and London while her government’s violent repression was underway.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-56239437576935913272012-04-17T16:04:00.001-07:002012-04-17T16:19:13.621-07:00Syrian forces opened fire on refugee camp killing 3 inside Turkey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Syrian forces have opened fire at a refugee camp inside Turkey injuring at least three people - as a UN brokered peace plan looked doomed to failure.<br />
<br />
A Turkish official said that gunfire targeted a camp near the town of Kilis in the southwestern Gaziantep province, injuring two refugees and a Turkish translator.<br />
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<br />
Turkey immediately summoned the Syrian charge d'affaires and asked that the fire be halted.<br />
<br />
s the first such attack since Turkey began sheltering thousands of refugees last summer. More than 24,000 refugees have crossed from Syria into Turkey.<br />
<br />
At least two more refugees were killed and several wounded in attacks on the Syrian side of the border, officials said.<br />
<br />
The attack on Turkish territory came as a truce plan, devised by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, and due to come into effect on Tuesday, foundered.<br />
<br />
The plan specifies the withdrawal of Syrian forces from residential areas, followed by a ceasefire from both sides, within 48 hours.<br />
<br />
But on Sunday, Syria's Foreign Ministry made fresh demands - insisting they will only withdraw troops after a written guarantee from rebels to lay down their weapons.<br />
<br />
That demand was swiftly rejected by the rebels.<br />
<br />
Riad al-Asaad, Free Syrian Army commander, said he was ready to abide by a the pact, but did not recognise the regime and thus "will not give guarantees" to them.<br />
<br />
Annan's spokesman made no comment on the setback and he has not said what would happen if his deadlines were ignored.<br />
<br />
The envoy was due in Turkey today to visit Syrian refugee camps near the border, a Turkish diplomatic source said.<br />
<br />
Even before the setback, expectations were low that the Bashar al-Assad regime would honour the agreement.<br />
<br />
Russia, an Assad ally that supports the ceasefire plan, may now be the only one able to salvage it.<br />
<br />
A Russian diplomat said that Moscow was working with the Syrian authorities to seek an end to violence and the start of talks with their opponents.<br />
<br />
But Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov stopped short of publicly pressing the government to meet the military withdrawal deadline.<br />
<br />
The rest of the international community, unwilling to contemplate military intervention, has little leverage over Syria.<br />
<br />
However, China, who along with Russia, has provided diplomatic support for Syria, urged the regime to honour the truce.<br />
<br />
"China urges the Syrian government and parties concerned in Syria to seize the important opportunities, to honour their commitment of ceasefire and withdrawal of troops," said foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.<br />
<br />
In recent days, instead of preparing for a withdrawal, regime troops have stepped up shelling attacks on residential areas.<br />
<br />
The shelling has killed dozens of civilians every day in what the opposition have described as a frenzied rush to gain ground.<br />
<br />
Activists said at least 21 people were killed in violence on Sunday.<br />
<br />
"Mortar rounds are falling like rain," said activist Tarek Badrakhan, describing an assault in the central city of Homs on Sunday.<br />
<br />
He spoke via Skype as explosions were heard in the background. The regime is exploiting the truce plan "to kill and commit massacres", he said.<br />
<br />
Annan said that the escalation was "unacceptable" but Syria said its acceptance of the Annan deal last week was misunderstood.<br />
<br />
Instead, Assad's government has suggested it would not be able to withdraw its troops under current conditions.<br />
<br />
In addition to requesting written guarantees from the opposition, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi has made several other demands.<br />
<br />
The Government wants assurances from Annan that Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia - Assad's most active critics - halt "financing and arming of terrorist groups".<br />
<br />
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are said to be creating a multimillion dollar fund to pay rebel fighters.<br />
<br />
Turkey, meanwhile, has floated the idea of creating buffer zones for refugees in Syrian territory, near the Turkish border.<br />
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Many had expected the Assad regime to stall and create new obstacles to a truce because it has little to fear from the international community, said analysts.<br />
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</script><b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document.<br />
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Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-3828420915853037742012-04-12T18:07:00.000-07:002012-04-12T18:07:31.554-07:00Canadian Union warns of huge border security risks due to job cuts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Major job cuts at the Canada Border Services Agency will mean longer wait times at the border and risks to public safety and national security, according to the union that represents employees at the agency.<br />
Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, said 1,026 jobs will be eliminated within three years, and that represents a "direct attack to our national security and public safety."<br />
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"These proposed budget cuts would have a direct and real impact on Canadians and our communities across the country: more child pornography entering the country, more weapons, illegal drugs, will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, and sexual predators and hardened criminals," he said.<br />
<br />
He expressed frustration with the government and said it has been difficult to get information on where specifically in the border agency it intends to cut the positions. The CBSA falls under the public safety department and he accused the government of misleading the public by saying budget cuts won't affect frontline officers.<br />
<br />
Fortin said he was told by the government that 325 jobs on the frontline of border crossings across the country will also be cut, in addition to planned reductions as a result of the March 29 budget.<br />
<br />
Fortin said the intelligence branch of the CBSA is being hard hit, losing 100 positions, but he only knows that because he verified it with the unit itself, not because the government told him. He said later at the press conference that 100 intelligence workers received letters and that the union is "suspecting" all will be cut.<br />
<br />
Over 1,000 get notification letters<br />
Fortin also said that 19 sniffer dog units are being slashed due to the budget reductions.<br />
<br />
"To be blunt, the cuts that are proposed will have very serious consequences to our public security and national security," he said.<br />
<br />
According to Fortin's figures, 410 jobs at CBSA headquarters are on the chopping block and 616 in regions across the country:<br />
<br />
Atlantic: 23 jobs<br />
Greater Toronto Area: 124<br />
Northern Ontario: 37<br />
Pacific: 106<br />
Prairies: 114<br />
Quebec: 118<br />
Southern Ontario: 94<br />
A total of 1,151 members of Fortin's union, which falls under the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), have received notification letters that their jobs could be declared surplus, he said. Not everyone who gets a letter saying their job is "affected" will lose employment.<br />
<br />
A spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews rejected the union's accusations and said the 1, 026 figure that Fortin cited is the number of positions that are "affected," and are not necessarily being cut.<br />
<br />
Julie Carmichael said the Conservatives have increased the number of border agents by 26 per cent since 2006, and that investments have been made to ensure a secure border. She also said that Fortin's claim that 325 border officers will be cut is "patently false."<br />
<br />
"We are now looking at ways to make our border leaner, more efficient and faster for Canadians. We will keep it open to legitimate travel and trade, but it will remain closed to criminals and terrorists," she said in an email.<br />
<br />
Savings are coming from "reducing unnecessary spending and duplication of work" and she gave changes to how often cruise ships are inspected as an example. Currently CBSA inspects them multiple times along their route but in the future, they will be cleared once, at their first point of arrival.<br />
<br />
Union salaries slashed<br />
One of the budget cuts to the CBSA is the salaries of union representives. The agency spends $1 million covering the salaries of employees who work full-time for their union and the Conservatives are putting an end to that practice. Salaries will have to be paid for by the union itself.<br />
<br />
"Fortin is obviously upset that we are cutting the $1 million slush fund for big union bosses," Carmichael said. "Canadians don't believe taxpayer dollars should be used for union salaries – we agree."<br />
<br />
Public Safety says 70 per cent of the savings at CBSA are derived from operational efficiencies.<br />
<br />
Some of the savings are to come from reducing travel expenses, streamlining administrative services, going paperless, using more e-learning programs, and converting consultants hired by CBSA into employees. The agency also plans on using more advanced technology to collect intelligence and to use other law enforcement agencies to save money.<br />
<br />
"By modernizing and improving efficiencies, the CBSA will achieve savings at headquarters while streamlining frontline services," said Carmichael. "The fact is that we are not cutting officers who deal with legitimate trade and travel on the border. We are merely making our border leaner and more efficient."<br />
<br />
NDP MP Brian Masse, his party's international trade critic, said at a news conference in Windsor that the cuts will have consequences on trade, tourism, and safety and security.<br />
<br />
He said he is concerned that Canada's busiest border crossing, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, won't be able to handle the capacity because of the cuts.<br />
<br />
"This should be the first place we invest and not the first place we cut," he said.<br />
<br />
A senior scholar in political studies at the University of Manitoba, Peter St. John, also expressed concern and said any cuts at the border agency will send "the wrong message at the wrong time to the wrong people."<br />
<br />
"A government who's interested in projecting security for this country over our notoriously under-staffed borders…it seems to me, is simply playing with fire," said St. John, who specializes in security, intelligence and terrorism.<br />
<br />
"The kind of people internationally who would pay attention to this message would be terrorists who are trying to attack Canada and other people — for drug or other reasons — who would say, 'Well, it's going to be a much more porous border. They've had a huge cut in their services, we can try to get away with things that normally we wouldn't try to get away with.' "<br />
<br />
Government's cross-border commitment questioned<br />
St. John said the job cuts at the border agency raise questions about the federal government's commitment to making cross-border business and travel safer, while at the same time maintaining Canada's sovereignty and easing the United States' security concerns.<br />
<br />
Canada and the United States have a new security and trade agreement that aims to co-ordinate regulations and make cross-border travel and business easier.<br />
<br />
The federal government wants to save $5.2 billion annually by eliminating upwards of 19,200 federal public service positions across the country.<br />
<br />
PSAC says it was advised on Wednesday that a total of 5,561 of its members in 23 government departments received notices saying their jobs are on the line.<br />
<br />
The CBSA was asked on Wednesday for a breakdown of how many administrative employees and how many frontline employees were given notices that their jobs could be affected by the cuts.<br />
<br />
The agency did not provide the information. A media spokeswoman responded that meetings are being held with employees and union representatives to explain what the budget means for the CBSA's programs and workers.<br />
<br />
"We have developed and implemented plans, training and support tools to assist our employees through this transition," Esme Bailey said in an email.<br />
<br />
Bailey said there will be "little to no impact on front line services for travellers and traders who are crossing our borders."</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-5100200918402333912012-04-08T22:02:00.000-07:002012-04-08T22:02:44.769-07:0025 Dead bodies littered road of northern Nigeria on Easter Sunday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b> Kafanchan, Nigeria</b> -- Dead bodies littered a road in northern Nigeria on Sunday after a massive explosion that an official said killed 25 people and a witness said shattered windows of a nearby church where worshipers were celebrating Easter.<br />
Abubakar Zakari, a spokesman for Nigeria's State Emergency Management Agency, said that -- in addition to the dead -- 13 wounded people were rushed to a hospital for treatment.<br />
The blast occurred in Kaduna, a city located about 230 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Kano, around 8:40 a.m.<br />
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At that time, Sam Amoka said he was inside All Nations Christian Assembly when he heard a loud blast and saw the church's windows break. The bomb itself went off nearby, close to Kaduna's stadium, a bus stop and a spot for street salesmen, Amoka said.<br />
At the bomb site, Amoka said he saw dozens of bodies lying in the road.<br />
The target of the explosion was not immediately clear.<br />
There was another explosion Sunday in the central Nigerian city of Jos about 250 kilometers from Kaduna, said emergency management spokesman Yohanna Audu. Audu said there are no known casualties in that blast.<br />
The bomb went off around 9 p.m. in the busy commercial center of Jos, near a popular drinking spot and school, resident Mike Dishing said. Security officials subsequently cordoned off the area, he added.<br />
There have been numerous instances of violence in recent months in Nigeria, including many targeting Christians.<br />
That includes a car bomb attack last month outside a Catholic church in Jos that left six dead, according to hospital and government officials.<br />
And on Christmas Day, a string of bombings struck churches in several cities.<br />
In his Easter Mass message on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI referenced Nigeria among other African nations.<br />
"To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of all its citizens," the pontiff said.<br />
<br />
<b style="font-weight: bold;"> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b><b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-41766079857814299062012-04-08T10:28:00.000-07:002012-04-08T10:28:44.988-07:00The true History of Easter celebrations around the world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Herbert W Armstrong explains the true pagan origins of Easter on The World Tomorrow program in the early 1980's. If Christ died on the cross on Friday before sunset on Friday and arose Sunday morning, how can you figure 3 days and 3 nights? Now you can understand the true pagan origins of Easter and what the bible actually says about Christ's resurrection which is NOT on Sunday, The truth in your bible will shock you!<br />
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In some countries where Christianity is a state religion, or where the country has large Christian population, Easter is a public holiday. <b>Some European and other countries in the world have also Easter Monday as a public holiday. </b><br />
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<span class="mw-headline" id="United_States_.26_Canada">United States & Canada</span></h3>
In the United States, Easter Sunday is a flag day but has not been a federal and state holiday due to falling on a Sunday, which is already a non working day for federal and state employees. However, nearly every retail store, shopping malls and some restaurants are closed on Easter Sunday. Few banks that are normally open on regular Sundays are closed on Easter. Two days before Easter Sunday, on Good Friday, is a holiday in 12 states. Most private businesses and sectors, as well as financial and stock market, and public schools are closed on Good Friday. Historically, schools have given extended spring breaks of one to two weeks around the Easter holiday, but this practice has been declining in favor of fixed one-week recesses around Washington's Birthday and in late April.<br />
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Many Americans follow the tradition of coloring hard-boiled eggs and giving baskets of candy. The Easter Bunny is a popular legendary anthropomorphic Easter gift-giving character analogous to Santa Claus in American culture. On Easter Monday, the President of the United States holds an annual Easter egg roll on the White House lawn for young children. New York City holds an annual Easter parade on Easter Sunday.<br />
In Canada, both Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are public holidays. In province of Quebec, either Good Friday or Easter Monday (although most companies give both) are statutory holidays. Two days before Easter Sunday, on Good Friday, is a public holiday as well.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"> Scandinavia</span><br />
<b> </b>In Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, both Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are public holidays. It is a holiday for most workers except some shopping malls which keep open for half day. Many businesses give their employees almost a week off called Easter break.<br />
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Along with Christmas celebrations, many Easter traditions ultimately became casualties of the various off-shoots of the Protestant Reformation, being deemed "pagan" or "Popish" (and therefore tainted) by many Puritan movements[citation needed] - although there were some major Reformation Churches and movements (Lutheran, Methodist and Anglican for example), that chose to retain a reasonably full observance of the Church Year and many of its associated traditions. In Lutheran Churches, for example, not only were the days of Holy Week observed, but also Christmas, Easter and Pentecost were observed with three day festivals, including the day itself and the two following.<br />
<br />
Among many other Reformation and counter Counter-Reformation traditions, however, things were a very different, with most Anabaptists, Quakers, Congregational and Presbyterian Puritans, regarding such festivals as an abomination. The Puritan rejection of Easter traditions was (and is) based partly upon their interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 and partly upon a more general belief that if a religious practice or celebration is not actually written in the Old and/or New Testaments of the Christian Bible then that practice/celebration must be a later development and cannot be considered an authentic part of Christian practice or belief - so at best simply unnecessary, at worst actually "sinful".<br />
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Some Christian groups continue to reject the celebration of Easter, due to perceived pagan roots and historical connections to the practices and permissions of the "Roman" Catholic Church. Other "Nonconformist" Christian groups that do still celebrate the event prefer to call it "Resurrection Sunday" or "Resurrection Day",[citation needed] for the same reasons as well as a rejection of secular or commercial aspects of the holiday in the 20th and 21st centuries.<br />
The Jehovah's Witnesses maintain a similar view, observing a yearly commemorative service of the Last Supper and subsequent execution of Christ on the evening of Nisan 14, as they calculate it derived from the lunar Hebrew Calendar. It is commonly referred to by many Witnesses as simply "The Memorial".[citation needed] Jehovah's Witnesses believe that such verses as Luke 22:19-20 and 1 Cor 11:26 constitute a commandment to remember the death of Christ (and not the resurrection, as only the remembrance of the death was observed by early Christians), and they do so on a yearly basis just as Passover is celebrated yearly by the Jews.<br />
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Members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), as part of their historic testimony against times and seasons, do not celebrate or observe Easter or any other Church holidays, believing instead that "every day is the Lord's day", and that elevation of one day above others suggests that it is acceptable to do un-Christian acts on other days. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Quakers were persecuted for this non-observance of Holy Days.<br />
Some Christian groups feel that Easter is something to be regarded with great joy: not marking the day itself, but remembering and rejoicing in the event it commemorates—the miracle of Christ's resurrection. In this spirit, these Christians teach that each day and all Sabbaths should be kept holy, in Christ's teachings. Hebrew-Christian, Sacred Name, and Armstrong movement churches (such as the Living Church of God) usually reject Easter in favor of Nisan 14 observance and celebration of the Christian Passover. This is especially true of Christian groups that celebrate the New Moons or annual High Sabbaths in addition to seventh-day Sabbath. They support this textually with reference to the letter to the Colossians: "Let no one...pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or with regard to a festival or new moon or sabbath. These are shadows of things to come; the reality belongs to Christ." <br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"> In the early Church</span></b><br />
The first Christians, Jewish and Gentile, were certainly aware of the Hebrew calendar (Acts 2:1; 12:3; 20:6; 27:9; 1 Cor 16:8), but there is no direct evidence that they celebrated any specifically Christian annual festivals. Direct evidence for the Easter festival begins to appear in the mid-2nd century. Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referencing Easter is a mid-2nd century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one. Evidence for another kind of annual Christian festival, the commemoration of martyrs, begins to appear at about the same time as evidence for the celebration of Easter.<br />
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But while martyrs' days (usually the individual dates of martyrdom) were celebrated on fixed dates in the local solar calendar, the date of Easter was fixed by means of the local Jewish lunisolar calendar. This is consistent with the celebration of Easter having entered Christianity during its earliest, Jewish period, but does not leave the question free of doubt.<br />
The ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus (b. 380) attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of its custom, "just as many other customs have been established," stating that neither Jesus nor his Apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. Although he describes the details of the Easter celebration as deriving from local custom, he insists the feast itself is universally observed.</div>
VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-13070365157871649162012-04-05T18:48:00.000-07:002012-04-05T19:12:35.323-07:00United Nations urged Syria’s president to end the violent crackdown on protesters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The United Nations Security Council has adopted a presidential statement calling on Syria's government to halt violence and withdraw its forces from cities. Al Jazeera's John Terrett reports from the UN.<br />
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The United Nations secretary-general on Sunday has urged Syria’s president to end the violent crackdown on protesters. This message comes a day after the Arab League announced it was halting the work of its observer mission immediately because of escalating violence.<br />
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Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, said, "This is the decision, after careful consideration among the member states of the League of Arab states. What is important at this time is not the monitoring mission. Monitoring mission may be helpful in assessing the situation. But even before, monitoring mission wasn’t there. The Syrian leadership should take a firm action, decisive action, at this time to stop violence."<br />
<br />
Syrian President Assad is being urged to take immediate steps to bring an end to the violence and abuses, and address the humanitarian crisis.<br />
The call came from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday during a Security Council briefing on the Middle East.<br />
Assad is also being asked to act swiftly in response to the peace proposals put forward by the Joint Special Envoy, Kofi Annan.<br />
Mr. Ban Ki-moon warns that the spiral of violence in Syria could lead the region into uncertainty.<br />
"The Syrian government has failed to fulfill its responsibility to protect its own people, and instead has subjected citizens in several cities to military assault and disproportionate use of force. These shameful operations continue leading both Syria and the region into uncertainty."<br />
The UN Chief has also appealed to the Security Council to unite strongly behind Mr. Annan's peace mission.<br />
He commended Russia and China for their efforts to engage with Syria and the Arab League of Nations in order to resolve the crisis.<br />
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<b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.<br />
<br />
Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-4392811595383509952012-04-01T07:11:00.001-07:002012-04-05T19:07:34.140-07:00Iraqi-American woman Shama al-Awadi beaten to death in California hate crime<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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An Iraqi-American woman who was beaten to death in California hate crime has been buried in Najaf. The killer of Shama al-Awadi is reported to have left a note next to her body, calling her a terrorist and telling her to return to her country. Family members wept uncontrollably by her graveside and her father asked God to exact revenge on those responsible for her death."<br />
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Shaima Alawadi was a 32-year-old stay-at-home mother of five, she was found brutally beaten in the dining room of her rented home last week by her 17-year-old daughter, police said. She died of her wounds on Saturday.<br />
<br />
Local police are investigating the killing as a possible hate crime because of a note found next to Alawadi's unconscious body that threatened the family and was reported to have labeled her a terrorist. An FBI bias crimes squad is assisting.<br />
<br />
Alawadi's death comes at a time of renewed anti-Muslim sentiment nationwide. The number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled to 30 in 2011, according to a recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates for civil rights.<br />
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There was a big jump in hate crimes against Muslims after the September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda, but the number subsided during the middle of the decade of the 2000s.<br />
<br />
Bias crimes are on the rise again, reaching 186 separate offenses in 2010, the highest in five years, the FBI data show.<br />
<br />
"We are considering the hate crime aspect, but we are not labeling it as such," El Cajon Police Lieutenant Mark Coit said. But he could not reveal any details on the status of the case.<br />
<br />
In a sign of how closely the case was being watched, the U.S. State Department expressed condolences for Alawadi's death, and Iraqi government representatives attended the funeral.<br />
<br />
Both law enforcement and Arab and Muslim lobby groups, have stopped short of ruling out other scenarios, and even Alawadi's family was uncertain of what happened.<br />
<br />
"The majority of the family believes that it could be anything," said Nazanin Wahid, a friend who is serving as a spokeswoman for the family. "But the fact that they found a note and that the police said initially that it resonates like a hate crime led them to believe that it could be that."<br />
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Community activists point to a history of violence and intimidation toward the local Muslim community, even as they say they cannot recall ever such a severe crime.<br />
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"Maybe this wasn't a hate crime. But I have cases that are hate crimes," said Besma Coda, Culture Adviser for Chaldean-Middle Eastern Social Services in El Cajon.<br />
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Some of Coda's clients have suffered broken bones and beatings in recent years, she said. One client had to get 10 stitches in his head because of a hate-motivated beating.<br />
<br />
<b>GROWING IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY</b><br />
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Since Alawadi's death, at least two members of El Cajon's Muslim community have reported receiving threatening phone calls, said Sadaf Hane, civil rights director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.<br />
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The Arab community in particular is prone to under-reporting such discrimination because of a distrust of the abuses of authorities, Hane added.<br />
<br />
El Cajon is in the heart of East San Diego County, which is home to the second largest Iraqi community in the United States, behind Detroit. More than half of El Cajon's 100,000 residents are of Middle Eastern descent.<br />
<br />
Like Alawadi's family, some of the city's Arab residents are largely Shi'ite refugees from Iraq who arrived in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s after fleeing their homeland in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's 1980 invasion of Shi'ite neighbor Iran and the long war that followed.<br />
<br />
But the town has seen an even larger surge of Iraqi newcomers since 2008 through a U.S.-funded refugee resettlement program, often joining relatives in the area, said Michael McKay, Deputy Director of Refugee Services at the Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego.<br />
<br />
A friend of Alawadi's family, Sura Alzaidy, told the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper the note found near Alawadi read: "Go back to your own country. You're a terrorist."<br />
<br />
Alawadi and her husband arrived in the United States in 1993 after spending years in a refugee tent camp next to Majed al Hasan, who later became their neighbor in El Cajon.<br />
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The Iraq they fled was terrifying, with secret police torturing and killing perceived enemies of the state, Hasan said. Alawadi, Hasan, and thousands of other Iraqis were eventually granted asylum in the United States, where they mostly settled in the San Diego and Detroit communities.<br />
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"They come from a war-torn country," McKay said. "To think that you're not safe, still, after coming this far is scary."<br />
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<b>HOODIES AND HIJABS</b><br />
<br />
On one recent night, hundreds of mourners stood in front of Alawadi's house in a quiet cul-de-sac nestled in the hills as the sun set, lighting candles for a vigil in her honor.<br />
<br />
The crowd quietly murmured about the case until Alawadi's mother arrived and her cries of sorrow pierced the air, silencing those gathered before wails erupted around her as she walked through the crowd, sobbing and beating her chest.<br />
<br />
Some mourners wore the traditional black cloak and scarf worn by many devout Muslim women. Others wore T-shirts that said "Justice for Shaima Alawadi" above a silhouette of a woman wearing a Muslim headscarf.<br />
<br />
Alawadi wore such a headscarf, and advocates for the Arab and Muslim community have suggested that her scarf may have been a factor in drawing attention to her as a perceived outsider, if indeed her killing was a hate crime.<br />
<br />
"We're not going to cry, if that's what you wanted. We're not going to take off our scarf, if that's what you wanted," Alawadi's eldest daughter, Fatima, said at the vigil, addressing her mother's killer.<br />
<br />
Alawadi was buried in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, roughly 100 miles south of Iraq's capital Baghdad, on Saturday.<br />
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For many in El Cajon, the case has drawn parallels to that of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager shot in Florida last month by a Neighborhood Watch volunteer in a killing that has also drawn outrage because of its racial undertones.<br />
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"My condolences go out to the family of Trayvon," Alawadi's 15-year-old son Muhammed said at the vigil, as tears welled up in his eyes. "My candle goes out to you as well."<br />
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Some activists have begun linking the two cases on social media, spurring a popular #hoodiesandhijabs hashtag on Twitter. Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was killed.<br />
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Students at several college campuses from the University of North Carolina-Asheville to the University of Southern California held "Hoodies and Hijabs" rallies on Thursday.<br />
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The two cases, despite their differences, highlight broader questions of discrimination against black and Muslim communities in America, said Abdulrahman El-Sayed, a fellow at think tank Demos and an epidemiologist at Columbia University.<br />
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As darkness fell in El Cajon at the recent vigil, mourners raised their candles in the air and chanted "We want justice."<br />
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<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
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</script><b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document.<br />
Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-47146082977541679942012-03-24T08:52:00.000-07:002012-04-05T19:10:36.610-07:00Mexico's drug violence into Guatemala's highest murder rates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Mexico's drug violence has found its way into the neighbouring country of Guatemala, which now has one of the highest murder rates in the world, most of them related to drugs.<br />
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Mexican Cartels Spread Violence To Central America</h1>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-width: initial;"><img alt="Soldiers walk past part of a message written in blood at the site of a massacre at a ranch in northern Guatemala on May 16. The message is a warning to Otto Salguero — the owner of the ranch, according to local media. Guatemalan authorities blame the killings on the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas." class="img624" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/05/26/ranch-wall-message_wide.jpg?t=1312426308&s=4" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 624px;" title="Soldiers walk past part of a message written in blood at the site of a massacre at a ranch in northern Guatemala on May 16. The message is a warning to Otto Salguero — the owner of the ranch, according to local media. Guatemalan authorities blame the killings on the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas." width="624" /></span></span><br />
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<b>Soldiers walk past part of a message written in blood at the site of a massacre at a ranch in northern Guatemala on May 16. The message is a warning to Otto Salguero — the owner of the ranch, according to local media. Guatemalan authorities blame the killings on the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas.</b></div>
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text size <a class="normal" href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136690257/mexican-cartels-spread-violence-to-central-america" style="color: #999999; font-weight: bold; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">A</a> <a class="big" href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136690257/mexican-cartels-spread-violence-to-central-america" style="color: #999999; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">A</a> <a class="bigger" href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136690257/mexican-cartels-spread-violence-to-central-america" style="color: #999999; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">A</a></div>
<span class="date" style="font-size: 0.85em; font-style: italic;"><b>May 30, 2011</b></span></div>
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<em>First of a three-part series<span style="color: #333333;">. </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136727186/el-salvador-grapples-with-upswing-in-drug-traffic" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;">Read Part 2</a><span style="color: #333333;"> and </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/01/136829224/el-salvador-fears-ties-between-cartels-street-gangs" style="color: #3366cc; text-decoration: none;">Part 3</a><span style="color: #333333;">.</span></em></div>
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Mexico's drug cartels are carving out new territory in Central America, in some of the poorest and most fragile countries in the hemisphere.</div>
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Mexican gangs are cutting clandestine airstrips in the Guatemalan jungle, laundering money in El Salvador and unloading boatloads of cocaine on the coast of Honduras.</div>
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The World Bank recently warned that narcotics trafficking poses one of the greatest threats to development in the region.</div>
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Drug Trafficking In Central America</h3>
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The volume of drugs passing through Central American countries has risen in recent years. Shipments of cocaine and other drugs originate in Colombia and Venezuela, and travel by sea and air to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and other countries. Overland routes bring the drugs into Mexico and then to the United States.</div>
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<img alt="Map of drug trafficking in Central America" src="http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2011/05/map-drug-traffic-624.gif" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></div>
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Notes</h4>
<b>For more information on drug cartels, see <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/theme/tracking_mexicos_drug_cartels" style="text-decoration: none;">STRATFOR's coverage of the Mexican drug war</a>.</b></div>
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Source: NPR, STRATFOR</div>
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Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe/NPR</div>
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Guatemala is dealing with one of Mexico's most feared cartels: Los Zetas. The Zetas have been blamed for some of the worst massacres in Mexico's bloody drug war. Their presence in Guatemala has been no different.</div>
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<b>Guatemala's Wild West</b></div>
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In the capital of the northern Guatemalan Peten region, the bus station is just a small parking lot in the city's main market. Grimy vans and small buses idle by the curb, spewing clouds of powdery, black soot. Several of the drivers have pistols strapped conspicuously to their belts, and they call out the names of Mexican border posts — destinations for migrants, food smugglers and traveling merchants.</div>
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This is the Guatemalan equivalent of the Wild West — a remote, sparsely-populated area along Mexico's southern flank.</div>
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A local Catholic priest, Father Javier Pla, says in this area, there are few health clinics, schools, police posts or other government services.</div>
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"Eighty percent of the residents in the vast Peten province live off subsistence agriculture," he says, adding that there is little or no help from the government. "The consequence is this: people live poorly, or migrate to the United States, or align themselves with criminal groups in order to get by."</div>
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Investigators work at the site of a massacre at a ranch in northern Guatemala. Most of the 27 people killed were decapitated.</div>
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And over the last three years there's been a new, powerful criminal group offering work — the Zetas.</div>
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<strong>'A Huge Aggression' By The Cartels</strong></div>
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Earlier this month, dozens of heavily armed gunmen, allegedly from the Zetas, stormed a cattle ranch near here. They tied up the ranch staff, beat them and left 27 people dead. Most were decapitated.</div>
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It was the worst massacre in Guatemala since the end of the civil war in 1996.</div>
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In an interview with NPR the day before the massacre, President Alvaro Colom said international drug trafficking gangs are the biggest threat facing Guatemala and the region.</div>
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"Definitely these groups are very strong financially. They're strong in terms of violence. They're strong in how they manipulate authorities," Colom said. "We are doing what we can against them with our limited resources."</div>
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The cartels, with their tens of billions of dollars in revenue each year, have access to machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. They use airplanes, speed boats and even submarines to move cocaine from Colombia into the region. Under attack in Mexico, the Zetas have built their own airstrips in the Guatemalan jungle.</div>
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Colom said some parts of his country near the Mexican border are currently controlled by the cartels. The government is fighting back.</div>
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<img alt="The village of Limon, in the Peten region of northern Guatemala, is a very poor area similar to where the Zetas cartel is grabbing territory. There's no electricity, water is trucked in and people cook over open fires." class="img300 enlarge" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/05/26/limon-peten-guatemala_custom.jpg?t=1312426385&s=2" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; cursor: pointer; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 300px;" title="The village of Limon, in the Peten region of northern Guatemala, is a very poor area similar to where the Zetas cartel is grabbing territory. There's no electricity, water is trucked in and people cook over open fires." width="300" /><br />
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<a alt="Enlarge" class="enlargeicon" href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136690257/mexican-cartels-spread-violence-to-central-america" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://media.npr.org/chrome/news/icon_enlarge.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; clear: left; color: black; display: block; float: left; font-size: 10px; height: 18px; padding-left: 20px; text-decoration: none;" title="Enlarge Image">Enlarge</a><span class="creditwrap" style="display: block; float: right; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right; width: 220px;"><span class="credit">Jason Beaubien</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">NPR</span></span><br />
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The village of Limon, in the Peten region of northern Guatemala, is a very poor area similar to where the Zetas cartel is grabbing territory. There's no electricity, water is trucked in and people cook over open fires.</div>
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"It's a huge aggression. At times our resources are limited, but yes, we are regaining control of our territory," he said.</div>
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The push into Guatemala by the Zetas and other Mexican gangs has coincided with a significant rise in violent crime. Guatemala's murder rate is now twice that of Mexico's. And in neighboring Honduras, which faces a similar problem with drug traffickers, the situation is even worse: Honduras now has the highest homicide rate in the hemisphere.</div>
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<strong>Exploiting A Vacuum</strong></div>
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Drug smuggling in Central America is nothing new. What has changed recently is the volume of drugs and the levels of violence.</div>
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"Before 2008, the violent incidents related to drug trafficking weren't as common as they've become in the last three years," says Julie Lopez, a Guatemalan writer and researcher who recently wrote a report for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington titled "<a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/Lopez.Guatemala.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">Guatemala's Crossroads</a>."</div>
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The report chronicles how Guatemala's state security apparatus broke down in the years after the 1996 peace accords — a period in which the army was cut by two-thirds and a new national police force was still in its infancy.</div>
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More In The Series</h3>
<div class="bucketwrap internallink insettwocolumnminiteaser inset2col " id="res136818655" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://media.npr.org/chrome/news/hrule_single_dotted.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; clear: left; color: #666666; float: none; font-size: 11px; height: 101px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto;">
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136727186/el-salvador-grapples-with-upswing-in-drug-traffic" id="featuredStackSquareImage136727186" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Members of the Salvadoran police squad "The Hawks" search suspected gang members in San Salvador." class="img90" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/05/27/san-salvador-the-hawks_sq.jpg?t=1312425123&s=11" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Members of the Salvadoran police squad "The Hawks" search suspected gang members in San Salvador." /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136727186/el-salvador-grapples-with-upswing-in-drug-traffic" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">PART 2: El Salvador Grapples With Upswing In Drug Traffic</a></h3>
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The Mexican cartels expanding into the country are a "very powerful enemy," the president says.</div>
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<div class="bucketwrap internallink insettwocolumnminiteaser inset2col " id="res136850699" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://media.npr.org/chrome/news/hrule_single_dotted.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; clear: left; color: #666666; float: none; font-size: 11px; height: 101px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto;">
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/01/136829224/el-salvador-fears-ties-between-cartels-street-gangs" id="featuredStackSquareImage136829224" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Barrio La Victoria Ciudad Delgado in San Salvador, El Salvador, is controlled by the Mara Salvatrucha gang. A gang leader says he sees the group as a social organization — one that provides services, like water, and protects "civilians."" class="img90" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/05/31/barrio-la-victoria-san-salvador_sq.jpg?t=1312426604&s=11" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Barrio La Victoria Ciudad Delgado in San Salvador, El Salvador, is controlled by the Mara Salvatrucha gang. A gang leader says he sees the group as a social organization — one that provides services, like water, and protects "civilians."" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/01/136829224/el-salvador-fears-ties-between-cartels-street-gangs" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">PART 3: El Salvador Fears Ties Between Cartels, Street Gangs</a></h3>
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As Mexican drug cartels move south, there's concern that they're linking up with local gangs.</div>
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/02/136858037/in-el-salvador-gang-leaders-who-believe-theyre-social-workers" id="featuredStackSquareImage136858037" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Gang graffiti in San Salvador's La Victoria neighborhood." class="img90" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/06/01/mara-salvatrucha-graffiti_sq.jpg?t=1306951197&s=11" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Gang graffiti in San Salvador's La Victoria neighborhood." /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/02/136858037/in-el-salvador-gang-leaders-who-believe-theyre-social-workers" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">TWO-WAY BLOG: In El Salvador: Gang Leaders Who Say They're Social Workers</a></h3>
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A behind-the-scenes conversation with NPR's Jason Beaubien about his series on drug trafficking.</div>
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Organized crime rushed in to exploit the security vacuum.</div>
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Lopez says Guatemala still isn't in a position to confront the international drug gangs.</div>
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"You have, in some areas, some policemen with 9 mm guns that maybe work, or not, having to face drug traffickers with AK-47s and grenade launchers," she says. "It's a lot to ask of a policeman who doesn't have any means of protecting himself."</div>
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But the problem in Guatemala isn't just whether or not the police have sufficient fire power.</div>
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<strong>A Recipe For Guatemala's Collapse?</strong></div>
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Fernando Giron Soto, a security analyst at the Myrna Mack Foundation in Guatemala City, says the problem is that drug trafficking money has permeated Guatemalan society. It corrupts government officials and it flows directly or indirectly into the coffers of the business elite.</div>
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"An economy as small as Guatemala's does not support the quantity of banks we have here, nor could it support them, given the difficult economic situation facing this country," he says.</div>
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More than half of Guatemala's workforce toils in the informal economy — selling goods on the street, doing manual labor for $10 or less a day. And at the other end of the economic spectrum, those in the small upper class drive German sports cars and avoid paying most taxes. Even by Latin American standards, income distribution in Guatemala remains dramatically skewed in favor of the rich.</div>
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Giron and others warn that the volatile mix of a weak state, powerful drug traffickers, lots of weapons and intractable poverty could cause the country to collapse.</div>
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"Unless the elites take seriously the question of this country's survival, we run the risk of becoming something — not exactly equal — but something similar to Haiti," Giron says.</div>
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<img alt="The town of Flores in northern Guatemala is packed with small hotels and is a hub for tourists who come to visit Mayan ruins. But the tourism industry in Guatemala has been hard hit by cancellations in response to the drug violence." class="img300 enlarge" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2011/05/26/flores-guatemala_wide.jpg?t=1312426367&s=2" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; cursor: pointer; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 300px;" title="The town of Flores in northern Guatemala is packed with small hotels and is a hub for tourists who come to visit Mayan ruins. But the tourism industry in Guatemala has been hard hit by cancellations in response to the drug violence." width="300" /><br />
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<a alt="Enlarge" class="enlargeicon" href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136690257/mexican-cartels-spread-violence-to-central-america" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://media.npr.org/chrome/news/icon_enlarge.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; clear: left; color: black; display: block; float: left; font-size: 10px; height: 18px; padding-left: 20px; text-decoration: none;" title="Enlarge Image">Enlarge</a><span class="creditwrap" style="display: block; float: right; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right; width: 220px;"><span class="credit">Jason Beaubien</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">NPR</span></span><br />
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The town of Flores in northern Guatemala is packed with small hotels and is a hub for tourists who come to visit Mayan ruins. But the tourism industry in Guatemala has been hard hit by cancellations in response to the drug violence.</div>
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<strong>Tourism, Business Effects</strong></div>
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The impact of the narcotics trade is felt throughout this small country.</div>
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Drug-fueled violence and corruption discourage new business investment. The government is forced to expend resources and money chasing gunmen from the latest massacre.</div>
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And Guatemala's fragile tourism industry loses customers.</div>
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"Besides all this ugly stuff about drug trafficking, this is a safe place," says Anselmo Galicia, a tour operator in the northern city of Flores.</div>
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Galicia takes American and European tourists on trips to the Mayan pyramids at Tikal and on treks in the jungle. He's never heard of a single tourist getting caught up in the narcotics violence, yet news reports of bloody drug gang shootouts, he says, drive away foreign visitors.</div>
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Galicia recounts being in the travel agency office just after word got out of an hours-long clash in Peten between a convoy of Zetas and the police.</div>
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"And after that event, they canceled all the reservations," leaving only three or four remaining, he says. That was at just one travel agency — he says the loss in revenue for the region was huge.</div>
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President Colom says there's no way Guatemala can tackle this problem on its own. The best solution, he says bluntly, would be for U.S. consumers to stop buying cocaine.</div>
</div>
<br />
<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
<script src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?deepLinkEmbedCode=dmaDJ5OqP3ZIEnxu-v980LVMcIBNXiWg%2C02MXB3MjrfNFy-dGzi_l1vtsO6dF--J1&browserPlacement=right250px&video_pcode=twZWQ6S37y9LvtgiLHQv56JeyH7s&height=330&width=600&embedCode=dmaDJ5OqP3ZIEnxu-v980LVMcIBNXiWg">
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</script><b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve. Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-555262443289671642012-03-16T20:24:00.002-07:002012-03-24T08:52:52.356-07:00International Criminal Court issue warrant for Sudan's Minister Raheem Muhammad Hussein<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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For the first time since making a controversial ruling compelling the government to arrest Sudan President Omar Al Bashir if he comes to Kenya, High Court Judge justice Nicholas Ombija has exclusively spoken to Citizen TV, saying he had no apologies to make over the verdict. The Kenya government, through Attorney General Professor Githu Muigai has since appealed Justice Ombija's ruling, but the high court judge maintains that international criminal law did not grant anyone immunity from arrest to face crimes against humanity accusations. Hussein Mohamed with more, including reports that the International Criminal Court has now referred Kenya to the United Nation's Security Council for failing to arrest Bashir when he visited the country last year.<br />
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"What you see is a constant drip of fear," testified Clooney, who just returned from a trip to Sudan. "We found children filled with shrapnel, including a 9-year-old boy who had both of his hands blown off." This month the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Hussein, listing 41 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. Al-Bashir and Harun are also facing war crimes charges involving Darfur. Clooney is co-founder of the Satellite Sentinel Project, which uses satellite imagery to watch for aerial attacks and troop movements in Sudan and South Sudan, which became a separate country last year.<br />
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March 15, 2012 (JUBA) — A United Nations special envoy on Thursday warned of the possibility of “large scale humanitarian crisis” in the word’s newest nation, unless resources are mobilized to ensure protection and safety of children returning from neighboring north.<br />
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Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) on Children and Armed Conflict said UN humanitarian partners are deeply concerned about the numbers of returnees, anticipated to drastically increase in the next few weeks.<br />
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“The international community must be on alert for the possibility of a large scale humanitarian crisis and resources should be mobilized to ensure that children returning from Sudan are given the proper care and protection,” she said.<br />
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Currently on a South Sudan visit as part of follow-on signing of the action plan between the UN and the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA), Coomaraswamy also held talks with President Salva Kiir, at which the latter re-affirmed the army’s commitment to release all children from their ranks.<br />
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The SRSG on children and armed conflict, on Wednesday, visited Renk in Upper Nile state to obtain first hand assessment on the status of returnee children from Sudan to South Sudan. While in Renk, she reportedly met with the local commander of the SPLA and reinforced the message of the revised action plan, which was signed in Juba on Monday.<br />
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During her visit to Jonglei state, Coomaraswamy decried the high level of child abductions in the region, which she said was fuelling the conflict between Lou Neur and Murle communities.<br />
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“It is important that the best interest of the child is at the heart of any reconciliation,” she told local leaders, UN partners and representatives from non-governmental organizations.<br />
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Coomaraswamy urged South Sudan government to take education as a priority in the new austerity budget, which was introduced in the wake of the current oil crisis.<br />
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“For this new nation to flourish, it is essential that education is made a priority, even with an austerity budget,” she said, while emphasizing the importance of effective social programmes that will prevent children from being lured into armed militias.<br />
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The Oscar-winning actor George Clooney was arrested this morning, after he and supporters, including congressmen stepped onto the grounds of the Sudanese embassy in Washington D.C. Clooney's publicist Stan Rosenfield tells TMZ, "They were protesting the violence committed by the government of Sudan on its own innocent men, women and children. They were demanding they allow humanitarian aid into the country before it becomes the largest humanitarian crisis in the world."<br />
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Sources connected with George tell us he feels good about the arrest because it puts the spotlight on the crisis. Moments before the arrest, George was mobbed by reporters (below) -- claiming, he was protesting to raise awareness about the "Sudanese government committing atrocities on their own people." The arrested protesters included congressmen, human rights activists and faith leaders. "We are here really to ask two very simple questions," Clooney said moments before his arrest. "The first question is something immediate -- and immediately, we need humanitarian aid to be allowed into the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world." The second thing, he said, "is for the government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children. Stop raping them and stop starving them. That's all we ask."<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ltkxU-UFsRY" width="420"></iframe><br />
Protesters had begun gathering in the street before the protest began and converged on the Embassy once Clooney and the others arrived, holding signs reading "Stop Bombing Civilians Now!" and "End the silence stop the violence." Those arrested included United to End Genocide President Tom Andrews; Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern, Al Green, Jim Moran and John Olver; Martin Luther King III; and NAACP President Ben Jealous. CNN iReporter films Clooney arrest Jealous directed a message to the Sudanese president: "This is what beginning of the end looks like."<br />
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<br />
"We are protesting to make sure the Sudanese government knows that the world is watching," McGovern said. "The United States Congress is watching. And we will be back again and again until they stop using food as a weapon; stop slaughtering innocent men, women and children; and stop spitting in the face of the world community." After speeches by several of the protest leaders, a police officer told the group she was giving them a third warning, after which they would be arrested.<br />
<br />
A few moments later, the arrests began. The group stood calmly as they waited for the police to apply plastic handcuffs as the crowd of protesters chanted "al-Bashir to the ICC," referring to the International Criminal Court, where Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted. Clooney was charged with disorderly crossing of a police line, a misdemeanor, Secret Service spokesman Max Millien said. The Secret Service is responsible for security at foreign diplomatic missions in Washington. He paid a $100 fine, choosing to forfeit that money to avoid a court appearance, said Gwendolyn Crump, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department.<br />
<br />
Clooney met with President Obama on Thursday to discuss his concerns about Sudan. He testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week about violence in the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, a state in Sudan near its border with newly independent South Sudan. Clooney and other activists blame the Sudanese government for attacks there that have injured and killed civilians. Clooney told the Senate committee that the attacks are being orchestrated by Sudan's government, led by al-Bashir, government official Ahmad Harun and Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein -- the same three men, he said, who orchestrated long-documented attacks in Darfur.<br />
<br />
<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
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</script><b> What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras. Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting? It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox. اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला قتل أسامة بن لادن Oussama Ben Laden tué Osama Bin Laden getötet Usama bin Ladin dödas<b> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.<br />
<br />
Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants. The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-71926835161178766832012-03-11T18:29:00.001-07:002012-03-24T08:53:40.121-07:00US soldier’s slaughter 16 Afghan civilians in bloody incident<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
President Barack Obama on Sunday condemned the alleged slaughter of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier as "tragic and shocking" and assured Afghan President Hamid Karzai by telephone that the United States will "hold fully accountable anyone responsible" as the bloody incident plunged already deteriorating ties into a fresh crisis.<br />
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The Taliban called U.S. forces "sick-minded American savages," warning in an online statement that the group would mete out punishment for the "barbaric actions." "We strongly request the government of America to punish this wild act and have a public trial in front of the people of Afghanistan," lawmakers said in a statement Monday. Afghan troops spotted the soldier leaving his combat outpost around 3 a.m. Sunday and notified their American counterparts, according to the NATO-led force. The U.S. military did an immediate headcount, found the soldier was missing and dispatched a patrol to go look for him. The patrol met him as he returned and took him into custody.<br />
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Obama called Karzai, who denounced the reported shooting rampage as an unforgivable "assassination," to make clear "his Administration's commitment to establish the facts as quickly as possible and to hold fully accountable anyone responsible," the White House said in a statement.<br />
<br />
Obama expressed "his shock and sadness" to Karzai at the incident, which news reports said left mostly women and children among the dead, and "reaffirmed our deep respect for the Afghan people and the bonds between our two countries," the White House said.<br />
Ahead of the call, Obama received a briefing on the incident from top aides including National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, and Special Assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan Doug Lute, according to National Security Council deputy spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.<br />
Obama also issued a public statement saying he was "deeply saddened" by the reports and throwing his full support behind promises from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General John Allen, who commands NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, for a full investigation. Allen said in a statement that the US service member alleged to have carried out the attack was in custody.<br />
<br />
The Associated Press reported that the suspect was from Fort Lewis, Wash.<br />
"This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan. I fully support Secretary Panetta's and General Allen's commitment to get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible," Obama said.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Taliban vow revenge for U.S. soldier's shooting rampage</span></b><br />
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The Afghan Taliban vowed Monday to exact revenge for the killing of 16 civilians, allegedly by an American soldier who went on a house-to-house shooting rampage Sunday in two villages near his base.<br />
Afghanistan's parliament, meanwhile, demanded a public trial for the suspect, who is accused of killing nine children, three women and four men.<br />
"We strongly request the government of America to punish this wild act and have a public trial in front of the people of Afghanistan," lawmakers said in a statement Monday.<br />
The Taliban called U.S. forces "sick-minded American savages," warning in an online statement that the group would mete out punishment for the "barbaric actions."<br />
<br />
U.S. officials have expressed shock and sadness over the attack. Afghan leaders have angrily condemned it. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan called the attack an "unforgivable" crime.<br />
People in the area of the killings are angry at both Americans and Afghan security forces, whom they accuse of failing to protect them, villager Muhammad Wali said.<br />
"Villagers were cursing at them," Wali said. He asserted that Afghan security was "here to protect us, but (they) are protecting the Americans only."<br />
"The people in these villages are scared, and we don't know what is going to happen next. ... They saw nothing except the Americans going and killing them in their homes," he said.<br />
The killings could intensify the rage that sparked deadly riots directed at international forces last month over the burning of Qurans by U.S. troops.<br />
The soldier, an Army staff sergeant, turned himself in after shooting the civilians, according to officials from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. He is in U.S. custody as investigators try to establish what motivated him.<br />
"All evidence" indicates the suspect acted alone, an ISAF official said.<br />
He is in his mid-30s and has served several tours in Iraq, but he is on his first deployment to Afghanistan, said a U.S. military official, who asked not to be named talking about an ongoing investigation.<br />
He arrived in Afghanistan in January, the source said.<br />
The suspect is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, a military official said. He worked in force protection at his outpost, and is a conventional army soldier supporting the Green Berets, according to a second military official who asked not to be named because of the investigation.<br />
The probe is now being led by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command. The suspect was moved Monday from the outpost where he served to detention in a larger U.S. location in Afghanistan, said the second official, who declined to name the new location.<br />
The villages were about 1 to 1.5 kilometers away from the combat outpost, the ISAF official said.<br />
The attacker's mental stability and medical history are among "the things the investigators are looking at," said Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for the NATO-led force.<br />
"This was a soldier who had been in the Army some time, had deployed before." Kirby said. "This wasn't his first deployment. But with respect to specific motives, we just can't say right now."<br />
<br />
U.S. President Barack Obama called the killings "tragic and shocking" and offered his condolences to the Afghan people in a phone call to Karzai, the White House said.<br />
"This is not who we are, and the United States is committed to seeing that those responsible are held accountable," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday.<br />
But the comments appeared unlikely to soothe the outrage among Afghans.<br />
"The Afghan people can withstand a lot of pain," said Prince Ali Seraj, the head of the National Coalition for Dialogue with the Tribes of Afghanistan. "They can withstand collateral damage. They can withstand night raids. But murder is something that they totally abhor, and when that happens, they really want justice."<br />
The killings took place in the district of Panjwai, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's major city, according to Karzai's office. The dead included four men, three women and nine children, it said, while five people were wounded.<br />
"This is a very negative act in relations between the Afghans and the Americans," said a tribal elder in Panjwai who asked not to be named out of fears for his safety. "All Afghans have been hurt by this act and I don't think people will trust the Americans anymore."<br />
"The Americans were telling the local people in Panjwai they should remain in their villages, and that 'we will help you and construct your schools, clinics and roads.' But in return the Americans went in and killed them," the elder said, adding he believes more than one soldier was involved.<br />
The wounded Afghans were being treated in one of the NATO-led force's facilities. The allied command did not give its estimate of casualties.<br />
There were no military operations in the area, either on the ground or in the air, at the time of the incident, according to two senior coalition officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.<br />
Afghan troops spotted the soldier leaving his combat outpost around 3 a.m. Sunday and notified their American counterparts, according to the NATO-led force. The U.S. military did an immediate headcount, found the soldier was missing and dispatched a patrol to go look for him. The patrol met him as he returned and took him into custody.<br />
Obama released a statement saying the U.S. military will work to "get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible."<br />
White House response to shooting spree<br />
He said the attack "does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan."<br />
In a separate statement, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he was "shocked and saddened" by the attack and said the suspect was "clearly acting outside his chain of command."<br />
Kandahar and the surrounding region is the home of the Taliban, and eight of the 69 coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year died in the province.<br />
Kirby said that although the attack Sunday was "very, very tragic," it wasn't "having a major effect across the country with respect to the mission our troops are doing every day."<br />
Taliban link attack to Quran burning<br />
Officials within the Obama administration said the incident also will not derail talks on the role of U.S. troops beyond 2014, when foreign combat troops are scheduled to withdraw.<br />
"This was a horrific and shocking incident," a senior administration official said. "But it does not change the strategic imperative for us to continue implementing our strategy -- defeating al Qaeda and strengthening the Afghan state so that groups like al Qaeda can never find a home there again."<br />
The suspect will not face punishment under the Afghan justice system, said Pentagon spokesman George Little. "The U.S. military has strong means to address wrongdoing," he said. "There is an agreement in place with the government of Afghanistan, so that the investigation -- and when appropriate, prosecution -- will be done through U.S. military channels."<br />
Indications are that the shootings were an "isolated incident," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner, who called it "horrific." The shootings, he said, do not "in any way reflect the values that we share with the Afghan people and our joint resolve to work together."<br />
The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, following al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people. The invasion quickly toppled the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that ruled most of Afghanistan and had allowed al Qaeda to operate from its territory. But the militia soon regrouped and launched an insurgent campaign against the allied forces and a new government led by Karzai.<br />
The No. 1 U.S. target in the conflict, al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, was killed in a commando raid in neighboring Pakistan in May 2011. American and allied combat troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by 2014, and Karzai has been increasingly critical of the allied force.<br />
Tensions ramped up dramatically in February after a group of U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Quran, Islam's holy book, that had been seized from inmates at the American-run prison at Bagram Air Base because they allegedly contained extremist communications.<br />
American officials from Obama down called the burning an accident and apologized for it, but riots left dozens dead, including six American troops. Hundreds more Afghans were wounded.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
<br />
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What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras.<br />
Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting?<br />
It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox.<br />
اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला <br />
قتل أسامة بن لادن<br />
Oussama Ben Laden tué<br />
Osama Bin Laden getötet<br />
Usama bin Ladin dödas<b><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<br />
DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.<br />
<br />
Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants.<br />
The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339434647130551322.post-50532693076372655622012-03-11T07:44:00.000-07:002012-03-11T18:29:58.937-07:00World Government have openly stated a plan to exterminate 6 billion people.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Fed Up with the Fed:</b><br />
While the Fed has recently released an unprecedented amount of information on its activities, there is still much that remains unknown. Predictably, every push towards transparency has been fought tooth and nail. It took disclosure requirements enacted within the Dodd-Frank Act to get the Fed to provide data on its emergency lending facilities. It took lawsuits filed by Bloomberg and Fox News to provide data on discount window lending during the worst parts of the financial crisis. And it will take further concerted action on the part of Congress, the media, and the public to keep up pressure on the Fed to become and remain transparent.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Transparency is not a panacea, however, as a fully transparent organization is still capable of engaging in all sorts of mischief. Ironically, one of the Fed's more egregious recent actions, adopting an explicit inflation target, was hailed by many as another wonderful example of transparency. Yet if you think about what this 2% inflation target actually is, you realize that it is an explicit policy to devalue the dollar and reduce its purchasing power. And it adds up quickly over time. Two percent annual price inflation means that prices rise 22% within a decade, and nearly 50% within two decades.
It is worse than that, however.<br />
<br />
This explicit 2% target also fails to take into account that whatever measure is used to determine price inflation, be it CPI, core CPI, PCE, etc., will always be chosen with an eye towards underreporting the true rate of inflation and price rises. Pressure will be exerted on those calculating the price indices, so as not to alarm the public when prices begin to accelerate.
Of course, government officials claim that price increases do not affect the average American because they can always substitute hamburger for steak, or have cereal instead of bacon to protect their family budget as prices rise.<br />
<br />
But the American people don't overlook the fact that their quality of life has suffered because of the Federal Reserve and price inflation. What will they substitute when hamburger and cereal go sky high?
The Federal Reserve continues to keep interest rates low in the hopes of boosting lending and consumption. But keeping interest rates at zero discourages saving. Why stick money in a savings account earning 0.05% if it is guaranteed to lose at least 2% every year? The Federal Reserve created the largest debt bubble the world has ever known with these sorts of policies.<br />
<br />
The extended zero interest rate policy only eviscerates thrift and savings—the true building blocks of prosperity. Capital will continue to be depleted, infrastructure will fall into disrepair, and the United States will be a mere shadow of its former self.
It is well past time to end the failed monetary policy that encourages this mistaken preference for cheap money now, rather than real wealth in the long run.<br />
<br />
Transparency and a full audit of the Federal Reserve is a start and something we must continue to pursue. And, if those in power don't have the stomach to bring the Fed out into full daylight, the American people deserve at least the right to conduct their economic transactions in the medium of exchange of their choosing.
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">World Government = Global Death!</span></b><br />
<br />
The elites establishing world government have openly stated a plan to exterminate 6 billion people. The system is not run by people who are just corrupt, it is controlled by blood lusting control freaks who are unspeakably evil<br />
<br />
.
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<span style="background-color: #ebebeb; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Real Shocking Crimes caught on camera: "Warning Graphic."<br />
<script src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?deepLinkEmbedCode=dmaDJ5OqP3ZIEnxu-v980LVMcIBNXiWg%2C02MXB3MjrfNFy-dGzi_l1vtsO6dF--J1&browserPlacement=right250px&video_pcode=twZWQ6S37y9LvtgiLHQv56JeyH7s&height=330&width=600&embedCode=dmaDJ5OqP3ZIEnxu-v980LVMcIBNXiWg">
<br /><div class="fb_like">
</script><b>
What your mainstream media never tell you:</b> </b>Marvel at the al-Jazeera film crew whipping the crowd to hysteria. This is what most UK/american mainstream media do ; get the crowds TO ACT for the cameras.
Ever noticed the STAGED gun shots or in-the-lens chanting?
It's all fake, staged propaganda for the liars at Sky/ITN/BBC?CNN/Fox.
اسامہ بن لادن ہلاکओसामा बिन लादेन को मार डाला
قتل أسامة بن لادن
Oussama Ben Laden tué
Osama Bin Laden getötet
Usama bin Ladin dödas<b>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='600' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/oNeZ75SdYYA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe>
DURBAN, South Africa -- </b>“No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.
Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is "Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention -- Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean 'for'] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants.
The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN's skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.
</div>VesInteLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654448847553272155noreply@blogger.com