general strike in britain, against austerity measures

Public sector workers all across Britain are neither in their offices nor in schools today. Rather, they are on the streets.

In what is expected to be a 24-hour strike, hundreds of thousands of British workers and union members are staging a massive demonstration against proposed changes to the public pension scheme.

Led by four major academic and public service unions, the strike has closed or partially closed two-thirds of public schools and universities in England and Wales. Many museums are also closed, while a large number of airport and seaport workers have joined the picketers at public squares around the nation.

Causing momentary worry, operators at 999 call centers — the UK’s 911 equivalent — have joined the strike, but hundreds of police officers have taken up their spots at the phones. In total, 90 percent of civilian police department workers have joined their union’s rally.

The strike involves the pension portion of the government’s proposed austerity bill which is meant to raise 111 billion pounds. The pension changes would increase the retirement age for public workers from 60 to 66 by 2020 and would require workers to contribute more to their pension funds.
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“Our members are faced with everything they have ever worked for being taken away from them,” Public and Commercial Services Union spokesman Richard Simcox told IBTimes. “This can’t be right, and cannot go unopposed.”

“Asking [educators] to pay even more into a pension for reduced benefits is not the way to attract the most intelligent to teach,” said University and College Union general secretary Sally Hunt.

There was hope that negotiations between union heads and politicians would render the strike unnecessary, but a meeting with Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander angered the unions more than it assuaged them.

“It was disappointing that the meeting proved to be no different to any of the others — it was a farce,” commented Public and Commercial Services Union General Secretary Mark Serwotka.

“This is not a decision that has been taken lightly and it is not [an] action being entered into without proper thought,” Hunt said.

U.S./Pakistan relations continue to sour, over American drone base

US told to vacate Shamsi airbase: Mukhtar

The Defence Ministry Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has said that trust deficit between Pakistan and the United States has increased after the Abbottabad raid on 2nd of May, the US has withheld the payments of Coalition Support Fund (CSF) while Pakistan has asked Washington to vacate the Shamsi airbase.

In an interaction with media persons here on Wednesday, the Defence Minister said it was not only Pakistan which had not been taken into confidence by the United States before raid at the hideout of Osama bin Laden, but key ally United Kingdom was also kept in the dark.

He said the United States has sought some time to shift its equipment from the Shamsi airbase. He said Pakistan is not in a position to enter into war with America but Islamabad will have a review afresh its relationship with Washington.

The Defence Minister said Pakistan was fighting the war against terror through its meagre resources as America has stopped payment of CSF. He said it would be difficult for Pakistan to continue this war for long as it has already suffered immensely in economic terms as well as in the loss of precious lives.

Ch Ahmad Mukhtar said Senator John Kerry was the first American leader to visit Pakistan after May 2 attack and he assured Pakistan that he was ready to give in writing with his blood that there was no danger to Pakistani nuclear assets from the United States. He categorically stated that nuclear assets were completely secure and there is no danger to them from any side.

US Rejects Pakistani Demand to Leave Air Base
 Officials Insist US Will Retain Control Over Shamsi Base

Fresh off of the public demand by Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Mukhar that the United States must immediately vacate the Shamsi Air Base, a small airfield in Pakistani Balochistan which the US has been using for drone attacks, the Obama Administration has officially rejected the demand.

The consequences of this unprecedented stance remain to be seen, but US officials insist that Shamsi is not being vacated, nor will it be vacated, and that the US will rather continue to use the base. If they assume that the Pakistani government will simply let the matter drop or not, they seem intent on occupying the base outside of the Zardari government’s consent.

Pakistani Air Force officials say that the military has already informed the US personnel operating at the base that no security will be provided to them, though the district’s MP insists that there has been no local indication of removal since the government first broached the subject nearly two months ago.

The Shamsi air base has been the source of CIA drone strikes across Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the demand to vacate the base comes amid repeatedly Pakistani demands to stop unilateral drone strikes, which the US has repeatedly refused to do. Other Pakistani military officials say two bases were originally given over to the US, and that the US had already vacated the Jacobabad base some time ago.

athens police go on rampage, greek people fight back

from the greek streets

Amnesty warning on police violence

There are times when words lose their meaning. Strange times, when decrying junta cannot encapsulate quite what is happening: after all, for all their totalitarianism, the military regimes of the seventies could never have reached the sophistication nor the size of yesterday’s urban control operation in Athens. What happened was not the police attacking a demonstration, it was them attacking an entire city – an urbicide of highest order.

We were there, in the metro station-turn-shelter for the thousands in Syntagma square, where riot police had blocked us the light of the entrance and we chanted from the inside, our rage vibrating across its underground walls. We were there, at the west end of Syntagma, where the thugs of the Delta motorcycle police swept across its narrow streets, on Ermou, on Mitropoleos… We were there, chased, beaten by the killers in uniform that were beating and grabbing people in restaurants, dragging them out, smashing anything and everything up.

In times like these, words lose their meaning – but not without some glaring exceptions. Solidarity is one. It was inscribed in the impromptu medical centre in Syntagma. In the faces of the cafe owners, the restaurateurs who gave us shelter. In the will of random people to help those wounded at huge personal risk. In the determination of the thousands who retook Syntagma late in the night.

In times like these, the monster of power turns cannibalistic, scooping cities, thirsting for blood.

In times like these, the monster wants us scared, wounded, crouched into the darkness of the private.

In times like these, staying on the streets becomes literally a struggle of life and death. We will stay put, and we will win this struggle – have no doubt.

here’s an in-depth look at the greek economic crisis, from NBC, 

and this report, from the telegraph, uk:

Athens ablaze as Greece austerity riots continue into the night  (includes video)

Greek police fired teargas and battled masked demonstrators as they attacked the finance ministry on Wednesday after lawmakers passed the first of two austerity bills demanded by international lenders.

Smoke from flash bombs and teargas projectiles thrown by police to drive back the crowd filled the square outside parliament. One group of protesters attacked the nearby finance ministry on Syntagma Square, setting fire to a post office on the ground floor of the building.

Another group tried to set fire to an office block housing a branch of one of Greece’s biggest banks while across the square, the luxury King George Hotel was evacuated.

Inside parliament MPs voted by 155 to 138 to pass a framework bill on a bitterly contested package of tax hikes, spending targets and privatisations agreed as part of an EU/IMF bailout. The result cleared the way for a second vote to pass a separate bill enabling individual budget measures and the creation of a privatisation agency.

see also, greece general strike shuts airport strands travelers

 

japanese power utilities restate commitment to nuclear power

Proposals to end nuclear power generation or ban the construction of new nuclear plants or reactors were submitted to this year’s general shareholder meetings of six major Japanese power suppliers, but none of the proposals was approved. The six firms are Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501>, Tohoku Electric Power Co. <9506>, Chubu Electric Power Co. <9502>, Kansai Electric Power Co. <9503>, Chugoku Electric Power Co. <9504> and Kyushu Electric Power Co. <9508>. The six and four other major power firms held their shareholder meetings Tuesday or Wednesday. This year’s meetings drew keen attention after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami heavily damaged TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in northeastern Japan and led to massive leaks of radioactive materials from the plant. Shareholders focused on the safety of nuclear power plants in the wake of the worst nuclear disaster in Japan. TEPCO’s meeting was attended by a record 9,300 shareholders and lasted for some six hours, the longest on record. Many shareholders demanded that the nuclear power generation be scrapped. Meanwhile, executives of the power firms responded by saying that they are making efforts to ensure safety. from jiji press 

obama strikes back: atf “fast and furious” whistleblower fired

Operation Fast and Furious: The ATF Gunrunning Scandal,

from the houston chronicle

Just last week, Vince Cefalu, a special agent in the ATF for 24 years, was dismissed from his job after helping expose an operation code named “Operation Fast and Furious,” which was designed to purposefully put assault weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartels so they could then be tracked to collect intelligence.

The operation itself is an exhausting series of unbelievable mistakes and lapses of judgment, but the Administration’s response is even more disturbing, as is the subdued media reaction.

atf agent brian terry was killed in a shootout with mexican gangsters. guns the atf deliberately sold to the gang were recovered at the scene, including the weapon which killed agent terry.

According to the written testimony of Supervisory Special Agent Peter Forcelli: “ATF agents assigned to the Phoenix Field Division, with the concurrence of their local chain of command, ‘walked’ guns. ATF agents allowed weapons to be provided to individuals whom they knew would traffic them to members of Mexican drug trafficking organizations.”

The goal was to uncover larger criminal conspiracies across the border. Without informing Mexican authorities, the ATF facilitated over 2,500 assault weapons entering Mexico illegally. The only modern “tracking” method was a rigged-up GPS from Radio Shack that Forcelli took it upon himself to install, since the only other tracking method would be serial numbers on the guns. That device failed.

ATF agent John Dodson, who feared that this operation would cost lives, was told to stand down and “fall in line” by supervisors. Dodson testified to Congress: “Although my instincts made me want to intervene and interdict these weapons, my supervisors directed me and my colleagues not to make any stop or arrest.”

Later, guns sold in this operation were discovered at the scene of a shootout in Arizona in December 2010 in which Customs and Border Protection agent Brian Terry was killed. As Forcelli testified: “To allow a gun to walk is idiotic.… This was a catastrophic disaster.”

Since then, we have learned that this operation had support in Washington and that its tactics were not a secret. Forcelli testified that Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley helped orchestrate the operation and that U.S. Attorney Dennis Burk “agreed with the direction of the case.” E-mails show that Deputy Assistant Director for ATF Field Operations William McMahon was “so excited about Fast and Furious that he received a special briefing on the program in Phoenix.”

Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson actually watched—yes, watched—live video surveillance of the operations from his office in Washington. He and his deputy were briefed weekly on the operation.

President Obama said in a press conference today: “My Attorney General has made clear that he wouldn’t have ordered gun running into Mexico.… That would not be an appropriate step by the ATF.” He then deflected further questions by citing an “ongoing investigation.” Press Secretary Jay Carney had previously said that the President “did not know about or authorize this operation.”

If that’s the case, how could neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder not know about an operation that everyone else at the Department of Justice seemed to be actively involved in, including the Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Attorney and head of the ATF? Melson has finally agreed to testify in the Senate in July, and hopefully that will answer some of those questions.

And it’s about time that Melson was finally authorized by Holder to testify. The Administration’s stonewalling on this subject has been embarrassing. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Senator Chuck Grassley (R–IA) in February that “the allegation described in your January 27 letter—that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico—is false.” We now know that this is not true.

see previous post:

obama sells arms to mexican drug cartel 

greek government sells its citizens into slavery

The vote took place as clashes between police and protesters broke out outside parliament, with the booms of stun grenades and tear gas resonating across the square outside the building.

Riot police fired volleys of tear gas at swarms of young men who were hurling rocks and other debris as well as setting fire to rubbish containers.

Police with truncheons occasionally charged the demonstrators, but pulled back just as quickly.

As stun grenades boomed and flashed, many members of the crowds jeered and booed.

Most of the anti-government protesters who marched to the square stayed clear of the fighting, but they vented their anger at the political establishment with chants and insults.

Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips, reporting from Athens, said: “Right around the center of the city of Athens not just in sytagma square the atmosphere is extremely volatile.

“I think the majority of people who came here were always very peaceful in terms of their intentions and they have tried to spend the day, inspite of the swelling tear gas in front of the parliament building expressing their concern.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Matina Stevis, a Greek journalist, said: “I can almost hear the sighs of relief from the rest of Europe, but this is not good news, it has been an incredibly dramatic day in Athens.”

Stevis said that she was worried that the austerity package is too harsh and unimplementable.

Thousands of Greeks brave police teargas to march against austerity measures

There is a ritual to Greek rallies. They start out quiet, then get rowdy, and then violent. this ritual jumped gear when violence broke out before the rowdy stage as thousands marched against austerity in Athens during a general strike triggered by tomorrow’s parliamentary vote on some of the toughest economic measures in modern Greek history. Witnesses said it began on Filellinon street just after midday.

“Without any provocation riot police began firing off rounds of teargas,” said Fotis Fieris, a student holding a handkerchief to his mouth. “They fired and fired until we had to disperse.”

So ferocious was the volley that soon pungent smoke had wafted down through the alleys of Plaka, the ancient district beneath the Acropolis, sending teary-eyed tourists running for cover. By then, the action had moved to Syntagma Square, site of the Greek parliament and seat of the people’s assembly, the body behind the growing movement of “indignant citizens” that has been the focus of protests for the past month. Within minutes the square resembled a battlezone, plumes of acrid smoke rising from burning rubbish bins as youths in bandanas, hoods and crash helmets lobbed marble slabs, rocks, broken bits of pavement, incendiary devices – anything they could find – at police.

“Our aim,” said Pavlos Antonopoulos, a ponytailed teacher who had marched through Syntagma Square with thousands of trade unionists hours before, “is to demonstrate peacefully.

“If there is violence it may well be deliberately provoked because we have heard that the aim of the government is to clear the square before Wednesday’s vote on the measures. “That’s when we will fight the big battle, when we will try to blockade the parliament, when we will do everything humanly possible to stop parliamentarians voting through the measures.”

A new spirit is stalking Greece. Chaos, too, is also present amid power cuts (engineered by militant trade unionists protesting the partial privatization of the public power corporation), lawlessness and a growing sense that the debt-stricken country is not only headed for economic collapse but social disarray. Increasingly, Greeks fear there is no one to turn to, no leader or moral authority that they can trust. In the absence of hope, solidarity has grown.

Eighteen months after the crisis erupted and barely a year after Athens received €110bn (£99bn) in emergency loans, in exchange for draconian budget cuts and reforms, Greeks are united as never before in the battle against further austerity. Many believe the latest €28bn package of spending cuts, privatisations and tax increases – deemed vital if Greece is to secure further aid from the EU and IMF – will wipe out society’s great connector, the middle class. “After a year of austerity where have we got?” asked Antonopoulos, who in 1990 staged a 25-day hunger strike in an attempt to improve teachers’ rights and standards in schools.

“What have politicians done to earn this debt? We live in a country with no productive base, whose economy is in tatters, which after 30 years as a signed-up member of Europe has no infrastructure to speak of. That’s why we’re now demanding that the government goes, that the debt be written off and that Greece leaves the EU. Otherwise generations will be forced to live under a regime of austerity on the poverty line.”

from the guardian, uk

Kabul Intercontinental hotel under attack

Streets leading to the Intercontinental hotel were blocked. The hotel is situated on a hill overlooking the Afghan capital. The scene was dark as electricity was out at the hotel.

Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel and detonated a vest of explosives. Another police officer, who would not disclose his name, said there were at least two suicide bombers.

Jawid, a guest at the hotel, said he jumped out a one-story window to flee the shooting.

“I was running with my family,” he said. “There was shooting. The restaurant was full with guests.”

Witness Sayed Hussain said he was inside the hotel compound when the attack started.

“I saw five to six men in civilian clothing armed with rifles who started shooting when they entered,” he said, speaking close to the scene. “I lay down on the ground and soon after the police arrived.”

He added that police and the attackers then traded fire for about 10 to 15 minutes before he heard a loud explosion.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to The Associated Press.

Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid in Pakistan and the start of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive.

On June 18, insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms stormed a police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, killing nine.

Late last month, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital, killing six medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing three people.

from the daily telegraph – includes video

more:

Two NATO helicopters fired rockets that killed three gunmen on the rooftop of a besieged Kabul hotel early Wednesday after Afghan police battled insurgents who attacked with suicide bombers, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

The NATO attack appeared to have ended the standoff that lasted more than four hours. The number of casualties was not immediately clear. Afghan officials said there had been four suicide bombers and four gunmen, who all appeared to have been killed. Associated Press reporters on the scene saw at least five bodies removed from the hotel, but could not say whether they were the attackers or their victims.

Flood wall fails at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant

The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station turned to diesel-powered generators Sunday after disconnecting from the main grid because of rising floodwaters.

That move came after water surrounded several buildings when a water-filled floodwall collapsed.

The plant, about 19 miles north of Omaha, remains safe, Omaha Public Power District officials said Sunday afternoon.

Sunday’s event offers even more evidence that the relentlessly rising Missouri River is testing the flood worthiness of an American nuclear power plant like never before. The now-idle plant has become an island. And unlike other plants in the past, Fort Calhoun faces months of flooding.

Floodwater surrounded the nuclear plant’s main electrical transformers after the Aqua Dam, a water-filled tubular levee, collapsed, and power was transferred to emergency diesel generators.

OPPD officials said the transfer was precautionary because of water leaking around the concrete berm surrounding the main transformers.

Plant operators later reconnected to off-site power once all safety checks had been completed.

Water now surrounds the auxiliary and containment buildings, which are designed to handle flooding up to 1,014 feet above sea level. The river is at 1,006.3 feet and isn’t forecast to exceed 1,008 feet.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is monitoring the Missouri River at the plant, which has been shut down since early April for refueling. The Fort Calhoun plant will remain surrounded at least through August as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues dumping unprecedented amounts of water from upstream dams.

The 2,000-foot berm collapsed about 1:25 a.m. Sunday due to “onsite activities,” OPPD officials said. The Aqua Dam provided supplemental flood protection and was not required under NRC regulations.

“We put up the aqua-berm as additional protection,” said OPPD spokesman Mike Jones. “(The plant) is in the same situation it would have been in if the berm had not been added. We’re still within NRC regulations.”

The NRC says its inspectors were at the plant when the berm failed and have confirmed that the flooding has had no impact on the reactor shutdown cooling or the spent fuel pool cooling.

The NRC said there is a separate, earthen berm to protect the electrical switchyard and a concrete barrier surrounding electrical transformers.

Last week, the NRC augmented its inspection staff at Fort Calhoun. In addition to the two resident inspectors, three more inspectors and a branch chief were added to provide around the clock coverage of plant activities.

Australian Scientists hit back amid fresh death threats

Top Australian scientists have united in a new campaign to defend their credibility amid fresh death threats aimed at key climate change scientists.

In an unprecedented move in Canberra today, more than 200 scientists will converge on Parliament House to call on politicians to help stop misinformation in the climate debate. Their concern is that the hysteria has now escalated and is spilling over into attacks on their work and threats to their personal safety.

Anna Maria Arabia is the CEO of the nation’s peak scientific body, FASTS – the Federation of Australian Science and Technological Societies. Ms Arabia, who is launching the ‘Respect the Science’ campaign at Parliament House today, told ABC News Breakfast she had received a fresh death threat only this morning. “We know there have been some very serious death threats in the past, this is completely unacceptable,” she said. “[I had] an email threatening my life. No scientist should ever have to have their life threatened simply for doing the work they need to do.”

Earlier this month, a number of the country’s top climate change scientists, including several at the Australian National University (ANU), were targeted by death threats and reported receiving abusive phone calls for months. ANU was forced to move its scientists to a more secure location and introduced other security measures. Ms Arabia says today’s campaign launch is aimed at restoring public confidence in science, as the hysteria in the climate debate spills over into attacks on all research.

 

huge blob of dead goo found in gulf of mexico; also – sick cleanup workers file lawsuit

from the sarasota herald-tribune

From a distance the toxic goo looks like oil, but up close it smells like rotten eggs and wiggles like jelly. Scientists have no idea what it is or how it wound up in the northern Gulf of Mexico, near Perdido Pass.

Just off the Florida Panhandle coastline, within site of Perdido Key, scientists have discovered an underwater mass of dead sea life that appears to be growing as microscopic algae and bacteria get trapped and die.

Early samples indicate the glob is at least three feet thick and spans two-thirds of a mile parallel to the coast.

No one knows where it came from or where it will go.

Scientists are trying to determine if oil from last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster led to the glob. But tests so far have found no sign of oil.

“It seems to be a combination of algae and bacteria,” said David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer with the University of South Florida, describing the substance as “extraordinarily sticky” and toxic.

While scientists have drawn no conclusions about the gooey mat’s origin, they are not ruling out a potential connection to the oil spill. Oil gummed and slicked that part of the Gulf for 30 to 40 days during the three-month well gusher, which pumped 186 million to 227 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

“We don’t know all the ramifications, the implications of a spill like this,” Hollander said.

He and other scientists plan to return to the glob in a few weeks for more samples. The equipment available on the last cruise was not long enough to reach the bottom of the mat. The bottom sediments could hold important clues about how the glob formed. The scientists also did not have the time or equipment to map out the entire blob.

Gulf oil spill cleanup workers report medical problems; lawsuit filed 

Gary Stewart of Mobile grew up on the water. After the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and the subsequent oil spill, the company he captained a boat for signed on to help with the cleanup. He didn’t know until the day he left for a 28-day assignment that his boat would be spreading a chemical dispersant near the site of the destroyed oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. For more than a month, he says, he worked and lived without a respirator.

Ricky Thrasher of Orange Beach answered an ad on Craigslist and got himself on a shrimping boat that was rounding up oil in the Vessels of Opportunity program. He saw it as a chance to do some good, and make some good money.

“I was out there for six days, and I had to call them to come get me, I was so sick,” Thrasher said. He’s still sick. Among his list of symptoms are as many as 16 bowel movements a day.

Robyn Hill of Foley worked as a greeter of sorts to the tourists on Gulf Shores’ beaches. It was the greatest job, she said. After the oil began coming ashore, the tourists had to share the beach with environmentalists, hazardous materials teams and the media. But her job didn’t change.

“We were still in our shorts and T-shirts, greeting people.”

Until she passed out on the beach one day in June.

They didn’t have much in common before last year. Now Stewart, Thrasher and Hill are unemployed, uninsured, in debt and in pain. They say they can’t work; they can barely function.

They say they used to be healthy. Now they’re not.

They say they had no clue what they were working with and were being exposed to during the oil spill cleanup process.

And they want someone to make it right — to make them right.

The three are now part of a multidistrict litigation filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans. Plaintiffs are asking for compensatory and punitive damages and medical screening and monitoring. Defendants include BP, which owned the oil well and was leasing the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig, and Nalco Co., the company from which BP purchased chemical dispersants to use in the cleanup.

remembering katrina: new orleans cops on trial for sport killings of stranded refugees

New Orleans police department under scrutiny as five officers go to court for 2005 shootings.

from al jazeera 

Five New Orleans police officers accused of killing civilians in the days following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are set to go on trial.

The police, whose trial begins on Monday, originally contended they had come under fire from someone on a bridge and were defending themselves.

Yet no guns were ever found, and the only person charged with attacking the police was cleared of all charges.

After a local judge dismissed the charges against six others, the US Justice Department stepped in and is bringing the officers to trial in a federal court.

But beyond this case, federal authorities say the police department is riddled with deep-rooted flaws.

New Orleans, a city with the highest murder rate in the US, is now struggling to build confidence in the police department it depends on for protection.

Al Jazeera’s Tom Ackerman reports from Louisiana.

more info about this incident, from the fbi’s website:

Six New Orleans Police Officers Indicted in Danziger Bridge Case 

Six officers with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) were charged today in connection with the federal investigation of a police-involved shooting on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department announced today. The incident resulted in the death of two civilians and the wounding of four others.

The indictment charges four officers—Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon, and Anthony Villavaso—in connection with the shootings, and charges those four officers and two supervisors—Arthur “Archie” Kaufman and Gerard Dugue—with helping to obstruct justice during the subsequent investigations.

The indictment alleges that officers Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso open fired on an unarmed family on the east side of the bridge, killing 17-year-old James Brissette and wounding Susan Bartholomew, 38; Leonard Bartholomew, III, 44; the Bartholomews’ daughter, Lesha, 17; and the Bartholomews’ nephew, Jose Holmes, 19. The Bartholomews’ 14-year-old son ran away from the shooting and was fired at, but was not injured.

The second shooting occurred minutes later on the west side of the bridge, where officers shot at brothers Lance and Ronald Madison, killing Ronald, a 40-year-old man with severe mental disabilities. The indictment alleges Faulcon shot Ronald Madison in the back as Ronald ran away. Bowen is charged with stomping and kicking Ronald Madison while Ronald was wounded, but not yet dead. Ronald later died at the scene.

Obama’s support for nuclear power, paid for by Nuclear Energy corp.

Scientific experts believe Japan’s nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public.

In reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe, Germany is phasing out all of its nuclear reactors over the next decade. In a referendum vote this Monday, 95 per cent of Italians voted in favour of blocking a nuclear power revival in their country. A recent newspaper poll in Japan shows nearly three-quarters of respondents favour a phase-out of nuclear power in Japan.

Why have alarms not been sounded about radiation exposure in the US?

Nuclear operator Exelon Corporation has been among Barack Obama’s biggest campaign donors, and is one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was senator. Exelon has donated more than $269,000 to hispolitical campaigns, thus far. Obama also appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

Dr Shoji Sawada is a theoretical particle physicist and Professor Emeritus at Nagoya University in Japan.

He is concerned about the types of nuclear plants in his country, and the fact that most of them are of US design.

“Most of the reactors in Japan were designed by US companies who did not care for the effects of earthquakes,” Dr Sawada told Al Jazeera. “I think this problem applies to all nuclear power stations across Japan.”

Using nuclear power to produce electricity in Japan is a product of the nuclear policy of the US, something Dr Sawada feels is also a large component of the problem.

“Most of the Japanese scientists at that time, the mid-1950s, considered that the technology of nuclear energy was under development or not established enough, and that it was too early to be put to practical use,” he explained. “The Japan Scientists Council recommended the Japanese government not use this technology yet, but the government accepted to use enriched uranium to fuel nuclear power stations, and was thus subjected to US government policy.”

As a 13-year-old, Dr Sawada experienced the US nuclear attack against Japan from his home, situated just 1400 metres from the hypocentre of the Hiroshima bomb.

“I think the Fukushima accident has caused the Japanese people to abandon the myth that nuclear power stations are safe,” he said. “Now the opinions of the Japanese people have rapidly changed. Well beyond half the population believes Japan should move towards natural electricity.”

from, al-jazeera – Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think 

Epidemic: Over 400,000 Traumatic Brain Injuries for Vets Coming from Iraq and Afghanistan

According to official Defense Department (DOD) figures, 332,000 soldiers have suffered brain injuries since 2000, although most independent experts estimate that the number is over 400,000. Many of these are mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI), a term that is profoundly misleading.

As David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California at Los Angeles, points out, “I don’t know what makes it ‘mild,’ because it can evolve into anxiety disorders, personality changes, and depression.” It can also set off a constellation of physical disabilities from chronic pain to sexual dysfunction and insomnia.

MTBI is defined as any incident that produces unconsciousness lasting for up to a half hour or creates an altered state consciousness. It is the signature wound for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where roadside bombs are the principal weapon for insurgents.

Most soldiers recover from mTBI, but between five and 15 percent do not. According to Dr. Elaine Peskind of the University of Washington Medical School, “The estimate of the number who returned with symptomatic mild traumatic brain injury due to blast exposure has varied from the official VA [Veterans Administration] number of 9 percent officially diagnosed with mTBI to over 20 percent, and, I think, ultimately it will be higher than that.”

Serious consequences from mTBI are increased when troops are subjected to multiple explosions and “just get blasted and blasted and blasted,” in the words of Maj. Connie Johnmeyer. Out of two million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 800,000 have had multiple deployments, many up to five times or more.

But mTBI is difficult to diagnose because it does not show up on standard CAT scans and MRIs. “Our scans show nothing,” says Dr. Michael Weiner, professor of radiology, psychiatry and neurology at the University of California at San Francisco and director of the Center for Imaging Neurodegenerative Disease at the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center.

They do now.

An MRI set to track the flow of water through the brain’s neurons, has turned up anomalies that indicate the presence of mTBI. However, the military has blocked informing patients of results of the research, and if history is any guide, the Pentagon will do its best to shelve or ignore the results.

The DOD has long resisted the diagnosis of mTBI, as it has avoided paying for a successful – but expensive – way to treat it. The price of that resistance is escalating suicide rates and domestic violence incidents among returning soldiers. In 2010, almost as many soldiers committed suicide as fell in battle.

MTBI is hardly new. Some 5.3 million people in the U.S. are currently hospitalized or in residential facilities because of it, and its social consequences are severe.

Sixty Die In Bombing Of Afghan Hospital

A deadly car bomb has hit a hospital in Afghanistan’s eastern Logar province.

There is confusion about the number of casualties, with officials saying between 20 and 60 people have died.

The hospital building was destroyed and people buried under rubble. Casualties included women, children and elderly.

The Afghan health ministry said the attack in Azra district was unprecedented. Officials blamed the Taliban, but a Taliban spokesman said they did not target civilians.

The blast was caused by “someone with an agenda”, he said.

‘Burning people’

An earlier suicide attack in Kunduz province killed 10 people the same day. (Photo: Sky News)

An earlier suicide attack in Kunduz province killed 10 people the same day. (Photo: Sky News)

The BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the Taliban is always careful to distance itself from major attacks with large numbers of civilian casualties.

Earlier the health ministry said 60 people had died in Saturday’s attack, but some officials have since lowered that figure.

Authorities in Logar province said the death toll was 45, though officials in Kabul said it could be between 20 and 25.

An intelligence official said the hospital may not have been the intended target, but that the suicide bomber detonated the device when police gave chase to his car.

A large number of people had been gathering at the clinic, for weekly treatment, many of them women, children and elderly people, said provincial official Din Mohammad Darwaish.

Doctors and nurses were also said to be among the dead.

u.s.-led international war on drugs is a major fail at everything except spreading death and ruin

 

 

Private Contractors Making a Killing off the Drug War

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government’s use of contractors, have largely failed,” said U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, chair of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight which released a report on counternarcotics contracts in Latin America this month. “Without adequate oversight and management we are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we’re getting in return.”

Washington doled out $3.1 billion dollars between 2005 and 2009, with spending having increased 32 percent over the five year period. DynCorp International was the big winner, racking in $1.1 billion, or 36 percent of total counternarcotics contract spending in the region by the Defense and State Departments. Other contractors benefiting from the spending include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ITT, and ARINC.

“The federal government does not have any uniform systems in place to track or evaluate whether counternarcotics contracts are achieving their goals,” the report states.

The June 7th Senate Report was released less than a week after an international drug commission declared the “War on Drugs” a failure. The commission included former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chief Paul Volcker, and former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria.

The lack of transparency, oversight and accountability by the Defense and State Departments on counternarcotics contracts was brought to light last year in a May 2010 hearing McCaskill held in which the Defense Department provided incomplete accounting on how “Drug War” money was spent on private contractors. Remarkably, it was revealed that the Defense Department actually outsourced their audit to a private contractor for the hearing. In response, the frustrated Senator said at the time that she “will not hesitate to use subpoenas” in order to obtain accurate information.

This laissez-faire approach Washington takes with private contractors often leads to crimes and human rights abuses in foreign countries. For example, DynCorp, the company Washington has entrusted with a majority of taxpayer-funded counternarcotics dollars, has been mired in scandals over the years, that include: employees allegedly having sex with teenage girls in Bosnia and selling them as sex-slaves; pimping out young “dancing boys” in Afghanistan; and spraying toxic chemicals in Colombia that drifted into Ecuador and is believed to have caused “massive health problems, numerous deaths and widespread environmental damage.”

In response to criticisms, a Pentagon Spokesman told the the L.A Times that counternarcotics efforts “have been among the most successful and cost-effective programs” in decades and that “the U.S. has received ample strategic national security benefits in return for its investments in this area.” Some of these “benefits” might include U.S. military bases in Colombia, a law enforcement academy in El Salvador run by American “trainers” that critics fear could become another “School of the Americas”, and securing commercial access to oil. But one of these benefits definitely does not include significantly curtailing the amount of drugs reaching the United States, as the Rand Corporation’s Peter Chalk recently pointed out in his report on Latin America’s drug trade, an analysis sponsored by the U.S. Air Force.

Clearly the US-led war on drugs is failing as a policy to stop the production and trafficking of drugs. And it’s not as though there are not numerous viable solutions being provided by people across the hemisphere. Javier Sicilia, Mexican poet and leading activist against drug war-related violence in his country, told journalist Laura Carlsen of the Americas Program, “The United States must go back to the drawing board, listen to what citizens are demanding, and the United States should remember, as a democratic country, that sovereignty lies in the citizens, not in government officials.”

Security Conference Vows to Push Drug War into Central America 

This past week was a busy one for the masters of war in Central America.

Presidents and bankers gathered at a high profile meeting on the drug war in Antigua Guatemala from June 21-23, producing a familiar sounding series of commitments to fight organized crime in Central America. The event was rounded out with pledges of almost two billion dollars in foreign aid and loans, much of which will go towards intelligence gathering and training of police forces.

The International Conference in Support of the Central America Security Strategy brought together Central American heads of state, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, Mexico’s Felipe Calderon, and representatives from more than fifty countries, including Israel, Spain, Canada, and South Korea. Also present was Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), as well as representatives from the World Bank, the Organization of American States, the United Nations, and the European Union.

During Wednesday’s proceedings, Clinton clarified the kind of strategy that will be pursued in Central America. “We know from the work that the United States has supported in Colombia and now in Mexico that good leadership, proactive investments, and committed partnerships can turn the tide,” she said.1

That the northern triangle of Central America, comprising Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is the most dangerous area in the world that’s not a war zone has become an oft-cited refrain as mainstream media outlets begin to beat the drums of war. By all indications, the U.S. led solution to this difficult situation is a simple one: bring open war back to Central America.

“We must remember that the war against organized crime and narcotrafficking is an extension of the war on terror, launched by the United States after the fall of the twin towers,” Maximo Ba Tiul, a Mayan Poqomchi analyst and professor explained to Upside Down World. “In Latin America, this must be understood as an extension of the cold war and the doctrine of national security, which were implemented to diminish the struggles of insurgent movements, of social movements, and of guerrilla movements to convert them into political parties and co-opt them into the very system of bourgeois democracy.”

both the above articles are from upside-down world