The Master Plan

The Communist plan for rubbing out all national, religious, cultural and racial lines and submerging the world in formless, characterless chaos for easy domination is grandiose enough. To say that there is still another, more grandiose plan beyond that for which the Communist machine was set up is indeed to challenge the credulity of most of us, especially of us Anglo-Saxons who are too busy with our humdrum routines to pull the propaganda curtain aside and see the giant hiding there.

... Heinrich Heine, German-Jewish poet and Communist youth leader of the 1830s and 1840s (friend and co-revolutionary of Karl Marx) spoke of Communism as temporary.*

Why and in what way temporary? What did this far-sighted master strategist of revolution see as the successor to Communism? Is it not disturbing enough that a machine dedicated to liquidating all opponents, wiping out the nations as such and the best blood of the races and blending the remnants into a faceless brown slob (see picture from a UNESCO book elsewhere herein) — is it not disturbing enough that this the Communist machine already enslaves nearly half the people of the world and is armed with hydrogen bombs? More

ARTICHOKE

There are things in our history that most Americans don’t know because they haven’t been told, or what they have been told is not true. Unfortunately, some of the things are so disturbing that many of us would prefer to keep it that way. Such is the case of the death of Frank Olson.

On Monday, November 23, 1953, Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, told his boss he wanted to quit his job. The following Saturday Olson fell to his death from a tenth floor window of a hotel in New York City.

Government officials told his widow and three young children that Mr. Olson jumped or fell from the window as a result of a nervous breakdown. That story remained “the truth” for 22 years.

In 1975 the Rockefeller Commission’s examination of CIA domestic operations was reported in the Washington Post. The article said that a civilian employee of the Army had unknowingly taken LSD as part of a CIA test. The Post quoted the commission saying that the subject “developed serious side effects and was sent to New York with a CIA escort for psychiatric treatment. Several days later, he jumped from a tenth-floor window of his room and died as a result.” More

Obama As The New Face of The Re-branded NeoCons

... In actual fact, the NeoCons survive and Figurehead-In-Chief, Barack Obama, is firmly in their graces. It's all the rage for entities in trouble with public rage to simply re-brand themselves in hopes of building a new public perception - and for some, new no-bid government contracts in areas where public outrage otherwise forced them out(i.e. AIG is now AIU and Blackwater is now Xe). So it is with the NeoCons.

Enter the "new", Foreign Policy Initiative.

Uber NeoCons William Kristol and Robert Kagan are two of the three named on the Board of Directors - the last is former Bush administration official, Dan Senor. The "think tank" is said to be the brainchild of this threesome.

Kristol is not only one of the founding members of PNAC, but also a rabid Zionist. On 07/24/06, Kristol published an article in The Weekly Standard entitled, It's Our War. In the article, Kristol rebrands the Arab-Israeli conflict as, "Islamist-Israeli war". You see, Americans started getting wise to the idea that they didn't have gripes with Arabs in general so why give tax dollars to an Arab-Israeli conflict that has very little to do with them? The answer, rename the conflict something that scares the hell out of most uninformed Americans -- the war is against "Islamists"...those frightening creeps from 9/11. One could argue that Kristol should have gone all the way with his semantic game and used the term, Islamist-Zionist war - but that would backfire on Kristol's purposes. More

World War III has started

Israeli leaders must understand broad implications of North Korean nuke test

One needs to be deaf, blind, and an idiot at this time in order not to understand that the nuclear bomb tested in North Korea two days ago also exploded in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

The North Koreans blatantly disregarded the Americans and publically presented them as a meaningless power, yet officials in Jerusalem are still reciting the “Road Map” and making note of the evacuation of some minor West Bank outpost. The world is changing before our eyes, yet here we see Knesset members earnestly explaining that the Americans will agree that we stay in Judea and Samaria if we only evacuate some tin shacks.

Two days ago, in North Korea, World War III officially got underway – the war that would pit “crazy” states such as North Korea and Iran, for example, against states we shall characterize as “moderate,” including Egypt, Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia, which at this time leads the Arab initiative for peace with Israel.

Ever since Sunday, the world has gone crazy, and this crazy world is monitoring with horror the struggle between the “moderate” and “crazy” states. The problem is that some of those crazy states – Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea – already have, or will have, a nuclear button to push, while the moderates, headed by the United States, are not eager to rush into battle. More

Toxic link: the WHO and the IAEA

A 50-year-old agreement with the IAEA has effectively gagged the WHO from telling the truth about the health risks of radiation

Fifty years ago, on 28 May 1959, the World Health Organisation's assembly voted into force an obscure but important agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations "Atoms for Peace" organisation, founded just two years before in 1957. The effect of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power – and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health.

The WHO's objective is to promote "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health", while the IAEA's mission is to "accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world". Although best known for its work to restrict nuclear proliferation, the IAEA's main role has been to promote the interests of the nuclear power industry worldwide, and it has used the agreement to suppress the growing body of scientific information on the real health risks of nuclear radiation. More

Lebanese colonel admits spying for Israel

Lebanese Army Colonel Mansour Diab has reportedly received a princely sum from Israel to perform various acts of espionage against Lebanon and Syria.

According to the Beirut-based As Safir newspaper, Diab pleaded guilty to supplying Israel's Mossad intelligence agency with confidential information on the Hezbollah resistance movement and the Syrian military.

His conspiracies continued until the Israeli pullout from southern Lebanon in 2005.

Israeli espionage activities against Hezbollah have been on the rise in recent months with Lebanese authorities arresting at least 25 alleged Israeli spies since January.

"Nasser Nader, his girlfriend Nawal Maaluf, Mustafa Said and Samer Abu Arraj, who remains at large, are charged with having provided information on civilian and military posts and political figures with the aim of facilitating assassinations," a judicial source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The two suspects had allegedly passed on information about Ghaleb Awali, a senior Hezbollah member whom Israel killed in cold blood in a Beirut car bombing in 2004.

Lebanon, which considers itself at war with Israel, bans its citizens from having any contact with Tel Aviv. PressTV

Obama to outdo Bush in Pakistan Super-Embassy

The U.S. is embarking on a $1 billion c(r)ash program to expand its 'diplomatic presence' in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment to war-torn South Asia, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The White House has asked Congress for - and seems likely to receive - $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.

Senior State Department officials said the expanded diplomatic presence is needed to replace overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support a "surge" of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar. In Peshawar, the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate.

Funds for the projects are included in a 2009 supplemental spending bill that the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed in slightly different forms. More

Israeli Security Threatened by Toilet Paper

These banned basic food staples, UNOCHA added, were in addition to a list of toys intended for UNICEF’s rehabilitation program for children also prohibited by Israel from entering the Strip.

“European diplomats have asked Israel to allow pasta and jam into Gaza, but not cement and construction materials,” Bashi added, noting that the European Commission needs to pressure Israel to include basic building materials as well.

“The United Nations called for an increase in the quality and quantity of [building, food and humanitarian] materials going into Gaza,” said Jerusalem-based Allegra Pacheco, deputy chief of UNOCHA. The region is in desperate need of fuel, spare parts, construction materials and cash, she added.

El Shiekh agreed. “Bar soap and liquid soap, in addition to diapers for babies—none of these are available in the market. It’s just in the past few days we’ve finally started to see toilet paper entering Gaza!” she said. “What is the significance of not allowing laundry detergent into Gaza?” she wondered, noting that the lack of cooking gas also presents serious problems. More

Amnesty : World sitting on ‘powder keg’

The world is sitting on a “powder keg” of social unrest, which risks exploding as human rights are eroded by the global economic slowdown, Amnesty International warned.

But its annual report — detailing abuses from China to Guantanamo Bay and from Sri Lanka to the ex-Soviet Union — said the global meltdown also offers a chance to rebuild an economic framework putting human rights at its heart.

“There are growing signs of political unrest and violence, adding to the global insecurity that already exists because of deadly conflicts which the international community seems unable or unwilling to resolve.

"In other words: we are sitting on a powder keg of inequality, injustice and insecurity, and it is about to explode," said Amnesty chief

Rape and sexual abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.

Photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse which U.S. President Barack Obama does not want released include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday.

The images are among photographs included in a 2004 report into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison conducted by U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba.

Taguba included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report, and on Wednesday he confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that images supporting those allegations were also in the file.

"These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency," Taguba, who retired in January 2007, was quoted as saying in the paper.

He said he supported Obama's decision not to release them, even though Obama had previously pledged to disclose all images relating to abuses at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one," Taguba said. "The sequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

"The mere depiction of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Others are said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. More

Antiwar protesters shame Obama and demand war crimes prosecutions and release of torture and rape photos

Federal judge threatens to sanction Obama administration over secrecy

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco warned the Obama administration on Friday of severe sanctions if it does not comply with the court’s order to turn over a secret document an Islamic group says proves they were illegally spied upon.

The case, Al-Haramain v. Obama (see also: Al-Haramain V. Bush), springs out of a government mistake in which a secret document detailing the wiretapping of calls between attorneys and Saudi charity Al-Haramain was turned over to the charity’s counsel.

The document was taken back by the government, and the Department of Justice has since maintained that the attorneys who read it should not be allowed to use their memories to pursue litigation over the illegal spying.

“It could be a scene from Kafka or Brazil ,” noted Wired when the story first broke in March 2007. “Imagine a government agency, in a bureaucratic foul-up, accidentally gives you a copy of a document marked ‘top secret.’ And it contains a log of some of your private phone calls.” More

Mexico Lifts Flying Pig Flu bans

Mexico City Thursday fully lifted all swine flu restrictions imposed on the sprawling metropolis, as global health authorities puzzled over the origins and severity of the A(H1N1) virus.

"We can calm down now," Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference, just weeks after the city was virtually shut down.

Mexico City was at the epicenter of the outbreak of swine flu which has now spread to 41 countries, infecting more than 11,000 people and leading to 85 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

The capital's website dropped its five-level alert to the lowest level green on Thursday, signaling that schools, businesses and transport could function as normal, without extra health precautions. More

Everything is OK In London

Danny Shine and Charlie Veitch go out to St Paul's Cathedral, the London Stock Exchange, and the Bank of England spreading a universal message of peace and love; namely, that EVERYTHING IS OK.

Government Critics to be Sent to Mental Asylums?

‘Go home Nazi scum,’ Serbs tell Zionist Biden

Serb ultra-nationalist lawmakers held up insulting signs in parliament Wednesday as US Vice President Joe Biden, considered a strong backer of Kosovo independence, arrived in Belgrade.

“Biden, you Nazi scum, go home,” said the posters brandished by opposition Radical Party deputies during the live national broadcast of a parliament sitting which coincided with the start of Biden’s visit.

The Radicals, who occupy around a fifth of places in the 250-seat assembly, then pasted the signs which also labelled Biden a “fascist” on a notice board and hallway.

They all appeared in parliament dressed in T-shirts bearing the image of the party’s president, Vojislav Seselj, who is currently on trial for war crimes before a UN tribunal in The Hague.

Seselj’s acting leader Dragan Todorovic described Biden’s visit as “the saddest day in Serbia’s history.” More

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

U.S. Military: Heavily Armed and Medicated

In deploying an all-volunteer army to fight two ongoing wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has increasingly relied on prescription drugs to keep its warriors on the front lines.

In recent years, the number of military prescriptions for antidepressants, sleeping pills, and painkillers has risen as soldiers come home with battered bodies and troubled minds. And many of those service members are then sent back to war theaters in distant lands with bottles of medication to fortify them.

According to data from a U. S. Army mental-health survey released last year, about 12 percent of soldiers in Iraq and 15 percent of those in Afghanistan reported taking antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, or sleeping pills. Prescriptions for painkillers have also skyrocketed. Data from the Department of Defense last fall showed that as of September 2007, prescriptions for narcotics for active-duty troops had risen to almost 50,000 a month, compared with about 33,000 a month in October 2003, not long after the Iraq war began. More

Waterboarding is ‘tip of the iceberg’

A military attorney who represented a now-freed Guantanamo detainee told CNN on Wednesday that waterboarding is only “the tip of the iceberg”

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley was the lawyer for Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who was arrested by the Pakistani government in April 2002 on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda. He was then shuffled through a series of CIA “ghost prisons” before being imprisoned at Guantanamo for five years. Last winter, President Obama ordered him released to the United Kingdom, where he had been a legal resident.

Bradley told CNN that when she was first assigned to represent Mohamed, she did not question he was a hardened terrorist, because “my government was saying these were the worst of the worst.” However, she now says, “There’s no reliable evidence that Mr. Mohamed was going to do anything to the United States.”

According to Bradley, when Mohamed was first held at a CIA prison in Morocco, “They started this monthly treatment where they would come in with a scalpel or a razor type of instrument and they would slash his genitals, just with small cuts.” More

Poll: 91% of conservatives think Obama is socialist, Marxist, communist or fascist

Report: Alberto Gonzales approved Zubaydah torture
months before 'torture memos' justified tactics

Senators Press Obama to Toe Israel's Line

As President Barack Obama is said to be asking Israel to accept some kind of Palestinian state, US senators are urging him not to deviate from Tel Aviv in any negotiations.

In a letter to Obama, 76 of the 100 senators said that the US "must take into account the risks it will face in any peace agreement."

The letter came a day after Obama met with the Israeli prime minister in Washington where Benjamin Netanyahu tried to divert the US focus on the stalled Middle East 'peace process' and shift it to the issue of Iran.

Netanyahu dismissed the US president's 'concerns' over Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Jewish settler leaders also shrugged off Obama's call for Israel to halt settlement building in the occupied West Bank. More

'Obama will meet same fate as Gorbachev'

US-Europe missile defense won't work: think tank

A planned US anti-missile system, hotly opposed by Russia, to defend Europe against the threat of missile attack from Iran would not work, a new study by a US-based think tank said Tuesday.

The study by the New York-based EastWest Institute found the proposed system "will not provide dependable protection against an Iranian threat if and when it emerges."

The study titled "Iran's Nuclear and Missile Potential" was produced by a joint team of US and Russian military and academic experts.

Its findings fall in line with arguments made by Moscow, which says the plan for a radar-and-interceptor system based in Poland and the Czech Republic would threaten Russian security, but fail to protect against an Iranian attack.

The issue poisoned relations between Moscow and Washington under former US president George W. Bush. More

US, Russia To Hold Second Day Of Nuclear Arms Talks

NATO exercises provoke Russia

Lebanon charges five more Israeli spies

Five more suspected Israeli agents have been charged in Lebanon amid the spread of a recently launched crackdown aimed at dismantling Israeli espionage networks in the county.

"They (spies) are accused of collaborating with Israel, entering its territory, and providing it with information on military posts and Lebanese individuals," a judicial source was quoted as saying on condition of anonymity Tuesday.

The source said three of the five charged with espionage acts on Tuesday were in absentia, AFP reported.

With the latest exposed agent, the number of Israeli spies busted in Lebanon hits 18 just in the last two months.

Other suspects have reportedly escaped to Israel as Lebanese security forces push ahead with the crackdown to foil the spy rings in the country. More

Iran successfully tests Sejjil 2 missile

A senior military official said on Wednesday that Iran's Sejjil missile is stronger, faster and more precise than previous domestically-made missiles.

Iran successfully test fired a new generation of ground-to-ground missile called "Sajjil" on November 12. Sejjil is a two-stage missile that carries two engines and burns combined solid fuel.

The missile is a defensive tool and guarantees the national security and Iran's borders, Cultural Deputy Head of the Armed Forces Headquarters Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri told the Iranian students news agency.

Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar Monday said the newly-developed missile, Sejjil, has a longer range than Shahab and enjoys an improved technology.

"This missile is a two-stage weapon with two combined solid-fuel engines," the minister told FNA, highlighting the differences between the two medium-range missiles. More

Obama: Iran must meet nuclear deadline

Don't shoot the scientists

Any hyperbole about swine flu was created by the media, not by virologists.

Simon Jenkins is right to say that obsessive media coverage of swine flu, ever thirsty for hyperbole and impatient for new developments, can be misleading (Sophie's sniffle mocks the peddlers of swine flu panic, 6 May). And advice issued by government should rightly be debated.

But the suggestion that scientists "depend on regular pandemic scares for government grants" is paranoid (we might as well say Jenkins invents contrary opinions in order to be paid by the Guardian). In his dismay at the lack of a pandemic he reminds me of a man playing Russian roulette who, after two squeezes of the trigger, declares: "Ha! This isn't dangerous after all!" The possibility of a pandemic is real but cannot yet be predicted with assurance.

Jenkins declares that "no medical authority ... has confined its reporting to the facts". Yet the majority of scientists have been cautious and measured on the subject. At the Science Media Centre we have spoken to dozens of scientists on the subject and I haven't yet found one who is clamouring to make more media appearances; these people are hardly underworked at the moment. More

Respected Scientist - A-H1N1 Flu May Be Man-Made

Swine Flu for Dummies

Bush's 'Smoking Gun' Witness Found Dead

The cover-up of Bush-era crimes is taking a shocking but not unexpected turn. A fateful move has been made and it is certain to backfire.

A prisoner who was horribly tortured in 2002 until he agreed - at the demand of Bush torturers - to say that al-Qaeda was linked to Saddam Hussein is suddenly dead. Several weeks ago, Human Rights Watch investigators discovered the missing inmate and talked to him. He had been secretly transferred by the administration to a prison in Libya after having been held by the CIA both in secret “black hole prisons” and in Egypt.

Under conditions of extreme torture, the prisoner, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, agreed in 2002 to supply the Bush-ordered interrogators what they sought as a political cover for Bush’s marketing of the pending war of aggression against Iraq. Mr. Libi agreed to tell them whatever they wanted in exchange for an end to the torture. The now famous Torture Memos providing legal cover for the torture were written at the same time starting in the summer of 2002.

Libi’s tortured and knowingly fabricated testimony was the source of information used by Bush to sell the war to the U.S. Senate, and the source for Colin Powell’s bogus and lying presentation to the United Nations in 2003. More

Obama flip flops on releasing detainee abuse photos.

If They Knew the Truth, They'd Hate Us Even More

Brazil airs state secrets

Brazil has shone a light into one of the most troubled periods of its recent past, as the government published documents dating from the country's 20 years of dictatorship.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched a website on Wednesday containing information dating from 1964 to 1985, when the country was under the sway of the military.

"We are doing Brazilian democracy a service when we unveil some of the mysteries that persist about our past," Lula said at the website's launch.

The portal, which is part of the national archives, includes documents held by state governments and universities.

Dilma Rousseff, the head of Lula's cabinet and the person tipped to succeed him, said the initiative would help end "the culture of state secrets."

But non-governmental groups and families of the victims of the dictatorship called for the government to do more to open the archives of Armed Forces, which they say could cast light on the unknown fate of 140 people who disappeared.

"The website... is a step forward" said Jair Krikchke from the Justice and Human Rights group. "What we are really interested in are the military archives. Brazilians want to know."

Victoria Grabois, of the No More Torture group, said it would also be necessary to open up police files to families of the disappeared. More

Obama declares May 'Jewish American Heritage Month'

U.S. president says Jewish American history 'demonstrates how America's diversity enriches us all.'

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared May Jewish American Heritage Month, saying that the "United States would not be the country we know without the achievements of Jewish Americans."

Obama called on all Americans to "commemorate the proud heritage of Jewish Americans with appropriate ceremonies and activities."

"Unyielding in the face of hardship and tenacious in following their dreams, Jewish Americans have surmounted the challenges that every immigrant group faces, and have made unparalleled contributions," Obama said. More

U.S. Federal Reserve now tied to Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme

It can now be reported that former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Stephen Friedman, received thirty-seven (37) criminal referrals concerning the involvement of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, J.P. Morgan Associates, the London-based office of AIG (American International Group), Robert Rubin's Citibank and the Israel Discount Bank in New York City, reference their involvement in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme, which included illegal wire transfers to the Israeli Bank Leumi and onto secret CIA proprietary accounts in Pakistan.

What is significant about Friedman's activity is that he did not report any of these criminal referrals to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Friedman's activities make him guilty of criminal conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and Misprision of Felonies in order to cover up on behalf of the conspiratorial Federal Reserve and the Bush-Clinton Crime Family Syndicate

And, of course, if gets worse! More

Secret Bush-Clinton-Federal Reserve Pakistani Accounts Revealed

The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy

The Warren Report was prepared and released to the public not to encourage questioning but to silence it as quickly as possible. There are many cogent reasons for this desire for silence and acceptance, not the least of which was the urgent desire for self-preservation and the maintenance of the integrity of the governmental system.

In actuality, the American currency is not backed by gold or silver holdings but by the blind faith of the public. If the concept of unquestioning belief in governmental currency stability is questioned, economic chaos can be the result and this applies equally to government probity.

To quote from the title of the first and very important revisionist work on the Kennedy assassination, there was a great “rush to judgment” and a frantic desire on the part of the official establishment to completely bury not only the murdered President, but also any questions his killing might have engendered with him.

Was the primary reason for this desire for closure merely a desire to placate public opinion or were there other, and far more sinister, reasons for this rush to judgment?

Those who question the official chronicle have been severely hampered by the fact that all the records, documents, interviews, and other evidentiary material are securely under governmental custody and control. It is beyond the belief of any reasonable person to think that an official agency would release to the public any material that would bring the official judgment into question. This is not only institutional maintenance but also, all things in evidence now considered, a frantic effort at self-preservation.

Not all documents, however, lie under government control, and there exist reports that do not only question the Warren Report’s findings but are also of such a nature as to both thoroughly discredit it and, in the final analysis, bring it to ruin. More

The speech that got John F. Kennedy Killed

Scientist attempts to smuggle 22 vials of deadliest Virus into US

Winnipeg researcher charged with smuggling Ebola material into U.S.

A former researcher at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg is facing charges in the United States after allegedly trying to smuggle genetic material from the Ebola virus across the Manitoba-North Dakota border.

U.S. authorities allege Konan Michel Yao had 22 vials of the substance in the trunk of his car when he tried to cross the border on May 5. He is charged with smuggling merchandise, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 US.

U.S. customs officers allegedly found the vials wrapped in aluminum foil inside a glove and packaged in a plastic bag, along with electrical wires.

In his affidavit, the 42-year-old researcher said he was hired by the Public Health Agency of Canada to work as a PhD fellow at the Winnipeg facility. Yao told officers he was working on a vaccine for the Ebola virus and HIV.

On Jan. 21, his last day at the lab, he said he stole 22 vials, which he described as research vectors, according to the affidavit.

Yao told officers he was taking the vials to his new job with the National Institutes of Health at the Biodefense Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Md., because he didn't want to start from scratch in his research.

Dr. Frank Plummer, the scientific director of the Winnipeg lab, said the genetic material taken was not the full Ebola virus and does not pose a risk to the public.

Plummer said theft has never happened at the lab before. Researchers are reminded they cannot take any lab property without permission, and they sign documents asserting that they know the rules, he said.

The lab is... now.... reviewing its 'biosecurity protocol'.

Pakistan war fuels international tensions

Comments by China’s ambassador in Islamabad last Thursday highlight the reckless character of the Obama administration’s escalating intervention in Pakistan. By pressuring Islamabad to wage an all-out military offensive against Islamic insurgents in the Swat Valley and neighbouring districts, Washington is not only destabilising Pakistan but raising tensions in a highly volatile area.

Speaking to Pakistani business leaders, Chinese ambassador Luo Zhaohui pointedly voiced concern about the growth of “outside influence” in the region. He singled out the US in particular, saying that China was worried about US policies and the presence of a large number of foreign troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. While reiterating China’s support for “the fight against terror,” Luo declared that US strategies needed some “corrective measures”. He added, “These are issues of serious concern for China.”

Luo’s unusually blunt remarks came just one day after US President Obama spoke to his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao. While a number of issues were discussed, the escalating war in Pakistan was clearly high on the agenda. This first publicised phone call between the two men came as Obama met with the Afghan and Pakistani presidents over US strategy in the two countries. While Hu reportedly offered his cooperation, Luo’s comments express China’s underlying fears over growing US influence in South Asia.

Last week’s tripartite summit in Washington signalled a major upsurge in military violence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Under intense pressure from the US, the Pakistani army has launched a large-scale offensive against militants in the Swat Valley in which hundreds have already died and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee. The summit, however, involved more than discussions on military cooperation, outlining comprehensive plans for the closer economic and strategic integration of the two countries into an American sphere of influence. More

Pak or Iran?

Fed Inspector General Admits She Doesn't Know Where the Trillions Went

Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pi...

WANTED: One Million Rebellious Britons

At the next election, the British Constitution Group is calling for a boycott of the three main political parties who have collectively betrayed this nation, transferring our national sovereignty into the hands of a corrupt and undemocratic regime.

This regime, through the powers given to it by the collective political establishment, has all the hallmarks of a police state, with the power to arrest, detain, and imprison any one of us without any evidence of any crime having been committed.

The British Constitution Group is calling for Lawful Rebellion, as is our right under article 61 of the Magna Carta 1215, until such times as our sovereignty is restored, our constitution reinstated, and the rule of law upheld. We need the support of patriotic Britons to achieve this end.

Which puppet will you vote for next time?

Once again, we have reached a crossroads in our history. We are confronted with an enemy that would destroy our nation and its people. We have some hard decisions to make - each of us, individually. Are you prepared to make them?

The British Constitution Group’s call for Lawful Rebellion now moves up a notch and our campaign ‘Wanted – 1 million rebellious Britons’ has commenced, to be formally declared at our conference in London on the 13th June. Reclaiming Our Sovereignty

Americans Betrayed

My purpose is not to agitate a civil war, that may already have started, but to prevent one at all costs, except for our freedoms. Americans were betrayed by a majority in congress of both parties for money and power. Our jobs, benefits, prosperity, and freedom are gone, or disappearing rapidly because government officials and judges openly violate our constitution. Every foreign born worker, every free trade agreement, every action by the private federal reserve bank, and every unconstitutional act are responsible for all of our unemployment and pain

Do not curse me for the bad news that you don’t want to believe until you have verified the facts yourself, feelings and media lies don’t count as truth, otherwise you will end up just like the good Germans who followed Hitler to their destruction. Use this as a guide to verify the truth.

Patriots must defeat, impeach, and prosecute the traitors in government with the rule of law while making it very uncomfortable for them, but not harming a hair on their heads. Beg traitorous officials for nothing, call them names, picket them, and in all ways let them feel your absolute contempt; for if we should fail to get them out of office, the populace, when they feel the pain of total deprivation will revolt against the usurpers in a killing rage. If the government does not expect a deadly response for their treason, why are the police being militarized, military conducting training in cities, government trying to take our weapons, with large internment camps at the ready? Shades of Hitler’s Holocaust, history repeats. More

Jew-infested Congress Resists Guantánamo Releases

Lord Tebbit: Shun all the main parties

Lord Tebbit , former Conservative chairman, on Tuesday earned a stinging rebuke from David Cameron after he urged voters to record their disgust over MPs’ expenses by shunning all the main parties in next month’s European elections.

Lord Tebbit’s comments were seen by Mr Cameron as an incitement to voters to back the UK Independence party, and the Tory leader warned the eurosceptic peer to watch his step.

“As a former party chairman, he should know a thing or two about party discipline and he should probably know a thing or two about the rules about supporting other parties,’’ Mr Cameron said. “He was treading a very careful path and I would warn him, if he slips off that path, he’s sitting as an independent.”

Lord Tebbit, a fierce eurosceptic, made it clear he was not advocating a vote for the far-right British National party, but Tory officials believe he would be very relaxed about rising support for Ukip. Ukip would be an unlikely recipient of protest votes over financial probity, given the record of some of its own members in the European parliament. More

Obama threatens Brits over Guantanamo disclosures

Ever since he was released from Guantanamo in February after six years of due-process-less detention and brutal torture, Binyam Mohamed has been attempting to obtain justice for what was done to him. But his torturers have been continuously protected, and Mohamed's quest for a day in court repeatedly thwarted, by one individual: Barack Obama. Today, there is new and graphic evidence of just how far the Obama administration is going to prevent evidence of the Bush administration's torture program from becoming public.

In February, Obama's DOJ demanded dismissal of Mohamed's lawsuit against the company which helped "render" him to be tortured on the ground that national security would be harmed if the lawsuit continued. Then, after a British High Court ruled that there was credible evidence that Mohamed was subjected to brutal torture and was entitled to obtain evidence in the possession of the British government which detailed the CIA's treatment of Mohamed, and after a formal police inquiry began into allegations that British agents collaborated in his torture, the British government cited threats from the U.S. government that it would no longer engage in intelligence-sharing with Britain -- i.e., it would no longer pass on information about terrorist threats aimed at British citizens -- if the British court disclosed the facts of Mohamed's torture. More

America's Shame

Pope criticized for speech at Israeli Holohoax memorial

The Vatican has defended Pope Benedict XVI amid growing Israeli criticism of his speech at the country's national Holocaust memorial.

Israeli critics have complained the German-born pope failed to explicitly mention Nazis or Germans in Monday's speech. They say he also didn't mention his past as a Hitler Youth movement member.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters Tuesday that the pope "can't mention everything every time he speaks."

The spokesman claimed Benedict was never in the Hitler Youth. However, the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in a 1997 book he was forced into the movement.

The pope pledged to remember the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust upon arriving in Israel on Monday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. More

Guess Who's Behind The'Pedophile Protection Act'?

Accused Nazi prison guard vindicated by the Soviet Union and Israel.

Alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk is in jail in Munich, facing charges of being an accessory to the deaths of 29,000 Jews in World War II.

John-Demjanjuk

The frail 89-year-old arrived in Germany on Tuesday morning after being deported from the US.

He is now in Stadelheim prison, say prosecutors, where he will undergo a medical check and then have his pages-long arrest warrant read out to him.

He denies accusations that he worked as a guard in the Sobibor Nazi death camp.

Mr Demjanjuk, who settled in the US in 1952, says he was captured by the Germans in his native Ukraine during the war and kept as a prisoner of war. More

Piracy staged from London

For the 14 crew aboard the Karagöl, a ­Turkish chemical tanker churning through the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden, it was the moment all seafarers dread: heavily armed Somali pirates were speeding towards the slow-moving cargo vessel, and there was no chance of escape.

The Turkish sailors were swiftly overpowered and the 5,850-ton tanker was diverted to a port in Somalia, where it was held for two months while its owners negotiated a ransom payment.

What the crew could not know was that their ship had been singled out as a target by a network of informers based several thousand miles away – in London. Security officials say well-placed informants in the British capital, the world centre of shipbroking and insurance, gather so much detail on targets that, in the case of the Karagöl, they not only knew its layout, route and cargo, but had spent several days practising the assault.

The attack on the Turkish ship was a sign that the pirates have turned a regional phenomenon into a global criminal business that now reaches into the heart of London's shipping community. More

Another piracy operation was coordinated by the CIA from Langley, Virginia.

Buccaneers In Somali Waters - But They're Not Somalis

America's hidden war in Somalia

Somali Piracy and the Enchanting Water Circus

Lebanon Reveals High-Tech Gadgets Israel Used to Spy

Lebanese police displayed sophisticated devices Monday that they said Israel used to spy on Hezbollah, including a water cooler fitted with sensors to survey the landscape.

Other devices shown to reporters and photographers included a car battery charger that the police said was used to store and transmit data and USB flash drives containing detailed maps of Lebanon. Some of the maps showed bridges and military outposts that were hit by Israeli warplanes during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, police said.

The equipment was seized from Palestinians and from Lebanese who were spying for Israel, they said.

In recent weeks, Lebanese authorities say they have arrested at least 14 suspected spies in the latest episode in the long-running espionage battle between the two countries.

The arrests, which took place mainly in southern Lebanon, appear to be part of a stepped-up campaign against those suspected of gathering information on Hezbollah militants for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 in Israel. More

Swine Flu May Be Human Error, Scientist Says; WHO Probes Claim

The World Health Organization is investigating an Australian researcher’s claim that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error.

Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus’s origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.

The World Health Organization received the study last weekend and is reviewing it, Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director-general of health security and environment, said in an interview yesterday. Gibbs, who has studied germ evolution for four decades, is one of the first scientists to analyze the genetic makeup of the virus that was identified three weeks ago in Mexico and threatens to touch off the first flu pandemic since 1968. More

Humans, hogs may eat their way to flu resistance

Last big swine flu outbreak: On Fort Dix in 1976