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Air Force sex-assault chief arrested on sexual battery charges

Police say Lt Col Jeffrey Krusinski faces a charge of sexual battery after allegedly groping a woman in northern Virginia

A police report says the 41-year-old Krusinski was drunk and grabbed a woman’s breast and buttocks. Police say the woman fought him off and called for help.

Air force spokeswoman Natasha Waggoner said Krusinski was removed from his post in the sexual assault unit after the air force learned of his arrest. He had started in the job in February.

Lt Col Jeffrey Krusinski

Lt Col Jeffrey Krusinski: a police report says the 41-year-old was drunk and grabbed a woman’s breast and buttocks. Photograph: Reuters

Pentagon press secretary George Little said the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, had spoken with the air force secretary, Michael Donley, and “expressed outrage and disgust over the troubling allegations and emphasised that this matter will be dealt with swiftly and decisively”.

The spokesman said Hagel had been trying to raise the Pentagon’s focus on sexual assault prevention and response, and would soon announce new steps to address “this vile crime”.

“Sexual assault has no place in the United States military,” Little said. “The American people, including our service members, should expect a culture of absolutely no tolerance for this deplorable behaviour that violates not only the law, but basic principles of respect, honour and dignity in our society and its military. Secretary Hagel is firmly committed to upholding the highest standards of behaviour in America’s armed forces and will take action to see this through.”

An air force website says the “Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program reinforces the air force’s commitment to eliminate incidents of sexual assault through awareness and prevention training, education, victim advocacy, response, reporting and accountability”. - from the guardian, u.k., US air force sexual assault prevention unit chief charged with sexual battery

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel “expressed outrage and disgust over the troubling allegations” in a call with Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley, Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement. Hagel “emphasized that this matter will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.”

The charges are an embarrassment for Hagel, who has promised to crack down on sexual assault in the military.

According to the Air Force’s website, the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program hopes “to eliminate incidents of sexual assault through awareness and prevention training, education, victim advocacy, response, reporting and accountability. The Air Force promotes sensitive care and confidential reporting for victims of sexual assault and accountability for those who commit these crimes.”

The arrest was first reported by ARLnow.com. Air Force officials confirmed Krusinski’s identity to The Times.

The military has struggled with sex abuse scandals for decades. In 2012, more than 30 male Air Force boot camp instructors were accused of sexually harassing, abusing and having sex with at least 59 recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. This year, two three-star Air Force generals have also fallen under criticism for pardoning sex offenders in their ranks. - from the l.a. times, Air Force sex-assault chief arrested on sexual battery charges

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Air Force Brochure Tells Sexual Assault Victims to ‘Submit’

An Air Force brochure on sexual assault advises potential victims not to fight off their attackers.

“It may be advisable to submit [rather] than resist,” reads the brochure (.pdf), issued to airmen at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, where nearly 10,000 military and civilian personnel are assigned. “You have to make this decision based on circumstances. Be especially careful if the attacker has a weapon.”

The brochure, acquired by Danger Room, issues a series of guidances on “risk reduction” for sexual assault. Among others, it advises people under sexual attack in parking lots to “consider rolling underneath a nearby auto and scream loud. It is difficult to force anyone out from under a car.” A public affairs officer at Shaw, Sgt. Alexandria Mosness, says she believes the brochure is current.

While the brochure also explains that sexual assault is not always committed by people who “don’t look like a rapist” — attackers “tend to have hyper-masculine attitudes,” it advises — it does not offer instruction to servicemembers on not committing sexual assault. Prevention is treated as the responsibility of potential victims.

“Rapists look for vulnerability and then exploit it in those who: are young (naive); are new to the base, deployment, area, etc.; are emotionally unstable,” the brochure (.pdf) continues.

All this comes as the Air Force, and the U.S. military more broadly, deals with the fallout of the service’s sexual-assault prevention and response chief, Lt. Col Jeffrey Krusinski, getting arrested on sexual-battery charges on Sunday. During a Senate hearing today, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), grilled Air Force officials on how Krusinski was placed in his post. “His record is very good,” Gen. Mark Welsh III, the Air Force’s chief of staff, said, citing a lack of warning signs in Krusinski’s prior service.

Welsh said he and outgoing Air Force Secretary Michael Donley were “appalled” to hear of Krusinski’s arrest. “We will not quit working this problem,” Welsh continued.

Pages from the brochure were provided to Danger Room by Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group that raises awareness of sexual assault within the military. The organization’s spokesman, Brian Purchia, described it as an example of the military’s myopia about a problem that top leaders like Welsh have sworn to take seriously. - from wired.com blog danger room

THIS PROBLEM CONTINUES TO LINGER, DESPITE ENDLESS NUMBERS OF BROKEN PROMISES. NO END IN SIGHT.

see this, from last year:

AF leaders gather to address sexual assault prevention, response

by Tech. Sgt. Jess D. Harvey
Air Force Public Affairs Agency

4/19/2012 - JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (AFNS) – Air Force leaders from around the globe gathered at the 2012 Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Leader Summit here April 17 and 18 to learn about service-wide SAPR issues and programs.

Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Phil Breedlove both spoke at the event, stressing the importance of dealing with and ultimately eliminating sexual assault within the Air Force.

“Our dedicated men and women selflessly put themselves in harm’s way,” said Breedlove during the first day of the summit. “We owe our Airmen a safe environment where they may continue to focus on defeating our nation’s enemies.”

Breedlove cited a 2010 Gallup survey of a representative sample of Air Force active duty members, which revealed that 19 percent of female Airmen and 2 percent of male Airmen reported being the victim of sexual assault at some point while they have been in the Air Force.

Eighty-one percent of these women said they were sexually assaulted by a fellow military member, as did 50 percent of the men. Among those whose perpetrators were in the military, the large majority said their perpetrator was in the Air Force.

Breedlove said any sexual assault is unacceptable, and that the Gallup survey data should anger every leader in the Air Force. – from the united states air force website

see also, these previous posts:

rape of women in the military, by their fellow soldiers and officers, on the rise

over 50,000 american military women have been sexually assaulted by u.s. soldiers

Sexual violence in the US military is massively under-reported

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homicideGraph

gun violence down in u.s., continuing decades-long decline

deaths due to gun violence and injuries caused by gunshots have been declining in the u.s., according to data released by the department of justice.

in their may 2013 special report, firearm violence, 1993-2011, Michael Planty, Ph.D., and Jennifer L. Truman, Ph.D. present statistics which show that gun violence in 2011 was almost 40% of what it had been in 1993. excerpts below:

gunCrimeGraph

In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm. Homicides made up about 2% of all firearm-related crimes. There were 11,101 firearm homicides in 2011, down by 39% from a high of 18,253 in 1993. The majority of the decline in firearm-related homicides occurred between 1993 and 1998. Since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.
homicideGraphNonfatal firearm-related violent victimizations against persons age 12 or older declined 70%, from 1.5 million in 1993 to 456,500 in 2004. The number then
fluctuated between about 400,000 to 600,000 through 2011.
The primary source of information on firearm-related homicides was obtained from mortality data based on death certificates in the National Vital Statistics System of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). These mortality data include causes of death reported by attending physicians, medical examiners, and coroners, and demographic information about decedents reported by funeral directors who obtain that information from family members and other informants. The NCHS collects, compiles, verifies, and prepares these data for release to the public.
The estimates of nonfatal violent victimization are based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes against persons age 12 or older reported and not reported to the police from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households.
Homicide rates are presented per 100,000 persons and the nonfatal victimization rates are presented per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. Additional information on firearm violence in this report comes from the School-Associated Violent Deaths Surveillance Study (SAVD), the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHR), the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities (SISCF), and the Survey of Inmates in Federal Correctional Facilities (SIFCF). Each source provides different information about victims and incident characteristics. Estimates are shown for different years based on data availability and measures of reliability.
Nearly 90% of firearm crimes were committed with a handgun
hellokitty_ar15assault_2From 1993 to 2011, about 60% to 70% of homicides were committed with a firearm. Over the same period, between 6% and 9% of all nonfatal violent victimizations were committed with a firearm, with about 20% to 30% of robberies and 22% to 32% of aggravated assaults involving a firearm.
Handguns accounted for the majority of both homicide and nonfatal firearm violence. A handgun was used in about 83% of all firearm homicides in 1994, compared to 73% in 2011. Other types of firearms, such as shotguns and rifles, accounted for the remainder of firearm homicides.
ak-47-hello-kittyFor nonfatal firearm violence, about 9 in 10 were committed with a handgun, and this remained stable from 1994 to 2011.
see the full report, from the department of justice (pdf)
gunReportHighlights
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fukushima is an extinction-level event

the audacity the ruling powers display in denying the seriousness of the fukushima catastrophe is nothing short of spectacular, as they continue to operate nuclear plants around the world, and are planning for even more in the future.

but make no mistake about this – comparing the chernobyl incident to fukushima’s multiple, full meltdowns is like comparing apples to nuclear bombs. and it is on-going. forever. there’s no way to stop the radioactive slag from burning.

below the fukushima story is an update to the u.s.’s next false flag, the san onofre nuclear power plant, which will go critical and meltdwon if it is restarted in june (2013).

see previous posts:

Twin quakes rock Japan Sunday, Storm Headed to Fukushima, Unit 2 Reactor Core “liquified.”

Japan confirms explosion, evacuation around another reactor site,

Fukushima: like 20 Chernobyls

Fukushima cover-up continues, opposition leader fears Japan will become uninhabitable.

or see global cover-up of continued Fukushima radiation, for comprehensive report, including links to updated coverage

Fukushima is only beginning: whole world irradiated, forever

1.  The bottom line about Fukushima Daiichi is an ELE (extinction level event) involving  three reactors in meltdown since March 11, 2011, other damaged reactor cores, no efforts by anyone anywhere to contain the global catastrophe, other than ‘media damage control’.

2. (A)  The reactor cores were designed to be under water.  That means that the reactor cores were designed to be under water.   The reactor cores must be put under water immediately, using existing technology, enabling retrieval of the hot cores by an international team of nuclear submarines.  Disposal of nuclear waste is a secondary issue.   Note: There is no legitimate disposal of nuclear waste possible, ever.

2. (B) As these are crimes perpetuated against all of humanity, willfully and maliciously triggering an uninterrupted ELE (extinction level event)  International Criminal Court trials for the perpetrators of these nuclear crimes, and those complicit in the events and cover up are in order, followed by swift justice, which, upon guilty verdicts, requires death by hanging.   ‘Extend and Pretend’ is an unacceptable course of non-action for dealing with these nuclear killers.

The International Criminal Court has the authority to hang these individuals until they are quite dead, upon guilty verdicts.   Refer also to Nuremberg trials for further reference.  You WERE warned, repeatedly, therefore, cease and desist walking quietly in this OPEN AIR AUSCHWITZ.   Tell your friends and neighbors; your governments already know.

3.  SIMPLICITY:    ALLoccupy-fukushima REACTORS LEAK ALL THE TIME.  

WE ARE THE MEDIA NOW.  WE HAVE BEEN POISONED.   WE ARE STILL BEING POISONED.  DO NOT WALK QUIETLY IN THIS OPEN AIR AUSCHWITZ.  

SPERM COUNTS DOWN, GLOBALLY.  IMMUNE SYSTEM DISEASES ESCALATING. MUTATIONS OCCURRING IN ALL LIFE FORMS.

WE SPIT ON THE GRAVES OF THE PRO-NUKERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FUTURE MAIMINGS AND DEATHS OF BILLIONS.

4.  JUST THE FACTS:  RADIATION KILLS.  1,946 known lethal isotopes spew from all reactors which leak all the time. Radiation knows no boundaries.  Tons of radioactive isotopes spewing from #Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants have already released enough radiation to maim and kill the entire population of earth, more than once.  

No international interventions, based on economics….. the anticipated remaining economic life span of Japan is said to be  less than 10 years from 3.11.11, therefore, no ROI (return on investment) available to global money marketeers.   TEPCO bailout nearing completion and the nuclear money is going to other countries with their lies, deceptions and killing machines.   The general populace fails to grasp that nuclear reactors are simply stationary nuclear weapons, designed to profitably maim kill, with plausible deniability.

English: Internationally recognized symbol. De...

5. PERSONALIZE THE FACTS:   Nobody and Nothing  escapes the consequences of #Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Catastrophe. Radiation poisoning is being called by many names, mysterious diseases, wasting diseases, compromised immune systems, heart diseases, cancers, fibromyalgia, diabetes, LOEF and more.  

Early radiation poisoning mimics commonly identified immune and inflammatory diseases.  Some life forms are dying quickly, others slowly.  Smaller species are like the ‘canaries in the mine’ and the message they bring to humanity also goes unheeded.  The children and the elderly go first, as well as those singing songs, carrying signs and marching in the streets….anywhere and everywhere.  

[Note:  Wise ones THINK LOCALLY, ACT GLOBALLY. OCCUPY VIRTUALLY and Use any/all tools to Occupy Virtually.]   

fukushima_cesiumALL REACTORS LEAK ALL THE TIME.   It is time to continue to pray for the dead and dying, fight like hell for the living, try the Pro-Nuker perpetrators for High Crimes Against Humanity and bring those of all levels of the cartels to swift justice, without fear or caution.   Simultaneously, decommission/SHUT DOWN all existing nuclear reactors and commence trials globally for perpetrators of the industry.

FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS REMAIN IGNORANT.   TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND TELL YOUR NEIGHBORS ABOUT FUKUSHIMA.   (Your Governments already know.)

Do your own research (recognizing the nuclear propaganda machinery is well armed and funded, and the global internet is being systematically sanitized of truthful information about the Fukushima global disaster and cover up.  Never Give Up.  Never Give In.   WE ARE THE MEDIA NOW.

reposted from the free

Edison hopes to start up San Onofre by June 1

Southern California Edison has submitted a formal request to federal regulators for a license amendment that would allow the San Onofre nuclear plant to be fired back up for the first time in more than a year.

The request submitted by Edison asks the NRC to make a decision on the proposed license amendment by May 24. The utility is proposing to run the plant at 70% of its current licensed power.

The formal request was similar to a draft request submitted last month, except that the company also committed to submitting a report to the NRC on the steam generators 60 days after every time it shuts down for inspections, instead of the usual 180 days.

NRC staff at last week’s meeting did not commit to meeting Edison’s target date, saying it might be a challenge to do so.

Even if the agency grants a license amendment, it would have to decide separately whether to allow the plant to be fired up again.

Edison has proposed to run the Unit 2 reactor at 70% power for five months before taking it offline for inspections. The company argues that the lower power level would eliminate the conditions that led the tubes to vibrate excessively and knock against each other and against support structures.

from the l.a.times

Los Angeles to San Onofre: ‘Not So Fast!’

A unanimous Los Angeles City Council has demanded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct extended investigations before any restart at the San Onofre atomic power plant.

The move reflects a deep-rooted public opposition to resumed operations at reactors perched in a tsunami zone near earthquake faults that threaten all of southern California.

Meanwhile, yet another top-level atomic insider has told ABC News that San Onofre Units 2 and 3 are not safe to operate.

On April 23, LA’s eleven City Council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to “make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit” until it conducts a “prudent, transparent and precautionary” investigation. The city wants “ample opportunity” for public comment and confirmation that “mandated repairs, replacements, or other actions” have been completed to guarantee the public safety.

California’s largest city thus joins Del Mar, Encinitas, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Santa Monica, Solana Beach, Vista, Berkeley, Fairfax and the San Diego Unified School District board in asking the NRC to take all steps necessary to guarantee the public safety. Some resolutions include the demand that the NRC make utility officials testify under oath in public before San Onofre might be allowed to go back on line.

from the huffington post

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shock treatment: the u.s. under attack by american intelligence agencies in order to justify world war 3

EITHER Tamerlan Tsarnaev WAS THE GREATEST TERRORIST OF ALL TIME, OR HE WAS AN ACTIVE AGENT OF AN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY IN THE U.S.

despite constant surveillance by the FBI, warnings by russian intelligence, his name appearing on numerous american intelligence agencies’ “watchlists,” and attending college at a public AMERICAN university, RIGHT UNDER THE NOSES of HUNDREDS of police and law enforcement personnel – with their face recognition technology, wireless surveillance, and bomb-sniffing dogs – this ONE KID was able to outsmart the entire, multi-billion dollar american security complex and bomb the boston marathon. Single-handedly. and this is the story they WANT us to believe.

while most news outlets are treating the story of last week’s bombing of the boston marathon as…well…last week’s news, the official story continues to come unravelled.

it seems as if the goal is to justify starting a war against syria and then iran. and, until we get with the program, we can expect more attacks like sandy hook and boston.

it also seems clear that the u.s. government cannot achieve the desired results from their domestic terror incidents while the internet here is unfiltered. it must be locked down BEFORE they can impose some official bullshit story upon the american public. so, they have…

The Shock Doctrine (trailer)

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts…. New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets. – see more about the book and film Shock Doctrine, by naomi klein. there are also several good youtube videos of her speaking about this topic.

Engineering Consent For Attack On Syria

From Independent’s “Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all: Defector tells how US officials ‘sexed up’ his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion.” In retrospect, the corporate-media has no problem admitting the insidious lies that were told to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq – the lead up to the war was another story. A verbatim repeat of these admitted lies are being directed at Syria amidst the West’s failure to overthrow the government with terrorist proxies.

The last two weeks have seen a series of victories for the Syrian Army across Syria. It appears that 2 full companies of so-called “Free Syrian Army” fighters have been annihilated near Damascus, while government forces have restored order in parts of Homs and along the previously porous Lebanese-Syrian border.

Time has run out for the West, and it appears that they are desperately seeking any excuse to rescue their failing proxy war. When urgent, but otherwise unjustified military intervention is needed, a “humanitarian” pretext is usually invented – as it was in Libya. Failing that, as the West has already clearly done in Syria, an even more tenuous narrative has been resurrected from its well-earned grave. CNN has reported in their article, “Hagel: Evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria,” that:

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Thursday that the United States has evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.

This comes a couple of days after an Israeli intelligence official said Damascus was using weapons banned under international law against its own people in the country’s civil war. Syria has said rebels have used chemical weapons. 

U.S. President Barack Obama has said the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against its own people in the country would be a “game changer.”

Astonishingly, the West is attempting to repeat tales of “WMD’s” in Syria, just as it infamously did in Iraq. In the Washington Post’s “U.S. intelligence agencies: Assad used chemical weapons ‘on a small scale’,” the nature of this “evidence” is elaborated on (emphasis added):

Hagel said the intelligence agencies’ assessment was reached with “varying degrees of confidence,” meaning that they lacked proof or overwhelming evidence. He said the conclusion was “reached within the last 24 hours” and that the White House delivered a letter outlining the findings to Congress Thursday morning.

- from information clearinghouse, As NATO terror front collapses in Syria, US attempts to justify intervention by drumming up familiar WMD lies.

more on syria:

Syrian army seizes strategic town near capital: “The disaster has struck, the army entered Otaiba. The regime has managed to turn off the weapons tap,” a fighter from the town told Reuters via Skype. “The price of a bullet will go from 50 Syrian pounds to 1,000 Syrian pounds (6.5 pounds) now, but we must pay and retake it. It’s the main if not the only route.”

Hundreds of Europeans fighting in Syria, says EU expert: Intelligence agencies are concerned some could join groups linked to al-Qaeda and later return to Europe to launch terrorist attacks. The UK, Ireland and France are among the EU countries estimated to have the highest numbers of fighters in Syria.

Hague warns of new Syrian terror threat: William Hague said there was now “uncontested space” in Syria where Islamist groups were free to establish training camps that would equip and train foreign fighters, including British extremists.

Syria says backing rebels risks new attacks on America: – U.S. support for Syrian rebels may lead to more attacks on American soil like those of September 11, said a senior Syrian official who warned that Islamist fighters would spread “the fire of terrorism” around the world.

‘Confusion and inconsistencies’: How US plans to distract public from real truth about Boston

The initial questions about the Boston bombing are behind us, but former FBI employee Sibel Edmonds believes the pursuit of truth will eventually lead to a far more secret agenda by the US, which she reveals to RT.

RT: We’ve learned in the last hour that Russia warned the FBI about the older Tsarnaev brother and his potential links with radical Islamists, but the FBI found nothing suspicious. How is that possible?

Sibel Edmonds: Actually, we predicted that the unnamed foreign country [Western media didn’t name the source immediately] was in fact Russia, two days ago. We have too little facts, too much false information and speculations. But just look at the period they are talking about. When you listen to the suspect’s mother, she’s talking about a period of three to five years. According to FBI officials, they received this information, this warning, in 2011. So we have that inconsistency right there. The other important inconsistency that we should pay attention to is the mother’s description of FBI mannerisms and conversation with the suspects and the family when they were visiting them for the last three to five years. That fits exactly the recruitment style of the intelligence community. When you go to the suspects, and one moment you’re saying “We know you’re decent, we know you’re doing nothing wrong, we know you’re good”, and the next minute they’re saying “You can be dangerous”, right after receiving that information from the Russian government, to threaten them with that information for what purpose – to recruit them as informants or for other agendas. – see more, including video interview with sibel edmonds, from russia today

Members of a SWAT team search for 19-year-old bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev on April 19, 2013 in Watertown, Massachusetts. (AFP Photo / Mario Tama)

Members of a SWAT team search for 19-year-old bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev on April 19, 2013 in Watertown, Massachusetts. (AFP Photo / Mario Tama)

The Shadow Government Of Vice President Dick Cheney Is Only Now Becoming Clear

On Sept. 12, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that ”what we are seeing is the definition of a new battlefield in the world, a twenty-first century battlefield.”

On Sept. 16, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said that America would have to “spend time in the shadows” and work on the “dark side.”

Since then the U.S. has been engaged in a global war on terror, but Americans haven’t known how exactly it is being fought.

That changed on Tuesday (4/23/13) with the publication of “Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield” by investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Scahill.

Based on years of on-the-ground research and countless interviews, “Dirty Wars” details how Rumsfeld and Cheney began covertly deploying lethal tactics including black ops, secret prisons, snatch operations, and political assassinations at an unprecedented level.

From “Dirty Wars”:

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As The World Trade Center towers crumbled to the ground, so too did the system of oversight and review of lethal covert ops that had been carefully constructed over the course of the previous decade.

In place of that system, Scahill writes, a “War Council” led by Cheney advisor and fellow neoconservative David Addington developed legal justifications for capturing, torturing, and/or killing any al Qaeda suspect anywhere in the world.

The system became known as the “Cheney Program.” – see more, from business insider, The Full Power Of Vice President Dick Cheney Is Only Now Becoming Clear

see previous post: when you play the game of drones, they win and you die

Tamerlan Tsarnaev: experts puzzled as hunt for terror links gleans little

Lack of connections to terrorist groups means experts are increasingly seeing the elder Tsarnaev as a self-radicalised lone wolf – underlining the daunting task of piecing together a motive.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev has become the focal point of a global FBI investigation into whether any organised group or wider conspiracy lay behind last week’s Boston Marathon bombings. The 26-year-old, who has been identified through fingerprinting as the man killed in the shootout with police in the Watertown suburb of Boston, is widely assumed to have been the mastermind of the marathon outrage, with his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly playing the role of junior partner.

Yet so far the hunt for clues as to the motivation of the Tsarnaev brothers has failed to throw up concrete evidence that they were inspired to militancy by any particular extremist cleric or politician. Nor is there any known link to any nationalist or Islamist group in the Caucasus region that they regarded as their homeland, a link which would suggest they were recruited as foot soldiers and given operational instructions to strike the Boston Marathon.

Federal investigators and counter-terrorism experts are increasingly of the view that the brothers were acting alone. They surmise is that the elder Tsarnaev largely provided his own motivation and training, through the internet. – from the guardian, u.k.

related links:

CONFIRMED: Both FBI and CIA Watched Boston Bombing Suspects for Years

Body pulled from Providence Harbor is missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi

Putin says Boston shows need for security ties with U.S

Retailer Pulls Pressure Cookers in the Wake of Boston Bombing, Then Puts Them Back After Public Outcry

Google reports record spike in government requests to remove content

Report: Obama Officials Authorized New ‘Cybersecurity’ Warrantless Surveillance Program, Fresh Immunity Given to ISPs

CISPA: The House passed it a week ago, but most don’t know what it is

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, more commonly called, CISPA, is a proposed law that would allow the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies. The Bill, known as H.R. 624, was first introduced in 2012; and then reintroduced to Congress in its current form by US Representative Mike Rogers, on February 13, 2013. It was passed by the House of Representatives on April 18th.

Proponents of CISPA say that it is a needed amendment to the National Security Act of 1947, which does not cover cybercrime, and a powerful weapon that the government can use against the growing threat of cyber-terrorism from countries such as China and Iran. The bill’s purpose, they claim, is to allow federal security agencies to notify tech and manufacturing companies of any detected cyber-attack that may do them harm, and in turn, allow those companies to inform those agencies in kind.

Critics of CISPA, however, don’t buy it. They say that CISPA is an affront to American civil liberties, and the privacy of its citizens. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital rights group based in the U.S., “the bill grants broad new powers, allowing companies to identify and obtain “threat information” by looking at your private information.”

EFF also says that “it (the bill) is written so broadly that it allows companies to hand over large swaths of personal information to the government with no judicial oversight—effectively creating a “cybersecurity” loophole in all existing privacy laws.” – from the washington times

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Show over, nothing to see here…ignore the strange men in khaki pants…that’s not a request

UPDATE: Monday, April 22, 2013

Mystery Military Men in Boston Were Part of WMD Response Team

Activist Post

After much speculation around the mysterious “military contractor” types with black backpacks in the bomb zone of the Boston Marathon before and after the explosions took place, it has been revealed that they were part of an elite government WMD response team.
Originally thought to be Navy SEALs in civilian field gear, or private mercenaries from The Craft due to one member wearing a hat with their logo, the Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Team (WMD-CST) that was on duty in Boston during the attack is run by the National Guard.

“There are two CSTs that are engaged out there (in Boston) in the response… In fact, one of the first images that I saw was the Massachusetts CST was actually right there,” said Wisconsin CST commander Lt. Col. David W. May on April 16th.

Steve Watson of Infowars reports, “CSTs are The National Guard’s full-time response force for emergencies or terrorist events involving weapons of mass destruction, toxic chemicals, or natural disasters. CSTs are routinely pre-staged at large public events to help mitigate risks and assist civilian authorities.”

(don’t you feel safer now, knowing that terror attacks can happen, literally right in front of the eyes of counter-terrorism units?)

Once events reach this point, an overwhelming number of people believe the authorities. They accept what is happening. The FBI must have it right. Reject all other possibilities.

That’s always a dangerous assumption.

Yesterday, at a heralded press conference, seen by millions around the world, Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, produced photos and video of two suspects in the Marathon bombing.

He stated: “…these images should be the only ones, I emphasize, the only ones that the public should view to assist us. Other photos should not be deemed credible, and they unnecessarily divert the public’s attention in the wrong direction, and create undo work for vital law-enforcement resources.”

Translation: Ignore all the images uncovered by independent researchers, citizen reporters, bloggers. Forget, for example, about photos of those men who appear to work for Craft International, a private security contractor, who were standing at the finish line of the Marathon. We, the FBI, are running this show. We’re the pros, we deal, you behave. - from infowars.com, FBI tells America: believe us and no one else

The Boston Marathon bombing has provoked shock, grief and outrage from around the world. After decades of conditioning, the public automatically equates such terrorism with Muslim radicals. But the evidence shows that every major terror plot on American soil in the past 10 years has been fostered, funded and equipped by one organization: the FBI.

Published on Apr 17, 2013

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

As even mainstream sources concede the FBI had some sort of relationship with the Boston bombing suspects before the attack, there will be two arguments made. One, that the FBI simply doesn’t have enough authority or resources to prevent “domestic terror” attacks, and needs more still.

The other argument is that the FBI and other federal agencies have been behind every domestic terror attack or “foiled plot” for years, and constitutes the single greatest danger to the American people, both literally in terms of life and limb, and in terms of subverting and stripping away their liberty and dignity amidst a growing police state.

In turn, this would require local law enforcement to cease all cooperation with the FBI, particularly with its Joint Terror Task Force (JTTF), raid local offices and make arrests where appropriate, and fold any agents who are willing and capable, into local and state agencies. In essence, the FBI should be dismantled from top to bottom, and an alternative put in its place.

What is clear is that the Boston bombing suspects were contacted by the FBI at least as early as 2011. Between then and the attack, there is a gap where the FBI may or may not have been involved. While the FBI may have in fact been cultivating these suspects prior to the Boston bombing, they are now the very ones “investigating” the case, opening the door to the destruction of evidence, and ultimately a coverup.

What’s more, there’s most likely several more of these operations being engineered right now by the FBI. If America is serious about stopping “the next Boston bombing,” the key is not issuing the FBI and its federal affiliates more authority and funding, but issuing local law enforcement warrants to raid FBI offices. – from activist post, FBI Casting Set Stage for Boston Marathon Bombing, Shootout, Charade

FBI faces questions over previous contact with Boston bombing suspect

The FBI‘s previous contacts with one of the alleged Boston bombers have come under intense scrutiny as questions were raised about whether it missed vital clues that could have prevented the attack, which killed three people and injured more than 170.

The bureau admitted that it had interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 “at the request of a foreign government”, presumed to be Russia, which was concerned that he was a “follower of radical Islam”. The FBI said that it did not find any “terrorism activity” and appears not to have had any further contact with him since. - from the guardian, uk, FBI faces questions over previous contact with Boston bombing suspect

CBS reveals in their report, “CBS News: FBI Interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev 2 Years Ago,” that the FBI initially attempted to deny any contact prior to the Boston bombings with slain suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It was only after Russia’s RT publicly pursued the story that the FBI finally admitted officially it had. 
wheresBachPack
The implications are that the FBI knows Russia both possesses information on the case and is prepared to go public with it. For those involved in America’s terror racket, now would be a good time to divest. For those involved specifically in the Boston Marathon bombing, now would be a good time to come forward with information. Any and all involved, in whatever capacity, wittingly or unwittingly, stand to become scapegoats in order to save the FBI, DHS, TSA, and other federal agencies clearly engaged in a massive coverup. – from activist post, FBI Casting Set Stage for Boston Marathon Bombing, Shootout, Charade

Alternative media outlets have identified two men wearing black caps with the Punisher skull icon adopted by Craft International (CI); as well as tell-tale khaki pants and boots.

CI is the creation of former Navy Seal Chris Kyle who was killed earlier this year at the North Texas firing range by former Marine Corporal Eddie Ray Routh, according to authorities.

Kyle was the author of “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History”. This book “recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyles kills (the previous American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number” claimed in the book.

Kyle specialized in being able to shoot his target with deadly accuracy from rooftops and steal positions which earned him the respect of his peers in the Marines, US Army and Navy SEALs.

CI offers training in tactical operations and surveillance for:

• Military
• Law enforcement
• Tacflow combatives
• School/university security
• Civilian/corporate security

-from occupy corporatism, The Shocking Truth About the Boston Marathon Bombing Hoax

MORE ARRESTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE BOMBING

Neighbors say three have been arrested in New Bedford in connection with the Boston Bombing suspect.

Police apprehended suspects from the Hidden Brook Apartments on Carriage Drive in New Bedford. Neighbors say they think that the girlfriend of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have lived in the complex and they have seen him in the area as recently as yesterday.

Dzhokhar is a student at the nearby University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Earlier on Friday his brother, also a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, was killed in a gun fight with police. - from abc6, providence, Report: 3 arrested in New Bedford in connection to bombing suspect

newBedfordBust

More Photos Surface of Mercenaries in Boston 

After yesterday’s initial release of what appeared to be photos of several private military contractors from Craft International at the scene of the Boston bombing, independent journalists have now identified many more images of this team.

Mike Adams of Natural News made an interesting discovery that one of the members of this team was carrying a radiation detector:

First off, let’s get the attacks of the moron trolls out of the way — people who will say these photos are a “conspiracy theory.”

How are photos of actual people at the event a conspiracy theory?

They aren’t. In real police work, they’re called “evidence,” and the people in these photos should be persons of interest.

But they aren’t. The entire mainstream media and law enforcement apparatus is now pretending these men don’t exist. (Now that’s their conspiracy theory!)

We all know, however, that The Craft operatives don’t work for free. They aren’t a band of volunteers. And that means somebody paid them to be at the event.

Who paid The Craft to be there? And what was their mission?

Why is their existence at the Boston marathon being memory-holed? Why are they not “persons of interest” in the investigation?

Why do they carry radiation detectors? What’s in their backpacks? (A ham sandwich?)

The fact that the media refuses to even acknowledge the existence of these private military operatives is quite telling all by itself.

'They stole our dreams': blogger reveals cost of reporting Mexico's drug wars

blogger risks her life to document mexico’s drug war

Vaya Con Dios, “Lucy!” y Blog del Narco!

For three years Blog de Narco has chronicled Mexico‘s drug war with graphic images and shocking stories that few others dare show, drawing millions of readers, acclaim, denunciations – and speculation about its author’s identity.

This story was produced in partnership with the Guardian, where a version of this story also appears.

Blog del Narco, an internet sensation dubbed a “front-row seat” to Mexico’s agony over drugs, has become a must-read for authorities, drug gangs and ordinary people because it lays bare, day after day, the horrific violence censored by the mainstream media.
The anonymous author has been a source of mystery, with Mexico wondering who he is and his motivation for such risky reporting.
Now in their first major interview since launching the blog, the author has spoken to the Guardian and the Texas Observer – and has revealed that she is, in fact, a young woman.
“I don’t think people ever imagined it was a woman doing this,” said the blogger, who asked to use pseudonym Lucy to protect her real identity.
“Who am I? I’m in my mid-20s, I live in northern Mexico, I’m a journalist. I’m a woman, I’m single, I have no children. And I love Mexico.”
This is the first time Lucy has spoken directly about the motivations for running a blog which could cost her her life. In the early days, her male colleague who manages the technical side engaged in a few short, anonymous email exchanges with reporters, but neither has spoken out since.

The telephone interview was arranged through an anonymous intermediary. The Guardian then took steps to verify that Lucy was in control of the blog.

'They stole our dreams': blogger reveals cost of reporting Mexico's drug wars

‘They stole our dreams’: blogger reveals cost of reporting Mexico’s drug wars

She said she wanted to show the truth of what was happening to help turn the page. “I’m in love with my culture, with my country, despite all that’s going on. Because we’re not all bad. We’re not all narcos. We’re not all corrupt. We’re not all murderers. We are well educated, even if many (foreign) people think otherwise.”

She and her colleague live in daily fear of retribution, either from the cartels or government forces. She revealed that a young man and woman tortured, disembowelled and hung from a bridge in September 2011 – murders which shocked even atrocity-hardened Mexicans – were collaborators on the blog. “They used to send us photographs. That was very hard, very painful.” The threats, she said, have recently become more serious.

Despite those fears, however, Lucy has written a book that gives an inside account of the blog and provides the most gruesome, explicit account yet of the mayhem that the cartel wars have brought to Mexico. Dying for the Truth: Undercover Inside Mexico’s Violent Drug War, is now on sale in English and Spanish, and documents a full year of killings from 2010, a pivotal year.

there’s even more, from borderland beat -

Mexico’s Blog del Narco Author is Revealed as a Young Woman

fukushimaSplody

this is why we do not know how dangerous nuclear power is

excellent article by

Richard Wilcox

Activist Post

Even one atom of uranium undergoing alpha decay has the potential for creating a fatal cancer. – Paul Zimmerman, A Primer in the Art of Deception
(1; p. 53)

When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous, and its speaker a raving lunatic. – Dresden James (2)

It ain’t what we don’t know that causes all the trouble, it’s what we do know that ain’t so. – a saying from Jim in Texas (Ibid.)

The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging. – Molly Ivins (3)

The Trouble We Are In

Large-scale nuclear disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima are comparable with other deadly man-made phenomena. The number of annual global automobile deaths is 1.3 million (4). Terrible though it is, an automobile accident kills just once; radiation breaks down the Earth’s DNA of life. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) threaten to replace that fabric of life with an artificial and diseased template (5). Secret geoengineering programs of atmospheric aerosol spraying (chemtrails) may be causing irreparable harm to the very life cycles of the Earth (6). Deforestation and habitat loss destroy and displace the Earth’s biological and cultural diversity.

The Road To Fukushima Starts In Chernobyl

Much of this article relies on the readings of and quotations from Paul Zimmerman and his book, A Primer In The Art Of Deception (Op. cit.).

Zimmerman states that:

The entire cover-up of the effects of radiation hinges on Chernobyl. This was the most substantial release of radiation into the environment before Fukushima. Verified health effects will accurately depict the true hazard of man-made radiation released amidst populations. This is why Chernobyl effects have to be covered up by [the nuclear establishment by] any and every means (personal communication, February, 2013).

Zimmerman chronicles the wide range of congenital malformations, diseases and types of deaths to children exposed to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster radiation which occurred both in the womb and after being born (from the European Committee on Radiation Risk report, entitled: “Chernobyl: 20 years on”). Most of the data is from the late 1980s up to mid 1990s, indicating the time frame we should be watching for at Fukushima (“A Primer,” pp. 559 – 563).

The nuclear establishment ignores these effects using outdated and phony methods for calculation. Yablokov and colleagues estimated nearly a million deaths due to Chernobyl (7), in contrast to the small handful of deaths the WHO claims occurred or will occur. The World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the United Nations are in cahoots:

A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded. As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004 (8).

How is it that estimates could vary so wildly?

The main reason for this massive conspiracy being foisted on the public is what is referred to as the Chernobyl Forum, which is a coalition of United Nations related agencies (9).

Janette D. Sherman who edited the landmark study carried out by Russian scientists blows the lid off the fraudulent methodology of the Chernobyl Forum. Can something be called “science” if it intentionally ignores relevant empirical data in spades?

Sherman’s findings are worth quoting at length:

On the 20th Anniversary of Chernobyl WHO and the IAEA published the Chernobyl Forum Report, mentioning only 350 sources, mainly from the English literature while in reality there are more than 30,000 publications and up to 170,000 sources that address the consequences of Chernobyl. After waiting two decades for the findings of Chernobyl to be recognized by the United Nations, three scientists, Alexey Yablokov from Russia, and Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko from Belarus undertook the task to collect, abstract and translate some 5000 articles reported by multiple scientists, who observed first-hand the effects from the fallout….

The greatest amount of radioactivity fell outside of Belarus, Ukraine and European Russia, extending across the northern hemisphere as far away as Asia, North Africa, and North America, while the greatest concentrations continue to affect the 13 million living in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia….

Thus data from multiple scientists estimate the overall mortality from the Chernobyl catastrophe, for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004, to be 985,000, a hundred times more than the WHO/IAEA estimate….

The human and economic costs are enormous: in the first 25 years the direct economic damage to Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia has exceeded $500 billion. Belarus spends about 20% of its national annual budget, Ukraine up to 6%, and Russia up to 1% to partially mitigate some of the consequences (10).

Zimmerman notes that:

There is an underlying prejudice being played upon here: “our science is good and Russian science is bad.” The conclusions of the Chernobyl Forum are reached by ignoring a huge body of research conducted in Eastern Europe that just happens not to be published in English. Certainly, if the UN was genuinely interested in Chernobyl rather than fabricating results, they could have paid for translations of relevant articles. Basically, it is just propaganda and worthless from a scientific perspective (pers. comm.).

However worthless the Chernobyl Forum studies are, they have become the mainstream scientific consensus and de facto reality, and a deadly lie which now contaminates public consciousness.

FALLOUT

graphic from the DAILY MAIL

Japan Mass Media Banned From Reporting Radiation Dangers

How many people will die from Fukushima nuclear meltdown radiation? Two years have passed since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. Every day we learn of more evidence of the dangers of low-level radiation from a variety of natural and man-made causes, including medical x-rays and scans (11; 12). Our health, and particularly the health of people in Fukushima, is under increasing distress.

We now see evidence of children with thyroid cancer from the Fukushima area (13). It has also been revealed that the mass media in Japan is unofficially BANNED from discussing radiation issues. Journalists who write about radiation dangers will be fired, whereas they are permitted to debate whether Japan should use nuclear energy or not (14).

The latter debate is permissible because it is long term and changeable depending on the whims of government policy and manipulation of public sentiment. Serious discussion of radiation danger strikes fear in the heart of the public, and may also lead to costly liability payments, and is therefore taboo. Undoubtedly, the ban on discussing the danger of radiation in the media translates into public ignorance about radiation. It is astonishing to me that most of the people I talk to in Tokyo are only dimly aware that radiation is entering their bodies on a daily basis: from public water supply, food, drinks, ongoing air pollution emissions from the FNPP, and the burning of radioactive debris in public incinerators. People think that it is only a small risk.

Radiation biologist, Dr. Ian Fairlie writes that there are many studies which have “good statistical power” showing the increase in danger of cancer from low-level radiation from background radiation and radon; medical CT scans; living in proximity to nuclear plants, etc.

It is dispiriting to read many articles – on both sides of the Atlantic – by media pundits and poorly-informed scientists about low-level radiation risks. These articles commonly assert, with little or no evidence, that there is nothing to worry about radiation and that nuclear projects are encumbered by overly strict safety limits. In particular, they usually state that no risks are seen below 100 mSv [millisieverts]; that the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model is wrong; and that there were only about 50 deaths at Chernobyl with no more expected (15).

Lower End Estimates: Fukushima Related Mortality

As for the defendants of the official position and estimates that minimize nuclear dangers and deaths, we have Stanford University scientists weighing in at 130 cancer deaths (16). Beyea puts the number higher at 1,000 deaths due to gamma radiation ground shine, but Beyea’s calculation appears not to include internal radiation in the model (17). These are the kinds of estimates generally touted in the mainstream science journals which focus on various aspects of exposure but tend to ignore the full extent of constant exposure.

Fairlie is a moderate within the debate and puts the number of deaths “at least a few thousand fatal cancers [that] will occur among those exposed to Fukushima’s radioactive fallout” but does not mention exposure to internal radiation through consumption of food and water. He correctly points out that Japan was lucky that most of the radiation blew out to sea, sparing the land and inhabitants from the greatest portion of radiation exposure:

Fukushima is clearly a serious disaster but it is not as serious as Chernobyl. Radioactive air emissions are much more important than radioactive sea discharges in terms of their radiation doses to people, and the dispersed radioactivity to air from Fukushima has been estimated to be about 10% to 40% of the amount dispersed from Chernobyl. About a thousand square km near the Fukushima were contaminated, but at Chernobyl the area affected was much larger: over 200,000 square km throughout Europe were seriously contaminated by fallout, according to the European Commission (18).

In contrast to official Japanese government policy which allows 20 millisieverts of annual background radiation, a joint French and Japanese NGO project found that “external radiation” continues to cause “unacceptable health risks for hundreds of thousands of citizens” and that government estimates ignore internal consumption of radionuclides through food, water and air.

Dose beyond which the risk of cancer in the long term is considered “unacceptable” by ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) is 1 [millisievert] per year, which corresponds to 17 cancers per 100,000 people exposed (19).

The first large-scale survey of contaminated food done by Japanese scientists found that:

Radiocesium was detected in 25 of 26 samples from Fukushima. The median dietary intake of radiocesium was 4.0 Bq/day. The estimated annual dose from radiocesium was calculated assuming that the daily intake of radiocesium was constant throughout the year. The median estimated dose level was 23 [microsieverts/year]. The estimated dose level of radiocesium was significantly higher in Fukushima than in the Kanto region and western Japan…. The preliminary estimated dietary dose levels among Fukushima residents were much lower than the maximum permissible dose 1 [millisievert/year], based on new Japanese standard limits for radiocesium in foods (100 Bq/kg for general foods) (20).

The problem with many of these surveys and estimates is that they are very rough guesses that average the dose, but how was it calculated and can the methods and data even be trusted? Some people will be getting less than 4 becquerels (bq) per day but others higher. For how many days, weeks, months and years will this rate continue? Over ten years that’s 14,600 bq.

fukushimaSplody

photo from the DAILY MAIL

A More Critical View Of Mortality Rates

Dr. Chris Busby, one of the most outspoken critics of the nuclear status quo, who also specifically studies the affects of radiation on health, offered a more dire scenario in 2011:

[W]ithin 100 km of Fukushima Daiichi, approximately 200,000 excess cancers will occur within the next 50 years with about half of them diagnosed in the next 10 years, if the 3.3 million people in the area remain there for one year. [Busby] estimates over 220,000 excess cancers in the 7.9 million people from 100 to 200 km in the next 50 years, also with about half of them to be diagnosed in the next 10 years (21).

That equates to roughly 420,000 exposed people, not including most of the Tokyo area, or other radiological-associated, non-fatal diseases that could harm and maim.

Retired nuclear engineer and activist Arnie Gundersen bases his estimate on the epidemiological data from the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, and compared radiation amounts and dispersion with population density in Japan. He estimates a million deaths could occur due to the accident (22).

Shimatsu has pointed out anomalous data that indicates mortality rates have risen in the elder population of Fukushima area residents. This could be related to the weakening of their immune systems due to radiation exposure (23).

Finagling The Fallout

This radiation contamination map of the Fukushima nuclear disaster made by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is startling in its depiction of deposition across the Pacific ocean and throughout North America (24).


This radiation contamination map of the Fukushima nuclear disaster made by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is startling in its depiction of deposition across the Pacific ocean and throughout North America (24).

Here again is the blandly presented propaganda from the US government that minimizes danger to health. They do not take into account the many variables or hotspots or that not everyone receives an “average” dose. In a sense this is worse than propaganda, and is a huge lie. While revealing the extent of the radiation, the international public is told that the amount is nothing to worry about, as if low-level radiation is safe.

While the USGS does not assess human health risks from exposure to radioactive fallout, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s RadNet confirms that radiation levels in the United States were far below the level of concern for human health impact.

Other mainstream scientists found that the wide dispersal of radiation into the air was due to “at least 80% of the core inventory” having “been released into the atmosphere and indicates a broad meltdown of reactor cores. The radioactivity emitted into the atmosphere could represent 10% of the Chernobyl accident releases for I-131 and Cs-137” (25).

However, this estimate contrasts with an earlier study that found radioactive fallout (not including radiation released into the water) at 50 percent of Chernobyl releases for cesium (26). If radiation released into water is included the total amount released — because no radiation was released into water by the landlocked Chernobyl reactor — could be as high as 90 percent of Chernobyl by some estimates (27). Chernobyl was mainly a one-time event but Fukushima is ongoing, steadily releasing substantial quantities of radiation into the air and water (28).

Anyone not privy to the most technically relevant data must trust the experts. As Arnie Gundersen once said, “it’s a numbers game” when it comes to figuring out how much radiation escaped given the same criminals in charge of the accident, Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company), are in charge of disclosing the data as they see fit. There is now zero public trust in government agencies and what they are reporting when it comes to public safety. Without becoming paranoid the public should always be aware of pat bromides handed out by the nuclear-friendly agents.

As we know, Tepco spokespersons are proven liars and their credibility is less than zero (29; 30).

How Radiation Affects Life

The nuclear establishment would prefer the general public believe that nuclear radiation is essentially nothing to be concerned with. However, their own science and words belie the rhetoric. The Cult of Nuclearists have billions of dollars to devote to propaganda whereas the Nuclear Truth Tellers (NTTers) are marginalized by a whole host of economic and political tricks.

One of the trump cards that the Nuclearists hold is that understanding the science of radiation effects when presented in an intentionally confusing way to mislead is beyond the capabilities of the average person to grasp, and that they have no other choice than to trust the experts. Fortunately there is a large body of literature that debunks the nuclear industry’s powerful lies.

Busby has two important and rigorously researched books on radiation science that are among the most important (31; 32). I also recommend a perusal through longtime activist Russell Hoffman’s incredible library of nuclear related books (33). Hoffman’s Code Killers is an easily understood, exhaustively researched and colorfully presented educational primer on the dangers of nuclear energy. It can be downloaded for free and is an ideal educational tool (34).

Insights Into The Science Of Radiation Biology

Paul Zimmerman’s 778 page book, A Primer In The Art Of Deception: The Cult Of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons And Fraudulent Science (2009) is the equivalent of taking a college-level course — if not an entire curriculum — from the self described “self-educated student of the subject matter” (Op. cit.). For an introduction to his work here is an outstanding audio interview (35).

Since 1938 when the uranium atom was first split, the US has accumulated some “700,000 metric tons” of depleted uranium as a byproduct of weapons manufacture and nuclear power waste. Why is nuclear waste and emissions a problem?

To quote Zimmerman:

All atoms of uranium are radioactive. At some point in their lifetime, they spontaneously undergo radioactive decay and emit subatomic particles and energy from their nuclei. When this process occurs in the crust of the Earth, it is of no consequence to life. Decay while the atom is entrapped within the body of a living organism, however, is altogether different. When radiation from a radioactive atom is released into a biological medium, it creates damage to the molecular structures that make up that living system (p. ii).

There is not a single life-enhancing benefit to be derived from releasing ionizing radiation into the environment…. Ionizing radiation breaks chemical bonds, destroying in living systems biologically significant micromolecules, and as a result, altering biological function. On a planet teeming with life–impossible without the exquisitely precise interplay of biochemical choreography–ionizing radiation, concentrated by humans and then released, is a force of disorder, chaos and death (p. 8).

Another basic point of understanding blurred in the public mind by the nuclear establishment is gauging the effect that natural uranium has on the human body versus uranium that has been concentrated for nuclear technology. The nuclear establishment claims that the effects of eating a banana which may be relatively high in uranium content, is equivalent to an insoluble microparticle of uranium which may become lodged in the lung after a depleted uranium (DU) munition explodes on the battlefield, or when a nuclear accident such as Fukushima releases large amounts of hot particles into the air where they can be swept by the wind and then inhaled.

Another quote from Zimmerman:

The solubility/insolubility of particles released by nuclear weapons or radiation accidents would depend on the chemistry of the the nuclides involved. There is not a blanket answer for all radionuclides and whatever other atoms they might be bound to. Hot particles are particles composed of hundreds/thousands/millions of molecules which contain some quantity of radioactive atoms. How that particle behaves in the human body has a lot to do with how easily is dissolves in body fluid.

Both soluble and insoluble particles of uranium, plutonium, radium, and the other alpha emitters release alpha particles into surrounding tissue. The significance of INSOLUBLE particles is that they can have a much longer residency inside the body, perhaps a person’s entire life. This gives them increased opportunity to successfully target biologically significant macromolecules such as DNA in their vicinity (pers. comm.).

Uranium found in nature is present in the food and water chain, is soluble, consists of about 2 millionths of a gram of daily intake. Since it is widespread throughout many organ systems and is then eliminated through bodily processes, no cluster of cells receives a concentrated dose of radiation. Therefore, Zimmerman notes that uranium from nature “presents an infinitely small hazard to the health of the organism as a whole” (p. 46).

But there is a tricky linguistic distinction to be understood. The nuclear industry calls uranium that has been thoroughly processed into a purified form of uranium as “natural uranium.”

While it is true that originally this uranium was found in nature, it is in fact a man-made uranium product with nothing really natural about it. Just like some food products on the shelves of grocery stores that say “all natural” or “natural flavors” on the label even though there are dozens of artificial food additives in the product.

Natural uranium — uranium that has been concentrated by human beings — represents an enhanced radiological hazard over the uranium found in nature. Since the 1940s, humankind has unearthed millions of tons of uranium-bearing ore, extracted the uranium and concentrated it. this man-made product is a new radiological pollutant that never before existed on the Earth’s surface (p. 46).

The difference between uranium-bearing ore and uranium products that have been refined vary drastically in radioactive concentration. Weapons-grade uranium is the most potent by far, but even yellow cake uranium that has undergone rudimentary refinement, and is used for nuclear reactors, is 300,000 times more radioactive than uranium found in nature when equal volumes are compared.

A main problem for human health are the alpha particles that are released in the process called “ionization.”

Zimmerman notes that:

Ionization is the breakup of an electrically neutral molecule into positive and negative ions. To break the chemical bonds holding together each of the molecules in our body requires the impact of approximately 34 electron-volts (pers. comm.).

Given this possibility:

One alpha particle has the potential of creating–123,000 ionizations. In a cascading effect, the charged particles created in these ionizing events go on to initiate millions more ionizations. An alpha particle is a bull in the proverbial china shop. It massively disrupts the chemical integrity of the molecules that constitute a living system (p. 51).

Although alpha particles do not penetrate great distance, they are “not weak.” Due to the small distance they travel in tissue, they are extremely destructive to the cells through which they traverse. The alpha particle’s ionizing behavior results in “massive assault on the chemical integrity of a small population of cells…” (p. 52).

In the article “Radiation Roulette” by Ron Edwards, reference is made to a study of the effect of alpha radiation on the stem cells of mice. One of the authors of the study, Eric Wright, had this to say in a letter to the journal Nature:

“relative biological effectiveness” — a measure of how damaging low-level radiation can be in the body — for isotopes that emit alpha particles is “effectively infinite” (36).

Particles from uranium munitions contain uranium in vastly greater concentrations than uranium found in nature in uranium ore. When they are released as hot particles into the air from exploding DU munitions which burn, they can be inhaled by populations downwind. Similarly, hot particles which contain a great variety of radionuclides that are released after a nuclear disaster can also be inhaled by humans downwind of the accident.

the radioactive wasteland that was once iraq

this piece originally ran in AWOL magazine.

Two military campaigns of dubious merit, initiated by the former President Bush and his son’s ruling junta, have scattered tons of radioactive material over Iraq. Along with Afghanistan and the nations which once formed Yugoslavia, Iraq has been used as a laboratory to test the long-term effects of depleted uranium munitions on people and the environment. The Bush junta is also using this opportunity to check out how much misinformation it can successfully spew in order to carry out its objectives.

The U.S. military admitted to using 320 tons of DU-enhanced ammunition during the Gulf War. Despite massive evidence about the lethal effects of prolonged exposure to DU residue in Iraq, the Bush junta and its military propagandists still claim DU presents no clear health risks, at any level of exposure. Unless, of course, one is targeted by weapons firing DU projectiles.

There are still no reliable estimates of how much DU was used during the conquest of Iraq. The lower estimates have been 500 tons, while some guesses range as high as 2,000 tons. No doubt, the expanded us of DU in missiles and bombs – much of it carried out in secret – makes it difficult to accurately come up with a reliable figure. There is, however, substantial evidence regarding the effects of DU exposure, as the land and people of Iraq have been so exposed for over 12 years. In the southern city of Basra, for example, radiation levels were 84 times greater than what is considered safe, before the latest war of conquest. Cancer and other ailments associated with exposure to radiation are epidemic throughout southern Iraq, Kuwait and across their borders into Saudi Arabia and Iran. Eight years after the Gulf war, Canadian soldiers who participated in the conflict were still passing uranium 238 in their urine.

- much more on depleted uranium munitions, from we are not afraid of ruins -

Zimmerman confirms that “a comparison can be made between DU and hot particles released from nuclear accidents resulting from fire and/or explosions. It is the burning of DU that turns it into microparticles which produces the internal hazard. The same would be true for hot particles produced in nuclear weapons explosions and accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. DU is a single radionuclide, uranium, with a tremendously long half-life. A nuclear reactor contains numerous biologically significant radionuclides with variable half-lives. The kinetics/biochemistry of uranium once inside the body is quite different from that of a host of radionuclides targeting different organ systems simultaneously with variable rates of disintegration due to the different rates of decay. The fact that DU is both chemically and radiologically hazardous, which nearly all radiobiologists deny, damns any other more active types of radiation gaining entrance into the interior of the body” (pers. comm.).

In other words, the hot particles that were emitted after the nuclear meltdowns and explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant (FNPP) were every bit as dangerous, if not more so, than what soldiers in Iraq and other illegal war theaters experienced when DU munitions were used. This would especially be true for people living within close vicinity of the FNPP however researchers picked up significant numbers of hot particles in car engine filters as far away as Tokyo (37).

Some industry scams for dealing with nuclear pollution:

  • Dilute it to “safe” levels before discharging it into the environment. But the same quantity of nuclear pollution is ultimately discharged.
  • Mask the dangers of low dose radiation as if “low” quantity also means “low” risk.
  • Averaging of internal doses over an entire organ even though the radioactive particle and alpha radiation may be attacking a very specific spot, a group of cells. Statistical averaging is a way of diluting the danger even though the hot particle is causing pinpoint damage (p. 198 – 203). This is like saying that if someone in a football stadium shoots a gun and kills a handful of people, it is really not that bad given there were 100,000 people in attendance.

Conclusion

Clearly the international public cannot trust the news that comes out of government, the nuclear industry or mainstream media when it comes to protecting public health. The public cannot continue to simply defer to those in positions of authority but must in the future investigate the facts for ourselves to determine our own health and safety, and more importantly to assure the health of generations to follow.

Richard Wilcox has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from a social science, holistic perspective. He teaches at a number of universities in the Tokyo, Japan area. His articles on environmental topics including the Fukushima nuclear disaster are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com/ and are regularly published at Activist Post and Rense.com. His interviews with Jeff Rense are available at the website http://www.rense.com.

this article originally appeared on activist post – Powerful Lies: The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster And The Radioactive Effects On Human Health

some of the images above were taken from an article from the Daily Mail, archived here:

America on radiation alert: Japan faces world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl as experts warn fallout may reach U.S.

By David Derbyshire, Richard Shears and Daily Mail Reporters

References:

1. Paul Zimmerman, A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science (778 pgs., 2009).

2. Dresden James Quote
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Dresden.James.Quote.8B45

3. Molly Ivins Quotes
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/molly_ivins.htm

4. Annual Global Road Crash Statistics
http://www.asirt.org/KnowBeforeYouGo/RoadSafetyFacts/RoadCrashStatistics/tabid/213/Default.aspx

5. A Silent Forest. The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w437uQf_A7c&feature=youtu.be

6. Geoengineering Watch
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/

7. Yablokov, V.B. Nesterenko, A. V. Nesterenko (2009). Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. New York Academy of Sciences, 327 pgs.

8. Chernobyl: the true scale of the accident
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html

9. The Chernobyl Forum
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf

10. Chernobyl, 25 Years Later
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/04/chernobyl-25-years-later/

11. Recent evidence on the risks of very low-level radiation
http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/recent-evidence-on-the-risks-of-very-low-level-radiation/

12. Many people unaware of radiation risk from CT scans
http://news.yahoo.com/many-people-unaware-radiation-risk-ct-scans-213236978.html

13. More Thyroid Cancers Found In Fukushima Children
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=9699

14. Issues of Radioactive Exposure are Considered Taboo on Japanese Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtbi1Q4aZ8

15. Recent evidence on the risks of very low-level radiation
http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/recent-evidence-on-the-risks-of-very-low-level-radiation/

16. Stanford researchers calculate global health impacts of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/july/fukushima-health-impacts-071712.html

17. Reassessing the health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/01/reassessing-health-effects-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-accident

18. Fallout from Fukushima: One Year After
http://www.ianfairlie.org/uncategorized/fallout-from-fukushima-one-year-after/

19. Press and CRMS CRIIRAD
http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&ei=0eT3UI6dGKbF0QWzlIH4BA&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcriirad%26hl%3Den%26tbo%3Dd%26rlz%3D1C1GGGE_en-gbGB440GB445&rurl=translate.google.co.uk&sl=fr&twu=1&u=http://www.criirad.org/actualites/dossier2012/fukushima/12-11-05CRIIRADF.pdf

20. Dietary Intake of Radiocesium in Adult Residents in Fukushima Prefecture and Neighboring Regions after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es304128t

21. Fukushima is Worse than Chernobyl – on Global Contamination
http://japanfocus.org/-Chris-Busby/3563

22. Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/12/nuclear_engineer_arnie_gundersen_fukushima_meltdown

23. Is Fukushima A Factor In Japan’s Record Deaths In 2011-12?
http://rense.com/general95/isfuku.html

24. Measurement of Radioactive Fallout from the March 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Incident
http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/fukushima/

25. Analysis of Radionuclide Releases from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident Part II
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00024-012-0578-1

26. Fallout forensics hike radiation toll
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111025/full/478435a.html

27. Tepco’s Cheapskate Tactics Put World at Risk
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/04/tepcos-cheapskate-tactics-put-world-at-risk/

28. Fukushima’s Damnably Unstable Atoms Contaminate Pacific Ocean
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/11/fukushimas-damnably-unstable-atoms.html

29. What Else Is TEPCO Not Telling
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=9746

30. Never Ending Load of Gobshite from the Lying Bastards of Tokyo Electric Power Company
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/06/never-ending-load-of-gobshite-from-the-lying-bastards-of-tokyo-electric-power-company/

31. Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health
http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Death-Nuclear-Pollution-Health/dp/1897761031/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1/175-1419479-8993005

32. Wolves of Water: A Study Constructed from Atomic Radiation, Morality, Epidemiology, Science, Bias, Philosophy and Death http://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Water-Constructed-Epidemiology-Philosophy/dp/1897761260/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

33. Nuclear-related books in my collection -Russell Hoffman, Concerned Citizen
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/mybooks.htm

34. The Code Killers:Why DNA and ionizing radiation are a dangerous mix
http://www.acehoffman.org/
Download here:
http://www.acehoffman.org/books/The%20Code%20Killers%20low%20resolution%20for%20web%20viewing.pdf

35. Rense & Paul Zimmerman – No ‘Safe’ Dose Of ANY Radiation Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIfUkYMyCjI

36. Radiation Roulette
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~peterson/HCarticle106.html

37. Hot Particles and Measurement of Radioactivity
http://vimeo.com/41657649

bp-oil-spill-contained

BP’s destruction of the Gulf of Mexico – extinguishing life on earth for unnecessary corporations’ profits

just like international criminal banking cartels are too rich and powerful for the government to touch, so are giant corporations – especially those that provide the precious oil that allows international trade to be possible.

no crime against humanity or nature is so great as to be a punishable offence. not murdering indigenous people who refuse to allow oil exploration in their homelands in the amazon rainforest, the mountainous islands of indonesia, the niger river delta…anyplace the oil companies destroys through their incompetence and evil machinations – well, that’s the price of doing business. evil business.

if their wreckless disregard for life isn’t enough to convince you of oil companies’ inherent evil, the fact that WE DO NOT EVER NEED TO USE PETROCHEMICALS EVER, FOR ANYTHING, EVER should provide the proverbial icing on the evil cake for anyone with even rudimentary intelligence.

the creation of energy through burning things is pre-19th century technology. it was surpassed and made irrelevant by Nicolai Tesla over 100 years ago.

see these posts:

tesla motors unveils “supercharging” stations for new generation of electric vehicles

University Uses Tesla Technology to Wirelessly Charge Electric Bus

bp-oil-spill-containedbut, just as the banksters are allowed to launder drug cartel billions, while a teenager smoking a joint in his bedroom could be sent to prison for possessing the products the cartels provide, the rich are allowed to do anything – pollute the land and sea, and kill everything and everyone in the way; molest children by the thousands; steal everything that’s not nailed down – while people without huge piles of money to burn can have their lives ruined – either by being between a corporation and their potential profits, or by being incarcerated for having the exact same habits as the country club crowd has, but not having enough money to hire one of them as your lawyer.

we’ve entered a new age of corporate feudalism, with an uber-class of murderous scumbag psychopaths ruling over people too frightened, confused, misled, blinded, and/or crippled by the corporations and their minions.

i, for one, am not a serf, wasn’t born to provide scumbag psychopaths with luxury i cannot even fathom, and will not willingly consent to being treated like i owe the banksters, the government, or any profit-generating entity ANYTHING. i am perfectly able to see all institutions of power crumble to the ground.

and what about the economy? i’ll let you in on a little secret – until about 100 years ago, hardly ANYONE on earth needed money to survive in this world. we still don’t – we just let the media and government tell us we do.

as far as the banksters, their corporate uber-lords, their minions, mouthpieces, and loyal idiots – as we used to say in texas – i wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.

below are examples of how the courts look after the interests of foreign corporations, even at the expense of lives and widespread economic damage as a result of their shenanigans.

- rob los ricos

see these previous posts as well:

2013/03/16 – OWOC Gulf Flight – Taylor Energy

Three years after the BP Macondo well disaster, the Gulf of Mexico is still covered in oil and barely sustaining visible life above or below the surface. Undisclosed white matter is appearing and leakages with other drill sites appears to be problematic. With such a massive dead zone, it makes you wonder how long oil rigs have negligently been spewing toxins and the rig disaster wasn’t part of a long term plan to expand the dead zone to include the entire Gulf of Mexico; all aimed at turning the entire region into a vast wasteland of oil rigs leaking oil, Corexit and other toxic chemicals into the core engine of the oceans converter belt.

To keep the sheen suppressed under surface water, spraying Corexit is still a daily routine on behalf of BP. So, below where it mentions the Macondo well looks good after one week, it took thousands of gallons of Corexit to break up the sheen and sink the toxic goo below the surface.

Published on Mar 16, 2013

20130316 – On Wings Of Care Gulf Flyover. This video was taken with our belly viewer (the front of the airplane is to the left in this video; that’s our nose wheel showing at the lower left, because the videocamera is tilted slightly forward to give the pilot a short lead time to center the plane over the target. Sorry it looks like we’re flying sideways, that’s how the videocamera fit best into the belly port!). This is the chronic Taylor Energy pollution site, about 12 nm southeast of the Louisiana coast. Lots of rainbow sheen here today, and even some brown weathered crude floating in it near its east end, which is just west of the Nykor Energy platform (unrelated to the sheen). For more photos and videos and discussion, see the article at OnWingsOfCare.org

reposted from 2012: the awakening Gulf of Mexico ~ Disappearing sheen, disappearing life

The Ongoing Great Gulf Coast Holocaust

Dave Hodges
Activist Post

It’s been labeled the worst environmental disaster in world history, and rightfully so, because the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is like the nightmarish gift that keeps on giving. BP and the United States government would have the public believe that all is well in the Gulf. Nothing could be further from the truth. The crisis is not only ongoing; its effects are worsening

The April 20, 2010 the Deep Water Horizon Explosion will  be back in the news again. The explosion of this oil rig represents the biggest false flag event in history; the devastation of this false flag event is still being felt and the worst is yet to come. You may have heard about the explosions near the New Madrid Fault and the thousands of generators being shipped to Louisiana by FEMA. Soon all readers of this series will connect the BP oil spill to these recent current events.

Over 34 months later, the oil spill has destroyed the welfare, livelihoods, health and futures of tens of millions of Gulf Coast residents, not to mention the destruction of the fragile ecology in the Gulf of Mexico.

Originally, BP was ordered to initiate $20 billion in restitution to the Gulf Coast victims. In retrospect, BP has never made full restitution to the victims. The overall physical health of the region has been decimated and the mainstream media and government officials reaching as high as President Obama have been complicit in covering up the geological and medical magnitude of the event. Even to this day, BP is still covertly carpet bombing Corexit in the Gulf and the much of the environmental catastrophe remains untouched by the BP cleanup crews.

see the rest of the article, from activist post

BP Urges Government To Halt Gulf Oil Disaster Relief Payments For Future Losses

Oil giant BP is urging the federal government to stop making payments to Gulf Coast residents affected by last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil geyser. BP claims that the improving economic conditions among areas hit the hardest by the oil provide enough evidence to show that they no longer need to be compensated for future losses from the environmental disaster.

To date, roughly $4.5 billion worth of claims have been paid out of the $20 billion fund established by the government and funded by BP to pay victims of the oil catastrophe. Claims continue to be filed with the government seeking compensation for their losses.

BP is not attempting to halt payments to current claimants with recognizable losses – only those who are claiming that their future income will be impacted. The company released a letter to the government and to the press.

To determine if BP’s claims of economic recovery are true, all you have to do is look to the past. The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred more than 20 years ago, yet oil still coats areas of Alaska today. And the difference between the two oil leaks is that with Exxon, we knew exactly how much oil was spilled into Prince William Sound. In that case, it was roughly 11 million gallons of oil.

However, there is no precise measurement of how much oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico, but the best estimates say that it was as much as 184 million gallons of oil. It is highly unlikely that all of this oil disappeared or washed up on beaches. When this oil eventually turns up, claims will continue to be filed by those affected.

But it isn’t just the economy that BP is saying has recovered; they also make the claim that the fishing industry is back to pre-spill health.

from desmogBlog BP Urges Government To Halt Gulf Oil Disaster Relief Payments For Future Losses

BP sues to block settlement payouts

BP has sued to block what could be billions of dollars in settlement payouts to businesses over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The London-based oil giant accused the court-appointed administrator for the settlement, Patrick Juneau, of trying to rewrite the terms of the deal. BP said Juneau violated the settlement in the way he used a complex formula to determine the payments to businesses.

Last week, BP warned investors that the settlement’s price tag will be “significantly higher” than initially estimated.

“Although the ultimate exposure is at this time inestimable, it grows daily and could cost BP billions,” the company’s lawyers wrote Friday.

U.S District Judge Carl Barbier appointed Juneau and has upheld his decisions for calculating payments. Juneau’s spokesman declined to comment on BP’s lawsuit.

Attorneys who worked on the class-action settlement with BP said the payments to businesses were spelled out in the agreement.

“Simply put, BP undervalued the settlement and underestimated the number of people and businesses that qualify under the objective formulas that BP agreed to,” attorneys Steve Herman and Jim Roy said in a statement.

from the sarasota herald-tribune

Alabama attorney general blasts BP for challenging Gulf oil spill claims

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange is blasting British oil giant BP for challenging certain claims that could cost the company billions of dollars as part of a class-action settlement the company agreed to last year with victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

“At the same time BP lauds its efforts for restoring the Gulf in the media, it blames others in court for its own mistakes to avoid responsibility for its own conduct,” Strange said in  statement Thursday.

Strange said that if BP underestimated how much it would owe under the terms of its agreement, that is BP’s problem, not the citizens’.

“BP cannot undo a settlement it wrote and signed, just to avoid its consequences. The courts should not allow it,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans has scheduled an April 5 hearing on BP’s request to prevent payments of what the oil company calls fictitious or inflated claims that are being made as part of the settlement.

In an emergency filing last week, BP said it will suffer irreparable harm if the judge doesn’t grant the injunction relating to  business economic loss claims.

Separately, BP filed a complaint against the settlement program and its administrator, Patrick Juneau, alleging breach of contract. The complaint doesn’t seek monetary damages, but it does ask that Juneau be ordered to change how he  interprets the agreement so that he complies with what BP believes the agreement says.

And Strange said in his statement that “a legion of BP attorneys wrote and negotiated the terms” of the agreement.

“But now, BP is objecting to the terms of the agreement it signed.  This challenge is not surprising; it is consistent with BP’s past behavior,” he said.

from fuel fix

Police Shooting Teen

New York City police murder 16 year-old; mourners attacked, martial law declared

Police rampage in Brooklyn!

The NYPD has declared a portion of Flatbush a “Frozen Zone”- meaning media are not allowed in and people can be subjected to arrest for not following police orders. It basically means the area is under temporary martial law. The last times the NYPD declared a Frozen Zone was on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and during the beginning of OWS.

posted by FIERCE on their tumblog – see their FIERCE website

The Blakseed: R U STILL DOWN?


If you want to protect the children then teach them! You cant teach if you have stopped learning. Malcolm warned people about leaving the schools in charge of teaching our children.. if we are not careful we may be allowing the system to teach our children how to forget their history and in doing that they have no foundation to stand. this is why african american dominicans, african american puerto ricans, african americans etc etc, can grow up and become cops and soldiers without a thought of how they treat the people in our communities!!! Teach the children!!! R U STILL DOWN for Kimani Gray? RIP!

Officers Who Shot 16-Year-Old Kimani Gray Had Faced Civil Rights Lawsuits

Two police officers who killed a 16-year-old boy on a New York City street have been sued for alleged civil rights violations related to other encounters with the public, the Daily News reported Saturday.

The city has paid $215,000 to settle three lawsuits against Sgt. Mourad Mourad and two against officer Jovaniel Cordova, the newspaper reported (http://nydn.us/XHjdZx).

The officers were in Brooklyn’s East Flatbush section March 9 when they tried to stop and question 16-year-old Kimani Gray on the street. Police say the officers, who were not wearing uniforms, shot the teen after he pulled a gun.

Gray’s killing prompted a week of protest marches in Brooklyn, including some incidents that turned violent, with people ransacking a market and throwing items at police officers and police vehicles.

Police Shooting Teen

A storefront poster with a picture of police shooting victim Kimani “Kiki” Gray, calls for an “independent investigation” on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. Gray, 16, was shot in front of his best friend’s house after leaving a birthday party, his grieving mother said. Police officers claim the youth pointed a .38-caliber revolver at them, while his family says he was unarmed. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

from huffington post – Mourad Mourad, Jovaniel Cordova, Officers Who Shot

Flatbush Riot: Vigil For Kimani Gray, 16-Year-Old Shot And Killed By NYPD Cops, Turns Violent

A candlelight vigil to mourn a 16-year-old boy who was fatally shot by police turned violent Monday evening, as frustrated attendees threw bottles at cops, broke shop windows and looted a Rite Aid, officials and sources said.

the backstory:

June 14, 2012 -

According to witnesses, officers got out of their car with guns drawn and told the woman to exit the vehicle. Those witnesses told 1010 WINS’ Eileen Lehpamer the woman was unable to do so because she was trapped by an airbag.
At that point, witnesses said, officers fired into the car and shot the woman as she was sitting in the driver’s seat. The police officers then pulled the woman out of the car as she lay dying in the street, according to witness accounts. from WINS, Police: Woman Struggled With Cops Before Being Shot Dead In Brooklyn

MARCH 9, 2013 -

Police shot and killed a 16-year-old boy late Saturday night…Kimani Gray, 16, of Crown Heights…

Police said both officers fired at the suspect, hitting Kimani in several places on his torso and legs, cops said. The boy was rushed to Kings County Hospital but declared dead on arrival, police said. Both officers were treated at Methodist Hospital and treated for trauma and tinnitus.

Kimani’s uncle, Cecil Nunes, 65, said the boy and his mother, Carol, an out-of-work chef, had lived with him in Crown Heights for a year until a week ago, when the two moved back to the neighborhood Kimani was raised in, East Flatbush.

“I don’t what he was up to last night. I don’t know what happened,” said Nunes, his voice trembling. “He was respectful, but a typical teenager. I have to ask myself why this happened. Why, why, why,” he said.

The boy’s mother had to be hospitalized after she learned of her son’s death, said Nunes, and she had just been released Sunday morning. from DNAinfo.com, Police Fatally Shoot Armed 16-Year-Old in Brooklyn, Cops Say

FLATBUSH VS NYPD: Where Is All This Going?

several cops assertively arrest black youth...look at their faces...

four days of unrest…look at their faces…image credit: getty

This past Monday night, when a vigil for slain Brooklyn teenager Kimani Gray turned violent, we wondered what might happen next. Last night things got out of hand again, though this time mainstream media is referring to it as “unrest” rather than a “riot.”

The Post reports that 50 people were arrested, including the victim’s sister, and a police offer was hit in the face with a brick (but not seriously injured, which makes usage of the word “smashed” in the Post’s headline a little curious).

To recap, Gray was shot by police officers on the night of March 9 after they claimed he pointed a gun at them, which some witnesses have refuted. Autopsy results released yesterday show he was hit with seven bullets on both his front and back.

With tensions continuing to escalate between police and Flatbush community members, one has to wander what’s next?

from NewYorkNatives

The NYPD Declares Martial Law in Brooklyn

On the heels of three nights of protests over the police slaying of 16 year old Kimani Gray, the NYPD has turned the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn into a State of Exception, claiming emergency powers to suspend the constitutional guarantees of the citizenry.

The people regularly targeted by police harassment and violence, overwhelmingly the city’s poor and minority populations, have taken to the streets to speak out against the NYPD’s draconian tactics. The police have in turn responded with even further harsh measures by suppressing the right of the people to voice dissatisfaction with that very same police force.

Cops kettled protesters at Wednesday night’s candlelight vigil, resulting in 46 arrests. Police even arrested Kimani Gray’s distraught sister, Mahnefeh.

The NYPD euphemistically calls the public spaces in which the Constitutional rights of the people are suspended “frozen zones.”

from uscop.org

reposted from Anarchy and Chaos

Fukushima

fukushima’s radioactive ghost towns

Two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, radiation levels in the city of the same name remain far higher than normal. Heinz Smital, of Greenpeace, believes residents are being kept in the dark over the dangers.

You recently measured the radioactivity in and around Fukushima for Greenpeace Germany. What were your findings?

The radioactivity there is still very high. In the city of Fukushima, which has some 300,000 inhabitants, there are still children’s playgrounds that are highly contaminated. The values we measured there on the ground were 200 times higher than before the nuclear accident. In the evacuated ghost towns where there has been a great effort to clean things up, we have found that the radiation has not declined. It simply isn’t going away. While the cleanup may have been 20 to 50 percent effective, the radiation level is still too high for people to be able to return to a normal life.

So, people are not going to be allowed to move back there at all?

Exactly, and we are critical of the approach that concentrates on the evacuated areas and puts so much effort into decontaminating in those places. This is the sort of effort that should be dedicated to the populated districts. People live in those places and the radiation levels ought to be reduced. That would help people far more. I have grave concerns about the idea of returning to the highly contaminated areas and thinking that normal life is possible there.

What do people in Fukushima think about it all?

We spoke to a lot of people there. I learned that the Japanese are very connected with their land. They have lived there for several generations. But the Japanese are very brave. They don’t really complain, but underneath, they are suffering. They would like to have life back to the way it was, something that unfortunately is impossible.

Have people been given enough information by the authorities about how great the risk is?

FukushimaThe health risks are played down, in part because it is something that can’t be dealt with. It’s not possible to decontaminate whole swathes of land, mountains, rivers and riverbanks. You can’t get rid of that contamination. Now there is an effort underway to get people to accept the higher radiation levels. They say it doesn’t have any effects, to stop people from worrying. In this respect, the victims of the disaster are becoming victims once again in that they are being encouraged to accept living in areas where the radiation levels are too high.

Do you think that the Japanese government has not done enough for people?

Overall, the people have been abandoned. I have seen thick application forms with several dozen pages, almost like books, that are supposed to be filled out to receive compensation. Most people just give up because it is too much effort, too much bureaucracy. They have no energy to battle their way through it all. I met one man who had written 15,000 letters in two years and hired a lawyer. Many others do not have the strength in these strife-ridden, difficult situations. Nuclear power operators profit from this, not having to pay out the compensation payments.

How long will it take until life is back to normal in Fukushima?

We know something about this from the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. Even decades afterwards, the level of radiation has not fallen by much. The decrease is caused mainly by radioactive decay. In the coming decades, the Fukushima region will have to contend with high radiation levels. One can see how little hope there is of coming to terms with the magnitude of the catastrophe. You can see how dangerous nuclear power is and how important it is that Germany, and the world, do away with it.

Heinz Smital is a nuclear expert with Greenpeace Germany.

Interview: Gui Hao

from Deutsche Welle, Greenpeace: Fukushima victims are victims once again

Uploaded on Feb 13, 2012

Nearly a year after the quake and tsunami that unleashed the Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuated residents tell how their lives have changed. Paul Chapman reports.

Fair Use: via Reuters – http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/…

Published on Jan 3, 2013

It is nearly two years since Japan’s nuclear disaster at Fukushima and thousands of people who lived near the plant have still not been allowed to go home. Many workers who stayed behind in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 were told by many at the time that they were going to die for their pains.

LINKS from ENENews.com:

Fukushima Now

Time has stood still over the past two years in the communities surrounding the crippled nuclear power plant at Fukushima in Japan.

fukushima ghost townIn a Dateline special on The Nuclear Dilemma, Adrian Brown explores these ghost towns to see for himself the legacy of the nuclear disaster that followed 2011’s earthquake and tsunami.

Armed with a Geiger counter, Adrian travels through one of the most contaminated places on earth, meeting some of the people who’ve chosen to stay in and around the exclusion zone.

Life is tough for the locals, who fear long term consequences for their health. Other residents have decided to move and start new lives far from home.

So what does the future hold both for them and Japan’s nuclear power industry?

WATCHSee Adrian’s story.

BLOG – Adrian writes more about his personal experience visiting Fukushima’s deserted towns.

INTERACTIVE – How does radiation affect health? Find out more in our interactive guide, which also includes news coverage from the time of the disaster.

REPLAY – Look back at Dateline’s previous stories on the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster… Japan’s Catastrophe reported on the immediate aftermath, and Nuclear Family looked at the effect of the disasters on local people.

THE NUCLEAR DILEMMA – Also in this special edition of Dateline… the controversy over the disposal of nuclear waste in Europe, and the long-term effect of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

from SBS dateline

the latest from;

Fukushima Diary

Gustavo Cruz-Lozano is escorted to court in hidalgo county, texas, after being arrested for threatening to kill a texas judge.

Man arrested in Texas claims to have killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry

 By

Jan. 17, 2013

A Mexican national claims to be the man who shot and killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose death is tied to the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal.

Gustavo Cruz-Lozano, who says he killed Terry, turned himself in on Wednesday on charges related to a separate incident: threatening to kill Hidalgo County, Texas Sheriff Lupe Treviño.

But before he surrendered himself, Cruz-Lozano said in an exclusive interview with Univision News’ daily news magazine show “Primer Impacto” that he murdered Terry during a firefight on Dec. 14, 2010, while the agent was on patrol near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. Two AK-47 rifles found at the scene were linked to the botched Operation Fast and Furious, in which the U.S. government sought to track firearms sales to violent drug cartels. But it remains unclear whether those weapons were used to kill Terry.

Cruz-Lozano, 41, was not one of the several suspects arrested in the aftermath of Terry’s slaying. But in an interview with Univision News, he insisted he is the one who pulled the trigger on Terry.

“We had a drug shipment and when they took us by surprise, people started surrounding them, and that’s when we ambushed them,” he told “Primer Impacto” correspondent Natalia Cruz. “When they started surrounding them and they had no time to react, I was the one, I was the one that killed him.”

Until now, the identity of the trigger man in Terry’s murder has been unknown. The Federal Bureau of Investigation requested to see Cruz-Lozano’s interview with Univision News. Cruz-Lozano agreed to the interview, which aired on Thursday, on the condition that his face be covered.

One man has already pleaded guilty for participating in Terry’s murder: Mexican national Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, the Associated Press reported in October 2012. Osorio-Arellanes faces life in prison.

When Univision News contacted the Terry family’s attorney, Lincoln Combs, for a reaction to Cruz-Lozano’s claims, he expressed skepticism about the possibility that Cruz-Lozano was involved in the killing since his name had not been part of the investigation thus far.

Gustavo Cruz-Lozano is escorted to court in hidalgo county, texas, after being arrested for threatening to kill a texas judge.The attorney said that the alleged perpetrators of Terry’s death had been previously identified by the authorities. Out of the five drug cartel members involved in the killing, two are being held in the United States (the Osorio brothers), one is in custody in Mexico (Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza) and and two others, identified as Jesus Favela Astorga and Ivan Rosario Soto Barraza, are missing. The U.S. government has offered $25,000 for information that would lead to their capture.

Another man who purchased the two rifles found at the scene of Terry’s death, Jaime Avila, Jr., was sentenced last month to nearly five years in federal prison.

The “Fast and Furious” scandal sent political shockwaves through the Obama administration. Critics called the operation irresponsible for allowing guns to enter into the hands of cartel members. Around 1,400 of the 2,000 guns purchased as part of the operation were lost and nearly 100 were used in crimes in Mexico, according to a Univision News investigation.

from ABC news – Fast And Furious Scandal: Man Claims To Have Shot U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry

Primer Impacto achieved exclusive interview with the man who claims to have killed Brian Terry in 2010

A man who turned himself in to U.S. authorities Wednesday confessed before the cameras of Primer Impacto, Univision Network, having killed the Border Patrol agent (Border Patrol) U.S., Brian Terry, which occurred in 2010. During an exclusive interview to the journalist Natalia Cruz, the hitman said he had participated in the murder of Agent Terry and was also having made ​​death threats to the Sheriff of Hidalgo, Texas, Lupe Treviño, for which he received criminal charges in that county. Cruz explained the call of man came to drafting Primer Impacto, and that the team spoke with him Primer Impacto “repeatedly. Then I did an interview in Monterrey, Mexico, hiding his face. ” “True to his word, he told us that he thought the date delivered (to U.S. authorities) and allowed us to accompany him,” said Cruz.

Interviewing

Video sobe The report shows the time that Gustavo Cruz Lozano is arrested for threatening to kill two public servants. In exclusive statements to Primer Impacto, Cruz Lozano told a string of crimes and possible evidence in police investigations on both sides of the border, including the notorious murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

“That was Nogales, Arizona,” Cruz said Lozano. “In fact this person bore the name Brian Terry, this was in the year 2010 (…) Commonly, as he says, he extended an ambush … We walked, then, with a shipment of drugs and when we were surprised, some people that began to surround them and that’s when I, we laid the ambush them. Unfortunately I, this, they began to surround them and when there was no time that they could react in time, I was the one that I was the one who kills him. “

this, from Univision Noticias – Sicario confesses to killing border agent;

see previous posts, including:

u.s. government is in partnership with the sinaloa drug cartel

by entering “Fast and Furious” in the search box above

bradley manning’s genderqueer identity used to portray him as mentally unstable

The US military held WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning under strict “suicide watch” partly because his gender identity struggle showed he was mentally “not stable,” a witness said.

Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, is accused of the biggest intelligence leak in American history for allegedly passing a massive trove of classified documents to Julian Assange’s anti-secrecy website.

Manning’s purported gender struggle came up at a pre-trial hearing as his defense urged a military judge to dismiss the case, citing alleged “unlawful punishment” endured by thesoldier during nine months of solitary confinement.

Master Sergeant Craig Blenis, who served as a counselor at the Quantico military base where the WikiLeaks suspect was detained, said the gender issue “on top of other things” was a factor that determined his detention status.

It “shows he’s not stable,” Blenis told the court, explaining why Manning was put under stringent “prevention of injury” status at the Virginia base.

The subject of Manning’s alter ego, Breanna, first arose in hearings last year. In court documents, the defense argues that prison authorities displayed “intolerance and homophobia” in their treatment of Manning, now aged 24.

Mladen Antonov/AFP/FileA member of the Bradley Manning Support Group holds a banner during a rally at the entrance to Fort George Meade military base in Fort Meade, Maryland on November 27. The US military held WikiLeaks suspect Manning under strict "suicide watch" partly because his gender identity struggle showed he was mentally "not stable," a witness said Sunday.

Mladen Antonov/AFP/File
A member of the Bradley Manning Support Group holds a banner during a rally at the entrance to Fort George Meade military base in Fort Meade, Maryland on November 27. The US military held WikiLeaks suspect Manning under strict “suicide watch” partly because his gender identity struggle showed he was mentally “not stable,” a witness said Sunday.

Blenis was pressed on why he recommended that the army private remain under harsh, maximum custody despite filing reports that described him as a model detainee and advice of psychiatrists, who said the accused was not suicidal.

The defense also confronted Blenis with an email that shows him joking with his commanding officer about a possible birthday package addressed to Manning that the Quantico jail rejected because it had not been cleared in advance.

In the email, Blenis lists the official reasons why the package was refused but added that the decision was taken because they “felt like being” difficult.

Blenis said Manning’s reluctance to engage in conversations with troops overseeing his detention caused him concern, particularly because the accused admitted to having suicidal thoughts upon arriving at Quantico in July 2010.

Manning’s civilian defense lawyer David Coombs suggested that his client, who was earlier held in US custody in Kuwait, was merely a man of few words.

“Is it possible you’re looking at a quiet guy?” asked Coombs.

“That’s not what I thought,” the sergeant replied.

Manning was held at Quantico until April 2011 before being transferred to a prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where authorities concluded he was not suicidal and could be held under more lenient conditions.

Legal experts say it is unlikely that Judge Denise Lind will throw out the case because of Manning’s detention measures, but she could take the issue into account during sentencing, if the soldier is found guilty as charged.

If convicted on all 22 counts, including a charge of “aiding the enemy,” Manning could spend the rest of his life in prison.

His trial has been pushed back to March 2013 instead of February that year, Judge Lind announced earlier.

In a video presented to the court, Blenis was seen speaking to Manning through prison bars, telling him that he is a trouble-free inmate: “I wish I had a 100 Mannings.”

In the video, Manning can be seen standing naked from the waist up, with his arms behind him — prison authorities forced him to strip at night as part of the prevention of injury (POI) regime.

from CNBnews.net – WikiLeaks suspect’s gender struggle under spotlight

Lawyer for Bradley Manning describes his treatment as “stupid and criminal”

The lawyer representing Bradley Manning, the US Army private accused of leaking classified information to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has issued a damning indictment of his client’s “criminal” treatment in solitary confinement.

“Brad’s treatment at Quantico will forever be etched in our nation’s history as a disgraceful moment in time,” Manning’s defense attorney David Combs said in his first-ever public appearance regarding US v. Manning.

“Not only was it stupid and counterproductive – it was criminal,” he continued in his scathing condemnation of the “unlawful pretrial punishment” that PFC Manning was subjected to for nine months while held at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia.

Combs first public comments since becoming Manning’s lawyer two years ago were timed to correspond with the conclusion of the Article 13 hearing – a defense motion alleging Manning had endured unlawful pre-trial punishment.

Manning spent the first nine months of his pretrial detention in a 6-by-8 foot cell in solitary confinement, conditions which Combs described as “draconian.”

Under constant surveillance, Manning spent around 23 hours each day confined to his “cage-like” cell, and was denied basic items such as toilet paper and bedclothes.

The strict conditions were a result of Manning’s designation as a “suicide risk,” though the 24-year-old said during a pre-trial hearing late last month that he “didn’t want to die,” he just wanted to “get out of the cage.”

He was later transferred to another detention center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in April 2011.

“As far as his mental state or how he is …I can tell you that he is very excited about having his case go forward and it’s in the process now. It’s been a long time,” Combs explained.

from rt – ‘Stupid and criminal’: Lawyer for Bradley Manning speaks out

see also:

Treated like ‘a caged animal’: Manning breaks silence in WikiLeaks hearing

carbombSyria

telecoms shut off syria’s internet: u.k., france pledge arms to terrorists in syria, lebanon

have the NATO nations already begun forming the coalition government to fight against the terrorists they are arming to topple the Assad regime?
internet traffic for syria

activists manage work-arounds to blackout

the syrian government’s websites are hosted on servers in the u.s., and they are down. why? the government – the u.s. government – demanded it. this an unashamedly obvious tactic to silence criticism of the nato-supplied terrorists (fighters from iran and iraq, weapons from lybia). allowing them to run amok with bloody violence. we should never forget that most of the “rebel” fighters are foreigners, and have no blood relatives to worry about in this massacre.

just the day before the internet blackout, there had been car bombings in the syrian capitol and the u.k. vowed to provide more cars to the rebels, joining france in the growing coalition to loot, pillage and rape the shit out of syria, which israel seems to want in on.

the “bad guys” in this are so stereotypical – weird cult terrorists leaders, international intrique, international intelligence agency-run drug rings, evil corporations, shadowy government agencies – as to be laughable. it’s not so funny in syria, though.

interesting side note:

Ali Hashem: Al Jazeera has become a “media war machine” and is “committing journalistic suicide”.

Despite the communication restrictions Phil Sands for the UAE based newspaper The National, managed to file a story from Damascus.

Activists say Syrian rebels and government troops are clashing south of the capital as Internet and telephones lines remain cut for a second day nationwide, AP reports.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were intense clashes after midnight in villages and towns near the country’s airport but it was quiet Friday morning. It said rebels were able to destroy several army vehicles near the airport.

The group, which has a network of activists around Syria, reported fighting in southern neighborhoods of Damascus including Qaboun and Hajar Aswad.

Mataz Suheil, a spokesman for the Observatory told the Guardian, that the group had managed to talks to contacts in Syria using satellite phones and some landlines.

But his account from the Syria capital still cited reports from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Here’s an extract:

Throughout the day there was heavy fighting in the south of the capital between loyalist army units and rebels trying to topple the president, Bashar Al Assad, and a fourth consecutive day of air strikes by military jets on Daraya, about five kilometres from the centre of Damascus.

Sustained artillery barrages were also fired into the area, with tanks and troops facing stubborn residence from the Free Syrian Army.

Government sources had earlier predicted the military offensive in Daraya, where the regime says it faces al-Qaeda terrorists, would be wrapped up by today …

The heaviest clashes erupted between troops and rebels in the towns of Babila and Hujaira south-east of the capital, and in Harran Al Awamid, just east of the airport.

Army reinforcements had been sent to the area, according to media reports. The army also went on the offensive across the eastern outer belt of the capital, notably in the towns of Harasta and Douma, and in Eastern Ghuta, the Observatory said.

very thorough coverage can be found at the guardian, ukSyria conflict: internet blackout continues – Friday 30 November 2012

Several US technology companies have stopped hosting Syrian government websites after they were warned they were breaking sanctions against the Assad government, the New York Times reports.

Several host companies said they were taking down those sites. They and similar companies had been identified in reports published by Citizen Lab, a research laboratory that monitors North American Web service providers that host Syrian Web sites.

For example, the Web site of SANA, the Syrian state news agency, is hosted by a Dallas company, SoftLayer Technologies. It is one of a handful of Internet providers based in the United States that sell their services, often unknowingly, to Web sites operated by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

HostDime.com in Orlando, Fla., hosts the Web site of Syria’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. Jumpline.com hosts the site of the country’s General Authority for Development. The government of Hama, a city that has seen heavy clashes between rebels and government troops, operated its Web site through WeHostWebSites.com in Denver.

An executive order by President Obama prohibits American companies from providing Web hosting and other services to Syria without obtaining a license from the Treasury Department.

On Thursday, State Department officials confirmed that providing the services was a violation of the United States sanctions. “Our policies are designed to assist ordinary citizens who are exercising their fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association,” a spokesman, Mark C. Toner, said.

A SoftLayer spokesman, Andre Fuochi, would not comment about the SANA Web site, but in a statement he said the company “rigorously” enforces “prevailing laws and regulations and acts swiftly and vigorously if we find our users to be in violation.”

Dennis Henry, the vice president of operations at HostDime.com, said he had been unaware of the Syrian government Web site, but that it was hosted by a customer’s server housed in HostDime.com’s data center.

“We have contacted our direct client whose server is housing the Web site to express our concerns,” Mr. Henry said.

see full story, from the new york times: Official Syrian Web Sites Hosted in U.S.

See How Syria’s Internet Disappeared

Dashiell Bennett 1,030 Views 7:43 AM ET

It’s been almost a full day now and the nation of Syria remains completely cut off from the rest of the Internet (and by extension, the outside world.) Internet analysts who watched the collapse in real-time think they’ve figured out how it was done.

The Syrian government claims that “terrorists”—their standard euphemism for the rebels—cut the major cables supplying internet connections to the country. That’s an unlikely scenario for a couple of reasons. For starters, the Internet is the rebels’ most important communication tool, used to talk to each other and to spread word of the conflict around the world. There’d be no advantage for them to disable their most effective propaganda tool. (Although, the Syrian state media website is also down.)

Furthermore, there are four actual physical cables that deliver connections from the global Internet to Syria. (Image via Renesys.com) Three of them are underwater, in the Mediterranean Sea. The other comes across the Turkish border. To completely stop the Internet in the manner observed, all four would have to be severed simultaneously, an unlikely logistical challenge for the rebels, and one that still wouldn’t fully explain the systematic shutdown observed by technology companies elsewhere.

Syria only has one Internet provider, which is naturally controlled by the state. All four of the cables would feed into a handful of edge routers (the starting point for an ISP network), that would then distribute all the incoming and outgoing traffic to the rest of the country. Since all the routers are controlled by one company, they could simply reconfigure the routers and then, boom. No more internet. (Network computing company CloudFlare explains it in more technical detail on their blog.)

so, there you go…this from the atlantic wire: See How Syria’s Internet Disappeared

France, U.S. stand behind new opposition alliance

Read a version of this story in Arabic.

(CNN) — France and the United States put their support behind a new coalition of Syrian dissidents Tuesday, but Damascus slammed the group, saying any effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad will be futile.

French President Francois Hollande said his nation “recognizes the Syrian national coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and therefore as the provisional government of the future democratic Syria, making it possible to bring Bashar al-Assad’s regime to an end.”

In Washington, a deputy spokesman for the State Department said the U.S. believes the decision to unite opposition groups marks the start of a democratic future for the Syrian people. The U.S. has yet to formally recognize the group, though, as a representative government.

see CNN video report – Syrian opposition forms new coalition

Syria: Two car bombs kill at least 34

uk vows to provide more cars to terrorists: Syria rebels win support from Britain

Syrian citizens stand near a burning truck that was destroyed by two cars bombs.

Syrian citizens stand near a burning truck that was destroyed by two cars bombs. (AP/SANA)

see related posts from end times news:

click on image to see  Investigation Continues Into Source of Strange Michigan Area 'Explosions' and Radiation Spikes, from activist news

why is the midwest being all ‘splody?

starting with some odd happenings on the shore of lake michgan, there have been numerous instances of strange sounds and explosions, and now, places are blowing up in indiana and illinois.

WTF?!?

reprinted from Activist Post

by Brandon Turbeville

Several months ago I wrote an article entitled “Investigation Continues Into Source of Strange Michigan Area ‘Explosions’ and Radiation Spikes,” where I reported on the mysterious sounds and vibrations felt by countless individuals all over the state of Michigan. In this case, the corporate media, law enforcement, and the military typically tried to downplay the anomalies, even to the point of arresting activist journalists for appearing at the local military base with questions as to the nature of the disturbances.

In Michigan, residents all across the state and into Indiana, reported hearing loud explosions which actually rocked the ground hard enough to shake their houses. Bob Powell of The Truth Is Viral, who lives in the area, and is himself a military veteran, described the “explosions” as being similar to the firing of artillery both in sound and impact.

Recently, however, almost exactly the same kind of incident has occurred in South Carolina, spanning the entire Pee Dee region and all the way into North Carolina. On the evening of November 5, around 7:30-7:45 p.m., various law enforcement and local news agencies were contacted by individuals living in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina in reference to a loud “boom” that was large enough to shake their houses.

Numerous Reports of Mysterious Booms and Strange Lights Over South Carolina

Woman killed in Saybrook house explosion

October 28, 2012

SAYBROOK, Ill. — A house explosion in McLean County is to blame for killing a 60-year-old woman.

County Coroner Beth Kimmerling says multiple agencies responded to a home at 115 South Monroe shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday.

from CInewsNow

Cause of Indianapolis explosion still unknown; $3.6M in damage

Indianapolis Metro Police have not made official identification of the two people killed in Saturday night’s explosion on the south side, but they are believed to be Jennifer and Dion Longworth.

Meantime, investigators are trying to determine the cause of the explosion.

Neighbors reported a wall of flames after the deafening blast just after 11:00 pm.

The impact sent seven people to the hospital. Close to 70 firefighters responded, some within minutes of the explosion. A fire station is just a few blocks away.

Emergency crews formed search teams to locate every resident and get medical attention to the injured.

from end times news;

mysterious, deadly blast damages indianapolis neighborhood

Explosion levels home in Shelby County

Four people rushed to hospital

SHELBY COUNTY, Ind. (WISH) – Pieces of a log home litter a country yard in Shelby County after an explosion happened on the 5700 block of W. 1100 N.

Deputies received a call for help at the home just before 8 p.m.Tuesday.

Firefighters rushed to the scene to find a home scattered across a yard.

Four people were inside at the time of the explosion. Two made it to a neighbor’s home while the other two were found in a front yard.

All four were rushed to IU Health Methodist Hospital. Their condition is unknown, however, another question remains on what destroyed the house.

Neighbors tell 24-Hour News 8 the homeowner of the destroyed house had her propane tank filled on the same day the blast happened. There are also reports her furnace was repaired earlier this week as well.

“It was like a bomb went off, it just blew up,” said Kerry Estes.

Firefighters have yet to determine what caused the explosion. They were back on the scene Wednesday afternoon keeping watch of the scene.

from WISH tv, Explosion levels home in Shelby County – includes video report

Flames already through roof when firefighters arrive

El Rodeo, 2203 N. State St., caught fire around 6 p.m. Monday, and flames could be seen shooting through the roof as firefighters rushed to quell the blaze.

A witness who works at the Wal-Mart next door to the restaurant told RTV6 she heard an explosion before the restaurant went up in flames.

Another witness working nearby had a similar story.

“I heard a big boom from the kitchen over at White Castle,” said witness John Short.

found through before it’s news: Another Building Explodes In Indiana: 3 In Less Than A Week!

now, for the snooze

american media silent over patraeus’ cocaine operation in chile

it’s iran-contra all over again!

you’d think that the obama administration’s continuation and escalation of his predecessor’s most insane policies – secret detentions at secret prisons, selling weapons to mexican drug cartels, mass murder through drone attacks in africa and asia, trillions of dollars printed just to be dumped into the accounts of banksters – would have convinced even the most deluded ninny that there is no clear difference between the major parties.

just to drive the point home, now – less than a week after obomber’s re-selection as chief gangster of the red, white, and blue gulag america – his administration is feverishly working to keep the public’s attention firmly pointed away from the fact that the cia has just been caught running cocaine to fund its covert operations. though the operation in question was not directly implicated in the benghazi gun-running affair, one has to wonder about the source of all the money the cia was using to buy up libyan weapons to ship to its proxy, terrorist armies in syria and lebanon.

if an operation by the cia to sell cocaine to fund terrorist groups rings any bells in your old, gray head, it’s because this has happened before, when demigod ex-president, ronald wilson reagan used funds raised by selling cocaine smuggled into the u.s. to fund various terrorist groups around the world – from the mujahideen in afghanistan (who we are now fighting in order to protect the opium fields), to jonas savimbi’s unita in angola, the khmer rouge in cambodia, and the contras in central america.

in reagan’s iran-contra fiasco, the cia flew cocaine out of south america, through secret airbases in central america, and on into the u.s., either through border crossings in california and texas, or secret airfields in arkansas. at least two of ex-president g.h.w. bush’s sons are rumored to have been pilots involved in the operation. covering their asses was the motivation to invade panama and kidnap president manuel noriega, once a trusted partner in the smuggling ring.  in order to market the cocaine to people in impoverished communities, the cia initiated the 1980′s crack cocaine epidemic.

more on iran-contra:

The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua’s Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb’s series, “The Dark Alliance,” has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.

from gwu’s website – National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 2

The skullduggery began to unravel in the fall of 1986. On October 5, 1986, a C-123 aircraft ferrying supplies to the contras was shot down by the Sandinistas, and an American named Eugene Hasenfus was captured. He told the Nicaraguans that his flight was part of a CIA-approved operation. Days later, Reagan said of the Hasenfus operation, “There was no government connection with that at all.” He was not telling the truth. Shortly after that, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams testified in Congress that the administration had arranged for no foreign donations–”not a dime”–to the contras–even though he had arranged for a $10 million contribution to the rebels from the Sultan of Brunei. -

- from the NATION – Iran/contra: 20 Years Later and What It Means

oddly enough, the namby-pamby coward-ass liberals at the NATION have chosen to ignore the drug-running operation, as it appears to implicate at least three presidents of the u.s., two of whom are related. much of reagan’s secret war on dissenters within the u.s. remains under-reported. nonetheless, the article from the NATION gives a good look into some of the major international players in u.s. foreign policy, including thinktanks. many of them continue to resurface now and then, despite their criminal background during the reagan bush regime. also – at least one investigative journalist who wrote about this in the 90′s was blacklisted by the u.s. media and died under very sad circumstances.

Gary Webb was an award-winning San Jose Mercury News journalist that was run out of his job and blacklisted from the industry for daring to report what he found out. After losing his career and his family, he was found dead in a welfare hotel room.

the benghazi gun-running operation

According to various reports (Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, repeated in numerous European media organs), Libyan rebels were paid to steal arms from ex-government dumps. Weapons that did get into the hands of the rebels were re-purchased, using secret CIA slush funds – the ‘black money’ – which is never disclosed to Congress.

We learn that here is a strikingly similar parallel to the Iran-Contra arms-go-round mastermind, the Naval Marine Corps Lt.-Col Oliver North. In that infamous affair of mid-1980s, the US covertly paid the fundamentalist regime of Ayatollah Khomeini – then at war with the current US ally of convenience Iraq – for shipments of weapons, delivered to the Right-wing Contra terrorists engaged in a struggle against the popular Nicaraguan government.

Iran-Contra focused on a CIA network known loosely as ‘The Enterprise,’ weaved by North and composed of hand-picked private brokers, off-screen to the Congress, including arms traders, money launderers and soldiers of fortune (contractors). Daniel Ellsberg, immortalized as the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers (the military’s best kept Vietnam secrets), famously called Iran-Contra “quite the worst covert operation in US history.” It seems there is now convincing evidence of a rival candidate.

North was gleefully circumventing the Boland Amendment which forbade the US to arm the Contras. The Libyan Arms for Syria affair displays a similar false flag stamp, cloaked with the identical conspiracy of secrecy and deception.

Iran-Contra was exposed when a plane loaded with contraband Iranian weapons crashed in the Nicaraguan jungle. Ronald Reagan was able to escape the rap because he invoked the ‘afternoon nap’ escape clause. Benghazi is the new Contra moment. So what are Obama’s expectations in very similar circumstances, even as he celebrates his second triumphant political coronation?

reprinted from end the lie; General betrayal: the CIA, the murder of Ambassador Stevens and the return of Iran-Contra

Petraeus mistress reveals secret prison as possible motive behind Benghazi attack

Two months after the storming of an US consulate in Benghazi, questions remain largely unanswered about both how and why insurgents entered the facility on September 11 and executed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The discussion became a heated issue on the campaign trail leading up to Election Day, and conflicting accounts from the White House, State Department and Congress all led to a mess of confusion that has only further spun out of control following the unexpected stepping down of Petraeus on Friday.

In the immediate aftermath of the CIA chief’s resignation, skeptics quickly suggested that there was more to the story, especially given Petraeus’ role as head of the country’s intelligence agency and the relatively unscathing extramarital affair that he rightfully admitted to in citing his departure from office. As journalists and investigators tried to dig deep for info on the alleged mistress, Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell, as expected the story took a drastic turn by Sunday when it was revealed that she may have been briefed on the truth of the Benghazi scandal while the rest of the country claws for answers.

A speech given by Broadwell only last month at her Alma matter suggests that she was given information about the terrorist attack that never made it to the American public.

“Now I don’t know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually had taken a couple of Libya militia members prisoner,” Broadwell told a crowd at the University of Denver alumni symposium on October 26. “And they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that’s still being vetted.”

Broadwell’s address was publically available on YouTube until this weekend; it has since been removed, although mirrors have surfaced.

Until then, and even today, the CIA denies Broadwell’s claims that the CIA was holding anyone prisoner at what has long been described as a consulate building in Benghazi. Should her account prove true, however, it could mean that the agency had a secret black site prison in Libya, a fact long denied by Washington.

from russia today: Petraeus mistress reveals real motive behind Benghazi attack (VIDEO)

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE:

secret prisons have cost the u.s. some support from abroad, as some of the people involved in governments co-operating with america’s black-ops prisons have been removed from power and some may even be prosecuted.

just as the iran-contra scandal included drug-running operations, so does the cia’s latest covert campaign of international regime change. the u.s. has decided that it is high time that it exert – through the executive branch – the right to pick who rules what country, under what kind of regime. sometimes this is done in the name of “national interests,” or it can be undertaken for the flimsiest of reasons, like the bush family’s vanity wars in southwest asia.

however, the american media is spinning the story as a sex scandal to cover up gun-running operations which  transferred weapons between syrian and libyan factions of various arab and persian terrorist groups, including our opponent in afghanistan and yemen, al queda.

since when is a gun-running operation seen as a “scandal?” that’s one of the things the cia does. as noted above, there have been many gun-running operations in recent history, particularly in the cold war era. no one in the u.s. has been run out of office because of running weapons to african, south american, asian, and even european terrorists and dictatorships.

Petraeus resigns as CIA director after Ecuadoran President Correa cites “credible” evidence that the CIA is running cocaine to fund regime change there

Ecuador Says Charges About CIA Interference are Credible

from prensa latina

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said denunciations about US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interference to destabilize his government and hinder his reelection are credible. During a television-broadcast interview with journalist Jorge Gestoso, Correa referred to the denunciations presented by UK ex-Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray and the Chilean journalist Patricio Mery Bell and said they acre credible because there are precedents.

Replying to denigration of those denunciations by the ambassador in this capital, he said: “I trust in Obama’s government. I trust in Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Adam Namm. I believe the government does not know, but it does not mean it is not happening.”

He also said that if a government is carrying out destabilizing operations, it does not mean that country’s ambassador is going to say: yes, we admit what we are doing. He would say those are rumors.

Correa also referred to the denunciation by Chilean journalist Patricio Mary Bell about apparent CIA and DEA operations to bring 300 kilograms of drugs monthly in Chile and financing destabilization of the Ecuadorian government with the excess.

He stated that it was a similar case to the Iran-Contras scandal, by means of which resources from illegal weapon sale to Iran were embezzled to finance the counter-revolution in Nicaragua, to evade the US Congress control.

reposted from end times news: Petraeus resigns…

check out this page for a more in-depth look at the obomber administration’s partnership with mexican drug cartels:

when drug wars collide with u.s. foreign policy, no one is safe

A TALE OF TWO CARTELS

this article was first published in we are not afraid of ruins

by rob los ricos

indianapolis-explosion

mysterious, deadly blast damages indianapolis neighborhood

Explosion victims believed to be Greenwood teacher, husband

Posted: Nov 11, 2012 3:13 PM PST Updated: Nov 11, 2012 4:48 PM PST
By Steve Jefferson wthr tv

Cause of Indianapolis explosion still unknown; $3.6M in damage

Indianapolis Metro Police have not made official identification of the two people killed in Saturday night’s explosion on the south side, but they are believed to be Jennifer and Dion Longworth.

Jennifer was a second grade teacher at Southwest Elementary School in Greenwood. Classes will be delayed by two hours Monday morning at all Greenwood schools, and a candlelight vigil was planned at Southwest Elementary at 7:00 pm.

Friends, family and colleagues gathered to remember Jennifer Longworth at the vigil Sunday evening. Her young students wrote messages on a poster, saying, “We love you, Mrs. Longworth,” and thanking her for being their teacher.

Meantime, investigators are trying to determine the cause of the explosion.

Neighbors reported a wall of flames after the deafening blast just after 11:00 pm.

The impact sent seven people to the hospital. Close to 70 firefighters responded, some within minutes of the explosion. A fire station is just a few blocks away.

Emergency crews formed search teams to locate every resident and get medical attention to the injured.

Indianapolis Fire Department Chief Kenny Bacon said two doctors and several medics checked out residents at Mary Bryan Elementary School, where they were evacuated. They were then transported to Southport Presbyterian Church where family or friends picked them up.

In all, five homes were destroyed and 80 were damaged, some of them seriously. Views from Chopper 13 show nothing but rubble where two homes once stood.

Citizens Gas has been at the scene since the incident, but police have warned not to assume that the cause was natural gas. That still hasn’t been confirmed, although it’s suspected.

“Be careful not to say it’s a gas explosion because we don’t know that right now. There’s a lot of speculation out there,” said Officer Kendale Adams.

Investigators will have to pinpoint what blew up, causing so much damage and claiming two lives.

read more, including video report, from wthr.com:

Cause of Indianapolis explosion still unknown; $3.6M in damage